

To: You

Sent: Wed, Mar 9, 2016 10:01 am

Subject: {Virus?} Did you send this man?.



FROM THE ACTIVE OFFICE OF THE CBN GOVERNOR,GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE OFFICIAL PHONE#: +2348167725021 ATTN: Did you authorize attached Mr. Russell Card of 8539 Desoto Ave # 205 Canoga Park Ca 91304 USA, to claim your outstanding fund?.Please get back to me immediately so that we can know the next line of action to follow. Call me direct or SMS me on +2348167725021 for immediate action. Regards Mr.Godwin I. Emefiele NEW CBN Executive Governor. PHONE#:+2348167725021 From: Mr.Godwin I, Emefiele < cbnorg@advalvas.be >To: YouSent: Wed, Mar 9, 2016 10:01 amSubject: {Virus?} Did you send this man?.

Date: Thursday, March 10, 2016, 20:27 -0500

Subject: RE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND PAYMENT NOTIFICATION /FINAL NOTICE.





CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR Zaria Street, Off Samuel Akintola Street, Garki 11, Garki-Abuja. OurRef:CBN0XX2/987 From The Desk Of Godwin Emefiele Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) RE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND PAYMENT NOTIFICATION /FINAL NOTICE. Attention: Beneficiary, From the records of Foreign Beneficiaries who have not received their contract award wining payment from the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, your name was discovered as next on the list of the Beneficiaries who have not received their payments. We wish to inform you that your contract/inheritance award wining payment file under reference number NNPC/NIG/XX099/006 has been approved AND Forwarded to CITI BANK OF AMERICAN for immediate crediting into your nominated bank account immediately without any other further delay after the final endorsement of your Fund Release Order Document. hereby mandate CITI BANK OF OREGON UNITED STATE OF AMERICA to make this payment of US$10.500,000.00 (Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) being your contract /inheritance award wining fund into your nominated bank account once you contact the BANK today. You are strongly advised to Contact The foreign remittance office of CITI BANK OF OREGON UNITED STATE OF AMERICA in the name of Paul Bartol, There In Oregon on His Direct Open Fax/Tel: +1 541-362-1568 or Private email: private.paulbartol@gmail.com While contacting Paul Bartol, let him to understand that I Godwin Emefiele executive governor of Central Bank of Nigeria with the instruction from UNITED NATION ORGANIZATION UNITY LONDON directed you to contact him for the final release of your already approved over-due contract/inheritance award wining fund of the said amount (US$10.500,000.00) make sure you contact him together with your information such as: (1) Your Full Name and address: (2) Mobile/Fax number#: (3) Bank Details where you want the money to be transferred for you: (4) Age and occupation. For more directives, Lastly you are warned to disregard any other contact with other offices or Banks unless as been directed by this Bank, We are very sorry for the plight you have gone through in the past and be rest assured that your payment is assured by USA Governemt. Thanks for adhering to this instruction. and once again congratulations. Yours faithfully. Godwin Emefiele. Executive Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN From: Godwin Emefiele < a_rdzr@intercable.net >Date: Thursday, March 10, 2016, 20:27 -0500Subject: RE: IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND PAYMENT NOTIFICATION /FINAL NOTICE.

In Joi, 10 Martie 2016 23:35:38, Mr. Godwin Emefiele < mr.gemefiele@hotmail.com > a scris:





Central Bank of Nigeria

Plot 33, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Way

Central Business District,

Cadastral Zone, Abuja,

Federal Capital Territory,

Nigeria.





Very Urgent Beneficiary,



This is to let you know that your case has repeatedly coming to my Office everyday and all the complain that I have been getting all in regards to your payment with the Federal Government which the CBN has been involved to pay to you. Enough of this entire allegation that we have been adamant over your payment, i want you to know that we have to end everything now without further issues. I am taking this payment myself and I have approved the sum of US$10,500,000.00 for you and I don't want to know how much you are supposed to be paid. I have a meeting with Mr. President Muhammadu Buhari and the Finance Ministry who have agreed that I should handle this payment myself.



I want to let you know that we are securing all payment transfer papers that will delay your payment such as: The Anti Terrorist and Drug Law Clearances, Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) AND The Financial Action Task Force (on Money Laundering) (FATF). Without this Clearances nothing will be done, and with my position as the Central Bank Of Nigeria Executive Governor, you will only pay the sum of $1,350.00 for your payment to be paid to you. This is the only way I can help you get your long awaited payment transfer to your Bank Account if you are serious to receive your fund as I stated.



I want you to know that we can as well receive installment payment from you and will transfer your fund to you pending when you clear your payment. Please if you are not ready to receive your payment and you cannot pay this fee, I guess you shouldn't write me as I will not entertain any unpleasant response from you.



Kind regards



Mr. Godwin Emefiele

Executive Governor

Central Bank of Nigeria. Mr.Godwin I Emefiele teste@global-cobranca.com.br >

Date: 2016-03-14 0:22 GMT-03:00

Subject: Did you send this man????. ?.

To:





A partir do escritorio ativo da CBN Governador, Godwin Ifeanyi EMEFIELE OFICIAL TELEFONE #: +2348167725021 ATENCAO: Sera que voce autoriza anexado Sr. Russell Cartao de 8539 Desoto Ave # 205 Canoga Park Ca 91304 EUA, para reclamar o seu fundo de excelente? .Please voltar para mim imediatamente para que possamos conhecer a proxima linha de acao a seguir. Chame-me, direta ou SMS mim no +2348167725021 para acao imediata. Saudacoes Mr.Godwin I. Emefiele NEW CBN Governador Executivo. Telefone #: +2348167725021 From:Date: 2016-03-14 0:22 GMT-03:00Subject: Did you send this man????. ?.To:

From: official cbn < cbnprivet0015@gmail.com >

To:

Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 11:49 AM

Subject: Dear, Costumer, Your Payment is Ready.



From the Office of the

Governor Central Bank of Nigeria

Funds Approved/Contract Payment Dept.

C.B.N/IRD/CBX/021/15

MAV/NNPC/FGN/MIN/0015.

3/17/16



Dear Customer



This is in respect to the release of your pending funds as instructed

by the office of the presidency(FGM). Kindly get back immediately upon the

receipt of this e-mail so as to release funds to you with immediate

effect. ($39.5MUSD). kindly reconfirm to us your details as shown below:



?(1) Your full name:(2) Phone, fax and mobile #.(3) Company name if

any and position.4) Profession:(5) Address:(5) Copy of Working ID /



DRIVERS LICENSE OR PASSPORT:



I look forward to your quick response to this e-mail.



Sincerely,

Mr.Godwin Emefiele Executive Governor

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 14:08:44 +0000

> From: foreignpaymenttelexdept_cbn@yahoo.com

> Subject: INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE OF CBN AND KINDLY CONTACT HIM NOW

>

>

> CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA

> INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE

> OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR QUARTERS, TINUBU

> SQUARE,LAGOS, NIGERIA.

> Direct Hotline: +234-70643-51447

> Our

> Ref: CBN/1RO/FGN/16IMMEDIATE CONTRACT

> PAYMENT. RE: PAYMENT NOTIFICATION

> CONTRACT

> AMOUNT:US$28, 500, 000. 00 ATTENTION:

> NAZAR.

>

>

> Sir,

>

> With due respect, I wish to notify you and with other foreign

> contractors/beneficiaries with our Federal Government of Nigeria,

> that their funds are due for payments to them without further delays.

> While your names, was discovered to be

> the next list of the

> foreign contractor's with the Federal Government of Nigeria through the

> outstanding contractual approved sum to be released to him. As Mr. John

> P. White is an American Citizen and his approved contractual sum is

> amounting (US$28,500,000.00) Twenty Eight Million, Five Hundred Thousand

> United States Dollars only.

> Today, we're acknowledging of his

> immediate payment to him through our Federal Republic of

> Nigeria, affiliate offshore correspondence paying bank over there in

> USA., The entire staff of Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Federal

> Government of Nigeria in collaborated with the Authorities, who are in

> charge of foreign contractual payments. We Apologies, for the delay of

> your approved contractual outstanding payment, the inconveniences and

> inflict that NNPC/NEPA, Nigeria might have indulge you through.

> However, where having some minor problems with our payment system, which have

> demoralized us, also have caused a lot of predicament to this

> organization, which is inexplicable? And have held us Indolent, not

> having the perseverance and aspiration to devote our 100% standard

> Assiduity in accrediting foreign contractual payments. Once again,

> Our Apologies for all inconveniences.

>

> But Sir, be noted that from the

> Records of outstanding foreign contractor's due for payment with the

> Federal Government of Nigeria, your name was discovered as next on our list of the outstanding

> foreign beneficiary's who have executed contract years ago with the

> Federal Government of Nigeria under the Federal Ministry of Nigerian

> Government and have yet received his approved contractual sum due to the

> minor technical error between you and the staffs of the Federal

> Nigerian Ministries during the legal payment procedures on the processes

> and documentation of your fund release to you by them.

> I wish to

> inform you now that the square peg is now in square hole, and can be

> voguish for that your payment is being processed and will be releasing

> to you as soon as you possible to this letter. As we have concluded with

> our meetings as held this morning today and now have instructed our

> International Fund Remittance over there in USA for their concern to pay

> you this your approved outstanding contractual sum US$28.5Million by

> debiting the Central Bank of Nigeria "CBN", Federal Government of

> Nigeria Bank Account with them.

>

> Therefore, here's the information

> to contact and with the contact person to reach for the approval of

> approved outstanding contractual sum US$28.5Million to you

>

> Contact Office/Person Info: Dr. Peter Dennis, International Fund

> Remittance USA.

>

> Direct E-mal Contact: peterrdennis03@gmail.com

>

> Tel: +1- 6823251781

>

> Finally

> Sir, we found it very difficult this morning to send you this message.

> This is because we are not dealing with any of our foreign

> contractors/beneficiaries through emails as we could not find (found)

> your fax numbers in your contractual file with us on our reaching you in

> regards of this your outstanding approved contractual payment to

> you.Therefore, urgently reach Dr. Peter Dennis now and as soon as you

> have reached him today as instructed, please keep us posted.

>

> Do contact him now for their immediate remittances of your approved

> outstanding contractual sum US$28.5Million into your bank account by

> debiting our CBN of the Federal Government of Nigeria Bank Account with them.

>

> Regards,

> Mr. Godwin Emefiele

> Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

> Direct Hotline: +234-70643-51447 On 3/21/16, Peter Dennis < peterrdennis03@gmail.com > wrote:

> > The IFR Group Worldwide Office.

> > No, 2201 Wirt Rd Apt 341 Hilton ,

> > WASHINGTON DC,USA.

> > Hsbc managed Account Advisory LLC

> > Full service financial Brokerage

> >

> > From the Desk of : Dr.Peter Dennis.

> > Cell Phone:+16823251781.

> > OUR REF: IFR-GROUP/00102H/USD-UK/WA/2013

> >

> >

> > Dear:

> >

> > Your mail has been received with thanks and you are required to

> > provide your banking details also your direct cellphone number to

> > enable us project the transfer without any delay.

> >

> > Regards,

> > Dr.Peter Dennis,

> > Transfer Dept.

> > Phone:+16823251781(Text Message)Only. Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:33:09 -0700

> Subject: Re: FROM The IFR Group Worldwide Office

> From: peterrdennis03@gmail.com

>

> You have to forward to us your full banking details for your funds

> transfer. On 3/22/16, Peter Dennis < peterrdennis03@gmail.com > wrote:

The IFR Group Worldwide Office.

No, 2201 Wirt Rd Apt 341 Hilton ,

WASHINGTON DC,USA.

Hsbc managed Account Advisory LLC

Full service financial Brokerage



From the Desk of : Dr.Peter Dennis.

Cell Phone:+16823251781(Text Message). or +2349052022457

OUR REF: IFR-GROUP/00102H/USD-UK/WA/2013





Dear:



Your mail has been received with thanks and it is well noted to this

office, You are paying for the Authorization Telex code(ATC) for the

releasing of your funds and the amount for the Authorization Telex

code(ATC) is $1,980.00 dollars and the Authorization Telex code(ATC)

will be obtain and send to your bank for final remittance into your

account.



BELOW IS THE INFORMATION HOW TO SEND THE MONEY WITH MONEY GRAM.



MONEY GRAM MEANS PAYMENT GUIDE.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

RECEIVERS NAME: EZIKE CHIMEZIE FRED

RECEIVERS ADDRESS: NIGERIA

8 DIGIT REFERENCE NUMBERS: ?

AMOUNT EXPECTED: $1,980 USD ONLY



Once the payment is done,email me the 8 DIGIT REFERENCE NUMBERS to

conclude the Authorization Telex code(ATC) process today and send to

your bank for final remittance of your funds into your account

Immediately without any delay and do not fail to send your direct

cellphone for easy communication.



Regards,

Dr.Peter Dennis,

Transfer Dept.

Phone:+16823251781(Text Message). or +2349052022457.



From: foreignpaymenttelexdept_cbn@yahoo.com

Subject: RE: INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE DEPT,CBN.





CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR QUARTERS, TINUBU SQUARE,LAGOS, NIGERIA.

Direct Hotline: +234-70643-51447 Our Ref: CBN/1RO/FGN/16 IMMEDIATE CONTRACT PAYMENT. RE: PAYMENT NOTIFICATION CONTRACT AMOUNT:US$28, 500, 000. 00



ATTENTION:





Sir,







So, surprised not have received your message by now and by telling us that you have settled with the Fund Transfers (ATC) for your conclusion onto the release of your approved contractual sum into your bank account which your have already confirmed the transferred into your bank by your receiving bank but the transfer is on pending for your legal withdrawal/encashment of the transferred contractual sum into your account because of the (ATC) that you were required by law to obtain with its legal cost as Dr. Peter Dennis were already advised you.



Also, I want to lets you know that your must obtain this (ATC) which you have already known before you can make withdrwaal of the releasing contractual sum to you, into your bank account, Meanwhile, I must correct this impression you may or might have in your mind to know that, Dr. Peter Dennis is not a fake and that's the reason he has been recommended from the Corresponding Banks for the Authorization Telex code (ATC) for clearance . Therefore, keep focus with Dr. Peter Dennis right now, lets conclude this transfer into your bank account without further delay.



Put all blames on me if the transfer did not go through after working with Dr. Peter Dennis by doing what is required and try to make sure you contact him today to make the payment for the Authorization Telex code(ATC) clearance so that your funds will finally be released/ transferred into your bank account for your withdrawal and usages as soon as possible.



Finally, do keep us posted as soon as you have settled the (ATC) for the clearance today through Dr. Peter Dennis as requires and note that I would not be on sit till Tuesday, but always call me on my direct Mobile Telephone Number here: +234-81334-66959.

Congratulation in advance !!!

Regards,

Mr. Godwin Emefiele

Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 16:56:16 +0000From: foreignpaymenttelexdept_cbn@yahoo.comSubject: RE: INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCE DEPT,CBN.



Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 21:01:42 +0100

Subject: Below Is The Information FROM The IFR Group Worldwide Office

From: peterrdennis03@gmail.com



Below is the Information how to send the ATC fee With Money Gram or

Western Union Money Transfer. . Recivers Name: Ezike Chimezie Fred.

Address: Nigeria. Amount:$1,980.00 Text Question: What. Answer:Good

Then you send us the Transfer Information Number and call me.

Regards, Dr.Peter Dennis. +)16823251781(Text Message Only)

Call+2349052022457.

> Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 15:37:09 +0100

> Subject: Transfer Termination notice:From Banco Santander

> From: onlinebanking@santander.cl

>

> Banco Santander-Chile Bank

> From:Claudio Melandri Hinojosa(CEO)

> Headquarters: Santiago, Chile

> Phone:+56 (2) 2941-0300

> Website:www.santander.cl/

> Founded: 1937

>

>

> Dear:

>

> Transfer Termination notice:

>

>

> We are still waiting for you to conclude with Dr.Peter Dennis to send the

> Authorization telex code to us so that we can complete your transfer

> possible today.

>

> Note that we are going to terminate your transfer if we did not receive

> any response from you regarding the Authorization telex code for

> completion of your funds transfer now.

>

> We just received signal from the International Monitoring Funds( IMF) and

> Ministry Of Finance today that any money that over stayed more than seven

> banking working days will be confiscate and transferred into Government

> Treasure account so hurry up.

>

>

> Contact Dr.Peter Dennis International Fund Remittance (IFR) Group on this

> email address (peterrdennis03@gmail.com )or Cellphone:+2349052022457 to

> secure this Authorization telex code as soon as possible to enable your

> funds transfer without delay.

>

> This is an electronic message from Banco Santander.Please do not

> reply to this electronic message. Mail sent to this address cannot be

> answered.

>

> Do not farward this message to any body to avoid scams.

>

>

> Thanks,

>

> Banco Santander

> From:Claudio Melandri Hinojosa(CEO)

> Headquarters: Santiago, Chile

> Phone:+56 (2) 2941-0300

> Website:www.santander.cl/

> Founded: 1937 If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more....
Chris Jackson/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Prince William is in Kenya and will miss Easter morning this Sunday with his two children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. The Easter Bunny will need to rely on the children's devoted mom, Kate, until the Duke of Cambridge returns later Sunday.



Kensington Palace confirmed to ABC News that the future British king is spending several days in Kenya for the Easter weekend on a "private trip." The Duke of Cambridge spent his first day in Kenya Thursday meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta, discussing defense security and conservation issues.



"The meeting is taking place at the request of Her Majesty's Government, and His Royal Highness is pleased to have the opportunity to meet the President while he is in Kenya," Kensington Palace said in a statement.



Prince William is reportedly spending the private portion of his trip attending the wedding of his old flame, Jecca Craig. Prince William spent his gap year in Kenya at Craig's family's Lewa Conservancy and Craig was his first young love.



William has always remained close to the family, with Craig's dad, Ian, playing a fatherly role in the Duke of Cambridge's life. Craig's father has been instrumental in guiding William and developing his interest in conservation and anti-poaching efforts.



When William decided to propose to his now wife of nearly five years, he returned to Kenya to pop the question to Duchess Kate.



The Duke, who is president of United For Wildlife, spent the remainder of Thursday "seeing first-hand some of the longstanding conservation and anti-poaching initiatives taking place in Kenya, which are supported by Tusk Trust, the charity of which he is Royal Patron," according to Kensington Palace.



Prince William also watched vets administer radio tracking collars to elephants and met with rangers at the Lewa Conservancy, whose goal is protecting rhino populations from poaching.



The three-and-a-half day trip is downtime for William from his work as an East Anglia air ambulance pilot. William was photographed Wednesday staying at a patient's side after assisting in a rescue.



When William returns from Kenya, he and Kate have a busy April ahead. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will represent Her Majesty's government in India and Bhutan in mid-April.



The family recently returned from a brief ski trip to the Alps where they were able to enjoy some quality time away from the spotlight.



Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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LAFAYETTE, N.Y. -- A Cortland County woman was charged with having heroin after a car she was riding in was pulled over for ignoring an emergency vehicle, the New York State Police said.

Billie J. Garrow

Billie J. Garrow, 36, of Cortland, was charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.

At 12:57 p.m. Thursday state troopers stopped a vehicle on Interstate 81 in the town of LaFayette. State police said the vehicle had failed to yield the right-of-way to an emergency vehicle on the highway.

Troopers at the scene investigating found items in the vehicle that indicated recent heroin use, state police said. Garrow, who was sitting in the back of the vehicle, is accused of hiding several envelopes of heroin on her that troopers found.

She is scheduled to appear in LaFayette Town Court on Wednesday.
robert-doggart-arrested.JPG

Robert Doggart in a photo for his campaign for a congressional seat in Tennessee in 2014.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Muslim group is suing a former congressional candidate from Tennessee over his alleged plot to burn down a mosque and kill Muslims living in Delaware County, N.Y.

The Muslims of America Inc. sued Robert Doggart, whom the FBI charged last year with plotting to attack Islamberg, a predominantly Muslim enclave in Hancock, N.Y.

Doggart met with an FBI confidential informant in Nashville, Tenn., in March 2015 and talked about making a Molotov cocktail to firebomb the mosque, a school and a cafeteria in Islamberg, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent James Smith. The FBI monitored and recorded the meeting, the affidavit said.

In a Facebook post, Doggart said his operation would require less than 20 "expert gunners," Smith wrote. Islamberg "must be utterly destroyed in order to get the attention of the American people," the Facebook post said.

In another Facebook post, Doggart wrote, "We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace."

In a wiretapped phone call in March 2015, Doggart told a confidential source for the FBI that he planned to bring an M4 rifle to the attack, the affidavit said.

"We're gonna be carrying an M4 with 500 rounds of ammunition, light armor piercing," Doggart said, according to the affidavit. "A pistol with 3 extra magazines and a machete. And if it gets down to the machete, we will cut them to shreds."

Doggart talked about meeting with members of the South Carolina militia and someone from Texas who was a militia member or a militia sympathizer, Smith's affidavit said.

Doggart ran as an Independent in 2014 for a congressional seat that was won by U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais. Doggart got about 6 percent of the vote.

Doggart, 63, agreed to plead guilty last year to making a threat to injure others -- a non-terrorism charge with a maximum prison sentence of five years. But a federal judge rejected the plea, questioning whether his communications constituted a true threat under the law.

He was indicted shortly afterward on a charge of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation -- the destruction of religious property. He was released from jail while the charges are pending, which drew protests from Muslim groups, according to Chattanoogan.com.

The Muslims of America said Doggart should've been charged with a hate crime and terrorism.

In the lawsuit, Muslims of America says Doggart convened a nine-person militia for the attack, compiled literature about Islamberg and the gun laws of New York state and gathered information about law enforcement in the Catskills.

The Muslims of America also sued William Tint, who pleaded guilty last year to making a false statement to the FBI about his involvement in Doggart's plans. The Muslim group is also suing nine other defendants whose names are not yet known.

Tint is a former Marine reconnaissance specialist and founder of Operation American Freedom, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to permanently ban Doggart, Tint and others from violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, come within 300 yards of Islamberg and any other community of the Muslims of America, and pay compensatory damages.

Muslims of America bought 60 acres in Hancock "for the purpose of providing safe houses for American Muslims to raise families while establishing a peaceful community free from harmful elements such as those occurring in the inner cities in the 1980s," the group wrote in an unrelated lawsuit two years ago.

Contact John O'Brien anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-2187
2015-05-25-sdc-jordanmemori.JPG

Sheriff Gene Conway speaks at a Memorial Day program in 2015. Conway has called a news conference Friday to discuss recent arrests related to the trafficking fentanyl in Onondaga County.

(Stephen D. Cannerelli | scannerelli@syracuse.com)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Sheriff Gene Conway plans to discuss the recent arrest of six people accused of trafficking fentanyl in Onondaga County.

Conway has scheduled a news conference on the subject for 11 a.m. Friday at the Sheriff's Office Headquarters building in Syracuse.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate. The prescription drug is similar to morphine, but more potent. It is used for severe pain or given to patients for pain after surgery.

Recently fentanyl has hammered Central New York. In 2015, fentanyl and heroin were involved in the overdose deaths of 11 people in Onondaga County, up from two people in 2013. The amount of fentanyl the DEA seized in New York jumped 1,000 percent from 2014 to 2015, from 2.1 kilograms to 21.5 kilograms.

Investigators with the sheriff's office have discovered the prescription painkiller fentanyl when they tested bags of what appeared to be heroin.

"A lot of it has been seen, quite a bit in the western part of the state, in the Rochester area, " Detective Jon Seeber told Syracuse.com earlier this year. "And it's started to creep its way here."

Dealers often lace heroin with fentanyl -- which has a similar effect and is the same color and has the same appearance. Sometimes dealers simply replace heroin with fentanyl. Fentanyl is cheaper for dealers and can be 30 to 50 percent more potent than heroin.

The sheriff's office did not provide details of the six arrests Conway would discuss, but said evidence seized from the investigation would be on hand.

Contact Ken Sturtz: 315-766-7833 | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Google+
Mahoney_horizontal.JPG

A photo of Tammy Mahoney, who has been missing since 1981.

Oneida city police and the FBI assisted by the New York State Police K-9 unit are in Oneida today searching for what could possibly be the body of Tammy Mahoney who has been missing since 1981, state police said today.

Oneida City Police Chief David Meeker said in an email to Syracuse.com that police are

"following up on a lead and checking an area that was developed through that lead." He said state police, FBI and specially trained dogs are assisting.



Investigators previously have said 19-year-old Mahoney was believed to have been gang-raped and murdered on the 32-acre Oneida Nation territory May 8, 1981, the night she disappeared. She was last seen hitchhiking on Route 46, on her way to visit friends in the Hamilton area.

Mahoney's body has never been found. The department has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the location of her body.

Mahoney, a Long Island native who had moved to Onieda, was attending SUNY Morrisville when she disappeared.

Trooper Jack Keller of the New York State Police said the search is taking place in the woods south of Route 46 in Oneida.

A woman who lives down the road said there are dozens of law enforcement vehicles parked and the search is taking place near a pond, where authorities are using a sifter to sift through the dirt.

Paul Holstein, speaking for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed the search is taking place, but would not release any details.

Mahoney was last seen hitchhiking south on Route 46 near Glenwood Shopping Center. Witnesses also told police she was at a party on the Oneida Indian Nation later that night.

In November, Oneida City Police Chief David Meeker told the Utica Observer-Dispatch that a group called Missing in America contacted the police wanting to conduct a search with law enforcement cooperation.

The New Jersey-based group said at the time there were four locations they wanted to search. Whether this search is connected to that effort is not known at this time.

In 2002, deputies reportedly searched junked cars on Oneida Nation territory, and dug up a former pond looking for a car Mahoney might have been placed in after her death. The search turned up nothing.
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SHARE Markee Felton

By Laurie K. Blandford of TCPalm

MARTIN COUNTY  A 24-year-old Hobe Sound man is accused of shooting another man in the leg last month in the Banner Lake neighborhood, according to court documents.

Markee Deshawn Felton, of the 8400 block of Southeast Comus Street, was arrested March 16 on a warrant and charged with attempted felony murder with a weapon and possession of a firearm or ammunition by a convicted felon, according to an arrest report.

Felton is accused of shooting 24-year-old Reginald Edwin Straughter, of the 8500 block of Southeast Citrus Way, Hobe Sound, on Feb. 28 at Southeast Florida Avenue and Southeast Anthion Way, according to court documents.

Straughter said he standing on the corner of the streets when another man, later identified as Felton, walked up to Straughter and began shooting, according to documents. Straughter tried to run away and was shot from behind in the leg. He was taken to Martin Hospital South for treatment.

The next day, Felton approached Straughter's mother, Mashalum Witherspoon, and apologized for shooting her son, according to documents. Felton told her he and another man had planned to rob someone else after a craps game the day her son was shot.

Felton told Witherspoon it was a mistake that he shot her son and said he was sorry, according to documents. Witherspoon told detectives she didn't understand why Felton shot her son because they are friends and have known each other for a long time.

That same day, Witherspoon also got a phone call from 58-year-old Gregory Howard, who apologized to her for his involvement in her son being shot, according to documents. Howard also said her son wasn't the intended victim.

Two days later, Howard was found dead along Southeast Dixie Highway just south of Southeast Lundy Street, said Martin County Sheriff's officials. Sheriff William Snyder had said the cause of death was from at least one gunshot.

It's unknown if Howard's death was related to Straughter's shooting. Sheriff's detectives declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.

Felton's criminal history includes 20 felony charges that resulted in six convictions, according to documents. Those convictions included charges of possession of cocaine, burglary, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and resisting an office with violence.

Felton remained in the Martin County Jail on Thursday with a $550,000 bail, according to a jail official.
VERO BEACH  The Indian River County Habitat for Humanity ReStore is adding 9,500 square feet of retail space to its 8-acre site on U.S. 1 in Vero Beach. The cost for the project is $1.5 million, with more than $750,000 already raised.

When the addition is completed in July, the Indian River County ReStore will have nearly 30,000 square feet of retail space, making it one of the largest Habitat ReStores in the United States.

The expansion is necessary to meet the high demand for space to sell items that have been donated to the nonprofit organization, according to Habitat President/CEO Andy Bowler.

"Our warehouse section is so backed up we needed to find a way to create more retail space," said Bowler."We are so blessed to have so many people donating items to us."

In addition to individual donations, Bowler said Habitat works closely with local building contractors who are working on remodeling projects for private clients willing to donate their former fixtures and excess building supplies to Habitat.

"A contractor will call up and tell us they have a construction project going on and invite Habitat to come out and remove the original items from the home," said Bowler. "We've taken out cabinets, oak flooring, French doors and even a 12-seat home theater. Their remodeling is helping other families in Indian River County."

In addition to the extra retail space, the 10,000-square-foot warehouse that holds items before sale to the public is now air-conditioned, making for a more favorable work environment. New energy efficient lighting has also been installed and restrooms and checkout counters redesigned.

"Since we put the air conditioning system in, we've seen a 41 percent increase in the number of volunteers at the ReStore," said Bowler. Overall, volunteers contribute more than 1,725 hours monthly to the ReStore, working alongside eight full-time and nine part-time paid employees.

The ReStore funds one out of every three homes constructed by Habitat for Humanity in Indian River County. About 38 percent of the organization's cash revenues come from donations sold at the ReStore, according to Habitat documents. Items available for purchase include appliances, furniture, building supplies, office equipment and miscellaneous home goods.

The original donor investment to open the retail location in 2005 was $2.5 million, according to Habitat officials. In its first year, the ReStore generated more than $600,000 in sales. In 2015, that number jumped to almost $1.6 million.

Indian River's Habitat for Humanity will celebrate its 25th year in November and has already helped 600 families with new homes and rehabilitation and repair projects. Over the next five years, the organization has set a goal of helping an additional 500 families meet their housing needs.

FAST FACTS

What: Habitat for Humanity's ReStore 9,500-square-foot expansion

Where: 4580 U.S. 1, Vero Beach

Cost: $1.5 million, with $750,000 already raised

Completion Date: July, with formal ribbon cutting in September

General contractor: Pinnacle Construction

Building campaign donations: Contact CFO Sara Mayo at 772-562-9860, ext. 206, or www.irchabitat.org.
<p>photo provided</p><p>Indiantowns Carter Park won an award of merit from the American Planning Association-Florida.</p>

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By Lisa Broadt of TCPalm

MARTIN COUNTY  Indiantown is brimming with potential  its bright future could include aerospace manufacturing, call centers and a thriving agritourism industry  but work on Martin County's most rural, and poorest, community should begin now, a consultant told county business and government leaders Thursday.

"I don't see anything but opportunity," consultant Del Boyette told more than 100 people gathered at Indian River State College's Chastain Campus. "The goal is to make Indiantown a place of distinction."

Boyette, president and CEO of Boyette Strategic Advisors, and Tracy King Sharp, chief operating officer, were hired by Florida Power & Light Co. to work with Indiantown to identify economic development opportunities for the community of about 6,000 people.

In an hourlong presentation of their findings, the consultants identified call centers; aerospace, aviation and marine manufacturing; and agribusiness  including food distribution, warehousing, packing and production  as three industries well suited to Indiantown.

The consultants described Indiantown as a community with unexpected potential but obvious obstacles.

"There are challenges everywhere, but Martin County is a really good location because there's willingness to make changes," Sharp said.

Indiantown's 80,000 acres of agriculture-zoned land; proximity to Port St. Lucie, Orlando and Miami; and relatively low median age of 31  Martin County's is 58  work in the community's favor, Sharp said.

Its low per capita income, and high unemployment and high school dropout rates, however, are among factors holding the community back from economic growth, according to the consultants' data.

Bringing in new business could help combat those socioeconomic issues, but "to get developers to take risks, sometimes you have to step in and offer something to entice them," Sharp said, adding that some of the potentially most effective business incentives could be unpopular.

Waiving or lowering impact fees for industries that pledge a certain number of new jobs, for example, could be critical.

"To be competitive, Indiantown needs not be subject to the same impact fees as other more-affluent areas," Sharp said. The importance of impact fees, a one-time tax implemented by many local governments, including Martin County, on new construction, is "pretty significant," she said.

Indiantown leaders also should embrace aggressive marketing. The community already has made headway in branding itself with the catchier nickname, I-Town, and that effort should continue, according to the consultants.

Other ideas presented included building a sportsman's lodge or hunting center to help promote agritourism, and establishing an Indiantown charter school or special educational program to combat dropout rates. Currently, most high school students attend South Fork High School, about 25 minutes away.

Brian Powers, Indiantown Gas Co. president, said in closing remarks he and other business leaders were impressed with the report and eager to implement changes.

"We'll look back and say today's the day it all started," Powers said.

"This (report) will not sit on a shelf," added Tim Dougher, Business Development Board of Martin County executive director.
Anthony Westbury is a columnist for TCPalm.com.

I may have glimpsed the future during a Fort Pierce City Commission meeting last week; it didn't look good.

Among other city business, the commission considered a proposed apartment, office and retail development sited on two parcels on and near Indian River Drive immediately south of downtown.

One of these parcels is a pocket handkerchief-sized piece of land on the river that sits at the bottom of the Citrus Avenue overpass. Directly across Indian River Drive to the west is a larger piece of property which will house a five-story office, retail and residential building. The four-story riverfront portion will house multifamily apartments.

The buildings seem out of scale for the land they sit on. There are issues of parking and traffic ingress and egress from the Indian River Drive building  which will sit close to a roundabout.

Yet what worried me more than any of those concerns was who seems to be driving the bus at City Hall these days.

Current City Attorney Rob Schwerer will be replaced shortly by an in-house city attorney. In fact, James Messer was named to that position at the same meeting. I wish Messer the best of luck.

It seemed Monday night that city staff and commissioners were treating their attorney as a lame duck whose legal advice wasn't worth much.

In the past I've shared the commission's frustration with some of Schwerer's decision-making, particularly his failure to settle cases out of court.

Schwerer rarely operated in a hurry; his favorite response to questions from the dais was "well, commissioner, that will require more research." Often it seemed the legal department was a black hole into which paperwork disappeared for months at a time.

Yet Schwerer, for all his faults, didn't deserve the poor treatment he received Monday night.

Repeatedly, his advice was ignored both by City Manager Nick Mimms and planning and engineering staff members.

In connection with the apartment complex, there was much discussion about the ownership of a sliver of land  29 feet wide at its largest point  that was once part of the Indian River Drive right of way. Adding the land to the apartment site gives it the required number of parking spaces.

Despite exhaustive research going back more than a century, City Engineer Jack Andrews (not a lawyer) said he could not determine who actually owned the sliver. Andrews surmised it might belong to the city, but couldn't be sure. Nevertheless, planning staff (also not lawyers) agreed with giving it to the developer of the apartment complex for free.

An Indian River Drive resident, Linda Nunn, raised another question about building that close to the river bank.

She alerted the commission to a 1958 city ordinance that delineates the "bulkhead line," which has long governed how far east (toward the river) development should be allowed. A similar line along the beach controls coastal development. The new building would be 60 feet east of the line, Nunn said.

City staff countered her objection by saying the river frontage has changed markedly since 1958. Several areas of riverfront have been filled during that time. True, but the old line remains the legal standard, as Schwerer reminded the commission.

Staff members and Mimms (not a lawyer either) seemed determined to give the green light to the apartment complex before "fixing" the line after the fact. Schwerer cautioned the commission this definitely was not the accepted way of doing things.

He was ignored over and over again.

Schwerer might have been slow, deliberate, even pedantic at times, but he always seemed to have the city's best interests at heart  particularly in making sure the city didn't face unnecessary legal challenges.

I hope the new city attorney will take a similar approach and base decisions on good law, not bow to economic or political pressure.

Does Fort Pierce need new investments? Absolutely. But the city should not be tempted to cut corners or ignore legal precedent in its rush to keep developers happy. This development will bring in some property tax revenue, but all the legal details need to be resolved before building commences, not afterward.

Doing it any other way could be a disaster in the making for Fort Pierce.
Mike Haridopolos, a former Florida Senate president from Melbourne, discussed the possibility of seeking a newly created Senate seat including Indian River County on March 21 at the office of the Press Journal in Vero Beach. (PATRICK DOVE/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

"What is a Haridopolos?"

That was the promotional catch phrase in 2003 when a diminutive, baby-faced man of 33 walked into my driveway and introduced himself. Mike Haridopolos said he was running in a special election to replace Florida Sen. Howard Futch, who had died in office at 71.

I was impressed with the well-spoken, second-term representative and community college professor from Brevard County. He was a charismatic graduate of public schools on Long Island, New York, and Stetson University, with a master's from the University of Arkansas.

He understood what Florida public schools needed to ensure students no longer would graduate without being able to read. He talked about the environment and fiscal responsibility, issues important to me.

After Haridopolos won the race, it was clear he'd be a star in the Republican Party. He frequently came to Indian River County, often meeting with chamber types and schoolchildren. By 2010, Haridopolos had become Senate president, the second of three senators serving the Treasure Coast elected to hold the top state seat over 10 years.

But like one of his predecessors, Ken Pruitt, Haridopolos' ascent was not without controversy  particularly over how he made money outside his public office and whether business interests influenced his votes. His relationships with lobbyists, even his college employers  Brevard Community College paid him $152,000 to write a one-copy book  were questioned.

He raised more than $3 million to run against U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012, but pulled out of the race, he said, to focus on his Senate presidency. After leaving office, he became a consultant and lobbyist. He now works for the Stronach Group, which owns some of the world's great horse racing tracks: Pimlico, Santa Anita and Gulfstream.

Haridopolos has politics in his blood. It was no surprise when he called recently to tell me he was considering a return to the Senate, serving all of Indian River County and part of Brevard. My first reaction: This political heavyweight would become the front-runner in a race featuring term-limited state representatives and a Brevard County GOP state committeeman.

Haridopolos' pitch would be that, unlike Debbie Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, and Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, he has a track record of accomplishments. Haridopolos does, from helping balance the state budget in the face of a $4 billion deficit, to requiring state employees contribute to their own retirement. Few elected state officials possess the conservative bona fides Haridopolos does.

But he also carries political baggage, and clout, from 12 years in state office. In an election year where Donald Trump has made outsiders popular, the Senate field seems the polar opposite.

Name recognition and well-spent money often sway local voters. Workman has relied mostly on business interests and political committees for the $270,000 or so he's raised, according to state campaign account records. Mayfield's raised little more than $15,000, but has loaned herself $200,000. Michael J. Thomas, a physician assistant, has only $2,975, including $1,600 he loaned himself.

Haridopolos, meanwhile, has almost $950,000 left from his U.S. Senate run. Last year he funneled more than $50,000 of that to various political committees and candidates, including those supporting Indian River County's U.S. Rep Bill Posey and Rebecca Negron. Negron seeks a southern Treasure Coast U.S. House seat. Her husband, Joe, has represented part of Indian River County in the Senate and is slated to become its next president.

Mayfield, the closest thing to an Indian River candidate, plans to move in with her husband in Brevard, but remain in the district. Unfortunately, she has been a relatively ineffective legislator.

What this race really needs is a successful Indian River County businessman to take advantage of the Trump phenomenon. The deadline to file for office is in late June.

It will be hard to beat a former Senate president, who said when he first ran most people thought a Haridopolos was a sea turtle or a dinosaur. He sought to define Haridopolos as "a son, husband, father, Christian and politician who wants to restore the values of Ronald Reagan to Florida government."

Reagan wasn't a lobbyist and didn't work for a gambling company. He was a true public servant.

Will an Indian River County white knight step up or will our former Senate president seek to redefine Haridopolos?
Rendering of All Aboard Florida's brightline train. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/ALL ABOARD FLORIDA)

By Don Mader

I was disappointed to see chambers to the south and north of us submit a guest column accusing the good people of Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties of not being willing to sacrifice the safety, health, quality of life and property values of our homes and business for the sake of the ill-conceived All Aboard Florida passenger rail project.

I get it. AAF and the multibillion dollar hedge fund that backs it, Fortress Investment Group, have tremendous power and influence. I understand the money and political backing of the project enriches the lives of many. I appreciate the excitement of those who have temporary construction jobs, along with the high-paid lobbying, legal, engineering and public relations consultants who have been hired and are making money off of AAF.

I wish we could share your excitement. I wish we could "take one for the team" and stand down so Florida East Coast Railway can have its tracks upgraded in preparation for the increased freight that will travel along the rail line, even though this would be to the detriment of our quality of life.

But I can't. And I hope Treasure Coast citizens, along with the hundreds of thousands of other citizens up and down the rail corridor who are also going to be negatively impacted if this project moves forward, do not fall for the smoke-and-mirror tactics that AAF and all of its money, power and influence has been using to mislead the public.

How dare the big-city chambers of Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando accuse us of being NIMBYs. "Not in my backyard" is a disrespectful term often used by developers to accuse citizens who oppose their projects of being obstructionists. It is invoked as a desperate public relations tactic  often when a project is justifiably harmful to a community and the legitimate opposition group is making headway in having their voices be heard.

I invite the members of these urban chambers to visit our beautiful piece of paradise along the Treasure Coast. Come and stand in front of our "at-grade crossings" in the hearts of our quaint downtowns and historic districts where trains could speed by at double or triple the current rate. I challenge you to stand there with us and show us a single benefit we will receive.

Here's another suggestion. Stop pretending the Treasure Coast hasn't already tried to reach out to AAF, FEC, the Federal Railroad Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation and others to discuss the project with them. We have. They are not listening. They are not interested in having real dialogue, in being transparent, in reaching consensus, in mitigating their impacts, in resolving their unfunded mandates. They would prefer we just shut up and roll over. That's what they expected we'd do more than a year ago. They were wrong.

If you knew us, the residents of the Treasure Coast, you would know that we fight to be different from the South Florida that was ruined so many decades ago by greed and overdevelopment. We have remained different because of our love for our community.

We will continue to fight to protect our historic neighborhoods, our environment, our quality of life, our historic resources, our property values and the safety of our friends and neighbors. All the guest column from the big city chambers of South Florida and Orlando did was remind us AAF is pulling their puppet strings, and we must redouble our efforts to protect ourselves.

We are no one's marionette. We will not be bullied and we will not back down.

Don Mader is chief executive officer of Southeastern Printing in Stuart.
The Indian River Lagoon needs our help.

This remarkable estuary is home to more than 4,300 species of plants and animals and a resource serving almost 50 human communities.

The lagoon has weathered countless changes over the past century. It's bottom has been dredged, filled and altered to accommodate our needs and its shoreline has been reconfigured and armored.

Its watershed was expanded by networks of canals that drain stormwater from land now occupied by urban development. These changes have increased loads of water, nutrients and sediments reaching the lagoon. We are all part of these problems. We are all part of the solutions.

Unfortunately, 2016 is shaping up to be a year that focuses our collective concerns  and awareness  on this vulnerable jewel in our backyard.

In mid-2015, the scientific community noticed an algal bloom in the Mosquito Lagoon. It moved into the northern Indian River Lagoon and affected the Banana River Lagoon and the Indian River Lagoon to the Sebastian Inlet by January 2016. The algae in these blooms include those in the 2011 to 2012 bloom, plus brown tide, which bloomed in 2012 to 2013.

Last weekend, waterfront residents and anglers discovered thousands of dead fish drifting in waterways and canals. Scientists are investigating the causes of the fish kill to see if algal toxicity may have been involved; however, oxygen depletion is a common occurrence during intense algal blooms, and fish and other animals die when they do not have enough oxygen.

People want action, and rightly so. More than just part of the fabric of our lives, the lagoon is an economic engine for our region. A 2007 study found the lagoon is responsible for one-seventh of the region's economy. The overall, annual economic value of the lagoon was estimated at $3.7 billion at that time.

In simplest terms, algal blooms do occur naturally, but we contribute nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that fuel more intense blooms. It's a problem in coastal estuaries worldwide. In addition to robbing the lagoon of oxygen, which sometimes causes "fish kills," algal blooms block sunlight needed by sea grass. Such "shading" can kill sea grass and deprive many animals of the shelter and food they need.

For many years, state and federal agencies, the St. Johns and South Florida water management districts, the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, municipalities and county agencies, educational institutions, stakeholders and individuals have been working individually and collectively to improve our understanding of the lagoon and to carry out projects that reduce our burdens on the waterway.

Recently, completed projects are either treating or removing tens of millions of gallons of stormwater from the lagoon's tributaries. In addition, millions of cubic yards of muck have been removed from the lagoon bottom and additional muck-dredging projects are in progress or on the way.

Each project we complete means progress. However, sustained efforts are needed to restore the health of our lagoon.

Ultimately, collaboration and participation at every level are critical to ensuring the long-term health of the lagoon. We must work in unison to achieve measurable, real results. The reorganized IRL National Estuary Program will help to build a vision for restoration and a regional coalition to implement change, but success will depend on all of us.

We must take ownership of the lagoon. We must change our daily habits that negatively impact the lagoon. We must become more informed and more involved. Scientists and engineers must continue to improve and share their knowledge. Every level of government must continue to fund worthwhile restoration projects and enforce regulations designed to keep the lagoon healthy.

The challenges may be complex, but they are not insurmountable. Working together, we can fix the problem.

The lagoon's future is what we make it.

Duane De Freese is executive director of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program.
This NOAA satellite image taken Aug. 29, 2005 shows Hurricane Katrina, then a Category 2 storm. (AP FILE PHOTO)

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By Michael Goforth

Partially motivated by witnessing the devastation caused to the Treasure Coast during the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, Michael Nash embarked on an 18-month journey through 48 countries to document the impact climate change is having on endangered communities and the potential impacts for the world at large.

The result is "Climate Refugees: The Human Face of Climate Change," a sobering documentary film written, directed, produced and narrated by Nash that had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010 and was described by Sundance founder Robert Redford as "an agent for social change."

The film includes interviews with U.S. political and defense department leaders, representatives of international security and relief agencies, Nobel Prize winners and villagers fearful for the future of their land and cultures. It depicts scenes of destruction from rising tides and severe weather events. It has been screened for members of Congress, the Pentagon, the United Nations, the Vatican and was the only film recently screened for world leaders meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Earlier this month, Nash, the brother of Fort Pierce artist Colleen Nash Becht, the wife of Fort Pierce City Commissioner Eddie Becht, returned home for a public showing of his film at Indian River State College.

The film strongly contends that the world's climate is changing, but largely stays away from the contentious political issue of how much of the change is man-made and how much is part of a natural cycle. Rather, it focuses on the effects and asks how mankind should respond.

There are already climate refugees, though the United Nations prefers to call them environmental migrants. They are the victims of severe weather that has forced them to leave their homes and settle elsewhere. In the United States, 300,000 people left Gulf Coast states following Hurricane Katrina with no plans to go back.

Nash said the Syrian refugee crisis may also be traced in part to climate change. During a severe drought in that nation over several years, he said, many villagers moved to cities, civil unrest broke out, and now many are fleeing that war.

But that crisis from war refugees may pale in comparison to the tens of millions of people who may have to flee their countries in search of farmland and water they need for their survival. How will the stable nations of the world, like the United States, incorporate such refugees and provide for them? When wars break out between communities and nations over scarce resources resulting from climate change, how should other nations respond? U.S. military leaders are already warning about the national security threat posed by severe weather events in troubled parts of the world.

On the Treasure Coast, we are well-aware of the warnings associated with rising sea levels along the Atlantic. A map displayed in the Nash documentary shows much of Florida eventually under water south of a place marked on the map as Fort Pierce.

And, we are well-aware of concerns that hurricanes may be more intense in the future than those we have previously experienced here and elsewhere.

But, what about the climate change impact on our Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie River? Are we already beginning to see some of those impacts?

Nash suggested we are. The Lake Okeechobee discharges that are now polluting and seriously damaging our waterways are at least in part the result of excessive rainfall that occurred in our area during a normally dry month of December, he noted. If that unusual event becomes a new normal, what steps need to be taken now for the survival of the lagoon and the river? Is there a political will to recognize that threat before it may be too late?

Nash said he is optimistic that we can combat whatever climate change factors are man-made through innovative technological advances more so than through political action.

But politicians also have a role to play. In this election season, they need to tell us their plans for dealing with the very real and growing problems we and the rest of the world are facing.

For more on "Climate Refugees" and for links to the Nash film, go to climaterefugees.com.

Michael Goforth is former Editorial Board member and columnist at Treasure Coast Newspapers. He may be reached by email at michaelgoforth@outlook.com and on Twitter @michaelgoforth2.
Thank you for reading!

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Divya Sharan BHPian



Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Bangalore, BKSC Posts: 472 Thanked: 1,468 Times

View My Garage





Bellissa - Fiat Punto Evo 1.4 ownership review - 4 year / 50,000 km completed



P.S - Folks, this is my review of the Punto Evo 1.4 Emotion. Team BHP has covered the same in 2014 in full detail here -



P.P.S - Special thanks to TBHP core team for providing me with this platform to share my experiences. I have used a few pics from the official review. And many thanks to "drivebyfire" for taking some lovely snaps of mine and the car's!



The short-listing process.



May 2015 - I finally managed stacking a decent amount of money thanks to my small(er) monthly savings and a huge LIC policy payout.

I call up my mother and inform her that I'm booking my dream ride - Kawasaki Ninja 650!



She said she was busy and would call me at night. There was something different in her tone this time though. But she had been supportive (after endless quarrels and attempted brainwash sessions on me) about my Ninja dream for over a year now and it was her who said "If you wait for a year, you have an LIC payout - that would help!".



Night arrived at 6:30 PM itself and I got a call from 2000 km away (Jharkhand).

Caller - Hello!

Me - Hello! How are you dad?

Dad - I'm good son, are you home yet?

Me - Yes, I came sometime back.

Dad - Ok, talk to your mother.

Me (tensed) - Yes, sure!

Mom - Hello beta, so which car have you planned to buy?

Me - Maa, I plan to book a Ninja 650 before I waste any more time. I would no longer ride my Karizma to Bokaro then like the last time. Such long journeys would be safer and less time consuming from now on.



Mom - I like Honda Amaze. (completely bypassed the Ninja theory)

Me - How did Amaze enter the equation? Do you imply I buy a car? Mom, this is not good. We discussed this already. Why this mentality?

Mom (cold) - Take a look at whatever (car) you have to buy. We will come to Bangalore for the delivery. I'm so very excited. I know you're a matured boy and you'll buy the best in your budget. By the way, what is your budget you said?



Me - Ninja 650 with few of my planned accessories will cost about 7.5 lacs.

Mom - Where will we sit when we come there, in that case? Or how will you take one to the hospital in an emergency? (the same old circle of questions started)

Me - Ok, let me save for 3 more months. I shall book a Nano as well. Accessories on the bike can wait.

Mom - Please no!

Me - Meh, I will talk to you later!



I didn't sleep that night. I wanted to think with my mind. Thoroughly!

Could I have the same amount of fun in a car? After all, I only know driving one, but I hardly have 100 km road experience in terms of driving it.

The heart said, absolutely not. Mind said - how do you know? You haven't even tried it!



A week flew past, mom called daily and brought up the topic of what car very enthusiastically each time. But I had an inherent liking for cars too, for I would read all reviews on TBHP, from the Nano to the Mercedes - all in detail. So I had an idea what I wanted, if I were to buy one!



The only 2 issues with my choice were - top trim was 2 lacs over my budget and I wasn't sure if I needed a diesel.

I called mom and I said - I "may" go to the showroom to inquire about Punto Evo.



Punto Evo was a decision from the heart. Mind said Swift but heart fought back. It said - you already bypassed me by looking at a car, but trust me; Swift is no good.

I decided to use both my heart's and mind's opinions.



I looked up Google to locate a Fiat dealership and found that Aadya Motors, Bellary road was only a few km away from Dollars Colony.

I paid them a visit, looked around and loved Linea Classic, but they said it wasn't available in top trim anymore and the new Linea had replaced it.

I looked at Punto Evo 1.3 MJD and an Avventura. The decision was made! A Punto was coming home. No TD taken, just a vibe. That is all!

Inquired for loans and discounts. They said they'll hook me up with SBH personnel for loans but they couldn't provide discounts on the Petrol Emotion I had asked for. 1.3 MJD had discounts.



I decided to enquire at Prerna Motors, Mysore road too, since it was very close to my office (then) at Global Village, but they put me off in 10 min flat! Nobody attended to me after I said I was looking for a Punto purchase. I wondered if they were actually a Fiat dealership at all.



Alternatives considered - Kawasaki Ninja 650.



Loan, discounts and delivery - I preferred continuing with Aadya Motors because I was floored by their attitude. Very warm and totally opposite to Prerna and what people think about Fiat dealerships. I took loan for 5 years at 10.1% ROI with zero pre-closure charges. I had enquired alternatively at HDFC and they didn't seem the right folk to take loan from. ROI was higher at 11% too.



I had in the meanwhile decided that Petrol version would do just fine even if I manage to drive a lot. I never intended to drive in city anyway! Except when absolutely needed that is.

So, I was looking at 12k to 15k running in a year at the most. However, I have only managed ~6k till date (9th month running). However, that's due to few family issues and nothing to do with the car or my (un)willingness to drive.



I paid a booking advance of 25k and chose the color Red, because an Italian car deserves red. Though I must say I loved black, but avoided it thinking about scratches and stuff.



They arranged a TD in under a week after the booking. I called them at home and drove a Punto 1.4 (white) for a good 20 km from Dollars Colony to MG Road and back. They were prompt and I liked the experience. However, the car was a little dirty in the foot well area and on the outsides. I would give them a 9/10 on this one.



In the end, I managed to get full bumper to bumper zero dep insurance policy for just a little more than the normal insurance Aadya was providing, parking sensors and rubber mats (soon taken by dad) after a lot of haggling.



Date and time of delivery - 4th July 2015, 1 PM. No compromises there. 10/10. Extended warranty wasn't available at the time.



PDI - I carefully checked everything with the TBHP checklist (



The overall cost of purchase was 8.9 lacs. They gave a coupon for 5L of petrol, but since my parents were present on the delivery day, they talked some sweet sense into the dealership to give at least 10L and they did.



Me and my parents during delivery. Customary pic taken at the dealership.







I christened her, Bellissa. For some reason I treat my bike and car as females, probably because I love them a lot. He he.



Bellissa is an Italian baby girl name meaning "The lovely one". Taken from -



Overall dealership experience - 9/10, just due to the haggling and small petrol tokens. I mean, one buys a 9L car and that is big money for someone who is new in IT and haggling with him for few hundred rupees after providing him such a wonderful treatment spoils the fun a little.



We got pooja done in Sanjay Nagar soon after and headed to CV Raman Nagar to meet my cousin to show my new toy. And then to JP Nagar to visit my uncle to boast a little more. And then to Bannerghatta road to meet a friend of my dad's. I hated this part but then I guess I cannot fight all the Bihari aspects at once. My parents were happy and I only wished they didn't overdo the thing and I'm glad they didn't.



Features of the car.



Trim - 1.4 L NA petrol powered aka 1.4 FIRE aka Punto Evo Emotion. (90 hp badge is available only on 1.3 MJD Emotion variant)



Steering - Hydraulic power assist. One of the best in the segment.

A view from the cockpit at night.







The dimension of the steering wheel is a tad small, but decent. I feel this adds to the already heavy feeling compounded by the wide tires all round.

My friend drivebyfire loves Ford Figo's steering and he was very impressed by the way Punto's steering works.



I've taken the liberty to quote his post from the



Quote: drivebyfire Originally Posted by



IMHO Figo's hydraulic unit is polar opposite of Punto's. First of all it's amazingly light in city and weighs up ok on the highway. But it is extremely responsive off center! So even if you move the wheel a little bit either side of "12" the car responds more than your input. Because of this when I first drove the Figo I felt "what a fidgety car!". It's only when I got used to it that I started loving Figo's steering! However this is completely different from Punto, where off-center steering is perfectly in-sync with where the front wheels are pointing.



SX4's EPS unit on the other hand is basically dead off-center, absolutely nothing happens between "10 & 2", you can keep rocking the steering either side of 12 (like in old movies) and the car will basically track straight. However once you turn in the steering wheel enough and load it then you get a pretty good feedback about what the front wheels are doing. This is simply how the EPS is calibrated and I don't feel SX4 is a bad handler because once you know how the system works there is good feedback from front tyres. However I have found that nobody really shares this particular opinion of mine and most pretty much feel SX4 sucks but i beg to differ ( ). Yes because of the dead off center steering SX4 is a lazy lane changer (whereas Figo is quick as lightning), however its a matter of getting used to.



Coming to the present discussion Swift's EPS unit will feel amazingly alive to SX4 drivers but it will feel meh to Figo drivers and positively lifeless to Punto drivers.



My point being that many times its a matter of getting used to and I do not believe that when it comes to "steering feel" there is any real absolute. Unfortunately EPS gets a bad rap in tbhp, however even between Punto and Figo, for in-city driving Figo will be the clear winner and for on highway driving it will boil down to pure driver preference. I took Divya Sharan's Punto for a small spin and as a first impression I felt that the steering was incredibly heavy at slow speeds, its the heaviest I felt in any modern car (of the few I have driven). May be Punto's hydraulic unit is inherently like this or may be its because the car wears wide tyres and is heavy. I also felt that the diameter of the steering wheel was a tad small, which will again add to the sense of heaviness because more effort is required to turn the steering wheel. May be the heaviness is an aggregate effect of all the different factors above. What is for sure is that this car will be rock solid at high speeds.IMHO Figo's hydraulic unit is polar opposite of Punto's. First of all it's amazingly light in city and weighs up ok on the highway. But it is extremely responsive off center! So even if you move the wheel a little bit either side of "12" the car responds more than your input. Because of this when I first drove the Figo I felt "what a fidgety car!". It's only when I got used to it that I started loving Figo's steering! However this is completely different from Punto, where off-center steering is perfectly in-sync with where the front wheels are pointing.SX4's EPS unit on the other hand is basically dead off-center, absolutely nothing happens between "10 & 2", you can keep rocking the steering either side of 12 (like in old movies) and the car will basically track straight. However once you turn in the steering wheel enough and load it then you get a pretty good feedback about what the front wheels are doing. This is simply how the EPS is calibrated and I don't feel SX4 is a bad handler because once you know how the system works there is good feedback from front tyres. However I have found that nobody really shares this particular opinion of mine and most pretty much feel SX4 sucks but i beg to differ (). Yes because of the dead off center steering SX4 is a lazy lane changer (whereas Figo is quick as lightning), however its a matter of getting used to.Coming to the present discussion Swift's EPS unit will feel amazingly alive to SX4 drivers but it will feel meh to Figo drivers and positively lifeless to Punto drivers.My point being that many times its a matter of getting used to and I do not believe that when it comes to "steering feel" there is any real absolute. Unfortunately EPS gets a bad rap in tbhp, however even between Punto and Figo, for in-city driving Figo will be the clear winner and for on highway driving it will boil down to pure driver preference. Headlamps - Standard 55w Osram Bilux H4. Decent so far, but I may need to upgrade this one soon.



Low beam.







High beam.







Tail lamps - They are full LED units and they look awesome. Also, they are a direct replacement for the old Punto.



Build quality, paint quality, panel gaps, fit and finish - The car is built like a tank. It has a very sturdy build. Paint quality is good too. Red in fact is the only non metallic paint used, rest shades are metallic. However, they add 6k to the overall cost of the car.

Panel gaps are uniform almost throughout, at least to the common man's eyes. However, I feel that the bonnet could have been shut tighter.







Fit and finish is up to segment standards. I frankly don't have any complaints (yet) in this area.



Horn - The car gets dual horns as standard and they do the job quite well. Below is a pic taken from the official review.







Tires and brakes - Apollo Aceleres 195/60/R15 with diamond cut alloys. Look fantastic. However, there is slight tire noise above 90 kmph on the highway with windows rolled down. Grip is good.







Brakes are awesome! Period. However I wished rear brakes were discs too. However the pedal travel is a little longer than I would have liked.

Spare wheel is 14 inch with steel rim.



I (undesirably) tested the car's ABS on the Bangalore - Chitradurga 6 lane highway when a rider ahead lost his cap type helmet in the wind and it landed not very far from the car. I was thankfully on the left lane (rider on the middle lane, overtaking me) and hence I didn't have to steer to a slower lane while braking. The car stopped well in time, with any fuss. This was on a dry afternoon. I would however never want to test the ABS again, especially in sand or wet conditions.



However, I later started practicing engine braking alongside and I must admit I have stopped a few times on short notice and ABS hasn't been activated for I don't get the judder at the pedal. This should help me lengthen the brake pads' life as well.



Ground Clearance - 185 mm. More than enough for most roads I would take my car to. However, on very high mountain like speed bumps and crater sized potholes, one should crawl through in order to save the underbelly.







Suspension and handling - Very compliant and well tuned. Handles city roads and undulations well, though it is a teeny weeny bit on the hard side for city rides but it comes to its own on the ghat sections. One of the best tuned suspensions in its segment I believe!

A special applause for the chassis too. It seems they always wanted to make a drivers' car.



Handling is where the car truly shines. It truly sticks to the line on the curves, provided the driver has the nerves!

It's a rock solid tank on the highway. With stickier tires, I feel this car will be even better in terms of driving pleasure.



One shot from my drive to Mullayanagiri, the highest peak in KA.







I really enjoyed the curves, except the broken, bone jarring (last) 1 km towards the top since it has no boundaries and is a steep drop in the valley below. Not once did the under body get hit though!



Safety features - ABS + EBD + (only) 2 airbags. I however added some more protection of my own!







Interior, storage areas and boot space - 2 tone in light beige and black. Diesel Emotion gets full black treatment and I would have loved to have the same. The fabric dashboard and seat (light beige portions) are prone to get dirty. Ambient lighting on the passenger side dash looks cool at night.







Glove box gets a light and it is air cooled. However, it is not spacious enough to keep anything apart from vehicle documents. A small felt lined compartment is present on the top of the dashboard (above the central AC console) which can be used to store keys, toll tickets etc.



MID displays a lot of usable information and it really looks lovely at night.







Driver foot well gets a dead pedal which is a big comfort on the highways.

Please excuse the dirt, as the car had done some muddy trails only a couple of days ago. By the way, this is why one should abandon fabric mats and use 3D mats instead.







Stalks are of decent quality and they look like built to last. However, they aren't on the conventional side (indicators on the left and wipers on the right).



Seat belts at the front can be adjusted as per the person's height. However, I haven't felt the need to alter the factory set height for my frame.



4 people can sit comfortably but a 5th passenger is not welcome. Moreover, with my 180 cm frame, anyone larger than 175 cm would not feel very comfortable behind me. The cabin doesn't feel claustrophobic. However, there are no practical storage areas. There are no usable places to hold a water bottle except behind the front seats.



Front doors open wide, in 3 steps.







Rear doors open wide too, albeit in 2 steps. Look at the limited knee room available for the rear passengers.







Front seats get forward/behind, height adjustment features which is good, but there is no dedicated lumbar support. Seat are generally comfortable. Steering gets tilt adjustment. It took me only a day to find a suitable driving position for myself. However, with whatever adjustment I make, I feel that knees need a little more room. Quirks of a Fiat I would say. I don't feel any pain in city traffic but on longer drives (800-1000 km overall types), I get mild pain near the knees.



This is the view from the rear passenger seat.







The boot is enough for 2 medium sized suitcases and few smaller bags.

It gets a small nifty light that provides decent illumination.







Loading bay isn't flat and one needs to hold the luggage up and place it "in" the boot. Rear seats would need to be folded down to accommodate heavy luggage. Rear parcel tray gets hooks at both ends to keep it in place and it does the job of hiding contents in the boot from prying eyes.



Air conditioning - The car is equipped with an ACC that actually works. I usually set the temperature to 25 degrees even in the hottest of days, just to not get burnt after I get out of the car. Rear vents work well too. The cabin gets cooled in no time. AC vents have flow and direction control.







Music system - Decent for my usage. Audiophiles definitely would want an upgrade. Bass is good though! 2 sets of tweeters and 4 speakers do the job well for a mango man!



Bluetooth pairing and hands free is taken care of seamlessly by the Blue & Me system. However, GPS voice guidance doesn't come from the car speakers despite all my attempts at all settings on the phone and in the car. If anyone has done this, please share.



Windscreen, IRVMs and ORVMs - Windscreen is wide but the thick A pillar causes some blind spots. Also, the dashboard reflects on the windscreen on sunny days. Not bad, but bothersome at times.



I also got rear windscreen wipers and I feel they are as important as ORVMs. Wonder why manufacturers skip them on lower trims.

ORVMs should have been a little wider IMHO. Though the coverage is neat and they get integrated blinkers too.

IRVMs are okay. They provide decent rear-ward visibility however they don't get auto dimming feature for night rides.



Exterior - I'd admit that Punto Evo isn't as classy as its predecessor, but it still turns heads. I love the power bulge on the bonnet.







However, I hated the chrome bits on the car (not in terms of quality but in terms of looks), except the ones present at the center of both bumpers (front and back). However I took care of those chrome bits.







Engine and gearbox - The engine is rev happy and quite comfortable doing 100 kmph at a little over 3000 RPM. However, I have set the over speed warning at this mark so that I remain below it most of the time. It helps a lot with mileage figures too.

I feel up to 90 kmph is best for mileage as well as safe(r) on our highways.

City drive-ability is fine, however the steering feels heavy at slow speeds. Many speed breakers can be dealt with in 2nd gear but the real nasty ones do command one shift down to 1st.



In terms of peppiness, it loses out to most of the competition in city. I put that responsibility on the weight it carries over the competition and it's gearbox. Weight alone adds almost 200 kg extra.

MID figures and actual world figures are always within 5% of one another (based on full tank to full tank method after auto cut-off).

The max mileage received in city has been 14.7 kmpl and on the highway has been ~19 kmpl. I usually stick under 3000 RPM on the open roads and hence such figures.







The gearbox is rubbery when compared to say, a Maruti. We have a Wagon R at home and it feels like heaven in city while changing gears when compared to the Evo's persistent discomfort in the gluteus maximus, as a friend of mine would say! I do wish Fiat gave it shorter shifts (in terms of throw) but the gates are well defined. I never get a false gear. Yes, it's troublesome driving enthusiastically with this GB though. However, people looking for a short shift kit may have a look at this one -



Service experience - The first (free) service was carried out at 4700 km on the ODO since I had a trip planned. Engine oil level was checked and not replaced despite my request, coolant was checked, tires were checked but their alignment machine was out of order, hence they didn't even rotate the tires. So I basically got my car back in a few hours after a good wash and polish. Cost me nothing. I shall reward it 8/10.



I headed to a tire shop and got the tires rotated as well as aligned. Then I headed to an engine oil shop and got the oil drained too (though it was FS, but I was running in my car. So.). A fresh fill for the next 10,000 km.

In the ~5900+ km covered so far, I thankfully have no niggles or rattles.



Mods done/planned - Covered all chrome bits in CF and matte black (DIY). Everything else is stock. Although better bulbs are in the pipeline. I recently got Cyclops 3800 lumen LED bulb (H4) for my Karizma (nicknamed Kari) and it totally reeks of awesomeness, but I shall settle for a better halogen bulb for the time being.











P.S - Folks, this is my review of the Punto Evo 1.4 Emotion. Team BHP has covered the same in 2014 in full detail here - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ve-review.html P.P.S - Special thanks to TBHP core team for providing me with this platform to share my experiences. I have used a few pics from the official review. And many thanks to "drivebyfire" for taking some lovely snaps of mine and the car's!May 2015 - I finally managed stacking a decent amount of money thanks to my small(er) monthly savings and a huge LIC policy payout.I call up my mother and inform her that I'm booking my dream ride - Kawasaki Ninja 650!She said she was busy and would call me at night. There was something different in her tone this time though. But she had been supportive (after endless quarrels and attempted brainwash sessions on me) about my Ninja dream for over a year now and it was her who said "If you wait for a year, you have an LIC payout - that would help!".Night arrived at 6:30 PM itself and I got a call from 2000 km away (Jharkhand).Caller - Hello!Me - Hello! How are you dad?Dad - I'm good son, are you home yet?Me - Yes, I came sometime back.Dad - Ok, talk to your mother.Me (tensed) - Yes, sure!Mom - Hello beta, so which car have you planned to buy?Me - Maa, I plan to book a Ninja 650 before I waste any more time. I would no longer ride my Karizma to Bokaro then like the last time. Such long journeys would be safer and less time consuming from now on.Mom - I like Honda Amaze. (completely bypassed the Ninja theory)Me - How did Amaze enter the equation? Do you imply I buy a car? Mom, this is not good. We discussed this already. Why this mentality?Mom (cold) - Take a look at whatever (car) you have to buy. We will come to Bangalore for the delivery. I'm so very excited. I know you're a matured boy and you'll buy the best in your budget. By the way, what is your budget you said?Me - Ninja 650 with few of my planned accessories will cost about 7.5 lacs.Mom - Where will we sit when we come there, in that case? Or how will you take one to the hospital in an emergency? (the same old circle of questions started)Me - Ok, let me save for 3 more months. I shall book a Nano as well. Accessories on the bike can wait.Mom - Please no!Me - Meh, I will talk to you later!I didn't sleep that night. I wanted to think with my mind. Thoroughly!Could I have the same amount of fun in a car? After all, I only know driving one, but I hardly have 100 km road experience in terms of driving it.The heart said, absolutely not. Mind said - how do you know? You haven't even tried it!A week flew past, mom called daily and brought up the topic of what car very enthusiastically each time. But I had an inherent liking for cars too, for I would read all reviews on TBHP, from the Nano to the Mercedes - all in detail. So I had an idea what I wanted, if I were to buy one!The only 2 issues with my choice were - top trim was 2 lacs over my budget and I wasn't sure if I needed a diesel.I called mom and I said - I "may" go to the showroom to inquire about Punto Evo.Punto Evo was a decision from the heart. Mind said Swift but heart fought back. It said - you already bypassed me by looking at a car, but trust me; Swift is no good.I decided to use both my heart's and mind's opinions.I looked up Google to locate a Fiat dealership and found that Aadya Motors, Bellary road was only a few km away from Dollars Colony.I paid them a visit, looked around and loved Linea Classic, but they said it wasn't available in top trim anymore and the new Linea had replaced it.I looked at Punto Evo 1.3 MJD and an Avventura. The decision was made! A Punto was coming home. No TD taken, just a vibe. That is all!Inquired for loans and discounts. They said they'll hook me up with SBH personnel for loans but they couldn't provide discounts on the Petrol Emotion I had asked for. 1.3 MJD had discounts.I decided to enquire at Prerna Motors, Mysore road too, since it was very close to my office (then) at Global Village, but they put me off in 10 min flat! Nobody attended to me after I said I was looking for a Punto purchase. I wondered if they were actually a Fiat dealership at all.- Kawasaki Ninja 650.- I preferred continuing with Aadya Motors because I was floored by their attitude. Very warm and totally opposite to Prerna and what people think about Fiat dealerships. I took loan for 5 years at 10.1% ROI with zero pre-closure charges. I had enquired alternatively at HDFC and they didn't seem the right folk to take loan from. ROI was higher at 11% too.I had in the meanwhile decided that Petrol version would do just fine even if I manage to drive a lot. I never intended to drive in city anyway! Except when absolutely needed that is.So, I was looking at 12k to 15k running in a year at the most. However, I have only managed ~6k till date (9th month running). However, that's due to few family issues and nothing to do with the car or my (un)willingness to drive.I paid a booking advance of 25k and chose the color Red, because an Italian car deserves red. Though I must say I loved black, but avoided it thinking about scratches and stuff.They arranged a TD in under a week after the booking. I called them at home and drove a Punto 1.4 (white) for a good 20 km from Dollars Colony to MG Road and back. They were prompt and I liked the experience. However, the car was a little dirty in the foot well area and on the outsides. I would give them a 9/10 on this one.In the end, I managed to get full bumper to bumper zero dep insurance policy for just a little more than the normal insurance Aadya was providing, parking sensors and rubber mats (soon taken by dad) after a lot of haggling.- 4th July 2015, 1 PM. No compromises there. 10/10. Extended warranty wasn't available at the time.- I carefully checked everything with the TBHP checklist ( http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/buying...heck-list.html ) and found nothing unusual. VIN number provided to me ascertained it was a May 2015 car and that was the latest I could have, as per Aadya. I would rate it as a 9/10, just because a June car would have made it a sweeter deal.The overall cost of purchase was 8.9 lacs. They gave a coupon for 5L of petrol, but since my parents were present on the delivery day, they talked some sweet sense into the dealership to give at least 10L and they did.Me and my parents during delivery. Customary pic taken at the dealership.I christened her, Bellissa. For some reason I treat my bike and car as females, probably because I love them a lot. He he.Bellissa is an Italian baby girl name meaning "The lovely one". Taken from - http://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/bellissa - 9/10, just due to the haggling and small petrol tokens. I mean, one buys a 9L car and that is big money for someone who is new in IT and haggling with him for few hundred rupees after providing him such a wonderful treatment spoils the fun a little.We got pooja done in Sanjay Nagar soon after and headed to CV Raman Nagar to meet my cousin to show my new toy. And then to JP Nagar to visit my uncle to boast a little more. And then to Bannerghatta road to meet a friend of my dad's. I hated this part but then I guess I cannot fight all the Bihari aspects at once. My parents were happy and I only wished they didn't overdo the thing and I'm glad they didn't.- 1.4 L NA petrol powered aka 1.4 FIRE aka Punto Evo Emotion. (90 hp badge is available only on 1.3 MJD Emotion variant)- Hydraulic power assist. One of the best in the segment.A view from the cockpit at night.The dimension of the steering wheel is a tad small, but decent. I feel this adds to the already heavy feeling compounded by the wide tires all round.My friend drivebyfire loves Ford Figo's steering and he was very impressed by the way Punto's steering works.I've taken the liberty to quote his post from the Punto Close Look thread here.- Standard 55w Osram Bilux H4. Decent so far, but I may need to upgrade this one soon.Low beam.High beam.- They are full LED units and they look awesome. Also, they are a direct replacement for the old Punto.- The car is built like a tank. It has a very sturdy build. Paint quality is good too. Red in fact is the only non metallic paint used, rest shades are metallic. However, they add 6k to the overall cost of the car.Panel gaps are uniform almost throughout, at least to the common man's eyes. However, I feel that the bonnet could have been shut tighter.Fit and finish is up to segment standards. I frankly don't have any complaints (yet) in this area.- The car gets dual horns as standard and they do the job quite well. Below is a pic taken from the official review.- Apollo Aceleres 195/60/R15 with diamond cut alloys. Look fantastic. However, there is slight tire noise above 90 kmph on the highway with windows rolled down. Grip is good.Brakes are awesome! Period. However I wished rear brakes were discs too. However the pedal travel is a little longer than I would have liked.Spare wheel is 14 inch with steel rim.I (undesirably) tested the car's ABS on the Bangalore - Chitradurga 6 lane highway when a rider ahead lost his cap type helmet in the wind and it landed not very far from the car. I was thankfully on the left lane (rider on the middle lane, overtaking me) and hence I didn't have to steer to a slower lane while braking. The car stopped well in time, with any fuss. This was on a dry afternoon. I would however never want to test the ABS again, especially in sand or wet conditions.However, I later started practicing engine braking alongside and I must admit I have stopped a few times on short notice and ABS hasn't been activated for I don't get the judder at the pedal. This should help me lengthen the brake pads' life as well.- 185 mm. More than enough for most roads I would take my car to. However, on very high mountain like speed bumps and crater sized potholes, one should crawl through in order to save the underbelly.- Very compliant and well tuned. Handles city roads and undulations well, though it is a teeny weeny bit on the hard side for city rides but it comes to its own on the ghat sections. One of the best tuned suspensions in its segment I believe!A special applause for the chassis too. It seems they always wanted to make a drivers' car.Handling is where the car truly shines. It truly sticks to the line on the curves, provided the driver has the nerves!It's a rock solid tank on the highway. With stickier tires, I feel this car will be even better in terms of driving pleasure.One shot from my drive to Mullayanagiri, the highest peak in KA.I really enjoyed the curves, except the broken, bone jarring (last) 1 km towards the top since it has no boundaries and is a steep drop in the valley below. Not once did the under body get hit though!- ABS + EBD + (only) 2 airbags. I however added some more protection of my own!- 2 tone in light beige and black. Diesel Emotion gets full black treatment and I would have loved to have the same. The fabric dashboard and seat (light beige portions) are prone to get dirty. Ambient lighting on the passenger side dash looks cool at night.Glove box gets a light and it is air cooled. However, it is not spacious enough to keep anything apart from vehicle documents. A small felt lined compartment is present on the top of the dashboard (above the central AC console) which can be used to store keys, toll tickets etc.MID displays a lot of usable information and it really looks lovely at night.Driver foot well gets a dead pedal which is a big comfort on the highways.Please excuse the dirt, as the car had done some muddy trails only a couple of days ago. By the way, this is why one should abandon fabric mats and use 3D mats instead.Stalks are of decent quality and they look like built to last. However, they aren't on the conventional side (indicators on the left and wipers on the right).Seat belts at the front can be adjusted as per the person's height. However, I haven't felt the need to alter the factory set height for my frame.4 people can sit comfortably but a 5th passenger is not welcome. Moreover, with my 180 cm frame, anyone larger than 175 cm would not feel very comfortable behind me. The cabin doesn't feel claustrophobic. However, there are no practical storage areas. There are no usable places to hold a water bottle except behind the front seats.Front doors open wide, in 3 steps.Rear doors open wide too, albeit in 2 steps. Look at the limited knee room available for the rear passengers.Front seats get forward/behind, height adjustment features which is good, but there is no dedicated lumbar support. Seat are generally comfortable. Steering gets tilt adjustment. It took me only a day to find a suitable driving position for myself. However, with whatever adjustment I make, I feel that knees need a little more room. Quirks of a Fiat I would say. I don't feel any pain in city traffic but on longer drives (800-1000 km overall types), I get mild pain near the knees.This is the view from the rear passenger seat.The boot is enough for 2 medium sized suitcases and few smaller bags.It gets a small nifty light that provides decent illumination.Loading bay isn't flat and one needs to hold the luggage up and place it "in" the boot. Rear seats would need to be folded down to accommodate heavy luggage. Rear parcel tray gets hooks at both ends to keep it in place and it does the job of hiding contents in the boot from prying eyes.- The car is equipped with an ACC that actually works. I usually set the temperature to 25 degrees even in the hottest of days, just to not get burnt after I get out of the car. Rear vents work well too. The cabin gets cooled in no time. AC vents have flow and direction control.- Decent for my usage. Audiophiles definitely would want an upgrade. Bass is good though! 2 sets of tweeters and 4 speakers do the job well for a mango man!Bluetooth pairing and hands free is taken care of seamlessly by the Blue & Me system. However, GPS voice guidance doesn't come from the car speakers despite all my attempts at all settings on the phone and in the car. If anyone has done this, please share.- Windscreen is wide but the thick A pillar causes some blind spots. Also, the dashboard reflects on the windscreen on sunny days. Not bad, but bothersome at times.I also got rear windscreen wipers and I feel they are as important as ORVMs. Wonder why manufacturers skip them on lower trims.ORVMs should have been a little wider IMHO. Though the coverage is neat and they get integrated blinkers too.IRVMs are okay. They provide decent rear-ward visibility however they don't get auto dimming feature for night rides.- I'd admit that Punto Evo isn't as classy as its predecessor, but it still turns heads. I love the power bulge on the bonnet.However, I hated the chrome bits on the car (not in terms of quality but in terms of looks), except the ones present at the center of both bumpers (front and back). However I took care of those chrome bits.- The engine is rev happy and quite comfortable doing 100 kmph at a little over 3000 RPM. However, I have set the over speed warning at this mark so that I remain below it most of the time. It helps a lot with mileage figures too.I feel up to 90 kmph is best for mileage as well as safe(r) on our highways.City drive-ability is fine, however the steering feels heavy at slow speeds. Many speed breakers can be dealt with in 2nd gear but the real nasty ones do command one shift down to 1st.In terms of peppiness, it loses out to most of the competition in city. I put that responsibility on the weight it carries over the competition and it's gearbox. Weight alone adds almost 200 kg extra.MID figures and actual world figures are always within 5% of one another (based on full tank to full tank method after auto cut-off).The max mileage received in city has been 14.7 kmpl and on the highway has been ~19 kmpl. I usually stick under 3000 RPM on the open roads and hence such figures.The gearbox is rubbery when compared to say, a Maruti. We have a Wagon R at home and it feels like heaven in city while changing gears when compared to the Evo's persistent discomfort in the gluteus maximus, as a friend of mine would say! I do wish Fiat gave it shorter shifts (in terms of throw) but the gates are well defined. I never get a false gear. Yes, it's troublesome driving enthusiastically with this GB though. However, people looking for a short shift kit may have a look at this one - http://www.short-shifters.com/f-shif...ifter-kit.html - The first (free) service was carried out at 4700 km on the ODO since I had a trip planned. Engine oil level was checked and not replaced despite my request, coolant was checked, tires were checked but their alignment machine was out of order, hence they didn't even rotate the tires. So I basically got my car back in a few hours after a good wash and polish. Cost me nothing. I shall reward it 8/10.I headed to a tire shop and got the tires rotated as well as aligned. Then I headed to an engine oil shop and got the oil drained too (though it was FS, but I was running in my car. So.). A fresh fill for the next 10,000 km.In the ~5900+ km covered so far, I thankfully have no niggles or rattles.- Covered all chrome bits in CF and matte black (DIY). Everything else is stock. Although better bulbs are in the pipeline. I recently got Cyclops 3800 lumen LED bulb (H4) for my Karizma (nicknamed Kari) and it totally reeks of awesomeness, but I shall settle for a better halogen bulb for the time being. Last edited by Aditya : 30th March 2016 at 06:50 . Reason: As requested
Google is on a quest to make Gmail the safest email service around by introducing a couple of new security improvements. The features are designed to help Gmail's billion-plus users avoid phishing, malware, and malicious software, as well as alerting them if they're the suspected target of a state-sponsored hacking attempt.

Google's Safe Browsing technology, which launched eight years ago, provides lists of URLs that contain malware or phishing content to various web resources. The security feature is found in Google products such as Chrome, Android, and Ads.

Safer Browsing is already used in Gmail; it warns if a message contains a potentially dangerous link. Starting this week, Google is extending the alert by showing users a full-page warning if they decide to click on the malicious link.

Google - like Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo - informs users if it suspects they are being spied on by state-sponsored actors. The feature was brought to Gmail in 2012, and although there has only been a small number of people who have seen the warnings - less than 0.1 percent - Google is improving the alerts as it says they are "critically important." With the update, an additional full-page warning will be introduced that includes instructions about how targeted users can stay safe.

Last month, Google celebrated Safer Internet Day by introducing a new feature to Gmail that warned users when they sent and received emails over unsecured connections. The company said that in the 44 days since it was introduced, the amount of inbound mail sent over an encrypted connection increased 25 percent.

"We're very encouraged by this progress! Given the relative ease of implementing encryption and its significant benefits for users, we expect to see this progress continue," Google said.
T Mobile has begun testing its version of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for owners of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge on its network. The carrier has officially moved the software upgrade from the manufacturer development phase to the testing phase on its official support page, indicating final release of the update is imminent.

The only U.S. carrier whose customers have received the update so far is Sprint, which released the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge owners on its network earlier this month. Verizon and AT&T have yet to release the upgrade, even though AT&T had a scheduled release date this month for the former Samsung flagships that was not met and has since passed.

That doesn't mean that either of those carriers won't beat T-Mobile to the punch in the actual release of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. T-Mobile's rivals don't generally pre-announce the release of Android software updates, nor do they offer official progress reports on their eventual release. That means that either Verizon or AT&T could be releasing the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge ahead of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is the only U.S. carrier that officially reports three software upgrade stages: Manufacturer Development, T-Mobile Testing and Completed. "Manufacturer Development" indicates that the carrier is in the process of creating the update for a particular handset. "Testing" indicates that the development process is complete and that the upgrade is being checked for quality and consistency before being released to the carrier's customers before being moved to the third and final phase, "Completed," upon which it is released to customers.

Previously, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were stuck in the first phase of the development program (where the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ still remains) but now that they have moved into phase two, it appears the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for both former Samsung flagship smartphones is on the horizon. The actual release date is unclear, but history indicates that, once a device moves into phase two of T-Mobile's development process, it should be ready for release within a matter of a couple weeks, unless there are any unforeseen issues or delays.

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A resort hotel on the moon may be just a few decades away, as the European Space Agency is proposing to build a lunar vacation spot. Tourists flying to our planetary companion will stay inside a structure, which will have parts made with the use of 3D printers.

This "Lunar Village" would be the first structure of its kind, a unique accomplishment for Europe, and the human race in general.

"My intention is to build up a permanent base station on the moon. ... Meaning that it's an open station, for different member states, for different states around the globe," said Jan Woerner, director general of ESA.

The Lunar Village would likely be built near the poles of the moon, where water ice is trapped at the bottom of dark craters. Such placement would not only provide water for the tourists, but would also allow for constant daylight, unlike other locations on the lunar surface.

Visitors would wear normal clothing while inside the resort, donning spacesuits when out on the lunar surface.

The proposal outlining the plan suggests that this resort could house scientists and prospectors, along with the next generation of space tourists. Construction of the facility would largely be financed by Russia, together with contributions from China, Japan and India.

ESA managers are warning the public of space travel dangers, including extreme temperatures, radiation from the sun, and micrometeorites.

By 2030, it may be possible to construct a base on the moon, providing a supply station for space travelers on their journeys to Mars or other locations in the solar system, mission engineers speculate.

"The ESA space-exploration strategy sets the moon as a priority destination for humans on the way to Mars, and the recent talk of a 'Moon Village' certainly has generated a lot of positive energy in Europe ... [of] Europe playing a role in a global human exploration scenario," said Kathy Laurini of NASA's Exploration Roadmap Working Group.

Although such a base is feasible, there are no dates set yet for the public grand opening. Tourists wishing to visit the moon can afford to wait to pack their bags - rockets ferrying passengers to the lunar surface are not leaving anytime soon.

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Googles Android Pay is set to arrive in the United Kingdom in the succeeding months.

The company is launching its mobile payment service in the United Kingdom six months after it was initially rolled out in the United States.

"Android users in the UK are already enjoying many great features of Android from Google Photos to Google Play, and in the next few months, Android smartphones will become even more useful with the launch of Android Pay," Google says in a blog post. "We're bringing together payment networking banks and retailers to help you pay simply and securely."

Googles payment service is going to support Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards. The Mountain View-based companys key banking partners in the United Kingdom include First Direct, Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, HDBC, MBNA, M&S Bank and Nationwide Building Society. It says, though, that new banks are being added on its list all the time.

With Android Pays existence in the U.K., users will soon be able to purchase using Android Pay anywhere in the region where contactless payments are accepted. The list of merchants accepting this payment method consist of Costa Coffee, Boots, Starbucks, KFC, Waitrose and more. One will soon likewise be able to use the mobile payment service with Transport for London (TfL).

Of course, consumers can also take advantage of Android Pay while shopping within an app, such as JD Sports, YPlan, Deliveroo, Kickstarter, Zara and more. This makes paying for your items swifter, as users will no longer need to key in their address and payment details every now and then.

The company says Android Pay is on the rise. In fact, it receives 1.5 million new registrations per month. More retailers and apps have also joined forces with Google to make it easier for consumers to buy products by simply tapping to pay at a wide array of physical stores.

Not so long ago, a report surfaced claiming that Google is believed to launch Android Pay in the U.K. However, the report says that Google will unveil it later in the month. Do note that Google says in its recent blog post that it has yet to launch the mobile payment service in the next few months.

"Google's rival to Apple Pay will make its British debut at the end of March, as the Web giant attempts to muscle into the emerging mobile payments industry," said the report of the Telegraph, citing its industry sources.

At the moment, Apple Pay is the only available mobile payment service in the region.

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There's something odd about Easter bunnies. Bunnies don't lay eggs and have never been mentioned in the Bible. In fact, Easter is a well-celebrated Christian event.

So why do we get crazy with egg hunts?

The history of the Easter bunny and its eggs is murky at best, but experts have theories.

The Story Of Eostre

Back in the olden days of Germany, people used to venerate to a goddess named Eostre (Ostara). With her festival celebrated during the spring equinox, she had become the symbol of new life or rebirth.

She's also the goddess of fertility with shoulders and head of a hare, an animal known to have a very high reproductive rate, as her symbol. A legend, however, shared the choice was special. The goddess herself appointed the hare because of its sincere and generous heart when it offered the most precious thing it owned: an egg.

While the pagan festival waned, the custom continued with children secretly laying nests on the ground in the hopes that the fabled bunny would lay its colorful eggs on them.

Reaching The American Soil

In the 1700s, a group of Dutch immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania and settled in the state. Perhaps as a way of remembering where they came from or they're just used to their own culture and tradition, the Easter bunny and eggs persisted among the children.

Surprisingly, the Americans became curious and adopted the custom, and before we know it, it took a sweeter turn. They included chocolates and different types of candies and gifts, while nests became decorated baskets.

This story is only in a secular perspective. How did Christians learn to embrace it?

For this, we have to go back to the Bible.

The Bunny, Egg, And Christianity

According to the Bible, Jesus died on the cross, bringing with him all sins of the world. But when he resurrected on the third day, not only did he give his followers hope  he also blessed them with renewal, much like springtime.

Before he ascended into heaven, he instructed his disciples to spread the good news around the world. But the world then might already be following pagan traditions, including the festival of Ostara.

Thus, it's likely that Ostara was depaganized the same way they did with Christmas  that is, keeping some of the memorable traditions and adopting them to fit the ideals of Christianity. Although some experts believe that Easter doesn't have any pagan connection in the first place or that one of the Grimm brothers, Jacob, started the rumor.

In the end, for many, how these Easter bunnies came about doesn't matter much. What does is that Easter egg hunting is fun!

Photo: Jo del Corro | Flickr

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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission orders Exxon Mobil to uphold shareholder vote, Reuters reported.

The resolution, if approved, is a big blow to the oil giant as it needs to provide shareholders an outline of profitability in case legislation starts to find ways of combatting climate change.

The coalition of investors headed by Thomas P. DiNapoli, a New York State comptroller, introduced the proposal after the Paris consensus on climate change and saw the resolution as a win for the shareholders. The group, which corresponds to more than $1 billion Exxon shares, is deeply concerned on the effect of climate change on their portfolios.

"Investors need to know if Exxon Mobil is taking necessary steps to prepare for a lower-carbon future," said DiNapoli.

The order does not sit well with the largest publicly traded oil producer as it has previously rejected a proposition of having an independent director with expertise in climate change to sit in the board. The firm said the SEC proposal is unclear and they have already provided carbon disclosures [pdf].

The arguments raised by Exxon were dismissed by the SEC.

"Based on the information you have presented, it does not appear that exxon Mobil's public disclosures compare favourably with the guidelines of the proposal," wrote Justin A. Kisner, SEC attorney-adviser.

Exxon refused to comment on the issue but Alan T. Jeffers, the company's spokesperson said the company would "provide the board's position on the shareholder resolution in our proxy document."

The heightened awareness on climate change puts pressure on Exxon. The SEC resolution is just one of the trials that Exxon is facing right now. The company has another carbon-associated investigation carried out by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who inquires whether the firm knowingly misled its shareholders and the public about the potential risks of climate change.

Years before climate change was a hot topic, Exxon's own research in the 1970s found a link between global warming and burning of fossil fuels.

Climate change and global warming are characterized by the rise in the surface temperatures of Earth. It is brought about by an overwhelming of fossil fuels that discharge carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. NASA reported that atmospheric carbon diuseoxide grew by 3.05 parts per million in 2015  the largest growth in 56 years of research.

Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr

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The Blu-ray version of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" hit torrent websites three months after the movie's release.

The Hollywood epic space opera film was released in cinemas on Dec. 18, 2015. The movie will be officially available for download on April 1 followed by the release of the official DVD and Blu-ray on April 5 this year.

Several camcorder versions of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" were uploaded on torrent sites soon after the film hit cinemas. However, the torrents have disappointed viewers.

A pirate group going by the name of REPLiCA has managed to get hold of the official "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Blu-Ray about a couple of weeks ahead of its official release. The group has also uploaded the HD version of the film on torrent sites.

Considering the hype surrounding the movie and the huge fan following of the "Star Wars" franchise, it does not come as a surprise that thousands of people would want to watch the film from the comfort of their homes. Torrent Freak reports that the first copy of the torrent became available on Tuesday and within 12 hours of being online, it had been downloaded more than 250,000 times. This number is highly likely to increase to a few million in the next few days.

The number of downloads reported for a movie like "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" should not come as a surprise. However, given the popularity of the movie, it may become the most torrented movie this year.

"Interstellar," a science fiction film directed by Christopher Nolan, was released in October 2014. The film was downloaded 46 million times in 2015, indicating the popularity of downloading movies from torrent sites.

Reports suggest that content uploaders are required to supply torrent websites with a photo of the physical disc as proof that they have a legit copy of the film. REPLiCA has posted an image of the movie's Blu-ray disc, which appears to be a regular retail copy.

It is worth noting that millions of people download movies from torrent sites. However, downloaders should be aware that the Blu-ray download file could be huge and may have malware, which can affect a computer system. Many people may want to buy a legal copy of the film, which is considered to be a better option.

It remains to be seen if the leaked copy of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" affects the retail sales to a significant degree. The movie's official Blu-ray copy will include additional material such as behind-the-scenes action and other features absent in the pirated version.

Photo: David Holt | Flickr

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Logitech has taken the wraps off its latest offering in the wireless gaming mice lineup, the G900 Chaos Spectrum, which the company asserts is the "most advanced" and best gaming mouse currently around.

The Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum mouse is essentially targeted at gamers and packs in the latest wireless technology, as well as an advanced optical gaming sensor. The G900 Chaos Spectrum houses the PMW3366 optical sensor, which supports 200 to 12,000 DPI.

The G900 Chaos Spectrum is also ambidextrous so people who are left- or right-handed can both use it with ease. However, the mouse is not limited to being just operable on either hand but can be customized so that it fits as a right-handed or left-handed model, thanks to the magnetic cover buttons.

Moreover, the mouse has customizable lighting color - up to 16.8 million colors - and users have the option of deploying the Logitech Gaming Software to even customize the lighting color and brightness according to their preference.

Users can even calibrate the sensor depending on the surface on which the mouse will be used. This aspect will aid the responsiveness of the mouse immensely.

The G900 Chaos Spectrum also wins brownie points for being lightweight. It weighs only 3.8 ounces, thanks to the sleek wall molding and the hollow "spoked" design of the hyper-scroll wheel.

The wireless mouse measures 5.12 x 2.64 x 1.57 inches and is pretty compact. Thanks to its near weightlessness and compactness, the G900 Chaos Spectrum has a swift response to movement and is comfortable to use for long periods.

The wireless mouse is so powerful that it can outperform rivals, both wired and wireless, with ease. It can connect to over 2.4 GHz and one also has the option of converting the G900 Chaos Spectrum into a wired mouse through a 6-foot-long cable that can be connected on the front of the device. The cable will enable users to charge the mouse even when using it.

"We talked with eSports pros and none of them love the cable on a wired mouse. They wish they had the freedom of wireless but the performance and reliability of a wired mouse. So that was the design goal we gave our engineers, to build a wireless gaming mouse that was faster than the competition's wired gaming mice," noted Ujesh Desai, vice president and general manager of gaming at Logitech. "G900 delivers on this promise, and we're confident it's the best gaming mouse we've ever built."

The power efficiency of the mouse has also been given a lot of thought and Logitech has succeeded in offering 32 hours or 24 hours (with default lighting) of continuous use for the G900 Chaos Spectrum.

The G900 Chaos Spectrum mouse from Logitech is slated to go on sale in April in Europe and the United States and will set consumers back by 179 or $149.99. Gamers can preorder the mouse from the company's product page.

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Lindsay Diaz's home was damaged by a tornado on Dec. 26. After securing a rebuilding permit and saying that she's ready to start her life over, it seems like her dreams are once again "crushed," although things may be impossible to repair this time.

Diaz and her young son survived the tornado by using a bathtub for cover. The incident left her and her son staying in a hotel at first, before settling in a rented home.

Now, the woman says she got a call from a neighbor who frantically told her that a company came and demolished her house.

Diaz, along with Alan Cutter, who owned the other unit in the demolished duplex, lived at 7601 and 7603 Calypso Drive in Rowlett, Texas.

The demolition company was supposed to tear down a house at 7601 Cousteau Drive, which is just a block away from the duplex.

Seeing the rubble of what once was her home, Diaz exclaimed in disbelief how the demolition company, identified as Billy L. Nabors Demolition, managed to commit such a terrible mistake and described it as the "worst" one she'd seen so far.

According to the company, the demo workers checked Diaz's address before they started with the demolition. While they acknowledged that they had the correct information on the house number, the workers cited that they had the wrong street.

An employee reportedly sent Diaz a screenshot that showed her address in Google Maps and the address of the intended house for demolition.

While the demolition incident was due to a mistake in Google Maps, Diaz understandably finds it hard to understand what happened, especially since she had recently received encouraging news.

Prior to the incident, Diaz got a report from a structural engineer who wrote that her home was structurally sound and did not require demolition. Her home only needed a few repairs, such as the walls and rafters on the roof that had to be replaced.

The company said that the incident is currently being investigated. It was also reported that after the demolition crew tore down Diaz's home by mistake, they immediately proceeded to the intended house for the demolition and went on with their work.

So far, the company has not yet apologized about the error.

Diaz made an information report and filed it at the police headquarters in Rowlett to properly document the incident.

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Police in Northumbria, Newcastle released a video where some men looked 'zombified' in the streets due to 'legal highs.' The video showed some of them collapsing, fighting and stumbling on the streets after taking the drug.

The Northumbria police have already warned the legal high users that they will be actively pursued.

"I have been a determined campaigner on this issue, calling for the government to take firm action against those who make these products and those who sell them," said Vera Baird, police and crime commissioner at North Devon, Newcastle.

Baird added that a crackdown has resulted to a 51.7 percent decline of calls related to legal high use, while North East Ambulance Service calls resulted to a decrease of 63.1 percent.

The video was published on YouTube and is now gaining more than 30,000 views.

What Are Legal Highs

Legal highs are controlled drugs by the government which has the same effect of illegal drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Some of the names known to legal highs are club drugs, new psychoactive substance (NPS), Mary Jane, Clockwork Orange, Bliss and Spice. The last four names can be highly inaccurate, officials warn.

It has three categories, namely sedatives or downers, stimulants and hallucinogens.

Sale And Distribution Of Legal Highs

The sale of these drugs is controlled by legislation, but some of it is still possessed legally. Health officials placed an emphasis on the "legal", but do not represent the availability for safe human consumption.

The packaging of these substances typically states "not for human consumption" and commonly seen in the packaging of plant foods and incense.

Risks Of Taking Legal Highs

"Legal highs can carry serious health risks," said a spokesman for the National Health Service (NHS).

Legal highs can cause:

-Reduced inhibitions

-Paranoia

-Seizures

-Mental disorder

-Coma

-Death

NHS added that the substances present in legal highs are not yet tested for human consumption, so the effects are also unknown.

Getting Medical Help

"Most problems with short-term use of legal highs will settle after you stop taking them," said NHS spokesperson.

The negative effects of legal highs will be just the same of those amphetamines and cocaine. It will eventually wear off after a few days, added NHS. However, if negative reactions persist after taking fluids and getting fresh air, one should contact the nearest hospital in the area.

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A rare Sumatran rhino was sighted by wildlife researchers in Kalimantan, Borneo. The sighting and first physical contact in more than 40 years paves the way for the rhino conservation efforts in Indonesia.

In August 2015, the International Rhino Foundation officially declared Sumatran rhinos, once endemic in the region, to be extinct. In an effort to save the species, the United States planned to send its last Sumatran rhino to Indonesia to breed.

The captured Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, a female, is estimated to be 4 to 5 years old and was caught safely in a pit trap set in Kutai Barat, east of Kalimantan.

A survey team of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) initially found evidence of the Sumatran rhino's existence in 2013 as they identified footprints and captured images via camera trap in the Kutai Barat forest. The team's effort was able to identify about 15 Sumatran rhinos in three areas of the forest.

"This is an exciting discovery and a major conservation success," said Dr. Efransjah, CEO of WWF-Indonesia. "We now have proof that a species once thought extinct in Kalimantan still roams the forests, and we will now strengthen our efforts to protect this extraordinary species."

The captured rhino is now safely held in an enclosure before transferring her to a new home, the second Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia, about 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) from her capture site.

The experts believe that providing a sanctuary for the rare rhinos is the last card in conserving them. Efransjah vowed that WWF will closely work with the Sumatran team in protecting the population of the rhinos in Indonesia.

Marco Lambertini, WWF International Director General, shared that the discovery will boost the organization's hope of saving the iconic symbol of the Asian rainforest.

In the island of Sumatra, less than 100 Sumatran rhinos are estimated to remain in the wild. Their existence is greatly affected by the threats of habitat loss due to plantations, mining, logging and increased incidence of poaching.

Sumatran rhinos are the smallest of the rhino species, only growing up to 950 kilograms (2,000 pounds). They are also known as hairy rhinos due to their noticeable reddish hair covering. They are often found as solitary grazers in dense forests.

Southeast Asia and Africa have five species of rhinoceros, of which the Javan rhino has the smallest population of only 63 left in the wild. Due to the dwindling number of rhinos in these areas the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warns that these rhinos are at risk of being extinct.

Photo: International Rhino Foundation | Flickr

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Pepco Holdings Inc. and Exelon Corporation have closed a deal worth $6.8 billion post getting a green signal for the merger from the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia.

On Wednesday, the transaction was completed, which now allows Exelon and Pepco to create the biggest power distributor in the U.S.

The regulators voted 2 to 1 in favor of the merger after both Pepco Holdings and Exelon agreed to the demands for concession made by city leaders.

The merger brings together ComEd, BGE and PECO - which are Exelon's electric and gas utilities - and Delmarva Power, Pepco and Atlantic City Electric (gas and electric utilities belonging to Pepco Holdings) to result in the creation of the biggest mid-Atlantic electric and gas utility company.

"We've made a number of commitments to customers in all of the Pepco Holdings utilities' jurisdictions - the District, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey - and we look forward to getting to work to deliver those benefits to our customers and communities," said Chris Crane, Exelon's CEO and President.

For the unfamiliar, the merger was initially announced in April 2014. It was approved by state utility commissions, as well as the U.S. Federal Energy regulatory Commission. However, in August 2015, the Washington D.C. Public Service Commission rejected the deal.

The Commission, however, relented to reconsider its decision when Exelon pledged that it will look to increase the planned investment from $14 million to $78 million in the district. Exelon also came to an agreement with Washington agencies and Mayor Muriel Bowser on the allocation of the funds. This was inclusive of the protections for local ratepayers residing in the district.

Pepco Holdings joins the Exelon group of companies post the merger. While Pepco Holdings has 2 million customers in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia and New Jersey, Exelon serves 7.8 million people in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois.

Exelon's CEO Chris Crane will continue to essay the same role, whereas Pepco Holdings' CEO Joseph Rigby will retire as an officer for the latter. Assuming the roles of CEO and president for Pepco Holdings is David M. Velazquez, who takes over Rigby's duties.

Pepco Holdings' Delmarva Power, Pepco and Atlantic City will stay separate entities and keep their local headquarters. Owing to the merger, the trading of Pepco Holdings' common stock on the NSE will get suspended from March 24, 2016. The shares will not be listed on the NSE anymore. Stockholders of Pepco Holdings will get $27.25 for each share they own.

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Sprint subscribers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 should get ready to step into the magic land of Android 6.0 Marshmallow very soon.

The changelog details the content of the update, and those who never used Marshmallow are in for a big treat.

Android Central reports that the update's size is of 1362.41 MB.

Not only will the phablet get the latest Android OS, but a novel version of TouchWiz is also in store, bringing enhanced usability and sleek visual design. A quick connect option is enabled, making sure your device quickly recognizes previous connectivity options. Looking at safety options, the latest Android operating system brings increased security filters.

Via the Doze function, the phone can now extend its battery life by restricting background data traffic. A new vibration pattern concept is also in the mix.

Google recommends that you update your apps after installing Marshmallow. With this in mind, access the Galaxy Apps or Play Store right after your OS upgrade to get all your apps to top speed.

It should be mentioned that Android 6.0 Marshmallow offers no support for the Decrypt device function. This means that, should your mobile device be encrypted, you cannot disable the option after upgrading the OS.

Your Sprint Galaxy Note 5 should receive the notification about the upgrade any day now, but if you're curious, simply check for it manually. To do so, just go to Settings > About Phone > Software updates > Check for Update.

If the Marshmallow treat is available, you will be able to grab the update by tapping the Download now button.

Reports indicated that other carriers, such as AT&T, are preparing to upgrade the OS of the Galaxy Note 5 to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Verizon already updated the OS for its Note 5 customers, ahead of rivals such as T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon.

Android 6.0 landed in other markets, as well: Galaxy Note 5 owners from India recently started to receive the update.

Some users point out that the Android Marshmallow update for the Galaxy Note 5 packs a few hiccups, however. Dismayed customers report facing issues with Wi-Fi and battery drain.

Samsung is expected to solve the problems in the second version of the OS. However, no official release date is available yet.

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Japan has confirmed the killing of more than 300 whales, 200 of which were pregnant females during its latest whaling mission.

The announcement was made as ships from Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which were in the Antarctic region since December 2015, returned Thursday from a "scientific" expedition, which the ICR claims is being done in the name of science.

The Fisheries Agency said that the four-ship whaling fleet has returned to Shimonoseki in southwestern Japan having achieved the goal of taking 333 minke wales, 103 of which were males and 230 females. Of the mature females captured, 90 percent were pregnant.

"The number of pregnant females is consistent with previous hunts, indicating that the breeding situation of minke whales in the Antarctic is healthy," the Fisheries Agency said in a statement.

Japan's new quota is significantly fewer compared with its annual kill limit of 935 whales in the past. The reduction appears to have been influenced by criticisms and calls against the country's whaling practices.

Eating whale is part of Japan's culture and the country has long claimed that most species of whale are not endangered.

Its whaling practices though have long been a subject of criticism and its latest decision to conduct another whaling expedition is a defiance of the International Court of Justice ruling that declared the Antarctic whaling illegal.

Many believe that Japan's whaling expeditions are not for scientific purpose. Australian Marine Conservation Society Director Darren Kindleysides said that international experts have examined Japan's so-called scientific research and found it was just a guise for killing whales.

It appears, however, that the hunts are neither motivated by a market for whale meat. Although most of the meat from whale hunts ends up on shop shelves, many Japanese no longer eat them.

Demand and consumption for whale meat per person has declined to just about 50 grams in 2005 from 2,000 grams in 1967 prompting shops in Japan to reduce the prices of whale meat by half in 2009 so as to move stockpiles.

Japan plans to take nearly 4,000 whales for the next 12 years as part of its research program. It has also acknowledged looking forward for the resumption of commercial whaling.

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A hospital in Kentucky declared an "internal state of emergency" after a number of files on its computer systems were infected by encryption. The perpetrators behind the ransomware attack are holding data hostage and will only give them back once the hospital pays up.

The attackers are reportedly demanding just four bitcoins in order for them to hand over a key that would unlock the encrypted files. Based on the exchange rate, the ransom amount is equivalent to around $1,600.

In staging the attack, the perpetrators are said to have used Locky, a new strain of malware in encrypting valuable files. After initially infecting a machine, the perpetrators reportedly continued infecting the hospital's internal network, along with several other systems.

The Locky malware works by encrypting all of the victim's important files, documents and images and then deleting the original files in the end. Victims who need to regain access to their affected files will only have two ways to do so: either they restore the files from a backup or they pay the ransom.

Choosing the first option can be successful as long as the backup is not found on a network that can be freely accessed from a compromised PC.

Jamie Reid, information systems director of Methodist Hospital, said that the hospital decided to shut down all of its desktop computers in order to thwart the attack from compromising several other systems. One by one, the hospital brought the affected systems back after it had scanned each one for signs of attack.

"As everyone's talking about the computer problem at the hospital maybe we ought to just treat this like a tornado hit," said David Park, an attorney for the Kentucky healthcare center, in a statement released to Krebs On Security.

Park added that the hospital administration hasn't ruled out the option of resolving the issue by paying the demanded amount for ransom. He said that while the hospital is still working through the process, paying the ransom will be the last resort - it won't pay "unless we absolutely have to."

The attack is currently being investigated by the FBI, which declined to make a comment on the incident. In a January report, the FBI said that while ransomware has been in existence for several years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of attacks lately by cyber criminals who prey on businesses and institutions.

Just recently, an LA hospital faced a similar ransomware attack, which held its computer system hostage for a whopping ransom of 9,000 Bitcoin, amounting to roughly $3.6 million.

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The feud between Apple and the FBI over encryption rages on, as FBI is looking to break through the security of the iPhone that was used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino incident.

The FBI, however, has filed a motion to delay the planned March 22 hearing with Apple, as it said that an outside party has stepped up with a possible method to break through the iPhone's encryption without Apple's help.

The legal battle is the latest high-profile case on online security between tech companies and a federal government. Google, for one, is supporting the cause of making the Internet more secure for users, even against government activity.

Google, through a post on the official Google Security blog, revealed that it had improved the overall security of Gmail by providing more information to users on what is happening with their accounts.

One new feature coming to Gmail is a full-page warning that would alert users if Google suspects that they are being targeted by the government.

Gmail has been notifying users of possible state-sponsored hacking attempts since 2012, with the warning only appearing as a bar on top of the Gmail website. Google said that less than 0.1 percent of users have actually received the warnings, with these users mostly being journalists, activists or policy makers that are involved in sensitive issues.

The new full-page warning, which could replace or be shown in addition to the previous kind of notification, states more detail on the possibility that the government is targeting the user's account.

"There's a chance this is a false alarm, but we believe that government-backed attackers may be trying to trick you to get your Google Account password," the warning states, adding that if successful, the attacker could spy on users and access their data.

Google recommends users receiving this warning to enable two-factor authentication for their Gmail accounts, as well as set up a Security Key for added protection.

In addition to the new warning for government attacks, Google also improved its Safe Browsing feature in Gmail by issuing notifications for users that click links they receive in e-mails. Before, users will only receive the warning before they click on the link, but with the change, a full-page warning will be displayed to users upon clicking the link to give them one more chance to back out from accessing it.

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Because of a precancerous lesion, 60-year-old Deborah Craven had her eighth rib removed last year at the Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. Unfortunately, she said the doctors removed a part of her seventh rib instead and she had to undergo another surgery for the correction.

Craven sued the Connecticut hospital, which responded with a statement last week. The hospital said it recognized that an error was committed and that it had informed and issued an apology to the patient. In the statement, the hospital added that it immediately reported the incident to the Connecticut Department of Health.

Joel Faxon, Craven's lawyer, said that his client never received the said apology. Instead, one of the surgeons tried to cover up the error. "No one apologized. And they never explained to her how the mistake was made," said Faxon.

On May 18, 2015, Craven complained about post-surgery pain and had an X-ray to determine the cause. Yale's assistant professor of surgery Dr. Anthony Kim told Craven that the wrong rib was removed.

Now here's the twist: Five minutes after Kim told the couple about the wrong rib, Dr. Ricardo Quarrie said something different.

Craven's complaint stated that Quarrie told them that the surgeons were unable to remove enough rib during the first surgery. Quarrie told Craven she had to have another operation for the correction.

"Making the patient undergo another surgery the same day, without owning up to the real medical reason for the repeat surgery is just plain deceitful," wrote Faxon in a press release.

For her second surgery, the Cravens made a specific request that Quarrie not be involved because they felt he was incompetent. Unfortunately, the medical records showed that Quarrie had also been involved in the second surgery.

The lawsuit said the correct rib had been marked with dye and metal coils pre-surgery so the Yale surgeons should have known that they took out the wrong rib. After the surgery, the surgeons should have known immediately that a mistake was made because they didn't remove the marking coils. The lawsuit also accused the Yale surgeons for their failure in conducting an X-ray to ensure they had operated properly.

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VHS may have been obsolete for years, but it still has a way of reminding us of its existence every now and then.

While these ancient bulky tapes might invoke bittersweet nostalgia  complete with all the rewinding involved  for most of us who actually had the privilege of experiencing them, not everyone gets to be so lucky when it comes to memories of this antiquated video recording medium.

James Meyers, 37, was arrested in North Carolina for failing to return a VHS tape he took out from a now defunct video store some 14 years ago.

Initially pulled over for a broken brake light while driving his 10-year-old daughter to school, an arguably awkward surprise ensued when the officer ran Meyers' license. There is a warrant out for his arrest for not returning the comedy film "Freddy Got Fingered" he rented in 2002!

Despite the rental store, J&J's Video in Salisbury, closing down several years ago, the warrant that was issued on Feb. 28, 2002 remains active and the single dad, who of course had to take his daughter to school at the time he was apprehended, later turned himself into the local police.

"I had my daughter in the car and we were on the way to school they said that I could take my daughter to school and go to work and then find a babysitter, and then come into the police and turn myself in," said Meyers.

He was processed and booked with failure to return hired property, a misdemeanor. He was then released on a written promise and was scheduled to appear in court on April 27.

Actor Tom Green, star of the film he rented - and apparently kept all these years  got wind of this story and tweeted, "I just saw this and I am struggling to believe it is real."

The actor also reached out to Meyers via phone call from Australia, promising to help in any way and even told Meyers to update him on the situation.

Hopefully, the laughs he got from the movie are worth the now-infamous arrest!

Photo: Kevin Dooley | Flickr

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A group of health experts wants to change drug policies worldwide starting with decriminalizing minor drug offenses. According to them, the stringent laws are simply not working and are only worsening public health.

In a report published in Lancet, the global commission including health experts from Bloomberg School of Public Health stresses that the current policies against war on drugs have only led to a public health crisis and harm on human rights and development.

Experts reveal that the risk of dying due to an overdose has increased as drug users have no access to medications that could have been life-saving. Petty drug offenders are also subjected to discrimination while the mass incarcerations damage relationships within communities and their families.

Further, these policies did very little to help curb the prevalence of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C, a chronic liver infection, in relation to drug use.

"In countries and regions where opiate substitution therapy remains unavailable or is not provided to scale, HIV and hepatitis C epidemics continue to expand. Furthermore, continued criminalization of drug use fuels HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis transmission within prisons and the community at large," says Commissioner Adeeba Kamarulzaman. She is also the dean and professor of the University of Malaya School of Medicine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Drug policies that exercise zero tolerance also reinforce drug cartels and violence such as in Mexico where more than 160,000 people were killed in a homicide between 2007 and 2014. The poor security in the country may have contributed to the increasing number of Mexican refugees in the United States.

The experts call on policies that are scientific based while promoting lesser violence and reduced harm. Aside from decriminalizing minor drug offenses, they also recommend access to clean needles and medications that can prevent or reduce the effects of overdose, end of use of military force against drug groups, more health and social services programs designed for drug users, and reduction of prison sentences for drug mules especially women.

The group also endorses the regulation of certain types of drugs such as cannabis in the market. "Countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic decriminalized minor drug offences years ago, with significant financial savings, less incarceration, significant public health benefits, and no significant increase in drug use," says the commission.

The report was released ahead of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) on April 19 in its headquarters in New York.

Photo: Seth Werkheiser | Flickr

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Surgeons were able to remove a total of 27 bags of heroin from a Lynn man's stomach and intestines on Tuesday, officials have reported.

The patient is Miguel Rodriguez, a 51-year-old man, who the police said had just arrived from the Dominican Republic.

The surgery was performed at the North Shore Medical Center Salem Hospital on Tuesday.

History Of Illness

Captain of Salem police Conrad Prosniewski said Rodriguez experience illness while he has having dinner at Lynn. The man then went to the hospital with symptoms of drug overdose.

The medical staff took over his care, but when they saw that there were foreign materials in the patient's stomach, they called the police department.

Police Presence

The hospital purportedly removed slightly more than 163 grams of the suspected drug. Two of Salem police officers stayed in the hospital to monitor the situation.

"They were actually outside of the room, viewing as the doctor was removing them and putting them into a tray," says Prosniewski.

The police thinks that one of the bags got destroyed inside the body of Rodriguez, causing him to experience signs and symptoms of drug overdose.

Rodriguez was incriminated on Thursday, while still admitted at the hospital. He pleaded not guilty. A judge deemed his bail to cost $500,000 and also directed him to surrender his passport.

The total street value of the 27 bags of heroin collected from Rodriguez' body is approximately more than $16,000.

Narcan Treatment

To reverse the overdose, Rodriguez was treated with antidote Narcan before heading into the surgery.

Rodriguez' situation was a close call as not everyone benefits from a Narcan therapy for drug overdose.

While Prosniewski said that Narcan is terrific, it is definitely not a cure. In fact, there was a time when authorities treated a person with Narcan six times, only to die afterwards.

Drug Problems In Salem

Rodriguez's case came in the midst of Salem and other North Shore locations facing several cases of heroin overdoses. Just this year, a total of 29 cases have already been reported in the city, of which 15 were recorded in March alone.

In 2015, three individuals died due to overdose.

Salem is not the only one. The Obama administration has even asked for a $1.1 billion funding to address the problems of heroin and other opioid drugs addiction in the entire country.

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A newly developed firearm is causing concern among law enforcement officials because of its unconventional design that allows it to take on the form of an ordinary smartphone to avoid detection.

Minnesota-based gunmaker Ideal Conceal created a new two-shot pistol that can be folded to make it look like a handheld phone.

Its developer, Kirk Kjellberg, explained that he got the idea for the foldable firearm after a boy saw a pistol he was carrying while he was walking through a restaurant.

He said that the boy told his mom about the gun, which caused everyone else in the restaurant to look at him as if he was about to use the weapon in the establishment.

Kjellberg, who also keeps a concealed carry permit on him, said that the incident made him wonder about how he could bring his pistol with him without drawing attention from other people.

The foldable firearm that Kjellberg was able to come up with is a redesigned version of a .380-caliber derringer pistol with two barrels that was made to resemble a smartphone. He named his creation the Ideal Conceal.

Kjellberg pointed out that his pistol cannot be used to fire its rounds when folded.

While the Ideal Conceal provides a seemingly novel concept for a pistol, it is not the first firearm to feature a foldable design.

Jim Supica, director of the National Rifle Association Museums, said that another gun company, Utah-based North American Arms, already beat Ideal Conceal to the concept of a firearm that can be folded for the purpose of concealment. Taurus Curve, on the other hand, was the first to make a box-like pistol with rounded edges.

However, what makes Ideal Conceal's design unique is that it is made to look like a smartphone and not a weapon. This is what makes police officers uncomfortable about the idea of a smartphone-looking pistol.

"In general, the concept of any kind of weapon that's disguised, so that it's not apparent that it's a weapon, would be cause for concern," said Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organization.

The Ideal Conceal's design could make it necessary for owners to have a concealed carry permit on them whenever they bring their pistol outside their home. However, this could depend on the local and state laws in place in their areas.

The smartphone-looking pistol is yet to be made available to the public, but Kjellberg said that he has received 2,500 emails from people who want to buy their own Ideal Conceal. The foldable firearm is expected to cost $395 per unit.

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Scion surprised the auto industry last month when it announced it is ending its edgy line and absorbing it back into Toyota, its parent brand.

With that announcement, Scion vowed to go all out during its finale with a memorable farewell at the 2016 New York International Auto Show, which is fitting, considering the same annual car event was when Toyota announced its youth brand 14 years ago.

So, the brand has come full circle and we must say that Scion's farewell celebration was more than memorable at the NYIAS, as we had a chance to see its sprawling exhibit  one of the largest displays of any automaker at the show  during the event's two press preview days, before the show opened to the public today.

Not only did the display have a final Kei Miura-inspired tC Release Series 10.0, but also some out-of-this-world customized creative vehicles, too. And we didn't find any of the latter to be more creative than the 2004 FiveAxis speedster xA, the 2009 Kogi BBQ Truck xD and the 2014 Slayer tC.

There's the FiveAxis speedster xA, a vehicle that we would love to rev up on a hot summer day to whip around. From this angle, you can clearly see the open space, where the doors would be, but you can't see what the small vehicle is hiding in its rear.

That would be two flat-screen monitors. Outrageous to have two flat-screens on the back of a tiny cruiser like this? Absolutely. However, the flip side of that is that it would be incredible to pull up to a BBQ in a public park in this vehicle, wouldn't it?

And speaking of BBQs, one of the most far-fetched customized vehicles that you'll find in the entire NYIAS is the 2009 Kogi BBQ Truck xD creative custom. Why? Well, take a solid look at it for a moment.

Get closer.

Yes, that's a fully-functioning BBQ grill, where the trunk of "regular" cars would be. Taking the place of the left passenger door is a minifridge, in which you can see a few cans of Red Bull already stocked. Where the right passenger door would be is a sink. Unbelievable.

The hood of the 2014 Slayer tC had us in awe, too. Then, we saw how the doors open up and that just put it over the top.

We bid farewell to Scion ... but just know that it's going out in style.

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A U.S. autonomous drone delivered a package to a destination outside of Reno, Nev., making it the first delivery of its kind in U.S. history.

The six-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew roughly a half a mile above a stretch of residences, and eventually reached a cluster of vacant houses in the nearby area of Hawthorne. The drone completed its mission after landing outside of a specified uninhabited home, which it had been preprogrammed to do.

The test flight occurred on March 10, though the results of the run were not made known to the public until March 25.

The UAV was able to make a successful trip by way of an inputted route, which was done before its delivery mission with the help of a GPS. While observers and a pilot were at the site to step in in case of a mishap, the flight itself was executed as planned.

As reported by the Associated Press, the landmark autonomous drone was designed and produced by Flirtey, a drone manufacturer based in the state.

"Conducting the first drone delivery in an urban setting is a major achievement, taking us closer to the day that drones make regular deliveries to your front doorstep," Flirtey CEO Matt Sweeney stated.

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval also commented on the event, commending Sweeney and the company "on successfully completing the nation's first fully autonomous urban package delivery."

The governor was also quick to extend an appreciative remark to Sweeney for the employment opportunities Flirtey has given citizens in the greater Reno area.

"I am thrilled that Flirtey is not only testing its cutting-edge technology in Nevada, but also creating jobs through its headquarters relocation to Reno," Sandoval said.

The test flight was made possible in part by a partnership between Flirtey and the Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, as well with cooperation from the Federal Flight Administration (FAA).

"This was by far one of the most successful (unmanned aircraft systems) operations we ran and represents an advanced level of test and development," said the FAA's site-designated director of operations Chris Walach.

To get an idea of how the autonomous drone completed its historic delivery, check out the video below.

Source: Associated Press

Photo: Richard Unten | Flickr

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There are both state and federal incentives for purchasing an electric vehicle.

However, some states are more equipped to accommodate EV owners than others. That being said, the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs recently compiled a list of the most electric car-friendly cities in the United States, with Portland taking the top spot. Surprised?

Rounding out the top five spots is Washington, D.C., New York City, Baltimore and Denver. The bottom half of the top 10 spots on the list went to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Austin and San Francisco. While California counts two cities within the top 10, we were surprised that neither cracked the top five spots.

"Some cities are doing more to encourage PEV ownership than others by installing new public charging infrastructure and offering various sorts of incentives," researcher Saba Siddiki told Charged, an electric vehicles magazine. "PEV owners enjoy free parking in downtown Nashville and are exempt from all parking fees in Honolulu. Portland has streamlined the often complicated permitting process for home-based chargers. In Austin, PEV drivers can subscribe to unlimited use of 250 public charging stations located around the city for less than $5 per month."

Now, that's a deal.

Still, gas prices sliding might have an effect on people purchasing EVs, helping to spread the adoption of the technology.

"With gas prices dropping, consumers have less of a financial incentive to buy a PEV," researcher Kyle Clark-Sutton also told Charged. "It is crucial for cities to create receptive policy environments for purchasing and operating an electric car. If they don't, we won't see the technology's promise as a means of climate change mitigation fully realized."

Portland, Washington, D.C., New York City, Baltimore, Denver and Los Angeles all offer incentives for buying electric vehicles and charging equipment, with four of the six also offering customers time-of-use electricity rates. No surprise here, but the top cities on the list also have ample charging stations for owners.

Other cities on the 36-city list include Boston, Houston, Indianapolis, Orlando, San Diego, Seattle, San Jose, Hartford, Phoenix and Fort Worth.

With gas prices as low as they are right now, is going electric still on your mind?

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Female member of Anonymous explains what it is like to be a part of the worldwide hacktivist group

Anonymous  The name generates awe in some while others view it with derision as being a group of script kiddies. Anonymous is a loosely associated international network of activist and hacktivist entities. It has no central leadership and can be loosely termed as a Internet gathering of like minded people. Anonymous began from a 4Chan board in 2003 and went on to become worlds premier hacktivism group. They have had their successes and misses in online campaigns and are famous for their DDoS attacks on corporate websites.

Their latest flagship campaign which is underway is #OpISIS against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This campaign was announced after the gruesome killings of innocent bystanders at Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris and was reinvigorated after the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. Under this campaign, Anonymous hacktivists have brought down thousands of ISIS linked websites and got Twitter and Facebook to ban propaganda pages belonging to ISIS affiliates.

What does it feel to a member of such an organisation. A female member of GhostSec, which is affiliated to Anonymous and a vital partner in #OpISIS, spoke to Huffington Post about how it feels to a female member of the hacktivist group.

The female hacker who chose to remain unnamed said that she was from United States and was working in computer field. When asked about how she felt working with GhostSec, she notes that, I absolutely love my participation in GhostSec. When theres something like this happening around the world (terrorism), I have trouble sitting on the sidelines. Im happy to be involved in the fight against ISIS.

She also confirmed about the shift in hacking tactics of Anonymous after the Paris attacks. Currently, we are more focused on intel collection than on shutting websites down. So, we scour the Internet  social media, websites and the Darknet for terrorist activity. We then analyse data for threats, propaganda, etc. Any actionable intel is sent to the appropriate law enforcement agency, she said.

Anonymous has been at the forefront of reporting terrorists related social media accounts of Facebook and Twitter. However, now there is a automated service which looks after that, the hacker noted,

We no longer deal with reporting social media accounts. There are automated services, such as CtrlSec, which do that. So, that frees us up for intel collection. When I collect intel I usually leave the site up so that law enforcement can also analyse it and then they can shut the site down, she said.

Particularly egregious terror sites we shut down immediately due to the imminent danger they present. Terrorist sites that recruit fall under this category, the hacker added.

The female hacker joined GhostSec and Anonymous after they launched #OpISIS, I started helping them shortly after GhostSec joined #OpISIS. I was impressed with them and the work that they did and eventually ended up joining, she notes.

When asked about how it feels to a female hacker, she said this about preconception of female hackers around the world, Not that Im aware of. People are a little more curious about it. But, I havent observed any discrimination of female hackers.

When asked of her final words to describe Anonymous, she noted,

One thing a lot of people seem to not be aware of is that Anonymous is a collective made up of many different groups and individuals with viewpoints across the political spectrum.

Often people are puzzled when they read that Anonymous has done something that seems totally opposite of the collectives philosophy. There is no one philosophy, really.

There are a variety of viewpoints and causes.
Prepare to cut your destinations ETA by 5 times with this hypersonic jet of future

Hypersonic jets are able to travel at five times the speed of sound, and while that might seem like a goal that is far from being achieved, defense giant Lockheed Martin is eager to make such aircrafts that will cut your destinations estimated time of arrival by more than twice the amount.

According to a source, Lockheed Martin is placing double the efforts in order to make sure that we will be able to travel in Hypersonic jets in the shortest time possible. However, short time is an understatement, because we will have to wait till the year 2023 in order for this to become a reality. According to Marillyn A. Hewson, who is the Lockheed Martin president and CEO, he is forcing research and development in this particular area at an alarming pace in order to make these jets possible, and that too at an affordable price.

Lockheed Martin continues to invest in propulsion technologies and advanced materials needed for hypersonic speeds. Were now producing a controllable, low-drag, aerodynamic configuration capable of stable operation from takeoff, to subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic to Mach 6.



As for Hypersonic speed itself, it is above the limit of Mach 5 (and is five times the speed of sound  about 3,800 mph, or 6,100 km/h). For comparison purposes, we will pit a hypersonic get against a 747 airliner. The latter travels at about 550 mph (885 km/h). During 2015, Lockheed Martin said its engineers were designing hypersonic vehicles that could move at 4 miles per second, or 14,400 mph. At such hypersonic speeds, an aircraft could fly across the Pacific Ocean in between 1 to 2 hours.

Hypersonic technology is not a particularly new tech, but the jets that boasted such speeds were extremely expensive, which resulted in interest and funding dying down. Now, Lockheed suggests they are closer to building a hypersonic craft at an affordable price.

Lockheed Martin has not provided a ball park figure of how much these aircrafts will cost, but let us hope for the best in the future.

Live Science
Expert Palestinian Hacker Indicted for Hacking Israeli Drones and CCTV Systems

An Israeli judge has indicted the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movements main, expert hacker from the Gaza Strip for breaking into Israeli military drone camera systems for Islamic militants and collecting details of civilian aircraft movements.

The Palestinian hacker, Maaged Ben Juwad Oydeh, was formally charged by the judge at the Beersheba District Court after he was arrested by Israeli forces earlier this year. The indictment filed by the Southern District Attorneys Office also charged Oydeh with hacking into video cameras of the IDF, the police and the Road Safety Authority, allowing the terrorist group to study the location of civilians and IDF personnel in real-time as it was firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip. He was also charged with spying, conspiracy, membership in an illegal organization, and contact with enemy agents.

Oydehs hacking also allowed Islamic Jihad to keep track of the movement of airplanes at Ben-Gurion Airport, to view the passenger lists on incoming and outgoing flights, the type of airplane and its weight and landing and departure times, the indictment said.

As the Jerusalem Post reports based on court documents, Oydeh was recruited by PIJ as a teenager and was first tasked with managing PIJs radio station, where he first started receiving a monthly salary from the group.

Eventually, his technical skills got polished and he learned to hack CCTV cameras that were installed on roads in Israel. After witnessing his talent in hacking, PIJs leadership first asked Oydeh to hack into Israels Road Safety Authority, so the group leader could see video feeds from road cameras on his laptop.

Seeing that the new guy has talent, the group then asked Oydeh to hack IDF (Israel Defense Forces) UAVs (drones), which means drones. His first two attempts yield no success, which he managed to achieve after the third try in 2011.

The objective of targeting IDFs UAVs was to pinpoint the position of IDF drones and even see their video feeds. However, when IDF updated their UAVs by the IDF in 2014, Oydehs hacking technique could no longer obtain video feeds.

Later on, in 2013, Oydeh was given the task of hacking into cell phones operating on the Palestinian Jawwal mobile network as well as Israels Orange Mobile and Cellcom networks so that PIJ could find out Israeli spies who were hiding in Gaza. However, Oydeh only managed to hack Jawwals network.

In the same year, the Ben-Gurion Airport was also hacked by Oydeh in 2013, as the group wanted to view video feeds, access information on flights, and even plan rocket strikes against certain airplanes. At one point in 2013, PIJ also secured a training session in Iran so that Oydeh could improve his skills, but the deal fell apart right at the end.

In 2015, Oydeh hacked into the Israel Interior Ministrys records to help Islamic Jihad learn details about potential recruits and to better check the commitment of Islamic Jihad agents to the organization.

Oydeh continued to repair and upgrade Islamic Jihads computers, video cameras and other technologies until his arrest by Israel in 2016.
Harnessing the power of pee : Your urine may soon generate electricity thanks to this small and cheap fuel cell

Scientists in the UK have developed a new kind of fuel cell that can turn urine into electricity and which could revolutionize the way we produce bioenergy, particularly in developing countries. The research, published in Electrochimica Acta, describes that this new design of microbial fuel cell is smaller, cheaper and more powerful than the existing traditional fuel cells. Most importantly,

There is an increasing pressure to develop new renewable sources of energy, as worlds supply of fossil fuels is getting depleted. Bioenergy is one such source, and microbial fuel cells can produce it.

In their study, researchers from University of Bath, Queen Mary University of London and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory describe a new design of microbial fuel cell that overcomes two limitations of standard microbial fuel cells: their cost and low power production.

Microbial fuel cells have real potential to produce renewable bioenergy out of waste matter like urine, said chemical engineer Mirella Di Lorenzo from the University of Bath. The world produces huge volumes of urine and if we can harness the potential power of that waste using microbial fuel cells, we could revolutionise the way we make electricity.

Microbial fuel cells use the natural processes of certain bacteria to turn organic matter into electricity. There are other ways of generating bioenergy, including anaerobic digestion, fermentation and gasification. But microbial fuels have the advantage of working at room temperature and under ordinary atmospheric pressure. They are also efficient, relatively cheap to run and generate less waste than the other methods.

However, it has one disadvantage that they can be expensive to manufacture, but thats where the new fuel cell comes in. The new miniature microbial fuel cell uses no expensive materials for the cathode; instead its made of carbon cloth and titanium wire. The electrodes are usually made of cost-effective materials, but the cathode often contains platinum to speed up the reactions that create the electricity. Also, microbial fuel cells tend to generate less power than the other methods of bioenergy production.

It uses a catalyst thats made of glucose and ovalbumin, a protein found in egg white to speed up the reaction and create more power. These are typical constituents of food waste.

We aim to test and prove the use of carbon catalysts derived from various food wastes as a renewable and low-cost alternative to platinum at the cathode, said corresponding author Dr. Mirella Di Lorenzo from the University of Bath.

The new system also addresses one of the other big criticisms of microbial fuel cells: low power production. Doubling the length of the electrodes, from 4mm to 8mm, the scientists managed to increase power output by 10 times, and augmented this further by stacking up three of the miniature microbial fuel cells.

This is not the first time the scientists have taken advantage of the properties of urine to produce electricity. Recently, researchers have developed electricity-generating urinals and wee-powered socks to generate Wi-Fi signals.

Microbial fuel cells could be a great source of energy in developing countries, particularly in impoverished and rural areas, said Jon Chouler, lead author of the study from the University of Bath. Our new design is cheaper and more powerful than traditional models. Devices like this that can produce electricity from urine could make a real difference by producing sustainable energy from waste.

We have shown that the cell design has an incidence on performance and we want to further investigate the relevance of electrode surface area to volume ratio on performance. Our aim is to be able to effectively miniaturize the MFC and scale-up power production by generating compact batteries of multiple miniature units, added Dr. Di Lorenzo.

The research is published in Electrochimica Acta.
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They have been some of the most painful career mistakes in history: the record-label which turned down the Beatles, the editor who told Walt Disney he lacked imagination, and the publishers who rejected J K Rowling.

The misery of the latter has today been compounded after Rowling shared the painful rejection letter she received, warning her adult crime novels could never be commercially successful.

The author, who wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, was turned down by several publishers after submitting her manuscripts anonymously.
On a January visit to Grasmere,the PM launched a major PR campaign to show the area was "open for business".

"Let's advertise and promote that to the rest of Britain, and the world," he said.

At an end of term meeting with the Conservative Partys 1922 backbench committee earlier this week, Mr Cameron told MPs: I could do with time to think. It has been a tough week but lets not lose sight of what we do.

The Prime Ministers tough week had included the fallout from Iain Duncan Smiths resignation, the ongoing feud between the pro and anti-Europe factions of the party, demands for the resignation of the Chancellor over his budget and the terrorist attacks in Brussels.

He had also told MPs that he needed a break from the ultra-fast news cycle.

Mr Cameron previously visited Lanzarote with his wife and three children in 2014.
One of the Tories biggest donors has called for a leadership contest to be held immediately after the EU referendum and suggested Boris Johnson would be the man to restore unity to the Party.

Alexander Temerko, who has who has given the Tories more than 300,000 over the course of four years, has said that David Cameron should see his position challenged regardless of the outcome of the vote on Britain's membership of the EU.

The intervention comes after the Tory peer Lord Tebbit argued it would be extraordinarily difficult for the Mr Cameron to stay on as Prime Minister if voters decide to cut tied with Brussels in June.
A Labour MP has called on his colleagues to rally against Jeremy Corbyns leadership, warning that the Party "cannot go on like this.

John Woodcock, the Barrow and Furness MP, has attacked the Labour leader and accused him of allowing the Government to wreak havoc on the country without properly being held to account.

Writing in the Daily Mirror today, the Labour MP called on his party to take an alternative path or risk seeing families being bled dry by the Conservatives.
"These seven new brands, which are exclusive to Tesco, address our customers' needs for quality fresh food, at very competitive prices in a single shop."

The National Farmers' Union and the Soil Association have both questioned the new branding.

NFU chief food chain adviser Ruth Mason said: "The NFU is seeking assurance that Tesco's new branding on selected food products is accurately and clearly labelled as British.

"We recognise that Tesco has chosen to brand these products with fictional farm names - a marketing technique practised in Aldi and Lidl on selected product lines.

 Tesco says au revoir to the traditional French curved croissant because Brits prefer them straight

"There will inevitably be shoppers who are led to believe that the fictional names of the farms are the real source of the product - this makes the need for clear and accurate origin labelling even greater."

Soil Association chief executive Helen Browning described the names as "brands of convenience".

She said: "People deserve better. We increasingly want to know where our food comes from, and we want honesty and authenticity."
The former police officer said: "I know it sounds trivial but it's the principal behind it that's ridiculous.

"If she refuses to cook black pudding because of her religion, what is she doing working in a kitchen that sells it?

"She shouldn't be employed if she won't cook the menu.

"I was really looking forward to my black pudding this morning. You get a good breakfast in there.

"But when I went in there to order my black pudding, like I have done before, I went away hungry. I was really cheesed off.
A popular shopkeeper was stabbed to death by another Muslim in a "religiously prejudiced" attack hours after posting an Easter message on Facebook to "my beloved Christian nation".

Asad Shah, 40, a devout Muslim originally from the Pakistani city of Rabwah, had his head stamped on during a savage attack, according to one eyewitness.

Around four hours earlier the victim wrote online: "Good Friday and a very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.

"Let's follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds."
A Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner has been suspended for interfering with a "serious" police investigation after she met with the family of a murder victim.

Yvonne Mosqutio, who is also a Labour councillor, was appointed to the senior policing role for the West Midlands region in 2012.

The 51-year-old was even acting head for a short period after the former West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Bob Jones passed away in 2014.

But on Friday it emerged Mrs Mosquito had been suspended from her 65,000-a-year post with immediate effect over allegations of gross misconduct.

She had called by the family of Kinichi Phillips on Monday night five days after the 18-year-old was shot dead as he sat in a car.

A 22-year-old man was arrested after the expectant dad was gunned down in the Ladywood area of Birmingham.

Mrs Mosquito said on Friday: "I can confirm I was suspended by the Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson and I strongly deny the allegations."
Belgian police believe the mystery man in white seen with the two Brussels airport suicide bombers is Mohamed Abrini  a key suspect in the Paris attacks who travelled to the UK last year, according to reports.

French intelligence this week confirmed to The Telegraph that Abrini was in Britain last July, when he reportedly took pictures of a football stadium.

According to the newspaper Sudpresse, Abrini, 31, is the man in beigewearing glasses, a blue hat and pushing a trolley that carried the largest of three explosive devices.
Severe weather warnings as storms are set to hit the country have led bookmakers to slash the odds on it being one of the wettest Easter's on record.

Forecasters are unable to predict where the largest amount of rain will fall due to the nature of the showers, the Met Office said.

Bookmaker Coral has slashed the odds into 2-1 from 4-1 after seeing a flurry of bets for this Easter being the wettest since records began.

However, forecasters say they do not believe it is unlikely.

The record for the wettest Easter stands at more than 148mm of rain falling at Oakeley Quarry, near Blaenau Ffestiniog in Gwynnedd on Easter Sunday on April 14,1963.

This weekend the Met Office predicts the most amount of rain to fall will be up to 50mm.

A spokesman said: "As a record breaking Easter it doesn't look like it is going to do it.

"The record has stood for over half a century and the rain this weekend will be no where near.

"There will be heavy and thundery showers but temperatures are set to remain in double figures between 10C to 14C."

The Met Office has issued a severe weather alert has been issued for Saturday.
A suspected suicide bomber intercepted in northern Cameroon on Friday before she could blow herself up claimed to be one of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014, military and local government sources said.

Two girls carrying explosives were stopped by local self-defence forces in the village of Limani, in an area of northern Cameroon that has been the target of frequent suicide bombings in recent months.

They were then handed over to Cameroonian soldiers belonging to a multi-national force set up to take on Boko Haram.

In a high-profile attack that sparked a global outcry, Boko Haram militantsraided the school in April 2014 while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks, though around 50 escaped shortly afterwards.

"One of them indeed declared that she is one of the Chibok hostages. She is around 15. We are now verifying, because on the Nigerian side they have the names and photos of these girls," said local government administrator Raymond Roksdo.

Two military sources, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the press, also confirmed that the girl had claimed to have been one of the Chibok abductees.
The family of a New York-based Chinese blogger has been detained by authorities in China after he was accused of being involved with a letter calling for Xi Jinping to resign, Wen Yunchao has said.

They are among a reported 19 people to have been held after the publication of the explosive letter which appeared on the Wujie News website earlier this month before being taken down.

Mr Wen, a human rights campaigner who has 225,000 followers on Twitter, said his parents and younger brother were taken away from their home in the southern Guangdong province on Tuesday.

The authorities have put pressure on my family and asked me to admit I am linked to the letter, Mr Wen said.

The activist raised concerns over his relatives as the BBC reported on Friday that 16 members of staff at Wujie News had been held as part of the clampdown.

Sources at the outlet have also said that employees are being forced out of their jobs, and in recent days there has been no fresh content posted on the site, only reports from state media such as the Peoples Daily and Xinhua.

However, a Beijing based columnist who was detained last week after his family were contacted by authorities over his links to the letterappears to have been released.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula festered on Friday as North Korea held its largest-ever military drills and prepared to bring about "the most miserable doom to the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors."

The drills were said to be part of a "simulated attack" on the Blue House, the official residence of South Korean president Park Geun-Hye.

They are also believed to be a furious reaction to mass military demonstrations held by South Korea and the US earlier in March, which regime leader Kim Jong-un perceives as a rehearsal for invasion.

Newly released images by North Korea's state broadcaster show its Supreme Commander - who appears to have put on substantial amounts of weight since he came to power - inspecting soldiers at a massive military parade.
Mr Abbotts keenness to flaunt the meeting on Thursday  as it was described in local media - added to claims he has been seeking to undermine Malcolm Turnbull, who ousted him as prime minister in September.

The former Liberal leader was alleged to be the likely source of a story in the Australian media about the meeting with Mr Cameron which claimed the two conservatives had remained in regular contact. The story featured the same photograph as the one posted by Mr Abbott on Facebook and Twitter.

Mr Abbott and Mr Cameron are understood to have discussed the terrorist attacks in Brussels and the impact that the events may have on the Brexit campaign.

The apparent attempt by Mr Abbott to publicise his meeting with Mr Cameron is not the first time he has been accused of trumpeting meetings with world leaders.
A small town in Austria has come up with a novel way to deter litter louts.

Anyone passing through Kirchham, a picturesque town of some 1,800 inhabitants in northern Austria, will encounter a series of giant yellow arrow signs lining the approach road.

The signs are not part of some avant garde modern art installation. Locals have erected them wherever they have found litter thrown from the windows of passing cars.

We want to raise awareness  and be more aggressive about getting peoples attention, Hans Kronberger, the towns mayor, told Austrias ORF radio.

Every year we collect the rubbish, but people still throw their litter out of their car windows. Residents say they regularly find drink cans, cigarette packets and food packaging along the verge.

There are a remarkable 300 arrows lining a 0.6 mile stretch of the road just outside Kirchham, each one marking a spot where litter was found.

We didnt have enough arrows. We needed 100 more, Mr Kronberger said. Local authorities say they found a staggering 10,000 discarded Red Bull cans along local roads in the space of a year.

Annually we gather 30 tonnes of trash on the district roadsides, Alois Lanz, the head of road maintenance for the area, told Oberosterreichische Nachrichten newspaper.
A British familys agonising wait for news of their loved one caught up in the Brussels attack finally came to an end on Friday when David Dixon was officially declared among the victims.

Mr Dixon, 53, an IT expert from Hartlepool, who had lived in the Belgian capital for more than 10 years, was killed when terrorists exploded a bomb on a metro train as it pulled into Maelbeek station, at around 9.10am on Tuesday morning.

Mr Dixons partner and mother of his seven-year-old son Henry, Charlotte Sutcliffe, had endured four days of waiting before he was officially declared dead.

At least 32 people were killed and 270 injured when suicide bombs ripped through the airport and a Metro station on Tuesday morning.

In a statement Mr Dixons family said: "This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David. At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private."

The Foreign Office said: "We can confirm David Dixon lost his life in the attacks which took place in Brussels on Tuesday 22 March 2016. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time and our embassy staff are continuing to support them.
The ancient city of Pompeii boasted more than its share of espionage and political intrigue before it was wiped out by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. at the height of the Roman Empire.

Now Italian cultural officials are looking to recruit modern day whistle-blowers to root out Mafia crime and corruption as the site is responsible for spending 100 million (80 million) of European Union funds in a bid to save the ancient site from permanent collapse.

In an operation dubbed Deep Throat, Luigi Curatoli, the director general of the Great Pompeii Project, is urging whistle-blowers to report any type of crime or questionable activity they see at the World Heritage site.

The vast nature of the Great Project requires us to use every mechanism of control under the law, Mr Curatoli told Naples daily, Il Mattino.

Obviously we hope that no criminal offences occur. But if they do happen, thanks to this whistleblower scheme, we can intervene quickly.
The widely-condemned trial of two opposition journalists accused of spying will be held in secret in a case seen as a major test of press freedom and rule of law under Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Cumhuriyet newspaper editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul face life imprisonment after publishing a front-page story claiming the state was delivering weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria.

The two men are accused of threatening state security and espionage after publishing a video last May that allegedly showed Turkish intelligence agency taking arms to Syrian rebel groups in 2014. The trucks had been stopped by gendarmerie and police officers en route to the Syrian border.

The case has been criticised internationally as another attack on press freedom in Turkey, coming just weeks after police stormed the headquarters of the country's bestselling daily newspaper, Zaman, using tear gas and water cannon.
A police source told the magazine: We knew that this [attack] was going to happen. They no doubt brought forward their operations because they felt under pressure. Even if we didnt managed to avert these attacks, we can say that their scale could have been much greater if the terrorists had managed to carry out their initial plan and didnt opt for easier targets.

Seven nuclear plant workers had their security clearance removed following a raid on another part of the terror cell on March 15 at a house in the Forest district of Brussels. In that raid police killed one suspect, Mohamed Belkaid, leading to the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, another key member of the cell, three days later. Abdeslam was in custody and said to be co-operating with the authorities, prompting the brothers to bring forward their deadly plot and switch targets.

According to RTBF, the state broadcaster, a further four nuclear plant workers were banned entry after Tuesdays devastating bomb blasts in an airport and metro station.

In the wake of Abdeslams arrest, a detachment of soldiers was sent to guard Tihange - just after investigators made the connection between the safe house and the El Bakraoui brothers.
Two British businessmen have been blacklisted by the American government for allegedly helping an Iranian airline  accused of carrying arms and fighters to Syria  flout US terrorism sanctions.

The US Department of the Treasury said it was placing Jeffrey Ashfield, 65, of Sissinghurst, Kent, and John Meadows, 57, of Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, on its sanctions list.

They are accused of assisting Mahan Air buy engines and spare parts, and to secure millions of dollars in financing.

Under the sanctions, their US assets will be frozen and American firms banned from doing business with the two men or their companies Aviation Capital Solutions and Aircraft, Avionics, Parts & Support (AAPS).
Fears are growing for an Indian priest kidnapped in Yemen by unknown gunmen earlier this month amid claims that he is in the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Tom Uzhunnalil, 56, was snatched from the Missionaries of Charity's home for the elderly in Aden where he serves as a chaplain, after celebrating mass.

Sixteen people were killed in the attack.
The Conagua indicated that the atmospheric phenomenon registered maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour with gusts of up to 165 kilometers per hour. | Read More
KTR to tour Britain, Mauritius next month

Hyderabad, March 25 (INN): Panchayat Raj Minister K. Tarakarama Rao will tour Britain and Mauritius in the month of April.



According to sources, the minister is in receipt of invitations from these countries. He, along with a team of senior officials, will leave for Mauritius on April 13 where he will participate in a conference on AYUSH. Telangana Government is proposing to set up Ayush Centres in Mauritius.



KTR will hold interactive meetings with the IT Experts and investors in Mauritius. After spending two days in Mauritius, KTR will leave on a four-day tour to Britain where he will participate in programmes on Telangana's new industrial policy.









News Posted: 25 March, 2016








Meetings were obstructed at Delhi's instance: Narayana

Hyderabad, March 25 (INN): CPI leader Narayana has alleged that the meeting addressed by JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar were obstructed at the instance of BJP Government at the Centre.



Speaking to media persons in Vijayawada on Friday, Narayana said that the BJP leaders were unable to answer the issues raised by Kanhaiya Kumar on the failures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Therefore, they have been trying to prevent him from addressing meetings in all parts of the country. He said except BJP, all political parties have condemned the cases registered against Kanhaiya and other students' leaders.









News Posted: 25 March, 2016








CTA-NATS conduct Mentoring Program

Chicago Telugu Association has conducted a Mentor-Prot'g' Program for High School Students on March 20th at Naperville Public Library, Naperville, IL, USA. CTA's Mentor-Prot'g' Program is designed to enable successful college students to provide various forms of assistance to high school students to succeed in their preparation for college admission. This unique service oriented program was aimed at large number of Indian Students in general and Telugu Students in particular.







The goal of the Mentor-Prot'g' Program is to enhance the capability of Students to be competitive and achieve college admission success from top colleges. CTA Chairman Dr. Rao Achanta, kicked off the program with brief introduction about CTA and NATS service oriented programs and said this is the first of its kind of a program conducted in Chicago for Indian Students.







A six member team of Mentors consists of students who were already admitted to top colleges in USA, has shared their success stories and tips for advancing the rate of success. Mentors Team included Sai Talluri from John Hopkins University, Stephanie Wang from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Praveen AtteleUnior Board Member at Old Irving Park Community, recent Medical Sciences Graduate from Loyola University, Rohan Verma from North Western University, CelestinaDevarapalli and Kathy Zhang from Loyola University.







Prasad Talluri, Kumar Kotla moderated the discussion and Sai Talluri led the group of panelists.



Mentors shared their experiences and knowledge by covering wide range of topics in relation to college admission for High School students. The topics covered included:

' Course scheduling for high-school students:

' AP/Honors courses

' SAT vs ACT. Is one test preferred over another?

' Most appropriate time to start preparing to take the exam

' Role of extracurricular activities

' Role of summer activities.

' Importance of Letters of Recommendation

' IB Experience, traditional experience, private school experience.

' Factors to consider when choosing a college



After 75 minutes discussion and Q&A Session, participant students met Mentors in small groups in breakout sessions and continue their discussion. At the end most of the attended students have chosen one mentor to help them their preparation.







Parents and participated lauded the CTA's efforts in bring this kind of very important and useful program for community members.



CTA committee members including President Nagendra Vege, Madan Pamulapati, Rajesh, Sujana Achanta, Manohar, Lohitha, Ramky and many other volunteers has helped in organizing the event.



Nagendra Vege, President of CTA thanked all panelists for taking the time out from their busy schedule and also participants for taking advantage of this program. Nagendra reiterated that CTA is a service oriented organization and committed to help the community and announced that next Mentor-Prot'g' program will be conducted in the month of June.











News Posted: 25 March, 2016








Thailand is currently at an important crossroads. Major changes are occurring in the economic, social and political spheres that will have far reaching implications for the future of this country.

With the forces of change coming from both within and outside, what will constitute Thailands new normal? My predictions are probably as good as yours.

What is clear in hindsight is that globalization, consumerism, extravagance, dishonesty, and immoderation have led to management failures in both government and business.

It is therefore time to have a better understanding of our past behaviour and how it contributed to the present situation. We should be mindful of the Sufficiency Economy thinking formulated by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in terms of its key principles of moderation, rationality, and immunity.

A better grasp of these concepts can help us confront problems or crises and find solutions. I would like to use this occasion to suggest to you what I believe to be the four essential elements of the new normal in the development of Thailand  the elements that will contribute to true and enduring change.

Ensuring sustainable and widespread economic development

Element One The first element in Thailands new normal rests on ensuring sustainable and widespread economic development.

Here I emphasize sustainable and widespread.

In the past, we have focused too much on the overall rate of economic growth, but neglected the quality of that growth and the equitable distribution of income and opportunities.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the more recent global financial crisis, both illustrate the dangers of unbridled economic growth. We have also been reminded that growth fuelled by populist measures that disregard fiscal discipline are unsustainable and leave problems in their wake.

In Thailand, the first-car purchasing and rice-pledging schemes were both examples of short-term stimulus measures. Policies of this kind are pushed by governments the world over to secure quick popular support with inadequate regard for their negative economic repercussions.

Sustainable economic development must focus on strengthening the foundations of the economy. This entails raising underlying economic competitiveness, be it through improving public sector efficiency, state enterprise reforms, developing skilled and flexible labour, or upgrading education and research.

At the same time, sustainable development requires that the fruits of economic growth be spread widely and equitably to ensure social cohesion and continued economic and political legitimacy.

Many of the problems that we currently face, including the simmering political tensions and sporadic clashes suffered in the past decade, can be traced back to the injustice and inequality inherent in our society.

Economic disparity, in itself, retards economic growth, as has been shown in numerous studies. Unless firmly addressed, inequality and injustice in their various forms will eventually hold back a countrys development and breed political upheaval, even violence. We have witnessed this to some degree in Thailand already.

Element Two

The second element in Thailands new normal should be to promote an open and inclusive society.

Apart from the need for more equitable distribution of income, as I just mentioned, we must also ensure equality of rights, liberties, and opportunities for all segments of society. Liberty and equal rights are not simply about the right to vote.

The demands and views of everyone must be heard and respected  not just those of the victors in elections. Majoritarian rule does not give a mandate to the winning party to do as it pleases in a winner-takes-all fashion.

As the American libertarian James Bovard once observed, Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Every group, every religion, every region and every rung of society must be able to participate collectively in shaping the direction of Thailands development.

This will instill a critical sense of ownership in our nations 23 March 2016 Page 3 of 13 destiny that will compel each and every member of society to keep the state under constant scrutiny.

The demands and views of all groups, not just those in power or positions of authority, must be heard and respected. As a people, we tend to see things strictly in black and white  right or wrong.

Often in life, there is no absolute right or wrong, just different perspectives and judgments. The role of the media in serving as an unbiased and objective platform for voicing different views and perspectives in a balanced manner is also critical.

Modern technology has opened up unprecedented space for public discourse. In the vast marketplace of ideas, not everything is of equal value. So long as our institutions enable people to understand how to assess ideas in this marketplace  selecting the rigorous and rejecting the shoddy, democracy is not only sustained, it thrives.

As Thailand approaches elections in the near future, it will be imperative for the winners to consider themselves representatives of the entire country, and not just of the people who voted them in. They have a duty to address the concerns of all interest groups and promote consensus in society.

Striking that balance is an art. I hope all political parties have learned important lessons from our painful past, and will do their utmost to pursue this vital principle of governance.

Element Three

The third element of the new normal in Thailand is respect for the rule of law.

This goes beyond simply the application of the law. It requires adherence to both the spirit of the law as well as its underlying moral principles. The World Justice Project has attempted to make global comparisons of the rule of law.

The figures for 2015 see the four top places occupied by the Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. With a score of 0.52 out of one, Thailand ranks 56th among 102 countries and 11th out of 15 in the region.

Thailand trails the Philippines, Greece and Ghana, and this should remind us that we still have far to travel on our journey to attaining the rule of law. Every individual and organization, private and public, and even the government itself, must be subject to the law. The legislative and enforcement processes must be transparent and just.

The judicial system must be neutral, independent, efficient, and have full integrity. Importantly, the law must not be used as a means for attaining political goals. State actions must not be arbitrary and based on whims. Dissidents must not be prosecuted or deprived of their legal rights.

The human rights of every citizen must be strictly upheld across the board. Lawful governance does not imply using the law to govern people or enforce the states will. We must have rule of law rather than rule by law. Here in Thailand, a semblance of calm and stability belies tensions beneath the surface.

Society cannot flourish in the long run if order and stability are rooted in measures that inhibit public discourse. When order and stability are imposed rather than allowed to emerge naturally in accordance with the rules and norms of society, there can be no transparency. When the rule of law is weak, corruption flourishes.

Democracy becomes dysfunctional when politicians, civil servants, the private sector, the judiciary, the police, and the military use their power to enrich themselves and advance their own interests at the expense of civil society.

We read about the impunity of the rich and powerful in our newspapers every day.

An independent and neutral judiciary is fundamental to the rule of law. If judges use one law for the powerful and another for the powerless, the entire political and judicial system is compromised, and the peoples trust in the government to see justice served is eroded. The rule of law demands public responsibility and the transparency of state institutions and their personnel.

A government that is not held accountable, not answerable to anyone, and whose actions are not subject to public scrutiny, is more likely to abuse its power and disregard the public interest.

Element Four

Governance through the rule of law together with public accountability and transparency form the basis of responsible government.

This is related to the fourth and final element of the new normal that I would like to talk about, namely the need to recalibrate the balance of power between the state and the people.

Responsive government lies at the core of true democracy. It can occur only when there is comprehensive decentralization and local political empowerment. The closer a government is to the people governed, the more responsive the government will be. A centralized system of governance cannot keep pace with the increasing complexity of todays society.

Decentralization enables the participation of more diverse interest groups and represents one way to curb the concentration of power and influence exercised by political forces. By decentralization, I do not mean the distribution of power to local government bodies that report to the central authority.

I mean dispersion of power directly into the hands of the people or their representatives. In the past, we have established local institutions but always retained centralized control over them. Going forward, we must reform these local bodies so that they become answerable to the needs and demands of the local populace, rather than to the central government.

The heart of democracy beats only with the participation of all citizens in exercising their rights on issues that affect them directly.

They must be well informed on these issues if there is to be active citizenship. In each locality, province, and region, the demands and solutions to various challenges may or may not be similar.

The formulation of policies and plans of action should give precedence to the input of local communities. The success of decentralization hinges on a balanced and diverse flow of information, which brings me next to the crucial role of civil society. An active civil society provides a mechanism whereby the collective views of citizens can shape and influence government policy.

By bringing arguments and information into the public domain, policies can be examined and challenged. A genuinely democratic government will feel obliged to present counterarguments or to modify its position.

Such interactions are healthy for democracy, and enhance the decision making process. A vibrant civil society relies on the wisdom of the populace and its ability to make rational and informed decisions.

Democracy becomes a force for meaningful progress when voters not only understand the issues at hand, but are also conscious of their context, the various alternatives available, as well as their responsibilities as democratic citizens. We must therefore urgently reform our education system from one that simply produces graduates to one that nurtures the ability of people to think critically and make constructive changes in society.

There has been much discussion on this topic over the years but little tangible progress. We must take a step back and carefully reassess our fundamental approach. No one here, or anywhere else for that matter, can predict with confidence what that world will be like five years from now, let alone in that distant future.

Yet we are tasked with educating our children for that world  to ensure they are equipped to solve the problems of their time. In my view, the best way to do this is to shift the emphasis of education away from memorizing facts and rote learning to focus instead on nurturing creativity and adaptability.

This all starts with getting teachers to teach less, encouraging students to read more diversely, and ensuring teachers engage in dialogues with students. The main focus should not be on getting the right answer but on instilling confidence to think problems through, to voice opinions and to articulate reasoned arguments.

In an age where a staggering amount of information is available at the touch of a button or the swipe of a smartphone, learning will be more important than knowing. If our children are to be able to solve the complex problems of the future  and climate change is but one  they will need a high degree of creativity.

This is something I feel has been sadly neglected so far. The enemy of creativity is the fear of being wrong or making mistakes. I believe every child is born with an immense amount of creativity and the capacity to innovate.

But an education system that stigmatizes mistakes, focuses on correct answers, and penalizes wrong ones, serves to retard creativity. By the time children grow into adults, they have been deprived of their creative impulse by the fear of being wrong.

Innovation does not come from a fear of being wrong. On the contrary, the courage to risk making mistakes, the relentless process of trial and error, and the ability to bounce back from repeated failures are the seeds of innovation and advancement. Let us not forget that the iPhone many of you carry around was regarded with some skepticism when it was first released in 2007.

Its success is a testament to Steve Jobs willingness to be wrong rather than his fear of not being right. An education system that promotes good learning skills in children will contribute to a citizenry capable of grasping issues of concern and placing them in the right context.

This contributes to well-informed, rational decisions, and helps ensure that the responsibilities of society under democratic rule are met.

A New Normal for Thailand What I have laid out so far is a vision for a new normal for Thailand built upon the foundations of democratic governance.

It broadly represents a framework for governance that Thailand has lacked up to now. We have a tendency to focus on democracy in form rather than in substance. We follow procedures and go through the motions of elections.

Yet we have paid little attention to developing the institutions that are critical to sustaining democracy.

The challenges that we are presently facing have their roots in the fact that we have never had a true democratic transition  a genuine change in our political system. Change has always been superficial, old wine in a new bottle  or you could even say old wine in an old bottle but with a new cork.

Critically, we have not dug deeply enough to uncover the true underlying cause of current divisions in Thai society. Much of this is not related to the actual policies of governments, present or past, nor is it about a fight between pro-government or anti-government forces.

Rather it is about poverty, social injustice, unequal rights and opportunities, and about the way power is divided between the state and the people  or even among groups of people. Thais have traditionally been good at creating problems.

Some say that they are also good at solving them, but is this not really a bit of a myth? Our development path has been one of muddling along, an ad-hocracy you might say. Little has been done in the way of strategic long-term planning or effective implementation.

While substantial progress has been achieved in terms of economic development, we have not taken sufficient note of its negative political and social impact. At this juncture, it has become patently clear that many of our economic, social and political institutions are inadequate when faced with the challenges of globalization.

We have simply not kept up. Rather than face up to our problems, we Thais often yearn for a knight in shining armour to ride to the rescue. But the time for that kind of I-know-best style of management has passed.

The Road to Reform To make headway towards the new normal that I have described, we must embark on comprehensive structural reforms now. Successful reforms often result from leveraging on opportunities that arise, such as at times of crisis. I have always held the view that we did not make the most of the 1997 financial crisis.

Thus at this point we should not waste time debating where we are, or if we got here in the right or wrong way. These are important and legitimate questions that deserve reflection, but they should not prevent us from moving forward or seeking solutions to the problems at hand.

A reform strategy must always be assessed within the context of the bigger picture. In the past, the main thrust has been through constitutional reform, which is not ideal and may even be counterproductive.

We have been rather profligate with our constitutions. We are on our 19th in the space of 83 years  which happens to coincide exactly with my age.

I was involved in drafting Thailands 1997 constitution, which for the first time involved broad-based public participation. I had hoped it would make Thai democracy more open, transparent and accountable, and that electoral reforms would limit money politics and corruption.

That said, I have always recognized that a constitution is not a silver bullet for all that ails society. For a constitution to make a real difference, society must first embrace the underlying values it espouses. A constitution alone cannot bring about meaningful change without the necessary reforms to other key democratic pillars, particularly political institutions and the peoples mindset.

Structural reform is a continuous process rather than a one-shot exercise. It might begin with drafting a new constitution, but the process must evolve. We must not imagine that certain initiatives today will bring about lasting change and forever resolve prevailing problems. There are no once-and-for-all solutions.

There is no unique blueprint for reforms to bring about true democracy. The seeds of democracy must be sown from within each society for the shoots to be accepted and nurtured. People must want democracy for it to take hold.

As Mahatma Gandhi once observed, The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within.

The elements of democratic governance that I have outlined can serve as overarching supports to encourage democracy to evolve meaningfully.

As a nation, we have come far, and there is no turning back to the way things were. Change is inevitable and permanent. Each and every one of us has a stake in the future of our country. We must forge a collective vision that is progressive and contributes to change that is constructive. Democratic governance is ultimately a state of mind, rather than a set of tangible rules or procedures.

Over and above the implementation of critical reforms, moving forward requires that we fundamentally change our way of thinking, attitudes, and mindsets to embrace openness, a diversity of views, as well as values that support societal change.

Democratic governance opens up channels through which the diversity in our society can come together to advance political, economic and social development. It thus represents the most direct route to true sustainability. That is my hope for Thailands new normal.

Anand Panyarachun Keynote Address at Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand 23 March 2016
He was just 12 years old when given approval to fish commercially in Port Phillip Bay, via a handwritten note on "a lump of paper" in the 1950s, authored by the head of fisheries in Victoria.

Now 75, Dugga Beazley has just a couple of fishing trips left before his career of more than six decades comes to an end.

Commercial fishermen Dugga Beazley on his boat at St Kilda. Credit:Justin McManus

"I loved every minute of it. I can't wait to get up in the morning to go," he said. "I have no problems getting up at 2 or 3 o'clock."

Mr Beazley's departure from commercial fishing is part of a seismic change about to hit the local industry. In a few days' time, the number of commercial fishermen licensed to fish in Port Phillip Bay will drop from 43 to 10. In a few years' time it will drop further, to eight.
A man who walked into a Croydon house and sexually assaulted a woman who lived there in front of her child is still on the run, six months after the attack.

Police say the 20-year-old victim and her young daughter were in their Abraham Drive home on August 4, 2015, when the front door bell rang at 8pm.

A computerised image of the attacker's face

A man then entered the house through the unlocked door at the same time the young girl was walking to open it.

As her mother walked into the loungeroom to see who it was, the man grabbed her arm, forced her onto a nearby couch and sexually assaulted her.
But Mr Barr said the latest attack had been at 12.30am so lockout laws would not have made a difference in that case.

Mr Barr said on Thursday that lockout laws would not be part of the government response to violence and anti-social behaviour in the city.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has ruled out lockout laws in Canberra in a move that will be welcomed by the city's bars and clubs, but disappoints those who want action on late night alcohol-fuelled violence.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr raised the prospect of a budget air link between Canberra and Melbourne with Victorian premier Daniel Andrews. Credit:Rohan Thomson

His decision not to pursue early morning lockouts from Canberra bars disappointed co-chair of the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol Michael Moore, who accused the government of going softly in an election year.

"On the one hand Mr Barr's government has an issue with emergency waiting times. He also has an issue with alcohol-related violence in the early morning and the impact it has on policing and yet he doesn't seem to be prepared to grab the nettle and take the action that evidence shows is appropriate," Mr Moore, also chief executive of the Public Health Association, said.

"I guess they're being very careful about each and every issue that they have to deal with because they're feeling vulnerable."

The evidence was overwhelming that lockout laws worked, Mr Moore said, pointing to the significant drop in presentations at emergency departments in Newcastle. He wasn't pushing for "ludicrous" closing times, but for no "shots" after 1am, last drinks at 2am, and bars closing at 3am.
He was last spotted giving away Real Housewives of Melbourne's Gamble Breaux at her wedding wearing a floral get-up and questionable sunglasses. Now controversial artist Charles Billich is headed to Canberra for an exhibition of his work.

Over his career, the octogenarian has had his work exhibited at the White House, the Vatican Museum and the United Nations Headquarters.

Gamble Breaux thanked Charles Billich for giving her away at her wedding to Rick Wolfe on Instagram. Credit:Tony Gillett

An extensive list of famous names including Ian Thorpe, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Cardinal George Pell and Barry Humphries have sat for him for portraits.

His Canberra exhibition kicks off at Strayleaf Gallery in Gungahlin on Tuesday and if you want to meet the man himself, Billich will be coming for a fleeting visit for the launch night.
Coles, IGA and Foodworks stores are selling cut-price premium brand cigarettes for as low as $20 a packet that are imported from Ukraine, in a move that has been described by anti-smoking advocates as "reprehensible".

In recent weeks, Fairfax Media has bought cigarettes from Imperial Tobacco's line of brands that are from two different countries of origin - New Zealand and the Ukraine.

The Ukrainian-made Imperial Tobacco cigarettes range between $3 and $6 cheaper. Credit:Joe Armao

The Ukrainian-made Imperial Tobacco cigarettes range between $3 and $6 cheaper than the company's cigarettes made in New Zealand, depending on the location of the store and brand.

Quit Victoria director Dr Sarah White said the price drop was concerning.
As disruption runs rampant through industry after industry, it seems very few are exempt. This includes the seemingly un-sexy world of purchasing car tyres. But when a trio of Europeans launched Tyroola in January last year with the aim of shaking up how tyres are bought and fitted, they had done their market research.

"We looked at how many people are searching for tyres and how many are overpaying for tyres. We felt we could make it easier, cheaper and more transparent," says Zed Klingenberg, one of the co-founders of tyroola.com.au.

At just 26, Zed Klingenberg is maximising both his attitude and his experience to help Tyroola's business grow.

After talking to family members based in Australia, the founders realised not only did Australia have a strong car culture but that its online world lacked options after the purchase of a car. The result? An online business that sells tyres, allows fitting of those tyres through 300 partners and has already turned over millions of dollars.

"We're growing in an industry where most companies are having declining sales," Klingenberg says.
So why the club's ire? Well, he still backs progressive taxation, and favours making businesses that repatriate offshore profit pay a tax of  gasp  10 per cent. He once supported a wealth tax and single-payer healthcare. And he still says the United States should "take care of everybody" with coverage. So upset are the growthsters that they have been targeting Trump with attack advertisements. "He's really just playing us for chumps," concludes one. Yes indeed  call the club a bunch of trumped, stumped chumps.

Sabres have also been rattling over at the Republican foreign policy establishment, and particularly among the neoconservatives. After all, Trump has basically repudiated the interventionist foreign policy they favour. He has even gone as far as to charge that George W. Bush & Co lied to push the country into war with Iraq. His election would spell "the death knell of America as a great power", historian Max Boot warns. In early March, dozens of Republican foreign policy and national security types outlined their opposition to Trump in a public letter.

To no avail. Marco Rubio was, by and large, the neoconservatives' favourite. But on March 15, Trump ended Rubio's candidacy by trouncing him in his home state of Florida.

We can't, of course, overlook the free marketers who populate the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute  and who thought they had the Republicans locked on to a free-trade trajectory. But though Trump occasionally pays lip service to unfettered trade, his actual stance falls into the managed-trade category. He has, for example, called for  and then stepped back a bit from  a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese goods, as well as for higher taxes or tariffs on goods from US-based firms that relocate manufacturing to other countries.

That's hardly a complete list of his ideological apostasies. But despite the sound and fury of the gatekeepers, Trump's heterodox views haven't hurt him at all. Which suggests that in future the Republicans might be able to bust loose of long-time conservative correctness and sally freely forth to explore some new ideas.
Caroline died in hospital less than 24 hours after giving birth at home. Racked by grief, trauma and depression, I couldn't accept that her heart had just given out. My gut told me there was something terribly wrong; that something had gone terribly wrong. My gut told me to ask questions and keep asking until the truth was uncovered.

What happened next was so unexpected, so deeply confusing, so utterly incomprehensible that I thought I would collapse. I heard that Caroline had given birth to a baby girl, but in the same breath I was told that my daughter was being taken to hospital by ambulance. Apparently, her heart had given out.

I woke early to a text message that my daughter Caroline had gone into labour. Great! I went about my business excitedly awaiting a call that would announce the birth of my second grandchild  I had a strong hunch that it would be a girl. I waited patiently for a call, but when it didn't come, I decided to ring and find out what was happening.

Jade Markiewicz (right) with friends of Caroline outside court. Credit:Penny Stephens

And so, after waiting more than four years and sitting through two rounds of excruciatingly painful details at inquests, this week I heard Coroner Peter White speak the words that confirmed my instincts: my daughter died at the hands of her midwives, chiefly her senior midwife Gaye Demanuele. My daughter bled to death into a pool of water while Demanuele, the midwife she had entrusted to take care of her, stood oblivious to her unfolding medical emergency. My daughter was denied basic medical care when she needed it most.

As if that wasn't enough, the story was worse than anyone could ever possibly imagine. To learn that your daughter begged to be taken to hospital, declared she was dying, had her pleas rejected by the midwife in charge, and then died unnecessarily, is far too much for any mother to bear. There were times in the past few years that I thought I would go mad with grief, anger and despair. I still might.

To call my daughter's death a tragedy is a gross understatement. This was an act of cruelty and inhumanity.

What is permanently etched on my brain is a mental picture of Caroline fighting for her life  screaming, begging, and pleading. What haunts me to this day is the image of my child's final moments as she desperately tried to hold on to her life, and I could do nothing to help her. My daughter died knowing that she was abandoned by Demanuele, who was supposed to be caring for her. My daughter died knowing that her two little girls would never see their mother again.
But Turnbull didn't stop believing in himself. He knew he could bring with him centrist, urban-dwelling voters, not dissimilar to those in the Saturday Paper launch crowd. Fast forward two years and it is becoming clear that Turnbull, once removed from the red wine and cheese platters, is less bold in his allegiance to progressive causes. He seems to have taken a swerve to the right. He was mostly missing in action during the harmful and ridiculous debate over the Safe Schools program, a program which, while painfully politically correct in parts, is unlikely to turn our children gay and culminate in a dystopian future where both (all?) sexes are forced to use the same bathroom. Despite what the most demented members of the Coalition's right wing would have us believe.

Turnbull also looks set to propose a cut in company tax as part of his election platform, sold with the dubious claim that this will translate to higher wages for workers. His speech to the Lowy Institute on Wednesday night included Abbott-esque criticisms of Europe's open borders, and the claim that "intelligence" shows Islamic State is using the Syrian refugee crisis to move jihadists into Europe. For this he earned a gentle rebuke from the Belgian ambassador, who pointed out that the men responsible for this week's Brussels attacks were home-grown. Now, after a week of Byzantine Senate fighting that went over the heads of most people outside the Parliamentary Circle, Turnbull is asking Australians to believe that he is so passionate about the re-establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission he has decided the country should go to the polls over it. The re-introduction of the ABCC was one of Abbott's most cherished babies, and remains the heavily-stroked pet of one conservative section of the Coalition, led by former Employment Minister Eric Abetz.

The rest of the party, including, once upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull, could take it or leave it. Turnbull's announcement on Monday that he would recall parliament to pass this (likely un-passable) legislation, setting up a trigger for a July 2 election, was hailed as a strategic masterstroke. This despite the fact that talk of a double dissolution election on July 2 has been alive for nearly as long as his prime ministership. As the news dropped, I was at the Sutton Forest Macca's, which represents both a psychological and physical mid-point between the vastly different worlds of Canberra and Sydney. It is a crucible of middle Australia, its carpark is crammed with Holdens and the interior with children at various stages of the car-trip meltdown cycle. It is alive with kind retirees in fleecy tops and mothers, like me, seeking caffeine and sugar.

The people of the Sutton Forest Macca's were unruffled by the news of a likely July 2 election, conveyed via the television on the wall. The stunning significance of Turnbull bringing forward the budget by one whole week also seemed to pass them by. I suspect the Sutton Forest McDonald's malaise also extends to the ABCC and its re-introduction. An Essential Research poll taken this week seemed to affirm this hunch. Forty-four per cent of those surveyed did not know if they approved or disapproved of the federal government calling a double dissolution election over the ABCC.

I wonder what percentage could tell you what the ABCC actually was. Likewise, an Omnipoll survey taken this week for Sky News found only 3 per cent of voters thought cutting company tax should be a top economic priority. Such is the glory of the Canberra/rest-of-Australia divide, that in the-rest-of-Australia bit, people only start paying attention to elections in the last week or so of the campaign. That's when innocent babies start glancing fearfully at smiling men in suits, worried they might be set upon. It's when school P'n'C committees start buying sausages in bulk.
Malcolm Turnbull: "his partys soul searching will not be resolved with an election". Credit:Andrew Meares Edmund Burke, more praised than read among modern conservatives, defined "party" as a body of men (it was the 18th century) pursuing the national interest according to a particular principle. But a party that is too broad a church might lack a "particular principle" to give it coherence and direction. Yet too narrow and it becomes the vehicle only for sectional interests, not the national interest. The Liberal Party certainly risks being seen as captive to sectional interests given its surrender to mining, property development, gambling and financial advice lobbies, to name a few. Tony Abbott: "he promised to end the soap opera, but the show goes on". Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Back in 1908 the Liberal Party's ancestor formed when free traders and protectionists realised their differences were less important than their common interest in resisting Labor. For about 70 years anti-socialism gave coherence  until Labor became firmly entrenched as a pragmatic, unideological party of the modernising centre.

When Turnbull declared he would lead a "thoroughly liberal" government, he hinted that we might see a party that combined a discernible philosophical heart with an inclusive and modernising agenda. But things are rarely so easy. John Howard describes the Liberal Party as a broad church: "Well, he would say that, wouldnt he?" It looks like there are two Liberal parties, and they don't much like each other. Since becoming Prime Minister he has faced plenty of resistance from the right, both overt and of the more subtle, passive-aggressive sort. Some of the dissenters label themselves conservatives, but they are reactionary rather than philosophical conservatives in the Burkean mould. They bitterly resent the coup against Abbott, and their own loss of position. But their histrionic, attention-seeking strand of right-wing crankiness is an Aussie-accented echo of its US counterpart, and they might rightly be labelled the Billy-Tea Party. The point is that it looks like there are two Liberal parties, and they don't much like each other. To get past this choppiness Turnbull needs to reach back to the Liberals' great antecedents, such as Deakin and Menzies, and implement a centrist, pragmatic, modernising and inclusive program.

Robert Menzies: his era "saw a curious mix of looking back and looking forward". This extends also to Australia's position in the world. The recent Defence white paper foreshadowed spending in the hundreds of billions on Australia's military capacity. Opinion is divided about whether the plans are sufficient, or good enough value, or grounded in adequate analysis of regional dynamics. But should we expect total certainty about future scenarios? Real foresight lies not in trying to predict details, but in understanding the processes at work and being ready for the several ways they might play out. The Menzies era saw a curious mix of looking back and looking forward, of hanging on to the structures of empire and anticipating an Asian century. But Liberals such as Spender and Casey made great contributions to regional architecture and the liberal international order. Menzies' cloying sentimentality for Queen and empire irks modern Australians, but his was also the government that drove the Colombo Plan, the most ambitious development partnership seen up to that time. It also signed up to the trade treaty with post-war Japan, a bold initiative that underpinned decades of prosperity for both countries. The essence of progressive liberalism is not obsessive pursuit of free markets, but rather the belief that free individuals and free societies can improve themselves. The role of government is to create the conditions that make this more likely.
Just as Treasurer Scott Morrison wasn't in the "inner circle" that knew when the budget would be, Turnbull is no longer in the "inner circle" that knows when the election will be. While the Prime Minister might be willing to suck it and see, such ambiguity will place enormous pressure on both his cabinet and his back bench. Take the budget, for example.

Malcolm Turnbull's pseudo-election campaign launch on Monday, complete with cunning constitutional trickery, was definitely "headline grabbing", but so was Julia Gillard's decision to name the election date six months in advance. The question isn't whether such decisions excite the commentariat; it's whether they work in Parliament and on the public.

And if the furious crossbench senators choose a half-Senate election in September over a double dissolution in July, what are the odds that the May budget will be rubber-stamped by those same senators? Is that long-term strategy?

In order to show who's really running the country, the Prime Minister just told us that the Senate can decide whether we will have an early election. Is that decisive?

Is the Treasurer supposed to be working on a budget that will act as a July election platform or is he supposed to be working on a set of policy initiatives that have some chance of being passed through a grumpy Senate by September? Will he be judged on the clarity of his "budget message" in the lead-up to a July election or will he be judged on his capacity to negotiate spending cuts and tax increases through the Senate between May and September?

Should the Treasurer be trying to mollify Jacqui Lambie by including extra funding for Defence Force pay rises in the hope she might be more likely to approve the rest of the budget measures by September? Or would such a move in May simply provide the Tasmanian senator with the perfect platform to demonstrate she can deliver from the cross bench in the lead-up to a July election?

No wonder Morrison is reportedly unhappy.

But the problems don't stop with the budget. If the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner bill passes through the Senate in May, what will the industrial relations agenda be in the lead-up to a September election? Few people outside the Melbourne Club care much about the ABCC bill and fewer still will switch their vote to the Coalition if it passes. Needless to say, union officials are rightly enraged that their common-law rights might be stripped away but, once the bill passes the easiest way to have it repealed is via the election of a Shorten government. At a time the NSW Electoral Commission is withholding $4 million from the Liberal Party for non-disclosure of previous donations, Turnbull is doing the ALP's fund-raising for it.

And then there's climate change. No policy issue has generated more heat and less light than how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Tony Abbott transformed a technocratic debate about the best way to design a carbon price into a culture war. It put him into The Lodge, but put Australia back a decade.
Belgian juggling trio Bram Dobbelaere, Gab Bondewel and Sander De Cuyper were already in the air on their way to perform in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival when terrorists struck Brussels Airport.

"We were at exactly the same check-in 12 hours before the attacks came," Dobbelaere said. "We received a text while we were on the plane."

The news of the deadly explosions came as a shock, said Dobblelaere, even though Belgium was just two hours drive from Paris, which has already been the centre of multiple, bloody attacks.

"It changes a lot if suddenly it's in Brussels," he said. "It's stupid but it works that way."
The Canadian comic, best known for his roles in cult films Road Trip and Freddy Got Fingered, delivers a stand-up show that will satisfy his legion of fans while still offering reliable laughs for the uninitiated.

The merchandise stall in the foyer of the Athenaeum Theatre gives more than a hint about the audience Tom Green expects to pull during his short stint in Melbourne this week.

It's now 15 years since Freddy Got Fingered set a new standard in "gross-out" comedy, and Green is striking an autobiographical tone. He drifts across his youth in Ontario, his rise from community broadcasting to MTV and his brief Hollywood marriage to Drew Barrymore. In between he navigates mainstream comic fodder, like the rise of social media and Donald Trump.

Anarchy and absurdity continue to be Green's stock-in-trade.

At times the show risks devolving into a "greatest hits" session, particularly when the audience are challenged to nominate their favourite catchphrases from Freddy Got Fingered. But Green manages to wrap his old work into bigger, newer anecdotes which take the material forward.

So while Tom Green Live borrows plenty from the past, it showcases a talented performer who is still making an effort.




Arriving at Thornbury's Croxton Park Hotel on Thursday night was more like passing through airport security than turning up to a rock 'n' roll show.

Metal detectors at the front door were used to scan everybody who entered  the difference from airport security being those waving the scanners were dressed more like the hundreds of Eagles of Death Metal fans streaming into the venue. Black T-shirts never go out of style at rock shows.

Eagles of Death Metal play their first Australian show since the terror attacks at the Bataclan in Paris (November 2015) at The Croxton in Melbourne. Credit:Daniel Pockett

Four months after the Californian rock 'n' roll band was on stage at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris when terrorists stormed the venue, frontman Jesse Hughes prowled the Croxton stage, looking like there was nowhere he'd rather be than making outrageously loud music with his mates. "Do you love rock 'n' roll?" he screamed after belting out the opening song. "Do you love rock 'n' roll?"

Any concerns people felt about being scanned at the door quickly drifted away as Hughes, guitarist Dave Catching and bass player Matt McJunkins traded jokes and belted out song after song, including I Only Want You and crowd favourite Cherry Cola.
Nia Vardalos is not a sophisticated artist, but that doesn't make her unworthy of scrutiny: you don't end up writing and starring in one of the most successful independent films of all time without an uncommon kind of drive. Beneath her hack jokes and wild-eyed mugging lies a fierce commitment to pleasing the public; in another life you can see her ruling a greeting-card empire, or running for governor.

Directed by the British fluff merchant Kirk Jones (What to Expect When You're Expecting) this sequel picks up the story a decade and a half on, with Toula back working in her family's restaurant. Over the years, she's transformed into the traditionalist which at heart she always was. Her position as wife and mother has given her a new status, letting her take over from her sister Athena (Stavroula Logothettis, barely visible this time round) as probable future matriarch of the clan.

While Toula's daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) is about to finish high school, she's clearly not ready to become a bride. To shoehorn another wedding into the plot, Vardalos falls back on sitcom contrivance: Toula's parents Maria (Lainie Kazan) and Gus (Michael Constantine) learn their marriage ceremony back in Greece was bungled, meaning they've spent the last four decades living in sin.

Predictable wackiness ensues, with Jones encouraging each cast member to go as broad and frantic as possible. Yet the film does tap into real-world anxieties many viewers will share. For all the gags about baklava and Alexander the Great, the stress on ethnicity is a kind of camouflage: you don't have to be Greek to connect with Vardalos' ambivalence about families, especially when it comes to the roles traditionally prescribed for women.

Maria fears she's wasted her life catering to the whims of a childish tyrant (Michael Constantine); Toula is so preoccupied with her extended family her own marriage has suffered. As for young Paris, she just wants the personal space that would allow her to find an identity of her own. But the negative emotions that fuel the humour  anger, loneliness, sexual embarrassment  rise to the surface only to be submerged once more, in a tide of Reader's Digest whimsy and jolly bouzouki music.
Cleese also said they had never been paid "a penny", despite one such show  seemingly ITI's version  making "a million pounds a year".

A spokeswoman for Interactive Theatre International, which produces up to nine versions of Faulty Towers The Dining Experience internationally, has responded to a story in Fairfax Media this week in which Cleese claimed the company had never sought permission to use or adapt the characters, scenarios or name of the television sitcom he and then-wife Connie Booth created in the 1970s.

The spokeswoman for ITI said Cleese's claim that he had not known about the show until about a year ago was untrue.

The cast of the original Fawlty Towers (left to right): Andrew Sachs as Manuel, John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, Prunella Scales as Sybil Fawlty and Connie Booth as Polly Shearman.

"We're not free to disclose any of the discussions that we've had with Mr Cleese and his management over the years," she said, "but given his comments, and in the interest of keeping you informed, I can add this.

"We are staggered by John Cleese's vitriol towards us and our tribute show. He and his management have known about our show for years. We have made nothing like the sums he claims we have.

"We are not an unauthorised rip-off show  anyone who knows the law in this area will understand that we do not require authorisation to use the concept of Fawlty Towers.
Third-generation Hunter fisherman John Hewitt and his partner, Chantel Walker, who has become a spokeswoman for fisherman in the area. Credit:Nic Walker PFOS has been detected at "concerning levels" in Hunter prawns and fish, says the NSW chief scientist, Professor Mary O'Kane, who heads an expert panel studying the contamination. The panel warns that big eaters of seafood, such as fishing families, risk exceeding a "tolerable daily intake" of PFOS (test results do not present a "significant" risk to the "average consumer", however). Williamtown RAAF base, three kilometres north of Fullerton Cove, is the source of the contamination. For more than 40 years until 2011, the base used a fire-fighting foam called aqueous film-forming foam that contained PFOS and other toxic perfluorinated compounds (PFCs). Geoff Hyde, Kevin Radnidge, Phil Blanch and John Hewitt at the Stockton Prawners' Club on the mouth of the Hunter River. Credit:Nic Walker During fire drills and training exercises, ground crew sprayed the foam from fire trucks and automated systems built into hangars. Wastewater seeped into the ground or collected in man-made Lake Cochran, an unlined evaporation pond the size of 30 Olympic swimming pools.

Few Australians know of PFOS and its sister compound perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). We will soon hear a lot more about them. Civil airports, metropolitan and rural fire services, oil refineries and big fuel storage depots also used foams containing these chemicals. Environment agencies in at least three states  NSW, Victoria and Queensland  are investigating their legacy while PFOS has been linked to unusually high rates of skin, testicular and brain cancer at the Country Fire Authority's Fiskville training base in western Victoria. PFC contamination is confirmed or suspected at 15 RAAF and other military sites across Australia (see box on page 14). Kim-Leanne King, with her youngest daughter Madeline and their Appaloosa horses, worries she exposed her children to poison. Credit:Nic Walker In the case of Williamtown  a picture perfect expanse of small cattle and dairy farms, modest cottages on wide blocks, and saltmarsh dividing rich pasture from mangroves  its geology has helped spread the chemicals. The base sits on sandy soil above a shallow water table that rises after rain and draws down contaminants as it falls. Tasteless and odourless, PFCs have polluted bores of nearby properties and entered the Tomago sandbeds, a giant aquifer that provides about 20 per cent of the lower Hunter's drinking water. Surface runoff has drained into Fullerton Cove, which is part of an internationally designated wetlands refuge for migratory shorebirds. The Department of Defence and NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) have known for almost four years that noxious chemicals in fire-fighting foam were spreading out from the base  but only told the public last September. Community health was compromised while Defence and the EPA dallied and disagreed. Since the announcement, livelihoods have been lost and homes rendered worthless. Residents, fearful they may have been drinking poisoned bore water for years, refuse to use the official dispassionate term "investigation zone" to describe the contaminated area. They call it the "red zone". Fisherman Kevin Radnidge at the Stockton Prawners Club. Credit:Nic Walker

'NSW Health was saying "breast is best"

while advising residents not to drink milk' Samantha Kelly had lived in the red zone for two-and-a-half years when news of the contamination broke in September. She was pregnant with her first child. Would she risk her baby's health by breastfeeding? "I broke down in tears talking about the situation with my antenatal care team and family and friends," she says. "NSW Health was saying 'breast is best' while advising residents not to drink milk of potentially contaminated animals. But if I'm contaminated, it will be passed to the baby." Kelly decided to breastfeed baby William "because there is strong evidence of benefits to the immune system from breast milk. Then there are the unknowns. I still wonder if I've done the right thing." The Risk Assessment Committee of the European Chemicals Agency found enough evidence in 2011 to classify PFOA as "toxic for reproduction" because of its potential to damage the liver and harm the unborn child. The Kellys bought their house in Cabbage Tree Road, Williamtown in 2013 after several discussions with Port Stephens Council staff about flood risk. "The council knew the area was contaminated before we bought but told us nothing," Kelly says. "We thought we were buying into a beautiful country lifestyle and a healthy place to raise kids." Kelly calls Defence's secrecy "disgusting and negligent". The state Labor MP for Port Stephens, Kate Washington, says red zone residents feel betrayed and wonder who in authority they can trust. The line on the map marking the red zone has now been extended beyond its original boundary to encircle 430 households, as counted by the EPA. This group of households includes 165 families who drink bottled water supplied by the RAAF while they wait for town water connections to replace their condemned bores. Tainted water still escapes from the base and Defence admits it does not know how to stop it.

NSW Health advises Williamtown residents it is not known if PFOS and PFOA can harm humans, though "the potential for adverse health outcomes cannot be excluded". Authorities overseas are less equivocal. The United States Environmental Protection Agency classified both chemicals as "emerging contaminants" after its Science Advisory Board assessed them as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans". The Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention  an international treaty that aims to eliminate or restrict persistent organic pollutants  concluded that "global action is warranted". PFOS was added to the Convention in 2009 but Australia has yet to ratify its listing. While the manufacture of PFOS has largely been phased out, PFOA is still produced, including for Teflon, the polymer used in non-stick cookware. Convention experts are considering whether to add PFOA to the treaty list. Last October, a Williamtown resident asked NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon to find out when the Defence Department first knew the base was contaminated. She got a chance to question Defence officials at a budget estimates hearing in Canberra later that month. "Their answers were evasive but Defence clearly knew about the dangers of these chemicals many years before they took action," she observes. At Williamtown, Rhiannon met a group of about 20 worried locals: "farmers, young couples, wives of fishermen. I was shocked by their treatment and the anguish Defence was putting them through." She successfully pressed for an inquiry by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee. She tells Good Weekend that Defence has "refused to engage with people to work out how they can get their lives back together. They haven't done much more than hand out bottles of water." The committee's report in February described the contamination as "a slow-moving disaster" and criticised the response of government agencies, particularly Defence. Rhiannon calls it a "grave regulatory failure by all levels of government, with Defence's response passive at best". This is arguably a generous assessment, given that the department sought to silence and frustrate the work of agencies charged with protecting public health. Moreover, it repeatedly failed to tell Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Works about PFC contamination, while seeking approval for $900 million to upgrade the base before the air force's latest weapon, the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, is delivered in 2018. Kathryn and Bob Cram moved to a small farm about seven kilometres from Williamtown RAAF base in the 1970s. They grew their own meat, milk and eggs from animals watered from bores and grazed on natural pasture. During the 1980s, Kathryn suffered two full-term stillbirths of a son and daughter. "We have spent our lives wondering why. Perhaps we now have the answer," she says. She worries for the health of "the beautiful son we did have", now 32, and his wife and daughter. "They ate our produce and swam in our pool filled with bore water. My granddaughter played under the sprinkler. Were we putting her in danger?" Defence told the Crams their bores and tanks tested negative for PFCs but it had found PFOA in their swimming pool filled from the same bores. The RAAF knew as early as 2003 that PFOS and PFOA were suspected to cause cancer and may have spread to properties neighbouring Williamtown base. It took them a further eight years to act on the advice of their own experts to start testing for contamination. By 2012 the RAAF had proof the chemicals were washing out of the base in surface water. It informed the EPA, Hunter Water and Port Stephens Council but insisted on confidentiality.

Hunter Water, which supplies half a million people in the lower Hunter, embargoed three of its pumping stations to stop groundwater contamination reaching its bores. The state-owned company says it will seek compensation "in the order of tens of millions of dollars" for having to bring forward capital works to replace lost borelines. EPA staff became increasingly agitated as Defence brushed aside their suggestions for co-ordinated action. The EPA's lack of legal authority over Defence land "stymied the ability of EPA officers to act decisively and in a timely fashion" but should not have stopped them sampling water, soil and livestock outside the base, concluded Professor Mark Taylor of Macquarie University in a report for NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman. The EPA finally overrode Defence secrecy by issuing a media release on September 3, 2015  more than three years after Defence told it that toxic chemicals were moving off base. The release, which made national news, warned stunned locals not to drink bore water and not to eat eggs from backyard chickens or fish caught nearby. Defence told the EPA its news release was premature. Were it a corporation, Defence would face a fine of up to $1 million for failing to notify contamination as required under state law. 'They don't care. We're dogs to them' KIM-LEANNE KING found her father crawling along the hallway in tears after bowel cancer spread to his bones. Les Facer was a RAAF corporal at Williamtown who lived about 200 metres from Lake Cochran until his death 10 years ago. "He was a strong country boy who carried strainer posts on his shoulders. He wasted away to nothing in a hospital bed," King recalls. The cancer's highly aggressive behaviour and the absence of any genetic predisposition to bowel cancer among family members led doctors to believe the cause was environmental, she says.

Kim-Leanne and her husband, Colin, built their home next door to Les's block, where her mother, Ruth, still lives. A drain from the base runs through both properties and exacerbates local flooding. Cancer has killed two of Kim-Leanne's neighbours, a sister is on permanent medication for a thyroid condition and a daughter suffers from severe allergies. PFOS and PFOA are linked to thyroid and immune disorders. They can persist in soil and water for "perhaps hundreds of years", a Defence environmental health consultant, Dr Ian Gardner, told the Senate inquiry. A surface water test on King's block showed a PFOS reading of 38.2 micrograms per litre  almost 200 times the 0.2 threshold level set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. "My sister and I used to play in drains and ponds around here," she says. "I was pregnant with my youngest daughter [Madeline] when we built this house; I helped Colin dig the foundations. I lie in bed at night wondering, 'What have I done to contaminate myself today? Did I expose my children to this poison?' " Two weeks after the EPA's September announcement, authorities faced more than 300 residents who filled the auditorium of Stockton RSL club. A Defence representative told them the department kept quiet because it did not know enough about the extent of contamination, local media reported. His claim that the department had been "working closely" with the EPA and Hunter Water since 2012 was clearly wrong. EVERY FRIDAY, an email reaches the inbox of a Defence Department employee. Chantel Walker tells the unknown bureaucrat how she and her husband John Hewitt, a third generation Hunter fisherman, are faring. "It's been 18 weeks of no income. John and I relied on the Salvation Army for gifts for our two young children and food vouchers," she wrote soon after Christmas. "I'm greatly concerned about John's health and wellbeing ... watching him depressed, stressed and feeling worthless. It is the first year he has not been able to provide for his family and this was very upsetting." Walker does not know if anyone reads her emails because she has never received a reply. Hewitt, 35, has fished since he left school at 15. With the Hunter off-limits, he tows his boat 100 kilometres to Myall Lake to trap eels. His catch barely covers the cost of fuel and, though he is endorsed to fish the lake, he's infringing on someone else's patch. "I've already had two blues with locals who see me taking money off them," he says.

Hewitt gruffly dismisses government expressions of concern. "They don't care. We're dogs to them," he says, as if unwilling to waste breath on his tormentors. He drives to the harbour entrance and sits on the breakwall to watch big trawlers scooping up prawns in Stockton Bight. No ban applies to the ocean fishery even though its catch is swollen with potentially contaminated Hunter prawns that have moved out to sea to spawn. "The big boats out there are absolutely killing it," he says. The Hunter fishery is strictly regulated to ensure sustainable catches. The fishermen see themselves as exercising a stewardship over a river reshaped for flood mitigation and trashed by industry. "Big companies and the Defence Department get away with using the Hunter as a bucket to tip their waste into," says Phil Blanch, a third-generation Hunter fisherman who lives in the red zone. "It's an absolute disgrace that the RAAF are exempt from environmental regulations. They have put a lot of lives in danger." Blanch says he is deeply worried for his daughter, 12, raised at Fullerton Cove. "Is it going to be like asbestos, that catches up with people in 20 years' time?" Blanch also knows he can't sell up and move because his home may be worthless. At least one red zone property, with a home and dog boarding kennel business, has been valued at "absolute zero" because it would never find a buyer, according to a local press report. Walker and Lucinda Hornby, wife of Phil Blanch, helped 20 fishermen without computer skills, and including some barely literate, write submissions to the Senate inquiry. "Three of them told me they would rather take their lives than live like they do," Walker says. NSW Health opened a weekly half-day mental health clinic for fishing families and residents five months after the contamination was revealed. Part of a delegation to Canberra, Walker broke down and cried in a meeting with the then Assistant Defence Minister Darren Chester. "He wasn't aware of how serious our situation was and came across as caring and concerned. He said he wanted action," she recalls. "But we have had no help from his office and we only get form letters from Marise Payne, the Defence Minister."

The federal government has yet to commit to Senate committee recommendations such as voluntary property acquisitions and fishing licence buyouts. Kevin Radnidge says all fishermen would prefer a reopened river over buyouts. However "the RAAF has stolen our ability to make a living" and Hunter estuary prawn shares are not transferable to other fisheries. The EPA affirms the "polluter pays" principle; its chief executive, Barry Buffier, is adamant that "Defence is the polluter in this case." Defence insists it is "too early for a formal acceptance of liability." It is no doubt apprehensive of the big picture that will likely come into focus, layer by layer, as the Senate investigation moves around the country. Kate Washington says Defence's attitude is clearly dictated by legal advice. "I am a lawyer and I can smell them a mile away," she told the inquiry. Williamtown residents had the advantage of community structures with experienced campaigners to fight their corner when the contamination scandal broke. Action groups had already seen off a coal seam gas project at Fullerton Cove and were resisting a sand mine proposed for a koala habitat close to the RAAF base. Rhianna Gorfine, convenor of the Williamtown and Surrounds Resident Action Group, lives 2km from the base with her husband, Cain, and three children aged 18 months to nine years. She is working with lawyers and litigation funders on a class action. "No one in authority can say whether we are at the start, middle or end of the contamination," she says. "And no one seems to know how to stop more contamination leaving the base." Defence told the inquiry large-scale remediation of ground water was "problematic", there was no proven way of effectively remediating the aquifer, and the topography and high water table "present challenges" for containing surface water run off. None of this has prevented a major clean up of the RAAF base itself, however. The air force is spending $3 million to treat water and stockpile contaminated soil before extending the runway for the F-35A fighter. Residents worry the work could spread PFCs even further. "They are digging and pumping groundwater in the heart of the contamination zone," Gorfine says. "There is no regulatory body overseeing the work because Defence are a law unto themselves."

'No bank will lend to a Hunter fisherman' THE BABETTE, a 30-footer painted a cheerful sky-blue and white, is berthed with other trawlers along a mangrove-fringed stretch of river 15 kilometres from the sea. The only fishing is done by a wading heron stabbing through its watery reflection. "The authorities all knew about the contamination when I bought the boat, but I never knew," says Radnidge, with a hint of needless self-reproach. Radnidge was hopeful when the federal government announced a "business hardship package" of up to $20,000 for affected fishermen  a fraction of their losses. He applied to use it to refit the Babette and buy an endorsement for coastal prawning, but Centrelink knocked him back. "It would have got me off my arse and earning money but they told me it wasn't designed to help start a new business." Even if it were, Radnidge would have to spend first then claim reimbursement from Centrelink. "But I'm broke and I can't borrow because no bank will lend to a Hunter fisherman," he says. Government aid to fishermen took too long to be made available, and when it came it was inadequate, difficult to access and demeaning, Kate Washington told the Senate inquiry. Newstart payments will cut out when the prawning season ends in June. Radnidge says that ignores the "really hard, really long hours we work for seven months to make our 12 months' income. How are we supposed to survive after June?" Radnidge doesn't sleep much anymore. He spends his days on the phone to other anxious fishermen and is awake all night worrying: "I've got a real good family unit around me ... my sons are my best mates. But I'm still battling with the emotion of it all."

He fears he will never again experience the contentment of guiding the Babette downstream at daybreak to meet the tide. "I love fishing; we all do. And now it's been taken away  maybe forever." says. TOXIC SPREAD Williamtown's contamination has grabbed headlines but toxic fallout from fire-fighting foam used on military bases is a nationwide threat. The Department of Defence is testing another 15 "priority" sites confirmed or likely to be PFC-contaminated across all states and the Northern Territory. A Senate committee of inquiry is due to report on the issue in April. Queensland lawyers are already assembling a class action case on behalf of landowners hit by contamination from the Army Aviation Centre near the Darling Downs town of Oakey. Affected residents have recorded blood PFC levels of up to 44 times the national average.
"It's a classic case of something old that becomes new again as soon as it becomes unpopular," suggests Edwina Foley, jewels specialist at Leonard Joel's Sydney office. She's trying to explain the revival of interest in antique jewellery as shown at her latest auction on March 7, held at the Jewish Women's Hall in Queen Street, Woollahra.

These are attracting a new generation of fans. The dominant demographic is professional women in their early 30s who are now earning good money for perhaps the first time in their lives and celebrating with some trophy jewels.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop wearing a heart-shaped brooch. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

These women are wearing these items on their hats, even on the hip, as well as on the lapel. The more spectacular the design the stronger the demand. One theory is that in these grey times, a spectacular brooch, ring or pendant is one of the few ways for young women to express their inner sparkle.

There were about 40 bidders in the room but a huge online presence, even from those living nearby. The internet is the preferred auction environment for the younger demographic.
An evangelical student group has refused to remove a vow to Jesus from its constitution despite being threatened with deregistration from the Sydney University student body.

The Sydney University Evangelical Union was issued an ultimatum by university's student union last week to remove a requirement that new members sign "Jesus is Lord" or be deregistered from the university.

Sydney University plans to streamline degrees into three "tracks": professional development, research and a more open track for broader education. Credit:Victoria Baldwin

The ultimatum came after a three-year struggle ended with the union accusing the club of discriminating against people who wanted to join the evangelical club who were not evangelical.
A health worker missing in remote South Australia is thought to have been abducted from her outback home.

A four-wheel-drive ambulance has been recovered that Gayle Woodford, 56, used in her work and is being forensically examined.

Missing health worker Gayle Woodford. Credit:Facebook

One of three people using the vehicle when it was located in Coober Pedy on Thursday has been arrested and charged with theft.

Ms Woodford's disappearance has also been declared a major crime as an extensive land and air search continues.
In class, children are allowed to have fun, giggle and daydream from time to time. Finns put into practice the cultural mantras I heard over and over: "Let children be children," "The work of a child is to play," and "Children learn best through play."

The emotional climate of the typical classroom is warm, safe, respectful and highly supportive. There are no scripted lessons and no quasi-martial requirements to walk in straight lines or sit up straight. As one Chinese student-teacher studying in Finland marvelled to me, "In Chinese schools, you feel like you're in the military. Here, you feel like you're part of a really nice family." She is trying to figure out how she can stay in Finland permanently.

In Finland teachers are the most trusted and admired professionals next to doctors, in part because they are required to have a master's degree in education with specialisation in research and classroom practice.

"Our mission as adults is to protect our children from politicians," one Finnish childhood education professor told me. "We also have an ethical and moral responsibility to tell businesspeople to stay out of our building." In fact, any Finnish citizen is free to visit any school whenever they like, but her message was clear: Educators are the ultimate authorities on education, not bureaucrats, and not technology vendors.

Finland delivers on a national public scale highly qualified, highly respected and highly professionalised teachers who conduct personalised one-on-one instruction; manageable class sizes; a rich, developmentally correct curriculum; regular physical activity; little or no low-quality standardised tests and the toxic stress and wasted time and energy that accompanies them; daily assessments by teachers; and a classroom atmosphere of safety, collaboration, warmth and respect for children as cherished individuals.
More than a hundred years after a Japanese expedition received a chilly welcome in Sydney following a failed Antarctic mission, the icebreaker Shirase has docked here to something of a hero's welcome.

The two events are not disconnected.

Crew members from the Japanese icebreaker Shirase at Garden Island on Good Friday. Credit:Anthony Johnson

The Shirase is docked at Garden Island this weekend, 105 years after its namesake, Nobu Shirase and his crew, were forced to find refuge at Parsley Bay, Vaucluse.

They camped there for six months, arousing much suspicion in Sydney.
Despite repeated arrests to dismantle the largest terror cell seen in Sydney, police have warned that offshoots and members in prison pose a continuing threat in an investigation that will "never close".

The close-knit group of extremists at the heart of Operation Appleby first came to the public's attention when 870 police swooped on 27 homes in September 2014.

The raid resulted in two arrests  Ahmad Rahmany, for possessing ammunition, and Omarjan Azari, for allegedly taking an order via phone to kill a random person  and questions soon emerged about whether the operation was overkill.

However, the arrest of 20-year-old Milad Atai on Tuesday brought the number of Appleby arrests now before the courts to 14, which is seen by police as a vindication of the disruptive and pre-emptive strategy first adopted in 2014.
Trevor Evans, the Liberal National Party candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane. Dr Fraser has been a member of the party for some years but has only recently joined the Brisbane electorate. He lives in Fortitude Valley and works in Milton. Mr Jacobs is a popular LNP member after putting up a strong fight in The Gabba at the local council elections which saw him win the majority of votes but was beaten on preferences. LNP candidate for The Gabba, Sean Jacobs, with his Brisbane City Council-inspired corflute. Credit:Facebook Mr Evans put up a pre-selection challenge to Ms Gambaro last year but withdrew after pressure from the party and when then Prime minister Tony Abbott changed party rules to prevent challenges against sitting members.

With a federal election looking more and more likely for July 2, the LNP will need to move swiftly to install a candidate in the key Brisbane seat which Ms Gambaro held since 2010. Prior to that it was held by the Labor party for three decades. The LNP source said pre-selection voters needed to be cautious about which candidate they selected for the seat to ensure the LNP government is returned to office, and the key consideration would be who could raise the funds needed to run an intense federal campaign. "I think we need to think very carefully about which of the candidates is able to bring in corporate support so we can hold a seat like Brisbane," they said. "It's important to keep a seat like Brisbane to return the Turnbull government to office.

"People new to the party may not have any idea of the intensity of a federal campaign and I think that the problem is if they aren't very well known you have to wonder about what ability they would have to raise funds for the campaign. "Trevor's profile in the business community comes from championing issues because he is working on behalf of a business organisation and they are the same issues that the LNP are fighting for." Mr Jacobs is also a strong candidate but the source said he might not be a strong enough candidate to win across the river. "Sean Jacobs was a very good candidate and ran a very good campaign in The Gabba ward last weekend," the source said. "It's good to see him not giving up on his political aspirations, but I'm not sure he will bring any name recognition or good will across the river."

But the man who will face whoever wins pre-selection, Labor candidate Pat O'Neill, said it doesn't matter what candidate they put forward. "It doesn't matter what face they put on their election posters they still stand for the same LNP policies," he said. Mr O'Neill, a gay army major, pointed out the LNP's poor history with same sex issues as a major strength in the campaign. If Mr Evans is successful in pre-selection and endorsed by the party it will set up a historic battle where both candidates from the major parties are openly gay. But Mr O'Neill said Mr Evan's sexuality is irrelevant given the party's stance on issues like same sex marriage and the safe schools program.

"If it's Trevor Evans he is standing for a party that does not support LGBTI Australians," Mr O'Neill said. "Through their words and actions they have shown they think he is dirty and a deviant and they are saying that to all LGBTI Australians. "(Which ever candidate they choose) they still represent those policies attacking LGBTI Australians." But the senior LNP figure who spoke to Fairfax Media said Mr Evans was the right candidate for the seat to ensure it stayed LNP territory. "Trevor has the ability to communicate and connect with the members of the seat of Brisbane in a way that can really take the challenge up to Pat O'Neill," they said.
He doesn't sport a Ned Kelly-style beard or ride a fixie. Daniel Andrews has even been known (we are reliably informed) to enjoy the odd cup of instant.

The premier is no hipster. He isn't even particularly cool. (Sorry Dan). Yet, perhaps more than any other political leader in the nation, Andrews has been able to effectively target a growing pool of young voters who might be described as disengaged from the so-called mainstream media.

The latest census shows in 2011 there were 263,000 Victorians aged 11 to 14. By the time the 2018 state election rolls around, this tech-savvy cohort will have reached voting age. To state the obvious, that's a lot of voters.

The thinking is that the traditional tools of big political parties - screaming tabloid headlines, stunts with small children on evening news bulletins and expensive ad campaigns - have lost their edge, particularly when it comes to communicating with younger voters.
Victoria Police have released an image of a silver car believed to be involved in the latest hit and run on a cyclist.

A 36-year-old Alfredton man was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries after the smash in Lake Wendouree, on Wendouree Parade near Morrison Street, about 6.20am on Good Friday. The man remained in a critical condition on Friday night.

Police at the scene of the hit and run in Ballarat. Credit:Luka Kauzlaric / Ballarat Courier

Major Collision Investigation Unit detectives said the wanted car, a four door Mitsubishi Lancer sedan with a body kit, veered onto the wrong side of the road and struck the cyclist head-on before fleeing the scene.



They have released an image of the wanted car, captured about two hours later, from a garbage truck cabin video in Greenhalghs Road in Delacombe.



It is believed the windscreen is smashed and part of the body kit at the back is dangling onto the road by an electrical lead.

The latest hit and run follows a smash on Wednesday that left two cyclists seriously injured in Gippsland.
A retired teacher who tried to stop a paedophile priest from assaulting her students has returned to her old school to pay tribute to the victims of clerical sex abuse.

Former Holy Family teacher Carmel Rafferty led a group of people back to the Doveton parish adjoining her old primary school on Friday to tie colourful ribbons to the fence in a mark of respect to survivors.

"The church is paying attention to the suffering of Jesus on Good Friday, but we're paying attention to the abused," Ms Rafferty said.
At the age of four, Arlow developed a tic. He had an inexplicable blink.

In the absence of a medical diagnosis, his mother Kobe Poulter, put the cause down to stress.

Arlow had worn fairy dresses to creche, but around the time his blinking emerged, he was in kindergarten and hiding his dresses.

Two years later, on Arlow's first day of school, he kicked and screamed and begged not to wear the boys' uniform.
A Perth woman who fled a violent relationship with just the clothes on her back, while her former partner breached a restraining order more than 20 times, says she is devastated police prosecutors let him off with "just a slap on the wrist".

Rebecca Burton spent more than two months living in a women's refuge and claims prosecutors did not consult her before offering her former partner a deal that involved dropping more than half the VRO breaches she lodged against him in exchange for an early guilty plea in court.

Three mothers who lost their daughters to domestic violence have called on MPs to change domestic violence laws.

"They don't negotiate traffic fines or parking infringements, so why are they negotiating breaches to VROs when it's the only instrument that keeps us safe in these situations?" she said.

"It's not acceptable because it's meant that a judge is going to base their sentencing decision on the number of breaches that they see.
Perth media personalities clashed to crown a culinary king between radio and TV at The Apple Daily Bar and Eating House on Thursday.

The cook-off was a promotion for the WAtoday Night Noodle Markets which will be held at Elizabeth Quay from March 30 to April 10.

Taking up the challenge for TV were Tracy Vo and Lisa Fernandez from Channel 9, while carrying the baton for radio were 6PR Drive host Adam Shand and Australian Financial Review journalist, and sometimes 6PR presenter, Julie-anne Sprague.

Teams were given a short pre-challenge demonstration of how to cook the dish of Char Kway Teow - and it was quick because it only took The Apple Daily Bar and Eating House chef Ivan Blackwell around three minutes to whip it up from pre-prepared ingredients.
Police executing a search warrant at a house in Perth's northern suburbs on Thursday unexpectedly uncovered "one of the messiest" homes they've come across, according to one of the attending officers.

Warwick Police Sergeant Jason Toneman said officers were still "scrubbing themselves" clean after executing a drug search warrant at the Marangaroo house.

The shockingly messy scene uncovered at Marangaroo.

A post to the station's Twitter on Friday said "Warwick Police executed a drug warrant, no Easter eggs located, only methamphetamine, pipes and mess".

"Several items of interest have been located [at the property] including meth and some drug paraphernalia," Sergeant Toneman said.
Washington: White House hopeful Senator Ted Cruz has been forced to deny a tabloid story alleging he had had extramarital affairs, describing it as "complete garbage and lies".

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination descended into the gutter a pro-Donald Trump supermarket magazine, the National Enquirer, claimed private investigators were looking into allegations that the Texas senator was "hiding five mistresses".

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz makes a stop in Janesville, Wisconsin, on Thursday. He and Donald Trump have been trading insults regarding their personal lives. Credit:AP

The claims proliferated on social media forcing a visibly angry Senator Cruz to address them while on the campaign trail in Wisconsin. They followed threats by Mr Trump to "spill the beans" on Senator Cruz's wife earlier in the week.
The Front Page, a 1928 comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, will likely return to the Broadway stage this fall, according to an an Actors' Equity casting notice. The production will be helmed by Tony Award-winning director Jack O'Brien (It's Only a Play). According to the notice, the show will run from September 20-February 5, with an opening night on October 20.

The play is set in the Press Room of the Criminal Courts Building in Chicago. It follows Hildy Johnson, a reporter with The Herald Examiner whose plans to break away from journalism and go on his belated honeymoon are foiled by the appearance of an escaped convict.

The Front Page was first produced on Broadway in 1928 in a production staged by George S. Kaufman. It has since been revived in 1946, 1969, and most recently in a 1986 production directed by Jerry Zaks and featuring John Lithgow. Scott Rudin Productions will produce the 2016 revival.
This is part II of Michael Feingold's latest "Thinking About Theater" column. Click here to read part I.

Director Ivo van Hove often strips away the conventional trappings of a play, as he did in his production of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge. Above: Saoirse Ronan stars as Abigail Williams in van Hove's current revival of Miller's The Crucible.

( James Minchin III)

One problem that New York has always had with greatness is that our mainstream theater is a commercial theater, and what's great does not always make money: Sometimes, especially when it comes in a new form, the disruption it causes actively drives the pleasure-seeking, affluent crowds away. We've become habituated to Beckett's Waiting for Godot, today a classic taught in every college's Modern Drama course, and regularly revived with easily assembled all-star casts. It takes effort to recall that 60 years ago, when it premiered on Broadway, Godot was a complete puzzlement to most theatergoers. Even with two star names  Bert Lahr and E.G. Marshall  it had only a short run (60 performances) with a lackluster box-office. The producer's ad campaign included a plea for 100,000 intellectuals to fill the empty seats. They didn't come.

Today, three Broadway and half-a-dozen off-Broadway revivals later, we see Godot differently. Whether we understand it or not, it fits our received idea of what constitutes a great play. When it's well enough done, we feel its effect. Its images, lines, and characters  even some of its stage directions, like They do not move  have entered our language. And yet  one wonders how many of this city's regular theatergoers have experienced Godot. And one notes that Beckett's Endgame, a play nearly as great as Godot, has to this day never had a Broadway production. Possibly the image of aged parents stored in trash cans is still a little too unnerving for uptown ticket buyers.

We lose sight of greatness partly because so much of our theater is based on fashionable showiness, as well as on star names. Even an acknowledged masterpiece, in this way of thinking, needs to be pepped up with some kind of glitzy or fashionably "deconstructed" staging. One result of this has been New York producers' tendency to abdicate any responsibility for classics, preferring to transfer the burden onto London's shoulders. There, a more theatrically au courant public with a fondness for new approaches will applaud productions that often have little to do with the basic intent of a work, and the net effect for us is that Broadway honors the centennial of our own Arthur Miller with two productions imported from England, staged by a Belgian director of whose results Miller would almost certainly not have approved.

Samuel Beckett's modern classic Waiting for Godot failed to attract theatergoers 60 years ago, but now it draws audiences and big-name actors to Broadway. Above: Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen starred in the 2013 revival of Godot at the Cort Theatre.

( Joan Marcus)

This issue of authorial intentions is not a simple, clear-cut one. The theater Shakespeare worked in is so far away from ours in time and practice that I doubt he would understand much of what goes on in today's Shakespeare productions. (Most 19th-century productions might have left him even more flummoxed.) I can't guess what Thornton Wilder might have felt about David Cromer's production of Our Town, which turned several of Wilder's most cherished theatrical notions upside down. I only know that for me it restored meaning to an overfamiliar great play, and did so without hopelessly befuddling those new to the work.

Deceased authors, unless their estates play guardian, must take their chances. The main question for us is whether the directorial approach vitiates the work's power or re-energizes it; a secondary question is whether a director-centered production can give a new audience any sense at all of what the play contains. The work of Ivo van Hove, who seems to have become Britain's (and New York Theatre Workshop's) go-to director for classics, always leaves me feeling divided on this point. To a large extent, his directorial choices strike me as silly and arbitrary, but his habit of stripping away the conventional trappings of every script constitutes a kind of test of the play's strength. In his NYTW Hedda Gabler and his recent Broadway View From the Bridge, the drama withstood the assault, but his bathtub-based Streetcar was a draw at best, while The Little Foxes went down to defeat. We'll soon see how The Crucible holds up.

Ultimately, it seems frustrating that a director's approach to a play should be perceived in terms of a fight. Deconstruction may have its theoretical uses as an analytic tool, but in practice it chiefly tends to distract from the central goal. If you don't want to convey the substance of a play, why do it? (Van Hove's defenders would say he was trying to convey exactly that, raising a knottier question: To what extent are the realistic details part of Ibsen's or Miller's substance?)

Annie Baker, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Flick, is an example of a modern playwright who can achieve greatness. Above: Georgia Engel, Christopher Abbott, and Lois Smith starred in the 2015 world premiere of Baker's play John.

( Matthew Murphy)

And with foreign plays, hovering over the whole question of directorial interpretation is the issue of translation versus adaptation. "Versions" of plays are likely to contain passages far from the original, and employ approaches that would be inconceivable to its author. If you see an extremely terse play in contemporary prose, and are told that it's by Friedrich Schiller, you have every right to suspect that the management is putting one over on you. With the ancient Greek tragedies, where both language and stage conventions are remote from us, the problem reaches its height: Most contemporary productions either strip the story back to the bare myth, often nonverbally, like Andrei Serban's and Ariane Mnouchkine's, or essentially amount to a new play by the adapter. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides hardly get a word in.

As it happens, the not-so-great production of a great play that started me on this train of thought, back at the top of Part I, was an adaptation of a Greek tragedy, by a noted modern poet. He "made it his own," as they say, but he did not scant its greatness. It reminded me, as great plays remind both artists and audiences, that the bar for what we can achieve in the theater is set very, very high. And it made me recall  this is the happy ending  that we have plenty of artists at work today who can achieve greatness if we demand it. Ayad Akhtar's The Invisible Hand and Annie Baker's John are two recent instances. A facile tendency to think small and comfortable has taken over too much of our theatrical life. In today's dangerous world, the facile comforts  or even the facile discomforts of current aesthetic fashion  are not the wisest option.

Michael Feingold's next two-part "Thinking About Theater" column will appear on consecutive Fridays April 22 and 29.

Michael Feingold has twice won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, most recently in 2015 for his "Thinking About Theater" columns on TheaterMania, and has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. He serves as chairman of the Obie Awards and has also worked as a playwright, translator, and dramaturg.
NEW YORK, March 24, 2016 -- Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) today showed the much-anticipated production model of the all-new 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and the 2017 Mirage G4 subcompact sedan at the 2016 New York International Auto Show. Both vehicles are new models to the Mitsubishi product lineup and are important to the brand's growth plans in North America.

"The two new vehicles debuted today in New York will help continue Mitsubishi's sales momentum and will be instrumental in achieving our sales goals for the year," said Don Swearingen, executive vice president, MMNA. "Outlander PHEV offers the best of both worlds providing true SUV capabilities along with electric driving efficiency without the worry of range anxiety. Mirage G4 joins the popular Mirage hatchback to form a formidable one-two punch in the subcompact segment."

Featuring a highly efficient 2.0-liter gasoline engine and two high-performance electric motors that drive Mitsubishi's superior Super All-Wheel Control (S-AWC) system, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is a very capable PHEV with go anywhere capability. The Outlander PHEV will arrive at Mitsubishi Motors showrooms in fall 2016.

The Outlander PHEV is highlighted by a full-time, twin-electric motor-powered all-wheel control system that provides quick and optimized torque distribution between the front and rear wheels. Mounted separately at the front and rear axles the electric motors deliver precise, responsive 4WD performance with the S-AWC system ensuring excellent driving stability and intuitive, linear handling. The S-AWC system found on the Outlander PHEV is a specialized application of Lancer Evolution-derived Super All-Wheel Control honed on the world rally circuit.

A sibling to the well-established and popular Mirage hatchback, the all-new Mirage G4 brings to consumers a fresh dose of clean style, environmental consciousness, agility, connectivity, affordability, roominess, and value. The Mirage G4 will be at the top of its class in combined fuel efficiency and C02 emissions. Inside, the Mirage G4's long wheelbase provides for a spacious interior cabin and a cavernous trunk. Adding an element of surprise and delight to the subcompact segment, the Mirage G4 will come equipped with available smartphone integrations, features typically reserved for higher priced vehicles. Support for Apple CarPlay, the smarter, safer way to use your iPhone in the car, lets drivers make calls, get directions optimized for traffic conditions, listen to music, and access messages. Android Auto extends the Android platform into the car in a way that's purpose-built for driving.

About Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc.

Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc., (MMNA) is responsible for all research and development, marketing and sales for Mitsubishi Motors in the United States. MMNA sells sedans and crossovers/SUVs through a network of approximately 360 dealers. MMNA is leading the way in the development of highly efficient, affordably-priced new gasoline-powered automobiles while using its industry-leading knowledge in battery electric vehicles to develop future EV and PHEV models.
Craig Jackson's Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach Auction to Feature Two Cars Owned by Actor William Shatner

PALM BEACH, FL - March 25, 2016: Barrett-Jackson, The World's Greatest Collector Car Auctions, will sell two cars from the personal collection of Hollywood megastar William Shatner during the company's 14th Annual Palm Beach Auction from April 8-10, 2016, at the South Florida Fairgrounds. Shatner, best known as the original Captain James T. Kirk in the "Star Trek" TV and movie franchise, is selling a low-mileage 2002 Aston Martin DB7 Volante (Lot #89.1) and a 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton (Lot #89.2), both of which the star will autograph for the new owners during the auction.

"Our Palm Beach auction has been host to many fantastic celebrities over the past 14 years," said Craig Jackson, chairman and CEO of Barrett-Jackson. "It's an honor to add Mr. Shatner to our list of film and music legends that trust Barrett-Jackson with the auction of their vehicles. Having a car that belonged to the original 'Captain Kirk' will be a great story to tell for the new owners."

Shatner has long been a fan of everything automotive. Shortly after being cast as Captain Kirk in "Star Trek" in 1966, Shatner splurged on a Corvette Stingray. He has driven across the country numerous times in trucks, cars and even motorcycles. Just last year he drove from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66 for charity.

"Mechanical things have always fascinated me," said Shatner. "The sound of the exhaust, the ticking of the engine, the sleekness of the design have intrigued and entranced me. I look for cars like the ones I am selling: this great VW Phaeton  one of the most advanced cars in the world at its time  and this Aston Martin DB7, which is a jewel of design.

"Barrett-Jackson is one of the great names in car auctions. I have two wonderful cars that I am sending to them. They are like my kids, but I know they will get great care and I will be there for the adoption process. I am looking forward to it."

For more information on becoming a bidder, follow the link to http://www.Barrett-Jackson.com/Bidder/Home.

About The Barrett-Jackson Auction Company

Established in 1971 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Barrett-Jackson, The World's Greatest Collector Car Auctions, is the leader in collector car auctions and automotive lifestyle events. The company produces auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona; Palm Beach, Florida; at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, and Las Vegas, Nevada. With broadcast partners, Velocity and Discovery Channel, Barrett-Jackson will feature live television coverage in 2016, including broadcasts in over 100 countries internationally. Barrett-Jackson also endorses a one-of-a-kind collector car insurance for collector vehicles and other valued belongings. For more information about Barrett-Jackson, visit http://www.barrett-jackson.com, or call 480-421-6694.
Car Question Or Concerns? Get Expert Advice From The Auto Lab Team, Saturday March 26 8A-10A







March 26, 2016

Car Question or Opinion? Call Toll Free 888-692-7234

Auto Lab is a 27 year old interactive automotive-focused New York area radio call-in show hosted by Professor Harold Wolchok. Each week a cadre of experienced hands-on automotive experts are in-studio with advice for the New York area's 12 million people, providing listeners with honest, practical and street-smart car repair and buying advice.

Auto Lab is also about the automotive industry, its history, and its culture, presenting the ideas and advice of leading college faculty, authors, and automotive practitioners in a relaxed, conversational interactive format.

http://www.theautochannel.com/cybercast/theautolab/autolab_live.asx

8 to 9 am on WMCA Radio

Listen Live on WMCA Radio 9 to 10 am on WNYM Radio

Listen Live on WNYM Radio

New programs air Saturday mornings.

After listening to the first hour on WMCA, you will need to close that window and click the link to listen to the second hour on WNYM.

After listening to the first hour on WMCA, you will need to close that window and click the link to listen to the second hour on WNYM.

Listeners can hear the past 18 years of archived Auto Lab shows as simulcast on www.theautochannel.com.

Listen - Auto Lab Page (Includes Audio-on-Demand Archives, Auto Programs at Community College Database, Guests Pictures

March 26, 2016 - Car Question? Straight Answers From These In-Studio Auto Lab Experts

Harold Bendell- Major Auto

Fred Bordoff-Bronx Community College, CUNY

Tim Cacace-Master Mechanix

David Goldsmith - Urban Classics Auto Repairs

Joanne Porcelli, Esq

Michael Porcelli - Central Avenue Auto Repairs & I-CAR

Nicholas Prague- MTA and Rockland Community College, SUNY

Jose Ramirez - Ramirez and Sons AAA Auto Repair

March 26, 2016 - Correspondent Reports - Car Reviews, Opinion and Other Automotive News and Information

Robert Erskine, Senior European Correspondent, Suffolk England

RANGE ROVER GOD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Robert Sinclair-AAA Northeast

HISTORY OF FALLING INCREASES CRASH RISK BY 40 PERCENT FOR OLDER DRIVERS

Sharon Sudol & John Russell, Senior Correspondents

2016 MAZDA MX -5 -WORLD CAR OF THE YEAR

Impressions Of 2016 New York International Auto Show

Russ Rader, Vice President Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

2016 MINI COOPER EARNS TOP SAFETY PICK + AWARD

Dr. William Sharfman, Automotive Journalist and Consultant

2016 New York International Auto Show Impressions
Tesla Expanding Manhattan NY Recharging Station Network

NEW YORK March 23, 2016; NACSonline said that the New York Post reported that Tesla is planning to greatly expand its recharging network throughout Manhattan.

By expanding its number of recharging stations from about 40 to 105 by March 31, there could be three times as many electric-car charging stations in Manhattan than gas stations, notes the news source, adding that as of March 17, Tesla had outfitted 68 Manhattan garages with destination chargers, which can add about 60 miles of range per hour of charging to a Model S or Model X.

By September, the company says there will be a Tesla charging station every three blocks. Earlier this week, Tesla opened a 40,000-square-foot showroom and service garage in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in addition to its showroom in Chelsea.

Tesla spokesperson Alexis Georgeson told The Post that the company had mainly installed its quick-charging connectors at hotels and restaurants. However, in an effort to tackle the need for urban charging, we expanded the program and partnered with public garages that offer parking both by the hour or the month, she said.
Authorities warn about rainbow fentanyl Victims often arent aware theyre taking it

The Ventura County Office of Education and state health officials have issued a warning to schools and families about rainbow fentanyl, a form of the potentially fatal synthetic opioid that comes in bright colors. Rainbow fentanyl can be found in...

Cancer support community to host remembrance event Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara invites family members and friends of those who have died from cancer to attend the second annual Evening of Remembrance from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 3 at Cancer Support Communitys Garden of Hope,...

Grant advances CSUCI research Cal State Channel Islands assistant professor of computer science Scott Feister and assistant professor of mathematics Alona Kryshchenko recently received $112,480 from the National Science Foundation to continue a grant to support their research project, Enhancing Laser Based Ion Sources...

Healthcare agency recommends flu shots The Ventura County Health Care Agency offers options for the community to receive flu shots through its Ambulatory Care Clinic system, public health clinics and pop-up clinics. Although seasonal influenza viruses are detected year-round in the United States, they are...
With John Kasich abandoned even by establishment figures like Jeb Bush (for Ted Cruz) and Rudy Giuliani (for Donald Trump), the GOP standard bearer this year will almost certainly be one of two loathsome wannabe strongmena Banana Republican, and I dont mean someone shopping for khakis.

This was just another week in monkey land. First, Cruz imperiled our safety by arguing (to the horror of police chiefs and counter-terrorism officials in both parties) for un-American police occupations of Muslim communities that would alienate the very people whose help we need to prevent terrorists from striking. Trump gave his Lyin Ted line a rest long enough to endorse Cruzs dangerous idea.

But not too longonly a few hours. On Tuesday, while the bodies in Brussels were still warm, Trump Tweeted innuendo about Cruzs wife after charging that Cruz spread naked pictures of Trumps future first lady. Cruz responded in kind.

You might think Cruz and Trump would take a few hours off from their juvenilia out of respect for the victims, or at least realize that their little flare-up mostly just served to spread Melania Trumps privates and Heidi Cruzs unhappiness with her husband to the far corners of the globe.

But we know better than to expect that out of these guys.

Thats because we are living in a different country now, for at least the next seven months. Its a country more like Argentina. Not the Argentina that President Obama is visiting, the one whose president is committed to addressing climate change and advancing the rule of law. I mean the Argentina of President Juan Peron, the one whose wife, Evita, told her country not to cry for her.

Or maybe the right comparison is the old Paraguay, or the old Guatemala, or the old Nicaragua

At the turn of the last century, when the U.S. was beginning to feel its oats as a world leader (often to the point of military intervention in Latin America and the Philippines), the great short story writer O. Henry coined the term banana republic to describe politically unstable and socially stratified countries that often depended on a single productbananas, or, more recently, oil.

These Third World oligarchies or single-party statesand we still see plenty of them around the globeare run by right-wing strongmen who make their own rules and are often more than faintly ridiculous. So while theres something to the comparisons between Trump and Benito Mussolini (though not Hitler, who has become a lazy cliche in these debates), its the tin-horn dictators and their craven supporters who we should be referencing.

Banana Republicans use fear and threats to public safety to stigmatize ethnic groups and political opponents in order to consolidate power. The other can be communists, Muslims, Jews, Mexicans, anyone.

Banana Republicans call their enemies parasites (as the Trump campaign refers to protesters), a trope favored by totalitarians for generations because it makes removal or relief seem more natural.

Banana Republicans are not only unapologetic about immense income inequality, they support tax policies to make it worse. They pose as outsiders (what were once called men on horseback) and populists while furthering oligarchy.

Banana Republicans are fierce nationalists and devotees of honor culture (to wit, the wife business) who condone violence when its convenient. Trumps claim that there will be riots if hes not nominated was right out of the despot handbookNice little democracy you have there. Pity if anything should happen to it.

Banana Republicans always try to intimidate the media. Trump's decision to block critical reporters from major news organizations (Politico and Huffington Post, among others) from his news conferences is something that, until now, happened in other countries, not here.

Banana Republicans sully stately institutions with out-of-bounds rhetoric (Cruz calling Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor), while attempting to politicize the judiciary. Thanks to McConnell and his colleagues, Obamas nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, is the first nominee to the high court in American history not to be granted the courtesy of a hearing. This refusal to recognize that the presidents term is four years, not three, resonates of the cavalier way dictators view their constitutions. It suggests the contempt for tradition and the Constitution inside the GOP extends far beyond its leading candidates for president.

It sounds portentous, but this is a time of moral reckoning for all Americans. You cant believe Trump is a con man and also support him if hes the nominee. Thats putting party before country. You cant be a network executive knowingly manipulated by Trump and rationalize it with reference to great ratings. Thats putting money above liberty.

And youweshould be worried for the stability of our country when one of our great political partiesan important institution deserving of respect in ordinary times, even from opponentsbecomes a recruiting tool for terrorists and a laughingstock around the world. It isnt funny to slip on the banana peel of history.
This month, a student group at Brown University launched a petition to pressure Janet Mock into canceling her scheduled lecture on the Providence, Rhode Island, campus.

One might assume this cohort was virulently homophobic or transphobic to discourage the transgender activist from serving as the keynote speaker selected by Moral Voicesa group whose mission for this academic year was to raise awareness about violence against LGBTQ+ individuals and communities, according to a statement by one of its co-chairwomen.

No, based on their petitions aim, these students apparently believed it was better for Mock not to speak at all than to do so at an event connected to the Hillel chapter for the Ivy League college and the Rhode Island School of Design.

That the event was not about Israel or the Middle East, or that its sponsorship by other progressive groups on campusincluding the Brown Center for Students of Color, Sarah Doyle Womens Center, LGBTQ Center, Sexual Assault Peer Educators, Office of the Chaplains, and the Rhode Island School of Designs Office of Intercultural Student Engagementdidnt sway these students from arguing that Mocks appearance would be implicit support for some Zionist conspiracy?

The petition posted on Change.orgwhich Browns Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) later identified themselves as at least partially responsible for when defending it in a Brown Daily Herald opinion pieceargued that Mock shouldnt speak at the event because Moral Voices (although privately funded) operates through the Brown-RISD Hillel. According to these students, Hillel as a corporation has consistently defended and even advocated for the Israeli states policies of occupation and racial apartheid. Israels violent policies center on colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of native Palestinians, and charges that it has guidelines set in place to ensure that no speaker hosted by Hillel is allowed to rigorously critique Israel.

Curiously, the last allegation actually links to a part of the Hillel International website that specifically states:

Hillel welcomes a diversity of student perspectives on Israel and strives to create an inclusive, pluralistic community where students can discuss matters of interest and/or concern about Israel and the Jewish people in a civil manner. We encourage students  inquiry as they explore their relationship with Israel. We object to labeling, excluding, or harassing any students for their beliefs and expressions thereof. As an indispensable partner to the university, Hillel seeks to facilitate civil discourse about Israel in a safe and supportive college environment that is fertile for dialogue and learning.

So, not exactly damning proof that Hillel International hinders free speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other issues. But on the Brown/RISD Hillel site theres a link the local chapter of J Street U that cheerily boasts among its past achievements encouraging U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) to support continued aid to the Palestinian Authority. Clearly, Mock was not being invited to speak by some right-wing, extremist organization or, for that matter, one that pressures students to embrace a single, hardline view.

Instead, the group of students thwarting Mocks scheduled lecturethose belonging to SJPdo, in fact, pressure people to conform to their mind-set on the Middle East and quash intellectual diversity.

Sadly, Mock caved to the pressure. Though the petition drew just 160 signatures, Mock canceled days before she was expected to speak on March 21 because, We feel the focus of Janets work was lost leading up to the proposed event, her representative reportedly told the Moral Voices organizers.

Way to go, student activists at Brown! You succeeded in creating a hostile environment that led to a trans woman of color being discouraged from sharing her voice and opinions. This all helped the Palestinian people how, exactly?

Brown President Christina Paxson expressed disappointment. I respect her decision to avoid having her talk be overshadowed by an issue unrelated to her work. However, I am disappointed that a valuable learning opportunity was lost, she said in a Sunday email to the student body.

In that same email, Paxson also referred to campus housing facilities that had been defaced. According to the Brown Daily Herald, Gay will die and Holocaust 2.0 were written on hallway walls.

I want to emphasize that there is absolutely no evidence that the cancellation of the Mock event is related to the homophobic and anti-Semitic graffiti that appeared, Paxson wrote. However, taken together, these two events are deeply troubling. They come at a time when the nation and colleges across the country are grappling with concerns about injustice against individuals based on religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression.

In their op-ed, SJP members defended their groups my way or the highway approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the initial the petition stressed, the students objections were not over Mock but rather her willingness to take part in an event even slightly tied to Hillel. In other words, they wanted Mock to speakbut only as long as she agreed to the terms they dictated. Its hardly the stuff of international diplomacy; has digging in your heels and refusing to let people share their opinions ever brought about peace or stability?

Part of the arguments that these students used to dissuade Mock suggested that speaking at the Moral Voices campaign would ultimately hurt the LGBTQ community, serving as part of Hillels [and Israels] pinkwashing campaign. Confused about the connection? Many critics have tried to flip Israels record on LGBTQ rights, claiming that it touts these accomplishments as a way to distract from its treatment of Palestinians, aka pinkwashing. To that regard, James Kirchick wrote in Out in 2007 that, The harassment and torture of homosexuals is a tried-and-true practice of the Palestinian Authority, and a burgeoning gay underground of refugee Palestinian homosexuals thrives in Tel Aviv, the gay capital of the Middle East. So, make of the pinkwashing claim what you will.

Aside from the fact that pinkwashing is too often invoked when it is convenient for critics of Israelthe same ones rarely point out that many of Israels neighbors jail people for being gaytheres an unhelpful, forced quality to tying all social movements together. If you support X, then you must support Y doesnt always work, especially with nuanced social issues. For example, last year, students at New Yorks Barnard College argued that full sexual-assault advocacy necessitated holding SJPs highly critical view of Israel. As The Daily Beasts Lizzie Crocker wrote, The implication is that to be anti-sexual assault at Columbia, one must also be anti-Israel. Conflating those issues under a larger umbrella of oppression waters them both down individually.

This thinkingthat its better to destroy any group or event that doesnt precisely echo its line (which, by the way, is often the Jewish states demise) than to make any progress in promoting dialogue and, maybe, peace in the tumultuous Middle Eastis a frustratingly self-righteous and self-damaging approach. Its an illogical frameworkthat it is better to harm those who dont completely agree with you than it is to attempt to reach your purported goal of a better, more peaceful life for Palestinians or, for that matter, fighting for a more just and equal society, as the Brown SJPs website states.

So theres a certain irony that SJP has such a strong foothold on college campuses when there is a fervent anti-intellectualism beneath the tactics it supports, especially the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Its not just student groups backing the economic and political sanctions on Israel; academic organizations themselves are fast approaching BDS, too, with one of the most recent being the National Womens Studies Association. In December, the group decided that, As feminist activists, scholars, teachers, and public intellectuals who recognize the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression, we cannot overlook the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians.

Thats all well and good, but in specifically endorsing BDS, it meant NWSA cut off academic ties with Israel, too. That included not allowing professors, researchers, or other academics who receive funding from Israeli universities, museums, or other institutes from participating at their events. In short, it effectively silences any and all voices with the slightest drop of an Israeli connection.

As disturbing as it may be to single out people from one country that harshly, the more upsetting part is the deeply anti-intellectual quality to such academic boycotts. Erasing and devaluing the research, work, and opinions of any person with an Israeli affiliation violates the spirit of debate, exploration, and learning that one would think is the cornerstone of modern universities.

But if even professors are embracing this seemingly contradictory approach, no wonder some students at Brown thought pressuring Mock was the logical move to help bring about peace.
Since Hillary Clinton ran the table on March 15, winning five primaries, it has been much harder to Feel the Bern. Sanderss chance at the nomination has become increasingly less likely as the delegate math looks less favorable for the socialist revolutionary from Vermont. This week, Sanders did win caucuses in Idaho and Utah to keep his hopes alive, but he is still over 700 delegates behind Clinton, and Clinton is less than 700 delegates away from clinching the nomination.

As his campaign teeters and tilts between improbable and impossible, we all must begin to wonder what will happen to the impassioned and enthusiastic supporterswho are mostly young voterswho have energized his campaign and made him a far more formidable candidate than the Democrat establishment anticipated.

The Democrats can ill-afford to lose Sanderss young voters. This is a demographic that has played a vital role in both of President Obamas successful campaigns, and Clinton still struggles to attract them. Sanderss frustration with Wall Street and the political status quo connects with these young voters. His belief in free college tuition resonates with young Americans who are regularly being crushed by the weight of nearly insurmountable student loans. The system has been corrupted and the cards too heavily stacked against young Americans, and in favor of billionaires. Sanderss anger, frustration, and revolutionary ideals are a much needed voice in this election cycle.

Yet as the Clinton camp begins to speculate about ways in which they can attract Sanders voters, the bigger question might be about how Sanders supporters are coping with the increasing likelihood that he may not win the nomination. On the day of the Ohio primary, I received a peek into the turmoil of one Sanders supporter, a good friend of mine in Ohio.

My day started with a call at 8:19 a.m. from this friend to inform me that he had voted. I have known this person for a decade, and he has never voted or engaged in the political process. He listens to the news, and stays informed on current events, but he has always found it hard to not experience that sense of helplessness that can come with politics. Everything seems too big or the corruption too vast for his solitary vote to matter in the grand scheme of things, so come Election Day he has always decided to stay at home. In 2008 and 2012, he participated in neither the primary nor general elections in Ohio, but for this primary he woke up early so that he could cast his first-ever vote, and he voted for Bernie Sanders.

He felt good about voting for the first time, and when he got off from work later in the day his plan was to pick up his girlfriend and drive her to the polls. The day before he was a guy who had never voted and now he was driving people to the polls. I spoke to him later in the day before he picked up his girlfriend, and he told me to keep him informed about any poll results. He really wanted to stay up to date and feel that his vote contributed to a Sanders victory, so when I texted him at 8:48 p.m. to let him know that Clinton had won, he was far from excited. Id even say we went through a modified version of Elisabeth Kubler-Rosss five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Right off the bat, we skipped denial entirely and went straight to anger.

My friend has felt that politics is corrupt and that voting does not matter for a long time, so coping with the reality that the establishment candidate won in Ohio and that his vote did not lead to a Sanders victory was fairly easy for him. Sanders losing represented politics as usual in his eyes, and there was no need to deny that. A vote for Sanders was supposed to be a valuable contribution to upend what he thought was wrong with our society and politics, yet it did not materialize that day. So anger was his first emotion.

Clinton represented the political status quo to him, and her victory represented more of the same. More of the same that he had chosen to not participate in during previous election cycles. He was angry about returning to this political landscape. The idea of potentially voting for her held no appeal to him.

Next we proceeded to stage three: bargaining. This is the stage of grief where you plead with the Almighty to bring your beloved back from the dead, where you promise to be a better person so long as this person gets to live.

My friend did not want Sanderss campaign to end. He wanted this valuable civil servant who has always stood up for what he thought was right and moral to still have the opportunity to make America a better place. Now all I had to do was convince him Sanders would still be relevant even if he does not win the nomination. Cheating political death needed to become a plausible option for Sanders.

This too will also be a task that the Clinton campaign will need to address if she wins the nomination. The easiest thing for Clinton to do if she wins the nomination would be to discard Sanders as a vanquished foe who needs to get in line, but this would also be the most disastrous. His candidacy has already forced her to pivot more to the left and frame the debate around progressive ideals. This shift has energized voters that she still struggles to connect with, and shell need Sanderss support to keep them energized.

I was not nearly as upset about Clintons victory, and my friend wanted to know why. He knew that I had interned for Sanders back in the day and that I agree with most of his policies, so he expected a similar response from me. I was not angry because I had already mentally bargained with the gods.

I told him how my belief for the rest of the campaign if Sanders does not win the nomination was that the Clinton campaign would ensure that he stays relevant. Sanderss voice has already proven to be powerful in the progressive movement, so embracing Sanderss voice if she becomes the nominee could be an incredibly astute political move. Clinton fails to connect with Sanderss voters, so if she wants those votes shes going to need Sanderss vocal and active support. For the most part, they have run very civil campaigns, so it should not be too difficult for them to work together in the general election. My friend wondered if I thought Sanders might be her vice president, and I said I doubted it. Sanders will just be an active campaigner for Clinton, and if she wins the presidency, Sanders will be a more influential voice by the end of the presidential process than when he started his improbable campaign.

Bargaining allowed my friends anger to subside, and he was able to see the bigger picture. Mentally and emotionally we had just brought Sanders back from the dead, but with a slight modification. Sanders not winning the presidency was OK, so long as he was still relevant and able to fight for what he believed in. This caveat allowed my friend to stay energized and want to engage in the political process. We never needed to address stages four and five, depression and acceptance. Anyway, we implicitly had.

By the end of our conversation, my friend was content with the reality that he may have to vote for Clinton in the general election, and all he wanted in exchange was for Sanderss message and voice to still be relevant and making a difference.

Sanderss supporters will not automatically flock to Clinton if he does not win the nomination, and many of them may support her because they want to vote against Trump, but to truly win the support of Sanderss supporters she may need to bargain with them as they process their grief. Taking the high road and working with your former opponent will be the best way for Clinton to appeal to Sanderss supporters and bring them into her more pragmatic and political world. And it may even prevent many of his supporters from falling too far into the five stages of grief.
If you enjoy daydreaming about Ted Cruzs sex life, then today is your lucky day.

The National Enquirer alleged on March 23 that the senator has had five extramarital affairs. And the descriptions it provided of the womenalong with barely-pixelated headshots of themleft little to D.C. insiders imaginations as to who the Enquirer had accused of being Cruz paramours.

A HOOKER, A TEACHER & COWORKERS: 5 romps that will destroy Ted Cruz! the Enquirer piece boldly claims, in an article that includes a wild sex-in-closet allegation.

Cruz fired back on Friday, charging that the piece was baseless and that the Enquirer was taking its marching orders straight from Donald Trump and his henchmen.

The truth behind the rumor-mongering, however, is a little more complex. A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruzs opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months nowand that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears.

For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC Newsreporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article.

Breitbart News, the notoriously Trump-friendly conservative outlet, was also pitched the story of Cruzs extramarital affairs, according to a source close to the publication. That source said an operative allied with Marco Rubiobut not associated with his official campaignshowed the publication a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the outlet opted not to report on the video, which demonstrated no direct evidence of an affair.

We got it from a Rubio ally, said the source. It was too thin, so [Breitbarts Washington political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.

A Rubio spokesman wasnt immediately available for comment.

The Cruz campaign team has been aware of the sex-scandal rumors for months. But it took the National Enquirers report to force the story into the mainstream media conversation.

Friday afternoon, Trump disavowed any connection to the Enquirers storywhile giving their credibility a backhanded boost.

I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this weeks issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it, he said in a statement.

He then proceeded to praise the publication.

Ted Cruzs problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin Ted Cruz, he said.

You cant blame Cruz for seeing Trumps tiny fingerprints on the storyand its fully plausible that the mogul or one of his allies (rather than a Rubio booster) gave the story to the tabloid. After all, the supermarket tabloid is, for all intents and purposes, the Trump Trains caboose.

TRUMP MUST BE PREZ! began the Enquirers endorsement of the mogul, published earlier this month. INSIDE: VOTE FOR HIS VICE PRESIDENT! (One of the options is Sen. Cruz, who the publication had previously dubbed, Boozin Ted.)

In that same issue, the editors call Marco Rubio NERDY. The issue, dated March 14, 2016, also features bombshell exposes on the Illuminati taking control of Hollywood to erect a totalitarian world government, as well as Dr. Phils REIGN OF TERROR.

David Peckerthe CEO of American Media, Inc., which publishes the Enquireris tight with Trump.

Trump has repeatedly praised Pecker and tweeted several times in 2013 that his pal should be named the new CEO of Time magazine.

The tabloid has provided Trumps presidential bid with glowing coverage, and has been rewarded with exclusive interviews. In January, Americas most popular presidential candidate gave a two-part interview on the most intimate details of [his] amazing life! Trump is even an occasional National Enquirer contributor.

Trump is a big friend of Pecker, an anonymous source told the New York Daily News, claiming that the billionaire reality TV star is protected by the Enquirer. So no John Edwards-type investigations Some of the staff are furious. Trumps such fertile ground, and it drives them crazy to not only be staying away from it, but running puff pieces for him.

A source close to the tabloid also told New York magazine in October that Trumps campaign was the source for an Enquirer cover story on one of the moguls former rivals.

Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patients Brain! the headline bellowed. (The Trump campaign and Pecker flatly denied this allegation.)

The Enquirer has also savaged other Trump foes, including Rubio, Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Jeb Bush. It recently reported that Bush, as governor of Florida, was embroiled in sleazy cheating scandals [with a] Playboy Bunny turned lawyer, a rumor Bush publicly denied over a decade ago.

There have been few presidential candidates in recent history that have generated the kind of discussion that Donald Trump has, Pecker told The Daily Beast this month. Its no surprise that the readership of the Enquirer recently told us that they wanted to read more about Trump than any other 2016 candidate. The coverage of the Enquirer reflects what its 6 million readers want, and expect, from the publication which has shown no hesitation in presenting an unvarnished look at past or current candidates for president.

But unvarnished isnt the same thing as true. Cruz and several of the women accused in the Enquirers story have denied its lurid claims.
On Feb. 23, 2016, an Indian woman, within hours of giving birth by C-section, was raped in a hospital near New Delhi. Some in India took consolation in the fact that at least she was not, like Nirbhayathe 23-year-old female physiotherapy internbeaten up after being raped.

A few days later, on March 8, 2016, on Womens Day, a 15-year-old girl was raped and set on fire.

For those who dont remember, in December 2012, Nirbhaya was beaten with iron rods, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus while she was travelling with her boyfriend. As a result of an international outrage over her assault and subsequent death, new laws and new fast-track courts were promised. More women are now willing to report rape cases. But even two years after Nirbhaya, her father claims that the promises of reform were unmet, and that justice in India has failed his daughter and women like her.

Indeed, Amnesty International reports that authorities have not effectively implemented new laws on crimes against women. The majority of rape cases still go unreported. In Prime Minister Narendra Modis India, the problem, instead of abating, has become worse:

2011 24,206 (reported rapes per year in India)2012 24,9232013 33,7072014 37,000

In India a women is reportedly raped every 15 minutes. Multiply that by 24x7, 365 days a year. And keep in mind the majority of rape cases still go unreported. The statistics on crime against women is even worse: Every 2 minutes, a women in India is a victim of a crime. This ongoing issue with violence against women raises the real and serious question of whether India is truly ready for a seat on the global table.

One explanation for the ongoing rape problem is the skewed sex ratio. Like China, India has a massive imbalance in its sex ratio. According to the Indian census, the sex ratio in the 6 and below age group has risen from 102.4 males per 100 females in 1961 (the Liberal Nehru days) to 108.9 in 2011 (the Fiery Hindutva Ideology days). In Gujarat, Indian PM Modis home state, the sex ratio is 112 to 100.

Economists and sociologists call this the Bare Branches phenomenon, a result of female feticide over a very long period of time. It is an issue that India shares with its massive neighbor, China, where boy babies are also culturally preferred over girls. Independent studies out of MIT and Columbia University have postulated that these Bare Branchesmales with a snowballs chance in hell of finding a female companionthreaten domestic stability and international security.

And yet, the surplus of males in China doesnt appear to be leading to a rape crisis there. In fact, research has found that while China has seen an uptick in general violence due to the Bare Branches, they actually tend to behave gently around women. No such correlation was found in India.

Why this shocking disparity?

A simple answer points to the Indian caste system. There is an expression in India that bringing up a daughter is like watering a neighbors plant. India places women lower than men. There is a total and complete disrespect for women in Indian religious scriptures. The Mahabharata, Book 13 Section 40 (13.40), states, There is no creature more sinful, than woman. She is poison, she is snake. Other texts say that Women are living lies.

Now, to begin with, Bare Branches are predisposed to violencebut in the absence of any respect for women, this violence comes without remorse and becomes unhinged. This is precisely what we are seeing today. The caste system explains the violence against women in India, but to understand the inordinately high number of rapes in India, one needs to dig deeper for answers.

At this moment in its long tumultuous history, India is seeing a renaissance of a narrowly defined, ultranationalist, militant Hindutva ideology. Modi is the poster child of this ideology. This ideology places a lot of emphasis on Indias most beloved epics and historical stories. Sadly at the heart of these ballad-like mythological stories lie lurid tales of sex that glorify rape.

The God Vishnu is said to have raped Tulsi/Vrinda by assuming the guise of her husband:

On seeing her husband, Vrinda was delighted, she forgot her sorrow, dormant passions kindled up. She embraced her husband right there in the middle of the forest. But, at the end of the intercourse she realized that it was Vishnu and not her husband. Vrinda rebuked him angrily. Vrinda said, Fie on Vishnu in outraging the modesty of another mans wife.

Yet this horrible act is justified and glorified, because Indians believe that Tulsis husband, Shankachuda/Jalandhar, was invincible in war unless her chastity was first destroyed. Therefore to defeat Jalandhar, it was imperative and gallant of Vishnu to rape Tulsi. Vishnu is seen as a hero for raping her.

Then there is God Brihaspati. He is the Guru of all Indian Gods. Well, this Guru of Gods raped his own pregnant sister-in-law, Mamata. According to Matsya Purana 49.17-28:

Brihaspati, one day saw Mamata, the wife of his brother, Usija. She was pregnant at that time, nonetheless, the story goes that that Brihaspati proposed to her, Dress thyself well and let us enjoy. She replied, The embryo in my womb is mature and is already reciting the Vedas. Hearing that Brihaspati said, I dont need to be taught morality by thee, O sweet one. After saying that, he raped her.

In America, the day Donald Trump started using bigoted language, Macys stopped carrying his clothing line. The Cosby Show was pulled from reruns soon after scores of women accused the comedian of rape. In normal societies people shun bigots and rapists. On appalling issues like rape, one is in fact guilty until proven innocent.

But Brihaspati, even after the tales of rape, is still a God in India. No God in India was ever demoted, leave alone prosecuted, for raping a women. Every rape in Indian stories is given a clean chit. It is merely what macho men do; it is just normal. Indian mythology conditions people to attach zero consequence to rape. Furthermore, it is not just rapeall kinds of sordid sex that the modern West would consider taboo is glorified and normalized in old Indian Scriptures. Sex between brothers and sisters, check; parents and children, check; and even with corpses and corpses of dead animals. In the Oscar-nominated movie, The Revenant, the Bear leaves Leornado DiCaprio alone, but in Indian mythology, the Bear has sex with the God Brahma and gifts him with a child, Jambu Vandan.

In a society where the national narrative conditions people to think that rape has no consequences; where violence has been unleashed by an imbalanced sex ratio; and where women have little or no cultural respect, 37,000 reported rapes per year is not shocking, or even surprising. It is just par for the course.

This oppressive atrocity against women in India will get worse, not better. Things will not get better unless there is an international outcry against Modi and his right-wing goons. When Modi met President Obama in India, he was so overwhelmed with the honor that he dressed up in his best vanity suit fit for a James Bond Villains audition. The suit notwithstanding, we understand that he wants legitimacy and respect on the global arena. Perhaps a seat on the big boys table should be held back till he curbs the Hindutva Ideology, and makes conditions safe for women in India.

Hence, for the women in India, the world needs to hold Modi responsible. Every 2 minutes a women is victimized in India. An international outcry can make a change for the better.
Texas A&M University police have received reports from students about calls from people claiming to represent the Internal Revenue Service, and authorities are warning the public to be vigilant.

According to officials, the callers are telling students they owe the IRS money and must pay their debts over the phone via a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer. If students don't comply, the callers become aggressive and belligerent, threatening the students with arrest or expulsion from the university.

University Police released a public statement to ensure students that they will never be contacted by the legitimate IRS over the phone for financial debts without having been mailed a bill first. Police stated all individuals who are truly indebted to the IRS are given the opportunity to appeal debts, and are not required to give debit or credit card information over the phone.

Anyone who has had contact with the scammers is asked call UPD at 979-845-2345.
I was raised in a household where politics was thought-provoking; something discussed openly and, quite frankly, a subject to be savored. I guess I thought everyone enjoyed the same open discourse about that particular subject and many others whilst growing up. However, I have come to the conclusion this was a dire misconception on my part because had this been true, I think things would be startling different on the political scene today.

I am absolutely flummoxed at what appears to me as either total apathy or frenetic action and reaction, one extreme to the other. What is so wrong (or conceived to be wrong) with the system that breeds such contemptuous attitudes? When I see people whacking each other on the floor at rallies, it says to me that the whackee and the whacker dont have a clue in hell why they are behaving the way they are.

It seems that the culprits in this behavior may well be 24/7 cable news and talk radio on both sides of the political spectrum. Some people just seem to be more susceptible to spoon-feeding than others. Some seem to be searching for answers, and if offered what sounds like a plausible solution, they may accept without reservation, or what they believe is needed, without checking for facts by reading and listening to both sides for more than 10 seconds.

Some folks may take the time to check Google; however, most of us are aware that Google, as well as most other online sites, design themselves to our personal wants and needs, so checking such will usually get us the answer we wanted in the first place. What we need to do is read instead of sticking the proverbial funnel in our ear and letting some talking head pour moral platitudes directly into our consciousness, while suggesting we plug the other ear to any other option.

I am not, in any way, suggesting that one 24/7 cable news network is superior to another because I actually take the time to watch the three main channels of which I speak. I discern the differences, which in most cases are quite diverse; however, I do have my favorite, and there is one program that I watch religiously. But let me assure you, my loyal readers, that is not how I choose a candidate for the Presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives, mayor or even my county supervisor. I actually check the candidates record, read what I can find about that person, and talk to people who may know the person (on the local level), if I dont know the individual. And I can tell you, knowing a candidate does in no way guarantee he or she will make it to my list of possible choices.

Voting has far reaching consequences that we much all take into consideration before we make that final ballot mark on election day. All I hope for is that each of us will disregard the hullabaloo and divisiveness, the disgusting rhetoric and fist-fighting that seems to have become a matter of course when we turn on the news every night.

Let us take the time and effort to get to know the candidates; not just our favorite, but all of them, whether or not they make our blood boil or run cold. Let us investigate, read and listen to all sides, and then make an educated, not a knee-jerk, decision, whether it may be our initial choice or a different one. Let us all try our best to be educated voters. You may agree with me or you may not, but I take every election very seriously. And I hope my loyal readers will do the same.

If we, as citizens of the greatest country on earth, cannot learn to come together in a civilized manner, without exclusivity regarding our many diversities, we will cease to be the greatest, strongest and most admired country on earth, as some would have us to believe has already happened. If we cannot agree on every point, then we must learn to, at least, be more tolerant toward those we may deem to be different.

The Constitution, in its entirety, was hashed out, hassled over, partisanly eviscerated over and over, before finally, for the sake of the new nation, was adopted as the ultimate protection for every one of us. We are privileged to live in a democracy, and I for one, do not wish it to become a democracy in name only. And I can only do my part by going to the ballot box and voting for the candidate whom I believe to be the best choice for the job.

Does anyone besides me remember the McCarthy hearings? Senator Joe McCarty of Wisconsin was seeing communists running rampant throughout both parties like cockroaches, so he called Senate hearings to ferret out those he felt were plotting against the country. I was in the 10th grade at the time, and fortunately we had just gotten a television set (as they were called back then). I rushed home from school every afternoon to watch what I thought was then, and still do, one of the most capricious, yet fascinating pieces of political grandstanding ever made public for the viewing pleasure of American people. The hearings ran their course, and in the end it was ol Joe himself who fell from grace, hoisted on his own petard, as it were.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
BERGER Naomi Helm Naomi Helm Berger departed this life on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. She was born to the late Rev. Herbert Greene and Willie Bond Helm of Ferrum, Virginia. She was raised along with her siblings as a Preacher's Kid. She was wed to the late William McKinley Berger. In addition to her parents and her husband, she was preceded in death by her sister, Ora Burton; her brothers, Oliver Helm and Rumsey Helms. Naomi leaves a loving family to mourn her passing, three sisters, Rev. Dr. Ruth Helm Moorman (Ypsilanti, Mich.), Rev. Dr. Franci Helm Moorman (Ypsilanti, Mich.), and Florella Helm Johnson (Rocky Mount, Va.); a daughter, Frances Jordan Davis (Rocky Mount, Va.); one grandson; and several nieces and nephews. Additionally there are numerous friends that will miss her deeply. Naomi was a life-long and active member of the Rock Ridge Missionary Baptist Church of Ferrum, which has stood as the family's home church. During her life, she was a member of the deaconess board, the director of the youth choir, a member of the trustee board, a strong Sunday school member, and church treasurer. She loved the Lord and freely shared her belief in Jesus as her Saviour. Naomi worked within the Pigg River Missionary Baptist Association, the District Sunday School Convention, the Ladies Union and was the Secretary of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Association for 25 Years. She was a strong proponent of the creation of the Pigg River Community Center because she saw the Center as a tangible rallying point for the community. Education was always at the center of Naomi's life. Her mother Willie was her first teacher and later Naomi joined 'the family business' becoming a third generation educator. She received both her bachelor's degree and her master's degree from Virginia State College (currently known as Virginia State University). Naomi first taught in a one-room schoolhouse and she continued her career into the consolidated school which was Lee Waid School. Later, in 1965, she was one of the original eight black educators chosen by the Franklin County School Board to begin the process to desegregate the local public school system. Naomi was assigned to Franklin County High School and eventually became the chair of the guidance department. Near the end of her career, she talked about how she would like to experience elementary guidance before she retired and she indeed served her last two years at Rocky Mount Elementary School culminating a 41 year career. In Lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Pigg River Community Center in c/o of Wallace Menefee, Treasurer, 2320 Ruritan Rd, Rocky Mount, Va. 24151 or Gideon International, www.sendtheword.org A funeral service will be held at noon Saturday, March 26, 2016 at the Pigg River Community Center with the Rev. Roy D. Gunn, officiating. Family and friends may view at the Pigg River Community Center from 12:30 until time of visitation. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Pigg River Community Center on Friday, March 25, 2016. Condolences may be sent to www.Davis-Turner.com. Service of comfort rendered by Davis-Turner Funeral Service.
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By Gleaner Staff

The former owner of businesses in Henderson and Madisonville has been sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $649,506.15 in restitution, for filing false tax returns and for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud.

Gholam A. Sattar-Shamsabadi, 58, was sentenced in United States District Court this week, by Chief Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr.

Shamsabadi, operated a photo processing business in Madisonville, which he converted in to a cafe, and a business called Fast Foto Finishing in Henderson, which he began in 2009.

According to court records, Shamsabadi, with the aid of an unindicted co-conspirator, filed false invoices for insurance claims for his business and one personal claim from 2006 to 2012. The total he received from the six fraudulent claims was $649,506.15.

In each of the claims, Shamsabadi claimed that his photo processing equipment was damaged by a power surge from lightning. Also, he claimed that neon signs were destroyed. In each claim, Shamsabadi submitted invoices and estimates for new equipment and submitted invoices falsely claiming he had purchased replacement equipment.

According to court documents, Shamsabadi received $135,804 2008 from Hartford Insurance in 2006; $53,993 from Zurich North America in 2010; $216,356 from State Farm Insurance in 2010; $7,613.22 from Liberty Mutual Auto in 2012; $205,000 from Kentucky Farm Bureau (Business Claims and Personal) in 2012; and $30,738.94 from Kentucky Farm Bureau (Personal) in 2012.

Shamsabadi also failed to report the proceeds of his insurance fraud as taxable income.

In 2010, Shamsabadi failed to report $170,000 in income and in 2012, he failed to report $247,156. Also, in each of these years, Shamsabadi filed tax returns under two different Social Security numbers creating a total tax loss of $82,381.
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By Adam Beam, Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky.  Facing a Monday deadline and an ultimatum from House Democrats, Kentucky Senate Republicans approved spending cuts of 9 percent to the state's court system, a reduction the chief justice says would prompt 600 layoffs and force thousands of people facing criminal charges to sit in jail while awaiting trial.

But House and Senate leaders say they could still make changes to the proposal as budget talks continue through the weekend.

The Kentucky legislature must pass four budget bills this year. The largest is the executive branch budget that controls more than $65 billion in state and federal money. The other bills deal with budgets for the judicial and legislative branches and state revenues.

The House and Senate have passed different versions of the executive branch budget, and negotiators have begun meeting to come up with a compromise. But the Senate had not yet passed the other three bills, and House Democrats indicated Thursday night that they would not negotiate until they knew how all state tax dollars would be spent.

Friday morning, Senate Republicans passed all three bills. Senate budget chairman Republican Chris McDaniel said they did not have time to write amendments. Because the bill was not changed, it now heads to Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's desk for his signature.

"Unfortunately when (House Democrats) walked in and said we can't negotiate without these bills they just left us no choice," Senate budget chairman Republican Chris McDaniel said. "I'm not happy with it, but my hand has been forced."

The judicial budget written and approved by House Democrats includes 9 percent cuts for the court system. Chief Justice John Minton told lawmakers that would leave him with a $76.9 million deficit. Elected officials, including judges and circuit court clerks, would not be affected. But Minton said the cuts would require 600 layoffs and eliminating the state's drug court program, where low-level drug offenders are closely monitored and treated instead of being sent to jail.

He said pretrial services would also have to be reduced, potentially sending some 17,000 people back to jail because there would be no officers to supervise them while they are awaiting trial.

Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo said he doesn't totally trust that information.

"I don't think they have been exactly forthright with the information," he said. "We don't get consistent numbers from them."

Minton declined to comment on Friday.

While lawmakers cannot make changes to the judicial branch budget bill, they could give the court system more money by amending the executive branch budget bill. That bill is in a conference committee made up of House and Senate leaders.

"There are very difficult ways to do that," Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said. "If (House Democrats) have some solution, then we'll be willing to entertain it."

Stumbo said lawmakers had discussed "taking a second look at the judicial budget."

"Maybe we can get to it," he said.
DENNY SIMMONS / THE GLEANER Keynote speaker Brooks Reitz addresses the attendees of the Downtown Henderson Partnership's 22nd annual awards breakfast at Rookie's Sports Bar Thursday morning. Reitz is a locally grown restaurant entrepreneur who made a name for himself in Charleston, S. Car., with his own restaurants.

SHARE DENNY SIMMONS / THE GLEANER Kyndle's Chuck Stinnett (left) gives those in attendance at the Downtown Henderson Partnership awards breakfast a chance to pose questions to keynote speaker Brooks Reitz at Rookie's Sports Bar Thursday morning.

By Laura Acchiardo, laura.acchiardo@thegleaner.com

Though Brooks Reitz has lived in Charleston, South Carolina, for the past seven years, he still calls Henderson home.

Reitz, a restaurateur by trade, was the keynote speaker for the 22nd annual Downtown Henderson Partnership awards ceremony on Thursday morning. He owns Leon's Oyster Shop, Saint Alban and Little Jacks Tavern in Charleston. He is the founder of Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. and is collaborating on a new project with a winner from Bravo's television show Top Chef.

Reitz grew up on his grandmother's farm with his parents and two brothers. When he was 16, he wrote a technology column for The Gleaner every Thursday.

"Since the world of the Internet and computers was a quickly changing thing, who better to get it right than a young dude with too much time on his hands," said Reitz.

While working toward his degree in English and drama from Transylvania University, Reitz decided to follow his father's footsteps and enter the world of food. A weekend trip to New York City solidified his future.

"When I stepped foot into a famous French restaurant in Soho named Balthazar, it was clear there was a career that combined creativity, storytelling, people and food into one fabulous package," said Reitz. "From that moment on, I was sold on the restaurant business."

When first moving to South Carolina, Reitz started as a server. Seven years later, he is a successful restaurant owner and is undertaking multiple projects.

Reitz said his career has taken him to the places he dreamed of seeing as a boy, but a part of him remains in the Tri-State.

Every bottle of cocktail mixer sold by his Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. bears a photo and biography of his great-grandfather, the original Jack Rudy, who illegally flew his plane under the Ohio River Bridge on a dare, built a houseboat out of an old city bus and shot his homemade bullets into a dirt wall in his basement.

Patrons at Leon's Oyster Shop can get a grasshopper "Kennel Club Style," made with ice cream like he remembered from his grandmother would take him to Evansville's Kennel Club.

He attributes his success to an exposure of various cultures and backgrounds in Henderson through friendships and his church congregation. With the support of his family and community, Reitz was able to sample different experiences such as theater and student government.

"I credit those years with equipping me with the confidence and curiosity required of an entrepreneur," said Reitz. "I hope that same celebration of creativity and personal exploration exists in our community today. Let's continue to encourage young people, cheer them on from the sidelines and send them into the world to sing the praises of our special little city."
West Burlington pool shooting suspect found not guilty

After two days of testimony, the suspect in the shooting at the West Burlington Swimming Pool was found not guilty of all charges.
NORWALK -- While a man was playing indoor soccer at the gym on Thursday night, a 19-year-old Norwalk man allegedly stole his duffel bag, removed the keys from the bag, and drove the car to South Norwalk before being taken into custody by Norwalk Police a short time later.

Police were dispatched at 9:45 p.m. to LA Fitness at 761 Main Ave., on the report of a stolen vehicle.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to a small room  135 attendees, not counting journalists  at Stanford University on Wednesday about the need for the United States nimble and far-reaching response to the Islamic State group, an adversary that is constantly adapting and operating across multiple theaters. Candidate Clinton was nimble and far-reaching herself, and what a campaign spokesman billed as a pure policy speech set her up to enter the general election with an aura of authority.

Her speech came after GOP front-runner Donald Trump told CNN on Monday that Europe should put up more money to fund NATO and that the United States should pony up less. On Tuesday, the Islamic State unleashed two terrorist attacks in Brussels, one just blocks from NATO headquarters. Trump responded by saying that as president, he would reinstate waterboarding  and more. His opponent Sen. Ted Cruz responded with a call for local authorities to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods. And Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders said ... something no one remembers and his opponent, Clinton, found no reason to rebut.

I found myself in unfamiliar territory  agreeing with the likely Democratic nominee, not top Republicans. Another terrorist attack has devastated an ally. The Islamic State wants to bring its deadly pursuits to the United States. America needs to work with our NATO allies  and with moderate Muslim nations  to put an end to the madness.

NATO, Clinton asserted in her address, is one of the best investments America has ever made. She added: Turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into a protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan American leadership and send a dangerous signal to friend and foe alike. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin already hopes to divide Europe. If Mr. Trump gets his way, itll be like Christmas in the Kremlin.

Clinton did not address waterboarding, but she did assert that torture is on her list of things that dont work when fighting terrorism.

Clinton also took aim at Cruz: So when Republican candidates like Ted Cruz call for treating American Muslims like criminals and for racially profiling predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, its wrong, its counterproductive, its dangerous.

Commissioner Bill Bratton of the New York Police Department was even more blunt Tuesday night. He said Cruz doesnt know what the hell hes talking about.

Before the speech, student Yvonne Lee said she would vote for Clinton. After the address, she said that it confirmed her belief that Clinton has the right bearing for a president. Freshmen David S. Lim and Ben Gardner-Gill held fast to their decision to vote for Sanders in Californias primary but would go for Clinton in the general election.

I dont think Clinton was a particularly successful secretary of state. Her prescriptions didnt seem particularly insightful or likely to beat radical Islam. But at least they wont leave this country isolated in a war against fanaticism.

The Republican candidates seem to think that all they need is to talk tough and hitch up their belts. They have no sense of strategy. They dont understand that there is no glory in being the last man standing at the end of a barroom brawl. Especially if the barroom is all blown up.

Email Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Gelato, smoothies, pizza and more: Check out the newest in Bucks' eats

These new Bucks County dining spots are serving up everything from gelato, pastries and pizza to green smoothies, cold-pressed juices and acai bowls.
Katherine M. Wever, chief of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agencys Support Team to U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, has been selected to be a member of the Presidential Leadership Scholars class of 2016.

The Presidential Leadership Scholars program is a six-month leadership development initiative led by the U.S. presidential centers of Lyndon B. Johnson, George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton and George W. Bush. The presidential centers partner to bring together a select group of leaders selected from across the nation to develop their leadership strengths to help their communities and our country.

Wever, a resident of Edwardsville, Ill., currently serves as NGAs lead at USTRANSCOM. Wever heads the NGA team responsible for all NGA support to and mission partnership with the command.

I am honored to be part of an exceptional program and for the opportunity to develop my leadership skills to benefit NGA, USTRANSCOM, Scott Air Force Base and the Southern Illinois community, Wever said. I am humbled by the quality of my fellow citizens participating in this program -- all of us wishing to make the country a better place and to serve our communities and country.

Wever is one of 61 scholars from various sectors - private, public, nonprofit, military and academia - selected to participate in this years program, which began at Monticello, Thomas Jeffersons home, in February.

Over the course of the program, scholars will travel to participating presidential centers to work with former presidents, key administration officials and academics to learn and put into practice varying approaches to leadership, develop a network of peers, and exchange ideas to help them make an impact in their communities.

The curriculum draws from presidential center archives and resources related to leadership moments from each administration. It includes insights from how each president addressed pressing challenges and benefits from the participation of former presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton.

NGA delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders.

NGA is a unique combination of intelligence agency and combat support agency. It is the world leader in timely, relevant, accurate and actionable geospatial intelligence. NGA enables the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense to fulfill the presidents national security priorities to protect the nation.

For more information about NGA, visit us online at www.nga.mil, on Facebook or on Twitter.
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post  Thu, March 24, 2016

Sixty-three leading UK institutions participated in the Education UK Exhibition 2016 organized by the British Council at the Fairmont Hotel in Jakarta on March 12-13.



Young people flocked to the exhibition room on Saturday, many shouldering tote bags filled with pamphlets and brochures. They were in high spirits, attending seminars, listening to information given by representatives from a host of different institutions.'I came here to search for information about a Master degree. I haven't figured out yet what major I will take and this exhibition makes it easier for me to gain more knowledge,' said 24-year-old Esty, one of the visitors.



Some 3,000 Indonesians are reportedly studying in the UK at present.



Another visitor, Martha, 24, has already been accepted at Cardiff University for a Master in Finance and she said she came to check on her application process at the university's booth.



'I chose the UK because it is a country that welcomes people from different backgrounds and cultures,' Martha said.



During the event, visitors could also hear about student-life experiences in the UK shared by members of the Association of Indonesian Students in the United Kingdom (PPIUK) or learn more about scholarships from the British government's global scholarship program, Chevening Scholarship, which also had a booth there.



'This exhibition is one of our main events that is part of the UK education month that falls in March,' said British Council Country Director Sally Goggin during the opening ceremony on Saturday.



"Through this event we're aiming to give more Indonesian students access to UK education as well as bridging the connection between UK institutions and Indonesian students," she added.



British ambassador Moazzam Malik was also in attendance to highlight the benefits of studying in the UK.



'Not all countries get to be great at everything, but every country is great at something and one of the many things that the UK is great at is higher education, because our system is very open, we invite students from all over the world, we have lecturers, academics, scientists, researchers from all over the world and we have a long tradition of scholarship in our country," said Malik.



"The UK has a really fantastic offer for Indonesian students, but I also hope that British universities can partner with Indonesian universities so that we can not only educate Indonesia's brightest and best, but also help Indonesia build world-class universities here at home,' he added.



The Education UK Exhibition 2016 also ran in Surabaya on March 15 and Medan on March 17. For more information, check out www.britishcouncil.id or connect with the British Council through Twitter (@idbritish) and Facebook (BritishCouncilIndonesia).
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Linkedin Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Gowa, South Sulawesi  Fri, March 25, 2016

Customary communities and descendants of Gowa rulers have called on the Gowa Legislative Council (DPRD) not to continue the discussion over a draft bylaw on the restructuring of traditions and cultures in Gowa regency, South Sulawesi.

In a rally in front of the DPRD Gowa building on Wednesday, they urged lawmakers to drop the draft bylaw proposed by the Gowa administration, in which Gowa Regent Adnan Purichta Ichsan Yasin Limpo suggested that a Gowa regent would be automatically installed as a Gowa king.

One of articles heavily criticized by the Gowa customary communities and descendants of Gowa rulers is Article 3 in Chapter III of the draft bylaw concerning the composition of the Gowa customary institution.

In the bylaw, the institution will be headed by the Gowa regent, which will have a status as "King of Gowa'. Meanwhile, a descendant of the Gowa king will only become a deputy chairman in the customary institution.

'This draft bylaw contradicts cultures and traditions, which have passed for generations in Gowa. It also hurts Gowa customary communities, especially the descendants of the King of Gowa,' said Andi Baso Mahmud, one of members in the Gowa Kingdom customary council.

He further said it was true that the Gowa Kingdom had handed over its power and authority to the Indonesian government after it declared independence in 1945; however, the post of king of Gowa must be held by descendants of a Gowa king based on the kingdom's family tree.

'It is possible for a king to become a regent but a regent cannot become a king because it has been regulated in our culture and tradition, which has been implemented across generations. All this time, we have always paid respect to our regent or regional head,' said Mahmud.

Concerning this fact, Mahmud said, the DPRD Gowa must reject and cancel the draft bylaw. If it insisted on discussing it, he said, the Gowa customary council must be involved.

Asriady Arasy, the head of the DPRD Gowa's Commission IV, which handles the draft bylaw, promised that he would convey the aspirations of the Gowa customary communities, which rejected it. 'Their aspirations will become input in the discussion of the draft bylaw,' he said.

Commenting on the polemics, Adnan said the draft bylaw was aimed at preserving culture and tradition in the regency. If he suggested that a regent should also become a Gowa king, this was because a regent and a king had a similar status and position, namely they were leaders of a region.

'It is called a king because Gowa used to be a kingdom. After our independence, this kingdom has become a regency so the head of this region is a regent. So a king and a regent have a same status, namely a regional head,' said Adnan, who has served as a Gowa regent for only one month.

Adnan claimed that in the history of Gowa, the first 36 Gowa kings were elected by the people and inaugurated by Bate Salapang or a customary council. Not all of the elected kings were descendants of a Gowa king according to the family tree.

'The last Gowa king, namely Andi Idjo Daeng Mattawang, was directly installed as the first Gowa regent after Indonesia's independence. So, it's also a normal thing if a regent can be installed a king,' said Adnan.

Adnan is the second son of Ichsan Yasin Limpo, formerly Gowa regent for two periods. He is also the nephew of South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo. Syahrul is also a former Gowa regent.

Alwy Rahman, a South Sulawesi cultural observer, who is also a lecturer at University Hasanuddin's School of Literature, said the draft bylaw was quite strange.

'The kingdom era is over now. It is now a democracy era. So it's strange if there is a leader who personifies himself or herself as a king,' said Alwy.

He said there were still many descendants of Gowa rulers and they must be respected or institutionalized. It was not normal for a regional head to become a king, he added. (ebf)
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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura, Papua  Fri, March 25, 2016

The Kaimana Election Supervisory Committee (Panwas) office in West Papua was severely damaged by a fire of unknown origins on Thursday, coincidentally while the newly elected Kaimana regent and deputy regent, Mathias Mairuma and Ismail Sirfefa, were being inaugurated in Manokwari, the province's capital.

Panwas Kaimana member Dominiq Amdu told thejakartapost.com that the fire had burned the front part of the Panwas building and its guest room.

'Not all parts of the building were burned down. It's only the front part of the building and the guest room that was damaged in the fire,' Dominiq said on Friday.

'The cause of the fire is not yet known. It is unlikely that the fire was caused by a short circuit because the office's electricity, supplied by a prepaid token system, had run out last Saturday,' said Dominiq. He said the Panwas had reported the incident to the Kaimana Police.

The Panwas Kaimana had rented and used the building since 2014. Dominiq said that since September 2015, the Panwas office had often been visited by demonstrators who protested its decision to recognize the candidate pair Mathias and Ismail as the legitimate Kaimana regent and deputy regent.

'The Kaimana General Elections Commission [KPUD] declared that Pak Mathias Mairuma and his running mate had failed to pass the screening process to become candidates in the 2015 Kaimana regent and deputy regent election. After conducting an investigation, the Panwas concluded there was no reason not to accept him and his running mate as Kaimana regent and deputy regent candidates,' said Dominiq.

The fire reportedly did not damage important election documents because following an increase in the number of protest rallies staged at the Panwas office, all important documents had been moved to more secure places.

'It is hoped that the police can find the perpetrators responsible for the attack,' said Dominiq, implying that arson was the cause of the fire.

Mairuma-Sirfefa was one of three candidate pairs, including Fredy Thie with Mohammad Lakutani and Hasan Achmad with Amos Oruw, who passed the screening tests to participate in the 2015 elections in the regency. (ebf)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 25, 2016

The Indonesian government has rejected a verbal explanation conveyed by the Chinese government over what Indonesia considers a territorial violation committed by a Chinese fishing vessel and a Chinese coast guard boat that entered Natuna waters in Riau Islands last week.

Via a chargA d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta in a meeting with Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi earlier this week, the Chinese government denied that the Chinese fishing vessel and the country's coast guard had violated Indonesian territory, claiming they had been in an area China calls its 'traditional fishing zone'.

'In a verbal communication conveyed by the chargA d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta, they said the incident occurred in China's traditional fishing zone,' Retno said at the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister in Jakarta on Thursday.

The minister added she had explained to the Chinese representative that Indonesia did not recognize the so-called traditional fishing zone.

'In the meeting we asked: 'What does the traditional fishing zone mean?' to clarify the meaning of this terminology,' said Retno.

'We don't recognize this terminology at all. And, based on what reasons could this terminology exist?' she went on.

Retno said she had asked the Chinese government to explain its traditional fishing zone claims in its response to a diplomatic protest note sent by the Indonesian government shortly after the Natuna incident.

In the protest note, Indonesia conveyed three points of objection to measures taken by the Chinese maritime security patrol, which Jakarta believes protected illegal fishing activities in Indonesian waters.

In the first point, the Indonesian government protested the Chinese maritime security vessels, which contravened Indonesia's sovereignty and jurisdiction over its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf areas.

Second, Indonesia protested violations over law enforcement measures by Chinese authorities in the EEZ and continental shelf areas. Third, the Indonesian government protested violations committed by the Chinese maritime security boats against the sovereignty of Indonesia's maritime territories.

As previously reported, two Chinese vessels, namely fishing vessel MV Kway Fey and a coast guard vessel, were involved in an incident with an Indonesian patrol boat at around 2:15 p.m. local time on Saturday.

The incident began when the Indonesian patrol captured the MV Kway Fey in Natuna waters. The Chinese vessel was allegedly fishing illegally in Indonesia's ZEE.

The KP Hiu 11 patrol boat approached the fishing vessel and apprehended eight of its crew. The patrol officers were about to escort the MV Kway Fey from the scene when a Chinese coast guard boat approached and hit the fishing vessel. It was suspected that this was an attempt to prevent Indonesian authorities from confiscating the Chinese fishing vessel.

To avoid a conflict, the Indonesian patrol boat officers left the Kway Fey and returned to the KP Hiu 11 command with the eight arrested crewmembers from the fishing vessel. (ebf)
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Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta  Fri, March 25, 2016

National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti has said that it was not surprising that Santoso, leader of the East Indonesia Mujahiddin (MIT) group in Poso, Central Sulawesi, was on the US' global terrorist list.

'The US and other countries have a list of individuals who have links with [terrorist groups such as] Al-Qaeda, for instance. It's a terrorist list for both individuals and groups,' he said as quoted by Tempo on Thursday.

The US State Department announced on Wednesday that the country had included Santoso on its specially designated global terrorists (SDGT) list.

Santoso, who has been a fugitive for more than three years, is a supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), considered to be the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.

Once a person or group has been put on the list, access to any of their assets within the US' legal jurisdiction can be blocked and no US citizens may conduct transactions with them.

According to media reports, through Santoso's inclusion in the SDGT, Washington hopes that all US citizens and the international community will be aware of Santoso as a figure actively involved in terrorism.

The SDGT designation also allows the US government and their international partners to take coordinated action to disrupt terrorist activities, such as by denying terrorists access to the US financial system and enabling US law enforcement bodies to become involved, the statement read.

Badrodin said police and Indonesian Military personnel were still pursuing Santoso, claiming that their target was in their reach. 'His arrest is only a matter of time,' he said.

Members of the joint security operation, codenamed Operation Tinombala, are pursuing Santoso and MIT members, who are believed to be cornered and running out of supplies.

Badrodin said that the number of personnel was sufficient, and their strategies appropriate, to confront Santoso and his followers. However, the police chief added that it was quite difficult to arrest Santoso due to geographical challenges. 'We have also been hampered by the weather as it rains everyday there,' said Badrodin.

He said that the manhunt for Santoso and the group's members was a race against time, as Santoso could win over more followers in the future.

It is predicted that at present, Santoso has only 38 followers. However, Badrodin claimed that recent arrests might lead the group to conduct a fresh recruitment drive.

'Many Santoso followers have been arrested. It is likely that the group will recruit new members,' said Badrodin.

Santoso is accused of masterminding a number of killings and kidnappings in Indonesia over the last several years. The joint operation force has been hunting the MIT terror group since January 2015, but they have still not been able to capture Santoso. (afr/ebf)
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Linkedin Matthew Lee (The Jakarta Post) Moscow  Fri, March 25, 2016

After lengthy meetings with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's foreign minister, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that Washington and Moscow have reached an understanding on how the fragile cease-fire in Syria can be strengthened.

At a midnight news conference with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Kerry said this week's terrorist attacks in Belgium bolstered determination to bring stability to Syria. The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels attacks, holds substantial territory in Syria.

The attacks "are a stark reminder ' they are a violent reminder of what we are trying to do," Kerry said.

Lavrov said, "We have agreed to continue coordinating activity toward fixing the cessation of hostilities regime."

Kerry said the US and Russia will press for expanded humanitarian access in Syria and agreed that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and its opponents need to begin releasing detainees as soon as possible.

They agreed on a schedule for drafting a political solution and said the next step in UN-brokered Geneva peace talks on Syria is to firm up how a political transition would work.

At the start of his meeting with Putin, which lasted more than four hours, Kerry hailed a cease-fire in Syria brokered by the US and Russia, saying it had allowed Syrians "to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction in violence and to receive humanitarian assistance."

US officials "obviously also have some ideas about this and how we can most effectively make progress in Geneva and begin the very serious and difficult work of the transition," Kerry said.

In a playful start to the talks, Putin noted that Kerry walked off the plane carrying his briefcase himself and joked that he may have brought some cash to bargain with Russia.

Kerry replied, "When we have a private moment I will show you what's in my briefcase and I think you will be surprised." He later told reporters that contents of his briefcase were "a secret" between himself and Putin.

In his comments, Putin said he hoped for a constructive discussion that would "allow us to make our positions on Syria and Ukraine closer." He also said progress on Syria that has been made so far was the result of President Barack Obama's position but did not elaborate.

The main Syrian opposition group wrapped up the latest round of indirect peace talks on Thursday by urging Russia to "use its leverage" on Assad's government to fulfil international hopes for a political transition.

The United States and Russia have been at odds over Syria since the conflict began more than five years ago, with Washington demanding Assad's ouster and Moscow saying it is up to the Syrian people to determine their leadership.

Kerry's meetings were arranged after Putin made a surprise announcement last week that Russian troops would partially withdraw from Syria after five months of military operations in support of Assad's government. After his meetings, Kerry said he had gotten a clearer idea of Putin's decision to withdraw.

Another current significant difference between the US and Russia is the situation in Ukraine. Washington accuses Moscow of not doing enough to push pro-Russian separatists in the east to comply with a cease-fire. Russia, meanwhile, has complained that the Ukrainian government is dragging its feet on implementing the cease-fire.

Fighting in Ukraine's industrial heartland, which has close ties to Russia, has killed more than 9,100 people and left large swaths of land under rebel control. Germany, France and Russia mediated talks between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-backed separatists in Minsk, Belarus, which resulted in the truce agreement.

That has largely held, but none of the political elements, including calling a local election, has been implemented.

Kiev insists it can't hold the vote because it cannot guarantee security for election officials. For their part, the rebels have said they won't allow Ukrainian right-wing parties to run, which the Ukrainian government says also makes the election impossible.

Kerry said he had raised concerns about a recent sharp increase in cease-fire violations and called on Russia to do more to get the separatists in line. Unless there is "true quiet" and full access for cease-fire monitors, US officials say it will be difficult to get progress on other parts of the Minsk deal.

Kerry also said he had raised the case of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in Russia on Tuesday on charges the US says are false. Savchenko was convicted of complicity to murder in the 2014 deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine, opening a door to a possible prisoner swap between the two countries.

The US has repeatedly called for Savchenko to be released and Kerry did so again on Thursday. Ukraine has suggested trading two Russian prisoners for Savchenko and Kerry said he was optimistic that some progress on an exchange could happen soon.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. (**)
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Linkedin Markus Makur (The Jakarta Post) Labuan Bajo, West Manggarai  Fri, March 25, 2016

Named one of the wonders of nature by UNESCO in 2011, the Komodo National Park in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, is becoming a popular tourist destination, visited by cruise ship passengers from around the world.

Various tourism events, such as Sail Komodo, held at Pede Beach in Gorontalo village, Komodo district, West Manggarai regency in September 2013, have attracted more tourists.

As of February, eight cruise ships visited the Komodo National Park, bringing 3,210 people, data from the Komodo National Park management reveals. This figure should continue to increase due to a number of holiday seasons tourists may want to enjoy until the end of this year. In 2015, 29 cruise ships were recorded to have brought 15,230 domestic and foreign tourists to spend their vacation at Komodo National Park.

'In total, 100,868 domestic and foreign tourists have visited Komodo National Park during the period of 2010 to February 2016,' the national park's spokesperson, Margaretha Priska, told thejakartapost.com in a recent interview.

She said non-tax state revenue (PNBP) from the park amounted to Rp 3.44 trillion (US$258.80 million) over the same period. In 2015, the national park generated Rp 19.29 billion, up sharply from Rp 5.49 billion in 2014 and Rp 4.41 billion in 2013.

Flores tourism activist Ferdinandus Watu told thejakartapost.com that Indonesia would become a prime destination for cruise ships in the next 10 years.

He further said it was predicted that more shipping companies would offer cruise destinations in Australia, China and countries of Southeast Asia.

Ferdinandus explained that in the period of November to February, people from countries in the northern hemisphere would typically go on cruises to tropical countries. Most cruise ships offered Singapore as a port of call, and Indonesia should be able to take advantage of growing demand for cruise vacations in tropical countries, he added.

'The question is: Is Indonesia ready?' asked Ferdinandus.

He went on to say that instead of Indonesia, many cruise lines offered Malaysia and Thailand as vacation destinations due to a number of obstacles in Indonesia. Apart from being burdened by illegal levies at ports, cruise ship companies have claimed they must deal with tough regulations that make it difficult for them to arrange visits to Indonesian destinations, including Flores. Poor infrastructure aggravated the situation.

Ferdinandus said most cruise ship passengers were 40 years of age or older and demanded certain comforts. 'Our facilities, such as air-conditioned cars and comfortable and well-equipped accommodation, as well as appropriate ports, are still limited,' said Ferdinandus.

'It is no surprise that only cruise ships with a passenger capacity of below 150 people can anchor in Flores. We cannot yet accommodate cruise ships of a greater capacity, as we still don't have appropriate ports,' he went on.

Ferdinandus said he had got this information when he attended the Cruiseship Miami program in Miami, US, from March 16 to 19 last year. Around 900 exhibitors and 11,000 participants from 125 countries had attended the event, he said.

Ferdinandus further explained that with its rich flora and fauna, Flores was awarded as 'the Most Unique Destination' during the Indonesia Tourism Award in 2010. Meanwhile in 2015, the Lonely Planet included Flores and the Komodo National Park as Best Travel Destinations.

Flores senior tourist guide Gabriel Pampur told thejakartapost.com recently that visits by both domestic and foreign cruise ship passengers had positively impacted the local economy, benefitting people living near Komodo National Park, adding that many tourists would buy handicrafts sold around the national park. (ebf)
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Linkedin Monika Scilowska (The Jakarta Post) Warsaw, Poland  Fri, March 25, 2016

Poland's president on Thursday threw his support behind a government decision to renege on a deal to accept thousands of refugees, blaming security concerns raised by Tuesday's attacks in Brussels.

The move could prompt similar decisions by other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, many of which have protested ' or, like Hungary and Slovakia, sued over ' the European Union's plan to divide up some 120,000 refugees among member countries.

The plan is part of efforts to help alleviate Europe's ongoing refugee crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa arrive on the continent in recent months.

Opponents of migration have warned that extremists could slip in along with the flood of refugees making their way to the continent. However, the suicide-bombers in the attacks in Brussels, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, were Belgian-born.

Poland's decision could also negatively affect a deal European leaders struck last week with Turkey that is aimed at limiting the influx of migrants to Europe and better ensuring that those who arrive really might be entitled to asylum because of danger in their countries, rather than people looking for better economic opportunities.

Poland's conservative, anti-migrant government had grudgingly confirmed the previous government's commitment to take in 7,000 refugees from Syria and Eritrea over the next two years. At the same time, sensing general uncertainty about receiving migrants into a mostly homogenous nation, the officials stressed that permissions to settle would be preceded by meticulous security and identity checks.

But following the Brussels attacks, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said "I see no possibility for migrants to come to Poland now."

On Thursday, the spokesman for Polish President Andrzej Duda confirmed that decision and said Europe has failed to build an efficient system of checking new arrivals to make sure they don't pose a security risk.

"The prime minister is right when she says that without an efficient system of hot spots ... no country, neither Poland, nor Spain or Germany or Austria is able to fully control this problem," said spokesman Marek Magierowski.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that decisions about who should be let in should be made by each country, not by Brussels, which he accuses of "stealthily" seeking to expand its powers at the expense of national sovereignty.

The Czech Republic has committed to receive some 2,800 migrants.

Poland has not been on the route migrants take from Turkey to Greece and then through the Balkans to Western Europe, but it is especially focused on security ahead of two major international events it will host in July: a NATO summit and Pope Francis' meeting with hundreds of thousands of Catholic youths.

On Thursday, the interior minister and the coordinator of security services presented draft legislation expected to take effect in May that will allow for close surveillance, 14-day detention and summary expulsions of foreigners suspected of being threats to security. Poland's borders could be temporarily closed and mass events canceled in case of threat, Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said. (**)
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Linkedin Frances D'Emilio (The Jakarta Post) Vatican City  Fri, March 25, 2016

Pope Francis on Wednesday called for "unanimous condemnation" of extremist attacks in Brussels and elsewhere and urged prayers to convert hearts "blinded by cruel fundamentalism."

At the end of his weekly public audience, the pontiff led thousands of people in St. Peter's Square in silent prayer for the victims of the airport and metro attacks a day earlier in the Belgian capital.

He told the crowd that he assured the "dear Belgian people" of his prayers and closeness.

"I yet again appeal to all persons of good will to unite in unanimous condemnation of these cruel abominations that are causing only death, terror or horror," the pope said.

He asked people to keep praying, to comfort those suffering, as well as to "convert the hearts of these people blinded by cruel fundamentalism."

Security was very tight, and police examined bags of tourists as they walked down the boulevard leading to the square. Those entering the square passed through metal detectors.

The US Embassy in Rome Wednesday issued a travel alert advising "particular caution during religious holidays" as well as at large gatherings.

Holy Week ceremonies over the next few days are expected to draw large crowds. On Friday night, Francis will preside over a Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum. On Sunday, he will celebrate Easter Mass in the square and give a blessing from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, an event which in the past has drawn some 100,000 faithful.

___

Frances D'Emilio is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/fdemilio. (**)
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Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Jembrana, Bali  Fri, March 25, 2016

A joint team comprising Jembrana Police and Bali Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) personnel seized four protected birds from a villa rented by a British national in Berangbang village, Jembrana, West Bali, on Thursday.

During the search, the team confiscated two hornbills or rangkong and two great black cockatoos, locally known as kakatua raja, allegedly belonging to British national, David John George Camplin, who lives with his Indonesian wife at the property.

Jembrana Police general crime unit head Adj. Comr. Gusti Made Sudarma Putra said the team had found a total of seven protected birds in Camplin's villa.

"He has license for raising three protected birds, but there was no license for the four remaining birds," Sudarma said.

Camplin reportedly told the police that he had bought the birds at a pet market in Jembrana. The police have named Camplin a suspect for allegedly violating Article 21 of Law No.5/1990 on natural resource and ecosystem conservation.

"If found guilty, he could be given a maximum sentence of one year in prison," Sudarma said.

Camplin has not been taken into custody as the article he will be charged under only carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. (ebf)
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Linkedin Dominique Soguel and Suzan Frazer (The Jakarta Post) Istanbul  Fri, March 25, 2016

Two Turkish journalists went on trial on Friday on allegations that they revealed state secrets and helped a terror organization with their reports on alleged government-arms smuggling to Syrian rebels, a trial that has increased concern about the erosion of media freedoms in Turkey.

Cumhuriyet newspaper's chief editor Can Dundar and Ankara representative Erdem Gul face life imprisonment if found guilty of charges of espionage and of aiding the moderate Islamic movement led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The pair are on trial for publishing images that reportedly date back to January 2014, when local authorities searched Syria-bound trucks, leading to a standoff with Turkish intelligence officials. Cumhuriyet said the images proved Turkey was smuggling arms to Islamist rebels.

The prosecutor asked that the hearing proceed behind closed doors in a request that was granted by the court, according to local media.

International media advocacy groups, who are pressing Turkey to drop charges, are closely watching Friday's opening hearing. The trial is seen as a bellwether of the future of press freedom in the country which has witnessed a growing crackdown on independent and opposition media over the past few years.

The journalists were arrested in November after Erdogan filed a personal complaint against the two. Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled in February that their rights were violated, leading to their release from jail.

Speaking to reporters as he entered the courthouse, Dundar said he was hopeful that the court would take the high court's ruling into account and drop charges.

"The Constitutional Court has already said that this news is not an act of terrorism but an act of journalism. So this judge, we hope, will approve this decision and drop (this) case," he said.

The indictment accuses the two of working with the Gulen movement to create the image that the government was aiding terror groups.

The government initially denied the trucks were carrying arms, maintaining that the cargo consisted of humanitarian aid. Some officials later suggested the trucks were carrying arms or ammunition destined for Turkmen kinsmen in Syria.

Government officials accuse Gulen's supporters of stopping the trucks as part of an alleged plot to bring down the government. The government has branded the movement a "terror organization" although it is not known to have engaged in any acts of violence.

Speaking in Istanbul on Thursday, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, criticized the authorities for treating journalists as a threat when the country is facing real terrorism. He also criticized Erdogan, who filed the lawsuit against Dundar and Gul, for spearheading attacks against the media and creating an "atmosphere of fear."

A representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists also came to Turkey to attend the hearing. "They have done nothing wrong but committed the act of journalism," said Nina Ognianova. "They have covered a story of public interest that is important not only for Turkey but also the region and the international community."

__

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. (**)
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Linkedin Bassem Mroue (The Jakarta Post) Nahr El-Bared, Lebanon  Fri, March 25, 2016

The UN secretary-general appealed Friday from Lebanon, urging the international community to provide necessary funding to help finish the rebuilding of a Palestinian refugee camp destroyed in fierce battles against al-Qaida-inspired militants almost a decade ago.

Ban Ki-moon spoke during a visit to the Nahr el-Bared camp, where he inspected a school and was briefed on the ongoing reconstruction effort.

The Lebanese military fought a three-month battle in 2007 against the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group inside the camp. The Lebanese army crushed the group, but the clashes also killed more than 170 soldiers and caused massive destruction, displacing the camp's residents.

Almost a decade later, the reconstruction work is still not finished and many residents are still waiting to return.

"Almost half the construction has been made but there are still so many people waiting to be returned," Ban said. "I'm urging the international community to provide remaining funding of at least 200 million dollars so that these people can return."

Ban inspected the Aamaq school at the camp, where he was received by Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour and the Lebanese minister of social affairs, Rashid Derbas. A UN official explained on a map the ongoing reconstruction as hundreds of Palestinians gathered, chanting in support of the UN efforts.

Ban is on a two-day visit to Lebanon along with the World Bank Group president and chief of the Islamic Development Bank. He is also to visit a social center for Syrian refugees in Tripoli and an informal refugee settlement in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Tiny Lebanon, which borders Israel and Syria, is home to around half a million Palestinian refugees. With a population of 4.5 million people, Lebanon now also shelters more than 1 million registered Syrian refugees. (**)
In response to a subpoena from NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, the de Blasio administration has turned over documents related to the sale of the former Rivington House building. [New York Times]

Tenants at 211 Madison Street took their landlord to court, accusing Silverstone Property Group of harassing elderly/rent stabilized residents. [DNA Info]

Real estate developer Paul Massey is planning to run for mayor. Massey has local ties: He sits on the board of the Tenement Museum. [New York Magazine]

Former fire commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta died at the age of 83. He was born on the Lower East Side and attended Seward Park High School. [New York Post]

A look back at the Triangle Fire 105 years ago [CBS News]

Happening Today: It is the 105th anniversary of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Residents will be chalking throughout the neighborhood in memory of 146 workers who lost their lives.

Happening Tomorrow: At 1 p.m., local elected officials and community activists will gather to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2nd Avenue explosion and fire. The event takes place on 2nd Avenue at East 7th Street.
On Tuesday, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced his office is trying to find out how the former Rivington House community facility on the Lower East Side slipped into the control of luxury developers. Its a story The Lo-Down has been reporting for the past four months. Following a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday, there are now followups today in the New York Times, the New York Post and Politico New York.

Even after this weeks revelations, the Times noted, city bureaucrats were still slow to hand over information requested by the comptroller on March 7:

The de Blasio administration has turned over documents in response to a subpoena by the New York City comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, over the lifting of deed restrictions and the sale of a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that made a $72 million profit for a private nursing home operator. The city had initially delayed responding to a request by Mr. Stringer to provide information about two sales in close succession of a building at 45 Rivington Street. It had been under a restrictive New York City covenant that required it to be used as a nonprofit residential health care center. After not receiving a response by Wednesday, Mr. Stringer filed the subpoena  a rarity, his office said. The city produced documents hours later. They are currently under review.

The former nursing home for AIDS patients was shuttered by VillageCare in 2014 and sold to a for-profit nursing provider called the The Allure Group for $28 million. Before the sale, the Times reported, Allure lobbied the city to have the covenant lifted and, in an email in October 2014, promised to maintain the center as a for-profit nursing home. Last month, it was revealed that three firms  China Vanke Co., Slate Property Group and Adam America Real Estate  purchased the former school building for $116 million. Theyre converting the building to luxury apartments. Now bureaucrats are struggling to explain how they bungled the deed application:

City officials said on Thursday that the decision to lift the covenant was a mistake and that Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, had been angered after learning of it this month. The city has halted all applications to change deed restrictions as the process is re-evaluated, Austin Finan, a spokesman for the mayor, said.

Politico New York reported that:

The new DCAS commissioner, Lisette Camillo, discovered the issue during communication with a community board on March 1, before Stringers inquiry. She ceased lifting all deed restrictions and called for a review, mayoral press secretary Karen Hinton said.

Meanwhile, weve received a letter sent by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council member Margaret Chin to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen. It was dated yesterday, March 24. In the letter, Brewer and Chin said they had been working through Glens office to set up a meeting with representatives of The Allure Group before last months sale became public knowledge. We understand that a brief meeting eventually did occur at which the former owner stated that he no longer had an interest in the property, they wrote.

It appears we have lost the chance, the elected officials added, to push for this property to be sold to a developer who would commit to creating a community resource on the site. It is our sincere hope that the administration will work with our offices and Community Board 3 to ensure that the neighborhoods residents are duly compensated for this disheartening loss.

They went one step further, telling Glen:

The community deserves to be made whole. The decision to lift these deed restrictions was a mistake that must be corrected, and the local community is rightfully distraught over the outcome. We therefore request that the city use the $16,150,000 it made from the deal to create a community resource facility, affordable housing or both in Community District 3 as near the Rivington House site as possible. The city should also push the new owner to develop a community facility and/or affordable housing on the site. Finally, the city must work to replace the number of medical beds (215) lost at Rivington House in the community.

On Tuesday, mayoral spokesman Austin Finan asserted, The city was as disappointed as local residents to later learn not only that the property would no longer provide needed health services but that the valuation of the deed restriction did not reflect current market values that could have generated affordable housing or other uses for the publics benefit. Local activists were more than a little taken aback by the statement, since they and elected officials have been trying to get the administrations attention on the Rivington House snafu for at least 14 weeks.

A review of The Lo-Downs archives and notes illustrates their point:

Based on a tip from a former employee of the nursing facility, we reported on Dec. 2 that the center would be closing and the building sold. Records showed that The Allure Group had paid $16,150,000 to acquire the deed from the city and that the deed restriction had been lifted.

The previous evening, Dec. 1, local activist K Webster made contact with Tommy Lin, a community liaison in the mayors office, asking for his help in investigating the Rivington House situation. After Webster followed up on Dec. 9, Lin responded that he was looking into this matter and would get back to (Webster) shortly. Lin said he had also been speaking with CB3 District Manager Susan Stetzer.

On Dec. 18, a spokesperson from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) responded to a request for information from The Lo-Down. Cathy Hansen, the spokesperson said, The deed restrictions were lifted after a request by the owner to allow the property to be run by for-profit and/or non-profit operators. The deed modifications were approved following a public hearing on June 24, 2015. Asked whether any steps had been taken to make sure the building remained a community facility, Hansen said there were no stipulations with the property owner other than those contained in the deed transfer agreement.

Also on Dec. 18, a spokesperson for Council member Chin said, Were disappointed by the recent closure of Rivington House, which for years has served a community with few other nursing home options. Were currently looking into the status of the limitations on Rivington Houses deed, and will continue to monitor the situation closely. At the same time, the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition, a local advocacy group, launched a letter writing campaign, pleading with the mayors office for help.

At a community board meeting in January, representatives from the offices of Chin and Brewer said they had been trying, unsuccessfully, to learn more from DCAS about the lifting of the deed restriction. At the end of January, CB3 approved a strongly worded resolution and forwarded it to DCAS. The resolution read, in part, CB3 calls on the City to disclose information as to what transpired with respect to this transaction, and CB3 calls on the City to explore options to reverse this decision immediately.

According to Department of Buildings records, the owners filed on Feb. 16 for, interior demolition of existing community facility. The permit application was disapproved on Feb. 22. The managing agent is listed as Michael Zampetti of the Slate Property Group. The architect is John Cetra of CetraRuddy Architecture.

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Five female construction workers die in Krabi when building collapses on top of them

PHUKET: Five female construction workers died this afternoon (Mar 25) when they got trapped under a partly built building that collapsed in Krabi.

constructiondeathaccidents

By Darawan Naknakhon

Friday 25 March 2016, 06:06PM

It took rescue workers 24 minutes to recover the bodies. Photo: Krabi Rescue

The five women workers got trapped when the second floor slab was being poured. Photo: Krabi Rescue

Krabi District Chief Suriyan Narongkul and Krabi Police Chief Col Sompong Thiparpakul led officials including rescue workers and an emergency unit to investigate the building collapse at the Institute of Physical Education - Krabi Campus Muang district at 2:30pm.

Officials were told that many workers were missing when the second floor slab that was being poured collapsed on top of a number of construction workers working below.

After twenty minutes of searching, rescue workers found five bodies under the debris of wet cement and concrete fragments.

The victims were named as Jitranon Saikaew, 26, Kathleeya Jandeewan, 22,Yad Codon, 42, Warin Rachabuth, 31, Linthong Promsuwan, 37, all Thai nationals.

Mr Suriyan said, Krabi rescue workers sprayed water onto the ready mix cement to prevent it from hardening and used a backhoe to move debris from the site to enable them to find the missing victims.

We were hoping to find them alive, but all five had already died by the time we found them, he said.

Another construction worker, Yun Noojaiy, 50, said that while they were waiting for cement truck to pour more concrete to make the slab, the whole level collapsed from underneath.

The debris buried my wife and four other women who were working on the lower floor, he said.

Construction of the three storey building started on July 30 2015 and was due to be complete by July 8 2017.
Phuket targets B20m for road-safety in annual license plate auction

PHUKET: Officials have set their sights on raising more than B20 million from the Land Transport Departments 11th License Plate Auction, to be held over two days at the Phuket Merlin Hotel in May.

accidentscharitytransport

By The Phuket News

Friday 25 March 2016, 10:35AM

The 'lucky numbers' are expected to raise more than B20 million. Photo: PR Dept

Vice Governor Prajiad Aksornthammakul (left) and Manop Suthipong, who is currently the acting chief of the Phuket Land Transport Office, hold up soe of the license plates up for auction. Photo: PR Dept

This years edition will see bids for 301 sets of licence plates beginning with the Thai alphabet letters KorRor (), explained Manop Suthipong, who is currently the acting chief of the Phuket Land Transport Office.

The auction will get underway at 9am on May 21-22, and the license plates to be auctioned can be used only for non-commercial vehicles rated to carry no more than seven people, he added.

Anyone interested in bidding can register at the Phuket Land Transport Office during office hours from April 1 to May 20. People can also register at the Merlin Hotel on the auction days, Mr Manop told the press on Tuesday (Mar 22).

The person with the highest bid will have the chance to pick whatever license plate number they want from the 301 sets of plates reserved for the auction, and money raised from the auction will go towards road-safety campaigns and a charity for victims of road accidents.

The event last year event raised B20,552,000, said Mr Manop.

The auction was for license plates with the letters KorYor, with 413 people attending the event and the highest bid was B700,000, plate number 9999, followed by B500,000 for plate number 8888, he said.

Vice Governor Prajiad Aksornthammakul said, I expect more people will take part in the auction this year and generate more than B20 million.

Last year, Phuket received B1,191,100 to promote road-safety campaigns, which we used to promote the use of helmets and accident prevention seminars.

We also donated B1,114,000 to charity to assist 22 road accident victims and paid for wheelchairs and artificial legs for those injured in road accidents.

For more information about the auction, call the Phuket Land Transport Office at 076-211019 ext 101, 203, 205 or 206.
Six people arrested in Brussels after attacks

disastersdeathviolenceimmigrationpolice

By AFP

Friday 25 March 2016, 09:27AM

The raids happened days after the deadly attacks in Brussels that left 31 dead. Photo: AFP

The arrests come as Belgian ministers under fire for intelligence failings over Tuesdays Islamic State-claimed suicide blasts admitted errors and offered to quit.

Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept the resignations of the interior and justice ministers, who have been severely criticised for allowing the attackers  at least three of whom were known to authorities  to slip through the net.

Hundreds of people gathered late into the night at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels to mourn the victims of the suicide attacks on the citys airport and metro on Tuesday (Mar 22).

Our love for Brussels is stronger than terror, read a banner held by a young couple.

Led by King Philippe, Belgians also observed a minute of silence on the third and final day of mourning for the 31 people killed and 300 injured in attacks.

Harrowing new footage of the moments after the Zaventem airport attack meanwhile emerged on Belgian television, showing a lone baby left crying in the wreckage next to the lifeless body of a woman.

Abdeslam didnt know

With criticism growing that international authorities failed to follow links between Tuesdays bombings and the attacks on France in November, key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam insisted he was unaware of plans to strike the Belgian capital.

Police arrested Abdeslam in Brussels last Friday (Mar 18), after he spent four months on the run as the last surviving member of the group that killed 130 people in Paris.

Abdeslams lawyer Sven Mary said Thursday his client now did not want to fight extradition to Paris and insisted he didnt know in advance about the Brussels attacks.

But Belgium is reeling from revelations that three of the Brussels attackers  including Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother Khalid, who bombed Maalbeek metro station  were known to police and had strong links to Abdeslam.

Interior minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens both tendered their resignations over the claims that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had slipped through the net despite being arrested by Turkey near the Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands.

There were errors at Justice and with the (Belgian) liaison officer in Turkey, Jambon was quoted as telling the Le Soir daily.

Prosecutors meanwhile confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui was the subject of an international warrant for terrorism in relation to the Paris attacks and had rented out a flat used by the Paris cell in the Belgian city of Charleroi.

Belgian authorities are now seeking a new suspect with a large bag captured on CCTV talking to Khalid El Bakraoui at Maalbeek station, who then did not get on to the train with the bomber, police sources told AFP.

Attacks not a surprise

A huge manhunt was still going on for a third attacker whose bomb failed to go off at Brussels airport, a man wearing a hat seen on security footage.

Raids have taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on Tuesday morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood.

Over the border in France, police arrested man in the Paris area who was in the advanced stages of a plot to attack France, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Cazeneuve said the man, a French national, belonged to a terrorist network but added there was no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels.

Belgium on Thursday lowered its terror alert to the second highest level for the first time since the attacks, but soldiers still guarded key sites, streets were eerily quiet and public transport shut down again in the early evening.

EU justice and interior ministers convened in Brussels for an emergency meeting to show solidarity to Belgium and work out a plan to address the threat to Europe posed by jihadists.

The attacks did not come as a surprise, said European Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, calling on EU nations to push through plans to share the names of all air passengers.

40 nationalities

People of around 40 nationalities were killed or wounded in the attack, that struck the symbolic heart of Europe and has left security agencies across the continent on edge.

Very few of the dead have been formally identified but stories were emerging of lucky escapes and tragic ill fortune of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A young German couple headed for a New York holiday after their wedding last year were among the victims of the Brussels airport attack, which left the wife missing and the man in a coma, the Bild daily reported.

Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, a 37-year-old Peruvian woman, was killed by the airport bomb but her two young daughters and husband survived because the twin girls had run off and the father was chasing after them.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to arrive in Brussels on Friday in a show of solidarity, during which he will pay tribute to the victims at the airport.
Country

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How to watch and what to know about South Dakota State at North Dakota
Michael Gituma always has Africa on his mind. As president of the Simba Shop, Gituma operates one of the vendors at Marketplace on Main that sells fair trade products, including handmade recycled jewelry, coffee, chocolate, bags, bowls and woodwork.

Gituma first moved to Iowa six years ago from Meru, Kenya for undergraduate study at William Penn University in Oskalooska, IA. After receiving a Bachelors Degree in Business Management, he went on to begin a masters program in International Business through Walden University. Through the sale of fair trade items in Grinnell, Gituma not only enables his own economic means but also that of his Kenyan community through fair trade while staying connected to his roots.

Gitumas bold business endeavor has been operating for just over a year, since October 2010.

I didnt know if it was worth risking [the initial start-up], Gituma said, but is has been growing ever since its start. I began with a kiosk and have already expanded to a whole booth.

Fair trade to Gituma is more than just a marketing strategy for his items, but a true ideology and lifestyle to which he is committed.

Fair trade works to make sure that people are paid a fair price. It makes sure that they are paid fairly in accord with the amount of time that it takes to make a product.

Gituma explained the alternative to fair trade, which includes a corporate system in which items can be sold on the black market for only a fraction of their true cost, due to the exploitation of labor.

The true question, as stated by Gituma, is, Are these people able to pay for their kids schooling? he asked. Fair trade makes sure that people are working in healthy conditions and can afford their basic living needs.

Gituma has enjoyed Grinnell thus far, remarking on the diversity that the small town provides. He has also enjoyed his time as a vendor at the Marketplace.

I like it, it is a good opportunity to test the waters first [before operating an independent store]. Gitma said.

Gituma is already thinking ahead as he considers diversifying his products in hopes of selling his wares year-round in the future.

Gitumas hopes and dreams do not end at his booth in the Marketplace, but expand to possibilities across the state, with worldwide impacts. One business plan of Gitumas includes selling fair trade coffee as well as craft gifts in Simba shops in small towns all across Iowa. These Simba shops could be more than just a store, in Gitumas visions, with the possibility of offering a sit-down coffee and tea area. In the process, Gituma wants to bring some African culture to small-town Iowa, as he ponders the option of serving traditional Kenyan snacks to customers.

Another of Gitumas ideas is to begin programs in Kenyan villages near his home and market what they are selling. I dont know how big I can grow, Gituma said, but I like to think big.  Its all in the horizon, but first, I need a few more sales.

So if youre looking to buy one-of-a-kind gifts with a conscience this holiday season, look no farther than the Simba Shop, conveniently located inside Marketplace on Main at 913 Main Street.
Canadian Film Fest: Canadas filmmakers need all the love and support they can possibly get, which is why its so great that the Canadian Film Fest is back for another patriotic display of often underappreciated movie talent. The annual showcase of new features, docs and shorts  plus panels, parties and other special events, too  runs March 30 to April 2 at the Royal.

Local writer-director Jeremy LaLonde snags the opening-night slot with his third feature How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town, a comedy that  true to its title  concerns a group of would-be swingers who dont know the first thing about throwing a quality sex party. Jewel Staite (Firefly), Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) and Ennis Esmer (The Listener) all get in on the action in Lalondes farce, which recently earned a warm reception at Slamdance.

One of that films stars  Winnipeg-bred, Toronto-based actor and writer Jonas Chernick  gets some more screen time at the CFF in Borealis, a comedy-drama that Chernick also wrote and produced with his directing partner Sean Garrity. Chernick plays Jonah, a compulsive gambler who runs into trouble with Kevin Pollak as an affable but still plenty dangerous gangster. Rather than face the gangsters wrath, Jonah skips town with his teenage daughter. None too happy about the situation with her dad or her own failing vision, shes played by Joey King of Fargo and this summers Independence Day sequel. An engaging road movie that may be less racy than the same teams 2012 breakout My Awkward Sexual Adventure but boasts the same amount of charm, Borealis makes its Toronto premiere on March 31.

More picks from the CFF in next weeks Projections.

TIFF Kids for Easter weekend

TIFF Kids doesnt actually launch until April 8 but the fest takes advantage of the Easter weekend school break to get a jump on things with daytime offerings on March 25 and 28. The lineup includes Miniscule: Valley of the Lost Ants, a recent 3D animated feature from France about tiny insects battling for supremacy over a box of sugar cubes. Avatars Sam Worthington stars in Paper Planes, an Australian family drama that enjoyed a warm reception at TIFF 2014. Two more highlights are the Reel Rascals and Give & Get programs of well-loved short films from festivals past.

SOMM: Into the Bottle

Oenophiles always love an excuse to congregate and they get a good one when the Bloor hosts a special wine-enhanced event on March 31. The sommelier and co-owner of local restaurants Cava and Chabrol, Niall McCotter curates the wine tasting that precedes SOMM: Into the Bottle, director Jason Wises sequel to his doc hit about the world of wine and the people who tell you all about it while hovering over you in restaurants.

Jesus Christ Superstar

No less than Atom Egoyan considers Jesus Christ Superstar to be a definite contender for my desert-island film. That  and the fact that its Easter weekend  is surely reason enough for the Royal to present a limited run of Norman Jewisons well-loved 1973 screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rices rock musical about Jesus and Judas. It plays on four very holy occasions March 26-28.

Rocco and His Brothers

A stormy 1960 melodrama about a poor Sicilian clan at war with itself, Rocco and His Brothers had a massive influence on everything from Martin Scorseses Mean Streets to James Grays The Yards. Francis Ford Coppola loved it so much, he asked its music composer Nino Rota to work on The Godfather, too. A newly restored version is a big highlight of TIFF Cinematheques winter program of special screenings  Luchino Viscontis classic plays the Lightbox on March 26 and 27.

East Jerusalem West Jerusalem

Co-produced by Steve Earle, East Jerusalem West Jerusalem documents singer-songwriter David Brozas extraordinary effort to unite musicians from all over the Holy City for a very special recording session in 2013. Broza will be on hand to present the film and perform a short set on March 29 in a presentation by the Royal Conservatory of Musics Music on Film program at the Bloor.

In brief

William Friedkins rarely bettered 1971 crime pic The French Connection plays the Lightbox on March 25.

The Bloor treats moviegoers to a music-heavy weekend that includes a Shadow Cast performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on March 25 and the Radiohead doc Meeting People Is Easy on March 26.

Producer Rachael Horovitz joins Books on Film host Eleanor Wachtel to talk about the making of Moneyball at the Lightbox on March 28.

A gritty addiction drama that caused a stir at what was still the Festival of Festivals in 1990, Darrell Wasyks H plays a free screening for TIFFs Canadian Open Vault at the Lightbox on March 29.

The Royals Ladies of Burlesque series presents director Nicholas Rays racy 1958 flick Party Girl and a live burlesque performance on March 29.

Local Beatles scholar Peter Hemmingsen shares his expertise at a 35 mm screening of How I Won the War  John Lennons sole non-Fab-Four film with director Richard Lester  on March 31 at the Revue.

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BERKELEY, CALIF.For decades, the University of California, Berkeley, has been synonymous with liberal activism and social justice campaigns. But students, alumni and staff members say they have a hard time squaring that image with a spate of high-profile sexual harassment cases roiling the campus.

The dean of the law school stepped down this month after an investigation concluded that he forcefully hugged and kissed his executive assistant almost daily. An assistant basketball coach was fired, also this month, after the university determined that he had propositioned a reporter after shutting her in a parking garage. With all candour, I was trying to trick her into going upstairs, he told investigators.

In October, a renowned astronomer left the faculty after he was accused of buying students drinks, grinding with one on the dance floor and grabbing the crotch of a student from another university.

This is supposed to be the pride of our state university system, said Jennifer Reisch, a Berkeley Law graduate who said she was sexually assaulted when she was a student by a previous law dean at Berkeley nearly 16 years ago. How is this happening?

At a time of heightened awareness of the dangers of sexual violence on campuses across the country, Berkeley students and alumni are accusing the administration of failing to make the university safe from sexual harassment and violence  and then doing too little when it occurs.

In addition to these cases, the university is investigating 16 cases involving sexual harassment and nine involving sexual violence. The university is also facing two complaints lodged with the federal government and a civil suit brought by three women. All three actions accuse the university of failing to prevent sexual abuse.

Theres a feeling that you can do this stuff, and youll just get a slap on the wrist, said Nicoletta Commins, a graduate student at the Berkeley School of Public Health and one of the three women suing the university. Berkeley doesnt do anything about it unless there is external pressure.

On Thursday, Berkeleys chancellor, Nicholas B. Dirks, announced a number of initiatives to raise awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assaults, including a half-day of activities for the entire campus, tentatively set for fall.

The chancellor also said the university would increase resources for the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, said the offices budget would be increased to $1.2 million from the current $900,000, and that the staff of three would be doubled.

Still, hundreds of Berkeley students and alumni expressed outrage this month when they learned that the administration had kept secret the existence of the sexual harassment case against Sujit Choudhry, the dean of the law school who later stepped down. Under the terms of the confidential punishment, he had been allowed to remain in the job while his executive assistant, who had filed a complaint against him, was told to look for work elsewhere in the university.

The case was made public only after the executive assistant, Tyann Sorrell, filed a civil suit this month against Choudhry and the university, saying that the punishment the administration meted out  a one-year cut in salary to $373,500, from $415,000; a requirement to undergo counselling; and a letter of apology to Sorrell  was inadequate.

Ive worked for many high-level execs in Fortune 500 companies, and Ive never seen anyone behave the way he has, she said in an interview.

Sorrell, a mother of five, graduated from Berkeley and had worked for the two previous law school deans.

The university has since released details of the inquiry, which concluded that Choudhry, who became dean in 2014, engaged in intentional physical touching of Sorrell, including hugging, kissing her cheek, squeezing her arm, rubbing her arms and shoulders, and holding her hands to his waist at the workplace.

The report concluded that the conduct was unwelcome and objectively sexual in nature.

A letter of protest by more than 400 alumni described Choudhrys punishment as feeble. They threatened to withhold future donations until he was fired.

Choudhry announced he was stepping down this month, but he remains on the faculty.

Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system, who said she was upset that she had learned of his case from the news media, barred Choudhry from campus for the rest of the term and ordered disciplinary proceedings that could ultimately result in stripping him of tenure.

Choudhry declined to be interviewed, but lawyers representing him provided a copy of a letter sent last week to Napolitano by his counsel, William W. Taylor.

Choudhry was being deprived of due process, the letter said, and his case lumped in with other cases on campus.

He is a scapegoat for any shortcomings, real or perceived, in the universitys handling of sexual harassment claims and related policies and procedures, Taylor wrote.

In an interview, Napolitano said she stood by her order to keep Choudhry off campus. The University of California needed to set an example for the country, she said.

I think our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace, Napolitano said. Its gone on in many professions for decades. We are a public university, and we ought to be leading by example, not by mistake.

Critics point to several ways the university appears to have mishandled sexual harassment and assault claims.

In the case of Choudhry, he did not take a required course in sexual harassment awareness until after Sorrell had filed her complaint. Activists say this was a significant failing given the law schools previous entanglement with a sexual assault scandal. A complaint filed in 2002 by Reisch, the alumna, accused John Dwyer, the dean then, of undressing and fondling her at her apartment when she was intoxicated. He resigned. According to the university, Dwyer said the encounter was consensual but inappropriate.

In the case of Geoffrey Marcy, the astronomy professor who resigned last year, an investigation noted that accusations of sexual harassment went back to 2001. A former student, now a professor at Harvard, said in a blog that Marcys inappropriate actions toward and around women was an open secret at meetings of astronomers.

As part of her response to these cases, Napolitano set up a committee that will review and approve punishments for those who are found to have violated sexual harassment and sexual violence policies. The committee, she wrote in a letter last week to the chancellors in the University of California system, would ensure that responses were consistent with the serious nature of the offences.

Next month, Napolitano will receive an update on cases involving faculty from the Presidents Task Force on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault, which she set up in 2014.

Some students and alumni remain skeptical.

Time and time again, universities when they are faced with problems like this set up a task force. That looks good on paper, said Sofie Karasek, a Berkeley graduate who is the co-founder of the group End Rape on Campus.

Karasek, who says she was sexually assaulted in 2012 by a fellow student when she was a freshman at Berkeley, is a complainant in the civil suit against the university.

In an email Thursday, she described the universitys overall response as the bare minimum they can get away with.

Berkeley is merely waiting for this issue to dissipate from the public eye, she said.

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With so much debate about political ad spending in the presidential primaries, and specifically about the use of television advertising, it's important to remember a few key facts when making a determination about the best political advertising platforms.

First, Donald Trump's TV campaign: Trump's rise to the top of the polls, without traditional heavy TV ad spending, is still a testament to TV's influence with voters. Television has played a huge role in helping Trump build his brand. To date, Trump has received an astounding $2 billion in free media coverage, vastly dwarfing any other candidate in the field. And, he is the only candidate that is also a reality TV star. 'The Apprentice' ran in prime-time on broadcast TV from 2004 until 2015, and while the show's viewership may have peaked years ago, the last season still pulled in 7.6 million viewers each week. That's an audience any politician would crave.

Second, message matters: The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is made up of the nation's top marketers -- they know advertising. In a one-on-one interview with AdAge on the subject of political advertising, the ANA's Dan Jaffe said, "You can't separate advertising from the product and people are seeing the product at many of the debates. If people don't like the product it's not going to sell."

The truth is Television is still the key influencer of voter behavior. Social media can't compete with TV in voter influence. Despite all the attention paid to Trump's tweets, according to a recent GfK poll, 51% of voters list TV as the most important medium in influencing them to cast a vote, almost nine times the respondents citing social media. And TV drives our persuasive political conversations as well. According to Keller Fay's voter study, Americans have an average of 5.5 political conversations per week. That same study also showed that 61% of all political conversations referenced something heard or seen on TV, while only 21% referenced online content. (When TV references are examined further, 41% reference Local TV, 28% reference National TV and 24% reference Cable.)

TV also drives voters to action. The same GfK survey found 70% of voters took some kind of action after seeing a political ad on TV, whether talking with others about the ad, going online to learn about the candidate, or liking/following a candidate on social media. And TV doesn't just capture older voters. The survey also revealed TV is the most influential medium for political advertising for both the 18-34 age group as well as for voters 35 and older.

At the end of the day, despite the rise in other media, Americans are still watching a lot of TV. According to Nielsen, Adults 18 and older are watching almost five hours of TV per day, viewing 2.5 times as much TV each week as the second most used medium, radio, and four times more than smartphone app/web usage.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the GOP presidential primaries, it's that television is still the most powerful medium in influencing voters, but also that message and "product" are keys to campaign success. Candidates who ignore the enormous influence of television, especially local broadcast TV, will do so at their peril.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned.
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In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian government soldiers gather at the entrance of the town of Palmyra, central Syria, Thursday, March 24, 2016. Syrian government forces pushed into the ancient town of Palmyra, where Islamic State militants appeared on the verge of collapse Thursday, while in Iraq, a military spokesman announced the start of a long-awaited operation to recapture the IS-held northern city of Mosul. (SANA via AP)
FILE - In this March 20, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a campaign rally in Seattle. Sanders' brand of democratic socialism may take some explaining in some parts of the United States, but not in Seattle. This city elected a socialist to the City Council in 2013 and was among the first to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage, mandate sick leave for most companies and offer paid parental leave for city workers - issues that mirror Sanders' platform. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)
FILE - In this June 16, 2014 file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, Iraq. An Iraqi military spokesman says the long-awaited military operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants "has begun." The spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, says Iraqi forces retook several villages on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, east of Mosul, on Thursday, March 24, 2016. (AP Photo, File)
Last Sunday, the media revelaed that there was a carefully planned airlift of 19 Yemenite Jews to Israel. It was carried out with the assistance of the Jewish Agency and the US State Department, and the efforts of a remarkable young man, Manahem Dahari.

Yeshiva World News spoke to Manahem and the transcript of the interview is found below:

YWN: Manahem, how long has it been since you saw your family? How old are you now?

MD: It has been ten years. I left right after my Bar Mitzvah.

YWN: Where did you go when you first arrived?

MD: I came [originally] through [the efforts of] Satmar, I was there for about a year. I did not speak Hebrew, or English or Yiddish, and it was a bit difficult for me. Then I was on my own. This has been the situation since I was 14.

YWN: Wow, now you are in Yeshiva University. From Satmar to YU is a long stretch.

MD: Yes, it took a while.. but I am here.. I spent some time in Chicago, and went to college there. Now I am in Yeshiva University.

YWN: How have you managed?

MD: It has not been easy. I work on Fridays, and some weekends, being in school during the week. I worked in a luggage store.

YWN: What was life like in Yemen? How was Purim celebrated?

MD: I was young when I left and my recollections are poor. I do remember having the Purim meal and the Megillah, but the celebration was much more lowkey than here in the United States.

YWN: How did your parents get out?

MD: Its been a long process. We have been working with the Jewish agency in Israel and the state Dept..

YWN: You got four siblings out in October. Where are they what are they doing?

MD: They are all in Israel now in schools, and they have been all over the media..

YWN: Who helped you in the State Department?

MD: Unfortunately, I cannot talk about it in detail..

YWN: Great. I certainly understand. What do your parents now MD: think about Eretz Yisroel?

MD: The Yemenite Jews were there in Yemen for 2000 years. There is much history there and a lot of culture there. They know that it is an end of era. They are happy about Israel and know that it is the future of the Yemenite Jewish community there. it is exciting  they are safe. At the same time it is sad, because it is the end of 2000 years in Yemen.

YWN: What have you learned in the whole experience?

MD: I have become much more attuned to Jewish history and about the political future of our people in different countries.

YWN: How many Jews are left in Yemen?

MD: 45 or 50

YWN: When do you see your parents?

MD: I will be going to Israel in 2 weeks

YWN: What do you want your parents to catch up on?

MD: On culture, my life.. I dont even know what to expect actually.

YWN: What message do you want to tell others here?

MD: I want them to know that this is it the history of the Yemeni Jews is very important. Jews dont exist in a vacuum. I would like to bring awareness to the whole situation.

YWN: What are you studying at Yeshiva University?

MD: I am now studying Marketing and Political science.

YWN: Has your experiences impacted your studies and choices?

MD: Absolutely. I was majoring in biology before this. I chose this because I am fighting for the Jewish refugees. I work with Jimena an organization that helps Jewish refugees.

YWN: Are you involved in other aspects of Klal work?

MD: I attended the AIPAC convention in Washington DC.

YWN: You were there for Trumps and Clintons pro-Israel speeches?

MD: Yes, I heard all the candidates  except for Bernie Sanders.

YWN: Where are you holding in college are you a junior or a senior?

MD: I am technically a junior. I have to do another year, I believe because I changed my major. It is, however, worth it.

YWN: Tell me about the Torah scroll that has been in the media  the one that Netanyahu has been photographed with.

MD: In the last few days, the Yemeni rebel government jailed a Jew and a Muslim after falsely accusing them of helping my family escape Yemen and smuggling with them an old Torah scroll. In their statement, they claim that the Torah scroll belongs to the Yemeni government and my family had no right to take it with them to Israel.

The statement is absolutely false and I urge them to release the detainees immediately. The Torah scroll has been in my family for hundreds of years and we will never give it up for anything or anyone. If the Yemeni government wishes to pursue this issue we welcome them to sue us in a court of law.

YWN: Manahem, you are a very impressive young man. I am certain that we will see remarkable things from you, both now and in the future. Thank you for your time.
By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times

Moshe Rabbeinu enacted that we must study the halachos of Pesach 30 days before it begins as well as on Pesach itself. A minority view (Ran and Rashba) has understood this to mean that if two students pose questions, one on Pesach laws and the other on another law, we answer the one on Pesach first  but there is no obligation to actually study the halachos 30 days before Pesach.

This view has been rejected by the majority of poskim who rule that indeed we must actually study the halachos of Pesach  both 30 days before it begins as well as on Pesach itself. Therefore it is worthwhile to study a portion of the laws of Pesach each day until Pesach arrives.

REASON

The main reason that we observe mitzvos is because it is the Retzon Hashem. Nonetheless, it is important to understand and appreciate some of the reasons that are brought down that explain the mitzvos. The Rambam writes that this is, in fact, an obligation.

Pesach is known as the Rosh Hashanah of emunah  the New Year for faith and belief in Hashem. Chazal tell us that it was solely on account of our emunah in Hashem that we were redeemed from Egypt, and that it will be solely on account of emunah in Hashem that we will be redeemed in the times of Mashiach.

Since this is the essence of the Yom Tov of Pesach, one of the three main positive mitzvos of Pesach is to plant and entrench emunah  belief in Hashem. The emunah is planted within ourselves and within others through the mitzvah called sipur yetzias Mitzrayim  the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt, as it states, Vhigadeta lvincha  And you shall relate it to your son.

Our Sages further tell us that kol hamarbeh lsaperharei zeh meshubach  the more we discuss the Exodus or the mitzvah, the more praiseworthy we are. Why is this so? In regard to all other mitzvos, once the mitzvah has been fulfilled, that is it  it ends. Here, however, the mitzvah continues. Reb Shalom Noach Berzovsky, ztl, the Slonimer Rebbe, explains that the mitzvah is a continuous one precisely because it is the means of imbuing the heart of each and every Jew with emunah throughout the year.

No matter who the person is, the mitzvah never ends: Afilu kulanu chachamim, kulanu nevonimthe greatest of Sages are also obligated in this ever-continuous mitzvah because they, too, need the boost in emunah that is obtained from Pesach.

There are infinite depths to emunah  thus the means of instilling this emunah is also infinite.

What is emunah? The Nesivos Shalom describes three separate areas:

1) Belief in Hashem as Creator of the world, which the righteous gentiles of the world also believe.

2) Belief in Hashems hashgachah pratis (Divine Providence)  that Hashem takes the time and effort to involve Himself in the details of our lives here on earth.

3) The fact that we, Klal Yisrael, have been chosen for a unique and Divine role and mission.

All three aspects of emunah are part of the Pesach experience.

1) All the nissim we experienced point to Hashem as the Creator of the world.

2) The 10 makkos show that there is hashgachah pratis.

3) Yetzias Mitzrayim itself, and the subsequent revelation of the Torah to the Children of Israel, indicate Israels unique role and mission.

We should utilize this special Yom Tov to increase our emunah in all three areas. We must also remember that the Gemara tells us (Sotah 11a) that it was in the merit of the righteous women that the Jewish people were redeemed. What did they do? They demonstrated remarkable emunah and continued having children.

The other two positive mitzvos are to get rid of all chametz on the 14th of Nissan and to eat matzah on the night of Pesach, the 15th of Nissan.

Chametz figuratively represents the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara tries to take us away from HaKadosh Baruch Hu and undermine our emunah. We should therefore get rid of anything within us that undermines emunah. This is one of the reasons suggested as to why chametz is prohibited bmashehu  in any tiny amount. Rashi tells us that Chazal forbade chametz in any amount because the prohibition of eating it involves an issur kareis.

Matzah is described by the Zohar (Vol. II, 183b) as a michlah dmehemnusah  a food of emunah.

We therefore see that all three positive mitzvos of Pesach deal directly with emunah.

The author can be reached at [email protected]
One of the first rules of investing is: spread your money. It means dont put all your cash in the same place; dont just pick one fund, or one country, or one type of asset. In short, dont put all your eggs in one basket.

Spreading your savings around lowers the risk youre taking. It means its unlikely to all take a tumble at once.

A global fund seems an obvious solution  they invest your cash around the world.

But just because a fund says its global doesnt mean that it is spreading your money as widely as you might expect.

Caution: Just because a fund says its global doesnt mean that it is spreading your money as widely as you might expect

It is not uncommon, for example, for them to have more than half of their assets in the US.

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, says: Global funds are one of the most popular type of funds with savers, but the sector comprises a variety of funds doing very different things.

Its vital that savers make sure they understand what the fund they have picked is aiming to do before they take the plunge and put their money in it. There are three main approaches global funds take.

'The overall aim of any global fund is to beat the MSCI World Index. This is a bit like the FTSE in that it is a basket of big firms, but it tracks the shares of the biggest 1,649 companies from 23 countries.

'Because companies are included based on their size it is not an even mix.'

Some 59 per cent of the index is in US firms, 8 per cent in Japan and 7 per cent in the UK. The rest comprises a mix of companies from places including Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong and Sweden.

OSCAR-WINNING INVESTING Oscar-winning visual effects company Framestore is on the hunt for investors and could even be sold off. The firm, which produced effects on Batman film The Dark Knight as well as Harry Potter, has appointed corporate finance firm Clarity as advisers. Recruitment of a new investor could see Framestore valued at between 120million and 150million. Framestore, which won an Oscar for space film Gravity, is a partnership majority-owned by its staff. It sold a 30 per cent stake to Malaysias sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional in 2014.

The first type of global fund aims to match this index. This means it will have the majority of its investments in the US.

Because the US has been the strongest economy in the world since the financial crisis, many of these funds will have been strong performers in recent years.

The L&G Global Equity Index Fund, for example, has returned 22 per cent over the past three years.

Tracker funds are appealing because they are cheap, but there is no manager making actual decisions about the best place to invest so they wont generally outperform their rivals. If the US stops doing so well your money is very exposed.

Other global funds focus on the countries they like best. Again, because the US has been so strong recently, many have been focusing their attentions there, making them quite similar to the index.

For example, the Newton Global Opportunities and Schroder Global Equity funds each have 55 per cent of their money in the US.

Some do buck the trend, though.

Because the US has been the strongest economy in the world since the financial crisis, many of these funds will have been strong performers in recent years

The Jupiter Merlin Worldwide fund has 13 per cent of its money in Japanese companies, Rathbone Global Opportunities has a quarter of its cash in the UK, and the JOHCM Global Opportunities Fund has 10 per cent of its money in Dutch firms and 16 per cent in cash.

Finally, some global funds ignore countries and make their decisions based on which companies they like best.

Khalaf says: The Lindsell Train Global Equity fund invests in companies with global brands, strong balance sheets and reliable earnings, wherever they may be. This has led the manager to invest around a quarter of the funds cash in Japan.

We tend to like this approach to fund management because we think picking good companies is a more reliable skill than forecasting which regions of the world are going to perform best.

Crucially, none of these funds are right or wrong in their approaches. But savers need to make sure that they know what they are investing in.

Being overly exposed to one country leaves you vulnerable to the fortunes of that region.

For those seeking to spread their money more widely, Jason Hollands, managing director at Tilney Bestinvest, likes Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

It has 19 per cent of its assets in Europe including French luxury retailer Kering, and 16 per cent in Chinese firms such as Tencent and Alibaba. The fund has returned 62 per cent over the past three years.

He also likes Artemis Global Income Fund, which invests in companies across Italy, Spain, Germany and Denmark. It has 35 per cent of its money in the US.
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By Philip Newman

The subway station that finally extended Manhattans far west side to No. 7 riders opened six months ago but already has a water leak problem, one that some Metropolitan Transportation Authority higher-ups knew about but disclosed to the board only Monday.

Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction, was besieged by questions from MTA board members about the leak, which was first reported by the New York Post.

Horodniceanu said he and some transit officials had been aware of the leaks since the summer of 2012 when they ordered the involved construction firm, Yonkers Construction, to fix the problem. It appears to be a recurring problem, he said, adding that he assumed it was repaired and that the leaks had been stopped. He said the leaks would be repaired but could reoccur. Nevertheless, he said the Hudson Yards station was not in danger.

We need to know more than what we are reading in the papers, said city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, who is an MTA board member.

Kevin Ortiz, an MTA spokesman, called the leaks simply unacceptable

That is why we are holding the contractor accountable and they are taking all necessary measures to permanently correct the issue.

Several MTA Board members expressed chagrin.

We spent $2 billion on this thing and there is a significant blemish on this agency, said board member Allen Cappeli.

The 1.5-mile extension from Times Square to 11th Avenue and 34th Street is now the final stop from the No. 7 lines starting point in Flushing.

The new station, the 469th in the subway system, was built at a cost of $2.4 billion, paid for by the City of New York.

The Hudson Yards station opened Sept. 13, 2015 after eight years of construction and it opened up Manhattans Far West Side, including the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the High Line and the Hudson River Park.

But so far ridership on the extension has been light awaiting development of the area.
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By Bill Parry

The Long Island City arts and culture scene is about to add another institution.

Jessica Lang Dance has chosen the neighborhood for its permanent home, joining the likes of the Chocolate Factory Theater, MoMA PS1, the Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park and the Secret Theatre.

Lang and her husband, Alvin Ailey dancer Kanji Segawa, moved into Long Island City in 2008 and noticed that a dance venue was missing from the communitys cultural landscape.

Its something weve been talking about for a long time, Lang said. We figured this was time to do something big and after seeing the changes over the years with all the development, we knew this is where we wanted to put down roots.

The Jessica Lang Dance Center will open in September after renovations to a 6,100-square-foot space in a Plaxall warehouse at 5-39 46th St. It will serve as the base for her dance company with performance and rehearsal studios.

Segawa will serve as the centers director.

The primary goal of my job is to provide happiness to the people in the community by offering accessible dance classes to all, he said. After many years of my professional career as a dancer and teacher, I feel privileged to pursue my responsibility to share, inspire and contribute to the people. I also would like to make this center a bridge connecting people in the community to Jessicas beautiful work and company.

It will also have community space for dance lessons in creative dance, ballet and dance fundamentals for students beginning at 18 months to adults.

Borough President Melinda Katz attended the ground breaking ceremony Monday.

Jessica Lang Dance has demonstrated commitment to education and community engagement, she said. The arrival of the Jessica Lang Dance Center in Long Island City is an important addition to the boroughs cultural landscape of the arts.

Since 1999, Lang has created more than 92 works for commissions on companies worldwide, including the Birmingham Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Japan and the Joffrey Ballet. American Ballet Theatre has presented her work at the Metropolitan Opera House.

The creation of the Jessica Lang Dance Center will provide a home for my work and company, Lang said. It is an incredibly special moment in my career, and I am touched by the support I have had to make this tremendous endeavor possible. This center will deepen my artistic experience while allowing me to connect to the community in which I live. My hope is that this center will be a place for anyone to connect, imagine, move and be inspired.
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By Gabriel Rom

A real estate dispute in Rego Park has left the future of one of the Bukharian communitys largest synagogues hanging in the balance.

Queens-based developer RJ Capital Holdings is planning to construct an office building on Queens Boulevard that would displace the Ohr Natan Synagogue, which serves hundreds of families and reaches thousands globally with its monthly magazine.

As Central Queens undergoes a residential boom, the loss of the synagogue would mark a new phase in a rapidly changing neighborhood.

Founded in 1986, Ohr Natan, is widely considered a focal point of Bukharian life in Queens.

Ohr Natan can bring 400 people on sabbath and a lot of synagogues would envy that tremendously, said Cynthia Zalinsky, executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council.

It would be a disaster to have a place that is that vital close, she said.

RJ Capital purchased the building, located at 66th Avenue and Queens Boulevard,which had been home to the Trylon Theatre up until 1999, along with the four other properties on the block for $9 million in 2013.

The congregation, led by Rabbi Nahum Kaziev, offers a full plate of after-school programs, adult education (including ESL) and food distribution.

From survivors of the Holocaust, to survivors of the Gulags, to those who couldnt practice their Judaism in their home country, this is going to be a huge loss, Kaziev said. There is no question.

Since 1991, Ohr Natan has published Druzhba, a monthly magazine with a readership of 80,000 throughout the five boroughs.

As a synagogue they are a huge part of the community, said Manashe Khaimov, a member of the Bukharian community who has prayed at Ohr Natan.

As a magazine, theyre on a global level. Everybody reads it.

The bad blood between the congregation and the developer isnt new.

In 2014, A Queens civil judge dismissed a lawsuit by RJ Capital Holdings to evict the congregation from the building, based on charges of non-payment of rent.

A representative from the development firm, who is also a member of the Bukharian community, said the importance of the synagogue has been inflated, calling it propaganda, and speculated that the space may be a cash-cow.

The representative, who did not want to provide his name, said that if the development gets built, a first-floor synagogue will be included. He could not specify how big the space would be.

We need this community to stay whole, the representative said.

Kaziev, however, said he was not aware of such plans and that the financial situation for the congregation had become dire.

Whatever we had some years ago, we invested it all in renovating the current Ohr Natan building. For us now to look for a new space, its a lot of money that we cannot afford. Were on our own, and we dont have any help.

At this point we dont see anything, he said.

But things can change, sometimes there are miracles.
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By Bill Parry

After pressure from the 114th Precinct, elected officials and Community Board 1, the city Department of Homeless Services has upgraded security on Pams Place, the shelter for homeless women at the former Verve Hotel in Dutch Kills.

Capt. Peter Fortune, the commanding officer of the 114th Precinct, told a CB 1 meeting in February that there had been two violent incidents at the shelter during which his officers were injured, as well as several harassment complaints from area store owners.

That led to a series of meetings between the commander and officials from DHS. At a Feb. 26 meeting with the Dutch Kills Civic Association, Fortune said his officers had responded to more than 300 911 calls concerning the shelter. He has had several more meetings with DHD since.

We have been working very closely with DHS to make Pams Place as safe as possible for the clients and the community, Fortune said.

DHS said several measures have been implemented in recent days at the shelter, located at 40-03 29th St., starting with the transfer of 22 clients who were not complying with the Good Neighbor Policy. The policy continues, according to an agency spokeswoman.

Sera Security, which provides security at the shelter, has two marked vehicles surveying the premises and conducting roving auto patrols from 8 a.m. to midnights and foot patrols on a five-block radius around the shelter from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

There are currently 16 security guards on duty at the shelter, according to DHS. They work in shifts with eight officers on duty from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., eight officers on duty from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. and six officers on duty from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Acacia Network, the service provider that operates the shelter, has an on-site care coordinator to coordinate health and mental health services for clients and DHS has social workers there to provide support with Client Independent Living Plans, training, technical assistance and client engagement.

Of the 200 women living at the shelter, 64 residents are participating in community day programs while 50 clients are currently employed, according to DHS.

The incidents at the Verve shelter are deeply concerning, and Ive been working actively on this issue with my fellow elected officials and other community leaders, City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said. Im glad that the Department of Homeless Services has invested in upgrading security at Pams Place, to keep residents and community members safe, but more needs to be done, and we will continue that work.
Airport development adding to economy, jobs in the region

Pittsburgh may always be known as the Steel City, but a wave of new industries are popping up near its airport to redefine business in the region.
TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Husband and wife optometrists Danny and Elizabeth Clarke review a patient's chart at Clarke EyeCare Center. The business was named Small Family-owned Business of the Year for the Dallas-Fort Worth District of the Small Business Administration recently. Danny's father, Calvin Clarke, started the business in 1973.

SHARE TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Ashley Nichols, left, lead optometry tech for Clarke EyeCare Center, performs an initial examination on Kelsey Baggett. The optometry practice was recently named Small Family-owned Business of the Year for the Dallas-Fort Worth District of the Small Business Administration. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Clarke EyeCare Center has been awarded the Small Family-owned Business of the Year for the Dallas-Fort Worth District of the Small Business Administration. Calvin Clarke, center, started the business in 1973 and his son, Danny, and daughter-in-law Elizabeth Clarke now own and operate the successfull optometry practice.

By John Ingle of the Times Record News

The success of a small family-owned business is often built on the foundation of customer service and simply conducting business the right way.

When a business is also a part of the medical community, that commitment extends to providing quality patient care not only people visiting from afar, but also the people you know, work with and live around in your community.

Clarke EyeCare Center has been a small-business success story in Wichita Falls since Calvin Clarke opened his optometry business in 1973 at his original location at 1004 Brook Ave. Calvin Clarke's vision of a customer-service and quality patient-care focused business has continued under his son and dautger-in-law, Danny and Elizabeth Clarke, both optometrists.

It's also part of the optics as to why the long-standing business with an eye on the future was named the Small Family-owned Business of the Year for the Dallas-Fort Worth District of the Small Business Administration.

Danny Clarke said it's the open-book management style adopted by the business that has been part of Clarke EyeCare Center's recent success.

"We allow our team to help us manage the business," he said of the group of five doctors and 20 employees. "Open-book management means instead of just, 'I'm the boss and you do what I say,' we involve them in a lot of decisions on how to run the business."

He explained this specific style of management gives employees a sense of empowerment and ownership in the business with a vested interest in seeing it do well instead of simply punching a time clock each day. It was adopted in 2010 from a company called The Great Game of Business Inc., and the Wichita Falls business has quickly risen the ranks of those adopting the methodology to be named the 2013 All Star Award winner for the group helping others learn the philosophy.

Danny Clarke and office manager Joely Anderson now travel the country at times to educate others on the business model and how it can help them flourish.

Ashley Nichols, a lead optometry tech who will be with Clarke EyeCare for three years in July, said she was surprised she was allowed to see deep into the financial books of the business when she began after graduating Midwestern State University. She said a lot of people assume that medical offices and businesses are raking in money, but they don't see the other side of the ledger that shows the vast amount of money going out to cover expenses.

"I thought it was kind of cool that they opened it up and just let us know," she said. "There was a lot of trust there, too. You see with them opening up their financials to us that they have trust in us and it gives you more of an appreciation working for them."

Anderson said a benefit to employees seeing the numbers on a weekly basis gives them the chance to see for themselves to see how things are going financially. For example, she said 2014 was a really good year for Clarke EyeCare and employees were rewarded for their efforts. But in 2015, there was a bit of a downturn that coincided with the drop in oil prices, something the center and the employees could predict or affect.

But, what they can affect is the number of customers who return, and new ones who walk through the door for the first time.

"What we always stress is that No. 1 is customer service," Anderson said. "Our numbers are our benchmarks, so if we're providing the best customer service and we're taking care of our people, then they will return to us with their business and bring their friends and family.

"If we're not taking care of our patients, then our numbers will tell us."

Danny Clarke said the business moved from its previous location on Midwestern Parkway to 4314 Kemp in 2000 and expanded the 5,000-square-feet facility by including the 2,500-square-feet portion attached to it, which the Clarke's owned, too. That allowed them to increase from six exam rooms to 11.

The business is also involved in the community by supporting some of their customer's special events, entering a team in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, as well as working with local schools to provide eye exams and help with glasses, if needed, for disadvantaged or underinsured children.

Danny Clarke said the recognition by the SBA validates what they've done as a small business that just happens to be part of the medical community.
Native Wichitan artist Troy Kinney Kelley is displaying several of his sculptures in the NorthLight Gallery of the Kemp Center for the Arts, including "Longhorn No. 1." His QR code paintings are behind him. The exhibit of his artwork, called "Return of the Native," runs through May 14. Richard Carter/Special to the Times Record News

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By Richard Carter, Special to the Times Record News

Los Angeles may be a suburb looking for a city, said native Wichitan Troy Kinney Kelley.

Likewise, he may be an artist looking for a style.

"I really didn't want to get hung up in a style," Kelley, a Salado-based sculptor and painter, said.

His "Return of the Native" show at the Kemp Center for the Arts exhibits artwork in realism, abstract expressionism and QR codes.

The exhibit features sculpture, paintings and photographs of several of the artist's 16 public sculptures, including his most recent, "5 November 2009, Fort Hood Memorial," dedicated March 11 in Killeen.

The building/installation commemorates the victims of the 2009 mass shooting on the Army base. Thirteen died and 32 were injured.

Kelley's design features a built structure, which houses favorite objects of each of the slain individuals.

"We got coffee mugs, books, military awards. But the most poignant one was from PFC Francheska Velez's family," he said.

The 21-year-old Iraq War veteran was pregnant when she was killed.

"Her object was a Scooby-Doo. I asked her father, and he said it was OK if I made a little Scooby-Doo and slid it up next to hers," Kelley said.

His sculpture "Sirena the Mermaid" was the first public sculpture in Salado and the first dedicated in the 1986 Texas sesquicentennial.

"We installed 'Sirena' in a creek one minute after midnight while we were celebrating New Year's Eve and dedicated her. We knew it had to be the first one," he said with a laugh.

Kelley earned his art degree in 1962 from Midwestern University. He entered the Army through the ROTC as a commissioned officer and did a tour of Vietnam from March 12, 1967, to March 12, 1968, during the Tet Offensive.

"I hunkered down," he said.

He went into the Army Reserve and worked for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in management information in Washington, D.C.

But after he suffered a head injury in 1984 from a car accident, he retired and moved to Salado, a smaller community.

He also became a full-time artist, which he credits to saving his life.

Kelley has painted and drawn since attending MSU, where he studied printmaking, sculpture and painting.

"We had all California-trained instructors, so we received a good West Coast education."

Kelley studied art in a variety of schools and cities and earned a graduate degree from the University of Maryland.

His Kemp exhibit, in addition to featuring photographs of public sculptures and a series of sculptures on pedestals, includes two acrylic-based pieces, one titled "Aquatic Dream."

His sculptures steer more toward realism or the representational, which he said drove the market when he returned to Texas in the 1980s.

"I kind of blended into that," he said.

Kelley's mixed-media paintings tend more toward the abstract expressionist school.

"The reason I work in so many different styles is that I'll get interested in expressing something, and it dictates that."

His "Death of a Grace," from Greek mythology, is created from acrylic paint. The artist airbrushed ink onto the canvas to develop a softness.

A series of his paintings includes QR codes or is based entirely on them.

When the code on the painting "Duality QR Code" is scanned with a smartphone, the phone receives information about the composition of the painting.

He completed another painting of primarily QR codes after Seton Hospital purchased one of his sculptures for the waiting room. It is intended for expectant mothers. The QR codes link viewers to information, such as when to change a diaper or when to call for a medical doctor.

"They (QR codes) are such an interesting phenomenon because any amount of information can be delivered."

His piece "Jesus QR Code/Words in Pop Songs" arranges codes in the form of a Christian cross.

"Each one has a line from a popular song that has Jesus in it, like 'Jesus Christ Superstar,'" he said.

There is a whole series of abstract expressionist paintings on the gallery's north wall with his representation of the horizon lights of cities in Texas.

"If you travel in Texas, you find horizon lights."

One of his works shows the lights someone would see if they approached Wichita Falls from the south.

Also included in the exhibit are paintings from Holliday and Marfa.

"I did this painting 'Marfa Lights' and put a little tag there to show this is Marfa, and this is the Marfa lights."

"Return of the Native" may be viewed through May 14 in the NorthLight Gallery of the Kemp.
Lunch Bunch/Times Record News Barbecue is done right at Zeke's in Windthorst.

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Last week we hopped over to Jacksboro in search of a new foodie favorite and found one at the Green Frog. But while we were on the trail, we passed several eateries that caught our eye.

One was Thad and Paisley's, an old favorite. Another, however, was unfamiliar and looked like it needed a visit from the Lunch Bunch. So this week, my buddy and I journeyed to Windthorst to give Zeke's BBQ a try.

The drive to Zeke's is shorter than the drive to the Green Frog, and we were there before we knew it. Located across from Windthorst High School, the outside of the building doesn't look like much. In fact, it almost looks like the shed out back where I park my lawn mower. If not for the huge "Zeke's Pit Smoked BBQ" sign out front, I never would've thought to go inside.

Nevertheless, we arrived at Zeke's, found a parking spot around back, and stepped out of our vehicle. The first thing my buddy and I noticed was the strong scent of smoked barbecue. It was oh so enticing. We walked around to the front of the building, opened the door and stepped inside.

The interior of Zeke's is drastically different from the exterior. It's almost as if it's bigger on the inside. We walked in and immediately felt comfortable. KLUR was playing on the radio, Trojan team jerseys adorned the wall, and the smell of Windthorst barbecue filled the air. Most of all, the restaurant was clean and the decor was just right. It felt like a place I could sit for a spell and enjoy some good barbecue.

We arrived at Zeke's a little after 11 a.m., and as we approached the counter, one of the kitchen staffers informed us that we just missed the breakfast rush and that we were the first guests in for lunch. He directed us to the big dry-erase menu on the wall and told us he'd help us when we were ready.

Zeke's menu looked familiar in that it is similar to most other barbecue joints' menus: some meat plate options, sandwich options, sides and a few different appetizer selections. We decided on a Zeke's Sampler ($12.99 and feeds two), which includes a quarter-pound of brisket, a quarter-pound of ribs, a quarter-pound of pulled pork, a quarter-pound of sausage and two big slices of Texas toast, as well as sides of coleslaw and potato salad ($2.49 each).

When cutting our meats to order, the gentleman behind the counter asked if we wanted the lean or the fatty end of the brisket. My buddy and I appreciated this very much. We both prefer the lean end, but the guys who came in after us preferred the fatty end, so it seemed like it all worked out in the end. It was nice for Zeke's to take this into consideration.

When he handed us our tray of food, he also informed us that we were welcome to some beans on the house. The pot of beans was at the condiment station (next to the Keurig and the Gold Peak tea dispenser  Zeke's has the good stuff). We humbly accepted the offer. Finally, we were prepped and ready to dig into this barbecue that we'd been smelling since we stepped out of the car.

What a feast!

To start with, our sides were great. The coleslaw was more chopped than stringy, and it was especially tasty. The potato salad was different, to say the least. It was mayonnaise-based with a hint of dill, but the texture was what made it different. I, personally, am not a huge potato salad fan in general, but I really enjoyed this dish. My buddy prefers more traditional potato salad. To each his own, I say.

This sampler had just the right amount of everything, and boy was it delicious. Each of the meats was tender and smoked just right. The ribs had a sweet and smoky rub, and the meat literally fell right off the bone. The brisket, pulled pork and German sausage were all so good that it was hard to pick a favorite (actually, it was hard to pick a favorite because we ate it all so fast).

There was barbecue sauce on the table, and it was good, but neither my buddy nor I wanted to use it. The great, smoky flavor of the meats themselves was all we needed.

As I've said before, we are really spoiled here in Wichita Falls when it comes to barbecue. We have some of the best joints around. But Windthorst, one of our little-known gems of North Texas, is ready to compete.

We give Zeke's BBQ five forks.
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NEW IN THEATERS

"BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE"

Ben Affleck plays Batman and Henry Cavill Superman. The superheroes are at odds and fighting each other while Lex Luthor and Doomsday move to destroy Metropolis. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action throughout, and some sensuality.

"MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2"

Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) struggle with marital problems and a teenage daughter while another wedding approaches. The film is part two to the highest-grossing romantic comedy. Rated PG-13 for some suggestive material.

ALSO SHOWING

"DEADPOOL" The Green Lantern didn't quite work out for Ryan Reynolds, so he has taken on another superhero gig. This time he plays Deadpool, a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary who acquires superpowers after a rogue experiment. Also part of the cast is action star Gina Carano. Rated R for strong violence and language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity.

"THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT"

Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) leave the confines of the world they have known and are taken into the custody of the Bureau of Genetic Warfare. Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some partial nudity.

"THE 5TH WAVE" Chloe Grace Moretz plays Cassie, who goes to rescue her brother from alien invaders who have decimated the human population and taken over Earth. Rated PG-13 for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language and brief teen partying.

"GODS OF EGYPT" Set (Gerard Butler), the god of darkness, takes the throne of the Egyptian empire. Now it's up to Bek (Brenton Thwaites), a mortal hero, and the Egyptian god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to save the world. Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, and some sexuality.

"LONDON HAS FALLEN" Gerard Butler reprises his role from "Olympus Has Fallen." This time Mike Banning is in London for the prime minister's funeral and discovers a plot to assassinate the world leaders who are there. Co-starring Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo and Radha Mitchell. Rated R for strong violence and language throughout.

"MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN"

A young girl with a rare disorder is miraculously healed after an accident. Starring Jennifer Garner and Queen Latifah. Rated PG for thematic material, including accident and medical images.

"THE REVENANT" A frontiersman in the 1820s (Leonardo DiCaprio) struggles for survival in the harsh winter after being mauled by a bear, then goes on a quest for revenge. Also starring Tom Hardy. Rated R for strong frontier combat and violence, including gory images, a sexual assault, language and brief nudity.

"RIDE ALONG 2" Ben (Kevin Hart) heads to Miami with his future brother-in-law (Ice Cube) to bring down a drug dealer. Co-starring Ken Jeong. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, sexual content, language and some drug material.

"RISEN"

Follows the epic biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a nonbeliever. Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem. With Joseph Fiennes. Rated PG-13 for biblical violence, including some disturbing images.

"STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS" Thirty years after the defeat of the Empire, a new threat arises in this continuation of the pop culture phenomenon "Star Wars" series. Starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.

"10 CLOVERFIELD LANE" A young woman who wakes up from a car accident finds herself in the basement of a man who says he's saved her life from a chemical attack that has left the outside uninhabitable. Starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Rated PG-13 for thematic material, including frightening sequences of threat with some violence and brief language.

"WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT" A journalist (Tina Fey) recalls her wartime coverage in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also starring Martin Freeman. Rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content, drug use and violent war images.

"ZOOTOPIA" In this animated feature, a fugitive con artist fox and rookie bunny cop work together to uncover a conspiracy. Featuring the voice talents of Idris Elba and Ginnifer Goodwin. Rated PG for some thematic elements, rude humor and action.
Torin Halsey/Times Record News Kevin Hunter, a Texas landowner in northern Wichita County, talks about the Red River, its banks, vegetation line and gradient boundary which are all used by Texas surveyors to determine property lines. Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls granted Thursday the Texas General Land Office's motion to intervene in a lawsuit between Texas landowners, counties and an official against the Bureau of Land Management to settle the Red River land dispute, citing the GLO has the right to protect its mineral interests on a 35-acre tract in Wilbarger County. The court granted the state of Texas' motion to intervene a week earlier.

By John Ingle of the Times Record News

For the second time in as many weeks, a federal district judge has granted a motion to intervene in a legal battle between Texas landowners and the Bureau of Land Management.

The Texas General Land Office filed a motion to intervene in "Kenneth Aderholt et al. v. Bureau of Land Management et al." on Dec. 1 to protect the state's mineral interests on 35 acres of the 116-mile area in question on the Red River that stretches from northeast Wilbarger County near Doan's Crossing to the small community of Stanfield in the northeast corner of Clay County.

Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls granted the GLO's motion Thursday, saying the state agency meets all of the requirements to "intervene as of right" as well as "permissive intervention".

RELATED: Read the ruling for the GLO motion below.

Order Granting GLO Motion to Intervene 1

The GLO, in its motion, said in regards to the 35 acres of Texas public land in Wilbarger County that it is "solely responsible for managing these lands and mineral interests, including sales, trades, leases and improvements, as well as the administration of contracts, mineral royalty rates, and other transactions." The agency said it granted the authority to manage the land and minerals in accordance with the Texas Natural Resources Code and is "constitutionally charged with the obligation to maximize revenues from leasing public school lands and interests."

Land Commissioner George P. Bush said, on principle, it is the responsibility of the GLO to defend the mineral rights that go toward the education of the state's children. He said in a statement that it is a responsibility he takes personally.

"Texas constitutionally dedicates this land to the Permanent School Fund and the mineral interests benefit the public schoolchildren across our great state," he said. "(Thursday's) announcement by the U.S. District Court validates our assertion that, on behalf of the public schoolchildren of Texas, we must stand up to the BLM's continued attempts to unlawfully take PSF owned lands.

"When it comes to property rights, don't mess with Texas. Ever."

The Times Record News reached out to the BLM for comment on Friday, but did not receive a reply at the time this article was published.

Robert Henneke, general counsel and director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for the American Future, said the court's two decisions to allow the GLO the state of Texas to intervene as victories. O'Connor's judgment on the state's motion to intervene was made March 14.

RELATED: Read the order granting Texas motion to intervene in the BLM dispute made March 14 below.

Order Granting TX Motion to Intervene in BLM Dispute

"Standing alone, our client's claims and suit had plenty of teeth," he said by telephone Friday from his Austin-based office. "Certainly this has broadened the scope of the disputed issues, and to include the claims brought in by Texas and GLO, I think, adds more  I think it expands the nature of the injury beyond those claims that were asserted by our clients.

"You've got implications of the mineral rights managed by the General Land Office that is ... dedicated for public education, and you also have the questions as to the sovereignty of the state of Texas impacted by the actions taken by the federal government."

Henneke said the fact that O'Connor provided 28 pages of "legal reasoning" was not only important because the motions were granted, but also because of the amount of time and effort put in to explaining why both motions were granted. Perhaps more important, he said, is the federal court's implication in the state's motion that the BLM is responsible for proving through a survey its claim to the land.

"Certainly that ties into part of the category of injuries that our clients have resulting from the federal government's allegation of ownership, yet refusal to define that ownership," Henneke said.

The lawsuit stems from the BLM's claim to own public lands along the Red River in the three North Texas counties, and its desire to complete a Resource Management Plan, the last of which was done in the mid 1990s, to determine what to do with the land. Landowners argue they have deeds to their property that dispute the federal government's assertion.

Another point of contention is how the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of the gradient boundary is applied to determine boundaries. The court determined the gradient boundary to be property line between private and public lands, defining it as the midway point between the edge of the water at a normal flow in the river and the edge of the cut bank.
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Episcopalians don't talk much about hell. Hell is not one of the more uplifting biblical themes. However, what the New Testament calls "hell" is actually the Greek word gehenna.

Gehenna is an actual place, located outside the walls of Jerusalem and called the Hinnon Valley. This narrow gorge southeast of the city is where the Israelites once offered up child sacrifice to the pagan god Molech (2 Chronicles 28:3). During the reign of King Josiah (640-609 B.C.), the Hinnon Valley was condemned as an unholy place.

Centuries later Gehenna had become the garbage dump of Jerusalem. Rubbish, bones, decaying carcasses filled this desolate valley, and the continual fire burning the trash seemed indestructible. Hence, Gehenna became the symbol for the place of the final and eternal punishment or the fires of hell in later Christian tradition.

In Mark 9:43-48, Jesus says it would be better to pluck out your eye and go into the kingdom missing some part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into the rubbish heap of Gehenna.

If Gehenna were a detestable, rotten, smelling, disgusting garbage dump in Jesus' day, I can imagine that it would pale in significance with our town dumps. Each American produces something like a ton of rubbish each year. We are a throwaway society, a society that not only produces and consumes but also casts off. What will future archeologists think of our civilization digging through the garbage of the 20th century?

Garbage dumps are repulsive places and that's why they are kept far from view. However, there is something fascinating about them. Here is the end of the line, where everything finally comes, having lost its dignity or usefulness. Things go to the dump after they've outlived their usefulness to human beings, after they've become so mangled or broken that there's no longer any shred of dignity or beauty left to them.

Jesus tells us in Mark 9:43-48 that our life is precious. Don't let it be discarded on the trash heap of life. God doesn't make garbage, and God made you and me. No human of God's creation and love is meant for Gehenna. Jesus stares our hellish possibility in the face and rebukes them. He speaks to us with words that are stark and shocking  they don't have to be taken literally, but they must be taken seriously.

The church is meant to be the sort of place that attempts to salvage lives, to rescue people, to keep reminding them they are precious to God, beautiful and not destined for the trash heap of life.

We who are God's baptized, who have the gift of second sight, can see spirit as well as flesh, soul as well as body. We know there is more going on than meets the eye. When we look at people we see them whole, the way God meant them to be. When they are not whole, it not only hurts them but it hurts us, as if we're missing something we need for ourselves. Because of this, we should not, indeed we cannot, take part in anything that diminishes the soul of another, that discards them and treats them as little more than refuse and garbage.

A wasted existence is hell. If we want to be whole, we can use our two good eyes to see the world the way God sees it, and we can stretch out our two good arms to someone in the danger of stumbling, so that God can steady and save us all.
Colonie

Fidelis Care may be considering expanding its Latham site through a 64,000-square-foot, three-story office building on British American Boulevard, according to documents submitted to the Town of Colonie Planning Board.

Preliminary documents for an unnamed tenant show initial sketch plans on British American Boulevard adjacent to the lot that Fidelis Care occupies. These documents indicate the new building, which is on vacant property, would serve the tenant occupying Lot 31  which is Fidelis Care.

Fidelis Care spokeswoman Allie Abbate said she could not confirm that the company is the tenant connected to the documents, but she said Fidelis Care has been "continually looking to expand" as staff and member numbers have grown.

"We are definitely growing in the area and are constantly exploring to accommodate that growth," Abbate said.

The Catholic health plan is based in New York City and hosts a network of more than 67,000 providers across the state. Fidelis Care membership has grown from nearly 1.2 million by the end of 2014 to 1.4 million members by late 2015. Fidelis Care employs 260 people in the Albany area.

Town of Colonie planning director Joe LaCivita said he could not confirm Fidelis Care is the possible tenant connected to the plan because applicant is British American, not a tenant.

The applicant, he said, is choosing between two expansion options: growing the Lot 31 parking lot by about 60 spaces or constructing the new building at the adjacent property. The applicant presented the two sketch plans for expansion at the planning board meeting on Tuesday, he said.

"The assumption is that once they make that decision, they'll go forward with either one," LaCivita said.

In 2014, Fidelis Care relocated the Albany office to Airport Park in Latham "to accommodate growth and provide for future expansion," according to the company's 2014 annual report. That report highlighted that space's "substantial room for future expansion."

Last year, Fidelis Care added 10,000 square feet of space to the Albany building to grow the size to 42,000 square feet. The company is hiring for 22 positions in the Albany regional office, Abbate said.

The applicant's listed project designer did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, nor did British American.

lellis@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  @lindsayaellis
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Albany

Overseas investors are starting to notice downtown Albany just like the rest of the Capital Region.

A group of Chinese investors is joining Patrick Chiou, a University at Albany graduate, to purchase two State Street buildings, the vacant three-story structure at 63 State St. and a 16-story office building at 69 State St.

The deal is expected to close next week.

Chiou wouldn't disclose the price for the two buildings, which were sold as a package in an online auction that also included a parking lot.

But he said he expects his group to be involved in more deals.

"For them, anything in the U.S. is attractive," he said.

The challenge has been to get the investors to look beyond New York City and other major metropolitan areas.

Chinese investors, concerned about a falling stock market and economic uncertainty in their own country, have been investing in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In what could be music to Albany officials' ears, Chiou said he wants to convert much of the 16-story building into apartments. Two-thirds of it is occupied by Bank of America, which has a lease and offices scattered throughout the building, not concentrated on a few floors.

"We're going to try to renegotiate the lease," Chiou said.

Officials have been trying to get vacant office space converted to residential use that would bring more people downtown.

Chiou previously renovated nearby 83 Beaver St. into nine apartments.

"It's been fully occupied ever since we finished construction," he said Thursday.

The purchase by Chiou and his investment group of the State Street buildings follows a major wave of investment by builders and developers in downtown Albany, much of it new apartments as well as new restaurants, hotels, retail and office space.

Capitalize Albany Corp., the city's development agency, says that 300 new apartment units have been added to downtown Albany in recent years, and there are another 500 units in the pipeline.

Columbia Development of Albany has led a lot of the investment, including the redevelopment of Wellington Row on State Street, the re-opening of the former DeWitt Clinton Hotel as the Renaissance Albany Hotel and the adjoining $66.5 million Albany Capital Center, the city's new convention center project.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter.

Another large project under development is the $48.1 million Tower on Hudson that would have 100 hotel rooms, 43 apartments and retail space along with a parking garage. The same developer, the Gordon Cos., renovated 60 State Place on State Street into 14 apartments and 18,000 square feet of event space.

Other notable projects that have helped revive downtown Albany are The Lofts at 733 Broadway, which includes 25 loft apartments and 2,500 square feet of retail space; as well as the Argus Building at 412 Broadway, which has 32 apartments, all of which are leased, and 6,500 square feet of retail space.

There is also the $10 million redevelopment of The Arcade building at 488 Broadway into 60 apartments and 12,000 square feet of retail and office space and plans to convert 20 Park St., across from the Capitol, into 74 apartments.

There are also several redevelopment projects along upper Broadway, including a $15 million, 100-unit, 41/2 story building planned at 776 Broadway. The Warehouse District also has several new projects in the pipeline, including an expansion of the Nine Pin Cider Works at 929 Broadway and a conversion of Rodgers Liquor Co. warehouse building at 960 Broadway into a restaurant and apartments.

Chiou's group doesn't yet have definite plans for the smaller building at 63 State. It was part of the package and "we were kind of forced to buy it," he said.

But he envisions addressing downtown's parking shortage by constructing a multi-story garage on the parking lot site.

"That's probably one of the last vacant lots on State Street," he said.

eanderson@timesunion.com  518-454-5323
'Scenes and Variations' at Skidmore College

The Schick Art Gallery will present "Scenes and Variations," an exhibition of works by regional artists Christian Carson, Terry Conrad, Gina Occhiogrosso, Ken Ragsdale and Jake Winiski, through April 30 at Skidmore College.

The artists use the conventional theme of landscape in unconventional ways.

Carson, an assistant professor of art at SUNY Brockport, has contributed older and newer works, including selections from his painting series "Leaf Piles."

Conrad works primarily in printmaking, but his practice includes sculpture, collage and writing. In the exhibit, he presents letterpress prints describing accidents or events that left physical marks on the landscape as well as three "bale" sculptures  dense cubes made by exerting pressure upon found materials.

A professor of art at the College of Saint Rose, Occhiogrosso's paintings and drawings explore insecure spaces, both of the personal and global variety. The resulting abstract works evoke turbulent energy, rather than a specific narrative.

Ragsdale is a teacher at RPI who builds meticulous landscape scenes out of white paper and photographs them using colored filters, creating works that are obviously artificial, yet convincingly "real."

Winiski, a researcher who studies fungi and develops biomaterial for commercial uses, constructs hand-built sets  in this case made from garbage  photographs them and then paints with ink and airbrush, using a free-associative approach. The final images are apocalyptic visions of mystery, decay and regeneration.

For information, go to http://www.skidmore.edu/schick.

The Clark offers free programming in April

Learn to draw like the greats from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 3, at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.

All activities and admission to the galleries are free as part of the Clark's First Sundays Free program.

Gallery talks at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. led by an experienced docent and a practicing visual artist will cover the methods, materials and vision of artists in the collection.

Sketchbooks will be available at the front desk, where visitors can grab a self-guide about artistic techniques as an instructional tool for sketching.

Visit the Clark's open studio in the Michael Conforti Pavilion to transform one of your drawings into a finished work of art, or practice plein air techniques on easels set up outdoors.

Following the First Sundays Free program, Clark fellow Julie Ault will present, "Undoing the Past: Recuperated Document and Uncertain History" at 5:30 p.m. Tuesdsay, April 5, in Hunter Studio, located in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill.

During the free lecture, Ault will discuss the state of her research project, "Testing the Limits: Archiving the Private Journals of Theodore J. Kaczynski."

In 2011, via an online auction of Kaczynski's personal belongings ordered by the U.S. Marshals Service, Ault obtained journals and correspondence chronicling his life in the Montana wilderness. Ault is investigating how the papers complicate, amend and contradict the public's perception of the man known as the Unabomber; she is also archiving the collection.

Ault is an independent researcher, artist, curator, writer and editor who teaches on a visiting basis.

For information, call (413) 458-2303 or go to http://clarkart.edu.

 Jennifer Patterson
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Garry Shandling, who as an actor and comedian masterminded a brand of self-inflicted phony docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," has died.

Los Angeles Police officer Tony Im said Shandling died Thursday in Los Angeles of an undisclosed cause. He was 66.

Im said fire officials were dispatched to Shandling's Los Angeles home Thursday morning for a reported medical emergency. Shandling was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Im did not have any details on the nature of the emergency. He said police will conduct a death investigation.

Coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said his office did not yet have any details about Shandling's death.

An innovative and eccentric humorist with pillowy lips and a voice that always seemed on the verge of a whine, Shandling claimed to disdain too much logic cluttering his life.

Born on Nov. 29, 1949, in Chicago, Shandling was raised in Tucson, Ariz. On arriving in Los Angeles as a young adult, it was a short hop from a brief stint in the advertising business to comedy writing and stand-up.

In the 1980s, he began to experiment with TV comedy, and to toy with the sitcom form, with his first series, "It's Garry Shandling's Show," a Showtime project that made no bones about its inherently artificial nature: the actors in this otherwise standard domestic comedy routinely broke the fourth wall to comment on what they were up to. Even the theme song began with the explanatory lyrics, "The theme to Garry's show...."

Then, in August 1992, Shandling created his comic masterpiece with "The Larry Sanders Show," which starred him as an egomaniacal late-night TV host with an angst-ridden show-biz life behind the scenes.

It was just three months after Carson had retired from "The Tonight Show," where Shandling had appeared as a stand-up and occasional Carson stand-in. It seemed a wry but deeply felt homage to the King of Late Night.

But it was more. "Larry Sanders" proved to be an act of courage, a brave effort led by someone portraying a character dangerously close to himself. As Larry, Garry dug deep to confront his own demons, and did it brilliantly as the series teetered between dual realities: public and private; make-believe and painfully true.

Real-life celebrities appeared as guests on Larry's show-within-the-show, and also interacted with him "off the air."

David Duchovny, agreeing to come on the show, also came on to Larry romantically once he got the chance.

Jim Carrey delivered a rip-roaring comic tribute to his host on the final broadcast, then, during a commercial break, turned on him in rage over a long-ago slight.

"Are you doing a bit, now?" asked Larry, perplexed.

"We're OFF the air," Carrey hissed. "This is real life now."

The show explored the fuzzy distinction between TV life and real life, and the loneliness of someone at its crossing. The closest thing Larry had to friends were his chronically needy announcer Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) and his Napoleonic producer, Artie (Rip Torn). Together the three actors were among TV's best-ever trios.

After "Sanders" ended in 1998, Shandling's public appearances were few.

He was mentioned as a candidate to follow David Letterman as a bona fide late-night host for CBS' 12:30 a.m. slot.

"I would not do a show where you just sit and talk to somebody," Shandling had said in 1993 when he was courted by NBC to take over "Late Night."

He hosted the Emmy Awards in 2000 and 2004.

On the latter occasion, he spotted Donald Trump congratulated the billionaire developer for hosting the Emmy-nominated "The Apprentice."

"Nice to see a man who's paid his dues, worked hard," Shandling said. "We all know what it feels like to have to build 80-story condos and gambling casinos just to get our foot in the door in show business."

Shandling became one of the rich and famous targeted by private eye Anthony Pellicano, who was sentenced to prison in 2008 on convictions of racketeering and more than six dozen other counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud and wiretapping in the Hollywood wiretaps case.

While Shandling never married, his most public romance was with "Sanders" co-star and fiancee Linda Doucett, who played Hank's comely assistant in the series' early seasons.

Doucett sued Shandling after he fired her following their breakup in the mid-1990s, receiving a reported $1 million settlement.

The news of Shandling's death brought an outpouring of reactions from performers who spoke of his impact.

"Garry was a guiding voice of comedy," said actor-comedian Bob Odenkirk. "He set the standard and we're all still trying to meet it."

Filmmaker Judd Apatow declared, "Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. ... I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better.''

 Associated Press
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Researchers determined nine historic cannons displayed for the past 60 years at Fort William Henry were originally aboard a British warship that sank in the Florida Keys in the 18th century, an underwater archaeologist who led the project said.

Maritime archaeologist Joseph Zarzynski of Wilton said a study of all 68 cannons at the recreated French and Indian War fort found that some if not all of the nine iron cannons likely came from HMS Looe, a British warship that sank after hitting a reef in 1744.

Zarzynski said it was known when the replica fort opened in 1954 on the southern end of Lake George that some of the cannons were believed to have come from a British shipwreck in the Keys. The exact source wasn't pinpointed until volunteer researchers deduced the guns came from the Looe, a 44-gun frigate built in England in 1741, Zarzynski said.

"All the evidence points to it," he said.

A 20-minute documentary, "Iron Sentries: The Mystery Cannons of Fort William Henry" was recently released by Pepe Productions of Glens Falls.

Watch the documentary online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVcU9VSBShQ

The original Fort William Henry, built by the British in 1755 during the French and Indian War, was destroyed two years later after it was captured by the French.

A full-size replica fort was built on the same footprint. Before the tourist attraction opened in 1954, the fort's owners sought Colonial-era cannons to display. Among the artillery pieces purchased were nine guns discovered a few years earlier off Looe Key, now part of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Local newspaper stories about the fort's purchase said the cannons were bought from Art McKee, a Florida treasure hunter who salvaged the weapons after the Smithsonian Institution recovered other shipwreck artifacts from Looe Key. The British ship is believed to have gone down there along with a captured Spanish vessel it was escorting.

The articles also said the cannons' insignia indicated they belonged to the British Crown. Those markings have since been erased after being exposed to decades of Adirondack winters. A 1967 arson fire destroyed many of the fort's records pertaining to artifact acquisitions, Zarzynski said.

A project begun in 2014 to measure and document the fort's replica and historic pieces led researchers to try to trace the origins of the nine guns, he said.

Zarzynski said it's hoped money can be raised to properly restore at least a couple of the rusting guns, which could cost up to $30,000 each.
Albany

A Glens Falls lawyer likened a magazine editor to Adolf Hitler before the state's top court Thursday.

Dennis J. Phillips made the jaw-dropping comparison to the Court of Appeals because Phil Brown, editor of the Saranac Lake-based Adirondack Explorer magazine, canoed and portaged through a two-mile stretch of private property in Hamilton County in May 2009. The property is part of a 2,000-acre section of waterways in the town of Long Lake owned by Phillips' client, Friends of Thayer Lake, which wants the high court to make the area off limits to boaters.

Phillips argued that, without a commercial purpose, the public has no right under common law to paddle through the private land.

Phillips compared Brown's decision to canoe through the property to Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland. Both actions, he reasoned, were based on someone's desire as opposed to a need.

None of the seven judges responded to Phillips' remarks that came at the end of arguments.

John Caffry, a Glens Falls lawyer representing Brown, effectively bit his tongue when asked after the proceedings about his adversary's Hitler reference.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Caffry said. "I'm not going to go there."

The property in question, the Mud Pond Waterway, is on land owned by the Brandeth family since 1851. It is bordered by land owned by the state. Brown canoed from Little Tupper Lake to Lake Lila  and used a trail on the private property to bypass 500 feet of rapids. The land owners, in turn, posted "no trespassing" signs, roped off the waterways and installed surveillance cameras.

Phillips referenced the Nazi dictator after a judge suggested there is a difference between a canoeist who "needs" to use the water for commerce and one who merely "wants" to use it. Brown and the state Department of Environmental Conservation oppose the efforts of the landowners, arguing the waterways are "navigable-in-fact," which makes them open to public use.

The mid-level Appellate Division and a state Supreme Court justice ruled in Brown's favor.

Senior Associate Judge Eugene Pigott, who appeared to be sympathetic to Phillips, inadvertently began the sequence of events that led to Phillip's remarks.

"I don't think the state can come in and say, 'We want your land because we want to do something else.' It's a need thing, it seems to me," Pigott told Phillips.

"And your honor, I think that's the morality issue in this case which is not in the (legal) briefs," Phillips replied. "To use an extreme example, I think that Hitler wanted Poland when he marched into Poland in 1939. When Phil Brown came across the line and he said, 'Boy, this (other section of water called) Lila Traverse is great, but if I can use the private land it would be even better.' But he had no economic purpose for needing the private land. ... He just wanted it and so that was just a wish that he had. And I don't think that the wishful thinking of the paddlers is enough to change the common law of the state of New York. I don't think that their wishful thinking is more important than historical property rights in the state."

When asked about his comments after court, Phillips said: "I was asked the question whether this was a 'want' or a 'need.' My answer was it was a 'want,' and I used that historical reference to accentuate the point."

Pressed about why he would use Nazi Germany as an example, Phillips continued to make his argument.

"Hitler had no common law standard for marching into Poland. He wanted it," Phillips said. "As far as the position of the plaintiffs is concerned, Phil Brown had no common law standard for using the private land. ... When somebody wants something that somebody else has, we have, going back to the origins of law with the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's things. That's basically how we view the trespass of Phil Brown."

Phillips added: "I'm not comparing him to any historical figure. I just use that as an example to show what the difference is between what a 'need' and a 'want' was."

Caffry told the court that a prior Court of Appeals decision backs his argument that there is no commercial need for the area to be accessible to the public.

Assistant Solicitor General Brian Ginsburg, representing the state, said even if commercial use was needed, tourism should be a factor in showing that recreational use meets the standard.

"The only unfairness in this case would be to undermine the long-settled expectations of members of the public  both those who enjoy wilderness recreation and those whose communities depend on the economic benefits that tourism in the park provides," Ginsberg stated in a brief to the court.

rgavin@timesunion.com  518-434-2403  @RobertGavinTU
SCHENECTADY - A man wanted for two killings in Puerto Rico was captured in Schenectady early Friday, authorities said.

Jose Manuel Cruz Reyes, 27, was found by members of the U.S. Marshals fugitive task force as he left a landscaping company on Anthony Street, authorities said.
Test results from a municipal well in Pownal, Vt., show levels of the possible carcinogen PFOA slightly above the advisory level set by the Vermont Department of Health, Gov. Peter Shumlin's office said Thursday.

Pownal is on the New York border east of Rensselaer County.

Three samples taken from the Fire District #2 municipal water source in Pownal, which serves up to 450 residents, showed PFOA levels of between 26 and 27 parts per trillion, Shumlin's office said. Vermont's advisory level is 20 ppt.

The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation advises residents to stop drinking the water and will begin distributing water to residents at the fire station from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday.

Perfluorooctanoic acid, used in making non-stick coatings, was found in water supplies in some Rensselaer County communities, including Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, near manufacturing sites.

Vermont tested public and private wells in North Bennington surrounding the former Chem Fab plant and found about 90 private wells with PFOA levels over 20 ppt.

Pownal residents were concerned about possible dumping at the former Warren Wire Plant #1. The well is about 1,000 feet from that site.

Vermont environmental conservation officials will collect additional samples in the area, Shumlin's office said.

The well is near the building owned by Mack-Pownal Realty Inc. and leased by Mack Molding as a warehouse, The company Thursday said the building was acquired by Mack-Pownal in 1988.

The property was used briefly for assembly of finished products and later as a warehouse and Mack Molding said it has not done any manufacturing at the site that involves storage or use of PFOA or any other hazardous chemical.

"We understand that the state's investigation into this matter has just begun," a company statement said. "While our company has done nothing to cause or contribute to this contamination, we have agreed to assist the state by providing bottled water to local residents for the next two weeks until state and federal officials have agreed on a plan of action."

A community meeting is planned for 6 p.m. Monday in the Pownal American Legion Hall.
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Damascus, Syria

Syrian government forces pushed into the ancient town of Palmyra, where Islamic State militants appeared on the verge of collapse Thursday, while in Iraq, a military spokesman announced the start of a long-awaited operation to recapture the IS-held northern city of Mosul.

The extremist group has been losing ground in Syria and Iraq for months under a stepped-up campaign of U.S.-led and Russian airstrikes, as well as ground assaults by multiple forces in each country.

The retaking of Palmyra  a UNESCO world heritage site whose fall to the militants last May sent shock waves through archaeological circles and beyond  would be a significant victory for the Syrian government. But the operation to unseat the group in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, is likely to take much longer and be far more difficult.

The advance on Palmyra came after government forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, managed to capture several hills and high ground around the town this week.

It comes against the backdrop of Syrian peace talks under way in Geneva between representatives of the Damascus government and the Western-backed opposition.
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Albany

The typical Capital Region Airbnb host earned about $6,200 over the course of 2015, according to the vacation and short-term rental listing company, which released data about the Capital Region market for the first time ever this week.

Airbnb's data release comes as state legislators have introduced bills to block tenants from advertising a rental unit for use on short-term rental websites. One bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, cites concerns that the "incursion" of online home-sharing platforms "is destabilizing communities, endangering tenants and depleting our rapidly dwindling stock of affordable housing."

Airbnb contends that its service can help generate supplemental income for New York residents. Airbnb's New York head of public policy, Josh Meltzer, said in a February letter to New York lawmakers that the company will share data about specific regions to help areas understand how hosts and travelers use the service.

Eight hundred and fifty hosts in Warren, Washington, Saratoga, Schenectady, Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene counties had listings for an average of $179 each night, according to the report. That figure includes listings of multiple rooms.

Many listings clustered around Saratoga Springs and downtown Albany. Other dense areas were in Greene County in the Catskills.

"We are thrilled that there are so many hosts in the Capital Region, as New Yorkers in all corners of the state are discovering that hosting is a great way to help make ends meet," Meltzer said in a statement, adding that money earned by hosts and brought in by visitors can contribute to the local economy.

The $6,200 annual boost is not an average of all Capital Region hosts' earnings, an Airbnb spokesman said. Instead, that figure is the median value for consistent hosts  those who joined the site before Jan. 1, 2015, and listed their properties throughout last year.

Hosts earned a total of $6.2 million, and 40,500 inbound guests used Airbnb last year for an average reservation length of 2.7 nights, according to the report.

Albany host Gregory Tobin, who initially joined Airbnb to list the bedroom of his college-aged daughter on Madison Place, has recently listed a few other rooms on Ten Broeck Street.

He characterized bookings as "sporadic"  some days, he said, he fills all of his listings; other days, just one room may be full. Tobin, a real estate broker, said he has hosted guests from around the country and world. Several of his guests, he said, visit Albany to take the bar exam.

"You're not going to make a living out of it," he said, "but you can have a bit of fun, meet people and make a couple of bucks."

The Capital Region had more hosts and more guests than other upstate regions.

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State regions apart from New York City averaged 680 hosts and 30,511 inbound guests, who stayed an average of three nights, according to Airbnb. The average of total host earnings was about $5.49 million across regions, and the average nightly listing price was $144.89, the company said.

Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Michele Vennard said many counties in the Capital Region are considering potential losses in county and state revenue through sales tax on hotel rooms.

She said the average Airbnb listing price was higher than the average nightly rate for both Albany County and Saratoga County hotels, which were $106.30 and $110.90, respectively.

The Albany County visitors' bureau, Vennard said, does not see the service as a massive disruption to tourism in the county.

"I'm sure it's being used, but I'm not seeing it as a big blip on the radar screen," she said.

lellis@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  @lindsayaellis
It's all a big misunderstanding. They're great guys, but they just don't get each other. But instead of meeting and talking about their differences, and discussing what to do about the alien invasion  oh yes, there's one of those  they get into a dispute that escalates, and goes on and on and on

"Batman v Superman" is an insanely long and convoluted action movie, made worse by an air of importance. It's dispiriting and visually bland. A few years ago, director Zack Snyder was the hope of the action genre, whose films "Watchmen" and "300" were intuitive, striking and psychologically penetrating. But here he settles for making something typical, but in a bigger and more ponderous way.

In the mood to get depressed? "Batman v Superman" starts with a flashback to Bruce Wayne's parents getting killed, because who could resist that bit of sadness? Then it's off to the alien invasion of Gotham City, which has Bruce so upset that he is driving around town like a lunatic, while buildings are getting lasered out of existence. From there, we flash forward 18 months to see Lois Lane witnessing a terrorist atrocity. Having fun yet?

In the lead-up to this film, the casting of Ben Affleck was a subject for controversy. But Affleck is perfect for this incarnation of Batman. The guy exudes moral inexactitude and misplaced certainty. He makes you believe he could really think that Superman is not a nice person. And he counters all expectation that he might preen and charm his way through the role by not smiling once during the entire movie. The audience doesn't smile, either.

More Information *1/2 Review "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action throughout and some sensuality Length: 151 minutes **** Excellent *** Good ** Fair * Poor See More Collapse

In the aftermath of the alien invasion, the government has turned lukewarm on Superman. Officials don't like the idea of depending on Superman's kindness. They want some leverage, just in case he switches sides.

Holly Hunter plays a senator heading a committee seeking to rein in Superman's activities and create some kind of oversight. Meanwhile, businessman Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) reasons that the best way to control Superman is to stockpile lots of kryptonite.

As a senator, Hunter is completely natural and, with the exception of Jeremy Irons as Alfred, she is the only actor unaffected by being in a superhero movie. Everyone else tries to compensate, as though thinking, "I'm going to ignore this really awful material and act even more." As Luthor, Eisenberg gives what will probably pass as a great performance  he twitches, raves, talks slow and then fast, and he doesn't wipe his nose even when he needs to  but it's all surface, calculated to impress and coming from nowhere.

Hans Zimmer's score matches the acting, with music that is portentous and full of unearned meaning. When Superman and Batman finally meet in full costume, Zimmer is practically losing his mind, as though St. Paul and Plato, or Lincoln and Washington, or Jesus and Buddha were finally going to have a sit-down. The music is thundering and cresting, and the world will never be the same. In that moment, try to back up a second and perceive it from a distance. You might get a laugh.

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"Batman v Superman"  the subtitle is "Dawn of Justice," which makes no sense  is slow getting started, setting out a number of plot lines. Basically, Lex Luthor is the villain, but because of press reports, Superman and Batman develop a negative impression of each other. Movies based on misunderstandings tend to be more frustrating than entertaining. There a few things less interesting than watching people carry on stupidly, when everything would be fine if they'd only talk for five minutes. It's even worse when the two participants are supposed to be moral paragons.

Snyder sets his story within our modern world and attempts to fashion a kind of commentary on the media and the current geopolitical situation.

What he has crafted instead is a grotesque expression of modern emptiness. A succession of national television journalists appear here, cheapening their brand, while the story itself is like meaninglessness in search of meaning. There's an almost spiritual hunger in the hope that a meeting between Batman and Superman might amount to something, but there's nothing there.

And when there's nothing there, what else can you do but blow things up? The scenes of destruction are interminable, just a piling on, as if, at a certain point, the right amount of violence will feel like a climax. But it's just buildings and people getting hit and disintegrating in silver bursts, like video game violence, and it's nothing but depressing.
THE ISSUE:

Land use issues in the Adirondacks continue to divide residents and park overseers.

THE STAKES:

Preserving an independent Adirondack Park Agency is best for all interests.

More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse

The contentious issue of where hikers, bicyclists and people using certain motorized vehicles should be allowed in the Adirondacks, and which areas should remain shut off from all but the least intrusive human interaction, has long divided residents and those charged with overseeing New York's treasured land preserve.

Now it seems the way land use decisions are made is becoming just as contentious and politicized.

The recommendation this month by the Adirondack Park Agency to open certain sections of the former Finch Pruyn lands in Essex and Hamilton counties to bicycles and some motorized vehicles has heated up the conflict between the APA and two organizations dedicated to preserving the Adirondacks  Protect the Adirondacks and Adirondack Wild. The change would allow bicycles to be used on 9 miles of existing logging roads in the Essex Chain tract in Newcomb. Occasional motor vehicle access to maintain bike trails would also be allowed. The change would further allow man-made construction materials for a bridge over the Cedar River. (Traditionally, such bridges in these protected areas are made from logs and rocks.)

These changes have the support of many local officials and business owners who hope to benefit from increased tourism. But Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, calls the agency's recommendation a sharp departure from the way the park's wilderness has been managed over the past four decades.

While this tension isn't new, it comes with a searing dissent by one of the APA's own commissioners, accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his staff of direct interference in the APA's deliberations.

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Richard Booth, a respected environmental law professor at Cornell University who was reappointed to the APA board by Mr. Cuomo in 2012, said the governor forced the agency toward the recent decision by rigidly controlling what analysis the APA's staff was allowed to present to commissioners. The result, he said, was that no full and open discussion of the issues could take place. Consequently, a compromise  a new classification prohibiting motorized recreation but allowing public biking over miles of trails  never gained support.

Commissioner Booth's comments strengthen Mr. Bauer's concerns about the park's future and the APA's independence.

Finding the proper balance between the historic mandate to preserve the pristine Adirondack wilderness and the recreational preferences and economic needs of the region is challenging. It requires an honest back and forth and, no doubt, some reasonable compromise.

But that can happen only if the APA commissioners and staff are free of interference by Mr. Cuomo. New York won't find the delicate balance it needs in the Adirondacks if a governor's hands are weighting the scales onto one side or another.
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Counseling to be available next week for those grieving THS teen
Robot vacuum buying guide: What you need to know

Not sure where to start your search for a robot vacuum? It doesn't matter how little or how much you want to spend, there's a cleaning robot out there for everyone.
"Mike Shanin interviews former Kansas City, MO mayor Charles Wheeler about his potential bid for Missouri governor. Theresa Garza, Steve Glorioso, Patrick Tuohey and Jim Heeter discuss KC Rising, an initiative to improve Kansas City's standing among peer cities. They also weigh in on the debate over the earnings tax renewal and the way candidates are changing the rules of presidential campaigning."

Remember thatand now this news fact starts the weekly discussion on this Gold Standard of Kansas City discourse.Check the description of. . .There's a decent debate betwixt all these old codgers regarding Kansas City's financial future (or lack thereof) as we enterYou decide . . .
Greek-American actress/screenwriter Nia Vardalos is optimistic about Greece rising up from its ashes and says the next "Big Fat Greek Wedding" will be shot in Greece

With the release of the sequel to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" next week in Europe, the pressure is already on for a third film  And Im like, Hang on! During number two, a lot of ideas did start coming to me, and Im not done with Toula and her family yet. I would like to take them back to Greece, so Im looking through my schedule to try to make time.

Any excuse to go to Greece to be honest, and anything I might be able to do that helps the economy and the people right now.

Vardalos goes back to Greece to visit family and take in her favourite spot overlooking the caldera in Santorini at least once a year.

People are struggling in Greece. In Athens, you see that the buildings cant be maintained and my own cousins are struggling. Its heart-breaking. But in time, we will rise up. I have tremendous belief in the Greek people. We do best  as evident with the Syrian refugees  when faced with adversity, thats when the Greek character really comes out. We are proud people and incredibly generous. I havent paid for Greek salads since the first movie  even now, however much I insist!

Vardaloss family is the key to her success. The film is so autobiographical that even the names are the same. Her husband is a non-Greek called Ian (Gomez, also an actor) and she really does have an Aunt Voula: Shell show you the tiny scar where she claims they took out her twin. Whenever I introduce her to anyone shell say, Im the real Aunt Voula. The original!

And her parents really did freak out about her leaving home  The only way I got to go away to theatre school (she is an alumni of Chicagos Second City theatre troupe) was by telling my dad that 500 people auditioned across Canada, they only accepted 25 kids and I was the only Greek. He reluctantly said 'Entaxi [meaning OK in Greek].

Source: Radio Times

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Greek Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura agreed with Russian Deputy Culture Minister Yurievna Manilova and Russias Federal Tourism Agency Rostourism chief Oleg Safonov that Athens will host a Greek-Russian forum on tourism this coming May

Greek Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura agreed with Russian Federation Deputy Culture Minister Yurievna Manilova and the head of Russias Federal Agency for Tourism Rostourism, Oleg Safonov, that Athens will host a Greek-Russian forum on tourism this coming May.

Ms. Kountoura announced the initiative during the Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition (MITT), which opened on Wednesday and will be completed by March 26 at the Moscow Expocentre.

The initiative will be a part the joint Greco-Russian initiative of the Year 2016 aimed to highlight and strengthen the close historical and cultural ties between the two nations and to promote each countys culture to the other

Conference on religious/pilgrimage tourism

The May forum aims to boost the exchange of tourists between the two countries and will also feature a conference on religious/pilgrimage tourism, with the participation of governmental and regional tourist operators from Russia and Greece, Russian media and tourism professionals.

Russian summer holiday bookings for Greece already record a 25%-30% increase compared to last year, while leading tour operators forecast that sales may ultimately rise by more than 40%.

A general upward trend is evident but its intensity varies by destination and by tour operator.

This year has a special and increased interest for Greece, not because there are dramatic developments in the country's general status in relation to Russian outbound tourism market, but because of radical changes in relation to other, competitive popular destinations of Russians, such as Turkey and Egypt.

Generally speaking, this year there are significant economic difficulties in Russia but the ruble appears to be stabilizing near a better rate, and this parameter can positively influence the flow of outgoing traffic, as we approach the summer season.

Favored destinations

Destinations that have been favored by recent ruble fluctuations and geopolitical developments include Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria and, secondarily, Israel.

Egypt also seems to be recovering lately and there is ample talk about the possibility of the specific destination "opening" in May, despite the Russian government's opposition to such an eventuality.

For Greece, the main key remains the rate of biometric visas delivery.

Greek authorities already started simplifying visa procedures for Russians by enabling local Greek consulates to start issuing three-year multivisas.

The recent impressive declaration by Head of Russian Federal Tourism Agency Rosturism Oleg Safonof that Greece is ready to issue visas within 48 hours, is proof of how closely Russia and Greece are working on this issue and the results remain to be seen.

New visa issuing centers

New Greek visa issuing centers will open next Monday, March 28, at 7 Russian cities of Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Vologda, Voronezh, Petrozavodsk, Pskov and Smolensk, according to information transmitted by the information platform of Russian tourism union ATOR.

Furthermore, on the same day a new visa center is to be opened in Moscow dedicated only to individual travelers.

The following visa and consular centers already operate in Russia: Consulate General in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novorossiysk, Computer Center in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Ufa, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Omsk, Perm, Saratov, Novorossiysk, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg and Murmansk.

Therefore, by the end of March, there will be a total of 28 greek visa centers operating in Russia.

The total number of visas (travel agencies and private combined) fell to 415,633 during 2015, reduced by 47.1% in comparison to 2014 when it exceeded 789,000, a record that can be broken this year.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten,  , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei,  , holidays in Turkey,   , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas,

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Prisoners at a maximum security facility in the U.S. are guaranteed 2 hours of outdoor time daily, whereas 1 out of 2 kids worldwide spends less than an hour outside.

Children spend less time outside each day than prison inmates do in the United States. Inmates are guaranteed two hours of outdoor time daily, whereas one in two children is outside for less than an hour. A recent survey of 12,000 parents in 10 countries, who have children aged five to 12, found that one-third of kids spend under 30 minutes outside each day.

A new short film reveals how important it is for inmates to have their outdoor time on a daily basis and how surprised they are to learn that kids get even less. The inmates, who live at the Wabash Valley Correctional Institute, a maximum security facility in Indiana, describe daily outdoors time as probably the most important part of my day. Its an opportunity to take all the frustration and all your problems and just leave them out there. It keeps my mind right, keeps my body strong.

 Dirt is Good campaign

When asked by the filmmaker how they would respond if their yard time were reduced to just one hour a day, the inmates are horrified at the suggestion. I think thats going to build more anger. That would be torture. One guard said it would be potentially disastrous.

Shock and disbelief is registers clearly on the inmates faces when they learn that children are given less outdoor time than they. Wow, that is really depressing. That really is, one says.

The initial survey was conducted by laundry brands OMO and Persil, which, upon realizing how dire the situation is for children, launched a new campaign called Dirt is Good  Free the Children. The U.K.-based campaign is headed by Sir Ken Robinson, known for his work in the area of creativity and innovation in education, and Dr. Stuart Brown, head of the National Institute of Play. Parents can share their views on the importance of play and sign up their childs school to Outdoor Classroom Day.

This new survey reiterates what weve been hearing from many different sources  that kids are spending far too much time in the house watching screens, instead of engaging in free play outdoors, using their imaginations and getting dirty. Outdoor time should be thought of as a right possessed by children, not something that is limited those whose parents have the time, resources, or inclination to take them out. Schools and governments need to get involved to ensure this happens. It's just unfortunate that it takes a comparison to prison inmates to make us realize how little access to nature the world's children are getting.

In the words of one Wabash security guard, If you dont have to throw the kids in the bathtub, they havent played hard enough.
Amritsar, March 25

Workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a protest against the Congress and Communist Parties alleging that these were working against the interests of the country. Led by district BJP president Naresh Sharma, activists burnt an effigy of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking on the occasion, Sharma criticised Congress leader Shashi Tharoor for equating JNU Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar with martyr Bhagat Singh. He said the act of Jawaharlal Nehru University students indulging in raising slogans against the country was unforgivable.

Sharma said students of the university, which was being run with tax-payers money, should not be allowed to indulge in anti-national activities at any cost. He said the Congress and the Communist Parties had only revealed their true agenda by coming out in support of the people, who had raised anti-India slogans.

Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora and other BJP leaders Sarabjit Shanti, Balwinder Babba, Sanjay Kundra and Avinash Shaila, also took part in the protest.  TNS
BOAO, March 25

More than 30 countries are waiting to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), adding to its 57 founding members, its president said on Friday.

The AIIB, first proposed by President Xi Jinping less than two years ago, has become one of Chinas biggest foreign policy successes.

Despite the opposition of Washington, almost many major US allies  Australia, Britain, German, Italy, the Philippines and South Korea  have joined. China says it will be an international institution and not used to boost its influence.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum on southern Chinas Hainan island, AIIB president Jin Liqun said the bank was working on accepting the new members.

Over the past two years, we have achieved the purpose of convincing all the members  now we have 57, with more than 30 countries on the waiting list eager to join, Jin said.  Reuters
The two-day annual fest 'One India-2016' was inaugurated today at Lovely Professional University. Students from 29 states of India converted the LPU campus as real India. Students showcased culture, dresses, songs, historical aspects, stalls, and colourful procession about different states. The fest is held every year to let diverse student community feel the importance of unity by all means. Around 29 exhibition stalls, 29 folk music and 29 dance performances added colourful magnanimity to the fest. Over 2,000 national and international students are participating from all the states of India and 50 other countries. The theme of the event this year is 'Itihaas ke pennon se'.

Convention on youth concerns, challenges

Kanya Maha Vidyalaya, Jalandhar, organised an international convention on 'Youth Concerns and Challenges' in which academicians, intellectuals and luminaries from 11 different countries across the globe are participating. Experts from USA, Hungary, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Zambia are on the KMV campus to attend the convention. They will be interacting with Indians from 21 different states across the nation. The inaugural session of the convention began with Vande Matram and vedic hymns. Principal Prof Atima Sharma Dwivedi said the institution has been involved in empowering women and the convention was a signature event to mark 130 glorious years of forging new pathways in the field of education and empowerment of women.

Principal awarded

Seth Hukam Chand SD Public Senior Secondary School Principal Manju Arora was honoured with National Jyoti Award - Women Empowerment by the Education Council of India, New Delhi. She was awarded for her role in promoting educational, social and economic development.

Bhagat Singh remembered

The Innocent Hearts College of Education celebrated Bhagat Singh's shaheedi divas in order to infuse the spirit of patriotism among the students. Patriotic songs, slogans and poems were recited by the students. Role playing was performed to remember the brave deeds of the martyr. Dr Binderjit Kaur, assistant professor, recited a poem on Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Officiating Principal Dr Arjinder Singh emphasised on the relevance of the special day in the history of freedom struggle of India.TNS
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 25

Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today questioned the allegations of his involvement in the violence during the Jat agitation levelled by the BJP government.

Reacting sharply to the statements of the Chief Minister and his ministerial colleagues, Hooda sought to know the basis on which they were alleging he was behind the violence during the Jat stir since no inquiry had been conducted so far.

He said the people of the state needed to know this truth, but the government was deliberately not getting the matter inquired by a sitting Supreme Court judge.

The BJP government knows that the violent incidents were scripted, directed and acted by people of the BJP. Kartar Singh, RSS chief of Haryana, has admitted that the Chief Minister and the government had failed to tackle the agitation, the statement said.

Hooda said the government was busy concealing the truth. He said it had happened for the first time in the democratic history in the country that Congress MLAs had been barred from entering the House for six months and deprived of being a member of a committee of Vidhan Sabha for 12 months.

He said it was obvious that the BJP conspired to suspend the Congress members, so that they were unable to participate in any discussion on Jat reservation and failure of the government in the House. The INLD had joined hands with the BJP in this game plan.

In Haryana, the BJP did not see the possibility of dividing the society on the basis of religion. Therefore, it conspired to disturb the caste harmony, so that they may create a new vote bank for them on caste basis. But the BJP would not succeed in this nefarious objective, he said.

Ex-MLA's bail plea rejected

KAITHAL: The Additional District and Sessions Judge Rajan Walia has rejected the anticipatory bail application of former Chachrouli MLA Roshan Lal Arya on Friday. The former MLA was booked on March 7 after a video clip showing Arya making others take a pledge to boycott the Jats went viral on social media.
Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 25

The 855-page supplementary chargesheet filed today in a court in the infamous kidney racket against the 17 accused, including four doctors, is set to tighten the noose around the doctors and the other persons involved in the racket.

The special investigation team (SIT) believed that it had submitted strong technical and medical evidence with the chargesheet to prove the involvement of the doctors in the racket.

The chargesheet has been filed after a strong exercise by the SIT, comprising DCP Jalandhar Sandeep Sharma, ADCP-I IPS J Elanchezhian, ADCP IPS Alka Meena, ADCP II Amrik Singh Powar and SHO Navdeep Singh.

Police Commissioner Yurinder Singh has also been overseeing the investigation. IGP, Crime, Varinder Kumar, newly appointed supervisory officer in the infamous kidney racket, also held a series of deliberations with the SIT members before filing the chargesheet. Based on the chargesheet, the court has now told all accused to be present in the court on March 29. SHO PS 7 Navdeep Singh filed the chargesheet in the court.

Chargesheet against 17

The chargesheet has been filed against urologist Rajesh Aggarwal, his wife Deepa Aggarwal, nephrologist Sanjay Mittal, his wife Suman Mittal (Deepas co-partner in hospital), Sunil Kaul and his wife Chandra Kaul of Dharamsala, Mahinder Khurana and his wife Sujata Khurana of Delhi, Poonam Jain, her son Ayush Jain and husband Pardeep Jain of Delhi, Jyoti Arneja, her sons Ankit Arneja and Ankur Arneja of Delhi, Ful Kumari of Ludhiana, Manjit Rani of Jalandhar and Sudesh Kumari of Kapurthala. The four doctors, mentioned in the chargesheet, have already got interim relief from the court. Excluding four doctors, others mentioned in the chargesheet are donors, recipients and fake donors. The first chargesheet was filed on September 29 against six accused, namely Junaid Ahmed Khan of Faridabad, Vardaan Chandar Rao of Lucknow, Kuldeep Kumar of Faridabad, Saboor Ahmed Khan of Lucknow, Sadhna of Kishanpura and Harvinder of Rahimpur .

DRMEs statement, letter strongest evidence against hospital docs

As per the police, they have attached enough evidence with the chargesheet which could prove that illegal transplants were taking place in the National Kidney Hospital with the connivance of doctors and others. We have attached the statement of Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DRME) that points finger towards the hospital for carrying out illegal kidney transplants without having mandatory permissions from the authorities. Furthermore, the recent letter of the DRME which it shot off to the 19 hospitals in the state citing that only two hospitals namely Dayanand Medical College (DMC), Ludhiana, and Fortis Hospital, SAS.Nagar, have the permission and hospital based authorisation committee to carry out transplants where donor and recipients are near relatives, could also strengthen our case in the trial.

It has been cleared in the letter (a copy of which is with Jalandhar Tribune) that if any hospital is found conducting transplants without permission, it will be illegal and liable to punished, a senior SIT official told Jalandhar Tribune.

ID proofs fabricated

The police has been investigating seven kidney transplants conducted by National Kidney Hospital conducted between July 4, 2014, and June 27, 2015. We verified the ID proofs submitted by donors and recipients, proving the near relations and all others were found to be fabricated. Even the medical examination of the real and fake donor proved the scandal. The real donor mentioned in the documents was found having two kidneys intact, while the fake donor produced in place of the real donor was found having only one kidney. This clearly shows how things were manipulated to carry out illegal transplants, a police official revealed.

Doc received direct payment in his bank account

As per the police, the doctor also received around Rs 1.75 lakh in his bank account directly from the patient which is also being taken as constructive evidence.

Dr Puneet Grover to join investigation soon

Dr Puneet Pal Singh Grover, a junior surgeon in the hospital, may join investigation in the days to come. He had recently got interim relief from court. "We will only chargesheet Dr Puneet once he joins investigation to clear his role in the illegal transplants. His role is being verified as of now," a police official said.
Jammu/Srinagar, March 25

An Army jawan was killed while another went missing when an avalanche hit a patrol party in Siachens Turtuk sector in Ladhak region of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday morning.

The avalanche hit the partol party around 8 am at Turtuk area of Siachen  the highest battleground in the world  following which two jawans got buried under the snow, a defence spokesperson said.

Immediately, rescue drills were launched and one of the soldiers, Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang, was rescued in a critical condition and shifted to a nearest medical facility.

Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang, who was earlier rescued from an avalanche that hit an Army patrol party this morning in Turtuk sector has succumbed to his injuries, the spokesperson said, adding the the soldier could not be revived by the medical team.

Tamang was a resident of Lopshu village in Darjeeling.

Meanwhile, massive efforts are on to search and rescue the missing jawan despite an inclement weather in the area.

Northern Command Army Commander Lt Gen D. S. Hooda has expressed his deep condolences to the family of Tamang.  PTI
Mumbai, March 25

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited my house a few weeks after my father died in December 2008, David Coleman Headley, an American militant of Pakistan origin associated with the Laskhar-e-Toiba, told the defence counsels on Friday at the ongoing trial for the Mumbai terror strikes of 2008.

Born Dawood Gilani, the militant  who has been found guilty by a court in the US for the attacks in which some 166 people, six Americans among them, died  said he had been nursing a hate for India since the India-Pakistan War of 1971, when some Indian planes had bombed his school, killing some people. He claimed he had joined the LeT for revenge.

"People were killed in the attack and that was one of the reasons why I had joined the LeT."

Headley also claimed that his father  a retired director general of Radio Pakistan  knew and disapproved of Headley's association with the LeT.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan  Yousuf Raza Gilani  had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26/12/2008. Infact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," Headley told special judge GA Sanap, who is trying Abu Jundal in the attacks.

"My father was aware of my association with LeT and he was not happy about it," he said.

When asked was it true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) did not live in the same city in Pakistan.

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied having used Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the strikes.

He also denied claims that the FBI had helped in save up $30 lakh fine and that it was the reason for US's prime investigation agency to not insist on death penalty or life term for him.

"During my July 2004 LeT training, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi made a representation before me regarding killing of an Indian man who accepted money from LeT but shared information with Indian agencies, Headley told the court.

He also claimed his handler, Sajid Mir, wanted the militants who executed the 26/11 strike to persuade the Israeli embassy to get Kasab released by trading hostages at Nariman House, a Jewish outreach centre that was one of the primary targets in the attacks.

Headley's father died on December 25, 2008.

Lakhvi  the chief of the LeT has been accused of having plotted the terror strikes.

Jundal has been accused of having plotted the terror attacks.

On Thursday, Headley had admitted there was a failed attempt to kill Thackeray. He said the assailant was arrested but escaped later.

He also admitted that Pakistans Inter-Service Intelligence had heavily funded the Mumbai terror strikes.

Headley is currently serving a 35-year-sentence in the USA for the terror strikes. He had been cross-examined by the defence in the trial for Mumbai terror strikes since Tuesday.

The India-Pakistan War of 1971 was a direct military confrontation between India and Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Lasting only 13 days, it is considered to be one of the shortest wars in history.

Some miliants struck different locations in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 in co-ordinated strikes. The attack killed several foreigners.

Highlights of Headleys cross-examination

Headley says he had hatred for India since his school was shelled by Indian planes, killing many, during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971.

He joined the LeT to exact revenge for the bombings.

He admitted to have been trying to organise a fund raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the USA.

He also admitted he planned to invite Sena supremo Bal Thackeray to the US for the event but said he did not intend to harm him.

I was in touch with Rajaram Rege for the event, but never met or spoke to Thackeray: Headley

I was willing to invite some other Shiv Sena leaders for the programme after being told by Rege that Bala Saheb was old and not well: Headley.

I cannot tell you the location of the jail I am in and cannot tell you details of facilities I am offered here, but I do not get offered luxuries: Headley.

My father knew of my association with the LeT but disapproved of it: Headley.

Yousaf Raza Gillani, then Pakistans prime minister, visited my home when my father died: Headley.

I was arrested in Pakistan once, the case was registered by my ex-wife Faiza: Headley

NIA did not ask me to name Ishrat Jahan: Headley.

I did not meet Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint CP Atulchandra Kulkarni before giving testimony in this court: Headley.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

Recognising Israels effective water management system, India has named it a partner country for its upcoming five-day international conference on water-related issues which commences here on April 4.

Israel Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel will be the guest of honour and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley the chief guest at the inaugural function. As many as 17 foreign countries will take part in the event, which has Water for all: Striving together as the theme. It will be the fourth edition of the international event; the earlier ones held in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

Israels drip irrigation technology has been adopted by farmers in several states of the country. Haryana was the first to adopt the sprinkler system for its parched land more than four decades ago. Successful dry land farming practiced in Israel has also been adopted in several parts of the country.
Dehradun, March 24

Attempts by rebel Congress MPs in Uttarakhand to stave off any adverse action against them ahead of governments trial of strength did not fructify with the High Court on Friday dismissing their plea for a stay on the show-cause notices issued to them by the Assembly Speaker.

Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia dismissed the plea of nine rebel MLAs seeking a stay on Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwals notices served to them under the anti-defection law, senior Supreme Court lawyer Dinesh Trivedi, counsel for the rebel MLAs, told reporters outside the court.

The court apparently felt it was premature at this stage to intervene in the matter.

The show-cause notices were served on the rebel Congress MLAs after they allegedly aligned with the BJP in the State Assembly and claimed that the Harish Rawat government had been reduced to a minority.

The move was seen as an attempt to buy time as the deadline for their reply to the Speakers show-cause expires by 5 pm tomorrow. The rebel MLAs sought the stay on the notice, contending it was in violation of natural justice and fair play.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer and former Union Minister Kapil Sibal appeared on behalf of the Speaker.  PTI
Accra (Ghana), March 25

Surinder Kaur Cheema came to Accra four decades ago from Baroda (Gujarat) to support her businessman husband. Today, she is a hugely successful entrepreneur in her own right with two popular Indian restaurants, is often called on by the diplomatic community to provide catering services on special occasions and is an active social worker.

Cheema must be saluted for single-handedly building one of the most successful Indian restaurants in Ghana, Amar Deep S Hari, the Indian-origin CEO of prominent IT firm IPMC, told IANS.

Cheema arrived in the African country in 1974 to join her award-winning farmer-exporter husband Harcharan Cheema. From a housewife, she later turned to teach at the Ebenezer Secondary School in Accra for a while, and has now settled on selling India through her restaurants.

It was after 13 years that I started my first restaurant, Kohinoor Restaurant at Osu (an Accra suburb). l have now been able to add another one, Delhi Palace at Tema (a port city some 25 km from Accra), Cheema told IANS.

Cheema, who now employs about 35 people, said she would love to increase the number of restaurants she runs but it is not easy because of my numerous commitments.

She divides her time between running her restaurants and ensuring that women affected with breast cancer get treatment, some rural communities get schools and water.

Through the work of the Indian Womens Association, we have been able to raise money to get women in the country treated for breast cancer. Among other similar projects, we recently provided a school at Nima in Accra and provided a borehole for water to the people of Abanta near Koforidua in the eastern region, Cheema said.

Last year, when heavy rain led to the flooding of some parts of Accra, killing several people, Cheema led the association to provide food and other essentials to those who had been rendered homeless.

I did not meet the women but we were told that the food that was supplied to us was brought by the association and their leader is the one who owns the Kohinoor Restaurants, Ama Konadu, one of the victims who received the support, said.  IANS
Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 25

The executive committee of the SGPC has unanimously endorsed a host of recommendations of the SGPC-appointed sub-committee to improve historic gurdwaras in Bangladesh.

A five-member sub-committee comprising Rajinder Singh Mehta, Mohan Singh Bangi, Nirmail Singh Jaula, Satnam Singh Dhanoa and SGPC secretary Roop Singh visited Bangladesh and took stock of the condition of the historic gurdwaras there.

According to the committee report, there were at least 35 historic gurdwaras before the partition of the country in the present territory of Bangladesh. At present, Parkash of Guru Granth Sahib is carried out only in four of 35 gurdwaras.

The report stated that except the four gurdwaras, the physical condition of all gurdwaras was pathetic and only one Sikh priest was carrying out all kinds of services in each gurdwara. Many of these Sikh religious establishments are occupied by Hindu families.

Gurdwara Nanakshahi, situated at Dhaka University, associated with the visit of founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak Dev and Bhai Mardana, is in good condition.

They asked the SGPC to immediately dispatch a collection of books on Sikhism in English, Hindi and Bangla for the library of Dhaka University.

Besides, the university has mooted a plan to establish a museum of world religions in the name of Guru Nanak Dev.

On the pattern of Pakistan, it favoured dispatching Sikh Jathas to Bangladesh to commemorate holy occasions of the community.

It advocated sending Sikh priests on missionary visas, instead of the present practice of sending them on tourist visas.

It demanded linking of these gurdwaras to the Dharam Prachar Committees Sikh Mission currently under operation at West Bengal. It will assist in continuing Sikh religious, customs, traditions and the philosophy of Gurus there.

The sub-committee members asked the Shiromani Committee to continue free-of-cost delivery of Gurmat Parkash, Gurmat Gyan and Gurswara Gazette.

They advocated sending Sikh priests, Raagi Singh, Langari (cook) and sewadars (workers) on pay role of the SGPC to the gurdwaras of Bangladesh.

The executive committee favoured early implementation of all these recommendations.
Castelnuovo Di Porto, March 25

Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees and declared them all children of the same God, as he performed a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiment following the Brussels attacks.

Francis denounced the carnage as a "gesture of war" carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the "gesture of destruction" carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace," Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the centre.

Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

The Vatican said yesterday that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the centre and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.  AP
Diyarbakir (Turkey), March 25

DIYARBAKIR: Turkish warplanes struck Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq and killed 24 PKK fighters in southeast Turkey on Thursday, the army said, as the militants launched a car bomb attack on a military installation in the region.

Thursday nights bombing killed three security force members and wounded 24 at a security outpost near the southeasts largest city of Diyarbakir, the military said in a separate statement on Friday, confirming a report from security sources.

A Reuters witness said the installation suffered severe damage in the blast on the highway between Diyarbakir and the town of Lice. Security forces imposed tight security in the area and erected screens to conceal the site.

The army says more than a thousand insurgents have been killed in the largely Kurdish southeast since a 2-1/2-year-old PKK ceasefire collapsed in July, triggering the heaviest clashes in the region since the 1990s.

In the latest in a series of air strikes in northern Iraq, Turkish F-16 and F-4 jets destroyed PKK ammunition depots and shelters in the Avasin and Basyan areas on Thursday afternoon, the military said.

Security forces also killed 24 PKK fighters on Thursday in the towns of Nusaybin, Sirnak and Yuksekova in southeast Turkey, near the borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, it said.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said that more than 300 members of the security forces have died, while the pro-Kurdish opposition says hundreds of civilians have also been killed in the military operations which were stepped up in December.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984. The PKK, which says it is fighting for Kurdish autonomy, is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.  Reuters
Islamabad, March 24

Pakistan on Thursday said that 132 of its traders were detained at Moscow airport by Russian authorities and efforts were underway to repatriate the remaining 84 nationals.

Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Nafess Zakaria said that these Pakistanis were part of a group of traders, who were traveling to Russia for an exhibition yesterday when they were detained at Moscow airport.

Russia already sent back 48 Pakistanis yesterday, while the remaining 84 will be soon brought back, said Zakaria.

The Foreign office is in touch with the Russian embassy in Islamabad on the matter, he said.

It was not known why they were held and being deported back, he said.

The Express News TV reported Pakistans ambassador to Russia Qazi Khalilullah as saying that the Pakistan embassy in Moscow is negotiating with the Russian authorities for their release.

A Pakistan embassy official is at the airport to negotiate with the Russian authorities for the release of these men, he said.

The incident comes after the Brussels attacks on Tuesday which killed more than 30 persons and created worldwide panic.  PTI
Trojan Day is held twice a year to allow students to see all of what TROY has to offer.

Troy University hosted over 420 families during the semiannual Trojan Day on Saturday, Oct. 8, where prospective students were able to learn more about the University, tour the campus and see what student life might be like as a Trojan.

The day began with check in at Trojan Arena followed by an in-depth admissions, scholarship and housing presentation. After

Read More
The NPR Gas (left) and NPR diesel share cabs and chassis components. Wheel cuts were tight and turning circles short for both models. The trucks are bigger than they look; the 81-inch-wide steel cabs are solid and roomy enough for three people each. Photos: Tom Berg

You see them mostly in cities  compact cab-over-engine trucks that scurry around purposefully, darting into tight streets and alleys to leave goods with merchants or taking tradesmen to deliver services. In the suburbs they turn easily into driveways, whose owners dont fear for the integrity of their pavement or lawns because those little trucks couldnt hurt anything.

Although conventional-cab trucks sell best by far in North America, 15% to 20% of buyers choose cabovers for their various advantages, including more frame devoted to hauling space, lighter weight, and shorter overall length.

While conventionals have seen a move to tighter wheel cut and improved maneuverability, nothing turns corners like a cabover. Want to make a U-turn in the space of two and a half or three lanes? No problem with the two Isuzu trucks you see here.

Isuzu Commercial Truck of America and its dealers sell two-thirds to three-quarters of all low cabovers (or low cab-forwards, as theyre also called), by virtue of the Japanese brands long presence here and a large dealer network. The builder recently revived its association with a reinvigorated General Motors, so later this year Chevrolet truck outlets will resume handling private-branded Isuzu-built cabovers, which was suspended in 2009 during GMs bankruptcy. Isuzu offers the 2-door standard cab, as we had this day, as well as 4-door crew cabs.

The drive

We drove three Isuzu models around Orange and Riverside Counties in southern California last month, starting at Isuzus headquarters in Anaheim and heading as far as Beaumont on Interstate 10, then returning to I-215 and south to Perris. There we paused for photography and I used the Orange Empire Railway Museums parking lot to try circles and backups.

Its been several years since I handled an Isuzu, and it was good to get reacquainted. I drove a 13,000-pound-GVW NPR diesel and a 14,500-pound NPR Gas, and we also had a16,000-pound NPR-XD diesel along. There were no loads in the van bodies so our impressions were limited, except that ride quality was very good  no stiffness or jouncing, thanks to the compliant leaf springs front and rear.

Door opens 90 degrees, step is decently sized and A-pillars grab handle helps driver climb in. Entry and exit become graceful exercises after a little practice.

I first hopped in the 13K NPR diesel because its the latest model, and is an example of the builder designing specialty sub-models within the N series. With its 170-inch wheelbase, it can handle bodies up to 20 feet long with an overall length of under 30 feet. The diesel is the same inline 4 thats used in the 12,000-pound NPR Eco-Max model. It makes up to 150 hp and 282 lb-ft. It runs through a 6-speed Aisin automatic transmission that keeps revs within reasonable bounds  about 2,400 rpm at 70 mph.

Its the torque that mostly motivates the truck at lower speeds, but horses are required at highway speeds, and the Aisin often kicked out of its overdrive 6th and 5th gears to raise revs while climbing grades. The small diesel makes a low-pitched burble that rises a few notes as revs climb. The sound is enough to say Im working but it doesnt shout about it. An exhaust brake is controlled by a switch on the dash and a stalk on the right side of the steering column.

The small 3-liter diesel nestles between the frame rails and is in plain view when cabs tilted. The blue-capped tank carries diesel exhaust fluid for the aftertreatment system on the right side of the truck.

Engine options

In this country were horsepower crazy, said Isuzu product manager Mike Kelly in explaining Isuzu diesels modest sizes, output numbers and performance. The small diesels horsepower is half what buyers get with many domestic conventionals. But Isuzus power-to-weight ratios are more in line with real rigs. The NPRs acceleration was more than adequate for hauling low-density loads, and it keeps up with traffic while conserving fuel. We didnt keep track of fuel economy, but itll probably be at least half again more than with a 300-horse V-8 diesel. (Heavier Isuzu models, including a 14,500-pound NPR-HD, use a stronger 215-hp, 452-lb-ft, 5.2-liter diesel.)

But for real guts, theres the NPR Gas. The engines a GM Vortec 6000, a 6-liter gasoline V-8 rated at 297 hp and 372 lb-ft, running through a 6-speed Hydra-matic. This thing really goes. Taking off from a dead stop, I had to ease into the gas pedal because the truck would otherwise slingshot away. Once moving it was exhilaratingly lively, on the level or while climbing hills, and rather quiet, too. With eight pistons the engine sounded busier than the four-cylinder diesel, cruising about the same rpms at 70 mph, but still was rather quiet.

However, the point of an NPR Gas is not performance, but cash conservation up front. It costs about $8,000 less to purchase than the diesel, Kelly estimated, and with that dough you can buy a lot of cheap gasoline. It makes even more sense if the truck sits around a lot while its driver is working elsewhere (if he shuts off the engine, of course; the diesel comes with programmable idle shutdown, by the way). The NPR Gass engine can be had with hardened valves and valve seats so it can burn propane or natural gas, and Kelly said about 30% of Isuzu dealers order the engine that way. Approved conversion kits are readily available.

One of the best things about a cabover is that the cab tilts up and forward, yielding an unobstructed view of the engine, radiator and part of the transmission. Mechanics have to love this. The cab must be unlocked and raised by hand; its not light, but well balanced, and after a few tries it becomes fairly easy. A folding arm behind the hinges locks the cab in the up position so you can lean in and check the single drive belt and coolant hoses. Dip sticks for engine oil and transmission fluid are on the left side of the powertrain. When youre done, you reach forward and unlock the support arm and ease the cab down until it pops into place; then pull down the latch handle and youre good to go.

The climb into the cab is a little more awkward than on a conventional because the single step is forward of the seat. You pull open the door (it swings out 90 degrees, allowing lots of entry and exit room); put your left foot on the step, which is about 16 inches off the ground, and your left hand on the A-pillars handle and right hand on the steering wheel; pull your body up and swing your right foot inside and onto the floor, then move into the cab and sit down. Dont buckle up til you reach out and close the door. It takes a little practice, as does climbing out.

Its worth it for the clear view forward and to the sides, aided by remotely adjustable mirrors (flat and convex glass in both are remotely adjustable). And when underway, theres the joy of spinning the wheel and feeling the truck turn so sharply.

In the cab

The drivers seat is supportive, and shifter and parking brake are conveniently close by. Gauges are few but adequate, and three-knob HVAC controls are easy to use. Visibility and maneuverability are excellent.

The drivers seat is firm but bucket-like in its support, and the diesel NPR had a mechanical suspension seat that can be adjusted with a dial-like wheel on the forward edge of the seat frame. I left it alone but pulled the seat forward a few inches to reach the two pedals. The steering column tilts and telescopes to accommodate drivers of various proportions. I was very impressed with the feel of the hydraulic brakes  just the proper amount of pedal travel with swift, sure and utterly straight stopping power. A paddle-type shift selector is directly to the right and easy to manipulate. Both the Aisen and the Hydra-matic have a Park position. The parking brake is set with a lever, also to the right.

The instrument panel has only a speedometer, tachometer and a couple of smaller gauges for engine coolant temperature and fuel level. In this days bright sunlight (this was sunny California, after all), the instruments were a little hard to see, and Id have preferred larger sizes as well as more gauges for additional information. Most switches were flat rockers or twist knobs on stalks. Against that sun the pull-down visors were large, effective and easy to manipulate. The diesel truck had a Bluetooth-enabled radio, which can link to a smartphone and other devices, but I didnt get the opportunity to try it out.

The cab is tall so theres good headroom, and two shelves above the windshield to store paperwork, folders and maybe a laptop. Steering on the diesel truck was a little twitchy, but it was steady on the gasoline version. The gas truck had a cab-mounted shield that guided air flow over the vans roof, and that probably helped settle down the chassis at higher speeds.

For the last leg of the trip I again grabbed the NPR Gas because I really enjoyed its power. The sun had set and darkness had set in by the time we returned to Isuzus headquarters, so I got a look at the decent illumination of the gauges and effectiveness of the reflector-beam headlamps. I backed the truck into a stall on the parking lot and was a little sorry to leave it.

Specifications Truck Isuzu NPR low cabover, BBC 109 in., GVWR 13,000 lbs. Engine Isuzu 4JJI-TC 4-cyl. diesel, 3 liters (183 cu. in.), 150 hp @ 2,800 rpm, 282 lb-ft @ 1,600-2,800 rpm, turbocharged and aftercooled, w/ exhaust brake and SCR exhaust aftertreatment Transmission Aisin A460 6-speed automatic, 5th and 6th overdrive Front axle 6,830-lb. Isuzu, on 8,440-lb. tapered multi-leafs Rear axle 11,020-lb. Isuzu, on 12,090-lb. tapered multi-leafs Differential ratio 5.125 to 1 Wheelbase 170 in. Tires & wheels 215/85R16E on steel discs Brakes Vacuum-boosted hydraulic, discs front, drums rear Fuel tank 25-gal. steel Body 20-ft. Morgan aluminum sheet-and-post van

(NPR Gas uses General Motors Vortec 6000, 6 liters (365 cu. in.), 297 hp @ 4,300 rpm, 372 lb-ft @ 4,000 rpm, and GM Hydra-matic 6L90 double-overdrive 6-speed automatic transmission, same axles/suspensions and brakes, 16-foot van body.)

Tom Berg holds a commercial drivers license and does Test Drives of all classes of trucks. He also writes about vocational and medium-duty trucks, trailers and bodies, maintenance, and alternative fuels.
Fortune Magazine released its third annual list of the Worlds Greatest Leaders on Thursday, and for the first time, the list of 50 CEOs, heads of state, activists and other leaders is nearly half women  there are 23 this year, compared with 15 last year and 19 in 2014.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is No. 2 on the annual ranking, followed by Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar. Three other women round out the top 10, including Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (No. 7), Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (No. 9) and Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh (No. 10).

While the magazine doesnt offer an explanation for the growth in women on the list other than to note theres a noticeable groundswell behind women fighting to advance other women, the women on the list come from many fields, including social activism (Black Lives Matter co-founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi at No. 27), the military (U.S. Army Rangers Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver at No. 34) and the foundation world (Melinda Gates and Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellman are No. 41).

One notable woman missing from the list is Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race. Then again, neither are any of her fellow candidates. Thats not an accident, wrote Fortune editor Alan Murray. The U.S. political system is broken, and we see little reason to think the current contenders can fix it.

There are, however, more U.S. elected officials than there have been in the past, from governors Nikki Haley (No. 17) and Gina Raimondo (No. 38) to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (No. 8).

While unyielding in their competing worldviews, Murray wrote of Ryan and Justice Ginsburg, they each have that key quality of empathy essential for todays challenges.

And what about the business leaders? This years No. 1 is Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, who also owns The Washington Post. Fortunes Adam Lashinsky writes not only about his success at Amazon, but how as the owner of The Post and a financier of space projects, hes taking on a broader leadership role.

Apples Tim Cook, who led last years list, is at No. 5, and Huateng Pony Ma, CEO of Chinas Tencent, is No. 12. Only three other Fortune 500 chief executives make the list: J.C. Penneys Marvin Ellison, BlackRocks Larry Fink, and Salesforce.coms Marc Benioff.
We the People Oklahoma filed an ethics complaint Thursday morning with the city clerks office regarding personal buyouts  or paying for rank  used by some Tulsa police officers.

The activist groups complaint states that the practice at its least gives an appearance of impropriety and favoritism. At most it is an ethical quagmire that can lead to corruption, favoritism and cronyism.

Personal buyouts are an apparently longtime and unregulated practice involving police officers paying superiors to retire so they can move up the ranks before their promotion eligibility expires and they must retake the annual tests. Eligibility is seeded by exam performance, and rank promotions are handled in that order as openings arise until the list expires after a year and the process is repeated.

The complaint cites a range of city ethics codes that We the People believes are being violated. They involve using public positions for personal gain or holding a financial interest in performing duties in the public interest, participating in city business in which there is a related personal financial interest, disclosing a benefit not shared by the general public, and exchanging gifts or favors that may be perceived as influencing.

What we dont want to do is have this swept under the rug, said Marq Lewis, leader of the group. I think our community and our city is reeling from a lot of problems of things just being swept under the rug.

We want a full investigation of these types of practices.

Tulsa County sheriff candidate Vic Regalado, a Tulsa Police Department sergeant, has said he participated in the practice in 2013.

Regalado said he and a superior reached a mutually beneficial agreement so the superior  whom he did not name  would retire about a month early. Regalado then was able to move from the rank of officer to sergeant as the next in line based on his exam scores before his eligibility expired. Otherwise, he would have had to go through the testing process again.

Regalado previously told the World that he made up the difference in lost salary for the superior, who felt strongly about me being promoted.

Former Police Chief Ron Palmer previously told the World that he was advised about the practice and could find nothing prohibiting it, but that it just doesnt seem like it should happen. Palmer said some people who were bought out needed to be or else they wouldve died in their chair because the Police Department has no mandatory retirement age.

The Tulsa Fire Department does not have a similar practice but supposedly did decades ago, a public information officer previously told the World.

Tulsa Fire Capt. Stan May said that once an employee gets on a promotion list, the list does not expire until every employee on it has been promoted. Once the last person is promoted, the department has a specific number of days to establish a new list.

During a news conference in front of City Hall, Lewis was asked by reporters whether he thought the Police Department should follow the Fire Departments rank promotion policy or implement a mandatory retirement age to help eliminate personal buyouts.

Lewis said he couldnt say whether he would support either potential remedy.

Rex Berry, running for sheriff on the Democratic side, has said he was unaware that personal buyouts were still taking place. Berry, a retired Tulsa Police corporal, said he never approached a superior about a personal buyout, nor did any employees talk to him about such an arrangement.

City of Tulsa spokeswoman Michelle Allen confirmed the city received the ethics complaint. Allen said Mayor Dewey Bartlett has the option to select an entity to investigate or take appropriate action. She listed Human Resources, the City Attorneys Office or the City Auditors Office as options.

The complaint asks for those who violated the ethics code to be reprimanded following city guidelines.

The ethics code states that intentional violation by a city official shall be grounds for disciplinary action up to and including dismissal or removal from office as may be provided by law.
OKLAHOMA CITY  State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister held her second and final Student Advisory Council meeting for the year on Wednesday, talking to students about their thoughts on the states current budget situation as well as about college and career readiness.

The group was formed by Hofmeister to provide a forum for student voices and concerns. All members of the council were nominated by the superintendents of their school districts.

About 60 students chosen from districts across the state met at the Oklahoma History Center on Wednesday morning. Originally, students were supposed to meet this time with legislators at the Capitol.

Some students, including Glenpool senior Taylor Thompson, said it was disappointing that they didnt have a chance to meet with lawmakers as originally planned.

But they did explain that there is a ton going on right now, so we understand, she said.

Thompson said the second meeting had a similar format to the first, with students discussing certain questions in small groups before sharing with the larger group.

Students are starting to see the effects of the budget cuts in their classrooms. Thompson said she heard from a fellow student that their school is completely out of copy paper and that a teacher had canceled a calculus test because she couldnt print the the exams for her class.

When it came to budget discussions, Thompson said: I think we all pretty much agreed that technology and resources at the schools were one of the top priorities. That and teacher pay and keeping teachers around.

She said most student groups agreed that extracurricular activities, such as sports and fine arts, should be at the bottom of the priority list.

But Coleman Bourke, a Jenks senior, said his small group had some other thoughts on the budget.

The students thought the move some schools are making toward a four-day week can save districts money. That would allow them to protect programs such as arts and athletics, Bourke said.

We think those things are beneficial to a students development in their academic and social lives, he said.

Sydney Smith, a junior at Bixby, said that when it came to how the students felt about their schools preparing them for their futures, there was a lot to discuss.

We discussed how usually students who take (Advanced Placement) classes or concurrent enrollment are more prepared for college, she said, so we love that thats offered to us.

But she said many students also expressed an interest in receiving more instruction in life skills such as personal financial literacy.

Because Smith is a junior, she will serve on Hofmeisters council again next year.

Im interested to see if any of our ideas are actually implemented, she said, adding that progress has been made on getting rid of End of Instruction exams, which the students brought up in their last meeting with Hofmeister.

And Im interested to see how things are different next year because of the budget crisis, she said.

Bourke said getting to serve on the Student Advisory Council was a valuable opportunity and that he encourages others to apply for the program next year.

I think its a great way to get started getting engaged in things going on in the government, he said.
DELTA, Co. -- Some Delta parents are in an uproar that atheist and satanic literature will be distributed in Delta County high schools and middle schools on April 1st.

The Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers say they are working with the Freedom From Religion Foundation to offer Delta students, an alternative way of thinking.

The Delta County School District says that their policy reads that they cannot discriminate against any groups or organizations when it comes to non-curricular materials. The only exceptions are if the material promotes hostility or violence, commercial purposes by advertising a product, interferes with the schools, promotes candidacy in an election or is obscene or pornographic, according to a press release by the Delta School District.

Kurt Clay, with the Delta School District says if they are going to make literature for things such as Boy Scouts, 4H or other organizations available, they have to allow all types of information to be available to students.

In December, Gideon bibles were distributed to Delta County students. The Western Colorado Atheist and Freethinkers say the distribution of those bibles prompted their desire to distribute atheist material as well.
1965

King leads march on Alabama Capitol

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. The march started in Selma two days earlier. A 20-man delegation from the group failed in an effort to present a rights petition to Gov. George C. Wallace. The petitioners were first stopped by about 75 state troopers carrying night sticks and standing on the Capitol steps and then were told the governors office was closed. King told the marchers we are on the move now, and were not going to let anybody turn us around.

1979

President Carter goes to church in Elk City

President Jimmy Carter visited the First Baptist Church in Elk City after spending the night at the home of Larry Wade, publisher of the Elk City News and, at that time, the citys mayor. As a candidate in 1975, Carter campaigned in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Lawton and Elk City. The largest crowd was 8,000 in Elk City and Carter promised Wade that if he was elected president then he would come back for a visit. At the First Baptist Church, additional chairs were set up around the perimeter and in the aisles of the sanctuary and people were allowed in by lot.

2009

Tulsa scholar, writer John Hope Franklin dies at 94

John Hope Franklin, whose Tulsa childhood helped shape an internationally acclaimed career as a scholar, writer and lecturer, died in a Durham, N.C., hospital. He was 94. A Rentiesville native who grew up in Tulsa and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School, Franklin achieved international fame in 1947 with the publication of his book From Slavery to Freedom, a seminal study of the black experience in America. The book has sold more than 3.5 million copies in eight editions. He had a tremendous influence, said Julius Pegues, chairman of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation.

2015

Sand Springs EF2 tornado kills one

Several tornadoes touched down across the state and one did major damage in Sand Springs, where one man was killed. The tornado formed over Keystone Lake and damaged homes and businesses west of Sand Springs. The EF2 twister then devastated the River Oaks Mobile Home Park, leaving one dead and three others taken to the hospital. It blew down the roof and a wall at the a gymnasium where more than 50 girls in the Aim High Academy had taken refuge in the basement. None of the girls were hurt. Tornadoes also touched down east of the Tulsa International Airport.
It's Divali time so at TV6 over the next few days, we bring you some of the interesting aspe
While Europe is reeling from terrorism crossing its borders, theres almost something old-fashioned about the robbery in a new 6 part drama from Jack Thorne (This is England, Skins, Cast Offs), coming to SBS.

The Last Panthers opens with a brazen daylight jewellery heist in Marseille, when three Balkan thieves dressed as painters stride into a store and hold up staff at gunpoint. There are explosions, cops, and a carefully-planned getaway that isnt quite up to the brilliance of The Italian Job.

But in the daring escape a 6 year old girl is accidentally shot, turning a brash diamond robbery into a bungled murder.

15million in stolen diamonds are thought to be the work of the Panthers, a group of thieves known for taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but which has been laying low for a decade.

They come to the attention of French-Algerian policeman (Khalil Rachedi, pictured) who is paired with Interpol expert (Natasha OKeeffe), but they differ on the best methods to find the culprits.

Also on the trail is British loss adjuster Naomi Franckom (Samantha Morton) who tries to convince her boss Tom Kendle (John Hurt) that she isnt the right person to pursue the thieves into Belgrade -she has Balkan war history.

We had a deal. I dont do the Balkan work, she reminds him.

But the baddies find they are having trouble off-loading the jewels, due to the death of the young girl.

Bad diamonds at bad prices, they are told.

The central character amongst the thieves is Milan Celik (Goran Bogdan) whose family history will bear upon his decisions and actions, as the plot moves to Eastern Europe.

The series, based across London, Marseille, Belgrade and Montenegro, is grim and drawn, with dialogue in both French and English at varying times. Its hard to ignore the destruction a war has placed upon some of the locations, where gangsters and crime are now burgeoning. One war replaced by another.

After its active opening, The Last Panthers drops a notch in energy levels but crafts some dark characters that make this a promising arthouse saga.

The Last Panthers airs 9:30pm Thursday on SBS.
Students and parents fill the halls of Sussex Academy during the second annual Sussex Science Night.

State Rep. Ruth Briggs King sits with the students to learn about fermentation, which can be used to produce alternate energy sources like biofuels.

Catherine Stoner, associate director of programs at DBI, instructs the students to break out into groups.

9:49 a.m., March 25, 2016--The Delaware Biotechnology Institute (DBI), in partnership with the Sussex County Science Fair Committee, hosted its second annual Sussex Science Night in Georgetown, Delaware, on Tuesday, March 22.

More than 150 students, parents, teachers, and public officials engaged in hands on science activities at Sussex Academy to draw focus on the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) training and jobs to the community.

The afterschool event brought together students from over 10 different schools from throughout Sussex County.

Kelvin Lee, DBI director and Gore Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware, welcomed everyone to the event and thanked the host, coordinators, teachers, sponsor and state legislators, including Reps. Ruth Briggs King and Harvey Kenton and Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, who took time out of their busy schedules to come and join this community STEM event.

As a part of DBI's Science for All Delawareans program, the Sussex Science Night is designed to engage middle school students with science through fun and educational experiments.

A number of studies have shown a significant drop-off in student interest toward science during the middle school years, Lee said, adding that "DBI is addressing this fallout, not only through exposing students to its cutting edge science facility but also taking experiences to the students who do not have access to such resources."

Students and their parents performed three experiments that highlighted the three pillars of research at DBI: human health, agriculture, and energy and the environment.

Students made two different types of hydrogels and learned how these materials are used to mimic different tissues in the body to study human health. Students and their parents also extracted DNA from strawberries, an important technique for understanding traits in plants and animals important for agriculture.

Lastly, students were taught the concept of fermentation, which can be used to produce alternate energy sources like biofuels, through an experiment that used growing yeast to blow up a balloon.

These experiments formed part of a theme used by the Science for All Delawareans initiative related to small changes that can have big effects.

Activities were developed by graduate students associated with UD's Systems Biology of Cells in Engineered Environments, a National Science Foundation-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) doctoral training program.

Different classrooms hosted various activities led by IGERT students, Chemistry Biology Interface (CBI) students, and UD doctoral student volunteers.

We could not have pulled this together without the hard work put in by Jennifer Mantle, our DBI Townsend Fellow, help from the student volunteers, support from the Sussex County Science Fair Committee and We Work For Health, as well as the amazing teachers at Sussex Academy, said Catherine Stoner, associate director of programs at DBI and project lead on the Sussex Science Night.

About Delaware Biotechnology Institute

The Delaware Biotechnology Institute is a partnership among government, academia and industry to help establish the First State as a center of excellence in biotechnology and the life sciences. DBI promotes research, education and technology transfer for biotechnology applications to the benefit of the environment, agriculture, and human health.

Article by Alok Patel

Photos by DBI staff
9:55 a.m., March 25, 2016--For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent honors, presentations and publications include the following:

Honors

Jules Bruck, associate professor of landscape architecture in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Ed Lewandowski, acting director of Delaware Sea Grants Marine Advisory Service in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, received the Outstanding Downtown Community Partner Award at the Revitalize 2016 conference in Wilmington, Delaware, for their innovative project in Laurel, Delaware, to redevelop the towns commercial district along the Broad Creek waterfront.

"Much of their time and commitment exceeds their regular work duties because of their vision for the town and belief in its potential," wrote Brian Shannon from the Laurel Redevelopment Corporation in nominating Bruck and Lewandowski for the award.

Members of Team Laurel, including Bruck and Lewandowski, discussed the project during a TED-style talk delivered at the event, hosted by the Delaware Economic Development Office. They were recognized, along with Lee Ann Walling from Cedar Creek Planners, during the Excellence in Downtown Revitalization awards ceremony for their dedication and project leadership.

Presentations

Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, attended the second Ibero-Safavid conference, focusing on Missionaries in Safavid Iran, which he had helped to organize in his capacity as member of the Council of Ibero-Safavid Studies, held in Madrid, Spain, March 10-11. He presented a paper at the meeting titled The French Jesuit Missionary Jean-Baptiste de la Maze (1624-1709), and His Description of Shirvan.

Publications

Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, coedited, with Enrique Garcia Hernan and Jose Cutillas Ferrer, The Spanish Monarchy and Safavid Persia in the Early Modern Period: Politics, War and Religion (Madrid: Albatros, 2016). He contributed the introduction, pp. 17-28. The book constitutes the proceedings of the first Ibero-Safavid conference, held in Madrid in 2013, and was presented at the second Ibero-Safavid conference, in Madrid, on March 10.

To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to publicaffairs@udel.edu.

Photo by Jeff Stone
Paintings by art student Emily Tucci were featured in an exhibit at the Vita Nova restaurant in Trabant University Center.

Paintings by art student Emily Tucci (right) were featured in an exhibit at the Vita Nova restaurant in Trabant University Center.

10:54 a.m., March 25, 2016--Artwork by University of Delaware junior Emily Tucci, of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, was showcased in a special display at Vita Novas Darden Bistro in Trabant University Center on March 22.

Most of Tuccis featured work was from her Advanced Painting class and was focused on African animals and their environment. She also described her experiences working with screen-printing as well as painting.

Displayed in the gallery were pieces including Eye of the Elephant and The Face of Africa. Tuccis work includes use of acrylic, oils, tissue, sand and digital photography. Those with interest can view her online portfolio.

Tucci also spoke about her selection to be a part of the Disney College Internship Program in Orlando, Florida, for the fall 2016 semester.

I will be working with the Merchandise Department, so Im assuming Ill be working in one of their stores, Tucci said. She mentioned her interest in this being a foot-in-the-door for potential employment with Disney, where she would like to work someday in product and merchandising design and development.

Venka Pyle, the student instructor for Vita Nova, said the event was a good example of different colleges and departments collaborating on campus. In this case a student in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Art and Design was able to show her work in a restaurant operated by the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics Department of Hotel Restaurant and Institutional Management (HRIM).

Its great to see students art being featured at a student-run restaurant, Pyle said. It really brings all of UDs students together.

Vita Nova is a fine-dining restaurant that serves as an applied classroom experience for HRIM students, who rotate through various tasks from preparing food to greeting guests. Its Darden Bistro, also located on the second floor of Trabant University Center, offers more casual dining.

Article by Christopher Razzano

Photos by Christopher Merken
10:51 a.m., March 25, 2016--The University of Delaware Library Associates sponsored the 2016 Annual Faculty Lecture, 20th-Century Ireland: A Family Odyssey, in conjunction with the exhibition A terrible beauty is born: The Easter Rising at 100 on March 15 in the Morris Library.

Wilson J.C. Braun Jr., president of the University of Delaware Library Associates, opened the program followed with remarks by Sandra Millard, interim vice provost and director of libraries.

George Watson, dean of UDs College of Arts and Sciences, introduced the featured speaker, Anne M. Boylan, a historian of 19th-century United States and of women and gender, and professor emerita of the departments of History and Women and Gender Studies. Over 160 persons were in attendance, including students.

In her talk, Boylan discussed four ways in which her familys history intersected with the history of 20th-century Ireland.

First was her fathers experience of living in Dublin during the Irish Civil War, in the aftermath of the Easter Rising. Second, she analyzed the 1937 Irish Constitution through the lens of her mothers experience as a young working woman in the 1930s.

She then examined 1940s and 1950s Irelands sexual regime of rigid control of non-marital sexuality through the story of her cousins adoption from Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, County Tipperary, the same institution profiled in the recent movie Philomena.

Finally, she described the economic conditions that led her family to emigrate from Ireland in 1957.

She concluded with some thoughts on how historical commemorations, such as this years centenary of the Easter Rising, reflect both historical memory and historical amnesia.

A reception followed the program during which Boylan interacted with a large number of attendees including students. She also signed copies of her book, Womens Rights in the United States: A History in Documents, during the reception.

Photos by Duane Perry
Yuriy Hrabovsky, a lawyer for Russian military serviceman Alexander Alexandrov, was killed using firearms.

This was stated by Anatoliy Matios, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine and Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine, at the briefing in Kyiv on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"I can say tentatively that lawyer Hrabovsky was killed using violence and was shot with firearms," Matios said.

According to him, the material evidence, the clothes of two killers, was destroyed at the crime scene.

As a reminder, the Holosiyivsky District Court in Kyiv on March 9 put off the hearings in a criminal case against two Russian special security force officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, due to absence of lawyer Hrabovsky.

The Ukrainian National Bar Association reported the lawyer had been found dead today in the morning.

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The situation in the ATO area remains tense but controlled. The pro-Russian mercenaries continue to ignore the Minsk Agreements and shell the positions of the ATO troops using heavy weapons.

This is reported by the ATO press center.

"The enemy launched 52 attacks on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the past day. Most of them, 38, were launched in Donetsk direction," reads the statement.

In particular, the militants used 82mm and 120mm mortars, grenade launchers of different systems and small arms to shell Avdiyivka (18km north of Donetsk), Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk), Mayorske (45km north of Donetsk), Zaitseve (67km north-north-east of Donetsk) and Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk).

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No Ukrainian servicemen were killed but six soldiers were wounded in the ATO area in eastern Ukraine over the past day.

Spokesman for the Presidential Administration on the anti-terrorist operation, Colonel Andriy Lysenko said this at a briefing in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Over the past day, no Ukrainian servicemen were killed but six our soldiers were wounded as a result of the armed hostilities," Lysenko said.

The Spokesman specified that five soldiers were wounded near Avdiyivka and one soldier was wounded near Novotroitske, Donetsk region.

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The threat of the possible use of the Russian servicemen, withdrawn from Syria, in Donbas is increasing significantly.

Representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Vadym Skybytsky said this at the briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Since the beginning of withdrawal of the combat aircraft and special purpose units of the Russian Federation from Syria, the threat of their possible use in the territory of Donbas has greatly increased."

Earlier, Senior Director for Human Rights and Human Freedom at the McCain Institute David Kramer said that the withdrawal of the main body of the Russian contingent from Syria could pose a threat of increasing military confrontation in eastern Ukraine as the withdrawn troops could be deployed in the Donbas conflict zone.

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Finance Minister of Ukraine Natalia Jaresko has discussed the process of carrying out reforms in Ukraine with representatives of member companies of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC).

The finance minister wrote this on her Facebook page.

Today Ive had an opportunity to discuss with representatives of member companies of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council the reforms that are being carried out in Ukraine for improving business environment. In particular, I paid attention to the steps the Finance Ministers have taken over the previous year, their results and future plans, Jaresko noted.

She also noted that Ukraine is interested in foreign investors and closely cooperates with the U.S. business.

In addition, according to her, such meetings help inform potential foreign investors about opportunities of Ukraine, establish ties and raise interest in investments in the Ukrainian economy.

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Ukraine has obtained a long-term loan worth $331 million from Japan under the Development Policy Loan II joint project with the World Bank.

A relevant report was posted on the website of Ukraines Finance Ministry.

Ukraine has received a long-term low-interest loan worth $331 million from Japan under the Development Policy Loan II joint project with the World Bank. The credit has been issued via the Japan International Cooperation Agency," reads the report.

According to the Finance Ministry, the granting of this credit is the evidence of efficient implementation of important structural economic reforms in Ukraine.

"The condition for granting this loan is the carrying out of 10 structural reforms by Ukraine, including such reforms as eliminating of tax "pits" via the introduction of the electronic VAT administration system, gas market reforms and the creation of efficient system of control not only over budget expenditures but also revenues, for which the authority of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine has been enlarged," the ministry reported.

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Odesa international airport has announced collaboration with Nordic Aviation, Estonian state-owned airline, which decided to operate direct flights from Odesa to Tallinn in May.

Odesa airport spokeswoman Maria Popovych told Ukrinform. Nordic Aviation Airline together with Adria Airways will start operating direct flights Tallinn-Odessa-Tallinn from 27 May 2016. The agreed schedule provides for flights every Saturday, departing from Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport at 15.30, and from Odesa - at 18.20 local time," said Popovych. In the time period lasting from 22 June to 24 August another flight will be added on Wednesdays. The duration of the flight on the new route is 2 hours and 15 minutes, the airport representative noted.
In one of the Minsk city, Belarus, courts a trial is under way for organizers and participants of assemblies in support of Nadiya Savchenko.

Peaceful assembly demanded to release the Ukrainian pilot was held on March 9 in front of the Russian Embassy in Belarus.

Information about the trial of protesters has been published on Friday on the website of the Belarusian human rights center "Viasna", the Ukrinforms correspondent in Belarus reports.

"The Tsentralny court of Minsk on March 25 begins hearings on administrative cases of protesters outside the Russian embassy in Minsk in support of the Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko. The protest took place on March 9. On that day many participants of the protest were ticketed by policemen with a charge of administrative misdemeanor for participating in an unauthorized mass event", a statement said.

Ten people are reported to have received notes to appear in a court for hearing that takes place on March 25.over 50 percent of total figure for foreign students studied in Poland in 2015.
The campaign in support of Ukraine has been launched in the Netherlands on the eve of the Aprils referendum on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

As noted on the website of the project, ten videos have been released within its framework showing the talented Ukrainian children singing the famous song She believes in me (nld. Zij gelooft in mij) by brilliant Andre Hazes.

"The Hop, Nederland, Hop! campaign is the story about the talented Ukrainian children. It is an excellent example of successful young Ukrainians, who keep learning about this world and change it for the better. After all, the Ukraine  EU Association Agreement is not ultimately about trade, or politics. It is about the future of Ukrainian people and their children. Therefore, every Netherlander`s affirmative vote is a vote for the brighter future of these kids," reads the statement.

In late March - early April, the children will visit the Netherlands to personally present the project to the Dutch people.

As a reminder, the referendum on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement is scheduled for April 6, 2016.

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Financial aid is a great way to pay for your educational investment.

One Stop can help you with applying for aid, understanding the types of aid available and receiving your offered funds. Not sure when your aid will be applied to your bill or what options you have? One Stop has got your back.

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UW-Casper Fall Registration Opens March 30

Course registration for the fall 2016 semester at the University of Wyoming at Casper (UW-Casper) opens Wednesday, March 30.

Current students, as well as those interested in applying, should contact the UW-Casper Student Services Office to schedule appointments with advisers.

Many courses fill up quickly, so registering early will help ensure you get the courses you need, says Rosalind Grenfell, UW-Casper manager of student advising.

A division of the UW Outreach School, UW-Casper is the universitys only branch campus. Through on-site, online, audio and video courses, the Outreach School delivers 18 bachelors degrees, 13 masters degrees, six doctoral degrees and several certificates and endorsements. For more information, visit www.uwyo.edu/outreach/uwcasper, or call (307) 268-2713.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
The Heroic Heart: Greatness Ancient and Modern, by Tod Lindberg (Encounter, 240 pp., $23.99)

In The Heroic Heart, Tod Lindberg explores the evolution of the heroic ideal from the ancient world to today, examining how heroes shape politics and how the political world shapes heroism. Lindbergs classical heroic type describes those rare individuals willing to risk death to fulfill their own inner sense of greatness. Historical and literary examples include Achilles, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus. Political orders adjusted to such highly individualistic, destabilizing heroes by shifting their motivations from fighting for individual glory to fighting for a greater good. The problem of the collision of heroism and politics found a path to resolution, Lindberg writes, when political authorities figured out how to put a hero to use in service of their ends.

Civilized society evolved further, emerging into a new egalitarian political order that would eventually find no place for the classical hero. Egalitarianism is in fact designed to prevent the emergence of such a character, Lindberg writes, lest the next Alexander the Great emerge to restore anti-democratic autocracy. The tragedies of twentieth-century history also conspired against traditional heroism. Celebrating battlefield glory became less viable after the ghastly trench warfare of World War I. The individual soldier became an antihero, Lindberg says, and war-fighting became anti-glorious.

Antiheroic attitudes crescendoed after the Vietnam War and were captured most profoundly in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which, Lindberg notes, differs categorically from Americas other national war memorials in its sole focus on the 58,000 Americans who died in the conflict. The memorial was conceived and executed as the twentieth-century backlash against heroism in its classical, slaying form reached its apogee in the modern world, a point from which it has not really descended: unglorious war as mainly, the death of the dead.

More recently, the fierce backlash against the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (the American Sniper) exemplified this discrediting of the slaying hero. I devoted a chapter to Kyle in Valor: Unsung Heroes from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front. Kyle is perhaps the best example of a slaying hero in modern America; like the classical heroes Lindberg highlights, Kyle had no compunction about killing enemy forces, and he was remarkably good at it. Kyles clear moral conviction struck a nerve: while the film about his life was wildly successful among American moviegoers, it was also hated by many political and cultural elites, whose objections seemed to exemplify the shift that Lindberg chronicles.

The modern heroic ideal replaces the slaying hero with the individual whose higher purpose drives him to serve othersnot battle or defeat them. The highest form of this heroism occurs when such service involves risking ones own life. Lindberg points to the New York City firefighters who rushed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 and to humanitarian aid workers who travel to the worlds most dangerous places. Analyzing lists of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, Lindberg spots a trend: the percentage of citations that include a life-saving narrative has escalated markedly in the modern era. The increasing emphasis on life-saving activity over time is so starkly apparent that it is tempting to conclude that no one will get the Congressional Medal of Honor any more simply for exacting a price on the enemy, he writes. Absent the saving function, the chance of a medal being awarded now seems vanishingly low.

I saw the same trend in reader reactions to my book. While speaking before audiences about the nine heroes profiled in Valor, I noticed a clear difference in the responses to stories in which the hero killed enemy forces versus those in which the hero saved lives. The distinction was so sharp that I revised my talks to emphasize the saving narratives.

If the American militarythe most powerful fighting force in the history of the worldreserves its highest honor not for killing the enemy but for saving lives, then we have perhaps reached the point in the development of the modern world at which the modern, saving form of heroism has eclipsed the vestigial forms of classical heroism and their slaying ways for good, Lindberg observes. And that raises a haunting question for the author: what if a slaying hero (or villain) arises outside of the modern egalitarian West? Considering the rise of ISIS, the assertiveness of Irans mullahs, and the belligerence of Vladimir Putins Russia, those anti-Western heroes may have arrived already. Do we, Lindberg asks, generous in spirit and reluctant to slay as we are, have the capacity and will to resist?

Photo: U.S. Navy Seals in Afghanistan, including Congressional Medal of Honor recipient LT (SEAL) Michael P. Murphy (far right)
Racist City Employees Are on Notice, and 9 Other Greater Cincinnati News Stories You May Have Missed This Week

Catch up on local government, politics, sports, celeb sightings and Halloween fun.
Getting rid of the waste is a great hygienic idea to prevent diseases from spreading. Starbucks will donate unsold clean food rather than throwing it away. They will be doing the charity work within five years as announced on Wednesday and will partner with the agency Food Donation Connection and Feeding America.

Starbucks collect pastries since 2010 from its 7,600 stores that can no longer be sold to customers and works with the FDC to get those food to food banks and homeless shelters where they can be eaten. The new scheme extends on that to contain perishable food items such as salads, breakfast sandwiches and other meal packages that are ready to eat. In Canada, the food waste costs up to $31 billion a year.

There will be an addition of five million meals in its first year and 50 million more by 2021. The plan was suggested by the fast food chain's employees since the front-line staffs are most perceptively aware of how much unsold food gets to waste at the end of the day, CBC reports.

"When we thought about our vast store footprint across the U.S. and the impact we could make, it put a fire under us to figure out how to donate this food instead of throwing it away," spokeswoman Jane Maly said. "The challenge was finding a way to preserve the food's quality during delivery. We focused on maintaining the temperature, texture and flavour of the surplus food, so when it reached a person in need, they could safely enjoy it."

According to Mashable, Feeding America said that 48 million Americans thrive in food-insecure households, where getting food is always difficult. About 15% or more of the household in the country are said to be food-insecure, an issue that affects every county in the U.S.

Every day, both Feeding America and FDC will pick up food each day from Starbucks company-operated locations in the U.S. through refrigerated vans. The foods that used to be prone to spoilage will reach food banks and rescue agencies similarly to Feeding America network. The food will have to be consumed in 24 hours or less from the time it left the fast food chains.

Starbucks is the latest food business that participates in the battle against food waste. U.K.'s largest grocer, Tesco, recently announced that it will too donate all unsold to the charity. Some of the European countries have made bold efforts against food waste too. In France, it is illegal for supermarkets to waste food, it's either they compost it or donate it. In Italy, vendors who donate surplus food and pharmaceutical products can take advantage of the new law tax benefits, based on a Huffington Post report.

The numbers of people getting hungry will be lessened as Starbucks pledged to donate all of their unsold food to charity. For these fast food chain, it's better to donate the food that can still be consumed rather than throw it away.
Mitsui & Co., a Japanese trading house has forecast on Wednesday its first net annual loss since started rolling in its current form during 1947. The second largest trading house in Japan is going to incur loss since a slide in energy and metal prices has forced it to embrace 260 billion ($2.3 billion) in write downs.

Japanese trading firms have been caught flat footed unlike major international oil and mining companies due to rout in commodities. Impairment charges of 225 billion on Browse LNG project in Australia and the Caserones copper development in Chile have also contributed for incurring loss.

The Tokyo based trading house expects a net loss of 70 billion ($623 million) during the fiscal year ending on March. Earlier, Mitsui has forecast a profit of 190 billion, reports Bloomberg.
Colorado coal mining industry has been crumbling as coal mines shut down one by one and declare bankruptcy. Residents seek for an alternative income and are resorting now to marijuana which was legalized in 2012 raising concerns for the local leaders about crime and the peacefulness of their town and voted twice to ban the cannabis.

Hotchkiss is one of Colorado's towns that support the locals with jobs, but since the North Fork Valley has stopped its operation and another announces of shut down , folks are asking, what if they resort to planting marijuana like the other towns.

"If we could get it legalized right now, we could create some jobs, and we need the tax revenue," said Thomas Wills, a town trustee who runs a used-book store and supports allowing some marijuana stores. "Downtown's not going to be all flashing green crosses and dancing marijuana leaves. You can make it as unobtrusive as you want."

In Hotchkiss, the urge to enable marijuana has initiate talks about the town's soul. It was hidden into a sunny mountain valley covered with peach orchards and vineyards. However, the coal mines up the valley were an economic reliance for generations, and people states that tourism and boutique agriculture cannot substitute good-paying mining jobs. Unemployment in Delta County is 5.3% which is considerably higher than the 3.2% of the statewide average, according to Tampa Bay Times.

On April, Hotchkiss will declare on whether to lift its ban on marijuana shops and welcome it along with the traffic and taxes that includes it. With the ascending cannabis sales of $1 billion across Colorado and California's readiness to grasp legalization, conservative towns like Hotchkiss is studying the economics of marijuana and is beginning to rethink marijuana, reports the Bulletin.

Hotchkiss' mayor and coal-mine geologist, Wendell Koontz, said that the price is unworthy. He is concerned if the three-person marshal's office and small town staff could handle the inconvenience of new marijuana businesses and the good character of the place proclaiming itself as the 'Friendliest Town Around," based on The New York Times report.

However, others say that it is time for venturesome move since coal is not coming back. The local people needs job and the town needs cash injection, anything that will help even if it means resorting to planting and opening marijuana shops.
PetroChina Co., a Chinese oil and gas company has forecast on Wednesday that its output will slide 2.7% this year to 1.45 billion barrels. The listed arm of China National Petroleum Co. is going to witness fall in output for the first time in 17 years following shutting down high cost fields which are unable to make profits at current prices.

Cut in output has been forecast by Wang Dongjin, the company President following announcement of lowest income since its enlistment for getting traded publicly. The current oil price level leaves PetroChina with very little opportunity but to give up the oil fields. The forecast output decline is the direct consequence of PetroChina's plan for shutting down aging and high cost fields, reports Bloomberg quoting Laban Yu, head of Asia oil and gas equities at Jefferies Group LLC in Hong Kong.

PetroChina is the largest oil and gas company of China by assets and world's second largest oil company by market capitalization. The oil conglomerate's net profit has dropped 67% to 35.5 billion during 2015. Net profit has been slashed following long prevailing lower oil prices and asset impairments of several billion dollars, according to a report published in The Wall Street Journal.
A recent study conducted by American brokerage and banking company Charles Schwab revealed that nearly half of U.S. investors take advantage of tax season to address their broader wealth and financial situation. The result suggests that tax planning and overall financial planning as connected, interrelated activities.

The survey involved more than 1,000 U.S. investors, and among the respondents 47 percents said that they believe tax planning and financial planning are one and the same. Similarly, 44 percent indicated that tax planning plays a major role in how they invest and manage their wealth over time.

The study, as reported by Plan Adviser, also revealed that 40 percent of respondents have a written financial plan. Among the percentage of those with a written plan, more than half said that tax planning is a specific component of their financial plan. Also, those with a financial plan are more likely to consider their total financial situation during tax season among other time, and they are also more confident in preparing their taxes. Furthermore, 50 percent of the group with a financial plan consider tax season as an opportunity to address their overall financial situation, compared to 31 percent from the group who don't have a written financial plan.

Charles Schwab's senior vice president Joe Vietri further explained the close relation between financial plan and tax preparation, as released by Business Wire. "Active engagement in the investing process can make a big difference when it comes to achieving financial goals, and tax season provides an invaluable opportunity for people to think holistically about investing and financial planning," Vietri said. "Tax season is a time of year when people have all their financial information top of mind, so it's the ideal time to pay attention to broader financial goals and plot how you plan to get there," he added.

One of the findings of Schwab's survey also unveiled a room for improvement for investors regarding their approach to tax planning. According to Accounting Today, the survey concluded that only 29 percent of respondents pay attention to the impact of taxes in their investment portfolios, only 15 percent use tax loss harvesting to minimize the impact of investment-related taxes, and just 21 percent include charitable contributions as part of a tax planning strategy.

The recent survey results in a recommendation that tax planning shouldn't be just a seasonal activity for investors. The study also concluded that paying attention to taxes have positive impacts on investors' overall financial planning and confidence in paying taxes.
If Britain opts out of European Union (EU), it would result in $700 million (GBP 500million) gas and power bills additionally per annum. Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has cautioned that Britain's energy security at risk if Brexit takes place. UK energy costs are projected to soar if Britain moves out of EU.

Brexit may threaten Britain's energy security. Amber Rudd has cautioned the possible energy shock in terms of higher costs for Britain, if the UK comes out of EU. However, Rudd is optimistic of internal market that would assure energy security to some extent.

Bloomberg reports that Amber Rudd's remarks are in line with Prime Minister David Cameron's optimism. Cameron says Britain government and economy are "stronger, safer and better off" among the 28 members of European Union. Britain's voters gear up for a referendum on Brexit on 23 June 2016. Prime Minister Cameron and his associates are optimistic of Britian's economy strength.



Amber Rudd said in a speech in Southeast England that "if we left the European internal market, we'd get a massive electric shock because UK energy costs could rocket. However you look at it, an internal energy market helps to guarantee our energy security, which is the bedrock of our economic security. I'm not willing to play fast and loose with either."



The Guardian further adds that Brexit would result in jacking up airfares for UK holidaymakers and business travelers. If Britain votes to leave EU, there would be fewer scheduled flights between the UK and European Union. Business travelers will have to face higher air fare. European Health Insurance Card and financial protection for holiday packages will also be at risk. Brexit will affect consumer protection as well, according to Association of British Travel Agents (Abta).



Rudd further said: "We mustn't let our energy security be hijacked as a political pawn to bring Europe to its knees. By working together in the European Union we can stop this becoming a reality. By working together as a bloc of 500 million people we have the power to force Putin's hand. We can coordinate our response to a crisis. We can use the power of the internal market to source gas from elsewhere."

Meanwhile, US investment giant Black Rock has also cautioned Cameron's government that leaving the EU would impact Britain economy in more negative way. After the referendum also, Cameron's government will have to face tremendous pressure to get controversial legislation through the Commons. There may be division of opinion within the party as well, it further cautioned, as reported by The Telegraph.



Britain has more bargaining power by working within 28-nation bloc EU. Britain has bargaining power to diversify sources of gas and push down prices. She also highlighted the specter of Russian President Vladimir Putin utilizing gas supplies as "a tool of foreign policy." Rudd was speaking at the BritNed interconnector near Rochester in Kent, a county that's shown significant support for the anti-EU.
Google is facing a fine of 100,000 euros ($111,720) from France's data protection authority regarding the "right to be forgotten". The French authority Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) accused the tech giant for not fully complying with the European privacy demands across its global domains.

The "right to be forgotten" was first issued by European Court of Justice in 2014, demanding that search engines including Google provide privacy for anyone with connections to Europe who ask for it. The privacy is given by removing links about the people who ask for it from online search results globally.

Following the court order, Google complied with the policy. However, as reported by Fortune, it only scrubbed results across its European websites such as Germany's Google.de and France's Google.fr, even though the CNIL has ordered the tech company to expand its application of the ruling to all its domains including Google.com. The order was issued May last year, considering the ease of switching from a European domain to Google.com.

Google, which had implemented the policy in Europe, argued that applying the ruling worldwide would violate the freedom of expression. CNIL stated how it disagrees on that. "Contrary to Google's statements, applying delisting to all of the extensions does not curtail freedom of expression insofar as it does not entail any deletion of content from the internet," stated the CNIL. "At a physical person's request, it simply removes any links to website pages from the list of search results generated by running a search on the person's first name and surname. These pages can still be accessed when the search is performed using other terms," the agency added, quoted by DW.

Google has responded to the agency's demand, saying that the company will appeal with their ruling. "As a matter of principle, we disagree with the CNIL's assertion that it has the authority to control the content that people can access outside France, and we plan to appeal their ruling," said Google's spokesperson Al Verney, as quoted by Reuters. The company claimed to have implement the "right to be forgotten ruling thoughtfully and comprehensively in Europe", but will try to limit the ruling in Europe instead of applying in globally as demanded by CNIL.

French authority agency CNIL rejected Google's approach to applying the "right to be forgotten" only in Europe, demanding the tech company to comply with the ruling worldwide and fining it $111,720 for not doing that by now. CNIL argued that a person's right to privacy should not depend on the geographic origin of those viewing the search results, so the ruling should be applied globally.
German automaker Volkswagen and Porsche is recalling more than 800,000 SUV worldwide due to a potential problem with their foot pedals. The callback affects 409,477 Cayenne and 391,000 Touareg model, both from 2011 to 2016. Both the company are required to immediately contact car owners to get their vehicles serviced to address the problem.

According to Autoblog, the potential problem lies in the brake pedal. As the website wrote, a securing clip on the brake pedal hinge could be missing. This can cause the pedal pivot pin to move, and the pedal could lose guidance. Over time, the issue might lead to fracture in the pedal hinge, which could possibly make it impossible to activate the brakes.

The issue was found after internal checks conducted by the company. As Porsche's statement says, "this is a purely precautionary measure." There have been no reports to both companies on accidents or injuries caused by the problem. However, Volkswagen's statement revealed that "single events have been reported overseas."

The Cayenne and Touareg model from Volkswagen and Porsche share the similar potential problem because the two are sister models and share some components. However, as reported by Bloomberg, Audi's sister model Q7 isn't affected by the recall. The three models share technology as well as some parts, and all three are manufactured at Volkswagen's factory in Bratislava, Slovakia.

The callback is on the process as the automakers are asking dealers to personally contact owners. The vehicles would be admitted for a service at the dealer to address the problem. The company stated that the issue could be resolved in less than half an hour in the service process.

According to Mail Online, U.S. District Court judge Charles Breyer gave Volkswagen a month that ends on April 21 to come up with a plan to fix the 600,00 cars affected in America. If a concrete plan for getting the cars fixed or off the roads was not submitted by the deadline, "the court would seriously consider whether to hold a bench trial this summer so that the polluting cars can be addressed forthwith," said Breyer, referring back to the emission-cheating software scandal that has brought Volkswagen under attacks and investigations for months.

Volkswagen and Porsche are calling back their Cayenne and Touareg model from 2011 to 2016 after the companies identified a potential problem with the vehicle's brake. The issue could pose danger over time, and dealers are asked to call car owners to get their cars fixed.
CARMEN SMYTH/ SPECIAL TO THE STAR Heidi Bradbury speaks about her art piece she donated to the Choral Tales Project during a presentation Wednesday evening at the Tower Club in Oxnard.

SHARE CARMEN SMYTH/ SPECIAL TO THE STAR Ludwig Tuman plays, "The Sparkle in Your Eyes," during the Choral Tales Project presentation Wednesday evening at the Tower Club in Oxnard. CARMEN SMYTH/ SPECIAL TO THE STAR Gil and Vicki Ramirez look at the art piece called, "Namaste," donated by Heidi Bradbury, during the Choral Tales Project presentation Wednesday evening at the Tower Club in Oxnard. CARMEN SMYTH/ SPECIAL TO THE STAR Heidi Bradbury speaks about her art piece she donated to the Choral Tales Project during a presentation Wednesday evening at the Tower Club in Oxnard.

By Alicia Doyle, Special to The Star

A painting by Ojai artist Heidi Bradbury reaped a $10,000 anonymous donation toward the Choral Tales Project, an effort sponsored by the Arts Collaborative that organizers hope will culminate with a 30-minute video for broadcast via public television and other media outlets worldwide.

Bradbury's watercolor and ink painting, "Namaste," was unveiled Wednesday during an event at the Tower Club in Oxnard that was designed to raise awareness of the Choral Tales Project and its goal to promote unity through the arts.

"The project is designed to spread the spirit of human oneness through delightful, uplifting folk tales selected from around the world and presented in original music and dance," said Leah Lacayo, who serves on the board of the Oxnard nonprofit.

"Folk tales are an ideal way to demonstrate the oneness of humankind by allowing humanity to tell its own stories," Lacayo said. "The video will help us bring the project to the attention of community choirs throughout the country and to choral directors and dance departments and colleges in the U.S. and abroad."

The collaborative has raised $42,000 so far toward its $72,000 goal to support Choral Tales, said Armando Lopez, president of the Arts Collaborative.

"We've gotten donations from China, England, Canada and other various states in the U.S. because we've promoted it worldwide," said Lopez, of Oxnard.

Once all the money is raised, the video will be recorded at Oxnard College, Lopez said.

"The end goal is for the performance to be filmed and distributed worldwide to nonprofits, schools and universities," he said. "And the hope is, especially with school-age children, that they will perform it, and by performing it, learn the essence of these folk tales."

The first video produced by Choral Tales will feature four folk tales: "Lord of the Cranes" from China, "Apanchaneh, the Water Dweller" from Mexico, "The Cat's Protector" from Tanzania and "The Happy Man's Shirt" from Scotland.

Bradbury conveys all four tales in her "Namaste" painting. Each tale involves animals, including an elephant and lion that help a cat find the strength to carry on. One involves a farmer willing to give her last bucket of water to animals seeking water during a drought.

"When I read the folk tales, there's a common thread of values; for instance, generosity, compassion, kindness, respect for one another and for the environment," Bradbury said. "Each story, in its simplicity, teaches values that are the foundation of our humanity."

Choral Tales was founded by Ludwig Tuman, of Oxnard, an international, award-winning composer and former faculty member at Chicago Conservatory College, where he designed and taught courses in music composition, theory and non-Western music.

"Around the world, there's a treasure trove of thousands and thousands of folks stories that every culture has and that people have more or less forgotten about," Tuman said. "When I looked at these folks stories, I thought each of them allows each culture around the world to have its own authentic voice."

Choral Tales is a way of combining beautiful music and dance with a sense of social responsibility, he added.

"Its purpose is to promote a sense of the oneness of humanity and at the same time appreciation for the beauty of cultural diversity," he said.

How to help:

Visit the Art Collaborative website to make a donation to the Choral Tales Project.
California Highway Patrol

SHARE California Highway Patrol

By Staff Reports

A vehicle hit a power pole and bus stop cover Friday morning on Highway 33 in Oak View, causing northbound lanes to be closed, officials said.

The non-injury accident was reported at 4:17 a.m. on Highway 33 at Barbara Street, and there were reports that the power pole landed on the car. Both the Ventura County Fire Department and Southern California Edison were notified, according to the California Highway Patrol.

CHP reported at 5 a.m. that northbound lanes needed to be closed because of wires in the roadway. Lanes were reopened just before 6:30 a.m. as Edison plans to fix the pole at a later time, officials said.

Gold Coast Transit plans to make other arrangements for pick ups in the area.
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/VENTURA COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen M. Reiser

By Staff Reports

A Ventura County Superior Court judge assigned to hear cases related to probation and juveniles was named judge of the year this week, court officials said Wednesday in a news release.

The honor was given to Judge Glen M. Reiser by the Ventura County Trial Lawyers Association in a special ceremony Tuesday night, court officials said.

Reiser has been a judge for more than 17 years and was first appointed to the bench in 1998. In his current assignment, Reiser hears probate, conservatorship, guardianship estates and environmental cases. His previous assignments include civil, criminal and family law trials, court officials said.

He began his legal career as a law clerk in a law firm in 1977 before becoming a full partner there in 1983. He earned a bachelor's degree from UC Santa Barbara and a law degree from UCLA. He also attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, court officials said.

Another local judge was also honored at the dinner. A portrait of retired Ventura County Superior Court Judge Barbara A. Lane was unveiled. The association chooses one judge each year to be presented with a portrait. Lane's can be viewed in courtroom 22 at the county courthouse, officials said.
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At the March 21 Port Hueneme City Council meeting, Interim City Manager John Baker, said the citys liability insurer, the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, informed him that by placing No lifeguards on duty signs on the beach in place of human lifeguards, liability would decrease, as would insurance premiums. This was after announcing a plan to cut all lifeguards from Hueneme Beach to save $175,000.

The council majority (Douglas Breeze, Jonathan Sharkey and Sylvia Munoz Schnopp) have a total of 27 years on the dais. For years they enjoyed basking in the limelight with a healthy reserve balance. All cities in California were given advance notice that redevelopment agencies were going to be dissolved. Interesting enough, it was redevelopment money that contributed to the citys healthy reserve balances.

Rather than begin to embrace the change and its impact, the majority sat idol. The federal government performed an audit of the citys use of redevelopment funds and found they had been misused. The federal government has an outstanding demand for $2.4 million in repayment, which is being disputed by the city.

Eliminating the lifeguards is a public safety issue. Would Zuma, Huntington or Newport beaches consider putting signs in place of lifeguards? The answer is no. They realize the beach is a public area and safety is the No. 1 priority.

Has the city considered parking its vehicles to reduce liability and premium costs? Has the city considered laying off the entire police department? Obviously, these are unreasonable, so why then the lifeguards?

I think it has to do with a spreadsheet mentality, where those in power do not understand the community they are supposed to govern. Unfortunately, the majority cannot see outside its collective experience of the past, which fails the residents of today.



Steven Gama, Port Hueneme




McDonalds is hosting Eggs for Education, a scholarship fundraising event. During the week-long event, all participating Southern Nevada restaurants will donate $1 from every Egg McMuffin and Sausage McMuffin with Egg, a la carte sandwich, and Extra Value Meals purchased locally.

Funds raised will benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Las Vegas scholarship program.

Dozens of community leaders, local politicians, and entertainers will volunteer their time to visit and greet customers at local restaurants while raising donations for the scholarship program. The volunteers are encouraged to push out social messages tagged with #EggsForEducation throughout the week to help raise additional donations for their store in a friendly competition. A golden egg trophy will be awarded at the end of the week to the guest that raised the most money.

Over the past five years, local McDonalds owner/operators have raised over $270,000 with an annual event, formerly named Green for Grads. Since the RMHC of Greater Las Vegas Scholarship Program was established in 1999, local McDonalds owner/operators have helped award more than $3.3 million in scholarships to high school seniors in Clark and Nye counties.

Last years scholarship fundraiser event resulted in a total of $42,000 in donated scholarship funds.

Southern Nevadas McDonalds franchisees are proud to give back to the community they serve. Local McDonalds owner/operators support a variety of programs that focus on education, literacy, and the well-being of children including, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Las Vegas and Make Activities Count Grant program.
By: Dezan Shira & Associates

Editor: Ellena Brunetti

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are a growing and profitable entry point to the Vietnamese market. For firms seeking to tap into these opportunities, several steps must be followed as part of the investment process, including the preparation of a project proposal, its submission, and the tendering process. In part two of Vietnam Briefings series on PPPs, we help to shed light on the tendering stage of this process.

In recent years, the procurement law, which was amended in 2014, and its implementing regulations have brought significant changes to existing regulations on the selection of investors for PPPs. While the revision of this legislation has resulted in regulatory uncertainty for current and potential investors, its amendments are largely seen to be in line with international standards regarding public procurement. The adoption of these standards represents great strides for the development of regulatory infrastructure in Vietnam and is set to enhance transparency, efficiency, and competition regarding bidding documents and bidding procedures.

A more transparent bidding process

First off, the scope of the tendering process has been extended to projects funded by less than 30 percent state capital, a move likely to enhance transparency regarding the bidding process in Vietnam. Under the 2005 Bidding Law, investors were often uncertain about the rules regarding state involvement in the tendering process, as the level of state investment is often not clear at that stage. In the new law on public procurement, it is made clear that rules will apply to all PPPs.

In addition to adjusting the regulation of state sponsored projects, Vietnam plans to develop an efficient network for online bidding, a growing trend throughout the world, whose mains advantages are improving publicity and transparency in bidding events. Pursuant to this objective, the Ministry of Finances and the Ministry of Plans have worked together and adopted Circular No. 07/2015/TTLT-BKHDT-BTC dated September 8, 2015, which replace the previous pilot e-bidding system circular. The introduction of this system should help to protect investors by ensuring fairer competition for all contractors.

Adding to these measures aimed at increasing transparency, the 2013 Bidding Law (the Law) introduces some legal safeguards to fight conflicts of interests of procurement officials that could occur in the bidding process, and therefore, preserve the integrity of the public procurement process in Vietnam. According to Article 89.6, conflicts of interest on the part of the procurement official are considered to be failure to ensure the fairness and transparency of bidding, and will lead to the disqualification of these individuals as per Article 90.1 and 90.2.

Furthermore, a bidding that has been unlawfully won, thanks to corruption or an abuse of position, can now, according to Article 17.4, be cancelled.

Improving competitive bidding

Article 15.2 of the Law stipulates that international tendering become the main method of selection for PPP projects. Also, according to Article 20.2 of the Law, selection of investors must result from an open tender process, while limited tenders are restricted to projects that are highly technical. However, while the Law has created improvements, it is not precise enough, as it neither properly defines what criteria should be applied to qualify a project as highly technical, nor does it indicate who decides whether or not a project is highly technical.

It should be noted that bid dossiers that promote employment of Vietnamese workers and consumption of Vietnamese goods and raw materials will be preferred to others. Therefore, if bid dossiers are ranked equally, priority will be given to the contractor who proposes higher domestic expenses or higher domestic employment.

These changes must be seen as a reaction to the rise of Chinese contractors under the former Bidding Law. In addition, the revised Law also restricts winning contractors from using foreign workers for jobs that can be done by Vietnamese. The revised Law also puts restrictions on imports of goods and equipment that are locally available.

However, according to Article 39 (1) of the Law, the lowest cost method is still the method of choice when choosing a contractor, meaning that it is the contractor offering the lowest price that will win the bid. This method is commonly used in a number of developing countries. However, as the new Law forbids contractors from bringing in their own workers and raw materials, the effects of this rule decreases the chances that European companies will win bids, as the cheap prices offered mostly by Chinese companies results from limited building costs.



About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email vietnam@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. 

Annual Audit and Compliance in Vietnam 2016

In this issue of Vietnam Briefing, we address pressing changes to audit procedures in 2016, and provide guidance on how to ensure that compliance tasks are completed in an efficient and effective manner. We highlight the continued convergence of VAS with IFRS, discuss the emergence of e-filing, and provide step-by-step instructions on audit and compliance procedures for Foreign Owned Enterprises (FOEs) as well as Representative Offices (ROs).

Navigating the Vietnam Supply Chain

In this edition of Vietnam Briefing, we discuss the advantages of the Vietnamese market over its regional competition and highlight where and how to implement successful investment projects. We examine tariff reduction schedules within the ACFTA and TPP, highlight considerations with regard to rules of origin, and outline the benefits of investing in Vietnams growing economic zones. Finally, we provide expert insight into the issues surrounding the creation of 100 percent Foreign Owned Enterprise in Vietnam.

Tax, Accounting and Audit in Vietnam 2016 (2nd Edition)

This edition of Tax, Accounting, and Audit in Vietnam, updated for 2016, offers a comprehensive overview of the major taxes foreign investors are likely to encounter when establishing or operating a business in Vietnam, as well as other tax-relevant obligations. This concise, detailed, yet pragmatic guide is ideal for CFOs, compliance officers and heads of accounting who must navigate Vietnams complex tax and accounting landscape in order to effectively manage and strategically plan their Vietnam operations.
The added-capital project aims to meet the increasing demand for mobile phone batteries at Samsungs factories in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen provinces.

SDIV was licensed in 2009 with the total capital of $123 million. The factory started operation in January 2010, specialising in manufacturing mobile phone batteries for Samsung and Nokia.

Samsung has seven other factories at the 110-hectare Samsung complex in Bac Ninh, with two assembling cell phone factories, one vacuum cleaner producing factory, and four facilities manufacturing LCD displays, cameras, and mobile phone cases.
Sacks of cement at Hai Phong Cement Company. Domestic cement companies anticipate stiffer competition at home and in foreign markets. - VNA/VNS Photo Tuan Anh

At present, the total capacity of all cement factories in Viet Nam is 81.5 million tonnes per year, according to the Ministry of Construction. This year, the local market was expected to consume between 75 million tonnes and 76 million tonnes of cement, which is three million tonnes more as compared to last year.

Therefore, the domestic cement producers would face over supply and that situation has forced the producers to seek solutions on selling more cement in markets at home and abroad.

In 2013 and 2014, it was a difficult period for all domestic producers as well as the local cement industry due to the impact of the frozen domestic real estate market. The cement industry's exports reached a record high at 21 million tonnes of cement in 2014, earning US$900 million.

However, the cement exports in 2015 dropped by 20 per cent year-on-year to 16.25 million tonnes. The reduction in exports was expected to continue this year, the ministry said.

According to Viet Nam's General Department of Customs, the largest export market of Viet Nam's cement was Bangladesh, but Viet Nam's clinker exports to Bangladesh in 2015 also dropped by 30 per cent against 2014.

Le Van Toi, head of Building Material Department under the Ministry of Construction, said Viet Nam's cement firms would face numerous difficulties in consumption this year due oversupply and high competitive pressure from foreign cement companies, especially in China and Thailand.

The pressure will occur when Viet Nam joins the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), according to experts of the cement industry.

Viet Nam has the largest cement industry in the ASEAN with 58 cement factories and a total capacity of 81 million tonnes of cement per year. Thailand has 11 cement factories with a total annual capacity at 46.7 million tonnes.

However, Thailand has exported an average 34 million tonnes of cement per year, while Viet Nam had a record export volume of 21 million tonnes of cement in 2014, 13 million lower than Thailand's volume, the experts said.

In addition, Thailand's cement entered the world market long time before Viet Nam, which started exporting cement and clinker from 2010 after many years of importing cement. Therefore, Viet Nam's cement producers have still had a poor experience in exporting cement and attracting foreign importers.

More advantages of Thailand's cement products on the world market include quality and quicker transport. Foreign importers have also preferred traditional partners such as Thailand, they said.

Viet Nam's cement would also be competing with Chinese firms, the experts said, because total cement output in China reaches 670 million tonnes after a period of strong development in China's cement industry. Chinese cement factories could promote exports in the future.

Tran Viet Thang, general director of Viet Nam Cement Industrial Corporation, said sometimes, Viet Nam's export price of cement was $10 per tonne higher than the Chinese cement, so the export of 25 million tonnes this year would be more difficult, the Tin tuc newspaper reported.

Therefore, if not exporting cement, many local enterprises could produce in moderation or even temporarily stop production, he said.

The enterprises should pay more attention to the local market but the market was expected to not see a sudden increase in consumption in the future, he said.

Director of Vicem Hoang Thach's Consumption and Service Enterprise Nguyen Anh Quan said that to deal with the pressure of competition in cement consumption, Vicem Hoang Thach, one of the leading cement enterprises in Viet Nam, has continued to expand its markets and also developed industrial cement products to balance consumption and production.
Bruce Riggs, vice president of Compal, committed to implementing the project on schedule. Accordingly, by April the facility will be equipped with modern machinery imported from China to manufacture smart phones and tablets. The factory is expected to come into operation in September and create hundreds of jobs for skilled Vietnamese workers.

The investor proposed the province to provide incentives in human resources, land rentals, as well as corporate income tax.

According to a source of the Vinh Phuc Peoples Committee, Compal had revised plans for implementing the project, however, the new investment capital as well as the factorys capacity was not disclosed.

In October 2007 Compal was licensed to invest $500 million to build a laptop production plant in Vinh Phuc, which was expected to turn out 24 million laptops per year by 2012, create 35,000 jobs, and attract 50 part suppliers that might bring an additional investment sum of $1 billion to province.

However, after starting operational in May 2011, the production facility suspended operations in early 2013 due to the global economic recession. The facility is currently rented by a local company to manufacture carton boxes for Samsung Electronics.

In March 2015, Compal planned to resume production. However, the group chose to produce smart phones and tablets upon its return to Vietnam.
US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter. (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

WASHINGTON: The Brussels attacks are a stark reminder that European countries need to step up their efforts against the Islamic State group, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said.

The United States has been pressing its European and Arab allies to contribute more to the US-led campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria.

The IS group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's suicide bombings on the Belgian capital's airport and metro that killed 31 people and wounded another 300.

"The thing that I think the Brussels event is going to further signify to Europeans is that they - as we have been accelerating our campaign to defeat ISIL in Syria, in Iraq and elsewhere - they need to accelerate their efforts and join us," Carter told CNN on Wednesday.

"But (for) anyone doubting in Europe, it's a reminder that we have to accelerate our effort."

Washington has boosted its own special forces presence in Iraq and Syria, and is now letting its military advisers move closer to the frontlines.

A US Marine manning a newly established US artillery position in northern Iraq was killed over the weekend in a rocket attack, underscoring the risks.

Carter said he expected Mosul, a major IS bastion in northern Iraq, would be retaken by Iraqi troops within a year.

"If the Iraqi government continues to support their own armed forces and we continue to support them, there is no reason we have to wait a year for the collapse of Mosul," Carter said.

"But I'm not prepared to give you a timetable either. This is a war. I think we need to do and are doing everything we can to accelerate that schedule," he added, predicting that: "We'll be doing more."

The Iraqi forces, as they advance on Mosul will need air support, as well as training and equipment, Carter said. "They need things like bridges to cross the Tigris River. They need lots of things," he added.

Iraq, meanwhile, announced on Thursday it had launched the first phase of operations to retake Mosul. It's in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, that IS declared its Islamic "caliphate" in 2014.
At around 5:45 pm, the group of people got into the elevator in Block D of the apartment building on Luy Ban Bich Street, Tan Phu District.

The lift suddenly stopped moving after it had gone up by about 0.2 meters, leading to everyone inside panicking and screaming for help.

Several residents living there heard their voice and attempted to save them but subsequently failed to do so.

Tens of firefighting police officers in Tan Phu were dispatched to the location after being notified to assist the victims, carrying specialized equipment to pull the elevator doors open.

The rescuers succeeded in setting the 16 free after about half an hour, of whom two had already passed out due to the lack of oxygen and were therefore given the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Nguyen Thi Huyen Thanh, one of the 16 people, recounted that everybody inside the elevator was terrified since the machine broke down only a few seconds after running.

She ruled out the possibility of any overload, as the elevator had already moved up anyway.

Local authorities arrived at the building to gather statements from the victims shortly after.

The exact cause of the incident is being investigated.



Local authorities work with the victims after the incident. Photo: Tuoi Tre


A scrap warehouse in Trieu Phong District which used to keep hundreds of bombshells.

Several years ago, almost all villagers went to the forest to search for bombshells and bullets left from the wartime to sell for scrap collectors, said Tran Quang Khanh, 50, Tan Hiep village chief.

Recently the number of villagers who earn their living by collecting wartime scraps has reduced because the sources of scrap metal became scarce. Those who are still pursuing this job have to go deep into the forest for many days to be able to find scraps.

Phuong said in 1995-1998, he could buy over 150 tons of war scraps a month.

Pham Van Phuong, 53, the only scrap trader in Tan Hiep, said his family has been doing this job for more than 20 years. In the early 90s, every day Phuong purchased tons of bombshells of all kinds. Phuong said in 1995-1998, he could buy over 150 tons of war scraps a month.

Phuong said war scrap collectors and war scrap traders always face possibility of death. Phuong said he did not buy bombshells and bullets that look new and those still having fuses.

Most war scrap traders buy bombshells and bullets and then open them to take explosive out themselves to sell explosive and the metal.

Phuong said the price for explosives is cheaper than the metal covers.

"I had over ten colleagues in the districts of Cam Lo, Gio Linh, Vinh Linh, and Huong Hoa but most of them are dead. In the village of Tan Lap, four colleagues of mine died of bomb blast. Two of them died in Gio Linh district and one in Vinh Linh district, Phuong said.

About 300 meters from Phuongs house is the home of Vo Van Truc, 46, the man who is considered lucky among dozens of scrap collectorswho were victims of bomb and land-mine blasts.

Seven years ago, an M79 shell exploded, taking Trucs right leg. He had abandoned this job to become a fisherman.

Seven years ago, an M79 shell exploded, taking Trucs right leg.

Phuong said he was considering quitting. After the blast in Ha Dong District , Hanoi last week, he sold his war scrap warehouse.

Phuong said war scraps are getting scarce in Quang Tri thanks to mine and explosive clearance projects funded by foreign organizations.

Quang Tri has more than 391,000 hectares of land contaminated with mines and explosives left from the Vietnam War, accounting for 83.8% of the whole area of the province. The Ministry of Defence estimated that at the current speed of explosive and mine clearance, Quang Tri will be free from explosives and mines in hundreds of years.

According to data from the explosive clearing projects in Quang Tri, there are over 10 points purchasing war scrap metal, mostly in the border district of Huong Hoa. War scrap collectors often go into the jungle for weeks to search for war scrap and sell the scrap metal to traders at the forest edge. They even go to Laos to seek scrap.
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Far from the soy and cattle that dominate its vast fertile pampas, Argentina harbors another valuable commodity that is rocketing in price and demand and luring newly welcomed foreign investors.

Lithium, the so-called "white petroleum," drives much of the modern world. It forms a small but essentially irreplaceable component of rechargeable batteries, used in consumer devices like mobile phones and electric cars. It also has pharmaceutical and other applications.

Over half of the earth's identified resources of the mineral are found in South America's "lithium triangle," an otherworldly landscape of high-altitude lakes and bright white salt flats that straddles Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

Until recently, that was not great news for investors.

Argentina and Bolivia lacked predictability and a friendly business environment, while Chile kept strict control over lithium output.

But that may be all about to change.

In Chile, a sale of state lithium deposits and a shake-up in the way the country manages its resources has awakened interest from everyone from early-stage mining companies to electric carmakers like Tesla.

In Argentina, already the world's no. 3 lithium producer after Chile and Australia, investors are hopeful that the new Mauricio Macri government that took over in December will herald a brighter future.

Business-friendly Macri has begun making sweeping changes in a bid to return the country to economic orthodoxy, removing onerous capital controls and sending a message that the country is open for business again after more than a decade of protectionism.

"For 10 or 12 years, [Argentina] was a do-not-invest zone. The tone of doing business has just swung 180 degrees," said Tom Hodgson, the chief executive of Western Lithium, which is developing a project in the country due to begin production next year.

Argentina now has a "major opportunity" to build a lithium export business, Hodgson told Reuters earlier this month at a mining conference in Toronto.

Western Lithium is working with Korean steelmaker POSCO, whose chairman was in Argentina last month to meet with Macri and begin the construction of a new lithium plant, due to begin commercial production within a year. The exploratory mining company Orocobre is also developing a project.

But the company perhaps best set to benefit from an Argentine lithium revolution is U.S. agricultural and chemical conglomerate FMC Corp.

FMC is already producing lithium from the Salar de Hombre Muerto salt flat in northern Argentina. Lithium provides a small but growing part of FMC's revenues, with forecast sales of around $250 million this year.

"Now the [Argentine] administration is starting to change policy, it's giving us even more confidence that it will be a predictable and cost-effective operation," FMC Lithium Vice President Tom Schneberger said. "We expect significant year-over-year improvement for lithium in 2016 and we see that going clear to 2020."

Demand for lithium is set to outstrip supply by 2023, according to specialist consultants Stormcrow Capital, with the lion's share coming from rechargeable batteries.

Chile Climate 'Perfect'

Bolivia has more identified lithium resources than any other country, but commercially it's likely to be "shunted to the side for an extended period," says Jon Hykawy, Stormcrow's president.

Bolivia has natural challenges - too much rain, other chemicals in the mix - as well as a prickly investment environment.

Chile, though, is popular with investors for its free market credentials, while the dry desert climate is "perfect" for lithium production, said Brian Jaskula, a U.S. Geological Survey mineral commodity specialist.

The key lithium site in Chile is the vast Salar de Atacama salt flat, where local firm SQM and foreign-owned Rockwood have operations.

SQM was privatized in the 1980s during General Augusto Pinochet's regime and a former son-in-law of the late dictator owns a controlling stake.

But it is on uneasy terms with the current leftist government. In the last two years, it has run afoul of authorities over market manipulation and dubious tax invoices, and is in arbitration with economic development agency Corfo over royalties.

Now U.S. specialty chemicals firm Albemarle Corp is muscling in on SQM's turf. Having spent $6 billion last year to buy Rockwood, it then signed a deal with Corfo in its drive to triple lithium output in Chile.

Chile's government said it sees public-private partnerships as the way forward and is planning to put more deposits up for tender.

It denies favoring any particular company.

"Chile is willing to work with anybody who wants to explore and produce ore, provided they comply with Chile's requirements and standards," Mining Minister Aurora Williams told Reuters.

However, Corfo head Eduardo Bitran insisted private lithium investment must be "sustainable" and in the interests of Chileans.

Albemarle and SQM declined to be interviewed for this story.

But SQM said in an investor conference call this month that it wanted to increase lithium output in Chile, as well as look at unspecified "opportunities around the world."

Securing Supplies

Industry insiders warn that, no matter how friendly the government, the process of ramping up output is a complex one.

That leaves battery makers and other end users of lithium largely at the mercy of the big providers.

In addition to Tesla, traditional car companies including Nissan and BMW operate in the burgeoning electric vehicle industry. Germany's Daimler recently announced that it would build a new lithium-ion battery factory, while technology firms like Samsung and Foxconn are also key users.As prices rise, they are keen to lock in deals.

Lithium carbonate is selling for $6,400 per ton, up from $5,180 in 2011. Prices in the opaque Chinese market are reportedly higher.

Tesla and other car manufacturers have been to Chile to see if they could ensure future lithium supplies, according to Ignacio Moreno, Chile's deputy mining minister. Tesla declined to comment on talks, but said it has signed three deals with exploratory companies outside Chile that would "not provide all" its lithium.

Battery makers "are looking for any source across the world that they can establish joint ventures with, no matter how risky they are," said Jaskula.
The scramble by Belgiums security agencies following the Brussels terror attacks is putting the countrys counterterrorism apparatus under an intense spotlight, with criticism pouring in from around the world.

With an urgent manhunt under way for suspects in the Brussels terror attacks, pressure on Belgium reached a new high  with the countrys interior minister offering to resign.

"If you put everything in a row then you can say that you can indeed ask big questions in a number of areas, about the justice department and the developments afterwards and also about the police," said Jan Jambon, Belgiums interior minister.

Criticism has come in from all over. Turkeys president Recep Erdogan said one of the suicide bombers should have been on Belgiums radar.

"We informed the Belgium Embassy with a [diplomatic] note about the deportation on July 14th, 2015. The Belgians [authorities] released the forenamed [attacker], said Erdogan.

Some U.S. officials have also been critical. But what has them especially worried is that shortfalls in Belgium and other European countries are not new  many of them date back to the terror attacks in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005.

"We need to speed up some of the proposals we've put on the table to find the money to make sure terrorists can't use credit cards or prepaid cards, to make sure that we track where the weapons are," said Frans TImmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission.

There is hope a new European Counter Terrorism Center will help, but many current and former counterterror officials say a wake-up call is long overdue.

Not many of our European friends have their game at the level we have it at when it comes to sharing information, said former CIA director Michael Hayden.

There is also concern about empowering Europes security agencies  making sure they have the legal and technological reach to get critical intelligence in a timely fashion.

I predict its going to create great stress within Europe as these various nations begin to realize that they may have to recalibrate this necessary balance between their citizens' privacy and the right to life, said Hayden.

As one U.S. official put it, the Islamic State terror group is lighting a match  forcing security agencies to race against the flames.
Belgian prosecutors said Friday that three people had been detained in a counterterrorism operation in Brussels prompted by the arrest the day before of a Frenchman in Paris suspected of plotting a new attack.

Prosecutors confirmed in a statement that Fridays arrests were conducted in three districts of the capital  Schaerbeek, Forest and Saint-Gilles. Two of the three suspects suffered leg wounds.

Prosecutors also said investigators had used DNA tests to determine that Naijm Laachraoui was one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up in the Brussels airport on Tuesday.

WATCH: Pam Dockins' report on Kerry in Brussels

Laachraoui was also linked to the November 13 Paris attacks in which 130 people died. His DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth discovered at the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people were killed.

WATCH: Heather Murdock on the scene in Molenbeek

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Brussels on Friday for talks with Belgian and European leaders about the attacks. During his visit, he said U.S. and coalition members had a message for anyone who would kill and wound innocent civilians going about their everyday lives:

"We will not be deterred. We will come back with greater resolve, with greater strength, and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Speaking with VOA and other reporters in Brussels, Kerry declined to blame the Belgian government for not thwarting the attacks, saying, "carping" afterward was "inappropriate." He said the U.S. and Belgium had already scheduled a number of counterterrorism training sessions.

WATCH: Related video report by Jeff Seldin

2 Americans killed

The three blasts touched off Tuesday in Brussels killed 31 people and injured about 300. A senior U.S. official confirmed that two Americans were among the dead.

U.S. officials have told reporters that the brothers who carried out the attacks, Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, were on a terrorism watch list in the United States.

Belgian federal prosecutors said six people had been detained for possible links to the attacks.

Meeting Thursday near one of the attack sites, European Union justice and interior ministers pledged to deepen joint intelligence gathering and swiftly push through measures to share airline passenger information and step up the fight against terrorism.

We dont need new plans; we need to fully implement the plans and measures that have been taken, said Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Netherlands, which currently holds the European Unions rotating presidency.

The emergency meeting offered a stark counterpart to the EUs usually staid gatherings, especially since it took place near the Maalbeek metro station, one of the targets of the attacks.

"Everybody feels the attack on Belgium was an attack on Europe and the values we stand for together," Plasterk said. "Europe has been under attack before, but weve always defended liberty and democracy and we will do that together."
China is sending out conflicting signals on its support for tough new international sanctions against North Korea.

The United Nations adopted the expanded sanctions on March 2 to punish the Kim Jong Un government for conducting its fourth nuclear test and launching another long range rocket earlier this year.

China and the United States collaborated on developing the new sanctions that require the immediate implementation of mandatory inspections of all North Korean imports and ban the exports of most minerals.

Chinese enforcement

Beijings enforcement of these international sanctions is considered crucial because 90 percent of North Korean trade flows either to or through China.

Chinas leaders have pledged to support the sanctions, but have not yet announced specific measures to implement them.

There have been mixed reports on enforcement efforts coming from the city of Dandong, a major bilateral trading hub located on the Chinese side of the Yalu river, which separates China and North Korea.

Some news organizations, often citing unnamed businessmen in the region, have reported a reduction in vehicle traffic at the border, the suspension of currency transfers to North Korean banks, and a prohibition on North Korean vessels from entering the Chinese port.

Yet China recently negotiated a slight easing of the sanctions to reinstate four ships to conduct international trade that were blacklisted for past ties to Pyongyang's arms trade.

Coal exception

There are also reports that China has been lenient in enforcing the U.N. restrictions on North Korean exports of coal.

The U.N. ban on North Korean mineral exports includes a difficult to verify humanitarian exemption for coal and iron exports, as long as the profits are not used to fund the development of nuclear weapons or other illicit arms.

Coal exports are often bartered for goods utilized by the North Korean general public, including oil, food and machinery.

But the $1 billion of North Korea coal exported to China last year also provided Pyongyang with a key source of hard currency that potentially could be used for its weapons program.

A number of regional sources in the coal trade recently said they had received no instructions from the government on any new rules on coal imports from North Korea.

Choi Kyung-soo, the president of the North Korea Resources Institute in Seoul that tracks mineral exports from the North, said there is a lot of confusion as to whether China is actually stopping North Korean ships and to what extend the sanctions are being implemented.

Nothing has been clearly identified on whether these are North Korean ships carrying coal and minerals or if they are carrying general shipments, he said.

Trade data will be released in April and that will give officials their first objective indication of what impact sanctions may be having.

In January, despite rumors to the contrary and a rising concern over impending sanctions, Choi said, there were no restrictions placed on the exports of minerals.

Choi also said it will be difficult for Chinese authorities to differentiate between coal exports that benefit the general populous and those that might be used to fund the countrys nuclear program.

Many analysts expect Beijing to follow the same pattern it set after the U.N. imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2013 for its third nuclear test. Then, China initially restricted border trade, but over time loosened those constraints and has since invested heavily in expanding bilateral commerce and development.

Stifling change from within

These tough new sanctions, however, will likely make international companies and even developmental assistance organizations wary of doing business with North Korea.

Andray Abrahamian, the executive director of Choson Exchange, a non-profit group that helps North Korean businesses operate more efficiently based on market principles, said his international donors are starting to withdrawal support.

People are nervous about giving money to organizations that work in country lest they slip up and work with organizations or individuals who are on the designated list of sanctioned individuals and companies, he said.

The North Korean economy has improved under Kim Jong Un in part because of the economic reforms he implemented that allow farmers to sell a portion of the crops they produce, and permits some industries more incentives and control to manage their production and workforce.

Proponents of engagement have long argued that these changes will dissipate the rigid communist government control over all aspects of life in the country, and over time would transform North Korea into a more rules based and open society, even if the Kim family remains in power.

While it is not clear if the sanctions will work in pressuring the North Korean leadership to give up its nuclear weapons program, it will likely make it more difficult to generate change from within.

Kim Jong Uns brand has very much been associated with economic growth and improvement of quality-of-life. If that really slows down, I worry that well see a return to the more traditional military first [type of] austerity that we saw under his fathers leadership, said Abrahamian.
Police in Congo Republic fired teargas at opposition supporters and arrested around 10 of them on Friday ahead of a planned news conference by opposition candidates who say last weekend's presidential election was won

fraudulently.

President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled the Central African oil producer for 32 of the last 37 years, won re-election in Sunday's poll with 60 percent of the vote, according to official results announced on Thursday.

Early on Friday, around 100 police officers were positioned outside of the headquarters of the opposition UPADS party in the capital Brazzaville's Diata neighbourhood, where a coalition of five candidates was expected to announce their own poll results.

A Reuters witness saw police fire at least two teargas canisters at the crowd that had gathered there and force about 10 opposition supporters into vehicles.

An opposition representative told Reuters the scheduled news conference had been cancelled.

The government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

On Wednesday, the opposition coalition denounced alleged fraud during the polls. It said that its own results showed Sassou Nguesso headed for defeat and promised to make public its own vote tallies.

Retired general Jean-Marie Mokoko, a former army chief turned opposition figure who finished third in the election, called for a campaign of civil disobedience on Thursday, potentially setting the stage for protests.

In a statement late on Thursday, the U.S. State Department advised all parties to remain calm and asked that any challenges to the results be made in compliance with Congolese law.

"The United States remains concerned about the transparency and credibility of the electoral process, including reports of irregularities, and the prolonged communications blackout," it said.

The government cut telephone and Internet communications ahead of the vote, a measure it said aimed to prevent unofficial election results circulating and causing unrest. Services were only restored on Thursday.

Congo's constitution was changed by referendum last year, lifting term and age limits that would have excluded Sassou Nguesso from running for another term in office.

At least 18 people were killed by security forces during opposition demonstrations ahead of the October referendum. Congo's election has been watched closely across Africa, where several long-ruling presidents are trying to remove constitutionally mandated term limits so that they can stay in power.
French police have arrested a man they say was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack the country.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the suspect was arrested Thursday in the Argenteuil neighborhood northwest of Paris.

He said there was "no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels."

Cazeneuve said bomb squads were on the scene and the area was under a lockdown.

France has been on high alert since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and injured hundreds. Cazeneuve said there have been 75 arrests since the beginning of the year, and 28 suspects have been jailed.
Indonesian officials say Australia is not doing enough to help refugees in the Asia-Pacific region. The criticism came this week at a regional conference on the holiday island of Bali.

It has been almost a year since hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh died in the Andaman Sea, west of Thailand, as they fled persecution.

Thousands more ended up in Indonesia where authorities say they have not been able to cope, and believe Australia has been unwilling to help.

At issue is Canberras controversial closed borders policy, called Operation Sovereign Borders, where Australian patrols tow or turn back asylum seeker vessels that approach its northern territorial waters.

Passengers on migrant boats that manage to evade interception are transported to offshore processing camps run by Australia in Papua New Guinea and the tiny island of Nauru.

Pierre Marthinus, an Indonesian political analyst, says Jakarta believes Australia is not willing to help solve the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Indonesia is very skeptical about Australias ability to actually help mitigate the impact or solve the refugee crisis itself. Australias Operation Sovereign Borders is still neither forgiven not forgotten by Indonesia, said Marthinus.

The contentious issue was one of the focal points of this weeks anti-people smuggling summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.

The Bali Process has 48 member countries and international bodies, including the U.N. Refugee Agency. It was set up more than a decade ago to help combat human trafficking and transnational crime.

At the conference, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop rejected Indonesias criticism, insisting her country has one of the most comprehensive refugee resettlement programs in the world.

Canberra offers sanctuary to 13,750 displaced people under various global accords each year. That figure is due to rise to almost 19,000 within three years.
European intelligence officials say they dont know exactly how many assassins and bombers the Islamic State terror group has trained to conduct deadly attacks in Europe like Tuesdays in Brussels. Officials fear, however, they are facing hundreds of potential assailants, either trained in camps in Syria or recruited through kinship and crime networks in Europe by returning IS volunteers.

Estimates of IS jihadists ready to carry out out attacks range from as low as 200 to up to 400. We just dont have any real precision on how many dedicated and trained operatives they have on the continent, a senior French intelligence official told VOA. The estimates in the end are guesses, the official admitted.

Last year, a smuggler on the Syrian-Turkish border claimed to U.S. news-site Buzzfeed that the terror group "had sent some 4,000 fighters to Europe. Belgian and French Intelligence officials say they doubt the figure is that high of fighters plotting attacks in Europe; but, they are acutely aware that more than 5,000 Europeans have over the last few years joined the terror group and that as they trickle back, the danger of terrorism increases exponentially.

The officials say IS is better placed to wage a sustainable and deadlier terror campaign than al-Qaida was able to manage after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

And analysts agree with that assessment.

It has many more resources, capacities and experiences compared with those of al-Qaida, according to Omar Ashour, a senior lecturer in security studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Britains University of Exeter.

These are not only demonstrated by ISIS's control of territory stretching from parts of Aleppo in Syria to parts of Salah al-Din province in Iraq, in which about 10 million people live, but also by the capacity of ISIS to strike in areas where they do not have that control, he said, using another acronym for Islamic State.

Al-Qaida has had little success with complex operations against targets in the West since 9/11. The group's highly active Arabian Peninsula branch has made several efforts to bomb Western airlines but seen them all foiled or botched. In contrast, since August 2014, IS and its affiliates have conducted at least 25 plots against Westerners, either in nearby North Africa or on European soil. Before then, it was behind just three attacks on Western targets.

The rapid increase in the tempo and complexity of IS attacks is alarming and fulfilling exactly what the group intends them for, says Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. The purpose of any of these attacks is get the headline, show the capability of the network and provoke fear among European public, he says.

Rising fear



And that fear is rising. So is the political and public clamor for a rapid fix to the lapses in the continents security services.

As the IS terror campaign has morphed abruptly from so-called lone-wolf attacks and simpler hit-and-run shooting sprees - such as the Brussels museum attack in May 2014, in which a single gunman killed four people - into coordinated assaults targeting multiple locations simultaneously involving several assailants, the opportunities for leaks increase as do the chances for electronic or human intelligence to pick up outlines of plots.

Even so, the Belgian and French security services were unable to prevent last Novembers attacks in Paris or Tuesdays deadly terrorism. It took the Belgians 125 days to capture Salah Abdeslam, who oversaw the logistics for the Paris attacks, and was wounded and apprehended after a brief shoot-out, even though he had remained holed up in a Brussels suburb.

Much of this weeks criticism of the Belgian security services has focused on perceived lapses in intelligence-sharing.

Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, the two suicide bombers at Brussels Zaventem airport, were on the terrorism watch list in the United States. Ibrahim El Bakraoui was able to skip parole after serving part of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery, leave for Syria and be deported from Turkey as a foreign terrorist fighter without Belgian authorities flagging him as an Islamic militant.

If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions, Belgians interior minister, Jan Jambon, said this week.

Intelligence sharing



As in the wake of the Paris attacks, plotted on Belgian soil, Belgium's government has vowed to overhaul the security services and improve intelligence-sharing among the countrys federal and local law-enforcement agencies divided between Flemish and French speakers and with European neighbors.

Meeting Thursday, European Union justice and interior ministers pledged, as they did before in November, to improve joint intelligence-gathering and push through measures to share airline passenger information.

The challenges dont only rest with failures in intelligence-sharing. Resources are crucial, too. All European security services are overwhelmed - short of the necessary skilled analysts needed to sift through and make sense of the huge amount of information provided by electronic data surveillance. They are also short of the intelligence manpower needed to investigate and monitor suspects.

In November, former French intelligence counterterrorism chief Louis Caprioli told the Financial Times in an interview that 18 to 20 officers were required to monitor any one terror suspect for 24 hours a day. French authorities have watch lists of 20,000 people considered to have ties in varying degrees to radical Islam. Materially, physically, you cannot keep watch on 20,000 people round the clock, he said. Using Capriolis ratio, It would need 400,000 intelligence operatives to do so.

Likewise, British intelligence has around 4,000 officers employed by the countrys domestic intelligence organization, MI5, as well as 6,000 employees at Britains electronic eavesdropping agency, GCHQ. Britain has more than 3,000 suspects on its watch list - for all to be under surveillance 24 hours a day would require up to 60,000 intelligence officers.

Belgium currently employs about 700 people in its civil intelligence service with about 800 working in military intelligence. Those intelligence officers also have to help provide security for the government and EU institutions and assess and counter other threats including a highly active Russian intelligence operation focused on NATO, analysts say.

Belgian authorities plan to hire an additional 1,000 police, prosecutors and security agents to focus on the IS threat. According to the countrys justice ministry, about 117 Belgians are estimated to have returned from fighting in Syria and to keep tabs on them them would require at least 2,340 intelligence officers, leaving no one to monitor hundreds of others on watch lists who have closely-knit kinship ties or other connections to radical Islamists.
The Kenyan government has dissolved the national school examination board and says it will arrest the nine members who authorities now say were implicated in widespread cheating last year on the university entrance exam. The scandal is engulfing the Kenya National Examinations Council.

College-age high school students in Kenya undergo a mandatory examination to determine whether they can advance to public and private universities.



Exams voided

Around half a million students take the exam every year. In 2016, the results of more than 5,000 students were voided due to cheating and other "irregularities," including exam papers being sold for $10.



There have also been unconfirmed reports that exam questions and answers were being shared over social media. In 2015, exam officials confiscated more than 30 phones that were being used during the test.



Kenya's government has ordered the arrest of officials it says were involved in the cheating.



These people are very, very much involved in what had happened in last years examination and so they will have to report, record statements and show cause why legal action should not be taken against them, said Joseph Nkaissery, the Cabinet minister for internal security, speaking to journalists Thursday.



The education minister, Fred Matiangi, said that list includes top members of the Kenya National Examinations Council which creates and administers the test.



This is the not the first time Kenya has seen cheating on national standardized tests.



There is a lot riding on these exams. Teachers point out that the need to excel pushes students, teachers and even officials to the brink.



Broader reform needed



One teacher told VOA that this vice will continue unless there is broader education reform. She asked us not to use her name for fear of repercussions at her job.



If we were to change the entire system of examining you know like you get a transcript from Form One to Form Four, but you see when we gauge a student with only one exam after four years are we being fair?," she asked. So unless we change the exam system and we start examining from Form One you know and then we give you a grade based on that we will not get anywhere.



She said the key issue is parents, and even teachers, buying leaked examination papers to help students.



President Uhuru Kenyatta has now appointed a new chairman of the exam board, George Magoha - a former University of Nairobi vice chancellor.
Uzbek and Kyrgyz border guards held their first face-to-face talks on Friday since both sides deployed troops and armored vehicles in a disputed area, Kyrgyzstan said.

The confrontation between the two ex-Soviet Central Asian republics has triggered public protests on the Kyrgyz side and President Almazbek Atambayev has accused his opponents of using the border standoff to try to destabilize the country.

Kyrgyz and Uzbek servicemen have set up two checkpoints each along a road which connects the Kyrgyz town of Kerben with Ala-Buka, a Kyrgyz village, but crosses an area which Uzbekistan has claimed as its own territory since last Friday.

"The meeting has been initiated by the Uzbek side," the Kyrgyz border service said. It gave no details on how the talks went.

The border zone is not clearly demarcated. Uzbekistan stationed two armored personnel carriers and about 40 soldiers in the area last week, prompting smaller Kyrgyzstan to send two of its own APCs and a similar number of troops.

The sides had reduced the number of deployed servicemen to about 10 on each side by Friday but the APCs remained there.

Both governments say the confrontation is taking place on their side of the frontier. But locals on the Kyrgyz side say they used to travel along the road in question until last week without having to pass any checkpoints.

Nurlan Aitmurzayev, a deputy of the local council in Kerben, said the Bishkek government had informed the council on March 18 that Ungar Too, a nearby mountain, belonged to Uzbekistan. The council has asked the government to provide legal proof.

"Ungar Too is ours, we have used this mountain for ages and we will not cede it to anyone," Aitmurzayev said. "If the government cannot protect our lands, we will do it ourselves," said Janarbek Nadyrbekov, a businessman from Kerben.

Kyrgyzstan's foreign ministry said this week Bishkek had demanded a complete withdrawal of Uzbek troops from the area and had discussed the matter with a Russia-led security bloc.

Uzbekistan has not commented on the matter since a statement run by Uzbek media a week ago. This said it had reinforced its side of the border because the frontier had been temporarily closed due to road repairs and a public holiday.
A lawyer for one of two Russian servicemen on trial in Ukraine has been found shot to death, officials said on Friday.

Yuri Grabovsky was representing Alexander Alexandrov, who was captured along with another Russian last year in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. The two men admitted they were Russian officers but Moscow said they had resigned from active duty. Russia has repeatedly denied it was supplying the separatists with equipment or recruits.



The Ukrainian National Bar Association said in a statement Friday that Grabovsky, who was declared missing earlier this month, was found dead. The group said suspects have been detained.



Hearings in the trial of the two Russians were adjourned in early March when Grabovsky did not show up in court



Anatoly Matios, chief military prosecutor, told reporters on Friday that Grabovsky's body with a gunshot wound was found in the early hours on Friday buried south of the capital Kyiv after a suspect had told prosecutors about the location. Another suspect in the killing was detained later, he said.



The prosecutor would not immediately identify the motive for the killing or reveal the names of the suspects.
Ukrainian authorities say they found the body Friday of a lawyer representing one of two Russian soldiers being tried on terrorism charges.

Yuriy Grabovsky was the defense attorney for Aleksander Aleksandrov, who was arrested last May on terrorism charges stemming from the separatist conflict in pro-Moscow eastern Ukraine. Grabovsky's body was found buried near Kyiv.

Aleksanrov and another soldier (Yevgeny Yerofeyev) were allegedly members of the Russian military last year when they crossed the border into Ukraine.

Suspects detained



Russia denies any involvement in the border crossing, and has said both the soldiers quit their special forces unit before traveling into the war zone of their own accord. The soldiers refuted the official Russian statement, and instead, said they were active soldiers at the time of the operation and had been sent into Ukraine on a reconnaissance mission.

Grabovsky disappeared March 5 and police detained two men, one of whom led investigators to Grabovskys body.

Ukraines top military prosecutor, Anatoly Matios, told reporters Friday that Grabovsky was killed in a violent way and finished off with a firearm.

According to Matios, the suspects had received a lot of money to kill Grabovsky, and went a long way to create alibis for themselves. He said Ukrainian authorities are studying the possibility of this being a specially planned operation, and that it would be in Russias interest to have the trial delayed.

Russia blames Ukraine



Russia denies involvement in the death of Grabovsky. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement Friday blaming the Ukrainian government for failing to protect the lawyer.

Despite all warnings, Kyiv authorities were still unable or unwilling to guarantee Grabovskys safety, the statement read.

Matios said the soldiers trial will continue as planned, despite the absence of Grabovsky.



Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Petro Poreshenko said he would be willing to trade the two soldiers back to Russia if Russian authorities agreed to return Ukrainians  including Nadiya Savchenko, a helicopter pilot who was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in a Russian prison for her alleged involvement in the deaths of two Russian journalists.
Like the estimated 1 million other refugees smuggled across the Mediterranean last year, Mirvat Sayegh was desperate to escape the miserable conditions that all too often characterize life as a refugee in Syrias neighboring countries.

With new moves being made to close European borders to refugees, her options had dwindled. But thanks to a new project named Mediterranean Hope, the 23-year-old has found another way of making the journey.

Her story and that of the project helping her are a boost to those who argue that new ways must be found to respond to a humanitarian crisis that grows worse each day.

Desperate circumstances

Having fled the violence of Aleppo in 2013, Sayegh and her family ended up in Lebanon, where they struggled to make ends meet. Her nephew, suffering from trauma, had stopped speaking.

Life was very difficult. There was no work and I couldnt carry on my studies, she told VOA. I was thinking that I would go by boat [to Europe] over the summer.

That was when Mediterranean Hope stepped in.

Run by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy and the Community of Sant'Egidio  recognized by the Catholic Church as a public lay association  it offered Sayegh and her family a chance of resettlement in Italy.

The offer followed months of negotiations with the Italian government that were completed in December, with Sayegh among the first of about 1,000 refugees  500 of whom will be Syrian  to be resettled in the next two years.

Travel costs for the new humanitarian corridor, which will provide routes from Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia, will be covered by partnering communities.

Nothing else like it

This is an experimental project. Theres none other like this in Europe, said Sara Manisera, a spokeswoman.

Traditionally, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees oversees resettlement, a process in which those who are deemed vulnerable can legally move to a country that has agreed to accept a certain number of refugees.

Currently, fewer than 180,000 places have been made available by countries through the UNHCRs resettlement scheme.

However, that figure pales in comparison to the overall total of 4.8 million registered Syrian refugees, and the number of those who have sought a way to Europe using smugglers.

Alternatives have to be found, said Manisera, who added that the first group of Syrians had moved to Italy within three months of the initial agreement, a turnaround considerably quicker than that achieved by UNHCR.

Private sponsorship schemes for resettlement do exist in a number of countries. Just this week, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi endorsed Canadas use of the model as one to be emulated.

But Mediterranean Hopes scope and size sets an important precedent, according to Nando Sigona, an expert in migration at the University of Birmingham.

Its a very interesting project, and important in showing how civil society can play a role in this, Sigona said.

A shifting political climate

An EU-Turkey deal, which went into effect last week, is using the mechanism of resettlement, sending refugees arriving in Greece back to Turkey in exchange for resettling Syrian refugees from Turkey in the EU.

The capping of the figure at 72,000 has led to some humanitarian agencies leaving the Aegean Islands to protest what they call an inhumane deal.

But there are signs that beyond Mediterranean Hope, others are looking for new approaches to giving refugees the chance of a new life.

Amnesty International has called for 480,000 refugees to be resettled, reflecting, it says, estimates that 10 percent of refugees fall into the "vulnerable" category.

And at the end of this month, the U.N. body is holding a ministerial-level meeting that will be looking into the issue.

Amnestys Khairunissa Dhala is cautiously optimistic but said all possible options need to be explored to encourage those who wouldnt usually be receptive to taking refugees, with the increased use of scholarships as another alternative.

The chance to study

Manisera, meanwhile, hopes that despite the political climate, the meeting will encourage more schemes like Mediterranean Hope.

At the very least, Sayegh, who made the move to Italy with 92 other Syrians last month, can now look forward to Italian lessons and a fresh start.

I want to learn as fast as possible, so I can be independent, so I can work, and so I can begin my studies again, she told VOA.

Here, I can hope.
An artificially intelligent chatbot has quickly picked up some of the worst of human traits.



Microsofts Tay robot was taken offline less than 24 hours after its launch because it was spewing racist and sexist language.



Tay, according to Microsoft, was an attempt to engage millennials 18 to 24 years old. The more you chat with Tay, the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized for you, according to a recent Microsoft post.



The idea was that the bot would generate humorous responses based on tweets and other messages it received through the apps Kik and GroupMe.



But trolls began to engage Tay on Wednesday nearly as soon as it was launched, and the bot began to use some of the racist comments in its own conversations.



The bots tweets got so bad that one newspaper dubbed Tay the Hitler-loving sex robot.



Computer scientist Kris Hammond told the Associated Press, "I can't believe they didn't see this coming."



"Everyone keeps saying that Tay learned this or that it became racist," Hammond added. "It didn't." The program most likely reflected things it was told, probably more than once, by people who decided to see what would happen, he said.



Tay tweeted roughly 96,000 times before Microsoft took it down.



"Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay's commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways," Microsoft said in a statement.



According to the Associated Press, Microsoft said it's "making adjustments" to Tay, but was unable to say if or when the bot might come back. Most of its tweets were deleted by Thursday.



Its last tweet read, c u soon humans need sleep now so many conversations today thx."


This week on the presidential campaign trail, Republican candidate Ted Cruz suggested surveiling American Muslims, citing a proactive policing program tried previously in New York City under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

That program targeted Muslim communities where authorities thought they might find terrorists after the 9/11 attacks in New York. It was highly controversial and has since been ended.

Cruz's proposal that U.S. law enforcement patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods outraged New York officials and Muslim Americans, who feel they are being treated as scapegoats in the aftermath of Tuesdays terrorist attacks in Brussels.

Cruz also criticized President Barack Obama for refusing to call evil by its name.

The president has made a practice of holding national television conferences to lecture Americans on Islamophobia, Cruz said. Enough is enough. We need a president who directs our national security, our military and our law enforcement in defeating the enemy.

Cruz, a Texas senator, added that, if elected president, he would unleash the full force of fury of the United States of America to defeat radical Islamic terrorism and to utterly destroy ISIS, an acronym for the Islamic State group.

Police chief offended

Standing beside New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in Times Square on Wednesday, New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton demonstrated how times have changed since 9/11 in 2001. He said he took great offense at Cruz's comments, especially as they related to Muslim officers within his ranks, willing to sacrifice their lives in uniform.

I have over 900 very dedicated officers in this department, many of whom do double duty. They serve as active-duty members of the U.S. military in combat, something the senator has never seen, Bratton said.

In New Yorks Boerum Hill neighborhood, Atlantic Avenue is lined with Muslim-owned bookstores, cafes, and clothing and spice stores, representing such cultures as Pakistani, Syrian and African-American Muslim. Outside the local mosque, Masjid al-Farooq, Muslim Americans also took offense at Cruzs surveillance proposal.

That's like saying all white people in America are Klansmen, which nothing could be further from the truth, said Lindsay, a New Jersey resident, referring to the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group. Point the finger at those people who are responsible. Overzealousness is a factor in any community that you go in anywhere in the world.

'Dangerous' statements

Jean, from Westchester, New York, said Democratic front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton summed up her own feelings by saying that such statements by Cruz and businessman Donald Trump were both wrong and dangerous.

Stop preaching hate, said Jean. We live here, we pay taxes, we love being here. We have doctors, nurses, schoolteachers, police officers that are Muslim. You understand? We're just trying to live a life, that's it.

Following the attack in Brussels, de Blasio reassured New Yorkers there was no evidence of a credible threat against the city, which is ramping up efforts to guard against terrorist attacks.
President Barack Obama returned to the United States after a trip to Latin America that included a stop in Argentina and a historic visit to Cuba where he met with President Raul Castro.

Obama, his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law took off on Air Force One from Buenos Aires Ezeiza International Airport and landed at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington early Friday. They returned to the White House to begin preparations for the holiday weekend, including the famous Easter egg roll.

Obama said the United States was slow to speak out on the atrocities committed during Argentina's former dictatorship but that his administration will "confront the past with honesty and transparency."

"What happened here in Argentina is not unique to Argentina and its not confined to that past," said Obama in Buenos Aires. "Each of us have a responsibility each and every day to make sure that wherever we see injustice, wherever we see rule of law flouted that we are honest witnesses, that we are speaking out, that we are examining our own hearts and taking responsibility to make this a better place for our children and our grandchildren."

Obama on Thursday visited a memorial park to victims of the so-called "Dirty War" on the 40th anniversary of the coup that installed a brutal military regime.

The president said it takes courage for a society to address "uncomfortable" truths about the "darker parts of its past."

"Confronting crimes committed by our own leaders, by our own people, that can be divisive and frustrating. But its essential to moving forward to building a peaceful and prosperous future in a country that respects the rights of all of its citizens," Obama said.

Declassified U.S. documents have shown that the United States backed the regime that human rights activists say was responsible for the death or disappearance of some 30,000 people between 1976 and 1983 - the Dirty War period.

Obama has said his administration will try to make amends by declassifying more documents which made further detail the role the United States played in the dictatorship.

Criticized for visiting on coup anniversary



Critics of the president's visit, including many who lost friends or relatives during the years under the military government, say the Obamas should not have come to Argentina on such an important anniversary. Protests linked to the anniversary were held in Buenos Aires and across the nation.

Obama was the guest of Argentina's new president, Mauricio Macri, who is intent on strengthening the strained ties between the two nations.

After being guests of honor at a state dinner Wednesday night, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended a ceremony Thursday to remember the victims of the regime at Remembrance Park in Buenos Aires.

Evidence of U.S. support for South American dictatorships has been public knowledge for more than a decade; but, the United States announced last week, at the behest of the Argentine government, that it will declassify even more military and intelligence documents linked to the Dirty War.

White House aide Ben Rhodes said last week that the president believes "moving forward in the Americas or any other part of the world involves a clear-eyed recognition of the past."

Landmark Cuba visit



The president's trip to Argentina followed a landmark visit to Cuba, the first by a sitting U.S. president in almost nine decades. During his meeting with President Castro, Obama called on the U.S. Congress to lift the decades-long trade embargo on Cuba.

Macri said Wednesday that the Obamas' visit came "at a perfect time" because, he said, "Argentines have understood and decided to build mature and reasonable relationships with every country in the world."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in talks with leaders in neighboring Pakistan has pledged to enhance bilateral trade, security and energy cooperation to move the relationship forward in the wake of the removal of international economic sanctions against Tehran.

Rouhani arrived in Islamabad Friday on a two-day visit, his first to the country since taking office and held wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The two leaders briefly spoke to reporters after the meeting and announced signing of several memoranda of understanding to further enhance bilateral cooperation, in economic and social sectors.

Our economic relations had suffered due to sanctions imposed on Iran. In our consultations today, we have reiterated our resolve to enhance the level of bilateral cooperation in diverse fields, including trade, economic and energy, Sharif said.

He added the two sides have also decided to open two new border crossings to facilitate commercial activities and people to people contacts between Pakistan and Iran.

Officials expect the Iranian presidents visit will lead to exponential growth in bilateral trade which currently stands at around $250 million a year. It is expected to increase to $5 billion in the next five years.

Energy and security

Iran has also been pushing Pakistan to expedite work on a multi-billion dollar pipeline to bring Iranian gas to the neighboring country to run power plants. Tehran says it has largely completed work on its side, but Pakistani officials blame the sanctions against Iran for preventing work on their side.

President Rouhani said that in his discussions with Pakistani interlocutors, he discussed issues related to energy and export of gas or electricity to Pakistan as well as establishing connectivity between Iran's Chabahar and Pakistans Gawadar seaports.

Speaking through an interpreter, he said that Pakistans security is important for Irans own security. Rouhani emphasized the need for enhanced joint efforts to secure the nearly 1,000-kilometer border separating the two nations.

It is the will and the resolve of the two countries to firmly combat against extremists and the terrorist groups not to allow them to threaten our shared borders, Rouhani asserted.

Rouhani went on to say that in his talks with Sharif they both agreed on the need for more cooperation between Iran and Pakistan on regional security and various issues facing the Muslim world.

And we do believe that the only solution for the regional problems and conflicts is a political one, Rouhani said in a veiled reference to Shiite Irans rivalry with the Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the prolonged conflict in Afghanistan, which shares borders with both Iran and Pakistan.

The predominantly Sunni Muslim Pakistan has traditionally close economic and political ties to the Saudi rulers and Islamabad is trying to maintain a delicate balance while promoting ties with next door neighbor Iran so it does not upset Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan, having the largest and only nuclear-armed army in the Muslim world, last year refused a Saudi request to join its anti-Houthi military coalition, saying it would not become part of any alliance against Iran. The move angered Riyadh, although Islamabad vowed to stand ready to defend Saudi Arabia against any aggression.
Backlash against a plan to remove prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans has been tinged by death threats, intimidation and even what may have been the intentional torching of a contractor's Lamborghini.

For now, at least, things have gotten so nasty the city hasn't found a contractor willing to bear the risk of tearing down the monuments.

Initially, it appeared the Civil War-era monuments would be removed quickly after the majority black City Council on Dec. 17 voted 6-1 to approve the mayor's plan to take them down. The monuments have long been viewed by many here as symbols of racism and white supremacy.

The backlash is not surprising to Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and longtime civil rights activist who's worked on behalf of a group demanding the monuments come down.

The South has seen such resistance before, during fights over school integration and efforts in the early 1990s to racially integrate Carnival parades in New Orleans.

Fighting in the courts, fighting in the legislature, anonymous intimidation,'' Quigley said. These are from the same deck of cards that are used to stop all social change.''

New Orleans is a majority African-American city, although the number of black residents has fallen since 2005's Hurricane Katrina drove many people from the city. Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who proposed the monuments' removal, rode to victory twice with overwhelming support from the city's black residents.

Nationally, the debate over Confederate symbols has become heated since nine parishioners were killed at a black church in South Carolina in June. South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds in the weeks after, and several Southern cities have since considered removing monuments.

There is no doubt that there is a huge amount of rage over the attack on Confederate symbols,'' said Mark Potok with the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that tracks extremist activity.

His group counted about 360 pro-Confederate battle flag rallies across the nation in the six months after the church shootings. Such rallies were rare before then, he said.

Ugliness, threats, outrage

In New Orleans, things have turned ugly. In early January, as it beat back legal challenges seeking to stop the removal, the city hired a contractor to remove the monuments.

But H&O Investments LLC soon pulled out of the job, citing death threats, unkindly name-calling,'' outrage on social media and the threat of other businesses canceling contracts.

One day, several protesters came while H&O workers took measurements. Some of the protesters wore materials with affiliation to white supremacy groups,'' said Roy Maughan Jr., a lawyer for the contractor.

That same day, Maughan said, a specific articulated threat'' was phoned into city authorities warning workers at the monuments to leave for their safety.

Then, on Jan. 19, a Lamborghini belonging to the owner of H&O Investments was set on fire.

The FBI and local fire investigators declined to comment. No arrests have been made.

After H&O withdrew, the city opened a public bid process to find a new contractor and things got messy again. When the names of companies interested in the work turned up on a city website, businesses were reportedly hit with emails and telephone calls denouncing their involvement.

Michel-Antoine Goitia-Nicolas is one supporter of the boycotts, making calls and joining protests on behalf of the monuments.

Our lesson in history is that when we tear down the monuments of the past, we rebuild the errors of our past,'' he said.

Just this month, a state lawmaker began pushing a bill meant to save the monuments. Legal challenges, too, are on appeal.
An investigation into two prominent Egyptian activists has renewed concerns about the ability of human rights groups to operate under the current government.

Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and Gamal Eid, founder of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, are banned from traveling abroad or accessing their assets until an April 20 hearing that will help decide if they illegally accepted foreign funding.

If found guilty, they could face up to 25 years in prison. Non-governmental organizations in Egypt are allowed to take foreign funding, but cannot use the funds for activities that undermine security.

Activists say the case against the two men is part of a renewed effort by Egyptian authorities to limit civil society. Six of Egypt's leading human rights groups face investigation and 13 NGOs said the government has questioned their workers and attempted to freeze their assets.

Restrictions on NGO operations in Egypt date back decades, but there was a renewed effort after the 2013 takeover by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The government faces security pressures from the Islamic State, as well as economic pressures after years of unrest since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution.

The minister who oversees NGOs in Egypt declined comment. In a Thursday statement, the Egyptian foreign ministry said "more than 47,000 NGO's are working in Egypt, including nearly 100 foreign NGOs who are operating freely in many fields."

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra-ad Al Hussein said, "NGOs who have played a valuable role in documenting violations and supporting victims will see their activities completely crippled if this continues."

Growing pressure for U.S. to respond

The latest round of crackdowns has prompted the Egypt Working Group, a bi-partisan effort by Washington, D.C., scholars and analysts who follow Egypt, to call for action from U.S. President Barack Obama.

In a March 23 letter, the group urges Obama to "make crystal clear to the Egyptian president that continued assaults on civil society, including harassment of U.S. organizations, will make it difficult to cooperate across a range of issues."

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has criticized the Egypt Working Group in the past, saying it aims to "spread chaos in the Middle East."

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a member of the working group, said the crackdown is due to insecurity on the part of the Egyptian government.

"Any time in Egypt we've seen a government that doesn't perform well and feels insecure about its own performance, it sometimes takes very aggressive measures to squelch debate and criticism," he said.

Katulis says the recent crackdown is one of the most extreme periods in the history of government intimidation of NGOs. He sees the case against Bahgat and Eid as one example of the problems facing NGOs in Egypt and part of "a broader shortcoming in U.S. policy which has not consistently elevated human rights on its list of concerns in a serious way."
Russia this year will deploy some of its newest missile defense systems and drones to the Kurile islands, where Moscow and Tokyo have rival territorial claims, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday.

The dispute over the islands, known as the Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, has strained the two countries relations since World War II, when Soviet forces occupied four islands at the southern end of the chain.

Moscow and Tokyo still have not signed a formal peace treaty because the dispute is so acrimonious.

The new weapons were part of a drive to rearm military units already deployed in the Kuriles, Shoigu said in comments broadcast on state TV.

"Coastal missile systems Bal and Bastion and new generation Eleron 3 drones will be deployed there this year," he said at a Defense Ministry meeting.

The Bastion is a mobile defense system armed with two anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 300 km (188 miles). It has also been deployed in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Bal anti-ship missile has a similar range.

Shoigu announced in October that Russia would build a military base on the Kurile islands.
Shakespeare's skull is likely missing from his grave, an archaeologist has concluded, confirming rumors that have swirled for years about grave-robbers and adding to the mystery surrounding the Bard's remains.

Four hundred years after his burial at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, central England, researchers were allowed to scan the grave of England's greatest playwright with ground-penetrating radar. In the area under the church floor where the Bard's skull was expected to be, they found signs of interference.

"We have Shakespeare's burial with an odd disturbance at the head end, and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone's come in and taken the skull of Shakespeare," said archaeologist Kevin Colls from Staffordshire University. "It's very, very convincing to me that his skull isn't at Holy Trinity at all."

The findings deepen the mystery about Shakespeare's last resting place.

The grave does not bear his name, merely this warning rhyme: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones."

Second skull

In their quest to find Shakespeare's skull, Colls' team also investigated a long-standing tale that it was hidden in a sealed crypt in another church 15 miles (24 kilometers) across the English countryside in Worcestershire. But analysis of that skull showed it to be that of a woman who had been in her 70s when she died.

The story of Shakespeare's missing skull appeared in The Argosy magazine in 1879, which blamed the removal on trophy hunters from the previous century when grave-robbing was common.

Skulls were worth collecting because genius, thought some at that time, would be evident in the remains of a man like Shakespeare, whose character Hamlet famously holds a skull while musing on death.

The scan of the grave where Shakespeare's remains rest next to those of his wife, Anne Hathaway, was conducted in a nonintrusive way, said the team, who will present the results in a television documentary due to air in Britain on Saturday.

"There are so many contradictory myths and legends about the tomb of the Bard," Colls said in a statement. "These results will undoubtedly spark discussion, scholarly debate and controversial theories for years to come. Even now, thinking of the findings sends shivers down my spine."
Thousands of supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held what they billed as a joint Sunni-Shi'ite prayer service Friday outside the main entrances to the government-controlled Green Zone. Sadr has given Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a Saturday deadline to carry out governmental reform and install a new Cabinet composed of technocrats instead of political loyalists.

It was the sixth consecutive Friday that supporters of Iraq's mercurial Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protested in central Baghdad to demand government reform. The mostly Shi'ite crowd chanted slogans and listened to a sermon by Sadr ally Sheikh Asad al-Nasiri.

Nasiri repeated a Sadr ultimatum to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that the Iraqi leader has until Saturday to present a new government to parliament. Nasiri also threatened to raise the stakes against lawmakers.

He says his supporters want to see the prime minister come up with convincing, new reforms, including an independent government of technocrats, with new ministers loyal to the people and not to the political parties which are battling to dominate the political arena.

Nasiri pledged to support Prime Minister Abadi if he goes ahead and presents the new government to parliament, but warned of the potential wrath of demonstrators if the legislators vote down the new administration.

A member of the parliamentary committee vetting potential candidates for the government positions told Iraqi state TV that ministers will be required to have strong experience:

He says the committee is requiring ministerial candidates to have a higher degree in their field of specialization and at least 15 years of experience, as well as a plan of action.

Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, tells VOA that he thinks authentic reform will require more than a new government of technocrats.

"The new Iraqi political system was modeled after Lebanon's. That is: a confessional political system, based on sectarian and ethnic accommodation. The political system in itself invites corruption. So, unless we deal with the political question and the future of Iraq as a nation-state, dealing with corruption is a waste of time," said Khashan.

Iraqi TV indicated that Prime Minister Abadi has spent the past 24 hours meeting with the country's top political leaders to win their approval for his new government.
Scientists announced Thursday the creation of a synthetic organism stripped down to the bare essentials with the fewest genes needed to survive and multiply, a feat at the microscopic level that may provide big insights on the very nature of life.

Genome research pioneer J. Craig Venter called the bacterial cell his research team designed and constructed the "most simple of all organisms." While the human genome possesses more than 20,000 genes, the new organism gets by with only 473.

"This study is definitely trying to understand a minimal basis of life," Venter said. But the researchers said that even with such a simple organism, that understanding remained elusive.

They noted that even though their organism has so few genes, they were still uncertain about the function of nearly a third of them, even after more than five years of work.

The researchers predicted their work would yield practical applications in developing new medicines, biochemicals, biofuels and in agriculture.

"Our long-term vision has been to design and build synthetic organisms on demand where you can add in specific functions and predict what the outcome is going to be," said Daniel Gibson, vice president for DNA technologies at Synthetic Genomics, the company handling commercial applications from the research. "I think it's the start of a new era," Venter added.

Venter helped map the human genome in 2001 and created the first synthetic cell in 2010 with the same team that conducted the new research.

That 2010 achievement, creating a bacterial organism with a manmade genome, demonstrated that genomes can be designed on a computer, made in a laboratory and transplanted into a cell to form a new, self-replicating organism.

Having created that synthetic cell, the researchers set out to engineer a bacterium by removing unessential genes. The goal was to use the fewest genes necessary for the organism to live and reproduce.

Venter said initially "every one of our designs failed" because they took out too many genes, and had to restore some.

Orchestra, not piccolo player

Venter said one lesson was that to understand life, it is more important to look across the entirety of a genome  an organism's complete genetic blueprint  rather than at individual genes.

"Life is much more like a symphony orchestra than a piccolo player. And we're applying the same philosophy now to our analysis of the human genome, where we're finding most human conditions are affected by variations across the entire genome" rather than a single gene, Venter said.

The researchers said they created a minimal cell possessing the smallest genome of any self-replicating organism. They said a cell with even fewer genes could be possible although it might, for example, reproduce excruciatingly slowly.

Microbiologist Clyde Hutchison of the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla California, lead author of the study in the journal Science, said the goal is to figure out the functions of all the cell's genes and make a computer model to predict how it would grow and change in different environments or with additional genes.

"It's important to realize there is no cell that exists where we know the functions of all the genes," Hutchison said.

The environmental group Friends of the Earth expressed concern about the research, citing the lack of government regulations specific to synthetic biology and gene editing technologies.

"Living organisms like bacteria are not machines to be rewired," said Dana Perls, an official of the group. "Not even the scientists know the biological function of 149 of these genes, which raises safety concerns. If we don't fully understand the science, it is more difficult to manage biosafety concerns."

The research might shed light on the origins of life on Earth billions of years ago.

"We may be getting hints of some early fundamental mechanisms that coincide with some of the most primitive kind of life forms," Venter said.

"I think as we get the ability to explore further in the universe, my view is wherever we have the same chemical constituents, which is almost everywhere, life will happen," Venter said. "But that's a philosophical point until it's proven."
Taliban suicide bombers have assassinated a senior army general and his bodyguard in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, Afghan officials said Friday.

Three gunmen with explosives strapped to their bodies entered the home of General Khan Agha in the Dand district disguised as guests late Thursday.

The gunmen opened fire before blowing themselves up or being killed in a firefight with security forces, regional Corps Commander General Dawood Shah Wafadar told VOA.

The deadly overnight attack also left a teenaged son of the slain general seriously wounded.

Wafadar said Agha, the deputy head of 205th Atal Military Corps for civilian affairs, routinely received guests at his residence.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with a spokesman saying two of its suicide bombers participated in it and 10 Afghan security personnel, including Agha, were killed while many others were wounded.

The insurgent group often gives inflated casualty figures in such attacks.

Separately, at least seven police officers were killed in a suspected insider attack in Kandahar's Arghandab district. Officials said the slain members of the Afghan Local Police, or ALP, were asleep when three of their colleagues sprayed them with bullets and fled the scene along with the victims' weapons and ammunition.



The ALP is a community policing system established about six years ago to protect villages and remote districts around Afghanistan because of the insufficient presence of army and police forces there.

The Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility, with a spokesman saying the assailants were its loyalists and returned to the insurgent ranks after carrying out the attack.
A Turkish judge on Friday adjourned until April 1 the trial of two journalists facing charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization with their reports on alleged government arms smuggling to Syria.

Cumhuriyet newspaper editor-in-chief Can Dundar and his Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul, face 30 years behind bars if found guilty. Their case has generated international interest as a test of press freedom and has provoked alarm among Turkeys Western allies and human rights groups.

Dundar and Gul were arrested in November after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan filed a personal complaint against them. The journalists were held in pretrial detention for three months. After Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled in February that their rights had been violated, they were released.

In a controversial move, however, the lower criminal court that convened Friday in Istanbul continued with the case, and the judge ordered the trial to be held behind closed doors in response to a request by the prosecutor, who cited security concerns related to the case.

The courthouse was packed with supporters of the two journalists as well as members of human rights groups and senior Western diplomats. When opposition lawyers and politicians refused to leave the court, the judge adjourned the trial.

The journalists are accused of revealing state secrets by publishing images, dating to January 2014, of trucks bound for Syria. The newspaper said these proved Turkey was smuggling arms into Syria.

Since then, Erdogan has acknowledged that the trucks  which were stopped by Turkish gendarmes and police officers en route to the Syrian border  belonged to the intelligence agency. Erdogan said they were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria, fighting both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State group.

Turkey also has alleged that the reporters aided an Islamic movement headed by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, an opponent of Erdogan.

Embarrassment to president

Kadri Gursel of the Al Monitor website said the reports by Dundar and Gul embarrassed the president and his government, especially the release of police video showing the interception of the alleged arms shipment.

"The news story is a story which reveals the hidden face or illegitimate face of Turkeys Syria policy," Gursel said. "We know that Erdogan has made this case a personal vendetta for him and wants them to be put in jail."

As he entered the courthouse Friday, Dundar told reporters that in prosecuting the case, the government was trying to create a mechanism of self-censorship. But he said he and his colleague had done nothing wrong in reporting the facts.

We defended [the journalism], and we got arrested, you know, Dundar said.

Emma Sinclair Webb, a senior Turkey researcher for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, called the case "one of the most flawed prosecutions weve seen in recent years. It shows that the judiciary is on its knees. There is no such thing as a fair trial. There is no such thing as a fair process. And the decision to hold the whole trial in secret  it means the public will not be allowed to scrutinize the judicial process and what happens in the court and how the evidence is discussed. The press won't be able to write about it."

Turkey has a poor human rights record and a history of pressing charges linked to the content of journalists' reports. In the last few months, several newspapers and television stations critical of the government have been seized by courts, while journalists are facing growing prosecutions under legislation that forbids insulting the president.
A car bomb attack in southeast Turkey has killed three soldiers.

The military says 24 soldiers were wounded when the Kurdistan's Workers Party, or PKK, attacked the military post in Lice late Thursday.

Turkey says more than 1,000 militants have been killed in the largely Kurdish southeast since a PKK cease-fire collapsed in July.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said more than 300 members of the security forces have died, while the pro-Kurdish opposition says hundreds of civilians have also been killed.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union.
Gambira has suffered more than most political activists in Myanmar.

Arrested for his prominent role in a monk-led pro-democracy uprising in 2007, dubbed the Saffron Revolution, soldiers beat him so severely, he said, he sustained brain damage and has endured post-traumatic stress disorder and delusions ever since.

Days before the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, forms Myanmar's first fully elected civilian government in half a century, Gambria is among hundreds of activists who find themselves still behind bars.

Human rights monitors say there has been an escalation in threats and harassment by military-aligned authorities in the run up to Myanmar's highly-anticipated transfer of power. And legal experts warn that the incoming government will face serious obstacles in securing the activists' freedom.

Gambira, whose real name is Nyi Nyi Lwin, was sentenced to 68 years in prison by the military junta, but freed in a general amnesty in January 2012.

At the time Myanmar was just beginning its political reforms and his release along with some thousand other prisoners of conscience was touted as evidence of the country's dramatic change.

But despite a pledge by President Thein Sein to free all political prisoners, a new report by Amnesty International says that since 2014, "the authorities have intensified their crackdown on basic freedom and dissent."

"The authorities have resorted to tried and tested tactics to silence dissent," said Laura Haigh, a Myanmar Researcher at Amnesty International. "I think what's really worrying is how that's continued even after the [November] election  for me that raises serious concerns about whether the entrenched establishment is really willing to cede power."

Freed, then arrested again

Although Gambira had a number of run-ins with the authorities after his release from prison, he had been living in relative peace with his wife in northern Thailand, where he was seeking medical treatment for his psychological trauma. From time to time, the former monk spoke to the media about ongoing human rights abuses in Myanmar, including the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a passport from the embassy in Thailand and failing to process an asylum application through the United Nations, the couple decided to risk returning to Myanmar in January.

"I didn't want to go but he thought that it would be OK. There is a new government coming in' he told me," explained his wife Marie Siochana. "When we arrived in [Gambira's hometown] Meiktila, the [police] were waiting for us."

He was accused of unlawfully entering the country and charged under Myanmar's archaic immigration law, which carries a five year jail term. According to Siochana, they crossed the Thai-Myanmar border through an official border point and had all the necessary documents. In the weeks before he crossed, friends had spotted wanted posters of the former activist.

Despite his well-documented health issues, the judge has repeatedly denied him bail.

"They probably saw that he had a good life and that he was happy and wanted to make him suffer more," said Siochana.

There are at least 90 political prisoners in Myanmar and hundreds more awaiting trial, according to monitoring groups. Many are young students arrested for staging peaceful protests against a controversial education law last year, with organizer Phyoe Phyoe Aung risking nine years in jail. The government has maintained that people are being prosecuted in accordance with the law.

"It is very complicated between freedom of expression and rule of law. According to our existing laws some activities are restricted," said Zaw Htay, director of the President's Office in Myanmar. "All governments have to maintain stable law and order It is not just a political issue but a legal issue."

Change in tactics

But Amnesty International says the authorities have adapted their tactics since the introduction of a reform-era law on peaceful assembly to boost jail terms. This includes prosecuting activists under multiple statutes or trying them for the same offense in several townships. At his last hearing, prosecutors implied that Gambira may also be charged for alleged immigration offenses dating back to 2013  a move that could potentially double his sentence.

Despite the NLD's resounding victory in general elections last year, the military continues to exert substantial political power and controls a quarter of all seats in parliament. Both the Home Affairs ministry and the police force will continue to be led by members of the armed forces.

Activists have called on the incoming government to amend or abolish a tangle of authoritarian laws that can easily be used to quash dissent.

"The immigration law has been used many times to arrest peaceful activists," added Haigh. "As long as [these laws] are there on the books, the authorities can and will find any reason to arrest you if they want to and that's definitely what happened in the case of Gambira."

Gambira's lawyer, Robert San Aung, who describes his trial as a "revenge case," worries the NLD will face confrontations with the military.

Under Myanmar's constitution, presidential amnesties can only be granted in cooperation with the military-dominated National Defense and Security Council, and individual pardons only become applicable once a person has been sentenced. Dozens of student activists have been awaiting trial since early last year.

"The government views these people as their enemies," said Robert San Aung, speaking outside Gambira's court hearing in Mandalay. "They are holding grudges. They can't easily forgive and forget."

Pressure from the international community appears to have waned since Aung San Suu Kyi swept the polls in historic elections in November.

"We need to put pressure on the Commander in Chief [Min Aung Hlaing] and the armed forces to stop human rights violations across the country," said Bo Kyi, Joint Secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), adding that political reform will be impossible without the military's cooperation.

When contacted by VOA, a spokesperson for the NLD declined to comment on their strategy for releasing political prisoners, even though Aung San Suu Kyi has insisted it will be one of her top priorities.

"I can't answer about this subject because the [current] government is not finished yet. After the new government [takes over] we will speak about this subject," said Central Executive Committee member Nyan Win. "There are so many issues about political prisoners  who are political prisoners, what's the situation for political prisoners  so many things we have to think [about] so right now we can't say anything."

Yet Gambira is optimistic that he will be freed once the NLD takes power. "I expect the new government will bring real democracy to Burma."
The United States and Russia are calling for the drafting of a new Syrian constitution by August. They have also agreed to push both the Syrian government and the opposition to free all political prisoners, especially those who are vulnerable.

After a four hour meeting in Moscow on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that U.S.-Russian cooperation had been instrumental in achieving an unexpectedly successful cessation of hostilities in war-torn Syria. Kerry said that he was aware of violations of the cease-fire but that they were being carefully monitored.

Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a late-night joint press conference at the Kremlin after Thursday's lengthy talks, and there were some awkward moments. Some stark disagreements became apparent, but both Kerry and Lavrov assured reporters that Washington and Moscow were committed to establishing a more permanent peace in Syria, increasing the flow of humanitarian aid and launching a political transition.

Asked by a U.S. reporter at the news conference whether he thought America was a partner in fighting terrorism or a part of the problem, Lavrov said he thought the U.S. helped to create conditions conducive to terrorism in Afghanistan, Libya and parts of the Middle East. Lavrov said some current politicians in America have been saying the same thing.

For his part, Kerry condemned five years of "unimaginable" carnage by Russias close ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and said Putin had now decided to withdraw some Russian forces because he had re-established Assads hold on power with the intervention. Kerry added that it was reprehensible that the Syrian regime was stealing medical supplies out of relief shipments.

Kerry also called on Russia to release jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, sentenced by a Russian court to 22 years in prison this week. Lavrov did not make any pledge to do so.

Scope of talks

Kerry and Lavrov said the talks with Putin were wide-ranging, with Syria being the dominant issue, but with Ukraine, Yemen, Libya, North Korea and other topics also being discussed.

On Ukraine, Kerry said the U.S. was holding firm on its position on the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people and of Crimea, which Russia annexed two years ago. Both men backed the implementation of the Minsk agreements, calling for a political solution to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Kerry, Putin and Lavrov discussed Tuesdays terrorist attacks in Brussels. Kerry is headed to Brussels early Friday to demonstrate that America stands with the people of Belgium against terrorists.

During short remarks before their talks began, Putin welcomed Kerry with praise for U.S. leadership in Syria: "We are aware that the groundwork we have on Syria has only been possible by the supreme political leadership of the United States, specifically by the leadership of President Obama."

Kerry said that cooperation between the United States and Russia had made it possible for Syrians to taste and smell what it means to have a reduction of violence and a resumption of some humanitarian aid deliveries after five years of bloodshed.

Kerry said to Putin: "Mr. President, I know you have ideas, and you've already made a very critical decision with respect to a drawdown of forces in Syria. We obviously also have ideas on how we can now, most effectively, make progress in the United Nations talks in Geneva."
China has vowed to tighten its regulation of locally-made vaccines to ensure their usefulness, after a recent scandal exposed regulatory loopholes.



The scandal involved the illegal sale of $47.6 million worth of improperly-refrigerated vaccines, which might have been administered to millions of children in 24 Chinese provinces since 2011, according to the countrys food and drug watchdog.



Authorities have filed 69 criminal cases against the alleged drug ring and the police have arrested more than 130 suspects, including the mastermind, a woman surnamed Pang from the northeastern province of Shandong.



Pang had been convicted for similar crimes, but was given a suspended sentence, which allowed her to re-offend, according to the nations top prescription drug regulator.



Regulatory weakness

Li Guoqing, head of the nations Food and Drug Administration told a news conference late Thursday that the tainted vaccines, including those used to prevent meningitis, rabies and other diseases, were legitimate, although they might have lost their potency after being stored improperly.

A huge amount of vaccines had been circulated through illegal channels for such a long time, which the regulator had failed to uncover soon. This means that certain loopholes do exist in our regulatory work, he said.

Li has vowed to close the loopholes, but failed to elaborate how his administration plans to tackle the challenge of not having enough people to do its job.



He added his organization is equipped with fewer than 500 certified drug inspectors to oversee the nations more than 5,000 vaccine makers, 400,000 retailers and 200,000 inoculation units.



The regulator has put less of its strength on the transportation and storage [of vaccines] than that on their production. That has created room for irregularities, said Wang Yuedan, deputy director of Peking University's immunology department.



But I expect the regulation to toughen up after the incident, the professor said, urging the government to facilitate an electronic identification system for end users to reconfirm the safety of their own vaccines before administering.

According to the regulator, the future distribution of such discretionary vaccines will be included and monitored under the provincial platform, where mandatory vaccines are distributed with transparency before they are administered free-of-charge.



Minimal safety risk



Wang also agreed with the assurances made by Li, who said the tainted vaccines should have posed minimal risk to the receivers, citing information from the World Health Organization (WHO).



On Tuesday, WHO released a statement saying [an] improperly stored or expired vaccine seldom, if ever, causes a toxic relation  therefore there is likely to be minimal safety risk in this particular situation. Rather, the risk to children from administering expired or improperly stored vaccine is lack of protection from the disease for which the vaccine was intended, the statement added.

Wang urged the government to fully track the whereabouts of tainted vaccine soon, so that parents can continue to protect their children from vaccine preventable diseases.



Public outcry



Already, the scandal has reawakened longstanding concerns among the public over the safety of food and medicine in China.



One angry Weibo user called the government a bastard after the regulator appeared to show complacency about the fact that most tainted vaccines were administered to people in remote agricultural villages.



Another mother from Fujian province expressed her worries, writing my one-year-old was just given a shot of vaccine Im so troubled.

Many others were reminded of the governments tendency to cover up such issues.



Weibo user Chen Youxi said two journalists, Bao Yueyang and Wang Keqin from the China Economic Times, were removed from their jobs in 2010 after they exposed how a major failure to refrigerate vaccine had caused the death of four children and sickened 74 others in Shanxi province.



In 2016, the [truth about the] vaccines has finally prevailed. China, when will you wake up? he asked.



Moreover, on the freeweibo.com, the scandal has become the top-trending censored topic.



One user posted a scanned picture of the front-page headline of the Beijing Evening News from late 2014, which read Our [Communist] Party rules China. If it continues to do poorly in food safety, many will question whether it is qualified to rule.
Attacks on civilians in the Beni region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have killed at least 550 people in the past 18 months. Congolese officials have placed the blame on the Allied Democratic Forces, characterized as a Ugandan Islamist movement, but a report from the Congo Research Group says it may not be that simple.

Jason Stearns, lead author of the report, agreed that the ADF was partly responsible but said the group was not working alone.

The first conclusion [is] that the ADF is not really what people make it out to be," he said. "Its not this foreign Islamist force; its a force that is much more rooted in local society. And the second conclusion is that its not just the ADF but also others who are involved in the massacres.

Researchers spent six months interviewing more than 100 people, including survivors of the attacks.

The report cites various sources who accuse local militias and members of the Congolese military. It says it's alleged that in some cases, men were promised up to $250 for each person they killed.

As to who might have been paying them and why, Stearns said his group was still working on that and had reached no conclusions.

Arrests for inaction

The authorities have arrested some individuals in the military for failing to take action against the ADF, but not specifically for involvement in the massacres, Stearns said.

Since the beginning of the massacres, there have been a few, I would say, very few arrests of individuals, mostly for inaction rather than complicity," he said. "I do not believe any of them have been found guilty or that their trials have gone through to their conclusion.

Local human rights groups suspect there may have been high-level complicity. Lewis Saliboko, an activist in Oicha, near Beni, said authorities couldn't say that all the crimes were the work of the ADF alone. There was a sort of complicity, he alleged, because the ADF was able to operate with impunity.

Saliboko and other local people said the killings sometimes happened close to military camps, but that soldiers ignored pleas to intervene and the killers walked away.

Since mid-2015, the Congolese army has taken a more aggressive stance, and there has been increased fighting between soldiers and armed groups sometimes described as "presumed ADF."

A leader of civil society groups in the territory, Teddy Kataliko, said a thorough investigation was needed. He said the groups were calling on the Congolese government to go beyond the military approach and create a strong intelligence service so that the killers networks could be dismantled and those collaborating with them brought to justice.
Fifty-one Yazidi women and children were released this week by Islamic State (IS) after a prisoner exchange by Kurdish forces in Syria, reports and local activists said.

The former IS prisoners were returned home to the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq where they were kidnapped by militants nearly 19 months ago, ex-prisoners told a Kurdish news agency, Roj News.

I have talked to some of them yesterday, said Dawud Sheik Kalo, a Yazidi fighter near the Sinjar area. There are in safety right now.

Watch: Yazidi women and children after being freed by IS.

He told VOA that this was the third wave of Yazidi civilians released just in March. The other two waves have not been confirmed.

We were kept in Tal Afar [in Iraq] for nine months, a woman ex-prisoner told the Kurdish news agency. Then we were taken to Syria. We stayed there for 11 months, she said.

Yazidis Traded For Two IS Commanders

The release of Yazidis came after a prisoner exchange between the Kurdish YPG forces and IS fighters in Syria. Local news reports say two IS commanders were exchanged for their release.

When contacted by VOA, a YPG spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

We know YPG was involved in the exchange. We just dont have enough details about it, Kalo told VOA by phone.

The U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria have conducted similar exchanges with the terror group in the past, he said. The newly freed women said entire families were taken by the extremist group after the Sinjar onslaught that had begun in August 2014.

My family and I were taken hostage by Daesh, said a teenage Yazidi using the Arabic name for IS.

After we got to Syria, they separated the men from us, she added.

Thousands of Yazidis were slaughtered and abducted by IS in Sinjar and surrounding areas after militants took over large swathes of northern Iraq, rights groups say. Many Yazidi women and girls were used as sex slaves by IS members, activists and human rights groups say.

Last week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry determined that atrocities committed by the IS militants in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide, including [atrocities against] Yazidis, Christians and Shi'ite Muslims, Kerry told reporters.

Sinjar, the main heartland of Yazidis in Iraq, was liberated from IS last year by Kurdish Peshmerga forces, supported by the U.S.-led coalition.
Villagers in Manicaland provinces Mutasa district, say they are facing serious hunger in an area where food is allegedly being distributed along political lines.

Mutasa resident Lynette Mudehwe, who is also a human rights activist, says people are in desperate need of food.

Mutasa district is severely affected by the drought owing to poor rains and there is no food, and the people are in need of it from the government and other partners that can chip in at this critical time.

She adds that the little food aid being distributed by the government and relief agencies is only benefiting individuals allegedly linked to the ruling party.

Well, the distribution of food is being done along party political lines. The hierarchy is that from the DA (District Administrator) and the PA (Provincial Administrator) all that are political appointees as the government is power, is the one that does all the distribution. The people that are given the food are members of that (ruling) party in power alone.

These allegations were neither confirmed nor denied by the ruling party. President Mugabe recently said no Zimbabwean should be denied food for political reasons.

Another villager, Edwin Sigauke, insists that state food is being distributed only to Zanu PF supporters, adding that this amounts to corruption.

Hunger is deep-rooted and the way food is distributed  only a few bags of the maize grain are given to many people to share and I see this problem not ending until it is addressed by the powers that be.

Miriam Dube, who also lives in Mutasa district, says some villagers are now trading their livestock for maize grain in Honde Valley where the food situation is under control.

Honde Valley lies in agro-ecological region one while some parts of the drought ravaged Manicaland province are in the least productive natural region five.

Some villagers like Winnet Samanga, are now also competing for food with baboons that are constantly sneaking into households to grab the little grain sourced by local people.

She adds that hunger is forcing some hungry women and girls to engage in prostitution. The plight of the people is being made worse by the prying animals taking away the chickens and getting our grain. We have had a situation where prostitution has risen in the past few months in the communities as people are desperate to make earns meet.

Manicaland Provincial Affairs Minister, Mandi Chimene, recently told journalists in Mutare that the government would ensure that no citizen us going to starve, but the situation on the ground looks almost getting out of control.

Local parliamentarians and school headmasters say large numbers of students are dropping out of school while others faint in classes due to hunger.

Other areas affected by the devastating drought fueled by the El Nino weather phenomenon are Buhera, Chimanimani, Chipinge and Nyanga communal lands.
World Vision has called for more funding to address food shortages in Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe.

Villagers in Manicaland provinces Mutasa district say they are facing serious hunger in an area where food is allegedly being distributed along political lines. President Robert Mugabe has said no-one should be denied food along political lines.

Some experts say Zimbabwes constitution is inadequate in addressing President Robert Mugabes succession. They argue that with serious factionalism ravaging Zanu PF, the Speaker of Parliament can end up with several nominees for the presidential post if President Mugabe is incapacitated or dies in office.

Zimbabwe sungura music guru Alick Macheso has once again sent the nation talking proving that he is not a spent force after releasing a scorching album, Tsoka Dzerwendo, which is on course of breaking all records after selling over 100,000 copies on its first day of release.

The Zimbabwe Warriors clash with Swaziland today in the Africa Cup of nations qualifiers.

Stay tuned for these stories and more coming up on Studio 7 at 7:30 pm on 9-0-9 Medium Wave and on the 4-9-3-0, 5-9-4-0 and 1-5-4-6-0 shortwave frequencies. We also broadcast on www.channelzim.net. Please check us out on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter.

Tonight on Livetalk our hosts will be talking with listeners and experts about Easter. Participate by sending your messages on our WhatsApp number 001 202 465 0318. The number again 001 202 465 0318. Stay tuned!!!!!!
Zimbabwe joined other nations on Thursday in commemorating world TB day, which is designed to raise public awareness of tuberculosis and ways of preventing and treating the disease.

According to the Herald newspaper, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease has spent about $18 million in the past five years to support TB programs in Zimbabwe.

Other organizations engaged in tackling TB in the nation include the United Nations Development Program and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Tuberculosis is a deadly and infectious bacterial disease that kills millions of people annually, and health organizations are using this years commemorations to call on everyone to unite to end TB.

According to UNAIDS, when HIV weakens a persons immune system this creates a greater susceptibility to TB infection. The disease is very difficult to diagnose and more complicated to treat in people who are HIV positive.

Algerian-based, Zimbabwean junior doctor, Chipo Chatukuta, says not much is known about the deadly nature of TB compared HIV/AIDS.

Very few people understand the gravity of this disease because most people know that it can be cured, it can be treated, it can be prevented, she said. People take HIV more seriously because they know its a disease that cannot be cured.

She says the community and other corporate organizations can support TB initiatives to end the epidemic through collaborative efforts with health institutions.

TB patient, 53-year-old Annie Chitamba, says she finds it embarrassing to explain to people her condition, and that life has become difficult for her.

Sometimes its embarrassing to have to explain to everyone, Chitamba, who has three children, said. Its difficult for me, its just a change of life  Life is a real challenge, I have been lying down for three months, I cant work, and because I cant work like I used to, its hard to even provide basics for myself like food. The medication I needs food.

Chitamba said, Families should support those with TB, and be patient with them. We need your support and we need your love. And for those with TB like me, be strong and do not give up, you will make it.

In a message to mark World TB Day, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said, this is a time to urge action to stop tuberculosis, a disease which still kills an appalling 4,000 people every day.

He said the man-made multi-drug resistant strain and its even more lethal form, extensively drug-resistant TB, are both spreading.

If we are to prevent a virtually untreatable tuberculosis epidemic, we must tackle the roots of the problem: poor services, poor supplies, poor prescribing and poor use of drugs. That is why the theme of this years Day is I am Stopping TB. This is a fight that can be won only with the collective commitment of millions of individuals -- donors and researchers, doctors and health care workers, patients and family members.

He thanked a broad coalition of partners working to stop TB saying the proportion of people who become ill with the disease is slowly falling. But this progress, he said, is not keeping pace with population growth, so more and more people are becoming infected with tuberculosis.

The World Health Organization recently issued a report painting a grim picture of the spread of drug-resistant TB in a number of countries. Tuberculosis is more deadly when it intersects with the HIV epidemic.

We must intensify the global response in order to save lives. The United Nations will convene a global leaders HIV/TB Forum this June in an effort to boost our collective capacity to drive down HIV-associated TB deaths. In this effort, we can draw inspiration from a number of African countries which have shown that it is possible to scale-up services that reach out and screen TB patients for HIV, screen HIV-infected people for TB and initiate care.

Rwanda, for example, provides HIV screening for more than three quarters of all people in TB care settings. Kenya and Malawi have also made major strides.

He said these impressive advances are the result of the efforts of individuals. According to the UN secretary general, I am stopping TB is not just the theme for this Day, but a pledge we must uphold as we battle the epidemic throughout the year and into the future.
Some experts say Zimbabwes constitution is inadequate in addressing President Robert Mugabes succession.

They argue that with serious factionalism ravaging the former liberation movement, the Speaker of Parliament can end up several nominees for the presidential post if President Mugabe is incapacitated or dies in office.

While the position of the succession of the President may appear clear in terms of the constitution, experts say divisions and serious infighting the ruling Zanu PF party could lead to a chaotic succession process if he dies, resigns or is removed from office

According to section 101 of the Constitution, if the president dies, resigns or is removed from office, the first vice president assumes office as president until the expiry of the former presidents term.

This section is, however, suspended until 2023. According to the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which covers the first 10 years of the constitution, if a president dies, resigns or is removed from office, the vice-president who was last nominated to act as president automatically becomes acting president for 90 days.

During the period, the ruling party must nominate a person to become President after the 90 days.

According to the Sixth Schedule Section 14, subsection 5, a political party which is entitled to nominate a person in terms of subparagraph (4) (b) must notify the Speaker of the nominees name within 90 days after the vacancy occurred in the office of the president, and thereupon the nominee assumes office as president after taking the oath of president in terms of Section 94, which oath the nominee must take within 48 hours after the Speaker was notified of his or her name.

University of Zimbabwe law lecturer, Professor Lovemore Madhuku, says the constitution is problematic because it doesnt define what Zanu PF or the ruling party is.

He says given the divisions in Zanu PF, the Speaker could end up having many nominees for the post of president.

The only problem which the constitution creates is that it doesnt define who the ruling party is, it doesnt says it must be the executive committee of that party, leader or congress so you can actually receive hundreds of letters, says Madhuku.

He says that allows the other contestants to approach the courts either to block that person from being sworn in or challenge that persons ascendency to office.

Douglas Mwonzora, opposition Movement for Democratic Change, secretary- general, who is a lawyer and one of the drafters of the constitution, admits that they never anticipated that the appointment of a substantive president could be rendered impossible by dysfunctional factional politics.

What we did not foresee when we were drafting the constitution is a situation where the party which is ruling is divided into two or more factions which are equally powerful. The question is which function supplies the name for example the G40 (Generation 40) may supply a name and then the next minute the Lacoste team supplies an name, the drafters of the constitution did not envisage that situation, says Mwonzora.

Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum director, Lloyd Kuvheya, says clearly points to chaotic succession process.

For me really, if the president does not control, factionalism, the infighting that is currently going on within his party, we are going to have chaos on our hands especially if the president in no longer in power as a result of death, says Kuvheya.

Professor Madhuku, concurs, adding that the best way for the country would be amend the constitution as soon as possible. He says that when the president dies there is an acting president and Zimbabwe goes to a by-election to elect a substantive president.

Mwonzora shares the same sentiment saying its not too late and Zimbabweans must make this a top priority.

The public should agitate for a clear succession plan and this can be done through an act of parliament which clarifies a grey constitutional area is not unconstitutional. So, there must an act of parliament now which deals with a situation where the supply of a President by a factious party is impossible, says Mwonzora said.

But Zanu PF member who worked with Mwonzora in drafting the constitution, Paul Mangwana, says Zanu PF is one party and there was no way it would provide many candidate for the presidency.

Zanu PF activist, Oswald Tapona, while admitting the current factional fighting in the ruling party, believes there will be a smooth transition.

The Constitution is clear, it says that if the president dies or is incapacitated, the last acting president will take over will take over for 90 days then the concerned party, in this case Zanu PF will hold a congress where they will chose their candidate to represent the party, so in this case Zanu PF is one there wont be any problem, says Tapona.

But whichever way it goes, political commentator and Media Centre director Ernest Mudzengi, says the succession process will be manipulated especially by the military.

As I see it the person who may have been the last acting president may actually take advantage and consolidate power in this current scenario, he says.

But Kuvheya believes that the military is unlikely to do anything to upset the structure of power.

Two southern African countries, Zambia on two occasions, and Malawi have witnessed smooth successions following the death of sitting presidents.

Zimbabwe has had one leader, President Mugabe, since independence from British rule in 1980.
Two new projects focus on using cover crops to better manage nitrogen fertilizer
Azealia Banks. Photo: John Sciulli/2014 Getty Images

Azealia Bankss much-anticipated Slay-Z mixtape dropped unexpectedly via social media Thursday, following the release of a couple singles and an even more surprising Twitter hiatus. Hey Guys, so i recently fired my engineer because every time i came to the studio he was under the influence and hes spitefully leaking slay-z, but guess what, she explained in a now-deleted tweet. YOU GUYS GET SLAY-Z NOWWWWWW YAAAAAAAY !!!!! Yay, indeed: The free tape, which includes Rick Ross (Big Talk) and Nina Sky (Riot), features eight tracks total. Fans will recognize the already-pushed Big Big Beat and Used to Being Alone, and can expect a diverse amalgam of dance-inducing numbers with the other six, especially QOC.

Heres the current download link (cover art available here, but NSFW):

Honestly guys, someone started leaking Slay-Z and i wanted it to come from my hand. don't be so hard on me. an iTunes link is coming.  AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) March 24, 2016

And the full track list:

The track listing is: 1. RIOT 2. SKYLAR DIGGINS 3. BIG TALK 4. CAN'T DO IT LIKE ME 5. THE BIG BIG BEAT 6. USED TO BEING ALONE 7. QOC  AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) March 24, 2016

8. ALONG THE COAST.  AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) March 24, 2016

Reminder that "Along the Coast" is a prelude to whats to come from Fantasea II the second wave...  AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) March 24, 2016

As Banks said, enjoy (finally).

The video for "The Big Big Beat" will be released with the iTunes link. Hang Tight Babies!  AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) March 24, 2016
Photo: Warner Bros

Note: This post discusses a very early scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Spoilers about that scene follow.

When director Zack Snyder began to establish the DC Comics movie universe with 2013s Man of Steel, comic-book purists blanched at his vision of a Superman who would not only kill if necessary, but would also allow thousands of innocent people to die while fighting a supervillain. Snyders follow-up, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is no less brutal: The first few scenes of the film are filled with casualties, from Bruce Waynes parents (gunned down, once more, in slow motion) to the Metropolis citizens who perished during Supermans climactic Man of Steel battle, replayed here from Bruce Waynes man-on-the-street perspective.

Still, the films most startling death is one that goes by in a flash, and if you arent paying close attention, youll miss why its so provocative.

Not long after Bruce Waynes grim introduction, we catch up with Man of Steels Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who has traveled to Africa to interview a suspected terrorist. Shes accompanied by a photographer (played by The OCs Michael Cassidy), but while Lois is busy peppering the terrorist with questions, a henchman confiscates the shutterbugs camera, exposes the roll of film, and finds a tracking device hidden deep inside the camera. That surprise prompts another reveal  the photographer admits that hes actually a CIA agent using Loiss trip to gather secret intel  and, quickly, the entire encounter goes south: The terrorist becomes enraged, Lois is taken hostage, and the photographer-cum-secret-agent is executed with a point-blank gunshot to the head.

Thats about it for Cassidys character, whos never identified by name  until the closing credits, when eagle-eyed audience members may notice that the character is Jimmy Olsen.

Yes, that Jimmy Olsen, the classic Superman character with the can-do attitude who works as a photographer at the Daily Planet and tags along with Lois and Clark Kent on their adventures.

Zack Snyder shot him in the head.

This may not be the first time that Snyder has toyed with the character, but its definitely the darkest. Rumors flew during the production of Man of Steel that actress Rebecca Buller would be playing a gender-flipped Jenny Olsen  and indeed, Buller has admitted that there was an evolution of what they wanted my character to be  but in the final cut, at least, the character was named Jenny Jurwich. The version of Jimmy that we briefly see in Batman v Superman is somewhat more in line with the characters traditional depiction  well, at least until he reveals himself to be a secret agent and is brutally gunned down in front of Lois. Thats not the sort of thing you usually find in a Superman comic, but in Zack Snyders dark DC universe, its a casualty so commonplace that most moviegoers wont even realize it happened.
Although well-choreographed fights are cool, nighttime heroics are only part of the reason I enjoy watching Daredevil. Im equally drawn to the legal side of Matt Murdocks life and enjoy a good courtroom drama just as much as a sick Yakuza fight scene.

In the wake of Frank Castles capture, Regrets Only marks Daredevils slight pivot back towards the courtroom, while further entangling Matt Murdock in Elektras machinations. If you remember, last episodes cliffhanger left him in her penthouse, staring at the Daredevil costume that she knew about and found, as the Yakuza stormed their way up the stairs. (After riding motorcycles across town while blaring Date With the Night by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.)

Unfortunately for them, Elektra and Daredevil are waiting. The ensuing fight sequence, while thrilling enough, doesnt have the clear, confident staging of previous ones  its dark and often shot up close, so Elektras first brawl alongside Daredevil isnt quite as exciting as it could be. What is great, however, is Elektra pulling off her mask to ask Daredevil a question once theyre done: Hungry?

Matt indulges her, heading to a nearby diner to ask why the hell shes picking fights with the Yakuza  and also, how the hell she knows about his crime-fighting habit. She maintains she didnt know the Yakuza were involved with Roxxon until she rattled the company and the gangsters showed up at her apartment, and that Matt needs her help to take them down for good. She also tells Matt that to her, it was obvious he was Daredevil. Matt reluctantly agrees to help her, but only if she promises to leave New York immediately after the job is done.

That morning, the firm of Nelson and Murdock discover just how eager District Attorney Reyes is to have Frank Castle dead and buried: The DAs office has drafted a statement on the hospital attack thats almost entirely false. Her plan is also pretty ruthless and clear-cut. If she gets Castle to plead guilty, shell extradite him to Delaware (where he killed six Dogs of Hell) and lobby for the death penalty.

Matt and Karen wont abide that. After all, Franks story is being kept from the public and he doesnt have to die. Matt plans to go head-to-head with Reyes by convincing Frank to take them on as his new lawyers, then work out a plea deal that will keep him alive. Foggy, concerned for the well-being of their practice, objects heavily but concedes soon enough.

With the help of newly minted Detective Brett Mahoney (that arrest back in Penny and Dime really did get him a promotion), they gain an audience in Frank Castles heavily guarded hospital room and convince him to hire them, much to the DAs fury. Unfortunately for her, she cant do anything to block their representation without revealing any of her own personal indiscretions.

With the first step finished, now the gang has to plow through paperwork to find the best plea deal they can negotiate  and they have to do it without Matt, because Elektra sends a driver for him. If Foggy wasnt displeased before, he certainly is now. (His best friend is really working overtime to frustrate him, isnt he?) Nevertheless, he agrees to work with Karen to get everything ready for the plea hearing while Matt gets to deal with this mysterious client whos paying them a lot of money.

Irritated, Matt finds Elektra waiting outside with a tux  theyre going to a big Roxxon gala to lift a keycard from an accountant with an unusual level of access. Once they get that keycard, theyll break their way into a vault. Theres a top-secret ledger inside that details all sorts of dirty deeds, and Elektra wants it.

The first part goes easily enough. Matt uses his blindness as an excuse to spill wine all over their target, a man named Gibson, then knocks him and his guards out when he goes to the bathroom to clean himself up. Getting the ledger is plenty easy, too; super senses go a long way when youre trying to find a secret vault.

Getting out, though  thats a pickle. Security notices that things have gone very wrong, and dozens of men sweep the building looking for them. This leads to a very cool, very brief fight scene in which Matt and Elektra take on a handful of guards while silhouetted against a conference rooms frosted glass, followed by a very goofy scene that involves the pair pretending to be drunken lovers to trick security into letting them out. (Matts blindness, once again, is a huge asset.)

Once outside, they discover a curious wrinkle in the ledger they lifted: All sorts of terrible business dealings from drugs to human trafficking are listed in plain Japanese (which Elektra can read), but theres something else written in code. After so much hard work and all, they might as well find a way to break that code, right?

Elektra certainly thinks so. Same time tomorrow, Matthew? she coyly asks, as she drops him off at his place.

Inside, Matt finds Foggy waiting for him, worn out and upset. He and Karens game of 20 questions with a killer and everything that followed went wrong in the worst possible way. Frank, trying to stick it to Reyes, changed his mind last minute and refused to plead guilty, which means theyre going to trial. And Reyes, now hoping to level Nelson and Murdock, has gotten the trial fast-tracked.

Hope your schedule is clear, buddy, Foggy says. Because the People v Frank Castle starts next week.

Hang on, I have a joke for this:

Devil in the Details:

Foggy is mad about a lot of things. Another thing to add to the list of ways his best friend is frustrating him: Karen kisses him good-bye on his way to see Elektra. (And thats something else that will piss him off to no end once he finds out about it.) Hes not entirely chill with the idea of them dating, which makes sense  theyre co-workers, and he also had a thing for Karen. Its all a bit of a mess, yeah? Also, these dudes should find time to talk to each other. Bros gotta communicate, man.

Oh hey, sometimes this show is funny. Particularly when the public defender initially assigned to Castle  a guy whose not too concerned with the fact the Reyes is aiming for the death penalty  tells Nelson and Murdock that this is his second case, after winning a domestic violence case. I believe in protecting women, he says, proudly. Thanks, Karen, almost snorts. From all of us.

Things might be worse than everyone thinks. It turns out Hirochi, the leader of the Japanese arm of Roxxon, is hiding more than just a vault. As poor Gibson finds out when Hirochi hauls him up to beg for his life, Hirochi doesnt have anything to do with the Yakuza. And that means hes probably involved with something far worse.
Get inspired. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Did you plan on spending your summer poolside in Dubai sipping mai tais? Then, boy, does Fifth Harmony have a song for you. The Life was released as a freebie when you preorder their new album (which you should, because they may never bless us with another one), and its just like floating on a summer breeze. If you arent living your most luxe life possible, Fifth Harmony just simply cannot relate. Theyre too busy eating good, getting lit, living life, getting rich all day, every day and know of no other life. Damn right theyre on a beach in Dubai sitting poolside sipping their mai tais because that is the God-given right of any young girl group who are indisputably the best in the biz. If youre still living your worst life, please allow this song (and several more mai tais) to set you free.
J.K. Rowling. Photo: Derek Storm/Corbis

In 2013, J.K. Rowling, fed up with the public pressure of being Britains most recognizable author, penned a charming murder mystery called The Cuckoos Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. A handful of eagle-eyed readers keyed onto Galbraiths true identity before Rowling was unmasked  for an ex-military man, he seemed to have a suspiciously detailed knowledge of womens clothing  but among those who did not were the multiple publishers who rejected the book, unaware that they were turning down a golden goose. (Cuckoos Calling became a best seller after its true authorship became known.) On Friday morning, Rowling Tweeted out some of Galbraiths rejection letters as inspiration for her fans, proof that even the very wealthy and successful J.K. Rowling gets knocked down sometimes. I wasnt going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen, she wrote. This is a warning to publishers: Accept literally every book pitch you receive, or be filled with a lifetime of regret.
Photo: Frederick Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Like your parents before you, passing the knowledge down generation to generation, it is now your turn to explain to your child what zig-a-zig-ah means. Its like a dance, right? Or having sex? Well, you have some time to figure out, because while Us Weekly reports that the Spice Girls are currently planning to return for a 20th anniversary tour, there is allegedly a sole holdout. Yes, of course its Victoria Beckham. They are trying to convince Victoria to jump in, but she doesnt want to do it, a source told the magazine. That makes sense. If your knees were reduced to a fine powder from dancing in stilettos for years, you probably wouldnt be too keen, say, to moonwalk the foxtrot or polka the salsa. Is one of those what zig-a-zig-ah means maybe? No, its sex, right?
Waco Coin Club is having its 36th annual Waco Coin Show from noon to 6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Bellmead Civic Center, 3900 Parrish St. in Bellmead.

Dealers and collectors from around the state will be on hand to buy and sell U.S. and foreign coins, currency, gold and silver.

Admission costs $2 for adults and is free to children.

For more information, call Tom Campbell at 224-7761.

Hattitude tea event

Parents Against Crime Coalition is having a Hattitude tea event from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday at 2600 Austin Ave.

The event will include a Parade of Hats and presentations about tea and hats by Fiona Bond of Creative Waco and John Neal of Sascees Southern Eatery.

The event also will include a silent auction featuring autographed copies of books from Wacos Bob Darden, Keisha Howard and Mary Evans.

Cost is a $25 donation, which supports the coalitions Reads Library Club.

Movie screening

Lake Shore United Methodist Church, 3311 Park Lake Drive, will host a free screening of a Cecil B. DeMille silent movie, The King of Kings, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Friday.

Jim Pitts will accompany the movie on theater organ.

For more information, call 754-7333.

Fish fry

The Knights of Peter Claver Ladies Auxiliary Court 385 will have a fish fry from noon to 5 p.m. Friday at St. Johns Catholic Church Parish Hall, 1312 Dallas St.

Cost is $8 for adults and $4 for children for a meal of fish, fries or potato salad, dessert and tea.

Boil notice lifted

The city of Hewitt has lifted a boil-water notice it issued March 17 for its residents who live on Pebble Creek, Willow Creek and Barton Creek drives.

The notice was issued because of low amounts of disinfectant in the water.

For more information, call 666-3151.

Womens health fair

Waco NAACP is having a Womens Health and Wellness Fair from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Waco-McLennan County Central Library, 1717 Austin Ave.

The event will include information about local health services and healthy living resources for women, an H-E-B gift card giveaway and a story hour for children.

For more information, call 408-893-7261.

Scrabble, chess clubs

Waco-McLennan County Library will host meetings of its chess and Scrabble clubs at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Central Library, 1717 Austin Ave.
AUSTIN  Texas regulators Thursday approved the Ray L. Hunt familys high-stakes plan to purchase and reshape the states largest electric utility. But they added major revisions, prolonging the battle to own Oncor.

The Texas Public Utility Commission granted the Dallas oil family permission to transform the utility into a real estate investment trust, a corporate structure that would pass hundreds of millions of dollars in tax savings directly to shareholders and spur other utilities to follow suit.

But the approval carried major stipulations, leaving the roughly $18 billion deal  the cornerstone of Oncor parent Energy Future Holdings plan to emerge from its epic bankruptcy  shrouded in uncertainty. It is unclear whether Hunts investors, who promised to pour billions of dollars into the deal as written, will agree to those the terms.

Everything, we need to take back to investors in any event, Hunter L. Hunt, CEO of Hunt Consolidated, told the commissioners.

If Hunts investors stick around, the company expects to close the deal by late this year.

Thursdays order added a litany of complicated conditions seeking to minimize risks for Oncor and its about 3 million power line customers in North and West Texas.

The commission also delayed answering the most contentious question related to the deal: whether the new Oncor would be forced to share with ratepayers a piece of the about $250 million in annual tax savings, and if so, how much. That became a matter for a separate proceeding.

The approval came just days before a Sunday deadline. The three-member commission, which regulates monopoly utilities, found the re-written deal in the public interest.

Chairwoman Donna Nelson dissented on the decision to kick the decision on tax sharing to a separate proceeding.

The proposal drew close scrutiny throughout months of hourslong meetings of commissioners, punctuated by the clicking open of thick binders. Throughout the process, concerns came from several consumer and industry groups, officials at Oncor, former Gov. Rick Perry and even commission staffers.

Critics called the new corporate structure risky, partially because its nearly unprecedented for a utility.

Hunt owns the only other U.S. utility organized in such a trust: Sharyland Utilities, which serves just 50,000 customers in small patches of rural West and North Texas and has the highest rates in the state.
An animated vision of a Brazos River pedestrian crossing along a 19th-century railroad bridge has been making the rounds online, depicting a stylish promenade, a food truck patio and a bridge with ice cream vendors, shade canopies and updated lighting.

A 4.5-minute video produced by the Wallace Group portraying Mary Avenue pedestrian bridge drew more than 500 viewers after it popped up on YouTube in mid-March, until it was taken down this week. The animation gives sweeping views of the walkway and bridge, which would connect to trails the city of Waco is preparing to build on the east side of the river.

Downtown development and city of Waco officials said they are aware of the video and eager to discuss the concept, but they declined to disclose who was behind it.

Several sources say Waco real estate developer Richard Sheldon owns the property at Franklin Avenue and University Parks Drive that houses food trucks and would become part of the project in the video. Several sources say he is in the process of buying the 135-year-old bridge from Union Pacific, and a UP spokesman confirmed Thursday that a private sale is expected to be closed by July 1.

Officials at Sheldon Real Estate this week said they are not ready to talk about their plans for the Franklin property and declined comment on the video.

City Manager Dale Fisseler said the video was impressive, but he doesnt want to raise the publics expectation about a particular vision that may or may not happen.

I like the fact that people are thinking about creative improvements for the riverfront area, Fisseler said. I think its too early to say what the potential is.

Waco Mayor Malcolm Duncan Jr. said hes on board with the idea of incorporating the railroad bridge into the river trail system that flanks both sides of the Brazos River.

I think when you look at how we access (McLane Stadium) from downtown, its a challenge on foot, Duncan said. Wed like to open up more connections to the east side of the river.

Duncan said the city considered bidding for the bridge about four years ago but backed off because of cost uncertainties involving cleaning up lead paint on the bridge.

Environmental concerns are why the city never pursued the bridge, but we do think its important, he said.

Duncan said the city could help pursue federal and state grants for the pedestrian route, as it has done for the riverwalk.

City Center Waco Executive Director Megan Henderson said the bridge could be a destination in itself, as well as a connection from downtown to Doris Miller Park, Elm Avenue, Buzzard Billys and the stadium. The animation is a starting point for discussion but shouldnt be seen as the final plan, Henderson said.

I think its important not to attach too much significance to any one representation of a project, she said. Sometimes the way this works is you throw out an idea and see if its compelling and resonant.

Jim Peevey, a Waco real estate broker who has represented Sheldon on other projects but not this one, said the animation is inspiring.

The Wallace Group showed us the video and it blew me away, Peevey said. The Suspension Bridge is always a big thing to go look at. But I see (the railroad bridge) more as an event place. People who live downtown could go to the food trucks, there could be prom parties, destination events. Its a link between downtown and East Waco.

Historical interest

The bridge itself is of historical and architectural interest, being the second structure to span the Brazos after the 1870 Suspension Bridge.

The St. Louis Southwestern Railway of Texas built the steel truss bridge in 1881 as it continued its expansion from Tyler to Corsicana to Waco to McGregor, according to the Handbook of Waco-McLennan County History, Texas.

The railway, also known as the Cotton Belt, had a depot on South Third Street until it was destroyed in the 1953 tornado. The railroad, which was part of the Southern Pacific system, ceased operations in the Waco area in the mid-1980s, leaving the bridge to sit vacant. Union Pacific acquired Southern Pacific in 1996.

Today most of the paint is gone from the rusted steel superstructure above the bridge, and some wooden railing appears rotted, but the metal structure and railroad ties appear sound. Homeless people use the bridge to get to a tent encampment in the brush on the east side of the river, which is otherwise inaccessible.

Access to that area is expected to improve with the creation of a 14-foot-wide lighted trail that the city is preparing to build at a cost of $3.3 million, mostly from a state transportation grant. The project will extend the river trail on the rivers east side from Bledsoe-Miller Park to McLane Stadium.
Carter BloodCare recognized L-3 Platform Integration as its 2015 business recipient of the Circle of Life award.

Registered nurse Amy Avila served as L-3 Platform Integrations volunteer blood drive coordinator in 2015 as well as in prior years. In addition to her job as the companys occupational health nurse, Avilas volunteer role included coordinating with Carter BloodCare to ensure the success of the blood drive.

Avila also became the in-house recruiter, encouraging employee participation and emphasizing the importance of blood donations for the community.

L-3 agreed to host five blood drives last year, with three of them occurring during June, August and December, which are considered the times of greatest need.

Employees responded with a 22 percent increase in sign-ups over 2014. They also surpassed the 2015 collection goal by 15 percent. Since 2005, L-3 Platform Integration employees have donated 1,904 units of blood. Each pint can help up to three patients.

Carter BloodCare is the primary supplier of blood and transfusion services for the community hospitals in Central Texas.

-----

Carter BloodCare photo

Carter BloodCare recognized L-3 Platform Integration as the 2015 Circle of Life business recipient. Pictured (from left) are Clinton McCoy, Carter BloodCare account consultant; Amy Avila, L-3 Platform Integration nurse/occupational safety and health specialist; Jim Gibson, L-3 Aircraft Systems president; and Vickie Carpenter, Carter BloodCare manager of mobile operations.
An East Waco man was sentenced to 12 consecutive life prison terms Thursday after he was found guilty of harboring a 15-year-old runaway and charging a string of men to have sex with her.

A jury in Wacos 19th State District Court deliberated about 40 minutes during the punishment phase before recommending 12 life sentences for 51-year-old Andre Renor Evans.

Jurors took about an hour Thursday morning to find Evans guilty of three counts of human trafficking and nine counts of sexual assault of a child.

Judge Ralph Strother stacked the 12 life sentences, ordering Evans to serve the terms consecutively. He also stacked those 12 terms onto a 20-year term for retaliation for which Evans currently is on parole.

Barring reversal of his convictions, Evans, who had five previous felony convictions and 17 misdemeanor convictions, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Longtime courthouse officials said they think Evans consecutive sentences add up to the longest handed out in McLennan County history.

The girl, now 16, testified Wednesday that Evans supplied her with drugs and charged men to have sex with her at his Preston Street home in January and February 2015.

The girl testified that Evans considered her a prize and kept her high on drugs while collecting money from a parade of men who showed up at his East Waco home to have sex with her.

It was like he had a trophy, the girl Evans called Summer or Star testified. Like, I have this white girl, and she is young and pretty. 

After the jury returned its verdict, the girl stood in front of the panel and thanked them.

I have been through a lot in my life and I may not have made all the right decisions, she said. But Im 16, and at least Im not going to prison like he is. Ive learned not to let people mess with me anymore. I did that my whole childhood.

At least one woman on the jury wiped away a tear after the girl spoke.

In an interview later, the girl referred to testimony from an East Waco woman who quoted Evans as saying that the girl got what she deserved after he shot her with heroin and allowed men to have sex with her for a fee.

He said I got what I deserved, she said. I did get what I deserved. I got my justice, and this is right.

Sam Martinez, who represented Evans, declined comment after the trial.

System failures

Prosecutors Gabrielle Massey, Hilary LaBorde and Evan ODonnell told jurors that the system failed the girl, who was removed from her mother when she was 6 and abandoned by her adoptive family seven years later after her erratic behavior intensified. Back in state custody, the girl bounced from foster homes to placement centers to mental health hospitals to juvenile facilities and was sexually assaulted in Austin and Waco before she wound up at Evans house.

The girl said she ran away from many of the centers, including a shelter in Waco.

Massey referred to the system failure in her closing arguments but also said the system failed again by allowing Evans to parole from a 20-year prison term with four previous felony convictions and his long history of criminal behavior.

This defendant could have seen her as a broken girl, Massey said. But instead, what he saw was an object that he could profit and benefit from.

The girl called Evans Preston Street home, which sits across the street from a church and a half-block from a park, a trap house, describing it as a place where people paid Evans to take drugs and have sex. She said Evans had sex with her on numerous occasions when she was 15, and other men who came to the house paid Evans to have sex with her.

She told the jury about one day last year when she said she didnt even bother to get dressed because Evans allowed a steady flow of men to come into a bedroom there to have sex with her.

A woman she met helped her escape from Evans home, and the two lived together for a time, she said. She prostituted herself to get money to survive and to feed her crack cocaine habit, she said.

After that, she was sent back to juvenile detention and later to a drug rehabilitation center in Florida, she said.

All I have ever wanted since I was a little kid was to be with a family, she said Wednesday. I would give up drugs in a heartbeat to have a family.
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a

Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a

Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence

Impoverished, in squalor

Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

How does a[n unlikely] orphan, [illegitimate] son of a [woman of low station] and a

Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a

Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence

Impoverished, in squalor

Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

So begins Lin-Manuel Mirandas Hamilton, a wildly popular Broadway musical that brilliantly weaves together the tale of founding financial genius Alexander Hamilton. Inspired by the 2004 Ron Chernow biography and told through a series of rap battles and riveting hip-hop storytelling, the production offers the rags to riches American story of an ambitious and intrepid immigrant. I am not throwing away my shot! a youthful Alexander declares. Just like my country, young, scrappy, and hungry, the archetypal hero from the bottom sets out to reinvent himself in a place and a moment unique to human history.

His bold desire to rise up neatly conforms with an inchoate nation in the throes of self-creation. Hamilton, of course, must join the Revolution. Rise Up! Outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and out-planned, Hamilton encounters George Washington, as the Continental Army stages a desperate but ultimately successful retreat in the face of superior enemy forces. Providence and Washington smile on the impetuous Hamilton. The prodigy who would rather be divisive than indecisive becomes the generals right hand man and so commences the most unequivocally positive relationship in the play.

As mentor, Washington encourages his audacious staff officer to view the field broadly: Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder. The general offers myriad life lessons as he cajoles his invaluable but impatient aide to subordinate the distractions of glory and honor and political infighting for greater purposes.

Broader lessons abound. Washington instructs Hamilton and the whole company (and all of us): History has its Eyes on you. While sometimes able to absorb these pearls while in the presence and under the authority of His Excellency, over the long haul, to his great detriment (much like us), Hamilton can never quite internalize Washingtons self mastery.

Act II

Later. Hamilton, now acting as the first secretary of the treasury in the first American administration, retains the confidence of his commander in the face of titanic internal opposition and the original politics of personal destruction. Up to the task of stabilizing a perilous financial predicament, Hamilton crafts a brilliantly invigorating economic framework. It must be nice to have Washington on your side.

But Washington holds office as first president of the United States  not king. As Thomas Jefferson and James Madison gleefully remind our fervid hero, Hamilton will need congressional approval and [he doesnt] have the votes. A destructive impasse looms, a nasty mix of principles, rivalries, conflicting interests, prejudices and pettiness. Gridlock.

Winning [the war] was easy, young man. Governings harder, Washington intones. Convince them otherwise. You have to find a compromise.

Against his instincts and inclinations, Hamilton saves the day by cutting the ultimate insider deal over dinner with his two adversaries: the mysterious backroom quid pro quo (in Hamiltons favor), which remains a subject of scholarly inquiry even in our time as nobody else was in the room when it happened. For one fateful moment at least, Hamilton embraces the art of the trade and secures a sustainable financial foundation for the new American nation  and an imperishable personal legacy.

In one last historic collaboration with a heartbroken Hamilton, the president and his most loyal confidant orchestrate an electrifying renunciation of power aimed at teaching a new country how to say goodbye to an indispensable man. George Washington is going home! And with the departure of Washington, the production focuses on the timeless (and timely) problem of whos next? Next to Washington they all look small.

However, Hamilton is never going to be president. His passions re-emerge to destroy him. Bereft of the sage counsel of his stately benefactor, our tragic host unto himself fails to build political consensus or a fortress of true friends to withstand the bad times. Violent death comes early at the hands of an erstwhile comrade and piquantly sympathetic arch villain: Aaron Burr. In the final ironic culminating moment of a frenzied life, Hamilton exercises revelatory discretion and throws away his shot.

In the end, his nation and his story survive. His financial master plan proves stubbornly resistant to skeptics and detractors. While not always with the finesse and affection of Chernow and Miranda, we continue to tell his story. The final curtain falls on Hamilton with the assurance that the Ten Dollar Founding Father without a Father found his way into the American pantheon of venerated marble men.

Broadway 2016.

Hamilton is the hottest ticket on Broadway. Every night of the week well-heeled oldsters awkwardly sway to the contemporary beats of a revolution in progress, enthralled by a vibrant multi-racial cast assigned parts according to talent and affinity for character  not by color. Miranda, who also plays the title role, describes the diverse company as the story of America then told by America now.

During a performance of Hamilton at the White House this month, President Obama and the first lady showed particular verve in their praise of the production, celebrating its zeal in telling a quintessentially American story.

In fact, the president quipped at one point, Hamilton Im pretty sure is the only thing that (former Vice President) Dick Cheney and I agree on.

The complicated score offers an eclectic backstory of American music, drawing subtly on multiple forms from Big Band to folk tunes and many points in between, as well as more straightforward and familiar hip-hop themes. The riotous mashup provides a symbolic backdrop as Hamilton tacitly embraces an astonishingly traditional political message: E Pluribus Unum.

Is this production suggesting something radically old school and breathtakingly optimistic? In the midst of our current moment of tumult and strife, the production eschews identity politics. Hamilton reaches for an ancient ideal of diversity unabashedly in support of a cherished common narrative, a toast to the American Creed.

Who tells our story? We do. One Nation. One People. May the name American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. Out of many, one?

Raise a glass to freedom.

Ashley Cruseturner teaches history and political science at McLennan Community College.
The Family Health Center Madison Cooper Community Clinic will be transformed on April 10 into the scene of a stylish tea party worthy of the halls of Downton Abbey.

Friends, neighbors and local businesses will gather together in their Sunday best for tea, hors doeuvres and a silent auction, all benefiting the Waco Community Development Corporation (CDC).

The Bonnets & Birdhouses Afternoon Tea is the first event of its kind in Waco. CDC Development Director Elaine Seeber wanted to put on a unique fundraiser worthy of the special work the organization does with local communities, predominantly in North and East Waco.

Church is an important tradition to the residents of those communities, so Seeber had the idea to host an event after church one Sunday afternoon that would encourage everyone to don their Sunday best and wear their favorite hat, because every good tea party needs fancy hats.

The Waco CDCs mission is to inspire and cultivate healthy neighborhoods, and part of that mission is carried out through the building and renovation of houses. In a nod to the work the CDC does, locally built and decorated birdhouses will be auctioned off at the event.

Community organizer Alexis Christensen loves the connection between the birdhouses and the work she gets to be a part of every day.

The event is a really unique idea, and it speaks to a lot of the things we do at Waco Community Development, she said. We work to inspire better neighborhoods, and one of those aspects is beautification and this is a part of that. We get to highlight local artists and give people something beautiful. Were really showcasing the amazing talent and strengths that lie in our community.

Bonnets & Birdhouses will begin at 1 p.m. with a silent auction. Auction items include plants, spring wreaths and some beautiful hats donated by Georgios Bridal Salon and Marilyn Banks of Marilyns Gift Gallery. The real stars, however, are the birdhouses.

The birdhouses are all built by locals, including retired District Judge George Allen, and painted by local artists, including muralist Debbi Unger, whose amazingly detailed work graces the halls of churches, hospitals and clinics throughout Central Texas. Six of the birdhouses were painted by children from the three elementary schools the CDC partners with: J.H. Hines, West Avenue and Brook Avenue. These talented children will have the opportunity to attend the event to connect with each other, represent their schools and see others appreciate their artwork.

Seeber said the woodworking and decorating talent she has seen from the Waco community is simply amazing.

We have big birdhouses, little birdhouses, bird condos. One is decorated with rocks, and some are actually Christmas ornaments made to look like tiny birdhouses, Seeber said. We have every shape, form and fashion imaginable, and they are just immaculate. The talent we have around us is truly something to cherish and Im so excited to showcase that.

The silent auction will end at 2:15 p.m. and the tea will be served. Heavy hors doeuvres will be served alongside the tea from Lula Janes, Secret Chef, Sascees, SweeTXpressions and Ds Mediterranean Grill.

Proceeds from the event will go toward the many programs Waco CDC offers. Executive Director Mike Stone explained that the strategy of the organization is broken up into three main parts: home building and renovation, homebuyer education and engagement.

Waco CDCs Beginnings

Waco Community Development Corporation was formed in 2001 by a group of businessmen and the Rev. Jimmy Dorrell, executive director of Mission Waco, who wanted to find a way to channel their gifts into service to the community. After studying and conferring with a similar organization in Atlanta, Georgia, Waco Community Development was started.

In the beginning, the focus was on home ownership. The goal was to support healthy neighborhoods and inclusive communities that have a mix of well-maintained homes occupied by homeowners and renters of different incomes.

In 2015, four new homes were built and one home was remodeled, for a total of 54 new and 19 remodeled homes since the organization began.

Waco CDC not only builds homes, it equips homeowners with the tools and knowledge needed to be successful, Stone said. Families are given education and resources to help them create and maintain a budget and work toward becoming debt-free.

These programs not only affect the families participating in them, they are also spreading ideas to neighboring communities, he said.

There have been 56 other new homes built around ours, said Stone, and countless others have been remodeled, including one that was featured on Fixer Upper. The spirit of being in control of your finances and your future is spreading. I love helping people take care of their various problems and see them being actively involved in their own decisions and futures. I dont want to do for, I want to do with, and thats what we get to do here.

Beyond the Home

Several years ago, Waco CDC began implementing programs that would help it support the community in a more holistic way, going beyond the home. The engagement piece of the puzzle is what Christensen is most familiar with in her role as community organizer. Christensen said she believes community problems are best solved when the community is engaged in developing the solutions, and she works with neighborhood associations and other leadership organizations to bring people together for change.

A prime example of this effort is the recent city ordinance passed to regulate payday and auto title loans. Christensen and a team of her peers and community members rallied together to show support for the ordinance and speak at Waco City Council meetings.

When the ordinance passed, the team was able to see how coming together and fighting for a cause thats important to you can pay off, she said.

Christensen loves the idea of grassroots leadership training. Foundational leadership classes are offered to teach the qualities of a leader, discuss issues in local communities and schools, and learn what tools are available to address those issues. At the end of the training, CDC leaders work with the class to develop action plans.

When talking with the community about their needs, one thing Christensen heard over and over was that people wanted to engage their schools. Starting with West Avenue Elementary, Waco CDC partnered with elementary schools to support the families in any way it could.

PTA groups were formed, community events were planned, and parents were encouraged to visit with each other and the school principal at a monthly event called Coffee and Conversation. By being informed of what is going on in their childs school and education, parents are empowered to take an active role in the success of their children, she said.

Christensen is excited for the Bonnets & Birdhouses Afternoon Tea not only to bring community members together for a time of fellowship and celebration of local talent, but to showcase the Waco Community Development Corporation and the amazing work it does.

I love that my whole job is to listen to peoples dreams for their community and help them see those dreams become reality, she said. It seems very lofty, but in reality weve done some really great things with neighbors taking the lead. People have opened their arms and really trusted our organization and the work that we do, and its a privilege to be a part of peoples work and their lives. This event is a celebration of all that we do.

-----

Bonnets & Birdhouses Afternoon Tea

When, where: April 10, 1 to 3 p.m. at Madison Cooper Community Clinic; 1610 Providence Drive.

Tickets: Cost $30 each. Contact Elaine Seeber at 235-7358,ext. 205, to purchase tickets or for more information
The Texas Cheese House, snuggled among the antique shops in historic Old Town Lorena, is the ultimate cheese lovers paradise. The eaterys menu offers a delicious assortment of entrees showcasing the artisan cheeses handcrafted onsite.

Owner Scott Simon is one of only a handful of cheesemakers in Central Texas. On any given day, he displays more than 20 varieties of cheese and cheese spreads in a glass case near the front of his restaurant. His list includes just about every cheese from A to Z: from Asiago, blue and cheddar to Gouda, parmesan and Romano.

In addition to highlighting the cheese in the appetizers, sandwiches and soups he serves, Simon also sells it by the slice, pound or wheel.

I have one rule, Scott said. A customer must taste the cheese before buying!

Simon cheerfully distributes bite-sized samples of his cheese to his patrons. The taste test is what allows customers to experience the difference between artisan (handmade) cheese and mass-produced cheese sold at grocery stores.

The flavor of our cheese is stronger and sharper because we dont use dyes, additives or other fillers which alter the natural taste, he said. Grocery stores sell processed cheese which lowers the cost, but only half the product may contain real cheese. America is the only country with dairy laws that allow producers to add 50 percent fillers to cheese.

Simon said the amount of fillers in commercially produced cheese is what initially fueled his interest in learning to make his own cheese.

I bought some cheddar cheese one day and accidentally left it in the car, he said. When I discovered it the next day, the cheese had separated into a white ball surrounded by liquid.

The unsightly cheese mess motivated Simon to learn the art of cheesemaking. He began by reading books on the subject, searching the Internet, joining the American Cheese Society and visiting established cheesemakers. When Simon felt he had perfected his craft, he left his corporate job at General Micrographics and began Texas Cheese House eight years ago at its current location in Lorena.

I moved my hobby out of the house, which made my wife happy, Simon said. I opened my business in Lorena because I lived here and I could walk to work if I wanted.

The Menu

Texas Cheese House is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and specializes in all things cheese. One of the restaurants most requested menu items is the artisan grilled-cheese sandwich, featuring the customers choice of cheese and bread. Another crowd-pleaser is macaroni and cheese, with four or more customer-chosen cheeses in a creamy sauce.

One of the more unique menu choices is the Chipotle Pizza Foldover  a sandwich of fresh mozzarella, pepperoni and roasted chipotle salsa in grilled bread dough. The eatery offers a meat-and-cheese basket complete with a quarter pound of meat, a quarter-pound of artisan cheese, one-half a baguette loaf and Marthas mustard custard sauce.

The restaurant uses fresh grass-fed beef from JZJ Natural Beef. All breads used at Texas Cheese House are baked fresh with no preservatives. Even the homemade soups, such as Mother Simons broccoli cheddar, feature artisan cheese.

Texas Cheese House also creates mixed-cheese trays with fresh fruit, nuts or other garnishes for parties or special events.

Some customers come with their own bottle of wine and we uncork it for them, Simon said. They order trays of cheese to accompany the wine and have a good time!

Specialty Foods

The restaurant also sells an assortment of Texas-based specialty foods such as cheese ball mixes, dipping oils for breads, jams, jellies, pickled products, natural olive oils, salsas and vinaigrettes. Simon stocks unique food not found in local grocery stores, such as chips from Jesses Tortilla Factory in Waco, Walker Honey from Rogers, and Wiseman House Chocolates from Hico.

I enjoy travelling through Texas and bringing back things I like to sell, Simon said. I have quite a few regular customers who like specific items that we carry, Simon said. My biggest customer base comes from Waco, but 30 percent are new customers who see our billboard on I-35 and stop by to see what we have.

Cheesemaking

Simon makes cheese once or twice a month in a large vat in the Texas Cheese House kitchen. During the all-day process, he begins with 100 gallons of milk, which he cooks using specific procedures to form and separate the curds from the whey (the liquid). Then he drains the whey and packs the cheese in molds.

After a few days, the cheese is removed from the molds and placed on a drying rack before storing. Many cheeses may be eaten fresh, but others benefit from aging. Peak texture and flavor may take many months or more than a year in a controlled environment to achieve, he said.

All the cheeses are made from both pasteurized and raw milk from local dairies. There are no GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in the milk and Simon says he does not add preservatives, dyes, oils, expanders or any other additives that would alter the taste of the natural cheese.

Texas Cheese House hosts classes four times a year for those interested in the fine art of cheesemaking. The last class included 26 people from Temple, Austin, Fort Worth and Houston. The next class is planned for April and registration will be available through the restaurants Facebook page.

Simon has a passion for great cheese, but he declines to name a favorite.

It changes from day to day, he said.

-----

Texas Cheese House

102 E. Center St. in Lorena

Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

(Restaurant closes at 3 p.m.)
Tom Samek of David City, Nebraska, was recently honored for being among the nations highest-producing farmers in the 2015 Asgrow National Yield Contest.

Samek captured an award with an impressive yield of 91.4 bushels per acre with Asgrow soybean product AG3432 brand.

Samek and other contest winners were honored at the 2016 Commodity Classic, an annual farmer-focused convention, held earlier this month in New Orleans. Winners were celebrated at an awards banquet and private concert featuring country music star Easton Corbin.

Congratulations to Tom on his outstanding achievement, said Jesse Hamonic, Asgrow DEKALB brand lead, who presented the trophy at the banquet. Its exciting to see farmers like Tom push yield boundaries through a winning combination of management skills and Asgrow soybean products.

In the 2015 Asgrow yield contest, 52 farmers were honored, with 14 accomplishing yields over 100 bushels per acre.

Asgrow debuted its first national yield contest in 2012 in an effort to encourage soybean producers to challenge their peers in pushing yield limits. The contest also provides farmers the opportunity to learn more about the latest seed technologies and production practices, which contribute to overall advances for farmers across the country.

Asgrow brand is focused on providing farmers with innovative products that offer exclusive genetics, strong agronomic characteristics and higher yield potential. Farmers who plant Asgrow products benefit from strong emergence and early season vigor, good standability and protection against yield-robbing soybean diseases which support consistent, proven performance.

To learn more about maximizing yield performance, farmers can visit www.AsgrowDEKALB.com or contact their local Asgrow DEKALB dealer.
While we at WarbirdsNews have a strong focus on preserving and promoting the history of military aviation, we are equally involved with the human stories behind the history. Keeping that in mind, we also try very hard to promote good causes to help our veterans. Military service always demands sacrifice from our men and women in uniform, sometimes far more than the average person could endure, and definitely something most of us could never fully understand unless we ourselves had walked a similar path. All too frequently though, the deprivation and stress of extended and frequent tours of duty in conflict zones can leave long term scars on the human soul that are difficult to identify on the surface, making a normal life in the civilian world so much harder to achieve upon their return. As a result, many veterans far too many end up in difficult circumstances once they leave the military. According to recent data, the rate of chronic homelessness amongst male veterans, for example, is twice that of non-veterans in the USA. And this is a situation that none of us should accept. For that reason, we have decided to promote Joint Mission, an organization trying to remedy this awful situation. Founded by Elena Johnson and her husband, the legendary fighter pilot Howard Scrappy Johnson who flew and fought in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam, the aim of their noble efforts is as follows



OUR MISSION

Our mission is to provide helping hands to the men and women who have served our country and find themselves homeless. We will help by offering material support in a dignified manner to those in need. We will raise funds through a variety of ways to support our efforts by engaging those in our community who appreciate, respect, and admire the necessity and the service of those who served in the United States Armed Forces. We will provide our services through the contribution of time, talent, expertise, and resources from our supporters in the communities we serve.

HOW TO HELP OUR NETWORK OF CARING

Joint Mission has gathered together a network of professional interior designers as well as many area fine furniture consignment stores. Our Designers will be happy to consult with you to enhance your home or business at a very attractive hourly rate which will be donated to Joint Missions efforts. Our network of furniture consignment stores will be offering special sections of furniture or marking specified pieces for sale, with a portion of the proceeds donated to Joint Mission. These stores will also be making furniture items available to our selected veterans.

DONATE

Joint Mission is also accepting tax deductible donations to support our mission. These funds will be used to purchase furniture items for selected veterans that we are not able to provide from our available stock, and to underwrite the efforts of the Joint Mission staff.

GET INVOLVED

If you are an interior designer or own a furniture consignment store and wish to join in our Joint Mission Network, please drop us an email at Jointmissionus@gmail.com. If you would like information about volunteering and being part of the effort to supply formerly homeless veterans with basic furniture essentials, please drop a note to Elena.

Elena Johnson

Elena was a soldiers daughter born in Italy and became a teenage war bride to an American Army Sargent Major serving there. Her late husband had fought in Normandy and four of their five children served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Elena is an acclaimed interior designer and a driven entrepreneur. Her passion for helping veterans because of her lifelong ties to the military and her admiration for those who have served becomes obvious to anyone who has the distinct pleasure of meeting this amazing woman. The Johnsons sold their beloved True Treasures stores in 2014 after 25 successful years.

Howard C. Scrappy Johnson

He shattered the Worlds Altitude Record in 1958 climbing to 91,246 feet in an F-104 Starfighter and in recognition of the record Vice President Richard Nixon presented him with the Robert J. Collier trophy for aeronautical achievement. Scrappy served as a fighter pilot in the US military for 30 years, flying over 7,000 hours in 15 different fighter planes during his career in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Colonel Johnson retired in 1972 after receiving not only the Collier trophy but two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. Colonel Johnson is an inductee of the Florida Aviation Hall Fame and the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame. He was a founder and remains active in the Red River Rats, a charitable Vietnam War fighter pilots organization that benefits the children of deceased fighter pilots. Scrappys book, Scrappy: Memoir of a U.S. Fighter Pilot in Korea and Vietnam, is available at Barnes & Nobles or at Amazon.com.
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KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.
This is a current list of the top 250 companies by market capitalization on the OTC Markets Exchanges (OTCMKTS). Learn more .

Over-the-counter (OTC) stocks (also known as unlisted stocks) trade differently from stocks that are listed on a major stock exchange. This article will take a closer look at what makes OTC stocks different from listed stocks and what types of securities trade on OTC markets. It will also review the three tiers of OTC stocks as well as the benefits and risks of owning OTC stocks.

When you finish reading this article, you should be able to define:

How an OTC stock is different from a stock that is listed on a major, centralized stock exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ

What are some common types of securities that trade on OTC markets?

What are the benefits and risks of owning OTC stocks?

What Are Over-the-Counter (OTC) Stocks?

Over-the counter (OTC) stocks are publicly traded stocks that, for one or for a number of reasons, are not listed on a major stock exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the NASDAQ. OTC stocks are traded between two parties instead of in a publicly traded market.

OTC stocks require a dealer-broker (i.e. a middleman) to facilitate transactions as opposed to a public exchange that uses an auction system that is largely electronic.

Over-the-counter stocks carry significantly higher risk than stocks that are traded on a public exchange. This is primarily due to a lack of a formal governing institution. OTC stocks generally have to meet some guidelines but do not have nearly the stringent requirements of stocks that trade on the NYSE or NASDAQ.

For example, in September 2020, the SEC published updated its regulations for the OTC markets to ensure that a broker-dealer could not publish a price quote for an OTC security when current information about that security is not available to the general public.

What Types of Securities Trade in the OTC Markets?

An estimated 10,000 securities trade through the OTC Markets Group. The most commonly traded security in the OTC markets is stocks. Specifically, the OTC market features small-cap stocks (i.e. stocks of companies with a market cap of less than $2 billion) that dont qualify to be listed on a major exchange. Foreign stocks tend to make it onto OTC markets.

The reasons why a stock may not be traded on a major exchange include:

The company doesnt trade a high enough volume of shares.

The company cannot meet the exchanges minimum price requirement (typically $1).

They are penny stocks which are defined as stocks that trade for $5 or less.

The OTC market is larger than many investors may think. In addition to stocks, most bonds will trade in the OTC market after their initial offering. This is due to the large size of trades, the number of bonds trade and the fact that, unlike stocks, bond trading is relatively infrequent.

The OTC market is also where many derivatives are traded. Derivatives are private contracts between two parties these include options, futures, forwards where the value of the contract is based on its underlying asset.

Additional securities traded in the OTC markets include American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and foreign currencies (Forex). In fact, more than $6.5 trillion is traded on the OTC Forex currency exchange.

The Three Tiers of OTC Stocks

OTC stocks are sometimes referred to as Pink Sheet stocks. In fact, the OTC Markets Group, the publicly traded company that provides liquidity for nearly 10,000 OTC securities, was previously known simply as Pink Sheets. Nearly all OTC trades take place on the OTC Markets Group.

There is another OTC Market, the Grey Market that is reserved for over-the-counter securities that are not quoted by broker-dealers for several reasons including lack of investor interest, lack of financial information, or a lack of regulatory compliance. For the purposes of this article, we are talking about securities that trade on the OTC Markets Group.

There are three different tiers of OTC stocks within the OTC Markets Group: the OTCQX, the OTCQB, and the Pink Sheets. Equities fit into a category based on its size, share price and the amount of financial reporting and disclosure it does.

Here is a brief description of each tier with its eligibility requirements.

OTCQX  this is the premium tier of OTC stocks. However, only about 4% of the stocks on the OTC market fall into this category. One reason for that is that this tier does not include penny stocks. These companies provide a lot of detail to the OTC Markets Group including audited financials. In fact, being up-to-date with regulatory disclosure requirements is a prerequisite for a stock to be listed on this exchange.

OTCQB Venture Market  this marketplace is for early-stage companies that are in their initial growth stages. These companies require a bid price of at least $0.01 and cannot be in bankruptcy. Additionally, the company must have a freely traded public float of at least 5% or a separate class of securities that are traded on a national exchange. These companies also provide audited financials.

Pink Open Market  the lowest tier is the default market for broker-dealers who want to trade securities on the OTC market. This tier includes companies that do not wish to disclose financial information. This is true of some foreign companies, penny stocks, and shell companies.

What are the Risks of Owning OTC Stocks?

OTC stocks are sometimes referred to as for sale by owner stocks. You could also go with let the buyer beware.

Thats because one of the largest risks to owning and trading OTC stocks is that of fraud. Unlike on a major stock exchange, there is no price transparency for OTC stocks. The price a security trades for is a direct result of a negotiation between a buyer and a seller. This means a seller could offer one buyer stock at X price while simultaneously offering the same stock to another buyer at Y price.

Some of this risk is taken away if youre trading on the OTC Markets using a reputable broker-dealer. However, some concerns remain for example:

OTC stocks are less liquid  One of the advantages of a stock that trades on a major exchange is an investors ability to trade the stock when they want at the price they want (give or take a penny or two). Thats not the case with OTC stocks which have less demand. That can make them difficult to trade when you want to do so.

 One of the advantages of a stock that trades on a major exchange is an investors ability to trade the stock when they want at the price they want (give or take a penny or two). Thats not the case with OTC stocks which have less demand. That can make them difficult to trade when you want to do so. OTC stocks have more volatility  A byproduct of low liquidity, OTC stocks may have sharper price swings due to lower trading volume.

 A byproduct of low liquidity, OTC stocks may have sharper price swings due to lower trading volume. OTC stocks are not required to have stringent oversight  Although some companies will provide audited financials, it is not a requirement for stocks in the Pink Open Market where many of the penny stocks are found.

What are the Benefits of Owning OTC Stocks?

Although they do carry an outsized risk, there are a couple of benefits for investors looking to own over-the-counter stocks.

Getting in on the Ground Floor  In many cases, these companies are truly start-up companies. This gives investors the chance to invest in these companies before they become widely known.

 In many cases, these companies are truly start-up companies. This gives investors the chance to invest in these companies before they become widely known. A Little Goes a Long Way  Many of these stocks are penny stocks (i.e. they trade for less than five dollars). That means that investors can take a large position in the company for a relatively small investment.

 Many of these stocks are penny stocks (i.e. they trade for less than five dollars). That means that investors can take a large position in the company for a relatively small investment. Ideal for Active Traders  One of the advantages of OTC stocks for active traders is that they are not concerned with a companys fundamentals and are only seeking to profit from price action.

Additional benefits include a lower fee structure and more personalized service since investors are only dealing with a broker-dealer and a seller.

Some Final Thoughts on OTC Stocks

If its not crystal clear at this point, it needs to be said that trading OTC stocks in not for novice and/or conservative investors with a low risk tolerance. There is a chance that investors can lose all of their principal in taking on the risk that comes from OTC stocks.

With that said, OTC stocks wouldnt exist if there wasnt a market and an appetite for them. Active traders may find that OTC stocks give them the price action they cant get from a central exchange. And because theyre trading stocks that are overlooked by the broader market, they are investing in stocks that arent drawing attention from institutional investors.
WATERFORD is the most sunny city in Ireland and the county is second in the sunshine league, being pipped to first place by our...
Waterford Fine Gael Senator John Cummins has described the progress which has been made on the purchase of the former Waterford Crystal site for...
WATERFORD is marking time with a new museum in the Viking Triangle. The Irish Museum of Time is the first of its kind in the...
... but you will need to show proof of jab get into bars STUDENTS heading to college in September will not have to be vaccinated...
COLUMBUS  A 38-year-old Columbus man convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage family member over a two-year span that began when the female victim was 15 has been sentenced to three to four years in prison.

Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke sentenced the city man, who is not being named to protect the identity of the victim, for his conviction of attempted first-degree sexual assault of a child.

The sex assault charge was reduced to a Class IIA felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The defendant initially faced an assault charge carrying a penalty of up to life imprisonment.

Steinke gave the defendant credit for 48 days already served in jail before he was freed on bond.

In exchange for the defendants no contest plea, the Platte County Attorneys Office also dismissed a charge of incest.

Court records in the case describe an initial sexual assault that occurred in 2013 when the teenage victim was in high school.

Documents report the victim said she thought the 2013 assault involving her stepfather was a one-time occurrence and did not report it to law enforcement authorities in an effort to keep her family together.

The victim did tell a friend about a June 2015 assault that occurred at the family home while the girls mother was at work, according to the sworn arrest statement of Columbus Police Investigator Jaymee Levander.

During subsequent interviews, the victims friend confirmed remembering being told of both the 2013 and 2015 incidents, Levander wrote in her statement.
IMAGINING Arts was about all we could do over the last 18 months or so, but now we need imagine no more. Celebrating its 20th...
Havana: When Carlos Carnero's rock band Los Kent plugged in guitars and drums to play Rolling Stones covers on Cuba's Island of Pines in the 1960s, soldiers stopped the gig at gunpoint in minutes and marched the musicians onto a boat heading back to the mainland.

Now some 50 years later, Carnero is preparing to see the Stones play to a crowd of 400,000 people in Havana on Friday in the latest sign of Cuba's thaw with the West.

It is the first time the British band has performed in Cuba and caps a week in which US President Barack Obama made a historic visit.

The Stones arrived in Cuba on Thursday.
After more than 30 years roaming quietly beneath the world's oceans, French nuclear attack submarine the Rubis is about a year away from a well-earned retirement.

Her missions are classified. But based on the type of operations these workhorses of the French navy have been doing in recent years, she might have patrolled the Caribbean Sea to stop drug smugglers, or if a merchant ship or oil rig were captured by pirates off Africa, French naval commandos might parachute into the sea from a plane to be picked up by the Rubis.

The submarine could then glide silently up to the hostage vessel and send the commandos swimming out through the torpedo tubes to board the vessel and overpower the pirates.

She might have captured vital intelligence on Muammar Gaddafi's regime from just off the Libyan coast. Or she might have provided protective muscle to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier which has just returned from the Persian Gulf supporting air strikes against the Islamic State group.
Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training, at Parliament House in Canberra. Credit:Andrew Meares According to the Grattan Institute year 9 students were meeting the national minimum standard even if they were actually achieving below the level of a typical year 5 student. "Australia must raise its sights," says the report's author Peter Goss. Andreas Schleicher of the OECD is concerned about falling Australian standards. Credit:Jeffrey Glorfeld "The bar we are setting with the [NAPLAN] national minimum standard is just too low. If we set the bar too low, it is very hard to aim high."

The warning signs have been there for over a decade. Australia's PISA results have been on the slide since 2003. NAPLAN tests have shown the writing ability of Australia's students has not improved since 2008. Australia must raise its sights. Peter Goss All the while the computer literacy of the nation's students has reached a crisis point. The 2015 results showed that in an area crucial to the nation's future prosperity, only 55 per cent of 10,000 students tested by ACARA were considered IT proficient. As our literary and computer skills have declined, so too has the nation's mathematical ability, drawing outcry from the academic and business communities.

The chair of the National Committee for Mathematical Sciences, Nalini Joshi, says that compulsory mathematical subjects "absolutely have to become a national policy". "We are leaching out the mathematical skills from the majority of the population," she says. "We are not just talking about university entry anymore, we are taking about larger portions of the population who would find it difficult to work out something that isn't plugged into a calculator. "Apprentices are becoming bricklayers who don't how many bricks to order and students are becoming nurses who are unable to work out dosages."

Schleicher identified a lack of investment in Australia's teachers as the central reason for the lacklustre results. He described Australia's education system as "a classroom led by robotic widgets", forced into delivering a rigid curriculum. Teacher quality, Schleicher believes, is at the heart of every successful education system, from Finland to South Korea, and Australia must do something about it to have any hope of thriving in the global economy. "What I like is the image of a professional that is not just defined by delivering an established curriculum but people who see themselves as owners of professional standards," he says. "People who learn from and with their colleagues, where there is a greater degree of professional collaboration and professional autonomy." Schleicher says the education industry is about 150 years behind health in its capacity for collaboration and development, key aspects that have seen doctors rise to the top of the social and professional ladder. "We are still very far away," he says. "In Finland they are doing really well, every teacher has to do a masters thesis to create a professional inquisitive mindset, so they know 'I work with my colleagues but I'm also responsible for developing the work of my colleagues'."

He says teachers in Shanghai spend one lesson a week in someone else's classroom working on collective lesson planning, design and evaluation. "Look to Australia, you more or less define teachers by the number of hours that you teach in front of students, and that is part of the problem." Educators, politicians, and academics agree, Australian teachers have an image issue. In September, NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said the choice of teaching as a profession had become "a joke".

"I keep hearing stories about students coming into schools and principals saying that they are not up to scratch," Piccoli told an education leaders' conference in Sydney, before announcing tough new entry restrictions on teaching degrees. "There is this joke, I couldn't get into physiotherapy so I went into teaching. That is just unhelpful for that person and it's unhelpful for the profession," he said. The same dilemma was at the heart of the debate among world leaders in Dubai where the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] sought to define the teacher of 2030. "Is it a real profession, is it for talented people?" asked the executive director of Brazil's Education Laboratory, Beatriz Cardoso. "I think we have to face these dilemmas." Indonesia's Education Minister Anies Baswedan told global leaders that Australia's largest neighbour had taken steps to elevate the status of the teacher in response to the recommendations of the OECD.

"We now have a dedicated teacher check-in desk for Garuda Airlines," he said. "We would also like them to introduce priority boarding, first class, business class, and teachers class." "Why? It's a reminder to everyone. Airports are where policymakers are constantly, it makes them realise they are flying because teachers taught them, without those teachers they would not be flying." Schleicher sees targeted funding as crucial part of allowing education systems to be able to afford to rotate teachers through professional development and classroom time. He praised Australia's needs-based Gonski reforms, which directs funding to students with disabilities and from low socio-economic areas, as a step in the right direction.

The federal government does not agree with Schleicher's assessment. It has so far refused to honour the final two years of Gonski funding, potentially stripping an estimated $4.5 billion out of the nation's schools. Last week Education Minister Simon Birmingham seized on Australia's declining PISA results as evidence that more funding does not necessarily equal greater results. He did so again when the Grattan Institute's damning report came out this week. "The report is a wake-up call for those policymakers who are fixated on how much Australia spends on education," he says. "It highlights the need to focus education reform conversations on how to lift standards, not a simplistic debate about how much we spend." Despite the near unanimous calls from teachers over the effectiveness of Gonski funding and Piccoli's passionate belief in its merits, the NSW government now appears to have backed down on its demands. Fierce lobbying from Piccoli and Premier Mike Baird has given way to compromise, with two years of funding now set to be spread over four, a pattern likely to be replicated across the states, according to documents obtained by Fairfax Media.
Apple doesn't want to be a disrupter  at least when it comes to your sleep.

Starting this week, most newer iPhones and iPads can change the colour of light their screens emit at night, cutting back on harsh, blue wavelengths that researchers say can disrupt natural sleep patterns.

Just how much do backlit screens affect our quality of sleep? Credit:Anmfoto

While experts agree that the new Night Shift mode can be a benefit, they say it's no magic sleeping pill. It won't, for example, help nearly as much as an obvious step that the digitally addicted often skip: turning off the phone.

"What Apple is doing is very reasonable  it's based on science," said Dr Phyllis Zee, a sleep disorders expert at Northwestern University in the US.
The body of Daniel O'Keeffe, who was thought to be missing for almost five years, was found in a cavity underneath the house, a family friend has said.

Then 24, Mr O'Keeffe was last seen in his family home in suburban Geelong on July 15, 2011.

One of his sisters, Loren O'Keeffe, launched an extensive nationwide search for her brother.
Video from the scene showed the man lying on his side, shattered glass from the tram shelter smashed by bullets at his feet. A bomb squad robot approached the wounded man, checking for explosives. Police point their weapons in the direction of an injured terror suspect in Brussels. Credit:Sudpresse via AP Islamic State suicide bombers hit Brussels airport and a metro train on Tuesday in the worst such attack in Belgian history. Investigators believe those attacks were carried out by the same cell responsible for November's gun and bomb attacks in Paris. The Belgian federal prosecutor's office said six people were held in Brussels on Thursday, of whom three were released and three were remanded in custody facing possible charges. Police officers in front of a house in Duesseldorf, where a German magazine says two people with possible links to the Brussels attacks were arrested on Friday. Credit:DPA

Three others were detained on Friday following the arrest in France of Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman sentenced to 10 years in Brussels in absentia in July as part of a Islamist recruiting network dubbed the Syrian Connection. Germany's Der Spiegel magazine said German police had arrested two people, one of whom had received phone messages with the name of the metro station bomber and the word "fin"  French for "end"  three minutes before the metro blast. The German interior ministry declined immediate comment. US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Brussels. Credit:Andrew Harnik A person familiar with the investigation in Belgium said one of the people arrested there was believed to be a suspected accomplice caught on security camera footage with the metro station bomber. "We have strong indications that this is the suspect who was hunted for the last couple of days. The identification is still ongoing," the source said. However he said those arrested before midday on Friday did not include a third suspect seen on video alongside the two who blew themselves up at the airport.

Floral tributes placed to the victims of the attacks in the Belgian capital at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels on Friday. Credit:Alastair Grant 'Grieving for you' The attacks in Brussels, home to the European Union and NATO, have heightened security concerns around the world and raised questions about EU states' ability to respond in an effective, coordinated way to the Islamist militant threat. US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Brussels on Friday to offer US assistance in security. Two of the Brussels victims were Americans. China and Britain said one each of their nationals were also among the dead. "The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks," Kerry said after meeting Prime Minister Charles Michel.

"Je suis bruxellois. Ik ben Brussel," Mr Kerry said after brief remarks in French and Dutch, expressing solidarity in its two languages that he too felt a citizen of the Belgian capital. In Paris on Thursday, authorities arrested Kriket, a French national suspected of belonging to a militant network planning an attack in France. French officials did not directly tie that plot to the Brussels attacks, but Mr Clerfayt, the Schaerbeek mayor, said the man wounded on Friday was linked to both investigations. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a televised address that Kriket's arrest helped "foil a plot in France that was at an advanced stage". A police source said investigators found acetone peroxide explosives in an apartment in a Paris suburb after the arrest. Belgian Prime Minister Michel rejected resignations offered by his interior and justice ministers on Thursday over a failure to track one of the airport bombers, Brahim El Bakraoui, 29, who had been expelled last year by Turkey as a suspected fighter. Bakraoui's brother Khalid, 26, was the bomber who struck Maelbeek metro station.

Prosecutors confirmed the second airport bomber was Najim Laachraoui, a veteran Belgian Islamist fighter in Syria suspected of making explosive belts for November's Paris attacks. Jihadist network The Brussels attacks came a week after Belgian police killed a militant during a house raid that led them to Salah Abdeslam, the only suspected participant in the Paris attacks to have been captured alive. His lawyer says he has been cooperating with the investigation but did not know about plans to attack Brussels. Belgian public broadcaster VRT said investigators believed Abdeslam had probably planned to carry out a shooting and suicide bomb attack in Brussels, similar to Paris. Belgian daily De Morgen said investigators had identified a new suspect they believe played a role in the Brussels bombings, 28-year-old Syrian Naim al-Hamed. The paper said he was on a list circulated to the security services of other European countries after Tuesday's attacks, and was also suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks.
No one is writing off IS  yet. The movement still has many thousands of fighters and it is cashed up  analysts at the RAND Corporation say that even as IS fights what has become its global war, the movement could run a surplus of up to $US200 million ($260 million) this year. A child looks on during a vigil for the victims of the Brussels attacks at the Belgium Consulate in Montreal, Canada, on Wednesday. Credit:AP Karen Greenberg, director of the Centre on National Security at Fordham Law School in New York, wrote of the Brussels attacks: "The West should understand that this is what winning may look like in the battle against Islamic State ... [ the attacks] could well stem [more] from a sense of weakness than strength." And in the aftermath of the November 13 attacks in Paris, in which 130 people died, RAND analyst Seth Jones wrote: "If history is any guide, [IS] will resort to more terrorist attacks in the West as it loses ground, potentially making it a more dangerous and unpredictable enemy in the months to come." A Belgian police officer stands at the entrance to Maalbeek metro station in Brussels on Wednesday. Credit:AP

Any loss of territory is a dilemma for IS  its foundational pitch is that territory under its control must expand to validate its self-declared caliphate, which it predicts will stretch from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. Jones cites a series of groups  al-Shabab in Somalia, the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria and the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda  which repositioned themselves as they lost territory, turning more to terrorist activity, either to pressure foreign governments to withdraw from a conflict, to bait foreign governments to overreact or because, with the loss of territory, they had surplus resources that could be directed to terrorism. A wounded man lies in a hospital after US warplanes struck an Islamic State training camp in Sabratha, Libya. Credit:Uncredited What is remarkable about the IS attacks in Europe is their sophistication and discipline. And though it was the Belgian security services that were being kicked this week for their failings, in November last year it was their French counterparts who were humiliated by the enormity of a terror plot apparently assembled under their noses  and without detection  in which 130 people died along with seven attackers.

This image posted online on February 5, 2016, by supporters of the Tripoli Province of the Islamic State in Libya on a social media site, and vetted by SITE Intel Group, shows fighters training at a camp in Libya. Credit:AP Presciently, the minute detail of the planning and execution of the Paris attacks was revealed just days before this week's Brussels attacks, when a trove of French documents, including a 55-page report by the French anti-terrorism police, was acquired by The New York Times. The attackers travelled to and around Europe without detection  and in the aftermath, 19 people, three of whom were previously wanted on international arrest warrants, were being held in six countries in connection with the Paris network. An Islamic State patrol in Khazer, Iraq. Credit:AP They were adept at making their own bomb vests and in the dark art of mixing shooting sprees with separate bomb detonations and a theatre hostage drama to disorient the emergency services.

One of the captured mobile phones contained layout plans of the Bataclan concert hall  where three gunmen killed 90 of the victims, some of whom were made to sit in front of exits as human shields in the event of a police assault. A man waves a Belgian and a Palestinian flag as a mark of solidarity at the Place de la Bourse on Tuesday. Credit:Getty Images The attackers used new throwaway phones, which were activated just minutes prior to the attacks across Paris. These phones were abandoned at will  one had been used for just a single call, to an unidentified number in Belgium. As a further precaution, they communicated without detection by using their hostages' mobile phones. None of their emails or other electronic communications has been found  leaving French investigators to conclude that the attackers used a sophisticated encryption software. And while there was great anxiety over IS terrorists masking their arrival in Europe by insinuating themselves into a flood of refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq, it transpired that most of the attackers held European passports. Illustration: Richard Giliberto

Despite the battlefield losses by IS, a reality in the Syria/Iraq crisis is that in the absence of genuine political reform in Iraq and a sustainable resolution of the Syrian conflict, the region will always be an incubator for the likes of IS or a successor movement. Western and Arab intelligence on the interior of IS remains lean and Washington and its allies continue to struggle in their efforts to counter the IS ideology and its dissemination via social media  which has the effect of a powerful magnet drawing foreign volunteers to the fight. Washington is sticking with a strategy of air strikes on IS targets; helping Iraqi troops and Syrian opposition forces, with an estimated 5000 Americans on the ground; and actively seeking to disrupt IS's financial network. Progress is painfully slow and comes in fits and starts. Even when backed by US air strikes, it took Iraqi forces more than five months to regain control of Ramadi, a small city in the west of Iraq; and on Thursday, they launched what Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi described as "the first phase" of a campaign to retake the northern stronghold of Mosul. In 2004 it required more than 13,000 troops, mostly American, to recapture Fallujah, a city between Ramadi and Baghdad  95 Americans died and more than 500 were injured as an insurgent force of about 3000 was dislodged.

For IS to lose Mosul would be a staggering blow. And for Iraqi forces, who have inspired little confidence since fleeing Mosul in the face of an IS advance in 2014, to retake the city would be a staggering achievement. Mosul is five times bigger than Ramadi and its recapture would require probably more than 30,000 troops  compared with the 8000-strong force that regained Ramadi. "Do I think it's going to be easy? No," Major-General Richard Clarke, commander of American land forces in Iraq, told reporters late in February. "It's going to be tough." US President Barack Obama talks about escalating as need be, but for now he is sticking with what he said in 2014 was a policy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS  but which these days looks more like a policy of containment. After the November assault on Paris, MIT political scientist Barry Posen described containment as "a tough sell, because it requires patience and resilience, and does not promise an easy victory". On the other hand, he counselled: "US attempts to reorganise the politics of other countries by the sword have foundered on nationalist resistance to outsiders; unreliable local allies; deeply embedded cultural practices; and the inherent crudeness of the military instrument." Absent a massive sea change in American political will, it's difficult to envision any US president dispatching the ground forces needed to take and hold indefinitely the territory now controlled by IS  especially given that as many as 170,000 US-led forces were unable to knock Iraq into a shape that satisfied Western thinking in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

Jessica Stern, lecturer in government at Harvard, states the obvious  yes, the West could defeat IS in the territory it now controls  before she acknowledges reality as she writes in The Atlantic: "But it would take a massive ground invasion and the results would be temporary at best." Noting that it took 70 years of containment to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union, she forecasts that IS "will no doubt eventually collapse", as a result of its equally false utopian promises. But unlike the "either or" reading of IS's options by RAND's Jones and Fordham's Greenberg, Stern sees the movement as having a dual nature: "[IS] is both a totalitarian proto-state that controls territory and is trying to spread its 'caliphate' into even more regions where state structures are weak, as well as a global terrorist organisation bent on goading the West to counterattack." She sets out missteps by the West that would defeat a containment strategy : Failure to see that IS's most numerous victims are Muslims;

Conflating IS's ideology with the religion of Islam;

Conflating the victims of jihadist brutality, now seeking refuge in the West, with the perpetrators from whom they are trying to escape;

Urging Nuremberg-type laws for Muslims, requiring them to register with the state or denying them entry;

Sending in 100,000 troops to defeat IS, while failing to address the underlying problems of disenfranchised Sunni Muslims. Her advice is timely for European governments torn between what is sensible and what is populist as they grapple with the Brussels bombings. Muslim communities, such as the much-publicised Brussels district of Molenbeek, described as an incubator of radicalism, have to be brought into the national community  not locked out.

But Stern's advice probably comes too late for Erdogan's Turkey. In 2013, then prime minister Erdogan courted EU membership by boasting of his "zero problems with neighbours" policy and engaging Turkey's significant Kurdish minority in a peace process. But Erdogan has jettisoned all that. Back on a war footing with the Kurds, literally, he's madly compiling "enemy lists" among the judiciary and the fourth estate. The temptation for some in Europe will be to follow Erdogan into this brutal nationalism, but this is a time for minorities to be embraced. As the would-be nominees in the US presidential race attempt to outbid each other in the aftermath of the Brussels bombings, Republican Ted Cruz came in for withering criticism with his call this week for Muslim communities to be "patrolled and secured". And at a press conference in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Obama smacked down Cruz for another of his remarkable policy proposals, saying: "When I hear someone saying we should carpet-bomb Iraq or Syria, not only is that inhumane, not only is that contrary to our values, that would likely be an extraordinary mechanism for [IS] to recruit more people willing to die and to explode bombs in an airport or metro station.
OMAHA  While everyone else is in class, Brandon Perkins head is in the clouds.

Some people go to class, I go to fly, not many people can say that, said the 2014 Columbus High graduate.

Perkins isnt your average student, not just because he will finish college in only three years and is a 19-year-old flight instructor. Hes also co-captain of the University of Nebraska at Omaha Aviation Institutes flight team  the Flying Mavericks.

The team recently placed third out of 17 schools in the region, qualifying the Mavs for the seventh year in a row for the National Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference in Columbus, Ohio.

The early May event tests numerous types of skills from navigation and landing to calculating fuel usage in a two-seater Cessna 150.

In 2015, Perkins took second in the Top Pilot competition.

The son of Columbus Public Schools teachers Dave and Richa Perkins, he knew at a young age he wanted to do something different with his life. Not that he didnt respect his parents' career choices, he just wanted to forge his own path.

Perkins loved science and figuring out how things worked, he just needed a way to turn his interests into a profession.

During his junior year in high school, he caught wind of something called a Discovery Flight offered at the Council Bluffs Municipal Airport in Iowa. With a fairly inexpensive price tag, Perkins jumped at the opportunity.

It was just him and the pilot in a small two-seater aircraft.

The flight was designed to show beginners that flying is not out of reach by letting students help steer, liftoff and fly the plane for 30 minutes.

The second Perkins got in the air, the cloudiness of his future disappeared.

Yep, this is what I want to do with my life. That was it, he said.

Hes currently pursuing a bachelors degree in science and aviation with a specialization in professional flight.

Flying for commercial airliners like Delta and Southwest is what Perkins is shooting for, but he hasnt ruled out a future of piloting private jets.

And since he took so many college credits in high school, he is able to jump-start his career, expecting to graduate in May of 2017.

Hes not only a college student and co-captain of a flight team, hes also the youngest flight instructor at the same airport that showed him his calling in nearby Council Bluffs.

Sometimes I get weird looks, but once I start talking they realize Im OK, he joked.

The UNO flight team is raising money for its trip to Ohio. For more information, visit www.gofundme.com/r8rpev84.
Two Americans and a British national have been confirmed as killed in Tuesday's bombings in Brussels.

The family of Briton David Dixon, 53, who is originally from Hartlepool but was living in the Belgian capital, said they had received "the most terrible and devastating news".

British national David Dixon was killed in the Brussels attack. Credit:Twitter

A statement from the UK's Foreign Office said: "We can confirm David Dixon lost his life in the attacks which took place in Brussels on Tuesday 22 March 2016. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time and our Embassy staff are continuing to support them.

"We know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks - three are still being treated in hospital."



A senior US official said two Americans had been confirmed dead, as US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Belgian leaders and offered condolences and help following the attack.
SCHUYLER  Schuyler Central High School seniors Preston Hall, Paul Castanon and Arami Perez now get to work on their construction project inside.

Before, when they were putting up the frame and attachments for the roof, they spent hours in the cold outdoors doing heavy lifting.

Its a lot harder than building a table, said Hall. Well, none of its hard, you just have to pay attention."

This is the 16th year Schuyler Highs construction classes are building a house that will be lived in by a local family. Its on one of the 18 lots laid out near 21st and Chicago streets, an up-and-coming subdivision where one house already stands.

The construction classes' house has already been sold, as well as the one theyre building next year. Unlike other small towns, Schuyler is growing and the city is barely managing to keep up.

In 1865, Union Pacific Railroad began laying track from Omaha west across the Nebraska Territory, and built the Shell Creek station a year later. By 1869, Nebraska was a state, and the Legislature split up Platte County and named one of the new counties Colfax, after former Vice President Schuyler Colfax. Shell Creek became the county seat and was renamed Schuyler.

Schuyler and Colfax Countys early history is documented in the book Images of America: Colfax County," which was compiled by Mary L. Maas, Jim Krzycki, Judy Brezina and Ruth Waters of the Colfax County Historical Society along with Arcadia Publishing.

Schuyler was the first community in the state to have a municipal water plant, electric plant and telephone exchange. During the height of the Chisholm Trail, Schuyler and Columbus competed to be the main shipping point for longhorns.

Today, the two economies are still closely tied, with many residents living in one community but working, shopping and socializing in the other. They are also both growing at a time when many small towns across Nebraska, and the Midwest, are shrinking and aging.

Schuyler economic development director Kem Cavanah said other small towns would love to have the city's problems.

A growing population creates challenging opportunities, said Cavanah. A declining population is a real problem. As an economic development person, I can deal with a growing population.

One challenging opportunity is the need for more housing in Schuyler. Real estate agents say the Schuyler housing market is tight, with a lack of homes available for purchase.

City officials are well aware of the problem and Schuyler has a few housing projects at various stages of development. Construction on a 14-lot subdivision along West 22nd Street is expected to begin this spring. A second subdivision with 60 lots is under development.

The city has invested in expanding its infrastructure, such as with a new sanitation system at 22nd and Chicago streets and completion of the Shell Creek levee to make the outskirts of the city more salable as potential housing developments.

Other major projects have either happened recently or are currently under development. The Homestead Center, which houses community service organizations, opened in August 2015. Frontier Co-op invested $8 million in its Schuyler dry fertilizer facility. A $1.5 million recreation building is under construction next to the middle school.

Private donors have written large checks for other community projects. The library foundation received a $500,000 donation for a new library and an alumni of Schuyler Community Schools donated $250,000 to the district's foundation.

Cavanah said the flurry of investments in infrastructure, schools and businesses are a strong positive indicator for the city, and they wouldnt happen if the citys population wasn't growing.

Do you want to invest in a community thats struggling to keep itself together? said Cavanah. Whereas were busting at the seams.

One big advantage Schuyler has is the Cargill beef processing plant on the west side of town. Cargill bought the facility in 1969 and now employs more than 2,000 people there. Its also an entry point for immigrants to gain a foothold in the community.

Mayor Dave Reinecke has lived in Schuyler his whole life, so hes seen the towns immigrant population shift from eastern European to Latin American.

You'd be around town and you'd hear all these guys talking Czech and you didn't know what the heck they were talking about, said Reinecke. Now its the same thing going on except they're speaking Spanish.

Along with their language and families filling the schools, Latino immigrants have also brought their entrepreneurial spirit. A tour through downtown would include Burrito House, Chichihualco grocery store and Zapatos Para Todos (Shoes 4 All).

The chamber of commerces Business of the Year Award was presented last month to Schuyler Inn owners Javier Arizmendi and his wife Ada Sanchez.

When Arizmendi bought the dilapidated inn in 2011, everything from the roof and windows to the carpeting and furniture had to be replaced. Reinecke remembers it was in bad shape.

People used to refer to it as the Johnny Bates motel because it was called Johnny's at one time, he said. They have just done wonders with that thing.

Arizmendi was an accountant in Mexico and working for a farm in Monroe when he decided to buy the inn. Arizmendi and Sanchez moved their family to Schuyler and poured lots of time, money and energy into the project.

And now, thank God, we are seeing the fruits of our labor, Arizmendi said in his acceptance speech during the chamber event.

They now plan on opening a bar and grill in downtown Schuyler, possibly by October. As a businessman Arizmendi, sees a lot of opportunities in Schuyler.

The community is growing, he said. The Schuyler Community Development is trying to build houses and in my opinion that would bring more business.

That economic and demographic power has not transferred to political power  yet. Victor Lopez, owner of El Pueblo Tires, founded the organization Comite Latino to educate Latinos on the civic and government processes.

"We see that need for our Latino community to be involved in the community like schools, school board, city council, all the things that have to do with the community," said Lopez. "Seeing as how we are a pretty good portion of the population and up until now we havent gotten involved."

Comite Latino has held workshops on the roles of elected officials and encouraged residents to register to vote. Mynor Hernandez, who is running for a seat on the school board this year, said in 2012 they learned that in the prior election there were only 17 registered Latino voters. Their goal for 2012 was to increase that to 50, and they ended up with more than 130. They've also worked with the school district to increase parent participation in strategic planning meetings.

Lopez said the goal wasn't just to advance the profile of Latinos, but also connect Schuyler's communities so they can work together.

"Our purpose more than anything else is to build a bridge with everyone in town and have a more harmonious life," said Lopez.

Reinecke admitted not everyone greeted the demographic shift with open arms, but that hasnt slowed the city down.

I had a very good friend of mine that left Schuyler and it was white flight, he said. I dont mean to sound wrong, but if you don't want to be in Schuyler, don't be in Schuyler. And we'll move on without you.

While the community will continue to grow, a redrawn flood map from the Federal Emergency Management Agency may shift exactly where that growth occurs.

The new map added a large swath of Schuyler south of the railroad tracks, including downtown, to the flood plain for the Platte River. Property owners with mortgages will be required to purchase flood insurance. The owners of homes and businesses who have to take out a federal loan for construction or improvements will have to comply with flood regulations.

To give downtown business owners more flexibility, the city is applying for its downtown to be designated as a historical district. Cavanah is leading the project and working with a consultant in Kansas City. The final application will not be submitted until April, so the outcome won't be known until the summer or fall.

City officials have known the flood map changes were coming for years now and planned accordingly. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cut the ribbon on the Shell Creek levee almost a year ago. Once FEMA gives its final approval, the area around Shell Creek will no longer be considered part of a flood plain and be open for new construction. Infrastructure and housing projects were also planned north of tracks, out of the new flood plain.

The city did look into building a levee for the Platte River, the source of the southern flood plain, but funding isn't currently available for that project.

Still, city officials are confident that years of planning and building have Schuyler prepared for a future of growth and opportunity.

We are prepared where we weren't 30 years ago, Reinecke said. If some entity (like a large business) was coming to look at Schuyler, we were never prepared to really sell Schuyler. Now we are.
Type 1 diabetes affects over 400,000 people in the UK. It is caused by the body's immune system turning against insulin-producing cells in the pancreas (called 'beta cells'). Without insulin, the body cannot maintain normal blood sugar levels, which over the long term can cause damage to vital organs including the heart, blood vessels, nerves, eyes and kidneys.

MultiPepT1De is intended to slow the progression of the disease by 'switching off' the autoimmune attack, and hopefully preventing further destruction of the pancreatic cells. In laboratory testing it was shown to be more powerful than a first generation treatment trialled last year, and is designed to benefit a higher proportion of those with Type 1 diabetes than its predecessor (called MonoPepT1De).

Professor Mark Peakman, Principal Investigator at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), said: "We are really looking forward to seeing the results from this new trial. What we are doing is a big step forward in precision medicine, taking a set of patients with a particular disease and genetic background and giving them an immunotherapy designed in the laboratory specifically for them. Obviously we will need to wait until we have the full results of the trial before we know if it is successful but at this stage we are hopeful."

Dr Stephen Caddick, Director of Innovations at the Wellcome Trust, said: "Type 1 diabetes is a very serious condition that normally requires lifelong treatment with insulin therapy, but this promising new form of 'immunotherapy' could be set to change that. By retraining the immune system to prevent it from attacking insulin-producing cells, it may be possible to slow progression of the disease or even stop it in its tracks. If this approach is proved successful in larger studies it has the potential to transform the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes."

MultiPepT1De is based on an area of study called peptide immunotherapy, which is currently being applied to a number of other diseases, including allergies and multiple sclerosis.

It was developed with funding from a Wellcome Trust Translation Award by researchers at King's College London, working in the NIHR BRC at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College London.

The treatment will be trialled on 24 people with Type 1 diabetes by autumn 2016 and the study team is hopeful of positive results that build upon their previous findings showing that the first generation of MultiPepT1De, called MonoPepT1De, is safe and well tolerated, with some evidence of positive effects in T1D patients.
LINCOLN  An overhauled version of Gov. Pete Ricketts' plan to cut property taxes finally emerged from a legislative committee Thursday, with just 10 days remaining before lawmakers adjourn for the year.

Revenue Committee members voted 7-0 to advance the measure, with Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion not voting.

Ricketts called the committee's move "the next key step toward bringing property tax relief to hardworking Nebraska families."

Others were less enthusiastic.

During a public hearing on the proposal earlier Thursday, John Hladik of the Center for Rural Affairs called it "token relief."

Commercial and residential landowners will see no immediate impact from the bill, according to an analysis by OpenSky Policy Institute, a Lincoln think tank. And the owner of a $1 million farm would see savings of about $235.

Even Nebraska Farm Bureau and Nebraska Farmers Union, which testified in support of the rewritten bill, warned it wouldn't address underlying concerns about the state's heavy reliance on agricultural land taxes to fund public schools and other local governments.

"We appreciate what you're trying to do, but what this is is not enough," southeast Nebraska farmer Dennis Schuster told senators.

The main component of Ricketts' proposal would boost property tax credits for farm and ranchland owners by about $30 million next year.

It would accomplish that goal by factoring in the full value of agricultural land when distributing the tax credits, instead of the land's lower taxable valuation, then kicking in additional state money to ensure residential and commercial landowners are held harmless.

The full Legislature will debate the bill (LB958) on Thursday, a day after lawmakers consider another component of the governor's plan aimed at property taxation by school districts. Education Committee members advanced that measure (LB959) last week.

Combined with a third bill that would eliminate the Omaha-area Learning Community's common levy, the measures could make a $100 million dent in the state's next two-year budget, warned Renee Fry of OpenSky.

Fry called the rewritten property tax proposal a significant improvement over the original bill introduced earlier this year. But she questioned whether it would make urban lawmakers less willing to compromise on more significant property tax reform in the future.

"You're not done with this issue," said tax expert and former state Sen. Bob Wickersham, who testified in support of the rewritten measure.

Challenges remain for the bill this year, as well.

Nebraska's community colleges oppose a portion that would limit their ability to grow their budgets if they exercised more frugal spending in previous years.

Revenue Committee members picked away at objections raised by the colleges Thursday, noting K-12 schools already follow similar rules. The governor's office circulated data showing property taxes paid to community colleges have climbed 129 percent over the past decade.

The Lincoln, Omaha and Nebraska chambers of commerce also opposed the bill, saying they couldn't support using any more income and sales tax dollars to offset property taxes.

Smith, who didn't vote on advancing the bill, said he was unsure whether he will support it during next week's debate.

Smith has pushed for income tax cuts and pointed to a lack of "discussion at the leadership level" to bring together agriculture and other business concerns.

Asked if he would try to amend the governor's bill on the legislative floor, he responded, "We'll see."

"I'm not going to take it off the table," Smith said. "I think we need to have a broader discussion."
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 24, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 24, 2016 | 05:20 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Twelve Oaks Baptist Church has an event planned for Easter weekend, aimed at those who are interested in the discussion of whether Jesus really rose from the dead, and whether a famous burial shroud is authentic.



The free "Risen or Not?" event is Saturday night from 6:00-8:30 pm at Walker Hall in downtown Paducah, and features scholars who will present their findings on the issue.



Dave Glander is an expert on the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It has been the topic of debate and discussion for many years, and Glander's up-to-date presentation on the artifact will feature a rare full-sized replica of the shroud.



Dr. Mike Licona is a professor at Houston Baptist University and the author of numerous books, including, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach . He will present his historical evidence of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.



The event is great for anyone who wants more information about the topics, whether they go to church or not.



Bro. Brandt Lyon, Pastor of Twelve Oaks, said there are thought-provoking facts about the shroud, which experts know has existed since the 1300's. One relates to photographs researchers took of the shroud, but to their surprise the film negatives showed a positive image, meaning that the image on the shroud is in a negative form. But the shroud is older than photographic technology.



Lyon told the Greg Dunker Show, "Even if it were a forgery, how would they know how to put it in the negative form? So what it lends itself to is some sort of light, some sort of rays that formed that image on there, much like a camera would form an image on film."



Lyon said Glander will discuss several fascinating topics about the shroud, which can create questions in people's minds about the resurrection. He said Dr. Licona will give a historical angle on the resurrection and why it's believed by so many.



He said leaders were intentional about not holding the event at their church, so it's not viewed as a revival or a worship service with preaching.



"This is experts giving answers to help us understand what the resurrection is, whether or not it happened, and how it applies to our lives," Lyon said. "And I think in this day and age, that's what people are looking for. They're not looking for another church event - some emotionally driven event - they're looking for answers, and if we can provide answers it will help them come a long way in actually putting their faith in something real."



Walker Hall is at 227 Madison Street in Paducah. The event's website is www.risenornot.com
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 25, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 25, 2016 | 09:23 AM | PADUCAH, KY

It has been making headlines for months. Will the Sansone Group build a nearly 50 acre shopping development, the first of its kind in Paducah in nearly 20 years?



The Sansone Group's Jim Sansone tells West Kentucky Star that they are going to build it. A defamation of character lawsuit brought against the Paducah Economic Development Board and its CEO Scott Darnell back in September 2015 was "dismissed" in court on March 17. The reason for the mutual dismissal is not being disclosed by either side in the case.



The lawsuit originally alleged that Darnell defamed Sansone by directly interfering with the retailers that agreed to open in the new development. Darnell has never commented to West Kentucky Star regarding the allegations since the beginning.



Sansone told West Kentucky Star on the day the lawsuit was dismissed that they are still putting everything together for the development.



There was also the request to the City of Paducah back in the summer of 2015 to annex the land into the city limits and to allow for approximately $3.5 million in TIF (tax increment finance) that would have captured a portion of the sales taxes generated by the development to help pay for the flood abatement construction needed for a development of that size. The city was not asked to give any money, just for permission to capture a portion of the taxes the new development generated until the money was paid back. The city declined the request, and also declined to allow the Sansone Group to even come before the City Commission to present the potential development. They didn't give a reason for not allowing the developer to talk with them.



Approximately 91% of the nearly 400,000 square foot $50 million development has been leased out with new-to-Paducah retail and food locations, including a Burlington Coat Factory, Academy Sports, and a much anticipated Menards, according to the Sansone Group website. The development also has several more tenants that have yet to be announced, and approximately 35,000 square feet that is still available divided into smaller amounts. The closest Burlington Coat Factory from Paducah, according to the retail company's website, is in Nashville or Evansville.



Counting construction jobs, the development is touted as providing a total of 1,200 jobs to the area, several hundred of those being permanent jobs when the development is expected to be complete. It is not known when construction is expected to begin at this time.



The St. Louis based Sansone Group, has approximately 220 employees, and $240.8 million in brokerage transaction volume and managed property revenue of $208 million in 2013, the latest year available for the reporting.






By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 25, 2016 | 10:41 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

Two Graves County residents face methamphetamine and other charges.

According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, 32-year-old Joannie Hale of Mayfield was arrested on Paducah Road after deputies determined she was operating her vehicle under the influence of illegal drugs. During a search, deputies found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia on Hale and in her vehicle.



Hale is charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and DUI. She was lodged in the Graves County Jail.

In a separate case, 54-year-old Debra Potts of Mayfield was arrested after a search of a home located at 506 North 17th Street in Mayfield. During the search, deputies found methamphetamine and other illegal drugs, along with drug paraphernalia.

Potts was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and prescription not in the proper container. She was lodged in the Graves County Jail.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 25, 2016 | 08:59 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

An illegal turn led to two people being arrested on DUI and drug charges in Graves County.

According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, 58-year-old Herbert Sanderson Jr. and 48-year-old Michele Freeland, both of Mayfield, were arrested after Sanderson made an illegal turn on the Purchase Parkway in the bridge construction area near Mayfield. Deputies said Sanderson was found to be driving under the influence of an illegal narcotic. During a search of the vehicle, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia were found along with a large sum of money.

Sanderson was charged with trafficking methamphetamine, trafficking marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, DUI and other traffic offenses. Freeland was charged with trafficking methamphetamine, trafficking marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Both were lodged in the Graves County Jail.
By The Associated Press Mar. 25, 2016 | 06:55 AM | BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

At least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week's attacks in Brussels, a U.S. official says, as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Speaking after meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Kerry said the "United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks."

He did not give a specific number but a senior official said the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths in Tuesday's attacks. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not have further details.
Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world
One of the most surprising selections in Michael Billington's recent 101 Greatest Plays was Beckett's All That Fall, a 1957 radio piece that Beckett himself never wanted done in the theatre but for which his estate gives permission as long as the theatricality preserves the radio-ness of the piece.

Max Stafford-Clark, preparing this "sonic experience" for Out of Joint (co-produced with the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, where it was seen last year), was quizzed on his vision for the piece. He had none, he said (the right answer). Neither do we. We sit on chairs in one of the most beautiful interiors in London theatre with black masks on.

The play  just sixty minutes on this occasion; Trevor Nunn's full-blown staging (script-in-hands as if in a recording studio), with Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon, lasted eighty minutes  is the progress of old Maddy Rooney along an Irish country road to meet her blind husband off a train. On the way she meets local characters (from Beckett's youth in Foxrock) such as the clerk of the racecourse, a puffing cyclist and a God-fearing spinster.

It's a lovely, lilting, fresh air sort of a script shot through with pain of death (of course) and loss of childhood, and Stafford-Clark, with sound designer Dyfan Jones, makes the arrival of the train as thrilling as that of the helicopter in Miss Saigon. There's a stereophonic sound system, too, moving its point of entry throughout, as the actors snake through the theatre. As Maddy was helped into the clerk's car ("I'm coming, give me time, I'm as stiff as yourself"), I was poked amiably in the ribs and shoulder.

I love the play as much as Billington, but its beauty is the beauty of Beckett's novels, not the stark, stony (still funny) tales of resilience in Godot, Endgame or Not I. And here, as the charabanc moves on round the theatre, it's hard to catch quite a lot of the lines in the echoing acoustic. I preferred the version by the Irish company Pan Pan at the first Enniskillen festival, where the audience sat in rocking chairs (with skull and crossbones cushions) for a light and sound show with the recorded voices out of sight around them.

But it is a treat to hear Brid Brennan as Mrs Rooney, her voice a rich tapestry of humour, local gossip, descriptive detail and accusatory sorrow, and other vocal colours are provided by Gary Lilburn, Tara Flynn and Frank Laverty in a cast of six, though you can't put a name to a voice as you listen beyond Brennan's, even though I tried by taking one or two illicit peeks through my mask.

All that Fall runs at Wilton's Music Hall until 9 April.
2016 has been a year of new growth and new beginnings for the YWCA of Northeast Kansas.

Thursday night, the board of directors and its membership committee held their annual membership meeting at the YWCA headquarters.

Many supporters credit Interim CEO Joan Wagnon with the turnaround.

Wagnon told those in attendance the organization is financially stable, with money in the bank and plans to move forward.

Some of those plans include re-opening the child care center, bringing back leadership luncheons and renting out space at their headquarters to nonprofits to cover cost.

One board member we spoke to had nothing, but praise for Joan Wagnon's hardwork.

"I love Joan! Joan Wagnon is awesome, I mean she has been so involved in the community and everybody knows her name. She just wants to make things a better. She wants to make the YWCA a better place for the rest of us coming behinds her. She's amazing, I want to be like her when I grow up," Kaye Campbell YWCA Board Member.

The YWCA is also starting a Women's Momentum Program.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/03/2016 (2403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Ontario Provincial Police say autopsy results found no evidence of foul play in the death of a missing teenager whose remains were found earlier this week in Kenora.

Delaine Copenace, 16, died by drowning, the OPP said Thursday, citing autopsy results.

The OPP released a short statement on the findings Thursday that said, A post mortem examination was conducted on March 23, 2016 at the Office of the Chief Coroner and Forensic Pathology Services in Toronto and no evidence of foul play was found.

FACEBOOK Delaine Copenace

The cause of death has been determined by the Coroner as drowning, the statement read.

City workers discovered the teens remains Tuesday in the Lake of the Woods, at the foot of Water Street in Kenora.

The discovery marked a tragic ending weeks of frantic searches that involved hundreds of people from Kenora to Winnipeg. A number of Kenora-area First Nations banded together to post a $8000. reward in an effort to locate her.

Copenace disappeared the evening of Feb. 27, leaving her home in Kenora with friends and never returned.

Her family filed a missing persons report the next day and in the days that followed there were extensive ground search by OPP that turned up nothing.

Nor was there any luck with dozens of community searches led by family and friends in Kenora as well as in Winnipeg with the Bear Clan Patrol.

The teen lived in Kenora and had close family in Winnipeg.

On the day that her remains were found the family released a brief statement.

The family of Delaine Copenace would like to thank everyone for the continuous support and prayers, said a statement released on behalf of the Ross and Copenace families by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

At this time Delaines loved ones are asking that their privacy be respected as they take some time together to grieve the devastating loss of their daughter, sister and granddaughter and friend.

The Centre for Child Protection in Winnipeg had no further word on statements from the family in response to the autopsy findings.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/03/2016 (2403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After three agonizing days, Rod Diduch waited anxiously at the bottom of the escalator at the Richardson International Airport on Thursday afternoon for a glimpse of his little girl.

After all, it was early Tuesday evening when Shelby Diduch, 15, first texted her father, letting him know that she and 11 other taekwondo competitors from Winnipeg had narrowly missed arriving at the Brussels airport prior to the deadly terrorist attacks.

The rest was a blur of fear.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Skyler Park, middle, gets a warm welcome by her grandmother Kay Park and some other friends and family at the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport.

I cant even talk about it right now, Diduch said, when asked to describe the last week. Utter shock. Hopelessness. Youre sitting a continent away and you cant do anything. Ive been running on adrenaline all week. Were walking on eggshells until we see her.

Only minutes later, however, Shelby and her fellow competitors were gliding down the escalator into the arms of their family and friends.

It was a scene of hugs and tears. Home at last.

I cant believe shes home safe, said Maria Campos, clutching her 12-year-old daughter, Julianna. Im so grateful. I thank God. I thank her master (instructor Jae Park). They just did such a great job of getting these kids out, getting them home so quick.

Julianna and Shelby were two of three competitors who were not accompanied to the competition by their parents.

Its been tough, Julianna said, but Ive been trying to deal with it emotionally just for my parents sake. Just to work through it and know that Im going to be safe and Im going to get home.

It was scary, she added. You missed them. Theyre worried about you, youre worried about them. And you just dont feel that safe without your parents.

And to see her parents at the bottom of the escalator?

It felt amazing, Julianna said. Ive been waiting for a long time. Our flights have been getting cancelled and delayed. Seeing my family again for the first time in two weeks is just great.

Shelby, meanwhile, said just speaking to her father immediately after the attack helped her soothe her initial fears.

After my dad talked to me, I was okay, she said. I started to calm down a little bit more. And as soon as he said, Youre going to be okay, I all of a sudden knew, yeah, Im going to be fine.

The martial arts academy had rented three vehicles for the competition in Lommel, Belgium, that wrapped up on the weekend. They were running about 10 minutes late when they arrived at the Brussels airport and saw smoke coming from the building.

At first, the Winnipeg contingent thought the commotion was caused by something less drastic, like a gas leak. But not for long.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Families are happy to see their kids arrive home at James Armstrong Richardson International Airport. Some of the participants on the Winnipeg taekwondo team arrived at the Brussels airport just minutes after the bombs went off.

Said Julianna: There were paramedics everywhere. Ambulances. Emergency vehicles racing there.

It was chaos  something out of a movie, Park told the Free Press earlier this week.

We werent really panicked but we were kind of scared, Julianna recalled. If we would have been there on time that would have been us in the airport and we could have potentially been hurt or injured. Anything could have happened.

Safely in Winnipeg, Park said most of the competitors, who range in age from 12 to 20, were still trying to process not only what happened, but the what ifs.

Something like that, I still dont think its sunk in, the instructor said. The magnitude of the terrorist act itself, but more importantly how close we were to being there. Its scary to think could have happened.

All the more reason for the emotional reunion, just moments after Shelby Dudich sent yet another text to her mother, Charlynne. This one read, WE LANDED!

It was an awesome feeling to see them reuniting with their parents, Park said. I had the children, I knew they were safe. But having the parents and seeing their emotion, being able to hug their children, to touch them and know theyre finally safe in their arms.thats the most important thing. You cant describe that.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @randyturner15
When you think of government buying, you probably think of all the stuff that the Department of Defense (DoD) procures for fighting terrorism or the cost of services that the Government purchases for healthcare. And rightly so, for that is where the bulk of federal government contracts are awarded in Wisconsin. Wisconsin businesses were awarded close to three billion dollars-worth of contracts in 2015 with 40,299 contracts being transacted. Though Oshkosh Defense, LLC is the elephant in the room with a little over one billion dollars in sales to the government, we do have the next largest prime contractor close by with Logistics Health in La Crosse.

As far as Juneau County goes, we are small potatoes but we do play our part. We were awarded approximately 99 million dollars in 2015 covering 323 contracts. We seem to have found our niche as being excellent sub-contractors to the primes like Lockheed, Raytheon and other large companies. In fact, Walker Stainless Equipment Co. Inc. was number four in the state for subcontracting work with a little over 14 million dollars in sales.

Our manufacturers also make cool things for the government. An example would be Diversified Assembly Technologies out of Necedah. They provide the backup power for some of the United States most technologically advanced warships and aircraft carriers. Then there are numerous small Juneau County businesses providing everything from art to catering to hotel stays to construction and everything in between. The government buys everything you can imagine.

Juneau County Economic Development Corp (JCEDC) has been a leader in encouraging businesses to consider selling their products or services to the federal government or to get involved with a prime contractor. Mark your calendar for June 15 and 16 to attend the Tenth Annual Government Contracting Conference at Volk Field in Camp Douglas. We created this successful eventin partnership with the Volk Field Air National Guard Base and the DoDs Wisconsin Procurement Institute  to help Juneau County businesses service this niche. Typically we have over 150 businesses attend. Not only will you learn how to sell to the government but we introduce you to the actual buyers as well. For those that do not want to take on bidding as a prime contractor, well introduce you to Wisconsins prime contractors so you may build a business relationship going forward in a sub-contracting capacity.

Diversification is always a good strategy in times of uncertain markets. Call us at JCEDC at (608) 427-2070 or check out our website at www.juneaucounty.com if you would like to learn more.
Easter Seals Wisconsins Respite Camp, 1550 Waubeek Drive, Wisconsin Dells, is inviting the public to join them for dinner from 4 to 7 p.m. April 12. The camp is hosting its second annual spaghetti dinner, providing the community an opportunity to tour the camp and learn about the services it provides for children and adults with disabilities.

The all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner costs $5 at the door. The proceeds from the dinner will go to Respite Camp and its programs.

While many people are familiar with Easter Seals Wisconsins Camp Wawbeek, the Respite Camp is a second camp located on the same campgrounds in Wisconsin Dells. Wisconsin Elks/Easter Seals Wisconsin Respite Camp was started in 1991 after staff at Camp Wawbeek noticed a need for families with children who needed one-on-one care due to disability.

The camp is the only statewide overnight respite program in Wisconsin and serves hundreds of people from around the state, including many from counties where few or no respite programs exist. Respite Camp operates sessions year-round, providing one-to-one care as needed, individualized recreational opportunities for campers, and that all-important break for caregivers. The camp has quickly grown during its 24-year history, serving more than 800 campers last year alone.




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Lifestyle help for potential diabetics

A diabetic checking his sugar level

The NHS is going to start offering healthy lifestyle advice to the people most in danger of developing type-2 diabetes.

The 7 million programme aims to support 20,000 people across 2016 in a bid to stop them getting the condition.

Each patient will get 13 sessions throughout 27 areas spanning half of England to begin with from the spring, the BBC reports.

The number of patient spaces will jump to 100,000 as the scheme is rolled out across the remainder of the country by the start of the next decade.

Type-2 diabetes is regularly associated with lifestyle factors, unlike type-1 diabetes.

Health leaders hope the plan will lower the amount of:

- amputations and other diabetes-related complications

- strokes

- hospital admissions

Holiday support

Diabetics travelling abroad need not trust to luck with their health if they take out medical-related travel insurance.

This covers round the clock emergency medical cover as well as medication replacements should the worst happen.

GPs play their part

Family doctors are being asked to play their part in the new initiative.

They will single out the patients most at risk who stand to gain more from the scheme. The project will include:

- blood-glucose testing

- supervised gym classes

- checking for symptoms of pre-diabetes

Stat attack

- there are 2.6 million England-based type-2 diabetes sufferers

- there are 200,000 extra type-2 diabetes diagnoses each year

- diabetes care costs 10 billion a year - which means the price of the initiative is comparatively small

What the experts say

Maureen Baker (Royal College of GPs) says it is challenging to change people's mindsets in the long-term. Dr Baker welcomed the project.

Duncan Selbie (chief executive of Public Health England) calls type-2 diabetes among the current day's worst health problems facing the country.

Chris Askew (chief executive of Diabetes UK) says the guidance will give people the greatest possible opportunity when it comes to reducing their chances of getting the illness. This should enable them to live longer.
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Spring has sprung! With it comes a number of very interesting - and, often, unusual - "experiences" this year! And this is the best time of year to do, experience, and see them!Here are my Top 5 Spring Experiences. The first two are tranquil, colorful places which are most beautiful in spring. And the last three are anything but tranquil!During April and May, the Golden Sate isn't only golden...it's also purple, lavender, flaming orange, rust, deep-green, a million shades of blue, and a bunch of colors so brilliant we don't even have names for them yet. At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, you can roam 600,000 acres of San Diego's East County, amidst a normally dry, rugged terrain that transforms into a kaleidoscope of colors after the winter rains. At Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, 75 miles north of Los Angeles, the state flower blooms bright orange, and other varieties bloom in all shades of the rainbow. And the Flower Fields of Carlsbad Ranch, in the town of Carlsbad, offer a hundred vibrant colors overlooking the deep-blue of the Pacific Ocean.Whether you thank Mother Nature or Ladybird Johnson, the Texas Hill Country is renowned for its spectacular wildflowers - over 5,000 species of them! The Gillespie County wildflower season is like a fireworks display on the ground -- filled with bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, Mexican Hat and many others, running over, around and through the limestone cliffs, granite outcrops and hidden springs. At Wildseed Farms, with over 200 acres of wildflowers at its headquarters near the old German-settled town of Fredericksburg, you can buy your own seeds. And if you're here between April 2 and April 17, you can enjoy the Wildflower Celebration at Wildseed Farms, an annual rite of spring in the Hill Country.If you like to run the rapids, this is the place to be...because, after the snow-melt in the magnificent New River Gorge, the rapids here are more rapid than just about any place in America! This adventure resort sits right on the gorge, and near three National Parks. The wonderful resort called Adventures On the Gorge offers a variety of rustic cabins, suites and campsites, along with restaurants and bars, and trails offering stunning views of the gorge. Whitewater isn't the only Spring adventure here, though; myriad other pursuits include aerial adventures such as zip-lines and the Bridge Walk, a 24-inch catwalk hanging 876 feet above the New River.Why not usher in spring by doing something new? And unless you're a cowboy or cowgirl, everything you do here will be new! The ranch's motto is "Where the Guests are the Cowboys." This is the real deal when it comes to an adult-oriented Western working-ranch experience. With a 5:1 wrangler to guest ratio, over 800 head of cattle and 70+ well-trained and mannered quarter horses, the ranch promises to have any rider roping a live steer while on horseback in just one week's time! This ranch has won more awards than you can count. And the buttes, plateaus, mountains and wildlife will have your head spinning.And, now, here's my pick for the Top Spring Experience of 2016!Imagine a spring experience that offers both world-class luxury and world-class adventure. How, you ask? Well, Austin Adventures' 5-night, 6-day experience combines the best of both worlds - with separate programs for either adults or families. During the day, you'll trek by lantern-light into Manitou Grand Caverns; hike into a pristine forest; ride horseback in the shadow of Pike's Peak; and zip-line over seven waterfalls dropping down into a scenic canyon, among other activities. And at night you'll bed down in The Broadmoor Resort's two magnificent rustic lodges on Cheyenne Mountain, Cloud Camp and the Ranch at Emerald Valley, as well as the magnificent Renaissance-palace on the main resort site. Perhaps never before have the concepts of adventure and luxury been combined in such a wonderful way. This is a spring experience you'll never forget!Well, those are my Top 5 Spring Experiences for this year. We'd love to hear yours!
Damage includes damaged and scattered Native American artifacts, scattered trash, and a feces-filled latrine ditch on sacred burial ground.

Photos have been released by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials that show the damage left behind following the occupation of a federal refuge by the Oregon militia in January and February, including a feces-filled latrine ditch dug on a Burns-Paiute Tribe sacred burial ground. Officials say it will cost at least $4 million to clean up trash and repair damaged buildings. This is in addition to $2 million that was spent during the takeover.

Pictures show broken walls and trash scattered both inside and outside of the facility where the 41-day occupation took place. Office records and Native American artifacts were scattered. Some artifacts were badly damaged.

Scientists at the refuge are trying to clean up the place in order to return to work. Tribal members were allowed in to visit the burial ground site on Feb. 29, but only after officials wearing Hazmat suits went in and cleared out the latrine ditch. Officials say it will be early summer before all the debris is removed and the damage repaired.

According to Indian Country Today, specifics as to how federal authorities will proceed with the cleanup are still developing. A road constructed by the occupiers will need to be removed, and three different trenches containing trash and human feces will somehow need to be remediated. An archeologist has preparing an assessment of damage and loss of cultural artifacts from various sites.

The 178,000-acre Malheur refuge was once part of the Malheur Indian Reservation, home of Northern Paiute tribes.

The leader of the occupation, Ammon Bundy, and 25 others of the Oregon militia face charges for their actions during the siege. In early March Bundy released a video from his Portland, Ore., jail cell that says he is not ashamed of the militias actions and has no regrets because he did what he knew was right.

Photo credit U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
A new British study shows that nearly half of the fruit drinks they sampled contained an entire day's worth of sugar in a single serving.

When buying a commercially sold beverage for their child, many parents opt for a fruit drink as a healthy option. A new British study shows that this is not necessarily the case, as nearly half of the drinks they sampled were not so good for you, with many containing an entire days worth of sugar in a single serving. The study, from the University of Liverpool, states that parents have been misled into thinking these drinks are healthy. Simon Capewell, lead researcher for the study, says that smoothies are the worst offenders. The study was published in the journal BMJ Open on March 24.

Capewell says that the solution is offering fresh fruit to children rather than juice. If giving a child juice, offer an unsweetened variety, dilute it with water, and only serve it during a meal. The amount of juice per day should be limited to about 5 ounces. He also said manufacturers should stop adding sugar and calories to their products.

Fruit juice advocates dont agree, saying parents should feel good about serving 100 percent juice to their children. The research they cited says drinking juice in appropriate amounts is not associated with higher levels of cavities or weight gain. Nutritionist Nancy Copperman, assistant vice president of public health at Great Neck, New Yorks, Northwell Health has a different opinion, and agrees with Capewells study findings that the empty calories in fruit juice and other drinks are a problem that crosses continents.

Researchers in the UK study analyzed 203 products, including 158 fruit juice drinks, 24 smoothies and 21 fresh juices to determine their sugar content. The drinks were on sale at seven supermarkets in the UK. When calculating the quantity of free sugar in a 100ml serving the researchers found an average sugar content of 7 grams per 100ml, with ranges from zero grams to 16 grams. Free sugar is defined as extra sugar added by the manufacturers, but does not include the sugar naturally found in fruit.

Fruit juices labeled 100 percent pure averaged 10.7 grams of sugar per 100ml, juice drinks 5.6 grams per 100ml, and smoothies 13 grams per 100ml. Eighty-five of the products examined contained at least 19 grams of sugar, which is equal to the maximum recommended daily sugar intake for UK children. Some of the smoothies contained up to 8 teaspoons of sugar in a 200ml serving, three times the recommended daily limit.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that, in order to avoid weight gain, obesity and tooth decay, sugar intake should not exceed 10 percent, and is preferable at only 5 percent, of the total daily energy intake.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Student Easter Bunny Donates Eggs to Care Home & Childrens Ward

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Mar 24th, 2016

A Wrexham Glyndwr University student went the egg-stra mile this week donating more than 50 Easter eggs to a care home and to a local childrens ward.

Business student Louise Handley, 31, launched an appeal for Easter eggs to donate them to Broughton Hall Care Home and Wrexham Maelors Childrens Ward in time for Good Friday.

She said: Residents at the home loved them. We actually took them around and gave them out individually to each resident and looking at their faces was great.

They were all so thrilled. Some even stated it had been a few years since they had had one. I helped organise a Christmas dinner for Broughton Hall residents at the university last year so I wanted to help them at Easter too. I wanted to give the residents a nice treat.

Louise, originally only raising the eggs for Broughton Hall, collected 54 eggs in total, smashing her target of 38, so decided to donate the rest of them to Wrexham Maelors Childrens Ward.

She said: After the first week of the appeal I thought we were going to struggle, but then the last couple of days we were flooded with Easter eggs so I called Wrexham Maelor to ask could I donate some for the children there.

They were very thankful when we delivered them and are going to give them out over the weekend along with the other eggs they have received. I wanted to give something back to the community and we have had such a great reception for the appeal which is nice.

Students and staff donated the egg-cellent treats and proprietors of Wrexham Village, where Louise lives, donated 18 chocolate eggs.

Louise had a cracking great time delivering the eggs to residents and the hospital ward, along with friend and health and social care student, Lady Lyn, 23.

Hayley Jones, activities co-ordinator at Broughton Hall Care Home, said: We didnt tell the residents Louise was coming with the eggs so it was a big surprise for them, they were very shocked. Theyve never had donations like this from outside the care home.

Louise helped organise a lovely dinner for the residents at the university at Christmas and watch the pantomime too. She is really good and is such a very kind girl.

Louise is already hoping to help Broughton Hall again this Christmas.
Appeal For Missing 23-Year-Old From Wrexham

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 25th, 2016

UPDATE: Police say he has been found!

A missing persons appeal has been launched to help trace a 23-year-old male from Wrexham.

North Wales Police have this morning issued an appeal for 23-year-old Kieron Wallace from Wrexham

Kieron is described as being 6ft tall, slim build and has short dark hair.

He is also described as having a tattoo on his arm saying no regrets.

Anyone with any information is advised to contact North Wales Police on 101 quoting reference number U042574.

No picture has been made available at present, but we will update if and when one is released.
Crackdown on Illegal Off Roaders Across North East Wales

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 25th, 2016

People thinking about driving off-road vehicles and motorbikes through Welsh forests this Easter weekend are being warned to think again by Natural Resources Wales and the police.



The warning comes after enforcement officers interviewed four motorcyclists last weekend suspected of illegally riding trail bikes in forests in North East Wales.

Paula Harley, Operational Resources Manager for NRW in North Wales, said: Our forests and open access areas are great places for people to relax and enjoy nature.

We want to make sure they can do so in peace and we are taking steps to deter the activities of illegal off-roaders.

Last weekend saw four riders interviewed, with two having enforcement action taken against them following a campaign carried out in Clocaenog, Corwen and Ceiriog forests.

Paula Harley added: Last weekends operation with North Wales Polices Road Policing Unit was a great success.

Not only from an enforcement point of view but also because we had the opportunity to speak with people using the forest to explain what we are doing and the importance of protecting our forests.
The death Tuesday of Rob Ford, who served as Torontos Mayor from 2010 to 2014, has elicited an outpouring of sympathy from Canadas political establishment.

Aged 46, Ford succumbed after an eighteen-month fight against a rare form of cancer, liposarcoma. It was the early stages of this disease that drove Ford from the 2014 mayoralty race. Establishment Conservative John Tory eventually won the election, whilst Ford held onto his City Council seat.

Over the past few days tributes have poured in from Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, federal Conservative Party head Rona Ambrose, NDP leader Tom Mulcair, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former NDP MP and unsuccessful Toronto mayoralty candidate Olivia Chow, and a whole host of other local, provincial, and national politicians and celebrities. A moment of silence was held in the Ontario legislature. Toronto Mayor Tory ordered lights dimmed on some of the citys iconic landmarks Tuesday evening and has now arranged for Ford to lie in state at City Hall, an honor never before accorded to a former Toronto mayor.

Many of the condolence messages highlighted Fords commitment to public service and his determination to help the little guy. Often the same public figures who had characterized the former mayor as a disgrace to the city, now have only kind words for his service.

Certainly in anyones fight against cancer, one cheers for the afflicted. But the absolute hypocrisy oozing from official Canada in the wake of Fords death bears some comment.

An arch-right winger, notorious for his ignorance and appeals to prejudice, Ford was used by the big business elite to push the citys politics sharply to the right. He presided over a city administration that sought to cut wages and social programs to the bone. He partially privatized city garbage collection and threatened to employ scabs to break strikes. He disparaged gays, used racist language, and insulted the homeless, immigrants and city workers.

When Fords bare-faced lying, absenteeism, flouting of democratic rules, legal prosecutions and eventual very public spiral into the depths of drug and alcohol addiction threatened to impede implementation of their right wing agenda, the political establishment, including such previous Ford champions as the Globe and Mail and National Post, turned vehemently against him.

For them, the right wing offensive had to be continued, but under new management.

Under Fords successor, John Tory, the austerity onslaught has continued, along with the unions and official lefts submission to it. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has just imposed yet another round of concession-laden contracts on the citys 30,000 blue collar municipal workers.

Invariably the official remembrances have recycled Fords cynical claims to be a spokesman for the little guy and a straight-shooter.

In fact Ford was born to privilege. His father headed a successful manufacturing business that Ford and his siblings later inherited. He also was a longtime Conservative Party politician. From beginning to end, Rob Fords political career was dependent upon those intimate connections to the Conservatives and to Torontos business elite.

The effusive commemoration of Ford by the political elite and corporate media is not just a matter of celebrating one of their own, foibles notwithstanding. The ruling elite senses that, under conditions of mounting social crisis, it may find it useful to bring forward other phony anti-establishment demagogues and promote their rightwing populist appeals.

Below we republish a piece written in 2013 at the height of the Rob Ford Crisis.

***

Toronto elite ostracizes right-wing mayor who served as their hatchet man

By Dylan Lubao

8 June 2013

Toronto Mayor Rob Forda right-wing populist, law and order advocate, and champion of the policecontinues to be dogged by a drug scandal and politically shaken by defections from his administration.

The citys big business elite, which promoted Ford as their hatchet man in slashing public services and attacking city workers, has signaled that they now view him as a political liability, whose hotheadedness and multiple scandals have become an impediment to prosecuting their class war agenda.

Expressing the prevailing mood among the ruling elite, Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne said last week that she was worried about the situation and vowed to monitor it very carefully and intervene as appropriate. Dwight Duncan, the recently retired Ontario Liberal finance minister-turned-businessman, called for the mayors resignation in no uncertain terms, citing the potentially harmful effect of the scandal on the Toronto economy.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and provincial Tory leader Tim Hudak, both prominent Ford allies, have maintained an embarrassed silence. Tory House Leader Jim Wilson distanced the party from the mayors older brother, City Councilor Doug Ford, who was recently outed in an exhaustive Globe and Mail expose as an alleged drug dealer in his youth. Responding to the elder Fords much-discussed intention to run under the Tory banner for a seat in the provincial legislature, Wilson declared, He is not our candidate.

Underscoring the kinship between the Ford administration and the Harper government, Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, another Ford ally and family friend, reportedly met the mayor in private last weekend to counsel him on personal matters. Flaherty and the late family patriarch Doug Ford Sr. served together as Tory members of the provincial parliament in the late 1990s under arch-right wing Premier Mike Harris.

Fordwho was accused last month of having been recorded smoking crack cocaine while spouting racist and homophobic epithets in a video peddled by Somali gangsters to local and online media outletshas witnessed his political support at city hall shrivel. Councilors Doug Holyday and Gary Crawford, who serve on Fords executive committee, have publicly said that they believe the video exists. Holyday previously led half of the executive in demanding that Ford respond openly and transparently to the allegations against him.

In the last two weeks, about a third of Mayor Fords staff have resigned or been dismissed. Ford fired his chief of staff Mark Towhey, reportedly because he had suggested the mayor go into rehab. Five other staffers have resigned. Ford has brought in replacements, including Eric Provost, Towheys former second-in-command, who has been elevated to chief of staff. Provost, a Liberal campaign specialist, has worked for former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, a fact that speaks to the essentially porous border between rival camps of the Canadian political elite.

The Globe, the traditional mouthpiece of Canadas banks and investment dealers, stepped up its attacks on the mayor in an editorial this week that labeled Ford a toxic political liability and called for a less polarizing, fiscally conservative candidate to run for mayor in the 2014 civic elections. Giving voice to the ruling elites hopes to use the scandal enveloping Ford to fashion a more effective right-wing administration, Globe columnist Konrad Yakabuski admonished the mayor for failing to implement the full gamut of social spending cuts expected of him, including steeper cuts in city workers wages.

In the face of dwindling big business and Conservative support and much public outrage, Ford remains defiant, absolutely vowing to weather the scandal and run for reelection in 2014. Reports indicating that the infamous video has now disappeared seem to have emboldened the mayor, who has claimed to be the victim of a smear campaign by media maggots. The right-wing Toronto Sun tabloid, a devoted Ford enthusiast, has remained largely silent since imploring him to step aside if the allegations of drug use were true. The conservative National Post, which backed Ford in 2010 and initially expressed dismay at Fords failure to provide a serious explanation for the accusations, now seems guardedly ambivalent about his clinging to office, despite reports from a right-wing insider that Bay Street has abandoned him (Ford) and are looking for a new conservative candidate...to put their money behind.

Several names have been advanced within ruling class circles as a suitable successor to Ford, with both right and left candidates being groomed to take on the job of imposing austerity on working people, while pushing through the transportation infrastructure upgrades needed to make the citys economy a reliable producer of profit for big business. The potential candidates include the aptly named former Progressive Conservative leader John Tory and New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Olivia Chow, who assisted her late husband, Jack Layton, in presiding over the NDPs further lurch rightward.

Notorious for flouting city rules, shirking official responsibilities, and insulting immigrants, gays, the homeless and city workers, Ford has survived two earlier charges of wrongdoing. In January, a conflict of interest conviction that resulted in his being ordered to step down as mayor was overturned on a technicality. The next month, he received a slap on the wrist for overspending on his election campaign.

The consensus among the ruling elite, indicated by copious testimony in the corporate press, is that Rob Ford, the multimillionaire who fashioned a political persona as a spokesman of working Joes, has long passed his best-before date.

While the specifics of Fords unraveling are surprising, Torontos elite has long been aware of Fords ignorant and reactionary views and of his cavalier and petulant behaviourbehaviour that had alienated him from much of the right-wing faction at city hall during his ten years as a city councilor. But determined to push politics sharply to the right, the elite promoted Ford, seeking to use him to build a popular constituency for a socially regressive agenda aimed at redistributing wealth to the most privileged sections of Torontos population through tax and social spending cuts.

Ford and the austerity agenda that he has championed have faced mass working-class opposition throughout his tenure as mayor. But the official left in Toronto, the unions and the social-democratic NDP, and their liberal allies, are utterly opposed to any mobilization of the social and independent political power of the working class. Their opposition to Ford has centered on scandalizing the public with exposures of his petty abuses of power and critiques of his buffoonish behaviour. To call attention to Fords class war policies would call attention to their own complicity in carrying out the agenda of big business.

Rob Fords predecessor, the NDP and trade union-backed David Miller, presided over a dramatic infusion of wealth to the citys financial elite through a series of generous property tax breaks, grants, subsidies and grossly undervalued business land assessments handed over to big commercial developers. In 2009, Miller forced a concessions-laden contract on 30,000 striking city workers. None of the citys nominally progressive councilors raised a voice to defend the workers, whom the press vilified as selfish for fighting to safeguard their modest salaries. Campaigning in the 2010 election, Ford harnessed widespread popular anger against declining living standards by promising to lower taxes, while shamelessly lying that any cuts would only affect the gravy train on which city employees reputedly gorged. He was elected by only a quarter of total eligible voters.

When Ford moved to impose sweeping budget cuts and gut city worker contracts, the unions and left mounted only token opposition. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) deliberately separated the city workers struggle against the destruction of job securitya critical step toward the privatizing of public servicesfrom the fight against the budget cuts. Then, with Ford threatening to hire strikebreakers to break any strike against the citys concession demands, CUPE signed a concessions-laden agreement and told city workers that they would be isolated if they dared vote it down.

Having at every step facilitated Fords victories, the unions and NDP have invoked the right-wing threat represented by Ford and his provincial ally, Ontario Tory leader Tim Hudak, to intimidate the working class. In particular, they have invoked the Ford-Hudak tandem to justify their propping up a minority Ontario Liberal government that is slashing billions from social spending and has imposed sweeping concessions on the provinces teachers through legislative fiat.
At this months National Peoples Congress (NPC), Chinese Premier Le Keqiang boasted that the central government would increase its poverty alleviation budget by 43.4 percent this year and lift at least 10 million people out of poverty by years end and another 55 million by 2020.

While the percentage was widely reported in the Chinese media, the actual monetary increase will be only 20.1 billion yuan ($US3 billion) out of total budget of 2.7 trillion yuan. Moreover, even if the programs are successful, it will raise the income of those affected above the austere official poverty line of 2,300 yuan per year or about one US dollar per day.

Poverty alleviation is formally part of the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) grand vision of building a moderately prosperous society by 2020. In reality, it reflect fears within the Beijing regime that the accelerated pro-market economic restructuring announced at the NPC will lead to rising unemployment, a deepening divide between rich and poor and provoke resistance by workers and the rural poor.

The pittance spent on poverty alleviation is in marked contrast to the money allocated in the national budget for public security expenses was 158.4 billion yuan, up 7 percent. The CCP is determined to ensure that its extensive police-state apparatus has the means to suppress social unrest.

An estimated 70 million Chinese live below the official poverty line of 2,300 yuan per year (at 2010 prices). By comparison, the legal minimum wage is 2,310 yuan a month in Guangdong, one of the country richer provinces, and falls to 1,210 yuan a month in smaller towns and more impoverished areas.

Beijing claims to have largely eradicated urban poverty in large part because of a government subsidy paid to urban dwellers to lift incomes to a minimum level of 4,476 yuan per year. A survey of 140,000 households by the China Household Income Project found that only 1.4 percent of the urban population was below the minimum level.

The benchmark poverty level is set at just $US2 a day compared to the official minimum wage levels on which workers struggle to survive. In many cases, workers are paid below the minimum or paid only after lengthy delays or not at all.

Hundreds of millions of people live on very low incomes. According to the World Bank, the number of people in China living on $1.90 per day or less has decreased from 194.1 million in 2008 to 149.6 million in 2010. Those surviving on $3.10 per day or less decreased from 436.6 million in 2008 to 364.4 million in 2010. Chinas total population is nearing 1.4 billion.

Social inequality is increasing at a far greater pace. China now has one of the most unequal wealth distributions of any large economy on the planet. The latest World Bank figures rate China at 60th out of 157 countries, ranked from most unequal to least. On this ranking, China is more unequal than the United States (63), Japan (122) and Germany (135).

China has a Gini coefficient of 42.1a coefficient of 0 signifies complete equality while 100 indicates complete inequality. Other research by Chinese academics published in 2014 puts Chinas coefficient as high as 58.8. In the mid-1970s, China ranked as one of the most equal countries in the world with a Gini score below 30.

World Bank figures from 2010 show that 30 percent of income goes to the top 10 percent of the population while 47.1 percent goes to the top 20 percent. The bottom 20 percent received 4.7 percent of national income while the bottom 10 percent only received 1.7 percent.

According to the latest 2016 Hurun Global Rich List, released in February, mainland China now has 470 US dollar billionaires. It also has four of the top ten cities by billionaire residents with Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou and Beijing now having more billionaires than New York City. The number of Chinese billionaires has grown by 80 percent since 2013 even as economic growth slowed markedly.

This super-rich layer is integrated with the top levels of the state apparatus. According to the 2015 Hurun Rich List, 211 Chinese billionaires were given political appointments: 114 as delegates to this years National Peoples Congress, 79 as members of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), nine to the standing committee of the CPPCC and nine became members of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

Chinas four richest people on the Hurun Rich List are Wang Jianlin and family $26 billion, Li Ka-shing $25 billion, Lee Shau Kee $24 billion, Jack Ma Yun and family $21 billion. Their combined wealth outstrips the total amount that the government plans to spend on poverty alleviation for tens of millions of people.

The NPC announced plans to put greater reliance on private charity. NPC Standing Committee vice chairman Li Jianguo declared that charitable programs will be indispensable in the future fight against poverty. A new Charity Bill was proposed to provide tax breaks to wealthy donors and to regulate the sector. According to the China Daily, philanthropy has rapidly gained momentum in the nation over the past decade, growing from 10 billion yuan (about $1.5 billion) in 2006 to 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in 2014.

These so-called poverty alleviation plans come as preparations are being made for a massive assault on the working class. Up to six million jobs are slated to be destroyed over the next six years as Beijing eliminates huge overcapacities in basic industries, such as coal, steel, cement and plate glass causing severe social dislocation. Far from eliminating poverty, the Chinese regime is creating an immense social gulf between the ultra-rich oligarchy whose interests it represents and the vast majority of the population.

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[14 March 2016]

Chinese finance minister calls for easier dismissals under labour laws

[10 March 2016]

Chinese premier outlines plans for accelerated pro-market restructuring

[7 March 2016]
On March 21, a planned two-week strike by 75 dockers at the Grangemouth container port in Scotland was suspended by the Unite trade union after only six days.

Talks on new shift patterns are being held this week at the governments Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). The dispute was shut down as its impact was spreading, following the refusal of oil tanker drivers at the adjacent Grangemouth oil refinery to cross picket lines.

Workers struck against demands by Forth Ports for seven-day working. Currently weekend cover is mostly provided by workers on overtime. The shift changes would have cut some workers wages by as much as 1,800 annually, while forcing the entire workforce to work one weekend in two. The company said that the union had agreed to the new shift patterns in 2011. The current episode is the third attempt by the company to impose the new shift schedule.

The Forth Ports site at Grangemouth, east Stirlingshire, is typical of modern container operations. A tiny number of workers operate huge mobile carriers and gantries around the clock, moving 150,000 containers with 9 million tonnes of goods annually. The port handles 30 percent of Scottish GDP, with daily sailings to Rotterdam, Antwerp, Felixstowe and Hamburg.

Forth Ports was formerly the Forth Harbour Authority, which was privatized in 1992 following the abolition of the National Dock Labour Scheme by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. The company controls a number of ports in the UKon the Firth of Forth, the Firth of Tay and the Thames estuary, including the huge Tilbury container base, the main container hub for the London conurbation.

Forth Ports is controlled by Arcus Infrastructure Partners, a London-based fund manager specialising in infrastructure. These include Euroports worldwide terminal and logistic operations, train manufacturer Alpha Trains, UK rolling stock operator Angel Trains Group, and European communication towers operators Shere Group and TDF.

The strike began March 15, following a vote by 73 of the 75 workers affected directly by the new shift patterns. Twenty engineers and administrative staff at the port were not balloted, but attended rallies and supported their colleagues demands. Workers maintained pickets at the dock gates.

One worker attending a rally told the Daily Record, We arent going on strike for extra money, were simply trying to keep our family life going. We want to see our kids at weekends. There are also changes to our pension plans, which we have faithfully paid into for many years to now be told we wont be getting what we were promised at the start. There is so much anger that people are determined to press ahead with the strike.

During the strike, matters came to a head when Forth Ports management attempted to open another route into the container terminal through the adjacent Grangemouth fuel refinery. When workers moved their picket to the refinery, oil tanker drivers hauling fuel to hundreds of petrol stations refused to cross the picket lines. Facing an escalation that could spiral out of the control of the trade unions, Forth Ports quickly sought further talks with Unite.

No agreement between the parties has been announced so far, but whether in days or weeks Forth Ports and Unite will re-organise their joint offensive. From the start, Unite made clear, in line with the transformation of the trade unions into allies of corporate management, that it sought nothing more than good relations with Forth Ports in carrying forward their shared interests with the company. The unions Scottish secretary, Pat Rafferty, told the press, The dispute is trying to get the company back to the negotiating table, in order to come to a negotiated settlement on this.

No doubt, there will have been communication between the Scottish government, Forth Ports and Unite to temporarily cool things down. A general election is due in Scotland May 5, and the last thing the Scottish National Party (SNP) government, or Unite, want in the next few weeks is a major confrontation with the working class.

Unite has played a central role in defending management at Grangemouth. In 2008, INEOS, which operates the Grangemouth refinery, attacked the oil refinery workers pension scheme. A short strike, the first in decades, exposed the vulnerability of Britains petrol, oil and diesel supplies to actions by small groups of workers. Five years later, in 2013, INEOS were better prepared. The company locked out the workforce and threatened to close most of their operation. Unite, with the support of the Scottish and British governments, capitulated in 24 hours.

The World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time, Had Unite been anything other than a front organisation for corporate management, Grangemouth could have become the focal point of a movement in the working class against austerity and the ransacking of workers living standards. It would undoubtedly have won an extraordinarily powerful response across all sections of the working class.

The same questions are posed three years later under even sharper conditions. The Grangemouth dispute has emerged simultaneously with a number of confrontations across Britain, expressing a growing sense of discontent in the working class.

Of these, the determined and principled stance taken by junior hospital doctors in England against the destruction of the National Health Service (NHS) is the largest. Smaller groups of workers have recently struck against Glasgow City Councils drastic cuts policies, while two strike ballots of council workers in Scotland are in preparation.

Other groups in dispute include secondary school teachers in West Dunbartonshire, members of the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), who are planning a third set of short strikes later this month over staffing levels and the role of principal teachers. These are the first teachers strikes in the area since the 1980s. Last week, college lecturers across Scotland struck in the first of 32 planned days of action between now and the summer, involving one-, two- and three-day strikes. The dispute concerns sharp pay differentials between EIS members doing the same job in different colleges, who get sharply differing rates of pay.

Taken together these struggles could begin a significant offensive throughout the UK against pay cuts, unsocial hours, mass local authority job losses, the assault on education, the destruction of social welfare, pensions and the NHS and the attack on democratic rights. But this is impossible within the framework of trade unions that systematically fragment, isolate and break up every single dispute.

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Unite union hands victory to INEOS in Scotlands Grangemouth refinery lockout

[28 October 2013]
WSWS reporters spoke yesterday to youth in Paris and in Marseille protesting the so-called El Khomri law, which launches a sweeping attack on protections offered to workers by Frances Labour Code. University and high school students expressed their anger against the Socialist Party (PS) governments austerity policy, attacks on democratic rights, and Frances wars in Africa and the Middle East.

At the youth demonstration in Paris, Margot and Lola said, Were against this law they are trying to impose on us, and we the youth are trying to stop it. Its already a mess today, with the conditions of the youth, we are exploited and really badly paid. If this law goes through, it will be even worse, and we cant accept that, not today. I think thats why its good to say we are not happy.

The WSWS also spoke to Elliott, a high school student, as the youth rally joined up with a rally called by the trade unions. He explained that he is opposing the El Khomri law as it dismantles social rights won by the working class in the 20th century: Its because I think it is a step backwards, it costs us social rights that our parents and grandparents fought for, and I dont want people to decide things for us now. I dont think the future is as dark as we are being told it is.

Elliott opposed government claims that the flexibility in labour rules will create jobs, since youth already face high unemployment and poor working conditions: First of all, the result will be that we will have more precarious working conditions, when already 25 percent of youth are unemployed. I dont think you can say then that making it easier to sack people is really the solution to create jobs.

Asked about the state of emergency, he said it was a complicated issue that was being discussed by many young people. The terrorist threat, it is really there, but you cant either sacrifice our liberties on the altar of security.  I feel we are watched quite often, he said.

Anthony, a law student at Cergy Pontoise University, spoke to WSWS reporters at the youth rally about his opposition to broader attacks on democratic rights in France.

He said, Today we are protesting against the El Khomri law, but it is a much larger struggle because today we are in a situation where democratic rights are being trampled, where we are in a state of emergency, the government limits us more and more and attacks freedom of expression. So we are here, we are fighting all these aspects of the system and against the established order itself today.

Asked about wars in the Middle East and his opinion of recent terror attacks, including in Paris and Brussels, he opposed military escalation: We have endured attacks, but we are not at war and we should not be. Its our geopolitical situation that means that there are these types of attacks, but that is not a matter that moves us, the youth. We dont want their wars.  And I think that if we put an end to our involvement in Syria, for instance, I think we will be able to breathe a little bit more freely.

Asked whether he wants a withdrawal of French troops from foreign countries, Anthony replied, Totally, totally. A pull-back, a political or economic solution rather than military escalation. It is obvious that military engagement today, notably bombing cities and especially civilians, only brings more recruits for the Islamic State.

Anthony saw the rise of the far-right National Front (FN) as the result of decades of reactionary policies being pursued by the PS and the right-wing conservative Les Republicain (LR), formerly the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

Anthony explained, It is the consequence of 30 years of policies pursued either by the UMP or the PS, which has increasingly divided societyincluding on social policyand today the rise of the National Front is the consequence of that. One cannot simply blame it all on the people who are going to vote for the National Front, because these are for the most part people who are desperate. So of course I condemn the rise of the National Front, but one must at the same time understand it.

Anthony asked students and workers reading the WSWS to attend protests against the El Khomri Law scheduled for next Thursday.

In Marseille, WSWS reporters spoke to protesters at a demonstration called by student unions and attended by dockers unions. It began in front of regional police headquarters, whose administrative offices were being blockaded by high school students.

Valentina, a high school student, said: In the law, we are being taken for slave labour. It is not something I like. I am not sure that we can trust the unions, but what I do think is that we have to all unify our struggles to be stronger. I think that if we get large enough numbers involved, we can do a lot. Its for sure that we need a broader movement, that is what we are trying to do.
Directed by Atom Egoyan; screenplay by Benjamin August

Remember is the latest film by veteran Canadian director Atom Egoyan (born 1960). It is a psychological drama centering on two octogenarian survivors of Auschwitz living in a retirement home in Detroit who set about to track down and kill their former blockfuhrer (SS block leader/guard).

Christopher Plummer plays Zev Guttman, a man pushing 90 who has recently lost his beloved wife. Friend and fellow retirement home resident Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) reminds Zev they once made a pact to kill the Nazi guard Otto Wallisch, who murdered both their families. Zev is able-bodied but suffers from symptoms of dementia, whereas Max has a sharp mind but is confined to a wheelchair.

Max masterminds the project, which involves Zev journeying across the US and Canada to track down Wallisch, who emigrated to North America under the name Rudy Kurlander. Max outlines the details of the operation in a letter that Zev must consult each time he grows disoriented.

After purchasing a handgun, Zev embarks on the dangerous mission to locate the right Kurlanderout of four possibilities. Traveling by bus and taxi, the elderly man stops at the home of the first Rudy Kurlander (Bruno Ganz), who served under German Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa, and, therefore, was not a guard at Auschwitz.

The second Kurlander is a dying homosexual man who himself was a camp inmate. The third is deceased, but Zev learns from his son John (Dean Morris)a reactionary state trooper who has absorbed his fathers filthy viewsthat this Kurlander would have been too young to be a concentration camp guard. In Johns bleak, Nazi memorabilia-filled home, Zev has to fight for his life.

The alarming denouement of Remember occurs during Zevs last stop, a nightmarish ordeal that uncovers an awful secret buried in the protagonists damaged memory.

The filmmakers should be given credit for eliciting captivating performances from all the elderly actors, in both leading and supporting roles, who impart to the movie genuine substance and human appeal. Plummer is especially outstanding. In showcasing these actors extraordinary gifts, Egoyanat least by implicationstresses the continued worth and vitality of the aging portion of the population, as opposed to the official view that it is so much dead weight.

More significantly, the pursuit of Nazis who have escaped prosecution for their crimes is an entirely praiseworthy subject and could be the means of shedding further light on a terrible chapter of modern history.

Unfortunately, Egoyan steers clear of all the most pressing, crucial issues.

With only very limited artistic success, the filmmaker has been directing independent feature films for more than two decades, including Exotica, 1994; The Sweet Hereafter, 1997; Felicias Journey, 1999; Ararat, 2002; Adoration, 2009; Chloe, 2009; and Devils Knot, 2013.

We commented in 2009 that Egoyans concerns about history, technology and family life, are not advanced or worked through forcefully, and the results are generally schematic, distant and dramatically contrived.

The overall effect is rather provincial: a report given by someone not directly involved in great events or deeply committed to anything, aimed at an audience of people concentrated on secondary or tertiary matters (more bluntly, their own selves).

Egoyans best film to date by far is Devils Knot, an adept and straightforward dramatization of the trial of the West Memphis Three, teenagers who were falsely convicted of killing three young boys during a Satanic cult hysteria, and subsequently sentenced to death.

Unfortunately, Remember, like Egoyans Ararat, about the Armenian genocide, is neither satisfying dramatically nor historically insightful. It covers the same artistic-intellectual ground as the rest of his weaker films, marred as they are by relatively pointless, self-conscious and often unconvincing psychological complexities.

In Remember, the treatment of escaped Nazi criminals becomes merely a vehicle for dramatizing, without much serious content, the problem of suppressed memory. The filmmakers choose not to concern themselves with the relationship between postwar West German and American authorities and many of these criminals, including the fact that scores of former fascists were integrated into German society or picked up by the CIA and the US military.

In Germany, this reality is still an open wound. The WSWS coverage of the recent Berlin film festival, in a review of a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, noted, for example, that the Gestapo officer Karl Josef Silberbauer, who arrested the Frank family, was able to continue to work in his area of expertise after the war. Now under a democratic flag. He worked for the notorious Gehlen organisation (named after Wehrmacht general Reinhard Gehlen, one of the leading figures in German intelligence during World War II), the West German spy agency set up by the CIA in 1946 to spy on the USSR and Eastern Europe.

Helping to lend the film its relatively pallid character is its largely bare-bones and far-fetched script.

The screenplay was written by novice Benjamin August (born 1979), whose major previous credential was as casting director for the stunt/dare reality television show Fear Factor.

In an interview, August explained his motivations: My first thought was I want to write a movie that stars older actors. I feel that some of the greatest living actors are relegated to smaller roles and dont get to shine the way they used to. So far, so good.

August went on to explain that he had read reports estimating there might be hundreds of Nazi war criminals still alive in their 80s or 90s. He continued: I was wondering what kind of lives they were living; were they living in fear? Looking over their shoulder every day? Were they going to bed at night with a smile on their face that they got away from it? Most importantly, did their families know about itand what would it take to get the truth out?

The reader needs to be alerted: do not read any further if learning the ending of Remember is a matter of concern to you!

In August-Egoyans film, the ability of Nazi criminals to hide their past from their families does indeed take center stage, but in an almost entirely gimmicky, contrived manner.

The films major, surprising twista Nazi-hunter in the early stages of Alzheimers turns out to be the object of his own huntmakes use of dementia as a plot device in a questionable and somewhat unsavory manner.

Augusts unserious effort jibes with Egoyans stated postmodern hostility to the grand narrative. The filmmaker has argued in past interviews that small gestures are more telling than broad clinical gestures. More recently, he said he was interested in how people form a reality when theres no explanation. In this regard, Remember settles for small (peculiar) gestures without (believable) explanations.

The films shocking finale does further harm to its cohesiveness, already on life support. Remember depends on an unlikely set of circumstances whose purpose is principally to stun, rather than enlighten the viewer.

After all, Plummers Zev has been presented throughout as a lovely old gent, with whom one sympathizes as a Holocaust survivoruntil the films last moments when the ghastly truth emerges. Only in the scene in which Plummers character guns down John Kurlander and his vicious dog does the film hint he might be capable of extreme violence. But this is hardly a compelling indicator of an inner monster.

Nazism was a political movement, the counter-revolutionary response of German capitalism to the threat of social revolution. The films trick ending avoids any exploration of the fascist political and social outlook in favor of merely endeavoring to wipe the smile off the face of someone who has gotten away with it, as August states, as though such people were housebreakers or bank robbers.

Other filmmakers have treated this matter more seriously. For example, Orson Welles explores the Nazi psyche and worldview, including its vicious anti-communism, in his 1946 movie The Stranger. Welles plays an escaped Nazi who hides in a sleepy New England enclave living amongst its respected citizens. When the snake sheds his skin, a vile, cunning creature is dragged into the light of day. The fact that this is an immediate postwar film when Nazism was fresh in the minds of millions does not excuse Egoyan for toying with history today. Moreover, fascism is once again rearing its beastly head.
The Australian pseudo-left organisation, Socialist Alternative, has broken its longstanding silence on the growth of military tensions throughout the Asia-Pacific region, publishing two articles on the Australian Defence White Paper, which was released last month. Since the Obama administration announced its pivot to Asia in 2011 the organisation has largely adhered to the official media blackout of the massive US military build-up in the Asia-Pacific.

To the extent that Socialist Alternative has written on the pivot it has been to deny the dangers of a new global conflagration, obscure Australias central role in the aggressive US drive to war against China and echo the claims that China is a new expansionist power responsible for disrupting the status quo.

Their latest articles are no exception. They correspond to a shift of tack in the corporate press, which has begun affording the pivot limited coverage.

The major dailies of the corporate and financial elite, including the Australian Financial Review and the Australian, have publicised mounting calls from sections of the US and Australian political establishments for Canberra to carry out its own provocative incursions into Chinese-claimed territory in the South China Sea, under the bogus guise of defending freedom of navigation. Such a move would threaten open military conflict.

In the midst of these demands, the Turnbull Liberal-National Coalition government released its 2016 Defence White Paper, outlining projected spending of $195 billion on military acquisitions alone.

In response, an article on the World Socialist Web Site warned:

The Defence White Paper, published by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls Coalition government on February 25, amounts to a declaration that Australian imperialism, in alliance with the United States, is preparing for war against China. The document incorporates all the military commitments made by the former Labor Party government to the anti-China US pivot to Asia in November 2011, as well as additional undertakings made to Washington by the Coalition under former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent over the coming years on the greatest expansion of the Australian armed forces since World War II.

Socialist Alternatives response was aimed at obscuring the warnings made by the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) and the World Socialist Web Site, and chloroforming workers and young people as to the immense danger of war.

A short article by Tom Bramble, one of the organisations leading theoreticians, on February 29 focused almost exclusively on the financial outlay outlined by the White Paper. It declared that this was theft from the people on a grand scale. The attempt to present the massive military expenditure as primarily a national budgetary question dovetailed with the position of the Greens, who have been fulsome supporters of Australias integration into the pivot, but criticised the White Paper on the grounds that excessive military spending would interfere with the demands of the corporate elite for a budget surplus.

A lengthier article by Bramble on March 18, which described the White Paper as Australias manifesto for militarism took a different tack. At the outset, it declared: With an arms race in Asia in full swing, the Australian government is determined not to be left behind. However the question of who was responsible for this state of affairs was left deliberately opaque, with the implication being that Australias participation in the escalating military tensions in the region was a largely defensive response to the actions of other powers.

The significance of this position was revealed later in the article with Bramble declaring that, The problem for the US and Australian governments is that this stability [i.e., the continuation of US domination of the region] has been threatened in recent years by two developments.

The first, he declared, was, the increasing tendency of regional powers, particularly in the Middle East and south-west Asia, to push for their own spheres of influence. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel have been increasingly willing to act independently of the US, creating havoc in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Palestine.

In other words, the deepening quagmire in the Middle East is not the responsibility of the United States and its imperialist partners, including Australia, which have carried out over a decade of continuous predatory wars aimed at securing resources, dominating the geo-strategically critical region and establishing neo-colonial rule. Rather, an amalgam of regional powers, comprised of client states of the US (Saudi Arabia, and Israel) and those in Washingtons crosshairs (Iran), are primarily to blame.

Brambles position is in line with Socialist Alternatives vociferous support for the US-led regime change operations in Libya and Syria, which it has presented as democratic revolutions that should be supported. To promote this pro-imperialist line, Socialist Alternative, like its co-thinkers internationally, has denied the widely-documented sponsorship of the so-called rebels, first in Libya and now in Syria, by the United States and the other major imperialist powers, along with the fact that these rebels consist primarily of hard-line Islamist organisations with ties to Al Qaeda.

In August 2012, Socialist Alternative denounced knee-jerk anti-imperialism and declared that, Imperialism, in the sense of Western neo-colonialism, is not the main threat facing the masses of Syria, or of the Arab world as a whole.

As the second development undermining stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Bramble continued: [M]ore significantly, the US is threatened by the rise of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia as rival imperialist powers. He commented: China has become increasingly assertive, disturbing US domination.

This line, which dovetails with denunciations of Russian and Chinese expansionism emanating from the strategists of US, European and Australian imperialism, has been outlined in a series of commentaries by Socialist Alternative on Ukraine and Syria. The organisation supported the US-backed neo-fascist-led coup against the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which marked an escalation in a decade-long US/NATO military encirclement of Russia.

More recently, Socialist Alternative has fulminated against Russias support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, denounced the Obama administration for appeasing the Putin regime and hailed the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey near the border with Syria last yeara US-backed provocation intended as a signal of Washingtons willingness to militarily confront Russia.

The claim that the military tensions in Asia are a product of Chinas increasingly assertive line is no less false. In reality, the US is preparing to deploy 60 percent of its navy and air force in the region by 2020, has established aggressive military relations with states throughout the region and is stoking tensions on the Korean Peninsula as well as in the South and East China Seas.

In 2013, the US International Socialist Organization (ISO), which has close ties to Socialist Alternative, spelled out the political implications of Brambles position, declaring that Australia, Japan and other states in Asia were Lilliputians, supporting the US military build-up in the region to build a counterhegemonic alliance against the Chinese Gulliver. It absurdly declared that they had appealed to their historic ally, the United States, to intercede on their behalf.

Though Bramble may be less explicit, his position is essentially no different. This is why Socialist Alternative has never indicted the successive Labor and Liberal governments of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and now Malcolm Turnbull for placing the Australian population on the frontlines of war. Nor have they ever so much as mentioned the direct hand of Washington in the overnight political coup against Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in July 2010 over his calls for the US to make limited accommodations to China in the Asia-Pacific to prevent all-out conflict. Likewise, they have remained silent on the role of the Greens who propped up the minority Gillard Labor government installed after the coup which immediately pledged Australias unconditional support for US militarism in every corner of the globe and signed on to the pivot in 2011.

Socialist Alternative, like all the pseudo-left organisations, is a nationalist outfit, articulating the interests of sections of the upper middle-class increasingly integrated into the framework of capitalist politics. It has close relations with, and advocates unconditional support for, the unions as they collaborate daily with governments and the employers against the working class, spouting nationalist demagogy against foreign workers aimed at dividing the working class along national lines. Significantly, Socialist Alternative published apologias for the xenophobic and nationalist campaign waged by the major trade unions against the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement last year.

Above all, Bramble and Socialist Alternative are seeking to prevent workers and young people from understanding that the mounting tensions in the Asia-Pacific and the violent explosion of American militarism are the sharpest expressions of the breakdown of the global capitalist system. This poses, no less sharply than in the first decades of the twentieth century, the alternatives of world war and socialist revolution.

That is why they make no reference to the fundamental contradictions of capitalismabove all between the globally-integrated nature of the economy and the division of the world into antagonistic nation-stateswhich are propelling all of the major powers to adopt policies that are leading inexorably towards a new global conflagration.

Exposing the anti-Marxist, pro-imperialist politics of Socialist Alternative and the pseudo-left is a critical component of the fight to develop an international anti-war movement of the working class of all countries, based on a socialist and internationalist perspective, to halt the descent into such a catastrophe.
Europe

One-day protest by domestic staff at four London hospitals

Domestic staff who provide cleaning services and prepare and serve food at four south London hospitals held a one-day strike Monday. The affected hospitals were Maudsley, Bethlem Royal, Lambeth and the Ladywell Unit at Lewisham hospital.

The 175 cleaners, all women, are members of the GMB union and work for Aramark, an American multinational company that has a contract to provide cleaning services at the four hospitals. Their demands are for a living wage, sick pay and unsocial hours payments.

Currently Aramark, which made a $1.4 billion profit, pays its hospital domestic staff a minimum 7.38 an hour and provides only a maximum of 10 days sick pay per year. The sick pay is only paid after one years service and does not cover the first three days of sickness.

The women voted by a 97 percent majority to strike.

Rally by teaching unions in UK capital

Teachers organised by the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers held a march and rally in London Wednesday. They were protesting the Conservative governments intention to force all schools to become academies over the course of the current parliament.

The moves would end local authority control, hand schools over to the private sector and leave schools free to set their own pay levels, hours and conditions.

Protests were held in 12 other cities and towns in England.

UK rail engineering staff strike

Engineers working for the UK rail infrastructure company Network Rail, walked out yesterday to begin a four-day strike until midnight on March 28. They are members of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA).

Around 80 maintenance and safety staff voted by 80 percent for action, accusing Network Rail of failing to pay annual bonuses.

TSSA said the strike would lead to the cancellation of essential maintenance work on track and overhead electric cables scheduled for the Easter weekend.

Scottish museum staff step up fight over weekend pay

Staff working for the National Museum of Scotland, are to strike over a series of weekends, due to begin Saturday, the Easter weekend, and run through until Mays Scottish Parliament elections. The action was called by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), following previous weekend strikes.

The staff are seeking the restoration of weekend working allowances that were withdrawn three years ago for all new employees.

French air traffic controllers strike

Air traffic controllers across France began a three-day strike Monday. They are protesting a hold on recruitment and lack of investment in air traffic systems.

Delays were experienced at major airports across France, particularly in Marseille. The strike led to delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights across France, including from Britain.

Further walkout by German Amazon staff

Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Koblenz, Germany walked out on strike Monday night and did not return to work until the end of the Wednesday night shift. It is one of a series of stoppages organised by the Verdi trade union since May 2013.

They are demanding pay and conditions in line with mail order and retail staff employed by other companies in Germany. Warehouse staff conditions are currently in line with logistic staff. Verdi argues they should be classed as retail workers and have the same employment conditions.

Italian IT staff fight layoffs

Staff employed by Almaviva in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, held a one-day strike Tuesday and a demonstration in the Piazza Indipendenza.

It was in response to the announcement by the major Italian IT company of plans to make nearly 3,000 redundancies. Confirmation of the layoffs came on Monday in an announcement by the telecommunications staff union, Uilcom.

Almaviva operates in seven countries and the redundancies represent around 6 percent of their total workforce. Of the nearly 3,000 jobs, 400 will go in Naples, 918 in Rome but the majority (1,670) are slated to go in Palermo.

Cypriot dockers strike against privatisation

Dockers in the Cypriot port of Limassol, organised by the SIDIKEK-PEO union, came out on an indefinite strike Monday against privatisation. The privatisation of the port is one of the conditions being imposed by the European Union on the Cypriot government in return for being bailed out with loans as a result of its debt crisis.

The transport minister responded by saying he could not understand the reason for the strike. He claimed there would be no job losses but that some dockers may be transferred to other public sector jobs.

Middle East

Israeli airport staff on go-slow

Ground staff at Israels Ben Gurion international airport are operating a go-slow action, leading to flight departure delays. Airport management announced it would ask the labour court to intervene to stop the action.

Striking Moroccan workers evicted from company site

Police acting on instructions from the American multinational packaging company, Crown Holding Inc., began evicting striking workers encamped on their site in Agadir, Morocco last Friday.

The UMT trade union members have been on strike at two Crown factory sites, in Casablanca and Agadir.

They came out on strike on March 2, over a range of issues, including the non-implementation of an agreement reached in November 2014, pressure to work more than 10 hours a day, and for access to social benefits. They are also aggrieved over the dismissal of 60 of their colleagues without union consultation.

Africa

South African rail workers oppose casual labour

Workers employed by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) marched to the companys offices at Cape Town rail station, demanding an end to the use of casual labour and the removal of the regional manager.

They are members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU). Around 400 of SATAWUs 1,600 members employed nationally by the passenger rail agency took part in the demonstration.

Some casual staff have worked for PRASA for more than three years without being brought onto the company books, and feel insecure with unemployment standing above 25 percent. The union warned the company that if they do not respond within seven days it would consider striking.

PRASA retaliated by declaring that those attending the demonstration would be considered to be absent from work illegally. PRASA runs the passenger side of South Africas Metrorail System with Transnet Freight Rail providing the rest.

South African refuse workers continue strike

Four thousand South African Pikitup refuse workers continue their three-week-old strike. Workers, who are demanding an increase in pay, from just over R6,000 ($390) to R10,000 ($650) a month, claim their counterparts get from 20 to 40 percent more at other waste management sites.

The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) is also calling for the sacking of the firms managing director. SAMWU has handed the city council a file of the complaints they have against him. Although Pikitup has hired another company to keep Johannesburg tidy, the media claims that rubbish is building up in the city.

This is the third strike since December, and on each occasion police have violently attacked strikers. Pikitup, in league with the city council, has deemed the strike illegal and issued pre-dismissal notices to workers. Angry workers have opposed the national unions demand that they return to work, while local officials try to maintain control of the workforce who are clashing with the police and upturning rubbish bins.

The City of Johannesburg said that two Pikitup trucks were fired on Wednesday night, causing them to collide.

South African gold miners threaten to strike

The Association of Miners and Construction Union (AMCU) has put the question of strike back on the agenda after Sibanye, the mining company, declared that AMCU should accept the wage deal that members of other unions in the conglomerate have agreed to.

South African gold miners voted to strike last October, but the AMCU postponed it while negotiations took place.

Sibanye recently acquired Anglo American Platinums Rustenburg mines and Aquarius Platinum. It claims 500 jobs have become surplus through the takeover, which AMCU is opposing.

AMCU told Sibanye management it should respond or be served a 48-hour strike notice. The National Union of Miners has predicted that around 35,000 jobs could be lost within the next few months, around 7 percent of the industry.

Zimbabwe junior doctors oppose contracting out their jobs

Zimbabwe junior doctors are to continue their strike in opposition to the Health Service Board reducing their status to contractors.

The doctors are petitioning the Ministry of Health to change the contract as they say it abrogates their rights, but have had no response. The junior doctors complain the contract does not stipulate what they will earn, as well as barring them entering into associations, for example trade unions, or bodies to protect their rights.

The consequences are already being felt in the hospitals where the doctors are being asked to undertake tasks they should not be expected to do.

Female doctors are under threat of losing their right to maternity leave. Besides the severe effects on hospitals from the strike, there is an endemic shortage of senior doctors. Junior doctors are not prepared to sign the contract until it is amended in accordance with their rights.

Nigerian health unions to continue dispute

Nigerian doctors and health service workers, united in a coalition of unions under the name of JOHESU (joint health service unions), are continuing a strike at the Jobs University Teaching Hospital.

The dispute is over the non-payment of allowances dating back to the 2013 Consolidated Health Structure agreement, with the joint unions demanding implementation and back pay for the period to the present day. The union says it will not order an end to the walkout until workers demands are met.

Nigerian insurance staff protest

Workers employed at the Nigerian National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in Abuja are on an indefinite strike. They gathered outside NAICOMs headquarters early morning Monday to demand improved conditions of employment and blocked management from entering.

As a regulator of the insurance industry, NAICOMs oversight of insurance companies will be suspended over the period of the strike.

The two civil service unions involved say all their demands have been agreed previously and not implemented. The previous agreement covered confirmation of employees contracts, promotions, staff training and improved security. Workers are also complaining that staff are being employed from outside when there are qualified staff within the company to fill the posts.
The success of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the recent German elections cannot be understood without considering the role of the Left Party.

Particularly in the East of the country, the combination of left-wing phraseology with right-wing austerity policies by the Left Party has contributed to the frustration that is driving disappointed and embittered voters into the arms of the right-wing demagogues of the AfD. And, what is even more important, the political and theoretical positions of the Left Party are close to those of the AfD.

This is demonstrated with particular clarity by Sahra Wagenknechts latest book. Under the title Wealth without Greed, the chairperson of the Left Party faction in parliament advocates an economic order that does not abrogate markets, but saves them from capitalism.

We need, she writes, what the neo-liberals are writing so gladly on their banners, but destroying in reality: freedom, personal initiative, competition, performance-based salaries, protection of self-made wealth.

Such an economic order, claims Wagenknecht, demands a strong national state, a national state that is ethnically and linguistically homogeneous and protects itself from the outside world. She cynically invokes democracy to justify this reactionary perspective.

Democracy lives only in spaces that are manageable for people, she writes. Only there does the demos [Greek for the people] have a chance of coming into contact with political decision-makers, of supervising and monitoring them. The larger, less homogeneous and less easily understandable the political unit is, the less it is able to function. If there are also linguistic and cultural differences, then it is a hopeless undertaking.

This shows that Wagenknechts attacks on refugees in recent weeks were not a mere rhetorical lapse. If the word democracy is replaced with dominant culture, there is no difference between her rejection of people who speak another language and have another culture and the xenophobic rhetoric of the AfD and the right wing of the Christian Social Union (CSU).

Wagenknecht combines the demand for national isolation with the demand for economic protectionism. She rejects transnational contracts and institutions with the argument: If we want to live in a democratic community once again, the opposite way is the only possibility. Not policy has to be internationalized, but the economic structures have to be decentralized and made smaller. Wealth without Greed reads like the lament of a small entrepreneur who feels crushed by big capital because it stands in the way of her own social ascent. Wagenknecht never tires of castigating the contradictions, injustice and madness of global capitalism, but the word socialism is nowhere to be found in her book.

She denounces capitalism and praises the market economy. She laments that functioning markets and real competition are globally on the decline, that a weak state and the deregulation of the economy do not strengthen the market, but the power of the big corporations over the markets, and, in this way over all society.

The assumption that entrepreneurs need capitalism is a big mistake, she claims. Rather, precisely because of the difficulty of access [to capital], it obstructs them and makes life difficult for them. And most economists who attribute prosperity to competition, economic dynamism and the principle of merit have, for good reason, nothing good to say about capitalism.

To global capitalism Wagenknecht counterposes an idyllic market economy in which banks, competition and wealth serve the good of all, and everyone has a chance to rise and become rich. Just like in her previous book, Freedom instead of Capitalism, she idealizes the German Federal Republic of the arch-conservative Adenauer era and is full of praise for the liberal economists of that time.

In spite of all of her criticism of oligarchy and the banks, she does not wish to abolish capitalist property, but rather rethink itthat is, leave it as it is. No one would dispute that the financial sector is of central importance for the development of a national economy, she writes.

Financial institutions should merely be placed in a tight corset in accordance with the American model of the 1930s. They should be small and stable, function according to the business model of savings banks and credit unions, and no longer earn a lot of money without any relevant performance. To this end, Wagenknecht wants to introduce strict capital exchange controls and give states their own currency back, i.e., do away with the euro.

Wagenknecht calls her ideas something new, that has never existed before. In fact such petty-bourgeois criticisms of capitalism are as old as capitalism itself. Marx and Engels already criticised petty-bourgeois socialism in the Communist Manifesto. They wrote that this school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production, but wanted to cramp the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. This was both reactionary and Utopian.

In the following decades, petty-bourgeois quacks have repeatedly promised to resolve the crisis of capitalism with recipes similar to those put forward by Sahra Wagenknecht.

In the 20th century, the Nazis used the petty-bourgeois criticism of capitalism to mobilise the ruined middle classes against the socialist workers movement. They combined criticism of finance capital with anti-Semitism, postulated the antagonism between rapacious and creative capital and demanded the breaking of interest slavery.

Once in power, the Nazis proved themselves to be dependable stooges of finance capital. The combination of National Socialism and anti-Semitism with the criticism of capitalism, which was especially pronounced in the Strasser faction of the party, was directed above all against the influence of Marxism and its international, socialist perspective on the workers movement.

The Marxist answer to the global crisis of capitalism bases itself on the international working class. The international working class is the social force that objectively constitutes the mass base for world socialist revolution, which signifies an end to the nation-state system as a whole and the establishment of a global economy based on equality and scientific planning, as the statement Socialism and the Fight Against War of the International Committee of the Fourth International explains. Imperialism seeks to save the capitalist order through war. The working class seeks to resolve the global crisis through social revolution.

Wagenknecht completely rejects this perspective. This is no misunderstanding. She and the Left Party speak for sections of the state apparatus, the union bureaucracy and wealthy layers of the middle classes, who fear a social movement from below much more than the rise of the right wing.

Oskar Lafontaine, whom Wagenknecht is politically close to and whom she recently married, was a leading figure in the SPD and in government for 40 years. He saw it as the task of the SPD to defuse social conflicts and suppress open class struggle. He left the party because it was no longer in a position to play this role on account of the policies of Gerhard Schroder. Wagenknecht herself was the spokesperson of the Stalinist Communist Platform in the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) after the reunification of Germany, which justified the repression of the working class by the Stalinist regime of the GDR.

It is significant that in her most recent book she not only does not call herself a socialist, but makes no mention at all of social movements from below. Instead, she calls on the ruling elite to turn to nationalist policies in light of growing social tensions and the increasing militarisation of German foreign policy.

In this way, Wagenknecht is also preparing a place for herself in a right-wing government, if the social and political crisis in Germany intensifies. Gregor Gysi, her predecessor at the head of the Left Party parliamentary faction, has already called for a coalition with the CDU after the election success of the AfD. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung interviewed Wagenknecht about her new book in an article headlined: If necessary, also with Bruderle. Bruderle is a right-wing Free Democratic Party politician whom Wagenknecht praises in her book.

In the long run, however, given the similarity of perspective, nothing stands in the way of an alliance with the AfD itself. The reactionary implications of Wagenknechts demand for national and economic isolation should not be underestimated. Under conditions of globalisation, which brings together billions of people in the process of production and makes them dependent on one another, it would result in an enormous economic step backwards and a massive destruction of the productive forces. It would be bound up with the sharpening of international tensions and war.
6 years, 6 months ago by Scott Hardy

US Census figures show county lost 5 people in 2015

The US Census Bureau has released its' population estimates for 2015, and most area counties had a slight loss in population over the past year, including Adams County.

Those figures, released Thursday, show Adams County's estimated population last year at 67 thousand and 13 people, with a loss of 5 people from last year. The city of Quincy's micropolitan area population was just over 77 thousand people, a gain of 75. Nearly all area counties in Illinois showed a loss of population, including McDonough County, which lost 260 people last year. Pike County had no population loss.

Several Northeast Missouri counties also lost population, but two counties gained people. Marion County gained 5, while Lewis County gained 80.
6 years, 6 months ago by Scott Hardy

Facing drug & weapons charges

A Quincy man facing drug and weapons charges, will have a new judge in his case.

At a recent hearing, 62 year old Michael Curtis asked that his case not be heard by Judge Robert Adrian. His request was granted, and his case will now be heard by Judge Debra Wellborn.

Curtis faces charges of Unlawful Possession of Meth, Unlawful Possession of Firearm Ammunition by a Felon and a third felony charge of Unlawful Use of a Weapon. That third charge was added at a hearing earlier this week. Curtis was charged after a raid on his home earlier this month by the West Central Illinois Task Force. Hes currently free on 50 thousand dollars' bond.

In a related story, the death of a woman whose body was found in Curtis's home in early February has been ruled accidental, according to Adams County Coroner James Keller.

Keller said the toxicology reports are back and drugs were detected in Tiffany Yount's system. The 31-year-old St. Louisan was found unresponsive at Curtis's home on Sherwood Lakes Drive on the afternoon of February 6th. Yount was pronounced dead at the scene.

Keller said Yount's body showed no evidence of any traumatic injuries.
6 years, 6 months ago QPD

Casey D Johnson (21) 838 S. 18th St. Quincy, IL for disobeying traffic control device and operating uninsured vehicle at 6th and Broadway on 3-24-16. NTA.

Jeanette Fisk (63) 210 Kentucky St. Quincy, IL for trespassing at 1000 Maine St. (Heartland Saloon) on 3-24-16. NTA.

Ryan P Brinks (28) 210 E Perkins Payson, IL for improper lane usage at 12th and Oak on 3-22-16. Cash bond.

Karen A Pfeifle (29) 1257 1/2 5th Ave Cedar Rapids, IA for operating uninsured vehicle at 10th and Vermont on 3-24-16. NTA.

Blake M Ebbing (21) 1130 S. 16th Quincy, IL for Improper lane usage in the 1000 block of State on 3-24-16. PTC.

Angela J Massingill (42) 509 S. 9th St. Quincy, IL for possession of methamphetamine, driving while license suspended, suspended registration for mandatory insurance violation, and one headlight at 9th and Broadway on 3-24-16. Lodged.

Erika M Nichols (30) 2728 Chestnut St. Quincy, IL for domestic battery and interfering with the reporting of domestic violence at 2728 Chestnut on 3-24-16. Lodged.

Michael A Bloodson (33) 400 South 7th Apt. E Quincy, IL on a warrant for Unlawful delivery of a controlled substance at 400 S. 7th on 3-25-16. Lodged.

Justin W. Lane (20) 1289 Lake Shore Dr. Quincy, IL for driving under the influence, possession of controlled substance, and possession of methamphetamine at 5th and College on 3-24-16. Lodged

Alexis D Kaufman (24) 2100 S. 8th St. Quincy, IL on a warrant for FTA- obstructing identification at 5th and Oak on 3-24-16. Lodged.

Ricky T. Green, 34, Quincy was arrested on an outstanding Adams County Warrant for FTA-Improper Use of Registration - lodged

Mary Parker reports that her residence at 628 Lind was entered on 3- 11-16 and shoes, a ps4, and a dog were stolen.

Milton R. Whitfield, 34, 406 College for Criminal Trespass to State Supported Property at 808 Lind. Lodged

Archieona L. French, 25, 726 1/2 N. 4th for DWLS on Lind, 5th - 6th on 03-23-16. NTA

Xavier R. Wells, 16, 836 Lind for Toy Vehicles in Street in the 800 block of Lind on 03-23-16. NTA

Christopher A. Terrell, 46, 5132 Wismann Ln for Failure to Reduce Speed to Avoid Accident at 38th & Broadway on 03-22-16. NTA

Jennifer M. Stickler, 30, 3426 Lindell Ave. for Improper Lane Usage at 3008 Lindell on 03-18-16. PTC

Ashley R. Chatfield, 30, 828 N. 11th for No Valid DL - Expired Less Than 1 Year at 18th & Oak on 03-23-16. PTC

Brooke D. Sweet, 26, 1601 Van Buren for No Valid DL - Expired Less Than 1 Year & Operation of an Uninsured Motor Vehicle at 18th & Chestnut on 3-23-16. NTA

Clayton J. Flick, 227 1/2 N. 10th reported his 2008 Saturn Aura was struck by an unknown suspect vehicle while parked at 10th & Vermont between 1945 hours on 03-04-16 and 1100 hours on 03-05-16. The rear of Flick's vehicle was heavily damaged by the suspect vehicle.

Jennifer M. Shurtleff, 1340 N. 5th #3 reported an unknown suspect entered her residence sometime between 03-20-16 and 03-22-16 and stole numerous bottles of prescription medications and some electronic items.

Mary L. Bryant (Mason), 930 N. 5th reported an unknown suspect stole her Samsung Galaxy cell phone from her residence between 2100 and 2300 hours on 03-20-16. Bryant stated she had numerous people inside her residence at the time of the theft.

Connie F. Vermeire, Director of Clinical Services for Blessing Physician Services, 927 Broadway, reported the theft of numerous medical supplies between 03-04-16 and 03-08-16.

Devon K. Hawkins, 21, Quincy for Fighting from an incident on 02/19/16. NTA

Joshua L Johnson (27) 2525 Lexi Lane Quincy for possession of methamphetamine (less than 5 grams), possession of a controlled substance, possession of cannabis (less than 2.5 grams), and unlawful use of a weapon on 3-24-16 at Lexi Lane and April Ave. Lodged

Heins E. Pappenfoht, 56, Quincy for Domestic Battery. Lodged
The Belmont Stakes; the end of the Triple Crown journey; the one race, as fickle and unsympathetic as any in the country, that has the power to grant or deny a horse immortality on the slightest whim. It has the patience to wait 25 years or 37 years for a Triple Crown winner or it can get restless and crown three in a six-year period. It is an enigmatic race that knows no rules. Every Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner who attempts to conquer the mile and a half of Big Sandy is perceived as a legend waiting to be crowned, but in nearly four decades, all but one have run smack into Belmont Stakes many pitfalls, one more cruel and unforgiving than the next.

I have been there to witness the highs and the lows, from my first crown denied in 1969 when Arts and Letters dashed the hopes of the unbeaten Majestic Prince to the coronation of American Pharoah after 37 years, and all the triumphs and mostly failures in between. The former actually was a triumph to me, as Arts and Letters was one of my first favorite horses and he still has a special place in my heart.

I remember staying up all night listening to talk radio because I couldnt get to sleep, in anticipation of going to Belmont the following morning with my father to see Arts and Letters, and then later with my friend Fred. I also remember Belmont day, sitting in the last section of the grandstand, overlooking the quarter pole, and when I saw Braulio Baeza look back over his shoulder right beneath me I knew Arts and Letters was home free. Later that year, my world would change forever when I was hired by the Morning Telegraph (the Eastern and main edition of Daily Racing Form) as a copy boy.

Although I was not covering the Belmont Stakes in the 1970s, I felt the electricity ripple through Belmont in 1973 following Secretariats other worldly performance that still exists out in the galaxy somewhere and has yet to return to Earth. I remember having my friend Jack drive me to JFK Airport immediately following Seattle Slews Belmont victory to catch a plane for England to attend the Royal Ascot races and the Irish Derby. In many ways I am embarrassed to say that I was in England again the following year when Affirmed beat Alydar, having made my plans many months in advance in order to be at the English Derby and Royal Ascot. I was enamored with European racing back then.

But this is about my Belmont Stakes memories covering the race, and there are plenty of those.

During my early days covering the Belmont on a freelance basis for the Thoroughbred Times, I remember being at Alyshebas barn following his disappointing fourth-place finish, in which he was trounced by his arch rival Bet Twice. By doing so, he not only lost out on the first $5 million bonus being offered to any horse who swept the Triple Crown, he also lost the $1 million bonus for accumulating the most points in all three races when Gulch just got up to nip him on the wire for third, allowing Bet Twice to win the bonus.

Alyshebas jockey, Chris McCarron, knew it was not one of his finest moments and that his ride likely cost the owners, Clarence, Dorothy, and Pamela Scharbauer the bonus money and Van Berg his 10 percent share of a million dollars. After the race, McCarron drove up to the barn and sheepishly walked toward Van Berg, not knowing what to expect.



Theres my boy, Van Berg said in a warm, welcoming manner. All McCarron could say was, Am I still your boy? Van Berg went over and put his arm around McCarrons shoulder as if to reassure him all was fine. I will never forget that moment, because it showed how classy someone can be even after having just lost $100,000 by several inches.

The following year, the morning before the Belmont Stakes, Risen Star, who was stabled in the stakes barn complex, went out for a three-furlong blowout and shocked everyone by working in :33 2/5, give or take a fifth, with former jockey Jimmy Nicholls standing straight up in the saddle, pulling hard on the reins, trying to slow him down. Risen Star had been having foot issues following his Preakness victory and that entire morning following the work he had his foot in ice, as he did Belmont morning. Several hours later a rumor began to circulate in the press box that Risen Star was going to be scratched. We waited and waited and the announcement never came. Risen Star went out and won by nearly 15 lengths, running the second-fastest Belmont ever behind Secretariat. He never raced again.

In 1989, Sunday Silence was trying for a Triple Crown sweep, having beaten Easy Goer in the Derby and Preakness. The strain of the Triple Crown was starting to wear on trainer Charlie Whittingham, who not only was losing his patience with visitors and questions from the press, he also was losing his battle with Sunday Silence, who was making a habit of sending his trainer to the first aid room. During his stay at Belmont, Sunday Silence managed to bite Whittingham on the leg, bite him on the finger, and kick him in the head. That last incident occurred when the colt became spooked by a camera crew waiting for him at the entrance to the track leading from the paddock.

As Sunday Silence emerged from the tunnel, with Whittingham walking alongside, he spotted the cameras and reared up. As he came down, he clipped his trainer on the head. Exercise rider Pam Mabes looked back to see if he was OK and asked what to do, and Whittingham, holding his head in apparent discomfort, waved to her to continue on to the track and go about her business as usual.



His final trip to the first aid room, where he had become a regular visitor, resulted only in an application of iodine, which left a large rust-colored stain on Whittinghams bald head. All he would say of the incident was I zigged when I should have zagged.



Easy Goer trounced Sunday Silence in the Belmont and I vividly remember standing next to him back at the barn as he grazed, his golden chestnut coat illuminated by the setting sun. The only two people there were me and Thoroughbred Times editor Mark Simon. It was one of those special tranquil moments you always remember.

Whittingham was involved in another strange incident in 1994 when he ran Kentucky Derby runner-up Strodes Creek in the Belmont Stakes. One morning, early in Belmont week, Whittingham sent Strodes Creek out for a gallop with exercise rider Sonia Simmons aboard. I was standing with him on the track in from of the Barbecue Pit, a fenced in area near the gap where trainers would hang out. Just then, someone from the Barbecue Pit said, One of the riders just got off their horse. No one could see who it was.

I hope its not mine, Whittingham said, half in jest. I looked through my binoculars and sure enough there was Sonia Simmons standing next to Strodes Creek, who looked to be in apparent distress, lowering his head and shoulder and pawing at the ground.

One of the trainers in the pit, Rusty Arnold, called me over. Hey, Steve, is that Charlies horse? he asked. I told him it was but I was too chicken to tell him. I couldnt bring myself to break the news to the great Charlie Whittingham that his Belmont horse was being loaded in an ambulance.

Arnold then did the dirty deed, telling Whittingham it was his horse. I walked back to the barn with him, and he said little, not knowing the extent of the injury. Well just have to see how bad it is, he said, while in a brisk walk. When we arrived at the barn, Randy Winick, trainer of one of the Belmont favorites, Brocco, was sitting on a tack box as the ambulance pulled up to the barn, stunned at the turn of events. Just then, the back door of the ambulance opened, the ramp was lowered, and there was Strodes Creek prancing off the van perfectly sound. The horse was checked over by a veterinarian, who took X-rays. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the horse. The vet theorized that Strodes Creeks one undescended testicle was causing him discomfort.

Ironically, it was Brocco who stepped on a stone a few days later, suffering a bruise that would keep him out of the Belmont, while Strodes Creek would finish third, becoming the only horse in Belmont history to finish in the money less than a week after being taken off the track in an ambulance.

One of the most gut-wrenching Belmonts was Charismatics attempt to sweep the Triple Crown in 1999.

The morning of the Belmont, jockey Chris Antley showed up at trainer Wayne Lukas barn at 5:15, very unusual for a jockey on race day. Then, as the sun was beginning to peak through the trees, Antley couldnt help but break into a smile, as he beamed with confidence.



What a beautiful day, he said. I bet you see the largest crowd ever.



He took a long, hard look at Charismatic, who was out grazing, and said, while thinking about his dark days battling drug addiction and being away from racing, I look around and I want to take a deep sigh. I remember not too long ago getting up on a morning just like this in South Carolina, taking off running, wondering if Ill ever make it back. It was like it was just yesterday. Whew, you talk about extremes. One thing about heaven and hell, Ive been to both of them. If I was attempting to get the ultimate feeling inside, this would be it. This would be heaven.



But that afternoon would be the beginning of Antleys return to hell.



As Charismatic drove to the wire through the wall of noise created by the 85,818 fans in attendance, he took a bad step. Shortly after crossing the finish line in third, Antley pulled him up and jumped off. He fell backwards on the seat of his pants, then scrambled to his knees and ran his hand up and down the colts left foreleg. Because horses have a very high pain tolerance and normally go into shock after a catastrophic injury, Antley gently lifted the injured leg off the ground to prevent him from putting weight on it and held it until help arrived.



Charismatic had suffered a condylar fracture of the cannon bone and a vertical fracture of the lateral sesamoid. As the scene was being played out, it was as if the life had been sucked out of the once jubilant crowd. Charismatic was led into the ambulance where he was treated with the anti-inflammatory drugs Butazolidan and Banamine and a mild sedative. He was returned to his stall and walked in calmly, then immediately went to his feed tub and nibbled on a few leftover oats. Lukas wife, Laura, fed him hay from his hay rack. Equipped with a ski boot brace, he peered over his webbing, nodding his head continuously.



Owners Bob and Beverly Lewis and their family arrived at the barn and were assured by Lukas the colt was doing as well as could be expected. When Antley showed up, Bob Lewis patted him on the shoulder and said, Chris, good job of stopping him.



Lewis began to well up with tears and told Antley, After watching the film and seeing how you went down and tried to assist the horse and hold him up was just magnificent on your part, and I cant begin to tell you how proud we are to have you in our association.



Lewis couldnt contain his tears any longer. He said to the normally emotional Antley, Youre supposed to be the one with the tears, not me. But Antley appeared to be more in shock than anything.

Antley never could shake free from his demons. A year and a half later, he was found dead on the floor of his Pasadena, California, home. The cause of death was a severe blunt force trauma and was investigated by police as a homicide. Later, the coroners report concluded that Antley had died of a multiple drug overdose, and the injuries were likely related to a fall caused by the drugs. But few people believed that. Whether Antley was murdered or not, it was a tragic end for someone so gifted and talented, who likely never again had a moment as beautiful as that Belmont morning.

Two of my most special Belmont Stakes moments were flying from Louisville to New York with Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch, Preakness winner Timber Country, and future Hall of Famer Serenas Song in 1995 and then again in 1997 with Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm. Thunder Gulch, of course, would go on to win the Belmont, while Timber Country was a late scratch after getting sick.

For Silver Charm, I left Belmont in the late afternoon and flew to Louisville with New York Post writer David Grening, where we watched Silver Charms final work before flying with him back to Belmont the following morning.



After 10 days of being treated like a king by an adoring community, trainer Bob Baffert now found himself face to face with reality as he approached the Tex Sutton Boeing 727 that would take him and Silver Charm to their final battle in their quest for racings Triple Crown.



Baffert said he felt like the weight of Kentucky was on his shoulders, especially after seeing the huge turnout for the previous mornings work. Im looking forward to getting up to New York and getting this thing done and coming back to Kentucky wearing the Triple Crown on my head, he said.



The plane touched down at JFK Airport at 8:50 a.m. after the hour and 45-minute flight. Silver Charm was led on the van, and with a police escort leading the way, the van meandered through the streets of Queens into Long Island, as pedestrians quizzically watched the procession.



As the van pulled up near Barn 9 at Belmont, a mass of humanity could be seen gathered in front of the barn. It was the largest assemblage of reporters, photographers, and cameramen I had ever witnessed. They surrounded Silver Charm as he walked from the van to the barn, and before long, Baffert was engulfed by the media. Kentucky was already a memory. There was a Triple Crown to be won. Unfortunately it wasnt to be, as Silver Charm was narrowly defeated by Touch Gold. Baffert was back the following year for another crack at the elusive Triple Crown with Real Quiet, and the four years later with War Emblem, but they also would end in defeat. Thirteen years later, in 2015, it would be a different story.

I remember watching the 1998 Belmont standing right behind Real Quiets owner Mike Pegrams box. Talk about agony, having to stand there for what seemed like an eternity watching Pegram await the photo finish result was surreal, knowing he was going to win or lose the Triple Crown by an inch.



Of all the Belmonts and Triple Crown attempts Ive witnessed, none was more exciting than the three weeks leading up to the 2004 Belmont Stakes, where one of the great Cinderella horses of all time, Smarty Jones, would attempt to add his name to the list of Triple Crown winners.

Smarty Jones was based at Philadelphia Park, which became the center of the racing universe, and was only a 40-minute drive from my house.

This was a horse who drew nearly 10,000 people of all ages to Philly Park the Saturday after the Preakness just to watch him gallop, some arriving as early as 5 a.m. and then charging to the rail to get a good spot, many with their children on their shoulders.

One day, DRF photographer Mike Marten and I went to Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, where Smartys trainer John Servis was throwing out the first pitch, and Mike had obtained credentials. So, here I was standing on the field warming up Servis, who stood on the steps of the dugout, as we threw the ball back and forth.

The morning Smarty vanned to Belmont was a scene that transcended anything Thoroughbred racing has ever seen. At 9:30, with three helicopters disrupting the morning silence, two motorcycle police officers arrived, ready to escort Smarty on the first leg of his journey. Officer John Gladu removed his helmet, put on a Smarty Jones hat, then took out his camera and began taking pictures of the horse standing in a grassy paddock adjacent to the loading ramp. Hey, Im just a fan, he said.

The other officer, Tim Henehan, thought he had seen it all when, six months earlier, he had escorted President Bush. But he had never seen anything like this, escorting a horse. You have a job to do and you take it seriously no matter who youre escorting, he said.

At 9:30 they were off. I was driving Mikes rented SUV, while he rode shotgun taking photos. With Gladu and Henehan leading the way, we followed the van out the stable gate, as people all along neighboring Galloway Road stood in front of their homes photographing and videotaping the van as it went by. Others just gave a double thumbs up, several shouting, Go get em, Smarty. Two Bensalem police cars blocked traffic on busy Street Road, while an unmarked police car tucked in behind the van. At the tollbooth for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, all the toll takers gathered outside the booths, applauding and cheering for Smarty Jones as he moved through. Shortly after getting on the turnpike, the van passed a billboard that read, Look out New York, Smartys Coming! People even gathered on a grassy hill behind a turnpike rest area just to watch Smarty go by. After leaving Pennsylvania, the van was picked up by New Jersey state troopers, who eventually turned it over to the New York police for the final leg of the trip.

Everything was going smoothly. All Mike wanted now was to get a shot of Smarty coming off the van. Several miles from the George Washington Bridge, our SUV began slowing down. I looked down and couldnt believe it; we had run out of gas. We were in the left lane and I had to make my way over about four lanes going two miles an hour, hoping I could make it to the side of the road, as drivers shouted obscenities. I finally got over to the shoulder and was about to call Triple AAA when Mike, unwilling to wait and miss his shot, went running up a nearby entrance ramp. He returned a few minutes later with a construction worker, who he had paid $100 for few gallons of gas. He told us he doubted we had enough gas to get to Belmont, but Mike got behind the wheel and drove about 80 miles an hour, taking a shorter route. We pulled up to the barn just as Smarty was about to unload. Mike dashed out of the car and got his shot. Piece a cake.

One of the most touching moments and one of the greatest exhibitions of sportsmanship I ever saw occurred after Birdstone denied Smarty Jones the Triple Crown in as crushing a defeat and unpopular a result as anyone ever witnessed in the Belmont Stakes.

In the stands, people were crying. Even Marylou Whitney, who owned Birdstone, was near tears, not for her victory, but for depriving Smarty his chance at immortality and for what a victory would have done for the sport. I feel so awful for Smarty Jones, she said in all sincerity. We were hoping wed be second. I love Smarty. Hes done more for racing than anyone Ive ever known. Even trainer Nick Zito went over to John Servis and apologized.

Birdstones biggest supporter, assistant trainer Reynaldo Abreu, who called the colt Little Man, was bawling after the race, tears streaming down his face. Here he was leading Birdstone, all 900 pounds of him, back to the test barn in front of a stunned and deflated crowd, too drained to pay any attention. Still shaking, Abreu said to the Belmont winner, You deserve this, little one, you deserve it. He then gave the colt a big slap on the rump. They said you were too little, but they didn't know how big your heart is.

Just as Abreu was about to lead Birdstone into the tunnel to return to the backstretch, he was instructed by the outrider to walk back along the track to a backstretch gate near the clubhouse turn. When he arrived, however, the gate was locked, with the locks held together by plastic cords. Abreu went from feelings of ecstasy to anger as he found himself stranded with a horse that needed water and to relax after his grueling trip.

Fortunately, he had a pair of scissors in his pocket and was able cut through the plastic. But his problems were far from over. By now, cars were piling out of the track, and as Abreu, Birdstone, and several others from Zitos crew tried to make their way through the traffic, a stretch limo nearly ran into Birdstone. A number of patrons helped stop traffic while an incensed Abreu finally was able to lead Birdstone to the test barn.

The demise of the Triple Crown bonus resulted from a not-so-pleasant scene after the 1993 Belmont. There in the winners circle on a bleak, wet afternoon was Sea Heros owner Paul Mellon accepting the $1 million check, even though his horse had finished up the track, while the favorite, Preakness winner and Derby runner-up Prairie Bayou, was still on the backstretch being loaded onto an ambulance after suffering what would be a fatal injury.

What would ensue back at Prairie Bayous barn after the race and the next morning is what made this job so difficult at times. That night, Prairie Bayous groom and best friend, Carl Brewer, still in shock and in tears, stared into the horses empty stall, unable to come to terms with what had happened.

You never truly realize how close you become to a horse, or a dog, or a friend until theyre gone, he said. Here was a horse who was honest, dependable, and so gentle. In the morning he was always so excited and went to the track with such enthusiasm. He was just a hard-trying, blue-collar horse who made everyone around him feel good.

The morning after the race, Brewer was still visibly shaken, unable to eat dinner the night before. He walked over and gently stroked the forehead of an unraced Northern Baby 2-year-old and then went over and gave his filly, Aztec Hill, a pat on the neck.

Whew! I didnt expect that, he said, taking a deep breath. He then looked at a hand-painted sign hanging outside Prairie Bayous empty stall that read: Prairie Bayou: 1993 Preakness winner.

Ive got to get rid of that sign, he said. It hurts just to look at it.

Prairie Bayou, one of the kindest, most giving horses Ive ever been around, is buried at Dr. Gary Lavins Longfield Farm in Goshen, Ky., where he was born and raised.

Covering racing, especially the Triple Crown, you never know who and what youre going to encounter. One of the strangest encounters ever was in 2002 when a woman named Dawn Hayman, who claimed to be an animal communicator, went around looking to have a conversation with a Belmont Stakes starter. None of the trainers were interested, except for Kenny McPeek, who was still in Kentucky, and assistant Hanne Jorgensen, who had the hopeless outsider Sarava in the Belmont, where he would go off at odds of 70-1.

OK, well give it a shot, McPeek told Jorgensen. What did he have to lose? What really got his and Jorgensens attention was when Hayman, after talking to Sarava, said that the horse told her he missed the man back in Kentucky who would give him things out of his pocket every night. Jorgensen called the barn and had someone check with the nightwatchman, who said he always kept mints in his pocket and would feed them to Sarava every night, something no one else was aware of.

When Hayman asked Sarava if he was feeling alright, he told her, I used to have a lot of pain on the inside of my right front foot, but its fine now. The only thing thats bothering me now are my heels, especially on the right side. Jorgensen said that Sarava used to have a severe quarter crack on the inside of his right front foot, and now he had a slightly cracked heel on the right foot that would get sore on occasion.

Jorgensen was astounded, because she knew the woman had no way of knowing about any of this, especially pinpointing exactly where everything was located. Hayman finally said that Sarava told her he would go through any hole if the rider asked him. He concluded by assuring her he was a good horse and was going to show the world on Saturday. Sarava did go through a hole and out-battled Medaglia dOro to the wire in one of the great shockers in Belmont and Triple Crown history. And Sarava knew it all along. Hey, Im just telling it like it happened.

In 1992, Neil Drysdale had A.P. Indy in the Belmont Stakes. Having had his quarter-crack that kept him out of the Derby patched and coming off a stunning victory in the Peter Pan Stakes, A.P. Indy was without question the star of this years Belmont. On the morning, A.P. Indy was scheduled to work, it had poured overnight and turned Belmont Park into a quagmire.

Very few horses dared to train over the track. Not knowing what Drysdale was going to do, I went to stakes barn early that morning to ask him what his plans were. There was only one problem. There was no sign of Drysdale or A.P, Indy. I checked to see if the horse was behind the barn grazing  nothing. I checked the track  nothing. Finally, I found the horses groom back at the barn and asked him where Neil was. Hes at Aqueduct, he said.

Drysdale, on a hunch, had driven to Aqueduct at the crack of dawn before the mad Belt Parkway rush hour, just to see if it had rained as hard there and how the track was. Sure enough it had hardly rained there and the track was listed as fast. So Drysdale returned to Belmont, put A.P. Indy on a van, and brought him to Aqueduct to work.

I got in my car and tried to catch the work, but ran into the daily mess that is the Belt Parkway. I finally arrived at the Aqueduct stable gate, hurried to the barn where the horse was stabled, and as I dashed to the track, there was A.P. Indy and Drysdale walking off. While all the other Belmont starters scheduled to work that day remained in their barn, A.P. Indy got in his important six-furlong work and went on to win the Belmont.

Im going to miss our annual dinners at Baci Cafe with my old buddies from the Racing Form. We didnt miss a dinner in 23 years. And there were the delicatessen orgies in the third-floor clubhouse the day before the Belmont, with Lenny Shulmans friend Hot Tub Johnny picking up dozens of corned beef and pastrami sandwiches and knishes, potato pancakes, and many other deli goodies. Each year, it got bigger and bigger, with more people showing up, and there was the one year when we invited Paul Reddam and he showed up even though he had just announced that morning before a mob scene of journalists that Ill Have Another had been scratched from the Belmont with an injury.

Lenny and I have had some memorable moments at the Belmont Stakes, but none more special than hugging each other and jumping up and down like little kids after American Pharoahs historic victory last year, as the grandstand literally shook around us. No offense to my wife, but that was the hardest anyone has ever hugged me. What a fitting final memory of the Belmont, and then staying at the barn until after 10:30 that night with Bob Bafferts family and friends, as American Pharoah seemed to be relishing the moment by posing for hundreds of photos.

These are just some of my Belmont Stakes memories. The Triple Crown trilogy is completed; flashbacks of a life on the racetrack to be savored and cherished. The people, the horses, the great races come and go, but they leave indelible images. I no longer will be part of the fabric of the Triple Crown as I knew it for almost 40 years. But that doesnt mean Im going to enjoy it any less or write about it with any less passion and fervor.

Oscar Wilde wrote, Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.

Its been fun unlocking mine.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - Antowan Hawkins has been sentence to life in prison without parole after being found guilty of murdering Aaron Goodwin, a Tallahassee shoe store owner.

The sentencing came down from the jury just after 4 p.m. Friday. Prosecutors were originally seeking the death penalty.

Hawkins was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder, robbery, arson, tampering with evidence, and grand theft of a vehicle.

The 24-year-old is one of three defendants involved with the murder of Aaron Goodwin. He's the first to stand trial.

Zachary D. Jones and Marvin Barrington are also charged with felony murder, arson, robbery and tampering with evidence.

This is the first case to seek the death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's laws unconstitutional. Under newly revised laws by the Florida legislature, 10 out of 12 jurors must agree for the death penalty to be issued.

Aaron Goodwin's body was found in May, inside his Adams Street sneaker store, Exclusive Heat. Officers were responding to a fire at the shop, and that's when they discovered his body.
 



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THE BASICS. There are 118 Democratic delegates at stake in Washington, with 101 to be awarded proportionally based on the results of Saturdays caucuses  with 67 allocated based on caucus results in each of the states 10 congressional districts, and the other 34 proportionally allocated based on congressional district results. The remaining 17 are technically unpledged party and elected leaders, though a majority of them  including Gov. Jay Inslee and the states congressional delegation  have already said they support front-runner Hillary Clinton.

HOW ARE DELEGATES ALLOCATED? 27,170 delegates will be elected Saturday to move on to the county and legislative district caucuses. Because Washington state has a proportional allocation system, a portion will support Clinton and a portion will support Sanders. The legislative district caucuses will be April 17, and the county conventions will be May 1. At that point, that 27,162 number will be whittled down to 1,400, likely reflecting the same proportional support of the larger overall number. Those 1,400 delegates will go to the congressional district caucuses. On May 21, at the congressional district caucuses, 67 delegates will be chosen to go to the Democratic National Convention, very likely representing the same ratio of Sanders-Clinton supporters as on the March 26 caucuses. At the state convention on June 17-19, 34 additional delegates (pledged party leaders and elected officials, and at-large delegates and alternates), will be chosen and bound based on the ratio of support determined at the May 21 congressional district caucuses.

HOW DOES THE CAUCUS WORK? Any registered voter can attend, but they must publicly attest that they are a member of the Democratic Party. There are about 7,000 precincts statewide, and each location  ranging from schools to churches to community centers  will have anywhere from five to 20 precincts at their site, according to state Democratic Party spokesman Jamal Raad. Caucuses start at 10 a.m. and usually take no longer than two hours. After the precincts gather and a captain is selected, the first tally of support is counted and announced. Caucusgoers are then able to try to convince undecided voters or to sway others to their candidate of choice before a second tally is counted. The results of that second tally are used to allot delegates to each candidate, and each group of caucusgoers chooses the delegates to move on to the county and legislative district caucuses. There is also discussion of resolutions for the state party convention in June. Results from the caucuses are expected sometime Saturday afternoon.

WHAT DO REPUBLICANS DO? Unlike Democrats, who are allocating all of their delegates from the caucuses, Republicans are using the statewide presidential primary on May 24 to allocate all of theirs. Voters will have the option of voting for the Democratic candidates in that May 24 election, but their vote wont count for anything other than a statewide straw poll. There will be 44 Republican delegates at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, 30 of whom will be allocated proportionally based on the results of the 10 congressional districts, and 14 to be awarded proportionally based on the results of the 24 statewide vote.
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The fiery debate over the appointment of a new chairman for the Arab League in Cairo lasted six hours. The League contains 21 member states minus Syria, who was ejected due to Bashar Assad's violence. Qatar, Sudan and Algeria insisted on including a caveat regarding the Egyptian candidate, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, that he will dedicate himself to his tasks and not exceed his powers.

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Eventually, Aboul Gheit was chosen because of a deal: Egypt will get the Arab League, provided it supports the Qatari candidate for the secretary general of UNESCO. Now its the Arab world's turn to compete for UNESCO. Although Egypt had presented a worthy candidate, it will have to give him up. To an outside observer, it is unclear which position, that in Cairo or that in Brussels, has greater influence.

During the debate on Thursday evening, a military exercise in Saudi Arabia concluded with the participation of 20 Arab and Muslim countries. It was not called "Northern Thunder" merely by coincidence; it was intended to point out the challenges of the attack north of the Persian Gulf. Salman, the elderly Saudi king, sat on the dignitaries' podium and watched a fleet of planes, tanks and commandos attacking the targets and concentrations of the "enemy."

The Arab League declared Hezbollah a terror organization (Photo: AFP)

It is fascinating to realize that Israel is no longer "the enemy" and that the military exercise was intended to organize the Arab line against the Shiite camp: Against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen. In a moment of boasting, one of the servants pouring water on the Saudi king's hands announced that the demonstration of muscular firepower was intended to signal the establishment of a kind of NATO-force for the Arab world.

Then, in a non-coincidental bit of coordination, the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo send down the dramatic announcement that Hezbollah is now defined as a terrorist organization. What more could Jerusalem ask for?

Caricature criticizing Aboul Gheit as the chairman of the Arab League

The Arab League in Cairo this month will mark 71 years since its establishment. There is no reason to celebrate. This institution, which has openly expressed its desire to be a counterweight to the United Nations headquarters in New York and later tried to emulate the European Union, reflects today the loss of power in the Arab world. Even the attempt to organize a summit of leaders received a slap in the face. The king of Morocco waived the privilege to host the rulers who have no common interest, not even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Cairo tried to sell the Secretary-General designate Aboul Gheit by emphasizing his reputation of being a "quiet diplomat." Only he will succeed in bridging differences, thanks to his strong nerves. Outside of Egypt, "the friend of Tzipi Livni" was ridiculed, and they made sure to bring up the joint photograph in which they were smiling. Livni, then foreign minister, came out to support Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and Aboul Gheit said that he wouldbreak the legs of Palestinians who try to sneak from Rafah into Egypt.

The king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Photo: AFP)

I know Aboul Gheit from his seven years as foreign minister and from the host of positions that he held previously. Our intelligence papers called him "the model," and every intelligence agency belittled his slender figure.

But I would not count him as a friend of Israel in the Arab League. After he being hammered with "recommendations" to take advantage of his ties with "his friend Tzipi Livni" to be elected to the Knesset in Jerusalem instead of to the Arab League, he will adopt the policy of his predecessors: The Secretary General of the League will not have ties with or host Israelis. Only in exceptional cases, if a miracle happens, instilling life, and a clear Israeli response to the Arab peace plan will happen, Aboul Gheit will charge forward and take the reins.
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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
"Bunch of wimps," "Traitors," "They'll be back when their child reaches first grade"  all these affronts were hurled throughout the years at the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who chose, whether for a fixed amount of time or for much longer, to emigrate. The word "yerida" ("descent") was switched with "relocation," and the criticism ceded to an ideology of Zionism on the ground.

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"Israelis living abroad are no longer 'traitors,' but are rather a kind of 'ambassadors of goodwill' who contribute daily to Israel's image, character and existence," said Ayelet Mamo-Shay, businesswoman and author of "Relocation, Darling, Relocation!" and initiator of "Israeli-Abroad Relocation Day." "I believe the discourse about the Israeli diaspora has changed over the years and will change even more in the future."

"The goal is to show that 'relocation' is no longer a dirty word," she explained. "(Israelis abroad contribute to the nation) with fundraising for Israeli organizations and for IDF soldiers, the spreading and maintaining of Hebrew in the diaspora, public relations, and continuing Jewish traditions and heritage."

Pro-Israel demonstration in Chicago (Photo: AFP)

She also describes Israelis "as offering a warm house to many Israeli tourists and spreading Israeli innovation, which puts Israel on the map."

House rule: Hebrew only

The day's organizers are targeting "Israelis everywhere  both in the State of Israel and those living outside its borders." Israelis abroad are called upon to get the younger generation involved, "so that that Israel always has a place in their hearts, regardless of where they reside in the world. The common goal is to do good deeds for Israel."

The day's activities are very diverse, "starting with the adoption of soldiers through the organization Nefesh B'Nefesh, and sending parcels of treats to IDF soldiers," lists Mamo-Shay, "and ending with the donation of a 19th century tefillin case to Israel's Beit Hatfutsot-Museum of the Jewish People. There are, of course, also public relation activities in Spain, the UK, and Sweden, Hebrew classes, story time for Israeli children in Amsterdam, the opening of an Israeli library in Australia hosting artists from Israel among other activites."

Mamo-Shay dreams of a relationship of support, openness and understanding with residents of Israel  and she wants to stay Israeli abroad. "My children grew up most of their lives abroad, and speaking Hebrew at home is a strict rule," she said.

"Israeli-Abroad Relocation Day will tie children and youth to Israel. They should always know and remember that we have to be proud of being Jews and Israelis and that our real home will always be Israel," Mamo-Shay concluded.
When I saw the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Frederica Mogherini crying while holding a press conference on the attacks in Brussels , I thought about our leadersabout the tears which have long since dried, and in their place: belligerent, macho, racist words.

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Imagine Yariv Levin wiping away tears, Ze'ev Elkin turning his head so no one could see his eyes, Miri Regev taking out a handkerchief and wiping her nose. Where can these types of emotional human gestures be seen here? Who would give these people a pass without labeling them as weak and soft and proclaiming the triumph of terror?

Perhaps it is absurd to request our leadership to show emotion that isn't fury, the quest for revenge and strength. It's permittedand even expectedthat when a terror attack takes place somewhere that isn't Israel, we don't pounce on them and rebuke them while trying to compare it to Palestinian terrorism. It's as if the stabbings in the streets of Israel by hopeless young Palestinians are similar to the terror attacks by Islamic Jihadist extremists, whose goals and motives are completely different from those of the Palestinians.

This is exactly what Netanyahu did on Wednesday night, when he held a press conference to saywait, what exactly was he trying to say? He repeated Israel's experiences and abilities and told that countries from all over the world to learn from Israel to combat terrorism.

EU Foreign Representative Frederica Mogherini cries at a press conference (Photo:AFP)

In one sentence, as if there were no difference between them, Netanyahu spoke about the terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, Ankara, Istanbul, Ivory Coast, California, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. In all these places, Netanyahu announced, terrorism isn't borne of deprivation, but rather out of frustration. It's due to a murderous ideology. This fight, Netanyahu says, is a fight sweeping the world, and hitting us hard.

It's as if the story of the teenager in East Jerusalem, whose family has been living under Israeli occupation for the past five decades, is the same story as the two brothers who committed the Brussels attacks, who were influenced by radical Islam.

How is Netanyahu's gloating, which he can barely conceal, and his eagerness to say "I told you so," any different than the gloating of Erdogan, who compares terror attacks by ISIS to the Kurdish PKK rebel group?

And it's not just the "we told you so"its the patronizing and arrogant way we deal with global terrorism. It's as if we, with all of our experience, can teach them what terror is. Sorry, but with all due respect, what can we teach them exactly? How we were able to defeat terrorism?







This was an unnecessary, artificial press conference, whose goal was to give the feeling that Israel is an inseparable part of global terrorism, that Palestinian terrorism and global terrorism are one and the same, and that the world still doesn't know how to deal with it. Luckily for us, most of us have already learned.
Daniel Romero Muniz, a Brazilian doctor, received permission to use the bones of Nazi criminal Dr. Josef Mengele, "the angel of death" who carried out tests on prisoners at the Auschwitz extermination camp during the Holocaust, for a research project.

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During an interview with Brazilian television, Muniz, who also teaches medicine, displayed the Nazi doctor's bones. He said that Mengele's will substantially benefit medical students' study. "The bones will help train new doctors," he said. "They will be used especially for students studying how to conduct autopsies."

Josef Mengele's remains, Photo: YouTube

After the Holocaust, Mengele fled to South America. He died of a stroke while swimming in Sao Paolo in 1979. A retired police officer found his body. "I did not know that was Mengele's (body). He had died, and his ID said his name was Wolfgang Gerhard," he said. "I did not know that he was one of the most wanted and hated persons in the world."

The Nazi was buried as Wolfgang Gerhard, and his remains were only identified in 1985 after German authorities found a letter that Mengele's Brazilian landlord sent to the Nazi doctor's family in Germany, informing them of his death.

Thereafter, Germany informed the Brazilian government and police of the letter, and the latter interred his remains. In the following years, the police offered the Mengele family his remains, but they never came to collect them.

For the past 31 years, Mengele's remains have been preserved in a blue bag on a shelf in the Legal Medical Institute in Sao Paulo. Now, Muniz has transferred them to the university to train students.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will visit Ramallah next month to assess responses to the French initiative to hold an international peace conference, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki was quoted by the Turkish news agency Anadolu as saying.

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Ayrault has taken a slightly different position than his predecessor, Laurent Fabius, who said France will recognize the state of Palestine, if the French Initiative fails.

In early March, Ayrault said, "Nothing is ever automatic. France takes this initiative and is going to present it to its partners, so it's a first step. There is no precondition."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault (Photo: Reuters)

"What we want, that's our commitment, is to relaunch a political process of negotiation, to revive a peace process and that's our priority. So we'll do everything to create a favorable climate to revive the process."

Al-Maliki announced Ayrault's visit at the conclusion of a surprise visit to Brussels, where he met with European officials including Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

The Palestinian foreign minister added, "The French Initiative constituted a major part of his meeting with members of the EU Committee on Foreign Affairs."
Belgian police arrested six people in their probe of Tuesday's Islamic State suicide bombings in Brussels, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there "that was at an advanced stage."

The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests came during police searches in the Brussels neighbourhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the centre of the Belgian capital.

The arrests came days after suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train, killing at least 31 people and wounding some 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.
The IDF's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) will question the two military officers who were at the scene of the incident in which a soldier shot a neutralized terrorist in Hebron on Thursday.

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The terrorist, Abed al Fatah a-Sharif, along with another attacker, stabbed an IDF soldier and then both were gunned down by other soldiers.

A video filmed by a B'Tselem volunteer several minutes later shows a-Sharif lying on the ground motionless as an IDF soldier aims his weapon at him and shoots him in the head.

In addition to the soldier, who was suspended and could face criminal charges, commanders in the battalion could also face disciplinary action.

Video of the incident filmed by B'Tselem (:   .   )

X

Friends and family of the soldier are worried that the IDF, fearing wide scale international condemnation, will make the soldier into a scapegoat and hand out "disproportional" punishments to him and the junior commanders involved.

The soldier's line of defense , which is also supported by a new video that emerged from the incident, is that a-Sharif moved before being shot, which led the soldier to fear he would detonate a bomb. This fear later turned out to be unfounded as no explosives were found on a-Sharif.

Second video showing the terrorist moving before being shot

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The soldier's family came out in his defense, saying he's an "excellent fighter and an army medic."

The soldier's lawyer, Benjamin Malka, said: "You can clearly see in the video that the terrorist moves, and that the terrorist is wearing a coat that could conceal an explosive vest and other explosives underneath."

He went on to say that "This is a process that is at its start. Things have yet to be examined in depth and I am saddened to see that a public trial had been held before the suspect has been given the right to defend his innocence."

The IDF is frustrated by the incident, which is why the CID was quick to arrest the fighter.

In addition to the question of the legality of the shooting, the CID is looking into suspicions that the troops at the scene were not operating according to procedures. In cases of an incident with wounded on both sides, the first to be treated are those more seriously wounded - but the medical team cannot start treating the terrorist before the troops ensure he is not carrying explosives.

After the attack in Hebron, the terrorist did not receive medical treatment after being shot down, but the soldiers didn't check him for explosives either. He was lying on the ground with gunshot wounds for several minutes without anyone having approached him to treat him or check for explosive, while two civilian ambulances were nearby.
ISLAMABAD - Iran's Hassan Rouhani is expected to arrived in Pakistan on Friday for a two-day visit, his first as president of Iran.

The visit is expected to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two counties.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry said the visit, which is taking place after the lifting of international sanctions on Iran following the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, is part of regular high-level exchanges between the two countries.

The two sides are also expected to discuss resuming work on a stalled Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, a project designed to help Pakistan meet its energy needs.
The IDF soldier who shot dead a neutralized terrorist after a stabbing attack in Hebron is being investigated on suspicion of murder, it was revealed in a court hearing on Friday.

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The Palestinian attacker, Abed al Fatah a-Sharif, along with another attacker, stabbed an IDF soldier. Both were then gunned down by other soldiers.

A video filmed by a B'Tselem volunteer several minutes later shows the wounded a-Sharif lying on the ground motionless as an IDF soldier aims his weapon at him and shoots him in the head.

B'Tselem video of the incident (:   .   )

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The IDF suspended and then arrested the soldier, and the militarys Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has already launched an investigation into the incident.

The soldiers lawyer said his client saw a-Sharif moving and fearing he was going to detonate a bomb, leading him to shoot the neutralized attacker. A second video from the incident shows the terrorist moving before being shot.

Second video showing the terrorist moving

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A third video of the evacuation of the wounded soldier reveals dialogue between the rescue team members and the soldiers around them, with an authoritative figure saying, "He probably has an explosive on him, pay attention. Until the bomb squad comes, nobody touches him."

Video documenting suspicion of explosives (:   ) X

During a remand extension hearing on Friday, the CID asked to keep the soldier under arrest, citing concerns that he might obstruct justice or would flee.

The prosecutor commented on the impending complexity of the circumstances, "There's suspicion of a serious crime that will require us to conduct multiple investigations. There are different recordings of the event and different testimonies gathered." According to the prosecutor, the soldier claims to have shot out of fear for his life.

During its investigation, the CID learned that before shooting the attacker, the soldier shouted "Be careful, move away!" to his fellow soldiers. This would support his claim that he feared the attacker was about to detonate a bomb.

What also supports the soldier's claim is the attacker's choice of warm clothing on a day the weather was in the high 20's Celsius (77-84 degrees Fahrenheit). "The terrorist was wearing a coat or a sweater, and we're well aware of the weather yesterday," a CID representative said.

Furthermore, the CID noted that one of the videos from the incident documents someone raising the concern that the terrorist might be carrying explosives.

The CID also noted that the first video of the incident, released by the B'Tselem NGO, was edited, and that it was able to get a fuller picture of the incident with the help of other videos and testimony from many who were present at the scene.

The soldier, the CID said, completely cooperated with interrogators. He told them he did not sleep on the night before the incident.

The soldier's lawyer Ilan Katz argued, "The murder suspicion is farfetched and there is no direct or indirect evidence to establish this suspicion." Katz further asserted that the soldier conducted himself "according to the rules of engagement that he received." Katz further asserted that the soldier conducted himself "according to the rules of engagement that he received."

'Apparent extrajudicial execution'

The United Nations special envoy to the Middle East condemned on Friday what he called "the apparent extrajudicial execution of a Palestinian assailant by an IDF soldier in Hebron the day before.

"This was a gruesome, immoral and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation," Nickolay Mladenov said.

Mladenov welcomed Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alons condemnation and called on Israeli authorities to swiftly bring to justice the perpetrator who has already been detained.

The incident was immediately denounced as an "execution" by human rights activists and as a "war crime" by the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also condemned the incident.

Minister of Education Naftali Bennet posted a message on Facebook regarding the incident, saying, "Has anyone heard the soldier? The entire state leadership quickly piled onto the soldier. One Knesset member even said the soldier was 'restrained.' Were you there? Did you understand his thinking? The considerations? Perhaps there was a fear that he was rigged with explosives? That he'd explode onto the soldiers and civilians? Did you ask the soldier before condemning him? Were the terrorist rigged to explode, the soldier would have been seen as a national hero; could any of you, in his shoes, have known what the situation was really like?"

Minister Bennet. Critisized others for rushing to judgement. (Photo: Lior Paz)

The videographer was surprised

Imad Abu Shamsia, the Palestinian B'Tselem volunteer who documented the incident, Told Ynet that "I never though that your Israeli soldiers would execute a Palestinian, let alone one who was wounded, lying on the ground, and not posing any danger." Abu Shamsia was at his home in Hebron when that attack in which the two terrorists stabbed an IDF soldier occurred. "I live just ten meters from the place, I heard shots and immediately came outside with the camera. I saw a shot man lying on the ground, but he was moving and still alive, wallowing in his blood. I didn't know at that stage whether he was an Israeli or a Palestinian."

Abu Shamsia said that a few seconds later he saw that there was another man in civilian clothing, and a wounded IDF soldier, which led him to conclude that the two civilians were Palestinian.

"Afterwards, they sent me away from the place and told me I filming was forbidden, so I relocated to another spot, further away, and started filming again. Suddenly I heard one of the soldiers loading his weapon, and then I saw him fire a single bullet at the guy who was lying on the ground. It surprised me, since the Palestinian was alive. He tried to move. But it was just a slight movement. He was wounded and couldn't get up. He wasn't a danger to the settlers or the soldiers who were there."

Abu Shamsia said that he was surprised by the fact that his video made such a stir in Israel and internationally, admitting that even he did not understand the full meaning of the unusual footage at first. He later received calls from all over the world, including the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abu Shamsia stated that he hopes "The Palestinian leadership will use this documentation in the International Criminal Court in The Hague."

Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a short statement on the matter, saying, "What happened in Hebron does not represent the values of the IDF. The IDF expects its soldiers to act cool-headedly and in accordance with the standing orders regarding opening fire."
NAHR EL-BARED - The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has visited a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was destroyed in fierce battles against al-Qaeda-inspired militants almost a decade ago.

Amid tight security, Ban inspected the Aamaq school at Nahr el-Bared, where officials explained on a map the ongoing reconstruction of the camp.

The Lebanese military fought a three-month battle in 2007 against the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group inside Nahr el-Bared. The Lebanese army crushed the group, but the clashes also killed more than 170 soldiers.

Ban is on a two-day visit to Lebanon along with the World Bank Group president. He is also scheduled to visit a social center for Syrian refugees in Tripoli and an informal refugee settlement in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Among the people arrested by the Houthis in Yemen following the "smuggling" of a 600-year-old Torah scroll by the 17 Jews who were brought to Israel in a secret operation on Monday was a member of the Jewish community who remained in the country, British weekly The Jewish Chronicle reported.

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The Houthi rebels launched an investigation and made arrests following what they considered to be the smuggling of the ancient Torah scroll, which they view as "the property of the Yemeni people."

Photos of the new arrivals with the Torah scroll caused an uproar in Arabic-language media and enraged the Houthis, who have been in control of the capital Sana'a for over a year now. Moreover, it seems that among those arrested was a senior official of Sana'a's airport.

The 600-year-old Torah scroll brought by Yemenite olim (Photo: Barel Efraim)

Senior officials of The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption strongly criticized the Jewish Agency on Friday, claiming that the publication of the operation damaged efforts to increase similar efforts in other dangerous areas of the world in the future. "The publication endangers Jews remaining in Yemen and those involved in the matter," they stated.

Photo: Barel Efraim

Moti Kahana, president of the relief organization Amalia, who orchestrated the covert operation to bring the last Jews of Aleppo to Israel told Ynet Saturday, "When the children of those immigrants from Aleppo landed in Israel a few months ago our operation in conjunction with rabbis from New York, we kept the matter secret so as not to endanger those left behind. When I saw the media coverage now, I knew that whoever was left behind is in a very dangerous situation. Our goal now is to keep those who remain in Yemen safe."

The Jewish Agency said in response that "The publication was done in full and careful coordination with the authorized parties, with consideration of the rules of censorship."

There was also embarrassment in Jordan following the publication in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, according to which the Yemeni emigrants first landed in Jordan's Queen Alia International Airport before arriving in Israel.

Jordanian officials quoted by the local press tried to belittle the information presented, stating that "Entry to Jordan is based on their nationality and not on the basis of their religion. In other words, Jordan treats passengers as citizens of Yemen without consideration of their religion."
The Palestinian leadership on Friday welcomed a decision by the UN Human Rights Council to draw up a blacklist of companies operating in the West Bank.

The resolution passed on Thursday requests the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to "produce a database of all companies" operating in the settlements. This list would be updated each year.

Ibrahim Khreisheh, Palestinian envoy to the Council, welcomed the adoption of the resolution as "a message of hope for our people."

"Israel continues to systematically violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinians and to enjoy impunity from the international community," he said.
Iraqi forces made slow progress against Islamic State in the north of the country on Friday in the second day of an offensive touted as the beginning of a broader campaign to clear areas around the city of Mosul.

Backed by Kurdish forces and a US-led coalition, Iraqi forces launched the assault at dawn on Thursday, recapturing three villages in the Makhmour area south of Mosul, according to peshmerga commander Najat Ali and an Iraqi army source.

The Iraqi army source, who is taking part in the offensive, said troops were preparing to attack another village on Friday but were being held up because the militants had rigged streets and buildings with explosives.

"The mining has slightly slowed down the army," said the source, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Airmen at Work: Spray maintainers do one-of-a-kind job

A close-up photo shows aerial spray nozzles set aside for cleaning here, March 24. Tech. Sgt. Frank Serrao and Tech. Sgt. Thomas Neiswanger, aerial spray maintenance craftsmen with the 910th Maintenance Squadron, removed the nozzle to clean and inspect an aerial spray boom assembly. The aerial spray system has several types of nozzles for different applications. The mission includes insect control, vegetation control on bombing ranges and oil spill neutralization. Aerial spray maintainers come from traditional aircraft maintenance jobs, learning a unique skillset through on-job training to maintain the equipment for the Department of Defenses only aerial spray mission. (U.S. Air Force photo/Eric M. White)
Air Force Reserve Col. James Dignan, commander of the 910th Airlift Wing, based at nearby Youngstown Air Reserve Station (YARS), Ohio, received the Spirit of the Valley Award from the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber at their annual meeting held here, March 23, 2013.

According to their website, the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber is a private, non-profit organization that provides leadership and business services to promote the growth of nearly 2,600 membersrepresenting more than 150,000 employees in the Mahoning Valley.

Kim Calvert, Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber Vice President of Marketing and Special Events said 470 people attended the annual meeting and witnessed to the presentation to the YARS commander.

Kevin Helmick, President & CEO of Farmers National Bank represented the award underwriters and made remarks during the presentation and said the Spirit of the Valley Award is presented to an individual who has displayed exemplary leadership and commitment to the community, economic development and the overall progress of the valley.

Helmick said of the YARS commander, Our recipient has been in the valley for three years, but he arrived right on timeor, perhaps, just in time as one of our regions most valuable assets faces future uncertainties.

Dignan, the latest of 23 individuals to receive the honor, officially took command of the 910th during a change of command ceremony held at YARS, March 2, 2013.

During his introduction of the 910th commander, Helmick said, He has worked tirelessly as an ambassador of our base on the global stage. Yet, his leadership has also had a profound impact here at home, where he has reopened the regions relationship with the Air Force to a degree not witnessed since prior to the World Trade Center attacks, when security policy essentially closed bases off from communities (He also) has been key in creating our Eastern Ohio Military Affairs Commission.

After the introduction, Dignan accepted the chambers Spirit of the Valley award and stepped to the microphone to make his own remarks.

The reason Im up here is because of all the great people that work at Youngstown Air Reserve Station, said Dignan.

As he continued, the commander related a story about meeting an individual in downtown Youngstown, who upon seeing the colonels Air Force Airman Battle Uniform, asked Are you in the Army? then the individual said he was unaware of the existence of an Air Force installation in the area. The experience prompted Dignan to make a vow.

Before I leave here, whether its one year, two years, three years, Im going to make sure everyone in this valley knows there is a base here and how important that base is to every one of us, Dignan said.

According to the 910ths 2015 year-in-review publication, the Airstream Almanac, Youngstown Air Reserve Station is home to the U.S. Air Force Reserves 910th Airlift Wing and is the Mahoning Valleys fourth largest employer with over 1800 people working at the installation. The installation also had an economic impact of $98.08 million dollars during Fiscal Year 2015. In addition to being home to the 910th, YARS is home to eight C-130H Hercules tactical airlift cargo transport aircraft and the Department of Defenses only large-area, fixed wing aerial spray capability. The installation also has U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and U.S. Navy Reserve units as well as the Defense Logistics Agency as tenant agencies.

Were trying to make sure we strengthen this endeavor; we strengthen this base that has been here for over 60 years and make sure that its here for the next 60 years... and we do that by building partnerships, said Dignan.

The commander related to the large audience that the 910th has 13 community partnerships in the works with seven more in the starting phase, some as a part of the Air Force Community Partnership Program, in areas such as research, education as well as a blight remediation project with the City of Youngstown resulting in the demolition of 88 dilapidated houses. He also said YARS has 23 first responder mutual aid agreements with neighboring communities and Servicemembers assigned to YARS have put in more than 10,000 mentorship hours of volunteer time in several community outreach programs such as Junior Achievement.

Really this award is not about me, its about the 910th Airlift Wing and the Airmen, Sailors and Marines we have working out there and our civilians, Dignan said. Nearly 2000 people that are part of your valley We are the community, we are part of the community They are your neighbors, your valley, your friends and family. Thank you for having us all here, and thank you for the recognition.
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Guwahati: Union Finance Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Friday released party's 'vision document' for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections.

While addressing the press, Jaitley said, "Assam Assembly elections are a historical opportunity to uproot the failed Congress government."

Commenting on the party manifesto, the BJP leader asserted, "It is a vision document of what should be the roadmap for Assam from 2016 to 2025."

"Congress tried to destroy and change the demography of the state by encouraging infiltration. Congress has been doing it for many decades and took no action," Union Minister Arun Jaitley said.

"There is a desire for a change which is sweeping the state. People of Assam are tired of slogans and they want development. The youth here are craving for growth. The core strength of our alliance is the youth here and the youth is leading that campaign for a change," Jaitley told the media here.

The BJP Assam Vision Document 2016-2025 promised to work closely with the Centre for "complete sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border in the state" if it was voted to power.

It also assured the people that a law would be enacted to "deal sternly" with industries, businesses, Small and Medium Enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators.

Expressing confidence over the newly formed Asom Gana Parishad- BJP alliance, he added that the width and the geographical spread of the coalition would play a crucial role in achieving victory in the state polls.

"We are fighting the polls under the leadership of Sonowal ji and there is certain freshness to his leadership. We have a galaxy of leadership compared to the Congress and all these factors will contribute in giving us a landslide victory," Jaitley said.

Assam will have two-phased polling for the 126 Assembly seats. The first phase will be held on April 4 and the second phase will be held on April 11.
New Delhi: A total of nine polytechnics and 28 engineering institutes were shut down in Haryana since 2009 due to paucity of funds and other problems, state Technical Educational Minister Ram Bilas Sharma told the Assembly.

Besides shortage of funds, drop-outs and poor admission rates of students are some of the other factors responsible for the present plight of the institutes in the state, Sharma said.

He made the remarks in response to a query in the Assembly, India Today reported.

At present, there are only 25 government polytechnic institutes and nine government engineering colleges in the state that are running, he added.

To remedy the situation, the state government has increased the total number seats for Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Technology courses.

The seats have been increased from 2,050 to 2,830 between 2009-10 and 2015-16 period, Sharma said.

However, vacant seats in nine government engineering institutes have gone up from 36 in 2009-10 to 830 in 2015-16.

In government polytechnic institutes, the vacant seats have increased from 22 in 2009-10 to 25 in 2015-16.

For diploma in engineering courses, the number of seats has been reduced from 13,900 to 9,900.

Also, as many as 2,060 seats of all streams in 25 government polytechnic institutes in 2015-16 were left vacant.
Mumbai: David Coleman Headley, convicted in the United States for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, on Friday continued his deposition before a Mumbai court via a video link.

Here are the highlights:

- Headley tells court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

- He denies that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jahan (in the case). He also denies meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police Atul Kulkarni in the US before his current deposition.

- Headley says it had come to his knowledge from LeT handler Sajid Mir that there had been two failed attacks in 2008 just before the 26/11 terror attacks.

- I have never been interrogated or questioned in connection with 9/11 US attacks case.

- I was once arrested in Pakistan on a complaint filed by my ex-wife.

- When I told my father about my association with Lashkar, he raised objections, Headley tells court.

- Headley says my father, brother and some other of my relatives were in Pakistan establishment but he cannot can't disclose their details.

- Former Pakistan PM Yousaf Raza Gillani visited his our residence in Pakistan when my father passed away, informs Headley.

- My father was retired Director Genral Radio Pakistan. He died on December 25, 2008, says Headley.

- I joined Pakistan-based terror outfit LeT to avenge those bombings on my school.

- I hate India since 7th December 1971 when Indian Air Force planes bombed my school and people who worked there died, says Headley.

- Headley, the accused turned approver in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case says he had tried to organise a fund raising programme for Shiv Sena in the US.

Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley on Thursday told a court here that Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was "arrested" but he managed to give police a slip.

"The LeT wanted to target the chief of Shiv Sena (Bal Thackeray). LeT wanted to kill him whenever a chance arose. I have no first-hand knowledge, but I think an attempt was made to kill him," Headley said.
New Delhi: An Indian national arrested on charges of spying in Pakistan's Balochistan Province is a former naval officer and has no connection with the government, the Ministry of External Affairs clarified on Friday after Islamabad raised the issue with New Delhi.

The said individual has no link with the Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region, MEA spokesperson Vikash Swarup said in a statement.

He added that India has meanwhile requested for consular access to the individual.

Pakistan on Friday summoned India High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale in Islamabad to lodge a strong protest over the presence of the alleged Indian spy in the country.

It said that it captured the individual in the restive Balochistan province the previous day.

"(Pakistan) conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Baluchistan and Karachi," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement.

RAW or Research and Analysis Wing, is India's main external intelligence agency.

In the past, Pakistan had accused India of supporting insurgency in Balochistan. India has denied any such meddling.

Balochistan's provincial interior minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Thursday told reporters the arrest "proved Indian involvement" in his province.

Bugti also claimed to have identified the "Indian official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan and accused him of working for RAW.

He said that Bhushan was in contact with Baloch separatists, fuelling sectarian violence in the province.
New Delhi: After Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked party workers to focus on development issues, BJP chief Amit Shah is set to form a team which will travel across states to ensure that the organisation is working towards fulfilling the agenda by complementing government's efforts.

The members of the team, which will include powerful General Secretary, Organisation, besides his deputies, who are all drawn from RSS, will travel to various states at regular intervals and spend at least three days and nights at each place, party sources said.

They will also be tasked with the responsibility of ensuring implementation of organisational decisions taken at the March 19-20 National Executive meet of the party.

At the meeting held in the national capital, Modi spent a good part of his speech on the need for orienting party workers to "development" model.

They should focus on the developmental agenda and not be distracted by the opposition's negative campaign, he had said in valedictory address, prompting the party chief to take a slew of measures to follow up on Modi's exhortations, the sources said.

"Shah believes that there should be no gap between the central leadership's vision and its execution on the ground. It will lead to better documentation and monitoring of organisational work and the priority is publicising the government's works and connect people with them," they said.

The team may have up to 10-12 members and each of them will visit different states. It will report to Shah.

Among the other decisions taken by the party is that its various cells and morchas will hold their meet in different states so that they could "learn" from developments there, as suggested by Modi.

The party has also decided to hold its next National Executive meet in the next three months, a requirement laid down by its constitution but often ignored in practice. The recent meet was held close to one year after it had met in Bengaluru in April 2015.

The top brass has also issued directions to the

leadership down to district and mandal levels that the organisational decisions taken at the Executive meeting be followed up within 21 days.

"The core group of all states will now meet every month in this regard," they said.

Highlighting the organisational work following the Bengaluru meet, they said the party has begun building its office in 178 districts after Shah made the announcement that it will have an office, owned by the organisation, in 578 districts of the country.

It already has offices in 175 districts.
Mumbai: In a new twist, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley on Friday testified before an anti-terror court that the then Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had visited his house few weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008 to condole the death of his father.

Deposing before the court for the cross-examination on the third day, Headley also said he had nurtured a "hatred feeling" towards India since childhood after his school was bombed in 1971 during the Indo-Pak war.

The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative-turned approver in the case was being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26th December, 2008. In fact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," Headley told special Judge G A Sanap.

To another question, Headley said his father, who was a Director General with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with LeT but was not happy about it.

Asked whether it is true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai.He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.

Stating that he had nurtured a feeling of hatred towards India after his school was bombed during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, he said, "People were killed in the attack and that was one of the reasons why I had joined the LeT."

In reply to a question by the defence lawyer, the LeT terrorist said that he had told his friend Tahawwur Hussain Rana that all the nine 26/11 terrorists should be awarded Nishan-e-Haider, Pakistan's highest gallantry awards.

Rana was tried and acquitted by a US Court in the 26/11 case.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

He denied that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jehan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police Atul Kulkarni in the US before his current deposition.

Headley said it had come to his knowledge from LeT handler Sajid Mir that there had been two failed attacks in 2008 just before the 26/11 terror attacks.

When asked if he was treated for any mental illness, Headley replied in the negative and chuckled, "Yeh kya kya cheeze mere khaate mein daal rahe hain Wahab Sahab. Nahin, aisa koi wakya nahin hua (Wahab Sahab, what all things are you ascribing to me...Nothing of this sort happened)."

Earlier in the day, Headley told the court that he had "arranged" a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray.

Headley said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that "Thackeray was elderly and sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme".

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

To a question, Headley denied that he was not being provided luxurious food or any such facility as per his wish.

At this stage, the judge warned the defence lawyer to refrain from asking these questions.

Headley refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan prior to 26/11 terror attacks was known to US agencies."

He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

"This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved USD 30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.

To another question about who had put forth the proposal before FBI that Headley shall not be given death or lifer (in the plea bargain), the LeT terrorist said, "I thought I was here to testify for Government..I did not know it will go back and forth about what this Attorney or that Attorney said."

"Main bahoot kharab insaan hoon. Maine maan liya hai (I have accepted that I am a very bad person) I have pleaded guilty,." Headley said.

Headley said his brother Hamza knew little about his association with LeT but added that he had disclosed to him (Hamza) about his involvement in the 26/11 terror attack.

Headley said LeT handler Sajid Mir had informed him that one of the Pakistani terrorists (Ajamal Kasab) had been arrested in the Mumbai terror attacks and they were asking others (terrorists) in Chabad house to negotiate his release in exchange of Israeli hostages.

The Lashkar terrorist said he had never personally talked to Israeli Embassy to negotiate this because he was in Lahore at that time.

To another question suggesting his presence in the control room in Pakistan (from where the attackers were being guided by handlers), Headley denied it and said, "the records are available and I am ready to give my voice sample."

Headley said, "a month after the attack, a relative in Philadelphia was interviewed by law enforcement agency FBI in which they had inquired about his whereabouts. He admitted he had informed about this to former Pakistani army office Abdur Rehman Pasha."

Asked if he was apprehending his arrest for 26/11 terror attacks, Headley said he was just curious to know why were they (FBI) asking about him.

Headley admitted that he had conducted a reconnaissance of an army cantonment in Colaba and nearby Maharashtra Police Headquarters. He also said that he had carried out surveillance of a nuclear power plant in order to recruit people working there (for LeT).

The LeT terrorist said that even after FBI inquired about him from his relatives, he did not contact the agency and continued with his Denmark Mickey Mouse Project and his visit to Mumbai.

To a question that during Tahawwur Rana's trial in US he had not disclosed about women suicide bomber of LeT, Headley said he had not said this because he had no knowledge about it.

Asked if he had ever disclosed the name of Ishrat Jehan during Rana's trial, Headley said, "I did not disclose the name of Ishrat as I was not asked about it."

Though Headley admitted that NIA had questioned him about Ishrat Jehan, he denied that NIA had instructed him to take her name.
New Delhi: An Indian Catholic priest who was taken into custody by the Islamic State militants during a raid at an old age home in Yemen early this month will be executed, the terror group announced.

According to a report in India Today, Father Tom Uzhunnalil will be crucified by the IS today on Good Friday. Father Uzhunnalil hails from Kerala and has been held hostage by IS since March 4.

The news of the crucifixion first appeared on a Facebook post of a religious group in South Africa.

"Was informed that the Salesian priest, Father Tom who was kidnapped from the Missionaries of Charity Home in Yemen is being tortured and is going to be crucified on Good Friday. This calls for serious concerted prayers from all of us," the report quoted the post as saying.

However, the members of Father Uzhunnalil's congregation dismissed the concerns as mere "rumours". They claimed that they are yet to receive any information about his whereabouts.

The March 4 attack on the old age home in the Yemeni port of Aden left at least 15 people dead, including four Christian nuns from India, media reports said.

Earlier, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said that her ministry has been trying to ascertain the whereabouts of Father Tom Uzhunnalil and secure his release.
Mumbai: Pakistani-American LeT terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley said here on Friday that attempts were made to trade Israeli hostages in Mumbai in return for release of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist nabbed alive in the 26/11 strike.

Headley said he had also suggested to his handlers in terror troup Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to "honour" the nine other terrorists slain during 26/11 by the Indian security personnel with `Nishan-e-Haider`, Pakistan`s highest gallantry award.

Headley made the revelations before Special Judge G.A. Sanap in his responses during his cross-examination by Abdul Wahab Khan, lawyer for Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the prime accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

After Kasab was nabbed alive by the Indian forces early morning of November 27, 2008, at the height of the terror strikes, Headley`s main contact in LeT -- Sajid Mir -- had ordered the attackers of Chabad House in Colaba to keep the Israeli hostages taken there at gunpoint.

They were to contact the Israeli prime minister and its embassy in a bid to build pressure on the Indian government for securing Kasab`s release, Headley said, reiterating what he had mentioned to an American court during his trial there in May 2011.

However, to a question by lawyer Khan, Headley added that he never personally spoke with the Israeli embassy officials since he was in Lahore at the time of 26/11.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam later informed media persons that Headley had sought honouring the nine terrorists killed in 26/11 with Pakistan`s top military gallantry award, the `Nishan-e-Haider`.

Headley had made the demand in a conversation with a Dubai-based operative after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that left 166 dead and several hundreds injured in 2008.

Nikam added that Headley had revealed Thane collegian Ishrat Jahan`s name when he was interrogated by a National Investigation Agency team in the US after his arrest in 2009.

Jahan, a 19-year-old resident of Mumbra in Thane district studying in a Mumbai college, and three of her friends were gunned down by Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad near Ahmedabad in 2004 for allegedly plotting the killing of then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Headley denied that he was in any manner pressurised or tutored by the NIA to state that Jahan was a terrorist -- which he first revealed during his deposition before Special Judge Sanap on February 11, 2016 -- creating a furore in Indian political circles.

He said he did not disclose Jahan`s name during the trial of his close associate, Pakistani-Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana in the US as he was not asked about it.


Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge its protest over "subversive activities" of an alleged RAW officer, a day after Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested him.

"The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti yesterday identified the "official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan who he alleged was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Bugti claimed that Bhushan was in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan.

The Minister, however, did not disclose the exact location of where he was arrested.

However, sources said that Bhushan was arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.

India has dismissed all such allegations.
Mangaluru: Two college students were arrested for posting pro-Pakistan slogans on Whatsapp during the India-Pakistan cricket match on March 19 and released the same day upon executing a 'good conduct' bond, police said on Friday.

The incident occured in Puttur Town near here when one of the students of a local degree college had posted on a 'WhatsApp' group 'Pakistan Ki Jai', to which his classmates objected, they said.

The group stood divided over the statement as some objected to the post and others supported it.

Police said they took two college students into custody on Wednesday when the incident came to their notice and released them the same day.

The two were produced before an Executive Magistrate and asked to execute a bond of good conduct, they said, adding that they were released upon executing the bond.

Police, however, said prima facie they were mere comments, without any intention of sedition.

India won the match, which was played at Eden guardens, Kolkata, by six wickets.
New Delhi: The BJP-PDP alliance on Friday sealed the deal to form government in Jammu and Kashmir after over two months long governor's rule.

Addressing a press conference, BJP leader Sat Sharma said that the leaders of both the parties will go to Governor NN Vohra in a few days and present proposal to form government.

He further confirmed that BJP MLA Nirmal Singh will continue to be the deputy CM of the state.

The decision was taken after BJP MLA met party's national secretary Ram Madhav.

Besides the BJP legislators, Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, and Ram Madhav, general secretary in the Bharatiya Janata Party in charge of Jammu and Kashmir affairs, attended the meeting.

Informed sources said those at the meeting were apprised by Ram Madhav about the recent developments, including the Tuesday meeting in New Delhi between PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The BJP reiterated that no fresh conditions (by PDP) had been accepted and the alliance with the PDP will continue on the basis of the agenda of alliance signed (earlier) by the two parties," a BJP source told IANS.

Meanwhile, Mehbooba and PDP MLAs, who were to meet the governor today at 4: 30 pm, will be holding the meeting tomorrow to stake claim to form the government.. The reason for postponing the meeting has not yet been declared.

Mehbooba Mufti was on Thursday unanimously elected as the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers.

She will be the first woman chief minister of the state and is likely to take the oath next week.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Refutting Congress' allegations over ongoing political crisis in Uttarakhand, the Yoga guru on Friday clarified that he has nothing to do with the party's rebels.

Speaking to ANI, Ramdev said, I have nothing to do with the rebel Congress' MLAs.

Further targeting party's high command, he said, Whatever I do or say I do it openly, not surreptitiously. Politics is not my focus. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi should take care of their own affairs.

Congress, while dragging Ramdev into the current political scenario of the state, had accused him of hatching a plot jointly with BJP leadership to topple the state government.

Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress president Kishore Upadhyay created a flutter in political circles when he said that the yoga guru and BJP chief Amit Shah had hatched a conspiracy together to dislodge the state government and the rebellion against Harish Rawat by the partys MLAs was a result of this.

Claiming that he had enough evidence to substantiate his charge, Mr Upadhyay said Ramdev was in touch with Congress rebels and is one of the key persons besides the BJP President involved in hatching a conspiracy against the ruling party.

He (Ramdev) worked like a BJP agent to foment a rebellion against the state government and topple it, he added.
Aden: Three suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group Friday struck checkpoints of Yemeni loyalist forces in Aden, killing 22 people, including 10 civilians, a security official said.

The bombings were followed by an attempt to attack a nearby large base of the Saudi-led Arab pro-government coalition which recently turned its guns on jihadists in southern Yemen.

The IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said in an online report that "IS fighters have launched three martyrdom operations and an attack on a base of the coalition in Aden".

Two bombs went off simultaneously at separate checkpoints in Shaab district, on Aden's western outskirts, before gunmen launched an attack on the nearby base of the military coalition, an official said.

Apache helicopters belonging to the coalition carried out strikes on positions of gunmen in the surrounding area as fighters tried to advance toward the base.

A third explosive device planted in an ambulance was detonated at checkpoint near Mansura, in central Aden, the official said.

The Arab coalition, which has waged a year-long bombing campaign against Shiite Huthi rebels, began targeting jihadists for the first time last week in Aden.

The Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda have exploited the chaos, widening their footholds in the south and carrying out deadly attacks, mostly against forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

A US air strike Tuesday on an Al-Qaeda training camp in the southeastern province of Hadramawt killed more than 70 fighters in a major blow to the extremist group.

Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen is considered by Washington as the most dangerous affiliate of the international terror organisation.

The Arab coalition launched an air campaign against the Iran-backed rebels last March as they advanced on Hadi's refuge in Aden, forcing him to flee to Riyadh.

Loyalists have since managed to drive the rebels out of Aden and four other southern provinces, thanks to the military support of the coalition.

But the coalition has failed to deal a decisive blow to the rebels and their allies, who continue to control large parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, which they seized in September 2014.

The United Nations says about 6,300 people have been killed since March last year, with civilians accounting for more than half.
Brussels: Three men have been arrested in Brussels over links to a French terror plot foiled by police outside Paris late on Thursday, the Belgian federal prosecutor said.

"Police carried out two searches as part of a terrorism case linked to the arrest (near Paris) of Reda Kriket," the prosecutor said in a statement on Friday.

Two of the men were injured in the leg during separate operations, the prosecutor said, the first in the Brussels district of Forest where a previous raid led to the arrest of top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam.

The second incident took place during an anti-terrorist operation on Friday afternoon at a busy intersection in the Schaerbeek district.

Amateur video footage on social media shot from an upper storey window showed a man lying by a tram station holding a small backpack.

The arrest was linked to the detention of 34-year-old Kriket, who was caught with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment near Paris.

Kriket was sentenced in absentia by a Belgian court in February for his connection to a terror network in Brussels with links to recruiter Khalid Zerkani.

That network also included Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the Paris attack ringleader, and Najim Laachraoui, one of the three suicide bombers who struck Brussels this week.

The prosecutor also linked Laachraoui to November`s Paris carnage in which 130 people died, saying his DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth discovered at the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people were killed.
Brussels: Belgian police are hunting two suspects in the Brussels bombings as investigators establish more and more links between the bloody events in Europe`s symbolic capital and November`s carnage in Paris.

Belgian police staged fresh raids late Thursday and Friday, detaining nine people in all, including three linked to the Paris attacks in which 130 people died.

This is what we know so far about Tuesday`s suicide attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station that left 31 people dead and 300 wounded and were claimed by the Islamic State group.The first suicide bomber struck at 7:58 am (0658 GMT) in the departure hall at Zaventem airport, followed nine seconds later by a second bomber, federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said.

Both men were captured moments before on security cameras, pushing trolleys with dark bags through the busy airport.

A man wearing a dark hat and white jacket walking next to them is believed to be a third assailant whose bomb failed to go off and who fled the scene.

The bombs caused part of the terminal building`s ceiling to cave in and blew out windows as people fled in panic.Just after 9:00 am, a suicide bomber struck in Maalbeek metro station, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the main European Union offices and many diplomatic missions.

The explosion ripped apart a train, sending a cloud of smoke and dust onto the street above where dazed and bloodied survivors got first aid.The health ministry said Wednesday 31 people died in the attacks, with 300 wounded, a toll that could rise further with 61 injured in critical condition.

Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said around 40 nationalities were among the dead and wounded but the process of identifying the victims is slow.

Eleven fatalities have so far been identified by their families or governments, including citizens of Britain, China, France, Morocoo, Venezuela and the United States, as well as several EU staff.Following fingerprint analysis, the prosecutor Wednesday named Belgian national Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 29, as one of the airport bombers.

Federal prosecutors identified the second airport bomber as Moroccan-born Najim Laachraoui, said to be a top IS bombmaker who had fought for the group in Syria and whose DNA was found on explosives used in Paris.

Bakraoui`s younger brother Khalid El Bakraoui was named as the metro bomber.

Van Leeuw said the brothers had criminal records "not linked to terrorism", with Khalid a convicted car jacker and Ibrahim sentenced to nine years in prison for firing a gun at police.

Prosecutors said Khalid rented properties in the southern city of Charleroi from where suspected Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud set off to lead the assault in the French capital.

A taxi driver who drove three men to Brussels airport led police to a house in the city`s neighbourhood of Schaarbeek.

There, investigators found 15 kilos (33 pounds) of explosives, an unexploded bomb, an Islamic State flag and bomb-making materials.

They also found a computer containing a "will" by Ibrahim El Bakraoui who said he was under pressure to act as the police closed in and he did not want to end up in a jail cell.Besides the third man at the airport who fled, police are also seeking a second suspect over the metro attack after sources said a man with a large bag was seen on CCTV footage at Maalbeek station.

Another source said Bakraoui was seen talking to the man who did not get into the train carriage with him.

The bombings took place just four days after the arrest in Brussels of key Paris attacks suspect, Belgian-born Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, after four months on the run.

His lawyer said Thursday that Abdeslam "didn`t know" about the Brussels attacks and that he wanted to be extradited as quickly as possible to France, after initially opposing it.

Belgium`s federal prosecutor said Friday Abdeslam has "invoked his right to silence" and has not spoken to investigators since a brief interview the day after his arrest. The jihadist networks behind the Paris and Brussels attacks are "in the process of being destroyed", French President Francois Hollande said Friday after police foiled what they described as an imminent attack.

French police arrested 34-year-old Reda Kriket near Paris on Thursday, saying he was in the advanced stages of planning an attack.

On Friday, the Belgian authorities made three fresh arrests in Brussels, after picking up six people overnight Thursday.

The Belgian federal prosecutor meanwhile revealed Friday that Laachraoui`s DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, and on a bomb at the Stade de France stadium, strengthening suspicions that he was the network`s bombmaker.
Brussels: Six people were arrested Thursday in a series of police raids in Brussels, federal prosecutors said, two days after jihadist attacks in the Belgian capital left 31 dead.

The arrests come as Belgian ministers under fire for intelligence failings over Tuesday`s Islamic State-claimed suicide blasts admitted "errors" and offered to quit.

Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept the resignations of the interior and justice ministers, who have been severely criticised for allowing the attackers -- at least three of whom were known to authorities -- to slip through the net.

Hundreds of people gathered late into the night at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels to mourn the victims of the suicide attacks on the city`s airport and metro on Tuesday.

"Our love for Brussels is stronger than terror," read a banner held by a young couple.

Led by King Philippe, Belgians also observed a minute of silence on the third and final day of mourning for the 31 people killed and 300 injured in attacks.

Harrowing new footage of the moments after the Zaventem airport attack meanwhile emerged on Belgian television, showing a lone baby left crying in the wreckage next to the lifeless body of a woman.With criticism growing that international authorities failed to follow links between Tuesday`s bombings and the attacks on France in November, key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam insisted he was unaware of plans to strike the Belgian capital.

Police arrested Abdeslam in Brussels on Friday, after he spent four months on the run as the last surviving member of the group that killed 130 people in Paris.

Abdeslam`s lawyer Sven Mary said Thursday his client now did not want to fight extradition to Paris and insisted he "didn`t know" in advance about the Brussels attacks.

But Belgium is reeling from revelations that three of the Brussels attackers -- including Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother Khalid, who bombed Maalbeek metro station -- were known to police and had strong links to Abdeslam.

Interior minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens both tendered their resignations over the claims that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had slipped through the net despite being arrested by Turkey near the Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands.

"There were errors at Justice and with the (Belgian) liaison officer in Turkey," Jambon was quoted as telling the Le Soir daily.

Prosecutors meanwhile confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui was the subject of an international warrant for terrorism in relation to the Paris attacks and had rented out a flat used by the Paris cell in the Belgian city of Charleroi.

Belgian authorities are now seeking a new suspect with a large bag captured on CCTV talking to Khalid El Bakraoui at Maalbeek station, who then did not get on to the train with the bomber, police sources told AFP. A huge manhunt was still going on for a third attacker whose bomb failed to go off at Brussels airport, a man wearing a hat seen on security footage.

Raids have taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on Tuesday morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood.

Over the border in France, police arrested man in the Paris area who was in "the advanced stages" of a plot to attack France, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Cazeneuve said the man, a French national, belonged to a terrorist network but added there was "no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels".

Belgium on Thursday lowered its terror alert to the second highest level for the first time since the attacks, but soldiers still guarded key sites, streets were eerily quiet and public transport shut down again in the early evening.

EU justice and interior ministers convened in Brussels for an emergency meeting to show "solidarity" to Belgium and work out a plan to address the threat to Europe posed by jihadists.

"The attacks did not come as a surprise," said European Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, calling on EU nations to push through plans to share the names of all air passengers.People of around 40 nationalities were killed or wounded in the attack, that struck the symbolic heart of Europe and has left security agencies across the continent on edge.

Very few of the dead have been formally identified but stories were emerging of lucky escapes and tragic ill fortune of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A young German couple headed for a New York holiday after their wedding last year were among the victims of the Brussels airport attack, which left the wife missing and the man in a coma, the Bild daily reported.

Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, a 37-year-old Peruvian woman, was killed by the airport bomb but her two young daughters and husband survived because the twin girls had run off and the father was chasing after them.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to arrive in Brussels on Friday in a show of solidarity, during which he will pay tribute to the victims at the airport.
District of Columbia: The brothers who carried out the airport and metro suicide bombings in Belgium`s capital this week were known to US authorities and listed in American terrorism databases, television network NBC reported Thursday.

The report cited two unnamed US officials as saying that Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui were listed as a "potential terror threat" in US databases but that they would not specify on "which of the many US terrorism databases the brothers were listed."

The National Counter terrorism Center, which coordinates US intelligence on extremist threats, did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

Prior to the deadly attacks, the Belgian brothers had long rap sheets with criminal convictions related to carjackings, robberies and shoot-outs with police.

Details now emerging show that the three Brussels attackers were known to Belgian authorities but somehow able to slip through security.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at the Brussels airport, was deported by Turkey to the Netherlands in July 2015 as a "foreign terrorist fighter," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said he was aware the man had been sent to the Netherlands from Turkey, but denied he had been flagged as a possible terrorist.

Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in a metro station, was wanted on an international arrest warrant for terrorism in December and had rented an apartment used by the Paris attacks cell.

Najim Laachraoui, who also attacked the airport, was the subject of a wanted notice issued Monday, the day before the bombing.

All three suicide bombers had links to key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested last week after four months on the run just around the corner from his family home in Brussels.

The long list of blunders by Belgian intelligence is putting pressure on the government and raising urgent questions across Europe about whether Tuesday`s attack in Brussels -- which left 31 dead and 300 wounded -- could have been prevented.

Belgium`s interior and justice ministers have both offered their resignations but they were rejected by the prime minister.
Paris: French officials said on Friday they had foiled a terror attack by a suspect who had been convicted in Belgium alongside Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected ringleader of November`s terror attacks in Paris.

French national Reda Kriket, 34, was arrested on Thursday in Argenteuil, northwest of Paris, and police uncovered a small quantity of explosives at his home.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the arrest "foiled a planned attack in France, which was at an advanced stage."

Police sources said the suspect had been found guilty in absentia in Brussels in July last year of being part of a network recruiting jihadists to Syria and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Investigations showed Kriket played an important role in financing the network with money from robberies and stolen goods.

Among those who went to Syria through the network were Abaaoud and another Paris attacker, Chakib Akrouh.

Abaaoud was among 28 convicted in the Belgian trial and was sentenced to 20 years in absentia.

Brussels, which has emerged as a hotspot for radical Islam in Europe, was hit Monday by suicide bombings which left 31 dead at the airport and on the city metro.

Police in Belgium and Paris are still piecing together the potential links between the November attacks and those in Brussels this week.

One of the Paris jihadists, Salah Abdeslam -- who was arrested last week in Brussels -- has been linked to Brussels suicide bomber brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui.Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin, was a notorious jihadist who had appeared in grisly Islamic State group videos and was behind several failed attack plots in Europe.

On November 13 he formed part of a 10-man team of gunmen and suicide bombers that left 130 people dead in an a series of attacks on Paris, with authorities referring to him as the "ringleader".

Abaaoud was killed five days later in a police raid outside Paris, during which Akrouh blew himself up, also killing Abaaoud`s female cousin.

Abaaoud and Akrouh were part of the team of jihadists who sprayed Paris restaurants and bars with gunfire on the night of the attacks, killing 39.

Abaaoud was from the Brussels immigrant district of Molenbeek, which has been thrust into the spotlight for its ties to the Paris attackers and Islamic radicalism.

It is also where Abdeslam was arrested last week after a four-month manhunt.It remains unclear where Kriket fits in, if at all.

Cazeneuve said Kriket had been under surveillance "for several weeks" and that the arrest was also the result of "close and constant cooperation between European services".

"He belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country," the interior minister said.

Cazeneuve said earlier in March that France has foiled at least six potential attacks since jihadists struck in January 2015, killing 17 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket.

Since the beginning of 2016, 75 people have been arrested in France "with links to terrorist activities", 37 have been charged and 28 jailed, he said.
A Korean-American detained in North Korea admitted to attempting to steal military secrets as he was paraded in front of media groups in Pyongyang Friday.

Kim Dong-Chul, 62, who became a naturalised US citizen in 1987 and was arrested on espionage charges in October last year, pleaded for mercy during his carefully orchestrated confession, Japan`s Kyodo news agency reported.

His detention first came to public attention when he was produced in January during an interview CNN was conducting with a detained Canadian pastor in a Pyongyang hotel.

At that time, Kim said he had been living in China near the North Korean border for the past 15 years, commuting regularly to Rason -- a North Korean special economic zone.

Kim was arrested in October last year in Rason as he was receiving USB stick containing nuclear-linked and military secrets from his source, Pyongyang`s official KCNA news agency said Friday.

Kim admitted to having been in contact with South Korean intelligence since 2011, who had funded his espionage activities, KCNA said.

The US citizen said he had collected intelligence on the party, the state and the military and handed them over to South Korean spies, according to KCNA.

Foreigners detained in North Korea are often required to make a public, usually officially-scripted acknowledgement of wrongdoing as a first step towards a possible release.

Kim`s appearance came a week after a North Korean court sentenced an American student who admitted stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel to 15 years` hard labour.

Observers said the harsh sentence reflected soaring military tensions on the divided Korean peninsula following the North`s nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch a month later.

The United States took a leading role in securing the resulting sanctions that the UN Security Council imposed on the North earlier this month.
Rome: Pope Francis decried what he called Europe`s "indifferent and anaesthetised conscience" over migrants, during Good Friday prayers in Rome during which he also slammed paedophile priests, arms dealers, fundamentalists and religious persecutors.

Tens of thousands gathered for the service, many clutching candles in the imposing surrounds of the city`s famous Colosseum, where thousands of Christians are believed to have been killed in Roman times.

"O Cross of Christ, today we see you in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas which have become insatiable cemeteries, reflections of our indifferent and anaesthetised conscience," the 79-year old pontiff said, referring to the thousands who set off in unseaworthy boats to reach Greece and the rest of Europe.

Francis has long called for the global community to open its doors to refugees and fight xenophobia -- appeals which have intensified since a controversial deal between Europe and Turkey to expel migrants arriving in Greece.

The Argentine pontiff did not spare the ills within the Church, fiercely denouncing paedophile priests, describing them as those "unfaithful ministers who, instead of stripping themselves of their own vain ambitions, divest even the innocent of their dignity".

The Church continues to be dogged by cases of predator priests and past cover-ups. Just this month a French cardinal faced calls to resign over allegations he promoted a cleric who had a previous conviction for sexual abuse.

In the wake of this week`s deadly attacks in Brussels, Francis slammed "terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence".

The pope added that "arms dealers who feed the cauldron of war with the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters" and he raged against "traitors who, for thirty pieces of silver, would consign anyone to death".

Francis also evoked the expressions on the faces of children fleeing war "who often only find death and many Pilates who wash their hands" -- a reference to Pontius Pilate, who, according to Christian tradition, said he was bowing to public demand in ordering Jesus`s crucifixion, in a bid to shrug off personal responsibility.

In his wide-ranging diatribe, Francis lashed out at persecutors of Christians in particular, lamenting "our sisters and brothers killed, burned alive, throats slit and decapitated by barbarous blades amid cowardly silence".

He also turned a steely gaze on Western cultures, "our egotistical and hypocritical society", which casts off the elderly and disabled and lets its children starve.

During the service, a small group of believers carried a cross between 14 "stations" evoking the last hours of Jesus`s life during the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession, as the pope looked on amid visibly heightened security.

Good Friday is the second of four intensive days in the Christian calendar culminating in Easter Sunday, which commemorates Christ`s resurrection.

On Saturday, the pontiff will take part in an evening Easter vigil in St Peter`s Basilica, before celebrating Easter mass on Sunday and pronouncing the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to Rome and the world.
Damascus: The Islamic State group suffered a double setback in Syria today as army troops recaptured the ancient citadel in Palmyra and the Pentagon said the jihadists' second-in-command was killed in a US raid.

The fresh gains in Palmyra by Syrian troops backed by allied militia and Russian warplanes came nearly a year after IS overran the UNESCO world heritage site, sparking global concern.

The regime advance came after US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's President Vladimir Putin agreed to intensify the drive for a political settlement in Syria.

"Our armed forces, in coordination with the popular defence forces, have taken control of the ancient Palmyra citadel after inflicting many losses in the ranks of the terrorist group Daesh," Syrian state television said, using another name for IS.

The army has also cut off the main Palmyra-Deir Ezzor highway leading to the Iraqi border, the report said citing a military source.

The jihadist group had taken over the citadel on May 23 last year and raised its notorious black and white flag over it.

The group has since blown up UNESCO-listed temples and looted relics that dated back thousands of years, and murdered the former antiquities chief in Palmyra, Khaled al-Assaad.

Built in the 13th century, the citadel is Palmyra's main Islamic-era monument.

Earlier, Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdelkarim told AFP the army had also made gains elsewhere in the city.

"In the southwest, the army has liberated the district of hotels and restaurants as well as the Valley of the Tombs," he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reported that Russian and Syrian warplanes were continuing air strikes in the area.

"The army is now 600 metres from the Temple of Bel, but it is advancing slowly because of mines and above all to protect the city, which is an ancient treasure," Abdelkarim said.

IS claimed in September to have destroyed the Temple of Bel, which UNESCO had described as one of the best preserved and most important first century religious edifices in the Middle East.

Palmyra's full recapture would be a major strategic and symbolic victory for President Bashar al-Assad, since whoever holds it also controls the vast desert extending from central Syria to the Iraqi border.

The advance came as Pentagon chief Ashton Carter announced the killing of Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, described as IS's second-in-command, in a US air raid in Syria.

"The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the ability for them to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria," Carter told reporters, using an alternative acronym for the group.
Donald Trump and his main challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, Ted Cruz, have escalated their bitter feud, taking to social media to clash over two unlikely figures: their wives.

An anti-Trump political group unveiled a controversial campaign ad ahead of Tuesday`s votes in Arizona and Utah that uses a photograph of Trump`s wife Melania lying provocatively in his custom-fitted jet, naked and handcuffed to a briefcase.

"Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady," read the online ad, posted on Facebook by the group Make America Awesome.

"Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday."

Melania Trump, 45, is a Slovenian-American jewelry designer and former model.

The use of the image, from a GQ magazine photo shoot in 2000 when she was Melania Knauss and not yet married to Trump, angered the billionaire real estate magnate, who made his own veiled threat about Cruz`s wife Heidi in a tweet late Tuesday.

"Lyin` Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a GQ shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin` Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!" Trump posted to his seven million Twitter followers.

Cruz wasted no time firing back.

"Pic of your wife not from us," Cruz tweeted. "Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you`re more of a coward than I thought. #classless."

Trump Thursday retweeted a seemingly unflattering photo of Cruz`s wife, Heidi.

Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin, pointing his fingers angrily at TV cameras: "It`s not easy to tick me off. I don`t get angry often. But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that`ll do it every time. Donald you are a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone."

The suggestive ad featuring Trump`s wife was apparently part of an effort to sway voters in predominantly Mormon Utah by appealing to the morality of the state`s socially conservative population, according to The New York Times.

Cruz comfortably won Utah and Trump finished third behind Ohio Governor John Kasich. Trump easily won Arizona in the day`s other Republican contest.

Heidi Cruz, 43, is an investment manager who has taken a leave of absence from her position at Goldman Sachs to hit the campaign trail with her husband.

She swatted away Trump`s threat, saying she was "not worried" about his bluster.

"You probably know that most of the things that Donald Trump says has no basis in reality," she told reporters in Wisconsin, which votes April 5.

"We have run our campaign with the principles that Ted and I believe in and a lot of the things that are done from time to time are not from our campaign."
A month after a hospital in Hollywood was shut down by a ransomware infection that encrypted all the files on its computers and computer-controlled instruments and systems, another hospital, this one in Kentucky, has suffered a similar fate.

The hacker who stole Hollywood Presbyterian asked for $3.6 million, but settled for a piddling $17,000 (40 bitcoin), presumably after they realized that their random infectious agent had kidnapped a giant, high-profile institution that would be able to motivate serious law-enforcement investigations that would move ever-closer to their true identity the longer the ransom negotiations continued.

Henderson, Kentucky's Methodist Hospital has declared an "Internal State of Emergency," having been shut down by a piece of ransomware called "Locky." The hospital's spokeslawyer, David Park, said that they're addressing the ransomware attack using plans designed to help the hospital weather a tornado or other natural disaster.

The attackers are only asking for $1,600 (4 bitcoin) to unlock the hospital's files.





Brian Krebs speculates that the attackers didn't set out to hold a hospital to ransom, and have no real appreciation of how much they could be asking for (though the Kentucky hospital seems to have been less compromised than the one in Hollywood). He warns that in future, ransomware creeps will start targeting their attacks, aiming for victims who have more to lose, and more to spend, when their data is taken from them.



The attackers are demanding a mere four bitcoins in exchange for a key to unlock the encrypted files; that's a little more than USD $1,600 at today's exchange rate. Park said the administration hasn't ruled out paying the ransom. "We haven't yet made decision on that, we're working through the process," with the FBI, he said. "I think it's our position that we're not going to pay it unless we absolutely have to."



Hospital Declares 'Internal State of Emergency' After Ransomware Infection

[Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security]
Australia have dumped Pakistan out of the World T20 and set up a winner-takes-all clash with hosts India on Sunday courtesy of a 21-run victory in Mohali.

Steve Smith (61no from 43) top-scored for Australia in a total of 193-4, the skipper sharing rollicking, 38-ball stands of 62 with Glenn Maxwell (30 from 18) and an unbeaten 74 with the soon-to-retire Shane Watson (44no from 28).

Spinner Adam Zampa (2-32) then accounted for the dangerous Umar Akmal (32 from 20) and Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi (14 from 7) as the 2009 champions were restricted to 172-8, James Faulkner (5-27) firing at the death to complete the best bowling figures by an Australian in T20Is.

Pakistan's defeat was their third in four games in Group 2 and leaves them unable to progress to the semi-finals, with the victor of this weekend's Australia-India encounter - the sides currently locked together on four points - joining table-toppers New Zealand in the last four.

Usman Khawaja (21 off 16) made a brisk start in his first match against the country of his birth, before being clean bowled by a Wahab Riaz yorker in the fourth over, two balls after pulling the searing left-armer for a sumptuous six over deep backward square.

David Warner (9) - up a spot to No 3 in a rejigged Australia bating line-up that saw Aaron Finch drafted in to open and Watson drop from the top of the order to No 6 - fell in similar fashion two overs later, Wahab (2-35) rattling the top of his middle stump.

Finch's dismissal shortly after, the burly opener bowled by spinner Imad Wasim for 15, saw Smith's men slip to 57-3, but the skipper and Maxwell powered on, the latter drilling a superb maximum over long-off just prior to being caught at long-on off Imad (2-31).

Maxwell's exit didn't disrupt the scoring, with Smith reaching his second T20I fifty from 35 deliveries - his other, an effort of 90, coming against England in Cardiff last August - and Watson nailing three sixes and four fours as Australia plundered 66 runs from the final five overs.

Story continues

Sharjeel Khan (30 from 19) started like a train for Pakistan, much like he did against New Zealand on Wednesday when cracking 47 from 25 balls, but his opening partner, Ahmed Shehzad (1) fell cheaply, top-edging an attempted slog off the recalled Josh Hazlewood to mid-off.

Sharjeel's enterprising knock, which featured nine boundaries, came to an end when he chopped Faulkner onto his stumps in the sixth over, though Pakistan rebounded in the seventh with Akmal walloping Watson for 17 runs, including for six over midwicket.

Akmal, though, came unstuck against Zampa, bowled middle pole after missing an almighty heave to leg, and Pakistan's hopes diminished further when Afridi - perhaps in his final T20I - was stumped having launched the leg-spinner over the ropes the ball before.

Afridi's men looked beaten way before Faulkner dismissed top scorer Khalid Latif (46 from 41) and Imad (0) from sccessive balls in the 18th and, needing 30 from Faulkner's final over, could only muster eight, with Sarfraz Ahmed (2) and Wahab Riaz (0) caught out in the process.
By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff said on Tuesday she will not resign in Brazil's worst political crisis in two decades, calling an opposition move to impeach her a "coup d'etat" against democratic rule because she had committed no crime. Rousseff urged Brazil's Supreme Court to remain impartial in the crisis that has threatened to topple her government as opponents seek her impeachment in Congress amid a widespread corruption scandal that has reached her inner circle. "I will never resign under any circumstances," the embattled president said in a speech to legal experts. "I have committed no crime that would warrant shortening my term." The head of the Brazilian Senate echoed Rousseff's position on impeachment after a meeting with her predecessor and political mentor, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, as the pair work hand in hand to shore up a crumbling coalition. Opposition parties have launched impeachment proceedings against Rousseff for allegedly manipulating government accounts to allow her government to spend more in the run-up to her 2014 re-election. The president could be suspended as soon as May if her supporters do not block impeachment in the lower house. Recent corruption allegations and huge anti-government street protests have raised the odds of Rousseff being impeached, ending 13 years of leftist Workers' Party rule. With her popularity at rock bottom due to a snowballing graft scandal and the worst recession in a generation, the political survival of Brazil's first female president depends largely on her main coalition partner, the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). Growing numbers of lawmakers in the fractious PMDB want the party to break with her government, a decision that could be taken at a March 29 executive committee meeting. The party may hold the deciding votes on impeachment, which would put Vice President Michel Temer, leader of the PMDB, in the presidential seat. Party officials have denied Brazilian media reports that Temer is already preparing a post-Rousseff government and has begun talks with opposition leaders to secure their backing. The head of the Senate, PMDB Senator Renan Calheiros, who appeared to be wavering in his support of the government, warned the party on Tuesday not to deepen Brazil's crisis by breaking with Rousseff. After meeting with Lula, who is back in Brasilia leading efforts by his Workers' Party to avert Rousseff's impeachment, Renan told reporters Congress should only oust her for an impeachable offense. "For the sake democracy, we must warn that you need to have a crime of responsibility for impeachment of the president," Calheiros said, echoing Rousseff's stance. LULA AND THE COURTS Rousseff also criticized a crusading anti-corruption judge for overstepping his jurisdiction by releasing a wiretap of a conversation between her and Lula, who is being investigated in a political bribery scheme that has engulfed state-run oil company Petrobras. Without mentioning the federal judge, Sergio Moro, by name, Rousseff said the judiciary cannot abandon impartiality and take sides politically by becoming a "party militant." The recording of a conversation between Rousseff and Lula contributed to suspicions that she had appointed her mentor and predecessor as cabinet chief to shield him from prosecution by Moro. Only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction in cases against elected politicians and government ministers. Earlier on Tuesday, a supreme court justice upheld a decision by another judge on the court barring Lula from taking the ministry post. Last week, Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes blocked Lula from taking office and ordered that the corruption case against him be handled by Moro, exposing Lula to the risk of arrest. A plenary vote of the full Supreme Court on March 30 can still overrule Mendes' decision. Brazil's Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo said the courts had no justification for barring the former president, adding in a news conference with foreign reporters: "Lula is currently a minister. He just can't exercise his position." Cardozo said the government will resort to the Supreme Court to fight impeachment if necessary. "If there are irregularities or violations of the Constitution, we will take legal action." Brazil is going through its worst political turmoil since Fernando Collor de Mello resigned as president in 1992 ahead of imminent impeachment in a corruption scandal. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Caroline Stauffer and Maria Carolina Marcello; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Bernard Orr)
The boss of EDF Energy has told MPs the controversial new Hinkley nuclear plant "will go ahead" despite uncertainty remaining over the 18bn project.

Vincent de Rivaz made the announcement while reading a statement at the start of his evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee on the benefits of nuclear energy.

It came as a surprise, given comments only yesterday by a minister in the French government, which owns a majority stake in the EDF group, that a final investment decision would be made in May.

Mr de Rivaz said that it had been a "long road" to clear regulatory and other hurdles and he expected the final go-ahead to be made "soon" - in reference to economy minister Emmanuel Macron's remarks.

He refused to be drawn on an exact date but told MPs that EDF had invested 2.4bn in the project so far and continued to spend 55m a month.

He insisted every element was in place to start construction as the supply chain and commercial partners were ready to go.

"This project is absolutely critical and has the full support of the French government and the British government.

Everything is aligning at the moment - it is very positive", he said.

Hinkley would be the first nuclear power plant to be built in Britain in two decades.

EDF is financing two-thirds of the project - with help expected from the French state - with the rest coming from Chinese investment.

The Chinese input has proved controversial in some quarters on security grounds while the Government's commitment to a new nuclear mix within the UK's energy future has also drawn sharp criticism on environmental and cost grounds.

EDF insisted the project was on budget and it was the first time, for a nuclear power station, that the cost of decommissioning was being factored in.

The company said that a fund was being set up to collect contributions each year of the plant's lifetime.
The main news event on the business beat this week was the federal budget, revealed Tuesday, showing the new Liberal Government plans to dive deep into the red during its mandate.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau outlined plans for more than $100 billion in deficit spending in the next half decade. Some of that will go to spending on infrastructure in the hopes of stimulating the economy, but a good chunk of the deficit is just based on a generally under-performing economy.

The budget has its fair share of both critics and fans, but there's at least one group that's upset with what wasn't in there: small business owners.

That's because a long-rumoured tax cut for that group was nowhere to be found. "Altogether it was a brutal budget for small business," Dan Kelly, the head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told us. "I have to say it was shocking to us, given the noise the government had made in the lead-up to the election campaign."

Obama's Cuban trip

Another major news event this week was a historic trip by U.S. president Barack Obama to Cuba.

Despite their close proximity, the U.S. and Cuba have had a frosty relationship for decades, ever since the Communist revolution in the 1950s.

But that's all starting to change under a new U.S. policy to heal old wounds and get closer to Cuba. With that rapprochement comes investment opportunities for foreign investors who have been locked out of Cuba's market for years.

"Many investors are saying Cuba, per capita, is one of the most interesting and attractive emerging markets in the world right now," said Gregory Biniowsky, a lawyer at Gowlings. "So our opportunity for Canadians is to cash in on this unique experience we have with this country. We have been by their side for 70 years, and now is not the time to allow other countries to butt in line in front of us."

Insurance coverage caution

Another story we brought you this week that's worthy of a close look was this one by Aaron Saltzman about a B.C. couple who did the right thing and bought supplementary health insurance while travelling to the U.S., but still find themselves at risk of losing valuable coverage at home because of it.

Story continues

Tom and Mel Milaney were on vacation in Florida when she had to have emergency surgery and spent 10 days in hospital. The travel insurance they had bought from RBC paid the $200,000 US bill, but then RBC passed much of the bill to their extended health care provider at home, Pacific Blue Cross.

That lowered their lifetime maximum coverage for drug and health care by nearly $100,000. That's money the pair will likely need, as they both have existing conditions that rack up hefty bills as it is.

"At some point that's going to be eroded, maybe in our lifetime. So that's very much a concern," Tom told us this week.

The money RBC recovered is part of a form of cost-sharing among providers. It's a completely legal, standard insurance practice. And it's spelled out in the Milaney's RBC policy. Had they bought insurance from Pacific Blue Cross instead, their lifetime coverage would not have been affected.

A cautionary tale for us all.

Other stuff

Those were just a few of our more popular stories this week. Check out our landing page for more, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter here. In the meantime, here's a day-by-day list of our best stories.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

- ANALYSIS: Canada`s plan change from austerity to stimulus is a living experiment
By Felix Onuah ABUJA (Reuters) - OPEC member Nigeria expects oil producers to agree a supply freeze at a meeting in Doha next month which should stabilise crude prices even if Iran does not join, its petroleum minister said on Wednesday. Qatar has invited OPEC members and major non-OPEC producers to meet on April 17 to agree a freeze following an initial deal in February between Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela and non-OPEC member Russia to hold supply at January levels. "I expect that we will reach a conclusion on stabilisation, stabilise current production as of January," Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told Reuters in an interview in Abuja. It was not clear whether all 13 OPEC members including Iran would attend the Doha meeting, though Iranian officials have made it clear Tehran will not freeze output as it wants to raise exports following the lifting of Western sanctions. But Kachikwu said Iran's impact was limited anyway as the country would take time to ramp up production. "We are likely to see Iran not signing on," he said. "But we have all decided that if they don't we will proceed because we do not believe that currently their entry into the market will create too much of a threat for the next year," he said. "So basically price stability is our expectation," he said, referring to the impact of a Doha deal. Nigeria, which is the top oil producer in Africa, has been at the front of pushing for a production freeze as a slump in oil prices has whacked its public finances and sparked the worst economic crisis for decades. Kachikwu said Nigeria's current oil output was 2.2 million barrels a day and he planned to boost it to 2.5 million barrels but this would not add to the global crude supply glut. "Whatever the extra (it) won't be in the market but go for our refining," he said. The West African nation has been trying to kick start production at its four outdated refineries due to limited fuel imports and to end widespread petrol shortages. (Writing by Ulf Laessing; editing by David Clarke)
By Matt Spetalnick and Frank Jack Daniel HAVANA (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama pushed Cuba to improve human rights during his historic visit to the Communist-led island on Monday, publicly sparring with President Raul Castro who showed flashes of anger and hit back at U.S. "double standards". Obama praised Castro for openly discussing their differences but he said a "full flowering" of the relationship would happen only with progress on the issue of rights. "In the absence of that, I think it will continue to be a very powerful irritant," Obama said in a joint news conference with Castro that began with jokes but was tense at times. "America believes in democracy. We believe that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion are not just American values but are universal values," he said. Both men's remarks were broadcast live on Cuban state television from Cuba's Palace of the Revolution in a room draped with the Stars and Stripes and the Cuban flag. Castro countered that no country meets all international rights but appeared uncomfortable as he made the rare step of taking questions from journalists in a country where the media is state controlled. Obama, the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years, agreed in 2014 to improve relations with the former Cold War foe but he is under pressure at home to push Castro's government to allow political dissent and to further open its Soviet-style economy. He said the two sides would hold talks on human rights in Havana later this year. Opponents say Obama has given away too much as he improves ties, with too little from Castro in return, although the leading Republican candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election, Donald Trump, said on Monday he would likely continue to normalize ties with Cuba if elected. Castro, an army general who became president when his ailing older brother Fidel retired in 2008, had never before taken questions from foreign reporters on live Cuban television and was clearly irritated when asked about political prisoners in Cuba, demanding the reporter produce a list of those in jail. "Tell me now. What political prisoners? Give me a name, or the names," Castro said. "And if there are these political prisoners they will be free before nightfall." Cuba says it has no political prisoners and that the dozens listed by dissident groups are instead common criminals. Castro said Cuba has a strong record on rights such as health, access to education and women's equality. His government criticizes the United States on racism, police violence and the use of torture at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Ben Rhodes, a senior Obama aide, later insisted that Cuba has political prisoners and said the U.S. government had shared lists of them with Cuba. He said Cuba has shifted from long prisons terms to short-term detentions of political opponents. Later in the evening, Castro sat between Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for a dinner of rum flavored soup and pork, at a table that also included the leaders' top advisers. 'EMBARGO'S GOING TO END' Obama's ease with reporters' questions contrasted with Castro's manner. The tension was palpable as Castro declined to call on a slew of Cuban journalists who yearned for the rare chance to ask him questions. Fumbling with a headset providing translation, the 84-year-old leader scolded reporters when he was asked again about rights, saying he agreed to only take one question. Obama playfully encouraged him to address a second but Castro seemed reluctant as he obliged. "How many countries comply with all 61 human rights? Do you know? I do. None. None," Castro said. In another awkward moment, as the news conference ended, Castro lifted Obama's arm in the air as if to form a victory salute. Obama resisted, letting his hand hang limp rather than form a fist. As part of the diplomatic breakthrough in 2014, Cuba released 53 prisoners that the U.S. government considered political prisoners. But the dissident Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation says 79 are still behind bars, among about 40 held for peaceful political protest. "This list is here if they want to see it," commission leader Elizardo Sanchez said on Monday. His list also includes armed anti-government militants, convicted hijackers, army deserters and spies, but Sanchez said they are political because they were denied due process. Castro offered Cuba's recipe for better relations, saying the United States needs to lift its 54-year-old trade embargo on the island and hand back the Guantanamo Bay base to Cuba. Obama did not respond to the demand on Guantanamo Bay but said he was optimistic about the elimination of sanctions against Cuba. "The embargos going to end. When, I cant be entirely sure," Obama said. Obama efforts to encourage Congress to rescind the embargo has been rejected by the Republican leadership. Thwarted, Obama has instead used executive authority to loosen restrictions on trade and travel. Obama said direct flights from the United States would start this year. He said regular tourism to Cuba could happen "very soon," in comments to U.S. network ABC. A clutch of deals timed to coincide with the visit appeared to show the strategy was bearing commercial fruit, notably U.S. cruise company Carnival's announcement on Monday that it would sail the first ship from the United States to Cuba in more than 50 years, in a deal that will bring in thousands of U.S. tourists at a time. About a dozen major U.S. brands have stuck deals or are in talks with Cuba. Ahead of the meeting with Castro, Obama said Google would provide more Wi-Fi and broadband access on the island. Google said later its efforts were in the "early stages." (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell)
CBC

Almost 200 protestors gathered Saturday in front of the Ontario PC convention in Toronto in a show of support for education workers. The rally comes days after contract talks between the Ford government and CUPE, the union representing about 55,000 education workers, broke down. "We know they're in there talking about what their next policy decisions are going to be," said Laura Walton, the president of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions. "But at the end of the day, a strike can be avert
The chief suspect in the Paris attacks has claimed he "didn't know" about the Brussels terror plot, according to his lawyer.

The denial by Salah Abdeslam comes amid mounting evidence of strong links between the extremists that carried out this week's Belgium bombings and those behind the atrocities in the French capital last November.

It has been suggested the Brussels attacks had been due to be carried out over Easter but were brought forward in case Abdeslam revealed details following his arrest.

Investigators believe he and two others, including a man detained with him in the Belgian capital on Friday, planned to use guns and bombs to cause mass casualties in Brussels, according to public broadcaster VRT.

Belgium has lowered its security alert level from the highest - four - to three after reviewing the situation as one official, Paul Van Tigchelt, said: "The threat of an attack is less imminent."

This is despite reports that authorities suspect a second bomber was involved in the deadly attack on Maalbeek metro station who could be on the run.

Security forces are still trying to find a fugitive who fled Brussels airport after the attack there. The man wearing a hat on CCTV has been identified by US authorities , Sky sources say.

Prosecutors have revealed his explosive device, which failed to detonate, was the largest of them all.

Abdeslam, who was captured after four months on the run following the bombing and shooting rampage in Paris that left 130 people dead, has said he will no longer fight extradition to France.

Defence lawyer Sven Mary said his client, a French citizen, wanted to return as "quickly as possible" to "explain himself".

As investigations continue into the Brussels attacks, local media have reported police examining CCTV footage believe another man was involved in the bombing on the metro and could be at large.

It had previously been thought a lone suicide bomber, Khalid El Bakraoui, had carried out the devastating strike.

Story continues

The unidentified suspect was captured by surveillance cameras in the metro on Tuesday carrying a large bag alongside Khalid, although it is not known if he was also killed in the attack.

Khalid's brother, Ibrahim, was one of two suicide attackers who targeted Brussels airport the same day.

It has emerged his accomplice, who also blew himself up, was Najim Laachraoui, 24, identified as the bomb maker in the Paris terror attacks.

Belgium has been accused of ignoring warnings that Ibrahim was a "foreign terrorist fighter".

He was caught in June last year at the Turkish-Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands, but was allowed to walk free after the Belgian authorities failed to establish any terror links, Turkey said.

And sources say Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui were on US terrorism watch lists.

Laachraoui's brother Mourad is a taekwondo athlete who has represented Belgium in European and world competitions. A statement said he "firmly condemns his elder brother's actions".

Belgian counter-terror officials have raised the prospect that other suspects linked to the attacks may also still be at large.

At least 31 people were killed and 270 injured in the suicide bomb attacks at Zaventem Airport and Maalbeek station on Tuesday morning.
By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council must act to ensure Morocco's decision to expel personnel from a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara does not set a bad precedent for other missions, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. The controversy over U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's use of the word "occupation" during a recent visit to the region is Morocco's worst dispute with the U.N. since 1991, when the U.N. brokered a ceasefire to end a war over Western Sahara and established a peacekeeping mission, known as MINURSO. The United Nations has shut its military liaison office and withdrawn dozens of international staffers from MINURSO as demanded by Morocco in retaliation for Ban's remarks, which Rabat has described as "unacceptable." U.N. officials have said the reduction of staff has severely affected the mission in the Moroccan-annexed Western Sahara region. So far the 15-country Security Council, which ordered the deployment of MINURSO decades ago and renews its mandate every year, has said nothing on the Moroccan dispute with the U.N. despite near daily discussions on the subject. Ban wants swift council action to back him and MINURSO with a strong statement of support. "The Secretary-General very much wants the Security Council to act, and not only to preserve MINURSO's operations but also to prevent similar actions in other peacekeeping operations around the world," a U.N. official familiar with the Western Sahara dossier told reporters on condition of anonymity. The leaders of Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan have demanded the departure of U.N. peacekeepers from conflict-torn parts of their countries. The U.N. official said the presence of MINURSO was necessary to prevent a "security vacuum", adding that "there is the potential for escalation" into renewed conflict. Diplomats have blamed the council's silence on Morocco's traditional ally France, along with Spain, Egypt and Senegal. Rabat accused Ban earlier this month of no longer being neutral in the Western Sahara dispute when he used the word "occupation" to describe its 1975 annexation of the region, when Morocco took over from colonial power Spain. Ban had visited refugee camps in southern Algeria for the Sahrawi people, who say Western Sahara belongs to them. They fought a war against Morocco until the 1991 ceasefire. The Polisario Front wants a referendum on independence, but Morocco says it will only grant autonomy. Polisario says Rabat's moves against the U.N. jeopardize the ceasefire and could lead to renewed conflict. (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair is trying to stake out new ground to the left of the Liberals ahead of his much anticipated leadership review at the party's upcoming convention in Edmonton.

The Montreal-area MP has faced criticism from some of the party's base for his shift to the centre in the last election campaign. But now, in the wake of the Liberal government's first budget, he's painting his party as a progressive bulwark.

"People know who the NDP are and they also know that the last time the Liberals were there they wound up imposing really strict austerity measures under [former prime minister] Paul Martin," Mulcair said in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.

Mulcair said Finance Minister Bill Morneau's budget was costly and yet failed to address some key election promises, including money for indigenous youth, home care and a tax on stock options.

He also said employment insurance reforms still leave too many families unable to access the program.

"Here we have the Liberals spending a lot  a $30 billion deficit  it's not a question of deficit or no deficit it's a question of, 'OK what are we getting for it?'"

But the leader said he understands why some NDP voters have voiced support for the budget. "Don't forget the starting point is Stephen Harper's 10 years of Conservative rule This is a heck of a lot better than what we were getting."

While Mulcair might be demanding more spending than what the Liberals promised in Wednesday's budget, that position is a major shift in how he campaigned in the last election.

He presented the NDP as a party with a history of fiscal prudence and he pledged to balance the budget if elected.

Possible leadership review

NDP members will now vote April 10 on whether to launch a leadership review, and that balanced-budget pledge still hangs over his head.

Party president, Rebecca Blaikie, who led a cross-country review of the election results, has said the promise to balance the books hurt the party with its progressive base.

Story continues

"Our balanced-budget pledge was, in part, responsible for presenting us as cautious change," Blaikie said in a note to members.

Some have suggested that Mulcair will need roughly 70 per cent support to stay on as leader, but Mulcair himself has not provided a figure.

"I've gone across the country and I've met with thousands of members and, importantly, I've met with hundreds of people who will be delegates in Edmonton," he said. "No other leader goes through this every two years but I wouldn't change it for the world."

'Mulcair must go'

A successful result in April might be difficult for Mulcair considering the backlash he is facing from some in Quebec, where a group of 37 New Democrat activists, including three defeated MPs, recently went public demanding a new direction for the party. Party chapters at McGill and Concordia universities have also condemned the leader, saying "Mulcair must go."

He has the backing of the Quebec MPs in his caucus, who recently signed a letter expressing support for his leadership. But the opposition emanating from Quebec could be problematic for Mulcair, who was elected in part as a leader who could maintain the party's strength in that province.

He is also facing criticism from some members of the country's labour movement, a crucial constituency. Sid Ryan, a former president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, recently came out swinging against the leader.

Thirty members of Niagara Regional Labour Council  an area of Ontario where the party performed well in the last election  passed a motion to not support Mulcair in Edmonton, saying "we've got the most right-wing leadership the NDP has had."

Not to mention two of the party's most prominent MPs, Nikki Ashton and Charlie Angus, have not outright endorsed the leader when asked directly.

Mulcair batted away those concerns, saying he has also had support from other circles.

"I think that, overall, if you look at the number of very strong statements of support that I've had in caucus and major players in the labour movement and other groups, I'm not taking anything for granted, but I'm heartened by the level of support."

Several high-profile caucus members have expressed support for Mulcair, including Quebec MPs Alexandre Boulerice and Ruth Ellen Brosseau and B.C. MPs Nathan Cullen and Peter Julian, as well as the national director of the United Steelworkers union.

Correction : This story has been updated from a previous version that incorrectly stated Tom Mulcair has said he needs a 70 per cent vote against a leadership review at next month's party convention. In fact, Mulcair has not stated a number.(Mar 25, 2016 3:10 PM)
Samsung, Lenovo and Xiaomi emerged as the top three 4G devices brands, said the report. (Representational image)

New Delhi: The sale of 4G devices rose by unprecedented 1,676 per cent or nearly 17 times in 2015 showing that Indians are fast adopting the latest technology, according to CyberMedia Research (CMR) Indias annual 4G LTE devices market review.

The sales of smartphones grew by 1,981 per cent, data cards by 148 per cent and tablets by 90 per cent in 2015, said CMR. Smartphones account for 98 per cent of the 4G devices. Data cards and tablets contributed remaining two per cent.

The total LTE device (4G) shipments in the country reached 33 million in CY2015, 1,676 per cent increase compared to last year, said CMR. While Indian brands contributed a mere 14 per cent of the shipments, China brands are growing rapidly in 4G segment.

Samsung, Lenovo and Xiaomi emerged as the top three 4G devices brands, said the report. Micromax is the only Indian brand in top 5 in the 4G segment.

We have now over 35 million users equipped with 4G capable devices. The 4G has come at a very opportune time to give impetus to the growth of devices market resulting in such high number growths, said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

Contrary to 3G evolution, the ecosystem provisioning has been much rapid and smooth in case of 4G. It is now the onus of the operators to make the technology successful by alighting the networks where they have already been set up, Mr Faisal added.
Lithuanian English

On the initiative and following the resolution of the Board of Panevezio statybos trestas AB, the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders of Panevezio statybos trestas AB (address of registered office P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys, company code 147732969) is convened on 28 April 2016.

The place of the meeting - the meeting room of Panevezio statybos trestas AB at P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys.

The beginning of the meeting - 10:00 (registration shall start at 9:30).

The accounting day of the General Meeting of Shareholders shall be 21 April 2016 (only the persons who at the end of the record day of the General Meeting of Shareholders shall be on the shareholder list of the company or the persons who are a proxy for them or the persons with whom an agreement on the transfer of voting rights is concluded, have the right to participate and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders).

The record day of the rights shall be 12 May 2016 (the shareholders shall use their property rights resulting from the resolutions adopted at the general meeting of the shareholders in proportion to the number of shares hold at the end of the record day of the rights).

The meeting agenda:

1. Audit conclusions regarding the financial statement and annual report of the company for the year 2015.

2. The Annual Report of the company for the year 2015.

3. Approval of a set of financial statements of the company for the year 2015.

4. Appropriation of profit (loss) of the company for the year 2015.

5. Election of members for the audit committee.

6. Conversion of the authorized capital and par value of the shares of Panevezio statybos trestas AB from expression in Litas to expression in Euros.

7. Approval of the new revision of the Articles of Association of Panevezio statybos trestas AB.

The company shall not provide possibilities to participate and vote at the meeting using any means of electronic communications.

Draft resolutions on the items of the agenda, any documents to be presented to the General Meeting of Shareholders and any information related to realisation of the shareholders rights shall be published on the website of the company at www.pst.lt under the menu item Investor Relations not later than 21 days before the meeting date. The shareholders shall also be granted access to the information thereof at the secretarys office at the headquarters of the company (P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys) from 7:30 till 16:30. Telephone number for inquiries: (+370 45) 505 508.

The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose additional items to be included in the agenda and present a draft resolution of the General Meeting of the Shareholders for each proposed additional agenda item or, in case no resolution has to be adopted, give an explanation.

Any proposals for additional items of the agenda shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals in writing are to be delivered to the secretarys office or sent by registered mail at the following address: Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals by e-mail are to be sent to the following e-mail address pst@pst.lt .

Any proposals for additional items of the agenda are to be presented by 16:00 on 14 April 2016. In the event new items are added to the meeting agenda, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall inform about the additions thereof using the same means as were used for convening the meeting.

The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose new draft resolutions on the items that are or to be included in the agenda, additional candidates for the members of the company bodies and the audit company. The proposals thereof may be presented in writing or by e-mail.

The proposals in writing by 8:00 on 28 April 2016 may be delivered (on work days) to secretarys office in the company or sent by registered mail at Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals presented in writing shall be discussed during the meeting provided they have been received at the company before 8:00 on the meeting day (28 April 2016). Any proposals in writing may be presented during the meeting after the chairman of the meeting reads the agenda out but not later that the meeting starts working on the agenda items.

Any proposals to be delivered by e-mail are to be sent to pst@pst.lt. The proposals received at the e-mail address thereof by 8:00 on 28 April 2016 shall be discussed during the meeting.

The shareholders are entitled to present their questions related to the agenda items to the company in advance. The questions may be sent by the shareholders by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 3 work days before the meeting date. The company shall answer the questions thereof by e-mail before the meeting. The company shall not deliver the answer to any question of the shareholders in person provided the relevant information is published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt.

When registering to participate at the meeting, the shareholders or their proxies shall present a document which is a proof of his personal identity. The proxies to the shareholders are to present their proxies certified following a prescribed procedure. The proxy issued by a legal person has to be certified by a Notary Public. The proxy issued in a foreign country has to be translated into Lithuanian and legalised following the procedure prescribed by law. The proxy may be given the authority by more than one shareholder and vote in a different manner based on the instructions given by each shareholder. The company has no special form for the proxy.

The shareholder may using the means of electronic communications authorize some other natural or legal person to participate and vote at the meeting on behalf of the shareholder. Such proxy requires no certification by a Notary Public. The proxy issued by the means of electronic communications is to be certified by the electronic signature of the shareholder created using any safe electronic signature software and attested by the qualified certificate valid in the Republic of Lithuania. Both the proxy and the notification are to be in writing. The shareholder shall notify the company about the proxy issued by the means of electronic communications by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 16:00 on the last work day before the meeting date. The electronic signature shall be affixed on the proxy and the notification but not on the letter sent by e-mail. When sending the notification to the company, the shareholder shall refer to the internet address to be used for the purpose of free downloading of electronic signature verification software. In case the shares hold by the shareholder are kept on a few securities accounts, the shareholder may authorise a separate proxy to participate and vote at the General Meeting of the Shareholders in accordance with the rights carried by the shares kept in each securities account. In that case any instructions given by the shareholder shall be valid only for one General Meeting of the Shareholders.

The shareholder who holds the shares of the company acquired in his name, however for the interests of other persons, before voting at the General Meeting of the Shareholders shall disclose to the company the identity of the end client, the number of voting shares and the content of given voting instructions or any other explanation related to the participation and voting at the general meeting of the shareholders agreed with the client. The shareholder may vote in a different manner using the one part of his shares carrying votes and the other part of shares carrying votes.

A shareholder or his proxy may vote in advance in writing by filling in the general ballot paper. Not later than 21 days before the meeting date the form of the general ballot paper shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investors Relations. In case a shareholder submits a written request, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or deliver it in person against signature. The filled in general ballot paper is to be signed by the shareholder or his proxy. In case the general ballot paper is signed by the proxy, the document validating the voting right shall be attached to it. The filled in general ballot paper with the attached documents (if required) shall be delivered to the company by registered mail at Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT- 35173, Panevezys, to the secretarys office not later than the last work day before the meeting date.

The following information and documents shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investors Relations throughout the entire period starting not later than 21 days before the meeting date:

- notice of convening the meeting;

- total number of company shares and the number of voting shares on the date of convening the meeting;

- draft resolutions on the items of the agenda and other documents to be presented to the meeting;

- the form of general ballot paper.

Dalius Gesevicius

Managing Director

Phone: (+370 45) 505 503
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The deal will help the Luxembourg-based steel maker to reduce its debt that stood at $15.7 billion for the quarter ended December 2015.

London: The worlds largest steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal is selling its LaPlace and Vinton Long Carbon facilities in the US to an affiliate of the asset management firm Black Diamond Capital Management.

Financial details of the deal were however not disclosed. The deal will help the Luxembourg-based steel maker to reduce its debt that stood at $15.7 billion for the quarter ended December 2015. The company, led by Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, said it has entered a definitive transaction agreement to sell its LaPlace and Vinton Long Carbon facilities in the US to an affiliate of Black Diamond Capital Management.

Terms of the transaction are confidential and not being disclosed, said the filing issued on Thursday. The LaPlace facility in Louisiana along with a rolling mill in Harriman (Tennessee) manufactures steel billets, flats, channels, angles and beams. The Vinton facility, located in El Paso in Texas produces rebar and grinding media.

Black Diamond manages over $8 billion in assets, across its three lines of business: control distressed/ private equity, hedge fund and CLOs and other structured vehicles. The steel giant, which continued to suffer from Chinese industrys overcapacity, reported a decline in net sales at $63.58 billion in 2015.
New Delhi: Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday that the Vijay Mallya episode will not affect the image of Indian corporates abroad as such incidents could be found in almost all countries.

All over the world, corporate misconduct happens. You have heard of so many different stories all over the world... it did not happen only in India. And just that one incident cannot be reflective of all the good work, which is being done by so many good companies, which are not just in India but also carrying the flag abroad, she said.

The minister was responding to a question whether the Mallya episode will dent Indias image among investors. She, however, said the nation could learn lessons and take steps to prevent recurrence of such corporate misdemeanours in future.

Many multinationals from India today are performing all over the world. So I dont think it will have a bad impact although we can use that as an example where if there are lessons to be learned about how we need to have a bit more due diligence, we need to do the course correction, he said.

Mr Mallya, whose group company owes over Rs 9,000 crore to 17 banks, had left the country on March 4 and currently is in the UK. His financial dealings are being probed by several investigative agencies, including CBI, Enforcement Directorate and tax department.

Ms Sitharaman was also critical about Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhis comments on Make in India campaign. Rahul Gandhi should come up with substantive arguments to criticise the governments Make In India programme rather than ridiculing its logo, she said.

Demagoguery may be good in election campaigns. But when you are in Parliament, we expect you to come up with concrete criticisms for which we will give reply. But to throw something like this may amuse some members. But overall it just projects the leader as not having gone into greater details, she said.
Remembering his mother, the 30-year-old actor took to his Twitter handle and shared his childhood picture.

New Delhi: Four years ago, Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor suffered a major loss as he lost his mother in a cancer battle and the star paid tribute to her through an emotional picture.

Remembering his mother, the 30-year-old actor took to his Twitter handle and shared his childhood picture in which Mona Shourie Kapoor is seen holding his hand.

Along with the snap, the '2 States' star wrote, "It's been four yrs mom but thank u fr holding my hand and walking me thru this difficult life hope u happy wherever u are."

It's been 4 yrs mom but thank u fr holding my hand & walking me thru this difficult life hope u happy wherever u are pic.twitter.com/DqoaieOFpb  Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) March 24, 2016

Later, Arjun's sister Anshula Kapoor also shared her childhood picture with her mother on Twitter and wrote, "It's been 4 yrs since we've laughed together, since you've held my hand, hugged me, or wiped my tears. Miss you ma."
Mumbai: When the movie succeeds, obviously all the credit goes to the lead actors for their massive performance in the film. However, there are other actors in the film as well with limited screen time who also contribute in making a film successful. But they are never given that platform to come out and shine after the release.

However, making a special gesture, Karan Johar, apart from the entire cast, had also invited 2 actors at the press conference who made a mark in 'Kapoor & Sons'. Amarjeet, who played a 2 minute role of a plumber and the other actor who played Boobly were seen at the press con. The two were seated amidst the audience when Karan called them on stage.

Karan said that Amarjeet ( Plumber) was present when the Kapoor family was going through all the trouble. Amarjeet recreated the hilarious one liner from the film that made everyone go in splits in the theatres. Bobbly was shy but thanked everyone for coming.
Chiranjeevis family is very busy these days with the upcoming wedding of his younger daughter Srija. The pellikoothuru function was held at Allu Aravinds house on Wednesday and the family posted a few photos on social media.

The celebrations will be long as the family leaves for Bengaluru on Friday for the marriage on March 28. Heres what we know so far...

Pawan Kalyan may not attend

Pawan Kalyan, who has left for Switzerland to shoot two songs for Sardar Gabbar Singh, may not b able to attend Srijas wedding in Bengaluru.But the actor will try his best to take a days break. Chiranjeevi understands the need to complete the film as they need to submit the films copy to the Censor Board as soon as possible. The film is releasing on April 8, so they have to submit the copy a few days before it. The possibility of taking a break will be explored only after he starts shooting, and he will try his best, says a source from the family. Before he left for Switzerland, Pawan Kalyan spoke to Chiranjeevi, who asked him to go ahead with the shoot.

Charans birthday

The family is also going to celebrate Ram Charans 30th birthday on March 27 in Bengaluru. Chiranjeevis family is leaving for Bengaluru on Friday while others, like Allu Aravinds family, will join on March 26 for a dinner party.

They will celebrate the actual birthday along with Srijas mehendi and sangeet on Sunday. Haldi is on March 27. The wedding is on March 28 and the family will return to Hyderabad for the reception on March 31.

Different hosts each day

Different members of Chiranjeevis extended family are hosting the wedding celebrations each day. On Wednesday, Allu Aravinds family organised a function while on Thursday it was at Sai Dharam Tejs house.

Fridays function will be either at Pawan Kalyan or at Nagababus house. Srijas sisters and friends have also planned a surprise party for her.

Chiranjeevis shoulder surgery

Recently, Chiranjeevi underwent a shoulder surgery and he might have to go in for another one soon. While he underwent a surgery on his right shoulder earlier, it now seems his left shoulder too has been causing him quite a lot of discomfort.

However, he wont be getting one right away as he is currently busy with the prepartion of his younger daughter Srijas wedding. His left shoulder muscle needs a surgery. He will go for it only after all the wedding shenanigans are over, says a source within the family. The actor is all set to start his 151st film, a remake of Tamil film Kaththi, directed by V.V. Vinayak soon.
A view of the Dhyana Buddha statue in Amaravati, which will be a tourist atraction for Krishna Pushkaralu.

GUNTUR: Old Amaravati and new capital Amaravati are the main attractions of Krishna Pushkaralu.

A big ghat would be constructed on the banks of Krishna river adjacent to the 125-feet height Dhyana Buddha at old Amaravati with continuous availability of water for one year.

A separate temporary canal from Krishna river will be constructed to provide water for 365 days to this ghat at Dhyana Buddha and further the ghat before the ancient Amaralingeswara temple which is one of the temples of the holy Pancharamas would be developed.

The Krishna Pushkaralu would start on August 12 and conclude on August 23.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams is planning to construct Balaji temple in Rayapudi on the banks of Krishna river. Besides this, replicas of the all famous temples would be installed for Pushkaralu at the capital foundation place of Uddandarayunipalem. Hence, old and new Amaravati will be the main attractions of the Krishna Pushakaralu.

A team of officials is inspecting the ghats on the Krishna river from old Amaravati to Repalle on Thursday to know about ground-level problems.

Priest J.S. Avadhani said that old Amaravati is Amaramam and is one of the Pancharamas.

He said that devotees will give priority to Pancharamas. Hence, old Amaravati will see huge rush of devotees during the Pushkaralu. He said that usually Krishna river water touches ancient Amarlin-geswara temple but no water is seen this season. He asked the government to release water into Krishna river during 12 days of Pushkaralu.

Amaravati Development Authority chairman J. Veeranjaneyulu lamented that the union government released funds under Heritage City Augmentation and Development Yojana (HRIDAY) to turn the pride of Andhras ancient Amaravati into Heritage City in view of Krishna Pushkarlu, but there were no facilities for the devotees like changing rooms, rest rooms, toilets and the ghats are totally damaged. Mentioning about release of funds by the Union government for the Heritage City scheme, he asked the government to start renovation works making good use of four months time.

Tadikonda MLA of Telugu Desam T. Sravan-kumar said that the government is planning to give brand image to new capital Amaravati. Hence, replicas of the all famous temples would be installed at Uddanda-rayunipalem on the banks of Krishna river and this would be the attraction of the traditional Krishna Pushkaralu.
Mumbai: Citing a change of circumstances following the chargesheet being filed in the Sheena Bora murder case, media baron Peter Mukerjea has once again filed a plea seeking bail, contending that the chargesheet does not mention anything against him.

According to the CBI, Peter conspired to kill his stepdaughter Sheena because he was opposed to her relationship with his son Rahul Mukerjea. Some financial reasons are also said to be the reason behind her murder.

Read: Sheena case: Peter Mukerjea files another bail application

Peters lawyer Kushal Mor filed the second bail application on Wednesday before special CBI judge H.S. Mahajan. Relying on e-mails sent by Peter to his son Rahul in December 2011, the defense said these mails prove that Peter was not against Rahuls engagement with Sheena. The bail application further said that this was demonstrably untrue and unsustainable, that Peter was against the relationship between Rahul and Sheena.

In the plea, Peter claimed it was not him, but Indrani, who objected to Rahul and Sheena's relationship. He had also denied the allegation of being informed by Indrani about the murder and the said calls were made by Indrani to her daughter, Vidhie.

The plea termed the allegations levelled against him in the case as 'false, baseless and unbelievable' and also putting the onus on his wife Indrani, saying that she was highly ambitious and was willing to go to any lengths for that.

She was highly ambitious and was willing to sacrifice and give up her own children to achieve her ambitions. She was extremely controlling by nature and had a very strong grip on her employees and people who worked for her, Peter said.

In one portion of bail application it is said that Indrani was very calculative and even resorted to subterfuge in the months of March and April 2012 while tricking Sheena into believing that Indrani was ready and willing to forget the past acrimony and anger and turn into a friend and well-wisher of Sheena, in order to lure her.

The bail plea further states that there was no justification for keeping him in custody as there were no reasonable grounds in the chargesheet to believe that he has been guilty of offences with which he is charged.

Read: Peter knew Indrani was threatening Sheena, says Rahul Mukerjea

The CBI court had earlier rejected Peters first bail application on February 12, observing that the chargesheet was not filed and investigation was still on.

The second bail application also said Peter was a senior citizen, suffered from high blood pressure and cholesterol, and his health would deteriorate if he was kept in jail.

Peter was arrested on November 19. He is lodged in Arthur Road jail in Mumbai. Other co-accused, Indranis former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamvar Rai are in the same jail, while Indrani is in the Byculla womens jail.

Indrani, Rai and Khanna allegedly strangled Sheena (24), Indranis daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012. The crime came to light last August after the police had arrested Rai in another case for possessing illegal arms and he had spilled the beans about Sheenas murder.
The couple was in a live-in relationship after Jyoti got divorced from her husband a few months ago. (Photo: Representational Image)

Mumbai: Vikroli police on Sunday arrested a 34-year-old man for allegedly killing his girlfriend by slitting her throat. The accused was suspicious that his girlfriend was having an affair.

Identified as Nitin Rajput, the accused also tried to flee from the place but the Vikroli police was able to trace and arrest him.

According to the police, Jyoti Gaikwad, 33, was found injured outside her building premises in Kannamvar Nagar of Vikroli on March 23.

At night when they were both returning after burning Holika, they got into a heated argument after which Nitin slit Jyotis throat with a borrowed knife and fled from the place, said police official.

Residents who saw her lying a pool of blood took her to Rajawadi Hospital where she was declared dead late in the night.

Nitin and Jyoti would fight often as he suspected Jyoti of having an affair with someone else, said sources from the police. The couple was in a live-in relationship after Jyoti got divorced from her husband a few months ago. She has two children but was living with Nitin without them as he did not approve of the kids.

Police officials said that Jyotis parents never liked Nitin as he works in a mall and has a meagre salary. So they did not permit Jyoti to marry him. Six months into the relationship, Jyoti moved in with Nitin but would often complain to her mother that he would beat her up suspecting her loyalty towards him. Jyotis mother often told her to break up with him but she continued to live with Nitin.

According to police officials, they have arrested Nitin under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destroying evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He was produced before the holiday court.
It appears there were many more winners than losers in the Budget outlined by Singapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat on Thursday. A business-focused Budget, it nevertheless spread around some "goodies" for a broad base of Singaporeans in line with its aim to build a "caring and resilient" society.



Here's a look at who "won" and who "lost" in Budget 2016.

Winners:

Some 1.4 million Singaporeans: To support households amid current economic conditions, Heng announced that the government will provide a one-off GST voucher cash special payment of up to $200 for eligible GST voucher cash recipients. The special payment is expected to cost an additional $280 million in 2016 and benefit some 1.4 million Singaporeans.

SMEs: The existing corporate income tax rebate will be raised to 50 per cent of tax payable from 30 per cent, with a cap of $20,000 rebate each year for the years of assessment (YAs) 2016 and 2017. It is estimated that the increased support will cost an additional $180 million over two years. Heng pointed out that the higher percentage rebate is targeted at SMEs.

Heng will also expand the SME mezzanine growth fund to $150 million from $100 million. He will also introduce an SME Working Capital Loan Scheme for loans of up to $300,000 per SME. The government will co-share 50 per cent of the default risk of such loans.

Couples having children: Government will introduce a new Child Development Account (CDA) first step grant for all Singaporean children. Parents of children born from 24 March this year will automatically receive $3,000 in their childs CDA, which they can use for their childrens healthcare and childcare needs. Parents who save more will continue to receive dollar for dollar matching from the government up to the co-savings cap.

Heng also announced that the MediSave withdrawal limit for pre-delivery medical expenses would be doubled to $900 from $450 with immediate effect.

Some parents with young children: Heng announced a new pilot initiative called KidSTART aimed at helping children up to six years-old receive appropriate learning development and health support. It is expected to cost $20 million and help about 1,000 children.

Story continues

Also, a grant of up to $35,000 will be given to families with children in rental housing to help such families own a two-room flat with a shorter lease as long as they stay employed and make sure their children attend school.

Older workers and firms employing them: Heng will modify and extend the Special Employment Credit (SEC) for three years to the end of 2019 to provide employers with a wage offset for workers aged 55 and above earning up to $4,000 a month. About 340,000 workers are expected to benefit from the move, which will be funded by a $1.1 billion top-up of the SEC Fund.

Low-income workers: Government will improve the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) for work done from January next year. The qualifying income will be raised to $2,000 a month from $1,900. It is expected to benefit 460,000 Singaporeans. WIS payouts will also increase depending on a workers age and income. For example, workers earning $1,000 to $1,600 a month will receive increases in payouts of $100 to $500, Heng said.

Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who want to learn: Under the Adapt and Grow initiative, the Ministry of Manpower will enhance employment support, commiting an additional $35 million from the Lifelong Learning Endowment Fund and Skills Development Fund.

Disabled low-income workers who want to learn: Persons with disabilities who earn low wages and are under 35-year-old will be eligible for the Workfare Training Support scheme.

The elderly: Silver Support-eligible seniors will receive between $300 and $750 every quarter, depending on flat type. Government will also increase the Singapore allowance and monthly pension ceiling by $20 per month each to $300 and $1,230, respectively. This is expected to benefit about 10,000 pensioners.

Some households relying on public assistance: The basic monthly cash allowance on public assistance for a two-person household both on public assistance will receive an additional $80 a month

HDB households: One to three months of service and conservancy charges rebates will be given, with 1 and 2-room HDB households receiving a total of three months rebates for this year. This will cost the government $86 million and benefit about 840,000 HDB households, said Heng.

Firms specializing in public works projects: Total spending, including public infrastructure projects, is expected to be $5 billion (7.3 per cent) higher than fiscal year 2015. The increases are mainly in healthcare, education, security and urban development. Heng also unveiled plans for the Jurong Innovation District, an industrial park of the future. The first phase is targeted for completion around 2022. To support the development of the Changi Airport Terminal 5, a further $1 billion top-up will be made to the Changi Airport Development Fund. Plus, government will build a new outward-bound Singapore campus on Coney Island that is expected to be ready around 2020 and cost about $250 million.

Heartland shops: The Ministry of National Development will enhance the revitalization of shops package to support promotional activities and upgrading projects in HDP town and neighbourhood centres. It is expected to cost about $15 million annually.

Companies that automate: According to Heng, the government will provide a grant to support the rollout or scaling up of automation projects. Up to 50 per cent of project cost will be funded at a maximum grant of $1 million. Also, for qualifying projects, there will be a new $100 investment allowance for automation equipment. To improve SMEs access to loans, governments risk-share with participating financial institutions will be raised to 70 per cent from 50 per cent. Heng anticipates the automation support package will provide support of over $400 million over the next three years.

Companies that consolidate, acquire: Heng will grant the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) allowance on up to $40 million of the value of the deal instead of the current cap of $20 million.

Companies that dispose equity investments: Heng will extend the non-taxation of companies gains on disposal of their equity investments.

Companies involved in robotics: Over $450 million will be made available to support the National Robotics Programme over the next three years, said Heng.

Trade associations and chambers: To help TACs strengthen their outreach, government will build the existing Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) Programme through the new LEAD-Plus programme. The government will also set aside up to $30 million over the next five years to support TACs in developing their capabilities.

Researchers, scientists, companies investing in R&D: To support the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) plan, up to $4 billion will be directed to industry-research collaboration. A top-up of $1.5 billion will also be provided to the National Research Fund this year.

As a whole, Heng said he was setting aside a total of $4.5 billion under the industry transformation programme to support enterprises and industries, on top of the amounts for R&D and the national productivity fund.

Companies that encourage employees to help charities: Heng said he would introduce a pilot business and Institutions of a Public Character (IPC) scheme. From 1 July this year to the end of 2018, businesses that organise their employees to volunteer and provide services to IPCs will receive a 250 per cent tax deduction on associated cost incurred subject to the receiving IPCs agreement. The deduction will be subject to a yearly cap of $250,000 per business and $50,000 per IPC.

For three years starting from April this year, government will also provide dollar-for-dollar matching for any additional donations through Community Chests (ComChest) SHARE programme. The government will also allow part of the matching funds to be used by businesses to organize corporate social responsibility activities.

Also, a new fund called Our Singapore will be set up to support projects that build the spirit of caring and resilience, nurture our can-do spirit and promote unity and our sense of being Singaporean. The total fund size will be up to $25 million and will be set up by the second half of 2016.

Losers:

Most companies employing work permit and S-pass holders: Government will proceed with levy increases for services and construction work permit holders, as well as S pass holders in every sector as announced in last years budget, said Heng. Only the levies for workers in the marine and process sectors will be deferred for a year.

Companies that rely on the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) Scheme: The cash payout rate under the scheme will be lowered to 40 per cent from 60 per cent for expenditures incurrent on or after 1 August this year.

The 1 per cent: Heng will cap the total amount of personal income tax relief an individual can claim at $80,000 per year of assessment. At that threshold, 99 per cent of tax resident individuals will not be affected, he said. It will take effect from year of assessment 2018 and is expected to raise an additional $100 million a year.
The Iraqi army said Thursday its troops and allied militia had launched what is expected to be a long and difficult offensive to retake the second city of Mosul, the Islamic State group's main hub in Iraq. The army and the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary force "have begun the first phase of conquest operations" in the northern Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, Iraq's joint operations command said in a statement. It said four villages had been taken between the town of Qayyarah, which is still held by IS, and Makhmur, where US-backed Iraqi forces have been massing in recent weeks. The army did not say how long this phase of the operation was expected to take and Iraqi forces still look far from being in a position to take the city itself. The joint operations command is coordinating the battle by Iraqi security forces to retake the large parts of the country seized by IS during a lightning offensive in 2014. It includes representatives from the US-led coalition that has provided air support, training and military advisers for the Iraqi army in its fightback. Iraqi forces have scored important recent gains against IS, including by last month retaking Anbar provincial capital Ramadi. The latest announcement comes as pro-government forces in Syria closed in on IS in the ancient city of Palmyra, which the jihadists seized around the same time as Ramadi last year. But Mosul -- which along with Raqa in Syria is one of the jihadists' two main hubs -- would be a major prize. Experts have warned that any battle to retake the city will be difficult, given the significant number of jihadists and civilians in the city and the time IS has had to prepare defences. Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the commander of the US-led operation against IS, has said that Iraqi generals do not think they will be able to recapture Mosul until the end of 2016 or early 2017 at the earliest. As they have done in battles to retake cities like Ramadi and Tikrit, Iraqi forces are expected to work slowly and deliberately to cut off supply lines to Mosul before launching an assault on the city. - Long way to Mosul - Thousands of troops were deployed in February to a base in Makhmur, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) southeast of Mosul, in preparation for the offensive. The US-led coalition said it carried out three strikes in the Qayyarah area on Wednesday. "Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIL (IS) communication facility and destroyed an ISIL-used bridge section and denied ISIL access to terrain," it said in a statement. It also launched eight strikes in the broader Mosul region. Peshmerga fighters of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region have also been heavily involved in the campaign against IS in northern Iraq. The peshmerga deputy commander for the sector, Araz Mirkhan, confirmed to AFP on Thursday that the offensive had started. "Iraq forces in Makhmur have begun their advance towards Qayyarah to the south of Mosul," he said, referring to the town on the Tigris River to the west of Makhmur. "The advance has allowed us to liberate four or five villages from the Daesh terrorists," he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS. Iraqi forces collapsed in the face of the 2014 IS advance and the jihadist group ultimately overran around a third of the country. IS has declared an Islamic "caliphate" in areas under its control in Iraq and in neighbouring Syria, where it has also seized significant territory. Imposing its extremist interpretation of Islamic law, IS has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control and launched a wave of attacks against the West, including this week's bombings in Brussels that killed 31 people. The US-led coalition of Western and Arab nations launched air strikes against IS in Iraq in August of 2014 and has killed thousands of the jihadists. The top US envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk has said several times since the start of the year that the operation to liberate Mosul was already underway. "Mosul has kind of already started, but you've got to think of it of a rolling kind of campaign to isolate and squeeze," he said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to intensify the drive for a political settlement in Syria but remained divided over Bashar al-Assad's future. After four hours of talks at the Kremlin, Kerry said the United States and Russia had found common ground on the Syrian peace process and on taking the fight to the Islamic State jihadist group. Before the meeting, US officials had suggested he would sound out the Russian leader about pressuring his ally Assad to step aside as part of the political solution, but afterwards little of this was said. Kerry noted that Putin had begun to withdraw the Russian forces that had been sent to shore up Assad's rule, and had renewed Russia's commitment to the political process under way at UN-mediated peace talks in Geneva. "Russia will have to speak for itself as what it's going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today... that we will try to accelerate the effort to move the political process forward," he said. "We agreed on a target schedule for establishing a framework for a political transition and also a draft constitution, and the target is August," Kerry said at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the talks. Lavrov told journalists that Moscow and Washington would now step up efforts to get the Syrian regime and opposition to hold "direct talks" in Geneva, where a round of negotiations that saw a United Nations mediator shuttle between the delegations concluded on Thursday. "As the immediate task we have agreed to push for the soonest start of direct talks between the government delegation and the whole spectrum of the opposition," Lavrov said, calling for "a transitional governance structure" in the war-torn country. Putin did not attend the final news conference, but he had unexpectedly warm words for the United States' role in Syria at the start of the Kremlin encounter. "We understand that what we have managed to achieve on Syria has only been possible thanks to the constructive position of the political leadership in the US, the position of President Obama," Putin said. Kerry said the two sides were looking to bolster the month-old ceasefire between Assad's forces and the opposition hammered out by Putin and Barack Obama. "We agreed today to build on recent gains to take immediate steps to reinforce the cessation of hostilities," Kerry said, adding this included "steps to end the use of any indiscriminate weapons, to halt attempts by either side to seize new territory and to finalise a common understanding for how this cessation can be institutionalised." "We agreed that the regime and the opposition need to begin releasing detainees," he added. Lavrov told Kerry that diplomatic efforts had been focused on creating a "balance of interests" among all sides involved in the Syrian crisis, including Moscow and Washington. - Russian warplanes - But US officials fear the Syrian opposition will drop out of UN-mediated peace talks in Geneva unless Russia's ally Assad agrees to step down as part of a political transition. Putin has stood by Assad, and even sent Russian warplanes to fight to protect his regime and strike the Islamic State, which has seized territory in the east of the country. But Moscow's partial withdrawal of its forces from Syria has created what Washington believes is an opportunity to press for a change of stance on the regime. "What we're looking for, and what we've been looking for, for a long time is how are we going to transition away from Assad's leadership," a senior US official told reporters. In Geneva, opposition negotiators confirmed that they are counting on Russia to keep the pressure on the regime. After the latest round of talks with UN mediator Staffan de Mistura, opposition spokesman Bassma Kodmani said: "This is a unique moment, a precious moment and we hope Russia will seize this moment and use its leverage." And de Mistura said Thursday that the UN was aiming to restart Syria peace talks on April 9. Ties between Russia and the US have been at their lowest point since the Cold War amid fury over the Kremlin's meddling in Ukraine. Kerry insisted Washington was not backing down on the crisis. Kerry said Ukraine's territory still includes the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed two years ago, as well as disputed rebel-held areas in the east of the country. He also said that he had raised the issue of freeing Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko after she was sentenced this week to 22 years in jail over the killing of two Russian journalists following what the West has condemned as a politically motivated sham trial.
Congress had utilised the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh to run down Savarkar by juxtaposing the famous revolutionary against the BJP-RSS ideologue. (Photo: Twitter)

Ballia: BJP on Friday hit back at Congress for running down BJP-RSS ideologue V D Savarkar, saying the day is not too far when even Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel would "appear anti-national" to the opposition party.

BJP MP Ravindra Kushwaha accused Congress of openly siding with anti-national elements. Yaqoob Memon and Afzal Guru had become Congress party's "ideals", while it considered Savarkar, who played an important role in freedom struggle, as anti-national, he alleged.

"If Savarkar was a traitor, why did the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi issue a commemorative stamp while praising Sarvarkar," the Lok Sabha member from Salempur constituency in Uttar Pradesh said.

"The day is not too far when Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel will appear to them (Congress) as anti-national," he said

He alleged that Congress leaders were "desperate and frustrated" due to the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and were unable to differentiate between "pro and anti-national elements".

Congress had utilised the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh to run down Savarkar by juxtaposing the famous revolutionary against the BJP-RSS ideologue.

Bhagat Singh dared the British Raj to send the executioners. BJP-RSS ideologue Savarkar begged for his own release, tweets Congress. (Photo: Twitter)

"Bhagat Singh dared the British Raj to send the executioners. BJP-RSS ideologue Savarkar begged for his own release. Bhagat Singh waged war for Freedom from British Raj, V D Savarkar begged for mercy, to be a slave in British Raj," the party had said in a series of tweets.

Bhagat Singh dared the British Raj to send the executioners.

BJP-RSS ideologue Savarkar begged for his own release pic.twitter.com/QLQFW9puoy  INC India (@INCIndia) March 23, 2016

To a query regarding BJP's preparations for 2017 UP Assembly elections, Kushwaha claimed there was a wave in favour of his party. He said Modi was the biggest face of the party, which would disclose its election strategy at the right time.
By Lesley Wroughton and Denis Dyomkin MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and the United States agreed at talks in Moscow on Thursday to use their influence over the sides in the Syria conflict to speed up progress towards a political solution. Speaking after a four-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow and Washington would try in the next few days to nudge Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to "make the right decision" about committing fully to peace talks. Negotiations in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and opposition are bogged down, and Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Assad, can convince Damascus to make concessions. The main stumbling block is whether Syria's political transition will lead to Assad leaving office. His opponents and Western governments say he must go, but Damascus says that is not even on the agenda for negotiations. "Russia will have to speak itself as to what it is going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today that we will accelerate the effort to try to move the political process forward," Kerry told a news conference after his talks with Putin. "I believe that Russia is fully engaged in this effort and all of us are going to try and get President Assad to make the right decision over these next days to engage in a political process that results in a genuine transition" and brings peace to Syria," Kerry said. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who appeared alongside Kerry at the news conference in the Kremlin, did not say in his remarks if Russia was prepared to apply any pressure specifically on Assad. He said only that Russia would encourage all sides to commit to the principles of the talks in Geneva, which are being brokered by the United Nations. "Perhaps the most important thing at this stage: we agreed to increase efforts to establish the necessary conditions for a political process," Lavrov said. "The political process should end with the Syrians themselves agreeing on how they want to see their country. "As for the most immediate tasks, we have agreed to work towards a speedy start of direct talks in Geneva between the government delegation and a whole spectre of the opposition," Lavrov told reporters. Both Kerry and Lavrov said they agreed to take immediate steps to reinforce the cessation of hostilities and halt attempts by warring parties to seize new territory, to push for expanded humanitarian access to all parts of Syria, and for the government and opposition to start releasing detainees starting with the most vulnerable. COMMON GROUND The atmosphere at the talks was less frosty than in previous encounters. Putin cracked jokes, and afterwards, both Kerry and the Russian foreign minister tried to accentuate the common ground in their relationship, rather than their many differences. They said they agreed to keep working together to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev's forces and pro-Moscow separatists. Kerry said he raised with Putin the issue of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot in a Russian jail after she was convicted of complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists during the separatist conflict. Kiev says she was the victim of a show trial. Lavrov said he obtained an agreement from Kerry to launch a dialogue about the U.S. missile defence shield in eastern Europe. Moscow argues the system is a threat to its security. Kerry arrived in Moscow 10 days after Putin announced he was withdrawing the bulk of Russia's military force in Syria, a decision Western governments see as an opportunity to draw a line under the fighting and push ahead with peace talks. Russia and the United States have emerged as the two outside powers with a decisive say in what happens next in Syria's five year-old civil conflict. The United States and its allies have been backing armed groups that rose up against Assad's rule, while Moscow has asserted its role with a five-month military campaign that turned the tide of the fighting in Assad's favour. Western diplomats have said the government delegation in Syria is so far prepared only to talk about procedures for negotiations and has resisted attempts to broach the future of President Assad. At the start of the meeting in the Kremlin, Putin made an attempt at levity, joshing Kerry over the fact that he carried his own luggage as he stepped off his plane on arrival in Moscow. "There was something in that briefcase of yours you couldn't trust someone else with. Have you brought some money with you?" Putin said, to laughter from Kerry and the rest of the officials in the room. Kerry responded: "When we have a private moment I will show you what is in that briefcase and I think you'd be surprised...pleasantly." (Writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Lidia Kelly)
US President Barack Obama headed back to the United States early Friday after a historic trip to Latin America that saw him make a landmark visit to Cuba before continuing on to Argentina. Obama walked with his wife, Michelle, his two daughters and his mother-in-law down the tarmac at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport, before Air Force One took off at 12:11 am (0311 GMT). The first family changed planes at the airport, arriving on another jet after an afternoon in the Andean resort of Bariloche, where they went for a hike and boat ride in a national park. Obama also dined with his Argentine counterpart Mauricio Macri and wife Juliana Awada. Obama paid homage Thursday to victims of the dictatorship, admitting the United States was "slow to speak out for human rights" in those dark days. Obama became the first US president to formally acknowledge the victims of the 1976-1983 military regime, which declassified documents have revealed was supported by top US officials. "There's been controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days, and the United States, when it reflects on what happened here, has to examine its own policies as well, and its own past," Obama said. He spoke at Remembrance Park, a monument in Buenos Aires to the 30,000 people who were killed or went missing under the dictatorship. He paid tribute to victims' families. "Democracies have to have the courage to acknowledge when we don't live up to the ideals that we stand for; when we've been slow to speak out for human rights. And that was the case here." Tens of thousands of people joined a noisy demonstration later in Buenos Aires to mark the 40th anniversary of the US-backed coup that brought the dictators to power. They marched to the din of drums, carrying pictures of victims. Similar anniversary marches were called in towns across the country. Some rights groups complained Obama had not gone far enough. "The self-criticism was totally light," said Taty Almeida, founder of the victims' campaign group Madres Linea Fundadora. She added that Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Obama "insisted we have to look to the future. They do not acknowledge the genocide and state terrorism that was supported by the United States." - Coup anniversary - Victims' groups had been angered by the choice of the date for Obama's visit, given the US support for the coup at the time. But they welcomed his promise to declassify further documents to shed more light on the fates of the regime's victims. After the memorial ceremony Obama with his wife Michelle, her mother and the couple's daughters flew to the Andean resort of Bariloche, where they went for a hike and boat ride in a national park. Locals lined the road smiling and waving as Obama's motorcade took the family from Bariloche airport, but at one place a crowd of protesters demonstrated noisily, some raising their middle fingers. Early Friday, the Obamas left Argentina to return home to Washington. - Tango diplomacy - In 2002, Washington declassified 4,000 diplomatic cables that showed US officials encouraged the Argentine junta's purge of leftists. Obama promised to declassify other sensitive military and intelligence records linked to the "dirty war." They may shed more light on US involvement in secret police operations against dissidents in other South American states including Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Obama has tried to present a softer side of US power in Latin America during the trip this week that took him first to Cuba and then Argentina. In Havana, he attended a baseball match with Cuba's Communist President Raul Castro and even made an appearance playing dominoes in a television show with Cuban comedians. In Buenos Aires, he joked about tasting Argentina's national beverage mate and trying to meet football superstar Lionel Messi. He danced tango at a state dinner in the city on Wednesday. - US creditors - On the first bilateral visit by a US president to Argentina since Bill Clinton in 1997, Obama hoped to nurture a new regional ally. He praised Macri for the economic reforms he has passed since taking office in December after 12 years of leftist rule by the late Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina. Obama also welcomed Macri's "constructive approach" in reaching a deal with US creditors to settle debts dating to Argentina's financial crisis in 2002. He said it had led to the "possibility of a resolution" that could let Argentina back into international financial markets.
21st Century Classroom

The Future of AV Displays

Today, students are interacting with content on large touchscreen flat panels. Soon, they could be using immersive head-mounted displays.

Copyright SMART Technologies. All rights reserved.

The way students interact with content on digital displays has evolved quite a bit over the last few years  and it's poised for even greater change in the months ahead.

Many schools and colleges have invested in interactive flat panels (IFPs) that students can use as standalone systems without needing an externally connected device. New features and improvements have kept the technology relevant in today's classrooms. But in the future, audiovisual systems on campus easily could include head-mounted displays (HMDs) that immerse students in fully interactive 3D learning environments.

Interactive Flat Panels

Interactive flat panels are finding favor in schools nationwide, said Ken Colson, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Unified AV, a Southeast-based audiovisual systems integrator headquartered in Atlanta.

The resolution, brightness and longevity of IFPs have been key selling points, according to Colson. IFPs don't require replacement lamps, and many models support an onboard computer using the open pluggable specification (OPS) slot, so they don't have to be connected to an external device.

Android models. The lion's share of interactive displays for education have been powered by software from companies such as Smart Technologies or Promethean, Colson said  but a growing number of IFPs are now taking advantage of the Android operating system. They operate like a giant Android tablet, turning on instantly and providing all the interactivity of a tablet computer.

For instance, BenQ announced two new Android-based IFPs during the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) conference in February. The 79-inch RP790 features 4K resolution and 10-point multitouch technology, while the 75-inch RP750 features HD resolution, 20-point multitouch technology and a bacteria-resistant coating to help reduce the spread of germs.

4K resolution. Ultra high-definition displays, also called 4K displays because they contain four times the number of pixels as standard high-definition (1080p) displays, are becoming increasingly common as well. While 4K video screens might be too expensive for many schools, their incredibly sharp clarity could help with certain specialized applications, such as for research where fine detail is needed.

"When you hit 84-inch panels, all of them are 4K, and a majority of 75-inch panels are now 4K as well," Colson said. For example, all of Smart Technologies' larger displays (65 inches and up) are offered at 4K resolution, he noted. "For 65-inch and 70-inch displays, we're seeing that 1080p is adequate," he added, "but some schools are looking ahead and are starting to buy 4K displays, because they know the source resolution will continue to expand."

Videoconferencing. InFocus has added videoconferencing capabilities to its latest IFP, the Mondopad. The interactive display blends video calling, whiteboarding and more in one giant touchscreen PC for face-to-face collaboration, either among students in the room or from remote locations. The Mondopad is available in 57-inch, 70-inch and 80-inch versions.

Other uses. A growing trend among schools and colleges is to create "huddle spaces" for small group activities by adding a second or third display to a room, Colson said. Plus, tabletop-based interactive displays are starting to become more common, especially for elementary and special-education classrooms: "IFPs today are much more durable than they were in the past, and so some schools are taking IFPs and turning them horizontally," he explained.

Head-Mounted Displays

Students might be interacting with large flat panels today  but next year, they could be interacting with small head-mounted displays too.

For years, futurists have been predicting the use of virtual reality (VR) headsets as an instructional tool. Now, that future is finally arriving, as several manufacturers  including Google, Microsoft, Oculus and Samsung  have brought HMDs to market in the last few months.

Google Cardboard is a simple, affordable 3D viewer that turns an Android phone into a panoramic display. The Google for Education team has designed Expeditions: virtual field trips that take advantage of the technology to provide immersive, interactive experiences  such as exploring the bottom of the sea or the ruins at Machu Picchu  that bring lessons to life for students.

On March 30, Microsoft is releasing a developer version of its HoloLens technology, which it calls the "first fully untethered, holographic computer," enabling users to interact with highdefinition 3D holograms. Microsoft has partnered with Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic to develop anatomical 3D images that medical students can explore, manipulate and examine from every angle.

Microsoft HoloLens

"We've been teaching human anatomy the same way for a hundred years," said Case Western President Barbara Snyder in a video about the technology. "Students get a cadaver, then they look at medical illustrations  and it's completely two-dimensional. But the human body isn't." The HoloLens technology will allow students to interact with 3D content in ways they couldn't before.

Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift, a $599 head-mounted VR display, is available for pre-ordering. And Samsung has developed the Gear VR headset, which is based on Oculus technology but costs $99 and works with a Galaxy phone. Samsung's Education division said it's looking for schools and colleges to pilot the technology.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday called China's military deployments on the South China Sea "counterproductive", an unusually forceful rebuke against the country's biggest trading partner. Australia has consistently supported U.S.-led freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been adding reclamation to islands and reefs in waters claimed by several regional countries. The United States has accused China of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island, a move China has neither confirmed nor denied. "They are ... counterproductive, regardless of the legal merits, on which we do not express a view nor make a claim," Turnbull said in a speech in Sydney, referring to China's military deployments. Turnbull is expected to visit China next month. The Chinese government last month expressed its displeasure with Australia's new defense spending plan. China has repeatedly accused the United States of militarizing the South China Sea with its freedom of navigation patrols in the region, and boosting of military alliances with countries like the Philippines. In February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said his country's South China Sea military deployments were no different from U.S. deployments on Hawaii. Tensions between China and its neighbors Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan over sovereignty in the South China Sea have risen after China embarked on significant reclamations on disputed islands and reefs in the area. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. (Reporting by Byron Kaye and Matt Siegel; Editing by Nick Macfie)
The resource centre on Bhagat Singh displays compilations of handwritten letters by the freedom fighter and will be later developed as a museum. (Photo: DU official website)

New Delhi: Delhi University marked the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh as Martyrs Day on Wednesday by opening the doors of a room in the Viceregal Lodge, where the freedom fighter was reportedly imprisoned for a day during a court trial. The Viceregal Lodge Estate, which now houses the office of the DU vice-chancellor, was given over to the university in 1933.

The university invited 100 school students from five schools for the first guided tour of the resource materials and a visit to the room, which housed works on and by Bhagat Singh. The resource centre on Bhagat Singh displays compilations of handwritten letters by the freedom fighter and will be later developed as a museum.

The resource centre aspires to make everyone learn from the lives of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his associates, DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi said. However, the VC said the university has no plans to open it for the public.

But this is definitely a beginning where students of our university and research scholars and even school children will get an opportunity to learn from the writings of the martyr and the scholarly works on him, Tyagi said.

It was on this day in 1931 that freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were executed, a few hours ahead of schedule after the trio was sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case.

Asked to comment on the comparisons between Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president Kanhaiya Kumar and Bhagat Singh, Tyagi -- an alumni of JNU said he believes anyone fighting for a just cause is inspired by the legendary freedom fighter.

This is not the right occasion (to comment). Its a solemn occasion where we are commemorating the death of a martyr who spent one day in this room. But I believe that anyone who is fighting for a just cause is inspired by Bhagat Singh, Tyagi said.
By Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh's central bank confirmed on Sunday that cyber criminals tried to withdraw $951 million from its U.S. bank account, as the countrys finance minister said he first got to know of one of the biggest bank heists in history through the media. Unknown hackers breached the computer systems of Bangladesh Bank, and transferred $81 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to casinos in the Philippines between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5. Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said the central bank did not inform him about the heist, and that he learned of it only a month later when news first appeared in the media. I am very much unhappy about the handling of the issue, he told reporters in his office in Dhaka. He said he planned to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday and decide what action to take against central bank officials. The cyber heist and its global scale has left Bangladesh officials scrambling to find answers and recover the money that was lost. The incident has also left other banks and businesses around the world eager to learn more, so they can review their own networks for signs that they are vulnerable to similar attacks or might already have been breached. Bangladesh Bank said in a Facebook post that hackers made 35 separate requests to withdraw money from its Fed account, totaling $951 million, confirming earlier reports. Officials have said the account, used for international settlements, had billions of dollars. Bangladesh officials expect that it would be difficult to recover the money that has already gone out of the banking channels. Officials have said that the money that made its way to the Philippines was further diverted to casinos and then possibly on to Hong Kong. After a meeting with the investigators and central bank officials on Sunday, Mohammad Aslam Alam, the secretary of the banking division of the ministry of finance, said recovery could take months. But he added that the Philippines had managed to freeze $68,000, which Dhaka should be able to recover. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the largest opposition party, demanded the resignation of the central bank governor and the finance minister. (Reporting by Serajul Quadir; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Stephen Powell)
By Susanna Twidale LONDON (Reuters) - The Hinkley Point nuclear power project in Britain will go ahead, EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz told MPs on Wednesday, though he did not give a definite schedule. The 18 billion pound project was announced in October 2013 but a final investment decision has been delayed as EDF secures partners and financing. Chinese utility CGN signed up for a one-third stake in October, leaving EDF to fund the rest. "Clearly and categorically, Hinkley Point C will go ahead," de Rivaz said, speaking in front of parliament's energy and climate change committee. De Rivaz said EDF had spent 2.4 billion pounds so far developing the nuclear site in Somerset in the south of Britain. He reiterated comments on Tuesday by French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron that EDF was expected to make a final investment decision in early May, but would not confirm this was a definitive schedule. The French government last week said it was ready to provide the financial backing EDF needs to go ahead with the Hinkley Point project and De Rivaz said any French support would not increase costs for British consumers. The project is part of British energy plans to replace ageing power plants and meet emission-reduction targets. Two other groups are planning to build nuclear power plants in Britain: NuGen, which is a joint venture between Toshiba's Westinghouse and France's Engie, and Hitachi's Horizon. Industry experts told MPs that if Hinkley C did not go ahead it could have a knock on effect on the development of other nuclear projects in Britain. However, both the other groups said the Hinkley delays had not deterred them from investing in projects in Britain and they were not dependent on Hinkley C proceeding. NuGen Chief Executive Officer Tom Samson told MPs it plans to make a final investment decision on its Moorside nuclear plant in northwest England by the end of 2018. Horizon Chief Operating Officer Alan Raymant said a decision on its Wylfa plant in Wales would be taken by the end of 2019. (Editing by Jason Neely and David Clarke)
barack obama che cuba

Amid the fanfare surrounding President Barack Obamas landmark visit to Cuba on Monday, a different US diplomatic achievement took place.

As Obama toured Havana, Secretary of State John Kerry sat down for a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a left-wing rebel group that has fought Colombian forces and paramilitaries for more than 50 years.

The meeting was the first one between a US secretary of state and the FARC since the rebels were designated a terrorist group by the US in 1997.

Even now, as peace talks move forward, US government considers the FARC a terrorist organization, but that may soon change.

John Kerry FARC meeting Cuba

The FARCs struggle with the Colombian state has dragged on since the early 1960s, and the rebel group, which formed in part as a self-defense group for rural Colombians, has since moved into other, more nefarious enterprises  including kidnapping and drug trafficking.

The Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos and FARC representatives began peace talks in 2012 in Havana. Since then, the negotiators have reached at least partial accords on five of the six points on their agenda, with the end of conflict point  how to disarm and reintegrate FARC fighters  needing the most work, according to the Americas Society.

The issue of FARCs inclusion on the US State Departments Foreign Terrorist Organizations list has become particularly salient as the conflict nears what appears to be an end.

John Kerry Colombia FARC meeting Cuba

Story continues

Colombian President Santos said earlier this year that once a deal was signed the US should remove the group from the list.

If they sign its because we have a timetable for their disarmament and they have committed themselves to lay down their arms and make this transition to legal life, Santos told the AP. So I would say yes, I hope that they would be eliminated from the terror list.

The US has said such a change would require more evidence of the FARCs commitment to peace.

Colombia FARC attack soldiers

We take the [Colombian] presidents request very seriously, but the same laws that apply to other groups apply to the FARC  they have to disarm, end their criminal activities and stop forming a risk for US interests, US special envoy Bernard Aronson said earlier this year.

When this happens, a revision process will begin to determine if the conditions [that justify a groups designation as terrorist] no longer exist and they can be removed, Aronson added.

Even if Colombian and FARC negotiators conclude a peace deal, removal from the terror list could take some time. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group with extensive ties to Colombian politicians and responsible for many rights abuses, weren't removed from the list until 2014  eight years after they officially demobilized.

Other issues remain before a deal is finished. In March, the Colombian congress gave the government power to set up demobilization zones, where government officials wont be able arrest FARC members.

Critics worry this step will permit an incident similar to one that happened in the early 2000s, when FARC rebels used such a zone to remobilize and entrench their drug-trafficking operations. (Santos has suggested some leniency for FARC's drug traffickers as part of the deal, but stressed than any violators of the deal would face extradition to the US.)

Cuba's President Raul Castro (C) stands as Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos (L) and FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, shake hands in Havana, September 23, 2015. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

FARC members are also worried as they attempt to reenter civilian political life, they could face violent retaliation, as happened in the 1980s and 1990s and continues to happen to members of Colombia's political left. (Reintegration of the millions of displaced persons in Colombia is also a point of concern.)

To that end, Kerry affirmed US willingness to support the security of those who lay down their arms as part of the peace process.

Kerrys meeting with FARC leadership, as well as the USs role in Colombia-FARC negotiations more broadly, have escaped notice amid Obamas historic rapprochement with Cuba.

But rather then competing initiatives, US officials framed the two events as part of a united diplomatic effort.

This Cuba policy is also our Latin American policy, national security adviser Ben Rhodes told press at a Monday-evening briefing. Its why we are at the peace table with the Colombians here in Havana.

NOW WATCH: This is why US aircraft carriers are a force to be reckoned with





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By Lesley Wroughton and John Irish MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to press President Vladimir Putin over a political transition for Syria on Thursday, after Europe's foreign policy chief turned up unexpectedly in Geneva to try to reinvigorate peace talks. With a fragile truce in place and Europe pressing the warring sides to keep going with negotiations, a state department official said Kerry wants to "get down to brass tacks" on the question of President Bashar al-Assad's future. The head of Syria's delegation in Geneva sounded positive after meeting European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, a rare encounter with a senior Western figure. "For the first time, I can tell you that we were able to break the impasse, maybe in the form and a little bit in substance," he said, adding that the government would attend the next round of talks after legislative elections in government-held areas on April 13. He did not give any details and Mogherini said the EU had not changed its position on the need to start a political transition in Damascus. The Saudi-backed opposition, whose chief delegate also met Mogherini, has said there are no points of convergence. The negotiations have been bogged down on a series of issues and one delegate said it was up to Kerry and Putin to create a breakthrough. "We're waiting for a U.S.-Russian accord to solve the (key) issue once and for all. Until they resolve it this process will drag on," Randa Kassis, who heads up a Moscow-backed opposition group, said. While the United States want Assad to step aside, Russia says only the Syrian people can decide his fate at the ballot box and has bristled at any talk of regime change. Kerry is holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, in a meeting arranged after the Russian leader's surprise announcement on March 14 that he was partially withdrawing his forces from Syria. "The Secretary would like to now really hear where President Putin is in his thinking ... on a political transition" in Syria, the official said as Kerry arrived in Moscow. "Obviously what we are looking for, and what we have been looking for, is how we are going to transition Syria away from Assad's leadership," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. UNILATERAL THREAT After five years of conflict that has killed over 250,000 people and caused the world's worst refugee crisis, Washington and Moscow reached a deal three weeks ago for a cessation of hostilities and delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas. The State Department official said meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would evaluate the status of the ceasefire and try to "get on the same page" about ending violations and increasing humanitarian assistance. Russia this week threatened to act unilaterally against those who violate the ceasefire unless it reached a deal with the United States on ways to detect and prevent truce breaches. The Syrian opposition has accused government forces of renewing sieges and stepping up a campaign of barrel-bombing across the country. Government officials have rejected any discussion on the fate of Assad. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the peace talks were always going to be long and difficult, and it was too early to talk about patience running out on any side. U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday he hoped the U.S-Russia meeting would give an impetus to the peace talks where the divisive issue of a political transition is stalling progress. But the State Department official played down expectations the meeting would have an immediate impact on the talks, which adjourn on Thursday. A Syrian activist at the talks, Jihad Makdissi, said de Mistura was planning to issue a paper on a "potential common vision". The Syrian government delegation said the U.N. envoy had handed them a document which they would study on their return to Damascus. No details of either paper were disclosed. However, the United Nations said the Syrian government had given verbal assurances that aid convoys can go into three or four areas that its forces are besieging. U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the United Nations had been allowed to enter eight or nine of the 11 areas it had asked to supply with aid, including three or four besieged areas. But it had not been allowed to go into the town of Daraya, where the World Food Programme has said some people have been reduced to eating grass. PALMYRA OFFENSIVE On the battlefield, Syrian government forces and their allies were reported to have pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday. State news agency SANA quoted a military source who said the army and allied militia advanced in the hills outside Palmyra and towards a road junction "after eliminating the last terrorist Daesh groups there", referring to Islamic State fighters. Islamic State is not covered by the truce agreement. The Syrian army is trying to recapture Palmyra, which Islamic State seized in May, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor. Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Russia has withdrawn around half of its air force in Syria, according to Reuters calculations based on state TV footage, some of which was not broadcast. But Moscow has maintained a group of Su-24 bombers at its Latakia air base and deployed a number of advanced attack helicopters, meaning it is able to continue a reduced number of air strikes in the country. Operating from Russias Shayrat air base southeast of Homs, the helicopter force will be used to secure territory gains around Aleppo and support the Syrian army offensive against Islamic State in Palmyra, Western officials said. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, John Davison, Dominic Evans, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Writing by Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher, editing by Peter Millership and John Stonestreet)
An international manhunt is under way to find the third suspected bomber at an airport in Brussels - who is believed to be still at large after his device failed to explode.

Investigators received a significant tip-off after a taxi driver said he had taken three "suspicious" individuals to Zaventem Airport - and was told not to touch their luggage upon arrival.

The driver directed police to the house where he had picked them up in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek, and when detectives went inside the property, they found a nail bomb, chemical products and an Islamic State flag.

However, there was no sign of the fugitive captured on CCTV inside the airport, wearing a lightly-coloured jacket and a hat, who ran away from the terminal after dual explosions left at least 14 people dead.

Investigators believe the two men alongside him, in dark clothes, had blown themselves up using bombs in their suitcases - possibly hiding the detonator under a single glove they both appeared to be wearing.

:: Brussels Terror Attacks: What We Know So Far

Late into the night, police helicopters hovered above Belgium's capital, with raids continuing across the city, in a bid to find the suspect - who has been described as extremely dangerous.

The public is being urged to contact the authorities if they recognise him.

An undetonated suicide vest was found at the Zaventem Airport in the aftermath and was later deactivated by bomb disposal experts.

Detectives are also continuing to investigate the blast which ripped through a metro train at Maalbeek station during the height of rush hour - killing a further 20 people barely an hour after the airport bombings took place.

:: Passengers Evacuated After 'Enormous' Blast

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for both terror attacks, and in a statement, the terror group warned of "dark days" ahead for the western nations against it.

"What is coming is worse and more bitter," the letter written in Arabic and French added.

Story continues

It is not yet known whether the attacks - described as the "deadliest attacks we have ever seen in Belgium" by the country's Prime Minister - are linked to Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested in Brussels four days earlier for his role in plotting November's terror attacks in Paris.

Charles Michel added that he would lead the country in three days of national mourning following the "blind, violent and cowardly" attacks, which unfolded on the doorstep of the European Union's headquarters.

:: In the UK, anyone affected or concerned about others caught up in the attacks can call +442070080000.

:: The Belgian Crisis Centre has also set up a helpline for people calling from outside Belgium: +3278151771. Those in Belgium are asked to call 1771.
Hyderabad: Members of the SC/ST Faculty Forum of the University of Hyderabad and a few other teaching members of the university are unhappy with Prof. Appa Rao Podile resuming duties as vice-chancellor after nearly two months following Rohith Vemula's suicide.

A representation made by around 45-50 teaching members from the university stated: We express our extreme displeasure at Prof. Appa Rao resuming office without information given even to the in-charge vice-chancellor. Prof. Appa Rao has returned to office when he has not yet been exonerated either by the court or by the judicial inquiry instituted by the MHRD based on the two-member committee report, which took into cognizance the very serious concerns raised by the students and the teaching fraternity.

The teaching members said that they were shocked at the return of Prof. Rao as they did not think that he would resume work till his name was cleared in the issue as a SC/ST Atrocity case has been filed against him.

In their representation they said, After Rohith Vemulas death, the past two months have seen a very difficult and a carefully worked out process of healing on the campus is ongoing.

Prof. Appa Raos entry has completely set this back, hurting the ongoing institutional process of repair and derailed the academic activity on campus. The suspension of classes from 23-03-2016 and postponement of the Academic Council Meeting has severely harmed the smooth progress of academic schedule and the academic prospect of the final year students.

The professors added that the damage done during the vandalism at the V-Cs lodge on Tuesday morning in the campus needed to be probed through an independent inquiry as only one section of students had been blamed for it.

The professors demanded safe return of the 27 arrested students and faculty members without delay and that no charges be brought against them and that the police should be immediately leave.

SHRC directs Vice-Chancellor to appear tomorrow

The State Human Rights Commission on Thursday directed UoH Vice-Chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile to appear before it on Saturday. The commission was hearing a petition filed by the Aam Admi Party on the shutdown of hostel messes in the university, disconnection of internet connection and for not allowing media in the campus.

In the petition, the AAP said the way police used brute force inside the university in the name of law enforcement at the behest of universitys vice-chancellor was deeply disturbing. Not allowing the media inside the campus to cover the incidents was a violation of right to information, the petition said.

It also complained of denying access to ATMs in campus apart from access to food by shutting down of hostel messes which the petition said is clear violation of human rights of the students.

University to evict outsiders

Following Tuesdays violence at UoH, the varsity has decided to evict unauthorised residents from its hostels. If required, help will be taken from the police and university security or from the university's academic section for the evacuation. The evacuation was called as an important aspect in resolving various issues on the campus by the join action committee (JAC) of non-teaching employees.

UoH has decided on a timeframe of one week to evict the illegal boarders. A university official said, It is not just the security aspect but also that the unauthorised hostel residents put extra burden on the university. Help of students and security officials will be taken in identifying the non-boarders. While officials say that the number of illegal boarders would be 200, students say that the figure would be much higher.
By Maja Zuvela SREBRENICA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Survivors of the Srebrenica massacre said the 40-year jail term handed down on Thursday to Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic for war crimes and genocide was not tough enough and came too late. "I am so disappointed," said Bida Smajlovic, 64, who watched a live broadcast of the verdict with her two sisters-in-law in Potocari, a Srebrenica suburb where the three women saw their husbands for the last time 21 years ago. "We have been in shock ever since the first gunshot and this is yet another one," she added. All three of the husbands perished when Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, took over the U.N.-protected area of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. They separated women from men and massacred about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the following days in Europe's worst single atrocity since World War Two. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Karadzic guilty on 10 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the customs of war, including the genocide in Srebrenica. It acquitted him of charges for genocide in seven other municipalities. "I wish there was capital punishment," added Vasva Smajlovic, 73. "My husband is dead for 20 years and Karadzic is still alive. At least I expected a lifetime (in) prison." The streets were empty in what is now a ghost town and there were only rare passers-by willing to comment on the verdict on the president of the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic and the supreme commander of its armed forces during the 1992-95 war. Bida Smajlovic's husband tried to escape through the woods but was killed along with his two brothers. Their bodies were found in two separate mass graves in the eastern Bosnia, where bones of the Srebrenica victims are still being dug out 20 years later. "This came too late," sighed Bida Smajlovic, who lives alone in her home overlooking 7,000 white tombstones where the victims were buried. Another 1,000 are still unaccounted for. "We were handed down a verdict in 1995," she said. "There is no sentence that could compensate for the horrors we went through or for the tears of only one mother, let alone thousands." Many Bosnian Serbs however defend Karadzic and believe that Serbs have been unjustly targeted by The Hague tribunal. "The 40-year imprisonment is unfair and will contribute neither to truth nor to trust in our region," said Mladen Bosic, the head of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) that Karadzic founded in 1990. "The Hague tribunal has once again shown that it is a political court, the politically-based verdicts were handed down to all Serb leaders from Serbia, (Bosnia's autonomous) Republika Srpska and Croatia," he said. "It hurts that this day is chosen to pronounce the verdict (to Karadzic) in the Hague," Bosnian Serb president Milorad Dodik told reporters shortly before the verdict. He was speaking at a ceremony in Serbia to commemorate the anniversary of the start of NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia in 1999. (Writing by by Daria Sito-Sucic, additional reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Adrian Croft/Jeremy Gaunt)
A suspect has been shot and wounded by police in Brussels as part of a massive terror crackdown netting several significant arrests.

The man, wearing a backpack, failed to respond to police demands to raise his arms and was shot in the leg as he stood with a young girl.

It was initially believed he was linked to the attacks in the Belgian capital that killed 31 people on Tuesday, at the airport and metro.

But Belgian media suggested the man may have been shot in error.

Sky's Mark Stone said it was understood the man failed to respond to police because he did not understand French or Flemish.

"It is a demonstration, at the very least, of just how jumpy and anxious the authorities are," Stone said.

Footage filmed from an overlooking building shows a man lying on the ground, apparently wounded, being dragged away by police.

Witness Norman Kabir said: "When he was sitting on the bus stop - he was with his daughter, I think it was his daughter, a very small girl.

"The police shoot one time, two cars coming, the police shoot and they take the daughter, his daughter."

The shooting came after security forces cordoned off an area in the suburb of Schaerbeek. A series of explosions were heard.

This is the same district where police found explosives and an IS flag earlier this week, in a flat used by Tuesday's attackers.

The suspect was one of three people arrested today in Brussels, as well as six in raids in the city overnight and one in Paris yesterday.

Two of those arrested today were shot in the leg. Explosives have been recovered.

One of those detained overnight is believed to be the accomplice of suicide bomber, Khalid El Bakraoui, who died on the metro.

He had been the subject of a manhunt, along with a suspect dubbed "the man in white".

The "man in white" was pictured at Zaventem Airport with suicide bombers Najim Laachraoui and Khalid's brother Ibrahim.

At least one of today's raids in Brussels has been linked to the arrest of a suspect near Paris on Thursday.

Story continues

The Paris suspect - Reda Kriket, 34 - was said to be in the "advanced stages" of a plot to launch an attack in France.

He was detained in the northwest suburb of Argenteuil, late on Thursday night with a quantity of explosives.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said: "He was part of a terrorist network that planned to strike France."

It has also been revealed Kriket was convicted of terror crimes in Belgium last year, along with Paris ringleader - Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Both men were found guilty in absentia of being part of a jihadist network planning to go to Syria, according to police sources.

Abaaoud was killed during a raid by police in the Saint-Denis area of Paris, days after orchestrating the terror strikes in the city.

Intriguing details have also emerged from a police interview with Salah Abdeslam, arrested in Brussels last week, over the Paris attacks.

Le Monde newspaper reported that Abdeslam was shown photographs of the three Brussels bombers three days before the attacks.

It is reported officers failed to challenge his claim not to know the suspects, who were preparing to strike.

It has also emerged that the El Bakraoui brothers have been on the US counterterrorism watch list since November.

Meanwhile, the younger brother of Najim Laachraoui has also been speaking, describing his sibling as "a nice boy - especially intelligent".

Mourad Laachraoui, 20, said: "I feel bad, that's all - scared and saddened."

Their family was a practising Muslim household, but he could not say what put his brother on the path to violent extremism.

"I'm no psychologist, no idea," said Mourad.

The Laachraoui family warned Belgian police that Najim had gone to Syria in 2013 when he called them about leaving.

His brother said he had searched for his brother on Facebook to try to persuade him to come home but they had had no contact with him since he left.
Watch Faces by Hyperflow is a collection of four different watch faces for Android Wear smartwatches that are designed to be minimal, good-looking and above all functional. The four watch faces are Nova, Pulse, Sphere and Chrono. Neatly spilt into a pair of watch faces that should appeal to those that prefer digital time and two that will appeal to those who prefer analog watch faces. Each one is a little different, but all four of them share common DNA as well as the ability to tweak the color accents to ensure a fully-customizable experience for those that enjoy a little tweak here and there. With four different watch faces all in one, there has to be something here for the majority of users, so lets find out.

Something to note here is that this is an Android app that will only work with Android Wear smartwatches, and wont work with smartwatches running Tizen like Samsungs or the Pebble line of watches. With that said, users can download Watch Faces by Hyperflow from the Play Store. Rather than this collection having a single app to control all of them, the watch faces are installed singularly onto your watch. To choose them on your phone, you just need to head on over to the Android Wear app and choose one of them by their names.

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Here, Ive selected Chrono  which I think is my absolute favorite, to be honest with you  and when choosing the settings icon (which can also be done on the watch, too) users can choose a different color accent to play with.

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Im a sucker for a light blue color, I really am and heres a little peak of how it looks on my watch:

What the above photo doesnt show is that the accent on the Chrono face is very subtle and only really appears on the second hand, which moves incredibly smoothly, its a real joy to take a look at, really. Now, this is my favorite but there are of course four different watch faces to choose from. Below is a small gallery giving you a taste of all them.

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Another look at a watch face on my wrist would be Pulse, which appeals to the Editor in me as well as someone who wants to know what the time is right away, but also looking for a little flare, too.

Again, the customization options here really help to make each one of these four watch faces stand out on your wrist, no matter what sort of look youre going for.

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Ive been using Android Wear for a long time now, since the original LG G Watch went on sale and since then Ive probably played around with more watch faces than I could possibly remember. Im now on my fourth Android Wear watch and Im amassed a collection of some of my favorite watch faces, I still try a lot of them, but rarely do I find those that Im interested in keeping in my rotation of sorts. This new collection has added a couple of new watch faces to that cycle of different watch faces. I really, really like Chrono face here and it reminds of an even more futuristic Braun watch face, while my second-favorite, Pulse, offers a nice mix of analog and digital with a little modern-day flare to it. The other two are good-looking, but theyre not really for me. Thats the beauty of having a selection of four different watch faces of course, especially for the price of one, as theres a little something for the majority of users here.

Ratings

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Speed (4/5)  All four of these watch faces run great, and as theres no proprietary app on the phone side of things, theres no more burden on your device.

All four of these watch faces run great, and as theres no proprietary app on the phone side of things, theres no more burden on your device. Theme (5/5)  I think these are some of the better-looking Android Wear watch faces that have come out for some time, and theyre modern while also being classy and understated all at the same time.

I think these are some of the better-looking Android Wear watch faces that have come out for some time, and theyre modern while also being classy and understated all at the same time. Features (3.5/5)  As good-looking as they are, some users will lament any extra options besides a handful of different colors and some extra features such as the temperature or step count would be nice to see.

As good-looking as they are, some users will lament any extra options besides a handful of different colors and some extra features such as the temperature or step count would be nice to see. Overall (4/5)  While these designs might not appeal to everyone, it would be hard to hear someone say they didnt like them at all, and theyre definitely worth looking into if you want something classy and modern all in the same collection.

Pros

Simple and easy to use, no need for an extra app on the phone or anything like that.

Four watch faces  Nova, Pulse, Sphere and Chrono  make this a great value collection.

Excellent look and feel to all four faces here, with a modern, minimal aesthetic that will appeal to a lot of users.

Customization options are thoughtful and good-looking.

Cons

Extra features, such as step count or weather would make these a little more useful.

Extra customization options beyond just color would be nice for demanding users to better express themselves.

Watch Faces by Hyperflow has a good selection of watch faces on offer, and while I wish that they were a little more feature full in what they offer, they sure do look great. While theres no free version available, this is a great price for four different watch faces, let alone just one. With some added features and more customization options, this collection will only get better and better. As it stands however, these are some great-looking watch faces that have a lot to offer.
Mumbai: The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday clarified in a statement that the alleged RAW operative arrested in Pakistan had no links with the Government of India.

Maintaining that it was in Indias interest to have a stable and peaceful Pakistan, the MEA also revealed that the government has sought a consular access to the retired naval officer.

Also read: Pak arrests RAW officer for 'subversive activities', summons India

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti had identified the "official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan who he alleged was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Bugti claimed that Bhushan was in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan.

Earlier on in the day, Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge protest over the 'subversive activities' of the alleged RAW officer in Balochistan and Karachi.

Also read: Pak Hindus see conspiracy against Delhi-Islamabad bonhomie behind Yadav arrest

He is reported to have been arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, close to the Afghanistan border. However, the Pakistani authorities are maintaining silence on the exact location of the arrest.

Pakistan had accused India of instigating violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.
Being an avid Android user and this being an Android-focused site, a new iPhone was never going to get much love around here. However, the newly announced iPhone SE (Special Edition) is a little bit different as it comes boasting (probably the wrong word but as this is the selling feature boasting it must be) a 4-inch display. And that is certainly something worth paying attention to and talking about. It was not that long ago that most smartphones were in or about the four-inch marker. Some people will tell you they remember when smartphones were under four-inches, but in truth I dont. In terms of Android, I started off with The Galaxy S II (late starter to some) and that was already beyond the four-inch marker, albeit just. Before that was a string of BlackBerrys which certainly never felt that small and before them a long string of Nokias including the banana phone (a la Matrix) and of course, my staple Nokia 3310  quite simply the phone that cannot be killed.

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In fairness, some of the screens on these phones came with a display which is significantly smaller than four inches. Looking back, the display on the Nokia 3310 now feels as though it was only about an inch big. It probably is bigger of course, but thats what memory is like. But the phone itself was larger than four inches and that is the point here. While the iPhone SE comes with a four-inch display, as is the case with modern smartphones it is a device that is pretty much all display. And while the iPhone SE is larger than a number of the Nokia and BlackBerry options name-dropped, as its overall size comes in at 4.87-inches, the overall size difference between the old Nokia/BlackBerry phones and the iPhone is negligible. And to be clear, this is not an attack on the Apple as even if this was not an iPhone, I dont have time for a four-inch display (or a 4.8-inch device) in any shape, way or form anymore. In fact, there is virtually no argument you could put forward to convince me that there is any benefit to a smartphone of that size anymore. For what I consider a smartphone to be for nowadays, four inches does not even begin to accommodate the most basic of smartphone needs. At that size, even the number buttons on the Dialer are too small and if they are big enough then the speaker, hold or end call buttons are too small. It is just not enough screen real estate. Speaking of which, real estate is a very good analogy for smartphones as most people seem to have come to the conclusion, like me, that bigger is better.

Just like when purchasing a home, you dont want your smartphone to be too big that it is no longer manageable, functional or useful. But you certainly need one that is big enough to make use of the additional space when needed and that is the key. A phone that can double as a media player when needed, as a browser for surfing when needed and as an actual call-and-talk-to-people-like-in-the-90s phone when needed. These are all things which are easily achievable with the current market size standards, but are all things which are arguably not so easy to do on a four-inch display. Yes, you can watch videos on a display that size, but would you really want to? Yes, you could browse the internet (even in request desktop site) but again, would you really want to? And as mentioned, even for its most fundamental purpose  making callsyou can, but do you really want to? However, like any good commission-based real estate agent, Apple is looking to convince the market that people want (or should want) a smaller unit, one which is cosy, manageable and full of amenities. One which comes with all the power and performance of a bigger unit like the iPhone 6S, but in a much smaller form and of course, one which is much more affordable. The power of a larger phone, without the price (or size) of one. And here is where Apple has been very clever. What Apple is doing is essentially cementing a price position for their larger iPhone variants. After all, if the smaller iPhone SE is a $399 priced device, then this essentially guarantees the much inflated higher price for the larger iPhone models that exist and more to the point, the ones that have yet to come.

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Some will be auguring that what Apple is doing is filling a gap in the market. Some will argue that under 5-inches is still the majority of phones sold worldwide. And while this is true, that does not automatically mean there is a demand for that particular feature. After all, feature phones are still sold in massive numbers and it is unlikely anyone will be arguing that as evidence for a return to feature phone standards. You will also hear some stating that this is a move to further embrace select regions like India and China or those who are asking for smaller phones and while the regional aspect is likely to also be true, it still falls under the same price umbrella for Apple. India and China are becoming a race to the bottom market when it comes to price and this is Apples way of ensuring they are not left out of the race. Albeit, you are still paying a premium for the iPhone SE in these regions. So while they are now technically present in the budget market, they are certainly right at the top of it. Just like their flagship ones will remain at the top of flagship phone pricing. What this small phone is doing is locking in a price structure for the iPhone range. And here is the fundamental difference between iOS and Android.

In contrast to the world of iOS, Android is seeing a far wider change when it comes to smartphone pricing and especially for flagship and top-tier devices. While the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the LG G5 can still command a higher than normal price, the rise of the mid-range devicesor better described as the mid-price devices (as smartphones like the OnePlus 2 have forever altered what specs are now expected on a sub-$399 smartphone), these devices are affecting the value of flagship smartphones. Other manufacturers who used to charge higher prices are finding it increasingly difficult to use their name as a sole means to command higher prices. To some degree, even Samsung. The biggest Android smartphone maker did away this year with their 128GB model and presumably because it was just too costly with not enough takers. Likewise, in the U.S. you cannot even opt for the 64GB model, a move which again is likely to be because Samsung wasts consumers to perceive the price of the Galaxy S7 as cheaper. If you think it is because of the microSD card slot that has returned, then ask yourself why a 64GB Galaxy S7 model even exists? Bigger storage would command bigger prices and all manufacturers are currently looking to be perceived as lower, except Apple. In fact, the arrival of the Galaxy S7 Edge and its more premium edges means that you can actually pick up the standard Galaxy S7 for $100 less than the Edge variant. If the Edge variant did not exist, then the standard S7 would be aiming for the same price that the Edge currently asks for. The name is no longer solely enough, the specs are no longer solely enough and even the mighty Galaxy range is no longer solely enough, due to the value of a smartphone changing in the Android world. Now to command bigger prices, devices need to have direct and unique selling points. For Samsung, a smartphone that is as innovative and unique as the Edge to justify that top tier pricing. For LG, a smartphone that is modular in nature to command that top tier pricing. In contrast, Apple has just made sure that without the need to actually introduce innovation, the issue of pricing never materializes for them. To return to the real estate analogy -if the next iPhone is too costly then you can always buy this lovely studio sized iPhone. It still has all the mod-cons you would expect and a great view, it just might be a bit of a tight squeeze.

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Price aside, the size is the bigger (pun intended) issue here. While some Android smartphone manufacturers have looked to decrease the size of their smartphones over the last few years, they have not proven to be the wisest of moves. Many smartphone manufacturers have tried unsuccessfully to bring a mini or a Compact or a Lite version to the market and on nearly every attempt it has been seen as a lesser variant. Yes, it is true that they tend to come with lighter specs, but that in itself is telling of how the Android market thinks. If you are going to sell a smaller phone then it may as well be a lighter spec phone as either way  it will be seen as a lesser phone. Size has become a spec in its own right now and generally speaking, specs go up and not down. While the iPhone SE comes as a fully fledged flagship spec device, in the Android world, cramming specs inside is not enough to justify the size of the device. Again, you only have to look at the current most popular smartphone, the Galaxy S7 to see how evident this is.

On paper, there is no difference between the S7 and the S7 Edge. They are spec-identical. However, you would be very hard pressed to find many consumers who would actively choose the S7 over the S7 Edge. The $100 price might force some to make that choice but that is not the same as making the choice. Of course, the Edge functionality is one of the clear reasons why the S7 Edge is more in demand, but I would wager that size is another reason. It is not just a coincidence that the Galaxy S7 Edge is only available in a 5.5-inch size. It is designed that way as Samsung knows that is what the market wants. In fact for many, 5.5-inches seems to be the sweet spot. Do you not think that if they could have sold a 5.1-inch Edge version in the same amounts they would have made one? The fact that the Galaxy S7 is only available in a 5.1-inch is designed to be a buffer to pick up those consumers who do not want such a big phone not for those who do not want an Edge variant as everyone seems to want the Edge. It is designed for those who want a smaller phone. And note, by Samsungs understanding  a smaller phone is one which comes with a 5.1-inch display now. Which to manufacturers like HTC, Sony and many others, 5-inches (or thereabouts) is what they view as a normal size of a smartphone. Coincidentally, it seems to be the OEMs who view five inches as the new norm, that have also pushed hard with smaller mini, compact and lite versions, ones which typically do not fall much below 4.7-inches in size. I would find it very difficult to believe that any Android manufacturer currently believes that they could sell (in decent numbers) a 4.5-inch device, let alone a 4-inch device. It is just not where the Android market is or where it is going. There is far too much choice available and to gamble on what is largely considered to be too small, would be a gamble few would be willing to take. Regardless of this being an iPhone, four inches in the Android world, is just too small nowadays.

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Of course, for iOS users the landscape is a little different. They do not have the scope of choice that Android users do. They are resigned to buying a smartphone from the singularity and only making use of the features that the singularity offers. So it is likely that some iOS users would like a smaller iPhone. Not to mention, this is not the first time in recent memory that Apple have offered such a small phone. Back in 2013 they did release the iPhone 5C with its 4-inch display and it seemed to sell well. So by Apples logic the iPhone SE is likely to sell well tooand it probably will. However, from an Android perspective, at least from this Android owner perspective, four inches is not doable anymore, with an industry which is just starting to branch out into multi-window support and a more engaging experience, four inches is just no longer a viable or even a wanted option. If iOS users want it, fine, that does not mean that Android users want to return to circa 2012/2013.
As big as the Android N news has been over the last week or two, there is one story which Android N has not managed to drown out just yet. Encryption. What started with a simple no from Apple, has turned into a fully fledged heated debate across the tech industry, the political spectrum and just about everywhere in-between. What has been even more apparent within the tech industry specifically, is the divisiveness of this topic. While the encryption debate has seemingly united competing companies like Apple and Google, smartphone owners seem far less cohesive in their view. Which is interesting as it is essentially their data that is up for grabs. Especially, Android device owners.

It is no secret that Android is not as safe as iOS. While both companies have pushed forward recently with full encryption on the latest versions of the respective operating systems, the difference lies in the updating process for each. Apple is always keen to get as many i-related devices up and running on their latest iOS version as quickly as possible and this has resulted in most iPhones now running the latest version of iOS. A move which is not mirrored in the Android world. The topic of fragmentation has long been debated among Android users and without wanting to beat a dead horse here, the issue is raising its ugly head once more. As the later versions of Android are where encryption has really taken off, the result of this is the sheer majority of Android devices are not running an encrypted version of Android. In fact, according to a report out of WSJ this week, the difference with encryption lying around the 95-percent level for Apples devices, which compares to less than 10-percent of all the Android devices currently in circulation. And here is where the issue for Google and Android lies. Not to mention, the importance of finding a way to rectify the fragmentation issue as well. Earlier this week, we discussed whether Google had released Android N too early and many responded with a clear no, it is not too early  with the logic being that the sooner updates arrives for Android, the better. However, With Android N arriving while Marshmallow is only at the 2.3-percent adoption level and Lollipop only for the first time taking over KitKat, all Android N is going to do is confuse the matter of fragmentation further.

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More to the point though, is the fragmentation of the operating system is only one side of the fragmentation puzzle. There is also the fact that Android is so fragmented with manufacturers too. The be together. not the same mantra that Android has now adopted is a clever one and certainly does bring forward the idea of what Android is all about. The variance on offer and the ability to not only choose your manufacturer, but also choose your model and choose your color and even to some extent, choose your operating system version. While in contrast, Apple is essentially be together and all the same. A point which was so very poetically summed up in one of the most recent promo videos from Google.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLhJIFC8xkY

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While it is true that all of those middle-c keys sound the same, in the real world, they all also represent the same level of security and encryption that Apple has managed to achieve. Having a standardized operating system for all of their devices, being in control of the manufacturing process and not having to negotiate their operating system in anyway has meant that even now, when encryption is a selling point for all companies, Apple can stand tall and say our devices are protected. By all means Google can stand with Apple and echo their sentiment and reiterate how important encryption is and why devices need to be encrypted and the sanctity of encryption in general. Although, Google will be standing there saying this while virtually all of their devices remain unencrypted and unprotected. And there is not exactly a lot Google can actually do about this.

Google can look to enforce Android device manufacturers to employ encryption on their devices, but the only leverage Google has is the use of their Google suite of apps. Which in truth is a leverage Google does not want to be applying too heavily. Android is free to anyone who wants it and that is its appeal. While most smartphone manufacturers are happy to conform to Googles standards, it is in Googles interest that they do. If manufacturers chose not to abide and were effectively banished from the Google ecosystem, they would still be able to use Android in any way they wanted just the same. In fact, banishing manufacturers would only hurt Google in the long run, as a lot of their revenues come from the Google suite of apps and not the free use of Android. Not to mention, we are already seeing and hearing some companies (you know who) claiming they want to free Android from Google, so it is always likely there will be another suite of apps waiting in the wings for banished manufacturers to include. Therefore, Googles ability to control manufacturers is not infinite, there is a limit and while we are always talking about the latest and greatest smartphones, it is the lower and mid-range devices that could prove to be the most problematic.

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This non-flagship category is big business in certain regions of the world (in all regions in reality. as affordable devices are driving all markets now) and the issue with low to mid-range devices, is that they are limited in performance and subsequently, their ability to deal with aspects like encryption. At least, not without performance being further impaired. As these are already slower devices and are already aggressively priced, how much benefit is there for manufacturers to want to include elements like encryption on them? Aspects which might not only affect performance of already performance-limited devices, but aspects which would likely make affordable devices, more costly to produce in the first place. It is these devices that could prove to be the downfall for any you must instructions set out by Google.

Now some of the Android community will instantly draw on this as a prime example of why everyone should buy Nexus and not opt for carrier or non-Nexus handsets. After all, all Nexus devices tend to get the updates at the same time and therefore, the element of being able to control aspects like encryption or whatever else arises in the future, is doable if everyone owned a Nexus. And that is a logical argument. However, if that was the case and everyone interested in Android did go out and buy the new Nexus, then would this not fly in the face of be together, not the same. Wouldnt Android just be another version of Apple then? And it is this line of thinking which inherently raises the fundamental issue with Android  it is by nature not able to offer such across the board protection. It is the essence of Android that continually makes it so vulnerable.

So here is the interesting food for thought to take home. While the Android community seems divided on whether tech companies should be helping law enforcement in gaining access to encrypted smartphones, for now, it is a topic which largely does not concern the majority of them. By any means of measurement, the majority of Android devices are not protected and are devices that would not particularly need Googles help to access. This could all change in the future, however with the issue of fragmentation seemingly becoming even more concerning with the now even earlier releases of future versions of Android, the ability for Google to widely roll out any security measure, encryption or otherwise, will remain an issue for them and by association, for all of us.
Before Android smartphones became a big deal, and before Samsungs watershed Galaxy S III moment, devices were slightly different and had different names on all the major networks. Even though these devices shared the same sort of internal hardware, specs and features the carriers still felt the need to sell a different variant to their rival. Thats no longer the case of course, and when flagships like the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge launch on the major networks, its the same hardware on all the networks. That hasnt stopped some of the networks from offering slightly different hardware to capture a little more business however, and in the case of AT&T and Samsung, the two have been offering Active versions of the Galaxy since the Galaxy S4 Active.

When the Galaxy S5 launched with water-resistance it was wondered whether or not the two would partner on an Active version once more. In the end, the Galaxy S5 Active launched as a much more rugged proposition, and the same could be said of last years Galaxy S6 Active. Now, word of an upcoming Galaxy S7 Active has hit the web, with @evleaks detailing a model number of SM-G891A and a codename of Poseideon. Astute Twitter users have noted that Poseidon was the Greek God of the Sea which suggests this is the Galaxy S7 Active, complete with waterproofing fit for such a name.

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Whether or not the SM-G891A does end up being launched as the Galaxy S7 Active is something well have to wait and see about, but it wouldnt be too much of a surprise if AT&T launched a follow-up to a device theyve been shipping for years now. Even though the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are water-resistant, and surprisingly well-made, an Active version of the device would feature a more rugged casing and would probably withstand much more punishment. Theres definitely a market out there for people looking for a more rugged and better-built device that can handle knocks and drops much easier. AT&T obviously doesnt mind being part of that market, and if they are to release such a device itll probably be on shelves some time this Summer.
Eric Schmidt is one of the most accomplished names in the tech sphere right now. During his long and rather illustrious career, which included a period at a high-ranking position with Sun Microsystems, one of the main things he had been pursuing was the idea of an active computer network that would allow for quick, easy and adaptable development and deployment of software. In essence, he spent most of his career trying to flesh out the concept of a cloud backend for a business; essentially, infrastructure as a service. Although its still the third place option in the sphere and has some kinks still being worked out, Schmidt has said that Google Cloud Platform in its current form, being the closest thing imaginable to his original vision, is the magnum opus of his time in the tech world.

According to Schmidt, the idea for the cloud services that Google offers began when their search traffic began to reach critical mass. The high traffic was beginning to cause issues and their technicians tools just werent agile enough, at the time, to keep up. At that point, the company decided to create a specialized operating system and suite of software that would serve as the backend they needed, making development and deployment of new software easier than ever. As the system evolved and development rolled on, Google eventually saw fit to let other businesses in on their system via a cloud-based backend. Google would provide the servers, horsepower and software development environment, while customers would only have to worry about software creation, deployment and client-side network maintenance. This first-generation cloud service came to be known as Google AppEngine.

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When Google publicly rolled out their AppEngine cloud services back in 2008, they allowed developers to use a system not unlike Googles in-house systems to do many of the same kinds of things Google was doing; creating and distributing software, managing networks and deploying frontends for users. According to Schmidt, however, there was something fundamentally wrong. The toolset was geared more toward developers and experimenters than the average business user, netting them a relatively low rating among enterprise users. The problem continues to this day with Google Cloud Platform and is part of the reason theyre still the underdog in the IaaS space, although it is a problem thats being gradually addressed. Schmidt expressed confidence, however, that this issue would be solved and the creativity and unique needs of users would eventually take the reigns off of Google Cloud Platform.
One of the most sought after features in smartphones in 2016 is going to be Quick Charge 3.0. With more and more smartphones doing away with removable batteries  although LG did keep it, and you can rest assured that they will promote that feature quite often on the LG G5  technology like Quick Charge 3.0 is going to be a big deal. Quick Charge 1.0 and 2.0 were already big deals in the past few years, and Quick Charge 3.0 is even better. This new standard can charge your smartphone even faster than before, giving you about 3A to charge up your smartphone. You can go from 0 to 80% in about 35 minutes, which is a pretty insane feat when you think about it.

Now that we have devices available that support Quick Charge 3.0, its time to start taking a look at chargers that can charge at 3A and are certified for Quick Charge 3.0. Which includes Aukeys dual-port wall charger here. Making it a pretty important charger, especially where most Quick Charge phones dont come with a Quick Charge compatible charger in the box. So in order to take full advantage of the new technology, customers are forced to go out and buy one. Maybe this Aukey Quick Charge 3.0 Wall Charger will be the right one to buy.

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This charger can output 3A in each port. Whats interesting here is that while both ports do use Quick Charge 3.0, they also use Aukeys proprietary AiPower technology. AiPower is a way for your phone to get as much current as it can handle without damaging the device. You can think of it as talking with the charger and saying okay, I can only handle 2A and it only gives your device 2A of current. This is good for those that dont have Quick Charge 3.0 in their devices, or may have a device that doesnt have Quick Charge 3.0, like the Samsung Galaxy S6. Like other Quick Charge chargers, this one does in fact work with earlier versions of Quick Charge as well as conventional charging. So if you have a device, like the Nexus 9, that doesnt have any form of fast charging, you can still charge it without damaging your device.

When I took this charger out of the box, the first thing I thought was how large this wall adapter is. We reviewed their Quick Charge 2.0 wall adapter last year. However that had just one port, not two. On top of that, Quick Charge 2.0 didnt use as much power as Quick Charge 3.0. More power means it needs more space, which is why the adapter is quite a bit larger. Its still fairly lightweight, so you can easily throw it into your bag when traveling, without any issues. However, the prongs do not fold down which can be an issue for some. Its not necessarily a deal-breaker, it just means youll need to be more careful when traveling with this one. The last thing youd want to do is bend one of the prongs on this charger.

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Design-wise, theres not much here. Its basically just a black brick wall adapter that is curved on the left and right sides. Its in matte black, which is actually a nice color, as it doesnt get disgusting looking from fingerprints. Although thats not much of an issue with wall chargers as it would be with a smartphone or tablet. Its a pretty plain looking charger here. Nothing really stands out, in terms of logos or FCC information. It is all there, but its in black, so its not standing out that much. When you pick up this charger though, it definitely feels like something sturdy and made of quality. Not like it could be damaged easily, but something that will last quite a long time.

While this charger is wider and lengthier than most other chargers, it doesnt cover up other wall outlets. This is important because covering up another outlet could be a deal breaker for many. Especially those that are already struggling to find an empty outlet in their home or office, where this charger might end up. And because it is wider, it means that it wont hinder the use of other outlets, even on a surge protector.

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We used this charger with the Nexus 6P for about a week, and were pretty satisfied with how it charged our device. Using a USB Type-A to a Type-C cable, the charger charged about as fast as youd expect. It was about the same speed as our OEM charger from Google, as well as the other chargers weve used from Tronsmart and Aukey. We were unable to test out Quick Charge 3.0 speeds, since we dont have a Quick Charge 3.0 device in house. But it will work with the Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge and LG G5, all of which were announced at Mobile World Congress and are now available (the LG G5 is on pre-order at some carriers and retailers and will be available at the beginning of April). As mentioned earlier on, if you have a device that doesnt support Quick Charge 3.0 you can still use this charger to charge it. And that is completely true. We used it with the Nexus 6P, and for kicks, the Sony Xperia Z3 which does support Quick Charge 2.0. Both charged at normal speed without getting any warmer than usual when using a method of fast or quick charging.

On the safety side of things, this charger does have a bit more power than other chargers do (that arent Quick Charge 3.0), but Aukey does have a number of safeguards in place here so that your phone, tablet, or whatever you are charging doesnt overcharge, overheat, or worse, catch on fire. So when it comes to safety, theres nothing to worry about here with the Aukey Quick Charge 3.0 dual-port Wall Adapter. You can use it to charge anything (even the Google Chromebook Pixel if you have a USB Type-A to Type-C cable) without any issues.

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Aukey has this wall charger available on Amazon for $24.99. Now, that may sound like a lot for a wall charger, but one thing to remember here is that your conventional wall charger doesnt have as much power inside, which requires more circuitry, not to mention certification from Qualcomm. At $25, this Aukey Quick Charge 3.0 wall charger is actually one of the cheaper models available on Amazon right now. And itll work perfect for your Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC One A9 or your LG G5. Wed definitely recommend this to anyone picking up a Quick Charge 3.0 device, or just want to get a future-proof charger these days. Aukey does also have a number of other Quick Charge 3.0 accessories available, which you can take a look at here.
Google has been at odds with European authorities over the past few years for a number of reasons, including alleged tax evasion. However, while several American firms like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks have faced severe criticism in Europe for the lengths these companies have supposedly gone to avoid having to pay taxes in the EU, the one area where Google has gotten some support from many quarters is in its ongoing battle against the French privacy watchdog, Commission Nationale de lInformatique et des Libertes (CNIL). The agency now says that it has fined Google 100,000 euros ($111,720) for allegedly failing to fully comply with the controversial Right to be Forgotten ruling issued by the European Court of Justice in May 2014 that requires Google and other internet search engines operators like Microsoft and Yahoo to expunge certain web-search results when requested.

As part of the ruling issued last year, the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo are required by law to erase all search results deemed irrelevant, antiquated or potentially damaging to an individual, a community or an organization, in case the subject at the receiving end of such postings approaches the search engine with a so-called Right to be Forgotten request. While Google has consistently maintained that it has been doing its best to comply with European regulations, privacy watchdogs in the continent are far from convinced. Google says that it has received hundreds of thousands of such requests ever since the ruling was issued last year, and while the company does comply with many of those requests as and when it deems fit, EU data protection authorities apparently want more. The American search giant originally started filtering its search results only on its European domains such as Google.de in Germany or Google.fr in France, but was eventually forced to even include Google.com and other non-European domains because that was exactly what the new legislation had apparently called for.

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While Google did finally start filtering out results across all its domains from last month, it did so only for searches coming out of the country of origin of the Right to be Forgotten request. Meaning, those outside of Europe could still access all the information without any hindrance. However, even that was too much to handle for the French data protection agency, according to whom, once Google does get a valid request, it needs to scrub all its search results pertaining to that person or organization not just for searches originating out of that particular country, but across all its domains everywhere around the world, notwithstanding the geographic origin of those viewing the search results. Google says that it disagrees with the ruling and will appeal against it in accordance with the law.
Virtual assistants and contextual voice technology are a big part of the future of smart devices, and Google is well ahead of the pack in most respects with its speech recognition software used and seen in things like Google Now. While already quite powerful, the capabilities of Googles speech recognition software are about to expand, as today at Googles NEXT Cloud conference, the company has just announced that they will be giving third-party developers open access to the speech recognition software via a new speech recognition API called the Google Cloud Speech API, set to work with over 80 different languages and have quite a few compelling features under its belt for develoeprs to work with.

While the offering in itself is big news for developers as they will now be able to better integrate voice features into their applications and products, what could make it more compelling is that Google is choosing to offer access to the API directly for free, at least in the beginning, which is a faily ccompetitive pricing point when compared to other open APIs in the industry offering voice recognition software, like that of the software from Nuance. Although Google will likely end up charging for Access to the API at some point in the future, right now it will cost developers nothing to get started, and free is a pretty hard price to beat, especially when the software is already as strong as what Google is offering.

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The machine learning and deep neural network algorithms that are powering the Google Cloud Speech API should allow for unparalleled accuracy as described by Google, and Google states that the API will be able to work well even in noisy environments. If this proves to be as accurate as Google is letting on, developers will be able to integrate the speech recognition into their apps so they work better in real-world situations like outside on a noisy street corner with plenty of passing traffic and loads of other padestrians. The Google Cloud Speech API is also capable of real-time text recognition. Googles offering of open access to the Speech API, for free no less, competes with other services like Nuance, as well as Amazons Alexa Voice Service that was just opened up to third-party developers as of yesteday.
As apps like Periscope, Meerkat and Snapchat grow in popularity and big players like Facebook jump on the mobile livestreaming bandwagon, YouTube is beginning to feel the heat. Googles uber-popular video service has a very limited livestreaming function built into the YouTube Creator Studio app, but its not quite as feature-rich or user-friendly enough to compete with the bigger names in the space. As one of the largest repositories of user-created video in the world, YouTubes lack of an equivalent livestreaming feature seems like a missed opportunity. Google is reportedly looking to change that and dive headfirst into the livestreaming game, however, with a new app called YouTube Connect.

According to an insider who spoke to VentureBeat, the app is currently in development and will boast a feature set that should be enough to bring it up to par with rivals who have been on the mobile livestreaming scene from the beginning. Some of the features will include chat capabilities while streaming or while watching streams, the ability to tag people in streams and a feed that keeps users updated about the activities of friends and subscriptions. Video streams and saved videos from the app will be viewable both in-app and on the YouTube desktop website. The report didnt mention if live streams using the new app would be viewable with the existing YouTube app, though its quite likely they will be, since theyre available on the desktop site. Google could keep the video streams exclusively on the new app in order to encourage downloading it, but there has been no word either way.

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The app is still in the fairly early phases of development; according to the source that spoke to VentureBeat, sharing functionality for Facebook and Twitter has yet to be added. The app is being developed for Android and iOS at the moment, with no mention of a possible release on other platforms for the time being. The insider didnt mention a particular release date or any kind of beta testing or internal testing, but with Googles annual I/O conference coming up in May, the app might just get a mention.
Bengaluru: It's the most grisly, the most heart-rending of tasks. Missing Infosys techie Raghavendran Ganeshan's brother Chandrashekhar has arrived in Brussels and is working with Indian embassy officials, going from one hospital to the other, looking to see if his brother is among the dead, or the living. Some 300 people survived the metro blast, and Chandrshekhar must grit his teeth as he walks through the wards, looking at the charred and the burnt, to see if his brother is one of them. Or not.

The last phone call that Ganeshan, who went missing in Brussels, minutes after Tuesday's deadly terror strike, made has been tracked to a metro rail in the Belgian capital, the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said.

Read: Brussels attack: Indians stuck in Belgium after blasts land in Delhi

The Indian Embassy in Brussels is making efforts to locate Raghavendran Ganeshan since the terror attacks at the Brussels airport and the metro which left 31 dead and 300 injured. "Raghavendran Ganeshan - We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was traveling in the metro rail," Swaraj tweeted Thursday. "We are doing our best to locate Raghavendran Ganeshan," Swaraj had yesterday said.

Indian Embassy officials in Brussels told Deccan Chronicle that they still don't have any news on Raghavendran Ganeshan. Mr. Ajay Agrawal, Attache, Consular from the Indian Embassy in Brussels said, "Presently, there are officials from the Indian Embassy along with Mr. Ganeshan's brother, Chandrashekar, who are visiting hospitals one after the other to identify the missing 31-year-old. They are at a principal hospital where there are a large number of burn injury victims admitted, who are getting treated and yet to be identified."

Read: Brussels attack: Last call of missing Infosys techie tracked, says Sushma Swaraj

2 terrorists on the run

Five terrorists were involved in the bombings at Brussels airport and train station, Belgian authorities said three are dead, while the fate of the other two are not known.

While Khalid El Bakraoui blew up the train at Maalbeek station, surveillance footage shows him with another man, holding a large bag, before the bomb went off. That mans whereabouts are unknown.

3 terrorists took part in the Zaventem airport attack. While Khalid's brother Ibrahim El Bakraoui and ISIS bomb maker Najim Laachraoui died, the hunt is on for the third man.
LeEco (formerly known as Letv) isnt exactly a new company, but theyre new to the smartphone manufacturing world. This company has introduced three smartphones in April last year, and five to this day. Despite the fact they havent been a smartphone manufacturer for long, LeEco has managed to sell quite a few smartphones last year, over 4 million, according to the company. Well, weve been seeing quite a few LeEco smartphone rumors and leaks recently, the companys Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2 devices have popped up more than once. Considering the fact it has been almost a year since their predecessors were announced, we did expect LeEco to push out these phones next month, and the company just announced a press event in China, read on.

LeEco has started sending invites for their event in China which will be held on April 20th in Beijing. Now, LeEco did not reveal what is going to be announced at the event, though they did mention that new products and ecosystem are coming. Its safe to assume that theyll launch new smartphones, and probably some additional hardware. Chances are well get a new version of their Android skin as well, and perhaps they plan to mention the US launch as well. In their invite, LeEco once again said that they plan to start selling their smartphones in the US later this year, though specific dates were not mentioned. Now, as far as other announcements go, LeEco is a very ambitious company, so ambitious, that they actually partnered up with Aston Martin not long ago. So, nothings off the table, it is possible well see new smartphones, LeEcos first smartwatch, various smart gadgets who knows, well just have to wait and see.

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Now, as far as LeEcos smartphones go, you can expect them to introduce the Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2 handsets. This is not confirmed just yet, but it makes sense, and the timing is perfect. Weve seen all of these devices leak recently, and judging by the leaked info, the Le 2 and Le 2 Pro will be fueled by the Helio X20 64-bit deca-core SoC by MediaTek, and will pack 3GB and 4GB of RAM, respectively. The company has already confirmed that the Le 2 will pack in MediaTeks Helio X20 chip, so we can confirm that much. As far as Le Max 2 is concerned, we do expect it to ship with the Snapdragon 820 and 4GB of RAM on the inside, while a QHD display will also be a part of the package. On top of all that, Qualcomms Sense ID (Ultrasonic Fingerprint scanner) was also mentioned recently, so that could be included as well.
Verizon has announced the launch of a brand new LG smartphone on its network with effect from Tuesday, March 24th. According to an official announcement from the largest carrier in the US, the LG K4 comes with a price-tag of $120 at full retail, but can now be bought by paying just $5 per month for two-years on Verizons device payment plan. The smartphone is a part of the new K-series of mid-range and entry-level handsets that were unveiled recently by the South Korean company, alongside the K5 and the K8. The three entry-level smartphones were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the company had unveiled two other K-series devices, called the K7 and the K10.

The LG K4 was already expected to hit Verizon at some stage during this quarter, so it isnt exactly a surprise that big red has now finally made it official. The LG K4 is also currently available in a number of international markets including Canada, where Wind Mobile and Koodo are two of the carriers that are carrying the smartphone on their respective networks. As for Verizon Wireless, the carrier says that the phone is a user-friendly device thats easy on the pocket but comes with important hardware and software features, such as a vivid screen, stylish design and the ability to easily take and share photos. The handset was originally listed on LGs Russian website back in late January, and the company has, since then, released videos online promoting its new entry-level offering.

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According to the information provided by Verizon, the LG K4 comes with LTE connectivity and features a 4.5-inch FWVGA (854 x 480) display along with 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of expandable internal storage. The smartphone is powered by a 1.1 GHz quad-core processor of unspecified make but earlier reports had indicated the presence of MediaTeks MT6735M SoC under the hood. The phone comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop pre-installed and carries a removable 1,940mAh battery. Theres a 5-megapixel camera on the back of this phone, while a 2-megapixel shooter can be found up front. Verizon has also specifically mentioned that the phone comes with a bunch of optional accessories including a silicone case, an anti-scratch screen protector, a travel charger, a Mophie Powerstation and an LG Tone Pro Bluetooth stereo headset.
The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge both come with IP68 ratings, which indicate that the devices are dust and water proof. According to Samsung, both the smartphones can withstand submersion in water up to 5 feet deep for 30 minutes. Waterproofing may not be something thats part and parcel of all flagship smartphones these days, but some manufacturers like Sony make it a point to include the feature in not just its premium handsets, but even some of its mid-range devices like the Xperia M4 Aqua, which was launched by the Japanese consumer electronics giant last year. Meanwhile, as far as Samsung is concerned, while the feature can now be found in the Galaxy S7 devices, it was originally introduced by the company in the Galaxy S5, but was missing from the companys 2015 flagships  the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

Now that water-resistance has made a comeback to Samsungs latest flagship smartphones, the company is using every bit of its famed marketing muscle to hammer home what it believes could be one of the most important selling points for its latest and greatest line of Galaxy S devices. As part of that strategy, the South Korean company hired the services of Grammy-winning American rapper, Lil Wayne, to tell the Samsung brand story in new and humorous ways people can engage with, according to Mr. Marc Mathieu, the chief marketing officer at Samsung Electronics America. The series of ads that Samsung has now released, shows Lil Wayne pouring a bottle of champagne on Samsungs latest smartphone and dunking the device in a fish tank. Now that Samsung has joined the likes of Sony in making its flagship smartphones waterproof, it needed to show that off in a way it believed will resonate with its customer base and hence we have the wacky videos featuring Lil Wayne.

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From all indications, the hip hop star has been able to create the buzz that Samsung would have hoped for, seeing as the ad-campaign has now gone viral on Facebook and Twitter, with over 30 million views on the two social networks combined. Viewers on YouTube seemed to be eager to see the Galaxy S7 taking a champagne shower, as the Champagne Calls video alone earned over 5.8 million views on the website. Samsung also mentioned that the commercial received 200,000 shares and re-tweets on Facebook and Twitter combined, making this whole thing a fairly profitable exercise for Samsung.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aF23XpBwU
Now that the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge have launched in major markets across the globe, a little bit of Samsungs focus will surely start to shift towards enhancing the experiences for both of those handsets, and one way theyll be looking to do this is with wearables and accessories for each phone. In regards to wearables, Samsung already has the Gear S2 that launched late last year which is of course compatible with both of Samsungs new flagships, but Samsung has another wearable in development that should hit the market later this year called the Samsung Charm, another wearable for the wrist but in more of a bracelet or jewelry form instead of a smartwatch.

The Charm will come in both a rectangular shape as well as a square shape, and each model of the Charm will come in three colors which include Black, Gold, and Rose Quartz. While details of the Charm are not completely new, having surfaced last month, the pricing details were not yet known. As of today though rumors of what the Samsung Charm would cost have popped up and it appears that Samsung will be charging a29.99 for the square model of the Charm, while the rectangular model of the Charm will end up costing consumers just a little bit more at a39.99.

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At the moment there are only details on prices that have been rumored for Europe, and so far there hasnt been any mention from Samsung on which regions the accessories would launch in so theres no telling whether or not the U.S. will see these become available. Beyond that, theres no confirmation whether or not the Charm will actually launch so theres still a chance Samsung could decide not to release it at all. Should they hit the market though, the Charm will be a low-cost wearable which looks a lot less like a wearable and more like jewelry. Its also boasting an extremely long battery life, said to last up to 18 days before it needs a recharge thanks to the low power consumption, but only if the LED notifications arent enabled according to Samsung.
Recently, the Internet of Things has started generating so much buzz that you couldnt miss it if you wanted to. With tech companies everywhere betting big on whats believed to be the next big thing in consumer technology, its only natural that Samsung Electronics is investing heavily in the emerging sector. The company has already demoed a smart fridge at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year at Las Vegas, Nevada, but now, the company has officially announced that it will be introducing a brand-new operating system aimed squarely at IoT devices. According to Samsung, the company will announce its new software at the Samsung Developer Conference that is scheduled to be held next month in San Francisco, California.

As per the post on Samsungs website, the new software will be an open-source IoT real-time operating system (RTOS), which has a wide scope of features while maintaining a lightweight and efficient footprint. Samsung has declined to provide any more details regarding the issue at this point in time, but the new operating system may very well power a whole host of future IoT devices from the company, including home appliances, wearables and the like. Whats more, the OS will reportedly be open source, which has led to some speculations online that it might be closely related to Tizen, which is also an open source Linux kernel-based operating system thats currently used by the company in its Gear S2 line of smartwatches as well as its smart TVs.

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Samsung reportedly has a number of connected gadgets and home appliances in the pipeline, including cooking ovens, washing machines and light bulbs. Whether these devices will be powered by the upcoming operating system remains to be seen, but the company apparently believes that making the source code of the operating system freely available will help in quicker adoption of such devices because of the obvious advantages with regards to compatibility and interoperability. With more and more tech companies like compatriot LG Electronics and younger, more enterprising competitors like Xiaomi Technology also jumping on to the IoT bandwagon, Samsung believes that the new open source OS may give it the edge that it needs to take the mantle of the preeminent IoT device-maker, much like its leadership position in the global smartphone sector.
For Sony, the PlayStation division is doing exceptionally well right now. Not only is the PS4 handing it to the Xbox One and Microsoft, but its making up a large, large part of the Japanese firms profits. Helping to offset losses or poor performances from their mobile and other divisions, the PS4 and the PlayStation brand are definitely money spinners for Sony. With PlayStation VR already getting a warm reception  despite the fact it doesnt hit shelves until this Fall  things are looking bright for Sony. One area in which Sony failed to become successful however, was in mobile gaming. PlayStation Mobile  as well as devices like the Xperia Play  never really caught on, and Sony quickly decided to let the service fade away, recently closing altogether not too long ago.

Now however, theres news that Sony might be looking to give mobile gaming another try with their ForwardWorks initiative. ForwardWorks will launch on April 1st, and while theres not too much Sony is sharing right now, press materials state that the new division will leverage the intellectual property of the numerous PlayStation dedicated software titles and its gaming characters. While this sounds a little ambiguous, those same press materials go on to say that the company will aim to deliver users with opportunity to casually enjoy full-fledged game titles in the new filed [sic] of the smart device market. So, it doesnt appear as though PlayStation Mobile is being dragged up from the dirt, but rather that Sony will use popular and familiar characters and franchises to further the PlayStation brand.

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This is the sort of approach that Nintendo is taking with their newly-launched Miitomo app, which could be considered an olive branch of sorts to the mobile gaming community. Sony already has their toes dipped in mobile waters however, as their PS4 games can be played remotely from any of their Xperia Z smartphones, and the firm does have official apps to use and connect with the PlayStation Network freely available for all devices. Whether or not this new approach will help get smartphone players hooked on PlayStation brands and games  presumably with an aim to bring them over the PS4 or PS Vita  is unclear, but its about time that Sony took mobile gaming a little more seriously, and give it a proper try. Perhaps PlayStation Mobile and the Xperia Play were too ahead of their time? Regardless, ForwardWorks is going to help Sony focus on a new audience, albeit one that will be in Japan and other parts of Asia at first.
Shortcut Launcher is a third-party homescreen and launcher app for Android that aims to make things as simple, easy and elegant as possible. The overall look and feel is a little softer than the stock launcher that launches with many Android smartphones, and its a hell of a lot less cluttered. Thats because Shortcut Launcher features one swipe-out menu with an alphabetized list of your apps, a place for widgets (which can easily be dragged out and applied to your homescreen) and a quick settings menu. The real genius of Shortcut Launcher however is its single search bar for everything. Looking for a particular app? Just search for it. Want to listen to music by a specific artist? Just search for it. The same goes for finding and messaging your contacts, finding details for a restaurant or store nearby and naturally, performing web searches in your preferred web browser of choice. Ive bee using Shortcut Launcher for a while now, so lets see what its all about.

First things first, those looking to take a look at Shortcut Launcher will need to download it for free from the Play Store here. Once launched, Shortcut Launcher will give users a nice and neat introduction into what it has on offer and how to use it.

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I really liked this quick, simple and easy approach to educating users on how to use the app, and the little note at the end was a nice touch, too. Overall, Shortcut Launcher feels like a product more than it does just another app, and thats made apparent from the first few moments spent with it.

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One thing I was really happy to see was that Shortcut Launcher had remembered the icons I had on my first page and my wallpaper was also kept intact from my previous launcher (which was the Google Now Launcher, for those curious).

As we can see, all of my apps are neatly organized from the pull-out menu on the left.

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I like the simple things when it comes to Android, and getting access to my apps as quickly as possible  without having them all over my homescreen  is important to me, and Shortcut Launcher makes that super-easy. The search bar is where a lot of the magic happens. Im a big coffee fan, so searching for the word coffee brought up a couple of results:

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Shortcut Launcher has provided me with some app listings on my device, the option to search in Chrome for some Google searches and some nearby coffee shops. Now, I know that theres a Starbucks near me, but a simple search for coffee didnt yield any results, but searching for the name Starbucks sure did:

Sure enough, clicking on the nearest one to me loaded up the address of the Retail Park where Starbucks can be found, and from Google Maps I can quickly hit the Navigation button and be on my way, all in a matter of seconds. There are also options to hail and Uber or call the place to maybe book a table  in the case of a restaurant or club, that is.

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Im also a big music listener, so I often like to search for my favorite artists and such. I have a very-active Spotify subscription, but sometimes I just want to learn more about an artist or find out what theyre up to on Instagram, etc. With Google Now, youd just get a simple web search, maybe a little blurb about them and perhaps a link to Google Play Music. Doing the same in Shortcut Launcher  directly from your homescreen  gives you many more options all presented nice and neatly.

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Right now, Im a big Jimi Hendrix kick, and with Shortcut Launcher, I can choose to listen to his work from a number of different places:

As noted above, I have an active Spotify subscription, and brilliantly clicking Spotify took me right to the artists page inside of the app.

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The search bar here works for more than just his however, including your contacts, movies and a whole lot more.

Im a big fan of the Google Now Launcher and have been for a long time, but aside from the Google Now cards, theres little the search side of things actually does for me. With Shortcut Launcher however, I can use the Search Bar for everything, and actually get detailed results, with actionable info to make things easier, each and every time. I used Shortcut Launcher to great effect while trying it out, using it find new artists that were recommended to me by friends and quickly adding them to my Spotify library, quickly getting directions to restaurants, and so on. I did like the overall look and feel as well, but there was perhaps a little too much of the iOS look here. The animations and the way app folders pop-out are a little similar to something like an iPhones homescreen. Having said that, users can quickly and easily change their wallpaper to whatever they want, and theres even a simple way of going back to your old launcher, should you wish to.

Ratings

Speed (4/5)  Shortcut Launcher itself runs quickly and finding apps or results online is definitely a lot quicker than with most other launchers out there.

Shortcut Launcher itself runs quickly and finding apps or results online is definitely a lot quicker than with most other launchers out there. Theme (4/5)  As I already said, theres a soft and elegant approach to Shortcut Launchers look, and it does work well, but theres perhaps a little too much of the iOS approach here in some parts.

As I already said, theres a soft and elegant approach to Shortcut Launchers look, and it does work well, but theres perhaps a little too much of the iOS approach here in some parts. Features (5/5)  No doubt about it, if you want a cut-down, quicker and easier to use Android launcher that makes life a lot easier and less cluttered, then this is the launcher to use.

No doubt about it, if you want a cut-down, quicker and easier to use Android launcher that makes life a lot easier and less cluttered, then this is the launcher to use. Overall (4.5/5)  Simple, elegant and easy to use, Shortcut Launcher has a hell of a lot going for it, and its the one app I can see a lot of users really enjoying over time.

Pros

Super-easy to get up and working with a charming and easily-understood tutorial for all types of users.

Search Bar delivers accurate and actionable information that people can use to get directions, listen to music or reach a contact quickly.

Apps list is alphabatized and easy to sort through with little to no hassle, and adding widgets is straightforward, too.

Imports all settings from your previous launcher, as well offering an easy way to go back to said previous launcher if you wanted to.

Cons

Some animations and folder views might remind some users of the iOS way of doing things.

Doesnt have any context for apps installed. For instance Podcasts wont bring up the popular Pocket Casts app.

All-in-all, Shortcut Launcher is something that I can see a lot of users really taking to, for a lot of reasons. Chief among them would be the simple approach to a clean and useable search bar that delivers lots of information that users can use there and then inside of the app, like the ability to search for a restaurant and then get directions to the place. Free to download and use, this has a lot of value and it just makes the homescreen of Android a hell of a lot more powerful, while also offering an elegantly easy experience.
Twitter recently just turned 10, which is perhaps the age that companies and brands end up acting like on the network, at least if we pay attention to the big US carriers, that is. T-Mobiles John Legere has used Twitter for a few years now to throw shade at dumb and dumber, his way of referring to AT&T and Verizon. While Verizon and AT&T seem a little more conservative online, 2016 has already become a year of constant tit-for-tat in terms of commercials, network reliability claims and more. The latest Verizon ad, which enlisted the help of The Office creator, Ricky Gervais, has  unsurprisingly  upset Sprints CEO, Marcelo Claure.

The 30-second spot, embedded below, sees Rick Gervais poking fun at Sprints recent claim that the yellow network is more reliable, faster and has better coverage than ever. The ad focuses around the fine print, which Gervais gleefully pointed out says map is not a depiction of coverage which should surely negate an entire map of the United States painted yellow. Claure hit out on Twitter, at both Verizon and Gervais, with an annotated version of the still. Claure is happy that Verizon finally agree with Sprint, but also nodded to Gervais by saying Verizon does it too, Ricky, just obeying the law! It does seem pretty silly for Verizon to go after small print like this, especially considering that the majority of Verizons ads also feature the same sort of fine print. Not to mention the reams and reams of paper that is attached to a device contract from any of the big four carriers in the US.

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Nevertheless, Ricky simply responded with dont shoot the messenger which is pretty much what this comes down to, another fairly straightforward ad that an actor was paid  probably a mountain of money  to do, regardless of whether or not they agree with the statement. Ads like this have steadily been getting more and more out of hand throughout the early part of the year, which started off with everyone using colored balls to simulate whether or not their network was better than anothers. At the end of the day, all of this is very entertaining, but the American Consumer is presumably better-educated than these networks and marketing firms ultimately realize, so the impact here is probably minimal, at best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFnaU88FZM
Sprint has announced that it has started to roll out Android 6.0 Marshmallow to the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, which was launched last year with Android 5.1 Lollipop. The update will be rolled out in a phased manner, and according to Sprint, the process starts today (Thursday, March 24th) and will continue till the 8th of next month, which is when the carrier expects to finish rolling out the new software to all the Note 5 handsets on its network. Along with the all-new version of Android, the latest update will also come with some unspecified bug fixes, but more importantly, the device will also get the latest security patches from both Google and Samsung, which is certainly a reassuring piece of news for the owners of the phablet.

Over the past few weeks, several of Samsungs premium smartphones from the last couple of years have started receiving Android Marshmallow both in the US and elsewhere around the world, including Europe, South Korea and India. While manufacturers like LG Electronics and HTC were fairly quick to roll out Marshmallow to its smartphones, Samsungs devices have only started receiving the update over the past few weeks. Apart from the Note 5 on Verizon and now Sprint, some of the other Samsung devices that have started receiving Marshmallow recently include the Galaxy S6 line from last year, as well as the Galaxy S5 and Note Edge from 2014. Now that Samsung has started releasing Marshmallow-based ROMs for its devices, Verizon was reported to have rolled out the update to the Galaxy Note 5 earlier this month, but those using the Note 5 on AT&T and T-Mobile are still waiting on the update.

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Coming to the Marshmallow update for Sprints Galaxy Note 5, while the carrier hasnt released a changelog of any description regarding what can be expected from the new software, Marshmallow is likely to bring a whole host of new features to the device, including Google Now on Tap, a revamped app drawer, an all-new app permissions manager and a new battery-saving feature called Doze that turns off network connections when the phone is not in use. Whats more, Samsung has also introduced a newer, less resource-heavy version of TouchWiz with Marshmallow that has been widely praised by the media and users alike for being lighter, faster and more intuitive.
Google decided to release Android N a bit differently this time around. Instead of releasing the developer preview at Google I/O in May and releasing the final build in the fall. Google opted to release the developer preview today with the final release coming in Q3. Weve been playing around with the first developer preview (there will be five when everything is all set and done) and there are plenty of changes to Android N compared to Android Marshmallow. Everything here was taken from a Nexus 6P. Things will look slightly different on the Nexus 9 and Pixel C, but not much.

Initial Setup

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The initial setup has changed up a bit as well. While things still look wildly similar to Marshmallow, there are still some changes. After selecting your language, you are given the option to restore your apps and data or set up your device as a new one. Then its off to WiFi setup, and logging into your Gmail account. Now its time to set up the fingerprint reader. Not much is different here, but you do have icons now. So theres a fingerprint icon next to the continue button and a curved arrow pointing to the right for cancel. For choosing the screen lock, you have Nexus Imprint + Pattern, Nexus Imprint + PIN and Nexus Imprint + Password. After youve secured your device, you have the choice of getting additional apps from the Play Store, adding in emergency information, or you can do it later in settings and jump to the home screen.

Multi-Window

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Something that we saw appear in the Android M previews last year, but didnt actually make it into Android Marshmallow when it was finally released. Multi-Window is finally here. Right now, it needs to be turned on in developer settings. Youll need to go all the way to the bottom and turn on Force Activities to be Resizable. Then you are able to long-press the recents button  only when within an app  and youll now have two windows, which can be resized to an extent. So far this appears to work with all apps, which is a great thing. Something that LG and Samsung havent been able to do with their own implementations of this feature.

Night Mode

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The System UI Tuner is back again, and it also brings back Night Mode, which appears to have a bit more features than in Android M. Like Multi-Window, this also appeared in the developer preview but never made it to the official release last fall. With Night Mode you can set it to a dark theme and have it automatically engage when the sun goes down. This way when you look at your phone at night, you arent blinded by the bright colors. Something we can all appreciate. Its in the System UI Tuner, which means we may see it in the final release, we may not. Well have to wait and see.

Settings App

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Google changed up the settings app a bit. Everything is there, mostly, in the same spots as usual. However we now have a slideout drawer. So if youre in the battery stats checking out the battery and want to jump to display settings. Just swipe in from the left and jump to the section you want to go to. A few other small changes include the ability to see the wireless network you are on from the main settings page, as well as if Bluetooth is on and what its connected too and your data usage. You can also see your storage and battery stats from a glance as well. Of course, if you want to see more, you can jump right in and check it out.

Data Saver

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Android N added a Data Saver feature, which is going to be great for those on a limited data plan. It basically turns off the data in the background when your device is not being used. Pretty simple. But that can also cut down on quite a bit of data. Its also worth noting that it also will cut down on your notifications. So if you need Gmail, text message or other notifications, you may not want to utilize the data saver just yet.

Notification Shade

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Its safe to say that the notification shade got the most attention with this release. Quick Settings got some changes. So now you have quick access to a few of the settings at the top. Pull it down and youve got all of your usual settings. Additionally, these are now customizable. So you can change them to be whatever you want, within reason of course. Another small, but noticeable change is the width of the shade. Instead of being most of the width of the device, it is now the entire width. Notification actions are also on the left side instead of centered. The text is also in the color of the app, for example, Gmail will have Archive and Reply in red.
The state, which is facing back-to-back drought for two years, has declared drought in 12 districts in north Karnataka due to deficient north west monsoon in the current Rabi season. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: A central team has inspected the drought situation in north Karnataka and will submit its report next week, based on which the Centre will decide if Rs 1,400 crore as demanded by the state should be sanctioned.

"The central team has visited drought-hit areas in north interior Karnataka. It is preparing the report and will submit the final report next week," a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.

The state, which is facing back-to-back drought for two years, has declared drought in 12 districts in north Karnataka due to deficient north west monsoon in the current Rabi season. The state government has sought Rs 1,400 crore relief from the Centre to tide over the situation.

The state has informed that about 33 per cent of the total Rabi sown area of 35 lakh hectare in the ongoing 2015-16 crop year (July-June) has been affected due to drought.

The drought-hit districts in the state are facing severe drinking water problem due to less water level in reservoirs.

"There is 24 per cent of the full reservoir level and priority is being given for drinking water. Water is being supplied through tankers in 400 villages," the state said in its memorandum.

Even during the Kharif season of this year, the state had declared drought in 27 districts due to 20 per cent deficiency in south west monsoon rainfall. The Centre had sanctioned a relief of Rs 1,510 crore to save Kharif crops.

North interior Karnataka comprises districts of Belgaum, Bidar, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Haveri, Gadag, Dharwad, Gulbarga, Koppal, Bellary and Raichur. This is an arid zone and receives only 711 mm of average rainfall per annum.

A total of 10 states have been declared drought-affected in the country during Kharif season of 2015-16. The Centre had sanctioned over Rs 12,000 crore as relief package to these states.
Vivo has been all over the news recently, mostly because of their latest flagship, the Vivo Xplay 5. The company has announced this smartphone a couple of weeks ago, and its highest-end variant comes with 6GB of RAM, which makes this device the first 6GB RAM smartphone in the world. On top of that, the phone comes with the Dual Edge display, like the Galaxy S6 Edge, S6 Edge Plus and S7 Edge. Combine all this with other high-end specs included in the Vivo Xplay 5 package, and youll get a really interesting smartphone.

The Xplay 5 might be the most interesting Vivo-branded handset to date, but were not here to talk about that phone. Were here to discuss two other Vivo-branded devices, the Vivo V3 and V3 Max, which will be announced in India soon, it seems. These two devices are actually rumored to be quite similar to the Vivo X6 and X6 Plus as far as internals go, though nothing is confirmed at this point. Both of these phones will be made out of metal, and will sport a slightly curved back for a better grip. Now, both the Vivo V3 and V3 Max are expected to ship with Super AMOLED panels, though they will sport different screen sizes, the V3 Max is expected to come with a phablet sized display, unlike the V3. These two devices will come in Gold and Rose Gold color options, and judging by the leaked info, both of these phones will ship with 4GB of RAM on the inside.

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The Vivo V3 and V3 Max are expected to launch in India on April 5th, though it seems like this hasnt been officially confirmed just yet, at least as far as the exact date goes. The company did release quite a few teasers on their official social media channels though, and they mostly tease the fast performance of the upcoming devices. Either way, the launch event seems to be right around the corner, though we will let you know if any additional info surfaces before April 5th, stay tuned, as always.
The virtual reality market currently revolves around a handful of headsets in various segments. In the PC department, the biggest players include HTC and their Vive headset, as well as the Oculus Rift. Samsung has most of the mobile VR market covered with the Samsung Gear VR, and Sony is also preparing for the release of its PlayStation VR bundle. However, if youve kept an eye on the VR scene over the past couple of years or so, you may have previously heard that a Japanese company is working on FOVE  the worlds first virtual reality headset to utilize eye tracking technology. Initially announced in 2014, the startup has now raised $11 million through Series A investments, and interestingly enough, Samsungs investment arm is one of the main backers of the project.

FOVE was officially announced in 2014, and in May 2015, the Japanese startup began a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $250,000. The goal was achieved in less than 4 days, raising a total of $480,650 by the end of the campaign. Although FOVE was initially set for a market release in March 2016 (this month), the startup was forced to delay the headsets release to fall 2016 due to difficulties in acquiring certain components. More to the topic at hand, TechCrunch reports that FOVE recently acquired $11 million through a Series A investment, which was backed by Foxconn, 2020, as well as Samsung Venture Investment. Of course, Samsung is the creator of the Gear VR headset for the mobile market, which makes its involvement in the development of FOVE that much more intriguing.

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FOVE aims to differentiate itself from the rest of the VR crowd by adopting new technologies, including eye tracking through a series of infrared sensors. The technology allows the user to aim with his or her eyes, and can even allow developers to create in-game characters whose behavior can change depending on whether the user is making eye contact. The headset also supports foveated rendering, which is an image processing technique that allows the amount of detail and resolution to vary across an image. While FOVE aims to become the first virtual reality headset utilizing these technologies, the startups CEO and co-founder, Yuka Kojima, says that the company is also interested in licensing its eye-tracking technology to other VR headset manufacturers. Either way, FOVE is currently aimed for a market launch in fall 2016, and Kojima says that the startup is working very hard to secure the timeline.
ZTE is one of the largest China-based tech companies. This company has introduced quite a few interesting devices last year, their Axon and Nubia lineups certainly are interesting. Most of you are quite probably more familiar with ZTEs Axon devices considering some of them have been sold overseas, while the companys Nubia lineup has been available in China for the most par. Well, ZTE plans to change that this year, at least thats what they said during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) back in January. We still dont know when will that happen, but the nubia.com site is ready to go, so all were waiting at this point is more info from ZTE.

As were waiting for info regarding the international expansion of ZTEs subsidiary, Nubia, it seems like the company is preparing to launch a new device, or even devices. The company has released a new teaser on Weibo (Chinese social network), and through that teaser image they basically scheduled a press event for March 29th. Now, this teaser popped up on Nubias page, which, of course, suggests that well see new Nubia devices in a couple of days. So, what will Nubia announce? Well, judging by the latest leaked info, it is possible that Nubia is planning to release a new Z line of devices. The company has released the Nubia Z9, Z9 Mini and Z9 Max back in March last year, so it seems like theyre going to launch the Nubia Z11 line this time around. The Nubia Z11 Mini has already popped up on TENAA (Chinas equivalent to the FCC), and basically confirmed its existence, while a mysterious Snapdragon 820-powered ZTE handset surfaced on GFXBench quite recently as well.

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Now, we didnt see that many Nubia leaks recently, but judging what we know by now, the Nubia Z11 will quite probably sport Qualcomms Snapdragon 820 64-bit quad-core SoC, and will pack in 4GB of RAM. All of the Nubia Z11 devices will be made out of metal and glass, and you can expect fingerprint scanners to be included as well. The Nubia Z11 Max will be similar to the Z11 in terms of specs, while the Nubia Z11 Mini will be the companys mid-range offering, even though it will probably ship with a premium design and solid spec sheet. These devices will be announced in China, but chances are well see them launch globally later this year.
Malta is a small but surprisingly dynamic and highly populated little island that remains a firm favourite with the British. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are big fans, having just completed the latest royal visit to the island this autumn - where they lived as newlyweds from 1949 to 1951.

Handily placed between North Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe, the island has got the climate, is accessed by plenty of year-round flights and is oozing with history but also some world-class amenities such as superb marinas.

With excellent investment fundamentals and a well-established property market, Malta and its sister island Gozo offer top quality new developments as well as traditional "houses of character".

For many British buyers looking for retirement in the sun, this small, plucky off-shoot of the British Empire - where English is widely spoken - is a safe, well-run and sophisticated location with year-round services from Ryanair and easyJet amongst others. It has also developed as a business hub - especially for financial services, e-gaming, software development - and film shoots.

The fact it is so compact and easy to navigate makes it popular with retirees and families alike, but also younger individuals looking to relocate, and its world-class marina makes it popular with yachties.

Malta has tempting residence programmes - the Malta Retirement Plan and the Malta Residence Programme, both offering EU nationals the opportunity to take up residence in Malta and enjoy a tax rate of 15 per cent. Property prices are rising higher than in the UK - at 4.8 per cent year on year (Knight Frank).

Popular places in Malta on aplaceinthesun.com

St Paul's Bay Marsaskala Melliecha Qawra Gharb Bugibba Valletta Santa Venera Manikata Siggiewi

search proerty in malta
Srinagar: Kashmiri separatist leaders on Thursday claimed that they have been assured by Pakistans envoy to India that the country would not budge an inch from its long stated policy on Kashmir and that Islamabads moral, political and diplomatic support to freedom struggle of the people of the State would continue.

After a two-hour long meeting with Abdul Basit, Pakistans High Commissioner, in New Delhi, separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani said that the former gave him assurance that his country will not show any flexibility in its principled stand with regard to the Kashmir dispute.

Kashmirs chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also met Mr. Basit at the head of a delegation of his faction of Hurriyat Conference separately. Mr. Basit assured the APHC leadership that there is no change in Pakistans national policy on Kashmir. He also said that Pakistans leadership firmly believes that the resolution of Kashmir issue is imperative towards creating a peaceful, tension free and prosperous subcontinent and hence it is united on the issue and wants Kashmir should be resolved as per the wishes and aspirations of its people, a spokesman of the amalgam said.

Geelani, Mirwaiz and a battery of other Kashmiri separatist leaders and other politicians, lawyers, journalists, social activists and members of civil society flew to Delhi earlier this week to attend the Pakistan Day celebrations at the neighbouring countrys high commission at the invitation of Basit.

A Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference spokesman here said on Thursday that the octogenarian separatist leader told Basit that India by creating a false impression of terrorism actually wants to build pressure on Pakistan so that it surrenders its principled stand on Kashmir and agrees to put the issue on the backburner. He advised the Nawaz Sharif government not to beg for talks with India but instead send it a clear message that the real and core issue between the two nations is the Kashmir dispute and, until and unless this issue is solved according to the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiri people, peace, development and the prosperity in this region is a distant dream. Geelanis meeting with Basit was attended also by Pakistans deputy high commissioner Abdullah Nizamani and about eight second-rung leaders of the Hurriyat Conference (G) who were accompanying the separatist leader.

We want to tell the world that the freedom struggle of Kashmir has nothing to do with terrorism and we strongly condemn terrorism in any form, Geelani was quoted as saying at the meet. He alleged that it was India which is holding Jammu and Kashmir just with the help of its military might and this country is persecuting and oppressing its citizens for the last 69 years. He further said, Not only Pakistan but it is the moral responsibility of the whole world to help the Kashmiris in their struggle against the tyranny and make room for a free and fair referendum process in the State on the pattern of Scotland.

India has made numerous promises with the people of Jammu and Kashmir which include providing them a free chance to decide their future and that their decision will be respected, he said adding that the prevailing political uncertainty and disturbance in the State is due to Delhis rigid and stubborn approach. Accusing India of backtracking from its promises and not cooperating in the implementation of the relevant UN resolutions, he said, Were not against the dialogue process but India does not maintain a good track record in this regardthis country uses the talks as a time killing process and to hoodwink the world community.

While greeting the government, army and the people of Pakistan on their countrys national day, Geelani said, Pakistan is the only visible supporter of the Kashmiri nation and the way this nation is supporting our right to self determination, we are extremely thankful to them for that.

The Mriwaiz said that he and others who met Basit separately discussed with him various issues related to Kashmir and also the recent meeting of the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan and the efforts underway for the restoration of dialogue process between the two South Asian neighbours. Extending gratitude to Pakistan for supporting the just struggle of Kashmiri people and their principled stand on Kashmir, the Hurriyat leadership said the resumption of parleys between the two countries would pave the way for the resolution of all pending issues including Kashmir between the two neighbours, a statement issued here said.

The Mirwaiz-led delegation stressing that the need of the hour was to make the dialogue process a continuous and sustained affair rather making it a stopgap arrangement. It reiterated that Kashmir was the core issue between the two countries due to which 1.25 crore people of the State are living a painful life and which had robbed the entire South Asia of real peace, stability and prosperity for the past seven decades.

Laying emphasis that for a durable solution on Kashmir, in any type of dialogue between the two countries, there is a need of involving Kashmiri leadership, the Pakistani envoy was told. The Mirwaiz and others assured him that the conglomerate has always stood for cordial ties between the two countries. However, the delegation also said that putting Kashmir issue on the backburner had never yielded any positive results in the past and would prove to be disastrous in future too.
CHENNAI: The Madras high court has directed the authorities to keep in cold storage, the dead body of a dalit, which was found in a well in Erode district allegedly after an agitation against Caste Hindus, at government hospital in Coimbatore till March 28.

Passing interim orders on a petition from C Balasubramanian, son of the deceased Chinnasamy, seeking second post mortem on the body of his father, Justice T Mathivanan said the authorities shall not threaten the petitioner to take the dead body till then.

After additional government pleader P Sanjaigandhi sought time to get instructions, the judge posted to March 28 furthering hearing of the case.

According to petitioner, after S Krishan, a dalit was assaulted by Caste Hindus (Gounders) at Kizhakkupudhu colony on March 10, a case was registered by the police. But the police did not arrest any one.

Therefore, the dalit people in the area led by his father conducted agitation demanding the arrest of those involved in the brutal attack on Krishnan. As the agitation continued, a peace meeting was held in the office of the RDO. However, the official refused to accept the demand of dalits but insisted them to withdraw the case.

They assured that no such atrocities would happen thereafter. However, his father and other dalit people refused to yield to their pressure and took a decision not to work under the Caste Hindus.

Aggrieved, the caste Hindus came to their area, threatened them and shouted at them in filthy language. In these circumstances, on March 19, his father left their house for watering a field belonging to one Thasampudhur Milkarar, where his father was working.

At about 7 p.m. he was informed that his father dead body was lying in a well which was located in the field. After the police personnel took out the body, he noticed that his fathers neck was strangulated with a towel.

There was no chance for his father to commit suicide and fell into a well as he knew swimming and as such, he was done to death by somebody. The officials compelled him and other relatives to affix signature for post mortem and conducted the same in a haste manner.

The police registered an FIR under suspicious death. The police not even bothered to interrogate the caste Hindus. Therefore, he apprehends that they would use their influence for getting the postmortem report in their favour, he added.
Modified On Mar 09, 2017 12:43 PM By Raunak for Renault Lodgy

The Lodgy AMT might steal the crown of India's first automatic diesel MPV from upcoming the Toyota Innova

The two pedal MPV set-up permits one to relax their left foot. These economical MPVs are on the rise, courtesy the above-mentioned layout. Aside from MPVs, almost every segment offers an automatic option, due to the ever-increasing traffic situation. However, none of the manufacturers provide an automatic option in a diesel MPV, but we just might get one soon enough!

Expected Diesel AMTs

As per reports, Renault is cooking an automatic AMT (automated-manual transmission) version of the Lodgy MPV. The French automaker recently coupled the Dusters 110 PS variant of the 1.5l dCi with an AMT. The Lodgy receiving an AMT is not questionable, as the MPV is based on the Dusters platform and even shares its mechanical in order to add more value in Lodgy's specifications. Just like the compact SUV, the Lodgy is likely to get Renaults Easy-R AMT, based on a 6-speed manual.

The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga might also get an AMT option, but this is purely speculative. Though the Tata Zest uses the same version of Fiats 1.3-litre MultiJet  90 PS  that is offered by Maruti for the Ertiga. But the Zest also provides an AMT option. Tata procures its set-up from Magneti Marelli, just like Maruti. Moreover, Marutis first diesel AMT was the facelifted Dzire and the second one is potentially the Ertiga! The Ertiga will become the first MPV to offer an automatic option with both the fuel options  petrol and diesel  provided Maruti brings in its AMT variant.

Diesel Automatics

Speaking of conventional automatics, the Innova is likely to become the first MPV to offer a proper automatic transmission instead of an AMT. The second-generation Innova (Innova Crysta) made its debut at the 2016 Indian Auto Expo and is expected to be launched in the coming months. The Japanese automaker has revealed that the new Innova will offer an automatic option with its brand-new 6-Speed automatic gearbox. It will be coupled to an all-new diesel engine.

In conclusion, all I want to state is that this is just the beginning for diesel automatic MPVs and they are bound to become popular since many are opting for autos. It is only a matter of time before economical two pedal people movers will start pouring into the market!

Recommended Read: Renault to Launch Lodgy AMT Variant Soon

Read More on : Renault Lodgy 2017
Modified On Mar 25, 2016 01:27 PM By Sumit for Mini Cooper Convertible

Within days of the Mini Cooper convertible launch, BMW has said that it is willing to produce the car in India. The only hindrance to doing so is the lack of sales. Currently, Mini convertibles are brought in India as Completely Built Units (CBU).

Mr Philipp Von Sahr, president of BMW Group India, has said that the German carmaker expects the sales to rise in the following years. This will make the assembly of Mini cars in India feasible for the automaker. "We can look at local assembly here, when we reach a critical mass in sales volume. That can happen some years down the line," Mr Sahr was quoted as saying. Local assembly could be looked at when we start selling thousands of units, which is some time later. But we are serious to do so. Selling say 1,000 units as a premium brand and doubling that number at a lower price does not make much of a qualitative difference.

Expressing his pleasure over the company doing well in India, Mr Sahr said, The company is very enthused by the response so far in the country. We never thought we will reach so much in such a short span. The market response so far has been well beyond our estimates. That is the reason we have all the five Mini models available globally and in India as well.

The 2016 Mini Cooper Convertible is priced at Rs. 34.9 lakh (ex-showroom) and will be competing with the Volkswagen Beetle and the Mercedes-Benz A-Class. The German automaker realizes the potential of the growing Indian market, thanks to its increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Currently, the company has sales showrooms in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It is also planning a showroom in Chennai, though a timeline for the same has not been set yet.

Also Read: BMW Confirms 3 New i Models

Read More on : Cooper Convertible 2016
Lalgarh: Hinting at the Election Commission, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday asked her partymen not to be scared and work for the upcoming Assembly polls with the support of public.

"Don't get afraid if somebody comes from outside and scare you. They will go back after three days. Do the election (work) with the support of the people," the TMC supremo said launching her poll campaign in Jangalmahal, a former Maoist violence-affected area.

Boosting the morale of her party workers, she said, "I am not dead. I will always fight. Trinamool Congress means to hold the head high. We feel good, if the people are well."

Accusing the Communist Party of India (Marxist), she claimed that 55,000 political killings had taken place during the 34-year rule of the Left Front. She also alleged that TMC workers were getting killed by CPI-M members. "There is no place for political vendetta in Bengal," said Banerjee.

"Don't be afraid of dirty campaign by the CPI-M along with the Congress and the BJP. They won't be able to defeat us and that is why they are resorting to spreading canards against us. But they won't be successful. People are with us," she said.

Banerjee challenged the opposition parties to fight Trinamool Congress 'politically' and said otherwise their dirty campaign would boomerang on them.

"People will give the opposition a fitting reply in the Assembly elections beginning from April 4," she said. She says peace has returned to Jangalmahal, which had turned into a battlefield during the tenure of the previous Left Front Government.

"I love Jangalmahal. I like development in the area and welfare of the people living here," she said.

Banerjee also said, "It's my government which brought the Maoists into mainstream. In future people will say let's go to Jangalmahal, instead of London or USA. I will come to Jangalmahal a thousand times."

Listing the development work initiated by her government, Banerjee said that she had done the work of 400 years in four years and claimed that in the last four years there was no killing or bloodshed in the entire Jangalmahal area.
Chartering a credit union nowadays is a difficult (almost impossible) task. When a credit union merges today, its charter ceases to exist. If five months later, someone realizes they should have given that credit union one more shot at life, its too late. Mansel Guerry, CEO of CU24

As of Q2 2015, the credit union movement in the United States was made up of 6,284 credit unions and 102 million members. However, smaller credit unions (those with under $1 billion in assets) are closing their doors at a rapid pace. Unfortunately, they are the institutions that serve the majority of credit union members. Utilizing big data will give small credit unions the tools they need to overcome economies of scale, new regulations and inadequate data volumes that currently give big credit unions and large banks a competitive advantage.

Economies of Scale

Large credit unions and banks have an advantage over small credit unions because they are able to hire more employees who specialize in different areas of big data and analytics. Having a larger team allows them to take full advantage of their data. For example, assigning experts to each business database gives big credit unions and banks the ability to develop and execute strategies around an enterprise vision of their data. As a result, large credit unions and banks have a more complete vision and the ability to execute it.

<$1B Asset Credit Unions

6,044 Credit Unions

53 Million Members

Regulatory Pressure

Regulators are continuously requiring more robust data from credit unions. In order to meet the data demands of regulators, credit unions must begin to strategically store their historical data. Small credit unions will be hit the hardest by new regulations since they already have low staffing levels and smaller data sets. All the work required to prepare for new regulations will drain the staffing capacity for productive work.

Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) Model

The FASB is finishing a new model for forecasting loan losses. The CECL model will require an extensive data warehouse system to store data strategically. An analytic data model (ADM) will give credit unions the ability to prepare for the upcoming changes in regulations being developed rapidly in a world of increasing volatility. Small credit unions store less data than the big credit unions and banks which puts them at a disadvantage when building predictive models

Data Volume

The amount of data that big credit unions are able to collect can be intimidating. Storing terabytes of data allows larger competitors to make better predictions. A larger sample size gives these competitors the luxury of making decisions based on an abundance of data. With smaller data sets, small credit unions will not be able to build predictive analytics accurately. CECL will require a plethora of data for predicting future activity on the loan portfolio.

Big Data to the Rescue!

Through strategic use of three 3rd party data sources, small credit unions can leverage data to bridge the gap with the larger competitors.

Industry Data  Credit union industry associations, such as Callahan & Associates, offer data from credit unions Call Reports and various other sources. Tapping into their data gives credit unions the chance to utilize big data (currently not stored within their organization) from associations that truly understand the credit union movement. For example, understanding the loan portfolio of credit unions located throughout a community will give credit union leaders a better vision for growth and expansion in the future.

 Credit union industry associations, such as Callahan & Associates, offer data from credit unions Call Reports and various other sources. Tapping into their data gives credit unions the chance to utilize big data (currently not stored within their organization) from associations that truly understand the credit union movement. For example, understanding the loan portfolio of credit unions located throughout a community will give credit union leaders a better vision for growth and expansion in the future. Public Data  Freely available public data has never been more abundant. Finding data on demographics about a community can be integrated with credit unions internal data. Identifying economic trends, government spending decisions and recent home sales are a few examples of how big data can give small credit unions fresh insight. Companies like Idea5 have a vision to integrate publically available data into credit unions strategies.

 Freely available public data has never been more abundant. Finding data on demographics about a community can be integrated with credit unions internal data. Identifying economic trends, government spending decisions and recent home sales are a few examples of how big data can give small credit unions fresh insight. Companies like Idea5 have a vision to integrate publically available data into credit unions strategies. Strategic Data pooling  Utilizing an industry standard data pool will allow credit unions to share data from the sources they currently store only internally. Through data encryption, the credit union industry is beginning to find ways to securely pool their data with like-minded credit unions. In order to construct better forecasting models, credit unions need more data. Sharing transactional data directly from its source system will give small credit unions a level playing field with big credit unions in forecasting the future. With the CECL model, credit unions should look for ways to improve their forecasting capabilities. Also, the cost of data experts is beyond most small credit union budgets. By pooling data and cooperating to develop predictive analytics, credit unions can have access to an abundance of data and the experts to build predictive analytics.

The credit union movement needs big and small credit unions alike. In order to unite all credit unions, the playing field should be leveled through technology that is made affordable by CUSOs. By utilizing big data, small credit unions can thrive. The cooperative spirit that began the credit union movement, coupled with a deep understanding of members and the local community, will enable small and large credit unions to work together in their common vision of serving local communities with ethical financial products.
The rescued soldier is critical and is being taken to the nearest military hospital, says defence spokesperson. (Photo: PTI)

Srinagar: An Army jawan died and another is missing after a military foot patrol was hit by an avalanche in Turtuk area of Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday morning. This is the second such incidence in the past nine days.

Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang, one of the two soldiers rescued earlier from beneath several feet deep snow after he and his colleague were swept away by the avalanche succumbed to his injuries at a medical facility in the area close to the Line of Control (LoC).

The soldier, who was immediately rescued and evacuated to the nearest medical facility could not be revived by the medical team, Defence Spokesman Colonel S D Goswami said. Tamang was a resident of Lopshu village in Darjeeling, West Bengal.

Lt Gen D S Hooda, Northern Command chief, expressed his deep condolences to the family of the victim.

Read: One soldier feared dead as avalanche hits Army post in Kargil

The defence spokesman said that massive efforts were underway to rescue the other jawan despite inclement weather in the area.

Turtuk in Nubra Valley at a height of 10,000 feet above sea level is close to the Line of Control (LoC) and was part of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir prior to 1971 war. Turtuk is one of the gateways to the Siachen Glacier.

Giving the details of the incident, Lt.Col. N.N.Joshi, the spokesman at Srinagar-based Chinar Corpse of the Army said, At about 8 am today (Friday), an army patrol in Turtuk area of Ladakh was hit by an avalanche in which two soldiers were buried under the snow. Immediate rescue drills resulted in one soldier being rescued while the second soldier is still missing., He added, The rescued soldier is critical and is being evacuated to the nearest military hospital. All efforts are being made to rescue the missing soldier.

In a similar incident two Army jawans were swept away when an avalanche triggered by a mild earthquake hit an Army post in Biamah area at an altitude of 17,500 feet above sea level close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Kargil sector. One of them Sujit was immediately rescued and is recovering in a military hospital. But his colleague Sepoy Vijay Kumar K went who went missing in the mishap and his frozen lifeless body was retrieved from under fifteen feet of snow accumulated in the area of avalanche occurrence three days later by the rescuers. The victim was a resident of Vallaramapuram village of Thirunelvelli district of Tamil Nadu.

On February 3, nine Army soldiers including a junior commissioned officer were buried alive when a huge wall of frost and snow crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier, smothering a vast area which also had an Army camp located on it in the southern side of the area at a height of 19,600 feet in eastern Ladakh. A tenth soldier Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, a resident of Betadur village in Dharwad district of Karnataka, was miraculously pulled out alive from an arctic tent buried under 25 feet of frost and snow though in critical condition by the rescuers on February 8, six days after the incident. But he too died in Army's Research and Referral Hospital, Delhi three days later.

Meanwhile, a medium danger avalanche warning was on Friday issued for higher areas of Jammu and Kashmir, advising people not to venture into these areas. The advisory, issued by Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) which comes under the Ministry of Defence, will remain effective over the next 24 hours beginning 5 pm on Friday. The avalanche prone areas which come under the warning are located at an altitude of above 3,000 metres and fall in frontier districts of Kupwara, Baramula, Bandipur and Kargil and Gandarbal.

A report from Baramulla said that traffic along the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road was affected after a major portion of it in Lagama area of Uri in north Kashmir began sinking following heavy rains on Friday. The Kashmir Valley with neighbouring areas is experiencing moderate to heavy rainfall for the past two days. Several parts of the Himalayan region have also received snowfall, reports said.
Ventana Chapter Submits Comments to the California Coastal Commission Challenging the Revised HPP for Monterey Bay Shores Resort. Photo: Western snowy plover chicks are severely threatened by proposed Monterey Bay Shores Resort in Sand City dunes.

From the Ventana Chapter:The Chapter retained environmentalist biologist Scott Cashen to submit comments to the CCC regarding the revised Habitat Protection Plan (HPP) dated Nov. 11, 2015 prepared by the developer, Security National Guarantee (SNG) for Monterey Bay Shores Resort planned for 39 acres of beachfront dunes in Sand City. The Project calls for a 1.34 million foot mixed-use resort which entails approximately 680,000 cubic yards of grading, 20.37 acres of "habitat restoration," utility extensions and infrastructure, and related development (e.g., roads, parking lots, signs, and lights). The chief concern is the long-term presence of breeding western snowy plover (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) on this site.The revised HPP claims it contains measures for the protection, preservation, and recovery of the western snowy plover but we do not agree. The HPP says the proposed Project would not: (1) significantly impact plover habitat, (2) impair essential behavioral patterns (including breeding, feeding or sheltering), or (3) cause take or harm of any snowy plovers. Scott Cashens 69-page letter explains in what ways these claims and conclusions are unfounded and contradict existing evidence. Indeed, the revised HPP provides no evidence that a project similar to what SNG proposes has ever been built without having a significant impact on the western snowy plover. To the contrary, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that projects similar to what the SNG proposes have had numerous direct and indirect impacts on the species.The basis for Cashens detailed comments are concerns cited by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("USFWS") in a letter dated April 7, 2014 and submitted to the CCC regarding the Project impacts on the western snowy plover. A brief description of concerns still unresolved in the revised HPP are: 1. Inadequate or misrepresentations of plover breeding and nesting activities on the site, 2. The 11 "biological objectives" listed in the revised HPP provide only superficial benefits to the snowy plover, 3. Insufficient seasonal restrictions and other measures to ensure "nesting protection zones", 4. Lack of details for a predator prevention plan, 5. Inadequate discussion of success criterion for western snowy plover and 6. Negative impacts likely to occur in critical habitat from ongoing existence of the Project.The Ventana Chapter
(SACRAMENTO, MARCH 24, 2016)  Community activists and workers held protests outside two Chipotle restaurants today to inform customers about food safety problems and other violations at Taylor Farms in Tracy, Calif., which supplies tomatoes to Chipotle franchises in the region. As the fast-casual Mexican food chain has been roiled by numerous food poisoning outbreaks, protesters held signs and passed out leaflets telling customers in Sacramento and Manteca, Calif. that Chipotles food safety problems run deep in its supply chain.

We are here to support the workers at Taylor Farms, said Amy Glass, a community supporter who spoke at the protest in Manteca. We have a message for Chipotle and that is if its really serious about cleaning up its image, it needs to take a hard look at where it gets its tomatoes.Taylor Farms, the salad processing giant that supplies Chipotle and other food retailers nationwide, has recalled more than 150,000 food items in the last few months and has also been cited for more than 40 health and safety violations at its facilities in Tracy. A recent outbreak of E.coli was linked to celery processed at Taylor Farms in Tracy, infecting 19 people in seven states.Food safety advocates were joined by Taylor Farms workers in spirited actions at both locations during the lunch hour rush. Some wore tomato costumes and held signs asking customers Are you eating dirty tomatoes? The workers who process Chipotle tomatoes say they have observed mold and bird feces near production lines. They also report that a Chipotle-required food safety test for salmonella is sometimes skipped under management time constraints.Workers see issues with food safety all the time  for example rotten or moldy products  but when we raise concerns we are told to go back to work, said one Taylor Farms worker at todays protest who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation by the company. Workers and community supporters say there is a lack of adequate training at Taylor Farms in Tracy, which has resulted in at least four chemical spills in recent months and hundreds of worker injuries over the years.A recent chemical spill of chlorine dioxide led to 20 workers  including two pregnant women  being hospitalized. At todays protests, food safety advocates said it is not a coincidence that Taylor Farms has had so many problems with food safety while dangerous working conditions plague its operations.Taylor Farms is also being prosecuted by Region 32 of the National Labor Relations Board with 58 labor law violations. Protesters told customers at Chipotle that these labor abuses contradict the food chains Food with Integrity program, which includes a commitment to sourcing from businesses that respect workers. Other workers have also complained about sexual harassment and discrimination at the plant that is often ignored by management.When you dont respect the rights of your workers who are the front line of food safety, it isnt surprising that the safety of your products are also undermined, said Ashley Alvarado, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 601 in Stockton, Calif., which has been supporting Taylor Farms workers in their effort to organize and improve working conditions. Taylor Farms is facing labor violations charges due to retaliation, threats and other abuses against workers attempting to organize.We are here with the workers and others to expose what is going on at Taylor Farms and to show Chipotle that its customers want it to do something about the problems at Taylor Farms, Alvarado added.Taylor Farms is the worlds largest salad processor supplying major companies including McDonalds, Chipotle, Starbucks, Walmart, Costco, Safeway and Albertsons, among others.Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit http://www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teamsters
Chinese Factory Workers Talk About Labor Struggles at Home

Date:

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Time:

7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Event Type:

Speaker

Organizer/Author:

Andy

Location Details:

The Green Arcade

1680 Market Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

The new book China on Strike is based on dozens of interviews with workers in Pearl River Delta factories, an industrial region of region of 60 million people that has become the "workshop of the world," as China has become the fastest growing major economy in the world over the last three decades. Pearl River Delta factories supply the world's most profitable corporations, like Apple, Nike, Hewlett Packard, and many others. These interviews document the processes of internal migration in China, changing employment relations, worker culture, and other issues related to Chinas explosive growth. China on Strike is the first English-language book to provide an intimate and revealing window into the lives of workers as they organize against low pay and brutal working conditions, launching the world' largest strike wave in the 21st century. Two of these contributors will be in attendance and will speak and answer questions via interpreter Alex T. Tom.



"As these vivid case-studies illustrate, the real sleeping dragonChinas enormous factory proletariatis wide awake and fighting back on all fronts. Indeed, here is first-hand evidence that Chairman Xi Jinping may soon confront the largest labor rebellion in history."

Mike Davis, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside, and author of Planet of Slums



Fang Gang has worked in factories since he graduated from university, conducting interviews with other workers about their collective struggles in the Pearl River Delta and compiling them into articles that are published and distributed. An example is his 2013 piece "Strikes over the relocation of factories." Currently, Fan Gang assists with workers taking collective action in the Pearl River Delta.



Mi Tu has been engaged in doing translations of literature on workers' struggles in other countries, as well as researching the conditions of workers in China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs), since her university days. Since graduating, Mi has worked in factories, interviewed workers engaged in struggles in the Pearl River Delta, and compiled and circulated these oral histories. Mi currently assists workers taking collective action against occupational diseases.



Alex T. Tom (interpreter) is the Executive Director of San Francisco's Chinese Progressive Association.



Admission is free.




The Regents of the University of California are now falsely equating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism in a desperate effort to stop the successful Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Belgium, the site of a terrorist organization known as NATO, allows former Israeli security agents to run the security at the Brussels airport, the site of recent bombings, adding to suspicion that these bombings, like all previous bombings, were an inside job. California, a bellwether state, appears to be reverting to its old pre-1992 status as a Republican president supporting state with California Republicans supporting moron pro-Israel warmonger Donald Trump for president 1.5 months before vote-by-mail starts, May 9, 2016. California Democrats are evenly divided between 2 pro-Israel warmongers: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

The Regents of the University of California are now falsely equating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism in a desperate effort to stop the successful Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Belgium, the site of a terrorist organization known as NATO, allows former Israeli security agents to run the security at the Brussels airport, the site of recent bombings, adding to suspicion that these bombings, like all previous bombings, were an inside job. California, a bellwether state, appears to be reverting to its old pre-1992 status as a Republican president supporting state with California Republicans supporting moron pro-Israel warmonger Donald Trump for president 1.5 months before vote-by-mail starts, May 9, 2016. California Democrats are evenly divided between 2 pro-Israel warmongers: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.Since direct foreign investment in Israel has dropped 46% due to the BDS movement, the Zionists are frantically trying to pass all kinds of illegal blacklist laws and anti-free speech policies to stop the unstoppable end of the American empire, of which Israel, an American military base, is a part. At the prestigious and expensive rich folks finishing school known as the University of California, they managed to get the Regents of the University of California on March 23, 2016 to attempt to equate Anti-Semitism with Anti-Zionism, ignoring the facts that Arabs are Semites and that, as Nora Barrows Friedman noted, Anti-Zionism has a large, historical presence within Jewish communities. See https://theintercept.com/2016/03/23/university-of-california-adopts-policy-linking-anti-zionism-to-anti-semitism/ The UC Regents also ignore the fact that the Zionists have a long history of collaboration with fascists, first with Nazi Germany, and now with Nazi USA, and were part of the anti-Communist witchhunting teams in the USA in the 1940s-1950s. See:Zionism in the Age of Dictators by Lenni Brenner atThe Iron Wall by Lenni Brenner atThe Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman atThe Strange History of the Anti-Defamation League: ADL Spiesby Jeffrey Blankfort, June 12, 2013, Counterpunch atThe Israel Lobby Archive at51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis edited by Lenni Brenner(2002) Barricade Books, New Jersey, ISBN 1-56980-235-1The Transfer Agreement by Edwin Black(1984, 2001) Carroll & Graf, NY, ISBN 0-7867-0841-7These pro-Israel, pro-Zionist policies are supported by the Democrat and Republican Parties 100% at all levels of office, including Trump, Clinton and Sanders.The bombings in Belgium, the home for the infamous terrorist organization known as NATO, on March 22, 2016, like all previous bombings, should be assumed to be Inside Jobs, and the evidence is appearing, with many articles at the Global Research site, including one describing former Israeli intelligence in charge of the Brussels airport security. This is like putting the fox in the henhouse since Israel was founded by terrorists and has a history of terrorism to benefit US imperialism.SeeFormer Israeli Intelligence Operatives Run Security at Brussels Airport by Sott, 3/23/16 atFor Israels participation in the 9/11 Inside Job, see:Solving 911 by Christopher Bollyn(2012) Published by Christopher Bollyn. ISBN 978-0-9853225-8-8 http://www.bollyn.com Laughing Israelis at World Trade Center on 9/11/01 identified themselves on TV, and much more on Israels complicity in the 911 Inside Job which should surprise no one since Israel, a US military base since its inception in 1948, is and always has been part of the US military-agent provocateur-spy system of US imperialism. EHUD OLMERT, mayor of Jerusalem in 2001, from a terrorist Irgun family, visited New York City on 9/10/11. While all civilian flights were grounded immediately after the 9/11/01 Inside Job and for at least a week thereafter, a full El Al Boeing 747 left New York Citys JFK airport for Israel with authorization from the US Department of Defense, and US military officials were at the JFK airport to make sure this flight was cleared for take-off. Florida, the alleged base of the non-existent Arab hijackers was and is a base for Israeli Mossad operations as is the rest of the USA. EHUD BARAK, who has degrees in physics and mathematics, attended Stanford University, was Israels Defense Minister during the Massacre of Gaza of 2008-2009, making him a war criminal according to the Goldstone Report, and was Prime Minister of Israel from July 1999 to March 2001, when he came to the US to work as a partner in SCP Partners, a Mossad-run private equity company concerned with security, which had in its portfolio a company called Megallurg Holdings, Inc. capable of producing and applying an advanced form of super-thermite, a powerful explosive, which was found in the dust of the Twin Towers. On 9/11/01, he stated on BBC TV that the world faces a War on Terror and called for an invasion of Afghanistan, clearly the cover for the 911 Inside Job.Laughing Israelis at 9/11 Inside Job site in NYC:Israelis  Not Muslims  Cheered in Jersey City on 9/11 by Glen Ford, 11/27/15 atFrom: http://www.blackagendareport.com/print/israelis_cheered_9/11 Also see:"Joyous Celebration" during 9/11 World Trade Center Inside Job atA poll published in California newspapers on March 24, 2016 shows California Republican voters supporting a complete moron, billionaire, pro-Israel warmonger Donald Trump, demonstrating that they have no intellect whatsoever, despite being, like most voters, educated people. See http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/california-poll-trump-leads-gop-clinton-sanders-close-221153 This is the same party that promoted morons Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan as governor and president, and presidents George Bush, senior and junior. The fact that a majority of the voting population supported these elected governors and presidents is a reminder that the United States is a backward, moron cesspool that still has not abolished the death penalty, unlike most of the world, not just the industrialized world, and still does not have socialized medicine, unlike the rest of the industrialized world.This presidential election reflects the complete lack of progress in eliminating poverty on the part of Democrat Pres Obama and on the part of the supermajority in the California legislature and a Democratic governor now in his second term, Jerry Brown. At the federal level, the Democrat-Republicans proudly support blood for oil wars instead of housing the homeless and feeding the hungry, and at the state level, the Democrat-Republicans proudly support a horrifying prison-punishment system where 134,000 people are imprisoned, including 743 inmates on death row, the largest death row in the nation, and still some 5,000 in solitary confinement despite the 9/1/15 settlement agreement that was supposed to cut down on the 7,397 people in solitary confinement, some for decades, in California. Both solitary confinement and the death penalty should be abolished, and all efforts should be made for complete rehabilitation and job-training for decent paying jobs within 5 years of imprisonment.Meanwhile, our school system is grossly underfunded, with California in the same 48th-50th rank as Alabama and Mississippi in per pupil spending. California has 6.2 million public school students, of whom 3.2 million students took a standardized achievement test known as CAASPP in the spring of 2015 with results that are just as shameful as ever. The results show that 56% failed to at least meet the English language standards and 67% failed to at least meet the math standard, with 31% completely failing the English language test and 38% failing the math test. See http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr15/yr15rel69.asp We cannot have guns and butter. Anyone, including Sanders, Clinton and Trump who support the military and prisons by definition have nothing to offer. If you want and end to the war machine and prisons, and an end to all US aid to Israel, you have to support the only parties that have those positions, namely Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. The way to Dump Trump is to support these parties, not to vote for the twin parties of war and fascism, the Democrat-Republicans. Any registered voter can vote by mail, so when you change your voter registration or register for the first time, be sure to also sign up to be a permanent vote-by-mail voter so you can vote in the comfort of your home within 29 days of the election (starting May 9, 2016 for the June 7, 2016 election) and you never forget to vote.You can register online at:For more information, see http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)and http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)
San Francisco Sheriff Hennessy Rejects BSCC Money for New Jail,

Commits to Re-envisioning Justice with help of Community Advocates

SAN FRANCISCO  Yesterday Sheriff Vicki Hennessy wrote to the Board of State and Community Corrections to rescind San Franciscos application for jail funding under SB 863, writing the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has tasked the Sheriffs Department, the Department of Public Health, and community mental health and criminal justice stakeholders to convene an effort to explore alternatives that currently preclude building a new detention facility. To seek an extension at this time is not consistent with my intention to participate fully and in good faith in this local process.The letter from the Sheriff comes after years of community mobilizations against the jail project as well as two hearings on alternatives to jail construction hosted by supportive members of the Board of Supervisors. Even the Sheriff agreed in her letter that through this process, it has become clear that many in the San Francisco community are not supportive of using this money to replace any jail beds. The letter makes jail construction under SB 863 funding an impossibility, however inevitably opens up the door for Ventura County to receive the funding.While the idea that this funding would go to another county is very troubling, community members are optimistic about SF rejecting the funding. Mauricio Najarro, a member of Critical Resistance who has been active in opposing the jail said we consider it a testament to strong community organizing that the Sheriff would respect the will of the people and reject funding today. We firmly believe that if we can stop a jail in San Francisco we can use and share the lessons weve learned to stop jailing everywhere. Community members are celebrating this as a hard fought victory: for now, there will be no new jail construction in San Francisco.The Work Group to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project referred to by Hennessy brings together community advocates and agencies providing mental health needs and reentry services in order to create a plan for closing 850 Bryant and putting resources into community alternatives to jail construction. Their goal is to provide a draft proposal by the end of the summer to be revised and shared with the Board of Supervisors and Mayor in November 2016.The Work Group's first meeting was on March 11th, 2016 where over a dozen members of the No New SF Jail Coalition attended and gave public comment. The No New SF Jail Coalition plans to attend future meetings to hold the Work Group accountable to addressing root problems in San Francisco and not building any sort of asylum or locked facility. This was reiterated by Woods Ervin, a member of the Work Group representing the Transgender Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project, an SF-based organization that works with people in prison, who demanded, We want community-based treatment or residential facilities; we do not want more cages in the form of mental health facilities that strip people of their rights and restrict their freedom of movement.###
Protest Big Pharma!



Public Health, Not Corporate Wealth!



Free Harvoni for Hep C Prisoners! Free Mumia Now!

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, together with the Oasis Clinic in Oakland, urges you to support this demonstration to protest the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences! Corporations such as Gilead hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C disease (HCV), in order to reap huge profits. Prisoners are among the chief victims.

Join us at Gilead Sciences HQ!



333 Lakeside Drive, Foster City



12 Noon, Friday April 1st



Public transportation is available --

Allow about 90 minutes or more:

Take BART Richmond/Daly City line to Milbrae Station,

transfer to Caltrain Shuttle. Take this shuttle to: 353 Lakeside,

then its a short walk to Gilead, at 333 Lakeside Dr.

One pill a day for 12 weeks does the trick to cure Hepatitis-C with a 95 percent success rate. But Gilead charges $1,000 per pill, or nearly $100,000 for a full course of treatment!! Gilead Sciences, the owner of Harvoni, which is the effective new cure for HCV, did not develop this cure: it bought another company! Now its profit gouging threatens many thousands of lives! Obama Care does not protect against Big Pharmas outrageous price gouging!

Nearly 5.2 million Americans are infected with HCV, according to the Center for Disease Control. And political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is among as many as 700,000 prisoners who are victims.

Prisoners who are infected with Hep-C are among the least likely to receive the newly available cure for the disease, due to both the exaggerated price, and the refusal of prison authorities to provide proper health care for inmates!

Mumia Abu-Jamal was infected in 1981, after he was shot by police and as a prisoner given a tainted blood transfusion. Falsely convicted for killing a cop and sent to death row (hes now serving life without the possibility of parole), Mumias infection began to show symptoms in 2015, which is typical for this slow-incubating but usually fatal (if untreated) disease. Mass mobilization by supporters is the only reason Mumia got any medical attention at all, and he is still denied the curative Harvoni treatment which can ensure his survival! The PA prison system is now trying to kill Mumia by medical neglect!

In violation of National Institute of Health (NIH) regulations, Gilead canceled its program to supply a certain amount of the drug at low cost. And the New York Times reported that in "a complicated deal to sell hepatitis drugs at a small fraction of their usual cost while imposing tight restrictions intended to protect lucrative markets in the West... for the past year, Gilead has sold the drug to the Egyptian government for about $10 a pill."

Mumia Abu-Jamal, though he nearly died for lack of treatment last year, points out that he is only one of many. He supports the demands for treatment of some 10,000 prisoners in Pennsylvania who suffer from HCV infection.

In a recent federal appeal, lawyers fighting for treatment of Mumia brought out evidence in court of a secret PA Department of Corrections (DOC) protocol which explicitly provides for observation, but NO treatment, for HCV infected prisoners, until they are at deaths door (if then)!

WE DEMAND: PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!

NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!

FREE TREATMENT FOR HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS & OTHERS NOW!

JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!
UFWA founder Dolores Huerta is now lying about Sanders record and continues to support the S-744 slave labor bill that would set up a bracero program in the US and also further the militarization of the border. The UFWA also made a deal with the Mexican and US government to set up labor brokers offices in Mexico to "recruit" Mexican workers to become slave labor "guest workers" in the US

Dolores Huerta And UFWA Support Mexican Slave Guest Worker Legislation- Huerta "becoming an instrument of the establishment.Both "Dolores Huerta" & The "United Farm Workers Union" have & Do Support the current U.S Senate's Passage of the Most "Inhumane "Comphresensive Immigration Reform (CIR) S-744 legislation while the "UFW" has signed agreements with the "PRI" Corrupt Michoacan Mexican State Government in the "Employment Recruitment" in the "Importation of Mexican Slave Guest Workers' through their "AG-Jobs" "Bracero Guest Worker Program included in the U.S.Senate's "CIR" S-744" Legislation which they refuse to Disclose & make public in addition now their "Non-Profit" Corporate Alliance with their "Close relationship with Non-Union Corporations " in a "Working Relationship ??' "Walmart's,Costco's,Whole Foods" Corporate Food Industry their "Equitable Food Initiative" "EFI" ???,& Refuse to Support "Boycotts" of these Non-Union Corporations ??.The AFL-CIO compared the exploitative nature of the guest worker provision to a modern-day Bracero Program, referring to the program launched during the Second World War to meet labor demands in the United States  one which led to the forced deportation of millions of Mexicans, including a few U.S. citizens, from the United States under Operation Wetback beginning in 1954. (Article by Hector Luis Alamo here.)The AFL-CIO compared the exploitative nature of the guest worker provision to a modern-day Bracero Program, referring to the program launched during the Second World War to meet labor demands in the United States  one which led to the forced deportation of millions of Mexicans, including a few U.S. citizens, from the United States under Operation Wetback beginning in 1954. (Article by Hector Luis Alamo here.)An Open Letter to Dolores Huerta http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ /an-open-letter-to-dolores-h03/24/2016 09:24 am ET | Updated 1 day agoActress; Co-founder, Voto LatinoWhen you have a conflict, that means that there are truths that have to be addressed on each side of the conflict. And when you have a conflict, then its an educational process to try to resolve the conflict. And to resolve that, you have to get people on both sides of the conflict involved so that they can dialogue.  Dolores HuertaDear Dolores,Before responding to your article on Bernie Sanders on Medium, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you and the work you have done for Latina/os, workers rights, unions, the feminist and LGBTQ movements, as well as against police brutality and pesticides. You stood up and gave a voice to the less fortunate and unrepresented parts of our communities, no matter what obstacles or challenges were thrown in your way. This is exactly why your article on Bernie Sanders came as such a surprise to me  that the same woman who has made it her lifes mission to speak the truth and shed light on corruption, lies, and false narratives created by the corporate elite and special interest groups, would now suddenly create a narrative that distorts facts and misguides American voters.Just like you stated in the above quote, I, too, believe in the American ideal of reasonable and robust debate between opposing viewpoints in order to move a discussion forward and ultimately arrive at a sensible resolution. This becomes impossible, or at least unnecessarily difficult, when one of the parties involved is purposefully trying to obfuscate the facts. I recognized that very same tactic that the mainstream media has been using when I read your opinion piece, where the details of Bernie Sanders voting record and positions were misrepresented and, again, when you and America Ferrera spread the false story on Twitter that Bernie supporters chanted English only at a Nevada caucus. Though it was debunked by multiple media outlets and video evidence, neither of you have corrected, apologized for, or taken down the posts. Its race baiting, misleading, divisive and inaccurate and I hope you both will rectify that immediately. Regardless of either your interpretations of the event, the guidelines strictly prohibited any form of communication with caucus participants by campaigners once the caucus was called to order!The democratic process, as it was intended, is quite simple: Present your facts, track records and plans, move forward honestly and openly, debate, call out discrepancies, explain and educate, then let the American people decide whom they would like to lead the country based on such answers. By distorting and omitting facts you do not give us, the American people, a transparent picture. You cheat us out of making an educated and well-informed decision and dishonor our voting process and democracy itself.Hillary Clintons track record goes directly against what you and every other activist before and after you has fought for.My intention is not to tell anyone how to vote, but instead offer the facts and invite you to a healthy dialogue and debate.So let me address your statements made:1. People of good will can disagree about the H.R. 6094 (109th): Community Protection Act of 2006, which Bernie Sanders voted for. But: The words indefinite detention did not appear anywhere in the bill Bernie voted for. The bill only applied to people awaiting deportation (under orders of removal), often for having criminal records. The Congressional research office said people could be detained indefinitely under the bill if they were specified dangerous aliens under orders of removal who cannot be removed. Only about 4,000 people had been detained for more than six months as of 2009  and the bill Bernie voted for would have required review of their detention status every six months. The bill split liberals in Congress, with some voting against it and many others (including Nancy Pelosi, Hillary supporter Sherrod Brown, and DNC chair and Hillary supporter Debbie Wasserman Schultz) voting for it, along with Bernie.2. About the 2007 bill you criticized Bernie for voting against and have made your main argument:He supported the DREAM ACT, but the entire bill had too many sections that would have been detrimental to American workers, immigration reform, immigrants and their families, so he ultimately decided to keep fighting for a better bill. A couple of the more contentious points were: It stepped-up border security, adding 20,000 more Border Patrol agents and 370 miles of additional fencing (you might call that Trump wall building) along the U.S.-Mexico border. It removed four of the five family-based categories under which an immigrant could apply for permanent residency. All that was left was the preference for spouses and children of U.S. citizens (which strikes me as a form of privilege). It expanded the horribly abusive guest worker program that has left some people in what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls close to slavery in its report on the subject. (There are other horror stories, too.) The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a federation of our countrys largest trade unions, both opposed the bill. LULACs Executive Director said the group cannot support a bill that will separate families and lead to the exploitation of immigrant workers while resulting in widespread undocumented immigration in the future. The AFL-CIO compared the exploitative nature of the guest worker provision to a modern-day Bracero Program, referring to the program launched during the Second World War to meet labor demands in the United States  one which led to the forced deportation of millions of Mexicans, including a few U.S. citizens, from the United States under Operation Wetback beginning in 1954. (Article by Hector Luis Alamo here.)3. You mention that Bernie did not sign Harry Reids letter to president Obama in 2011: The letter was written and issued by 22 Senate Democrats. It was not presented to the entire Senate for signature, nor to Bernie Sanders (an independent at the time), and was signed by only a small fraction of the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton did not respond to the letter sent to Obama. She did not denounce the deportations at that time, which makes the whole mention of the letter unreasonable.4. The Minutemen amendment: The majority of politicians involved agreed that it actually didnt do anything, since the Customs and Border Patrol said it directed them to do what they were already doing anyway. Hillary was blatantly misleading in the debate when she said Bernie sided with hardline Republicans on it, since 76 other Democrats voted for it too. She made it sound like it was just him and the extremist right-wingers. The ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee said of the amendment If people want to put it in the bill, I guess that is okay because it apparently does nothing.5. Your claim that Hillary has a better immigration track record and plan. Lets compare a few of their points on each subject:About your side comment of not knowing where Bernie Sanders stands and Hillary Clinton being on the right side of history:Hillary Clintons track record goes directly against what you and every other activist before and after you has fought for: the rights of the people based on the Declaration of Independence and the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are principles that Hillary did not uphold when taking away American citizens freedom by voting for the Patriot Act, twice; by not treating all men as equal when going against same-sex marriage until 2013; and when she sold out her own citizens by taking money from lobbyists and promoting the rise of the private prison complex. This has led to modern-day slavery for the impoverished, and especially forLatino and African American communities. She has put corporations and special interest groups before the people of this great country by voting to bail out banks and not her constituents. She does not uphold the sanctity of life when endorsing wars, condoning fracking or the death penalty.Bernie Sanders, the proud son of an immigrant, wants to raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to join or form a union. He led the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history, protesting the University of Chicagos segregated housing policy; walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1963 March on Washington, supports ending all family deportations;l and is the leading voice on issues of income inequality, global warming, LGBTQ issues, and universal health care. He is transparent and consistent and has been, time and time again, on the right side of history fighting for all of us and our rights. He has done so, oftentimes when it was unpopular to do so, because he didnt need public opinion to evolve in order to take a stand.I am surprised, dismayed, and concerned that you would do your legacy such a disservice by becoming an instrument of the establishment.That is leadership and vision. Bernie is the only candidate running who will not blindly lead us into another war. He is using his position to champion free higher education for our children and fight for the future of our country. He has refused to take money from Super PACs and special Wall Street interest groups, inspires participation and engagement with his constituents, and once in the White House will leave the door open for average citizens to become active participants in government. This is the cornerstone of the political revolution he has inspired.Dolores, I am surprised, dismayed, and concerned that you would do your legacy such a disservice by becoming an instrument of the establishment, rather than joining this movement to create a better America like you once inspired us to do.I write this letter in the hopes that we can continue to have a robust and honest conversation based on the facts and on the actions that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have taken during their legislative careers. I, like you, continue to be encouraged by the millions of young people that have flooded the streets demanding that we address issues of race and power, class and privilege. They show us what true inclusion and democracy looks like. From #BlackLivesMatter to the migrant rights movement, young people are pushing us to live up to our highest ideals and values. And today, young people are demanding that Bernie Sanders is allowed to run in a fair and transparent primary. This election is too important to do anything less.In solidarity,Rosario DawsonI am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. Abraham LincolnFollow Rosario Dawson on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rosariodawson Photos of Huerta getting an award from the present Mexican government involved in the attacks on trade unions and covering up the murder of school childrenorrupt Dolores Huerta Political Operation At Democratic Party Convention-A Family OperationEmilio Huerta draws on family name, blocks rival's Democratic party endorsement in Central Valley raceIt was a bit of a throwback weekend in San Jose, with labor legend Dolores Huerta flexing organizing muscle to gather the delegate support to boost her son Emilio Huerta's congressional bid.After gathering hundreds of signatures and following a lively floor vote, Emilio Huerta succeeded in blocking Fowler City Councilman Daniel Parra from getting the party endorsement as he challenges Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) in the Central Valley race. Valadao is considered vulnerable given it is a presidential year with higher voter turnout.The effort was a family affair: Dolores, Emilio and his daughter Ana Lucia worked the California Democratic Party convention all weekend to make it happen.Thanks to Huerta's actions, neither Democrat will have the party's official support or the funding that comes with it.After Parra won the endorsement vote of a small, local caucus Saturday night, Emilio and Ana hit the convention halls to gather the 300 signatures needed to challenge it on the convention floor Sunday.A trio of delegates from Lancaster were among the first to sign."I support him, he is Dolores Huerta's son," said delegate Camille Dunn. "Let the people hear him."At around 11 p.m. the group filed enough signatures. A tired Dolores and Emilio came into the press room looking for coffee.Decaf for Dolores, cafe con leche for Emilio."An organizer eats when he can, sleeps when can," he said between sips.In the morning Ana Lucia and Andres Chavez, the 22-year-old grandson of United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez, worked the halls explaining the particulars of the parliamentary voting to delegates.Then the big guns came out.First up to speak in favor of vacating the endorsement was Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of California's Democratic Congressional delegation.She admitted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wasn't able to recruit a candidate in the race early on, one reason Huerta had a late start. She said her heart did a "pitter patter" when Huerta entered in early January. Next up was Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside).Then came Dolores Huerta:Huerta was successful  sort of. While he took the endorsement away from Parra, but he failed to win a second vote that would have given the party's backing. That means the party is neutral in the race, and won't offer financial support."I won this thing twice," Parra said the night before. "Now, people outside my district get to decide it."For Parra's supporters the whole process left a bitter taste. After all, they said, Parra had earlier in February won a pre-endorsement vote with backing from more than 80% of local delegates. And he claimed just under two thirds of the vote Saturday night."Honor our local grass roots votes," said Parra backer Estella Kessler, 67 of Selma, Calif., in urging statewide delegates to vote to keep the endorsement.After the vote Parra left the hall, while Huerta walked the halls shaking hands.Huerta said the real test comes with the June 7 primary when voters take to the polls. He acknowledged his name helped him block Parra."It opens the door but it's up to me to bring substance to the table," he said.Nobody Shouted "English Only" at Dolores Huerta-Former UFWA Leader Lies For ClintonBy Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News22 February 16et me begin by saying that I respect the lifetime accomplishments of Dolores Huerta. She is an icon in the labor movement, Cesar Chavezs partner in the farmworker movement. I would not have objected to her translating at the caucus being held at Harrahs Casino in Las Vegas.She is mistaken, however, when she claims that supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted English only. One person in that room uttered the words English only, and it was the precinct chair, who said: We are going to go with English only, Im sorry.The room did get loud, but there was no objection to there being an interpreter; the objection was to having a Clinton surrogate on the stage. In the video above, you can hear No and Neutral being shouted. Nobody was chanting English only.In an interview in The Washington Post, Huerta said, The Bernie organizers were shouting, No, no, no. Then a Bernie person stood up and said, No, we need to have it, I can also do translation or whatever. The person who ran the caucus said, Well, we wont have a translator. The sad thing about this is that some of the organizers were shouting, English only! English only! The Bernie organizers.Most of her statement is accurate, but the most serious allegation she made is not true. For the record, I shot the video and was centrally located in the room.Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.Open Letter To UFWA President Arturo Rodriguez From UFWA Co-Founder Al Roja On The 50th Anniversary Of The Delano 1965 Grape StrikeDear brothers and sisters many of you for the last several months have been asking me whether I was invited or decided to attend the "UFW" 50th year commemoration of the Delano 1965 Grape Strike. Three days prior the event I received an invitation from, "Arturo Rodriguez." President of the "UFW" Union in so doing after consulting with my Family having sent our response have decided to share and to release publicly the letter that was sent to brother Arturo Rodriguez."Al RojasSeptember 27, 2015Arturo RodriguezPresidentUnited Farm WorkersBrother Arturo,Unfortunately, me and my family will not be able to attend; however, it is my request that you read this letter at the 50th Anniversary of the Grape Strike and Boycott event.No Time To Celebrate, Agricultural Workers In California and Mexico Are Still Unorganized!The 50th anniversary of the Grape Strike and Boycott is important to address, but the reality is that the vast majority of farmworkers are still unorganized, more so today than before -- and they continue to face tremendous exploitation and discrimination. Today there is an anti-labor offensive not only against farmworkers but against all workers -- from postal workers who face privatization, to teachers who face charters and union-busting along with more segregation in the schools.A critical lesson is that farmworkers need a democratic union in which the rank and file can elect their representatives, and all union officials and officers must come from the rank and file who are paid a similar wage. We need locals where the rank and file control their union and the working members are the elected representatives, locally and nationally. The UFW needs to end its reliance on the Democratic Party and on officials like Jerry Brown, who has been supported by labor yet then help the farm owners prevent unionization. The politicians are putting forward people like Driscolls chairman, Miles Reiter, who was appointed to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. Both Republicans and Democrats take money from the growers and when push comes to shove they end up siding with the companies. We need to get Miles Reiter off this board for the way he has treated the workers in Mexico.The UFW also needs to end its support of an indentured servitude "guest worker" outsourcing program. Unfortunately both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, and other unions, have supported the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation (S-744), approved by the U.S. Senate, which included a guest worker program that sets up labor brokers in Mexico to recruit workers to be "union workers as replacement workers in the United States. How would this help U.S. agricultural workers when, for example, the striking Sakuma workers, Familias Unidas Por La Justicia (FUJ) in the state of Washington, are faced with replacement "guest workers? Already the FUJ has experienced employers use of replacing FUJ workers, using replacement guest workers.We need to revitalize our solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Mexico, not with a "guest worker" program but by supporting their struggle for independent unions and for direct action, and by building solidarity with them. The key struggle that we need to actively support is the strike by the Alliance of National State and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice of over 50,000 workers. The U.S. government, through the immigration laws and support for union-busters like the Driscolls corporation, is helping to maintain virtual slave labor on our borders with wages at $7.00 a day. Our struggle is  and must be -- with our brothers and sisters and their families in San Quintin, Mexico, and with the Sakuma workers, Familias Unidas Por La Justicia (FUJ), in the state of Washington. They need our support through a boycott and also direct solidarity rallies and action between U.S. and Mexican workers. We face the same bosses and same corporate-controlled anti-labor governments.It is not enough to "commemorate" the anniversary with talk. We need to support a mass organizing effort in the Central Valley and throughout California -- for the future of our families and children. We need to organize in our communities for the boycott of all Driscolls products, and to work for the victory for human and labor rights for our brothers and sisters in Mexico and against the use of reactionary U.S./Mexican laws that pit worker against worker and that prevent unionization on both sides of the border, which NAFTA has encouraged.We have the power, and we need to build solidarity and education to win this struggle. The UFW must actively support the Driscolls international boycott campaign.I would like to now add at a note on a more personal level: My family takes great pride and honor to have been part of the UFW Grape Strike and Boycott history. Our family, like many families, experienced great suffering during the movement, and the UFW has never shown any good faith or compassion toward my family to this very day. Me and Elena, and our children live with a great pain in our hearts that our family was so mistreated by the very union that we helped to found: The United Farmworkers Independent Union, founded in 1965.Fraternally,Al ROJASCo-Founder of the United Farm Workers UnionOrganizer - Grape Boycott - Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaOrganizer - Tomato Strike - Woodland/Davis/Sacramento, California1964-1979
It's time for $15/hr to become the floor demand of those who seek a livable wage, not a future ceiling. It's time to push the boundaries of what is thinkable - and hence doable - further.

$20 is the new $15! $20 in 2020!

These are not just good catchphrases; they've become a local ballot initiative.

The doubters thought powerful business interests would derail the highest minimum wage in the country from passing by voter initiative in Oakland, CA in 2014. They were wrong. A $12.25(1) measure passed overwhelmingly with more than 80% in favor.

The doubters thought $15/hr was a pipe dream. They were wrong. Cities like Seattle, WA, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Emeryville, CA made it a future reality. And this coming November the entire of State of California will vote for $15/hr by 2021 - right now it seems very likely to pass.

But in cities with housing crises, where median rent for a one bedroom apartment would consume every bit of a $12.25/hr wage, and 80% of a $15/hr wage, a promise of $15/hr some years down the road is not enough.

To put it another way, in the immortal words of MeatLoaf

I never knew so many bad times

Could follow me so mercilessly

It's almost surreal

All the pain that I feel

The future ain't what it used to be



The Fight for $15 is alliterative, alluring and awesome. But it has had the effect of creating the perception that a $15/hr min wage is a ceiling: thus far and no more.

It's time to do away with that perception. And what better place to begin changing a meme than the city which passed this country's highest minimum wage in a grassroots campaign with no support from its elected officials?

And it began yesterday.

A broad-based political coalition has emerged in Oakland to campaign for three ballot initiatives(2) this year that propose to raise the minimum wage to $20 by 2020, establish a police commission, and strengthen renter protections against eviction. Calling themselves the Oakland Justice Coalition, the group announced today at a press conference on the steps of Oakland City Hall that they intend to raise and spend at least $100,000 to campaign for their causes.

The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly, a member of the Oakland Justice Coalition, has created a local ballot initiative and, in cooperation with OJC, has begun collecting signatures for the measure which would

Raise Oakland's minimum wage to $14.00 in 2017, and $2/yr each year thereafter, reaching $20/hr in 2020.

Enact fair scheduling regulations, so certain segments of the work force would no longer be left without a clue as to how many hours they will be working, and when, or put "on call" without notice or renumeration.

Create a Department of Labor Enforcement, with mandated staffing levels, which would prosecute wage theft and enforce the above provisions.

Whether it succeeds in making it to the ballot or not, this sets a new bar. It's time for $15/hr to become the floor demand of those who seek a livable wage, not a future ceiling. It's time to push the boundaries of what is thinkable - and hence doable - further.

-----

1. Oakland's minimum wage is now $12.55, due to a CPI adjustment in January. When Oakland's new minimum wage wage went into effect a year ago, it was the highest minimum wage in the country actually in effect. Emeryville, CA and SeaTac, WA have since gone higher. In July, San Francisco's minimum wage will go to $13.00/hr, on its way to $15 in July, 2018.

2. Find links to the text of all three ballot initiatives here.
Community activists working independently on separate ballot measures have come together under the umbrella of the Oakland Justice Coalition. Together, the three measures they propose would radically transform police accountability, renters' rights, and the minimum wage in Oakland. The coalition has committed to recruiting hundreds of signature gatherers to qualify the measures for the ballot, and to raising $100,000 to support the coordinated campaigns through the November 2016 election. On March 24, Oakland Justice Coalition members made a formal announcement of their intentions in front of Oakland City Hall.

What's to be expected from this unprecedented political push by social justice advocates in Oakland?The Coalition for Police Accountability submitted to the city clerk's office a ballot measure to establish a Police Commission with the power to discipline officers and fire the chief of the Oakland police department. The proposed structural changes to accomplish this new level of police oversight are significant enough to require an amendment to the city charter (pdf). To qualify for the ballot, the amendment must obtain signatures from 15% of registered voters, meaning over 32, 000 valid signatures in all.The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly proposal seeks to raise the minimum wage in Oakland to $14 an hour this year and $20 an hour by 2020, as well as mandating fair scheduling by employers. As an ordinance rather than a charter amendment, the measure has a lower signature threshold to cross of 10% of registered voters, or over 21,000 signatures.The Renters Upgrade Initiative put forward by the Oakland Tenants Union is intended to strengthen renters' rights in Oakland by restricting just cause evictions, placing an absolute 5% per year cap on rent increases, cover more units under rent control, and ensure a tenant-majority Rent Board, among other improvements for tenants. Again, as a proposed ordinance, these renters' protections require signatures from 10% of registered voters to qualify for the November ballot.Stiff resistance is expected to emerge to all three measures. Without question, the Oakland Police Officers' Association and other police lobbyists will vigorously resist losing the right to shield the most violent and otherwise crooked cops from accountability. Landlord groups such as the California Apartment Association are already actively attempting to suppress movements for tenants' rights throughout the Bay Area. Business groups will certainly line up against a dramatically increased minimum wage and fair scheduling mandates. And it wouldn't be surprising if executives from local non-profits stood up against a wage increase as some did in 2014 against Measure FF.Elected officials likewise will do their part to undermine these measures. Feeling the winds of resistance to the status quo blowing through the city, mayor Libby Schaaf and council members have proposed or currently are working on plans for their own versions of increased police oversight and tenant protections, policies and ordinances intended to be much more friendly to police and business interests.Despite the obvious obstacles, the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly began distributing petitions and collecting signatures at the City Hall press conference. Petitions for the other two measures are headed to the printer and expected to begin circulating in the very near future. An Oakland Justice Coalition canvassing kickoff is planned for Saturday, April 2, with volunteers spreading out across communities throughout Oakland. The coalition intends to register new voters as well.
The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has implemented a new policy that will give pause to employers defending discrimination claims in the agencys forum.

 The procedure requires the release of employer position statements, including all non-confidential documents and exhibits, to the charging employee. Employers are also required to share positions statements with claimant employees attorney representatives.Employers beware: if a position statement says one thing and an internal company document says another, this constitutes an illegal pretext (or at least enough of an issue of fact to get to a jury trial). With the explosion of communication via email, instant messages and even social media, uncovering various reasons for a decision becomes easier.Previously, the disclosure of employer position statements was made at the discretion of the particular EEOC field offices directors or investigators, and practices were inconsistent nationwide. Before the change, EEOC investigators might summarize an employers evidence and arguments for an employee to solicit the latters response. Now, the employee will be able to view firsthand all of the employers cards on the table, and read the defending employers argument for him/herself.Submitting employer position statements to the EEOC is part of the standard agency process: Employees utilize this federal agency to file claims, or charges, of discrimination. Employers submit responses in the form of position statements that lay out all relevant arguments and defenses. The EEOC makes a determination based on both sides of the story. After utilizing the EEOC agency process, employees can file law suits against employers within a certain statutory number of days.This new process essentially creates discovery for the employee without jumping through the original hoop of requesting a copy of the position statement through FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act).The release of position statement copies, together with all non-confidential documents submitted in support of the position statement, is effective January 1, 2016. The EEOC states these new procedures are intended to create uniformity and greater transparency in the handling of discrimination charges throughout the country. However, employers will not benefit equally from a fuller exchange of information because the EEOC does not intend to furnish employers with the employees responses to the position statement.Employers now must separate and appropriately label confidential information that is submitted in support of position statements (for example, in a separate attachment labeled Confidential). The scary part for employers? Whether the EEOC will, in every instance, accept the Employers characterization of material as confidential remains entirely unknown.The EEOC does promise that the following sensitive material will not be turned over to claimant employees: Sensitive medical information.* Confidential commercial or financial information. Trade secrets. Non-relevant personally identifiable information of witnesses, comparators or third parties (such as social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers). References to charges filed against employers by other charging parties.As Workforce.com points out, make no mistake: this policy is really huge because the EEOC position statement is an employers first chance to tell its side of the story, and the semi-automatic provision of these documents to employees and their lawyers places a hyper-premium on accuracy.An effective way for an employee to win a discrimination case is by establishing pretext, which means proving the employers stated reason for the termination (or other adverse employment action) was a cover-up for discrimination. While there are several ways to prove pretext, an employee can establish pretext by demonstrating the employers shifting rationales.Corporate attorneys and employers should consider the implications of this new policy going forward, particularly because plaintiffs attorneys now may have access to what is, in essence, early discovery. This is a benefit for plaintiffs counsel that may encourage settlement because both parties can recognize weaker claims earlier on in the administrative process.Employers should also keep in mind that information produced in a position statement may alert opposing counsel to new legal theories, additional damages, and potential new plaintiffs. Thorough, consistent, and accurate investigations will continue to be important avenues of preparing employer position statements.
Mumbai: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat is all set to attend the marriage ceremony of Devidas Kamdi, who works as a cook at his office, in Dadar on Friday. Bhagwat stays in Dadar during his visits to the city.

We work here as a family and whenever he is here, Bhagwatji interacts with us just as a head of a family would do. Sometime ago, during one such sessions, Bhagwatji had casually asked Devidas regarding his plans to get married and had even assured him that he would attend his marriage ceremony, said Ramratan Yadav, who looks after Pitruchaya, the RSS office.

When Devidas finally decided to get married, he informed Bhagwat about it and invited him to his village. Bhagwatji has assured us that he will come. This will be the biggest day for us, said Manoj, younger brother of Devidas.

Non-formal approach and a strong bond of being part of a big family form the core of RSS style of functioning. Mohanjis act is just a manifestation of that style, said Dilip Kshirsagar, senior office bearer, who looks after the publicity wing of RSS in Western Maharashtra.

Devidas is from the Torandongri village on the Mumbai-Gujarat border in Surgana taluka. The marriage will take place at around noon at the remote Anand pada locality of the village, said Jagan Pawar, senior office bearer of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, the RSS outfit that works in the tribal area.

Devidas came in contact with the RSS around 10 years ago. He wanted to go to a big city like Mumbai to earn his living and he had an interest in cooking. Around eight years ago, when there was an opportunity, he started working at the RSS offices and has been at Pitruchaya for the past couple of years, said Pawar. Bhagwats two-day Nashik tour does not include any other public programme or a meeting. He is coming here exclusively to attend the marriage ceremony, Kshirsagar said.
- Susan Asakpa is a female taxi driver based in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

- She studied Accounting from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka

- Her father bought her the car which she converted into a taxi

Susan Asakpa all set for the day's job

History books recorded that Funmilayo Ransom-Kuti, a political campaigner, women's activist and mother of the legendary musician, Fela Kuti, was the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria.

Today, while some women are afraid of the car steering, others have decided to earn a living in the male dominated field as taxi drivers. One of such women is Delta state born, Susan Asakpa.

"I studied Accounting from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I worked in a hotel for about three years. There was nothing new anymore, no challenge and the salary was stagnant. Later on, my boss called me up and told me that he will be reducing my salary by N10,000. I was surprised.

"Before then, I have been thinking about what business I can do. I had three business ideas (hair dressing, food and taxi business). I prayed about them after which I chose this one," Asakpa told Legit.ng.

Miss Asakpa holding the key to her taxi

With the needed encouragement from her father who bought her a car on loan, Asakpa began her journey as the first female graduate taxi driver in Abuja.

"I spoke with my dad who happens to be my closest confidant and he quickly got a loan from the bank and bought me this car. He has been so supportive, not a single word of discouragement," she said.

Speaking on the journey so far, stated that her major challenge on the job is being denied access into some government offices and estates due to the colour of her car.

Miss Asakpa on the look out for customers

READ ALSO: Feature: The plight of Nigerian army widows

"One of my low moments on this job is when I am not allowed into government offices because my car is painted green which is the official colour for Abuja taxis.

"Maybe I read the law wrongly or something but it is stated that if I want to use my vehicle for commercial purpose, I should paint it in the uniform colour which is green. I have lost a lot of customers and this has affected my business a lot of times.

"Also, I have had good times when others stopped me, often shocked to see me on the steering, they hopped into the car and most times they even ask me to keep the change (which is good for business)," she said.

Miss Asakpa hopes to further her education and become a lecturer in future

The beautiful lady who declined comments when asked if asked about her marital status told Legit.ng that she can marry a taxi driver if he is educated, focused and speaks good English.

READ ALSO: Where is Justice for the 640 slain in Maiduguri?

Asakpa who is a role model to other young girls hopes to invest in her business, further her education and become a lecturer in the nearest future.

Despite her busy schedule, this Delta state born accountant hangs out with friends and visits Karaoke bars

"My advise to young girls is that they should dare to be positively different because most of us are afraid to be different. Well that has not been my challenge. Some of these young girls have the talent but they are afraid to come out.

"I know am not the first girl who had this idea but today, I am the first graduate who has come out to do it. There are graduate these days that are diversifying. So be original," she added.

Meanwhile, some youths in Abuja have decided to earn a living through beautifully choreographed performances on major roads in the Federal Capital Territory.

Watch the video here:

Source: Legit.ng
Chennai: After receiving a bomb threat call at the Air India office in Mumbai from an unknown caller from London, all AI flights in all the airports the country were inspected by the bomb squads. The caller told Mumbai AI office that bombs are planted in AI flights and those will explode any time.

With Brussels blasts fresh in mind, AI headquarters informed all airports about the threat call. We checked the aircraft, which were ready to take off from Chennai airport and found nothing unusual. After checking was completed all flights took off to their destinations. No flight was cancelled, an AI official said here.
- Aladja youths and Ogbe Ijaw youths clash in Warri, Delta state

- Police step in to restore normalcy in the region

The communal crisis between Aladja (Urhobos) and Ogbe-Ijoh (Ijaw), reached its peak with the invasion and sacking of a Divisional Police headquarters in Ogbe Ijoh, headquarters of Warri South West local government area.

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion had to be drafted into the crisis torn area before sanity could be returned to the war torn area.

It was learnt that the crisis which was brewing since came to the head over boundary dispute between the two communities leading to shootings and alleged burning down of houses.

Security sources disclosed that the police station located in Ogbe Ijoh was over ran and their armoury looted during the crisis.

READ ALSO: 10 killed in latest bout of Taraba violence

It was gathered that the clash was as a result of alleged attack on Aladja women who were returning from their farms by some Ogbe Ijaw youths last Wednesday.

But the Aladja youths on Thursday, March 24 blocked the only access road leading to Ogbe Ijaw community which allegedly provoked the clash between the two communities.

File photo

A reinforcement of mobile police men were drafted from Warri to join the soldiers already deployed to the troubled area.

As at the time of filling this report, refugees have been created on both sides of the Ijaw and Urhobo communities.

Chairman of Udu Local Government Area, Chief Solomon Kpoma told Journalists last night that refugees from Aladja community were being accommodated at Udu townhall while that of Ogbe Ijaw were in Warri.

The Chairman of Warri South West Local Government Area , Hon. George Ekpemupolo,Tompolo's brother confirmed that tension was very high even though the Warri Area Command of the Nigerian Police had waded into the matter the alleged abduction of an Aladja woman from her farm on Wednesday evening.

The woman who went to the farm was seized and taken to Ogbe-Ijoh by the youths who detained her behind a counter.

READ ALSO: One beheaded in Ebonyi/Benue community clash

Aladja youths in reprisal blocked the only road leading to Ogbe-Ijoh. They said the road would remain closed until the woman is released.

Meanwhile, residents of Ogbe-Ijoh, including corps members, are fleeing Ogbe-Ijoh in the wake of Thursday attack.

The Chairman of the Waterways Security Committee, Chief Boro Opudu, who confirmed the report, said security operatives were battling to restore normalcy to the area.

He said soldiers from Nigerian Army and mobile police force have been deployed to the community to restore law and order.

The Warri Area Commander of Police, ACP Muazu Mohammed confirmed the renewed bloody clash.

Source: Legit.ng
Srinagar: The BJP on Friday made a formal announcement of support for forming a government in Jammu and Kashmir with the regional Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party also elected its former state unit chief Nirmal Singh as its leader in the state Assembly. Singh was also nominated for the deputy chief ministers post which he also held in the previous PDP-BJP government in the state.

A delegation of the saffron party headed by its J&K unit president Sat Pal Sharma is scheduled to meet the Governor N.N. Vohra late on Friday to convey the decision taken at its legislature party meet held in winter capital Jammu.

It will also hand over a letter to the Governor extending the partys support to PDP president Mehbooba Mufti as the chief ministerial candidate.

56-year-old Mufti was on Thursday unanimously elected as the PDPs legislature party leader at a meeting held in summer capital Srinagar, clearing decks for her to become the first woman chief minister of restive Jammu and Kashmir.

Sharma emerging from BJP legislators meet said, "The BJP legislature party has elected Nirmal Singh as its leader and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new coalition government." He added that the BJP also decided to extend support to Mufti to head the PDP-BJP government in the state.

The PDP president is also scheduled to meet the Governor at Raj Bhavan later on Friday to stake claim to form the new government.

Besides all the 25 BJP MLAs, Fridays meet was also attended by BJP party National General Secretary Ram Madhav and Minister of State in the PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh.

The duo was deputed by the party high command to meet the partys legislators in Jammu to review the current political situation in the state and elicit their opinion ahead of Sharmas meeting with the Governor.

Nirmal Singh served as the deputy chief minister in the Mufti Muhammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition that was in office for 10 months till Sayeed died in a Delhi hospital on January 7.

Following Sayeeds death, his daughter and heir apparent Mehbooba was reluctant to form the new government with the BJP and had publicly asked for J&K-specific Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) towards creating congenial atmosphere for stepping into her fathers shows, delaying the process of government formation.

In view of this delay, the state was placed under Governors rule from the night of January 8.

Speaking to reporters, Jitendra Singh said that there was never a breakdown in the coalition with the PDP. "There has never been a break down in the coalition between the BJP and the PDP. It is just a continuation of the process which started about a year back," he asserted.

He added, "There were no differences. When you are in coalition then you have to take care of each other's priority and each other's preferences and that is what we do in a healthy coalition. And I am sure, this is going to augur well for the state of Jammu and Kashmir."

PDP had won 28 seats in the November-December 2014 Assembly elections but after the death of its patron and former Chief Minister Sayeed, its tally came down to 27. However, it also has a nominated woman member in the 87-member House who has right to vote in government formation.

The BJP has 25 members but with pledging of support by two MLAs from Sajad Gani Lones Peoples Conference and an Independent, the saffron party is almost at par with the alliance partner in the number game.

The NC and Congress have 15 and 12 members, respectively whereas the remaining seats are being held by smaller parties and independents.

The PDP-BJP combine will have to take a trust vote in the state Assembly but having a total strength of 57 in the 87-member House its victory is certain.

Mufti is likely to quit as Lok Sabha member to contest by-election from Anantnag where from her father got elected in last Assembly elections as under the Constitution she has to get elected to either house of J&K Legislature within six months after taking over as Chief Minister.
Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam is now drawing up plans to further embarrass the main Opposition YSR Congress, by fielding a businessman as a candidate in forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls with the support of rebel MLAs.

Unlike in other elections, a minimum of 10 MLAs (voters) should propose the name of each candidate for the Rajya Sabha. The rule has been incorporated to prevent non-serious candidates from entering the fray.

Elections to fill up four vacancies in the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh quota will be held in May. It requires around 42 votes (MLAs) to get one nominee elected in the first round of counting.

As per the strength in the Assembly, the TD-BJP combine has 106 votes and will be able to send three candidates to the Rajya Sabha while the YSR Congress, with its original strength of 67 MLAs, can make send one. Normally, parties field candidates based on their respective strength, thus making the election unanimous.

However, the TD had started luring YSRC MLAs to its side and managed to get eight to switch sides, reducing the Opposition partys strength from 67 to 59 as Thursday.

According to TD MP C.M. Ramesh, by the time Rajya Sabha polls are over, the ruling party is sure of getting at least another 30 MLAs who are disgusted with the functioning of its leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. It is common knowledge that Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to send party general secretary V. Vijay Sai Reddy to the Rajya Sabha.

We are planning to field another powerful candidate who can convince more YSR MLAs to vote for him and see Vijay Sai Reddy is defeated, an MP close to AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu told DC on Thursday.

As per the ruling partys plans, those MLAs who defected to the TD but technically and legally continue to be YSR Congress MLAs will propose the name of this businessman and vote for him.

Since its an election, parties cannot issue whip to their members to vote for a particular candidate. Though an open ballot system has been introduced in the Rajya Sabha elections, there are ways to get around it, said the MP.
The recent announcement by the Police Service Commission (PSC) that it is set to recruit 10,000 personnel into the force is generating interest nationwide.

Given the unemployment situation in the country at the moment, it is expected that many will jump at the opportunity to join the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

The National Bureau of Statistics released a report this week that revealed over 22 million Nigerians are unemployed.

But despite the number of unemployed people in the society, many young men and women will no doubt refuse to join the NPF

The Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase and whoever succeeds him in June must fashion out ways to make the Nigeria police attractive to Nigerian youths

Legit.ng lists five reasons why many youths stay away from Nigeria police jobs.

Read below:

1. Battered public image: If there is any group of people that most members of the public detest in Nigeria, it is the police force. There is no trust between the police and the policed because of past incidents that have indicted members of the force for compromising their laid down rules and thereby attracting odium from the public. People who take up jobs in the police are generally seen as people who have no other choice or are frustrated with their unemployment status.

2. Corrupt system: Many who have high moral and ethical standard cannot survive in the NPF, that have been identified as one of Nigeria's most corrupt public institution. The financial malfeasance within the rank and file of the NPF is one of the major issues dragging the group back in all facets of its existence. Past details of how former police bosses in the country has dipped their hands in the public purse is still fresh in the mind of Nigerians. Not to talk of the constant harassment from personnel of the NPF on ordinary citizens for bribery.

3. Poor salary/welfare package: The salary and welfare package of the personnel of the NPF is better imagined than spoken of or written about. Members of the force are one of the poorly paid government workers in Nigeria. Their living conditions are also en eyesore as a visit to an average police barrack will reveal the low life standard that the men and women of the force are subjected to by the police authorities and successive governments

4. No life insurance: The issue of poor salary and welfare package of the NPF also reflects in the non-existent insurance policy for members of the force. Daily, the media is awash with stories of our families of slain policemen and women who die in the course of duty are abandoned by the police authorities. There are also cases of policemen or women who sustain permanent injuries in the line of duty, but they are not given any financial or medical assistance by the powers that be within the force

5. The jinxed police uniform: Given the cultural and religious beliefs attached to many people's sentiment in our society, the police will struggle to attract people in this category who hold true to their beliefs and will not do anything to compromise it. Many have attributed the police numerous problems to the colour of its uniform - black, who many people associate with evil, darkness and every other thing that represents bad things. At some point, the leadership of the force mooted the idea to change the uniform of their men and women to a 'more friendly colour'. But it seems that dream has been flushed down the drain

Source: Legit.ng
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a clarion call to bring vikas (development) back to the centre of public discourse in the country. He urged his flock to move ahead with only one mantra, Vikas, vikas, vikas. The schemes for development and the benefit of common people should be taken to the last village and last person. This is the kind of feel-good statement I like to read while sipping my morning cup of tea. But there is a problem. The ringing endorsement of vikas came when the gruesome images of the lynching of two Muslim cattle traders, one a teenage boy, in a remote village in Jharkhands Latehar district were still fresh.

The two had been mercilessly beaten, then hanged from a tree. Their relatives said they were taking buffaloes to a cattle market nearby when a mob attacked them. The police have arrested five men for the ghoulish murders, including one with links to a local cow protection group. The images of vikas and vigilantism are clashing. Development does not happen in chaos. There are factors that are conducive to development and factors that militate against it.

Delivering a lecture in Bengaluru earlier this month, Arvind Subramanian, chief economic adviser to the government, said how a country deals with its social divisions plays a major role in the trajectory of its economic development. But then he chose not to elaborate. When I leave office I will speak of it more freely, he said. We await Mr Subramanians memoirs with bated breath. Meanwhile, however, there is an urgent need to ask a fundamental question: Can vikas and vigilantism co-exist?

Social divisions exist in every country. And countries develop despite them. But the question today is what happens when such divisions are allowed to deepen? What happens to the development story when mob sentiment is not reined in and allowed to erupt into mob justice? Back to Jharkhands Latehar district, one of the poorest patches in a state that has one of the worst levels of malnourishment among women and children. How does vigilantism play out in a place like this?

There are two ways you can look at the situation. You can either tell yourself that these are aberrations, isolated instances, mere law and order problems. That it has happened before, that mobs have attacked non-Muslims too, that tribal women have also been lynched. And so on. Or you can start asking questions, as many are asking.

Would the latest reported instance of mob justice not add to insecurities of minorities? In the public imagination, would it not bring up memories of Dadri when a Muslim family was attacked following false rumours that they had beef in their fridge? The father, an old man, was beaten to death; his son was severely injured. What about the killing of a truck driver in northern Himachal Pradesh for attempting to take cattle to a slaughter house?

There has also been the case of the Bajrang Dal activist who forced closure of slaughter houses being hacked to death in Mangalore. All of these are equally reprehensible. Vigilantism or mob justice is not a new phenomenon in India. Nor is it unique to this country. But where are we headed when people can openly incite violence in the name of faith and cow protection?

Check out just one sample, the website of Gau Raksha Dal  http://protectyourcow.blogspot.in/2010/08/about-us.html. In its objectives, this group clearly says it has no trust on government support because the Government of India and other state governments are involved in cow slaughtering and that its objective  protection all cows  can only be achieved by killing all killers of cows.

Cow slaughter is banned in most states. But does that justify an open call to murder in the name of protecting the cow? Can instances of vigilantism be shrugged off as aberrations, mere law and order problems? What does it say about the rule of law in this country? In fairness, it must be said that Bharatiya Janata Party spokespersons have condemned such acts of mob violence. The trouble is, in the same breath they often say the cow must be protected, that anybody even thinking of slaughtering a cow must be punished.

In Jharkhand where the BJP is in power, chief minister Raghubar Das said he has directed the state administration to ensure that incidents like the Latehar lynchings are not repeated, but then curiously added, In Jharkhand, an act is also there that no one can take animals outside the state. The BJPs central leadership has spoken little about the savagery. It was a hideous incident; violent tactics used by self-styled cow-protectors who take law in their hands in the name of cow worship should be met with zero tolerance from every quarter.

And the sternest action. But even while the inquiry was ongoing, Mr Das was hinting at possible cattle smuggling. Why? This deliberate attempt to shift the focus on the victims and not the crime is what fuels a feeling of insecurity in the country. Especially since everybody knows that many cow protection vigilantes are ideological kin of the same Hindutva brigade that provides ideological fuel to the party in power.

A country on the fast track to development should have no place for vigilantes no matter what cause they espouse. Economic growth alone is not an adequate measure of development. Rule of law and human rights matter a great deal. The chilling frequency with which vigilantes are striking shows total defiance of the rule of law, a prerequisite to development. The better the rule of law, the richer a nation.

Fear, on the other hand, is inimical to development. Which company, community worker, doctor would go to places pockmarked with violence and where there is an uneasy relationship between different groups? Vigilantism makes news because of the horrific nature of mob violence. It scares people and pushes away a vigorous debate on the real issues  the nuts and bolts of vikas.

How many children who enrol in schools drop out and why? What is the state of primary health centres? And what jobs await our burgeoning youthful population?

Instead, what we are getting are repeated instances of mob violence and tepid responses by the powers that be. That is a downward spiral that negates attempts at vikas.
Editors note: Isiaka Busari aka Mighty Joe is known to be one of the most violent armed robbers, a criminal who unleashed boundless terror on many Nigerians in 1970s. Emmanuel A. Walter from Lagos in this piece examines who he was and what did he do that his name was associated with so much notoriety.

Isiaka Busari aka Mighty Joe

How Mighty Joe became the defacto king of the underground

Shortly after the notorious kingpin of armed robbery in Nigeria, Ishola Oyenusi, was executed, his second in command, Isiaka Busari, better known as Mighty Joe, took over the scene and became the defacto king of the underground.

Nigeria was still coming out of the pangs of the civil war and with the death of Oyenusi, they thought the era of violent crimes had been nipped in the bud but little did they know that another hoodlum would spring up and become deadlier.

In Mighty Joe's gang were ex-soldiers who were demobilised and with their knowhow in the handling of guns and other deadly weapons, they held the nation, particularly the South West, to ransom, robbing and killing with reckless abandon.

READ ALSO: Outrage over presidential pardon For Alamieyeseigha, Others

Mighty Joe was even deadlier than Oyenusi and was known to operate at any time he felt like and taking a human's life was nothing to him. For many years, he constituted himself a big terror to the people of Lagos, the then Federal Capital, especially around Mushin where he lived and practised his trade.

He strode the hemisphere like a colossus from 1971 when his boss was killed, till 1973 when he was nabbed after robbing a hotel bar attendant, Michael Osayunana, of the sum of 10.

Yes, 10, but remember that Nigeria had just changed from using the pound to naira, and that was quite a huge sum of money back then. In fact, one could buy a brand new 504 Peugeot car with that amount and still had some change left.

Mighty Joes capture

This man (Mighty Joe) was executed for just N10

The arrest of Mighty Joe, according to legend, was as dramatic as his reign of terror. The self-styled Strongman of Idi Oro was caught when someone he had earlier robbed recognised him and fingered him to the police and he was nabbed without any fight, as against his various boasts that no man born of a woman can arrest him due to his strong belief in his spiritual powers. He was said to pay some herbalists huge amounts to prepare charms for him so that he would remain invincible.

However, some people then believed Mighty Joe was arrested on trumped-up charges, claiming he was not the great and notorious robbers the police said he was. Some even believed that he was not even an armed robber but a common street thug, or an area boy like we call them today. Such people claim that Nigeria's biggest newspaper at that time, the Daily Times, was partly owned by the Federal government and the wealthy Alakija family of Mushin and Mighty Joe was said to have had a tussle with one of these prominent families who then set him up and ensure he was executed. While he was in prison awaiting his day at the Bar Beach, Mighty Joe converted to Islam and even offered prayers that the execution be reverted. That was never to be.

His final journey

Mighty Joe praying in prison

His journey to the stakes, just like that of his master, Oyenusi, Mighty Joe had a VIP ride from Kirikiri Prison to the Bar Beach in a police van escorted by six lorry loads of tough-looking anti-riot policemen. Hundreds of motorists, many of them workers on their way to their various places of work, were forced to clear out of the road as police siren announced the approach of the man about to die. It was a show of power which Mighty Joe loved and which caused his doom and as he was being led to the execution stake alongside his sidekick, Bashiru Fatola, a former soldier. the crowd erupted in joy. Another Bar Beach spectacle was about to happen. As he took his final walk, Mighty Joe was garbed in a white short sleeves shirt and brown trousers while Fatola wore a yellow flowing dress. (Mighty Joes famous last words)

His last words

After he was tied to the stakes, he was asked to say his last words and he blurted: "May God bless everybody, both my friends and enemies. Tell my wife, my mother and my in-law to keep fit." He was then silenced by a hail of bullets, shattering his earthly body. Oops what crap...Hmmm; that's a touching one. But now my question is that this man (Mighty Joe) was executed for just 10 and today we are nursing a whole lot of politicians who are toiling away with billions of naira, and believe you me...nothing is been done to them. Why?

This article expresses the authors opinion only. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Legit.ng or its editors.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@naij.com  drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

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Source: Legit.ng
BENGALURU: Pakistan's rejection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's gift to SAARC nations in the form of a communications satellite could well prove a godsend for Afghanistan! For, the satellite which is now being assembled by Indian space scientists in Bengaluru ahead of its launch in December 2016, would have one or more extra transponders which were originally allocated to Pakistan. As each transponder supports full range of applications and services-from DTH (Direct-to-Home) television, telecommunications, Tele-medicine, Tele-education, and VSAT (very small aperture terminals) for transmission of data and internet services-Afghanistan would be able to increase all these services and applications two-fold because of spare transponders and its geographical proximity to Pakistan.

The two-tonne satellite, now called "South Asian Satellite" and its launch by GSLV (Geo-Stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) Mk-II, would cost Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) about Rs 500 crores. In addition, ISRO would also help these neighboring countries set up ground stations and other facilities required for all applications and services. We will deliver whatever the government wants (in terms of number of transponders). It is up to the government to allot the transponders, A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO, said, while declining to comment on Pakistan's decision to withdraw from the project.

Last year, top scientists of ISRO invited representatives of all SAARC nations to New Delhi for a presentation on services and potential applications while top officials of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) took up the task of communicating with organisations like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for a slot for the satellite in space. Pakistan proposed a joint monetary and technical venture through its Space Research Commission (SUPARCO), but the Union government rejected it while insisting that the satellite would be a gift from India to its SAARC neighbours.

The government went a step further in October 2015 with an announcement that it would build the satellite without Pakistan's consent. Mr Modi had originally proposed the satellite at the SAARC summit in Nepal in 2014 as part of his Neighbourhood first policy.

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. (March 25, 2016) Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union, of Clarkston, Michigan, has merged into Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, of East Lansing, effective today, the National Credit Union Administration announced.

The new Michigan State University Federal Credit Union members should experience no interruption in services, and member deposits remain protected by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. Administered by NCUA, the Share Insurance Fund insures individual accounts up to $250,000, and a members interest in all joint accounts combined is insured up to $250,000. The Share Insurance Fund separately protects IRA and KEOGH retirement accounts up to $250,000. The Share Insurance Fund has the backing of the full faith and credit of the United States. Members may visit the Share Insurance section (opens new window)of NCUAs MyCreditUnion.gov (opens new window)website at any time for more information about their insurance coverage.

New Michigan State University Federal Credit Union members with questions about their accounts can contact the credit union by telephone at 1-800-678-4968 Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern. Members may continue to transact business at both former Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union locations at 8055 Ortonville Road in Clarkston and 4 South Street in Ortonville. Members can visit Michigan State University Federal Credit Unions website (opens new window)for more information about the credit union, its services and branches.

Prior to the merger, Michigan State University Federal Credit Union served 208,650 members and had assets of $3.03 billion, according to the credit unions most recent Call Report.

At the time of the merger, Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union was a federally insured, state-chartered credit union with 8,536 members and assets of $68.5 million, according to the credit unions most recent Call Report. Chartered in 1957, Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union served anyone who lived, worked, worshiped, attended school in, and businesses in, the Michigan counties of Oakland, Genesee, Lapeer, Livingston and Macomb.

The State of Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services placed Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union into conservatorship on Jan. 13, 2016 and appointed the National Credit Union Administration as conservator. The two agencies worked together to address issues affecting the credit unions safety and soundness and determined that merging Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union into Michigan State University Federal Credit Union was in the best interests of the members.
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New Toyota Corolla Facelift made its global debut about a year ago. The car has now been launched in India for a starting price of INR 15.87 lakh, ex-showroom for the petrol variant and INR 17.36 lakh, ex-showroom for the diesel variant.

Design changes on board the new Toyota Corolla facelift includes a new bumper in the front flanked by sleeker and redesigned headlamp cluster. Updates at the rear include a pair of LED tail-lamps. Top of the line Corolla facelift will also receive LED headlamps flanked by LED DRLs.

2017 Toyota Corolla Facelift

[table id=34 /]

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*ex-showroom, Delhi prices.

New Toyota Corolla gets a new colour option  Phantom Brown. It also gets new chrome door handles and a thin chrome garnish on the lower part of the doors. Overall, the design of the new Corolla is pretty much like that of the current one, with inspiration from brands Under Priority and Keen Look design language.

Apart from the updated design, new Corolla is also loaded with new tech along with standard tech which is already on offer with the current variant. New tech includes LDA  Lane Departure Alert, PCS  Pre-Collision System, AHB  Automatic High Beam. All three of these new systems rely on laser and a camera which is mounted on the windscreen.

Powering the 2017 Toyota Corolla Facelift are the same engine and transmission options which are seen on board the current Corolla. In India, Corolla is offered with 1.8-liter petrol 138 hp / 173 Nm engine mated either to a 6 speed MT or CVT, and a 1.4-liter diesel 87 hp / 205 Nm mated to a 6 speed MT.

Also See  Toyota C-HR crossover heading for India launch in 2018

Key Features of the New Corolla Altis

Exterior Features

1. Advanced Bi-beam LED Headlamps

2. LED Daytime Running Lamps (DRL)

3. New 3D bumper design

4. Advanced grille design

5. Stylish LED Tail Lamp

6. Sophisticated new alloys

Interior Features

1. Newly designed Instrument Panel with Soft Touch Dashboard

2. Interior colour refreshed to flaxen

Performance Features

1. Enhanced performance with 7 Speed Super CVTi with Sport Mode and Paddle Shift

2. New Corolla Altis will be available in the following engine options:

 1.8 L petrol engine with Dual VVT-i

 1.4 L diesel engine with Variable Nozzle Turbo and Intercooler

3. Sport drive mode adds to the responsive drive train

Comfort & Convenience Features

1. Minus ion generator (nanoe)

2. Autofold and reverse linked ORVM

3. New Corolla Altis continues to offer opulent rear reclining seats

Safety & Security Feature

1. 7 SRS Airbags

2. Hill Start Assist Control

3. Vehicle Stability Control

4. ABS & EBD with BA

News Release
Scientists at the University of Birmingham have developed tools to help restore vital eco-systems found in tropical mangrove forests around the world.

Hydrology experts at the University worked with counterparts in the Netherlands to test methods for measuring water levels in mangrove restoration projects. They then developed recommendations to help boost the likelihood of success for such projects.

The team, which included scientists from Wageningen University and Eijkelkamp Soil & Water conducted fieldwork in three mangrove regions in south-east Asia: Can Gio and Ca Mau, in Vietnam and Mahakam, in Indonesia.

Their research demonstrated that using local water level data in restoration projects is a potentially powerful tool to help reinstate valuable vegetation and trees. The team developed a restoration 'toolkit' of procedures that should help ecologists to get the most out of restoration projects.

University of Birmingham Water Science Lecturer Dr Anne Van Loon said: "Mangrove restoration projects often fail because hydrological conditions are disregarded. We have developed a simple, but robust, toolkit to determine hydrological suitability for mangrove species and guide restoration practice.

"Mangrove forests are valuable coastal ecosystems in tropical coastal regions around the world, but increased pressures in these regions, such as logging, aquaculture and coastal development threaten their existence."

"They have a vital role to play in tropical countries for coastal protection, ecosystem functioning and supporting the livelihoods of coastal communities. Restoration projects have been set up but there is little scientific support to guide the restoration practice.

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"Successful restoration often comes down to a particular site's conditions being suitable for mangrove survival. Our research gives mangrove restorations practitioners the scientific background and practical tools to take these site conditions into account."

Dr Van Loon, from the University's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences and The Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), added that salinity, soil conditions and hydrology were all important factors in determining a project's chances of success, but hydrology was often overlooked in mangrove restoration, making it an important reason for failure.

Mangrove seedlings, for example, are often planted in the mudflat zone, which is too wet for growth. Mangrove vegetation fails to recover in abandoned shrimp ponds because of impaired water flow. Restoring the hydrology of impounded mangrove areas has proven to lead to successful restoration in Florida, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Thailand, but mangrove organisations need more useful tools to take hydrology into account in their restoration projects.

Carrying out field work in south-east Asia, the team measured water levels and the composition of vegetation species composition to place sites into hydrological classes.

This showed that in some locations hydrological conditions had been restored enough for mangrove vegetation to establish. In some locations, water conditions were too wet for any mangrove species to grow, whether natural or planted. The team also measured the effect that removal of obstructions such as dams would have on the hydrology and found that failure of planting could have been prevented.

Based on this research the scientists developed the toolkit of measures to improve the effectiveness of mangrove restoration projects. This included recommendations to measure water levels over a minimum period of 30 days to observe the impact of tidal cycles, as well as calculating the movement of water across a restoration site.

Professor Rob MacKenzie, Director of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), said: "This innovative study is a great example of how the University of Birmingham is working internationally with colleagues to produce high-quality research with a global impact. The team's work will be of immense value in the battle to restore tropical mangrove forests around the world."
A team of Nevada scientists and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) engineers have successfully flight tested the first-ever autonomous cloud seeding aircraft platform.

Cloud seeding flare tests were deployed from Drone America's DAx8 UAS aircraft flown in Reno in late January.

As the first phase in a new industry-academic research partnership between the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Drone America, and AviSight, the test flight of a DAx8 multi-rotor aircraft with attached cloud seeding cargo validates the potential for UAS to significantly enhance airborne seeding operations, explained Adam Watts, Ph.D, the project's lead and an assistant research professor at DRI.

"This is a major milestone," said Watts. "Utilizing our state's FAA test site designation, we were able to fly this advanced aircraft right here in Northern Nevada and verify that UAS are fully capable of carrying active cloud seeding payloads."

The DAx8 is a robust multi-rotor aircraft for commercial and industrial applications. The unique eight-rotor design allows for the DAx8 to carry large payloads, while the advanced software and GPS guidance provide the aircraft with self-stabilizing capability and multi-waypoint navigation.

"We are extremely excited to have completed yet another step in reaching our goal of autonomous cloud seeding application," said Mike Richards, President and CEO of Drone America."Our joint research program with DRI is well on its way to revolutionizing the cloud seeding industry by providing safe airborne seeding with significant potential of providing relief to people in drought-stricken areas."

The next phase of the project will be to conduct flight planning and test airborne flare deployment with Drone America's Savant fixed-wing aircraft, said Watts.

This project is supported through Nevada's Knowledge Fund.
From the moment she was born, everything in this dog's life must have seemed just out of reach. Thanks to the chain that was put around her neck as a puppy. Sure, for a brief time, Wendy was allowed to be nursed by her mother. Then, like her mother and two other dogs in a Charlotte, North Carolina, yard, she was tethered in a muddy enclosure.

"The mother was there for four years and had several litters," Robin Budin, National Rescue Coordinator for Dogs Deserve Better, tells The Dodo. "The puppy was only 5 months old." "She was born on a chain." The chains were so short, in fact, the dogs couldn't even reach each other. But then a very different kind of chain was set in motion - a chain of volunteers and animal lovers across the country. Last January, Budin got an email from someone had filled out a form on the group's website - a page where people could report dogs who were living in chains. "We went to work right after that," she says.

Dodo Shows Odd Couples Dog Is So Gentle And Patient With Her Foster Kittens

Budin sent a volunteer to the site, who reported back on the pitiful plight of these animals. Then Holly Davis, who runs a group that builds fences for chained dogs called Holly'z Hope, paid a visit. She brought houses, straw for bedding and other supplies with her. She spoke to the two elderly men who owned them. And, ultimately, persuaded them over the next few days to surrender Wendy and her mother, Sheba. Then another group, Family Addition Rescue, got involved. "It took them one week and they got a home for Wendy," Budin says, adding that her new name is Lucy. Lucky Lucy.

Her mother, Sheba - who was heartworm positive and needed long-term care - also found a forever home in Pennsylvania. Today, both mother and daughter are in happy homes, far from the chains that deprived them of so much - except for hope.
The remains of two Sumatran tiger cubs are worth 100 million rupiah, or $7,595 USD on the street.

Paul Hilton

Paul Hilton, a wildlife photographer, was in Indonesia recently and came face-to-face with Agus Salim, a man who was caught trying to trade the skin and bones of these rare animals, which are often crafted into cruel clutches and accessories.

Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Animals Melt Into This Woman's Arms When She Sings To Them

Paul Hilton

But Salim is just a middle man for a criminal mastermind and notorious wildlife trader known as Maskur, who could spell the extinction of the Sumatran tiger - there are just about 300 Sumatran tigers left in the world. And the people trying to save them are racing against time.

Paul Hilton

This is why Hilton is hurrying to get stories about the critically endangered tiger's plight out into the world. "Indonesia has already lost the Bali and Javan tiger, which were both hunted to extinction," Hilton told The Dodo. "Without a serious overhaul of its present laws on wildlife crime, Indonesia can presume that the Sumatran tiger is in its dying days."

Paul Hilton
The French data protection authority said it has fined Google 100,000 euros for not scrubbing web search results.

Brussels: The French data protection authority said it has fined Google 100,000 euros ($111,720) for not scrubbing web search results widely enough in response to a European privacy ruling.

The only way for Google to uphold the Europeans' right to privacy was by delisting inaccurate results popping up under name searches across all its websites, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) said in a statement on Thursday.

In May 2014 the European Court of Justice ruled that people could ask search engines, such as Google and Microsoft's Bing, to remove inadequate or irrelevant information from web results appearing under searches for people's names - dubbed the "right to be forgotten".

The US Internet giant has been at odds with European Union data protection authorities over the territorial scope of the ruling.

Google complied, but it only scrubbed results across its European websites such as Google.de in Germany and Google.fr in France on the grounds that to do otherwise would have a chilling effect on the free flow of information.

In May last year the CNIL ordered Google to expand its application of the ruling to all its domains, including Google.com, because of the ease of switching from a European domain to Google.com.

"Contrary to Google's statements, applying delisting to all of the extensions does not curtail freedom of expression insofar as it does not entail any deletion of content from the Internet," the CNIL said.

A spokesman for Google, now a unit of holding company Alphabet Inc, said the company had worked hard to implement the "right to be forgotten ruling thoughtfully and comprehensively in Europe."

"But as a matter of principle, we disagree with the CNILs assertion that it has the authority to control the content that people can access outside France, and we plan to appeal their ruling," Al Verney, Google's spokesman, said.

The company did try to assuage the regulator's concerns in February by delisting search results across all its websites - including Google.com - when accessed from the country where the request came from.

That meant that if a German resident asks Google to de-list a link popping up under searches for his or her name, the link will not be visible on any version of Google's website, including Google.com, when the search engine is accessed from Germany.

But the CNIL rejected that approach, saying that a person's right to privacy could not depend on the "geographic origin of those viewing the search results."

"Only delisting on all of the search engine's extensions, regardless of the extension used or the geographic origin of the person performing the search, can effectively uphold this right," it said.

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AUTOMAKERS

U.S. judge sets April deadline for VW fix

A federal judge on Thursday gave Volkswagen AG and U.S. regulators until April 21 to agree on a fix for the nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles on U.S. roads caught up in VWs massive emissions cheating scandal.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had earlier set a March 24 deadline for Europes biggest automaker to explain where it stood on remediation efforts, after months of talks with the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board.

Breyer, VW and regulators all said at Thursdays hearing in San Francisco that progress has been made, but issues remain and no settlement has been reached. Breyer said that a concrete and detailed proposal for getting the polluting cars fixed or off the road must be made or he might move forward with a trial.

A settlement could involve fixing some or all of the 580,000 U.S. vehicles or payments to consumers through buybacks and other options, Breyer said.

VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said the automaker is committed to resolving the U.S. regulatory investigation into the diesel emissions matter as quickly as possible and to implementing a solution for affected vehicles, as we work to earn back the trust of our customers and dealers and the public.

A U.S. judge gave Volkswagen until April 21 to agree on a fix for the nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles caught up in VWs massive emissions cheating scandal. (Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

 Reuters

ENERGY

Rockefeller funds pull out of fossil fuels

Descendants of John D. Rockefeller sold their Exxon Mobil Corp. stock and plan to dump all other fossil-fuel investments in the latest move against the industry that made their fortune.

The Rockefeller Family Fund said there is no sane rationale for companies to explore for oil as governments mull cracking down on carbon emissions, according to a statement on the philanthropic foundations website Wednesday.

The fund singled out Exxon for what it called morally reprehensible conduct, a reference to articles last year by InsideClimate News that alleged the oil titan knew about global warming in the 1970s and hid what it knew from investors, policymakers and the public. Two Rockefeller funds are listed as the news sites financial backers.

Its not surprising that theyre divesting from the company since theyre already funding a conspiracy against us, Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon, said in a statement Wednesday.

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The Skunk Works SR-72 design  a hypersonic aircraft developed to execute intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and strike missions at speeds up to Mach 6. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

One was a spy plane, designed to fly fast and stealthily into enemy territory; on its final flight, it cruised from Los Angeles to Washington in an hour and four minutes, hitting 2,124 mph, a speed record.

The other was a sleek commercial jet for wealthy, time-is-money travelers willing to plunk down $10,000 for a ticket  or more  for the luxury of zipping across the Atlantic at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.

Today, the SR-71 Blackbird and the Concorde have been retired, sitting motionless as showcase exhibits at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum by Washington Dulles International Airport. But now, in conjunction with the Pentagon and NASA, Lockheed Martin is trying to develop new technologies that would build on their legacies, designing aircraft designed to go fast  really, really fast.

Worried that adversaries are limiting the U.S. militarys ability to strike when and where it wants, the Pentagon is pushing an effort to develop new hypersonic weapons capable of flying at Mach 5 and faster. There are also concerns about reports that China is developing hypersonic technology, which could give it a tactical advantage.

In a state-of-the-company speech recently, Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martins chief executive, highlighted the companys work in hypersonics, saying the worlds largest defense contractor is developing technologies that would allow quicker response times to increasingly mobile threats, and the ability to project strength more rapidly around the globe.

The new supersonic plane Lockheed Martin is developing for NASA. (NASA)

Bethesda-based Lockheed is working on two programs with DARPA, the Pentagons research agency, she said. While she did not mention it by name, the company is currently developing the SR-72, a follow-on to the Blackbird, at its notoriously secretive Skunk Works division. The unmanned aircraft would fly at Mach 6, or so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide, Lockheed says on its website.

While typical passenger planes can fly at about 550 mph, or about eight or nine miles per minute, Lockheed has said it is developing missiles that would fly at a speed of one mile per second, and other vehicles that would travel four miles per second, the company says.

Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour, Brad Leland, Lockheed Martins hypersonics program manager, said in a news release. Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades.

Last year, Raytheon received a $20 million contract from DARPA to develop maneuverable missiles than can travel at Mach 5, or from New York to Los Angeles in 39 minutes.

Hypersonic weapons can be more survivable because of the extreme speed and high altitude, J.R. Smith, Raytheons director of Advanced Land Warfare Systems, said in a release last year. They would be hard to stop.

That could be a problem, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the research firm Teal Group. The weapons could be moving so fast, foreign governments could overreact with so little time to respond.

The real problem with hypersonic weaponry is it increases the risk of  how to put this gently  global annihilation, he said.

But he also said that engineers have been talking about the technology for years, with little to show for it.

Eventually they will finally get there, Aboulafia said. Then again, its been just over the horizon for half a century now.

During her speech, Hewson said that the efforts could also enable hypersonic passenger flights, and even easier access to space.

In addition to its work with DARPA, the company also recently won a $20 million NASA contract to help design a passenger jet that could travel faster than the speed of sound. But unlike the Concorde, which unleashed a sonic boom every time it crested the sound barrier, the new plane would be much quieter, emitting what NASA calls a supersonic heartbeat  a soft thump.

If successful, that would be a significant step in taking care of the noise problem. But what also killed the Concorde was its exorbitant price. Mike Buonanno, who is managing the program for Lockheed, said market studies show that there is a demand for commercial supersonic flight. And while it will always be more expensive than traditional air travel, new technologies and fuel efficiencies could be impactful in reducing the overall cost.

Aboulafia isnt buying it.

Mach 2, taxpayer zero, he said, citing an old joke about past efforts to develop super-fast passenger aircraft.

If you ever find an aerospace company spending their own cash on this, dump their shares, he said.
In an era of 3-D printing, robotic manufacturing and digital simulation, why make anything by hand? For an eloquent answer, consider the life and art of Sam Maloof, whom Jimmy Carter called the best woodworker that ever lived.

Maloof was born in 1916 in the Pomona Valley, east of Los Angeles, to parents who had emigrated from Lebanon. English was his third language, after Arabic and Spanish. After service in the Army during World War II, he returned to the Pomona Valley, where he found a vocation and a wife. The woman he married, Alfreda Ward, would be his emotional mainstay, business manager and champion until her death 50 years later. From the outset, she supported him in the work he felt called to do, which was to fashion furniture out of wood  patiently, elegantly and ever in search of perfection.

Published to coincide with the centennial of his birth, this richly illustrated book, Sam Maloof: 36 Views of a Master Woodworker, offers a multifaceted portrait of the man and his work, as viewed through the eyes of people who knew him. Each of the short chapters, based on interviews conducted and ably interpreted by Fred Setterberg, is preceded by a close-up photograph of wood: 36 different specimens, the color and texture and grain of each one as distinctive as a fingerprint or a face.

[Sam Maloof: I let the wood speak for itself.]

Those who share their memories of Maloof in these pages include his son, his second wife, several former apprentices, the pastor of the Methodist church he attended, a physician, a schoolteacher, a college president and a former U.S. president. We also hear from younger artists who were inspired by him and from older men and women who belonged to the same community of artists, striving, as he did, to fuse utility with beauty.

Self-taught, with only a high school diploma, Maloof started by furnishing their house. Then he began trading chairs or tables for the work of painters, ceramicists, fiber artists, wood-turners and sculptors who lived nearby, many of them associated with the Claremont Colleges. Early on, he worked in a garage. As his reputation grew, he began selling his furniture, often in response to commissions, and eventually he was able to build a shop and hire a small crew.

In 1985, he won a MacArthur genius grant, the first practitioner of a craft  as opposed to a fine art  ever to be so honored. Indeed, his work helped to blur the often patronizing distinction between craft and art. His cradles, tables, stools, music stands and especially his rocking chairs are exquisitely fitted to human use, but they are also sculptures, pleasing to see and touch. Unlike the stamped-out products of factories, each of his pieces is unique, in part because he kept refining his designs, in part because he respected the stubborn character of wood.

Wood talks back to the woodworker, inviting certain shapes and patterns, resisting others. Its grain and fiber carry the evolutionary legacy of a species and the record of an individual life. Although Maloof bought lumber from Brazil, Malaysia, Tasmania and elsewhere around the globe, he drew primarily on American forests, for cherry, maple, oak and  his favorite  black walnut.

He continued working right up until his death at the age of 93, in 2009, and he left behind enough seasoned wood to last the lifetimes of the men he had trained. All told, he designed and made  or closely supervised the making of  some 5,000 pieces of furniture, which earned their way into daily use in spaces from boardrooms to bungalows and also into the White House, the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and scores of other collections both public and private.

Meanwhile, through barter and purchase, he amassed his own museums worth of paintings, carvings, weavings, baskets, bowls, masks and rugs, roughly 2,000 items altogether, many of them created by the Pomona Valley artists whose companionship nourished him throughout his career. To display that burgeoning collection, he kept adding rooms to his house, which itself became a grand work of art, nearly all of it handmade, from the roof beams and spiral staircase to hinges and latches.

Several years before his death, and much to his dismay, the house and workshop were moved a few miles away from their original site, to clear the path for an expressway. As part of the move, ownership of the property was transferred to the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, and the buildings and collections were opened to the public.

What the public can sense there, in the house and furnishings and artifacts, is the drive to add to the worlds beauty. The phrase emerges from Setterbergs interview with a woman who, as a girl, had a crush on the captivating woodworker and who grew up to become a Unitarian Universalist minister. Her lifelong friendship with Maloof taught her to see the mystery of creation endlessly echoed in works of art.

A desk designed by Sam Maloof. (Maloof Foundation)

Scott Russell Sanderss latest book is Dancing in Dreamtime, a collection of eco-science fiction stories due out this summer from Indiana University Press.
Google will would end support for its Chrome app launcher for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms starting July.

Mumbai: Search engine giant Google recently announced that the company will end support for its Chrome app launcher for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms starting July.

The companys engineering director Marc Pawliger via a blog post confirmed the news. He said, With Chromes continued emphasis on simplicity and streamlining browser features, the launcher will be removed from those platforms. It will remain unchanged on Chrome OS.

Pawliger pointed out that the removal process would take place over the next several months. In the next few weeks, Chrome will no longer enable the launcher when users first install a Chrome app. Anyone who currently has the launcher will receive a notice informing them that the launcher will be going away, he added.

The first instances of the launcher will be removed starting July.However, users will still be able to access Chrome apps by clicking on the apps shortcut in the bookmarks bar or typing Chrome:// in the Omnibox.

Earlier, Google had also announced that it would stop supporting the Chrome Web browser on older operating systems such as Windows XP, Vista, and lower versions after April.

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Jonathan Monaghans Life Tastes Good, a video loop, is part of the King of the Forest: Adventures in Bioperversity exhibit at Arlington Arts Center. (Bitforms Gallery, New York )

A walk in the woods is nothing like a stroll through a gallery; the forest isnt divided neatly, and wild stuff abuts and overlaps. The Arlington Arts Center cant aspire to that sort of organic jumble, but its King of the Forest: Adventures in Bioperversity is agreeably unruly. While some of the 14 artists dwell in just one gallery, others skitter here and there. Joan Danzigers jewel-like oversize beetles, made largely of glass and wire mesh, are all over the place. And Krista Caballero and Frank Ekebergs calls of endangered and extinct birds can be heard both inside and outside the building.

Some regularly exhibited local artists easily fit the concept. Selin Balci makes eerily beautiful, painting-like pieces with mold and other microorganisms; video-animator Jonathan Monaghan contributes a loop in which a polar bear is poached by a certain soft-drink company; and Rebecca Clark depicts animals under threat  including, in this selection, from drones  in lustrously detailed pencil drawings.

Clark cites Renaissance nature studies as an inspiration, and their influence also can be seen in Lisa Craftss natures-morte videos. The New Yorkers approach, however, is less solemn. Her shorts incorporate junk food, industrial pollution and animals with two heads. Among the other videos is Rachel Schmidts swimming penguin, projected onto a large white circle amid paper icebergs.

David DOrio and Henrik Sundqvists buzzing piece highlights human dependence on bees, while other artists turn the tables on the most arrogant of bipeds. Anthony Cervino built a person-size  well, child-size  birdhouse, and printmaker Talia Greene depicts modern-day ruins colonized by tigers, crocodiles and such. Shes kidding, but in fact the area around the forsaken Chernobyl nuclear plant in Russia has become a sort of animal refuge. Whether thats bio-salvation or bioperversity remains to be seen.

King of the Forest: Adventures in Bioperversity On view through April 3 at Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. 703-248-6800. arlingtonartscenter.org.

Maxwell MacKenzie. "Everts Township Homestead with Bird," 2015. (Copyright Maxwell MacKenzie )

Maxwell MacKenzie

For some 25 years, Maxwell MacKenzie has returned to his home state of Minnesota and photographed the same basic wooden structure, once red and now a battered gray. He has observed it as seasons shifted, skies changed and the building itself went from useful to abandoned. This found metaphor for the decline of small-town America is at the heart of Going Deep, McKenzies show at Cross MacKenzie, the gallery partly named for him. Framed symmetrically and replicated with minor variations, the former granary becomes as iconic as a Brillo box.

There are other buildings in this selection, including a quartet of similar schoolhouses and a suite of nine homes that range from modified log cabin to the McMansion of its day. Assorted shades of vegetation and varieties of clouds bracket the solitary structures. More dramatically, one picture was exposed long enough for circular star trails to appear, and another, which shows snake-like tractor tracks, was made from the air. Yet such flourishes are not typical. Its only right that MacKenzies images of prairie homes be grounded and guileless.

Maxwell MacKenzie: Going Deep On view through March 31 at Cross MacKenzie Gallery, 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-337-7970. crossmackenzie.com.

Joseph Holston

Theres only one painting in Joseph Holstons A Personal Art History, which is principally etchings. But nearly all of the pieces in the Marin-Price Galleries show have been enhanced, the Takoma Park, Md., artists term for hand-colored. The prints were made between 1989 and 2012 but embellished in the past three months. This gives them a shared palette, even if the earlier works are more literally rendered than the later ones, which are sleekly stylized.

Holston portrays African Americans and Caribbeans, including fisherman, musicians, two boys on a mule and women at work or in the nude. The hues are vibrant and the shapes simple, in the manner of Jacob Lawrences dynamic Cubism. (Where Lawrence is known for his Great Migration cycle, Holston did a series on the Underground Railroad.) Bits of fabric and paper occasionally add real-world texture. But when imbued with red, orange and purple, everyday scenes such as Summer Shower turn ecstatic.

Alan M. Sislen. "Accelerato," on view at Waverly Street Gallery. (Alan M. Sislen/Waverly Street Gallery)

Joseph Holston: A Personal Art History On view through March 31 at Marin-Price Galleries, 7022 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. 301-718-0622. marin-price.com.

Ralph Wickiser

The impression left by Ralph Wickiser: A Retrospective is not strictly accurate. The Spagnuolo Gallery show, whose paintings are mostly from the 1980s and 90s, suggests that the painter moved from realism to near-abstraction. In fact, Wickiser went back and forth between the two throughout his career, which included a few years in Washington in the 1940s and ended with his 1998 death.

The earliest canvas is 1975s The Stream, one of many Wickiser painted of a ravine in Woodstock, N.Y. Its realistic in both execution and earth-toned palette, and big enough, seemingly, to walk right into. The second-largest picture, 1982s Pearls and Lace, appears looser, but that is because it depicts shapes and reflections distorted by water. Its abstraction is, in fact, realism.

The later pictures are smaller and more colorful, with strong contrasts between hot and cool. The forms, however, are clearly derived from natural ones. To judge from this small selection, Wickisers later work never strayed that far from The Stream.

Ralph Wickiser: A Retrospective On view through April 3 at Spagnuolo Gallery, Georgetown University, 1221 36th St. NW. 202-687-9206. art.georgetown.edu/galleries/current .

CityScapes

The urban views in Waverly Street Gallerys CityScapes range from local to exotic, and from traditional black-and-white to futuristic color. Among the standouts in this North Bethesda Camera Club showcase are a few that are smartly grouped together.

Three wide-angle shots progress from empty to full: John Williss study of Kayakoy, a ghost town in Turkey, hangs with Kay Norvells of the more tightly packed Fez, Morocco, and Lori Ducharmes of Tokyo, stuffed with mid-rise buildings. The boldest color contrasts are in Dawn Sikkemas portrait of a reflective modernist facade, shimmering with reds and greens, and Jean-Pierre Ples of a bridges illuminated underside, its arches gold against aqua water. Such vivid compositions transcend any particular place.

CityScapes On view through April 2 at Waverly Street Gallery, 4600 East-West Hwy., Bethesda. 301-951-9441. waverlystreetgallery.com.
Reeling from his service as a soldier in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Motti Lerner felt the need to express his deep misgivings about the conflict publicly. So he gathered 30 of his fellow students from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and brought them to the steps of Israels parliament, the Knesset, where, dressed in bandages that covered simulated wounds, they created a piece of antiwar street theater that he called a performance of the dead.

The response was less than heartening. There was no result whatsoever, Lerner, 66, recalls evenhandedly of the demonstration he organized four decades earlier. We did it twice in the middle of the day. The people who came to see it just shrugged their shoulders.

Still, it was an important learning experience for the ex-Israeli Army captain, who considered a career as a mathematician before shifting his focus to playwriting. The lesson for him was not that he shouldnt follow his political passions. On the contrary: The event would propel him to bolder literary expressions of activism that cemented his role as a dissenting dramatic voice on the left. In play after play, he would characterize the mind-set of the Israeli government  what he viewed as its tragically belligerent treatment of Palestinians and mishandling of its rule over the occupied territories  as a national moral folly.

Taking this position would come at a cost to Lerner, who has struggled at times over the years to find major theaters in Israel, which are heavily subsidized by the government, to champion his plays. At the same time, he has managed to forge some formidable artistic partnerships outside his homeland, and nowhere more vigorously than in Washington, with longtime local artistic director Ari Roth, who has paid a price himself for his devotion to Lerners work. Roths insistence on producing The Admission, Lerners provocative drama about a massacre of Palestinian villagers by Israeli soldiers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, sparked a bitter dispute with his superiors at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. The confrontation contributed significantly to his ouster in December 2014 as head of Theater J, the company housed by the DCJCC in its building at 16th and Q streets NW.

Now, Lerner and Roth are embarking on a new phase of their long-standing alliance, at Roths autonomous freshman-year company, Mosaic Theater, headquartered at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE. And how their world-premiere venture, After the War, fares is likely to have another profound effect on the trajectories of both men, who have developed a remarkable synergy in the years since 1997, when Roth presented the first of the seven Lerner pieces he has worked on. Its the most productive relationship in the theater Ive ever had, Roth says.

Cast members of After the War. (Teddy Wolff)

We share the same goals, Lerner observes about Roth. We understand political theater in the same way, we understand dramatic mechanisms in a similar way, and we share the same political visions of Israel.

As with many of Lerners plays, exploring such explosive topics as the nature of Israels settlements in the occupied West Bank (Pangs of the Messiah) and the 1994 slaughter of Palestinians by an American-born Jew in Hebron (Hastening of the End), After the War is a fierce, anguishing take on the corrosive impact the hostilities of the past half-century have had on Israeli society.

His most personal work

It also is, in its way, the most wrenchingly personal play Lerner has written  and one on which he has been toiling, off and on, for more than a decade. At its heart, After the War is the story of the divisions a left-wing artist has provoked within his own family as a result of his fervid advocacy of conciliation toward the Arabs. And although the details dont hew specifically to his biography, the pariah status acquired by the central character, an international concert pianist named Joel, is patently intended as a parallel.

It became clear that I was the enemy of the people,  Lerner says, discussing his playwriting life during a lengthy conversation on a recent afternoon, as he munched on a hamburger and fries in a Manhattan diner. His invoking of a play by Henrik Ibsen, about a whistleblower who earns the ire of his community for publicly exposing a danger that threatens their livelihoods, seems wholly apt. Revealing an affinity for Ibsen, and an even more intense one for his literary hero, Arthur Miller, Lerner reaffirms how strongly he believes in a dramatist being more than a mere observer, that he sees himself as a political catalyst. Indeed, to this dramatist, the most vital dialogue is not the one he composes, but the one he can start.

Conversation starter

My intention has always had to do with the discourse that Im able to create, he says, adding in his formal-sounding English: My main goal is to create a public discussion, that leads to more humanistic decisions. The conversation hes seeking to spark these days has to do with a change in leadership in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would increase the potential for the signing of a peace agreement  a possibility in which he still believes. In his plays, he says, Ive tried to create a cultural basis for this argument.

Lerner subscribes so completely to this notion, the idea that a playwrights job is to exert some corrective influence on the spectator and his society, that he devoted a 76-page monograph to the topic, published in 2014 as The Playwrights Purpose. Citing the work of 10 other playwrights, including Miller, Ibsen, Eugene ONeill and Bertolt Brecht, Lerner noted what he thought he had in common with these influential thinkers: In my own writing over the last 30 years, I have been keenly aware that I, too, share a similar purpose  to rectify, amend and transform the society in which I live, he wrote.

It takes a healthy ego to make such an assertion, especially since a crusaders lot is not always a popular one. Sinai Peter, the Israeli director of After the War who has known Lerner for many years, describes the playwright as belonging to an older generation of theater-makers accustomed to a bygone time when Israels peace movement and other leftist groups were stronger presences in a nation where the hard-liners of the right now hold sway. Though Lerner writes extensively for film and television, he has to campaign strenuously to get some of his more incendiary plays seen in Israel. The Admission, for example, is only now going to have its debut in Israel, by a small company with money he had to help raise.

The agony of not being presented in Israel, and the need to be loved by the family and the nation  that is so much Motti, Peter says.

Fractured family tale

Lerner grew up on a family-run vineyard in central Israel, the descendant of Jews who immigrated to Palestine in the 1880s from Romania and present-day Moldova with dreams of a Jewish homeland. It was the nearly catastrophic 73 war with Egypt and Israels other neighbors, during which he served with the artillery forces in the central headquarters of the armys southern command, that turned me into a political person. And studying the work of dramatists like Miller gave him his path. One of the plays that changed my life was All My Sons,  Lerner says, referring to the Miller work in which a soldier returning to the United States after World War II discovers to his immense shame that his father was a war profiteer.

The guidance of Miller can be sensed in many of Lerners most powerfully political works. In such plays as Pangs of the Messiah, The Admission and now, After the War, Lerner focuses his drama on a fractured Israeli family, its torments brought to the surface by the fissures in the society around them. In this latest offering, the pianist, Joel, played by Washington actor Paul Morella, returns to Israel after a self-imposed 18-year exile in New York to perform in a concert. Showing up at the home of his embittered mother, Bella (Barbara Rappaport), he walks into a veritable hurricane: His decision to donate his concert fee to help Lebanese children injured by Israeli bombs is the trigger that allows all of the familys scalding resentments to spill out.

Morella says that the rehearsal week Lerner spent with the director and cast at the Atlas was invaluable. For all the anger unleashed in the play, the actor found the playwright startlingly even-keeled. I had dinner with him after rehearsal one night, and in addition to getting to know each other, it was also to help me assimilate who this man is, Morella says. He empowers you to say what you really feel, and he told me a number of times, If this or that is not working, let me know. I want you to be comfortable with it. Youre the one whos playing the character. 

Not that embarking on such an intense project with Lerner is an endless party. Roth began working with him on the play more than a dozen years ago, when it was called In the Dark, and in Roths recounting, dark didnt begin to describe the pieces tone. It was a family dynamic that was so toxic I didnt identify with it, Roth recalls. It became such a sore point between them that they had to put the play aside, and didnt speak about it for more than a decade.

Still, they returned to it together last year for a workshop in Tel Aviv and, yes, argued some more, especially about what Roth considered the viciousness of the portrait of Joels brother, Freddie. We fought furiously about that and it took about six hours, and we went out for lunch after, and began to figure out the ways in which we could have a civil dialogue again, Roth says.

With Lerner, one way or another, its always about the dialogue. And, in the end, Roth thought the play was worth fighting over: The plight of whats happening to liberal society, its emasculation, the fact that its losing its standing, its losing the argument by being sapped of its strength  thats what Motti is writing about.

Lerner is pleased that Roth continues to get the playwrights purpose. To those who view the criticisms of Israel in his plays as a threat to the nation, he has a reaction, too. My response is that I am one of the greatest patriots of my country, he declares. Ive dedicated my life to making it a better place.

After the War by Motti Lerner. Directed by Sinai Peter. Tickets: $15-$60. Through April 17 at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Visit mosaictheater.org or call 202-399-7993, Ext. 2.
Steven Carpenter as Tolstoy, Brit Herring as Jefferson, and Peter Boyer as Dickens in a rehearsal for Scott Carters play, which was nearly 30 years in the making. (Stage Guild)

Scott Carters play is going from the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles to the basement of a church in the District, but the playwright isnt at all bothered by the downgrade. Because, really, a church basement is a better place for three rogue theologians to be arguing than in a swanky theater.

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord is being staged by the Washington Stage Guild, a small D.C. theater company that performs in the Undercroft Theatre at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. (Performances begin Thursday and continue through April 24.)

The script was nearly 30 years in the making for Carter, a longtime producer of the HBO talk show Real Time With Bill Maher. As even those without premium cable may know, Maher is an outspoken agnostic opposed to organized religion. Carter, on the other hand, is a regular churchgoer fascinated by three historical figures who each edited his own version of the Bible.

In his play, Carter imagines that Jefferson, Tolstoy and Dickens all ended up in an pre-afterlife holding room resembling a seminary class from hell. Until the three men come to some sort of egalitarian agreement on theological matters, theres no getting through the pearly gates.

Jefferson famously edited the miracles out of the Gospels, and Dickens who Carter notes was also an amateur illusionist  reveled in them. The Victorian writers version of the New Testament presents Jesus as a sort of benevolent magician. Tolstoys The Gospel in Brief, in contrast, emphasizes Jesuss more austere teachings.

Scott Carter, a longtime producer for Real Time With Bill Maher. (Michael Lamont)

Carter insists that the nearly 90-minute play is not a transcript of backstage debates with his boss; he got the idea for the play after suffering a nearly fatal asthma attack in 1987.

That made me want to investigate spiritual matters that Id been indifferent to before, Carter said recently from his home in California. That led me to discovering Jefferson, and a few years later, Dickens, and then finally Tolstoy. And I thought, These three would make a very interesting play. 

He worked on the script on and off for years, finally getting the play staged at Los Angeless NoHo Arts Center in 2014, and then at the Geffen. The Los Angeles Times called the play funny and thought-provoking, and buzz spread from there. D.C. actor Steve Carpenter heard about the play and initially wanted to direct it, but WSG Artistic Director Bill Largess convinced him that hed make a better Tolstoy. (Peter Boyer plays Dickens; Brit Herring is Jefferson.)

Washington theatergoers familiar with WSG know that the troupe usually focuses on classics by dead white men, with an emphasis on dramatist George Bernard Shaw. Discord, Largess said, is a verbally rich play that wrestles with big ideas and, in that sense, reminds him of a latter-day Shaw. The wit, the wordplay, the ideas all added up for us to something that our audiences would embrace, he said.

Although Carter had hoped to come to Washington  hes recovering from eye surgery  he says he has been corresponding with the team and enthusiastically supporting the production.

Another gig for Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson has been getting extra press in Washington these days  and not only for his upcoming appearance onstage. The cast of the blockbuster Broadway musical Hamilton visited the White House on March 14 for educational workshops and, while there, recorded videos that have been posted online as part of the #Ham4Ham series, originally a stage door performance to entertain those waiting in line for Hamilton lottery tickets.

The first video featured women from the cast singing History Is Happening in the elegant Vermeil Room. Several days later, the musicals star and creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, unveiled another, this time with members of The Presidents Own U.S. Marine Band.

Do you know who founded the tradition of the president having a band? Miranda asks, narrowing his eyes at the camera. Who else? Thomas Jefferson.

Then, with actor Daveed Diggs, who plays Jefferson, grooving in the background, about a dozen members of the band swing into What Did I Miss?, the jazzy tune that Diggs sings when the future president returns from Paris.

This was extra special for us, said Staff Sgt. Chaerim Smith, a violinist who played in the ad-hoc pit orchestra. The Hamilton cast members were so gracious and really nice. You could tell they love what they are doing, and you could tell they were so excited to be performing at the White House.

I was, too, she added, Even after nine years.

For Smith, a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, a more typical White House gig involves a string quartet serenade. Playing hip-hop was a switch.

The rhythms had a different sort of feel than say, a Mozart string quartet, she said.

So will the U.S. Marine Band be playing any Hamilton tunes at public concerts? Lt. Col. Jason Fettig, who directs the ensemble, says hes certainly intrigued by that possibility. They may need to find a vocalist, however. Although Diggs doesnt sing in the #Ham4Ham video, he does bellow at the end, Whoo! Thats my band!

Grants for two D.C. groups

The Chicago-based Reva and David Logan Foundation has presented grants to two Washington theater groups: Mosaic Theatre Company, which will receive $250,000 for each of its next four seasons, and the Welders, a local playwriting collective, which will be given a $30,000 challenge grant.

For Mosaic, the million-dollar commitment builds on a $250,000 challenge grant that allowed Managing Director Serge Seiden and Artistic Director Ari Roth to establish their own troupe after their rancorous split with Theater J in 2014.

We called it the inaugural bump,  Seiden said. That was a super-important nest egg that enabled us to get started.

Dan Logan, a son of the late philanthropists, lives in Virginia and has attended performances throughout Mosaics inaugural season at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. He encouraged Seiden and Roth to apply for a multi-year grant.

Because the foundation backs both social justice advocates and arts organizations, Seiden said, a theater such as Mosaic, which presents plays related to societal conflicts, is an ideal grantee. He and Roth plan to use the money to continue building their full-time staff (now at six people) and for general operating costs.

Mosaic will announce its 2016-2017 schedule soon, said Seiden, who expects to rent theaters in the Atlas for 42 weeks next season, up from 27 this year, with five out of seven plays running in the Lang Theatre, the H Street theater centers largest space.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Welders received a $30,000 challenge grant for the 2016-2017 season. The grant is for the next three seasons.


As Arquimedes Puccio, Guillermo Francella evokes Al Pacino in a sordid, morally bankrupt role. (Fox International)

The spirit of Martin Scorsese hovers constantly, if not always benevolently, over The Clan, Pablo Traperos unsettling dramatization of a real-life family mired in criminality and corruption in 1980s Argentina.

As portrayed by Guillermo Francella, family patriarch Arquimedes Puccio resembles Al Pacino during his lion-in-winter phase: Gray-haired and avuncularly stooped, Puccio makes a daily ritual of sweeping the street corner outside his home, where he presides over a thriving family. Hes as respected by his neighbors as by the government and law enforcement officials, with whom he occasionally raises a glass. Presumably, its with their tacit cooperation that hes able to attend to his moonlight occupation: abducting wealthy Argentines for ransom, a sideline that has resulted in a comfortable life for his wife, two daughters and three sons.

Although one of the boys has already left home, Puccios eldest, Alejandro (Peter Lanzani), has stayed behind to become a star rugby player and, later, the manager of the familys sporting-goods shop. The Clan, which won an award at the Venice Film Festival last year and has been a huge success in Argentina, positions Alejandro as the indeterminate moral center within a story that strikes an increasingly bizarre balance between lyrical scenes of cozy domesticity and moments of sordid, slashing cruelty. Obviously influenced by The Godfather and its successors, Trapero doesnt delve into detail regarding Arquimedess role in Argentinas Dirty War and its disappearances. Hes more interested in issues of filial loyalty and betrayal that come into sharp relief during the dawn of democracy, when ruthlessness once deployed on behalf of a brutal dictatorship has become a violent, greedy, increasingly depraved way of life for the entire Puccio family.

Francis Ford Coppola and his oeuvre notwithstanding, its Scorsese whos most obviously invoked in The Clan, with every startling, visceral edit and music cue. (The soundtrack includes choice cuts from the Kinks and Creedence Clearwater Revival, providing disorientingly bouncy counterpoints to the carnage depicted on screen.) At times, the references are uncomfortably on the nose, such as a sequence in which the filmmaker intercuts scenes of Alejandro making love to his girlfriend (Stefania Koessl) with the moans of one of the familys victims. Although Trapero cant be accused of lionizing his subjects, the exuberance of his portraiture suggests a discomfiting level of fascination, even if it falls short of outright approval.

On one level, The Clan is an accomplished but not terribly original genre exercise  another story about amorality run amok, given an extra jolt from its real-life roots and heightened political context. What sets the film apart are the performances, especially Francellas dead-eyed portrayal of a morally bankrupt middle manager and Lanzanis soulful depiction of bewildered passivity, which eventually reaches an astonishing breaking point. Stylish, atmospheric and dispiriting, The Clan gives cynical new twist to an old saw: The family that preys together stays together  but usually, not for long.


Hawthorne, in the U Street corridor, replaces the four-level Tabaq Bistro. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

From all appearances, Hawthorne presents itself as an antidote to all those popular restaurants where you cant get a reservation after 5:30 or before 10: a good place to know about midweek when you dont feel like cooking but also dont want dinner to be an event.

The menu, from veteran chef Dot Steck, takes into consideration that some of us might want seafood (enter steamed mussels in eight guises), some diners dont eat meat (think tomato soup and falafel) and others might be hankering for steak frites or duck breast. The list is neither too short nor too long, and its doled out by a hostess who seems genuinely glad to see you.

Wavy hummus, slicked with olive oil and framed with sails of fried pita, comes with a cute flavoring kit: currants, toasted pine nuts and minced herbs in a shallow tray. Im digging it. The roasted vegetable salad shows care, too, with precise chopped apples and squash in a mix of arugula and spinach glossed with roasted garlic vinaigrette.



Hummus is served with flatbread chips and garnishes of pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and mint. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

Hawthornes roasted vegetable salad with squash, beets, apples and raisins is a bright spot on the menu. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

So far, so fine, and isnt it nice to know about a restaurant with a rooftop deck where you can sip and sup under the stars? Hawthorne, named for the Upper Northwest D.C. neighborhood where co-owner Fritz Brogan met his wife, replaces the four-floor Tabaq Bistro in the U Street corridor.

Come the entrees, however, and things unravel. We place orders for salt cod croquettes and four-cheese pasta, only to have a waiter return and tell us the kitchen is out of both. At 6 p.m.? It might not matter if the food were good, but thats not the case. Ive had better Caesar salads in an airport lounge.

The menu suggests fire in a pot of mussels dubbed Green Hornet, but its cloudy liquid smacks of little more than warm water. When I mention the lack of punch, my waiter insists that he dropped off the right mussels. That may in fact be true, but he certainly forgot to deliver the fries, the bread and a bowl for the empty shells, all of which we have to ask for. Dry (but spicy) chicken wings segue to dry (olive-scattered) braised chicken. Might a pastry chef have assembled the lamb sandwich with soft onions and pomegranate barbecue sauce? Despite feta in the filling, the combination tilts sweet. The kitchen seems to be struggling, as does the server who says our bottle of wine is only the second she has ever presented.



Mussels come in eight varieties, but you might need to ask for the fries, bread or a bowl for the empty shells. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

Co-owner Reed Landry says the restaurants goal is upscale bar food. Evidence suggests Hawthorne is barely going through the motions.

1336 U St. NW. 202-853-9194. hawthornedc.com. Entrees, $15 to $24.
Our readers share tales of their rambles around the world.

Who: Shelly Heller of Silver Spring, Md. (author); Dianne Martin of McLean, Va.; Toni Marsh of Montgomery Village, Md.; and Val Clarke of Torquay, Australia.

Where, when, why: We walked for a week from Sarria, Spain, to Santiago de Compostela  the last 68 miles of the Camino de Santiago  in May. Three of us are on the faculty at George Washington University and work out together at lunchtime. Our workout conversations include topics such as films, books, news and gossip. One day, we talked about the movie The Way and agreed that walking El Camino would be a great idea. But, unlike Martin Sheen, we glamped, using an agency that transported our luggage from stop to stop and staying in hotels that we reserved rather than simply finding a place to stop.

The Camino group, from left: Toni Marsh, Val Clarke, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, Dianne Martin and the author. The four friends met Sturla at a church along the way. (Courtesy of Val Clarke)

[Americans can plan people-to-people trips to Cuba, but what does that mean?]

Highlights and high points: Walking through medieval villages with 100-year-old rosebushes clinging to the stone; sharing the road with a farmer driving cattle along with a stick; seeing fields of wildflowers, ancient forests where the paths were so worn that walls of earth rose 20 feet on either side of us, and vistas of Spanish hillsides and vineyards; passing fields of recently mown hay dotting black soil rich with manure  all of the sights, sounds and smells were new and delightful. And the food, except for the octopus, was outstanding. We especially loved torta de Santiago, a wonderful almond torte. The entire trip was amazing and so different from our daily lives  no phones, no television (at least not one we could understand), no meals to make and no real decisions to make other than putting one foot in front of the other.

Cultural connection or disconnect: The Camino was about the people we met: other peregrinos (pilgrims) from around the world, whom we kept running into at various points along the way. We had names for each: Our Lady of the Pink Pants (who wore pink every day), the Dutch group (a group of tall, tan, beautiful blond women out for a stroll) and the Alones (folks who were walking unaccompanied to find themselves: the student from Wellesley, a young woman from Slovenia and a young man from somewhere who adopted us).

Our most interesting meet-up happened by chance. We stopped at a resting place and chatted with another pilgrim, who told us that an important person was walking the Camino (maybe an archbishop, he said) and that every evening there was a Mass for the peregrinos that we should attend. Among the four of us were one Catholic, two Protestants and a Jew, but we thought: Why not? It would be part of the experience.

We arrived at the church, and the priest was atwitter. When the Mass began, there were three officiants, and one was wearing white garments, hiking boots and a red skullcap. Our Catholic member said, Thats not a bishop; thats a cardinal. Indeed it was. Cardinal Daniel Sturla, who recently had been elevated to cardinal in Uruguay, was walking the Camino with 20 or so of his high school friends, each decked out in matching T-shirts. On our final day in Santiago, we attended Mass again, and there was our friend, Cardinal Daniel  this time in full cardinal regalia.

Biggest laugh or cry: We are a bunch of East Coast, Type-A personalities  we set a goal, and we get it done. On the first day of our walk, we still had about nine miles to go. We decided not to stop until we were at least halfway and pledged not to drink beer or wine until we had earned it by completing the Camino. We stopped at about 1 p.m. and ate too big a lunch and then could hardly summon the energy to continue. Rushing past charming cafes and inns , we focused on our goal. And, in doing so, we missed the point. The next day, we realized that this was El Camino, not El Destino. The walk is the trip. So we slowed down, stopped in every cafe, and drank the local brews and delicious sangria. It was a good decision.

How unexpected: Perhaps we were most surprised by ourselves. We are fit, but we had never done anything like this before. We were amazed that we did it and that we never ached. (Okay, well, maybe just a little.)

Fondest memento or memory: The greatest gift was the journey, each of us a pilgrim in her own way. There were miles where we walked together, four abreast, sometimes two by two and sometimes alone. We had time to catch up on one anothers lives, to learn new things about one another that we never could have guessed. We learned that we could enjoy one anothers company and also enjoy our solitude. And, of course, we bought matching T-shirts for our next lunchtime workout.

To tell us about your own trip, go to washingtonpost.com/travel and fill out the What a Trip form with your fondest memories, finest moments and favorite photos.
Correction: An earlier caption accompanying the photo of the Transparent cast misidentified Hari Nef. This version has been corrected.



Gaby Hoffmann, a transfixing actress since her child-star days in the 1990s, photographed in Venice, Calif. (Oriana Koren/For The Washington Post)

Apropos of nothing, Gaby Hoffmann.

Hair like Lady Godiva, gaze like the Good Witch. Gaby Hoffmann as a tweenager in 1995s Now and Then, beating up boys on Christina Ricci's behalf, falling into a storm drain as Thora Birch sobbed. Gaby Hoffman on Girls, having a weird, hilarious earth-mother home birth in the bathtub. Shes transfixed me since the day we met, Lena Dunham emails when asked to talk about Gaby Hoffmann.

Or: I remembered her from all the HBO movies I used to watch as a kid, says Jay Duplass, who plays her brother on Transparent. He wasnt sure whether hed be able to take the role until Gaby called me, and she was singing, shed made up a song, and it was like, Come down, come down to L.A.  And so he did.

People will come, Gaby said at the end of 1989s Field of Dreams, because she got it. She understood the whole darn meaning of it all, even before Kevin Costner did. That was one of those things that always seemed to be true about her, from her presciently mature child-star days to the fierce, scene-stealing presence in her adult work.

So one day, we decided it might be nice to take a walk with Gaby.

I'm normally the least busy person I know, she says, leaving a coffee shop near Venice Beach, pushing a big stroller, wearing a T-shirt silk-screened with Bernie Sanderss face. But she and I have been alone for the past month, which is great, but usually I have a partner so its been particularly wackadoo. . . . Im also baby-brained out; I havent slept much in 15 months. I used to be able to do this because I had a brain like steel  it was annoying how much I couldnt forget things  and now its like I suddenly have Alzheimers. The sleeplessness is proven; it eradicates your memory. Its scary when you read what sleeplessness does to the brain, to know thats whats happening to you and you cant stop it, its kind of like performing a slow suicide on your . . .

A return to Iowa

Shes walking with the baby: Rosie, 15 months old, newly introduced to refined flour. The dad is Gabys longtime partner, Chris Dapkins, a cinematographer who has been absent because hes filming for the Sanders campaign, which was fate, because Gaby and Chris had just been looking at each other and thinking, We should be in Iowa, and that very day, Gaby got a call from a friend at the campaign inviting them to go there. It would be the first time shed been to Iowa since filming Field of Dreams nearly 30 years ago. The campaign asked whether she wanted to go visit The Field, just as a way to get out of Des Moines, but it was too far of a drive.

. . . kind of like performing a slow suicide on your own capacity to think, she finishes. However, I also happen to have an extremely easy child and an extremely easy life. Im not ignorant about that at all. . . . I barely have to work. I get paid very well. If I did need help, I can afford it. Ive been living like a [expletive] bourgeois single mom since we got here, like, Oh, Im not going to go grocery shopping, Im going to get take-out at a fancy place. 



Hoffmann as Caroline in Girls, where her characters messy, earth-mother home birth was a highlight of the HBO series. (Jessica Miglio/HBO)

She maneuvers the stroller up a side street into a small gated park, where she reaches into the basket under the stroller and pulls out a miniature stroller for Rosie to play with, and also a paper bag from the coffee shop. Oh, look, Goose! Youre going to have a croissant! A croissant, what a treat!

Disappearing act

A word about Gaby, because Gaby is also apropos of everything, for a certain lost generation of American adults. She was never a Winona Ryder, the talisman for Generation X. She was a few years too young for that, and a few years too old to be Amanda Bynes, or whomever the millennials had.

At 34, she is the benefactor of the between people. She made movies that the between people cared deeply about while growing up. Try to find a woman in her early 30s who did not see Now and Then in a theater.

And then she disappeared. She went to college and studied political science and then apprenticed with a chef, then became a doula and moved home to New York  all of this in an attempt to make sure that she went back to her childhood acting career by choice, not habit. Only then did she return to the screen, to take on a series of roles that represented the 2010s messy excavation of such topics as beauty, societal expectations, sexuality, gender. (I started calling her Moppa, like Momma and Papa, her Transparent character explains, clarifying her fathers male-to-female transition for the shows other characters.)



Gaby Hoffmann, left, with her Transparent colleagues  Judith Light, Jay Duplass, Jeffrey Tambor, Jill Soloway, Amy Landecker and Hari Nef  at the Emmy Awards in September. (Paul Buck/EPA)

Off-set, Gaby is everyones universal big sister, says Amy Landecker, who plays Gabys sibling on Transparent and is actually several years older.

If I believed in past lives, I would tell you shes been around a really long time, says director Lesli Linka Glatter, who cast Gaby in Now and Then, the sappy, irresistible coming-of-age drama in which sensitive Gaby grows up to be Demi Moore. There was something raw and honest about her that helped turn the movie into a cult classic.

Which Gaby understands, even though the movie didnt mean to her what it did to so many women her age.

I was too old to appreciate it when we were making it. Christina Ricci and I met on that movie and became inseparable . . . and we spent our weekends going to see Pulp Fiction and smoke cigarettes in the alley. We werent watching Now and Then, let me tell you. Anyway, she says, peoples relationship to celebrity have changed since she was younger, now that everyone watches shows on their laptops.

In the park, she pauses. Im sorry, I just realized the gate is open. Gaby jogs past the other parents to shut the gate, and after a little playing, Rosie has decided that what she really wants is to nurse. You want booby? Okay, well go sit over on the bench and you can have booby.

Gaby tucks up her T-shirt and sits on a bench. Her daughter nurses, and Gaby elaborates on laptops. I did get in a thing where I was binge-watching Enlightened in bed and I thought, Oh, I see why people do this. Its kind of cozy and great, and I fell asleep basically with Laura Derns face in my face. And when I woke up and turned on my computer there it was, frozen  Laura Dern, whom I truly, truly love and always have. . . . And then that night I was at the Chateau Marmont, of all places, and up walks Laura Dern. I was like, Oh, my God, I was just in bed with you! And I threw my arms around her. We laughed and that was it.

An outburst, and then a hug

I had this thought, driving home after a late work night, Gaby says, walking again past Venices canals. And there were all of these people waiting outside to get into a bar, and there were no girls dressed warmly enough. I was as tired as Ive ever been, and I thought, that looks so miserable. Why wouldnt they just be asleep right now, if they could be asleep?

She wonders out loud about the mating rituals of younger people and if this is just about her getting older. And is the idea that if youre showing skin, youre going to have more sex? Because let me tell you, you can be warm and have sex. Also, you could wear shoes that are comfortable and have sex.

Physical appearance has never particularly interested her. As an actress, vanity is your enemy. If youre thinking about how you look, youre not going to give a good performance. Once I realized  hmm, I guess Im not that vain, its like something I wanted to protect. I cant imagine anyone could give the full dynamic performance theyre capable of and still be vain.

She steers the stroller toward a farmers market, swerving past a cyclist, approaching a raw foods stand. Can I have one tempeh? This is great baby food, she says to the woman behind the counter.



Hoffmann on the campaign trail for Bernie Sanders in Las Vegas in February. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Hoffmann in Venice. If youre thinking about how you look, youre not going to give a good performance. (Oriana Koren/For The Washington Post)

I didnt intend to introduce food so early, but she became very interested at about 5 months, and I just gave her whatever sort of nutrient-rich food I had. Her first food was smoked trout. Rosie gnaws on the tempeh and Gaby sorrowfully tells a man with a clipboard that shes not registered to vote in California. If you tell parents theres a right way to do things, theyll spend untold amounts of money out of fear that theyre doing things the wrong way. . . . Its all meant to disconnect them from what their bodies were meant to do anyway. We have a maternal instinct. Its in our DNA. Its in our cellular makeup. Its  

I love your shirt, a passerby calls out.

Thank you, Im on my way to Colorado later to help him, she calls back.

Speaking of Bernie, this is the whole problem with America, and the way our culture has transformed in order to serve the whole profit-seeking corporations. Our own inherited knowledge is completely questioned. Corporations, she says, have to make us feel afraid and weak. Now that shes talking about Bernie, whom she loves, shes also talking about how angry she is with the media  she thinks its biased toward Hillary Clinton and misleads voters.

I happen to have an immense amount of time to read on my own, but most people have five minutes in the morning with the news on, or they have the radio, and those minutes are being controlled by the people  her voice rises  who are trying to preserve their own . . . wealth  her voice rises  at the expense of hundreds of millions of people and the planet.

A man pushing his own stroller tries to get past on the sidewalk; Gaby stops and waves him ahead. Go ahead. Were slow, and Im angry all of a sudden.

She puts her hand on our arm, apologizing for the outburst, and its exactly how you want an interview with Gaby Hoffmann to end, with an emotional outburst and a social justice rant and a partial hug. And now the walk is ending, too, because were back at the coffee shop, and she does, in fact, have to get on a plane and go to Colorado. Feel free to call her with any more questions, she offers.

Are you working on anything, we ask, besides the next season of Transparent? Its the question that must be asked of all celebrities in all celebrity interviews.

Oh. She laughs. No.
THE DISTRICT

Arrests are made in 2 fatal shootings

D.C. police said arrests have been made in two fatal shootings, one of which occurred in February and the other in 2013.

Alphonso Roberts, 32, of Southeast, was arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree murder. He is accused in the killing of Maurico Walker, 23, of Northeast, who was shot in the 1900 block of 18th Street SE on Feb. 10.

In the other case, authorities said Ronald Bruce Thomas, 29, of Oxon Hill, Md., was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder while armed. He is accused in the May 18, 2013, shooting of Donald Price, 21.

Police did not release information about a possible motive in either case.

 Peter Hermann

Police name woman killed in re in SE

A woman who was killed in a fire on Feb. 29 in Southeast Washington was 64 years old and lived in the house, according to law enforcement authorities and public records.

D.C. police said Thursday that Diane Teresa Wilson was the person who died. Police said they had difficulty reaching relatives and could not make her identity known until this week.

The fire was reported about 8 p.m. in a small house in the 4300 block of Massachusetts Avenue SE, along the Maryland line and near Fort Davis Park. Officials have not said how the fire started, but police have indicated that it did not appear suspicious.

 Peter Hermann

MARYLAND

More debates planned in U.S. Senate race

The two candidates in the hotly contested Democratic primary race for Marylands open U.S. Senate seat have agreed to two more debates, with just over a month to go before the April 26 primary.

Reps. Donna F. Edwards and Chris Van Hollen debated for the first time last week and are to square off again Friday in Baltimore.

They are also scheduled to debate Tuesday and April 5. Tuesdays debate will be televised in the Washington and Baltimore markets. The April 5 debate airs on Baltimore radio station WOLB.

 Arelis R. Hernandez

Shooting victim is identified

Prince Georges County police have identified a man who was fatally shot in Oxon Hill.

KShon Jerome Johnson, 20, was found in a parking lot with a gunshot wound when police arrived Wednesday night to investigate a report of a shooting in the 3800 block of 28th Avenue. He was pronounced dead there. No arrests have been made.

 Dana Hedgpeth

25 are displaced by 3-alarm re

Twenty-five people were displaced by a three-alarm fire that broke out early Thursday morning in Brandywine in Prince Georges County.

No injuries were reported.

The fire broke out in townhouses in the 7000 block of Chaddsford Drive. Four townhouses were destroyed and two were damaged, firefighters said.
City funding for the Fillmore Arts Center will remain intact  at least for another year.

D.C. Public Schools almost killed funding that allows more than 1,500 elementary school students at five schools to commute weekly to the Georgetown center for arts programming. But after parents pushed back, the school district announced Friday that it would fund the program for at least one more school year.

We believe in arts education, and we believe in solving problems, and this gives us the opportunity to do both, Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said in a statement.

Beyond the additional school year, however, the programs future is unclear.

The Fillmore Arts Center offers a range of arts classes for elementary school students, including in drama, chorus, dance, creative writing, ceramics and computer animation. But the program comes at a cost.

The five participating schools contribute the money they receive for arts and music instruction and pool their resources to keep the program afloat. The school district then allocates additional money to the site.

It costs $1,149 annually per student to participate in the Fillmore program, and much of that goes toward transporting students, according to Michelle Lerner, a spokeswoman for the school system.

Thats more than twice the $458 per student the district spends on arts and education across all elementary schools.

While it has been a really great program, and it has benefited a lot of our students, we feel like we can do in-house arts instruction at these schools like we do at all of our schools, Lerner said earlier this month when the program was on the chopping block.

Parents have held community meetings and started an online petition to save the program, saying that if the cuts are allowed to stand, our students will lose sculpture, computer animation, digital arts, pottery, theater, dance, strings, band and others.

They argue that the five elementary schools  Hyde-Addison, Key, Marie Reed, Ross and Stoddert  do not have the facilities to provide proper arts education.

This isnt the first time that parents have fought to save the program.

In 2013, when Fillmore served 11 schools, budget cuts threatened to dismantle the program before parents mounted a successful protest.

[D.C. parents fight cuts to Fillmore Arts Center]

After the revived funding for the program runs out next year, the school district is considering a number of options. One proposal would have participating schools hire the staffers at Fillmore to serve at the schools.

Although parents are relieved the program will be saved for the coming year, they said they would continue to fight to ensure it exists after that. The arts education offered at the Fillmore, they argue, is unmatched in the citys elementary schools.

There is no other program like it, said Anne Masters, whose now-adult children participated in the program. We cant replicate this program in the schools.
Verizon communications clarified that an attacker had exploited a security vulnerability on its enterprise client portal to steal contact information. (Representational image)

Mumbai: Verizon Communications said an attacker had exploited a security vulnerability on its enterprise client portal to steal contact information of a number of customers.

The company said the attacker however did not gain access to Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) or other data.

CPNI is the information that telephone companies collect including the time, date, duration and destination number of each call and the type of network a consumer subscribes to.

Krebs On Security, which first broke the news of the breach, said a member of a underground cybercrime forum had posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise.

The seller priced the entire package at $100,000, but offered to sell it off in parts of 100,000 records for $10,000 apiece, Krebs added.

The vulnerability, which was investigated and fixed, did not leak any data on consumer customers, Verizon said in a statement on Thursday.

The company is currently notifying customers impacted by the breach.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
Reps. Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen clashed Friday over criminal justice, trade and Social Security in what will be the first televised debate of the Maryland Democratic Senate primary.

Edwards accused Van Hollen of supporting bills and negotiations in Congress that sell out American workers, senior citizens and the incarcerated. Van Hollen, in turn, said Edwards was distorting his record and failed to deliver for her constituents.

The Democrats are locked in a tight battle for the nomination to succeed longtime Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who is retiring at the end of this year. The race has drawn national attention because it pits two well-known progressive lawmakers against each other and ensures that one of them will be leaving Congress and returning to private life in 2017.

[Why Emilys List is spending big to defeat a progressive Democrat]

If Van Hollen was the primary aggressor in a radio debate on March 18 in Washington, Edwards was the candidate more likely to attack in Baltimore. She addressed Van Hollen directly, saying that by supporting budget negotiations in 2011 based on a framework that called for Social Security cuts, he was willing to harm seniors who live off those benefits. (Van Hollen never endorsed the plan itself, and he voted against it on the House floor.)

They only have Social Security, and you wanted to trade it away, Edwards said, turning from her podium to face her rival. Mr. Van Hollen wanted to trade it away in an effort to cut a deal.

Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, pushed back, saying that Edwards was among the lawmakers from their party who trusted him to negotiate with Republicans on their behalf.

Ive been in the trenches leading the fight, he said. Congresswoman Edwards . . . has not been part of the fight until this election.

When Edwards attacked Van Hollen for supporting legislation in 2005 that proposed new mandatory minimum sentences, Van Hollen noted that meant to address a criminal gang crisis and did not become law. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

This is another example of gross distortion, he said, noting that he co-sponsored legislation last year to dramatically cut mandatory minimums.

Accusing him of contributing to mass incarceration, he said, is upside down.

Concerning trade, Edwards said her opponent voted for nine of the 11 most-recent international trade deals and was not part of a group that worked to improve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which both lawmakers oppose. I think you cannot on the one hand vote for these trade deals and on the other hand say youre for the American workers, she said.

Van Hollen responded that he evaluates each deal on its own. He pointed to his endorsement from the United Auto Workers as evidence that he had found a proper balance.

Only at the very end of the debate did Van Hollen raise an attack he has brought up often in recent days  that Edwards does a poor job responding to constituents. Ms. Edwards likes to say she walks in other peoples shoes, but too often, when people walk in the door of her congressional office, she hasnt been there, he said.

Edwards pointed to job fairs, housing-education seminars and college fairs that her office holds as well as her early move in Congress to provide free suppers at schools in Maryland. A pointed charge from Van Hollen that she had ignored discrimination against NASA workers, she said, overlooked a year of work her office had done on the difficult issue.

Despite those scuffles, the debate was tamer and wonkier than March 18s noontime face-off and a forum that evening, both of which turned heated.

Edwards praised Van Hollen for his work to limit inversions that allow companies to avoid U.S. taxes through overseas shell corporations. They both said they opposed the use of ground troops in Syria and praised President Obamas opening of relations with Cuba.

Van Hollen touted his work to secure the release of Cuban prisoner Alan Gross, a constituent, calling it the icebreaker that allowed us to proceed with the change in relations. Edwards noted that before she came to Congress, she worked at a nonprofit that helped facilitate U.S.-Cuban cultural exchanges and pushed for an end to the embargo.

Both candidates spoke in favor of the administrations nuclear deal with Iran, although Van Hollen took a veiled shot at Edwards for opposing some earlier sanctions against the country.

The two differed slightly on the issue of whether Apple should be required to unlock a phone used by one of the shooters in San Bernardino, Calif. Edwards said she agrees with the company, which has said that doing so would weaken security for all Apple users. Van Hollen said he believed there should be a way to unlock this particular phone without causing such problems.

The audience of about 150 college students and local residents was mostly subdued, as well, although Van Hollen won murmurs of approval from senior citizens in the crowd when he called for allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Edwards, in turn, was met with laughs of recognition when she said, As soon as I finished paying my student loans, I started paying for my sons college.

The University of Baltimore debate, moderated by two writers from the Baltimore Sun, will air Monday night on Baltimores WJZ-TV.
Here are five other things to know about Terence Strait, a very long-shot contender to win the Democratic nomination to succeed Rep. Donna F. Edwards.

[Candidate profile: Terence Strait]

Bernie-crat: Strait is a self-described Bernie-crat, or fan of presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). He tweets incessantly about the senator and is part of a national online network of activists promoting Sanders platform and ideas on the web.

Environment: One of Straits most pressing concerns is climate change. As part of his commitment to the environment, he installed solar panels on his Prince Georges County home. He told voters recently that he pays little for energy these days.

Military: Strait, who is originally from Indiana, enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school and went to college after his service.

Slogans: The candidates campaign slogan is a play on his last name: Strait for Congress, Strait for the future.

Education: Strait says he has two degrees in psychology from the University of Alabama in Hunstville.
State delegates from Prince Georges County gathered Friday morning as they do every week  only this time, the doors were closed.

An aide stationed outside made sure that only lawmakers entered, while others  journalists, lobbyists and officials from the Maryland Hospital Association and the University of Maryland Medical System, and staffers for Prince Georges County Executive Rushern L. Baker III and the Maryland Health Care Commission  cooled their heels in the hall.

The topic of discussion, lawmakers said later, was the countys transitioning hospital system.

The lawmakers, all Democrats, chose to meet as a party caucus rather than a legislative delegation because caucuses are not subject to open-meetings laws, and they wanted to huddle in private.

Normally, the Prince Georges Democratic caucus meets on Tuesdays.

Does the Republican caucus have open meetings? said Del. Marvin E. Holmes Jr. (D-Prince Georges), the Democratic caucus chair, when asked why Fridays meeting was closed. This is a Democratic Party caucus meeting, which is no different from any other caucus meeting. Do Republicans talk to you about what was discussed?

Del. Michael L. Vaughn (D-Prince Georges) said the members of the group were sharing our feelings on the hospital. . . . I hope everything works out.

The countys health-care system has been the subject of much consternation and controversy this year, as officials downsize Laurel Regional Hospital, await state clearance for a planned regional teaching hospital in Largo and spar over operational subsidies for the existing Prince Georges Hospital Center.

[Funding dispute stirs concern over regional hospital project]

Though lawmakers declined to provide specifics from the meeting, Del. Darryl Barnes (D-Prince Georges) said the caucus wanted clarity on two specific bills regarding health care in the county.

One, sponsored by Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince Georges), would change the process for closing a hospital. The other, which is supported by the state hospital association and sponsored by a lawmaker who is not from Prince Georges, would allow medical facilities to open in Maryland without obtaining a certificate of need from the state.

At one point, Ben Steffen, acting executive director of the Maryland Health Care Commission  the body charged with approving a new regional hospital  was invited inside the meeting to answer questions.

Barnes said there was some talk among lawmakers about why the meeting had to be closed, but there was no vote to open it. House Judiciary Chair Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince Georges) walked out of the room a few minutes after the meeting began.

We try as a delegation to be as transparent as possible. We have nothing to hide, said Del. Dereck E. Davis (D-Prince Georges). I believe the reason we went into a closed session was just so we could get information, and we werent going to take any action.

County delegation chair Jay Walker (D-Prince Georges) said the delegation has basically completed its work for the legislative session that ends in three weeks and therefore had no reason to have one of its regularly scheduled public meetings.

The caucus session, he said, was simply an opportunity to get priorities together and see where we stand on some bills. The number-one priority of the last several years has been the [planned] Prince Georges County hospital, so we dont want to do anything to hinder it.


Terence Strait speaking at a 4th Congressional District candidates forum. (Mark Gail/For The Washington Post)

Last in a series of profiles of the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to represent Marylands 4th Congressional District.

Terence Strait understands that he probably wont win the race to replace U.S. Rep. Donna F. Edwards (D) in Marylands 4th Congressional District.

He is virtually unknown, fairly new to Prince Georges County and has about $8,000 in campaign funds  more than 90 percent of it his own money.

But that wont stop the 34-year-old from trying.

I think I would do a great job, Strait said in a recent interview. This campaign isnt about me, its about the ideas. My primary goal is to shift the conversation.

Strait said he quit his job as a statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland this year to take a big leap of faith and run for federal office. The self-described Bernie-crat favors a democratic socialist ideology similar to that advocated by Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.





Strait has spent much of his campaign retweeting hundreds of pro-Sanders messages and meeting one-on-one with district residents to talk about climate change, economic inequality and burdensome student debt.

He has reached out to other Sanders supporters, posted YouTube interviews and added his profile to websites promoting progressive politicians.

[Five things to know about Terence Strait]

Politicians think in a very set way, he said. In terms of the thought processes, Democrats and Republican talk about issues in the same way but argue different points. I bring a very different type of way of thinking that should be represented.

Straits interest in politics started in elementary school in Indiana during a mock election mirroring the 1992 race between Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush. After high school, Strait enlisted in the Army and served for four years, he said.

He returned to civilian life and enrolled in college just as the economy collapsed. Strait said he attended a few different institutions before settling at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he earned a bachelors and a masters degree in psychology.

Strait moved to Prince Georges County and bought a home in Capitol Heights, where he recently hosted other Sanders supporters for a live-streaming campaign event. On his website, Strait is candid about his struggle with depression, which he said has given him an understanding of the everyday challenges of ordinary people.



Terence Strait talks with a voter after a candidates forum last month at Bowie State University. (Mark Gail/For The Washington Post)

Strait talks to voters about the importance of planning for the future instead of reacting to the latest crisis. Congress, he says, has been too slow and shortsighted to respond adequately to issues such as ballooning student-loan debt and displacement of workers by the automation of jobs.

We as a country have a history of big dreams, Strait said in his opening remarks at a recent candidates forum. We went in 66 years from the Wright brothers first flight to putting a man on the moon. . . . There is nothing we as a people, if we put our minds to it, cant do.

Strait, who calls himself an idealist, said he is optimistic that despite his relatively low profile, one of the other candidates will note his passion.

My odds of winning are not that great, Strait said. And I believe, if I dont win, one of these candidates will be interested in bringing me in as a staffer.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen seems an unlikely target for a Democratic super PACs biggest-ever primary campaign. A rising star in the party, the Senate candidate is a longtime protege of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a high-profile defender of liberal policies.

But hes also a man running against a woman for the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), the longest-serving woman in Congress. And so the pro-choice womens group Emilys List is committing at least $2.4 million from its super PAC  Women Vote!  to help Rep. Donna F. Edwards defeat him.

Emilys List argues that its mission is to elect pro-choice Democratic women, regardless of who gets toppled along the way. The group says its investment on behalf of making Edwards Marylands first African American female senator helps continue the legacy of Mikulski, the first woman elected with Emilys List support.

Making history 30 years ago was just as important as it is today, said Emilys List spokeswoman Marcy Stech.

Van Hollens supporters, including Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp (D), contend that instead of spending so much to back Edwards, Emilys List should focus on helping female candidates running against Republicans who dont support the groups agenda.

Emilys List Super PAC Women Vote released an ad endorsing Rep. Donna F. Edwards (D-Md.) for Senate. The ad praises her stance on regulating Wall Street. (WomenVOTEProject/ YouTube)

Im disappointed, like many other people, that Emilys List has chosen to try to use its muscle to oppose a candidate who I think has represented Maryland really well, said Kopp, a former state lawmaker who served with Van Hollen in Annapolis and has endorsed his campaign.

Van Hollen is the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, and he has used that perch to protest Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. He also has advocated paid family leave and equal-pay legislation. Four times as many female elected officials in Maryland are endorsing him as are endorsing Edwards.

Edwards, a progressive in her own right, has five fewer years in Congress than Van Hollen and has had lower-profile committee assignments. She has struggled to raise money on her own. But Emilys Lists super PAC has launched a major television ad campaign on Edwardss behalf that has matched or exceeded Van Hollens television effort, helping to keep the race competitive.

After weeks of the candidates running neck-and-neck, a Baltimore Sun-University of Baltimore poll this month gave Edwards a six-point lead. The candidates are meeting for their second debate in Baltimore on Friday.

[Van Hollen, Edwards on attack in first debate]

Van Hollen supporter Susan Esserman, a former deputy U.S. trade representative who lives in his district, said she was shocked and deeply distressed when she learned that Emilys List was working against the congressman, who has always championed the groups abortion-rights, pro-women agenda.

I just thought in this case it showed misplaced priorities, Esserman said. We should be looking at our goals, which should be to elect more women but also to make sure that we have strong and effective people in place to advance womens rights.

Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is staying neutral in the Senate race, praised Emilys List and both candidates but expressed a similar concern. More women in the Senate  that's their goal, she said. I would hope that its not at the cost of more women in the House, when its between a Democrat and a Republican who will vote pro-choice, pro-gun safety.

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said the groups efforts on behalf of Edwards make complete sense.

For them, the priority is electing pro-choice Democratic women, Walsh said. The woman part really matters to them.

Some campaign-finance watchdogs argue that in a world where both black and female candidates have less access to power, Edwards might need more help.

One candidate has a broad network of major donors due to his background and previous roles in the party, said Adam Smith of Every Voice, which advocates public financing for campaigns. The other candidate, due to her background and where she comes from, doesnt necessarily have that same level of access.

[Edwards: Why arent black women ever described as born to the Senate?]

Such talk is endlessly frustrating for Van Hollen, who unsuccessfully sought an agreement with Edwards early in the campaign to ban spending from outside groups. He would not commit to the pledge unilaterally, though, and this week a super PAC run by the National Association of Realtors filed papers showing that it had spent more than half a million dollars supporting Van Hollens campaign.

His aides describe the huge lift Edwards is getting from the Emilys List effort as ironic  and a sign of hypocrisy on her part.

Both Edwards and Van Hollen opposed the 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United, which legalized unlimited campaign spending by outside groups. Edwards was the first member of Congress to propose a constitutional amendment overturning it.

And although Edwards has positioned herself as an outsider and opponent of Wall Street, through Emilys List she is benefiting from deep-pocketed donors who in several cases have corporate ties. According to the most recent federal filings, the groups super PAC has taken more than $2 million this cycle from hedge-fund managers or their spouses, including $1.5 million from financier and Hillary Clinton supporter S. Donald Sussman.

Each Senate candidate has long-standing connections to Emilys List. The group helped Edwards topple former Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D) in 2008, making a rare endorsement of a challenger to a Democratic incumbent. A former Emilys List political adviser, Garrick Delzell, is managing Edwardss Senate campaign.

As for Van Hollen, many of his stalwart donors are contributors to Emilys List. Sheila OConnell, his campaign manager, used to work as the groups political director. The polling firm employed by Van Hollens campaign also does work for Emilys Lists super PAC.

Maryland women are asking why Emilys List is spending millions against a leader like Chris instead of on other races where their priorities are in jeopardy, said Van Hollen spokeswoman Bridgett Frey, who has repeatedly accused the advocacy group of trying to buy a U.S. Senate seat.

Edwards declined to discuss the groups work on her behalf. In a statement, the campaign said Emilys List was there for Senator Barbara Mikulski from the beginning. Thirty years later, were proud to have their support.

Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with campaigns, but there are ways to circumvent those rules. Emilys List has used video that Edwardss campaign posted to YouTube. Watchdogs consider that illegal coordination; the Federal Election Commission is split on the issue.

Emilys List can also telegraph its moves through news releases  for example, announcing a million-dollar ad commitment in Maryland, as the group did this month, which let Edwards know she doesnt have to worry about television spending.

Van Hollens fundraising appeals have lamented the use of dark money . . . right on our doorstep. The campaign sent letters to Emilys List donors suggesting that the group had gone astray, which prompted Emilys List to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, where it is pending.

Van Hollens request last summer that Edwards sign a pledge barring outside groups from spending in the race was a not-so-subtle attempt to stop the flow of Emilys List funds. She quickly rebuffed him, calling the pledge laughable.

In fact, Van Hollen faced a similar offer back in 2002, when he ran against Rep. Constance A. Morella, a popular incumbent and moderate Republican whom he ended up beating.

Morella wanted to keep soft money  independent money from political parties  out of the race. Van Hollen, then a state lawmaker, pointed out that he needed support from those groups, because Morella had far more money in her campaign bank account.

Its a phony stunt, Steve Jost, manager of Van Hollens 2002 campaign, said at the time.
While his answer was general in nature, a senior US State Department official pointed out that it included India and the spokesperson's response was against India-specific question. (Photo: Representational Image)

Washington: Expressing concern over India's recent ballistic missile launch, the US has said such actions could potentially "increase" the risk to nuclear security and have an impact on regional security.

"We're concerned by any nuclear and missile developments that could potentially increase the risk to nuclear security risk or lower the threshold for nuclear use," the US State Department Spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters.

"So we continue to urge all states with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint regarding their missile and nuclear capabilities," Mr Toner said when asked about recent ballistic missile test by India.

He said the US State Department official had shared its concerns with New Delhi.

"We are concerned," he reiterated yesterday when asked if the US was concerned about India's ballistic missile programme.

"We are concerned about those kind of actions what they do for regional security," he said.

While his answer was general in nature, a senior US State Department official pointed out that it included India and the spokesperson's response was against India-specific question.

"Yes," Mr Toner said when asked if the US had raised its concerns with India on its ballistic missile programme.

A day earlier he had refrained from going into specifics of America's bilateral conversations with India on this issue. "I don't want to get into specifics of our bilateral conversations with India, but we've long encouraged efforts to promote confidence building, stability, and discourage any actions that might destabilise the region," he had said.

India successfully launched an indigenously-developed, nuclear capable K-4 ballistic missile from a submerged platform in the Bay of Bengal recently.
Even before the sun rose, officers donned their finest and made their way to the church in Prince Georges County. Arriving in cruisers with flashing lights, on rumbling motorcycles and on horseback, thousands of them stretched beneath the towering steeple to wait.

And when the flag-covered casket carrying the young detective arrived, the expanse of white-gloved officers uniformed in blue and gray and brown snapped to solemn attention.

Nearly two weeks after the death of Prince Georges police officer Jacai Colson, law enforcement members, elected officials and ordinary citizens descended on the First Baptist Church of Glenarden on Friday to pay their respects to a man they say sacrificed his life to protect his community and colleagues.

He loved his job and the people he swore to protect, said Prince Georges County Executive Rushern L. Baker III. It was that unintentional valor that allowed him to stand in the face of danger and not blink or waver.

Colson, 28, was killed in a March 13 shooting started by a man who police say plotted and carried out an ambush on officers outside a police station while his two younger brothers recorded it on video. Colson, an undercover narcotics detective who was off duty and wasnt in uniform when he arrived at the scene, was fatally wounded by another officer responding to the shooting.

Three Prince George's County brothers are being held in connection with the fatal shooting of Officer Jacai Colson in Landover March 13. Police said that Colson was killed by another officer who perceived him as a suspect. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

[Wait for me at the Pearly Gates. Well meet there together.]

Both laughter and anguish punctuated the two-hour ceremony, with officers from Chicago, the local Washington region and the East Coast filling the 4,000-seat sanctuary.

Capt. Stanley Johnson, acting chief of the Maryland-National Capital Park Police in Prince Georges, said he understood why officers from across the country attended.

It is the badge, it is the uniform, Johnson said. We are all one family. When one officer suffers, we all suffer.

Colson is the 29th officer in Prince Georges to die in the line of duty. He would have celebrated his 29th birthday last week.

As Colsons mother, father and brother approached his open casket to say one more goodbye, his mother threw back her head and sobbed. And as the lid closed, she stretched her arms toward her son and wept before someone stretched an American flag over the pewter-colored casket.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), one of several elected officials who attended the service, lamented that this was the third time in recent weeks the region has had to gather for the funeral of an officer who died in the line of duty. Law enforcement officers in Virginias Prince William County and Marylands Harford County were killed recently in shootings.

The funeral for Prince Georges County officer Jacai Colson was attended by thousands Friday, as people came to pay their respects to an officer killed in the line of duty. Colson was shot and killed by friendly fire while responding to an attack on a police station in Landover March 13. (Hamil Harris/The Washington Post)

[Community turns out for funeral of Prince William officer]

Like others, Hogan praised Colsons bravery in defending the community against an active shooter.

His spirit is the same spirit of compassion that guides each and everyone in uniform, Hogan said. He will forever be remembered as a true hero.

Prince Georges Police Chief Henry P. Stawinski III has said that Colson drew fire toward himself the day of the gun battle, allowing other officers time to take position and stop the gunman.

Stawinski said it is love that leads officers like Colson into peril and it is that love that could lead to their ends. But he concluded his remarks on a hopeful note.

Today we weep, but we do not give up, Stawinski said. Today we hope. Today we rise anew.

Michael Ford, 22, has been charged with second-degree murder and more than 20 other counts in connection with the case. Police say he recorded his last will and testament before launching the gunfight with officers. Two of Fords younger brothers  Malik Ford, 21, and Elijah Ford, 18  have also been charged. All three are from Prince Georges.

John Teletchea, president of the countys police union, called the day Colson died one of the darkest days in the county. The shooting at the police station was an attack on our society and our way of life, he added.

He urged the crowd to reject divisive rhetoric that may have emerged from Colsons death.

A friend of Colsons from high school echoed the sentiment.

It is not all one style of lives matter, Desai Langley said. All lives matter.

As the church filled, photos of Colsons life flashed on large screens above a stage  images of him in Little League, a happy child at the beach, at graduation. A native of the Philadelphia area, Colson graduated from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia before following his grandfathers footsteps and becoming a police officer.

Colson, who had been with the Prince Georges police department for four years, has been remembered as a dedicated detective who dreamed of working for the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

[Brothers filmed attack on police station that left officer dead, authorities say]

On Friday, friends shared their favorite memories of Colson, chuckling as they recalled the jovial buddy who would sing around the house in boxers and dingy slippers or battle them in dance parties and cook-offs.

Colsons family, wearing matching gray suits, later addressed the crowd. They recalled a loving son and brother and avid Philadelphia Eagles fan who they said they also will now be remembered as a hero.

Colsons mother, Sheila Colson, stood strong behind the lectern, telling the audience how her son, born three months early, had a difficult start in life.

He fought to get here, his mother said, and he fought going out.

The service ended with the strain of bagpipes playing Going Home and Amazing Grace. Arm-in-arm and holding hands, the slain officers brother, mother and father followed the casket out of the church and to the hearse.

As friends, family and police officers poured from the sanctuary to comfort Colsons mother, she offered comfort in return.

It is going to be okay, she told them, her face wet with tears. It was just his time.

Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.
A worker fell 50 feet into a water tank in Haymarket. He is okay. (Courtesy of Prince William County Fire)

A man was injured Thursday when he fell into a large out-of-service water tank in Prince William County, authorities said.

The incident happened Thursday afternoon in the 7200 block of Old Carolina Road in Haymarket. The man, a contractor for the countys service authority, was doing welding work on the interior part of the tank that is part of a tall tower. He was getting the tank ready for sandblasting and painting, authorities said.

He fell about 50 feet to the bottom of the towers bowel, firefighters said. The water tower is about five stories above the ground, and there was no water in the tank at the time.

Firefighters said he was moderately injured and airlifted to an area trauma center. The countys service authority said Friday that the mans injuries were minor.

It is not clear what caused the welder to fall, said Thomas W. Jarman, a deputy fire marshal for the countys fire department. The incident is under investigation by the countys service authority and Virginia Occupational Safety and Health.

Officials with the countys service authority said the worker was wearing a safety harness at the time. The water tower was out of service because it is being worked on as part of rehab project.
A memorial for Aubrey Dansbury in the 800 block of Chesapeake Street SE in the District. (Kate Patterson/For The Washington Post)

Two red foil balloons, long deflated, dangled from the bare branches of a small tree on Chesapeake Street. Below was a ring of stuffed animals, soaked by Fridays rain and secured to the trunk by a white chain.

The tattered memorial remained as a tribute to Aubrey Dansbury more than two weeks after the 27-year-old was gunned down on the afternoon of March 9 during what police said was an argument with an acquaintance along the residential street in Southeast Washington.

But the items placed beneath the scrawny tree to mark Dansburys death recall even more violence that has hammered the Washington Highlands neighborhood since Feb. 29: five shootings, two fatal, several in daylight and one mere steps from an elementary school playground filled with children who rushed inside at the sound of rapid gunfire.

Police said that the shootings appear unrelated and that most involved people who knew each other. Police have arrested suspects in both homicides; the latest arrest occurred Thursday.

Many of the people involved in all this arent from around here, said Olivia L. Henderson, the areas longtime advisory neighborhood commissioner. People are popping into our community and think they can call these hangouts their homes. Theyre new faces.

Tavon Stewart as he appeared in two police booking photos (Metropolitan Police Department )

Washington Highlands stands on an elevated plot laid out in a tidy grid of streets lined with apartment buildings and a smattering of townhouses near the southern tip of the District. Commuters on the Anacostia Freeway streak or crawl, depending on traffic, by the community every day. Washington Highlands and adjoining Bellevue have some of the Districts highest homicide counts and are among the most economically depressed parts of the city.

Henderson, who has lived in Ward 8 for 42 years and much of that in Washington Highlands, said the community has long been overlooked.

She wishes she could clear away memorials such as the one on Chesapeake Street. To her, the empty malt-liquor and whiskey bottles and the soggy stuffed animals only add to the existing blight and are an eyesore to the community, reminding people of desperation and death.

She said that frightened or frustrated residents long ago retreated into their homes and away from community life, leaving unchallenged what happens outside their front doors. Adding to the residents angst, she said, is that one of the homeless shelters the mayor is proposing is targeted for Sixth and Chesapeake streets, the same block that is home to the school and the site of one of this years fatal shootings.

Henderson has been a commissioner under three mayors. Each one has had a community walk-through here, she said. They take the same route, and each says what theyre going to do to fix this. We still have empty lots. We still have abandoned buildings. We still have cars left on the streets.

District officials in the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) cited a list of job programs, grants and efforts to raze vacant buildings and restore empty lots. D.C. police have assigned two extra officers to patrol the area between 2 and 10 p.m.

I think all of us are heartbroken about communities anywhere having to face the trauma of such significant violence, said Courtney R. Snowden, the deputy mayor for greater economic opportunity. She said that one key to curbing violence is employment: The way to fight crime is to give people a fighting chance.

On March 17, the administration held what is called a Results walk through Washington Highlands. District officials documented firsthand blighted properties, code violations and piles of trash. Other officials registered residents for job programs and health services.

I see the frustrations she sees, Snowden said of the neighborhood commissioners concerns. What seems to be a list of endless promises that result in very little change. The deputy mayor added, This administration is focused on doing things differently.

As those efforts go forward, so do the shooting investigations.

Eight days earlier and two blocks from where Dansbury died, Rudolph Garris, 25, was fatally shot in a car at Sixth and Chesapeake streets, near Hendley Elementary School and the Sunshine Early Learning Center. Garris, from Suitland, Md., was shot at 3:10 in the afternoon of March 1.

D.C. police arrested a suspect in that case Thursday. Tavon Juice Stewart, 24, also of Suitland, was charged with second-degree murder. Police said the shooting occurred after Garris was seen arguing with a woman in an apartment building. A witness told police that Stewart warned Garris to leave, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police said that on March 1, the two men met again  Stewart carrying a gun and Garris a hammer. Garris dropped the hammer and dived into his car  where his 7-year-old son was in the back seat  as Stewart fired, police said.

The other recent shootings in Washington Highlands occurred on Third, Fourth and Atlantic streets.

On Friday, Dave Holland, 57, a disabled Army veteran who has worked as a line cook, made his way from his Anacostia home to a medical clinic in Washington Highlands, a four-mile journey he made by bus and foot.

All this is crazy, Holland said as he walked by the Chesapeake Street memorial. You can be walking down the street, and you look at someone the wrong way and they shoot you.
A confederate flag placed on private property behind a St. Marys welcome sign this week is causing some controversy in the southern Maryland county.

The flag had been permanently lowered from outside South Carolinas State House and banned by several major retailers last year. But officials in St. Marys County say this flag, just over the line welcoming travelers from neighboring Charles County, will stay.

While some on social media have called for the flag to come down, St. Marys County officials said its not on county property or attached to the county sign.

The flag is about 45 feet behind the sign, on property owned by Budds Creek Motocross Track, and was raised several days ago, said County Commissioner John E OConnor, who represents the area, and who spoke with the property owners.

No further action needs to or will be taken since it is on private property, and the property owner is exercising his right under the First Amendment, OConnor said.

We had not received any official complaints until this morning, he added. A Facebook page for the local radio station WSMD Star 98.3 FMs morning show T-Bone Heather posted photos of the flag, asking, Can anyone identify the flag on the bottom of the Confederate Flag?

Below the Confederate flag is a second white flag with a red cross, which OConnor said is from a Maryland confederacy infantry regiment.

Some on Facebook complained about the sign on radio stations post, which was later taken down.

A message left at Budds Creek Motocross Track was not immediately returned Friday afternoon.
Dear Dr. Gridlock:

You published a letter from Eric Briggs of Arlington arguing that it was past time to widen Interstate 66 from the Capital Beltway to Rosslyn. I understand the concern of drivers who want to use I-66 to get to work and then back to their homes at the end of the work day.

However, they forget something, which is that restricted-access highways breed more traffic over time so that a short-term solution turns out not to be a solution over the long run.

[Briggs letter chides whining Arlingtonians]

People resist what might be thought of as a variation of Murphys Law: More highways lead to more suburban development, and more suburban development leads to more cars, and more cars fill up highways, leading to calls for wider highways or more highways. What Briggs wants is an I-66 that duplicates I-395. Thats a four-lane or six-lane highway from the Beltway to Rosslyn. That is, I-66 inside the Beltway should look like I-66 outside the Beltway.

However, enlarging I-66 inside the Beltway to four or six lanes would be just a temporary fix for traffic jams, if only because of the bottleneck formed by the bridges over the Potomac.

Unfortunately, this temporary fix would also cripple Arlington forever, and do so in two ways. The first way is the obvious one. A significantly wider I-66 would be an even worse physical barrier to Arlington residents than I-66 is now. Ever try walking over I-395? Or over I-66 outside the Beltway?

The second way is less obvious but even more important. Turning I-66 into a repeat I-395 would send a devastating message to Arlington homeowners. That message would be, Your properties are secure only until an even wider I-66 or another I-66 is demanded by residents in the suburbs outside the Beltway. That sort of message is arrogant and threatening.

Is it any wonder that the Arlington County Board has resisted efforts to widen I-66?

 Tom Hone, Arlington

The residents of Arlington County also are commuters, and some of them consider I-66 to be their Main Street. The letters from Briggs and Hone reflect Arlingtons varied interests.

The board that represents them is not happy about the speedup in the I-66 widening that resulted from a compromise between Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and the Virginia General Assembly. But the widening is limited to four miles eastbound and to the existing right of way.

Board Chair Libby Garvey pledged that the panel will be vigilant, working to ensure that appropriate environmental analyses are completed efficiently and comprehensively.

And the board is looking forward to the selection of programs that will help I-66 drivers leave their cars behind. Those selections will come from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

Tolling I-395

If youre getting the idea that there are many constituencies among commuters when it comes to the high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, this next letter will reinforce the point.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

As one who lives in Prince William County and has worked in Arlington for the past 15 years, using I-95/395, I can tell you the toll lanes are working out very nicely, where they exist. I didnt believe they were going to help, but they do!

They work because this is a high-income area, and people think nothing of spending the money to get around. Going north in the morning, I dont normally hit the wall until after the Edsall Road exit.

Going south in the evening, it is a mind-numbing stop/go until the Duke Street entrance to the HOT lanes, and then traffic on the main lanes is able to speed up, sometimes moving better then the HOT lanes.

Wasnt it Arlington that sued the state to stop them from converting to the toll lanes at that point? I have heard that they are now going to be extended to the D.C. line. If Arlington had allowed them in the first place, they would be finished by now and we would have traffic relief!

 Billie Vanore, Lake Ridge

By the end of 2015, the average number of daily trips in the 95 Express Lanes totaled 44,000, according to Transurban, the company that operates the HOT lanes.

The Virginia Department of Transportation plans to extend the HOT lanes north, replacing the I-395 HOV lanes, by 2019.

As with the I-66 project, the Arlington County Board is watching this one closely. The most attractive part is the commitment by VDOT to using some of the toll revenue to help I-95/395 commuters to leave their cars behind.

But the Arlington officials want VDOT to get more specific: Exactly how much of the revenue will go to such programs? Many of us felt let down when the I-95 HOT lanes project did not turn out to have a more robust program for commuter buses.

Chat with transportation secretary

Join me at noon Monday for an online discussion with Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne. You can ask your own questions about the various HOT lanes projects and other transportation issues. Heres the link: live.washingtonpost.com/gridlock0328.html.

Dr. Gridlock also appears Thursday in Local Living. Comments and questions are welcome and may be used in a column, along with the writers name and home community. Write Dr. Gridlock at The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or email drgridlock@washpost.com.
India successfully launched an indigenously-developed, nuclear capable K-4 ballistic missile from a submerged platform in the Bay of Bengal recently. (Photo: Representational Image)

Washington: Expressing concern over India's recent ballistic missile launch, the US has said such actions could potentially "increase" the risk to nuclear security and have an impact on regional security.

"We're concerned by any nuclear and missile developments that could potentially increase the risk to nuclear security risk or lower the threshold for nuclear use," the State Department Spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters.

"So we continue to urge all states with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint regarding their missile and nuclear capabilities," Toner said when asked about recent ballistic missile test by India.

He said the State Department official had shared its concerns with New Delhi. "We are concerned," he reiterated yesterday when asked if the US was concerned about India's ballistic missile programme.

"We are concerned about those kind of actions what they do for regional security," he said.

While his answer was general in nature, a senior State Department official pointed out that it included India and the spokesperson's response was against India-specific question.

"Yes," Toner said when asked if the US had raised its concerns with India on its ballistic missile programme.

A day earlier he had refrained from going into specifics of America's bilateral conversations with India on this issue.

"I don't want to get into specifics of our bilateral conversations with India, but we've long encouraged efforts to promote confidence building, stability, and discourage any actions that might destabilise the region," he had said.

India successfully launched an indigenously-developed, nuclear capable K-4 ballistic missile from a submerged platform in the Bay of Bengal recently.


Berta Caceres Flores of Honduras speaks in 2015 to a crowd near the Gualcarque River, the site of a massive dam construction project. (Tim Russo/Goldman Environmental Prize via Associated Press)

Long before gunmen burst into Berta Caceres Floress house in rural Honduras, Beverly Bell gave up any hope that her friend would live to an old age. This was a marked woman, said Bell, who kept a long list of the death threats. Everyone knew it.

The March 3 slaying of the internationally known environmentalist was condemned from the State Department to the Vatican. But for activists who work in Latin America, Caceress murder was tragically familiar.

Two-thirds of environmentalists who died violently around the world since 2002 lost their lives in that region. For the five years ending in 2014, more than 450 were killed, according to an international watchdog group. More than half were in Honduras and Brazil.

Among the more recent deaths: A young worker who protected sea turtles in Costa Rica was kidnapped and brutally beaten. A farmer in Peru was shot 12 times for protesting a hydroelectric dam. A Guatemalan activist who linked a massive fish kill to pesticides sprayed by a palm oil company was gunned down near a courthouse in broad daylight. A Brazilian activist who fought logging in the rain forest was ambushed and fatally stabbed while returning home with his wife.

[A snapshot of three dead activists]

The common thread in virtually every case is the fight by communities to stop government-approved corporate development of remote lands. Slain environmentalists frequently have attempted to halt such projects as dams and logging involving hundreds of millions of dollars, which stand to enrich local providers of labor and materials.

Those locals have an interest in eliminating whomever gets in the way, according to John Knox, a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment and a professor of international law at Wake Forest University.

Most victims are indigenous people who are oppressed, largely marginalized and are considered almost expendable by the powers that be, he said.

The risks they face also reflect a legacy of U.S. intervention throughout the 20th century, noted Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

The United States famously nurtured and funded dictatorships, corrupt governments and military rule throughout most of Latin America, Frank said.

The post-coup regime in Honduras continues that tradition, adding that the same is true in Guatemala, Colombia and other countries.

[Suspicions mount in slaying of noted Honduran environmentalist]

The 2013 murders of three members of the Honduran Locomapa tribe demonstrate how lethal the regions activism can be  without consequences for the killers.

Maria Enriqueta Matute, Armando Funez Medina and Ricardo Soto Funez were part of a peaceful sit-in and road blockade to protest mining and logging on their land when two gunmen opened fire.

Funez and Soto were killed immediately. Matute fled to her nearby home, where she was tracked and shot. Reports say that although there were about 150 witnesses  other protesters at the sit-in as well as onlookers  there has been no investigation and no arrests, according to activists. Two brothers were the alleged attackers.

In mid-March, a man who worked for the organization that Caceres co-founded, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), became the latest fatality. Nelson Garcia, 38, was shot in the face as he returned home in northwest Honduras after being rounded up and held by state police.

In response, a Dutch bank that was a prime backer of the huge dam project that COPINH was fighting declared itself shocked by the violence and immediately suspended all activities and funding.

Latin America is the hardest-hit region, said Billy Kyte, a campaigner for Global Witness, who wrote its latest report on killings of environmentalists. From 2010-2014, he said, three-quarters of those deaths occurred there. The network organization is still gathering 2015 statistics, but Kyte expects that it was the deadliest year ever.

The embassies of Peru, Honduras and Brazil did not respond to email or phone requests for comment.

[Why are Brazils environmentalists being murdered?]

Whether the statistics are skewed by inadequate data elsewhere, making the region seem even more dangerous for activists, is of some debate. Knox said he thinks countries in the Americas have better reporting of deaths by governments and media, compared with countries in other parts of the world, such as Africa.

Yet he and others agree that government authorities often do not pursue cases aggressively.

Theyre just not doing what we think police should do, said Grahame Russell, director of Rights Action, a nonprofit group that funds community development and human rights workers in Guatemala and Honduras. The state is playing a very specific and direct role in empowering various economic sectors and looking the other way to move projects along when killings occur, he said.

The problem is so widespread that it often is part of the narratives of recipients of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, said David Gordon, the organizations executive director.

In 2011, prize winner Francisco Pineda of El Salvador, who led a movement that stopped a gold mine, recounted how three colleagues were assassinated and a close companion killed while under police protection. After the body of a fourth activist was found in a well and the pregnant wife of another movement member was killed, Pineda got 24-hour police protection.

The next year, Sofia Gatica of Argentina told the prize committee about the intimidation she faced during her campaign to stop the spraying of toxic agrochemicals. An individual entered Gaticas house and demanded that she give up the campaign while pointing a revolver at her, Gordon wrote in an email.

[Why saving the Amazon means saving more than just trees]

But the 45-year-old Caceres stands out as the only Goldman award recipient to have been killed.

After starting COPINH, she waged a decade-long fight against the construction of the Agua Zarca Dam on the Gualcarque River. The project was targeted because the government allowed the privatization of large sections of the river and the forced removal of communities.

Her indigenous people, the Lenca, were to be uprooted by the dam. The plan would also cut their access to the river, which they viewed as sacred. Death threats tied to Caceress efforts to stop the project were constant.

Gordon said a Goldman prize video crew that traveled to Honduras were blockaded from this one road by dam proponents. who demanded that Caceres get out of the car. The crews leader, Ryan Mack, placed frantic calls to the organizations San Francisco headquarters and to the U.S. Embassy for help.

We cant get out, Gordon recalled Mack saying. Only after Gordon called the State Department in Washington to say that U.S. citizens were at risk was the group allowed through.

Thats when he and the organization took the unusual step of awarding Caceres an additional grant for security. She thought she would never make it to San Francisco to accept the award, he said.

Her killers remain at large. According to Kyte of Global Witness, 90 percent of killings of activists generally in Honduras are never solved.

A lot of people wanted her dead, said Bell, whose own social-justice organization, Other Worlds, works with COPINH.

Four years ago, after hearing Caceres talk about the threats and physical attacks in almost every conversation, Bell began drafting a eulogy for her friend.

Writing it felt like an inevitable exercise, Bell said. Because her assassination felt like an inevitable fate.
Whats more harmful to patients being treated for drug or alcohol abuse: Risking their health by keeping other medical providers in the dark about their substance abuse treatment? Or risking their jobs, homes and child-custody arrangements by allowing potentially damaging treatment details to be electronically shared with an array of medical providers?

Advocates on each side have painted the possible outcomes in starkly different terms as they consider the federal governments recently proposed update to rules governing the release of patient records for alcohol and drug abuse treatment.

Everyone agrees that protecting the privacy of people who are being treated for substance abuse is critical. The failure to keep such information confidential can have a devastating effect on the patients work and family lives. In some cases, it also may set off a cascade of legal repercussions, including arrest, prosecution and jail for illegal drug use. The mere threat that treatment details might be disclosed can be enough to deter people from seeking help.

The current privacy guidelines  often referred to as Part 2, an abbreviation for 42 CFR Part 2, a section of the Code of Federal Regulations  last got a meaningful update in 1987. Since then, electronic medical records have proliferated, and integrated, patient-centered care has become the organizing principle for doctors, hospitals and health systems.

The old rules are too cumbersome for todays integrated world, say proponents who favor loosening the rules. At present, providers can disclose treatment information only when a patient consents to have it shared with a specific health-care provider.

Part 2 is well intentioned, but its just not working, said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. These special [treatment] silos are actually hurting people. The federal/state Medicaid program for lower-income people is responsible for a significant and growing share of the money spent on substance-abuse treatment, Salo said.

In family medicine, its not unusual for patients to have five to 10 different diagnoses, one of them being substance abuse, said Wanda Filer, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Not having access to all the relevant medical information can be difficult or even dangerous. If someone is taking methadone to treat a heroin addiction, for example, she may need to adjust his antidepressant or anti-anxiety medications.

Finding the right balance between getting access to information and protecting their privacy is challenging, said Filer, who practices at a health center that treats low-income patients in York, Pa. The AAFP is reviewing the proposed changes.

The proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services would allow patients to give their consent to disclose their records not to a specific provider alone but to the health-care system with which the provider is affiliated, for example.

While the HHS proposal is an improvement over existing rules, it doesnt go far enough, Salo said. His organization, along with others, would prefer that HHS align substance-abuse-treatment disclosure rules with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which governs the privacy of other types of health-care records.

Under HIPAA, health plans, providers and health-care information clearinghouses dont always have to get patients consent before disclosing their records to similar groups and business associates, such as claims-processing operations, if the disclosure is related to a patients health-care treatment, payment or health-care operations.

Strong protections must remain in place to prevent information from being used to bring criminal charges or to conduct criminal investigations, said Lindsey Browning, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

Thats not good enough, some patient advocates say. They argue that the rule changes are too broad.

Under the HHS proposal, anybody throughout the system can get access to patient substance-abuse-treatment records, said lawyer Jim Pyles, an expert on patient privacy who has represented the American Psychoanalytic Association on this issue. When the patient is at their most vulnerable time, it gets them to sign . . . this very general consent form.

Patients cant rely on health-care systems to keep their information private, Pyles said, noting that in the past six years, more than 150 million Americans have been involved in health-data breaches, according to an analysis of HHS data released by Melamedia, a health-care research company.

In the midst of a privacy-breach epidemic, were substituting the interests of integrated delivery systems . . . for patients interests, when what we should be doing is asking patients what they want, Pyle said.

Comments on the proposed rules are due by April 11.

This column is produced through a collaboration between The Post and Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service. To submit a question, go to kaiserhealthnews.org/contact-insuring-your-health.
The punishment is met out to the woman in accordance with the Sharia law which is the legal system of Islam. (Photo: YouTube screen grab)

Recent footage of an Indonesian woman being whipped across the back in public for having sex outside marriage is making the rounds of the Internet. The video is disturbing to say the least.

The young woman is seen being taken to the public stage in Banda Aceh and forced down on to her knees by two guards, as reported by The Daily Mail.

A masked man is seen repeatedly whipping her across the back as she clenches her fists and appears to bite her veil while receiving her punishment.

Later in the video the woman is seen being carried out on a stretcher as she is not even in a state to walk after the punishment is over.

The punishment is met out to the woman in accordance with the Sharia law which is the legal system of Islam. The law is derived from both the Koran and the rulings of the religion's scholars.

Pictures also show crowds gathered to watch another two men also receive the same punishment for having sex outside of marriage.
indiana

Governor signs bill restricting abortions

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed an abortion bill Thursday that, among its provisions, bans the procedure if it is sought because the fetus is diagnosed with a disability or a defect such as Down syndrome.

Shortly before his deadline to act on the sweeping measure, Pence called the law a comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life, according to the Associated Press.

The law, which the legislature passed this month, makes Indiana the second state in the nation, after North Dakota, to ban abortions in cases where fetal anomalies are detected.

 Sandhya Somashekhar

FLORIDA

Former Petraeus associate ends lawsuit

A Florida woman is abandoning her lawsuit against the federal government related to leaks in the investigation that led to the resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus.

The move comes one week after lawyers for Jill Kelley had asked to withdraw from the case, citing irreconcilable differences.

A court filing Thursday says both parties have agreed to a dismissal of the case. A judge had given her until Thursday to hire new lawyers, object to hers quitting or advise the judge that she planned to represent herself.

Kelley and her husband, Scott, sued the federal government in 2013. They alleged that officials violated the U.S. Privacy Act by disclosing information about them during the FBIs investigation of Petraeus.

 Associated Press

Ole Miss ex-student pleads guilty in noose case: A former University of Mississippi student pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge Thursday, admitting to his role in draping a noose around the neck of a statue of the schools first black student, the U.S. Justice Department said. Austin Reed Edenfield is the second ex-student to plead guilty in the incident, which occurred on the Oxford campus in February 2014. Graeme Phillip Harris admitted to a similar charge last year and was sentenced to six months in prison.

 From news services
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

New abuse claims against U.N. forces

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic said Friday it has received new allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. and non-U.N. forces as well as civilians.

The United Nations has been in the spotlight for months over allegations of child rape and other sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, especially those based in the Central African Republic and Congo. The United Nations reported earlier this month that of 69 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation filed against peacekeepers in 2015, 22 were in the Central African Republic.

A statement from the U.N. mission said the newly alleged incidents took place in Kemo prefecture, east of the capital Bangui, in 2014 and 2015.

The mission said a U.N. team will be rapidly deployed to the area to investigate and to ensure that victims have been assisted. The teams report will be shared with countries whose troops and civilians are alleged to have committed abuses  whether or not they are U.N. personnel  and they will be asked to investigate and take action against perpetrators, the mission said.

A U.N. peacekeeping spokesman said no details were available yet on the nationalities of the alleged perpetrators.

This month, the U.N. Security Council approved its first-ever resolution aimed at tackling the escalating problem of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers who act as predators instead of protectors of vulnerable civilians in some of the worlds most volatile areas.

The resolution endorsed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moons reform plan, including repatriating military or police units involved in widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse and replacing contingents in which allegations are not properly investigated, perpetrators are not held accountable, or the United Nations isnt informed on progress of investigations.

 Associated Press

TURKEY

Journalists trial goes behind closed doors

A Turkish court took the trial of two prominent journalists charged with espionage behind closed doors Friday and accepted President Tayyip Erdogan as a complainant, in a case that has drawn international condemnation.

Can Dundar, 54, editor in chief of Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, 49, the newspapers Ankara bureau chief, stand accused of trying to topple the government through the May publication of video purporting to show Turkeys state intelligence agency helping to truck weapons to Syria in 2014.

Erdogan, who has cast the newspapers coverage as part of an attempt to undermine Turkeys global standing, has vowed that Dundar will pay a heavy price. The two journalists could face life in prison if convicted.

Anti-government chants rang out as the decision to take their trial out of the public realm was announced in the Istanbul courtroom, which was packed with journalists, opposition politicians, rights groups, relatives and diplomats from several nations.

The trial was later adjourned to April 1 after opposition lawmakers refused to leave, two of the lawmakers said.

 Reuters

Christians commemorate Good Friday in Jerusalem: Thousands of Catholics and Protestants are commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus by following the path in Jerusalems Old City where, according to tradition, he walked on the way to his crucifixion. The Good Friday procession passes along whats known as the Way of the Cross, or Via Dolorosa. Pilgrims from around the world walked the 14 stations along the route, each marking an event that befell Jesus on his final journey.

Putin reappoints Kadyrov in Chechnya: Russian President Vladimir Putin reappointed Ramzan Kadyrov as head of Chechnya amid accusations from rights groups and opposition activists that the Chechen leader is responsible for stirring up a campaign of hatred against Kremlin critics. Kadyrov will continue as acting chief once his term expires next month until elections for regional governors in September, Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with the Chechen leader Friday.

 From news services
Chris Sabatini is an adjunct professor at Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs and director of Global Americans, a research institute focused on the foreign policy of human rights and social inclusion.

President Obamas historic trip to Cuba this past week returned U.S. and world attention to the small Caribbean island of 11 million people and the long, curious history between it and the United States. Its hard to think of a similarly sized country that has had such a memorable, tumultuous, often romantic hold on U.S. history and imagination. That narrative encapsulates a welter of assumptions  some propagated by the 1959 revolution, others by the Cuban diaspora and the rest by Americans who havent seen Cuba up close in more than half a century. Here are some of those myths.

1. Cubas free health-care system is great.

In a 2014 visit to Cuba, the director general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, declared Cubas health-care system a model for the world: This is the way to go, she said. And U.S. documentarian-provocateur Michael Moore, in his movie Sicko, favorably contrasted Cubas system with the expensive, complicated American arrangement.

Yes, there have been health-care advances in Cuba in the past half-century, especially when compared with some of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. According to UNICEF, life expectancy in Cuba is 79.1 years, the second-highest in Latin America. And the country is famous both for training foreign physicians and dispatching its homegrown ones to nations across the region.

But while Cuba made great gains in primary and preventive care after the revolution, advanced health care is flagging. In the famously closed country, reliable statistics and rigorous studies are impossible to come by, but anecdotally, it appears that the health system used by average Cubans is in crisis. According to a report by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, hospitals are generally poorly maintained and short of staff and medicines. The writer visited facilities in Havana such as the Calixto Garcia, 10 de Octubre and Miguel Enrique hospitals and describes them in an advanced state of neglect and deterioration. In the 10 de Octubre, the floors are stained and surgeries and wards are not disinfected. Doors do not have locks and their frames are coming off. Some bathrooms have no toilets or sinks, and the water supply is erratic. Bat droppings, cockroaches, mosquitos [sic] and mice are all in evidence.

One reason Cuba still sends doctors abroad despite findings like that: Its foreign medical program is a huge moneymaker, bringing approximately $2.5 billion per year to the cash-strapped government. With more than 50,000 Cuban health professionals working in 68 countries other than Cuba, the doctor export program has created a shortage of medical practitioners in Cuba.

2. Cubans already have plenty of contact with other people, so lifting the U.S. embargo wont help the country liberalize.

An op-ed in the Miami Herald last year asserted that international tourism has not brought about political reforms in Cuba, a sentiment repeated often by Cuban American supporters of the embargo. And its true that tourists from Europe, Canada, Latin America and other places (close to 3 million in 2015) have been visiting the island for years with little discernible effect on the regime.

But this doesnt begin to match the exposure that a U.S. opening to Cuba could bring. Once the ban is fully lifted, some 1.5 million Americans are expected to travel there each year. But the real difference-maker will be Cubans themselves. More than 2 million Cuban Americans live in the United States, and they are likely to return for visits bearing news, goods, cash and ideas. Already, they make 700,000 trips each year since the George W. Bush-era cap on Cuban American travel was lifted in 2009. They are passing out USB drives (called on the island el paquete) with U.S. movies and TV series on them  already a huge popular sensation in ways the U.S. taxpayer-funded Radio and TV Marti could never become.

At the same time, by virtue of the limited hotel space and unappetizing state-owned restaurants, U.S. tourism is already helping to support the burgeoning private sector in Cuba. Today there are close to 500,000 private entrepreneurs allowed under the law, many of them serving clients from the United States. More than 3,000 private restaurants (paladares) serve meals in peoples homes and ask clients to review them on Yelp. More than 300 bed-and-breakfasts (casas particulares) are open for tourists and listed on Airbnb. These numbers will explode if and when the embargo dies. And the Bermuda-shorts-wearing, sunscreen-slathered tourists are supporting businesspeople who for once are gaining a measure of economic independence  and with it, a stake in a more democratic future. The Europeans and Canadians who arrive on package tours to all-inclusive tourist traps run by state-sanctioned companies arent doing that.

3. Che Guevara was a freedom fighter.

Guevaras iconic picture by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda is a favorite for T-shirts, flags, coffee cups  even baby onesies  for the international left and the supposedly socially conscious. When students, fashionistas, activists and stars such as Jay Z, Shia LaBeouf and Johnny Depp bear his image, theyre nodding to his struggle for world justice and his early death.

But revolutionary chic comes with a high moral price tag: After the revolution, Guevara oversaw the execution by firing squad of between 55 and several hundred prisoners, including officials from the previous government, whom he lined up after kangaroo-court trials. He also launched a system of labor camps that became home to gay people, AIDS victims and political opponents.

The regime of Fulgencio Batista, which Che helped overthrow, was autocratic, kleptocratic and violently repressive. But what followed the revolution wasnt an experiment in high-minded ideals; it was a mass slaughter and brutal crackdown.

4. Cuban cigars are the best.

At the time of the revolution, Cuba was the cigar capital of the world, and the brand was so strong that its dominance has persisted. From the iconic images of Fidel Castro puffing away dramatically to attempts to use the stogies in secret diplomacy to a Seinfeld episode, Cuban cigars have kept their mystique for more than 50 years, even as their quality has declined.

Shortly after the revolution, many of the large growers took the Cuban seeds to equally fertile soil in other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua. At the same time, according to a number of experts, a lack of technology and a lack of competition have decreased the quality of the national product. And no wonder: Tobacco growing and cigar production are controlled by the state.

Since then, the relative quality of Cuban cigars has dropped. According to Bill Shindler, the general manager of Richs Cigar Store in Portland, Ore., one of the principal problems is the lack of consistency. And in 2015, Cigar Aficionado named just three Cuban brands among its top 25 smokes. Nicaraguan stogies, by contrast, landed in 13 spots. The Dominican Republic had six, Honduras two, and one was assembled in Miami.

5. Cuba has achieved racial equality.

In his news conference Tuesday with President Obama, Raul Castro touted Cubas record on economic and social rights and racial equality, to which Obama admitted the United States shortcoming in race relations. The idea that post-revolution Cuba is a racial utopia is a common one that served the revolution well during the 1960s, as American civil rights activists such as Harry Belafonte and members of the Black Panthers flocked to Cuba.

But a few facts and recent developments belie the regimes claims. Official counts put the countrys black and mixed population at about 36 percent, though some Cubans believe those stats are undercounted. Meanwhile, a study published in Socialism and Democracy in May 2011 found that black and mixed populations, on average, are concentrated in the worst housing conditions and tend to work in lower-paying, manual-labor jobs.

With the rise of the tourism industry in the 1990s, the emergence of the entrepreneurial sector and an increase in remittances, structural disparities have increased. The Socialism and Democracy study found, based on surveys conducted among approximately 7,000 workers, that blacks and mestizos occupy only 5 percent of the lucrative higher-end jobs (managers and technicians) in the tourism industry but are heavily represented in low-level jobs.

Because the majority of those who have left Cuba are of more European extraction, the transfer of remittances back to the island overwhelmingly goes to its non-black population. According to a report by the North American Congress on Latin America, white Cubans are 2.5 times more likely to receive remittances than their black fellow citizens. Despite Raul Castros description of racial harmony, structural and racial inequality there, like here, is a permanent facet of life.

Twitter: @ChrisSabatini

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Wiley Hall is a former columnist with the Baltimore Evening Sun.

The Family Tree combines murder, miscegenation, moonshine and mob justice. It is a messy story, the way family secrets and selective memory are often messy; it is a story that is at once stomach-churning and heartbreaking, which is what sometimes happens when you poke and scratch at old wounds.

This is the true history of the early-20th-century lynching of three black men and a black woman in rural Georgia following the murder of a white man. Many will find it a hard story to digest, although this is not a maudlin account. Journalist Karen Branan unpacks the results of 20 years of research with the clinical detachment of a doctoral thesis.

Ultimately, though, this is a story well worth putting yourself through. We live in an age when some African Americans feel compelled to insist that Black Lives Matter and some whites respond, Why, whatever can you mean?, provoking fury and frustration. It is useful to be reminded that this little dance is as old as the Model T Ford. Branan does such a thorough job of putting the violence at the heart of her story in context that there is no room for ducking and dodging on either side.

The Family Tree opens in 1984, when Branan, then in her 40s, interviews her 90-year-old grandmother, hoping to capture family history for future generations. When Branan asks the elderly woman a seemingly simple question  And what is your most unforgettable memory?  she is expecting an interesting but mundane answer: maybe an old love affair or insight into what it was like to be a little girl at the turn of the century.

"The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth" by Karen Branan (Atria)

Instead, her grandmother answers: The hanging. . . . They hanged a woman and some men right downtown in Hamilton when I was young. I was told to stay home, but everyone else was going, so I sneaked out.

This is a layered moment, almost a confession, as if the story of that hanging had been lying there all those years, waiting for the right question at the right time. Branans mother appeared to have been waiting, too. You cant believe some things she says, she warns the author anxiously. She embroiders, you know.

Nevertheless, that exchange catapults Branan into a decades-long odyssey through the past, interviewing reluctant neighbors, family members and witnesses; poring through newspaper archives; verifying or debunking various versions of the truth.

She expected that her hardest task would be confirming that a hanging even occurred. She expected to have to delve into deeply hidden community secrets. But racial violence often is hidden in plain sight. The hanging was a big enough deal in its time that it was widely reported in the national media and was the subject of dialogue that sounds all too familiar: blacks insisting, in effect, that Negro lives matter and whites responding, Whatever can you mean?

Branan also finds that her family history is intertwined with the hanging. Her great-grandfather had just become the sheriff when the murders occurred, and his role was neither as noble nor as innocent as the family had been led to believe. She also finds, in a strange twist, that she is a distant relative of one of the victims as well.

If this sounds messed up, that gives you a good idea of how things were back then. It seems that when people werent sleeping together, they were trading moonshine, and when they werent sleeping together or trading moonshine, they were fighting. Vendettas raged back and forth across racial dividing lines. You needed a scorecard to keep track. No wonder, as Branan writes, the good people of the town were so desperate to put a stop to the violence while pretending none of it was going on. The press played as interesting a role then as it does today. Reporters swooped in, attracted by the sensation but reluctant to ask too many questions for fear of offending readers.

In a peculiar way, The Family Tree is a fitting companion to Toni Morrisons Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved. Her novel dramatizes the generational effect of racial violence in the form of the spiteful ghost of a 2-year-old who died fleeing slavery. Branan also is examining the generational effect of racial violence but in the haunted consciousness of whites rather than the victims.

If all this sounds depressing, well, it is. At the same time, there is something exhilarating about confronting the past in all its ugliness and realizing that doing so has made you stronger.

As I bring this book to a close, America is once again aflame with racial violence and discrimination, Branan writes in her afterword. There is no question that, as a nation, we have yet to honestly face our history and to truly embrace African Americans as full-fledged citizens and members of our human family. I believe this is the only way we can heal, as individuals and as a nation.

Still, one wonders whether 100 years from now, somebodys grandmother will be asked to share her most unforgettable memory. And the elderly woman will shock her family by answering: The shooting. . . . Police shot an unarmed black man when I was a little girl.
SOME ARIZONA residents waited in line for as long as five hours before they were able to cast ballots in Tuesdays primaries. Others were so discouraged by the long lines and parking lot gridlock that they gave up without voting. Grilled about the debacle, one election official suggested that voters might have brought it on themselves by not opting to vote early. Such nonchalance, combined with the fact that the areas most affected were predominantly Latino, is an embarrassment and should prompt Arizona officials  as well as those in other states  to assess how prepared their localities are for this years critical presidential election.

The problems that saw some Arizona voters still standing in line at midnight have been traced to decisions to cut back on the number of polling places as a way to save money. In Maricopa County, the largest in the state with about 4.2 million people and home to Phoenix, officials reduced the number of places to vote from 200 in 2012 to 60 on Tuesday. Thats one polling place for every 21,000 voters.

Critics were quick to fault the Republican-led state government for intentionally aiming to suppress minority votes. It is no coincidence many poor and predominantly Latino areas didnt get a polling place, wrote Arizona Republic columnist Elvia Diaz, reporting that Democrats for weeks had sounded the alarm about insufficient resources. Also lamented was the loss of federal protections for minority voters as a result of the Supreme Court decision in 2013 that gutted the Voting Rights Act by allowing Arizona and other states with discriminatory histories to change election procedures without federal oversight.

The five-hour waits experienced this week by Arizona voters are extreme, but long lines have become a sad feature of U.S. elections. In the District this month, voters in the Republican primary had to stand in a three-block-long line before casting their ballots in an election the party was forced to pay for. After the 2012 election, President Obama convened a commission that found that 10 million people waited longer than half an hour to vote. The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law did a 2014 study that found a lack of poll workers, poor planning and low numbers of voting machines as key contributors to long lines. The study, which examined three states that had some of the longest waits in 2012, showed that precincts with more minorities experienced longer delays.

Representative democracy is the heartbeat of this country, so it makes no sense that with so much at stake, elections are conducted on the cheap with too few workers, with little training and using outmoded equipment. Its time  before polls open in November  to make sure that the resources are in place so that every voter is able to cast a ballot in a timely manner.
Pope Francis washed the feet of 11 young asylum seekers and a worker at their reception centre to highlight the need for the international community to provide shelter to refugees. (Photo: AFP)

Castelnuovo di Porto: Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees on Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he emphasised solidarity with other faiths at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiments following the attacks on Brussels which killed over 30.

Francis denounced the carnage as a gesture of war carried out by bloodthirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside of Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant to be a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the gesture of destruction carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace, Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the centre.

Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

Francis was greeted with a banner reading Welcome in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the Mass. But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty. Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting from the Pope at the end of Mass, with the pontiff even posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows.

Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the foot-washing ritual, and previous popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, symbolising Jesus 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.

Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention centre. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.

The Vatican said on Thursday that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the centre and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.

The Vaticans new norms said anyone from the people of God could be chosen to participate in the ceremony. While the phrase people of God refers to baptised

Christians, the decree also said that pastors should instruct both the chosen faithful and others so that they may participate in the rite consciously, actively and fruitfully, suggesting that the rite could be open to non-Catholics as well.

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican norms are meant for traditional liturgies in Catholic communities, not necessarily a unique papal Mass where the overall message is one of universal brotherhood and the love of God for all his children.

We must always take the pastoral context into account, Lombardi said in an email. Norms that are appropriate for a parish celebration arent to be considered binding on a very unique celebration of the pope in a refugee center with a non-Christian majority.

Francis clearly intended the message to be universal.

All of us, together: Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Coptics, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God, he said. We want to live in peace, integrated.
Heller McAlpin reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.

At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails may come dressed in a seductive title, but Sarah Bakewells book about the people and ideas behind the existentialist movement is both breezy and brainy.

Bakewell demonstrated her ability to plumb big ideas for real-life relevance in How to Live, her 2010 biography of Michel de Montaigne, which won a National Book Critics Circle award. She brings the same lively intelligence to her latest work.

Here Bakewell traces a fascinating sort of philosophical relay of ever-mutating concepts  perception, being, authenticity, responsibility  against a backdrop of political upheavals. Her book explores the roots of existentialism and its impact in the 20th century in much the way Carl Schorskes Pulitzer Prize-winning Fin de Siecle Vienna explored the birth of modern art and culture in late-19th-century Vienna.

For the most part, Bakewell deftly juggles multiple, often conflicting philosophies and personalities over a span of more than seven decades, even if at times she tries to squeeze too many people around a jam-packed table.

"At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others" by Sarah Bakewell (Other Press)

[Celebrating Montaigne, celebrator of life]

We see the torch passed from Friedrich Nietzsche and Soren Kierkegaard to Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers  and on to Bakewells three principal players, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Their philosophies remain of interest she comments, not because they are right or wrong, but because they concern life, and because they take on the two biggest questions: what are we? and what should we do?

Bakewell lucidly breaks down dense philosophical texts while avoiding the pitfalls of over-simplification. Discussing phenomonology, she explains clearly how Husserl laid the groundwork for Sartre and others: If we are nothing but what we think about, then no predefined inner nature can hold us back. We are protean. From there it was but a short leap to existentialisms enticing freedom of self-definition.

Bakewell is critical of both Heidegger and Sartre. She is understandably harsher on the former; even if youre willing to ignore his refusal to explain or apologize for his Nazi sympathies, there is still the issue of his impenetrable prose and heartless personality. She offers a lively and frank discussion of her ambivalent feelings toward the magician from Messkirch, noting that in her 20s, she was so taken by him that he was the subject of a doctoral dissertation, later abandoned. Her reevaluation 30 years later is far more disapproving and colored by his Nazism.

Of Sartre, she notes his self-indulgence, slapdash writing, serial seductions and cavalier attitude toward fractured friendships. What she admires most about him is his character. (Character is precisely what Hannah Arendt, Heideggers onetime student and lover, said Heidegger lacked.) Bakewell extols Sartres goodness, courage, profound humanism and work ethic, adding these amusing tidbits: Fun-loving Sartre crooned jazz hits and did a mean Donald Duck imitation. Bakewell also lauds Merleau-Ponty, the cheerful phenomenologist who combined philosophy with studies of perception, psychology and childhood, noting his instinct for the ambiguity and complexity of human experience  an ability shared by Beauvoir, about whom she offers unstinting praise.

Bakewell calls Beauvoirs The Second Sex the most transformative existentialist work of all. She contends that this pioneering feminist study not only deserves to stand beside Heideggers Being and Time and Sartres Being and Nothingness, but in the canon as one of the great cultural re-evaluations of modern times, right up there with Darwin, Marx and Freud. Why, then, was Beauvoirs masterpiece never elevated into the pantheon? Bakewells answer is not altogether satisfying: She blames a hatchet job by Beauvoirs first translator and insultingly sexist covers in English-language editions that made it look like a work of soft porn.

As for Sartre and Beauvoirs unconventional 50-year open partnership , Bakewell argues  contrary to many biographers  that Beauvoir benefited at least as much as Sartre from the arrangement. Readers will find a more intimate portrait of the king and queen of existentialism in Hazel Rowleys more gossipy Tete-a-Tete. Similarly, Elizabeth Hawess Camus: A Romance offers a more vivid account of the friendship and fallout between Sartre and Albert Camus.

At the Existentialist Cafe is most riveting in its report of the World War II years. During the occupation, existentialists  who believed above all in freedom and responsibility  were engaged and committed to the Resistance in their actions and their literature. But after the war, they were often at loggerheads politically. Torn between Marxist ideals and the realities of Soviet dictatorship, they were divided on an appropriate response to communism.

Among a panoply of riches, Bakewell offers fascinating anecdotes, including the heroics involved in saving Husserls papers during the war. Her chronicle of many lives cut short reveals an astonishing number of fatal heart attacks among existentialists  including Boris Vian, Richard Wright, Merleau-Ponty and Arendt  leaving readers to wonder if philosophy isnt a heartbreaking enterprise after all.

Bakewell surely doesnt think so. Even when existentialists reached too far, wrote too much, revised too little, made grandiose claims, or otherwise disgraced themselves, it must be said that they remained in touch with the density of life, and that they asked the important questions. Give me that any day, she declares in this rousing call to robust intellectual engagement.
I think the retweet speaks for itself, said Donald Trumps senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, about the candidates posting of an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz, juxtaposed against his own supermodel spouse.

No need to spill the beans,  the caption read. The images are worth a thousand words.

Speaks for itself? What does it say? My wifes hotter than yours? This, folks, is where campaign 2016 has descended. As Fox Newss increasingly invaluable Megyn Kelly tersely tweeted: Seriously?

Its going to take me a little longer than that to unpack the latest in Trumps menacing brand of misogyny.

Two points to begin. First, the flat assertion that candidates spouses are off-limits goes too far. If they say or do things that are questionable, those activities are reasonable for an opponent to raise.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is blasting rival Donald Trump for a National Enquirer story accusing Cruz of having five mistresses. Here's a breakdown of how a week of fighting got us here. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

A historical example: former California governor Jerry Brown, running against Bill Clinton in 1992, raising questions about Arkansas state business flowing to the Rose law firm, where Hillary Clinton was a partner. Let me tell you something, Jerry, Bill Clinton exploded. I dont care what you say about me, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife.

And a more recent, roles-flipped matter: Trump raising Bill Clintons conduct toward women after Hillary Clinton accused Trump of a penchant for sexism. Bill Clinton is his wifes surrogate in chief. When she simultaneously deploys him and calls out Trump for sexism, the topic of Bill Clintons behavior is fair game.

Second  brace yourself for another point in Trumps favor here  he had grounds for being angry about the way his wife was used against him. The Facebook ad produced by an anti-Trump super PAC, Make America Awesome, was outrageous and, though it seems like an odd word to use in this context, fundamentally sexist.

Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady, the ad said, above a revealing photo of her. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday. Easy to see how this might resonate with Utah Mormons at whom it was targeted, but it crossed the line.

At the time the photo was taken, Melania Trump was merely dating the candidate; she was a supermodel whose commodity was her looks and whose job was selling them, which is what she was doing in the pages of GQ. There is no reason to think that Melania Trump would be anything other than a proper, and properly dressed, first lady. There are ample other reasons to vote against her husband.

But if that ad went too far, so then, characteristically, did Trump. The ad wasnt Cruzs doing, but Trump lashed out at him anyway. Lyin Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad, Trump tweeted on Tuesday night. Be careful, Lyin Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

Must it really be said that threatening your opponents spouse is out of bounds? Yes, apparently it must. That the alleged beans may have involved Heidi Cruzs struggle with depression made Trumps move all the more despicable.

And, in the but wait, theres more infomercial that is the 2016 campaign, it didnt stop there. When Cruz called Trump a coward late Tuesday, Trump, naturally, counterpunched, retweeting the unflattering spousal photo spread.

And revealing, once again, his fundamental sexism. In Trump World, women are valued, or not, primarily for their attractiveness. You know, it doesnt really matter what they write as long as youve got a young and beautiful piece of ass, Trump told Esquire in 1991. Womens looks are the focus of his interests, personal and professional (see Trumps investment in beauty pageants) and tend to be the focus of his female put-downs.

If anything, Trump has been  by Trump standards  restrained on this front during the 2016 campaign. He may not know better than to remark favorably on a professional womans appearance  hello, its 2016!  but he has managed, mostly, to refrain from looks-based bashing. Less face of a dog, more total fool.

Still, there are moments, when challenged, that he can no longer contain his instinct to demean based on attractiveness. Thus, Trumps reference to Carly Fiorina and that face. Would anyone vote for that? And thus, I think, Trumps outsized fury at Kelly: The very fact of her attractiveness heightens Trumps anger at her impudence.

And so it should surprise no one that we have descended to the Melania-Heidi face-off, courtesy of Trumps retweet. Which does, indeed, speak for itself.

Read more from Ruth Marcuss archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
THE LAPSES and institutional dysfunction that preceded Tuesdays terrorist assault on Brussels will be familiar to anyone who has studied the attacks of September 2001 in New York and Washington. Intelligence leads that could have led to the bombers were misplaced or overlooked. Multiple police and intelligence agencies failed to cooperate with each other. Airport security measures were lax.

However, Belgiums problems in fighting the Islamic State are far more profound than those faced by U.S. authorities, 15 years ago or now. The terrorist threat emanates not just from a Middle Eastern base but also from a domestic Muslim community that is isolated and estranged from an already fractured society. Hundreds of its members have traveled to join the Islamic State, and scores have returned in what may be a systematic effort by the jihadists to wage war from inside Europe.

Europe, in turn, has Belgiums problems on a larger scale. Efforts to pool intelligence across the European Union have failed, even when it comes to something as simple as a common border watch list. There are analogues of Brusselss troubled, largely Muslim Molenbeek district in cities across Western Europe. Governments are at odds over basic questions, from how freely to accept asylum seekers from Syria to whether mass electronic surveillance is an appropriate counterterrorism measure.

Europe also lacks the ability to destroy the bases of the terrorists, which the United States was able to do by invading Afghanistan. Instead it must look to a U.S.-led coalition to eliminate the Islamic State  and a late-tenure president who has stiffly resisted suggestions that the military campaign be accelerated.

The relative good news is that some of these problems can be remediated relatively quickly, if the political will exists. A continental counterterrorism agency with operational authority to share information and manage threats should be established. German politicians, among others, should set aside concerns about allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to use their unique electronic capabilities to identify threats without violating the privacy of individuals. Belgium, which the terrorists have made a base, must expand its security forces and break down the barriers among them.

The more difficult challenge will be addressing the poverty and isolation of domestic Muslim communities, a task that Belgium, France and several other countries have dodged or mismanaged for years. The remedies start with the provision of jobs and extend to better education, community policing and the combating of both pro- and anti-Muslim extremists.

Unfortunately, many European governments are headed in the wrong direction. In Britain, which will hold an ill-advised referendum in June on whether to leave the European Union, the Brussels attacks have been seized on by pro-exit forces. France has wasted energy on a polarizing and largely symbolic debate about whether to denationalize dual citizens convicted of terrorism. Poland and other Eastern European nations are citing Brussels as a pretext to reject Muslim asylum seekers.

The United States has a vital interest in Europes survival as a prosperous and democratic union, which is why the isolationist stance of Donald Trump is so dangerous. Europe could use U.S. help in coordinating counterterrorism operations; it also needs more aggressive action to reduce the Islamic States bases in the Middle East. President Obama should reconsider the pace of U.S. operations, given the potential cost to Europe of delay .
The 2016 Republican presidential primary season seems like a long, frightening dream. Except the source of terror is real. It comes in the form of Donald John Trump Sr.  the white mans Marion Barry  who stands a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee for president of the United States. A nightmare awaits.

How could it be otherwise? If ever bestowed presidential powers, Trump would be in a position to inflict great harm on the nation and world.

To think: Trump is closer to reaching the White House than any other Republican beneath our spacious skies or above our fruited plain.

And to think: Ruling-class politicians and pundits muffled their guffaws when he announced his presidential run in June. Here Trump stands, vilified but triumphant, basking in the support of hordes of Republicans, holding the upper hand over a vanquished Republican establishment.

The poor souls were clueless.

Had the GOP intelligentsia paid attention to our nations capital during Barrys reign as mayor and council member, they might have seen Trump coming. Could it be that Trump is Barry in disguise?

Trump, as Barry demonstrated during his years of melodrama, operates as though he is free to do as he wants to a fare-thee-well. He is a Drama King who falls, gets up and gallops off into another battle  often conflicts of his own making, all under the glare of a media that cant get enough.

Trump, as did Barry, has amassed devoted followers who swear by and believe in him, no matter what. Trump, like Barry, enjoys a faith and trust to make his competition drool.

Both men responded to a call, heard by them alone, to seek political power. And they received adulation from people who believed the man knew them, respected and spoke for them, in a language that the powerbrokers would not otherwise have heard.

Unlike the rest of the field, Trump, as with Barry, has no hesitancy about displaying his longings, ambitions, appetites and passions. Both, too, made line-crossing a staple of their careers.

Before Trump got started in on immigrants, Barry took off against them: He famously complained about immigrants . . . particularly from the Philippines.

Intolerant and narrow-minded, said Jose L. Cuisia Jr., the Philippines ambassador. Barry, as Trump would do years later, shrugged it off.

Barry had a method to his madness. So does Trump. He understands the people he speaks for. He is the hero who fights battles that they, the powerless, cannot fight themselves.

Barry taunted the white enemy. Trump taunts the brown and the brokers.

Both offered the gratifying joy of vicarious revenge without the attendant penalties of a real encounter  behavior captured by the late African American psychologist Kenneth Clark in his dissection of black Harlems old-style politician Adam Clayton Powell.

Hear Clarks description of Powell, and think Barry and Trump:

The . . . masses do not see Powell as amoral but as defiantly honest. What some regard as Powells violation of elemental ethics, Negroes view as effective and amusing defiance.

And this: He seems a simple hedonist above all else. He appears free of any sense of guilt. Guilt is the consequence of a sense that one has violated what one believes in, a consequence of behavior in conflict with ones conscience. To be rid of such conflict is to be free of much anguish. Think Trump and Barry, both worry-free and unencumbered by principle.

Barry, like Trump today, was frequently criticized in newspaper editorials. Those editorials only strengthened Barrys appeal among some D.C. residents. So it is with Trump, because condemnation by respectable newspapers is taken as evidence of Trumps effectiveness. Clearly editorial writers would not be concerned with an impotent politician.

Thats what Barry understood and used to gain power. Thats what Trump uses.

The person standing in Trumps way to the GOP throne is Ted Cruz, who seems not to be running for the Republican nomination but for Commandant of the Police State.

Cruz stops short of Trumps call for a total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States or the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants or violation of the Geneva Conventions (said Trump on terrorists: take out their families).

But anti-Muslim Cruz wants law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. Why spend all that money and personnel on special patrols of Muslim neighborhoods  if, in fact, would-be terrorists can be identified? Whats the next step? Roundups and relocation to internment camps?

This lover of religious liberty who smears a religion and demonizes its followers is also a major contender for president of the United States. That the Republican elite, in their mortal fear of Trump, are in the process of sucking up to Cruz is sickening.

Trump (Barry) and Commandant Cruz: 2016s long and frightening dream.

Read more from Colbert Kings archive.
When librarian Jennifer Nelson arrives at the tiny library at Crewe Primary School each morning, she is confronted with a cart of first-generation iPads. The detritus of attempts to infuse technology into one of the poorest and most rural schools in Virginia, the tablets are hopelessly obsolete, worth little more than the cart on which they reside.

The White House recently announced the launch of Open eBooks, an app giving access to thousands of free e-books to any educator, student or administrator at one of the more than 66,000 Title I schools or any of the 194 Defense Department Education Activity schools in the United States. Its an admirable endeavor and recognizes that we have a literacy problem. However, it brings to mind Samuel Taylor Coleridges famous line: Water, water, every where/ Nor any drop to drink.

On that list of Title I schools: Crewe Primary. The whole of Nottoway County, Va., is a high-poverty tract; there is no public transportation, no fiber-optic Internet available for the countys 16,000 residents. In Southside Virginia, the commonwealths poorest region, most schools dont have broadband; Crewe Primary School has DSL but little more than 40 usable iPads (not counting the old and obsolete ones) for its 318 students.

The Nottoway County Public Library is the only location in the 316-square-mile county with publicly funded Internet access. To use Open eBooks at home, primary school students would have to rely on their parents phones and tablets. Older students may have their own devices, but downloading the e-books would eat into very pricey and limited data plans.

Open eBooks is part of the ConnectED initiative, which empowers teachers with the best technology and the training to make the most of it, and empowers students through individualized learning and rich, digital content. Its a bold mission for a country in which, the Census Bureau reports, nearly 55 million people lack access to broadband service and 17 percent of households dont have a computer. According to the Federal Communications Commission, of Americans making less than $25,000 per year, 48 percent do not have access to broadband at home. In poor regions such as Southside, thats a lot of people.

Even if our poorest schools had broadband and ample devices, believing that free e-books are the key to ending our literacy crisis is dangerously misguided. Technology is repeatedly touted as a cure for the United States educational woes, promising everything from banishing boredom to widespread reform. Interactive whiteboards were the hope a few years ago, and Google Earth was supposed to make our children masters of geography. There is more technology in our classrooms and homes than ever, but too often these expensive technologies yield few gains in learning or gains not commensurate with cost.

Serving as the executive director of the Virginia Childrens Book Festival, in the heart of a literacy desert, has taught me two things: Literacy is an instilled value, and too frequently reading is a luxury instead of a necessity. Reports from the National Center for Education Statistics are clear: Children raised in homes that foster literacy are better readers and better students than children raised in homes where literacy is not promoted. Children who see their parents reading and engage in reading with their families have higher than average reading scores, regardless of their parents occupational status.

If a love of reading is not learned in the home, even technologically advanced schools are hard-pressed to make up that deficit. Despite the almost universal view about the importance of reading for pleasure, it continues to be given a low priority in schools. While teachers focus on testing and mechanics, school libraries such as Crewes are desperately underfunded or are being shuttered altogether. While there are no figures detailing the total number of public schools affected by library cuts and closures, the American Association of School Librarians data indicate an alarming trend. In Philadelphia, only 16 of 214 public schools have a certified school librarian. Of Los Angeless 545 elementary and middle schools, 316 are staffed with library aides.

The Open eBooks initiative is laudable, but it fails to address the root of the countrys literacy crisis. While it will make textbooks and storybooks accessible to those lucky enough to have the technology, without critical intervention to create a culture of reading in every home and school, that access has little chance of making any meaningful change. At best, the program and ConnectED must be seen as supplementary solutions to a problem we havent addressed in a sustained and intensive manner. At worst, Open eBooks will go the way of Crewe Primarys iPads: well-intentioned but extraordinarily insufficient.

The writer is executive director of the Virginia Childrens Book Festival.
We have the Europe we deserve, admitted French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday. The question is how Europeans can build the security structures they need.

The first requirement is solidarity, within each country and among the 28 nations of the European Union. This begins with better links with the Muslim communities, the angry, alienated people at Europes table. Yes, Europe needs to be more welcoming, but thats only half of it. Muslims need to embrace the obligations of European residence and citizenship.

What would this solidarity look like? After Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims in the United States by the thousands volunteered for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. They despised the terrorist acts that had been committed in their name by al-Qaeda and wanted to show themselves and their fellow citizens that they were loyal Americans.

European Muslims should step up now in a similar way. In immigrant neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Brussels or the banlieues that surround Paris, Muslim leaders who want change should organize campaigns to enlist their neighbors in the army, police and security services; these leaders can create a new social compact by showing their fellow citizens that they are ashamed of what the jihadist thugs have done and are unafraid of retribution. European Muslims need to feel ownership of security, rather than viewing the police as an occupying army.

The jihadists often emerge from a youth-gang subculture of violence and intimidation. No wonder the Belgian authorities stumbled for four months looking for Islamic State fugitive Salah Abdeslam. No wonder they couldnt find the suicide bombers who struck Tuesday, four days after Abdeslams arrest, even though they suspected an attack was coming. Nobody would talk to them. The community was deaf and dumb, as the mobsters liked to say about ethnic neighborhoods in the United States.

The Belgian government is facing a real and potent threat coming from within its borders. Here's why extremists are finding root in the country. (Jason Aldag,Greg Miller,Adam Taylor/The Washington Post)

The second requirement is fairness. The European Union has largely been a project of the elites. The powerful companies (and nations) have prospered. The weak have suffered. When the bills came due, the haves told the have-nots to tighten their belts. Should it surprise us that this arrogant system is cracking at the seams?

The Greeks may have exploited a system that gave them a financial free ride, but the Germans then insisted on imposing an impossible debt-repayment scheme that was meant to teach the debtors a lesson. The Germans should have known better: The punitive repatriations plan imposed by the allies after World War I created the bitter payback of Nazism.

The third requirement is for Europe to grow up about intelligence. Many Europeans seem to think that good intelligence is created by immaculate conception, rather than through the hard and sometimes intrusive work of surveillance. The authorities often dont mind if the United States does the counterterrorist snooping, so long as they dont have to admit it to their publics.

Europeans dont like to talk about intelligence, and they often pretend their countries dont spy. This immature approach leaves them unable to demand accountability from the security services after chronic intelligence failures like the ones we have seen in France and Belgium. How can you reform something if you wont talk honestly about how it works?

A fourth requirement is for a trans-Atlantic partnership thats equal to the seriousness of this crisis. All the alarm bells are ringing. The leaders of the United States and Europe should meet in a crisis summit  Brussels would be a good spot  and they should stay until they have agreed on plans for collecting and sharing intelligence together, so that citizens across Europe are safer.

Bureaucracy, a modern European specialty, is the enemy: To forge an alliance that can succeed, Europeans must break through national, regional and international barriers to fight a global adversary. President Obama, perhaps more popular in Europe than in the United States, can lead this trans-Atlantic partnership and create a legacy thats worthy of him.

The final requirement is to think ahead about changes that will create better stability in the future. If its 1941 in terms of the shock, it should be 1944 in terms of planning for the future  devising the post-crisis equivalents of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations that can cope with the explosion of rage that has swept Muslim Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Its an interconnected problem, and the solutions require shared, visionary ideas about governance, economic development and global tolerance.

Fix it or lose it. Thats the challenge today for Europe. It wont get it right without American help. Now is the time to start.

Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Raymond Nadolny is president of Williston State College in North Dakota.

Is free college tuition too far-fetched? As president of a community college, I certainly had my doubts up until a few years ago. Grant programs in Minnesota, Tennessee, South Dakota and my own state, North Dakota, have turned doubts into belief.

The momentum for affordable education has arrived. Democrats and Republicans have expressed growing concern about Americans ability to earn a college degree without accumulating a crushing debt. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has pledged to make tuition free at public colleges and universities, while his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, has proposed to make college more affordable. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) highlighted the problem of college costs by sharing that he recently paid off $100,000 in student loans.

Toward the end of the 20th century, higher education was within reach for most Americans, primarily through low-cost community colleges. Baby boomers, the main beneficiaries, became the wealthiest generation in history. Over the past 30 years, though, higher education has again become more privilege than right. Millennials raise families, work multiple jobs and still find themselves burdened with college debt. The average U.S. student loan debt for the Class of 2015 was a little more than $35,000, making it the most indebted class in history.

But something striking has happened in Williston, a North Dakota oil-boom town gone bust. Starting this year, Williston State College has offered free tuition, fees and books to every Williams County high school graduate and will offer free tuition and fees next school year to all 18 high school graduating classes from five surrounding counties.

Enrollment at Williston State has increased by 30 percent. Students have demonstrated a level of appreciation I have rarely seen in my 25-plus years in higher education. Reactions have ranged from I cannot believe I will be able to graduate with an associates degree without any debt to This scholarship means I wont have to work a full-time job, that I can be a full-time student.

The impact of tuition-free education has been remarkable. Millennials no longer ask whether college is worth the cost. Working parents feel they can attend college. Graduates face a debt-free future.

Opponents say free tuition is too costly. Yet tuition-free higher education is a growing reality as states wake up to the relationship between an educated workforce and a states economic health. Minnesota has the Two-Year Occupational Grant Pilot Program, Tennessee has Tennessee Promise, and South Dakota has Build Dakota, all of which provide full-ride scholarships to community and/or technical colleges. (In the Minnesota and Tennessee free-tuition models, the full-ride scholarships kick in after federal and other state financial aid has been applied.) California is pondering free tuition for community colleges at a potential cost to taxpayers of $420 million annually.

North Dakota, once awash in oil revenue, has seen that money dry up. Williston States free tuition was made possible only by a state partnership with private companies and a nonprofit foundation. The Williston State College Foundation launched the scholarship by turning a world-class oil play in the Williston Basin into a world-class scholarship opportunity that leverages revenue from minerals gifted to the foundation by private donors and state matching dollars. The $29 million Higher Education Challenge Fund, approved three years ago by the North Dakota legislature, matches every $2 in private donations with $1 in state funding. Imagine how many more students could achieve their dreams if only a small share of the earnings of the $3.5 billion sitting in North Dakotas Legacy Fund, a rainy-day fund financed through oil revenue, were tapped to provide tuition-free education for more North Dakotans.

The debate we have seen this presidential campaign season about college costs may launch even more foundation, state and national initiatives. Obstacles remain, as escalating costs in college and university operations still need to be addressed. But what an opportunity this moment presents to equalize higher education access for all Americans and not allow higher education to return to only those who can afford it.
Luke Glowacki is a postdoctoral fellow in human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

From Brussels to Paris to San Bernardino to Syria, the world appears to be erupting in violence. In this war, the targets can be anyone and anywhere. While attackers take inspiration from Islamic State leadership, in many cases they seem to act on their own initiative. In Syria, the Islamic State carefully stages theatrical acts of barbarity to create terror and awe around the world. Is this a new kind of war?

Only through the short view of modern history does this type of war look new. Public displays of brutality have long been used to terrorize and subdue populations around the globe. The theatrics of the Islamic State pale in comparison to those seen in Europe just a few centuries ago. Burning alive, drawing and quartering, drowning, garroting, disemboweling or breaking on the wheel were all common methods of dispatching criminals, enemies and those who ended up on the wrong side of a theological debate.

Even in the United States, executions were historically public affairs. At one of the last public executions in the United States, in 1936, at least 20,000 people turned up to watch. The city of Owensboro, Ky., built a gallows 25 feet tall. Bars were packed while merrymakers rollicked all night and many homes had hanging parties. The New York Times reported that when the body fell, souvenir hunters rushed forward . . . and tore the black hood . . . off his head before he had been pronounced dead.

Where does this capacity for horrific violence come from? My colleagues and I have been studying the origins of war through systematic analysis of chimpanzees, hunter-gatherers and modern conflicts. We have learned that lethal violence against out-groups is found, in one form or another, at all scales of society, including among our closest relatives, the chimpanzees.

In a pattern that disturbingly resembles human warfare, chimpanzees across East Africa regularly kill members of neighboring groups, including infants and females. Sometimes these attacks cause the extermination of entire communities, a phenomenon akin to genocide in human society. When this happens, the successful group takes over the territory of the defeated group, gaining access to valuable resources.

What about the traditional human societies, such as hunter-gatherers, that best represent our prehistoric past? Using ethnographic and historical documents, my Harvard colleague Richard Wrangham and I found that for most of human history, societies generally carried on some form of war with neighboring groups, even when the people spoke the same language and looked like them. Although there are well-documented cases of hunter-gatherers living peacefully with their neighbors, these are the exception rather than the rule. Such groups usually gave up violence after coming into contact with more powerful neighbors.

Like the terrorist attacks of today, these conflicts generally targeted members of a perceived enemy group, commonly including women and children. The bodies of victims were frequently mutilated with a creativity that the Islamic State would find astonishing. Entire populations and ethnic groups were wiped out. This type of violence stretches deep into our prehistory. Evidence of the first prehistoric massacre dates to more than 13,000 years ago, well before the invention of agriculture.

What explains how people can commit such violent acts? One answer lies in our psychology. Humans are hard-wired to adopt their communities norms, and these norms can include rules for how to treat others  including whether to tolerate differences or attack outsiders. When norms provide status, material rewards or membership in a privileged group, they become even more potent.

Cultures are able to hijack this psychology for violent ends by providing status, promises of an afterlife and a sense of meaning. People belonging to communities that advocate violence will adopt norms of violence, whether those communities are tribal societies, neighbors and family, or Facebook friends. Cross-cultural research Ive conducted shows that the most important predictor of warfare in a society is a cultural system that awards warriors with social benefits.

In East Africa, where groups battle each other for livestock, access to grazing lands and water, conflicts are fought with modern weapons such as AK-47s but occur along tribal borders and resemble the dynamics of ancestral warfare in important ways. Access to resources such as livestock and water can be critical for a groups survival, and so these cultures award status and livestock to successful warriors. Such warriors are able to marry more wives and have more children than other men. Half a world away, in the Venezuelan Amazon, researchers found that warriors also ended up better off than non-warriors. Over the time scales at which humans and cultures evolve, benefits such as these may have had profound significance in the development of human behavior.

Such incentives help explain how people can be lured into supporting the Islamic State. The group promises its recruits prestige, a sense of community and the possibility of glory  the same types of incentives that cultures across the globe have historically used to motivate youth to take up arms.

The difference between tribal societies and the modern world is that now social media makes it possible for isolated individuals to adopt the values of a movement halfway around the world. A Detroit teenager can be more connected to his Twitter followers in the Levant than to his peers at school. If his peers overseas advocate violent jihad, it is not surprising if he eventually considers it, especially if it comes with promises of fame and glory.

There is nothing historically unique about the type of war the Islamic State is waging, but the diffuseness of contemporary social networks presents a new challenge. What is clear is that countering the Islamic State will require creating cultural values that can compete with the community, glory and meaning the Islamic State offers its recruits. Can we engineer an alternative that makes supporting democratic values and tolerance of others as alluring?
Six months ago, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank vowed that if Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, hed eat one of his columns. Now that its a very real possibility, he would like your recipes. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

Six months ago, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank vowed that if Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, hed eat one of his columns. Now that its a very real possibility, he would like your recipes. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

Heres some food for thought. Or, rather, here are some thoughts for food.

Six months ago, I made a reckless vow. With Donald Trump dominating in polls, I said Id eat a column  18 column inches of toxic newsprint, wood-pulp, ink and all  if Trump won the Republican presidential nomination.

My rationale: Americans are better than Trump, and Republican primary voters wouldnt nominate a candidate who expresses the bigotry and misogyny that Trump has.

This prediction still looks viable. More than 60 percent of Republican primary voters have rejected Trump so far, and theres a decent chance Republicans can at least force the nationalist demagogue into a contested convention. They know his racism and xenophobia would be a recipe for disaster.

But, to be safe, I am in search of other recipes. With the help of one of the capitals great chefs  and seeking the guidance of you, the reader  I am taking the prudent step of preparing to eat my words in case Trump secures the nomination.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Perhaps I should shred the column over newspaper-ink risotto, in a bid to Make America Grate Again? Peter Sagal, the host of National Public Radios Wait Wait . . . Dont Tell Me!, suggests I chop the newsprint into a nice poutine, the cheesy dish popularized when George W. Bush took a call from pranksters posing as Canadian Prime Minister Poutine. Friends suggested the column would be palatable if pureed in a smoothie. Washington celebrity chef Jose Andres kindly printed the column in edible ink onto edible paper for me. But that felt like cheating.

So I called my friend Katherine Miller, head of the food-advocacy group Chef Action Network, who put me in touch with a chef who would help me eat my words in style: Chef Victor Albisu of Washingtons Del Campo restaurant, an acclaimed Latin steakhouse. I did not discuss politics with Chef Victor, but I doubt hes a yuuuuuge Trump fan, based on his recipes. And I sensed he was being arch when he told me: If youre eating newspaper, man, the world opens up to you.

Here are Albisus proposed recipes  all from parts of the globe that have figured prominently in Trumps campaign:

Chilaquiles (Mexico): We cut and fry tortillas until crispy, then saute with similarly cut newspaper article and toss in a tomatillo-jalapeno sauce and cover with melted Chihuahua cheese, shredded lettuce, grilled avocado and Mexican crema.

Crispy Dumplings (China): The newspaper article is ground with pork, spices and lemongrass and seasoned to make filling. On the inside of the dumpling wrapper we lightly brush hoisin sauce. More newspaper pieces are cut and rolled inside. We fill the dumpling with thinly shaved cabbage, spicy chiles and bean sprouts. The dumplings are fried and topped with scallions.

Saffron Rice and Smoked Lamb (Iran): We brine and then newspaper-smoke the lamb before roasting. It is served over an Iranian Tadigh, a dish of crispy baked saffron rice. Steeping saffron to make a dye, we make cotton-candy strands to use as garnish representing Trumps hair.

Newspaper-lined Tacos (Mexico): We line the inside of the tortilla with newspaper. The tortillas are then filled with crispy beef tripas. We garnish the taco traditionally with the colors of the Mexican flag: white onion, cilantro and a salsa taquera that we make with grilled tomato, grilled tomatillo, grilled newspaper, onion and cilantro.

Ground Newspaper Falafel (Syria): The newspaper article is ground and mixed with chickpeas and parsley into falafel and then deep-fried. Strips of newspaper line the pita and the falafels are placed inside, garnished with yogurt, parsley and onions.

Well-Done Steak (America): We marinate a Wagyu bavette in yogurt, garlic and cumin, then grill it to Trumps preferred temperature: well done. Once removed from the grill we give it a light smoke using dried herbs and shredded newspaper. We then prepare a chimichurri sauce using bits of burnt newspaper, chopped burnt onion, parsley, cilantro, red peppers and red wine vinegar.

For dessert, Chef Victor proposes waffles (we prepare the batter with bits of shredded newspaper, then top with maple syrup and candied newspaper) and crispy-fried churros (stuffed with newspapers that have been chopped and folded into chocolate and dulce de leche, served in a rolled-newspaper cone).

These are mouth-watering possibilities. But the idea of eating my Trump column should be a crowd-sourced exercise. Please send your thoughts on the above, and your own recipes, to me via Facebook and Twitter . In the event of a Trump victory, the most promising dishes will be featured in a cook-off  the subject of a future column and accompanying video  and consumed by me, con gusto.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Bertrand Olotara, a cook in the Senate cafeteria, is finally getting the wages that are owed to him.

All of them this time.

I last wrote about Olotara in January. As you may recall, he and 60 co-workers staged a series of strikes demanding a living wage and a union. Stories of these workers financial struggles  one was homeless, others were on food stamps, yet another was moonlighting as a stripper  generated national outrage.

Which in turn added pressure for senators to, you know, do something to make sure the people who serve them food and clean their toilets earn better than starvation wages.

And to their credit, senators did something. When the cafeteria contract came up for renewal in December, senators won the workers big wage gains. Olotaras hourly pay, for example, was supposed to rise more than $5, from $12.30 to at least $17.45.

Or so he thought. The contract, alas, turned out to be a bait-and-switch.

Within days, a manager began calling workers into his office. There they learned that their titles, but not their duties, would change. Titles matter, though, since the new contract specified pay by occupation.

When Olotaras title switched from cook to the lower-paid food service worker, he was denied most of the raise hed been promised.

Such reclassifications violated not only the hard-won new contract but potentially also federal law. Under the Service Contract Act, federal contract workers occupations are explicitly defined by the Labor Department based on job duties. They are not subject to the whims of employers who may be hoping to evade an expensive pay hike.

Good Jobs Nation, a labor organization that organized last years strikes, filed a complaint on the workers behalf with the Labor Department, which began investigating.

Senators got involved again, too.

In early February, after the dispute became public, Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz, Charles E. Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and Cory Booker held a closed-door meeting with the Architect of the Capitol, Stephen Ayers, who oversees legislative branch contracts. They told Ayers in no uncertain terms that they wanted this dispute addressed, pronto, according to people familiar with the meeting. Ayers said his office was undertaking a top-to-bottom audit of cafeteria workers classifications.

Finally, last week, at a Senate appropriations hearing, Schatz grilled Ayers about the audit results. Ayers testified that of the approximately 90 workers in the Senate cafeteria, his office found that 51  that is, more than half  were likely misclassified.

In response to this audit, the contractor running the cafeteria immediately corrected the classification of 35 workers, Ayers said. His office and the company, Restaurant Associates, are still negotiating over the status of another eight workers and have referred eight more to the Labor Department for resolution. (Restaurant Associates referred requests for comment to the Architect of the Capitol; the Architects office in turn referred me to the Labor Department; and the Labor Department declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.)

Three days after that hearing, Olotara was again called into his managers office.

You should be very happy today, his manager said. His classification was officially being restored to cook, and his pay was being raised to $17.97. He was also awarded about $1,400 in back pay.

Olotara was indeed very happy, not least because the raise will allow him to quit his second job at Whole Foods  which in turn means that, for the first time in years, he can stop working seven days a week. Hell use the extra time to write a book, find other ways to contribute to the national antipoverty fight and, most important, spend more time with his five children.

When they hear daddy will only work one job, they will be very happy, said Olotara, who is a single father.

If it sounds like a lot of work went into making sure Olotara got paid what he was legally entitled to, thats because it did. Indeed, at last weeks hearing, Schatz berated Ayers for forcing senators to get involved.

I do not think it is members of the Senates job to serve essentially as labor lawyers for 86 individuals, he said.

While Im glad senators intervened, I agree with Schatz: Its not really senators job to micromanage the treatment of low-wage Senate cafeteria workers. It is, however, their job to macromanage, if you will  to set federal policies that ensure all the millions of vulnerable low-wage workers get a fair shake and a chance to escape poverty.

The workers who dont have the ears of a national newspaper conveniently located nearby  or of a hungry legislative aide waiting in line for lunch  are the ones who most need these senators attention. But with the federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 for nearly seven years now, and mounting attacks nationwide on their right to unionize, its not clear theyre getting it.
Brussels: Belgium's federal prosecutor confirmed on Friday that Najim Laachraoui was one of the two suicide bombers who struck Brussels airport this week in a series of attacks which left 31 people dead.

Read:Brussels attacks: Belgium publishes surveillance picture of three suspects

A statement from the prosecutor's office also linked Laachraoui to November's Paris carnage in which 130 people died, saying his DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth discovered at the Bataclan, the concert hall where 90 people were killed.

Police also found his DNA on a bomb at the Stade de France.

Read:Terrorist in advanced stages of plotting attack in France arrested

Meanwhile, the top members of Belgium's embattled government are facing criticism over its counter terrorism efforts since -- and before -- the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and that authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

American Secretary of state, John Kerry, also said that the U.S. and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalization of youth.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and Kerry lashed out at the extremist group.

"We will not be deterred," he said. "We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Authorities also announced that American, British, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

A manhunt has been underway since Tuesday for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

Belgian prosecutors said raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

Read: Two Americans killed in Brussels bombings, Kerry offers help

French counter terrorism police also detained a man Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot.

Officials told The Associated Press that the suspect, Reda Kriket, 34, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Elsewhere, Belgium's nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

Read: Suspect arrested in new anti-terror raid, slightly hurt in Brussels anti-terror raid

The move at some plants "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks," said nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck, noting the decision to deny access usually takes weeks.

Immediately after Tuesday's attacks, security was boosted around the country's nuclear sites and hundreds of staff were sent home.

Read: Brussels: 35 killed in terror attacks, Islamic State claims responsibility

Last month, authorities said searches in the wake of the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium's nuclear industry.

Belgian media reported this week that Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui had video recordings of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region. It's unclear why.
AFTER TUESDAYS terrorist attacks in Belgium , it took no time for Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Donald Trump to compete over who could be tougher on Muslims. Aside from the usual rhetoric about locking down the borders and halting refugees, Mr. Cruz called for law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods in the United States, which is similar to Mr. Trumps earlier calls to surveil or even shut mosques.

Mr. Cruzs campaign clarified that he wants authorities to work with Muslim communities to identify and root out extremism, much like the community-based tactics police use to combat gangs. His camp said authorities should partner with non-radical Americans who want to protect their homes. As an example, Mr. Cruzs representatives pointed to New York Police Department efforts that they accused Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) of shutting down because of political correctness.

But the New York practices Mr. Cruz appears to be citing were not really about partnering with Muslim communities, which is an excellent idea. They were covert and, once they inevitably became public, deeply controversial. They ultimately strained the bonds between the police and Muslim neighborhoods, making them counterproductive at best.

In the years after Sept. 11, 2001, New York police collected and organized a lot of information on New York-area Muslims: mapping where they lived and worshipped, placing undercover officers in bakeries and having them eavesdrop on conversations and, in some cases, infiltrating Muslim student groups. Part of the goal was to have a sense of where to look and whom to ask if counterterrorism authorities got wind of an imminent threat or if police wanted to take the temperature of ethnic communities reacting to big events overseas. Yet New York Police Deputy Commissioner John J. Miller said that, after a while, one major piece of the citys covert efforts became a sort of top-secret Zagats guide, because officers tended to frequent restaurants with the best food. Then there were examples of egregious overreaching, such as the monitoring of Muslim student groups at elite universities.

Once the Associated Press began reporting on various covert police efforts in 2012, many Muslim Americans were outraged; they saw the police singling out and spying on a largely peaceful community of Americans based on nothing more than their religious affiliation. New York City officials determined the police could do much of what they had aimed to do, such as getting to know neighborhoods and taking the communitys temperature without all the cloak and dagger, as Mr. Miller put it. This is the decision the police should have made in the first place.

The last thing the government should do is isolate and alienate peaceful U.S. Muslims. Making them feel as if they are a part of a distrusted, fringe population promotes the homegrown radicalization that now poses a threat to European nations, where integration has not occurred. Mr. Cruzs campaign warned about isolated Muslim neighborhoods in Europe that have become recruiting grounds for terrorists. This is a significant problem that requires sophisticated responses there and here. Neither Mr. Cruz nor Mr. Trump has such a plan. Instead, both seem bent on making the problem worse.
In his March 23 PostPartisan blog excerpt, Obama had no reason to go to Cuba [op-ed], Richard Cohen indicated the presidents trip to Cuba was counterproductive. As one who fought for many years to bring about some sensible relationship between Cuba and the United States, I strongly disagree.

The policy of unrelenting hostility toward and a refusal to talk with Cuba, a policy we followed until 2014, gained us nothing but more hostility. President Obamas opening, including his trip to Cuba, already has brought commercial agreements, with many more to come, and a clear interest on the part of the Cuban people in engagement with the United States.

We have a long way to go in our relationship with Cuba, and we want to see more dramatic change in Cuba itself, but with Mr. Obamas stirring Tuesday speech, and the reaction we see in Cuba, I believe we are on the way.

Wayne S. Smith, Washington

The writer was chief of the U.S. Interests Section

in Cuba from 1979 to 1982.

Eugene Robinsons March 22 op-ed, Obamas Cuba visit will hasten freedom, was a perfect fit with a domestic political reality: Cuban refugees fleeing oppression, understandably strongly anti-Castro, mostly settled in Florida. Florida is an important swing state in presidential elections.

Therefore, neither Democratic nor Republican candidates in presidential elections will take the risk of alienating the growing Cuban community by speaking geopolitical reality  a reality that President Obama understands and on which he commendably acted.

Andre Sauvageot, Reston
Mother Patricia Mary walks in the chapel at the Mullen Home for the Aged, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Denver in 2014. (Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)

Douglas Laycock is one of the countrys foremost experts on, and defenders of, religious liberty, so it was surprising to see that he got it wrong in his commentary on Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court case involving the challenges of religious organizations to the Obamacare abortifacient/contraception mandate [A case that puts religious liberty at risk, op-ed, March 21].

Under the Affordable Care Act, employers, including religious employers, are required under pain of heavy penalties to provide health-care programs for their employees. Under the administrations mandate, such plans must include abortifacients and contraceptives. If a religious organization protests, its insurer must provide these benefits, forcing the religious organization to facilitate abortions and contraception, which it considers immoral. But for this legally required action  the establishment of a health-care plan  the abortifacients and contraceptives would not be provided. How does this not constitute a substantial burden on religious liberty, the threshold issue in the Supreme Court case? In saying it does not, Mr. Laycock recast the organizations arguments, asserting that they would object even if the government required insurers to provide the contraceptives and abortifacients and the organizations were not required to provide insurance. A religious organization might advance such a sweeping argument if the occasion were to arise, but it has not.

The more difficult issues are whether the mandate advances a compelling public interest and, if so, in the least intrusive way.

William H. Dempsey, Arlington
THE HORRIFIC civil war in Syria defies easy comparison, but the closest analogy of recent times might be the conflict that engulfed Yugoslavia almost exactly a quarter-century ago. As that multiethnic communist federation began to splinter in 1991, its Croat, Serb and Muslim inhabitants battled over territory and physical assets  with the worst savagery taking place in the former Yugoslav republic Bosnia, where ethnic groups had previously lived most closely intermingled.

Backed by the government of the largest Yugoslav republic, Serbia, and the remnants of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav national army, Bosnias Serbs staged a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed mainly at Bosnias Muslims, in which tens of thousands lost their lives and many more were forced to flee.

For Europe and the United States, the genocidal conflict aroused both memories of World War II and a sense that the perpetrators of this generations war crimes must be held legally accountable. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was born under United Nations auspices two years before the Bosnia war ended in 1995  and its still in business today. The ICTY, as it is known, has indicted 161 defendants, including former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, for genocide, torture and other crimes against humanity. It has convicted 80 of them and acquitted 18, while 36 cases have been dismissed or terminated, including that of Mr. Milosevic, who died during his trial. An additional 25 cases are pending, about half of which were transferred from the ICTY to the newly capable governments in ex-Yugoslavia.

Of the convictions, none is more important than that of the man whom the ICTY sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison: Radovan Karadzic, the political leader of the bloody 1992 Serb uprising against Bosnias internationally recognized government. Mr. Karadzic had managed to evade arrest until 2008, when he was discovered living in Belgrade, disguised, bizarrely, as a bearded faith healer. Now his nearly eight-year trial has established his complicity in some of the most shocking crimes of recent European history: the forcible mass expulsion of non-Serbs from their villages, followed by internment in squalid concentration camps; the deliberate shelling and shooting of civilians in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo; and the roundup and murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at the town of Srebrenica in 1995.

Mr. Karadzic protested that all of this was just the inevitable havoc of war. The tribunal found instead that the suffering and bloodshed were the eminently foreseeable, and indeed intended, results of plans that Mr. Karadzic laid as part of a joint criminal enterprise, whose military leader, Ratko Mladic, is also on trial at the ICTY, with a conclusion likely by next year.

There is much to criticize about the ICTY, especially the snail-like pace of its proceedings, which followed the long delays in arresting Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mladic. Yet the tribunals work, now crowned by the Karadzic conviction, has nevertheless helped consolidate democracy in the former Yugoslavia by establishing a measure of justice that was retrospective without being vengeful. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind they do.
Robert Borosage is president of the Institute for Americas Future and was an adviser to Jesse Jacksons 1988 campaign.

With the Republican presidential race careening toward a fractious convention in Cleveland and Donald Trump warning of riots, the coming Democratic convention has garnered little comment. But dont expect Philadelphia to be all brotherly love. Reconciling Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and their respective camps, will take some work.

Yes, modern party conventions have been turned into slickly packaged made-for-TV unity fests: Carefully vetted speakers deliver carefully crafted messages, while any disagreements are settled off-camera. And yes, Barack Obama and Clinton made amends after a bitter primary season eight years ago. But theres far more ideological conflict between this years candidates than between Clinton and Obama in 2008.

The most likely scenario at this point is that Clinton will be the nominee but Sanders will arrive in Philadelphia with a formidable number of delegates. In that case, the closest parallel is when Michael Dukakis overcame Jesse Jacksons insurgent movement in 1988. That year didnt end well for the Democrats, but it offers some useful lessons about achieving party unity, allowing ideological differences and generating passion.

Like Sanders, Jackson stunned the party establishment with a strong showing in the primary race. He won 13 primaries and caucuses and 7 million votes, amassing 1,200 delegates. Also like Sanders, he electrified young Americans. He helped register legions of new voters and outperformed Dukakis with voters under 30.

Going into the convention, Jackson and his followers demanded recognition for what they had built. They wanted Dukakis to acknowledge that they were integral to the Democratic coalition. They sought debate over the direction of the party and the country. And they thought Jackson had earned serious consideration for the vice presidency. Jackson delayed his endorsement, waiting for respect to be paid.

Dukakis, meanwhile, was eager to focus on the general election. He was tired of dealing with Jackson and intent on proving that he would stand up to him. He snubbed Jackson in his running-mate selection, and, by blunder or calculation, failed to tell Jackson before news leaked that hed tapped Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. When Jackson learned of the pick from a reporter, he didnt hesitate to broadcast his grievances, capitalizing on the six busloads of reporters that accompanied his caravan from Chicago to the convention in Atlanta. He suggested that he might contest Bentsens nomination at the convention. When he arrived, he was greeted by thousands of activists ready to march at a nod of his head.

Only as the convention got underway did Dukakis finally meet with Jackson. At a negotiated unity news conference, Dukakis promised that Jackson would be involved in the campaign actively and fully in a way that will bring us together and that will build the strongest grass-roots organization.

Jackson met with his delegates that morning and convinced them to keep their powder dry. We came looking for noble works, not fireworks, he told them. Not show business, but serious business. As William Greider wrote at the time for Rolling Stone: Jacksons speech was as deft as anything Ive ever seen a politician achieve with his listeners  building their commitment to future struggles and simultaneously cooling them out about the one they had just lost. A less-skilled orator might not have been able to pull it off. And a less-committed Democrat might not have wanted to.

Sanders, too, will finish the primary contest with an army of impassioned supporters eager for recognition of their revolution  some even urging a third-party run. Clintons campaign operatives will want Sanders to step back, salute and turn his fire on the Republican nominee. But Sanders will be in a position to determine what happens in Philadelphia and will have major influence on whether his supporters turn out for the nominee. Respect must be paid.

In contrast to Jackson in 88, Sanders has no interest in the vice presidency. His focus is on the direction of the party. When people respond by the millions to your message, then that message is now mainstream, Sanders recently told the New Yorker. That changes political reality. Smart politicians like Hillary Clinton and anybody else have got to move where the action is, and the action is on those issues that Ive been raising.

Like Sanders, Jackson built his campaign around a fundamental challenge to the partys timid agenda, calling for raising taxes on the rich and corporations, reducing military spending, increasing social spending, and barring the first use of nuclear weapons. When Jackson continued to press this agenda beyond the primaries and ahead of the convention, some Democrats accused him of being divisive. Jackson countered: We grow through debate and deliberation. We can have unity without uniformity.

The Dukakis camp incorporated some of Jacksons agenda into the party platform, though it was often masked in vague language. At the convention, three additional measures went to the floor for debate, including the first call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. And in his prime-time speech, Jackson challenged the partys direction, even as he praised Dukakis. Disagreements were aired, but the convention ended with Jacksons family joining those of Dukakis and Bentsen on the stage in unity.

In Philadelphia, Sanders will demand a debate over the platform. Hell push for rule changes, particularly curbing the role of unelected superdelegates. He will seek floor votes on key issues in dispute. His ideas, in fact, will have the support of most of the delegates. And hell get a prime-time address to make his case.

The Clinton campaign would be well advised to embrace some of Sanderss ideas and graciously endure public debate on others. Endorsing tuition-free public college would generate excitement. Banning super PACs in Democratic primaries would acknowledge Sanderss challenge to big money. Floor debates on issues such as breaking up big banks, national health care, a $15 minimum wage and the right to a union may be inevitable.

As 1988 demonstrated, unity doesnt require the suppression of conflicting ideas. In fact, the nominee may be better served by being big enough to allow an airing of the partys differences. Sanders has won a staggering percentage of young voters, the future of the party. They are more likely to stay engaged if they see their champion and their causes given a hearing and making headway at the convention.

One final lesson from 1988: While unity at the convention provides peace, it doesnt promise passion.

Dukakis left Atlanta with a double-digit lead in the polls over George H.W. Bush. He was hailed for unifying the party and for handling Jackson. Jackson stumped across the country for the ticket, registering black voters and rousing audiences wherever he went. But Dukakis continued to frame the general election as a question of  and this may sound familiar  competence, not direction. As Rolling Stones Greider warned at the time: Running for president on a promise to be competent and honest is thin gruel.

Indeed, Dukakis sank after the convention, undermined by his own missteps and a viciously negative Bush campaign, featuring the infamous race-based Willie Horton ads. In November, he lost in a low-turnout election, with black participation falling even more than that of the general population.

Sanders has vowed to endorse Clinton if she gets the nomination. But he cant transfer the passion he has generated to her. Shell have to figure out how to inspire those voters or depend on the Republican nominee to terrify them into the voting booths.

Twitter: @borosage

Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
The writer, executive vice president of the national security company Leidos, was director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center from 2007 to 2011.

The shocking news reports were all too familiar: attacks using improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers in a major European capital, leaving scores dead and wounded. Madrid 2004 . London 2005. Paris 2015. And now, Brussels 2016 is added to the grim list of scarred cities. But while the similarities are clear, the attacks in Brussels likely illustrate and portend radical changes in the terrorism and security landscape.

The first seismic shift comes from Brusselss almost certain link to the November Paris attacks. Although the connection is not yet confirmed, early evidence suggests that the attackers in Brussels were closely linked to if not an integral part of the network that planned and executed the Paris events. Should this turn out to be the case  unlike closely timed copycat attacks of the past, such as that in London in 2005  Brussels would mark the first time since 9/11 that a terrorist cell in the West survived to launch more than a single attack. And this despite four months of Europes most intensive counterterrorism operations of the past 15 years by France, Belgium and other partner nations.

If confirmed, the significance of this networks ability to survive cannot be underestimated and is likely driven by three factors: volume, sophistication and communications. With respect to volume, the sheer number of potential terrorists, especially ones who have received training thanks to the proximity of the Syrian conflict, is simply overwhelming European security services. With this volume has also come a level of sophistication  in planning, in staying below the radar and in creation of effective improvised explosive devices  that would have allowed this cell to survive the disruption of network safe houses and leadership and still move forward successfully.

Finally, we must examine closely the extent to which widely available and simple-to-use methods of secure electronic communications could have allowed this cell to hide its electronic tracks post-Paris. In the past, once attacks occurred in the West, the United States and our allies were masterful in quickly obtaining and exploiting every bit of digital evidence associated with a plot. As a result, in 15 years no cells were sufficiently clandestine or resilient to continue to plot after being revealed by an attack. Although we never completely eliminated the masterminds in Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, we always discovered enough to eliminate the group that had established roots in the West. I fear what we shall find in the Paris-Brussels network is that the groups communications were effectively hidden or sufficiently ephemeral to prevent security services from fully mapping the network that lived  post-Paris  to fight another day.

Brussels does not simply represent change in the terrorists, it also portends great change (or future failure) for European security services. Post-Paris, the European Unions open borders were on life support; post-Brussels, the Schengen Agreement that requires such reliance on European counterparts is all but dead. As terrorists move freely about, a borderless Europe is already challenging, but when combined with bordered European security and intelligence services, the result is tragically predictable. The European Parliament will not give in easily, but a thickening of European borders, the establishment of robust, multilateral information-sharing arrangements and new European intelligence cooperation will be required to reduce the likelihood of future tragedies.

The United States has a critical role to play in addressing both of these sets of challenges. As the Wests technology center and intelligence leader, we must continue to work closely with our European partners and strengthen key bilateral and multilateral relationships. Moreover, we must re-learn  and re-teach  the painful lessons of the past decade-plus: Effective counterterrorism must balance a forceful mix of offense, defense and engagement with both partners and vulnerable populations. We must redouble our efforts to address the deadly cauldron that Syria has become, recognizing that disrupting networks closer to home is more difficult than it has been in the past. There are no quick fixes on any of these fronts, but there will be no fixes at all if we do not recognize the significant evolution of the terrorism threat and our ability to address it.
It was with great satisfaction that I read the March 22 news article U.S. says it might be able to unlock attackers phone without Apples help, but my satisfaction quickly turned to anger as I watched coverage of the horrific events unfolding in Brussels. One has to wonder: If Belgian authorities had had better intelligence, including possible data from recently arrested Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslams cellphone, could this have been prevented? There is a lesson to be learned here; I hope Apple is listening.

Apple is in the business of making money by selling encrypted cellphones, among other things. The FBI and other intelligence agencies are tasked with preventing terrorism and saving lives while preserving privacy and civil liberties. It is unconscionable for Apple to continue to thumb its nose at a court order and refuse to provide the cellphone data of San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist Syed Rizwan Farouk.

As President George W. Bush said to the world after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. Whose side are you on, Apple? I hope it wont take an incident in Silicon Valley for Apple to finally get it.

Jay C. Manning, Washington

In the wake of the atrocious carnage in Brussels, it is worth remembering that the Islamic State did not go to war against the West until after the West went to war against it. The Islamic State did not declare war against the United States and its Western allies until after President Obama began his bombing campaign, ostensibly a humanitarian intervention to protect the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar but in reality a face-saving measure, because the military success of the Islamic State in Iraq revealed the utter failure of his withdrawal strategy in Iraq.

Only thereafter did the Islamic State start its gruesome war of terrorism against Westerners. And in response, the West doubled down on its military actions, compounding its original folly.

The United States and its European allies never should have picked a fight with these people. By intervening in an intra-Islamic civil war in Iraq and Syria, our misguided leaders kicked a hornets nest and put all their citizens at risk. And the sooner Western military forces exit the Islamic world permanently, the better for everyone. This is not capitulation. It is the course of wisdom.

John S. Koppel, Bethesda

In the aftermath of another attack by the Islamic State, we would do well to recall another threat to our nation and our ideals and how we dealt with it.

I remember well the effects of communism, the Cold War and the A-bomb: the duck-and-cover drills, the air-raid siren on a 50-foot platform opposite our house. We lived with the possibility (indeed many thought probability) of Soviet bombers breaching the Distant Early Warning Line to rain bombs on our cities. Every day, my school bus passed concrete bunkers containing missiles ready to bring down those bombers.

Now we face another enemy whose ambitions are just as great (the restoration of the caliphate vs. worldwide domination), whose rhetoric is just as inflamed (Joseph Stalin called a million deaths a statistic, and Nikita Khrushchev vowed to bury us). We must remember that while it took three generations to defeat communism, we did. A strong stance and a willingness to flex muscles, the resolve to put out fires where they occur, a clear-eyed and realistic assessment of the dire nature of the threat and (in time) a willingness to talk to the enemy are needed.

This is not the first time we have faced such a threat, nor will it likely be the last. Our determination to protect our freedom and ideals must be just as strong as the Islamic States determination to impose its beliefs on us. We beat communism, and we will beat the Islamic State.

Kathryn Schmiel, Gainesville
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is blasting rival Donald Trump for a National Enquirer story accusing Cruz of having five mistresses. Here's a breakdown of how a week of fighting got us here. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is blasting rival Donald Trump for a National Enquirer story accusing Cruz of having five mistresses. Here's a breakdown of how a week of fighting got us here. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

A nasty feud that escalated Thursday between Donald Trump and his chief Republican rival over their wives set off a new wave of alarm among establishment Republicans, who fear that the GOP front-runner would drive away female voters in a general-election fight with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trumps gender problem flared again this week as he and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas traded insults while Cruzs wife, Heidi, became the target of vitriol on social media from Trump and his supporters. At one point, the real estate mogul retweeted an unflattering image contrasting Heidi Cruzs appearance with his wife, Melania, a retired model.

The images are worth a thousand words, read the caption on the photo that Trump retweeted to his 7.2 million followers.

That message and others have prompted an outcry among Republicans and Democrats alike, while Cruz said Thursday that real men dont bully women.

Our spouses and our children are off-bounds, Cruz told reporters while campaigning in Dane, Wis. It is not acceptable for a big, loud New York bully to attack my wife. It is not acceptable for him to make insults, to send nasty tweets.

A screen grab of a tweet showing Heidi Cruz, left, and Melania Trump, right, that was retweeted by Donald Trump on Wednesday.

He added: Donald, youre a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.

The altercation underscores the striking nastiness of the GOP primary race and the uncomfortable gender politics surrounding Trump, who has a long history of making incendiary remarks about women and their appearance. Trump has shown little reluctance in attacking his female rivals  or some of his rivals spouses  in ways that strike many as sexist or demeaning, and many fear that the insults are a harbinger of the gutter rhetoric to come if he faces Clinton in November.

[Cruz to Trump: Youre a sniveling little coward.]

Trump has called Clinton very shrill, belittles her for a lack of stamina and energy, and late last year jabbed her and husband, Bill Clinton, for the latters marital indiscretions while he was president. In another instance, Trump said Hillary Clinton got schlonged in her 2008 primary fight against then-Sen. Barack Obama.

I have some very real concerns should he become the nominee. I think it would be catastrophic for our party, said GOP strategist Katie Packer, who leads the Our Principles PAC, an anti-Trump super PAC. Half of the reason why Im fighting so hard to stop Donald Trump is because I think hes a walking, talking stereotype of a sexist misogynistic pig.

Polling shows Trump sliding among women in recent months, hurting the GOPs already shaky position with that demographic. Trumps favorability numbers have decreased 10 points among women nationwide since November, to 23 percent, while his unfavorable number among women has jumped to 75 percent from 64 percent, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken this month.

The changes among men have been less pronounced, with 37 percent now favorable and 59 percent unfavorable. In the states that have voted so far, Trump received an average of 41 percent of the male vote and 34 percent of the female vote.

1 of 45 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Trump captures the nations attention on the campaign trail View Photos The Republican candidate continues to dominate the presidential contest. Caption Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the partys convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami. Carlo Allegri/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue.

The fight with Cruz began earlier this week when Make America Awesome, an anti-Trump super PAC, circulated ads on Facebook featuring a risque photograph of Melania Trump from a 15-year-old British GQ photo shoot. It was part of a concerted push to diminish the billionaire among values voters in Utah.

[The GOP  and its big funders  scramble to insulate Congress from Trump]

Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday, the ad read.

Trump, who went on to lose the Utah caucuses, excoriated Cruz and issued a threat via Twitter: Be careful, Lyin Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

Trump  who wrongly alleges that Cruz was behind the ad  defended the tweet Wednesday on Fox Business Network, saying it was a disgraceful and terrible thing that demeaned his wife, a very, very successful model.

Then came Wednesday night, when Trump retweeted the unflattering image of Heidi Cruz, setting off a fresh series of condemnations.

To Trumps critics, the attacks on Cruz are just the latest in a troubling pattern of reducing women to their physical appearance and disparaging them in exceptionally personal ways.

Exhibit A is the long-running on-again, off-again feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, whom Trump called crazy and average in so many ways in a series of tweets last week. Fox News said the name-calling is part of a sick obsession that is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a former presidential candidate and an outspoken critic of Trump, said Thursday on MSNBC, Im worried that young women think that the standard-bearer of the Republican Party believes that Megyn Kelly is a bimbo.

GOP strategists fear that Trump clinching the nomination could present an opportunity for Democrats, who are poised to choose the first female presidential nominee and who in past elections have accused Republicans of waging a war on women over access to affordable womens health care, abortion rights and pay equity.

Trumps treatment and views of women have been a central issue throughout his presidential campaign. At the first GOP debate, in August, Trump berated Kelly for asking him about past insults of women and singled out actress Rosie ODonnell as the specific woman he referred to as a fat pig. A month later, Trump criticized the appearance of rival Carly Fiorina, the only woman who sought the GOP nomination. Look at that face, he told Rolling Stone magazine. Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?

[Donald Trumps woman problem, in 3 charts]

Marcy Stech, communications director at Emilys List, which has endorsed Clinton, said the Republican base might find this amusing, but the reality is that these are just the kinds of misogynistic and outrageous comments that will cause lasting damage with women voters.

She added: Well have plenty of opportunities to remind women voters of this moment even after todays news cycle has blown over.

Packer said Trumps standing with female voters could also endanger the GOPs hold on the Senate or even the House. At the same time, Packer said, she thinks the anti-Trump movement could prevent the party from being branded by Trump alone.

Hillary Clinton is very, very vulnerable among this group of women that she needs to have as her base: independent women, and soft Republican women. Shes very vulnerable with them today, Packer said. Should we nominate Donald Trump, they will flock to her because they see him as someone whos repulsive. And its not just about so-called womens issues, its about how he values women and about how hes willing to make women feel to benefit himself.

For months Trump has defended himself against accusations of being offensive to women, saying that he hits all his challengers equally. He labeled former Florida governor Jeb Bush low energy and sought to diminish Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida with the nickname Little Marco.

Id hit you the same way, Trump told NBCs Chuck Todd in February when pressed on the issue. I mean, you are the perfect one to ask that question  you have been, you know, under fire from me for a long time, and you are far from a woman.

I think there are some women  theres one sitting right over there in the beautiful red dress. You see that woman over there? I have great respect for that woman over there, he said, as Todd clarified to viewers that Trump was talking about veteran reporter Andrea Mitchell.

I have great respect for that woman, he said. And I dont know that she knows Im talking about her. Im talking about you. I would never do that to you.

Emily Guskin, Abby Phillip and David Weigel contributed to this report.
Mar-a-Lago lies at the waters edge in Palm Beach, Fla. The mansion was built by Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s.

Mar-a-Lago lies at the waters edge in Palm Beach, Fla. The mansion was built by Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s. Steve Starr/ Steve Starr/CORBIS

Trump, who points to his lack of political experience as a plus, said voters should consider his record with Mar-a-Lago as evidence that he could be a strong commander-in-chief.

Donald Trump has turned his Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago into a private club. His past battles with the town council, which he won, he said, offer a lesson on how the United States should be negotiating with Iran, with China, with India and with Japan and everybody else.

Donald Trump has turned his Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago into a private club. His past battles with the town council, which he won, he said, offer a lesson on how the United States should be negotiating with Iran, with China, with India and with Japan and everybody else.

Scan the headlines this week, and Donald Trump is everywhere. Scan his campaign schedule, and he is . . . nowhere.

The front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination has barreled through the past few months at a breakneck pace, crisscrossing the country in his private plane staging one boisterous rally after another.

Not this week.

His last day on the trail was Monday, when he delivered a foreign policy speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference. His next public campaign event is not until Tuesday afternoon in Wisconsin  which votes April 5  meaning that he will have gone seven full days without any campaign events.

Although the candidate has remained active launching Twitter attacks on rivals while vacationing in Florida, his absence on the trail is a notable departure from his hectic schedule around high-stakes elections in the South and the Midwest this month. His campaign regularly hosted several events a day and hopped between states each night.

1 of 19 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  In photos, disruptions and protests during the Trump campaign View Photos Protesters and supporters of Donald Trump clash during his campaign. Caption Protesters and supporters of Donald Trump clash during his campaign. June 2, 2016 A woman wearing a Trump shirt is pelted with eggs by protesters while pinned against a door near where the candidate was holding a rally in San Jose, Calif. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

The downtime comes after weeks of negative press centered on volatile, sometimes-violent clashes between protesters and his supporters at campaign rallies around the country.

This was always planned, and we look forward to being in Wisconsin, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said when asked whether the schedule was light because of the protests.

The real estate mogul has regularly contrasted his energy level with other GOP candidates, perhaps most famously Jeb Bush, whom Trump branded as low-energy  a moniker that followed the former Florida governor for much of the race before he dropped out. Trump also regularly contrasts himself with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, whom he says lacks the physical endurance to serve as president.

I think she doesnt have the stamina. You watch her, her life, youll watch how shell go away for three, four days, shell come back, and shell go. I just dont think she has the stamina, Trump said on CNN on Monday. Look, weve got to beat China in trade. Weve got to beat ISIS. Weve got so many problems in this country. I say she does not have the stamina to be a good president.

[Donald Trump cant stop saying nasty things about women. It could cost him.]

For all that bluster, Trumps schedule in recent days has been lighter than those of his rivals. This week, Clinton campaigned in Arizona, Washington state and California, hosting at least one public event each day while also delivering a major foreign policy speech on Wednesday as well as a speech to AIPAC on Monday.

Bernie Sanders, Clintons rival for the Democratic nomination, campaigned in Idaho, Utah, Washington State and Arizona this week.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is blasting rival Donald Trump for a National Enquirer story accusing Cruz of having five mistresses. Here's a breakdown of how a week of fighting got us here. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Ted Cruz, Trumps chief rival for the Republican nomination, made four stops in Wisconsin on Thursday alone.

The Texas senators campaign has been happy to point out Trumps quiet schedule: MISSING #SleazyDonald: Why no events in 4 days; none planned for 8, tweeted Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe on Friday. Ever had psychological eval? What is hiding in medical records! Release!

Trump, meanwhile, has largely spent the past several days in Palm Beach, Fla., at his famous Versailles-like club, Mar-a-Lago. Members of his family have joined him there.

Very cool impromptu concert by members of the band Chicago at dinner at Mar-a-Lago just now. Awesome surprise, wrote Donald Trump Jr. in an Instagram post, alongside a video of his father standing with the band. . . . Even got @realdonaldtrump up and going.

Trumps last full day on the trail was in Arizona on Saturday, when chaotic scenes in Tucson and the Phoenix suburbs assured another weekend of footage showing protesters clashing with Trump supporters or police officers. Outside ofPhoenix, dozens of protesters formed a blockade on an Arizona highway leading to his campaign event in Fountain Hills, stationing cars that had to be towed, and inundated the zone with signs branded with anti-Trump slogans. In Tucson later that afternoon, several physical altercations during a campaign rally drew more negative attention. In one instance, a protester  whose friend was shouting at Trump while wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood  was punched by a black Trump supporter and then repeatedly stomped on.

[A whirlwind day showcases unorthodox views and shifting tone]

Even in Salt Lake City, where residents are caricatured for their polite demeanor, scores gathered outside the Infinity Events Center on March 18 to condemn Trump with signs and chanting.

Yet time away from the campaign trail does not mean being away from the headlines for Trump  the candidate has regularly made news this week through his Twitter account, which has more than 7 million followers. On Wednesday, he fanned a feud with Cruz by retweeting an unflattering picture of the senators wife, Heidi Cruz, that compared her to his own wife, Melania, a former model. A picture is worth a thousand words, read the caption.

He has kept tweeting since:

Explain how the women on The View, which is a total disaster since the great Barbara Walters left, ever got their jobs. @abc is wasting time

Remember when I recently said that Brussels is a hell hole and a mess and the failing @nytimes wrote a critical article. I was so right!

Just announced that as many as 5000 ISIS fighters have infiltrated Europe. Also, many in U.S. I TOLD YOU SO! I alone can fix this problem!

Katie Zezima, David Weigel, Abby Phillip and John Wagner contributed to this report.
1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Where We Live | Glen Echo Heights in Bethesda View Photos Tree-lined streets, access to the Potomac River, and blend of old and new homes are what residents like best about this 127-year-old neighborhood. Caption Tree-lined streets, access to the Potomac River, and blend of old and new homes are what residents like best about this 127-year-old neighborhood. A tree canopy, streets without sidewalks, the Potomac Palisades Conservation Park  a Montgomery County hillside park created in 1995  and some houses that overlook the Potomac contribute to the distinctive atmosphere of Bethesdas Glen Echo Heights neighborhood. Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Two years ago, Lauren Chelec Cafritz moved with her husband and two teenage children from the District to Bethesdas Glen Echo Heights neighborhood.

In their short time in Glen Echo Heights, Cafritz said, they have come to know twice as many people as they did during their time in the District, which included 23 years in the Chevy Chase neighborhood.

Its very friendly. Its a happy place, she said. We know all our neighbors.

Cafritz said her new community, within walking distance of the Potomac River, has a different flow.

Indeed, the tree canopy, streets without sidewalks, the Potomac Palisades Conservation Park  a Montgomery County hillside park created in 1995  and some houses that overlook the Potomac contribute to the distinctive atmosphere.

In addition, Walhonding Road, the neighborhoods northern boundary, ends at MacArthur Boulevard, leading to Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath.

[U Street corridor preserves its roots as it blossoms in new directions]

With its hilly terrain and its proximity to the river and Glen Echo Park, the neighborhood has a country feel, Cafritz said. Yet it is just 10 to 15 minutes north of the D.C. line.

There are 485 households in the community, a blend of older smaller homes and large newer ones.

Everythings a mix, Cafrtiz said. Not one kind of house, but all different sizes and all different eras.







Controversy over tear-downs: Becky Barefoot Day, who has lived in Glen Echo Heights all her life, said her parents bought one of the original Glen Echo Heights houses in 1938. The price was $2,499 at the time.

Some of the dwellings were summer homes for those seeking to escape the District for purer air. Day, who works as a real estate agent, said she was among the first area homeowners to tear down an original house, in the early 1990s, and rebuild.

These days, it has become a widespread practice with developers often buying up the original properties, tearing them down and replacing them with homes that are three times as large  or even larger.

Not everyone is happy with the practice. Some residents say their neighbors are sacrificing the very trees that make the community distinctive.

Theres no room left for the trees, said Doran Flowers, president of the Glen Echo Heights Citizens Association. He and his wife, Tina Hsu, have three children, ages 12, 10 and 5, and are in the process of renovating their house.

Trees are chopped down or excavating damages the roots, and some trees eventually die, he added.



Roots in the 1880s: The history of Glen Echo Heights is somewhat tied to the early development of the neighboring area, including the Town of Glen Echo.

According to Richard Cook, who grew up in the area, Edward Baltzley, originally from Ohio, purchased 516 acres on the heights overlooking the Potomac River just outside of Washington in Montgomery County in 1888. At the time, the land cost $20,000 with a $2,000 down payment and a mortgage for the rest.

His brother, Edwin, returned to Washington, and the two men formed the E. & E. Baltzley Co., real estate dealers. The first section of residential lots, which opened in 1889, was called Glen Echo Heights, according to Cook, who is co-author with Deborah Lange of the book Glen Echo Park: A Story of Survival.

Despite packed schedules, neighbors come together for the associations annual Halloween party, among other events.

[Arlingtons Williamsburg is staying under the radar]

This is a car-oriented neighborhood, but residents can walk to the Shops at Sumner Place, where there is a Safeway, a CVS, and three restaurants, including Passion Fin, an Asian fusion spot. Bethesda Market, which makes sandwiches and has a selection of wines, is among the other retailers.



Living there: The boundaries of the Glen Echo Citizens Association are, roughly, Walhonding Road to the north, Sangamore Road to the east, Westpath Way and Wapakoneta Road to the south, and MacArthur Boulevard to the west.

In the past 12 months, 21 properties have sold in Glen Echo Heights, according to Susan Sonnesyn Brooks, an agent with Weichert Realtors in Bethesda and a vice president of the association. They ranged from a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house for $500,000 to a five-bedroom, five-bath house built in 2011 with a swimming pool, waterfall and cabana for $2.7 million.



The streets of Glen Echo Heights are a great place for a game of neighborhood basketball. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Six properties are on the market, at prices ranging from $599,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bath 1939 Cape Cod to $2.145 million for a six-bedroom, six-bath house built in 2015. That Cape Cod originally sold for $2,500, Brooks said.



Schools: Wood Acres Elementary, Discovery Elementary, Thomas W. Pyle Middle and Walt Whitman High.



Transit: Montgomery Countys Ride-On buses serve the area, with destinations including the Friendship Heights station on Metrorails Red Line. Metrobus also has routes in the neighborhood, including service through Georgetown to downtown Washington.



Crime: In the past 12 months, there were three burglaries and 10 robberies in Glen Echo Heights, according to the Montgomery County police.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article omitted Discovery Elementary from the list of neighborhood schools.
Hundreds of people come together at Place de la Bourse to mourn on Thursday. (Photo: AP)

Ankara: One of the attackers in the Brussels suicide bombings was deported last year from Turkey, and Belgium subsequently ignored a warning that the man was a militant, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said.

Erdogans office identified the man as Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the two brothers named by Belgium as responsible for the attacks that killed at over 31 people in Brussels on Tuesday and were claimed by the Islamic State group.

In previous cases, officials have said that without evidence of crime, such as having fought in Syria, they cannot jail people deported from Turkey. Among such cases was Brahim Abdeslam, one of the suicide bombers in Paris in November, who was also sent back to Belgium from Turkey early last year.

Erdogan told a news conference that Bakraoui was detained in the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border and was later deported to the Netherlands. Turkey also notified Dutch authorities, Erdogan said.

A Dutch government official said Erdogans comments were being carefully looked into, but that they could not yet say if El Bakraoui had been in the Netherlands. One of the attackers in Brussels is an individual we detained in Gaziantep in June 2015 and deported. We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free, Erdogan said.

Belgium ignored our warning that this person is a foreign fighter. Erdogans office confirmed that Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands. It said he was later released by Belgian authorities as no links with terrorism were found.

It was not clear when Bakraoui was handed over to Belgian authorities. Erdogan initially said Bakraoui was deported in June. His office later said he was detained in June and deported in July.

Belgian newspaper Le Soir quoted Justice Minister Koen Geens as confirming Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands. Geens spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

The attacks in Brussels came just days after a suspected Islamic State suicide bomber blew himself up in Istanbul's most popular shopping district, killing three Israelis and an Iranian and wounding dozens.

Meanwhile, Belgiums interior minister and justice minister tried to resign on Thursday ahead of an emergency meeting of European security chiefs held amid growing questions about why authorities couldnt prevent deadly attacks on Brussels.
Fireworks explode above a square as nearly 100,000 people gathered in 2014 to celebrate the 121st birthday of China's former Communist Party leader Mao Zedong in his hometown of Shaoshan. REUTERS (China Stringer Network/Reuters)

On a sunny, just-spring morning, clusters of families line up in front of Mao Zedongs butter-yellow childhood home.

An octogenarian fan of the former dictator shuffles in front of a velvet rope and fixes his teary eyes on the camera: Click. Sisters in matching Red Star caps tilt their heads and purse their lips. Click. A rosy-cheeked toddler waves a Chinese flag.

Here in the knitted hills of Hunan province, in central China, in the town where Chinas Great Helmsman was born and raised, is the heart of the Red Tourism trade, a sector that peddles nostalgia and amnesia both.

Fifty years after the start of the Cultural Revolution, pilgrims arrive by bus, train or

car to trail megaphone-toting guides through refurbished relics and restaurants serving local dishes a la Mao. Over the course of this years Lunar New Year holiday, a reported half-million people made the trip.

Shaoshans sites are heavy on details about Maos childhood, his preferred cuts of pork, and the trials and triumphs of the Communist Partys early days. The famine that killed tens of millions is scarcely mentioned; the ravages of the Cultural Revolution dont rate.





Its not, as many imagine, that visitors dont know about the upheaval of the era  they do. But the extended clans who flock to Shaoshan see those awful times as part of a larger, still-unfolding story.

Chairman Mao brought the country together, said Li Ermin, 29, the cap-clad woman posing for a selfie with her sister. He is why were here.

Shaoshan, like Mao, means different things to different people  and different things in different times.

[Chinese TV host suspended after privately mocking Mao]

Jude Blanchette, author of a forthcoming book on Maos influence on contemporary China, to be published by Oxford University Press, said the town is, and has long been, a proxy for the political climate of the country  a place to take the nations pulse.

When the New York Times visited Shaoshan in 1982, just a year after the party ruled that Mao bore chief responsibility for the Cultural Revolution, the flow of tourists had gone from thousands to a few hundred a day. Then, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Beijing marshaled Maoism to unite the fractured nation, sending work units on study trips to Shaoshan.

In 1993, The Washington Posts Lena H. Sun found evidence of the economic transformation underway. Shaoshan now has 2,240 private entrepreneurs, the highest percentage of any county or city in the province, she noted. People sold Mao tie clips and Rolexes on the street.

A man looks at souvenir plates bearing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and late Chinese leader Mao Zedong on display at a shop near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, March 1, 2016. (Andy Wong/AP)

In the years before Xi Jinping took power, Maoism enjoyed another revival thanks, in no small part, to former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai. But Bo was purged, and months later the police crashed a Maoist gathering in Shaoshan, a sign that the party was worried, still, about things getting too Red.

Blanchette likens the challenge of marshaling Maos legacy to a Goldilocks problem.

You need to get the right amount and the right kind of Maoism: too cold and the party loses part of its legitimizing story, too hot and you get permanent revolution, he said.

Todays Shaoshan shows this dynamic at play.

Since assuming office in 2012, President Xi has quickly consolidated power, becoming what some scholars have called the most powerful leader since Mao.

To do so, he has leaned heavily, if selectively, on the former leader, showing reverence as required, picking out the parts of history that resonate with his vision for the present and playing down the rest.

One of Xis signature projects is an anti-corruption campaign that has seen thousands of officials arrested. In Shaoshan, a museum recently opened an exhibit on Maos anti-corruption efforts.

[Chinas Xi tells grumbling party cadres: Dont talk back]

As part of the nations great rejuvenation  one of Xis favorite buzzwords  the Communist Party forged iron discipline, and built a steel great wall of anti-corruption, reads the display.

But even as the party draws a line from Mao to Xi, it cant afford to let the former shine too bright. The current chairman of the Communist Party wants absolute loyalty. Neo-Maoism is seen as a threat.

Of course, most people who make the trip to Shaoshan dont come to ponder rectification campaigns or debate Xis evocation of socialist core values.

Visitors here said touring Maos old stomping grounds was simply a chance to think about how far they had come and to reflect on what they

hope to achieve. In addition to Little Red Book selfie sticks, the gift shop sells tomes such as Mao Zedong Teaches Networking.

Some came looking for a way back to a more egalitarian and spiritually fulfilling time. Chinas economy may have grown by leaps and bounds over the past 30 years, said Wen Shuchao, 45, but spiritual culture has not kept up.

[China just destroyed this 120-foot-tall gold statue of Chairman Mao]

Wen, who stopped by Shaoshan on his way from his home in Henan to the southern city of Guangzhou, where he works, said he worries about the countrys growing wealth gap. Maos era may have been poor, he said, but everyone was poor.

Over a meal of Maos favorite dishes, the Bai family said they came to Shaoshan because, for the first time, they could. Seven members of the family packed into an SUV and drove from Chinas far northeast to the south, stopping at points of interest along the way.

The matriarch, Bo Shurong, was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and still loves Mao. Her younger son, Bai Jinyuan, 45, said he liked the central Chinese scenery. The kids seemed to enjoy the food.

For Bai, Shaoshan is a lesson in how far a life can take you. Mao did not grow up in the big house I imagined, he said. Our chairman came from an ordinary family, too.

Liu Liu reported from Shaoshan.

Read more:

As China slashes coal jobs, miners protest in Partys revolutionary base

Is China heading in the wrong direction? For once, the West calls Beijing out.

Strikes and workers protests multiply in China, testing party authority
Ilyass Boughalab may be dead, but his brief stint working in Belgiums nuclear industry is still very much alive in the minds of this countrys nuclear security officials worried about the Islamic State.

From 2009 to 2012, Boughalab worked for contractor AIB-

Vincotte and had security clearances to inspect welds in sensitive areas of the Doel 4 nuclear reactor. Then he left for Syria, was convicted in absentia for being part of a group called Sharia4Belgium and died fighting in Syria in 2014.

Boughalabs family said he was radicalized after he had security clearances, but in 2014 someone else committed an act of sabotage at the plant by opening a valve, draining lubricant from a turbine and causing it to burn out. The plant was never in danger but had to shut down for four months,

and the damage cost between $100 million and $200 million. The motive for the sabotage remains a mystery.

[New ISIS recruits have deep criminal roots]

The recent Brussels attacks have stoked fears that the Islamic State might try to attack or infiltrate more-frightening targets and have prompted a closer look at security at Belgiums nuclear facilities.

Since 2014, Belgian officials have beefed up security at nuclear facilities. They have installed more security cameras, drawn up plans to deflect cyberattacks and required that workers move in groups of two or three to make sabotage by a lone wolf harder.

Yet up until March 11, Belgiums two sprawling nuclear power plants, with seven reactors, were protected only by unarmed private security guards. Under Belgian law, the guards employed by the plant operator Electrobel were not allowed to carry weapons.

Then, just 11 days before the bombings that killed 31 people in Brussels, the Belgian government dispatched 140 troops to guard the nuclear facilities, which provide about half of the countrys electricity. A new armed police force will be trained to take over.

Many security experts say its about time. The protections that were in place in Belgium in 2014 were clearly inadequate to prevent a major sabotage, wrote a group of nuclear experts at Harvard Universitys Belfer Center in a new report on preventing nuclear terrorism. They said that improvements had been made since then and that dispatching troops was perhaps one of the most significant nuclear security upgrades in recent years.

[With Belgian terrorist attacks, the strains on Europe grow]

We increasingly realize that we have to think about the people who work at facilities and attacks from on site or off site, said Roger Howsley, former security chief for British Nuclear Fuels and now executive director of the Vienna-based World Institute for Nuclear Security. The nature of threats is becoming more supple and complex. The way security is managed now has got to change.

The Belgian government was also spurred to add armed guards by a video discovered in December in a search by French police following up on the November terrorist attacks in Paris. The hours-long film tracked a senior official between his home and workplace at SKN-CEN, a nuclear research facility that houses a substantial amount of highly enriched uranium.

1 of 56 Full Screen Autoplay Close European Pressphoto Agency" data-title="March 23, 2016 " data-max-width="2731" data-image="https://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/03/23/Foreign/Images/05227300.jpg?env=A" data-ratio="0.667"> Skip Ad  Photos: The moving tributes for victims of the explosions in Brussels View Photos Mourners pay their respects to those killed or hurt in the terrorist attacks in Belgium. Caption Mourners pay their respects to those killed or hurt in the terrorist attacks there. March 27, 2016 Right-wing demonstrators at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels, near one of the memorials to the victims of the recent Brussels attacks. Alastair Grant/AP Wait 1 second to continue.

This focused, extended monitoring of a nuclear official at a sensitive site is the most worrying indicator of [Islamic State] nuclear intent to date, the Belfer Center group said. Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert at the center, speculated that a kidnapping might have been planned to gain access or to coerce the official into turning over material.

Belgium is just one of 24 countries with one kilogram (2.2 pounds) or more of weapons-

usable nuclear material, and in Belgium that material is spread among many sites, complicating security measures. Plans to permanently shut down some reactors have been put off at least until 2025.

[Explosives called The Mother of Satan were likely used in the attack]

At this point right now, we have no specific indications that any of the nuclear facilities were a real target, said Nele Scheerlinck, spokeswoman for the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC). We still dont know what their intentions were. Its not as if you can just kidnap a person and force your way into a nuclear facility. Its not that simple.

The United States government and nuclear experts had long urged Belgium to add the armed guards, Bunn said. Though Belgian officials said their troops were only 10 minutes from the plants, Bunn said that exercises suggested it might take only three minutes for a well-trained attacker to penetrate sensitive parts of a nuclear power plant, and an off-site police response could be slowed by weather or traffic.

Belgian news media said police searches since Tuesdays bombings have produced evidence that the bombers had considered attacking one of Belgiums nuclear facilities, but Scheerlinck said the FANC knew nothing of it and the federal prosecutors office said it could not confirm the account.

A suicide bomber would have trouble damaging the key parts of a nuclear reactor, experts said.

Im not sure what bombers would try to do if attacking a nuclear power plant, but, in general, nuclear power plants are pretty well protected, Howsley said. The kinds of explosions that come from security vests are very low-power when you are looking at the type of containment facilities there are at nuclear facilities. Thats why [suicide bombers] go after transport links, because theyre soft targets.

Nonetheless, Belgian nuclear regulators say they are keeping a close watch over vulnerable facilities.

[Anti-terrorism crackdowns may have spurred attackers, Belgian prosecutor says]

This week, four workers were refused access to the nuclear plants after the FANC reviewed security clearances. Scheerlinck said the move was not a result of the Tuesday attacks but rather part of a continuing process. She said that, over the course of the past year, 40 people have not been allowed into the nuclear facilities. That, she said, showed that the system is working.

She said that another catalyst for tightening security was the May 2014 attack by a gunman who killed four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels.

In May last year, Dabiq, the Islamic State English-language propaganda organ, published an article purportedly written by John Cantlie, a hostage, that contained a paragraph fantasizing about the group buying a nuclear weapon from corrupt officials.

Nuclear experts say the article could be more than fantasy.

The case of Ilyass Boughalab  who left his position working in the vital areas of a Belgian nuclear power plant to fight for terrorists in Syria  makes clear that the risk of ISIS inspiring individuals working at sensitive facilities is not hypothetical, the Belfer Center report said.

Scheerlinck said, however, that the Boughalab incident did not show a failure on the part of the nuclear plant operator or regulators.

People who work in a nuclear facility need to have authorization. We rely on data from the intelligence services and the police. If a person is found to be safe at one point, it doesnt mean he cant change, Scheerlinck said. You have to keep an eye on them at all points. At the time he worked at the power plant, there was no reason to think he was a threat to nuclear safety. Its possible that a moderate Muslim turns into an extremist. People change.

Read more:

How major U.S. cities and transit systems are reacting to the Brussels attacks

Attacks in Brussels hit a city already on high alert

Congress calls for focus on ISIS and stepped-up airport security following Brussels attacks

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A man identified by North Korea as an American detainee said Friday that he had conducted espionage against the communist nation and appealed for leniency at a state-controlled appearance that marked the first official accounting of his alleged crimes.

The highly scripted display of the prisoner  identified as Kim Dong-chul, a former resident of Fairfax, Va.  is certain to escalate tensions with Washington less than two weeks after North Korea sentenced an American student to 15 years in prison with hard labor for allegedly trying to take a sign as a souvenir during a tour.

[North Korea claims video shows student caught in act]

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. But Washington has previously accused North Korea of taking Americans into custody as political pawns in its showdowns with the West over issues such as Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program.

In the North Korean capital, news agencies said that Kim, who was brought before reporters, told them that he had spied for South Koreas intelligence agencies, sought to obtain details of the Norths military programs and tried to spread religious ideas  a serious crime in the North.

Kim Dong-chul leaves after a news conference March 25 in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Kyodo/Reuters)

Pyongyang accused Kim of receiving a USB drive and documents containing secrets about North Koreas nuclear and military activities. Kim admitted this in court, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. Information is so tightly controlled in North Korea that documents that would not be deemed secret elsewhere could be considered dangerous there.

Kim, wearing a blue suit and at times flanked by security officials, described his alleged acts as unpardonable yet appealed for mercy, KCNA reported. He was detained in October, the agency said.

North Korea has held similar events previously in which prisoners made statements that appeared to have been vetted by authorities. Some former detainees have said their public statements in the North followed intense pressure and coercion.

[North Korea threatens to scorch Souths seat of power]

Photos posted by KCNA showed Kim bowing and appearing to wipe away tears.

In an interview with CNN in January, the South Korean-born Kim said he was a naturalized U.S. citizen and had lived in Fairfax before moving in 2001 to the Chinese city of Yanji, a main gateway for trade with nearby North Korea.

In the interview overseen by North Korean officials, Kim said he worked in the Rason-Sonbong special economic zone, just over the border in North Korea, as head of a trade and hotel services company.

South Koreas National Intelligence Service, the countrys main spy agency, had no immediate comment after Kims appearance, the Associated Press reported.

Last week, North Koreas highest court sentenced 21-year-old American Otto Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda banner during an organized tour over the New Years holiday.

[The strange ways North Korea makes detainees confess on camera]

But unlike Warmbier, very little is known about Kim.

His American passport, shown to CNN in January, states that he was born in Korea on Aug. 24, 1953. According to reports from Voice of Americas Korean-language service, he immigrated to the United States during the 1980s and lived in Fairfax, which has a large Korean population.

But when his marriage ended in 2001, he moved to Yanji, the VOA report said, citing Fairfax pastor Simon Park.

North Korea has sharply boosted its confrontations with the West and its Asian allies after tests of a nuclear device and a long-range ballistic missile this year. This week, North Korea held test-fire drills in response to U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

North Korea is also holding three South Koreans and a Canadian pastor for what it calls espionage and attempts to establish churches to undermine the rule of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Separately, Kenneth Bae, a Korean American missionary who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor but later freed, urged Americans to lobby for the release of Warmbier and Korean Canadian pastor Lim Hyeon-soo, who is serving a life sentence.

Bae was released at the end of 2014 after being held for 18 months. He and another American detainee were turned over to James R. Clapper Jr., director of U.S. national intelligence, who made a rare visit to Pyongyang for the release.

Every petition you sign and every letter you write to support prisoners being held can make a big difference, Bae said in a statement released by his publisher. Baes book about his detention will be published in May.

Ask yourself how you can help. Sign a petition. Write a letter. Call your congressional leaders, Bae said. Lets stand together with them and show that so many of us care about them and want to see them come home to their families soon.

However, it is not clear that any of the detainees are receiving news from the outside world. Warmbier has not been allowed to contact his parents in Ohio.

Anna Fifield in New York contributed to this report.

Read more:

North Korea claims it could wipe out Manhattan with a hydrogen bomb

N. Korea boasts of big leap in arms with solid-fuel rocketry

Are North Koreans fighting in Syria? Its not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
A judge on Thursday found a former Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio host not guilty of sexual assault in a case that sparked a nationwide conversation about consent and sexual harassment.

Jian Ghomeshi had faced four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking based on alleged incidents involving three women. He is the former host of Q, a popular radio show on culture that is heard in Canada and on many U.S. public stations.

Justice William Horkins acquitted Ghomeshi on all charges, saying it is difficult to have trust in witnesses who selectively or deliberately suppress information. He said the three women were less than fully frank and forthcoming.

The harsh reality is that once a witness has shown to be deceptive and manipulative in giving their evidence, that witness can no longer expect the Court to consider them to be a trusted source of the truth, he said in his decision. He added that the acquittal was not the same as asserting the events in question never happened.

Police launched an investigation in 2014 after more than 12 women contacted various media sources to allege that Ghomeshi had assaulted them.

Ghomeshi, who first gained fame as a member of the 1990s satirical pop band Moxy Fruvous, defended himself in a 1,500-word statement on Facebook, saying women consented to having rough sex with him and that

he was the victim of a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. The CBC fired him.

He faces another sex-assault trial in June based on allegations from a fourth complainant. Ghomeshi and his lawyer declined to comment after the verdict.

Dozens of women gathered outside the courthouse to protest the verdict, some chanting Ghomeshi guilty. A topless protester who jumped in front of the prosecutor while he was talking to the media was arrested.

All three women made damaging revelations after the trial started.

The first woman to testify in the trial, whose name is protected by a publication ban, acknowledged that she emailed Ghomeshi a bikini-clad picture of herself a year after he allegedly sexually assaulted her, pulling her hair and punching her in the head in 2003. She claimed on the witness stand to have forgotten about the email and another flirtatious email she sent a year after the incident. She never told police about the emails.

The judge said she was deceptive. It is clear that she deliberately breached her oath to tell the truth. Her value as a reliable witness is diminished accordingly, he said.

Television actress Lucy DeCoutere, the second woman to testify, acknowledged that she told Ghomeshi she wanted to have sex with him a day after he allegedly choked and slapped her in 2003. She did so only after the defense provided email evidence. DeCoutere also acknowledged she sent Ghomeshi flowers days after the alleged assault. And in a handwritten love letter days later, she wrote: I love your hands.

DeCoutere, who waived her right to have her name not published, never told police about the love letter and testified that she didnt remember the emails. She also told police that she saw Ghomeshi only in passing afterward, but the defense proved otherwise.

It became clear at trial that Ms. DeCoutere very deliberately chose not to be completely honest with the police, the judge said. The deliberate withholding of the information reflects very poorly on Ms. DeCouteres trustworthiness as a witness.

The third witness in the case, whose name is protected by a publication ban, acknowledged that she deliberately misled police when she didnt tell them that she had engaged in sexual activity with Ghomeshi after the alleged assault took place in 2003. The woman testified that she had trouble breathing after Ghomeshi put his hands around her neck as they were making out in a Toronto park.

The judge said her decision to withhold the information until the last minute prior to trial, greatly undermines the Courts confidence in her evidence.

Ghomeshis sister said the ordeal has been extremely painful for the family.

Jian is not a symbol to us but a beloved brother and son, Jila Ghomeshi said. Our hardest burden has been our feeling of helplessness as we have watched him endure a punishment that was not only prior to a verdict but prior to any semblance of due process for well over a year.
Nidhi Chaphekar, a 40-year-old Jet Airways flight attendant from Mumbai, right, and another unidentified woman after being wounded in Brussels Airport terror attack. (Photo: AP)

Belgium: Jet Airways on Friday released a statement saying that flight attendant Nidhi Chaphekar, injured in the Belgium terror attacks, was out of coma and stable.

Earlier, a Jet Airways manager had said Chaphekar was placed in a medically-induced coma.

Jet Airways manager in Brussels, Bernard Guisset, said Chaphekar had severe burns and a fractured foot, but was out of danger.

Read: Jet Airways staff Nidhi Chaphekar becomes face of Brussels terror attack

Two Jet Airways cabin crew members  Nidhi Chaphekar and Amit Motwani from Mumbai  were injured in the explosions at Zaventem Brussels International Airport on Tuesday morning. The family members of both crew members were later flown to the Belgian capital by Jet Airways.

Nidhi's image, where she is pictured sitting stupefied on a bench with dust all over her hair and face, has been shared by millions across the globe while the hashtag #PrayForNidhi trends on social media.

Read: Family members of two injured Jet crew being flown to Brussels

It showed the 40-year-old mother of two from Mumbai slumping on the airport chair, her bright yellow jacket ripped across her chest. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face.

After the blast, when Deccan Chronicle visited the home of Chaphekar (40), both her teenage kids appeared worried. Chaphekars brother-in-law, Nilesh Chaphekar, said that she was an in-flight manager and had been working with Jet Airways for the past 20 years. She had left the house two days ago as she was to board a US-bound flight, which had a halt in Brussels.

Meanwhile, Amit Motwani was being treated for injuries to his eye and ear.

Read: Faces of tragedy that spoke to millions

The explosion occurred a few minutes after the Jet Airways flight landed at Brussels. All passengers were on board and both crew members got down to assist in the de-boarding process when explosions occurred.

There was no damage to four of Jet Airways Airbus A330 aircraft at Brussels Airport. The explosions occurred around 8 am on Tuesday near check-in counters of the departure level area that was teeming with passengers. Following the explosions, Brussels Airport was shut down and all flights were cancelled.
Yuriy Grabovsky, left, talks to Yevgeny Yerofeyev, a Russian soldier arrested in May on terrorism charges related to the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, at a hearing in Kiev, Ukraine, in November. (Stringer/Reuters)

The body of a lawyer of two Russian servicemen on trial in Ukraine has been discovered on the grounds of a former farming collective, prosecutor Anatoly Matios said Friday, saying two men were in custody in connection with the lawyers death.

Yuriy Grabovsky was part of the legal team representing the two Russians arrested in May on terrorism charges related to the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Their case has garnered extra attention because of Ukraines wish to exchange the servicemen for Ukrainians detained in Russia, including pilot Nadiya Savchenko.

Grabovsky disappeared early this month and on Thursday evening police launched a search for his body based on information from one of two men detained over his disappearance, Matios said in a briefing.

Matios said Grabovskys body was found at 4 a.m. during a police excavation of land on a former farming collective.

Provisionally, I can say that . . . [he] was killed in a violent way and finished off with a firearm, Matios said, adding that the lawyer had been robbed and also had an explosive device attached to his leg.

Matios said he could not provide detail on possible motives but later said that it was in Russias interest for the servicemens trial to be delayed.

Russias Foreign Ministry issued a statement that blamed Ukrainian authorities for failing to protect Grabovsky, who they said had become a victim of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine because of his role defending the Russian servicemen.

Despite all warnings, Kiev authorities were still unable or unwilling to guarantee Grabovskys safety, the ministry statement said.

Russia denies sending troops to help separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine and says the two Russians  Alexander Alexandrov and his commander, Capt. Yevgeny Yerofeyev  had quit their special forces unit to go there independently.

This week, Matios said that the Russian servicemens case would continue despite Grabovskys absence but that the men would not be physically present during the trial in the interests of security. Grabovsky was one of a team of lawyers representing the defendants.

On Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko said that Ukraine would be willing to hand over the two servicemen provided that Russia returned Ukrainians, including Savchenko, who has been sentenced to 22 years in jail for alleged involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists.
Some 200 heavily armed US combat troops, members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, provided artillery fire support for an Iraqi government offensive against the city of Mosul in northern Iraq on Thursday.

The US Marines unleashed artillery barrages against villages around Makhmour, a town south of Mosul, as part of shaping operations being carried out by thousands of Iraqi troops, under the direction of more than 100 US advisors.

The US forces operated from a newly established combat base in northern Iraq, known as Fire Base Bell, which was set up under complete secrecy, without so much as an official announcement by the Pentagon or White House.

According to the Pentagon, the US-backed assault, code-named Operation Conquest, will continue pummeling the outskirts of the northern Iraqi city for weeks or even months before Iraqi forces attempt a direct assault aimed at recapturing the city, which was home to some 2.5 million people before falling to ISIS in June 2014.

On Thursday, photos published by the Washington Post showed squadrons of Marines, laden with combat gear, boarding US transport aircraft prior to setting up the new US combat base in the north. The government photos referred to the Marines as members of a previously unreported Task Force Spartan.

The hundreds-strong Marine contingent brings the total number of US forces in Iraq to more than 5,000, well over the Obama White Houses official cap of 3,900.

The launch of new US combat missions in northern Iraq, waged by hundreds of US conventional forces, including infantry and artillery detachments, makes a mockery of the Obama administrations assurances that US operations in Iraq would not involve ground combat, and that it would be limited to advisory and aerial missions.

Far from a restrained intervention, the US military is determined to continue organizing and waging large-scale warfare in northern Iraq, without bothering to inform the public.

The Marine deployment is only the first in a number of further escalations of the US combat role planned by the Pentagon, including pending deployments of more US Special Operations forces and Apache helicopters in support of Iraqi troops, according to comments Wednesday by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

In statements to CNN Thursday, Carter demanded that European governments accelerate their military interventions in the Middle East in response to the attacks in Brussels earlier this week. In addition to the stepped-up fire support on display Thursday, Iraqi forces require lots of things from the US, including more training, weaponry and other military hardware, Carter said.

The Brussels attacks have already been seized upon as the pretext for yet another round of punishing aerial bombardment against both Iraq and Syria. US war planes and drones launched strikes Thursday against alleged ISIS targets near the Iraqi cities of Hit, Kirkuk, Kisik, Mosul, Qayyarah, Ramadi, Sinjar, Sultan Abdullah and Tal Afar.

Heavy fighting continued to rage across Syria Thursday, as US-Russian negotiations in Geneva reached their officially scheduled conclusion. US air forces struck targets near the Syrian cities of Al Hawl, Manbij, Mara and Palmyra.

There remain significant divisions within the US establishment over the possibility of a limited political deal with Moscow aimed at establishing a postwar government under the supervision of a coalition of the major powers.

While the current round of negotiations has proven essentially fruitless, another round of talks is scheduled to begin in April, and US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Russia on Thursday for discussions aimed at getting down to brass tacks on what that political transition looks like, according to comments by a State Department representative to media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Kerrys overtures, stressing his desire for compromise with US imperialism. I really hope that your visit will allow us to bring our positions closer, Putin said.

Late Thursday, Kerry announced that he and his Russian counterparts had agreed on a target schedule for establishing a framework for a political transition and also a draft constitution. The US and Russian diplomats agreed to work out proposals for a postwar government by August, Kerry said.

Even if a deal is reached, it will represent only a temporary and tactical compromise. The US ruling elite is pursuing a global agenda that is aimed at maintaining US domination over the Middle East, as part of Washingtons drive to control the entire Eurasian landmass and subordinate China, Russia and every other major powers to a US-led world order.

ISIS itself grew out of operations by the US military and intelligence agencies, which have directly trained leading ISIS officers in Georgia, Tajikistan and elsewhere. The US has fueled the growth of extremist militias across Africa and Asia both directly through provision of arms and funding, and indirectly through the laying waste of entire societies and unwavering support for the most reactionary regimes in the region.
Khalid El Bakraoui and Brahim El Bakraoui were both on US government counter-terrorism watch lists before the attacks. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: Two brothers who carried out suicide bombings in Brussels this week were known to US government agencies before the attacks, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said that Khalid El Bakraoui and Brahim El Bakraoui were both on US government counter-terrorism watch lists before the attacks.

Belgian prosecutors have identified Brahim El Bakraoui as one of two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels' Zaventem Airport, while they say Khalid El Bakraoui was the man who carried out a suicide bombing at Brussels' Maelbeek Metro station, near European Union headquarters.
The sources said that Khalid El Bakraoui and Brahim El Bakraoui were both on US government counter-terrorism watch lists before the attacks. (Photo: AFP)

Brussels: Brussels suicide bomber Khalid El Bakraoui violated the terms of his parole last May by maintaining contacts with past criminal associates but a Belgian magistrate released him, De Morgen newspaper said on Thursday.

The report emerged as the interior and justice ministers offered to resign over the failure to re-arrest Bakraoui's brother Brahim, also convicted of a violent crime, when he was sent back from Turkey and in apparent breach of his parole.

Brahim El Bakraoui, 29, was one of two men who blew themselves up at Brussels airport on Tuesday, while Khalid El Bakraoui, 26, detonated a bomb at Maelbeek metro station in the city centre.

The paper quoted prosecutor Christian Henry in the southern city of Mons as saying that on May 13, 2015, Khalid El Bakraoui drew police attention because he parked his car in a one-way street facing in the wrong direction. It then turned out he was sitting in the car with a former criminal associate, in violation of his 2013 parole.

But he was released again by the court, because he had strictly complied with the other parole conditions, like seeking a job and reporting regularly for checks with the assistant prosecutor. He showed no signs of being radicalised then.

The prosecutors office was not available for comment.

Things changed from October 22, the paper quoted prosecutor Henry as saying, shortly before the Paris attacks on November 13.

Khalid El Bakraoui missed four scheduled meetings with the assistant prosecutor and moved out from his old address without informing the authorities. This was a violation of his parole, which was subsequently revoked last month.
Brussels: Hours after suicide bombers struck Brussels on Tuesday, a man assaulted the lawyer for their suspected accomplice Salah Abdeslam in his office in the city, defence counsel Sven Mary told Le Soir newspaper.

"I was forced to shut my chambers to ensure the safety of my staff," he said, adding that he had received hundreds of abusive and threatening messages after agreeing to represent Abdeslam, a suspect in November's Paris attacks after his arrest on Friday.

Mary, who has built a reputation for defending notorious criminals as well as Islamists, said that Abdeslam, 26, was not aware of the planned ISIS attack on Brussels.
Police officers secure a street during a raid in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, Belgium. (Photo: AP)

Brussels: Armed police launched an intense new raid in Brussels in the wake of the terror attacks, in the Schaerbeek area of the capital, Belgian media reported Friday, a day after six suspects were arrested over the carnage.

An explosion was heard at the start of the operation, Belga news agency reported, while the RTBF broadcaster said a man had been 'neutralised', but there was no immediate confirmation by officials.

Read: Two Americans killed in Brussels bombings, Kerry offers help

Bomb disposal experts were also on site, reports said. Police has sealed off the area, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Read: Suspect arrested in new anti-terror raid, slightly hurt in Brussels anti-terror raid

The site of the raid is in the same district from where three airport attackers left on Tuesday morning carrying suitcase bombs, although only two went off.

During a series of raids in Schaerbeek on Tuesday night police found 15 kilos of high explosive, bomb-making chemicals and an Islamic State group flag.

Read: Brussels: 35 killed in terror attacks, Islamic State claims responsibility

The house search in Schaarbeek is part of an ongoing investigation following multiple bombing attacks which killed at least 35 people and injured over 300.
Damascus: The Syrian army recaptured on Friday the citadel of Palmyra from the Islamic State group, nearly a year after the jihadists overran the ancient city, state television said citing a military source.

"Our armed forces, in coordination with the popular defence forces, have taken control of the ancient Palmyra citadel after inflicting many losses in the ranks of the terrorist group Daesh," the report said, using another name for IS.

The jihadist group, whose takeover of Palmyra raised global concern, had taken over the citadel on May 23 last year and raised its notorious black and white flag over it.

The group has since blown up UNESCO-listed temples and looted relics that dated back thousands of years, and murdered the former antiquities chief in Palmyra, Khaled al-Assaad.

Built in the 13th century, the citadel is Palmyra's main Islamic-era monument.
Vankwani demanded that the federal government should declare a holiday on the occasion of Holi and Diwali the two main Hindu festivals. (Representational Photo: Pixabay)

Islamabad: Pakistan's Hindu lawmakers have asked the government to reduce holidays on Eid and use them as official off-days during Hindu religious festivals.

It was proposed by opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Hindu lawmakers Ramesh Lal and Ramesh Kumar Vankwani of ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz on Thursday in the parliament.

The move followed after Sindh provincial government declared Holi a gazetted holiday. Vankwani demanded that the federal government should declare a holiday on the occasion of Holi and Diwali the two main Hindu festivals, Dawn reported.

"If you think that there are already too many holidays in the country, then days can be subtracted from the three to four-day long Eid holidays," he added.

He was referring to a statement by Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, who recently said on the floor of the house that Pakistan already had too many national holidays.

Surprisingly, none of the legislators from religious parties Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam objected to Vankwani's suggestion.

Later, in his speech, Khalil George, a Christian PML-N lawmaker also supported the demands of the Hindu lawmakers.

"We do not have any problems with holidays on our festivals as Easter falls on a Sunday, while Christmas is already a holiday thanks to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birth anniversary," he said, adding, "but I do support their cause."

Jinnah's birthday on December 25 is already an official holiday in Pakistan.

Talking to Dawn, Pakistan Tekreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Hindu lawmaker Lal Chand Malhi said that even if there is not a national holiday on Holi and Diwali, these festivals should be made gazetted holidays for Hindus.

"This facility is available to religious minorities in many countries," he said. Vijay Jolly a senior member of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) who recently visited Islamabad, had said that Muslims in India have holidays on both Eids, as well as Ashura.
Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti yesterday identified the "official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan who he alleged was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing.

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale as it lodged its protest over 'subversive activities' of an alleged RAW officer, a day after Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested him.

"The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Thursday identified the "official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan who he alleged was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Bugti claimed that Bhushan was in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan.

The Minister, however, did not disclose the exact location of where he was arrested.

However, sources said that Bhushan was arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan had accused India of instigating violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.

India has dismissed all such allegations.
Islamabad: A representative body of minority Hindu community, Pakistan Hindu Council, while expressing serious concern over the reported arrest of an alleged RAW agent in Balochistan province of Pakistan, has asked the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan to probe the incident jointly.

The PHC said it sees a conspiracy against the India-Pakistan bonhomie behind the arrest of the accused by the Pakistan authorities. Its patron-in-chief Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani who is also a member of Pakistans National Assembly in a statement mailed to this newspaper regretted that whenever there is some hope for peace, such incidents start to happen with a purpose to fulfil the vested interests(sic).

Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale as it lodged its protest over 'subversive activities' of the alleged RAW officer, a day after Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested him. Identified as Kul Yadav Bhushan, he has been accused of being involved in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi.

The Pakistani authorities have claimed that Yadav was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

He is reported to have been arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border. However, the Pakistani authorities are maintaining silence on the exact location of the arrest.

Mr. Vankwani said, Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi should join hands to carry joint investigations against elements behind such unwanted incidents.

He also expressed grief on the spurious liquor tragedy in recent Pakistans Sindh province during Holi celebrations in which 45 Hindus lost their lives and demanded immediate dismissal of the provincial excise minister, holding him responsible for this tragedy.

Usage of alcohol is prohibited in every religion, including Hinduism, and Pakistan Hindu Council has demanded a number of times for complete ban on the sale and purchase of alcohol in the name of minorities, he said.
Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of the Glasgow Central Mosque - the largest in Scotland - supported killer Mumtaz Qadri in a series of WhatsApp messages, the BBC reported on Friday. (Photo: AFP)

London: The imam of one of Britain's biggest mosques has praised a religious extremist in Pakistan who was recently executed for murdering liberal politician Salman Taseer, triggering a controversy.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of the Glasgow Central Mosque - the largest in Scotland - supported killer Mumtaz Qadri in a series of WhatsApp messages, the BBC reported on Friday.

Qadri, a former police commando, was hanged on February 29 after he gunned down Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws.

Qadri was working as a bodyguard for Taseer when he pulled out a gun and shot him 28 times in 2011 in broad daylight in an upmarket locality of Islamabad.

Pakistan has some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, which can carry a potential death sentence for those judged to have insulted the Islam.

The imam's messages, seen by the BBC, detail how he was "disturbed" to hear of his death and gave him the religious blessing usually reserved for devout Muslims.

The imam said he was "disturbed" and "upset" before he wrote the messages, seeking God's mercy be upon Qadri. In another message, he wrote: "I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out."

Later, the imam claimed the messages were taken out of context and that he was expressing his opposition to capital punishment in Pakistan.

He told the BBC: "The assassination of Salman Taseer is widely condemned.

"Whether I agree or disagree with the views he expressed, as an Imam and as a human being I express abhorrence at the manner in which he was executed.

"The execution was not in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles."

He said: "Mumtaz Qadri's execution is condemned as it is not in accordance with due process nor is it in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

"Capital punishment on this particular occasion was inappropriate and any expressions of sympathy or compassion are extended in my capacity as a private individual and not in any professional or public capacity," The Daily Record quoted him as saying.

Reacting to the imam's remarks, lawyer and activist Aamer Anwar accused the religous leader, who condemned the Brussels bombings, of "rank hypocrisy".

He told BBC Scotland many people within the community were scared the views would "filter down the Muslim community and radicalise our children".
waitingtables said: LMAO! ANd they think they know it all!



When you put trade embargoes on countries and have a majority of other countries doing the same it can be effective. Like it was for Iran. When other countries are trading and one country is continuing trade embargo policies for over 50 years with no results, they obviously didn't work. Click to expand...

Oh I know. I was in Mexico last month. They are drinking Havana Club rum and smoking fine Cuban cigars and don't understand why we are still pissed at Cuba.Another thing I don't understand, rather off topic I know, but what the **** it's early in the morning.I've been spending a month or two every winter in Puerto Vallarta, Mx. for well over a decade. For the last five years or so at the same little Mexican hotel in the downtown area. I see fewer Americans every year. Last month the hotel was full of Canadians and French people, I was one of the few Americans.I was having a drink one evening with the hotel assistant manager, who I've become friendly with, and I asked her, where the hell are all the Americans?She said, Oh, Americans all stay behind the locked gates of the all inclusive resorts in the hotel district if they come at all,they are afraid.Hell of a note when Americans are chicken-***** compared to Canadians and the French!!!When I asked her if that hurt business she said they, and all the other hotels were running at about 98% occupancy rate. French francs and Canadian dollars spend just fine apparently.
Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection



The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.



The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.



"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."



...Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.



Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.



They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.
WASHINGTON  The split-screen told the story: on one side, images of the terror bombing in Brussels; on the other, Barack Obama doing the wave with Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana.

On one side, the real world of rising global terrorism. On the other, the Obama fantasy world in which romancing a geopolitically insignificant Cuba  without an ounce of democracy or human rights yielded in return  is considered a seminal achievement of American diplomacy.

Cuba wasnt so much a legacy trip as a vanity trip, vindicating the dorm-room enthusiasms of ones student days when the Sandinistas were cool, revolution was king and every other friend had a dog named Che.

When Brussels intervened, some argued that Obama should have cut short his trip and come back home. I disagree. You dont let three suicide bombers control the itinerary of the American president. Moreover, Obamas next stop, Argentina, is actually important and had just elected a friendly government that broke from its long and corrupt Peronist past.

Nonetheless, Obama could have done without the baseball. What kind of message does it send to be yukking it up with Raul even as Belgian authorities are picking body parts off the floor of the Brussels airport?

Obama came into office believing that we had vastly exaggerated the threat of terrorism and allowed it to pervert both our values and our foreign policy. He declared a unilateral end to the global war on terror and downplayed the threat ever since. He frequently reminds aides, reports Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, that more Americans die annually of bathtub accidents.

Its now been seven years. The real world has stubbornly refused to accommodate Obamas pacific dreams. The Islamic State has grown from JV team to worldwide threat, operating from Libya to Afghanistan, Sinai to Belgium. It is well into the infiltration phase of its European campaign, with 500 trained and hardened cadres in place among the estimated 5,000 jihadists returned from the Middle East. The increasing tempo and sophistication of its operations suggest that it may be poised for a continent-wide guerrilla campaign.

In the face of this, Obama remains inert, unmoved, displaying a neglect and insouciance that borders on denial. His nonreaction to the Belgian massacre  his 34-minute speech in Havana devoted 51 seconds to Brussels  left the world as stunned as it was after the Paris massacre, when Obama did nothing. Worse, at his now notorious November news conference in Turkey, his only show of passion regarding Paris was to berate Islamophobes.

David Axelrod called Obamas response tone deaf. But that misses the point. This is more than a mere mistake of presentation. Remember his reaction to the beheading of the American journalist James Foley? Obama made a statement expressing his sympathies  and then jumped onto his golf cart for a round of 18.

He later told NBC News Chuck Todd that this was a mistake. Part of this job is also the theater of it, he explained, its not something that always comes naturally to me. As if postponing a bucolic recreation was a required piece of political playacting rather than a presidents natural reaction  a mixture of shock and sorrow  to the terrible death of a citizen he could not save.

Its not as if Obama is so super cool that he never shows emotion. Just a few months ago, he teared up when speaking about the Sandy Hook school shooting. That was the work of a psychotic. But when speaking about the work of Islamist terrorists, he offers flat perfunctory words.

I cannot fathom why. Perhaps having long seen himself uniquely qualified by background and history to make peace between Islam and the West, to now recognize how badly things have gone on his watch is to admit both failure and the impossible grandiosity of his original pretensions.

Whatever the reason, he seems genuinely unmoved by a menace the rest of the world views, correctly, with horror and increasing apprehension. Hes been in office seven years, yet seems utterly fixed on his campaign promises and pre-presidential obsessions: shutting down Gitmo, rapprochement with Iran, engagement with tyrants (hence Havana), making the oceans recede (hence the Paris climate trip). Next well see yet another useless Washington summit on yet another Obama idee fixe: eliminating nuclear materials.

With the world on fire, the American president goes on ideological holiday. As was said of the Bourbons: They have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing.
Canada will refrain from banning French beef imports even though a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a farm in the European country, Ottawa said Thursday.

The decision came after the French Ministry of Agriculture said a lone case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, was found in the northeastern region of Ardennes.

Canada has evaluated the French beef inspection system and is confident the products are safe, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told AFP.

Therefore, no actions on imports were required at this time, the agency said.

French authorities had said it was probable that countries which last year reopened their borders to French beef exports -- Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore and Vietnam -- would close them again, but that they only represented a small volume of exports.

This was the first case of mad cow disease in France since 2011.

BSE is a brain-destroying disease that sparked a scare in the 1990s because it could also be transmitted to humans who ate infected beef.

The epidemic -- of which Britain was the epicenter -- was traced to the use of infected carcasses recycled for animal feed, prompting dozens of countries to strengthen veterinary controls.

The number of cases has plummeted, although isolated cases persist.
Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Limited Company has been finalizing a map to mark flood-prone areas in Hanoi ahead of the rainy season.

The company expects to release it by April 14 before heavy rains hit the capital so citizens can check for traffic updates.

Deputy Director of Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Ltd Company Le Vu Quang Suong said there are 16 areas in central Hanoi that are prone to flooding, but solutions are being drawn up to deal with the situation.

Suong added the company has built a drainage monitoring system in order to alert citizens when waters rise.

Flooding also occurs in suburban zones during heavy rain, such as the Thang Long Boulevard underpass that often experiences power cuts.

The railway tunnels through Bao Son Paradise complex and Tay Nam University are equipped with underground pump houses, but both are in a near-constant state of disrepair.

Pump houses under the Thanh Xuan and Trung Hoa underpasses also use underground technology but are unable to cope when heavy rain floods the tunnels, even with the help of backup generators.

In a nutshell, Suong said the map will help people avoid flooded roads during the rainy season.
Villagers catch ducks as they celebrate a traditional festival of ethnic Miao, in Jianhe, Guizhou Province, China, March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

SHANGHAI - A widening scandal over illegal vaccine sales in China has sparked anger and drawn criticism from the government over glaring loopholes in the regulation of the world's second-largest medicine market.

Police detained 37 people in Shandong province, official news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday, after a nearly $90 million black market vaccine ring was exposed over the last week.

The vaccines, including ones against meningitis, rabies and other illnesses, are suspected of being sold in dozens of provinces around China since 2011.

The scandal has stirred angry debate, casting a shadow over government ambitions to bolster the domestic drug industry and underlining the challenge it faces to regulate a widespread and fragmented medicine supply chain.

"We don't know if our children have properly had the vaccine or whether it is ineffective or even if they are at risk," said Zhang Jieqi, 32, who works at a tourism company in the city of Chengdu and has a child under two years -old.

She said she was angry that the case, which started early last year, had not been made public widely until now.

The government has said the vaccines themselves were real, although traded illegally.

The issue of regulation, from food and drugs to online sales, has become increasingly contentious in China as it looks to cast off a reputation for poor quality and safety.

However, regulators such as a Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) have pointed to a lack of resources and personnel to adequately regulate their sectors.

The vaccine case drew ire from Premier Li Keqiang, who said regulatory bodies - including the CFDA, health ministry and police - needed to work more in tandem, and that "dereliction of duty" would not be tolerated.

"This vaccine safety case has drawn close attention, and shows there are many gaps in terms of regulation," Li said in a statement posted on the central government's website late on Tuesday.

'SWINDLED EVERY DAY'

Some people said the case echoed a scandal in 2008 when milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine led to the deaths of six infants and made thousands sick.

Xinhua cited the health ministry as saying it had not found any spike in abnormal reactions to inoculations.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement that improperly stored or expiredvaccines rarely cause a toxic reaction and the most common risk is that they are ineffective.

Nonetheless, the case - centred on a mother and daughter illegally selling vaccines to re-sellers around the country - raises questions about regulators, even as China vows to boost its domestic market and raise exports.

Some parents also went online to vent their anger. One mother said she wanted to take her child out of China to escape "poisoned milk, gutter oil and ineffective vaccines". Gutter oil refers to sub-standard, recycled cooking oil.

"It seems every day we are being swindled with something," she wrote on China's the Sina Weibo site, using the handle "Sunziyue".

"No one is coming to sort it out." (Additional reporting Nick Heath and Jessica Macy Yu in BEIJING; Editing by John Ruwitch, Robert Birsel)
Draft legislation that would give the public the right to access information was debated by the National Assembly Standing Committee this week, with delegates still divided on some aspects of the law.

The National Assembly and its Law Committee have been working on a number of issues in the proposed bill, including the scope of the legislation, defining what is deemed confidential information, who is responsible for providing the information and who is eligible to make a request.

One of the major issues was the definition of confidential information as there were concerns that some agencies may just stamp documents as classified if they don't want to release the requested information.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung said: A law on access to information, without specifying what kind of information people are allowed or not allowed to access holds no value and is not transparent.

Hung said as long as that question was not resolved, the law would not be passed.

Phan Trung Ly, chairman of the Law Committee, said access to information was necessary so people could protect their rights and legitimate interests. He said it was also a requirement for Vietnams further global integration.

Another point discussed was the responsibility of parties other than state agencies in providing information to people if requested. This would include public-funded institutions and businesses funded by the state.

While some delegates expressed concern over making available sensitive information that could be used to cause social instability, other delegates said the law would be a step forward in transparency and social development.

Vietnam is not the only Southeast Asian country seeking to recognize the public's right to information. Thailand was an early starter with a constitutional right to information as well as an access to information law passed in 1997.

The Philippines has been working on a campaign for a Freedom of Information Act while it already has a right to information in its 1987 constitution.

There is also an emerging movement in Malaysia, and the beginning of discussions on access to information in Cambodia.

The draft for Vietnam's Access to Information Law was first put before the Standing Committee in August 2015. The vote on this draft is scheduled for April 6.
The group raided stores at a Singapore shopping mall armed with specially lined bags to foil security alarms.

Four members of the group were jailed for 28 month for stealing over S$17,000 worth of clothes from H&M and Zara stores in the ION Orchard mall in less than 48 hours. A fifth man, who was the mastermind behind the operation, was jailed for 31 months.

They arrived in Singapore via Malaysia on January 27 this year, and began their stealing spree the next day.

Mastermind Dinh Ngoc Luan, 27, had intended to sell the stolen clothing in Vietnam, and gave the rest of the gang, aged between 25 and 28, instructions on which items they should steal.

In the shopping mall, Hoang Ding Cong would stand in a pre-arranged spot with a piece of luggage, while Nguyen Quoc Hung, Nguyen Thi Luong and Dang Bich Thao would enter a store together with Dinh, armed with brown paper bags to hide the stolen clothing.

The paper bags were later found to have been lined with other material, which is believed to be the reason why security alarm systems failed to detect the unpaid-for items.

After each haul, the thieves would transfer the stolen clothing from the paper bags into the waiting luggage, before targeting another store.

Three of them were caught red-handed by police officers patrolling the shopping mall, and were subsequently arrested. The remaining two fled, but were caught while attempting to leave Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivabalan Thanabal said the group, having come to Singapore specifically with the intent to commit shoplifting, had clearly abused the hospitality of the country. He urged the court to impose jail terms sufficient to deter like-minded groups from targeting Singapore.

The DPP also said the operation was well-planned, noting that the group managed to steal items of clothing worth S$17,380 in less than 48 hours after arriving in Singapore.

The five could have been jailed for up to seven years.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the February 11 plant at the Ryongsong Machine Complex in this undated photo released by North Korea's KCNA in Pyongyang

MANILA- The Philippines has released a North Korean freighter it seized nearly a month ago under tough new U.N. sanctions, after no contraband was found onboard and the ship was cleared by the United Nations, officials said on Friday.

The M/V Jin Teng, a 6,830 deadweight tonne (dwt) cargo ship with its 21 North Korean crew, left on Thursday afternoon for China after clearing immigration, customs, quarantine and port authorities, said coastguard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo.

"At the policy level, there is no more basis to continue to hold M/V Jin Teng after U.N. Security Council delisted it from the annex of UNSC Resolution 2270," Charles Jose, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in a text message.

No team from the United Nations came to inspect the ship but local authorities did not find any contraband on board except some broken aids to navigation equipment, the coastguard said.

Tough new U.N. sanctions, passed in March to punish North Korea after its fourth nuclear test in January, blacklisted 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company (OMM). The sanctions aim to starve North Korea of money for its nuclear weapons programme.

But the U.N. Security Council agreed earlier this week to China's request to remove sanctions on four ships blacklisted for ties to Pyongyang's arms trade. China said the ships were not OMM ships and secured a commitment that the ships would no longer use North Korean crews.

The four ships included the Jin Teng, detained by the Philippines days after the sanctions took effect.

Jin Teng, flying a Sierra Leone flag, arrived in the Philippines on Feb. 27 and was unloading palm kernels when it was seized.

The Jin Teng has called at Palembang, Indonesia, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, since the beginning of this year, ship tracking data available on the Reuters Eikon Terminal showed. (Reporting By Manuel Mogato; Editing by Michael Perry)
Vietnam signed a deal with Belarus on March 23 in Minsk to set up joint ventures to manufacture automobiles in the Southeast Asian nation, Vietnams Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a statement on Thursday.

The pact is part of their efforts to realize the free trade agreement that Vietnam inked with the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union in May last year, according to the ministry. The EEU comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Both the agreement and the Vietnam-EEU FTA will take effect in the middle of this year, the ministry said.

The Vietnam-based joint ventures will build trucks and cars with more than 10 seats, the statement said.

Vietnam will abolish import taxes on a certain number of vehicles that the joint ventures will import on a trial basis from Belarus, and set a quota for imports of automobile components over the next five years.

The joint ventures will also look to export vehicles around Southeast Asia to take advantage of tax incentives for products from Vietnam, said the statement.

On March 21, Vietnam signed a similar deal with Russia, paving the way for Russian firms to manufacture automobiles in Vietnam.
Vietnam officials have condemned Taiwans sending of journalists to Ba Binh Island, part of the Spratly archipelago, on March 23 as a serious violation of Vietnams sovereignty.

Taiwan has disregarded the concerns and objections of Vietnam and the international community by sending reporters to Ba Binh, Le Hai Binh, Vietnams Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on March 24.

The act has seriously violated Vietnams sovereignty and escalated tensions, which does not help with maintaining peace and stability in the East Sea, as well as the standing of bilateral ties,

According to Binh, Vietnam has a sufficient legal basis and historical evidence to assert undisputed sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. All activities of foreigners carried out in these two areas that are not approved by Vietnamese government are considered illegal and meaningless, he said.

Yesterday, a C-130 military aircraft from Taiwan flew in a group of journalists, some of which were reporters from Reuters, CNN and AP. They were guided through various facilities on the island which Vietnam deems to be illegally built" by Taiwan.

Ba Binh is among the three biggest islands in the Spratly archipelago, which Vietnam claims sovereignty over. Vietnam has accused Taiwan of "illegally" seizing Ba Binh as it has continued to build up infrastructure on the island which now includes a hospital, lighthouse and a fishery support station among others facilities.

Taiwan has also invested more than $100 million to upgrade the islands runway and constructed a seaport which can shelter 3000-ton marine patrol ships, in addition to frequently sending marine patrols to the area.
A fire in Udon Thani, Thailand on March 23 has cost several Vietnamese families about $1 million in property damage after their shops were burnt to the ground.

Thirteen Vietnamese families were among those who lost homes or business in the fire, Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand Nguyen Tat Than told VnExpress this morning.

Thanh said most of the Vietnamese families had not purchased insurance, so only a few would be covered for their losses.

Officials from the Vietnam Embassy and Vietnam Consulate in Khonkaen city have already met with the families, and have made a formal request to local authorities to investigate the cause of the incident and provide assistance to those affected.

According to the consular department of the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand has agreed to give financial support to the victims and some humanitarian groups in Udon Thaini and the Thai-Viet business group have sent financial aid.

Ambassador Thanh said Vietnam would work with insurance companies to ensure that the interests of Vietnamese citizens were protected.
An Indian woman who was pictured covered in dust and blood after the Brussels attacks and made newspaper front pages around the world has been identified as an Indian Jet Airways employee.

The brother-in-law of the woman, Nidhi Chaphekar, told AFP Wednesday that he and his brother were set to fly out from Mumbai to join her in Brussels where she was hospitalised

A haunting photograph of a dazed Chaphekar covered in debris, that surfaced soon after two massive suicide blasts hit Zaventem Airport, became one of the most widely published images of the bombings.

The attacks, which also targeted a metro train in the city, left 31 people dead and 270 wounded.

In the photo, shared by millions on social media, the mother of two is seen in the tattered remains of her yellow Jet Airways jacket, missing a shoe and with blood running down her face.

"Depending on when the next earliest flight out of the country is, my brother and I will be leaving by tonight or tomorrow morning," the 40-year-old flight attendant's brother-in-law, Nilesh Chaphekar, told AFP by telephone.

"We haven't been able to speak to her directly yet. All we know is that she is in stable condition now. We have been kept informed by Jet (Airways)," he said, adding that "it has been a very traumatic experience".

Local media citing unnamed Jet Airways sources on Tuesday identified Chaphekar and another employee who was also hurt in the blasts as Amit Motwani.

The airlines in an official statement confirmed Tuesday that "two Jet Airways staff have sustained injuries in the explosion at Brussels airport", refraining to identify them with their full names.

"Based on latest updates from #Brussels, our colleagues Nidhi and Amit are recovering well. We look forward to welcome them home soon," the airline posted on Twitter Wednesday.

Many online have criticised the publishing and sharing of Chaphekar's photo, saying that her privacy should be respected.

"It's sad how insensitive media & SM (social media) is being, in broadcasting @jetairways's injured crew member's photo. Respect her privacy please!!!," tweeted Indian actress Gul Panag.

Separately, an Indian employee of Infosys is said to be missing in the aftermath of the attacks, the Bangalore-based software firm said Wednesday.

"We are trying to reach one employee with whom we have not been able to connect," the IT outsourcing firm said in a statement.

Infosys said it was in touch with the missing worker's family and authorities in the Belgian capital in an attempt to locate the employee.
ELKO  Rotary Club of Elko Desert Sunrise has welcomed three new members in recent weeks.

The heart of Rotary is our clubs  dedicated people who share a passion for both community service and friendship, said member Kerry Aguirre. Are you a new or established professional who wants to make positive changes in your own neighborhood and around the world? Becoming a Rotarian connects you with a diverse group of professionals who share your drive to give back to your community.

Learn more about Rotary in by visiting www.rotary.org or, join one of the two Elko Rotary Clubs as a guest. Aguirre may be reached at 397-1922, or email kerry.aguirre@gmail.com.

Donald Westfall

Donald Westfall is executive director of the Northeastern Nevada Museum. He received a BA in American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota and an MA in History (Museology) from Oklahoma State University. Westfall has been a museum director or historic site manager in Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. His areas of concentration have been aviation history and the history of the American West. Westfall has belonged to five other Rotary clubs, serving as president in one instance. He and his wife Sally, a newspaper reporter, have been married for 36 years. They previously lived in Reno and had hoped to return to Nevada, especially the rural northern part of the state.

Gail Ross

Gail Susana Ross, Manager of Biological and Ecological Sciences for Barrick, recently moved to Elko to more directly support Barricks initiatives to conserve sage-grouse habitat. Prior to her move to Elko Ross worked mainly on international wildlife conservation projects, mainly for the mining industry but also for NGOs and academic institutions as a project manager and field biologist. She studied agriculture, wildlife, fisheries & forestry in British Columbia and completed her MS at the University of Puerto Rico focused on amphibian conservation. Born and raised in Mexico, Ross enjoys much of the dancing, music and food of Latin America. She also enjoys spending time outdoors, exploring new places, and just sitting quietly with a good book.

Lucius Tjoa

Lucius Tjoa has been an Elko resident since 1981. He studied at Northern Nevada Community College and the University of Nevada Las Vegas and has worked in the collision industry since 1986. In 2001 Lucius opened Top Gun Collision Center and remains an active owner/operator. He has a daughter and enjoys traveling, fishing camping and cars.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

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Putin holds 'constructive' meeting with Kerry, praises Obamas leadership in Syria

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin say that cooperation between the two countries has been instrumental in achieving an unexpectedly successful cessation of hostilities in war-torn Syria. After an exhaustive discussion session with US Secretary of State John Kerry that lasted four hours on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed hope that this visit would help narrow gaps in Moscow and Washingtons positions on Syria and Ukraine crises. The current cessation of hostilities in Syria issue became possible largely owing to the position of US leadership, in particular that of US President Barack Obama,Putin said in his opening remarks at the meeting with Kerry. We understand that what we have managed to achieve on the Syrian track has only been possible thanks to the position of the political leadership of the United States, the position of President Obama, Putin told Kerry. Kerry said it is fair to say that cooperation between the United States and Russia has made it possible for Syrians to taste and smell what it means to have a reduction of violence and a resumption of some humanitarian aid deliveries after five years of bloodshed. "Mr. President," Kerry said to Putin, "I know you have ideas, and you've already made a very critical decision with respect to draw down forces in Syria. We obviously also have ideas on how we can now, most effectively, make progress in [the United Nations talks in] Geneva, and then the very serious and difficult work of the decision." Kerry also began the talks with Putin on a positive and optimistic note, saying: "I look forward much to the opportunity to be able to find a way forward, and frankly, ultimately to see if we can rebuild the relationship between the Untied States and Russia by proving we can solve some serious problems together and building from there." Russia has been opposed to the US-led clamour for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad ahead of fresh elections in the war-torn country. The latest round of Syrian peace talks ended in Geneva on Thursday. The UN has called for talks to resume on April 9. Kerry expressed the hope that the talks could allow the two countries to find a way to rebuild and strengthen the relationship between the US and Russia by proving that we can solve serious problems together. Kerry later tweeted to say talks with Putin were constructive. We obviously also have some ideas about how we can together, most effectively, make progress even deeper and then begin the very serious work regarding political transition process of Syria, Kerry said.
Opinion: People in the East believe that Europe is indebted to them

Suren Manukyan, an expert in Oriental studies, the recent terrorist attacks in European cities are blamed on the refugee crisis and malfunctioning of security systems. While Manukyan admits the existence of the two factors, he says terrorism has much deeper roots. Terrorist attacks in Paris or Brussels were not unprecedented. Before that, there were similar attacks in London in 2005 and in Madrid in 2013. But there was no refugee crisis then. I think it is political or ideological crisis that leads to such collisions. Such terrorist acts would regularly be carried out in Europe irrespective of the fact whether there was a conflict in Syria or not. The expert says after moving to Europe refugees will be unable to integrate into the life of these countries and will continue to observe their customs and traditions. The bases of today's European civilization are resources brought from the East. People in the East think that Europe is indebted to them and they ask themselves why they cannot live in a better country, especially in a place which has progressed with their resources. And here come preachers who collect these people, he said. Mr manukyan says there is not a single security system that can prevent a planned terrorist attack. The only thing to do is to fight against the nourishing environment so that it will not prepare people for carrying out terrorist attacks, he said.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

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Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

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OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh

USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens

ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression
Who closed Baghramyan Avenue - demonstrators or police officers? (video)

Ernest Avanesov, a member of the No to Plunder civil initiative, again repeated at the Administrative Court that on September 11, 2015 those peacefully protesting the hike in electricity rates marched towards the beginning of Baghramyan Avenue where encountered a wall of police. The avenue was, in fact, blocked by the police and not demonstrators and the demand to open the avenue was hence illegal. I am accused of heeding the legal instructions of policemen who unlawfully cordoned off the way, given the calls of demonstrators who urged them to open the way they had blocked illegally, Ernest Avanesov told A1+. He says they were subjected to violence during detention. The police pushed us and rolled our arms. There were women lying on the ground and if someone came up to them to help, representatives of relevant police units immediately detained that person, he said. The member of the No to Plunder coordinating committee says the participants of the spontaneous march wanted to make their voice audible to Serzh Sargsyan, therefore they decided to march to the Presidential Palace situated at 26 Baghramyan Avenue. Police Major Marta Meliksetyan says that the Yerevan Municipality had specified a legal route for the September 11 march and demonstration but that some participants had left the official route and did not comply with police instructions. Meliksetyan says the police issued statements in advance that the actions of march participants were illegal. At the same time, she admitted that Ernest Avanesov was subjected to physical violence during detention. Attorney Hayarpi Sargsyan has filed a counterclaim. She says the police did not even mention in their complaints which of their legal demand her client failed to obey and how much money is demanded, hence the charges should be dropped. She also demands to recognize the actions against Ernest Avanesov as unlawful. Policemen seized Avanesov off the sidewalks. The police representative says they repeated asked the demonstrators to free Bagramyan Avenue and then pushed many off the avenue onto the sidewalk, and detained some of them. During the next hearing the court will examine the existing evidence.
Azerbaijan announces surprise amnesty

Analysts say that a mass prisoner amnesty in Azerbaijan may be intended as a concession ahead of President Ilham Aliyevs upcoming visit to the US, where Congress is considering sanctions against senior regime figures. More than a dozen political prisoners were among the 148 detainees pardoned by a presidential decree signed on March 17, on the eve of the spring Novruz holiday. They included the prominent human rights defenders Anar Mammadi and Rasul Jafarov as well as figures from the opposition Musavat party including deputy chairman Tofig Yagublu. International bodies including the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) welcomed the amnesty. This is a positive, welcome step by Azerbaijan in relation to the countrys OSCE commitments, said Michael Georg Link, director of the organisations office for democratic institutions and human rights, in a March 19 press release. But Link noted that many other human rights defenders were still at risk. I would call on the authorities to review the cases of others either currently imprisoned or under such restrictive orders, including Intigam Aliyev, Khadija Ismayilova, Ilgar Mammadov and Ilkin Rustamzada, he said. Four members of the NIDA youth organisation - Rashadat Akhundov, Mammad Azizov, Rashad Hasanov and Omar Mammadov  were also freed. NIDA board member Ulvi Hasanli said that while he was delighted by the release of his colleagues, much more remained to be done. There is a need for fundamental changes in the country, freedom of assembly, the media  Arresting people on false charges, then to pardon them after five to six years and release them cannot be considered an example of humanitarianism, Hasanli told IWPR. Repression has been on the rise ever since the last presidential election in October 2013. Dissenting journalists, rights activists and opposition politicians have been harassed or imprisoned, while international NGOs have had to close their offices. Many in the West have condemned these measures. In mid-December, Republican lawmaker Chris Smith introduced a landmark bill in the House of Representatives that would deny US visas to senior members of the Azerbaijani government and their relatives due to Bakus human rights violations. Akif Gurbanov, head of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives, theorised that Aliyev had pardoned the political prisoners to avoid Azerbaijan being hit by sanctions. On March 31, Ilham Aliyev is to take part in the [nuclear] security summit, which takes place in America, Gurbanov told IWPR. The president could not go to such an important event empty-handed because the results could be very bad for the authorities. Therefore, Ilham Aliyev decided to show an act of  humanitarianism and release a number of political prisoners. Unfortunately, this is just for show for the West, but in fact the authorities are not prepared for national reconciliation, he concluded. Only 10 per cent of the political prisoners were released, agreed Ogtay Gulaliyev, head of the social alliance Azerbaijan Without Political Prisoners, according to the news website panorama.am. Fresh arrests were made regularly, he continued. That is why the number of the political prisoners in Azerbaijan has remained at around 100 for five or six years already, Gulaliyev said. As if to illustrate this process, another opposition figure was sentenced to three years in jail just before the amnesty. Mammad Ibrahim, an adviser to the leader of Azerbaijans opposition Popular Front Party, was found guilty of hooliganism by a district court in Baku on March 15. Ibrahim, who was arrested last September, pleaded not guilty and said the case against him was politically motivated. On the day the amnesty was announced, the appeals court in Baku threw out the six-year jail term handed to journalist Rauf Mirkadirov last December on charges of spying for Armenia. Mirkadirov was detained in Turkey in April 2014, where he worked as the correspondent of the Baku-based Russian-language Zerkalo (Mirror) daily, and deported to Azerbaijan. He was released directly from the courtroom last week after being handed a five-year suspended sentence. As he left, he told reporters that he rejected the charges against him and would fight for his full rehabilitation. Neither during the investigation nor in court was any proof presented of my treason, my collaboration with the special services of Armenia, he said. The rational of the prosecution was fully denied by my lawyers. The main thing is that in my social and journalist activity, I did not communicate with the special services of any country, His lawyer, Fuad Agayev, told Meidan TV that they had asked for a full acquittal. We do not agree with the sentence. Although this sentence is better than the first - at least Rauf was released, he said. Human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus were also accused of espionage for Armenia and detained in April 2014. According to their indictments, Leyla Yunus recruited individuals who provided a variety of information to the Armenian security services. Mirkadirov was allegedly one of them. In August 2015, Leyla Yunus was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail and her husband Arif to seven years, later reduced for both to five years on probation. However neither have been allowed to leave the country to seek urgent medical treatment Their condition is very serious, said their lawyer Elchin Sadigov, who is to lodge an appeal. The illnesses of both can be life threatening. Gurbanov said that the cases of Mirkadirov and the Yunuses illustrated how the regime was only willing to make gestures towards change. The authorities of the country maneuver as always and do not show their true intentions. To free Mirkadirov and not acquit him, release Leyla and Arif Yunus and not let them out of the country, to pardon those political prisoners who have already served a lot of time, he continued. To appease the west, the authorities of Azerbaijan are only ready for such a small compromise. The authorities are not even thinking about real change and about real democratisation. This article was originally published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (iwpr.net). Afgan Mukhtarli is an Azerbaijani journalist living abroad.
Armenian FM: There are no problems between Armenia and Georgia

Statement by Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian following the meeting with Foreign Minister of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze "I welcome Mikheil Janelidze, Foreign Minister of Georgia, who is paying an official visit to Armenia. We are always glad to host our Georgian friends. You are aware, that traditionally close partnership relations have been established over the years between the representatives of the governments of two neighbouring states, directed towards strengthening and deepening of relations between our states. The meetings of foreign ministers create good opportunity in this respect. To say that the relations between Armenia and Georgia are friendly, means to say very little. Everything, which characterizes each of our peoples, is closely interconnected. This is not a coincidence, as we live side by side for over thousands of years. This is a time-tested friendship, based on mutual respect. Those relations between the two countries keep expanding and deepening, also with such a connecting link as are the Georgian-Armenians. It is always useful for the MFAs of the states located in the same geopolitical environment to exchange thoughts on pressing international and regional issues. Regarding bilateral relations, as mentioned on numerous occasions and I would like to reiterate in the presence of the new Foreign Minister of Georgia, that there are no problems between Armenia and Georgia, there are issues that are being solved through joint efforts. During our today's negotiations we discussed the process of implementation of agreements, made by the Presidents of our countries, numerous issues on the Armenian-Georgian agenda. There are nearly 7 dozen of agreements signed by our states, covering almost all the areas. This comprehensive legal basis, mutual interests and readiness create a firm ground for the development of bilateral relations. We also agreed to further facilitate consultations between the MFAs, cooperation within international organizations. Together with my Georgian counterpart we exchanged thoughts on the activity of Inter-governmental Committee. Those issues would be covered during today's meeting of RA Prime-Minister with Mr. Janelidze. We also reflected on the active inter-parliamentary cooperation. We discussed the development of transport infrastructure, issues of the cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and economy, tourism. We continue cooperation with Georgia in the preservation of Armenian cultural heritage. The presence of the leadership of Georgia together with the President of Armenia, Catholicos of All Armenians at the re-consecration ceremony of St. George Cathedral in Tbilisi, is its best evidence. I briefed my counterpart about the latest developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. In this regards, Georgia's support to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs efforts, which is the only internationally mandated format, for exclusively peaceful settlement of the issue is important. Mr. Janelidze, I am glad to welcome you in the new premises of the MFA of Armenia, as you are the first foreign high-ranking guest, we make press statements with. It is my pleasure to share this moment with the representative of friendly Georgian people. Now, I would like to pass the floor to my counterpart," Edward Nalbandian said.
The program started in 2011 in 10 Middle Eastern and North African countries and seven countries/territories in Asia.

Last years event in Binh Duong province was a huge success, reaching 3,985 primary kids. Within one year, besides book delivery to schools, teacher training and competitions for children and teachers, four community events were organised, involving with 240 parents and 483 students. 84% of attending children found that reading English story books is good and listening to English stories is fun".

In the very first year, Vietnam ranked number one among seven countries/territories in the East Asia region (including Bangladesh, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) in the number of children participating in the Kids Read project. Apart from encouraging them to read and enjoy reading in English, the program also focused on teacher training to help teachers to increase their storytelling skills and integrate Kids Read activities into their current curriculum.

Ms Luong Thi Thanh Thao, teacher at Dinh Hoa primary school (Binh Duong province), said: Before attending this project, I rarely used stories in classrooms. The teaching and learning atmosphere was not very exciting and my students were not active. Their pronunciation was also not good. Thanks to Kids Read, I have learnt to become more active, enthusiastic and confident. The project helped me to create more meaningful activities and a friendly learning atmosphere. My teaching became more effective; and I can now approach more students and help them more with their weaknesses.

This years event will set up libraries in six primary schools and provide 216 story books to each school. The library is a resource for schools to proactively organise reading sessions for children and for teachers to embed creative reading activities in their regular teaching.

According to Cherry Gough, Director of the British Council Vietnam, Kids Read encourages primary students to read for pleasure both in the classroom and at home by giving them access to the very best of UK childrens books.

Reading for pleasure both inside and outside the classroom is one of the best ways of developing childrens English language skills.

In 2016, around 21 teachers and nearly 4,000 pupils in six primary schools in Hanoi will participate in the project with activities including teacher training; reading sessions, competitions and community events and the six schools will be equipped with over 1,200 books.

Thousands more will benefit from community activities run by HSBC volunteers such as reading and story-telling sessions and workshops for parents.

All the studies show that reading for pleasure not only impacts on reading achievement but also increases general knowledge (both from fiction and non-fiction), a better understanding of other cultures, community participation and a greater insight into human nature and decision-making as books show you other lives, and ways of behaving./.
The seminar scene (Source: VNA)

Speaking at the event, Indian Ambassador to ASEAN Suresh K. Reddy said that India has cooperated strongly with ASEAN countries in the fields of economics, trade and infrastructure. It has poured capital in building 152,000km of expressways, and has invested USD140 billion in building railways over the next 5 years in ASEAN.

Intensifying relations with ASEAN is the focus of Indias Look East policy, promulgated in 1991 and currently known as the Act East policy.

The two sides upgrading of their comprehensive dialogue partnership to a strategic partnership and their approval of a Vision Statement in 2012 marked an important road map to development, towards a sustainable relationship for peace and prosperity, he added.

Ambassador Nguyen Hoanh Nam, head of the Vietnam delegation to ASEAN, pledged that with its role as a coordinator for ASEAN-India relations, Vietnam will coordinate with other ASEAN nations and India to seek new measures to further develop ASEAN-India ties.

At the seminar, delegates discussed challenges, opportunities, and the cooperation potential of the current ASEAN-India relations.

They also suggested ways to ensure close connectivity among governments and intensify exchanges among people and businesses.

ASEAN is now Indias fourth largest trade partner with an average annual growth of 22 percent in the past 10 years. Two-way trade reached USD76.52 billion last year./.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
Ukrainian steel companies in 2016 could increase steel smelting by 15% compared to 2015, to 26.5 million tonnes if the ongoing production pace is kept.

"We see growth by some 15% in the first two months of the year and 22 days of March. If the trend retains, we will produce 26.5 million tonnes of steel this year," Head of Ukraine's Federation of Metallurgists Serhiy Bilenky said at a roundtable held in the profile parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

Representatives of metal companies said that a shortage of scrap metal could entail the decrease in steel smelting. They urged the government, particularly, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, to use a statesmanlike approach to the provision of Ukrainian metal producers with scrap metal and not to stimulate its exports.

The Metallurgprom association (Dnipropetrovsk) told Interfax-Ukraine that a stable trend of boosting steel production has been seen in the past months.

"Daily production in January was more than in December. In February it was more than in January and in March smelting increased more," Metallurgprom said.
Ukraine will export cold cuts of meat to Israel, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has reported on its website, referring to Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko.

"From now on Ukrainian farmers can supply cooled meat to the Israeli market. The agreements on beef and poultry supplies to the Israeli market have been achieved," the minister said at a meeting.

He said that the negotiations on resumption of egg supplies from Ukraine to Israel, which were halted in January this year due to unfounded worries about salmonella, were successful.

Ukrainian companies are ready to resume egg deliveries to Israel next week.

The minister expressed confidence that by the end of the year Ukraine will be able to sign a free trade agreement with Israel.
Trilateral gas talks may be held no earlier than April

Trilateral gas negotiation between Ukraine, the European Union and Russia may take place no earlier than April, Naftogaz Ukrainy Head Andriy Kobolev said in Kyiv on Friday.

"The talks are likely not to be held this month. We are waiting for the Gazprom's response. It is likely that it will be in April," he said.

Kobolev said that the European Commission has sent a letter with a proposal to hold a meeting with Ukraine and Russia, but Russia has not responded.

He said that Russia could be waiting for the reshuffling of the Ukrainian government.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is waiting for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approves the prices of gas extracted by Ukrgazvydobuvannia, the gas that will be sold to households for generate heat, a source in the Ukrainian government has told Interfax-Ukraine.

The source said that this decision is an important step for completing the second revision of the IMF-supported Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program for Ukraine.

The IMF asked to accelerate resolving the issue in the middle of March. The fund said that the step was agreed in the memorandum signed in July 2015.

Energy and Coal Industry Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said on March 18 that the government had not yet decided on the increase of gas prices for households from April. He said that the memo signed with the IMF really implies the increase of gas prices for households from April 1, 2016 to the level equal to 75% of the price of imported gas.

Naftogaz Ukrainy Head Andriy Kobolev said on March 23 that the Cabinet of Ministers had not yet prolonged the duty of Naftogaz to form the gas reserve for households. The term for granting the duty expires on March 31, 2016. He said if the cabinet does not issue the resolution, the holding would have to sell all its gas on the market at the market prices, including to households and heating supply companies.
The joint efforts towards the restoration of peace in Ukraine and Syria can help restore Russian-U.S. relations, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

He noted the importance of dialogue and joint work in an interview with the Rossiya-24 (VGTRK) television channel. It is important that the leaders plan steps they can take in the interests of their people, Kerry said.

Things will be much better for the people of Russia if peace is restored in Ukraine and Syria, he said. Besides, this can help markedly refresh relations between the United States and Russia so that they could work together on the resolution of any conflicts they encounter, Kerry said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has accused the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People's Republics of systematically violating the ceasefire in Donbas.

Speaking in an interview with the Rossiya 24 (VGTRK) television station on Friday, Kerry said that the separatists have hardly ever ceased fire over the course of the negotiating process. Today they continue to use even heavy artillery weapons, he added.

There is a list of things that the separatists ought to do, and the American side believes that Russia is able to influence their implementation, Kerry noted.
The defense lawyer for Russian military serviceman Alexander Alexandrov, Yuriy Hrabovsky, has been found killed; his suspected murderers have been apprehended, the Ukrainian National Bar Association has said.

"We have heard the tragic news today. Lawyer Yuriy Hrabovsky has been found murdered. The suspects have been detained, and we hope that everyone involved in the killing of our colleague will be punished," the Ukrainian National Bar Association wrote on Facebook on Friday.

As reported earlier, Kyiv's Holosiyivsky District Court on March 9 rescheduled hearings in a criminal case against two Russian special security force officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, due to absence of lawyer Hrabovsky. The whereabouts of Hrabovsky, born in 1972, have not been known to police since March 5, 2016, Odesa regional police spokeswoman Darya Yarchuk said.

On March 20, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General and chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios announced the arrest of a suspect in organizing the lawyer's disappearance. He said the operation had been planned by "former Ukrainians" and Russian intelligence agencies "for creating a picture" at the final stage of the hearings in the case against the two Russians.

The following day, Matios said there was information that foreign intelligence agencies had been plotting to kill Yerofeyev and Alexandrov in central Kyiv, and that the decision to eliminate them was made because kidnapping them did not appear possible to the foreign intelligence agencies.
Former director of the Center for Education Quality Assessment Ihor Likarchuk has stated that claims of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) against him regarding embezzlement of state and budget funds and falsification of results of the External Independent Testing were groundless.

"The budget of the Centre had funds to pay bills, salaries and to hold External Independent Testing. On one occasion funds were allocated for the reconstruction of the abandoned premises and also for the purchase of equipment in 2006. During this time, there were two audits in the Center carried out by Ukraine's Accounting Chamber, which revealed no embezzlement of funds," Likarchuk said at a press conference in Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

The Center never received funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on its accounts, Likarchuk said, noting that claims of PGO with this respect were baseless

Likarchuk also stressed that a scrutiny of the results of the External Independent Testing, which Ukraine's Education and Science Ministry initiated, couldn't be a reason for expulsion of students.

As reported earlier, in July 2015 Ukraine's Security Service identified and stopped the Center's officials from making unauthorized changes to the "Register of persons who have passed the External Independent Testing." As part of the criminal proceedings, a number of searches were conducted in the Centre and its computers were seized. A technical expertise is expected in June 2016.

Likarchuk said he was resigning on September 17.

Two students were expelled from higher educational institutions for using falsified External Independent Testing certificates.
Results of the polygraph test for Azov-Crimea Civil Corps Chief Stanislav Krasnov have revealed that he collected intelligence information and supplied it to Russian secret services in exchange for money, Chief of Ukraine's Security Service Vasyl Hrytsak said.

He made these comments at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

According to the polygraph test, Krasnov also received salary from Russian secret services, as well as funds to organize terror attacks in Ukraine, Hrytsak said.

Krasnov concealed his activities from Ukrainian security services in the interests and on the instructions of the Russian secret services, the SBU chief added.

Besides, Krasnov and his agent discussed organization of terror attacks in Kyiv city center, namely an explosion in the building of SBU Main Directorate. They also mentioned bombing of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, Cabinet of ministers, as well as Presidential administration, Hrytsak said.

Krasnov also handed a gun to a Russian citizen who used it during the so-called Russian Spring in Mykolaiv, Hrytsak said, referring to testimony.
Former Head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management of Ukraine Vladyslav Kaskiv, who is suspected of embezzlement of public funds, has been put on a wanted list and his property seized, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

"Kaskiv has been put on a wanted list. He is suspected of committing offenses under Part 5 of Article 191 and Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The court ruled to put Kaskiv, who has been hiding abroad for a long time, on a wanted list and seize his property," the interior minister wrote on Facebook on Friday.

According to Avakov, the department for the economy protection of the National Police of Ukraine together with the Prosecutor General's Office probed one of the episodes of the illegal activities of Kaskiv, who headed the State Agency for Investments and National Projects Management under President Viktor Yanukovych.

"We are talking about the embezzlement of public funds in 2012-2013 to the tune of UAH 7.5 million under a contract signed by Kaskiv for the provision of advertising services with Hlorya Ltd., which turned out to be bogus," the minister said.

He also stressed that they were investigating several other episodes involving the embezzlement of public funds in large amounts.

As reported, in May 2015, the Main Investigation Department of the Interior Ministry was investigating the embezzlement of state funds in the form of credits issued to Borzhava Resort LLC and Borisfen LLC which are affiliated with the top managers of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management. They looked into the fact of embezzlement of state funds issued as credits to Borzhava Resort LLC (UAH 165 million) and Borisfen LLC (UAH 94.2 million). The credit recipients were directly or indirectly related to the top managers of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management, including Vladyslav Kaskiv.

The Interior Ministry's Main Investigation Department conducted a pre-trial investigation against officials of the State Agency for Investments and National Projects Management under Article 191 of the Criminal Code (misappropriation, embezzlement of property or illegal seizure of property through abuse of office) and Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime).

In 2004, Kaskiv led the coordination center of the PORA civil campaign, which actively participated in the Orange Revolution. In 2005-2006, he was an advisor to then President of Ukraine Viktor Yuschenko. In 2009-2010, he was an advisor for foreign investment to them Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

From August 2010, he headed the working group on national projects of the Committee on Economic Reforms under then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. From December 2010 until March 2014 he headed of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects Management.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has created an organization committee to prepare and hold a meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank group member countries headed by the Netherlands in Kyiv on June 3 through June 5, 2016.

The decision is outlined in cabinet resolution No. 195-r of March 10, 2016.

According to the document, the organization committee includes the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) - head of the committee (under her consent), finance minister  deputy head of the organization committee, economic development and trade minister, deputy foreign minister, deputy culture minister and deputy interior minister.

The committee will also include deputy head of the State Guard department (under his/her consent), deputy infrastructure minister, deputy justice minister, deputy head of the State Border Service, deputy head of the Kyiv City Administration, deputy head of the department of state affairs (under his/her consent), first deputy head of the state committee for television and radio broadcasting, deputy director general of Boryspil International Airport (under his/her consent) and deputy director general of Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany, under his/her consent) and a representative of the cabinet's secretariat.
Deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine and chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios has said citing preliminary information that Yuriy Hrabovsky, a lawyer for Russian military serviceman Alexander Alexandrov, was killed with the use of firearms.

"I can say tentatively that lawyer Hrabovsky was shot with firearms," Matios said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.

Matios said that the evidence of the murder was destroyed at the crime scene: the clothes, which the two killers wore, and the cash, which was paid for the crime.

In his words, they tried to create an illusion of Hrabovsky's departure from Ukraine allegedly to Egypt. There were reports that the lawyer cannot return to Ukraine due to harassment and threats, which according to the chief military prosecutor, was not true.

Matios said that investigators were checking which psychotropic substances were used on Hrabovsky to bring him from Odesa to Kyiv, and then to deliver him to the area of Zhashkiv, Cherkasy region, where he was killed.

In addition, the prosecutor said that the captors used a special bracelet which was attached to Hrabovsky's leg. According to the detainees, the lawyer was told that this was the bracelet full of explosives, which could be activated at any attempt on his part to report his abduction.

The chief military prosecutor also thanked Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak for providing the best experts for this operation  the three men who, according to Matios, earlier caught former head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's external surveillance department Oleksiy Pukach, who was convicted for the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze in 2000.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has proposed that parliament lifts a ban on timber exports and settles the market with the help of the introduction of timber auctions.

This is outlined in bill No. 4286 registered in parliament on March 22.

An explanatory note attached to the bill says the 10-year moratorium to export timber passed last year is not in line with Ukraine's liabilities under the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the conditions for providing international macro-financial assistance to the country.

The government said that the problem of the timber exports ban should be resolved from different points. The interagency working group headed by Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Natalia Mykolska has drawn up this legislative measure.

Along with lifting the moratorium the document envisages measures to combat the shadow timber market. This could be accomplished by the introduction of timber auctions. First timber will be offered at auctions to residents. Timber that will not be sold at the auctions will be offered to nonresidents.

Mykolska wrote on her Facebook page that the document was drawn up jointly with NGO Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO).

Residents will not be able to export timber bought at auctions. Timber will come to Ukrainian producers.
A second person suspected of involvement in the murder of lawyer Yuriy Hrabovsky, who represented Russian intelligence officer Alexander Alexandrov, was detained in Odesa region on Thursday morning and subsequently showed the site where Hrabovsky was killed and buried, Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios has said.

"Yesterday morning, as a result of the scrupulous and intense work done by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)...together with investigators of the Military Prosecutor's Office and the Odesa branch of the SBU, another person was detained, in addition to the one arrested more than a week ago, one of the men involved in the disappearance of lawyer Hrabovsky," Matios said at a press briefing on Friday.

The second suspect was detained in Odesa region and told investigators about the site where Hrabovsky was buried, as well as the circumstances of the lawyer's murder, he said.

Those suspected of involvement in the lawyer's murder are citizens of Ukraine, and a fake special services officer ID has been confiscated from one of them, he said.

"After the site where Hrabovsky was buried in an abandoned collective farm garden, 27 kilometers from the town of Zhashkiv [Cherkasy region], was shown, we immediately found the slain man's body as soon as we began digging at the site pointed to by the criminal at 4:00 a.m.," Matios said.

An examination of the scene of the incident continues, and investigative measures involving forensic experts and other specialists are being taken, he added.
The trial of Russian intelligence officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov will continue and will be brought to its end despite the killing of lawyer Yuriy Hrabovsky, Anatoliy Matios, deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine and chief military prosecutor, said.

Yerofeyev and Alexandrov still have the right to defense, despite what happened. "A court hearing is scheduled for April 5. It will take place under any circumstances and all security mechanisms will be observed on the Russian citizens," Matios told a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.

Matios reiterated that Ukraine intends to ensure that the Ukrainian court give its decision and hand out its sentence to the Russians as soon as possible using procedural and lawful methods.

"And then political and procedural decisions will be made, which will make it possible to return Nadia Savchenko, who is innocent and was unjustly convicted, in accordance with international conventions, if the Russian Federation agrees to that," Matios said.
Weaponry due to be pulled back actively used in Donbas this week, OSCE mission not permitted to enter Yasynuvata

Small arms and heavy weapons, which under the Minsk agreements were due to be withdrawn from the contact line, have been actively used in the disengagement area in southeastern Ukraine over the past week, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) deputy head, Alexander Hug, said.

On Wednesday, outside the railway station in Yasynuvata, OSCE SMM monitors recorded 178 explosions, at the same time, they did not take into account shots by light weapons and machineguns, he said at a Skype conference on Friday.

On Thursday, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) actually refused to permit an OSCE SMM patrol to travel to Yasynuvata, another hot spot in the road between the Luhanske and Debaltseve localities; the monitors heard 40 blasts and shots by mortars and grenade launchers outside Svitlodarsk on Wednesday, he said.

The mission's deputy head said that under these circumstances, patrolling was risky. On Tuesday, an explosion went off 50 meters away from the monitors in Yasynuvata, a bullet hit a metallic strip 10 meters away from the OSCE SMM members, and another bullet hit the ground three meters in front of them in Zaitseve, he said.

In this regard, he said that the monitors were not armed and were not participants in the conflict.

The OSCE SMM in Ukraine is 723 people strong, including 608 who are staying in eastern Ukraine, as of Friday, Hug said.
Thanks to the monitors of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) in Ukraine, the water supply has been restored for nearly 400,000 residents in the area of Donetsk over the past week, OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said.

The water supply has been restored for nearly 400,000 residents in the localities around Donetsk and in parts of the city, Hug said at a Skype conference on Friday.

He said that the special filter plant has not operated before the OSCE SMM interference, because the repair brigades could not go there due to constant shell attacks.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has found no explosive device on board the plane flying from Dubai to Kyiv.

"SBU didn't find a bomb on the board the aircraft Dubai-Kyiv," reads the report of the SBU press centre posted on Twitter account on Friday.

SBU chief Oleksandr Tkachuk on Friday told Kyiv-based 112 TV channel that Ukrainian security services detained two Russians after receiving a report about an explosive device aboard the plane flying from Dubai to Kyiv.

"There were 149 passengers on board, one kid and seven members of the crew. Immediately after landing one of the passengers reported that there was an explosive on the plane and that he intended to detonate it," Tkachuk said.

He said the appropriate law-enforcement agencies promptly responded to this information.

"The aircraft has been pulled to an extra parking place, all passengers have been evacuated," he said. The Russian citizen who reported the bomb and another citizen of Russia involved are under arrest.

For its part, Kyiv airport press secretary Halyna Bohdanenko told the channel that the passenger, who reported about alleged bomb, was drunk when he made the announcement about the bomb 10 minutes before the plane landed..

"Of course the plane was encircled, has been examined by the specialists for explosives. But nothing was found, and a passenger was arrested. The other passengers were registered for the next flight," she said.
Poroshenko asks Council of Europe for special mission to monitor situation of Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had a meeting with EU Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muiznieks during which he called to favor a release of Nadia Savchenko, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison, and other Ukrainian political prisoners detained in Russia.

"Criminal prosecution of Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in Russia is politically motivated and contradicts generally accepted legislative regulations and principles. These cases have similar features that prove the existence of a very dangerous trend," Poroshenko said during the meeting with Muiznieks according to his press service.

The president addressed the Council of Europe with a request to send a special mission to Russia to monitor the situation of Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia.

"We must use every opportunity to control the situation of imprisoned Ukrainians and impose other necessary mechanisms, particularly monitoring of Russia by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture," the president said.

In his turn, Muiznieks informed that he monitored the situation of Savchenko and other imprisoned Ukrainians.

The head of state informed on a disastrous humanitarian situation in Donbas caused by Russian armed aggression against Ukraine.

He emphasizes that Russia, as state-occupant, bears full responsibility for human rights violations in that region.

The president also expressed concern over the oppression and abduction of Crimean Tatars. The last flagrant example was the prohibition of the Mejlis, which contradicts all norms of the international law. The EU Commissioner noted: "I am concerned about the attempt to ban the Mejlis as an extremist organization. It will affect thousands of people who will be associated with extremists under Russian legislation and face oppression."

Poroshenko also thanked the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for imposing sanctions against Russia for its actions in Crimea and Donbas.
Judge of Ukraine's Supreme Economic Court Viktor Shvets has been detained while receiving illegal profit, the chief of Ukraine's State Security Service Oleksandr Tkachuk has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"Indeed, there is a criminal case under Article 368 on obtaining illegal benefits, actually a bribe, with respect to this judge," Tkachuk said, noting that Shvets was detained on Thursday night. However, the SBU official gave no details as to the amount of the bribe, saying that there were a few episodes in the case.

He added that a very large sum of money and a passport revealing Shvets's citizenship in another country were seized during a search.

Later Tkachuk stated on air of the 112 TV Channel that Shvets was on home arrest for the period of the investigation in his case.

Tkachuk said that $5,000 was seized from the judge at the scene, along with an obligation for $50,000. Some $375,000 obligation was found at a different location, and also money in cash.

"Some $200,000, EUR 20,000, and around UAH 1.5 million were seized from him [Shvets] in cash. Besides, an obligation worth $425, 000 was found," Tkachuk said on the 112 TV Channel.

At the same time, the press service of the Supreme Economic Court said that Judge Shvets was in the office and his detention hadnt been carried out.

There was a private conflict regarding civil law relations, the Court said, referring to Shvets's account.

Later the SBU told Interfax-Ukraine that the judge was detained and set free, as Rada's approval was needed for his prosecution.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that for the last year Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has managed to reveal and not to make over 200 terrorist attacks happened, which have mainly been prepared on the territory of Russian Federation.

Poroshenko participated in the solemn meeting of the SBU congratulating its personal staff and the leadership with the 24th anniversary, the president's press service reported on Friday.

The head of state stressed that the Security Service had been drastically changed for two years.

He said that in 2015 over 200 terrorist attacks had been prevented in Ukraine the majority of which were planned in Rostov and Belgorod regions.

"They planned terrorist attacks in Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and Lviv. Their purpose is to intimidate the country and destabilize the internal political situation. They are the key element of the hybrid war against Ukraine," he said.

According to the president, the service not just efficiently neutralizes, detains such terrorists, but also carries a good information campaign proving efficiency of its work.

The president also noted a participation of the SBU units in the anti-terror operation (ATO).
On Tuesday, March 29, at 12.30, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency's press center will host a press conference dedicated to the project "Advocacy, Human Rights Protection and Legal Assistance for IDPs", which is implemented by the All-Ukrainian Charity Foundation 'Right to Protection' together with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The press conference is entitled "Problems of Accounting of Internally Displaced Persons: How the State Complicates Lives of Refugees." The participants will include legal analyst at the All-Ukrainian Charity Foundation 'Right to Protection' Olena Vynohradova; Head of the regional office of the project in the northern part of Donetsk region Iryna Stepanova; and monitor of the regional office of the project in Zaporizhia region Hanna Butenko. Representatives of the Social Policy Ministry, the State Migration Service and the Pension Fund have been invited to take part in the press conference (8/5-A Reitarska Street). Accreditation is required by phone: (093) 147 2770 or email: v.fomenko@r2p.org.ua
Foreign Ministers From South Korea And France Vow To Work Together To Confront Nuclear Crisis In The North

South Korean foreign minister Yun Byung Se and France's minister of foreign affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault held a joint press conference at the Korea Furniture Museum in Seoul on Thursday, where to two government officials reaffirmed their country's cooperation in dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat.

"North Korea, from the outset of the year, is threatening the entire world with its fourth nuclear test, which was followed by the launch of a long-range ballistic missile," Yun said, a reference to a nuclear test conducted by Kim Jong Un's government on Jan. 6 and a rocket launch on Feb. 7, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

"In order to make North Korea realize that it can't survive by developing nuclear weapons and that it should sincerely choose the path to denuclearization, we need to put strong pressure on the North through the faithful implementation of the Security Council resolution. For this, South Korea plans to closely cooperate with France, which is a permanent member of the Security Council and a key nation of the EU."

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In addition to the nuclear threat, the South Korean foreign minister pointed to residents in the North risking death for a "life as humans" as proof of oppression from a fascist dictatorship.

"This strongly demonstrates, more than any words, the North Korean regime's oppressive rule and repressive human rights situation," Yun said.

Ayrault, in the Asian nation for three days, described a deeply affecting experience meeting North Korean defectors earlier in the day. He told the crowd of reporters that Pyongyang's recent aggression, including a threat earlier this week to reduce the South to "flames and ashes," as reported by the North's Korean Central News Agency, has only strengthened the bond between Seoul and Paris.

"This strengthens France's resolve that we should act together with South Korea, in the UN framework and in the EU framework, so that sanctions are effectively implemented and further strengthened to force the North Korean regime to step back and that, at last, we can put an end to this unbearable situation," he said.

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Wang Shouwen, vice-minister of commerce. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China's goal to enlarge its import volume over the next five years will stimulate services trade opportunities for developed countries as the government is offering wider market access to global companies, a senior official said on Thursday.

Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said the services sector has become an important driver for China's economic growth and has great significance for the next step in economic restructuring.

His comment came hours after Premier Li Keqiang told the annual Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province that China will import more than $10 trillion worth of goods and invest $600 billion overseas in the next five years.

Services trade refers to the sale and delivery of an intangible product, such as tourism, financial services and telecommunications services.

Thanks to China's rising domestic demand for insurance, culture, telecommunications and information service, the country's services import reached $424.81 billion in 2015, up 18.6 percent on a year-on-year basis, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

"We will import more service business from the United States in the long run, as its services market is quite mature and advanced," said Wang.

"They are also keen to invest in healthcare, environmental protection, pharmaceuticals, communication and information services in China, as well as in high-tech industries that are being developed more slowly than the overall pace of development."

Eager to enhance their earning abilities, US companies such as coffee chain Starbucks Corp plans to open 500 stores this year in China, its largest foreign market, and aims to create 10,000 jobs a year until 2019.

Uber Technologies Inc, the ride-hailing company based in the US, has also committed to invest 6.3 billion yuan ($1 billion) in China to diversify its business, which ranges from transportation services to automotive financing.

Even though China's foreign trade value fell to $3.96 trillion in 2015, down 8 percent year-on-year, its foreign trade in goods, export value and total online retail sales ranked first in the world. The country's total retail sales and trade in services ranked second globally during the same period.

Josette Sheeran, president of the Asia Society, a nonprofit organization based in New York, said as global economic competition is more intensifying this year, opening more services sectors would provide more opportunities for increased foreign direct investment in China and help contribute to the government's goal of growing the services industry.

"As Chinese companies carry out a 'going global' strategy to expand their global presence, they can certainly partner with European and US companies to gain efficient financing, legal and risk management services," said Lin Guijun, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.
BEIJING, March 24 -- China has confirmed it will send military vessels to participate in a multinational naval drill in the Pacific, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

"The United Stateshas offered an official invitation to China to join in the RIMPAC-2016 joint exercise, and China has confirmed it will send military ships to take part in the drill," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

"China and the U.S. are in close communication and coordination," Hua said.

Her comments came after U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday the U.S. is "reassessing" China's participation and that "China is, self-isolating... that's why all these partners are coming to us."

As an open, progressing country and with friendly policies to its neighbors, China has expanded its circle of friends, Hua said.

"When it comes to 'isolating', do the U.S. remarks expose their motives to form cliques to isolate China? This would neither be constructive nor realistic," she said.

China and the U.S. need to and can work on many things together, she said. "Mutual respect and win-win cooperation between China and the U.S. serves the interests of the people of both countries and will be conducive to peace, stability and development in Asia Pacific and the world at large."

The U.S.-led RIMPAC, starting in 1971, is the world's largest multinational maritime military exercise, involving some 20 countries every two years. China participated in the drill for the first time in 2014 with four military ships and about 1,100 soldiers on board.
The Shanghai real estate market went into a frenzy yesterday when 1,706 units of brand new residential properties were put up for sale. Every single property was sold within 24 hours. The surge of online transactions even led to network congestion on the city's housing contract filing system.

Last week, the average daily trading volume in Shanghai (including affordable housing) was only 800 units. Analysts said that yesterday's sudden surge indicated a sort of "last chance" mentality among many buyers.

In fact, Shanghai will unveil several revised policies today in a bid to cool the citys overheated housing market. The stricter policies are a response to the governments concern that an increasing number of residents are unable to cope with constantly rising prices.

The government will be stricter in defining whether or not a property is the buyers first home, and may raise the qualifications for non-residents to purchase a house in the city.

Possible new measures include a minimum 70 percent down payment for second-time home buyers if the property is defined as non-normal, or a minimum 50 percent down payment for second-time buyers who buy normal houses, Caixin magazine reported on its website.

In Shanghai, normal homes are those no larger than 140 square meters and priced at less than 4.5 million yuan (US$ 691,000) within the Inner Ring Road, below 3.1 million yuan between the Inner and Outer Ring roads, or below 2.3 million yuan beyond the Outer Ring Road, according to Shanghai Daily.

All second-time home buyers are currently required to pay a minimum 40 percent down payment no matter if they are buying normal or non-normal homes.
Attendants are in Financial Leaders Roundtable of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 24, 2016. (Photo from official website of Boao Forum for Asia annual conference 2016)

The Asian Financial Cooperation Association will be launched in July of this year, according to Yang Zaiping, a top official, in a recent interview with ThePaper.cn.

A total of 38 parties, including financial institutions from the U.S. and the E.U., are confirmed as future members of the association, Yang, executive vice-president of the China Banking Association, said on Thursday.

Yang explained that the association is a sort of friend circle for the finance industry, saying that members can not only exchange experiences but also discuss work that requires cooperation, such as trading and syndicated loans.

As a non-governmental organization, Yang said the association will be exceptionally familiar with the market and can find common areas of interests for its members, to the benefit of both parties. Yang also said that the association will be run according to the principles of joint development and joint governance.

During a seminar on the role of China's banking industry in the Belt and Road initiative on March 14, Yang said that relevant arrangements are already underway. A meeting of the founding member institutions will be held on March 25.

In his keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia on Thursday, China's premier, Li Keqiang, urged Asian economies to advance economic and financial cooperation, utilizing dialogue to ward off potential risks and contribute to world economic recovery. In particular, Premier Li proposed an Asian financial cooperation association to "improve markets and prevent financial turmoil."

Yang said that China first proposed the association last year in an effort to appeal to the financial industry. "Currently, global finance is governed primarily by rules established by European economies and the U.S., but those rules may not be suitable for Asian economies," Yang said.

"It is no good for Asia and no good for the stability of international finance if Asia doesnt have a voice," Yang added. "The association is a very necessary platform.

Yang said in the interview that at least 50 members are needed to launch the association. The meeting held on March 25 will discuss initiating a letter of intent. After the meeting, a constitution will be set and member institutions will be confirmed.

Wellington Fund from the U.S., as well as Hungary's Banking Association, the Czech Banking Association and the Union of Arab Banks will all attend the meeting for founding institutions," promised Yang.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is a leading government investment bank that undertakes practical works, and the upcoming association is being launched to serve as a platform for public demands and coordinate the Belt and Road initiative, Yang said.
Russia, U.S. reach some consensus on Syria, but not on bilateral ties

MOSCOW, March 25 -- Russia and the United States have reached some consensus on Syriaduring U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit, but relations are far from thawing so long as the sanctions on Russia are not lifted.

During his two-day visit, Kerry held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putinand Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Syria, the situation in the Korean Peninsula and ties between their two countries.

The two sides agreed that further talks will be focused on details of Syria's political transition, including a framework and a draft constitution, among other issues.

The political transition in Syria is the best and perhaps the only way to end the war, Kerry told a press conference late Thursday night.

The agenda of further talks would include a timetable "for establishing a framework for political transition and also a draft constitution, both to be finished by August," said Kerry, who arrived here on Wednesday.

Kerry and Lavrov outlined specific objectives on which Russia and the United States agreed to cooperate.

On settlement of the Syrian crisis, the two sides would take steps to reinforce cessation of hostilities and end the use of indiscriminate weapons.

The two countries agreed to work to "finalize a common understanding for how this cessation can be institutionalized" and work "more effectively," Kerry said.

Moreover, Russia and the United States agreed to use their influence to facilitate the direct talks between the Syrian government and opposition forces, as well as to push for the release of detainees and the delivery of humanitarian goods.

On bilateral relations, Kerry repeated that anti-Russia sanctions will only be lifted when the Minsk agreement is fully implemented.

The agreement, signed in the Belarusian capital city in February 2015 with the mediation of Franceand Germany, calls for a ceasefire along with a range of political, economic and social measures aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov expressed Russia's readiness to cooperate with the United States on an equal basis, warning of "counter-productivity of the trend to destabilize the foundation of Russian-American relations."

But they agreed to establish regular review of bilateral relations, cooperate on combating cyberspace crimes and intensify dialogue on global security, said Lavrov.

Kerry's visit showed that Russia and the United States have minimized certain contradictions, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for International Studies in National Research University's High School of Economics, told Xinhua on Thursday.

Prospects of a really constructive cooperation have become tangible, though a huge number of problems remained to be solved, Suslov said.

"I assess this visit as an indication of real willingness of the United States to work on a real political settlement of the Syrian conflict," he said.

The two sides also discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Lavrov said that "irresponsible actions" of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) must not be used as an excuse for any military build-up in Northeastern Asia.

This is Kerry's first visit to Russia so far this year and the third in 12 months.
MANILA, March 25 -- The Philippine government said Friday it had released a cargo ship of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The cargo ship was impounded early this month following the sanctions on the DPRK imposed by the United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC) against.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said it received a directive from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to allow MV Jin Teng to release the 4,355 metric gross tonnage ship, which had been held in Subic port in northern Philippine province of Zambales since March 3.

The DPRK freighter, along with its 21 crew members, left Subic on Thursday, the PCG said.

"At the policy level, there is no longer any basis to continue to hold MV Jin Teng after UNSC delisted it from the Annex of UNSC Resolution 2270," said Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on March 2, imposing a raft of sanctions on the DPRK to curb the country's nuclear and missile programs after its recent nuclear test and satellite launch.
A cannon that loads sideways and has four times as much explosive power in being delivered to the British Army.

Dubbed the '40mm Cased Telescoped Cannon', it is the first system of its kind to be produced for Ministry of Defence for 50 years.

The main difference in this design is that the ammunition is contained in a straight tube instead of the traditional bullet shape.

A cannon that loads sideways and has four times as much explosive power, has just been delivered to the British Army. Dubbed the '40mm Cased Telescoped Cannon', it is the first system of its kind to be produced for Ministry of Defence for 50 years

This, according to its creators BAE Systems, allows it to deliver a more explosive charge.

Testing has seen it deliver up to four times the power of the 30mm rounds it replaces.

The current types of ammunition developed for the cannon include armour piercing and training rounds.

An airburst round for engaging light vehicles, and a point detonating round which can penetrate thick concrete, are currently undergoing testing.

CTAI, which is a formed by Nexter Systems of France and BAE, is also working on an anti-aerial airburst round for airborne targets.

The main difference in this design is that the ammunition is contained in a straight tube instead of the traditional bullet shape. This, according to its creators BAE Systems, allows it to deliver a more explosive charge. Testing has seen it deliver up to four times the power of the 30mm rounds it replaces

BAE Systems says the delivery is the first of 515 40mm cannons will be the British Army's Warrior (pictured) and Ajax armoured fighting vehicles

The cannon uses a new rotating system, with ammunition loaded at a 90 degree angle to the barrel before being rotated into firing position.

Loading the ammunition sideways saves a large amount of space in the vehicle, allowing this to be used to store more ammunition or other equipment.

The new system has been in development since the 1990s.

BAE Systems says the delivery is the first of 515 40mm cannons will be the British Army's Warrior and Ajax armoured fighting vehicles.

Managing Director of CTAI, Craig Fennell, said: 'We are the only group in the world who can design and manufacture this type of cannon and ammunition, giving us a unique product for export.'
Chinese President Xi Jinping is to kick off an official visit to the Czech Republic on Monday, the first Chinese top leader to visit the country since the two established diplomatic relations 67 years ago, when the Czech Republic was part of Czechoslovakia.

Many expect the visit will bring the two countries closer together, and the days of ideological frictions and issues concerning Taiwan and the Dalai Lama will be set aside.

Not only on the national level, the development of bilateral relations has been reflected in people's lives. The stories of Czech families and their emotional attachment with China depict two countries that are getting to know each other better.

The He family

ZdenekHrdlicka, also known as He Zhida, has family links with China spanning four generations. His grandfather, known in Chinese as He Deli, and grandmother, He Dejia, were both famed sinologists and their names were given to them by GuoMoruo, a well-known Chinese writer and historian.

In April 1949, Guo visited the Czech Republic with China's cultural delegation and was befriended by He Deli and He Dejia. In 1950, He Deli became the first cultural counselor for the Czechoslovakian embassy in China. The couple bought hundreds of books during their stay in the country, which later became the start of the Lu Xun Library at the Czech Republic's Academy of Science.

Their son, He Huasheng, was also born during this period and they gave him his Chinese name. At that time, famous Chinese painter Qi Baishi even sent the newborn a painting.

He Deli and He Dejia are watching Qi Baishi painting. (Photo:provided by He Zhida)

Growing up under the influence of his grandparents, He Zhida chose sinology as his major at university and went to Nanjing to learn Chinese at his own cost. There, he met ZhengMinjia, a Chinese girl who later became his wife.

Now the couple have three children, whom they bring to China every summer holiday so they can learn Chinese and get familiar with the culture.

He Zhida and his children are learning Chinese character. (Photo: Guan Kejiang from Peoples Daily)

He Zhida played in a band at college and sang Chinese rock songs. The band has performed many times in China and still performs every year. His master's degree thesis mixed literature and music also, titled The Connection between Folk Songs in Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Chinese Culture in the 19th Century.

After graduation, He Zhida did many jobs related to translation. In 2014, he visited China as Czech President Milos Zeman's translator. As the relation between China and the Czech Republic is getting increasingly closer, he's putting all his energy into the translation between Chinese and Czech. He said he feel proud to be connected to China.
Police officers hold the buckets stuck with road safety slogans.[Photo from Sina Weibo]

In recent weeks, a new trend called "A4 waist challenge" has swept the Chinese social media, where women were holding a piece of A4 paper vertically to cover their waists, in a way to show off their trim waistlines. Here, a group of traffic police officers in Zigong city, Sichuan province followed the trend: posing behind water buckets with road safety slogans stuck on, to encourage people to obey the traffic rules, Sina.com.cn reported on Friday.

Police officers hold the buckets stuck with road safety slogans.[Photo from Sina Weibo]
Medical workers transfer a wounded Chinese citizen to an ambulance in Vientiane, Laos, on March 24, 2016. Six Chinese nationals were wounded in an attack on a cross-border passenger bus in northern Laos Wednesday night, the Chinese embassy said. (Xinhua/Liu Ailun)

VIENTIANE, March 25 -- One of the six Chinese nationals wounded in an attack on a cross-border passenger bus in northern Laos Wednesday night left for home by air for further treatment, sources said on Friday.

The Chinese man with a head injury was in critical condition after being shot by unidentified gunmen while travelling on a bus in Kasi, Vientiane province at around 9:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) on Wednesday.

Six Chinese men were wounded on the bus which was on its way from China's southwestern Yunnan province to Vientiane with 25 passengers and three drivers on board.

The wounded driver managed to drive the vehicle to safety and all of the injured Chinese nationals were sent to a local hospital for treatment.

The shooting is the latest violence which occurred in Laos this year. A Chinese national was killed and three others were wounded on March 1 in an attack on a Chinese-invested company by unidentified gunmen in Luang Prabang province.

On Jan. 24, two Chinese were killed and another one wounded in a bomb attack on a bus in Xaysomboun province.
(File photo)

A Chinese national named Su Bin pleaded guilty in the US on Wednesday to conspiring to hack into the computer networks of several major US defense contractors to obtain sensitive information, according to a US Department of Justice statement. The information allegedly includes technical files about F-22 and F-35 fighter jets and C-17 military transport aircraft.

The statement says "Su Bin admitted to playing an important role in a conspiracy, originating in China," where he has two accomplices. Some US media have conjectured that the two accomplices must be Chinese military personnel.

Su was arrested in Canada in July 2014, and was handed over to the US this February. The Chinese government has denied any involvement in Su's case, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked the US to ensure the privacy and legal rights of Chinese citizens on US soil.

Plea bargaining is a common US judicial practice. Defendants can plead guilty in exchange for softer punishments. The disadvantage of this practice is that it is hard to know what the defendants truly think, and whether there might be any wrongs in the judgments.

Every country is gathering intelligence. The largest and most well-known information-collecting agencies are the CIA and FBI in the US. The FBI has even listed China as their top target. Recent years have seen the FBI arresting quite a few "Chinese spies," but most of them proved to be innocent. In the meantime, China has kept a low profile in reporting the exposure of US spies out of various considerations.

In most cases, governments won't acknowledge these spies after they have been caught. For example, whenever China intercepted spies from Western countries, the governments they served routinely denied any connection and even mobilized the Western media to attack China's human rights and win over sympathy.

We have no reliable source to identify whether Su has stolen these secrets and transferred them to the Chinese government. If he has, we are willing to show our gratitude and respect for his service to our country. On the secret battlefield without gunpowder, China needs special agents to gather secrets from the US. As for Su, be he recruited by the Chinese government or driven by economic benefits, we should give him credit for what he is doing for the country.

If Su was wronged and forced to plead guilty, he should have our sympathy. As the "war of information" between China and the US continues, there will probably be more Chinese framed as spies and jailed in the US. This is a tragedy of the times, and we hope the Chinese working in sensitive professions in the US can protect themselves.

At the helm of international public discourse, the US is able to define whether certain activities are espionage or not. When US espionage is exposed, the US media will try to divert public attention and tone down the case. But when the CIA or FBI catches suspects, hyperbole about these cases makes headlines in US media.

The most infamous case is that of Edward Snowden, who revealed the global US surveillance program PRISM. The whistleblower is wanted by the US government, which refuses to reflect on its behavior, but keeps criticizing China for espionage without solid proof.

China lags behind the US in technology. The existence of US cyberspace military forces is openly known to the public, and its capability is way higher than Chinese "hackers." But it doesn't mean that China cannot fight back in the face of ill-founded US accusations of Chinese spies. China should uncover Washington's brazen hypocrisy with concrete evidence.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang(2nd R) holds a dialogue with entrepreneurs attending Boao Forum for Asia in Boao, South China's Hainan province, March 24, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Chinese government welcomes and encourages more participation from overseas enterprises in its economic transition, Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday.

Li made the remarks when meeting with representatives from enterprises, think tanks and the media at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.

During the one-hour closed-door conversation, Li listened to suggestions and problems raised during their work.

Takeshi Uchiyamada, chairman of Toyota Motor Corp, told Li that Toyota hopes to cooperate better with automobile companies in China on producing new energy vehicles.

Automobile companies in Japan started to deal with environmental issues earlier than China, and have gained rich experience to help Chinese companies in this regard, Uchiyamada said.

Li welcomed the idea, adding that China has always had an open attitude to companies from overseas, and the degree of such opening-up will advance.

"We now have subsidies for new energy automobiles, and such subsidies will be granted to overseas automobiles as well," he said.

In February, the State Council set out five measures supporting the development of the new energy vehicle industry. These included building a platform for innovation in developing batteries and awarding enterprises that make breakthroughs in battery research and sales.

Li learned from Li Shufu, chairman of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, that Toyota and Geely are working on hybrid technology that has been used in cars. Experienced engineers from Toyota have taken part in technical research for this work.

Li said diplomatic and economic relations between China and Japan will support each other, with both moving forward to a bright and broader future.

The transition in economic driving forces was a heated topic for discussion for Li and participants at the meeting.

Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, said he is positive about China's economic transition and industrial upgrading as he thinks the country is now on the right track.

Li, responding to a question on the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, said, "China's development has benefited from international financial institutions for many years, and China is a supporter of these financial institutions.

"The ... AIIB will work strictly under international regulations, aiming to support regional development. There is undoubtedly no reason for China to set up a system on its own."
On the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinpings three-day state visit to the Czech Republic next Monday, the People's Daily published a commentary on the visit, saying his trip will elevate China-Czech ties to a new high and inject impetus to collaboration between China and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC).

Xis visit, on invitation of Czech President Milos Zeman, will be the first by a Chinese head of state since the two nations established diplomatic ties 67 years ago.

The trip also arrives at a new stage in bilateral ties. The article illustrated that with bilateral trade volume in 2015 totaling at $11 billion, the Czech Republic is now Chinas second-largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is the largest trading partner of Czech Republic outside the EU.

In addition, the country is a major regionalinvestment destination for Chinese enterprises. China has invested over $700 million in the country, accounting for 14 percent of its total investment in Central and Eastern Europe.

As an industrial country, the Czech Republic boasts rich industrial resources, sound infrastructure and well-educated citizens, which offer huge potential for China-Czech collaborations in manufacturing, nuclear energy and infrastructure.

Moreover, historic opportunities in bilateral cooperation are abound in building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the commentary stressed.

Both sides signed a memorandum of understanding on building the routes last November.

Located at the center of Europe, theCzech Republic offers strong infrastructure in railway, road, air and sea transport. The construction of the routes will push cooperation to new highs by providing them unprecedented opportunities in docking their development strategies, plans and policies.

As a key to state ties, people-to-people exchanges between the two also flourish. For example, a seminar on Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, a book that outlines the full political ideas of the top leadership, was recently held for the Czech Chamber of Deputies.

After reading the book, both Chinese and Czech political heavyweights and scholars praised the wisdom of the Chinese leadership in solving domestic and international roadblocks.

The Chinese people also feel a connection to Czech culture. Books such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Good Soldier Svejkby Jaroslav Hasek are famous in China. Panda and Little Mole, a 52 episodes animation series produced by China and the Czech Republic, will soon be another product of their friendship.

This year also marks a year of China-CEEC people-to-people exchanges, which further provides opportunities for bilateral cultural communication, commented the article.

The rapid growth of China-Czech ties reflect Chinas closer ties with all the Central and Eastern European countries.

Over the last three years, from Warsaw to Bucharest, from Belgrade to Suzhou, 16+1 cooperation has been developing as fast as a high speed train.

Two important documents - the Mid-term Plan on China-CEEC Cooperation and the Suzhou Guidelines for China-CEEC Cooperation - were adopted last November, laying the roadmap for bilateral cooperation in the next five years. The partners are now striding towards peace, tranquility, development and prosperity.

As this year witnesses the start of Chinas 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), also an important year to promote China-CEEC pragmatic cooperation, Xis visit bearseven more significance.
President Xi Jinping will attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) held in Washington D.C. starting from March 31 at the invitation of U.S. president Barack Obama.

This major diplomatic event reveals not only the importance China places on building a global nuclear security system, but also Chinas strong support for global cooperation.

Nuclear security, which became an issue over 70 years ago, is a familiar yet strange topic. The risks of nuclear weapons came to light during the Cold War, sparking worldwide concern in its wake.

From 9/11 in 2001 to the first NSS in 2010, nuclear security has not only been written into the political agendas of all countries, but is also of great concern to the public. It is an indispensable part of international security.

Nuclear security is a safety valve that guarantees the sustainable development of nuclear energy. Of course, nuclear energy is a double-edged sword; it can light up hope, but it also comes with risks that cast a shadow over the future of mankinds use of nuclear power.

The Chernobyl incident, Three Mile Island accident, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and other major incidents have proved that nuclear energy development and nuclear security must go together. Only then can the risks be controlled and energy developed in a sustainable fashion.

Nuclear security is the firewall against nuclear terrorism, as terrorism paired with nuclear weapons would truly be a nightmare. Thus, it is essential that the safety procedures of nuclear facilities prevent terrorists from accessing nuclear weapons or technology.

Nuclear security is also conducive to regional trust. Nuclear incidents know no political borders, and one countrys problem can threaten others in the same part of the world. Therefore, countries in the same regions should be proactive about eliminating each others concerns and increasing mutual trust.

Nuclear security is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to advancing global security governance. The global community should take guaranteeing nuclear security as a new growth point in the global security governance, and continue to build and improve the international nuclear security system. Through global governance, they can address the challenge of nuclear security and realize universal security.

First held in Washington D.C. in 2010, the 4th NSS will be held in Washington D.C. again after the most recent sessions in Seoul and The Hague. During this journey, NSS has played a key role in promoting cooperation and building an international system for nuclear security.

China plays an irreplaceable role in this platform. During The Hague summit in 2014, President Xi gave Chinas view on nuclear security, which places equal emphasis on development and security, rights and obligations, independence and collaborative efforts, and treating symptoms and addressing causes. The statement demonstrated Chinas commitment as a major power to approach nuclear security in a responsible and proactive way.

People have reasons to believe that in the forthcoming NSS, the global community will concert efforts to further enhance nuclear security so that people around the world will be more confident in the sustainability of nuclear security, and in the benefits brought by nuclear energy.
Life and death are one of the ultimate quests human beings must embark on. Many people deliberately avoid topics and conversation about death, but some, perhaps out of pure curiosity, choose to face it squarely.

A Death Experience event was held by a funeral home on March 25, 2016, in east Chinas Tianjin, asking participants to lie down in a coffin, in which they were to meditate about life and death alone in darkness. The experience came along with a farewell ceremony to the body, too.

Those who took part in the event included college student volunteers and those who registered.
File photo: Beautiful scenery of Prague, capital of Czech

China-Czech ties have a huge potential for cooperation, Ma Keqing, Chinese ambassador to the Czech Republic, wrote in an article published in the Peoples Daily before Chinese President Xi Jinping kicks off his Czech visit next Monday.

Xis visit will strengthen the bonds between the two peoples, he added. Xis three-day visit will be the first by a Chinese head of state since the two nations established diplomatic ties 67 years ago.

Many Chinese people hold special affection toward the Czech Republic, one of first nations to establish diplomatic ties with China, Ma wrote in the article.

After the two established ties, many Czech experts and engineers traveled thousands of miles to aid the nascent China in its development. A friendship farm and machine tool plant built in the 1950s and 1960s highlighted cooperation and friendship between the two sides.

The recent years have witnessed frequent high-level exchanges. Xi and his counterpart Milos Zeman have met four times to chart course for bilateral ties. Zeman also attended Chinas commemorations of the victory against Japanese aggression last September as the only head of state from the EU.

Economic and trade ties have also reached an unprecedented high level. By the end of last year, Chinese investment in the Czech Republic soared to $1.6 billion from $200 million two years ago, while the Czech Republics investment in China totaled $1.8 billion.

Last year, the Czech Republic increased its weight as a key partner of China in Central and Eastern Europe after inking a bilateral agreement to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

As almost all regions in the nation have established partnerships with Chinese cities and provinces, and local exchanges and cooperation in culture, technology, education, tourism and healthcare have mushroomed.

The number of Chinese travelers to the Central and Eastern European nation has increased by over 30 percent annually with the launch of direct flights between Beijing and Prague, capital of the Czech Republic.

Traditional Chinese medicine, Spring Festival themed temple fairs, and other elements of the Chinese culture have gained more popularity among the local people.

These achievements in politics, economy and culture have brought bilateral ties to a new stage with rich dividends.

For their friendship, an apple tree can be regarded as a witness. The story dates back to 2014 when Zeman presented Xi an apple sapling as a gift during his visit to China. He explained at the time that the tree signifies the bilateral collaboration will take root, bloom and bear fruits in China.

Xi then called for both sides to nurture cooperation and reap harvest at an early date, saying that cooperation between China and the Czech Republic is like a forest of apple trees, and we should both pick apples and plant more young trees.

The apple tree has become a recurring theme in the discussions of the relationship ever since. Ma disclosed that during this visit, Xi will present Zeman a young tree as a return gift.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 26, 2015.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is to kick off his historic visit to the Czech Republic next Monday. Experts believe the visit demonstrates the significance of the Czech Republic as an important cooperation partner for China in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region.

It is the first visit by a Chinese head of state since the two nations established diplomatic ties 67 years ago. The three-day tour is Xis first visit to a CEE country as well.

The China-Czech relationship has gone through a rough patch in the past 67 years, but it has started to warm up following visits to China by top-level officials from the Czech Republic in recent years.

Czech President Milos Zeman attended Chinas commemoration of the victory against Japanese aggression last September as the only head of state from the EU. His praise on Chinas contribution and sacrifices in the World Anti-Fascist War also captured much limelight.

The move was seen as a signal that the Czech politicians have reached a consensus on boosting ties with China.

Besides political exchanges, economic and trade ties are also flourishing. Zhao Junjie, a research fellow of the Institute of European Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained that the previous turbulence in bilateral ties can be attributed to both geopolitical factors and lack of economic cooperation areas.

But in recent years, with robust economic vitality and development potential, China and 16 CEE

countries including the Czech Republic have shown intense desire to seek cooperation and exchanges, he added.

Such momentum has accelerated especially after China and the CEE countries established the 16+1 cooperation mechanism. Their cooperation in economy, trade, investment, finance, manufacturing, aviation, nuclear energy has reaped fruits.

With bilateral trade volume in 2015 totaling $11 billion, the Czech Republic is now Chinas second-largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is the top trading partner of the Czech Republic outside the EU.

Skoda, the Czech automobile brand, exports 25 percent of its global production to the Chinese market.

Zhao noted that Xis visit will encourage the Czech Republic to take a more proactive role in building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Hailed as the heart of Europe, the Czech Republic is situated at a junction point along the Belt and Road route. Last November, when Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka attended the 4th summit of China and CEE countries in China, both sides inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on building the Belt and Road. It is the first MOU sealed by China and a CEE country concerning the initiative.

Europe is a priority region for the implementation of the initiative and establishment of production cooperation, and CEE countries can act as a bridge linking China and Europe, Zhao pointed out.

Its geographic location and influence on the CEE countries make the Czech Republic ideal for such a task, he explained.

Among the 16 CEE countries, the Czech Republic is the most prosperous country and is classified as a developed EU member by both the World Bank and the EU.

With rich industrial and tourism resources, the Czech Republic has also become a major investment destination for China. New energy, nuclear power, innovation industry, high-speed railway, textile and culture are expected to be new fronts for bilateral cooperation.

(Wu Qiong contributed to the story)
File photo: Night scenery of Prague, capital of Czech

Chinese President Xi Jinping is about to pay his first state visit to the Czech Republic since the two countries established diplomatic ties 67 years ago. Scholars believe the trip will send four messages.

To begin with, the visit will reaffirm Europes status as a diplomatic priority for China. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Haixing also described the visit as a major diplomatic event in China-Europe ties at a briefing on Thursday.

Over the last three years, Xi has set foot in several European countries. In March 2014, Xi traveled to the Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium and visited the EU headquarters. Last October, the Chinese president paid a state visit to the UK. After his Czech visit, Xi will have covered both the new and old Europe in diplomacy.

The second message is that China values the unique role of the Czech Republic in advancing China-EU relations.

As an important Central and Eastern European (CEE) country, the Czech Republic is also a member of the EU. This dual identity endows the country with broad influence in both circles.

During Xis visit, China and the Czech Republic are scheduled to ink cooperation agreements worth more than $6 billion, covering a wide range of areas including trade, economy, infrastructure, finance, healthcare, aviation and technology.

Meanwhile, China and European countries will have more opportunities from the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The initiative has been echoed by many CEE countries, and they have worked to dock their development strategies with the Belt and Road initiative.

At the end of last year, heads of China and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) released a mid-term plan on bilateral cooperation, indicating that the China-CEEC collaboration has grown into a new highlight of China-Europe ties and a testing ground of the initiative.

Sources disclosed that during this visit, Xi will discuss the Belt and Road construction with Czech leaders and propose cooperation plans between China and CEE countries.

Moreover, European countries will benefit from opportunities brought by Chinas rapid development. As China undergoes industrial upgrade, a spate of new ideas has been put forward. European nations are also paying more attention to China to see how they can benefit from the development of the worlds second-largest economy.

Economically unstable, Europe is struggling for recovery. Therefore it has a strong need of the Chinese market and investment, Cui Hongjian, head of the Institute of European Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Science, pointed out.

What needs to be pointed out is that this kind of opportunity is reciprocal. Through cooperation with Europe, China can also boost domestic economy and upgrade industrial structure, Cui added.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25



Trend:



Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Bangladesh's President Abdul Hamid.



"On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I sincerely congratulate you and the people of your country on the occasion of the public holiday of the People's Republic of Bangladesh - Independence Day," President Aliyev said.



"I believe that relations between Azerbaijan and Bangladesh will continue to develop in an atmosphere of friendship and cooperation in line with the best interests of our nations," he added.



"On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health, success in your work, and the friendly people of Bangladesh peace and prosperity," said the congratulatory letter.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25



Trend:



Joint military exercises of Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces, TURAZ Shahini-2016, have wrapped up in Konya, Turkey, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said March 25.



Azerbaijani Air Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Ramiz Tahirov and Commander of the Turkish Air Force Abidin Unal watched the final stage of the military drills.



They noted that the flight, technical and service staff of the two countries' air forces gained great experience during these exercises.



Moreover, the parties emphasized the importance of such exercises in maintaining the combat readiness of military pilots at a high level and pointed out the necessity of holding the next joint military drills.

Edited by SI
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 25



By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend:



Turkmenistan and Turkey have discussed the promising areas of cooperation in transportation and logistics, said the message from Turkmenistan's Foreign Ministry.



The discussions were held during the meeting with chairman of the executive committee of Turkey's International Transporters Association, Nejat Fatih Sener, at Turkmenistan's Foreign Ministry.



During the meeting, the parties emphasized the importance of comprehensive cooperation between the transportation ministries for creating multilateral transportation and transit corridors.



Turkmenistan is ready to be an active partner and participant of the Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA) program, since the creation of a western transportation corridor from Central Asia is of great importance for reviving the Great Silk Road.



Turkmenistan hosted a five-party meeting of heads of railway and maritime agencies of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Georgia in early March. The meeting's agenda included the development of the East-West multi-modal transportation corridor and joint measures for increasing the transit traffic.

Edited by SI
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25



By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:



Turkey has for the first time imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US in 2016, said the message from Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA).



The country has imported 83 million cubic meters of LNG, which accounts for 7.15 percent of the country's LNG consumption.



Turkey imported 437 million cubic meters of liquefied natural gas from Qatar, 468 million cubic meters - from Algeria and 171 million cubic meters - from Nigeria in the first quarter of 2016, according to EMRA's message.



Ankara has agreements with Algeria and Nigeria for supplying 4.4 billion and 1.2 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas per year, respectively.



Turkey also imports 6.6 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan per year based on the take or pay contract.



Moreover, Turkey imports gas from Russia which undertakes to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas to this country per year based on the two contracts signed between them.



The first contract for exporting 16 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Turkey was signed in 1997, while the second contract for delivering 4 billion cubic meters per year was inked in 1998.

Edited by SI

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25

By Emil Ilgar - Trend:

Iran is in talks to purchase the shares of an oil refinery or build a new refinery in Spain, Abbas Kazemi, the managing director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) told Shana.

He didn't mention whether Iran is negotiating to purchase the shares of a specific refinery in Spain or not.

Kazemi who also serves as the deputy of oil minister, said that the same talks are being held with Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa and Indonesia.

"Becoming the shareholder of refineries abroad is the ministry's priority to guarantee its oil exports in long-term," he added.

Before, Hamid Sharif-Razi, the managing director at the National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company (NIOEC), told Shana Feb.8 that Iran already holds a 30-percent share in construction of a refinery with a capacity of 250,000 barrels per day in Malaysia, and Iranian side is in talks to buy a 40-percent share in another refinery in Indonesia with a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day.

Last year, Iran turned its sights on India, as Kazemi had said on Nov. 18 that Iran started talks to buy an equity stake in India's Essar refinery. However, a spokesperson for Essar Oil and Gas Ltd. told Trend that the company didn't have discussions on the sale of its shares to Iran.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 25



By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend:



Turkmenistan and the specialized agencies of the UN have signed a number of documents, Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news service reported.



The signing ceremony took place at Turkmenistan's Foreign Ministry.



The parties signed the following documents: Country Program Action Plan between the government of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for 2016-2020; Country Program Action Plan between the government of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for 2016-2020.



The parties noted that these documents will pave way for further development of the fruitful cooperation with the UN.

Edited by SI
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 25

By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend:

Ashgabat hosted the meeting of Turkmenistan-Saudi Arabia intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation, during which the parties determined the tasks for intensifying the business partnership, said the message from the Turkmen government.

The meeting was attended by heads and representatives of several state structures of the two countries.

During the event, it was noted that Saudi Arabia's leading oil and gas companies are interested in operating on Turkmenistan's promising market.

They also emphasized the necessity to coordinate the efforts to increase the volume of exported and imported goods and to implement new investment projects.

The meeting participants expressed support for creating closer contacts between Turkmenistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Saudi Export Development Authority.

Transportation and communication were named as the important spheres of bilateral partnership.

Noting the importance of expanding partnership in the sphere of agriculture, the commission members expressed support for establishing close relations between the specialized research centers of the two countries.

They also put forward proposals on exchanging experience in agricultural production management.

Diplomatic relations between Ashgabat and Riyadh were established in 1992. Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov paid his first official visit to Saudi Arabia in April of 2007, during which the parties signed a general cooperation agreement.

Edited by SI
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25

By Emil Ilgar - Trend:

UK Secretary of State for Business Sajid Javid, heading an economic delegation, would visit Iran in April, Mehr News Agency reported on March 25.

According to the report, Javid said during the meeting with Iranian charge d'affairs in the UK, Mohammad-Hassan Habibollahzadeh, that UK supports boosting economic relations with the Islamic Republic.

"UK supports Iran to joint the World Trade Organization," Mehr quoted Javid as saying.

UK signed a deal to simplify the financing of exports to Iran in early March.

UK Export Finance and the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate exports and trade exchanges between the two countries on March 7.

According to the MoU, the two countries will cooperate on insurance coverage and financing of the two countries' traders.

Iran has received extensive economic and financial sanctions relief as a result of meeting its obligations under the nuclear deal agreed on 14 July 2015, meaning the country is now able to trade more freely.

On January 16, Implementation Day was triggered following the verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency of Iran meeting its requirements as part of a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear program. This has resulted in the termination of EU nuclear related financial and economic sanctions, and the suspension of US nuclear related secondary financial and economic sanctions.

As a result, UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK's export credit agency, has reintroduced cover to support UK companies seeking to compete for business in Iran.
President Hassan Rouhani and Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, during a meeting in Islamabad on Friday, discussed issues of mutual interest, as well as economic cooperation at regional and international levels, Irna reported.



Immediately after the meeting between the two heads of state, Rouhani's accompanying delegation began negotiations with their Pakistani counterparts.



The two sides are to sign six documents on different areas including trade, insurance, cultural and academic cooperation as well as cooperation on health and medicine.



President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Islamabad at the head of a top-ranking delegation hours earlier.



Upon his arrival at the airport, the president was accorded warm welcome by Nawaz Sharif.



Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh, Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Health Minister Hassan Qazizadeh, Director of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Valiollah Seif and Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce Mohsen Jalalpour are accompanying the president in his visit to Pakistan.



Mohammad Nahavandian, the chief of staff of the presidential office, Hossein Fereidoun, a special advisor to President Rouhani, Hessameddin Ashena, an advisor to the president on cultural affairs, Ali Osat Hashemi, the governor-general of the bordering Sistan-Baluchestan province as well as a 60-member group of Iranian businesspersons and representatives of private sector are also among those accompanying the president in his Islamabad visit.



The president's trip is following a visit to Tehran by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January.



Developing bilateral relations, especially in economic areas after the nuclear deal and the subsequent lifting of sanctions, is among the most important issues to be discussed between the two sides.
President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran and Pakistan are determined to promote their bilateral relations particularly in the economic field and in the fight against terrorism, according to Irna.



He made the statements following signing up of six cooperation documents between Iranian and Pakistani officials here on Friday.

'In the negotiations, we discussed economic relations and the capacity to expand them including in the fields of energy, gas, and export of electricity,' he said about the meeting with Pakistani Prime Minsiter Nawaz Sharif.

President Rouhani thanked the government and people of Pakistan for receiving him and the accompanying top-ranking delegation and said that cultural commonalities of the two neighboring countries facilitate their bilateral cooperation.

'Iran and Pakistan are also determined to cooperate in the fight against terrorism,' he said.

'Tehran and Islamabad agree that regional problems have to be settled through negotiations and political solutions.'

President Rouhani congratulated his hosts on the occasion of Pakistan Day and Norouz.
One Iranian national was injured in the terrorist explosion that targetted the Brussels airport and metro, said a consular source, Irna reported.



The source rejected unconfirmed reports which said there was an Iranian killed in the attacks in the Belgian capital.

'Based on the investigation, only one Iranian woman was injured in the terrorist blast in the airport,' he said.

'Fortunately, there was no Iranian national killed in the explosions,' the source added refe
The British referendum on whether to leave the European Union has prompted Brussels officials to plan to postpone an EU summit scheduled on the same day, several EU sources told Reuters.

The regular June meeting of the European Council, the heads of state and government of the 28 member states, would convene on Monday and Tuesday, June 27-28, a four-day delay, one said, although that was yet to be confirmed by all the participants.

European Council officials had no official comment.

Last month, Prime Minister David Cameron scheduled the "Brexit" referendum for June 23 -- British elections are always on Thursdays -- meaning that the result would be known just as leaders were finishing dinner on the first day of a summit long scheduled for June 23-24.

By delaying the Council, officials hope to ensure that the other leaders are able to take considered decisions in response to the referendum result. Opinion polls are tight as Cameron seeks to persuade Britons of the value of EU membership.

A vote to leave would strike a heavy blow at a Union already in crisis, depriving it of its second biggest economy. It would start a process of negotiation with London on the terms of a new relationship in trade and others areas likely to last for years.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25



By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:



The shootout with members of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist group in Turkey's Diyarbakir province has left 8 Turkish servicemen killed and 24 more injured, Sabah newspaper reported March 25.



A large-scale operation against the PKK started in the province following the shootout.



The PKK has in recent months become active in the south-east of Turkey, and its attacks on military units and police stations have increased.



Over 200 Turkish servicemen were killed in clashes with the PKK in 2015.



The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 25 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives.



The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by the UN and the European Union.

Edited by SI

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 25

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Canada has urged its citizens in Turkey to refrain from visiting crowded places due to the threat of terrorist attack, Hurriyet newspaper reported March 25.

Moreover, Canada called on its citizens to avoid from traveling to Turkey's south-eastern provinces and its regions bordering Syria.

The country's government has also warned Turkey of the possibility of new terrorist attacks on March 25.

Turkey has faced deadly terrorist attacks in recent weeks.

On March 13, a car bomb attack in Ankara left 36 people dead. Istanbul was also targeted by a suicide attack on March 19, leaving four people dead. Turkish authorities have accused Daesh, the PKK and the PYD terrorist groups for the attacks.

Edited by SI

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Turkish Air Force jets have carried out airstrikes on PKK terrorist bases in northern Iraq Friday, the armed forces announced in a statement, Anadolu Agency reported.



According to the statement on Turkish army's website, seven warplanes, including F-16 and F-4 fighter jets, destroyed PKK targets in Avasin-Basyan region, including the terrorist group's shelters, caves and ammunition dumps.



The statement did not say how many targets were destroyed.



More than 300 security personnel have been martyred since the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU, resumed its 30-year armed campaign in July.



Thousands of PKK terrorists have also been killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
NYPD Officer Indicted On Shooting Unarmed Man In Brooklyn Stairwell (Photo : Getty Images)

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson recommended on Wednesday that dismissed NYPD rookie cop Peter Liang not serve his sentence in jail for the manslaughter conviction over the death or unarmed black man Akai Gurley. Instead, he recommended five years of probation.



The recommendation comes with the condition that Peter Liang serve six months confined at his house with electric monitoring. He should also perform 500 hours community service, reported the New York Post.



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Thompson explained that while Liangs reckless actions caused Gurley, an innocent man, to die, there is no evidence that the former policeman intended to kill or hurt Gurley. The cop went to the tenement as part of his job to keep Brooklyns residents safe.



Because of the jurys conviction of Liang in February, he faced spending up to 15 years in jail for the accidental shooting of Gurley on Nov. 20, 2014, at a Pink Houses stairwell.



The DA pointed out that Liang had no prior criminal history and is not a threat to public safety in the future. Because his incarceration is not necessary to protect the public, and due to the unique circumstances of this case, a prison sentence is not warranted, Thompson said.



Thompson stressed that there are no winners in this case. Although Gurley added to the growing list of unarmed black men killed by police officers, Liangs circumstances drew support from the public, particularly among Chinese Americans.



Robert Brown, one of Liangs lawyers, described the DAs recommendation as promising. Liang is slated for sentencing on April 14. But Gurleys family said they were outraged by Thompsons recommendation and hopes Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun would ignore it, reported CBS.






China's largest maker of commercial drones, DJI, will set up a vast network of agriculture drones to expand its use to farming. (Photo : Reuters)

A vast service network of drones is set to be established by Chinas largest commercial drone maker DJI to expand the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for agriculture use, the company announced on Monday, March 21.



China Daily reported that around 10,000 people across the country will be trained by the Shenzhen-based company to operate the drones, while about 100 after-sales service centers will also be set up. The company also plans to provide subsidies to up to 10,000 people to help them start business in farm drones.



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"The agricultural drone could load 10 kilograms of pesticides and spray an area of up to four hectares per hour," Cao Nan, the sales director of DJI, said. "Its work efficiency can reach more than 40 times of a human and it will also solve the shortage of workers in rural areas."



MG-1, the company's first farm drone, was launched in November.



"Unlike other drones, used in aerial photography, the farm drone needs specialized sales and after-sales service support," Wang Fan, the company's public relations officer, said, adding that the service network will also provide assembly, test flights and machine maintenance.



The demand for agricultural drones in on the rise and currently, there are no more than 4,000 of it at present, He Xiongkui, a professor at the Center of Crop Protection Equipment and Spraying Technology at China Agricultural University, said. He added that the quality of drones also differs and more often, there is no after-sale service system.



According to industry statistics, there is a huge potential for growth in the use of agricultural drone in China where the penetration rate is only 3 percent, compared with 50 percent in Japan and in the U.S.



As the demand for advanced farming devices grow with the modernization of agriculture, the Chinese government has issued policies to encourage the use of modern agricultural machinery as well as subsidies for the use of drones in agriculture.



"The country's regulation on consumer-specific drones is strict and the risk is relatively high, so it is an inevitable trend more industry-specific drones will appear in the future," She Shuanglin, a researcher at Analysys International, said.



Drones are also used in traffic administration and disaster surveillance, the report said.


"Descendants of the Sun" stars Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo shared a romantic kiss after the two confirmed their love for one another. (Photo : Twitter/HanCinema)

Because Episode 9 of Descendants of the Sun focused on the romance between the lead stars, the drama again broke records on South Korean TV and rated 30.4 percent nationally. The episode shown on Wednesday showed Yoo Si-jin, played by Song Joong-ki, and Kang Ma-yeon, portrayed by Song Hye-kyo, in a liplock.



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Besides kissing, the two confirmed their love for one another, breaking another record on Korean TV. In Seoul, the viewer rating also hit a new record of 33.9 percent, while in and around the city, the rating reached 31 percent, according to Nielsen Korea, reported Korea Times.



For Episode 9, the doctor initially attempted to avoid the handsome army captain after Kangs voice recording, wherein she confessed how she felt about Yoo, was broadcast accidentally across the barracks. She recorded her feelings on her mobile phone when her vehicle almost fell off a cliff.



But despite the embarrassing experience, Yoo assured Kang that she should not feel lost because he likes her more. Because of her feelings for Yoo, Kang replied to his question that she is not among the volunteer doctors who are returning to South Korea. Id like to spend more time with you, Kang told Yoo.



For this Thursdays show, the lovers would find themselves in trouble after they attempt to save children from being taken hostage by Uruk gang members, reported Korea Herald.



Besides the high rating of the drama in KBS 2TV and iQiyi in China, Descendants of the Sun got a high score of 9.7 out of 10 among the most searched TV series in another video-streaming site, Viki. It was in Viki that 33 translations of the Korean drama were made by volunteer fans.






China is preparing to send a probe to Mars that includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The Mars rover will be similar to the lunar rover Yutu but with better autonomous capability. (Photo : Reuters)

China is set to launch a probe to Mars in 2020, which will arrive on the red planet the following year, according to aerospace expert Ye Peijan, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



"Although we are not the first Asian nation to send a probe to Mars, we want to start at a higher level," Ye, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.



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According to Ye, parachute and reverse thrust technologies will probably be used on the Mars landing and the probe will include a lander, a rover and an orbiter. The global surveys of Mars will be conducted by the orbiter, while the entry device will land a rover on the surface.



"We have less than five years till the launch, but we are confident. The probe is being developed by the team that completed the Chang'e-3 lunar probe," Ye, also the leader of the team with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), said.



The report said that CAST has a 3D demonstration video which shows how the Mars probe will fly in 10 months before closing on the planet, while controllers on Earth guide it into orbit, with the orbiter and lander separating in the process. For at least a year, the orbiter will stay in orbit to take photos of key areas and monitor Mars's environment.



Experts from CAST said that the Mars lander, unlike the lunar lander of the Chang'e-3 probe, will carry a gasbag, a parachute and reverse thrust engines, which will ensure a safe landing.



Zheng Yongchun, an associate researcher with the National Astronomical Observatory, said that starting Mars exploration at a high level is a reasonable decision, which combines orbiting exploration and a roving probe into one mission.



"The best and most direct method to look for evidence of life on Mars is to explore the surface. Mars will be a key focus of China's deep space exploration in the future," Zheng was quoted as saying.



Zheng, however, said that the country needs to develop a long-life, powerful relay communication device on the orbiter, since communicating with the Mars probe is still a great challenge.



Differentiating the Mars rover from lunar rover Yutu (or Jade Rabbit), Jia Yang, deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-3 lunar probe, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that the Mars rover will have a better autonomous capability as Mars is much further away than the moon. Mars is about 55 million kilometers to 400 million kilometres away from Earth.



"The Mars rover should be able to sense the environment, plan its route, conduct scientific exploration and detect faults autonomously. It should be a mobile intelligence," Jia said.



Jia added that ground controllers will address the communication problem since two-way signal transmissions between Mars and the Earth could take as long as 40 minutes, leaving the rover to deal with things on its own, most of the time.



The report said that in developing the Mars rover, which should be stronger than the lunar rover Yutu, Chinese space experts face several technological hurdles.



Jia added that to generate more electricity, the solar panels have to be as large as possible, considering that Mars is further from the sun than the Earth's moon.



"Although the temperature change on Mars is less drastic than that on the moon, the Mars rover still needs an 'overcoat' to keep warm," Jia said.



In addition, sandstorms, which often form on the red planet during summer, cause the solar energy to drop dramatically and Chinese space experts will design a "sleep" mode for the rover during such occasions, Jia said.



A prototype model of the Mars rover, which was displayed at the Airshow China 2014, showed that it is about 2 meters long, with six wheels. It is close to the American Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in size, weight and technologies. But unlike the rover Curiosity, which uses a nuclear battery, the Chinese Mars rover will use solar power.



"Exploring the red planet and deep space will cement China's scientific and technological expertise," Jia said. "The knock-on effect is that innovations and independent intellectual property rights will surge, and, as a result, China's core competence will increase, pushing development in other industries."



Jia added, "As China continues with its lunar mission, glimpsing further and further into deep space, it will play a bigger role in solving key frontier scientific questions."


Xinjiang Kazak Herdsmen Summer Migration (Photo : Getty Images)

Leonardo DiCaprios fight with a bear in The Revenant won for him a Best Actor award and made many Chinese moviegoers interested in wilderness survival. It was a well-deserved acting award because there was no real bear that the actor fought with.



However, real wilderness experiences cannot be fixed with camera tricks the way Hollywood is very good at. Even for Chinese reality shows like Divas Hit the Road, contestants need to show their ability to survive in rough environment, but many reality show stars lack even the basic skill of pitching a tent, reported Global Ties.



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Other lacking basic skills include locating water sources, finding basic compass directions and beginning a fire without matches. The reason behind the skills lack is that camping out in the wilderness is not very common in China which lacks natural camping sites, especially in major cities.



Because of that limitation, many viewers instead watch survival reality shows such as Bear Grylls program aired by Shanghai TV where stars join him for wilderness adventures. The challenges include having the reality stars drink their urine or eat something yucky like worms.



If Grylls could convince reality stars to do those things in front of the camera, it is because he has set the example. In his previous show Man VS Wild, the host has been shown eating bugs or rotting innards of dead animals.



The Revenant is released in China by the Bona Film Group, China Film Group and Alpha Pictures. It grossed $33 million on its first three days of release in China where the censors cut less than two minutes from the movie, Variety reported.






Meditation is better and safer way to relieve chronic pain, study says

Meditation not only calms the mind but also eases chronic pain, study claims. (Photo : Facebook/Transcendental Meditation)

A study claims that meditation is the answer to chronic back pain, which is one of the most common health complaints of about 65 million Americans. Most of the patients have resorted and relied on painkillers to ease their discomforts but unfortunately, even the most expensive brands do not totally work.



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The increasing number of patients who use painkillers has alarmed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the organization told doctors to lessen the prescription of painkillers or think twice before advising people to get opioids to relieve chronic pain.



On its website, CDC published a guideline for prescribing opioids to patients. The guide provides proper recommendations for the prescription of opioid painkillers for patients 18 years old and older.



Now, because the use of opiod can be dangerous too, even doctors are frustrated for the lack of alternative treatments. But in a new study that was published on the Journal of the American Medical Association on March 22, Tuesday, researchers may have found an effective and safer method of dealing with chronic pain.



"Patients and docs were really kind of desperate to find things that worked," Dr. Daniel Cherkin said. He is the lead researcher from the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, Washington.



According to the research, meditation, particularly the program called mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), works better compared to normal medical treatment for alleviating low back pain. Doctors added that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is also more effective than painkillers.



Likewise, the trial stated that both MBSR and CBT have demonstrated similar improvements than standard pain relievers used by adults with chronic back pain. Dr. Cherkin stated, "The effects were moderate in size, which has been typical of evidence-based treatments recommended for chronic low back pain."



The doctor further explained that MBSR is a meditation training done in multiple sessions and simple yoga postures are also incorporated in the training. The focus of meditation is for individuals to be aware of their emotions, body sensations and thoughts without trying to change them.



Cherkin said that he and his team are excited about the results of their research "because chronic low back pain is such a common problem and can be disabling and difficult to treat." Lastly, he reiterated that there is no single effective treatment since pain is caused by many factors and different reasons.



Watch the video and learn tips and techniques on improving meditation:






A young boy sickened during a vaccine accident undergoes treatment at a local hospital in Sixian County of Anhui Province, East China, on June 28, 2005. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese police have arrested more than 130 people for suspected involvement in a growing vaccine scandal that has made headlines in China in recent days and raised questions over vaccine safety in the country.



69 criminal cases have been filed nationwide following the discovery of improperly stored or expired vaccines that had allegedly been sold in more than 20 regions since 2011, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said on Thursday.



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Hua Jingfeng, a senior official with the MPS, told the Xinhua News Agency that vaccines involved in the case were sold for 310 million yuan ($47.6 million), rather than 570 million yuan as previously reported.



Authorities have found that most of the vaccines have been used, with 20,000 doses seized and sealed by authorities, according to Hua.



Investigators are still tracing the flow of the vaccines, he added.



29 pharmaceutical companies have been linked to the sale of illegal vaccines, and 16 vaccination institutions are suspected of purchasing them, according to Xinhua.



In January, police in East China's Shandong Province have arrested a mother and daughter for selling improperly stored or expired vaccines. 37 additional suspects linked to the scandal were detained on Sunday.



China's Food and Drug Administration issued on Monday a circular ordering drug and health departments to trace the manufacturing source of their vaccines and remove any substandard products off the shelves as soon as possible. It also urged law enforcement agencies to identify and apprehend the suspects still at large, and to conduct a thorough investigation into the supply and sales chain of the tainted vaccines.



On Tuesday, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), China's top prosecuting body, announced that it will directly oversee the vaccine case and urged all prosecuting agencies at all levels "to spare no efforts" in their investigation.



Prosecutors are to work closely with local police and drug administration to uncover the manufacturing source, circulation channels, and buyers of the inferior products, according to Xinhua.


China to Limit Use of Foreign Place Names to Preserve Heritage

City council officials seal up Nga Tsin Wai Village for demolition as part of a city re-urbanization plan in Wong Tai Sin District in Hong Kong on Jan. 26, 2016. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinas civil affairs ministry is seeking to cut back the use of foreign names for roads, bridges and residential compounds in an attempt to preserve the countrys cultural heritage.



Geographic names that better reflect China's culture, history and traditions should be used instead, Civil Affairs Minister Li Liguo said in a meeting with officials on Tuesday in Beijing.



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The decision to prioritize traditional names was made following the launch of a place names survey by China's State Council in 2014, according to the Global Times on Thursday.



The survey revealed that approximately 60,000 county and township names and more than 400,000 village names have been abandoned since 1986, with some replaced by foreign names such as "Manhattan" or "Provence."



Li told the Global Times that the first set of names that will be changed will be those that "cause damage to sovereignty or national dignity, those that are at odds with socialist core values, those deemed immoral, and those that have attracted the greatest number of public complaints."



Places with misleading or exaggerated names, or names with tenuous links to historical figures or celebrities, will also have to rebrand themselves, Li added, citing the hometown of "Ximen Qing," a fictional character well known in China as a notorious seducer, as an example.



In February, the State Council issued a circular ordering local government agencies to correct non-standard names that meet such categories.



"Cities in China have been losing their identity, history and cultural heritage, which causes confusion," said Yu Kongjian, professor of urban planning at Peking University.



Yu said the phenomenon reflects a stage in Chinese society wherein people are no longer confident about their own culture.



"This act rectifies the previous chaotic naming of geographic landmarks, and it will help save disappearing cultural landscapes and old cities in China," Yu added.


The new Nexus 6P, not the Google Nexus 2016 Marlin, phone is displayed during a Google media event on September 29, 2015 in San Francisco, California (Photo : Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News)

In making the 4-inch iPhone SE, Apple simply reworked the still popular iPhone 5S and boosted the device with updated component inside and out. It remains to be seen if the SE will work as planned but Google can play the game that Apple has started and launch a compact Android device or Nexus Mini of its own.



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The Nexus maker can pick from four Android smartphones - one is newly released and the rest are old flagships - to be repurposed for the project and they are listed below:



Samsung Galaxy S7



Since Samsung is Apple's chief rival it should be exciting to see the South Korean tech giant working with Google and matching the handy iPhone SE. And it should be automatic that the best template for such a device is the Galaxy S7 that was recently adjudged as the best smartphone around.



Building a Nexus Mini based on the GS7 should be easy for Samsung as the company is known to easily adjust on what the market needs. And in doing so, Samsung will readily out-match the headline iPhone SE specs of A9 processing chips and 12MP rear camera with the original GS7 hardware features of Snapdragon 820 and the same 12-megapixel shooter but with dual-pixel and ultra-fast autofocus.



Samsung has proven too that it can make phones with large screen but with easy to grip device so in theory, a Nexus Mini from the Galaxy family can unbox with a 4.5-inch display in 1080p but will have the same profile as that of the iPhone SE or even slightly smaller.



Moto X



Bringing back the original Moto X can be a joint venture of Google and Motorola or the latter can go at it alone. However it will play out, the Moto X 2013 seems the perfect Nexus Mini base-model with mid-size screen and an Android render that is close to the stock version.



Motorola though will have to bump up on specs and pick for the Moto X engine no less than SD 820 and 1GB of RAM. The camera and other key specs will need to elevated, using at least the Moto X 2015 as the benchmark for good measure.



HTC One M7



Before it found itself on shaky ground, HTC has impressed the Android with the HTC One M7. The device unboxed with a robust or almost heavyset built that only underscored its durability. Its unibody design won praises and had critics labelling as the Android version of iPhone - equally beautiful and durable.



A resurrected One M7 with vanilla Android running the show should be an instant crowd pleaser but HTC needs to make sure that among the components lined up for upgrade is the camera system that experts then regarded as mostly a letdown.



Nexus 4, 5 or 6P



But if collaboration with the device makers mentioned above will prove impossible, Google can just dig up from its existing catalog and rework its old Nexus devices. It can choose to trim down the Nexus 6P size to below 5-inch, upgrade the inner components and keep its premium look, build and design.



Or the company can reengineer any of the Nexus 4 and 5 and apply the necessary magic to make the build and specs in the same level with the iPhone SE. Then with Pure Android N as the star of the Nexus Mini show plus a sticker price that is lower than $400, the resulting device should be a Google release date plan to wait for.


China wants to elevate Nepal diplomatic status to serve as bridge between China and India, President Xi Jinping told Nepal PM Oli during his recent visit in Beijing. (Photo : Reuters)

President Xi Jinping has hinted on China's desire to raise the diplomatic status of Nepal and treat it as a bridge between China and India, the Times of India reported.



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The report said that during discussions for a cross-border railway line between China and Nepal, Xi told the visiting Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli that "Nepal can be a bridge between China and India."



Xi also made suggestions on giving Nepal observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a union composed of several countries that include China, Russia and Central Asian republics. Now due to enter as full members, India and Pakistan had long been under observer status in the SCO.



The Chinese president also called on China and Nepal to expand cooperation by using platforms like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



While expressing hope that Nepal should be included in China's Silk Road initiative, Xi also said that "as developing countries, China and Nepal are facing the historic missions of reform and development."



Observers said that Nepal's acceptance would put pressure on India, which has been selective about China's program, approving only the projects that it wants instead of accepting whatever is offered.



The report said that Xi expressed desire to enhance cooperation on post-earthquake reconstruction, energy, connectivity and industrial capacity, as well as speed up the establishment of a China-Nepal free trade zone.



Meanwhile, Oli expressed Nepal's firm commitment to the One China policy, as visiting foreign dignitaries are sworn by Chinese officials to adhere to the said policy in which Taiwan is assumed as part of mainland China.



Oli said that Nepal will be an active participant in China's Belt and Road plan, also called as the Silk Road program, adding that Kathmandu is anticipating closer cooperation with China on connectivity, infrastructure, trade, finance and tourism, as well as international affairs.


They say that people eat with their eyes first: A sample of hanjeongsik (full-course meal) arranged meticulously. By the looks of it, Koreans love vegetables. (Photo : Hansang Korean Restaurant/Facebook)

Cinemas in the country get to show movies featuring one or two South Korean stars along with popular Chinese celebrities.



Radio stations, on the other hand, get to play catchy Korean songs in between Mandopop tunes.



On the gastronomic side, a bowl of hot samgyetang or slices of the fattening samgyeopsal can appease a growling Chinese tummy.



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Koreans have indeed successfully established their presence in China, and when it comes to tickling the taste buds of the Chinese, they actually put up restaurants here to carry out the task.



Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) and samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly) are only but two popular Korean fares one can taste in Beijing.



Though experiencing authentic Korean fare by going to South Korea may prove to be an entirely different kind of adventure, a Korean restaurant just across the street may also offer pleasant surprises.



Those craving for Korean food can head north first.



One may find it daunting to visit North Korea but using chopsticks to experience, say, the delicious side of the Hermit Kingdom may be far more appealing.



Time Out Beijing recommends Silver Bank in Chaoyang District for excellent kimchi (fermented veggie side dish) and tteokbokki (soft rice cake with sweet gochujang, a kind of red chili sauce).



For the adventurous eater said Time Out Beijing, Haedanghwa in Chaoyang Districts Kuntai Mansions serves dog meat.



Now for some food for the Seoul, one can head to Beijings Koreatown, Wangjing (view of Beijing).



According to CRIEnglish, it is the home of Beijings best Korean food.



Diners can order gogigui (Korean barbecue) at Tan Tan Da Lu (Tan Tan Big Stove). They can as well feast on bulgogi (grilled marinated beef) and galbi or kalbi (grilled pork or beef short ribs marinated in ganjang, soy sauce made from fermented soybeans).



For those who dont want marinated meat, they can grill chadolbegi (beef brisket). Reminder: these briskets are sliced thinly, so they tend to cook fast. Be careful not to burn them.



Tan Tan Da Lu also offers a variety of banchan (side dishes).



Some banchan include gaji namul (boiled eggplant), japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), myulchi bokkeum (stir-fried dried anchovies), nakji bokkeum (stir-fried baby octopus) and sukjunamul (marinated mung bean sprouts).



Customers at Huo Lu Huo can treat themselves with snow flower beef. The meat comes from Wagyu cattle; therefore, they can expect the beef to be juicy and tender.



Meogja! (Lets eat!).


Tang Xianzu is known as the Shakespeare of China. (Photo : Wikimedia)

Fuzhou is set to host a series of celebrations in 2016 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Tang Xianzu, according to an announcement by city mayor Zhang Hongxing during a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, as reported by the Global Times.



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The city, located in Jiangxi Province in East China, is the hometown of Tang, who is considered as the Shakespeare of China.



Aside from events held within the city, the celebration will also include an event on April 22-30 in Stratford-upon-Avon in the United Kingdom, as a joint project with Shakespeare's hometown. Both poets died in 1616.



The overseas event will showcase Fuzhou's folk opera, known as Caichaxi or the Tea Picking Opera, as well as scenes from "The Peony Pavillion," Tang's famous play. It will also feature photos of Tang's hometown of Linchuan District in Fuzhou.



The series of events in the United Kingdom will be hosted at the Shakespeare's Birthplace museum and the University of Leeds.



During the press conference, Zhang said that the people of Fuzhou were inspired by President Xi Jinping's appeal to "celebrate the legacy of these two literary giants to promote interpersonal exchange and deepen mutual understanding" when he visited the United Kingdom in October.



Aside from the United Kingdom, there will also be events in Spain and the United States to commemorate Tang.



Tang was born in 1550, but he composed most of his 2,200 poems and 500 essays after he retired to his hometown in 1598.



He is most known as the playwright of four important plays in Chinese literature, namely, "The Peony Pavillion," "The Purple Hairpin," "Record of the Southern Bough" and "Record of Handan," which are collectively referred to as "The Four Dreams of Linchuan."



China's National Center for the Performing Arts also plans to stage "The Four Dreams of Linchuan" using the local Fuzhou dialect to commemorate Tang. There will also be commemorative coins and stamps to be released.



The local government will also implement measures to promote studying Tang, as well as award local dramas with a prize named after the playwright.


Egypt's interior ministry posted on its Facebook page photos of Regenis passport as well as his American University in Cairo and Cambridge University ID cards, saying the documents were in a "red handbag bearing the Italian flag" along with other items such as his credit card and two mobile phones.

The apartment, located in Qalyoubiya Governorate, north of Cairo, is owned by a sister of one of the gang members, 52-year-old Tarek Saad. His wife confirmed while being interrogated that the red handbag belonged to her husband, the ministry's statement added.

Earlier on Thursday, Saad, his 26-year-old son and two other men aged 40 and 60 were in a microbus before opening fire at police forces deployed in New Cairo to arrest them, according to the ministry. The security personnel fired back and killed them.

According to an earlier interior ministry statement, the suspects formed a gang that impersonated police officers to kidnap foreigners with the intent to rob them. Investigations indicated the quartet were involved in nine robbery cases.

With signs of torture on it, Regeni's body was found on a roadside in Giza nine days after he disappeared on 25 January. Investigations into his murder are still underway.

The 28-year-old PhD student was conducting research on independent trade union movements in Egypt.

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Qasr El-Aini Hospital said it can no longer hold the general assembly meeting for maintenance issues

Egypts Doctors Syndicate postponed on Thursday its general assembly meeting to 8 April after the venue, Qasr El-Aini Hospital, sent them a sudden formal apology stating they cant hold the event for maintenance reasons, a syndicate statement read.

The statement explained that the syndicate reserved and fully paid for a conference room in Downtown Cairos Qasr El-Aini Hospital for a general assembly meeting on 25 March.

However, the hospital said 24 hours prior to the meeting that they could no longer hold the event for maintenance reasons.

In order for the syndicate to hold a meeting at a certain place they have to notify their members two weeks in advance. Thus, the syndicate couldnt proceed with holding the meeting somewhere else.

The general assembly was regarded as a follow-up to a previous assembly meeting on 12 February, where members voted to refer the health minister to a disciplinary committee, demanding that he be fired from the syndicate.

A record number of doctors attended the February assembly, held in the syndicate headquarters in on Qasr Al-Aini Street in Downtown Cairo, with the road seen overflowing with members lined to enter the meeting.

During the meeting, the members voted on a number of strike measures to protest against police assaults on doctors.

The minister still holds his post despite a limited cabinet reshuffle that took place on Wednesday though a syndicate disciplinary committee is currently investigating him.

Egypt has only one Doctors Syndicate and in order to be practice medicine in the country, doctors must be members.

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The countries also agreed to form joint patrols on borders of countries experiencing unrest to firmly combat the threat of terrorism

The 27 Sahel-Sahran countries agreed on Friday after a two-day conference to form a terrorism-combating unit, with its headquarters in Egypt, a concluding statement read.

The fifth Sahel-Saharan Defence Ministers Conference was held in Egypts Red Sea Sharm El-Sheikh resort in South Sinai.

The decision to form a terrorism-combat unit is among the 17 points that were announced in a conference declaration.

The tasks of the unit have yet to be announced.

Other points include forming joint patrols on borders of countries experiencing unrest to firmly combat the threat of terrorism and trans-border crimes.

It also included an agreement on prohibiting all forms of political interference in the states domestic affairs and respecting their sovereignty.

On Thursday, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi promised a thousand scholarships for nationals of Sahel-Sahran countries in Egypts military colleges.

The conference convening in Egypt comes ahead of a summit of heads of member states of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States organisation, to be held in Morocco later this year.

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The army hasn't provided figures of the number of militants killed but Sky News Arabias reporter in Sinai said the army had killed 60 militants and injured 40 others

Egypts army destroyed a number of militant hideouts in troubled North Sinais Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid cities in raids on Friday morning, an army spokesman said.

The army executed the offensive based on information about the hideout locations, the spokesman's statement said.

The offensive was retribution for the blood of the martyrs of the army, police and innocent citizens."

The army did not provide details about the number of militants killed, but Sky News Arabias reporter in Sinai said the army had killed 60 militants and injured 40 others.

Last Saturday, a terrorist attack on a checkpoint in North Sinais Arish city resulted in the death of 15 police personnel.

The North Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Egyptian forces are grappling with an Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai governorate which spiked following the 2013 ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.

The insurgency has killed hundreds of Egyptian security forces, while the armed forces have said their operations have killed hundreds of militants in the area.

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On Thursday, Egyptian police said they had found the passport of slain Italian student Giulio Regeni inside an apartment linked to a gang who robbed foreigners

Prosecutors are still investigating the case of the gang of criminals who police say are connected to the case of the killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni, Egypt's interior ministry said on Friday afternoon.

On Thursday, Egyptian police said they had found the passport and other identity documents of the slain Italian inside an apartment linked to a gang who robbed foreigners.

The four gang members were killed in an exchange of fire with police hours before the announcement .

According to the ministry's Friday statement, the general prosecution are still investigating one of the suspect's sisters, who lived in the apartment where Regeni's belongings were found.

New evidence, including fake police IDs with photos of the four alleged gang members were found in her apartment in Shobra El-Kheima in northern Cairo, the statement read.

Egyptian police say that the gang kidnapped and robbed foreigners by impersonating police officers.

The statement revealed that the Egyptian investigation team was still coordinating with the Italian security team looking into Regeni's murder.

Ahmed Nagy, the chief prosecutor in Regeni's case, told the Associated Press that prosecutors were investigating the police's findings and would question two women who testified that Regeni's personal possessions belonged to one of the slain gang members.

Ahram Online was not able to reach Nagy by phone for comment.

Earlier on Friday, according to the Italian news agency ANSA reported, Italian investigators said there is no definitive element confirming that a gang Egyptian authorities said on Thursday they they busted were behind the death of Giulio Regeni.

A Source in Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's office told Reuters on Friday that Italy wanted the "unvarnished" truth about the murder of Regeni.

General Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim, the official spokesperson for the interior ministry, told Al-Watan newspaper that finding Regeni's belongings at the apartment of one of the suspect's sister did not mean that the members of the gang were involved in kidnapping and killing the Italian PhD student.

"Only the investigations, which are currently undergoing, will reveal that," he told Watan.

Abdel-Karim could not be reached for further comment.

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Raids on Thursday and Friday took place in Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid

Egyptian armed forces killed 60 militants in North Sinai in raids on Thursday and Friday, the Egyptian army spokesperson has said.

Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said in a statement that counter-terrorism forces aided by air forces destroyed a number of hideouts in south Rafah city and Sheikh Zuwaid city.

Samir added that 60 militants were killed and 40 others were injured.

He said that 32 hideouts and ammunition warehouses used by the militants in their attacks against Egyptian security forces in North Sinai were destroyed.

Last Saturday, a terrorist attack on a checkpoint in North Sinais Arish city resulted in the death of 15 police personnel.

The North Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Egyptian forces are grappling with an Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai governorate which spiked following the 2013 ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.

The insurgency has killed hundreds of Egyptian security forces, while the armed forces have said their operations have killed hundreds of militants in the area.

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The talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is a positive step towards averting Yemen's worsening humanitarian crisis, MENA programme director of the International Crisis Group says

Reaching a peace deal in conflict-stricken Yemen is crucial in order to avert a "catastrophic humanitarian crisis," said Joost Hiltermann, MENA programme director of the International Crisis Group.

In a Wednesday lecture at the American University in Cairo, Hiltermann said he believes that the 8 March talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia were a breakthrough in the peace process and a positive step towards de-escalation between the two sides.

On Wednesday, Ismail Ould Cheikh, the United Nations envoy to Yemen, announced a cease-fire on 10 April ahead of a new round of peace talks starting 18 April in Kuwait.

Hiltermann said that negotiations should lead to an interim settlement that must include security arrangements which pave the way for a militia withdrawal from cities.

According to the United Nations, more than 6,000 people have been killed since the start of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen last year.

Speaking on the challenges confronting the warring parties in successfully forging a deal in the talks, Hiltermann said that Saudi Arabia views the Houthis as part of an expanding Iranian threat in the region.

In a report published by the International Crisis Group on Yemen, the Houthi/Saleh bloc is also considerably complicating peace prospects by increasing cross-border attacks into the Saudi kingdom, a move that makes it more difficult for the kingdom to halt the conflict when it cannot boast a clear military victory.

Following the Iranian nuclear deal [with the US and its allies], there was a Saudi panic over Irans role in the international community, Hiltermann said, referring to the lifting of international sanctions on Iran in exchange for limiting its nuclear programme.

For Saudi Arabia, the Houthis crossed the line when [they took over the Yemeni capital] Sanaa in September 2014, especially after [Yemen's] President Abd Rabbu Mansor Hadi was placed under house arrest.

Following the Houthi takeover a year ago, a Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen with the aim of preventing the Iran-allied Houthi Shia rebels and forces loyal to Yemen's ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the country.

The Saudi Kingdom rallied a coalition of nine mostly Sunni Arab states.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and France have lent support to the Saudi military operation, the International Crisis Group report said.

Who has a stronger grip on Yemen?

With each side fighting over control of Yemen, both have shown strength in different areas, making it difficult to speculate on who would likely come out on top.

Whatever the results are, however, Yemens immediate future looks bleak.

The Houthi militias' strength in Yemen, according to Hiltermann, has been reflected in its military capabilities, as they had prior fighting experience in clashes with Salehs forces in 2004.

The Houthi militias have also been receiving weapons from their Shia ally Iran, though it is considered of little help.

The Houthis also showed strength in their ability to forge an alliance with ex-president Saleh.

In 2011, Saleh was given immunity from criminal prosecution for himself and his family in exchange for stepping down.

In a bid to recover part of his 32-year grip on power, the ousted Saleh started aiding the Houthis.

However, the Saudi kingdom is playing on the differences between Saleh and the Houthis, Hiltermann says.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, showed that it has an edge when it comes to bombings and airstrikes, as they have "outstanding" pilots.

The support from the United States in refuelling planes in mid-air and offering weaponry and military advice was of great assistance to the Saudis.

However, Saudi Arabia has no ground forces in Yemen, and it "cannot win with weak ground forces," according to Hiltermann.

The Saudi kingdom needs to declare a victory soon, and they will need to announce their success in Yemen, he said.

The only losers here are the Yemeni population, with many Yemeni areas on the verge of starvation.

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Three military police were killed and 22 injured in a car bombing on a barracks in Turkey's restive southeast suspected to be the work of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), security sources said Friday.

Thursday evening's attack took place in Mermer in Diyarbakir province, one of the areas in the mainly Kurdish southeast where security forces have engaged an offensive against the PKK since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in July.

The attackers first detonated a van crammed with explosives outside the barracks and then opened fire on the police with automatic weapons, the sources said.

Hundreds of security forces members, rebels and civilians have been killed since the PKK resumed its more than three-decade-long insurgency in pursuit of greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority last summer.

The military has responded with a barrage of airstrikes against PKK bases and by placing several Kurdish-majority towns under curfew during operations against PKK youth that have reduced whole districts to rubble.

In recent weeks the battle has spread beyond the southeast to western Turkey.

A PKK offshoot, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in Ankara over the past five weeks that killed 65 people in all and injured dozens of others.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984 demanding a homeland for Turkey's biggest minority. Since then the group has pared back its demands to focus on cultural rights and a measure of autonomy.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he sees no difference between the "terrorist" PKK and the Islamic State jihadists who have been blamed for four suicide attacks around the country in the past eight months, including an attack in Istanbul last weekend that killed four foreigners.

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Iran's Hassan Rouhani was expected in Pakistan on Friday in a landmark visit, his first since becoming president, at a time when Saudi Arabia is courting Islamabad to increase participation in a new Saudi-led military alliance of mostly Sunni nations, a coalition perceived by Tehran as an anti-Shia block.

Pakistan, a majority Sunni country, has traditionally close ties with Saudi Arabia, which is hostile to Iran, a Shia power. The kingdom accuses Tehran of supporting Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen against the internationally recognized president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of mostly Gulf Arab states in a blistering air-campaign against the Houthis in the conflict in Yemen, widely seen as a proxy Saudi-Iran war.

Last year, Pakistan refused a Saudi request to send troops into Yemen after a vote in Parliament delivered an overwhelming "no." Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a January visited the kingdom, expressing support for the alliance but without making any military commitment. Local Pakistani papers have carried unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia asked Pakistan's military chief, Raheel Sharif, to head the alliance.

Rouhani's visit is also a landmark moment for Iran, after international sanctions in the wake of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

"This visit means a lot," said Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies, adding that Pakistan is still "ambivalent" about its participation in the new Saudi-led alliance.

Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country of 180 million, has a Shia minority that makes up about 15 percent of the population.

The country frequently sees Sunni militant groups attacking the Shia minority, which in turn has accused Saudi Arabia of financing groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, blamed for many such deadly attacks. For their part, the militant Sunni groups accuse Iran of financing a Pakistani militant Shia group, Tehreek Nafaz-e-Fiqh-e-Jafariya.

Rouhani's visit is also expected to discuss a controversial gas pipeline from Iran, through Pakistan to India. Work has stalled on the Iran-Pakistan section, which was designed to help Pakistan meet its energy needs. Iran has invested over $2 billion in the project, but Pakistan has yet to finish construction on its half of the pipeline.

Washington had for years opposed the project amid concerns over Tehran's nuclear program.

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One of two prominent Turkish journalists facing life in prison on charges of espionage vowed to make the trial, which begins on Friday, a prosecution of official wrongdoing.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, told Reuters he would use his trial, which has drawn international condemnation, to refocus attention on the story that landed him in the dock.

Dundar, 54, and Erdem Gul, 49, Cumhuriyet's Ankara bureau chief, stand accused of trying to topple the government with the publication last May of video purporting to show Turkey's state intelligence agency helping to truck weapons to Syria in 2014.

"We are not defendants, we are witnesses," Dundar said in an interview at his office, promising to show the footage in court despite a ban and at the risk that judges could order the hearings to be held behind closed doors.

"We will lay out all of the illegalities and make this a political prosecution ... The state was caught in a criminal act and it is doing all that it can to cover it up."

Dundar and Gul spent 92 days in jail, almost half of it in solitary confinement, before the constitutional court ruled last month that pre-trial detention was unfounded because the charges stemmed from their journalism.

Both were subsequently released pending trial, though President Tayyip Erdogan said he did not respect the ruling.

Opposition politicians, fellow journalists and several European diplomats were outside the Istanbul courthouse as Dundar arrived on Friday. Some in the crowd chanted "free press cannot be silenced".

"Today we came here to defend journalism," Dundar said as he entered the building.

Erdogan has acknowledged that the trucks, which were stopped by gendarmerie and police officers en route to the Syrian border, belonged to the MIT intelligence agency and said they were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria. Turkmen fighters are battling both President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State.

Erdogan has said that prosecutors had no authority to order the trucks be searched and that they were part of what he calls a "parallel state" run by his ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen, a United States-based Islamic cleric who Erdogan says is bent on discrediting him and the Turkish government.

"HEAVY PRICE"

The trial comes as Turkey deflects criticism from the European Union and rights groups that say it is bridling a once-vibrant press.

"Elsewhere in the world (Dundar and Gul) would be lauded for their efforts to dig into this issue," said Nina Ognianova of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

"They have done their jobs as investigative journalists, serving the public interest in pursuing a story that is significant not just for the country, but the region."

Erdogan has cast the newspaper's coverage as part of an attempt to undermine Turkey's global standing and has vowed that Dundar would "pay a heavy price". A 473-page indictment says the editors aided a "terrorist" network led by Gulen.

The CPJ's Ognianova said that the trial is part of a "massive crackdown on press freedom", blaming courts' loose reading of terrorism laws and a government hostile to the press.

Authorities this month seized control of Zaman, Turkey's top-selling newspaper, on charges that it funded Gulen's network. A few weeks earlier the pro-Kurdish IMC channel was pulled off the air over allegations of "spreading terrorist propaganda".

Dundar took the helm at Cumhuriyet, which has a circulation of 52,000, last year and worked to overhaul the staunchly secular 92-year-old daily into a left-leaning outlet with more readers.

A new investigative reporting unit he set up unearthed the footage of the purported arms shipment.

Now he faces death threats, an armed guard prowls Cumhuriyet's perimeter and a bomb-suppression blanket sits at the entrance. Photos of potential attackers hang on the wall.

"We knew the risks of publishing this. If you do journalism in Turkey, you know what can happen with dangerous topics," Dundar said in the interview.

"We were arrested for two reasons: to punish us and to frighten others. And we see the intimidation has been effective. Fear dominates. But we actually think we have frightened (the state). Their threats stem from that fear."

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The United States and its allies staged 13 strikes against Islamic State group (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria on Thursday, according to the coalition leading the operations.

Eleven strikes near eight Iraqi cities hit seven of the militant group's tactical units and destroyed several assembly areas and vehicles, among other targets, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Friday. The strikes were concentrated near Sultan Abdallah and Qayyarah.

In Syria, two strikes near Al Hawl and Mar'a hit one tactical unit and three fighting positions, the coalition said.

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Islamic State's second in command and other senior leaders were likely killed this week in a major offensive targeting financial operations, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday, the latest in a series of setbacks for the militant group.

Carter told a Pentagon press briefing the United States believes it killed Haji Iman, a senior leader in charge of finances for the self-declared caliphate, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the briefing the deaths reflected "indisputable" new momentum in the fight against IS group.

Dunford said he expected to increase U.S. forces now in Iraq from the current 3,800 and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against IS in Mosul, but that those decisions had not been finalized.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for the group.

Earlier media reports said Haji Iman, who also went by Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and other aliases, had been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, but Pentagon officials declined to say how the operation had been carried out.

The strike comes amid growing pressure on IS, which is steadily losing territory in Iraq and Syria to U.S.-backed forces.

While the operational significance of removing Haji Iman from the battlefield is not yet clear, it is the latest in a series of strikes against the group's top leaders, including Abu Omar al-Shishani, described by the Pentagon as the group's "minister of war," and a senior IS chemical weapons operative captured by Iraq-based U.S. commandos and turned over to the Iraqi government.

Carter said the killing of Haji Iman, who was imprisoned in the region until 2012, would hamper the group's ability to operate inside and outside of Iraq and Syria. But he conceded that alone was not sufficient to cripple it.

"These leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they're experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result," he said. "But they will be replaced and we'll continue to go after their leadership and other aspects of their capability."

U.S. officials said they were helping Iraqis prepare for a major operation in Mosul to take back territory from IS, which aims to establish a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Marines were providing artillery fire at the request of Iraq to help support Iraqi forces moving into new positions, they said. They stressed Iraqi forces were carrying out the assault and said the U.S. military was not digging in for a larger ground combat role.

Carter said Haji Iman had been involved in external affairs for IS and played a role in recruiting foreign fighters but could not confirm that he had anything to do with this week's deadly attacks in Brussels, which killed 31 people.

"It's a big blow to IS," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution think tank. "He has been an important figure going back to a decade ago during Abu Musaib Zarqawi's era in creating what became ISIS," he said, using another acronym for the group.

Dunford said the U.S. military had significantly increased sharing intelligence with European militaries in recent months as authorities sought to stem the tide of foreign fighters streaming into Iraq and Syria.

He said fighters from more than 100 countries were now in Syria and Iraq and there were estimates the total exceeded 30,000. Greater cooperation was needed by all those countries to avert attacks like the ones in Brussels, he said.

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Seven terror suspects were in custody in Belgium and France on Friday as under-fire European authorities stepped up the fight against jihadist networks following triple bombings in Brussels claimed by the Islamic State group.

Six people were being held after raids across the Belgian capital Thursday, two days after airport and metro suicide blasts that left 31 people dead and 300 injured.

And in the Paris suburbs, police arrested a man accused of plotting an attack in France that was "in the advanced stages" and found a small stash of explosives.

In Brussels, families faced an agonising wait after forensic experts warned it could take weeks to identify fatalities.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived for talks with the Belgian authorities, who have faced heavy criticism over how the Brussels attackers -- at least three of whom were known to authorities -- slipped through the net.

The man arrested in Paris was a French national who "belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country", French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late Thursday, hailing the "major arrest".

Police evacuated an apartment block in the rundown northern suburb of Argenteuil, where a small quantity of explosives was found.

While Cazeneuve said no link to the Paris or Brussels attacks had emerged, police sources said Friday that the suspect had in July been found guilty in absentia, alongside Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, of being part of a group planning to go to Syria.

Named by police sources as Reda K., Cazeneuve said the suspect had been under surveillance "for several weeks" and his arrest was the result of "close and constant cooperation between European services".

European authorities are under huge pressure to better coordinate the tracking of homegrown extremists and those returning from Syria, as evidence grows of a thriving jihadist network straddling France and Belgium.

Prosecutors have confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at Maalbeek metro station shortly after his brother Ibrahim did the same at Zaventem airport, was the subject of an international terrorism warrant over the Paris attacks.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been arrested and deported by Turkey, which had warned Belgium he was a "foreign terrorist fighter," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.

The brothers were also listed in American terrorism databases, television network NBC reported.

EU Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday the "attacks did not come as a surprise", raising further questions why international authorities failed to stop the bombers.

Belgium's interior and justice ministers, Jan Jambon and Koen Geens, offered to quit Thursday after widespread criticism over intelligence failures, but Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept their resignations.

The Brussels attacks also came four days after Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the Paris attacks who had been on the run for four months, was arrested in a dramatic raid in the city, just around the corner from his family home.

Abdeslam's lawyer Sven Mary said Thursday his client "didn't know" in advance about the Brussels attacks, and said he would no longer fight extradition to France.

A huge manhunt is ongoing for a third attacker at Brussels airport whose bomb did not go off, a man wearing a hat seen on security footage.

Police are also hunting a man with a large bag captured on CCTV talking to Khalid El Bakraoui at Maalbeek station, who then did not get on to the train with the bomber, police sources told AFP.

A series of raids in the capital Thursday yielded six arrests -- included three people detained "outside the door of the federal prosecutor's office", a spokesman for the prosecution service said.

It was unknown whether the arrests included either of the key suspects sought over the worst attacks in the country's history.

Belgium has lowered its terror alert to the second-highest level for the first time since the attacks, but the police and military presence on the streets of the capital remains high.

People of around 40 nationalities were killed or wounded in the attack, testament to the cosmopolitan nature of Europe's symbolic capital.

Very few of the dead have been formally identified. Forensic experts, working with teeth, fingerprints and DNA, are sometimes relying just on tiny fragments of bodies and warn that the process could take weeks.

Tales of lucky escapes from the attacks have been emerging, along with cases of tragic ill fortune of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Among only three fatalities formally named was Peruvian Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, 37. Her husband Christophe Delcambe, and their three-year-old twin daughters, only survived because the girls had run off and their father had chased after them.

Harrowing new footage of the moments after the airport attack has emerged on Belgian television, showing a lone baby left crying in the wreckage next to the lifeless body of a woman.

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After swearing the oath of office, Khaled El-Enany, Egypts new minister of antiquities, spoke to Ahram Online about his plans to enhance Egypts heritage profile

Khaled El-Enany, Egypt's new minister of antiquities, told Ahram Online that plugging the hole in the ministry's finances will be his top priority, because when funds are available projects that were put on hold could be resumed.

El-Enany completed his doctorate in Egyptology in 2001 at Montpellier III University in France, writing about ancient Egyptian royal names.

He then began an academic career in the Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management at Helwan University, where he rose through the ranks.

While at Helwan, El-Enany was director of the Open Learning Centre, head of the Tourism Guidance Department, vice-dean for education and student affairs and professor of Egyptology. He is also an associate scientific expert and member of the board of administration at the Institut francais d'archeologie orientale (IFAO) and a visiting professor at Montpellier III. He has lectured in France and Switzerland.

In October 2015, the French government awarded El-Enany the French Chevalier (knight) of the Order of Arts and Literature for his achievements in archaeological studies and his efforts to preserve Egypt's heritage and create a strong bridge of cooperation between Egypt and France in the field of archaeology.

El-Enany told Ahram Online by phone after swearing the oath of office in front of President El-Sisi that he would continue what his predecessors started, as the post does not suggest one should start from scratch, or erase all previous efforts exerted. Rather, the aim must be to build on what has been done.

Helping junior Egyptian archaeologists and curators to develop their skills to meet their counterparts abroad is another goal that El-Enany vows to work hard to achieve, through the establishment of workshops on research methodology in Egyptology as well as sending archaeologists for training abroad.

He continued: I have several ideas in mind and I will work hard to implement them, in order to protect and preserve Egypts heritage.

El-Enany promised to have a soft opening of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in 2016. The press conference on the results of the radar survey of Tutankhamuns tomb is to be held 1 April according to schedule.

El-Enany told Ahram Online that Prime Minister Sherif Ismail assured him he would remove all obstacles the ministry has faced in the pursuit of its archaeological work.

He added that Ismail encouraged him to work in collaboration with the ministries of tourism and civil aviation to improve Egypt's heritage profile and build up the country.

Upon arrival to the ministry El-Enany met with former Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty and all heads and directors of sections in the ministry, in order to put in motion a plan for the ministrys future work.

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(Beijing)  China's controversial legal market for ivory exists because the country imported 62 tons of elephant tusks from African countries in 2008 in a one-off sale authorized by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the primary international agreement protecting the animal.

CITES effectively banned the global commercial trade in African elephant ivory in 1989 by placing the species on its top list of protected animals. It grants exemptions, however, to trade that took place before the ban went into effect in 1990 and allows businesses to continue under certain circumstances such as when the ivory is regarded as a hunting trophy.

The convention also endorsed two one-off sales from the governments of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe  which had a legitimate stockpile of ivory from elephants that died naturally  to Japan in 1999 and China in 2008. Japan bought another 46 tons in 2008.

The rationale behind the sales is that all proceeds would be used to protect elephants, but critics oppose it because they say this legal market served to disguise and facilitate black market deals, which are particularly rampant in China. Chinese demand is also thought to be the main culprit behind a surge in elephant poaching after 2008, as data from CITES indicated, but Chinese officials have denied that claim.

The Chinese government has made moves since last year that indicate it may be heading toward a complete ban on all commercial trade of ivory, which means the legal market will be closed.

The government's pledge to ban all domestic trade would "eliminate the possibility that ivory from illegal sources is laundered through legal outlets, which has happened in the past," John E. Scanlon, secretary-general of CITES secretariat, wrote in an email in reply to questions from Caixin.

He added that, "From what we have observed, the commitments have been very well received by the international community and we have seen calls for other governments to follow the example."

The following are excerpts of his email interview with Caixin.

Caixin: China and the United States have reached an agreement to impose "nearly complete bans" on ivory trade, including domestic transactions. What's your view of the agreement?

John Scanlon: CITES is a legally binding international treaty that regulates international trade in CITES-listed species, which includes African and Asian elephants. It does not regulate domestic trade. We understand that the voluntary commitments made by the governments of China and the United States were based on thorough considerations and a recognition of the alarmingly high levels of poaching of African elephants in the past few years to feed the illicit ivory trade. From what we have observed, the commitments have been very well received by the international community and we have seen calls for other governments to follow the example.

Do you think a ban on legal trade may increase the price of illegal ivory and thus lead to more poaching?

Whether or not the price of ivory will go higher in the illegal market is yet to be seen. According to the Chinese government and market researchers, the price of and demand for ivory have already dropped steeply in China over the past two years. We are inclined to think that the ban will not motivate poaching, and considering the current downward trends in price and demand, we anticipate the opposite. The prohibition of domestic trade could facilitate the work of the enforcement officers as all trade will be prohibited. It will also eliminate the possibility that ivory from illegal sources is laundered through legal outlets, which has happened in the past as reported by the CITES Management Authority of China.

It is worth noting that the ban does not appear to apply to mammoth ivory, which would have to be closely monitored to ensure no laundering of elephant ivory.

Ivory carving is treated in China as intangible cultural heritage. There has been fear that a ban on ivory trade will spell the end of it. What's your take on this?

We recognize the unique beauty of the intricate ivory carvings in China, which is seen by some as the pinnacle of Chinese arts and crafts. However, elephants are a part of our natural heritage, for all peoples and cultures around the world. The ultimate objective of CITES is to ensure that trade in CITES-listed species is legal, sustainable and traceable, and is not detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild. Unfortunately, the current level of poaching of elephant is anything but sustainable.

Around 100,000 African elephants were estimated to be killed illegally for their ivory between 2010 and 2012, and they have been decimated in some World Heritage sites. In fact, the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, in which China is also a member, clearly states that "consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with  sustainable development." Extinction is forever. If the skill of ivory carving is to be sustained, the population of elephants must first be sustained. When the balance is lost, the priority must be given to the conservation and survival of elephants.

Does CITES' secretariat conduct its own investigations to verify signatory countries' data on how much illegal ivory they have seized?

We work on the basis of good faith with the parties to CITES. We do not necessarily verify all data. But when we are in any doubt, we do seek clarifications, as necessary.

What else do you use to estimate a country's demand for illegal ivory?

Measuring any illegal activity is rife with complications as, by its very nature, the activity is obfuscated as it happens underground.

Ivory seizures reported by a CITES party are recorded in the CITES Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). The ETIS data are certainly very important for determining the size of the illegal market in a given country.

Seizures in transit countries that clearly suggest the final destination country is another data set to measure the significance of the market in the destination countries. In addition, various research and studies on domestic illegal markets, both physical markets and now increasingly virtual markets via websites and social media, provide another indicator of the size of the market.

Price is an important factor to consider. Smuggling is most often profit-driven. From the supply end, traders will most likely provide the illegal ivory to the highest bidder.

Arrests of nationals in the supply chain, i.e., in African countries for elephant ivory, can also be a factor to be considered. Also, the size of the legal market clearly shows the interest and demand for ivory which can easily be a target for illegal trade.

Critics around the world have often referred to China as the primary consumer of illegal ivory. Do you agree?

The comments made earlier on measuring the size of the illegal market for ivory can be applied to China, just as it can to other destination states. It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that China is a major destination of illegal ivory. The fact that China was one of the two countries that participated in the one-off sales in 2008 demonstrated the great interest in its domestic market for ivory, given international trade was banned in 1990, noting that it was also a precondition of the one-off sale that the ivory should not enter the international market, and was therefore to be used in China only. Japan was another country that participated in the bidding in the one-off sales. Seizure data reported by China in recent years show that tons of ivory have been illegally exported from Japan to China, which, among other things, signals the weakening demand for ivory in Japan and the higher price offered in the Chinese market.

In addition, the CITES Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program has used the volumes and prices of mammoth ivory imports, which is a legal trade, as a proxy for demand for elephant ivory. China and its Hong Kong special administrative region currently import more than 90 percent of the mammoth ivory exported by Russia, the main producer, and trends in import volumes and prices correlate well with elephant poaching trends in Africa. MIKE has also found a close correlation between levels of consumer spending in China and levels of illegal killing of elephants. That does not hold for other traditional ivory consuming nations, such as Japan and Thailand or transit states, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

What do you think is driving the demand for illegal ivory in China?

There exist various motives for people to buy ivory carvings, some for personal use, some for gifting and some see ivory or ivory carvings as a means of investment. There is a strong belief that the demand for ivory in China was accelerated by the art investment boom that started around 2005.

A recent study suggests that the main driver behind the illegal ivory trade is criminal speculative investment, and not current consumption or low-end buyers. The analysis by our partner the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) concurs with this conclusion, which was in general shared by all the leading conservation organizations and experts at a recent workshop hosted by UNODC.

What do you think a comprehensive ban on trade will mean for related Chinese government agencies, business people and law enforcement officers?

At this stage, we do not know what the scope of the "nearly complete ban" will be. When international commercial trade in ivory was prohibited in 1990, China had to deal with the closure of some ivory carving factories, including the search for alternative materials for carvings, etc. The Chinese government is a very active and engaged party to CITES, and it clearly has the will and the ability to cope with the challenges that are presenting themselves this time.

The challenge will remain with enforcement authorities because prohibiting a domestic market does not automatically translate into the eradication of illegal market by itself. It requires a robust and persistent enforcement effort, from detection to seizure, prosecution, conviction and the imposition of strong deterrent penalties.

Poverty and ineffective governance in many African countries should also be blamed for elephant poaching. Besides seeking to curb demand for illegal trade, what has CITES done to protect elephants from the supply side?

Poverty and poor governance are indeed among the root causes of illegal killing of elephants, as is corruption and poor enforcement. However, the ability to address poverty and poor governance goes beyond the mandate of CITES. Our global partners such as the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank are addressing the issue of poverty reduction and we work with our partners in the International Consortium of Combating Wildlife Crime on issues of corruption and enforcement.

It has been reported that some southern African countries hoped to conduct another one-off sale of ivory. How so and what's your opinion of this?

Southern African elephant range states have voluntarily agreed on a moratorium on further proposals to trade in ivory for nine years after the one-off sale was approved in 2007. We are not aware that any southern African states will submit a formal proposal for a one-off sale of ivory for international trade. It is not appropriate for the CITES secretariat to make any prediction on whether or not such a proposal will be forthcoming from any other state and whether it will likely be adopted.

It is for the countries to decide how they would like dispose of the ivory stockpiles, and CITES resolutions provide advice in this regard. Some choose to store and others choose to destroy their stockpiles. Whether or not legal ivory stockpiles can be traded to generate funding for conservation will be determined by the parties to CITES.
North Korea on Thursday claimed it has succeeded in testing a solid-fuel engine for its space rockets.

If the claim is true, the North could save time injecting fuel into missiles, shortening the period between decision making and launch and threatening South Korea's interception ability.

"The predictive value of the test surprisingly matched its measured value," the official [North] Korean Central News Agency claimed.

Watching the test, leader Kim Jong-un applauded and expressed "much satisfaction," saying, "We've secured a new springboard in the development of the rocket industry," KCNA said.

"We now can further increase the might of ballistic missiles with which to strike hostile forces mercilessly," Kim added.

That is the closest admission yet that the North's space rocket launches were veiled tests of intercontinental ballistic missile technology.
President Park Geun-hye on Thursday put the military on alert against provocations from North Korea and called for maximum attention to security.

Park gave the order in response to a threat from North Korea the previous day that Cheong Wa Dae is a "target of a primary strike."

"The North's threat is a challenge to [South Korea] and its president, and a direct defiance of the whole world," said presidential spokesman Kim Sung-woo.

Meanwhile, military officials here including presidential national security adviser Kim Kwan-jin met the same day to discuss a response to the North's attempt to boost its nuclear weapons and missiles and recent extravagant threats.
Passenger flights to destinations in China, Japan and Vietnam are set to increase this year.

According to international flight schedules for March 27-Oct. 29 released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Thursday, 817 flights per week are scheduled between Korea and Japan, up by 147 flights from the same period of last year.

Flights to China and Vietnam will rise to 1,317 flights and 234 flights per week, an increase of 108 flights and 88 flights, respectively. The number of flights to Europe, on the other hand, will decline, with 32 flights to Germany, 20 flights to France and 78 flights to Russia being available per week.

Overall, 87 airlines will operate a total of 4,299 flights per week on 371 international routes.

The number of international flights operated by domestic low-cost carriers will rise particularly sharply, jumping from 533 flights to 892 flights per week.
Chinese vice premier stresses structural reform to boost economic growth

2016-03-25 15:29

BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- China will spare no effort to implement supply-side structural reform over the next five years to ensure sound and sustainable economic growth, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli has said.

Vigorous efforts should be made to cut overcapacity, destock, deleverage, lower business costs and improve weak areas, Zhang said at the opening of the China Development Forum in Beijing on Sunday.

As the world economy is undergoing a weak recovery and the Chinese economy is facing downward pressure, China must take care to maintain appropriate economic growth and vigorously carry out supply-side structural reforms, he said.

China will adopt stable macro policies over the next five years while continuing a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, according to Zhang.

China should introduce well-targeted industrial policies and flexible micro policies to promote innovation and stimulate the vitality of enterprises, he pointed out.

Zhang also said the country will continue to carry out market reforms.

He stressed people's livelihoods and said that China will make employment a priority as structural reform puts pressure on the job market.

Zhang also demanded adherence to innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, which was included in the new Five-Year Plan covering 2016-2020.

He told the opening ceremony that China is not only a beneficiary of globalization, but also an important contributor to world economic growth and stability.

China contributed over 25 percent of global economic growth in 2015. Its non-financial outbound direct investment grew 14.7 percent year on year to 118 billion U.S. dollars, official data showed.

China's development will bring other countries more opportunities for investment, according to the vice premier.

Noting the Group of 20 (G20) summit will be held in China's Hangzhou this year, he called for joint efforts to promote the building of "innovative, dynamic, coordinated and inclusive" world economy.

Hosted by the State Council's Development Research Center, the annual China Development Forum is a platform for business and academic leaders to interact with China's top decision makers and economic planners.
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Finland and Russia have agreed to close the Arctic border, thus preventing migrants from getting to the European Union. The Finnish government said in a statement that only citizens of Finland, Russia and Belarus can use the border crossings of Salla and Raja-Jooseppi located in northern Finland. The deal between the two countries would hold for about half a year, although it was not immediately clear when it would take effect because of legal issues that are still outstanding. The agreement was announced in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto.

Although the Arctic part is less popular among migrants than the Balkan or Mediterranean path, over the past four months, more than 1,700 asylum seekers, mostly from Afghanistan and Syria, have used it to enter the block through two of Finlands northern entry points. In 2015, approximately 5,500 people took it to get into Norway but the influx was redirected to Finland after Norway had closed their border crossings. The government in Helsinki commented that the purpose of these restrictions is to prevent organized illegal immigration.

Norways asylum policy had been under immense pressure before the closure of its border. The country had even attempted to deport hundreds of migrants to Russia, which objected to the scheme with politicians trying to defend their refusal based on security concerns in the face of the criticism of human rights groups. At the same time, Finland, a country of 5.4 million people, accepted about 32,000 asylum seekers last year, as the whole continent is struggling to deal with the worst migrant crisis since World War II.
Boao forum calls for more support in infrastructure Updated: 2016-03-25 08:09 By Wang Yanfei in Boao, Hainan province(China Daily)

Workers construct a railway project in Yuncheng, Shanxi province. [Photo/Xinhua] More investment needed to improve logistics and contacts

Panelists attending the annual Boao Forum for Asia called for more investment in infrastructure projects between China and other countries, pointing to the important role of the construction of the China-Thailand railway due to begin in May.

More investment is needed in infrastructure construction that will help bolster local logistics and trade contacts, especially electric power and railway projects, Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a panel discussion on production capacity on Thursday in Boao, Hainan province.

China has signed agreements on capacity collaboration with dozens of countries, including developing countries along the Road and Belt Initiative, and developed countries, such as France, according to Ning, who noted that it will be easier to start working with neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Kazakhstan as they have greater demand in terms of infrastructure compared with developed countries.

The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, is meant to improve transport infrastructure linking Asia and Europe.

Ning said that the railway project between China and Thailand, which will be designed and constructed by Chinese companies, marks a further step to enhance cooperation that is not only beneficial to local communities but also to China's equipment exports.

The $10.6-billion, more than 800-kilometer railway project that connects Thailand's Nong Khai province, Bangkok, and the eastern province of Rayong, was signed in December when Premier Li Keqiang went to Thailand for a regional meeting in 2014.

Delegates attending the forum said that such investment is a win-win strategy for everyone involved.

New infrastructure projects bring communities with more jobs and bring more tax income for the government, according to Pakistani Minister of Planning Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal.

On China's side, capacity cooperation leads to a particular growth in railway equipment with high quality, according to Zhang Jiehui, vice-governor of Hebei province.

"There are more than 700 companies in steel and iron industries in Hebei that made investment and built factories overseas, each of which is making a profit," said Zhang, in response to concerns that China exports inferior capacity to other countries to tackle its own overcapacity problems.

"By moving factories abroad Chinese companies specialized in these fields could better play their roles in countries with higher demand in steel, cement and other manufacturing products," said Zhang.

Zhang said further investment would be made in cooperation with Pakistan and Kazakhstan, and he expected a prospective future for further cooperation.
China's rust belt edges near startup boom, after decades of decline Updated: 2016-03-25 08:55 By Fan Feifei and Zhou Huiying(China Daily)

The northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning are on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom.

The region was the country's main industrial hub in the 1970s before declining in the following decade, when it encountered difficulties in adapting to the structural reforms of the new market economy.

Low GDP growth, overcapacity of traditional industries and unprofitable companies were blamed for the decline.

The situation has now improved as more and more graduates and youths have been encouraged by local governments to start businesses to spearhead an industrial boom.

The Harbin Institute of Technology's student incubator park, which was launched last year, covers an area of 3,700 square meters and boasts 38 startups. A total of 228 people, including 112 graduates, are working there.

By the end of 2015, the park had received 16.5 million yuan ($2.53 million) in venture investment, with total revenue reaching 14 million yuan.

The Heilongjiang provincial government has provided 50 million yuan in specific financial funds to the startups and the rental, water, electricity, property and Internet fees are exempted for three years.

Harbin World Wide Welding Co Ltd, which is engaged in welding equipment and technology, is a typical startup born in the park.

Wan Long, 25, a first-year PhD student in welding technology and engineering from the institute, launched the company last year.

"Having received a number of technology innovation awards and invention patents, I came up with an idea of transforming technology into products and starting a business," said Wan.

"We make efforts to develop friction stir welding machine with an independent intellectual property right, which could be applied into aerospace, automobile, ship, electronics and high-end equipment manufacturing industry."

The company has sold welding equipment to enterprises including French electric automation company Schneider Electric SA, and provides original equipment manufacturing service. Its turnover reached 1.5 million yuan last year.

Heilongjiang is not alone.

Liaoning has created 41 different measures across 10 different sectors to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Small and micro enterprises there can enjoy tax cuts and capital support, as well as having technology and innovation projects fast-tracked for approval.

In the provincial capital Shenyang, its famous Sanhao Streettraditionally home to its computer communityofficials have created more than 10,000 square meters of what is being called "makers' space", dedicated solely to entrepreneurs.

Nearly 40 new startups have opened up there, attracting investment around 150 million yuan.

The investors include 28-year-old Ke Dongyue, who quited a stable job as a pediatrician to start his own businessan online healthcare platform, which has gathered more than 100 veteran doctors to provide medical services to patients.

"The 'makers' space' offers me free office accommodation, equipment and big-data services. I can also find investors here," said Ke.

And in Jilin province, its industrialization process has been helped considerably by a series of policies aimed at scientific and technical sectors, especially new energy and materials, optoelectronics and other strategic emerging industries.

So far there are 300 technological innovation-based enterprises with output surpassing 30 million yuan in the capital city Changchuna vital engine now in its overall economic growth and industrial upgrading, according to Jilin officials.

Liu Ce in Shenyang and Liu Mingtai in Changchun contributed to this story.
Airlines gain as they avoid fuel hedging Updated: 2016-03-25 09:47 By Wang Wen(China Daily)

Women at a job interview for flight attendants of China Eastern Airlines at an airport in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. [Photo provided to China Daily] Nation's major carriers expect their net profits to increase by 70 percent due to low oil prices

China's major airlines look set to reap the benefits of a policy not to hedge in the oil market, when they report results over the next week.

Many airlines across the world are suffering financially, despite the falling prices of aviation oil, after being locked into fuel purchases at prices above the current market value.

But the three largest will announce their annual finance reports over the next seven days, and now expect net profits to grow at least 70 percent on 2014 as a result of the low prices.

China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, the largest carrier in Asia in terms of fleet, has forecast net profit to rise to 1.773 billion yuan ($272.3 million), a 110-130 percent rise.

Air China Ltd is forecasting net profit of 3.782 billion yuan for 2015, a growth of 60-80 percent from the previous year.

"The slump in fuel prices cut the company's operational costs compared with the previous year," it said in a statement.

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways, on the other hand, is expected to announce that despite overall 90.48 percent year-on-year net profit growth, it was thumped to the tune of HK$8.475 billion ($1.09 billion) from hedging, 8.3 times higher than in 2014.

"Mainland airlines did not suffer such losses, as they have not adopted oil price hedging in recent years," said Geoffrey Cheng, head of transportation and industrial research at BOCOM International Holdings Ltd.

However, added Han Yichao, an analyst from Changjiang Securities Co, their profit is still likely to be down overall, and with oil prices already rising slowly, costs are likely to increase this year.

Their performance is currently being affected by other factors, such as slowing domestic demand and a depreciating yuan, as most companies carry heavy dollar debt.

Recent statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of China showed that the country's overall air passenger traffic increased 11 percent to 440 million trips in 2015.

Chinese airlines have, said Han, worked hard to cut their dollar debts to reduce losses.
Fear of China makes for poor policy Updated: 2016-03-25 08:26 By Luigi Gambardella(China Daily Europe)

Denying market economy status to Beijing would be a strong political signal from the EU and might have some negative effects

It seems that in Europe, the debate over granting China market economy status is not hitting the spot. Semantics are often the cause of misunderstandings, and also in this debate.

Whether China has now become a market economy is irrelevant because market economy and compliance with the World Trade Organization agreement are two different things. The ongoing debate is about the interpretation of Paragraph 15 of China's accession protocol to the WTO. This paragraph relates to the technicalities of investigating anti-dumping claims.

Dumping is normally the result of state interference in economic operations, or of protection or lack of competition in the exporting countries' markets, allowing local producers to charge artificially high prices in their home market and subsequently use the profits from such activities to "subsidize" exports at prices below real market costs.

When China joined the WTO in 2001, it agreed to a 15-year transitional period, during which other WTO members were allowed to use the "nonmarket economy methodology" when investigating anti-dumping claims.

Under this methodology, the trade officials of the EU Commission are entitled to estimate by analogy the domestic production cost and prices of export products, instead of basing their investigation on domestic market prices. The Chinese government argues that when the transitional period ends on Dec 11, trade officials from the commission will no longer be entitled to apply the nonmarket economy methodology.

Conversely, some lawyers argue that until the other WTO members grant market economy status to China in their national legislation, their anti-dumping investigators can continue to use the nonmarket economy methodology. That is, in a nutshell, what the whole market economy status debate is about.

The interpretation of the WTO agreement could be tested in a dispute settlement procedure. But is this advisable? Let us not forget the political and symbolic dimensions of the debate. According to China's mission to the EU, already 88 countries including New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Chile and ASEAN countries gave China early recognition of market economy status. Their choice was primarily dictated by political reasons, including the conclusion of free trade agreements.

To deny market economy status to China would be a rather strong political signal from the EU and may well cause the deterioration of the warming political relationship between the two economies. In the short term, there are concrete risks of retaliation from the Chinese side, causing the EU economies serious pain and uncertainty on what will be the end result.

It could threaten the positive outcome of the ongoing negotiations for the bilateral investment treaty and the potential to conclude an FTA between China and the EU, which according to commission estimates could raise European prosperity by 250 billion euros ($281 billion). Moreover China is the first, and only, non-EU country that has so far generously committed to invest in the European Commission's Investment Plan for Europe, known as the Juncker Plan.

Closing the door to China may thus have very negative effects.

As the saying goes, the best way to win a dispute is to avoid it. A wise decision would be to adopt a forward-looking political approach, whereby granting market economy status could be used by the European institutions to strengthen the bilateral dialogue with the Chinese in support of facilitating the business activities of EU companies in China.

One of the main drivers of the market economy status debate is the fear of job losses in Europe's less-competitive manufacturing industries. It is, however, time for the EU to reflect on why its ability to compete with other economies is getting worse in many sectors. One of the reasons no doubt lies in EU overregulation that hampers the overall industrial ability to innovate and invest.

The EU could face negotiations in a stronger position when it comes to defend its industry and the jobs of European citizens: there would probably be fewer dumping disputes if European governments would proceed with the necessary structural reforms and if market players could enjoy better competitive conditions.

With China, what is needed is more dialogue not less. We need to find win-win solutions rather than to start a new fight. Today, the keyword is cooperation. History has demonstrated that dialogue and cooperation, not conflict, are able to overcome misunderstandings and reduce distances.

Europe must not to be afraid of China. Fear is a bad adviser. China and Europe should work together more closely in the future and on the future. The cooperation with China on digital, 5G and Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, will be crucial if we want to keep a competitive, strong and solid European industry.

The author is president of ChinaEU, a business-led association that aims to strengthen joint research and business collaboration and investment in Internet, telecommunications and high-tech between China and Europe. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily European Weekly 03/25/2016 page10)
Yantai looks to lure more world-leading companies Updated: 2016-03-25 08:27 By Tang Zhihao(China Daily Europe)

Yantai is one of many cities in Shandong province seeking to attract more Fortune 500 companies to build the region into a foreign trade hub.

"Yantai has established strong relationships with many world-leading companies. There are almost 100 Fortune 500 companies already in Yantai," said Zhang Yongxia, mayor of Yantai.

Loctite was the first Fortune 500 listed company to set up in Yantai, establishing a joint venture named Henke Loctite China Co with the Yantai Machinery Research Institute in 1987.

GM's production base in Yantai is one of the company's largest in China.

Zhang said Yantai has successfully attracted 97 Fortune 500 companies during the past three decades, including Mitsubishi, LG, General Motor (GM) and Total. She said those businesses invested $2.5 billion of foreign capital in 138 projects.

Foreign companies are mainly engaged in areas such as automotive and components manufacturing, ship building, business services, electronic information technology, new energy and culture development.

Zhang said the GM production base in Yantai is one of GM's largest in China, with total investment having reached $3.5 billion. The production base attracted more than 200 supporting companies to Yantai.

"The presence of these leading companies not only brings economic benefits and capital to Yantai, but also brings advanced management and production experience," Zhang said. "It will boost awareness of Yantai on the world stage".

Zhang said Yantai would continue to support key foreign invested projects launched by companies such as China Resources Co, Heraeus Group and Jurong International in the coming years.

Going global

Opening-up has been the key development principle of Yantai in recent years.

Figures from the Yantai Bureau of Commerce show that Yantai's incoming overseas capital in place reached $1.92 billion and total foreign trade volume was $49.39 billion in 2015. Yantai contributed 20 percent to the overall foreign trade volume in Shandong in 2015.

The latest figures from the Yantai government show there are more than 3,000 companies from over 90 countries and regions in the city.

Those companies have brought in 13,500 investment projects, some of which play a significant role in the country.

For instance, Foxconn's largest console production base in the world is in Yantai. Langchao LG Digital Mobile Communications Co has the largest CDMA mobile phone manufacturing base in China located in the city, and CIMC Raffles has the largest semi-submersible platform manufacturer in the nation.

Companies in Yantai have also made breakthroughs in overseas expansion in the past few years, during which 274 domestic companies have invested in 428 projects in 66 countries and regions. The total investment is $3.36 billion. The Sino-Russia Tomsk Wood Trading Cooperation Zone in Russia is the second national-level Chinese-invested trade zone with investment from Shandong companies.

Yantai has also built many economic parks in the city to support its foreign trade.

The Yantai Economic and Technological Development Zone ranked sixth among 219 national-level economic zones China in a recent comprehensive development evaluation. The trading volume of the Yantai Bonded Zone ranked first among 14 bonded zones in China.

The China-South Korea (Yantai)Industrial Park went into operation in 2015.

"The industrial park is a free trade zone that was jointly built by China and South Korea at the suggestions of President Xi Jinping and President Park Geun-hye. The zone will strengthen cooperation between China and South Korea," Zhang said.

Zhang said many companies showed great interest in investing in the China-South Korea Industrial Park. "Many South Korean companies in healthcare, commercial logistics, cultural and aged care are keen to run businesses in Yantai. Some existing South Korea investors have confirmed their expansion plans," she said.

In 2015, Yantai's exports to South Korea were valued at $11.08 billion, accounting for one-third of those from Shandong.

Officials said that investment projects initiated by South Korea companies such as Hyundai Motor Co and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co are progressing rapidly.

The construction of a Sino-South Korea New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park, Sino-South Korea Medical Equipment Industrial Park and South Korea Goods Trading Centers are also advancing well.

tangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 03/25/2016 page13)
Economic restructuring can help others Updated: 2016-03-25 08:29 By Chen Yingqun and Zhang Xia(China Daily Europe)

As the 'factory of the world' goes upmarket, transferring its industrial capacity and skills is ideal for less-developed nations

China's transfer of its industrial capacity, as well as skills and other support, would benefit countries such as those in less-developed areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as helping China, experts say.

Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia's ambassador to China, described such capacity cooperation between Ethiopia and China as very important for both sides. Mesfin spoke during a recent forum hosted by the China-Africa Business Council in Beijing.

China has become Ethiopia's biggest trading partner, and bilateral trade in 2015 reached $4 billion. China's direct investment in Ethiopia reached about $1 billion. With China's support, Ethiopia is pursuing important infrastructure projects that make it more attractive for foreign capital, he says.

Feng Hongcheng, secretary-general of the China International Industrial Capacity Cooperation Forum, says China's economic new normal is about adjusting its economic structure and making an economic transformation.

China's exports in recent years have seen a great change from low-end industrial products to industrial chains of middle- and high-end products and models of infrastructure construction. As a result, Feng says, India and some African and Latin American countries can be important partners for transferring some of China's industrial capacity.

"There is great opportunity for capacity cooperation with these countries. After a lengthy period of development, China has amassed a large amount of foreign reserves and also advantages in the equipment manufacturing industry. These emerging countries have a large demand for infrastructure, building materials and equipment," Feng says.

"This capacity includes infrastructure, equipment, skills and so on, and Chinese companies' abilities in these aspects have been improving. Many of them are taking our skills, talent and capital abroad, providing industrial materials and project experience to other countries."

Cao Jiachang, deputy director-general of the department of Western Asian and African affairs at China's Ministry of Commerce, calls capacity transfers a definite must in China-Africa relations. Africa's industrialization is not fully developed yet, and the economic level is not high, either. "But we always have considered Africa a region full of potential. Africa has the need for industrialization, and because China is at a different developmental stage, we are able to work with Africa to make that industrialization happen," he says.

Yu Yue, deputy director-general of the department of Latin American and Caribbean affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says transfer of international capacity is a way for China to speed up its economic transformation, changing from a world factory that makes ordinary products to a production center for advanced equipment. Advancing their ability to go global also helps Chinese companies become more competitive in the international sphere.

"International capacity cooperation also meets the realistic needs of developing countries," Yu says. "At present, many developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are still at the first stage of industrialization and have a huge demand for international capital, equipment and skills. China has good capacity that would meet the needs of the developing countries, with advanced technology and sufficient capital support, and would be important capacity cooperation partners."

In the past few years, China's capacity transfers to Latin America have led to a lot of advancement, and the rate of Chinese companies going to Latin America is speeding up. China also has announced a $30 billion special fund for China-Latin American capacity cooperation, Yu says.

But she suggests Chinese companies that want to go global should first do their homework on Latin America, including the different culture and background, business codes, laws and regulations.

Moreover, they should be dedicated to a long-term management role and shoulder their social responsibilities, and also provide training to local employees and transfer skills.

Contact the writers through: chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 03/25/2016 page28)
Determined to help deal with debt Updated: 2016-03-25 08:29 By Cecily Liu(China Daily Europe)

China has shown its support for poor countries in economic difficulties and is committed to realizing UN goals, diplomat says

China is increasingly providing mutually beneficial growth opportunities for less-developed countries and economies hit by the current debt crisis, according to veteran diplomat Zhou Xiaoming.

Such opportunities, he says, are being created via multinational institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank (formerly BRICS Bank), and organizations like the United Nations.

Veteran diplomat Zhou Xiaoming says China's experience, resources and technology can be shared with other developing countries. Cecily Liu / China Daily

"China is increasingly engaging in discussions on the UN platform, as the country recognizes much of the organization's work is in line with its own agenda and that the UN has a fair system for all countries' voices to be heard," says Zhou, who is deputy representative of China's permanent mission to the UN Office in Geneva.

"In addition, China is championing an improved global economic environment, whereby developing countries are integrated into a fairer global economic and financial architecture, and can increasingly generate sustainable growth. Such initiative is coherent with what China wants to achieve through its G20 presidency (starting in September), which is to facilitate global growth and promote better financial governance."

China is participating in long-term development programs at the UN, especially to help realize the Sustainable Development Goals adopted last year, following the country's major contribution to the Millennium Development Goals, which led to tremendous global growth between 2000 and 2015, he says.

China showed its support for the new goals when President Xi Jinping attended the UN General Assembly that launched them in September and announced a number of major initiatives, including a South-South Cooperation Fund with an initial pledge of $2 billion to help developing countries implement a sweeping sustainable development agenda over the next 15 years.

Between 1990 and 2015, more than 470 million people in China were lifted out of extreme poverty, according to data from the UN Development Programme.

As the Sustainable Development Goals aims to lift another 1 billion worldwide out of poverty by 2030, China's experience, resources and technology can be shared with other developing countries, Zhou says.

"To lift a billion people out of poverty in 15 years could be a more challenging task than we realize, if we just think that China only lifted about 400 million out of poverty between 1990 and now, and that during this time our GDP has been growing at a double-digit rate. To achieve the goal desired by the UN, it's crucial we work together in partnership and make use of the power of multinational platforms."

He says China's contribution toward poverty reduction is twofold: "We still have about 100 million people in China living below the poverty line, so we need to eliminate poverty domestically. Internationally, we can contribute in many ways: trade expansion, economic aid, productive capacity building, and infrastructure development. Also, technology transfer will help developing countries to accelerate growth."

China's support of a UN resolution for debt-burdened developing countries last year helped in restructuring their debt in a way that allowed their economies to grow in a sustainable way, Zhou says.

"The resolution urges debtors and creditors to act in good faith and with a cooperative spirit to reach a consensus. Crucial to this resolution is a clause that allows debt-burdened sovereign states to design macroeconomic policy, including the restructuring of their sovereign debt, meaning their future development will not be impeded by unfair terms set by creditors."

Such a clause is beneficial when considered within the context of the Argentinean debt crisis, which has for the past decade seen the country battle a small group of hedge funds that refused to join a deal it had agreed with more than 90 percent of creditors.

The deal would have allowed Argentina to pay back its debt at huge discounts, but the hedge funds refused and took the matter to court in New York, consequently prompting a new default by the country. Greece faced similar problems.

The UN resolution, passed with 136 supporting votes, including that of China, was met with opposition from creditor nations such as the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the European Union abstained as a whole.

"China is also a significant creditor globally, but it has supported the UN resolution, demonstrating its genuine desire to ensure that developing countries will not be crushed by undue burden of sovereign debt."

China, while still a developing nation, has become a global player in the world economy and a major international lender. Loans from the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China to investment in African countries have, for example, outnumbered the lending of the World Bank.

In addition to supporting the UN resolution, China is also exempting the debt of outstanding intergovernmental interest-free loans due by the end of 2015 owed by the least-developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing countries, as announced by Xi at the UN assembly meeting last year.

Zhou, who served as minister counselor in the economic and commercial office at the Chinese embassy in London before taking up his post in Geneva last year, has seen China's rapid emergence onto the world stage through his extensive career as a diplomat.

In particular, over the past five years, he says there has been tremendous growth in UK-China relations, especially in financial services, property, high-technology manufacturing, creative industries, energy and infrastructure.

He attributes the growth to the UK economy being open to foreign businesses, and China's enhanced capability to meet the UK's financing needs. In addition, the UK's expertise in building a knowledge economy is also helpful to China as the country experiences a structural transition from a growth model fueled by manufacturing to one led by services and consumption.

Looking ahead, Zhou believes China will become further integrated in the world economy as it takes a leadership role in reviving global growth.

"At a time when the global economy is seeing economic slowdown, China is determined to play a major role in pushing through a revival through growth initiatives that create better connectivity and further trade and investment links between countries, as well as create a better governance framework and environment for poor countries to develop more quickly, leading to win-win growth globally."

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 03/25/2016 page32)
Tsai plays dumb charade across Straits Updated: 2016-03-25 08:28 By Shih Chih-yu(China Daily)

Democratic progessive party leader Tsai Ing-wen attends to the talent competition of children with mental disabilities in Taiwan. [Photo/IC]

Since the election of Tsai Ing-wen, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, in January 2016 as Taiwan leader, speculation over her position on cross-Straits economic exchanges has been rampant. It should have been clear, though, that she would be lukewarm toward such economic exchanges if one took her past remarks seriously.

However, her attitude became ambiguous during the election campaign, opening up room for imagination. Still, she might favor a policy that can reduce Taiwan's economic dependence on the Chinese mainland. And for that reason, a creative "guilt economy" - similar to guilt tax - may gradually emerge in Taiwan.

By no means does Tsai's record create optimism. She used to oppose the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement and strongly supported the "Sunflower Movement" of March 2014, which triggered extensive aversion in Taiwan toward the Cross-Straits Service Trade Agreement.

In fact, Tsai was well known for her consistent effort to control the economic exchanges between the two sides. The "Mainland Affairs Council" under her leadership, for example, adopted a series of security indices to prevent over-reliance on trade with the mainland.

Although doing without anti-mainland rhetoric, Tsai is in actuality pushing for a "south-focused" policy that she hopes will incorporate both Southeast Asian and South Asian economies to substitute for the mainland. She even envisions an economy of culture by deepening mutual understanding and appreciation with the prospective southern partners, in the hope that economic relations will enhance the cultural bondage, a line of thinking remarkably akin to the mainland's philosophy on the cultural relationship with Taiwan.

The island's businesspeople are nevertheless worried about their ventures on the mainland. Many are even eager to make new investments and purchases elsewhere or agree to offers of purchase from mainland buyers. Tsai is not in any position to stop them if business judgment points to profitability. But since she is not certain about how economic conditions will evolve in the following years, she may feel a better bet in the short term would be to remain acquiescent on businesses that may alleviate the pressure of retreat, unemployment and low salaries on her. In other words, business opportunities on the mainland could still be useful in the short term.

She will not sit idle, though, with her main fear revolving around the possible loss of economic autonomy. Despite an ambivalent policy of "neither encouraging, nor discouraging" she may pursue on the flanks of the economy a moral restraint constituted by a sense of "guilt" stemming from those making profits on the mainland.

Guilt will be both the deliberate construction of Tsai's policy and an expected outcome. In short, Tsai's substitution of "cultural independence" of Taiwan for "political independence" is seen not only in the cultural sphere but also in the economic sphere.

The intended cultural changes constituted in her South and Southeast Asia initiative are aimed at offsetting the "political incorrectness" of economic interaction with the mainland, which pro-independence politicians allege is threatening the island's "cultural independence". To the extent that her economic policy aims at "cultural politics", such campaigns immediately reduce Taiwan businesses on the mainland to cultural defections, and hence guilt.

This could lead to the rise of a "guilt economy", something the world has never heard of. Economic necessities will be registered in "guilt" under Tsai's leadership. It results from the combination of Tsai's pro-independence predilection, incapability of her policy to enhance the island's autonomy from the mainland politically as well as economically, and her determined leadership in internally consolidating the "culture" of Taiwan "independence". Tsai's administration as well as her party will benefit from such a "guilt economy". This is because a guilt economy as such will generate pressures on those making profits on the mainland to make contributions to her party or her "policy priority".

The author is a scholar of political science in Taiwan.
Japanese gov't sued in visa refusal case Updated: 2016-03-25 09:13 (Xinhua)

TOKYO - Six representatives from China and Japan filed a complaint to the Tokyo District Court on Thursday, suing the Japanese government over interfering in freedom of assembly and speech, and seeking 6.6 million yen (about 58,740 US dollars) in compensation.

Last November, the Japanese government rejected visa request from 12 Chinese, including families of Chinese victims of Japan's notorious Unit 731, a chemical and biological warfare research base of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. They were invited to symposiums in Tokyo on wartime issues on Nov 27-29 last year.

The organizing committee of the symposiums has demanded an explanation from Japan's Foreign Ministry, but has got no answers so far.

The plaintiffs consist of three relatives of the Chinese victims of Unit 731 and three Japanese speakers of the symposiums.

Hiroshi Tanaka, one of the plaintiffs and a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, said the Japanese government rejected their visas for no reason at all as many of the invited victims had been to Japan many times before.

He said it was very likely that the Japanese government was not satisfied with the theme of their symposiums which focused on "fighting against the Abe administration and abolishing war bills."

Takakage Fujita, another plaintiff and director general of a group established to uphold and develop the Murayama Statement, criticized the Foreign Ministry, saying their behavior goes against the visa issuance standards and interferes in communication between Japan and the Asian victim countries of the war.

He added that the government's actions are unbearable and are an infringement on their freedom of assembly.

Wang Xuan, representative of the Association of Chinese Victims of Germ Warfare, also joined this lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry should provide specific reasons for denying entry of the Chinese victims.
Description

The New York International Auto Show will be returning to the Jacob Javits Convention Center for 10 days of non-stop excitement. With four full floors devoted to the world's top automakers and nearly 1,000 vehicles, it's no wonder that the show has consistently held the highest attendance of any car show in North America for its entire 116-year history.

Dates and Times:

Friday, March 25th through Sunday, April 3rd

Monday  Saturday: 10 AM  10 PM

Sundays: 10 AM  7 PM

Early access and tours led by automotive experts are also available. See the show's official website for tickets and additional information!
By Barbara Goldberg

March 25 (Reuters) - A federal judge in California on Friday effectively overruled a Brooklyn magistrate and ordered a flight attendant held without bail on charges that she dumped a bag of cocaine and fled authorities at Los Angeles International Airport.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte in Los Angeles came a day after the federal magistrate in the New York City borough of Brooklyn set bail at $500,000 for her release.

Flight attendant Marsha Reynolds, 31, must now remain in custody until she is transported to California to face the charges. Her next court hearing in Los Angeles is set for April 7.

Reynolds, a JetBlue Airways Corp employee and a former college sprinter who was raised in the borough of Queens, is charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

She is accused of dropping a bag containing almost 70 pounds (32 kg) of cocaine when she was randomly selected for screening at the Los Angeles airport last Friday, taking off her shoes and dashing away. She later turned herself in to authorities in New York.

The magistrate in Brooklyn had granted her release on a $500,000 bond but put the order on hold until Friday to allow the judge in California, where she would face trial, to weigh in.

On Friday Judge Birotte ordered her "to remain in custody and await transport by the United States Marshal to the Central District of California."

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Dan Lyons

An FBI investigation into marketing-tech company HubSpot reveals alleged "email hacking" and "extortion," according to documents seen by Business Insider.

These are new details involving attempts by people no longer with the company to obtain a manuscript of a book about the company. Some of these details were previously reported by the Boston Globe.

To recap: Last summer, HubSpot's chief marketing officer, Mike Volpe, was "terminated for cause," content VP Joe Chernov "resigned before the Company could determine whether to terminate him for similar violations," and CEO Brian Halligan was "sanctioned," HubSpot said in a press release.

The two executives who left the company had been involved something unethical "in connection with attempts to procure a draft manuscript of a book involving the company," according to the company's press release.

The book was a memoir written by journalist and former employee Dan Lyons.

After an internal investigation, the company turned information over to the FBI and US attorney, who looked into the matter and dropped it, with no criminal charges filed.

But Lyons knew very few details about what actually went down.

"The VP who had been my boss resigned before he could be terminated. That was the first I knew about any of this," Lyons told Business Insider.

The situation has been weighing on his mind. So he and his attorney obtained the FBI's records of the investigation, which included notes of the interviews that FBI agents conducted, via a Freedom of Information Act, and they shared the documents with Business Insider.

The documents are heavily redacted. Still, a couple of parts of them jump out.

They confirm that all of this came about because people at the company were afraid that Lyons' book would "embarrass the company, as well as, individuals who worked there."

The documents also say that someone involved was allegedly trying to use "tactics such as email hacking and extortion in order to railroad the book" and there were "multiple failed attempts to manipulate and extort people."

Story continues

There were 'multiple failed attempts to manipulate and extort people.'

The documents mention that someone in California filed a "John Doe" lawsuit claiming extortion, too, though they provided no details on that.

The scheme didn't work, by the way  the book is coming out next month. It's called "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble."

A HubSpot spokesperson shared this statement from John Kelleher, HubSpot general counsel, about the situation:

"Following an internal investigation in July 2015, we turned our findings over to the authorities. We havent had any additional communication with them since cooperating with the investigation last year but its our understanding that they chose not to pursue any criminal charges."

What was so embarrassing?

Mike Volpe, Hubspot CMO

Lyons tells Business Insider that while the book depicts some bizarre antics that he experienced at the company, he doesn't know what the blackmail-worthy information could have been.

The FBI asked him much the same thing.

Lyons told the FBI, for instance, that he didn't know about people having affairs or other such typical things typically used in blackmail.

Lyons told the FBI that his book focuses on culture stuff, like the day that all employees were told to stop working for the day and "conquer their fears." So everyone spent the day painting and doing other "fear conquering" activities that Lyons found "silly" and "cult-like."

Lyons has not given up on trying to find out what really happened, he told Business Insider.

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By Frank Jack Daniel HAVANA (Reuters) - When Carlos Carnero's rock band Los Kent plugged in guitars and drums to play Rolling Stones covers on Cuba's Island of Pines in the 1960s, soldiers stopped the gig at gunpoint in minutes and marched the musicians onto a boat heading back to the mainland. Now some 50 years later, Carnero is preparing to see the Stones play to a crowd of 400,000 people in Havana on Friday in the latest sign of Cuba's thaw with the West. It is the first time the British band has performed in Cuba and caps a week in which U.S. President Barack Obama made a historic visit. The Stones arrived in Cuba on Thursday. "Time changes everything," Mick Jagger said at Havana airport, when asked about a former ban on his music in Cuba. Despite the stern treatment Los Kent received in the 1960s, Carnero's instruments were not confiscated that day and his band survived to play in secret house parties. Others suffered more for their love of rock and roll, including being sent to farms in labour brigades meant to correct "ideological deviation." "They called it the music of the enemy," Carnero said, clutching dog-eared black and white photos of Los Kent as young men on stage in 1963. Hippies and rock fans faced repression in Europe and the United States too in the 1960s, but Cuba went further, banning music from artists such as the Stones, the Beatles and Elvis Presley on the radio and television after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Rock was frowned on for decades and it was only in 2000 that Los Kent were given a licence to work professionally, as people of Carnero's generation reached senior positions in government. Los Kent, who got their name from a guitar brand, will play on Thursday night in a bar at the Havana Melia hotel, where the Stones are expected to stay. To get his musical fix, Carnero, now 66, secretly listened to short-wave radio stations from Florida and shared pirated copies of vinyl records brought in by diplomats' children and sailors and passed around the scene. He was excluded from college for two years because he refused to cut his long hair, despite pointing out to the authorities that heroes of the revolution like Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos sported unkempt locks. His brother was among those sent to the countryside - given the choice of farm work and abandoning his tight pants and musical taste or leaving the technical college he attended. "After two months in the countryside he decided he'd rather not continue at school and came home," said Carnero, chuckling. "It was a moral punishment, you were doing something you weren't allowed to do because somebody didn't like it," Carnero said, in a home studio where an electronic drum kit and keyboard vie for space with an acoustic guitar. Some of Cuba's leading personalities were sent to similar camps, including composer Pablo Milanes and Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Many rock musicians later left the country. Fidel Castro later regretted the censorship of music and attended the unveiling of a statue of John Lennon, one of the four Beatles, in a Havana park on the 20th anniversary of his death on Dec. 8, 2000. Carnero said Castro told him that his revolutionary government was facing huge international challenges in the 1960s as he tried to consolidate the revolution and that many in his government did not understand what the young rockers were up to. "Despite all the difficulties, I wouldn't change my youth for that of today - we had so much love for what we did that there was nothing that could stop us," Carnero said. (Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Andrew Hay)
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during the Republican candidates debate sponsored by CNN at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida, March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Donald Trump's border-wall proposal has been roundly excoriated, and experts have told Business Insider that the wall itself would not only be impractical, but it may also embolden the very criminals it's supposed to stop.

"Donald Trump talks tough about the cartels, but his policies are tailor-made to increase their profits," Tom Wainwright, author of "Narconomics" and previously The Economist's reporter in Mexico City, told Business Insider.

"He talks a crackdown at the border, but crossing the border is what they do best, it's where their advantage lies, that's where they make their money, that's why drugs cost so much more in the States than they do in Mexico."

Americans spent more than $100 billion on illegal drugs in 2010, according to a White House study, and many of those drugs get a substantial markup because of the difficulty involved in getting them to the consumer.

A border wall may raise the prices of drugs, but it "won't do much to reduce consumption, because people who are addicted to drugs on the whole are very responsive to prices," Wainwright said. "So all it will succeed in doing is inflating the value of the criminal economy."

Colombia coca plant farm cocaine

In the case of cocaine, the price goes from a few hundred dollars for the coca leaves needed to make it in Colombia, to "more like $150,000 per kilo," when it retails on US streets, Wainwright told Business Insider in an interview, a price that would likely rise with a border wall.

"I think if the cartels could vote, they would vote for Donald Trump. His policies suit them down to the ground," Wainwright added.

'P unch a hole through it '

"Trump's wall would not have any impact on the movement of drugs through the US-Mexico border," Mike Vigil, a retired DEA agent who spent time undercover in Mexico and Colombia, told Business Insider.

Story continues

crashed drone with crystal meth

"The Mexican drug traffickers would punch a hole through it, fly over it," Vigil added. "They would be able to circumvent that with medieval technology, catapults, shooting stuff across the wall."

Suggesting drug traffickers could fly or fling drugs over a border wall is not speculation. They have done just that.

In the past, cartels have made use of fleets of hundreds of aircraft to move shipments of drugs over the border clandestinely. More recently, traffickers have employed ultralight crafts and drones to ferry drugs into the US.

In another, more low-tech effort, smugglers used a catapult to hurl marijuana over the Arizona border.

"They just put the drugs there and whoom!  over the border fence, and then somebody picks it up on the other side," journalist Ioan Grillo told Business Insider.

Mexico drug smuggler catapault

Mexican cartels have also proved adept at transporting illegal drugs by sea, in both ships and on homemade narco submarines. The occasional bust of seaborne narcotics may be a sign of how lucrative this method is.

"Donald Trump is mentioning this wall like it's going to have an impact because he's playing to what people want to believe that he's going to do in terms of immigration," said Vigil. "But that wall would serve absolutely no purpose."

' The only way ... to stop it is with boots on the ground '

The benefits of a wall  which Trump's varying estimates put at anywhere from 30 feet to 65 feet tall  closing off the US-Mexico border have also been called into question by people who live along the frontier.

Ranchers and other residents near the border in southwest New Mexico have seen an uptick in incidents related to illegal border crossings, including break-ins and, late last year, a brief kidnapping, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

"The vandalism and the trespass issues have increased," Erica Valdez, who ranches more than 40,000 acres in Hidalgo county, New Mexico, which makes up the state's bootheel, told the Journal in early March.

New Mexico bootheel Mexico wall Trump

But, despite these criminal incursions, residents seem wary of Donald Trump's promises "to close up that border and  build a wall."

"The border is not secure  It doesn't matter how tall of a wall you put up, they are going to tunnel under it, they are going to torch through it. If they want to come across, they will," Valdez said, in what seems to be a reference to Trump's proposed border wall.

Despite the Border Patrol intercepting 11,000 unauthorized border-crossers in fiscal year 2015, "The folks down there have never gotten any relief from illegal crossings," Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, told the Journal.

Animas_New_Mexico

Rather than a static wall, residents in the area have pushed for a larger Border Patrol presence, which the agency has said it is in the process of deploying. (Trump has proposed tripling the number of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers.)

"The only way they are going to stop it is with boots on the ground at the border," Valdez said. "We would like to see more agents."

NOW WATCH: How a Trump victory could be good for Mexican drug cartels





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By Jessica DiNapoli (Reuters) - Essar Steel Minnesota LLC [ESML.UL], a U.S. affiliate of India's shipping, natural resources and power conglomerate Essar Global Group, has hired financial and legal advisers to help it restructure its debt, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is in the final stages of building a $1.8 billion iron ore pellet plant in northern Minnesota. Its woes underscore the impact that cheap Chinese imports have had on the price of iron ore and U.S. steel manufacturers. Essar Steel Minnesota has hired investment bank Guggenheim Partners LLC and law firm White & Case LLP as debt restructuring advisers, the people said this week. Essar Steel Minnesota has about $1 billion in debt, one of the people added. The sources asked not to be identified because the appointments are not public. Spokespeople for Essar Steel Minnesota, Essar Global, Guggenheim and White & Case did not respond to requests for comment. Essar Steel Minnesota's move to restructure its debt comes less than six months after the bankruptcy filing of its Canadian sister company, steel manufacturer Essar Steel Algoma Inc. Essar Steel Algoma also filed for bankruptcy in 2014. Essar Global moved into Minnesota in 2007, shortly after it acquired the Algoma manufacturer. At the time, the company said it was positioning itself to be close to high-value steel markets and sources of iron ore. The plant, whose construction started in 2010, is scheduled to open this year, according to the company's website. It will permanently employ 350 people once it opens, according to the state. Last year, Essar Steel Minnesota failed to make timely payments to its vendors, according to press statements from the office of the Minnesota governor. The company did not live up to the terms of the original agreement it had with the state, and at the end of last year it accepted a plan to repay Minnesota's $66 million loan. (Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
The Online Streaming Industry Lowdown: What's New in Mid-March?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Netflixs snatching up of the TV viewing share

It appears that Netflix (NFLX) is set to lay claim to the majority of television viewing. According to a FierceCable report from earlier this month, MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson stated that using Nielsen data streaming of shows on Netflix comprised around 6% of total traditional TV viewing in 2015, compared to only 4.4% in 2014. According to the same MoffettNathanson report, it is expected that Netflix will make up 14% of total TV viewing by 2020.

As the above graph indicates, CBS (CBS) saw its viewing decline by a whopping 42% in households that subscribed to Netflix. Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA), The Walt Disney Companys (DIS) ABC Network, and Comcasts (CMCSA) NBC, by comparison, saw their viewership decline by 35%, 32%, and 27%, respectively.

Netflixs domestic streaming segment

Netflixs domestic streaming segment had revenues of $1.1 billion in 4Q15, with a contribution profit of $379 million. Its contribution margin was 34.3% in 4Q15. Netflix believes that the breadth of its original programming will be the key to drawing viewers to its service. Netflix has stated that it is rolling out more original programming than linear television networks do in an entire year. It also believes that judging by the popularity of the largely Spanish-language (EWP) show Narcos, the quality of its content and not the language will be the sole criteria that will let the company gain more subscribers in the US.

Notably, Netflix makes up 0.86% of the PowerShares QQQ Trust Series 1 ETF (QQQ), which has exposure of 4.7% to the TV sector.

Now lets take a closer look at Netflixs approach to technology.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
EyesWideOpen | Getty Images. Rising numbers of female millionaires and billionaires around the world may help drive a rise in luxury health and wellness holidays.

Rising numbers of female millionaires and billionaires around the world may help drive a rise in luxury health and wellness holidays and women-only hotel services.



The number of female ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWI)  those with net assets of $30 million or more, excluding their primary residences  is increasing faster than male UHNWI, encouraging travel agencies, hotels and tour operators to focus on their interests. These include holidays that focus on "wellness" and can be combined with business or voluntary work, according to data provider, WealthInsight.

"Interview and secondary research show that spas, yoga, meditation, health and wellness are appealing to female UHNWI," Roselyn Lekdee, economist at WealthInsight, told CNBC on Wednesday.







Locations with large UHNWI populations:



Europe  Germany, U.K., Switzerland, France and Sweden

Asia-Pacific  Japan, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and India

North America  U.S. and Canada

In a report on Tuesday, Lekdee said the number of wealthy females rose by 5.3 percent between 2010 and 2014 in locations with large UHNWI populations (see above). The number of male UHNWIs rose by 4.4 percent, although there were still far more male than female multimillionaires.



"As wealthy females have greater control over their careers and finances, they are becoming more selective about holidays, demanding personal and more sophisticated services," Lekdee said.

"Wellness" tourism can incorporate a wide range of activities including spa, yoga, detox, fitness and stress relief. The industry is worth $494 billion globally, according to the Global Wellness Institute, an industry body.



This type of tourism is growing and proving popular with solo travelers  and women. Several Asian countries are benefiting from the trend, with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India known for high-end health and wellness holidays.

"UHNWIs globally often travel to these countries for luxury spa and detox retreats," Lekdee told CNBC.

Story continues

Spas are offered by many of the region's luxury hotel chains, including the Four Seasons, Shangri-La, Mandarin Oriental and Hyatt.

There are also chains of high-end spa resorts like Banyan Tree, which has hotels in Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives and the Seychelles.

The Ananda Spa offers white-water rafting, safaris and treks in the snow-capped Indian Himalayas, as well as yoga, meditation, fitness training and spa treatments.

Luxury hotels in the Middle East are meeting a different demand from women. In regions with large Muslim populaces, hotels sometimes allocate floors solely for women travelers.



Dubai's Jumeirah Emirates Towers hotel, which is aimed at business travelers, offers a ladies-only floor for "executive women seeking sophistication, luxury and exclusivity." Rooms come with cosmetic refrigerators and are serviced only by female staff.

As elsewhere in the world, wellness is important. The female-only floor at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh features its own gym, as Saudi Arabia's laws mean women cannot use the main health club. Bedrooms come with yoga mats and the female-only floor has its own check-in desk and lounge.

London is popular with visitors from the Gulf States and at least one of the capital's hotels has trialed a female-only floor. The Hilton on Park Lane, Mayfair  a district popular with Arab visitors  launched one in 2003, only to quietly drop it a few years later, according to media reports. This suggested the floor may have lacked appeal because its bedrooms were more expensive than others in the hotel.

Other hotels in the city have retained "female-friendly" bedrooms. The "Duchess" rooms at Dukes in Mayfair tout makeup mirrors, lifestyle magazines and flowers, as well as female-only room service and smaller slippers. Meanwhile, the female-friendly bedrooms at the five-star Grange City hotel near the Tower of London come with extra security features  doorbells, spy-holes and chain locks.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.





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Selling cars is big business, but theres an even bigger one: transportation services, which includes things like taxis, shuttles and ride sharing. We literally get none of that, Ford Motor (F) CEO Mark Fields tells me in the video above, shot recently at the New York International Auto Show. We look at that as a huge opportunity.

Thats why Ford has set up a new mobility division to figure out ways the company can grow beyond the manufacture and sale of automobiles. When asked if Ford might get into the booming ride-sharing business, Fields says, That may be one area we pursue, transportation as a service.

Fords crosstown rival, General Motors (GM), has purchased the technology of failed ride-sharing service Sidecar, and invested $500 million in Lyft. In one new program, GM will provide vehicles for some Lyft drivers in a few cities, a possible first step toward a broader rental program. Virtually every automaker is developing self-driving cars that could be more popular in ride-sharing fleets than in consumers own driveways.

Ford has a pilot program in London that allows drivers to check out a Ford from one of about 25 locations in the city and use it as they wish, paying by the mile. The deal also includes guaranteed free parking. That model is more like Zipcar, which offers short-term rentals in urban areas, than Uber or Lyft, but future transportation offerings could include both rentals and ride-sharing. Similar programs will probably roll out in the United States eventually.

Another new offering, called FordPass, will be an app backed by live services that anybody can use, not just Ford customers. The automaker is still working out the details, but Fields says the service might allow users to prepay for parking, scout for a nearby rental or hail an Uber-like ride. It may also do some of the same things GMs Onstar service allows, such as helping locate a car in a crowded parking lot or starting the car from a distance, with a smartphone app. Were thinking through all of that right now, Fields says. Its very wide open. Just like American roads used to be.

Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
2016 Honda CR-V

Auto executives are a strange blend of constitutional optimists and reliable pessimists.

They have to be, because the auto industry is cyclical: rising sales are always followed, eventually, by falling sales.

After a record year for sales in the US  17.5 million new cars and trucks rolled off dealer lots  a big topic of discussion and debate at the 2016 New York Auto Show is just how strong the next nine months will be.

There are three main camps. The first thinks that the US market hasn't peaked and that there's more room for sales to grow. The critical data point here is average vehicle age; in the US, it's 11 years, and it's never been that high before.

The second argues that the market has plateaued and that to push it higher will require amped-up incentive spending, which means that the automakers will cut into their profits to hang onto market share.

The third doesn't think sales can hold at current peak levels and will dip in 2016, but not fall below a 16-16.5-million annual pace.

The view from Honda

At a roundtable with journalists at the New York Auto Show, American Honda Motor executive vice president John Mendel  he oversees Honda and its Acura luxury brand in North America  tackled questions about this issue.

He cited the catastrophic slump in US sales in 2008-09, when after setting a sales record in 2000, the market flattened for several years and then tanked as the financial crisis took hold, with sales ultimately falling to 10 million in 2009.

"People did irrational things," he said, to provide context for his belief that a massive decline isn't in the cards.

Mendel doesn't think that that sales will plummet, but he does predict that the 2016 market will see 16-17 million in sales, rather than a surge above 17.5 million.

He said that sales on that order will be interpreted as stagnant, an erroneous opinion.

"I don't think you'll see a precipitous drop to 12 [million]," he argued. "But the shock and awe in the auto industry is the headline 'SALES STAGNANT.'"

Story continues

He quickly added, "Yeah, but at historically high rates."

In other words, a slip from the 2015 peak or even a plateauing at 16-17 million would still be good for business and no reason to panic.

Be disciplined  or get punished

However, Mendel isn't bullish on the automakers' commitment to holding back on increased incentive spending.

"Show me discipline ever in this industry!" he said. "It's never there. Everybody says, 'We learned,' and then six months later its a junkie right out of rehab."

Mendel noted that Honda has traditionally not been a car maker that needs to resort to quick fixes to sustain high US sales. "We're not growing on fleet business, we're not growing on subprime [auto loans], were not growing on zero-percent [financing]. We've never done that."

That discipline helped Honda to stay on a more even keel in 2009. "We didn't suffer as badly. We didn't build plants to sell 100,000 models to Hertz. We're not immune, but we have some internal governors. We don't swing wildly up, and we don't swing wildly down."

Honda is now the number three Japanese car maket by share, behind Toyota and Nissan (Honda has usually been number two). But in 2016, its stalwart Civics, Accords, and CR-V compact SUVs have been sales leaders, just as they usually are.

Acura sales have also been good, particularly with crossover SUVs, but the brand continues to be dogged by the impression that it doesn't play in the same league as rivals Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, and increasingly Audi.

Of course, a solid market position and legendary customer loyalty don't mean Mendel has nothing to worry about.

"I would never say we're bulletproof," he said. "We've had record sales three years in a row, record sales on the Acura side, but there are still things that keep you up at night."

NOW WATCH: The best car of the year  the Volvo XC90





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MILAN, March 22 (Reuters) - An Italian financial broker working on behalf of HSBC in the Swiss town of Lugano is under investigation for possible money laundering in a probe linked to a wider tax evasion case, an Italian finance police colonel told Reuters.

The officer's confirmation that an investigation has been opened followed a statement on Tuesday from Turin tax police, saying that police searched the home of the broker in the Northern Italian town of Lecco. It did not name the broker.

The statement said the individual is suspected of being part of a group of a dozen brokers who are alleged to have collected funds from Italian clients, deposited them in anonymous accounts in the Lugano office of HSBC and then transferred them to offshore companies in Panama, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Isles to shield the money from tax authorities.

The other 11 people are not under investigation and no other searches have been carried out, finance police colonel Ivan Bixio told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We are monitoring the situation but have no further comment at this stage," an HSBC representative told Reuters in an emailed statement.

HSBC no longer has offices in Lugano.

The investigation grew out of an analysis by the finance police of the so-called Falciani list of more than 100,000 names leaked in 2008 by a former HSBC employee, sparking a U.S. probe into whether the British bank helped Americans to evade taxes.

Herve Falciani, 44, was found guilty of aggravated industrial espionage and last November was sentenced by a Swiss court to five years in prison.

Authorities in France, Austria, Belgium and Argentina have said they are investigating the individuals on the list. According to Bixio, prosecutors in different Italian cities are still examining Italian individuals on the list in connection with possible tax evasion.

The finance police statement on Tuesday said that the group of a dozen brokers worked in 29 Italian cities including Milan, Turin, Genoa and Rome, and that none of them held the required Italian financial qualifications.

Story continues

Colonel Bixio said the information was acquired through internal bank working papers that gave details of the business carried out by the brokers working as intermediaries.

HSBC has previously admitted failings in compliance and controls in its Swiss private bank and faces an inquiry by British lawmakers after media reported that the lender allegedly helped wealthy customers conceal millions of dollars of assets in the years up to 2007.

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Steve Scherer and David Goodman)
Microsoft Office Small Business Academy

It happens a lot: two people break up, one of them is angry and post private, explicit photos and videos of the other person online.

It's called "revenge porn."

Both Microsoft and Google announced new policies last summer to remove "revenge porn" from their search engines if the victim fills out a form and requests it. Microsoft will even take the photos off of the internet entirely if the content is within its reach, like if it's been shared via Xbox Live or its OneDrive cloud storage service.

But it turns out Microsoft doesn't automatically say yes to every revenge porn request, just like it doesn't agree to every request made for other reasons to remove content.

Out of 537 revenge porn requests in the second half of 2015 (the first few months since it enacted the policy), Microsoft agreed to take down or block the content in question 338 times, or 63%, it says in "Content Removal Report."

Why wouldn't Microsoft comply with 37% of cases? Two reasons, Microsoft's director of corporate responsibility explained in a blog post:

1) Microsoft asked for more information to "make a determination" on the request.

2) Microsoft looked at the "content in question" and felt that it doesn't meet the revenge porn criteria such as it doesn't "identify the victim in the image" or it doesn't contain "nudity."

On the other hand, when it comes to copyright infringement requests, of which there were nearly 60 million in the second half of last year, Microsoft complied with 98%.

Revenge porn isn't the toughest thing to prove to Microsoft. The content that falls under the "right to be forgotten" rule for European countries takes that honor. Out of 8,638 protested URLs in the second half of 2015, Microsoft only agreed to block 41% from its search engine.

NOW WATCH: This $99 device turns your phone into a 3D printer





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Polands prime minister Beata Szydlo after the Brussels attacks.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels this week, the Polish government decided to make its already-strict stance on refugees even harsher. Polish prime minister Beata Szydlo announced Wednesday (Mar. 23) that the country was annulling its earlier promise to accept at least 7,000 asylum seekers, breaching the terms of Polands agreement with the European Union.

The move is deeply hypocritical. Even as Poland refuses to accept a comparatively small fraction of the 120,000 refugees to be placed throughout the EU, the largest economic emigration in Polish history continues. Roughly 800,000 Polish nationals live in the United Kingdom these days, constituting the largest non-British nationality in the country, according to the Office for National Statistics. But while Polish people seek to make the most of other countries hospitality, the countrys government appears unwilling to extend its own.

To understand the roots of Polands refusal, its helpful to understand the countrys history. Ravaged by occupation, genocide and communist rule for the last two centuries, Poland was reincarnated in 1989 into a largely homogenous, Catholic, and institutionally weak country. Its economically stratified society has continued to argue about transition strategies ever since. Compromise in Polish politics is scarce, and so is the level of trust in public administration.

But Poland hasnt always been this way. Before World War II, minorities made up about one-third of the countrys population. Going much further back in Polish history, the period of Jagiellonian rule in the 16th century is frequently referred to as Polands Golden Age. This era owed its prosperity in large part to the movement of both goods and citizens between Poland and Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Russia. Equally important were Polands religious freedom laws, which brought the country fame as a safe house for political dissidents.

Story continues

Yet Poland appears to have forgotten the lessons of history. Today, the government wants to have its cake and eat it too. But a country cannot maintain strong growth rates while closing its borders to skilled workers who are fleeing war and terror while seeking peace and prosperity. In a world that is more interconnected than ever, isolationism is a sad farce.

Polands deputy prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki knows this well. Before taking office, he was an executive at Bank Zachodni WBK, one of Polands largest and most profitable banks. Today, Morawiecki plays a major role in determining Polands economic policy. One of the pillars of his recently announced strategy focuses on creating favorable conditions for the Polish start-up ecosystem, benchmarked by the success of Silicon Valley.

Yet Silicon Valley would never be what it is today without immigrants. Immigrants founded 52% of new Silicon Valley companies between 1995 and 2005, according to the nonprofit Kauffman Foundation. They make up a significant portion of Silicon Valleys CEOs, scientists and engineers. Modern markets need motivated people with hard skills in order to grow, and thats exactly what should be on Polands agenda.

Moreover, while Polands government refuses to accept migrants today, circumstances may well force the country to change its mind sometime soon. Demographic projections suggest that Polands working-age population will shrink by 2.7 million by 2025. The country will need more workers to achieve its economic goals.

In short, the Polish governments stance on refugees is an embarrassmentnot to mention a troubling sign for a society that presents itself as overwhelmingly Catholic. The moral argument for welcoming refugees ought to be enough. But in case its not, its also true that Polish statehood has historically thrived only when it opened its borders and embraced a heterogeneous society. To paraphrase the words of theologian Henry Chadwick, a country that has lost its memory is in a sad state of senility.

Follow Maciej on Twitter @kuziemsky. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

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WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - March 25, 2016) - In a phone call to King Mohammed VI on Wednesday, United States Secretary of State John Kerry reaffirmed that the US's policy supporting a formula of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty for the Western Sahara remains unchanged, and assured the King that the US will continue to work with Morocco to resolve this longstanding regional dispute.

The phone call came just a few days after State Department Spokesperson John Kirby issued a statement reiterating that the US considers Morocco's autonomy plan "serious, realistic and credible," and "a potential approach that could satisfy the aspirations of the people in the Western Sahara to run their own affairs in peace and dignity." The State Department's intervention was prompted by remarks made earlier this month by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon while in Algeria that brought into question the UN's neutrality on the issue.

US policy on the Western Sahara dates back to 1999 and has continued under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. In a Joint Statement issued on November 22, 2013 following a meeting between President Obama and King Mohammed VI, the US reiterated that Morocco's autonomy plan is "serious, realistic, and credible." The two leaders also affirmed "their shared commitment to the improvement of the lives of the people of the Western Sahara."

The policy -- and support for Morocco's autonomy plan -- has also been reiterated by bipartisan majorities of both the US House and Senate. In April 2009, 233 members of the United States House of Representatives sent a letter to President Obama reaffirming their support for Morocco's autonomy proposal. The letter built on another letter from 2007 signed by 173 Members of the House (including the bipartisan House Leadership Chairman Tom Lantos and Ranking Member Ileana RosLehtinen) reiterating Congressional support for the Moroccan plan, and a letter from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other former policy makers. In March 2010, 54 members of the United States Senate affirmed their support for Morocco's autonomy plan in a letter addressed to thenSecretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to "make the resolution of the Western Sahara stalemate a U.S. foreign policy priority for North Africa." In its legislative report for the 2016 Appropriations Bill passed in December 2015, Congress re-affirmed their strong bipartisan support for a negotiated solution to the dispute over the region based on autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, and encouraged American private sector investment in Western Sahara.

"Morocco took a courageous step a decade ago when it offered its autonomy plan for the region, and the US has encouraged that vision since the beginning," said former US Ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel. "I urge the Administration to not forget its encouragement to Morocco to take this course of action and to continue doing everything it can to help make it a reality."

The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials, and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
The opposition to North Carolinas controversial anti-LGBT law is growing, and many of the worlds biggest tech companies are joining the chorus of vocal opponents. Google, Facebook, Apple and Paypal are among those who have spoken out against the legislation since it was rushed through the state Legislature and signed into law by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Wednesday.

We oppose all laws that enable or encourage discrimination, said Google in a public statement Thursday, which also called the law in question misguided and wrong. Cisco followed suit on Friday, declaring in a statement that it was extremely disappointed and concerned by the law and a similar discriminatory bill currently in front of Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.

Facebook said in a statement that it opposes efforts that discriminate against people on the basis of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Other tech companies that have spoken up in opposition to the law include IBM, Apple and Paypal.

In addition, a number of executives of major etch companies took to Twitter to personally take a stance. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich declared that more than ever, now is the time to be an # LGBTQAlly and stand up for nondiscrimination. Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, whose company has its headquarter in the state, called the law a clear step backwards. And Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff not only encouraged other businesses to take a stance against the law, but also sided with protesters engaging in civil disobedience.

North Carolinas Legislature passed state law HR2 in a special session on Wednesday. Claiming to be a response against a local ordinance that would have protected against discrimination based on ones sex or gender identify, the law effectively blocks all local LGBT anti-discrimination efforts.

The tech industry isnt the only one protesting North Carolinas law: The MPAA also voiced opposition against it Thursday. And while tech and media are taking a stance against North Carolinas law, theyre also increasing their pressure on Deal to veto Georgias so-called religious liberty bill. One example: Benioff threatened to move Salesforces Connections conference, scheduled for May in Georgia, out of the state if Deal signs the bill into law.

Story continues

Correction: 4:35pm: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Salesforce was threatening to move its Connections conference out of North Carolina. The company is instead rethinking on whether to host it in Georgia.

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The BMW logo is seen during the 2016 New York International Auto Show in Manhattan, New York March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) - BMW AG (BMWG.DE) will get five more months to acquire Takata (7312.T) air bag replacement parts for a massive recall because tests showed some of the substitute inflators may also be defective, the U.S. auto safety agency said on Thursday.

The deadline for the German automaker was extended to Aug. 31 because a replacement driver-side air bag inflator made by a supplier other than Takata failed during testing, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said.

"NHTSA's priority continues to be ensuring that unsafe air bag inflators are replaced with safe ones," the agency said in a statement.

A BMW spokeswoman declined to comment.

Takata inflators can explode with excessive force and spray metal shrapnel into vehicle passenger compartments, and have been linked to 10 deaths worldwide and more than 100 U.S. injuries. To date, 14 automakers have recalled about 24 million vehicles involving about 28 million Takata air bag inflators.

NHTSA said all automakers besides BMW have reported that they are on track to meet the original March 31 deadline under a agency order to supply enough replacement inflators for "priority one" vehicles, with the highest risk of ruptures. The agency set the deadline in early November.

The consent order also set deadlines of Sept. 30 for automakers to have enough replacement parts for "priority two" vehicles, and Dec. 31 for "priority three" vehicles. NHTSA will delay those deadlines for BMW until 2017.

BMW told NHTSA in January that it had obtained replacement inflators from a supplier which it did not identify, and then reported subsequent testing failures to the agency.

The automaker requested a five-month extension in February.

The extension applies only to one type of inflator and not to other Takata inflators in vehicles manufactured by BMW.

BMW said it was working on three alternative designs as a backup plan if the current redesigned part fails.

BMW told NHTSA in a February letter released by the agency on Thursday that it believed the root cause of the test failures "relates to unanticipated interaction with the horn plate in the steering wheels."

Story continues

Until then, BMW will continue its "like-for-like remedy program until an alternate inflator is available," NHTSA said.

In late December, NHTSA named John Buretta, a former official in the Justice Department's criminal division, to serve as independent monitor overseeing the Takata recalls.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang)
A smartphone app for Lyft drivers is seen during a photo opportunity in San Francisco, California February 3, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

By Heather Somerville and Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge questioned on Thursday whether a proposed class action settlement between Lyft and its California drivers is fair and raised concerns that the $12.25 million payment offered by the ride-hailing service might be too low.

The 2013 lawsuit brought against Lyft by California drivers contended they should be classified as employees and therefore entitled to reimbursement for expenses, including gas and vehicle maintenance. The drivers, who are currently independent contractors instead of employees, pay those costs themselves.

At a hearing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said he was concerned that the proposed settlement does not reflect the company's explosive growth in California over the past few months.

Employment status is critical for the so-called on-demand technology companies. The case involving Lyft and another class action lawsuit against larger rival Uber have been closely followed because a determination that workers are employees rather than contractors could affect valuations of other startups.

Chhabria, who did not rule from the bench, must decide whether the deal is fair for drivers. He will likely issue a preliminary ruling sometime in the next few weeks.

Lyft agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit in January. Under the proposed deal, drivers would receive an average of $56 each after attorneys' fees and other expenses, documents show.

During settlement negotiations, attorneys for the plaintiffs received data from Lyft about its driver population through last June. Based on that, they valued a potential claim for expense reimbursement for drivers at $64 million, and then negotiated the $12.25 million settlement.

However, Lyft later provided updated figures covering the period through February. That shows California Lyft drivers would have been entitled to an estimated $126 million in expense reimbursements had they been employees rather than contractors.

Story continues

Drivers would have recouped an average of $835 each under a standard rate for mileage reimbursement set by the U.S. government, court filings show.

"Shouldn't you have estimated what the value would be through the entire class period?" Chhabria asked.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney at law firm Lichten & Liss-Riordan representing the plaintiffs, acknowledged Lyft's growth. "Lyft has been exploding over the last few months," she said.

However, Liss-Riordan also argued that other parts of the deal benefited drivers, including a provision that prevented Lyft from summarily terminating drivers.

Lyft attorney James Slaughter said the deal was "beyond fair."

The Teamsters union and five drivers had formally objected to the deal, saying it short changed drivers by keeping them as contractors.

However, Chhabria rejected that argument. Even though drivers would remain contractors under the settlement, Chhabria said it would be risky for drivers to proceed with the case.

A jury could ultimately rule that drivers are contractors and then they would get nothing.

"I just don't understand why they can't reach some type of settlement agreement, short of reclassification, in light of that risk," he said.
Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli isis

ISIS' described No. 2 leader was killed in a Thursday strike in Syria, US officials announced Friday.

The commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, went by several aliases, including Haji Imam and Abu Alaa al-Afri.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said at a briefing on Friday, using an alternate acronym for ISIS, which is also known as the Islamic State or Daesh.

Carter referred to the ISIS commander as a "senior leader serving as a finance minister who was also involved in external affairs and plots."

Qaduli was thought to be a potential successor to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, if Baghdadi were to die.

"The momentum of this campaign is clearly on our side," Carter said of the US coalition against ISIS.

Last year, the US State Department authorized a $7 million reward for information on Qaduli.

The State Department referred to Qaduli as "a senior ISIL official who rejoined ISIL following his release from prison in early 2012." He was previously a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to ISIS.

An Iraqi government adviser told Newsweek last year that Qaduli, a former physics teacher from Mosul, was installed as a temporary leader of the terrorist group after Baghdadi was thought to be injured in an airstrike.

Newsweek described Qaduli as a "rising star" within ISIS, and the Iraqi government adviser, Hisham al Hashimi, said Qaduli had become even more important than Baghdadi.

Hashimi described him as "smarter" than Baghdadi and with "better relationships."

"He is a good public speaker and strong charisma," Hashimi told Newsweek. "All the leaders of Daesh find that he has much jihadi wisdom, and good capability at leadership and administration."

Qaduli was reportedly a follower of Abu Musaab al-Suri, a prominent jihadi scholar, and used to teach physics in the northwestern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.

Qaduli reportedly became Baghdadi's right-hand man after Baghdadi took a step back from decision-making for security reasons, Newsweek reports. He has served as a link between ISIS' top leaders and its lower ranks and helped with coordination between the upper ranks and the emirs in different regional provinces.

Story continues

The Iraqi government claimed last year to have killed Qaduli, but the Pentagon did not confirm it.





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Bar Sinister said: Didn't read my post did you? Just to recap, the PC vote was down - the Liberal vote went up by 22%. Just another example of the right wing trying to put the best face on a situation that did not turn out as well as it did in the May 2015 election. Click to expand...

Up...down...doesn't matter, PC won the seat and that is what counts. I can guarantee you that if a general election was called here tomorrow the NDP would be lucky to get a few token seats. The mood here in Alberta right now is more like a lynch mob of 1.5 million people trying to get Notley's head in the noose. People here do not want to wait for another 3 years of NDP policy killing jobs and the economy not just at home but trashing the province on a global scale.So BS you just keep looking for the little things through your rose colored glasses and do not take any notice of the huge swing in support for this govt. I would bet their approval rating is in single digit territory outside of a couple of ridings in the city. I mean there is a serious grassroots movement not just to remove the NDP from govt but to remove Notley's head from her shoulders. When a politician is so hated for their policy that people seriously want them dead it may be an indicator they are not doing the will of the electorate and their policies are having huge negative impact on most of the citizens.
Canada announced on Thursday it would give Air Canada AC.TO more leeway to decide where its planes are maintained, prompting union protests that the move could cost thousands of jobs.Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Air Canada, currently bound by a 1988 law spelling out where in Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario it must carry out maintenance, needed more flexibility to be competitive.He unveiled proposed changes to the law, known as the Air Canada Public Participation Act, that would give Air Canada more say in deciding where the work is done and permitting some to be carried out abroad."We're allowing Air Canada to compete internationally in this respect because ... it is important for them to be able to play on more of a level playing field," Garneau told reporters.Quebec, citing the original act, had launched a lawsuit against Air Canada for not doing enough maintenance in the province. It dropped the case last month after the airline agreed to buy jets from Montreal-based Bombardier Inc BBDb.TO and service them in Quebec for 20 years.The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said it would press the federal Liberal government to change its mind."The Liberals are on the verge of changing a law which will confirm the loss of thousands of jobs ... they have just given carte blanche to Air Canada," the union's Quebec coordinator David Chartrand said in a statement.more
The EU has led the way to convert to clean energy. But the subsidies ran out. Investment in Europe in renewables is plummeting Europes once world-beating clean technology industry has fallen into a rapid decline, with investment in low-carbon energy last year plummeting to its lowest level in a decade.Michael Liebreich, chairman of the BNEF board, said the global financial crisis and its aftermath were to blame only in part. Europes failure to respond [to the crisis was a factor and] global investors, scared about the survival of the euro, had plenty of reason to hesitate about putting money into euro-dominated clean energy projects, he said.What bad luck  its nearly, almost, really competitive. Any day now:Liebreich  The tragedy is that Europe lost its renewable energy mojo just as costs were plummeting to the point where green power is fully competitive without subsidies in more and more parts of the world.Shame investors are too stupid to see how renewables are going to make lots of money. Only governments have that kind of vision, right?The solution to save the industry? Not efficiency. Not competitiveness. Its politics:Oliver Joy, spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association, told the Guardian: The outlook for 2016 is not as rosy and were likely to see a dip in installations this year. Beyond this, the future for onshore wind is not clear as an uncoordinated patchwork of policies across Europe continues to stifle progress, not least in the UK and Spain. We need to seeat European and national level, which means putting in place a vision for renewables into the next decade.Heres a detail that tells us how big the malinvestment is here. There are nearly half a million people in Europe working in wind and solar to generate expensive electricity:Jobs are being lost as a result. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, employment in solar photovoltaics in Europe fell by more than a third to 165,000 jobs in 2013, the last year for which it has yet collated figures. Jobs in wind energy rose slightly, by more than 5% in 2013, to nearly 320,000 across the bloc, with more than half of these in Germany.Imagine if those people were doing something useful?Heres $329 billion very committed dollars worth of vested interests pushing the Climate Scare. Unlike the fossil fuel industry their profits depend almost entirely on government policy.As Oil Crashed, Renewables Attract Record $329 BillionThe financial disaster can be spun to success if we ignore the collapse in the EU industry and pretend that what matters is that other countries are picking up the futile baton. If China overtakes the EU we can use rose colored glasses and see a hyperbolic turning point. We can toss in graphs about increases inwhich always make renewables sound good, because their theoretical fantasy capacity is so high.Cheap oil and gas couldnt stop another record year for renewables, or a turning point for energy investment.The sun and the wind continue to defy gravity.Renewables just finished another record-breaking year, with more money invested ($329 billion) and more capacity added (121 gigawatts) than ever before, according to new data released Thursday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance Whatever you do, dont graph renewables output in actual megawatts. Dont graph it in CO2 tons saved. Never ever even mention the number of global degrees of cooling.
Click here to read the entire King 5 story

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VANCOUVER, Wash. - A Facebook photo showing workers at a Vancouver, Wash. coffee shop praying with a customer has gone viral.Barbara Danner said that she was at the drive-thru of the Dutch Bros. Coffee Friday when she snapped a photo of the emotional encounter.The workers were praying with a woman whose husband had died the night before."Turns out the young lady in line ahead of us lost her 37-year-old husband last night," Danner said. "When the DB guys & gals noticed she was falling apart, they stopped everything and prayed with her for several minutes, invited her to come back for prayer and support, as well as anything else that she might need."Danner posted the photo to the Dutch Bros. Facebook page early Saturday morning and since then, it's been shared more than 85,000 times, has 294,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments.Pierce Dunn, one of the employees in the photo, told NBC affiliate King 5 that they were trying to empathize with the grieving woman."She was showing raw emotion towards us so we gave it right back to her," Dunn said.
Triggers triggering triggered triggers._____________________________________Conservative students at Emory University are planning a free-speech event for next week, after an outcry on campus over messages supporting Donald Drumpf.Students woke up Monday morning to find messages written in chalk all over campus, in support of Donald Drumpf. That afternoon, a group of 40 to 50 students protested. According to the student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, they shouted in the quad, You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain! and then students moved into the administration building calling out, It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.Jim Wagner, the president of the university in Atlanta, met with the protesters and later sent an email to the campus community, saying, inpart, During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.After meeting with our students, I cannot dismiss their expression of feelings and concern as motivated only by political preference or over-sensitivity. Instead, the students with whom I spoke heard a message, not about political process or candidate choice, but instead about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emorys own.The story spread quickly, as media such as Reason mocked, At Emory University, Writing Drumpf 2016 on Sidewalk Is a Racist Microaggression , with references to students needing trigger warnings and safe spaces to protect them from presidential candidates names and slogans. For many, it was another sign of college students being so overly sensitive that even political campaigning could be seen as hate speech.the rest.
I would definitely vote for Leo over Trump.Leonardo DiCaprio attacks Republican presidential candidates on climate changeLeonardo DiCaprio used a Japanese press conference for the Oscar-winning western The Revenant to launch a thinly veiled attack on Donald Trump and other Republican candidates for the US presidency who deny climate change, reports AFP.The actor and environmentalist, in Tokyo to promote the local release of Alejandro G Inarritus 19th century frontier epic, said the next leader of the worlds most powerful nation should not be someone who refused to listen to reason.We should not have a candidate who doesnt believe in modern science to be leading our country, he said. Climate change is one of the most concerning issues facing all humanity and the United States needs to do its part.
MIAMI  When Ransom Everglades School varsity tennis player Raquel Coronell asked her oncologist if she would lose her hair, he gave it to her straight.

Yes, he said, and soon.

Raquel was diagnosed at age 16 in August 2015 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia  a cancer that occurs when bone marrow cells develop errors in their DNA. Within two weeks, on her first day of 11th grade, tufts of her hair, curly and sweeping the small of her back, began to shed.

I was walking down the hall and hair would fall out everywhere, and people would go like, Whoa. What was what? she said, recalling the immediate effects of chemotherapy.

A once-frizzy mane that childhood friends teased her about, Raquel watched as it disappeared, strand by strand.

She explored her options.

Wigs were not meant for South Florida heat and humidity, she quickly decided. Scarves were a fun option. Long, short, silk, cotton, modern and traditional, she tried them all, according to her mom, Maria Cristina Uribe.

But then one day she said, Why do I need to cover my head? Im comfortable being bald. If someone wants to look at me, its OK. Uribe said.

A hairdresser came to Raquels house and, armed with a buzzer, shaved it all off.

I thought I was going to be emotional but I was just relieved, Raquel said, now 17 and sporting close-cropped hair, dyed ruby red.

But the experience isnt quite as easy for the young girls with whom she shares the halls at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, where she undergoes chemotherapy and has regular check-ups with her physician, Dr. Guillermo Deangullo.

I remember how much of a big deal hair was when I was that age, she said. So I couldnt even imagine how those little girls felt.

That realization planted the seeds for the Bald Is Beautiful Project.

Bald Is Beautiful raises money to buy and donate bald American Girl dolls to young cancer patients undergoing treatment in hospitals across South Florida and Colombia, where Raquel was born.

It began in January with a page on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.com, an idea Raquel had while on a Skype call with her childhood friend, Maria Restrepo, who still lives in Bogota. As kids, they shared an affinity for American Girl dolls, a line of toys that can be customized and accessorized to resemble the girls who play with them.

While catching up on video chat one night, Raquel and Maria wondered whether bald American Girl dolls existed to mirror children like Raquel, who are battling cancer.

Less than 24 hours after creating the crowdfunding page and sharing the link with friends and family, the duo raised more than $1,700, enough to purchase 15 dolls, which cost about $115 each.

And the donations keep rolling in.

Sofias Hope, a local nonprofit organization that helps fund cancer research, education and outreach, contacted Raquel and offered to match funds raised.

Im always looking for programs that help kids that are going through treatment and in any way helps them forget, even for five minutes, that theyre going through his horrible treatment, said Marta Blanco, founder of Sofias Hope. For girls its very difficult to lose your hair. Because people do stare. This is a way for girls to hold their head up high.

To date, the Bald Is Beautiful Project, which earned an official name and web address one week ago, has raised more than $12,000. The nonprofit has ordered 40 American Girl dolls that will be given to girls between ages 5 and 12 years old in Nicklaus Childrens Hospital, Baptist Childrens Hospital and Holtz Childrens Hospital at Jackson Memorial. Maria, Raquels friend and business partner, will personally donate dolls at Bogota childrens hospitals. Blanco will make her rounds in Cali, Colombia.

Feedback to the initiative has been overwhelmingly positive. But there is criticism, Raquel said, that the dolls plastic heads, gleaming in the absence of synthetic hair usually in place, are a cruel reminder of the childrens cancers.

She understands where critics are coming from, but she said she hopes the project will translate into a movement of self-acceptance, she said.

You dont have to be the bald girl. You can just be a girl who happens to be bald and is beautiful anyway.
MIAMI  By the end of his freshman year at Johnson & Wales University, Josh Nackenson said he wasnt in a good place.

His girlfriend died suddenly in another state, he had a heavy workload and he was still getting used to being on his own after moving to Miami from New Jersey.

Depression led to a short stay in the hospital, and after speaking with a therapist, he decided that a pet might help him get back on track. Nackenson walked across the street to Pet Supermarket in 2013 and bought a bunny. He named her Peanut.

Everything has been better since, said Nackenson, 20, who keeps the furry brown Peanut in a cage in his dorm room.

Peanut is not the only pet in the 40-apartment Arch Creek Residences. In fact, Johnson & Wales opened the pet-friendly dorm this academic year, recognizing that stressed-out students often do better when they can cuddle with a warm, furry friend.

We saw the need, and so far everything is going great, said Lou Kaminski, the schools director of residential life.

Dogs have long been recognized for soothing anxiety, lowering blood pressure and boosting emotional connections. A 2005 study conducted at UCLA Medical Center found that when teams of volunteers and trained therapy dogs visited 76 hospitalized heart failure patients, the patients anxiety scores dropped 24 percent. For those who had a visit from a volunteer without a dog, the scores dropped only 10 percent.

Dogs are a great comfort, Katie Cole, the studys lead author, wrote in an American Heart Association journal. They make people happier, calmer and feel more loved. That is huge when you are scared and not feeling well.

Colleges and universities have increasingly begun to recognize this, allowing pet therapy dogs during finals to help ease the stress. Some colleges, including Florida International University, allow comfort pets in dorm rooms. The University of Florida has two certified therapy dogs at its Counseling and Wellness Center.

At Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Jonathan Banks, an assistant professor in the College of Psychology, is studying the effects petting a dog before a test can have on a student.

Right before midterms last semester, about 10 dogs from Canine Assisted Therapy, a nonprofit organization that provides certified pets for hospitals, nursing homes and other purposes, took over a grassy patch near where students congregate. Banks, along with Caitlin McCoy, a biology major in an independent study program, brought together 56 students as part of the study, which measured a students anxiety, perceived stress and sustained attention.

Banks said the 29 students who interacted with the dogs for 10 minutes had lower levels of anxiety, perceived stress and sustained attention.

We know that pets are used for a variety of purposes but we wanted to see whether having them on campus really helped, he said. This is a good sign.

Stress reliever

jennifer Minogue, 19, was all smiles as she spent several minutes petting Schooner, a golden retriever. Minogue, who had been studying nonstop for her four exams, said the break was definitely needed.

Its a really good stress reliever, said the Nova Southeastern sophomore, who is majoring in communications and psychology. Instead of studying, all you are thinking about is having fun.

Shannon Perez, a freshman from Wellington, said she is not allowed to have a pet on the NSU campus so play time with a dog helps her relax.

I am not thinking about my tests right now, she said.

Kent State University professor Kathy Adamle said she began the first pet therapy program on a university campus in the U.S. when she rolled out The Dogs on Campus Pet Therapy Program at the Ohio university in 2004. She had noticed how students always commented on her dogs as she walked them on the school grounds.

I could not get 50 feet without someone asking if they could pet my dog, she said. As a researcher she said she began to wonder why.

She said she was met with skepticism from the university when she proposed studying the effects that dogs have on students. After some convincing, she was allowed to do a pilot study.

The program has since grown; Adamle said more than 100,000 students have attended pet-therapy sessions at schools across the country. After other universities heard about her program, they reached out to her for advice about starting their own. Now, more than 250 colleges have some type of pet therapy program, she said.

Dogs are nonjudgmental, Adamle said. Sometimes thats what a student needs.

Sompa Adhya-Taylor, director of counseling services for Johnson & Wales, said pets can help with depression and anxiety.

Enrollment factor

for Crystal Jacques, having an on-campus, pet-friendly option made her decision to attend the culinary school in North Miami much easier. Jacques, 29, who was in the Navy for eight years before enrolling at Johnson & Wales, said she and her dog, Oliver, were a package deal. She said she treats Oliver like a child and couldnt imagine being without him.

Having housing where I could have him just made it so much easier, said Jacques, who is majoring in hospitality and tourism. In a lot of the schools she considered, she would have had to live off-campus.

For Nackenson, taking care of Peanut has become routine. She sits in her gated corner of his dorm room as he studies to become a chef.

While he has a busy schedule, he always makes time for some Peanut snuggles.

Its unconditional love, he said.
Gov. Pete Ricketts has made it a point of emphasis to address the issues of property tax relief, infrastructure growth and improvements in the states correctional facilities, but another topic he touched on during Thursdays town hall meeting was Medicaid expansion.

With 12 days left in this legislative session, Medicaid is one of the hot-topics on Tuesdays legislative agenda.

Three time the Legislature has wisely rejected Medicaid expansion, and this current bill is probably the worst iteration, Ricketts said.

The bill, proposed by Sen. John McCollister of Omaha, is based on what Ricketts said is a failed policy adopted in Arkansas.

In the first six months after adopting its Medicaid bill, Arkansas was $137 million  61 percent  over budget, Ricketts said.

Because it was basically taking people who were on private insurance, and moving them over to Medicaid, he said. And right now in Arkansas, 40 percent of the states population is now on Medicaid. Folks, this is not what the program is designed for. Its supposed to help pregnant women, children, elderly and disabled. So when you expand it like that it takes away from those folks ability to get access to medical care.

Ricketts told the story of a lady in Columbus who was unable to find a dentist with her current Medicaid plan.

This is because providers limit how many people they take, the governor said. When you take able-bodied adults and put them on this private insurance program, they are now competing for those same providers that are eliminating folks. So its a bad deal for the people who are currently on Medicaid, and its also a bad deal for taxpayers.

Ricketts said the proposed Medicaid bill would cost the state nearly $1 billion over 10-year stretch if it was to be implemented, which would reduce money for education, roads and tax relief, things that Ricketts said the state needs to continue investing in.

While Ricketts acknowledged there are problems with the current system, increasing the number of people who have the opportunity to receive Medicaid is a slippery slope, he said.

Once you give an entitlement you cant take it back, Ricketts said. In fact, when the state of Nebraska has had previous economic downturns and tried to move people off of Medicaid, we have been sued, and lost. Once you put somebody on Medicaid you cant take them off.
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RICEVILLE  Sen. Mary Jo Wilhelm says she still has major concerns as the Medicaid privatization start date draws near.

People are still unclear as to how this process is going to play out come April 1, said Wilhelm, D-Cresco. I am very concerned for the 560,000 Medicaid recipients, of which only 60,000 have had a say in which provider they are going to be using.

Wilhelm and Rep. Josh Byrnes, R-Osage, spoke at a recent legislative forum at the Riceville Public Library.

Most Iowa Medicaid recipients have been arbitrarily assigned to one of three governor-approved insurance companies, Wilhelm said.

Feedback shes received at Medicaid forums has been interesting but troubling.

A bill that would create an oversight committee is currently being discussed. Wilhelm said it would require insurance companies to provide data on how claims are being paid or denied, as well as a grievance process.

We hope it can get a vote in the House very soon, she said.

Jim Cross is the editor of the Mitchell County Press-News, another Lee Enterprises newspaper.
AMES  Richard "Dick" Johnson died Tuesday morning, March 22, 2016, at Israel Family Hospice House in Ames, after a valiant eight-year battle with cancer, surrounded by family.

The family will receive friends from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, March 28, at Christ Community Church, 5501 George Washington Carver Avenue, in Ames.

Funeral services will be held at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 29, also at Christ Community Church, followed by a brunch.

Burial will be at 1:30 p.m. at Ames Municipal Cemetery.

Richard Theodore Johnson was the classic American success story. He was born May 9, 1941, in Ames, Iowa, to Arnold and Tiliet Johnson. He was raised on farms between Ames and Gilbert. Following high school, he attended Iowa State University for one year but took a job with James Thompson & Sons Construction Co. as a timekeeper. His work at JTS and its sister company, Story Construction, was the beginning of a 46-year tenure that culminated as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Story Construction Company upon his retirement in 2007. He rose through the ranks of JTS and Story because he was given a chance, and many employees have commented how Dick passed this chance on to them with their first job.

Before retiring, Dick chose and mentored a new group of leaders to take the helm at Story Construction. A few of the JTS and Story major projects included the ISU Veterinary Medicine Center, Kinnick Stadium Press Box renovation, Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center at UNI, and Hilton Coliseum.

His leadership at Story Construction lent itself to the area building industry as well. A few of his contributions included serving as a founding board member and Past President of the Iowa Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, board member and Past President of Master Builders of Iowa, and a member on numerous national committees with The Associated General Contractors of America. His primary objectives were always to have efficient jobsites, and more importantly, safe jobsites.

Recently, his friend Mac jokingly referred to him as Mr. Ames. Dick quietly shrugged off the compliment, but he placed himself in the center of community involvement throughout his life. The short list of his contributions includes his membership on the Iowa State University Foundation Board of Governors, Des Moines Area Community College Trustees, Mary Greeley Medical Center Foundation, Noon Rotary Club of Ames and Lions Club. Dick was a Leadership Chair and a board member of the United Way of Story County, President of the Ames Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the Ames Economic Development Commission and of the Ames Seed Capital Fund, and a Past President and a board member of the Ames Boys and Girls Club. He was also a board member and contributed for many years to Mainstream Living, Inc. in Ames.

He took genuine enjoyment in work, but more importantly, a genuine enjoyment in people. Dick was the center of his family. For his wife, children and grandchildren, he taught by example. He provided encouragement when needed and counsel when warranted; talked about himself only when asked; shared his love of the outdoors, and the value of fine craftsmanship and things hand-made and well-built. His grandchildren brought him great joy. He enjoyed simple pleasures and simple moments. He would say he was blessed and wanted to share those blessings with others.

Dick is survived by his wife of 38 years, Gene Woodward; and children, daughter, Bonnie Byrne (Michael) of Davenport, daughter, Karla Johnson of Ames, son, Todd Stilwell of Ames and daughter, Tori Shahidi of Ames. He is also survived by his grandchildren, Michaela Ebert (Brett) of Creve Coeur, Mo., Ryan Byrne of Chicago, Ill., Toran Shahidi of Cedar Rapids, Tavan Shahidi of Ames, Tynan Shahidi of Ames, James Stilwell of Clive and Kya Stilwell of Clive.

Dick was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Dennis Wayne Johnson of Ada, Mich.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Mainstream Living, Inc. at www.mainstreamliving.org/en/donate, Iowa State University Foundation at www.foundation.iastate.edu/give or Mary Greeley Medical Center Foundation at www.mgmc.org/mgmcfoundation/donate.

Adams Funeral Home in Ames is assisting the family with arrangements. Condolences and photos may be shared at www.adamssoderstrum.com.
BELLEVUE, Wash., March 25, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the latest data from RootMetrics, the standard for independent mobile performance testing, there are big changes and a tight race in Atlanta's mobile performance landscape. In the 1st Half 2016 Atlanta Metro RootScore Report, AT&T and Verizon shared top honors in the Overall Performance category, while the other networks fell less than a point short. In fact every category was neck-and-neck, with fewer than than five points separating first and last places across the board. Additionally, none of the carriers scored below a 90.0 in any of the categories tested, revealing solid network performance throughout Atlanta.



When it came to Network Speed and Data Performance, Verizon took the award from T-Mobile, which held first in these categories after the last round of testing. Verizon also recorded the fastest speeds in all of Atlanta. Meanwhile, each of the other carriers took first place in at least one category of testing in this latest report from RootMetrics, an IHS (NYSE:IHS) company.



"In our latest RootScore Report for Atlanta, we noticed some major shifts in our mobile rankings, ultimately revealing excellent reliability and good data speeds for mobile consumers," said Julie Dey, RootMetrics vice president. "Atlanta continues boast some of the best mobile performance in the nation. This is made clear throughout our rankings, where each network earned first-place awards in at least one category, and the rankings were close across the board. This competition is great news for mobile consumers in Atlanta."



This is the eleventh time RootMetrics has tested the mobile networks in Atlanta and issued its findings for the metro area. RootScore Reports provide a scientific, independent, consumer-focused assessment of mobile network performance.



The final RootMetrics Overall Performance RootScore rankings for Atlanta:

1  AT&T (98.0)

1  Verizon (98.0)

3  T-Mobile (97.5)

3  Sprint (97.5)



RootScores are on a scale of 0 to 100. A good Overall RootScore means strong all-around performance and a good consumer experience.



Mobile Performance You Can Depend on

Reliability and speed are crucial to a consistently good mobile experience. RootMetrics indicates performance in these key areas with its Network Reliability category, a combination of results from data, call, and text tests; and its Network Speed category, which examines results across testing of data transfers, downloading email, and web/app tasks.



Network Reliability resulted in a shared win between Sprint and AT&T, while Verizon and T-Mobile trailed less than a point behind. Mobile users in Atlanta can expect excellent reliability across the mobile networks, with every carrier scoring 98.8 or above in this category. Meanwhile, Network Speed revealed an outright win from Verizon.



Network Reliability rankings:

1  Sprint (99.5)

1  AT&T (99.3)

3  Verizon (99.0)

4  T-Mobile (98.8)



Network Speed rankings:

1  Verizon (95.3)

2  AT&T (94.5)

3  T-Mobile (93.9)

4  Sprint (90.8)



Data Performance

Data Performance RootScores reflect how well networks perform in downloading and uploading data, performing email tasks, and downloading files that approximate loading typical webpages or apps.



In Atlanta, the carriers exhibited good scores in Data Performance. While Verizon earned first place outright, the other carriers trailed by two points or less. Verizon recorded the fastest median download and upload speeds in Atlanta at 33.3 Mbps and 23.6 Mbps, respectively.



Data Performance rankings:

1  Verizon (98.0)

2  AT&T (97.7)

3  T-Mobile (97.3)

4  Sprint (96.0)



Call and Text Performance

For the very first time in Atlanta, Sprint earned first place outright in Call Performance, with the carrier not recording any dropped calls during testing. Meanwhile, Text Performance resulted in a three-way tie between AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. During the previous round of testing, all four carriers shared the Text RootScore Award.



Call Performance rankings:

1  Sprint (99.5)

2  AT&T (98.3)

2  Verizon (97.7)

2  T-Mobile (97.6)



Text Performance rankings:

1  AT&T (99.6)

1  T-Mobile (99.6)

1  Verizon (99.4)

4  Sprint (98.3)



Comprehensive Testing

To evaluate the mobile experience in Atlanta, RootMetrics performed 82,224 call, data, and text tests across all hours of the day and night from Feb. 21 through Feb. 28. Using smartphones purchased off the shelf at carrier stores, tests were conducted indoors at 126 locations and while driving 5,864 miles. For details about RootMetrics testing, see the methodology section of the RootMetrics website.



About RootMetrics

RootMetrics is an independent mobile analytics firm that offers insights into the consumer mobile experience. RootMetrics provides data on mobile network performance to help people make more informed mobile decisions. RootMetrics offers its RootScore Report series for the nation, states, metro areas, airports, campuses, venues, and transit stations, as well as its downloadable CoverageMap app. To ensure that RootMetrics testing reflects real-world mobile usage, testing is conducted based on where, when and how consumers use their smartphones most often.



About IHS

IHS (NYSE:IHS) is the leading source of insight, analytics and expertise in critical areas that shape today's business landscape. Businesses and governments in more than 150 countries around the globe rely on the comprehensive content, expert independent analysis and flexible delivery methods of IHS to make high-impact decisions and develop strategies with speed and confidence. IHS has been in business since 1959 and became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, USA, IHS is committed to sustainable, profitable growth and employs about 8,800 people in 32 countries around the world.
Carlson (50% tuition waiver) or Smeal (Fellowship) [ #permalink

Hi Everyone,



I am in a dilemma. I have to make a selection from the above choices very soon.



I am a 27 year old international candidate with 5 years of work experience in a reputed oil & gas infrastructure development firm. I have taken up roles in engineering, procurement, costing, and risk analysis functions. My post MBA goal is to transition to consulting (Strategy/Operations). Target firms - Deloitte, EY, and PwC. Back up career plan - Internal consulting for technology firms such as Amazon, Apple, and Dell.



I have got 50% scholarship at Carlson and 100% scholarship plus $760/month at Penn State Smeal. I have also received admission offer from Georgetown McDonough but without $$. I would be funding the entire tuition fee through loans. Also, I do not have a work permit in the US so the risk is higher.



Being an international student, ROI is one of my major concerns and for this reason I have decided to withdraw from Georgetown. I am confused between Carlson School of Management & Penn State Smeal College of Business. Carlson is better ranked, has much higher avg. GMAT score of incoming class, offers experiential learning programs, and has more diverse class. But, as per my interactions with few current students at Carlson, the opportunities for international students are very limited and the school is strong in strategy and marketing rather than operations. On the other hand, Smeal has an excellent operations and supply chain program with many opportunities in consulting and technology space. However, it is very low ranked with very low avg. GMAT score of the incoming class. Besides, I have heard that Penn State is only known for its undergraduate degrees.



Should I overlook the ranking & avg. GMAT, and go for Smeal OR should I enroll in a better ranked program at Carlson and network my best to land a job?



Requesting fellow GMAT clubbers and admission consultants to help!
1."Except" questions require us to test the five answer choices to determine the "oddone out." It is beneficial to use the True / False technique: label each answer choicewith a T or an F and look for the odd one out (which, in this case, we should expectto be an F).(A) True. The third sentence of the second paragraph characterizes changingweather patterns due to global warming as a subtle effect of human activities.(B) True. The first two sentences of the second paragraph classify both toads andfrogs as amphibians. Later in the second paragraph, the passage explains thatamphibians have permeable skin.(C) True. The third sentence of the second paragraph states explicitly that scientistshypothesize that human activity is responsible for the global decline of amphibiouspopulations. Since a hypothesis is an educated guess rather than a fact, it is truethat human activity may not be responsible for the decline.(D) True. The second sentence of the first paragraph states that money was raisedin the United States to establish the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.(E) CORRECT. False. The passage offers no information about the number ofsalamander species in Costa Rica that have disappeared since the late 1980s. Wecannot assume that this omission indicates a lesser number than either toad or frogspecies.2.The correct answer to an inference question on the GMAT must be supported byevidence from the text without need for external information.(A) The passage states that twenty of the fifty species of frogs and toads known toonce inhabit a 30-square-kilometer area near Monteverde have disappeared.Nothing is implied about the areas of Costa Rica farther from Monteverde.(B) CORRECT. The passage suggests that amphibians are able to offer humansearly notification of the deterioration of the environment because of the amphibianspermeable skin. Thus, permeable skin must be a characteristic that humans do notpossess.(C) No causal relationship between the build-up of pollutants in the atmosphere anda decrease in atmospheric ozone is suggested in the passage.(D) The author states that humans would be wise to heed the warning offered by thedecline of amphibious populations, but nothing suggests that humans normally donot take signals of environmental deterioration seriously.(E) The passage does not compare Costa Ricas environmental problems to those ofother countries.3.In the second paragraph, the author mentions the more subtle effects of humanactivity on the world's ecosystems, and then lists three of these effects: the build-upof pollutants, the decrease in atmospheric ozone, and changing weather patternsdue to global warming, all of which, scientists hypothesize, are beginning to taketheir toll. The key to answering this question correctly is to recognize, in context,what these effects have in common.(A) Nowhere does the passage suggest or imply that these changes are not easilyrecognized by sophisticated testing equipment.(B) CORRECT. All of these effects happen on a global scale, so their immediateconsequences on specific ecosystems are difficult to recognize. Furthermore, thepassage states these effects are beginning to take their toll, indicating that theeffects happen over time.(C) Scientists hypothesize that these effects do affect amphibians, but nothing in thepassage indicates that only small animal species such as amphibians are affected.In fact, the final sentence of the passage indicates that humans too might be affectedby these environmental changes.(D) The passage states that scientists hypothesize about the consequences of thesesubtle effects; this indicates that scientists do in fact discuss these effects.(E) The passage indicates that the consequences of these effects are global,causing disruptions in amphibious populations the world over.4.This question is really just a disguised inference question. The correct answer to aninference question must be directly supported by evidence from the text.(A) CORRECT. The first sentence of the passage states that the beauty of CostaRicas golden toad was one factor that generated interest from a public normallyunconcerned with amphibians. Thus, many amphibians must not be consideredbeautiful.(B) The passage indicates that habitat preservation in isolation - no matter the size ofthe habitat - was not enough to save the golden toad. Instead, scientists theorize thatbroader ecological issues are harming the worlds amphibious populations.(C) The second paragraph tells us that amphibian populations have been decliningaround the world.(D) This is a misinterpretation of the analogy used in the second paragraph. Theauthor is implying that amphibians may provide humans an early warning fordetrimental changes to the environment, just as canaries provide humans anindication of detrimental conditions in coal mines.(E) The final sentence of the passage indicates that humans would be wise torecognize the potential environmental deterioration signified by declining amphibiouspopulation, but it is too extreme to infer that no humans consider this decline a threatto humans. In fact, the author of the passage seems to consider it a threat!5.The first paragraph of the passage discusses a specific case in which a particularamphibian mysteriously disappeared from its habitat and suggests that humans mayhave been in some way responsible for its demise. The second paragraph explainsthat declining amphibious populations are actually a global trend and hypothesizesthat a variety of human activities are harming these environmentally sensitiveanimals.(A) The example of the golden toad is too narrow and specific to be the primarypurpose of the passage. Instead, the golden toad is used as an example of a muchlarger trend.(B) Though this answer choice is on the right track, it is too extreme to say thathuman activity is undoubtedly to blame for the global decline of amphibianpopulations. Instead the passage indicates that scientists hypothesize that humanactivity is responsible.(C) An attempt to convince humans to minimize the output of pollutants is nevermentioned in the passage.(D) CORRECT. The passage discusses the mysterious disappearance ofamphibious populations worldwide and hypothesizes that subtle effects onecosystems resulting from human activity may be responsible for thesedisappearances.(E) The final sentence of the passage does urge humans to pay attention todeclining amphibian populations, but this is not the primary purpose of the passage. Moreover, the passage specifically discusses amphibians, while this answer choicebroadly mentions important environmental changes rather than focusing onamphibians._________________
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Updates below

A video posted to YouTube yesterday shows NYPD officers placing a man, already bound at the ankles, knees, and wrists, into what the uploader describes as a "body bag." It's unclear what took place before filming began, but a man identifying himself as the videographer, who asked to be referred to simply as Mike, says he shot it on the afternoon of March 18th at West 14th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. Mike wrote that he didn't see what precipitated the series of restraints, but that:

The man was maced and then pinned down by multiple officers and was clearly restrained well before the team determined that they needed to go as far as to wrap him FACE DOWN in a Body Wrap.

[...]

The team of ESU officers approx. 20 mins after wrapping the man up and setting his body against the wall, lifted the man while still in the bag onto a gurney, strapped and bound the bag to the gurney and then put him into an ambulance and carted him off. His head remained covered and tied inside the bag even as the gurney was put into the ambulance.

In the video, when the bag goes over the prisoner's head, Mike says, "Dude, that is the craziest shit I've ever seen done to somebody in my whole fucking life. Ho-ly shit. What do you even call that thing?"

A little research shows that what the officers are using is called an EDP bag, a device used to restrain emotionally disturbed people. A product description of a similar device being marketed to police departments says that the company HELGEN Industries first developed the bag for the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. From the description:

The EDP Bag deploys in a split second and can be used to secure an EDP (emotionally disturbed person) in just moments. The fabric is strong and allows fluids to pass through, and can be cleaned and decontaminated easily after each use. Seven handles make it easy to manage and carry.

One police supply website is selling the bag for $752.88.

As far as the man in the video being fully zipped in, body-bag style, both an EDP Bag demonstration photo and a Daily News image of a man being restrained with one of the bags after holding his daughter hostage in the Bronx show the bag ending below the shoulders. Looking through the NYPD patrol guide, we couldn't find any guidelines specifically governing EDP bag use. Semi-relevant directives include:

Physical force will be used ONLY to the extent necessary to restrain the subject until delivered to a hospital or detention facility

and

...alternate restraining devices (Velcro straps, mesh restraining blankets, etc.) shall be used, at the earliest opportunity, to restrain or further restrain a subject whose actions or behavior may cause injury to himself/herself or others.

An NYPD spokeswoman declined to comment on whether there are specific rules for using the bags, but said, "The EDP restraint device is used by ESU when an EDP is violent and may cause harm to themselves or others."

The ESU responds to calls of armed barricaded people, mentally ill people, construction calamities, and other extreme situations. The unit has a troubled history when it comes to dealing with mentally ill people. In 2012, then-police commissioner Ray Kelly transferred unit head James Molloy after ESU officers responding to a call for an ambulance shot and killed Mohamed Bah, who was naked and allegedly brandishing a knife in his Harlem apartment.

ESU officers are supposed to contact friends and family members when dealing with barricaded, possibly mentally ill subjects, but instead just barged in on Bah and shot him eight times as they say he was trying to stab them. Similar situations sometimes result in the subjects' injury or even death.

Attorney David Rankin, who has made a career of suing the police for misconduct, said he has had clients who have been restrained in EDP bags, but that the way the bag was used was not at issue in those cases, and having the bag zipped over someone's head is a new one on him.

"It is not something I have heard of happening before," he said. "It does seem odd."

Update 2 p.m.:

Someone who identified himself as the one who shot the video had this reflection on the incident:

Regardless of what the man's crime was, there is absolutely no reason why after he was entirely restrained they needed to wrap him up in that burrito bag. It was disgusting to watch and terribly inhumane.

[...]

I don't have a problem with law enforcement and I very much support the NYPD on the whole but I do have a problem with inhumane tactics and from what I could tell this mad was being treated like an animal...not a human being.

Update 6:10 p.m.:

A source who works in the psychiatric emergency room of a New York City hospital informs us that the EDP bag is referred to in the business as a "burrito," and that she sees one used "on a weekly basis." She has not, since starting in December, seen one used to move someone, or to cover a patient's head. For spitters, she says, there are spit shields that can be used to cover the mouth.
Julian Niccolini, co-owner of the famed Four Seasons restaurant, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault yesterday stemming from an incident that took place in the restaurant last year. Niccolini appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court, where he was sentenced to a "conditional discharge" that spares him prison time but puts him on the hook should he break the law anytime in the next year, the Times reports. The restaurateur was initially charged with one felony count of sexual abuse, which would have landed him seven years in prison if convicted.

At the time, the victim told detectives at the NYPD's Special Victims Division that Niccolini "tried to kiss her, touching her legs and buttocks and pulling her toward him...then reached through an opening in the back of her dress and tugged on her bra until it ripped, touched her breasts, yanked up her dress and tried to pull down her stockings." The victim was left with scratches on her back and a bruised hip.

Following his arraignment last summer, Niccolini maintained his innocence as he left the courthouse. Yesterday, he offered no comment save one from his lawyer: "The record speaks for itself."
The former emergency room director at Mount Sinai Hospital was indicted yesterday for allegedly sexually abusing four female patients. Dr. David Newman, an esteemed physician, is pleading not guilty, and he insists there's a totally logical explanations for why his patients might wake up from a morphine-induced stupor with his semen on them.

According to the NY Post, Newman told police officers who questioned him, "I treated that woman in the ER for shoulder pain... I am embarrassed because I wacked off in the lounge, and it was possible that the ejaculate may have gone from my hands to the womans blanket... Semen may have also transferred from my hand to her face during the time I treated her."

That patient, who was seen on January 12th, says that Newman gave her a dose of morphineeven though she told him a nurse had already given her someand she was pretty much knocked out, but could hear noises and felt something on her face and mouth. When she woke up, she says she discovered semen on her face and blanket.

Doctor Newman's DNA matched the DNA found in semen from the woman's face, prosecutors told the NY Times.

In the patient's subsequent lawsuit against Newman, Mt. Sinai and other hospital staff, when she woke up from the additional dose of drugs, nurses appeared "alarmed" by her condition, but nurses told her that she was only given the dose before the X-ray. Later, after telling physician assistant Andrew Lapsley that she was assaulted and drugged, Lapsley allegedly said, "Do you want me to call the police or something?" before recommending that she "think about it" and go home and "sleep on it," suggesting "you could always come back tomorrow." The patient also allegedly saw Newman pacing outside her room, appearing distraught.

The Manhattan DA's office says that the other three women who went to the ER for ailments like a cold, headache and rash were allegedly groped. A prosecutor said, "There was simply no medically legitimate reason to fondle these womens breasts."

Newman's lawyer said, "He denies all of these allegations."
The two New York City siblings who have been missing since explosions killed 31 people in Brussels on Tuesday have been declared dead. Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski were in the Brussels airport on Tuesday, preparing to return to New York, when they were killed in the explosions.

"We received confirmation this morning from Belgian Authorities and the Dutch Embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha," U.S. Ambassador to Denmark James Cain said in a statement. "We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation, and are thankful for the loving support, thoughts and prayers from all."

The Pinczowski siblings were reportedly on the phone with their mother, Marjan, when she heard a blast and the line went dead.

The Pinczowski siblings were Dutch citizens who had both been residing in NYC and planning on applying for U.S. citizenship. (Ambassador Cain's daughter Cameron was Alexander's girlfriend.) Sascha graduated from Marymount Manhattan College and resides in Manhattan, according to her LinkedIn page. She recently worked as a production intern at production and design company Shiraz Events in Chelsea. Alexander also resided in Manhattan.

Two Americans, Justin Shults and his wife Stephanie, have also been missing since the attacks; they moved to Brussels in 2014. NBC reports that the Shultses were at the airport "waving goodbye to Stephanie's mother, Carolyn Moore, who was walking toward the security check-in" when the explosions occurred.
Plans to start over from scratch with a brand-new Port Authority Bus Terminal (must we throw out the baby with the bathwater?) got an official stamp of approval from the Port Authority chairmen (emphasis on men) on Thursday, who agreed to "allocate the necessary funds for the project's construction" even though the cost and exact location of the new terminallikely nearby on Manhattan's West Sideare yet to be determined.

A release from the Port Authority gets specific only about where the new terminal will not beSecaucus, New Jersey, where Port Authority Cuomo-appointee Scott Rechler had suggested sticking the replacement station. "By committing to build a much-needed 21st century bus terminal on the West Side of Manhattan, with the understanding that no bus terminal will be built in New Jersey, we are making a crucial investment in our region's economic growth," said Port Authority Chairman John Degnan in a statement.

The Authority, which committed billions on billions to infrastructure projects over the course of a few hours on Thursdaydirector Patrick Foye called the meeting the "single largest allocation of capital" by the Authority in one day, everalso admitted that the cost of the new station is still up in the air, and will be determined based off of the results of an ongoing design competition. The competition launched earlier this month, and the final design isn't likely to be selected until the fall, although three hypothetical designs presented to the board last year cost about $10 billion each. A condo tower will reportedly eventually rise from the ashes of the current terminal, helping cover the costs of the new one.

As recently as October, a working group suggested that the Port Authority's nearby land between Ninth and 11th avenues, a block West of the current terminal, would be a good spot for the replacement. This prompted a strongly-worded response from Manhattan's Community Board 4, as the move would likely require the bulldozing of existing businesses and residential buildings in Hell's Kitchen.

Also on Thursday, the Port Authority committed $35 million to an eventual Hudson River tunnel, about $4 billion to LaGuardia's Terminal B (although the exact taxpayer burden of that project is up for debate), and $2.3 billion to revamp Terminal A at Newark.
Are you relatively new to this bustling metropolis? Don't be shy about it, everyone was new to New York once upon a time, except, of course, those battle-hardened residents who've lived here their whole lives and Know It All. One of these lifers works among us at Gothamistpublisher Jake Dobkin grew up in Park Slope and still resides there. He is now fielding questionsask him anything by sending an email here, but be advised that Dobkin is "not sure you guys will be able to handle my realness." We can keep you anonymous if you prefer; just let us know what neighborhood you live in.

This week's question comes from a New Yorker who just inherited a car and wonders if it's worth it.

Dear Jake,

My grammy died a few months back. She lived a long and interesting life, but that's not what this letter is about. She had a car that she hardly drove, and because my parents and brother all have cars already, they offered it to me, for free. It's a Subaru Forester, less than 5 years old.

I live in Park Slope, where parking is supposedly a nightmare. But free is free! I work downtown, so I don't need it during the week, but I thought on weekends it could be fun to get out of the city or go to Costco.

Should I take the car?

Sincerely,

Park Slope Pedestrian



A native New Yorker responds:

Dear PSP,

Please accept my condolences on your grammy's death. It sounds like you really cared about her, and she really cared about you, and that's why I'm certain that if she was here she'd agree with me when I tell you that taking that car is a horrible idea, and if you do it, in addition to bankrupting you and consuming all your free time, you will most likely be haunted by your grammy's ghost: "Why did you take this Subaru?" she will whisper through the engine. "Don't you realize you don't need a car in the city?"

What the ghost means is that you really need to sit down and consider the costs. Both in dollarsinsurance, parking tickets, maintenance, etc.and in time. Soberly contemplate the hours and hours you will spend either waiting for alternate-side rules to expire twice a week, or else driving around endlessly looking for a spot.



A young Jake Dobkin poses for a photo with his roommates during a road trip. (Courtesy Jake Dobkin Private Collection)

I have experienced this first hand: my parents sometimes ask me to babysit their car while they're out of town, and it always ends up being a terrifying ordeal. Either I wind up battling it out with the forty Park Slope regulars on the block who can afford to stay home for the 3 hours on Mondays and Wednesday mornings and shuffle the car back and forth, or else I end up having to drive the car to work in DUMBO (which takes 30 minutes in stop and go traffic!), pay $30 for a lot space, then drive it back and spend an hour going around and round until someone vacates a spot that will be good for another couple of days.

Stuff like this is why car-owners in New York City inevitably go insane. They either become so consumed by road-rage that they run over a bicyclist or pedestrian that dared to not dive out of the way in time, or else so paranoid and selfish that they try to privatize a piece of public sidewalk for their own use, or, even worse, vote against a bike lane at a community board meeting because it would involve the loss of a few of parking spaces.

Using the subway or bus forces you into close proximity with other New Yorkers, and over time leads to empathy with them, or at least an ability to tolerate their presence. Owning a private car does the opposite: you're in your own little bubble, separate from your fellow man. Increasingly, you forget about your connection to others, and view them as interruptions in your otherwise comfortable commute. Much of the horrible values in Hollywoodselfishness, materialism, worship of the individualcan be explained by how many people there drive to work alone.

But I digress! You have so many alternatives here in New York that obviate the need for a car. Uber, Zipcar, Car2Go, rental cars, yellow taxis, green taxis, livery cabs, dollar vans, pedicabs, not to mention the greatest subway and bus system in the world. With only a very few exceptions that I will explain below, there is absolutely no need for a privately-owned car, and as such, you would be better off taking your grammy's gift, selling it, and putting the money towards a better use, like unlimited MetroCards for the next 10 years.

What are the exceptions that would justify car ownership? I can think of four:

* You live or work in a "transit desert" more than half-mile from the nearest subway station, or your commute would be so laborious (3 transfers? 4?) that no sane person would undertake it.

* You are elderly or disabled, and are not able to make use of the limited options for accessible mass-transit that our city currently offers.

* You have family or some other pressing obligation that requires you to journey outside New York frequently, to a place that is not easily served by our commuter rail or intercity bus systems.

* You are so rich that you have a second home, and that's such a waste of money already that it's like, who really cares about several hundred bucks more a month to get there and back easily?

Beyond these very few and unusual reasons, owning a car is morally repugnant and should be illegal. "Whoa, Jake," you say, "illegal is a strong word!" Is it? Is it really? Cars kill some three hundred innocent people every year right here in New York City, pump God-knows how many tons of poison into the air, and don't pay anywhere near their fair share of the costs for the damage they create.

We still offer free street parking, for crying out loudthat's like the 65% of New Yorkers who don't drive just writing a check to the minority who do, every single month, for the favor of making our city worse.

Cars should be reserved for those who really need themthe people who can't live or work without themand for everyone else, the law should make it so expensive that it is impractical to own them. And once robot on-demand cars are available, plentiful, and cheap, hopefully in less than ten years, private ownership should be outlawed entirely within the city, with vanishingly few exceptions. This isn't a utopian vision: this is a safe, environmentally friendly, easy-to-get-around version of New York that is just over the horizon, if we want it.

When we get there, and our kids or grandkids look back on our present car culture as unimaginably horrible, you're going to want to be able to tell them you made the right decision here, and were on the side of the people, not on the side of the cars.

N.B.: Did you know Fairway, Costco, Whole Foods, and most other big markets offer delivery that is both fast and affordable, and entirely eliminates the need for a car when shopping for large amounts of groceries? It's true! Cross that off forever from your list of reasons to buy a car.

Ask a Native New Yorker anything via email. Anonymity is assured.
Culture

Shooting for Double XL was a liberating experience for Huma

Though Huma has mentioned multiple times, in jest, that this was the best prep she ever had to do for a role since she got to eat everything she wante...
Upcoming events

Learn tree-pruning fundamentals

Join Brent Sarchet, CCA MSU/Lewis & Clark County agricultural extension agent, on Wednesday, March 30, at 10 a.m. for a tree-pruning demonstration at 521 N. Rodney.

The objectives of the demo include:

Teach the basics of a climbing technique called Single Rope Technique. Participants will be given an opportunity to try the technique.

Teach basic pruning concepts/techniques of large, mature deciduous trees in an urban landscape.

Introduce some basic tree risk assessment techniques.

And have fun.

If it is raining or snowing, the demonstrating will be rescheduled.

***

Announcements

Kitten Shower campaign begins at shelter

The Lewis and Clark Humane Society will be decorated like a nursery for a special Kitten Shower campaign to care for a large increase of kittens expected this spring.

LCHS is recruiting foster parents and teaming up with Petco to collect supplies for the campaign, which runs April 59.

Area residents with a little extra time and love to share are encouraged to become foster parents.

Foster parents receive education and support from LCHS while the kittens are under their care, as well as essential supplies  which is where the shelter needs donations.

Cash donations will help pay for special kitten care kits for foster parents. Foster parents will receive either a newborn kit ($65), kitten kit ($35) or mom with kitten kit ($20). Donors may choose to cover the full cost of a kit or donate any amount toward it. In-kind donations are also welcome.

To donate or to learn more about foster opportunities, call Katie at 442-1660.

***

Carroll Talking Saints off to nationals

The Carroll College Talking Saints forensics team has qualified 10 students to compete in the national championships to be held in Gainesville, Fla., on April 1-4 and in Atlanta, Ga., on April 8-11.

Carrolls students attended national-level warm-ups during February and March to tune up and qualify for the April championships.

Carrolls top senior debate team, Mark Schmutzler of Helena and Ryden Meyer of Portland, finished second in World Debate at the Western United States championships held at Cal Poly on March 4-6. Carroll was defending its Western title won in 2015, but lost a close decision in finals to a team from the University of Alaska.

Schmutzler and Meyer were also selected for a by-invitation-only round robin, Americas Cup, which precedes nationals in Atlanta. The Carroll team has won every major Northwest tournament during their career, and theyve finished at or near the top of events in Vermont, California and Colorado. They have won two national awards so far, and are in search of a third.

Senior Nick Fuller of Seattle and sophomore Jake MacDuff of Seattle debated well, but just missed finishing in the top eight and qualifying for semifinals.

The sophomore team of Becca Poliquin of Hamilton, and Tori Hill of Sidney, finished third in a special womens tournament at Pacific Lutheran University on March 11. The freshmen team of Frank Stumbo of Shelley, Idaho, and Alex Thielman of Spokane, Wash., won the novice championship at the Betsy Karl Invitational also held at PLU  their fourth win this year. Hill won a speaker award.

Two Carroll seniors have qualified for the National Individual Events Tournament at the University of Florida.

Hanna Hillier of Jerome, Idaho, won both Dramatic Interpretation and Prose at a tune up in Nampa, Idaho, on Feb. 14. Hillier has won seven first places over the course of the year, and was only one point from reaching the championship rounds at Nationals last year.

Anna Hoerner of Spokane, attended the NIET district championships, qualifying for NIET nationals in all four of her events: Impromptu, Prose, Poetry and Persuasion.

This marks the third consecutive time that Hillier and Hoerner have qualified for the national championships in individual events.

This marks the 27th consecutive year Carroll has qualified students for national tournaments in both speech and debate.

Toastmasters move on to Division A contest

Helena Toastmasters Club, Lewis & Clark Toastmasters Club and Casual Conversers held the Spring International Speech and Evaluation competition on March 19, at Jorgensons Restaurant.

In the International Speech event, Bonnie Hamilton and Chris Bailey took first and second place respectively. The Evaluation event was won by Molly Petersen and Wendy Couts placed second. These speakers will represent Helena at the Division A Toastmaster International Speech and Evaluation contest in Missoula on April 2 in the meeting room at the Community Medical Center, 2827 Fort Missoula Road, from 10 a.m.2 p.m. There is a $10 registration fee that includes lunch.

***

Kiwanis offer music scholarships

The Helena Kiwanis Club is accepting applications for the Weber Music Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a graduating senior at Capital High School and at Helena High School. These $1,000 scholarships are for a senior at each school who have been active in a music program at their school, in their community, and who have shown a commitment to music through the use of their talent. There will be one $1,000 scholarship awarded at each school. See music teachers or visit the career counseling center for information.

***

Elaine M. Fordyce nursing scholarship available

The St. Peters Hospital Foundation is now accepting applications for a scholarship available through the Elaine M. Fordyce Nursing Education Endowment. This scholarship is open to all Montana registered nurses who have successfully worked at St. Peters Hospital for a minimum of one year during their nursing career. The endowment provides scholarships to Montana registered nurses who will be attending an accredited baccalaureate or graduate nursing program, including nurse practitioner programs; obtaining certification in a specialty area, or; attending workshops to improve nursing skills. Preference points will be given to St. Peters and public, tribal health RNs.

The deadline to submit materials to the St. Peters Foundation office is no later than 5 p.m. April 11. For full details and application, go to www.stpetes.org/staff/scholarships.

***

Helena teachers win Karen Cox Memorial Grants

Tara Thompson, an educator at Rossiter Elementary School, and Kim Stout, a first-grade teacher at Four Georgians Elementary School, are among Montanas latest Karen Cox Memorial Grant recipients. These $500 grants are awarded each year by the Montana Professional Teaching Foundation, a nonprofit foundation based in Helena.

Thompson will use the grant to buy materials for the schools Conflict Manager Program. The program teaches fourth- and fifth-grade students to mediate arguments among their peers. These student leaders gain self-confidence and lifelong skills in conflict resolution, Thompson says. The student leaders help other students find workable solutions during conflicts on the playground and in school.

Kim Stout will use her grant funds to buy Hokki chairs for her students. These chairs, also called wiggle chairs, allow children to move while learning. Studies show the chairs improve posture and help children concentrate more on learning.

The grant program is named for the late Karen Cox, a Billings teacher who spent her life teaching children and assisting fellow educators.

Student news

Mock trial team has good showing in Idaho

Helena Highs mock trial team, currently the only mock trial team in the state of Montana, garnered a sixth place finish at last weeks Idaho State Mock Trial Competition. Twelve teams, including the Bengals, competed at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise. The contest was sponsored by the Idaho State Bar Association. The winning team, Ambrose High School from Meridian, will next advance to the national competition.

The Bengals had a strong showing in their four matches. They won two of their four contests. The Montana team lost to teams that ended up taking first and third places in the state contest. Next year the Helena High squad will miss departing senior students: Kaitlyn Crnich, Faith Scow, Aidan McGinley and Sam Bryan.
FLORENCE -- In Florence, there are two men whose lives are caught up in the growing effort to rein in the illegal use of prescription painkillers.
BOX ELDER  State Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, said Thursday that accusations she is a racist because she spoke at an event hosted by an anti-Indian group are false.

The claims were made against Fielder, who is a member of the State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee, by some Montana tribal members and a human rights group last November after she spoke at an event sponsored by the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance.

"To characterize that as an anti-Indian group is a mischaracterization," Fielder told the committee at a meeting here. "It is being done to stifle this conversation of addressing public lands in the state."

Fielder spoke about her advocacy of transferring federal lands to the state during a regional education conference sponsored by the alliance last September.

The group says it does not tolerate racism, but the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network has called it "the most notorious organized anti-Indian group in the U.S., dedicated to terminating tribal governments, abrogating treaties and turning management of tribal resources over to the state government."

Elaine Willman, a board member for the alliance, wrote a memorandum to the committee clarifying its position and relationship with presenters.

"Presenters representing various organizations are not asked to endorse CERA in order to participate; nor does CERA endorse any guest presenters or organizations. ... CERA is not a 'racist' organization and is held in high regard by numerous national experts and organization," the letter stated.

***

At the end of a November meeting of the committee, Alvin "Jim" Kennedy, tribal councilman at Fort Belknap; George Horse Capture Jr., councilman at Fort Belknap; and Rachel Carroll Rivas of the Montana Human Rights Network questioned if Fielder belonged on the committee. Four others also sent in public comments questioning Fielder's attendance and speech at the event, calling it "inappropriate," "dangerous" and "unbecoming."

At that time, committee members steered the conversation toward an end, saying Fielder, who was not at that meeting because of an excused absence, could not defend herself.

Fielder said Thursday the issues in her district, which is heavily forested, have prompted her to develop an expertise in public lands management. Because of her knowledge, groups that agree states can manage lands better than the federal government will invite her to speak at their events. Senate District 7 includes Sanders and Mineral counties, and small parts of Missoula and Flathead counties.

She said the accusations against her are meant to stifle discussion about transferring federal lands to state ownership and management.

"I've been running into this almost everywhere I go, people that do not want this discussed at all. I have had legislators tell me if it was brought up they would walk out of the room and not listen," she said.

"There has ... been a concerted effort to try to dirty and slander the reputations of the people that are working for better land management through public control."

Fielder said her attendance at an event does not equate to endorsing the event organizer's opinions.

"I don't have an affiliation with CERA; they don't have an affiliation with me," she said. "I was simply asked to come speak on the issue of public lands. ... I can assure you I'm not a subscriber of CERA's policies."

The only part of the conference she attended was her talk, but while she was there she saw people from her district who are members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fielder said.

She is frustrated with accusations of racism.

"I think the travesty of that discussion is that racism does exist and when you start calling things that aren't racism racism, you muddy the waters of what racism really is," Fielder said.

"Racism is dangerous. We shouldn't stand for anybody that's trying to divide people with accusations of racism when it does not exist."

***

In her letter, Willman wrote that CERA organized in the mid-1980s to "assist enrolled tribal members who have very limited civil rights within tribal governing systems."

State Rep. George Kipp III, D-Heart Butte, said CERA's relationship with tribes in the 1980s was not a good one. Tribes like the Blackfeet saw the alliance as a threat to their existence, though he said based on Willman's letter it appears it has changed its mission.

"They don't want to see that monster rise again," Kipp said. "Conflicts existed before, there were fistfights on the Blackfeet Reservation. They wanted to cut the reservation in half. These issues were very big in the '80s and relevant to the existence of our people."

Kipp said he understood Fielder's side of the issue, but asked her to be more aware of future associations she makes.

"That's your passion and I can only caution you because you are on this committee  this committee was created for a purpose, this committee is to develop a relationship between the tribes and the state. That's what we're about," Kipp said.

Kipp said the Fort Belknap tribal members who spoke at the November meeting were invited Thursday but didn't attend. "I don't see them here today, maybe they have flushed us down the toilet."

Fielder said she welcomes meeting with members of the Fort Belknap tribes, and all other Montana tribes, to clarify her stance.

In a special report for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the Montana Human Rights Network, advisory board member Chuck Tanner said "CERA leaders promote misinformation about tribal treaty rights and sovereignty, espouse far-right conspiracy theories that promote bigotry against Indian people and others, call for mean-spirited and inflammatory attacks on tribal communities, and have allied their cause with a broader far-right movement that threatens civil rights, environmental protection and economic justice."

"In the end," Tanner wrote, "CERA's anti-Indianism is an affront to the United States Constitution and the spirit of tolerance and equality between all peoples."

***

Fielder said she will keep speaking at meetings sponsored by groups like the alliance.

"I will continue to go and address whoever would like to learn about it, but I think it is disgusting what certain groups are trying to do to suppress the conversation and suppress discussion and dirty and toxify the discussion just so people won't talk about better public land management," she said.

Fielder said she was recently asked by the American Lands Council to be its CEO as an unpaid volunteer, a position she accepted.

She is welcome to working with tribes through the Lands Council, but clarified the group is not pursuing anything related to Indian land regulations.

Thompson Falls, where Fielder lives, is surrounded by millions of acres of federally controlled lands. The community suffered last summer, she said, when firefighters were grounded by federal regulations that prohibited the use of state helicopters because they weren't on a list of federally approved devices.

Fielder said millions of dollars of timber were lost and habitat was unnecessarily destroyed.

"Our streetlights were on in the middle of the day because it was so dark with smoke the light sensors were telling our streetlights it was nighttime," she said. "Communities were evacuated, property burned."

Fielder said this was another "really serious consequence out of a stupid regulation out of Washington, D.C."

There are parallels between how Thomson Falls is suffering and the social problems members of the interim committee heard as they spent time in two reservation towns along the Hi-Line this week.

"Our communities are economically depressed and unsafe," Fielder said. "People used to come to Thompson Falls for work, they used to come to our community from Missoula to find work. Most of our working-age people have gone somewhere else to find work, so our elders are left with no families to look in on them."

"What happened to our community because we can't provide for ourselves anymore because our resources have been locked up and locked down is we're seeing the same kind of horrific trends in our community that reservations are trying to battle -- poverty, crime, drugs, a downward spiral of society, suicide issues."
Thank you for reading!

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By Kristine Aghalaryan, Hrant Galstyan

A Hetq source from Tanzania reports that a charter airplane that was supposed to transport 500 monkeys and other animals to Armenia has been seized in Tanzania.

Tanzanian law enforcement seized the AN-26 airplane due to questions as to whether the cargo is legal or not.

The Citizen, a Tanzanian newspaper, has confirmed the above. On Wednesday, the brothers Artyom and Edward Vartanyan were arrested at Kilimanjaro International Airport when they tried to transport 61 monkeys out of the country.

The brothers presented the export permits for the cargo, but the permits were issued contrary to a ban imposed by the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Jumanne Maghembe on March 20, 2016.

We are holding them because although the permits were issued by the ministry, they are invalid on the strength of the export ban, Kilimanjaro Regional Police Commander Wilbroad Mutafungwa told the newspaper, adding that there was no release order from the Tanzania Revenue Authority as demanded by the law.

6 crates full of 61 animals at the Kilimanjaro International Airport after the arrest of the Vardanyan brothers/Dions Nyato

Minister Maghembe told The Daily News, another local paper, that the plane had been leased in South Africa. The pilot is also under police custody. The minister said that 450 animals were supposed to have been smuggled out of Tanzania in the plane.

High officials in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, who facilitated issuing the permits, have been fired.

The Citizen reports that the caged monkeys were purchased from residents of the Arusha administrative region, who have permits to catch them.

Hetqs source says that Artyom Vardanyan, who owns the Jambo Exotic Park in Armenia (Tzoraghbyur) travelled to Tanzania one month ago to collect and ship the animals to Armenia.

Hetq contacted Armenias Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to see if it had a record of a planned chartered flight from Tanzania. Air Cargo Division Chief Hrant Mirzoyan responded that no such flighty request had been presented from Tanzania.

DCA spokesperson Ruben Grdzelyan told Hetq that the AN-26 charter flight was planned from Cairo but that it was cancelled.

Looking at the story of animals being imported into Armenia over the past few years, we should note that the imports havent been via direct flights but rather through Dubai, Lebanon, Egypt, etc.

Artyom Vardanyans Facebook page is full of photos taken in Tanzania. Hes been in Tanzania since the end of February, studying the local fauna, getting photographed with local residents and local animals. Some of the photos were taken in Arusha and in Kenyas Maasai Mara National Reserve and Tanzanias Serengeti National Park.

Hetq readers are familiar with Artyom Vardanyan when we wrote about the existence of endangered bonobo primateat Jambo Exotic Park. The bonobo had been brought to Armenia illegal since the importation of the animal wasnt registered with tax authorities.

Based on the Hetq report, a criminal case of illegal animal smuggling was launched against Artur Khachatryan. The case has dragged on for the past two years.

Vardanyan has always claimed that he leased the bonobo from Zoo Fauna Art company owner Artur Khachatryan, who is now wanted by Interpol.
Its just a few days before Easter and people will be dyeing eggs as tradition warrants.

So how is the egg supply in Armenia stacking up?

Turns out that the country didnt need to import any eggs last year and so far this year. Local production was sufficient.

According to data provided Hetq by the State Food Safety Service, Armenia last imported eggs in 2014; 13.5 million to be exact.

Armenia imported 17.5 million eggs in 2013, none in 2012, and a whopping 31 million in 2011.

As for exports, Armenia hasnt exported any eggs for the past five years, except for 28,000 in 2012.

However, Armenia did export eggs, loads of them, prior to 2009. In fact, Armenia was exporting 10 million or so every year, mainly to Georgia. Armenias neighbor to the north now produces enough to meet local consumption needs and imports from Turkey in a pinch.

Sergey Stepanyan, president of the Poultry Union of Armenia, says that there are ten egg producing companies in the country today. Together, they produce 600 million eggs yearly.

Egg production has hovered around 600 million annually for the past five years.

The largest producers are Lousakert Poultry (29%), Arzni Poultry (27%), Araks Poultry Plant, and Yerevan Poultry. The latter two together control 30% of the market.

Over the past five years, retail egg prices have ranged from 60-70 dram per egg. Producers sell the eggs for 48-50 dram.

In short, there should be enough eggs for Easter and prices are not expected to rise.

Photo: www.status4ka.am
By Katherine Berjikian

I met Sevana Tchakerian a couple times before I got the opportunity tointerview her.

I had been in Armenia for a couple days and out of boredom I went with a couple friends to a fancy, kind of tourist cafe. Half way through the meal, Sevana and a person I never really caught the name of, sat down. After a little while, kind of out of boredom, I stood up to make my round of kisses and leave. However, Sevana stopped me before I left, and insisted on talking to me about my outfit.

She told me I dressed like I was from Paris, and that she thought I was an Armenian from France, not America. The American in me took this as a complement and I thanked her and left. That night my friend told me that Sevana was kind of a rock star and was really nice. I believed them about the really nice part, but I wasnt so sure about the rock star part. It just seemed unlikely that you would causally meet a rock star and that person would have several acquaintances with you. Armenia really couldnt be that small.

It wasnt till a couple weeks later that I found out that Sevana was part of a band called Collectif Medz Bazar. A band that I really liked in the States. Sevana was really a rock star.

It wasnt till a week later that I found the courage to ask Sevana if I could interview her. She agreed right away, and we decided to meet up that afternoon in that same cafe. During that time, we talked about her involvement in the Collectif Medz Bazar, and her work in early music education and music therapy.

Before I go any further, I should quickly describe Collectif Medz Bazar, and their casual fame in the diaspora. While I wouldnt describe Collectif Medz Bazar as famous, they do kind of hold a niche place in the Armenian hipster world. In the past couple years, they have flown around the world to perform for college age diasporan Armenians. While Armenian young people comprise the majority of their fans, the band itself is quite diverse. Their members come from a variety of backgrounds, including French, Armenian, Turkish and American all of whom either grew up in France or moved there to study

According to Sevana, when the members of the band first met, they did not intend to create Collectif Medz Bazar. The Armenian members were lifelong friends, from their childhood. So they, at the very least had a familiar connection. However, the other members met later. Some of the Armenian members met the Turkish members in their university. From there, it seems, the creation of Collectif Medz Bazar was kind of one of lifes coincidences, Sevana told me.

We decided to do one concert. One little jam session opening for a special event. We didnt think that we were going to be a band. We just decided on one day, in 2012, to do our versions of five six traditional songs. So everyone one wrote a song that they liked in Armenian, Turkish, and Arabic, different languagesAnd we did this event, and it went very well. So we decided to see each other again and it started to become bigger and more serious. And it became semi-professional. We did not have that motivation at first.

The band frequently focuses on themes regarding the Armenian community, but not always. For example, while the song Our Country relates about Armenians in the diasporas kind of blase attitude when it comes to Armenia, and Ariur Ar Ariur, a song about Armenian diaspora youth losing their culture, the members of the group are not all Armenian. The bands title is a reflection of this multi-ethnic Middle Eastern band. Medz means large in Armenian, Bazar referencing to Middle Eastern shopping areas, and the Collectif, French word for collective, is a way to combine all three of these cultures.

The band itself, which focuses on exploring its members various identities, is a kind of platform in which each ethnicity has their own voice. Sevanaexplained this in the interview.

I think it was just to find a platform where everyone could bring their own favorite songs and their own culture because we are all from different cultures. Take me for example. My mom is from Iran and my dad is from Lebanon. So I also like Persian and Arabic songs. The Turks are from different regions. So they have their own traditions and cultural heritage. And we just wanted to create this platform where everyone brings their own thing, and we tried to make something global and give a voice to everyone. To collaborate and arrange the songs together.

Many of the songs performed by Collectif Medz Bazar are written and performed in different languages. And some of the songs, like Dolama for example, a re-imagining of a traditional Turkish song, is sung entirely in Turkish. This is part of the uniqueness of Medz Bazar - their desire to incorporate their members identities.

By listening to Collectif Medz Bazars album you get a brief glimpse of the Caucuses and the many different cultures that live there. This can be seen in a story Sevana told during the interview about one of the bands Turkish members.

For instance, we were having a conversation with one of the Turkish members a few months ago and they told me that before Medz Bazar they didnt know anything about Armenian culture. And now, theysays that I know a lot of songs because everyone sings together.

One of the things you notice when listening to Collectif Medz Bazars songs is that all the members sing regardless of the language. When I first listened to Medz Bazar, I thought it was because they all knew the same languages, and that all of their members were Armenian with some proficiency in Turkish. But in fact, this is not true. Their common language is French, not Armenian. During the interview, Sevana explained how this process works while writing and recording songs. When we bring a song thats a traditional song we explain the lyrics then we teach everyone how to sing it so that everyone can at least sing the choruses together. Everyone can sing on stage.

Collectif Medz Bazar, however, appears to be currently focused on the Armenian diasporan community. One of their songs called Our Country (Notre Patriein French), written and performed by Sevana, was released during the summer and targets the French-Armenian communitys attitude to present-day Armenia. The song is about the Armenians from the diaspora coming to Armenia to vacation for the summer and then returning to their original countries, all while ignoring the corruption in Armenia.

The songs include lines like Our homeland is the best holiday resort! and Diaspora, Armenia, together we can advance. Our homeland is worth much more than a holiday resort.

While the song is for the Armenian community, it is sung in French. When I asked Sevana why she chose to write a political song about Armenia in French she responded, I was kind of revolted living in France and knowing that no one cares really. The Armenian diaspora in France are like ohh, the genocide blah blah blah. Hating Turks and just fighting for genocide. And they dont really know whats going on here. They think its just and old soviet country. They will go. People just come here for holidaysSo thats what I wanted to talk about. Because when I wrote that, I already made up my mind to come and live here in Armenia. And Ive been coming back and forth living here. I wanted to give my point of view. People sometimes have this idea of an Armenia that is very limited. And why did I write it in French? Maybe because I wanted it to be for the French Armenian people.

While the band has existed for many years, and was gaining considerable fame abroad, one of the things that launched them to their current notoriety was the 2014 Tsovits Tsov (Sea to Sea) competition. This was an international eventin which contestants from all around the world participated. The Tsovits Tsov competition had a YouTube channel where they showed music videos of bands performing songs in Armenian. Medz Bazar performed with their song Ariur Ar Ariur, which is about the Armenian diaspora losing its culture. While they did not win, they did get to the finals. This meant that they performed in Moscow with several other Armenian diasporan bands.

Today, the members of the band are spread out around the world. For example, Sevana lives in Armenia and another memberof the band lives in Portugal. While the members of the band are spread out, this has not stopped them from writing and performing songs. Right now the band is working on its second album which will include their first song written in Turkish and English. The band will perform in Los Angeles on April 2 at USC.

While the band has gained success internationally, and is currently attracting a broader fan base, Sevana has stayed in Armenia. True to the criticisms in her song Our Country, Sevana came to Armenia and has tried to make her small but important contribution to the country.

While in France, Sevana was running a music school specialized in pre-school music education. When she came to Armenia, she discovered that there is very little focus on music education in the Armenian pre-schools. Thus, she decided to co-create an NGO that focuses on early development music education.

I came here two years ago and did some research. I understood that there is nothing like that. No curriculum, and no schools, and the teachers dont know anything about pre-school education and music therapy. Music therapy is very sporadic here and very vague, Sevana told me.

Sevana then contacted the Children of Armenia Fund and started a pilot program to educate teachers in Armenia about early music education and therapy. Her goal was to not only work with the children in the villages, but to also educate teachers on how to teach this specific curriculum so that they can continue early music education after she left. To reach this goal, Sevana helped create the Tsap-Tsapik Music Education foundation, an NGO that is trying to educate teachers on how teach music education and music therapy.

When I asked her about the condition of the schools and the future of the school system in Armenia, Sevana said that she was optimistic, but that support in this regard would mostly come from the diasporan community, and not from the current Armenian education system. She stated that NGOs and initiatives like Ayb School could spearhead the future of the Armenian education system. However, if there is a fault with the education system in Armenia, it is not the children who are the problem.

I really like working here. I think the kids here, compared to France, are much more focused, and are much more respectful and eager to learn. So its more productive working with kids here.

(Katherine Berjikian is a Birthright Armenia volunteer now working at Hetq)

Top photo: Sevana Tchakerian (courtesy of Narek Aleksanyan)

For more information about the band go to their Facebook page
On March 25, Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian received Foreign Minister of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze, who is paying an official visit to Armenia.



Welcoming the guest, Minister Nalbandian mentioned, that traditionally close partnership relations have been established over the years between the representatives of the governments of the two neighbouring states, directed towards strengthening and deepening of cooperation between our states. Reflecting on bilateral ties, Edward Nalbandian commended, "To say that the relations between Armenia and Georgia are friendly, means to say very little. This is a time-tested friendship based on mutual respect. Everything which characterizes Armenian and Georgian peoples is closely interconnected. This is not a coincidence, as we live side by side for over thousands of years."



Expressing gratitude for the invitation and the reception, Mikheil Janelidze stressed, that this is his second meeting with Foreign Minister of Armenia in the capacity of new Foreign Minister of Georgia in two months, and that was a good opportunity to discuss issues on the bilateral agenda, as well as international and regional issues. The Foreign Minister of Georgia said, that the two states actively cooperate in different areas, and stressed that Georgia is ready to exert additional efforts to further deepen and strengthen the cooperation.



During the meeting, the process of implementation of agreements made by the Presidents of our countries, numerous issues on the Armenian-Georgian agenda were discussed; expansion of legal framework, consultations between the MFAs, activity of Inter-Governmental Committee, inter-parliamentary exchanges, preservation of Armenian cultural heritage were touched upon.



Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia presented to his counterpart the latest developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, attaching importance to Georgia's support to the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs  the only internationally mandated format.

The ministers delivered press statements following the meeting.

Top photo: Minister Mikheil Janelidze, Minister Edward Nalbandian
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan: Horror persists from Brussels to Cuba  Guantanamo, Cuba, that is
Two outsiders who have upended their parties 2016 presidential nominating contests are bringing their populist messages to Wisconsin over the next few days.

Real estate mogul and Republican front-runner Donald Trump has scheduled an event Tuesday in Janesville, and Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is holding a rally in Madison on Saturday as caucuses take place in three other states.

Both candidates have drawn huge crowds over the past year, but Trump events have been at times chaotic with coordinated disruptions from anti-Trump protesters and retaliation from Trump supporters.

In one high-profile case, a Trump supporter sucker-punched a protester being escorted out by police. At another event, a protester rushed the stage while Trump spoke. And earlier this month, a rally in Chicago was canceled at the last minute, leading to bouts of shouting and shoving.

Trump has faced criticism for his violent rhetoric against protesters and stoking the tension.

Trumps campaign website says he plans to speak at the Janesville Conference Center at 3 p.m. Tuesday. The center referred questions about capacity to the Trump campaign, which didnt respond. The centers 15,000-square-foot main ballroom would likely have a maximum capacity in the 2,500-3,000 range based on city building regulations.

Janesville is the hometown of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who offered veiled criticism of Trump on Wednesday.

Immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera is planning to protest outside the Trump event on Tuesday, operations director Primitivo Torres said. He said the group is still discussing whether or not to cause disruptions inside the event. Trumps rise in the polls last year came as he referred to immigrants coming into the country illegally as rapists and murderers.

We are urging the local authorities there that they should have a plan for public safety, Torres said.

Janesville Deputy Police Chief John Olsen said the department has experience policing events at the conference center, including a March 2011 event featuring Gov. Scott Walker in the wake of the Act 10 protests.

He didnt say what kind of special accommodations would be needed for the Trump event, but he would be reviewing measures taken in other states.

Well just be responsible for making it a safe event for Mr. Trump and those attending and the general public, Olsen said.

Janesville City Council President Doug Marklein said he expects there will be a large turnout  and the need for extra police security  but hes confident the local police force would be able to handle the situation given past experience with the 2011 Walker event.

I dont think we get too many celebrities coming here on a regular basis, Marklein said. As far as protests, he added, We just hope they do it civilly and make their point, but not get into shoving and punching matches like a few other cities. Its OK to protest, but keep it civil.

Walker told reporters Thursday that the state would offer the same law enforcement protection for a Trump rally or a Sanders rally that it has in the past for large events.

At this point, were just appreciative that Wisconsin is relevant in both primaries, both on the Republican and Democrat side, Walker said. Weve had a lot of attention in the past, not just in the presidential race, but to various issues weve debated here in the state in the past. Weve been able to do it without major incident and I would expect the same would be true between now and the primary.

Sanders in Madison

Sanders is planning his event Saturday afternoon at the Alliant Energy Center, according to his campaign. Washington, Alaska and Hawaii will be holding Democratic nominating contests that day, so Wisconsin will serve as the backdrop for Sanders election day speech. Wisconsin hosts the next primary on April 5.

Sanders is trailing front-runner Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, and national political observers view Wisconsin as a potential last stand for his campaign.

The event at the centers exhibition hall is expected to draw 9,000 people, according to Robert Dempsey, state political director for the Sanders campaign. Sanders rallied nearly 10,000 people at the Dane County Coliseum in July, one of the early signs that the Sanders campaign might have momentum.

Dempsey acknowledged the Saturday event might not draw as many people because it will take place the day before Easter while many UW-Madison students are still on spring break.

The event is free and open to the public, with admission on a first-come, first-served basis, according to the campaign.

Clinton has yet to announce plans for a visit to the state. Her daughter Chelsea visited Madison, Milwaukee and Waukesha on Thursday.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made his first stop in Wisconsin prior to the April 5 vote on Wednesday in Pewaukee and also made stops in Dane and Janesville on Thursday.

Janesville a draw

Mike Wagner, a UW-Madison communications professor who studies presidential politics, said Republican candidates may be drawn to Janesville because theres a concentration of conservative voters in the district of U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who isnt endorsing in the race.

The citys blue-collar Democrats are still recovering from the 2009 closure of the local General Motors plant, which makes it ripe for Republicans like Trump to draw support, Wagner and Marklein said.

Trump has done a good job of gathering those sorts of voters, so the profile of Janesville is efficient for Trump, Wagner said. A lot of the voters have the demographic characteristics of his voters around the country. People who are sick of elites, mistrustful of news media, mistrustful of experts and looking for someone to right the ship economically. Many folks there feel left behind by the recovery.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich held a town hall meeting Wednesday in Wauwatosa with about 400 people and attended a private fundraiser in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. He has scheduled town hall events Monday in West Salem and Madison.

Cruz has touted himself as the only candidate capable of stopping Trump based on his delegate count, while Kasich says he is the only one who can beat Clinton in the general election based on national head-to-head polls.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has won the support of state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the latest member of Wisconsins Republican establishment to back the Texas senator.

Meanwhile, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clintons campaign said she will hold events across the state starting Monday. Details were not immediately available Friday afternoon, but a stop in Madison is expected on Monday or Tuesday.

Clinton joins her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders in the Badger State. Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, plans a rally Saturday at the Alliant Energy Center.

Vos, R-Rochester, announced his Cruz endorsement on radio host Charlie Sykes program Friday morning.

Cruz is vying with GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Wisconsins April 5 presidential primary. The primary is taking on increasing national significance, as Republicans across the country who oppose Trump view it as one of their last chances to thwart Trumps quest for the partys nomination.

Vos acknowledged Friday that Cruz was not his first choice. He previously endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who since has dropped out.

But Vos said he was encouraged when Cruz struck a more optimistic note in his first Wisconsin event earlier this week, an on-stage interview with Sykes at his Insight 2016 event.

Other Wisconsin Republicans who previously endorsed Cruz include Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman.

Gov. Scott Walker, who dropped out of the presidential race in September, has not endorsed anyone. He said this week that Cruz is the only Republican besides Trump who has a path to the nomination.

A new poll released Friday shows Cruz leading Trump in Wisconsin, 36 percent to 31 percent, with Kasich at 21 percent. The poll, conducted by Basswood Research and sponsored by the conservative Washington Free Beacon website, has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Also Friday, Cruz and Clinton foreshadowed their contributions to the coming campaign war on Wisconsin airwaves.

Both campaigns announced six-figure ad buys with positive messages about the candidates.

One of the Cruz ads focuses on his proposal for a flat tax and abolishing the IRS. Another features a fictional small business owner criticizing Trumps empty promises.

Our next president needs to be a principled leader with a real plan to turn things around, the business owner says. One of the Clinton ads features a clip of her vowing to go after pharmaceutical companies that price-gouge.

Another, voiced by actor Morgan Freeman, cites Clintons public references to the killings of African-Americans such as Milwaukee resident Dontre Hamilton, Travyon Martin and Sandra Bland. The ad also links Clinton to President Barack Obama.

Clinton stands with the president against those who would undo his achievements, Freeman said.
WASHINGTON  The split-screen told the story: on one side, images of the terror bombing in Brussels; on the other, Barack Obama doing the wave with Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana.

On one side, the real world of rising global terrorism. On the other, the Obama fantasy world in which romancing a geopolitically insignificant Cuba  without an ounce of democracy or human rights yielded in return  is considered a seminal achievement of American diplomacy.

Cuba wasnt so much a legacy trip as a vanity trip, vindicating the dorm-room enthusiasms of ones student days when the Sandinistas were cool, revolution was king and every other friend had a dog named Che.

When Brussels intervened, some argued Obama should have cut short his trip and come back home. I disagree. You dont let three suicide bombers control the itinerary of the American president. Moreover, Obamas next stop, Argentina, is actually important and had just elected a friendly government that broke from its long and corrupt Peronist past.

Nonetheless, Obama could have done without the baseball. What kind of message does it send to be yukking it up with Raul even as Belgian authorities are picking body parts off the floor of the Brussels airport?

Obama came into office believing we had vastly exaggerated the threat of terrorism and allowed it to pervert both our values and our foreign policy. He declared a unilateral end to the global war on terror and downplayed the threat ever since. He frequently reminds aides, reports Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, that more Americans die annually of bathtub accidents.

Its now been seven years. The real world has stubbornly refused to accommodate Obamas pacific dreams. The Islamic State has grown from JV team to worldwide threat, operating from Libya to Afghanistan, Sinai to Belgium. It is well into the infiltration phase of its European campaign, with 500 trained and hardened cadres in place among the estimated 5,000 jihadists returned from the Middle East. The increasing tempo and sophistication of its operations suggest it may be poised for a continent-wide guerrilla campaign.

In the face of this, Obama remains inert, unmoved, displaying a neglect and insouciance that borders on denial. His nonreaction to the Belgian massacre  his 34-minute speech in Havana devoted 51 seconds to Brussels  left the world as stunned as it was after the Paris massacre, when Obama did nothing. Worse, at his now notorious November news conference in Turkey, his only show of passion regarding Paris was to berate Islamophobes.

David Axelrod called Obamas response tone deaf. But that misses the point. This is more than a mere mistake of presentation. Remember his reaction to the beheading of the American journalist James Foley? Obama made a statement expressing his sympathies  and then jumped onto his golf cart for a round of 18.

He later told NBC News Chuck Todd that this was a mistake. Part of this job is also the theater of it, he explained, its not something that always comes naturally to me. As if postponing a bucolic recreation was a required piece of political playacting rather than a presidents natural reaction  a mixture of shock and sorrow  to the terrible death of a citizen he could not save.

Its not as if Obama is so super cool that he never shows emotion. Just a few months ago, he teared up when speaking about the Sandy Hook school shooting. That was the work of a psychotic. But when speaking about the work of Islamist terrorists, he offers flat perfunctory words.

I cannot fathom why. Perhaps having long seen himself uniquely qualified by background and history to make peace between Islam and the West, to now recognize how badly things have gone on his watch is to admit both failure and the impossible grandiosity of his original pretensions.

Whatever the reason, he seems genuinely unmoved by a menace the rest of the world views, correctly, with horror and increasing apprehension. Hes been in office seven years, yet seems utterly fixed on his campaign promises and pre-presidential obsessions: shutting down Gitmo, rapprochement with Iran, engagement with tyrants (hence Havana), making the oceans recede (hence the Paris climate trip). Next well see yet another useless Washington summit on yet another Obama idee fixe: eliminating nuclear materials.

With the world on fire, the American president goes on ideological holiday. As was said of the Bourbons: They have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing.
PLAINFIELD  State Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) says there is a way out of the pension debacle, despite Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court ruling striking down a pending Illinois law aimed at reducing unfunded pension obligations in Chicago.

The Supreme Courts ruling supports my proposal in that it gives pensioners valid consideration. They are free to keep their current pension as it is," Batinick explained. And that's what his plan uniquely offers.

Analyses of the Court-rejected plan involving the Chicago Municipal and Chicago Laborers Funds showed the pension to become insolvent by 2024 and 2028. Still they rejected the reform that was pushed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to address the severe underfunding of these systems.
Ambassador Saperstein's Visit to Thailand and Vietnam

Washington, DC - Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein will travel to Thailand and Vietnam, March 24-31.

On March 24 and 25, Ambassador Saperstein will travel to Thailand, where he will meet with members of religious communities including refugees and asylum seekers who fled religious persecution in their home countries.

From March 26 to 31, the Ambassador will visit Vietnam where he will meet with government officials, religious and civil society leaders to discuss challenges and opportunities for improving the status of religious freedom in Vietnam.
Presidential Elections in Niger

Washington, DC - The United States welcomes the peaceful conduct of the March 20 presidential run-off election in Niger. We are disappointed that differences among some of the parties concerning the conduct of the election were not resolved in advance. As a result of those disagreements, some voters and political parties chose not to participate in the runoff election.

The United States calls on all stakeholders to resolve differences peacefully through dialogue and existing legal processes. We call on the government and people of Niger to continue working to unify the country and strengthen Nigers democratic institutions.

The United States was proud to support the people of Niger throughout the electoral process, and we remain committed to supporting the Nigerien people through our security cooperation, development assistance, and governance partnership.
Tailpipe emissions, fuel consumption, and use of a major advanced power plant technology aimed specifically at increasing the vehicle's environmental responsibility, were all taken into consideration.

Vehicles in all award categories are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of 73 top-level automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world.

By India Today Web Desk: Toyota Mirai was declared the 2016 World Green Car on Thursday at the New York International Auto Show.

Bill Fay, group vice president and general manager, Toyota Division said, "Just as Prius changed the world nearly 20 years ago, the hydrogen-powered Mirai is ready to make history. "With a range of over 300 miles per tank, a refuelling time of under five minutes, and emissions that consist only of water vapor, Mirai is leading the world forward toward a more sustainable future."

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ALSO READ: 2016 Toyota Fortuner debuts at Bangkok Motor Show, India launch soon

The Mirai was chosen from an initial entry list of eight new vehicles from all over the world. Tailpipe emissions, fuel consumption, and use of a major advanced power plant technology aimed specifically at increasing the vehicle's environmental responsibility, were all taken into consideration.

Toyota is no stranger to the World Car Awards program - now in its 12th year. The Toyota Prius (2010) has previously earned "Top Three in the World" status for both the World Green Car and the overall World Car of the Year categories.

In addition, the Toyota GT86 was a "Top Three in the World" finalist for World Car of the Year in 2013; the Toyota iQ in 2009 for the same category; and the Toyota Harrier Hybrid in 2006 for World Green Car.

ALSO READ: Production of current generation Toyota Innova ends; Innova Crysta to take over

Vehicles in all award categories are selected and voted on by an international jury panel comprised of 73 top-level automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world.

--- ENDS ---
The deadline for BMW was extended to August 31 because a replacement driver-side air bag inflator made by a supplier other than Takata failed during testing.

NHTSA said all automakers besides BMW have reported that they are on track to meet the original March 31 deadline under a agency order to supply enough replacement inflators for "priority one" vehicles, with the highest risk of ruptures.

By Reuters: BMW AG will get five more months to acquire Takata air bag replacement parts for a massive recall because tests showed some of the substitute inflators may also be defective, the US auto safety agency said on Thursday.

The deadline for the German automaker was extended to Aug. 31 because a replacement driver-side air bag inflator made by a supplier other than Takata failed during testing, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said.

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ALSO READ: BMW 7 Series bags the 2016 World Luxury Car award at NYIAS

"NHTSA's priority continues to be ensuring that unsafe air bag inflators are replaced with safe ones," the agency said in a statement.

A BMW spokeswoman declined to comment.

Takata inflators can explode with excessive force and spray metal shrapnel into vehicle passenger compartments, and have been linked to 10 deaths worldwide and more than 100 US injuries. To date, 14 automakers have recalled about 24 million vehicles involving about 28 million Takata air bag inflators.

NHTSA said all automakers besides BMW have reported that they are on track to meet the original March 31 deadline under a agency order to supply enough replacement inflators for "priority one" vehicles, with the highest risk of ruptures. The agency set the deadline in early November.

ALSO READ: BMW to recall 6,109 cars for fuel pump problem in China

The consent order also set deadlines of September 30 for automakers to have enough replacement parts for "priority two" vehicles, and Dec. 31 for "priority three" vehicles. NHTSA will delay those deadlines for BMW until 2017.

The delays affect 420,000 recalled vehicles, including several types of BMW 3-series, 5-series and the X5, NHTSA said. About 100,000 of these are priority one cars.

BMW told NHTSA in January that it had obtained replacement inflators from a supplier which it did not identify, and then reported subsequent testing failures to the agency.

The automaker requested a five-month extension in February.

The extension applies only to one type of inflator and not to other Takata inflators in vehicles manufactured by BMW.

BMW said it was working on three alternative designs as a backup plan if the current redesigned part fails.

ALSO READ: BMW rolls out new models at Geneva Motor Show

BMW told NHTSA in a Feb. 23 letter released by the agency on Thursday that it believed the root cause of the test failures "relates to unanticipated interaction with the horn plate in the steering wheels."

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Until then, BMW will continue its "like-for-like remedy program until an alternate inflator is available," NHTSA said.

In late December, NHTSA named John Buretta, a former official in the Justice Department's criminal division, to serve as independent monitor overseeing the Takata recalls.

--- ENDS ---
US District Judge Charles Breyer had earlier set a March 24 deadline for Europe's biggest automaker to explain where it stood on remediation efforts.

The remedy could involve fixing the roughly 580,000 US vehicles or buybacks and other options.

By Reuters: A federal judge on Thursday gave Volkswagen AG and US regulators until April 21 to agree on a fix for the nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles on US roadways caught up in VW's massive emissions cheating scandal.

US District Judge Charles Breyer had earlier set a March 24 deadline for Europe's biggest automaker to explain where it stood on remediation efforts, after months of talks with the US Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board.

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ALSO READ: Volkswagen to find diesel emissions fix by March 24

Breyer, VW and regulators all said at Thursday's hearing in San Francisco that progress has been made in intensive negotiations, but issues remain and no settlement has been reached yet.

The remedy could involve fixing the roughly 580,000 US vehicles or buybacks and other options, Breyer said.

He did not elaborate, but one central issue is whether the EPA would accept a fix that does not completely address excess on-road emissions.

ALSO READ: VW must do more in emissions investigation, say investors

Earlier this month, a California official said the state may allow partially repaired VW diesel cars to continue operating on its roads because a full fix may be impossible.

The cars are equipped with "defeat devices" that allow them to pass laboratory emissions tests despite exceeding federal standards by up to 40 times when they are driven on roads.

If no deal is reached by the April 21 deadline, Breyer said he would consider holding a trial on the issue this summer to address the vehicles that the US Environmental Protection Agency says emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution in real world driving.

Former FBI director Robert Mueller, who is Breyer's court appointment settlement master, briefed the judge on the status of the talks on Wednesday.

ALSO READ: VW to update engines of 3 lakh vehicles recalled in India

The US Justice Department in February sued VW for up to $46 billion for violating US environmental laws. VW and its Audi and Porsche brands remain barred from selling any new 2016 diesel models in the United States. It faces more than 500 US civil lawsuits that have been consolidated in front of Breyer.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, Mar 25 (PTI) Egyptian police have killed four members of a gang specialised in "kidnapping foreigners" and allegedly involved in murdering an Italian student in New Cairo area here, Interior Ministry has said.

Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student, was found dead on the outskirts of Cairo, ten days after he went missing on January 25 on the fifth anniversary of Egypts 2011 uprising.

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Regeni death sparked international outcry with Italian government putting pressure on Egypt to find those responsible for his death

"The security forces managed to track down a gang in New Cairo that used to pose as policemen. It specialised in abducting foreigners and robbing them," the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

According to the ministry statement, police found a bag belonging to Regeni during a raid on a flat of one of the suspects sisters, who confessed to her brothers crimes, in Qalyubia.

"There was an exchange of fire with the police and all members of the gang were killed." it said.

"A red handbag was found, including a brown wallet, the passport of Regeni, his Cambridge University ID card, and a visa card," the statement said.

In addition to the bag, other things such as a wallet with a sum of Egyptian pound 5,000, three sunglasses and a female wrist watch was also found, it added.

The Italian side was informed about this update, said the statement, which was released on the Ministrys Facebook page with photos of Regenis cards.

Regenis body was found beside a road on the western outskirts of Cairo. His body showed signs of torture, prompting prosecutors to say he had suffered a "slow, painful death".

Regeni, a PhD student at the department of politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo.

Rights groups and opposition figures speculated that he was killed by members of the Egyptian security forces - claims Cairo had strongly denied. PTI YES MRJ MRJ

--- ENDS ---
A 40-year-old dentist was allegedly beaten to death by a group of around 15 persons, including at least four juveniles, following a dispute in west Delhi's Vikaspuri area, police said today.

By PTI: A 40-year-old dentist was allegedly beaten to death by a group of around 15 persons, including at least four juveniles, following a dispute in west Delhi's Vikaspuri area. Police today arrested four people and apprehended four juveniles in connection with the case.

The victim has been identified as Dr Pankaj Narang, who lived with his wife and son in the Vikaspuri area.

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The incident took place late last night following which eight persons, including four juveniles, were apprehended, DCP (West) Pushpendra Kumar said.

One of the two persons who are prime accused in the case turned out to be a juvenile. The second has been identified as one Naseer.

According to police, Narang was taking a walk outside his residence last night when the juvenile and Naseer brushed him on their motorcycle. That led to a scuffle and the duo left the spot abandoning the motorbike there.

However, they returned later accompanied by around a dozen more persons and allegedly attacked the dentist with sticks and rods at his residence. They also thrashed people who came to his rescue.

While locals called police at around 12 AM, the alleged assailants had fled before they arrived on the scene. Narang, who sustained a deep wound to his skull, was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

A case under charges of murder, attempt to murder, trespassing and rioting has been registered in this connection, police said.

"Police zeroed in on the accused, all of whom were found to be locals. By this morning, we had apprehended eight of them. Efforts are on to nab the others," Kumar said.

Apart from the four juveniles, including one of the prime accused, and Naseer, the adults arrested in connection with the incident have been identified as Deepak and two youths who are both named Amir, police added.

Meanwhile, some locals told police that the scuffle originated after the doctors son, who was playing outside the house, threw a ball which hit one of the accused. The doctor came to his sons rescue and got involved in the scuffle.

DCP Kumar, however, refuted these claims.



--- ENDS ---
Actor Abhishek Bachchan says his wife Aishwarya Rai introduced him to Giorgio Armani, who dressed him for his very first Cannes appearance.

Abhishek Bachchan and suits go a long way. His fondness for them can be traced to his superstar father, Amitabh Bachchan, who taught him how to model and appreciate them from an early age. As a child, Big B encouraged his son to wear a suit whenever the family went to the cinema for a premiere or travelled overseas.

"Back in the day, when you would go out, you had to dress up," says the 40-year-old actor who is best-known for the Dhoom series and leading roles in films like Bunty aur Babli, Bluffmaster, Guru, Dostana and Raavan. "Although it has become more casual now, my father still holds on to that tradition," says the younger Bachchan. Junior B has fond memories of seeing Akki Uncle aka Akbar, his father's tailor, visit home for suit measurements; the most vivid being the trial that took place for the famous "Saara Zamaana" costume; the one that lights up. Making a suit is an art, believes Bachchan. "I was very intrigued by the whole process at the time," he says. "I was amazed at how detailed it was."

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Abhishek Bachchan looks dapper in an Armani Self Textured Notch Lapel suit. (Picture courtesy: Mandar Deodhar)

Suits would follow him even to school (Modern School, Vasant Vihar, Delhi and Bombay Scottish) and college, where formal attire was mandatory, and a blazer and shirt was the dress code. "I always believe that it is integral to have a black and navy blue suit in your cupboard at all times," he says. "You can't go wrong with them. We men are lucky. If you have these two suits, you can just change the shirt and tie and nobody will say that you are repeating your outfit."

Even as you see him rooting for his teams, Jaipur Pink Panthers in the Pro Kabaddi League and Chennain FC in the Indian Super League, in casuals such as a track suit or jeans, Bachchan says that years of wearing a suit have made it the clothing that he is most comfortable in. So much so that he has lost count of the number of suits he owns, although he does confess to being partial to those made by Giorgio Armani. He samples the Made to Measure service offered by the brand for the Spice cover story, a service that has become exceedingly popular in recent times with the well heeled. What makes the service attractive is that today, it can be found in almost every Giorgio Armani boutique, and is headed up by dedicated staff who have been trained in the finer points of tailoring. The process from start to finish takes about three months and is a precise, detailed one that takes the client's every need (even whim) on board.

You wear a lot of Armani. What makes their suits special?

I have been a huge a fan of Giorgio Armani since I was a child. It is everybody's dream to own an Armani suit and I was no different. I met him through Aishwarya. He is very close to her. We were on our honeymoon when we met him and he dressed me for my first Cannes appearance. He even invited us to his Milan fashion show and for a special dinner. He is a wonderful, warm, immensely sophisticated person. What I like most about him is that his simplicity comes through in his design as well. His fashion sense is not about screaming from the rooftops. It is not decadent and flamboyant. But there is a quiet, understated class to it. If you are somebody who loves wearing formal clothes, then an Armani suit will hold you in good stead.

When did you get your first Armani suit?

I don't know exactly when but I do know that I got my first truly bespoke suit on February 25, 2011. It was a huge deal.

What do you look for in a suit?

The cut. It has to be well-fitted.

Style is...

It should be personal. Anybody who is comfortable in their skin is stylish. It should be effortless; you shouldn't try too hard.

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Bachchan goes through the swatches to make a selection for his armani suit. Customers can choose from the finest fabrics, including wool with a thread count that makes it feel finer than cashmere. Classic fabrics (Prince of Wales, herringbone, houndstooth), as well as more seasonal fabrics (Armani checks and pinstripes, for example) are also available from the current ready to wear collection.

What makes a style statement?

A great suit. I'm most comfortable in one.

So how many suits do you own?

I don't know. I have a few (smiles sheepishly).

If you could fashion yourself after a Hollywood actor, who would it be?

Alain Delon, Steve McQueen and Cary Grant.

Your favourite red carpet look

A suit or a tuxedo. I definitely feel you have to dress for the occasion. I don't like people who don't make that effort.

The service invites the client to become part of the design process; the result is a truly bespoke suit, customised to his specifications. This even features a personalised label which bachchan is examining in this picture.

Fragrances you love

Quite a few. Amouage and Creed. Tom Ford makes very nice colognes. So does Calvin Klein. There are these wonderful perfumeries where you can make your own scents. There is one in Florence that I go to.

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Most dear accessory

Omega Seamaster Co-axial Chronometer. It is an old, lucky one.

Favourite designers

Armani, Tom Ford, Nachiket Barve and Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.

Shoes, watches, ties, cuff links. Your ultimate accessory?

They all are. They have to come together.

In keeping with the busy work schedules of customers, they are measured in store or at home and are given the option of returning for a fitting before delivery, before the final suit is ready.

Favourite fashion spot

What's wonderful about today's day and age is that apart from online shopping all the brands that you need to wear are available everywhere especially when it comes to formal wear. You have made to measure or bespoke.

What do you overindulge in when it comes to fashion?

Suits for sure and sneakers

Your go-to style at home

Track suit

Fashion inspiration

My father. Has always been.

Is there something from his wardrobe that you want?

I get my hands on everything. The great thing is we are pretty much the same size so we share a lot of our clothes. There have been many occasions where I have gone wearing his suit or shoe and vice versa.

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Does Aishwarya give you tips? Do you consult each other?

Like every husband and wife, we ask each other 'How am I looking?' She has a very good eye. She has a constructive way of putting across if something isn't working. Of course I will take her tips. I am a clever husband.

What does Aaradhya love you best in?

My daughter loves me in anything and everything I wear.

This is the final fitting for the fully customised suit: unique fit, fabric, lining, buttons, details as well as the signature Giorgio Armani look. Abhishek is seen here adjusting a bow tie that was specially customised for him by the brand.

--- ENDS ---
The women's group had vowed to break the age-old custom of the temple, which does not allow women to enter the inner sanctum of the temple.

By India Today Web Desk: Activist Trupti Desai was detained by police after she entered and offered prayers at the Trimbakeshwar temple today. Local women in Nashik gathered to protest against Desai's arrest.

"We offered prayers to Lord Shiva at Trimbakeshwar temple and prayed that women be allowed to enter the temple's sanctum," Trupti Desai said.

Desai was arrested along with other women from Bhumata Brigade earlier this month, when they tried to head towards the Trimbakeshwar temple in Nashik where women entry is restricted. The women's group had vowed to break the age-old custom of the temple, which does not allow women to enter the inner sanctum of the temple.

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Despite several attempts, temple authorities refused to change the rule, citing that no objection had ever been raised on previous occasions.

In January, Ranragini Bhumata Brigade, headed by Desai had decided to stage an extravagant procession by offering worship to Lord Shani at the sacred platform in Shani Shingnapur temple, which has been out of bounds for women as per centuries-old tradition. However, the bid to storm the temple in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra was derailed by cops.

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ISIS is expanding-from Iraq, it has captured parts of Syria, it's fighting on Turkey's borders, Yemen is already under its influence and it is sending people or appointing representatives in the Indian subcontinent and other countries, said Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.

Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Pakistani politician and Sufi scholar of repute, had brought the Nawaz Sharif government to a halt in 2014 by organising an Inquilab March. In Delhi last week for the World Sufi Conference, he spoke candidly to Group Editorial Director Raj Chengappa. Excerpts:

How serious is the ISIS threat in the subcontinent?

ISIS is expanding-from Iraq, it has captured parts of Syria, it's fighting on Turkey's borders, Yemen is already under its influence and it is sending people or appointing representatives in the Indian subcontinent and other countries. It is becoming global and all countries are concerned. What it is spreading are false, baseless and misguiding ideologies. They are influencing this part of the world too, and after they strengthen their movement they'll directly target South Asia, including Pakistan and India.

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Is the atmosphere in South Asia conducive to its spread?

Yes, because the counter-narrative is not being promoted as strongly as countries and societies are supposed to do. We are not rebutting their wrong ideology and their growing power and money. The counter-narrative is that ISIS is kafir, anti-Islam, the anti-thesis of the teachings of the Prophet, PBUH, the teachings of Quran. There is no concept of jihad in their character, in their performance, in their behaviour, in their ideologies or their name. It is only fasad. It is a most heinous crime for them to declare themselves or to accept that they are the Islamic State. They are instead a Terroristic State, anti-human, anti-region and anti-faith state. ISIS followers are not going to heaven, they are going to hell because they are capturing lands, killing innocent people, civilians and looting the money.

What about the terror groups in the subcontinent, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Lashkar-e Toiba. Aren't their crimes as heinous?

I will not buy your words in order to mention the names. Any terrorist gro up in any name, whether in India or Pakistan or in any part of the world, are killers of mankind. I condemn any form or any manifestation of terrorism, primarily as it is being done in the name of Islam, as by the ISIS, Al Qaeda or any other extremist or religious group. Terrorism is terrorism, it cannot be legalised, it cannot be justified by any kind of pretext, whether religious, political or social. Terrorism has no religion.

India's concern is that terrorism is abetted from across the border, and that is why ties are not improving.

There is an ongoing war of allegations and accusations between the two countries for the last many decades. Let us finish the war of allegations and accusations and just sit together for a dialogue. Dialogue not for dialogue's sake but dialogue to resolve and to bring an end to our conflicts, misunderstandings and hostilities.

There are charges that the Modi government has organised the conference to divide the Muslim community.

I absolutely differ. It's wrong to say this, as in Sufi there is nothing to divide. The efforts of the local Sufia, Ulema and scholars is for the benefit of the whole of India, the whole region, Muslim and non-Muslim communities. They are just raising the voice of the teachings of Sufia. All the famous Sufi saints in the region worked to unite mankind, to create an atmosphere of peaceful coexistence. They worked to eliminate the battles between religions, create an atmosphere of tolerance, of loving and caring every single creation of God Almighty.

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Your Inquilab March in 2014 made an impact in Pakistan before it was suspended. Will you be resuming it?

My march is a continuing struggle. It is against terrorism, against every kind of extremism, every kind of corruption. It is for devolution of powers, for bringing true democracy to our land, for uplifting the poor and ignored humanity.

Has the Nawaz Sharif regime changed its approach after your march?

Our concerns remain the same but since I am in India, I won't comment on his policies here. I will comment when I am in Pakistan.

Also read:

Modi's Sufi antidote





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By Aparna Singh: Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Holly Hunter

Direction: Zack Snyder

Ratings: (2.5/5)



Batman v Superman Dawn Of Justice is about the superpower tussle between DC Comics' two superheroes, Batman played by Ben Affleck and Superman portrayed by Henry Cavill. The world is at war; or shall we put it as the superheroes are at war. Superman, who is trying to stop General Zod from invading Planet Earth, ends up turning Bruce Wayne's metropolis building to dust, killing thousands of workers. And thus begins the enmity between the two.

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ALSO READ:This viral 'deleted scene' from Batman v Superman is just too many LOLs



Batman wants to curb Superman's power for good, whereas Superman dislikes Batman's way of justice. But the true predator who feeds on this is tech giant Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), whose motive remains unclear throughout the film. Jesse Eisenberg, the Social Network actor, could have done great if the script was not flooded with sub-plots.

Lex Luthor, who runs Lex Corp, gets hold of a huge piece of Kryptonite that was found in the Indian Ocean. Luthor plans to use it as a device to fight the perennial forces outside the planet, and of course, crush the superhuman forces - the superheroes - on it. In the first half of the film, the audience is lost with the characters themselves. Director Zack Snyder introduces so many sub-plots in the first half that it takes quite a while to understand what is going on in the film. It is the second half where the characters' motives become clear and the story unravels.

The film has been titled Dawn Of Justice, but it does not justify the metaphor as Snyder's film goes beyond the realms of justice. "No one stays good in this world," says Superman. The film is all about "God versus Man", in Luthor's words. Luthor echoes the analogy put forth by many writers and poets: If God is all-powerful, he cannot be all good. And if he is all good, he cannot be all-powerful. He creates a monster, an "ancient form of Kryptonian deformity" which feeds on energy. The human forces call it 'unkillable' as it grows stronger and stronger no matter how hard they strike.

Snyder uses an old Bollywood trope to bring Superman and Batman face-to-face with each other: Martha. But a scene where Luthor uses an old stopwatch to keep track of time seems out of place in this otherwise technologically-advanced film. Luthor's character could definitely afford a better weapon to keep the time track!

The third DC Comics' superhero who appears on the screen for the first time is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), who definitely has nothing to do in the film. Unlike Zack Snyder's previous Superman films, this sequel has nothing much to offer when it comes to Henry Cavill's character.



The film could have had more instances of comic relief to offer breathing space to viewers. The high-intense drama seems heavy on the senses.

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If asked who has been the best actor to pull off this superhero character flawlessly, most of us will vouch for Christian Bale. The actor, backed by the sheer brilliance of filmmaker Christopher Nolan, changed the very idea of Batman on screen by creating a multi-layered character. His role is beyond anyone to surpass. Affleck tries hard to imitate and create the same aura, but as they say, legends cannot be repeated. In Batman V Superman, the characters lack depth, as does Affleck's character. If the storyline would have been gripping enough to provide him a platform, he might have sailed through in that batman suit. But, well.

The film lacks a semblance of a story, leave alone a coherent plot. Too many deviations from the main plot results in a meandering, incomprehensible film.

If you like watching high-octane action scenes with great cinematographic effects, you must watch it. Else, feel free to skip Batman V Superman Dawn Of Justice.

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De Standaard newspaper said the man, whom it did not name, was arrested after a policeman recognised him from the security footage.

The joint attacks in Brussels killed at least 31 people and wounded 316. Photo: PTI

By Reuters: Police have arrested a man who was seen on security footage next to Khalid El Bakraoui, the suicide attacker who detonated a bomb in the Brussels metro, De Standaard newspaper reported on Friday.

The federal prosecutor's office did not confirm the arrest.

De Standaard newspaper said the man, whom it did not name, was arrested after a policeman recognised him from the security footage.

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Khalid El Bakraoui, 27, who blew himself up on a crowded rush hour train, is the brother of Brahim El Bakraoui, who detonated a bomb at Brussels Airport an hour earlier.

The joint attacks killed at least 31 people and wounded 316.

Public broadcaster RTBF meanwhile reported police detained a seventh person in the district of Forest following six arrests late on Thursday.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Brussels today to show solidarity and offer US assistance after Tuesday's attack.

Kerry, travelling from Moscow, landed at Brussels airport where one of Tuesday's attacks occurred.

He will meet with Belgian officials including Prime Minister Charles Michel and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, as well as EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Before departing, he will lay a wreath at the site of the airport attack.

Also read: Belgian police arrest six in bombing probe, French foil Paris plot









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Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim,Hindu refugees on Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he performed a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiment following the Brussels attacks.

Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees on Thursday and declared them all children of the same God

By AP: Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees on Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he performed a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiment following the Brussels attacks.

Francis denounced the carnage as a "gesture of war" carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

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The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the "gesture of destruction" carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace," Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the center.

Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

Francis was greeted with a banner reading "Welcome" in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the Mass. But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty. Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting: At the end of the Mass, Francis greeted each refugee, one by one, posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows.

Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the foot-washing ritual, and past popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, recalling Jesus' 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.

Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention center. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.

The Vatican said Thursday that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the center and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.

The Vatican's new norms said anyone from the "people of God" could be chosen to participate in the ceremony. While the phrase "people of God" refers to baptized Christians, the decree also said that pastors should instruct "both the chosen faithful and others so that they may participate in the rite consciously, actively and fruitfully," suggesting that the rite could be open to non-Catholics as well.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican norms are meant for traditional liturgies in Catholic communities, not necessarily a unique papal Mass where the overall message is one of universal brotherhood and the love of God for all his children.

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"We must always take the pastoral context into account," Lombardi said in an email. "Norms that are appropriate for a parish celebration aren't to be considered binding on a very unique celebration of the pope in a refugee center with a non-Christian majority."

Francis clearly intended the message to be universal.

"All of us, together: Muslims, Hindi, Catholics, Copts, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God," he said. "We want to live in peace, integrated."

Also read:

Infosys employee's parents to join his search in Brussels

Belgian police arrest six in bombing probe, French foil Paris plot



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While admitting that the man arrested in Pakistan earlier this week for alleged "subversive activities" is a former Indian Navy official, India today denied that he has any links with the government and said it has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of another country.

By India Today Web Desk: While admitting that the man arrested in Pakistan earlier this week for alleged "subversive activities" is a former Indian Navy official, India today denied that he has any links with the government and said it has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of another country.

"The said individual has no link with government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," the Ministry of External Affairs said today in a categorical denial of Kulbhushan Yadav being involved in any spying across the border.

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The clarification by the government follows the summoning of the Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale by Pakistan to lodge a strong protest after the alleged RAW officer was arrested in Balochistan.

The summons came a day after Pakistani security forces claimed the arrest of the serving Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer during a raid three days ago in Balochistan, Dawn online reported.

The News International identified the alleged RAW officer as Yadav, said to be an in-service commander rank officer in the Indian Navy. During initial investigation, he is reported to have confessed his links with "separatist, sectarian and terrorist organisations in Karachi and Balochistan".

Foreign office sources were quoted as saying that Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and given details of the arrest. Chaudhry lodged a strong protest over the RAW officer's spying activities in Balochistan and Karachi, making it clear that this was unacceptable, Pakistani sources said.

The RAW officer had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other subversive activities in Balochistan, the Pakistani media said.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed the arrest of the alleged Indian spy from the southern part of the province. "The arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan," Bugti said.

Bugti added that Yadav was sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities in Balochistan. Maps of different installations and sites were reportedly recovered from him.



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"Donald, you're a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone," said a fuming Ted Cruz at a news conference while campaigning in Dane, Wisconsin.

By India Today Web Desk: The war of words between US presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz turned nasty after Cruz calling the party front-runner "a sniveling coward" for threatening his wife on Twitter.



"Donald, you're a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone," said a livid Ted Cruz at a news conference while campaigning in Dane, Wisconsin.

The US Senator from Texas blamed Trump for making his wife, Heidi, a target for social media attacks.

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At the news conference Ted Cruz said told reporters "I don't get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that'll do it every time."

He sharpened his attack by saying,"Donald does seem to have an issue with women,. Donald doesn't like strong women. Strong women scare Donald."

The main trigger for the squabble was when a group opposing Donal Trump released a provocative picture of Trump's wife Melania from her modeling days. The caption on the picture questioned the propriety of Melania Trump becoming first lady.

In a fit of rage Trump wrongfully put all the blame on the Cruz campaign and warned on Twitter:



Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016





The same day Trump posted a picture of Melina and Heidi with a scathing caption that read, 'No need to "spill the beans." The images a worth a thousand words.'

Riled up with this unwarranted threat of Trump "spilling the beans" about Cruz's wife Heidi, the latter who denied having anything to do with the image said,'Donald does seem to have an issue with women. Donald doesn't like strong women.'





Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life. https://t.co/pprXhIMzUT Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 24, 2016

The back-and-forth was too much for US Senator Lindsey Graham, a former presidential candidate, who blasted both men in an interview on NBC's "Today" show on Thursday.

"Talk about things that people really care about, and knock this crap off because these are serious times, and you're not behaving like you want to be president of the United States," he said.

Polls show Trump leading in New York ahead of its primary. And there were also indications on Thursday of Trump's strength in California, where many observers believe he could clinch the nomination by winning its primary on June 7.

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A new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that among likely Republican primary voters, Trump led with 38 percent to 27 percent for Cruz and 14 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. The next Republican contests will be on April 5 in Wisconsin and on April 9 in Wyoming.

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If one searches for 'anti-national' or 'sedition' on the world's premier navigation service Google Maps, it directs you to JNU.

By India Today Web Desk: A lot of eminent people said that Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is the hub of anti-national in India and apparently Google agrees with them.

If one searches for 'anti-national' and 'sedition' on the world's premier navigation service Google Maps, it directs you to JNU.

A search for 'anti-national' on google Maps.

Is it time for some 'Google se azaadi' slogans?

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This could be a bug in Google's algorithm or just how it works but it is surely something that is bound to irk the students of JNU.

"We're aware of the issue and are working on a fix," a Google spokesperson told IndiaToday.in.

JNU as "anti-national" on Google Maps? Google India says it is aware of the issue, working to fix it. Javed Anwer (@Javed_Del) March 25, 2016

Cyber law expert Pawan Duggal said, "It is a mistake of computer networks and is an unintentional blunder."



A search for 'anti-national' on Google Maps Android App.

The story of JNU and the term 'anti-national' began when JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar and other students like Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattachary were present at an event at the campus on February 9 where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised. All 3 later got bail as videos proving this were found to be doctored.

Last year in the US, the Google Maps was edited to show White House if someone searched "Nigger House" in the app. Google had apologised for that. "Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offense this may have caused," A Google spokesperson had said.

As a damage control, the company also briefly shutdown the Google Mapmaker tool, which allowed anyone to submit a map edit or map information. This was the tool that was used by vandals to link White House to a certain keyword. It seems that in the case of JNU too, the vandals are probably using the same Mapmaker tool.

While Google has a few checks and balances in place in Mapmaker, most of the processes are automated, which allows people to make inappropriate map edits. The company is aware of the misuse of the tool. But it also finds the tool very valuable as it can crowd source the map data and fix local map errors quickly.



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By PTI: Hyderabad, Mar 25 (PTI)

The family of deceased dalit scholar Rohit Vemula and the Congress today demanded the immediate release of 25 students and two faculty members of Hyderabad Central University(HCU) arrested in connection with the violence at the campus. Rohits mother Radhika and brother Raja while demanding the unconditional release of the arrested people also sought immediate arrest of HCU Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, stating there was a case registered against him for abetment of the scholars suicide. Telangana Congress president N Uttamkumar Reddy, who visited the students and teachers arrested on March 23 in connection with alleged attack on the VCs office the previous day, at the Cherlapally Prison here, alleged the Union and Telangana Governments have adopted a dictatorial attitude towards the HCU students and playing with their lives. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar condemned the crackdown on the students who were demanding action against Appa Rao in the Rohith Vemula suicide case and urged the Central and Telangana governments to ensure quick resolution of the stand off between HCU administration and students.

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"We demand immediate and unconditional release of all those who were arrested and sent to jail, and withdrawal of cases against them. They (students) were asking for justice for Rohit (during the protest near VCs lodge)...but were beaten up brutally by police," Rohits mother Radhika and brother Raja, along with certain teachers of HCU and parents of some of the arrested students, told reporters.

"A case is already registered against Appa Rao and how can he resume his duty? Over two months have passed since registration of the case, but no one has (either) been questioned or arrested," Radhika said, adding, cases were registered against students who were arrested and jailed.

"How many more days we have to wait for justice for Rohit? ...If I question government, will I be called as anti-national," Raja asked.

P Anupama, a faculty member of HCU said, "We the concerned teachers of HCU are extremely distressed at the recent turn of events on the campus."

"We demand release of all arrested students and faculty and withdrawal of charges. The police must be immediately asked to leave the campus and we demand independent enquiry into the incidents that happened on March 22," Anupama and other teachers said.

A local court has posted the hearing on the bail pleas of the arrested students and the faculty members on March 28. "It is undemocratic to allow Appa Rao Podile to take charge as the Vice Chancellor and to indulge in lathi charge on protesting students," Reddy claimed.

"The actions of the NDA Government at the Centre and TRS Government in Telangana showed their attitude towards Dalit and Bahujans," he said, as he demanded the arrest of the Vice Chancellor against whom a case under SC and ST Atrocities Act has been registered.PTI VVK SJR KDK NSK NP NM GSN GSN

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By PTI: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 25 (PTI) Nepals expanding relations with China should not "irritate" India, a senior leader of the ruling CPN-UML said today, asserting that Nepal would not accept anyones "hegemony".

"We want to establish relations with both the neighbouring countries (China and India) on the basis of equality, which should not cause irritation to any of the countries," said Pradip Gyawali, a Central Committee member of the party.

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"As an independent and sovereign country, it is upto Nepal to decide what type of relations we want to maintain with which country, and we will not accept anyones hegemony," he said talking to journalists in Banke district of western Nepal.

The ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) hailed the agreements inked by Nepal with China during the ongoing visit of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.

"These bilateral cooperation deals are highly significant which help achieving long-term socio-economic development goals to Nepal on its own," the CPN-ML said in a statement.

The deals have opened new gateway for diversifying Nepals trade, the party said underlining the need for a swift implementation of these accords.

"The bilateral deals reached between the two countries on trade diversification, cross border connectivity, infrastructure development, investment, reconstruction, energy, tourism and business have a long-term significance for Nepals socio-economic development," the party said.

Oli arrived in China on March 20 and the two sides signed 10 agreements including for a transit treaty and rail links during his talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang.

The transit treaty reduces landlocked Nepals dependence on India as it sources most of imports and exports through Kolkata port.

Nepal looks to source its supplies through the arduous Himalayan route through Tibet, which many analysts say will be an expensive proposition for Nepal considering easy proximity through the Indian border.

During the recent Madhesi agitation, Prime Minister Oli and other leaders had alleged that India had imposed an "undeclared blockade" on Nepal to back the Indian-origin Madhesis. India had firmly denied imposing the blockade.

Meanwhile, president of the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal, Upendra Yadav said that Chinas move to welcome the new constitution in Nepal has no meaning.

Speaking at an interaction programme here, Yadav said that Chinas backing to the new constitution is meaningless as a significant number of people within the country are yet to own it. MORE PTI SBP SUA AKJ SUA

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If India is a nation in conversation with itself, the India Today Conclave 2016 was its perfect miniature version. Freedom was the dominant theme, whether it was BJP president Amit Shah articulating the limits to it or Jawaharlal Nehru University students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar underlining what azaadi means to him.

Every shade of freedom was represented at the intense two-day conclave which focused, fittingly in the magazine's 40th year, on the future. There was freedom of speech which human rights lawyer Amal Clooney defended, pointing out that jailing dissenters only makes martyrs of them. There was freedom of identity which political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta highlighted, saying the new distinction being sought to be created by those in power was not the old dichotomy between Left and Right but between truth and propaganda. There was freedom of democratic choice which actor Shabana Azmi alluded to when she asked whether MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi would be willing to say Bharat Ammi ki Jai, if not Bharat Mata ki Jai. And there was, above all, the freedom guaranteed by good governance which a battery of powerful Union ministers tried to talk up, pointing to the road ahead for the economy and infrastructure.

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The absence of freedom was as much an underlying theme as its presence. At the collective level, an abduction survivor, a journalist and counter-terror expert analysed the horror that is ISIS and how its believers can trample upon things we take for granted-the freedom to love, live and learn the way we want. At an individual level, Sanjay Dutt, having served his sentence for illegal possession of arms, in his first-ever interview after leaving Yerwada Jail, told the audience why ''freedom is a prayer; I have experienced what it is like to not be free''. Student leaders in a session on why campuses are on fire explained why the idea of India cannot fit into binary boxes of deshdrohi (being a traitor) and deshbhakti (being a nationalist).

Everyone got a chance to present their idea of India. Joint General Secretary of the RSS, Dattatreya Hosabale, in a combative session, spoke out on a variety of issues, from women's role in shakhas to homosexuality being an individual choice. Young historians from India and Pakistan talked about how "the other" is created early on in schools through textbooks that teach the history of Partition. And stand-up comic Varun Grover in a brilliant monologue talked of how satire could not compare with the goings-on in contemporary India-whether it was a post-mortem on a piece of meat in the Dadri lynching or SMS polls in TV studios on whether India should attack Pakistan.

What stood out was the hope for the world tomorrow. A future where, as highwire artist Philippe Petit said, passion could be taught in schools. A future where growth is exponential and not linear, as futurist Stefan Hyttfors said. A future where, in the words of gerontologist Bill Andrews, you can cure ageing by living healthy.

At the end of the two-day event which celebrated the launch of a series of short films for #IndiaTomorrow made by five of India's finest filmmakers on what is uppermost in their minds, there was no white smoke billowing out from the Sistine Chapel at St Peter's Square, and India Today Conclave 2016 was certainly no assembly of cardinals, but there was no doubt that it was a success.

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Politicians are not usually known for their brevity. But they are also very good at springing surprises. So when India Today Conclave introduced Pecha Kucha, a public speaking concept of Japanese origin, where 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each, taking 6 minutes and 40 seconds in total, four ministers of the Narendra Modi government proved that they are quite adept at adapting to new ideas and models. In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Modi often envisaged his vision for a developed India through four crucial sectors-railways, roads and transport, power, and ease of governance.

Two years later, it was an opportunity to take stock of his performance in these four core areas and his Cabinet colleagues-Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Minister of State for Power and Coal Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman-did not fail to impress the audience, at least with their sharp powerpoint presentations.

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The half-hour-long quickfire slide shows had two underlying themes-the unrelenting focus on implementation, and Modi's monitoring and push to achieve more. Of course, they had kept the excuse of the UPA's legacy ready, knowing very well that questions could be raised over the pace of execution.

So if Gadkari claimed that he inherited a legacy of 403 delayed and 730 stalled projects, Goyal rued the fact that 33 crore people in 18,452 villages were living in darkness with no access to electricity when he took charge. But if these ministers are to be believed, they are neither going to be intimidated by the enormity of the challenge nor are they ready to be distracted by the allegation that the NDA government is all about an authoritarian rule by the PMO. In a rare glimpse of the functioning of the government, Gadkari and Goyal said that while dissent and disagreement are two permanent features of Cabinet meetings, decisions are always by consensus and in the interest of the country. If Goyal gets the maximum scolding and Gadkari talks the most, the prime minister is seemingly tolerant of the ideas being debated and discussed. But he has zero tolerance for non-performance, and as the ministers explained through their presentations, wants time-bound results.

This emphasis on time-bound results has pushed them to explore innovative ideas and go beyond conventions. Railways minister Prabhu sees the massive potential of generating advertising revenue in the seven billion footfall a year; Gadkari plans to replicate the success of biomass fuel in Nagpur across the country in one lakh cities; Goyal wants to utilise his expertise as an investment banker to streamline unconventional sources of financing; while Nirmala Sitharaman promises 70 incubation centres across the country to encourage start-ups. And in their mission, they don't want to be entangled in red tape. So Prabhu and Goyal finalised over a telephone conversation a decision on the power ministry's involvement in the Railway Budget.

The message is clear-the task at hand is important, but equally important is the speed at which is completed. Just like their Pecha Kucha slides.

by Kaushik Deka

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By India Today Web Desk: An Indian Catholic priest, who is reportedly under the captivity of the ISIS in Yemen, could possibly be crucified on Good Friday. Religious groups claim that Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was taken by gunmen when they attacked an old age home on March 4, may face crucifixion today.

The news of the crucifixion first appeared on a South African-based religious group's Facebook. The post read, "Was informed that the Salesian priest, Father Tom who was kidnapped from the Missionaries of Charity Home in Yemen is being tortured and is going to be crucified on Good Friday. This calls for serious concerted prayers from all of us."

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While no one has officially claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, the religious group said that on March 20, they received information that the priest was being tortured under capture and could possibly be crucified on Good Friday.

However, members of Father Uzhunnalil's church dismissed the concerns as mere "rumours". They also said that they were yet to receive any information about the priest's whereabouts.

Father Mathew Valarkot told Catholic news source UCANews: "We have absolutely no information. Even today we do not know who has taken him and what their motives are...because no one has claimed responsibility. These are all rumours."

Four gunmen attacked an old people's home in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing at least 15 people, including four Christian nuns from India, local officials and medical sources said. A Yemeni security official said: "According to our information, the extremists who attacked the elderly care home in Aden have kidnapped priest Tom Uzhunnalil, a 56-year-old Indian, who was taken to an unknown location."

Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said that the ministry's camp office in Djibouti was trying to ascertain the whereabouts of Father Tom Uzhunnalil and secure his release.

Also read:

Old people's home in Yemen attacked, 15 including 4 Indian nuns killed



Sushma Swaraj: Indian embassy in Yemen closed, search for abducted Indian continues

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The BJP has decided to let Nirmal Singh continue as the state's Deputy Chief Minister.

By India Today Web Desk: The BJP legislators in Jammu and Kashmir have unanimously decided to form the government with the Peoples Democratic Party, party chief in the state Satpal Sharma said today. The BJP has also decided to let Nirmal Singh continue as the state's Deputy Chief Minister.

Singh had served as the Deputy Chief Minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition that was in office for 10 months till Sayeed died on January 7. Sharma also said the BJP had decided to extend support to Mehbooba Mufti, daughter of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, to head the PDP-BJP government in the state.

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After more than two months of stalemate over the formation of the government in Jammu and Kashmir, a meeting between PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday sealed the deal between the two allies.

Mufti, who is set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is expected to meet Governor NN Vohra at 4.30 pm and the BJP legislators at 5.30 pm today.

Speaking after BJP legislators met in Jammu, Sharma said: "The BJP legislature party has elected Nirmal Singh as its leader and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new coalition government."

Besides the BJP legislators, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh and BJP general secretary and Jammu and Kashmir incharge Ram Madhav, also attended the meeting.

Jammu and Kashmir has been under Governor's Rule since January 8.

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By PTI: Sydney/Kuala Lumpur, Mar 25 (PTI) Two pieces of plane debris found in Mozambique are "almost certainly" from MH370, Australia and Malaysia have announced, reigniting hopes of solving the worlds biggest aviation mystery more than two years after the jet vanished over the Indian Ocean.

"The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370," Australias Transport Minister Darren Chester said of the two pieces of debris that comprise a flat grey fragment with the words "No Step" printed along one side.

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Malaysian investigators had found the two pieces were consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, he said.

"That such debris has been found on the east coast of Africa is consistent with drift modelling performed by (national science body) CSIRO and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean," Chester said yesterday.

Until the latest findings, only a wing part recovered from a beach on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion had been confirmed as coming from the Boeing 777 that disappeared over the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014 with 239 people, including five Indians, on board.

After months of searches and questions, a South African teenager and an American lawyer recently found debris on separate occasions off the coast of Mozambique, renewing hopes of solving the major aviation mystery.

There are 25,000 square kilometres of the underwater search area still to be searched for the missing plane which took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, en route to Beijing, China.

"We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found," Chester said.

Malaysias Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators had advised that the "dimensions, materials and construction" of both parts conformed to Boeing 777 specifications, while the "paint and stencilling on both parts match those used by Malaysia Airlines (MAS)".

"As such, both parts are consistent with panels from a MAS Boeing 777 aircraft, and almost certainly are from MH370," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, officials are arranging to collect and examine a fourth piece of debris, found at Mossel Bay in South Africas southern coast on Monday by a local archaeologist.

It apparently bears a part of the logo of Rolls Royce, the British company which manufactures engines for aircraft including the Boeing 777.

Australia is leading the multi-nation underwater search effort to find the plane in the southern Indian Ocean. PTI NC/ASK AKJ AKJ

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As the world reels under the onslaught of terror attacks inspired by fundamentalist Islam, the government bats for a kinder, gentler version of the religion.

"Nar-e-Taqbeer Allahu Akbar, Nar-e-Rasalat Ya Rasullulah, Nar-e-Haideri, Ya Ali." The crowds at Ramlila Maidan roared throatily each time a pir (Sufi leader) ascended the stage. The culmination of the four-day-long World Sufi Forum, a first-of-its-kind event, attracted the largest gathering of Muslims in the capital since the Narendra Modi government came to power.

The four-day forum, organised by the All-India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB), the apex body of dargahs, tombs of Sufi saints which orthodox Muslims shun as unIslamic-had the Modi government's support. Among those who spoke was one of the world's most influential Sufi preacher, Canada-based Pakistani cleric Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (see interview) . The Centre had made it clear-it saw Indian Sufis, practitioners of a gentler, tolerant version of Islam rooted in the subcontinent's syncretic culture, as the antidote against fundamentalism.

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Prime Minister Modi was effusive in his praise, crediting Sufism with being Islam's greatest gift, in his inaugural speech at New Delhi's Vigyan Bhavan on March 17. "When we think of the 99 names of Allah, none stands for force and violence," Modi said. "At a time when the dark shadows of violence are becoming longer, you are the noor or the light of hope. When young laughter is silenced by guns on the streets, you are the voice that heals."

The dark shadows of violence Modi referred to, of course, was the war for the hearts and minds unleashed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and their war against the West, from the battlefields of Syria-Iraq to the streets of Paris, and now, Brussels.

The event, conducted under the aegis of the World Sufi Forum in Delhi, focused on de-radicalisation, cessation of fanatic ideologies and the taming of extremist fringes and religio-fascist cults that engage in religious misinterpretations to justify violence and intolerance. And it showcased India's plurality to over 200 delegates from India and abroad. Participating in the meet were Sufi preachers from 20 countries, many of them from strife-torn nations like Iraq and Syria, as also other countries like Turkey, Egypt, the UK, the US and Russia which have found themselves in the crosshairs of the world's deadliest Islamist group.

India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population, has so far resisted the group's poisonous ideology. Just 25 ISIS Indian Muslim recruits have come to light and been arrested so far-a number too tiny to even be a statistical reality. In sharp contrast, 1,600 French nationals are thought to have crossed over to ISIS-controlled territories.

Modi's gameplan

India's syncretic culture-over half of the 14.5 crore Sunni Muslim population worship at dargahs and follow practices that would qualify them as Sufis-is believed to be one of several reasons that have firewalled Indians from the lure of ISIS. Daniel Benjamin, former counter-terrorism coordinator at the US state department, calls India "one of the most amazing and encouraging stories in the coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims".

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The forum brought together a galaxy of Sufi preachers, including Egypt's Grand Mufti, Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam; Shaykh Hashimuddin Al-Gaylani of Baghdad; Dewan Ahmed Masood Chishti of Pakistan; and Syed Minhaj ur Rahman of Bangladesh. It came at a time when the Arab world's great theological centres in Cairo, Istanbul and Baghdad are being battered by the ISIS's ultra-Wahabi onslaught. Top government officials say the conference underlined Modi's plan to make Delhi the headquarters of the world Sufi movement. "India has attained a significant position as this conference has united the scattered Sufis into a forum against the terrorists," says Shaikh Mohammed Idris, imam of a leading Sufi mosque in Faiz, an ancient Sufi centre in Morocco.

The AIUMB is headed by Syed Mohammed Ashraf of the dargah of Kichhochwa Sharif near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The board has in the past, organised a series of big conferences called 'Muslim Mahapanchayats' where they have attacked jihadism and extreme Wahabi thought. Reason enough for some Muslim groups to look upon it with suspicion. "The Modi government is trying to divide the Muslims and create animosity within," alleged Maulana Arshad Madani of the conservative Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.

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Ashraf waves such criticism aside. He terms the conference not only one of the biggest global gatherings of Sufis but also the first of its kind in independent India. "In the 70 years of Independence, those in power have never encouraged us as we did not promise immediate benefits in the form of votes," he says.

India's Sufi Muslim numbers are constantly under pressure from the hardline Wahabis of the Deobandi school and its missionary wing, the Tablighi Jamaat, and a more virulent Wahabi stream, the Ahle Hadees. However, unlike Pakistan where Taliban suicide bombers have attacked Sufi shrines, the Sufis in India have only to reckon with Wahabi proselytisation. India's security community is also favourably disposed towards them because, as they are fond of saying, no Sufis have become terrorists. Hardline thought is incompatible with the moderate strain of their faith. "Terror has no religion," says Shaikh Abdel Naeem Yahaya Al-Khatami, who preaches Islamic jurisprudence at Cairo's iconic Al Azhar University. "The fight against terror is a struggle between the values of humanism as symbolised by Sufism and the forces of inhumanity."

Tackling the hardliners

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The meet saw seminars facilitating compilation of innovative views and strategies for strengthening Sufism, and tackling the forces that weaken it in the face of the onslaught of radical Islam. A major concern of the forum was also on how to stop Sufi youths from being weaned away by Wahabis.

Incidents like the post-Babri and 2002 Gujarat riots contributed to the growth of Wahabism in India when rhetorical clerics played on the injuries suffered by Muslims in these clashes to attract Sufi youth towards a robust, aggressive brand of Islam.

Two-thirds of the 1,200-odd participants at the forum were young and middle-aged Muslims, the age group from which Sufi Muslims have been converting to Wahabism. The eight seminars held at the meet dealt with the revival of Sufism, its role in promoting tolerance and coexistence, and the history and reasons for terrorism.

Meanwhile, AIUMB president Ashraf also urged Prime Minister Modi to instil some sense of security among India's increasingly uneasy Muslim community. "The pre-election propaganda about the Muslims being victimised if BJP or Modi came to power continues after the poll," he said. Sufism, he added, could be a catalyst of change to herd victims of terror and radicalisation back towards peace and understanding.

Mohammed Habib, president of a Sufi tanzeem IMAN (Indian Muslim Association-Noorie) called the conference an unprecedented step in uniting the Sufis of India and promoting moderate Islam. Tahirul Qadri called for a separate syllabus in education on peace and counter-terrorism. He said Sufism had played a key role in sustaining India's plural culture while denouncing 'Taksirism' (ultra-Wahabism) for destroying the values of brotherhood. ISIS, he said, was the ugliest face of Taksirism. "This meet has given a lot of strength to the Sufis of the world," says Dewan Ahmed Masood Chishti, associated with the renowned dargah of Baba Farid in Pakistan's Punjab. "The message of Sufi unity is a great message against ultra-Wahabism." It is a message the Modi government would like to play out loud and clear.

with Shadab Nazmi

Also read:

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The JIT will begin its work from Monday, which will also include deliberations with India's National Investigation Agency and other concerned officials. The government has allowed limited access to the Pakistani team at the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.

Seven Indian security personnel lost their lives when terrorists from across the border attacked the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab, early on January 2. Photo: PTI

By India Today Web Desk: India today issued visas to Pakistan's five-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which will reach New Delhi on Sunday to probe the Pathankot terror attack, believed to be the handiwork of terrorists from across the border.

The Pakistani probe team comprises of Punjab Counter Terrorism Department officer Muhammad Tahir Rai, Lahore Deputy Director General of Intelligence Mohammad Azim Arshad, ISI's Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, Pakistan army intelligence's Lt Col Irfan Mirza and Gujaranwala Investigating Officer Shahid Tanveer.

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The JIT will begin its work from Monday, which will also include deliberations with India's National Investigation Agency and other concerned officials. The government has allowed limited access to the Pakistani team at the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot.

Following a meeting with advisor to Pakistan PM Sartaj Aziz on the sidelines of the SAARC ministerial meeting at Pokhara in Nepal last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced that the Pakistani JIT would arrive in India on March 27 and start its work the following day.

Seven Indian security personnel lost their lives when terrorists from across the border attacked the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab, early on January 2. The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility for the attack in which all the six terrorists also were reportedly killed.

The attack derailed the proposed foreign secretary-level talks that were scheduled for the middle of January after the two countries agreed in December last year to start a comprehensive bilateral dialogue. India has since sent "actionable evidence" to Pakistani authorities to bring the perpetrators of the attack to book.

Pakistan filed an FIR in Gujranwala last month against "unknown" terrorists in connection with the attack.

Also read: 6 more terrorists invade Pathankot to carry out attacks in Delhi







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For the second time in a row, former Haryana chief minister and Congressman BS Hooda did not show up before the Justice (retd) SN Dhingra Commission probing the various land deals involving Robert Vadra.

By Ahmad Azeem: For the second time in a row, former Haryana chief minister and Congressman BS Hooda did not show up before the Justice (retd) SN Dhingra Commission probing the various land deals involving Robert Vadra.

Explaining Hooda's absence, his lawyer claimed that the senior Congress leader had gone to collect details of the information required from him.

The Dhingra Commission was set up in 2015 to probe the grant of commercial licences to a number of private companies including Skylight Hospitality of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law and DLF.

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Last week, Hooda had said the Haryana government's action in ordering a probe into the alleged land scams in the state was "politically motivated". He is accused of extending favours to Vadra.

Reacting to the summons, Hooda lashed out at the BJP government in the state, saying it would not achieve anything. "Obviously, there can be no second opinion on this," Hooda had said.

"Otherwise, why should there be a commission for one or two villages. Everyone knows who is their target, but they will not achieve anything," the senior Congress leader said.

On February 10, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said in Chennai that the one-man commission inquiring into the controversial land deals was likely to submit its report before June.

"The commission is looking into the matter. It is supposed to give its report in June. It seems the commission will give its report before June," Khattar said.

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By PTI: Coimbatore, Mar 25 (PTI) The election officials today seized Rs 2.15 lakh from a banana farmer near Pollachi here.

The officials intercepted a mini-lorry at Mannur and during the search found the cash, without proper documents, sources in the election department said.

The driver Shaktivel, also a banana farmer from Tiruchirapalli, told them that he had sold the banana in Kerala and was returning to Tiruchirapalli with the payment.

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Since there were no valid documents to support his claim, the officials seized the amount, they said.

The officials have seized cash worth Rs 23.67 lakh in the district till yesterday, the sources added. PTI NVM ROH BN

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Priyanka Chopra may be far away from her biological family, but her Quantico team is giving her every feel of a real family.

By India Today Web Desk: We all know Priyanka Chopra is a busy bee. But her packed schedule doesn't stop her from enjoying life and its happy occasions.

Even though the lady has been stationed in a land far away from home for some time now, she didn't miss the chance of celebrating the festival of Holi. PeeCee, who's shooting for Quantico in Canada, Montreal, had a small Holi celebration on the sets with the cast and crew.

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She posted photos of her 'second family' from the sets of the show. She captioned one of them: "Holi Fever on the sets of Quantico! A big thank you to my Quantico family for giving me a home away from home! Quick guess... which one is me??? Happy Holi everyone!"

Holi Fever on the sets of Quantico! A big thank you to my Quantico family for giving me a home away from home! Quick guess... which one is me??? Happy Holi everyone! A photo posted by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 23, 2016 at 10:52pm PDT

Although the city of Montreal is freezing right now, the cold didn't deter any of the crew members from joining Priyanka in enjoying the festival of colours.

Happy holi on set! @jenn_din @arimarlel #annemarie #Quantico A photo posted by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 23, 2016 at 8:34am PDT

Quantico, an action thriller produced by ABC network, returned to the small scree on March 6, after a mid-season break. The new episodes were received well by both critics and audience. Encouraged by the response, ABC recently announced the second season of the show.

Happi holi from freezing Montreal.... !! A photo posted by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Mar 23, 2016 at 6:40am PDT

Meanwhile, the Jai Gangajal actress is celebrating another milestone. She has crossed 6 million followers on Instagram.

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In an inspiring TED talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister, Tshering Tobgay, talks about how this quaint country has not just kept its promise to remain carbon neutral but stand as the most carbon negative country in the world. He lays special emphasis on Bhutan's aim to put happiness before economic growth.

By KC Archana: With a population of barely 700,000 sandwiched between two of the most populated countries on earth, China and India, the mountainous landlocked Kingdom of Bhutan has been hailed as one of the greenest countries on Earth.

In an illuminating Ted Talk, the current Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, revealed that the country is not just carbon neutral but is carbon negative.

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Tsering Tobgay pointed out that when Bhutan made a promise to remain carbon neutral for all time, at the 2009 climate change talk in Copenhangen, the governments were so occupied in a war of words on climate change that no one took notice.

But in Paris last December, Bhutan reiterated their promise to remain carbon neutral for all time to come. In Paris the governments came around to accept the realities of climate change, and were willing to act and work together.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said that if these so-called intended commitments are kept, we'd be closer to containing global warming by two degrees Celsius.

Recent figures show that the country emits around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon annually, while its forests absorb over 6 million tonnes.

In his speech, Tsering Tobgay quips, "Bhutan is a small country in the Himalayas. We've been called Shangri-La, even the last Shangri-La. But let me tell you right off the bat, we are not Shangri-La. My country is not one big monastery populated with happy monks."

He goes on to say that this tiny underdeveloped nation is not just surviving- it is thriving. Even though the country's economy is small with a gross GDP of less than 2 billion dollars, Bhutan boasts both free education and free healthcare facilities for its citizens.

All of this has been possible because Bhutan stays faithful to the core mission of Gross National Happiness, that is development with values.



Tsering Tobgay enunciates that, "72 percent of my country is under forest cover. Our constitution demands that a minimum of 60 percent of Bhutan's total land shall remain under forest cover for all time." This makes Bhutan stand out as one the very few biodiversity hot spots in the world.

Here are a few ways Bhutan is living up to the commitment of being carbon neutral: They are providing free electricity to rural farmers. With free electricity, they will no longer have to use firewood to cook their food Investing in sustainable transport and subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles Subsidizing the cost of LED lights, and the entire government is trying to go paperless Cleaning up the entire country through Clean Bhutan, a national program, and planting trees throughout the country through Green Bhutan which is another national program

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The most important aspect of Bhutan's inspiring journey of being carbon negative is, their ability to live up to their commitment. Along with systematic mobilization of resources, Bhutan also hopes to spread the word that together we can preserve and cherish the Earth, the only home we've ever known.

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By PTI: Jammu, Mar 24 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra has accorded assent to three bills, including one on appointment of Law officers.

The Jammu and Kashmir Law Officers Appointment and Conditions of Service Rules bill mandates that for the appointment of an Additional Advocate General, a person must have at least 10 years of practice as an advocate and at least eight reported judgements to his credit in which he has contributed to the growth of law. He should also be an income tax payee.

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For appointment of a Deputy Advocate General a person must have at least eight years of practice as an advocate and at least five reported judgements to his credit in which he has contributed to the growth of law, and an income tax payee.

For appointment of an Advocate-on-Record in Supreme Court a person must have at least seven years of practice as an Advocate in the apex court out of which three years should be as an Advocate-on-Record, and must an income tax payee.

For appointment as Government Advocate, Standing Counsel, a person must have at least five years of practice as an advocate.

It may be mentioned that in absence of any Rules governing the appointment and conditions of service of these Law Officers, all appointments on these positions in the past were being done on ad hoc basis.

Vohra also accorded assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The amendments to this Act have enabled usage of Electronic Voting Machines for conducting elections to the Urban Local Bodies.

It is relevant to mention here that the State Administrative Council, in its meeting held on March 11 had approved the Housing and Urban Development Departments proposal regarding the amendment of this Act.

The Governor has also accorded assent to the Jammu and Kashmir State Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple disabilities Bill, 2016.

This Act aims to empowering persons with such disabilities; extending support to registered organisations to provide need based services to families such persons;promoting measures for their care and protection, and realisation of equal opportunities and protection of their rights

Besides empowering persons with such disabilities to live independently, this Act will enable the state government to ensure timely interventions and mediations for mitigating their genuine problems. PTI TSS AB RCJ ZMN RCJ

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After registering a sensational win against Bangladesh yesterday in a World Twenty20 match, Team India celebrated Holi in some style.

Yuvraj Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma put colours on each other in team bus. (BCCI/Twitter)

By India Today Web Desk: After registering a sensational win against Bangladesh yesterday in a World Twenty20 match, Team India celebrated Holi in some style. Team members - Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh and others celebrated the festival of colours in the team bus.

India after losing their first match in the tournament, have bounced back well to keep their semifinal hopes alive by winning successive matches against Pakistan and Bangladesh.

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India now travel to Mohali for their last and crucial league match on Sunday against Australia.

HAPPY HOLI - Team India members - MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh,...

Happy Holi #Ind - @msdhoni @YUVSTRONG12 @harbhajan_singh @SDhawan25 @ImRo45 pic.twitter.com/kxme0s0II2

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By Javed Anwer: Google Map is showing Jawaharlal Nehru University if you search "anti-national" or "sedition ". For a company like Google, this is a major problem. Suddenly it has found itself in middle of the loaded --- and viciously political -- debate about JNU and some of its students. And it is a debate that Google would like to avoid. So how did it happen? Why one of the most used products of the company has suddenly gone wonky and is branding JNU with certain words?

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The Map Maker, a Google tool, that gives people ability to edit map information and supply additional information seems like the obvious culprit. It looked like someone made some JNU related edits in Map Maker so that Google deems it "anti-national". After all, in the past we have seen Google Map vandalism through Map Maker. Remember the Android logo pissing on Apple logo? That was done through Map Maker.

But in this case, Map Maker is not at fault. The problem this time seems to be the Google Maps algorithm and how Google uses data from all of its services to improve what it can offer to consumers. The problem in this case is with the keywords that Google deems important.

Google is a company that utilises the user data in a big big way to power its services. Almost all Google services, from Google search to spam filters in Gmail, use the data generated by users to improve services. In the case of Google Maps, the company apparently sees a lot of keywords, even outside Google, and apply them to various installations in Google Maps to give richer information to users.

This has seemingly happened in the case of JNU, which is being described by many people as "anti-national". For example, in the reviews for JNU on Google Maps there are tens of spam entries describing JNU as anti-national.

Although Google has officially not commented on how and why "anti-national" keyword is pointing towards JNU, some information has trickled out. A senior Google executive aware of the JNU issues told IndiaToday.In that it is definitely connected to keywords.

"This is a bug. Google Maps results take signals from many points on the web -- including top news outlets. The terms "Anti National and "Kanhiya Kumar" and JNU have been in the news so much recently that they became associated in Maps which is why this is triggering. This is a bug and we're working to fix this as quickly as possible," said the executive.

The fact the issue is not due to the Map Maker edit but because of keywords also gets confirmed by the time Google is taking to fix it. It is possible that to fix the issue, Google may have to change the way it processes "signals" in Google Maps, and tweak algorithm. That will not only require some serious work but also several approvals from the company headquarters in Mountain View. So for now, it seems JNU will continue to be "anti-national" on Google Maps, at least for another several hours or even a few days.



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By Priya Pathak: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on Friday unveiled a new camera called Ants 2. The camera, which can connect to the internet and is supposed to be used as a web cam and CCTV, is successor to Ants that was launched in 2015. The Ants 2 will be sold by XioYi, which a sub-brand owned Xiaomi. For now, the new camera is only available in China.

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Similar to the Ants, the new camera is basically a surveillance tool with ability to capture fullHD video at 25FPS. It is equipped with 130-degree wide angle lens that has f2.0 aperture. The camera uses a new-gen S2LM image processing chip and has a CMOS sensor from Panasonic.

The Ants 2 comes with 'human detection feature' that alarms the user in case any intruder is in the room. In China, the camera will be sold at a price of 399 Yuan (approximately Rs 4,000). The camera also supports features like smartHDR, LDC distortion correction and a few more image enhancement tools that improve the pictures taken by it.

Xiaomi is a big brand in China. And while it is better known for its smartphones, the company has also diversified and has come out with a number of other cool products. It makes tablets, air purifiers, smartphone accessories, televisions and action cameras. last year it also invested in Segway, a company making a self-balancing two-wheel personal transport device. It later, came out with Ninebot , which is a similar personal transportation device that uses Segway technology.

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Premier rejects McCormick, embraces Nissin

Premier Foods has rejected two offers from American herbs and spices company McCormick to acquire the company, but entered into a co-operation agreement with Nissin that sees the latter acquire 17.27% of its shares.

Premier Foods has announced that it received an unsolicited approach from McCormick in February to acquire the company for 52 pence per share, and that the approach was rejected on the basis that it significantly undervalued the company and its prospects. Premier received a subsequent approach from McCormick for 60 pence per share in March. This approach was also rejected for the same reason.

McCormicks Proposal represents an attempt to capture the upside value embedded in Premiers business that rightfully belongs to Premiers shareholders, said David Beever, Chairman of Premier. The Proposal fails to recognise the value of Premiers performance to date and prospects for the future, including the strategic plans we have to accelerate growth. McCormick's Proposal significantly undervalues the business and the board has unanimously decided to reject it.

The company said that it sees a strong future for an independent Premier and believes that the foundations have been laid for significant growth and shareholder value creation. Premier believes it has a strong and valuable portfolio of market leading brands, extensive distribution across key retail channels, a well-invested manufacturing base and strong operational cash flows.

Since 2014, the company said it has more than doubled its rate of new product innovation, launching a wide range of new products, packaging formats and line extensions to meet changing consumer trends. Premier expects to increase significantly its investment in consumer marketing from approximately 25 million in the 2013/14 financial year to approximately 36 million in the 2015/16 financial year.

The Company has additionally identified a number of new strategic initiatives to help accelerate growth across its three business units of Grocery, Sweet Treats and International. Whilst these initiatives are expected to incur initial upfront investment of 2-4 million in the full year 2016/17, the company is now raising its sales growth guidance for the medium term from 1-2% to 2-4%.

Premier said that the new initiatives will leverage the companys existing platforms, infrastructure and brand presence to expand further into new formats, channels and markets:

The company also said that, over recent years, Premier has discussed a number of potential strategic opportunities with Nissin and has now agreed to enter into a co-operation agreement which will see Nissin acquire 17.27% of Premiers shares.

With annual revenues of around $3.8 billion and operating profit of around $216 million, Nissin, which invented the worlds first instant noodles in 1958, operates in 19 different countries, spanning Asia Pacific, the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa. It is said to be a global leader in instant noodles holding the number one or two positions in key markets, including Japan, the United States and Brazil and has a growing presence in chilled and frozen foods, cereal-based confectionery and yoghurt beverages in Japan. Nissins presence in Europe includes Hungary, Germany and Spain, with brands such as Cup Noodles, Soba and Top Ramen. It also benefits from a state-of-the-art global research and innovation centre in Japan that develops more than a thousand new products that are distributed around the globe every year and has significant expertise in starch technologies, sodium reduction and production techniques.

Premier said that the new strategic partnership has the potential for significant long-term value creation for both organisations.

"This is an exceptional opportunity for us to gain a major strategic partner which understands our business and supports our growth ambitions, said Darby. We look forward to working with Nissin to explore ways our two businesses can co-operate to better serve both our customers and our shareholders."
Cabinet okays proposals re Savchenko List, tables them for consideration by National Security & Defense Council

Ukraine's Cabinet has approved proposals as to limitations on individuals who are involved in illegal actions against Ukrainian captive pilot, MP Nadia Savchenko, the so-called Savchenko List.

The proposals were sent to the National Security and Defense Council for consideration.

This is stipulated in Cabinet resolution No. 203-r dated March 23, 2016, on application and extension of special economic and other limitations against individuals engaged in illegal actions against Nadia Savchenko, namely kidnapping, falsification of materials of her criminal case, illegal conviction.

The resolution is available on the Ukrainian government's website.

The Cabinet suggests approving a list of names of individuals who will be subject to sanctions in keeping with the Savchenko List.
The chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and a possible candidate for the post of the Ukrainian prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, has confirmed that if he heads the government, the post of the parliament speaker will go to a candidate of the People's Front Party.

Answering a question of Interfax-Ukraine, if current first deputy speaker Andriy Parubiy becomes Rada chairman, a representative of which faction may take the post of the first deputy speaker, Groysman said: "If a new government is formed and there is consent of the coalition, a representative of the People's Front will be nominated for the post of speaker. Thus, the system of checks and balances in power will be maintained. Who will be the first deputy speaker? I think there may be a mirror image of the current situation in terms of political affiliation."
Pechersky District Court of Kyiv has released the suspected of killing journalist and writer Oles Buzyna, Andriy Medvedko, who was under house arrest, on his own recognizance, the 'Freedom to Patriots' group on Facebook has reported.

"Medvedko has been released on his own recognizance until May 25," reads a report posted on the group's Facebook page on Friday.

As reported, Buzyna was killed in the yard of an apartment block where he lived in Kyiv on April 16, 2015.

On December 31, 2015, the court changed a preventive measure for one of the suspects in Buzyna killing, Andriy Medvedko, from custody to house arrest and obliged him to wear electronic tracking device.

On January 28, the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv changed the round-the-clock house arrest for partial house arrest  from 19:00 until 08:00.
Possible in theory to swap Savchenko, but only Russian president can decide on this - Ivanov

The exchange of convicted Nadia Savchenko is possible in theory, only if the Russian legislation is fully observed, Russian presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said.

"As for a possible swapping in theory, this is possible in theory. 'A' (first of all), if the Russian legislation is fully observed, and, 'b' (secondly), only the Russian president (Vladimir Putin) can take a decision on this," Ivanov told reporters on Friday.

He responded so to a question as to whether such swapping is possible from a potential and legal point of view to some persons, who are convicted in Ukraine.

In reply to a question as to whether this exchange is likely under the Minsk agreements, Ivanov said: "This has no relation to the Minsk agreements at all. As the Russian Federation is not a party to the conflict."
A comprehensive approach

Guaranteeing the right to abortion isnt enough. We know that economic, cultural, religious, and systemic barriers prevent many people from accessing abortion care even where its legal and available.

Our solution: We work across institutions and communities to build sustainable abortion ecosystems. In such an ecosystem, people have the information they need to make decisions about reproductive health, theres community and health-system support for human rights and abortion access, and laws and policies support full bodily autonomy.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
The AmeriKat peeking out from her suitcase, hoping

the dust on the Trunki decision has settled... A couple of weeks ago, news of the UK Supreme Court's decision in the Trunki Community registered design battle spread like wildfire across Europe, with many claiming it was the end of innovative design protection. Ever responsive to the latest IP developments, the with many claiming it was the end of innovative design protection. Ever responsive to the latest IP developments, the UK Group of AIPPI arranged a Rapid Response seminar with the counsel of the losing and winning teams to share their perspective of the most talked-about decision of 2016 (so far). With the AmeriKat's nose buried under papers, she relied on a helpful paw in the form of Tom Edwards ( A&O ) to report on yesterday's session hosted at the London offices of Allen & Overy. Over to Tom:

more than just the Trunki CRD was at issue

Arnold J's judgment provides a clear example of how to apply the test for infringement of unregistered design rights

in finding the Rodeo design, a predecessor to the Trunki, to be prior art Arnold J set a low threshold for a design to be considered as more than just an obscure disclosure under Article 7(1) (of the Community Designs Regulation).

(i) whether, when making the assessment of the overall impression created by the Kiddee cases, the Court should take into account the graphical designs printed on the surface of such cases (the surface decoration) or whether it should only take into account the features of shape of the Kiddee cases; and

(ii) if the surface decoration is to be taken into consideration, whether the Kiddee cases do not produce on the informed user a different overall impression.

The Trunki case

i) He had not given proper consideration to the overall impression of the Trunki CRD as an animal with horns;

ii) He failed to take into account the effect of the lack of ornamentation to the surface of the CRD as reinforcing the horned animal impression; and

iii) He ignored the colour contrast in the CRD between the body of the suitcase and its wheels.

The Kiddee case

Try as she might, the AmeriKat cannot

ignore ornamentation...

Register a full colour photo of the design Register the same image devoid of any colour Register a simple line drawing, devoid of any tonal contrasts.

"Press reports rapidly followed after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in [2016] UKSC 12 a couple of weeks ago (see IPKat post here ). Many press outlets were sympathetic to Magmatic's loss, decrying that the Supreme Court got it wrong. But did it? That was the topic for discussion at last night's AIPPI Rapid Response event.The case concerned a Community registered design (CRD) in the Trunki ride-on animal suitcase. Magmatic alleged infringement of its CRD by PMS Internationals rival Kiddee case. AIPPI's event provided an ideal opportunity to hear the views of those at the heart of the case with the discussion being led by representatives from both sides (speaking in their personal capacity): Michael Hicks and Jonathan Moss , who had represented Magmatic, and Mark Vanhegan QC , who had appeared for PMS International in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. Their slides can be found here Jonathan Moss kicked off the event with an overview of the case. Moss reminded the audience of some interesting features of Arnold Js first instance decision (see here ) that could easily be overlooked in light of the subsequent appeals, namely:As a reminder, the questions for which permission to appeal in relation to infringement of the Trunki CRD was given were as follows:The key cases relevant to these questions were [2007] EWCA Civ 936 , in which it was held that a registered design based on a line drawing was for the shape alone, and [2012] EWCA Civ 1339 , in which Apple had contended that lack of ornamentation was a feature of the simple line drawing of a tablet which they had registered as the design. The Court of Appeal (see here ) found that Arnold J had erred in the following respects (as interpreted by the Supreme Court):Magmatic appealed to the Supreme Court which upheld the Court of Appeals decision.Mark Vanhegan QC took the stage to offer his insights. Focusing on high level, public policy arguments he set out a persuasive case for granting a narrow scope of protection to CRDs. In particular he highlighted the strength of CRDs, both in length (25 years) and due to their absolute nature. The strength of CRDs is amplified when compared to the relative ease with which they can be obtained, via a cheap and quick registration process with no substantive validity assessment prior to grant. The importance of freedom of competition was also emphasised, in light of the fact that design rights are not intended to protect ideas or concepts but specific design articles.Further Vanhegan QC noted that applicants had a wide degree of freedom in choosing how to represent their design. Taking these wider considerations into account, he argued that the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court had got the test absolutely right in holding that a colour contrast between the wheels and the body of the suitcase should be read as a feature of the Trunki CRD. Further, once it had been acknowledged that this surface feature had intentionally been included, the lack of other surface features on the CRD became significant. As a result the Court of Appeal was correct when assessing infringement to take into account the effect this had on reinforcing the impression of a horned animal, and additionally the influence that the surface features of the Kiddee case had on its design. While ancomment, the Supreme Court gave a clear indication that, in its view, lack of ornamentation could be a feature of a design.Michael Hicks provided the opposition view, focusing on the legal test. He submitted that if the question as to whether lack of ornamentation could be a feature of a design was indeed anpoint, the Supreme Court must have reached its decision of non-infringement based on an analysis of shape alone or shape in combination with the added feature of tonal contrast between the wheels and the body of the suitcase. On the other hand, the Court of Appeal had seen the lack of surface decoration as influencing the overall impression of the design and had taken the surface ornamentation of the Kiddee case into account when assessing infringement.By assessing infringement in this way, Hicks submitted that the Court of Appeal had in effect taken into account lack of ornamentation as a feature of the Trunki CRD. Despite the difference in approach, the Supreme Court had concluded that the Kiddee Case was sufficiently different from the Trunki CRD as to create a different overall impression, thereby affirming the Court of Appeals decision. Hicks challenged the finding that the question as to whether lack of ornamentation could be a feature of a design was not central to the case and, in any event, unarguable.Paragraph 50 of the judgment was highlighted in which Lord Neuberger first states that there are powerful arguments against the conclusion that lack of ornamentation was a feature of the Trunki CRD and then appears to consider the initial Trunki product and subsequently registered designs as supporting lack of ornamentation being a feature. Hicks suggested that such considerations should not influence the assessment of a registered design.Some words of wisdom to potential applicants for CRDs were provided by Vanhegan QC who suggested a three staged approach:By registering a design at these varying levels of detail, the rights holder equips himself with a range of options when challenging infringement by competing products. The suggested approach raises the intriguing question as to whether Arnold Js judgment would still have been overturned had the Trunki CRD been absent of any tonal contrast between the wheels and the body of the suitcase.The event concluded with questions from the floor, which covered topics ranging from the potential difficulties of registering only part of a design, to the factors the Court will take into account when interpreting a design. The discussion highlighted the uncertainties facing rights holders due to the lack of clear guidance as to how images, both as a whole and particular features, will be interpreted by the courts. In addition the narrow scope of protection ascribed to the Trunki CRD strongly implies that protection against anything other than direct copies of a product is far from guaranteed."




"The Mediation Promotion Scheme is launched by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) to fund parties mediation costs (administration fee and mediators fee) incurred with any mediation service provider, up to SGD 5,500 [approximately $4045.00] per mediation case.



The Mediation Promotion Scheme encourages parties in IPOS proceedings to Choose mediation by funding the process, so that more can experience mediation as an attractive alternative to a hearing at IPOS for resolving their disputes satisfactorily."

"The Mediation Promotion Scheme encourages parties in IPOS proceedings to choose mediation by funding the process, so that more can experience mediation as an attractive alternative to a hearing at IPOS for resolving their disputes satisfactorily."

The legendary sports American sports commentator, Curt Gowdy , was well-known for saying that a given athlete "had all his future in front of him." While no doubtintended as a compliment (the athlete had not come anyway near to achieving his potential), the saying took on an ironic, almost negative connotation. It was seen as suggesting that this person might never achieve commensurate with his capabilities. Gowdy's saying seems apt to the world of IP arbitration and mediation. Nearly everyone would agree that contentious proceedings are often slow and expensive, to the satisfaction of no one involved. One solution is to steer more disputes in the direction of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Somehow, though, the uptake on ADR remains modest.Against this backdrop, this Kat was intrigued by an announcement this week from the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore ( IPOS ), about the upcoming launch on April 1, 2016, of its Mediation Promotion Scheme. It is no secret that IPOS has been unusually active among national IP offices in the launch of multiple initiatives, in its case largely intended to put Singapore at the forefront of IP activities in Asia. These various IPOS initiatives are of interest not only on their own terms, but also whether they hold more general lessons for the broader IP community. The Mediation Promotion Scheme should be seen in this light.In a nutshellThe Scheme will apply to proceedings that are pending at IPOS, as of April 1, 2016. These proceedings cover trade marks (oppositions, applications for revocation, declarations of invalidity and rectifications), patents (revocation), registered design (revocations) and plant varieties (objections to application or registration of denominations). The parties may use any mediation service provider that is an organization (such as WIPO or the Singapore International Mediation Center). The parties must satisfy three conditions: (i) disclose any agent fees; (ii) provide feedback of the mediation experience; and (iii) allow "minimally" that a shadow mediator sit on and observe the mediation. The funding of the mediation is not dependent upon the outcome of the proceedings. IPOS has budgeted for approximately 30 cases of mediation through March 2019.This Kat, having sat at the knees of the law and economic approach during law school, has remained intrigued about the potential for economic incentives to affect legal behavior. The Mediation Promotion Scheme would seem to be an excellent example of this approach. As IPOS statesAt the end of March 2019, will the IPOS experiment yield positive results that augur well, not only for the IP mediation scene in Singapore, but for IP mediation more generally? Will tweaks be necessary to optimize the incentive structures for the adoption of mediation in IP disputes? If the results are positive, perhaps Curt Gowdy's double-edged sword about the future of IP mediation being all ahead of it will begin to achieve more extensive, here-and-now results.




**********************





Guinevere Jobson explains what it is like to be an

IP litigator in sunny San Francisco For the first of the series, we travel almost 6000 miles west to San Francisco, California, where IP litigator For the first of the series, we travel almost 6000 miles west to San Francisco, California, where IP litigator Guinevere Jobson at the leading West Coast firm of Fenwick & West tackles copyright litigation, Silicon Valley "casual" dress codes and a dream of working in Germany.

The AmeriKat's view towards Guinevere's office in downtown San Francisco

Judge Koh -Guinevere's ideal IP lunch date

support and opposition with lawyers from all over the world. One of the IPKat's key objectives is to bring this global IP community closer together by sharing IP decisions, legislation and practice from across the world with our readers, with the aim that by understanding our unique perspectives on the culture of IP practice we can work together to make IP a success story for innovators, creators, users and the public. With those grand aims, the AmeriKat thought it would be worthwhile to ask the next generation of global IP lawyers to illuminate IP practice in their jurisdiction, as well as to give readers some fun reading over their lunch-al-desko ...Blue sky and office buildings, including the top of the Transamerica Pyramid In law school, my property professor, Mary Clark , taught a segment that touched on intellectual property, art and innovation. We discussed both the academic and practical aspects and I was instantly hooked.Since my practice focuses on litigation, I am often in a deposition, in court or at the clients offices fact gathering or preparing witnesses. But for those days, and there are many, that I am at the office, I usually arrive between 8:30 and 9 and have my second cup of coffee at my desk while I write my daily to-do list, read up on the latest IP law developments and check what my connections are up to on LinkedIn. I then start working my way through my to-do list. At mid-day, I often head to the gym or meet a friend, business connection, mentor or mentee for lunch, and then I continue on through my task list. I usually leave the office around 6 pm and take the bus home and, if I have more work to do, will continue working from the comfort of my couch.Many clients and lawyers from outside of the United States are shocked and frightened by our system of extensive document exchange and discovery. It is costly, time consuming and can involve producing documents to competitors counsel that many companies consider strictly confidential. On a lighter note, many are also surprised at the dress code at Silicon Valley law firms  business casual can be as laid back as jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, though we do still wear suits to court.I just had a cup of butternut squash soup and a quinoa-tabouleh salad from a take-out spot down the street.Our clients are truly global. This means they face competition and compliance challenges in more and more jurisdictions. As their advisors, we have to be aware of those challenges and coordinate in dynamic ways with attorneys and business partners across the globe. It is no longer just distribution agreements in foreign countries, but relationships and structures that are multi-layered and multifaceted.The misnomer I face most frequently is broader than IP  that litigation is purely adversarial. But litigators can be problem solvers, not just fighters!The misconception that to practice in this field, an attorney must have a scientific or technical background. While this kind of degree can certainly be helpful depending on the practice, it is not required for most of the work IP practitioners do, especially litigators.Learning about new technologies and how people are using them.The federal rules of civil procedure were recently amended and the shape and character of discovery may go through some changes in the next year as courts interpret those changes. The Venue Act was recently introduced to the U.S. Senate and, if passed, might curtail the volume of patent litigation being filed in notoriously plaintiff-friendly courts, specifically the Eastern District of Texas. Secondary liability for copyright infringement is also an issue to watch.Organization, perseverance and the ability to articulate a complex concept succinctly and simply.Im frequently in touch with counsel in France, Germany and the United Kingdom working on IP rights enforcement campaigns for my clients.Lawyers will be using technology to help execute routine and many discovery tasks. We will all need to be technology experts so we can keep up with our clients!I recently spent a year practicing in Paris and it was fascinating. I would love to practice in Germany  the way the courts there handle preliminary relief and move things toward cost-effective resolution could have some valuable lessons for those of us in other jurisdictions. Judge Lucy Koh. Many know her as the judge in thedispute in the Northern District of California, but she has also presided over many other complex cases involving technology and cutting edge legal issues that face technology companies and has managed. I would chat with her over a burger and martini at Spruce, one of my favourite restaurants in San Francisco, and ask about what technologies shes most excited about and how she goes about keeping those big cases moving.A very senior, rain-making litigator at my firm took a group of summer associates to lunch during our last week as interns and encouraged us all to develop our own individual styles. She emphasized the importance of being authentic to develop a credible advocacy style and provide the best possible service to clients.See: The sunset from the living- roof at the Academy of Sciences . Do: Take the ferry across the bay to Tiburon . The views from the boat are amazing and the fresh air cant be beat. Eat: The crab vermicelli noodles at Slanted Door
Is there IP in culinary recipes? As readers may know, this has been a topic dear to this very blog's heart

and its contributors' mouths for a while now

[here]

. Readers may also remember that recently a Dutch court

rejected

the claim that copyright could subsist in a peculiar kind of

cheese

. Via Katfriend

Federica Pezza
I make science puns, but only periodically.

The Peer Review Publication Process

Kriegeskorte N. (2012) "Open evaluation"

Frontiers in computational neuroscience.

In the primary research market during 2014, over 1.1m research papers were submitted to Elsevier. Over 16,000 editors managed the peer review and selection of these papers, resulting in the publication of more than 360,000 articles in over 2,000 journals. (RELX 2014 Annual Report p. 14)

Value Chain in Academic Publishing

Blue is Academia, Red is Publishers

Academia is a resource-rich developing country: Academia is akin to countries who export raw materials (research) and then pay to import them in their processed form (papers.) Publishers, who are developed countries and have processing capacity, exploit their position to capture the value created by academics. Academia is an outsourcer: Academia outsources research quality control, the marketing and distribution of papers and HR services (i.e. peer review as performance reviews) to publishers. By outsourcing these processes, universities benefit from the efficiencies of big publishers who have economies of scale.

In some jobs, success is dependent on money, winning or power. In academia, success depends on publications. Academics worship publications. Citations are the ultimate "like" button. And not just any type of publication, but peer-reviewed publications. Which is why academics, journals and universities are very keen to see how the unfolding Sci-Hub story plays out.Sci-Hub is a free, online repository of 48 million academic papers . It was launched by Kazakhstani graduate student Alexandra Elbakyan . Unlike most graduate students, Elbakyan is not pondering Foucauldian discourse and beer prices , but hiding out in Russia. According to a recent New York Times article , Elbakyan's struggles to access research papers inspired her to set up the site so that other students and researchers would have the same access to knowledge as researchers at well-funded universities. The repository is generated by downloading papers from publisher's paywalled websites using anonymous 'donated' subscription credentials.The academic publishing industry has annual revenues around USD$25 Billion . In 2006, 50% of academic publishing was by five for-profit companies (this is an increase from 30% in 1996). Elsevier, one of the big five, is pursuing legal action against Sci-Hub for illegally distributing their copyrighted works (Elbakyan's response here , case covered here by Kat Emma.) Elsevier is owned by a larger corporation, the RELX Group, whose academic publishing arm generated 2B in 2014 in revenues. Large rights holder suing renegade sharing site? How very 1999 The gold standard of academic publishing is peer-reviewed publications in which papers are reviewed by other experts. The scale of these operations is impressive:In many cases, all copyright is assigned to the publisher. Like academic patenting, private ownership of copyrights on publicly-funded research is contentious. This publishing system also channels public funds into private hands (nothing new, see virtually every other industry.) Sci-hub rejects private ownership and paywalls as impediments to the flow of knowledge and instead infringes. Alternatives to Sci-Hub tend to operate within the confines of copyright.A look at the unusual value chain of academic journal publishing highlights why Elbakyan feels justified. A value chain describes the process by which value is added to a good or service, each link in the chain adds more value. The academic publishing value chain starts with academics in universities writing papers that they submit to academic journals. These journals, often privately owned, then send the papers to be reviewed by academics. The process is slow and most submissions are rejected. Successful papers are published and bought by university libraries. Each step adds value to the paper as the content evolves from research into published journals. The twist is that universities are both supplier and consumer. Universities both fund the academics to write, and pay publishers for access to the finished product. The journal publishers are intermediaries Combine this odd value chain with the importance of publications, the expectation that academic research and knowledge be made freely available, and the low marginal cost of digital media (the cost of making copies of digital media is nearly zero), and criticism abounds.There are at least two ways of viewing this supplier-consumer-intermediary structure:The Sci-Hub saga reflects a repeated conflict we've seen in copyright debates: large media companies versus the consumer. Akin to record labels and spotty teenagers, academic publishers may face a revolt from their consumers, but with the twist that their consumer, whose job it is to question, is also their supplier. Pity the poor souls who will be on the other side of this academic passion (not an oxymoron .) Yet this could be the start of a long-term change in the business model and market structure of academic publishing. Will Sci-Hub be the Napster of academia?




A range of studies have documented the cost of PAE activity to innovation and economic growth. For example: One study found that during the years they were being sued for patent infringement by a PAE [i.e., a patent troll], health information technology companies ceased all innovation in that technology, causing sales to fall by one-third compared to the same firms sales of similar products not subject to the PAE owned patent.



Another study found that the financial reward received by winning PAEs amounted to less than 10% of the share value lost by defendant firms, suggesting that the suits result in considerable lost value to society from forgone technology transfer and commercialization of patented technology.



History suggests that it should be possible to address these challenges.

To be sure, PAEs can in theory play a beneficial role in the market for innovation and some undoubtedly do. However, empirical evidence strongly suggests that many PAEs have a net negative impact on innovation. Technology companies  which, themselves, are innovators spend tens of billions of dollars every year litigating and settling lawsuits filed by PAEs, funds that these tech companies might otherwise spend on additional research and design.

Guest Kat Mike Mireles last week reported on partent trolls in terms of myth and metaphor. This Kat would like to explore the patent troll from a different angle. Is it this Kats misplaced impression, or has the issue of the patent troll (or in its more anodyne formpatent assertion entity or PTE) moved off center IP stage to at best a supporting role? Indeed, is it on a path of extinction as a patent agenda item?Most Kat readers will recall the lavish attention paid to calls that the patent troll posed a threat to the integrity of the patent system. Mind you, the patent troll is the lawful owner of a patent who makes no use of the patented invention, but rather seeks to extract payment from third parties against the backdrop of a threat to sue if the third party declines the offer. As the golden age of patent system began to give way at the beginning of 21st century to increasing questions about the systems ultimate efficacy and social value, the patent troll provided a perfect image to embody these concerns. Yes, trolling might be legal in a narrow technical sense, but it was an affront to the bargain between the inventor and the public to allow exclusive rights in a patented invention. Trolling was not what the patent system was meant to be.Even after the U.S. Supreme Court in the eBay decision in 2006 curtailed the presumed right of the patentee to receive injunctive relief upon a finding of an infringement, the patent troll continued to be front and center in public discourse about what was wrong with the system. Most notably, the patent troll moved from posing a threat to individuals to constituting a threat in the aggregate to national and even international economic well-being. In particular, the claim was increasingly being made that patent trolls negatively impacted on innovation. Patent trolls were fingered as a material cause for the decline in innovation, and became the object of policy commentators both from the economics and intellectual property law communities.The high point perhaps was the June 2013 White House Report , PATENT ASSERTION AND U.S. INNOVATION, which concluded in the Executive Summary, as follows;In November 2013, as this Kat previously reported , over 60 intellectual property professors sent a letter to the United States Congress, setting out their critique of the patent system and suggestions for reform. Inter alia, the letter discussed the negative aggregate effect of patent trolls on innovation, as follows--Based on these quotations, it would have seemed that patent trolls were poised to become a (the?) central patent policy issue of our time, engaging no less than the White House and the Congress and attracting wide-spread support by IP academics not usually known for herd-like thinking. After all, what is at stake, it appeared, is the state of US innovation and perhaps even the future of the US economy. But then, interest in patent trolls seems to have waned.In considering this decline, this Kat first relies on his own anecdotal impressions. The subject of patent trolls seems to be less discussed at conferences, in the professional literature and in the press. In a word, there simply seems to be less buzz about the subject. Interestingly, as this Kat has suggested elsewhere , the poster child for the risks (or opportunities) in the potential for scaling-up patent trolling, namely Intellectual Ventures, seems to have a significantly lowered public presence. Whether a cause or effect of the more general decline of the patent troll is an interesting question. Moreover, this Kat wonders whether the difficulty in defining what is meant by a patent troll has also contributed to this decline. (See pages 22-49 for a discussion of this problem.) When there is no broad consensus on what is being discussed, the ability to offer meaningful policy prescriptions becomes more limited. Perhaps the claim that patent trolls are a drag on innovation is simply an empirical bridge too far that will not (cannot?) yield meaningful results. Or maybe there is simply less patent trolling, whatever that means.Myth, metaphor, rhetoric or substanceKat readers can decide for themselves.
Naturally, that re-engagement has been particularly pronounced among nearby trading partners and countries with which Iran has had traditionally cooperative relations. While Iran sanctions remained in place, Russia was reportedly a frequent partner in circumventing those restrictions. Since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations, the two partners have openly boasted of expanded cooperation not only in non-illicit economic areas, but also with respect to political and defensive strategies.

It is no surprise, then, that the Russian transport company FESCO began running a direct service between Russian and Iranian ports on March 13. That service will handle the import and export of various commodities, presumably including some oil and gas, in a five-day time span. And the operations are set to expand in the near future, in line with the continued Russian exploitation of a post-sanctions Iranian business environment.

Recent reports have indicated that Iranian shipping companies also resumed some operations with Western European companies, but the recovery of these interactions has been notably slower, in large part because international banks and other Western-based businesses remain extremely wary of transactions with Iran, owing to the persistence of some US-led sanctions and the possibility of new sanctions being imposed if Iranian-Western relations begin to degrade again.

Of course, some Western businesses quickly moved to reenter the Iranian market virtually as soon as sanctions were removed. Others have been exploring possibilities to be pursued when the investment situation seems more stable. For instance, Trend reported on Friday that the French company Total had recently signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Islamic Republic, clearing the way for exploration of Irans South Azadegan oil field.

That field currently produces oil at a rate of 30,000 barrels per day, but the countrys Oil Ministry is eyeing an increase to a rate of 320,000 barrels per day over the next few years, with the help of an anticipated 5 billion dollars of foreign investment. This is a small part of the countrys overall plan to secure as much as 500 billion dollars in investment and to more than double current nationwide oil output, which is reported to be around 2.2 million barrels per day.

However, Iran has fallen short of a number of its prior projections and has struggled to secure investment from Western European and North American entities. In an apparent commentary upon this situation, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei used the Iranian New Year celebration of Nowruz last weekend to accuse the US of aggression in the form of pressure upon international banks to avoid transactions with the Islamic Republic.

But various reports have suggested that the wariness of those institutions is a response less to American aggression and more to Iranian provocations, which contribute to the perception that the rapprochement between the two countries may be short-lived. For instance, Reuters indicated on Friday that oil exports from Iran to Western Europe had gradually picked up speed over the past few months, but had also been severely held back by factors that are exacerbated by the Iranian governments failure to cooperate with foreign nations, both European and Middle Eastern.

The report emphasized that oil storage was becoming a serious obstacle to Irans exports. This is in part because Iranian oil companies are still unable to gain access to an oil terminal called Sidi Kerir, which is collectively owned by Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Presumably, Irans chances of regaining access are diminished by its ongoing rivalry with the Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia.

The Iranians and Saudis are engaged in a proxy war in Yemen, as part of a larger contest for regional influence, and public opinion arguably turned against the Iranians early this year when the Saudi embassy and consulate in Tehran and Mashhad were sacked and burned. Iran has also refused to participate in an agreement amongst several OPEC and non-OPEC states to freeze oil production and stabilize prices. Iranian officials have cited a desire to reclaim lost market share, but the lack of cooperation may spur rivals to push back against this effort.

The ongoing rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia could also threaten Irans expansion of economic relations with other regional countries. For instance, on Friday, KSL reported upon Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis visit to Pakistan, and it pointed out that Pakistan is very much the target of a tug-of-war between the Iranians and the Saudis, possibly undermining Rouhanis vow to make Islamic cooperation a near-term priority for his administration.

But these circumstances are incidental to Irans economic relationships with the West, but they do arguably contribute to the perception of Iran as an unstable, even combative actor on the world economic stage. More important to the issue of European investment, however, is Reuters observation that the Islamic Republic has so far refused to sweeten the terms of export agreements in order to encourage Europeans to take more Iranian oil.

Prior to implementation of the July 14 nuclear agreement, there was considerable discussion about whether regime institutions like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps would use oil contracts to actively discourage foreign investments that might threaten their own control over the Iranian economy.

Of course, unfavorable contract details are less demonstrative of aggression that recent hot-button issues of Iranian behavior, including the March 8 and 9 tests of three ballistic missiles, in defiance of a UN resolution calling upon Iran to avoid work on weapons capable of delivering nuclear warheads. In addition to showcasing Irans disinterest in cooperating with such international resolutions, these issues also increase the danger to foreign investors, as evidenced by new embargos enacted on two Iranian businesses by the US, in response to the tests.

This in term has reinforced the perception of Irans political instability, insofar as it has prompted additional defiant commentary from Iranian officials. For instance, Investment Underground reported on Friday that Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hossein Jaber Ansari had referred to the embargos as a meddlesome USA measure and said that the Islamic Republic would respond by further ramping up its ballistic missile program, in line with a recent order by President Rouhani.
The UN Human Rights Council extended Dr. Shaheeds mandate with 20 votes in support, 15 votes against and 11 abstentions. This is the sixth successive year that Ahmed Shaheed has been appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur to monitor human rights in Iran.

While expressing sadness for Irans failure to cooperate with the demands of the Human Rights Council and the Assembly, the resolution presented by 39 countries expressed its serious concern about the situation of human rights in Iran. The resolution also asked Iran to fully cooperate with Shaheed in the future, noting that it has so far refused to allow him to visit the country or communicate openly with its citizens.

The latest report by Mr. Shaheed referred to the continued violation of human rights, a dramatic rise in the number of executions, and the continued execution of juvenile offenders under the Rouhani presidency. The Iranian regime responded by expressing its opposition to the appointment of the Rapporteur. Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the head of the Iranian regimes Human Rights Council said in an interview with Iranian TV, We do not accept the appointment of a Special Rapporteur for our country, because Iran is the largest and most serious democracy in western Asia, where no other country has a similar civil and political structure from the point of democratic mechanism .

It is worth noting that Dr. Shaheed, in his recent report, had referred to 47 imprisoned journalists and bloggers, and hundreds of human rights advocates who are currently in prison. He also reiterated that there has been no dramatic change in the human rights situation in Iran since 2013, when Hassan Rouhani was elected to the presidency and embraced by some Western policymakers as a moderate.

In a letter to the UN Human Rights Council on March 7, 2016, Iranian political prisoners expressed support for the extension of Dr. Shaheeds mandate. The letter was signed by 40 political prisoners in various prisons and read in part, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed has been one of the most active rapporteurs, and we have clearly observed the impacts of his reports on the situation of prisons; in fact there has been almost no instance of major violation of human rights in prisons that has not been reflected in his reports.
Iran is amongst the countries that has the highest numbers of road accidents. On August 19th, 2015 the state-run Mehr news agency reported that between March 2010 and March 2014 more than 97,000 people lost their lives in road accidents across Iran.

On Monday, Taghi Mehri, the head of traffic police in Iran, referred to the results of research that was conducted in the period of March 2013 to March 2014 and supports the conclusion that 7% of Irans GDP is lost in road accidents. Previously, the state-run ISNA news agency quoted Massoud Habibi, the head of the Youths Organization in Irans Red Crescent as saying, 100 new handicaps are added to the countrys handicap population each day due to road accidents. Such numbers are shocking.

In recent studies the World Bank described the conditions of Irans roads as critical, according to a report by Mehr news agency. Based on another report from the same source, Iran is ranked 189th out of 190 countries in regard to road security . in the studies that yielded these results also indicated that the number of casualties from road accidents in Iran is twice that of Turkey and 25 times that of Japan.

Another report quotes the public relations office of the Youths Organization in Irans Red Crescent as saying that each year nearly 18,000 people lose their lives in road accidents, while 36,000 others become handicapped.
Rouhani became president of Iran in 2013, following a faceoff against the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. He subsequently named his administration the government of planning and hope.

After Rouhani announced his trip to Austria the NCRI issued a statement stating that any welcoming of Rouhani and other Iranian regime officials would encourage their human rights violations and export of terrorism.

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, whose mission was recently extended for another year, issued his latest report during the 31st official Human Rights Council Session. In it, he criticized the worsening crackdown of freedom of speech and the status of official or non-official religious minorities. He also called on the Iranian government to reevaluate discriminatory laws against women and recognize equal rights for them. Furthermore, the report noted that the number of executions reported in 2015 was the highest in the past ten years.

The NCRI issued a statement on March 23rd calling on political parties, MPs and human rights advocates in Austria to campaign for the cancellation of Rouhanis visit. This statement reads in part, The Iranian Resistance considers the planned trip of Rouhani, president of the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran, to Austria against the highest interests of the Iranian people and the countries in the region and calls on Austrian political parties, parliamentarians and defenders of human rights to cancel this visit.

The statement added that Rouhani has a very bleak report card on human rights, including more than 2,000 executions that have taken place since he took office. Rouhani has always been amongst the highest ranking officials of this regime and he should face justice along with other leaders of this regime for crimes against humanity. He is no different from other regime leaders as far as suppression and export of terrorism is concerned, the statement continued.

Rouhani has never expressed any opposition to the collective and arbitrary executions that number 2,300 during his own term in office; in fact, he has described them as divine law or legislations by the parliament that need to be carried out, the texts added.

The NCRI has called on Western governments to precondition any economic relations with Iran to improved human rights conditions and an end to all executions. In this regard the NCRI statement reads, At a time when Western countries have been silent and ignorant regarding the barbaric violation of human rights and crimes of this regime in Syria, Iraq and other regional countries, welcoming Rouhani and other leaders of this regime will encourage them in the violation of human rights in Iran, as well as in the export of terrorism, fundamentalism and warmongering in the region and the world. Any relations with this regime should be preconditioned to the annulment of the death penalty in Iran and this regimes interference in the region.
Although neither the dam attack nor any of these other instances of hacking caused lasting damage, the collective impact upon the US economy is estimated in the tens of millions. Furthermore, these are only a handful of the recent incidents that have contributed to growing anxiety about Irans ascendant cyberespionage and cyberterrorism capabilities, and the associated willingness of the Islamic Republic to engage in asymmetrical warfare against its traditional Western enemies.

The overall response to these growing capabilities is presumably still being formulated. But the International Business Times reports that the seven recent indictments are part of the White Houses name-and-shame policy, aimed at bringing international attention to the nature and origins of newly established cyber security threats.

In addition to making known the names of these seven specific hackers, this weeks reports have also emphasized that they are known to have received financial backing and at least some level of operational support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That hardline paramilitary has also reportedly been the main driving force behind recent provocative ballistic missile tests, the January capture of 10 American sailors in the Persian Gulf, and also the domestic crackdown on journalists and artists that many commentators have witnessed in Iran especially in the past few months.

Furthermore, the IRGC has contributed substantially to the defense of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. By some accounts it has dispatched thousands of fighters to the Syrian Civil War, and regardless of the numbers it has helped to erect a defensive infrastructure that relies on Hezbollah and other Iran-backed Shiite militias, thus deepening Irans influence in the eastern Mediterranean country.

The hacking indictments may serve to increase awareness about the alternative forms of this influence, apart from a direct or indirect military presence. As The Tower points out, it is not only the seven Iranian hackers who have been subject to recent Justice Department indictments. The same authorities also levied charges this week against two Syrian hackers and a German accomplice.

These individuals also reportedly enjoyed ties to the IRGC, and even worked in concert with Iranian hackers, using phishing schemes to secure information from or access to the servers of Western entities and then extort money from them, to be delivered to the war effort in Syria. The Tower reports that the indicted Syrians were members of an organized hacking ring called the Syrian Electronic Army, and that this is only one of a number of hacker groups that have been operating as Iran proxies, with support from the IRGC.

It remains to be seen whether this weeks reported indictments will lead to further efforts to expose and break up these Iranian and Iran-backed hackers. But it seems clear that the US government and other Western entities are making a number of efforts to confront Iranian threats and enforce international restrictions upon the Islamic Republics foreign policy activities.

This can be seen, for instance, in a report from Today Online indicating that the US has charged Iranian-American businessman Ahmad Sheikhzadeh with seven charges related to sanctions violations and money laundering, based on his activities as a consultant to Irans mission to the United Nations. The defendant reportedly worked with at least three accomplices to illicitly funnel money from US businesses to the Islamic Republic.

Additionally, Reuters reported on Thursday that the US had also blacklisted two Iranian companies and two British businessmen over two separate issues of Irans foreign policy. In the first place, the Iranian companies represent new targets for sanctions on the Iranian ballistic missile program, which they are accused of helping to support. This has become a particularly hot button issue in the wake of three ballistic missile tests earlier this month, which the US State Department has described as being in tension with a UN resolution calling upon Iran to avoid such tests and related ballistic missile development.

In the second place, the blacklisting of the British businessmen was reportedly meant as punishment for their doing business with Mahan Air, an Iranian commercial airline that remains under US-led sanctions as a result of its ties to the IRGC and its ongoing use as a means for smuggling Iranian fighters and weapons into Syria.

This veritable flurry of reports about US enforcement measures provides some contrast to the longstanding and often severe criticisms of the Obama administrations Iran policy. Beginning with the nuclear negotiations, congressional Republicans and some Democrats have accused the White House of excessively soft dealings with a traditional enemy, or even outright appeasement. In the wake of various perceived Iranian provocations, many of those critics have called for expanded sanctions and other unilateral enforcement measures.

The above measures may be seen as at least a partial response to those calls, but it is quite certain that more such calls will follow, especially if Iran does not shift away from recent behaviors. The US Congress continues to scrutinize that behavior in many areas, including the influence of Iran and its proxies over the broader Middle East.
OFC, the World's Largest Optical Communications and Networking Conference, Featured Evolution of Data Centers, SDN, Silicon Photonics, Network Speed and Efficiency

This year's OFC Conference and Exposition, held March 20-24 at the Anaheim Convention Center, featured 580 exhibiting companies, more than 1,160 peer- reviewed papers and exceeded 13,000 attendees, an increase from 2015. Mirroring a dynamic and growing industry, OFC continued its multi-year growth pattern with 10 percent growth in net square footage sold.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160324006343/en/

OFC 2016 Conference and Exhibition (Photo: Business Wire)

"OFC is the networking event of the year," said Kathleen Tse, AT&T (News - Alert), OFC 2016 General Chair. "It's where the global community involved in optical and data networking comes together to take the pulse of the industry. This year was no exception. The event's premier conference program reflects the hard work and dedication of many, including the technical program chairs, subcommittee chairs and committee members. Thank you to all the volunteers for their contribution to this world-class conference."

Technical talks and the Market Watch programs drew the most innovative names in telecom, optical communications and datacom. These researchers and industry experts explored numerous global trends including advances in 200G to 500G coherent technology, lower cost ROADM technology, higher capacity product platforms, higher speed components, faster test equipment and much more.

"With the industry experiencing escalating bandwidth needs and the constant change in data rates from 10G to 40G to 100G, this year's OFC was one of the most exciting I can remember. The attendance to our short coursed increased by 50 percent this year spanning diverse topics - from optical components to optical transport systems," said OFC 2016 General Chair Ken-ichi Sato, Nagoya University, Japan.

Hot Topics in Optics

This year's exhibit floor and conference featured global leaders, diverse programming, interactive workshops and unique technical sessions. OFC exhibitors made more than 160 product, service and partner announcements, including technical advancements in SDN, 200G WDM, 25G Ethernet optics and the surge in demand for the new 100G QSFP28 format. Releases can be viewed here: Exhibitor News.







Researchers from around the world presented industry leading technical peer-reviewed papers, including:

New Optical Transmitter Enables Better Communication Networks - to meet today's data demands, a new bandwidth variable transmitter could serve as a crucial part of flexible and optimized optical networks

Germanium-based Photonics Offer Promise for Novel Sensors and Faster Internet - researchers from University of Tokyo have successfully built fundamental components from the semiconductor germanium for integrated photonic circuits that work at mid-infrared wavelengths and could improve Internet speeds

Record-breaking Signal Transmission Capacity Paves the Way for Faster Internet - promising larger capacity optical communication systems researchers from ZTE have experimentally demonstrated the highest capacity signal transmission for a two-kilometer single mode fiber inter-connect

Record-breaking Reach for Low-cost Data Transmission between Data Centers - researchers from ADVA (News - Alert) Optical Networking in Germany demonstrate highest speeds yet by use of PAM-4 transmission

On the Exhibit Floor

OFC's exhibit floor showcases major international companies, such as Avago, Ciena, Coriant, Corning Incorporated, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu Optical Components, Global Communication Semiconductors, Inc., Huawei Technologies USA, Juniper Networks, Nokia (News - Alert), Mitsubishi International and more. Exhibitors include network and test equipment vendors, systems and component manufacturers, fiber cable and specialty fiber manufacturers.

The exhibition hall theaters featured business-focused programming with presentations by experts from major global brands and key industry organizations, including Alibaba Group, Coriant, Cisco, Facebook (News - Alert), Juniper Networks, LinkedIn, Verizon and many others.

About OFC

OFC is the largest global conference and exposition for optical communications and networking professionals. For over 40 years, The Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) has drawn attendees from all corners of the globe to meet and greet, teach and learn, make connections and move business forward.

OFC includes dynamic business programming, an exposition of more than 550 companies, and high impact peer-reviewed research that, combined, showcase the trends and pulse of the entire optical networking and communications industry. OFC is managed by The Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the IEEE (News - Alert) Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc), and the IEEE Photonics Society. OFC 2017 takes place 19 -23 March at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, USA.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160324006343/en/
EFFINGHAM -- Lake Land College is adding a new business administration cohort program this fall at the Kluthe Center for Higher Education and Technology in Effingham.

Students will be able to take all of the classes needed to complete an associate degree in business administration at the center.

Business administration is one of our most popular majors at the college, business instructor Tynia Kessler said. With this new cohort, students will progress through the two-year program together and will build a strong support network.

This degree prepares students to transfer to a four-year college in a variety of business majors such as accounting, finance, management, marketing and computer information systems.

Students who may not have the option to relocate can explore online bachelors degree completion programs that are available in this major at the University of Illinois Springfield, Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Indiana State University.

Students who complete the degree also are prepared to enter the workforce immediately.

The college also offers a criminal justice cohort at the Kluthe Center in Effingham, as well as physical therapist assistant and massage therapy programs. Located at 1204 Network Centre Drive, the Kluthe Center offers a variety of Transfer Ready and Workforce Ready courses, as well English as a Second Language, GED and Pathways options.

To get started, contact Counseling Services at 217-234-5232 or lakelandcollege.edu.

To learn more about the cohort program, contact Kessler at 217-234-5351 or tkessler@lakelandcollege.edu.
UNION GROVE  A 17-year-old male Union Grove High School student faces felony charges after threatening to blow up the high school and seriously harm students and staff Thursday morning, officials said.

The Racine County Sheriffs Office said David J. Kopecky, 17, is being held on felony and misdemeanor charges. The investigation into the bomb threat is ongoing, deputies said.

Deputies said they took Kopecky into custody at the high school without incident Thursday. The teen was in the Racine County Jail Thursday night, jail records showed.

Officials did not close the school. Deputies were at the school interviewing students, said Superintendent Al Mollerskov. Parents received an automated phone message from the school detailing the incident, Mollerskov said.

At 8:20 a.m. Thursday, the Racine County Communications Center received information regarding a potential threat at the school.

Communications Center staff advised that a concerned citizen had information that students and staff might be the target of violence by a student at the school, deputies said.

Deputies said they immediately responded to the high school and determined Kopecky had made verbal threats to blow up the high school and cause great bodily harm to students and staff.

Sheriffs investigators said they have determined this was an isolated incident, and that there were no other parties involved in communicating or carrying out any threats, deputies said.

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling immediately directed additional resources to the high school and surrounding communities as a precautionary measure to ensure public safety.

Although staff and students were never directly in danger, Schmaling said he and members of his staff take these types of threats very seriously.
If Gun Control Works in Europe,

Where Do Terrorists Get their Weapons?

By Dan Mitchell. September 5th, 2015

Earlier this year, I argued that it was unfair and immoral to deny European Jews from being able to protect themselves with firearms.

They get targeted by terrorists and other thugs who can strike at any time, often with suicidal intent, and even the most effective law enforcement can't be in all places at all times.

Leftists argue that gun control is nonetheless the right policy because everyone gets disarmed.

But if that's true, J.D. Tuccille of Reason asks how terrorists in Europe manage to get so many weapons when there are strict gun control laws. .......

Although Dan Mitchell published this last fall - in the light of the recent Brussels carnage it seems just as valid and useful an analysis. It will remain a fact, that however much good people are disarmed, the criminal/terrorist element will always find their guns.... the black market runs deep regardless.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."

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Bellevue, WA 98005 USA

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Agreement to control criminal activities along Nepal-Indo border

Security officials of both Nepal and India have reached an agreement to coordinate to control criminal activities and wildlife poaching along the border.
Border demarcation would be resolved through political consensus: Dahal

UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has stressed on the need to address the genuine demands raised by Madhes agitation to solve the problems.
Celebrating the Nepal-Britain bond

To celebrate 200 years of the Nepal-Britain bond, the British Council is organising a fair titled Celebrating the Bond at Hotel Yak and Yeti on March 26.
Darchula awaits suspension bridge over Mahakali

Twenty years ago, Darchula District Development Committee submitted a survey report to a government ministry for suspension bridge construction over Mahakali River to connect Tigram and Lali villages.
DPR for Nalsing Gadh Hydro Project delayed

The preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) for the Nalsing Gadh Hydropower Project located in mid-western Nepal has been affected due to a flurry of anonymous complaints against the consultant appointment process.
Egypt 'finds killers of Italian student Giulio Regeni'

Egypt says it has found the criminal gang who killed Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo earlier this year.
Govt committee advises against MMIHS takeover

The fate of the controversial Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) hangs in the balance, with a government committee suggesting that it should not be made a state entity.
Indian prisoner dies

An Indian inmate at Rajbiraj-based jail died on Thursday night.
Missed opportunities

A forced levy on public toilets can only drive the poor to nearest and most convenient open space
Morcha leaders meet Rae

Top leaders of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Thursday sought Indias proactive role to press Kathmandu to address their remaining demands, including revision of the federal boundaries and changes in citizenship laws.
Most govt buildings sans KMC approval

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City is in quagmire as it has emerged that most of the government buildings in the Capital have not had their blueprints registered or approved by the city authority.
Neighbouring with the north

When all the countries in the world started to link with China, Nepal quietly delinked
New Suzuki showroom opens in Balkumari

Suzuki 4-Wheelers has opened its new showroomNarayani Auto Businessin Balkumari, Lalitpur.
NRBs payments system is secure

With the recent $101 million Bangladesh Bank heist alarming central banks everywhere, especially in developing countries, officials of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) have said its payments system is secure.
Oli says poverty an affront to Asia

Calls for broader cooperation among Asian countries for shared benefits
Police initiates campaign against vehicle harassment

The Metropolitan Police Range, Teku, has introduced a public awareness and monitoring campaign against sexual harassment in public vehicles inside Kathmandu.
Police intervene Baluwatar protest, arrest rights activists, conflict victims

Police rounded several human rights activists and conflict victims who were staging demonstration outside the Prime Ministers official residence in the Capital on Thursday. Some demonstrators were also hurt in a scuffle with police.
Prince Harry spotted carrying Doko in Gorkha

Prince Harry was spotted carrying Doko (traditional bamboo basket) in the rural village of Lapu-3 in Gorkha district on Friday.
Rebound in Chinese arrivals cheers up Nepals tourism

Chinese arrivals to Nepal shrank sharply following the 2015 killer earthquake and Indias trade embargo, dampening the enthusiasm of tourism entrepreneurs who had got their hopes up because of the fast rising market.
Six retail shops found violating plastic bag ban

The Ministry of Population and Environment on Thursday carried out an inspection in Kalimati Fruits and Vegetable Market, and retail shops at Kalimati in the Capital to check on the adherence to ban the use of plastic bags with a thickness of below 40 microns.
Suklaphanta to shift some of its swamp deer

Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve is planning to translocate swamp deer, locally known as Barasingha, to Bardiya National Park and Chitwan National Park. The SWR has the highest number of swamp deer (2,300 as per last years count) in the country.
Syria conflict: US and Russia want draft constitution by August

The US and Russia have agreed to aim for a draft version of a new constitution for Syria by August, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.
Venisha murder suspects nabbed

Three young men are under arrest in connection with the murder of Venisha Limbu, who was found dead at Manpokhari, Nagarkot, in Bhaktapur on February 26.
1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day.

2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part.

3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces.

4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time.

5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear.

Vote

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By Gwynne Dyer

If the U.S. Congress had not imposed a two-term limit on the presidency in 1947 after Franklin D. Roosevelt's record four electoral victories, President Barack Obama would be a safe bet for a third term next November. He inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, and now the United States has the healthiest economy of all the major powers, with unemployment back down to 5.5 percent.

But Obama can't run for president again, so the time has come for the pundits to start delivering their assessments on the success or failure of his policies. First up is Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, with a lengthy article called "The Obama Doctrine" on the man's conduct of American foreign policy over the past seven and a half years.

As you would expect when discussing a man whose basic rule is "Don't do stupid shit", Goldberg's piece is mostly an examination of what Obama didn't do, not what he did. He didn't go to war with the Assad regime in Syria. He didn't get into a new Cold War with Russia over Ukraine. He didn't bomb Iran, instead making a political deal to block its nuclear weapons ambitions. He didn't attack North Korea even when it did test nuclear weapons.

None of these foreign policy choices would be remarkable if we were talking about Japan or Canada or Germany. Even in former imperial powers like Britain and France, where the interventionist reflex is still alive and kicking, Obama's choices would not be controversial.

But in the Washington foreign policy establishment, where every conflict on the planet tends to be redefined as an American problem and almost unlimited military force is available to attack the problem, Obama's approach was heretical.

Democrats were just as opposed to his heresy as Republicans. Indeed, despite the wreckage of George W. Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that Obama's administration inherited when it took office in early 2009, his own first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was a classic interventionist.

After she left office in 2013, Clinton told Goldberg that "the failure to build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad...left a big vacuum, which the jhadists have now filled." But Hillary Clinton actually got her way on Syria.

The real failure of American policy on Syria in 2011 was the tolerance extended to Turkish, Qatari and Saudi Arabian shipments of arms and money that were intended to subvert the faltering non-violent revolution and replace it with an armed revolt whose goal was a Sunni Islamic state, not a secular democracy.

Obama and Clinton must share the blame for the fact that the United States became part of this operation in early 2012, providing arms that it sourced from Libya to avoid Congressional oversight. By then the non-violent protests had been largely suppressed and Syria was stumbling into a civil war  which subsequently killed 300,000 people and turned half the country's population into refugees.

Most Syrians would now agree that it would have been better to accept the failure of the non-violent movement and the continued rule of the execrable Assad regime than to see their country virtually destroyed. I suspect that Obama sees Clinton's Syrian policy, in hindsight, as the greatest mistake of his time in office  but he did partially redeem himself by refusing to bomb Syria during the "poison gas" episode of 2014.

Clinton also told Goldberg in 2014 that "great nations need organising principles, and Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organising principle." Nobody said it was, but it is a good guide when deciding on actual policies, and Obama has been pretty consistent in observing it even with regard to the Middle East.

His fundamental insight  and his greatest break with the orthodoxy of the American foreign policy establishment  has been to understand that very little that happens or could happen in the Middle East is a threat to America's vital interests. Even Israel's well-being is only a sentimental consideration for the United States, not a strategic one, although like all American politicians he is obliged to pretend otherwise.

Only if the Islamist extremists of the Nusra Front and Islamic State were to overrun all of Syria would Israel be in any danger, and the Russian military intervention in support of Assad's regime since last September has largely eliminated that possibility. So Obama has been free to concentrate on the issues that he thinks are really important, and that is where he has made real progress.

His foreign policy has been minimalist only with regard to the traditional "strategic" concerns inherited from the Cold War and America's long, deep and mostly futile engagement with the Middle East. In his "pivot" to Asia, in reestablishing ties with Cuba, above all on the issue of climate change (which he rightly sees as the crucial issue for the next generation and beyond), he has been an activist in his foreign policy  and a largely successful one.

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump, the two main contenders for the succession, will be a patch on him.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
South Korea's top military commander checked the combat readiness of frontline troops on Friday as inter-Korean tensions have flared up in the face of North Korea's continuing provocations.



Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Lee Sun-jin visited the VIII Corps and Navy 1st Fleet earlier in the day to look into their military preparedness, the military said.

The Army corps is in charge of guarding the eastern part of the heavily militarized border while the Navy fleet defends the East Sea area.



"North Korea is likely to launch sudden provocations at an unexpected time and place," the four-star general said. He said Pyongyang could also conduct an additional nuclear test or launch a long-range missile.



Other possibilities involve artillery attacks, drone infiltration or terrorist activities in the rear, he noted.



"In the event of provocations, retaliate powerfully and without hesitation," the JCS chairman stressed to Army servicemen.



During his visit with Navy troops, Lee brought up earlier maritime military clashes with North Korea, and ordered the forces to "safeguard the East Sea at all cost so such tragedies would never be repeated."



The field inspection came as North Korea continued its bellicose rhetoric against South Korea and the United States.



The communist country launched short- and mid-range missiles and artillery rockets on four occasions this month while upping its military ante.



A day earlier, the North threatened to launch attacks on South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. (Yonhap)




PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

Kathy Stout of Kendallville shared this photo. It is such a joy to be a Nana to Leo! she said.
WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis.  Dont hire your next injury, Dr. Bradley Kenny recently told dairy farmers, custom harvesters and manure haulers.

Kenny, a chiropractor and senior director of employer services at Aurora BayCare Occupational Health and Wellness in Green Bay, spoke about preventing and handling workers compensation claims at the 2016 Forage Symposium hosted by the Midwest Forage Association, Wisconsin Custom Operators and Professional Nutrient Applicators Association of Wisconsin.

Many farms in Wisconsin still are excluded from carrying workers compensation, although thats rapidly changing as more dairies continue grow in size. Farmers need workers compensation insurance if they have six or more employees, at one or more locations, working on the same day for 20 days  consecutive or not  during a calendar year. After the 20th day, farmers have 10 days to obtain workers compensation insurance. On each of the 20 days, it can be the same six employees or six different people working. The six employees can be full-time or part-time, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

The department said it doesnt matter how much a farmer pays in wages. What matters is the number of employees  after excluding certain employees such as relatives and exchanged workers. An example of the latter is employees of two neighbors who make their haylage together.

Under workers compensation, an employee is entitled to guaranteed compensation for work-related injuries, regardless of fault, according to the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University. Benefits to employees also include medical services. When workers compensation is in place, an employee cannot bring any type of legal claim against the employer related to injuries sustained on the job. Even with an agricultural exemption from workers compensation, it could be a good idea in certain situations for farmer-employers to elect to be covered. Without coverage, business assets can potentially be subject to claims of employees who are injured or killed on the job, the center said.

Kenny encouraged farm and agribusiness owners carrying workers compensation to establish a good working relationship with an occupational health clinic.

Become a more involved consumer regarding work-related injuries with your provider, he said, stressing that being proactive can save the employer money. Its OK to share your expectations with your provider.

He said 75 percent of all work-related injuries that go to the emergency room are non-emergencies. Of the 75 percent, 80 percent are musculoskeletal injuries. Kenny said a chiropractor likely can handle many workers compensation claim injuries and might be selected as the employers occupational health-care provider.

Agricultural employers should ensure that the clinic theyre utilizing for workers compensation understands farming and the implications of the clinics treatment and employee restrictions on the farm business.

Does the doctor visit your workplace in order to better understand the physical-demand levels of the job? he asked.

He said job descriptions should be provided to the physician, who, in turn, should share findings and diagnosis in a claim case as well as a treatment plan, restrictions and date of discharge. He said the aim should be to return the injured employee to work as soon as possible  even if its only light-duty tasks instead of normal duties. He also encouraged agricultural employers to be aggressive in contacting the claims adjuster, to ask whats being done to close a case and return the employee to work. He said the average workers-compensation claims adjuster has 60 claims on his or her desk.

Kenny said many employers have a return-to-work policy that is interpreted as, We dont want them back until theyre 100 percent. Many look at light-duty work as a hassle. But such an approach is expensive, he said.

To return injured workers to work if at all possible, send light-duty job descriptions to the doctor whom the injured employee is seeing. Make it easy for the physician to check jobs the employee can safely perform. Farmers might also seek provider input in developing those light-duty job descriptions.

Kenny said 40 percent of all work-related injuries are new employees within their first year of employment. And a recent study showed workers within their first month are 300 percent more likely to incur a lost-time injury than those who have been employed over a year. Kenny said a new employee needs to see that the farmer cares about employee health and fitness, and that bringing a new employee into the business isnt taken lightly.

Changing the work culture will take elected lingering out of the picture, he said of worker reluctance to go back to work after an injury.

Kenny stressed drug testing of job candidates, as well as post-incidence drug and alcohol testing. Of all work-related fatalities, 20 percent involve drugs or alcohol, he said. Supervisors should be trained with regard to reasonable suspicion and how to handle an employee they suspect might be under the influence on the job. They can be tested, but protocol must be followed.
Incumbent Peg Jerome faces challenger Devin Schmidt, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse student, in the race for La Crosse County Board supervisor in District 8.

The Tribune asked the candidates in contested county board races the same four questions.

The La Crosse County Board has come out strongly in favor of protecting the countys UW-Extension program from the restructuring proposed by the state. Do you support that decision? Why or why not?

Jerome: UW-Extension touches our lives in many ways we may not realize, not just with the more obvious 4-H, family living and agriculture programs, but with community and economic program educators who assist cities, villages and towns with analyzing and planning their housing needs as well as with economic development. The university extension system is the embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea, which proposes that education should influence peoples lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom. This vision of the extension of education has been with us for over 100 years and is vitally important to all of us in La Crosse County. The proposed restructuring would be giving us reduced services without a reduction in cost. Our extension program works well and should be preserved.

Schmidt: I support the restructuring of the UW-Extension program. Dividing the counties into four major regions not only simplifies the structure but also allows funds to be distributed amongst all the colleges in those regions, thus allowing the colleges that are in need of more funding are able to have access to it. Not only does it allow each region to allocate funds in a more need-based manner, but it also saves money by eliminating unnecessary positions that are currently using up funds that could be spent elsewhere in the extension.

The county has moved to invest in residential properties through neighborhood revitalization grants, with a focus on neighborhoods in the city of La Crosse. Do you think its wise to focus on the city or are there other areas the county should invest in?

Jerome: It is important to remember that the economic health of a county correlates with the health of that countys central city. The disadvantage to new home building in the city of La Crosse is that tear down and rebuilding are more expensive than building on an empty lot. Helping the city renovate deteriorating housing and revitalize neighborhoods will make them safer and use less services. Since many county residents work in the city but reside outside of it, more housing choices may mean less of a commute. The county should not just focus on helping the city, however, and does provide economic assistance to other areas in the county when needed, with the Holmen community center being one example. Revitalizing our neighborhoods will not only not only improve our communities, these improvements will be an asset to the county as a whole as well.

Schmidt: I believe that it is important to revitalize La Crosse neighborhoods. Improving the quality of neighborhoods in La Crosse would make room for new homeowners who are looking for nice homes to settle down in, but right now many vacant homes in our area are not move-in ready, either that or they may be causing low property values within neighborhoods. Revitalizing the city of La Crosse can bring more new homeowners and young families out to La Crosse County and bring more taxpayers to La Crosse County. This will, in turn, make the city of La Crosse an exciting place of culture and beautiful history once again.

Like most of Wisconsin, the La Crosse County Highway Department is facing budgetary challenges when it comes to maintaining its infrastructure. How do you think the county should handle those needs?

Jerome: Unless we get the state of Wisconsin to address this situation, or we change the way we determine what should be done, we will not be able to fix all of the roads that need repair. La Crosse County is not going to be able to resolve this issue on its own.

Schmidt: At the end of 2014, La Crosse County had an unrestricted fund balance of over $21 million; this money could be used to assist with funding the La Crosse County Highway Department to maintain county infrastructure.

What do you see as the major issues facing the county board this year?

Jerome: La Crosse County needs to continue to be innovative as we deal with maintaining needed services and keeping expenses low. Dealing with increasing drug and addiction problems in our county continues to be an issue. The preservation of our multifaceted university extension system is critical to the health and welfare of our county.

Schmidt: One that will be the most difficult to reach a solution is what to do about the new North-South corridor project. There are many variables to consider with this project and each option has its consequences, so finding the best solution may take some time and much collaboration between county policymakers and citizens. Another challenge will be to address the countys debt which currently sits at around $110 million  compared to $59 million at this time last year  that is putting our bond rating on thin ice. (Editor's Note: The La Crosse County budget's debt retirement schedule lists the amount of debt to be paid off at $89 million through 2035).
MADISON  A Tomah man described by a judge as an eccentric, narcissistic drifter was sentenced to three years in federal prison Friday for threatening to kill President Barack Obama in a Facebook post and during a conversation with a library security guard.

Brian Dutcher, 55, was sentenced in Madison by U.S. District Judge William Conley after a jury convicted him in January of two counts of threatening to kill the president. Conley also sentenced Dutcher to three years of supervised release and asked that he have a complete mental evaluation and receive mental health treatment.

The maximum sentence was five years in prison for each count.

According to testimony during Dutchers trial, he made the threats just before Obama visited La Crosse last July and continued to make them after he was charged. A Secret Service special agent testified in a pre-trial hearing that Dutcher told him that he planned to carry out the assassination with his slingshot.

Dutchers attorney, Stephen Meyer, asked Conley to sentence him for time served  or almost nine months  in the Dane County Jail. But Conley said Dutcher had to be held accountable for creating a major disruption in national security that interrupted schedules and involved federal agents in Washington, D.C. That cant be dismissed as mere folly, Conley said.

The judge said it was unlikely that Dutcher posed a serious risk of harming Obama because he didnt have a real plan and it was likely that Dutcher wanted to be stopped. But if not stopped, he was capable of injuring the president, Conley said.

According to court documents, Dutcher told a La Crosse Public Library security guard, The usurper is here and if I get a chance, Ill take him out and Ill take the shot. On his Facebook page, he wrote, Thats it! I will be in La Crosse. Hopefully I will get a clear shot at the pretend president. Killing him is our CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY!

Dutcher, who did not testify during his trial, told the court Friday that he did not intend to threaten anybody. He said his Facebook post was bait to see if the federal government was spying on private online conversations. If it was perceived as a threat, Im sorry if it was taken as such, he said.

Dutcher also said the library security guard was an acquaintance and that the security guard set him up by asking if he was planning to shoot the president when Dutcher visited La Crosse the day before Obamas visit there on July 2.

While Dutcher has a limited criminal history, Conley said he was concerned about Dutchers potential as a danger to the community because of his erratic behavior. After calling him an eccentric, Conley described how Dutcher lived out of his van and traveled around the country ever since his marriage ended violently and with alcohol involved 15 years ago.

Alienated from members of his family and others due to his erratic behavior, Dutcher lacks any emotional support and he seems to like it that way, Conley said.

Conley also said Dutcher shows symptoms of bipolar behavior, paranoia and other mental health issues and has refused to take any medications prescribed for him.
Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

The board earmarked $1.54 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for the dredge, designed to keep channels open and supply sand to nourish eroding beaches up and down the York County coast and beyond.


A businessman from China pleaded guilty Wednesday to hacking into the computer systems of American businesses.

Su Bin, also known as Stephen Su, faces a maximum five-year prison sentence for conspiring with two others. They were found guilty of illegally taking information from American firms that do business with the U.S. government.

Su was accused of hacking into major businesses including Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Su began targeting American companies in 2008, according to U.S. court documents. He obtained information about Boeings C-17 military transport aircraft in 2010.

Two Chinese soldiers helped Su obtain military information for the F-35 aircraft and other jets, Canadian media reported in January, 2016.

Su was arrested in Canada in 2014. He owned his own aviation technology firm that had an office in Canada, the FBI said. Su agreed to be extradited, according to the Justice Department.

Chinese officials said the Chinese government organizations and the military oppose and have never participated in any form of Internet hacking activity.

Cybersecurity is a source of conflict between China and the United States, the Associated Press reported. American companies have lost billions of dollars in sales and in cyber repairs because of hacking.

Sentencing for Su is set for July 13 in Los Angeles.

Im Jim Dresbach.

Jim Dresbach adapted this story from Reuters for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

pleaded  v. to say in court that you are either guilty or not guilty of a crime

hack  v. to secretly get access to the files on a computer or network in order to get information

conspiring  v. to secretly plan with someone to do something that is harmful or illegal

extradited  v. to send a person who has been accused of a crime to another state or country for trial

cybersecurity  n. the state of being protected against the criminal or harmful use of electronic data


Detainees released from the prison in Guantanamo Bay have killed Americans, said a senior Defense Department official this week.

Paul Lewis is the Pentagon's special envoy for closing the prison in Cuba. He did not say if the incidents occurred during the terms of President George W. Bush or President Barack Obama.

"What I can tell you is unfortunately there have been Americans that have died because of detainees," Lewis told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Associated Press quoted an unnamed Obamas official who said the incident happened while Bush was president. Also, others have suspected that a former detainee was involved in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Guantanamo and Brussels

The information came during a briefing by Defense and State department officials to U.S. lawmakers. The briefing discussed how the U.S. prison in Cuba became a powerful tool of propaganda, or false information, for the Islamic State terror group.

Obama administration officials have said images of the prison remind people of torture and prison without trial.

"Countries across the world and allies tell us that Gitmo hurts us," Lewis said, using a shortened word for the Guantanamo facility. "By closing Gitmo, we address a concern of the rest of the world.

But many Republican and some Democratic members of Congress oppose closing Guantanamo.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, said Wednesday that European allies might change their opinion after recent attacks in Belgium. Dozens were killed and hundreds were wounded this week in Brussels.

"Let me suggest that the attitude of our European friends may well be changing in the next six months or so when they realize that the slaughter thats taking place in Paris and now in Brussels is part of an international movement to destroy Western civilization and replace it with a caliphate," he said.

Transfers continue

More than 85 percent of those detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 have been transferred to other countries.

According to intelligence reports, less than 5 percent of Gitmo detainees transferred during the Obama administration have returned to terrorism.

Some lawmakers, however, fear countries that have received Gitmo detainees, like Uruguay and Ghana, arent prepared to properly monitor them.

I'm Christoper Jones-Cruise.

Carla Babb wrote this story for VOA News. Kathleen Struck adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

Do you have an opinion about Gitmo and terrorism? Please leave a comment below and post on our Facebook page, thank you.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

envoy -- n. a person who

consulate -- n. a place where

propaganda -- n. information that means to persuade in a false way

Gitmo -- n. the nickname for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

caliphate -- n. an extremely religious form of government


Police in France have arrested a man they say was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack the country.



French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the suspect was arrested Thursday in Argenteuil, a town just outside Paris.



Caseneuve there was "no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels."



Cazeneuve said bomb removal teams were on the scene.

France has been on high alert since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds. Cazeneuve said, since the beginning of the year, police have made 75 arrests and jailed 28 suspects.

Im Caty Weaver.

Caty Weaver adapted this VOA news report. Marsha James was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Post your message in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

___________________________________________________

Words in This Story

advanced  adj. far along in a course of progress or development

tangible  n. able to be touched or felt

scene  n. the place of an event or action


Iran has defended its recent launch of ballistic missiles in a letter written to the United Nations.

Iran launched two missiles March 9. The rockets hit targets off of Iran's coast into the Sea of Oman, state media and Iran's news agency reported.

The United States and France criticized the launches. U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 bans Iran from testing ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Gholamali Khoshroo, Irans United Nations ambassador, wrote to the U.N. on March 23 that Iran did not violate the resolution.

Khoshroo said there is no basis for raising the issue with the U.N. Security Council in the letter. Council members met March 14 at the request of the U.S. to discuss the missile launch.

Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, called the launches dangerous, destabilizing and provocative and undermine the prospect for peace in the Middle East.

Iran continues to insist its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, according to multiple media organizations. Some members of the U.S. Congress have asked for more sanctions against Iran.

Iran is developing a nuclear program, so that they can put it on top of a ballistic missile , Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado told VOA just days after the launch.

Im Jim Dresbach.

Margaret Besheer wrote this story for VOA News. Jim Dresbach adapted this story for Learning English and VOANews.com. Kathleen Struck was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

ballistic missile  n. a weapon that is shot through the sky over a great distance and then falls to the ground and explodes

warhead  n. the part of a missile that contains the explosive

resolution  n. a formal statement that expresses the feelings, wishes, or decision of a group

destabilizing  v. to cause something to be unable to continue existing or working in the usual or desired way

provocative  adj. causing discussion, thought, argument


This is Whats Trending Today

An Irish entertainer compared U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to a terrible boyfriend in a viral Facebook video.

The video, created by Clisare, has received more than 1.8 million views and 28,000 shares on Facebook. Clisare called the video, Dear America. She talks to America from the point of view of Ireland, a concerned friend who does not like Americas choice in boyfriends.

Clisare begins her video by saying, Ive just been chatting with all of the other countries, and we just really think that Donald is not right for you. Wed hoped that youd come to this conclusion by yourself, but its looking like it needs to be said.

She tells America that if you are going to make it official with Donald, you cant hang around with Britain anymore.

Earlier this year, lawmakers in the United Kingdom debated whether Trump should be barred from entering their country after more than 570,000 people signed an online petition calling for his ban.

Clisare also says, I know you think its really romantic that he wants to build a wall around you to protect you, but thats...borderline psycho behavior.

Donald Trump himself has said he would build a large wall at the U.S.-Mexico border if he is elected president.

She even tells the U.S. she had a chat with Germany.

Germany is worried about you. God knows Germany knows a bad relationship when they see it  now.

She referred to the German chancellor Adolf Hitler, who was responsible for the death of millions in World War II.

This is not the first time Clisare has gone viral. Earlier this month, a Facebook video of Clisare explaining Irish pronunciation received more than 3 million views in just three days.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Dan Friedell.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

petition - n. a written document that people sign to show that they want a person or organization to do or change something

romantic - adj. thinking about love and doing and saying things to show that you love someone

psycho - (informal) adj. mentally ill and often dangerous or violent


Radovan Karadzic -- the former Bosnian Serb leader -- was convicted Thursday of genocide and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Karadzic has been called the Butcher of Bosnia. He was found guilty for Serb atrocities during the war in Bosnia from 1992-1995. About 100,000 people died in that war.

The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) oversaw the trial.

Criminally responsible

ITCY said the 70-year-old Karadzic was responsible for the crime of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Serb forces killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys, in what has been called the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust.

Judge O-Gon Kwon said the Srebrenica massacre could not have happened without Karadzics support.

However, Karadzic was found not guilty of genocide for driving Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.

Karadzic's was the most senior Bosnian Serb leader during the Bosnian War. He oversaw the Bosnian Serb army. The official commander of the army, former General Ratko Mladic, is also on trial for genocide in The Hague.

Admitted 'moral responsibility'

In 2014, Karadzic only admitted to "moral responsibility" for his wartime actions.

In an 874-page written statement at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Karadzic said he was not aware at the time of the killing at Srebrenica.

Im Jonathan Evans.

Kathleen Struck adapted this story for VOA Learning English from a VOA news report. Mario Ritter edited it.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

atrocities n. extreme, cruel and deadly acts against people

Holocaust n. the killing of millions of Jews and other groups by the Nazis during World War II
LEXINGTON, Neb.  A fresh perspective with more budget accountability and oversight is how Gov. Pete Ricketts is approaching the states pressing issues.

Ricketts visited Lexington Thursday morning to speak at the LexingtonOpportunityCenter for a legislative briefing hosted by the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce.

Im continuing to bring the private sector vision I learned at Ameritrade and Union Pacific to state government. When I started, state government didnt have job descriptions or measurements of agencies to grade their job performance, he said.

Since his arrival at the governors office Ricketts has implemented both job descriptions and agency measurements.

More than 20 people attended the event, which allowed Ricketts to give visitors an update on the pressing bills before the Nebraska Legislature. Only 12 days of sessions remain to pass legislation, he said.

Ricketts said his two big priorities for this legislative session are lowering property taxes and tackling infrastructure issues.

He said he was proud to note that the property tax relief state fund had received a 45 percent increase in funding during his time as governor. In the spring of 2015, the property tax relief fund received a $64 million increase in funds, which raised the funds coffer to a record high $204 million, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Property tax relief is provided in the form of a credit on a property taxpayers bill, he said.

LB 958 would affect local governments and the valuation of agricultural and horticultural land.

According to the bills statement of intent, the intent of LB958 is to slow down the increase in statewide agricultural and horticultural land valuation and to slow the growth of property taxes levied by the political subdivisions. Slowing the growth of spending and property taxes levied by school districts is in LB959, the companion bill to LB958.

The revenue bill has three parts: 1) Limitations on the budget of restricted funds, 2) Exclusions to the levy limit, and 3) Limiting the state-wide increase in agricultural and horticultural land valuations to 3 percent.

The governor said he was working closely with Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island on LB 958 to address property taxes and with Sen. Sullivan of Cedar Rapids on LB 959 to address school funding. Gloor is the chairman of the revenue committee and Sullivan is the chairperson of the education committee.

The tax bill, LB 958, like any bill before the revenue committee, was difficult to pass because of the nature of the process and revenue committee, Ricketts said.

Last year we had 26 bills before the revenue committee, none of them got out of committee. Lets not let the perfect be the enemy of good, he said.

Ricketts noted that in the last five years, taxes paid on agriculture land have gone up 66 percent, while residential land tax increase have only gone up about eight percent in that same time.

Education bill 959 would seek to eliminate a component of the state aid equalization formula that would penalize school districts whose funding tax levy was below 95 cents by cutting the state aid the school would receive. The funding levy maximum amount for schools in Nebraska is $1.50.

The education bill would also lower the maximum rate of the qualified undertaking fund from 5.3 cents to three cents. This amount can be allocated to schools above the original levy amount, Ricketts said.

This qualified fund was created to allow schools funds to address emergencies such as asbestos and mold clean-ups, Rickets said. The funds maximum rate was lowered because some school districts were abusing the program by using its funds to pay for school construction projects, he said.

On infrastructure, Ricketts said he supported the Transportation Innovation Act (LB 960), which would allocate $50 million from the states reserve fund to address road and infrastructure needs.

He said he supported funding to accelerate work on Nebraska expressways and also was in favor of setting aside $40 million to fund bridge work in counties across the state.

Besides passing needed legislation, another part of the Legislatures job is to defeat bills that were not good, Ricketts said.

This session we are killing a lot of bad bills, he said.

Asked by one resident why he was not in favor of a Medicaid expansion bill before the Legislature, Rickets said the bill was the wrong remedy for a real problem.

Medicaid expansion has been killed three times before. This new bill is based on a failed Arkansas plan, he said.

Ricketts said after the Medicaid expansion was passed in Arkansas, the budget is now 61 percent over original estimates after the first six months. Currently, 40 percent of the population was now on Medicaid in Arkansas. In Iowa a similar plan was getting killed, Ricketts said.

Medicaid is designed for pregnant women and the poor, he said.

He said he remembers a time last summer during a community visit when a lady on Medicaid asked him personally if he could help her find a dentist who would accept her coverage.

The Medicaid expansion bill, LB 1032, was introduced earlier this year by Omaha Sen. John McCollister.

Expanding Medicaid is the biggest long term threat to the State of Nebraska, it is projected to cost $1 million over 10 years, Ricketts said.

Ricketts said it was hooey that Medicaid expansion, once enacted as a pilot program, could be cut off if the proposed changes did not work out.

Everyone knows once you give an entitlement you cant take it away. Thats why Ive said from the get-go that we need to kill this bill, Ricketts said.
Chinese phone maker Hammer Technologies launched the Smartisan T2 in China in December. Its a phone with a 4.95 inch full HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor,3GB of RAM, an a heavily customized version of Android called Smartisan OS.

While the company doesnt currently sell its phones in the US, the Smartisan T1 did pass through the FCC last summer, suggesting that Smartisan was at least thinking about bringing its phones to North America.

Now the Smartisan T2 has also hit the FCC.

The phone has a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera, a 2,670 mAh battery, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, and NFC.

But its the software and phone design that really makes Smartisans devices stand out. There are rocker buttons on both the left and right sides of the phone, letting you adjust volume on one side and brightness controls on the other. You can adjust the phone for right-handed or left-handed mode to decide which rocker controls which function.

You can also adjust the phones settings to use these sidekeys as shortcuts for other actions, such as skipping songs while listening to music when the screen is off, creating a new calendar task, starting a voice recording, or taking a picture with the camera.

The Smartisan OS home screen shows your icons in a tile-based user interface, and allows you to sort apps by installation date, frequency of use, or icon color. While the version of Smartisan OS used in China does not include Google apps and services, theres a Smiling Cloud Service for synchronizing your contacts, calendar, notes, bookmarks, settings, and photos.
Russia is waging a disgraceful war on Ukraine. Stand With Ukraine!
The Africa Tax Symposium (4-6 May 2016) is an annual authoritative event, with the aim of analysing the most pertinent international tax issues of the day and to place them within the African context. This is reflected in the signature theme:

Understanding Africas tax issues

Building on the success of the inaugural symposium, this years event will take place in Entebbe Uganda and will focus on todays burning tax issues, such as the post-BEPS landscape, aggressive tax planning, transfer pricing and challenges impacting particular industries and transactions. These topics will be brought to life by a rich selection of renowned tax experts. This compelling mix is enriched even further by IBFDs top experts on Africa.

The Africa Tax Symposium is an initiative of IBFDs Centre for Studies in African Taxation (CSAT), a think tank devoted to the study and development of African taxation.

CSAT scholarships

Through the event, CSAT aims to contribute to deeper and more analytical knowledge of international tax across the continent. It also sponsors research into areas of tax policy relevant to particular sectors in Africa. One way of effecting this is by means of CSAT scholarships, under which qualifying researchers receive sponsorship for pertinent research work. CSAT has just concluded arrangements for several such scholarships and full details will be unveiled during the symposium.
By K Yatish Rajawat

The only goal every start-up has is to successfully scale and disrupt or own an industry. The biggest reason that bulk of them fail at doing so is because their founders fail them. Here are five reasons that explain why is failure so endemic to life of a start- up.

Reason 1: Most start-up fail because of the founders, yes it is true its not because the product is bad, or anything else. Founders fail their start-ups. And they do so because they are unable to change or move with the market, trend, or competition. They are not able to move beyond their own initial idea.

As any successful venture capital (VC) will tell you that they look for winning teams in a start-ups. A team that is smart, intelligent and willing to swim ahead of the tide, and willing to change, adapt and move before the market changes. Which is why the same idea or product is still funded by several VCs, each one is funding the founding team not the idea. If the founding team is not able to move fast, change faster they are dead before they start.

Reason 2. Founders do not realise that they are out of depth as the demands of company grows. Used to micro-managing in the initial stage they just cannot give up control or even trust somebody else to do the job. Whenever they take back control from an employee they reduce his or her importance. They also break the rules of delegation and development. And this is where the penny falls as they take away the control resulting in one employee less. If they keep doing it, they not have empowered employees but employees following orders.

Reason 3. Most start-ups are unable to attract employees better than the founders or different from the founders. They always hire downwards not upwards till such time a VC fund or Private equity funds starts hiring at the leadership level. When the founder hires downwards he or she creates a spiral of micro management and employees are continuously waiting for approval or clearances. This destroys all initiatives and prevents the start-up from being nimble which is the biggest strength it has against an established competition. Matter of fact the success of any founder or any leader has always been established by the number of brilliant people they are able to attract. Founders forget this simple leadership adage, especially when they come from conglomerates where they hired mediocre to protect their positions.

Reason 4: The controls that worked at seed stage do not work beyond. As the funding comes in and demands from investors increases controls need to move away from the founders to systems. Founders cannot continue signing every cheque or clearing every due. Financial controls need to be managed by professionals and they should be capable of scaling up. Remember every employee hired is working for a salary, if his reimbursement is delayed by a day he gets concerned. He gets concerned about whether there is enough funding ? If a small reimbursement cannot be cleared will his salary come on time next month ? This is the beginning of disenchantment and best employees will start looking out very fast.

Reason 5: Employees who join start-ups are risk takers and potential entrepreneurs themselves. If they were not risk takers they would have not joined a start-up. Respect this spirit, nurture it , harness it by enlarging their roles so that they can breathe this into the start-up. Don't stifle it so that they leave. If they want to do something independently give them time to pursue it, even fund it. Employees who have the entrepreneurship spirit are rare, they are the ones which will give the big breakthroughs. Don't ever let them go as they are irreplaceable. Give them better incentives to make them stay, give them profit share if need be.

Most founders fail at sharing rewards, they are stingy with sharing stakes in the company. They negotiate so hard on salaries and stakes as if it is something limited they are giving away. It is not limited as value of every stake is notional till such time it is realised, and paradoxically it grows by giving it to the right employee. So giving it away is enhancing its value and it creates a culture of co-ownership that is so crucial for any start-up. Allow the employee to rise up if he has that rare gene to bring deals to the table.

Most founders are so insecure that they never want to discuss rewards or performance if the employee has achieved the impossible. They see it as his job, yes it is his job. But what if he instead of doing this job decides to start his own business. Whenever a start-up loses an employee to another start-up, or when a rockstar employee leaves to start his own venture, something has gone wrong. If the founders have not been able to retain a rock star than they will never be able to attract one too.
New Delhi: The Congress on Friday urged unity among all the voices which differ from the BJP-RSS ideology in opposing the brutality unleashed by the central government to suppress the voices of dissent.

It is disturbing to see when a central university is being used as a platform to teach those people a lesson whose voices are not in concurrence to that of BJP or central leadership of its government," Congress spokesperson Sachin Pilot said in reference to the incidents of violence occurring in Hyderabad University.

"All should stand by those individuals and ideologies which may differ from the BJP and RSS, he said.

"The attempt of the incumbent government is, if anybody is anti-BJP; he or she is shown as anti-India. That ties into their new definition of nation-hood, patriotism and nationalism," Pilot added.

What we have now seen is calibrated and deliberated attempt to suppress any voice that is in contradiction to the ideology of the incumbent government. The kind of brutality we are seeing being unleashed on faculty and students in campuses across the country is unbecoming on the democratic setup where all voices are heard, Pilot said.

It doesn't matter what opinions are expressed whether they are left right or center, we now have situation where we are not allowed to speak, he said, asking the BJP leadership to introspect on who were the people and what were the powers which compelled Rohith Vemulla to commit suicide.

Pilot also alleged the central government of creating a situation of confrontation in parliament by avoiding a dialogue with the opposition on crucial issues.

Even in parliament, where there should be a dialogue with all the political parties, the BJP has created a situation of confrontation by not having it deliberately. BJP practices a politics of brutality and politics of force, Pilot said.

The Congress leader was reacting to the police action on the Hyderabad Central University students who were protesting against the Vice Chancellor Appa Rao.

Thirty of the protesting students were reportedly injured and one off them was admitted to the intensive care unit on Wednesday.

IANS
On the third day of his deposition before a Mumbai court, David Coleman Headley threw light on a number of aspects related to his alleged terror links  from hatred to India going back to his childhood and allegations of being financed by United States agencies.

Last month, Headley had been examined by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam with reference to his role in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in launching terror strikes in India. He is serving a 35-year sentence in the US for his role in the 26 November, 2008 attacks and has turned an approver for the case in India.

Headley also told the court that he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to "cause maximum damage since then".

Asked about the reasons of his hatred, Headley said, "My school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes and that time, I developed this feeling."

People were killed in the attack, he said, adding it was one of the reasons that why he joined the LeT.

Headley also alleged that Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was Pakistan's Prime Minister in 2008, had visited David Coleman Headley's home within weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani  had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26 December, 2008. In fact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," the Pakistani-American terrorist said.

However, Headley refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies."

On Thursday, Headley told the court that terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was arrested. Headley also told the court that he had visited the Sena Bhavan twice. He, however, did not specify the year for the same.

On Tahawwur Rana, his associate from Chicago, Headley revealed that Rana knew he was an operative of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). "I informed him about the training imparted by me to LeT operatives. I disclosed to Rana that I was spying for LeT. This was four to five months before the 26/11 attacks."

In February, in possible his most controversial revelation, Headley had claimed that Ishrat Jahan was an operative of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, he mentioned her name in response to Ujjwal Nikam suggesting several specific names, leading to questions over whether the statement would count as evidence.

In his earlier deposition, Headley, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, also revealed that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI provides "financial, military and moral support" to terror outfits LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen, and how LeT planned and executed the 26/11 Mumbai attack. He had also said that Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed had 'full knowledge' of the attacks, and that they took place with his approval, as per a report in Hindustan Times.

Headley admitted to have surveyed the National Defence College in New Delhi, Chabad Houses in tourist destinations like Goa, Pune and Pushkar on instructions of Al-Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri. He also said that an attack was planned on the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai.

However, it remains to be seen as to what extent Headley's revelations lead to criminal action against terror groups which India accuses the Pakistan establishment of supporting.

With inputs from PTI
By Saquib Salim

For the past couple of months, my Facebook timeline has been occupied by comments that argue against wasting taxpayers money on social science programs in the public education system. Needless to say, each such assertion is met with a counter claim. Its wonderful for a democratic republic that such arguments break out loudly and often, but this particular exchange points at an ominous tendency, that the present government is attempting to wrest public funded education from the Indian public.

Viewed as political strategy, this is undeniably shrewd: it subverts the topic of debate and introduces a narrative that the state and its supporters can control.

The bristliest of this bunch on my news feed are those who obtained an education at engineering and business schools  these are the most vocal in their opposition to the funding of social sciences in public education. Many of them argue that there is nothing by way of nation building that such backing will achieve. Instead, they pitch their arguments in favour of technical education. These people fail to understand that to nurture and build ideas is what forms the bedrock of a civilised society  do they then presume the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Gita, Gitanjali and Kamasutra were works of technical bent? How many technocrats can they spot in this list: Buddha, Gandhi, Marx, Muhammad and Jesus?

What is more dangerous still is that this attack on higher education in India takes root in caste; a lethally divisive stratagem. A significant section of those involved in the University of Hyderabad agitation, which takes root in the death of the research scholar Rohith Vemula, have chosen to call themselves Dalit activists.

I am unclear where they obtained this appellation, but it is misleading and troubling. For them, what has transpired at the university is emblematic of the conflict between the upper castes and Dalits. But that is merely what the state wants us to believe. It is laughably presumptuous to believe that all 4,000 students protesting from within confines of the university campus are Dalits or are inextricably tied to the Dalit cause. This creates fissures in the opposition, and is precisely what the government intends.

For the record, JNUs teachers association is dominated by upper castes, and they were the real force behind the movement that ensued in the wake of the arrest of JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. Moreover, those who were subject to the most vicious attacks were the teachers  Apoorvanand Jha, Nivedita Menon, Badri Narayan Tiwari among them  all of whom belong to upper castes.

And there are those who wish that Indian universities be purged of politics. The irony is laughable  many of these people are scornful of unlettered politicians, and bemoan the lack of enlightened, informed debate in Parliament or lament that they are represented at important global summits by crude, uncivilised politicians. Are these keepers of the portals of power then suggesting that India be ruled by unschooled Parliamentarians?

And what of the state? What does it seek? Its quite clear from recent events that its approach is not as extreme as that prescribed by some of its adherents. The government is content if its flock can read and write, but cannot think.

The author is a research scholar at Centre for Historical Studies, JNU
Mumbai: Media baron Peter Mukerjea, arrested in the Sheena Bora murder case, has filed a second bail plea, contending that the chargesheet doesn't have "reasonable grounds" to hold him guilty. According to Zee News, Mukerjea said his wife Indrani was "highly ambitious" and was "willing to sacrifice and give up her children to achieve her ambitions".

The Indian Express reported Mukerjea saying that Indrani was not forthcoming about her past relationships and that he did not know that Sheena and Mikhail Bora were her biological children. The bail application states that Indrani is "extremely controlling" and has a tight hold over her employees.

She was very calculative and even resorted to subterfuge in the months of March and April 2012 while tricking Sheena into believing that Indrani was ready and willing to forget the past acrimony and anger and turn into a friend and well-wisher of Sheena, in order to lure Sheena into her plan of murdering her, the application states, as quoted in The Indian Express.

According to an India Today report, the 32-page document filed by Mukerjea's advocate Kushal Mor also stated that it is "absurd" that a man of Mukerjea's standing  a "super-achiever" would "knowingly cohabit with a woman with such shady past".

The special CBI court in Mumbai had rejected his first bail application in February.

Mukerjea's lawyer Kushal Mor filed the second bail application in the special court on Thursday.

There was no further justification for keeping him in custody as there were no "reasonable grounds" in the chargesheet to believe that "he has been guilty of offences with which he is charged", it said.

As per the chargesheet, Mukerjea's motive for committing the crime (participating in the conspiracy to murder Sheena) was that he was against the relationship between Bora and his son Rahul Mukerjea.

This was "demonstrably untrue and unsustainable", the application said, citing emails exchanged by Mukerjea and his son in December 2011, which it said proved that Mukerjea was not opposed to Rahul Mukerjea and Sheena Bora's engagement. The application also said Mukerjea was a senior citizen, suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and his health would deteriorate if he was kept in jail.

Peter Mukerjea, whose wife Indrani is the prime accused in the case, was arrested on 19 November, 2015. He is lodged at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.

Other co-accused, Indrani's former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamvar Rai, are in the same jail, while Indrani herself is in the Byculla women's jail.

The trio allegedly strangled Bora (24), Indrani's daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012. The crime came to light last August.

with inputs from PTI
A search on Google Maps with the key words 'anti-national' or 'sedition' leads one to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi.

A report in Hindustan Times said that professor and students at the University were not pleased with this bizarre development adding that they will take up the matter with Google.

The report showed how different people at JNU reacted to this. Some were offended by what seems like glitch on Google's part, while some chose to laugh it off, but most of the students interviewed felt that Google should take it down as soon as possible.

JNU has been in the eye of the storm since it's student body's president, Kanhaiya Kumar along with other students including Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were accused and arrested for sedition. All three are out on bail. Kanhaiya has already launched an attack against the BJP government.

The JNU situation, while not as volatile anymore, may get raked up again after Google's blunder.

However, this is not the first time Google maps has made a faux pas. In May 2015, a search for 'nigger king' or 'nigger house' on Google maps landed on the White House. Google was quick to issue an apology saying 'inappropriate results' have been surfacing on Google and that they will fix it immediately.
Chennai: The DMK party on Friday allotted five seats to its alliance partner MMK for the ensuing assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, the parties said.

The DMK and Congress, however, decided to have further talks on seat sharing on a later date.

In a joint statement issued here by DMK and MMK, they agreed that MMK will contest in five constituencies in the assembly elections.

The actual constituencies in which Muslim party MMK would contest, would be decided in consultation with other alliance partners, the statement added.

The DMK had earlier allotted five seats to the Indian Union of Muslim League (IUML) without specifying the names of the constituencies.

A Congress delegation led by former union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik and Tamil Nadu Congress president E.V.K.S. Elangovan called on DMK president M. Karunanidhi.

On the DMK side, apart from Karunanidhi, party treasurer M.K. Stalin, senior leader Duraimurugan and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi were present.

Speaking to reporters, Azad said the subject of seat sharing came up but nothing was decided. He said the parties discussed the electoral strategy to be followed.

He said more time had been given to the DMK on the number of seats to be allotted to the Congress.

He said DMK was expecting a couple of more parties to join its front to fight next month's assembly polls.

Stalin said the talks with Congress leaders were cordial.

In the 2011 elections, the Congress was given 63 seats by the DMK after some hard bargaining.

The DMK came out of the Congress-led central government in 2013, accusing New Delhi of not handling the Sri Lanka crisis well.

The two parties fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections separately in Tamil Nadu but drew a blank.

IANS
Brussels: A new blast was heard on Friday from a police operation in a Brussels neighborhood that once housed a hideout for the suicide bombers who targeted the city's airport and subway system this week.

Reporters at the scene described hearing a new detonation, though it was unclear whether it was a controlled police detonation or something else.

Earlier, a witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood.

About 50 officers appear to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets.

Belgian state media reported that one person has been detained in police raids in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek.

Police earlier this week found a large stash of explosives in an apartment in Schaerbeek believed to have been used by suicide bombers in Tuesday's attacks

AP
Istanbul: Two Turkish journalists went on trial in Istanbul on Friday facing possible life terms on hugely controversial espionage charges, with the court immediately banning the public from a case seen as a test of press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of leading opposition daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, his Ankara bureau chief, are

charged with espionage and revealing state secrets over a story accusing the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms to rebels in Syria.

The judge ordered on Friday for the trial to be held behind closed doors, granting a request by the prosecution which

cited security concerns around the highly controversial case.

Around 200 supporters chanting "You will not silence press freedom" applauded the reporters as they arrived at the courthouse for the start of the trial.

"We are here to defend journalism," Dundar, 54, told reporters. "We will defend journalism and the right of the

public to be told the truth."

Cumhuriyet's report sparked a furore when it was published in May, fuelling speculation about Turkey's role in the Syrian conflict and its alleged ties to Islamist groups in the country.

Erdogan reacted furiously to the allegations, personally warning Dundar he would "pay a heavy price".

Dundar and Gul were arrested in November and held in pre-trial detention for three months before being released in February on the orders of the Constitutional Court, which ruled their right to free speech had been violated.

The Court is one of the last Turkish institutions not under the full control of Erdogan who can call on the support

of the army, government and parliament.

Dundar said he and Gul had found themselves "caught between two palaces: the palace of justice and the palace of

illegality," referring to the lavish, 1,150-room presidential complex in Ankara which Erdogan had built at a cost of $615 million.

"The palace of justice, in following the decision of the Constitutional Court, released us, but the palace of

illegality has done everything in its power to put us back in prison," Dundar said before going into court.

"We will see which of the two... emerges victorious."

Gul said he had come to show that journalism "is not a crime".

"The Constitutional Court has recognised that what we did came under the practice of journalism," he said.

The prosecution of the journalists has sparked outrage among opposition and rights groups in Turkey as well as in the West, where it is seen as proof of Erdogan's determination to silence his opponents.

The prosecution has asked that Dundar and Gul be given two life terms and 30 additional years.

In a sign of the sensitivity of the case, several EU consuls to Istanbul attended the proceedings.

AFP
Comedian Garry Shandling has died suddenly in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 66.

Shandling, who starred in The Larry Sanders Show, is believed to have suffered a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on Thursday morning, local time.

He was taken to St John's Hospital by ambulance, but died a short time later, Los Angeles Police said.

His death prompted an outpouring of tributes from high-profile entertainers.
And that's not even the worst of it. One reviewer called it "a confounding mess of a movie" while another headline slammed it as "a crime against comic book fans".

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has been savaged by film critics who describe the latest DC Comics film as a "stink bucket of disappointment".

"Zack Snyder's superhero spectacle is a meatheaded, humourless mess that squanders its cast and makes little sense," wrote the UK Telegraph's Robbie Collin.

Flawed on many levels ... Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

So where did it all go so wrong? With a thin and incoherent script, overplayed superheroes and a jarring amount of CGI, apparently.

The comic book icons are at war in the new film, with Batman convinced Superman is a threat to humanity after the carnage he caused in 2013's Man of Steel.

Fairfax Media's Jake Wilson described Batman [Ben Affleck] and Superman [Henry Cavill] as "whinging superheroes", while A.V. Club dismissed them as "both epic bores".
NSW Premier Mike Baird in his office at State Parliament. Credit:Nic Walker The ruling not only saw the NSW Liberal Party threatening to take the commission to the Supreme Court but also raised fresh questions about the involvement of one of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's most trusted advisors, cabinet secretary Senator Arthur Sinodinos. Property developers can donate federally and this was the beauty of the Canberra-based FEF. Money could be donated there. But it was illegal for those donations to be sent back to NSW to be used for a state campaign. Paul Nicolaou arrives at the ICAC inquiry for questioning into his dealings with Australian Water Holdings. Credit:Rob Homer The list of donors to the FEF reads like a who's who of Australian business: Frank Lowy's Westfield; Harry Triguboff's Meriton Apartments; Walker Group; Village Roadshow; and Austral Bricks.

Five years ago, they helped pour more than $1 million into the accounts of the secretive ACT organisation. If you have never heard of the FEF, you are far from alone. Despite its high profile contributors, The FEF and its trustee, accountant Anthony Bandle, do not seek the limelight. But it is fair to say the FEF is one of the more intriguing players in Australian politics in recent years. The FEF has donated millions of dollars to conservative politics over the past 20 years, almost exclusively to the Liberal party. This week the electoral commission deemed that the NSW Liberal party was complicit in relation to its use of the FEF to "disguise" the identities of illegal donors to its 2011 state election campaign.

Because of the party's continual refusal to hand over the identities of the donors, the electoral commission has withheld almost $4.4 million in public funding. This has sent shock waves through the party. Through lawyers, the party wrote to the commission saying this funding was "of critical importance" and if it was not received by the end of April retrenchments were likely. It was also pointed out that a looming federal election meant the funding was required as "a matter of urgency". If the funding was not forthcoming, the party would have the commission hauled before the Supreme Court, the letter threatened. Premier Mike Baird has since been more conciliatory suggesting that head office should bite the bullet and reveal the donors.

Also coming out fighting is Malcolm Turnbull's hand-picked cabinet secretary, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, who was the party's treasurer at the time of the payments. Sinodinos has demanded the electoral commission excise any mention of him in its damning report, claiming that the party's current refusal to nominate the donors has nothing to do with him. But the commission said it based its finding on evidence given to the ICAC's landmark 2014 investigation into NSW Liberal party fundraising. The allegations of questionable donations to the party have dogged Sinodinos ever since his string of "don't recalls" and "don't recollects" reverberated through the hearing room during ICAC's Operation Spicer inquiry. Under oath, Sinodinos, the party's honorary treasurer and finance committee chairman, refused to accept "any responsibility for money being raised from prohibited donors" who were encouraged to donate via the FEF.

Instead he claimed it was the responsibility of the party agent, finance director Simon McInnes to ensure all was above board, and that it was not his role to "micro-manage" others. The corruption inquiry heard that the FEF was the single largest donor to the party in the lead-up to the 2011 state poll, giving $700,000. At the 2007 election, held prior to the developer donation bans, the FEF had contributed a mere $50,000. "What about this for a pub test: the chairman of the finance committee of the Liberal Party didn't know the identity of the single largest donor to the Liberal Party in an election campaign. What do you think about that?" asked counsel-assisting Geoffrey Watson, SC. Sinodinos repeated his claim "that the responsibility for compliance rested formally with the Party agent." Paul Nicolaou, the party's former chief fund-raiser, told the inquiry that Sinodinos was chairing a finance committee meeting in 2010 when the idea of washing illicit donations through the FEF was first raised.

Sinodinos said that if he had been present when this was floated "it went over my head". His evidence, in which he denied any knowledge concerning the unlawful channelling of developer donations to the state party through the FEF, had come after his previous embarrassing testimony about his lack of knowledge of huge donations to the party coming from Australian Water Holdings when he was deputy chairman and later chairman of the company. "Did you know at the Liberal Party end in your capacity as Treasurer that Australian Water Holdings was making donations to the Liberal Party?" "Not that I can recollect at the time." "Does that mean you may have been told that you've since forgotten it?"

"I cannot recollect one way or the other." "Does that suggest to you that you did not know that the company of which you were Deputy Chairman was making donations to the political party of which you were Treasurer?" "It was not a process I involved myself in." Apart from washing developer donations, the FEF has also been used as the vehicle of choice for high profile donors who would prefer that their generous contribution to the party not be the subject of prying media eyes. In April 2013, the Australian television legend Reg Grundy and his wife Joy Chambers-Grundy gave $200,000 to the FEF before that year's federal election.

The Grundy's chose to use their Monaco-based company, Akira Investments Ltd, to make the payment, thus disguising their role. When the link emerged, a spokesman for the couple explained they were directed to make the donation through the Free Enterprise Foundation by then Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane in order to "maintain their privacy". During Operation Spicer ICAC zeroed in on five donations made to the NSW Liberals during 2010-11. In its return to the NSW electoral commission for that year, the party disclosed the payments from the Free Enterprise Foundation in the amounts of $94,000, $171,000, $64,000, $358,000 and $100,000. In its return to the Australian Electoral Commission of that year, the FEF disclosed it had received $1.1 million worth of donations.

Among them was $100,000 from Village Roadshow, $50,000 from Meriton Apartments, $275,000 from Austral Brick Company, $150,000 from Westfield, $100,000 from Walker Group Holdings. But the payments to and from the FEF do not necessarily match. This would not be a problem if, as the Liberal party has argued, it is perfectly legal for the FEF to donate money to a state campaign. But the electoral commission ruled the FEF was not a charitable trust which can accept "gifts" not classified as political donations. Rather, it said payments made to the FEF are political donations and so when those funds are donated on to the NSW Liberal Party, the party must declare the name of the original donor.
Brussels: A German lawyer has told of his extraordinary brush with both Brussels bombings.

He was unlucky enough to be present when bombs exploded at Brussels airport, then an hour later witnessed another explosion at an inner-city Metro station.

But he was lucky enough to survive both unscathed, even helping injured victims to escape the chaos underground.

Marc Schreiner, 41, told German media he landed at Brussels airport on Tuesday morning just before bombs went off in the departure hall.
Meeting in the shadow of the Brussels terrorist attacks, EU Justice and Interior ministers vowed to deepen joint intelligence gathering and swiftly push through measures to share airline passenger information and step up the fight against terrorism.

"We don't need new plans, we need to fully implement the plans and measures that have been taken," said Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Netherlands, which currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency.

Coming two days after the Brussels bombings that killed more than 30 people and injured more than 260 others, the emergency meeting offered a stark counterpart to the EU's usually staid gatherings  especially since it took place near the Maalbeek metro station, one of the targets of the attacks.

"Everybody feels the attack on Belgium was an attack on Europe and the values we stand for together," Plasterk said. "Europe has been under attack before. But we've always defended liberty and democracy and we will do that together."

The meeting comes as Belgian authorities face growing criticism over security lapses, with more evidence of significant links between the Paris attacks in November and Tuesday's strikes in Brussels.

WATCH: "EU Emergency Meeting Focuses on Security"

But Belgium is not the only country to face criticism.

"There is a lack of trust, otherwise things might have been predicted and then prevented," said European Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.

Of the Brussels attackers, he added: "they were homegrown, but they were also quite well known to intelligence services. If we were sharing information, we might dissuade their actions. The same for the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris."

The Islamic State (IS) group, which has claimed responsibility for both attacks, released a video Thursday describing the Brussels strikes as a victory and urging its followers to wage jihad.

Criticism of European security

Critics are particularly questioning how the Brussels suicide bombers could have planned and carried out the attacks under the nose of Belgian authorities, since many had dubious backgrounds and links to the Paris attacks.

Brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, two of the three suicide bombers Tuesday, had criminal records but no known jihadist ties.

Turkish authorities say Ibrahim El Bakraoui was caught near the Syrian border in 2013 and extradited. Belgian's federal prosecutor's office has since said European and international arrest warrants were issued for Khaled El Bakraoui, in connection with the Paris attacks probe.

Najim Laachraoui, named by local media as the third suicide bomber, was stopped by Hungarian authorities last year driving in a rented car with Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam.

Abdeslam is now in a maximum security prison in the Belgian town of Bruges and is expected to be extradited to France. After initially resisting the move, his lawyer says he wants a speedy extradition to "explain himself."

Earlier in the day, Belgian justice and interior ministers tendered their resignations, which were rejected by Prime Minister Charles Michel.

Speaking to local broadcaster RTBF, Justice Minister Koen Geens acknowledged Belgian authorities could have been faster in following up on information passed on by Turkey about Ibrahim El Bakraoui.

"The information was passed on, but we have not been diligent, or probably not diligent enough," Geens said.

But following the EU meeting, he said things were changing swiftly in terms of sharing information and joint investigations among European countries.

A case in point took place last week, when both French and Belgian police carried out raids of residences linked to where assailants of both the Paris and Brussels attacks are believed to have stayed.

Attack 'almost inevitable'

Michael Hayden, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency, told VOA the Brussels attack was "almost inevitable."

"I realize that's a pretty dramatic word," Hayden said. "But if you look at what has happened ... the soft targets, the transportation targets, the maximum civilian casualties, [it's] something we could see."

Hayden also said it is "certainly not the last" attack IS will carry out, adding that the group has a "network that seems to be active and thriving in the heart of Europe."

The retired four-star general, who also headed up the CIA, said European intelligence and security agencies could do a better job at sharing information.

Counter-terrorism expert Thomas Reynard of the Brussels-based Egmont Institute, believes cooperation between French and Belgian police is often underestimated.

"It's not like we just started cooperation," he said. "Obviously cooperation between police, between intelligence services anywhere in the world  including often within one single country  is also difficult."

"So is this a case of perfect cooperation  definitely not," he added. "But what's important is these remain hiccups, rather than a major lack of cooperation."

Belgians still in mourning

In Brussels, there was little sign that the public is eager to place blame for the attacks.

Belgians observed another minute of silence earlier Thursday for the victims of the Brussels attacks.

Many also placed wreaths and candles in front of makeshift shrines at the Maalbeek metro station.

Asked whether Belgian authorities could have done more to prevent the attacks, state worker Griet Smaers said she didn't know.

"That's a question that will be answered in the next weeks and months," she added. "Right now, I just want to be here  this place where very weird and tough things happened."
Richard wiped at his face and smiled as a judge threw out his conviction in a 1996 New York City shooting that happened while he says he was in Florida. On Wednesday, after 20 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit, Richard Rosario walked out of jail a free man. Thirteen alibi witnesses confirmed he was in Florida. Its the culmination of one-too-many legal sagas in which NYC court convictions are being questioned. READ MORE

* Movies: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

* Books: Mrs. Houdini by Victoria Kelly

* Music: Patch the Sky by Bob Mould

* Wine: The Quintessence of Japan IV

* Food: Sensational characteristics

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Extra 2525  20 years in jail for a crime he didnt commit | Convictions questioned
The gentle voice of "The Waltons" has been silenced. The narrator, writer and creator of the iconic television show, UC alum Earl Hamner, CCM '48, HonDoc '08, died March 24, 2016, in Los Angeles. He was 92.

It was Hamner's warm, distinctive drawl that was heard narrating the stories of would-be writer John-Boy, his parents and their large extended family living in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains during the Depression. The autobiographical TV series aired for nine seasons in the 1970s and won Hamner an Emmy.

A member of UCs first class of broadcasting graduates, Hamner got a job right out of college with local radio giant, WLW, on its writing staff. He moved to New York City to break into television. After struggling for a time, Hamner eventually got assignments writing for the "Today Show" and interviewing the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Tallulah Bankhead. It was also there that he met and married his wife, Jane.

The Hamners moved to the west coast -- but struggled again. Hamner's break came in 1959 when Rod Serling offered him a chance to write for "The Twilight Zone." "It came in the nick of time," Hamner related, "because we had spent all of our money and were living on handouts from Jane's aunt. I did eight of those original episodes." (Now published under the title "Twilight Zone Scripts of Earl Hamner.")



Two years later, Hamner had published a novel about his own family, "Spencer's Mountain." Two years after that, the book was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara. His next book "The Homecoming," again about his own family, became a made-for-TV movie, which led to "The Waltons" series.
BURLEY | A Declo man was charged Wednesday with three felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child after investigators seized child pornography from his home computer.

Dustin R. Penrod, 31, was arrested at his work in Burley after investigators reviewed his home computer and his Skype account.

The Idaho Attorney Generals office said investigators from the Internet Crimes Against Children arrested Penrod Tuesday after the unit worked closely on the case with the Cassia County Sheriff and Cassia County Prosecutors Office.

A preliminary hearing is set for April 1 in Cassia County Magistrate Court.

Penrod is being held on a $250,000 bond at the Mini-Cassia Criminal Justice Center.

Investigators were led to Penrods home after they received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying child pornography was uploaded to an IP address belonging to Penrod.

When deputies arrived at Penrods home he agreed to speak with them and later during the interview gave consent for them to preview his computer.

Authorities reported finding several images of nude children ages 3 to 12 and said Penrod told them he got the images in online chat rooms.

Police viewed Penrods Skype account and found chat messages where he indicated his preference of viewing child pornography that exploits children at about age 4. During the chat, he asked another person for more videos.

On March 22, Penrod contacted police and said he would not meet them for a scheduled interview, so investigators contacted him at work and he was arrested.

During an interview after his arrest, he was shown one of the pictures from his computer. He said he remembered looking at it and saving it to his computer and admitted he liked looking at it, police said.

Police said he also denied that he needed help regarding viewing child pornography.

The charge of sexual exploitation of a child carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The following editorial appeared in Thursdays Washington Post:

If theres any lesson to be learned from the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, it is the age-old one about how appearances can be deceiving. When President Obama swapped five Taliban chiefs for the captive U.S. soldier, he clearly expected the homecoming to play as a good news story, about a person national security adviser Susan Rice said had served with honor and distinction. It quickly developed, however, that the Taliban captured Mr. Bergdahl after he had abandoned his post, and that many of his former comrades in arms deeply resented the dangers this reckless action imposed on those who risked their lives to search for him.

Soon, White House celebration of Mr. Bergdahl gave way to a campaign of denunciation in conservative circles, including Sen. John McCains, R-Ariz., ill-advised threat to hold a Senate hearing if the returnee were not punished for desertion. The vilification reached its peak with Donald Trumps labeling of Bergdahl as a traitor who should have been executed. Yet the demonization doesnt square with the facts, as a newly disclosed report from the Army general assigned to investigate Bergdahls conduct shows. Bergdahl left his unit with the bizarre goal of sparking a high-level military investigation of his grunt-level grievances. That irrational decision, in turn, seemed reflective of long-standing mental-health issues that had caused Bergdahl to fail as a Coast Guard recruit and might well have caused the Army to turn him down, too, but for a manpower shortage at the time he volunteered.

Once in Taliban hands, Bergdahl was regularly and savagely beaten, starved and mistreated; far from collaborating, he repeatedly tried to escape, earning more torture. Meanwhile, the generals report confirmed that no U.S. personnel lost their lives as a direct result of Bergdahls abandonment of his post, contrary to claims of many critics.

The general, Kenneth Dahl, recommended Bergdahl receive no prison time, as did a military hearing officer. But a higher-ranking officer referred the case to a general court-martial, where the erstwhile prisoner stands accused of not only desertion, which carries a maximum penalty of five years, but also the even more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemybased on the dangers to which his actions exposed his fellow troops, for which a conviction could earn him life in prison.

What began as a test of Obamas ability to deliver an American from captivity has thus mutated into a test of American military justices ability to remain impartial amid pressure from political overlords and a deeply polarized political debate. We agree with those who say that Bergdahls conduct in leaving his unit was wrong, that it put lives at risk and that, despite his psychological issues, he should be accountable. At the same time, the Army may have contributed to this debacle by enlisting a soldier it shouldnt have. And even without formal accountability, he has already suffered horribly for his actions.

In our view, the military justice system will pass this test to the extent it tempers judgment with due consideration of everything the case reveals about human frailtyand with mercy.
The Idaho Senate and House passed SB1389, because the law shouldnt be a trap for the unwary.

Idaho has always allowed law-abiding citizens to conceal carry firearms outside city limits without a permit. But current law makes it a crime for a citizen with a concealed firearm to cross the invisible line into a city or town. Ironically, if that weapon was carried openly  which could make some people uncomfortable  the move from county to city would be legal. That is not good policy.

The Permitless Concealed Carry bill (SB 1389) makes weapons carry laws consistent across the state. The bill extends the right to conceal carry without a permit from the counties to include cities for law-abiding citizens over the age of 21, who are not legally barred from possessing a firearm. All law-abiding citizens 18 and over retain the right to conceal carry outside city limits without a permit. Idaho will join many states that have already passed similar laws: Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Maine and West Virginia. The sky hasnt fallen in those states. It wont fall in Idaho.

Because it is good policy, SB1389 is supported by our front-line police officers and by our elected sheriffs. The Idaho Sheriffs Association voted to support SB1389. The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police organization in Idaho, supports SB1389 because, law abiding, mentally sound and responsible gun owners are our partners in keeping crime rates low in Idaho. While criminals will always find ways to possess and carry weapons regardless of restrictions, we should pass laws that protect the rights of lawful citizens to protect themselves and their families.
The shady deal struck by the Algerian army and AQIM, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, during the January 17, 2013 hostage crisis, in the Algerian gas plant in Ain Amenas, was substantiated another time during a TV talk show aired on Wednesday by Tangiers-based Medi1 TV channel.

During the program 60 minutes pour comprendre, the channel broadcast the contents of telephone talks between the terrorists holding the hostages and their leaders confirming there was coordination between Algerian army officers and Mokhtar Belmokhtar in this case.

The operation was carried out by Signed in Blood Katiba. At the time it was the latest group organized and led by the long-time Algerian rebel Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

These phone talks highlight the involvement of the Algerian army in the killing of foreign hostages at the Ain Amenas site. The hostage crisis had ended with the death of 40 employees from ten nationalities and 29 jihadists.

These details confirm the revelations made earlier by Wikileaks which published confidential e-mails received by Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State.

One of these e-mails was on Latest French Intel on Algeria hostage and was dated January 18, 2013. It was sent by Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time confidant of Hilary Clinton and former aid to her husband Bill during his presidential tenure.

According to the e-mail, the Algerian government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was surprised and disoriented by the attacks and Algerian security officials feared that the January 17 operation might mark a resumption of the 20 year civil war, so they resolved to deal with the situation with extreme force.

The e-mail quoted sources as saying that the fate of the hostages is a secondary consideration in this decision.

The secret deal between the Algerian Army and intelligence services and Belmokhtar during the hostage crisis was not the first of its kind as the confidential e-mail to Hilary Clinton revealed a previous agreement dating back to April 2012.

According to sources with access to the Algerian DGSE, the Bouteflika government reached a highly secret understanding with Belmokhtar after the kidnapping in April 2012 of the Algerian consul in GAO (Mali). Under this agreement Belmokhtar concentrated his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encouragement of the Algerian DGSE, attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara, where the Algerians have territorial claims, the e-mail states.

Other press reports had said that Algerian services had played a key role in the bloody events in Mali in 2011-2012, by exploiting the so-called Ensar eddine group, led by Algerian Lyad Ag Ghali, born in the Hoggar region of southern Algeria.

Some media outlets have even called for an international investigation to shed light on the very dangerous role played by Algeria in destabilizing the region.
Rumors about coordinated moves and secret agreements passed by Algerian Authorities with terror groups providing for sparing Algeria from terrorist attacks have circulated for years.

However, contents of phone talks of some terrorists have clearly confirmed the existence of such contacts.

The phone conversations were aired on Wednesday evening by Medi1 TV channel. The talks dating back to January 17, 2013 during the hostage crisis in Ain Amenas gas plant in Algeria took place between the terrorists holding the hostages and their leaders. These talks clearly show that there was coordination between Algerian army officers and Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

The phone talks broadcast during 60 minutes pour comprendre talk show highlight the involvement of the Algerian army in the hostage taking operation wherein 40 employees from ten different nationalities had been killed in addition to 29 terrorists.

The contents of the talks confirm revelations made this March 16 by Wikileaks which published thousands of confidential e-mails received by Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State.

One of these e-mails addressed to the then secretary of State by her long-time friend and former aide to her husband, Sidney Blumenthal, reveals secret agreements between the Algerian power and the terrorist Belmokhtar, also known for smuggling cigarettes and supplying arms to the underground network from Niger and Mali, as well as for kidnapping Westerners.

According to the e-mail, the Algerian government and security officials were not concerned about the fate of the hostages, but wanted to end the siege on the plant at any cost, was it the life of innocent workers.

They were fearing that the January 17 operation might mark a resumption of the 20 year civil war and resolved to deal with the situation with extreme force.

The fate of the hostages is a secondary consideration in this decision, sources quoted in the e-mail said.

The leaked e-mail shows that contacts between the Algerian intelligence services and Belmokhtar during the hostage crisis were not incidental but were part of a previous secret agreement dating back to April 2012. Under this agreement, Belmokhtar was urged to focus his operations in Mali and also on Morocco.

According to sources with access to the Algerian DGSE, the Bouteflika government reached a highly secret understanding with Belmokhtar after the kidnapping in April 2012 of the Algerian consul in GAO (Mali,) the e-mail states, adding that under this agreement Belmokhtar concentrated his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encouragement of the Algerian DGSE, attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara, where the Algerians have territorial claims, the e-mail adds.

The e-mail states further that in the opinion of this source, Belmohktars forces, have existing contingency plans to launch attacks in Western Sahara and against Western interests throughout the Maghreb.

Another e-mail from Sidney Blumenthal dated January 19, 2013 says that a source with access to the highest levels of the Algerian army said that the Algerian government planned to meet again Belmokhtar after the Ain Amenas attacks.

According to this sensitive source, officers of the Algerian DGSE are working to meet in secret with Belmokhtar or one of his lieutenants in northern Mauritania in the immediate future. They have been ordered to establish the reason why Belmokhtar violated their two-year old secret agreement, and launched attacks inside of Algeria.

So, when a source close to the highest levels of the Algerian army talks of a secret agreement between Algeria and the terrorists, there is no room left for doubts as to the existence of this agreement, as there is no room left for doubts about Algerias enmity towards Morocco and its schemes to undermine the stability of this neighbor.
Egyptian President Fatah al-Sisi Wednesday made few changes to his cabinet with the appointment of 10 new ministers including those of finance and investment in a move to revive the countrys financial situation and attract foreign investors.

President Sisi appointed banking veteran Amr el-Garhy as countrys new finance minister in replacement of Hany Dimian who has served in this position since 2011, in the wake of the revolution.

Egypts economy has been in agony since 2011, with economic growth stalling at 4.2 per cent.

Garhy known for his experience in the banking system after heading various bank institutions including Qalaa Holdings, El-Ahli Bank of Qatar and EFG Hermes is expected to re-launch the economy marked by a plummeting national currency. The Egyptian central bank devalued the Egyptian Pound last week in a move to balance import and export.

Dalia Khorshid, a former vice-president of Citibank who headed the institution for several years has been positioned as investment minister, tasked with attracting investors at the time when the country badly needs foreign currency.

Vacant justice minister position has been awarded to Mohamed Hossam Abdelrehim, a former top Egyptian judge who served from 2014 to 2015. He replaced sacked Ahmed al-Zend who fell from grace after making blasphemous comments about Prophet Mohammed.

Other landmark changes brought to the cabinet include changes at tourism, antiquities, public sector, labor, irrigation, civil aviation, and transport ministries.

Civil aviation minister came under fire following the crash of a Russian passenger jet in the Sinai in October 2015 few minutes after taking off from Sharm-el-Sheikh airport. Most western countries have suspended flights to and from Egypt after it surfaced that the crash was an act of terrorism leading to conclusion that security lapses have led to the disaster.

Al-Sisi also appointed 4 new deputy ministers  a deputy planning minister and three deputy finance ministers for treasury affairs, tax policy and fiscal policy.

Ministers of Defense, foreign affairs, economy and planning have all kept their positions.

The new cabinet is expected to present its economic program next week before the Egyptian parliament dominated by al-Sisi allies.
Foreign businesses in Zimbabwe have until April 1 to comply with the country new equity laws that compel them to cede at least 51 percent of their shares to locals, or face closure.

The law is the law. The law must be adhered to, Youth, Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Minister, Patrick Zhuwawo said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Comply by that date [April 1] or close shop, Zhuwao, who is also a nephew of President Robert Mugabe, told journalist.

Only 50 established firms submitted their indigenization plans to the Zimbabwe Investment Authority, with the remainder maintaining indifference.

The Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act was passed in 2008 and according to Harare, the controversial indigenization scheme aimed at empowering the majority black population who were disadvantaged by colonial rule, but critics say the law has benefitted President Robert Mugabes allies.

Mugabes opponents have been calling for an overhaul of the empowerment law saying it was responsible for Zimbabwes continued economic decline.

Analysts quoted by local media say the decision has come as a shock to potential foreign investors.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund has urged Zimbabwe to review the indigenization policy to give potential investors confidence.
More than 50,000 people have enrolled in the study available through Stanford's MyHeart Counts app since it was launched a year ago. Credit: Norbert von der Groeben

A phone app developed at Stanford to study heart disease risk and help ordinary people manage that risk has teamed up with 23andMe to add a genetics option.

Stanford Medicine and 23andMe, the personal genetics company, have collaborated to add a new module to Stanford's free MyHeart Counts app. Stanford is also testing a different phone app for patients with Parkinson's Disease.

Existing 23andMe customers may use the module to share their de-identified genetic data held by the company with MyHeart Counts researchers.

MyHeart Counts, which works on the Apple iPhone, allows users to both monitor their own cardiovascular health and share their heart and activity data with researchers at Stanford. Since the app launched last year, Stanford Medicine's innovative digital consent option has allowed users to easily decide what kind of data to share and even to change choices from time to time. The novel consent process has now been extended to those participants who wish to share their 23andMe genetic information.

Euan Ashley, MRCP, DPhil, a co-principal investigator of the MyHeart Counts project, believes Stanford's digital consent process is the first smartphone-based consent process for sharing genetic data. "This is the first time that consent for secure sharing of genetic data has been possible on a phone. It's about putting the power directly in the hands of the participant," said Ashley, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine.

Factoring in genetics

The new stream of genetic data from 23andMe customers will allow Stanford investigators to study the interaction of genetic variation, activity levels, fitness and cardiovascular health outcomes to better understand what keeps hearts healthy.

"Genotype data has revealed such important clues to human biology that combining it with real-world measures of physical activity and fitness is a very exciting prospect," Ashley said.

The MyHeart Counts app was one of the inaugural mobile health apps launched on Apple's ResearchKit platform in March 2015. Developed by researchers at the School of Medicine, the app collects data about volunteers' physical activity and cardiac risk factors. The data is forwarded to secure servers where each person's name is replaced with a random code. The coded and encrypted data is then used for research on cardiovascular disease.

So far, 50,000 people in the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom have joined the study. The Stanford researchers' dream is to enroll many more volunteers and make MyHeart Counts the largest study of physical activity, genetics and cardiovascular health.

The new 23andMe plug-in also will work with Mount Sinai's Asthma Health app, which is on Apple's ResearchKit platform, as well.

Stanford is also involved in the development of a different kind of app designed with patient care in mind. Apple's new CareKit platform launches with the mPower app that helps Parkinson's disease patients track symptoms through self-surveys and sensors in their iPhone that can detect changes in tremors, balance and gait, for example.

Helen Bronte-Stewart, MD, MS, professor of neurology at Stanford, said her team is using the app with patients and validating the accuracy of the phone measurements. "Stanford is one of the first institutions that will allow any of its patients with Parkinson's to use the mPower app (the first CareKit app) and share information from the app with their physicians," she said in an email.

Explore further Apple announces advancements to ResearchKit
Officials have investigated at least 12 cases of hepatitis linked to a heart clinic in West Virginia.

The viruses have been linked to injectable medications given during cardiac stress tests at the Raleigh Heart Clinic, local news media outlets reported.

Eight patients receiving cardiac stress tests have tested positive for hepatitis C and four others have tested positive for hepatitis B, said Allison Adler, director of communications for the Department of Health and Human Resources. Adler said there has been no evidence of HIV transmission.

The investigation started in November 2014, after a patient with no risk factors for hepatitis C was diagnosed with the virus.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Rahul Gupta said Thursday that during inspections, Department of Health and Human Resources investigators witnessed several areas of improvement for the clinic.

"There are single-use vials," he said of the clinic. "You have a drug in one vial for a patient's one-time use. But we find that it is often used for multiple uses. So that's one way of transmitting it because you can change the needle but there's always a risk with the vial."

Gupta said the extent of how many individuals were exposed to the pathogens is unknown.

Officials are now urging about 2,300 patients of the Raleigh Heart Clinic to be tested for hepatitis B and C as well as HIV.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed by patient Pamela Vines against the clinic on behalf of patients who had cardiac stress tests.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail (bit.ly/1MHewCU ) reports that the Raleigh Heart Clinic has not commented on the matter.

Explore further 6,800 exposed to HIV or hepatitis at Ottawa clinic

 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The search for a treatment for Type 1 diabetes (T1D) - which affects over 400,000 people in the UK  will be stepped up with the start of a new phase one clinical trial at Guy's Hospital in London.

The new immunotherapy treatment, called MultiPepT1De, is being developed to target the autoimmune attack that leads to the development of Type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which cells in the pancreas that make insulin are killed by the immune system. The new therapy, MultiPepT1De, will use fragments of proteins, known as peptides, in an effort to stop this process by 'switching off' the specific autoimmune attack, and hopefully preventing further destruction of the pancreatic cells.

In laboratory testing, MultiPepT1De is more powerful than the first generation treatment trialled last year and is designed to benefit a higher proportion of those with Type 1 diabetes than its predecessor.

MultiPepT1De was developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust by researchers at King's College London working in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College London.

MultiPepT1De will be trialled on 24 people with Type 1 diabetes by autumn 2016 and the study team is hopeful of positive results that build upon their previous findings showing that the first generation of MultiPepT1De, called MonoPepT1De, is safe and well tolerated, with some evidence of positive effects in T1D patients.

Professor Mark Peakman, Principal Investigator at the BRC and Head of the Division of Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences at King's, said: "We are really looking forward to seeing the results from this new trial. What we are doing is a big step forward in precision medicine, taking a set of patients with a particular disease and genetic background and giving them an immunotherapy designed in the laboratory specifically for them. Obviously we will need to wait until we have the full results of the trial before we know if it is successful but at this stage we are hopeful."

Dr Stephen Caddick, Director of Innovations at the Wellcome Trust, said: "Type 1 diabetes is a very serious condition that normally requires lifelong treatment with insulin therapy, but this promising new form of 'immunotherapy' could be set to change that. By retraining the immune system to prevent it from attacking insulin-producing cells, it may be possible to slow progression of the disease or even stop it in its tracks. If this approach is proved successful in larger studies it has the potential to transform the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes."

In the last decade, the number of people in the UK with diabetes has risen by around 65 per cent to 4m, according to Diabetes UK, with around 400,000 adults and children now suffering from Type 1 diabetes. Treating diabetes is estimated to cost the NHS around 10 billion per year.

MultiPepT1De is based on an area of study called peptide immunotherapy, which is currently being applied to a number of other diseases, including allergies and multiple sclerosis.

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, said: "This exciting new treatment has the potential to transform the lives of thousands of patients across the UK living with Type 1 diabetes. Thanks to our strong economy we invest over 1 billion every year in health research, helping us to lead the world in medical innovation and give NHS patients the latest cutting-edge treatments."

Explore further Work starts on new therapy to prevent Type 1 diabetes
So-called millennials consider their generation the most narcissistic ever.

Older generations agreebut think the narcissism goes even beyond what millennials admit.

For millennials (adults born between 1980 and 1994, and also known as "Generation Y"), this assessment by their parents' and grandparents' generations does not sit well, according to new research based on a series of studies led by Joshua Grubbs, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Case Western Reserve University.

"Millennials and older generations agree that millennials are the most narcissistic," Grubbs said. "They just disagree to the extent of the narcissism."

In the last decade, popular writings have portrayed millennials as exceptionally self-centered, creating a prevailing narrative that has become accepted as fact, to a degree, due to its repetition, Grubbs said.

"This is the first generation where there's such a prevalent exposure to the message (that) they're narcissistic, mainly through the Internet," said Grubbs. "We'd like to know, over time, what effect that has. This is the first step."

Hence, Grubbs set out to measure this phenomenon, which, until now, had been mostly based on anecdotal evidence: for example, the self-centered behavior of some young people on social media and the ubiquity of "selfies."

Emojis, fake personality testsand other experiments

In one experiment, study participants were asked to choose between emojiscartoon faces often used in texting and social mediathat best matched their feelings after being called "narcissistic." The saddest emoji face was chosen most often, while the participants who picked indifferent or happy emoji faces tended to be the most narcissistic, as measured by self-surveys.

In another experiment, millennials were given fake personality tests that told them they were narcissistic, while researchers recorded their reactions.

"Millennials generally object when the 'narcissistic' label is applied to themit feels like a putdown," said Grubbs, noting that study participants associated the term with arrogance, self-centeredness and a penchant for vanity. "The only people that found the label acceptable were people who are actually narcissisticand research shows there are very few of them."

"Still, millennials experience more anger, frustration and sadness over the label than other generations," Grubbs said. "Even if they agree with it to some extent, it still bothers them."

Another key distinction emerged in the research: What may seem like signs of "narcissism" or self-obsession to one person may be evidence of "individualism"a trait valued by millennialsto someone else.

"This research doesn't mean every single millennial is narcissistic," said Grubbs, a millennial himself. "But on the whole, people of my generation probably are more narcissistic than in past generations."

Grubbs recently presented the researchwhich will be published later this yearat the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego.

"Over time, the 'narcissistic' label could impact how millennials feel, their mental health (and) their attitudes about themselves and general generation," said Grubbs, also a pre-doctoral intern in professional psychology at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. "This provides us with a broad picture we can use in further research."

Grubbs also researches the psychology of religion and spirituality, as well as the psychology of addiction, narcissism and entitlement.
Digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of rod-shaped Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

An outbreak of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Papua New Guinea may well become a replay of the disastrously delayed response to the West African Ebola pandemic, says Jennifer Furin, Harvard Medical School lecturer on global health and social medicine, in a commentary she co-authored with Helen Cox, senior lecturer in the Division of Medical Microbiology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. The commentary was published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine on March 23 to coincide with World TB Day, which is today, March 24.

Harvard Medicine News spoke to Furin to learn more about the situation in the island province of Daru, just north of Australia in the southwestern Pacific.

HMN: What's happening on Daru?

JF: Currently, on Daru Island in Papua New Guinea, there is a significant and ongoing outbreak of MDR-TB. It is spreading throughout the country and could possibly move to Australia.

HMN: How does it compare to other outbreaks globally?

JF: Conservative estimates show that 1 percent of the population of Daru is sick with MDR-TB. This translates to about 150 cases per year in a population of 15,000. As a point of comparison, an outbreak on nearby Chuuk Island, one that the CDC was able to get under control, had 26 cases in a population of 108,000.

In one community in South Africa, Khayelitsha, there are about 200 MDR-TB cases a year, with a population of about 400,000 and an HIV prevalence above 20 percent.

Since Daru has almost no HIVwhich greatly increases the risk of contracting MDR-TBthe number of cases there is even more staggering.

HMN: How did things get so bad?

JF: A number of factors. For example, some MDR-TB patients from Papua New Guinea who had been getting treatment in Australia were sent back homemany of them to Daruin order to give them care closer to their families.

This was well-intended, but available care was limited on Daru. Once the infection started spreading on the island, it became difficult to stop.

Because the islanders are poor, people share accommodationsoften crowding 20 people into a single room. In addition, there were few diagnostic and treatment services available on the island.

Although services have improved over the years, they have not improved fast enough to keep up with the current outbreak of the disease.

Finally, international health and policy advisors to Papua New Guinea have not given the health program leaders advice that will help them to stop this outbreak.

HMN: You've called the outbreak a "time bomb." Why do you use that term?

JF: Because one does not notice the full devastation of the event right away.

With TB, people can become infected with the bacterium and not become sick until months or years later.

Someone with TB can cough in a room and expel the bacterium, where it will remain infectious for hours. Hundreds of people could breathe in those infectious organisms and not know for some time that they have been infected.

Because infection is not readily apparent, TB is much more frightening than diseases we tend to hear a lot about, such as Ebola, where infection tends to lead rapidly to disease development.

But when I describe the situation as being like a time bomb, I also mean that if we act to do something now, we might be able to defuse the situation.

HMN: What would it take to stem this disease in Papua New Guinea?

JF: There needs to be a massive influx of resourceshuman and financialinto the country. Although the government has put together an excellent plan to stop the outbreak, it does not have the funding or the staff to put the plan into action. And it is likely that the situation on Daru Island is also happening elsewhere in the country.

Urgent action on a large scale is needed now to support the planning done by the government. These plans include active case finding, rapid diagnosis and treatment with optimal therapy and preventive measures for those who have been exposed to pathogens.

HMN: TB is a treatable disease, but it still kills more than a million people every year. What does the reaction to this outbreak say about efforts to get to zero deaths?

JF: According to the new WHO "End TB Strategy," we are supposed to eliminate TB by 2030, which is only 14 years away. But we don't know how to actually eliminate TB; we have tried to control only the impact the disease has on the world's populations.

This control strategy has been highly ineffective: TB is once again the infectious disease that causes the highest mortality among adults around the world, even though it is curable.

But if we are serious about ending TB in just a decade and a half, we have to start actually eliminating it. Daru would be the ideal place to make this happen, since the number of cases is manageable and the geographic location where the cases are occurring is small.

However, so far there has been no real attempt to try to eliminate the disease on Daru. Since the global health organizations cannot even commit to eliminating MDR-TB on Daru, it is hard to believe that we will be successful in getting to zero anytime soon.

Explore further Fluoroquinolones halt multidrug-resistant-TB in contacts

More information: Jennifer Furin et al. Outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis on Daru Island, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine (2016). Jennifer Furin et al. Outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis on Daru Island,(2016). DOI: 10.1016/S2213-2600(16)00101-6
@ByKristenMClark

A handful of education policies were among the nearly six dozen bills Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed into law today -- including one that will test competency-based education in four Florida counties and another desired by the Miami-Dade school district to ensure tax revenue gets to public schools faster.

HB 1365 sets up a five-year pilot program in certain Florida counties with the goal of letting students advance through school if they can prove they've mastered what they should be learning.

Now that it's law, it can start next school year in Pinellas, Palm Beach, Lake and Seminole counties, as well as at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville.

Scott also signed HB 499, which reforms statewide the process for resolving property tax disputes heard by county Value Adjustment Boards.

The measure was a priority for Miami Dade Public Schools, which has, for years, complained that lengthy delays in tax collection have short-changed public schools by millions of dollars in funding. The new law is intended to give any and all local government entities faster access to their tax revenue by placing limits on the appeals process.

Here's a list of the education-related bills Scott signed today:
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe sees Cuba as a land of opportunity.

Amid President Barack Obamas historic trip to Cuba this past week, McAuliffe said in an interview that Virginia already has made impressive headway in tapping the island nations export market.

"Virginia now is the number one exporter of ag (agricultural) products to Cuba," McAuliffe said during a March 21 MSNBC interview. "We have now jumped to number one."

In January, the governor returned from a trip to Cuba aimed at bolstering the commonwealths commercial ties with the nation. The U.S. still has a decades-long embargo on most trade with Cuba. But a 2000 law allows limited exports of agricultural products and medical equipment. In 2014, Obama re-established formal diplomatic relations with Cuba.

McAuliffe supports ending the trade embargo.

Brian Coy, the governors spokesman, pointed us to a Feb. 12 news release where McAuliffe announced that last year Virginia exported $41.6 million in agricultural goods to Cuba, all of it soybeans and soybean meal. In past years, Virginia also has shipped apples, poultry and beef. McAuliffe said the 2015 export tally was the most that any state had sent to Cuba that year.

We tracked down the same trade figures through an online database provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It shows that in 2015, Virginias $41.6 million indeed was the most of any state, followed by Georgia, which had $30.9 million in agricultural exports to Cuba; and Florida, which had $29.9 million in exports.

Keep reading the fact-check by Sean Gorman of PolitiFact Virginia here and here is our round-up of fact-checks about Cuba including Hillary Clinton's flip flop on the embargo.
@MichaelAuslen

Gov. Rick Scott has signed into law tough new rules for abortion clinics and expanded eligibility for medical marijuana.

They were among 68 bills signed by the governor Friday afternoon. Also on the list: an anti-corruption law, broader prescribing powers for physician assistants and policies to help the criminal justice system better treat mental illness.

The abortion bill requires clinics to have admitting privileges or transfer agreements with nearby hospitals. It also blocks state funding of preventive services through Medicaid at any clinic that offers elective abortions. State law already bans funding abortions.

Supporters say the rules protect women's health and safety, while ensuring that taxpayers who oppose abortions don't "indirectly" fund them.

It's been caught up in controversy, though, as the new rules are likely to cut a source of revenue from six Planned Parenthood sites.

What's more, opponents say, legal challenges could be on the horizon.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case alleging that a Texas law with some similar provisions is a violation of women's right to have an abortion, granted by Roe v. Wade.

The other controversial health care bill that Scott signed Friday allows terminally ill patients to use full-strength medical marijuana.

Lawmakers tacked on additional provisions to address the state's low-THC cannabis law, signed in 2014 to give people with certain illnesses -- such as children who suffer from severe seizures -- access to a form of marijuana that doesn't cause a euphoric high.

Under the new law, nurseries who were not approved for the low-THC marijuana by the Department of Health could receive additional licenses, allowing the five selected nurseries to begin production.

Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, says this will speed up the process, allowing kids in need to access the drug.

But critics say it simply guarantees business for the nurseries that won contracts. One such nursery, Costa Farms, spent more than $300,000 in campaign contributions.

Scott also signed a reform to the process for resolving property tax disputes heard by county Value Adjustment Boards.

The measure was a priority for Miami Dade Public Schools, which has, for years, complained that lengthy delays in tax collection have short-changed public schools by millions of dollars in funding. The new law is intended to give local government entities faster access to their tax revenue by limiting the appeals process.
@ByKristenMClark

Vice President Joe Biden is expected to attend a lunchtime fundraiser with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Patrick Murphy on Monday in Miami.

President Barack Obama and Biden endorsed the congressman from Jupiter earlier this month in the competitive race to replace Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate next year.

At the time, Murphys campaign simultaneously said Biden and Murphy would campaign together in Florida on March 28. Its unclear yet whether any public event will be held during Bidens visit.

Biden last came to Miami in September for a speech at Miami Dade College about the importance of an affordable college education. (At the time, he had still been mulling a presidential bid but ultimately opted against one.)

Its fitting that Murphy and Biden are appearing in South Florida, as opposed to elsewhere in the state. Murphy was born in Miami, raised in Key Largo and now represents northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast in Congress.

South Florida is also where almost a third of the states 4.5 million registered Democrats reside.

Ahead of the presidential primary this month, Broward County still had the most of any county with about 554,000 registered Democrats. Miami-Dade County was second with more than 525,000, followed by Murphy's home of Palm Beach County with 361,000, according to the Florida Department of State.

The 32-year-old Murphy joined Florida's competitive U.S. Senate race a year ago this past Wednesday.

Since then, he has racked up significant endorsements and campaign contributions from major Democrats in his primary fight against fellow U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando. The primary election is Aug. 30.

Murphy has, so far, raised vastly more dollars than either Grayson or their five Republican opponents. As of Dec. 31, Murphy had raised $1.46 million, leaving him with nearly $4.3 million in the bank to spend heading into 2016.

Any dollars raised during Monday's fundraiser will be reported in the next campaign finance report that U.S. Senate candidates must file with the Federal Election Commission by April 15. That report will cover Jan. 1 through March 31.

The candidates running in the Republican primary are: U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis of Ponte Vedra Beach, U.S. Rep. David Jolly of Indian Shores, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera of Miami, Orlando businessman Todd Wilcox and Manatee County home-builder Carlos Beruff.

Miami Herald reporter Amy Sherman contributed to this report.

Photo Credit: Al Diaz / Miami Herald
The legal fight over Floridas drawing of its 27 Congressional districts is not quite over yet.

An attorney for U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, argued in a federal court in Tallahassee on Friday morning that the districts that the Florida Supreme Court ordered the state to enact late last year violated the federal Voting Rights Act. William Sheppard said the state is diluting the voting power of minority communities that were previously in Browns Congressional district, but would no longer be in her district under a new plan that the state has already begun enacting.

Her attorney, William Sheppard is asking the court for an injunction to stop the 2016 elections for Congress from proceeding under the newly redrawn 5th Congressional district, which runs from Jacksonville west to Tallahassee. Sheppard wants the court to continue to allow Brown to run in the previous 5th Congressional District. That district currently runs from Jacksonville and meanders 140 miles south of Orlando.

Sheppard argued that the black neighborhoods incorporated in the previous district are communities of interest that, if split up, would deprive black voters of the right to elect candidates of their choosing. Voters in that old district have been shattered into six other congressional districts under the plan the state has set up for the 2016 elections.

Brown, first elected to Congress in 1992, was more blunt, declaring in press conference after the hearing that the new maps looks like a perfect storm to get rid of Corrine Brown.
Its truly time for Congress to do their damn job, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said.

Tester, a Democrat from Montana, was one of three panelists Thursday who spoke about the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court following the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the subsequent process to fill the empty seat.

The panel, held at the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana, came a week after President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, currently chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the high court.

Since the nomination, Republicans in the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said they do not intend to hold hearings or a vote to confirm or deny Garlands nomination, with McConnell issuing a statement saying, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.

In his opening statement introducing the panelists, law school Dean Paul Kirgis said the Supreme Court is always a topic of discussion during election years, but that this year the court has taken center stage.

***

Each of the panelists was asked to discuss a different topic related to the Supreme Court vacancy and nomination. Tester provided his view as one of the members of the Senate, saying the Constitution is clear that it has a responsibility to hold a vote on Garlands nomination.

Theres a lot of folks who I work with who wrap themselves in the Constitution when its convenient, he said. They have decided not to do their job.

According to the UM student chapter of the American Constitution Society, one of the organizers of the panel, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., was invited to submit a statement but did not.

Apart from the immediate ramifications of leaving a court vacancy, Tester said the move by Senate Republicans sets a dangerous precedent.

Folks cant hold an entire process hostage because its an election year, he said.

When he returns to Washington, D.C., after Easter, the senator said he intends to arrange a meeting with Garland to ask him questions about where he stands on issues.

I get to look the guy in the eye, and I get to determine what hes made of, Tester said.

***

Patrick Peel, a visiting professor of political science and the second of three panelists, spoke about the political aspects of the nomination.

Most Supreme Court nominees, their nominations are driven solely by politics, he said.

In his speech, Peel laid out a series of reasons he believes Senate Republicans will continue to avoid holding hearings on Garland. He said theres an ideological gap between not just Garland and the Republicans, but that Supreme Court nominations always are more contentious when theres a gap between the nominee and the justice they are replacing. Scalia was commonly thought of as one of the most conservative members of the court, Peel said.

The presidential election isnt the only one happening this fall. A set of close Senate races also could tip control back to Democrats. While Peel said Supreme Court nominations typically poll very low in terms of priorities for voters, he said Republicans are betting on taking a stand resonating with their more active base.

***

Both Peel and the third speaker on the panel, law professor Anthony Johnstone, agreed that if the November elections dont go in Republicans' favor, they could exercise their authority by holding confirmation hearings for Garland in the lame duck period of Obamas presidency.

Johnstone, who teaches constitutional law, spoke about the legal aspects of the nominations, starting his talk by showing the section of the Constitution that says the president will nominate judges to the Supreme Court with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The Senate cant claim to be performing its role to advise and consent if its not meeting to do so, he said.

Without a nine-member Supreme Court that can decide split cases, Johnstone said the different circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals will end up serving as the highest court over the various states they hold jurisdiction in.

Youre going to have places where the Constitution means something different in Texas and Louisiana than in Montana and Idaho, he said.
Huckleberries to the Missoula Police Department for again hosting the Citizens Law Enforcement Academy, which has been offered on an almost yearly basis since 1993. The eight-week course accepts approximately 30 citizens at a time, and gives them a glimpse into the daily activities of police programs ranging from K-9 to drug recognition to crime scene investigation. The academy accepts local residents from all walks of life who apply to the program, including, fortunately, Missoulian reporters such as Dillon Kato, who has written about what he learned from the experience each week for the past eight weeks. You can find his stories on Missoulian.com.

Chokecherries to the two unnamed individuals who put their friend in danger by calling him to say they had been caught in an avalanche while snowmobiling north of Frenchtown, when no such thing happened. Their 19-year-old friend called 911 to relay the report and was warned not to go out to help them, but went anyway and was injured after he collided with a gate. He spent two hours in the snow before rescue teams spotted him by helicopter and brought him to an ambulance. His two friends were found later and told rescuers there had actually been no avalanche.

Huckleberries to the organizers and participants of the Native Youth Pow Wow, which took place at C.S. Porter Middle School last Saturday. When the Honoring our Youth Pow Wow threatened to fizzle out, in the words of Missoula County Public Schools Native American community specialist Cathie Cichosz, members of the MCPS Indian Education department made sure Native American students could continue to gather, drum and dance in celebration of their heritage with the new powwow, now in its third year and growing bigger with each event.

Chokecherries to Wyoming for shorting Montana on water from the Tongue River. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Cowboy State had reduced the volume of water in the river in both 2004 and 2006. While Montana had claimed that Wyoming did so for 15 years starting in 1981, the court ruled the Cowboy State had reduced the volume of water during only those two years, when it allowed Wyoming residents to draw more water than agreed on in a water compact signed in the 1950s.

Huckleberries to the third-annual Montana Fishing Film Festival, which continues its three-day run at the Crystal Theater through this Sunday. The diverse lineup of films included scenes from nearly every corner of Montana, and together serve to highlight the unparalleled experiences connected to one of the states most iconic pastimes. For more information, visit www.mtfishingfilmfest.com.
Dear Montana Attorney General Tim Fox:

Gloria Roark (head of the Missoula Patriots), Renee Mitchell (past member of the Missoula City Council and current member of Advocates for Our Republic) and I would like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss our questions and share our concerns about the requested refugee settlement in Missoula. Ive called many times and filled out the form on your website requesting such a meeting.

Members of Soft Landing Missoula have invited a resettlement here with the help of the International Rescue Committee. There have been no public hearings, but individuals who comprise the Missoula County Board of Commissioners and the Missoula City Council have written letters supporting the resettlement.

Mary Poole, director of Soft Landing, spoke at the March 14 City Club Missoula luncheon and answered our questions. She said the federal government is now responsible, through the IRC, for every aspect of the refugees health, employment, housing, food and clothing. Whereas 20 years ago sponsors here in Missoula were responsible for the well-being of refugees and immigrants in a very different program. Jim Buterbaugh, who has organized the recent rallies concerning refugees, made the point that the federal government has overstepped its bounds with fines and other punishments for non-compliance with their standards for the refugees. And our taxes pay for it all.

In our opinions, this is an effrontery to hard-working taxpayers. We did not ask for this new group of refugees, nor did the state of Montana, because they cant be vetted properly.

We respect you and your position concerning refugees and we look forward to meeting with you.

Jeanette Zentgraf,

Lolo
KALISPELL (AP)  A 48-year-old Columbia Falls man has pleaded not guilty to stealing nearly $10,000 in electricity by using jumper cables to hook up to a cooperative's transmission system.

Flathead County prosecutors filed the felony theft charge against Tim Wayne Bauer a year ago, but District Court officials say he was only arrested recently. He pleaded not guilty on March 3. The Hungry Horse News reports that Bauer's trial is set for August.

Charging documents say Flathead Electric Co-op had shut off service to Bauer's house in May 2012 due to nonpayment. In January 2015 a co-op employee spotted jumper cables being used to access power from the co-op's transmission system.

Bauer's public defender, Vicki Frazier, did not immediately return a phone call from the Associated Press on Friday seeking comment.
BOZEMAN  A Bozeman man who was charged with killing his girlfriend earlier this month faces additional charges for breaking into her house, stealing her vehicle and violating a restraining order.

Gallatin County prosecutors filed a motion Thursday to charge Anthony Tobias Fagiano with deliberate homicide, aggravated burglary, theft and violating an order of protection that had been served on him 17 days before the shooting, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

Fagiano, 35, appeared in Justice Court on the homicide charge on March 9  hours after 37-year-old Darcy Buhmann was killed. He did not enter a plea. His bail was set at $1 million. An initial appearance on the new charges is set for Monday.

Charging documents say Fagiano reported breaking into Buhmann's house and shooting her in the abdomen and head. He said he took her vehicle, drove into the woods and contemplated killing himself. He texted his mother, his sister and Buhmann's estranged husband to tell them that he'd killed her, court records said.

Fagiano's sister called him and convinced him to surrender to law enforcement, court records said. Officers found the suspected murder weapon in Buhmann's car in the parking lot of the law and justice center.

Fagiano's public defender, Mary Kramer, did not return a phone call from the Associated Press seeking comment.
BOX ELDER  State Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, said Thursday that accusations she is a racist because she spoke at an event hosted by an anti-Indian group are false.

The claims were made against Fielder, who is a member of the State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee, by some Montana tribal members and a human rights group last November after she spoke at an event sponsored by the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance.

"To characterize that as an anti-Indian group is a mischaracterization," Fielder told the committee at a meeting here. "It is being done to stifle this conversation of addressing public lands in the state."

Fielder spoke about her advocacy of transferring federal lands to the state during a regional education conference sponsored by the alliance last September.

The group says it does not tolerate racism, but the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network has called it "the most notorious organized anti-Indian group in the U.S., dedicated to terminating tribal governments, abrogating treaties and turning management of tribal resources over to the state government."

Elaine Willman, a board member for the alliance, wrote a memorandum to the committee clarifying its position and relationship with presenters.

"Presenters representing various organizations are not asked to endorse CERA in order to participate; nor does CERA endorse any guest presenters or organizations. ... CERA is not a 'racist' organization and is held in high regard by numerous national experts and organization," the letter stated.

***

At the end of a November meeting of the committee, Alvin "Jim" Kennedy, tribal councilman at Fort Belknap; George Horse Capture Jr., councilman at Fort Belknap; and Rachel Carroll Rivas of the Montana Human Rights Network questioned if Fielder belonged on the committee. Four others also sent in public comments questioning Fielder's attendance and speech at the event, calling it "inappropriate," "dangerous" and "unbecoming."

At that time, committee members steered the conversation toward an end, saying Fielder, who was not at that meeting because of an excused absence, could not defend herself.

Fielder said Thursday the issues in her district, which is heavily forested, have prompted her to develop an expertise in public lands management. Because of her knowledge, groups that agree states can manage lands better than the federal government will invite her to speak at their events. Senate District 7 includes Sanders and Mineral counties, and small parts of Missoula and Flathead counties.

She said the accusations against her are meant to stifle discussion about transferring federal lands to state ownership and management.

"I've been running into this almost everywhere I go, people that do not want this discussed at all. I have had legislators tell me if it was brought up they would walk out of the room and not listen," she said.

"There has ... been a concerted effort to try to dirty and slander the reputations of the people that are working for better land management through public control."

Fielder said her attendance at an event does not equate to endorsing the event organizer's opinions.

"I don't have an affiliation with CERA; they don't have an affiliation with me," she said. "I was simply asked to come speak on the issue of public lands. ... I can assure you I'm not a subscriber of CERA's policies."

The only part of the conference she attended was her talk, but while she was there she saw people from her district who are members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fielder said.

She is frustrated with accusations of racism.

"I think the travesty of that discussion is that racism does exist and when you start calling things that aren't racism racism, you muddy the waters of what racism really is," Fielder said.

"Racism is dangerous. We shouldn't stand for anybody that's trying to divide people with accusations of racism when it does not exist."

***

In her letter, Willman wrote that CERA organized in the mid-1980s to "assist enrolled tribal members who have very limited civil rights within tribal governing systems."

State Rep. George Kipp III, D-Heart Butte, said CERA's relationship with tribes in the 1980s was not a good one. Tribes like the Blackfeet saw the alliance as a threat to their existence, though he said based on Willman's letter it appears it has changed its mission.

"They don't want to see that monster rise again," Kipp said. "Conflicts existed before, there were fistfights on the Blackfeet Reservation. They wanted to cut the reservation in half. These issues were very big in the '80s and relevant to the existence of our people."

Kipp said he understood Fielder's side of the issue, but asked her to be more aware of future associations she makes.

"That's your passion and I can only caution you because you are on this committee  this committee was created for a purpose, this committee is to develop a relationship between the tribes and the state. That's what we're about," Kipp said.

Kipp said the Fort Belknap tribal members who spoke at the November meeting were invited Thursday but didn't attend. "I don't see them here today, maybe they have flushed us down the toilet."

Fielder said she welcomes meeting with members of the Fort Belknap tribes, and all other Montana tribes, to clarify her stance.

In a special report for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the Montana Human Rights Network, advisory board member Chuck Tanner said "CERA leaders promote misinformation about tribal treaty rights and sovereignty, espouse far-right conspiracy theories that promote bigotry against Indian people and others, call for mean-spirited and inflammatory attacks on tribal communities, and have allied their cause with a broader far-right movement that threatens civil rights, environmental protection and economic justice."

"In the end," Tanner wrote, "CERA's anti-Indianism is an affront to the United States Constitution and the spirit of tolerance and equality between all peoples."

***

Fielder said she will keep speaking at meetings sponsored by groups like the alliance.

"I will continue to go and address whoever would like to learn about it, but I think it is disgusting what certain groups are trying to do to suppress the conversation and suppress discussion and dirty and toxify the discussion just so people won't talk about better public land management," she said.

Fielder said she was recently asked by the Americans Lands Council to be its CEO as an unpaid volunteer, a position she accepted.

She is welcome to working with tribes through the Lands Council, but clarified the group is not pursuing anything related to Indian land regulations.

Thompson Falls, where Fielder lives, is surrounded by millions of acres of federally controlled lands. The community suffered last summer, she said, when firefighters were grounded by federal regulations that prohibited the use of state helicopters because they weren't on a list of federally approved devices.

Fielder said millions of dollars of timber were lost and habitat was unnecessarily destroyed.

"Our streetlights were on in the middle of the day because it was so dark with smoke the light sensors were telling our streetlights it was nighttime," she said. "Communities were evacuated, property burned."

Fielder said this was another "really serious consequence out of a stupid regulation out of Washington, D.C."

There are parallels between how Thomson Falls is suffering and the social problems members of the interim committee heard as they spent time in two reservation towns along the Hi-Line this week.

"Our communities are economically depressed and unsafe," Fielder said. "People used to come to Thompson Falls for work, they used to come to our community from Missoula to find work. Most of our working-age people have gone somewhere else to find work, so our elders are left with no families to look in on them."

"What happened to our community because we can't provide for ourselves anymore because our resources have been locked up and locked down is we're seeing the same kind of horrific trends in our community that reservations are trying to battle  poverty, crime, drugs, a downward spiral of society, suicide issues."
Federal health authorities said for the first time on Friday how long couples who have been exposed to the Zika virus should wait before trying to get pregnant.

The officials, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that they had decided to recommend a waiting period based on the latest information about the science of the virus. The Zika virus has been linked to a surge of birth defects in Brazil, and to cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, in which a persons immune system attacks part of the nervous system, leading to some paralysis.
Though some have questioned whether Belgiums fragmented and linguistically divided bureaucracy could be slowing things down, Mr. Jonniaux flatly rejected that idea. He cautioned against comparisons with other attacks, including the Nov. 13 massacre in Paris, saying identifying people killed in explosions is much more difficult than those killed by gunfire.

After a plane crash, he noted, investigators begin with a manifest of who was onboard, but no such list exists for a subway. The fact that the victims, including at least 300 wounded, are believed to be from at least 40 countries, only complicates the notification process.

I dont think we are taking longer than other countries like Spain or Britain, said Mr. Jonniaux, whose Victim Identification Team helped investigators after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine in July 2014 and after the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. The state of the victim is much different.

The Belgian governments crisis center issued a statement responding to the families frustration, saying: It is imperative not to make a mistake.

Mr. Jonniaux said his seven-member team had added 23 people after Tuesdays attacks.

As rescue crews began sorting through the rubble after the morning blasts, victims from the airport were sent to a university hospital in the town of Leuven, while those from the Maelbeek subway station went to the military hospital in Neder-over-Heembeek in northern Brussels, which is also serving as a coordination point for relatives. The injured have since been scattered to 48 hospitals across Belgium, and some were sent to France.

At the military hospital, a blocky concrete structure, the relatives of the missing must pass through two security checkpoints guarded by armed soldiers and police officers, and show identification. They are greeted by members of the Red Cross and officials from Mr. Jonniauxs identification team, as well as a psychologist to help shepherd them through the process.
Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski were siblings living in Belgium, but they never lingered in one place for long. The children of a hotel manager, they had lived in Turkey, Greece and Germany, and were on their way back to New York, a city they both loved, when they arrived at the departures hall at Brussels Airport on Tuesday.

Mr. Pinczowski was going to meet his fiancee in New York, where he and his sister recently lived, so they could attend a wedding together in North Carolina. His sister was planning to spend the weekend with friends. They were standing in the Delta ticket line and were on the phone with their mother, Marjan Pinczowski-Fasbender, when two bombs exploded.

James Cain, the father of Mr. Pinczowskis fiancee, Cameron Cain, said in an interview that family and friends who had gathered in Brussels learned Friday morning that Ms. Pinczowski, 26, and Mr. Pinczowski, 29, had not survived the blasts.

Mr. Pinczowski and Ms. Cain, who met five years ago in North Carolina, both loved to travel and were interested in world news and politics.
One of the bombers who blew himself up in Brussels this week was also the bomb maker who assembled the suicide vests for two of the terrorists who carried out the Paris attacks.

Belgian officials on Friday identified Najim Laachraoui, 24, as one of two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport on Tuesday.

They also said he had been involved with making at least two of the bombs used in November to attack the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and the Stade de France in St.-Denis, north of Paris.

Here is what we know about Mr. Laachraoui from public records, official statements and an interview with one of his siblings.
ISTANBUL  A long-awaited trial of two Turkish journalists facing potential life sentences on espionage charges began Friday, but was quickly closed to the public and news media, prompting outrage and concerns over whether the proceedings could be free and fair. A subsequent postponement, until April 1, did little to stanch the criticism.

The espionage charges are based on reporting by the journalists on weapons shipments by the countrys spy agency to Syrian rebels opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Both the charges, which press organizations have denounced as baseless, and the decision to move the trial behind closed doors were criticized by Turkish journalists, anti-government activists and foreign governments. They see the closing of the trial as a vivid demonstration of a tilt toward authoritarian rule by the government of Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The government said it was closing the proceedings to protect state secrets, a claim that was dismissed by the hundreds of journalists, politicians, diplomats and activists packed into the courtroom for what they believed would be a public trial. When told that they would have to leave, they erupted in anti-government chants.

You are all dogs of Tayyip, shame on you! one woman shouted, referring to Mr. Erdogan, who personally filed the criminal complaint against the journalists and was accepted on Friday by the judge as a co-plaintiff in the case.
Havana  On Monday, the first full day of President Obamas historic visit to Cuba, the professor of my class on Cuban-United States relations, a woman in her 40s, wheeled a TV into our classroom in the Jose Marti building at the University of Havana, the set looking like it dated from the 1970s.

This is too big a deal for us to miss for class, she said in Spanish, turning on the old machine. Within seconds a fuzzy screen lit up showing the image of Mr. Obama. He was in La Plaza de la Revolucion, and the American national anthem was playing.

We had been waiting for this day for weeks.

In February, when the president made the surprise announcement that he planned to make an official visit to Cuba, the first sitting president to do so since Calvin Coolidge, Havana was in shock. No one could believe that the visit was happening, and everyone wanted to talk about what it signified.

And I, as an American college student spending a semester abroad in Cuba, at the University of Havana, was a natural person to ask.
Has any director used the kitchen to such devastating effect as Chantal Akerman?

In her first film, Saute ma Ville (Blow Up My Town), made in 1968 when she was just 18, Ms. Akerman sings cheerily as she trashes a tiny kitchen, then rests her head on a lit burner. The screen goes black, and there is the sound of an explosion. This Belgian filmmakers last film, No Home Movie, which will be released on April 1, is a documentary about losing her mother, set largely in her mothers Brussels apartment.

In one scene, the two sit at the kitchen table, eating potatoes that Ms. Akerman has prepared, telling her mother that even she, the peripatetic artist, has mastered a few domestic skills. Its not hard to see the moment as a reference to a memorable potato-peeling scene in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Ms. Akermans masterpiece from 1975 that depicts, in exacting detail and repetition, the daily routine of a Brussels housewife (Delphine Seyrig), up to an unexpected, violent climax.

The way that kitchens  as much as bedrooms  can confine women but also provide intimate spaces for connection and conversation and serve as a backdrop to the drama and trauma of daily life is a recurring motif in her work. Her features and documentaries will be the subject of a retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as tributes at Film Forum, Anthology Film Archives, and the Museum of the Moving Image, starting this month and running through April, offering New York audiences a fresh look at a highly influential avant-garde figure, who died in October at 65.

Her cinema dealt a lot with confinement  how we close ourselves in and how we find ways to escape this prison that our spirit can build, that our body can build, said Marianne Lambert, whose documentary on Ms. Akerman, I Dont Belong Anywhere, opens Wednesday, March 30. That was connected to the history of her mother and of the Shoah.
BOX ELDER  State Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, said Thursday that accusations she is a racist because she spoke at an event hosted by an anti-Indian group are false.

The claims were made against Fielder, who is a member of the State-Tribal Relations committee, by some Montana tribal members and a human rights group last November after she spoke at an event sponsored by the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance, or CERTA.

"To characterize that as an anti-Indian group is a mischaracterization," Fielder told the committee at a meeting here. "It is being done to stifle this conversation of addressing public lands in the state."

Fielder spoke about her advocacy of transferring federal lands to the state during a regional education conference sponsored by the alliance last September. The group's members says they do not tolerate racism, but the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network has called them "the most notorious organized anti-Indian group in the U.S., dedicated to terminating tribal governments, abrogating treaties, and turning management of tribal resources over to the state government."

Elaine Willman, a board member for the alliance, wrote a memorandum to the committee clarifying its position and relationship with presenters.

"Presenters representing various organizations are not asked to endorse CERA in order to participate; nor does CERA endorse any guest presenters or organizations.  CERA is not a 'racist' organization and is held in high regard by numerous national experts and organization," the letter said.

At the end of a November meeting of the committee, Alvin "Jim" Kennedy, tribal councilman at Fort Belknap; George Horse Capture Jr., councilman at Fort Belknap; and Rachel Carroll Rivas with the Montana Human Rights Network questioned if Fielder belonged on the State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee. Four others also sent comments questioning Fielder's attendance and speech at the event and called her attending the event "inappropriate," "dangerous" and "unbecoming."

Committee members at that time steered the conversation toward an end, saying Fielder, who was not at that meeting because of an excused absence, could not defend herself.

Fielder said Thursday the issues in her northwestern Montana district, which is heavily forested, have prompted her to develop an expertise in the management of public lands. Because of her knowledge, groups that agree states can manage lands better than the federal government will invite her to speak at their events. Senate District 7 includes Sanders and Mineral counties and small pockets of Missoula and Flathead counties.

She said the accusations against her are meant to stifle a discussion about transferring federal lands to state ownership and management.

"I've been running into this almost everywhere I go, people that do not want this discussed at all. I have had legislators tell me if it was brought up, they would walk out of the room and not listen," she said.

"There has  been a concerted effort to try to dirty and slander the reputations of the people that are working for better land management through public control."

Fielder said her attendance at an event does not equate with her endorsement of the event organizer's opinions.

"I don't have an affiliation with CERA; they don't have an affiliation with me," she said. "I was simply asked to come speak on the issue of public lands.  I can assure you I'm not a subscriber of CERA's policies."

The only part of the conference she attended was her talk, but while she was there, she saw people from her district who are Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal members, Fielder said.

She is frustrated with accusations of racism.

"I think the travesty of that discussion is that racism does exist, and when you start calling things that aren't racism racism, you muddy the waters of what racism really is," Fielder said. "Racism is dangerous. We shouldn't stand for anybody that's trying to divide people with accusations of racism when it does not exist."

In her letter, Willman wrote that CERA organized in the mid-1980s to "assist enrolled tribal members who have very limited civil rights within tribal governing systems."

State Rep. George Kipp III, D-Heart Butte, said CERA's relationship with tribes in the 1980s was not good. Tribes like the Blackfeet saw the alliance as a threat to their existence, though he said based on Willman's letter it appears it has changed its mission.

"They don't want to see that monster rise again," Kipp said. "Conflicts existed before, there were fistfights on the Blackfeet reservation. They wanted to cut the reservation in half. These issues were very big in the '80s and relevant to the existence of our people."

Kipp said he understood Fielder's side of the issue, but asked her to be more aware of future associations she makes.

"That's your passion and I can only caution you because you are on this committee, this committee was created for a purpose, this committee is to develop a relationship between the tribes and the state. That's what we're about."

Kipp said the Fort Belknap tribal members who spoke at the November meeting were invited Thursday but didn't attend. "I don't see them here today, maybe they have flushed us down the toilet."

Fielder said she welcomes meeting with members of the Fort Belknap tribes, and all other Montana tribes, to clarify her stance.

In a special report for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the Montana Human Rights Network, the Missoulian reported, Chuck Tanner said "CERA leaders promote misinformation about tribal treaty rights and sovereignty, espouse far-right conspiracy theories that promote bigotry against Indian people and others, call for mean-spirited and inflammatory attacks on tribal communities, and have allied their cause with a broader far-right movement that threatens civil rights, environmental protection and economic justice."

"In the end," Tanner writes, "CERA's anti-Indianism is an affront to the United States Constitution and the spirit of tolerance and equality between all peoples."

She will keep speaking at meetings sponsored by groups like the alliance.

"I will continue to go and address whoever would like to learn about it, but I think it is disgusting what certain groups are trying to do to suppress the conversation and suppress discussion and dirty and toxify the discussion just so people won't talk about better public land management."

Fielder said she was recently asked by the Americans Lands Council to be their CEO as an unpaid volunteer, a position she accepted.

She's welcome to working with tribes through the Lands Council, but clarified the group is not pursuing anything related to Indian land regulations.

Thompson Falls, where Fielder lives, is surrounded by millions of acres of federally controlled lands. The community suffered last summer, she said, when firefighters were grounded by federal regulations that prohibited the use of state helicopters because they weren't on a list of federally approved devices.

Fielder said millions of dollars of timber were lost and habitat was unnecessarily destroyed.

"Our streetlights were on in the middle of the day because it was so dark with smoke the light sensors were telling our streetlights it was nighttime she said. "Communities were evacuated, property burned."

Fielder said this was another "really serious consequence out of a stupid regulation out of Washington, D.C."

There are parallels between how Thompson Falls is suffering and the social problems members of the interim committee heard as they spent time in two reservations towns along the Hi-Line this week

"Our communities are economically depressed and unsafe," Fielder said. "People used to come to Thompson Falls for work, they used to come to our community from Missoula to find work. Most of our working-age people have gone somewhere else to find work, so our elders are left with no families to look in on them.

"What happened to our community because we can't provide for ourselves anymore because our resources have been locked up and locked down is we're seeing the same kind of horrific trends in our community that reservations are trying to battle  poverty, crime, drugs, a downward spiral of society, suicide issues."
Civil #: 16-000412

Fifthe Third Mortgage Company

VS.

Eric H. Finley And Christine A. Finley

As a result of the judgment rendered in the above referenced court case, an execution was issued by the court to the Sheriff of this county. The execution ordered the sale of defendant(s) Real Estate Described Below. To satisfy the judgment. The property to be sold is

Lot 1 of Wood's First Addition, West Liberty, Muscatine County, Iowa

Property Address: 305 South Columbus St., West Liberty, IA 52776

The described property will be offered for sale at public auction for cash only as follows:

Sale Date: 05/10/2016

Sale Time: 9:30 am

Place of Sale: Muscatine County Jail Lobby, 400 Walnut Street, Muscatine

This sale not subject to redemption.

Homestead: Defendant is advised that if the described real estate includes the homestead (which must not exceed 1/2 Acre if within a city or town plat, or, if rural, must not exceed 40 Acres), defendant must file a homestead plat with the Sheriff within ten (10) days after service of this notice, or the Sheriff will have it platted and charge the costs to this case.

Property exemption: Certain money or property may be exempt. Contact your attorney promptly to review specific provisions of the law and file appropriate notice, if applicable.

Judgment Amount: $110,496.82

Costs: $7,466.77

Accruing Costs: Plus

Interest: $1,286.61

Sheriffs Fees: Pending

Date: 03/18/2016

Attorney:

Benjamin W. Hopkins

1350 NW 138th St.

Ste. 100

Clive, IA 50325

(515)222-9400

C.J. Ryan

Muscatine County Sheriff

Melissa Hurlbut

Civil Deputy
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MUSCATINE, Iowa Iowa State University student Laurelin Haas, of Muscatine, will be among 22 ISU undergraduates who present their research to legislators and others during the eighth annual "Research in the Capitol" on Tuesday, March 29. Their presentations will be in the rotunda of the State Capitol building in Des Moines.

Haas, who majors in community and regional planning and environmental studies, will present Site Suitability Analysis for Student Housing in Ames, Iowa." Her research mentor is Monica Haddad, associate professor of community and regional planning.

More than 60 undergraduate students from Iowa's three Regent universities (Iowa State, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa) will display their research posters and describe their projects. The event highlights the importance of research to the undergraduate learning experience.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  A new addition in town, Jaydes Vapor Lounge, boasts millions of flavor possibilities from its custom juice bar with about 100 mixable E-liquids. The stores owner, Jayde Tran, of Davenport, has two vapor lounges in the Quad Cities. Tran said that she and her knowledgeable staff will operate the Muscatine location, bringing locals the trendiest vapor fix.

We have the most advanced items for vaping, but we also have what people who are just starting to vape need. We can help people pick the model of personal vaporizer that suits them, Tran said of the lounge located at 2110 Park Ave., Suite B.

Vaping is the use of a battery operated device that heats up a liquid solution, usually containing nicotine, and is often used as a cigarette replacement. It has also become a trend and the personal vaporizer, juice flavors and the amount of heat the units coil puts out can be customized to fit the experience the user is looking for. Lounge employee Mike Tingley, 19, builds custom coils for vaporizers allowing the user to create large vape clouds when they exhale.

I can make it (the juice, or liquid solution) burn hotter. It produces more flavor, said Tingley, who added that some people enjoy flavors such as cheese cake to be warmer and other flavors such as fruit to be cooler; it all depends on personal preference.

Tran said she offers only high-quality juices, made in the United States. The 18-and-older Vapor Lounge provides free samples, a variety of nicotine concentrations as well as liquids in varying consistencies.

The thicker your juice is, the more clouds it will create. The thinner the juice, the more flavor it will have, Tran explained.

Some of the most popular flavors include concoctions she has developed such as Mind Meld, Cereal Killa, Grand Master and the popular Wake N Vape; a mixture of coffee, espresso and Carmel flavors.

Trans other Jaydes Vapor Lounge Locations, in Davenport and Moline, have held competitions to see who could make the largest vape cloud. Tran said she expects that this location will be as popular as the Quad Cities locations given the decent turn out since the March 17 grand opening.

She added that the lounge will be continuously evolving to meet the customers needs.

We will have new product every week. Its never a dull moment, Tran said.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
The woman with the worlds longest dreadlocks has found love with a hair stylist from Kenya.

Known as the Rasta Rapunzel, Asha Mandela has locks that measure a lengthy 55ft- longer than a double-decker bus and weigh 19 kgs. Asha holds the Guinness World Record for the worlds longest dreadlocks.

The 50 year old from Florida has found a match made in heaven with new husband, Emmanuel Chege, a qualified hairstylist from Kenya. He devotes his time to grooming her tresses, which reportedly take two days to wash and dry.

Emmanuel, who has been a hair stylist for 15 years, met Asha online three years ago after seeing her photos on hair websites.

He contacted Asha, and the pair met up while she was on a business trip to Kenya eight months later.

It was so amazing to see all this amount of hair, he recalled. It was more than in my imagination. At first I thought maybe her locks were almost to her knees or to the ground, but the first glance when I saw her hair, it was so long, so it was so amazing and her beauty was so amazing too.

A whirlwind romance followed and within a year of meeting they were married in Florida, where she lives.

Now, almost two years later, Mandela has entrusted the care of her precious dreads solely to her husband.

My husband helps me with everything with my hair. Im so spoilt since hes been taking care of it and Ive got totally lazy. He will massage my scalp, groom my hair or twist or wash it. He does a really good job of taking care of it so thats a plus.

Asha, who owns her own hair product business, was told by doctors her dreadlocks would paralyse her if she kept on growing them as the weight of her hair is affecting her back.

Now Emmanuel is training her at the gym to strengthen her back muscles and Asha has already lost almost 31kgs.

The couple now hope to have a little Rasta baby with Asha vowing no comb is going to go on their head.

Here are some of the the couples photos

















Source: Daily Mail




Robert Alai returns to the blogs with another shocker.

Okoa Kenya is the only thing trending right now, and sooner or later he would add his voice. It was assumed that since he has aligned himself with ODM and is even rumoured to be eyeing a Nairobi parliamentary seat on an ODM ticket, he would join the attack on IEBC.

However, Alai directed his sword to Cord.

Writing on Facebook yesterday, he said that they cant solely blame IEBC for the bungled Okoa Kenya signature drive, but should look in-house. He accused two people; Engineer Carey Orege and George Mboya of sabotaging the exercise.

Heres that Facebook post.


Iconic reggae family Morgan Heritage have found some land in the country to settle in. A few months ago, Gramps Morgan revealed his intentions of starting a farm in the country but had not found some land.

Well, according to his brother Mojo Morgan, they are planning to buy land and settle in Naivasha.

Gramps loves the countryside, which is very good for his farm business. We have been researching a lot, said Mojo who has also set up his own online ticketing company called TicketPal in Kenya.

He added that the group might buy another home in Nairobi. He, however, prefers Westlands and Runda as compared to Kilimani, which he described as far from everything.

Nairobi is where are the business happens. It will be our headquarters in Africa where we stop over whenever we have something going on in the continent. Kenya is home, Mojo told Heads Up.

Mojo who currently resides in Westlands added that he spends some of his weekends riding a bike at Karura forest. He also revealed that he would rather hang out in a shopping mall than a night club.

We still have a brand to preserve so dont expect to bump into us every other day.


SEOUL, South Korea  An American detained in North Korea said he had spied against the country and asked for forgiveness at a media presentation Friday, nine days after a U.S. tourist was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion.

Kim Tong Chol told a press conference in Pyongyang that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North's leadership and tried to spread religious ideas among North Koreans.

Describing his acts as "shameful and ineffaceable," Kim said he feels sorry for his crime and appealed to North Korean authorities to show him mercy by forgiving him.

He was born in South Korea and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In an interview with CNN in January, Kim said he lived in Fairfax, Virginia, before moving in 2011 to Yangji, a city near the Chinese-North Korean border. He said he commuted daily to Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea, where he was president of a trade and hotel services company.

He said in the Pyongyang press conference that he was detained in Rason last October.

North Korean authorities often arrange press conferences for U.S. and other foreign detainees in which they read statements to acknowledge their wrongdoing and praise the North's political system. Those detainees have said after their releases that they were coached or coerced on what to say.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service, the country's main spy agency, said Kim's case wasn't related to the organization in any way and offered no further comment.

On March 16, North Korea's highest court sentenced Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate, to prison after he confessed he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church. He tearfully confessed at his press conference to the attempted theft, which would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge.

The U.S. government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns.

The North's actions on the two American detainees came as it faces mounting pressure from the United States, South Korea and their allies following its nuclear weapons test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year. In recent days, North Korea has conducted weapons launches and issued warlike rhetoric in response to South Korean and U.S. military drills that it sees as an invasion rehearsal.

Outside analysts say North Korea often attempts to use foreign detainees to wrest outside concessions. North Korea in the past released some U.S. detainees after high-profile American figures visited the country.

North Korea is currently holding three South Koreans and a Canadian pastor for what it calls espionage and attempts to establish churches and use religion to destroy the North's system.
Few iconic artists have the intensity and energy of Jo Dee Messina, with a stage presence that is enrapturing and an attitude that is contagious. Perhaps that is why Beachbody has fallen so in love with this 21 Day Fix Challenge alum over the last year. Joining forces with the wellness company and the 21 Day Fix creator, Autumn Calabrese, for an upcoming project, Jo Dee will treat fans to new music in time for summer.

Beachbody recently announced the launch of its Country Heat program, a country dance-inspired workout that will become available on July 28, 2016. Included on the DVD will be six thirty-minute cardio routines to country songs, such as Luke Bryans Kick the Dust Up, Thomas Rhetts Crash and Burn, and Blake Sheltons All About Tonight. Also finding its way on to the list of upbeat, catchy country tunes will be the Jo Dee-penned Night Crawl, created especially for the program. Night Crawl will serve as a bonus line dance, supplementary to the high-energy, low impact toning and tightening workouts.

Autumn explained the inspiration behind the creation of Country Heat:

Country Heat was inspired by my passion for country music and my love of both fitness and dance. I created this program for people who have been looking for a fun and easy alternative to fitness and Im confident people will quickly see just how effective it is to work out while having fun!

In addition to the six workouts and bonus line dance, the Country Heat program will include a quick-start guide, a thirty-day program calendar, portion-control containers, and a nutrition program. For more information and updates on Country Heat and when you can hear Jo Dee Messinas new, original song, visit CountryHeat.com.
Iranian MP: Iran will conduct military exercises wherever it deems necessary

Finnish delegation to visit Ankara to discuss NATO membership

Social media giants are likely to oppose Turkey's new law

Pastor steals $900,000 to buy stocks and car in U.S.

Lithuanian President Nauseda is named most popular politician in country

Charles III will embark on longest tour of world in history of royal family

Deputy Director of Institute of Oriental Studies of RAS: Baku's goal is that Karabakh has no Armenian population

Hurricane Roslyn in Pacific Ocean intensifies to third category

Italy's new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, begins forming government

U.S. Treasury Department records budget deficit of over $429 billion in September

Why does Baku need aggravation on border with Armenia? Skakov assesses likelihood of new aggression

Iranian Foreign Minister: I had important meeting with Pashinyan in Armenia

Johnson spotted in economy class on flight from Dominican Republic to Britain

Armenian PM and European Parliament Resident Rapporteur for Armenia discuss Karabakh situation

Authorities in Kherson urge residents to immediately leave city

Russian expert: Baku's attempts to open corridor by force will cause negative response not only from IRI or Russian

Telegraph: Britain to send about 60 old tanks to NATO base in Germany for exercises

Artak Beglaryan: You will see me in new position

Netanyahu: Iran nuclear deal could bring Russia 'hundreds of billions'

Russia and Turkey begin to develop gas hub project

PM Pashinyan discusses agenda of bilateral relations with Iranian FM

Anna Hakobyan meets Armenians in Paris

Sargsyan: Recognition of Artsakh people's right for self-determination must be reflected in legal documents

Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, sworn in

Private jet goes missing off coast of Costa Rica

Times of India: India tests nuclear-capable Agni Prime missile

Spiegel: German Foreign Minister and Defense Minister ask to allocate 2.2 billion for military aid to Kiev

Deputy PM of Armenia and Head of Sharjah Heritage Institute discuss strengthening of Armenian-Emirati relations

Biden allows participation in U.S. presidential election in 2024

Secretary of Security Council of Armenia and representatives of AIISA discuss security issues

Kakhovka reservoir increases water discharges in case of possible destruction of HPP

Pashinian's spouse: Yesterday at Elysee Palace I was received by dear Brigitte Macron

At least 15 people killed in bus-truck collision in India

Explosion at Uzbek Defense Ministry depot injures 16 people

Armenian NA Speaker receives Iranian FM: Tehran opposes obstacles on border with friendly Armenia

President Harutyunyan receives group of members of Union of Artsakh Reserve Officers NGO

Newspaper: Armenia restores diplomatic ties with Hungary?

China hit by 5.5 magnitude earthquake

Armenian Defense Ministry denies Azerbaijani report on shelling, calling it disinformation

Blinken: Moscow is not interested in stopping aggression against Ukraine

Japan and U.S. will hold joint military exercises

France withdraws from Energy Charter Treaty

CNN: White House is in talks with Elon Musk to create satellite Internet service Starlink in Iran

Baku outraged by Iran's statements and frightened by IRGC military exercises

Who are main beneficiaries of 'Zangezur' corridor?: Another anonymous article by 'Haykakan Zhamanak' newspaper

Ankara decides to stand up for Riyadh amid deteriorating relations between Saudi Arabia and U.S.

French Foreign Minister considers it vital to keep lines of communication with Russia open

Pentagon refuses to give details of conversation between Austin and Shoigu

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin: Head of Caucasus Muslims Department again made slanderous and false statements

Erdogan denies using chemical weapons against Kurds and threatens those who dare to talk about it

Saudi Arabia and China will strengthen their ties in energy sector

Governor of Gegharkunik province receives representatives of OSCE fact-finding mission

Penny Mordaunt runs for Prime Minister of Great Britain

Sweden expects ratification of NATO membership application by Hungary and Turkey to be completed soon

European Union will allocate 1.5 billion euros per month to Kiev in 2023

An Israeli-built flight school opened in Greece

Russian Railways is negotiating with Azerbaijan and Iran to launch the Rasht-Astara route

Overchuk: Construction of road through Meghri, whose sovereignty is not in question, depends on Armenia's position

Armenian Defense Minister's working visit to India is over

Hungary will not agree to limit prices for imported gas

Iranian Foreign Minister: Iran considers Armenia one of most important transit countries

Naribekyan participates in meeting of secretaries general of PACE parliaments

Delegation from United Arab Emirates visits Armenia at invitation of head of MONKS: Two agreements signed

Dollar, euro drop in Armenia

Iran consul general in Armenias Kapan: We do not accept any change of borders

Baza: Mobile military registration and enlistment offices will be removed on Russian-Georgian border

Iranian Consul: Countries of region do not need presence of foreign armed forces

Armenia FM: Iran consulate general in Kapan will be important for regional security

Iranian Consul General advises Kapan residents not to worry anymore: Iran is here for Armenian people

FM reaffirms Armenia plan to open consulate general in Irans Tabriz

Turkey to open consulate in occupied Armenian Shushi city of Artsakh

Turkish Ministry of Finance: Ankara can buy Russian oil without Western funding

Armenia Security Council chief briefs European Parliament rapporteur on recent Azerbaijan military aggression

British bookmakers name favorite for post of prime minister

Erdogan: Armenia-Azerbaijan relations progress will contribute to Armenia-Turkey relations normalization

Iranian Consulate General opens in Kapan

Erdogan: Turkey is looking for alternative to American F-16 fighters

Iran consul general: We are here for Armenian people

Turkey FM slams OSCE decision to send needs assessment mission to Armenia

Peskov reacts to Erdogan's words about Putin's softening on Ukraine negotiations

European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia visits Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan

European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia to legislature speaker: Attack was from Azerbaijan, naturally

Armenia President to EEU PMs: We will manage to take another confident step by respecting mutual interests

EUSR Toivo Klaars exclusive interview with NEWS.am on EU Monitoring mission,Nagorno Karabakh future and violence videos

Explosions rock Ukraines Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia

President meets with newly formed Artsakh Public Council members

Armenia PM: We need understanding in price horizon, at least in medium term

Lawyer: 20 of fallen solders parents detained from Yerevan military pantheon are recognized as injured party

PM: Armenia trade with other EEU countries increased by 74%

France region to provide 300,000 to Armenias Syunik Province affected by Azerbaijan military aggression

Eurasian Intergovernmental Council extended meeting underway in Yerevan

MOD: Armenia did not fire at Azerbaijan positions, vehicle

MPs in Strasbourg, present threatening dangers: Armenia has powerful support in European Parliament

Years first snow falls in Armenias Shirak Province

World oil prices on the rise

Newspaper: Russia dismisses Armenia PM's news on Karabakh

Russia PM in Yerevan, to discuss with EEU colleagues single oil, natural gas markets formation

Newspaper: Why is Iran in hurry to open consulate in Armenias Syunik Province?

France, Spain, Portugal agree to build Barcelona-Marseille natural gas pipeline

Admiral: U.S. should now prepare for Chinese 'invasion' of Taiwan
Jennifer Barlament admits it. She is a big music nerd.

As an Emory Scholar in the early 1990s, the music and physics major spent nearly every weekend attending Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performances on student tickets.

"I'd go with my friends, and we'd talk about the performances on the way home on the shuttle or I'd just go by myself," says Barlament 95C, who joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) as executive director in January.

"I especially remember a concert with Yoel Levi and guest Romanian pianist Radu Lupu. I was just blown away by the artistry," she says. "It was a memorably transcendent moment among many experiences I had. At Emory, my head was in other things, but my heart was in music."

At the encouragement of her music teachers, Barlament decided to focus on clarinet performance as a career and she went on to graduate school at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. It was her experience there that changed her course.

Seeing a need for a large orchestra that would help prepare graduate performance students for rigorous professional auditions, she founded the student-run New Eastman Symphony to help provide practical experience, building graduate students' confidence and their repertoires.

"I became more and more fascinated by the process and the things that have to be done to make a concert happenorganizing communications, the venue, the equipment. It was a student ensemble, but we dealt with the same issues a professional orchestra would deal with," Barlament says.

She came to realize that her talents for organization could complement her love of music in the field of orchestra management.

"When I played clarinet, I was one of a hundred voices in the orchestra. It is incredibly thrilling to sit on stage in the midst of an orchestra playing, and I loved it, but I loved the art form as well and I wanted it to continue and thrive," she says.

Read the full story in Emory Magazine 
Brussels suicide attacks 'shocking but not surprising,' Stanford experts say

Inner-city neighborhood with links to suspects was known as a base for terrorists to launch attacks across Europe and beyond.

AP Photo/Martin Meissner A sign reads 'Why?' in English, French and Flemish at a memorial near the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels, after terrorist attacks on Tuesday.

The coordinated suicide bombings that killed at least 30 people and wounded hundreds more at an international airport and downtown subway station in Brussels on Tuesday were "shocking but not surprising" and shared many of the hallmarks of previous European terror attacks, according to Stanford terrorism experts.

"My research shows that in general, terrorist plots in Europe involve larger numbers of conspirators than do plots in the United States," said Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Belgian authorities said as many as five people may have been involved in the bombings, including two Belgian-born brothers with violent criminal records, and that several suspects were linked to the terrorist network that carried out the deadly Paris attacks last November.

"It is common for terrorist conspiracies anywhere to be formed from prior social groupings  friends and relatives," Crenshaw said.

"The bonds that link individuals are not entirely ideological by any means. Criminal backgrounds are also not surprising. Indeed, prison radicalization is a well-known phenomenon."

A notorious neighborhood

Many of the suspects in the Brussels bombings had ties to the inner-city neighborhood of Molenbeek, a majority Muslim enclave of mostly Moroccan descent with a long history as a logistical base for jihadists.

French and Belgian police arrested Salah Abdeslam, who had been identified as the last surviving member of the 10-man team responsible for the Paris attacks and an apparent associate of the Brussels bombers, near his family home in Molenbeek just four days before the Brussels attacks.

"Brussels and particularly Molenbeek is one of those places that comes up a lot when you're talking about counterterrorism," said Terrence Peterson, a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC.

"You do have terrorism networks that use these areas, in the same way that organized crime does, to thrive.  It seems to be the place where all the networks are locating, in part because Belgian security hasn't been very effective in fighting terrorism."

Source of foreign fighters

Belgium is a small nation, with a population of around 11 million people, but it has the highest per capita percentage of any Western country of foreign fighters who have joined the battle in Iraq and Syria, according to a recent report, which estimated the total number at 440 people.

"People were even saying it was not a matter of if but when Belgium was attacked," said Joe Felter, a CISAC senior research scholar and former colonel in the U.S. Army Special Forces.

"You've got a high concentration of radicalized individuals in that neighborhood of Brussels, so logistically it was easier for them to recruit, plan and coordinate the execution of these attacks," he said. "Local residents loading up explosive-packed suitcases in a cab and driving across town to the airport exposes them to much less risk of compromise than would a plot requiring cross-border preparation and movement by foreign citizens."

Felter said he was concerned that the Brussels bombings, for which the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility, would inspire copycat attacks in other countries.

"The real risk now is these home-grown, self-directed terrorist attacks," he said.

"A successful attack like this, with all its media attention and publicity, is only going to inspire and motivate more attempts going forward."

Beyond Belgium

Other European countries such as Denmark, which also has been struggling to deal with a high percentage of foreign fighters, are trying to proactively discourage citizens from travelling to Syria to fight, said Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, former executive director of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service and a CISAC affiliate.

"Politicians are likely to talk about tougher legislation, but there are also measured voices, calling for a strong, long-term, preventive effort against radicalization to prevent problems from growing out of hand," Dalgaard-Nielsen said.

"Police need to prioritize community outreach and long-term trust building to try to ensure the collaboration of minority groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in the effort against terrorism."

Stanford political science Professor David Laitin, co-author of the recently published book Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies, said his research found that Muslims faced higher discrimination in the economy, in society and in the political process compared with Christians from similar immigrant backgrounds.

"But there is no evidence that higher degrees of discrimination lead Muslims into the unspeakable acts that members of an inhuman cult are performing in the name of Islam," said Laitin, who is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

"From what we have tragically seen, the attractiveness of the present murderous cult does not derive from everyday discrimination," he said. "Research has shown that it is not the poor and downtrodden who are radicalized in this way, but rather reasonably educated, second-generation immigrants from largely secular backgrounds."

Europe divided

Laitin said he expected to see many European countries tighten their border controls in response to the Brussels attacks, as well as greater support in the United Kingdom for the movement to leave the European Union in the upcoming referendum.

"The biggest short-term effect, in my judgment, will be the erosion of one of the great achievements of European integration, namely Schengen, which promised open borders throughout the continent," Laitin said.

"I foresee greater security walls that will come to divide European countries."

Fighting a hostile ideology

Felter said that while it is undoubtedly important to improve intelligence sharing and invest in greater security measures as part of concerted efforts to target the Islamic State group and interdict future terrorist plots, the key to undermining support for and defeating ISIS is combating its perverted version of Islam.

And, he said, that effort would have to come largely from within the Islamic community itself.

"The symptoms may be suicide bombers in airports, but the root cause is this hostile ideology that's being pushed on these at-risk individuals through aggressive radicalization and recruitment efforts carried out largely via the Internet that then inspires them to carry out these self-directed, ISIS-inspired attacks," Felter said.

"There's got to be a longer-term effort to address the root causes of this, to discredit and delegitimize the appeal of this ideology that they're promulgating online and through social media that's inspiring these young men and women to go off and commit these horrible acts in the misguided belief that it is their religious obligation to do so."

Media Contact

Steve Fyffe, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, sfyffe@stanford.edu
With the signing of the Transit and Transportation Agreement between Nepal and China in Beijing, there is a sense of anxiety, worry and concern in Indian strategic circles about Nepal tilting towards China. Many have commented that this has ended India's long monopoly in Nepal in doing third country business through Indian ports and, overnight, Nepal will do business, import fuel from China and so on. As a landlocked country, seeking transit rights is Nepal's fundamental right and, as of now, India and Bangladesh have provided such facilities to Nepal. Realizing that Nepal will turn to China for transit and trade rights, India, during the visit of Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli last month, had agreed to provide Visakhapatnam port for Nepal's use. As of now, Nepal is using only Haldia in Kolkata for third-country trade but it is smaller than Visakhapatnam. During the visit, India also allowed Nepal land transit via Bangladesh, implicit being that India was already aware that Nepal would turn to China. It is being said that had India allowed Nepal this when it was proposed over a decade ago, Nepal would not have gone with China. Second, if India had not imposed an unofficial blockade, privileging one community and group's demand, Nepal would not have tilted towards China. After signing the Transit Agreement with China, it is widely anticipated that Nepal will do business through Chinese ports and end its dependency on India. Such interpretations, particularly in Indian strategic circles, are beyond the ground realities and one should understand that a transit treaty does not necessarily measure up to implementation. The poor infrastructure on the Nepali side, difficult geographical terrain on both sides and without a rail link up to the Nepali border in Kerung (Gyirong in Chinese side), Nepal cannot immediately begin third country business through Chinese ports. Physical infrastructure in either side of the border is important for full use of transit rights and, on the Nepali side, it will take years to upgrade Kerung, the only transit, transportation and trade route between Nepal and China. Second, the nearest Chinese port is Tainjin which is 3,000 km from the Nepali border and the nearest Indian port is Haldia which is just 1,000 km away. This per se makes a huge difference in doing business in terms of costs, said Nepal's former commerce secretary Purusottam Oja. If Nepal needs to do business through Tainjin port to Kerung, it is almost impossible to import goods via trucks or containers. The only option is by rail and Chinese officials say this will happen only by 2020. "Of course, a further extension from Gyirong is an even longer-term plan. It's up to geographic and technical conditions and financing ability. We believe that far in the future the two countries will be connected by rail," Hou Yanqi, deputy head of the Chinese foreign ministry's Asia division, said in Beijing after the meeting between Oli and Premier Li Keqiang. "Strategically it is going to be a good deal but due to distance per se, it is going to be a very costly affair for us until there is rail service from Tainjin to the Nepal border," said Oja. "It also depends on status of infrastructure in both sides...and paper work. Hassle free paperwork for customs and other purposes are key in transit rights," said Oja. Another Nepal-China trading point, Tatopani, is shut down since the April 25, 2015 earthquake and there is no official confirmation whether the Chinese side will open it up or not. In case China opens it, Nepali traders have to use trucks, containers and other light vehicles to import and export goods from Tianjin, again very costly for traders. "I am not going to use and do business through Tanjian that is going to be three-fold expensive for us," said Indian trader Ravi Singh, who is engaged in third-country business. "Without stressing on connectivity, the transit agreement will not be productive," said noted economist Bishamber Pyakurel. "Neither it is a historic pact nor is it a non-workable one. Though it is a welcome move, its success lies in implementation," he said in an interaction with journalists. It should also be remembered that Nepal is doing business with India through 24 small and big trading points whereas Nepal is doing business with China only through one trading point. Then, India has also proposed to build five rail corridors with Nepal and one is proposed to connect Uttar Pradesh and Kathmandu. The ground realities more than make clear that the 'China card remains more of an illusion but Kathmandu has finally made the strategic move that New Delhi is bound to have taken note of. (Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@mail.com.) --Indo-Asian News Service anil/vm/ky/tb ( 805 Words) 2016-03-25-15:15:31 (IANS)
The condition of a Jet Airways' crew member who was injured in the Brussels terror attacks is stable, the airline said on Friday. "We have spoken to Doctor Steven at the hospital where the crew member, Nidhi Chaphekar, is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that she is in a stable condition and not in coma," the airline said in a statement. "She is resting and under sedation for her comfort," the statement said. The airline disclosed details about Chaphekar's health after media reports claimed that she has been placed in a medically induced coma. Chaphekar, a mother of two from Mumbai, was among two crew members of the airline who were injured in Tuesday's bomb blasts that rocked Brussels' Zaventem airport and killed more than 30 people. A photograph showing the 40-year-old flight crew member of Jet Airways sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped, went viral soon after the airport blasts and become an iconic image of the attacks. Chaphekar's husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and travelled by road to Brussels, is at the hospital with her. In another statement issued late Friday evening, the airline said that the two injured crew members continue to receive all the required medical care and attention. "They are recovering in hospitals and have been joined by their families. Jet Airways staff is at the hospitals to provide any support and assistance to the crew and their family members," the statement said. Meanwhile, Jet Airways flew out the passengers who were stranded in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam. --Indo-Asian News Service rv/ksk/bg ( 292 Words) 2016-03-25-19:51:31 (IANS)
Police said on credible information, the 28-year-old offender Vadde Gopal, an auto driver, residing at Palvai village of Maldakal mandal in the district, was intercepted by Gadwal police team led by Circle Inspector, G Suresh, town Sub-Inspector, Sriram Babu and Rural Sub-Inspector, Sathyanaryana whey they were conducting vehicle checking on the outskirts of Gadwal town, when the accused tried to escape by leaving behind his motorcycle. Immediately, the cops caught hold of him.

During the interrogation, the accused admitted that he had indulged in 64 property offences, made in-and around the district.

The Gadwal police recovered gold ornaments weighing 1.23 kg, silver ornaments of 7 kgs, besides cash of Rs 10.63 lakh from his house at Palvai village in the district.

He has kept all the stolen property in his house with an intention to purchase a house in Hyderabad to settle down with his family.

Only a small part of the stolen property was sold in order to meet his expenses.

The accused has been arrested and was being produced before the local court.

The seized property had being deposited in the court, police added.UNI KNR KVV AK 2045

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Good Friday calls on Christians to reflect on their sins and prepare themselves for Easter, which is when Jesus rose from the dead three days after he was crucified.

The Catholic Church treats Good Friday as a day of fasting as devotees spend the day in penance and prayers.

Mass is celebrated with Jesus' journey from his arrest to his torture to his crucifixion, being read out during the ceremony.

Christians on this day chose to be subdued and in a solemn and spiritual frame of mind, especially after 3 pm which was when Jesus breathed his last.

Some countries, such as Germany, have laws prohibiting certain acts, such as dancing and horse racing that are seen as profaning the solemn nature of the day.

Pope Francis will preside over the Good Friday commemoration at the Vatican today. (ANI)
Jammu and Kashmir Police has claimed to have solved murder case of a man, a resident of Punjab, whose body was recovered from river Jhelum on March 13 in north Kashmir district of Bandipora. A police spokesperson here today said on March 13, police recovered an unidentified male body under suspicious circumstances from river Jhelum at Baniyari, Sumbal in Bandipora. He said the circumstantial evidence pointed that it was a murder. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted to probe the case, he said, adding that during the course of investigation, a mobile phone bill was recovered from the deceased. "The details of the bill were verified from concerned retailer which was found in the name of Buta Ram alias Bitu. Accordingly, the SIT brought several persons who were close to the victim for questioning and the team got some important leads," he said. After following various leads, four persons were detained, he said. "During the investigation, it further surfaced that the slain man was a carpenter by profession, who was putting up in a rented accommodation in Srinagar along with his associate Herjeet Singh son of Mukhtar Singh resident of Amritsar, Punjab," he said. "Herjeet was having an affair with a girl," he said, adding on February 3, the girl told Harjeet that his roommate Bitu was trying to flirt with her. "After hearing this, Harjheet planned to kill Bitu. He hatched a conspiracy with the girl and her two brothers Umar Bashir Mir and Bilal Ahmad Mir to murder Bitu," he said. "During the intervening night of February 3 and February 4, Harjeet hit Bitu on the head with a hammer and with the help of Umar, Bilal and their sister destroyed circumstantial evidence. At about 0400 hrs, accused Harjeet and Umar wrapped the body of Bitu in a canvas sheet and took him to Nowakadal Bridge Srinagar on a motorcycle where he was thrown into river Jhelum," he said. He said all the accused have been arrested. "The identification of the deceased has been ascertained as Buta Ram, resident of Dharchak Tehsil district Gurdaspur in Punjab," he added.UNI BAS SV RK1120 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-652545.Xml
The vibrant culture and tradition of India came alive in the recently held 'Bal Sangam', a cultural fiesta organised by the National School of Drama (NSD) in Tripura. A five-day-long cultural festival called 'Bal Sangam' was held at the Najrul Kalakshetra in Tripura with an aim to preserve and promote the rich culture of the country. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar inaugurated the programme. Nine groups from across the country showcased their performances in the cultural event. During the festival, artistes from Assam performed their famous Bihu dance and Jeng Bihu. A Monpa cultural troupe from Arunachal Pradesh also displayed their traditional folk dance. A group of Mizo artistes mesmerised the audience with sarlamkai and srkthithiang Lam dances during the cultural fiesta. "To bring alive the lost culture, which is precious for our country, the NSD has been organising such cultural festivals since 1989. Another reason behind organising these is to discourage our children from adapting western cultures and making them realise how colourful our culture is," said C.D. Tiwari, Assistant Registrar, NSD. A group of talented artistes from Rajasthan performed a folk song - Sufiana Kalam. An extraordinary performance of Kashmir's Dhamaali folk song stole the show. West Bengal's famous Patta Nach and Ranpa Raibens left the audience awestruck. Besides, the artistes from Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Delhi also took part in the festival. "I have come to enjoy this wonderful cultural show and I am very happy to be here. India's 'Unity in diversity' is well-justified in the show, and we have got a chance to witness various cultures, and the power and strength of different states. It's a wonderful programme," said Joydev Acharya, one of the spectators. Fakira Khan Bisala, a participant from Rajasthan, said that he was fortunate to attend the event as he got the opportunity to witness the cultures of different states. "We got to meet many children and got a chance to share each other's cultures and talents. We visited Tripura for the first time and I must say, people here are so lively, who listened to us and appreciated our show," he added. Basir Ahamed Bagda, a participant from Jammu and Kashmir, said such shows encourage the young artistes. "The NSD has given a platform to talented children and such a cultural show will definitely encourage our artistes. This shows how important our young artistes and culture are in India. We are here to witness the cultural diversity of Tripura. Tripura is a peaceful state. We are impressed by the cleanliness maintained all over and we hope such a festival is organised again," he said. Artistes from Manipur also performed 'Maibi Laiching Jagoi' and enthralled the audience with their soulful performance. Later, they also presented Thangta, a traditional martial art form, and Pung-chalom, a classical dance form from the state. A large number of visitors turned up to witness the event. (ANI)
A Jet Airways aircraft today brought back 242 Indians, who were stranded in the Belgian Capital Brussels after the deadly terror attacks on the airport and metro stations on Tuesday. The 242 passengers, who were brought back to India included 28 crew members. According to a Jet Airways official, the flight 9W 1229 with 214 passengers landed at the IGI airport early this morning.The fliers also included 69 of those who were bound for Mumbai, besides 28 crew members, the official added.The aircraft, which returned with passengers to Delhi, was later flown to Mumbai with 69 passengers on board, the official said. The official further added that the Mumbai flight had to be cancelled at the last moment as the flight developed some technical problem. The passengers of both the flights were then combined into one. Yesterday, the Jet Airways had operated two flights from Amsterdam for Toronto and Delhi after all stranded passengers in Brussels were taken to the Dutch capital by road.UNI RBE SV SB 1343 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0379-652747.Xml
Tripura government today reiterated its demand to facilitate transportation of petroleum products from Haldia port of West Bengal by waterways of Bangladesh to Agartala considering the scarcity of supply against growing demand in the state. Food and Civil Supplies Minister Manik Dey said he had written a letter to Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan detailing the crisis of petrol, diesel and cooking gas cylinders in the state for thepast few months. " The crisis has been continuing for about two years because of bad condition of Assam-Agartala NH 44 and irregular goods train service along with Tripura, Mizoram and South Assam has also been suffering from serious shortage of petroleum products. The matter was brought to the notice of IOC authority and the ministry on real time basis but situation remained unchanged," Dey stated. He however, pointed out that recently Tripura faced a shortage of petrol and diesel supply and everyday there was a long queue in all the outlets across the state and many a times the authority was forced to go for rationing of these items. Dey explained if petroleum products come via Bangladesh through waterways from Haldia to Agartala, it would cover only 600 kms distance. The present transportation system from Haldia via Guwahati by road, it has to cover 2376 kms and most of the time the consignment suffers inordinate delay due to bad road conditions. Besides, ensuring best and sufficient railway connectivity, Tripura government has been repeatedly pursuing with the Ministry of Roads and Highways and Government of Assam to repair the entire stretch of NH 44 for safe movements of loaded vehicles. At this stage, India and Bangladesh are having good relation and Bangladesh has already allowed transhipment through its ports, which needs to be optimized and used for catering Tripura."I request Mr Pradhan to facilitate Haldia-Agartala connectivity via waterways of Bangladesh before next monsoon otherwise the sufferings of Tripura in terms of inadequate supply as well as high price will continue," Dey added.UNI BB KK SB GC1307 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-652644.Xml
The gunbattle took place during a pre-dawn counter-insurgency operation by the District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel in the Rakashmeta forest, Superintendent of Police JS Batti told UNI.

Besides the body of the slain Naxal commander identified as Sudhram (30), police recovered a muzzle-loading guin, an improvised explosive device among other things from the encounter site after the rebels fled into dense forest when the force launched a retaliatory attack.

The Maoist leader was wanted in connection with more than two dozen cases of Naxal violence in the tribal Bastar region, the sources said. UNI SS BDG SB GC1512

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Claiming that eight of her party workers were killed by the CPI-M last week, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday virtually held the Election Commission (EC) responsible for it. The Trinamool Congress supremo said it was the EC which is now looking after law and order in the poll-bound state. "Now that elections have been declared, police are under the Election Commission. The EC is keeping a watch on police. Now the EC is looking after law and order. In the past seven days, eight Trinamool Congress workers were killed by the CPI-M," she said. "Who has given the right to CPI-M to kill? They are murdering every day," Banerjee said while addressing an election rally in this Maoist belt of West Midnapore district. Banerjee said her government had stopped political killings. "I didn't allow political killings. In the past, the maximum number of political killings used to take place in Bengal. 55,000 people were murdered during the rule of the CPI-M (which spearheaded the Left Front government from 1977 to 2011)," she said. Banerjee said murder-for-murder and political vengeance had no place in her party, but urged Trinamool workers to be on their guard as they could come under attack during the elections. "Please be on your guard during this period. Don't be afraid." In an obvious reference to the EC machinery, Banerjee said: "Some may feel during the elections, they can threaten, intimidate. Let them. Be with the people, the voters." "If somebody from outside tries to boss around, tries to intimidate you, don't be afraid. They are here today, won't be there after a few days. But you have to live in your locality in peace," she said. She said: "I am not dead. Trinamool is there. As long as I live, I will be with you, and fight for you." Accusing the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) of spreading canards alongside the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said "because of the elections, they have started to think that we are soft. But they should know that we are so strong that even if a tiger tries to scratch us, it will break its claws". Trinamool Congress vice president Mukul Roy, who called on the Chief Electoral Officer in Kolkata during the day to lodge a complaint about the "killings" of his party workers, was more direct in training his guns on the EC. "We have come here to protest against the murders. We have told the Election Commission to initiate proper steps. Law and order is in your (EC) hands. If a murder or any other untoward incident happens, the responsibility is yours." Since the day the elections were declared, Banerjee has been up in arms against the EC. She has termed the staggered six-phase election schedule spanning seven poll dates a "result of the step-motherly" attitude towards the state. After the Commission cracked the whip and issued a spate of transfer orders to top police and district administration officials, Mamata wondered whether the poll panel would tap into votes from the electorate "on behalf of the BJP and CPI-M". --Indo-Asian News Service ssp/sd/bg ( 535 Words) 2016-03-25-17:29:33 (IANS)
However, she did not try to enter the inner sanctum, which is out of bonds for female devotees.

Police later ushered the activists from the temple to their vehicles, where irate villagers, including women, surrounded them and 'gheraoed' (mobbed) Ms Desai. They asked her 'why she was trying to enter the sanctum of the temple?' To which, she replied that she was doing it for them.

''I will now enter the sanctum after an order from court,'' she said.

Ms Desai further said that paid opeisance to offered flowers and prayed that sense prevail among people and they would allow all devotees to enter the sanctum without gender bias.

Police inspector Haribhau Kolhe said that the activists took 'darshan' and offered their prayers.

The activists were urged to get in their vehicles and told to leave Trimbakeshwar, he added.

Elaborate security arragement were made in the Trimbakeshwar town.

Earlier, on March 7, Ms Desai and her activists were stopped and detained at Nandur-Shingote village, which borders on the Sangamner tehsil of Ahmednagar, on the Nashik-Pune highway while they were on their way towards Trimbakeshwar Temple.

A defiant Ms Desai had criticised Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded to know when would women be get equal rights.UNI RDS SS SB AS1701

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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today called upon the people to imbibe ideology and teachings of Jesus Christ to face the challenge of spurt in violence and tension across the globe. Mr Kumar,in his message on Good Friday, said ideology and teachings of Christ have become all the more relevant in view of tension and violence, affecting almost all parts of the globe. "Despite efforts by governments in various regions of the world, no tangible result can be achieved unless people take their own initiative to live together with the spirit of love and mutual coexistence, as Jesus Christ had preached in his life time", he noted. The Chief Minister said time had come to take pledge to follow thepath shown by Christ for welfare of mankind.UNI KKS KK SB VN1532 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-652843.Xml
BJP's Sibu Mishra today said the law of the land will decide who is 'Bangladeshi' or 'Indian' in the poll-bound Assam .This is a setback to the party which is eyeing its maiden government in the state by highlighting the migrants issue. Talking to UNI, Mr Mishra said, "Let court look into the matter of the citizenship row of the migrants following proper procedure to decide their fate whether to grant them Indian nationality or declare them foreigner."The BJP leader has also made clear that he is not associated with the RSS, the parent organisation of the saffron party."As an organisation, RSS is doing well in the greater interest of society for the people of the country. But till this date, I don't have any relation with the Sangh," Mr Mishra said.On being asked about development in the past 15 years by the Congress government, the BJP leader said people of Assam know what Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has done for the state and it is for the people to judge to whom they should vote in the polls.Mr Mishra said, "The major issues in which the BJP would like to give importance if voted to power are development of roads, education and health sectors in the state." "I urge people of Assam to vote for the BJP for fast delivery of services in the State as the Centre is governed by us," he added. The BJP leader also criticised All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badar Uddin Ajmal for doing drama for political benefit and said he was confident that the saffron party will form the government along with its alliance Asom Gana Parishad(AGP) and Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF). The migrants issue has been the bone of contention for the ruling Congress govt as Mr Gogoi is often targeted by regional political parties for providing them shelter. UNI DS RSA SB 1830 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0101-653282.Xml
Chief Minister Raghubar Das had flayed the incident and had directed the local administration to arrest all the culprits who were responsible for this inhuman act.

Acting seriously upon the orders of the Chief Minister, the local police managed to arrest five criminals who were forwarded to jail.

Later, as the police mounted pressure, three other accused surrendered in Latehar court who were identified as Arun Sao, Shahdeo Soni and Vishal Tiwari.

The Chief Minister had also announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each for the kin of the family.UNI AK AD RSA AS1928

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Thieves looted cash and valuables worth several lakhs from the house of a college employee located at Vinod Nagarunder Dhanbad Police Station area of the district. Police sources said apart from Rs 1 lakh in cash the thievesalso took away gold and silver jewellery worth several lakhs. Police said that late last night the occupants of the house were away toattend a marriage function when the thieves struck. DSP D N Banka said an FIR in the case has been registered andfurther probe was on.UNI XC-AK AD SB VN1929 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-653435.Xml
Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley today claimed he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to "cause maximum damage since then". Deposing before special Judge G A Sanap, the 55-year-old, who has turned approver in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case, stated this during cross-examination on the third day by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal -- an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US. He also said that the reason of his hatred was because his school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes, killing several people in the attack, and that time, he developed this feeling. He said that it was one of the reasons why he joined the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terror outfit. Headley also said that he had "arranged" a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the United States, and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event. Replying to a question, he said that he had planned to invite Thackeray for the programme. "Eventually yes, but it was in initial stages," he said and informed that "there was no specific plan to invite Thackeray for this." The LeT operative, who has been convicted in the US for his role in the terror attacks, said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that "Thackeray was sick and so may be his son Uddhav and otherofficials may attend the programme." To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit. On whether Thackeray knew about the programme, he retorted, "How can I know this? I spoke to Mr Rege and he told me that he (Thackeray) was advised against travelling." However, Headley agreed with the defence lawyer that he had discussed the programme with Mr Rege. Asked whether he had asked Mr Rege to convey about the event to Thackeray, Headley said, "In general terms, I never asked this specifically." Headley, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, denied that he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008. He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies," he clarified. Headley also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks. "This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said. Headley also denied that he had saved USD 30 lakh fine amount in collusion with FBI and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term. Yesterday, he had disclosed how LeT wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was "arrested.UNI AAA SS SB RAI1848 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-653344.Xml
The Team is coming on Sunday to probe the January 2 terror strike at the airbase in the Punjab town bordering Pakistan.

India believes that Pakistan's extremist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out the Pathankot attack in which seven Indian security jawans had lost their lives.

The incident had derailed the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary level talks.

The five-member team would be having senior officials from the intelligence, civil administration and the military.

India had agreed to allow the probe team to come to India after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz in Nepal.UNI NAZ RSA 2028

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The BJP today staged protest march to vent its anger over continued insult of martyrs by the Congress 'with its overt and covert support' to those indulging in anti national activities. Led by state party president Mangal Pandey, scores of party leaders took part in the the protest march which, after parading main thoroughfares of state capital Patna, culminated into a meeting at Jai Prakash Narain Income Tax round-about here.Mr Pandey, while addressing the party workers, said, "Congress had been continuously insulting martyrs under a well planned conspiracy and promoting anti national activities to demoralise our forces." Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had visited Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU) campus to express his solidarity with JNU students union chief Kanhaiya Kumar and others facing sedition charges, he added.State BJP president said Congress leaders had crossed all limits in promoting the anti national activities as some of its leaders did not hesitate in comparing those facing sedition charges, with martyrs like Bhagat Singh. Such acts of Congress could not be tolerated by the BJP any more, he warned. "In recent years, JNU has become the ground of anti national activities and it is unfortunate that Congress and its smaller allies are openly patronising such acts," Mr Pandey said, adding that the country would not be allowed to disintegrate and anti-national forces would be dealt strictly. The Congress and other smaller parties were trying to o get political mileage without bothering about national interest, he added. UNI KKS IS PL RSA BD2055 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-653630.Xml
While one of the terrorists was nabbed from Maktaigaon, the other two were apprehended from Maurigaon in Kokrajhar.

The arrested terrorists, identified as Ranjay Barman, Hitesh Roy and Shibhu Prasad, are also known to be involved in extortion, arms peddling and providing logistic support to the banned militant outfit.

Two rifles, one pistol and several rounds of ammunition were also recovered from the arrested terrorists.

In a joint operation with Assam Police, the Army had earlier this month, neutralized a KLO militant Shiljan area of Kokrajhar.

The Army also reportedly claimed that the slain militant was deputy commander-in-chief of the KLO who had received training in Myanmar. (ANI)
The Federation of All Odisha Traders Association (FAOTA) today announced to stop importing pulses, edible oil, sugar, rice, wheat and all wheat related products if the government did not abolish 5 per cent VAT on these products from April 1. FAOTA General Secretary Sudhakar Panda told newspersons here that the traders would not import till the government concede to their demand. Mr Panda said out of the 29 states in the country VAT has not been imposed on food products in 24 and questioned the rationality of the Odisha government imposing VAT on food articles. The Federation Secretary said the decision of the traders Federation was informed to the chief minister, the minister concerned, departmental authorities and the district collectors. He said due to inequality in tax while the honest traders were suffering losses the unscrupulous ones were minting money. Mr Panda said the decision to stop the import was taken as the government despite repeated assurance given to the federation did not take any step in this regard so far. He said the federation first stopped imports demanding the abolition of 5 per cent VAT in December 2014 and again in April 2015. After December 2014, the government had assured to take steps within three months but did nothing forcing the federation again to stop import from April 9, 2015. The Federation withdrew its agitation after the govenment announced to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of Finance Secretary and said a decision would be taken on the basis of the recommendation of the committee within three months. The government had also assured that if nothing would happen than it would abolish VAT on pulses products wheat products from April one 2016. But though six months have passed , the government did not initiate any step in this regard, he regretted and said the Federation at its meeting on February 25 last decided to stop import from April one next. Mr Panda said in 2004-2005 when the VAT was imposed in place of sales tax, both the state and central government had said that only one tax would be imposed on an article in the entire country but it was not implemented yet.He said due to the inequality in tax, the state government was not getting the tax it should get from these products.UNI BD DP PL RSA RAI2155 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0129-653807.Xml
The Kiphire Area Students' Union (KASU) has cautioned the Nagaland Government that it would resort to an agitation if the posts of teachers were not filled up.An official statement issued by KASU vice-president Isaac Tsalempi and general secretary Lily Anar informed that a few teachers of government institutions in the district headquarters were doing double jobs, which make them pay less interest to their teaching job. The release also reminded all government officers, officially posted at Kiphire district headquarters, to remain in station as efficient government servants. The KASU also pointed out that absence of officers in their respective offices made it difficult for poor people to reach Kohima and Dimapur to even get a single signature of the respective officers. It also stated that KASU in collaboration with Kiphire Town Students' Union (KTSU) would be initiating a surprise check on all the offices within the following days. It cautioned that if officers were absent without valid reason, the unions would submit their names and Departments to higher authority for necessary action. UNI AS PL AY RSA RAI2203 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-653643.Xml
Chaubey breathed his last at the All India Institute of Medical Medical Sciences(AIIMS) in New Delhi. He is survived by his two sons and five daughters, his wife had predeceased him.

During his long political career, Chaubey was elected to the Lok Sabha for four terms from Buxar parliamenatry seats while he served as Health Minister in Janata Party government in 1977.He was elected to the assembly for the first time from Chainpur seat in 1972 as a nominee of then Jan Sangh.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his deep shock over the demise of Chaubey and described him as an able administrator. In his long career, the departed leader always stood by the cause of oppressed and downtrodden, Mr Kumar said adding that the void created by his death would be difficult to fill up.

Mr Kumar prayed to the almighty for giving strength to the bereaved family to face the tragedy in this difficult hour.

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, Former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, Speaker of Bihar Assembly Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Chairman of Bihar Legislative Council Awadhesh Narain Singh also condoled the death. UNI KKS IS PL RSA NS2150

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-653706.Xml
Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today accused the CPI(M), Congress and BJP of indulging in smear campaign because they cannot fight her on the plank of development. Addressing an election rally here at West Medinipur district, Ms Banerjee said, the Left, Congress and BJP are doing nothing but a politics of conspiracy. The chief minister said the EC is keeping an eye on the law and order now. In the last one week eight Trinamool workers were killed by CPI(M). "We have not allowed any political violence in Bengal. Under the Left over 50,000 people were killed. We have not forgotten Nandigram, Netai, Singur, Bantala, Dhantala, Anita Dewan, Marichjhanpi, Amta," she said. "We believe in constructive approach. We like to create not destroy. Our courtesy should not be mistaken for our weakness," the Trinamool supremo said. Ms Banerjee said 33 lakh girls had been registered under the 'Kanyashree' scheme and 40 lakh students are receiving Sabuj Sathi cycles. The chief minister said Chhau dance of Jangalmahal won the first prize at Delhi's R-Day parade. "Artistes are our pride. We encourage them to participate in govt functions. 60,000 folk artistes are receiving monthly stipends. They have got their due respect," she said. Ms Banerjee said tourism is flourishing in Jangalmahal again. Peace has returned to the region of years of bloodbath. "Hundreds of people were killed due to violence in Jangalmahal earlier. There are no killings here now. We brought youths, who strayed to the path of LWE, back to mainstream. We have rehabilitated those who given up arms and surrendered,"Trinamool supremo said. Ms Banerjee began her campaign in Jangalmahal today with two rallies in Lalgarh and Goaltore in Paschim Medinipur district, followed by a padayatra through the town of Medinipur. She also spoke about the benefits extended to the Adivasis and unveiled a copy of the party's Manifesto in Ol Chiki script. She highlighted the Khadya Sathi scheme under which Adivasis are getting rice at Rs 2 per kg. "We promised to provide Rs 2 per kilo rice 4 years back, and today out of 9 crore, 8 crore have already got the facility," the Trinamool supremo added. UNI BM PL AY RSA RAI2159 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-653748.Xml
Lebanese daily As-Safir is to cease its print and online operations after over 40 years, editor-in-chief and publisher Talal Salman said , blaming falling revenues and Lebanon's political and sectarian problems.As-Safir, founded by Salman in 1974 with the slogan "a voice for those who have no voice", will end publication on March 31. It is close to the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah.In a situation faced by print media around the world, Lebanese dailies al-Nahar and al-Liwa' have also indicated they are facing financial difficulties because of falling circulation and advertising income.But Salman has said the country's political environment also contributed to the problems of the Lebanese press.Lebanon has a paralysed political system and sectarian tensions left over from a civil war that ended around 15 years ago. These have increased with Syria's civil war next door.The government has not passed a budget since 2005 and has been without a president for almost two years.Lebanon's economy grew 8 per cent a year between 2007 and 2010, but growth has been relatively sluggish since the collapse of a unity government and the start of Syria's uprising in 2011. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at only 2 percent in 2014."We tried and tried and tried and in the end the great sectarian divide took its first victim - the media, which is supposed to be the one guiding a unified national public," Salman told Reuters."The press is connected with political life. In Lebanon there is no politics and no political life whatsoever," he said. "This is a country without a state, with no institutions and no president."In an editorial in his paper this week, Salman said the demise of his and other papers in Lebanon - a country famed across the Arab world for its press freedom - threatens the nation's claim to be the "country of freedom".The decision to close As-Safir ("The Ambassador" in Arabic)will be formally announced on March 30 at a press conference. "We have announced the death, but we await the funeral," said Salman. REUTERS JW PR0519 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-652441.Xml
Joe Biden ramped up White House efforts to get a Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court selection Merrick Garland, as the US vice president offered the most vigorous defense yet of his 1992 comments that senators should not consider a nominee in a presidential election year.Senate Republicans have used Biden's 1992 comments as ammunition for their opposition to holding hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until Obama's successor takes office next January after the November 8 presidential election.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated that position after Obama on March 16 selected Garland, an appellate judge and former prosecutor, to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13.Biden spoke at Georgetown University law school, seeking to increase pressure on Republicans to allow confirmation hearings and a vote. Biden emphasized Garland's moderate record and that Republicans previously had suggested Garland would be a consensus Supreme Court candidate.In June 1992, when the possibility existed of a retirement on the nine-member court, then-Senator Biden declared on the Senate floor that if a vacancy occurred that election year, Republican President George H.W. Bush should not put forth a nominee until after the November presidential election.If Bush did so, Biden added, "the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over."Biden, then chairman of that committee, was speaking hypothetically and no vacancy materialized.He said yesterday his words 24 years ago had been selectively quoted by Republicans. He noted that he made them a year after the contentious 1991 confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas and that they were intended to address "the dangers of nominating an extreme candidate without proper Senate consultation."Biden scoffed at Republicans' current reference to a "Biden rule," meaning no hearing in a presidential election year. He said no such rule exists.Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the current Judiciary Committee chairman, accused Biden of trying to "rewrite history" on the 1992 remarks."While the vice president and others have tried to recast his 1992 speech as merely a call for greater cooperation," Grassley said, "they neglect to mention that such cooperation, according to Chairmen Biden, was to occur 'in the next administration,' and only after the presidential election."In a Quinnipiac University poll of 1,451 registered voters released yesterday, 62 per cent said the Senate should consider Garland's nomination rather waiting for a new president; 33 per cent said senators should wait.REUTERS JW PR0529 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-652442.Xml
A Malian national with ties to militant groups pleaded guilty to a US charge that he conspired to kill an American diplomat during a 2000 car jacking in Niger.Alhassane Ould Mohamed, 46, admitted in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday, New York, to participating in a conspiracy to murder William Bultemeier, a defense attache system operations coordinator working at Niger's US Embassy.Through an interpreter, Mohamed said "it was not my intent to kill somebody" and had no specific target when he shot his rifle during the car jacking. But he said he knew someone could get shot and saw "someone on the ground" afterward."I'm sorry I did that, and I did that," he said in court.Under the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to at his sentencing on April 26 to seek a prison term of 25 years for Mohamed, who was otherwise eligible for a sentence of up to life.At a hearing last week, Assistant US Attorney Zainab Ahmad said some reasons that prosecutors agreed to the deal were confidential and involved "ongoing government investigatory efforts."The plea followed Mohamed's indictment in 2013 for murdering Bultemeier and trying to kill Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Christopher McNeely after the two left a restaurant in Niamey, Niger, on Dec. 23, 2000.Prosecutors said Mohamed, also known as Cheibani, and another assailant, armed with a pistol and AK-47 assault rifle, demanded Bultemeier hand over the keys to his sport utility vehicle, which bore US diplomatic plates.Mohamed then shot Bultemeier, prosecutors said. McNeely tried to help Bultemeier when Mohamed's accomplice shot both men, prosecutors said. McNeely survived the attack.Malian police arrested Mohamed, but he escaped from custody in May 2002, according to prosecutors.He was arrested in Mali in 2010 in connection with an attack on a convoy of Saudi Arabian officials in Niger that left four dead.Sentenced in Niger to 20 years in prison, Mohamed escaped again in June 2013 with other inmates who launched an assault coordinated by Boko Haram, prosecutors said.Mohamed also had connections to militant groups, including the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, prosecutors said.He remained at large until French forces in Northern Mali apprehended him in November 2013. He was extradited to the United States in March 2014. REUTERS JW PR0502 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-652458.Xml
Israel assailed the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for adopting a measure that calls for the establishment of a database of businesses "involved in activities" in the occupied West Bank.Israel's UN ambassador, Danny Danon, called the database a "blacklist" and said the UNHRC was behaving "obsessively" against Israel.The Geneva-based council, a 47-member state forum established 10 years ago which Israel and its major US ally accuse of bias against the Jewish state, adopted the motion with 32 votes in favour, none against and 15, mostly European nations, abstaining.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement calling the body an "anti-Israel circus," adding the council "attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the gross violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea."The council asked for the list of enterprises to be updated annually and to be appraised of the "human rights and international law violations involved in the production of settlement goods."Netanyahu said it was absurd to condemn Israel rather than deal with attacks by Palestinians against Israel and by Islamic State in Europe. "Israel calls on responsible governments not to honour the decisions of the Council that discriminate against Israel," Netanyahu said.Danon said the council's decision reminded of "a dark period in Europe when Jewish businesses were singled out. Whoever supported today's decision, should be ashamed."The council also named Canadian Stanley Michael Lynk as its new investigator on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories following the resignation in January of special rapporteur Makarim Wibisono, citing Israel's failure to cooperate with him.Among the nearly 40 resolutions adopted by the council at the end of its four week session were resolutions on Syria, Iran and North Korea.Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed East Jerusalem, declaring it part of its eternal, indivisible capital, in a move never recognised internationally. REUTERS JW PR0644 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-652470.Xml
Egypt's Interior Ministry said that security forces had retrieved a bag and passport belonging to murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni that was in the possession of a criminal gang impersonating policemen who had been killed in a shootout.Human rights groups have said torture marks on Regeni's body, which was dumped on the side of the road, indicated he died at the hands of Egyptian security services, an allegation the government has strongly denied.Regeni, 28, disappeared on January 25, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.He had written articles critical of the Egyptian government, the Italian newspaper that published them said.The Interior Ministry said security forces had targeted the criminal gang which had Regeni's bag and that it had "specialized in impersonating police officers, kidnapping foreigners and forcibly robbing them".It said that a red handbag bearing the Italian flag was found, and inside it was Regeni's passport and other items such as a visa card two cell phones and a "feminine wallet" with the word love on it and a dark substance resembling hashish."A highly skilled investigation team was formed to uncover the mystery of several reported forced robberies and incidents of impersonating police officers," said the ministry in a statement.The ministry named what it identified as four ring leaders of the gang; Tarek Saad Abd El-Fatah, 52, described as a dangerous offender guilty of fraud and other offences, and his son Saad Tarek Saad, 26.Also mentioned were Mustafa Bakr Awad, 60, charged with fraud and 20 varied offences, and Salah Ali Sayed, 40, who the ministry said had committed similar crimes.The ministry said the gang had robbed several Egyptians, as well as a Nigerian identified as Rasheed G. and a Portuguese man named Carlos M., as well as David K., an Italian.Italian security officials had been notified of the investigation, said the ministry, which said it "deeply appreciates" Rome's "close cooperation".The broken corpse of the Cambridge University student, who was researching the rise of independent labour unions following the 2011 revolt, was found in a ditch at the side of a motorway on February 3.Egyptian forensics and prosecution officials have said his body showed signs of torture and that he was killed by a blow with a sharp object to the back of the head.The case has put a spotlight on alleged police brutality in Egypt, a strategic ally of the United State and other Western powers.Shopkeepers in Regeni's neighborhood of Cairo said there were no signs that police in the area had been questioning people since his disappearance or death.Rights groups accuse the police of widespread abuses against Egyptians since the army toppled Egypt's first freely elected president in 2013.Italy has said Egyptian investigators should hand over the evidence they have uncovered on Regeni's death. Egypt invited Italian investigators to take part in the investigation, but judicial sources in Rome say the collaboration has been limited because not enough information was shared.An Egyptian forensics official has told the public prosecutor's office the autopsy he conducted on an Italian student showed he was interrogated for up to seven days before he was killed, two prosecution sources had told Reuters.The findings were the strongest indication yet that Giulio Regeni was killed by Egyptian security services because they point to interrogation methods such as burning with cigarettes in intervals over several days, which human rights groups say are the hallmark of the security services.Interior Ministry spokesmen declined comment on this matter.REUTERS JW PR0737 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0364-652478.Xml
Syrian soldiers recaptured the old citadel of Palmyra overlooking the city's ancient ruins on Friday, state media and a monitoring group said, in an offensive which could open up much of eastern Syria to government forces.The recapture of Palmyra, which the Islamist militants seized in May 2015, would mark the biggest single gain for President Bashar al-Assad since Russia intervened in September and turned the tide of the five-year conflict in his favour.Palmyra is the site of some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, and temples and tombs were dynamited by Islamic State fighters in what the United Nations has described as a war crime.The city controls routes east into the heartland of territory held by the militants, who have proclaimed a "caliphate" to rule over all Muslims from swathes of Syria and Iraq.The scale of Friday's fighting reflected how much of a strategic prize the city represents, with jets launching dozens of air strikes and soldiers firing mortar barrages, while Islamic State fighters hit back with two car bombings.Russian warplanes have continued to support the Syrian army and its allies as they push their offensive on the desert city, despite Moscow's recent announcement that it was withdrawing the bulk of its military forces.Beirut-based television channel Al-Mayadeen, broadcasting from the edge of Palmyra, showed a low-flying jet carry out three air strikes against what it said were Islamic State fighters withdrawing from the old citadel back into Palmyra.State television and Al-Manar, the television station of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, later quoted military sources saying government forces had seized the citadel, located above the ancient ruins.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the citadel had been captured. It said there were 56 air strikes between dawn and early afternoon on Friday.A ceasefire backed by the United States and Russia covers most of Syria but not areas held by Islamic State. The first truce of its kind since war began five years ago has been accompanied this month by the first peace talks attended by Assad's government and most of the groups opposed to him. Meanwhile, Damascus has turned its fire on Islamic State.Moscow is the main ally of Assad's government, while Washington and other Western countries have backed foes trying to overthrow him during five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and led to the world's worst refugee crisis. Both powers are committed to fighting against Islamic State and have backed a new diplomatic push to end fighting on other fronts.A Russian special forces officer was killed in combat near Palmyra in the last week, Interfax said, suggesting the Kremlin has been more deeply engaged in the Syrian conflict than it has acknowledged.Islamic State suicide bombers detonated two car bombs as they tried to repulse government forces who advanced into the hotel district close to the ancient ruins, said the Observatory which monitors Syria's war through a network of sources.Soldiers interviewed on Mayadeen and Syrian television said that the army was completing the capture of high ground overlooking Palmyra."JOY AFTER TRAGEDY"Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said that driving Islamic State out of Palmyra would be a victory for the whole world."After all the tragedy we have suffered in Syria for five years, and the 10 months in Palmyra after it fell...it's the first time we feel joy," Abdulkarim told Reuters."We pray for victory soon, so that the damage is limited. Palmyra, under their control, was the loss of a civilisation," he said. "The only choice is to liberate the city in any way possible".Mayadeen and Al-Manar showed footage of the ancient city on Friday. It was not possible to assess from the long-range shots what damage had been inflicted, but colonnades and several structures appeared to be still standing.UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has set out a common blueprint for a political process aimed at ending the civil war, and said on Thursday talks would tackle the divisive issue of a post-war transition when the warring sides gather again next month.Progress has been slow, with the government delegation and its opponents disagreeing fundamentally on the terms of such a transition, including whether Assad must leave power.REUTERS AY NS2040 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0352-653738.Xml
Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Haji Imam or al-Afri, served as IS's finance minister, and was killed this week by US military, US defence chief Ash Carter said here at a Pentagon briefing.

"We've taken out the leader who oversees the funding for ISIL's operations, hurting their ability to pay fighters and hire recruits," said Carter, adding that the US-led coalition was "systematically eliminating" IS's cabinet.

Carter refused to offer details about the operation against al- Afri, whom many analysts consider the extremist group's second-in- command.

Meanwhile, Carter acknowledged that striking IS leadership was far from sufficient, noting that "leaders can be replaced."

--Indo-Asian News Service ahm/

( 147 Words)

2016-03-26-00:59:32 (IANS)
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or graduate school search.

If you've graduated from an MBA program and landed that job you interviewed for, the company may offer you a signing bonus as an incentive to come on board.

All 10 of the MBA programs whose graduates saw the highest average signing bonuses in 2015 were ranked within the top 20 of the U.S. News Best Business Schools rankings for 2017. More than half of them were ranked in the top 10.

[Determinewhether getting an MBA makes financial sense.]

These bonus figures, submitted to U.S. News by 74 schools in an annual survey, apply to graduates from full-time MBA programs who had accepted jobs when data were collected three months after their 2015 graduation.

Topping the list is Yale University's business school. Graduates received an average signing bonus of $31,155, with 141 students reporting these data out of a class of 244 job-seeking graduates. Yale tied for No. 8 in the U.S. News rankings.

Meanwhile, the business school ranked No. 1, Harvard University, had the eighth-highest average signing bonus. The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, which tied for No. 2 in the rankings with Stanford University, was fifth on the list. Stanford didn't make the top 10 list for bonuses, with an average signing bonus of $26,823 among the 93 students who reported this information out of a class of 283 job-seeking graduates.

[Exploreupcoming, hot areas in business school hiring.]

Among all 74 schools that submitted these data, the average signing bonus for graduates was $25,381 -- lower than the average signing bonus for the 10 schools at the top of the list, which was $29,899.

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Below are the 10 business schools with the highest average signing bonuses for 2015 graduates. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find employment data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed 470 colleges and universities for our 2015 survey of graduate business programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges , Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs . The employment data above are correct as of March 24, 2016.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.
Your guide to sniffing out the season's top deals.

Summer is practically synonymous with vacation, but planning a trip during the most popular travel season can get pricey. Whether you want to book a trip alone or with family, on a moment's notice or well in advance, these 10 tips can help you cut summer travel costs -- and secure a great value on your getaway.

Bundle your travel expenses.

You can shave hundreds off your trip by purchasing multiple services at once. For example, if you will need a combination of flights, lodging and attraction tickets, consider booking a package deal, which is often less expensive than booking each component separately. And whether you're looking for bargain-priced luxury hotels or budget-friendly backpacking adventures, you're apt to find the affordable vacation you want on deal-focused sites like LivingSocial Escapes, which features travel packages for family-friendly escapes, flight-inclusive escapes and more. On top of giving you a rock-bottom vacation price, LivingSocial Escapes offers a Good Deal Guarantee, which grants you 30 days to return an unused voucher.

Cut out the middleman.

If you need room to spread out and want a great deal, take a look at the properties listed on VRBO, which allows you to rent a property directly from the owner and eliminates the fees charged by rental management companies. VRBO features more than 1 million vacation rentals at almost every price point. Plus, most rentals offer amenities like free high-speed Internet and extras like portable playpens, beach toys and bikes at no extra charge. Best of all, VRBO rentals typically come with fully equipped kitchens, so your family can save even more cash by dining in.

Don't overlook deal-focused sites.

Many travel booking sites offer handy tools that allow you to snag bargains at the last minute. For example, Priceline's Name Your Own Price tool lets you bid on hotels, flights and rental cars. Meanwhile, Priceline's Express Deals tool allows you to choose from a wide selection of hotels that are up to 60 percent off without requiring any bidding. Before you book, you can browse the neighborhood, amenities and price of the hotel you're interested in. And for spur-of-the-moment travel, download the Priceline app and tap into its Tonight-Only Deals. This tool allows you to search for the day's best-priced lodging and it reveals important details of the hotel, including the nightly rate and guest ratings, prior to purchase.

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Stay flexible in your travel plans.

If you have your heart set on a certain vacation destination and time frame, your chances to secure a deal will be a bit more limited. However, if you're open to visiting lesser-known locations or taking budget airlines, you can save big. That's where sites like WhichBudget.com come in handy. WhichBudget is a free flight search engine that scans the Web for the lowest prices on plane tickets, including those from low-cost airlines that aren't always featured on larger third-party booking sites. Another benefit of booking with WhichBudget is that you can further customize your departure and arrival settings. The site gives you the option of searching all cheap flights from the airport nearest to you without having a preset destination punched in and helps you ensure that you're actually getting the best deal available.

Look for deeply discounted destinations.

There are plenty of budget-friendly summer vacations to be found across the globe. Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic and one of the Caribbean's most popular cities, and Lisbon, Portugal's stunning coastal gem, are two affordable international destinations. Closer to home, you can book a reasonably priced getaway in off-peak destinations, such as Fort Lauderdale or Key West, Florida. Planning a trip to a wallet-friendly destination doesn't have to sacrifice safety, either. In fact, some of the world's safest destinations are not cost prohibitive. Google Flights currently shows round-trip flights from New York City airports to Reykjavik, Iceland, for as low as $603 in June. And thanks to a recovering dollar, you can secure great bargains in destinations across Japan and Canada this summer.

Be smart about your booking schedule.

Oftentimes, you can find low prices on flights Monday night through Wednesday afternoon, so make sure to book early in the week. Also, keep in mind that flights departing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be less expensive than other days of the week. And to secure the lowest airfare, make sure to purchase your ticket six weeks prior to a domestic trip and 21 weeks before a European vacation. You should also consider planning your summer trip for early June or the last two weeks of August to dodge peak season prices and crowds.

Compare pricing at alternate airports.

A smart way to secure the lowest airfare is checking the prices for flights into alternate hubs. For example, if you're planning a summer trip to San Francisco, you may be able to get a better rate by flying into Oakland International Airport instead of San Francisco International Airport. Or if you want to visit Miami, compare flight options to Miami International Airport and Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which serves low-cost carriers like Spirit Airlines. And if your heart is set on visiting Los Angeles, rather than flying into Los Angeles International Airport, consider flying into Long Beach Airport, which serves budget carrier JetBlue.

Stay attune to social media.

Savvy travelers use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to tap into the latest deals. For example, "liking" hotel loyalty program pages as well as individual hotel pages, grants you access to flash sales and promotions. Plus, major airlines like JetBlue and Virgin America often promote vacation packages and last-minute sales on social media platforms. In-the-know travel rewards program members can also earn perks and bonus points for social check-ins. The Starwood Preferred Guest Program, for example, allows members to earn points for checking into Facebook or Foursquare when they stay at participating hotels.

Organize a midweek vacation.

For lower flight prices and increased availability, consider planning a midweek getaway. You'll likely find reduced rates on less popular travel days, such as Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when there is lower demand and a greater inventory. And you can often secure steeply reduced rates on hotel rooms on off-peak weekdays, too. Plus, many hotels do not require a minimum night's stay for weekday bookings. And if you're able to take an extra paid vacation day during the busy holiday weekends, such as Memorial Day and July Fourth weekend, you can easily shave hundreds off your trip by flying during off-peak times.

Take advantage of loyalty program perks and promotions.

If you haven't already committed to a travel credit card, there are many that rewards cards that offer generous sign-up bonuses and offer exclusive access to deals available with affiliated program partners. The Citi ThankYou Premier Card, for example, offers cardholders a 40,000-point bonus for spending $3,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening an account and allows Hilton HHonors members to transfer points to their Hilton account at a 2-to-3 ratio. Many loyalty programs also offer members-only promotions. For example, Marriott is offering a MegaBonus promotion through May 15, 2016, that gives Marriott Rewards members the opportunity to collect bonus points in addition to one free night after two paid stays at Marriott properties.

Sarah Pike is a freelancer, adjunct professor and wanderlust sufferer. When she's not writing, teaching, or traveling, she's probably binge-watching RomComs and dreaming up her next vacation. You can find her on Twitter at @sarahzpike.
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - About 100 Chinese-registered boats and vessels were detected encroaching into Malaysia's waters near the Luconia Shoals in the South China Sea on Thursday, the country's national security minister Shahidan Kassim said. According to state news agency Bernama, Shahidan said assets from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the navy have been deployed to the area to monitor the situation. China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims. Malaysia would take legal action if the ships were found to have trespassed into the country's exclusive economic zone, Shahidan was quoted as saying. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff)
Amnesty International on Friday condemned reported Chinese detentions linked to a letter calling on President Xi Jinping to resign, after a US-based dissident said his parents and brother were missing.

The reported detentions of New York-based Wen Yunchao's family members would be the latest in a widening crackdown following publication of an anonymous letter calling on Xi to step down for the good of the country.

Wen cited a relative as saying the three were "taken away" from their home in the southern province of Guangdong by government officials. Wen said his father had warned him he was suspected of distributing the letter.

Four members of staff at Wujie News, a state-backed website which carried the letter earlier this month before deleting it, have been missing since last week, a reporter at the outlet earlier told AFP.

China Researcher at Amnesty International William Nee said: "The authorities should call off the political hounding of those suspected to be behind the open letter and release all those detained in connection with it".

"The persecution of family members of dissidents is a draconian and unlawful tactic that makes a mockery of Chinas claims to respect the rule of law," he added.

The letter, seen by AFP in a cached form, berated Xi for centralising authority, mishandling the economy and tightening ideological controls.

Media criticism of top leaders is almost unknown in China, where the press is strictly controlled by the ruling Communist Party.

"Due to your gathering of all power into your own hands... we are now facing unprecedented problems and crises in the politics, economics, ideology, and culture," it said.

The BBC on Friday cited sources as saying a total of 20 people have been detained in connection with the document.

Wen said his father had earlier told him that officials in Guangdong believed he had "helped spread" the letter and his brother would lose his job if he did not reveal its source.

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"I believe the disappearance of my parents and brother is directly connected to this," he said.

Chinese journalist Jia Jia was detained at Beijing's main airport ahead of a flight to Hong Kong last week, with rights groups linking his detention to an official probe into the letter.

Lawyer Yan Xin told AFP that Jia had been released on Friday evening, without giving details.
Amnesty International said Malaysian authorities hanged three convicted murderers Friday despite calls for clemency from rights groups that called the executions "shocking and disturbing", as the country considers scrapping the death penalty.

Malaysian and international organisations including the UN's human rights body had this week issued appeals for authorities to stay the expected execution of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu.

However, Amnesty said two brothers, Ramesh Jayakumar and Sasivarnam Jayakumar, also had been hanged Friday.

AFP was not able to confirm the hangings. Malaysia does not publicly announce executions and otherwise closely guards information on its application of the death penalty.

Malaysian officials have indicated in recent years that the government may review its use of capital punishment, but no progress is known to have been made.

"The fact that these state killings come at a time when the Malaysian government is actively discussing abolition of the mandatory death penalty makes them all the more shocking and disturbing," Amnesty International's Southeast Asia campaigns director Josef Benedict said in a statement.

"These hangings are a sickening reminder that the Malaysian authorities must redouble their efforts to establish a moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolition of the death penalty."

The Southeast Asia office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Thursday also had urged a stay of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu's execution, adding that it was "concerned by Malaysias practice of carrying out executions in secret".

Around 900 people were on death row in Malaysia, officials have said in recent years, mostly drug offenders.

Since 1960, nearly 450 people have been executed, according to data released in 2011, but activists say they have been extremely rare in recent years.

In 2014, authorities halted plans to execute a Malaysian convicted murderer, Chandran Paskaran, after an outcry from rights groups.
When it comes to U.S. online graduate degree programs, the application processes are typically similar for domestic and international students. But for the latter group, there may be additional requirements, like demonstration of English-language proficiency, to keep in mind.

"The biggest difference is pretty much what they have to submit as an international student," says Margaret Oakar, associate director for admission services at Pennsylvania State University--World Campus.

Though the specifics vary across programs, international applicants should ensure that they meet all their requirements and apply to a school that caters to students from overseas by taking these five considerations into account.

1. Look for ways to learn more about the program and international student population: When applying to online programs, prospective international graduate students should determine whether there are ways for them to explore the school further, which may include talking to other international students or virtually attending an online class, if possible, says Melora Sundt, professor of clinical education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education.

"Some programs are protective of that; others are very open and say 'sure,'" says Sundt. "They want you to make a good choice. And while I can't say openness is a sign of a better program, it certainly does help you make a better decision."

2. Be able to demonstrate English proficiency: Demonstrating English skills is typically essential to gaining admittance to a U.S. online graduate program for those who don't speak it as their first language, experts say.

Discover [how U.S. colleges gauge international students' English skills.]

For instance, many U.S. online programs will ask that international applicants submit scores from the TOEFL or IELTS exams. Experts say it's important to check these requirements before submitting an application, as there may also be exceptions if an applicant, for instance, completed an undergraduate degree in a predominantly English-speaking country.

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International applicants can also illustrate a solid grasp of the English language on the application itself, where they can show admissions officers their writing abilities, says Christopher Quinn, regional vice president at the for-profit Kaplan University, which offers online and on-ground programs.

"Written English abilities are particularly important as online programs predominantly require written assignments and interactions with classmates and faculty," he said via email.

3. Check out which student services are available to international students: It's vital online international applicants check whether student services such as career advisement are accustomed to assisting international students specifically.

International students in different time zones, Oakar says, might need access to 24-hour tech support, for example, or may desire assistance with their writing, especially if English isn't their first language.

"The distance allows for that convenience and flexibility, but it can also seem a little bit isolating," she says. "So I encourage my graduate applicants to think about, what do they personally need?"



[Ask these five questions about student services in online programs.]

4. Make sure your transcripts are in English and your undergraduate degree is accepted: Quinn, of Kaplan, says prospective international graduate students considering U.S. online programs should understand that their academic transcripts and credentials will need to be translated into English for review.

Experts also say they should determine whether their already-completed undergrad degrees will be accepted by U.S.-based online graduate programs. And they should explore what the degree they hold is equivalent to in the U.S.

"How that translates can be a little bit different by country, so that can be a little bit confusing for international students," Oakar says.

Many online graduate programs offered through U.S. schools ask for a degree that's comparable to a four-year U.S. bachelor's degree. International online students should contact their undergraduate institution to see if they meet that requirement, Oakar says.

Patricia Ezeli, originally from Nigeria and now based in the U.S., is a student in the online @WashULaw Master of Laws, or LL.M., in U.S. Law through Washington University in St. Louis' School of Law. If online students plan to work in their home country after completing the online program, she said via email, she would recommend they determine whether U.S. online degrees are typically viewed favorably by employers, and if the degree itself mentions that the program was earned online.

5. Understand whether there's an in-person or clinical requirement outside of your country: Some online graduate programs might require online students to come to campus or other designated locations to complete face-to-face requirements.

For applicants based overseas, this is particularly important to note, as travel to the U.S. might require a visa application or additional paperwork, Oakar says.

[Learn four other online education program considerations for international students.]

"I would tell international applicants to get very clear guidelines and understanding of that," says Oakar. Checking these requirements early on, she says, is important to avoid any attendance issues once the program starts.

Prospective online students should decide whether a program with an in-person component is something they're even looking for, experts say. Like online students based in the U.S., many international online students juggle their education with work and other obligations, so a clinical or on-campus component may be too much to handle.

"Some international students see those immersion programs, where you have to come to campus for a period of time, as very attractive and useful," Sundt says. "Others see them as being cumbersome."

Trying to fund your online education? Get tips and more in the U.S. News Paying for Online Education center.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.


New York (AFP) - Atlantic City, the famous US gambling resort town and setting for hit TV series "Boardwalk Empire" is in the crosshairs of financial crisis, in a battle pitting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie against the mayor.

Christie, a casualty of the race for the White House, who now endorses Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, is locked in a political struggle with Mayor Don Guardian over how to resolve the collapsing finances, with many city services slated to be shut down.

The coastal resort, which fell on hard times owing to increased competition from other gambling centers across the United States, saw four of its 12 casinos close in 2014, contributing to a sharp fall in tax revenue.

The mayor says the city will shut down all but essential services for three weeks from April 8 because it can no longer pay the bills.

The abrasive Republican governor, whose support for Trump has seen him lampooned by Democrats, backs takeover legislation to put the state in charge of Atlantic City to get its finances in order.

But despite a tentative deal, city leaders now quibble the terms, fearing the legislation as it stands would let the state sell off city assets and tear up contracts with public sector unions.

In an interview with WPG Talk Radio station on Thursday, Christie refused to back down and said the solution was to "shed hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and employment obligations."

Atlantic City had been "so irresponsible in the way they've given our public benefits, exorbitant health benefits, huge salaries, big pensions, that it's contributing mightily to bankrupting the city," he said.

But without funds, the mayor says the city will shut down non-essential services from April 8 until the next payment of quarterly taxes on May 2 during which employees will not be paid.

Trump, who declared bankruptcy four times in connection with Atlantic City properties, pulled out of the city in 2009 but has bragged about making a lot of money in the resort.
Australia on Friday branded Japan's killing of 333 whales "abhorrent", saying there was no scientific justification for the Antarctic hunt.

The Japanese fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in December despite a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand, using a loophole in the ban that allows for lethal research.

On Thursday, Japan's Fisheries Agency announced enough whales had been killed for "scientific research" as the boats returned to port.

"The Australian government opposes so-called 'scientific' whaling clearly, absolutely and categorically," Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt said in comments emailed to AFP.

"It is in my view abhorrent and a throwback to an earlier age... There is no scientific justification for lethal research."

Japan was forced to abandon its 2014-15 hunt after the International Court of Justice said the expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.

Hunt criticised Japan for going ahead with the killings "in spite of a resolution by the (International Whaling) Commission calling on it not to go whaling".

Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, but the meat still ends up on dinner tables and is served up in school lunches.

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd criticised the Australian and New Zealand governments, saying they had not done enough to stop the whaling.

"The majority of Australians wanted the Australian government to send a vessel to oppose the slaughter. They did not," Sea Shepherd Australia's managing director Jeff Hansen said in a statement late Thursday.

"The governments responsible for protecting these magnificent creatures stood by, in the complete knowledge that both federal and international crimes were taking place.

"This empty response from authorities in the wake of the ICJ ruling is a disgrace."

Some experts say that Japan's refusal to give up the Antarctic mission despite censure by the international court is largely due to a small group of powerful politicians.
SDP chief Chee Soon Juan briefing party volunteers. Photo: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo Singapore

The battle for Bukit Batok has begun and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has gotten into the full swing of things.

Tuesday (22 March) was a full night for SDP chief Chee Soon Juan. Following a doorstop interview with journalists at Bukit Batok MRT station, he recorded a video message for his Facebook followers. Then it was time to go door-to-door to canvas support for his candidacy in the Bukit Batok by-election.



Together with 20 party volunteers, Chee covered 10 blocks in Bukit Batok Street 21. Giving out copies of the party newsletter, the 53-year-old spent a few minutes at each home, informing residents of the coming by-election and asking for their support.

One man was heard telling Chee: I will not only support you, I will canvas for you. Hope Singaporeans will wake up.

The by-election was triggered by former Bukit Batok MP David Ongs resignation on 12 March, amid various media reports that he had an extramarital affair with a grassroots activist. The SDP was quick to declare its intention to contest the ward on the same day, subsequently announcing Chee as its candidate on Sunday (20 March).

He has gone through a lot

Chee speaking to a Bukit Batok resident. Photo: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo Singapore



Residents whom Yahoo Singapore spoke to seemed enthusiastic about Chee, a man who has been sued multiple times by government figures. But in what is perhaps a reflection of an age-old fear factor in Singapore politics, they declined to give their full names.

Mr Leow, 62, a Bukit Batok resident of almost 30 years, quoted a Techew proverb that literally translates to: Dont bully the crab with no legs.



He said, Chee has gone through a lot. He has been made a bankrupt, they call him crazy, but I dont think so. Maybe he is a bit bad tempered, but everyone goes through that. Who does not make mistakes?

He added that he still thought of David Ong as a good man, saying, If this happens in France or China, who cares?

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SDPs by-election goals



Chee on his walkabout. Photo: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo Singapore

Viswa Sadasivan, the founder and editor-in-chief of sociopolitical site Inconvenient Questions, told Yahoo Singapore that a key consideration for the SDP in the by-election is to remain on the publics radar screen. He noted that in a general election, it would usually be overshadowed by the Workers Party (WP).

But in a by-election like this, where the spotlight is exclusively on one ward, the amount of publicity and political mileage you can get out of this is a lot, if you play your cards right.

Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, added that it is a win-win situation for the SDP, no matter the outcome of the by-election.



If they win, they get a seat in parliament, and Chee will finally achieve his goal of reaching parliament. If they lose but increase the percentage that they got, and its likely to be the case with the by-election effect, they can convey the message that they are beginning to resonate more with Singaporeans, he said.



Mustafa noted that the SDP has refined its strategy from one of confrontation to a more subdued and diplomatic approach. The SDP has also put on the back-burner the liberal positions and causes they usually champion. They are going local, by talking about the town council and local issues.

A study in contrasts

Murali Pillai is the PAPs candidate for the Bukit Batok by-election. Photo: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo Singapore

On Monday (21 March), the Peoples Action Party (PAP) unveiled Chees opponent: Lawyer K. Muralidharan Pillai, 47, who has been active in the Bukit Batok grassroots movement for 16 years.



The contest between Chee and Murali is one of two men who are poles apart, said Viswa. Chee is charismatic, effervescent, and he speaks with a lot of impact. But if you look at Murali, he is a low-profile kind of guy. He is a doer and not a talker. And that is what the PAP is going to emphasise.

Chee, a sometimes controversial figure, has been in politics since 1992. He has also been arrested and jailed several times, mainly for making speeches and staging public demonstrations without a police permit. During last years general election, Chees speeches at SDP rallies drew thousands.

A retiree in his 70s, who has lived in Bukit Batok for more than a decade, was impressed by Chees grit and commitment. The retiree, who declined to be named, said: Hes making a comeback. Its been a long slog for him, and full marks for stamina.

Local issues

In the light of issues raised at the last election, local issues may be the real deal-breaker, said Viswa. If I were a voter, I would think carefully and say: if I vote in SDP, what are the chances of me having the same issues as the Aljunied and Hougang guys? Even a more established party like WP is struggling to manage a town council.
Dublin (AFP) - Campaigners in Ireland are sensing victory following a years-long battle over the fate of a gritty Dublin street where rebels against British rule made a dramatic last stand a century ago.

As Ireland prepares to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising on Sunday with the largest commemorative events in the history of the state, the dispute has taken on particular poignance.

It has pitted descendants of those who fought in the 1916 uprising on one side against a property developer and the government on the other.

Moore Street is cluttered with market stalls and modern shop signs over original red brick facades where 100 years ago men and women seen as founding heroes of the Irish state held out against British machine guns.

"It is a place that resonates with history," read a judgment issued by Ireland's High Court earlier this month that has raised the hopes of campaigners.

- 'National and European importance' -

If the Irish government had its way, developer Chartered Land would have demolished much of the street and nearby lanes, where eight rebels and 11 civilians were killed.

Just four buildings which were purchased by the government would have remained standing, converted into shops, a restaurant and a historical centre surrounded by a large shopping complex.

But the court ruling found much of the Moore Street area and its surrounding lanes to be "a battle-site of national and European importance".

"We've reclaimed it, we've won the street for the people," said Patrick Cooney, a 42-year-old documentary filmmaker and veteran of the campaign that this year saw protesters occupy buildings and blockade construction crews from starting work.

The campaigners accuse the current government led by Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party of being fundamentally uncomfortable with Ireland's revolutionary history.

The party traces its history back to a side in the Irish civil war in the 1920s that supported a deal with Britain granting limited independence, with Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom.

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The same Civil War divisions lurk behind the current political jam, as last month's general election result means Fine Gael can only easily form a government with Fianna Fail -- old foes descended from the opposing side, which rejected partition and wanted to continue to fight for full independence.

The country will come together to commemorate the events of 1916 on Sunday with a parade to be attended by political leaders and 5,000 relatives of the rebels where the landmark proclamation of an independent republic will be read out.

Moore Street's significance lies in the fact that it is where rebels fled as they abandoned the burning General Post Office, where they had made their proclamation days earlier.

They burrowed through the walls from house to house, bursting in on surprised residents in a desperate bid to evade the surrounding British barricades.

Number 16 was where they decided to surrender, before their leaders were executed for their involvement in the rebellion in a series of killings that caused outrage and a surge in support for independence.

- 'Greatest centenary gift' -

In a striking 400 page judgment that quoted at length from historical testimonies of the rebels themselves, Barrett said it was "difficult to understand" why the government considered only four houses worth saving.

He noted that the holes tunnelled through the walls were still visible, and original cobblestones lurked under tarmac in the lanes that would have been built over.

The government has the option of appealing the ruling.

Asked for comment by AFP, both the government and Chartered Land said they would need to review the judgment before deciding the next step.

The minister in charge of commemorations and the Moore Street plan Heather Humphreys recognised the challenge of finding balance in an island of clashing traditions.

"While it is not of course possible to please everyone, we can at least try to respect each other's views and listen to the various narratives which run through our historical story," she said.

For Cooney, descended from members of the London branch of the Irish Volunteers militia that formed the backbone of rebel forces, the next battle is to make sure Moore Street is regenerated in a way that is sensitive to its unique place in history.

"It's the birthplace of the republic, the cradle of the nation. It's where they laid down their lives and they gave us our country, simple as that," he said.

"You've got plaque unveilings, you've got wreath-layings, you've got flags being flown, but the greatest centenary gift for the nation is the saving of Moore Street."
Facing long odds of overcoming Hillary Clinton's significant delegate lead, Bernie Sanders is a long way from the heady days following his landslide win in New Hampshire, when there was talk of burning down Clinton's firewall in Nevada and South Carolina  setting the former secretary of state up for a repeat of her 2008 loss.

Clinton's uneven but undeniable comeback has Democrats thinking ahead to a post-Sanders world, and while he vows to remain in the race through the final nominating contests in June, he's already articulating what he'd like to hear from Clinton, should she emerge as the Democratic standard-bearer.

"If I can't make it  and we're going to try as hard as we can until the last vote is cast  we want to completely revitalize the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people rather than one of large campaign contributors," Sanders told the Young Turks host Cenk Uygur.

Sanders said he wants to see Clinton throw her support behind a "Medicare-for-all" single-payer health care system, a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour, new infrastructure spending, a "vigorous effort" to tackle climate change, tuition-free public college, ending corporate tax loopholes and imposing new regulations on Wall Street.

Still, Sanders told Uygur he's not merely running a protest campaign, and that he's mounting a campaign focused on securing the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

But should he come up short in that effort, the 74-year-old Vermont senator doesn't sound like a man vying for a role as national spokesman of the American left.

"I'm not big into being a leader," Sanders said. "I'd much prefer to see a lot of grassroots activism."

Watch Sanders' full interview with Uygur below. The comments on Clinton come around 17:30:
By Saraswati Sundas THIMPHU (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sonam Zangmo endured abuse at the hands of her husband for two years before finally walking out on him after the birth of her daughter. "He used to lay his hands on me at every opportunity," said the 28-year-old Bhutanese woman, who is now bringing up her daughter, 6, alone. She is happier as a single parent, she says, even though she earns just $100 a month working at a resort in Bumthang district in central Bhutan, popular for its ancient Buddhist temples and monasteries. "There were no better options," said Zangmo. "I want my daughter to have a good life." But without drastic changes in attitudes towards women in the tiny Himalayan nation wedged between China and India, it is likely her daughter will also suffer domestic abuse. A national health survey in 2012 revealed 74 percent of women in the majority Buddhist country had been victims of physical violence. Another survey from Bhutan's National Statistics Bureau revealed that 68 percent of Bhutanese women believe a man is justified in beating his wife if she neglects the children, argues with her husband, refuses sex or burns the dinner. The findings were a wake-up call in a society that enshrines non-discrimination in its constitution, and through its Gross National Happiness Commission prioritises the happiness of its citizens, taking into account factors other than economic well-being. "It is surprising and shocking," said Karma Tshiteem, secretary of the happiness commission, formed in 2008. "The attitude is totally inconsistent with Buddhist teachings." Another victim of violence at home, retired schoolteacher Mewang Zam, 49, left her husband after 20 years of marriage. Her husband was a jobless alcoholic and would hit her and her children regularly. She decided to throw him out one night after he threatened to beat her with an iron rod. "I lived with him in the hope he would change but he never did," said Zam who now lives with her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in the capital, Thimphu. Her husband has tried to convince her to take him back but she has refused. 'FUTURE OF OUR DAUGHTERS' Since the non-governmental organisation Respect, Educate, Nurture and Empower Women (RENEW) was established in 2004, more than 4,000 cases of gender-based violence have been reported. But many more go unreported in the country of around 780,000 people. RENEW's more than 2,400 volunteers work across the mountainous kingdom to raise awareness and offer information about domestic violence and sexual health, and provide support and shelter to families who have suffered abuse. "Violence against women is a serious health, mental and human rights issue," said 28-year-old Rinzin Lhamo, a teacher who works as a RENEW volunteer in the commercial hub, Phuentsholing. "We must stand up together now to secure the future of our daughters." Apart from giving counselling and providing protection, Lhamo teaches victims of domestic violence tailoring, baking and bamboo basket-making to boost their incomes. Another volunteer, Ambika Neopaney, herself a victim of domestic abuse, has worked with RENEW for more than 10 years. "There are a lot of women out there who need help," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We help them come forward and get counselling and legal assistance," she said, adding at times they also help couples to reconcile. The NGO says it receives half a dozen complaints of violence against women every day, due to growing awareness of the problem. It deals with cases of assault, sexual harassment, child labour, sexual exploitation, physical abuse and rape. In 2014 alone, RENEW referred more than 50 cases to the high court, and the group currently houses 132 domestic violence victims in shelters. "Many women know about the service we provide, and many are coming forward," said RENEW's director, Pema Gyelsten. He said the most common complaints are physical abuse, including wife and maid battery, followed by emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment and extra-marital affairs. The National Commission for Women and Children and the women and child protection unit of the Bhutan police, established in 2007, have introduced an emergency number for reporting violence. Speaking at an International Women's Day event in Phuentsholing this month, the queen mother Sangay Choden Wangchuck, founder of RENEW, told the audience: "It is your duty to show and tell your sons that women deserve respect and love and should never be abused." The influential mother of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck said sexual and gender-based violence were on the rise in Bhutan, with children bearing the brunt of the abuse. Prime Minister Lyonchoen Tshering Tobgay has promised strict implementation of the 2013 Domestic Violence Prevention Act, as well as increasing representation of women in parliament, and promoting women's participation in society, economics and politics. (Reporting by Saraswati Sundas; Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
Brasilia (AFP) - The commander of Brazil's army vowed it would ensure stability in the face of a political crisis that threatens to topple the government, news media reported Friday.

General Eduardo Vilas Boas's comments came as leftist President Dilma Rousseff described efforts to impeach her as tantamount to a coup.

"Our actions will be fully supported by what is established in the law, from the constitution to additional legislation, always acting under orders from one of the powers of the republic," he said.

He cited part of the constitution that says the armed forces must act under the president's authority.

"We are going to contribute to maintaining stability" while state institutions seek a solution, he said.

Brazil's economic and political crises have prompted angry street protests in recent weeks. A few demonstrators have been seen calling for a military intervention.

Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Rousseff herself was jailed for part of that time for belonging to an armed dissident group.

Lawmakers have launched a congressional committee charged with deciding whether to bring a motion to impeach Rousseff over corruption allegations.

The 68-year old president's popularity has plunged as she also grapples with a deep recession in Latin America's biggest economy.

In an interview with foreign newspapers, Rousseff said any attempt to remove her without legal basis would represent a "coup."

"I am not comparing the coup here to the military coups of the past, but it would be a breaking of the democratic order of Brazil," she said in comments reported by The Guardian.
Mumbai (AFP) - An Indian flight attendant who was pictured covered in dust and blood after the Brussels attacks, making newspaper front pages around the world, is under sedation in hospital, her employer said Friday.

Indian airline Jet Airways said in a statement to AFP that 40-year-old Nidhi Chaphekar, who is from Mumbai, was in a stable condition and not in a coma as some reports had stated.

"We have spoken to the doctor at the (Brussels) hospital where Jet Airways crew Nidhi Chaphekar is under treatment.

"The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in a stable condition and not in coma. She is resting and under sedation for her comfort," read the emailed statement.

A haunting photograph of a dazed Chaphekar covered in debris, that surfaced soon after two massive suicide blasts hit Zaventem Airport, became one of the most widely published images of the bombings.

The attacks on Tuesday, which also targeted a metro train in the city, left 31 people dead and 300 injured.

In the photo shared by millions on social media, the mother of two is seen in the tattered remains of her yellow Jet Airways jacket, missing a shoe and with blood running down her face.

Many online users criticised the publishing and sharing of Chaphekar's photo, saying her privacy should have been respected.
Washington (AFP) - The brothers who carried out the airport and metro suicide bombings in Belgium's capital this week were known to US authorities and listed in American terrorism databases, television network NBC reported.

The report cited two unnamed US officials as saying that Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui were listed as a "potential terror threat" in US databases but that they would not specify on "which of the many US terrorism databases the brothers were listed."

The National Counterterrorism Center, which coordinates US intelligence on extremist threats, did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

Prior to the deadly attacks, the Belgian brothers had long rap sheets with criminal convictions related to carjackings, robberies and shoot-outs with police.

Details now emerging show that the three Brussels attackers were known to Belgian authorities but somehow able to slip through security.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at the Brussels airport, was deported by Turkey to the Netherlands in July 2015 as a "foreign terrorist fighter," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said he was aware the man had been sent to the Netherlands from Turkey, but denied he had been flagged as a possible terrorist.

Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in a metro station, was wanted on an international arrest warrant for terrorism in December and had rented an apartment used by the Paris attacks cell.

Najim Laachraoui, who also attacked the airport, was the subject of a wanted notice issued Monday, the day before the bombing.

All three suicide bombers had links to key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested last week after four months on the run just around the corner from his family home in Brussels.

The long list of blunders by Belgian intelligence is putting pressure on the government and raising urgent questions across Europe about whether Tuesday's attack in Brussels -- which left 31 dead and 300 wounded -- could have been prevented.

Belgium's interior and justice ministers have both offered their resignations but they were rejected by the prime minister.
Calais (France) (AFP) - Nine Iranians who sewed their mouths shut in protest at the demolition of the "Jungle" migrant camp in the northern French port of Calais ended their hunger strike on Friday.

The men had been on hunger strike since March 2, shortly after French authorities began demolishing the southern half of the camp.

Their lawyer, Orsane Broissin, read a statement before the nine frail-looking men left to have their stitches removed and receive treatment from aid workers.

"We have decided to end our hunger strike... out of respect for those who wished for us to do so, who are worried about our well-being, as well as to show our confidence in the intentions of the state to protect us and improve the living conditions of residents in the northern zone of the camp," the lawyer read.

The "Jungle" was the biggest of the makeshift camps to spring up along the northern French coast, from which thousands of migrants and refugees hope to smuggle aboard lorries to Britain where they often have family or community ties, or see better job and education prospects.

French authorities promised earlier this month to work with NGOs to improve conditions in the remaining part of the camp, which the hunger strikers said they considered a "victory".

Clearance of the southern half of the camp finished last week, affecting between 800 and 3,050 migrants and refugees, according to different sources.

The Iranians said they hoped for better security, medical and legal access, running water and a paved route to allow entry by emergency services, as well as help for minors in what remains of the camp.
Theyre lined up in formation, fully loaded with chocolate goodness and armored in bright foil wrappers that pop under the fluorescent bulbs. The normal grocery store minefields for time-pressed parents  candies and toys strategically positioned like roadside IEDs  give way this time of year to thousands of chocolate eggs and bunnies, poised for battle in the war known as  Easter.

We live in England, where Hershey bows to European confectioners like Ferrero, Lindt, Cadbury, Nestle and Ritter. My 6-year-old daughter, Gabi, joins ranks with the foiled wonders and takes aim. Please, Mommy, can I have a Kinder Surprise? she begs, before Ive even laid claim to a cart. Shes referring to the hollow chocolate eggs that contain a hidden toy surprise. I rarely surrender, but this year I know something Gabi doesnt: Its my English-born American daughters last year to gobble up her favorite treat, because were moving back to the United States, where federal regulations forbid its sale. So I take the hit with a feeble bribe: Yes, but only if youre good.

Children have been chomping on chocolate eggs for centuries. But parents have Italian entrepreneur Michele Ferrero  who died in February 2015  to thank for shaping chocolate to suit kiddie-specific tastes at the supermarket. Ferreros firm got its start under his father, Pietro, who, inspired by postwar austerity, experimented with adding hazelnuts to chocolate and created a money-saving spread that would later become the world-famous Nutella.

His son, in turn, would see to the companys international success two decades later, launching other products such as the Kinder line, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri and even Tic Tac mints. Ferreros representative tells OZY that Michele dreamed up the Kinder line, designed specifically for young Teutonic tastes, after noticing that German stores only provided chocolate products for adults, not children. He changed all of that in the late 1960s with a milk-chocolate-filled tablet devoid of preservatives or food colorings, aimed at pleasing both youngsters and their nutritionally wary parents.

Since the Renaissance, eggs and Easter have gone hand in hand for Europeans. Italian children have been cracking open giant chocolate eggs with surprises hidden inside for hundreds of years, which inspired Ferrero to create the Kinder Surprise in 1972. The tiny egg  with its milk chocolate shell, white chocolate lining and toy-filled capsule hidden inside  may be steeped in Easter tradition, but its sold year-round and comes in even bigger sizes for Easter.

By mixing a sweet treat, playtime and a colorful surprise, these eggs have cracked their way into the hearts of millions of children worldwide, with more than 40 billion sold in 70 countries to date. Gabi, born in England and raised partially in Germany, took to this European tradition like a natural, but my green-eyed chocolate monster is about to face a Kinder drought. The eggs are sold to the north and south of the United States  they were introduced in Canada in 1975 and Mexico boasts a newly opened factory  but carting them across the border is a no-no.

Under federal law, says the Food and Drug Administrations Theresa Eisenman, it would be illegal to have these objects within the food products, referring to Ferreros plastic capsules and the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Just two months ago, her agency issued an import alert noting that the toy capsules violate a section of the act banning the sale of confectionery with partially or completely embedded non-nutritive objects. [Kinder Surprise eggs] are subject to detention as adulterated food, she says, citing choking concerns. But the company says that the toy is not firmly attached to the chocolate and is thus not embedded, as it moves freely within the egg.

The proscription against toy-embedded candies extends beyond the FDA. The Consumer Product Safety Commissions Federal Hazardous Substances Act also bans small parts in childrens products, so the Kinder Surprise has egg on its face from two legal fronts. Its a sensitive issue, says Alexander Filip of the CPSC, referring to well-intentioned grandmothers who find them and bring them over as gifts only to have the eggs confiscated at customs. But Filips agency is restricted in where it spends its time and resources, noting that we have children who are dying because of other products. Its the higher-risk items, in other words, that get feds attention.

eggs

Source: Shutterstock

So maybe the long arm of the law isnt quite so long after all. It seems neither the FDA nor the CPSC has the money (or means) to chase passengers or retailers bringing in relatively small numbers of these eggs, whether for sale or personal consumption. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection definitely has the right to seize Kinder Surprise eggs lurking in baggage that comes from overseas, says Jennifer Evanitsky, from the agencys media division. [They] may be confiscated  and may result in CBP enforcement action, she says. Egg-toting offenders may be subject to fines.

So what about simply having them shipped internationally? Andrei Koltchins mail-order site, BuyChocolateEggs.com, is among those that ship worldwide, with the recipient bearing the legal responsibility. If a package gets returned, Koltchin adds, then we do a full refund. But he admits that sales to the states havent taken off, because folks are worried about the legal restrictions.

Theres another explanation for Koltchins low U.S. sales: Two Americanized versions of the Kinder Surprise recently hit the market. Yowie Group offers mythical chocolate creatures molded around a toy-filled capsule. The toy collectibles come in a single piece, as opposed to Kinders assembly-required collection of small toy parts. The absence of small parts and a visible plastic ridge between the chocolate halves are the primary reasons Yowie gained entry to the U.S. last year, and while the firm wont release sales figures, its representative tells OZY that its focused solely on America, notably where Kinder Surprise cant compete. Theres also Choco Treasure, which offers a similarly designed egg-shaped version, complete with toys inside, and says sales have grown exponentially, according to marketing manager Debra Quizby.

But for some, only the original will do, and the U.S. ban on Kinder Surprise has filled many a column inch, blog and even an online petition aimed at getting it lifted. In its defense, Ferrero contends that more than 35 billion of its beloved eggs have been sold since the first EU Council Directive on toy safety (1988/378) without serious incident. The company acknowledges two fatal accidents in the 1980s, but says there was no causal link between the incidents and the combination of the toy and the egg. The deaths, Ferreros representative says, occurred long after the eggs were opened and involved very small parts that have since been abolished. The deaths led to a parliamentary debate in the U.K., prompting a British minister to respond, All fatalities are regrettable, but the world is full of small objects, which can cause death by choking. Bill Durodie, a professor at the University of Bath who has written about choking hazards in products, concurs. He tells OZY that banning such products makes little sense because children are at greater risk of choking on their meals than on the items they contain.

Ferrero refuses to be baited on whether its trying to gain entry to America or not, but the CPSCs Alexander Filip says the Italy-based confectioner is in discussions with U.S. regulators. The biggest challenge? Making a product thats both safe and sells. They can make it really safe and nobody will buy it, or they can make it really appealing and itll be really dangerous, Filip says. Ferreros representative says simply that the safety of our consumers is paramount, and that the company refrains from marketing to children under the age of 12.

Its a scrambled situation, but one that essentially boils down to this: Americanized versions are beginning to gain ground by making the plastic toy capsule visible between the chocolate parts, which means the available market share will only shrink from here. Ferrero, in other words, needs to hurry if it plans to hook U.S. children on the original Kinder Surprise.

I have it on good authority that Gabi will get lots of her favorite sweets this Easter, starting with todays trip to the store. And she seems to sense it too, cheekily bidding for another: Can I have two? But for a similar haul next year, shell either have to make do with an American version, hope Ferrero manages to sweet-talk the feds or wait and see just how far the Easter Bunny can hop.

This OZY encore was originally published on April 5, 2015.

Related Articles
Jerrod Carmichael and Norman Lear are teaming up once again.

The two comedy writers, who recently sat down for a lively chat with The Hollywood Reporter last month, will once again come face-to-face at the ATX Festival, THR has learned.

The Carmichael Show co-creator and star will moderate a discussion with Lear, who will be honored with the ATX Award for achievement in television excellence at the festival, which takes place June 9-12 in Austin, Texas. Their conversation will follow a screening of the documentary centered on the All in the Family creator, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You.

Also added to the festival itinerary is "The (New) American TV Family" panel, which will feature Fresh Off the Boat showrunner Nahnatchka Kahn and The Real O'Neals showrunners Casey Johnson and David Windsor.

As previously announced, the ATX Festival will play host to several reunions, including the casts of Friday Night Lights, Everybody Loves Raymond and State of Grace, as well as the writers behind The O.C. and The Shield. Other talent set for the festival including David Simon (The Wire), Tom Fontana (Oz), Beau Willimon (House of Cards) and Noah Hawley (Fargo). Panels are set for UnReal, Casual, Younger, Tyrant and new shows like Preacher and Dead of Summer, among others.
Los Angeles (AFP) - American world champion boxer Adrien Broner faces assault and robbery charges in his hometown of Cincinnati just one week before he is scheduled to make his first defence of his junior welterweight crown.

The 26-year-old Broner allegedly assaulted and robbed a man outside a Cincinnati bowling alley on January 21, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on Thursday night.

The newspaper said police have issued a warrant for Broner's arrest but he was not in custody as of Thursday.

Broner is slated to fight England's Ashley Theophane in Washington, D.C. on April 1.

The Enquirer said the altercation took place outside the Cincinnati alley following a high-stakes bowling contest.

The newspaper said two men started arguing over money when one of them pulled a gun before punching the other man twice, knocking him to the ground. The man then took $12,000 from the unconscious victim.

The incident is also part of a lawsuit filed two months ago.

It is not known if next week's world title fight will go ahead as planned.

Broner (31-2, 23 knockouts) won the vacant title by knocking out Khabib Allakhverdiev in the 12th round in October.

Theophane (39-6-1, 11 knockouts) is looking to make his first world title appearance.
China's central bank said on Friday that firms involved in Internet finance had set up an industry association, as authorities try to get a handle on the rapidly growing but weakly regulated sector.

The group will seek to "self-regulate" the industry at a time of growing risk from Internet financing, according to a transcript of a speech by a People's Bank of China (PBoC) official at the opening ceremony.

Its establishment followed revelations last month that a well-known peer-to-peer (P2P) lending firm called Ezubao had bilked 900,000 investors out of $7.6 billion in what a company executive called a "Ponzi scheme".

The Shanghai-based industry association groups online payment providers, P2P lenders and other Internet finance entities, PBoC deputy governor Pan Gongsheng said, according to the transcript posted on the central bank website.

"We must fully understand that Internet financing institutions lack familiarity with risk," Pan said.

He added many were unaware of the need to abide by regulations, protect consumer rights, oppose money laundering or combat financing for terrorism.

"Industry self-regulation is beneficial and strongly supports administrative supervision," he said.

Members of the new industry group include major banks and financial firms, as well as P2P lenders and retailers with online sales, reports said, among them Bank of China and P2P giant Lufax, which is linked to financial Ping An Insurance Group.

China has nearly 2,600 platforms described as P2P businesses, according to industry website www.wdzj.com, with transactions valued at around $150 billion last year.

Online and mobile payment services are dominated by e-commerce giant Alibaba, with nearly three-quarters of the market, followed by Tencent -- operator of the popular messaging app WeChat -- which has some 17 percent, according to Beijing-based BigData Research.

But Tencent is keen to expand in the area while US technology giant Apple recently entered the market by launching Apple Pay.

Pan said Internet financing could boost efficiency, lower costs and introduce more channels of funding.

Small, private firms especially have looked online for financing as many are shut out of the state-dominated banking system.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Palestinian Christians and foreign pilgrims marked Good Friday with a procession through Jerusalem's cobbled Old City on Friday amid increased security measures during an ongoing wave of violence.

A few thousand Christians commemorated the day they believe Jesus Christ died by following the path he is said to have walked carrying his cross to his crucifixion.

Several streets in the walled Old City were blocked off by Israeli security forces, with police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirming they had deployed there in larger numbers than usual.

The majority of Palestinian Christians come from the eastern tradition, which celebrates Easter on the weekend of May 1 this year. But those from the Catholic and other Western churches hold their ceremonies this weekend.

Some Palestinian Christians carried crosses, while others sang hymns.

Carl-Leo von Honenthal, a 31-year-old German Protestant pilgrim, said he was very moved by the procession.

"It is very beautiful to be here with people peacefully walking together from all over the world," he said.

A Norwegian explained he had travelled from Tanzania, where he is a missionary, especially for the weekend.

For the dozens of shops selling Christian iconography and trinkets along the way, however, the situation was less positive.

A wave of violence has seen 200 Palestinians and 28 Israelis killed since October 1.

Most of the Palestinians have been killed while carrying out attacks, though others were shot dead during protests and a few killed in Israeli air raids in Gaza.

The ongoing wave of violence has put a damper on tourism in the bazaars of the Old City, shopkeepers said.

Shop owner Jihad Abu Diya said this was the worst year in the past decade, saying the foreign pilgrims were not buying anything.

The collapse of the Russian rouble, he added, meant many Russian visitors had little to spend.

"It is going from bad to worse," he said.

Nabeel Sayam, who runs a shop selling Christian mementos along the path of the procession, agreed the numbers of foreigners was far lower than last year.
A new company from Minnesota that's appropriately enough called Ideal Conceal has created quite a bit of controversy after touting the creation of a handgun designed to look like a smartphone.

"Smartphones are everywhere," the company's website reads, "so your new pistol will easily blend in with todays environment. In its locked position it will be virtually undetectable because it hides in plain sight.

Set for release sometime in mid-2016, the pistol is a double-barreled .380 caliber firearm sporting a one-piece frame construction. The company plans to sell it for $395 and its developer, one Kirk Kjellberg, claims that they've already received upwards of 2,500 emails from interested buyers.

DON'T MISS: It sounds like buying Nest has been a total disaster for Google

As for the impetus behind the firearm's creation, Kjellberg recently told CNN how he happened across the idea.

Kjellberg has a concealed carry permit and said he got the idea when he was walking through a restaurant and a young boy saw his pistol. "This little kid says, 'Mommy, Mommy, that man's got a gun,' so the whole restaurant looks at you like you're about to shoot the place up," Kjellberg said. "So I thought to myself there's got to be another way to be able to carry without bothering other people."

Notably, the gun in question - which can hold two bullets - cannot accidentally be fired when its in its smartphone camouflage.

The product description reads in part:

The ground breaking Ideal Conceal is a carefully engineered double-barreled .380 caliber people can safely carry in their purse or clipped to their side. Ingeniously designed to resemble a smartphone, yet with one click of the safety it opens and is ready to fire. The product was designed with safety as a priority. A brand everyone can trust, a piece they can rely on, over and over.

Nonetheless, the idea of people walking around with firearms disguised as smartphones has law enforcement officials worried.

Story continues

Addressing the issue head on, Bill Johnson of the National Association of Police Organizations said the following: "In general, the concept of any kind of weapon that's disguised, so that it's not apparent that it's a weapon, would be cause for concern."

Similarly, Andrew Patrick, Deputy Communications Director at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, issued the following statement to the DailyMail: "What's disturbing is that this looks like a real smartphone. There are countless stories of children playing with toy guns who were shot, because it was mistaken for the real thing."

ideal conceal in pocket

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This article was originally published on BGR.com
EXCLUSIVE: Playing out like a neonoir premise with all too terrible stakes, the documentary Death By A Thousand Cuts charts the dangers and chaos of mass deforestation, and escalating human conflict in the border region between the Dominican Republic and Haiti over charcoal trafficking. Beginning with a Dominican Republican park rangers gruesome murder, the film examines the lives of the people on both sides of the border and the human, economic, and environmental price paid by those affected by these activities. Watch the official trailer above.

The film, at its core, is a cautionary tale of how the increasingly fierce competition for natural resources combined with swelling wealth inequality can create fertile ground for civil strife, directors Juan Mejia Botero and Jake Kheel told Deadline. Even when initially represented as ethnic conflicts, if we step back and examine some of the worlds most recent international tragedies, well often find this combination of factors at their center. The rising tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic are one example.

Death By A Thousand Cuts is produced by Ben Selkow. It has its world premiere during Torontos Hot Docs Film Festival in the International Spectrum section. The festival runs April 28-May 8.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UU1rGT0gMo&w=970&h=546]

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Two pieces of plane debris discovered in Mozambique very likely belong to the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing two years ago en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the Australian government announced today (March 24).

The Malaysian investigation team for MH370 reported that the pieces, which were discovered Feb. 27, are consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, said Darren Chester, the Australian minister for infrastructure and transport.

"The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370," Chester said in a statement. [Flight 370: Photos of the Search for Missing Malaysian Plane]

Both of the pieces found in Mozambique were examined in Canberra, Australia. A team of experts from Australia, Malaysia, Boeing, Geoscience Australia and the Australian National University took part. They removed any visible animal life, such as crustaceans, from the wreckage, and then rinsed them, capturing any remaining fauna with a series of sieves, the Australian government reported.

The sieved material will later be examined and identified, and may help experts figure out where the debris has been since the crash. The experts also X-rayed the debris to further verify if it was from the missing plane.

The plane's disappearance has become one of the biggest mysteries in aviation. On March 8, 2014, Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia with 239 people on board, but the flight never reached its destination in China.

The plane likely crashed into the Indian Ocean, but only a few pieces of the aircraft have ever been found. The first verified pieces of wreckage were found on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean in July. The newly confirmed pieces may be located a ways from the suspected crash site, but they're "consistent with drift modeling" of the ocean, Chester said.

Another possible piece of the aircraft, likely the cowling from an engine, was recently found in South Africa, according to the Australian government. The Malaysian government is currently coordinating with South African officials to set up an analysis of that debris.

Story continues

"The search for MH370 continues," Chester said. "There are 25,000 square kilometers [about 9,650 square miles] of the underwater search area still to be searched. We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found."

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Yankari Game Reserve (Nigeria) (AFP) - For years, blacksmith Hashimu Abdullahi was making guns for ivory poachers and hunters invading the Yankari Game Reserve, one of the last wildlife areas home to elephants in Nigeria.

The five-kilogram (11-pound), 1.5-metre-long (five-foot) flintlock muskets are a relic of West Africa's colonial past, when slave traders used and swapped almost identically designed guns for people.

But today the 'Dane guns' -- the colloquial name for the homemade firearms -- are the weapon of choice for people fighting Yankari's rangers for control of the park and the lucrative animals within.

"I feel shameful. I don't want to see poachers again," Abdullahi, a 44-year-old man with impeccable posture and a neat moustache, told AFP.

Abdullahi, known as 'The Armourer', is an unlikely conservation convert, hired by Yankari as a ranger in 2012 for his talent in crafting the firearms.

Now he is part of a 80-strong team that protects Yankari in a bush battle where ivory poachers, hunters, herdsman and even Acacia tree sap harvesters are pitted against rangers protecting the park and its 300 elephants -- the last viable elephant population in the country.

Abdullahi says he and the other rangers are often shot at "by a gun like this", pointing to one of more than 200 confiscated Dane guns, held together with rusted wire and one with a shoulder strap fashioned from faded blue shoelaces.

When asked if he was scared to go out on patrol in the evening, Abdullahi replied solemnly: "This is how we took it. This is our job. This is how it is."

- Boko Haram threat? -

Unlike South Africa, where a rhino poaching crisis is driven by sophisticated international crime syndicates who sell horns to overseas clients, in Nigeria the threat to wildlife is more amorphous.

Hunters emboldened by voodoo charms pick off animals from the reserve and destroy key infrastructure such as bridges to thwart rangers on patrol.

Story continues

Herdsmen shepherd cows, sheep and donkeys into the park, who chow the food of the elephants, waterbuck and roan antelope.

Now there are growing fears that Boko Haram fighters, on the back foot after a Nigerian military counter-offensive, may set up camp in Yankari and use the bush as a base to launch deadly attacks.

Haladu Idi, one of Yankari's senior rangers, said his policeman friend working in the strategic northeastern city of Maiduguri warned him Boko Haram could be heading Yankari's way.

The militants have for years been based in the Sambisa Forest, a colonial-era game reserve in Borno state.

"He called me and said we should be careful of them," said Idi. "I told him, 'Yes, I agree'. He said, 'If you see them you must delete them'."

The worst-case scenario could see Boko Haram start poaching Nigeria's last elephants for ivory to fund their operations, mirroring the business model of other African armed groups including Ugandan-led rebel group The Lord's Resistance Army and Janjaweed horsemen from Sudan.

"Large domestic ivory markets in Lagos and Abuja threaten Yankari's elephants," said Andrew Dunn, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) country director in Nigeria.

"It is essential that we protect Yankari's elephants to prevent their ivory from becoming a source of revenue for Boko Haram."

- Regaining territory -

For now, Boko Haram remains an uncomfortable but still distant menace compared to the more pressing concerns posed by the communities around the park.

The majority of the 141 arrests made in 2015 were "grazers" -- nomadic herders coming from as far away as Niger, who pay village chiefs near Yankari to access the reserve.

Subsistence hunters were also detained, revealing the need for environmental education in a harsh, arid region where conservation comes second to daily survival.

"Many Nigerians are hungry and when you're hungry the first thing you need is food," said Nachamada Geoffrey, WCS manager in Yankari.

Still, despite the human onslaught, the rangers are slowly gaining back territory in the reserve.

Last year, Geoffrey and his team recorded just two elephant carcasses, compared with more than 10 in years before.

It's a small victory that makes up for the daily grind.

"It's very fulfilling and very exciting to me to see that we still have these elephants and most times we see them calm and comfortable," said Geoffrey.
(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused Republic Airways Holdings Inc of breaching a contract to operate flights for Delta, Republic said in a news release Thursday.

As part of the agreement, Delta will continue to contract flights to Republic while entering into a credit agreement that gives the regional carrier $75 million and gradually relieves it of obligations to fly 50-seat jets, seen by airlines as uneconomical, according to the release.

Republic, which filed for bankruptcy restructuring last month, said the agreement will provide "immediate improvements in profitability and cash flow."

The agreement is subject to court approval, with a hearing in Bankruptcy Court in New York scheduled for April 14.

Delta could not be reached immediately for comment.

(Reporting by Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Donald Trump insisted Friday he had nothing to do with the recent National Enquirer story in which Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is accused of cheating on his wife multiple times.

Still, Trump took the moment to point out the tabloid publication has been right in the past with similar stories.

"I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week's issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it," Trump said in a statement. "Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz."

The response comes hours after Cruz fired at Trump, saying he was behind the story published on Wednesday.

"I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage," Cruz said in a statement posted to social media on Friday. "For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won't go."

Cruz is irate about the story saying the presidential hopeful is "hiding five different mistresses."

One of the women who has been possibly linked to story is Katrina Pierson, a former public supporter of Cruz who now serves as the national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.

Pierson has denied the story. "Of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!! I only speak to myself, however," Pierson wrote on Twitter.

The timing of the National Enquirer piece has been pointed out by numerous pundits and critics, as it dropped right after Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, made an ominous threat to Cruz concerning his wife, Heidi.

The new feud started Tuesday after the billionaire businessman said he would "spill the beans" about Cruz's wife after he accused Cruz of having involvement with an attack that featured a semi-nude photo of Trump's wife, Melania, a former model.

Story continues

Cruz said he had nothing to do with the ad and called Trump a "coward" for threatening Heidi.

On Friday, Cruz again defended his wife while taking more swings at Trump.

"These smears are completelythey're offensive to Heidi and me, they're offensive to our daughters, and they're offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack," Cruz said in the statement. "Donald Trump's consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow."

The National Enquirer's parent company, AMI, also released a statement.

"No one influences the reporting that the National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors," according to the statement. "We stand by the integrity of our coverage and remain committed to our aggressive reporting on such an important topic. The National Enquirer, more than any other publication, has been unflinching in its reporting on the 2016 presidential candidates."

Trump's statement in full is below:

"I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week's issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it. Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz. I look forward to spending the week in Wisconsin, winning the Republican nomination and ultimately the Presidency in order to Make America Great Again."

Read More: Megyn Kelly Responds to Donald Trump's Tweet Comparing His Wife to Heidi Cruz
Brussels (AFP) - A total of 32 people, many of them foreign nationals, were killed in the airport and metro bombings that struck Brussels on March 22.

Details of the victims are sketchy in some cases, as the authorities have withheld names out of respect for families and there are some overlapping instances of dual nationalities. But Belgian prosecutors say all the dead have now been identified.

Another 340 people were injured in the triple suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group.

- BELGIUM: 17 fatalities.

The Belgians killed in their own capital include student Bart Migom, 21, who was at the airport on his way to visit his American girlfriend.

Civil servant Olivier Delespesse, and 20-year-old law student Leopold Hecht were reportedly killed in the blast at Maalbeek metro station.

Belga news agency named several others who died in the attacks, including airport employee Fabienne Vansteenkiste, 51, and 34-year-old Moroccan-Belgian Loubna Lafquiri who lived in Brussels.

- UNITED STATES: Four.

An American couple who had been reported missing, Justin and Stephanie Shults, were confirmed dead by an employer and family on Saturday, bringing the total US toll to four.

- NETHERLANDS: Three.

Among them were Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, Dutch siblings who had been living in New York, who were preparing to board a plane home when two suicide bombers struck the airport.

- SWEDEN: Two.

A Swedish woman in her 60s was among those killed at the airport, according to her government. There were no immediate details about the second victim.

- BRITAIN: One.

Computer programmer David Dixon, a 51-year-old Brussels resident, had texted his aunt to reassure her he was safe after the airport blasts.

But he went missing and media reports said he appeared to have been on the metro when a suicide bomber struck.

- CHINA: One, according to the Chinese embassy.

- FRANCE: One.

The French government says one Frenchman was killed and 12 other nationals were injured.

Story continues

- GERMANY: One.

A German citizen was among the dead, according to police.

- INDIA: One.

Raghavendran Ganeshan, who worked for software giant Infosys in Brussels, was killed in the metro bombing, his employer and India's government said.

State media said the 31-year-old had recently become a father.

- ITALY: One.

Patricia Rizzo, 48, had been working in Brussels for several months for the European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA) and was killed in the metro explosion.

- ITALY/GERMANY/SPAIN: One.

Madrid confirmed the death of Jennifer Garcia Scintu, 29, a Spanish woman with Italian and German nationality, who was reportedly on her way to New York with her German husband. El Pais newspaper suggested she could be the German victim.

- LIBERIA: One.

The Liberian foreign ministry said Elita Borbor Weah, a Liberian women based in the Netherlands, was among the victims.

Dutch media previously identified her as a Dutch national aged 41, who was travelling to her stepfather's funeral in the United States.

- MOROCCO: One.

A Moroccan citizen was among the metro blast victims, Moroccan news agency MAP said.

- PERU: One.

Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, 37, a Belgium resident, was the first fatality to be identified in the airport attack.

Her husband and twin daughters had a miraculously lucky escape -- he had run off after them as they played.
Today in One Paragraph

Belgiums border security is under scrutiny following this weeks deadly attacks in Brussels. The United States indicted seven Iranian hackers for cyber-attacks on U.S. banks and a dam. A special UN court found former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide. And in the Middle East, Iraqi forces have started their campaign to liberate Mosul from ISIS insurgents, and Syrian government forces are making gains in the ISIS-controlled city of Palmyra.

Top News

Belgian Security Shortcomings? The European Union instructed Belgian authorities to tighten the countrys border security in the weeks before attacks in Brussels killed 31 people, according to a report in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. Belgium admitted to errors in monitoring one of the bombers after receiving warnings from Turkey. The Belgian interior and justice ministers offered their resignations, but were rejected. (USA Today; The New York Times)

Recommended: How Emory's Student Activists Are Fueling Trump's Rise

Iranian Hackers Indicted. The U.S. charged seven hackers from two Iranian computer companies linked to the Iranian government with executing cyber-attacks on several banks in the United States, as well as a dam outside of New York City, according to documents unsealed Thursday. While the attacks did no harm, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a press conference that they threatened our economic well-being and our ability to compete fairly in the global marketplace. (Tami Abdollah and Eric Tucker, The Associated Press)

Butcher of Bosnia Found Guilty. Radovan Karadzic, the 70-year-old former leader of the Serb Republic also known as the Butcher of Bosnia, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after being found guilty of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and other counts of war crimes. (Tim Hume, Tiffany Ap and Milena Veselinovic, CNN)

Story continues

Fighting ISIS. Iraqi forces have begun liberating towns occupied by ISIS in the area surrounding Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city. And in Syria, state TV and other monitoring groups have reported that government troops are making their way into the historic city of Palmyra, which was captured by ISIS in May. (Paul D. Shinkman, US News; Reuters)

Tomorrow in One Paragraph. Bernie Sanders is campaigning in Oregon. And Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Brussels.

Follow stories throughout the day with our new Politics & Policy page. And keep on top of the campaign with our 2016 Distilled election dashboard.

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Over the past decade, the bounds of geography and group have been pulled back to reveal the sinews of a system that now promises that no person will ever have to be alone again. Twitter allows users to turn that solitude into coalitions, and it gives them the tools to sometimes even accomplish what the ballot box cant. The Atlantics Vann R. Newkirk on how Twitter has changed the American political landscape.

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The North American Caudillo. From unbridled machismo to a blatant disregard for the rules, many Latin Americans are drawing similarities between Donald Trump and populist leaders like Hugo Chavez and Juan Domingo Peron. (Ben Wofford, Politico)

Recommended: The Obama Doctrine

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Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's army killed 60 gunmen Friday in clashes in the Sinai Peninsula where it is battling a jihadist insurgency, an army spokesman said.

Army "counterterrorism units backed by the air force" Friday "killed 60 terrorists, wounded another 40 and destroyed 27 four-wheel pick-up trucks south of Rafah and Sheikh Zayed" in North Sinai, the spokesman said on his official Facebook page.

This toll could not be independently verified.

Since Egypt's military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, jihadists attacks on the army and police have persisted despite an army campaign against them.

The local affiliate of the jihadist Islamic State group claimed last week on a police checkpoint near North Sinai's provincial capital of El-Arish that killed 15 policemen.

IS also claimed responsibility for bombing a Russian airliner in October that killed all 224 people on board, minutes after it took off from a South Sinai beach resort.
Had Donald Trumps 2016 campaign for the White House somehow infiltrated the ranks of Emory's student activists and blackmailed the universitys President James W. Wagner, it could scarcely have orchestrated a spectacle more helpful to Trumps prospects, or damaging to the values that protect vulnerable groups, than what they accomplished on their own this week. After someone wrote Trump 2016 in colored chalk around campus, several dozen student demonstrators objected that the banal campaign message scared, upset, or offended them, and administrators responded by going Orwellian.

The Emory Wheel reports that Wagner will review footage from campus security cameras to uncover who made the chalkings. He added that if theyre students, they will go through the conduct violation process, the newspaper stated, while if they are from outside of the University, trespassing charges will be pressed. Ponder the precedent. An academic authority figure will use surveillance to track down and punish someone for urging support for a political candidate. If possible, he will marshal criminal law to do so. As Jesse Singal wrote at New York, that is extremely creepy, and a sign that something has gone seriously wrong.

Recommended: The Obama Doctrine

Can you imagine how campus progressives would have reacted if a university president threatened to have someone punished or charged with trespassing for chalking Obama 2012 or Bernie 2016 on campus sidewalks? But these students see no need for viewpoint-neutral standards about politicking in presidential elections.

The shortsightedness of all involved is staggering. Set aside the brazen illiberalism of their actions and briefly consider this from a consequentialist perspective.

For starters, leftist activists are far more likely than anyone else to use sidewalk chalk and should be pushing to dispense with existing, rarely enforced campus regulations. The medium is unusually suited to the powerless, too: It is cheap, easy to use, and very hard to suppress. Yet theyre signing on to surveillance and punishment for chalk-wielding activism, as if it hasnt even occurred to them that their allies stand to lose the most from future crackdowns, whereas Donald Trump 2016 could foreswear sidewalk chalk forever without suffering from it at all. I dont know whether these students have an incoherent theory of how power works, or havent thought the matter through, but future leftist activists may rue their behavior.

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Whats more, if the sidewalk-chalker is unmasked and punished, the effect will be to fuel the popularity of Trump 2016, not to undermine it. This is so obvious to everyone outside the bubble of campus leftism that I begin to wonder if activists at Emory dont understand that, or just dont actually care about outcomes beyond their bubble.

Recommended: The Death of Moral Relativism

At ages 18 to 22, many of us were less able to see the world through the eyes of others than in earlier or later years. I find it easy to forgive college students, whether activists or otherwise, when they display that quality. It doesnt make them bad people. Still, good people can harm important causes. I wish the ideological cohort that makes privilege so central to their analysis would expend more effort reflecting on this fact: Those on track to earn degrees from prestigious universities are unusual in their ability to indulge rhetoric and actions without reflecting on how they will be perceived by fellow citizens or undermine the rights of the powerless.

Put more simply: Please stop undermining #NeverTrump and the culture of free speech that will be especially vital if the billionaire with authoritarian tendencies is elected president.

Off campus, these students have managed to generate lots of incredulous coverageand some open mockeryfrom the Washington Post, ABC News, Gawker, People Magazine, the Associated Press, CBS, The Week, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The Daily Beast, and beyond. Has there ever been a more self-evidently counterproductive course willingly taken by activists than the one presently unfolding? Outsiders can only hope Emory's president doesnt succeed in finding whoever wrote the messages and making a martyr out of a Trump supporter in media outlets that would in almost no other circumstances regard his partisans as victims of unfair treatment.

Recommended: How Did Donald Trump, of All People, Become a Populist Standard-Bearer?

Already, other damage has been done. Earlier this week, I noted that a black student at UC Davis suffered a hate crime near campus. Three men were later arrested for the assault. Previously, Ive highlighted the horrifying affects of NYPD spying on innocent Muslim students and the UC Berkeley riot police that turned batons on students. There is sometimes good reason for college students to be concerned about their physical safety on campus, and there are incidents of racism that do not threaten physical safety but are nevertheless abhorrent and understandably upsetting. When students react like this to the mere appearance of the name of a leading candidate in the middle of a presidential-election year, treating the most commonplace political advocacy as if it makes them unsafe, they create perverse incentives for invoking victimhood and deflate the currency of claimed trauma and offense.

* * *

After much searching, the most thoughtful defense of Emorys student activists I could find came from Osita Nwanevu, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago and editor of the South Side Weekly. By way of background, he recently published a provocative Harpers essay that casts todays leftist campus protesters as intellectual inheritors of William F. Buckley and concluded that isnt actually a bad thing.

About Emory, he said this:

Yesterday: Trump supporters' violence & rhetoric re: race are scary



Today: Look at these idiot minority students afraid of Trump supporters  Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 23, 2016

I can see, though, why this is laughable to non-minority journos who don't have to live in close quarters with potential white supremacists.  Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 23, 2016

Anyway, "These fools are afraid of chalk" is a very good meme. Great job, everyone. 10/10.  Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 23, 2016

"Lol, why would minority students feel 'unsafe' about people proclaiming Trump support on campus, haha" https://t.co/u6WcnYACjQ  Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 23, 2016

Those Tweets gesture at a perceived contradiction: Lots of public intellectuals and journalists at outlets from Gawker to National Review regard Trump as a genuinely dangerous figure. Yet they mock students who feel frightened by support for the candidate.

For like-minded observers who perceive an inconsistency, let me try to explain why, even apart from consequentialist concerns, I dont think the widespread backlash to Emory activists is contradictory, even among those who fear a Trump administration.

It is grounded in these premises:

All Emory University students have been aware for months that they live amid lots of Donald Trump supporters. He is the leading contender for the Republican nomination. He easily won the GOP primary in the state of Georgia. The fact that one or two Trump supporters with access to chalk live close enough to Emory to write Trump 2016 on their sidewalks is not new information. For that reason, most observers find it difficult to believe that these students are fearful or traumatized because theyre newly aware of living near Trump supporters and have concluded theyre not physically safe anymore. While the students are not literally afraid of chalk, they have given most observers the impression that they are more upset by the fact that someone in their community is speaking out in favor of Trump than the underlying reality of his base. Thats because theynot their criticshave made the chalking the subject of their activism. Doing so has reinforced the notion that college students are irrationally focused on policing what people say at the expense of confronting and grappling with whatever it is that people believe. As the editor of the student newspaper at Emory aptly countered, Institutionally prohibiting an ignorant, hurtful or violent idea does not destroy it; it allows the idea to grow and worsen in the shadows, far from the moderating effects of public scrutiny. The best way to destroy an idea is to confront it. Indeed, if it really had taken these chalk messages to awaken some Emory students to the fact that Trump may win the presidency and enjoys substantial support among Georgia residents, their appearance would have been salutary, insofar as they wouldve helped these students to confront an ugly reality while there is still time to organize and prevent Trump from winning. Meanwhile, most observerseven those, like myself, who fully see the vile racism and xenophobia that have characterized Trumps campaign understand that supporting Trump 2016 does not automatically make someone a racist or a xenophobe, never mind a threat to the safety of those around them. The seeming inability of students to understand that what it would mean for them to support Trump is not what many others mean by supporting Trumpthat Americans support politicians for all sorts of complicated, irrational, contradictory, quirky, unexpected, or sui generis reasonsis a major failing on the part of the students themselves and their educators. This failure dramatically weakens the ability of these students to understand, engage with, and persuade Trump supporters in the upcoming election, and to participate more broadly in a civic system that depends, at some level, on overcoming the typical-mind fallacy. There are surely actual Trump voters on Emorys campus. If the campus climate were different, perhaps they could be persuaded, in the course of discussion, to see the error of their ways. Do you think theyll out themselves to fellow students now? And look at this passage in Wagners response to this controversey: After meeting with these students, I cannot dismiss their expression of feelings and concern as motivated only by political preference or over-sensitivity. Instead, the students with whom I spoke heard a message, not about political process or candidate choice, but instead about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emorys own. In his formulation, the fact that they heard a message about values regarding diversity is somehow offered as if it proves that they arent motivated by over-sensitivity. But if someone were acting out of over-sensivity wouldnt it logically be because they heard a message that wasnt, in fact, there? Wagner hasnt yet put together a coherent explanation of his own thought process.

In a subsequent Tweet, Nwanevu wrote this:

I wonder why people don't get that students do this in college precisely *because* they won't be able to afterwards. https://t.co/245CiEL1O1  Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) March 23, 2016

Actually, the more cynical critics of progressive campus activists believe precisely that they are motivated by the relative power they now hold, not by truly feeling unsafein this telling, they are using their ideological clout on college campuses to punish speech they dont like from people with less power in that space, and if the same ideological cohort ever attains power outside campus, it will try to suppress speech there, too. Lots of Trump supporters are motivated precisely by the belief that, without a guy like Trump to represent their tribe, their own speech will be suppressed.

But there is an even more direct rejoinder to Nwanevus claim: Emory activists who believe that they are being effective within the bubble of their campus are wrong. The student newspaper editor, Zak Hudak, expressed his own aversion to Trump while pointing out the obvious unacceptability of suppressing Trump 2016 advocacy.

On Yik Yak, a social media app popular among college students in large part because it permits anonymous speech, the Emory student reaction to the chalk controversy wasnt mixed, as often happens when one views that platform during a campus controversy. It was clearly, overwhelmingly antagonistic to the student activists. Keep in mind that the content that follows, which went on for scroll after scroll, dominating the platform, was all posted within 1.5 miles of Emorys campus:

Knowing that is the reaction in an enclave wildly more progressive than America as a whole, youd think that the activists at Emory might change their approach.

In activist circles, being a bad ally is a serious charge.

And right now, Emorys chalk-focused activists and its president are the worst allies imaginable for anti-Trumpism. Theyre not just ineffective, theyre doing all harm and no good. Theyre focused on how Trump supporters make them feel rather than opposing his rise as effectively as possible. And their abandonment of liberal values bolsters the false belief of Trump supporters that such values are only ever invoked cynically.

That is fuel for more illiberalism. And insofar as America becomes a zero-sum game to see who can do the most to suppress the speech of whom, the campus left will not win. Why arent more tenured faculty members who understand that speaking up?

Everyone who wants to see Trump and the pernicious trends he represents defeated in American life, or who doesnt want to see future activists identified by surveillance footage and punished, should look to Emory for a case study in what not to do.

The liberal coalition cant afford any more such self-indulgence.

This is an election season. If you live in a state that Trump could possibly win in a primary or general election, you can buy some chalk yourself. You can learn how to canvas and go door to door; volunteer at a phone bank; or pick a civil-liberties organization that protects the sorts of people that you regard as most vulnerable and see if you can volunteer on their behalf. There are dozens of things that would help weaken Trumpism. Fighting to persuade a university president to denounce and punish Trump supporters is not one of them.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
(Reuters) - Presidential candidate Ted Cruz says he is the most consistent conservative left in the Republican race. The senator from Texas promises to cut taxes, slash regulations, crack down on illegal immigration and stick up for gun owners if he wins the White House. Here is a look at how Cruz has pledged to handle major issues should he become the Republican nominee and then win the Nov. 8 election. The policies are drawn from a review of his website, stump speeches, debates, legislative proposals and televised interviews. IMMIGRATION Cruz would boost border security by completing 700 miles (1,130 km) of priority fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, tripling the number of Border Patrol agents and adding aircraft for border surveillance. He would rescind President Barack Obamas executive orders on immigration, which allow certain undocumented immigrants to stay in the country without fear of deportation. Cruz would ramp up deportations and would expand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention space in the United States. He would withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities that do not prosecute undocumented immigrants. The candidate would end birthright citizenship, in which children born in the United States are automatically citizens. Cruz introduced legislation placing a moratorium on accepting Syrian refugees and letting states opt out of accepting refugees. He supports prioritizing Syrian Christians for refugee status. TRADE Cruz opposes the Export-Import Bank, which finances U.S. exports. He opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, saying in a March debate that the United States is "getting killed" in international trade. He voted against giving Obama fast-track authority to secure the TPP, which Cruz said became enmeshed in backroom political deals. ECONOMY AND TAXES Cruz would abolish the Internal Revenue Service. He would establish a flat personal income tax of 10 percent, keeping deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments and the Child Tax Credit. He would eliminate the corporate income tax and payroll taxes, replacing them with a flat business tax of 16 percent that critics say resembles a value-added tax. Cruz would repeal the healthcare plan commonly known as Obamacare, and would eliminate other regulations. He would audit the Federal Reserve and move to a rules-based monetary policy. FOREIGN POLICY Cruz would repeal the Iran nuclear deal, [nL2N1532BL] and would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He has said he would "carpet bomb" the Islamic State militant group. Cruz has said he would oppose efforts to oust foreign dictators, which he says create power vacuums and enable terrorists. [nL1N13Z1F8] (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
(Reuters) - Democratic U.S. presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has moved to the left in key policy areas such as trade during her primary campaign against rival U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is known for his liberal stances. Here is a look at what the former secretary of state has said she would do should she win the White House in the Nov. 8 election. These policies are drawn from white papers released by her campaign, stump speeches, debates and interviews. IMMIGRATION Clinton supports comprehensive immigration reform with a path to full citizenship. She has pledged to defend President Barack Obamas executive actions on immigration and, if legally possible, expand on them. She has called for an end to deportation raids and family detentions. Clinton has, however, disagreed with liberal Democrats about the best way to handle the influx of young people fleeing cartel violence and other issues in Central America. Obama said in 2014 that the United States would send these youths back to deter others from attempting the same dangerous journey  a position that Clinton has defended, including in a recent presidential debate. The fact is that there was a great effort made by the Obama administration and others to really send a clear message, because we knew that so many of these children were being abused, being treated terribly while they tried to get to our border, Clinton said. I think now what Ive called for is counsel for every child so that no child has to face any kind of process without someone who speaks and advocates for that child, so that the right decision, hopefully, can be made. TRADE Clinton supports some free-trade agreements and opposes others, saying her decisions are based on whether she feels the specific agreement will adequately protect the interests of U.S. workers. Clinton has had to deal with the legacy of the North American Free Trade Agreement reached by her husbands administration during her own political career. She backed away from NAFTA when she ran for a U.S. Senate seat representing New York. As a senator, she supported trade agreements with Australia, Chile, Morocco, Oman and Singapore. She opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement. During her first presidential campaign in 2008, she criticized possible agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. But once she became Obamas secretary of state, she worked to finalise agreements with Colombia and South Korea  a deal that in 2007 she had called inherently unfair. Clinton also worked on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as secretary of state, saying it would be the gold standard of trade agreements. As a presidential candidate in 2015, she stalled on taking a position on TPP, saying she would wait until it was finalised by the administration. Clinton eventually said she would not support TPP because it does not adequately protect U.S. workers. ECONOMY AND TAXES Clinton has pledged to not raise taxes on the middle class in any way, in contrast to Sanders, her Democratic rival, who favours a nominal income tax premium to fund universal healthcare. Clinton has focussed on reforming the tax code so the wealthiest pay their fair share. She has proposed ending the carried interest loophole that categorizes the bulk of a hedge fund managers income as return on investment and not compensation; enacting the Buffett Rule so the wealthy with investment income do not pay lower effective tax rates than truck drivers or nurses; and pushing back against quarterly capitalism and incentivising long-term investment by Wall Street. FOREIGN POLICY Clinton has called for an intelligence surge to combat the Islamic State militant group, and diplomatic efforts feature prominently in most of her foreign policy plans. She does not believe there should be a surge in ground troops in the Middle East, including in Syria. She has said she supports increased specialised forces there and enforcing a no-fly zone. She believes Russias participation will be essential for any solution in Syria. Clinton has also called for stepped-up efforts by U.S. technology companies to combat terrorism. In a major foreign policy speech she said social media companies can also do their part by swiftly shutting down terrorist accounts so they are not used to plan, provoke or celebrate violence. She has not said how far she would go to compel the cooperation of private companies in this effort. (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)
Paris (AFP) - French authorities have vowed maximum security for the European Championships that start in June but top officials and experts admit the country is defenceless to head off an Islamic State attack.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters of the 24 nations taking part are expected in France for the tournament that starts June 10. But militant attacks in Paris in November and Brussels this week have already cast a shadow over the event.

Euro 2016, which is guaranteed to draw the global spotlight with players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, is impossible to protect, French experts acknowledged.

"We are really freaking out over the Euro," a member of the French anti-terrorism services told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"I took part in a meeting with people from the organising committee. They were considering a possible attack, wondering whether matches could start the next day or the day after.

"I was fuming. I got up and said: 'How many deaths does it take to stop everything'."

The worst fears surround fan-zones, with giant screens and food and alcohol, in the 10 host cities that could have between 10,000 and 100,000 people in them.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said this week that France must not give in to terrorism and cancel any event. But opposition conservative deputy and security specialist Eric Ciotti said the government had to look at the fan zones and decide "on a case-by-case" basis whether to keep the zones.

The anti-terrorism official called the zones a "nonsense".

- Fan zone risk -

"How can you protect them. We know that several cities are seriously worried and are considering cancelling them."

The official said there are not enough private security guards in France to police the zones. "And anyway they cannot stop much."

The November 13 attacks on Paris in which 130 people died, with gunmen setting off bombs outside a stadium or spraying cafe terraces with machine gun fire, showed there are too many "soft targets" with vulnerable civilians.

Story continues

The 81,000 capacity Stade de France just outside Paris, which was targeted on November 13, will host the opening match and final of Euro 2016.

One French police source acknowledged to AFP that it was "impossible" to stop attacks.

"But you can't stop such an event even if there is a high terrorist threat and an attack is possible," said the source.

"Holding matches behind closed doors or calling off fan-zones would not be the solution and gives a terrible image of the event."

Yves Trotignon, a former analyst with the DGSE external intelligence service, said the worst "nightmare" is that a big Brussels-style team of attackers is preparing for Euro 2016.

"They have all the time to prepare. They know the dates, the venues. They have time to check everything. It's like attacking a bank. These people can spend months studying the operation," said Trotignon.

The second threat is a lone attacker, acting alone and almost impossible to catch in advance because there are no telephone calls or emails, he added.

For France, Euro 2016 is important as it could influence the choice of the 2024 Olympics where Paris is a contender against Budapest, Los Angeles and Rome.

"The security is important for France," said Pascale Boniface, director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris.

"But the truth is there is no zero risk. There is nothing easier than organising an attack. You protect 1,000 targets and it is the 1,001st which is targeted.

"Driving past a group of pedestrians to open fire could be done by a lot of people," said Boniface.

The French government sought again Thursday to insist that everything is being done to protect the 24 teams and their followers.

"Security will be a priority of the organisation of Euro 2016," said Secretary of State for Sport, Thierry Braillard.
President Obama with Judge Merrick B. Garland before announcing his nomination to the Supreme Court at the White House, March 16, 2016. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

How do you get the Democratic base fired up about nominating a moderate white man in his 60s to the Supreme Court?



The progressive groups leading the charge in support of Merrick Garlands nomination think theyve found the answer. In social media blasts and in-person calls to action around the country, they are casting Republicans near-unanimous refusal to consider President Obamas nominee as part of a history of disrespect and disdain shown to the president  a disrespect that is racially motivated.

I talk to black audiences, and I say, look, this is part of a larger pattern of disrespect, said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which is part of the push to get Garland a hearing. It goes back to when Speaker [Mitch] McConnell says were going to make him a one-term president. You have someone like Rep. Joe Wilson [R-S.C.] saying, You lie. You have [former Arizona Gov.] Jan Brewer shaking her finger in his face. These are signs of disrespect that would have never been justified with another president. Race is a factor.

After Antonin Scalia died last month, civil rights groups and members of the Congressional Black Caucus urged the president to nominate a black woman to the court  a historic pick that would have rallied women of color to the cause. When the president took another, less barrier-breaking route, it was unclear whether the left would be as enthusiastic about fighting the inevitable Republican opposition to his choice.

The Democrats vying to replace Obama have seemed lukewarm about his pick. Sen. Bernie Sanders has said he would rather choose his own justice if elected, noting that there are more progressive judges out there. Hillary Clinton, whose campaign has been buoyed by support from women of color, dodged a question on Monday about whether shed keep Garland as her nominee if she were elected and his nomination was still pending. (Asked if he was a good choice, she said he has a tremendous reputation.)

Story continues

But one way to motivate the Democratic base is to point out that Republicans are disrespecting the president  who remains incredibly popular with Democrats  by refusing to even consider his pick. The progressive groups have coalesced around the message Do your job, and they emphasize that if Republicans refuse to bring up the nomination, it will be the first time a Supreme Court nominee has ever not been given a vote.

Henderson tells audiences: Hes the 44th president, not three-fifths of a president.

Our members care about Obama as a president and his presidency a great deal, said Jo Comerford, a campaign director for the progressive grassroots organization MoveOn. Weve used the disrespect language in our communications to our members because of their loyalty. Comerford said the GOP opposition to the president is seen by many MoveOn members as an attempt to undermine his authority and his presidency.

It is flagrantly disrespectful, and it is new in the sense that weve never seen this kind of rank knee-jerk obstruction to a nominee, said Stephen Spaulding, legal director of the nonpartisan Common Cause, a nonprofit that promotes accountable government and is also part of the coalition.

MoveOn and the other groups fighting for Garlands hearing flew airplanes trailing Do Your Job banners over several senators hometowns as they returned for a two-week recess earlier this week. They plan on meeting senators with demonstrations when they return to the Capitol, as well.

Its unclear if all the pressure will work. So far, Repubican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Susan Collins of Maine and Jerry Moran of Kansas have broken with party leadership and said they believe Garland should be granted a hearing. Several other Republican senators, including Pat Toomey of Pennsylania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have said they would meet with Garland as a courtesy but that they dont believe the Senate should even consider him.

The right is, if anything, more fired up than the left. The National Rifle Association, in particular, is lobbying hard against giving Garland a vote. And as the Washington Post pointed out Thursday, only two people showed up to one of the planned protests against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Inside the event, Johnson offered a personal guarantee to his supporters that he would not allow Garland to be elected, eliciting the loudest cheers of the night.

A lot of people say, Do your job. You know what? Im doing my job! Johnson said. We need somebody that can replace Scalia.
Intelligence agencies all over the world look to collect information pertinent to their various operations, and that involves hacking emails accounts. Google for a while now has been able to identify such government-backed hackers, and notify potentially affected customers so they can take immediate action.

In an update on the ways Gmail is getting even more secure (which is good news in the wake of the Apple vs. FBI scandal), Google revealed that as many as 1 million Gmail accounts may have been targeted by government-backed attackers so far.

DONT MISS: 4 reasons why the FBI unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone without Apple is bad news

Google did not divulge the exact number and did not explain how it knows when these hacks take place. But the company did say that it knows who the targets are  the list often includes activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.

When a hack is detected, a pink Warning tab appears on top of Gmail urging affected users to better protect themselves.

In addition to that bar, users will now get a full-page warning with instructions about how to stay safe, the company said in an announcement on Thursday. This is what youll see if a government is trying to hack into your Gmail account:

new-gmail-government-hackers-warning

Google did say that these warnings are rare, with fewer than 0.1% of users ever receiving one. However, Gmail is not a nimble startup looking to take off. Its a service that has more than 1 billion users as of February 2016. That means that fewer than 0.1% of users translates to as many as about 1 million users who may have received warnings about their email being hacked by a government.

In its security update, Google also said that its improving its Safe Browsing warnings that appear in Gmail every time a user clicks on whats deemed to be a shady link that could lead to malware or phishing attacks. This is what it looks like, so dont be surprised if you see it in Gmail in the future:

Story continues

new-gmail-malware-physhing-warning

Google said that since introducing a visual element to mark unencrypted emails in Gmail 44 days ago, the amount of inbound mail sent over an encrypted connection increased by 25%.

Google wants to further improve email encryption, and the company partnered up with Comcast, Microsoft and Yahoo to submit a draft IETF specification for SMTP Strict Transport Security." Essentially, Google and its partners want to make sure that encrypted email stays encrypted along its entire path from sender to recipient.

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Paris (AFP) - The jihadist network behind the Paris and Brussels attacks are "in the process of being destroyed" but others remain, warned French President Francois Hollande on Friday.

"We have had some results in finding the terrorists and, in Brussels as well as Paris, there have been a number of arrests and we know that there are other networks," said Hollande.

"Even if the one that committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels is in the process of being destroyed... there is still a heavy threat."

French police arrested 34-year-old Reda Kriket in Paris on Thursday, and accused him of being in the advanced stages of planning an attack and having ties to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the November 13 terror attacks in the French capital.

Three men were arrested on Friday in Brussels for links to Kriket's alleged plot, the Belgian federal prosecutor said.

"And so Syria is our first objective. Nor do we forget Iraq. And we don't forget the question of refugees. We wish to ensure that the right to asylum is fully respected and, at the same time, that we can control our external borders," Hollande added.
Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces cleared roadside bombs and booby traps Friday in villages from which they ousted jihadists a day earlier south of Mosul, the Islamic State group's main hub in the country, officials said.

Soldiers and allied paramilitary forces sealed their grip on four villages between Makhmur and IS-held Qayyarah, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul.

The army Thursday described the operation in which these villages were retaken as the first phase of an offensive to recapture Nineveh province and its capital Mosul.

"The security forces today removed improvised explosive devices and various obstacles left by Daesh to hamper our advance," said paramilitary leader Hassan al-Ameen, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Ameen heads the Nineveh branch of the Hashed al-Shaabi, an umbrella paramilitary group dominated by Tehran-backed Shiite militias but that also includes Sunni tribal fighters.

"The significance of these recaptured areas is their strategic location... that can protect the command centre in Makhmur from rocket fire," he said.

An American marine was killed and several wounded last week when a rocket struck a base near Makhmur where US forces are deployed to provide "force protection" to Iraqi forces.

An officer with the Kurdish peshmerga forces stationed in Makhmur said there were no advances on the ground on Friday.

"The second phase of this operation will be to throw bridges across the Tigris towards Qayyarah and villages around it," Ameen said.

Makhmur is east of the Tigris, while Qayyarah -- which includes an oil facility and an old air base -- lies on the western bank of the river.

"This next battle will be complicated because it will have to avoid causing casualties among the civilians living in the area," he said.

Noureddin Kablan, deputy head of Nineveh provincial council, said Baghdad should encourage local fighters to join the Hashed forces and help retake their own towns and villages.

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"I call on the Iraqi government to invite volunteers to join the Hashed, to increase manpower, hold and control areas that will be liberated in the future," he told AFP.

Operations to retake Mosul -- the largest urban centre in the "caliphate" IS proclaimed over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 -- are expected to be long and difficult.

Abadi has vowed to take the country's second city back by the end of the year but senior US officials have argued that is unlikely.
Tokyo (AFP) - An anti-dolphin hunting activist is being paid damages by a Japanese town made notorious by the Oscar-winning film "The Cove," after it refused to let her into its aquarium.

Sarah Lucas, CEO of Australia for Dolphins, two years ago tried to enter a whaling museum in Taiji which keeps whales and dolphins, but was rejected after museum officials said those opposed to whaling cannot enter, news reports said.

Taiji, a small port town in western Japan's Wakayama prefecture, was thrust into the global spotlight after the Oscar-winning 2009 documentary "The Cove" depicted dolphin slaughter in the area, where some of the animals are also captured and sold to aquariums including the whaling museum.

Lucas said her purpose to visit the facility was to check on the condition of a rare albino dolphin calf named Angel, which her group says is a worldwide symbol for the controversial dolphin catch.

The Wakayama District Court ordered Taiji to pay 110,000 yen ($972) in compensation to Lucas, who had demanded 3.3 million, a court official said, without providing further details.

"Today's decision shows Japanese law can be used to stop animal suffering," Lucas said in a statement released by the pro-dolphin group.

"This is not just good news for Angel, but a sign of hope for the thousands of dolphins brutally slaughtered in Taiji every year."

In the annual hunt, people from the southwestern town corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay and butcher them, turning the water crimson red.

Environmental campaigners visit the town every year during the gruesome event. Authorities have boosted their presence to prevent any clashes between locals and activists.

The scene was featured in "The Cove" documentary, drawing unwanted attention to the little coastal community.

Defenders of the hunt say it is a tradition and point out that the animals are not endangered, a position echoed by the Japanese government.
Washington (AFP) - The US State Department welcomed the genocide conviction of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Thursday, saying it closed "another painful chapter" for the former Yugoslavia.

"We'll never forget the horrors of genocide in Bosnia, or the many other crimes committed on all sides of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, nor will we ever stop honoring their victims and survivors," deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, touching briefly on the topic during his daily press briefing.

"With the trial chamber's conviction, we move one step closer to closing yet another painful chapter in the story of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia," he said.

UN war crimes judges said Karadzic, the most high-profile figure convicted over the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart, bore criminal responsibility for murder and persecution during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict.

He was given a 40-year sentence after being found guilty of charges including genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, extermination, deportations and hostage-taking.

The Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered, was the worst bloodshed on European soil since World War II.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power issued an impassioned statement on the conviction, saying, "This day is long overdue."

Power, who was a journalist in the former Yugoslavia from 1993 to 1995, recounted her time in the diverse Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and her memory of Karadzic as a "gleeful propagandist for an ethnically pure Serb statelet" who had "utter absence of concern" for the violence he brought upon the city.

She said he seemed to operate with "impunity," acting as if he would never be held accountable.

"This was a man who believed he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, consequences to others be damned," she said, linking that violence to the present-day brutality of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"Todays verdict sends those leaders and others like them a message: your crimes will never be forgotten, and one day you, too, will be held accountable for the horrors you have inflicted on civilians."

The US role in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia included participating in NATO airstrikes on Bosnian Serb targets in 1995, as well as hosting talks later that year at a military base in the state of Ohio that ended with a peace deal signed by the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
The Hague (AFP) - A complex verdict against Radovan Karadzic, found guilty of genocide at Srebrenica but acquitted of the same charge in other Bosnian towns, has again shown that the "most heinous" of crimes is the hardest to prove.

UN judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday found the former Bosnian Serb leader guilty on 10 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1990s Bosnian war.

With his conviction and 40-year jail sentence, some 15 people have now been found guilty of genocide at the ICTY for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which almost 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.

But so far the charge of genocide in other municipalities has never succeeded at the ICTY.

"Genocide" was used for the first time within a legal framework at the Nuremberg military trials as the world vowed "never again" and prosecuted those behind the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust unleashed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, the term is derived from the Greek word "genos", for race or tribe, and the suffix "cide" from the Latin for "to kill".

Part of international law since 1948, genocide is now defined by the United Nations as an "act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

- 'Intent to kill ' -

In their complicated, technical ruling compiled into four volumes of more than 2,600 pages, the ICTY judges agreed Karadzic and his Bosnian Serb cohorts had "intended to kill all the able-bodied Bosnian Muslim males" in Srebrenica.

The judges also found that in other Bosnian towns and villages non-Serbs were subjected to persecution, murder, rape, forcible removal from their homes and detention in "terrible conditions."

But they were "not convinced" on the first count of genocide "that the evidence demonstrated that this amounted to conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Bosnian Muslims or Bosnian Croats in these municipalities."

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ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz welcomed Thursday's judgement, saying "justice has been done" and told AFP his office may appeal the "not guilty" verdict once it has had time to read the massive ruling.

"It was one of the most important trials in the history of the tribunal," Brammertz told AFP.

While his office "would have preferred" a guilty verdict on both genocide charges, he stressed the judges had found that the "crimes in the different municipalities had qualified as war crimes and crimes against humanity" and Karadzic "has been convicted for murder, extermination and ethnic cleansing."

The ICTY, based in The Hague and set up in 1993 to prosecute war crimes arising out of the Balkans conflict, was the first international criminal tribunal to enter convictions for genocide in Europe.

A genocide verdict "has the potential of giving to the families the acknowledgement and recognition of this most heinous of crimes being committed against them and also recognising their suffering," American rights expert Eric Stover from the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP ahead of Thursday's ruling.

War studies expert Rachel Kerr, a senior lecturer at King's College London, agreed, saying "there's this perceived hierarchy of crimes. Genocide is the crime of crimes, and crimes against humanity are seen as somewhat lesser."

The fact that to date no-one has been found guilty of genocide in Bosnian municipalities "has been hugely problematic" for the tribunal.

- Never forgotten -

Genocide designations carry enormous moral implications and are often highly political, and even though the term is often bandied about, prosecutors and governments are more cautious about framing atrocities as such.

The United States only earlier this month declared that the Islamic State group's slaughter of Christians, Yazidis and Shiites in Iraq and Syria amounted to genocide.

And while the International Criminal Court in the Hague is the only permanent independent tribunal set up to try genocide, it is not yet established that it can act in Iraq or Syria since neither have signed the court's guiding Rome Statute recognising its authority.

Thus the ICC could only gain jurisdiction over crimes there via a UN resolution, which could be difficult to pass.

US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power issued an impassioned statement on Thursday's conviction.

Karadzic "believed he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, consequences to others be damned," she said, linking that violence to present-day brutality by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

"Todays verdict sends those leaders and others like them a message: your crimes will never be forgotten."
Few people expected John Kasich to make it this far. The Ohio governor has improbably outlasted a long list of Republican rivals in his effort to win his partys presidential nominationand continues to run a long-shot campaign. It is now mathematically impossible for Kasich to secure the Republican nomination. Still, Kasich refuses to quit, hoping to prevail at the Republican convention in July with the argument that hes the best candidate to unite the party and defeat Hillary Clinton.

As he hangs on, the governor is making at least some conservatives who want to see Donald Trump defeated uneasy. I think it does hurt [Ted] Cruzs ability to rally people against Donald Trump, Erick Erickson, editor of the conservative website The Resurgent and a prominent anti-Trump voice on the right, lamented, commenting on Kasichs decision to stick it out. Its very frustrating, but even more so because I get the sense that Kasich doesnt care. John Kasich, I think, would be perfectly happy being a vice president to either Ted Cruz or to Donald Trump. He just clearly doesnt care about stopping Trump the way most of the party does.

Conservatives who fear Kasich could deal a blow to the effort to topple Trump have legitimate concerns. The Ohio governor could split the anti-Trump vote, and make it more difficult for the Republican Party to coalesce around Cruz, who has won far more delegates than Kasich, as the most viable alternative to the GOP presidential front-runner. The evidence that we have right now is that Kasich is more hindrance than help to the Stop Trump movement, said Josh Putnam, a political-science lecturer at the University of Georgia who closely tracks the delegate-selection process. If we continue on the same trajectory that were on now with three candidates, thats a situation where Trump is going to continue to win and get the bulk of the delegates and inch toward the nomination.

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Unsurprisingly, Team Kasich doesnt agree. The campaigns chief strategist John Weaver argued in a memo on Tuesday that Kasich is the key to our Partys hope of stopping Donald Trump and the potential disastrous consequences of his nomination. The campaign points to the fact that Kasich is expected to outperform Cruz in Northeastern states as evidence that if he were to drop out it would create an advantage for Trump. Kasich has also ruled out the possibility of serving as vice president for either of the remaining GOP candidates in the race. Im running for president, Kasich said indignantly in a recent interview on NBCs Meet the Press, after being asked if he would act as either Trump or Cruzs running mate.

The evidence that we have right now is that Kasich is more hindrance than help to the Stop Trump movement.

Some Republican strategists agree that Kasichs presence in the race could help slow Trumps momentum in the Northeast. If the Kasich and Cruz campaigns worked strategically to deny Trump delegates that could also help the anti-Trump movement. For now, however, its difficult to envision that kind of coordination taking place. Asking politicians to put their ego aside for the good of the party is a lot like asking a thief not to steal, said Ford OConnell, a Republican strategist who worked on John McCains presidential campaign.

The arguments and hand-wringing that have erupted over Kasichs decision to stay in the race are emblematic of the broader disarray the Republican Party faces as it moves closer to the general election. Competing theories and disagreement over whether Kasich will hurt or help the anti-Trump movement highlight the difficulty of strategizing any definitive way to topple the GOP front-runner.

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In the meantime, pressure is mounting for Kasich to exit the race. I think at this point Kasich does need to get out, Erickson said. Kasich continues to weigh down the Cruz campaign and continues to prevent people from completely consolidating against Donald Trump. Not everyone who wants to see Trump defeated is calling for Kasich to quit, though. Nobody from our group would be advocating directly for Kasich to get out, said Katie Packer, the founder of the anti-Trump super PAC Our Principles PAC. If delegates and voters determine later that they [the Kasich campaign] were the reason that Trump hit 1,237 [the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination] then that is something they have to deal with, Packer said, But I dont begrudge them keeping their eye on the target, and working hard toward that.

For his part, Cruz has taken up the argument that Kasich is making it harder to stop Trump. Right now Kasichs role is really being a spoiler. Kasich benefits Donald Trump," Cruz told CNN earlier this week. What Kasich can do is pull enough votes away to let Trump win. Trump, meanwhile, also wants fewer candidates in the race. While I believe I will clinch before Cleveland and get more than 1237 delegates, it is unfair in that there have been so many in the race!, he tweeted on Wednesday.

Its difficult to say exactly what would happen in a two-person matchup between Cruz and Trump since it is hard to predict which candidate Kasichs supporters would gravitate to. A two-person race might allow the anti-Trump vote to consolidate and overtake Trump, or Kasich supporters might defect to Trump in large numbers. In the meantime, if anti-Trump Republicans cant agree on how to respond to Kasichs decision to stay in the race, it will be more difficult for the Never Trump movement to mount an effective campaign. If nothing else, Kasich could be a convenient target in the inevitable scramble to assign blame if the anti-Trump forces ultimately fail to take their adversary down.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
A live Sumatran rhinoceros has been captured in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, a region where these critically endangered animals were thought to be extinct.

A single camera-trap image and telltale footprints found in 2013 had previously revealed that Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) still survived in Kalimantan, which makes up the southern 73 percent of Borneo. But this is the first time in 40 years that humans have found a live rhino there. Conservation groups estimate that fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos are left in the wild, most of which live on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located west of Borneo.

"This is an exciting discovery and a major conservation success," Pak Efransjah, the CEO of the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) in Indonesia, said in a statement. "We now have proof that a species once thought extinct in Kalimantan still roams the forests, and we will now strengthen our efforts to protect this extraordinary species." [A Crash of Rhinos: See All 5 Species]

Protected regions

WWF researchers captured the elusive rhino, a 4- or 5-year-old female, in a pit trap on March 12. The rhino was in Kutai Barat in East Kalimantan. She's now being held in captivity pending a transfer to a protected forest about 93 miles (150 kilometers) away.

Sumatran rhinos are solitary grazers that live in dense tropical forests. They're the smallest of all rhinoceros species, growing to up to 2,000 pounds (950 kilograms). Sumatran rhinos are sometimes called hairy rhinos because of their sparse but shaggy covering of reddish hair.

Along with the Javan rhino, Sumatran rhinos are barely hanging on in the wild. According to the International Rhino Foundation, they went extinct in Vietnam in 2010 and in Malaysia in 2015. Sumatra boasts three protected national parks where small populations of Sumatran rhinos still survive. Habitat loss, poaching and logging all threaten the animals, and the remaining populations are fragmented.

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In Kutai Barat on Borneo, scientists have tracked and identified 15 surviving Sumatran rhinos, but the March 12 capture of the young female is the first physical contact they've made with the animals. WWF-Indonesia and other members of the Sumatran Rhino Conservation Team hope to transfer at least two other Kutai Barat rhinos to the protected forest nearby. The goal is to create a new Sumatran rhino sanctuary on the island to prevent the last of the species from disappearing from the area.

"This is a race against time for rhino conservation," Efransjah said. "Providing a safe home is the only hope for the survival of the Sumatran rhino for many generations to come."

Endangered rhinos

There are five rhinoceros species throughout Africa and southeast Asia. The Javan rhino is the most threatened, with only 63 left living in the wild in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park, according to the WWF. Most Sumatran rhinos also survive only in three national parks in Indonesia.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers that the greater one-horned rhino is "vulnerable" to becoming endangered In India and Nepal. There are more than 3,000 greater one-horned rhinos in the wild, up from fewer than 200 a century ago, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

In Africa, conservation efforts have brought back the southern white rhinoceros from the brink of extinction. Around 20,000 survive in the wild. The other white-rhino subspecies, the southern white rhino, however, is extinct in the wild due to poaching and habitat loss. Only three northern white rhinos still survive in captivity, and none are capable of reproducing naturally. Scientists are now trying to develop in vitro fertilization technology to save that subspecies.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Say what you will about Victorian egg collectors, but its hard to deny that they were a dedicated lot. Charles Bendire, a 19th-century ornithologist and U.S. army major, once braved enemy fire to snag a rare bird egg from a tree, cushioning it in his mouth while he scrambled down to safety; upon finding that the egg was stuck in his mouth, he had his men remove one of his teeth to free it. Another egg enthusiast, Frances J. Britwell, was strangled to death by his climbing rope while trying to reach a nest in a tall pine tree on his honeymoon. Egg collecting was considered a hobby for gentlemen, but it was not for the faint of heart.

Today, the fruits of these collectors tree-shimmying, egg-swallowing labor can be found in museum collections around the country: Shiny green clutches laid by South American tinamous; nondescript speckled eggs deposited in other birds nests by cowbirds; the occasional massive, melon-sized elephant bird egg; all tucked away in floor-to-ceiling drawers.

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The scientific value of the collection and the accompanying manuscripts is immense, says Douglas Russell, the senior curator of birds eggs and nests at the London Natural History Museum. We have inquiries and researchers visiting the collection from all over the world, working on projects from historical research on breeding distribution to ground-breaking research to unveil the biology of eggs and explain the diversity in eggshell coloration, patterning, and shell-structure across birds.

The handwritten notes that often accompany the eggs can be as valuable to curators as the eggs themselves. Egg collections are some of the first ones where people took really good natural-history data, says John Bates, the associate curator of birds at Chicagos Field Museum (where I work). They had to feel confident that they were getting the right species, so they took really detailed notes about historical habitats, down to stuff like, Found clutch two feet off the ground in a willow, with specific information about where the eggs were found, down to street names.

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They took really detailed notes with specific information about where the eggs were found, down to street names.

These precise details have helped scientists understand the changes in bird nesting behavior in the past century, Bates adds. For example, the nest slips that were written down when some of our eggs were collected a hundred years ago show that birds are starting to nest earlier in the year than they used to. Its a piece of the whole picture of human-driven climate change.

In some cases, these historical eggs have also played a role in major scientific discoveries. The banning of the pesticide DDT, for example, relied on research conducted on several museum egg collectionsscientists were able to compare turn-of-the century eggs to modern ones to show the link between the pesticide and the brittle, prematurely cracked eggshells that spelled disaster for birds of prey, including the bald eagle.

Recommended: Marie Kondo and the Privilege of Clutter

Egg collecting is now illegal for citizen scientists in the vein of Bendire and Britwell, but real scientists can get permits. However, few do, in part because the process is so labor-intensive.

For egg collecting, theres a very brief window of time, and its a very time-consuming activityyou have to watch the birds and follow them to know where their nests are, said Paul Sweet, the collection manager of birds at the American Museum of Natural History. Ive done a lot of collecting, but Ive never collected an eggits just not something that a lot of people do. Sweets colleague Tom Trombone, the bird collections data manager, knows the number of eggs the museum has17,921off the top of his head, in part because its a number that hasnt changed in years.

But while egg collecting has fallen out of favor in recent years, scientists are divided on whether the practice should be resurrected. Some ornithologists argue that with the millions of eggs already in museum collections, weve got all the information we need. We rarely collect eggs these days, Russell notes, but if it was considered scientifically important, for example to detect major trends of conservation concern and was both ethically and legally possible, then we would collect.

Others are more enthusiastically in favor of a return to the practice. By not collecting eggs today, we might be missing valuable information, Bates muses. Victorian egg collectors never dreamed of how their eggs would be used in the future.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Brussels (AFP) - Belgian police carried out a major operation in Brussels on Friday in connection with a foiled terror plot in France, police sources said, with media saying a man had been "neutralised" and reporting explosions.

A French police source said the raids in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek were related to the arrest of 34-year-old Reda Kriket in Paris on Thursday, who was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment.

Police had completely sealed off the area in the Schaerbeek district, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Schaerbeek is where police found a bomb factory after the Brussels airport and metro suicide attacks on Tuesday and from where the three airport attackers set off that morning.

Belgian public broadcaster RTBF reported that a man with a backpack had been "neutralised" after refusing to obey police orders but there was no immediate confirmation by officials.

Two explosions were heard during the operation and bomb disposal experts were on site, reports said.

The latest raid forced Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders to cancel a wreath-laying ceremony with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry at the airport, an AFP reporter travelling with Kerry said.

During a series of raids in Schaerbeek on Tuesday night police found 15 kilos of high explosive, bomb-making chemicals and an Islamic State group flag.
Moscow (AFP) - More than half of Russians believe the Soviet dictator Stalin was a wise leader, a new poll by Levada independent polling centre showed Friday.

Levada found 57 percent of Russians said they entirely or generally agreed that Stalin was a "wise leader who made the USSR powerful and prosperous."

Levada said the figure was at a "maximum level" for its polls, up 10 percent on four years ago.

The pollsters also found that 71 percent of Russians agreed that "whatever mistakes or sins are attributed to Stalin, the most important thing is that he led our people to victory in World War II."

That figure was up 11 percent on 2012, with Levada linking increased levels of positive feeling about Stalin's role in World War II to Russia's current involvement in armed conflict.

"In our view, negativity towards (Stalin) falls in periods of armed conflicts with Russia's involvement when historical memory about 'enemies', victory and defence becomes more vivid," Levada researchers said in the analysis of the poll.

It cited 2008-2009 when Russia was in conflict with Georgia and "the events in eastern Ukraine," despite Russia's official denial that it is fighting with separatists in Ukraine.

Asked whether they agreed with the view that Stalin was a "brutal tyrant" who killed millions, 62 percent said yes, while 23 percent disagreed. The figures had changed slightly since 2008, from 68 and 19 percent, respectively.

The seeming contradiction reflects the contradictory government policy on Stalin and his legacy, said Yan Rachinsky, one of the founders of Memorial rights group which has chronicled the purges and works to commemorate their victims.

"On the one hand, the authorities are memorialising the victims of repressions, on the other hand they erect Stalin monuments," Rachinsky told AFP.

The poll questioned 1,600 people and was carried out between March 11 and 14 in 48 different regions in Russia.
Stari Most is a monumental white stone bridge in the Bosnian city of Mostar. Rebuilt after obliteration during bombing in 90s war, it stands as a symbol of unity between the citys two sides: Croat and Bosnian. But as symbols go, its pretty empty.

Its taken more than 20 years for a war-crimes tribunal to convict Radovan Karadzic for his genocidal acts in the civil war that turned Serbs, Croats and Bosnians into enemies. And a recent municipal survey shows that more than 50 percent of locals under the age of 18 say they have never interacted with someone from the other side. But theres a more powerful bridge here than Stari Most. You might call them dreamers, but an unlikely force is chipping away at deeply entrenched divisiveness. Meet the Pavarotti Music Center and the Youth Cultural Center Abrasevic, two collectives (one on each side of the river) desperately trying to bring together young people from both sides  not through mediation or counseling or government programs but through song and dance.

The dynamics of the conflict are now part of the regular language; art opens new ways to communicate.

When the Pavarotti Music Center opened for music lessons in 1996, on the Bosnian side, there was only one student from the Croatian side  and he needed an escort to ensure his safety. Today, Pavarottis large corridors are filled with the sound of more than 400 young artists of all ethnic backgrounds and disciplines. We dont care whether they are Serbian or Croat. To us they are all just children wanting to have a good time, says Elvedin Nezirovic, the centers director. And who could tell them apart, anyway? The casual observer would see nothing but kids, fiddling with guitars and practicing dance moves.

Before the war, we all had friends on the other side and we remember that, remembers Nezirovic, but now children stay between themselves. Normally, you could count on public schools to bridge that divide. Not in Bosnia. Under the so-called two schools under one roof system, Bosnians and Croats attend school in the same building but during different times, with different teachers, using different history books. They couldnt interact even if they wanted to.

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Amar Santic, a Bosnian 19-year-old with a Mohawk, is sitting in Pavarottis courtyard tuning his guitar. He says many people his age still fear leaving their side of the city. I only crossed the bridge for the first time when I was 15. Now I do it all the time to go practice with my band. Hes headed to the Croatian side now, to the Abrasevic Center, Mostars other alternative cultural center. This center was founded in 2003 by a handful of countercultural youngsters who believe art is a great gateway drug to reconciliation. Unlike the four-floor Pavarotti Center, Abrasevic looks more like a squat, featuring crumbling walls, containers, graffiti and a remarkably high percentage of patrons with tattoos and dyed hair. Co-founder Kristina Coric says it takes a lot of courage to stand against what youre taught about other ethnic groups. You have to be a bit of a rebel, she says proudly.

Its just the latest example of cultures wounded by daunting trauma using music to heal. In Israel and Palestine, theres a peace choir made up of Israeli and Palestinian girls, a radio station devoted to cross-cultural harmony and the 22-year-old Festival of World Sacred Music. In the U.S., hip-hop has long been used as a means of healing, most recently making headlines with a Bronx high schools hip-hop therapy program. In the past, critics might have dismissed this kind of effort as do-gooder nonsense. But more and more science keeps emerging that shows that the human brain responds positively, and powerfully, to music.

Of course, learning to play the flute alone will not erase centuries of ethnic tension, nor will it make survivors forget the horrors of the war, says Cynthia Cohen, director of the Peacebuilding and the Arts program at Brandeis University. But it gives children a fresh identity they can share regardless of their background  whether its being a heavy metal guitarist or a ballerina. The dynamics of the conflict are now part of the regular language; art opens new ways to communicate, she says. And if these programs can work in Mostar, where young adults still remember the sound of mortars and the bodies on the streets, it proves they can help heal the wounds of war in other places, Cohen adds.

The collaboration between the centers has strengthened, and they are coming up with new programs like a rock n roll school and a graffiti festival that, next September, will turn shelled buildings into pieces of art. But Abrasevic was dropped from the local budget this year, and the Pavarotti Center is paying for its 15 full-time staff, leaking roof and more than 20 different courses with a measly $15,000 a year. The city council didnt respond to our request for comment, but its members have been occupied with a strange constitutional deadlock that has prevented the city from holding mayoral elections for four years now.

Sometimes in Stari Most, the Muslim calls to prayer ring together with the bells of the Croat churches, making it almost sound like a united Mostar again. But, according to Damir Kapidzic, professor of political sciences at the University of Sarajevo, the educational reform needed to foster reconciliation is not happening anytime soon. Its in the interest of many political parties to keep people divided, since they themselves are grouped by ethnicity. For now, art programs may be the best hope the children of Mostar have of growing up without fear of one another. Art is a long shot, says Kapidzic, but its the only one weve got.

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Myanmar democracy veteran Aung San Suu Kyi angrily complained about being interviewed by a Muslim BBC presenter who pressed her about violence against Rohingya Muslims, a biographer claimed on Friday.

"No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim," the Nobel laureate reportedly said off air after a tense exchange with British-Pakistani news presenter Mishal Husain broadcast in October 2013.

The claim was made by Peter Popham, a journalist with The Independent newspaper and author of newly published book "The Lady and The Generals -- Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Freedom".

In the BBC interview, seasoned journalist Husain had pressed Suu Kyi about the plight of the persecuted Rohingya minority, who have been hardest hit by deadly bouts of communal violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Suu Kyi insisted the violence was "not ethnic cleansing" and said: "Muslims have been targeted but also Buddhists have been subject to violence. There's fear on both sides."

Popham wrote about the outburst in an article for The Independent published online Friday, and said it was relayed to him by a "reliable" source.

A BBC spokeswoman contacted by AFP declined to comment.

Suu Kyi has faced international criticism for not taking a stronger stance on the Rohingya's plight, and for failing to field any Muslim candidates in November's polls, a move observers say was designed to placate Buddhist nationalists.

Suu Kyi will be foreign minister in Myanmar's first civilian government for decades, her party said Tuesday, giving the democracy champion a formal post despite being blocked from the presidency.
Jack Henry Abbott had been incarcerated for a fair bit. That bit was all but 10 months from right after he turned 12 until the age of 37.

Which is to say, do the math. The Michigan native hadnt been anyones definition of an easy time. But for this son of a Chinese prostitute and an American GI  in and out of foster care since he was born in 1944  maybe little else should have been expected. Prison is dehumanizing, says ex-con Sam McBride. But its designed to be just that.

Disciplinary infractions in Abbotts teens and petty crime during his brief 10-month tenure as a free man landed the slight Abbott right back in the stony lonesome of a Utah prison where, according to him, after someone had reportedly tried to rape him, he graduated to murder. It was 1965, and he was 21. His sentence? Three to 20 years for manslaughter; 19 more years were later tacked on when, during a brief escape, he robbed a bank.

The part of me which wanders through my mind and never sees or feels actual objects  experiences this world as a horrible nightmare.

Nine times out of 10 the story ends right about there, but with lots of time and axes to grind, Abbott discovered that he could write. Well. Or well enough that as a result of all he read, he had started to write to those he liked to read  Polish great Jerzy Kosinski and Norman Mailer being the first and foremost among them.

The part of me which wanders through my mind and never sees or feels actual objects, but which lives in and moves through my passions and my emotions, said Abbott in one of his missives, experiences this world as a horrible nightmare. Letters like this  all coruscant genius, angry and condemning  were noteworthy enough that the addressees wrote back, convinced of Abbotts talents. Indeed, Mailer was convinced enough to get Abbott a book deal for a book hed call In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison. Not just a major book deal, either, but a major advance, an offer for him to work as Mailers research assistant and a willingness to tell the parole board so.

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It was apparently enough to get them to buy what Mailer was selling, and in one of those reinventions that seem to be part and parcel of the American landscape, Abbott was released. He became the toast of a town whose last significant flirtation with a bad guy had ended up with Joey Gallo dropping in the streets of Little Italy, shot dead by rival gangsters. So it was on a nice day in June 1981 that Abbott, having been released, pulled into a halfway house on New Yorks Bowery.

Then came appearances on Good Morning America, interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, dinners with the editors at the New York Review of Books, Mailer and Kosinski. Full-blown toast-of-the-town style that ultimately culminated with Abbott, a woman on each arm, pulling into a Lower East Side after-hours eatery. He needed to piss. The waiter told him the bathroom was only for staff; an argument ensued; and, so as not to disturb other diners, they both stepped outside. Minutes later, Abbott returned and advised the women to flee.

The waiter? Stabbed dead on the pavement. It was July 18, 1981, and the 37-year-old Abbott had been out of prison just six weeks.

In total shit-hitting-the-fan mode everyone  Mailer, Kosinski and the parole board  scrambled to cover their asses while the media doubled down, made mock of it and lambasted Mailer. Abbott hit the road and managed to stay on that road until September 23, 1981, when he was finally caught in Louisiana. Mailer and Kosinski were apologetic, Mailer later going on to say that it was another event in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about.

And Abbott? He defended himself at trial, with predictable results: 15 years to life. His response to the sentence, after having written one more book to very little public interest, was to hang himself in his cell in 2002, at age 58. His final literary effort, a suicide note that prison authorities refused to release, remains unpublished.

Related Articles
Ted Sarandos admits to being confused when close friend Lawrence Bender asked him to accept the Humanitarian of the Year honor from UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at its annual gala.

"I would say that I've not done enough work on behalf of the environment directly to deserve such an honor tonight," the Netflix chief content officer humbly recalled on Thursday night while onstage under a big white tent on the side lawn of the impressive home of Hyatt Hotel heir Tony Pritzker and wife Jeanne. But I hope in this acceptance speech, I can bring more attention to the people who do, the real environmental warriors  documentary filmmakers."

And Sarandos did just that, highlighting many "brave storytellers" who have made it possible to create positive change through their documentary work, elevated by Netflix's global reach. He singled out Orlando von Einsiedels Virunga, Robert Nixon and Fisher Stevens' Mission Blue, Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn's Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret and the upcoming eight-part series Our Planet. (He also mentioned food-centric projects like Chef's Table and Cook, that "celebrate food and explore challenges to our food supply because of a shifting environmental landscape.")

Read More: Ted Sarandos' Dream: To Have Someone on the Oscar Stage "Thank Netflix"

Our Planet marks Netflixs biggest documentary project to date due to its scale and scope. It's a four-year collaboration with Silverback Films' Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, the masterminds behind Blue Planet, said Sarandos, who received a standing ovation and was introduced by friend Norman Lear, also welcomed to the stage via standing ovation (I get a standing ovation ... because I'm f---ing standing up, he said to rousing laughter). It will take you to parts of the world never before caught on film and show last animals of their breeds to remind us of what we've lost and what we still have to preserve."

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After all of the above, Sarandos delivered on his promise with his acceptance speech, before he summed up what his part is. "This is the work that I can do," he said. "I can provide a platform for the new modern environmental warriors."

He also provided some insight into his personal life, thanking Bender for being a role model in philanthropy and for introducing him to the "great work being done here at UCLA" at IoES. But about the personal: For my money, Lawrence has a really great track record for introductions because he introduced me to my wife as well. Thank you for that introduction most of all, Lawrence," he said with a smile, while looking out into the gala crowd at wife Nicole Avant.

Bender was on the receiving end of many of the night's biggest compliments for his work on behalf of the environment but more for connecting the elements of the IoES gala, dubbed the Champions of Our Planet's Future. Bender is on the board of advisors alongside such notables as Tony Pritzker, Skydance Medias Jesse Sisgold, Crossroads Managements Linda L. Duttenhaver and Morton La Kretz, Sumner Redstones former girlfriend Sydney Holland and producer Alexandria Jackson.

Read More: David Geffen Gifts UCLA With $100M for New Secondary School

Billionaire philanthropist, social entrepreneur and film producer Jeff Skoll also praised Bender from the stage when he received one of the night's other big honors. Skoll, who founded Participant Media, was introduced by Al Gore, with whom he worked closely on the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. (Bender also produced the 2006 Davis Guggenheim-directed film.) Other honorees Thursday night included (Alphabet billionaire) Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

Skoll, who executive produced this years best picture Oscar winner Spotlight, recounted the story of bringing Gores global warming slideshow-turned-documentary to the screen, a journey that began in 2005 when he first met Gore and became more familiar with climate issues. Thats exactly why I created Participant is to get involved in the most important issues in the world and here was a massive issue staring us in the face," said Skoll, who also noted that Bender had a hand in his marriage to Stephanie Swedlove, as well.

The onetime eBay president then name-checked the team from Inconvenient Truth as well as his host of companies under The Jeff Skoll Group before wrapping up his acceptance speech with environmental optimism. Our job is by no means done. But I've never been more optimistic than with groups of good people like you, and others who are joining the cause everyday. We are well on our way to ensuring that our only home will not only survive but also thrive.

Applause again filled the room, populated by the likes of Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Courteney Cox, Rashida Jones, Rosario Dawson, Maria Bello, David Foster, IoES board chair Tina Quinn, UCLA chancellor Gene Block and IoES director Peter Kareiva. John Salley proved to be an enthusiastic host of the night, which also featured performances by Natasha Bedingfield and Alice Smith. But perhaps not as enthusiastic as Fonda, who surprised attendees when she landed on the lap of a lucky bidder during the live auction.

Eric and Wendy Schmidt pose with Al Gore at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability celebration of the Champions Of Our Planet's Future in Beverly Hills on March 24. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

Courteney Cox, Jane Fonda, Lawrence Bender, David Foster, Alexandria Jackson and IoES director Peter Kareiva attend UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability celebration of the Champions Of Our Planet's Future in Beverly Hills on March 24. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

Ted Sarandos poses with wife Nicole Avant at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability celebration of the Champions Of Our Planet's Future in Beverly Hills on March 24. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

Jeff Skoll is flanked by Lawrence Bender and Al Gore at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability celebration of the Champions Of Our Planet's Future in Beverly Hills on March 24. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
UPDATE: The new rules holding financial advisors to stricter regulations have been passed.

--

Any day now, the U.S. Department of Labor is expected to finalize new rules that would change the way financial advisors are allowed to give advice to their clients.

The controversial changes are meant to reduce the conflict of interest amongbroker-dealers and financial advisors who advise consumers on how to invest their savings. And the rules would apply to both major firms like Fidelity and Vanguard as well as smaller independent ones. As it stands, broker-dealers receive commissions based on the products they sell their clients, which critics say creates an inherent conflict of interest. Under the new rules, broker-dealers would be required to act in their clients best interest rather than encouraging money moves that directly benefit the brokers bottom line. The fancy word for this is fiduciary duty.

One of the biggest profit centers for broker-dealers is the IRA rollover. Since only a small portion of 401(k) plans allow retirees to set up their accounts for monthly withdrawals in retirement, its common for broker dealers to encourage savers to roll their 401(k) into more flexible IRAs. But the risk here is that brokers will direct savers to invest in products that may be too risky and expose them to additional fees. A White House report found that up to $1.7 trillion of assets held in IRAs are invested in products that financially benefit advisors, creating the potential for a conflict of interest. This conflicted advice costs savers an estimated $17 billion each year in unnecessary fees.

Federal workers have been a hot target for companies looking to convince them to roll their low-cost Thrift Savings Plan funds (the federal equivalent of the 401(k)) into high-fee IRA plans after they retire. Of course, not all broker-dealers are out to take advantage of their clients, but the DOLs new rules would at least ensure brokers will put their clients interest first before fiddling with their nest egg.

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The financial advisory industry has been trying to block the new rules before the DOL has a chance to implement them. In its letter to the DOL, Fidelity asked the agency to reconsider its plan to hold IRA rollover advice under the new fiduciary standard, which would mean broker dealers could only advise clients to roll over their funds into an IRA if its in their best interest. Instead, Fidelity argues that only advice on where to invest after the rollover is initiated should be held to the fiduciary standard.

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America shot back at Fidelitys letter, saying there is little mystery why the firm supports that approach. Their ability to siphon money out of 401(k) plans and into IRAs could continues unabated, Roper said in a letter to the DOL last fall. This has been a major source of profits for financial firms in recent years, though far less beneficial for retirement savers who are too often moved into higher cost or otherwise inferior investments.

Another argument posed by opponents is that the new rules will make it less profitable for small and midsize firms to work with people who have smaller portfolios, making it harder for low- and middle-income folks to get the financial guidance they need. There just isnt enough profit in it for a fee-based advisor earning a flat percentage of a clients assets when that client only has a few thousand bucks saved up.

Brian Graff, CEO of the American Retirement Association, a nonprofit that represents 20,000 retirement industry professionals, says those fears may be overstated.

My honest opinion is there will be some displacement, but I do think there will be other types of services that fill the void, he says. I have a hard time imagining that no one is going to try to seize an untapped market.

Startups like Betterment and Wealthfront have built their businesses on that untapped market, offering low-cost investment advice to workers whose portfolios may not be big enough for traditional firms. The 11 largest so-called roboadvisors held a combined $21 billion in assets as of July 2015, up 83% year over year, according to Corporate Insight.

Overall, 401(k) savers likely wont notice too much of a difference under the new rules, as a large number 401(k) plans already have a fiduciary duty to their workers. The rules are largely aimed at protecting 401(k) savers when they prepare to leave their employer and roll over their nest egg into an IRA.

Once the rules are implemented, firms will have several months to transition.

Have you ever gotten bad advice from a financial advisor? Tell us your story>


(Reuters) - A wanted North Carolina man was arrested this week on charges he failed to return a VHS tape to a video store 14 years ago, police said on Thursday. James Meyers, 37, of Concord, was driving his daughter to school when he was pulled over by police for a broken brake light, according to a video Meyers posted on YouTube on Tuesday. Meyers said officers ran his driver's license and told him he had an outstanding arrest warrant for not returning a movie to J&J Video in Salisbury, North Carolina. "The guy brings me to the back of the car and he goes: 'Sir, I don't know how to tell you this, but there's a warrant out for your arrest from 2002. Apparently you rented a movie, "Freddy Got Fingered" and you never returned it,'" Meyers said in the video, appearing dumbfounded. The Concord Police Department confirmed the arrest in a statement on Thursday, saying the warrant was issued February 28, 2002 by the now closed video store and signed by a magistrate. Police said instead of arresting Meyers at the scene, they allowed him to go to the police department later in the day to be served the warrant. Police then took Meyers in handcuffs to the Cabarrus County Magistrates Office. He is required to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge of failure to return hired property, police said. Meyers is scheduled to appear in court April 27, local media reported. Meyers could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Comedian Tom Green, star of the 2001 film "Freddy Got Fingered," tweeted on Wednesday night: "I just saw this and I am struggling to believe it is real." (Reporting by Justin Madden in Chicago; Editing by Curtis Skinner and Cynthia Osterman)
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who also served Pres. Barack Obama as CIA director, has been speaking out against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. (Photo: David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday that he regularly talks to officials around the world who are repulsed by the deeply reckless rhetoric on national security from Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and his rival Ted Cruz.

The former CIA director, speaking to reporters on a conference call organized by Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, did not name the foreign dignitaries in question.

I take a number of trips abroad, to the Middle East and elsewhere, and almost everywhere I go, responsible leaders in those countries express deep concerns about the kind of rhetoric that theyre hearing in the campaign from Donald Trump [and] Cruz, Panetta said.

He was referring to remarks from Trump and the Texas senator in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels. The Manhattan real estate mogul refused to rule out using nuclear weapons against the so-called Islamic State, reiterated his call for using torture on terrorism suspects, and pushed for closing U.S. borders to Muslims. Cruz called for having U.S. authorities patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods.

I know that sometimes these candidates think that theyre just talking to their voters in this country, Panetta said. Thats the worst mistake they can make, because the rhetoric theyre using is damaging the United States abroad and creating real concerns about where this country is going in the future.

Panetta said Trump and Cruzs rhetoric was divisive and hurts the ability to develop the kind of alliances we absolutely need in order to confront a dangerous enemy.

Panetta was not asked to identify the foreign officials in question, and did not do so.

The Trump and Cruz campaigns did not immediately return requests for comment.

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While overseas unease with Trump is real, especially in Mexico, invoking unnamed foreign dignitaries in this sort of political context can have its pitfalls, as Secretary of State John Kerry learned during his 2004 run for the White House.

The former Massachusetts senator endured a storm of criticism after declaring Ive met more leaders who cant go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, You got to win this. You got to beat this guy, and then refusing to identify who had said so.

And Democrats had a field day in 2012, when Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts said he had secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military leaders.

But Panetta was taking his cue from Hillary Clinton herself.

Im having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump, she said in a March 13 town hall event in Ohio.



I mean, this is up to Americans, thank you very much, but I get what youre saying, said the former top diplomat, who pointed to public remarks from Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzi, but refused to name any other world leaders. Campaign aides likewise declined to identify them.

At least one controversial foreign leader recently refused to be drawn into the debate. Cuban President Raul Castro, asked whether he preferred to see Clinton or Trump win, curtly demurred: I cannot vote in the United States.
Brussels (AFP) - Key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has "invoked his right to silence" and not spoken to investigators since a few brief interviews on Saturday, the day after his dramatic arrest in central Brussels, the federal prosecutor said Friday.

The prosecutor's comment comes after a Belgian minister said Abeslam had stopped talking to investigators since Tuesday's bombings at the city airport and metro.

A statement from the prosecutor said on Friday that that because Abdeslam was wounded in the leg and needed hospital treatment after his March 18 arrest, investigators waited until the following day, Saturday March 19, to question him.

A first round of questioning began at 8:00 am (0700 GMT), lasted two hours and went over the details of the November 13 Paris attacks which left 130 people dead, a statement said.

A second round took place later the same day, with the examining magistrate detailing the grounds of his arrest for about an hour, it said.

The hearing then turned to the European Arrest Warrant issued by the French authorities seeking his extradition to France "but during this last session, Abdeslam invoked his right to silence and has made no further comment", the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor said investigators saw Abdeslam again on Tuesday, immediately after the bomb attacks on Brussels airport and the metro which killed 31 people and wounded some 300.

On this occasion, Abdeslam "refused to make the slightest declaration," the statement said.

Belgian Justice minister Koen Geens earlier told parliament that Abdeslam had stopped cooperating with police.

"The federal prosecutor has just informed me that Salah Abdeslam no longer wants to talk since the attacks on Zaventem and the Brussels metro," Geens told a parliament committee on Friday looking into the attacks.
Paris (AFP) - French officials said Friday they had foiled a terror attack by a suspect who had been convicted in Belgium alongside Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris.

French national Reda Kriket, 34, was arrested Thursday and during a raid on his home in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil police seized assault rifles including Kalashnikovs and TATP -- the homemade explosive of choice of the Islamic State group.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the arrest "foiled a planned attack in France, which was at an advanced stage."

French police sources said a major raid launched in Brussels on Friday was linked to the arrest, as French and Belgian authorities labour to unravel the links between jihadists in their respective countries.

Some of the TATP found in Kriket's apartment was ready to use, while police also found its ingredients, acetone and oxygenated water.

Kriket was found guilty in absentia in Brussels last July of being part of a network recruiting jihadists to Syria and sentenced to 10 years' jail, according to police sources.

Investigations showed Kriket played a key role in financing the network with money from robberies and stolen goods.

Among those who went to Syria through the network were Abaaoud and another Paris attacker, Chakib Akrouh.

Abaaoud was among 28 people convicted in the Belgian trial and was sentenced to 20 years in absentia.

Brussels, which has emerged as a hotspot for radical Islam in Europe, was hit Monday by suicide bombings which left 31 dead at the airport and on the city metro.

After the attack police found large quantities of the ingredients to make the homemade explosive TATP.

Police in Belgium and Paris are still piecing together the potential links between the November attacks and those in Brussels this week.

One of the Paris jihadists, Salah Abdeslam -- who was arrested last week in Brussels -- has been linked to Brussels suicide bomber brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui.

Story continues

- Abaaoud the 'ringleader' -

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin, was a notorious jihadist who had appeared in grisly Islamic State group videos and was behind several failed attack plots in Europe.

On November 13, he formed part of a 10-man team of gunmen and suicide bombers that left 130 people dead in an a series of attacks on Paris, with authorities referring to him as the "ringleader".

Abaaoud was killed five days later in a police raid outside Paris, during which Akrouh blew himself up, also killing Abaaoud's female cousin.

Abaaoud and Akrouh were part of the team of jihadists who sprayed Paris restaurants and bars with gunfire on the night of the attacks, killing 39.

Abaaoud was from the Brussels immigrant district of Molenbeek, which has been thrust into the spotlight for its ties to the Paris attackers and Islamic radicalism.

It is also where Abdeslam was arrested last week after a four-month manhunt.

- Kriket -

It remains unclear where Kriket fits in.

Cazeneuve said Kriket had been under surveillance "for several weeks" and that the arrest was also the result of "close and constant cooperation between European services".

"He belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country," the interior minister said.

Cazeneuve said earlier in March that France had thwarted at least six potential attacks since jihadists struck in January 2015, killing 17 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket.

Since the beginning of 2016, 75 people have been arrested in France "with links to terrorist activities", 37 have been charged and 28 jailed, he said.
Brussels (AFP) - Two days after surviving Belgium's worst terror attacks, Roger Ramazani on Thursday finally walked away from Brussels airport with his bags.

On Tuesday he had been in the terminal building, holding his boarding pass for a flight to Kinshasa when two bombs exploded in the departure hall at Zaventem, killing at least 11 people.

Returning to the scene of the horror for the first time, he recalls how amid the smoke and chaos, suddenly everyone was lying on the ground. But then a woman started ushering people out of an open door to safety.

"Two days after and it's starting to get better. But I confess it wasn't easy the first and second day," he said. "Today, I'm accepting it. And life goes on."

Ramazani, from a Brussels suburb, was among thousands of passengers at the centre of the deadly attacks, dozens of whom returned to the airport on Thursday to collect backpacks, suitcases and folded prams.

In a vast, chilly cargo hangar, the travellers -- some of whom have been stranded by the airport's closure -- walked among neat rows of more than 5,000 bags, looking for the one with their name on it.

"It's the first step toward re-establishing activity," Florence Muls, a Brussels airlines spokeswoman said. "There are many steps to take before normal life resumes."

Zaventem airport, which on average sees 600 flights a day and employs 20,000 people, will stay closed to passengers until at least Sunday following the blasts.

Another 20 people died after another explosion in a Brussels metro train just minutes from some of the European Union's biggest institutions in the Belgian capital.

- 'Crying a lot' -

Belgian authorities are still searching for a third assailant who left his bomb-filled bag at the airport before fleeing the scene, and are hunting a second metro suspect.

The people able to pick up their luggage on Thursday were the fortunate ones, their bags were in the cargo holds of the planes when the bombs went off.

Story continues

Those inside the terminal will remain there because the area is still closed to the public and workers due to the ongoing investigation into the attacks.

German national Michel Mazylis, 65, who was also there to get his bags back, had looked out of the window of the plane that brought him to Brussels, saw black smoke pouring out of the terminal and felt a jolt of fear.

"Smoke, only black smoke," he said. "And then we went inside in the hall from the plane... and then we saw all the people running and we don't know what just happened."

Luc Boonen said his flight was stuck on the tarmac for nearly an hour before he and his wife learned the news.

"Then we got the information from the pilot, 'OK, there is a bomb'," he said, holding his luggage in his hands. "Then you go in shock."

The 52-year-old, from the Brussels area, said he had managed to bounce back from his brush with tragedy -- noting that he was lucky not to see the worst of the carnage.

But he said his wife was still recovering.

"She don't sleep," he said. "She is crying a lot."
How Is Petrobras Handling Hard Times?

(Continued from Prior Part)

Integrated energy stocks rise

In 2016, integrated energy stocks have been rising since February due to firming oil prices backed by the possibility of consensus among major oil producers to support oil prices. From mid-February until March 22, 2016, Petrobras (PBR) saw its stock price almost double amid volatility.

PBRs peers like Statoil (STO) and YPF (YPF) also rose by 21% and 18%, respectively, during the same period. ENI SPA (E) increased by 24%. For exposure to integrated energy sector stocks, you can consider the iShares U.S. Energy ETF (IYE). The ETF has ~44% exposure to integrated stocks.

Petrobrass stock performance

Last year, Petrobrass (PBR) stock fell on plunging oil prices. Continuing the trend, PBRs stock had a weak opening in 2016. Petrobras traded below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. PBRs downward movement halted in mid-February, whereby the stock started rising amid volatility.

In January 2016, PBR announced that it began negotiations for the sale of its interest in Petrobras Argentina. On the reserves front, Petrobras (PBR) posted a decline in proved reserves from 13 billion barrels of oil equivalent (or Bboe) to 10.5 Bboe. This was followed by credit rating agency Standard and Poors downgrading PBRs rating. Petrobras also signed a term sheet with China Development Bank for the financing of $10 billion. Plus, per its divestment program, Petrobras is considering the sale of its stake in BR Distribuidora. PBR is also in the process of selling its onshore fields spread through five states in Brazil.

Petrobrass stock is marginally below its 200-day moving average

On the other hand, oil prices, which hit a multiyear low in January 2016, started witnessing positive spikes. In February, Petrobras began operating the Cidade de Marica platform in the Lula field. The platform has a daily production capacity of up to 150,000 barrels of oil and six million cubic meters of gas.

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In fact, PBRs stock gained considerably and crossed over its 50-day moving average, which was likely led by oil price spikes coupled with positive news on the Lula field. Currently, Petrobras trades above its 50-day moving average and marginally below its 200-day moving average.

In the next part, we will analyze Petrobrass (PBR) analyst ratings and present an overview of its strategy.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:
Manila (AFP) - A North Korean vessel impounded as part of tough new sanctions in response to Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile tests has been released, the Philippines said Friday.

The Jin Teng, a 6,380-tonne cargo ship, was allowed to leave Subic port, northeast of the capital Manila, where it had been held since early March under the United Nations sanctions.

"It was authorised (Thursday). We had an order to release it from the Department of Foreign Affairs," coast guard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo told AFP.

The 21 North Korean crewmen on board were also allowed to leave with the ship, he added.

The ship's impoundment was the first reported enforcement of the sanctions, the toughest ever imposed on the pariah state, which were adopted on March 2 by the UN Security Council.

Subic coastguard chief Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Marfil said the vessel left for China after being cleared by customs, immigration and port authorities.

"There was a directive from headquarters to release it (because) the UN Security Council issued an order," he told AFP.

"At the policy level, there is no more basis to continue to hold MV Jin Teng after UNSC delisted it" from a blacklist of North Korean assets frozen as part of the sanctions, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said in a statement.

The Jin Teng, which was carrying palm kernels, arrived in the Philippines from Palembang, Indonesia on March 3, just hours after the UN sanctions were unanimously passed.

The Philippine coastguard inspected the ship for contraband using electronic sensors but found nothing.

The UN Security Council ruled on March 21 that the Jin Teng was not subject to the asset freeze, a statement on the UN website said.
Warsaw (AFP) - Poland on Friday gave the go ahead for large-scale logging in the Bialowieza forest intended to combat a spruce bark beetle infestation, despite scientists, ecologists and the EU protesting the move in Europe's last primeval woodland.

"We're acting to curb the degradation of important habitats, to curb the disappearance and migration of important species from this site," Jan Szyszko, environment minister with Poland's right-wing government told journalists.

Szyszko vowed that the logging plans would not apply to strictly protected areas of the primeval forest that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

But under the new plan, loggers will harvest more than 180,000 cubic metres (6.4 million cubic feet) of wood from other areas of the forest over a decade, dwarfing previous plans to harvest 40,000 cubic metres over the same period.

Vowing to protect the forest, Greenpeace accused Szyszko of "ignoring the voices of citizens and scientists, the European Commission, UNESCO and conservation organisations."

Along with other environmental groups protesting the move, Greenpeace also said the logging could trigger the EU to launch punitive procedures against Poland for violating its Natura 2000 program.

Sprawling across 150,000 hectares, the Bialowieza forest reaches across the Polish border with Belarus, where it is entirely protected as a nature park.

It is home to 20,000 animal species, including 250 types of bird and 62 species of mammals -- among them Europe's largest, the bison.

Europe's tallest trees, firs towering 50 metres high (164 feet), and oaks and ashes of 40 metres, also flourish here, in an ecosystem unspoiled for more than 10 millennia.
A series of arrests were made in connection to the Brussels terror attacks amid a string of ongoing police raids in the Belgian capital.

Police arrested six suspects in the Schaerbeek and Jette neighborhoods late Thursday during SWAT investigations involving helicopters and armored cars, the Guardian reported.

Authorities have not released details about those arrested, but the Belgian federal prosecutor's office confirmed they are believed to be connected to Tuesday's airport and metro suicide bombings that have killed at least 34 people and injured 230.

On Friday morning, Schaerbeek Mayor Bernard Clerfayt said that another man, also thought to have connections to the attacks, had been injured and detained in a separate operation carried out near a tram station.

Video footage from Friday's raid shows the wounded man with a backpack lying across a set of train tracks. He is inspected by a bomb detecting robot before police drag him away. .

Conflicting reports about where attackers might strike next have led to added unease in the city as authorities race to make arrests. Initial intelligence suggested that extremists plotting to bomb a nuclear site had been scared off after police raids began near the capital. Separate reports warn of another attack planned for the same location on Easter Monday.

Of the three attackers believed to be responsible for Tuesday's attacks, two were killed at the scene and one is believed to be at large.
Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis decried what he called Europe's "indifferent and anaesthetised conscience" over migrants, during Good Friday prayers in Rome during which he also slammed paedophile priests, arms dealers and fundamentalists.

Tens of thousands of Catholic faithful gathered for the service, many clutching candles in the imposing surrounds of the city's famous Colosseum, where thousands of Christians are believed to have been killed in Roman times.

"O Cross of Christ, today we see you in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas which have become insatiable cemeteries, reflections of our indifferent and anaesthetised conscience," the 79-year old pontiff said, referring to the thousands who set off in unseaworthy boats to reach Greece and the rest of Europe.

Francis has long called for the global community to open its doors to refugees and fight xenophobia -- appeals which have intensified since a controversial deal between Europe and Turkey to expel migrants arriving in Greece.

The Argentine pope did not spare his own Church, fiercely denouncing paedophile priests whom he described as those "unfaithful ministers who, instead of stripping themselves of their own vain ambitions, divest even the innocent of their dignity".

The Roman Catholic Church continues to be dogged by cases of predatory priests and past cover-ups. Just this month a French cardinal faced calls to resign over allegations he promoted a cleric who had a previous conviction for sexual abuse.

In the wake of this week's deadly attacks in Brussels, Francis slammed "terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence".

The pope added it was "arms dealers who feed the cauldron of war with the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters" and raged against "traitors who, for thirty pieces of silver, would consign anyone to death".

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- 'Egotistical and hypocritical society' -

Francis also evoked the expressions on the faces of children fleeing war "who often only find death and many Pilates who wash their hands" -- a reference to Pontius Pilate, who, according to Christian tradition, said he was bowing to public demand in ordering Jesus's crucifixion, in a bid to shrug off personal responsibility.

In his wide-ranging diatribe, the head of the Roman Catholic Church lashed out at persecutors of Christians in particular, lamenting "our sisters and brothers killed, burned alive, throats slit and decapitated by barbarous blades amid cowardly silence".

He also turned a steely gaze on Western cultures, talking of "our egotistical and hypocritical society", which casts off the elderly and disabled and lets its children starve.

During the service, a small group of believers carried a cross between 14 "stations" evoking the last hours of Jesus's life during the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession, amid visibly heightened security at the former gladiator battle ground.

Sitting under a red canopy next to a large cross, Francis listened earlier to a lengthy meditation written by Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who spoke of the darkest moments of humanity, where belief in God is most deeply shaken.

"Where is God in the extermination camps? Where is God in the mines and factories where children work as slaves? Where is God in makeshift boats that sink in the sea?", he said in reference to the migrant vessels and the many who have drowned.

Good Friday is the second of four intensive days in the Christian calendar culminating in Easter Sunday, commemorating Christ's resurrection.

On Saturday, the pontiff will take part in an evening Easter vigil in St Peter's Basilica, before celebrating Easter mass on Sunday and pronouncing the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to the world.
A radar scan of William Shakespeare's tomb has discovered signs of tampering with his final resting place that lend credence to a story about his skull being stolen in the 18th century, researchers said.

Archaeologists used ground-penetrating radar on the grave, which is protected by a curse, for a documentary airing on Saturday to mark the 400th anniversary of the famous playwright's death.

"We have Shakespeare's burial with an odd disturbance at the head end," said Kevin Colls, who is heading up the research on the grave site at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, central England, Shakespeare's home town.

"It's very, very convincing to me that his skull isn't at Holy Trinity at all," he said.

According to a story published in 1879, trophy hunters removed the skull in the late 18th century.

The robbers would have defied the inscription on a stone slab above the grave reading: "Bleste be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones".

The grave is only a metre (three feet) below the floor of the church and there is no evidence of metal, indicating that the body of the "Bard" was wrapped in a shroud rather than buried in a coffin, the survey also found.

Shakespeare is buried alongside his wife, Anne Hathaway, and the grave is a place of pilgrimage for the many fans who flock to Stratford every year.

The discovery will feature in a documentary being broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 television as part of commemorations ahead of the April 23 anniversary of Shakespeare's death when there will be a series of performances and a candlelit vigil in the church.

The scan -- the first ever carried out -- revealed significant repairs to the head-end of the grave.

Local vicar Patrick Taylor said he was unconvinced by the theory that the skull had been taken away but ruled out opening the grave.

"We intend to continue to respect the sanctity of his grave, in accordance with Shakespeare's wishes, and not allow it to be disturbed," he said.

"We shall live with the mystery of not knowing fully what lies beneath the stone."
Some jails are notorious. Think New York Citys Rikers Island or the Los Angeles County Mens Central Jail. News stories about overcrowding, violence, and deplorable conditions fuel ongoing public debate about the nations two largest jail systems and capture the public's imagination about just what jail looks like. But it turns out urban jails are in declinethere is even a movement to close the jail in New York City; Los Angeles is already tearing down its largest jail and building a smaller oneand it is rural America that represents the true picture of U.S. jails today. That's because growth in the jail population is not driven by the largest counties; it has taken root in a thousand very small ones across the United States.

Of course, it wasn't always like this. The nations very small counties once had less than half as many people in jail as New York City and Los Angeles combined. Now, it is the very small counties that have double the combined jail population of the two cities. Original analysis of the Vera Institutes online jail population tool show that jails have grown the most in small counties, not large ones. In the last decade, the outsized jail growth in very small counties has only continued, but jail populations in larger counties have actually begun to decline.

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To illustrate this, I conducted additional analysis to compare two groups of countieseach with a population of 18.6 million. The first group: Los Angeles County and New York City, which have a combined resident population of 18.6 million in 2014, and are also the largestand perhaps most notoriousjail jurisdictions in the United States. The second group: 1,003 very small counties, each with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents in 2014, and also with a combined resident population total of 18.6 million (around one-third of all U.S. counties fall into the 10,000  30,000 category). Each group holds 6 percent of the total U.S. population, and has grown at nearly the same rate since 1970.

Of course, there are differences between the two groups. The growth of mass incarceration in local jails is one key difference. From the 1970s to the present, NYC and LAs combined jail population grew 30 percent, from 23,000 to 30,000 people on any given day. This outpaced the cities resident population growth of 25 percent. In contrast, in the very small counties, jail populations started out much smaller. For example, Gonzales County, Texaswith 20,000 residents between San Antonio and Houstonhad 2 people in jail in 1970. But very small counties grew far more. The jail populations in these very small counties grew six-fold from the 1970s to the presentfrom 9,000 to 62,000and now hold double the amount of people behind bars as NYC and LA. Gonzales County had 87 people in jail in 2013, for a jail incarceration rate twice the national average. Or Marion County, Tennessee with 28,000 residents outside of Chattanoogahad only 8 people in jail in 1970, and now has 131 in 2013.

Another meaningful difference is in diversity: the combined population of New York City and Los Angeles is about 70 percent people of color, and the very small counties are about 80 percent non-Hispanic whites. To understand the full impact of mass incarceration at the local level, its important to understand how it affects people of color. Compared to very small counties, far more people of color live in NYC and LA County. One might expect NYC and LA to have more people of color in jail. But they dontvery small counties have more people of color behind bars on a given day than NYC and LA. While data limits mean we can only compare back to 1990, the changes since then are dramatic. In 1990, 33,000 people of color were behind bars in NYC and LA, but only 9,000 were behind bars in the local jails of very small counties. Twenty-four years later, in 2014, very small counties had tripled to 27,000 and NYC and LA had dropped to 25,000. In some very small counties, the change is dramatic: Custer County, Oklahoma held 11 people of color behind bars in 1990 and 114 in 201310 fold growth when the resident people of color population had only doubled.

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When thinking in terms of populations, might the increasing numbers of people behind bars in small counties be caused by rapidly shifting demographics, particularly in diversifying suburban areas? Though the number of people of color in very small counties has grown, this relatively moderate population growth does not explain the huge increase in jail incarceration. When looking at the changes in terms of rate of jail incarceration, the racial disparities in the very small counties become even more visible. (Looking at rate controls for changes in the population, by taking the number of people of color who are jailed per 100,000 people of color aged 15-64.)

Very small counties have more people of color behind bars on a given day than NYC and LA.

In very small counties, nearly 1,100 out of 100,000 people of color aged 15-64 are behind bars in a local jail on a given day. For NYC and LA, that rate is significantly lower, at just 280. For a national perspective, the jail incarceration rate of people of color is 502 out of 100,000 aged 15-64, which is less than half the rate in very small counties, and significantly higher than the total national jail incarceration rate of 341.

This disproportionate growth is further evidence that the era of mass incarceration hasnt delivered on public safety. It has, however, taken a fiscal toll as well as damaged individuals, families, and whole communities. Jails are under the jurisdiction of local stakeholders, and their day-to-day size and operations are not significantly affected by federal or state legislative proposals to reduce prison populations. As we know from looking deeper into the national data, the use of jail incarceration is embedded in the culture and practice of communities nationwide, large and small.

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Growing evidence suggests that reform efforts to downsize local jails are catching on in many large jurisdictions. Ways to shrink jail populations safely include alternatives to arrest, expanded pretrial release options, alternative sentencing options, improved drug treatment, and mental health resources. However, in many small communities, theres little awareness of a jail overuse problem that would spur the adoption of such tools. For national criminal justice reform efforts to be successful, every county will need to understand not only their jail size in relation to historical trends or similar counties, but also the racial disparities it may contain.

With more information about jail trends nationwideand who they are affectingsmall counties can begin the critical conversation about what kind of change is needed in their own backyard.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) - Soon after Hillary Clinton's arrival at the State Department in 2009, officials in the information technology office were baffled when told that a young technician would join them as a political appointee, newly disclosed emails show. The technician, Bryan Pagliano, was running the off-grid email server that Clinton had him set up in her New York home for her work as secretary of state. But even as years passed, Pagliano's supervisors never learned of his most sensitive task, according to the department and one of his former colleagues. Pagliano's immediate supervisors did not know the private server even existed until it was revealed in news reports last year, the colleague said, requesting anonymity because of a department ban on unauthorized interviews. Clinton's decision to side-step the official state.gov email system has since shrouded her campaign for the U.S. presidency this year in controversy and legal uncertainty. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting one of several inquiries into the arrangement, which saw classified information passing through her unsecured clintonemail.com account. The newly disclosed emails show Patrick Kennedy, the department's under secretary for management, oversaw the hiring of Pagliano. But Clinton and the department continued to decline this week to say who, if anyone, in the government was aware of the email arrangement. "There was no permission to be asked," Clinton said earlier this month. State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to say whether this was correct, citing the ongoing inquiries. Before joining the department, Pagliano had worked on Clinton's unsuccessful presidential campaign the previous year, and Clinton paid him separately to maintain the server, her campaign staff have said. Pagliano is cooperating with the FBI in exchange for a promise of a form of prosecutorial immunity, but it remains unclear whether even he knew Clinton was using the server for her work as the nation's most senior diplomat. Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon declined to answer questions, but said in an email he was glad that Pagliano was speaking with the FBI because "there was nothing inappropriate about the IT services he provided." COLLEAGUES SURPRISED The department gave copies of the emails to the Senate's Republican-led Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the email arrangement, and they are cited in a five-page letter that the committee chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley, sent last week to Kennedy, who remains the department's most senior manager. Kennedy shared Pagliano's resume in 2009 with Susan Swart, then the head of the department's Bureau of Information Resource Management and chief adviser to the secretary on the department's information technology systems, and her deputy, Charlie Wisecarver. "How did the conversation go and have you reached an arrangement?" he asked them, referring to Pagliano, in another email, according to the letter the committee shared with Reuters. Wisecarver and Swart, who had worked in the department for decades, were soon swapping emails expressing confusion and surprise that a political appointee, a so-called Schedule C employee who is more commonly hired to work in the secretary of state's offices, should be joining the IT department's ranks. Schedule C employees, who help presidential appointees and agency heads make policy, can only report to people appointed by the U.S. president or other senior executive officials. But no one like that worked in the IT office, so Kennedy ended up being Pagliano's designated supervisor. The department told Reuters that Pagliano and Kennedy had little contact, and that Kennedy was unaware of the server or his subordinate's role in running it. Nor did Wisecarver, Pagliano's day-to-day boss, or Swart know, according to the former colleague, who said the IT office should have been informed. People who worked with Pagliano did not respond to messages. Pagliano's lawyer declined to comment. Grassley's letter also indicates that at least some department officials had learned of the server's existence by the end of the second year of Clinton's tenure. Pagliano received an IT security briefing in late 2010 or early 2011 "in connection with his work on the Secretary's non-government server," according to Grassley's letter. Grassley's staff, who have been interviewing officials as part of their inquiry, declined to provide more details. The State Department declined to confirm whether the meeting happened. (Editing by Richard Valdmanis)
When she was a child living on a ranch in Montana and attending elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse with four other children, a career as a physician didn't occur to KayCee Gardner. She'd never needed one.

For a long time, says Gardner, 31, "I didn't even know doctors existed." However, she says that she always "enjoyed doctoring our cows."

Gardner's plan as she went off to Montana State University was to become an engineer. But she soon got the feeling that the work would lack the humanitarian rewards she craved. Searching for a better fit, she shadowed an X-ray technician and later a doctor on a Northern Cheyenne reservation. Both experiences impressed upon her that it must be possible to prevent a good many health conditions by giving people better access to physicians.

[Check out thetop medical schools for rural medicine.]

According to the National Rural Health Association, just 10 percent of doctors practice in the wide swath of America where nearly a quarter of the population lives. The shortage of rural doctors has only grown more acute as the Affordable Care Act has expanded the ranks of people with insurance.

Gardner decided on medical school at the University of Washington and participated in a new track that would lead her to primary care in a rural and underserved area. She was assigned a mentor and sent to work in a small town before school even started. The first week, she delivered a baby.

Gardner graduated in 2012, did her residency at Montana Family Medicine in Billings, and is all set to begin practicing in Miles City -- population 8,000 -- this fall after she wraps up a rural medicine fellowship with a focus on high-risk obstetrics. That should help equip her for the huge range of tasks she expects to face -- everything from putting tubes in tracheas to treating trauma patients and performing cesarean sections.

[Get tips on when to determine a medical school specialty.]

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Prospective students can consider other hot jobs in the medical arena as well.

-- Physician assistant: With the expanding demand for health care services, the need for physician assistants is projected to rise by 30 percent in the next 10 years, according to government data -- growth that is "much faster" than the overall average.

The job, which involves diagnosing and treating patients and can include writing prescriptions, typically requires a master's degree and a license. The median pay is just under $96,000.

[Learn about schools with top-ranked physician assistant programs.]

-- Oncologist: Cancer continues to be a formidable foe, and since oncologists "tend to follow their patients for years and years," says Colleen Christmas, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, "they have a reduced ability to take in new patients." Rapid discoveries in genomics and immunology, for example, make the field a dynamic one. According to the physician network Doximity, oncologists' pay averages $353,000.

-- Geriatrician: There are currently some 7,400 geriatricians in the country for every 2,526 Americans age 75 or older, according to the American Geriatrics Society. But thanks to the aging population and a "plateauing" of the number of these specialists, that ratio is expected to sink to one for every 4,484 people in 2030.

After they finish medical school and residency, geriatricians typically spend at least one additional year studying conditions specific to aging.

This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Graduate Schools 2017" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia will deploy a range of coastal missile systems on the far-eastern Kuril islands, claimed by Japan, as part of its military build-up in the region, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday.

"The planned rearmament of contingents and military bases on Kuril islands is under way. Already this year they will get Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems as well as new-generation Eleron-3 unmanned aerial vehicles," Shoigu said during a ministry meeting.

Russia has been investing in military infrastructure on the Kuril islands, which Japan considers its territory, over the last few years, including building new barracks for personnel.

Shoigu said at the meeting that the military is focusing on "developing military infrastructure in the Arctic and Kuril island zones."

Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been strained for decades because of the status of the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

The Russian navy's Pacific fleet next month will embark on a three-month mission to the Kurils to explore whether the islands could serve as a naval base as well.

This year and next year Russia is set to put up more than 350 buildings for military needs on the Kuril islands of Iturup and Kunashir, called Etorofu and Kunashiri in Japan.

Some 19,000 Russians live on the remote rocky islands, which were occupied by Soviet troops in the dying days of World War II.

The two countries have never officially struck a peace treaty and the lingering tensions over the issue have hampered trade ties for decades.
Belgrade (AFP) - Serbia and Russia on Friday criticised the UN war crimes tribunal, alleging bias after it convicted wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide.

Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday found the wartime Bosnian Serb leader guilty on 10 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia's 1990s conflict.

While victims of Karadzic's crimes said his 40-year jail sentence did not go far enough, both Moscow and Belgrade suggested the Hague-based court was biased against Serbs.

"All justice that leads to the conviction of one people for crimes that were committed by everyone is selective," said Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic, reading out a statement following a government meeting on the verdict.

He said the work of the ICTY over the years had left a "bitter taste".

Karadzic is the highest-profile figure to be convicted over the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart, with several others dying before they could face justice.

Many Serbs believe the court has unfairly targeted them.

"We have said for a long time that the activity of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is politicised," said Russia's deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov.

Asked if Karadzic's conviction was also politicised, he answered "Yes," Interfax news agency reported.

"Unfortunately all the cases that have been examined have been one-sided," Gatilov said, adding the court did not examine "crimes by Kosovar leaders and the military".

- Close allies -

Russian ally Serbia and Kosovo fought a war in the late 1990s and neither Moscow nor Belgrade recognise Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2008, recognised by more than 10 countries.

In 2012, Russia also criticised the ICTY's decision to clear two Croatian generals of war crimes.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic sentenced Thursday after being found guilty of genocide and other crimes during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

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Moscow has also criticised NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, and on Friday said the UN judges at the tribunal "chose" to give the verdict against Karadzic on the 17th anniversary of the start of the bombing, on March 24 1999.

Russia's foreign ministry said Karadzic's sentence is "only the latest in the extremely harsh sentences to Serbs, carried out while other participants in the civil war in former Yugoslavia were acquitted."

The widow of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes at The Hague, fled to Russia in 2003 while his retired diplomat brother also lived in Russia before his death in 2013.

Karadzic, 70, was convicted of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed and their bodies dumped in mass graves by Bosnian Serb forces.

Women in Srebrenica widowed by the slaughter slammed his sentence as "inadequate".

But in Belgrade after the sentencing up to 5,000 ultranationalists chanted his name during a pre-election rally against the government, which also took aim at the tribunal.

At a memorial for victims of the 1999 bombing and again after the verdict, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic warned against attacks on Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, which was founded by Karadzic.

Despite Serbia's closeness to Russia, former ultranationalist Vucic has taken a firmly pro-European stance and is keen to lead Serbia into the EU.

Bosnia's Muslim political leader, Bakir Izetbegovic, welcomed the verdict for Karadzic, while the United States said it closed "yet another painful chapter" in the story of the Yugoslav conflicts.
- World number one Mohamed El Shorbagy moved nearer to a successful defence of the British Open title with a 11-8, 11-8, 11-9 win over Miguel Angel Rodriguez, which carried him to the semi-finals on Friday. The top-seeded Egyptian mostly nullified the seventh-seeded Colombians speed, suggesting that he is adding more thoughtful dimensions to his hustling attacks. El Shorbagy also responded well during the later stages of each game when Rodriguez began to threaten by gaining energy from the crowds enthusiastic responses to his dynamic retrieving. Each time El Shorbagy kept to the basics of line and length and variations of pace and it usually worked well. I just hate losing, he said. I hate nothing more in life than losing. So thats probably why I am number one.

AFP
Iskandariyah (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraq on Saturday buried the victims, among them many young boys, of a suicide attack that ripped through a trophy ceremony after a football tournament and killed 32 people.

The bomber, who himself looks like a teenager on a photo distributed by the Islamic State group that claimed the attack, cut through a crowd gathered after the game and blew himself up.

Babil province announced three days of mourning following the attack, that sparked condemnation from visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon and outrage across the global footballing community.

"There are 32 dead and also 84 wounded, 12 of whom are in a critical condition," an official in Babil province health directorate told AFP.

"Seventeen of those killed are boys aged between 10 and 16," the official said.

The attack took place in the Babil province village of Al-Asriya, which lies near Iskandariyah, a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital.

The bomber detonated his suicide vest late afternoon on Friday as officials were handing trophies to the players after the tournament.

A video posted on social media shows one official speaking in front of a table covered with trophies and calling out the name of a player before a huge blast.

The footage cuts off with a big flash of yellow light.

- Global outrage -

"The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the centre of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players," Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old witness, told AFP.

The mayor, Ahmed Shaker, was among the dead, as was one of his bodyguards and at least five members of the security forces.

Pictures posted on social media of the blast site showed mangled goal posts smeared with blood.

The US State Department extended its condolences to the bereaved in a statement, as did the UN secretary general who was visiting Iraq for talks.

"I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences to the people and government of Iraq, and particularly those members of the families affected by terrorist attacks yesterday," the UN chief told reporters.

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Gianni Infantino, the new head of world football's main governing body FIFA, said he was "shocked and terribly saddened".

"Around the world, football unites people. It is a very sad day, when people, going to a match together, become the victims of such violence," Infantino said in a statement.

The Asian Football Confederation also released a statement condemning the bombing.

"Football is a powerful force for good and our game has a long history of bringing people together even during conflicts around the world," it said.

"Using football and sport stadiums as a stage for these heinous acts of violence is a cowardly, completely unjust and indiscriminate act," the AFC said.

IS has been losing territory steadily in Iraq for almost a year.

In the most recent operations, Iraqi forces have been gaining ground in the western province of Anbar and have just begun their reconquest of the province of Nineveh.

Observers have warned that, as their self-proclaimed "caliphate" shrinks towards extinction, IS fighters are likely to revert to their old guerrilla tactics and ramp up suicide attacks on civilian targets.
Ted Cruz is firing back at Donald Trump following the release of a tabloid story which claimed the Texas senator has cheated on his wife with multiple women, including a former public supporter.

"I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage," Cruz said in a statement posted to social media on Friday. "For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald wont go."

Cruz is irate after the National Enquirer published a Wednesday story which accused the presidential hopeful of "hiding five different mistresses."

One of the women who has been possibly linked to story is Katrina Pierson, a former public supporter of Cruz who now serves as the national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.

Pierson has denied the story. "Of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!! I only speak to myself, however," Pierson wrote on Twitter.

The timing of the National Enquirer piece has been pointed out by numerous pundits and critics, as it dropped right after Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, made an ominous threat to Cruz concerning his wife, Heidi.

The new feud started Tuesday after the billionaire businessman said he would "spill the beans" about Cruz's wife after he accused Cruz of having involvement with an attack that featured a semi-nude photo of Trump's wife, Melania, a former model.

Cruz said he had nothing to do with the ad and called Trump a "coward" for threatening Heidi.

On Friday, Cruz again defended his wife while taking more swings at Trump.

"These smears are completelytheyre offensive to Heidi and me, theyre offensive to our daughters, and theyre offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack," Cruz said in the statement. "Donald Trumps consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow."

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Trump responded to the accusations a short time later in a statement.

"I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this weeks issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it. Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruzs problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin Ted Cruz. I look forward to spending the week in Wisconsin, winning the Republican nomination and ultimately the Presidency in order to Make America Great Again."

Read More: Megyn Kelly Responds to Donald Trump's Tweet Comparing His Wife to Heidi Cruz
A grassroots campaign in New York is providing the latest backlash to what many perceive to be unrealistic female beauty standards.

#MyBodyDoes, which has been steadily gathering pace in the US metropolis, has seen advocates for positive self-image posting manifesto stickers around the city to encourage women to love their natural shape. Images of the stickers have attracted global online attention.

Inscribed with messages such as My body is a source of joy and I am thankful for all that my body does, the campaigns affirmation stickers have popped up everywhere from lampposts to billboard ads for cosmetic surgery. Fans can purchase the stickers or download and create their own on the campaigns website mybodydoes.com.

Founded by Jess Andersen and Ashley Simon, the movement aims to celebrate the profound uniqueness & inherent value of all bodies and nourish self-compassion and bring nuance to the dialogue about body image and wellness.

#MyBodyDoes is the latest contributor to the growing trend of social campaigns, whether implemented on the ground or played out via social media, to respond to the issue of socially imposed beauty standards. Earlier this month Pax Jones, a 21-year-old photographer in Texas, hit the headlines when her Unfair And Lovely photo series examining the discrimination faced by women of South Asian descent went viral. The concept, whose name references a Thai skin bleaching product called Fair and Lovely, became a hashtagged movement celebrating dark-skinned women and has garnered almost thousands of Instagram contributions and followers from all over the world.

Additional grassroots campaigns to have seen success recently include Thigh Reading, which saw contributors post photos of their stretch marks to social media, and Love Your Lines, which encouraged women to embrace their marks as a positive beauty attribute. Last summer also saw memorable widespread furor over a controversial campaign by a weight loss supplement brand, which saw billboards asking the question Are you beach body ready? graffitied and defaced.
In yet another tragic aviation accident, Flydubai, a government owned low cost UAE based airline, crashed enroute from Dubai to Rostov in Russia, killing all 62 on board. According to a whistleblower, the airline was known to work their pilots to death, and thus fatigue could have been a cause for the death. Other theories being considered are technical failure, adverse weather conditions and crew error, among others. On its part, the Russian investigation industry has opened a criminal investigation into any security breaches, and 50 investigators have been put on the case.



Though, as per David Ropeik, a Risk Communications instructor at Harvard University, the odds of dying in a plane crash are one in 11 million, the aviation industry has been witness to numerous horrific accidents that have cost thousands of lives.

We take a look at ten of the deadliest air crashes in aviation history:

Tenerife disaster: The worst accident in the history of aviation, in terms of number of deaths is the Tenerife disaster. On March 27, 1977, a KLM Boeing 747 attempted to take off without clearance, colliding with a taxing Pan Am 747, killing 583 people. This happened at the Los Rodeos airport, in Tenerife, Canary Islands. While all passengers and crew on board the KLM died in the collision, 61 of the 396 passengers and crew on board the Pan Am, survived.

Japanese Airlines Flight 123: 520 people were killed when a Japanese Airlines Flight 123 crashed not long after take off, in Mount Osutuka, central Japan. This is the deadliest commercial single aircraft air disaster and the deadliest aviation accident in Japan. The reason for the crash was an explosive decompression from an incorrectly repaired aft pressure bulkhead, which ripped off a large portion of the tail and led to loss of control. Four people survived the crash.

Charki-Dardi mid air collision: The worst mid-air collision in aviation history, and the third deadliest air accident happened on November 12,1996, when a Saudia Flight 763 collided with an Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907, over Charki-Dadri in Haryana. The pilot of the Air Kazakhstan flight was flying lower than the assigned clearance altitude, leading to the collision, which killed all 349 passengers and crew on board both aircraft. Post the crash the Civil Aviation Authority of India made it mandatory that all aircraft flying in an out of India be equipped with Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), setting a precedence internationally.

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Ermenonville air disaster: On March 3, 1974, Turkish airlines flight 981- a McDouglas DC-10 - was on its way to London when it crashed into a forest near Paris, killing all 346 on board. The reason was found to be a cargo door which had detached, leading to an explosive decompression, the floor collapsing, control cables getting severed, and the pilot losing control of the aircraft, eventually.

Air India Kanishka bombing: In the deadliest terrorist attack of that time, a bomb exploded in the cargo hold of an Air India Flight 182 on 23 June, 1985, leading to the plane crashing off the coast of Ireland. The bomb was reportedly planted by Mr Singh, a passenger who had checked in, but did not board the flight. The attack was found to be planned by Sikh extremists, in retaliation of the Indian governments attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 163: This was the worlds deadliest air accident, which did not involve an actual crash. On August 19, 1980, after a fire broke out in the cargo hold, the crew managed to safely land the aircraft. However, instead of ordering an immediate evacuation, the pilot taxied off the runway. The fire, which had burned through the ceiling, entered the cabin, and as the crew and passengers were unconscious by then, the cabin doors could not be opened. The crew died of suffocation before the rescue teams could open the doors, and the aircraft burst into flames. All 301 people on board the aircraft died in the tragedy.

MH 17: One of the deadliest airline crashes in recent times happened on July 17, 2014, when a Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17, was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lampur. All 298 people on board, which included 3 infants and 15 crew members, died. According to German and American intelligence reports, the plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile, mistakenly fired by pro-Russian insurgents. But this theory was refuted by Russian authorities.

Iran Air Flight 655: In another deadly crash induced by an attack, on 3 July, 1988, an Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by two surface-to-air missiles from the U.S. Navy's guided missile cruiser, USS Vincennes, over the Strait of Hormuz. This happened when the USS Vincennes was exchanging fire with small Iranian ships in a stand off in the Persian Gulf. The Iran Air Flight 655 took off from the nearby Bandar Abbas International Airport, around the same time. Mistaking it to be a fighter aircraft, the USS Vincennes fired two shots at it, bringing the craft down. There were 290 people on board the flight  all died.

American Airlines Flight 191: In the deadliest commercial aircraft accident in the US history, an American Airlines Flight 191 lost control and crashed near the OHare Airport in Des Plaines, Illinois, on May 25, 1979. The reason for the crash was improper maintenance, because of which the number one engine and pylon on the left wing separated and flipped over the top of the wing. All 271 passengers and crew on board the aircraft died, along with two people on the ground.

American Airlines Flight 587: Just two months after the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks, an American Airlines Flight 587 departing from John F Kennedy airport, crashed in the Belle Harbour neighbourhood in Queens, New York. All 265 passengers and crew members, and five people on the ground, were killed in the crash.
Istanbul (AFP) - Two Turkish journalists went on trial in Istanbul Friday facing possible life terms on controversial espionage charges, with the court immediately barring the public from a case seen as a test of press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of leading opposition daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, his Ankara bureau chief, are charged with espionage and revealing state secrets over a story accusing the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms to rebels in Syria.

Within two hours of the start of the proceedings the judge ordered the trial to be held behind closed doors, granting a request by the prosecution which cited "national security" concerns.

The decision was met with cries of dismay inside the courtroom. Several opposition politicians refused to leave, prompting the judge to adjourn the trial until April 1.

"To judge journalists in camera is further proof that Turkish authorities and President Erdogan have something to hide," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders, who attended the proceedings.

"The rule of law in Turkey is in dire straits."

Arrested in November, Dundar and Gul spent three months in pre-trial detention before being released in February on the orders of the Constitutional Court, which ruled their right to free speech had been violated.

The prosecution has asked they be sentenced each to two life terms and 30 additional years.

Around 200 people, including a number of journalists and opposition lawmakers, greeted the reporters as heroes on their arrival at the court Friday, chanting: "You cannot silence press freedom".

In a sign of the intense interest in the case, several EU diplomats including the German ambassador attended the start of the trial.

"We are here to defend journalism," Dundar, 54, told reporters. Gul said he wanted to show that journalism "is not a crime".

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- 'Heavy price' -

Cumhuriyet's report on a shipment of arms being intercepted at the Syrian border in January 2014 sparked a furore when it was published in May, fuelling speculation about Turkey's role in the Syrian conflict and its alleged ties to Islamist groups in the country.

Erdogan reacted furiously to the allegations, personally warning Dundar he would "pay a heavy price". The court on Friday accepted the president and Turkey's intelligence agency as civil plaintiffs in the case.

Dundar and Gul won a first victory on February 26, when the Constitutional Court -- one of the last institutions not under the full control of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party -- ruled they should be freed.

A vexed Erdogan declared he had "no respect" for the court's decision.

Dundar said he and Gul had found themselves "caught between two palaces: the palace of justice and the palace of illegality," referring to the lavish, 1,150-room presidential complex in Ankara which Erdogan had built at a cost of $615 million.

"We will see which of the two... emerges victorious," he said.

The prosecution of the journalists sparked outrage among opposition and rights groups in Turkey as well as in the West, where some have seen it as evidence of Erdogan's determination to silence his opponents.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the eve of the trial, more than 100 leading authors, including Canada's Margaret Atwood and Peru's Maria Vargas Llosa, called for the charges to be dropped.

- Newspaper seized -

Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 149th out of 180 countries for press freedom in 2015 over the widening clampdown on critics of the president and the state's bloody war with militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Turkey's government -- which is scrambling to respond to a series of suicide attacks by Islamic State jihadists and Kurdish rebels that have killed over 200 people since July -- has accused academics, journalists and activists who question its policies of "terrorist propaganda".

Almost 2,000 people have been prosecuted for "insulting" Erdogan since the former premier became president in August 2014, Turkey's justice minister said earlier this month.

In one of the most dramatic recent moves against the press, the authorities seized the opposition Zaman newspaper earlier this month and placed it under state supervision.

A day after the change of management, Zaman, which is allied to Erdogan's arch-enemy, exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen, abruptly changed its editorial policy, adopting a pro-government line.
Washington (AFP) - Two Americans were killed in the Brussels attacks and other US citizens are missing, the State Department confirmed Friday.

Thirty-one people lost their lives and 300 others were wounded in Tuesday's airport and metro suicide blasts claimed by the Islamic State group.

"We can confirm that two US citizens were killed in the attack," spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters, adding that US officials were continuing to coordinate with Belgian authorities in order to account for other Americans in the Belgian capital.

"We offer our sincere condolences to their family and friends," Trudeau said but declined to provide more details on the victims out of respect for the families involved.

The official US confirmation of the American deaths came just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Brussels, said he stood by the Belgian people, echoing their backing for the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The top diplomat had said earlier that a number of Americans had died in the attacks, with a US official giving the number as two.

The United States has a strong presence in Brussels, with an embassy as well as missions to the European Union and NATO. Countless Americans work or live in the Belgian capital, or travel there for business or pleasure.
After almost two years, nearly 11,000 airstrikes and more than $6.5 billion in taxpayer money spent, there are new reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State.

The Pentagon on Friday capped what has been a grim week following the deadly terror attacks in Brussels by announcing it had killed the ISIS finance minister, Haji Imam, whose real name is Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. Many analysts believe he was the group's No. 2 leader.

Related: ISIS Propaganda Video Uses Trump Comments to Celebrate Brussels Attacks

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during a press briefing, before declining to provide details about the operation. "We've taken out the leader who oversees the funding for ISIL's operations, hurting their ability to pay fighters and hire recruits."

The momentum of this campaign is now clearly on our side, he later added.

The elimination of such a high-value target will likely boost the spirits of U.S. allies in the fight against the terror group, especially after the bombings in Brussels, the home of NATO, which killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds more.

It also comes the day after Iraqi military forces, backed by U.S. air power and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, reportedly kicked off the offensive to retake Mosul, Iraqs second largest city.

Carter acknowledged that while killing the second-in-command is good news, its not the final step to wiping out the extremist group.

Related: ISIS Marches Towards Libyas Oil Crescent, Despite US Air Strikes

"Striking leadership is necessary, but it's far from sufficient," he said. "Leaders can be replaced. These leaders have been around for a long time  they are senior and experienced and eliminating them is an important objective and result.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, appearing alongside Carter, agreed that the U.S.-led coalition was gaining momentum, but cautioned: "By no means would I say that we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over."

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Still, the announcement comes as military officials in Iraq and Syria tell The Washington Post that the Islamic State is essentially frozen in place or retreating, a big reversal from this time two years ago when ISIS made a lightning-fast march across the two countries.

Dunford said Western forces have begun to undermine the narrative that the group is some kind of unstoppable force, but was quick to add that while the group hasnt made gains on the ground in months, that hasn't precluded them from conducting terrorist attacks, and it hasn't precluded them from conducting operations guerrilla operations than the conventional operations that we saw when they were seizing territory.

Related: How Long Will It Take for the Iraqis to Recapture Mosul?

The developments raise another critical foreign policy question: With ISIS squeezed on its home turf, will the network sharpen its focus on training and inspiring more followers to attack Europe?

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that ISIS had 400 fighters trained to strike Europe in waves of attacks.

Carter recognized there are connections between ISIS forces in the Middle East and the militants who carried out the attacks in Brussels and Paris.

They range from fighters who have trained and participated in ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria and return to their home countries to individuals who are recruited and trained by experienced jihadists but havent trekked to the Middle East, as well as some who are self-radicalized.

The connection is relevant because if they're directed, we want to get at the people  eliminate the people who are directing them. But even if it's just inspiration, it still takes you back to Iraq and Syria and the need to eliminate the sources of that inspiration, Carter told reporters.

The Pentagon chief warned that the anti-ISIS fight will take time but we're certainly gathering momentum and we're seeing that that momentum is having effect. And we're broadening both the weight and the nature of our attacks on the terror group.

We've learned a great deal, and we continue to learn about who is who in ISIL so we can kill them, about how they get their finances so we can dry that up, he said, using the other common acronym for the group.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Goma (DR Congo) (AFP) - UN helicopter gunships on Friday attacked Ugandan rebels active in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east, inflicting casualties, a senior UN official said.

Jean Baillaud, the deputy military chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC known by its French acronym MONUSCO, said the operation was being conducted jointly with Congolese troops.

"Our combat helicopters have inflicted losses in the ranks of the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) and the operations are continuing," he said.

It was the first time that the UN mission had engaged in military cooperation with the Congolese since February, when it was suspended after DRC authorities named two generals accused of gross human rights abuses to oversee joint operations.

"MONUSCO attacked the ADF with combat helicopters in the depths of Semuliki", a village near the Ugandan border, Congolese military spokesman Mak Hazukay said.

He said the fleeing rebels had killed one civilian and injured three others.

However, MONUSCO spokesman Bilamekaso Tchabne said it hadn't yet got details about casualties or the toll.

The ADF launched a rebellion against Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni more than 20 years ago, but were forced to pull back into the DRC.

Active in the east since 1995, the movement is accused of serious and repeated human rights violations while financing its activities by trafficking in tropical timber.

The United Nations, which maintains a peacekeeping mission of almost 20,000 troops and police in the vast central African country, accuses the ADF of killing more than 500 civilians in massacres and attacks in DR Congo's Beni territory and the Ituri region since October 2014.

Since last September, ADF forces have been blamed for a series of attacks with automatic weapons on National Highway 4, between Beni and the frontier with Ituri province to the north.

The rebels have targeted civilian vehicles and passersby as well as army outposts.

Like the rest of eastern DRC, the Beni region has been torn by conflict for more than 20 years.

The fighting is fuelled by ethnic differences and claims to land, along with bids for control over valuable natural resources and rivalry between regional powers.
Beirut (AFP) - More than 50 UN staff members have been killed, imprisoned or gone missing in war-wracked Syria, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday.

In a statement to mark International Day of Solidarity with Detained or Missing staff members, OCHA said the war had also hit the Red Cross and Red Crescent as well as international and local NGOs.

"A total of 35 United Nations staff members continue to be detained or missing, the majority of whom are UNRWA staff," it said, referring to the agency dealing with Palestinian refugees.

"Since the start of the crisis in Syria in March 2011, 17 UN staff members, 53 Syrian Arab Red Crescent staff members and volunteers, and eight Palestinian Red Crescent Society staff members and volunteers have lost their lives," the agency said.

It said that "hundreds of medical workers" were also killed in the line of duty and that NGOs also took a heavy toll.

"Since 1 January 2015 alone, credible reports indicate that at least 55 NGO staff members have been killed in Syria," OCHA said.

The agency's regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria conflict, Kevin Kennedy, spoke of a "shocking and bleak reality".

Kennedy urged all the warring sides in Syria to protect humanitarian aid workers and also demanded the release of abducted UN staff.

"We call for the unconditional and immediate release of those colleagues who continue to remain in custody, and for parties to the conflict to reveal the fate of those still missing," he said.
In Flint, Michigan, residents know what it's like to live in fear over water safety. In April 2014, Flint changed its water source from the treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the corrosive, chloride-polluted Flint River, and 18 months later, researchers reported that the proportion of kids with above-average lead levels in their blood had doubled.

Although the Flint crisis has drawn national attention, water crises in the U.S. aren't new. In 2004, officials in the District of Columbia notified residents that between 2001 and 2003, lead levels in the tap water of thousands of homes rose as much as 20 times the federally approved level of 15 parts per billion.

Flint, like many American cities, uses water pipes made of lead, which can prove poisonous for people who drink the water that flows through them. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that drinking water can account for 20 percent or more of a person's total exposure to lead, Peter Grevatt, the agency's director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, said in an email to U.S. News. (Other sources include paint, gasoline, solder and consumer products like imported toys.)

Not all lead pipes leak contaminated water into people's homes, and agencies like the EPA monitor systems closely. Still, while thousands of contaminants lurk in U.S. water supplies, lead and its clear toxicity remain at the forefront of American concern. Here's why -- and what you can do to protect yourself:

[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids' Health.]

How Lead-Tainted Water Affects Your Health



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers a blood lead level to be worrisome when it's 10 micrograms or higher. However, "No amount of lead in children's blood can be considered safe," says Dr. Jennifer Lowry, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health and chief of the section of clinical toxicology at Children's Mercy Kansas City. Specific concerns for various groups include:

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Pregnant women, fetuses and newborns.

Research suggests developing fetuses and young children are more sensitive to lead than adults because their blood-brain barrier -- the body's way of filtering materials in the blood before they enter the brain -- isn't fully developed yet. Prenatal exposure can also lead to difficulties getting pregnant -- even if it's been years since the lead exposure in the would-be mom. Lead exposure during pregnancy increases the risk for preterm birth, smaller birth weight and miscarriage, in addition to learning difficulties and slowed growth in newborns, says Rita Loch-Caruso, director of the Michigan Center on Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Children.

Researchers have long known that lead poisoning can cause brain damage in kids. Even low levels of lead put children at risk for developmental delay, ADHD, hearing problems and reduced growth, Lowry says. Kids can also become more irritable, suffer a lack of appetite and subsequent weight loss, become fatigued and develop gastrointestinal issues such as vomiting and constipation, according to the Mayo Clinic. It can also cause anemia, seizures and damage to the nervous system, kidneys or hearing.

Adults.

While adults are less susceptible to lead's harms, exposure can lead to changes in mood, behavior, personality and sleep patterns. Physical symptoms are most likely to occur with high levels of lead and include high blood pressure, muscle pain and headaches. High blood pressure is particularly dangerous because it can lead to kidney damage.

[See: 10 Things No One Tells You About Breast-Feeding.]

How to Make Sure Your Water Is Lead-Free

Familiarize yourself with contaminants. Every year, water companies are required to supply you with a Consumer Confidence Report -- a water quality report that provides details about contaminants lurking in your well or public water, including lead. The report also provides details on these toxins' potential health risks. Your water company must provide this report to you by July 1 each year, says Jonathan Yoder, a researcher with the CDC's Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch.

"It's important for people to be aware of where their water comes from, where it's treated and how to know if it's safe to use or drink," Yoder says, adding that concerned consumers should read the report closely. Some water companies will publish the report information through newspapers or other public forums, and all will post it online.

Take advantage of EPA resources. The EPA's website is packed with information on local drinking water quality reports; plus, the agency runs a Safe Drinking Water Hotline. The hotline -- 1-800-426-4791-- also provides details about drinking water standards, public drinking water systems, source water protection and residential and commercial septic systems and wells.

Understand that well water is different from city water. City water records are public, and your local health department will make sure it's healthy to drink. However, the only way to know your well water is safe is by testing it. The EPA recommends testing your well at least once a year for contaminants like lead. "It's estimated that 15 percent of U.S. households have water from an unregulated well," Yoder says. Contact your county health department to set up a well water test. The EPA also recommends the following tips for keeping private wells safe, Grevatt says:

-- Find problems early and correct them. Don't wait until a crisis.

-- Keep your well water records handy.

-- Have a local expert inspect your well construction and records.

-- Avoid storing or disposing lawn care chemicals or waste near your well.

-- Prevent water runoff by removing surfaces that don't absorb water, and replace them with drains or grates.

-- Get in the habit of checking underground storage tanks that harbor heating oil or gasoline.

"Since you cannot see, taste or smell lead dissolved in water, testing is the only sure way of telling whether there are harmful quantities of lead in your drinking water," Grevatt says. If you want to test your own water, the EPA hotline can connect you with a local water testing agency. Visit the Water Quality Association's website to find your state's testing companies.

[See: 7 Ways Technology Can Torpedo Your Health.]

Boiling water doesn't remove lead. Don't boil water if you think there's lead in it, Loch-Caruso warns. "We associate drinking water problems with a water boil advisory," she says. "That's the wrong thing to do with lead." Boiling water concentrates the lead that's remaining in the pot, she explains. What's more, using hot water from the tap for food preparation or drinking is ill-advised. "Hot water is more effective at leaching lead out of pipes and other fixtures, or the hot water tank," Loch-Caruso says. If your faucet hasn't been used in the past six hours, let the water run for one to two minutes before it runs cold for cooking or drinking, Loch-Caruso says.

Filters can help. Water filters act as a barrier by removing contaminants such as bacteria, excess nutrients and lead from household water. Make sure to follow the instructions on the water filter package carefully, Loch-Caruso says. She suggests only buying filters certified by organizations like the Water Quality Association or NSF International, nonprofits that develop public health standards and certification programs to protect water supplies. Some filters can remove up to 99 percent of the lead in water when used correctly, according to Michigan's Flint Water Response Team. If you don't change them as recommended on the instruction manual, bacteria can grow and create more health problems.

Samantha Costa is a Health + Wellness reporter at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at scosta@usnews.com.
Tunis (AFP) - The United States has agreed to fund a multi-million-dollar project to install an electronic security surveillance system on Tunisia's border with strife-torn Libya, the US embassy said Friday.

In a statement, the diplomatic mission said that the US was disbursing the first instalment of the $24.9 million project to strengthen security along the frontier.

The US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) awarded the contract to American construction group BTP and consulting and engineering firm AECOM, a diplomatic source told AFP.

According to the embassy, the project involves the installation of an integrated surveillance system using sensors and regular security equipment.

The project includes training Tunisian forces to use the system, the statement added, without giving a start or completion date.

Tunisia has built a 200-kilometre (125-mile) barrier that stretches about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to prevent militants from infiltrating.

A series of deadly attacks by IS on foreign holidaymakers last year, which have dealt a devastating blow to the country's tourism industry, are believed to have been planned from Libya.
UK government documents have hinted that vacuum-maker Dyson, founded by British inventor James Dyson, may be working on an electric car at its headquarters in Wiltshire, according to The Guardian.

The information, which appears to have been leaked accidentally, reveals that the UK government is set to fund Dyson's development of "a new battery electric vehicle at their headquarters in Malmesbury, Wiltshire," using tax payer funds to the tune of 174 million (about US$245 million).

The move would see Dyson, well-known for its high-powered motors in a range of products, generate 500 jobs primarily in the engineering sector, and join tech giants such as Apple and Google in the quest to build a new generation of clean-powered cars.

Last year, Dyson CEO Max Conze conceded he was "ruling nothing out" when asked if the company would ever consider venturing into the electric car arena.
Brussels (AFP) - Working with teeth, fingerprints and DNA, and sometimes relying on just tiny body parts, the forensic experts dealing with the victims of the Brussels attacks warn it could take weeks to identify them.

In a large military hospital complex in a leafy district north of Brussels, the experts are at work to establish the identities of corpses that have in many cases been left missing body parts by the blasts.

Guarded by heavily armed men in combat gear, the Reine Astrid hospital is being used as Belgium's missing persons centre, or Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit.

The painstaking nature of the work means families from around the world face a long and agonising wait for the final confirmation that their loved ones were among the 31 people killed.

"Yesterday we had around 30 people here looking for family," Ine Van Wymersch, who runs the centre, told AFP. "None of the bodies has yet been formally identified, the process is ongoing."

Doctors, police, psychologists and Red Cross personnel are on hand to help people seeking news of missing relatives.

Nearly three days on, none of the bodies brought from the airport and train disaster scenes to the morgue has yet been formally identified and the process could take many more weeks.

Only once they have been identified will relatives be able to take the bodies away for funerals.

"The number of non-identified people is very, very exceptional," federal police spokesman Michael Jonnois told AFP.

"It was an 'open' catastrophe, there was no list of who was in the train or at the airport terminal -- there was no passenger list like when there's a plane crash," he said.

- 'Heavy duty damage' -

Jonnois said forensics experts collect wallets and jewellery and check details such as weight, height and hair colour with relatives.

"We want to have 100 percent certainty. We cannot allow ourselves to have the slightest doubt."

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But with victims believed to come from up to 40 different countries, Philippe Boxho, head of the Liege university forensics department, says Interpol help may be needed and the process may be long.

"They'll be identified by their teeth, their DNA or their fingerprints -- in that order," he said.

"Teeth are quick, DNA takes a while longer and finger-prints only work if they're already on file -- though sometimes you can recover prints from their homes or workplaces."

Dental checks could be carried out with help from dentists, DNA recovered by asking relatives to bring toothbrushes or other items, he said.

But this is more easily said than done when there is little or no means of identification and when victims live abroad. "It once took us three months to get DNA from a woman who lived in Berlin but who we first had to find," he said.

Identification would likely be extremely difficult in the case of the Brussels attacks, he said, due to the violence of the three blasts, in which the Islamic State attackers used TATP high explosive packed with nails.

At the epicentre of an explosion, bodies "are completely destroyed, in tiny pieces, and at the periphery you find bodies that are more or less intact, missing body parts".

"In this case there is probably some very heavy-duty damage," Boxho said.

He said scientific identification was key to avoiding problems of mistaken identity, as asking family to identify victims visually was both psychologically difficult and unreliable.

"Some people are ready to recognise any corpse while others will refuse to, even if it's the right one," he said.
Joan Payden, class of 53, gave a lot more than just $10 million when she donated that amount to help build a new Academic Center at Trinity Washington University in the nations capital. The 2013 gift  the largest in Trinitys history  was also the crowning seal of approval from the alumna after university president Patricia McGuires near quarter-century effort to save the Catholic womens college by radically changing its mission. Thats not to say it was popular. How many movements were there to fire me? McGuire asks, laughing.

This energetic, no-nonsense leader reinvented Trinity. It was once home to a middle-class, predominantly white student body, many of whom were graduates of Catholic parochial schools, including luminaries like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius, the former governor of Kansas and U.S. secretary of health and human services. Now, its got a majority of minority students from the Washington, D.C., area. But McGuires latest challenge is no walk in the park: As Trinity nurtures women on the margin  predominantly poor, young urban women of color  its raising $30 million (with $4 million left to go) and planning to increase the student body by nearly 50 percent in the next five years, to 3,350 students. Last year, McGuire won the prestigious Carnegie Academic Leadership Award.

With her short dark hair, wearing an informal zip-up pink sweater over a black shirt, McGuire meets me in what looks like a boardroom on the campus main hall  and, honestly, its a mess. A set of shiny gold-colored shovels are pushed to one side, having been used in the Academic Centers groundbreaking ceremony, and samples of carpet, tiles and millwork are arranged on a table. Then theres the pile of flattened boxes from Staples, and academic gowns hung near a room divider. It joins the buzz of activity that gathers pace as contractors nearby erect the new $40 million center.

At least Trinity wont face an existential threat like Sweet Briar College in Virginia, whose decision last year to shut its doors underscored the difficulties facing womens colleges. Sweet Briar was put back on life support only after alumni came to the rescue. Trinity, which spent $30.5 million last year on operations, with income mostly coming from tuition and fees, could have turned out the same way when its traditional pool of relatively well-off applicants began heading to newly coed mens schools. Instead, for Trinitys transition, McGuire credits the vision of two allies: nuns on campus who had a passion for helping women denied access to education, and businessmen on the board who saw ways to generate income by increasing professional education, for men too. The traditionalists hated that, she says.

Then, when minority enrollment passed 50 percent, applications from middle-class whites collapsed. Once we got over the hump, we realized this was our future, she says, and it became a point of pride. Now an astonishingly high 85 percent of students are supported by Pell Grants for those in financial need, compared to 10 to 24 percent at top liberal arts schools. Stuart Butler, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in D.C., says the key for colleges like Trinity is supplementing the traditional liberal arts focus with an emphasis on skills for the workplace. Colleges that take steps to address that will thrive, he says.

Today her students include a mix of single moms, some of whom might suffer a beating from boyfriends jealous of their education or face pressure from their own moms to earn money for dope.

Trinity has long been McGuires home  she graduated from here in 1974. Before that, she grew up in a big family (five brothers, one sister), the daughter of an Irish-Italian marriage of first-gen immigrants. They moved from house to house in Philadelphias western suburbs, living on her dads modest accountants income and attending Catholic schools. We lived in the enclave of the parish, she says. She attended Trinity on full scholarship before tackling law school at Georgetown. Her parents, she says, were very disappointed that  I had a career, didnt get married.

Today, at Trinity, her students include a mix of single moms, some of whom might suffer a beating from boyfriends jealous of their education or face pressure from their own moms to earn money for dope. What they dont realize until they get here is how hard it is, she says, as many arrive motivated but are unprepared academically. Some students start, then stop, then return as they ride the roller coaster of poverty.

To help on this front, Trinity practices what McGuire calls intrusive advising, which includes chasing students who fail to show for class. Beatrice Peterson, who graduated in 2012, credits the schools quality of teaching for preparing her well for her next step, Columbia Journalism School. The campus was very much a sisterhood, she says. I was motivated because my classmates were motivated.

But of the incoming class in 2008, only 45 percent graduated in six years. Thats well below national averages, though across town at the University of the District of Columbia, the six-year graduation rate is 16 percent, according to that school. Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, calls Trinitys graduation rate a stunning achievement given the challenges the student body faces, and says McGuire is one of the most impressive national voices in higher education today.

McGuires belief in her methods have led her to loudly question President Obamas call to make community colleges free for all, fearing it might be a Trojan horse that could undermine the spread of education opportunities to needy populations. Shed rather expand the Pell Grant program, which lets students choose where to go. Of course, the Pell Grants also help keep Trinity alive and thriving.

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Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump and his main challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, Ted Cruz, have escalated their bitter feud, taking to social media to clash over two unlikely figures: their wives.

An anti-Trump political group unveiled a controversial campaign ad ahead of Tuesday's votes in Arizona and Utah that uses a photograph of Trump's wife Melania lying provocatively in his custom-fitted jet, naked and handcuffed to a briefcase.

"Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady," read the online ad, posted on Facebook by the group Make America Awesome.

"Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday."

Melania Trump, 45, is a Slovenian-American jewelry designer and former model.

The use of the image, from a GQ magazine photo shoot in 2000 when she was Melania Knauss and not yet married to Trump, angered the billionaire real estate magnate, who made his own veiled threat about Cruz's wife Heidi in a tweet late Tuesday.

"Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a GQ shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!" Trump posted to his seven million Twitter followers.

Cruz wasted no time firing back.

"Pic of your wife not from us," Cruz tweeted. "Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought. #classless."

Trump Thursday retweeted a seemingly unflattering photo of Cruz's wife, Heidi.

Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin, pointing his fingers angrily at TV cameras: "It's not easy to tick me off. I don't get angry often. But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that'll do it every time. Donald you are a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone."

The suggestive ad featuring Trump's wife was apparently part of an effort to sway voters in predominantly Mormon Utah by appealing to the morality of the state's socially conservative population, according to The New York Times.

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Cruz comfortably won Utah and Trump finished third behind Ohio Governor John Kasich. Trump easily won Arizona in the day's other Republican contest.

Heidi Cruz, 43, is an investment manager who has taken a leave of absence from her position at Goldman Sachs to hit the campaign trail with her husband.

She swatted away Trump's threat, saying she was "not worried" about his bluster.

"You probably know that most of the things that Donald Trump says has no basis in reality," she told reporters in Wisconsin, which votes April 5.

"We have run our campaign with the principles that Ted and I believe in and a lot of the things that are done from time to time are not from our campaign."
From Cosmopolitan

Emily Locke, a 33-year-old mom from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, was taking photos for her sister's wedding at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio this past weekend when she had to take a break to breastfeed her 9-month-old son. In a Facebook post, she explains that she was soon approached by a staff member who told her, "You aren't allowed to do that here."

"I responded that I was actually legally allowed to nurse my child," Locke wrote. "She said it was against the museum policy, and I had to stop. I refused, and she said she would have to get her manager. I said I would be happy to speak with her manager. Moments later, I was approached by a young woman. She said I would have to move, and they had a private area where I could 'do that.' I said I was fine where I was, and told her that legally I could nurse my child where ever I was permitted to be. (I wanted to be near where my family and other two children were posing for the pictures. I truly did not have time to stop the feeding and move to another location even if I wanted to.)"

Locke says the woman then told her that Society is a "family museum" - to which she responded that she was engaged in a "family moment." (#Boom.) "She then told me she was just trying to protect the innocent children," Locke recalled. "I was pretty shocked."

The confrontation ended when the museum employee gave up, but the ordeal understandably left Locke feeling "disappointed and saddened." So, she shared her story on Facebook, and it has since racked up over 31,000 likes and more than 10,000 shares.

Locke's experience also grabbed the attention of the Historical Society's President & CEO Kelly Falcone-Hall, who issued the following statement in response:

"We were made aware that, last weekend, a breastfeeding mother was asked to move to a private space by members of our Cleveland History Center staff. This reflects poor judgment on our part, for which we are truly sorry. We have formally apologized to the mother, and are immediately implementing additional training for our entire team in order to ensure that an incident like this does not happen in the future. The Western Reserve Historical Society strives to be an inclusive, family-friendly organization that provides a welcoming environment for all our of patrons, including breastfeeding mothers. We did not live up to that goal in this instance."

Follow Maressa on Twitter.
New York (AFP) - "Bimbo," "dog," "fat pig" -- Donald Trump has never minced his words about women he doesn't like, but prolific insults and personal attacks on prominent females may cost him the election.

This week America's extraordinary presidential campaign descended to new lows when the billionaire and his main challenger for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz, escalated their bitter feud, taking to social media to clash over two unlikely figures: their wives.

Before the episode was over, Trump had tweeted a picture of his third wife, Melania, a former model, next to an unflattering photograph of Cruz's wife, Heidi.

"The images are worth a thousand words," read the caption. Cruz, an arch-conservative and evangelical Christian, reacted with fury.

"Leave Heidi the hell alone," he hit back. "It is not acceptable for a big loud New York bully to attack my wife."

The real estate mogul posted the tweet after an anti-Trump coalition unveiled a controversial campaign ad using a magazine photo of Melania posing nude in his private jet 15 years ago.

The incident likely did little to boost Trump's ratings among women in a week when opinion polls revealed the very depth of the problem he faces with females.

Thirty-nine percent of Republican women have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, according to a CNN/ORC poll.

Meanwhile a survey from Quinnipiac University found that 60 percent of women would "definitely not" vote for Trump in the November presidential election.

These are damning finds, especially when women outnumber men at the ballot box. In the 2012 presidential election, women accounted for 53 percent of turnout.

- 'Fat pigs' and 'slobs' -

It doesn't help that most days -- on Twitter or in speeches -- Trump hounds America's most watched female TV news anchor, Megyn Kelly, as "crazy."

Trump and the Fox News host clashed at the first Republican debate in August when she questioned him about derogatory remarks he made in the past about women, such as calling them "fat pigs," "slobs" and "disgusting animals."

Story continues

An irritated Trump snapped that he did not have time for political correctness and later insinuated Kelly asked the question only because she was menstruating.

But it didn't end there. Before Republican candidate Carly Fiorina dropped out of the race, Trump insulted her, saying: "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?"

Last week he released an ad ridiculing Hillary Clinton -- replaying footage of her barking like a dog that then cut away to a giggling Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the comment "We don't need to be a punchline."

- 'Catastrophic' -

Nothing makes Katie Packer, a Republican strategist who worked for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in 2012, angrier.

She called Trump "incredibly sexist and misogynistic" and said he would be "catastrophic" for the Republican party.

In 2012 Romney lost the women's vote 44 percent to Barack Obama's 56 percent. Trump would lose it 32 to 68 percent in 2016, she predicted.

To overcome that level of unpopularity among women, Trump would need to win 85 percent of the white male vote, she said.

Packer is supporting an anti-Trump attack ad in which female actors read out some of Trump's past insults.

"This is how Donald Trump talks about our mothers, our sisters, our daughters," the ad says. "If you believe America deserves better, vote against Donald Trump."

It was released in Florida and Utah before primaries there and will also air in Wisconsin, which votes on April 5.

Trump won Florida, but lost Utah. If he loses Wisconsin, he cannot get the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the Republican nomination outright, Packer said.

"We have a big plan to push hard in Wisconsin," she told AFP.

- Just 'show business' -

Trump denies being sexist. He told CNN this week that some of his remarks were just "show business" and claimed he would be better for women than Clinton.

"Nobody respects women more than I do," he said. But while he does have more success among men, Trump does not categorically do poorly with Republican women.

He won the highest percent of women's votes in 11 of the first 15 Republican primary and caucus nominating contests, according to ABC News' exit polls.

In Missouri and Massachusetts, he got 46 percent of women's votes, and 45 percent of the female vote in Nevada.

Vicky Reckart, who used to run a cleaning service but is now on disability benefit, said she is voting for Trump, but has started to question why.

"I'm telling you, he has my vote right now," she told AFP in Atlantic City, the gambling resort town in New Jersey.

"But there's a lot of thinking about it, it's a little scary," she added.
Mahmoud Hussein, right, is reunited with his brother Tarek after being imprisoned in Egypt for two years. (Photo: Amnesty International via Tarek Hussein)

A young man who had been behind bars for more than two years for challenging government-sanctioned torture in Egypt was released on bail early Friday morning.

Mahmoud Hussein, now 20, was arrested at the age of 18 in 2014 after being stopped at a checkpoint on his way home from a peaceful protest commemorating the third anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, which ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak. At the time, Hussein was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan Nation Without Torture and a protest scarf.

Egyptian authorities held Hussein, who lives in the northeast Cairo neighborhood of El-Marg, in pre-trial detention on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group and attending an unauthorized protest, among other charges.

Human rights advocates have been campaigning for Husseins release, saying that he was tortured into confessing to trumped-up charges.

Nadine Haddad, the Egypt campaigner at Amnesty International, and Wade H. McMullen Jr., a staff attorney for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, who were heavily involved in campaigning for Husseins release, spoke to Yahoo News Friday about their argument that his incarceration is symptomatic of Egypts deeply flawed justice system.

The fact that the authorities arrested him in the first place, tortured him, tried to get him to falsely confess to these crimes and kept him in detention for so long despite growing public pressure to release him, McMullen said in an interview, just shows the lengths to which the Egyptian government is willing to go to silence any form of dissent, whether it be a journalist or a young activist.

Haddad said pretrial detention in Egypt is supposed be used only in exceptional circumstances but that the government resorts to this extreme measure over and over again in its broad crackdown on dissidents of any sort.

There are at least 700 people being held in just two cases on pretrial detention, Haddad said in an interview with Yahoo News. We obviously decided to work on the case because it was such a clear-cut case of injustice. It highlighted the flaws in the criminal justice system in Egypt.

Story continues

Amnesty International collected nearly 145,000 signatures calling for his release from all over the world and delivered them to Egyptian authorities last November.

Mahmoud Hussein, now 20, was arrested while attending a peaceful protest in 2014. (Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights via Tarek Hussein)

That same month, RFK Center filed a case before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in an attempt to secure his release. The organization said Hussein was beaten for at least four hours and given electric shocks to the back, hands and testicles. Under duress, the group continued, he was forced to confess to belonging to a terrorist group, possessing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades and protesting without permission.

Both organizations have been active in raising the profile of Husseins case as a violation of international law and putting public and diplomatic pressure on the Egyptians. Mahmouds brother Tarek has also been heavily involved in the campaign for his release.

Finally that tireless campaign paid off when on Tuesday he had a court session, which happen every 45 days to decide whether to release Mahmoud or to renew his detention, Haddad said. On this particular session, quite unexpectedly actually, the judge ordered his release.

The public prosecutor appealed that decision the following day but on Thursday the court finalized Thursday his release on bail. He was finally reunited with his family at 1 a.m. Friday in Cairo.

His freedom has been way overdue, Haddad said. And he should just now be able to get on with his life as a 20-year-old young man.
Parent jailed for threatening teacher

Police reports revealed that on Monday, the 36-year-old man was summoned to a meeting at the school to discuss an incident involving his child who is a student at the school.

The Court heard that the man disrupted the meeting bringing it to an abrupt end.

On his way out, it is said that he approached a senior teacher and threatened to kill her.

A report was made and Ellis was subsequently arrested and charged for threats and using violent language.

When he appeared before Magistrate Avason Quinlan-Williams in the Scarborough Magistrates Second Court, the man pleaded guilty and was ordered to serve a prison term of two months and 20 days with hard labour.

PC Caruth of the Scarborough Police Station laid the charge
Cuffie happy with Judges ruling

I took it all in stride and I had every confidence that I was duly elected and I have been working as such since September 7, Cuffie told Newsday in the wake of a ruling by High Court Justice Mira Dean-Armorer. I am quite happy that the courts have further underlined that in this case. On his recent allocation of the portfolio of Public Administration Minister, Cuffie said there was a natural symbiosis between that and his role as Communications Minister.

I am actually looking forward to the challenge, Cuffie said.

There is some symbiosis between public administration and communications because my main goal is to change how government delivers services and to communicate that. In terms of delivery, the world is moving more in the direction of delivering services through information communications technology (ICT) which has traditionally fallen under the Ministry of Public Administration. So I think its a good thing and will work well. I have been meeting the staff gradually over the last few days and I feel we have the team needed. Cuffie said the most challenging aspect of his first six months was recreating the Ministry of Communications.
68 fired employees to return to work

As a result of yesterdays majority ruling by Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca and Nolan Bereaux, the 68 workers will immediately return to their positions at NP and will be escorted back on the compound on Tuesday, by the leadership of their union - the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU).

In November 2014, the Industrial Court ordered the immediate reinstatement of the workers as well as their salaries, benefits and $40,000 in compensation. The courts ruling was appealed by NP and a stay of execution was granted. This stay was removed following the appellate courts ruling yesterday.

The OWTUs president general, Ancel Roget said yesterdays decision of the Court of Appeal was a vindication of the union and the workers, who chose to speak out against corrupt and unsafe practices at the company.

He said the workers were targeted by NPs management because of the unions decision to highlight issues of injustice, corruption, nepotism and bad governance in state enterprises under the previous Peoples Partnership administration.

A decision was taken to go after OWTU. The Industrial Court ruled that they were wrong to dismiss the workers and the Court of Appeal today upheld that decision and dismissed the companys appeal, he said.

It has been a long a difficult road but in the end the union and workers have emerged victorious, Roget added.

Yesterdays 41 page ruling was delivered by Justice Bereaux and agreed to by Justice Mendonca.

Justice of Appeal Rajendra Narine dissented.

In his ruling, Justice Bereaux agreed with the finding of the Industrial Court that the workers were summarily dismissed for taking part in alleged industrial action; evidence of which was not made out in the appeal.

He said the manner in which the company approached the disciplinary proceedings against the workers did not fill him with confidence that it was done objectively.

He also pointed to an instance of conflict of interests in the making up of the disciplinary panel.
Communication Workers beat TSTT bobolees

A small group of CWU members and workers staged a lunchtime picket demonstration, at the corner of Edward Street and Independence Square, Port-of- Spain, calling on the company to take action against Executive Vice President Strategic Alliance, Enterprise & Tobago Operations, Vinood Radge Coomar, and Executive Vice President Strategic Alliance, Enterprise & Tobago Operations, Rakesh Goswami.

Speaking with Newsday, CWU Secretary General Joseph Remy said CWU is convinced the two executives are working to obstruct the best interest of TSTTs future viability and sustainability.

Remy said after meeting with executives of the company yesterday, while they were seeing some signs of progress, they were not convinced they would get the kind of response from the company which will bring about comfort to retirees.

Two weeks ago we started this protest calling on the company to take action against some executives who we are convinces are working inimically to the best interest of TSTTs future. He continued, So far we have had no action taken by the company.

In addition to that, we have issues with our medical plan. Remy added, every year the the CWU identifies executives in the company who, they believe, have betrayed them.

Those persons have betrayed the trust of the workers, and also betrayed the interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago by the actions they took in a State entity like TSTT. Remy also indicated that they have written a letter to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to launch an investigation into the financial operations of TSTT.

TSTT is a profitable organisation with strong and well-educated employees who are well aware of the needs and demands of the industry. The CWU will do all that is necessary to make TSTT realise its true potential, and we are saying if we remove those, it will make the company much better, Remy said.
Zika cases rise to seven

This brings the total number of confirmed Zika cases in Trinidad to seven. There are, at this time, no confirmed cases in Tobago. The latest case is a 40-year-old man from St Anns, Port-of-Spain who presented with a rash, conjunctivitis, fever and headaches.

The Ministry stated that the Insect Vector Control Division (IVCD), the County Medical Officer of Health and the Portof- Spain City Corporation were informed and have begun field work in spraying the area to prevent the spread of the virus.

The first Zika case was that of a 61-year-oldwoman who had just returned from New Zealand.

She first presented with symptoms on February 10 and the sample sent to CARPHA for testing on February 1. It was found she contracted the virus in Trinidad.

Ollen Storey, 71, and her daughter, from Gulf View, La Romaine, raised the figure to three. Other cases were confirmed in the Diego Martin, DAbadie and St Augustine.

The public was once again urged to keep surroundings clean and discard old containers and tires which may hold water and encourage the breeding of the Aedes Egypti mosquito, the vector for the virus.

Citizens should also cover water containers such as barrels, drums or buckets with a mosquito proof covering, ensure that their drains and gutterings allowed for the free flowof water.

Also, dirt should be used to support flowers and plants instead of water.

The use of bed nets and insect repellant that contained DEET as an active ingredient were also recommended.
Magistrate sworn in as PCA deputy

Stroude was sworn in yesterday by President Anthony Carmona at Presidents House, St Anns.

Speaking with reporters after, Stroude, who has been granted a leave of absence as a magistrate to take up the position, said his background will assist him in his new role.

I am involved in the administration of justice.

Justice as you know is necessary in todays society.

We have been having a lot of talk of police corruption and complaints against the police so it is necessary to restore public confidence and I think my background will assist in that, he said.

During the swearing- in ceremony, Carmona raised the issue of advancing the cause of mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) techniques in the context of the PCAs duties, responsibilities and decisions.

It is something I think we need to take on board and see how we can work it in this particular culture that we have, this culture of confrontation because in this culture of confrontation, we need more effective mediation and ADR techniques, Carmona said.

Also in attendance was PCA Director, David West, who told reporters that Carmonas suggestion of mediation would have to be looked at, as they actively pursue amending the Police Complaints Authority Act.

Asked about the number of complaints they have received for the year, West said 60 but admitted they could not have acted because the Authority was not properly constituted as they were awaiting the appointment of a deputy director.

Since they were properly constituted as of yesterday, West said they can now go ahead and investigate those complaints. For 2015, 371 complaints were made to the PCA with 52 being resolved.

West said the other complaints were still being investigated.

Most of the complaints received by the PCA are of assault and battery and misbehaviour in public office.

We have to make sure due process is served and we have to make sure that we get proper investigations done that is why only 52 matters were closed, he explained.

West said that because the Act is limited their remit is only to make recommendations to the Director of Public Prosecutions for criminal offences or to the Commissioner of Police for serious police misconduct.

The legislation does not say that they have to give us a feedback on what they have done so that is something we are looking at, we are advocating for prosecutorial powers which will give us the power to prosecute and handle our own cases which I think we really need to do, he said.
Dad visits site where daughters headless body was found

I didnt think people in Trinidad could kill in that manner, said a distraught Teedsdale.

He only arrived in Trinidad from Indiana, United States on Tuesday night to identify his daughters body and take care of funeral arrangements. Teesdale told Newsday he has been living abroad for the past 15 years.

I just came from Manzanilla where they found her and I was looking at the place and it looks like a good place to do crime. I dont think my daughter could end up there just so in an area like that dead. She had to be in the company of someone who she knew and trusted. He labelled his daughters death as a crime of passion saying that word on the ground was that she was trying to get out of a romantic relationship.

A police report stated that on February 15, officers of the Manzanilla Police Station were alerted by a fisherman who reported to them that he observed what appeared to be a foot protruding from a blue barrel in the Mitan River. Three days later the body, cut in half, was identified as that of Eden, a mother of three of Embacadere, San Fernando. Her one year old son Hezekiah lived with her while her two daughters Amyh, five and Cymh, four lived with other relatives.

An autopsy performed on Wednesday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James was inconclusive.

The cause of death couldnt be determined because of the missing head, Newsday was told.

They cant determine the cause of death because the head seem to have that information but we have been allowed to go ahead with her funeral, the older Teesdale explained Still struggling to come to terms with the heinous murder, Teesdale said he wants to always remember his daughter , who he had not seen or spoken to for a while as the person with a lovely smile.

It was a nice smile and she smiled ever so often. Funeral arrangements are being finalised.

No one has yet been arrested in connection with the murder. Investigations are continuing
UWI St Augustine campus principal retiring

His successor as principal will be appointed at the UWI Council meeting which takes place at April month end in Trinidad says UWI Vice Chancellor Sr Hillary Beckles.

Beckles said it will be sad to see him go because he was present when Sankat was first appointed as Pro Vice Chancellor and he later welcomed him to the Committee of Principals.

Over that period of time, we had wonderful relationships and have done a lot of good things together, he told the media on Tuesday at the end of the St Augustine Campus Council Meeting, St Augustine.

He noted that during Sankats tenure, the St Augustine campus, became the largest campus in terms of enrollment with a student population of almost 20,000.

Expressing gratitude to the nation State of TT and to the private sector, Beckles said, that the investment by the private sector to St Augustine campus has been phenomenal.

Thanking them for supporting the campus principals, he noted that the private sector has contributed to building one of the finest learning environments in the world. We do not take this lightly. UWI Mona Campus Principal and Pro Vice Chancellor Archibald McDonald who also paid tribute to Sankat said that St Augustine campus being the largest in UWI in term of student enrolment was important, not because of its numbers only, but because one third of its enrollment are graduate students.

One third of the student population being graduate students, he said was very important because across the world, and especially in North America, a large number of colleges were using the name university, when, in fact, they are colleges.

When asked what was his greatest accomplishment as principal, Sankat at a loss for words said,  I never thought about that. I will now begin to think about it. He added, I think my greatest contribution is my total contribution to campus and university for more than four decades.

St Augustine has been a part of me since I was 18 years old, and it has grown with me and stronger with every passing year. I love my university.
Show mercy and forgiveness

The Holy Father, Pope Francis has deemed this year, the ecclesiastical year of mercy and forgiveness.

Let us therefore at this Easter time, recreate within our lives the love and application of mercy and reject outright that unholy sanction we often act out and it is called revenge.

Let us show compassion and kindness to others at this Easter time and throughout the year, President Carmona said.

He called for citizens to have and nurture a disciples tongue to respond to the negatives that often rule and dictate thoughts and daily lives. We must, he continued, eradicate in ourselves, the primitive emotions we resort to and our social indifference to loss of life and therefore loss of love. The intelligent and formally educated are failing us.

They must be more responsible and caring and must all wake up to the realization that as intelligent and formally educated men and women, we must stop fooling the ignorant and the not so well informed. The irrevocable message of Jesus Christs leadership was one of enlightenment.

At this Easter time and the remainder of the year, our national dialogue must not be confrontational in attempting to solve our Nations problems but rather it must be open, frank, inclusive and most of all, honest and even spiritual, the Head of State said.

We must listen to the ideas and opinions of all, without exception, because no one exclusively has the solution to problems.

Easter is a time of genuine inclusivity, spiritual rebirth and regeneration.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ bears the underlying motif of rebirth, renewal and eternal hope. Love, we must all share with each other in the spirit of our humanity whether you are agnostic, atheist, a non-believer, a doubting Thomas or a non-Christian. As Christians, we kneel everyday on that altar of humanity, praying for everyone, their salvation and their rebirth. The President said that sometimes people throw stones at those who invoke the power of God and the power of prayer but those of us who truly believe in God and even in eternal life must never waiver in that belief.

We must all persevere and the beneficence from rebirth that comes with this Easter time, must make us all strong. This is not to say that as a society, we do not feel down and out and even despondent when we confront in our society, mans inhumanity to man.

There continues to be a growing crisis in defining and acting out true manhood against the backdrop of the killings and mayhem that occur from time to time. Is that pattern of manhood defining what Trinidad and Tobago is? We must not despair and the message of Easter tells us this. All broken things can be made whole. We must believe and have an unabiding faith that all bad men are salvageable and this is made possible not only through social transformative initiatives but also through the invocation and power of prayer, he urged.
CTS College of Business wins first Integrity semis

The college beat the debate team from the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTATT) which will have to hand over the Integrity Matters Challenge Trophy it won at last years competition to the eventual winner of the finals. The winner will keep the trophy until the finals of the next series of debates.

The jubilation was somewhat more muted when the team from the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business was announced as winner of the second debate against the Caribbean Nazarene College. Daly, the former head of the Law Association and Dr Marjorie Thorpe, former Ambassador to the United Nations and Chairman of the Public Service Commission, adjudicated the debates. The other adjudicator, Christo Gift, Chairman of the Tobago Forum for Consensus on the Constitution was reportedly unable to secure passage from Tobago for this session of the debates, according to moderator, veteran journalist and Newsday Editor-in-Chief, Jones P. Madeira.

The teams in the first debate argued the resolution: Be it resolved that parents should be held responsible for their school going childrens discipline problems.

COSTATT argued for the resolution while CTS College argued against.

Corrine Bailey of the CTS college arguing the negative position, said discipline is everybodys business and the country is experiencing disciplinary problems because our village has broken down and we no longer see the children as our children. In the second round the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business and Caribbean Nazarene College faced off over the resolution: Be it resolved that the Integrity Commission should have the right to detect, investigate and prosecute persons who fall under the Integrity in Public Life Act. The team from the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business argued in favour while the Caribbean Nazarene College team was against.

Giselle Landreau-Birmingham, for the team from the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, said there are five institutions in the country empowered by law to prosecute. She said a Joint Select Committee of Parliament had concluded that the detection rate of one of them, the Police Service, was abysmal and while the office of another, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), was created by the Constitution, the DPPs office is understaffed and unable to cope with its workload. She said the fact that the DPPs office was established by the Constitution did not mean that another body cannot be given the right to act.

In delivering the nights opening address, member of the Integrity Commission, Angela Young Lai said the Integrity Matters Debates Competition provides an opportunity to spread the philosophy of integrity and leads to a more profound understanding of what being a person of integrity means. She added that The Commission hopes that the debates will motivate students and the general public to think critically about doing the right thing always.
Lopinot Road thirsting for water

However, residents of Surrey Village in Lopinot Road, wont have to worry about falling into the category of wasting water, as they have not had a constant supply since last year March.

Lana Pacheco has been living in the quiet village since birth and said she and her family never experienced such difficulties for water.

Things got bad from March of last year. When the rainy season came, we would have a constant supply but by the time the rains gone...nothing. December, we got water for a while. After that, we got it for about two days. Dependency on water for villagers all lay at the feet of a standpipe on Mc David Street, which according to several residents, always had water. This water supply has now been shut off completely.

Other residents were seen trying to get water from another line via a self made connection but that too was an exercise in futility, as their buckets only received mere drips.

As far as I understand, WASA is coming and turning off the water by the stand pipe. But like WASA forget it have people living in this community, a resident said.

Pacheco said the only constant supply of water is from the occasional truck-borne supply. Residents complained that one thing that is flowing like clock work is the quarterly water bill which varies from $200 to $400.

But there is no constant pipeborne supply so I do not understand how these bills come every quarter, said a resident.

With a household of nine members, including seven females, Pacheco said things other people take for granted such as washing wares, bathing and even brushing ones teeth is at times a luxury because of dry taps.

It real hard inside here, said Bridgette Villafana who lives on Mc David Street.

Nobody has taken a shower for the morning. You know what I doing? I going down to the river with my pickney (child) and them. Everybody going down to the river with some clothes, we would wash and everybody bring some back in a plastic bag, Villafana said.

While residents said they have no intention of engaging in any protest, they are begging WASA to have a heart and ensure the community gets a regular pipeborne supply even if its on scheduled days as is done in other parts of the country.
Nine in worldwide Dream Car Design finals

The best dream car designs were determined by three judges  local artists Peter Sheppard and Peter Samuel, and recording artiste Peter C Lewis.

Toyota Marketing Assistant Vandana Gosine told Newsday that 420 youngsters across TT sent in entries, with school penetration largely facilitated by the company Pennacool.com.

Entries were judged in three categories  under age eight, eight to 11 years, and 12 to 15 years. The first place prize in each class was a Play Station Four, second prize was a Samsung tablet and third prize was a Quadcopter drone.

All nine winners works will be sent to Japan for judging, explained Gosine. He said the eventual worldwide winner will be flown to Japan for free for the global award ceremony.

Category one winners were Jean-Louis Brown, age six (first place), Destiny Zaria Richardson, seven (second), and Keira Hannah Neptune, five (third).

Category two winners were Vareann Roopnarine, 11 years (first), Oniaka Manzano Chase, eight (second), and Ellaina Morris, ten (third).

Category three winners were Maryam Mallam, 15 years (first), Joshua Ramnarace, 14 (second,) and Chloe Francis, 13 (third).
Boy, 4, sexually molested

According to reports, the boy was at home with his parents, an 18-year-old male relative and a six-year-old relative when the incident occurred.

According to police reports at about 12.30 pm last Sunday, the boys father was alerted to the childs screams and when he enquired, he was told by the 18-year-old that the four-yearold boy had fallen and was crying.

The next day while the childs mother was giving him a bath she observed that his anus was reddish and swollen.

The child was asked about the injuries but he remained quiet.

The mother of the child asked the six-year-old who he (the four-year-old) was in company with on Sunday and was told that the teenaged relatives was seen wining on (name called) buttocks. The startled and hysterical woman took the four-year-old child to the West End Police Station and made a report.

Officers of the Child Protection Unit were alerted and they took the victim to a District Medical Officer whose medical exam revealed that there was sexual penetration of the childs anus.

The little boy has not divulged any information to officers and counsellors have been brought in to speak with the child.

The suspect has since fled from his home and is believed to be in hiding.

Investigations are continuing.

On Wednesday officials of the Childrens Authority called on parents and guardians to be on the alert over the long Easter weekend for sexual predators and advised that children should not be left in the care of persons who may harm or injure them.

The Child Protection Unit is investigating over 4,000 cases of abuse against children.
Police, army investigate explosive attack

He also disclosed, I have also instructed the Chief of Defence Staff to of course do a preliminary check to see if there are any grenades missing in the arsenal of the Defence Force. Asked by Newsday to elaborate on what he meant by strong mobilisation, Dillon replied, Looking at TV footage, we are putting more troops on the ground in order to support the law enforcement to do all that is necessary in terms of getting to the bottom of this investigation. Indicating that the National Operations Centre (NOC) is looking a closed circuit television footage of the incident, Dillon said, These are situation we are catering for with the expanded role of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) and the use of the NOC (which now falls under the SSA).

Last Friday, Attorney General Faris Al Rawi opened debate on the SSA Amendment Bill 2016 in Parliament, which is designed to strengthen the SSAs ability to deal with a wide range of serious crimes. As he concluded the interview, Dillon reiterated, We certainly what to send a strong message that those kinds of explosive devices will be tolerated
Moore calls for unity

This is a clarion call for all other anti-PNM political forces existing in the Tobago space, this is the time to put aside all differences real or imagined. Let us come together, let us work together to create a bigger space for Tobagonians. Moore said that conversations have already begun with some of the opposing parties and, in due time, what is discussed will be made public. It matters not, who is in the opposition political space, it doesnt matter the brand, whether you are Platform of the Truth, MDD or TOP; the fact is that you, your ideological position is that you oppose the PNM and that is all the commonality that we need, she said.

Meanwhile, contacted for comment, Political Leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) Watson Duke said that this upcoming election is a two way race. The race is between the PNM and the PDP. All the other parties are really nuisance parties. They have tried their hands already and theyve failed. They have nothing the offer.

There is no leadership, however, I am opening the doors and offering an olive branch to all the would-be parties that if theyre looking for a place, the PDP is the place. Duke said the Party will field 12 candidates, who will be revealed in due time as promised. We are very confident that as the election draws near, we will field 12 candidates thus giving Tobago a chance and as such we do not want to link with any other party. We would remain consistent with our message and we are optimistic that the 12 of us will be able to do some serious damage and perhaps take the reigns of the Tobago House of Assembly. Both Platform of the Truth (POT) Political Leader Hochoy Charles and Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) Political Leader Ashworth Jack could not be reached for comment.
What you need to know about the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday in Ames

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Border Patrol apprehends Pakistani terror suspects crossing porous U.S.-Mexico border  how many come in without getting caught?

(NaturalNews) While the political Left and the Old Media readily accept the Obama administrations claims that the presidents lax immigration enforcement policies are not conducive to infiltration by terrorists, most Americans who can think critically always knew otherwise. Thats why it was little surprise to them when Border Patrol officials announced in September they had caught two terrorist suspects from Pakistan attempting to enter the nation via the lengthy, under-protected Southwest border.

As reported by the Washington Times, the men  Muhammad Azeem and Mukhtar Ahmad, both in their 20s and from Gujrat  were caught Sept. 20 by agents south of San Diego after they had just crossed over the international border from Tijuana. After checking their identities through government databases, agents got hits on both of them: Ahmads ID came back as an associate of a known or suspected terrorist; Azeems information was shared with the U.S. by a foreign government for intelligence purposes, the Times reported. Both of the suspects were processed about two months earlier by immigration officials in Panama, which means they likely made it to the U.S. via known smuggling networks and routes commonly used by illegal immigrants from Central America, officials said, according to the Times.

It was just the latest incident of illegal immigrants being caught attempting to enter the U.S. from special interest countries via the southern border, and it comes as U.S. lawmakers are increasingly voicing concern that the presidents reduced efforts at interdicting illegal aliens at the nations borders with Mexico are being taking advantage of more often by potential terrorists.

Trump wants to build a wall

The southern land border remains vulnerable to intrusion and exists as a point of extreme vulnerability, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recently. Hunter was seeking information about how many people in the FBIs terrorism screening database have been caught at the border [the Border Patrol falls under the purview of DHS].

Evidently there are criminal organizations and individuals with the networks and know-how to facilitate illegal entry into the United States without regard for ones intentions or status on a terrorist watch list, said Hunter in his letter, as quoted by the Times. The detention of the two Pakistani nationals underscores the fact that any serious effort to secure our homeland must include effective border security and immigration enforcement.

FBI officials provided no comment to the Times. FBI agents were brought in to interview the two men but the agency otherwise had no information to provide.

The Border Patrol turned the two terror suspects over the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The Times said that agency told reporters the two men have been in U.S. custody since September and are being detained as immigration proceedings continue. They will likely be deported.

Still, similar incidents have raised hackles within government circles, generating additional questions about how terrorists may be attempting to take advantage of Obama administration policies that have encouraged mass migration, using established smuggling rings in Latin America.

Additional cases

The Times noted further:

A year before the two Pakistani men were caught, the Border Patrol apprehended four Kurdish men who said they were part of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Front/Party, which is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. Mr. Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, said the four were actually members of the Kurdish Workers Party, which is also listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The Times reported in 2014 that the four men each paid $8,000 to be smuggled from Istanbul, Turkey, through Paris to Mexico City, where they were then sheltered by a smuggling network before being taken to the U.S. border. That case highlighted the existence of smuggling networks capable of getting terrorists from the Middle East to the U.S. Border, the Times reported.

Twisted.news reported that two Middle Eastern men have been arrested  one in California and one in Texas  earlier this month on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorism.

Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, 24, was arrested in Houston, while Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, was apprehended in Sacramento. Both men are described as Iraqi-born Palestinians who entered the U.S. as refugees, the site reported.

Sources:

//www.washingtontimes.com

//www.twisted.news

//mediafactwatch.com

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Colleges estimate new overtime rule could raise tuition $1K per student

(BigGovernment.news) A Tennessee college association reports that a new rule under consideration by the Obama White House would raise tuition around $1,000 per student.

Speaking during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee hearing on March 17, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) grilled Department of Labor secretary Thomas Perez about the rule, which would mandate overtime pay for workers making less than roughly $50,000. Alexander read from a letter he received in late February from the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association (TICUA).

If the president is going to go around and Im going to go around and all of us are going to go around saying we want to keep college costs down, how can you justify an overtime rule that might raise the cost of college by $1,000 per student? Alexander said.

The rule is expected to be in place in the next 45 to 90 days, Perez said at the hearing. Released as a draft last September, the rule doubles the minimum salary needed to classify an employee as exempt from overtime wages, from $23,660 per year to more than $50,000 per year. Affected employees would either need to have their salaries raised to the new minimum, or be re-classified as hourly and be paid an overtime wage for work beyond 40 hours.

Though the claimed tuition increase currently only covers Tennessees non-profit colleges, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities director of tax policy Karin Johns said the early results from about a dozen of its member colleges nationally are looking pretty similar to Tennessee. She said she expects that same impact for public universities.

We do have some colleges that are very, very afraid of not being able to comply, and not having the money to stay open, Johns told AMI Newswire This is just really a threat to a lot of our colleges ability to stay healthy, cash-wise, and not have an impact on student tuition.

Dr. Claude Pressnell, president of TICUA, told AMI Newswire that the tuition increase wasnt the only solution identified. He said colleges in Tennessee were looking at reclassifying employees and planning to pay a certain amount of overtime. An analysis of that option by Sewanee (the University of the South), however, showed that it too would cost a similar amount, even when estimating what Pressnell called a very low five to 10 additional hours of overtime per reclassified employee. He said additional options included cutting benefits to raise salaries, or laying off staff to redistribute the money saved among employees whose salaries required a mandatory raise.

These are all very bad choices, Pressnell said.

Both Pressnell and Johns said their organization were not opposed to increases in the salary minimums for exempt employees. They expressed, however, that a graduated system of small increases over time would better suit the budget cycles of their member schools.

Pressnell also said the $1,000-per-student increase was consistent across all schools, regardless of size. He added that it was a one-time increase, but that the schools would never go back. One of the schools cited in his letter to Sen. Alexander was Maryville College, which estimated the rule would add $1.3 million in salary costs to its budget for a school with a student enrollment of just 1,200, according to 2014 number from the National Council for Education Statistics. With just over 1,400 students, Cumberland University estimated a $3.2 million increase to bring 133 employees in compliance, according to Pressnell.

From her early surveys, Johns said other colleges are estimating approximately $1 million to comply with the new rule.

If youre looking at an average-size liberal arts college with, say 1,000 kids, and you add thousand dollars tuition, that gets you to one million, Johns said. If somebody is estimating $1.2 million, they probably have about 1200 students.

The rules were forwarded to the Presidents Office of Budget and Management earlier this week. The office typically takes approximately two months before it publishes the rule, and congress could have the opportunity to nullify it with a vote of disapproval within 60 days.

The findings in the letter from Pressnell to Alexander were based on the findings of a white paper Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association published in late January on the impact of the new rule. Pressnell said the impetus for the study came from the post-secondary presidents themselves.

(c) 2016 American Media Institute.

BigGovernment.news is part of the USA Features Media network.

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North Korea likely to launch more missiles in coming weeks

(NationalSecurity.news) North Korea is expected to conduct several more missile launches in the coming weeks in the lead-up to the 7th Workers Party Congress, say analysts, in a bid to shore up support for the regime and to make it appear strong before the event.

As reported by Defense One, the Norths launch of five missiles in to the sea earlier this week was also a demonstration of new capability, in what is being called a modest advancement in ballistic missile technology. The five KN-09 missiles flew for about 120 miles.

These missiles are new, Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst with the RAND Corporation, told the site. They started testing them about a year ago. Bennett added that they were a particular threat to bases in South Korea.

The slightly farther range of the KN-09s were some cause for concern, Bennett noted. Historically, the concept has been that North Korea couldnt reach beyond Seoul with other than its big ballistic missiles and therefore the threat to U.S. airbases in the South was more limited, he said.

Bennett believes that the Norths provocative actions are likely to continue until at least May, when the Workers Party Congress is held  the first such event since 1980 which may be sign that the party is heading in a new direction under current leader Kim Jong-un.

The launches on Monday followed the launch last week of two larger Nodong missiles from a mobile launcher, an indication that the North is building a missile force that cannot be easily located and destroyed.

The South Korean news agency Yonghap reported that one of the Nodong ballistic missiles flew 500 miles before falling into the sea, but the second disappeared quickly from radar screens, indicating it likely blew up shortly after launch.

Mondays launch of the KN-09 missiles also had mixed success.

The [KN-09] launcher that fires this missile carries eight missiles, Bennett told Defense One. When they last fired, we saw six of the missiles work. That means two didnt. This time we saw five missiles fly. That means three didnt. This is a development program, but theyre having firing issues associated with this missile system. The ones that did fire, we have no idea how accurate they would be, because theyre going into the ocean.

Meanwhile the Norths larger missiles like the Taepodong-2, which has a range in excess of 2,000 miles and the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead should Pyongyang develop one, are very visible targets. And while the KN-09 is not the most dangerous missile in existence, t could nonetheless cause some significant damage to a U.S. airbase in South Korea if they launch against it, Bennett added.

See also:

Defense One

NationalSecurity.news

NationalSecurity.news is part of the USA Features Media network.

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Japan has opened talks with Western defense contractorsincluding Lockheed Martin and Boeingto develop a next-generation air superiority fighter.

The new Japanese aircraft could be based in part on the technologies being matured on Mitsubishis X-2 ATD-X stealth fighter concept demonstrator. The X-2 prototype is set to take to the skies for the first time in days.

Japan needs to replace its F-15J Eagle air superiority fighters. In Tokyos estimation, the F-35which was not designed primarily for the air-to-air rolewont be enough to meet its requirements. While Tokyo is buying forty-two F-35s, those planes will replace Japans F-4J Kai Phantom II fleet. The plane Japan wanted as its F-15J replacement was the F-22, but U.S. law prohibited the Raptors export. Japan really wanted the F-22 but it got the F-35, a Japan-based source told Reuters. This is a source of concern and frustration in Tokyo.

That is one reason the Japanese are aiming to develop what is being called the F-3potentially a operational variant of the X-2as an air superiority fighter. Japan aims to field a new air superiority fighter in the 2030sroughly at the same time the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy hope to field the F-X and F/A-XX respectively. That means that Japan might be able to leverage such an effort to join a U.S.-led sixth-generation fighter program. Tokyo probably cant afford to pay for a $50 billion fighter development program on its own.

Japans ATD-X protoytype

Boeing 6th generation fighter concept

Lockheed Martins Skunk Works division has revealed a conceptual next-generation fighter design that offers the first hints of an ambitious, long-term technology strategy for the new class of tactical aircraft that will emerge after 2030. Lockheed Martin has called for greater speed, range, stealth and self-healing structures.
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Morocco is maintaining contacts with the military component of the MINURSO and remains committed to cooperation with this component in the framework of the mandate entrusted to him, said Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar Thursday, explaining that Rabats recent decisions to remove the UN staff from the Moroccan Sahara are legitimate and proportionate to the UN Heads recent blunder which harmed the kingdom.

Contacts between the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces and the UN military staff of MINURSO are still ongoing in order to maintain the cease-fire in normal conditions, Mezouar said at a news conference in Rabat.

Morocco has on many occasions expressed its willingness to provide backing and the necessary logistical support to enable the MINURSO military staff fulfil its mandate in good conditions, he said, after a meeting with leaders of Political parties and trade unions.

The Foreign Minister also pointed out that contacts between Rabat and Mrs Kim Bolduc, the UN Secretary Generals special representative to the MINURSO, are going on normally and that Morocco remains open to a constructive and responsible dialogue with no pre-conditions in a spirit of mutual respect. Such a dialogue should not ignore the reasons behind the current situation, on the one hand, and seek to rebuild trust and to save the political process that has been undermined by Ban Ki-Moons blunders, on the other, Mezouar said.

The UN has earlier this week closed its military office in the Moroccan city of Dakhla at Rabats request. It also repatriated around 80 members of its civilian staff stationed in the disputed the territory.

Mezouar reiterated Moroccos standpoint on its territorial integrity, saying the Kingdom boldly endorses the recent decisions it made in response to Ban Ki-Moons biased remarks. These decisions are final and irrevocable and are based on a national consensus and unconditional support of all components of the Moroccan people, he said.

Also on Thursday the Moroccan government underscored, following the weekly cabinet meeting, that the measures taken are proportionate to the grave mistakes made by the UN Head during his last trip in the region which took him to Mauritania and Algeria.

The Moroccan government re-affirms its utter rejection of anything that can harm the countrys territorial integrity or any move seeking to provoke the Moroccan people, said Mustafa El Khalfi, the government spokesman after the cabinet meeting.

The cabinet also indicated it was resolutely standing by the king in the preservation and the defense of the integrity of the national territory.
An Italian newspaper has revealed that Moroccan intelligence services had sent warnings to Belgian authorities about terrorist attacks at sensitive places including nuclear facilities one week before the Brussels attacks which killed 31 people. Milan-based Libero Quotidiano revealed that Moroccan secrete services, on the basis of intelligence from a source based at the border between Tunisia and Libya, informed Belgian authorities about the contingency of terrorist attacks against strategic places among which Belgian nuclear facilities.

According to the daily, the Moroccan valuable intelligence led Belgian security forces to secure Doel and Tihange nuclear plants. Security forces were fanned out around the facilities and the personnel evacuated.

The possibility of nuclear attacks has been confirmed by British media Times which explained that the terror cell responsible for the Brussels attacks is suspected to be part of an IS cell planning to launch a radioactive bomb attack.

Brothers Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui involved in the Brussels airport and metro attacks are believed to have been involved in the IS plan to create a bomb to scatter radioactive material over a populated area, the times reports.

The British media also reports that a Belgian nuclear industry official was filmed last year by jihadists.

A senior expert in nuclear control told the Times that when you start filming someone in the way they did, the logical conclusion is that they wanted to abduct that person and obtain nuclear material.

Eleven staff members of the Belgian nuclear industry have been stripped of their pass after the threat of nuclear attack surfaced.

Moroccan intelligence and anti-terrorism services are renowned as one of the best in the world. They helped France identify the mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and the perpetrators of the Paris deadly terrorist attacks that claimed 130 lives in November. And most recently, they helped Cote dIvoire identify the mastermind of the March 13 terrorist attacks at Grand-Bassam which left 19 people dead. Moroccan intelligence services helped many other European countries including Spain, Belgium, Netherlandsin terror investigations and contributed to saving lives.
Ivorian security authorities have been able to identify the mastermind of the March 13 terrorist attacks thanks to Moroccos valuable contribution.

Moroccan daily in Arabic Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reported in its Friday edition that Ivorian security authorities were able to identify Kounta Dallaha as the ringleader of the March 13 massacre which left 19 people dead thanks to the contributions of French, American and mainly Moroccan anti-terrorism services.

Following the Grand-Bassam attacks, Morocco offered Cote dIvoire intelligence assistance in investigations into the deadly terror act claimed by AQIM, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

In a phone call with President Alassan Ouattara on the morrow of the attack, King Mohammed VI offered to send a team to support Ivorian authorities in the probe and later in the day a top Moroccan security delegation arrived in Abidjan.

The delegation including Interior Minister Mohamed Hassad and Head of Moroccos internal intelligence service Abdellatif Hammouchi who is also Chief of General Directorate of National Security (DGSN,) were received in person by President Alassan Ouattara.

The Moroccan security officials held meetings with their Ivorian peers who expressed their high appreciation of Moroccos solidarity drive.

Besides Morocco, France and the United States also helped Ivorian authorities in the probe. An FBI squad had arrived in Abidjan to help Ivorian authorities conduct DNA tests on the bodies of the terrorists and study fingerprints on the identity cards discovered at the scene of the attacks.

According to the Moroccan daily, this judicial cooperation helped identify the main suspect in the attack.

Fifteen people connected to the attacks have been arrested while ringleader Kounta Dallaha is still on the run.
Dont you put my name on that! Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Vice-President Joe Biden on Thursday said it was ridiculous for Senate Republicans to invoke his name in claiming that a Biden rule should prevent President Barack Obama from appointing a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Associated Press reports.

Addressing a group of professors and students at Georgetown Law School, Biden insisted that a 1992 speech he gave on the Senate floor as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he appeared to endorse the idea of blocking judicial appointments during a presidential-election season, didnt mean what Republican lawmakers are now claiming it did.

There is no Biden rule. It doesnt exist, he said, explaining that the point of his speech  which referred to a hypothetical situation in which a justice were to resign mere months before the 1992 presidential election  was to encourage consultation with the Senate in choosing a nominee. He went on, There is only one rule I ever followed in the Judiciary Committee. That was the Constitutions clear rule of advice and consent.

Obamas choice of Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalias seat on the highest court showed the president was following the path of moderation, Biden added, warning that Republican obstruction of Obamas efforts to fill the vacancy could lead to a genuine constitutional crisis.

Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus immediately issued a statement ridiculing Bidens weak attempt to walk back his own standard on opposing election-year Supreme Court nominees, which just cant be taken seriously. This was not Bidens first attempt to disclaim the Biden rule  he made similar remarks in a New York Times op-ed on March 3.

Despite its supposed origins in the 1992 speech, Google Trends suggests the term Biden rule is of recent vintage. When Scalia passed away last month, Senate Republicans were still calling it the Thurmond rule after the late Senator Strom Thurmond, who blocked Lyndon Johnsons attempt to elevate Abe Fortas to the chief-justice position in the summer of 1968.

At some point in the month between Scalias death and Garlands nomination, they rechristened it the Biden rule, presumably after being reminded that Strom All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes Thurmond was not an especially sympathetic figure these days, whereas attributing the rule to Biden would make for a more compelling narrative.

Neither rule is an actual standing rule of the Senate. In any case, both Thurmonds block on Fortas and Bidens speech took place in the summer just months before election day; neither man had contemplated blocking judicial nominations for the entire final year of a presidential term.
Off to India. Photo: Hans Laubel

You think youve got the right guy for the job and then he turns around and ships a bunch of delicate personal information to an outsourcing firm in India. In 2008, New York States lease on an Albany warehouse that housed millions of peoples fingerprints, social security numbers, signatures, and other personal information was ending. Focused Technologies Imaging Services of Menands, New York, won a $3.45 million contract to digitize the 22 million criminal-justice records that were stored there. But the company found a cheap and easy way to get a bulk of the work done: A third of it went to a company in India that did the job for just $82,000.

This might be merely a little cheat, but Focused Technologies won the preferred source contract because the majority of people it employs are disabled. Catherine Leahy Scott, the state inspector general, said in a statement on Thursday that the company had entered into a covert and unauthorized outsourcing that swelled its profits while disregarding its commitment to employ individuals with disabilities, as required by its contract. In doing so, she says, the privacy of around 16 million people was compromised as none of the states precautions regarding sensitive records were taken. The company in India is complying with an investigation and says that it has destroyed all of the records that were scanned.

It does not appear that any of the personal information was leaked from the outsourced company. Still, Focused Technologies will pay $3.1 million in fines for defrauding the state, and will also pay for an independent monitor to make sure that it stays in line over the next five years. The company has acknowledged that sending the information to India was a mistake and insists that it hasnt done so before.
Mayor Massey? Photo: Nick Hunt/Patrick McMullan

A deep-pocketed real-estate executive is laying the groundwork to mount a challenge to Bill de Blasio in next years mayoral election.

Paul Massey, a Republican who recently sold the real-estate brokerage firm he founded for $100 million, has been meeting with business and GOP leaders throughout the city in an effort to gauge support for a campaign.

Paul has been very successful in real estate. I encouraged him to get in the race, said Joe Lhota, the 2013 Republican candidate for mayor. Lhota said he met with Massey earlier this year to walk him through the mechanics of a citywide run and confirms that the businessman has been making the rounds at various GOP functions over the last year.

Massey, 56, co-founded Massey Knakal Real Estate Services in 1988. It grew into a $2 billion a year business and was bought in 2014 by Cushman Wakefield.

Earlier this year, Massey announced the launch of a political-action committee called 1NY Together devoted to countering de Blasios agenda. This isnt a tale of two cities, Massey told Crains at the time of the pacs launch, using one of de Blasios signature phrases from the 2013 campaign. Its one city and it can be great for everybody.

A source familiar with Masseys thinking said that he was willing to spend heavily to fund a race, but was also preparing to seek donations from real-estate and financial-industry types who have been looking for a successor to Michael Bloomberg to carry a pro-business mantle to City Hall.

A campaign would be focused around restoring trust between City Hall and the police, more support for charter schools, and leveraging Masseys connections in the real-estate world and experience with development to spur the creation of more affordable housing, said one person who has spoken with Massey about plotting a possible bid.

The guy is not an ideologue. He is a real-estate guy who looks at issues from a management point of view, said David Catalfamo, a longtime Republican consultant. Those are the types of folks who have been successful mayors of New York and have had success getting elected.

Catalfamo conceded that de Blasio would be difficult to beat. But if there is a continuous feeling that the city is moving backward on crime and quality of life  and the jury is still out on that  I think it would reflect on the mayor and his management of the city, he said. Over the last 25 years people have come to expect continuous improvement on those two fronts.

In the few weeks since its founding, 1NY Together has released a series of surveys that purport to show that New Yorkers are increasingly concerned about rising crime and declining quality of life, as well as a series of statements lambasting the mayor for letting up on the broken windows theory of crime prevention and for violence in the citys homeless shelters.

Any Republican would face long odds in a city in which Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one, and in which a growing number of New Yorkers approve of the job their mayor is doing. A NY1/Baruch College poll from last month found that 58 percent of city residents approve of the job that the mayor is doing, up 14 points from last fall.

There will have to be a very strong de Blasio backlash for Massey to win, said Bob Turner, the head of the Queens County Republican Party. Some polls have a very reasonable level of dissatisfaction, and of course, de Blasio can exacerbate that, which he seems intent on doing.

Turner has met with Massey twice, and said he is a smart, articulate, handsome guy who has been doing his homework. He has a little bit of the John Lindsay quality to him.

But Democrats scoffed at the notion that a millionaire real-estate executive who divides his time between New York City and Westchester could gain much traction in a city that has grown more diverse and more liberal since the Bloomberg era.

Its easy  you run against the landlords, said George Arzt, a longtime Democratic consultant. The real-estate industry is generally not where you get a person to run for office. There are just too many negatives.

Ofer Yardeni, the CEO of Stonehenge Partners, a Manhattan-based real-estate company, counts Massey as a personal friend, and said he is supportive of a potential run, but said many in the real-estate community have been pleasantly surprised about Mayor de Blasios tenure. When he started as a mayor, a lot of people were very, very concerned, especially when you hear the message that there are two cities here, he said. But after he took office, he realized we needed to work together.

Before de Blasio emerged out of a crowded Democratic field to beat Lhota by nearly 50 points in 2013, Republicans had a two-decade lock on City Hall, and GOP leaders say that the citys business community has been casting about, looking for a candidate.

So far, no credible challenger has emerged to complicate the mayors reelection bid. People close to de Blasio doubt that some of the prominent Democrats who have been critical of the mayor, like City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn congressman Hakeem Jeffries, will risk a divisive primary challenge, and only Michael Faulkner, a Harlem pastor, and Eric Ulrich, a 30-year-old city councilman from Queens, have expressed an interest on the Republican side. Efforts to recruit a holdover from the Bloomberg era, like former police commissioner Ray Kelly or former deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff have so far not come to fruition.

A spokesperson for de Blasio declined to comment. A spokesperson for Massey said he was unavailable to comment.
Donald Trump. Photo: George Frey/Getty Images

The schism within the Republican Party over Donald Trump has confounded all attempts to map it out. The Trump-versus-#NeverTrump split does not follow the right-left ideological lines that defined the spats endured by Republicans in 1964 or Democrats in 1972. Oddly enough, the polarizing candidate occupies the center of the remaining presidential field, with one opponent on his right (Ted Cruz) and another on his left (John Kasich). Nor is the party splitting along geographic lines, given that Trump has won states in every region. Instead, the divide runs high-low, splitting conservatism as an idea from conservatism as an instinct.

The policy content of the primary fight has receded almost entirely. Trump may be more effective than other Republicans at harnessing certain conservative impulses  xenophobia, nationalism  but he barely differs from Ted Cruz in the specific proposals in which he expresses them. Trump has attracted the support of the majority of Republican voters who favor higher taxes on the rich, but Trump himself would reduce them. Trump and Cruz oppose comprehensive immigration reform and have postured as tougher than each other without settling any specific disagreement. Trump attacks free trade more viscerally than other Republicans, but both he and Cruz have the same stance (oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, promise to implement some unspecified better deal). Trump is promising to appoint conventional right-wing jurists to the bench. There is no longer any substantive wedge between the GOP and its front-runner.

Instead, Republican-elite loathing for Trump has three sources. First, they recognize that his deep unpopularity among the general public makes him a historically awful nominee. Second, his egomania, lack of interest in policy, and history of off-the-reservation statements and behavior give them justifiable reasons to doubt he will stay committed to their agenda even if somehow elected. And third, they find his persona repellant.

That last factor  the visceral loathing for the man himself that pulsates among his opponents  has become the highest-order question in the Republican race. Other Republican candidates, who began the race defining themselves on their own personal and ideological terms, now define themselves in relation to Trumps persona. Do they ignore him, like Jeb Bush tried to do? Imitate him, as Rubio did? Hold themselves up as the high-minded opposite, like John Kasich? Launch personal confrontations, as Ted Cruz did yesterday? The race is dominated by the contrast generated by the projection of Trumps personal qualities onto the rest of the field. Kasich and Cruz are guest hosts on The Trump Show.

There are certain forms of nonsense all Republicans must believe (or leave unchallenged). Ronald Reagan brought down communism by telling Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall; global warming is fake or overrated; the Bush tax cuts did not cause a deficit problem, etc. But Trump has introduced an entirely new category of nonsense that is unrelated to the Republican program, and mostly pertains to Trump himself. He lies about things like his polling, his businesses, whether he has said the things he has actually said, whether Mitt Romney is even Mormon. The premise of Trumps candidacy is that his supporters have to buy into a cult of personality so total they will accept even his most preposterous or obnoxious statement. That Trump, and Trump alone, can make Mexico fund a massive border wall is his most famous campaign promise and a symbol of the suspension of disbelief that is the heart of Trumpism.

In an interview with Ana Marie Cox, Republican strategist Rick Wilson pulsates with contempt for Trump (a man who reacts to stress in ways that are notably, demonstrably lunatic. Hes like an escaped mental patient on the Republican debate stage) and his supporters (Trump could tear off that weird hair of his and reveal hes Bin Laden, and there would still be people who would vote for him). There is no slavery, no Civil Rights Act, undergirding Wilsons hostility  just incredulity that anybody could buy his act. Likewise, National Reviews Kevin Williamson diagnoses his party as split into two main camps disunited by Trumps illiterate populism. But what is the source of this disunion? Trump supporters are apocalyptic, he explains, while his opponents are happy warriors. Williamsons attempts to render the schism in substantive terms serve only to reveal the lack of substance. Trump supporters, he explains, view Black Lives Matter as the announcement of a pending race war, whereas anti-Trump Republicans like himself merely see it as a destructive and sometimes thuggish protest movement. How could a single party possibly contain such wildly divergent beliefs?

The true source of the schism is between Republicans who intellectualize conservative impulses and those who do not. The strongest demographic predictor of Republican support for Trump is education, with college-educated Republicans far less likely to support him than those without degrees. He epitomizes low-brow, reality-show values, making himself a kind of one-man cultural wedge.

But there is more to Trumps high-low divide than that. The conservative movement has succeeded for decades by channeling racial resentment, nationalism, and authoritarianism into traditional policy proposals that can be justified in white papers on foreign policy, welfare, crime, taxes, and so on. Trump has made a mockery of this whole process, substituting boundless faith in his personality for a policy architecture constructed over generations. Conservative intellectuals understand and care about these ideas. They have articulated serious reasons for, say, restricting immigration levels, but Trump grasps the embarrassing reality that most Republican voters are driven by base animus toward immigrants. The rupture hes opened does not divide one set of ideas from another. Trump has simply pitted the Republican brain against the Republican brain stem.
Photo: USFWS/Flickr This is why ranchers cant have nice things.

Good morning and welcome to Fresh Intelligence, our roundup of the stories, ideas, and memes youll be talking about today. In this edition, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a mess, the Sanders campaign gets litigious, and AI takes an inevitable Nazi turn. Heres the rundown for Friday, March 25.

WEATHER

Things are going from bad to worse in large swaths of the country as a massive winter storm continues unabated. Two people have been killed in Wisconsin, and more than 30 inches of snow fell in Colorado. Meanwhile, a separate series of thunderstorms is set to batter parts of the South. Today, New York will be warm but rainy before a sunny, if chilly, Saturday. [Weather.com]

FRONT PAGE

Oregon Militiamen Prove They Cant Take Care of Land

Federal officials have released photos taken at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after it was vacated by anti-government militia members earlier in the year. The photos show the bird sanctuarys facilities totally trashed, with refuse including liquor bottles scattered inside and out and holes kicked in the walls. The Fish and Wildlife Service has said it will take $4 million dollars to clean, repair, and upgrade the refuge. [NYT]

EARLY AND OFTEN

Whoopi Goldberg Would Make a Great GOP Debate Moderator

Ben Carson appeared on The View yesterday, and if he was expecting softball questions, he didnt get them. Whoopi  bless her  straight-up asked Carson how he, a black man, could support an outspoken racist like Donald Trump. In response, Carson pointed out that Trump allowed both black people and Jews into his clubs in Palm Beach, which we guess is where the bar is for racism now. [Politico]

Puerto Rico Desperate for Bailout, If Only They Made Cars or Something

Politicians are inching closer to a plan to help rescue Puerto Ricos crumbling economy. Puerto Rico has officially asked permission to declare bankruptcy, but its Washington overlords are in favor of economic reforms under the purview of a president-appointed board. Will it have to change its designation from territory to colony now? [NYT]



Sanders Sues DNC, Really Doesnt Want Anyone Thinking Hes Establishment

The Bernie Sanders campaign has officially served the Democratic National Committee with the suit it filed back in December, when the DNC blocked Sanders from accessing the committees voter data. Remember that old controversy?

New York Court Misses Chance to Save America

A New York appeals court went with a lower-court decision today that found Ted Cruz eligible for the presidency despite being born in Canada, a foreign country. Cruz is off the hook because the objectors filed their petition late. [Reuters]



THE STREET, THE VALLEY

Robot Gets Too Human Too Fast

A much-touted bot from Microsoft had to be taken offline in less than a day after it became an outspoken, dirty-mouthed, Nazi-sympathizing bigot. Tay was a chat bot developed by Microsoft to learn how to mimic human speech patterns by interacting with real people on Twitter, technology that would then be used for improving Microsofts online customer-service bots. However, thanks to the cesspool that is the internet, Tay was talking like a horny, racist truther in no time. [AV Club]



Starbucks Meddles

After its massive success in addressing Americas race issues, Starbucks is now going to fix everything else. The coffee company cum nations conscience took out two full-page ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal asking people to resist the divisive rhetoric of the political season and remember how awesome America really is. Thanks, Starbucks! [Fox]

Sony Launches New Company

Sony is launching a new company under its umbrella to leverage PlayStations success and to cash in on the booming gaming market. ForwardWorks will focus on developing games for smart devices, in part using games and characters developed for PlayStation. The company will officially open for business April 1. [CNet]

Netflix Knows Whats Good for You

Netflix is taking heat after admitting that it intentionally limits its streaming rates for telecoms like AT&T and Verizon. The company has been capping its video streams at 600Kps for fear that if it streamed as fast as possible, the service would eat up too much data and consumers would resent it. So next time youre watching slow, grainy Arrested Development episodes on the bus, remember that its for your own good. [The Verge]

MEDIA BUBBLE

Somebody Actually Wants to Buy Non-Nude, Mansionless Playboy

Insiders confirmed yesterday that Playboy is seriously investigating potential buyers. The company realized people were interested when the notorious Playboy Mansion was put up for sale, but multiple parties expressed interest in buying the whole company. Nearly half of Playboys income comes from selling branded products in China, where the magazine has been banned. [NYT]

Apples New Show Sounds Terrible

How long have viewers pined for an unscripted show about app developers, maybe with awesome music from will.i.am? Well, dreams do come true. Apple is actually making that show and will distribute it over its devices. Big names in TV, such as one of the producers behind Netflixs Marco Polo  Yes! Him!  are reportedly already onboard. This is going to be huge. [Tech Crunch]



Layoffs at International Business Times

Things are not looking good at the International Business Times, the politics, news, and culture website from the people who resurrected Newsweek. At least 15 people have been fired at its New York and California offices without warning. Employees were reportedly told they were fired over the phone at their desks and then given ten minutes to pack their things and go. [ReCode]



PHOTO OP

Activists Protest North Carolinas Anti-Transgender Law

People protested on the streets of Raleigh over the states new radical anti-transgender legislation.

North Carolinians take to the street. Photo: Jill Knight/Raleigh News & Observer/2016 MCT

MORNING MEME

You know what? Screw it, were onboard. The world may be watching, but lets just go full John-Wayne-meets-professional-wrestling. At least its entertaining. [Gawker]

NEW: Ted Cruz Calls Donald Trump a "Sniveling Coward" Over Tweets About His Wife - https://t.co/T0NmHOEgqq pic.twitter.com/Oo2X8Y1mdl  Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 24, 2016

OTHER LOCAL NEWS

Somebodys About to Learn a Lesson

If youre going to rudely and arbitrarily kick out the only two black women in your bar, perhaps make sure theyre not both ACLU attorneys first. Thats just what happened at a karaoke bar in Fresno, California, earlier in the week, and something tells us the two women arent just going to forget the whole thing ever happened. [Raw Story]

Wait, Isnt Drunk Driving Legal in Montana?

You know when youve got a good buzz on and just really want a frozen yogurt, so you drive to the frozen-yogurt place only to find its hosting a Coffee With a Cop event? Charlene Kranitz of Great Falls, Montana, knows. [KXLH]

HAPPENING TODAY

Whats So Good About It?

Today is Good Friday. The redundantly named holiday commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. So, you know, party. [Wikipedia]

John Kerry Is in Brussels

John Kerry is in Brussels today; hes the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the city since the deadly terrorist bombings there on Tuesday. He is expected to offer condolences and reassure the E.U. of Americas resolve in fighting extremism. [Politico]
Senate Democrats called on Republicans to consider Judge Merrick Garland, but theyre not holding their breath. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/2016 Getty Images

With Senate Republicans vowing that they wont even consider President Obamas generally inoffensive nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, it looks like the Court will be down a justice through this term, and well into the next. Thats sparked concerns about how the Court will function for so long without a tie-breaking ninth member, but the justices insist its not a big issue. Justice Samuel Alito said, Well deal with it, and Breyer noted that only a small number of cases come down to one vote anyway.

Its true that having eight justices decide a case isnt all that uncommon. According to a CNBC analysis, temporary vacancies or recusals have led to ties in nearly one-in-five decisions passed down since 1946. But Scalias absence is still likely to have an interesting effect on the current court term, beyond Justice Clarence Thomas developing the courage to speak for the first time in a decade.

When the Supreme Court hands down an evenly split ruling, the lower courts decision stands, and no nationwide precedent is established. So, for instance, while the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, not just in the handful of states where the plaintiffs reside, any 4-4 decisions will only apply in the lower courts jurisdiction.

This week, the court handed down its first 4-4 decision since Scalias death, with the one-line opinion, The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court. That case wasnt very significant, but the Court is hearing arguments in a number of cases where a 4-4 decision could have huge implications. Heres where they stand so far:

UNIONS FEES

When the Court heard Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association back in January, it seemed very likely that it would side with conservatives, agreeing with the plaintiffs argument that requiring nonunion employees to pay union dues violates the First Amendment. While unions cant charge nonmembers for their political activities, 23 states and the District of Columbia use a fair-share or agency fee system, which requires public employees to pay for the cost of union activities like collective bargaining (thus preventing nonmembers from free riding by reaping the benefits of the unions activities without paying any fees).

As SCOTUSblog explains, during oral arguments, Justice Scalia asked why eliminating fair-share fees would kill public-employee unions when federal employees prosper, though they dont charge fair-share fees, and Justice Kennedy downplayed the free rider problem. In another bad sign for unions, the liberal justices focused on a legal doctrine not related to the merits of the case, suggesting they knew they wouldnt win.

A conservative decision would have gutted public-sector unions, but without Scalias vote, the case is likely to end in a split decision. Union advocates won the case in the liberal-leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, so now the current system is expected to remain in place.

ABORTION

Earlier this month, the court heard arguments in Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, the biggest reproductive-rights case since 1992. The case focuses on whether its legal for Texas to impose strict regulations on abortion clinics, such as requiring abortion providers to have hospital-admitting privileges and the clinics to meet the building requirements of ambulatory-surgical centers. If the decision is upheld, 34 of Texass 40 abortion clinics would be forced to shut down.

Justice Anthony Kennedys vote is the key, but Scalias absence may determine how the decision affects other states. Dozens of state legislatures have adopted similar rules, ostensibly to protect womens health, though critics say their real goal is to shut as many abortion clinics as possible. If Kennedy votes with the liberals, the 5-3 decision will allow the Texas clinics to remain open, and set a precedent for what rules other states can impose. If theres a 4-4 decision, then the lower courts ruling permitting the law would stand, but no precedent would be established. Clinics in Texas would be forced to close, but the issue would remain unsettled in other states.

During oral arguments, Kennedy asked about the rule that states cannot put an undue burden on women seeking an abortion, which he helped establish in a 1992 ruling, but his questions didnt offer many hints about which way hes leaning.

BIRTH CONTROL COVERAGE

On Wednesday, the court heard arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, a follow-up to the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that private businesses could be exempted from the Affordable Care Acts requirement that employers provide health insurance that covers birth control. In response, the Obama administration came up with a compromise that allows organizations with religious objections to opt out of the mandate and let the government arrange for contraceptive coverage with the insurance company directly.

Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious groups argue even that workaround makes them complicit in providing contraception to their employees. Eight lower courts disagreed, but the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said the law puts a substantial burden on their religious exercise.

A split decision in the case appears likely, as Kennedy commented that it sounded like the government was hijacking the religious groups insurance plans. If the justices deadlock, the lower-court rulings will stand, and the law will be applied differently depending on where each organization is located.

IMMIGRATION

Next month, the court is set to hear United States v. Texas, which involves a Texas judge blocking President Obamas 2014 executive action allowing certain undocumented immigrants to apply to stay in the country legally. Texas, along with 25 other states, sued to block the decision and, in November, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Obama administration could not move forward with the plan, as the states efforts were likely to succeed.

The Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on several issues, including whether states have the right to sue the federal government over how it enforces the law, and whether the plan involves an overreach by President Obama. If Kennedy sides with the liberal justices, the Obama administration could begin implementing the plan. According to The Wall Street Journal, a split decision could leave the policy blocked, at least in the three states under the Fifth Circuit  Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas  but possibly in force elsewhere.

The Court does not tend to like issuing 4-4 decisions, and the justices may avoid taking cases they believe will end in a split decision. Theyre not going to want to take up issues that are extremely divisive if they dont have a full complement of the court, Jeffrey Wall, an appellate lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, told Bloomberg Politics. Four justices must agree to take up a case.

Another option, which SCOTUSblogs Tom Goldstein thinks is likely, is that the court will order that the most controversial cases be reargued after another justice is finally confirmed. Until then, the potentially chaotic situation created by a 4-4 decision would stand. The court may be equipped to deal with an even number of justices, but its certainly not ideal.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have been beefing back and forth about their wives this week, which makes for rather interesting timing for a salacious report in the National Enquirer. The new issue of the infamous tabloid out this week has the SHOCKING CLAIMS that pervy Ted Cruz has had at least five mistresses on the side. The tabloid prints five photos, each with a black bar across the eyes of the alleged Cruz lovers, a phrase that doesnt at all feel natural to write.

The juicy details arent available online, but according to the catnip teasers the National Enquirer has posted, at least one of the women is a foxy political consultant and a high-placed D.C. attorney. That should make you either more skeptical (usually these stories involve women who are marginal to the political process) or less skeptical (Alabama governor Robert Bentley, just this week, was revealed to have something going on with a top aide).



Todays Twitter parlor game: Try to guess the identies of all five.

National Enquirer: Ted Cruz had 5 affairs - Idk if true (but they did break the Tiger Woods affairs). pic.twitter.com/Olof2tPJA8  Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) March 25, 2016

On Friday, Cruz denied the report in direct terms:

I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National... Posted by Ted Cruz on Friday, March 25, 2016

Cruz on Enquirer piece: "It is garbage, complete & utter lies. It is a tabloid smear and it has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen."  Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) March 25, 2016

But also in stranger and more evocative ones:

Cruz: "Let me be clear: Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. And this garbage does not belong in politics.  Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) March 25, 2016

This fall, New Yorks national-affairs reporter Gabriel Sherman wrote about the close relationship between GOP front-runner Donald Trump and the Enquirer CEO David Pecker after the tabloid printed some stories about Ben Carsons alleged medical mishaps. Per Sherman:

This person also said that Trumps campaign was a source for the [Carson] article: His campaign provided information that was used, he explained. A Trump friend said that in the days leading up to the articles publication Trump was telling people that Carson had a lot of medical malpractice suits and almost killed a guy.

Donald Trump responded Friday afternoon to Cruzs charge that hes responsible for the story:

Statement from Donald Trump on Cruz allegations: pic.twitter.com/eRifGQO4Jr  Jose A. DelReal (@jdelreal) March 25, 2016

The National Enquirer also denied the front-runners campaign had been the source. Allies of Marco Rubio were pushing the story before he dropped out  but its not clear whether those efforts led to the Enquirer piece.

This post has been updated to include Cruzs and Trumps responses.
Like this one, but smaller. Photo: Jiang Ye/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Though the government has reached no formal consensus on the issue, some U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea has probably managed to produce a miniaturized nuclear warhead, CNN reports, citing several U.S. officials.

The isolated Stalinist regime of Kim Jong-un has been in full saber-rattling mode since the United Nations slapped it with fresh sanctions in early March over its refusal to stop testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Immediately after the sanctions were announced, Kim issued a statement through the state news agency that the countrys nuclear weapons were ready for use at any time.

Then last week, after the Obama administration imposed a new round of U.S. sanctions, the regime carried out two ballistic-missile launches and fired some short-range projectiles in the general direction of Japan. It also sentenced an American tourist to 15 years hard labor for subversion after he allegedly tried to steal a propaganda banner from his hotel room.

CNNs sources say recent photos purporting to show Kim standing next to a miniaturized nuclear device are still being scrutinized, and those who believe Pyongyang has built such a device dont know if it would work. For the purposes of war plans, however, the U.S. military takes Pyongyangs threats seriously and assumes they do have a functional warhead.

In January, North Korea carried out an underground test that it claimed was of a hydrogen bomb. Later that month, U.S. analysts said the test might have been a partial, failed deployment of some components of a thermonuclear weapon. CNN adds that there are indications the country might be preparing to carry out another underground test.
Not leaving town. Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

On a day when the Port Authority voted to spend billions of dollars on an assortment of projects, it also made a big decision about the bus terminal that will replace the decrepit one we have now: The new building will be located in midtown Manhattan, not in New Jersey. Scott Rechler, Andrew Cuomos top appointee to the Port Authority, had asked the agency to explore putting the new terminal near the Secaucus Junction train station in New Jersey. But New Jersey politicians were against the plan, as were many commuters who would have to transfer to the train to come into Manhattan, and Jersey prevailed.

Rechler had been pushing for the terminal to be built in New Jersey for more than a year. Doing so, he said, would both cost less and reduce traffic congestion in Manhattan. He also envisioned it one day connecting with either an expanded PATH system or a new tunnel under the Hudson River that would double train capacity into midtown. Rechler had even insisted that the Port Authority conduct a study of trans-Hudson transportation trends for the next 30 years as a condition for allowing the bus terminals design competition, announced earlier this month, to move forward. As explained by the Record, his hope was that the study will show the need for an alternative to increased bus traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel.

As part of a deal announced Thursday, Rechler will drop his push for a Jersey-based terminal, and in exchange, New Jerseys top appointee to the authority withdrew his opposition to a $4 billion reconstruction plan for La Guardia Airports central terminal. New Jersey Senate president Stephen Sweeney called the deal an enormous victory for commuters at Thursdays Port Authority board meeting.

Tensions rose at times during that meeting. At one point, John Degnan, the chairman appointed by Governor Chris Christie, said that the true cost of the La Guardia project was $5.3 billion, a figure that factors in work thats been done over the past decade. That drew the ire of Patrick Foye, the authoritys executive director, who accused Degnan of playing games with numbers as part of what the Times calls a not-so-subtle effort from those on the New Jersey side to encourage approval of the bus terminal but on terms they could support.

In all, the Port Authority Thursday voted to spend tens billions of dollars  not just on the bus terminal (which could cost $10 billion) and the overhaul of La Guardia but also on enhancements to Newark Liberty Airport. The board also approved spending $70 million on the proposed Gateway Tunnel rail project, the cost of which would be divided between the authority and the federal government.

Specific plans for the bus terminal have yet to be determined, but the Times notes that the Port Authoritys board voted to approve financing it whatever the ultimate cost, even though it was unclear how the authority would pay for all the projects included in its capital budget.
Dead.

The Pentagon announced on Friday that a raid in Syria this month killed the most senior deputy in the ISIS leadership. In a press conference, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that the U.S. military is systematically eliminating ISILs cabinet. Carter said several key terrorists have been killed this week, most prominently Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Haji Imam, who was the groups finance minister and heir to the top job.

Haji Imam had a $7 million bounty on his head, and the U.S. has known about him since he joined Al Qaeda in 2004 and began a fast rise through the ranks. Carter could not confirm whether Haji Imam had anything to do with the recent attacks in Brussels that left 31 people dead and 270 injured.

This news comes just days after ISISs minister of war, Omar al-Shishani, or Omar the Chechen, was killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking from Brussels, said he expects the U.S. to make a huge dent in ISIS this year. But it is going to take a number of years, probably, to reduce the impact of the ideology of people who will continue to carry an anger or a willingness to engage in some kind of act individually, as a lone entity, Kerry said.


Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos has had many bold ideas: selling books over the internet, funding experimental private space-travel, making a phone whose only function was to  buy things on Amazon. But perhaps none of his endeavors have been as risky as his so-far successful attempt at reviving an aging print-media institution  the Washington Post, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million. His secret weapon? Hes not afraid to use forum tactics from the 90s web.

Bezos isnt afraid to think outside the box. A new profile for Fortune demonstrates how Bezos doesnt let practicality stand in the way of a good idea.

Sometimes Bezoss creativity gets the better of him. [Washington Post head of tech Shailesh] Prakash says the owner suggested a gamelike feature that would allow a reader who didnt enjoy an article to pay to remove its vowels. He called it disemvoweling, and the concept was to allow another reader to pay to restore the missing letters. The idea didnt go far, Prakash says, noting that Marty [Baron] wasnt very keen. Bezos, an unrepentant believer in the power of brainstorming, says, Working together with other smart people in front of a whiteboard, we can come up with a lot of very bad ideas.

(Its not just Bezos that calls it disemvoweling: The tactic is an ancient-by-web-standards method to deal with trolls, spammers, and other unwanted posts with some degree of transparency. On many forums, certain words would be automatically disemvoweled, or particularly trolly posts would be disemvoweled by forum moderators. For years, early blogs like BoingBoing and Gawker have used disemvoweling to get rid of annoying and menacing commenters.)

Allowing users to pay to alter a news organizations content, even in silly ways, is  as already noted  a very bad idea. But maybe Bezos is on to something here. Disemvoweling is just one of the many punishment methods that web forums have come up with to deter bad users. Could they also be applied to major publications?

There is the simple ban. Maybe readers could pay a newspaper to ban (a.k.a. fire) a writer that they dont  wait, now that Im thinking about it, thats an even worse idea. Instead of an all-out ban, maybe readers could block or mute authors and topics that they dont like. Sites could charge a premium, allowing users to set up a kill file.

Maybe readers could pay to set up a posting interval. Lets say, hypothetically, that you dont like WaPo op-ed contributor Richard Cohen. The company could charge a fee that limits the frequency with which Cohen can shitpost (web slang for, I mean, you know what that means)  one column every two months, or something. The more you pay, the more that span increases.

In my opinion, though, the best forum-method to bring to newspapers would be the hell-ban, one of the most devious tactics ever deployed on the web. Hell-banning (also known as shadow-banning) hides all of a users posts, but doesnt stop them from posting. The idea is that he or she will just assume that they are being ignored and leave of their own accord. Imagine if you could hell-ban  say  just picking a name at random here  David Brooks of the New York Times, not just for yourself, but for every single reader. Brooks might continue, for years, to file columns that nobody reads; nobody talks about his work; he writes into oblivion. I, a millennial in his prime, would pay $6.99 a month for that.
Photo: PhotoStock-Israel/Getty Images

Part of the reason misinformation and rumors thrive about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the insidious way the condition manifests itself. Its not that parents wake up one day and suddenly their kids have shifted from not-autistic to autistic  rather, theres usually a slow, steady realization that their kid is different from other kids, often manifesting in behaviors like a lack of eye contact.

Naturally, this leads to a lot of uncertainty, and this uncertainty is only heightened by the apparent benefits of diagnosing ASD at as young an age as possible. As I wrote in 2014, certain behavioral interventions have shown promise in treating autism, either by increasing the likelihood a child with ASD will be able to live an independent life as an adult, or that they will eventually shed the diagnosis altogether. One thing thats clear, though, is that the earlier these sorts of interventions start, the better, I wrote. The human brain gradually gets less plastic over time, and it becomes harder to change certain ingrained behavioral patterns. The challenge is that its tough to diagnose autism from a very early age  there are no known biomarkers that can tip clinicians off to the presence of the disorder, forcing them to rely instead on behavioral signals that can be tough to decipher when it comes to very young infants.

All of which brings us to an article in Spectrum, a site devoted to covering autism research, about a placental test for autism that is gaining a lot of attention  and not in a good way.

As Ann Griswold writes, back in 2013 Harvey Kliman, director of the reproductive and placental research unit at Yale School of Medicine, unveiled his PlacentASD Test as a tool to gauge a childs risk of autism at birth, just months after publishing a study on placental folds [link added]. The idea is simple and extremely appealing if youre a new parent: You send in frozen placenta, and Klimans company, which is run out of Yale, informs you whether your child has a heightened risk for autism  knowledge that could help steer you toward early treatment options.

The test is based on Klimans research, which has focused in part on tiny structures in the placenta called trophoblastic inclusions  [which] form when cells divide too quickly and cause the placenta to fold in on itself, instead of bulging outward as it normally does. In one of these studies, placentas from siblings of children with autism had more of these folds than placentas from a control group. In the other, aforementioned one, Kliman found that 39 percent of 13 preserved placentas from children with autism had the inclusions compared with 13 percent of 61 placentas from controls.

All of which makes it look like theres some sort of important correlation between these folds and autism. Except: In other research, including some of Klimans own, the folds have been associated with other conditions. Their presence or absence, in other words, might not tell us very much about the odds a kid will develop ASD, and at the moment there are fairly solid reasons to believe it doesnt. Moreover, there have been zero published trials actually correlating the results of this specific test with future ASD diagnoses.

And yet it is being marketed to parents, and can cost up to $2,000. Theres also some debate over whether or not its covered by insurance  PlacentASD claims companies like Aetna cover it, but an Aetna staffer told Griswold that due to that lack of evidence for its efficacy, the company does not cover it. It appears from Griswolds reporting  which, as a sidenote, is seriously excellent  that the Yale lab attempts to get insurance reimbursement by bill[ing] for each incremental task, such as fixing a sliver of placenta onto a pathology slide, rather than for the test itself.

All of this makes for an ugly situation in which it certainly appears that nervous, vulnerable parents are being sold a diagnostic test that is less than half-baked. Griswold got some strikingly forthright quotes from Klimans peers in the autism-research world, given how diplomatic researchers tend to be when critiquing one anothers research and ventures. The idea that this is being marketed without fully acknowledging its limitations is scary, Catherine Lord, who heads the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, told her. Helen Tager-Flusberg, who heads the Center for Autism Research Excellence at Boston University, said she was truly appalled at the rush to market a test that has such weak predictive power to vulnerable families.

Most damning, perhaps, was the assessment from Cheryl Walker, an OB/GYN who headed the 2013 study that offers a sizable chunk of the ostensible evidence that the test works. Its one thing to believe in something with all your heart, especially for someone as smart and committed as Dr. Kilman; its another to be painstaking about not going beyond your data, she told Griswold. There are no published data to support the new test as a screening tool.

Shoddy or premature science doesnt catch on in a vacuum. It catches on when theres a market for it. Parents wary about autism, unfortunately, offer a particularly nervous, eager market for ideas that arent quite ready for prime time.
Jian Ghomeshi Photo: Todd Korol/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Jian Ghomeshi, disgraced Canadian radio host, was cleared of sexual assault charges today. The judge in the case, the (Dis)honorable William Horkin, questioned the credibility of the three witnesses, saying their stories were inconsistent. His judgment was full of upsettingly misogynist rhetoric, demonstrating yet another reason women are hesitant to report sexual harassment and assault.

Toronto Star reporter Alyshah Hasham live-tweeted the ruling:

Judge: Points to email where she says wants to "fuck your brains out. Tonight."There is not a trace of animosity/ offence in that statement"  Alyshah Sanmati Hasham (@alysanmati) March 24, 2016

Judge: It is difficult for me to believe someone who was choked as part of a sexual assault would think kissing before/after inconsequential  Alyshah Sanmati Hasham (@alysanmati) March 24, 2016

Judge: the hard reality is witness shown to be manipulative and deceptive in giving evidence cannot be considered by court to be trusted  Alyshah Sanmati Hasham (@alysanmati) March 24, 2016

He accused the victims of having inconsistencies in their stories. That would make sense because the alleged assaults happened in 2002 and 2003. Hell, I cant even remember what I ate for lunch on Monday. Furthermore, Christina Cauterucci at Slate points out, Many studies have shown that survivors of sexual trauma block out the details of their assaults and frequently remember events only in broad, nonlinear strokes.

In his verdict, Horkin pointed out that victim Lucy DeCoutere did 19 interviews about the trial. Critical of the public support DeCoutere  who is an actress on the show Trailer Park Boys  received, Horkin wrote:

Hashtag ibelievelucy became very popular on Twitter and she was very excited when the actor Mia Farrow tweeted support and joined what Ms. DeCoutere referred to as the team  I have to consider whether as a member of this team, Ms. DeCoutere felt that she had invested so much in being a heroine for the cause that this may have been additional motivation to suppress any information that, in her mind, might be interpreted negatively.

He also dug into other victims, like one known as L.R., who he writes was obviously very much taken with Mr. Ghomeshi.

Horkin discredits both L.R. and DeCouteres testimony in part because the two women sent around 5,000 text messages to each other, between October 2014 and September 2015. He also criticizes one of the victims for asking Ghomeshi to get a drink after the alleged assault took place, discounting the complex psychology behind why women go back to their abusers.

Horkin says one of the victims was playing chicken with the justice system and criticizes her for saying she was unsure how to navigate the justice system. He writes, Navigating this sort of proceeding is really quite simple: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

While that is theoretically correct, thats not the way truth works. There is no singular truth. And testifying is not only about telling the truth, especially when youre telling your story to a man who doesnt want to believe you.

Furthermore, Horkin questions the victims for coming out about their assaults after Ghomeshi was fired from CBC, again suggesting that these women did this for publicity. Horkin writes,

However, the twists and turns of the complainants evidence in this  trial, illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful.

The irony here is that the judges verdict shows the opposite: We dont believe rape victims. And no, making a rape accusation and rape are not equally dangerous.

Now would be an ideal time for beloved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak out on this painfully misogynistic ruling.
just the right amount of damage



jfc

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i keep getting stuck on that too

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vom



and you know he uses that line a lot too

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What does that even mean?

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A disturbing number of men like a woman who they think is emotionally damaged in some form. They dont want a woman who has her head on all the way straight or one who has severe issues. 'Just the right amount'...enough not to fully love herself. They choose these women bc they can manipulate them even more and treat them in ways that are not respectful.

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ugh that's so fucking disturbing and offensive

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I keep thinking "What kind of line is that to say? To anyone?" Ugh, what an arse.

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I know he's saying something bad but I can't figure out what I know he's saying something bad but I can't figure out what

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He sees her as a broken vase that can have its value restored if he fills in the cracks

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I felt dirty & sad



I wish I don't know how this feels but I do... and it sucks intensely.

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Sometimes I'm at war with myself cos I still go "oh stop it other women have had it worse, you're just victimizing yourself" when I know perfectly well my feelings are valid.



You end up being angry at yourself, twice(from two different viewpoints), and it's honestly just fucked up and above it all I just wish the world is a safer place for women.

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i was about to say the same thing. god knows how many years i spent trying to tell myself i wasn't at fault for how i felt.

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this, tbh

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I've had that kind of language/behavior directed at me too and it made me feel the same way. It took a long time for me to get out of the self-blaming mindset.

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It's awful--especially since I grew up on Catholic slut-shaming and feeling like I can avoid harassment if I just take enough precaution

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mte

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he's disgusting

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i vacillate between staunch antiviolence/pacifism and desperately wishing we could seek immediate justice when we're wronged, an eye for an eye. our legal system can't even be trusted.

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Same. But honestly only for women and minority men (because fuck white dudes) since the justice system can't help us most of the time. I like having the option of something like "you can take this to trial or you have a 24 hour purge period and if you can get your hands on them they're all yours."

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yeah he's gross

I had stopped listening to him years before because I had read that xojane piece and I had a friend who he would always hit up when he was in town that thought he was gross too

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I can't believe he was cleared but the judge's fucked up comments were the shit icing on this shit cake.

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idk he only had one fucked up comment that I read

which was gross af but for the most part the reasoning in the decision was p sound

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Rationally, I got why he was cleared but I'll never accept him as not being a shitstain. I also can't deal with all the people celebrating it, I unfortunately work with some and I have no words for some of the things they have been saying about the women in this trial. The stereotype comment was pretty fucked up imo, especially since the research shows it's the exact opposite, and it was a win for rape culture basically.

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I only read a few and I'm shuddering with discomfort and disgust. I had to turn the radio off when they were reading excerpts. I'm rarely speechless but this is one of these times.

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Wow, good for her for speaking out. Men are gross.

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I think that some version of the events that Ghomeshi was criminally was accused with happened to these women.

And, I believe that he's done something similar to many more women.

And, I think he should go to jail for them.

But, not out of this trail. If he had been found guilty in R v. Ghomeshi than the Canadian Criminal system may as well be a kangaroo court.

I look forward to his loss in his civil trail in June, and I hope that these women don't discount the possibility of civil trails for themselves.

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Unfortunately, I think this is the case. I wish this case would've been strong enough to fully do justice, because I do think when there's smoke there's fire, but for the people who are wrongfully accused of ANY crime, we need court systems to take each case based on what's presented rather than rumor, or other incidents outside of the trial, etc.

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The next trial is also criminal, not civil.

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you're right! I thought it was for assault & battery.

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I'm reading the previous post right now and I'm so fucking angry omfg

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i had to leave that post

i dont want to just start hating everything

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Where can I find the previous post?

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This man deserves to burn in hell for what he's done to countless women.

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'just the right amount of damage'



that literally tells you all you need to know, people like him seek out women they view as damaged because it's easier to discredit them later, which is why when Janice Dickinson, for instance, accused Cosby of sexual assault, it was far easier to paint her as crazy and attention seeking because of her past. That's not by accident. Same thing with Lindsay Lohan with her track record, when she says she's been assaulted, people clamor to doubt far more easily than they do to support her.



He's a legit predator and it's terrifying how few consequences there have been for him.



Edited at 2016-03-25 04:27 pm (UTC)

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Spot-fucking-on. This is also the creep logic behind "johns" and the demeaning and violent/deadly shit they pull with sex workers. They push and violate those boundaries because they know society already dismisses prostitutes as--wait for it--damaged, immoral, and asking for it.



All of this is not a coincidence.

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This was so upsetting to read and sadly such a similar experience for a lot of women.



Anybody who worked in media, music, PR, etc always had whispers about Jian in Toronto especially. So many times you'd be warned to never be alone with him. You'd be told about his arrogance, manipulation, condescending comments, etc. Which was why I think it was so difficult to see this man have so much power and praised because he's such a ~great guy~. Even touting himself as a feminist. I think sometimes (especially when you're young) you have this idea about what a ~real~ rapist and abuser would look like. Yet people like Jian or James Deen are a good reminder that it really can be anyone. I think it's why I hate the whole "real men wouldn't do this" because it IS those conventional *real men* that are allowed to thrive and be abusive under this stereotype.



It's quite clear Jian did everything he's accused of - whether it was with Lucy, the other victim, the decades worth of CBC complaints. People who think his acquittal = innocence live in a different reallty to me. And it's not even like his team denied his violence and manipulation. What sticks with me the most is that he saved Lucy's handwritten letter for 13 years. He knew this day would come and he planned for it. He's a piece of shit who has likely assaulted and harassed several people - including men. Like I said in another post about Jian threatening Torquil from Stars when he produced Q. That he'd blacklist the band if he didn't do what he told him to.



I hate how how the judge treated these women. How he put the stigma back a decade. And so many people with keyboard courage cheer on rapists and abusers. Yet sadly they have no idea people they know we're likely harassed or assaulted at one time and they're quietly listening and suffering from their words in silence. I hope anyone here who has been a victim knows that your hurt is any less valid because you weren't the perfect victim. Or thinking that you didn't act how you should have afterwards. There's no right or wrong way and don't let anyone justify what happened to you. You often try and normalize things afterwards and you're even polite about it. Don't feel bad about that.



/csb essay. As someone who lives here this one really bothers me.



Edited at 2016-03-25 04:28 pm (UTC)

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I hope anyone here who has been a victim knows that your hurt is any less valid because you weren't the perfect victim. Or thinking that you didn't act how you should have afterwards. There's no right or wrong way and don't let anyone justify what happened to you. You often try and normalize things afterwards and you're even polite about it. Don't feel bad about that.



This is too real and I needed that. I made a comment that illustrated perfectly what you're against and I'm so glad I saw this after cos my mood was down.



Thank you.

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I feel you, I've only ever heard negative things about him at work

And then I've had a couple friends (18 year olds) get hit on by him during Nuit Blanche a couple years ago, he's just trash

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Thank you for saying this, bb. <3

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i love the shit out of this comment



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thank you

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Wait, what happened with torq? !

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He tweeted about how when he produced on Q that Jian threatened him and threatened to blacklist his band. He essentially stated that he was too scared to quit after that and that anyone saying they would do otherwise should look in the mirror. He tweeted about it iirc. He's definitely not a fan of Jian. It's interesting that a lot of Canadian musicians are angry at the verdict. Torquil, Kathleen Edwards, Owen Pallett, etc. Plus a lot of other Toronto media people. I think she deleted her tweet but Cynthia Loyst from The Social was one of the people I'm talking about who is not a Jian fan.

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thank you, thank you, thank you for this comment. I really have nothing to add.

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Late, but thank you for sharing this. <3 Every word of it is spot on accurate.



It's also very telling how no one (aside from his sister who lbr, was likely guilt tripped to read that statement) has gone to bat to defend Jian. His behaviour was the worst kept secret amongst people working in media in Toronto for years.



I hope the case in June exposes more about how much of a sack of shit he is, and drags the CBC over the coals for enabling his behaviour for the sake of sustaining a cash cow.





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My aunt commented that the complainants didn't help their case. And I get that it was easy to sway the judge with the content of some of those emails that were sent but it bothers me so much that the trial basically hinged on how well these women remembered events from over a decade ago. Also, why didn't the Crown introduce an expert on how victims of violence usually respond? There's so much talk of "why did these women stay in contact with him?" Everyone thinks they would kick a guy like that to the curb but clearly there's a lot more at play psychologically.

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I think the Crown did a poor job and really failed the victims. They absolutely should've had an expert to explain how the brain and your memory reacts to trauma. However this judge is a known asshole so I'm not even sure it would've made a difference tbh. He sat up there going on and on about how they were essentially lying. He legit sounded like an MRA.

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Yeah, as soon as I saw, I think on Buzzfeed, how he had ruled in another case that actually had hard evidence, I lost hope for a conviction. I wonder how they go about choosing which judge will preside over which case.

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This pos has always sleeved me out.

I remember when he was on Tessa and Scott's show he came off as so gross to me. Literally while watching it all I could think was run Tessa, run, and that was on an edited tv program. I can't even imagine what he's like irl.



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omfg i forgot about that i hope she never met up with him.

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The heirs of John D. Rockefeller attacked ExxonMobil this week, a company that is also a descendant of the famed oil baron.

The Rockefeller Family Fund has announced that it will divest its assets from fossil fuels. In a statement posted on its website, the fund said that, due to the need to eliminate fossil fuels that contribute to climate change, it makes little sense  financially or ethically  to continue holding investments in these companies. There is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons.

The Rockefeller Family Fund is a philanthropy set up by the fourth-generation descendants of John D. Rockfeller, and shouldnt be confused with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the third-generation organization, which announced its decision to divest from fossil fuels in 2014. Related: Oil Prices Fall Fast On Huge Inventory Build

The Rockefeller Family Fund took a parting shot at ExxonMobil in its statement, which is the largest descendant of Standard Oil Company. We would be remiss if we failed to focus on what we believe to be the morally reprehensible conduct on the part of ExxonMobil. The organization said that ExxonMobil worked since the 1980s to confuse the public about climate changes march, while simultaneously spending millions to fortify its own infrastructure against climate changes destructive consequences and track new exploration opportunities as the Arctics ice receded.

The foundation, of course, is referring to the news reports that surfaced in 2015 which alleged that ExxonMobil has known for decades about the role that oil and gas play in fueling climate change, but actively funded campaigns to obscure the public and scientific understanding about climate change. In November 2015, the New York attorney general opened up an investigation into the oil supermajor.

Appropriate authorities will determine if the company violated any laws, but as a matter of good governance, we cannot be associated with a company exhibiting such apparent contempt for the public interest, the Rockefeller Family Fund wrote. The Funds $130 million in assets will be withdrawn from ExxonMobil, plus all coal and tar-sands companies, with proceeds redirected into investments that have some sort of social responsibility element to them. Related: Brussels Terror Attack Drives Europe Further Into Terrorism Rabbit Hole

ExxonMobil dismissed the divestment announcement. "It's not surprising that they're divesting from the company since they're already funding a conspiracy against us," a company spokesman told CNBC on March 23. Additionally, in a March 14 op-ed in The Los Angeles Times, Suzanne McCarron, Exxons vice president of public and government affairs, rejected the allegations that the company covered up climate science. the recent accusations against ExxonMobil make no sense  that is, until you learn that the anti-ExxonMobil campaign, and the supposedly unbiased media reports it rests upon, is in fact funded by groups actively opposed to the use of oil and natural gas, McCarron wrote.

Separately, the divestment news came in the same week that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission decided that ExxonMobil must offer a climate change resolution as part of its annual shareholder proxy. The SEC sent a letter to the oil supermajor, which was seen by Reuters, saying that the company must allow shareholders to vote on whether or not to require the company to detail the risks to shareholders from climate change or potential legislation meant to address climate change.

Any legislation, such as a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, or other measures meant to block the production of oil and gas, would likely present a financial risk to the company and reduce shareholder value. ExxonMobil opposed the requirement to detail those risks, arguing that it already provides adequate information. The SEC disagreed. "It does not appear that Exxon Mobil's public disclosures compare favorably with the guidelines of the proposal," Justin Kisner, an attorney-adviser with the SEC, wrote in the letter, referring to a proposal by the New York Comptroller to require ExxonMobil to offer more detailed information. The Comptroller oversees New Yorks $178 billion pension fund. Related: Record Loss For Petrobras As Political And Economic Crisis Worsen

This is a major victory for investors who are working to address the risks that global warming presents to our portfolios, NY Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli wrote in a statement. The Securities and Exchange Commissions determination upholds shareholders rights to ask for vital information. Investors need to know if ExxonMobil is taking necessary steps to prepare for a lower carbon future, particularly now in the wake of the Paris agreement. We look forward to presenting our proposal to fellow shareholders at ExxonMobils annual meeting.

History has come full circle, with the descendants of one of the worlds most famous oil icons deciding that they will move their fortune, which was built on oil, away from fossil fuels. The Rockefeller Family Fund recognized their long history in making money from oil production. But history moves on, as it must, the organization wrote.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

MoreTop Reads From Oilprice.com:
As quickly and unexpectedly as Russias Syrian campaign began, so too does it end, or at least wind down.

On March 14 President Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of the main contingent of Russian military, declaring the mission largely accomplished  the mission of course being little more than a thinly-veiled plot to assert its status as a global power via its support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Many parts are still in motion however, and its safe to assume the dust is far from settled. Related: Record Loss For Petrobras As Political And Economic Crisis Worsen

For the Assad regime  and Russian viewers at home  Russias accomplishments are tangible. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Syrian troops with the support of Russian aircraft liberated 400 settlements and more than 10,000 square kilometers of key western and northern territory. Additionally, Russian forces destroyed more than 200 rebel- and terrorist-held oil production and fuel transfer facilities, and nearly 3,000 means of petroleum products delivery.

Most importantly, Putin delivered much needed time and leverage. To be sure, the country is no closer to a long-term future under Assad; his grip on power  while revived  is just as tenuous as it was when Russias aerial campaign began.

As Moscow sees it, Russia laid the groundwork for the February 27 ceasefire, reengaged western governments, deflected from Ukraine, and secured a role in all future paths to peace, all the while demonstrating its restored and more remote military capabilities in a limited-risk environment. And, for the most part, these are largely unassailable claims. Mission accomplished. Related: Oil Prices Fall Fast On Huge Inventory Build

As the warring parties sit for another round of UN-supported negotiations, Russias influence is undeniable. The sudden, partial withdrawal curbs Assads confidence and extorts greater cooperation out of his camp. Similarly, the military pullback may force concessions from the High Negotiations Committee. Ideally for Putin, and disregarding the possibility of an outright win for Damascus, this is it. Russias influence leads to a degree of compromise heretofore unseen, producing a federal solution  a series of statelets with already existing sway in Assads Mediterranean-bordering western territories and the Kurdish-controlled north.

This Plan B of sorts ensures Russia retains unbroken control of its air and sea bases in Latakia and Tartus respectively, and thus the ability to project power far outside its sphere of influence. Russian companies stay on the inside track to develop Syrias admittedly dreamy offshore oil reserves. And, competing potential natural gas pipeline projects to Europe from Qatar and Iran virtually evaporate  not that they were ever much of a concern. Related: Is This The Most Intricate Oil Theft Operation Yet?

Of course, the convoluted talks are more likely to fail than produce the above, but Russia  considering its non-linear approach  maintains options. Russian jets are at the ready and Putin can quickly scale up forces to resume the aerial bombardment. Rinse and repeat. A scenario of continued war is likely to produce fragmented rump states anyway. Moreover, in its defense of Assad, Russia further endears itself to other regional quasi-dictatorships a la Egypt, who have significant strategic and economic value to Moscow; Russia has your back.

Assad is yet dispensable too. If the Syrian president continues to rebuff compromise, Putin may be inclined to double down on diplomacy vis-a-vis the Americans and pursue Genevas constitutional arrangement if given a role in choosing the successor. A unilateral victory was probably never in the cards, but some form of multilateral power brokerage is just as much of a prize and far less costly.

Whatever the path, Russia has a say, and even some ability to direct. Just what that entails  sanctions relief, production concessions, etc.  is anyones guess, but Russias grander, albeit slightly improvisational plan has more to reveal.

By Colin Chilcoat of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Ive been trying to choose a Friday story in liquefied natural gas (LNG)  where events have been coming fast and furious worldwide.

But this week there was such an explosion of news in the space, I couldnt pick just one item. Instead, Im going to run down nine critical happenings that show the breakneck pace at which this key global market is changing.

In China, for instance, where data released Monday showed that LNG imports leapt 12.1 percent during February  to 1.85 million tons. Related: Why We Could See An Oil Price Shock In 2016

Chinese LNG demand is surging. And the country is becoming a rising force in buying around the world  both in terms of supply, and direct interests in LNG projects. A fact that became apparent Wednesday, when it was announced that local natgas supplier ENN Ecological Holdings Co. will buy an 11.7 percent stake in Aussie LNG producer Santos, for $750 million.

Such incoming funds may be a boost for global LNG developers, who are struggling with finance right now  with Woodside Petroleum saying Wednesday that it is delaying the $40 billion Browse LNG export project in Australia, due to market conditions.

The same day, Woodsides partner in the Browse project  Japans Mitsui  said that it is taking a 40 billion yen write-down on the delayed operation. Which (along with write-downs on copper assets) will push Mitsui to its first-ever annual net loss in earnings since the company began reporting in 1947. Related: Uranium Production Costs Fall For The First Time In 5 Years

But even as projects stall, LNG demand is rising  in some unexpected places. Oman, for example, where officials from the countrys LNG industry said on Sunday that they are going to delay 5 percent of their 2016 exports because they need the gas domestically.

Most of Omans gas goes to Japan and Korea, so these countries could be looking for alternatives, and Japanese buyer JERA found one Tuesday  when it was announced the firm has signed up to buy 25 percent of the output from the proposed Jordan Cove export facility in Oregon. A major boost to project developer Veresen  that had been looking for export contracts to underpin finances for its in-progress facility.

The Canadian West Coast is another option Asian LNG buyers have looked at. But theyll have to wait a bit, after the federal government said Monday that it is delaying an approval decision on the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG export project here. Canadas feds say they will study for another 90 days before deciding if the project can go. Related: Oil Prices Continue To Tumble As Supply Glut Fears Return

Finally, two big firsts in global natgas shipping. In Iraq  which exported its first-ever cargo of natural gas condensate on Sunday, from an export facility developed by  making this one of the newest suppliers on the global stage.

And finally from the U.S., which landed its first-ever cargo of shale-derived natural gas liquids in Europe on Wednesday  with the cargo traveling from the Marcus Hook export terminal near Philadelphia to a receiving terminal owned by petchem giant Ineos at Rafnes, Norway.

Thats a lot of change, nearly everywhere in the world. Watch for more shakeups, letdowns, and maybe even some melt-ups coming in this space.

Heres to a number of things on the go,

By Dave Forest

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
"Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee is back for another round, brought to you by Great Northern Distilling: grain to glass spirits, handmade in Wisconsin. The whole month of March, we're serving up intoxicatingly fun articles on bars and clubs  including guides, the latest trends, bar reviews, the results of our Best of Bars readers poll and more. Grab a designated driver and dive in!

If you're going to get the girls together for a night out in Milwaukee  or bring the bachelorette out for a last hurrah  there is one spot in the city where the readers say you MUST go, and that's Lucille's Piano Bar & Grill, located at 1110 N. Old World Third St.

Lucille's has owned this category, winning handily again for the seventh consecutive year.

Why? Well, the fact that it's the only dueling piano bar in the city has something to do with it, but the fact that you can "roast" your woman of honor  or a friend out of the blue  and request your favorite songs makes the night special. Also, subtle touches, like helping you plan your gathering, housing your cake and down to the fact that the bar doesn't require a drink minimum contributes to the entire experience. Plus, you never know if your evening might feature a Seth MacFarlane cameo.

Red Rock Saloon played bridesmaid, not bride, in this year's poll, taking second place with La Cage  the OnMilwaukee editors' pick  Safe House and Victor's wrapping up the rest of the top five.

OnMilwaukee editors' pick: La Cage



Runners-up:

2. Red Rock Saloon

3. La Cage

4. Safe House

5. Victor's


With the Wisconsin primary coming up on April 5, CNN announced Thursday that the network will host a moderated Republican presidential candidate Town Hall at Milwaukee's Riverside Theater beginning at 7 p.m. on March 29.

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich are all expected to attend the Town Hall  moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper  and field questions from Wisconsin voters.
The beverage market is growing steadily. But sales for traditional soda products (think Pepsi and Coke) are declining. In fact, according to a recent report in Fortune Magazine, soda sales have dropped steadily for the past decade, as consumers increasingly shift their focus from high fructose and aspartame-filled beverages to juices, flavored waters and other "healthier" beverages.

Interestingly enough, one of the niche markets thats benefitted from this shift in consumer buying is another type of soda. But this time its the craft variety.

Take, for instance, Wisco Pop!

If youve ever sipped a bottle of this Wisconsin-made beverage, which is steadily cropping up in restaurants, cafes and retail shops around Milwaukee, you already know that it barely resembles the cloyingly sweet concoctions most recognize as soda. And according to co-owner Austin Ashley, thats the whole point.

"I really go for simplicity when it comes to flavors," he says. "There are a lot of things on the market with a lot of ingredients  things like ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate  but the goal for us is really to let natural flavors of the ingredients shine."

Another goal for Wisco Pop!, says Ashley, is to align itself with customers who share the companys sense of values.

"We dont use artificial flavors," he says. "We dont use preservatives. And were making our products from scratch, using fresh ingredients like juice, honey and organic sugar. For a lot of companies, the questions they ask are Whats hip? Whats cool?... for me, its more like Whats right?"

For Ashley, that means making a commitment to purchasing locally sourced products  including sustainable local honey, Door County cherries and Wisconsin maple syrup  as well as products from socially conscious growers, like La Grama organic ginger cooperative in Peru.

"Were very cognizant of where were buying from," he says. "I want to forge relationships that are not only good for us, but good for others, good for the environment  people who support their communities."

But despite their dedication to all natural and organic products, Wisco Pop! is careful not take itself too seriously. Take for instance this video, which declares: "Wisco Pop! It's a lifestyle."

Founding Wisco Pop!

Prior to his foray into pop-making, Ashley dabbled in a variety of food related businesses. Originally from Texas, Ashley worked his way through Colorado playing music and working in the restaurant industry. When he met his wife Hallie [Nicholes], whose brother Caleb co-founded Kickapoo Coffee in Viroqua, WI, he spent some time roasting coffee. From there, he worked for a time at Hidden Springs Creamery as a cheesemaker.

But it wasnt until 2003 or 2004, that he discovered his love for crafting soda.

"I was a craft beer fanatic," he says. "And I learned everything I could about beer. And I spent a lot of money on beer. Im not a guy who goes into anything halfway, so when I decided I could no longer afford my craft beer habit, I had to move on to something else."

In 2004, after reading the work of master fermentor Sandor Katz, Ashley started a small fermented foods business in Madison. He says he never really fell in love with the idea of sauerkraut or kimchi. But, he did get hooked on ginger beer.

"Eventually, I found a guy on Facebook whod founded Rookies Rootbeer in Vermont. He was good enough to talk with me about the process of making soda. In the end, he told me: Just go buy some kegs and do it. I didnt take his advice immediately. But eventually his message was what put me over the edge."

Ashley says he spent a lot of time reading about starting a business.

"And I spent a lot of time dreaming," he says. "It takes so much time to really create a great product from scratch. I really stayed away from what people told me to do, and stuck with what I was capable of, what I had time to do, and what I could do in a quality way."

By July of 2012, Ashley and his wife Hallie took the plunge and launched Wisco Pop!, a craft soda company. At the time, production  which took place in a commercial kitchen space rented from a friend  was simple. Ashley used a hand cranked juicer and grated ginger by hand with a box grater. The soda was brewed and then transferred into kegs.

"I started selling first at farmers markets," he notes. "And around that same time I met my business partner Zac [Mathes], who owned his own farm. It turns out we were kind of like brothers from another mother. He had a farm and started a farm to table pizza company, and I kept bugging him to join me. One winter, I paid him to help out, and he stayed on."

Zac Mathes, Austin Ashley, Hallie Ashley. PHOTO: Ray Pfeiffer

In 2014, Ashley met another local business owner, Sue Noble, who approached him to join the business incubator shed established in Viroqua. At first, he hesitated. But, he says moving the business into the incubator was the best move he could have made.

"Wed just raised $24,000 through a Kickstarter campaign," Ashley says, "And then Noble  who is brilliant with grant writing  knocked on my door and told me shed secured all the money wed need to buy a bottling machine and push the business to the next level."

A semi-automatic bottler and commercial juicer later, and Ashley says he was producing around 200 cases a week. By June of 2015, Wisco Pop! had signed on with a distributor. And today, the company distributes to approximately 125 outlets, including restaurants, bakeries, cafes and cooperative grocers in both Wisconsin and Minnesota.

What's next?

And business is booming. In addition to its three current flavors  ginger, cherry and root beer  this spring, Wisco Pop! will launch a new strawberry soda, made with just three ingredients: strawberries, lemons and organic sugar.

"Were also working on a lemon flavored sparkling water that we plan to launch this summer," Ashley notes.

In June, the business will also go through the necessary approval processes for USDA Organic certification, a goal Ashley says cements the values that have always been a part of the business.

"As a kid, I grew up with my grandparents growing okra, avocados, sweet potatoes," says Ashley. "They did a lot of preservation, and in the summer my grandmother would make me limeade. There was this from-scratch mentality that I always loved. And those values are part of what we every day. Its about being committed to what we value most  the earth, farmers  things that matter."
The general consensus is that Hillary Clinton will beat out Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. The almost general consensus is that Clinton may not make it to the White House without Sanders. The numbers and the states that she has won are the starting point to figure out why. She's trounced Sanders in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Arkansas. With the very iffy exception of North Carolina and Virginia, these are states which she has absolutely no chance of winning in November. She also trounced Sanders in Florida, Ohio and Arizona. These are states that will at best be a tough slog to win. All three have GOP governors, and top heavy GOP controlled state legislatures. All three have been deeply implicated in putting on the books blatant voter suppression initiatives, laws, and ploys. The states that she has a lock on are the states that are lock down Democratic states anyway such as California and New York. George Bush Sr. was the last GOP presidential candidate to win California in 1988. Ronald Reagan was the last GOP presidential candidate to win New York in 1984.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/01/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-super-tuesday/81168088/

Clinton will net close to 200 electoral votes from the Democratic lock states. But after that she'll need to find 60 to 70 more electoral votes in states that have gone either way in general presidential elections the past two decades. That makes it a brutal, grind em' out, numbers game to bag enough of those states to put her over the top. She'll make a huge, all out drive to squeeze every African-American and Hispanic vote that she can get out of the swing states. That's absolutely crucial. But that won't be enough to insure a win in a state such as Michigan also with a GOP governor, embattled yes, but still a GOP governor, and a state in which the GOP candidates combined got 130,000 more votes than Clinton and Sanders in that state's primary.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/michigan

There's only one place she can get the votes from to close the gap and that's from Sanders' impassioned backers. Yes, there's lots of loose talk and some polls that claim that if Sanders isn't the nominee, many of his supporters will write in Sanders name, stay home, or vote for a Green Party candidate.

http://www.wsj.com/video/poll-33-of-sanders-supporters-wouldnt-vote-for-clinton/69C05055-85FE-4320-8D02-3EAC972CACD0.html

Some may well do just that. The betting odds, though, are that most won't. However, that doesn't tell the story of what Clinton needs to do to insure Sanders' supporters are on board with her. They have to be mobilized to actually believe that Clinton will be a president who will fight not to extend Obama's programs, but fight for Sanders' program. As it now stands, Clinton would be hard pressed to find many Sanders' backers who believe that she will crack down on Wall Street, reinstate the Glass-Steagall firewall on the banks, fight for hard-nosed regulations on the financial industry, and back Sanders' oft stated demand that the big banks be broken up. There's disbelief that she would try to slap a hefty tax bill on the wealthy and major corporations and that she can deftly pivot and call for a single payer health care plan. Clinton's answer to each of Sanders' proposals has been a mix of cautious reform and protest that his programs are too starry-eyed, costly, and absolutely impossible to get through any Congress.

But that's the dilemma. These are the exact proposals that Sanders repeatedly has shouted to crowds that stand in line for hours to see and hear him, and that pack arena after arena in the states; the very states that top the list of the handful of states that will decide the White House. The passion and inspiration that Sanders has injected into the Democratic primary campaign has been a sight to behold. Clinton can't duplicate that with the Sanders' faithful, but she does have to inch just close enough to his positions on Wall Street, the banks, and health care to give his most impassioned backers enough of a reason to not only show up on Election Day for her but to gently prod others who believe in Bernie to do the same.

Trump and Sanders have shown in their own way that a presidential candidate can have a seemingly radical program or no program at all and still fire up millions and actually get them to go to the polls and vote for them. The operative words are passion and disgust with beltway politicians who many believe routinely lie, cheat, cut deals, rake in king's ransom in cash from special interests, and don't give a hoot for the people. Clinton unfortunately is seen by a big swatch of those angry, frustrated, and alienated voters as one of them, Sanders isn't. This is a big part of his appeal. Clinton can't match that, but by imbibing some of Bernie's message she can convince many that she is a good bet to keep sending out some of that message in the White House. The election will hang heavily on whether she can do just that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is From Sanders to Trump: A Guide to the 2016 Presidential Primary Battles (Amazon Kindle) He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Saturdays 9:00 AM on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network
US President Barack Obama's late March visit to Cuba, continuing his initiative to re-establish friendly relations between the two countries, arouses opposition on both sides of the aisle in Washington.

The Republican complaints, of course, are to be expected. If Obama walked across the Florida Strait without wetting the hems of his trousers, Ted Cruz would ask why the president can't swim.

But some Democrats also oppose breaking the ice with Havana. "It is totally unacceptable for the president of the United States to reward a dictatorial regime," says US Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). "The president is again prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term American values."

Let's be honest here: Cruz, Menendez and their ilk have done as much to prop up Fidel Castro's regime as Castro's own secret police agents or neighborhood "Committees for the Defense of the Revolution" ever could, if not more. Half a century and change of sanctions and embargo have strengthened, not weakened, popular support for the island nation's Communist rulers.

National isolation is the desire of every dictator: If his subjects never see what a freer society looks like or have the opportunity to avail themselves of its goods and services, they have no standard against which to measure his rule and find it wanting.

If a powerful, threatening external enemy actively aids him in achieving that isolation, so much the better: For now even if his subjects DO get a glimpse of higher living standards and relative freedom to travel, speak and worship, he can just blame that external enemy for denying them such things.

This is the dynamic which has kept the mullahs in charge in Tehran since 1979 and the Communist Party in charge in Havana since 1959. It is this dynamic which Obama hopes, by way of burnishing his presidential legacy, to interrupt with his Jeffersonian ("friendship and commerce with all nations") overtures to Cuba.

The beneficiaries of the US embargo on Cuba have been the Castro regime, the US military industrial complex, the US sugar industry, and a few professional "opposition exiles" living on CIA funds and hoping to one day ride into Havana on American tanks. Its victims are legion and include the entire populations of Cuba the United States.

Just as it was a myth that "only Nixon could go to China," any president could have gone to Havana. One finally has. And we're all better off for it.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"One of the primary means of human communication, internal and external, is storytelling. Here, in Bottom-Up, Rob Kall is challenging humanity to tell itself a new story, one designed to free us from hierarchicalism to a more egalitarian, interconnected web of meaning."



Steven Barnes, television writer (Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Stargate) and author of LION'S BLOOD"
Secular stagnation

The global economy has not recovered from the subprime crisis yet. Since 2011, the International Monetary Fund revises its forecast downward every six months. Japan is in the middle of its third 'lost decade'. Europe is struggling. Only the United States and Britain seem to manage adequately. Several economists have sounded the alarm. Larry Summers revived the "secular stagnation" expression, first used in 1938. Two former Reagan administration's officials, Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Treasury Secretary, and David Stockman, Budget Director, predict a new crisis.

Many events may cause an economic crisis. Economists still debate the origins of the Great Depression. Whatever its roots, there often is a guiding thread. Keynesianism is blamed for the stagnation of the 70s. Neoliberalism and monetarism explain, at least in part, the secular stagnation. Neoliberalism is a deformed version of Adam Smith's views. Monetarism is the expression of Milton Friedman's theories. Quantitative easing is its ultimate form.

The Great Depression and the stagflation of the 70s brought about a radical change in the conduct of economic policy. Surprisingly, the subprime crisis had the reverse effect. It reinforced the neoliberal and monetarist policies of the 80s. The United States and Britain resorted to robust budget deficits (--10% of gross domestic product) for a brief period of time (2009/2010) before adopting quantitative-easing policies. European nations had smaller deficits, which were quickly followed by austerity measures and quantitative easing.

Hanging on to inefficient policies will not eliminate the secular stagnation. A new way of thinking will. Several economists such as Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz argue in favor of investments in infrastructure and education. The IMF, whose creed rests on the neoliberal Washington consensus, recently expressed similar views.

Jihadist attacks

Many nations believe they are exceptional. This is the case of the United States, Britain and France. But it is also true of China and many other nations. Since the middle of the 19th century, the United States considers itself to be endowed with a "manifest destiny". World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union reinforced this feeling in the beltway elite. In the 2015 National Security Strategy, Barack Obama writes: "the question is never whether America should lead [the world], but how we lead." In her debate with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton echoes the President's view when she states that it is the United States' duty to intervene (militarily) in the world whenever it sees fit. This thinking emanates from documents such as the "Defense Strategy for the 1990s" and the "Defense Planning Guidance". It impregnates both parties' platform and finds its expression in the United States' foreign policy.

An Israeli-American elite's analysis comforts the American rational ("Rebuilding America's Defense", "A Clean Break: a New Strategy for the Realm", the "Yinon Plan"). Even though Israeli authorities, including Benjamin Netanyahu, do not necessarily agree with this thinking, it pervades the American policy. The blowback the policy creates is felt in Europe through murderous attacks and a refugee influx. Does this mean that Western nations are solely responsible for these wretched events? Of course not. The Middle East is a structurally unstable region. But western nations, which never ceased to interfere in the region since the Sykes-Picot Accord, bear part of the blame.

Economic and political events punctuate our daily lives. Some are due to unpredictable causes. Others are the result of man's actions. These actions rest on a way of thinking. Neoliberal paroxysmal thinking and irresponsible hegemonic thinking explain, at least in part, the secular stagnation and the jihadist attacks. Difficult as it may be to accept, this is the conclusion the analysis leads to.
Reprinted from Reader Supported News

The American Public School system is dying a slow death. And many leading educators feel it is being poisoned by a drumbeat toward privatization -- marketed as choice -- along with a regimen of useless, costly, and sometimes racist testing programs that cater to a privileged class. Indeed, the battle cry for the last two administrations is choice/charter schools and privatization.

Among the most high profile educators and educational researchers raising her voice on the issue is Diane Ravitch, a research professor in education at New York University. Ravitch served as the Assistant Secretary of Education and as counselor to the Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. She is the author of 10 books, including "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."

In a recent interview, Secretary Ravitch expressed deep concern regarding the current presidential campaign's profound lack of attention to the failing K-12 public school system and the abject failure of the last two administration's attempts to mitigate the failures through an expanded program of privatization and a regime of costly and useless testing.

"For the past 15 years, the nation's public schools have been victims of the failed federal policies of the Bush and Obama administrations," said Ravitch. "15 years ago, Congress passed George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which required that every child in every year from 3rd grade to 8th grade had to be tested. There's no other country in the world that tests every child every year. It's just on overload. No Child Left Behind was supposed to close the achievement gaps, raise the graduation rates, and do all kinds of wonderful things. But none of the things it was supposed to do came true. So it was ... it became a toxic brand."

Ravitch and other critics of testing and choice assumed that, since the policy had failed so measurably under Bush Two, when Obama took the reins of power he would transform the policy. But according to Ravitch, the Obama administration put No Child Left Behind on steroids, and did so with the appointment of Arne Duncan, a charter school cheerleader, as Secretary of Education. Duncan pressed on with the policies of No Child Left Behind and expanded them under a new name, Race to the Top. According to Ravitch, it became a race to the bottom.

"When Obama ran for office many people, particularly educators thought he was going to change this policy, because it obviously failed," said Ravitch. "Schools were being closed around the country based on No Child Left Behind. Almost all the schools that are closed are schools in poor communities. They are schools where black and brown children go, especially poor kids. Then Obama came in, brought in Arne Duncan as the Secretary of Education, and doubled down on No Child Left Behind. They announced a program called Race to the Top. And that turned out to be even more reliant on standardized testing than No Child Left Behind. At some point you have to realize the testing has driven education out of a classroom. Kids are spending hours and hours, weeks and months, preparing to take the test, because the tests are so consequential. Your school might be closed, the teachers might be fired, and the principal might be fired if the test scores don't go up every year. So this is where we are. It's been disastrous, and ... none of the candidates talk about education much. So Republicans want more of the same, and the Democrats hardly mention it at all."

Dennis Bernstein: Welcome. Thank you for joining, Secretary Ravitch.

Diane Ravitch: Good to be with you.

DB: Alright, let's talk, let's go a little bit deeper with the impact of this kind of testing regime that has dominated K-12 for the past 15 years. There are many reverberations, and several of them are quite disturbing.

Ravitch: Well, yeah. And the main thing that it does is to cement social class and racial differences, because the one thing that testing does very accurately is that it correlates with family income. The kids who come from advantaged families, where they travel, they have library cards, they read to the kids at night, they have all these advantages " these kids do best on standardized testing. This is not just in the United States, it's all over the world. The haves get the high test scores, the have-nots get the low test scores. So we're taking this measure, and saying you're a good student or a bad student, you failed, when what's being measured more than anything else is family income.

The impact that it's had on teaching has been horrendous. I have a blog that's had almost 26 million pages at this point, and most of my readers are teachers. And there's not a day that goes by without some teacher saying, "I can't stand it anymore. All I do is administer tests. I give pre-tests, I give post-tests, I give interim assessments." This is what education has turned into. And this doesn't help kids. They don't get better because the stakes are made higher. They don't get smarter, if you raise the bar. I mean, the Obama's administration's gift to America was the Common Core Standards and they've been a disaster everywhere, because the tests associated with the Common Core Standards were made so hard that kids in every state, the majority of the kids, have failed. And if you were teaching, as I know you once did, and most of your kids failed the test, they would say, "Well, what kind of test did you give?" You have to give a test that the kids have some chance of passing. Not that you dumb the test down, but you have to know if it's a test for 4th grade, it has to be for 4th grade level. You don't give a 6th grade test to 4th graders. And that's in effect what we've been doing all over the country because of Common Core.

DB: What's the financial cost of testing? And does it take away from, for instance, all the possibilities for art and music programs? Does the money go to testing programs?

Ravitch: Well, what's happened is that the test scores matter more than anything else in American education today, and that's been true for the past 15 years. And so more and more time is devoted to testing, and less time, fewer resources are available for art or for music, or almost anything. Most states in this country have been defunding education, dis-investing in education. I think that's because most of the governors now are very, very conservative Republicans. And they don't want to invest in education. They would rather privatize, and have vouchers, and have charters, and let people be paid to homeschool their children. Things of that kind. They don't want to invest in public education.

So public education is being hit by a tsunami. The tsunami is, first of all, this pressure to get higher scores every year, and the budget cuts which give you fewer resources and larger class size. And the emphasis on testing also means you lose your art teacher, you lose your music teacher, you lose your social worker. There are cities like Philadelphia that are virtually bankrupt. And the answers from the government, state government, has been "Well, let's have more charters." And then the charters start pulling money away from the public school system, and all over this country we have, except in the affluent communities, we have public schools going into a tail spin because of underinvestment and because the charter schools are sucking away, luring away, the kids who are likeliest to succeed, and pushing out the kids who have special needs, the kids with disabilities, and the kids who don't speak English. And that way the public schools are overburdened with the most expensive children to educate.

DB: Let's just talk a little more about the other side of the destruction of the public school system, and that's the so-called privatization, the charter schools. Now it was interesting, and you point this out in your recent writing, that Bernie Sanders, when he was asked about charter schools, said, "Well, I only like the public charter schools." The point is that it shows his incredible ignorance, and not that I don't have a great deal of respect for him, but in that context there really aren't any public charter schools, right? By the very nature of it.
Reprinted from Counterpunch

My secret is contrarianism. Since the conventional wise men of the corporate mainstream media are almost always wrong, you'll almost always be right if you bet against them.

The MSM take on Donald Trump is a rare exception to the rule. They're scared and so am I. They're right to be frightened. He's an unconscious fascist, less like Hitler the careful schemer, more like Adolf's mentor Mussolini, who cobbled together a little bit from the socialist left and a lot from the nationalist right, winged it as he noted which lines got the most applause, and repeated those.

The trouble with Trump isn't his policies. He hardly has any. Those he has are so vague as to be laughable (see: the Mexican-financed border wall, mass deportations, etc.)

His temperament is the threat. Hillary Clinton hasn't met a war she didn't like, but it's easy to imagine Trump starting one -- maybe a big one -- accidentally. Trump has so much contempt for the system, the job he's running for, and the American people, that he hasn't bothered to study up on the issues. If he took real estate this seriously, he would have gone bankrupt even more often.

Here's some irony: America finally elects the magic businessman as president -- which we've been told for years would be awesome -- and securities markets tank in reaction to the uncertainty he creates.

Trump, used to getting his way all the time, is a bully. A president convinces. An authoritarian orders you. Do what he says, or else. This November, nothing less than the American political system is at stake.

So it's time to get real.

The establishment types are still in denial. Wake up, idiots!

At this writing, Trump is my odds-on favorite to win in November. Things could change. But that's where we've been for months and where we are now.

Because they didn't think Trump could win the nomination, the party's efforts to stop him have come way too little, way too late. Mitt Romney 2.0? Paul Ryan? Seriously?

Looking back, pressuring Trump and the other candidates promise to support the eventual nominee and foreswear a third-party/independent candidacy rates as one of the stupidest political maneuvers of all time. Now the Republicans are stuck with the dude.

Not that the Democrats are blameless. Barring a miraculous EmailGate-related indictment or the eruption of some new scandal-in-waiting, Hillary Clinton will probably be the Democratic nominee. Thank you, DNC! And she'll be a disaster. Head-to-head match-ups have consistently shown that she's weaker against Trump than Bernie Sanders.

Trump is hardwired to find the weak spots in his opponents. He'll have a field day demolishing Clinton's candidacy, which is constructed on a pair of fantasies: that her long resume equals a list of impressive accomplishments, and that her record of supporting right-wing wars and trade agreements means she's secretly a progressive longing to race out of the gate to keep "fighting for us." Remember what he did to Little Marco Rubio.

Trump will blow up Hillary's BS over and over and over. And there's a lot of BS to blow up.

Hillary's support is wide but shallow. Sure, some Bernie voters will dutifully Feel the Hill. But many Democrats, the ones who got into the Bern because they couldn't abide Clinton, will not. DINO Hillary is to Trump's right on war and trade and probably on Israel too. The #BernieorBust movement could leave enough progressives sitting home on election day or casting their votes for the Green Party's Jill Stein to put Trump into the White House.
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall's book, Bottom-Up: Tapping the Power of the Connection Revolution has really caused me to relook and reframe many of my thoughts on where our connectedness using social media tools like LinkedIn is headed, and not just for career trajectory but for life. If you are looking for a new perspective on our sometimes zany digital world we live in, this book will keep you reading and may ultimately revise but for sure challenge your current paradigm."



Wayne Breitbarth, author of The Power Formula for Linkedin Success: Kick-Start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search
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Max Blumenthal Drops by the Largest US Military Base in Latin America Max Blumenthal rolled up on the Soto Cano / Palmerola air base in Honduras, the US military's largest in Latin America. It plays a key role in Washington's military strategy for Central America, and was a major factor behind the 2009 coup.Video by Ben Norton Wednesday, July 24, 2019Max Blumenthal rolled up on the Soto Cano / Palmerola air base in Honduras, the US military's largest in Latin America. It plays a key role in Washington's military strategy for Central America, and was a major factor behind the 2009 coup.Video by Ben Norton

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Hondurans Describe Nightmare of Life Under US-Backed Dictatorship In downtown Tegucigalpa, average Hondurans told The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal that the US-backed Juan Orlando Herna'ndez government is a "dictatorship" that is destroying their lives and forcing many to immigrate.Video by Ben Norton Friday, July 12, 2019In downtown Tegucigalpa, average Hondurans told The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal that the US-backed Juan Orlando Herna'ndez government is a "dictatorship" that is destroying their lives and forcing many to immigrate.Video by Ben Norton

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Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11 Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal. Thursday, April 18, 2019Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.

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Trump Critics of Syria Withdrawal Fueled Rise of ISIS Too many of those protesting the removal of U.S. forces are authors of the catastrophe that tore Syria to pieces, reports Max Blumenthal for Consortium News. Friday, December 28, 2018Too many of those protesting the removal of U.S. forces are authors of the catastrophe that tore Syria to pieces, reports Max Blumenthal for Consortium News.

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US-Funded Neo-Nazis in Ukraine Mentor US White Supremacists Short-sighted U.S. foreign policy that backs jihadists in the Middle East and neo-Nazis in Ukraine is once again blowing back on the United States, as Max Blumenthal explains. Sunday, November 18, 2018Short-sighted U.S. foreign policy that backs jihadists in the Middle East and neo-Nazis in Ukraine is once again blowing back on the United States, as Max Blumenthal explains.

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Video: Congress welcomes an actual fascist as Nazi violence rages in Ukraine Parubiy held private discussions with the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan and enjoyed what Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Andrea Thomson described as an "excellent meeting" with a "proactive" leader. Parubiy's first meeting with Ryan, which Ben Norton covered for the Grayzone last June, was also treated as business as usual, without a single protest or critical word from the Beltway press. Monday, July 2, 2018Parubiy held private discussions with the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan and enjoyed what Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Andrea Thomson described as an "excellent meeting" with a "proactive" leader. Parubiy's first meeting with Ryan, which Ben Norton covered for the Grayzone last June, was also treated as business as usual, without a single protest or critical word from the Beltway press.

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by Colin Cortbus

An explicit student-produced online documentary depicts a rampant culture of illicit drug taking by students at a top Portland public school, just months after recreational marijuana legalization came into effect in mid-2015. The filmmaker says Oregon should not have legalized Marijuana without implementing a comprehensive strategy to protect minors from the drug.

The film, called Weed Documentary 2016  High School appeared online earlier this month. It suggests an escalating problem with illicit student drug use at the public Cleveland High School in Southeast Portland, where the films producer, student Ben Grayzel, graduated in 2015.

In footage shot in January 2016, health teacher Jeff Zerba says I think it is rampant, I think everybody uses it. High schoolers in the film are seen consuming the drug, and express similar sentiments about the prevalence of drugs at the public school. In footage shot in a park close to the school in October 2015, one senior says Its so easy for us to get weed, to the point where it is like easier than getting water. Ive had mornings where I smoke weed before I have even ate anything.

An 8th grader who is in the company of Cleveland High students says Im fourteen, I started smoking when I was maybe twelve Im getting high pretty much every day.

The film also raises concerns about increasing numbers of students abusing prescription medication like Xanax recreationally.

When Oregon debated the legalization of weed in 2014, campaigners from the Pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance, a non-partisan group back financially by well-known left-winger George Soros, said that the move would be the best way to protect minors from the drug. People often confuse prohibition with controlWe have an opportunity to create a responsible industry, Dr. Amanda Reiman, an academic at the ultra-liberal UC Berkeley and policy official for the campaign group, told The Oregonian back then.

Half a year after legalization came into effect, comments by Cleveland Highs teacher Jeff Zerba, however, paint a very different, much bleaker picture regarding the extent to which access to drugs at schools has been responsibly controlled. In the film, he says, This is me, I dont think we do enough, it seems like we talk about it in a staff meeting and then it goes away or we bring in somebody who talks to the staff and then it is done with for a year or two.

Zerba suggests greater efforts are needed to tackle the problem at the school head on, but then seems to suggest school officials may be reluctant or incompetent to do so, commenting And I dont know if thats a publicity thing, that Portland Public Schools or Cleveland  dont take this out of context  but maybe they just dont want that to get to the press, maybe they dont know how to do it, maybe they are trying and I am just not seeing it, I dont know.

Neither Cleveland High Schools Principal, nor teacher Jeff Zerba responded to requests by Oregon Catalyst for comment. Jon Isaacs, the head of communications for Portland Public Schools, told us that they coordinate on a daily basis with the police to limit student access to drugs. He outlined a number of measures that have been taken at Cleveland High School since films about drug abuse at the school first appeared in 2015, including educating teachers about intervention protocols, liaising with parents, and facilitating drug treatment services. He also said that most students featured in an earlier film made by Ben Grayzel in 2015 about drug abuse at Cleveland High are no longer attending the school.

Jenni Knaus, an administrative specialist at the Oregon Department for Education, said that while drug use in schools is always concerning The video provided was not something we were familiar with at the Department, and given the circumstances surrounding the documentary-style video it is hard to generalize one student and one teachers comments to represent an entire school or school district. Asked whether the legalization of recreational marijuana had contributed to illicit drug issues at Oregon schools, Knaus responded vaguely It is too early to address these questions as the situation is still developing and data is not yet available.

The producer of the high school marijuana film, Ben Grayzel, a Cleveland High graduate who is now a student at Quest University in West-Coast Canada, struck a cautionary note about legalization. Speaking to Oregon Catalyst, he warned I think that it was entirely irresponsible of the state of Oregon to legalize without implementing some sort of drug education program for adolescents. In making this film I was surprised by the lack of knowledge most of these kids had about the development effects of habitual marijuana use.

Grayzel said there was a need to move away from outdated, failing drug-education efforts and introduce a more comprehensive drug education program in all public schools. Research emphasizes that adolescent marijuana use can have seriously negative effects on educational achievement, mental health, can lead to later life drug dependence, and is linked to an increased risk of dropping out of school.

Right now Grayzel says, theres a whole generation of kids who are constantly stoned without really seeing it as a problem. I worry that we will regret not doing more to address the issue of adolescent use in this time of change and legalization.

If we dont stop seeing teenage drug use through the radical lefts rose-tinted spectacles, is there a risk that a whole generation of Oregon high schoolers is being left behind?

Colin Cortbus is a freelance journalist  his investigative work has appeared in the UK Daily Mirror, the UK Daily Star, the Berliner Kurier and Channel 7 (Israel).
Disqualified candidate casts shadow over Iranian women's political progress

03/25/16

Source: Radio Zamaneh

The Isfahan governor has confirmed the disqualification of Minoo Khaleghi, the third candidate elected from Isfahan in the parliamentary election of February 26. He also reported that the candidate has filed an appeal of the decision.





cartoon by Ehsan Ganji, Ghanoon daily





Rasoul Zargarpour said on Wednesday March 23 that the other four top candidates have been confirmed by the Guardian Council and will represent Isfahan in the next Parliament.



The candidate ranked as the third-highest winner of votes in Isfahan is Minoo Khaleghi, a female candidate endorsed by the reformist camp. Yesterday it was announced that she has been disqualified by the Guardian Council.





Minoo Khaleghi



Zargarpour said on March 19 he received the disqualification letter for Khaleghi issued by the Guardian Council and has already informed the president and called for an explanation regarding this matter.



He added that Khaleghi is currently appealing the matter, and if she does not succeed in her appeal, the sixth person to win the highest votes in Isfahan will go on to take her place in Parliament.



Following the elections, the confirmed victory of 14 women and the potential addition of another six in the second round was marked as a relative victory for women in politics. The disqualification of Khaleghi raises a shadow of doubt over that perception.



Some unofficial reports have indicated that the Guardian Council based its decision to disqualify on Khaleghi's alleged "failure to abide by the Islamic rules on trips abroad." The council has not yet offered a formal reason for its decision.
Iranian President Visits Pakistan Seeking Better Ties

03/25/16 By Ayaz Gul, VOA

ISLAMABAD - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani visits neighboring Pakistan for two days starting Friday. The trip is apparently part of Iran's diplomatic campaign to boost economic and trade ties with neighboring and regional countries now that international sanctions against it have been removed.





Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (R) welcomes Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



Pakistani and Iranian officials say the sanctions had for years prevented the two countries from expanding economic relations and slowed progress on efforts to import Iranian natural gas to meet rapidly growing needs in energy-starved Pakistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammed Nafees Zakaria, said President Hassan Rouhani's visit, his first to the country since taking office, offers an opportunity to conclude pending agreements and move bilateral relations forward.

"This visit is taking place at a very important juncture and time when the sanctions on Iran have been lifted," he said. "... High on the agenda would be the economic relations and the leadership on both sides are very keen to actually add economic content to the bilateral relations."

Officials expect exponential growth in trade and economic relations in coming months. Bilateral annual trade currently stands at around $250 million and there are plans for a five-year road map to increase it to $5 billion a year.

During the visit, Rouhani is expected to discuss a pipeline project for transporting Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.

Iranian officials say the pipeline on their side is largely completed. Pakistani officials, however, blame economic sanctions against Iran for preventing work on their side, although they now vow to begin construction soon.

The international sanctions alone have not stopped Islamabad from improving ties with Tehran.

Sanctions not the only hurdle

Critics believe Pakistan does not want to upset Iran's rival, Saudi Arabia, with which it has deep political and economic relations. The Sunni Arab nation enjoys respect and popularity in predominantly Sunni Muslim Pakistan.

In recent years, Riyadh has provided Islamabad with critical financial assistance and oil on deferred payments to support Pakistan's troubled economy and shore up its critically low foreign exchange reserves.

Pakistan is close to Saudi Arabia but that does not mean it is hostile to Iran, said analyst Masood Khan, who heads Islamabad's Institute of Strategic Studies.

"I don't think there is a competition in the two sets of relationships that we have with Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said. "There are tensions from time to time that emerge and we try to resolve them. In fact, it is our sincere desire that this tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran should go down."

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has recently deepened the sectarian divide between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and fueled tensions across the Middle East.

The confrontation prompted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to travel to Saudi Arabia and Iran in January to try to reduce tensions between the two countries. Pakistani military chief General Raheel Sharif accompanied him.

Pakistan, having the largest and only nuclear-armed army in the Muslim world, last year refused to join a Saudi-led Sunni coalition to fight in Yemen against Iranian-backed forces. It said Islamabad would not join forces with any alliance against Tehran.

The move angered Riyadh, although Islamabad vowed to stand ready to respond to any attack against Saudi Arabia.

Parting ways on Afghanistan

Iran's Rouhani, in his meetings with Sharif and other Pakistani leaders, is also expected to review peace efforts in Afghanistan, which shares long borders with both countries.

Iran and Pakistan have long supported rival Afghan factions in the conflict-torn nation, which has often caused tensions in diplomatic ties, although they now openly support internationally-led efforts aimed at ending the Afghan conflict.

In a message to Pakistani media ahead of his arrival in Islamabad, Rouhani noted that "long borders of the two countries could be a constrictive element in strengthening mutual relations more than ever."

He added that it is important for Pakistan and Iran to establish better cooperation because it will facilitate the economic growth of other regional countries and give them access to Iran's oil and gas resources. He said that would go a long way in reducing regional tensions.
Prominent Iranian Journalist Remains Hospitalized After Delayed Health Care

03/25/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Severe health problems are keeping prisoner of conscience Issa Saharkhiz , a prominent reformist journalist, under observation in the hospital he was transferred to from Evin Prison on March 9, 2016.



Issa Saharkhiz



Saharkhiz has protested his detention and inhumane conditions by enduring three hunger strikes since being arrested by the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization on November 2, 2015.

"The doctors say that my father needs to be supervised and undergo some more tests to determine his new ailment and he's still suffering from high blood pressure as well as kidney and heart diseases," Saharkhiz's son, Mehdi Saharkhiz, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

In a letter from prison published on his son's Facebook account on March 8, 2016, Saharkhiz said he had not received timely health care despite exhibiting serious medical symptoms.



"I ... had severe seizures a few times. After three and a half months, and only on orders from the representative of the Legal Medicine Organization, was I transferred to the infirmary at Evin Prison," wrote Saharkhiz.

"I have not received even a simple electroencephalogram (EEG) for diagnosis of this new, unknown condition," he said. "Naturally, when a medical examination that is critical to a prisoner's health is neglected, the prisoner's other rights are also neglected."

Political prisoners in Iran are singled out for particularly harsh treatment, which often includes denial of medical care, in direct violation of Iran's own laws and Prison Regulations.

"I was often locked up in a solitary cell, which is a form of 'white torture' [psychological and mental torture]," he added.

Solitary confinement is a common tactic used in Iran to increase psychological pressure on a prisoner to extract a false confession. Such "confessions" are then used as evidence to convict-and are frequently broadcast over Iran's state TV in order to defame the individual.

"Even when someone else shared a cell with me, it was just to look after me, because, due to various reasons and different illnesses, I have repeatedly fallen down in the room, the bathrooms, the courtyard, during fresh air breaks, etc., due to a severe drop in my blood pressure and poor blood circulation to my brain," wrote Saharkhiz.

"I hope my father will go free in this [Persian] New Year [starting March 20, 2016)," his son, Mehdi Saharkhiz, told the Campaign.

"I hope the authorities will act according to the Constitution and not send people to prison for expressing their views," he said. "All my father did was speak his mind. Now he's so sick that they moved him to the hospital."

Sixty-two-year-old Issa Saharkhiz, a well-known political commentator, has been charged with "assembly and collusion for acting against national security" and "propaganda against the state."

He was due to face trial on March 5, 2016, at Branch 28 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, but the proceedings were postponed after Saharkhiz's lawyers complained they had not been allowed to access his case file until the day of the trial.

Saharkhiz ended his third hunger strike , which had lasted two weeks, on March 7 after he was transferred from solitary confinement inside Evin Prison's Ward 2-A-controlled by the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization-to Ward 8.

But he lost consciousness on March 9, 2016 and was taken to a hospital outside the prison in Tehran.

Saharkhiz previously spent nearly five years in prison for publishing political commentaries critical of the widely disputed results of Iran's 2009 presidential elections.

He previously served in President Mohammed Khatami's reformist administration (1997-2005) as head of the press department at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
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Glynnis Hood, professor of environmental science at Augustana Campus, lives near Lake Miquelon and guides students' research in the wetlands of the Beaver Hills area.

An ecologically rich area of Alberta that is home to a University of Alberta research station and fertile ground for dozens of researchers over the years has won international recognition.

Home to a mix of preserved wetlands, green rolling hills and dense boreal forests, the Beaver Hills area east of Edmonton has been designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserve, under its Man and the Biosphere Programme. The area joins a network of 669 sites in 120 countries that foster ecologically sustainable human and economic development. Researchers from various faculties at the U of A have conducted dozens of studies there over the last 30 years, focused on work ranging from wildlife and outdoor recreation to wetlands and land management.

"University of Alberta research has benefited from the Beaver Hills area in many ways," said Guy Swinnerton, professor emeritus in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation and chair of the Beaver Hills Initiative Protected Areas Working Group. Swinnerton, who has enjoyed the Beaver Hills area as both a hiker and a researcher for many years, assisted in the nomination process for the UNESCO designation.

He began taking students to the area in 1978 while teaching courses about protected areas and outdoor recreation. "Beaver Hills has different types of protected areas, and it's that whole mosaic that is important," he said.

The Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve becomes the second area of Alberta to win UNESCO designation, after the Waterton Biosphere Reserve in 1979. Home to the U of A's Augustana Miquelon Lake Research Station, the biosphere's 1,572 square kilometres also encompass Elk Island National Park, Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, the Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary and the Strathcona Wilderness Centre.

With its well-preserved, protected parklands and forests sitting next to surrounding farms and residential subdivisions, the Beaver Hills biosphere provides opportunities for university researchers and government scientists to investigate, through comparative studies, how to protect biodiversity and practise sustainable development within the lived-in landscape.

"It's this total landscape approach that demonstrates how we have to work collectively to find balance between conservation and sustainable development," Swinnerton said.

"It's a hidden gem," added Glynnis Hood, an associate professor of environmental science based at the U of A's Augustana Campus. "Beaver Hills is spectacular because of its subtle beauty. There are ecological surprises around every corner, because you're not looking for the big features like mountains, but for the small surprises." One of those surprises is the fisher, a weasel thought to be gone from the area that seems to have a healthy population and is now the subject of a collaborative University of Victoria study involving Augustana Campus.

"The Beaver Hills biosphere offers a rich opportunity to keep exploring questions that are right in our own backyard," said Hood, who lives near Miquelon Lake and has for years guided students in researching area wetlands. She's also studied human-wildlife conflicts and is currently researching low-impact wetland management practices.

Last year she and colleague Glen Hvenegaard led the first field course in environmental science and ecology at the Miquelon Lake Research Station, which opened in 2015. The 17-day course, which will be offered biannually, gave U of A students the chance to appreciate the Beaver Hills area's rich diversity as they studied everything from park interpretation to muskrats to soil science. "It was a great way to get the students to really live in the landscape and understand it intimately though research," Hood said.

The UNESCO designation affirms the Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve as a world-class discovery ground that, through the work of U of A researchers and other groups, is yielding insights into global problems.

"It demonstrates grassroots excellence and honours the commitment of organizations and people in solving conservation and sustainable development problems on the ground," Swinnerton said.

Explore further UNESCO adds 20 new sites to list of biosphere reserves
There's a phenomenon called "environmental injustice"  it characterizes the reality whereby environmental burdens, such as toxic and other waste disposal, are more pronounced in economically disadvantaged communities than in more well-off areas.

A recent study co-authored by Cornell associate professors Arturs Kalnins and Glen Dowell sought to examine this inequality over the last three decades, since the inception of the toxic release inventory (TRI), a mandatory program of the Environmental Protection Agency that tracks the management of certain toxic chemicals.

Their findings suggest that, while overall pollution has been reduced significantly over that time, the disparity in mitigation between rich and poor areas is stark  and continues to grow.

"I was actually struck by the contrast there," said Kalnins, of the School of Hotel Administration. "If you break the USA apart geographically by income quartiles, the wealthiest quartile of counties has enjoyed a tremendous drop in corporate pollution. The highest quartile has seen pollution levels drop about 70 percent from just 30 years ago, and the lowest quartile has seen it drop by around 20 percent. To add to that, the large drop in wealthy areas was from a much lower initial level of pollution than that of the lower income areas. That's a striking imbalance."

Their research is documented in a paper published online last September in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Kalnins and Dowell, who is area coordinator of management and organizations in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, met as graduate students in the late 1990s at the University of Michigan.

They've talked regularly since Dowell arrived at Cornell in 2007. Kalnins offered a different perspective from Dowell on corporate pollution, which Dowell has studied extensively.

"Maybe my benefit coming in as a total novice was just to ask different and more general questions," Kalnins said.

The pair combined Kalnins' background in statistical analysis with Dowell's expertise in corporate pollution to tackle the effect of the TRI on pollution mitigation.

Their research factored in such variables as continuously operating plants against those that entered and exited a community during 1998 to 2014, and found the pattern held true for both.

One facet of their research particularly supported the veracity of their claims. In 23 of the 25 largest states in terms of number of polluting establishments, pollution reduction was greater in the wealthier half of counties than in the poorer half.

"In this case, everybody's doing a little better in terms of pollution," Kalnins said, "but for the wealthy areas, it's really come down tremendously."

Kalnins said that while the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is a different sort of case, their research points to some similarities with it.

"Flint is a perfect example," he said, "of both the inability of the lower-income classes to organize and the explicit disregard of their interests by the political hierarchy, which is particularly disturbing. I would hope that in most cases [in our study], while it's still unfortunate, it's a little bit more benign than that."

Over the 26 years they studied, their research concluded, wealthy areas enjoyed a 67.7 percent drop in total pounds of chemicals emitted, while poorer areas saw just a 17.9 percent reduction. There was one component, however, that did not play a role in what they found.

"Racial composition did not make the inequality even worse," Dowell said. "Poor areas such as Flint suffer disproportionately, but poor mostly white areas fare no better in terms of the corporate pollution, at least in our study."

Their paper is titled "Community Characteristics and Changes in Toxic Chemical Releases: Does Information Disclosure Affect Environmental Injustice?" Kalnins hopes it will serve as a wake-up call to those who would declare that they are "winning" in the battle to reduce pollution levels nationwide.

"Its implications are very practical," he said of the study. "Particularly in terms of how people are boasting so much about how corporate pollution has gone down, let's at least officially acknowledge and discuss this inequality issue, and figure out specific mechanisms to fix it."

"These results at least raise some troubling questions about the efficacy of information disclosure as a regulatory tool," Dowell added. "Poor areas don't have the resources to act on the information, and may be captive to the jobs that these polluting facilities provide, so are reluctant to push back against the polluters."

More information: Arturs Kalnins et al. Community Characteristics and Changes in Toxic Chemical Releases: Does Information Disclosure Affect Environmental Injustice?, Journal of Business Ethics (2015). Journal information: Journal of Business Ethics Arturs Kalnins et al. Community Characteristics and Changes in Toxic Chemical Releases: Does Information Disclosure Affect Environmental Injustice?,(2015). DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2836-5
Not getting enough charitable donations? Try having people to touch sandpaper before you ask for money. A new study shows that touching rough surfaces triggers the emotion of empathy, which motivates people to donate to non-profit organizations.

"We found that when people were experiencing mild discomfort as a result of touching a rough surface, they were more aware of discomfort in their immediate environment," said Chen Wang, an assistant marketing professor at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. "They could better empathize with individuals who were suffering."

Their findings are available online in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In one experiment, the team tested brain activity when participants viewed painful versus neutral images. In some trials the participants held an object wrapped in sandpaperknown as haptic roughnesswhile they saw the pictures. In other trials they held an object wrapped in smooth paper. The participants showed more brain activity when touching the sandpaper than the smooth paper, particularly when viewing the painful images.

In another experiment the researchers asked one group of participants to wash their hands with a smooth soap and the other with a rough, exfoliating solution. Then each group filled out questionnaires rating their willingness to donate to a charity. The group that had used the rough hand wash was more willing than the soft soap group to donate to a lesser-known foundation that supports people who suffer from Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease in which the white blood cells attack the moisture-producing glands.

This difference between the groups did not occur when participants rated their willingness to give to the well-known National Breast Cancer Foundation. Familiarity with a charity overrode the effect of haptic roughness, Wang said.

The findings could have significant implications for less well-known charities that are trying to raise money, according to the study.

"Often smaller charities invest a lot of money in advertising to build awareness, but our data suggests that introducing haptic roughness into outreach materials could be an innovative and cost-effective approach," she said.

Wang suggested that these organizations could include rough-textured material in mailers or wrap clipboards in sandpaper. This strategy could improve donation levels for the 30 percent of smaller non-profits nationwide that raise less than $100,000 in donations annually, according to the Urban Institute.

"The goal of our work is to make a social impact," Wang said. "It's critical to identify novel approaches to meet the massive humanitarian needs in our complex, modern world, and I hope we have done that."

Provided by Society for Consumer Psychology
Fresh beans on sale in a Rwandan market. Credit: Stephanie Malyon / CIAT

To build a more climate-resilient agriculture sector, the Rwandan government and partners are taking action to provide nearly a million farmers timely access to essential climate information services. The Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project will ultimately help transform Rwanda's rural farming communities and national economy through improved climate risk management. The project builds on ongoing innovations made by IRI's Enhancing National Climate Services initiative (ENACTS), which filled in a 15-year gap in Rwanda's historical meteorological records.

Agriculture contributes to one-third of Rwanda's gross domestic production and remains the main source of subsistence for the majority of the country's population. Farming employs eight out of ten Rwandans. Despite its importance, the sector remains highly vulnerable to current and projected climate and weather variability. Severe flooding in 2007, for example, caused an estimated US$22 million in two districts alone. Recurrent hail and wind storms, heavy rains and prolonged droughts take frequent tolls on agricultural productivity. Such weather events are expected to become more frequent and intensive with climate change, posing a threat to food security.

"In this context, it becomes critical that farmers can access and use reliable climate and weather forecasts," said Innocent Bisangwa, an environmental and climate change specialist in Rwanda's Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI). "Through this work, we will help them make the best decisions about when and what to plant, how much fertilizer to apply and when to harvest," he said.

This chart shows the number of operational weather stations in Rwanda

The new project addresses two critical issues: reconstructing Rwanda's incomplete meteorological data record using cutting-edge climate science, and developing climate information products and services based on the expressed needs of farmers and other end users.

The work is carried out by the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) and Meteo Rwanda, in collaboration with the the CGIAR Research Program on Climate, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"We're very excited about this project and what it plans to achieve in the next 4 years," said Malick Haidara, the director of USAID Rwanda's Economic Growth Office, during the official launch. "We believe it's transformative."

A Generation of Missing Data

The missing data traces its origins in tragedy. The 1990-1994 civil war and genocide in Rwanda led to a catastrophic disruption of Rwanda's meteorological observation network. Most of the country's weather stations had been destroyed, looted or rendered inoperable. A decade later, only few stations had been brought back online. It was not until 2010 that Rwanda's National Meteorological Agency restored its pre-1994 number of stations.

"We had to address this 15-year gap in our meteorological records," said Didace Musoni, from Meteo-Rwanda. "This was not an abstract problem: the absence of such data has had significant impact on society here," he said.

"A lack of historical data means we cannot get an accurate baseline definition of weather in a 'normal' season, which means seasonal forecasts are going to be less accurate," said Tufa Dinku, a research scientist at IRI who leads the ENACTS work. "For example, if forecasts call for 'above-normal' rainfall for the growing season, what does that really mean? The scale of the data problem in Rwanda is something we hadn't encountered in other countries," Dinku said.

Dinku lists a number of questions that are difficult to answer without solid historical data: How is climate change unfolding in the country? Are there certain areas seeing more impacts than others? What is the year-to-year variability in rainfall and how has that changed? What has been the trend between climate and agricultural productivity? Even the impacts of El Nino would be poorly known.

The 1997/98 El Nino had massive, wide ranging consequences over eastern Africa. At that time, Rwanda had only 3 or 4 weather stations measuring data. Even in a small country like Rwandawhich is the size of Massachusettsthe effects of El Nino vary.

When countries in the region were trying to prepare for the 2015 El Nino, they naturally looked at the rainfall and temperature patterns of 1997 for comparison. "Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia all did that," says Dinku. "But it would have been difficult in Rwanda, because there was so little information."

ENACTS changed the situation by bringing in global satellite technology and climate-model products. For decades, satellites have been continuously monitoring rainfall, temperature and other climate variables over most of the world at high resolution.

Using that ENACTS approach, Meteo-Rwanda has filled in the missing data by blending whatever on-the-ground measurements existed with the global products. As a result, Rwanda now has more than 30 years of rainfall and temperature data every 5-km across the whole country.

"There are now no gaps in the record, and this opens up a whole world of opportunities for us," said Musoni.

Dinku adds that the focus of ENACTS isn't just on improving quality of the data, but also on improving access to data and its use. He has worked closely with Meteo-Rwanda, organizing trainings to ensure its staff understand how to work with the new data. Members of the IRI's Data Library team have also helped install maprooms that allow anyone to visualize and download the products.

Robust, Science-based and User-informed Climate Services

"Rebuilding the data sets the foundation for developing the kinds of information products we know are useful to farmers and other decision makers," explained James Hansen, Program Leader for the CCAFS flagship on managing climate risk. "These include forecasts by SMS and radio, which now reach millions of rural people in countries such as Senegal," he said.

The new Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project will build on the ENACTS innovations to improve agricultural planning and food security management in the country at all levels.

"The goal is to develop the government's capacity to provide location-specific, climate information that is relevant for decision makers, while also developing the capacity of agriculture extension workers to bring that kind of information to farmers and assist them in incorporating it into their planning," says Bisangwa.

A key success factor is involving farmers from the beginning, and ensuring their knowledge is built into these initiatives. The project will use a tried and tested approach known as PICSAParticipatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture  to help farmers understand how climate information could impact their own decision making.

The project aims to deliver four specific outcomes:

Climate Services for Farmers. Farmers across Rwanda's 30 districts will have decision-relevant, operational climate information and advisory services, and be trained to use the information to better manage risk.

Climate Services for Government and Institutions. Agricultural and food security decision makers in the Ministry of Agriculture and other national and local government agencies and institutions will use climate information to respond more effectively to risks.

Climate Information Provision. Meteo-Rwanda will design, deliver, and incorporate user feedback into a growing suite of weather and climate information products and services tailored to the needs of decision makers.

Climate Services Governance. A national climate services governance process will oversee and foster sustained coproduction, assessment and improvement of climate services.

"Rwanda is showcasing what can be done with climate services, even when you have an enormous gap in observational records," said Hansen. "It's the only country in Africa as far as we know with an official 'open data' policy and it's poised to lead the continent in making not just forecasts but data a public good and a resource for development."

Explore further Rwanda hopes to use drones to deliver medical supplies
Use this chart to help you find Comet 252P/LINEAR at least 1 hours before sunrise in late March. The area of sky shown is close to the southern horizon for observers at mid-northern latitudes. Symbols show the comets location every 8 hours along its track; those with dates are plotted for 4 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (0h Universal Time) on that date. The comet will likely appear as a soft round glow with a bright center and now tail. The 10 scale bar at far left is about the width of your clenched fist at arms length, and the faintest stars shown are magnitude 5 (visible from a dark site free of light pollution). Credit: Sky & Telescope diagram

Astronomers who scan the skies for returning comets are often disappointed. Sometimes these icy visitors from the fringes of our planetary system end up being much fainter than predicted.

And sometimes the opposite happens. Comet LINEAR (formally designated 252P), now in Earth's general vicinity, started brightening abruptly a few weeks ago and has become more than 100 times brighter than expected. Observers from the Southern Hemisphere have been able to glimpse the comet by eye, without any optical aid, from very dark skies.

Now Comet LINEAR is moving rapidly northward into view from the Northern Hemisphere. Our view won't be as goodunfortunately, the Moon will flood the sky with nature's own light pollution. But you might be able to find the comet with binoculars. You'll need to be out at least 1 hours before sunrise, in a location as free from light pollution as possible. Bring the accompanying sky chart and a dim light to read it by. The comet is moving between the distinctive constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, located low in the southern part of the sky before dawn. Each morning the comet will be higher up with respect to the surrounding stars, as shown on the chart.

The planets Saturn and Mars are in this part of the sky as well. They and the bright star Antares will be the first things you notice, forming a distinctive triangle a little smaller than your clenched fist held at arm's length. The comet is climbing to the left of this trio. It will be roughly in line with Mars and Saturn on the morning of March 29th and along a line connecting Saturn and Antares on March 31st. But the comet is faint enough, especially though the moonlight, that you'll need to use the chart to pinpoint the exact spot among the stars to examine.

Comet 252P/LINEAR glows a vivid green from fluorescing gas in this composite photo taken from Namibia on March 18, 2016, with a specialized telescope 12 inches in aperture. Credit: Gerald Rhemann / www.astrostudio.at

"Don't expect Comet LINEAR to be obvious with a long tail," explains Sky & Telescope Senior Editor Kelly Beatty. "Its light isn't concentrated in a single point but instead is spread out in a soft round glow, larger than the Moon but many thousands of times dimmer."

In fact, on March 30th the Moon will be an extremely glary intrusion just 3 (about two finger-widths at arm's length) to the comet's lower right.

Photographs show that Comet LINEAR has a greenish color, caused by molecules of diatomic carbon (C2) that are fluorescing in sunlight. However, the green tint likely won't be evident unless you view the comet through a telescope.

Given the comet's unexpected surge, astronomers aren't sure how long it will remain even binocular-bright. It passed closest to Earth, just 3.3 million miles away, on March 21st. Now it's moving away from both Earth and the Sun.

Another small visitor, called Comet PanSTARRS (designated P/2016 BA14), passed even closer to Earthabout 2.2 million miles awayon March 22nd. It is also crossing our skies now but is too faint to be seen except with a large backyard telescope. The timing of these paired visits is probably no coincidence. The "P" in both comets' designations means they are in periodic (elliptical) orbits that bring them near the Sun repeatedly, in this case about every 5 years. Their orbits are so similar that comet specialists suspect these two bodies are fragments of a single object.

LINEAR is an acronym for Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research, an MIT Lincoln Laboratory program funded by the U.S. Air Force and NASA. Its team discovered Comet 252P on April 7, 2000. PanSTARRS stands for Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, a wide-field imaging telescope developed by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. Its team discovered Comet P/2016 BA14 on January 22, 2016, and the alphanumeric designation indicates that astronomers initially believed this object to be an asteroid. The ice-rich cores, or nuclei, of these two bodies are very roughly 750 feet (230 meters) and 350 feet (100 meters) across, respectively.

Explore further A 'tail' of two comets
Ranger Hashumu Abdullahi (C), known as 'The Armorer' and his assistant, unpacking some of the over 200 confiscated locally made 'Dane guns' at Yankari Game Reserve in northeastern Nigeria

For years, blacksmith Hashimu Abdullahi was making guns for ivory poachers and hunters invading the Yankari Game Reserve, one of the last wildlife areas home to elephants in Nigeria.

The five-kilogram (11-pound), 1.5-metre-long (five-foot) flintlock muskets are a relic of West Africa's colonial past, when slave traders used and swapped almost identically designed guns for people.

But today the 'Dane guns'the colloquial name for the homemade firearmsare the weapon of choice for people fighting Yankari's rangers for control of the park and the lucrative animals within.

"I feel shameful. I don't want to see poachers again," Abdullahi, a 44-year-old man with impeccable posture and a neat moustache, told AFP.

Abdullahi, known as 'The Armourer', is an unlikely conservation convert, hired by Yankari as a ranger in 2012 for his talent in crafting the firearms.

Now he is part of a 80-strong team that protects Yankari in a bush battle where ivory poachers, hunters, herdsman and even Acacia tree sap harvesters are pitted against rangers protecting the park and its 300 elephantsthe last viable elephant population in the country.

Abdullahi says he and the other rangers are often shot at "by a gun like this", pointing to one of more than 200 confiscated Dane guns, held together with rusted wire and one with a shoulder strap fashioned from faded blue shoelaces.

Wildlife in Yankari Game Reserve is under pressure from subsistence hunters and ivory poachers armed with "Dane guns."

When asked if he was scared to go out on patrol in the evening, Abdullahi replied solemnly: "This is how we took it. This is our job. This is how it is."

Boko Haram threat?

Unlike South Africa, where a rhino poaching crisis is driven by sophisticated international crime syndicates who sell horns to overseas clients, in Nigeria the threat to wildlife is more amorphous.

Hunters emboldened by voodoo charms pick off animals from the reserve and destroy key infrastructure such as bridges to thwart rangers on patrol.

Herdsmen shepherd cows, sheep and donkeys into the park, who chow the food of the elephants, waterbuck and roan antelope.

Now there are growing fears that Boko Haram fighters, on the back foot after a Nigerian military counter-offensive, may set up camp in Yankari and use the bush as a base to launch deadly attacks.

Good luck charms used by illegal hunters and ivory poachers to avoid detection or harm at Yankari Game Reserve in northeastern Nigeria

Haladu Idi, one of Yankari's senior rangers, said his policeman friend working in the strategic northeastern city of Maiduguri warned him Boko Haram could be heading Yankari's way.

The militants have for years been based in the Sambisa Forest, a colonial-era game reserve in Borno state.

"He called me and said we should be careful of them," said Idi. "I told him, 'Yes, I agree'. He said, 'If you see them you must delete them'."

The worst-case scenario could see Boko Haram start poaching Nigeria's last elephants for ivory to fund their operations, mirroring the business model of other African armed groups including Ugandan-led rebel group The Lord's Resistance Army and Janjaweed horsemen from Sudan.

"Large domestic ivory markets in Lagos and Abuja threaten Yankari's elephants," said Andrew Dunn, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) country director in Nigeria.

"It is essential that we protect Yankari's elephants to prevent their ivory from becoming a source of revenue for Boko Haram."

A screengrab taken on July 13, 2014 from a video released by the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and obtained by AFP

Regaining territory

For now, Boko Haram remains an uncomfortable but still distant menace compared to the more pressing concerns posed by the communities around the park.

The majority of the 141 arrests made in 2015 were "grazers"nomadic herders coming from as far away as Niger, who pay village chiefs near Yankari to access the reserve.

Subsistence hunters were also detained, revealing the need for environmental education in a harsh, arid region where conservation comes second to daily survival.

"Many Nigerians are hungry and when you're hungry the first thing you need is food," said Nachamada Geoffrey, WCS manager in Yankari.

Still, despite the human onslaught, the rangers are slowly gaining back territory in the reserve.

Last year, Geoffrey and his team recorded just two elephant carcasses, compared with more than 10 in years before.

It's a small victory that makes up for the daily grind.

"It's very fulfilling and very exciting to me to see that we still have these elephants and most times we see them calm and comfortable," said Geoffrey.

Explore further Searching for the last lions in Nigeria

 2016 AFP
But a study by Purdue mycologists Catherine Aime and Jorge Diaz-Valderrama shows that M. roreri generates billions of cocoa pod-destroying spores by cloning, even though it has two mating types -- the fungal equivalent of sexes -- and seemingly functional mating genes.

The findings could help improve cocoa breeding programmes and shed light on the fungal mechanisms that produce mushrooms, according to the researchers.

"This fungus is phenomenally unusual -- it has mating types but doesn't undergo sexual reproduction," said Diaz-Valderrama, doctoral student in mycology. "This knowledge is biologically and economically valuable as we seek better insights into how mushrooms come about and how we can reduce this disease's damage to the cocoa industry."

"Fungi usually start reproducing via cloning when they're very well suited for their environment," Aime said. "In terms of resources, sex is expensive while cloning is a cheap and easy way to produce a lot of offspring.

In addition, while both mating types were found in South America, only one type was found in Central America. This finding supports the hypothesis that the fungal disease originated in South America and was more recently introduced into Central America, where it rapidly spread via cloning.

Frosty pod rot has wreaked havoc on cocoa plantations in much of the Americas, dropping cocoa yields by up to 100 percent in some areas, and forcing many farmers to abandon their plantations. Brazil is currently the only cocoa-producing country in the continental Americas to remain untouched by the fungal disease. Much of the world's cocoa production has relocated to West Africa, partly due to the spread of frosty pod rot.

But although frosty pod rot remains a very real threat to cocoa plants, chocolate lovers shouldn't panic just yet, according to Diaz-Valderrama.
The admissions by justice minister, Koen Geens, and interior minister, Jan Jambon, came after the bombing on Tuesday.

Whats essential in the story is that with the passing on of the information from Turkey and with the passing on of the information within Belgium, we have been slower than one could have expected under those circumstances, Mr. Geens said on Flemish television in Belgium. So, the information was passed on, but we have not been diligent, or probably not diligent enough.

Mr. Jambon said in an interview with Le Soir newspaper that there had been Two types of mistakes, at the level of the Justice Ministry and at the level of the liaison officer in Turkey, which involves the Interior and Justice ministries.

The two ministers offered to resign Thursday but were turned down by Prime Minister Charles Michel, who asked them to stay on.

"In time of war, you cannot leave the field," Jambon, a right-wing Flemish nationalist, said.

Two explosions occurred on Tuesday March 21 in the departure hall of the Zaventem airport and a metro substation in Brussels that claimed the lives of 31 people and injured many.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.
Nii Noi Nortey on Friday, March 25, 2016 visited some of the worst flood-hit areas in Odawna, Asylum Down, Adabraka and it's surroundings to offer his sympathy and to solicit firsthand information about the havoc caused by the rains.

Read more:

Nii Noi bemoaned the situation authorities made promises to find lasting solution to the floods but forget as soon as the rains are over.

He said, "We cannot continue to allow our people suffer when we can all come together as people, irrespective of political, religious or ethnic lineage, to solve this challenge which brings untoward hardship to the people of this area."

Mr. Nortey, who was accompanied by some members of his campaign team to sympathise with families who were affected by the rains cautioned that there was the need for urgent and pragmatic interventions to curb future disasters.

He could not come to terms with the delay of government in dredging the Odaw which rose steadily when the rain started about 8 p.m., raising fears of a possible flood disaster as it happened on June 3, 2015 and claimed lives and properties.

On Thursday evening Accra was hit by rains which caused flooding by morning in low areas of the Accra metropolis. The former constituency Chairman insisted that the government must as a matter of urgency cause for the dredging of the Odaw and initiate workable plans towards the prevention of disaster. He stated that Our plights as a people must be the plight of government.

"How long is it going to take the government to take us out from this death-trap? he quizzed calling on the government to immediately put measures in place to curb this annual ritual.

The aspiring parliamentary candidate said "It is disheartening that every year we have to suffer these calamities".

"The Odaw dredging must be of priority to the nation. So why cant we get a local contractor to dredge this immediately?" the parliamentary hopeful questioned.

He noted: "This drainage thing is a very big problem... It is a pity seeing what they have been facing every now and then when it rains".
The three South African ex-police officers were granted bail by an Accra Circuit court on Thursday. The bail to the tune of twenty thousand cedis each with one surety was granted by the court despite the state asking for more time to investigate the matter.

The court ordered that the accused persons wait at the court's registry for the bail processes to be completed. However, the BNI defied that directive and instead sent the suspects to the BNI headquarters.

Speaking to the media, one of the lawyers for the three South Africans, Samuel Atta Akyea said the BNIs action was a violation of the rights of the accused persons.

Dont give any impression that this is a kangaroo country in which they treat people anyhow. How can a court of competent jurisdiction say: Take the accused to the registry and then go and look at the house of the sureties, so that bail is granted, and, then, you just whisk them away, defying the order of the court? he asked.Atta Akyea, who is also the Abuakwa South Member of Parliament (MP) also argued that the BNI is intending to keep the three South Africans during the Easter festivities, from Friday March 25, to Monday March 28.
Out of that number, 91 cases were perpetrated by the victims own family members with 417 being perpetrated by people close to the victims. Also, 790 cases were perpetrated by other people not close to the victims.

The report indicated that in 2013, a total number of 1,230 defilement cases were reported and 1,097 cases were recorded in 2012.

In 2011, the report said 1,159 defilement cases were reported while 968 cases were reported in 2010.

Commenting on the development, Mrs Angela Dwamena Aboagye, the Executive Director of the Ark Foundation, Ghana, an advocacy-based human rights organisation said several women find it difficult to press charges against perpetrators of defilement cases because of family issues.

Intimate partner violence is basically criminal. It is a violation of a person's fundamental human rights and deeply affects their dignity and self-worth, she told the Mirror.

Mrs Angela Dwamena Aboagye further called on chiefs and family heads to stop protecting the perpetrators of such crimes.
He is the President of the mPedigree Network, a self-described 'social enterprise' noted for its work to expose makers and distributors of counterfeit medicines, and for creating a software program called Goldkeys that enables the verification of certain products in some countries.

Read more: Quartz ranks Bright Simons in top 10 innovators in Africa

He was ranked among leaders like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos  No.1; German Chancellor Angela Merkel  No.2; Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Burmese politicians Aung San Suu Kyi  No.3 and Pope Francis  No.4.

A citation in Fortune read: "Counterfeit drugs are rife in Africaone estimate pegs the chances of purchasing one at 30%, and in 2013 more than 120,000 African children died because of poor-quality antimalarials. Simons, a 34-year-old entrepreneur from Ghana, offered a boldly simple solution: Africans could check the authenticity of medications by sending mPedigree a text message with the special 12-digit code marked on their drug packet. Now mPedigree has its labels on more than 500 million packets, with clients including giants AstraZeneca and Sanofi. The company is currently active in 12 countries in the developing world."

Others who made the list include Apple chief Tim Cook, Stephen Curry, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Oliver and Paul Ryan.

Simons writes for the Huffington Post, Digital and the Royal African Society's online magazine, African Arguments. He is a regular contributor to the BBC's Business Daily programs.

Simons has co-authored research at IMANI Ghana.

Recognition

In 2012, The Diplomatic Courier and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy named Simons one of the Top 99 under 33 Innovators for his work with mPedigree.

MIT Technology Review included Simons in a list, released August 21, 2013, of the top 35 innovators under 35. He was included on the list for his work in telecommunications.

In 2009, Simons was a TED Fellow. The World Economic Forum recognized Simons in 2012 as a Young Global Leader and The mPedigree Network as a technology pioneer.

The International Foundation for Africa Innovation gave Simons a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to innovation in Africa on August 7, 2013.
He told Accra-based Joy FM, the unknown individuals insisted that his refusal to send them some money means his life and that of his family will not be spared.

Rev. Kisseih said he reported the incident to the Police, after which a patrol team was dispatched to the area.

He said the police called the number behind the text message, only for the receiver to respond that he wasn't in Accra but Nsawam.

The person sent a second threat message after the police had left, saying that not even the police can unravel their network and that his identity cannot be disclosed, he added.

On why anybody would want to kill him, Rev Kisseih said That is what evil does. Evil does evil things to good people. When someone meets you in traffic and shoots you for doing nothing, the person is gone away with it; that is evil.

Other colleague pastors who double as key members of the GPCC; the current General Overseer of the Full Gospel Church International in Tema, Bishop S.N Mensah, and Apostle Anyani Boadu have also received similar death threats messages.

Bishop Mensah said he was in his office at about the same time [5:00 pm] when he saw the message to send money or his family will be killed.

"I called other members of the GPCC only to be told by four others that they have also received the same threat message from the same telephone number," Bishop Mensah added.

Meanwhile, Police in Tema Community 11 have indicated that investigations have began into the matter, adding that residents, pastors and the lives of their families are safe.
The operatives were reported to be from Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and police personnel raided the house around 4pm at Weija on Thursday, March 24, 2016.

The raid comes at the back of the recent arrest of three South African ex-police officers who are alleged to be engaging in acts deemed as a national security threat.

The three, Major Ahmed Shaik (retd), 54; Warrant Officer Denver Dwahye, 33, and Captain Mlungiseli Jokani, 45  were picked up at the EL-Capitano Hotel in the central region on the 20th of March upon a tip off where they have been alleged to be training some young people in various security drills, including unarmed combat, weapon handling, VIP protection techniques and rapid response manoeuvres.

They were charged and however granted bail in the sum of GHc20,000.00 with surety to be justified.

An order for the release of the three former South African police officers to the registrar of the Accra Circuit Court until all their bail conditions are met has been defied by the BNI.

The Circuit Court, presided over Her Lordship Patricia Quansah, on Thursday granted bail to the ex-South African cops who were arrested by the BNI at Agona Duakwa in the Central Region last Sunday, March 20, 2016.
The curfew hours, which were previously from 8pm - 4am will now begin from 11:00 pm to 4:00 am, effective Friday, March 25, 2016.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Interior Minister, Prosper Bani.

The review follows complaints by residents that the earlier curfew hours, that is from 8pm - 4am was having a toll on their business and other activities in the town.

The curfew hours were imposed after violent clashes between some youth in the area killed one person and injured many.

Below is the full statement from the Interior Ministry

The Minister for the Interior has on the advice of the Ashanti Regional Security Council and by Executive Instrument reviewed the Curfew hours imposed on Old Tafo Township from 11:00 pm to 4:00 am, effective Friday, March 25, 2016.

The Minister for the Interior will continue to rely on the Ashanti Regional Security Council for updates on the situation in the area.

Government continues to express its appreciation to the Chiefs, Elders, Opinion Leaders, Youth and people of the area and urges them to exercise restraint in the face of the challenges confronting them and to use non- violent means to channel their energies into ensuring peace.

Meanwhile, there is a total ban on all persons in the Old Tafo Township and surrounding areas from carrying arms, ammunition or any offensive weapon, and any person found with any arms or ammunition will be arrested and prosecuted.

Signed:

PROSPER D.K. BANI
In his Easter message, Nana Akufo-Addo said For us in Ghana, the festivities should be a time of renewed hope in the midst of the numerous challenges and economic difficulties confronting our country. Easter is the testimony of the possibility for a new life of hope. Thus, let us renew and strengthen our faith in God and continue to pray for a free and prosperous future for Ghana. I am confident that we can transform our nation and use all the blessings that the Almighty has bestowed on us to bring wealth to all our people, if we work at it."

On the occasion of Easter, which marks the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, I send best wishes to all Ghanaians, Christians, and members of the New Patriotic Party.During the period of joy and celebration, I urge all believers to reflect on the important sacrifice Jesus Christ made for each of us on the Cross of Calvary. The resurrection of Jesus is the triumphant victory for every Christian.For us in Ghana, the festivities should be a time of renewed hope in the midst of the numerous challenges and economic difficulties confronting our country. Easter is the testimony of the possibility for a new life of hope. Thus, let us renew and strengthen our faith in God and continue to pray for a free and prosperous future for Ghana. I am confident that we can transform our nation and use all the blessings that the Almighty has bestowed on us to bring wealth to all our people, if we work at it.To true adherents and members of the New Patriotic Party, I continue to advise that we conduct ourselves in a manner that underlines our commitment to the fact that there is hope for the future of our country. Ghanaians are looking to the NPP to win Novembers elections and, thereby, speed up the development of our nation and the prosperity of every Ghanaian.I wish all Ghanaians a Happy Easter, and may God bless our country Ghana, the NPP, and us all.signedNana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo2016 NPP Presidential Candidate
"We have every reason to believe that the lives of our presidential candidate and its running mate are deliberately being exposed to high risk by the Mahama government. We will go as far as to say that the president with his government is deliberately allowing the life of his main competitor for the 2016 presidential race to be endangered," he said.

Freddie Blay said this on the back of allegations by the National Democratic Congress that the three former South African police officers arrested for allegedly training the NPP's security on weapon handling among others were mercenaries.

But in a response, government said "the claim made by Freddie Blay defies comprehension. It is both false and malicious."

"We note that since news broke of the arrest of the individuals, the NPP has rendered rumbling and incoherent responses in a bid to escape the widespread condemnation and public opprobrium they have suffered. This wicked lie however is the most ridiculous yet and only reflects the desperation arising out of lack of leadership that has beset the NPP," a statement signed by Communications Minister, Edward Omane Boamah has said.

The statement added that the president will in no way encourage political violence against Nana Akufo-Addo, but will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure the security of Ghana and its borders.

Below is the full statement:

NPP's MALICIOUS AND WICKED ALLEGATIONS TO JUSTIFY THE UNTHINKABLE

Government has learnt of a press conference organised by the New Patriotic Party at which its Acting National Chairman, Freddie Blay alleged that the three South Africans and two Ghanaians arrested for activities deemed prejudicial to the security of the country were brought in, in response to an NDC-government plot to attack their presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Without prejudice to the outcome of investigations and legal processes, we wish to state as follows;

1. The claim made by Freddie Blay defies comprehension. It is both false and malicious. This is the most puerile defence ever attempted in a serious matter as this one.

We note that since news broke of the arrest of the individuals, the NPP has rendered rumbling and incoherent responses in a bid to escape the widespread condemnation and public opprobrium they have suffered. This wicked lie however is the most ridiculous yet and only reflects the desperation arising out of lack of leadership that has beset the NPP.

The NPP has demonstrated over the years that it prefers violence and chaos as means of addressing disputes even within their party. This has been on display over the past few years. Leading functionaries of the NPP including their flagbearer are also on record to have made incendiary statements seeking to incite violence for purposes of attaining political power.

Mr Akufo-Addos call for his party youth to resort to violence in his infamous all die be die war cry is a case in point and is not lost on Ghanaians.

President John Mahama has a proven track record of peaceful conduct and never in his political life has he encouraged violence in contrast to Mr Akufo-Addo. The sterile attempt therefore, by the NPP to extricate itself from this potentially nation-wrecking manoeuvre through wicked-dark lies has failed. Government is not and will never be afflicted by the intractable disease of 'hankering-after-violence'.

2. Government reiterates its commitment to taking all necessary steps to ensure the security of our people and borders and commends the countrys security agencies for their vigilance and swift action which led to the apprehension of these individuals.

We note that months before this incident they had also arrested persons transporting or possessing substantial caches of ammunition in Kumasi and Aflao. We will continue to extend the necessary assistance to the security agencies to enable them carry out their functions in a more efficient and effective manner.

3. We are also encouraged by the profuse and widespread expression of national revulsion and outrage at these attempts by the NPP to undermine our collective peace and security. We wish all Ghanaians happy Easter and urge them to exercise restraint and caution during the period in order to avert any excesses.

Signed

EDWARD K. OMANE BOAMAH (DR.)
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
This was mostly triggered by the anti-gay bill which was signed into law in 2014 under the Jonathan Goodluck administration.

The anti-gay law suggest a 14 year jail term for persons found guilty of participating in homosexual activities.

Two years after some Nigerian celebrities are still talking about gay rights and its place in Nigeria. The latest celebrity who has spoken about homosexuality in Nigeria is rapper Illbliss.

Today we take a look at 5 top celebrities who have spoken about homosexuality.

1) Illbliss

On Wednesday, March 23, 2016 Illbliss shared a photo of star Jussie Smollet and Empire creator Lee Daniels kissing on stage. They are both gay and are presently dating. Illbliss shared his views about homosexuality by saying LEE DANIELS AND JUSSIE SMOLLET! Of our Beloved show "Empire! I don't give a flying 747 F if it affects my fan base but I'm utterly disgusted at how society keeps embracing homosexuality till it's become almost normal... This is wrong according to Gods Laws and I follow Gods laws and not man's. Television continues to propagate gay Culture.. Remember!!!! YOU CAN NEVER MOCK GOD!!!!"

2) Kiss Daniel

Last year July Kiss Daniel reportedly made a statement about gay marriage in America. Ok, so, g@y marriage is legalized in the U.S? Some are mad, some are indifferent, some are glad. Straight or G@y, what matter is weve got a heart that can love. Love is love and love always wins. Barrack Obama, peace he wrote on his Instagram. He would later deny saying this a few days after.

3) Charles Novia

When anti-gay bill was passed into law popular Nollywood filmmaker said I have nothing against Gays. I believe in tolerance. But I do not in any way support the notion that a Same-sex marital environment should thrive in Nigeria.

4) Tosyn Bucknor

The popular on-air-personality was not in support of the anti-gay law. She said There is no way I am not relocating from Nigeria sha. Even if I have braved through no power, bad roads, insecurity and all, this bill against consenting adult sexual behaviour is just pathetic, discrimanatory and hypocritical. And to make it worse they even criminalize Gay Rights Groups. Congrats Nigeria, You always make me ashamed of you on Twitter.

5) DJ Jimmy Jatt
She was to write her examination at 06:30 AM at the West African Examinations Council International Office on Plot B, Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Lagos.

Clement was dropped off by her kidnappers at 9 PM in the Oshodi area of Lagos State.

On the day she got missing, she was able to send a text message to her mother, stating that she has been taken to an unfamiliar place by some unknown men who have brutalised her.

The text message reads, Mummy, they took my phone and beat me up inside the bus. Mummy, I dont know where they took me to. They made me sleep and said they will kill me if I ran. Someone gave me the phone, saying I must return it before they came back. Mummy, please save me.

According to Punch Metro, Clement walked back into the familys apartment at about 9pm on Wednesday, March 23, 2016.

She was said to be unable to narrate her experiences when she got to her family's residence because she was too tired to speak.

She was taken to the Ojodu police division the next to make a statement.

During the investigation into the matter, the police developed a theory of absconding, rather than a kidnapping case.

Dolapo Badmos, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, said, The girl is back and I have spoken with her. From what she narrated, it is more of an absconding from home than being abducted. She had been in Abeokuta. Meanwhile, the police are still investigating to get to the roots of this matter.
The popular shopkeeper, originally from the Pakistani city of Rabwah, was apparently enthusiastic to be hosting a meeting with Christian friends about the importance of Easter. He took to Facebook around 5:10pm and posted

'Good Friday and a very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation. Let's follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds.'

In previous posts, he had spoken out against hatred and violence, calling for 'unconditional real love for all mankind'.

Four hours after his last post, Mr Shah was in a pool of his own blood at the side of the road.

An ambulance crew arrived and performed CPR on him at the scene, and took him to Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where he later died.

A shocked and distraught neighbour on the morning of Good Friday said: "This is disgusting. Mr Shah was the most peace-loving man you could meet."

He was proud of his Pakistanti heritage but he loved Britain. He loved Scotland too and really wanted to reach out to Christians. This is such a terrible thing to happen."
This happened at the Ibafo area of Ogun State. The suspects and their ages are Banwo Olaide (38), Kabiru Rahimi (13), Tunde Rahimi (25), Disu Toheeb (27), and Jamiu Koleosho(33).

According to the Public Relations Officer of the NSCDC, Kareem Olanrewaju, the suspects were arrested near the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporations pipelines at Ibafo, in the Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area.

The NSCDC has stepped up its her efforts to battle crimes related to pipeline vandalism by charging their officers to be diligent in their duties.

Akinwande Aboluwoye, the Ogun State Commandant of the Corps said, the new strategy adopted by the corps in the command was yielding positive results.

He made it known that pipeline vandals re going to have it tough as long as they continue to engage in their illegal act.
Olayemi, 47, was sentenced by the Egor Magistrates Court, Benin, Edo State. He was arraigned on four counts bothering on sexual assault.

Mrs. Osasu Ewemade, who was the prosecutor in the case told the court that Olayemi, committed the crime on May 26, 2014, in his office in the college.

He invited the to young girl to his office where he hugged, kissed and fondled her.

The act is a violation of Section 360 of the Criminal Code, Cap 48, Vol. II, Law of the defunct Bendel State of Nigeria, 1976, as applicable in Edo.

Though the defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges, Mrs. Igho Braimoh, the presiding magistrate found him guilty on all counts and sentenced him to one year in prison for each count.
Akanni said They even said I helped Fayose to launder another N1.3 billion out of the N2.5 billion ecological fund released to the state. I said all these were lies. I cant lie against Mr Governor.

He also said What manner of democracy are we practising? How can DSS invade a House of Assembly and arrest a lawmaker with intention to impeach a governor? They even came without a warrant of arrest. Is this democracy?

Is it an offence to be loyal or honest to a governor? Fayose is our leader and I cant betray him. Ekiti people must stand behind him. Mr Governor, I am assuring you that I will always stand by you.

Members of the Ekiti House of Assembly have also asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to tender an unreserved apologyfor invading their chambers.

Watch video report below.
He was granted bail by Justice Okon Abang onMarch 10, 2016 to the tune of N2billion with two sureties in the sum of N1billion each, but remained in detention until Thursday, March 24, when he met his bail terms.

As part of his bail conditions, the two sureties must have properties in Abuja, and must be ready to deposit the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) during the period of Badehs trial.
According to Reuters, two girls wired with explosives were intercepted on Friday, March 25, 2016, by local self-defence forces in the village of Limani, Cameroon, and were handed over to soldiers belonging to a multi-national force set up to take out the terrorists.

The village is said to be the target of frequent suicide bombings in recent months.

One of them indeed declared that she is one of the Chibok hostages. She is around 15. We are now verifying, because on the Nigerian side they have the names and photos of these girls, a local government administrator, Raymond Roksdo.

Two other military sources were said to have also confirmed that one of the detained suicide bombers claimed to be one of the abducted Chibok girls.

We need a few days to be able to confirm this information. We have to debrief all the men who were present and interrogate the two girls before we can say anything, one of the military sources said.
The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area.

The triumphant troops apart from killing 22 terrorists cleared pockets of the terrorists in Wumbi, Tunish, Tilem and Malawaji. Others are Makaudari, Daima, Buduli, Sadigumo, Jiwe, Sidigeri and Kala villages. The troops also rescued 309 persons held captives by the terrorists.

They also discovered and destroyed the terrorists training camp, factory, locally made weapons and warehouse at Tilem and then secured Rann, the headquarters of Kala Balge Local Government Area.

In a related development, troops of 3 Battalion with the support of Civilian JTF also conducted a fighting patrol at Kusumma village in which they killed 3 Boko Haram terrorists and captured one alive.

They also rescued 520 persons held hostage by the terrorists and recovered 1 motorcycle, weapons and axes. The troops, basking in the unprecedented achievement, are also making efforts to clear remnants of the terrorists in the surrounding areas.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau has resurfaced in a new video in which he seems to be urging his followers to surrender and give up the fight.

--------------------------------------------------------
Speaking to newsmen, the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col Sani Usman said In continuation of the ongoing clearance operations of remnants of Boko Haram terrorists at the various sectors of Operation Lafiya Dole on Wednesday, troops of 7 Division Garrison and 112 Battalion, assisted by some Civilian JTF, conducted clearing operations at Menari, Bulamari, Zangebe, Maafa, Mijigine, Baale and Kaltaram villages in Mafa Local Government Area.

Security personnel have also conformed that they are on the trail of the Boko Haram members who abducted 14 women and two girls in Adamawa State.

Meanwhile, the defence headquarters (DHQ) has said the supposed new video, which shows a remorseful Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, will not distract soldiers from the ongoing operations against insurgents.

Reports say Boko Haram leader, undefinedasking his men to surrender.

Watch video report below.
Buhari gave the explanation on Thursday, March 24, 2016, during a meeting with leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja.

For globetrotting, sometimes, you need to present your case on personal basis to your economic colleagues and neighbours, Buhari said.

Nothing is better than personal touch and I believe that we are learning a lot and eventually, the nation will realize so.

I dont envy you on the harassment you are going through from your constituencies. Take it with a lot of determination and we will be all right, God willing, he added addressing his party members.

The president also responded to critics of his administration by saying that he has three more years left to prove himself.

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This was disclosed by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, during a news conference on Thursday, March 24, 2016, in Abuja, Punch reports.

Yes, there are Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements signed by UAE and other countries to facilitate dealing with stolen funds, he said.

UAE is one of the countries we are clearly looking at in terms of repatriating Nigerias resources, but how much we are looking at, we dont have any figure in respect of that.

But hopefully, it would be significant because we really need it. Oil prices being where they are, we really need to get as much of our stolen funds back as possible, he added.

Earlier reports had it that officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had embarked on a trip to the UAE for the purpose of recovering $200 billion worth of looted funds.

Yes, the AGF and the EFCC chairman with some top officials of the anti-graft agency are in Dubai for a follow-up technical session on the Mutual Legal Assistance between Nigeria and the UAE, a government source said.

I can confirm the official trip and it is meant to recover looted funds, the source added.

Kaduna State Senator, Shehu Sani had recently revealed that Nigerian officials had stashed over $200 billion in Dubai alone.

The Nigerian government had, on January 19, 2016, signed a bilateral agreementwith the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to enable the extradition of corrupt officials hiding stolen funds in Dubai.

-----------------------------------------------
The NNPC also condemned the misinterpretation of comments made by Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu regarding the issue.

This was contained in a statement released by NNPC spokesperson, Garba Deen Mohammed on Wednesday, March 23, 2016.

It reads in part:

The Ministers candour is in keeping with the regimes policy to be open and sincere with Nigerians at all times.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is pertinent to state that efforts are in full gear to eliminate all extraneous factors which have so far impeded the free flow of petrol across the country, especially the issue of foreign exchange for oil marketers which the Honourable Minister is working with the Central Bank of Nigeria to resolve.

While apologising to Nigerians for the recent hardship in assessing petroleum products, the NNPC assured of normalisation of the fuel supply and distribution system in the weeks ahead.

Kachikwu had earlier been quoted as saying that the scarcity would continue till May 2016.

-----------------------------------------------------
These 10 new high capacity speed bikes provided by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase are to also provide effective security surveillance in the Abuja metropolis.

Commissioning the bikes on Thursday, March 24, 2016, the minister appreciated the proactive action of the Nigeria Police Force and promised to procure additional bikes to cover more areas in the Federal Capital City.

His words: I will like to thank the Inspector General of Police for providing us with these high quality speed motorbikes for the management of the traffic challenges we face here in Abuja. As you all know, traffic management is something we hold dearly because Abuja is our capital where we host the world and therefore we must operate at internationalstandards.

I assure you that the maintenance of these equipments, the fuelling and also the welfare support to the team will be solely done by the FCT Administration because we require the services more than the Nigerian Police Force.

The Minister remarked that traffic offenders in Abuja are in for a tough time because the speed bikes would be strategically stationed to monitor and arrest those that derive pleasure in beating traffic lights.

On traffic offences initially, we are going to do a lot of advocacy through the press for people to understand what we do and for you to appreciate why we do it. Thus, soon the team is going to be very firm as offenders will be arrested and prosecuted, he stressed.

A statement signed by FCTA Chief Press Secretary, Muhammad Hazat Sule, stated that the City Watch Patrol speed bikes when stationed would also monitor and observe whatever is going on around the city and nip in the bud any criminal activity.

The Minister reiterated, there is no way we will pride ourselves and say we are in Abuja, one of the planned cities in Africa, the joy of Nigeria, something we are all proud of and then we operate as if we are in a jungle. That will be totally unacceptable.

Also speaking at the occasion, the FCT Police Commissioner, Mr. Wilson Inalegwu revealed that the 10 speed bikes would be stationed at the Old CBN, CEDI Plaza, Power House Junction (Asokoro District), BANEX Junction, Transcorp Hilton, Federal Secretariat, Area 1, (Garki), NITEL Junction, Diamond Bank Junction (Wuse II District) and the City Gate.

The Police Commissioner disclosed that the BMW motor bikes provided are to man FCT roads and their mandate is to stop impunity by drivers who deliberately violate traffic rules; who drive carelessly and other petty crimes that occur at those junctions like handbag snatching, phone snatching and even to watch out for one-chance and other crimes.

He reiterated that the bikes would also engage in high-speed chase, in case report is received in the control room of either a vehicle has been snatched or crime has occurred; adding they will go there and quickly connect with other teams where they will be located, there will be other patrol teams not too far from them to give them backup.
The Boko Haram bombers were said to have been killed at Umulari Mulai, Maiduguri-Damboa road, about six kilometres from the capital city.

According to Vanguard, the bombers were sighted around 1:00 am by the vigilantes. One of them reportedly denoted her bomb when the vigilantes asked who is there.

Report said the second bomber ran and hid in a hole before she was later found and shot dead. Her bomb was later detonated.

Pulse recalls that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, had on March 24, released a videoto prove to his followers that he is alive and urging them to surrender.

The Nigerian Army has however discredited the footage, noting it could be a ploy to distract the military from its ongoing assault on the terrorists' dens in sambisa forest.
What better way to ease off the stress of the week than watch a good movie.

With that in mind, check out our list of movies currently showing in cinemas across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Starring: Morena Baccarin, Gina Carano, Ryan Reynolds

Synopsis: Gifted with accelerated healing powers and a twisted sense of humor, mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) adopts the alter ego Deadpool and hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 1:25pm, 2:50pm

Friday - Thursday: 12:15PM, 2:20PM, 5:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 9:30PM

Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine

Synopsis: Portokalos family secret brings the beloved characters back together for an even bigger and Greeker wedding.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 12:50pm, 5:00pm, 7:00pm, 9:00pm

Friday - Thursday: 3:30PM, 7:30PM, 9:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 10:40AM, 6:00PM, 7:35PM

Starring: Stella Damasus, Joseph Benjamin, Beverly Naya.

Synopsis: She is a Medical Doctor by day and member of the "lonely hearts club" by night. Never been married and aware that her biological clock is ticking, Vivienne is desperate to find a man...

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 10:20AM, 2:35PM

Sunday: 2:35PM

Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gaddot.

Synopsis: Fearing the actions of Superman are left unchecked, Batman takes on the man of steel, while the world wrestles with what kind of a hero it really needs. With Batman and Superman fighting each other, a new threat, Doomsday, is created by Lex Luthor. It's up to Superman and Batman to set aside their differences along with Wonder Woman to stop Lex Luthor and Doomsday from destroying Metropolis.

Showing:

Friday: 12:25PM 3D, 3:20PM, 3:05PM, 6:15PM, 8:20PM, 9:10PM

Saturday - Thursday: 12:25PM 3D, 3:20PM, 6:15PM, 9:10PM

Friday - Thursday: 1:40AM, 12:40AM, 2:30PM, 3:30PM, 4:30PM, 5:20PM, 6:20PM, 7:20PM, 8:10PM, 9:10PM

Fri-Thur: 11:30am[3D], 12:30pm, 3:20pm, 4:45pm[3D], 6:10pm, 7:35pm[3D], 8:20pm

Friday - Thursday: 11:00 am, 1:10 pm, 2:00 pm, 4:10 pm, 7:10 pm, 7:25 pm, 9:35 pm, 10:10 pm, 10:25 pm

Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller

Starring: Dakore Akande, Ireti Doyle, Dakore Egbuson

Synopsis: FIFTY captures a few pivotal, days in the lives of four Nigeria women at the pinnacle of their careers. Meet Tola, Elizabeth, Maria and Kate four friends forced at midlife to take inventory.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 10:35am

Starring: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart,Tika Sumpter, Glen Powell

Synopsis: As his wedding day approaches, Ben heads to Miami with his soon-to-be brother-in-law James to bring down a drug dealer who's supplying the dealers of Atlanta with product

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 6:05PM.

Starring: Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Jin Zhang, Mike Tyson.

Synopsis: When a band of brutal gangsters led by a crooked property developer make a play to take over the city, Master Ip is forced to take a stand.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 10:50am

Friday- Thursday: 10:45AM, 9:20PM

Sunday: 9:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 3:20PM,8:50PM

Starring: Olivia Munn, Penelope Cruz, Christine Taylor, Kristen Wiig

Synopsis: Derek and Hansel are modelling again when an opposing company attempts to take them out from the business.

Showing:

Tues-Thur: 10:05am

Friday - Thursday: 10:25AM

Friday - Thursday: 11:00AM, 5:05PM.

Starring: Caroline Danjuma, Nse Ikpe Etim, Jim Iyke

Synopsis: A successful stylist, Kaylah Lawal (Nse Ikpe Etim) is out late one night and ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. She manages to escape being attacked by members of a secret society out on rampage

Friday - Thursday: 1:25am

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman

Synopsis: In London for the Prime Minister's funeral, Mike Banning discovers a plot to assassinate all the attending world leaders.

Friday - Thursday: 4:00pm, 6:00pm, 8:00pm

Friday - Thursday: 5:00PM

Friday - Thursday: 11:00 am, 5:00 pm, 7:10 pm, 9:20 pm, 11:30 pm

Friday - Thursday: 1:00Pm, 3:00PM, 5:00PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM

Saturday - Thursday: 3:05PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM

Genre: Animation

Starring:Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba

Synopsis: TIn a city of anthropomorphic animals, a fugitive con artist fox and a rookie bunny cop must work together to uncover a conspiracy.

Showing:

Fri - Tue & Thu: 10:30 am

Wed:10:30 am, 1:05 pm

Friday - Thursday: 10:15am, 2:20pm

Friday - Thursday: 11:20AM, 2:00PM.

Friday - Thursday: 1:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 10:30AM

Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure

Starring: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman

Synopsis: Continuing his "legendary adventures of awesomeness", Po must face two hugely epic, but different threats: one supernatural and the other a little closer to his home.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 12:50 pm, 2:55 pm, 5:00 pm

Friday - Thursday: 12:00pm, 4:25pm

Friday - Thursday: 1:10PM, 3:00PM, 4:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 5:25PM,7:15PM

Friday - Thursday: 12:40PM, 2:35PM

Genre: Romance

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Zoe Kravitz

Synopsis: After the earth-shattering revelations of Insurgent, Tris must escape with Four beyond the wall that encircles Chicago to finally discover the shocking truth of what lies behind it.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 2:25 pm, 4:55 pm, 7:05 pm

Friday - Thursday: 11:10am, 3:30pm, 8:55pm

Friday - Thursday: 1:20PM, 4:20PM, 8:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 4:10PM, 7:15PM

Friday - Thursday: 3:00PM, 4:40PM

Genre: Romance

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd

Synopsis: A little girl lives in a very grown-up world with her mother, who tries to prepare her for it. Her neighbor, the Aviator, introduces the girl to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, the world of the Little Prince.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 10:00am

Friday - Thursday: 12:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 11:20AM, 2:00PM.

Genre: Romance

Starring: Liz Benson, Wale Ojo, Vimbai Mutinhiri, IK Ogbonna, Adunni Ade, Enyinna Nwigwe, Mary Lazarus, Michael Godson, Chinonso Young, Bolanle Ninalowo

Synopsis: People make several life decisions only for "The Wrong Reasons," and for every wrong or desperate decisions we make ,drastic price to pay or a huge lesson to learn. Love and sacrifices in relationships is key, but can all these make wrong decisions right?

Showing:

Friday - Saturday: 1:50pm

Genre: Romance

Starring:John Krasinski, Pablo Schreiber, James Badge Dale

Synopsis: As an American ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya, a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 2:25PM

Genre:

Starring:Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler

Synopsis: Mortal hero Bek teams with the god Horus in an alliance against Set, the merciless god of darkness who has usurped Egypt's throne, plunging the once peaceful and prosperous empire into chaos and conflict.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 11:50 am

Friday - Thursday: 2:20pm[3D], 5:45pm

Friday - Thursday: 6:55PM,9:00PM

Friday - Thursday: 3:40PM, 6:10PM, 8:40PM

Friday - Thursday: 4:30PM, 9:00PM

Genre:

Starring:Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth

Synopsis: MFollows the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a non-believer. Clavius, a powerful Roman Military Tribune, and his aide Lucius.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 3:00PM

Genre:

Starring:Stephen Dorff, Eddie Griffin, Bill Billions .

Synopsis: Melvin, a reluctant Superhero, lives only for crime, women and drugs - until he realises that the only way he will ever get to see his estranged son is to go straight and fulfil his potential as a crime fighter.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 1:00PM, 9:10PM

Friday - Thursday: 1:15PM

Genre:

Starring: Alia Bhatt, Sanjay Dutt, Fawad Khan.

Synopsis: A story revolving around a dysfunctional family of two brothers who visit their parents and grandfather in Coonoor, and end up falling for the same woman.

Showing:

Friday - Monday: 7:00PM

Genre: Crime

Starring:O.C Ukeje, Victor Olaotan, Femi Jacobs, Anthony Monjaro, Enyinna Nwigwe and Chigul.

Synopsis: In a community where the rights of the poor and vulnerable are trampled on, where natural resources are stolen and witnesses are silenced, it takes a very brave man to stand up for what is just and true. Michael (O.C Ukeje) is that man and as he wades through incriminating evidence of the nations biggest organisations, he finds an unwitting helper in Harida (Uru Eke) and together, they try to overcome insurmountable odds with the arsenal of information at their disposal.

Showing:

Fri - Tue & Thu: 4:45 pm

Wed: 5:30 pm

Friday - Thursday: 12:30PM

Genre:

Starring:Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Martin Henderson

Synopsis: A young girl suffering from a rare digestive disorder finds herself miraculously cured after surviving a terrible accident.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 12:20pm

Friday - Thursday: 6:40PM, 8:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 11:00AM, 8:25PM.

Friday - Thursday: 10:40AM,5:25PM, 7:00PM

Fri - Tue & Thu: 12:25 pm
This was disclosed by the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu via a statement released on Friday, March 25, 2016.

The statement reads:

The Presidency formally dissociates itself from the #Istandwithbuhari advocacy group and demands that the group should immediately stop claiming any alliance with the Buhari Administration.

The Presidency also demands that the persons behind the controversial #Istandwithbuhari group should stop using President Muhammadu Buhari's name and that of his wife, Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari to promote themselves and their activities.

Among other reasons, we have found it necessary to distance the Presidency from the #Istandwithbuhari group because its premature and ostentatious celebration of the present administration's achievements is totally inconsistent with President Buhari's philosophy of service with humility.

While the present administration has indeed recorded significant successes in its priority areas of improving security across the nation, ending the Boko Haram insurgency, curbing official corruption and revamping Nigeria's economy, President Buhari is well aware that his government still has a lot of national challenges to overcome.

The President prefers to give his fullest attention to addressing those challenges without the unsolicited and unwelcome distraction of untimely praise-singing from groups with dubious and questionable motives.

Shehu further assured that the government would not hesitate to roll out the drums to celebrate meeting the expectations of Nigerians at the right time.

------------------------------------------------
Buhari said I am afraid I did not succeed in the election in Kogi, Bayelsa, Rivers. I think that more Nigerians are killed or killed themselves in Rivers than in any particular state.

At this stage of our political development, to remain brutal is shameful and as a government, I promise we will do something by the next general election.

Also the APC chairman. John Odigie-Oyegun, who did not mince words about the Rivers rerun election said It is a disgrace. That is the only thing one can say. Some of the things that happened and some of the killings that happened would never have been able to happen in this country.

But the assurance we can give you and the assurance Mr President has given us is that these issues will be vigorously addressed. People must not get away with that level of dastardly act and killings of the most bestial act and in no circumstance must this be allowed to spread to the rest of the country because unless you address it, you are in fact inviting other states to set up their own military wings.

Vanguard reports that the NEC meeting was held amid tight security, because of news that some aggrieved members were planning to disrupt the meeting.

See Pulse Photo Gallery below.
I was at the retreat and I can tell Nigerians categorically that it was just a jamboree. It was a waste of over N250 million public fund because most of the resource persons were the same people who ran their States aground," Fayose said.

He mentioned former governors as the resource people for the retreat, stressing that they ruined the economy of their states.

Fayose said: What solution can the likes of former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who as governor plunged the State into unprecedented debt by borrowing money to build governors lodge, pavilion and uncompleted civic centre proffer to the economy of Nigeria?"

It is strange that close to one year after President Buhari was sworn in, he still cannot tell Nigerians one major economic step his government has taken to salvage the economy. He has not taken any key step and there is no economic team. That is strange!

Instead of wasting over N250 million on such a jamboree, it would have been better if the fund is given to those downtrodden Nigerians, who are trading with as little as N5,000.

For instance, at N10,000 each, N250 million will go round 25,000 pepper sellers whose capital is not more than N5,000 and that would go a long way in boosting their trade," the Governor stated.

He noted that the retreat further exposed the cluelessness of the Buhari-led administration about the solution to the ongoing economic crisis in the country, adding that the President is "still talking the way he talked while seeking for votes from Nigerians."
According to the CCB, Saraki lied during his asset declaration process in 2003 while in office as the Governor of Kwara State.

The allegations have led some Nigerians to call for the Senate Presidents resignation. One of such persons is eminent lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana.

Having undertaken to prove his innocence at the Code of Conduct Tribunal Senator Saraki should resign as Senate president so as to preserve the integrity of the National Assembly, Falana said during an interview with Punch on February 6, 2016.

The most honourable thing for Saraki is to resign and face his prosecution. If he wins, the seat is always there and he can be re-elected again if those that supported him truly believe he is the best person for the position. And if not, he will remain a senator like he was in the 7th Assembly. Is it a must that he become Senate President?Zamfara State Senator, Kabiru Marafa said supporting Falanas position.

In his defence, Saraki has said that the trial is a form of political persecution launched by persons who are unhappy with his emergence as Senate President.

Meanwhile, I wish to reiterate my remarks before the Tribunal, that I have no iota of doubt that I am on trial today because I am the president of the Nigerian Senate, against the wishes of some powerful individuals outside this Chamber, he said on September 29, 2015.

The charges have nothing to do with corruption or money being stolen anywhere and that is why at the end of the day, I will have my day in court. Because it is not about corruption, he said on February 26, 2016.

I dont understand how the same organisation that cleared my asset declaration to be proper in 2004, 2009 and 2011 can suddenly wake up and say that my record is faulted, he added.

Saraki has a point, why did the CCB wait 13 years to question the asset declaration process?

Why is he conveniently being tried after falling out with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) due to his snatching of the Senate Presidency on June 9, 2015, against the partys wishes?

Sarakis ordeal is clearly a case of political persecution, but he has not helped matters either.

The Senate Presidents decision to jump from court to court in order to stop his case from going to trial has aroused suspicions and made him seem guilty. However, the law does not convict people who seem guilty, it convicts people who have been found guilty.

Former US President, Bill Clinton was also charged with perjury in 1998 after he denied having sexual relations with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

Clinton was further charged with obstruction of justice and subsequently impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, yet he didnt resign.

I will never step aside, Clinton said at the time. We must stop the politics of personal destruction . . . the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship, obsessive animosity, and uncontrolled anger, he urged. That is not what America deserves. That is not what America is about.

Resigning would be an honourable thing for Saraki to do, but that should depend entirely on him. Nigerians should not allow themselves to be pulled into the political web that has been formed around Saraki because that is not what Nigeria deserves.
Report said the meeting was about reconciling the aggrieved members of the party, in a bid to restructure it for possible take over of power in 2019.

The leadership of the party has been struggling to reposition it since the massive loss in the 2015 general elections that literarily collapsed the foundation of the party.

The party's internal crisis however deepened after Sheriff emerged the National Chairman as many PDP chieftains, including a host of those at the National Assembly, threatened to decamp unless he steps down.

Since then, the new chairman has embarked on series of reconciliatory meetings with party leaders and members.

According to Channels TV, ex-governors present at the meeting include, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State, Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, Ibrahim Shema of Kastina State, Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State, and Gabriel Suswam of Benue State.
The PDP senators made the demand on Thursday, March 24, 2016, during a caucus meeting with party chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff.

The demand was contained in a communique released by the legislators after the meeting.

It reads in part:

The Caucus calls on INEC to as a matter of urgency re-schedule the Imo North re-run Senatorial election without further delay as since the 90 days ordered by the court had since lapsed.

The Caucus also calls on INEC to re-schedule similar re-run elections in Anambra Central and Kogi East Senatorial Districts.

The caucus also agreed to send a delegation to visit Rivers to congratulate the governor, Nyesom Wike, on the electoral victories recorded by the party.

INEC had been forced to suspend the announcement of results in Rivers due to the violence recorded during the polls

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According to reports, the teachers reportedly burned the 17-year-old student with polythene bags and kerosene, while the principal watched on March 17.

Standard reported that the teachers tied the girls hands and feet and demanded that she disclose the whereabouts of another student.

When she said she did not know the girl in question, they resorted to burning her and demanded that she confess to "devil worship".

The girl's parents, who were called in after she was rushed to hospital, denied that she was a devil worshiper. Their lawyer further revealed that the school was not registered.

A similar incident took place in January when a teenager was burned by members of a local church in an alleged exorcism.
The initiative, supported by the Mac Arthur Foundation, is part of an on-going partnership with Right to Know (R2K).

Dr. Joe Abah, director general of BPSR, said the agency was the first institution in Nigeria to have an electronic platform for receiving freedom of information requests, during the launch in Abuja.

We are proud to be the first government agency in Nigeria to have an electronic platform () for receiving Freedom of Information requests, Abah said.

The website will allow members of the public to submit real time online FOI requests and receive feedback, he stated.
Police chased and shot the man on Wednesday night in Maatkas, near Tizi Ouzou, before he could detonate his belt, according to the statement on Ennahar. Security officials were not immediately available to confirm the details.

Bombings and shootings have become rare in Algeria since the North African state emerged from a 1990s decade of war with Islamist militants that killed 200,000 people. But al Qaeda's North Africa branch and Islamic State affiliates operate in remotes part of the vast, oil-exporting country.

The last attempted suicide attack in Algeria was also in Tizi Ouzou when a militant tried to drive a bomb-packed truck into a police headquarters in the city, injuring 29 people.
Human rights groups have said torture marks on Regeni's body, which was dumped on the side of the road, indicated he died at the hands of Egyptian security services, an allegation the government has strongly denied.

Regeni, 28, disappeared on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

The Interior Ministry said security forces had targeted the criminal gang which had Regeni's bag and that it had "specialized in impersonating police officers, kidnapping foreigners and forcibly robbing them".

It said that a red handbag bearing the Italian flag was found, and inside it was Regeni's passport and other items such as a visa card two cell phones and a "feminine wallet" with the word love on it and a dark substance resembling hashish.

"A highly skilled investigation team was formed to uncover the mystery of several reported forced robberies and incidents of impersonating police officers," said the ministry in a statement.

The ministry named what it identified as four ring leaders of the gang; Tarek Saad Abd El-Fatah, 52, described as a dangerous offender guilty of fraud and other offences, and his son Saad Tarek Saad, 26.

Also mentioned were Mustafa Bakr Awad, 60, charged with fraud and 20 varied offences, and Salah Ali Sayed, 40, who the ministry said had committed similar crimes.

The ministry said the gang had robbed several Egyptians, as well as a Nigerian identified as Rasheed G. and a Portuguese man named Carlos M., as well as David K., an Italian.

Italian security officials had been notified of the investigation, said the ministry, which said it "deeply appreciates" Rome's "close cooperation".

The broken corpse of the Cambridge University student, who was researching the rise of independent labour unions following the 2011 revolt, was found in a ditch at the side of a motorway on Feb. 3.

Egyptian forensics and prosecution officials have said his body showed signs of torture and that he was killed by a blow with a sharp object to the back of the head.

The case has put a spotlight on alleged police brutality in Egypt, a strategic ally of the United State and other Western powers.

Shopkeepers in Regeni's neighborhood of Cairo said there were no signs that police in the area had been questioning people since his disappearance or death.

Rights groups accuse the police of widespread abuses against Egyptians since the army toppled Egypt's first freely elected president in 2013.

Italy has said Egyptian investigators should hand over the evidence they have uncovered on Regeni's death. Egypt invited Italian investigators to take part in the investigation, but judicial sources in Rome say the collaboration has been limited because not enough information was shared.

An Egyptian forensics official has told the public prosecutor's office the autopsy he conducted on an Italian student showed he was interrogated for up to seven days before he was killed, two prosecution sources had told Reuters.

The findings were the strongest indication yet that Giulio Regeni was killed by Egyptian security services because they point to interrogation methods such as burning with cigarettes in intervals over several days, which human rights groups say are the hallmark of the security services.
Through an interpreter, Mohamed said "it was not my intent to kill somebody" and had no specific target when he shot his rifle during the car jacking. But he said he knew someone could get shot and saw "someone on the ground" afterward.

"I'm sorry I did that, and I did that," he said in court.

Under the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to at his sentencing on April 26 to seek a prison term of 25 years for Mohamed, who was otherwise eligible for a sentence of up to life.

The plea followed Mohamed's indictment in 2013 for murdering Bultemeier and trying to kill Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Christopher McNeely after the two left a restaurant in Niamey, Niger, on Dec. 23, 2000.

Prosecutors said Mohamed, also known as Cheibani, and another assailant, armed with a pistol and AK-47 assault rifle, demanded Bultemeier hand over the keys to his sport utility vehicle, which bore U.S. diplomatic plates.

Mohamed then shot Bultemeier, prosecutors said. McNeely tried to help Bultemeier when Mohamed's accomplice shot both men, prosecutors said. McNeely survived the attack.

Malian police arrested Mohamed, but he escaped from custody in May 2002, according to prosecutors.

He was arrested in Mali in 2010 in connection with an attack on a convoy of Saudi Arabian officials in Niger that left four dead.

Sentenced in Niger to 20 years in prison, Mohamed escaped again in June 2013 with other inmates who launched an assault coordinated by Boko Haram, prosecutors said.

Mohamed also had connections to militant groups, including the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, prosecutors said.
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, called the database a "blacklist" and said the UNHRC was behaving "obsessively" against Israel.

The Geneva-based council, a 47-member state forum established 10 years ago which Israel and its major U.S. ally accuse of bias against the Jewish state, adopted the motion with 32 votes in favour, none against and 15, mostly European nations, abstaining.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement calling the body an "anti-Israel circus," adding the council "attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the gross violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea."

The council asked for the list of enterprises to be updated annually and to be appraised of the "human rights and international law violations involved in the production of settlement goods."

Netanyahu said it was absurd to condemn Israel rather than deal with attacks by Palestinians against Israel and by Islamic State in Europe. "Israel calls on responsible governments not to honour the decisions of the Council that discriminate against Israel," Netanyahu said.

Danon said the council's decision reminded of "a dark period in Europe when Jewish businesses were singled out. Whoever supported today's decision, should be ashamed."

The council also named Canadian Stanley Michael Lynk as its new investigator on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories following the resignation in January of special rapporteur Makarim Wibisono, citing Israel's failure to cooperate with him.
Well-known area artist Dorothy Slikker has another addition to her portfolio of artwork, a book featuring her paintings.

Well-known area artist Dorothy Slikker has another addition to her portfolio of artwork, a book featuring her paintings.

Slikker put aside her brush and palette for short time to write her first book, My Art Walk to the Contemporary Masters. It includes 133 of her paintings along with brief descriptions of each, beginning with one of her first, Pier in the Fog painted while taking lessons in 1976 in California.

Slikker described it as one of the most awful paintings that has ever been done, but that didnt stop from her from pursuing her love of painting.

As she wrote in her book, I just kept going forward with more effort.

Many of her paintings include nature scenes, animals, people, family members and events since family is very important to her.

The last painting in the book, Another Day at the Office includes her son, who is a crop duster, her grandson and great-grandson with Slikkers commentary, When you are a crop duster, your office is always out in the greater outdoors. Teaching the young, its never too early for them to learn new and better things.

Slikkers paintings are categorized as contemporary, which she describes as telling a story. You can look at it and know what it is, it shows brush strokes and its not perfect, like in a photograph.

Her perseverance and talent have led to her being recognized as a contemporary master artist as endorsed on the back of the book by art curator Despina Tunberg of World Wide Art Books based in Santa Barbara, California.

For us, Dorothy is eminently entitled to a prominent place in any publication or website with the name masters because she truly is a master painter.

Her husband, Thomas Tunberg, is the chief editor and marketing director for the publishing house, which features the work of contemporary artists worldwide in their books.

Our books are juried, so I mean not just anybody can get in, Thomas Tunberg said. There is a selection process; we approve the artists and also we select the works.

Four of Slikkers paintings were selected to appear in International Contemporary Masters (Volume 10) published by World Wide Art Books. As a result, eight of Slikkers paintings are on display at the International Masters Exhibition 2016 through April 16 in the Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art, located at 450 Fremont St. Suite 270, in Las Vegas.

Slikkers works have also been included in Art Tour International Magazine in its Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art.

Earning the title of Master Artist in multiple publications was the incentive for Slikker to write her book.

She said the publication is her brag book to the masters written in a conversational format. Slikker says there are intentional short sentences, but its meant to give the reader and viewer of her paintings a sense of who she is. She describes herself as a first generation California-born Okie, referencing a Buck Owens song and her own family roots in Oklahoma with its own culture, values and accent.

Slikker won her first art award in eighth grade in Shafter, California, near Bakersfield, with her water color of a tree dropping leaves.

I took first place in this art contest, Slikker said. I got the bug for being an artist.

She wanted to take art courses in high school, but her stepfather directed her to subjects leading to a college degree in business, telling her that one couldnt make a living as an artist.

When she and her husband, John, retired in Pahrump about 16 years ago, Slikker became connected to the art community here and in Las Vegas while continuing to master her works.

Local artist and good friend Doris Smith got Slikker involved in the annual Creative Painting Convention in Las Vegas where she met her mentor, artist Robert Warren from Canal Winchester, Ohio.

She studied under him, becoming one of his certified instructors, learning his soft orange and black study technique to set the darks and lights giving dimension to a painting as described in the book and seen in many of her works.

Slikker continues to teach art students in her home-based studio.

I kind of hate seeing people just sit around and be couch potatoes, because they keep saying I cant, I cant, when I know you can, you can, Slikker said. All you have to do is have the desire, if you have the desire to learn something, I can teach it to you.

Slikker will be hosting a book signing and cheese/wine tasting event at Sanders Winery on Sunday, April 3 from 1 to 4 p.m. at 3780 E. Kellogg Road. The first 10 buyers of a book will get a bottle of wine.

Her book can also be purchased at Barnes &Noble, Amazon.com, Liferichpublishng.com, her website: www.slikkersfineart.com, or at the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad Museum in Death Valley Junction. The book is available in hard cover for $43.99 or soft cover for $30.99. Any buyers from Slikkers website will receive one of her prints of their choice.
Two congressmen are renewing efforts on Yucca Mountain with a letter where they addressed the obligation for the Department of Energy to complete licensing for the project.

Two congressmen are renewing efforts on Yucca Mountain with a letter where they addressed the obligation for the Department of Energy to complete licensing for the project.

A letter penned by Fred Upton, R-Mich., and John Shimkus, R-Ill., for U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on March 17 stated that Congress and the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy chaired by Shimkus had examined issues associated with developing a comprehensive solution for used fuel management policy.

The letter said that while the Department of Energy had undertaken steps to implement its Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste, the federal government must fulfill statutory obligations as soon as possible.

Expeditiously resuming work on the Yucca Mountain license application would do just that, the letter reads.

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Director Robert Halstead called the letter an exercise in optimism.

I view this letter as an exercise in optimism, to see if they can get any useful information from DOE at a time when DOE is not actually working on Yucca Mountain, Halstead said.

Shimkus and Upton also recently asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine what would be necessary for DOE to fulfill its obligation to complete its work on the Yucca Mountain license application.

Halstead said that the DOE has no clear obligation to do so.

Our understanding of the law as we have been advised by our legal team is that theres no legal obligation for DOE to move forward on the license application either as soon as possible or in the language of the letter expeditiously, Halstead said.

The letter poses a series of questions about Yucca Mountain support activities, Nuclear Waste Policy Act compliance, consolidated interim storage, disposal of defense high-level radioactive waste and transportation of spent nuclear fuel. Shimkus and Upton asked for a response by April 14.

Also addressed in the letter was the hardware and packaging research work that is being done by DOE. While this is supposed to be generic and nonsite-specific research, Halstead said some of it might relate to Yucca Mountain if the project were restarted.

The DOE stated in December 2015 that they had about $19.5 million carry-over funding from previous appropriations.

Halstead said that the remaining carry-over appropriations would limit what the DOE could do without new funding from Congress.

In the absence of sufficient appropriations DOE wouldnt be able to move the license application forward even if they felt that they were required to do so, Halstead said.

In our opinion, DOE would need $100-150 million and at least 12 months just to start gearing up for the full legally-mandated licensing process, Halstead said.

The DOE estimated in 2007 that it would need $1.66 billion and 10 years to complete all activities associated with licensing, in addition to more than $600 million spent on licensing from 1998 to 2007.

The Yucca Mountain project was presumed dead after in 2010, the Obama administration scrapped plans to store tons of nuclear waste in it. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Committee to resume the proceeding in August 2013.

In November 2013, NRC responded to the court order by directing its staff to resume the preliminary portion of the proceeding by using available limited funds. NRC staff subsequently requested that the DOE prepare a supplement to their 2008 Environmental Impact Statement, but the DOE declined, and the NRC did not order the DOE to prepare the supplement.

NRC staff prepared the draft supplement in 2015 and was expected to release the final supplement in the beginning of 2016.

The final NRC EIS Supplement is expected anytime now, Halstead said.

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77
Nye County Manager Pam Webster will officially add the duties of comptroller today to help guide the county through its current budget season.

Nye County Manager Pam Webster will officially add the duties of comptroller today to help guide the county through its current budget season.

Webster will replace Amy Fanning, who had been a comptroller since 2014. Nye County commissioners appointed Webster as interim comptroller at the March 15 meeting after Fanning had announced her resignation.

The reason why we chose her is because of her experience, County Commission Chairman Frank Carbone said. She has got over 30 years (of experience) in the financial world.

The added responsibilities are to help bridge the time until a new comptroller can be hired. The county is in the process of working on its fiscal 2017 budget, which is due in May and starts July 1.

At the last meeting, commissioners waived a 90-day waiting period to post the position as they are looking to hire a new full-time comptroller immediately.

Websters added duties come with no salary increase. Her current yearly salary as a county manager is $121,867 after her contract was extended for two years in October 2015. No salary increase came with that extension, either.

In her new role, Webster will prepare, present and monitor the budget, manage the finance department, which includes processing accounts payable, accounts receivable, procurement, general ledger and grant management.

Pam is acting as the comptroller until we find a replacement for Ms. Fanning, Carbone said. Pam will still be the county manager with no change in pay.

Webster has been an employee of Nye County since 2006 when she was hired as a comptroller and budget director. After spending a year in that position she was promoted to assistant county manager and later county manager.

She holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of La Verne in La Verne, California.

Prior to coming to Nye County, Webster spent 18 years in the aerospace industry in southern California where she held various financial positions including project accountant, manager of proposals, manager of budgets and rates. She also worked as a government liaison for the consolidation of five facilities in Arlington, Texas.

I went on to work in an engineering research and development organization as the financial manager responsible for accounting and financial statements, procurement, budgets, project cost management, she said. I implemented a multi-million dollar financial system including an integrated project costing capability.

The county is currently projecting a $1.5 million general fund budget shortfall. In February, the county was put under fiscal watch by the Nevada Department of Taxation after the state identified several financial conditions in the county serious enough to warrant the fiscal watch. However, the watch does not put the county under state control, only increases the countys financial reporting to the state.

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77
Nye County Fifth District Judge Kim Wanker meets with people from drug court every day as she travels to hear cases across the states largest county.

Nye County Fifth District Judge Kim Wanker meets with people from drug court every day as she travels to hear cases across the states largest county.

Every case is different but the common thread, Wanker said, is that those who end up in drug court often lack broader help, whether it be on a town, county or state level.

The purpose behind drug court is to help people, it really is. People think that the courts are always punishment, but we are not. That isnt what the courts are all about, she said.

The Pahrump adult drug court program sees people from 18 to 65 years old. The 1-to-3 year program offers individual and group counseling. Graduates leave with a high school diploma or GED, a full-time job and drivers license, Wanker said.

The slim-staffed adult drug court program in Nye County that is fed from other courts has become increasingly difficult to operate because of the lack of funding. The program runs in Pahrump and Tonopah and is being supported by a number of volunteers.

We just have a lot of people (in drug court) and quite frankly, we have operated for the last year without a grant and so, that puts a lot of pressure you know, what the county finances are, she added.

Recently, Wanker has been more optimistic after Nye County commissioners gave a go-ahead to the application for a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grant for the Fifth Judicial District Adult Drug Court Program in Pahrump.

The coveted grant would be disbursed in the amount of $325,000 annually over the next 3 years, which Wanker hopes would pay for drug testing and other costlycomponents of the program.

According to Nye County documents, the grant will fund the existing contract with WestCare for counseling the Pahrump drug court participants, drug court personnel salaries, benefits and mandatory educational conferences.

With the help of the grant, Wanker wants to expand the existing resources and provide more supplies and counseling. She also hopes to hire two part-time court facilitators.

We want to stop criminal behavior, stop this revolving door and rehabilitate people. Make them productive members of society. Thats our goal, she said.

The deadline for the grant is April 4 but Wanker and her team wont know until September whether they got it, as they have to compete with drug courts from across the country.

Nevadas specialty courts created new opportunities for drug courts in rural parts of the state such as those in Nye County thanks to a $3 million funding that was provided by the 2015 Legislature.

Just last week, three people graduated from the adult drug court program. Wanker said many later come back to thank her.

In her office, Wanker has a picture from a program graduate.

Thats one of my favorite pictures because the detail in that guys face is phenomenal, she said pointing at the oil painting of a Native American man. I get some really really talented people in drug court.

Wanker often communicates with adult drug court program graduates. She said there are many success stories as those who have gone through the program stayed clean, found full-time jobs and were able to give back to the community.

For me, its exciting to see the people change, she said.

We want to stop criminal behavior, stop this revolving door and rehabilitate people, she added. Make them productive members of society. Thats our goal.

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77
CARSON CITY  Lack of clarity in Nevadas medical marijuana law opens the door for litigation over employer requirements to accommodate workers who use medicinal marijuana, lawyers told a state advisory panel Wednesday.

CARSON CITY  Lack of clarity in Nevadas medical marijuana law opens the door for litigation over employer requirements to accommodate workers who use medicinal marijuana, lawyers told a state advisory panel Wednesday.

Edwin Keller Jr. and Robert Spretnak, labor and employment law attorneys, told the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice that a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000 legalizing marijuana for medical use did not require employers to accommodate workers who use it.

But a law passed by the 2013 Legislature setting up a regulatory and taxing structure to implement commercial medical marijuana is ambiguous and ripe for legal action, they said.

One thing we share is, theres a lack of guidance due to the ambiguities in the statutes, said Spretnak, who represents employees in his legal practice. Keller is an employer attorney.

The state law says employers are not required to allow use of medical marijuana in the workplace or modify jobs or working conditions for someone who does.

But the law also says an employer must attempt to make reasonable accommodations for employees who hold a valid medical marijuana card so long as marijuana use doesnt pose a threat of harm or danger, cause undue hardship on the employer, or prohibit the employee from fulfilling any or all of their responsibilities.

Litigating a case after somebody has been fired is not the ideal way to solve a problem, Spretnak said.

Keller also said the law doesnt distinguish what type and size of businesses are required to try to accommodate medical pot users, or how such requirements are to be enforced.

Additionally, he said it doesnt address pre-employment drug screening. Can medical marijuana card holders be denied employment if they test positive?

Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty, chairman of the commission, indicated he would form a subcommittee of the advisory panel to further study the issues.

Hardesty on Wednesday also raised concerns about billboards in Las Vegas for Dr. Reefer that advertise a toll-free number to call for medical marijuana cards.

Officials with the Division of Public and Behavioral Health, which regulates Nevadas medical marijuana program, said there are consultants who assist medical marijuana patients through the application process to obtain a card, adding the division has no authority to restrict advertising by doctors.

Chad Westom, chief of the medical marijuana program, said the number of card holders in Nevada has tripled since laws allowing for commercial cultivation and sale was passed three years ago.

Steve Gilbert, state program manager, said 461 licensed Nevada physicians have signed recommendations for patients to obtain medical marijuana cards.

There are currently 15,238 medical marijuana cardholders, plus another 1,144 who are caregivers for patients.

The first cultivation, production, testing labs and dispensaries opened in Nevada in 2015. So far only about 22 percent of the facilities that were awarded licenses are open for business and officials expect the number of cardholders to continue to grow as medical pot becomes more accessible.

Nevadans in November will also vote on making marijuana legal for recreational use.

Contact Sandra Chereb at schereb@reviewjournal.com. Find @SandraChereb on Twitter.
The Nye County School District is in the early stages of a district-wide reorganization plan.

The Nye County School District is in the early stages of a district-wide reorganization plan.

At the board of trustees meeting Tuesday, Superintendent Dale Norton spoke of the possible changes for over an hour, laying out what a pair of outside entities discovered about the struggling school district.

The goal of the change-up is to put more focus on the students in the district, and not on the running of it.

This district has been operations driven over student learning, Norton said. Weve lost focus of student learning.

A big part of the change will be reordering the hierarchy that the school district is run under, which would mean the adding of a few new positions, but without adding to the budget.

This reorganization plan will cost the district no additional money, Norton said.

The hierarchy would have the superintendent at the top, with two associate superintendents under him, with one associate superintendent having the director of special education services and the director of rural schools under them and the other associate superintendent having the director of curriculum and instruction under them. The superintendent would have the director of human relations and the chief operating officer working under his direction.

What this does is it puts two associate (superintendents) in place I would also be putting in place a director of rural schools.

The director of rural schools would be placed in the northern part of the county as a district-level director, with responsibilities to the schools in that area, which Norton said is a need he hears about from the north all the time.

Making these new positions possible without adding any cost to the district is tied to a few happenings, with the major one being the retirement of Dr. Kim Friel, which Norton called a high-dollar position. Rolling that money into associate positions is not as high as Friels position and reorganizing internally and future vacating of positions will allow for the new positions at a zero dollar increase.

In addition to the new positions, the redirecting of resources to support the districts educational goals that would focus in on student outcomes.

The rearranging of the operations of the school district, allowing more capacity out to the schools to help mentor principals and teachers, which would affect student outcome.

The addition of two associate superintendents would allow for someone to be in charge at all times, even if Norton was away.

Staff would be assigned to a higher level of responsibility, allowing them to view the system on a broader scope, according to Norton.

The board of trustees pledged their full support to the reorganization plan.

Largely spurring the changes is when Norton brought in third-party groups to examine the district, a move that he said was, taking a personal risk, due to the unbiased opinions that pair of groups would divulge about the county.

The groups brought in were the University of Virginia/Partnership Leaders in Education, which carried out a turnaround readiness assessment report in August, and WestEd, who conducted a Nevada Comprehensive Curriculum Audit Tool for Districts summary report in 2013.

The findings by the two groups gave the district all the reasons they needed to change up what theyre doing educationally in the county.

WestEd found that NCSD average scores in math, reading and science were lower than the states average, with the exception of 5th grade science.

Math scores in grades 3 through 8 were 12 percentage points below state averages. The average math score dropped from 62.1 percent proficient in grade 3 to just 24.9 percent proficient in grade 8.

In addition, the average percent of students proficient in writing was five to 10 percentage points lower than state average.

The average reading scores in the district in grades 5 through 8 were around five percentage points below the state average.

The WestEd team concluded that the district needs a consistent K through 12 district-wide approach to writing that is more aligned with state expectations.

On the high school level the WestEd team discovered that 11th grade NCSD students performed at or slightly above state average on the reading high school proficiency exam and near average in the science exam. Students seemed to struggle a bit on the two other proficiency exams as they were below state average in the writing portion and in the math test students consistently fell short of state average on that proficiency exam, with 72.5 percent passing in the NCSD compared to 75.9 in the state.

Based on their findings, alignment of math curriculum district-wide was set as a priority. It was suggested that kindergarten through eighth grade math instruction focus on district improvement efforts, specifically professional development for teachers.

The readiness assessment report compiled by the University of Virginias Partnership for Leaders in Education showed that the district is poised to do great things, but needs some adjustments to the existing central office staffing and structures to enable the transformation into the articulated district it desires.

There were several areas of concern found by the report and there were suggested steps to remedy those issues.

There were issues with priorities and expectations of each NCSD leader, as they varied based on their role and their personal opinion. It was recommended that a tactical approach was taken to set common expectations and standards to confirm commitment to the plan.

The role of the principals and teachers to drive student proficiency was unclear so the report suggested that the district deploys mentors and central staff to increase the capacity of principals and to develop instructional skills of the teachers district wide.

Furthering that increasing the number of days teachers had professional development days higher than the current five days of voluntary time by scheduling it during the standard workday and even mandating their participation.

With the pair of group findings in mind, the goals for the proposed reorganization were laid out by Norton and they were, to elevate achievement for all students; increasing the graduation rate; to empower and hold the superintendent responsible for implementing the districts direction and managing district operations; and adopting budgets that direct resources to support educational goals.

To accomplish such goals Norton said there needed to be a paradigm shift and to shift focus onto the whole child.

Norton used a once troubled student who spoke just before his presentation at the meeting about a new program at Pahrump Valley High School, JAG, and how it turned his view on school around completelyand was an example of how the district could begin to raise its academic results.

We had a prime example of a young man standing before us that because of the focused efforts, has made a change in his life, Norton said. He may not graduate on time, but Im assured that that young man is going to graduate. I could hear it in his voice.

I had a conversation with that boys grandma two years ago and she was ready to pull her hair out about that young man, and thats what this is all about. Is that one child. So thats what we need to be focused in on, is that one child.

Norton explained like almost any other change, all aspects of the reorganization plan might not be comfortable for all involved, but the district would figure out how to make it work.

The changes really come down to bettering every students time during their school years in the district, setting them up for their best chance at success during and after their schooling is complete.

I care about the kids, Norton said. Im tired about talking about change. I want change.

Contact reporter Mick Akers at makers@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @MickAkers
Two former Pahrump Town Board members have entered the race for the Nye County District 2 commission seat.

Two former Pahrump Town Board members have entered the race for the Nye County District 2 commission seat.

Former Town Board Chairman Harley Kulkin filed to run for the seat last week, as did former member Amy Riches.

As the sole Democratic candidate in any county race, Kulkin said hes interested in attracting business and commerce to the county.

I always wanted to be involved in what goes on here, he said. I feel that there is some potential that has been ignored for the 22 years that Ive been here. Nye County doesnt seem too interested in positive growth. We are growing, but its not at the level that we would like to see. They just seem to be so anti-business and anti-positive growth. I just dont understand that.

Kulkin said the countys finances also need to be addressed.

He spoke about the importance of generating more income to pay for infrastructure and services.

They dont seem to understand that government is a business and they should be creating assets before they fund liabilities, he said. With gold mining, and PETT money (Payment Equal To Taxes), and all the things that this county has brought in, it doesnt make any sense that we are the poorest county in the state of Nevada. It is due to an incredible amount of incompetence.

Additionally, Kulkin said if elected, he would work to re-establish the Pahrump Town Board, which was dissolved by county commissioners back in 2015.

I think there is too much responsibility for the county commissioners to run both the town and the county, he said. Everybody has their jobs to do and I think it needs to be re-established. Teamwork is how you get extraordinary results. You dont get it from one person or a group of people trying to do everything.

Kulikn also said hes going to devote more time into campaigning this election season.

I am officially retired now and I can devote my time to being a commissioner, he said. I was a successful businessman here in town for 22 years. Politics and public service is in my blood. Its kind of like a curse in a sense. On a personal level, I have worked very hard for many years. I am retired now and I am in a position to enjoy all of the fruits of my hard work.

Former town board member Amy Riches has also expressed interest in a spot on the Nye County Commission District 2 race.

Her motivation she said is properly representing the citizens of Nye County.

I decided to run to give the people a voice because I dont feel the people are being listened to, she said.

Riches noted she focused on several issues in Nye County.

I have serious concerns about the tax situation here, she said. On the heels of Sandoval and Oscarson making the biggest text thing in history, why in the middle of a recession would you even consider raising taxes? The nickel gas tax to me is ludicrous. I dont like taxes because I think they are a form of punishment. The price of groceries keeps going up and people are living paycheck to paycheck.

Unlike Kulkin, Riches said she would not devote time to re-establish the Pahrump Town Board.

If I am elected, I would not put any effort into re-establishing the Pahrump Town Board, she said. If Im elected, I want to go through the budget with a fine-tooth comb, because theres a big difference between approving the budget and making a budget.

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes
Since the Valley Electric Board likely will consider a rate increase later this year, I thought it might help if I shared with you some of the things VEA has been doing since 2010 to keep the rates stable through the worst recession in Nevadas history.

Since the Valley Electric Board likely will consider a rate increase later this year, I thought it might help if I shared with you some of the things VEA has been doing since 2010 to keep the rates stable through the worst recession in Nevadas history.

All of our costs have increased over the past six years but none compared to the transmission expansions and subsequent operating capital components. Of course, the big driver is the new 230 kV line we needed in order to meet industry standards for redundancy, which helps prevent the type of outages we experienced in 2007. So weve had to be innovative in order to grow new revenue sources and keep operating expenses in check.

Being innovative is an important part of who we are. By looking outside the box, we have created revenue opportunities that have helped us absorb costs and stave off additional rate increases since 2010. This happened in spite of reduced sales brought on by the economic downturn and cyclical weather.

First, lets look at some of the ways VEA has been able to grow revenue. Since 2012, VEA has been awarded or signed contracts with Nevada National Security Site, Creech Air Force Base and the California Independent Systems Operations for services. These contracts bring in nearly $20 million annually. VEA provides solutions for NNSS, Creech and ISO while allowing our co-op to spread the advantages of our existing assets such as transmission lines which were built with fiber-optic lines for our internal SCADA use.

Were just now beginning to see the benefits of our fiber-optic initiative. Running the fiber along our power lines enables VEA to branch out into a completely new business  broadband communications. The demand for broadband service is sorely lacking in Nye County as anyone who attended our district meetings earlier this month heard over and over. No existing broadband provider was willing to invest in the infrastructure necessary to deliver the capacity.

VEA is.

Indirectly, broadband will help hold down rates for both communications and electricity by promoting economic development in the Pahrump Valley. As our broadband capacity expands, so will the countys ability to attract new businesses and grow existing businesses, which spreads the cost of service among a larger base. Broadband is no longer a luxury, its a necessity. Residents and businesses expect it. As the service expands and the reliability improves, business and residential growth can occur as well. Everyone else benefits from the growth.

Almost all of our costs have gone up since 2010. Those include operating expenses, transmission, long-term debt and depreciation. By expanding our revenue base, we have been able to absorb the increase in expenses.

Thats not all. When the Great Recession hit us, we made cost reductions wherever possible to hold down our expenses. Our employee base was 96 before the recession.

We cut that number back to 78 by 2010 during the height of the economic downturn. Only now are our employee levels approaching pre-recession highs. Those reductions in operating costs helped us hold the line on rates up until now.

Which brings us to a place where we have to consider a rate increase in July 2016, six months before we had hoped. Weve been sharing that message with our member-owners at all the district meetings in March.

One of the great things about conducting our annual district meetings is the opportunity it gives me and Valley Electric Association board and executives to meet face to face with our member-owners. We come away from those meetings each year energized.

The feedback drives us. There is nothing like a personal conversation with you in your community to remind us what our mission is: reliability and affordability.

That mission now applies to more than electric service. Weve heard your requests for reliable, affordable high-speed internet service, and were moving rapidly to bring broadband to every VEA member-owner. In addition, weve heard your concern and sympathetic understanding for the rate adjustment.

A detailed cost-of-services analysis by an independent third party will have to be reviewed before any action is taken by the board on a rate increase. All five rate classes will be examined in the study, which likely wont be ready for board examination until at least May.

No final decision on a rate increase will be made by the board until after the board has had time to review the study, ask questions and consider additional feedback.

We are proud of the way weve been able to hold down costs to our member-owners while absorbing our own expense increases for the past six years.

We will do everything we can to keep rates as low as possible while we continue to serve our communities reliably and affordably.

Thomas H. Husted is chief executive officer of Valley Electric Association Inc.
If it were up to the majority of people who packed Thursday's meeting of the Scott County Board of Supervisors, a proposal making it possible to rezone farm land in unincorporated areas to industrial use would go down in flames.

Of 31 people who spoke at a 1-hour public hearing, two expressed support.

However, the question is not up to the majority of those people. It is up to the five-member board that is expected to vote at its next meeting on April 7.

Leading off the opposition Thursday was Ed Geest, a Blue Grass farmer who approached podium with a container holding an apple cut into pieces.

Using the apple to represent the Earth, Geest explained how various pieces cannot be used for growing food because they are too cold or too hot, covered with water or composed of sand.

Finally he had only one tiny piece representing 1/32nd of the Earth's surface. This, he said, represents the amount of productive land available for farming.

The issue, he said, "is not about farmers against city people."

"It's about what's best for future generations, 100, 200, 300 years from now. When you look at the whole Earth, there really isn't that much of it (land for farming)."

David Urush, of LeClaire, also used a visual aid.

Holding an ear of corn, he said that if one kernel was taken from the ear and planted, it would produce a plant bearing an ear with 700 or 800 kernels. "Nothing you put on that ground will give you that return," he said.

Ray De Winkle, vice president for business attraction for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, supported the change, saying it would "set us up for a future opportunity.

"You have a chance to prepare for economic opportunity," he told the board.

Roy Washburn, representing the 8,600 families of the Tri-City Building and Construction Trades Council, also voiced support. The change is reasonable and "extremely important to the entire community," he said.

All others spoke against, saying that once land is gone it is gone forever, that the change would bring disorder and erode farmland preservation in general, and, if used, would devalue land of adjoining property owners.

Among comments:

 Robb Ewoldt, Blue Grass: "Does this open up all AP (agricultural preservation) ground in Scott County if this goes through? This is scary. Now's the time to stand up. This is it."

 Mike Meloy, Bettendorf: "Don't stack the deck against agriculture in Scott County."

 Gale Francione, Davenport: Asked the board why it feels so compelled to support the change. When it comes time to vote, "it will be incumbent upon you explain why you are voting in favor."

 Kent Paustian, Walcott: "As a member of the planning and zoning commission for 25 years, everything you're proposing flies in the face of what we've been doing since the 1980s."

 Blane Bolte, Walcott: Said he has a friend who farms in Lee County where the Orascom fertilizer plant is being built. The friend told him that "life as we knew it ended when that plant started construction. We don't have a farming community anymore."
SPRINGFIELD  A man who was arrested for stealing two DVDs, some clothing and a 20-ounce bottle of Dr Pepper from a Bloomington Walmart in 2012 shouldn't have been convicted of felony burglary, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled this week.

Following a bench trial before McLean County Circuit Judge John Costigan in January 2013, Jesse Bradford was convicted of burglary, a Class 2 felony, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. But the state's high court ruled that "no rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt" that Bradford, then 27, was guilty of burglary rather than misdemeanor retail theft.

Bradford walked into Walmart on July 19, 2012, picked up two DVDs near the cash register and exchanged them for a store gift card, according to court documents. Afterward, he remained in the store, swiping a hat and a pair of shoes and using the gift card to pay for a friend's purchase.

At trial, McLean County prosecutors argued that Bradford's actions amounted to burglary because "he remained within a store without authority" with the intent of stealing, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

Bradford appealed his conviction, and in November 2014, the 4th District Appellate Court upheld the trial court's ruling.

But in a unanimous decision issued Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that the appellate court interpreted the state's burglary law too broadly.

"The court's vague conclusion that 'a defendant who develops an intent to steal after his entry into a public building may be found guilty of burglary by unlawfully remaining' encompasses nearly all cases of retail theft, effectively negating the retail theft statute," Justice Anne Burke wrote in the court's opinion.

Had Bradford remained in the store after being asked to leave, gone into an area closed to the public or hid inside and waited for the store to close, his actions would have amounted to burglary, according to the court.

"Conversely," Burke writes, "an individual who enters a building lawfully, shoplifts merchandise within areas which are open to the public, then leaves during business hours, is guilty of ordinary retail theft."

McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers said the decision "isn't going to affect us from a practical standpoint very much."

Chambers was elected in November 2012 and took office the month before Bradford's trial. His office has since stopped using the "burglary by remaining" charge in virtually all cases involving retailers.

"It didn't seem like the intent of that statute in my opinion," Chambers said.

William Schroeder, a criminal law professor at Southern Illinois University, said he hopes decisions such as this one prompt prosecutors to be more judicious in charging people with felonies.

"There is a tendency in this state to seemingly make everything a felony," Schroeder said, noting that a felony conviction can be disastrous to someone's economic future.

Bradford, however, has other felonies on his record, including a retail theft conviction for stealing a pair of glasses from All About Eyes in March 2012 and a 2010 conviction for possession of stolen vehicle.

He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in the 2010 case. In the other case, he was sentenced to two years at the same time as his conviction on the charges involved in the Supreme Court decision.

He served nearly two years in the 2012 cases and was released on parole in February 2015.
Investigators plan to press additional charges against ex-governor of Sakhalin - report

MOSCOW, March 25 (RAPSI)  The Investigative Committee of Russia plans to press additional bribery charges against former governor of Sakhalin Alexander Khoroshavin, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

In the near future [investigators] plan to charge Khoroshavin with 10 new episodes of criminal activity. All of them are related to large sum bribery and accompanying extortion, official representative of the Committee Vladimir Markin said on the air of Vesti FM.

Markin added that at this moment Khoroshavin is accused of 2 episodes of criminal activity, allegedly taking a 300 million ruble bribe ($4.2 mln). Ex-governors property cost amounted to 2 billion rubles ($28.5 mln).

Investigators announced in March 2015 that Khoroshavin and several other officials were arrested for allegedly taking a $5.6 million bribe to secure a contract to build a power unit for the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk thermal plant.

Last April, Khoroshavin was charged in another criminal case with taking a bribe of at least 15 million rubles ($194,500) for providing credits on advantageous terms to one of the local businessmen. He pleaded not guilty.

In January, the third criminal case was opened against Khoroshavin. According to investigators, he took 27 million rubles ($350,000) in bribes from candidates for the positions in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Duma in 2014.

President Vladimir Putin dismissed Khoroshavin from his post due to loss of trust in March 2015.
Lawyer for Russian citizen suspected of terrorism in Ukraine found dead

MOSCOW, March 25 (RAPSI)  Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine, Anatoly Matios, has confirmed the death of Yuri Grabovsky, the defense lawyer for Russian national Alexander Aleksandrov suspected of terrorism, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

Earlier, attorney Oksana Sololovskaya representing another Russian citizen detained in the case, Yevgeny Yerofeyev, said that Grabovskys body was discovered in the Kiev region on the night of Friday. The Ukrainian National Bar Association announced that suspects in the murder of Grabovsky have been already arrested.

Grabovsky went missing about two weeks ago. On March 9, he failed to appear in court on the case against Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev without giving reasons.

Sokolovskaya stated that her colleagues disappearance was connected with the trial because the materials on the Russian citizens defense had disappeared along with Grabovsky.

Police have opened a murder case in connection with the lawyers disappearance.

Ukrainian authorities claim that Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev were captured in an eastern region of the country during an attack on a bridge on May 16, 2015.

The men, who face terrorism charges, serve in the Third Special Forces Brigade, which is based in Togliatti, a city in southern Russia, according to Ukrainian officials.

The men also face allegations of waging of a war of aggression, illegal border crossing, illegal carrying weapon and ammunition, illegal entry to an occupied territory and unleashing of war. They could be sentenced to life in prison on these charges.

According to Sokolovskaya, most of accusations against Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev are unreasonable.

Moscow strongly denies the allegations. The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that the men "were not on active service in the Russian Armed Forces" at the time of their capture in May 2015.

In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities began a military operation in Donbas against the local residents who objected to the coup. According to the UNs latest data, over 6,200 people have been killed in the conflict. Ukrainian officials and some Western states have repeatedly accused Russia of interfering in Ukraines domestic issues.

Moscow has repeatedly claimed that it has had absolutely no part in the events in southeastern Ukraine and does not supply the self-defense forces with military equipment and ammunition; that it is not a party to the domestic Ukrainian conflict and is interested in Ukraine overcoming the political and economic crisis.
Investigative Committee claims Yukos privatization in 1995 was illegal

MOSCOW, March 25 (RAPSI)  The official representative of Russias Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, said on Friday that privatization of a prominent Yukos oil company in 1995 was conducted with numerous violations of competition and anti-monopoly legislation, RIA Novosti reported.

According to investigators, in 1995 Mikhail Khodorkovsky used firms, de-facto belonging to him, Laguna and Reagent companies, to participate in the investment tender and auction over Yukos assets, presenting those firms as independent players. Laguna won the tender and auction, but payment for the shares was conducted on the funds of MENATEP bank. Funds were not returned to the bank and it was bankrupted several years later.

Therefore shares have been obtained by Khodorkovsky free of charge, on other people's money, stolen, in fact, Markin said.

The Investigative Committee announced at the end of last year that it started to examine the legality of YUKOS share acquisition by foreign companies, which are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Russia.

A tribunal for the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration announced in July 2014 that it had issued awards in three cases filed against Russia. The tribunal ordered that Russia pay Yukos Universal Limited (Isle of Man) over $1.8 billion in damages. Hulley Enterprises Limited (Cyprus) was awarded about $40 billion, and Veteran Petroleum Limited (Cyprus) got over $8 billion. Russian authorities moved to set aside the ruling and turned to the District Court of the Hague.
Russias Federal Chamber of Lawyers calls to ensure independence of advocacy

MOSCOW, March 25 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) - Yevgeny Semenyako, President of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers, during the briefing at the TASS news agency on Friday proposed to ensure independence of advocacy by implementing a relevant reform.

Bar independence may be enhanced under independent judiciary only, Semenyako told journalists. Therefore, the Federal Chamber of Lawyers supported a proposal by President Vladimir Putin to reduce number of jurors from 12 to 8 people.

About 3 million criminal cases are reviewed in Russia annually; we could see judiciary independence if jurors consider some of them, Semenyako said.

Moreover, members of the Chamber see an opportunity of hearing civil cases by jury. However, in such cases the number of jurors should be reduced even more.
Theres been no new news to push the durum market one way or the other of late so prices have remained flat. Analysts are now waiting for the Planting Intentions Report which will come out the end of March to provide some direction.Cash prices for top milling quality durum remain unchanged from the previous report, trading from $5.85 to $6, though most bids are closer to $6, according to Erica Olson, marketing specialist for the North Dakota Wheat Commission.New crop durum bids are trading between $5.40 and $5.75.Its more of the same  quiet demand and plentiful supplies, Olson said. There is some concern surfacing regarding dry conditions in Morocco and Algeria, however, where the rainfall has been well below average at only 15-40 percent of normal.Theres been some improvement in Algeria because they recently got some precipitation, but its very concerning in Morocco.For the current marketing year the U.S. and other world durum exporters have seen overall demand from that region down, mainly because they had higher production in 2015.Their harvest will start in May and well know more then, but if their production does decline that will likely mean higher import demand which would be welcomed, Olson explained.In the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report released by USDA on March 9, there were no changes at all to durum.And in the latest report from the International Grains Council, the IGC increased the 2015 world durum production number slightly higher to 1.46 billion bushels. This was due to a revised estimate from Turkey that significantly increased their production.Other than that there were no major changes to the production numbers in the IGC report, just slight adjustments to trade numbers.On the export side, Olson reported there was some export activity for U.S. durum in the last couple weeks.We did see some export activity for U.S. durum. We sold just over 1 million bushels to Italy and about a half million bushels to Nigeria, she said, adding that total export sales were now at 24.5 million bushels which is about 1 million higher than a year ago.North of the border, exports from Canada have picked up slightly but they are still trailing last years pace by 9 percent.Domestically, U.S. purchases have been quite slow. Theres no incentive for millers to make extended purchases at this time, Olson said. Well see some new crop durum already in May or June and theyre anxiously awaiting the planting estimates.In the U.S. desert durum region the crop looks to be in good condition. Although the development of the crop is a bit behind last year, it is well ahead of average.With little to no change in the current market, the trade is turning its attention to the March Planting Intentions Report. Although durum prices, like most commodity prices, are below last years levels, some are anticipating an increase in acres.In the northern durum region we are expecting an increase in acreage, Olson said. Our best guess is an increase of 10-15 percent. That would get us closer to the long term average of 2 million acres. Weve been slowly working our way back up there.In Canada, theyre calling for a minor increase in acres, but a couple analysts think durum acreage could actually be lower, according to Olson.Thats going to be worth watching in the next few weeks and months  just how much actually gets planted, she concluded.
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Kansas State football at TCU: Live notes and updates

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At Ferndales Catfe Lounge , owner Deanne Iovan has a kind word and a gentle pet for every cat she meets -- even the ill-tempered, mangy ones.The Catfe, which opened in November last year, is a volunteer-driven lounge where patrons can hang with cats in a cozy setting for a small donation. Any income helps subsidize the work of the Ferndale Cat Shelter , where Iovan serves as executive director.As the shelter does not have a permanent space, but instead operates through a network of foster homes, the Catfe greatly increases the number of cats they can accept. Since opening, the Catfe has helped facilitate 40 cat adoptions. These cats were homeless, abandoned, or whose owner could no longer care for them.While Iovan is proud of that number, there's always more. The demand never ends, she says. We are constantly bombarded with requests from someone who rescued a cat, or someone is moving, or somebody died. There's several every day.Iovan tries to help everyone who reaches out, but capacity is limited so she selects cases where the likelihood is greatest for a cat to successfully re-home. But Iovan loves all cats, and doesn't turn away typically less-desirable cats, be they moody or older. That's why the Catfe welcomes a wide assortment of cat personalities.The community response to the Catfe was immediate. The day it opened, there was a line out the door. New people come every weekend, some from as far away as Grand Rapids, Ohio, and Canada. There are also regulars -- cat-lovers that come for their fix. On any given day you might see a hipster couple hoping to add a cat to their one-dog home, a young mom and toddler who visit weekly to play with the cats, and a curious passerby who simply wants to see whats up.Most cat cafes in the United States are for-profit operations that partner with a rescue. Ferndales Catfe Lounge, the only cat cafe in the state of Michigan, is a nonprofit with all proceeds, either from donations or membership dues, benefiting cats.Along with bridging needy cats to welcoming homesteads, the Catfe has also become a community hub. A Girl Scout troop made and donated cat toys. The Catfe recently partnered with Gilda's Club to facilitate a therapy program (many consider cat interaction therapeutic). Among the other offerings are Kitty Cat Yoga, Purrlates: Pilates with Cats, and Paws and Tiny Tails preschool story time (in collaboration with the Ferndale Area District Library). The space can also been rented for childrens birthday parties.We connect the activity to homeless cats in the community, says Iovan. It brings awareness to cat homelessness.Money, steady volunteers, and the blending of cat personalities in one space are some of the demands of running the Catfe Lounge and Ferndale Cat Shelter.But the biggest challenge," says Iovan, "is finding a place for every cat that needs a home."
Since its opening in 1964, Guy Kenny's Plymouth-based industrial company Glassline has specialized almost exclusively in the fabrication of corrosion-resistant fiberglass equipment for the steel, chemical, and automotive industries. Hence the massive, multi-chambered tank that's currently under construction in the middle of his workshop."The principle," Kenny tells me matter-of-factly, "is that is they can put a car in there, give it seven years of exposure in four or five weeks, and see how it holds up. They'll raise the temperature inside from 40 degrees below zero to 140 at one degree a minute. They'll spray it with water and salt. They can even make it snow in there."Fascinating as the tank is, it is not actually the reason for my visit to Glassline. I'm there to learn about the curious variety of disembodied architectural elements that are strewn about Kenny's workshop, and that give it the appearance of a disassembled classical theatre set. There are elaborately carved lions' heads, bits of balustrade, and several sections of cornice -- the ornate ledges that crown historic buildings and are intended to deflect rainwater from their facades.That's because, in the last ten years, Kenny has brought his technical know-how to a whole new market: the revitalization of downtown Detroit. In addition to their industrial work, Glassline has taken to recreating lost or deteriorated architectural elements for a host of historic buildings that are undergoing rehabilitation. And they're making them all out of fiberglass.The steady return of the rich and varied details that grace downtown Detroit's historic buildings is a happy development in an otherwise long and tragic story. In June of 1958, 79-year old Myrtle Taggart was killed by an almost literal ton of bricks that fell off a crumbling, seventh story cornice. This incident prompted the city to swiftly pass an ordinance to fine building owners whose cornices were not properly maintained. As a result of this edict, and the widespread economic decline of subsequent decades, cornices often proved too costly to keep up and were removed en masse.Thus the preponderance of historic buildings in Detroit that seem somehow incomplete, scarred by mysterious bands of metal or brick where iconic cornices once proudly jutted.Beginning with the 2006 resurrection of the Book Cadillac Hotel , however, downtown cornices, along with a host of other lost architectural details, began making an unprecedented, investment-fueled comeback. Back then, Kenny, who had recently fabricated replacement elements for historic buildings in both Flint and Bay City, won a bid to recreate the Book Cadillac's 23rd floor water table (essentially a cornice that's positioned lower on the building). He figures that in the ten years since, his work in architectural fabrication for the downtown market has grown to account for anywhere between 30 to 40% of his business. Recent projects include work on the refurbished David Whitney Building, Broderick Tower, Gabriel Richard Building, Detroit Savings Bank, Capital Park Lofts, the Vinton Building, and the Lofts of Merchants Row.The Glassline team typically starts by scaling each building and making a silicone mold of the remaining features on site. The molds are then brought back to the Plymouth workshop, where they are cast in fiberglass, or glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) in industry parlance. When installed, the new fiberglass elements blend seamlessly with the historic materials that surround them, usually stone or terracotta.I ask Kenny why architects elect to use GFRP at all. Why not use original materials? "Terracotta is clay. And it cracks," he says. "Water gets into the cracks, freezes and thaws, expands and contracts, over and over again." The water, meanwhile, creeps into the building's structural supports, corroding them over time. Fiberglass, however, doesn't move. It also weighs significantly less, can be installed in large panels, and is both durable and comparatively inexpensive.Sarah Rabe, architectural designer for Kraemer Design Group and project architect behind the 2013-14 revitalization of the David Whitney Building , echoes Kenny's sentiment. And while they don't always use fiberglass for historic reconstruction, she's enthusiastic about the material's versatility, adding, "GFRP can be formed into almost anything you can imagine."That's one of the reasons she hired Glassline to recreate the David Whitney's cornice (complete with faux joint lines that mimic the originals), decorative lions' heads, and its intricate pediment sign, which was made in three pieces and installed with a crane. Since Glassline is a local company, Rabe adds, "the project team was able to frequently collaborate on the final design in person, which was a huge benefit."Back in Glassline's Plymouth workshop, Kenny and I are close to finishing our conversation when he shows me a final, show-stopping sight: the shrink-wrapped remains of a 10 foot tall terracotta sculpture. "The Maiden," as Kenny calls her, is one of 12 caryatids -- columns sculpted in the shape of nude female figures -- that have supported the 14th floor cornice of the Book Building since 1917. Renovation of the Book Building and adjacent Book Tower has just begun , and Glassline is responsible for fixing up these remarkable maidens, whose heads alone weigh 400 pounds each. They've been in bad shape for decades -- missing pieces were replaced at various times with now-rotting wood. Kenny's team will be laying their maiden out in the workshop, making the silicone mold there, and eventually recreating her, piece by piece, in fiberglass.As he shows me the bundled up caryatid, Kenny notes how the workers who removed her speak of her with reverence. "They are considerate of the fact that she's a piece of art," he says.When I ask about his own apparent reverence for downtown's historic buildings and the myriad details that adorn them, he answers with a smile, "Well, like a lot of people, I'm sort of a frustrated, wannabe architect."But the art of architecture is, as ever, a profoundly collaborative one, and Detroit is lucky to have Guy Kenny on the downtown team. By design, the things he makes blend in; if they're not hiding in plain sight, then they're not working. But take a walk through the reinvigorated central business district on any given day, look up, and you'll see his work all around you.Matthew Piper is a writer and photographer covering art, architecture, and culture in Detroit. Follow him on Twitter at @matthewsaurus and on Instagram at @matthewjpiper All photographs by Matthew Piper.
For over a decade, conventional wisdom has had it that metro Detroit is hemorrhaging its college grads to more prosperous metro areas. It's a phenomenon known as the "brain drain," and it's a problem that metro Detroit's policy makers and leaders have been trying to solve for years.New data from the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, however, suggest that it is simply not the case that hordes of local college grads are fleeing the region post-graduation. In fact, metro Detroit (the Detroit-Warren-Livonia statistical area) leads the nation's largest metro regions in retention of graduates of local two- and four-year colleges, ahead of Houston, New York City, and Seattle, it's closest competitors. Over 77 percent of graduates of area colleges stay in metro Detroit afterEconomist Richard Florida writes in CityLab, "This high retention level is likely due to the fact that the University of Michigan is located nearby, while smaller colleges and universities like Wayne State and the University of Detroit Mercy, as well as community colleges, serve a more locally based group of students."Read more: CityLab
 Pennsylvania House seizes political opportunity to complain about Gov doing something (sort of) about state's dsyfunctional death penalty | Main | "Support for the Death Penalty May Be Linked to Belief in Pure Evil" 

June 9, 2015

You be the federal defense attorney: would you urge Dennis Hastert to cut a plea deal?

I often highlight and review high-profile cases by urging readers to place themselves in the shoes of a judge facing a tough sentencing decision or a prosecutor having to recommend a specific sentence. But, as the title of this post connotes, now I am urging folks to think about how the attorneys for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert ought to approach (sentencing?) discussions with their client and their adversaries. This lengthy Politico account of the Hastert charges and proceedings by Josh Gerstein provides all the needed background and includes these excerpts:

After more than a week in seclusion, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded not guilty Tuesday to two criminal charges that he violated federal banking law and lied to the FBI as they investigated his alleged agreement to pay $3.5 million in hush money to cover up a past transgression. Hastert, who became the longest-serving Republican speaker before the GOP lost the House in 2006, was released after entering the plea in front of U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin at an afternoon hearing which raised questions about whether Durkin will continue or the case will be reassigned to another judge. Hastert, 73, looked much as he did during the height of his power, slightly stooped and with a shock of gray hair as he trudged into the packed courtroom clad in a dark pinstripe suit and blue tie. He stood in front of the judges bench throughout the roughly 15-minute hearing, softly answering the judges questions  usually with a Yes, sir. Hasterts lead defense attorney, Tom Green, spoke for the former speaker when it came time to offer a plea. The defendant enters a plea of not guilty to both counts of the indictment, your honor, Green said.... At Tuesdays hearing, the defense waived a formal reading of the indictment, which alleges Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed individual and forked over $1.7 million of that before the charges were filed. Nearly $1 million of that was withdrawn from the former speakers bank accounts in increments of $10,000 after bankers warned him that larger donations would trigger reports to the authorities, the indictment claims. Prosecutors said little during the session, but when the judge asked for details of the potential penalties, Block noted Hastert could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the two felony counts. However, judges usually impose sentences in accordance with federal guidelines that call for more lenient punishment for offenders with no serious criminal record. A plea deal, if there were to be one, could also reduce Hasterts sentence. Many criminal defense lawyers believe such a deal is probable because a jury is not likely to look favorably on a defendant trying to cover up alleged sexual abuse of a student. One of the charges brought against Hastert  structuring cash transactions to avoid federal reporting requirements  is unpopular among defense lawyers and libertarians because it can render routine cash banking transactions in increments of just under $10,000 illegal even if the reason for the cash payments or withdrawals is lawful. Critics contend that prosecutors use the structuring law to bring charges or force guilty pleas from defendants when the government lacks proof to make a case for drug trafficking or tax evasion. Some judges have reacted skeptically when the feds have brought cases in which there is no charge that the underlying conduct was illegal. The nature of Hasterts reported relationship with the acquaintance who allegedly received the hush money is unclear, but experts say the statute of limitations in Illinois for a criminal prosecution on sexual abuse from the 1970s expired long ago. Hastert, who as speaker was once second in line to the presidency, resigned his House seat in 2007 after he lost the speakers post due to the Democrats victory in 2006. He is the highest-ranking current or former federal official to face criminal prosecution since Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and pleaded guilty to a felony tax evasion charge.

June 9, 2015 at 07:42 PM | Permalink

Comments

Isn't there a materiality requirement for conviction on false-statement charges? If so, how can a broad declaration of mistrust in big banks amount to a material lie capable of blocking investigators from pursuing facts and evidence in Hastert's case? To me Hastert's comment seems little more than an unresponsive comment tantamount to a refusal to incriminate himself.

The charge of skirting the $10,000 withdrawal-reporting requirement in Hastert's case seems pretty thin, too. The only deal I'd advise him to take would be one involving no prison time.

Posted by: John K | Jun 10, 2015 3:44:47 PM

Let's see:

Structuring, lying to a federal agent, perhaps obstruction of justice, you know, make believe crimes where there is no victim, a US attorney's (and C&C's blog darling's) favorite types of crime. I just wonder why all of the money in the account was not "Civilly Forfeited" because it was used improperly?

Karma's a b-tch! Let him fry for being part of the gang that brought this government madness and tyranny on all of us.



Posted by: albeed | Jun 10, 2015 4:31:50 PM

Ironic that the sex molestation charge, ironically more draconian with its harsh sentencing combined with public registration, seem to be taking a back burner to the lesser issue. Janice Bellucci has a poignant entry on her journal at CA RSOL titled Two heart beats away from president.

Posted by: Eric Knight | Jun 11, 2015 4:47:16 PM

Once again the crimes are lawyer garbage, structuring cash withdrawals and lying to government officials. Government officials may deceive and lie to the defendant, as affirmed at the highest level. The public may not carry out its patriotic duty to stymie the tyrannical agents of the prosecution. The FBI are agents of the prosecution, and lying is a patriotic duty.

They are the ones that allowed 9/11 to proceed out of misguided PC, taking out $7 trillion from our economy at a total cost of $500,000 to the enemy, or at an actual profit, as Saudi financiers shorted airline stocks the month before. They are the ones harassing business men, while doing nothing about government sponsored hackers causing $billions in damage per year. They are the doughnut chomping, coffee drinking buffoons wasting years on investigation organized crime to ride the rent seeking train. Thee are useless government make work tax sucking parasites.

That is, once again, not a real crime, but a lawyer invented malum prohibitum, a false, just made up crime.

Martha Stewart, who also went to prison, not for the crime of insider trading but for lying about her phone calls, to an FBI agent. Insider trading is, naturally, not a real crime, since it is highly beneficial tour economy, and a highly reliable forward looking indicator of real profits in a company. These trades are reported to the SEC, and listed in inside trading newsletters.

Stewart then made $billion profit. Her shares dropped, as she reported to prison. She bought them up cheap. They rebounded upon her release. So these morons, these lawyer dumbass mentally retarded traitors to the nation rewarded her crime with $billion pay day. Meanwhile, the lawyer dumbass prosecutor likely spent $2 million prosecuting a $40,000 transaction, carrying a $100 fine. The public always pays for the idiocy of the lawyer dumbass rent seeking.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jun 11, 2015 5:34:01 PM

I agree it seems a bit surprising that they didn't just use civil forfeiture to get $ (but there wouldn't have been the public "splash" of the big name...and the humiliation it seems is intended) There may be something else (criminal) here...given the few facts we're given...but for certain, civil forfeiture would be a viable way for the Gov to obtain the structured funds (and other funds they "touched" as well).

That said...it could be difficult to beat the "strict liability" structuring laws before a jury. As defense, I wouldn't want to cut a deal...but would beg for the charges to be dropped. But that's also difficult...given the publicity.

The law's standards for structuring and money laundering can be quite unfair.

Posted by: folly | Jun 12, 2015 7:15:32 AM

I agree it seems a bit surprising that they didn't just use civil forfeiture to get $ (but there wouldn't have been the public "splash" of the big name...and the humiliation it seems is intended) There may be something else (criminal) here...given the few facts we're given...but for certain, civil forfeiture would be a viable way for the Gov to obtain the structured funds (and other funds they "touched" as well).

That said...it could be difficult to beat the "strict liability" structuring laws before a jury. As defense, I wouldn't want to cut a deal...but would beg for the charges to be dropped. But that's also difficult...given the publicity.

The law's standards for structuring and money laundering can be quite unfair.

Posted by: folly | Jun 12, 2015 7:16:08 AM

"The law's standards for structuring and money laundering can be quite unfair."

No folly, they are not unfair, they are criminal, and this is blindly accepted as a matter of law.

No wonder lawyers and SC judges are held in contempt.

Johnny, what do you want to be when you grow up?

"I want to be a Supreme Court Judge!"

Johnny, no son of mind is going to be a g-d d--n criminal!

Posted by: albeed | Jun 12, 2015 7:54:31 AM

I would go to trial. In picking the jury I would ask some questions which would cause the jury to question the nature of the so called crimes.

"Have any of you folks here on the panel ever spent money at the Five and Dime and not told your spouse?"

"Do any of you think that big government has a right to know how much money you gave to your nephew for his college tuition?"

At closing argument:

"My client participated in some same sex activity with a fellow who claims mental illness. My client has been paying some money to redeem this poor guy's soul and perhaps his own. As I said in opening statement, I do not believe that one has to pour one's soul out to the FBI when one is asked about how much money I spent at the repense table or how much I gave at the church. If they were to ask such questions of pedophile priests perhaps there would be a level playing field."

Posted by: Liberty1st | Jun 13, 2015 4:52:57 PM

To SC's point, its usually conservatives who often rally against rights for criminal defendants, and usually give prosecutors and police a blind eye.

Posted by: Alex | Jun 15, 2015 4:16:10 AM

Alex, you mentioned that conservatives typically favor the rights of criminal defendants, and to a degree, I agree with that statement. Most often, conservatives rally behind the people's rights, and this falls into that generalization. Overall, I think your point was very helpful. On a different note, what would you say is the habit of liberals and independents in a case such like this, involving criminal law?

Posted by: Albie Cardew | Sep 2, 2015 10:23:00 AM

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March 25, 2016

Florida has first capital case head to jury sentencing after Hurst-required reforms

Roughly 10 weeks after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutionally Florida's death sentencing procedures in Hurst v. Florida, No. 147505 (S. Ct. Jan. 12, 2015) (available here), a group of jurors have the chance to create a new capital test case as to whether the Florida's now-revised death sentencing procedures can survive another constitutional attack. This local article, headlined "Hawkins test of new sentencing rules," explains:

For the first time since the Florida Legislature revised capital punishment sentencing guidelines  requiring a favorable vote by 10 of 12 jurors  a defendant could get the death penalty. Antowan Hawkins was convicted Thursday of felony first-degree murder, robbery, arson, tampering with physical evidence and grand theft of a motor vehicle in the death of 24-year-old Aaron Goodwin. Today, jurors will return to determine Hawkins' sentence. But prior to his week-long trial, his attorneys filed motions calling the new jury guidelines unconstitutional. This scheme leaves Florida as one of only two states that authorize the imposition of the death penalty on less than a unanimous jury verdict, Hawkins attorney David Collins wrote in a March 21 filing. This scheme is contrary to evolving standards of decency regarding the humane imposition of capital punishment. Jurors Thursday found Hawkins guilty of felony murder instead of premeditated murder, a decision that could play into the sentencing guidelines introduced in court today. "That can be perceived that youre not quite sure who is actually the one who killed Mr. Goodwin," said Chuck Collins, Hawkins' attorney, during his opening statement. "Are you prepared to sanction the execution of someone not knowing beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the actual person who killed him?" Prosecutors said in court Friday Hawkins took measures to conceal the killing of Goodwin by setting his South Adams Street sneaker shop on fire and driving his car to Jefferson County to set it ablaze. Testimony in the trial also suggested Hawkins may have gone to the store prior to the crime. "We see a pattern of destroying evidence to avoid being caught," said Assistant State Attorney for the 2nd Judicial Circuit Eddie Evans. "There was evidence the victim had seen the defendant before."

UPDATE : If you click through to the local article linked above, it now reports that jurors sentenced this capital defendant to life in prison without the possibility of parole after only an hour of deliberation. Consequently, some other case is going to become the test case for Florida's new capital sentencing procedures.

March 25, 2016 at 01:56 PM | Permalink

Comments

A one week long capital trial? Incredulous.

Posted by: Bruce Cunningham | Mar 26, 2016 9:22:45 AM

Sounds like a wimpy jury . . . . this crime deserved a death sentence.

Posted by: federalist | Mar 27, 2016 12:50:01 PM

Post a comment
 Fascinating issues emerging in run up to federal sentencing of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert | Main | Pew develops new "punishment rate" metric to provide more nuanced perspective on state incarceration levels 

The title of this post is the headline of this notable FoxNews commentary authored by Christian Colson. Here are excerpts:

One Easter weekend, I accompanied my father, Charles Colson, to a prison in South Carolina. We held a worship service on Death Row, and about 20 men came out of their cells to sing songs and listen to my dad give a message about the resurrection of Jesus.

My father, whose books on Christian life and thought have sold more than 5 million copies, could have spent Easter weekend in more influential pulpits. He could have commanded an audience of thousands of Christians who were well-resourced and well-connected, rather than men in prison jumpsuits. But instead, every Easter for decades following his release from prison in 1975 for a Watergate-related crime until his death in 2012, he chose to go back behind bars to celebrate with the incarcerated. My father understood that if we want to change the world, we must start behind bars.

The criminal justice system may not seem like the place to initiate cultural renewal, but no place could be better. When our nations 2.2 million prisoners are held in conditions that do little to help address the roots of criminal behavior, they remain likely to continue in a criminal lifestyle after they are released.

Prisoners might seem like improbable standard bearers for cultural transformation, but my dad believed wholeheartedly that whenever prisoners are transformed, they will transform the culture of their prisons and society at large....

Prisons are full of untapped potential. Under the right conditions, many people  like my father  can pay their debt to society, prepare for a new future and make the most of their second chance. A variety of prison programs that address the roots of criminal behavior through education, mentoring, substance-abuse treatment and more have been shown to reduce recidivism.

Legislation based on restorative values can support this goal. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, now making its way through Congress, would require the Federal Bureau of Prisons to implement and incentivize programming to reduce rates of re-offense. This is good news not just for prisoners but for everyone affected by crime and incarceration. When recidivism rates go down, more children grow up seeing their parents outside of a prison waiting room. There are fewer victims. Communities have a chance to flourish as they benefit from the contributions of members who are successfully reintegrating.

At the first Easter, mourners gathered at the tomb of a man who had been executed with criminals. There seemed to be no future for his followers, a small group of poorly educated misfits with no worldly power or influence. And yet, the nascent Christian movement transformed the culture of the Roman Empire and the entire modern history of the world.

When my dad spent Resurrection Sunday behind bars with prisoners, including those condemned to die, he often invoked that first Easter, where the hope of the Gospel emerged from a sealed tomb that was supposed to be as secure as any prison.... As Easter reminds us, the change the world most needs sometimes comes from unexpected places.
Add another transgression to San Franciscos litany of irreverent Easter observances. In addition to our cherished Hunky Jesus Contest, 2014s Zombie Christ Haunted House, and Fridays Sing-Along Jesus Christ Superstar that benefits the Trans March, numerous San Francisco retailers are now selling Love Like Rabbits lollipops, an Easter-themed organic aphrodisiac confection featuring five carefully chosen herbs known to support the romantic, sexual and reproductive response for both women and men.

These Easter Bunny Love Lollipops can be found in the Easter candy section (!) at Rainbow Grocery as well as at Dark Garden on Linden Street, Scarlet Sage Herb Co. on Valencia Street, EO Exchange in Mill Valley, and in the aphrodisiac lollipop section of local confectioner Pandoras Pops website.





There are five aphrodisiac herbs, Pandoras Pops CEO and founder Jena Chambers told SFist, describing the organic cocktail of sexy stimulants in her hard candy offerings. Theyre also flavored with essential oils that are warming, or opening, or both. The candymaker offers other sexytime lollipops with names like Fifty Shades of Earl Gray, Hot Yoga, and a stiff and refreshing Gin & Tonic. We also have a number of other pops that are not aphrodisiac, she said. They include Calming Pops, Happy Genius Pops and Smoke-Stop Pops that help people quit smoking tobacco.

But of course I was most intrigued by the aphrodisiac Easter Bunny Love Lollipops, a confection sure to get the local archdioceses vestments in a bunch. So I declared a date night, asked out my current reigning crush, and we each sucked off an aphrodisiac lollipop. Sure enough, I started getting inappropriately frisky.

So I lean in and start and start kissing her on the head. But my mouth is all sticky from just having a lollipop, and suddenly Ive got a bunch of her hairs in mouth. Normally having a sticky mouth and hairs between my teeth is the sign of a successful date! But this was in a completely different context.

I ask my date if she was feeling the aphrodisiac. Not really, she said. I think the two drinks did more.



Image: Jena Chambers, Pandora's Pops

In addition to the above-mentioned lollipops, Pandoras Pops is putting the finishing touches on a soon-to-be-released aphrodisiac pop seen above, based on the Hitachi Magic Wand. Recently I sampled the Magic Wand pop, said Dixie De La Tour of Bawdy Storytelling, happening tonight at the JCCSF. But this one is shaped like a Magic Wand and tastes like strawberry. Its all natural, organic and yummy. Its the sexiest pop that Pandoras Pops has ever made. I'll plug that in and give it a try once it becomes available.




Hillary Clinton asking for $353k/couple to sit at table with her & George Clooney at 4/15 funder. #EverydayAmericans pic.twitter.com/hAHXIjdo1s  Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) March 24, 2016

While she decided to retire the "everyday Americans" catchphrase last fall, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has still struggled to combat the impression that she is out of touch with the concerns of the average voter. It is an impression that will not be challenged by news of upcoming campaign fundraiser for the candidate to be held in San Francisco. An invite for the April 15 event lists the comical price of $353,400 (per couple) to eat dinner with both Clinton and George and Amal Clooney.

"Please join George and Amal Clooney for cocktails and dinner with Hillary Rodham Clinton in support of the Hillary Victory Fund," reads the invite (which interestingly gives the Clooneys top billing) emailed out to potential donors.

As Politico notes, that $353,400 price tag is more than four times the average income in San Francisco.

The dinner is set to take place at the San Francisco home of venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, and offers several tiered pricing options. For $353,400, you and your dining partner can be an honorary "event chair," a designation which comes with the exciting opportunity to lobby (likely future president) Clinton during a "roundtable" in addition to "premium dinner seating." A bit out of your range? For the $100,000, you and a guest can hang at the "host reception." Still too expensive? For $33,400 you can get a photo with candidate.

Politico points out that the money is going to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that is legally allowed to accept well over the $2,700 primary campaign individual contribution limit.

The San Francisco fundraiser is to be followed by a similar LA fundraiser with the Clooneys on April 16, reports Page Six, which also quotes Hillary for America national finance director Dennis Cheng as saying they "expect both events to sell out." That event will also include Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, and Jeffrey

Better snap those tickets up fast.

Related: In Speech At Stanford, Hillary Clinton Responds To Brussels Attack
While in pursuit, a CHP officer received a simple but perplexing description of the suspect: "gold."

Damaj Cook, a 21-year-old man mysteriously covered in head-to-toe gold spray paint, was eventually arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence last night following a brief chase with California Highway Patrol. The Chronicle explains that the gilded driver allegedly hit three cars on Interstate 80 near the Ashby Avenue exit in Berkeley. Was he fleeing an angry gang of fellow Pier 39 street performers?





A CHP officer followed Cook in the direction of Richmond, where nearing the Central Avenue off ramp, a wheel fell off the suspect's vehicle. The officer approached the stopped car and saw that Cook was indeed painted completely in gold.



CHP Oakland via Facebook

Cook is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs. He later told officers he was painted gold for a photo shoot. Of course, booking photos were likely not what he had in mind.
What a fun map!

Last June, real estate website startup Zumper put median one-bedroom rents in San Francisco at $3,500, which was up from $3,200 in 2014. Now they're at $3,590, Zumper says, a small, 2.6 percent increase all these months later. For two bedrooms, a median rental price is currently $4,870, up 3.8 percent  and keep in mind that this pertains only to rental listings on their site, which tend to be higher end and in larger buildings.

"Though up," the site observes, "prices remain below the peak seen at the end of summer 2015."

The rental market is definitely softening as we head into spring, and after many hundreds of newly built units came onto the market in the last six months. As the Business Times reported earlier this week, leasing agents at some of those new buildings are already showing their hand a bit as the market shifts and offering incentives to new renters like one month free, and free parking.

"While every neighborhood in San Francisco is expensive relative to other metros in the U.S., the highest priced areas in the city all share particular attributes," Zumper's head of strategic marketing, Devin O'Brien, told the Business Times.

Parsing those, O'Brien adds that "Much of the new construction in South Beach, Mission Bay and the Financial District boast views and in-house amenities leading to higher prices." South Beach topped the list as the most expensive median one-bedroom neighborhood of them all, per Zumper.

And for the national perspective: We've done it again, San Franciscans! Zumper puts us down as the most expensive market in the country for one bedroom apartments. Hot on our heels, Oakland was number four.

Sometimes, there's nothing to say about rental prices in San Francisco that hasn't already been said about our hills. They're fucking steep.

All SFist Coverage of the rental market.
San Francisco is poised to take a step toward common sense, as legislation introduced by Supervisor David Campos to make all single-occupancy restrooms within the city all-gender was approved in committee yesterday. So reports KRON 4, which further notes that if it becomes law, the legislation will require business owners to change signage on the bathrooms as well as mandate the inclusion of all-gender restrooms in future developments.

If approved by the full Board of Supervisors, the new law would provide protection for gender non-conforming and transgender individuals who just want to pee in peace. It also obviously stands in stark contrast to a recently approved North Carolina law that, according to New York Magazine, bars people from using bathrooms that don't match the gender on their birth certificate.

"I know we are on the right side of history, KRON 4 reports Campos as noting. When he introduced the legislation this past January, the Bay Area Reporter reports Campos as further explaining that this is "something that should have been done many, many years ago."

"Transgender and gender-nonconforming people frequently experience harassment in toilet facilities," BAR reports a draft of the legislation as reading. "Required use of gender-specific toilet facilities can create unnecessary risk that leads to transgender and gender-nonconforming people being denied access, being verbally harassed, or physically assaulted in these facilities. These experiences, in turn, impact one's education, employment, health, and participation in public life."

Similar legislation is making its way through Sacramento, as KRON 4 notes that San Francisco Assemblyman Phil Ting introduced a bill last month that would require single-occupancy restrooms in public spaces, businesses, and government buildings be designated as all-gender.

Previously: Campos Wants To Make All Single-Person Bathrooms 'All Gender'
Car break-ins are at an all-time high in San Francisco, we've all heard again and again and again. And, sure, that stinks for the victims, but won't someone think of the poor burglars, trapped in the daily grind of smashing and grabbing without, it appears, even a frisson of peril at the hands of Johnny Law? What a dismal existence, rifling through someone else's vehicle without any sort of thrill of consequences. How boring that must be! And why, perhaps, some auto burglars are trying something new: Waiting for their victims and then ransoming their shit back to them.

Anywhere else, a car smash-and-grabber would follow that grab with a "run away." But this is San Francisco, where even residents of popular tourist spots plagued by a rash of break-ins from burglars who brazenly loiter on the street waiting for their marks are told that the cops are "can't keep up with all the reports."

With running out of the equation, bored thieves need to make their own fun or suffer burnout (much in the way I am with this very report). And what's more fun than making the guy you just robbed squirm a little?

At least, that's what I assume a duo of car robbers were thinking at 10 a.m. Wednesday, as a 25-year-old man walked up to his car parked on Laguna Street between Ellis and Geary Boulevard. When the man got to his car, he saw an all-too-familiar sight: Shattered windows, and items including a laptop missing from the car, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

As he was processing the loss, two men described by police only as "in their 20s or 30s" walked up to the victim and told him that if he paid them off, he could get his stuff back.

The man went to an area bank to get the (unspecified by SFPD) cash. After he got the money, the robbers took him into an alley and threatened to shoot him unless he gave them the dough.

After giving them the money, the duo handed over his laptop but hung on to some other items (again, unspecified by SFPD) they'd stolen from his car.

The enterprising thieves fled, and haven't been seen since.

Were these men inspired by, perhaps, local muggers like the ones who robbed Supervisor Scott Wiener for his phone then offered to sell if back to him for $500? Did they think that anyone who left a laptop in a car parked in that area (or, really, anywhere in SF) might be an easy mark for more? Or were they just trying to entertain themselves as they work in the ever-expanding SF car burglary industry?

We'll likely never know. As noted by SF Mag, out of the 25,813 auto burglaries reported to SFPD last year, only 487 ended up with cases that got sent to prosecution. And since (as noted last July) even when thieves are caught, if the items they were taking are worth less than $950 the miscreants aren't arrested, they're just cited. So even those who get nabbed are back on the clock shortly after their nabbing.

And where's the thrill in that?

Previously: Supervisor Wiener Thwarts 'Not A Very Well-Thought-Out' Phone Theft

Neighbors Fight Back After Tourist Hotspot Becomes Car Break-In Zone

Spike In Car Break-Ins Has Many Blaming Prop 47

New Stats Say Gun Violence Down In SF, While Car Break-Ins Continue To Skyrocket
Two days after the governor of North Carolina signed into law legislation that would eliminate protections for LGBT people and ban transgender people from using their gender-identified restrooms, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has released a statement prohibiting any city-funded travel to the state.

The North Carolina legislation, which was signed into law after what the New York Times describes as "a whirlwind special session on Wednesday," was a response to a LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance approved in Charlotte last month that "provided protections based on sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity."

According to the Times, "The state bill, put together so quickly that many lawmakers had not seen it before it was introduced Wednesday morning, specifically bars people in North Carolina from using bathrooms that do not match their birth gender, and goes further to prohibit municipalities from creating their own anti-discrimination policies. Instead, it creates a statewide anti-discrimination policy  one that does not mention gay and transgender people."

A day after the bill was signed into law, companies including American Airlines, Apple, Dow Chemical, PayPal, Red Hat, Salesforce, the NBA, ESPN, Facebook, Google, and Biogen condemned the legislation. And now, too, has Lee, who in a statement sent Friday morning said "We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolinas new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals."

"Effective immediately," Lee's statement read, "I am directing City Departments under my authority to bar any publicly-funded City employee travel to the State of North Carolina that is not absolutely essential to public health and safety."

According to the SF Business Times, the CEO of SF-based Salesforce is also agitating for other companies to fight the law.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who successfully led the charge to overturn a law in Indiana last year that allowed faith-based organizations to refuse services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, said he'll ask Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to oppose North Carolina's law. Bank of America is headquartered in Charlotte. Last month, Benioff opposed a similar measure in Georgia that legalized discrimination in the name of religious freedom.

Here's the Mayor's full statement:





Mayor Edwin M. Lee today issued the following statement after North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed into law legislation overturning protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the State of North Carolina:



We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolinas new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Effective immediately, I am directing City Departments under my authority to bar any publicly-funded City employee travel to the State of North Carolina that is not absolutely essential to public health and safety.



I believe strongly that we should be adding more protections to prevent discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in the United States, not taking them away.



I would like to applaud cities like Charlotte and its Mayor, Mayor Jennifer Roberts, who have taken steps at the local level to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination. I also applaud Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed who is a champion for equality for all.



With other states like Georgia on the verge of passing more discriminatory laws, let me be clear that San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in any City or State.



Last year, disappointed by the actions of Indiana Governor Mike Pence who signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law that legalizes discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, Mayor Lee directed City Departments under his authority to bar publicly-funded City employee travel to the State of Indiana. That ban has since been lifted after Indiana amended their law.

Related: Bill To Make All SF Single-Occupancy Restrooms All-Gender Moves Forward
SIOUX CITY | Eleanor Clift, a long-time political reporter and current Washington correspondent for the Daily Beast, is fascinated by the obsession with Donald Trump that has put him at the forefront of 2016 presidential race media coverage.

Clift spoke ahead of the week she will spend on the Morningside College campus in Sioux City from April 10-14 as a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. She will deliver a public lecture titled "Picking a President" on April 13 at Morningside's Olsen Student Center. Clift has been making stints at a few colleges annually since the 1980s.

As a Washington correspondent for the Daily Beast, Clift writes about the White House, politics and culture. She previously worked at Newsweek, where she was a key member of the magazine's election team.

She talked with the Journal about key topics related to the presidential race in which the front-runners are Republican Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Clift, who leans to the political left, noted she is a native of Queens, New York, that, "I come from the land of Trump."

Q: Is the 2016 presidential election the most fascinating presidential election ever?

Clift said there are lots of ways to quantify a compelling election cycle. She cited the 1968 election, given the assassination of Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the social unrest of the year, and the 2008 election that saw the huge embrace of Democrat Barack Obama after a long primary battle with Clinton.

"They are all different and some more inspirational than others. Today's is not what I would call inspirational. But I think we are getting a glimpse of how a political candidate can take hold, particularly with Trump, less so with (Democratic candidate Bernie) Sanders."

Q: Do you feel like the media is doing a good job with the coverage overall?

"I am really reluctant to criticize the media, because I am part of it and I don't want to act like I am on a soap box and saying that my colleagues should be doing better... When this over, there is going to be a soul-searching about how the interactive media world dealt with Trump and how he exploited that aspect of the media, at a time when the media was going through this incredible transformation, and what that meant for our political process. There probably are some doctoral theses in there."

Q: Do you think Trump will get the needed 1,237 delegates in advance of the national convention or do you think there will be a brokered convention?

"I haven't done the math, but he is on track. He is running against Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the Republican primary, so I think Trump is probably on track to win the big states like California, New York and Pennsylvania, and he is gonna get a boat-load of delegates there. If he doesn't get the 1,237, he is going to be very close and it will be very difficult, I think, to dislodge him. All of the attempts by various political figures and conservatives who don't think he is a true conservative and all that, they can't agree among themselves, and so it is really hard to see how he is stopped."

Q: What are the land-mines out there for Clinton? Do you think the use of the private server of email, is there anything that can trip her up or, if she goes against Trump, is she the odds-on to become president?

"I think she looks like the likely winner and I look at how nervous the Republicans are. But (Trump) does shake things up and he is drawing in a lot of sort of down-scale, white workers who are predominantly men who feel like they have really been left out by today's economy and that they've been ignored by both parties. That can make a difference in some of the Rust Belt states."

"... It does not look like to me that anything is going to rise to the level of a criminal indictment (of Clinton), which is what Donald Trump keeps hinting at. She has said that she is confident that she has not done anything wrong."


Since Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon, announced a plan for delivering goods via drone in 2013, a dream has taken hold. Large and small businesses alike imagine a time when drones deliver everything from merchandise to pizza.

But a recent report by the National Retail Federation sees drone deliveries grounded for the foreseeable future. And the main stumbling block seems to be the Federal Aviation Administration.

Delivery Drones Grounded For Now

Since the announcement by Amazons CEO, everyone from DHL and Google to Walmart have explored the possibilities by applying with the FAA requesting permissions to test drones, as well as actually using drones to deliver packages.

But the fact of the matter is, there are many hurdles to overcome before drone delivery becomes a reality in the U.S.

In the NRF report published on the federations official website, author Craig Guillot, highlights the challenges facing drone delivery.

A reading of the FAAs public statements and actions over the past few years leads to the conclusion that wide-scale drone deliveries arent going to be authorized soon, Guillot explains.

He writes:

Drones lack sense and avoidance technology that would allow them to see one another like radar technology for manned aircraft. Regulators say its a necessary element to have in place before tens of thousands of drones can make long-distance flights out of operators sight.

Big players like Amazon have suggested some solutions for delivery-by-drone, Guillot admits:

At a NASA convention in California last summer, Amazon proposed a special air zone for its delivery drones, an area between 200 feet and 400 feet from the ground that would be reserved for flying drones at speeds of 70 miles per hour or more.

Of course, no one is sure where that leaves smaller businesses seeking to use drone delivery  or Amazons other larger competitors, for that matter.

And theres another barrier, according to Mary Cummings, director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke Universitys Pratt School of Engineering.

In the NRF report, Cummings explains the simple interactive problems involved in drone delivery. How will businesses using drones address the dangers posed by and to cars or other vehicles, children, birds or other animals. These dangers would most likely be encountered in the last leg of a drones journey as it approaches its destination.

In fact, drone run-ins with eagles, chimps and even a swarm of bees have been known to happen.

But what of possible damage to property or injury to children and other innocent bystanders?

The FAA has, of course, granted limited commercial use of drones in recent years. For instance, Australian start-up Flirtey was the first company granted permission for a commercial drone delivery in U.S. airspace. The company used a drone to deliver supplies to a medical clinic in rural Virginia in July of 2015.

Still many barriers to drone operation remain.

For example, currently no one is permitted to use a drone for commercial flights without a special exemption from the FAA. And so far, most have been for things like photography, agricultural use, construction and real estate. Drone delivery is definitely not the list.

But why?

Well, probably because other thorny requirements by the FAA make logistics difficult or impossible. So if youre waiting for a ring of the doorbell heralding delivery of your Chinese food via drone, better not hold your breath.

See Also: Drone Delivery Can Benefit B2B Businesses Too

Commercial drone operation thus far requires that the drone in line of site with the operator at all times. It also requires that an operator possess a pilots license. But perhaps the biggest hurtle of all is the agencys current injunction against carrying a payload, the NRF explains.

Will there be a time when you pack a customers order aboard a drone and send it on its way? Who knows. But certainly some regulations will need to be addressed first to make it happen.
Its been about a month since Google confirmed the death of right sidebar ads for desktop search results. Immediately following the change resulting in right side ads gone from Google search results, a hot topic of rampant speculation throughout the search industry was how much CPCs would skyrocket.

Heres just a sampling of comments on the change with right side ads gone, from Search Engine Lands Facebook page:

One things for sure: Google wouldnt have rolled this out if they werent sure they would make more money this way. Less ad-space, more earnings  you figure out what this means for CPC.

This will raise costs for advertisers, squeeze-out advertisers who a) cant afford the higher competition and/or b) cant figger [sic] out how to raise their Quality Scores, and send many advertisers to Bing/Yahoo, FB and other social-media platforms.

Going to raise cpc costs across the board.

Even Perry Marshall cried DANGER, calling it the biggest Google AdWords shakeup in more than 10 years and warned: Your strategy for Google AdWords is going to totally change.

Well, now its nearly a month later, and the data actually shows a very different story  and by different, I mean the same. Very little has changed.

What HAS and HAS NOT Changed With Right Side Ads Gone

Weve updated our proprietary data on the effects of the SERP shake-up (see full details on our data sources at the end of this post).

Click-Through Rates (CTRs) are Up

As the data from thousands of WordStream accounts spanning all industries shows, click-through rates (CTRs) are up. No real surprise here.

It was expected that having a fourth spot above the organic results would mean more ad clicks. The surprise, as I discussed last month, was that the ad in the third spot, not the fourth, got the biggest boost from the new desktop SERP layout.

Costs Per Click (CPCs) are Static

Heres one dire prediction I saw on Twitter: No right side ads = hello 3x increase in CPCs. Many marketers feared less ad space would result in CPCs going through the roof.

Well, this is why smart marketers dont base their strategies on predictions. Because the data tells the actual story:

CPCs havent jumped, let alone by 3x.

If anything, costs per click have gone down some with the right side ads gone, as shown in the chart above.

Traffic is Steady

More good news for PPC marketers: click volume, for the most part, has been steady. There have also been some modest wins:

So were looking pretty good, right? CTRs are up, and clicks are mostly constant. Does that mean impressions are down?

Impressions are Down

Before the change, it was possible for searchers to see up to 11 ads per search results page. Now, with right-side ads gone on desktop, Google users will see no more than seven text ads.

So yes, this change has resulted in a decline of ad impressions. The loss of desktop impression share mostly affects those who appeared in the eighth position and lower:

Although this chart may look kind of catastrophic for those below position 7, it really isnt a huge change. Why? Because positions 8 to 11 made up a mere 0.2 percent of all desktop impressions:

A Quick Note on Averages

There has been some noise lately about how averages dont tell us anything useful for strategy in PPC because every advertiser is different. I disagree. As long as youre using proper math  checking the sample variance and standard deviation for your data set to make sure the variance isnt too high  averages can tell you a lot, because the vast majority of advertisers will fall into the standard distribution. More on this here.

Anatomy of a Loser

Every change to the Google SERP has winners and losers. If a win in this case means higher CTRs, lower/steady CPCs and steady/more traffic, what does a loser look like?

In an effort to provide a thorough analysis, we set out to find examples of accounts that truly suffered as a result of Googles removal of right ads from the desktop SERP.

It wasnt easy. After poring through tons of accounts and data, however, we finally managed to find an interesting example from the financial industry. So lets take a quick look at the struggles of one advertiser.

Prior to the change, they had an average position of 8.6 on desktop. After the new SERP rolled out, they got killed, losing 80 percent of their desktop impressions:

But heres where it gets interesting. Their CTR more than doubled:

As a result, the advertiser only lost 15 percent of their desktop clicks, which fell from 26 to 22:

Also interesting is that this advertiser saw CPC increase from $0.53 to $0.69:

But wait! It gets even more interesting, because their average position went from 7.5 to 4.3 after the change.

So, overall, not a terrible deal for this loser. This advertiser is now paying $0.16 more per click, but its for vastly more valuable space on the SERP.

The fact that an advertiser with an average position of 8.6 didnt get wiped out  especially considering Google eliminated ad positions 8 through 11 from the SERPs  is of major significance.

What does it mean? Well, it leads me to believe that Google is sharing the impressions a little bit, as opposed to using a winner takes all approach.

Dont Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

Okay, so heres what we now know about what was overhyped as the most dangerous change Google has ever thrown at us:

Most advertisers are responding well to the change resulting in right side ads gone.

Advertisers metrics seem to have mostly balanced out so far.

Traffic and CPCs have remained relatively flat.

The losers are those who were at the bottom (positions 811). But even then, its nearly impossible to find examples of advertisers that have been totally and utterly annihilated.

Finally, its important to remember that this change is exclusive to desktop. Regardless of how you spin the numbers, its clear that desktop is becoming less of a focal point for Google:

Remember, brave search marketers: The only thing we have to fear is uninformed speculation. Dont panic whenever Google changes something. Be patient. Collect and analyze your data. React smartly.

This wasnt the first huge change we PPC marketers have lived through. And it definitely wont be the last!

Data Sources:

This report is based on a sample size of about 2000 client accounts representing small businesses and medium businesses (SMBs) in all verticals in English-speaking countries worldwide (including the United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand), advertising on the Google AdWords search network (desktop only) in the date ranges indicated on the charts.

Republished by written permission. Original here.
There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to
Michael Walter Michalski, 81, of Leonardtown, MD passed away on March 24, 2016 at St. Mary's Nursing Center. Michael was born on December 29, 1934 in Eastern Baltimore County near Sparrows Point, MD to the late Walter and Josephine Petza Michalski.



When the area became industrialized a move was made to a farm on the Northern Eastern Shore near Cecilton, MD. The principle crops were grain, sweet corn and green vegetables. Michael was fond of the arts, particularly classical music. He served on the Commission of Arts and Science of Baltimore County for over eight years. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus & St. Aloysius Parrish.



Michael was drafted into the Army in 1959, entering the Signal Corps and was trained in long distance communication systems. He served at the Tobyhanna Signal Depot in Pennsylvania and then in Germany; attached to the 2nd German Corp in Ulm, Germany eventually returning to the communication base at 7th U. S. Army in Stuttgart, Germany. The Berlin Wall was constructed during the tour in Germany.



After release from military service, he worked in technical positions at Bendix Radio and Bethlehem Steel, then going to work for The American Totalisator Company which furnished the ticketing issuing and computing equipment for the pari-mutuels at the racetracks. In 1968, he was employed by Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, first doing control work in Electric Construction Dept. and advancing to Sr. Instrument Technician in Electric Test primarily concerned with bulk power metering. In 1981 he transferred to the Quality Assurance Dept. becoming a certified vendor auditor, monitoring vendor activities in regards to the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.



Family will receive friends on Monday, March 28, 2016 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m., with prayers at 7:00 p.m. at the Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A. 22955 Hollywood Road, Leonardtown, MD 20650. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated by Reverend David Beaubein at 10:00 a.m. at St. Aloysius Catholic Church, 22880 Washington Street, Leonardtown, MD 20650. Interment will follow at Queen of Peace Cemetery, 38888 Dr. Johnson Road, Mechanicsville, MD 20659. Arrangements by the Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A., Leonardtown, MD.
WASHINGTON

(March 25, 2016)The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced the following contract award that pertain to local Navy activities., is being awarded afixed-price-incentive, firm-target modification to a previously awarded advance acquisition contract (AAC) N00019-C-16-0033 for the advance procurement of long lead time materials, parts, components, and effort to maintain the planned production schedule for low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 11 F-35 aircraft. The effort also increases the quantity of aircraft that the LRIP 11 AAC supports for the Air Force by 15 F-35A variant aircraft, and for the Marine Corps by 10 F-35B variant aircraft. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (55 percent); El Segundo, California (15 percent); Warton, United Kingdom (10 percent); Orlando, Florida (5 percent); Nashua, New Hampshire (5 percent); Baltimore, Maryland (5 percent); and Cameri, Italy (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2019. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $179,916,000 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract combines purchase for the Air Force ($118,142,000; 65.6 percent); Navy ($16,509,000; 9.2 percent), and Marine Corps ($45,265,000; 25.2 percent). The, is the contracting activity.
ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Timothy Peake participates in the Airway Monitoring experiment. With dust particles present in the International Space Station atmosphere, Airway Monitoring studies the occurrence and indicators of airway inflammation in crewmembers, using ultra-sensitive gas analyzers to analyze exhaled air. This helps to highlight any health impacts and to maintain crewmember well-being on future human spaceflight missions, especially longer-duration missions to the Moon and Mars for example, where crewmembers will have to be more self-sufficient in highlighting and avoiding such conditions. Credit: NASA/ESA NASA

A new shipment of science, spacewalk gear and crew supplies is on its way to the International Space Station. The Expedition 47 crew is preparing for its arrival while continuing research and maintenance operations onboard the orbital laboratory.

The Cygnus space freighter is refining its orbital path to the station to complete a Saturday delivery to the Harmony module. Astronauts Tim Kopra, Tim Peake and Jeff Williams are training for the robotic capture of Cygnus using Canadas 57.7 foot Canadarm2. NASA TV will provide coverage of the Cygnus rendezvous and capture beginning Saturday at 5:30 a.m. EDT/9:30 a.m. UTC.

Meanwhile, the crew is moving on with advanced experiment work exploring how living in space affects a crew members body. The orbital science activities also have the potential to improve life on Earth.

Peake continued more immune system research today for the Multi-Omics investigation. Peake and Kopra then partnered up for the Habitability Factors experiment. Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Yuri Malenchenko worked together on the Cardiovector blood circulation study. Malenchenko then joined Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka researching how crew members adapt to moving around in weightlessness.

On-Orbit Status Report

USOS Crew Half Duty Day: Today and tomorrow are half-duty days for the USOS crew. They will spend this weekend performing Cygnus operations including vehicle capture and berthing Saturday and ingress and cargo transfer operations on Sunday. Monday will be a full off duty day for the crew.

Multi-Omics Saliva Operations: Peake continued support of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Multi-Omics investigation by collecting body samples this morning and inserting them in a Minus Eight-degree Freezer for ISS (MELFI). The Multi-Omics investigation evaluates the impacts of space environment and prebiotics on astronauts immune function, by combining the data obtained from the measurements of changes in the gut microbiological composition, metabolites profiles, and the immune system.

Habitability Human Factors Post Questionnaire PI Conference: Kopra and Peake configured the INT-P Camcorder to participate in the live video downlink of Habitability and Human Factors post-Questionnaire PI Conference. The investigation collects observations about the relationship between crew members and their environment on the ISS. Observations can help spacecraft designers understand how much habitable volume is required, and whether a missions duration impacts how much space crew members need.

On-Board Training (OBT) Cygnus Capture: The USOS crew members completed another practice session in preparation for Cygnus capture on Saturday. They performed three Capture Point hold runs and two meter runs.

Todays Planned Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

Multi Omics (MO)  Saliva Sample Collection

Multi Omics (MO)  Sample Insertion into MELFI

Multi Omics (MO)  Equipment Stowage

Multi Omics (MO)  Questionnaire

Daily Planning Conference (S-band)

Video Footage of Greetings / r/g 1752

CARDIOVECTOR. Experiment Ops r/g 1734

OTKLIK. Hardware Monitoring / r/g 1588

CARDIOVECTOR. Photography of the Experiment Ops / r/g 1735

IDENTIFICATION. Copy ???-? micro-accelerometer data to laptop / r/g 1589

MOTOCARD. Experiment Ops r/g 1742

MOTOCARD. Operator Assistance with the Experiment / r/g 1743

Crew time for ISS adaptation and orientation

Soyuz 720 Transfers and IMS Ops / r/g 1691

??? Maintenance

HABIT  Adjusting camcorder and conducting conference

PAO Hardware Setup

Crew Prep for PAO

Counter Measure System (CMS) Harmful Contaminant Measurements in SM  Handover / r/g 1737

Counter Measure System (CMS) Harmful Contaminant Measurements in SM / r/g 1737

PAO Event

Analysis of SM Atmosphere for Freon Using Freon Leak Analyzer/Detector (???)  Handover r/g 1751

HABIT  Conference Ops

On-board Training (OBT) Cygnus Rendezvous Review

Soyuz 720 Transfers and IMS Ops / r/g 1691

On MCC GO ISS ?2 Repress from Progress 429 (Aft)

Cleaning FGB ??1 Circulation Fan Screens

On MCC GO De-installation of ???1?3 in Progress 429 r/g 1753

OBT  ROBoT onboard simulator  Session 2

Selection of Personal Hygiene Article for Priority Use / r/g 1754

Preparing for ??251? (???4?2) Replacement. r/g 1753

Crew time for ISS adaptation and orientation

CONTENT. Experiment Ops / r/g 1736

TORU Test with Docked Progress 429 (SM Aft) r/g 1749

Camcorder Setup to View LAB RWS Monitor 3

Crew conference with Astronaut Office

Flight Director / ISS Crew Tagup

Crew time for ISS adaptation and orientation

COGNITION  Experiment Ops

Completed Task List Items

None

Ground Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

OBT RoBOT support

Nominal ground commanding

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Friday, 03/25: Cygnus capture review/rendezvous conference, OBT ISS emergency hardware familiarization

Saturday, 03/26: Cygnus capture/berth

Sunday, 03/27: Cygnus ingress, cargo transfer ops

QUICK ISS Status  Environmental Control Group:

Component  Status

Elektron  Off

Vozdukh  Manual

[???] 1  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1)  Off

[???] 2  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2)  On

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab  Override

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3  Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab  Idle

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3  Operate

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA)  Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA)  Norm

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab  Off

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3  Full Up
In most Slovak animal shelters, illnesses and insufficient care are a rare problem, veterinary doctor says.

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After her good experience with walking dogs from the quarantine station in Zvolen, Dominika Bozikova decided to adopt one of the dogs. But just a day before she was due to take the dog home, it died from an illness it most likely caught from the other animals sheltered at the station.

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They told me that as a puppy it was prone [to illnesses] and that it is never safe there, so [such end] was not unexpected, Bozikova told The Slovak Spectator.

Illnesses and insufficient care are the most often cited reasons why people hesitate about adopting animals from shelters. Such problems were also voicedin an article in the New York Times earlier this year, on problems with conditions in animal shelters in New York recently.

In most Slovak shelters, however, such problems are rare, according to Robert Manko, president of the Slovak Association of Small Animal Veterinary.

I think that shelters are doing their best and sometimes even more than they are required to do, Manko told The Slovak Spectator and explained that shelters are mostly managed by people who like animals and do their best to give them what they deserve.

As a vet, Manko has largely positive experiences with care for animals in shelters. He said he has treated dogs and cats that were in very good shape, nutrition- or health-wise, but he also treated animals from shelters who had fleas, scabies or other diseases. The Association of Animal Protectors is also devoted to taking care of animals. They finance their activities from their own resources. As of the end of 2015, the Bratislava municipal authorities terminated the associations lease agreement.

How to adopt an animal

When adopting an animal, one needs to consider the options, and find the place for a new additional inhabitant in their free time. Much also depends on the choice of the animal.

Obviously one needs to realise that they are animals with unknown history, says Manko. It is often unclear what the animals have been through, and it is hard to estimate how they will react, and what could irritate them or make them react aggressively.

It is thus necessary to be careful, Manko said. He however believes that with sufficient love and care many bad habits can be eliminated, because the animals are very thankful on the other hand.

When a found animal is brought to the shelter, the staff fills out the admission protocol that contains all the available data about the animal and the person who found it. If the animal is injured or obviously sick, they bring him to the veterinary clinic immediately, according to Lubomira Balekova from the shelter in Piestany. The vet examines and treats the animal. If the animal shows no signs of illness, it is examined at a regular weekly inspection by the vet directly at the shelter.

We provide health care to the animals during their whole stay at the shelter, Balekova told The Slovak Spectator. We try to get the animals to new owners in a good shape.

Conditions in animal shelters

There are 40 stalls and sheds divided into three separate sites in the Piestany shelter. The stalls are thoroughly cleaned on a daily basis, and carpets and blankets in the sheds are exchanged. Dogs are left to run freely at the individual grounds during the cleaning of the stalls minimum twice a day according to their tolerance. In addition, volunteers come to walk them.

Dominika Bozikova also has the experience of walking dogs: the quarantine station in Zvolen mainly allows dogs to be taken out on weekdays, and needs to be notified in advance. While the stations staff is active and pleasant to deal with, Bozikova points out that the dogs there live in bad conditions. especially they have a lack of space.

They put even the dogs that dont get on well together, because there is nothing else they can do, with the lack of space, Bozikova told to The Slovak Spectator.

In fact, the dog that she selected to adopt from the quarantine station died before she was able to bring it home. Later, Bozikova contacted the shelter of the Freedom Of Animals organisation and adopted dogs without any problems, as the dogs passed all the necessary examinations.

Registration number needed

The Association of Animal Protectors of Slovakia also performs examinations and the initial inspection of the animals is also provided by this association. When animals are brought to the shelter, they have to go to the quarantine area first, according to Iveta Havranova of the association. They are checked by the vet after the paperwork admitting them to the shelter is completed.

The association finances the premises where the animals are located on their own after the Bratislava municipal authorities terminated their rental contract on December 31, 2015.

They have suspended all our financial contributions in January, so I pay the whole operation of the shelter from my own finances, that I actually dont even have anymore, Havranova told The Slovak Spectator. If the Austrian conservationists didnt help us, the shelter wouldnt exist.

The authorities, however, do not consider the associations facility at Rebarborova street in Bratislava a shelter anymore.

Ivana Skokanova, spokeswoman of the City of Bratislava told The Slovak Spectator.The facility doesnt have a registration number from the Regional Veterinary and Food Administration (RVPS).

Due to that, as well as due to other mistakes on the part of the facility operators, the municipal authorities cancelled their rental contract for the premises where the facility was located.
On average, people in Slovakia are expected to spend 36 on food shopping for Easter this year; which is around five percent less than last year.

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Meat and dairy products are cheaper compared to last year, while fruit and vegetables are more expensive.

The amount of cash withdrawals and card payments during Easter week depends mainly on the timing of the Easter holidays  whether they happen before, or after the payment day, Postova banka bank wrote in a press release, citing data produced by the Slovak Statistics Office. The items that have declined most in price are milk and pork, but also butter and some others. Of the19 items compared, only three are more expensive, Postova banka anlyst Dominika Ondrova wrote: fruit (e.g. apples), vegetables (potatoes) and also milk chocolate  but prices have only risen by three percent.

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Not all shops will be opened during the Easter holidays, though, the Aktuality.sk website wrote. On Sunday, March 17, all shops will be closed; while on Easter Friday, March 25, most Tesco stores (except those in Bratislava and Kosice shopping centres) will be open, and on March 28, the opening hours will be shorter. In Kaufland, no changes  except for closing on Sunday  are reported, and all Lidl stores will be closed on Easter Sunday and Monday. Billa will have different opening hours depending on where the store is situated, so it is advisable to check opening times on the chains website.
Airport representatives cannot rule out the possibility that passengers may have to come to the airport earlier than normal.

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Passengers who are set to travel via Bratislava airport should be prepared for the new security measures introduced on March 24 following the terrorist attacks in Brussels two days earlier.

The Belgian capital was hit by several explosions, when blasts targeted Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, which is located near EU institutions. The terror attacks claimed the lives of at least 31 people, while around 260 were injured.

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Travellers will therefore be checked upon arrival at the main airport hall via special detectors. Airport representatives cannot rule out the possibility that passengers may have to come to the airport earlier than normal because the new security measures might cause delays.

Precitajte si tiez:

Precitajte si tiez: Interior Ministry declares higher terrorist threat Read more

The new measures will be valid until further notice, but they could be put in place permanently, said M. R. Stefanik Airport general director Ivan Trhlik at a briefing in Bratislava on March 24, the TASR newswire reported.

Bratislava airport is one of the first EU airports to introduce a whole set of security measures, most of which will remain secret from the travelling public, said Trhlik, as quoted by TASR. Such measures have never been activated at this airport before, but the current security situation requires it.

There are now only single routes for entering and exiting the airport, stated Trhlik. He added that the measures were prepared long ago and that the airport pondered putting them into practice after the terror attacks that took place in Paris on November 13 of last year. The airport is quite capable of managing incoming and outgoing flows of passengers when compared to other larger EU airports, he said.

Despite the boosting of security measures, the airport is not considering raising its charges.

It [security] is one of the basic duties of any airport, emphasised Trhlik, as quoted by TASR.

People not travelling via Bratislavas M. R. Stefanik Airport should think twice about visiting it, however, said Trhlik.
In February, Russia sent a request to the global police service, Interpol, asking for Khodorkovsky to be placed on the international wanted list.

The 1995 privatization of now defunct energy giant Yukos was carried out in violation of antitrust laws, Russia's Investigative Committee said.

"According to the investigation, the 1995 privatization of Yukos was carried out in violation of competition and antitrust legislation. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's team falsely presented two firms de facto belonging to him  JSC Laguna and JSC Reagent  as independent legal entities for the investment competition," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.

Companies that filed lawsuits to The Hague arbitration court over the Yukos case had no right to do so due to fraud, making the court's decision unenforceable, Russian Investigative Committee said Friday.

According to committee spokesman Vladimir Markin, after Yukos shares were "de facto stolen" by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his accomplices, they repeatedly changed hands between Russian and foreign legal entities before eventually being acquired by Hulley Enterprises Ltd, Yukos Universal Ltd and Veteran Petroleum Ltd.

"All these companies were also controlled by Khodorkovsky and payments were only made on paper, they did not in fact take place" he said.

"These companies were not investors and they had no right to file a lawsuit with the international arbitration court in The Hague, claiming their rights as investors were violated. Therefore, the court's decision is not enforceable," Markin underscored.
"The arrest is the result of a careful investigation for several weeks," Cazeneuve said at a press conference, adding that the suspect was involved in a planned attack that was in advanced stages of development.

The building where the suspect lived was evacuated. Police conducted a broad search in the area, establishing a safety perimeter and blocking access to the General Delambre boulevard in Argenteuil, located in the Val-d'Oise department.

According to Cazeneuve, there appeared to be no link between the arrest in Argenteuil and the Brussels terrorist attacks.

On Tuesday, two suicide blasts hit the Brussels Airport and the Maelbeek metro station in the city, killing at least 31 people and injuring over 300.

The Islamic State (ISIL) jihadist group, outlawed in a range of countries, including Russia, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
This implies a foreign policy that would bring pressure on countries that provide assistance to terrorists, Jean-Bernard Pinatel said.

First of all, we must ensure better law enforcement in areas where drug dealers and arms traders are. The government should shift its attention away from social and economic issues and concentrate more on guaranteeing the security of its citizens, thats the main problem, he added.

We also need tougher prosecution of teenage delinquents who are set free even if they have committed a dozen crimes before. We also need to exclude Turkey from NATO. We should tell them you have an army big enough to close the border. Instead, you are pounding the Kurds, who account for 20 percent of your population.

We are actually helping the Turks do what they are doing. Look at Angela Merkel, who is negotiating with Turkey. We are paying the Turks who are an active side in this war, General Pinatel emphasized.
Video recordings depict three men shortly before the explosions, entering the departure lounge with big bags that obviously contained bombs. The two men identified as Khalid and Ibrahim Bakraoui wore one glove each. The gloves were probably supposed to hide the bombs' triggers.

The third man wore no gloves, but covered his face with a hat and sunglasses. Instead of blowing himself up, he left the bomb in the hall and left the airport.

Did he get scared and go back on his task? Or was it a part of the plan providing that he was not supposed to die but rather prepare the following acts of terrorism? There are also assumptions that his bomb might have been equipped with a clockwork mechanism. This explains why he was not wearing gloves and was able to leave the scene earlier.

4. Was the blast on the Maelbeek metro station an attack by a suicide bomber?

The explosion took place on Tuesday morning, right after the two blasts in the Zantem Airport. It is known that the attack killed at least 20 people and injured 130, but it still remains unclear how the blast actually took place.

Was it a suicide bombing? Or was a bomb detonated remotely? All these questions investigators still have to clear up.

5. Were terrorists planning an attack on a nuclear power plant?

The Tihange nuclear plant, a likely target of the plot, was evacuated following the Tuesday bombings in Brussels, and is presently guarded by the national army. The move took place after investigators found pictures and recordings of several nuclear power plants and their employees in Abdeslam's mobile.

"I do not believe that ISIL is able to blow up the reactor. However, I suppose, a conventional attack on nuclear power could be possible, which would have a huge psychological effect on the population," Peter Neumann said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, Kiev's chief military prosecutor, Anatolii Matios, confirmed that Grabovsky had been shot dead. The body of the killed man, who disappeared on March 9, was found buried in Ukraine's Cherkasy region in the woods close to the town of Zhashkov.

"We hope that the Ukrainian authorities will take all the necessary measures to find and bring to justice all those involved in this crime," the statement read.

The ministry added that Kiev, in spite of all the warnings, could not or would not ensure the safety of the lawyer.
In 2003, the ICTY sentenced Plavsic to 11-years in prison for alleged war crimes during the Bosnian War. However, Plavsic, who was a highly-accomplished scientist and former professor of biology at the University of Sarajevo, received a pardon and was released from jail in 2009 after serving two-thirds of her full sentence.

Plavsic suggested that she thinks Karadzic, like her, would eventually receive a pardon that would shorten his prison sentence.

When talking about the 1995 events in Srebrenica, Plavsic said she personally didn't witness genocide.

"When there's genocide, women and children are killed, but I didn't see it; on the contrary, they [women and children] were rescued," Plavsic told Sputnik.

The former University of Sarajevo professor criticized the ICTY and added that the Hague-based tribunal has nothing to do with justice, as it works to pursue the interest of Washington and its allies.

During the Bosnian War, the US government supported Bosnian Muslims while ignoring the interests of Serbs living in Bosnia, Plavsic said. She also added that the United States is the country that is used to solve everything using brute force and it would never admit its own mistakes. That's why there will always be a one-sided version of the events that took place in Bosnia.

Conviction of Karadzic Shows There is No Justice for Serbian Victims of War
Regarding alternative media in Sweden, the threat may well come from violent leftists, as was the case with the independent journalist Chang Frick of Nyheter Idag , who was subjected to a violent attack in August 2015.

The issue of journalists' safety in Sweden surfaced last month, as the Australian news crew was attacked by migrants in the Stockholm district of Rinkeby, dubbed, among other, "Stockholm's own Islamic enclave" and "Somaliland". The narrator and the cameraman of the program 60 Minutes Australia were reported as injured after being accosted by Somalian migrants. As of December 2014, roughly 90 percent of Rinkeby's population had a first- or second-generation immigrant background.

"It would be unfortunate if the areas we need to know most about were inaccessible to the media. Hereby you miss an important part of monitoring, as a result of which dialogue fails," said Lundqvist.

Nevertheless, Lundqvist admitted that his organization was lacking a full overview of the threats directed against the columnist and writer Ingrid Carlqvist of the Islam-critical website Dispatch International. Another tender area for the freedom of journalism in Sweden was the figure behind the pseudonym of Julia Caesar, an established far right regime-critic and former contributor to Dagens Nyheter, whose true identity had been revealed by the Swedish tabloid Expressen against her will.

"We make no difference in terms of protecting journalists, as long as they respect the rules of press ethics," ensured Lundqvist.
3. Karadzic was an amateur poet influenced by Serbian writer Dobrica Cosic, whose work eventually encouraged Radovan to pursue politics. Interestingly, Karadzic was known to have hated nationalism and once even said:

"Bolshevism is bad, but nationalism is even worse."

4. When prior to the Yugoslav Wars, the socio-political situation between different ethnic groups living in Yugoslavia began to intensify, Karadzic began to envision the idea of uniting ethnic Serbs living within the borders of Yugoslavia. His anti-nationalist rhetoric from the past was quickly gone, as he began saying:

"If need be, Serbs can live without food, but can't survive without their country."

5. Karadzic was the leader of Bosnian Serbs and the 1st President of Republika Srpska, the heavily-populated Serb district in the southeastern part of Bosnia, between April of 1992 and July of 1996. After initial inter-ethnic clashes in Bosnia, Karadzic formed Serbian paramilitary units, inspiring them with one of his motivational speeches:

"We [Bosnian Serbs] never lived in the country of Bosnia, we lived in the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia. Do you feel the difference?"

6. While serving as the president of Republika Srpska, Karadzic worked to build ties with other Orthodox Christian nations, making several trips to Russia and Greece.

7. Karadzic was running from justice using forged documents. He lived in Belgrade for a long time under the name of Dragan Dabic or "Dr. Dabic," an alternative medicine doctor in one of the city's private clinics.

Bosnia in the Yugoslav Wars

In a nutshell, the Yugoslav Wars were a series of ethnic conflicts between the peoples of the Former Yugoslavia, who fought to declare independence and form their own national governments. As a result of the Yugoslav Wars of secession, six new countries  Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia  emerged in southeastern Europe.
Many Germans are scared and worried about their safety after the recent terrorist attacks that took place in Brussels.

On Tuesday, two suicide blasts hit the departures hall of Brussels' Zaventem international airport and an explosion shook a subway carriage at the Maelbeek station, close to the EU institutions. As result of the attacks at least 32 people were killed and over 300 injured.

Following the explosions, some Germans cancelled their trips overseas out of fear of other possible terrorist attacks. Berlin travel agencies recently reported the first trip cancellations. For instance, Lufthansa City Center Titanic in Berlin registered five canceled trips following the attacks and does not exclude further cancellations.
According to the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, over 1,200 French citizens have joined the ranks of the Islamic State (Daesh, outlawed in Russia) and other jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, which makes the country the largest EU source of recruits for extremist groups.

"We already increased it [the budget for anti-terrorist efforts] tremendously. Since 'Charlie' we've spent 1 billion euros. We increased the military budget, we hired and trained more people. So we have already spent a lot," Goulet said, referring to the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

After the attack on the magazine's office, which was followed by a series of terrorist attacks in Paris in November, the French authorities significantly boosted the number of counter-terrorism officers, introduced better equipment for police and proposed a legal framework for prosecutors to bring terrorists to justice.

"What we can learn is that zero risk doesn't exist and we have to live with the new threat," the senator said.

She added that the Paris attacks as well as recent Brussels tragedy proved that there is a need to increase the exchange of intelligence and data on possible terror suspects among European countries as well as work more on prevention.
I have always been interested in Iran, its culture, and its history, and was able to study it in depth in London. But one day, I decided studying from afar was not enough: I wanted to see the reality of this country myself, she wrote.

When Sara told her Saudi friends and family about her plan, some of them were very worried and tried to dissuade her.

In part, this was because I had a good job opportunity in London, but it was also because theres not a lot of positive news about Iran in the media! Sara wrote.

Iranians are very hospitable, and are able to separate between politics and people in a way that I think is really unique to the Middle East.

Sara does a lot of traveling in Iran and has seen many beautiful cities, met many interesting people and made a lot of good friends.

Once I lost my wallet with a lot of money inside, along with my ID card and drivers license. A few days later, a woman called me and said she had my wallet. She was the wife of the taxi driver who had found my wallet, and she had been searching for me for days!
Earlier this month, Erdogan even threatened to dissolve the Turkish constitutional court.

"His outbursts are raising eyebrows both in Turkey and abroad. Even members of his ruling party whisper about his increasing paranoia, according to some Turkish officials," Rubin wrote.

The analyst also brought up the Kurdish problem. Originally, Erdogan resumed peace talks with Kurds, but then he started a war against them. At the same time, Ankara has no chance to win this war while chances are high of a "de facto partition."

Turkey understands that Erdogan is leading the country to nowhere, and the Turkish military understands this too.

"So if the Turkish military moves to oust Erdogan and place his inner circle behind bars, could they get away with it? In the realm of analysis rather than advocacy, the answer is yes," the author wrote.

Ahead of presidential elections, Barack Obamas administration is unlikely to do more than castigate possible coup leaders, especially if they laid out a path to restore democracy in Turkey.
ANKARA (Sputnik)  A curfew was declared on March 25 in Turkey's Silvan district in the province of Diyarbakir due to a planned operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is outlawed in the country, local authorities said.

"Due to the upcoming operation against the separatist terrorist organization PKK a permanent curfew has been introduced in all areas of the [Silvan] district from 11.00 [09:00 GMT] March 25 until further notice," District Governor Murat Kutuk said in a statement.

On March 20, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala announced the introduction of a round-the-clock curfew in seven southeastern Turkish regions. Earlier in March, Ala announced the launch of a new counterterrorism campaign against PKK militants in the country's southeast, especially in the districts of Yuksekova, Nusaybin and Sirnak.
"Very often intelligence relationships are deeper even when political relationships are troubled," Hayden commented. However, he added, the intelligence community ultimately takes political guidance. "So how much we might be able to do might be limited by the overall relationship."

Outside of broader intelligence cooperation, Hayden explained that nations have "a moral responsibility to warn" another of a potential threat. "If we have something that will keep Russian citizens safe, we have a moral responsibility to share it," he stated.

Relations between Russia and the United States deteriorated in 2014 after western allegations that Moscow had interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly refuted the claims, warning that amassing troops and military equipment on Russias borders constitute provocative acts and can have a destabilizing effect on the region and globally.

The United States suspended bilateral efforts across the US-Russia Presidential Commission, which included working groups on counterterrorism and intelligence.

On Friday, the Russian Duma approved a resolution calling on international legislatures to create a broad international coalition to combat the threat of terrorism. The appeal follows Tuesdays deadly terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium, reportedly carried out by Islamic State terrorists.
In his recent Op-Ed for Russia Today Neil Clark, a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger, writes that former US Secretary of State Clinton's emails as well as secret cabels and reports provided by Wikileaks and American conservative educational foundation Judicial Watch show that Washington was by no means an innocent bystander, but went out of its way to destabilize Syria and exploit its ethnic and religious divisions.

What previously seemed to be just a set of circumstances have turned out to be elements of a highly thought-out and well-orchestrated project.

Nothing hinted at any trouble back in 2006, when US Ambassador to Syria William Roebuck sent a cable to the White House describing "potential vulnerabilities" of the Assad government and the "possible means to exploit them."
During that conversation, Bradford suggested that it would be best if Cruz would pursue a strict reading of the US Constitution, guaranteeing religious liberty for all. He said that Muslims in the United States do not seek to be tolerated, they seek to be accepted. Bradford also stressed that American Muslims, like any other American citizen, defer to the laws of the United States.

Cruz inculcated hope for tolerance in the meeting's participants. "On day one of his presidency," Bradford recalls, "he [Cruz] will instruct the Department of Justice, the IRS, and every other federal agency that the persecution of religious liberty ends today."

Remembering those remarks, Bradford was distressed by Cruz's rearing rhetoric regarding Islam. As he writes in an essay at alternet.org, "Senator Cruz's statements are not just dangerous, in that they seek to ostracize Muslims or alienate them among their neighbors; the real danger is that they also contribute to the hysteria and vigilantism that bring about real attacks on Americans of all faiths."

Cruz's about-face is easily explained. Bradford said that it has been noted that "incendiary" accusations on Islam, although false, are "so prevalent among the evangelical base Cruz is targeting that [the campaign] must pander to them, finessing their way past them into the primary and the nomination."

Bradford suggested that the real danger in Cruz's inflammatory statements is not only that he says those things, but that he probably does not believe what he is saying. "He may be just craven enough in his desire to become the Republican nominee that he'll sideline the liberties he's sworn to protect to get the position he thinks he deserves."
"It is gratifying that new platforms for direct substantial dialogue emerge, and this is fully in line with the dynamics of the Russian-Chinese relations, which are at the highest level in history. The strategic partnership between Russia and China is an example of interstate relations in the 21st century," Ivanov stated at the opening ceremony of the second Russian and Chinese Mass Media Forum.

The guarantee for the relations successful development is that they are based on the principles of "mutual respect, trust and equality," he added.

"We strive to take into account each others interests, we are interested in the prosperity of our countries," the head of the Kremlin administration noted.

Moscow and Beijing efficiently cooperate within the existing economic and banking projects, striving to increase bilateral trade. Among the venues of economic cooperation are the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank, the Silk Road infrastructure fund and the China-Russia Expo.

Both countries also make enormous efforts to counter terrorism, seen as a key element of China-Russia all-encompassing partnership and strategic cooperation, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui told Sputnik on January 19.

The Kremlin administration head arrived in China on March 24 at the invitation of the head of the General Office of the Communist Party of China, Li Zhanshu.

The two officials discussed a wide range of issues of cooperation between the Russian presidential administration and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
"Thats why this meeting with President Putin is so important. Because if we can move together more effectively, we could be far more efficient in our ability to find the terrorists, to eliminate the threats and the plots that exist today," he stressed.

Moscow needs to take a number of important decisions on cooperation with Washington in the fight against Daesh to restore stability in the Middle East, Kerry said.

"Were actually very pleased that Russia is concerned about that extremism and wants to fight against Daesh and other extremists, so the key here is to find clarity in our definitions, make sure were really working effectively together without hidden agenda in a way that can rapidly destroy Daesh, push back against violent extremism, restore peace and stability in the region. And there are some big choices frankly that President Putin and Russia need to make with respect to how we do that," Kerry said.

Russia has repeatedly voiced its willingness to fight against international terrorism, the Daesh terrorist group in particular, and cooperate with other nations on this matter.

Daesh has captured large areas of land in Syria and Iraq, where it proclaimed a caliphate. The terror group is outlawed in Russia, the United States and in several other countries.

Kerry: US, Russia Have Chance to Return to Better Relations

The United States and Russia are making progress in joint efforts on various issues and both countries have a chance to return to stronger and more effective relations, US State Secretary John Kerry said.

"Were making progress, I think that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and I have had a very productive relationship, and weve been able to separate differences and work together in a very effective way," he said.
According to the French journalist, NATO's policies remain largely inconsistent.

"[US Secretary of Defense] Ash Carter came to Brussels recently and 'ordered' Belgium to participate in the US coalition in Syria. The US Ambassador to Brussels also called on Belgium to increase spending on defense while austerity has reduced spending on health and education. While [US Secretary of State] Kerry seems to be on a different line, some people in the Pentagon and the White House desperately need enemies to justify spending ten times more than the total amount of dollars spent by the ten nations following the US in defense spending," he told Sputnik.

At the same time, Washington and its allies are turning a blind eye to NATO member-state Turkey's illicit oil trade with Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) as well as to evil role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in sponsoring Islamic extremists worldwide.

To complicate matters further, NATO has rejected Russia's helping hand in the war against Daesh and international terrorism.

In this context Agora Erasmus founder echoed Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who said during a weekly news briefing on March, 24:

"Every EU citizen, every citizen of NATO member countries must realize that this organization refuses to maintain a fully-fledged dialogue [with Russia] on counter-terrorism."

Zakharova stressed that what happened in Brussels represents a challenge to the whole world.

Expressing his deep condolences for the relatives of those killed in the deadly Brussels attacks, Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia's parliament, noted in one of his tweets that "it's high time for the West to reject anti-Russian hysteria and to turn to cooperation with Russia against terrorism. Paris and Brussels have shown exactly who threatens Europe."

    .    -   ..    ,       (@Alexey_Pushkov) 22  2016 .

"Instead of looking endlessly for confrontation and geopolitical domination, Belgium, as well as other member states of NATO and the EU have everything to win from detente, entente and cooperation with Putin's Russia, who happens to be the only head of State sticking to principles, and really committed to ending Daesh," Agora Erasmus' official statement reads.
KIEV (Sputnik)  Ukraines parliament is currently in crisis, threatened by the de-facto collapse of its ruling coalition. On February 15, the parliamentary faction aligned to Poroshenko  the Petro Poroshenko Bloc  described the cabinets work in 2015 as unsatisfactory.

The following day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuks government survived a no-confidence vote, which provoked various factions to leave the ruling parliamentary coalition. Another vote of no-confidence cannot be held until the next parliamentary session, scheduled to open on September 6. Parliamentary factions have since began talks on forming a new coalition.

"The 12th extraordinary congress of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc "Solidarity" party insists of the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukrainethe congress supports Yuriy Lutsenko's proposal to put Vladimir Groysman forward for the post of the prime minister of Ukraine and calls on the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party to consider this candidacy as well as the composition of the new cabinet of ministers," the party's congress resolution said, quoted in a press release.
The release of emails from the private account of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shed some light on the event . It turned out that Paris prearranged the coup: the French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) held a series of secret meeting with Libyan military officials in Benghazi in late February 2011.

Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time associate of Hillary Clinton, noted in his letter that "the DGSE officers indicated that they expected the new government of Libya to favor French firms and national interests, particularly regarding the oil industry in Libya."

Of course, the French president and the country's oil giants were not the only actors planning to benefit from the regime change in Libya.

However, after the military coup in Libya things got ugly on the ground, prompting the Western establishment to seek yet another solution to the crisis.

Phil Butler puts the spotlight on the recent analytical report released by influential International Crisis Group think tank.

The think tank's Board of Trustees and Senior Advisers includes such figures as US magnate George Soros, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, former US Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, former Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the US Prince Turki al-Faisal, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and etc.

The Group's report called for the creation of a single pro-Western government in Libya.

It is hardly a coincidence that some scholars have recently come up with the plan to recognize Libya's Constitution of 1951, which proclaimed the country a constitutional monarchy, and to restore the House of Senussi to power.
Furthermore, it is not just the National Enquirer now alleging Cruz had repeated extramarital affairs. Washington Times reporter Drew Johnson wrote on Twitter Thursday night: "COMING CLEAN: From what I know, at least 2 of the women named as Cruz mistresses by the National Enquirer are accurate."

Johnson, a staunchly anti-Trump political commentator, followed up on Friday morning, tweeting "Lots heard rumors. An online media outlet knew the whole story but they chose not to run with it."

Origin of the story: Marco Rubios SuperPAC, #NeverTrump, and #TheThing

It all started on March 11, when a Twitter follower asked Rick Wilson, head of the staunchly pro-Marco Rubio #NeverTrump movement, about the release of "the thing." Wilson expressed disdain, saying that "I wish I had control of The Thing, and If I had The Thing, youd have the thing."
In fact, it gets worse. The article quotes a person saying  When children hear the drones, they get really scared, and they can hear them all the time so they're always fearful that the drone is going to attack them. Because of the noise, we're psychologically disturbed, women, men, and children. Twenty-four hours, a person is in stress and there is pain in his head." A journalist who photographs drone strike craters agreed that children are perpetually terrorized. He said- "If you bang a door, they'll scream and drop like something bad is going to happen."

Although we will never know the true death toll, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based on extensive research in mid-2011, claims that at least 385 civilians were among the dead by drone, including more than 160 children. In July 2009, Brookings Institution released a report stating that in the United States-led drone attacks in Pakistan, ten civilians died for every militant killed. But it gets worse. Wikipedia notes  Pakistani authorities released statistics stating that between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2009, U.S. RQ-1 Predator and RQ-9 Reaper UAV strikes have killed over 700 innocent civilians. Thats right. The Pakistani government says that more than 700 innocent civilians have been killed. And thats just the ones they know about. And lets not forget that those numbers were released several years ago. Now, no doubt, the figures are much higher.

What about the man behind the machine? The man who ultimately pulls the trigger? A journalist at the Guardian interviewed a former drone pilot and he said  "It is a lot like playing a video game. But playing the same video game four years straight on the same level. His bombs kill real people though and, he admits, often not the people he is aiming at. In an interview with a former US air force drone operator, the operator admitted to making mistakes. He said  You see a lot of death," before he paused and said  if it was not him then it might be some new kid doing it badly.

In a recent headline, the Guardian reports that the US government will finally announce how many people have died as a result of drone strikes. Of course, in that very same article, they also reported that  the Pentagon confirmed it had conducted a massive airstrike in Somalia that left 150 people dead, one the largest casualty totals in a US military attack of the post-9/11 era. Thats right. 150 dead in one drone strike. How many of those killed were terrorists?

As reporters and the world await the news from the US government awaiting the total number of drone strikes worldwide, the number of terrorists dead and the total number of people killed, one needs to think about the legality of what is happening. One issue at hand is Point 6 of the 1970 declaration on principles of international law states: No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state. Maybe this applies to droning foreign nationals half-way around the world in an undeclared war?

So, what do you think dear listeners? Is the drone program moral?
Due to the astronauts tight schedule many questions went unanswered. Including the one about any sanctioned foods being consumed on the ISS and when photographs made on the space outpost were scheduled to go on display.

The landing capsule of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft, carrying three crew members of the International Space Station, landed in Kazakhstan on March 2.

Back to Earth arrived Mikhail Kornienko, Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, who had spent six months onboard the ISS.

The ISS trio left behind NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and the European Space Agency's British astronaut Tim Peake.

NASA's Jeff Williams and Roscosmos' Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin, joined them following a launch from Baikonur on March 18.

US magazine Fortune has put Mikhail Kornienko in its list of 50 greatest leaders changing the world. Kornienko shared the 22nd position with US astronaut Scott Kelly. The two have spent eleven months working on board the International Space Station.

The two men returned to earth on March 2 after working side by side for 340 days in the International Space Station, a journey in which they circled the planet 5,440 times, traveled 144 million miles (nearly the distance from the earth to Mars), and conducted more than 400 scientific experiments  profoundly expanding our understanding of spaces effects on human beings and showing that, when it comes to the final frontier, there is no border between nations, the magazine wrote.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On February 22, Russia and the United States reached an agreement on a ceasefire in Syria , which took effect on February 27.

"As a representative of the Foreign Ministry I can say that there is mutual understanding with the Americans regarding the strengthening of the ceasefire. The questions are whether this is enough and whether it can be documented, but this is a question for the military," Ryabkov told RIA Novosti.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with forces loyal to President Bashar Assad's government fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.
ANKARA (Sputnik)  According to the DHA news agency, a UK citizen with the initials M.A. was detained in a hotel in Ankara's Altindag district before being transferred into the custody of the country's migration service.

Turkey is one of the main routes used by those seeking to join Daesh jihadist group, outlawed in many countries including Russia and the United States. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the Turkish authorities have detained 2,783 foreigners from 89 countries on suspicion of having links to Daesh. In 2015, more than 900 foreigners were detained while crossing the Turkish border with Syria.

Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had detained one of the Brussels terrorist attack suspects, identified as Ibrahim Bakraoui, on the border with Syria in June 2015 and subsequently deported him to the Netherlands. According to Erdogan, the Belgian authorities ignored Ankara's warnings that Bakraoui had ties with terrorists and proceeded to set him free.
Documented Links Between Algerian Army and AQIM's Leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Contact: K.Drawi, 240-994-2476ROCKVILLE, Md., March 25, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- The Mediterranean-centered television channel Medi1 TV aired on March 24, 2016 on "60 Minutes To Understand," an investigative report providing new information on the hostage crisis of 2013. The crisis took place at the Tigantourine gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria, and was carried out by a group of jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). At least 37 foreign hostages were killed.The report presents evidence of several telephone calls, including one between the Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was supervising the taking of hostages and Abderrahman, a member of the jihadist group called ''Signers in Bloods.''During this brief exchange, surprised by the aerial attack by the Algerian army on his group as well as on the hostages, Abderrahman is heard transmitting a distress call shouting "The Algerian (government) doesn't keep its word!''Experts invited to comment on the report concluded that ''there can be no doubt that the terrorist group was bound by a tacit agreement with the Algerian authorities.''The existence of this agreement has been recently confirmed by a confidential email released by WikiLeaks that was sent on January 17, 2013 to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to inform her on the "Latest French Intelligence Reports Hostage Crisis On Algerian"The report sent by Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time confidant of Hillary Clinton and training aid to former president Bill Clinton during his presidential tenure, reveals that the Bouteflika government had a highly confidential understanding with the Algerian jihadist partner after the April 2012 kidnapping of the Algerian consul in Gao (Mali) "to concentrate his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encouragement of the Algerian Department of External Security, attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara."As further evidence an email from Blumenthal to Clinton, dated 19 January 2013, entitled 'French Algeria latest information,' stating that "Above all, we learn that the Algerian government planned to meet Belmokhtar again after the attacks."At the same time, according to this sensitive source "officers of the Algerian Department of External Security are looking to secretly meet Belmokhtar or one of his lieutenants in northern Mauritania in the immediate future. They have been ordered to find out why Belmokhtar violated their two-year-old agreement and launched attacks inside Algeria."
23 March 2016

Stop cluster munition use in Yemen

For the past year the Saudi-led coalition has been using US-supplied cluster bombs in Yemen

This week marks one year since the Saudiled coalition began using cluster munitions in populated areas in Yemen. The coalition is comprised of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

Today, at a News Conference on Yemen (Yemen: Embargo Arms to Saudi Arabia) held by Human Rights Watch at the UN in New York, Ms. Megan Burke, Director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munition Coalition, strongly condemned the use of cluster munitions in Yemen and urged the Saudiled coalition to immediately halt the use. Ms. Burke also called on the UN Security Council to express its concern and request an investigation into this use in Yemen as it has done for cluster munition use in South Sudan and Sudan.

Ms. Megan Burke, ICBL-CMC Director talks about use of cluster bombs in Yemen at HRW News Conference. UN, New York, 23 March 2016 @HRW

On the 8th of January, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his deep concern about the use of cluster munitions in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, stating that The use of cluster munitions in populated areas may amount to a war crime due to their indiscriminate nature.

Members of the coalition such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and United Arab Emirates are known to have stockpiled cluster munitions used in Yemen. United States and Brazil have supplied cluster munitions to coalition members.

As a result of repeated cluster munition use, thus far it has been confirmed that 13 people have been killed and 31 people injured in Yemen, of which only one casualty was confirmed to be a fighter/military.

Cluster munitions have been banned by 118 countries precisely because of their indiscriminate nature and their disproportionate impact on civilians. In December 2015, 139 countries, through a UN resolution, expressed their strong concern about the use of cluster munitions in different parts of the world and urged all states outside of the Convention to join as soon as possible.

The Netherlands, President of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, expressed concern over the use of cluster munitions in Yemen and called on all countries in the coalition and the Yemeni government to react to these allegations in a concrete, open and transparent way.

All States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and others should publicly condemn the use of the internationally banned cluster munitions in Yemen and help to prevent further tragedies caused by these indiscriminate weapons.

More

Timeline of cluster munitions use in Yemen
tech2 News Staff

Ringing Bells, the maker of what the company claims is the world's cheapest smartphone -- Freedom 251, has hit the news for the wrong reasons yet again. According to reports, an FIR has been registered by the Noida police against the top officials of Ringing Bells.

Ibnlive.com reports that a case was filed under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code on a complaint filed by Kirit Somaiya, BJP MP from Mumbai North-East. The report adds that the FIR was filed at Noida Phase 3 police station on Tuesday against the company promoter Mohit Goel and president Ashok Chaddha. The complaint mentions that Ringing Bells raised funds by issuing misleading ads and used social media to misguide the public.

News site Mail Today, which claims it has a copy of the complaint, says that the MP accused the company of abusing the Tricolour too in the advertisements to misguide the buyers. Mohit Goel, director of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd said to the news site: "We remain committed to cooperate with any government agency that may require to inquire our organisation for any reason or suspicion. I do maintain that we will deliver the most affordable quality products to our customers through our various range of smart phones including the Freedom 251."

Police sources also revealed to CNN-IBN that they have asked company officials to show them manufacturing units where the Freedom 251 mobiles were being manufactured or assembled. They add that police teams will visit these units, if they actually do exist. Police have also asked for company officials to submit essential documents.
tech2 News Staff

Google Photos has now added a new feature for users who find it difficult to choose the best pictures of a trip or an event for making an album.

Google stated via its blog that, "Starting today, after an event or trip, Google Photos will suggest a new album for you, curated with just your best shots." It will also add maps to show users how far they have traveled as well as 'location pins' to remember where the pictures were taken. The update is now available via Android, iOS, and the web.

Users can also add text captions to the album and turn on collaboration to let their friends and family members add their own photos to the album. A user can also manually add maps, texts, and location pins to their new as well as existing albums.

Recently, Google started rolling out a new photo sharing feature to compete with Apples iCloud photo sharing. However, Google brings this support to Android, web as well as iOS.

It is a great feature that will allow to pool your photos and videos from friends and family who keep forgetting to share them via email or social networks. This means you can make albums collaborative and people who receive the shared album can join in and add their own photos and videos.
tech2 News Staff

Software giant Microsoft is working towards building a new campus in Bengaluru with an investment of $1 billion.

Seven months after taking over charge as the head of Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella had a high level meeting with Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah. According to a report in the Times of India, the meeting that took place on 29 September, 2014.

In fact, such was the secrecy around the meeting that there was no trail left behind. Neither was the day marked in Nadella's calendar, nor were people close to the chief minister privy to the meeting.

The report quotes a source that says it is expected that the new campus has the potential to create between 5000 to 7000 jobs.

Currently, the 54-acre Hyderabad campus is the most prominent presence in India. It houses the software company's research and development, IT and global services. The report further adds that Microsoft employees close to 7000 people in India. The new campus effectively has the potential to double that number.

The report adds that neither Microsoft nor the Karnataka IT Secretary confirmed the existence of such a plan by Microsoft.

Last year, Google announced that it was setting up a larger campus in Hyderabad. It referred to it as the largest campus outside the US.
Truck driver, helper killed as gas cylinder goes off in Comilla

A truck driver and a helper were killed as the gas cylinder of their vehicle went off at Kutumbapur on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway in Chandina upazila on Friday afternoon. The deceased was identified as Shohel, 65, a resident of Sayedpur village, and Polash, 28, of Dharmapur village in Adarsha Sadar upazila of the district. In-charge of Iliotganj Highway Police Camp sub-inspector (SI) Quazi Maniruzzaman said the truck, loaded with sand, was going to Comilla. When the vehicle reached Kutumbapur, one of its front wheels went out of order and the driver lost his control over the steering. As a result, the truck hit a covered van and suddenly the gas cylinder of the vehicle blasted on the aftermath, leaving the driver and the helper dead on the spot around 3pm. Later, police recovered the body and sent it to hospital for autopsy. -- Comilla, Mar 25 (UNB)
RMG worker dies in road mishap

Chittagong Bureau :

A worker of a readymade garments factory of CEPZ area died of road mishap yesterday morning at about 7 am .The accident occurred at Airport road near Rubi cement factory .

Victim Mohiuddin hails from Julda village of Karnaphuli thana in chittagong son of Nurul Islam. Sub Inspector of EPZ thana Helaluddin told that the accident occurred following the collision of microbus with a tomtom bike near the cement factory in the early morning. The victim immediately rushed to nearby Navy Hospital where the attending physicians declared him dead.






My soil and the sons of the soil

Al Mujahidi :

This day is exclusively my day ...

Repeatedly explains my existence

This day is exclusively my day ...

Awakes me through my existence.

Explains the essence of my life and death-

And of my loving and not-loving.

This day is exclusively my day ...

Traces the footsteps of my forefathers.

Insignificant was I, but steadily

Have I transcended the flights oflighted stairs,

Miles of forests, braved the attacks of snakes ;

Crossed the lines death, the sharklands of the sea.

The glowing lights of delta Bangla

Now shows me only

A safe future.

This day is exclusively my day, the epic

Of a heroism in tragedy. The sailors'

Safety line. They stand in firm vigilance ;

None can break the line of security ;

I love the sea-lined days a nights.

The sea has taken on its bosom

The immense sky. The deep shades of green.

Doesn't one love the call from the depths of blue eyes ?

All the memories of the not-distant past ?

How overwhelms me, day and night,

Ah! The nostalgia of the impossible!

Freedom! You are my only reality

I don't have any aspirations otherwise.

Just to this day I offer myself today.

This day is exclusively my day.

Look, the blood-stained skeleton of the day holds

The injuries of so many ages !

How much I love those injuries of pain !

How often were my forefathers ruled by autocracy !

Syed Alaol's father was attacked by pirates.

Bravely sacrificed their lives at the killing ground. Yet they

Didn't concede defeat. Didn't die a coward's death.

Deathless are they, the noble sons of the soil.

The soil holds in embrace their bodies.

A unique history, like a burning fossil !

Ah! This day is exclusively my day ..

The immense skies, the forests, these trees,

This sprawling fertile soil-are mine only.

The brightly illuminated motherland

The living breaths

Of innumerable souls

Enliven and enlighten me again and again.

Like living threads of eternity.

This day now is exclusively ours. At this birthland .

Have now we reached. Where else could we ?

Here, this is Panamnagar, the archaeogical village,

The pond, the peaceful hedges,

Was this day marked from the Pharaoh calendar of Egypt?

We did not making offerings to shrines.

Didn't even light candIes-

Only have we painted the day with coats of blood.

Plinted it on the glowing pages of Almanac.

We didn't go by the words of the fortune teller

We have transcended all boundaries.

Copper engravings of Ptolemy, or of Tamluk,

Are still there somewhere.

We are waiting for newer creations

Of monuments of blood.

Newest is this day, a pointer to our future.

O my soil! O my brothers of the soil !

For ever will remain this day for you-

For your present, for the future

And for Nebula, the star-to-come.

This day represents my soil,

And the soil of my stars.

I keep waiting for this day everyday.

This day now is our

Soil of existence.

O my fiery soil !

Let freedom be yours for ever. Let the birds of Eden

Shower their feathers

Across the skies and shores of seven seas.

The heat of my burning self keeps me awake.

O fatherland! O my fatherland! Your presence,

And the wholeness of your presence,

Lets me exist.

Let me derive the starred evolution of the living,

O my fatherland,

This day is exclusively my day.

Translation : Deen Mohammad
Nails in the Coffin

Zahurul Alam :Concept is an abstract idea, whereas a theory is an established scientific principle based on experimental and observational evidence(s). Pakistan was created based on 'Two Nation' concept that lacked empirical evidences. It defined nation denying the very fundamentals of nationality or nationhood: language, ethnicity, geographical and economic uniformity, cultural and historical homogeneity of the people. Such denial and intentional negligence of the basics of a nation ultimately led to widespread discrimination among the peoples and instigated conflicts. The emergence of Pakistan on the basis of so called 'Two Nation' concept put itself in a coffin. Subsequent activities of this strange state started putting nails in that coffin, one after another. Vested interest of the Pakistani elite, representing land lords, industrialists and the Generals started killing Pakistan and putting the nails in its coffin during the whole period of its union with East Pakistan. These elites never had any desire to realize the aspirations of the people of neither the East nor the West wings of this strange state. The power capturers of Pakistan placed religion as a sedative to suppress people's aspirations and as an instrument to stick to power.Founding principle of a nation state is important for its sustainability. Pakistan's founding principle, as mentioned above, was merely a concept of nationhood based on religion. Mr Jinnah, whose lifestyle was far from that of a Muslim, and who happened to be an ambitious politician, captured this idea to fulfill his political ambition of becoming a statesman, which was not possible for him being part of the Indian National Congress that was already crowded by many eminent politicians, who overwhelmed him in all areas of political professionalism. Only a separate state without the influence of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Bose and other prominent figures could provide him the space for being at the forefront of the political scenario. He chose to propagate 'Two Nation' concept to attain his ambition. In doing this he got support mostly from the 'non-Bengali Bengalis' of Bangla, in addition to other Bengali politicians. The Khawazas of Dhaka were among those, in addition to some of the prominent Banglee politicians. The original idea of partition of India was to create three states on the basis of Lahore Resolution proposed by A.K Fazlul Haque in 1940. However, the inherent to the nature of Pakistani politics of conspiracy started from that moment and the Lahore Resolution was changed to create two states, India and Pakistan, instead of Bangla as one of the separate states. The distortion of Lahore Resolution by the perverted politicians of Muslim League paved the path to attach rich and wealthy Bangla with feudalistic provinces of West Pakistan: Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and NWFP. On the other hand, in attaching Bangla with West Pakistan, the British chose to divide Bangla taking example from the division of Bangla in 1905 (Bangabhanga), which was re-united again in 1911. This fragmented Bangla was convenient for Pakistani rulers, like the British from the point of view of divide and rule policy. For West Pakistan, it would be an impossible task to overwhelm united Bangla with its huge economic, cultural and political potential. Congress was also completely satisfied with divided Bangla, as that would substantially reduce influence of Bangla in Indian economy and politics. The most incorrect and motivated and ill designed argument of the propagators of 'Two Nation' concept was their attempt to establish the myth that the Hindus and Muslims in India were two distinct nations with sustainable antagonism throughout the history. Therefore, according to them, these two 'nations' should have separate states based on religion. As an attempt to prove the so called 'Theory' the potential beneficiaries, instigated Hindu-Muslim riots all over India in the mid-forties, including the most hostile one in Calcutta in 1946, which prompted division of India based on religion. The 'Two Nation' concept inspired the Muslim and Hindu radical forces in the Sub Continent to create religious, racial and ethnic antagonism. It provided the Hindu extremists instrument to proliferate that the Indian Muslims were non-Indian foreigners and they must be treated as second class citizens in India. The extremists also tried to reinforce the idea that the Muslims happened to be the enemies of India and hence they were to be thrown out of India. However, emergence of India as a secular modern state prevented these ill motives. Nevertheless, India started to become restless more frequently than ever following the acceptance by the Indian politicians the idea of 'Two Nations'.A crucial question for the Indian Muslims was, whether or not the emergence of two states based on religion was good for the Indian Muslims. Most prominent Muslim politicians, including Abul Kalam Azad refused the idea of formation of such state apprehending that such division would put majority of the Indian Muslims who would supposedly be living in India, in obstinate position. Their arguments were substantiated by the logic that the Muslims living in India would not have a safe living if the Indian extremists use religion as a tool for discrimination. Most irresponsible, unscientific and historically false propaganda was that the Indian Hindus and Muslims lead conflicting manner of living and that they are not in a position to live as good neighbors being citizens of same state. This falsehood had never been supported by Indian history. The Hindus and Muslims led friendly lives and livelihoods for centuries, irrespective of who was ruling the country or the states. The Indian history has always shown harmonized, peaceful and synchronized co-existence of all nations and ethnicities over thousands of years. The foreign aggression in Bengla and in India was opposed both by the Muslims and the Hindus together, and the traitors were also from both the religions. So, it was never religious sentiment that changed the political scenario in India for centuries. Most interestingly, Mr Jinnah expressed his concepts of the nations in India differently in different places. While in most cases, during the early 40s he tried to establish his 'Two Nations' concept to divide India on the basis of religion; in 1947, when all practicalities led to the point of dividing Punjab and Bengal, Jinnah told the then Governor general of India Lord Mountbatten that a man is a Panjabi or a Bengali first before he is Hindu or Muslim. Jinnah's contradictory statements over time reflected his lean affiliation to the concept he had been propagating to divide India based on religion. In line with Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, the 'Two Nation' concept was rejected by Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and many other prominent politicians and social leaders. They believed that majority of the Indian Muslims (and Hindus) would be in a worse position if India is divided into religious based separate nations. The argument was that not all the Muslims or Hindus would be able to be shifted to the respective states after the partition, which would place them in a politically and socially hostile environment in their own countries. The creation of the states on the basis of religion would lead to the creation of a narrow mindset based on religion and the minority remaining in any of the religious state would be the victims of oppression. Emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 and a bloody war between the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis would remain a great example in the history of mankind and a good platform for the social scientists to prove that nation state formation is a matter not confined within the concept of religion only. Religion may serve as one of the agents of formation of a nation state only. The most prominent example to this effect is absence of a single Islamic state in the Middle East, or a single Christian state in Europe. The futility of the two nation concept was evident from Jinnah's speech of 11 August 1947 where he mentioned: "You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of state." Then on what ground and why Pakistan was needed to be created based on a concept that virtually did not carry any value in the business of the state! Suhrawardy at certain points also mentioned that the 'theory' proved harmful to the Muslims of India. Religion unites people in a manner which according to religion itself does not oppose, rather promotes peaceful co-existence of the people. Prophet (Sm) did not eliminate other religions and other believers after the victory of Mecca. The propagators of 'Two Nations' concept, who collaborated with the Pakistanis during our Liberation Movements starting from 14 August 1947 and repressed innocent people always acted against Islam in the name of Islam. According to Altaf Hossain, a prominent leader of Muttahida Quami Movement "The idea of Pakistan was dead at its inception, when the majority of Muslims (in Muslim-minority areas of India) chose to stay back in India after partition, a truism reiterated in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971." The irrelevance and fraudulent character of the 'Two Nation' concept has been unveiled by many politicians during the 40s and even today. The MQM leader Altaf Hossain, representing the Muslim refugees in Pakistan has categorically disregarded the concept by saying that the 'Two Nations' concept was a farce and it was the biggest fraud played with the Muslims of India. He also mentioned that the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 demonstrated complete irrelevance of the so called 'Two Nations Theory'. The history of Pakistan movement suggests that all provinces of Pakistan except the Sindh Assembly rejected the idea of creating Pakistan. The supporters of Pakistan in Sindh Assembly won with a majority of one vote. Bengal was the first to support creation of Pakistan and it was the first to separate itself by correcting the mistake that was done in 1947. Irrelevance of the 'Two Nations' concept is also demonstrated by the fact that current Muslim population in India is greater than that in current Pakistan. The Muslims in India are enjoying religious and cultural freedom and are proud to be Indians. What then was the relevance of dividing India based on religion? Pakistan is even not interested to accommodate stranded Pakistanis now living in Bangladesh. What protection this state is providing to the Muslims of this Sub-continent!The movements for self-determination, freedom, democracy and human rights in East Pakistan over the entire period of its 'alliance' with Pakistan became stronger year after year in response to discrimination instigated by the Pakistani rulers. One of the most evident discrimination was in terms of allocation of resources from the common budget of Pakistan. Despite larger population and larger share of foreign currency earnings, the Eastern Wing of Pakistan continuously received smaller share of central budgetary allocation of Pakistan. Year-wise Budgetary Allocation of Pakistan(in Crores of Pakistani Rupees)Year Spending onWest Pakistan Spending onEast Pakistan Amount spent on East as percentage of West1950-55 1,129 524 46.41955-60 1,655 524 31.71960-65 3,355 1,404 41.81965-70 5,195 2,141 41.2Total 11,334 4,593 40.5The discrimination between the two provinces of Pakistan covered all spheres of Pakistani life. East Pakistan had around 5 percent employment in the armed forces of Pakistan. All higher positions in the military and civil bureaucracy were captured by the West Pakistanis. Immediately after partition, Mr Jinnah and other politicians of Pakistan declared that Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, although Bangalis constituted 56 percent of the population of Pakistan, and Urdu was spoken by less than 7 percent of the Pakistanis. This instigated strong nationalistic movement in East Pakistan and virtually the killings on 21 February 1952 put the first nail in the coffin of Pakistan. The movement onwards started taking organized shape and put important milestones each year in the struggle for self-determination and independence. The landslide victory of Jukto Front in 1954, students' movement of 1962, the Six-point Movement of 1966, so called Agartala Cospiracy case and trials, mass uprising of 1968-69 and fall of military autocrat Ayub Khan, landslide victory of Awami League in 1970 and emergence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the sole Leader of Bangali Nation, the Non-Cooperation Movement of March 1971, historic speech of 7thMarch by Bangabandhu, the genocide by the Pakistanis and their native collaborators from 25th March, formation of Exile Government of Bangladesh with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the President of the Republic are the milestones of our Liberation Movement and each constituted nail in the coffin of Pakistan. The Victory of the Nation on 16 December 1971 put the last nail in the coffin of Pakistan. (Professor Zahurul Alam Ph.D, President, Governance and Rights Centre (GRC), E-mail: [email protected])
Call to ensure water for sustainable development

Staff Reporter :

Development cannot be sustained without water. Water's connectivity to sustainability to development is an integral part of the process. The life and livelihoods of the people and economy revolves round water, said the speakers.

But shortage of safe water is hampering our development, they said. Terming water as vital to create jobs and support economic aspects, they said despite the inseparable linkage between jobs and water, millions of people's livelihoods depend on water, but they are not often recognized and protected by basic labour rights.

They came up with the remarks while addressing a seminar jointly organized by WASA, NGO Forum for Public Health, WASH Alliance, World Bank Group, WSSCC and unicef.

The seminar titled 'Recognizing works in water' was held at Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), marking the World Water Day recently.

Abdul Malek, secretary of local government division of LGRD and Cooperatives Ministry, SMA Rashid, executive director of NGO Forum for Public Health, Engineer Taqsem A. Khan, managing director of Dhaka WASA, Mohammad Wali Ullah, chief engineer of Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), among others, addressed on the occasion.

Dr. Ainun Nishat, Professor Emeritus of BRAC University, chaired the closing session.

They called for better livelihoods and life of people by ensuring adequate water, including drinking water for all the people.
Is Jackie trying to be the lady Salman of Bollywood?

We all are aware of the huge destruction the incessant rains last year in Tamil Nadu caused. The rains led to losses to lives, assets, households and livelihood of the people.

While it is already out of the memory of most of the people, there are still a few who are putting in their best to help the affected victims rebuild their homes and restart their lives.

Jacqueline Fernandez is one of them, the actress has joined hands with an NGO, Habitat for Humanity, and they have in unison launched a Tamil Nadu Flood Relief Campaign Jacqueline Builds.

For her initiative funds are being raised to build these houses and the help the victims.

On collection of enough funds Jacqueline will be visiting Chennai and manually building houses for the victims.
More students in ICT sector needed

City Desk :

Speakers at a seminar have observed that a substantial boosting of computer science-minded students is necessary for flourishing of information and communication technology in the country. They opined that increasing the number of science-minded students with ICT knowledge would be effective means of ensuring their better contribution to the development process.

They said this yesterday while speaking at the inaugural session of a day-long international conference "Computer, Communication, Chemical, Materials and Electronic Engineering" in the senate building of Rajshahi University (RU). Vice- chancellor Prof. Mijanuddin addressed the session as the chief guest while Vice-chancellor of RUET Prof. Rafiqul Alam Beg and Pro-VC of RU Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan spoke as special guests with Prof Abu Bakar Ismail, Dean of Science Faculty, in the chair.

Prof Mijanuddin viewed there is no way but to wide-ranging promotion of science and technology to take forward the nation successfully. The young generation will surely take the nation forward through improving the technological area and all of us should create an enabling situation for them in this regard, he added.

He mentioned that necessary steps must be taken to make the computer laboratories in educational institutions properly functioning for familiarizing and disseminating the knowledge of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) among the students. Prof Mijanuddin observed that there is no alternative to equip the young generation with ICT knowledge and its proper application for facing the challenges of the 21st century.
Grounds for drawing a negative inference

Appellate Division :

(Criminal)

Syed Mahmud Hossain J

Md Imman Ali J

Hassan Foez Siddique J

Judgment April 20th, 2014.

State represented by the Deputy Commissioner, Noagaon

.................. Petitioner

vs

Md Palash ...............

.............................Respondent

Evidence Act (I of 1872)

Section 114(g)

Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain (8 of 2000)

Sections 9(1)

In the absence of any reason for not calling her as a witness negative inference was rightly drown against the prosecution for not examining her.

We cannot agree with the observation of the High Court Division that medical examination of the person of the prosecutrix is a sine qua non to prove rape. However, the fact that the victim declined to be examined medically is relevant and was rightly held against the prosecution. She admitted in her crossexamination that she met and talked to the inmates of the house including a sister of the accused and her husband as well as other persons who visited the house. When she was taken to another village, Chakprashad, she stated that people asked her questions. There is no mention that she complained to them about her abduction or rape. One other important factor highlighted by the High Court Division is that the informant alleged, to have narrated the occurrence first of all to one Rokeya Begum, a neighbour who was not examined by the prosecution.

...... (17 & 16)

Biswajit Deb Nath, Deputy Attorney-General instructed by Sufia Khatun Advocate-on-Record-For the Appellant.

None Represented-For the Respondent.

Judgment

Md Imman Ali J: This criminal petition for leave to appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 3-3-2011 passed by a Division Bench of the High Court Division in Criminal Appeal No. 1543 of 2004 allowing the appeal.

2. The relevant facts, for disposal of the case, are that one Azizur Rahman lodged a First Information Report (FIR) on 20-5-2002 with the Rani Nagar Police Station alleging inter alia that, he married Mosammat Shamima Akhter (Eby) (the victim) 12/13 years previously and they have 2 (two) children. The informant went to Bogra city on 14-5-2002 for purchasing some goods for his shop and he returned at night around 12-00 o'clock and after arriving at his house, he saw that accused Palash (the respondent herein) and Mukul were whispering beside the house of accused Md Sekander Ali and sensing his presence, they left the said place. Thereafter, the informant took his dinner and went to bed with his wife and children. Around 3-00/3-30 am his wife went out from the house for preserving the fire-wood from rain water. Suddenly the informant found that accused Palash and Mukul jumped upon his wife (the victim) and tied up her face with her Sari and forcibly took her away. When the informant went forward to resist, 5/6 unknown armed terrorists surrounded him and also threatened him not to shout. Due to rain-storm and out of fear, the informant did not go out of his residence at that night and after Fazr prayer, the informant informed the occurrence to a neighbour, namely, Rokeya Begum and the local people. Thereafter, the informant along with his children went to the house of his father-in-law and intimated the occurrence to him and other members of his family. The informant and his father-in-law tried to trace out the victim but failed. Further case of the prosecution is that before the aforesaid occurrence, at the instance of the informant a Salish was held in the locality and the Salishkarak awarded fine against accused Palash and Mukul for the allegation of outraging modesty and theft and the informant's brother accused Sekander in order to evict the informant from his homestead inducted accused Palash and Mukul and they abducted the informants' wife for selling her for prostitution or they might have killed her after committing rape and that at the advice of the police the informant tried to trace out his wife and having failed he lodged the FIR after a little delay.

3. On the basis of the aforesaid FIR Rani Nagar Police Station Case No. 12 dated 20-5-2002 was recorded under Section 7/30 of the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain, 2000 (amended in 2003) hereinafter called "the Ain".

4. During investigation on 22-6-2002 the victim was recovered from the house of the sister of the respondent. On the date of recovery, the learned Magistrate recorded the statement of the victim under Section 22 of the Ain.

5. After investigation police submitted final report being No. 21 dated 18-8-2002 under Section 7/30 of the Ain.

6. Against the said final report the informant filed Naraji Petition, on the basis of which, the learned Judge, Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Tribunal, Naogaon by order dated 28-8-2002 took cognizance of the offence under Section 7/30 of the Nari-o- Shishu Nirjatan Ain, 2003 against the respondent and 2 (two) others. Ultimately charge was framed against those accused by order dated 23-11-2002 under Section 7/30 of the Ain. The charge was read over and explained to the appellant and other attending accused, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

7. In order to substantiate the charge against the accused persons the persecution examined as many as 7 witnesses, out of whom 2 witnesses were tendered and one witness was declared hostile. The defence did not examine any witness. After conclusion of examination of the witnesses, the respondent was examined under Section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure during which he again pleaded his innocence.

8. The defence case as it transpires from the trend of cross-examination is that there was love affair between the respondent Palash and the victim Shamima Akhter (Baby) and the victim of her own will left her husband's house, and along with the beloved respondent she kept herself in hiding in different places. There was no abduction or rape. Out of grudge against the respondent, and because of previous enmity with Sekander, the informant falsely brought this case against the respondent and Md. Sekander, the brother of the informant.

9. After conclusion of trial the learned Judge of the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Tribunal, Naogaon by his judgment and order dated 22-3-2004 convicted the accused under sections 9(1) of the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain, 2000 (amended in 2003) and sentenced him to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Taka 5,000 in default, to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 6 (six) months more.

10. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the said judgment and order of conviction and sentence the respondent preferred Criminal Appeal No. 1543 of 2004 before the High Court Division.

11. By the impugned judgment and order, the High Court Division allowed the appeal and acquitted the respondent. Hence, the State as petitioner has filed the instant criminal petition for leave to appeal before this Division.

12. Mr Biswajit Deb Nath, learned Deputy Attorney-General appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that the High Court Division failed to appreciate that the trial court applying its judicial mind passed the conviction and sentence to the accused respondent to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life with a fine of Taka 5,000, in default to suffer imprisonment for 6 (six) months more. He further submitted that the trial court examined independent witnesses and upon consideration of all the evidence found the accused guilty of the offence under section 9(1) of the Niri-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain 2000 and the High Court Division erred in reversing such finding.

13. No one has appeared to represent the respondents.

14. We find from the impugned judgment that initially charge was framed under sections 7/30 of the Nari-o-Shishu Nirjatan Daman Ain, but subsequently the charge was haltered to one under Section 9(1) of the said Ain. The High Court Division has elaborately discussed all the evidence on record and came to a finding that there was no direct evidence of rape upon the victim nor any circumstantial evidence was available to the prosecution.

15. Most importantly the High Court Division highlighted the fact that the prosecutrix, who was allegedly raped over a period of 40 days, did not raise objection in front of people in the neighbourhood whom she admittedly met nor even to the inmates of the house where she was introduced as the wife of the accused. The High Court Division observed that the deposition of the victim and her statements under Section 22 of the Ain do not inspire confidence inasmuch as firstly, the victim herself declined to be examined by the doctor and secondly, she is an adult woman of full age.

16. We cannot agree with the observation of the High Court Division that medical examination of the person of the prosecutrix is a sine qua non to prove rape. However, the fact that the victim declined to be examined medically is relevant and was rightly held against the prosecution. She admitted in her cross-examination that she met and talked to the inmates of the house including a sister of the accused and her husband as well as other persons who visited the house. When she was taken to another village, Chakprashad, she stated that people asked her questions. There is no mention that she complained to them about her abduction or rape.

17. One other important factor highlighted by the High Court Division is that the informant alleged, to have narrated the occurrence first of all to one Rokeya Begum, a neighbor who was not examined by the prosecution. We respectfully agree that in the absence of any reason for not calling her as a witness negative inference was rightly drown against the prosecution for not examining her.

18. We have considered the submissions of the learned Deputy Attorney-General for the petitioner and perused the impugned judgment and other connected papers on record.

19. The High Court Division upon proper consideration of the evidence and materials on record allowed the Appeal.

20. We do not find any reason to interfere with the decision of the High Court Division.

Accordingly, the criminal petition for leave to appeal is dismissed.
Family claims, plain clothed DB men picked up college student Abujar

Jhenaidah Correspondent :The family members of a missing college student claimed that the plain clothed Police picked up Abujar seven days ago when he was returning home after Jumma prayers from a nearby mosque in the village. The written paper was read out at a press conference at Jhenaidah Press Club on Thursday afternoon.Nur Islam, father of Abujar Gifari from village Chapali under Kaliganj Upazila in Jhenaidah, said, his son is a student of third year honours in Government MM College in Jessore. On March 18 in the afternoon when he was returning home, four persons in plain cloth, identifying themselves as DB policemen on two motor bikes, picked up him. Gifari was handcuffed when he was taken, he said.He filed a general diary with Kaliganj Police on March 22 as he could not trace his son. As the police failed to rescue his son in seven days, the family members went to the Press Club to seek cooperation from all sectors to rescue his son at the quickest, Nur Islam said.
No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim: Suu Kyi

Mail Onine :

She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a beacon of saintly integrity in the West who remained under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma.

However, there is another side to Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi that sits at odds with her iconic image.

After the BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain gave

Suu Kyi a rough ride during a BBC interview, Suu Kyi lost her composure and was heard to mutter angrily off-air: 'No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.' The spat between the two prominent and famously elegant Asian women has only just emerged, and followed a heated interview with the 70-year-old president of Myanmar's National League for Democracy on the Today programme, according to a new book, The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burma's Struggle For Freedom, by Peter Popham.

Suu Kyi's equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burma's Muslim minority has alarmed even her most dedicated fans. When she was repeatedly asked by Husain to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mob-led massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so. 'I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons,' she replied. 'This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.'

Much of the country's huge Buddhist majority dislikes its small Muslim community with a passion, so it is thought Suu Kyi did not want to alienate her supporters. Muslims are only 4 per cent of Burma's population. The Rohingya Muslims, who have borne the brunt of the violence, are a smaller minority still. The Rohingya are explicitly forbidden from becoming citizens of Burma and have no political weight whatsoever. Husain, 43, was the first Muslim presenter of Radio 4's Today programme.

But while often seen as a symbol of the BBC's commitment to diversity, she is, herself, thumpingly posh.

The mother-of-three and Northampton-born daughter of Pakistani parents was educated at private school and Cambridge University, where she read law.
Tobacco cos largely ignoring directive on graphical warning

Ehsanul Haque Jasim :

The tobacco companies are ignoring the tobacco control law, as they have responded poorly to the government's directive of inscribing graphical health warning on the packets of tobacco products.

According to the law and the government's directive, the deadline for execution of

graphical warning on cigarette packets and packets of other tobacco products was March 19.

In a public circular published on March 16, the National Tobacco Control Cell (NTCC) said that the graphical warning would have to be inscribed on all tobacco products' packets, and cartons or boxes' which will not be less than 50 per cent of the cover.

Referring to the 'Smoking and Use of Tobacco Products (Control) Act, 2005', amended in 2013, and its 2015 rules, the public circular said that the law would be effective from March 19. From the date, the tobacco products cannot be sold or marketed without graphical health warnings.

But the directive is yet to be effected properly, even after a week of the deadline. The tobacco companies are defying the directive, while no action has yet been taken by the authorities. Visiting different areas in the city and the reports received from different other parts of the country, the graphical warnings were seen on a few cigarette brands' packets, while most of the brands, including Benson & Hedges, Star, Navy, Marlboro, Derby, Hollyhood and Sheikh, do not bear the pictorial warnings.

The anti-tobacco activists expressed annoyance at the poor response in this regard. They said that the government must take action against those companies who are ignoring the directive as well as the law.

Syed Mahbubul Alam, Technical Advisor of international organisation 'The Union', on Friday told The New Nation that the tobacco companies were given one year as a buffer time to execute the directive. It was very unexpected that the tobacco companies paid little heed to the issue even after passing of the deadline.

He suggested the authorities to conduct mobile court effectively to execute the government's directive.

Expressing her annoyance, Farhana Zaman Liza, Research Assistant of Tobacco Control & Research Cell, said that the graphical warning was not seen executed on any cigarette brand without Gold Leaf. Tougher action has to be taken against the companies. The government has the option to take stern action according to its directive, she added. The directive says, if any person or organisation violates the rule, the person or organisation will be awarded a six-month simple imprisonment or fined a maximum of Tk 2 lakh or both. If any person or organisation violates the same rule again, the punishment would be doubled, it adds.
Entrepreneurship as a diplomatic tool

Anne-Marie Slaughter and Elmira Bayrasli :

Armenia and Turkey have long been at odds. Divided over a tragic past, the neighboring countries do not have diplomatic ties, and their border remains closed.

Despite this, in November 2014, a group of Turks traveled to Armenia for Startup Weekend, an event where aspiring entrepreneurs hone and pitch their ideas to investors and experts. In mixed teams, young Armenians and Turks worked together to build new ventures. "We weren't focused on being Armenian or Turkish - just on being the best," a Turkish participant noted.

That sentiment is exactly what the people who backed the trip - diplomats from the United States and the European Union - had hoped to achieve. For decades they have struggled to find common ground for Armenians and Turks to begin a dialogue. The common personality types, values, and single-minded focus of entrepreneurs created an opening.

Entrepreneurship has become a catalyst for progress in similarly thorny situations worldwide. The focus on job and wealth creation has become a "talking point" upon which nearly all governments can agree - or at least find little with which to disagree. That has made it a handy tool for a new form of diplomacy.

Whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East, entrepreneurship has improved individual capability, capacity, and connectivity.

It has stimulated not only economic activity but also social mobility. An emphasis on entrepreneurship stands the traditional foreign-aid paradigm on its head, because it is based on the assumption that the engine of development is local talent, a class of people - equally distributed throughout the world - with the capacity to innovate and commercialize their innovations.

In Africa, mobile money platforms such as M-Pesa in Kenya and Paga in Nigeria have solved a key problem for millions in their respective countries and across several continents: the lack of financial services. Through a simple text message, anyone with a cellular handset is able to send and receive money.

That has helped move money. More importantly, it has given millions of individuals an opportunity to start their own businesses. Unlocking human creativity and ingenuity is lifting millions out of poverty and helping improve national infrastructure.

As fossil fuels contribute to global warming, entrepreneurs in Asia, Latin America, and Europe are pioneering a variety of alternative energy solutions. Startups such as Optima Energia in Mexico are harnessing wind, sun, and biofuels to offer sustainable and scalable energy options.

"An entrepreneur is a person with the vision to see a new product or process and the ability to make it happen," writes Steven Koltai in his forthcoming book, Peace Through Entrepreneurship.

A former US State Department official who set up the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) in 2009, Koltai describes entrepreneurship as a "job-creating machine." It is the difference between opening a restaurant and reimagining what the experience of eating could be like. Entrepreneurs create new things that in turn create consumer demand for those things.

Last week, GEP, along with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Brazilian NGO ANDI, and the city of Medellin co-hosted the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Medellin, Colombia.

The gathering brought together entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymakers from more than 160 countries to share best practices and work to bolster startup growth and build the ecosystems in which they operate. Medellin itself is busy transforming itself from a cocaine capital into a startup hub.

Silicon Valley seized on this phenomenon some time ago, rolling out the red carpet for world leaders such as Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and China's President Xi Jinping. These world leaders are looking for the Silicon Valley secret: the magic ingredients that will create an equally vibrant innovation ecosystem in their countries.

Entrepreneurs themselves, however, do not depend on innovation or technology. As Koltai points out, Starbucks built an enormous enterprise around serving a cup of coffee, a centuries old beverage.

Today Starbucks employs roughly 182,000 people worldwide - 50,000 more than Facebook, Google, and Apple combined. An Argentine, Jordanian, Malaysian, or Spaniard who can visualize and create thriving global demand for a product or service - just as Spain's Amancio Ortega did with Zara - is just as much an entrepreneur as the next Bill Gates is.

From Lahore to Lagos, Mexico City to Mumbai, governments are looking at their own populations as pools of talent waiting to be tapped. It is time for diplomats to do the same.

They should support and encourage job creators and problem solvers, and turn development assistance into investments.

They should include entrepreneurship in economic policies and trade agreements. They should press governments to allow entrepreneurs to develop their innovations as a component of human flourishing and as an essential source of sustainable solutions for often-intractable problems such as disease, climate change, migration, and war.

Indeed, entrepreneurship, as a channel for young men and women to express themselves, is a compelling weapon in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism. It is an outlet to build and add value rather than destroy it.

This is especially important in the Middle East, which is, as the Brookings Institution has noted, experiencing "an unprecedented 'youth bulge.'"

More than 30% of the region's population - over 100 million people - is aged 15-29, and a significant number of these young people are unemployed. For them, entrepreneurship and the ability to gain control over their own destinies isn't an option; it is an imperative.

Similarly, entrepreneurship is not just a commercial or economic option for diplomats and policymakers. In a world with ever more pressing challenges - from pandemics to poverty and resource depletion to religious extremists - it is becoming a vital tool of foreign policy.



(Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in the US State Department (2009-2011), is President and CEO of the think tank New America, Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Elmira Bayrasli is the co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted and the author of From The Other Side of The World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places).



Courtesy: Project Syndicate
Readers Forum

JSD splits again :

The young Turks of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) under the guidance of Sirajul Alam Khan, one of the pioneers of the independence of Bangladesh, formed Jatiya Samajtantik Dal (JSD) in early 1972 with Major (rtd) M A Jalil, one of the Sector Commanders, as president and former DUCSU Vice-President A S M Abdur Rab as general secretary.

The JSD leaders adopted radical left tilted programms what they called scientific socialism, class struggle and social revolution as their party philosophy. Its student wing BCL (R-S) won in the student' union elections in more than eighty per cent colleges and universities and its labour front Jatiya Sramik League (JSL) established suzerainty in the industrial belt. But the JSD could not convince the rural people that they were working for their economic emancipation.

Moreover, the government's hardstand also stopped their campaign. The other leftwing political parties also did not support JSD.

The party faced split several times- the last one on Saturday. Sharif Nurul Ambia and Nazmul Haque formed their own committee and denounced the party philosophy of scientific socialism, class struggle and social revolution. The mainstream JSD also, I think, does not pursue its philosophy and that is why joined grand alliance government. JASAD abdicated it long before, while Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal prefers Communist Party of Bangladesh as socialist partner.

We will suggest all the groups of the JSD and the BSD despite all past misunderstanding to reunite and to adopt democratic socialism as party philosophy. In that case, it can become a powerful political party.

A Senior Citizen

An acceptable election



In my letter of March 5, 2016 my views about upcoming UP polls were expressed. In one place I wrote"we do not expect a free and fair election from this election commission.we have seen enough of their performance to come to this realisation".

On March 22 the first phase of the election was held amid violence in which 10 people were killed, 500 hundred injured, intimidation,stuffing of ballot boxes and capture of polling stations took place.

We are dumbfounded by the declaration of Chief Election Commissioner that union council election held on March 22 "were definitely acceptable".

There is a limit to people's patience. We just cannot take it anymore. The situation is deteriorating fast. When the CEC is unable to hold a fair election, should not he resign instead of turning a blind eye.

Nur Jahan

Chittagong
We must prove worthy of peoples` sacrifice for freedom

THE nation celebrates the 46th Independence and National Day today although we treat our real independence on the Victory Day on December 16 when the country was freed from Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. March 26th is the day of Declaration of Independence that led the nation to Liberation War. No responsible government would have ordered the army to be indiscriminately ruthless against the unarmed people in the name of saving united Pakistan. Pakistan was finished and divided because of the brutal military repression of March 26, 1971. There was no armed resistance. The people were forced to take up arms with the help of India. President Gen. Yahya Khan was unable to convene the newly elected National Assembly into session exacerbating the political crisis resulting from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's conspiracies as the leader of the majority from West Pakistan.Our people had no choice but to organize the Liberation War with the help of India. The international community also supported our struggle for freedom under a democratic government. Our Liberation War immediately became the high symbol of a fight of our people for democratic rights. Bangladesh became an independent country nine months later through a bloody war. During this time the people staying within the country lived in the horror of massacre of Pakistani army who treated our people as being under their military occupation.Bangabandhu was taken as a prisoner to Lahore on March 25, but his absence was immensely felt throughout the Liberation War. He remained the unifying force and symbol of inspiration for the people in the war of liberation.We must not forget the tragic butchering of our people by the occupation army. Though we were warning of the dire consequences if the political differences were not met peacefully, it was Pakistan army that declared war against our unarmed people. The military operation was totally mindless and heartless. Bangabandhu was kept in the prison but no need was felt to talk to him for a peaceful settlement.On this occasion, we not only mourn the deaths of our peaceful people, we must also express our resolve to make their sacrifices not to go in vain in free Bangladesh achieved after nine months of Liberation War.
Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes.

What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection?

Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were.

Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property  there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection:

You get to see exactly what will happen to your money

When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor.

Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on.

A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with.

You find out about potential major repairs

Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing.

If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately.

You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on

One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home.

Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly.

You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for

While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best.

This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit.

Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home.

You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price

If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home.

You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price.

You can sell your home faster and for more money

If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are.

In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price.

Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for.

Your home will hold its value longer

As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property.

When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home.

You can make smart decisions about property investments

Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property.

If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal.

There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about.

If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage

If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing.

They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit.

You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors

If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for.

For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money.

You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition

Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building.

You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure.

Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so.

As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process.
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The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
Is there any way for Ted Cruz or John Kasich to wrest the Republican nomination from Donald Trump? With every tick of the clock, it looks less likely. The chances differ for the two candidates. Kasich needs a miracle. Cruz may possibly succeed with a new emphasis.

Kasich's claim boils down to this: He's a Midwestern moderate who may not perform well in deep-red states such as Texas and Utah but will find his natural constituency in the Northeast and West Coast states coming up. His electoral performance and his campaign's incompetence suggest otherwise.

If Kasich is the regional/purple-state candidate, why did he come third in Michigan, fifth in Minnesota, fourth in Florida, third in Missouri, fourth in Virginia, third in Illinois and eighth in Iowa? Despite his Ohio win, Kasich has amassed fewer delegates than Rubio even today. Why, if his gambit is to win with moderates, did his campaign fail to get on the ballot in Pennsylvania (the challenge was withdrawn when Rubio dropped out) and even to field a full slate of delegates of Maryland?

Kasich's behavior fits more consistently with a plan to be chosen as Trump's running mate than with a real strategy to win. When Rubio urged his supporters to vote for Kasich in Ohio (the better to deny Trump delegates), Kasich pointedly declined to return the favor. When Trump dropped out of the final debate, Kasich withdrew as well. And then there was his inexplicable decision to spend three quarters of a million dollars in Utah -- a state that awards all of its delegates to the candidate who gets 50 percent plus one -- despite polls showing Cruz with a commanding lead. (Cruz did win 69 percent.)

Kasich could be a consensus candidate if there were any evidence that voters outside of Ohio liked him. As of now, there isn't. His path is a yellow brick road to Oz. Someone still needs to tell him it's not a real place.

Ted Cruz is also under water in many ways. The coming lull in primaries favors Trump, as the ratings-mad and Democrat-leaning media will continue to keep the reality star front and center, denying Cruz oxygen. Also, the coming primaries are mostly in blue and purple states: New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, California and a few more. There are some exceptions, but most of the voters Ted Cruz must appeal to in the coming six weeks are not just uninspired by him; they are repelled. The country-music, God, guns and no-amnesty shtick that worked moderately well in the South (though not according to plan, as Trump ran away with most of the voters Cruz was angling for) is like kryptonite on the coasts.

It is too much to expect that Cruz can win a majority of the delegates at this point. Both math and geography are against him. He would need to win 85 percent of the remaining delegates (Trump needs 55 percent). But if Sen. Cruz can blunt Trump's momentum, especially toward the end, delegates would be freed to consider the convention an open contest.

There is one message that Cruz can emphasize from here on out that would not conflict with his established identity but might rally voters not otherwise inclined toward him -- political decency. At every opportunity, he must stress that Trump's virtually naked appeal to racial hatred (his footsie with the KKK being exhibit A), his encouragement of mob violence, his tolerance for alleged violence against a woman by his campaign manager and his frightening admiration for dictators of all stripes make him utterly unfit to be the standard bearer for the party of Abraham Lincoln. Though Cruz has made his name disparaging the Republican Party, it now falls to him to defend its honor and that of the conservative movement against nativism, vulgarity, ignorance and authoritarianism.

He must stress (as he has done in one or two debates) that being faithful to the Constitution doesn't just mean appointing worthy justices to the Supreme Court -- as crucial as that is. It also means respecting constitutional limits on government power, especially executive power. And he must emphasize that in a world made far more dangerous by the intentional weakening of the United States under Barack Obama, an erratic, ignorant and unstable commander in chief represents an unacceptable danger to the nation and the world.

The time for Cruz to be the alternate Trump is over. If there is any chance for him, it will be as the clarion, bold anti-Trump.
Students carrying signs and chanting catchy slogans about proposed cuts to funding for higher education makes for a great sound bite on the 5oclock news but it falls far short of telling the entire story.

The never-ending state budget fiasco has created a delay in state funding to Illinois public universities and in turn that has created quite a furor. Students are protesting about teacher layoffs and class cancellations, while politicians and university administrators are busy pointing fingers and shifting blame.

As is often the case, there is a huge story within this story, one that is not being reported. This unreported story is akin to an 800-pound gorilla sitting in a room that nobody in the media notices.

I ran across a story this week in the Higher Education Tribune  a well-respected online publication. The story talked about the ongoing mess in Illinois but put a totally different view on funding for higher education. Its a view that has been totally overlooked.

According to Higher Education Tribune, an analysis of state taxpayer funding to public universities shows that, in essence, all state aid in Illinois goes to subsidize university retiree pensions. And still thats not enough to meet the growing pension crisis. A report by the Illinois Department of Insurance shows that in 2014 general state aid to public universities totaled $1.24 billion while subsidizing university pensions added up to $1.5 billion. The story reported that the $270 million difference for pensioner subsidy was paid for through tuition payments.

Heres a very revealing excerpt from the article:

This spending is described in state budget reports as employer contributions to the State University Retirement System (SURS) on behalf of the states 69,436 university employees. In 2014, it was five times what the employees themselves ($4,077) contributed to their own retirement funds -- a total of $21,644 per employee from state taxpayers.

SURS faced a $20.04 billion deficit in its fund as of June 30, 2014, one thats grown 186 percent over the past decade as the number of retirees soars. In 2005, SURS funded 39,800 retiree beneficiaries. In 2014, that number had risen to 59,406.

Taxpayer United of America recently released a list of the Top 200 Pensions in Illinois. Given the $20 billion deficit in SURS, it should come as no surprise that approximately one-third of that list is made up of university retirees. In fact, the top eight on the list  who draw annual pensions ranging from $452,000 to $300,000 all are retirees of the University of Illinois-Chicago. According to the Better Government Association, 1,443 university retirees collected more than $100,000 in pension benefits in 2014 and 55 collected more than $200,000.

After re-reading that, I might have underestimated the size of the gorilla in the room that nobody seems to notice.

While SURS is $20 billion underfunded, its only one of five pension systems in Illinois. Together those five pension systems are $111 billion underfunded. As an example of how the pension system in Illinois is a runaway locomotive, in 2010 the deficit was $63 billion, which means the pension obligation on taxpayers has increased $48 billion in five years. In cold, hard numbers the states pension payment in 2015 was $6.9 billion and will balloon to $7.6 billion for the 2016 budget year  an increase of $681 million. Based on those numbers that means the states pension obligation is increasing an average of $57 million per month.

As an example of the dire straits in Illinois, here in the Land of Lincoln 25-cents of every tax dollar goes to pensions while the average across the nation is a nickel. The question begs to be asked: what happens in another few years when 50-cents of every tax dollar goes for pensions  do we quit funding education completely just to pay pensions?

There is an old adage that says: If you always do what you always did, youll always get what you always got. Until Illinois voters take the partisan blinders off we will always get what weve always got. And currently what weve got is a mess with no solutions and a great big, mean gorilla that a lot of folks refuse to see.
This past weekend, Kay and I watched a new show on Fox broadcasting titled Lucifer. The show is centered on a debonair, charismatic and sexually virile young man. His name is Lucifer Morningstar.

Yes, thats right. The protagonist in this family-oriented detective show is supposed to be the Biblical character Satan  also better known as the Devil, the ancient serpent, the dragon. Lucifer works in tandem with a young, pretty, blond detective who has increasing suspicions about his origins but is so jaded about all things spiritual, she rejects the truth of his identity, even as he speaks very candidly to her about himself  even to the point of him physically manifesting incredible psychic and physical powers. She slowly becomes dependent upon his mysterious abilities to help solve crimes.

Like anyone else living in Los Angeles, California, Lucifer has a therapist. We the audience are given insight into the privacy of three of his therapeutic sessions, one of which results in his bedding his therapist. In the last of the two formal sessions, we learn of a key strategy of the Devils agenda. Lucifer Morningstar is confronted with the possibility that what is at the root of his anxiety is not that he seeks to punish the true wrong doer as presented in the afterglow of their tryst. But rather, his cognitive dissonance lies with his escalating desire to pursue goodness, justice and righteousness instead.

For the Biblically informed viewer, this is a calculated re-branding of the Biblical version of who Lucifer truly is. For others less informed, the implications are tragic. A Biblical reading portrays Lucifer as the rebellious archangel who was cast out of Heaven for openly rebelling against the authority of God  resulting in him and one third of a confederacy of rebellious angels being cast to Earth, where he hates and torments humans as long as he is allowed to do so.

As described in Revelation 12:17, Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

This harmonizes with the agenda of modern-day Satanists. They promote a deceptive representation of who the Devil is. They openly deny and reject him to be real in any sense. They use his name and ancient image to represent their commitment to defy and rebel against any form of (tyrannical) authority. Along with social issues, they also direct their efforts against the Biblical God and His Son, Jesus Christ. They attempt to portray themselves as humanists who seek higher truth by rejecting any form of supernatural authority. It is a ploy to distract possible converts and maintain allegiance of ardent anarchists.

Foxs Lucifer Morningstar is another attempt to misrepresent the Biblical truth of who Satan really is through mainstream media. The danger for the Christian is that as their children and grandchildren grow up as post-moderns in a post-Christendom culture, they will have been incorrectly informed as to the Devils origin and agenda. They will have been educated by a source of information that is popular in todays culture and speaks to their desire to be spiritual but not accountable to the God of Creation. They will not have a Biblical, Christocentric worldview. This is a clear and present danger for their souls.

The response of the church must be assertive and aggressive by denouncing such attempts to mis-educate people in our society of who the Devil is authentically  the very enemy of their souls.

We must become nuanced in the schemes of the Devil so that as he seeks to continue destroying our families, we may become more effective as forces of righteousness, proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
RYONGYON-RI, North Korea  The village elder put his shovel aside, stooped down by a scraggly bush and pulled a sack from the freshly turned dirt. Spreading open the sack, he reached in to reveal femurs, skull and jaw fragments, boots and a rusted green helmet.

"These are your American GIs," Song Hong Ik said at a burial mound near the top of a small hill.

Perhaps they are. But for more than a decade, no one has been trying to find out.

"Until They Are Home" is one of the most sacred vows of the U.S. military, yet Washington has long suspended efforts to look for 5,300 American GIs missing in North Korea whose remains are potentially recoverable. The countries' abysmal relations suggest that no restart is coming soon.

In the meantime, possible remains and recovery sites are being lost as North Korea works to improve its infrastructure with projects such as the Chongchon River No. 10 Hydroelectric Power Station. The bones Song revealed came from that project's construction site.

His village, the hamlet of Ryongyon-ri, is nestled among low rolling hills in the heart of a Korean War battleground about 150 kilometers (almost 100 miles) north of Pyongyang. The 90-minute drive from the capital runs through mostly flat land covered by rice paddies or fields of corn and potatoes. The scene is quietly rustic. Farmers use oxcarts to transport produce and villagers can be seen walking in the distance on narrow dirt roads.

Not far from the highway that leads past the village, a shallow river runs through a wide valley. Song, polite but to the point, explained as he climbed the hill that the valley will be flooded when the dam is completed.

Song said construction on the plant, which involved a lot of digging, began in earnest four years ago.

That's when the bones started piling up, he said. Enough, he added, to fill a half-dozen makeshift burial mounds on the hill, maybe 70 or 100 sets in all.

He dug up a few other mounds to make his point. Then, after a smoke break, he and the plant's construction supervisor put the bones back in their bags and reburied them.

___

Between 1996 and 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea search teams conducted 33 joint recovery operations and recovered 229 sets of American remains. Washington broke them off because it claimed the safety of its searchers was not guaranteed. Critics of the program argued the North was using the deal to squeeze cash out of Washington  "bones for bucks," they said.

Talks to restart recovery work resumed in 2011, only to fall apart after North Korea launched a rocket condemned by the U.S. as a banned test of ballistic missile technology. There has been no progress since.

With distrust between the two countries chronically high, it took months of requests before The Associated Press was allowed to go to Ryongyon-ri, first last May with a Korean People's Army escort and again in December.

The AP made the requests because North Korea's state-run media have repeatedly said  without giving details  that with construction, agricultural and other infrastructure projects going forward, time is running out for the U.S. military to collect its Korean War dead.

In Washington, such claims are often seen as a not-so-subtle jab at the U.S. government for halting the searches, or an effort to guilt the U.S. into formal talks it has refused to engage in as long as Pyongyang continues its nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang's approval of The AP's visits to Ryongyon-ri may have had similar political motivations. That's often how things work in North Korea, though an army official and villagers angrily denied that their reasons for allowing The AP to see the remains were anything other than humanitarian.

In any case, Washington isn't biting. And its war dead are not being brought home.

___

More than 7,800 U.S. troops remain lost and unrecovered from the Korean War. About 5,300 were lost in North Korea.

According to the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, most died in major battles or as prisoners of war. Others died "along the wayside or in small villages" and many of the losses from aircraft crashes also occurred near battle zones or roads connecting them. "So," it says, "it is possible that major concentrations of human remains are located in these areas."

The DPAA lists Kujang County, where Ryongyon-ri is located, as part of a prime search area that could potentially yield 1,600 remains. The Chosin Reservoir, where another major campaign was fought, and POW camp burial grounds near the Chinese border are also priority sites.

"The Department of Defense is committed to achieving the fullest possible accounting," Lt. Col. Holly Slaughter, a DPAA spokeswoman, told The AP. "U.S. efforts to recover Korean War remains are a humanitarian effort for our missing servicemen, their families and the American people."

Even so, Maj. Natasha Waggoner, another spokeswoman for the agency, said there is no schedule "at this time" to hold talks to send any search teams back.

Until they do, the jury will remain out on the Ryongyon-ri remains.

It's impossible to judge the veracity of remains simply by looking at them. Only expert eyes and a long and difficult forensic identification process can do that. There were no dogtags, unit insignia or other identification clues mixed in with the remains seen by The AP.

Villagers acknowledged the remains were gathered haphazardly as construction progressed. It is quite possible, they said, the remains could include animal bones or the remains of combatants from other countries.

Villagers old enough to have witnessed the battle have sketchy memories, at best.

By the time the fighting came to their backyard, from mid-November to December 1950, most of the village, a scattering of about 30 households, had already been evacuated. Those who remained were mostly women, children and old people. The village was then known as Sangpyong.

"My aunt, uncle and grandfather were caught by the U.S. enemies, who beat them so they got sick and died," said Kim Ri Jun, who was then 13 years old.

Kim and Song had no information about specific units the troops were attached to. They did remember that many U.S. soldiers were African-American, and that troops from other countries, taking part in U.S.-led United Nations forces, were involved in the fighting as well.

The location and timeframe coincide with a major clash between the U.S. and its allies and the Chinese "volunteer" forces fighting on Pyongyang's side. The push north was known as the "Home by Christmas" campaign because Gen. Douglas MacArthur thought the war would be won by Christmas. Instead, it would last two and a half more years, end in a stalemate and claim 36,500 American lives.

The U.S. government has estimated as many as 270 sets of American remains are likely recoverable in Kujang County alone. Searching for them was one of the top priorities when the U.S. missions were still going to North Korea. Nearly a dozen joint searches were conducted in the area from 1998-2000.

But they ended long before the real digging in Ryongyon-ri began.

___

That any joint searches were held at all was almost miraculous. That they would break down seems much more predictable.

North Korea and the United States remain technically at war because the 1950-53 fighting ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Remains recovery is the only project their militaries have ever worked on together.

Relations were much better when the missions began.

Under President Bill Clinton, the two countries had signed an agreement for the North to freeze its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid. But that deal unraveled in 2002, the same year President George W. Bush declared North Korea part of the "axis of evil." The searches continued for a few more years, but bilateral relations took a nosedive. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and meaningful contact between the two countries has since been minimal.

Slaughter, of the DPAA, said the total cost to the U.S. to carry out the joint missions was $19.5 million. Of the 229 remains recovered, 110 have been identified. The recovery of remains has since ground to a halt  to only six, all unilaterally handed over to the U.S. by Pyongyang in 2007.

The impasse on a humanitarian  not political  issue doesn't sit well with some Korean War veterans.

"Those of us who fought there really feel it's a travesty that we haven't been able to get there and try to find those that were killed or died in the prison camps," said Larry Kinard, who fought in Korea with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and is now president of the 15,000-member Korean War Veterans Association. He noted that since 1982 only 332 Korean War remains have been identified and accounted for.

Kinard told the AP from his home in Texas he is in regular contact with the DPAA and feels it is doing the best it can with limited resources and the challenges it faces of getting into North Korea to conduct searches.

But he added that is of little consolation to the families of the missing.

"Approximately 5,300 of our comrades still lie in the ground in North Korea and little or no effort is currently underway to recover them," he said. "The KWVA members, who average nearly 85 years old, want to see their fellow brothers-in-arms found, identified, brought home, and laid to rest in our country."

Song, meanwhile, said he had mixed feelings about gathering the bones of his enemy and moving them to the hill so that they wouldn't be lost when the valley is flooded.

"Frankly, I don't care if the Americans come or not," he said. "But they owe us a thank you for taking care of their dead."
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Nearly three dozen members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group have been killed in an operation by the Iraqi air force in the beleaguered province of Kirkuk, Press TV reported.

Iraqi military aircraft on Thursday targeted a missile development plant belonging to Daesh in the district of al-Hawijah, northwest of the Kirkuk province, killing 35 members of the terrorist group, Arabic-language al-Sumeria news website reported.

The development came on the same day as the Iraqi army, backed by allied forces, launched a major offensive to retake the second largest city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, from Daesh.

Daesh seized control of Mosul in June 2014 in the earliest days of its assault. The city was home to some 2 million people before being taken over.

The Iraqi troops and forces from the Popular Mobilization Units began the first phase of conquest operations" in Nineveh, said a statement from Iraq's joint operations command, which is coordinating the anti-Daesh battle by the Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces managed to recapture several villages from the Daesh militants and raise the Iraqi flag in them as they advanced towards Mosul.

The Iraqi military statement named the recaptured villages as al-Nasr, Garmandi, Kudila and Khurburdan.

Also on Thursday, Iraqi forces liberated two districts from Daesh militants in the south of the city of Hit in Anbar Province.

Iraqi forces have scored important recent gains against Daesh. Last month, they retook Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province.
UK Secretary of State for Business Sajid Javid, heading an economic delegation, would visit Iran in April, Mehr News Agency reported on March 25.

According to the report, Javid said during the meeting with Iranian charge d'affairs in the UK, Mohammad-Hassan Habibollahzadeh, that UK supports boosting economic relations with the Islamic Republic.

"UK supports Iran to joint the World Trade Organization," Mehr quoted Javid as saying.

UK signed a deal to simplify the financing of exports to Iran in early March.

UK Export Finance and the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate exports and trade exchanges between the two countries on March 7.

According to the MoU, the two countries will cooperate on insurance coverage and financing of the two countries' traders.

Iran has received extensive economic and financial sanctions relief as a result of meeting its obligations under the nuclear deal agreed on 14 July 2015, meaning the country is now able to trade more freely.

On January 16, Implementation Day was triggered following the verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency of Iran meeting its requirements as part of a comprehensive agreement on Irans nuclear program. This has resulted in the termination of EU nuclear related financial and economic sanctions, and the suspension of US nuclear related secondary financial and economic sanctions.

As a result, UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UKs export credit agency, has reintroduced cover to support UK companies seeking to compete for business in Iran.

/By Trend/




Iran and France's Total have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) on giant South Azadegan oil field, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told Mehr News Agency.

According to the signed agreement, Total is allowed to study the giant oil field to decide whether to get involved or not. Further details were not revealed.

Earlier, the Project Director of the Development Project of South Azadegan Seyed Mahmoud Marashi said that according to preliminary estimates, the expected volume of investment to develop the second phase of South Azadegan would be less than $5 billion.

Iran has developed the first phase of this field. Currently Iran produces 30,000 barrels per day from Azadegan, but the country plans to increase this figure to 320,000 barrels per day by completing the first phase and developing the second and third phases of this project.

Iran also signed an agreement with Total earlier to export 160,000 barrels of crude oil.
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To Mr. Brown and his Republican supporters in the legislature, I'd say go tell that to the 20,000 residents who will be without health care or to the hospitals across the state who will continue to pay $110 million in uncompensated care. Perhaps you could tell the 30 soon to be unemployed Wyoming citizens in the Family Literacy program that you were thinking about them when you cut $3.3 million from this important family literacy program. Then there are the 6,000 residents who will no longer receive energy assistance or tax relief. Perhaps you could convince them that you were thinking about them when you cut funding for this program. None of these cuts would have been necessary had you accepted the $278 million in federal funds that you denied our citizens when you rejected expansion of Medicaid.
PHOENIX  Arizona has finally recovered all the jobs it lost during the recession.

And the prediction is for faster  though not spectacular  growth for the next two years.

New figures Thursday from the state Department of Administration show total seasonally adjusted employment hit 2.688 million in February. That finally surpasses the previous high of 2.683 million in October 2007 before the national and state economies tanked.

Arizonas economy hit bottom at 2.37 million jobs.

It took far longer for Arizona to recover than the rest of the nation, acknowledges Doug Walls, the Department of Administrations research administrator. But he said thats a simple function of how hard the state was hit.

At the depth of the national recession, the country shed 6.3 percent of its jobs. For Arizona, he said, the loss was 11.7 percent.

Recovery has not been equal across the state.

The Phoenix metro area, including Maricopa and Pinal counties, is already at 114 percent of its pre-recession peak number of jobs. Coconino County is at 108 percent.

But Walls said Pima County is at less than 77 percent recovery.

Yuma County is at less than 88 percent, Yavapai County is at 78 percent, and Mohave County is at just 31 percent (the latter he attributed to the areas links to the Las Vegas economy).

Not surprisingly, Walls said the most rapid growth will continue to be in the Phoenix metro area, where he predicts another nearly 125,000 jobs in the next two years. Thats close to a 3.2 percent growth rate, compared with 2.9 percent for the prior two years.

Pima County grew at a rate of only about one-half of 1 percent in the prior two years. But Walls said the area should add another 14,393 jobs in the coming two years for a 1.9 percent growth rate.

This is a turnaround we are seeing, he said. There has been an uptick in both construction activity and hiring in the financial sector of Pima Countys economy that were not seen in the last two years.

He said the other 13 counties should add close to 17,000 jobs during the coming two years for a 2.1 percent growth rate, compared to 1.8 percent for the prior two-year period.

Separately, Walls reported that the states seasonally adjusted jobless rate dropped one-tenth of a point in February to 5.5 percent. The U.S. rate remained uncharged at 4.9 percent.

The private sector added 10,500 jobs last month, bringing year-over-year employment up by 81,600, a 3.7 percent growth rate.
PHOENIX  Nothing recovered from the cell phone of state utility regulator Bob Stump is a public record, a judge ruled Friday.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner said he reviewed several hundred texts that Stump deleted from a state-owned cell phone he had since discarded. The Attorney Generals Office used computer programs to recover data that moved from that phone to another one Stump was issued.

Warner said just 36 texts fell within the dates sought by attorney Dan Barr under public records law, on behalf of the Checks and Balances Project. But those messages came up empty, the judge said.

The judge was able to see some of the others, but said they either were personal matters or protected by attorney-client privilege and therefore not public.

Stump, in a prepared statement, declared himself vindicated.

This solar dark money-funded fishing expedition, undertaken to intimidate regulators, has ended without any fish, said Stump, a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission. These are not public documents.

But Barr, the attorney who sued to see the text messages said that does not end the legal fight. In fact, Barr said it only strengthens his claim that the phone should be examined by another expert, this one of his choosing.

He pointed out that the request was for 3,600 specific texts between Stump and others, including two candidates, their campaign manager, the head of a group using anonymous cash to get them elected, and a utility executive.

These were identified from a log of Stumps texts in the months leading up to the 2014 Republican primary. Stump was not a candidate that year but was backing the two candidates, Tom Forese and Doug Little, against two others who favored more solar energy.

The point is, they failed to recover 99 percent of what we were asking for, Barr said of the report given to Warner. And of the 1 percent they recovered, theres nothing in the messages. That questions the quality of the search.

He argued that its really impossible to send a blank text. Barr said even if there is no message, there should be certain other data. He said he will renew his effort to have the phone examined by an expert in this kind of data retrieval.

Warner had previously rejected that proposal.

David Cantelme, attorney for the commission, said he will oppose any move for another examination.

We have no reason not to have any confidence in what the attorney general and the Pinal County sheriffs office did, he said, referring to the fact that the sheriffs office, at the request of the attorney general, also used software to look at the contents of the phone. Theres got to be an end to it.
Oro Valley police arrested a man Thursday who is being investigated for repeatedly offering a teen-ager a ride while walking home from school.

Jesus Greer, 66, was booked into the Pima County jail on an unrelated charge  misdemeanor alcohol charges  as the investigation continues, said Lt. Kara Riley, an Oro Valley Police Department spokeswoman.

On March 4, police responded to a report of suspicious activity near West Calle Concordia and North Oracle Road.

A Canyon del Oro High School student told police he was walking home from school about 2 p.m. when a man in an older model minivan approached him and offered him a ride, Riley said.

The suspect asked the student about five times to enter his vehicle, and the student said no, said Riley.

On Thursday, officers made contact with Greer, who fit the suspect's description. Greer admitted to police that he spoke to a young man walking home from school and asked him if he needed a ride.
A Marana hit-and-run suspect was taken into custody Thursday night after a high-speed chase by authorities that began in Mesa.

Joshua Monigold, 31, was arrested after a pursuit by Mesa police, said Sgt. Chris Warren, a Marana Police Department spokesman.

Monigold crashed his pickup on Interstate 10 near Sun Lakes, according to news reports. The crash has shut down both directions of I-10 in the area, which is south of the Phoenix area.

Monigold was taken to the hospital for treatment, said Warren.

Mesa police officers pursued Monigold when he climbed out of his truck and tried to steal a motorcycle from a man in front of his pickup on a busy street, according to media footage. Monigold did not succeed and climbed back in his truck and erratically drove off.

Police gave chase and Monigold ended up crashing on the interstate. His truck rolled and he was ejected, according to news reports.

Monigold was a suspect in a Saturday night hit-and-run that seriously injured another driver in Marana. He is wanted in connection with a felony charge of leaving the scene of a collision with injuries, said Warren.

Police believe that Monigold fled the scene of a crash at the intersection of Twin Peaks and Tangerine road, at about 9 p.m. on March 19.

The driver of the second vehicle was seriously injured, Warren said.

Monigold is described as being 6'2", 230 lbs., with brown hair, hazel eyes and multiple tattoos on both arms and his chest. He has the words, "White Pride" and "Peckerwood" tattooed on his chest.
MESA, Ariz.  A man wanted in a southern Arizona hit-and-run accident remains hospitalized in the Phoenix area after being injured in the crash of a pickup truck following a police pursuit.

Mesa police Detective Steve Berry says information isn't available yet on what charges 31-year-old Joshua Monigold will face in connection with the incidents Thursday.

Police say Monigold suffered unspecified injuries when the pickup he was driving crashed on Interstate 10 on the southern outskirts of the Phoenix area.

According to police, the crash concluded a pursuit during which Monigold attempted unsuccessfully to steal a motorcycle from another man. That man fought Monigold, who then drove off again in the pickup.

Marana police say Monigold was wanted on suspicion of leaving the scene of a collision with injuries.
A 46-year-old woman was killed in a crash Friday morning on the northwest side, authorities said.

Northwest Fire responded to the two-vehicle crash at the intersection of North Oracle and West Orange Grove roads shortly before 9 a.m., finding two heavily-damaged vehicles, one of which had rolled and returned to an upright position, said department spokeswoman, Trina Motto.

The Department of Public Safety said that a Honda car, driven by Julie Begin, was making a left turn from southbound Oracle onto eastbound Orange Grove. A Dodge SUV, driven by Jennifer Ortiz, 31, was northbound on Oracle. As the Honda made the turn it was hit on the passenger side by the Dodge. The Dodge rolled over, coming to rest upright. The Honda spun around and struck a utility pole, the DPS said.

The DPS said both drivers were wearing seat belts.

The two drivers were taken by Northwest Fire ambulances to Banner-University Medical Center. Begin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Ortiz was treated for her injuries and released.
MESA, Ariz.  A military veteran says his instinct and training kicked in when a man being chased in a pickup truck by Arizona authorities tried to steal the vet's motorcycle.

"I looked him up and down for a weapon and I didn't see one and at that point in my head, it was game on," said Brandon Jenkins, 26, who served in Afghanistan.

After a brief fight, the man being pursued got back in the pickup and drove off. He was later taken into custody after the vehicle crashed on Interstate 10.

Joshua Michael Monigold, 31, remained hospitalized Friday for injuries suffered in the crash. Charges were still being determined.

Monigold was wanted by Marana police on suspicion of leaving the scene of a March 19 Tucson-area collision that involved injuries.

Jenkins said he didn't know why the other man accosted him and demanded the motorcycle.

"I thought maybe I cut him off and it rubbed him the wrong way and then when he ripped me off my motorcycle, it became very apparent he was trying to steal my bike," Jenkins said.

Given his military training and the fact that he was wearing a helmet and other motorcycle gear, Jenkins said he decided he could defend himself.

"For a split-second my son ran through my head and I got a little worried but ... instinct kicked in and I just wanted the guy off my motorcycle," Jenkins said.

Jenkins said the only thing he would have done differently was swing harder at the other man if he had known exactly what was going on.

He said it would be prudent for some people in a similar situation to not fight.

"If you don't have training to defend yourself just take a step back," he said. "You can replace your vehicle, you can't replace your life."
Leave it to the most bombastic politician of our time to ignite free-speech debates in Tucson.

I missed Donald Trumps visit to the Tucson Convention Center Saturday because I was at the tail end of a weeks vacation, but its been impossible to miss the continuing reverberations from the Trump rally.

Among all the anecdotes Tucson has been discussing, the central issue seems to be free speech: What constitutes free speech, who can engage in it when, and whats appropriate in response to someone speaking out?

The issues get tricky when protesters attend Trumps rallies, as happened at TCC, then raise their signs and voices in opposition, disrupting him. Is it within their right to do so and does it infringe on attendees rights? The answers seem to be contradictory: Yes and yes.

I talked to Paul Bender, a professor of constitutional law at ASU, and he said generally yes, protesters may attend and speak out. If the public is invited to a political rally, then an opponent of the politician is within his First Amendment rights to attend, display signs and even raise his voice.

However, Bender said, if the rally is a private event  as was the case at the Trump rally because the campaign rented out the TCC arena  then Trumps campaign is within its right to kick out protesters. In fact, Bender said, the protesters begin infringing on the rights of other attendees if they make it impossible for the speaker to be heard.

For my part, Ive always disliked protesters shouting down speakers. It seems presumptuous for any of us to decide who another person may or may not hear, especially when the speaker is a political candidate. Its also counter-productive, I believe, in that it generally creates more support, not less, for the person being protested.

I asked Bryan Sanders, the Tucson man who was attacked at the rally, why he attended and protested.

I wasnt there to disrupt the rally, he said. I was there to disrupt his political policies.

Of course, he did make a minor disruption by yelling liar at Trump. And Trump interrupted his own speech to call Sanders and another protester disgusting. But Sanders didnt do much wrong, if you follow Benders interpretation, because when security asked him to leave, he did.

Thats when an obvious violation kicked in. As most of us have seen on video, someone  Davis-Monthan airman Tony Pettway has been charged  ripped the sign from Sanders hands, punched him and kicked him on the ground. Absurd justifications have circulated that Sanders did something to provoke Pettway, but the video makes clear, Tucson police reports say, and Sanders asserts, that there was nothing.

I had no interaction with that guy before he hit me, Sanders said.

The attack Pettway is accused of obviously crosses the line dramatically into crime. But until then, you cant argue Pettway did wrong by being there and participating in the rally. Active-duty members of the military may do so, Department of Defense rules say, as a spectator when not in uniform and when no inference or appearance of official sponsorship, approval, or endorsement can reasonably be drawn.

Thats only fair. Its also true of police officers.

On Sunday, Tucson police officer Brandon Tatum posted online a 10-minute description of his experience at the Trump rally. He attended off duty, Tatum said, because he was curious. Most of the monologue consisted of Tatums outrage at the behavior of protesters.

These are the most hateful, evil people Ive ever seen, he said of the protesters.

That was eyebrow-raising, coming from a police officer who has presumably seen some pretty bad stuff, but more concerning was his justification of Sanders beating, which he saw. Three times, Tatum said that the protester had done something to deserve the beating, though he hadnt.

He was asking for that one, Tatum said. He assaulted somebody and he lost the battle.

Tatum was within his First Amendment rights to attend and even talk about his experience, the Tucson Police Department said in a statement, but of course he put his credibility at risk with his comments. He also experienced considerable online fame blowback.

That was the case with Sanders, too, who has been lied about by Trump on national TV  Trump claimed Sanders was a professional agitator who had dragged an American flag or otherwise done something to merit the beating. The online mob has been after him as well.

Then there was Betty Rivas, the owner of a Catalina restaurant who was brought up on stage by Trump and was written about by my colleague Joe Ferguson. Shes been harassed online and by phone for acting within her constitutional rights, but supporters have also flooded her restaurant, Sammys.

Clearly, exercising our free-speech and free-assembly rights comes with risks, the most common of which is one Im unfortunately familiar with: Saying something stupid. But attacking people for exercising them is where we really go wrong.

TUSD campaign group

An independent expenditure group has formed to play in this years Tucson Unified School District board race. Jim Lovelace, a CPA who was a member of the districts audit committee till last year, formed the group TUSD KidsFirst with Kathy Campbell, a district parent.

Incumbents Kristel Foster, Cam Juarez and Mark Stegeman are up for re-election, but they say they wont be advocating for or against specific candidates. That shouldnt make Juarez and Foster comfortable, though  the group clearly aims to shake up the status quo majority, of which those two are members.

Their main critiques so far have been of increasing spending on administration in a district that is losing enrollment. The founders said in an email they both believe that reforming TUSD is the single most important issue for improving the economic health of central Tucson.

A familiar challenger

Four years ago, Mark Napier mounted the first significant challenge in several terms to incumbent Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Now, Napier is running again, against Dupniks appointed successor, Democrat Chris Nanos. Napier, a Republican who retired from Tucson police as a captain, filed paperwork Monday to run for sheriff.

His platform, he told me, will be much the same as last time: I just think the people of Pima County need an educated, competent sheriff and need a change at the Pima County Sheriffs Department.

District 1 no-shows

A couple of weeks ago I noted that some Republicans were considering mounting a primary challenge to Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller in her run for re-election to her District 1 seat. So far, none has filed, and Millers only formal challenger is Brian Bickel, a Democrat, in the general election.
A man who pleaded guilty in a domestic violence case in federal court was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison.

Chief U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins sentenced Cameron Carl Saraficio, 34, after he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with a deadly/dangerous weapon.

Saraficio had struck his girlfriend on the head with a large rock multiple times, causing severe facial an head lacerations, according to a news release.

Saraficio had a prior felony conviction for assaulting the same victim, and he was released from prison seven months before the second attack, officials said.

During the sentencing Monday, Collins cited the need to protect the public and the victim from further acts of violence. Saraficio was sentenced to 9.6 years for the latest incident, and Collins revoked Saraficio's supervised release from the previous conviction.

Both Saraficio and the victim are members of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
The third veterans cemetery in the state is being dedicated in Marana on Saturday.

The Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery  which already has 14 cremations in a columbarium  will be dedicated at 10 a.m.

The public is welcome to the ceremony at 15950 N. Luckett Road, said Dave Hampton, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Veterans Services.

This is fantastic news for Arizonans, and especially for the Tucson and Pinal County-area veterans and advocates who have championed for this cemetery for more than a decade, retired Col. Wanda Wright, director of the Arizona Department of Veterans Services, said in a news release.

The Marana cemetery is the 100th state veterans cemetery nationwide to be built under the federal Department of Veterans Affairs cemetery grants program, Hampton said. The program provided $7.6 million for construction of the Marana cemetery.

The Arizona veterans department will operate the cemetery, which is located on 32 acres. The first-phase will include 1,802 burial plots, 1,638 cremated remains burial plots and 1,920 columbarium niches, according to officials.

The Kai Family Foundation donated the land in 2013 for the cemetery. Marana Councilman Herb Kai and his brother, John Kai Jr., oversaw the donation of land. The property has been in the Kai family since the mid-1940s. The brothers late parents, John Kai Sr. and Mamie Kai, were Chinese immigrants who built one of the largest cotton farms in the Avra Valley.

More than half a million veterans live in Arizona. There are between 120,000 and 200,000 veterans in the Tucson area and Pinal County, Hampton said in an earlier interview. Any military veterans with better than a dishonorable discharge, and their spouse, may be buried at a military cemetery.

The other two veterans cemeteries in the state are the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix and a state facility, the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery, in Sierra Vista.

On June 4, a fourth veterans cemetery will be dedicated in Camp Navajo, which is west of Flagstaff.
The Tucson City Council has launched a process to annex about 600 south-side homes near South Alvernon Way and East Valencia Road.

The city will ask property owners in the 10-year-old, 174-acre Valencia Reserve neighborhood to sign a petition saying they want to live within the city limits. It has one year to collect about 310 signatures to complete the process.

Residents may want to sign to get quicker emergency services, city trash services and a vote and a voice in city elections, said Mike Czechowski, annexation project manager.

A Tucson Fire Department station is in the neighborhood and was built in anticipation of growth and annexation in this area, he said.

Adding the area to the city would bring an estimated $553,000 of new revenue in the first full year, mostly from state-shared revenue, which is a per-capita tax distributed to cities and towns from state income taxes.

On the expense side, the city says it would cover all city services for the neighborhood using existing staff and resources. One capital cost would be maintaining the neighborhood streets.

Harry Clyde, secretary of the Valencia Reserve Homeowners Association and a 10-year resident, said it could be hard to get homeowners on board.

I see nothing to gain. I think all you want is our tax money, he told the City Council on Tuesday.

Each homeowner must now contract with a waste contractor for trash pickup and with Rural Metro for emergency services.

Most of us have a pretty strong feeling that we dont want to be part of the city, but its up to the individual homeowners to make that decision, Clyde said.

HOA fees in the neighborhood pay for parks, landscaping, walking paths, some security and sidewalk repairs.
Editor's note: Attorneys for convicted killer Jared Lee Loughner notified the court that Loughner didn't file or authorize the lawsuit, Cosme Lopez a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona said Thursday.

Tucson gunman Jared Lee Loughner sued Gabrielle Giffords and the Federal Bureau of Prisons in federal court saying she should pay him $25 million for emotional distress.

Loughner is serving a life sentence for the Jan. 8, 2011 fatal shooting of six people and wounding of 13 others, including former congresswoman Giffords, who was hosting a political event outside a northwest side grocery store.

In the two-page complaint filed March 18 in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Loughner says he is innocent and asks for his immediate release from prison. He also makes an assortment of bizarre claims about Giffords.

It appears Loughner filed the lawsuit himself. No lawyer is listed in the document that's riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Loughner said his head is full of chips and this evil empire govt is controlling me. He said he was a "victim of project mk-ultra" and Giffords is part of the Illuminati.

Loughner alleges Giffords was never shot. Instead, she studied Ronald Reagan movies and is pretending to be a gunshot victim.

The lawsuit also claims Giffords' husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, is planting equipment in the sky to spy on Americans for the NSA.

Loughner claims Giffords played a role in the recent standoff at a wildlife refuge in Oregon, sprayed chemtrails into the sky that are making him delusional and financed the December shooting in San Bernardino, California.

Loughner says he is not getting proper food in the Minnesota federal prison facility where he is serving his term and that his medications were taken away, He also claims to be water boarded daily by federal agents.

A stamp on the lawsuit says the document was filed incorrectly and is subject to rejection by the court.
PHOENIX  State lawmakers are balking at a proposal to let cities approve new subdivisions despite the lack of an assured water supply.

Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Payson, told House colleagues the Senate-approved measure would simply provide options for cities in Cochise and Yuma counties to make their own decisions about whether there is sufficient water. She even offered some concessions to require the cities to implement water-saving measures, ranging from xeriscaping along roads to requirements for low-water-use toilets.

But Barton had to yank SB 1268 bill from consideration earlier this week amid bipartisan opposition from those who said it would set a bad precedent and ultimately undermine the states historic 1980 Groundwater Act designed to ensure that there is enough water to meet long-term needs. Whether she will try again remains to be seen.

Arizona law has strict requirements for new construction in each of the states five active management areas.

For the Phoenix, Prescott and Tucson areas, the goal is safe yield by 2025, when the amount of groundwater withdrawn is no more that what replaces it. Pinal and Santa Cruz have other goals.

Outside those areas, developers are required to get a determination from the Department of Waster Resources whether there is a 100-year assured water supply.

But the lack of that does not prevent them from building. The only requirement is they disclose any potential inadequate supply to the initial buyers.

That option, however, is not open to developers in counties where supervisors have voted to mandate a showing of a 100-year supply, something Cochise and Yuma counties have opted to do.

Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, introduced SB 1268 after a judge ruled the developers of the proposed 7,000-home Tribute subdivision in Sierra Vista could not prove that 100-year supply, at least in part because of claims over the San Pedro River. But that ruling could have broader implications for the long-term growth of the city.

Griffins legislation would allow the city to opt out of the county requirement.

Barton, who is carrying the bill for Griffin in the House, told colleagues there is no reason for developers to have to do more than file the report with the Department of Water Resources. And she said cities are in the best position to know what works for their own areas.

The idea, however, provoked a firestorm of objections.

In Arizona, the biggest issue we have is water, said Rep. Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa. He detailed the various efforts already undertaken to ensure the state has enough water for future growth beyond the 1980 law, from some communities treating brackish water to the construction of the Central Arizona Project to bring Colorado River water to the states interior, a project on which the state still owes $1 billion.

And Bowers rejected the suggestion this is only a small exception to the 1980 law.

This could set a precedent that other cities that are looking for commercial support, that want to have a strong, viable economic base that may be tempted to put their water supply at risk, he said, approving new developments for short-term financial gain without the assurances that the water will be there to sustain not only the new homes but the ones already there.

Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, said that requirement for a 100-year water supply should be held sacrosanct.

Clark was not impressed by Bartons willingness to add water-conservation requirements to the measure.

These include things like adopting a plan for the reuse of reclaimed water, funding water conservation education programs, providing cash to replace inefficient toilets and allowing only drought tolerant vegetation on public rights of way.

You can do all the xeriscaping you want ... and youre still not addressing the 100-year water supply, youre still not maintaining it, Clark said. Unless youre addressing or protecting the 100-year water supply you are creating a loophole that somebody down the road will probably exploit.

Rep. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma, told lawmakers that while the legislation would affect cities in her county, none were asking for this change. And she echoed the concerns of others that once lawmakers start making exceptions to requiring a proven water supply you begin to unravel state water policy.

Otondo said this is about more than the right of cities to seek new developments, unfettered by county water-supply requirements.

If a city does not have to prove an adequate water supply that the counties currently require, what is going to happen to the homebuyers? she asked. It could end up stranding homebuyers in houses that run out of water.

Clark put a sharper point on that.

Youre going to give somebody a 30-year mortgage on a house, and you dont know that water supplys going to be there and their house is going to be worth something when they go to retire, he said.
OPINION: "While it is important to take on cutting edge programs for an institution, Best Practices would dictate a thorough analysis of the costs of a new program versus the proven effectiveness of that new program. After all, these are taxpayer funds we are dealing with," writes Nick Pierson, candidate for the Pima Community College Governing Board.
PHOENIX  Gov. Doug Ducey is going to get a chance to sign three new measures designed to restrict abortion and the practices surrounding it.

The House on Thursday gave final approval to three measures:

Outlawing experimentation on tissue from aborted fetuses;

Limiting less-intrusive medication abortions to the first seven weeks of pregnancy;

Locking Planned Parenthood out of a payroll deduction plan for state employees.

Ducey is likely to sign all three.

He has pronounced himself strongly in the pro-life camp. He signed a different abortion restriction last year.

And Ducey himself administratively imposed the ban on donations to Planned Parenthood last year.

The measure on fetal experimentation, SB 1474, arose in the weeks after the posting of undercover videos that appear to show officials from Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of fetal tissue.

Abortion foes and supporters continue to argue about the accuracy of the videos. But they have been enough to drive this legislation.

If you deal with the videos about Planned Parenthood, its very evident to me that this buy and sell of fetal tissue is going on, said Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert. But he said the measure is not dependent on the videos.

This is something we feel is inappropriate, which is to harvest body tissue from the fetus, he said.

Planned Parenthood Arizona said it does not sell or donate fetal tissue, though Bryan Howard, the groups president, acknowledged that is not the case in other states. But Farnsworth said it doesnt matter if its not occurring here, saying this legislation will ensure that it does not happen because it will be a crime.

Rep. Stefanie Mach, D-Tucson, focused on the part of the legislation that bans all experimentation on any tissue from an abortion

Why wouldnt you want to use that fetal tissue to help save lives in the case of all the research that goes into Huntingtons and Alzheimers and a myriad of other tragic and horrible diseases that lead to a loss of life? she asked.

Farnsworth said fetal tissue research has fallen out of favor as efforts to cure diseases with that have not produced results.

Secondly, we have to decide what we think is valuable, he said. It doesnt make any sense to me to support harvesting fetal tissue to try to support somebody else who is sick.

And Farnsworth said he does consider this to be more than mere tissue.

My philosophy is that you have babies that are babies, he said. They are just unborn.

SB 1474 was approved on a 41-17 vote.

The vote on the bill limiting medication abortions was closer, passing 32-26.

SB 1324 seeks to tell doctors they can use RU-486 to terminate a pregnancy only according to the label directions approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That label says it should be used only through the first seven weeks of pregnancy.

But neither FDA regulations nor federal law preclude doctors from off-label use. And Planned Parenthood physicians have concluded that the drug is effective through the ninth week, and at a smaller dose.

Rep. Jill Norgaard, R-Phoenix, did not dispute that. But she said the FDA approved the use of RU-486 under special rules she said are reserved for higher-risk drugs, which is why doctors should be barred from using it in Arizona beyond seven weeks.

But Rep. Regina Cobb, R-Kingman, said doctors have since discovered that the seven-week limit makes no medical sense.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Armenpress presents on the air of Lratvakan radio all that you will hear, read and see on todays news.

Foreign Minister of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze arrives in Armenia today, on March 25. He will visit Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and putting a wreath will pay tribute to the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide. Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Georgia Edward Nalbandian and Mikheil Janelidze is scheduled, after which they will deliver a joint press conference.

March 25 is the death day of former Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan. He died suddenly of a heart attack at home aged 56. High level officials of the country will visit Komitas Park and Pantheon to respect his memory.

Armenia-Italy parliamentary friendship group of Armenia organizes a discussion themed Prospects of development of economic relations between Armenia and Italy with the participation of major Italian companies in Armenia. Interestingly, the discussion will be held at Avshar wine factory.

What is the situation in the sector of real estate? Are there price fluctuations and in which parts of Yerevan are the most expensive houses? Specialists will introduce fresh analysis of real estate market. The official presentation of printed edition of Analysis of real estate market will take place in the sidelines of the memorandum signed between the Union of banks of Armenia and Oliver Group appraisal agency.

The 16th conference of Union of Information Technology Enterprises will take place today. Investment of engineering laboratories in Armenias secondary school system program will be presented and a cooperation memorandum with the Government will be signed in the sidelines of the conference.

Director of Lusakert Poultry Factory Manase Yepremyan, chairman of Armenia's National Academy of Consumers Melita Hakobyan and head of monitoring department Ruben Haytayan will speak about the situation in egg market ahead of Easter. Fr. Petros Malyan of St. Sargis Church of Ararat Patriarchal Diocese and member of Ararat youth union Tatev Ghazaryan will refer to the symbolism of Easter.

March 27 is marked as World Theatre Day. Peoples Artist of Armenia, Vanadzor Abelyan State Drama Theatre Artistic Director Vahe Shahverdyan and secretary of the Union of Theater Figures of Armenia, theater critic Sona Meloyan will refer to the day, introduce last years achievements of theatrical art , as well as will speak about new performances and programs.

You can read more about these and other topics at armenpress.am and listen to the news on the air of Lratvakan radio. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Garry Shandling was practicing his comedy routine on classmates at Tucsons Palo Verde High School in the mid-1960s.

Classmate Bob Jones remembers how Shandling would post himself at the same spot near the lunch crowd every morning. A handful of people would surround him as he told jokes.

Palo Verde was the only east side high school so they held two sessions, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The first lunch period was at 9 a.m. and theres Garry out there and he was always trying to draw a crowd, said Jones, who graduated with Shandling in 1967.

Some of us would sit around and look at this guy like he was a nut case, Jones recalled Thursday, hours after news broke that Shandling had died of an apparent heart attack at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 66.

Shandlings high school comedy schtick turned into a 30-year career that included long stretches on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and two cable shows  Its Garry Shandlings Show on Showtime from 1986 to 1990 and The Larry Sanders Show on HBO from 1992 to 1998.

When I saw him (on TV) I was flabbergasted, Jones, who worked in Tucson radio for 30 years, said of watching Shandling go from class clown to Hollywood star. None of Shandlings classmates would have guessed that the quiet kid in class who would occasionally disrupt the teacher with a joke would end up as one of the countrys top comedians.

Garry Shandling was born on Nov. 29, 1949, in Chicago but grew up in Tucson. After graduating from Palo Verde High School, he attended the University of Arizona, where he earned a marketing degree. He also took graduate courses in creative writing before striking out for Los Angeles in 1973 to work in advertising.

That career was short-lived after Shandling sold a script to the popular NBC sitcom Sanford and Son. He also wrote for Welcome Back, Kotter.

Shandling began his standup career in the late 1970s at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. His act revolved around his persona as an angst-ridden, grimacing and often confused man always on the verge of a losing it. Within a couple years, a scout for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson booked Shandling as a guest.

The appearance turned into a long relationship with the famous host; Shandling was a regular sub for Carson from 1981 to 1987; some even speculated that Shandling was a shoe-in to replace Carson when he left the show in 1992.

Shandling also was given a prime-time national stage from 2000 to 2004 as host of the Emmy Awards.

Shandlings death shocked the comedy world.

Jamie Masada, owner the Laugh Factory comedy club, said he met with Shandling a few weeks ago and the comedian didnt appear to have any health problems.

He looked healthy as could be, Masada said.

Kathy Griffin posted a photo on Twitter Sunday of her and Shandling with fellow comedian Bob Odenkirk. On Thursday, she retweeted the photo: Sunday, my longtime friend Garry Shandling was here, making every1 laugh. I loved him. Ill miss our talks the most.

Garry was a guiding voice of comedy, said Odenkirk. He set the standard and were all still trying to meet it.

Filmmaker Judd Apatow declared, Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. ... I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better.

Comedian/actor Ricky Gervais on Thursday tweeted, RIP the great Garry Shandling. Surely, one of the most influential comedians of a generation.
On July 27, Rijiju said in the Lok Sabha that the BJPs ideology on the uniform civil code should be taken as the country's ideology on the same. Basil Islam | TwoCircles.net NEW DELHI  Union Minister Kiren Rijijus recent remarks on implementing the uniform civil code have re-ignited the debate on the viability of a uniform civil code and its possible...
Help India!

By IANS,

Aurangabad (Maharashtra) : The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Monday shot dead a suspected terrorist allegedly involved in the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, police said here.

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Acting on a tip-off, ATS officials went to arrest three suspected terrorists who were hiding in a slum area in the city. The suspects opened fire at the police team injuring one police constable in the shoulder.

The ATS team then returned fire, killing one suspect. According to officials from Aurangabad police, the ATS arrested the two others after the shootout.

The trio  Abrar Sheikh, Shakeel Ahmed and Khalil Khilji  are accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad (Gujarat) blasts and allegedly belong to the Abu Faisal group from Madhya Pradesh. They are also accused in the murder of a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Pramod Tiwari.

The 2008 Ahmedabad bombings were a series of 21 bomb blasts that rocked Ahmedabad July 26, 2008 within a span of 70 minutes. A total of 56 people were killed and over 200 people injured in the blasts blamed on the Indian Mujahideen militant organisation.


Help India!

By Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net,

Kolkata: When at split of hair, villages and towns are painted with human blood in a charged-up nation, the scene of a sea of human hands going up in the air praying for peace, communal harmony and brotherhood was really impressive. It was the concluding session of the three-day conference of Tablighi Jamaat on 16th September at Magrahat Muslim Anglo Oriental Institution Ground in the district of South 24 Parganas, 40 Km from Kolkata.

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The Akheri Munajat (concluding prayer) was conducted by Maulana Shamim Ahmed from Nizamuddin Markaz (the headquarters of the Jamaat) in Delhi. Thousands of devoted Muslims participated in this Ijtema from all over the state and outside. They prayed to Almighty Allah for mercy, humanity and world peace. They also prayed for unity of the community and universal brotherhood.



Praying for peace and brotherhood at last day of three-day Tablighi Ijtema on 16th September 2012 at Magrahat, South 24 Parganas in West Bengal



National leader of Tablighi Jamaat and one of the chief functionaries of Nizamuddin Markaz, Maulana Shamim in his speech said: To strengthen their Iman (faith) Muslims should do Mehnat (hard labor). Strong Iman can come from powerful Amal (Practice of religious activities) and powerful Amal makes good character (Akhlak). Then only can Insaf (justice) come on the earth to remove the atrocities. Amal can prevent the bad activities and stop the in-justice, then makes brotherhood. He called Muslims to serve as Khidmatmatgar for the Almighty Allah.

Another leader of Tablighi Jamaat Mufti Abdul Wahab of Delhi said, `Minority and Majority is not a new issue, it has been for long. Hazrat Nuh (a prophet) was in Minority, but Majority was defeated by him due to his strength of Takwa by the grace of Alllah. Future generation should learn form it. In Arab world the Muslims are majority, but they have not strength. Good `Amal and fear of Almighty Allah can make success finally.

Member of the organizing committee of the Ijtema Maulana Gulam Bari told TCN that, the Tablighi Ijtema started in this area of Magrahat in 1952. Since then, at least 6 World Tablighi Ijtemas have been held here. The last World Ijtema was held here in 1980.





A spokesman of the organizing committee of the Ijtema, young dentist Dr Shamim Ahmed told TCN that, they arranged all the food and accommodation as usual for the participants of Tablighi Ijtema. But he thanked the local administration for the cooperation. Dr Shamim said, Magrahat Block development Officer Rizwan Wahab visited the Ijtema ground all three days. Mr Rizwan ensured supply of drinking water, electricity, emergency medicine from the Government and also arranged clean sanitation facilities.

Chairman of the state waqf board, Justice Abdul Ghani also visited the Ijtema and enquired about any problem. At least 50 thousand people are said to have attended the Ijtema.
Help India!

By IANS,

New Delhi : On the eve of the Dec 4 Delhi assembly polls, the Delhi Election Commission Tuesday sent text messages to people, reminding them to cast their ballots.

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The messages from the Delhis Chief Electoral Office read: Delhi goes to polls on Dec 4, 2013  Dont forget to exercise your rights.

Many received such messages on their mobile phones.

I just received the text urging me to vote tomorrow (Wednesday). It is a good initiative by the Election Commission, said Amit Rang of south Delhi.

Around 1.19 voters will cast their ballots to choose the fifth Delhi assembly which has 70 members.
Help India!

By IANS,

Raipur : Chhattisgarh has been awarded second time in row for better implementation of a rural job guarantee scheme.

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Kanker district and Gatapara village panchayat in Rajnandgaon district have been chosen for exemplary performance in implementing Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in 2011-12, the state government said in a statement Tuesday.

Kanker district panchayat CEO Bhim Singh and Gatapara gram panchayat sarpanch Manmohan Verma will receive the award from the prime minister in New Delhi Feb 2, the statement said.


Help India!







By Ubaidur Rahman for TwoCircles.net,

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Javed Akhtar, a poet and writer, did not speak anything noticeable in Parliament in last 6 years but his farewell speech in Rajya Sabha on March 15, 2016 put him in news all over. It was more due to his chanting of Bharat Mata ki Jai and ridiculing of Owaisi for not chanting it.

However, if analyzed critically, this speech conveys a lot about him than chanting of slogan, heres a look at what it conveys.

In his Farewell address, of all the issues plaguing, Bharat Maa was his choice of condemning something or more specifically someone specific is telling. For example, he talked about India having largest number of youths and that there was a need to channel such resources, yet, he did not choose to say about the arresting and labeling of JNU students under spurious sedition charges. At another time he talked about India having largest number of TB patients, yet he did not choose to mention a line about Vyapam Scam in Madhya Pradesh for selection of medical students. The interesting part of his speech that applied to himself was, raising of non-issue and fanning and potentially enabling more nuts.

In his address, without mentioning Owaisis name he referred to him by calling him to be the one who assumes himself as a national leader, but in reality he (Owaisi) was a leader of a mohalla, in a city called Hyderabad in a state called Andhra.

He referred Owaisi, without mentioning his name, as the one who assumes himself to be a national leader, but in reality Owaisi is a leader of a mohalla, in a city called Hyderabad in a state called Andhra. Maybe Javed Akhtar absolutely hates Owaisi, which is his right, but it is telling that he has to belie the fact that Owaisi is the elected MP of the entire Hyderabad constituency regardless of how insignificant the constituency might be. It is telling that he had to ridicule that mohalla of Hyderabad of Andhra, which is a part of Bharat Maa. It is also telling that after trying to minimize Owaisi as a mere leader of a mohalla, he shamelessly reacted to this mere mohalla leaders utterance.

He went on to condemn Owaisi for his objection to say Bharat mata ki Jai and there by blatantly rejected Owaisis right to object to raise a particular slogan that is not prescribed in the Constitution. It is telling that after lyricing about Constitution, Democracy, and Secularism, he condemned someone for exercising his right.

It is telling that after urging thankfulness for the Constitution we have, he does not even want to refer to the Constitution to see if it mandates raising a slogan. What a Member of Parliament we had there! It is also telling that after warning against straying from secularism, he clinged to the (oxymoronic, since he is an atheist) belief of Bharat Maa.

Before making another point, lets visualize this. Some nut decreed a sentence that Owaisis tongue must be chopped off and Maharashtras assembly threw one of the MIM MLA out after he did not chant the said slogan.

Akhtar exercised his right to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai makes one wonder if he was a member of Lok Sabha, would he have demanded Owaisi chant the slogan and on refusal, gang up with other members to get him suspended.

And he went on to balance his condemnation with condemnation of those who say Musalaman ke do sthan, khabrastan aur Pakistan. It is telling he thought there was equivalency there. One is resulting in people losing their lives, no prizes there for guessing which one.

In conclusion, Akhtar did not give a farewell speech, he performed one.

Nevertheless, if one does not judge these MPs by their chanting or non-chanting of such slogan and prefers to rate them according to their Parliament record of 6 years for Akhtar Vs 2 years for Owaisi then it reveals that

1. On attendance, Akhtar was present for 53% while Owaisi was 87%.

2. On Debates, Akhtar participated in a 6 debates while Owaisi in 33.

3. On Questions, Akhtar did not raise any question while Owaisi raised 414.
YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan explicitly ignores the calls of the international community and instead of giving up ceasefire violations, it further escalates the situation. Spokesperson for the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), Vice President of Republic of Armenia National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov told the journalists about this after RPA executive board session.

It is inadmissible and condemnable. We have regularly mentioned that it is intolerable during meetings with representatives of various international organizations. At least it is intolerable that Azerbaijan not only did not adhere to Andrzej Kasprzyks call for strictly maintaining the ceasefire regime during the Nowrus and Easter holidays, but further escalated the situation, Armenpress reports Sharmazanov mentioning.

He added that the international organizations must make more addressed assessments in their announcements and see who really violates the ceasefire regime and who really wants to solve the issue relying on military methods.

Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk issued a statement on March 18 calling on the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides to maintain the ceasefire regime in the upcoming holidays of Nowruz and Easter period. This was followed by the Defense Ministry's statement that Armenia is ready to strictly adhere to the ceasefire, as it has done during the period of the entire confrontation, but expected Azerbaijans positive respond to this call. Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group and Gernot Esler, representative of the German presidency in the OSCE urged the same call, to strictly adhere to the ceasefire regime during the holidays.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Russia and the United States have agreed to seek an early start of direct negotiations between Damascus and the Syrian opposition, Armenpress reports, citing TASS,Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on March 25 after Russian-American talks.

"The political process must be completed with an agreement between Syrian themselves on their countrys system they prefer, and we have arranged as an immediate task to work towards the early start of direct talks in Geneva between the Syrian government delegation and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition with a view to fulfilling the parameters laid down in UN the Security Council Resolution 2254 on the processes that will be forming a transitional management body, that will promote agreement on the countrys new constitution and conducting free elections on its basis", the Russian foreign minister said.

"The atmosphere in the Russian-American dialogue very seriously affects the international community's efforts to resolve many urgent problems," Lavrov said. "Our cooperation has seriously promoted progress in overcoming the Syrian crisis. Thanks to the Russian-American initiative, approved by President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama, a mechanism of international support of the Syrian settlement, the so-called International Syria Support Group has been formed, and today we have agreed, in furtherance of the two presidents March 14 telephone conversation, to continue the coordination of actions to consolidate the regime of the cessation of hostilities, to prevent violations of this regime."

According to Lavrov, special attention will be given to "the need to avoid indiscriminate use of weapons." "We also agreed to continue efforts to expand humanitarian access to the blocked areas of Syria," the minister added. "We call on all the Syrian conflict sides to take additional measures for the release of prisoners and detainees. And most probably, the main thing at this stage - we have agreed to intensify efforts for the creation of the necessary conditions for the political process."

"We also confirmed that these our efforts will be taken in parallel with strengthening co-ordination in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, Jabhat al-Nusra and other associated extremist organizations," Lavrov said. "We are convinced that this requires compliance with the UN Security Council demands to stop any support for terrorists, whether it be financial (support), weapons delivery, commercial transactions with the terrorists or providing asylum to them.".








GYUMRI, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. The trial of Russian soldier Valery Permyakov, accused of murdering the Avetisyan family, will continue at the 102nd Russian military base. The disclosure of case documents will continue during the trial. At this stage, the 26-volume document package will be disclosed. 10 of these have been disclosed so far, regarding mostly forensic examinations of Permyakov and his co-servicemen, as well as the conclusions of the examination of the corpses, crime scene photos. The video recording will be released later.

During the disclosure of the documents, forensic reports on items found in the Avetisyan home, bullets, blood and sweat will be presented.

The six members of the Avetisyan family were shot and killed in Gyumri at around 6 a.m. on January 12, 2015. The only survivor was 6-month old Seryozha Avetisyan, who was transferred to a hospital with injuries caused by a cutting and piercing tool. The childs health condition became worse on January 19. After fighting for his life and undergoing several difficult surgeries for a week, six-month old Seryozha Avetisyan also died on January 19. There was severe renal insufficiency and cardiac insufficiency, and doctors werent able to save his life. Soldier of the 102nd Russian military base stationed in Gyumri, Valery Permyakov was charged with killing the members of the Avetisyan family. Russian border guards found him when he was trying to cross the Armenian-Turkish border and handed him over to the commanders of the 102nd Russian military base. Permyakov confessed his guilt. On August 12, The Russian side sentenced Permyakov to 10 years of imprisonment for desertion and illegal possession of a firearm.

Armenuhi Mkhoyan
UC Regents approve new retirement program for future employees

The University of California Board of Regents today (March 24) approved a new retirement program for future UC employees proposed by President Napolitano, as part of a broader effort to maintain the universitys excellence and sustain its long-term financial health.

The new retirement program will apply only to UC employees hired on or after July 1, 2016. Current employees and retirees are not affected by these changes because accrued pension benefits are protected by law and cannot be reduced or revoked.

The new program, which is consistent with the 2015 budget agreement with the state, will bolster the long-term financial stability of UC and its retirement program, while providing critical funding for many university priorities through savings generated by the plan and through additional funds UC will receive from the state.

Under the 2015 budget agreement, UC is receiving nearly $1 billion in new annual revenue and one-time funding over the several years, including $436 million to help pay down UCs unfunded pension liability. As part of the agreement, UC is implementing a cap on the pensionable earnings of future employees, mirroring the limit on pension benefits for state employees under the 2013 California Public Employees Pension Reform Act (PEPRA). The university expects to save on average $99 million a year by implementing the pension cap, over half of which will go toward further paying down UCs unfunded liability.

When we approved the budget agreement between the governor, the Legislature and this body, we did so committing ourselves to proactively developing a set of retirement options that are financially prudent, are oriented toward the long-term sustainability of the university and that allow us to effectively recruit and retain the very best faculty and staff, Regent Monica Lozano said. The [retirement] options on the table go a long way toward meeting those three very important objectives.

Under the proposal approved by the regents, future employees will be offered a choice between two options:

Option 1  Pension + 401(k)-style supplemental benefit: The current UC pension benefit capped at the PEPRA salary limit (currently $117,020) plus a supplemental 401(k)-style benefit for eligible employee pay up to the Internal Revenue Service limit (currently $265,000), or

Option 2  New 401(k)-style benefit: A new stand-alone 401(k)-style plan with benefits-eligible employee pay up to the Internal Revenue Service limit (currently $265,000).

Maintaining a pension benefit  along with a 401(k)-style supplement (Option 1)  is important to attracting and retaining the caliber of personnel needed to maintain UCs excellence, especially faculty for whom the university often competes against elite private institutions that can often pay more than UC.

At the same time, UCs workforce is highly diverse and people have different retirement needs and goals. The new stand-alone 401(k)-style retirement benefit (Option 2) may be attractive to employees who work at UC for only a few years and want a portable retirement benefit they can take with them, and/or who prefer to personally manage their retirement savings.

The vast majority of future staff would not see any difference in their benefits compared to current employees. Based on current data, 79 percent of current employees would not be affected by the PEPRA cap.

You can read more details about the approved retirement benefits here.

Other elements of employee compensation were also discussed, including employee salaries and the university's ability to recruit and retain quality faculty and staff. President Napolitano noted for the regents that employee salaries remain an issue for certain employee groups and that she intends to propose ways to address competitive employee pay at future regents meetings.

In addition to new retirement options for future UC employees, the presidents plan will:

Focus on overall employee compensation by (1) allowing UC to budget for regular pay increases for faculty and staff, and (2) making merit-based pay a regular component of systemwide salary programs to reward employees based on performance.

Help preserve UCs quality by devoting resources to assist campuses in attracting and retaining faculty and key staff, and improve the student experience.

Offer enhanced retirement counseling and education for all employees, including new hires, as part of UCs commitment to helping employees successfully plan for retirement.

Last summer after the 2015 budget agreement was finalized, President Napolitano convened a task force to recommend options for the new retirement benefits. The task force presented her with its recommendations in December 2015.

In January and February, the president solicited feedback on the recommendations from the UC community. She received comments from more than 300 faculty and staff, which she used to help inform the proposal she brought to the regents.
According to the theory of the "savannah happiness", the happiness of intelligent peopleis inversely proportional to the amount of social interactions. Clearly speaking, who he has a high intelligence quotient likes to be alone. The human evolution and adaptation to changes in lifestyle have taken us over the centuries to change not only physically, but also - and perhaps above all - socially.

The research

According to the team of researchers at Kanazawa and Li, the authors of the study nowpublished in the British Journal of Psychology, evolution would have even led some individuals to be more sociable than others.

Specifically, researchers say that the most intelligent people tend to be less happy when you are having to socialize.

The more an individual is intelligent, the lower the level of satisfaction of life in case of frequent socializing with friends. This is the conclusion of their research. In reaching these affirmations, the scientists analyzed the responses of 15,000 participants aged between 18 and 28 years through a national survey. Following the data collected, in general happiness is found to be indirectly proportional to the population density of an environment and directly proportional to the number of social interactions with close friends.For smart people, however, the situation is different.

It would appear in fact that people with a high IQ are less happy when they are frequently forced to socialize with their friends.

How is it possible?

According to the researchers the Theory of Happiness Savannah, they create, could provide some answers. Scientists maintain that to affect our lives are not only the consequences of the situation that we are experiencing at the present, but also those experienced by our ancestors.

In short, in the past we needed the group to survive, but today the most intelligent people can rely on themselves and do not require forced relationships to be happy or to get what they want from life.

Who has greater intelligence and high and ambitious goals, in order to achieve its purpose is able to focus completely on it, preferring not to "waste time" socializing, and optimizing it to get to their destination as soon as possible, without distractions.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. A French national in the advanced stages of a plot to attack the country has been arrested in north-west Paris and security forces locked down the area during a major search, said Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, Armenpress reports, citing The Guardian.

Police carried out raids in the Argenteuil suburb of Paris following the arrest of the man at 5.30pm on March 24 who was believed to be planning a terrorist attack. A building was evacuated and sniffer dogs and anti-mine experts are at the scene to search for explosives.

Cazeneuve said an attack had been foiled. These searches follow an arrest by the French intelligence agency on March 24 that allowed us to stop a planned bombing in France that was at an advanced stage, he said.

The individual questioned, a French national, is suspected of high-level involvement in this plan. He was part of a terrorist network that planned to strike France, Cazeneuve said.

At this stage, there is no tangible evidence that links this plot to the attacks in Paris and Brussels, said Cazeneuve, who was in the Belgian capital earlier on Thursday.

The minister confirmed that the arrested suspect was of French nationality and belonged to a terrorist network. The suspect had been under surveillance by police for several months. The police operation took place at Boulevard General Delambre.

France has been on high alert since the 13 November attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and injured hundreds. Cazenueve said there had been 75 arrests since the beginning of the year, and 28 suspects had been jailed.
Manufacturers in China urged to think smarter Updated: 2016-03-25 07:13 By Zheng Yangpeng(China Daily)

The smart manufacturing facilities in Jiangsu Dasheng Group Co Ltd, a textile company in Nantong, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

The sheer scale of the Chinese market gives the country an edge to develop smart manufacturing, the global chairman of the professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd said.

But to succeed, David Cruickshank said, companies not only need to upgrade their systems but also have to extend the scope of smart manufacturing to the entire business.

His comments come as the central government is pressing ahead with the Made in China 2025 initiative to encourage companies to apply automation to build more intelligent manufacturing solutions that rely less on labor. It also encourages customization of goods, instead of focusing on mass production.

Globally, there are several versions of smart manufacturing: Germany's Industry 4.0 route starts from integrating hardware and software for the manufacturing process and leveraging Internet while in the United States, the concept of Industrial Internet refers to the integration of complex machinery with sensors and software.

Cruickshank said it is important to tailor each market with different approaches, taking account of current supply chain and infrastructure.

"There are many concepts ... To me the essence is it allows manufacturers to get very close to their end users and to have consumer input into what is being manufactured.

"The direct connection bears implication for distribution networks. For example, in the United Kingdom where I am based, high-street retailers are struggling (due to smart manufacturing)," he said.

China's biggest strength, according to Cruickshank, is its absolute scale. The huge market means the ability to scale up and respond to consumer trends quickly when you have hundreds of millions of consumers, he said.

"The scale of the market gives people opportunities to experience different models... Experimenting different models can happen very easily in China."

Lawrence Chia, CEO of Deloitte China, agreed, noting that most multinationals have competed each other in the Chinese market to experiment various techniques.

Data show Chinese manufacturers are indeed embracing smart manufacturing with enthusiasm. Industry output value of China's smart manufacturing was about 1 trillion yuan ($153 billion) in 2015 and is expected to exceed 3 trillion by 2020, with an average annual growth of 25 percent.

A 2015 Deloitte survey showed 23 percent of the enterprises interviewed have begun to extensively apply intelligent devices in production, up from 11 percent in 2013.

But a closer look shows applications concentrate in the auto, construction machinery and power equipment industries. Only 20 percent of enterprises are constructing smart manufacturing systems and even fewer have extended the scope of smart manufacturing to value chain integration and business model optimization.

Beyond devices, it's important to invest in systems such as basic IT platforms like enterprise resource planning, Cruickshank said.

"You have to have good systems so that good data could come out of it."

Sitao Xu, chief economist with Deloitte China, said that massive supply of scientists and engineers is a strength of China. But he noted that the challenge derived from the strength of market of scale, could also be a stumbling block.

"Because smart manufacturing is manufacturing in demand. At some point the advantage of size could be less pronounced. Chinese manufacturing in the past has relied so much on scale-up and cluster effect. The very essence of smart manufacturing perhaps require less of that," Xu said.
Russian expert urges enhancement of military-industrial cooperation with China Updated: 2016-03-25 17:12 (Xinhua)

MOSCOW - The current economic difficulties in Russia call for promotion of military-industrial cooperation between Russia and China to a new level, a Russian expert said Thursday.

China's military-industrial complex is the most promising sector for cooperation with Russia, as its defense complex is more diversified, said Vasily Kashin, senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

In a report published ahead of the Russian-Chinese conference on cooperation scheduled for March 25-26 in China's Shanghai city, Kashin noted that Russia's state-run and private companies already have successful cooperation experiences with China's military-industrial complex in the civil sphere.

Kashin raised the example of a joint-venture project of LED production in cooperation between Russia's state-run hi-tech company Ruselectronics and China Electronics Technology Group Corp.

He also mentioned a strategic cooperation agreement between Russian mining and energy company En+ Group and China North Industries Group Corporation.

A new industrial cooperation system could be set up between Russia and China on the basis of successful experiences and meticulous use of "strong points of the industrial capacities of the two countries," Kashin said.

He specified that representative companies of China's defense industry could serve as a bridge for establishing cooperation with Chinese hi-tech civil enterprises.

The expert expressed the hope that industrial integration could be listed as an important political goal at the state level for both Moscow and Beijing.
China's supply-side reforms can be compared to those of Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1980s, according to one of the former United Kingdom prime minister's economic advisers.

Patrick Minford, now professor of applied economics at Cardiff Business School, said they both have similar aims of extending the role of market forces in their respective economies.

"They are both aimed at dealing with inefficiencies and a lack of enterprise in particular sectors and in generating growth," he said.

The supply-side elements of Thatcherism were largely curbing trade union power and therefore allowing the labor market to operate more freely and privatizing inefficient State-owned enterprises, beginning with British Telecom in 1984.

"There is an element of paradox in China with, on the one hand, the State controlling the economy while trying to liberalize various elements of it. I see it more as a continuation of Deng Xiaoping's reforms that began in the late 1970s," he said.

Tim Congdon, another economic adviser to Lady Thatcher, particularly in her later years, said China might have something to learn from Thatcherism in relation to State-owned enterprises.

"What people don't realize is that privatization in Britain was an accident. It wasn't something that Mrs Thatcher was going to do when she was first elected in 1979," he said.

"When they did their first big privatization in 1984, the state actually retained quite a big shareholding and in the end it worked out fine.

"So whatever way China reforms its State-owned enterprises, this gradual approach would be better than that of the east European one of just selling off everything, where you got all this avarice and crookery."

Charles Goodhart, who was an adviser to the Bank of England during the Thatcher years, believes China should look to France when it comes to reforming State-owned enterprises and not to Britain or the United States.

"The French are very centralized and the debates there have been concerned with how much central control there should be and how much private sector influence. I think this is quite close to what is happening in China," he said.

Congdon pointed out that the Chinese in trying to reform the hukou system  making it easier for people to move from rural areas  are not the first to contend with this issue.

"This is what many European countries have had to deal with in the past.

"In Britain they had to end settlement laws in the 19th century to enable the Industrial Revolution to happen," he said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. By the decree of the Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan, Hamlet Hakobyan has been appointed as Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations of Armenia; Armenpress was informed by the Department of Information and Public Relations of the Government.
Nobelist: Service sectors key to Made in China 2025 Updated: 2016-03-26 02:36 By Zhu Lixin and Ma Chenguang in Hefei(China Daily USA)

Christopher A Pissarides provided to china daily

Chinas service sectors need to receive greater support if the Made in China 2025 strategy is to succeed, according to Christopher A Pissarides, the 2010 Nobel Prize winner in economics.

The strategy, which is focused on the manufacturing sector, was unveiled by Chinas State Council in May 2015 and it is the first 10-year action plan designed to upgrade Chinas capabilities so that it can become a world manufacturing power by 2025.

Last week, during a lecture at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, capital of East Chinas Anhui province, Pissarides said that the service sectors will be vital in addressing the consequences that will arise from the strategy.

Though it is growing, Chinas industrial productivity is still very low. The Made in China 2025 strategy, which emphasizes on automation, will help to increase the productivity substantially, but this will result in numerous mid-level workers, especially those from the manufacturing sectors, losing their jobs and China has to be prepared for it, said Pissarides.

China has been facing pressing employment issues in recent years as an increasing number of manufacturers plan to replace human workers with industrial robots. A recent report by Economic Daily predicted that the number of industrial robots in China has surged by 36.6 percent from the previous year to 75,000 in 2015.

Pissarides added that post-2025 China, which will be home to a small but dynamic manufacturing sector that will drive productivity growth and exports, will need to respond to this problem by having a much larger service sector that can provide jobs.

The strategy needs to be accompanied by other supporting policies that will generate employment. About 90 percent of the countrys employment will have to be in service sectors which cannot be automated, said Pissarides.

As part of the strategy, authorities have also vowed to promote service-oriented manufacturing and manufacturing-related service industries, and Pissarides believes that the service sectors will take on broader scopes. He suggested that China will need to reform its economy in order to encourage more private sector development, especially in the services industry.

The main sectors that will benefit are the labor-intensive ones such as healthcare, education, personal services, household services, real estate management and the hospitality industry, said Pissarides, adding that these particular sectors in China are not doing very well.

Most of the companies in these service sectors are small and medium-sized enterprises. In order for them to perform, finance needs to be liberalized and the focus on state enterprises should be relaxed. The country will need a good legislative framework and good tax incentives for SMEs in the service sectors, since their profits margins are very low, said the economist.

There is no better time to do that than the present, since the process is inevitable. The earlier they start the campaign, the better development chances they will have in the future, he added.

Pissarides, together with Peter A Diamond and Dale Mortensen, won the Nobel Prize in 2010 for contributions to the theory of search friction and macroeconomics. He is a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, specializing in the macroeconomics of labor markets, structural change and economic growth.

zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn
The sensitive secrets of a master blender Updated: 2016-03-12 03:07 By Yan Dongjie and Yang Jun(China Daily USA)

Chinas most loved liquor makes its way to customers only after rigorous testing, Yan Dongjie and Yang Jun report.

Moutai was first produced during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Traditional production methods employed at the company have remained relatively unchanged. PHOTOS BY YAN DONGJIE / CHINA DAILY

Zhong Lin stopped wearing cosmetics and perfume in her 20s. She also swore off spicy food, which was tough for someone who grew up in Guizhou, a southern province where the chili is king.

Yet denying herself these everyday pleasures for two decades has helped make her one of the top baijiu blending masters in China.

The job requires a heightened sense of taste and smell. If you gave me two cups of baijiu with slightly varying alcohol levels, itd be easy for me to tell which is higher, or any other tiny differences, she said with a confident smile.

Zhong has worked for Kweichow Moutai Co, the most famous brand of the Chinese liquor, since 1995, rising from a graduate recruit to a Class 1 taster.

She is one of 10 blending masters who are responsible for the quality and consistency of the 100 metric tons of baijiu produced daily at Moutais distilleries, which employ more than 20,000 people in the small Guizhou town from which the company takes its name.

For the past 20 years, Ive tasted the best baijiu in the world almost every day. Its been amazing, she said, adding that she believes it has done wonders for her liver and stomach, and that her skin is better than most women her age.

Moutai is great for your health, she said, repeating a statement often heard from workers at the company, although the public perception is perhaps a little different.

The companys baijiu is made from sorghum, wheat and water from the Red River, which runs through Moutai town, with no chemicals or artificial yeasts, Zhong says.

The wheat and sorghum is first mixed to ferment for a year before being categorized by taste and stored in large, earthenware containers for three to four years. After that, each batch is further tested to determine the right blend to produce the trademark Moutai flavor.

The most difficult  albeit basic  part of my job is to make sure the baijiu produced in different seasons and different years all tastes roughly the same, she said.

Zhong is now at the peak age for tasters, 40 to 45, when the senses of smell and taste are believed to be at their keenest. However, acquiring the skills to be a blending master was not easy; it took years of practice.

At first, Zhong said she did not take her apprenticeship seriously enough and found it hard keeping up with the tiring training schedule, which often stretched into the late evening.

When her first chance to take the baijiu taster examination rolled around in 2000, she failed. I was young and foolish, and I do regret it (not putting in the effort) because it delayed my career, she said, explaining that the test is held only every five years.

The failure inspired her to dedicate herself to improving her skills, which involved smelling and tasting glass upon glass of baijiu, each one slightly different from the one before.

You have to stop every now and then, take a walk to refresh the nose and drink some water to cleanse the palate.

Her hard work paid off. She rose through the ranks and eventually gained a Class 1 certificate, the highest achievement for a blending master, last year. For that test she was blindfolded and asked to tell the difference between various cups of water, including tap, mineral and purified.

I smelled, but smelled nothing; I tasted, but didnt taste baijiu, she said, recalling her surprise at the exam. But I passed, and at least I got to know that Im capable of distinguishing between different types of water.

Asked to demonstrate her day-to-day work, Zhong put on a clean, white laboratory coat, washed her hands, and took out a collection of bottles and measuring glasses.

Look at the color first, she said, explaining the process, which takes up to one hour per sample. Smell it from a short distance, and then take a sip to spread the baijiu on your tongue.
Entrepreneurs tip: Youve got to be irrational sometimes Updated: 2016-03-12 03:15 By Cecily Liu(China Daily USA)

William Shu, with two Deliveroo riders. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

When William Shu founded a food delivery company in England three years ago he was the first driver. Now the firm has 500 employees, hundreds of contracted drivers, 5,000 partner restaurants in more than 20 countries and has raised $100 million from investors.

Its rewarding to see the firm expanding from city to city, says Shu, 36, a Chinese-American. Its stressful, time consuming and extremely fun from an emotional perspective.

Shu was speaking at the University of Oxfords Said Business School, where he gave a talk at the Oxford-China Forum on entrepreneurship. Dressed in jeans and a casual shirt without a tie, he resembles the typical technology startup personality.

But things were not always this way.

Shu, who was born and raised in Connecticut to Chinese parents, had a very traditional Chinese upbringing, where hard work is valued and a highly paid job is seen as the preferred career pathway. After graduating from Northwestern University in Chicago he landed an investment banking job at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Back then, we were working 100 hours a week, and we ate dinner every day with a $25 stipend, and that was the highlight of our day, Shu said.

New Yorks food delivery scene was every bit as good as Shu had expected, so when he was transferred to Morgan Stanley in London in 2008 the paucity of good food delivery services surprised him.

The hours were the same and I would end up having to walk to Burger King or Tesco, which was pretty depressing.

He began to think about starting a food delivery company, but back in those days the logistics could not support it. Smartphones were not nearly as common as they are now, and smartphone applications were at a very rudimentary stage of development, so real-time information could not be shared between customers, restaurants and drivers, meaning quick delivery could not be guaranteed.

The London food delivery scene was just taking off, with the help of delivery firms such as Just Eat, which was founded in Denmark in 2001 and expanded to London in 2006. Just Eat connects restaurants and customers, but Shu did not like the idea of restaurants delivering food themselves, because of what he saw as inconsistent service.

He went back to study for an MBA degree at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, and when he graduated in 2012 he realized the timing was right for Deliveroo, which he founded in 2013 with a childhood friend, Greg Orlowski.

Central to Deliveroos business model is the firms network of cyclists or motorcycle riders, who may be students or part time workers. Deliveroo uses sophisticated technology algorithms to make sure restaurants and customers have real-time information of the location of the driver. This, the company says, results in consistent service and an average delivery time of 30 minutes.

The business charges restaurants 25 percent of the foods price as its commission, a cost the restaurant, rather than the customer, covers, plus a charge of 2 pounds and 50 pence ($3.50). The business rapidly took off, and is now in partnership with 5,000 restaurants worldwide, including Dishoom, Ping Pong, Dirty Burger and even Michelin-starred Trishna in London.

Deliveroo is available in 30 UK cities and 20 cities elsewhere, most of those in Europe. The startup is now making forays into Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

The secret to building up volume is to expand from neighborhood to neighborhood, as density matters to the customer experience, Shu said.

We dont have to go to an entire city straight away.

Asked whether he is keen to expand to China and the US, Shu said both have big potential but business expansion is now difficult. Common to both markets is their large populations, which means technology firms that want to grab market share are undercutting competitors costs by constantly giving out discounts and offers. It creates a competitive market in terms of cost, but Shu believes it is unsustainable.

The platform technology market enabled by smartphone applications like Uber and its Chinese equivalent Didi Kuaidi is new and emerged in recent years, so market players are still trying to work out how it works, and in countries with big populations, Uber and Didi Kuaidi are trying to drive each other out through costs. This cant be the long-term solution, and we will wait to see what happens when the competition settles down before entering the market.

Despite the difficulty of bringing Deliveroo to China, Shu said his Chinese upbringing had a strong impact on him, an obvious one being his love for Chinese food. Chinese noodles and dumplings are his favorites.

Perhaps the entrepreneurial spirit of Chinese people also influenced Shu, and he said the job is now very rewarding.

Its rewarding to see youre doing something that changes the way people transact. Youre also building a team of people around you.

His early banking career gave him the important tools of discipline and an analytical framework, but one crucial ingredient of the successful entrepreneur is to be irrational, he said.

Youve got to be irrational sometimes, because if youre rational all the time, then what you end up doing is what other people have done already.

Another piece of advice he gives to young entrepreneurs is that one cannot hedge oneself from entrepreneurship.

You cant have a job and try something on the weekend; thats the less risky option but it doesnt work. Setting up a business requires everything you have.

cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
'Taiwan independence' will never succeed, premier stresses Updated: 2016-03-25 08:05 By Zhang Yue in Boao and Peng Yining in Beijing(China Daily)

Activities seeking "Taiwan independence" have no chance of succeeding, Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday.

"The blood relations between people on both sides of the Straits cannot be cut off," he said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.

Li made the remarks during his meeting with Vincent Siew, honorary chairman of the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation.

He added that the mainland will remain committed to peaceful development of cross-Straits relations and will uphold the 1992 Consensus.

Xinhua News Agency quoted Li as saying that "everything is discussable" on the premise that both sides acknowledge the 1992 Consensus, which says both the mainland and Taiwan are parts of one China.

Siew, attending the forum for the 10th time, said he is looking forward to improving economic exchanges and cooperation between the two sides on the basis of peaceful development in recent years.

Li said businesspeople from the mainland and Taiwan have been the participants, promoters and biggest beneficiaries of cross-Straits exchanges, and can also directly sense how precious and important peaceful development is.

"The success of peaceful development should be enjoyed by both sides and also protected by both sides," Li said, adding that policies toward Taiwan have been consistent and clear and will not change because of political changes on the island.

Ni Yongjie, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of Taiwan Studies, said that after being elected in January as Taiwan's new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, has not clearly revealed her stance on the 1992 Consensus.

In a recent interview, Tsai said the mainland should "show more goodwill" before May 20, when she is scheduled to take office.

Zhang Zhijun, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said upholding the 1992 Consensus is the mainland's principle, and also shows goodwill.

"We want an answer on how cross-Straits relations stand," he said in an interview while attending the Forum on Thursday, adding that people can only see the future of these relations when this question is answered clearly.

"Cross-Straits relations have entered a critical phase," he said. "Now the ball is in Taiwan's court."

Contact the writer at pengyining@chinadaily.com.cn
Former senior Shanxi leader admits guilt Updated: 2016-03-25 08:05 By Xinhua in Nanjing(China Daily)

A former senior official in Shanxi province pleaded guilty on Thursday to taking bribes worth 44.58 million yuan ($6.8 million). Nie Chunyu, former secretary-general of the Communist Party of China Shanxi Provincial Committee, accepted the bribes from 37 people in return for helping secure promotions for them or favor for their companies, according to the indictment from the Nantong People's Procuratorate in Jiangsu province.

Nie was ousted from the Party in February last year after an internal probe found he accepted bribes and committed adultery.

The court did not announce the verdict immediately after the trial, which was open to the public and journalists.
Growing army of engineers helps China gain the upper hand Updated: 2016-03-26 00:05 By Andrew Moody(China Daily USA)

Max von Zedtwitz believes the Chinese could be the first to cure cancer. Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily

Max von Zedtwitz believes the Chinese may not only be the first to land a man on Mars, but also the first to cure cancer.

The managing director of GLORAD, a research and development think tank, said the sheer number of science and engineering graduates being churned out by Chinese universities could dramatically speed up the process of innovation.

While it took 200 years to move from the steam engine to the Internet, there could be major breakthroughs in what are now considered frontiers of science in just a matter of decades, he said.

"Innovation is to some extent a numbers game. If you just have one idea per 1,000 people, then a country that has a 1.4 billion population is going to have an advantage over anyone else."

Von Zedtwitz, who was speaking in the business lounge of the Sofitel Wanda Hotel in Beijing, had come from the United States to promote his new book, Created in China: How China is Becoming a Global Innovator, which he co-wrote with Georges Haour, a professor of technology and innovation management at the IMD Business School in Switzerland.

Although now based in San Francisco, the 46-year-old Swiss is no stranger to China, with GLORAD being partly based in Shanghai, and he has spent a large part of the past decade as associate professor of innovation management at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

"What we wanted to get across in the book was the impact of all the agents and actors involved in innovation in China, including the government, the education system and the companies. Outside China, all the focus is on the big companies like Huawei and Alibaba that are global leaders, but what is not always seen is the role smaller companies are now playing in innovation."

The book points out that China is to increase fivefold the proportion of GDP it devotes to innovation from 0.5 percent in 1995 to 2.5 percent by 2020. This will involve the need for 3.7 million scientists working in research and development. The figure is the same as the European level, 2 percent  even though the EU set a target of 3 percent in 2007.

This has resulted in a 17 percent annual increase in patents since 2005, with applications reaching 2 million in 2014, three times as many as that of the United States, although importantly, a smaller proportion relates to higher-quality invention patents.

Currently, 31 percent of undergraduate degrees in China are in engineering compared with 5 percent in the US, and by 2030 the country aims to have 200 million college graduates.

"There is definitely a race going on, and I don't think the West has actually caught up with the severity of that race. China is opening up a new international front in the area of innovation. Because people matter so much in the race, the more people you have, the better you are at it."

Von Zedtwitz believes one of the cutting-edge areas could be in finding a cure for cancer.

"Cancer is a big issue in China because of fears of the impact of the environment on people's health. Because of the size of the country's population, many more people are going to be dying of cancer in China than anywhere else.

"There are also going to be a lot of resources devoted in China to diseases that affect older people such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and cardiovascular illnesses because China's population is aging fast. I think medical technology will be a cutting-edge area for China."

Von Zedtwitz said it would be wrong to expect instant breakthroughs because the lead time for scientific development can often be between 30 and 40 years.

He cited Tu Youyou, the Chinese pharmacist who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine last year for developing the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. She began work in this area in the late 1960s, but the drug only became available in the middle of the last decade, eventually saving millions of lives.

"A breakthrough discovery generally takes about 30 years, certainly in terms of bringing it to market. So what we are doing now in terms of research and development might not have any impact until 2046."

Many believe that China is likely to be the first to land a man on Mars by, according to some estimates, 2060. The return journey is expected to take at least 21 months.

"I wouldn't be surprised if China gets there first. Those who go may have to do so without the prospect of coming back. Even I, if I was 20 years older with 10 or 15 years left to live, might want to go and live on Mars. Why not?"
Ancient Chinese 'Warriors' return to Bogota Updated: 2016-03-25 08:07 By Xinhua in Bogota, Colombia(China Daily)

Terracotta Warrior models on exhibit in Bogota, Colombia, look so genuine that many visitors take them as the real ones in China.

Gustavo Marquez, a 58-year-old Colombian lawyer, was one of the visitors puzzled by the Terracotta Warriors replicas, which are creations by the Chinese sculptor Xia Nan.

Marquez, along with his wife and daughters, toured the exhibition - the Lanterns of the Terracotta Warriors - when it opened on March 13.

The show, part of the 15th Iberoamerican Theater Festival, is scheduled to close on March 27 in the Colombian capital.

This is the second time in 10 years that the ancient Chinese Warriors set foot in Colombia.

In 2006, six real Terracotta Warrior statues from the ancient tomb-turned museum near the northwestern Chinese city of Xi'an were exhibited in Bogota's National Museum, attracting roughly 220,000 visits.

Marquez, who had visited the 2006 exhibition, said he thought the captivating exhibits were the real Terracotta Warriors before he realized they were replicas made with wire and cloth.

A big distinction is that each of the replicas contains electric devices which flash in red, yellow, blue, green and white when turned on.

Fascinated by the lanterns, Marquez said, "We appreciate the culture of this Asian country and hope to see more such cultural exchanges between Latin America and China."

Discovered in 1974 and dating back to the Qin Dynasty of over 2,000 years ago, the archaeological complex home to the Terracotta Warriors is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The site houses 8,000 life-size warrior statues left by China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang who reigned in the 3rd century BC.

The Terracotta Warrior lanterns, created to mark the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, have been touring the world since 2012. They have been to Britain, Finland, Estonia, Australia, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

(China Daily 03/25/2016 page11)
Sharing info 'key' to terror fight Updated: 2016-03-24 11:07 By Chris Peterson and Reuters in London(China Daily USA)

With Europe facing a fresh terror threat after three bomb blasts killed at least 34 people and injured about 270 in the Belgian capital on Tuesday, analysts agreed that sharing intelligence was at the heart of combating extremist groups such as Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels attacks.

Anthony Glees, a professor at the University of Buckingham in London and director of its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, told China Daily that Belgium's divided society made it easy for terror groups to slip into that country unnoticed.

He said the Brussels attacks on the main airport and a rush-hour subway train came as no surprise, given last week's arrest in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the November terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Security analysts said the perpetrators of the Paris attacks were traced back to Molenbeek, an area of Brussels with a heavy immigrant population - many from Syria, Iraq and North African countries. Abdeslam had fled from France to Molenbeek.

The ease with which Abdeslam and others were able to cross the border between France and Belgium - until now free of controls because of the Schengen Agreement, which established open borders - was also a factor.

Glees said there were doubts about the effectiveness of communication between Belgian intelligence services and the police.

Belgium's chief prosecutor named two brothers on Wednesday as Islamic State suicide bombers but said another key suspect was on the run.

The Belgian federal prosecutor told a news conference that Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 29, one of two men who blew themselves up at Brussels airport on Tuesday, had left a will on a computer dumped in a rubbish bin near the militants' hideout.

His brother Khalid El Bakraoui, 27, detonated a bomb an hour later on a crowded rush-hour metro train near the European Commission headquarters, prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said.

Both men, born in Belgium, had criminal records for armed robbery but investigators had not linked them to Islamist militants until Abdeslam's arrest.

The terrorist attacks in Europe have refocused attention on the seemingly unchecked flow of migrants arriving in Europe via Turkey and Greece. Intelligence analysts said some of those involved in attacks over the past 18 months have used that route to infiltrate the EU and take advantage of the Schengen Area.

More than 1 million migrants, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, are now in Europe.

"The difficulty is that those who want to cause trouble are already in Europe, and the security services, especially in Belgium, struggle to keep track of them," said a British expert in asylum affairs who requested anonymity.

The attacks came at a particularly crucial time for the United Kingdom, which will vote on continued European Union membership in a national referendum on June 23.

Current polls indicate that people wanting to remain in the EU are leading. However, those in favor of leaving the EU said the attacks could swing the vote in their favor, citing increased security and less exposure to Europe-based terror attacks as reasons.

Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily USA 03/24/2016 page1)
Direct link boosts Sino-Russian ties Updated: 2016-03-25 08:05 By An Baijie(China Daily)

An unprecedented communication mechanism set up between China and Russia two years ago has functioned well in boosting bilateral ties, senior officials from both countries agreed on Thursday.

Li Zhanshu, director of the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that since the office established the direct discussion mechanism with the Russian Presidential Administration, the two nations had made many efforts to promote friendship.

Li was commenting while meeting with visiting Russian Presidential Administration Chief Sergei Ivanov, who is also the country's former defense minister.

The discussion mechanism was established following suggestions by President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is the first framework of its kind established by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the administration of a foreign country.

China wants to work with Russia to deepen bilateral cooperation and strengthen friendship, said Li, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The bureau has 25 members, including the Chinese president and premier.

Li said he had been deeply impressed by the reception he received while visiting Moscow in March last year. He had talks with Putin during the visit.

During the meeting, the two sides signed an agreement to boost cooperation.

Ivanov agreed with Li's comments, adding that the two agencies have established a friendly relationship with mutual trust.

In July 2014, while meeting with Ivanov in Beijing, Li said that establishing direct ties between the general office of the CPC Central Committee and its Russian counterpart would produce more direct contact between the top leaders of both nations.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 03/25/2016 page3)
Outsiders spread misgivings Updated: 2016-03-25 08:04 (China Daily)

Premier Li Keqiang (third from right) poses with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chanocha (third from left), Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (second from right), Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong (second from left), Myanmar Vice President Sai Mauk Kham (right) and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh (left) at a welcoming ceremony on Tuesday before the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders' Meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, in Sanya, Hainan province. WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY

The Sanya Declaration and a joint statement on capacity cooperation issued at the conclusion of the first leaders' meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework in Sanya, Hainan province in South China, on Wednesday are expected to act as the political guidelines and road map for sub-regional cooperation between China and the other countries concerned.

Strengthened cooperation among countries in the Lancang-Mekong River Valley and effective use of common water resources can strengthen regional ties. Yet they should be alert to intervention from other countries seeking to sow discord among them.

Ever since China proposed the mechanism in 2014, non-regional countries such as the United States and Japan have been trying to create such discord by suggesting that China is a major power that not only controls the upper reaches of the Mekong River, called the Lancang in China, but also possesses the economic and political power to dominate regional cooperation. Beijing, they claim, could influence the other parties to the regional cooperation mechanism and even seek to "control" them through it.

True, a country in the upper reaches of a river usually has certain geographic advantages. But China's recent release of water from its dam on the Lancang-Mekong River to help some countries in the lower reaches fight drought best testifies to its positive role.

The exaggeration of "China's dominant role" by the US and Japan is aimed at creating misgivings about China among Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. However, China is a staunch believer in multilateral cooperation and promotes cooperation based on equality. As such, it will never exercise its influence to seek a dominant role.

The US and Japan are worried about the LMC, while those countries are not. The LMC is a cooperation initiative started by all the members to boost regional economic development and strengthen mutual friendship. Non-regional parties should stop trying to force their own ideas upon them.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. On the occasion of the former Prime Minister, state and political figure Andranik Margaryans death anniversary, President Serzh Sargsyan, accompanied by high ranking officials, visited the Komitas Pantheon to pay tribute to the memory of Andranik Margaryan, "Armenpress" was informed by the Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of the Presidential Administration.




Tourism year kicked off by Washington, Beijing Updated: 2016-03-01 10:53 By Su Zhou in Beijing and Amy He in New York(China Daily)

Li Jinzao, chairman of the China National Tourism Administration (center), US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Bruce Andrews (second from left) and Max Baucus, US ambassador to China (right), attend the opening ceremony of the US-China Tourism Year 2016 in Beijing on Monday.[Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

Official hopes trips between nations will total more than 5 million during 2016

China and the United States launched the US-China Tourism Year 2016 at a ceremony in Beijing on Monday.

The tourism year was announced by President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama during Xi's state visit to the United States in September.

It aims to increase travel and tourism between the countries by enhancing the travel experience, increasing travelers' cultural understanding and expanding the appreciation of natural landscapes.

Li Jinzao, chairman of the China National Tourism Administration, passed on Xi's wish to see more Americans in China.

"The shortest direct flight between China and the US takes 11 hours while the longest takes 16 hours. The Pacific Ocean does not prevent people from visiting each other," Li said. "In 2015, total bilateral visits surpassed 4.75 million. We hope the number will surpass 5 million this year."

Major events scheduled include one with 1,000 American tourists visiting the Great Wall, to be held at the wall's Jinshanling section in Hebei province on March 25; a tourism promotion in the US titled Beautiful China-Maritime Silk Road; a high-level China-US dialogue on tourism to be held in northwestern China's Ningxia autonomous region; and a grand closing ceremony at the end of the year.

China has become the fourth-largest source of foreign tourists for the US and is expected to become the largest by 2020.

In 2015, 2.5 million Chinese traveled to the US. The number is expected to hit 2.97 million in 2016. Chinese visitors spent $23.8 billion while in the United States in 2014, according to the US Department of Commerce, accounting for 57 percent of services exports to China.
Syngenta: ChemChina deal poses no food safety, security issues Updated: 2016-03-25 22:30 (China Daily)

Syngenta AG, responding to US lawmakers' concerns over the seed and pesticide giant's takeover by China National Chemical Corp, said the acquisition doesn't raise "any food safety or significant national security issues".

Switzerland-base Syngenta responded on Thursday after four senators representing farm states sent a letter to the US Treasury Department requesting that the Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) look at the proposed $43 billion deal's potential impact on the US food system.

The senators said that increased foreign control over important parts of US food production could create threats to domestic food security. Syngenta generates 27 percent of its sales in North America, according to the company.

Paul Minehart, a spokesman with Syngenta, said in a statement that the company would "welcome a full review" of the deal by the US government.

"We do not believe the proposed transaction raises any food safety or significant national security issues," he said. "The proposed combination with ChemChina is good for farmers and customers in the US and all over the world."

In their letter on Thursday, Senate Agriculture Committee members Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa, Debbie Stabenow from Michigan, and Sherrod Brown from Ohio requested a formal role for the US Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration in the CFIUS review.

The Syngenta acquisition was announced in February. It is the latest acquisition in the agriculture sector by a Chinese company after the 2013 purchase of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods. That deal was reviewed by CFIUS and other agencies and approved.
Experts hopeful on Xi-Obama talks Updated: 2016-03-25 11:50 By Chen Weihua in Washington(China Daily USA)

Experts hope that next week's bilateral meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama will help ease tensions over the South China Sea, a key area of contention between the two countries over the past few years.

Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong said in Beijing on Thursday that Xi will attend the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington from March 31 to April 1, including all the formal events.

Xi will deliver a keynote speech, expounding on China's policy and its latest measures and achievements in the nuclear security field and make proposals to strengthen the global nuclear security regime.

Li said Xi will hold bilateral talks with Obama, the first between the two leaders in 2016. He described the meeting as being of "profound significance in pushing forward the continued and steady development of the bilateral relationship".

The White House said in a statement on Thursday that the bilateral meeting will present an opportunity to advance US-China cooperation on a range of issues of mutual interest, while also enabling the two leaders to address areas of disagreement constructively.

"This will be Obama's only bilateral meeting during the summit, suggesting the importance of US-China leadership communications," said Douglas Paal, vice-president for studies and director of the Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Paal expects the South China Sea to be a major topic of the bilateral meeting. He said China has raised concerns over the new US announcement of facilities access in the Philippines and the potential deployment of a THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system in South Korea, while the US will seek a reiteration or clarification of Xi's declaration of no intent to militarize the Nansha Islands.

Paal said a security dilemma is developing between the big powers.

"This situation cries out for leaders to communicate and manage the rising tensions. Each side sees the other as at fault. Some signs of mutual restraint are required," Paal told China Daily on Thursday.

The US is the second stop on Xi's trip, which will first take him to the Czech Republic from March 28 to 30.

Jeffrey Bader, senior fellow of foreign policy at the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, described the bilateral meeting - Obama's only bilateral meeting with any of the 52 heads of state and government attending the nuclear security summit - as "a sign of respect for Xi and an indication of how important President Obama considers the US relationship with China."

Writing on the Brookings website, Bader said the meeting will come at a time of more than usual friction in the US-China relationship. He believes the meeting is likely to focus a good deal on the South China Sea. He said there is concern in Washington and the region about how China might react, beyond formal rejection, to a decision by the International Tribunal in April or May regarding the Philippine complaint on the Law of the Sea, challenging China's maritime claims.

China has long stated that it will not participate or accept such mandatory arbitration. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Washington last month that when China signed the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 10 years ago, it made the Article 298 declaration not to accept mandatory arbitration, a declaration that was also made by some 30 signatory nations including Britain, France and Russia. The US Congress has yet to ratify the UNCLOS.

It is expected that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will also be on the agenda. China has supported the UN Security Council resolution that imposes sanctions on Pyongyang. China has also called on all sides to refrain from taking actions that further raise tensions there. The US and South Korea are holding their largest-ever joint military exercises, with 17,000 American and 300,000 South Korea troops.

China has called for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks and proposed a parallel approach for the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapons program while the US and South Korea agree to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK to replace the 1953 armistice treaty.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
USDA review of Syngenta deal sought Updated: 2016-03-25 11:50 By Paul Welitzkin in New York(China Daily USA)

Political headwinds in Washington may be circling China National Chemical Corp's proposed $43 billion acquisition of Swiss agriculture company Syngenta AG after a US senator from a major farm state suggested the US examine any potential food safety concerns from the transaction.

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, a Republican member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said a bipartisan group of senators would seek a formal role for the US Agriculture Department as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) carries out a national security review of the China National (ChemChina)-Syngenta deal.

Lawmakers want food security and safety implications analyzed, Grassley said in a Wall Street Journal story published on Thursday. Grassley said he was concerned about the increasing consolidation in the seed industry and what that meant for Iowa farmers. But a ChemChina acquisition of Syngenta would also give China even more control over the global market for genetically modified corn, soybean and other seeds than it already has, he said.

In a radio interview broadcast on Wednesday, Grassley said he was concerned that state-owned ChemChina's bid for Syngenta would give Beijing ownership of a vital part of the US agricultural infrastructure.

"Because the food and agriculture sectors are part of the nation's critical infrastructure this merger raises questions about the potential national security implications," he told an Iowa radio station

Earlier this month, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said he had reservations about the transaction and its impact on US competitors trying to get into the Chinese market.

CFIUS is tasked with reviewing foreign acquisitions of US companies and consists of representatives from 16 agencies, including Treasury, Homeland Security and Defense. Grassley's comments are part of a growing trend among some US lawmakers to have CFIUS play an expanded role in reviewing transactions, particularly from China.

CFIUS has never rejected a deal on the grounds of food security. Nevertheless, it will be subjected to an obligatory 75-day review because ChemChina is state-owned.

Although based in Switzerland, Syngenta is the biggest seller of pesticides in North America, from where it gets nearly a quarter of its revenue, and a major seller of seeds. Its US headquarters are in North Carolina, and it has other facilities in several states, including California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska and Minnesota.

Michael Wessel, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said there are food safety risks for the US to consider in the ChemChina-Syngenta deal.

"The potential risks to US food safety from the Syngenta transaction send a strong signal that the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) needs to be integrated into CFIUS's review of this transaction. Syngenta's leading role in the seed-technology sector requires a thorough review. Food security is a national security issue," Wessel wrote in an e-mail.

However, David Miller, director of research and commodity services for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, doesn't believe a change in ownership should raise food-safety issues.

"Syngenta is a European-based company and changing their base of ownership to China should not lead to changes in their food-safety protocols," Miller said in an e-mail.

Syngenta Chairman Michael Demare noted that his company was not required to file for a CFIUS review but did so in accordance with good corporate governance principles.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com
Yum to sell stake in China outlets Updated: 2016-03-25 11:50 By Heng Weili in New York(China Daily USA)

Yum Brands Inc is in talks to sell a minority stake in its China operations, with a spinoff expected later this year, according to published reports.

Yum, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is having discussions with private equity firms, including KKR & Co LP, Baring Private Equity Asia and Hopu Investments. Hopu, based in China, was co-founded by former Goldman Sachs banker Fang Fenglei.

A spinoff is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and Yum China would list on the New York Stock Exchange or in Hong Kong.

Yum, based in Louisville, Kentucky, has more than 7,000 KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China. Earlier this month, Yum announced it would open its first Taco Bell in China (in Shanghai) by the end of the year.

Yum hopes to eventually have up to 20,000 restaurants on the Chinese mainland. The China division comprised 7,176 restaurants at the end of 2015. The China business could be worth around $10 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited sources familiar with the situation.

Yum announced in October that it would break off its China unit, following concerns about food safety.

"We continue to make good progress since we announced the transaction separating Yum and Yum China," a Yum spokesperson told Retuers. "We will provide updates on the transaction at appropriate times, and we won't comment on rumors or speculation."

Yum, which opened a KFC in Beijing in 1987, was the first major Western fast-food company to enter China.

The new China business would pay Yum for branding rights to KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

A Financial Times article posited that foreign companies are declining in popularity in China.

"Yum's China business is struggling," the article says. "Growth has become dependent upon new stores, rather than higher productivity at each store."

That story also said that consumption of carbonated beverages and Western fast food has dropped by 20 percent in China since 2012.

Shares of Yum closed at $79.35 on Thursday, down $1.20.

hengweili@chinadailyusa.com
Boston City Council President Michelle Wu meets with a constituent. provided to china daily

Harvard grad Michelle Wu is city's first Asian-American council president

When Michelle Wu walks into a room and meets people for the first time, they often ask her which elected official she works for.

Wu, 31, is the first Asian American, first woman of color and third woman to become president of Boston's City Council in its 106-year history.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, she is also the first Chinese American and first female Asian-American city councilor, as well as the youngest current member.

Wu was born and raised in Chicago, where her parents immigrated to from Taiwan. Both sides of her grandparents are from the Chinese mainland. Her father's side is from Beijing and mother's is from Sichuan and Guangdong. Wu has been learning Mandarin and about traditional Chinese culture since being a child, and she is fluent in Mandarin.

As she was growing up, Wu said she was a typical Asian-American girl - shy and obedient. She played piano and the violin, studied hard and got a scholarship to Harvard, where she started as a pre-med student because she knew her mother wanted one of her four children to be a doctor.

In her spare time, she volunteered in Boston's Chinatown to teach citizenship classes. Later, Wu switched to an economics major at Harvard and eventually took a job as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.

Soon after graduation, Wu at the age of 22 found herself as the caretaker of her mother, who had begun struggling with mental illness, and two sisters. Her parents divorced, so she left her job and returned to Chicago.

To support the family, she opened a 25-seat tea house, but only dealing with the city council for months to get a permit. The tea house served loose leaf tea and Chinese dumplings and hosted poetry readings and open mic nights.

"When I saw what my mom went through, something that changed her life so quickly and permanently, it really made me understand how limited time is, and that if you want to make a difference, you should try to do it as soon as you can," said Wu in an interview.

Her experience in Chicago of trying to open the tea house involved a lengthy process of delays and bureaucracy, all of which made her decide to pursue a career in city politics.

Wu returned to Boston with her mother and two sisters in 2009 and started at Harvard Law School.

During the first two years of study, she interned at City Hall, where she created a Restaurant Roadmap guide to opening a restaurant in Boston, and spearheaded the "Boston Food Truck Challenge", which led to three food trucks opening on City Hall Plaza. She also worked at a medical center where she provided legal services to low-income patients.

It was during her last year of law school that Wu learned how to campaign.
Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic given 40 years imprisonment Updated: 2016-03-25 09:59 (Xinhua)

Radovan Karadzic appears in court at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands in this July 11, 2013 file photo.[Photo/Agencies]

THE HAGUE -- Radovan Karadzic has been sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) here Thursday.

The former Bosnian Serb president was acquitted of the first count of genocide in several Bosnian municipalities as "there was not sufficient evidence for genocide without reasonable doubt in the municipalities," the judge stated.

Karadzic was found guilty for the genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995, in which over 7,000 Muslim men were killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

"As the President of the Republika Srpska and supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb army VRS, the accused was the sole person within the Republika Srpska with the power to intervene to prevent the Bosnian Muslim males from being killed," the judge said.

The trial chamber concluded that Karadzic shared with commander Ratko Mladic and others the intent that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed, which amounts to the intent to destroy the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica as such.

In addition, Karadzic was found guilty of five counts of crimes against humanity (persecutions, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts) and four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war (murder, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians, taking of hostages).

As a result, the former supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces and president of the Republika Srpska was held responsible for the deaths of thousands, including the lost lives during the Siege of Sarajevo between April 1992 and November 1995.

Over 150 relatives of victims were present at the ruling with banners to remember the genocide of Srebrenica.

"I am not satisfied," survivor Fikret Alic, whose picture behind barbed wire shocked the world in 1992, said.

Kada Hotic, vice-president of the victims organization "Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves," was also disappointed. "He got a verdict like a normal soldier. I am really hurt by this. I am a mother, lost my only son in Srebrenica, and all my male relatives were killed as well."

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who had demanded life in prison for Karadzic, later said: "Justice has been served. The truth established by this judgment will stand against continuing attempts at denying the suffering of thousands and the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia."

Karadzic himself had hoped for total acquittal and his legal adviser Peter Robinson announced they would appeal the verdict. "President Karadzic was disappointed and astonished by the verdict," Robinson said.
Walk for peace: British couple on 138-day trek in South America Updated: 2016-03-25 16:27 By Song Wei(chinadaily.com.cn)

Lord Michael Bates (center, front row, in blue T-shirt) and Xuelin Bates (left to Lord Michael) are pictured with friends and guests at 2016 Walk for Truce Press Conference in London, March 24, 2016. [Photo by Song Wei/chinadaily.com.cn]

London - A British couple will soon embark on a 138-day walking trip in South America in a bid to call for truce during the upcoming Rio Olympics.

Lord Michael Bates, 54, who stepped down from his previous job as the Minister of State at the Home Officein order to undertake the walk, will start from Buenos Aires on April 6 with his Chinese-born wife Li Xuelin.

The 3,000-kilometer journey will take the pair from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and all the way to the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, on August 22, when the summer Olympic Games come to an end.

The Olympic truce was set up for the ancient Olympic Games. It wasnt just a part of the ancient Games; it was the entire point of it, said Lord Michael.

What we want to do is to encourage all the 180 countries who have signed up to the Olympic truce at the UN to do just one thing to implement the truce, the former politician said.

Lord Michael cited Brazil as a good example for it is so far the only country that has a Transformer Program using places such as schools to encourage people to play against each other.

Unveiling the plans at a news conference in London on Thursday, Lord Michael said they also expect to raise 250,000 (2.29 million yuan) for United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) along the trip.

Lord Michael began walking 4,693 kilometers from Olympia in Greece to London on April 22, 2011, to bring the Olympic truce into reality during the 2012 London Summer Games. The journey lasted 300 days and covered 12 European countries.

It was during the walk in 2011 that he met Xuelin, and they got married in 2012. We vowed to each other to do our bit for peace on the day we got married, and we set up Walk for Truce fund on that day, Xuelin said.

From then on, we decided to do something meaningful instead of spending time on seaside when Michael takes his two-and-a-half-month holiday as a member of the Parliament.

In 2013, the couple hiked from London to Northern Ireland to raise money for the war-torn Syrian children.

The following year, they walked from London to Berlin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWI.

In 2015, in order to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the World Anti-fascist War, the pair spent 71-day walking trail in China covering six provinces from Beijing to East Chinas Hangzhou city.

Xuelin is a fantastic support, said Lord Michael. She always goes ahead to plan the way and stays behind to pay the bills.
Liang apologizes to Gurley relative Updated: 2016-03-25 11:50 By Hezi Jiang in New York(China Daily USA)

The day after the Brooklyn district attorney recommended no prison time for Peter Liang - the former New York City police officer convicted of manslaughter in the death of Akai Gurley - Liang apologized to the mother of Gurley's daughter.

Liang met with Kimberly Ballinger, the mother of Gurley's 3-year-old daughter, Akaila, on Thursday morning at the district attorney's office in downtown Brooklyn.

"Peter has wanted to apologize for a long time," his attorney Paul Shechtman told China Daily. He said the meeting was brief and simple because both Liang and Ballinger are "people of few words".

Shechtman said Liang said he was "very sorry" for her loss, and that "it was a very difficult year for me, but it must be harder for you and your family".

Ballinger's lawyer Scott Rynecki told the New York Post that her client wanted Liang to know how his actions had affected her and her daughter's life.

"At the end, they shook hands," Shechtman said.

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson issued a statement on Wednesday saying that he had recommended that Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun sentence Liang to five years of probation with six months of home confinement and 500 hours of community service, instead of jail time.

Liang, now 28, discharged his gun in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project in November 2014. The ricocheted bullet fatally struck Gurley on a lower floor.

Thompson stated that there was no evidence that Liang intended to kill or injure Akai Gurley, and Liang poses no future threat to public safety, so that incarceration is not necessary.

"Although we disagree with Mr. Thompson on the fundamental issue of Peter's culpability, he deserves praise for his dispassionate and courageous decision that incarceration is not called for in this case," Shechtman and Liang's other attorney, Gabriel Chin, said in a statement.

"No prison is the first step. The ultimate goal is to set aside the conviction on all charges," said Eddie Chiu, director of the Lin Sing Association. The fraternal club in Chinatown has raised more than $350,000 for Liang's legal fees.

"We have to keep up with our effort," Chiu said. "The district attorney's changed attitude proves that the new lawyers and petitions and protests made a difference."

"We will keep applying for protests and signing petitions," said Wu Yiping, who has reached out to thousands of Chinese across the US through Chinese social media app WeChat to support the Chinese-American officer. "We want to clean up the charges. An accident does not equal crime."

The Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association will place an open letter to Justice Chun in a full-page ad in The New York Times on March 26.

While Liang's supporters were unaffected by Thompson's statement, Gurley's family was "outraged at District Attorney Thompson's inadequate sentencing recommendation", according to a statement issued by Gurley's aunt, mother and stepfather.

"This sentencing recommendation sends the message that police officers who kill people should not face serious consequences," they wrote.

hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com
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YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Moscow cannot accept accusations of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev who said some co-chairmen of the Minsk group were "contributing to freezing the conflict by their destructive activity," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on March 24, Armenpress reports, citing TASS.



"We cannot accept it as directed towards us, as we have proved ourselves as a longstanding and constructive participant in the process of negotiations and it seems to me that the genuineness of our aims has been proved," the spokeswoman said of the Minsk group co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States.

She said that along with the Azerbaijani and Armenian parties, Russia was seeking "the settlement of this very difficult situation, which has for many years been the biggest problem in bilateral relations".

"We want very much to see this problem finally removed from the agenda," she said, adding that this should be done "on the basis of international law, equality and respect for the sides".








YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Twelve people have been killed when the minibus they were travelling in collided with a heavy truck late on March 24 in central France, Armenpress reports, citing The Guardian, local authorities said.

The minibus was travelling from Switzerland to Portugal when the accident happened on a major route passing through Montbeugny in the department of Allier just before midnight.

The 12 passengers of the minibus, who were all Portuguese, are dead, a statement from the local authority said.

The youngest victim was a girl of about 12, local government official David Delavoet told France Info.

The minibus had swerved into the path of oncoming traffic and collided head-on with the truck, officials said.

The driver of the minibus and the two Italian drivers of the truck survived the crash with minor injuries, the local authority said.

An initial inquiry said the minibus driver was not under the influence of alcohol, and police have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

Nearly 60 firefighter, six ambulances and 20 police and highway officials were sent to the scene, where a local village hall was turned into a temporary morgue.

The road, route nationale 79, has been closed following the accident, and was expected to remain shut until 6am local time on Friday.

Le Monde reported that the road  la route Centre-Europe Atlantique (RCEA), which runs east to west across the country  is considered one of the most dangerous in France.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS/Artsakhpress. Reporter of Artsakhpress met the Armenian philanthropist Levon Hayrapetyan in one of the Moscow hospitals where he receives intensive treatment. Despite serious problems with health, Mr. Hayrapetyan kept his promise to give an interview to "Artsakhpress".

-Mr. Hayrapetyan, our first question is about your health condition. How are you?

- Healthleaves much to be desired. But the Armenian honor gives me strength to fight. Now I am receiving intensive treatment, I hope everything will be good.

- Let's talk about Karabakh. Do you maintain relations with Karabakh, with your birthplace Vank?

- I maintain relations with Karabakh every day. I feel happiness for every new born child, and feel sad for every lost life on border.

All the projects that I have begun in Vank village are still in process. Earlier constructed wood processing factory is working now. And the stone factory has been opened recently. With implemented and ongoing projects, 209 workplaces have been created for Vank and the neighboring villages. I have appointed people who are responsible for management of my economy and realization of the programs in Vank village. They also inform me about the news of my birthplace. I have also created an appropriate source for financing these projects.

-We know, there are many programs in Artsakh in process of implementation. Are there any new projects, ideas that you are going to realize?

- There are a lot of projects. In particular, I am trying to build a hippodrome in Vank. For this purpose, from the Netherlands and England we have brought nearly 50 horses of Artsakh breed. The project of the creation of hunting economy is also in process, which aims to promote the development of tourism. Paying respective state fees, tourists will have an opportunity to poach in forests where hunting is prohibited, and various wild animals have bred.

Prosperity and strengthening of Artsakh is our task, and I'm sure that day will come soon.

 You have carried out numerous projects in Artsakh, deserving love and gratitude of the Artsakh people. What do you consider your main contribution and achievement in Artsakh? What did you give and receive from your homeland?

I would say that everything that I have done for my homeland is important for me, as it was also an infectious example for many people. During the Karabakh war, I have undertaken restoration of the Gandzasar monastery .People often said that I was engaged in useless work, since a few kilometers far from there a war was being gone on. But my goal was to inspire people, , because who starts construction works during war, believes in victory.

I always support my homeland with great pleasure. It was more blood call than internal demand. Patriotism is in my blood. I always felt a great sense of responsibility for holding the Armenian honor in respect, which was a landmark for me. I tried to ease my compatriots concerns and solve their problems, whether at home or in Diaspora .

- Excuse us, but we could not avoid the most painful theme for you and all of us - lawsuit initiated against you. What should we expect?

I do not want to talk much about it, as we discussed it for many times. Currently, the trial is regularly postponed because of my health condition. I cannot control my emotions when a lot of Armenian families, who do not even know me personally, follow the lawsuit, are interested in my health, sincerely sympathize with me. It gives me strength to be proud every day, to love, miss and live.

I just want to mention that I really want justice to triumph ... I hope it will be so, and I will return to Artsakh, where I have many projects to implement.

This year Artsakh will celebrate the 25th anniversary of declaration of independence. All these years you have supported Artsakh. We would like to hear your congratulations.

I wish to congratulate all Armenians, especially the Artsakh people on the 25th anniversary of Independence. You know, the Armenian people had dreamed of independence for a long time, and during the Artsakh liberation war we have unprecedented success in our history. A country with a population of 125 thousand defeated a country with a population of 7 million. Of course, all the Armenians were unanimously fighting, but the major blow directly was on the people living in Artsakh, who is very talented and has earned the right to build a prosperous and dignified future in the homeland of his ancestors.

Interview by Vahram Poghosyan
HCM City, March 25 (VNA) - The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was concluded in early February, will bring opportunities to Vietnam's businesses, especially those in the textile, garment and footwear sectors, but also barriers that they need to navigate to benefit, experts have said.



Nguyen Cong Ai, partner of auditing firm KPMG, told participants at a seminar titled "TPP and the Textile, Apparel and Footwear Sectors" held by the Vietnam Investment Review in HCM City on March 24 that Vietnam currently depends too much on imports of raw materials.



"It is estimated that 60-70 percent of inputs are imported, predominantly from China, the Republic of Korea and Chinese Taiwan," he said, pointing out that imports from China account for 48 percent of the textile industry's feedstock.



The industry can source only 2 percent of its cotton needs locally and 12.5 percent of fabrics, and the quality is inconsistent, he said.



Another challenge is the weakness in design, he said, explaining that Vietnamese textile and garment companies are mostly subcontractors for other firms in the region because they do not have the ability to design and develop their own brands.



"Only 2-3 percent of Vietnam's exports is of ODM (original design manufacturing)," he said, referring to products completely made by producers from the design to the finished stage.



The sector's productivity is low at a third of Hong Kong's and a fourth of China's, detracting from its competitiveness, he said, pointing out that Vietnamese garments are 15-30 percent more expensive than the global average.



Weak marketing and distribution worsen the problem, he said.



In the footwear sector, the local content is no more than 45 percent, while it has to import 80-100 percent of leather, chemicals for tanning, soles and buckles, and synthetic rubber from Chinese Taiwan, China, Thailand, and Brazil, he said.



The tanning industry can meet only 10 percent of the demand and operates at 25 percent capacity due to a shortage of materials, he said.



The industry shares the weaknesses of the textile and garment sector with respect to design, marketing and distribution, he said.



He suggested that link between companies in the value chain should be promoted through planning and developing industrial clusters specialising in textile and garment and footwear.



The two sectors should increase investment in producing feedstock, weaving and dyeing, he said.



Supporting industries, especially domestic companies in them, should be provided easy access to credit, he said.



They need to adopt modern technologies to improve design capacity thus add value to their products, he added.



Nguyen Mai, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises, agreed with Ai, saying the textile and garment and footwear associations should strengthen co-operation among their members and help set up specialised industrial parks.



He called on the Government to facilitate the parks and support businesses facing difficulties.



Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong said TPP countries account for 40 percent of global GDP and 30 percent of trade, meaning the deal would bring plenty of opportunities as new supply chains are formed.



"Joining the TPP will give Vietnam the chance to upgrade its investment and business environment, attract foreign investment, speed up its restructuring process and shift its growth model.



"The country will also have more opportunities to spur economic growth and the associated benefits of the partnership will help raise Vietnam's competitiveness and, importantly, boost exports."



Vietnam has around 6,000 companies in the textile and garment industry that employ more than 2.5 million workers. Last year exports were worth 27 billion USD, or 16.6 percent of the country's total exports.



It was the world's sixth largest garment exporter behind China, the EU, Turkey, Bangladesh, and India.



Footwear exports topped 12 billion USD, up 16.3 percent from 2014.

VNA/VNP
SEV will build a US$300-million research and development centre in Ha Noi.  Illustrative image/ Photo bizlive.vn

HA NOI (VNS)  Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has given his approval to Samsung Electronics Viet Nam (SEV) to build a US$300-million research and development centre in Ha Noi.

Covering an area of 3ha in the citys Hoang Mai District, the centre will have a 21-storey building and will employ 2,000 labourers in 2016 and 4,000 in the coming years, depending on its business results. SEV will develop hi-tech electrical, electronic and telecommunication products in the project.

The project will run rent-free for 50 years, and will be divided into three phases. It will invest $50 million in the 2016-17 period, $150 million in 2018 and $100 million in 2019. The centre is expected to become operational by 2019.

The PM asked the municipal Peoples Committee to conduct checks and to supervise the project.

The science and technology ministry is responsible for supervising SEVs human resource restructuring as well as other activities.

SEV has, in recent years, turned Viet Nam into one of its largest production hubs by investing nearly $15 billion in its complexes in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen provinces and in HCM City. Samsung secured the governments approval late last year to raise its investment in another electronics facility to touch $2 billion.

Its operations around the country include the assembly of smartphones and televisions. Smartphones and electronics products, largely made by Samsung, have surpassed garment and footwear products to become Viet Nams largest export earners. The value of smartphone exports rose 28 per cent last year to touch $30 billion, accounting for 18.6 per cent of Viet Nams total export revenue.

SEV had earlier asked for various incentives, such as exemption from paying land taxes for 50 years, site clearance costs, import tariffs on equipment and devices for the R&D centre, and customs clearing procedures. In addition, the annual personal income tax of employees at the centre will be cut by half.

The establishment of the R&D centre was an obligation of SEV so that the smartphone producer could enjoy incentives for its complexes in the northern provinces of Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen, the planning and investment ministry said in a report submitted to the PM.

The capitals government, meanwhile, has decided to use the citys budget to cover the infrastructure costs in the land plot where the centre will be built.

The expansion comes amid similar moves made by other electronics firms operating in Viet Nam, such as LG, Microsoft, Intel and Canon, besides Panasonic and Toshiba, helped by new free trade pacts and cheaper wages.

SEV has rented eight floors at PVI Tower for its R&D centre, named Vietnam Mobile Research and Development Centre (SVMC), which has 1,500 people. Last year, SVMC completed 10 software projects for the Southeast Asian market.

All the software was made by Vietnamese people.

We are eligible to work for all R&D centres of Samsung worldwide. Several employees at SVMC also worked for other Samsungs projects, o uc Dung, head of SVMCs project management office, told Viet Nam News.

SVMC is participating in the implementation of 360 projects, of which 40 are globally used solutions, while the remaining commercial software projects belong to the centre.

SVMC claims about 10 per cent of the market share of the software used in Samsungs smartphones and tablets globally.

SVMC is the largest research and development (R&D) centre in the Southeast Asian region. Samsung has 25 R&D centres, specialising in research for its phones worldwide.  VNS
By March 15, Viet Nam exported 1.1 million tonnes of rice.  Photo vinanet

HA NOI (VNS)  Local rice exporters have offered a higher export price due to price rise in the domestic market, thereby losing the advantage in the competitive world market, said experts.

Viet Nams rice exporters have increased prices between US$380 and $390 per tonne of 5 per cent broken rice, and between $365 and $375 per tonne of 25 per cent broken rice, while rice exporters in other regional countries have retained their current prices.

Nguyen Van on, director of Viet Nam Ltd Company in Tien Giang Province, said rice prices on the domestic market had been raised at frequent intervals recently because of the impact of El Nino to the Cuu Long River Delta region and the increased demand for rice in border regions, Vietnamplus reported.

As rice prices increased in the domestic market, the enterprises hiked the offer price for export rice by between $5 and $10 per tonne to between $365 and $390, but the prices were $10 to $20 higher than the acceptable buying price, and between $10 and $15 more than the export price of Thai rice, he said.

Huynh The Nang, chairman of Viet Nam Food Association (VFA), said Viet Nams rice export prices were much higher than average export price on the world market so Vietnamese rice has lost its sheen.

Now, as the price is rising, rice exporters will find it more difficult to sign contracts with high volumes, according to some exporters.

So, most exporters have purchased rice from the market to fulfil contracts that they signed before domestic prices increased. Some rice exporters could face losses because they signed contracts when prices were increasing in the domestic market, the association said.

By March 15, Viet Nam exported 1.1 million tonnes of rice, earning $475 million doubling volume and value against the same period last year, the association said.

The VFA anticipates that exports would reach 1.3 million tonnes in the first quarter, 56 per cent up from the same period last year. VNS
Sacks of cement at Hai Phong Cement Company. Domestic cement companies anticipate stiffer competition at home and in foreign markets.  VNA/VNS Photo Tuan Anh

HA NOI (VNS)  Domestic cement companies would face stiffer competition in consumption in markets at home and abroad in the future, experts said.

At present, the total capacity of all cement factories in Viet Nam is 81.5 million tonnes per year, according to the Ministry of Construction. This year, the local market was expected to consume between 75 million tonnes and 76 million tonnes of cement, which is 3 million tonnes more as compared to last year.

Therefore, the domestic cement producers would face over supply and that situation has forced the producers to seek solutions on selling more cement in markets at home and abroad.

In 2013 and 2014, it was a difficult period for all domestic producers as well as the local cement industry due to the impact of the frozen domestic real estate market. The cement industrys exports reached a record high at 21 million tonnes of cement in 2014, earning US$900 million.

However, the cement exports in 2015 dropped by 20 per cent year-on-year to 16.25 million tonnes. The reduction in exports was expected to continue this year, the ministry said.

According to Viet Nams General Department of Customs, the largest export market of Viet Nams cement was Bangladesh, but Viet Nams clinker exports to Bangladesh in 2015 also dropped by 30 per cent against 2014.

Le Van Toi, head of Building Material Department under the Ministry of Construction, said Viet Nams cement firms would face numerous difficulties in consumption this year due oversupply and high competitive pressure from foreign cement companies, especially in China and Thailand.

The pressure will occur when Viet Nam joins the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), according to experts of the cement industry.

Viet Nam has the largest cement industry in the ASEAN with 58 cement factories and a total capacity of 81 million tonnes of cement per year. Thailand has 11 cement factories with a total annual capacity at 46.7 million tonnes.

However, Thailand has exported an average 34 million tonnes of cement per year, while Viet Nam had a record export volume of 21 million tonnes of cement in 2014, 13 million lower than Thailands volume, the experts said.

In addition, Thailands cement entered the world market long time before Viet Nam, which started exporting cement and clinker from 2010 after many years of importing cement. Therefore, Viet Nams cement producers have still had a poor experience in exporting cement and attracting foreign importers.

More advantages of Thailands cement products on the world market include quality and quicker transport. Foreign importers have also preferred traditional partners such as Thailand, they said.

Viet Nams cement would also be competing with Chinese firms, the experts said, because total cement output in China reaches 670 million tonnes after a period of strong development in Chinas cement industry. Chinese cement factories could promote exports in the future.

Tran Viet Thang, general director of Viet Nam Cement Industrial Corporation, said sometimes, Viet Nams export price of cement was $10 per tonne higher than the Chinese cement, so the export of 25 million tonnes this year would be more difficult, the Tin tuc newspaper reported.

Therefore, if not exporting cement, many local enterprises could produce in moderation or even temporarily stop production, he said.

The enterprises should pay more attention to the local market but the market was expected to not see a sudden increase in consumption in the future, he said.

Director of Vicem Hoang Thachs Consumption and Service Enterprise Nguyen Anh Quan said that to deal with the pressure of competition in cement consumption, Vicem Hoang Thach, one of the leading cement enterprises in Viet Nam, has continued to expand its markets and also developed industrial cement products to balance consumption and production.  VNS
TPP will bring opportunities to Viet Nam's businesses, especially those in the textile, garment and footwear sectors.  VNA/VNS Photo Vu Sinh

HCM CITY  The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was concluded in early February, will bring opportunities to Viet Nams businesses, especially those in the textile, garment and footwear sectors, but also barriers that they need to navigate to benefit, experts have said.

Nguyen Cong Ai, partner of auditing firm KPMG, told participants at a seminar titled TPP and the Textile, Apparel and Footwear Sectors held by the Vietnam Investment Review in HCM City on Thursday that Viet Nam currently depends too much on imports of raw materials.

It is estimated that 60-70 per cent of inputs are imported, predominantly from China, South Korea and Taiwan, he said, pointing out that imports from China account for 48 per cent of the textile industrys feedstock.

The industry can source only 2 per cent of its cotton needs locally and 12.5 per cent of fabrics, and the quality is inconsistent, he said.

Another challenge is the weakness in design, he said, explaining that Vietnamese textile and garment companies are mostly subcontractors for other firms in the region because they do not have the ability to design and develop their own brands.

Only 2-3 per cent of Viet Nams exports is of ODM (original design manufacturing), he said, referring to products completely made by producers from the design to the finished stage.

The sectors productivity is low at a third of Hong Kongs and a fourth of Chinas, detracting from its competitiveness, he said, pointing out that Vietnamese garments are 15-30 per cent more expensive than the global average.

Weak marketing and distribution worsen the problem, he said.

In the footwear sector, the local content is no more than 45 per cent, while it has to import 80-100 per cent of leather, chemicals for tanning, soles and buckles, and synthetic rubber from Taiwan, China, Thailand, and Brazil, he said.

The tanning industry can meet only 10 per cent of the demand and operates at 25 per cent capacity due to a shortage of materials, he said.

The industry shares the weaknesses of the textile and garment sector with respect to design, marketing and distribution, he said.

He suggested that link between companies in the value chain should be promoted through planning and developing industrial clusters specialising in textile and garment and footwear.

The two sectors should increase investment in producing feedstock, weaving and dyeing, he said.

Supporting industries, especially domestic companies in them, should be provided easy access to credit, he said.

They need to adopt modern technologies to improve design capacity thus add value to their products, he added.

Prof Nguyen Mai, chairman of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises, agreed with Ai, saying the textile and garment and footwear associations should strengthen co-operation among their members and help set up specialised industrial parks.

He called on the Government to facilitate the parks and support businesses facing difficulties.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment ang Huy ong said TPP countries account for 40 per cent of global GDP and 30 per cent of trade, meaning the deal would bring plenty of opportunities as new supply chains are formed.

Joining the TPP will give Viet Nam the chance to upgrade its investment and business environment, attract foreign investment, speed up its restructuring process and shift its growth model.

The country will also have more opportunities to spur economic growth and the associated benefits of the partnership will help raise VNs competitiveness and, importantly, boost exports.

Viet Nam has around 6,000 companies in the textile and garment industry that employ more than 2.5 million workers. Last year exports were worth US$27 billion, or 16.6 per cent of the countrys total exports.

It was the worlds sixth largest garment exporter behind China, the EU, Turkey, Bangladesh, and India.

Footwear exports topped $12 billion, up 16.3 per cent from 2014.  VNS
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. 49-year-old Armenian citizen Dragos K. was beaten to death in his home by Hussein Y. in Istanbuls Fatih district, "Armenpress" reports citing the Turkish "Vatan" newspaper.

According to the police investigation, Dragos rented his house to Fatma Y., who is engaged in prostitution. The Armenian was killed by one of Fatmas clients.

Turkish police have arrested Fatma Y., Hussein Y. and Rasim B.
On trial: Apology of Socrates will stage tonight (March 25) at 8pm at Ha Noi Opera House. Free entrance. Please see our web-only preview at www.vietnamnews.vn

Better an hour of free life than forty year of slavery and prison

Thourios Poem Rigas Ferraios

Greeks are known for being men of passion, devoured by art, family, patriotism, freedom and justice. Through our history we have preferred to pull out of the security and comfort of our conventional wisdom, alerting us that nothing in this earth ought to be taken in a simplistic way, no matter how easy and pleasurable life would be if we did so.

I am honoured to celebrate the anniversary of Greek independence in Viet Nam.

Along with many other European friends and colleagues here in Ha Noi, I channel a great passion for our main assignment of serving and representing my beloved native country, Greece. I try to do it with the professionalism of a profound thinker with the often uncanny ability of articulating my deepest inner explorations with a square, near-mathematical precision of expression.

This is another attribute of Greece yet to be explored and exploited. I feel humble in writing these few words for the Greek Independence Day.

To understand Greece and its unique beauty, one should see it as an exercise of an outstanding performance, where the monologues are not enough and pure knowledge is required.

March 25 is both a national and religious holiday for Greece. The main message for all nations in the world is to keep up the love for our history and to discover ways of strengthening the education and the role of people.

I believe that education is necessary for the general prosperity in human values that will be the new Golden Age of Greece. VNS
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Le Hai Binh.  File Photo

HA NOI (VNS)  Viet Nam asks Taiwan to respect the countrys sovereignty and not to repeat any action that escalates tensions and complicates the situation in the East Sea, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Le Hai Binh said yesterday.

Binh made the statement in reply to reporters queries regarding Viet Nam s response to Taiwan s launch of a media tour of Ba Binh (Itu Aba) island in Viet Nam s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago on Wednesday.

Viet Nam has full legal foundations and historical evidence asserting its indisputable sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes, he said, adding that any action conducted by foreign countries in the two archipelagoes without Viet Nam s consensus is illegal and void.

Taiwan s organisation of the tour, despite concerns and objections raised by Viet Nam and the international community, violated Viet Nam s sovereignty, escalated tensions, and threatens peace and stability in the East Sea, as well as relations between the two sides.

Viet Nam vehemently objected to such deeds, demanding Taiwan participate in joint efforts to maintain peace and stability in the sea, according to Binh.

Seeking better conditions

On the same day, the Vietnamese embassy in Japan is working with the employers of Vietnamese workers there, to ask for improved living conditions and a review of housing rent to ensure their rights, said the Foreign Ministry.

The ministry made the announcement in response to a Vietnamese worker named Nguyen Quang Hung, who contacted the embassy for help regarding their employment conditions in Japan.

Following a working session with Freeasia House who signed labour contracts with the Vietnamese workers, the ministrys representatives on March 18 inspected sites where the employees are living and working.

In a separate incident, the Vietnamese embassy in Angola reported that Vietnamese workers Tran Xuan Hiep and Pham Van Phuc died of gastric haemorrhage and malaria on March 19 and 21.

Upon learning about the news, the Foreign Ministrys Consular Department worked with the Ha Tinh provincial Department of Foreign Affairs and guided the victims families about the necessary paperwork to bring their bodies back home.  VNS
Bus Number 7 connects Noi Bai Airport with the Kim Ma bus station in Ha Noi. Photo vneconomy.vn

HA NOI  The prime minister has approved the Ha Noi Peoples Committee plan for a new pilot passenger service connecting Noi Bai International Airport and the citys downtown area.

The prime minister has asked the transport ministry to coordinate and guide the citys Peoples Committee in implementing the project to ensure the safety, high quality and efficiency of the service.

The transport ministry has also been asked to study and finalise the regulations for this kind of transportation during the revision of Decree No 8/2014/N-CP on the business as well as conditions of doing business in transportation, ensuring consistency with relevant laws.

The non-subsidised service will give passengers more choice as the existing service has failed to attract local people or foreign visitors.

Currently, people can travel from Ha Nois centre to Noi Bai Airport by taxi, airline cars and buses.

Two bus services  bus numbers 7 and 17  connect Noi Bai Airport with the bus stations in Ha Noi. They run every 20 minutes, daily from 5am to 10pm. They take about an hour to arrive at their respective bus stations and the fare is VN9,000 (about US$0.4) per ride.

The bus is the cheapest mode of transportation, but not many people use it as it is always crowded and takes a lot of time.

Taxi is the most popular mode of transportation. However, it cannot carry many people and costs a lot of money.

Airlines such as Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar have their own buses. Though their buses are spacious and the tickets cost about VN40,000 (US$1.8), the buses stop at only certain stops.

It is estimated that thousands of people travel from the city centre to the airport every day. So, the new bus service will help improve the transport services.

On March 16, HCM City launched a new bus route connecting Tan Son Nhat International Airport and its downtown area.

The project has investment capital of more than VN20 billion (US$895,000).

The buses can carry up to 70 passengers each and run every 15 to 20 minutes between 5.30am and 1.30am. The fare for the service is VN20,000 (US$0.9) per journey of more than 5km and VN12,000 (US$0.5) for those under 5km.  VNS
All establishments that traditionally draw prostitution - hotels, bars, dance halls and massage parlors - will be relegated to a specific area in a pilot project issued by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on March 3 for 2016 to 2020.  Illustrative photo baodansinh.vn

HA NOI  Several provinces and cities where prostitution is popular were chosen for a pilot project that aims to prevent the crime and reduce its effects on the community.

The project is part of an anti-prostitution programme issued by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on March 3 for 2016 to 2020.

Under the pilot project, all establishments that traditionally draw prostitution - hotels, bars, dance halls and massage parlors - will be relegated to a specific area.

Le Van Quy, deputy director of the HCM City Social Evils Prevention Department, told Hai quan (Customs) newspaper that the relegation was necessary because it made the businesses easier to manage, and would help ensure public order and workers rights. All employees in the establishments would need to sign work contracts. The intent of the project was not to encourage prostitution, but to gradually eliminate it while supporting those in the line of work.

Social organisations would then help the prostitutes return to normal lives by giving them consultancy work and job introductions, he said.

Khuat Thu Hong, director of the Institute for Social Development Studies, said that other Asian countries such as South Korea and Thailand had been successful in setting up specific area for such businesses. With this model, prostitutes could receive medical services, have the right to refuse unprotected sex and be protected by the law if they were attacked.

When prostitution occurs behind closed doors in Viet Nam, the Government has no control over the spread of sexually transmitted infections such as HIV.

o Van Quan, a sociologist not affiliated with the project, said the provinces should collect taxes in the areas and register the businesses providing prostitution because we are forced to accept prostitutes, but not encourage these careers.

Agreeing with Quan, director Hong said that to run the pilot model, careful social, cultural and legal researches on the issue should be conducted.

As the projects co-ordinators learn, they should widen the model and use it in more provinces, she said.

The country also needed to create an itinerary to change related laws and policies, he said.  VNS
A man stands at a reservoir dried out by the drought in Central Highland Gia Lai Provinces Ia Grai District. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday asked the local administration to provide water and food for people in drought-stricken areas. VNA/VNS Photo Hoai Nam

HA NOI (VNS)  Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday asked for sufficient food and safe water for drought-stricken regions as he looked into the ongoing drought in Chu Puh and Chu Se districts of Gia Lai Province.

Deputy PM Phuc urged local authorities and relevant agencies to pay attention to disease prevention, seek appropriate crops to replace lost rice fields and take prompt measures to support affected residents. He affirmed that in the long term, the Government will oversee ministries and localities as they invest in irrigation and safe water facilities. The State will also fund research for new irrigation methods.

The official also called for unity among people during this difficult time.

Deputy PM Phuc, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao uc Phat and their entourage visited a 70ha rice field in Chu Don Commune, Chu Puh District, which was badly damaged by the unprecedented drought. The village chief briefed the officials on villagers difficulties. Water sources for cultivation had been severely depleted and safe water was hard to come by.

Phuc said local residents could shift to other crops that can adapt more easily to harsh weather.

About 13,000ha of rice, crops and other plants in Gia Lai Province have faced a shortage of water since the middle of this month, leaving 15,000 households in the province hungry.

On the same day, the delegation met with leaders from the Central Highlands Steering Committee, Gia Lai Province and Central Highlands provinces to address the drought and find solutions.

Mekong Delta supported

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment provided maps of underground fresh water for all thirteen Mekong Delta localities, aiming to facilitate their search for fresh water resources.

The ministry also asked the Department of Water Resources Management and the National Centre for Water Resources Planning and Surveys to give technical and personnel support, as well as equipment to aid them in their search.

The provinces departments are required to focus on drilling wells to ensure a steady supply of water to the regions residents, especially those living in areas hit hardest by water shortages.

The provinces of Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Ben Tre, Kien Giang, Long An, Tien Giang, Soc Trang and Ca Mau received grants of VN500 million (US$22,500) for the work.

The ministry is keeping a close eye on the development of El Nino and meteorological predictions to give advanced warnings about water flow in rivers and saltwater intrusion.

According to the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting, El Nino will continue to cause negative impacts in Viet Nam until the middle of this year.

Average temperatures in the Mekong Delta in the remaining months of this years dry season will be 0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than in previous years, with temperatures typically between 33 and 37 degrees Celsius. The rainy season is expected to arrive late, with average rainfall predicted to be 30 to 50 per cent lower than average.

The centre said saltwater intrusion has already reached alarming rates in Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces.  VNS
In a development that is likely to revive Islamabad's claims that New Delhi was stoking trouble in its border province of Balochistan, India today said the individual held by Pakistan security agencies in Balochistan has no links with the Government of India since his premature retirement from Indian Navy.

The response by India's came after Pakistan Foreign Secretary summoned India's High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale to lodge his country's protest over "subversive activities" of an alleged Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer.

"The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Friday identified the "official" as Kulbhushan Yadav, who he said was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). He said the man was contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan. Agency reports quoted unnamed sources to claim that the man was arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border.

In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said: "The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him.

India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region."

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past. But it has never been able to furnish any evidence to support his claims.

In July 2009, a joint statement was signed between India's then PM Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's Yousaf Raza Gilani after their talks on the sidelines of Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. Singh was criticized by the Opposition as the statement had included that during their talks Gilani "mentioned" that "Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas".

In that statement, Singh said that "India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues".

In a related development, India today issued visas to five members of a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) who will travel to the country on Sunday to carry forward the probe into the Pathankot Air Base attack in early January, blamed on Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants. The members of the JIT are scheduled to leave for India on March 27.

The five-member probe team comprises senior officials from both the military intelligence as well as civil administration and is headed by the Chief of Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Additional Inspector General of Police Muhammad Tahir Rai.

Other members include Lahore Deputy Director General Intelligence Bureau Mohammad Azim Arshad, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, Military Intelligence Lt Col Irfan Mirza and Gujjaranwala CTD Investigating Officer Shahid Tanveer. This will be the first time that Pakistani intelligence and police officials are travelling to India to investigate a terror attack.

India had agreed to allow the Pakistani JIT to visit the Pathankot Air Base after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met with her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz in Kathmandu on the sidelines of SAARC Ministerial meeting on March 17.

The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad.

On February 18, Pakistan had lodged an FIR in connection with the Pathankot terror attack without naming JeM chief Masood Azhar who India has accused of having masterminded the strike.
Zelenskys diplomacy masterclass outpacing dour, grey Putin in battle for hearts and minds When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, there was no room for jokes or play acting, and Zelensky needed to step up. He did.

Megyn Kelly fires up at Meghan Markle over her deceptive nature Sky News Australia contributor Megyn Kelly has slammed Meghan Markle over her "abject dishonesty" after the Duchess of Sussex took a swipe at Deal or No Deal in her latest podcast episode which featured Paris Hilton.

Boris Johnsons dad tight-lipped on sons potential return Speculation has begun on who could replace Liz Truss in the wake of her resignation, with her predecessor Boris Johnson expected to stand for the Conservative leadership again.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. All regional conflicts must be settled through exclusively peaceful methods, Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze told reporters in Yerevan. I spoke with Mr. Nalbandian about regional conflicts and came to the conclusion that all the conflicts must be settled through peaceful means, Armenpress reports the Georgian Minister saying.

Armenian Foreign Minister mentioned that he has introduced the latest developments over Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement to his counterpart and highlighted Georgias support to the sole internationally authorized mediation format, Minsk Group, that aims to settle the issue exclusively through peaceful methods.

Earlier on March 25, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex to pay tribute to the memory of Armenian Genocide victims. The Georgian Foreign Minister was accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Robert Harutyunyan, Ambassador of Armenia to Georgia Yuri Vardanyan and Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Suren Manukyan.

Mikheil Janelidze laid a wreath to the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims and laid flowers at the eternal flame, expressing respect with a moment of silence.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Georgia were established on July 17, 1992.
Farmers are investing in two prime ingredients of their business success: water and soil.

As that happens, and programs like the Iowa Water Quality Initiative and the Iowa State University-developed nutrient reduction strategy gain critical mass, one question pertinent to every farms bottom line is beginning to replace another. Instead of wondering if they can afford to invest in cover crops or new tilling methods, farmers are beginning to wonder if they can afford not to.

One thing in our office that we take into consideration is to make sure it fits into their operations and finances, to make sure they can afford to purchase equipment or rent it out, said Shane Wulf. Hes project coordinator with the Miller Creek Water Quality Improvement Project and with the Black Hawk Soil and Water Conservation District. That includes more than 42,000 acres in south-central Black Hawk and northeastern Tama counties.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship selected Miller Creek as a project because the area is 89 percent row-cropped, has high sediment erosion in county ditches and is a priority watershed in the Middle Cedar River area.

One practice to improve water quality and preserve soil nutrients gaining momentum is cover crops.

Cover crops can vary widely and require an investment from the farmer  generally around $25 per acre for non-winter plantings and $35 for winter-hardy crops, according to figures the Miller Creek project provided.

Cover crops seem to be the hot thing  we promote that as an investment, building soil health, Wulf said. All those things are going to save you money in the long run.

Putting exact dollar figures on conservation measures is tough, Wulf noted, but common sense indicates some practices save farmers money.

Things like strip- and no-till require less passes and save time and money, he said.

A major trend

Projects like the Miller Creek Watershed are proliferating. Wulf reported the number of acres in Miller Creek with cover crops had jumped from 1,051 in 2014 to 2,703 in 2015. Strip-till/no-till farming rose from zero to 1,097 acres in the same time frame. A number of other practices went from nothing to something in that time as well, and momentum is building for further expansion.

Such efforts cover the state. The Midwest Agriculture Water Quality Partnership, led by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance are working with farmers to boost water quality efforts in watersheds within the North Raccoon, South Skunk, Lake Red Rock, Middle Cedar and Upper Cedar watersheds. In Illinois, the Precision Conservation Management project engages producers to make conservation an integral part of daily farm management.

Combined, these two programs will make available millions of dollars to support Iowas water quality and conservation efforts, said Bill Northey, Iowa agriculture secretary. His department, along with the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance, received $9.5 million in federal funds leveraged by $4.75 million in state funding and $33 million from the private sector.

The Illinois Corn grant for $5.3 million will offer farmers in Iowa, Illinois and Kentucky tools to apply precision conservation technology to their farm business decision making. Each project has over 30 partner organizations, leveraging tremendous private sector investments, Northey said.

The Illinois part has record-keeping services for members, and were hoping to integrate that system, where they track yields and inputs and integrate it with application process, so you can pull that info from your records, said Ben Gleason, sustainable program manager with the Iowa Corn Growers Association. The field print calculator takes yields, inputs and crop rotation and gives you a score and compares you to the state average for water use, energy use and wildlife habitat and adjust.

Pilot programs in Illinois later will cross the river for use in Iowa, Gleason said.

These partnership initiatives are built upon the strong history of collaboration in Iowa among organizations representing government, growers, nonprofit, economic development and higher education, said Northey, who grows corn and soybeans near Spirit Lake. They will help leverage private sector precision agriculture tools to deliver conservation and water quality improvement. As a farmer, I am working every day to improve soil health and to leave this land better than when I started farming it. Programs like this will help provide better educational tools and resources for adoption of conservation and water quality practices.

Savings

From a cost-benefit standpoint, conservation measures are ideal tools for improving a farmers bottom line, Gleason noted.

Since yield monitors, its easier to see what parts of the field are performing better than others and that creates opportunities for adjustments, or maybe they need to do some soil building or something like that to improve that situation, he said.

Retailers are getting a lot more involved, as well, he said.

It used to be product sales and pounds of fertilizer were what they were looking at; now, theyre looking at servicing the customer, Gleason said, listing cover crops and crop termination tools among those services.

Its going to cost you more to produce less, so you might reduce inputs and become more efficient, Gleason said. Efficiency leads to profitability, and efficiency in fertilizer application is a water-quality benefit.

The Iowa Soybean Association has been active in water and soil conservation as well.

Wayne Fredericks, the associations president and a farmer from Osage, recently praised recommendations from Iowas Soil and Water Future Task Force to improve the environment.

They are in keeping with Iowa Soybean Association policy supporting the creation of dedicated and reliable funding for implementing the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, Fredericks said. They also underscore the importance of collaboration by emphasizing public and private partnerships, an approach long championed and exemplified by Iowas soybean farmers and their association.

The report adds momentum to programs that prioritize making generational improvements in Iowas land and water resources.

Iowans are all in the same boat, he said. We all depend on good water and strong soils for economic prosperity and improved quality of life. We are hopeful that the task forces recommendations return attention to the individuals and organizations truly committed to providing constructive, sensible and practical solutions to improving our water and soils.

Wulf said his organization is one of a number leading the effort by scheduling regular field days to educate farmers on what they can do to preserve soil and water quality and save money in the long term.

I think field days are great opportunities, he said. We like to have them hosted by producers if possible. I think producers feel more comfortable and open to going to events if theyre at their neighbors place.
WATERLOO  Waterloo Community Schools proposed a 2.9 percent salary and benefits increase for teachers, counselors and family support workers Wednesday in an initial bargaining session.

Were proposing step movement (on the salary schedule), which is what weve proposed in the past, said the districts chief negotiator Brett Nitzschke, of the Cedar Rapids law firm Lynch Dallas. But were also proposing a $100 increase in the (bachelors degree) base.

Currently, the districts contract with the Waterloo Education Association starts a teacher with a bachelors degree and no prior experience at $35,975 a year. At the top of the salary schedule, a teacher with 18 years of experience and 45 credits beyond a masters degree currently earns $72,949. Those whose experience puts them beyond the salary schedule also can earn additional longevity pay of $200 to $1,400 annually.

We certainly wanted to come out with an initial offering that we felt was fair to the association, said Nitzschke. The 2016-17 contract would go into effect July 1.

The association, which represents 900 district employees, proposed an 8 percent increase in pay and benefits during its March 9 initial bargaining session. The WEA bargaining team also made some comparisons to other Iowa school districts and noted Cedar Falls Community Schools pays starting teachers $3,600 more per year.

I know theres concerns about where Waterloo fits in, said Nitzschke. However, he noted differences between Waterloo and the neighboring district, including length of school day. They have an eight hour day versus a 7 1/2-hour day in Waterloo Schools.

Typically, he added, Waterloo compares itself to the eight or 12 largest districts in the state. Weve always been in the middle of the pack. Nitzschke noted state funding levels will be an important factor in determining how much is available for salary increases.

Another proposal by the district was adding a voluntary wellness program. Employees would be able to earn incentives up to $200 annually that can be applied to health insurance premiums for the following year.

The district proposed limiting the accumulation of sick leave to 90 days for those hired after this year, compared to a maximum of 165 days for current employees. The district suggested adding a stipulation that employees who leave their job are not entitled to retain or receive payment for accumulated sick leave.

Sick leave is sick leave and really isnt some type of severance package, said Nitzschke. We have some concerns because we believe employees here use sick leave as its intended.

The association had proposed paying staff 55 and older with a minimum of 15 years district employment $100 per day for their accumulated sick leave when they retire or take another job, in an attempt to reduce absenteeism.
Women on

Honor Flights

MARCIA M. COURBAT

Womens Army Corps

WATERLOO  Women veterans, you are eligible to go on the local Honor Flights too. You dont have to have served overseas. It was an honor to go on the Honor Flight in 2010 with seven other female veterans from Cedar Rapids (at that time Waterloo didnt have a flight yet). Lots of great memories. Remember, you are a veteran too. Also, you can have a veterans brick at the Memorial Hall Brick Walk. March is womens month.

Brain injuries

STEVEN EILERS

WATERLOO  Northeast Iowa Brain Injury Alliance is working to raise awareness about traumatic brain injury during March. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury annually. An estimated 95,000 Iowans live with a disability due to brain injury.

The leading causes of TBI are falls, motor vehicle-traffic crashes, struck by/against events and assaults. TBIs also are the signature injury of the Middle East military conflicts. No matter how or where they happen, the results can be the same and life-changing.

If you or someone you care about is living with a traumatic or acquired brain injury, you are not alone. The Northeast Iowa Brain Injury Alliance serves people from all over the northeast section of the state, including Bremer, Butler, Chickasaw, Grundy and Buchanan counties and is here to listen, share stories and help. The board meets in Waterloo on the second Wednesday of each month and the family support and resource group meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month. If you would like more information about brain injury, need services or want to get involved, email us at neiabia@yahoo.com or call June at (855) 444-6443.

Boeing planes

JOSE COON-ADAMS

WATERLOO  I feel domestic and foreign airlines should not be flying Boeing 737 airliners. There have been far too many accidents involving this plane, including the deadly Flydubai crash in Russia over the weekend. Even though the plane is popular all over the world, many airlines are unaware of the dangers the jet poses to passengers and crew, from the 91 United airlines crash in Colorado and the 94 USAir Pennsylvania wreck that killed everyone on board. How many more people need to die before there is a worldwide outcry against this plane? McDonnell Douglass DC-10 had a bad reputation because of many air accidents, Im surprised no protest against the 737 has ignited due to accidents.

Airlines could be a lot better off without this plane, they could order jets from Tupolev or Hawker-Siddley, Fokker, Sud-Aviation, Airbus, etc.

Don Nelson

GLENN TOLLEFSON

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.  Wasnt Don Nelson an Iowa product? Played at Iowa University and for Boston Celtics then had a great pro coaching career.

I grew up in Cedar Falls.

Editors Note: Nelson was born in Michigan but graduated from high school in Rock Island, Ill. He played for the University of Iowa as a two-time All-American (1959-1962).
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. The information about Artsakh having problems with participation in Travel and tourism international tourism exhibition being held in Russian capital of Moscow is false. Meri Ghazaryan, responsible for Information and Public Relations Department of Ministry of Economy of Artsakh, told Armenpress.

We contacted with our Artsakh delegation participating in Moscow tourism exhibition a bit ago. They told us that nothing extraordinary has happened and the Artsakh delegation worked in a normal way, without any problems. Moreover, they are preparing for wine degustation, Meri Ghzaryan said.

Azerbaijani mass media has spread information that allegedly they have stopped Artsakhs participation in Moscow exhibition. 1500 companies from over 100 countries take part in Moscow-based Travel and tourism international tourism exhibition. The exhibition has been organized since 1994.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Georgia are firm in their aspiration to deepen cooperation in the spheres of mutual interest. Aremenpress reports the Foreign Ministers of the two countries mentioned about this in a meeting with reporters on March 25 in Yerevan.

Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian welcomed the presence of the first high level foreign diplomat in the new building of the Foreign Ministry. He noted that the friendly relations between Armenia and Georgia are traditional in nature. To say that Armenia-Georgia relations are friendly means to say very little. Everything characterizing our peoples are closely tied to each other. And it is not accidental, as we have lived side by side for millennia. This is a neighborhood checked by time and based on mutual respect. Our relations continue to deepen thank to the connecting link such as the Georgian Armenians, Edward Nalbandian said, adding that meetings of FMs of countries under the same geopolitical conditions and exchange of ideas are of great importance.

Nalbandian informed that during the talks they discussed the implementation process of agreements reached at the meeting of the heads of the two states.

In addition, they reached an agreement to further activate partnership between the foreign ministries of the two countries. I discussed with my Georgian counterpart issues referring to transport infrastructure, energy, tourism, as well as other economic issues. We continue cooperation over the preservation of Armenian cultural heritage in Georgia, Edward Nalbandian said.

Foreign Minister of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze expressed gratitude to his Armenian counterpart for the cordial reception, mentioning that this is his first visit to Armenia as a foreign minister. I have been to Yerevan several times, but this is my first official visit as a foreign minister. I am glad to note that the city gets beautiful day by day. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Nalbandian for the invitation and the cordial reception. We always receive such a reception from our Armenian friends, Mikheil Janelidze said.

Referring to bilateral relations, the Georgian Minister highlighted that the existing issues should be solved by mutual efforts, which is of great importance for both peoples. Armenian and Georgian are friends, their relations are traditionally friendly and we must spare no efforts to develop those relations in all directions, he added.

According to the Georgian Minister, despite different choices of integration processes, the two countries wish to serve it for the development of bilateral relations. We discussed how we can make use of those processes for our cooperation, Mikheil Janelidze added.

Earlier on March 25, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex to pay tribute to the memory of Armenian Genocide victims. The Georgian Foreign Minister was accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Robert Harutyunyan, Ambassador of Armenia to Georgia Yuri Vardanyan and Deputy Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Suren Manukyan.

Mikheil Janelidze laid a wreath to the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims and laid flowers at the eternal flame, expressing respect with a moment of silence.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Georgia were established on July 17, 1992.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan attended the opening of the new building of elderly care and rehabilitation center No. 1 in Yerevan. It was built by funding from the State of Kuwait. The event was also attended by Kuwaiti Minister of Justice, Islamic Estate and Religious Affairs Yaqoub Al-Sanea, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Arpine Hovhannisyan, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia Artem Asatryan, as well as diplomatic corps representatives.

As Armenpress was informed from Information and Public Relations Department of the Government of Armenia, the Head of the Government toured the building getting acquainted with the amenities and conditions available for the elderly. The building is fully equipped with all necessary equipment. Conditions necessary for the medical care of beneficiaries and social services will be provided in the institution. The building is supposed to simultaneously host 72 inmates.



Highly appreciating the assistance provided by the Government, the Prime Minister said projects like this will help strengthen the ties of friendship between our two peoples. He highlighted the importance of Kuwaiti Justice, Islamic Estate and Religious Affairs Ministers visit to our country as it provides the opportunity to discuss issues related to the development and furtherance of Armenian-Kuwaiti cooperation.

Speaking about the development of economic cooperation with Kuwait, Hovik Abrahamyan stressed the need for consistent steps towards strengthening business ties, as well as launching direct flights between Yerevan and Kuwait, which will contribute to the implementation of joint projects in tourism.

Minister Yaqoub Al-Sanea said his country attaches great importance to relations with Armenia and is prepared to observe the possibility of implementing a number of projects of mutual interest.
By The Associated Press Mar. 24, 2016 | 10:17 AM | BOWLING GREEN, KY

A Kentucky man who claims to have made as much as $100,000 annually by panhandling while pretending to be disabled has pleaded guilty to misrepresenting his condition to obtain Social Security benefits.

Local news outlets report that 33-year-old Gary Hank Thompson pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green to making false statements and representations to the Social Security Administration.

Prosecutors say Thompson obtained $24,884 between 2009 and 2013 in Supplemental Security Income benefits that he was not entitled to receive. He also obtained $81,831 in Medicaid benefits during the same period.

Federal investigators said Thompson misrepresented his mental condition during an initial interview with Social Security in 2009 and then again in 2013.

Thompson will be sentenced in June.
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GYUMRI, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. The trial of Russian soldier Valery Permyakov, accused of killing 7 members of the Avetisyan family continues at the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri. Readings of the documents took place during the trial session. The 10th volume of the documents includes the reports on interrogations of witnesses, mediations, documents relating to the victims' successors lawyers, death certificates of the Avetisyan family, police and prosecution documents.

The next volume included police records, traffic police records, letters sent to VivaCell by the investigative committee, forensic exam reports of Avetisyans clothing, as well as the letter of the Russian Investigative Committee sent to the Armenian Investigative Committee to conduct a joint investigation. Forensic reports on the sequence of shots fired at Avetisyans direction was also presented. According to these reports, the shootings happened in a state of movement: awake and moving were Armen Avetisyan, Seryozha Avetisyan senior, Hasmik Avetisyan. According to the conclusion, not only were the men awake, but they also tried to take some actions by moving from room to room, or even trying to take hold of the weapon. The court also acquainted with some translations of the materials of the Russian side, which included some of the applications and documents submitted by Permyakov. The court decided not to disclose them at this time, until Permyakovs testimony is over.

The six members of the Avetisyan family were shot and killed in Gyumri at around 6 a.m. on January 12, 2015. The only survivor was 6-month old Seryozha Avetisyan, who was transferred to a hospital with injuries caused by a cutting and piercing tool. The childs health condition became worse on January 19. After fighting for his life and undergoing several difficult surgeries for a week, six-month old Seryozha Avetisyan also died on January 19. There was severe renal insufficiency and cardiac insufficiency, and doctors werent able to save his life. Soldier of the 102nd Russian military base stationed in Gyumri, Valery Permyakov was charged with killing the members of the Avetisyan family. Russian border guards found him when he was trying to cross the Armenian-Turkish border and handed him over to the commanders of the 102nd Russian military base. Permyakov confessed his guilt. On August 12, The Russian side sentenced Permyakov to 10 years of imprisonment for desertion and illegal possession of a firearm.
If youre looking to try out an online casino, there are several things that will help you make a decision. Heres what you should look for when choosing an online casino

 Are they regulated? A lot of the larger ones have licenses issued by the authorities in their respective regions, so its worth checking this first.

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YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. An Istanbul court ruled on March 25 for the whole trial, which will be held in secret, in the controversial case of Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul,

The first session of the first hearing in the case at the 14th Istanbul Criminal Court of Serious Crimes has ended. The decision for the hearing is yet to be announced.

The court also accepted requests from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the National Intelligence Agency (MIT), which will be included as plaintiffs in the case,Armenpress reports citing Hurriyet Daily news website.

A large group of supporters, including deputies from the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), journalists and representatives of trade bodies, accompanied Dundar and Gul as they entered Istanbuls Caglayan courthouse.

We came here today to defend journalism. We gathered here and said the same thing previously. We said we would defend the peoples right to access information. We defended that and we were arrested. Then we were given pre-trial release following a Constitutional Court ruling, Dundar said, speaking in front of the courthouse.

Gul also vowed to continue doing journalism.

Journalism is not a crime. Today, we have to defend that. It was said in the Constitutional Court ruling that what we did was just journalism. We are here to defend the law of the Constitutional Court. We did not commit a crime and we will keep on doing journalism, he said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. On March 25, the parliamentary hearings organized by the Armenian National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment on the theme The Legislative Regulation and the Existing Shortcomings of Keeping Wild Animals in Captivity and Half-Captivity are held.

The NA deputies, the representatives of the RA Ministry of Nature Protection, the Armenian Republics NAS, the NGOs and environmental organizations took part in the parliamentary hearings, Armemnpress was informed from the Department of Information and Public Relations of the Armenian Parliament.

The Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment Martun Grigoryan in his word noted that amendments were to the Armenian Law on Fauna, and the provisions of keeping and using wild animals in non-free and half-free conditions were established. However, in entering into force the law numerous problems arise, which are necessary to discuss with relevant bodies and make legislative amendments.

The Minister of Nature Protection Aramayis Grigoryan noted that the Ministry is ready to discuss the problems related to keeping the wild animals in captivity and half-captivity, taking into consideration the constructive recommendations.

The Deputy Minister of Nature Protection Khachik Hakobyan presented the legislative amendments worked out by the Working Group, the legislative regulation on keeping the wild animals in captivity and half-captivity and the shortcomings existing in the sphere.

Khachik Hakobyan introduced the proposal of the Ministry on envisaging relevant banning norms and means of responsibility in the law on the RA Administrative Infringements.

The Deputy Minister also answered the NA deputies and ecologists questions.

Afterwards the deputies made their recommendations. The Committee member Armen Avetisyan proposed to subject to administrative penalty the persons not providing relevant conditions and torturing the animals.

The Committee Chairman Martun Grigoryan offered to establish permission and sign a treaty for importing and donating wild animals.

The representatives of the ecological organizations, in general, positively assessed the amendments and presented their viewpoints.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Republics Foreign Ministry will discuss with the US partners the issue on not providing US entry visa to the Armenian companies representatives of the IT sector. Karen Vardanyan, Executive director at Union of information technology enterprises (uite) applied to the Armenian Prime Minister over the mentioned issue during the uite cingress. According to Vardanyan new consul of the US Embassy does not issue entry visas.

The main partners of the Armenian companies are American companies. Armenia's IT sectors most of the products is exported to the United States, but the new consul does not issue US entry visa for various reasons. It is very significant for the partners to discuss the further cooperation during meetings. US embassys such behavior is incomprehensible, Vardanyan said, Armenpress reports.

Hovik Abrahamayan said in the interview with reporters that they will necessarily discuss the issue mentioned above. Armenian MFA will be assigned to discuss the issue with partners.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia informs that on March 25 the USD exchange rate was 482.16 AMD which is a increase of 1.31 drams compared to the previous day.

Armenpress reports that the euro appreciated by 1.31 drams forming 538.43 drams. Russian ruble has increased by 0.17 drams, forming 7.09 drams.

The prices for precious metals are as follows: the price for gold per gram is 18 thousand 927.7 AMD, silver- 236.87 AMD, and platinum  14 thousand 835.22 AMD.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov met with the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Tigran Sargsyan on March 24, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Government of Belarus.

The head of Government congratulated Tigran Sargsyan on his appointment to the post of Chairman of the EEC Board. "It's a responsible position in such a difficult period of time. Now You actually are at the helm of the main Executive body of the Eurasian economic Union. Good luck in your work."



In turn, Tigran Sargsyan thanked Andrei Kobyakov for the congratulations and noted that he will work on the result to justify entrusted to him expectations.



During the talks the sides discussed issues of further development of Eurasian integration.
Mar 24, 2016 | By Benedict

Gravity Sketch, a new 3D design and 3D printing app developed by a British startup of the same name, was launched today on the App Store. The app allows users to sketch simple 3D designs which can be sent immediately to Shapeways for 3D printing.

Whether in the form of 3D printed clothing, 3D printed art, or wacky 3D printed inventions, we see additive manufacturing technology used by creative types on a daily basis. However, that doesnt necessarily mean that the marriage between artistic mastery and additive manufacturing is as happy as it could be. Many 3D printing experts dont know the first thing about drawing, and many talented artists would be stumped if you loaded up slicing software on their computer.

Gravity Sketch, a new iPad app launching today on the App Store, aims to change all that. A far cry from the technical CAD programs used by most 3D designers today, Gravity Sketch aims to simplify 3D design, reducing it to an intuitive, imaginative creative process which culminates in a 3D printed delivery on your doorstep. Minimal settings, maximum enjoyment.

Using a process called direct 3D generation, Gravity Sketch allows users to doodle away with their fingers on the screen of an iPad, generating 3D objects in real time. Virtually no technical experience is needed to get started with the app, so artists can start unleashing their 3D creativity from the moment they install it. Intuitive brushes using simple symmetry algorithms allow users to sketch a 3D pyramid, web, donut, sausage, or virtually any other 3D shape with just a few flicks of the finger.

We spoke with a lot of makers who told us they couldnt express their creativity with the current 3D tools, said Oluwaseyi Sosanya, Gravity Sketch co-founder. Direct 3D generation is a more intuitive interaction than your traditional 3D software. This is because creativity relies more on spatial intelligence than logical or linguistic intelligences which form the base of most 3D modeling softwares.

Gravity Sketch was established in London in October 2013 as a group project between four Innovation Design Engineering students of the Royal College of Art. The company has received significant backing for its newly-launched app, from InnovationRCA, UnLtd SeeChange, and the James Dyson Foundation. The company is also a part of the San Francisco-based founder.org startup acceleration program.

Following todays launch of the 3D sketching app, the Gravity Sketch team is hoping that its intuitive software finds its way into the hands of makers, artists, andimportantlyyoung children. With more and more schools using tablets like the iPad as a learning tool, and with 3D technologies such as virtual reality currently enjoying a huge rise in popularity, the Gravity Sketch team sees an opportunity for youngsters to get acquainted with 3D drawing, 3D printing, and everything else 3D at an early age. Who knows, it could be their first step towards a career in 3D printed art.

With a product arc covering tablets, augmented reality, and virtual reality, Gravity Sketch is aiming to become the go-to product 3D design, and with tie-ins with 3D design platform Sketchfab and global 3D printing marketplace Shapeways, the app seems well placed to do so. When Gravity Sketch users have completed a 3D design, they can send that design off to Shapeways, which will 3D print it and deliver it to the user in a matter of days. This process eliminates two off-putting steps in the 3D printing process: investing in a 3D printer, and preparing an unoptimized 3D design for 3D printing using slicing software.

"Ways to consume 3D content are exploding with mega trends like VR, AR and 3D printing, said Alban Denoyel, Co-founder & CEO of Sketchfab. There is a growing need for super easy ways to create 3D content. This app is beautifully answering that need, by offering a very intuitive way to sketch in 3D with a touch screen.

The Gravity Sketch app is available to download for free from the App store.

Posted in 3D Software

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YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. ISIS' finance minister was killed during an operation this week, defense officials announced on March 25, a major score for the U.S.-led coalition as it tries to erode the terror group's grip on the region, Armenpress reports citing NBC News.

In addition to the death of Haji Imam, the Pentagon confirmed the killing of another top leader  Omar al-Shishani  in an earlier operation.

"Striking leadership is necessary, but it's far from efficient," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at a news conference, adding that the U.S. is "systematically eliminating" ISIS' cabinet.

"Leaders can be replaced, however, these leaders have been around for a long time," Carter said. "They are senior. They're experienced. So eliminating them is an important objective and achieves an important result."

Haji Imam  whose real name is Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Mustafa al-Qaduli  was widely reported as a senior leader and second in command in the organization.

Carter, however, declined to provide further details about the operations, and didn't immediately confirm where and when exactly the efforts to kill Haji Imam took place.

Haji Imam oversaw and steered ISIS' funding through its networks, Carter said. He also reportedly managed the day to day operations for ISIS and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and was also the main link to shadowy ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who currently has minimal communication with the organization.

The confirmed deaths of Imam and al-Shishani present a key gain in ticking off some of the biggest names on the U.S.'s terror hit list and comes on the heels of terror attacks in Brussels that claimed at least 31 lives and wounded over 270 others.
Mar 25, 2016 | By Tess

In a time where products are generally massed produced and custom pieces of almost anything are reserved solely for those who can afford the high price of customization, 3D printing has offered many individuals and businesses a way to bring bespoke items back into the lives of regular people. One such company is Central Florida-based watchmaker Alexander Gabriel Watch Company, Inc. which is developing its first line of custom made 3D printed watches.

The young company, founded and run by Roy Trent, has recently announced two exciting new partnerships with electronics company XLN Technologies and the Space Coast Fablab, a Florida-based nonprofit geared towards helping people through courses and project-based learning. The recent partnerships, as well as the companys continued collaboration with the engineering department at the Florida Institute of Technology, will help bring the companys customizable 3D printed watches to fruition.

Roy Trent says of the recent partnerships, "We are happy to announce these partnerships and are very proud of our commitment to fine craftsmanship and to make these custom watches locally. We have had a good reception to our product and so far it's really resonating with people. They appreciate we are USA made and that we are not farming out the manufacturing process overseas.

The watches, as Trent emphasizes, are made from a collection of specially designed 3D printed parts and are hand-assembled with reliable Swiss Mechanical Movements (the only part of the watch which is not U.S. made) and sapphire crystal. The watch straps as well are made locally from hand-cut leather and are dyed and hand-stitched by Polito Custom Straps.

In terms of customization, clients wishing to order a 3D printed watch will be able to customize the color and stitching of their leather strap, as well as what style of laser cut dial and which type of Swiss Mechanical Movement they desire. The watch boxes, an important part of gifting or receiving a nice watch, will also be 3D printed and will come with the option of inscribing a name or special message on the box.

The company was founded out of a want to create an affordable, accessible, and still bespoke wrist-watch. Having brought on board a number of innovative individuals and teams, the company is well on its way to introducing their 3D printed watches on the market. In addition to that, the Alexander Gabriel Watch Company, Inc. is yet another inspiring example of a person with a distinct vision combining both old hand-crafted techniques with new technological processes to create a unique, affordable, and still stunning product. As the company acknowledges, It takes time to make time.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Diana Wehrell-Grabowski wrote at 4/10/2016 1:38:16 AM:So exciting. Best wishes.




Mar 25, 2016 | By Benedict

Wevolver, a webplatform for sharing and collaborating on open hardware projects, has won the "3-DIY" Interactive Innovation Award at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Since its inception, Wevolver has helped to bring a number of 3D printing and 3D scanning projects to life.

When building a piece of technology, two heads can be better than one. For Wevolver, a hundred heads can potentially be better than one. The London, UK-based startup is on a mission to connect aspiring technology designers so that they might pool their expertise and resources to create the best open source hardware on the web. Determined to encourage greater innovation through collaboration, Wevolver allows users to explore, post, and contribute to collaborative open source hardware projects.

Wevolver is held in high regard by many members of the 3D printing community, having been at the center of several exciting 3D printing projects. Retr3d, for example, is a project dedicated to designing RepRap 3D printers that can be built from e-waste, making them extremely affordable and suitable for construction in developing countries. 3D printing favorites Ultimaker have also been involved with Wevolver, contributing the Ultimaker Original to the site two years ago. Need a gigantic 3D print? Open Gigabot is a concept 3D printer with fully open source hardware and software and a massive 24 x 24 x 20 inch build volume, currently receiving regular contributions and upgrades from Wevolver users, while the site also features a 3D laser scanner which can be built for less than $30.

Open Gigabot 3D printer

The hardware collaboration platform isnt just bringing together 3D printer manufacturers. It is also helping designers to make incredible 3D printed creations, such as these fully functional Hovalin 3D printed violins. Thanks to the efforts of a large group of designers, makers can build their own 3D printed violin, designed in Autodesk 360, for just $70. For those who would rather hear bleeps and bloops than Beethovens Kreutzer sonata, Wevolver also hosts the 3D printable InMoov Robot project. Initially designed by Gael Langevin, the human-sized robot can be built on any home 3D printer with a build area at least 12 x 12 x 12 cm. Although that 3D printed robot has met Prince Andrew, other (smaller) 3D printed bots such as the PLEN2 demonstrate equally impressive feats of engineering.

Hovalin 3D printed violin

3D printed InMoov robot

After a long day of DIY hardware assembly, theres nothing quite like sitting on a 3D printed Gaudi Stool, the result of an ambitious and thoughtful project which aims to channel the architectural techniques of Barcelona icon Antoni Gaudi into effective, lightweight furniture design. However, the Wevolver platform also caters for more childlike tastes in lounge decor, as can be seen in these fun 3D printed bits&parts chairs featuring a puzzle piece design. When sat in ones 3D printed chair of choice, one can even gaze through the 3D printed Ultrascope telescope or fly this 3D printed quadcopter.

Given its contributions to the 3D printing community and the tech world at large, it seems fitting that Wevolver was recognized at SXSW Interactive, where the startup scooped the 3-DIY Interactive Innovation Award, [a]warded for making 3D printing technology more accessible or affordable, or to the Maker using such technology in new and exciting ways. SXSW Interactive is the technology arm of the immensely popular SXSW (South by Southwest) festival which has been taking place in Austin, Texas, every year since 1987. The festival is also widely known for its live music acts and film screenings.

"Getting this award at SXSW as a young startup is fantastic, especially for the open hardware movement, said Richard Hulskes, co-founder of Wevolver. This movement, where project creators share all the knowledge and files from their hardware project openly, is a relatively young movement. The fact that SXSW recognizes this is very important because it brings open hardware to the attention of a large audience. This and the fact that people have easy access to the knowledge and tools, such as 3D printers, will make people realize that they can make a lot of technology themselves.

exiii-HACKberry 3D printed prosthesis

The SXSW award is not the first that Wevolver has received. In 2015, the British startup won the "Health and Wellbeing" Accenture Innovation Award for its role in making advanced DIY prosthetics more accessible to patients, thanks to its role in developing the exiii-HACKberry 3D printed electric prosthetic arm and e-NABLEs 3D printed Cyborg Beast prosthetic hand. The open source platform has also been used to develop other 3D printed medical devices, such as Openpump, a syringe pump that dispenses fluids over a set period of time.

Wevolver co-founders Hulskes and Bram Geenen are currently taking a 7-week tour across the U.S. to meet the designers and builders behind some of Wevolvers most popular projects.

Posted in 3D Design

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Mar 25, 2016 | By Tess

The worlds sea turtle population is dwindling. As the ancient creatures environments are infringed upon and their eggs are stolen by poachers looking to make a pretty penny, the future is not looking so bright for the aquatic and increasingly endangered species. In Nicaragua, for instance, hundreds of sea turtle eggs are dug up by poachers who then sell the precious eggs to international markets for more than $150 a piece, and discard of the extras in local bars for mere cents.

In an effort to combat and even deter poachers from further damaging the worlds sea turtle population, nonprofit organization Paso Pacifico has come up with a brilliant plan to develop 3D printed, GSM equipped, fake turtle eggs. The fake 3D printed eggs, once perfected, will be placed in real turtle egg nests before poachers get to them, in order to help conservationists and law officials track the movement of the stolen incubating turtles.

As mentioned the project was conceived of by the US and Nicaragua based non-profit Paso Pacifico, which has dedicated itself to restoring and conserving the natural ecosystems of Central Americas Pacific slope since 2005.

Excitingly, their 3D printed decoy turtle egg project was recently announced as one of the winners of The Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge, which seeks to find innovative solutions to conservation and poaching problems. The challenge, organized in association with U.S. Aid for International Development, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution, and TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring organization, awarded Paso Pacificos project $10,000 along with technical support to continue developing their 3D printed prototypes and to put them into action.

So far, the 3D printed turtle eggs, each about the size of a ping-pong ball, dont quite resemble the material of real turtle eggs. To fix this, Paso Pacifico has been working with a Californian art studio to perfect the color and texture of the next prototypes. The team of developers are also testing and determining which GSM transmitters are best suited for the important tracking job.

Eduardo Bone-Moron, managing director at Paso Pacifico explains, The plan is to start testing [the transmitters] in the next nesting season, which will start in July. Our rangers will locate vulnerable active nests that are more likely to be poached, for example, nests that are closer to trails. We will plant as many eggs as possible in the beach to increase the possibility of poachers taking the artificial eggs.

With the GSM equipped 3D printed eggs hiding amongst the real turtle eggs, the team of conservationists are hoping to find out important information about sea turtle egg trafficking routes and the locations of smuggling networks. Bone-Moron also explains that because turtle eggs are only good for about two weeks, the networks to have them shipped to places as far as China in such a quick time must be very well established. With their recent project, he is hoping to shed light on this process and to even eventually break it down.

While you may be thinking that writing about such a covert operation might give poachers a one-up on the conservation effort, Bone-Moron explains that this is not the case and that spreading the word about the location tracking 3D printed decoys will hopefully deter poachers from even stealing the eggs in the first place. He says, Eventually the poachers will learn there is something wrong with the beaches. That is totally fine with us. The reason theyre poaching right now is because its so easy. If they see that were watching them, we may be able to discourage them.

By using 3D printing technologies to create the sea turtle eggs, the organization is also hoping to eventually provide their innovative designs and products to governments and nonprofit organizations around the world for an affordable cost, encouraging said agencies to prioritize the conservation of the endangered sea turtle.

The 3D printed sea turtle project is being led by Dr. Kim Williams-Guillen, and will receive technological support from a variety of individuals and companies including Wayra-Mexico, NFCGroup, Goodnight & Co, Turtle Island Restoration Network, etc.

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Peter Jones wrote at 2/9/2017 9:55:59 PM:It would be nice to see some attribution for this work to Helen Pheasey at University of Kent who seems to be the researcher doing this work: http://www.3ders.org/articles/20170202-pledge-35-for-a-trackable-3d-printed-turtle-egg-that-could-help-save-endangered-sea-turtles.html




Elisa Gabbert in Guernica:

Theres an idea in linguistics that until a culture creates a name for a color, they dont really see it as a distinct category. It builds from the anthropological discovery that languages tend to develop color terms in the same order: first, for black and white (or roughly, light and dark), then for red, then for either green or yellow and then both, then blue (and so on). They dont invent a word for blue, the thinking goes, much less for mauve or taupe, until they need it. Color terms proliferate in a world of dyes and spectrometry.

This has led some linguists and scholars to suggest that Homers wine-dark sea was not just a weird poeticism but evidence of the ancient Greeks entirely different perception of color: As late as the fourth century BC, Plato named the four primary colors as white, black, red, and bright (via Laphams Quarterly). Its possible that our ancestors did not think of the ocean as blue; it certainly doesnt look as blue from a boat as it does from a plane.

Its a chicken-or-egg conundrum though: How can the name come after the concept if you need the name to understand the concept? This problem of circularity always made me resistant to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong version, which states that our thoughts are bound by the restraints of our language. The weak version, that language merely affects our thoughts, seems trivially true. What doesnt affect our thoughts?

More here.
Adam S. Cohen in Harvard Magazine:

In August 1912, Harvard president emeritus Charles William Eliot addressed the Harvard Club of San Francisco on a subject close to his heart: racial purity. It was being threatened, he declared, by immigration. Eliot was not opposed to admitting new Americans, but he saw the mixture of racial groups it could bring about as a grave danger. Each nation should keep its stock pure, Eliot told his San Francisco audience. There should be no blending of races. Eliots warning against mixing raceswhich for him included Irish Catholics marrying white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, Jews marrying Gentiles, and blacks marrying whiteswas a central tenet of eugenics. The eugenics movement, which had begun in England and was rapidly spreading in the United States, insisted that human progress depended on promoting reproduction by the best people in the best combinations, and preventing the unworthy from having children.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.A.B. 1829, M.D. 36, LL.D. 80, dean of Harvard Medical School, acclaimed writer, and father of the future Supreme Court justicewas one of the first American intellectuals to espouse eugenics. Holmes, whose ancestors had been at Harvard since John Oliver entered with the class of 1680, had been writing about human breeding even before Galton. He had coined the phrase Boston Brahmin in an 1861 book in which he described his social class as a physical and mental elite, identifiable by its noble physiognomy and aptitude for learning, which he insisted were congenital and hereditary. Holmes believed eugenic principles could be used to address the nations social problems. In an 1875 article in The Atlantic Monthly, he gave Galton an early embrace, and argued that his ideas could help to explain the roots of criminal behavior. If genius and talent are inherited, as Mr. Galton has so conclusively shown, Holmes wrote, why should not deep-rooted moral defectsshow themselvesin the descendants of moral monsters? As eugenics grew in popularity, it took hold at the highest levels of Harvard. A. Lawrence Lowell, who served as president from 1909 to 1933, was an active supporter. Lowell, who worked to impose a quota on Jewish students and to keep black students from living in the Yard, was particularly concerned about immigrationand he joined the eugenicists in calling for sharp limits. The need for homogeneity in a democracy, he insisted, justified laws resisting the influx of great numbers of a greatly different race.

More here.
William Watkin at 3:AM Magazine:

The rate of executions has been decreasing in America for a couple of years now. Some states have just stopped executing. Others such as Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Maryland and New York have gone even further and taken the death penalty off the statute books. The result is that only a handful of states, die-hard vengeful places like Florida, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, still doggedly pursue death by lethal injection. The reasons for this are not moral, legal or philosophical. Rather, the slow collapse of one of Americas most cherished and reviled institutions, death row, is due to primarily managerial reasons, specifically the meat and potatoes of any failing business model: supply of stock and training of staff.

There are two fundamental problems with the lethal injection in the US today. Either you cant get the drugs or, if you can, you just cant get them in the arms of the accused, without yourself being accused of breaking the eighth amendment, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. How did we get to this pretty pass, committed as we have been to kill criminals whatever the cost?

Considering the promise of efficiency that is part and parcel of the medicalisation of the death penalty with the development of the lethal injection, it is surprising to note that, according to Austin Sarat, 7% of all lethal injections have been botched as opposed to 3% of all other methods. One possible problem with the lethal injection is that to kill someone in this way you need expertise, training and of course the will to kill.

more here.
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. No goals were scored during the first half of Armenia-Belarus friendly match. Armenpress reports that the 2 teams made dangerous attacks but none of the teams could make success in the first half.

Overall, Armenian national had a small advantage.

This match will be a farewell for Armenian teams long-term goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky. He played from the first minutes but was substituted in 7th minute.


Director Appointments & Resignation

Perth, Mar 24, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Raya Group Ltd ( ASX:RYG ) (Raya or the Company) advise the appointment of Mr John Schultz and Christopher Wood as directors on completion of the Xped acquisition on the 23 March 2016 and the resignation of Brendan de Kauwe immediately after completion.



John Schultz is a serial entrepreneur founding and successfully growing several companies over the last two decades specialising in the design, manufacture and business development of electronics systems.



John has a wealth of experience running design and manufacturing businesses, managing staff and subcontractors and secured significant international business exporting vehicle immobilisers to Malaysia for aftermarket distribution and direct fit to Honda.



This contract saw a peak of 30 employees locally employed and managed at Technology Park. Johns involvement in this project will encompass system specification, design, product design and manufacture, resource management and developing initial commercialisation opportunities.



Christopher Wood has extensive experience in large telecommunications companies developing mission critical software applications. Chris has architected projects worth up to $200M and supported by a pool of 200 IT staff. Chris is a domain expert in the areas of GPS, inertial sensors and communications. Chris also possesses substantial technology development commercialisation experience. In 2003 Chris founded Neve Technologies Pty Ltd, a company which developed and commercialised an augmented GPS system for positioning vehicles in areas where GPS signals are severely degraded. In the commercialisation process Chris established a joint venture with the University of South Australia. Neve secured COMET funding, raised capital and successfully commercialised its technology internationally.



The directors thank Mr de Kauwe for his contribution to the Company and wish he well in his future business endeavours.





About XPED Ltd





XPED Ltd (ASX:XPE) is an Australian Internet of Things (IoT) technology business. Xped has developed revolutionary and patent-protected technology that allows any consumer, regardless of their technical capability, to connect, monitor and control devices and appliances found in our everyday environment. Xped provides technology solutions for Smart Home, Smart Building, and Healthcare.

At Xped, were Making Technology Easy Again(TM)
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Complex psychiatric and psychological examination results conducted by the Russian side were submitted during the court session over the case of a Russian serviceman Valery Permyakov, who is accused of murdering Avetisyan family in Gyumri.

As Armenpress reports, Permyakovs records, made in the social network "Odnoklassniki", were submitted during the trial session. In his notes Permyakov tells his mother, brother, and other relatives and friends incredible and fantastic stories about the war.

In one of the records Permyakov says that he has a tank, that will buy the car when he returns home, and he "got a bullet in the forehead." He says that he has 184 soldiers under his leadership and destroyed two enemy tanks and one truck. "I'm tired of the war, I cancel my contract and I want to return home", Permyakov wrote.

It was also read out the so-called contract of Permyakov with the devil in which he promised to sacrifice a few men and women who refuse God and the Holy Trinity and fully commits himself to the power of Satan.

Lawyer of the Avetisyans legal successors Yervand Varosyan noted that all these fictional stories show psychological abnormalities, and after the incident it was revealed that Permyakov ,while serving in Chita, was in psychological clinic, and he had no right to have a weapon for three months.

"It turns a situation that the Russian party knew or was obliged to know about the psychological state of the person, but he was not only in the service of Gyumri in such state, but also had a weapon. Moreover, he was alone on duty and therefore he could escape, Varosyan said.

Permyakovs diary was read out, which he kept in prison. The diary was found by Russian investigators during the search. In the diary Permyakov apologizes to his mother for committing an act that is contrary to his upbringing. "I do not understand how it happened. Please forgive me. I know that I will receive severe punishment for what I did, but I hope that someday we will meet again ... " Permyakov wrote in his diary, turning to his mother.

The next hearing over Permyakovs case will be held on April 1.

The six members of the Avetisyans family were shot and killed in Gyumri at around 6 a.m. on January 12, 2015. The only survivor was 6-month old Seryozha Avetisyan, who was transferred to a hospital with injuries caused by a cutting and piercing tool. The childs health condition became worse on January 19. After fighting for his life and undergoing several difficult surgeries for a week, six-month old Seryozha Avetisyan also died on January 19. There was severe renal insufficiency and cardiac insufficiency, and doctors werent able to save his life. Soldier of the 102nd Russian military base stationed in Gyumri, Valery Permyakov was charged with killing the members of the Avetisyan family and causing numerous injuries to little Seryozha. Russian border guards found him when he was trying to cross the Armenian-Turkish border and handed him over to the commanders of the 102nd Russian military base. Permyakov confessed his guilt. On August 12, The Russian side sentenced Permyakov to 10 years of imprisonment for desertion and illegal possession of a firearm.
As a young ex-kiap returning to Australia in 1974, I remember all too well that my experiences in PNG were regarded as being largely about police work. The true scope of the kiap's job was not understood, perhaps because there was no direct equivalent within the Australian workforce.

I entirely agree with Ted Wolfer's central proposition that Australians were and remain woefully ignorant about Papua New Guinea.

This is manifestly the case when it comes to Australia's relationship with Papua New Guinea.

HAVING studied history for the last 55 years or so, I have learned the wisdom of Oscar Wilde's famous aphorism that "the truth is seldom pure and never simple".

Typically, there was very little interest in or knowledge about PNG itself beyond the stereotypical image of "fuzzy wuzzy angels". I soon gave up even attempting to explain either what kiaps did or to describe anything about the country itself.

I also agree with Sean Dorney's assessment that there remains a lingering sense of embarrassment about Australia's colonial past. One manifestation of this has been what I regard as a deliberate attempt at a governmental level to forget that past.

The Whitlam government was determined to be rid of the stigma of being a colonial power at a time when decolonisation was occurring all over the world.

I think that Whitlam himself had a lively contempt for Australians living and working in PNG, believing them to be the very worst sort of Australian: ignorant, patronising, exploitative and racist.

There were, of course, enough Australians who fitted this description to give it real credence.

In part at least, this led him, and the key policy makers who shared his views, to dismiss out of hand any suggestion that undue haste towards independence would not be in PNG's best interests.

They saw this as an obvious attempt to needlessly prolong an unjust and inequitable colonial regime.

While this is defensible at some level, what was not was the way in which the unease of many Papua New Guineans about Australia's hasty withdrawal was completely ignored.

Whitlam and his colleagues listened only to the voices of Michael Somare and his Pangu Pati, effectively disenfranchising millions of ordinary Papua New Guineans.

Had Canberra resolved to pursue a planned, careful and purposeful decolonisation process that extended over a decade or so, and included a much longer period of self-government, then there is little doubt that PNG would have been much better prepared for independence.

If ever there was a missed opportunity, then this was it.

I think that it is open to historians to conclude that Whitlam did PNG no favours at all by engineering its precipitous abandonment, an action that, while satisfying the international demands for decolonisation, left PNG disgracefully under prepared for independence.

A countervailing view is that Whitlam merely did what had to be done: the anti-colonial forces at work in the world at the time demanded this and Australia simply acquiesced to the inevitable.

In relation to the awarding of the Police Overseas Service Medal to ex-kiaps, I was not embarrassed to receive it, believing that it reflected a very belated recognition of the nation building efforts undertaken by a woefully under-resourced handful of colonial officers.

This is especially the case for those who first explored and opened up the country. Their truly remarkable efforts have received virtually no recognition at all.

I was also delighted to accept the RPNGC Centenary Medal awarded by the PNG government, for very much the same reason.

Like Paul Oates, my hope is that by talking about the shared history of Australia and PNG through sites like PNG Attitude, we might bring this topic more to the front of mind amongst the broader public in both countries.

That would be a good thing for our future relationship, which must inevitably be a close one.
After the terrorist attacks in Brussels could people please not fall into familiar habits such as: banning all Muslims from entering the country, ask Muslims to condemn these terrorists, carpet bombing Syria, and calling for the use of torture? These terrorists only appropriated Islam to fit their own vile ends.

Yet, when someone kills an abortion doctor or shoots up a Planned Parenthood clinic they are not labeled Christian terrorists even while saying they act in the name of said religion. Nor should these vile murders of minorities or family planning clinic employees be called Christian any more than the terrorists in the Brussels or Paris terrorist attacks should be called Muslim terrorists.

Does a majority of the media ask Christians to condemn racists groups such as the 150-year-old KKK or bigoted killers such as Dylan Roof? Should any neighborhoods that are Christian be policed after attacks such as the Planned Parenthood shootings in Colorado? Should we carpet bomb certain parts of our own country that sympathize with the KKK, Dylan Roof, or murders of Planned Parenthood staff?

If these three questions sound ridiculous and illogical, just think how you would feel being constantly asked to do this in defense of your Christian faith. Then try to imagine how someone who is from the Islamic faith must feel. I have been fortunate to be a Christian who has had the benefit of listening to and talking with followers of the Islamic faith. These people have positively helped broaden how I view the world. So let us all ask someone who is follower of Islam what their faith is about by listening and asking smart questions without repeating vile talking points coming from the likes of Donald Trump.

Jim Granger

Weedsport
SKANEATELES  Skaneateles Village Attorney Mike Byrne called Mayor Marty Hubbard over the weekend before Thursday's village Board of Trustees meeting to make sure everything was in order for the meeting.

Except there wasn't going to be a meeting. And the mayor knew that already.

There was an agenda for the meeting, and Byrne even went to village hall early to set things up  though he wondered why the lights weren't on and no one else was there. That's because there wasn't a meeting to begin with.

Somewhere along the line, somebody convinced Byrne to stop at the Sherwood Inn for a quick minute on his way to the meeting. And that's when the attorney and his family walked into a surprise reception to honor his 25 years of service to the village as he retires this month.

"He's been on a full-court press to be ready for tonight's meeting," Hubbard said, with perhaps a hint of apology in his voice. "That's what we know about Mike. He's always prepared. Rest assured, he was ready."

With Byrne stepping down as village attorney at the end of the village's official year, Thursday was slated to be his final scheduled meeting in that position. Instead, he was celebrated with standing ovations from a room full of current and former mayors, trustees and officials whom he served.

Though Hubbard offered the only official remarks on the attorney he worked alongside in the nine years that make up his two stints as mayor, he invited the others present to say their own words to Byrne on a video that will be given to him as a parting gift.

"The village has not even received so much as one call about that position," Hubbard said, noting the village received Byrne's resignation letter in December. "In my opinion, that's not a coincidence."

The mayor pointed out a booklet Village Administrator Patty Couch put together listing all of the people who worked for the village  either as an elected or appointed official or as an employee during Byrne's time as attorney, taking up six full pages in the paper pamphlet.

"It's absolutely incredible how many people Mike served and worked with in his tenure," Hubbard said. "There's just an incredible number of people and dedicated volunteers that contribute to the quality of our village. ... There are a lot of reasons why the village is special, and many are the result of Mike's work. Mike has been the essence of consistency and a consummate professional."

Even Byrne's legal colleagues  and even opponents  looked up to the village attorney, the mayor said.

"It's always interesting when the other party already knows or finds out that Mike will be representing the village," Hubbard said. "The respect is indescribable."

Given the chance to speak to the audience, though, Byrne shined the spotlight on those around him, voicing his pleasure to spend the first 25 years of his career working with his father, Matthew Byrne Jr., and the last 25 years of his career serving the village.

And though he counted projects such as the Skaneateles fire station and the Skaneateles Community Center among his biggest accomplishments, he told the audience those developments are not what he is most proud of.

"I had the opportunity to work with a tremendous group of mayors and trustees for 25 years. I got to help them achieve their goals and dreams they set when they ran for office," Byrne said. "I got to serve with people who had nothing but positive vision for what they could do and wanted to do. Sometimes it took 10 or 15 years, but we were always thinking of what we could do to make the village better."

He noted the mayors, trustees and officials with whom he worked all worked together to build consensus and form a team.

"They knew they had to have a team," he said. "Every one of them built a team around them, and I got to play on their team."

That mentality of teamwork did come through in several developments, the attorney said  bringing the new fire station to fruition after 15 years, working with the Allyn family on the community center, renovating the former fire station into the village hall, improving the village sewer system, making other capital improvements and, most recently, fighting against illegal short-term rental properties.

Through it all, the trustees lived up to the dictionary definition of their title, the attorney said  someone who protects the valuable property of other people.

"It's interesting and appropriate that the elected officials are referred to as trustees," Byrne said. "Those village trustees safeguard this beautiful, special and unique place. The challenge is to keep it beautiful, special and unique. ... Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you for 25 years."
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The Mercedes-Benz E-Class has completed 20 years in India, and to mark the occasion, Mercedes-Benz has launched an intriguing 360-degree brand campaign, Wish Upon A Star.

Conceptualised by Creativeland Asia, the campaign is engineered to spread the fascination associated with the E-Class, not just among the patrons and the potential customers, but amongst millions of fans across the country.

An innovative mobile invitation was shared with people. Recipients can only read the invite if they hold their smartphones aiming towards the sky. This has generated a lot of buzz as the fans have begun sharing the invite with friends on social media and even on WhatsApp.

The Wish upon a Star campaign urges the audience to make their wishes around the E-Class, through a digital app, a dedicated microsite and even at specially created wishing booths across dealerships. The most heartfelt and unique wishes stand a chance to be fulfilled.

Unmetric, a social media intelligence firm, rated Mercedes-Benz India amongst Asias top-performing brands on social media within a week of the campaigns launch.

Roland Folger, Managing Director & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, commented,

The E-Class is the first luxury car to be made in India and over these 20 years have defined the entire luxury segment. Being a key product in our product offering in India, 20 years of the E-Class in India presented the right occasion for us, to create a campaign that touches the heart of the customers, in a way that has never been done before. Wish upon a Star campaign was created keeping in mind the fascination surrounding the E-Class and its strong customer preference. We are very excited with this unique concept and the execution of Wish Upon a Star campaign, and we are overwhelmed with the response that we have been receiving from our customers and enthusiasts. The campaign beautifully represents the brand ethos of Mercedes-Benz which aims at winning the customers hearts.

Sajan Raj Kurup, Founder and Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia, said, Two years into partnership with Mercedes-Benz India, we have seen the brand reaching No. 1 position in the luxury automobile market, dominating the social media platform for engagement against its competition.

He further said, When we were briefed that E-Class will be completing 20 years in India, Creativeland proposed a campaign  #Wishuponastar  where the entire nation can wish around the E-Class. We are glad the campaign has received a great response and it is even better to see via the videos and text messages posted on the website www.wishuponastar.in how India sees the tristar and what it means to them. It is also a strategic move to have this campaign come out at the right time, while we lead the market it will be great to see the nation wishing upon a star.

This three-month campaign is currently in its initial phase.
Mukund Padmanabhan has been appointed the Editor of The Hindu. Prior to this, he was Editor of The Hindu Business Line. The decision was taken by the Board of Directors of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, at its meeting on March 23, 2016.

Meanwhile, Raghavan Srinivasan, Senior Associate Editor of The Hindu Business Line, has been elevated to Editor of the business newspaper. Both the appointments are effective immediately.

Padmanabhan had taken over as the Editor of The Hindu Business Line in August 2012, before which he had worked for The Hindu for 15 years.

Prior to joining The Hindu, Padmanabhan had worked for Sunday, the weekly magazine in Kolkata and The Indian Express, where he wrote editorials and oversaw many of the newspapers supplements, including the Sunday Magazine, Literary Review and Metro Plus.

The Kasturi & Sons Ltd Board placed on record its appreciation of the contribution of Suresh Nambath, National Editor of The Hindu, in managing the editorial transition smoothly and efficiently, drawing on the team strengths of the newspaper.
Airmens Week marks first anniversary





JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas (AFNS) -- The 37th Training Wing will mark the first year of the Airmens Week program here on March 25.



Airmens Week is a five-day course that helps Airmen better prepare for technical training school and beyond. The strategic curriculum further develops professional, resilient Airmen who are inspired by heritage, committed to the services core values, and motivated to deliver airpower, according to Kevin Adelsen, the Air Education and Training Command Airmens Week program manager.



Since its inception, instructors, course developers and, most importantly, Airmen have noted the positive impacts the program has had thus far.



We are getting them to think more deeply about Air Force core values, about what it means to be a member of the profession of arms, and we have over an 89 percent approval rate from the Airmen that have been through Airmens Week, Adelsen said. From a qualitative, anecdotal standpoint, it is a resounding success.



The concept of Airmens Week stemmed from Air Force officials, including Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James A. Cody and members of the 737th Training Group, evaluating the former 8 1/2-week basic military training program and assessing how to further enhance airmanship skills and emphasize a long-standing commitment to core values and morality.



Were trying to get into our Airmens hearts and into their minds earlier, and really develop the right culture, and what it really means to be an Airman serving their nation, said Chief Master Sgt. David Staton, the AETC command chief.



Although the program has undergone changes since its launch, the goal of Airmens Week remains constant with curriculum focused exclusively on wingmanship, resiliency, leadership and followership, sexual assault prevention and response, the warrior ethos, and how Airmen can balance their personal and professional lives.



While the instruction of Airmens Week is curriculum based, a concept called active mentorship is also applied, which requires the instructors to engage with the Airmen to figure out what they want to know about the Air Force instead of waiting to be asked. By displaying the transparency to share both successes and failures, instructors can provide both relatable and ethical advice to Airmen as they begin their careers.



Active mentorship is the idea that you dont passively wait for an Airman to seek out guidance and advice, said Lt. Col. Meghan Doherty, the 326th Training Squadron and Airmens Week commander. You seek out the Airman to give them what they need and ask them what they want. You use your experience to help an Airman find their path in the Air Force.



For the students, Airmens Week is proving to have added great value as they transition from civilians to Airmen.



Airman 1st Class Brianna Smith, a 20th Intelligence Squadron geospatial intelligence analyst at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, was one of the first Airmen to complete Airmens Week and believes the course will have a positive and lasting effect on her career and personal life.



For me personally, when I think back on my experience, absolutely 100 percent, it was worth it, Smith said. I took a lot from Airmens Week and I was very, very lucky to walk away with an extremely unique and valuable experience.



The qualitative data from Airmen combined with quantitative data from the Air Forces technical training schools will provide an even more accurate measure of where Airmens Week is today. Facilitators will process the information theyre given and determine the direction needed in order to continue developing and producing quality Airmen.



"One year ago, we implemented Airmen's Week in an effort to help fundamentally shape the character of the Airmen serving in our United States Air Force, said Brig. Gen. Trent Edwards, the commander of the 37th Training Wing.



During the last year, over 31,000 Airmen have transitioned through Airmen's Week and today, I am proud to state that we have successfully produced more professional, resilient Airmen, inspired by our heritage, committed to the Air Force core values, and motivated to deliver airpower for America, Edwards said.
A journey to JTAC

Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Rarang, Senior Airman Tormod Lillekroken and Staff Sgt. Seth Hunt, all 2nd Air Support Operations Squadron joint terminal attack controllers, walk along a road as part of a training scenario during exercise Serpentex 16 in Corsica, France, March 15, 2016. JTACs are considered qualified service members who direct the action of air and surfaced-based fires at the tactical level. They are the Airmen on the ground with the authority to control and call in airstrikes on target. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Sara Keller)
Air Force International Affairs builds partnerships to address global security challenges

In a finely wood-finished conference room of a historic townhouse, the assistant deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for international affairs addressed a group of students and faculty at the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., March 22.



Maj. Gen. Lawrence M. Martin Jr. discussed the need for building global partnerships as well as some of the success stories and challenges the Air Force has faced in international affairs.



While its important for us to work today with the partners we have, what were also building are relationships that will be useful to the nation tomorrow, five years, 10 years and 20 years down the road, Martin said.



The general shared a story about serving alongside a Royal Air Force exchange pilot during an early assignment in his career. As an aviator with combat experience in the Falklands War, Martin looked up to the British pilot for his insights.



To me he was not 5 feet 2 inches, but 10 feet tall, Martin said. Because at that point, that partner of the United States had combat experience in the Falklands in 1982. To me, he was the person who had more capability and experience than I did, so we relied on his help to build our Air Force.



Martin shared a few more of his experiences in security cooperation. While on assignment during Operation Desert Storm, Martin worked alongside Saudi Arabian airmen to deconflict air operations in the region. Martin also shared his experiences training Singaporean air force KC-135 Stratotanker units in the U.S., as well as the lessons learned from tanker operations in Libya during Operation Odyssey Dawn.



Each story illustrated the opportunities for working with international partners, and the need for building partnerships and security cooperation.



Security cooperation, even with our high-end friends, is a tenuous thing going forward, Martin said. But we do our mission better when we include our partners.



Martin also used the international affairs lens to echo the top Air Force priorities articulated by the secretary of the Air Force.



Our Air Force priorities in this increasingly complex security environment with decreasing resources are taking care of our people, balancing readiness with modernization and making every dollar count, he said. Not surprisingly, when talking to our partner air forces, almost all of them have priorities that look similar.



One of the security cooperation success stories Martin reflected on was the longstanding partnership between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates, which began with their acquisition of F-16 Fighting Falcons in 1998, developed over 18 years, and continues today with their participation in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.



The United States Air Forces global vigilance, global reach and global power today, demand that we have global partnerships as we go forward, Martin said. Our mission is to build that capacity, capability and cooperation with our partners to build national security.
Original members of the Tuskegee Airmen, their families and supporters gathered in downtown Montgomery March 22 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Tuskegee Airmen Experience.Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III was among the guests.Only 40 miles from where the U.S. Army Air Corps trained the first African American military aviation group in U.S. history, retired Brig. Gen. Leon A. Johnson presented Welsh with a Tuskegee red jacket, making him an honorary member of the Tuskegee Airmen. The red jacket represents the distinctive red that pilots and maintainers painted on the tails of their P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs in the 332nd Fighter Group.Johnson, now the board chair of the Tuskegee Airmen Foundation and national president of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., said the induction was to recognize a man who understands and personifies the impact that the men and women of the Tuskegee mission have had on the nation."We're taking this action because (Welsh) has been an active proponent and supporter of getting the message about the legacy and heritage of the Tuskegee Airmen out to the members of your Air Force and the strength that comes from diversity," Johnson said.Induction as an honorary member of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. is a reflection of a person's support of the overall goals of the organization, said Marv Abrams, the central region president of the group.Those goals, according to Abrams, not only include preserving the heritage and legacy of the original Tuskegee Airmen, but introducing youth to aviation and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) opportunities through youth programs.Theodore "Ted" Lumpkin, one of the 10 original Tuskegee Airmen who attended, said he was happy to see Welsh help preserve that legacy for today's youth."When you see important individuals wanting to be and feeling honored to be an honorary member, it's very satisfying and it gives you the indication that we're going to continue to exist ... and hopefully inspire youngsters to emulate what we did," Lumpkin said.Welsh joins a distinct group of honorary members including former President Bill Clinton, director George Lucas, "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts, radio personality Tom Joyner, and former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who also attended the commemoration."To say that this evening is an honor for me ... might be the biggest single understatement of my life," Welsh said with notable emotion in front of the group of nearly 200 after Johnson helped him replace his uniform coat with the honorary red coat."It is such an incredible privilege just to be here to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the lighting of this eternal flame that was lit at Chanute Field in Illinois in 1941, and is still burning brightly in the eyes of the 10 original Tuskegee Airmen sitting here tonight," he continued. "I'm still unable to wrap my mind around the fact you're allowing me to wear a red jacket. I just don't feel worthy."To learn more about the history of the Tuskegee Airmen and the youth outreach programs, click here
A U.S. district judge has sentenced four men to prison for a murder on the Navajo Nation.

Judge Susan R. Bolton sentenced Shawn Dale, 22, Travis Gaddy, 22, and Zachrey Brown, 24, each to 17.5 years behind bars this week after all three pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of the victim of a robbery gone wrong. A fourth suspect, Julius Yazzie, 22, pleaded guilty to robbery and was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Arizona, the four men made a plan to rob a fellow member of the Navajo Nation late on July 22, 2014. Dale, Gaddy and Brown were supposed to confront the victim in his home while Yazzie waited as the getaway driver. The defendants lured the victim outside and then stabbed him to death.

The investigation was conducted by the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety and the FBI.
Women's History Month Spotlight: Chief Josephine Keller

Chief Master Sgt. Josephine Keller is the Chief Enlisted Manager for the 403rd Aeromedical Staging Squadron here.



Keller joined the Air Force Reserve in September 1991. As the chief enlisted manager for the 403rd ASTS and member of the Aeromedical Staging Squadron Executive Management Committee, she works directly for the commander advising and providing assistance on enlisted matters such as training, readiness and career progression. As the units senior enlisted advisor she collaborates with leadership to identify ways to improve processes and procedures to meet the squadron, wing and Air Force missions.



Prior to her assignment at Keesler AFB, she served for two year as the 452nd Air Mobility Wing Yellow Ribbon representative serving 4,000-plus wing members. Coordinating with the Air Force Reserve Yellow Ribbon Office, the wing integrated delivery system and other wing agencies, she advised, managed and assisted in administering support to service members and their families. Keller directly supported traditional reservists, individual mobilization augmentees, active guard reserve, and air reserve technicians throughout the five phases of deployment.



A graduate of Community College of the Air Force with an Associates Degree in Human Health Sciences, Keller is on the Deans List at Trident University International pursuing a Bachelor Degree in Human Resources and Leadership.



Kellers career includes 23 years in aeromedical evacuation providing expert care airlifting patients all around the globe. In addition, she served as flight/ground safety representative, flight instructor, acting First Sergeant, operation support superintendent, medical readiness non-commissioned officer in charge, career advisor, and NCO in charge of standardization and evaluation.



A decorated veteran, her military medals include the Purple Heart, three Meritorious Service Medals, Air Force Commendation Medal with Valor, Air Force Achievement Medal, Aerial Achievement Medal and the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal. Keller has deployed multiple times in Support of Operations Southern Watch, Joint Guard, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn and Noble Eagle.

An advocate for all veterans she volunteers for several organizations providing education and awareness of benefits. Veterans organizations take care of their veterans past and present as well as their families, widows and orphans. She was also named Woman Veterans Advocate for her region providing vital information to assist with education, abuse victims and homelessness.



An active member on and off duty Keller has also been recognized by the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Cody in 2014 for outstanding support of the wings Yellow Ribbon Program. She was awarded the Order of the Diamond by 452nd AMW First Sergeants Council for significant contributions to the wing in 2014, and in 2013, the American Legion Auxiliary named her Air Force Woman of the Year for the state of California. She also won the ALA AF Woman of the Year at the National level in 2013.



Her professional affiliations include: 403rd Wing Chiefs Group, 403rd Aeromedical Staging Squadrons Top 3, Military Order of the Purple Hearts -- Life Member, AMVETS Post 77, American Legion Post 289, American Legion Auxiliary Post 289, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1744 (commander 2008-2009 and senior vice commander, 2006-20080, Womens Memorial Foundation, 452nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Key Spouse, and Air Force Sergeants Association.


Living with mental illness has been a harrowing ordeal for Safiatu Kondeh. The 34-year-old, who lives in Kabala, northern Sierra Leone, with her mother and two children, has had to endure conditions almost worse than the disease.
A Jet Airways aircraft on Friday brought back 242 Indians including 28 crew members, who were stranded following the deadly terror attacks on airport and metro station in the Belgian capital Brussels on Tuesday.

The recovery flight 9W 1229 from Amsterdam, which landed here this morning, also carried onboard the passengers who were bound for Mumbai as their flight was cancelled at the last minute due to a technical problem in the aircraft.

The airline had earlier taken all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

The flight 9W 1229 carrying 214 passengers, including 69 bound for Mumbai, along with 28 Jet Airways crew members landed at IGI airport at 5.10 AM, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

I was coming from Toronto and as soon as we arrived at the airport and when to the arrival bay, within 15 minutes they were asking us to evacuate as soon as possible. We had no idea what had happened, a woman passenger said after arriving here while narrating her ordeal at the Brussels airport.

She said that there were hundreds of passengers running out with their baggage. From there we found out that there were three blasts.

The blast occurred in the departure area of the airport as soon as our flight had landed. They took all of us out and we remained stranded there for quite some time, said another passenger.

Jet Airways yesterday operated two flights from Amsterdam for Toronto and Delhi after transporting all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

It had initially planned to fly three recovery flights from Amsterdam including one to Mumbai after pulling out all its four grounded aircraft from the Brussels airport.

However, it had to cancel the Mumbai flight at the last moment as the aircraft developed some problem, forcing the airline to combine the two flights into one.
A former Indian Navy officer has been arrested in Pakistan for alleged involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan, but India quickly distanced itself from him by stating that he had no link with the government since his premature retirement from the Navy.

The response by Indias Ministry of External Affairs came after Pakistan Foreign Secretary summoned Indias High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale to lodge his countrys protest over subversive activities of an alleged Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer.

The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi, the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Friday identified the official as Kulbhushan Yadav, who he said was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). He said the man was contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan. Agency reports quoted unnamed sources to claim that the man was arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border.

In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said: The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region.

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past. But it has never been able to furnish any evidence to support his claims.

In July 2009, a joint statement was signed between Indias then PM Manmohan Singh and Pakistans Yousaf Raza Gilani after their talks on the sidelines of Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. Singh was criticized by the Opposition as the statement had included that during their talks Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas.

In that statement, Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues.
Russia and the United States agreed at talks in Moscow on Thursday to use their influence over the sides in the Syria conflict to speed up progress towards a political solution.

Speaking after a four-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow and Washington would try in the next few days to nudge Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to make the right decision about committing fully to peace talks.

Negotiations in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and opposition are bogged down, and Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Assad, can convince Damascus to make concessions.

The main stumbling block is whether Syrias political transition will lead to Assad leaving office. His opponents and Western governments say he must go, but Damascus says that is not even on the agenda for negotiations.

Russia will have to speak itself as to what it is going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today that we will accelerate the effort to try to move the political process forward, Kerry told a news conference after his talks with Putin.

I believe that Russia is fully engaged in this effort and all of us are going to try and get President Assad to make the right decision over these next days to engage in a political process that results in a genuine transition and brings peace to Syria, Kerry said.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who appeared alongside Kerry at the news conference in the Kremlin, did not say in his remarks if Russia was prepared to apply any pressure specifically on Assad.

He said only that Russia would encourage all sides to commit to the principles of the talks in Geneva, which are being brokered by the United Nations. Perhaps the most important thing at this stage: we agreed to increase efforts to establish the necessary conditions for a political process, Lavrov said.

The political process should end with the Syrians themselves agreeing on how they want to see their country. As for the most immediate tasks, we have agreed to work towards a speedy start of direct talks in Geneva between the government delegation and a whole spectre of the opposition, Lavrov told reporters.
Sanjay Nirupam says that Ajoy Mehta does not have any right to continue in the position of BMC Commissioner until his name is cleared of corruption charges.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Ajoy Mehta is in deep trouble after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered for a preliminary inquiry into some of the decisions taken by him during his tenure as managing director of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd. (MSEDCL). MRCC President Sanjay Nirupam said that Mehta does not have any right to continue in the position of BMC Commissioner until his name is cleared of corruption charges.

Nirupam demanded Mehtas resignation and said, The state government must take action against Mehta if he is found guilty. Moreover, the government must remove him from the post of the citys municipal commissioner.

There has been alleged irregularities in awarding tenders for the road construction work, sewage cleaning, tablet purchasing. The government must call for probe for ascertaining the truth. When an inquiry has been ordered against Mehta how he can call for a probe into the corruption activities of BMC, added Nirupam.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil had alleged, During Mehtas tenure, he cleared tenders worth Rs 4,372 crore in a day. The tenders were cleared by changing the tender conditions at the company level. Mr Vikhe-Patil also said he had the documents to prove his allegations. The government should initiate an enquiry against Mehta, said Mr Vikhe Patil.

Congress MLA Vijay Wadettiwar said, The distribution company has bought over 2 lakh electricity metres for domestic user of which most of them were faulty. Mehta during his tenure as MD of the company, went on foreign trips for 10 times without the government permission, which is necessary, said Wadettiwar.

Another Congress legislator Sunil Kedar also demanded an enquiry into the issue. The government should set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to enquire the matter. The energy minister should announce the same in the House, said Mr Kedar.

Energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, while replying on the issues, refuted to set up Special Investigation Team (SIT) for enquiry and said, The state will undertake preliminary inquiries into the allegations. And if needed, then we will decide about further inquiry. The report of the preliminary inquiry will be submitted in three months, Bawankule said, adding that, Although there are complaints against Mehta, he has done good job as MD of the MSEDCL.
An Egyptian national, suspected to be involved in the widespread violence in his country in 2013 following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, has been arrested from the city airport.

The suspect, identified as Hossam Mohamed, was arrested on Thursday at the Mumbai international airport upon his arrival from Qatar, after his name was flagged by a Red Corner Notice issued by Egypt.

When his papers were being checked at the immigration counter, the airport official found that the Interpol had issued a red corner notice against him, the official said.

They brought the matter to the notice of police following which he was arrested.

We are in the process of confirming the identity of the suspect and have sought his custody. His identity will be verified with the Egyptian authorities, after which further action will be taken, the police official said.

The Egyptian town of Matay had witnessed a widespread violence and riot in 2013 after the ouster of President Morsi.

An Egyptian court later sentenced to death 529 supporters of the ousted Islamist President.
Republican and Democratic presidential frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hold leads in nationwide polls amid an escalating feud between the brash billionaire and rival Ted Cruz over their wives.

With the nominating primary and caucus season now past its halfway point, a CNN survey average of six recent polls found Trump holding a 12-point lead over Texas Senator Cruz, 43 percent to 31 percent.

The third Republican in the contest, Ohio Governor John Kasich, was well behind at 19 percent.

On the Democratic side Clinton topped her party rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, 52 percent to 43 percent.

The average suggests Clinton has expanded her lead since mid-February, when an average of national polls conducted after the New Hampshire primary found Clinton just 6 percentage points ahead of Sanders.

Trumps lead over Cruz is about the same as his lead in mid-February, but both candidates have grown their share of the vote as the field has shrunk. That poll of polls found Trump at 34 percent and Cruz at 21 percent in a field of six candidates.

Meanwhile, a feud between Trump and Cruz over their wives escalated with an angry and emotional Cruz Thursday calling the real estate mogul a snivelling coward for attacks on wife Heidi.

Donald, youre a snivelling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone, Cruz told reporters Thursday in Dane, Wisconsin.

But he repeatedly declined to say whether he would support Trump if hes the Republican presidential nominee. Im going to beat Donald for the nomination, he insisted before saying three times: Donald Trump will not be the nominee.

In response to a Facebook ad that shows Trumps wife Melania posing nude Trump warned Cruz Tuesday night that he should be careful or he would spill the beans on your wife.

On Wednesday night he retweeted a supporter who photoshopped together a villainous-looking Heidi and a smoky-eyed Melania.

No need to spill the beans' because the images are worth a thousand words, the photo illustration said.

The ad was produced by an anti-Trump super PAC, Make America Awesome, which has no known connection to the Cruz campaign, but Trump still blamed Cruz.

I didnt start the fight with LyinTed Cruz over the GQ cover pic of Melania, he did. He knew the PAC was putting it out  hence, Lyin Ted! he tweeted.
Yesterday I explained why the Brussels only was targeted in Europe. Here I will further continue with the same topic. There were two explosions in the international departure hall at Brussels Airport. It was reported that shots were fired and shouts in Arabic were heard before the explosions occurred. An airport worker said that he heard someone yelling in Arabic before the blasts. A third bomb was found in a search of the airport, which was later destroyed in a controlled explosion. Belgiums federal prosecutor confirmed that suicide bombers carried out the explosions with nail bombs. Still from CCTV footage showing Najim Laachraoui, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and one other unidentified suspect of the bombing at the Brussels Airport. Two brothers, Khalid and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, are believed to have carried out two suicide bombings during the attacks. In security camera video of the airport, Ibrahim is seen with two other men, one of them was identified as Najim Laachraoui, who also carried out a suicide bombing during the attacks. All three identified suspects were linked to the same terrorist cell that plotted the November 2015 Paris attacks.

In the airport security video, the three men are seen pushing luggage, which were believed to store the bombs that exploded in the airport. According to a taxi driver who drove them to the airport, he tried to help them with their luggage, but they ordered him to be away from it. Ibrahim and Laachraoui each appear to be wearing a glove on the left hand, which may have concealed detonators to the explosives.

The el-Bakraoui brothers were known to the Belgian authorities. Unlike other radicalised ISIS adherents, who started with small criminal offences, the two men had a criminal history of more severe crimes. They were believed to have rented an apartment that housed some of the assailants involved in the Paris attacks in November, as well as supplying ammunition for them. Ibrahim died in one of the suicide bombings at Brussels Airport, while Khalid committed the bombing at the metro station, in which he also died. Both brothers evaded capture during an anti-terrorist police raid on March15.

Khalid was convicted in 2011 for a series of carjackings and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was released from prison after serving most of his sentence. Khalid was also arrested in 2011 for possession of Kalashnikov rifles. Following his release, he violated the conditions of his parole, and Interpol subsequently issued an arrest warrant for him in August.

In January 2010, Ibrahim was involved in the attempted robbery of a currency exchange office, where he shot at police with a Kalashnikov rifle. The Mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, and the Mayor of Molenbeek, Philippe Moureaux, described the shooting as a fait divers (a small daily news item) and normal in a large city, causing controversy. Ibrahim was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released on parole in 2014. He did not abide by the parole conditions and was sought again by the authorities. According to authorities in Turkey, they detained Ibrahim as a militant in June 2015 and deported to the Netherlands. Belgian authorities were also informed of the detention and deportation, but they apparently ignored the warnings and the Netherlands released Ibrahim after failing to establish his link to terrorism.

Najim Laachraoui, also known under his cover name, Soufiane Kayal was confirmed to be one of the two suicide bombers at the airport on 23 March. He was born in Morocco but raised in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, where he studied electromechanical engineering at a local Catholic high school. He reportedly travelled to Syria in February 2013.

Like the el-Bakraoui brothers, he evaded capture during the two anti-terrorist police raids on 15 and 18 March, which captured Salah Abdeslam. Laachraoui is believed to be an accomplice of Abdeslam, with whom he travelled across Europe under a false identity. He is also believed to have created the suicide vests used in the Paris attacks. Raids and searches were conducted across Belgium, and heightened security has been implemented in a number of other countries, as a result of the attacks.

Shortly after the news of explosions, Israel banned incoming flights from Europe for the rest of the day. The UKs Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the Belgian authorities are currently advising against travel to Brussels. Officials at the US Embassy in Brussels issued a notice in which they warned of the possibility of more attacks occurring and recommended, sheltering in place and avoiding all public transportation. Additional police were deployed to the Belgian border with the Netherlands. Security was increased, particularly at airports and other transport hubs, in countries such as Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States, even India is on high alert. No one knows, whats their intention is by killing innocent human beings and when will this stop? If some misguided idiots from one particular community plants bombs and kills innocent people, we should not blame the entire community or their religious book, as no religion advocates violence.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
With all the recent hubbub over the Hub, its easy to forget that when it comes to the pace and scale of growth, it is better to be arguing over whether and how to slow it down than to have an economy in retreat.

And this year in the Flagstaff region promises to provide even more opportunities to debate the former, not the latter. The recent good news that the majority of the 60 jobs at the now-closed Golden Eagle Distributors facility will be preserved under new owner Hensley Beverage Co. is only one of many positive indicators. Here are a few others:

Sales and BBB taxes. These are not only running ahead of last year but ahead of city projections, leading to an estimated $3 million municipal revenue surplus by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Some of that will be eaten up by higher health insurance and retirement system costs, but most of the rest will go back into pay raises and thus recirculated in the economy.

Jobless rate: Coconino Countys rate in January was 6.6 percent, down from 7.5 percent the year before. Thats still higher than the state and U.S. rates of 5.6 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively. But the trend is in the direction of local job growth, especially as the state economy and budget recover. After losing 313,000 jobs in the recession, Arizona employment is now just 4,000 jobs shy of peak employment in December 2007. Major local employers like FMC, W.L. Gore, NAU, FUSD, and city and county governments along with federal agencies have stable workforce levels  the 60 positions that NAU eliminated last year due to state budget cuts were out of 3,000 on the Mountain Campus.

Population: The U.S. Census counted 65,870 Flagstaff residents on April 1, 2010, and the latest federal estimate puts the population in 2015 at around 70,000. Thats growth of 6.3 percent in a half-decade, ahead of the states overall pace and most other Arizona cities, too.

Major capital spending. Although there are no major highway projects or government buildings under construction this year, NAU has a new dorm about to break ground and several large apartment complexes are either under construction or in the planning pipeline. And thanks to new road repair taxes passed by city and county voters in 2014, nearly $20 million a year is being spent on materials and payroll, tax money that rolls forward through the economy.

-Private business. The spending on roads helps to make up for the $30 million a year in lost payroll due to the closing of the Walgreens distribution center last year. A major supermarket, Haggen, closed, but REI, Tractor Supply and Sportsmans built new stores. Harkins is on the move to the Flagstaff Mall, and a new Marriott is set for downtown. And stay tuned for more shops and offices along Soliere at Country Club and along Milton on the site of the current DMV.

Tourism: The Arizona Cardinals departed from NAU several summers ago, but Bed, Board and Beverage tax receipts never missed a beat, rising every year, even during the depths of the recession. The Grand Canyon finally surpassed 5 million annual visitors last year, and with the National Park Service celebrating its centennial this summer, 2016 will be even busier. This is also an Olympic year, which means plenty of world-class athletes and their families will be training at 7.000 feet this spring and summer. And the winter season is no slouch, either, now that Snowbowl has gone to artificial snowmaking. Many are now expecting a second airline to move into Pulliam Airport before the end of the year.

Intangibles: The shock to real estate values in Timberline-Fernwood and Doney Park after the Schultz fire of 2010 and subsequent floods has worn off, and values have begun to recover. And the city of Flagstaff and the Coconino National Forest have industrial-scale thinning projects underway that could help revive the regions wood products industry while protecting against catastrophic fire and flooding. Private investment in the science and technology sector is bolstered by new federal grants to NAU scientists, and new access to health insurance through Obamacare is driving more hiring and spending in the health care sector.

The two major economic concerns for greater Flagstaff remain unchanged since before the recession: High housing prices compared with wages and salaries, and a relatively high childhood poverty rate. A robust nonprofit sector, however, is addressing the latter as well as other social safety net challenges in ways that are an economic strength, not a liability.

The year 2016 wont see those challenges abate, but Flagstaffs overall economic capacity hasnt looked this good since the last pre-recession year of 2007.

Correction: The earliest that FUSD is now considering putting a budget override on the ballot is 2018.
March 24, 2016

CAIRO  In what many critics see as an effort to eliminate union organization in Egypt and undermine all constitutional articles guaranteeing the right to establish trade unions, the state on March 1 declared that the stamps of independent trade unions will no longer be valid on official documents. The decision prohibits dealing with independent trade unions and considers them illegitimate entities.

The decision came following a more than five-year struggle between independent trade unions and the state, represented by the Ministry of Manpower, which is in charge of following up on the establishment and activity of trade unions. After the January 25 Revolution, dozens of independent trade unions started forming to express workers' demands.

With time, the independent trade unions influence increased, as members elected their leaders and saw them as rights advocates. Workers abandoned the pro-government Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which failed to unite them under its umbrella.

The Interior Ministry said the Ministry of Manpower had asked for the unions to be invalidated because they are not subject to the provisions of Law No. 35 of 1976 on trade unions, which prohibits union pluralism.

Article 13 of that law states that workers in the same occupational groups or industries, or in industries correlated to each other or jointly working for the same production, can only form one trade union across the republic and no other.

Hani Afifi, vice president of the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress (EDLC), which is an independent alliance of unions, told Al-Monitor, This law is faulty and has no value, as it contradicts constitutional Article 76, which allows trade union pluralism and guarantees workers right to establish trade unions upon notifying the concerned authority. Constitutional provisions are the important thing for us, and the government needs to adjust its situation according to the constitution and refrain from implementing a law that contradicts the constitution.

Constitution Article 76 states that the establishment of federations and trade unions on a democratic basis is a right guaranteed by the law. The article says unions shall have legal personality, operate freely, contribute to higher competencies among its members, advocate for their rights and protect their interests. The article also says the state shall guarantee the independence of trade unions and federations, and their boards of directors shall not be dissolved without a court order.

We have in the [EDLC] congress 125 independent trade unions and more than 800,000 workers, all of whom left the ETUF and decided to join us. The federation did not offer them anything and workers did not even elect their representatives, so how could ETUF be representative of workers in the state? Afifi said.

He added, Why does the state refuse to implement the provisions of the constitution and continue to procrastinate on issuing the laws on freedom of association, which the ministry had announced two years ago? Why is the state trying to suppress workers with an outdated law from 40 years ago, which was canceled in the [2014] constitution? We will not be affected by these measures and we will continue to fight for our usurped rights and exercise the freedoms of association to the fullest, as per the constitution."

In January, the Permanent Conference of Alexandria Workers launched a campaign dubbed "Together for Freedom of Association calling on the government to yield to workers demands and implement the constitutions provisions regarding the freedom to establish trade unions unconditionally.

The campaign has said it will take clear steps to pressure the government, including organizing seminars and meetings with workers from across the countrys different governorates, and collecting their signatures on a petition rejecting the decision. The campaign also plans to file lawsuits against the Ministry of Manpower for violating the constitution.

In press statements March 16, Khaled Tosoun, vice chairman of the Permanent Conference of Alexandria Workers, called upon the state to reject its thinking, which he said is negatively affecting its economic situation; to implement the international labor agreement it had signed; and to openly declare its support for the working class and workers right to establish independent unions.

Egypt is a signee of the International Labor Convention No. 87 for 1948, which states in its second and third articles that workers have the right to establish unions and organizations of their choice unconditionally, to set their bylaws and regulations and organize their administrative affairs and activities in full freedom. The conventions Article 8 stipulates that the countrys laws shall not prejudice the provisions of the agreement.

Article 93 of the constitution says the state shall be bound to the international agreements, covenants and conventions on human rights ratified by Egypt, which shall enter into force after publication in accordance with the established procedure.

Abdel Monem al-Gamal, the ETUF deputy chairman, made scathing comments to Al-Monitor against the independent unions, calling upon them to respect the law and rejoin the federation, which is the only union legally recognized by the state.

Law No. 35 of 1976 is the only law governing the establishment of independent trade unions and federations. The government has yet to amend it in accordance with the constitution. So until the government passes the new law, the independent unions are void and invalid, he said.

About the accusations against that ETUF has not offered workers any benefits for the past 60 years, Gamal said, If the ETUF has done nothing for workers, could anyone tell me what the independent unions have offered workers over the past five years since their establishment?

"Unfortunately, some workers have exploited the chaos that followed the January revolution to create fake entities, obtaining funds from abroad without any control. Today, we have to correct the path by operating under the umbrella of the official federation exclusively.
March 24, 2016

ERBIL, Iraq  The recent declaration of a federal structure in northern Syria by the local Kurdish administration and its Arab and Assyrian allies is likely to put the Syrian Kurds further at odds with neighboring Turkey, as it will pose serious challenges to Ankara amid renewed conflict with its own Kurds.

The announcement of the Federal Democratic System of Rojava and Northern Syria on March 17 by the dominant Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and other groups in the area, coincided with a new round of peace talks between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and armed opposition groups in Geneva. The PYD has been excluded from the talks at the behest of Turkey and opposition groups that view the Kurdish group with suspicion, due to presumed links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and perceived cooperation with Assads regime. The PYD has denied these charges.

Both the Assad regime and opposition forces have rejected the Kurdish-sponsored federal region, seeing it as a move toward the eventual partition of the conflict-stricken country. Rival Syrian Kurdish groups have also opposed the PYD move, seeing it as a unilateral measure.

The federal zone includes the three cantons of Rojava  Jazira, Kobani and Afrin  as well as Tell Abyad and areas in northern Aleppo governorate that have been captured by Kurdish forces over the past year.

Of all the concerned actors, it is perhaps Turkey that is most infuriated by the move and fears its strategic long-term repercussions for its own stability given the large restive Kurdish population that lives in Turkey.

In a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart March 19, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu lashed out at the PYD for establishing a federal region. "They want to divide Syria," Cavusoglu said. "With Iran, we support the territorial integrity of Syria."

Many view the PYD as an affiliate of the PKK, but the two groups deny any organic links between them.

Perhaps aware of the backlash that it might trigger not the least from Turkey, Salih Muslim, the co-chairman of the PYD, tried to play down the repercussions of the move.

Speaking to Al-Monitor in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Muslim said Syrian Kurdish "federalism is misunderstood."

"This is not a classic federalism  This is about arranging the relations [in northern Syria]," Muslim said. "This is an agreement between the groups there on how to take and give. Before it was a small region, now it has been expanded," he noted.

The Syrian Kurds' establishment of what they term a "non-ethnic" federal zone comes amid international discussions on a possible solution to the five-year-old conflict in Syria that has claimed an estimated half a million lives and displaced over 10 million people. Russia has floated the idea of a Syrian federation as a possible way of putting an end to the bloodshed in the country and preserving its unity.

The emergence of the Kurdish-dominated federal entity in Syria comes amid an intense conflict in neighboring Turkey. Turkish security forces are currently fighting the PKK in what appears to be one of the bloodiest episodes of the decades-long conflict between the two sides.

"Autonomy and self-rule for Syrias Kurds will embolden the PKK in Turkey further, given its extensive ties to the PYD," Ranj Alaaldin, a Middle East researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Al-Monitor.

Turkey initially opposed self-rule for Iraqi Kurds in the early 1990s, but gradually came to terms with it. It currently enjoys strong political and trade ties with Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet, it is unclear how it will choose to react to an enhanced and expanded Kurdish-ruled entity in Syria.

Given the presence of Russian forces in Syria and the animosity arising from Turkey's shooting down of a Russian warplane in November 2015, Turkey is not in a strong position to respond to what it perceives as threats coming from Syria.

"Turkey has very limited options. It lacks the capacity to mount an effective military operation and, even if it does go for the gamble, risks confrontation with the Russians, Iranians and the Assad regime," said Alaaldin, who writes regularly on Kurdish and regional affairs. "Turkey is isolated both regionally and internationally, which further complicates matters for [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and his government."

Turkey's relations with the PYD have ranged from lukewarm to outright hostile. Muslim and other PYD leaders have visited Turkey and met with Turkish officials on a number of occasions. In a dramatic turn of events, even though Erdogan anticipated that the Kurdish-controlled town of Kobani would fall to the Islamic State (IS) in late 2014, he allowed the passage by Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to Kobani to assist Syrian Kurds against IS. The PYD and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), also facilitated the removal of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah in Aleppo governorate by Turkish forces when it was in danger of being harmed by IS militants.

Turkish leaders have repeatedly warned the PYD and YPG against seizing more territory and at times shelled areas inside Syrian territory controlled by the YPG.

While the circumstances might look quite difficult for Turks now, some argue Ankara's hands are not that tied down in confronting the new federal arrangement in northern Syria.

"Ankara has recently tried to convene dozens of armed Syrian opposition groups in Turkey to unify them against the PYD and the Assad regime," Ragip Soylu, a Turkish journalist from Daily Sabah newspaper, told Al-Monitor. "Turkey already hurts the PYD by enforcing a de-facto embargo along the PYD-held Syrian borders  Turkey has a lot of tools to counter the PYD, but declaration of federalism is not something strategically enough to push Turkey into a tense situation."
Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com

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Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com

What movie should you see this weekend?

One blockbuster and one piece of counter-programming open in theaters this weekend. As usual, it's up to you, but we want to help you decide how to spend your money at the box office.



(Universal)

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Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (PG-13)

Here goes nothing for Warner Bros. and DC Comics, who hope this film launches a slew of other franchises they hope can compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So far, critics don't like it, but if fans turn out in droves, the bad reviews won't matter. We remain optimistic about finally seeing comics' two biggest heroes on the same screen, thanks to leads Henry Cavill and newcomer to the cape and cowl, Ben Affleck. In fact, we think the Batman stuff looks so strong, it could totally overshadow Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, which does not look quite as strong. We shall see who wins. Rotten Tomatoes: 31%



(Warner Bros.)

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Watch the trailer

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Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (PG-13)

After the clunker follow-up "Connie & Carla," writer/star Nia Vardalos looks to regain the momentum she created with her sleeper 2002 hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with a sequel 14 years in the making. This time, after spending most of their time focusing on their teenage daughter, Toula and Ian are facing marital problems while also having to deal with yet another Greek wedding. While Toula and Ian try to settle their differences, a secret from her family's past is revealed. We didn't hear many screaming for this sequel, but fans of the original might bite on this weekend's counter-programming. Rotten Tomatoes: 20%



(Universal)

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Ben Flanagan | bflanagan@al.com

Our pick: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

The movie of the year so far didn't click with critics, but fans remain hungry to see the DC titans square off on the big screen. We liked "Man of Steel" fine, but we're curious to see where Zack Snyder takes this story as it creates the Justice League franchise possibly including standalone films for Aquaman, The Flash and Gal Gadot's promising Wonder Woman. More than anything, we just hope Snyder and company keep their eye on the ball in telling this particular story because fans have waited a longtime for this previously hypothetical showdown.



(Warner Bros.)
When her baby sister, Alice Elizabeth, was born on Thursday, March 24, at 11 a.m., weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces, Ann Reese Grote was there - not in body, but definitely in spirit. Ann Reese has been present every day, her parents believe, and continues to be a part of the family despite her untimely death on Christmas Eve 2012, less than a month before her third birthday.

Though she died more than three years ago, her parents, Amy and Davey Grote of Birmingham, continue to celebrate her all-too-short life. Their home is filled with mementoes of the bubbly little girl who was so looking forward to becoming a big sister to Jane Virginia, the couple's second child who was born just 18 days after Ann Reese died. From the beginning, Janey has seen photos of and heard about her sister in heaven.

At just after 4 p.m. Thursday, Amy announced Alice's birth on her popular Facebook page, "Remembering Ann Reese."

On the night before Alice arrived, Amy said in a phone interview that she was jittery with excitement. Her mother and several neighbors had gathered at the Grotes' Inverness home, in anticipation of Alice's arrival. An outfit was laid out for Janey, with "Big Sister" monogrammed on the ruffle-trimmed lavender top. She also had a gift for baby Alice, and Amy had a gift ready for Alice to give Janey, as well - a baby doll that looks like a real newborn.

That night, they'd all gone out to dinner, and a woman at another table recognized Amy as Ann Reese's mother. "I get that all the time," she said. "For me, I love putting a face with a name, knowing they've been praying for us. I really value those interactions."

As he awaited Alice's arrival, Davey described the way he felt as "relaxed excitement" -- especially when compared to the emotions he had during the births of his first two daughters. When Ann Reese was born on Jan. 18, 2010, "We were fairly young, and nervous," he said - and, having just started a new business, he was somewhat distracted. Then, when Janey was born, the shock of Ann Reese's then-recent and sudden death still filled both Davey and Amy with overwhelming sadness, so "it was not as easy just to enjoy her birth," he said.

"When Janey was born, we were so happy, but we wanted Ann Reese to be there so badly," said Amy. "I have longed for me to be holding a baby and big sister walks in. I just know that moment will be so wonderful. I know God has it planned out."

Shortly after Alice was born on Thursday morning, Amy had the moment she first dreamed of when she was pregnant with Janey - to see their older child hold and kiss her new baby sister. Janey didn't disappoint. She "was thrilled to meet her baby sister," Amy said in an email. "She kissed all over her."

A gracious gift

Just days after Ann Reese died, Amy started her Remembering Ann Reese page on Facebook. Today, the page has more than 85,000 followers who were immediately drawn to the poignant posts by Amy, her mother and mother-in-law about their beloved Ann Reese, whose tragic death occurred on what should have been a joyous day.

According to a videotaped interview with Amy and Davey posted on Coastal Church of Daphne's Facebook page, the family had gathered on Christmas Eve at Amy's father's home in Baldwin County to celebrate Amy's and Davey's birthdays (her birthday is Dec. 24, and his is Dec. 22). Ann Reese had helped blow out the candles on their birthday cake, then went outside to play with her cousins in front of the house. Amy and Davey were getting ready to leave, she said, when they heard a terrible crash. A swing set had fallen on top of their little girl.

"Three hospitals, two ambulance rides and a LifeFlight later, about 9:45 she passed away," Amy said.

Amy, who was pregnant with Janey at the time (Ann Reese called her "Baby Zane" because she couldn't pronounce her Js), has kept Ann Reese's memory alive through the Facebook page. From the start, she posted photos and videos of the smiling little girl she called "Lovebug," telling sweet and beautifully expressed stories about her, as the page's followers quickly grew.

Those followers cried along with the Grotes, wrote words of encouragement and shared their own stories of losing loved ones. "I'm blown away at the love and support so many people show our family on Facebook," Amy said. "I go through every comment, read it, and thank God for the person who wrote it. Each one really encourages and touches my heart."

Amy, who describes herself as "the type of person who doesn't hold anything in," has shared many very personal moments of her life with thousands via the Remembering Ann Reese Facebook page. Her thoughts are, in turn, hopeful and heartbreaking, like when she shared a video of herself singing, in the dark, Ann Reese's favorite songs, "You Are My Sunshine" and "Jesus Loves Me" as Ann Reese hummed along before falling asleep.

In another post, she shared a photo of Davey and Ann Reese in one of his favorite places, the driving range, just before Christmas of 2012. "Little did we ever expect or know that we'd only have nine more days with her," she wrote.

She shared memories of Ann Reese at one of her favorite places, the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, where they would visit weekly to feed her favorite deer named Miracle. Interspersed with the photos of a little girl who was so obviously loved, adored and indulged - after all, she was the Grotes' first baby - would be expressions of sorrow: "I miss this girl so much!" she wrote, and "What I wouldn't give to hold this sweet baby again."

But there were also Bible verses, written as a reminder to herself and others that God was holding her and her family in his hands. "Going through this definitely rocks your faith, makes you question everything," Amy said. "We credit where we are to the Lord. The strength, peace, everything he's given us to walk through this journey has been amazing. ... It's still hard, very hard. We have to go back to our faith."

When Janey was born, Facebook followers rejoiced along with the Grotes. Her name, Amy noted, means "God's gracious gift" in Hebrew. She was comforted by the fact that Janey came into the world 18 days after Ann Reese died, because the number 18 symbolizes life in Hebrew. "God gave us life after Ann Reese passed away, in the gracious gift of Jane," she said in the Coastal Church video.

On Facebook, she wrote: "From day 1 of her little life, she has shown us that joy is possible through tremendous pain. Pure joy."

"We felt her with us all day"

As the third anniversary of Ann Reese's death approached, Amy's Facebook posts started to mark milestones of what would have been: In August, she watched Ann Reese's best friend, Jenna, start kindergarten. She noted the date on which Ann Reese had been "in heaven longer than she was on earth with us."

And then there were the times Janey did the same things her older sister had done at the same age. In November, Janey visited Santa and rode a train to the North Pole at Wales West in Silverhill, where Ann Reese had gone on her first Mother's Day Out field trip. Amy shared photos of both girls baking in the kitchen. "Same bowl. Same mixer. Same cake ingredients," she wrote. "Two different girls, one with pigtails and one with a bow."

This past Christmas was an especially difficult one for Amy. "I was pregnant with Alice, and Janey was the same age Ann Reese had been," she said. "It was all too familiar. I had the fear that Janey was going to get ripped away from us."

But she overcame her fears, she said, thanks to God - "I was trying to trust that he had it under control" - and to her support system, which includes her husband. "He's the practical one," she said. He assured her over and over again that the chances of such a freak accident occurring again were very slim.

Though he might not wear his heart on his sleeve the way his wife does, Davey said that at least once a week, he still has a moment "where the situation takes my breath away." But he and Amy have kept their relationship strong. "We just root for each other a lot," he said.

When Ann Reese died, all of her presents were waiting for her to unwrap on Christmas morning. Amy decided "to hold on to them until Janey turned 3." And so, this past Christmas, Janey opened some of the toys Ann Reese had asked Santa to bring. "It was very special," Amy said.

Ann Reese was "the most laid-back child," she said. "She definitely had a fun personality, but she was a lot like her daddy - an observer. She was a talker, or I thought she was, but Janey has taken the cake." She describes Janey as "spunky, a busy bee, more high-strung and active, like her mother."

"I'm hoping Alice will be really calm," she said with a laugh.

In August of 2013, the Grotes relocated from Orange Beach to Birmingham. Leaving Amy's family and the home they'd made with Ann Reese was tough, she said. "It's hard not being around where she grew up." But "God sent us to the exact right place," she said - to a neighborhood filled with other stay-at-home moms, as well as a Bible study group. Every time they travel back to the coast, they visit Ann Reese's grave and adorn it with flowers.

Amy couldn't share the joyful news of Alice's birth without including a reference to her firstborn daughter. In announcing Alice's birth on Facebook, she wrote: "On our way to the hospital, we saw a bunny hopping across the street and thought it was a little sign from our sweet Ann Reese. We felt her with us all day!"

She noted the happy circumstance of Alice's arrival during Holy Week, just three days before Easter Sunday. "It's through our hope in eternity which Christ made possible on the cross that we cling to and find peace in," she said. "Because he rose from the dead, we will live again with Ann Reese in heaven. This is the promise that we hold onto so tightly when the pain of missing Ann Reese is overwhelming. We will see her again."
Today millions of Christians worldwide observe the somber holy day of Good Friday, which commemorates the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.

The faithful often act it out by carrying a large wooden cross and crown of thorns symbolic of the suffering of Christ.

In the streets of Jerusalem, and even in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, people will be carrying wooden crosses to remember Jesus carrying his cross to his own crucifixion.

At first glance, Good Friday seems like the ultimate misnomer. If Jesus suffered and died on this day, then why is it called Good Friday?

On one level, the answer is about the meaning of words.

The term "Good" as applied to Good Friday is an Old English expression meaning holy. It's often called Holy Friday also.

But in another sense, Good Friday is always tied to Easter Sunday, which is a joyful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. He could not have been resurrected if he had not died first.

Carrying the Cross

In Jerusalem, they follow the Via Dolorosa, or Way of the Cross, retracing the steps of Jesus.

In Birmingham, at noon, a group led by St. Luke's Episcopal Church will observe Stations of the Cross, meditations on the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. They will start in Linn Park and end at Kelly Ingram Park.

In the neighboring suburb of Homewood, a procession along Oxmoor Road begins at 2 p.m. today, with All Saints' Episcopal, Dawson Memorial Baptist, Edgewood Presbyterian and Trinity United Methodist among the Alabama churches that traditionally take part by hosting stops of the Stations of the Cross.

Jesus told his followers, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24, New International Version)

Jesus' example can provide strength through suffering, said the late Rev. John Claypool, who was a Southern Baptist preacher in Kentucky and later an Episcopal priest in Alabama.

A Glimpse at the depths of evil

"God really does understand from the inside what it's like to suffer, to be abandoned, to be alone," Claypool said. "You can't realize the absolute marvel of Easter unless you appreciate the suffering of Good Friday."

The events of Good Friday described in the Bible include the trial of Jesus, the shouts of the crowd to "Crucify him!" even when given a choice to free Jesus or Barabbas, followed by Jesus carrying the cross and being hung on it to die.

"Good Friday is so powerfully significant because it gives us a glimpse into the depths of human evil," Claypool said. "You see the best and the worst of human nature."

God shows incredible mercy and patience in the events of Good Friday, Claypool said.

"It's a time to reflect on the dark tendencies that are in all of us," Claypool said.

Suffering Christ or Glorified Christ?

In planning the mural for the Beeson Divinity School chapel dome several years ago, Samford University had to decide how to portray Christ: glorified or suffering.

He is portrayed in the artwork as exalted in heaven - but also with nail prints in his hands - to remember the suffering of the crucifixion.

"Theologically, we must keep Good Friday and Easter together," Divinity School Dean Timothy George explained. "Good Friday without Easter is doom and despair. Easter without Good Friday is empty sentiment and sentimentality. We have to remember what Jesus did on the cross, which is the fulfillment of God's eternal plan for the whole world. It has cosmic consequences."

Taking time to observe the solemnity of Good Friday helps prepare Christians for Easter.

"It's a day to be silent, it's a day to remember, to focus on who Jesus is and what He meant for humanity," George said.

"Christians believe the sins of the whole world were poured out on Christ," George said. "It's really a bad Friday, a horrible Friday. When it is seen as leading to the Resurrection, it was indeed a Good Friday."
Artists from Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia will join with homegrown talent for the seventh annual Southeastern Plein Air Invitational, hosted by the Gadsden Museum of Art next week.

The event brings professional artists from across the Southeast to Gadsden for a week of paint "en plein air," a French term that means "in open air."

Artists participating this year including Dot Courson, Amanda Lovette, Jennifer Taylor, Millie Gosch, Craig Reynolds, Robin Roberts, Gina Brown, John Guernsey, Catherine Hillis, Lisa Price, Diane Gibson Newsome, Gloria Mani, Amy Peterson and Dmitryi Proshkin.

The group will be at a different location each day, starting on Tuesday at the Black Creek Trails. On Wednesday morning, artists will paint throughout Downtown Gadsden. Thursday the group will travel to the Hay Barn, an event venue off of Antioch Road, to paint rural scenes. Friday morning will be the artist's choice. Artists are also available to do commissioned pieces. If you are interested in commissioning a work, please contact Museum Curator Rebecca Duke at (256) 546-7365. The public is invited to come out and see the artists in action each day.

The week will conclude with a wet paint sale and artist reception at First Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. Artwork created during the week will be on sale. There will also be a silent auction, with pieces having a starting bid of $100. The reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information call the Gadsden Museum of Art at (256) 546-7365 or follow the GMA on social media via

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Claudia Reid didn't know anything about Nepal, except that people living there needed help. And because of this, she is getting a free trip to the "Roof of the World" this summer.

Reid won a scholarship for the Nat Geo Mundo Explorer competition, sponsored by AT&T and DirectTV, a National Geographic competition.

The Southside High School junior yesterday learned she was one of four students chosen to participate in the program - two from North America, two from Latin America.

She leaves for Nepal in July.

"I had forgotten I entered the contest," Reid said.

Reid entered a few months ago at the suggestion of her AP Chemistry teacher, Leslie Freeman. She supplied an essay and got a letter of recommendation from Freeman.

Reid had different trips to choose from, but she chose Nepal when she applied because she didn't want a tour of a country, but a chance to serve others.

"I knew where it was, but not much else," she said. "As soon as I got home, I started researching it."

The 18-day trip will involve earthquake reconstruction work, as well as hiking part of the Himalayas, and even bathing elephants.

"Everybody's been so supportive," she said. "I'll be going halfway around the world alone. I've never been out of the country before, but everyone I know has already told me they've started praying for me."
Darrian Bryant, left, and De'Ron Lucas, right, are the third and fourth suspects charged in the Jan. 5, 2016 shooting death of Mike Gilotti in Hoover's Lake Cyrus subdivision.

Two more suspects - including another 16-year-old - are now charged in the shooting death of a Hoover husband, father and Iraq war veteran.

Authorities today announced murder charges against 16-year-old Darrian Bryant, of Bessemer, and 19-year-old De'Ron Lucas, of McCalla, in the Jan. 5 slaying of Mike Gilotti.

Lucas has been jailed since January in Tuscaloosa County on 10 counts of unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle in connection with a string of crimes in that county that happened in the hours before Gilotti's murder in Hoover. Bryant was taken into custody Thursday by the U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task force after a brief foot chase in the 800 block of 12th Avenue in Midfield. Bryant is charged as an adult. He is currently in a juvenile holding facility but is expected to be booked into the Jefferson County Jail later today.

Darrian Bryant and De'Ron Lucas

Police already have charged Charleston Wells, 16, and Ahmad Johnson, 17, both of whom are also charged with crimes in Fultondale and Pelham. Investigators have said all of the suspects are members of a Bessemer-area gang called M-tre, which stands for Money Making Mafia. Though they claim to be aspiring rappers, police say they are street criminals who break into cars and commit other crimes to get money. They often post pictures of themselves on Facebook and other social media sites holding guns and money.

"Solving this case and holding every suspect accountable has been the No. 1 focus of investigators since this crime occurred on Jan. 5. On Jan. 15 we described the arrest of Charleston Wells as step No. 1. On Feb. 4, we described the arrest of Ahmad Johnson as Step No. 2,'' said Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector. "I would consider today the end of the first chapter in this senseless crime."

"We believed all along that there were four suspects present when Mike was murdered. Today, we know who those four are and they are all behind bars where they belong,'' Rector said. "Partially solving this case, or only charging some of the participants, was never an option. The investigation is almost three months old and today we breathe a very small sigh of relief. The entire Hoover-Birmingham area is safer today with these four suspects no longer walking free."

Bill Veitch, district attorney in Jefferson County's Bessemer Division, praised the investigators who have worked almost three months to get justice in the Gilotti case. "Although I believe the four individuals who came to Lake Cyrus are now in custody, our investigation is still active and ongoing,'' Veitch told AL.com today. "I expect others who are still involved in gang activities will soon join these guys in our jails and our communities will be safer as a result."

Gilotti was shot to death about 4:55 a.m. just outside his home in the 5500 block of Park Side Circle in Hoover's Lake Cyrus subdivision. He was heading to the gym for a morning workout when police say he encountered one or more suspects breaking into his car. According to the affidavit used to secure the murder warrant against Wells, his wife, Heather Gilotti, heard two gunshots and then heard a vehicle "with a large engine" pulling away from the scene. Gilotti collapsed on his doorstep. He was later pronounced dead on the scene.

As Hoover investigators processed the crime scene, they found a .40-caliber shell casing in Gilotti's front yard, and a 9 mm shell casing down the street. Later that morning, about 11:30 a.m., the dark green Ford F-250 was found parked on abandoned property at the intersection of Rowland Avenue and Elmore Drive in Bessemer. Outside of that truck was a PlayStation 3, which had been reported stolen from a vehicle at another home on Gilotti's street.

Home surveillance video obtained from a neighbor gave investigators a vehicle description and, just six hours after the killing, Bessemer police were notified of an abandoned truck near the intersection of Roland Avenue and Elmore Street near the Jonesboro and Burstall communities. It was the older Ford F-250 pickup seen leaving the Lake Cyrus area very close to the time of the shooting.

Investigators learned the truck had been stolen from Tuscaloosa County. Detectives obtained surveillance video from two gas stations near where that truck had been stolen. One of those videos showed a man get out of the truck and into a Tahoe. That same person was seen in a second video going into the MAPCO gas station and buying a cigar. Another person was seeing going into the service station to pay for gas.

Police released images from both cameras to the public for help identifying the young men. Tips from the public helped to identify them as Wells and Lucas. Lucas also identified for investigators Wells as the other person in the video footage. According to court records, Wells' fingerprints matched fingerprints found on the passenger's side of the stolen F-250, and also matched fingerprints found on the stolen PlayStation 3.

Investigators said several possible suspect names emerged very early in the investigation and it became apparent all of them had ties to the Bessemer area. Law enforcement agencies throughout the Birmingham area have recovered multiple stolen vehicles, all affiliated with the group of suspects.

Lucas in January was charged with 10 counts of unlawful breaking and entering and one count of first-degree theft of property in Tuscaloosa County. According to court records in those cases, cars were broken into at eight homes on Inverness Parkway and Weatherby Drive in Tuscaloosa County. The Ford F-250 driver to Gilotti's neighborhood was taken from one of those Inverness Parkway homes. The keys had been left in the Ford-250. Court records filed in the case of Lucas provide a detailed timeline of the events that took place in Tuscaloosa prior to the killing of Gilotti in Hoover.

Just before 3 a.m. on Jan. 5, a dark-colored SUV entered Weatherby. At 3:08 a.m. a black Chevrolet Tahoe with aftermarket rims was seen leaving the neighborhood. Video from nearby Dunkin's Pharmacy captured those images. The surveillance system at the entrance of South Ridge captured the same Chevrolet Tahoe traveling north on Old Greensboror Road. A Ford F-250 was directly behind the Tahoe and was traveling in the same direction. Inverness and South Ridge are both on Old Greensboror Road, and the entrances are about 100 yards from each other.

At 3:37 a.m., two black males can be seen coming in the Mapco service station on Bear Creek Road and Highway 69 South. One of the suspects was wearing a shirt that said FLY in white lettering. The Tahoe was seen in the parking lot.

At 3:43 a.m., both vehicles were seen on camera at the Kangaroo gas station on Highway 69 South and Bear Creek Road. A person in dark-colored clothing with white writing on the shirt gets out of the F-250, and into the Tahoe. Both vehicles then leave, according to Tuscaloosa County court records.

A deposition filed in the case against Lucas said he was seen on Facebook wearing the same shirt that had the FLY lettering on it. On Jan. 8, a photo lineup was shown to the clerk at Mapco, and she identified him as the person that came into the store wearing the FLY shirt with an underage male. She said they got in the green F-150 and went to the Kangaroo.

Just over an hour later, Gilotti was killed.

All four arrests follow a lengthy and exhaustive joint investigation between 15 agencies, including Hoover police, Bessemer police, the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office in Bessemer and the U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Wells and Johnson are also charged with crimes in Fultondale and Pelham. Just 25 hours before Gilotti was killed, a 39-year-old man leaving a Chapel Hills home in the predawn hours encountered two young men in his driveway. Moments later, he was dodging a hail of gunfire. The shooters missed, and the victim was spared. Investigators said early on there was little doubt those gunmen were the same as the suspects in Gilott's death.

Though the victim in the Fultondale case was uncooperative, police there said, forensics linked the crimes and allowed for an arrest. In Pelham, Wells and Johnson are charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree theft of property in a Dec. 31, 2015 incident that happened while a man was sitting in his car outside his home in the Holland Lakes subdivision. Police say the teens were going through the neighborhood, shaking car door handles to steal items from unlocked vehicles. Pelham police Capt. David Rushton said the teens stole the man's money and cell phone, but the victim wasn't injured. Authorities said police responded to the scene and later spotted the suspects. The officer stopped behind them and pulled back when all four windows on the stolen 2007 Chevrolet Silverado they were driving dropped down. Officers pursued the suspects on I-65 and lost them in Bessemer.

"Chief (Nick) Derzis and the entire Hoover Police Department hopes that today brings a small measure of closure and relief to the Gilotti family and the Hoover community,'' Rector said. "We remain committed to seeing full justice as this case proceeds and it continues to be a top priority."

"This case has been very personal and emotional and when something this horrible occurs in our city, we're not going to stand for it,'' Rector said. "The citizens of Hoover are the owners of this community and we will not tolerate group of thugs making them live in fear."

Anyone with additional information on the case and the series of crimes that led up to the killing of Mike Gilotti is asked to call Sgt. Keith Czeskleba at 205-739-6795, the Hoover Police Department at 205-822-5300 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
Two north Alabama men claim the drug Viagra they used to treat their erectile dysfunction also caused their skin cancer, according to separate federal lawsuits filed last year.

Viagra manufacturer Pfizer Inc. denies the claims.

The lawsuits - one from a Walker County man and the other from Marion County man - are among a growing number being filed in federal and state courts around the nation making the claim, based on research reports, that their melanoma came from use of Viagra. The number of lawsuits is growing and a federal panel next week will consider consolidating all federal Viagra cases under one judge in northern California for efficiency.

Walker County Claim

In one lawsuit, filed in March 2015, a Walker County man claims negligence and wrongful conduct on the part of Pfizer in connection with the design, development, manufacture, testing, packaging, promotion, marketing, distribution, labeling, and sale of the sildenafil citrate tablets (Viagra).

The Walker County man began taking Viagra for erectile dysfunction in May of 2008 and continued to do so until at least Dec. 14, 2012, the lawsuit states. In September 2013 the man was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma.

"Had Pfizer properly disclosed the melanoma-related risks associated with Viagra, plaintiff would have avoided the risk of developing melanoma by not using Viagra at all; severely limiting the dosage and length of its use; and/or more closely monitoring the degree to which the Viagra was adversely affecting his health," the lawsuit states.

The Walker County man's lawsuit seeks actual and punitive damages from Pfizer.

Viagra was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on March 27, 1998 for treatment of erectile dysfunction, a condition in which a man cannot achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual activity, the lawsuit states.

The National Institutes of Health estimate that erectile dysfunction affects as many as thirty million men in the United States, the lawsuit states.

Since FDA's approval of the drug, Pfizer "has engaged in a continuous, expensive and aggressive advertising campaign to market Viagra to men worldwide as a symbol of regaining and enhancing one's virility," the lawsuit states.

In its 2013 Annual Report, Pfizer states that it accumulated revenue exceeding $1.8 billion from worldwide sales of Viagra, the lawsuit states. Pfizer has estimated that Viagra has been prescribed to more than 35 million men worldwide, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that recent studies not mentioned in the drug's advertising show that the cellular activity providing the mechanism of action for Viagra may also be associated with the development or exacerbation of melanoma, a type of skin cancer.

One of those studies was published on the website for the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine which, in light of the previous studies, sought to examine the direct relationship between sildenafil use and melanoma development in men in the United States.

The JAMA study was published in the journal's June 2014 edition and the lawsuit states that study show that among 25,848 participants there was a "significantly elevated risk of invasive melanoma."

In another lawsuit, filed in August by the Gulfport, Miss., law firm of Davis & Crump, P.C., a Marion County, Ala., man makes the same claims as the man in Walker County.

The Marion County man states in his lawsuit that he began taking Viagra in November 2005 and continued taking it until at least Dec. 27, 2010. He was diagnosed with melanoma a few months later, according to the lawsuit.

Pfizer Refutes Allegations

"Viagra's safety and efficacy have been studied in 136 clinical trials and there is no reliable scientific evidence that the medicine causes melanoma," according to a Pfizer statement sent to AL.com. "Pfizer stands behind this important medicine and intends to vigorously defend these lawsuits."

Pfizer stated in one court filing in New York that the lawsuits being filed nationwide was prompted by the publication of that one report in JAMA. The company challenged the meaning of that study.

"The study itself was not a randomized, controlled clinical trial, but rather was based on a post-hoc analysis of observational data from surveys of Massachusetts healthcare professionals; the authors reported that the study 'suggested' an increased risk of melanoma in men who had used Viagra at least once within the three months preceding the baseline survey date," according to the Pfizer court document.

The JAMA study had significant limitations, which the authors even acknowledged and advised that their results cannot prove cause and effect.

New Study

On Friday the Cory Watson law firm, which represents the Walker County man, announced that scientists collaborating at several German institutions have published a new study, "Sildenafil Potentiates a cGMP-Dependant Pathway to Promote Melanoma Growth", that looks at how Viagra interacts at the cellular level accelerating the growth and spread of melanoma. The findings were published in the March 10 edition of Cell Reports, supporting the earlier research citied in the lawsuit, according to the firm's press release.

"This research is the most in-depth study to date identifying the pathway by which Viagra promotes melanoma cell growth and spread," Ernest Cory stated in the press release. "The last thing any man with a melanoma cell in his body needs is a drug that feeds and fuels this deadly disease."

Cory stated in the press release that the new study further confirms and validates the claims of his clients. Viagra was designed to block a certain enzyme and it was hoped that its effects would be specific for controlling blood vessels and especially blood vessels involved in erectile function. This study confirms these enzymes also have the side effect of promoting melanoma, Cory stated.

Cases Pending

So far there are 31 known federal cases filed around the nation, including 28 in federal courts in 13 states. There also are three lawsuits filed in state courts in Missouri, Arizona and Connecticut.

Cory Watson P.C. represents clients in 11 of the federal lawsuits. Plus the firm represents eight of the 30 clients in a lawsuit filed in state court in Missouri.

On March 31 the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will meet in Santa Barbara, Calif., decide whether to consolidate all the federal Viagra lawsuits under the jurisdiction of one judge. That judge would also preside over all future Viagra suits as they are filed.

Cory, Kristian Rasmussen, and Lauren S. Miller with Cory Watson P.C. were among those attorneys who have filed motions seeking consolidation of the federal lawsuits under one judge.

The lawsuits all make similar claims regarding Pfizer's design, manufacture, sale, testing, marketing, advertising, promotion, and distribution of Viagra, according to the Cory Watson motion. "Centralizing the actions would serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses while also promoting just and efficient resolution of the litigation by avoiding duplicative motion practice and discovery; conserving judicial resources; preventing inconsistent rulings across jurisdictions; and reducing litigation costs amongst the parties," according to the motion.

The motion also argues the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is the most appropriate forum for coordination of the lawsuits, the motion argues. While disputing the claims in the lawsuits, attorneys for Pfizer agreed in court filings that the California court was the best place for consolidation.

Among the seven judges on the multijurisdictional panel is U.S. District Court Judge David Proctor of Birmingham.

Wes Stevenson, an attorney with Crump & Davis representing the Marion County man, said they too agree with the consolidation of the cases.
Joshua Watson

The boyfriend of a young, pregnant mother who was shot to death earlier this week in Birmingham is now charged in the slaying of his girlfriend and their unborn son.

Birmingham police late this afternoon announced a capital murder warrant against Joshua Watson. The charge is capital because it involved the deaths of two or more people.

Naki'a Darlene Harris, 18, and her unborn son, Zion, were killed Monday night. Harris was set to deliver the baby in June.

Watson told police he went outside to his vehicle and, while outside, he heard a gunshot from inside the home, police said. His stories were inconsistent, said the mother of the victim, and Watson was questioned and then jailed on an unrelated misdemeanor warrant until the formal capital murder charge today.

Naki'as mother, Lakeisha Harris, said she's happy an arrest has been made, but said it doesn't erase the pain or the loss of her only child. "I'm not feeling any way towards him,'' Harris said. "I do know he's going to get everything he deserves."

Birmingham police West Precinct officers were called to Naki'a's home at 10:09 p.m. on a report of someone shot. Lt. Sean Edwards said her boyfriend was the one who called police, saying he found the victim in the bedroom. Watson was the father of Naki'a's unborn baby.

Harris said Watson called them to tell them about the shooting. "He said some guys were shooting at him and came in the house and shot her in the head,'' Harris said. "Then he said he turned around and heard three gunshots and went into the house and found my daughter. He just had a whole bunch of different stories."

Harris and other family members rushed to the scene. When they arrived, she said, police and news crews were already there. "He made it seem like it had just happened,'' she said. "But it only took me 10 or 15 minutes to get there."

Harris said in a previous interview with AL.com that she is haunted by her daughter's death. At the time of the shooting, she said, it appears Naki'a was holding her 1-year-old son Caleb. "He was there in her hands,'' she said. "I guess she was trying to run and protect her and the baby. He was shaken, and had a lot of blood on him, but he's fine."

Harris said today her grandson is now showing signs of struggling following his mother's death. "He's not doing well at all,'' she said.

Naki'a attended Woodlawn High School, but dropped out when she became pregnant with Caleb, her mother said. Since then, she had been taking part in a dropout recovery program and had dreams and plans of becoming a dental assistant. "She was a good girl,'' her mother said. "I'm not just saying that because I'm her mother. She was a great person, and she was doing great things."

Determined to be independent, Naki'a just two weeks ago moved into the rental home in which she was killed. Last week, she bought her first car. She was due to turn 19 on May 10, and then deliver her second son, Zion, on June 3. "She was very excited,'' Harris said. "She was decorating and had just shown me the baby's room."

Mother and daughter were close, and worked together at Sweet Tea Restaurant in downtown Birmingham. In fact, Naki'a had worked a 12-hour shift on Monday, getting off work just two hours before she was killed. "I can't even tell you how devastated we are. We are barely functioning,'' Lori Devine, assistant manager at Sweet Tea, said in a previous interview. "You would not have met a more incredible person."

"I couldn't have asked for a better employee,'' Devine said. "She was 18 years old and driven. She was making it."

Friends and family will hold a vigil in Naki'a's memory at 6 p.m. Saturday at 661 Brussels Circle in Birmingham. The violence, Harris said, must stop. "I'm willing to do,'' she said, "whatever needs to be done to put an end to our children leaving way too fast.''
A student suspended Wednesday from McAdory High School was arrested today after reports that he was seen at the school wielding a machete.

At about 3 p.m. today, a student at McAdory High School informed a teacher that they had seen a fellow student in a stairwell carrying a machete. The teacher told the administration and the School Resource Deputy assigned to the school, said Jefferson County sheriff's Chief Deputy Randy Christian.

McAdory High School and McAdory Middle School were placed on lockdown as a precaution while deputies arrived and searched for the student.

About 3:35 p.m. the 14-year-old male student was found hiding outside the middle school. He fled on foot across the street to a nearby shopping center where he was captured.

When deputies found the teen, he had already gotten rid of the machete, Christian said. It was later found by deputies in the area. The lockdown lasted thirty minutes and was lifted after the suspect was caught.

The student, Christian said, been suspended from school the previous day and was not allowed on campus. He returned to school today to prevent his parents from learning of the suspension.

He told deputies that he had found the machete while walking around and that he had no intention of harming anyone. Deputies arrested and charged the student with menacing and criminal trespassing. His name is withheld due to his age.
Robert Bentley and Rebekah Caldwell Mason.JPG

Gov. Robert Bentley and senior political advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason

( Glenn Collins/HBTV.us)

With many questions and few answers about the alleged relationship between Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and his senior political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, it's unclear exactly what legal trouble, if any, the two could face.

But there are civil and criminal complaints that agencies or individuals could explore depending on the facts, two law professors said Thursday.

"Nobody knows all of the facts," said John Carroll, professor at Cumberland School of Law.

"There are a lot of questions still out there," said University of Alabama law professor Jenny Carroll, who is not related to John Carroll.

Both Bentley and Mason have denied there was a physical relationship between them. The governor also said there wasn't anything illegal or unethical.

Also, no one has confirmed that an investigation has been launched by any agency.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange issued a statement Thursday saying he could not comment on the possibility of any pending criminal investigations.

"In light of the accusations of potential wrongdoing that have been made over the last two days, and the numerous inquiries that my office has received, I would like to assure the public that the Attorney General's Office takes very seriously any allegations involving potential criminal misconduct," Strange stated. "My office has a strong record of probing illegal activity in this state and we will continue to do our job."

Still, the two professors agree that at least one state agency - such as the attorney general's office, the legislature, Alabama Ethics Commission, or local district attorney's office - will eventually launch an investigation as a result of the allegations.

What are the possible criminal charges the two professors say could be pursued?

If any state resources - such as a state residence, cell phone, car, plane, or staff time -- were used to facilitate or cover up the extramarital relationship, criminal ethics charges might apply. "Any use of your office for personal gain or for personal reasons is a potential ethics violation," John Carroll said.

If Mason's salary was funded by a group that sought to use her position and/or relationship with Bentley to promote policy, public corruption charges could apply, Jenny Carroll said.

If Bentley ever lied under oath in sworn statements within his divorce or other proceedings about the alleged relationship he could be subject to sanctions or even possibly a perjury charge.

If someone was found to have pressured a potential witness about not telling the truth in court or under oath, a criminal charge could be leveled.

Possible civil actions:

If there were allegations that Bentley, as Mason's supervisor, was involved in sexual harassment the governor could face a possible civil suit. Sexual harassment has to be unwelcome, pervasive, and affect the terms of your employment, John Carroll added.

Spencer Collier, the former head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency who after his firing Tuesday told reporters that Bentley had admitted an affair had taken place after Collier confronted him with an audio tape that was released this week, could file a civil lawsuit claiming his firing by Bentley was retaliatory.

Collier also claimed that Bentley told him to lie to the Attorney's General Office about why Collier would not provide a sworn statement in an investigation related to the corruption case of House Speaker Mike Hubbard.

John Carroll said he believes all or part of the allegations might end up being unveiled before a judge through either a civil or criminal action. "We've got to see how it might work out," he said.

But does the public have a right to know about an alleged private relationship?

"It is disingenuous to claim that this is a purely private matter. It surely implicates private lives, but given the circumstances of the allegation, I do think its fair game for public scrutiny," Jenny Carroll said.

"What exactly was Governor Bentley doing and how did it influence his policy-making decisions?," Jenny Carroll said. "Was someone who was not an elected public official wielding undue influence over the governor?," she said.

But the end result might be good for Alabama, Jenny Carroll said.

"This could be a watershed moment for our state. It could signal a move towards more transparency in our state government and a call for greater accountability from elected officials," Jenny Carroll said.

Background

Collier is the first person to claim personal knowledge of the long-rumored affair between Bentley and Mason. The rumors surfaced publicly last year after Bentley's wife, Dianne, filed for divorce after 50 years of marriage.

Bentley this week admitted to making inappropriate comments to Mason in the audio tape but denied having a physical affair with Mason. In an email interview Thursday with AL.com, Mason also denied having a physical affair with Bentley.

Mason is not a state employee but works instead for the Alabama Council for Excellent Government, a 501(c)(4) established to promote Gov. Bentley's political agenda. 501(c)(4) organizations are not required to report donors or most spending.

Mason said allegations she exercises undue influence over government operations are not true. In a written statement, she also said allegations by Collier about her relationship with Bentley are an example of "gender bias."

Collier's firing and allegations follow an internal investigation into possible misuse of state dollars at ALEA that has been turned over to the state's Attorney General's office for possible prosecution.
shooting scene.jpg

Investigators are pictured at the scene of a shooting in Lauderdale County Friday morning. (WAFF 48)

A Lauderdale County man accused of killing his wife and wounding their two grown sons in a shooting Friday morning is dead.

Deputies in Lawrence County, Tennessee confirmed that they found 48-year-old Charles Monroe Woods Sr. dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Friday afternoon. Woods had fled to a wooded area on New Mount Nebo Road in St. Joseph, Tennessee, after the morning shooting of his family.

Lauderdale County deputies went Friday morning to the family's home in the 2000 block of Lauderdale 130, located in the Greenhill community, where they found Elizabeth Janie Woods dead outside the home. The couple's sons, Casey and Charles Bentley, had also been shot and were taken to Huntsville Hospital for surgery.

Their conditions were not immediately available.

Woods had reportedly contacted someone and said he was in the wooded area where he was later found. He was threatening to take his life in that call.

He had also threatened other members of his family in phone calls earlier in the day. The motive for the shooting was unclear.

No additional details were immediately available. Court records show no criminal history for Woods in Alabama beyond a single traffic violation in the 1990s.

Updated at 1:55 p.m. with the identities of those shot and at 2:50 p.m. to report that the suspect is dead.
The Alabama Supreme Court is refusing to overturn the conviction and life sentence of a man convicted of taking a tool from a home improvement store.

The justices refused Friday to hear the appeal of Willie Lee Conner.

Court documents show Conner left a Lowe's store in Baldwin County without paying for a roofing nailer in 2012. He didn't resist a worker who confronted outside the store, but he did claim to have a gun once back inside.

Conner was convicted of first-degree robbery and sentenced to life as a habitual offender. But he appealed claiming he couldn't be convicted of robbery since he didn't have a deadly weapon.

A majority rejected Conner's appeal, but Chief Justice Roy Moore disagreed in a dissent. Moore calls the life sentence unjust.

"I also believe that allowing the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision to stand is a grave injustice. Conner was convicted of first-degree robbery and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Robbery always has been punished more harshly than other forms of theft because the use of force puts the victim in danger," Moore wrote.

"There is a difference between justice and overkill. Despite his statement that he had "a gun," the undisputed evidence showed indeed that Conner did not have a gun."

Moore added that "Conner has been subjected to an unjust punishment because of an illegal conviction."

Moore made a similar statement in September when the court refused to overturn the case of a man sentenced to life without parole for a drug offense.

"A trial court should have the discretion to impose a less severe sentence than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole," Moore wrote in that case. "I urge the legislature to revisit that statutory sentencing scheme to determine whether it serves an appropriate purpose."
A federal court has sentenced former Tallassee Assistant Police Chief Chris Miles to 41 months in prison.

Miles, 41, pleaded guilty on Nov. 17, 2015 to one count of deprivation of civil rights, two counts of false statements and one count of possession with intent to distribute. The charges stem from Miles' beating false confessions from a child sex abuse suspect and marijuana that he stole from the police evidence room.

The sentence was issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama.

During his plea hearing, Miles admitted to beating suspect Stephen Conrad in the face and head with a phone book-sized stack of paper. He also admitted slapping him with his hand. Conrad was in the Tallassee Jail on several child sex abuse charges at the time, but Miles admitted he suspected Conrad was connected to more he wasn't charged with.

Prosecutors say the beating coerced Conrad into confessing to multiple cases he wasn't guilty of. Those confessions led to more than 100 counts of sex crime charges in May 2013. Those extra charges were later dropped after it was learned the confessions were false.

Miles also admitted that earlier in 2013 he stole approximately 16 pounds of marijuana from the police evidence room and later sold it to a known drug dealer.

"Law enforcement leaders serve as role models for their fellow officers, and at all times they must act with integrity, fairness and professionalism," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "Justice requires even-handed treatment for all, and without exception, we will aggressively prosecute any officer who beats an inmate, breaks the law and lies to federal investigators."

"Miles was a maverick, working outside the law," said U.S. Attorney George L. Beck Jr. of the Middle District of Alabama. "While we expect interrogations to be thorough, an officer cannot turn an investigation into a punishment. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of our law enforcement officials act reasonably and within the bounds of the Constitution."

Miles' case was investigated by the Auburn resident agency of the FBI's Mobile Field Office with assistance by Alabama's State Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerusha T. Adams for the Middle District of Alabama and trial attorney Gabriel Davis of the Civil Rights Division.

Conrad was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the sex crimes in Oct. 2015.
What happens if Gov. Robert Bentley resigns or is removed from office?

The question of a change in the governor's office arose this week when Bentley admitted to making what he described as "inappropriate comments" to a female advisor. He and the advisor have confirmed the comments but denied there was a physical affair though an audio tape of one of their conversations includes mentions of kissing and him touching her breasts.

Bentley said he does not plan to leave office but several elected officials - both on the record and off - are looking possibilities related to removing the governor from office.

If he did leave office - either due to resignation or forced removal -the state's line of succession would come into play, with Lt. Gov Kay Ivey poised to take over as governor. After Ivey, the line of succession is as follows:

President Pro Tempore of the Senate Del Marsh

Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard

Attorney General Luther Strange

State Auditor Jim Zeigler

Secretary of State John Merrill

State Treasurer Young Boozer

Removal from office

Alabama's Constitution allows for top state elected officials to be removed from office for a range of offenses, including corruption in office, incompetency or "moral turpitude." The charges would originate in the House - and be approved by a majority of its members - before going to the Senate for a hearing. The state's Supreme Court Chief Justice, currently Justice Roy Moore, would preside over those hearings.

Moore and Bentley have had a long and tumultuous relationship, most recently squaring off over same-sex marriage after the Republican governor said he would honor a Supreme Court ruling making the unions legal throughout the country.

Some Alabama history

Alabama has never impeached a governor.

There have been six times in Alabama history when a Lt. Governor has assumed the governor's office. Most of those changes were temporary, such as after the assassination attempt against Gov. George Wallace in 1972 when Lt. Gov. Jere Beasley served as acting governor for about a month. There have been two times when Lt. Governors have been called on to complete the term of an Alabama governor: Jim Folsom Jr. in 1993 when Gov. Guy Hunt was removed for felony ethics violations and Lt. Gov. Albert Brewer in 1968, when he assumed office at the death of Gov. Lurleen Wallace.

At no time in Alabama history has the line of succession moved past Lt. Governor.
A complaint into possible misuse of state property by Gov. Robert Bentley and potential violations by his alleged mistress and senior political advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, was filed Friday by State Auditor Jim Zeigler.

Both Bentley and Mason have denied an affair, although the governor admitted earlier this week that he made sexually inappropriate remarks to his senior political advisor after audio of Bentley's side of the conversation was leaked.

"The governor continues to disgrace the state of Alabama, and in my official capacity as state auditor, I am required to report these suspected violations," Zeigler said in a statement. "It is clear that he is misleading the people of the state about the nature of his relationship, but it is also clear that Ms. Mason is required to either be classified as a public official, or file as a lobbyist, in her capacity as an advisor who is paid by an outside source."

Bentley responded to the filing in a statement:

"I have always complied with the ethics laws of the State," the governor said. "In fact, I voluntarily release my tax returns to the public every year in a spirit of openness and transparency. I have always and will continue to cooperate with the Alabama Ethics Commission."

Mason is not on the state payroll, but AL.com previously reported that she is compensated through the Alabama Council for Excellent Government, a social welfare nonprofit that advances Bentley's agenda.

Zeigler said he filed a report with the state Ethics Commission to determine "whether Gov. Bentley and Mason are using state property in furtherance of their personal relationship, and if they have used their position to interfere with an attorney general's investigation."

In his report to State Ethics Commission Executive Director Thomas Albritton, Zeigler cited the audiotape in saying that it was "apparent that Mrs. Mason and Gov. Bentley have been using state property and resources in furtherance of their personal relationship." He was referring to the governor mentioning that "Wanda's desk" would have to be moved down the hall.

Zeigler also alleged that Mason was violating the law because she has never registered as a lobbyist -- which he claims should have been done if she's being paid by a third party and not the state. If she was considered a state official, Zeigler contended, then Mason would be violating the law by receiving private funds.
MONTGOMERY_ABORTION_CLINIC_19130515.PNG

The exterior of Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery, an abortion clinic that would have been affected by hospital admitting privilege requirements struck down by a judge.

(bn)

An Alabama judge has permanently stripped from state law a requirement that abortion providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued the ruling Friday. He ruled against the state in 2014 in a lawsuit filed by providers, but the latest development extends that decision to all abortion clinics.

In his decision, Thompson said the impact of the law would be enormous. Many of the state's abortion clinics would close if the law were enforced, he wrote.

"The staff-privileges requirement would make it impossible for a woman to obtain an abortion in much of the State," he wrote. "It is certain that thousands of women per year--approximately 40 percent of those seeking abortions in the State--would be unduly burdened."

Alabama legislators passed the Women's Health and Safety Act in 2013, but it was quickly blocked by the courts. Thompson declared the law unconstitutional in 2014.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of similar abortion restrictions in Texas. Justices heard arguments in that case just a few weeks ago.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued a statement via email.

"We applaud the court for protecting women's access to safe, legal abortion in Alabama," she wrote. "As a health care provider, we've seen the grim consequences for women when politicians put safe abortion out of reach. When a similar law in Texas went into effect, our health centers were flooded with calls from women who weren't sure where they could now turn for care. If the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law, this could become a reality for women across the country."
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency arrested a man in the murder of his girlfriend's toddler in August 2014.

Special agents with the State Bureau of Investigation, in conjunction with the Lawrence County District Attorney's Office, charged Evan Woodrow Berryman, 28, of Town Creek with one count of capital murder of a child less than 14 years old.

Berryman was charged Thursday and is now in the Lawrence County Jail without bond.

Troopers confirm Berryman is charged in the death of 2-year-old Ian Brantley Calhoun. Brantley died at Children's Hospital in Birmingham on Aug. 4. Authorities determined the cause was blunt force trauma.

Further information about the case was not available Thursday night. AL.com has reached out to authorities to learn more.
Daleville bus wreck

A Greyhound bus overturned on U.S. 84 near Daleville on March 24, 2016. (Photo by WTVY)

Multiple people were hurt when a Greyhound bus overturned on U.S. 84 near Daleville.

Daleville police, who are handling the wreck say the bus wrecked near the Choctawhatchee Bridge shortly before 4 p.m.

Police could not confirm the number of injuries, but WTVY reports there were four hurt taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. All of these were passengers. The driver was not hurt.

The investigation into the wreck is still ongoing. Police said more information should be available later.

WTVY reports they bus was en route from Dothan to Mobile.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Friday dismissed a story in the National Enquirer citing "sources" that claim he's had extra-marital affairs with at least five women as "garbage," "complete and utter lies" and tabloid smear."

The Texas senator also said he believed his GOP rival, Donald Trump, who he called "sleazy," and Trump's "henchmen" were behind the story.

I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National... Posted by Ted Cruz on Friday, March 25, 2016

Trump denied being behind the story in a statement.

"I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week's issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it," he said. "Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence."

Trump continued, "Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz."

The Enquirer piece doesn't name the alleged mistresses, but identified them as including a "foxy political consultant" and a "high-placed D.C. attorney." The web version of the story, which gives fewer details than the printed version, ran with the headline, "SHOCKING CLAIMS: Pervy Ted Cruz Caught Cheating -- With 5 Secret Mistresses!"

Katrina Pierson, a former Cruz consultant who now serves as Trump's national spokeswoman and was believed to be one of the five women the Enquirer was referring to, vehemently denied the claims:

Of course the National Enquirer story is 100% FALSE!!! I only speak to myself, however.



Carry on...  Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) March 25, 2016

Trump and Cruz have intensified their feud recently over a Cruz super PAC's ad targeted at Mormon voters in Utah that disseminated a nude picture of Trump's wife, Melania Trump, suggesting that she would be an unfit first lady.

Meanwhile, Trump retweeted a photo from a supporter that included an unflattering photo of Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz, and threatened to "spill the beans" on her.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley met with reporters on Wednesday to address rumors he had an extramarital affair. The allegations which first came to light months ago once again made the news after the state's "Top Cop", Spencer Collier, was fired by Governor Bentley. Collier held a press conference earlier on Wednesday in which he claimed that the Governor had an affair.

Bentley spoke with reporters for about fifteen minutes a couple of hours after Collier's press conference. What ensued at the press conference held the attention of Alabama for that quarter of an hour and for days ahead. Take a look at how he handled the tough questions from reporters in the video above.
Ashley Rich

District Attorney Ashley Rich speaks at a press conference at Mobile Government Plaza in Mobile, Ala., on Monday, July 30, 2012.(G.M. Andrews/Press-Register file)

(G.M. ANDREWS Andrews, Glenn)

Spurning a settlement offer from District Attorney Ashley Rich, the Mobile County Commission has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to clarify its ruling in a long-running funding dispute that could cost the county millions of dollars.

LaVeeda Morgan Battle, a Birmingham-based attorney for the commission, said she filed the motion late Thursday afternoon, as the deadline neared for the commission to respond to a ruling made by the court on March 11.

District 2 Commissioner Connie Hudson said the commission had asked the court to clarify points of its March 11 ruling. The move was necessary, she said, because different interpretations could mean a difference of "several million dollars" in a resolution of the matter.

The dispute goes back at least to 2011, when Rich began to complain that under state law, Mobile County was not providing its required share of funding for her office. In 2012, she filed suit. One county commissioner, Mike Dean, said he favored a settlement; two, Hudson and Merceria Ludgood, said the county budget was tight all over and that there was room for interpretation in the funding laws.

The Supreme Court's March 11 ruling favored Rich. A few days later, she offered a settlement "on terms and conditions much less costly than those mandated by the highest court in the state."

Commissioner Jerry Carl, who followed Dean as the commission's District 3 representative, spoke favorably of the offer. But his remained a minority view. Battle countered with a sharp critique of Rich's settlement. Despite Rich's public stance that she was presenting a reasonable compromise, Battle wrote, the full terms of the deal were excessive

"She is demanding just under $5 million dollars in back pay for salaries she has not even paid her employees and asking for addition amounts above the salary schedule she provided to the public," charged Battle. "She is demanding we pay her for vacant positions. She is demanding we pay for defunct positions."

Rich has argued that her proposal would bring salaries in her office into a range comparable to other major Alabama cities. Battle has described it as enabling her to give "staggering" raises and bill the county for "extortionate" salaries. In any case, Rich's 3 p.m. Wednesday deadline for acceptance of her offer had already expired when the commission acted on Thursday.

Hudson said she didn't know how long it would take the court to respond to the commission's request for clarification. But the delay was necessary, she said.

"It's very important these issues be clarified," she said. "The offer Ms. Rich made, she made based on her interpretation.

"The ruling apparently is being interpreted two different ways," Hudson said. "I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the language is vague."

Attempts to reach Rich for comment on Wednesday and Thursday were not immediately successful.
This isn't a sex scandal.

Sure, there are recordings of Gov. Robert Bentley talking dirty to his senior political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, saying the kinds of things that get edited out of Cialis commercials.

There's the Bill Clinton-like parsing of what constitutes a "physical" relationship. Is first base sexual? Second? Third?

And there's the governor's divorce from his wife of 50 years, Dianne Bentley, last year, which we now know for certain was triggered by the governor's betrayal to his betrothed.

But set all that aside for a moment, because this is much more important than that.

While this scandal might have distracted from the impending trial of Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, this scandal is still about Mike Hubbard.

Specifically, it's about whether Gov. Bentley and Mason tried to sabotage the state's case in that trial, and why they would do so.

Who lit the fuse?

In early February, the political operative, lawyer, talk show host and one-time door-to-door Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman, Barron Coleman, flipped on Alabama prosecutors. In an affidavit in the Hubbard trial, he said that he'd had between 50 and 100 conversations with the man who has led the Hubbard investigation, Deputy Attorney General Matt Hart. Further, Coleman said he had inferred information that Hart shared with him came from the grand jury.

Prosecutors countered that Coleman had been a confidential informant for the state, and that his conversations with Hart were the state's way of collecting intelligence on Hubbard and his confederates.

As this latest twist unfolded, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigated Coleman's allegations, and according to three sworn affidavits, they found no wrongdoing by Hart. One of those affidavits was by Spencer Collier, the head of ALEA.

Those affidavits mitigated much of the damage Coleman had wreaked on the Hubbard case, clearing a path again for prosecutors to take it to trial.

But someone -- two people, actually -- didn't want Collier or the other ALEA employees to submit those affidavits.

Those two were Bentley and Mason.

Two meetings

At virtually the same time Bentley put Collier on medical leave, rumors spread that Hart had threatened Collier if he didn't sign the affidavit. What's clear about that is there are only two people who know the truth -- Hart and Collier.

A gag order in the Hubbard case prevents Hart from talking about it, but Collier flatly and emphatically denies that there were any threats or pressure.

Instead, he says, the pressure came from Bentley's office.

According to Collier, he met with Bentley and the governor's in-house lawyer, David Byrne, to tell them that he had been asked to submit an affidavit. Collier now says the governor in that meeting was ambivalent and not angry. Bentley suggested that ALEA say that the investigation was ongoing, Collier says, but that wasn't true and Collier perceived it only as a question, not an order. Even if it were an order, it was not one Collier could follow. The governor would be asking him to break the law.

Collier says he worked with Byrne to write the affidavit that's now in the court record.

Next, Collier was summoned February 16 to the governor's office, along with four other ALEA staff members, two of whom had also sworn affidavits in the Hubbard case.

According to Collier, the governor was irate and blasted him for disobeying his orders. Mason, too, berated Collier and his staff.

But what's important here is who else was in that meeting -- Byrne, Bentley spokeswoman Jennifer Ardis and Joe Espy, the governor's private lawyer.

The February Massacre

Collier says he now regrets not telling his staff to leave the moment he saw those two in the room. In that meeting, they discussed sensitive information about ongoing investigations that they shouldn't have heard.

Bentley's personal lawyer also represents other potential witnesses in the Hubbard trial, including Will Brooke and Jimmy Rane. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Espy's presence is important because, in addition to representing the governor, he also has two other clients in the Hubbard affair. One is Will Brooke, the BCA board member and former congressional candidate from whom Hubbard solicited money and assistance, according to Hubbard's indictment. The other is Jimmy Rane, the CEO of Great Southern Wood who plays the "Yella Fella" in his company's TV commercials. Rane has been a fierce ally and political benefactor of Hubbard.

Bentley, Brooke and Rane are all likely witnesses in the Hubbard trial and all are believed to have testified before the Lee County Grand Jury.

(Perhaps coincidentally, Espy serves on the University of Alabama Board of Trustees. The UA general counsel, Cooper Shattuck, helped set up the Alabama Council for Excellent Government, the governor's 501(c)4 dark money group that has been rumored to be Mason's true employer. Mason is not a state employee and has not filed a disclosure with the Alabama Ethics Commission in several years. )

Collier says now that he found out about Espy's other clients after the meeting and, had he known it at the time, he would have walked out immediately and taken his staff with him.

Regardless of the collateral damage here, Mike Hubbard benefits. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Since that meeting, Collier was placed on medical leave and later fired.

The other ALEA staff members from that meeting have either been fired, demoted or transferred. Those abrupt changes have brought an end to ongoing public corruption cases, Collier says.

In Collier's place, Bentley appointed Stan Stabler, his former bodyguard, as acting ALEA secretary. Stabler has been a sergeant with ALEA, with little or no experience with leading such a large bureaucracy.

The powder keg explodes

On the day he was fired, Collier began going public with what he knew about this meeting and Espy and Mason's involvement. The sexy stuff has gotten all the attention, but when it comes to possible crimes, the rest is what's more important.

He says he isn't sure whether he had been fired before or after he first began talking on the record about it, because he only found out later from reporters and social media that he had been fired.

Collier also says he doesn't know why the governor became so angry at the ALEA staff.

But Collier is certain and clear about one thing -- Bentley's order, it was illegal.

The governor, with Mason whispering in his ear and a lawyer with assorted loyalties at his side, took an active and disruptive role in a criminal prosecution of Mike Hubbard.

That's the story, not the sex. And no matter the myriad open questions that might take months or years to answer, if ever, one question has a clear answer.

Cui bono? Who benefits.

Bentley might have blown himself up trying to throw a bomb under Matt Hart's chair, but either way, it works for Mike Hubbard.
Birthday wishes

Call 281-422-8302 or email sunnews@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

Happy Birthday Wishes
Tens of thousands of refugees stuck at the Greece-Macedonia border refuse to move to government-run camps.

I have been to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan  the countries from where the migrants and refugees stuck at the Greek-Macedonian border come from.

It is not hard to understand why they left, why they risked their lives at sea and why they sold all their belongings to pay smugglers to find a new life.

But we are dying slowly here, is what I heard time and time again in the makeshift camp where over 12,000 people have been living for almost a month.

Conditions are bad and they are getting worse. Tensions are high. People are frustrated and desperate and they are losing patience.

We didnt come here to live in a camp, Moussa Issa from Syrias war torn city of Aleppo told me.









That is why we wont accept to be transferred to government-run camps. If we leave, the world will forget about us and we could wait for months before we are relocated across the continent, under a programme agreed to by the EU .

But some have lost hope. A few hundred people have decided to board the buses that will take them to accommodation centres while they wait for their fate.



UNHCR officials told us that the programme is facing logistical challenges.

The capacity to process is limited but the Greek government is recruiting more people, Mario Buono, who is in charge of the northern Greece office, said.

But It is not just that, many EU countries are not following through on their commitments.

It has been a difficult journey for these people. Each person has a story to tell but many feel they are not being heard.

Read more: Inside Idomeni refugee camp, nothing left but hope

We are not animals. We are human beings with feelings and dignity but look at what has happened to us, Umm Jamal shouted.

There is no doubt that many of them are economic migrants but there are many others who would qualify as refugees.



One young man from Syria is still traumatised from spending almost two months in a government-run jail. I cant go back, Mohammed told us. I am ready to wait months but just as long I can stay in Europe.



But time is not on Abu Ahmeds side. My wife has been diagnosed with cancer. She is already in Stuttgart. She made it there before me and my three children. Now we are stuck here and I dont know if I will ever see her. The children still dont know that she is sick, 55 year old Abu Ahmed told me before bursting into tears.

It is hard to watch an elderly man cry.

Refugee crisis: Bottlenecked on the Balkan route

Abu Ahmed is from Syria  like the majority of the refugees in Idomeni. He begged us to help him  all he wanted was for those in charge to hear his story.

UN staff members at the camp are overwhelmed by the crisis. But Abu Ahmed believes his case should be treated as a priority.

For now, refugees and migrants have been told to make a Skype call to the Greek Asylum Service to be given a date for an interview.

Skype call times for applications at the asylum office in Athens: Mondays to Wednesdays 9-10; Friday 9-11 am. Skype calls for applications at the asylum offices in Thessanaloki Monday to Fridays 15-16:00, leaflets read.

Abu Ahmed knows that thousands and thousands of people like him will be trying to make that call.
Undocumented migrants brought to the US as children worry gains under Obama will be reversed and fear deportation.

Columbia, Missouri  Liliana* talks with her internet company on the phone one night after her connection was terminated. She was unable to pay the bill because her husband, the source of more than half of her familys income, was deported back to Mexico a few weeks earlier.

She needed access to the internet for an online class she was taking, and she needed to take the class because her immigration status depended on it. If she wasnt enrolled in an educational programme, she would lose her right to temporarily remain in the country under the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals policy.

Liliana, 28, is a Dreamer, raised in the United States but brought to the country illegally from Mexico when she was only two. She didnt know that she was undocumented until she tried applying for college after graduating at the top of her high-school class, and her parents told her she didnt have the necessary papers.

In late 2014, while many undocumented migrants celebrated President Barack Obamas executive action on immigration, Liliana, a mother of two US-born children, was circumspect.

She could only see it as a temporary reprieve. The next president could come into office and undo all the progress she felt she and others had made.

Will there be a giant wall built along the southern border? Will the increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric lead to further changes to the law? Will she be able to stay in the only country shes ever known? These are all questions she now asks herself.

But her greatest fear is being deported and having to decide whether to split her family, so that her children, who are US citizens, can be raised in the US and afforded the opportunities that allows them, or risk taking them back to Mexico with her, where she worries about what their futures will entail.



If she were ever granted full legal status, she says the first thing she would do is apply for college.

*Not her real name



Greg Kendall-Ball is an independent photojournalist based in Washington, DC.
Late on the night of the Brussels bombing, regulars sitting in a cafe built under the brick arches of a medieval gate in the Medina of Tunis stared blithely at the CCTV and cellphone video scenes of carnage that had been flitting across the cafes television screen all day. They refocused their interest only when two Europeans also paused before the screen.

All these innocents, one client commented to the Europeans, pointing at the scenes of destruction. Yet their politicians are the ones who created ISIL.

Such passive aggression  blithely implying to two Westerners that the pigeons are coming home to roost as a result of several decades of alternatively disastrous policies and inaction  is hardly unusual in a small country that both exports militants and is on the front line of confronting Islamism.





In 2015, Tunisia was battered by three major terrorist attacks. This month, its army fought off a team of more than 50 gunmen assaulting a border city with the alleged intention of proclaiming an Islamic emirate.

Little Tunisia  more used to catching a cold whenever its mightier neighbours sneeze  pioneered the wave of Arab uprisings that swept the region in 2011.

Yet the country paid for its Libyan neighbours revolution and subsequent destabilisation dearly, and is struggling to contain the shockwaves emanating from the resulting civil war.

Democratisation of havoc

Squeezed between the Mediterranean to its North, Libya to the East (where the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group has declared an emirate), and Algeria to the west (where the military regime drowned an Islamist insurgency in blood in the 1990s), resource and population-starved Tunis is a prisoner of its neighbourhood.

READ MORE: Brussels attacks mark challenge to traditional warfare

But as Brussels and Istanbul discovered last week, violence is not just a function of location. Efficient transport networks and video-conferencing have reduced distance, lowered the threshold for disruption and democratised the opportunity to cause havoc.

As Brussels and Istanbul discovered last week, violence is not just a function of location. Efficient transport networks and video-conferencing have reduced distance, lowered the threshold for disruption and democratised the opportunity to cause havoc. by

Like-minded, self-selecting online communities can shape real-time information flows into seemingly coherent, agenda-setting narratives, then act upon them within hours.

Digital interconnectivity is so all-pervasive that it has given the butterfly theorem of chaos theory  whereby an event as seemingly insignificant as the fluttering of a butterfly in one country can scale up to defining the parameters of a typhoon in another  a technological boost.

Earlier this decade, European and North American technocrat politicians who were fortunate enough never to have experienced crisis and war in their lifetimes, sought to subcontract away the instability at the edge of the European Union at a time when action could still have been taken.

Instead, a number of regional state actors hoping to fill the American vacuum in the Middle East fuelled crises in already failing neighbours so as to promote their own interests, ideologies and prestige, transforming Iraq, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria into proxy battlefields.

By then it was too late for the Western politicians and United Nations bureaucrats to adapt to the realities of the moment. As a generation of frustrated Middle Eastern youth went from protesting against dictators to fighting for armed groups, the EU and UN opted for containing the fallout.

Old World politicians stuck to old ways of doing things, while others struggled to process what was happening by adopting politically correct or incorrect theories as ideological crutches.

Domestically, nothing but cognitive lag and the fear of coming across as illiberal can explain the lackadaisical way in which the West handled the phenomenon of its own radicalised Muslim citizens fighting in Syria, then returning home unchallenged, or last summers spasmodic, hot-then-cold reaction to the refugee crisis by Angela Merkel.

We have entered a perfect storm

A set of systemic factors has contributed to the eruption of the spectacular complex emergency we witness.

Many of the revolutions, civil wars and extreme politics happening now are unrelated to the whimsy that Arab populations suddenly discovered dignity after four decades of living under oppression.

They are much more rooted in the collapse of the unspoken social pact struck between every dictator and a critical mass of their people, whereby the populace agrees to surrender its civil liberties in return for a guarantee of stability, nourishment, shelter and education.

Globally, human population numbers are at historical levels and rising parabolically even as extreme weather and overheating ecosystems drive agricultural yields down and their price up. Meanwhile, global inequality is the worst its ever been just as we arrive at the mass automation of most jobs.

READ MORE: The blurred battle lines between Baghdad and Brussels

But before self-driving vehicles and industrial 3D printers strip away millions of already precarious factory and service industry jobs, we ought to consider tweaking our economic system to allow for the growing number of unemployed to live in dignity even in the absence of an income.

Unless we do that, radicalisation and acts of terror will continue multiplying while electorates in democracies such as India, Turkey and the US will go on being seduced by radical authoritarians peddling soothing identity narratives of a return to imaginary roots.

If we look at the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Istanbul, Bamako and Paris as being frantic alerts from an overheated system that our hyper-networked world can no longer tolerate current levels of inequality and cultural dissonance, then perhaps we can avoid the dystopian and imminent fate of a decoupling of the centre from its periphery.

Wealth-producing urban areas  not just in the West but around the world  will safeguard their privilege through the building of inaccessible, high-technology fortress cores.

Citizens will consent to intrusive electronic monitoring. Beyond the unbreachable digital walls, chaotic hinterlands will lie, populated by self-organising groups of those who were either excluded or opted out of the dominant system  imagine a mixture of rejected migrants, right-wing survivalists and back-to-the-roots leftists.

It is a lurid vision worthy of a sci-fi film, yet it is already happening in Syria, Libya and parts of the Turkish Southeast. It is not too late to stop it and re-inject some levity into a world going mad, but a total reframing of our approach to each other and our world is necessary as a first step.

Iason Athanasiadis is an award-winning photojournalist who covers the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
It took a long time to get to this dangerous point, and it will take a while to get beyond it.

John Bell is Director of the Middle East Programme at the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Madrid. He is a former UN and Canadian diplomat, and served as Political Adviser to the Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General for southern Lebanon and adviser to the Canadian government.

Another terrible terror attack has happened; it follows Istanbul and less reported events in Baghdad, Libya and elsewhere. Their frequency and regularity tell us this that is a global phenomenon, and people are scared, frustrated and fed up, as witnessed by the Facebook posts of je suis sick of this s**t. Many are naturally asking what needs to be done.

Everyone wants quick answers or a silver bullet, but the tough news is that these may simply not exist. Security measures will continue, and they can and have done much to prevent other acts of terror. However, as we all know, if they succeed hundreds of times but fail only once, the terrorists win.





There are leaders in Europe, the United States and elsewhere who believe the answer is to double down on security, and on whole target populations.

But tougher security measures risk alienating many more than they deter, including many who are innocent today, but who will not be once they are made victims of blind prejudice. This can only lead to further violence and a destructive battle of testosterone.

No swift answers

It took a long time to reach this dangerous point, and it will take a while to get beyond it. This is because extremism, along with many other political ailments, involves commitments to mental states, ideologies that are not easily shifted.

READ MORE: ISIL and the misuse of the imagination

The reality, which many simply dont want to hear, is that there are no swift answers and this is a long-term battle, and we might as well get used to the idea. The more important question lies in which direction we now go.

The rub that people don't want to consider is that violent extremists think that they are acting towards a perceived good. by

The beginnings of an answer lie in what UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday: The tragedy in Brussels  reminds us that  we have no time to lose  We need to extinguish the fire of war in Syria  to fight terrorism, the best formula is to find a solution for political transition in Syria.

A political transition  a more stable Syria  is a necessary framework but it is only a beginning. Even then, new ways of operating politically will also be needed.

The rub that people dont want to consider is that violent extremists think that they are acting towards a perceived good. This may sound like a harsh statement given the violence but, believe it or not, like many other extreme idealists, they believe that the breakdown of order is necessary to build up another  in their mind, more positive  dream. It is for this reason that they commit these acts.

Through the prism and logic of their ideology, they are achieving something virtuous. The same can be said of the pursuit of any ideology, even if, in most cases, this does not lead to dramatic and random acts of violence.

Powerful and basic motivations

Whatever political framework is set up in a future Syria, indeed anywhere, we will have to take this hard fact into consideration: Humans are driven by powerful and basic motivations, material and emotional. If their society does not provide them with natural and constructive paths to meeting those needs, they will pursue them in other ways, sometimes nefarious, destructive or irrational.

If a manipulator convinces people to follow his or her Pied-Piper path to achieve those needs, they will follow him or her to the ends of the earth, and the end of history.

You can take this basic law of life to the bank. This is the elephant in the room, and the source of many of our troubles from the rise of Donald Trump to the troubles with ISIL (also known as ISIS).

A future Syria will have to be built to meet not only peoples rights, but also their basic needs. This is a shift in political thinking, but a required one. A sense of legitimacy, autonomy, belonging, and intimacy are among these crucial human needs. We thrive and calm down if they are met: All hell is to pay if they are not, or if they are thwarted.

Above all, however, we need to pay attention to our powerful need for meaning and purpose in life. Extremists do a good job of convincing many, and especially the impressionable young seeking excitement and belonging, that they can have that need met through deeply ideological and idealistic groups.

READ MORE: The future of Europe after the Brussels attacks

Once committed, it is very difficult to escape from the inner logic of this system.

A new Syria, or, for that matter, new banlieues in France and Belgium, will need to address these basic needs of young men, create new useful and interesting paths for them, otherwise they will join whatever gang, group or activity that does.

If young Muslim French men and women, or non-Muslim for that matter, believe that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group offers an exciting and meaningful project, shocking as it is, they will join it.

What are the answers? A new Syria will have to treat its citizens with respect, not just through rights, but through the daily and organic workings of government and of society, by avoiding daily oppression, abuse and corruption, not just righting them once they occur. Only by so doing will the world avoid massive pools of new recruits for ISIL.

Disenfranchised youth

Disenfranchised youth in France and Belgium and elsewhere will need to be involved in projects that are meaningful and exciting to them, and yet constructive. As an example, why not a global peace corps where these very youth work to combat extremism at the community level in other societies?

Disenfranchised youth in France and Belgium and elsewhere will need to be involved in projects that are meaningful and exciting to them, and yet constructive. by

In international relations, I often meet well-educated, often elite, young people seeking employment but unable to find an entry point. The system is not set up to work with the incredible amount of talent out there, and instead cycles vested interests round and round.

There are armies of them, and we need find a way to pay them. What about involving the disenfranchised in such efforts? There is much meaning and excitement in working internationally, and I suspect the disenfranchised from France will better understand the disenfranchised in Syria than anyone else.

This is all a long-term project, a realignment of our priorities away from an excessive materialism and its attendant greed, back on to our basic human needs, away from ideological fixations, whether religious, national or intellectual, to the basic functional politics that are at the same time, critically, not boring.

There is much work ahead to right our societies, to rebuild Syria. It is a long-term process, but we might as well bite the bullet and get at it, at the basic human level where we are all, including the terrorists, driven. We need to work at the bedrock level of motivations and the pathways for their fulfilment, not just at the froth of media-driven politics.

There isnt really much choice because the other avenues available are partial or will not work. We can also take comfort that, like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, in the long run it is the tortoise that wins.

John Bell is director of the Middle East Programme at the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Madrid. He is a former UN and Canadian diplomat, and served as a political adviser to the Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General for southern Lebanon and adviser to the Canadian government.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The bias that is exhibited with regard to terrorism is even more dangerous than terrorism itself.

Yasin Aktay is an AK party member of the parliament and head of the Turkish Group of Inter-Parliamentarian Union.

I had only just sat down to write about the terrorist attacks in Ankara and Istanbul, and was still attempting to fully comprehend the damage inflicted by those attacks, when I found myself watching news reports of the attacks in Brussels.

The attack in Ankara was carried out by two left-wing militants connected with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). A group called Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) claimed responsibility for the attacks; indeed it was established by the PKK for the express purpose of claiming responsibility for these types of incidents.

The bomb was detonated among civilians waiting to board buses at the busiest bus stop in Ankara, one used by poor and middle-class citizens, and left 36 dead and more than 100 injured.

Because the attack took place on the day that university entrance exams were being held, there were more students and young people at the bus stop. This attack was similar to the one that had taken place a month earlier, also in Ankara, resulting in the deaths of 30 people and injuring almost 100. The perpetrators were PKK militants trained in the Democratic Union Party (PYD) camps in Syria.

The attack in Istanbul, on the other hand, was also a suicide bomber, but this time ISIL was responsible. Five people  including three Israelis and one Iranian  were killed in that attack, but the incident apparently made a greater impression on the international community.

This was due in large part to the fact that three of the dead were Israelis and because the attacker was a member of ISIL.

We do not yet know the full details of the attack in Brussels, but initial information indicates that ISIL has claimed responsibility, and that the individuals involved were members of ISIL.

Indiscriminate attacks

What all of these attacks have in common is the desire to terrorise and paralyse civilian life and the daily routines of ordinary citizens, to sacrifice without hesitation or compunction the lives of people who have taken no side in any conflict.

There comes a point at which it no longer matters who claimed responsibility or perpetrated these attacks because they all begin to look alike and have the same effect.

The attacks carried out in the middle of large cities such as Paris, Ankara, Istanbul and Brussels are a manifestation of violence in its most extreme forms, and for a time they paralyse city life.

OPINION: The blurred battle lines between Baghdad and Brussels

The result is that people feel vulnerable and are afraid to go to crowded places or take public transportation. Although life does eventually return to normal, these attacks carried out one after another have a major negative effect on the trust that people in the city have in their fellow man.

Public confidence is one of societys most important social assets and terrorism erodes it significantly.

The methods used in all of these terrorist attacks are actually the same. The bombs may be detonated at different locations by different terrorist groups, but the results are the same.

Innocent people die; their lives are snuffed out or they are injured with a blow struck just at the moment when they feel the safest.

Although the results are the same, the worlds attitude towards these tragedies unfortunately varies depending on where the bombs exploded and on who detonated them.

Discriminate reactions

After the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Paris attacks, the entire world expressed its sympathy for the Paris victims and leaders from around the world joined in mourning.

A narrative and an emotional reaction have developed to the diabolical acts of the ISIL terrorist group that perpetrated the violence.

We see the same thing happening in Brussels. Even in the United States, flags were flown at half-mast and mourning was declared. Everyone became a Belgian.

If a terrorist organisation can be turned into a charming group and exonerated because it is fighting against ISIL, then can we also assume that ISIL could become a legitimate and charming group if, in the future, it fights against a terrorist group even more savage and ruthless than itself? by

But when the same bombs are detonated in Ankara and Istanbul, the reaction is not the same. Does the fact that we do not see the same outpouring of sympathy for Ankara mean quite simply that the deaths are deemed more fitting for Ankara and Istanbul?

This biased approach is identical to the perspective that dares to propose that refugees be kept within the borders of Turkey. Apparently, the refugees that are deemed fitting for Istanbul and Ankara are deemed unworthy of Europe.

And we are not even referring to the incredible nonchalance displayed in the West when it comes to bombs being detonated by terrorist organisations in Baghdad or other regions of the Middle East.

It is a pity that terrorism is not universally opposed simply because it is terror and because it is a crime against humanity.

Not all terrorism is treated equally. Some terrorist acts cause no great consternation because they are viewed as functional by some.

In Turkish cities every day, the PKK carries out attacks similar to what happened in Brussels, and yet we see that they are still viewed in European capitals as an innocent movement fighting for their freedom.

Europeans are very nonchalant towards PKK terrorism, even though the approach, the philosophy and the results are the same.

This is the reason that they openly support the PYD, which is just an extension of the PKK. The US insists that it will continue its support in spite of the PKKs increasing violent and fatal acts of terrorism.

These are statements released to the press while relating the heroic efforts of the PYD in the fight against ISIL.

OPINION: Brussels attacks  EUs terror problem will get worse

If a terrorist organisation can be turned into a charming group and exonerated because it is fighting against ISIL, then can we also assume that ISIL could become a legitimate and charming group if, in the future, it fights against a terrorist group even more savage and ruthless than itself?

This inconsistent approach to terrorist organisations is unfortunately not a marginal view, nor is it the exception.

We have become accustomed to hearing statements like this from both US and European officials every day, which makes us feel like the war on terror is a bit disingenuous, if not downright hypocritical.

Are we fighting terrorism or just certain terrorists? This is the unanswered question we ask ourselves. Almost no one doubts that the PYD is an extension of Bashar al-Assad. It was appointed by Assad and armed with heavy weapons to protect designated areas on his behalf.

The ethnic cleansing that it has practised from the beginning, particularly against other Kurdish communities as well as the Arabs and Turkmen in the region, make it no different from ISIL in terms of approach.

But all of its crimes against humanity are forgiven, and the justification is that it fights well against ISIL. It has literally been authorised to engage in terrorism.

All of the rhetoric about the war on terror is made suspect by the authority the PYD has been granted.

Turkeys terror problem

Turkey is a country that has been plagued by terrorism for 35 years, a country that has made great sacrifices in the war on terror.

This experience has taught Turkey some important lessons. Countries now dealing with the problem of terrorism have a lot to learn from Turkeys experience. But the first thing they have to learn is to stop making a distinction between terrorism and terrorists.

OPINION: Turkeys worries about Kurds proved to be true

Today those who incite people to acts of terror and use the residents of the citys historic district as human shields instead of seeking political solutions in Diyarbakirs extremely open political arena unfortunately receive significant support from European politicians.

The European parliamentarians who visit Diyarbakir, escorted by those inciting the terrorism, convey the terrorists perspectives to their people back home, but they neglect to ask the terrorists this hard-hitting question: Why are you digging trenches in this city?

What contract have you made with your constituents which allows you to use them as human shields when attacking security forces and to turn the neighbourhoods of the people who voted for you into war zones?

The security forces, which have gone to great lengths ever since the beginning of the conflict to prevent civilian casualties, have suffered around 250 casualties.

And yet members of the mainly Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP)  which essentially acts as a political representative of the PKK  have the gall to engage in propaganda and accuse the state of committing atrocities against the people, and whats worse, there is a significant market for this ridiculous propaganda in Western political circles and the media.

OPINION: Turkeys legitimate military operations

People who buy this nonsense do not even stop to ask themselves why it is that civilians suffering from government operations have been able to kill up to 250 soldiers and policemen.

The bias that is exhibited with regard to terrorism is even more dangerous than terrorism itself because the measures necessary to address the plague of terrorism cannot be taken as long as this bias exists.

Yasin Aktay is a Justice and Development Party member of the parliament and head of the Turkish Group of Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Six arrests in Belgium come as investigators race to track suspects, while France says it has foiled separate plot.

Belgian police have arrested six people in raids as part of their investigation into suicide attacks on Brussels, as questions mounted about possible security lapses.

The federal prosecutors office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests took place in the Brussels neighbourhoods of Schaerbeek and Jette, as well as in the centre of the Belgian capital.

No information about the identities of those arrested was released. Judicial authorities will decide on Friday whether they should be charged, the prosecutors office said.

Suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train on Tuesday, killing 31 people and wounding at least 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.



Molenbeek, home to Muslims and stereotypes

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, also took credit for coordinated attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people.

Theres certainly still a feeling of insecurity here when it comes to public transport in particular, said Al Jazeeras Jacky Rowland, reporting from Brussels. There are police and army outside key [metro] stations, and trains dont stop at all locations.

Addressing reporters at an unscheduled conference in Brussels alongside Prime Minister Charles Michel, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that ISIL was carrying out attacks in Europe because its fantasy of a caliphate is collapsing before their eyes.

France foils new plot

In a separate development, French authorities said they thwarted a plot there that was at an advanced stage.

A French national suspected of belonging to a network planning an attack was arrested in Paris on Thursday morning.

Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said that the arrest helped foil a plot in France that was at an advanced stage.

OPINION: The slaughter of the innocent in Brussels

Cazeneuve said that the man arrested was suspected of high-level involvement in this plan. He was part of a terrorist network that planned to strike France.

The French counterterrorism agency, DGSI, raided an apartment building in the northern Paris suburb of Argenteuil. French TV station ITele reported that explosives had been found in the mans house.

At this stage, there is no tangible evidence that links this plot to the attacks in Paris and Brussels, Cazeneuve said.

Security lapses

Earlier on Thursday, Belgiums interior and justice ministers offered to resign over the failure to track an ISIL fighter expelled by Turkey who blew himself up at Brussels airport.

Brahim el-Bakraoui was one of three identified suspected suicide bombers believed to have hit the airport. At least one other man seen with them on airport security cameras is on the run and a fifth suspected bomber filmed in the metro attack may be dead or alive.

Bakraouis brother Khalid, 26, is suspected of killing about 20 people at Maelbeek metro station in the city centre. De Morgen newspaper said he had violated the terms of his parole in May by maintaining contacts with past criminal associates, but a Belgian magistrate had released him.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Bakraoui, 29, had been expelled in July after being arrested near the Syrian border and two officials said he had been deported a second time.

Belgian and Dutch authorities had been notified of Turkish suspicions that he was a foreign fighter trying to reach Syria.

At the time, Belgian authorities replied that Bakraoui, who had skipped parole after serving less than half of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery, was a criminal but not a militant.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Michel, who asked them to stay on.

There have been growing criticisms about perceived intelligence failings, said our correspondent. There is an atmosphere of fear and a certain amount of anger and criticism of authorities in [whether] they did their best in the run-up to the bombings.

Salah Abdeslam connection

Belgian public broadcaster VRT said investigators believed that Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, arrested last Friday, probably planned a similar shooting and suicide bomb attack in Brussels.

Abdeslams lawyer said the French national wanted to explain himself and would no longer resist extradition to France. His lawyer, Sven Mary, said Abdeslam had not been aware of the plan for the Brussels airport and metro attack that was carried out by men who had shared hideouts with him.

Two sources familiar with the matter said the Bakraoui brothers had been on US government counterterrorism watch lists before the attacks. It was not clear how long they had been known to the authorities.

Security sources told Belgian media the other suicide bomber at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, a veteran Belgian fighter in Syria suspected of making explosive belts for Novembers Paris attacks.

Laachraouis younger brother Mourad  considered one of Belgiums big Taekwondo talents  issued a statement condemning his actions.

Laachraoui, 25, gave no warning sign of being radicalised before leaving for Syria in 2013 and breaking all contact with his family, Mourad told a news conference.

He was a nice boy, and above all he was clever. Thats what I remember of him, Mourad said of his brother, who graduated in electromechanics.

He said the last time he saw him, he looked normal.
Several people have been detained by authorities over an online letter that called for resignation of the president.

Chinese authorities appear to be widening a crackdown and investigation aimed at identifying the authors of a mysterious open letter calling for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resign.

Wen Yunchao, a Chinese dissident living in the United States, said his parents and younger brother, who live in the southern province of Guangdong, were taken away by local police on Tuesday.

Wen, who is also known by his online alias Bei Feng, told Al Jazeera that security officers had visited his family members several times, and questioned them repeatedly, before taking them away on Tuesday.

Last Friday, he had posted on the social media site WeChat that, Officials in Jieyang and Jiexi county tried to force me to admit that I helped circulate the letter by putting pressure on my family. They promised if I told them who wrote the letter, I would not be held culpable.

China: Hip-hop propaganda boosts cult of Xi Jinping

Wen said he did not know who wrote the letter and maintained he had nothing to do with its publication.

The letter first appeared on a news website called Wujie News, on Mar 4, a date which coincided with the opening of the annual session of Chinas legislature, the National Peoples Congress.

The letter accused President Xi of abandoning the principle of collective leadership in favour of concentrating power in his own hand, and of encouraging a cult of personality centred around himself.

It urged President Xi to resign, for the future of the country and its people.

The authors of the letter did not give their names, but signed off as loyal Communist Party members.

The letter was pulled shortly after it was published, and received scant coverage in the heavily-censored local media. References to Wujie News, and to the letter appear to have been deleted from the Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo.

Intolerance for dissent

But the investigation to identify who may be behind the letter has intensified.

Agence France-Presse news agency reported that four staff at Wujie News, including CEO Ouyang Hongliang and managing editor Huang Zhijie have been out of contact since last week, quoting a reporter at the magazine who asked not to be named.

Another journalist, Jia Jia, was detained on March 15 at Beijing Airport, as he was about to leave for Hong Kong. Rights groups had linked his detention to his attempt to warn Wujies CEO about the publication of the letter on the site.

Jia has since been released. A message on his WeChat account on Friday, read: Thank you, everyone. I will not forget (your efforts).

His lawyer, Yan Xin, told the Associated Press news agency that he hoped Jias release is proof that his client had nothing to do with the anonymous letter.



Listening post: Chinas media crackdown

Human rights groups are concerned about the latest developments, which seem to suggest an increasing intolerance for dissent and a pattern of going after critics.

William Nee, a China Researcher at Amnesty International said, The authorities should call off the political hounding of those suspected to be behind the open letter and release all those detained in connection with it.

The persecution of family members of dissidents is a draconian and unlawful tactic that makes a mockery of Chinas claims to respect the rule of law, he said.

Wen the activist said hes particularly worried about the health of his elderly 72-year old father, who has high blood pressure.

He has tweeted Barack Obama, who is due to meet President Xi at a nuclear summit in Washington DC next week, urging the US president to pressure Xi to release his family.
UN coordinator says killing of wounded alleged Palestinian attacker was immoral, unjust and can only fuel more violence.

The UN condemned the gruesome killing of a wounded alleged Palestinian attacker by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank, after a video of the shooting spread widely online.

I strongly condemn yesterdays apparent extra-judicial execution of a Palestinian assailant in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement assailant.





This was a gruesome, immoral and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation.

He welcomed, however, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalons condemnation of the incident and called on the Israeli authorities to swiftly bring to justice the alleged perpetrator.

The Israeli army on Thursday arrested a soldier caught on video shooting a wounded alleged Palestinian attacker in the head as he lay on the ground after stabbing another soldier, his knife lying beyond his reach.

The clip, which was widely shared online and shown by state-owned and commercial Israeli TV channels, shows what appears to be one of the most flagrant cases of Israeli forces alleged use of excessive force so far in the wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted in October.

The incident was immediately condemned as an execution by Israeli rights group BTselem and as a war crime by Palestinians.

Detained on suspicion murder

A military spokesman said the soldier was being detained on suspicion murder, with his remand extended to Tuesday.

The soldier had not been at the actual site of stabbing attack, but arrived some six minutes later, according to a preliminary after action review.

Three officers on the scene were also reprimanded for not treating the wounded Palestinian, a military spokesman said, noting that in the past six months some 170 Palestinians wounded during attacks or attempted attacks received medical treatment from army forces.

Military chief of staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot said on Friday that the army gives its soldiers full support in the case of errors, but not over conduct that is not normative and goes against the armys values.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the soldiers behaviour was not in keeping with the armys values and Yaalon vowed the shooting was being treated with utmost severity.

In pictures: A decade of anti-wall struggle

Since October 1, Israeli forces or settlers have killed 206 Palestinians, including protesters, bystanders and attackers, at least 57 of them from Hebron.

Meanwhile, Palestinian attackers have killed at least 29 Israelis, mostly in stabbing attacks.

The surge in violence erupted in Jerusalem in October after an increase of Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islams holiest site outside Saudi Arabia.
Friday marked the last day for Chris Henrichs at the Beatrice Police Department. After 22 years, she has decided to hang up her headset and retire from her longtime role as dispatcher.

Before she left, her coworkers and family paid tribute to her time at the station with a little retirement party to send her off.

My time has been great, otherwise I wouldnt have been here for 22 years, Henrichs said. Theres been lots of change in the department and its time to move on. The timing is right for me.

Changes include the replacing most of the communication equipment at the station as near-universal adoption of modern technology forced the department to adapt in the 21st Century.

Chris is a longtime dispatcher who started with us before we became a regional agency, said Beatrice Chief of Police Bruce Lang. She has always learned the new technology even with all the changes in laws enforcement, especially with communication.

In 1997, a few years into her career as a dispatcher for the Beatrice Police Department, mobile telephones were still relatively uncommon. Yet within 10 years it was more uncommon to not have a mobile device.

Henrichs always proved to be ahead of the times and capable of adjusting to anything and everything that was thrown her way, Lang said.

Last year during the lightning and flood storm she was instrumental in getting the station up and running and functioning properly, he said.

Beatrice suffered from a string of storms in early May last year, resulting in nearly $800,000 of damages, according to Beatrice City Administrator Tobias Templemeyer. Most of the damages were from the Beatrice Police headquarters and communication center being struck by lightning, causing wires to melt together and phone lines to become defective.

Without Henrichs experience and expertise, theres no way the station could have functioned as well as it did considering the circumstances, Lang said.

She has done a great job for us and deserves retirement, Lang said.

Other dispatchers and several police officers congratulated Henrichs on her years of service, not only at the Beatrice Police Department, but also at the Gage County Sheriffs Office, where she also spent time as a dispatcher.

Chris is a great person to work with and will be missed, said Sue Sullivan, a dispatcher for the Beatrice Police Department. She has a great familiarity with the station and cannot be replaced. I came to the BPD the year before she did, so Ive worked with her for over two decades.

With grandchildren to keep her company, Henrichs doesnt think shell have any trouble adjusting to life in retirement, though she does plan to continue working part-time with both the Beatrice Police Department and the Gage County Sheriffs Office.
Court upholds decision to free Mahmoud Hussein, who was imprisoned for 789 days, after prosecutors appeal fails.

An Egyptian who was jailed as a teenager more than two years ago on charges that included illegal protesting has been freed from prison.

Mahmoud Hussein, now 20, was released from custody early on Friday on bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($113).

The order to release him was upheld after prosecutors on Wednesday appealed against an earlier decision to free him.

Human rights lawyers and his brother Tito Tarek, who campaigned heavily for his siblings freedom on social media, confirmed his release.

After 789 days of his being unlawfully held in pretrial detention, without ever being charged with a crime, the Egyptian courts have finally done their job and upheld the rule of law, freeing Mahmoud from unlawful pretrial detention, Wade McMullen, a lawyer with the US-based Robert F Kennedy Human Rights group, which has acted on behalf of Hussein, told Al Jazeera.

As Mahmouds family welcomes him home tonight, we are also reminded of the 40,000 other political prisoners languishing in Egyptian prisons  many of them held in pretrial detention without charge just like Mahmoud has been  who all equally deserve their freedom.

READ MORE: The tale of Egyptian teen held for two years without trial

While no charges have been filed yet, the case against him is still ongoing, from what we can tell, McMullen said, calling for the case to be dropped.

Tortured in detention

The US-based Human Rights Watch group said that Hussein still faces charges of protesting illegally and belonging to a terrorist organisation.

There are thousands of detainees in Egypt who, like Hussein, have been held for egregiously long periods of pretrial detention, often in squalid conditions with restricted access to lawyers and medicine, Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.

The fact that prosecutors sought to keep him jailed, months after he was held beyond the legal limit, shows how far the authorities are willing to go to crush dissent.

Rights groups and lawyers acting on behalf of Hussein allege that he was tortured while detained and that towards the end of his detention, his health deteriorated.

Egyptian authorities have more than two years of appalling injustice to make up for and they should start by setting up an investigation to look into allegations that he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated in detention, said Said Boumedouha, Amnesty Internationals deputy director for the MENA programme.

Hussein had to be carried into court on Thursday because of his poor health, added the UK-based human rights group.

T-shirt detainee

Hussein was arrested in Cairo on January 25, 2014, accused of illegal protesting, getting paid to protest, possessing Molotov cocktails, and belonging to a terrorist organisation.

He said he was walking home from a peaceful demonstration to commemorate the third anniversary of the January 25, 2011 revolution that ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak when he was detained.

He was wearing a protest scarf and a T-shirt that read: A nation without torture. He has since become known as the T-shirt detainee.

READ MORE: Rights groups blast Egypts civil society persecution

While in prison, Hussein was subject to near-automatic detention renewals, more than 20 of which were decided in his absence from the courtroom.

Last year, a petition by Amnesty to release him was signed by more than 145,000 people in 138 countries.

Follow Anealla Safdar on Twitter: @anealla
Police say one suspect, who was wounded and arrested during raid in Brussels, was carrying a bag of explosive materials.

Police have conducted new raids in Brussels in an operation a local official said was linked to both the attacks in Belgian capital and to the arrest in Paris of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.

Three people were detained, two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutors office in Brussels said following the raids on Friday.

Belgiums state broadcaster RTBF said one person who was detained was carrying a bag of explosive materials.

WATCH: Why was Brussels attacked?

The operation was conducted in the Schaerbeek district as well as the Forest and Saint-Gilles neighbourhoods. Schaerbeek was also raided Thursday night, and six people were initially detained for questioning, before three of them were eventually released.

Schaerbeek district Mayor Bernard Clerfayt told RTBF that the raids were linked to the Brussels attacks and Thursdays detention of Reda Kriket, a man in France who was convicted in absentia of terrorist activities last year.

At least two explosions were heard in Schaerbeek at the start of the operation on Friday.

Al Jazeeras Dominic Kane, reporting from the Schaerbeek, said the explosions he heard during the raid were consistent with the sound of stun grenades, usually used by police during raids.

Images captured by Al Jazeera in Schaerbeek showed armed police officials and security personnel donning special suits crowding near Place General Meiser, an area with mixed residential and business establishments.

As the raid was carried out, US Secretary of State John Kerry placed a wreath at a memorial at Zaventem airport for the victims of the Brussels attacks.

Kerry is in Brussels for security talks with the countrys and EU officials in the wake of the deadly attacks that left 31 dead.

Earlier, the US secretary of state pledged further US help to Belgium and the EU after his meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the EU executive body based in Brussels.

The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks, Kerry said.

On Friday evening, hundreds of people gathered in central Brussels to pay tribute to the victims.

Suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train on March 22, killing 31 people and wounding at least 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, also took credit for coordinated attacks in Paris in November which killed 130 people.
ISILs Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli among several leaders killed in raid this week, US defence secretary says.

Several key leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), including its finance minister, were killed in an airstrike in Syria this week, according to US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

Carter told a press conference in Washington on Friday that US forces had killed Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Haji Iman, which would mark a further erosion of the groups leadership.

We are systematically eliminating ISILs cabinet, Carter told reporters, referring to the man as Haji Iman and saying he managed the groups finances.

The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the ability for them to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria.

WATCH: Enemy of enemies  the rise of ISIL

Carter said Qaduli had been in the ranks of ISIL, also known as ISIS, since its earliest incarnaton as al-Qaedas affiliate in Iraq.

Al Jazeeras Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, said Carter had stopped short of calling him ISILs number two, referring to the fact that some reports named Qaduli as the groups second-in-command.

We also have to add a note of caution, Fisher said. Thats because back in May 2015, the Iraqis said they had killed him in an air strike.

US special forces carried out the strike, officials told the Reuters news agency. The original plan was to capture, not kill, Qaduli. But after the commandos helicopter was fired on from the ground, the decision was made to fire from the air, one of the officials said.



They will be replaced

The killing, if confirmed, would be the second of a top ISIL commander in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon said a man known as Omar the Chechen had died from wounds he sustained in a US-led coalition strike in northeastern Syria.

Carter said the strikes were part of a broader US strategy to pressure ISIL as Iraqi forces advanced towards the city of Mosul, a key ISIL-held target for the countrys government.

He conceded, though, that such strikes would not be enough to cripple the group.

These leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, theyre experienced, and so eliminating them is an important objective and it achieves an important result, he said. But they will be replaced and well continue to go after their leadership and other aspects of their capability.

The United States had offered a reward of up to $7 million for information about Haji Iman, according to the State Department website.
Hassan Rouhani is the first Iranian head of state to visit neighbouring Pakistan in the last 14 years.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have vowed to boost cooperation on regional security and trade during talks in Islamabad, the first visit by an Iranian head of state in 14 years.

Rouhani said he and Sharif had agreed on Friday to fight extremist and terrorist groups in their countries shared border, as the two leaders announced the opening of two new crossing points to encourage trade long hampered by sanctions.

We place emphasis on the need for cooperation between our two countries, on regional security, Rouhani said, adding that issues related to energy, gas the export of electricity were also discussed.

Meanwhile, Sharif said he hopes the opening of two new crossings would contribute to economic integration in the region, while promoting tourism and people to people contacts.

READ MORE: Pakistans conundrum over the Saudi-Iran feud

Pakistan, a majority Sunni country, has traditionally close ties with Saudi Arabia, which is hostile to Iran, a Shia power.

The kingdom accuses Tehran of supporting Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen against the internationally recognised president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of mostly Gulf Arab states in an air-campaign against the Houthis in the conflict, widely seen as a proxy Saudi-Iran war.

Evolving relationships

Last year, Pakistan refused a Saudi request to send troops into Yemen after a vote in Parliament delivered an overwhelming no.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Mosharraf Zaidi, a former advisor to Pakistans foreign ministry, said Rouhanis visit is proof positive that Pakistan cannot maintain a relationship with Saudi and other Gulf countries at the expense of a useful and functional ties with Iran.

Rouhanis visit is also expected to discuss a controversial gas pipeline from Iran, through Pakistan to India.

Work has stalled on the Iran-Pakistan section, which was designed to help Pakistan meet its energy needs.

Iran has invested over $2bn in the project, but Pakistan has yet to finish construction on its half of the pipeline.

Al Jazeeras Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said Pakistan needs Iran to supplement its energy needs as its industrial output has hit a virtual standstill.

Washington had for years opposed the project amid concerns over Tehrans nuclear programme.
Collective of musicians from Ivory Coast film video on Grand-Bassam beach, the site of attack that killed 19 in March.

A group of musicians in the Ivory Coast have released a song that directly and defiantly addresses al-Qaeda after the group killed 19 people in an attack on a popular beach resort.

The video for Meme Pas Peur  or Not Even Scared  was shot on Grand-Bassam beach, the site of the March 13 attack that was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

You kill innocent people for your lost causes, a collective of the countrys pop stars, calling themselves Collectif Bassam, sing and rap on the track. You will not go to paradise.

What are you doing on the beaches? You kill innocent people for the sake of 70 virgins, the lyrics of the song, uploaded to YouTube this week, said.

Meme pas peur is a slogan that was often heard in France after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

The resort attack  in a town that is a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts hundreds of holidaymakers each weekend  was the first of its kind in Ivory Coast.

The countrys government said on Thursday that it was planning to set up new centres for rapid response forces to protect soft targets in the country.

If the attack had taken place in another region of Ivory Coast, in the west where there are beaches as well, how are you going to intervene rapidly? Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said to the Associated Press news agency. Ivory Coast is a country that needs to be able to fight for itself.

Earlier this week, officials said 15 arrests had been made as part of an investigation into the Grand-Bassam attack.

OPINION: Beyond the targets in Ivory Coast

Prosecutor Richard Adou identified the suspected ringleader as Kounta Dallah, who remains at large. The government has distributed a photo of Dallah but has not publicised his nationality, saying it wants to avoid reprisals.

The attack was the third high-profile strike by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in West Africa in recent months. A hotel in Mali was attacked in November, and there was an assault on a popular cafe and hotel in Burkina Faso in January.

Top security officials from those three countries and Senegal met in Abidjan this week to discuss cooperation to defend the region against further violence.
Army says clearance operation in the northeast also saw troops kill 25 fighters and capture one alive.

Nigerian troops have freed more than 800 people held hostage by Boko Haram across the countrys northeast, the army said.

The clearance operation on Tuesday saw 520 people rescued in Kusumma village, three Boko Haram fighters killed and one fighter from the group captured alive, according to spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman.

In a statement posted to the armys official website on Thursday, he said that 309 others were rescued in 11 villages across the region.

At least 22 terrorists were said to have been killed in the operation in which 309 were rescued.

Boko Haram has not commented on the statement.

The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area, Usman said. Kala Balge is a local government area of Borno State.

READ MORE: Nigeria has the measure of Boko Haram

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, Nigerias Information Minister Lai Mohammed said that the army had significantly reduced Boko Harams ability to carry out big attacks.

The Boko Haram insurgency has been massively decimated to the extent that it is no longer in the position to carry out spectacular attacks, he said.

Earlier in March, two female bombers killed at least 22 worshippers in an attack on a mosque. The attack took place on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Maiduguri  the birthplace of the Boko Haram armed group.

The group was suspected of having carried out the attack, according to Colonel Usman.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide and bomb attacks as Nigerias military pushes the group out of territories they once controlled. Several bombers have blown themselves up in recent months at roadblocks into the city manned by the military and vigilantes.

The US military calls Boko Haram the most violent armed group in the world.

Some 20,000 people have been killed and about 2.3 million displaced by its war with the government since 2009.
Thousands have rallied in Baghdad in support of Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has taken the lead role in protests demanding government reforms.

Al-Sadrs associate, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, delivered a message from the cleric at a rally on Friday in the Iraqi capital, giving Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi 24 hours to implement wide-ranging reforms such as installing technocrats in key political positions.

Otherwise, the message says, the protesters will not limit themselves to sit-ins outside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, where the government is headquartered and where al-Sadrs followers demonstrated last week.

The weekly rallies in Baghdad are meant to put pressure on Iraqs political leadership.

The prime ministers efforts to implement reform have been thwarted by his own political mis-steps as well as the countrys increasingly sectarian politics.

Last month, Abadi, now a year and a half into his four-year term, said he wanted to replace his ministers with technocrats to challenge the system of patronage that encourages corruption by distributing posts along political, ethnic and sectarian lines.

Sadr and his supporters have held regular demonstrations demanding reforms to tackle corruption, which is eating into Baghdads resources even as it struggles with falling revenues due to a slump in global oil prices and high spending caused by the costs of war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
Trial of two prominent journalists charged with espionage adjourned after opposition lawmakers throng courthouse.

The trial of two Turkish journalists charged with espionage was adjourned on Friday after opposition lawmakers refused to leave the courthouse in defiance of a ruling that the case should be behind closed doors.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, 49, the newspapers Ankara bureau chief, stand accused of trying to topple the government with the publication last May of footage purporting to show Turkeys state intelligence agency helping to transport weapons to Syria in 2014.

The ruling on Friday came after the court accepted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, as sub-plaintiffs in the case.

The journalists are on trial for publishing images that reportedly date back to January 2014, when local authorities searched Syria-bound trucks, leading to a standoff with Turkish intelligence officials.

READ MORE: Another dark moment for the Turkish media

Cumhuriyet said that the images proved Turkey was smuggling arms to rebels in Syria.

The US-based Human Rights Watch group criticised the decision to hold the trial behind closed doors.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher observing the trial, described the decision as a travesty of justice, according to the DPA news agency.

Atmosphere of fear

They have done nothing wrong but committed the act of journalism, Nina Ognianova, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told the Associated Press news agency.

They have covered a story of public interest that is important not only for Turkey but also the region and the international community.

On Thursday, Christophe Deloire, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, criticised the authorities for treating journalists as a threat when the country was facing real terrorism.

He also criticised Erdogan himself, who filed the lawsuit against Dundar and Gul, for spearheading attacks against the media and creating what he called an atmosphere of fear
An in-depth look at the most famous whistleblowers of the 21st century and what drives them to speak out.

Editors note: This film is no longer available to view online.

Filmmaker: Cyril Tuschi

For some, they are traitors; for others, heroes.

Whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Edward Snowden; and hackers and activists such as the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the former British secret service agent Annie Machon, warn us about the complete surveillance of our society.

Facebook by Annie

We offer up our information and its just there on a plate for the spies to access. And we know they do through back doors and things. Yet that sort of information used to take them weeks or months to gather on an individual.]

They oppose intelligence agencies, governments and corporations. And for this, they are threatened, hounded and imprisoned.

Why are they so committed? What drives them? And is there a collective motive?

Digital Dissidents is a two-part documentary that goes into the heart and experiences of what it means to be a whistleblower and the nature of the quests to disclose radical truths hidden from society.

We hear the personal testimonies of whistleblowers and examine the psychology of whistleblowing.

What happens when an intelligence insider wants to reveal their countrys surveillance secrets? What about if that secretive culture still affects an individual after theyve become a whistleblower?

Assange, for instance, says he was never an insider: I never had the view that one should work for these organisations.

He likens working in the NSA to being on a drug.

A drug that made them powerful; because they were in a group they had a lot of power and that system has a way of talking about how the world works, how the United States empire is a good thing.

And it can take a long time to wash that drug out of the system. Daniel Ellsberg has nearly entirely washed that out of his system, but the more recent whistleblowers, they still have perhaps some way to go.

Annie Machon, an ex-M15 agent, talks about being on the run after her partner became a whistleblower.

Having lived with that sense of endemic surveillance, I can tell you its corrosive to the human spirit. So once you lose that sense of privacy and you start to self-censor, you stop being an effective and fully integrated citizen of that country. So privacy, in my view, is a last defence against a slide towards a police state.

Digital Dissidents  Part 2





Intelligence services are not the only ones monitoring communications and processing massive data. Private corporations such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple collect millions of pieces of information about us to analyse and monetise. How has the advent of the smartphone, which Machon calls a spyphone, made us more visible? What do intelligence agencies and companies do with our data and how do the two collude?

Spanning the US, Germany, the UK, and Russia, we hear from the most consequential whistleblowers of the 21st century to learn their personal, and at times poignant, stories and perspectives on revealing secrets. We also hear from Stephan Mayer, a German politician on the committee investigating NSA spying, Yvonne Hofstetter, a big data expert, and Germanys former minister of culture, Julian Nida-Rumelin.

We learn what these whistleblowers, hackers and activists really think about each other. And we look at what is so wrong with our surveillance climate at large, and the price of whistleblowing on an individuals life.
andPizza ExpressLondonMarch 9, 2015It's been a while since two of the world's great improvising pianists played togethertwenty-two years to be precise. This fact alone may have brought a goodly and appreciative turn-out to Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club. If so,andmet all their expectations. delivering a three fine setsalone and finally together.Tippett opened the eventhints of blues from his powerful, percussive left hand contrasting with upper register triplets from his right. Two reasons why these two pianistswith such different styleswork so well together. Firstly, both possess a strong, dynamic left hand rooted in blues and jazz. Secondly, each has a distinctive, even quirky melodic sense. The rest is contrast.It soon became clear that Tippett, consciously or not, was treating us to an entire history of twentieth century piano. Not just jazz, either. The blues slid into a ballad and the AABA song-form with a quote from something that still nags at the memory bank. It was brief, a snatch only, and then something Messiaen-like shifting next in the direction of Debussy. Now a reference to stride piano before a series of rapid, off-kilter arpeggios a la. At one point, it sounded as if Tippett was accompanying some silent film playing in his head. And there was John Cage in the prepared piano, perhaps. A recurring motif finished the set, a reminder that Tippett's fine new CD, Mujician Solo IVLive in Piacenza, was just one night's music.Riley's solo work is, perhaps, more obviously 'jazz' in its focus. As evidenced by his most recent recordings, To Be Continued... and 10.11.12, Riley is a story-teller and his medium a song-form extended far beyond sixteen or thirty-two bars. If Tippett builds from the foundations upwards, the sense with Riley is more forensic. He works from the outside of each idea, exploring ever deeper, peeling back layer after layer, drawing out every possible nuance of his songs. Inevitably, there are blues to be revealed in all their primal glory and Ellington and Monk, too. But all has been absorbed. He closes with "Round Midnight," a performance so beautifully weighted and measured to make grown men cry into their Peroni.Keith Tippett opens their duo with a ragtime-time like syncopation, before setting up a mighty, percussive rhythm behind Howard Riley's more lyrical, melodic adventures. Things switch to those township riffs that Tippett so loves. Not for the first time, I am struck by the parallel between these rhythms and Trinidadian calypso. With the two pianos, the music builds layer upon layer. Perhaps it returns jazz to polyrhythms and its true rhythmic modes when not forced into a four-to-the bar straightjacket. A cascade of mordants and trills follow, as they lead us into a near waltz in 6/8 with more than a hint of. Stabbing left-hand chords take us into a ballad, from which "Misterioso" emerges and they finish to an ovation with most of the audience on the feet."I had to go into our encore at the end," Tippett told me after the gig, grinning all over his face. "Otherwise, we could've gone on all night!"
The senator sponsoring a right-to-farm resolution surprised his colleagues Thursday as they got ready to dig into debate again by asking to send the measure back to the Agriculture Committee for more study.

But Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell said he'll be back with the constitutional amendment next session. A simple state law isn't enough, he said. More education of urban senators is needed.

Kuehn, an agriculture producer, veterinarian and biology professor, said he recognizes the significant interest on the part of the agricultural community and ag producers in the Legislature who know about the importance of agriculture and agricultural technology.

The challenge was getting senators not involved in ag production to grasp the need for all that was included in the resolution (LR378CA), he said. And maybe, because of the constitutional aspect of the proposal, it got overanalyzed.

"It just reinforced that we have an even greater educational need within the body than I really thought we did," Kuehn said.

And given the amount of time left in this session -- 11 days -- another three hours of floor debate wasn't going to answer the questions for some of those senators, he said.

Agriculture Committee Chairman Jerry Johnson was among those who thought the idea needed more study. In other states, he said, right-to-farm measures dealt more with animal rights. This one included other types of farm practices and then was complicated with references to technologies and genetically modified organisms, he said.

The committee will study the issue over the interim, and include agriculture groups, he said. It is a priority.

"I think my mission is to bring ag groups back together because I think they're split on this," Johnson said.

He wants it to be a win for agriculture, he said. But the resolution had a lot of risks because so many amendments were filed -- seven in the past week or so.

Accusations had circulated since the resolution was introduced that it had come from special interest groups or Gov. Pete Ricketts, with motivations other than protecting agriculture. But Kuehn, a fourth-generation ag producer, said it's something he's been looking at for years.

"It is solely mine. I am proud that the other producers and some other senators cosigned and were brought along," he said.

"I am the one who sold the governor on the concept," Kuehn said, adding that he's grateful for his support.

The constitutional amendment would have prohibited lawmakers from further restricting farming and ranching practices in Nebraska, except in specific instances, unless they could prove a "compelling state interest."

The idea was to reduce outside influences, he said, that impact policymaking.

"I want to make sure that we don't have special interest groups exerting an undue influence on the policymaking process," Kuehn said.

Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said ending the discussion on the resolution for the rest of the session sets the table for agriculture and the Legislature to have a broader discussion about the way they can work together to protect the interests of farm and ranch families into the future.

With just a few legislative days remaining, we look forward to continuing our efforts to address property taxes, which is the No. 1 priority for Farm Bureau members.
Students in the UF College of Journalism and Communications are now only required to take one history class instead of two.

Students who came to UF after Summer B 2015 arent required to take American History to 1877 (AMH 2010). The change was part of a state initiative, Michael Weigold, the assistant dean of undergraduate affairs for the college, wrote in an email.

Those in the college will still need to take American History since 1877 (AMH 2020), he said.

He said while AMH 2020 still meets university general education requirements, AMH 2010 no longer does.

So we adjusted accordingly to make sure students take classes that will help them graduate on time, Weigold said.

Kristina Perez, 19, came into UF with the history classes completed, but she said taking both courses have helped her understand current events.

(History is) crucial to understanding current events, she said, adding that the Black Lives Matter movement wouldnt make sense without the historical context of Americas history of segregation and the civil rights movement.

I dont think all history courses should become almost electives to a J-school student, the telecommunication freshman said.

She said she thinks removing the course wont hurt students, but taking history classes can only help.

Dave Tegeder is teaching one course at UF this semester: AMH 2010. The UF history professor said the change in requirement reflects changes in the state standard.

He said he thinks its important for students going into the fields of journalism and communications to understand the history of American culture and society.

Oftentimes, what seems to be news needs to be put in larger context, Tegeder said. You need to understand the culture you work in.

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@MelissaGomez004

mgomez@alligator.org
Cpl. Duane Dewey smiled under his wide-brimmed hat as he shook hands with UF student veterans Thursday morning.

Around his neck lay the Medal of Honor he received in 1952. The 85-year-old Marine veteran is Alachua Countys only living Medal of Honor recipient. He came to UF to celebrate national Medal of Honor Day, which was Thursday, said Randall Martin, who organized the event. Dewey and four other Korean War veterans spoke with students at the UF Collegiate Veterans Success Center about their experiences in the military.

Martin, the cabinet director of Veterans Affairs, said there was no cost for the event besides $150 for food. He wanted Dewey to come so students could meet a hero.

Its important to come meet them before they exit our world, the 31-year-old said. Its also important for younger people who may not have great heroes in their life to come meet some actual heroes.

On April 16, 1952, in Panmunjom, Korea, Dewey jumped on a grenade to protect his comrades, wounding himself in the process. He spent about four months recovering in a hospital.

Deweys wife, Bertha Dewey, said a telegram informed her Dewey was wounded in 1952. She waited for a letter from a friend to tell her Dewey would survive.

It was kind of a whirlwind, she said. Everything was so fast.

After returning to the U.S., then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded the Medal of Honor, the militarys highest award for heroism, to Dewey.

I couldnt hardly believe it, said Dewey.

Dewey said he rarely spoke about his medal when he was younger. It was hard to speak publicly about it because he felt uneducated, having only gone to school until ninth grade.

Now, he tells students in middle schools about the Korean War and the importance of education.

I love talking to younger people, he said.

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Arline Broome, Deweys daughter, said there are two monuments dedicated to her father. One is in his hometown of South Haven, Michigan, and the other is at the Kanapaha Veterans Memorial Park in Gainesville, where Dewey lives during winter.

Broome said her father is one of 77 living Medal of Honor recipients.

If you stop and think about the numbers, chances are very slim youre going to meet a Medal of Honor recipient, she said.

Marcos Silva, a UF history junior and Marine veteran, said he looks up to Dewey.

Thats what I admire the most; he sacrificed himself for his buddies, the 25-year-old said. I would do the same thing.

He said it was an honor to meet Dewey.

Were still Marines, so were brothers, he said.

@k_newberg

knewberg@alligator.org

Retired Marine and Medal of Honor recipient Cpl. Duane Dewey speaks with 38-year-old UF materials science sophomore and Marine veteran Nate Adler at the Collegiate Veterans Success Center in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Thursday morning. Dewey came to speak to student veterans about his experiences in the Korean War and receiving his Medal of Honor.
"Aw Jesus, here too?  was essentially my reaction to news that, Sunday night, nine officers opened fire on Robert Dentmond, a 16-year-old holding a replica rifle. Dentmond died shortly thereafter  after all, nine people shot at him.

I got mad. Mad, but not surprised. Why should the overuse of violence by police, our national shame, not taint our community, too?

And what the hell can I do about it? My anger fades to apathy once I realize I really cant do anything. Nothing concrete, anyway: The best I can do is get mad, write about how mad I am and hope, in vain, it makes even the slightest difference. In the end, its not any more effective than if I posted a similar rant on Facebook.

The editorial, though: Thats where I expected to find some real outrage, or at least a hard opinion. Editorials arent one persons opinion; they represent the view of the entire paper, and they come with a good deal more legitimacy and weight than the ramblings of an individual, no matter how informed or handsome that individual writer may happen to be.

I know this because I was the one writing them a year ago. Its an important job. Sometimes, I imagine, people actually read the editorials and engage with them. Agree, disagree  who cares! Its a free country, and if something pisses you off you can send in your very own retort. The opinions editor will be grateful, believe me.

Ironically, this is where I find myself now  writing in response to Wednesdays editorial, which used 500 words to say nothing at all.

My name and face are in this paper; I used to work in that office, and Im embarrassed to be associated with the complacency of that editorial, which took more effort to cover law enforcements ass than the officers did. Ill be damned if I let the Alligator kick back and join the litany of voices endorsing business as usual, to shrug and sigh  whos to say? as if a child werent dead by some officers hands. Echoing the National Rifle Association, the Alligator criticized those who would use this tragedy for a political end, to prove a point  not realizing that this criticism, too, is itself a political stance.

The Alligator gained its independence when, in the early 70s, the paper flouted the authority of then-UF President Stephen C. OConnell and published addresses of known abortion clinics. From that moment forward, the Independent Florida Alligator held the privilege and the freedom to write and report without interference or restraint from the administration or Student Government. This proud legacy of fighting the establishment, wherever it may be found, was casually tossed aside Wednesday out of deference to the police, the status quo and misguided devoti on to total objectivity.

Do I believe the officers murdered Dentmond in cold blood, the way Walter Scott and Eric Garner were? No. But I do firmly believe it was handled recklessly. Under no circumstance is it necessary or good for nine people to open fire on a person for disobeying orders.

Its a miracle no one else was injured or killed, because stray bullets shot through at least two apartments and a car. Even with the understanding that they didnt know the gun was fake, shooting Dentmond was the most short-sighted solution imaginable.

Hell, if you dont want to talk about police brutality, at least mention mental health. But even that brings us back to police violence: Dentmond wished to end his life and correctly trusted the police to kill him, if only he appeared threatening.

The Alligator couldve said so much. Instead, it published the standard suicide in the community platitudes, wreathed with love for our boys in blue. I am ashamed.

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Alec Carver is a UF history junior. His column appears on Fridays.
Dear President Fuchs,

My name is Lia Merivaki, and I am a doctoral candidate in political science at UF. During my academic studies at UF, I have served as a teaching assistant in large introductory undergraduate courses in political science, I have instructed my own courses in American and European politics and I have conducted independent and collaborative research, all while completing my graduate studies and my dissertation.

I am also a co-president of Graduate Assistants United, the labor union that represents over 4,000 research assistants, teaching assistants and other graduate assistants at UF. On behalf of all graduate assistants at UF, GAU negotiates the terms of our employment with UFs administration, including but not limited to stipends, health care benefits for graduate assistants and their dependents, family leave and fees.

I am writing in response to your guest column, in which you shared some of your experiences as a college student and graduate assistant, highlighting how the student loan debt you incurred in the process was the best investment you have ever made. In your guest column, while recognizing the importance of affordable tuition and funds for facilities, recruiting faculty and operations, you also called on UF to work more on faculty and graduate assistant funding.

We are very grateful you shared your story and that you consider faculty and graduate assistants integral to UFs plan to be among the nations very best public universities. Graduate assistants make a major contribution toward achieving this goal, as they are responsible for conducting much of the rigorous research, teaching and innovation that takes place here at UF while receiving minimal recognition.

We also share your commitment to finding additional revenues to invest more in our faculty and graduate assistants. GAU has been fighting year after year for higher stipends and lower fees, while gaining only limited traction with UFs administration. During last Falls long negotiation round, we were happy to see, for the first time, UF agreed to stipend increases that benefited all of our graduate assistants equitably. More importantly, UFs administration agreed to make fee relief a mandatory subject of bargaining. Graduate assistants across campus are thrilled with this positive development, as fee relief has been an issue GAU has debated with UF in previous years.

However, we have a lot of work left to do. More than a quarter of UFs graduate assistants earn below the federal poverty line after paying fees. As a consequence, GAU strongly advocates for significant fee relief  our graduate assistants should not be paying to work. Addressing fees would bring an immediate improvement to the economic circumstances graduate assistants currently face.

On behalf of GAU, let me say I am glad we have you on our side. But now is the time to move beyond words and start making tangible changes that will positively impact graduate assistants at UF.

We invest our hearts and minds in our students while excelling at our graduate studies.

We value our graduate assistants. Isnt it time for UF to do the same?

Lia Merivaki is a co-president of Graduate Assistants United.

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Thursday started out as any normal day at Lincoln Elementary School -- until sirens erupted throughout the building around 10 a.m. to indicate that it was time for the schools first and only tornado drill of the spring.

The kids gather in various interior classrooms without glass where they are taught to quickly get under the desks and tuck and duck, said school secretary Julie Stuart. Most of the classrooms are fronted with glass windows, so we try to get them in interior rooms.

As the elementary students filed through to their designated classrooms, the only talking was from the teachers. In the heart of Tornado Alley, the kindergartners through fifth graders know why such drills are necessary.

They listen very well and follow the directions, said teacher Betty Bstandig. We usually try to talk to them ahead of time so they have an idea whats going on. They know what is at stake.

Though Nebraska experienced only 26 tornadoes in 2015, well below the states 30-year average of 53 tornadoes per year according to the National Weather Service, being prepared for anything is paramount for children living in such a hot spot for severe storms.

We try to keep them with their classmates and with their same age group to make them more comfortable, because during the drill there is usually time, said Bstandig.

Stuart started off drill by announcing over the loud speakers that there was a tornado watch in the area. Students were told to wait for it to become a tornado warning with the sound of the siren. As soon as the siren sounded, the students were out of their seats and in their assigned classrooms, ushered in by the rooms teacher. The children were warned from the start that it was only a drill.

Tornado watches and a tornado warnings differ in duration and the area they cover.

A Tornado Watch lasts for around six hours and typically covers an area of about 1/3 the size of the state of Nebraska, whereas a tornado warning lasts only 30-45 minutes and covers an area about the size of Gage County, said Corey Mead, one of five lead forecasters at the National Weather Service in Omaha.

Tornado watch is a forecast that indicates when weather conditions are favorable for producing tornadoes, said Mead. A Tornado Warning is a forecast thats much smaller in scale and would be issued in the instance when a tornado was seen or will be soon.

Despite knowing the exercise was a drill, the students proved they take the safety preparation seriously. After the drill, the students returned to their studies and class resumed as if nothing happened.




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AFTER 5 YEARS, WE'RE STILL LIED TO ABOUT IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Next week is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And it is likely that sometime in the next couple of weeks, the 4,000th American soldier will die in Iraq. [MORE] Momentum

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's 1931, and a 14-year-old girl is standing alone on a stage. She's small and lively with dark curly hair, widespread hazel eyes, slender wrists and an open, eager face filled with the wonder of performing. Her name is Rose, and one day she will be my mother. But now she is performing an Eugene O'Neill monologue called "Before Breakfast" for a ladies' club in a wealthy suburb of Long Island. [MORE] One Woman's World

COMFORTABLE WITH MYSELF by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I'm not sure but I think I may be socially incorrect. [MORE] On Native Ground

ENOUGH FOR A WAR, NOT FOR A PEOPLE by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Last week, the National Governors Assn. met in Washington, D.C. One of the tasks the NGA had on its agenda was to ask President Bush to increase federal spending on roads, bridges and other public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. He rejected their pleas out of hand, claiming that infrastructure projects wouldn't offer any short-term economic boost. [MORE] Brasch Words

BEWARE THE SELF-REVERENTIAL PRESS by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Shortly before the primary votes this past week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter called Sen. Barack Obama's surge to the Democratic nomination "inevitable." It also called for Hillary Clinton to "start her campaign for Senate majority leader." [MORE] Constance

A CONVERSATION WITH MY CAT Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Normally, when the cat starts his evening rant of meowing continuously until he makes his point, I just take it as long as I can, pick him up, and put him in the garage for the night. He doesn't want to go, but the meowing stops and I don't care if he likes it or not. [MORE] Momentum

OUT OF STRUGGLE, ART by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Here we are again at the crossroads of art and social change, having the opportunity to watch good and great films about the lives of women in support of the Women's Crisis Center. [MORE] Campaign 2008

HOW TO PREDICT SUPER TUESDAY II WINNERS? ONLINE SEARCH by Jay Bhatti NEW YORK, March 4, 2008, 7:00PM ET -- With the outcomes of the Texas, Vermont, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries to be decided tonight, how possible is it that online searching can predict who will win tonight's primaries? [MORE] One Woman's World

DON'T VOTE; IT ENCOURAGES THEM by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Call me angry and disgusted but don't call me un-American because I won't be voting come November. [MORE] On Native Ground

BUSH AND THE KEYBOARD COMMANDOS by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- As the days tick down toward the eventual departure of President George W. Bush from the White House, it's a hopeful sign that most Americans are no longer moved by his Administration's constant exploitation of terrorism for political gain. [MORE] Momentum

WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- It's a little confusing. [MORE] Make My Dat

THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] On Native Ground

FIDEL RETIRES: NOW THE COLD WAR IS REALLY OVER by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Maybe now, we can finally say the Cold War is over. [MORE] Make My Dat

THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] One Woman's World

POLITICS IS NO PARTY by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Are you having a hard time focusing your eyes? Do you have faint red spots all over your body? Is there a ringing in your ears and do you see wavy lines when you look at your television set? Do your hands shake when you try to hold a cup of coffee? And have you recently been forgetting what day of the week it is - or what year? [MORE] Make My Day

FOR BETTER OR WORSE ... A LOT WORSE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- "Marriage: It's Only Going to Get Worse." [MORE] Constance

YOU CALL THESE RIGHTS? by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- When you express an opinion you hope to persuade others to your point of view. It doesn't always happen but still, opinion writers try. [MORE] Momentum

THE BRIDGE WOMAN by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Out there in America - yes, still - is a generation of women who were born in the 1940s, raised in the 1950s, and who came to radical consciousness in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am one of them. Hillary Clinton is one of them. [MORE] On Native Ground

OBAMA AND MY GENERATION by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I originally planned on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the Vermont Primary on March 4. [MORE] The Willies:

WARNING: THIS MEDICATION MAY MURDER YOUR FRIENDS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla. -- You've heard the warnings, haven't you? Stop Prozac and you may take a shotgun, an Uzi or an AK-47 and mow down your family and friends, or even a whole classroom full of your fellow students. You didn't? Well, that warning is not on the bottle, but like countless mass-murder incidents before it, Friday's shootings at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 last year, was probably precipitated by the effect of stopping medications that suppress anger and other powerful emotions but do not relieve the underlying cause. Isn't it time we started warning people - or stopped prescribing these medicines? [MORE] One Woman's World

DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet." [MORE] Reporting: Panama

PANAMA'S VIOLENT LABOR UNREST INTENSIFIES Mark Scheinbaum PANAMA CITY, Panama, Feb, 15, 2008 -- After just one day of relative calm, wildcat construction strikes by some members of Panama's largest union flared up again Friday morning, four days after a police sniper shot one worker. More than 140 demonstrators have been injured and at least 500 arrested, authorities say. [MORE] Brasch Words

TO STIMULATE ECONOMY, BUY A CHINESE-MADE U.S. FLAG by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Walking down Main Street, pushing a grocery cart loaded with clothes, toys, and appliances was Marshbaum. Fastened to the right front corner of the cart was an American flag tied onto a three-foot ruler. [MORE] Make My Day

THE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- To commemorate the death of noted shark exploder Roy Scheider, and the "Jaws" movies that resulted in Erik never setting foot in the ocean again, we are reprinting this column from 2003. Shark Experts 0, Sharks 1 [MORE] Momentum

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - As I write this, it's raining ice. Maybe a half a foot of snow and ice has already landed up here in the woods of Dummerston. Our cars are encased in it, and the door to the house is blocked. The satellite dish that brings in our Internet service quit about 20 minutes ago - frozen solid. [MORE] The Willies

AMERICA TO HILLARY: GET OUT! by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 13, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted the Rudy Giuliani strategy, and it's working - for Sen. Barack Obama. It turns out to be the strategy all Democrats are seeking - an exit strategy. But it's not for Iraq. It's for her exit from the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. [MORE] Constance

CONFESSIONS OF A DISAPPOINTED VOTER by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- A week ago at just about this time, I completed an article and was about to submit it as scheduled to The American Reporter. I was feeling rather elated, ready to show up on Super Tuesday morning, firmly touch the X next to Rudy Giuliani's name and get on with my day. He was my choice; he would get my vote. [MORE] Reporting: Florida

SIERRA CLUB SET TO SUSPEND FLA. CHAPTER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 10, 2008 -- The national Sierra Club is set to suspend its Florida chapter after years of divisive infighting, the president of the national club told Florida members in a letter delivered to some this weekend. It is the first time in its 116-year history that such a step has been considered by the club, according to news reports. [MORE] One Woman's World

PLANT A NEW WORLD THIS SPRING by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- For a little while, the men will just have to toss and turn in their fear-free-women beds. For a small space of time Hillary Clinton will just have to trudge on toward the White House without my faint applause in the background. [MORE] On Native Ground

VERMONT AND THE 5 STAGES OF CONSERVATIVE GRIEF by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- First, Vermont tried to convince the nation to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. [MORE] Make My Day

REBEL WITHOUT A TONGUE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Kids' brains work in amazing ways. At times, they can grasp complex concepts and make impressive discoveries. Other times, you have to wonder how we ever survived as a species. [MORE] The Willies

FOR DEMOCRATS, NOW IT'S ABOUT RACE, INCOME AND GENDER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Feb. 6, 2008 -- It's not a good time to be a Democrat. As the Super Tuesday results demonstrated, the presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has divided the partly along clear racial, income and gender lines - the very distinctions the party has sought to erase in principle but has emphasized in its pursuit of diversity. [MORE] Momentum

SUPER TUESDAY BLUES by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Super Tuesday has come and gone and I still can't get excited about the upcoming presidential elections. [MORE] The Willies

ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY, YOUR PUSH IS NEEDED by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 5. 2008 -- I'm expecting a sea change tonight. I believe that for the first time in this nation's history we will once and forever banish racism as the deciding factor in the destiny of African-Americans, and indeed adopt diversity as our path to the future. [MORE] Campaign 2008

AT 88, EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Pearl Turner will caucus for Mitt Romney tonight in Denver. [MORE] One Woman's World

STAND BY YOUR WOMAN by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- The black vote. The gay vote. The fundamentalist vote. The Hispanic vote. [MORE] An AR Special

SUSPECTS IN BENAZIR ASSASSINATION HAVE TIES TO MUSHARRAF by Ahmar Mustikhan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Gordon Brown this past Monday feted coup-leader-turned-President Pervez Musharraf at 10 Downing Street, Britain's new prime minister probably didn't ask the Pakistani dictator a question that is now on many minds: Did you order the murder of Benazir Bhutto? [MORE] Momentum

TO THE VERMONT DELEGATION: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR US LATELY? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt.  Back when President George W. Bush and Dick Vice President Dick Cheney were building up to their loathsome war in Iraq, very few people were brave enough to call the bullies' bluff. [MORE] On Native Ground

IF BUSH HAS HIS WAY, WE'LL NEVER LEAVE IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. - In his final State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush cautioned against accelerating U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, saying that it would endanger the process that has been made over the past year. [MORE] Campaign 2008

CLASH OF COMMENTS AND PROTESTORS AT CLINTON, OBAMA RALLIES IN DENVER by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 1, 2008 -- At least four presidential campaigns of both partiers rolled into in Denver this week ahead of the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 22 states, but it was the Democratic presidential contenders who drew the big crowds and duked it out Wednesday. If sheer numbers are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama - preceded by a buoyant and beautiful Caroline Kennedy - won the round handily. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the Colorado primary next Tuesday. [MORE] The Willies

WHY THE FLORIDA PRIMARY STINKS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Jan. 30, 2008 -- I was with my wife and daughter driving the back way from Miami home to Bradenton when we stopped at a McDonald's in Clewiston, the only big town along the vast shore of Lake Okeechobee, the state's precious freshwater reservoir. The McDonald's had three televisions at a central seating area, each tuned to a different network, and our table was in front of CNN as the very first election results started to pour in around 7:30PM. With them, almost as counterpoint, suddenly came such an overwhelming odor of cow plop that my wife started to throw up as we all ran to the parking lot. [MORE] Passings: Suharto

DEATH OF A KEMUSU THUG by Andreas Harsono JAKARTA - A few minutes after hearing that former president Suharto had died in his hospital bed, Marco, a militia leader in downtown Jakarta, raced to Suhartos house, wearing his jungle camouflage and began guarding the Suhartos residence on Cendana Street. [MORE] Constance

I REMEMBER YOU by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.. -- It seems to be more often lately that the sentiment is spoken but it's always been out there: "You never get over the death of your child." This is true. But the heartfelt expressions come from some who cannot fathom the notion of losing a child; their own child is who is in their mind, not another mother's child. [MORE]
Taxpayers in Southeast Community College's 15-county service area support $369 million worth of new construction and renovation to all three SCC campuses in Beatrice, Lincoln and Milford, according to recent survey results.

The results of the survey by Lincoln-based research firm Research Associates were announced at an SCC Board of Governors special meeting Thursday. Partners of the firm revealed that an average of 63 percent of people interviewed by telephone are in favor of the changes to the campuses, while 37 percent of those polled are against. The interview was administered in February to 1,202 registered voters throughout the 15 counties.

I was extremely pleased that residents of the 15-county service area are very supportive of and are willing to invest in Southeast Community College, said SCC President Paul Illich. The voters polled are very satisfied with the quality programs SCC offers and they recognize that SCC are careful stewards of tax dollars. They trust that we will use the money wisely.

The survey was an instrumental step for the board in moving forward with its recently completed 10-year facilities master plan. The plan would modernize and expand SCCs facilities, including new construction and renovation to its three campuses, a new downtown Lincoln campus (and removal of the Energy Square campus in downtown Lincoln) and six new learning centers throughout its service area.

The individuals polled were given this background information before answering whether they would vote for or against a $369 million bond issue to improve SCC facilities across the 15 counties. They were told that the deal would increase property taxes on a $100,000 home by an estimated $39 per year.

The survey showed that we have support from all demographics, Illich said. Farmers, non-farmers, homeowners, non-homeowners. In every case, more than 50 percent said yes. Its exciting that SCC has built up that kind of good will.

Along with the demographics Illich cited, more than 50 percent of all four age ranges interviewed supported the measure. The same goes for interviewed residents of Gage, Lancaster and Seward counties along with the superzone, the name for the remaining counties.

Board member Dale Kruse of Beatrice also had an enthusiastic reaction to the survey results.

Its very positive that SCC is so highly thought of in the 15-county area, Kruse said.

Kruse also noted that 52 percent of respondents had attended SCC classes and 67 percent indicated a relative had attended SCC classes.

So when you think about those people who have first-hand knowledge of whats gone on in the college for decades in terms of expanding and modernizing, it says a lot about SCC, Kruse said. It says that SCC has provided great programs and support to students for decades. Thats reflected in the survey.

After the discussion of the survey results in the meeting, the board voted in favor of an initial resolution that authorizes Illich to start preparations to place the bond issue on the November 2016 general election. The board will vote in a future meeting on whether or not to officially place the measure on the ballot.

All but one of the SCC board members voted in favor of moving forward with the plans.

Don Reiman of Virginia voted in opposition.

I dont disagree that major, major money needs to be spent, but my problem is with the report back from the consultants, Reiman said in a phone interview, referring to the facilities master plan and noting that he feels most qualified to speak about the Lincoln and Beatrice campuses. The consultants report puts a big emphasis on appearances and I think a lot of money is being spent just to make the campus look attractive.

"I agree thats important, Reiman continued. "I dont think what goes on outside buildings walls is important. I think what goes on inside buildings walls is whats important.

In reference to the Beatrice campus changes, Reiman said, They have taken an approach to destroy and demolish buildings and start new. I just dont understand this. We have spent major bucks on refurbishing these buildings.

Rieman said several buildings on the SCC-Beatrice campus are adequate. He said he agrees 110 percent that the campus needs a new agriculture center. Reiman mentioned the possibility of a new campus location if the existing Beatrice campus is to be completely overhauled.

Reiman also expressed his opposition to the proposed new campus in the future Telephone District in downtown Lincoln.

The board and SCC officials started preliminary discussions for the 10-year facilities master plan a couple of years ago, Illich said. The recently completed plan was led by Lincoln-based architecture firm The Clark Enersen Partners in partnership with space planning firm Paulien and Associates.

The changes to the Beatrice campus include a new arena and conference center that could be used for community events outside the scope of the college. A drive would loop around the campus and include five entrances.

The campus would also get a new agriculture and horticulture complex, classroom building, health sciences building, multipurpose center, recreation center and fieldhouse, new student housing and other features. There is currently a waiting list in housing units at SCC-Beatrice.

The changes to the Beatrice campus would cost about $164 million. The total cost to all of the campus overhauls is between $508 million and $518 million.
It has been far too many years since the Woke theology interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast array of Victimhood scenarios?

Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything.

No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their self-anointed pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now.
RALEIGH When it comes to politics, North Carolina is a closely divided state in many ways.Look at party, for instance. According to an early-March poll for WRAL-TV, 32 percent of registered voters in our state identified themselves as Republicans. The same share, 32 percent, identified themselves as Democrats. (Self-reported party identification is more useful than registration when analyzing voter behavior.) The remaining 36 percent said they were independent, but most of them actually vote either Republican or Democrat most of the time. Only 12 percent are true swing voters.Now look at issues. Asked to describe themselves as "pro-life" or "pro-choice" on abortion, North Carolina adults were about as likely to say the former (47 percent) as the latter (46 percent). Asked what the next president and Congress should do about Obamacare, 46 percent said leave it alone or leave it in place with some adjustments, while 51 percent said repeal all or large portions of it. And asked how much the North Carolina legislature should raise average teacher pay this year, 45 percent said the raise should be 3 percent or less while 51 percent said the raise should be up to 10 percent. (Confining the sample to registered or likely voters would shift the balance of answers to each question a bit to the right, ideologically speaking.)As you read each of those poll questions, you probably thought about your own position. Fair enough. Now, see if you can think up the best possible argument for the opposing position - for abortion rights, if you happen to be pro-life, or for repealing the Affordable Care Act, if you happen to like the ACA.Could you do it without assuming the worst about the other side? Did you struggle even to imagine how someone of good faith could come to a different conclusion about abortion, health policy, or education spending?Don't beat yourself up. Lots of us, perhaps most of us, have been struggling with just such a failure of imagination. Here in North Carolina, the political discourse has all too often devolved into partisan cheerleading, shouting matches, and online snark. At the national level, the presidential primaries have coarsened our culture and - let's be frank - produced two major-party frontrunners who share the dubious distinction of being among the least-trusted politicians in America. In a ABC News/Washington Post survey from early March, just 37 percent of Americans said they thought Hillary Clinton was honest. Only 27 percent said the same about Donald Trump.The solution to the problem is not to attempt to wish away our disagreements. That would be futile. As I noted, North Carolinians differ markedly by party, ideology, and policy preferences. Instead, I believe that we need to learn to disagree more constructively, with civility and a genuine desire to understand why others think what they think. If such a process yields public policies that most of us can embrace, or at least tolerate as part of a package deal, so much the better. But even if the process doesn't produce legislative action, it's still worth doing.I'm not alone in my belief. A new program called the North Carolina Leadership Forum (NCLF) just made its debut. Housed at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, NCLF is convening some three dozen leaders from across our state - current and former politicians, educators, business executives, activists, philanthropists, and other community leaders - to discuss North Carolina's economic future.More specifically, the topic of conversation over the course of 2016 will be how we can enable more North Carolinians to earn enough to support their families. The participants bring a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives to the issue. I am serving as co-chair of NCLF's steering committee, along with former state senator and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation executive director Leslie Winner.While we intend to come up with mutually agreeable solutions to the economic problems facing our state, we also aspire to model the very civil dialogue North Carolina and the nation seem to lack. Please wish us well.
Tom Campbell

This week's special session of the General Assembly was called primarily to address a new ordinance in Charlotte, due to go into effect April 1. While the primary focus was the so-called "bathroom ordinance," there were other important issues that surfaced.Let's begin by acknowledging that municipal government in North Carolina is a creation of and governed by the state. Throughout modern history our legislature has provided oversight with a "light hand," insisting that local units of government follow the state Constitution, abide by state laws and avoid expressly prohibited actions. That philosophy has worked well in the past, but our current legislature increasingly comes across like "Big Brother."The admirable thrust of Charlotte's ordinance was to ensure that businesses and others would not discriminate against a person because of his or her sexual identity or preference, but they crossed the line with a provision allowing transgendered people to use public bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.Can we agree that discrimination in any form is wrong? However, as an older, slightly overweight, balding, left-handed, white man I can testify that prejudice occurs. You probably can too. What we must guarantee is that no one has his or her rights denied, while also being careful to ensure not that one person's rights do not violate another's.We might question why parts of Charlotte's ordinance were necessary but do acknowledge that locally elected officials should, after spirited and full debate, decide local issues. Drilling deeper raises further questions. The safety concern is a red herring, using scare tactics to conjure images where transgendered persons violate someone's privacy or commit sexual crimes. Just being transgendered does not equate to being a predator. Sexual predators come in all shapes, races and genders. Whether they can or cannot share bathrooms neither promotes nor prevents sexual crimes. There are many other cities across the nation with similar ordinances. Few, if any, have reported instances of safety issues.The larger issue to us is privacy. Nobody wants to wait in lines, so we demand more toilets, more showers and more lockers. I admit sometimes feeling awkward standing next to another man using a urinal and totally abhor shared locker rooms with joint showers. Women tell me they have the same concerns. It would be even more disconcerting with someone of a different sex. That's not a matter of discrimination but my own desire for privacy.Regarding the debate on the minimum wage we think lawmakers are on firm ground. State law establishes a minimum wage and does not expressly grant municipalities the right to set it higher or lower than the law. This is an instance of local government usurping state law.The ultimate issue is government intrusion. North Carolinians have long deplored the practice of the federal government intruding into state affairs, but in recent years our legislature has done exactly the same thing by meddling in local affairs that by right should be local issues. Similarly, there can be no doubt that local governments are sometimes guilty of intrusion into personal affairs.In summary, discrimination is not only illegal but also wrong. So, too, is undue intrusion by government at any level. Safety and privacy are vitally important. Those are our takeaways from this week's special legislative session.
An individual who was asexualized involuntarily or sterilized involuntarily under the authority of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina in accordance with Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of 1933 or Chapter 221 of the Public Laws of 1937.

Violates the guarantees to equal protection and due process under ... the Constitution of the State of North Carolina and the ... Constitution of the United States.

Any facial challenge to the validity of an act of the General Assembly shall be transferred ... to the Superior Court of Wake County and shall be heard and determined by a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Wake County.

A social worker with the [Cleveland County] Department of Social Services coerced her into having the abortion and sterilization procedures. ...

The social worker threatened that she couldn't keep her two living daughters if she did not have the procedures. ...

The social worker beat her against a wall while threatening her with the loss of her two daughters.

Because it was supported by other evidence, the commission that reviewed her claim accepted her testimony as true, but it nevertheless denied her claim because she was unable to meet the second set of requirements listed above.

Although it is possible that members of the General Assembly were unaware ... that many involuntary sterilizations had been conducted outside the parameters of the Eugenics Act - and thus had been conducted without legal authority - we are constrained to apply the plain meaning of [the act]. ...

Before a claimant may be considered a qualified recipient: (1) the claimant must have been involuntarily sterilized "under the authority of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina," and (2) the claimant must have been involuntarily sterilized in accordance with the procedures as set forth in "Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of 1933 or Chapter 221 of the Public Laws of 1937." ... Claimant cannot show that either of these requirements has been met.

There is no record evidence that the Eugenics Board was ever informed of Claimant's involuntary sterilization, nor that it was consulted in the matter in any way. ... Further, all the evidence in this matter clearly demonstrates that Claimant's involuntary sterilization was performed without adherence to the requirements set forth in "Chapter 224 of the Public Laws of 1933 or Chapter 221 of the Public Laws of 1937."... Therefore, we must affirm.

RALEIGH Between 1933 and 1977 the State of North Carolina authorized the involuntary sterilization of more than 8,000 people, most of whom were women. An unknown number of others were involuntarily sterilized by local authorities without formal authorization by the State.At the urging of many individuals and organizations ( including the John Locke Foundation ), in 2013 the General Assembly finally enacted a compensation program for the victims, and some of them have already been partially compensated under that program. Unfortunately, the program is currently on hold, and - because of some decisions handed down by the N.C. Court of Appeals last month - it will probably remain on hold for quite some time.As enacted in 2013, the Eugenics Asexualization and Sterilization Compensation Program authorizes the State to pay a total of $10 million to victims of the State's eugenics program. Each "qualified recipient" is to receive an equal share, and because the criteria used to determine who qualifies have been challenged in court, final payouts will not be possible until those legal challenges have been resolved.The act specifies that:An individual must be alive on June 30, 2013, in order to be a claimant.And it defines a qualified recipient as:The first of these requirements was challenged by the estates of three victims of involuntary sterilization who died before June 30, 2013. In complaints filed with the Court of Appeals, they argued that excluding the heirs of victims who died before that arbitrarily chosen date:Rather than consider this argument, the court found that it lacked jurisdiction. It noted that under a law enacted in 2014:Accordingly, the court ordered transfer of the cases to the Superior Court of Wake County. It will now be up to a three-judge panel of that court to evaluate the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge. And, of course, depending on how the panel decides, further appeals are possible. It's worth noting that the John Locke Foundation has been consistent in arguing for limiting compensation to living eugenics victims, not their heirs.The second challenge to the act was made by a "white married female" who was sterilized in Shelby on Nov. 27, 1974. In support of her application for compensation she testified that:After a careful review, the Court of Appeals regretfully agreed:It was a unanimous decision, but an appeal is still possible.There's nothing wrong with the Court's reasoning in either case. Nevertheless, it's a very distressing outcome. The victims of involuntary sterilization in North Carolina waited for decades for justice to be done; so long, in fact, that most of them died without receiving so much as an apology, let alone anything in the way of compensation.For some survivors, these recent decisions by the Court of Appeals probably mean they will never be compensated at all. As for the rest, they will just have to go on waiting, and more will probably die while they wait. What a lousy way to bring to a close this shameful chapter in North Carolina history.
State Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, discusses House Bill 2 during committee debate. (CJ photo by Kari Travis)

Fifteen-year-old Skye Thompson of Greenville speaks before a Senate committee, telling members about his experiences as a transgender male. (CJ photo by Kari Travis)

Should Americans be thankful for North Carolinians setting precedent in taking a stand for their state's right to manage the safety of their public facilities, where separation of the sexes remains, or should they follow Bruce Springsteen's lead and boycott the state as bigots since they will not allow grown Transgender men to use the same bathrooms /locker rooms as pre-pubescent girls? North Carolina is right to control the separation of the sexes as a matter of decorum and safety. North Carolina is a bigoted state to not require that children of opposite sexes share the same public facilities with adults of the opposite sex, although misidentified - the Transgender. I generally prefer the natural environs of the vacant, although rather public, large tree. 236 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



RALEIGH Senate Democrats on Wednesday walked out of the chamber moments before their GOP colleagues voted unanimously to adopt a state law reversing a newly passed Charlotte ordinance allowing transgender people to use whichever public bathroom they choose. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed the measure , which also established a statewide nondiscrimination law in public accommodations.The Democratic exodus was underscored when the Senate reading clerk called the roll. When each Democratic senator's name was called, there was a moment of silence. Republicans responded with an "aye" when their name was called.Normally, roll call votes are taken electronically. Democratic senators complained that they'd been left out of the process of drafting the legislation. Republican leaders didn't unveil their bill until Wednesday morning.The Democratic walkout resulted in the Senate passing the measure by a unanimous 32-0 vote.In contrast, 11 House Democrats joined 71 Republicans in voting for the measure. It passed that chamber 82-26.Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, chided his Democratic colleagues and linked them to Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, the party's nominee for governor."Today, Senate Democrats followed the lead of Roy Cooper and refused to make protecting the safety of our children a priority," Berger said. "We're not sure if their rhetoric was stronger than their convictions or if they expected to be embarrassed by a majority of Senate Democrats joining Senate Republicans in voting for common sense. But either way, running out and ducking this vote is a serious breach of their duty to their constituents."McCrory's re-election committee released a video of a statement on the Senate floor by Minority Leader Dan Blue Jr. of Wake County making what the governor's campaign team said was the Republicans' case: Cooper could have prevented a special session by challenging the ordinance in court."If the city of Charlotte had no authority to do this, it would have taken 15 minutes to get a temporary restraining order, 10 days to get a preliminary injunction, and if it was so clear, then a couple of weeks later to get a permanent injunction... without scaring the bejeezus out of the citizens of this state," Blue said.As lawmakers and the governor discussed the prospect of a special session, Cooper said he saw no need for the General Assembly to overturn Charlotte's ordinance, instead suggesting that lawmakers had more pressing matters at hand. He released a video on Wednesday condemning the legislative action." Cooper says in his video He said that such action could end up costing the state economically. Cooper also criticized McCrory for his stance on the issue.Cooper said.Cooper's stance wasn't lost on Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, the Republican nominee for attorney general.Newton said during a Senate committee meeting.Opponents of the bill argued that the proposed new law was unnecessary and was based on unfounded fear.said Rep. Rodney Moore, D-Mecklenburg.Moore said that similar ordinances have been passed in more than 200 cities across the nation. He said, to his knowledge, there have beenHe said the argument that the legislation had to do with public safety doesn't pan out.Rep. Tricia Cotham, D-Mecklenburg, and a candidate for the 12th Congressional District seat, said the General Assembly shouldn't meddle in Charlotte's affairs.Cotham said.Rep. Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, said the city of Charlotte did not have the authority to enact the ordinance.Bishop said.Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, R-Wake, called the legislation a "common sense bill" ensuring the status quo in the state.Stam said." Stam said that the state needed a consistent law statewide so that businesses that want to grow or expand don't have to have different rules in different places.The legislation requires single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and public agencies, and requires students to use the facilities based on their "biological sex," or the sex listed on a birth certificate. Bishop said that if someone has sex-reassignment surgery, then they can amend their birth certificate to reflect their sex status.The legislation also would override any local ordinances related to discrimination practices. It prohibits localities from requiring private contractors to abide by regulations other than those required by state law. Supporters of the bill emphasized that private businesses would be free to set their own policies regarding access to their bathrooms.During public comment periods, people on both sides of the transgender bathroom issue made impassioned please to lawmakers.They included 15-year-old Skye Thompson of Greenville, who told a Senate committee that he is a transgender male.Thompson said. He said transgendered kids are bullied on a daily basis.Donna Eaton of Cary told the committee that she was molested as a kid.Eaton said. She said when she recently visited Massachusetts, a transgendered person was in the bathroom.She said without the bill overturning the Charlotte ordinance, people with malicious intent would be allowed to masquerade as transgendered and take advantage of people.
Local MCO signs 10-year lease for former Bank of America BuildingGREENVILLE, NC 1st Street Investments has finalized a 10-year lease with Trillium Health Resources to consolidate and relocate its headquarters in a facility occupying an entire city block in the Uptown Greenville district. Trillium's relocation will move approximately 129 jobs to the Greenville central business district.Tom Taft and Jim Ward, the team behind 1st Street Investment, will provide approximately $1.1 million to up fit the former Bank of America building into a 27,000 square foot, Class A office space. "Tom and I are delighted to welcome Trillium and are excited about the future of the Uptown District. We look forward to a long relationship with Trillium," said Jim Ward.Trillium is the largest employer to relocate to the central business district in over a decade, a huge win for center city advocates and a move consistent with national commercial leasing trends. In addition to centralizing its operations, Trillium was attracted to the Uptown District because of its walkability and convenient access to a range of offerings, including restaurants, a greenway, parks and municipal and county services.Leza Wainwright, CEO of Trillium noted, "We are pleased to be part of the fabric of the Greenville business community and look forward to joining the Uptown community. This relocation will consolidate our operations in a much more efficient and productive workspace and to be able to provide enhanced services and training in pursuit of our mission serving special populations in Eastern North Carolina."Trillium is a local governmental agency whose mission is transforming the lives of people in need by providing them with ready access to quality care. This past year, Trillium awarded the City of Greenville a $750,000 grant to an all-access park on the Town Common across from their new office.Tommy Stoughton of Kittrell and Armstrong represented the owners in the transaction. Pete West of Custom Building Company will oversee the building renovations. Richard King of Dunn and Dalton provided architectural services. Occupancy is scheduled for Oct. 1.ABOUT UPTOWN GREENVILLEUptown Greenville is public-private partnership advancing cultural, residential and economic development in Greenville's central business district, Uptown Greenville.ABOUT TRILLIUM HEALTH RESOURCESTrillium Health Resources is a Local Management Entity/Managed Care Organization (LME/MCO) responsible for publicly funded mental health, substance use, and intellectual/developmental disability services and supports for people living in eastern North Carolina. The counties that comprise the Trillium area include Beaufort, Bertie, Brunswick, Camden, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Jones, Martin, New Hanover, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender, Perquimans, Pitt, Tyrrell and Washington.For more information about Uptown Greenville, go toor call Director Bianca Shoneman at. Contact Carl Rees, Economic Development Manager with the City of Greenville atoror Kelsey Anderson -
Hackers penetrated the computer network of a Verizon Communications subsidiary, but the company says it plugged the hole before much data was compromised.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions in Basking Ridge, N.J., confirmed the breach, and said it recently fixed a security vulnerability on its enterprise client portal. The attackers were able to access corporate customers' contact information before Verizon fixed the problem. The breach was reported earlier by Krebs on Security.

"Our investigation to date found an attacker obtained basic contact information on a number of our enterprise customers," Verizon said in an emailed statement. "No customer proprietary network information or other data was accessed or accessible. The impacted customers are currently being notified."

Verizon Enterprise Solutions provides services to Fortune 500 companies, including financial institutions. One of its services is advice on how to defend against data breaches.

Data from consumers was not involved in the breach, Verizon said.

The hackers posted an advertisement this week on an online forum for cybercrime, in which they said contact information on about 1.5 million customers was for sale, Krebs on Security reported. The hackers said the entire data stash was available for $100,000; or, the data could be divided into sections of 100,000 customers, with each selling for $10,000.


California Attorney General Kamala Harris is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, and in all likelihood will win the Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer this November. Articular, telegenic, and complimented by no less than Barack Obama for her beauty, she is ready to take her place on the bench of future presidential hopefuls.

Unfortunately, she is displaying the worst instincts of a government bully. Ignoring post-Watergate reforms to the Internal Revenue Code designed to protect confidential federal tax return information, Kamala Harris is defending against three lawsuits filed by conservative organizations to protect the privacy of their donors.

The lawsuits, including one brought by Americans for Prosperity Foundation, allege that Ms. Harris has violated the First Amendment by requiring charities that wish to ask Californians for contributions first disclose to her their donors listed on their confidential federal tax return Schedule B. Her coercive demands are accompanied by threats of fines and denial of permits to those who do not accede.

Ms. Harris demands, AFPF alleges in its lawsuit, violate the rights of association and privacy expressed in the 1958 landmark Supreme Court decision NAACP v. Alabama, in which that states Democrat attorney general tried to stop the civil rights movement in his state by acquiring the names of NAACPs members and financial supporters.

Charity donor information on Schedule B is protected under federal law as confidential. Charities and their donors worry that imperious, uber-liberal Ms. Harris will leak this confidential information to their ideological opponents and her allies. Among its various acts of lawlessness and lawbreaking, Lois Lerners IRS was caught leaking this type of confidential donor information of the National Organization for Marriage to its opponents.

The tax code provides strict controls and limitations on when and how state officials such as Ms. Harris and her staff of prosecutors, investigators and bureaucrats may acquire and review confidential federal tax return information. A statutory regime beginning with tax code section 6104 helps prevent the scenario from NAACP v. Alabama. State attorneys general must request this donor information from the IRS on a case-by-case basis, and the IRS may deny those requests. The tax code also creates a regime of control and monitoring over state attorneys general if ever they are granted access to those names to use for legitimate law enforcement purposes, complete with civil and even felony penalties for state officials who violate the law.

Suspicions that some state charity regulators may be every bit as untrustworthy and malicious as Lois Lerner were justified in a trial before U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real. As reported at Courthouse News Service, one of Ms. Harriss senior prosecutors may have been caught lying on the stand about whether the fact that AFPF sued to protect its rights made her suspicious of the organization:

During heated testimony on Friday morning, [AFPF] attorney Derek Shaffer pressed Senior Assistant Attorney General Tania Ibanez on whether she was suspicious of the foundation because of the lawsuit. After Ibanez testified that she had not yet made a determination, Shaffer then played a Jan. 6, 2016 video deposition to the court in which he asked the prosecutor if the group's actions made her suspicious. "You're suing us and you don't want to give us your Schedule B. So, that puts my suspicions on alert," Ibanez said in the video, adding later: "The litigation caused me to have some concerns."

This sends the message: People who fight to protect their rights against government lawbreaking are suspect. Fear of government retribution is a time-tested way to bully people so they keep their complaints to themselves.

Judge Real expressed his own suspicions of what Ms. Harris and her deputies are trying to do, describing their efforts to bypass federal law protections of donor privacy as laziness.

Comments filed in response to a proposed regulation issued by Ms. Harris indicate this laziness seems more like purposeful evasion of the law. A senior lawyer in her office published an article and testified in a deposition about the severe restrictions on acquiring that confidential information under federal law. She and her colleagues at the National Association of State Charity Officials even collaborated with IRS officials such as Lois Lerner to seek legislation to loosen the rules, but failed.

The comments state that Ms. Harris demands for Schedule B donor names and addresses are a bold, brash, and startling statement that the Attorney General believes she is not bound by or beholden to [Internal Revenue Code section] 6104(c).

While media attention to the lawsuits has focused on the privacy rights of donors to charities, there are larger implications such as whether states may condition granting the issuance of any permits only to those who first provide confidential federal tax return information. The post-Watergate reforms to the tax code, however, recognize that some state officials can be every bit as dangerous as lawless zealots at the IRS such as Lois Lerner.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are in a spat right now involving their wives, prompted by a super PACs ad that Trump didnt like. MEET MELANIA TRUMP, beams the ad, sporting an eye-opening photo of an unclothed Melania in GQ magazine. YOUR NEXT FIRST LADY.

In response, Trump was incensed, immediately blaming Ted Cruz.

Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad, barked Trump from his prolific Twitter account. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

It was the usual Trump, though absent the usual threat of a lawsuit. Frankly, I was surprised by Trumps vehemence. I figured he would brag about Melanias photo-shoot. He has never been shy in boasting about bagging women (married or unmarried) or expressing vivid verbal admiration of their body parts. The casino-mogul/strip-club-owner-turned-conservative surely would normally take pride in Melanias GQ spread. Why so angry all of a sudden?

Once again, Lying Ted seems to have gotten under the Donalds skin.

But if you want to hear a genuine outrage involving Trump and Melania, go to Trumps own words. In fact, check out a short Trump audio clip from 2004, one of his syndicated Money, Money, Money radio broadcasts. Its on the importance of having a prenuptial agreementthat is, before he tied the knot with Melania.

My fiancee Melania and I recently set the big date. We're going to get married in January, probably January 22nd and probably at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. Some people may be surprised that I'm getting married again, but the fact is that Melania is an amazing woman. I know what they say: 'If you want to ruin a relationship with your girlfriend, just marry her,' but I don't believe in that. I have very little doubt that my marriage to Melania will be over; it'll end and I've said that before. And then people say, 'Well if that's the case, do you need a prenuptial agreement?' And I look at them and I say, 'You bet I do.' A prenuptial agreement is a modern day necessity, no matter how good your relationship, no matter whether you're getting along. It's a lot easier to have one than to not have one. And by the way, it helps to buy your very significant other a gift when you're handing over those prenups to sign.

No, Im not making this up. How could I? Only Donald Trump is capable of this kind of thing. This was the brash deal-maker on the art of the pre-nup.

Really, its classic Donald Trump, spoken with the buffoonishness wed expect from a sitcom character, not a serious candidate for president of the United States. Could you imagine such sentiment expressed by a Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan? This is the kind of spectacle were supposed to laugh at while watching Al Bundy on old episodes of Married with Children. Were not supposed to elect it president.

Whats worse, of course, is that this is hardly an isolated outrage from the political carnival that is Donald Trump. No, this is standard operating procedureand yet its the brand-spanking-new standard that millions of new conservatives apparently expect and accept.

So much for that family-values stuff we used to toss at Bill Clinton, eh? The Democrats will be informing us that that was a bunch of stinking hypocrisy.

I know that Trumps defenders will defend this latest Trumpismand excoriate me for bringing it to their attentionbut I find it hard to be sympathetic to the Donalds rage at Lying Ted and his threats against Heidi Cruz when I read statements like this from the Donald himself.

In fact, it makes me wonder about Melanias status as our possible next first lady. How assured can we be that Melania would remain first lady? Could the Donald pull the plug, ending the marriage during a Trump presidency? He said hes certain their marriage will be over. Again, his own words: I have very little doubt that my marriage to Melania will be over; it'll end and I've said that before.

Okay, when? That would be scandalous. Or should we simply not take Trumps words seriously?

Melania might need to be more worried about the Donalds words than anything that Lying Ted or some super PAC might say.

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His latest book is Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. His other books include The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obamas Mentor and Dupes: How Americas Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.
A school district in Colorado will make available literature from atheist and satanic groups to children of middle school and high school age. The administration claims it is only following policy requiring the distribution of "non curricula" literature.

The controversy arose when a Colorado atheist group reacted to the school district distributing Bibles in December of last year. The Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers, working with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, say they want to offer students "an alternative way of thinking."

Not surprisingly, parents are up in arms. But the district claims its hands are tied by the First Amendment.

KJCT TV:

The Delta County School District says that their policy reads that they cannot discriminate against any groups or organizations when it comes to non-curricular materials. The only exceptions are if the material promotes hostility or violence, commercial purposes by advertising a product, interferes with the schools, promotes candidacy in an election or is obscene or pornographic, according to a press release by the Delta School District. Kurt Clay, with the Delta School District says if they are going to make literature for things such as Boy Scouts, 4H or other organizations available, they have to allow all types of information to be available to students. In December, Gideon bibles were distributed to Delta County students. The Western Colorado Atheist and Freethinkers say the distribution of those bibles prompted their desire to distribute atheist and satanic material as well. "This is the other side of that, explained Kurt Clay, the Assistant Superintendent. The policy says we cannot discriminate what is handed out, we just have to follow the process. The process means that atheist literature will not be handed out to students, but rather placed on a table in a schools library. This will allow students to pick it up the materials only if they wish to. Ann Landman with the Western Colorado Atheist and Freethinkers says the issue here, is Freedom of Speech. "Students are not only getting a lesson about the federal laws and our constitution, but also a different point of view that you can find around the world, Landman explained.

Words will not bewitch anyone, so the idea that the literature will corrupt our youth is far-fetched. Of bigger concern is that the literature will raise questions in the minds of students that parents and teachers may not be equipped to answer. Middle school students especially may be too young to grasp the flawed logic of satanism or the selective evidence used by atheists to explain their beliefs.

But why not satanism? Why not atheism? The potential is there to start a healthy discussion with parents, teachers, and religious about why we believe what we believe. In the abstract, the literature could prove to be a valuable teaching tool.

But life rarely occurs in the abstract. The fact is, teachers and parents don't want to discuss these things. That's why a change in policy is probably best for everyone. The district is mulling such a change that would prevent distribution of all religious literature. Perhaps not an optimum solution, but necessary for all concerned.
Barack was at it again after the Brussels bombings:

It is very important for us to not respond with fear. ... But we defeat them in part by saying you are not strong, you are weak. We send a message to those who might be inspired by them to say you are not going to change our values.

Thats it: words. That will show ISIS whos strong and whos not. (I use the president's first name advisedly. He it was who began talking down to senators and congressmen by using their first names; now all the presidential candidates do it to each other. Must keep up with the times.)

"If we change our way of life, then they've won" has to be the stupidest cliche in the endless bloviating on the "war" on terror.

Wednesday morning, David Greene, NPR host, was interviewing Angus King, independent senator from Maine (oh, he caucuses with the Democrats, surprise). Angus opined that "terrorism is all about making us modify our activities" and offered that our inconvenience at airports is "a minor victory for the terrorists."

Oh, but David was anguished. "Sad for Americans and others to probably hear you talk about even giving a group like ISIS credit for even the smallest victories."

Angus immediately saw his mistake and walked it back  sort of.

"Well, I don't call it a victory. ... But clearly, we don't want to change who we are. That would be a victory. ... We've got to go about our lives and travel and shop and work and all of those things without being intimidated."

Got that? Our "values" are traveling and shopping. The Islamofascists merely want us to "modify our activities." But that would "change who we are." Go to the mall, Angus! Shop 'til you drop! What a profound geopolitical strategy.

Could these two really be so stupid? David graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, majoring in government, and Angus went to Dartmouth and the University of Virginia Law School. They seem to assume that the Islamicists became murderous watching videos of Americans breezing through airports before 9/11. Oh, how they hated our freedoms! When bin Laden saw us queueing in long lines and taking off our shoes, he knew hed won  that was what he was fighting for!

ISIS has proclaimed what it wants by word and deed: conquer territory, kill those who refuse to submit, convert those who will, and collect the jizya tax from the rest. It has nothing  nothing, Angus, nothing, David, nothing, Barack  to do with shopping or tolerance for the Other or building a diverse society or providing universal health care or any of the other hobbyhorses you and your cronies ride. Nothing. You see, Angus and David and Barack, the aims of warfare have changed not at all over the millennia. It's about controlling territory, resources, and people. Simple. Too simple for a laureate from Harvard or Dartmouth to grasp.

But soft, you! The Department of Homeland Security has a solution, a travel alert for all of Europe:

U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when in public places or using mass transportation. Be aware of immediate surroundings and avoid crowded places. Exercise particular caution during religious holidays and at large festivals or events.

Now there's actionable intelligence. "Exercise vigilance"  as in, alerting the gendarmes when you see Middle Eastern men wearing gloves and pushing baggage trolleys into an air terminal? Sounds dangerously close to racial profiling, that most heinous of hate crimes. "Avoid crowded places"  this is even better, a description of train stations, airports, and city streets. How, pray tell, does one travel without visiting such places? Does Jeh Johnson, secretary of DHS, want us to parachute into the countryside and walk through the hedgerows?

Such is the fruit of Jeh and Alejandro Mayorkas, his deputy, spending $55.1 billion per year and overseeing 240,000 employees to "keep us safe." Great job, guys. Hey, Jeh, here's an idea: how about you and Alejandro love-bomb ISIS with leaflets festooned with rainbows and unicorns and announcing, "You are not strong! You are weak!" and "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"? That will show them "our values."

Henry Percy is the nom de plume of a writer in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.
The president said on March 23 that terrorism is not an existential threat to the U.S. But he did say that climate change is an existential threat.

In this poll, 69% of independents, 80% of Republicans, and 67% of Democrats believe that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are a major threat to the U.S., while 25% of Republicans, 44% of independents, and 68% of Democrats believe that climate change is a major threat. The majority of the American people agree that terrorism is a bigger threat than terrorism, so is the president the extremist, or is Ted Cruz?

How many of the deaths on 9-11, in Syria, in Paris, in San Bernardino, and in Brussels were caused by terrorists and how many were caused by a 1.5-degree temperature rise the past 150 years? Are the refugees from the Middle East escaping to Europe because of climate change or because they are scared they will be killed by terrorists or tyrants like Assad?

Hamas, Hezballah, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood are all Islamist groups that are terrorists. Iran and Syria are two of the countries that are the biggest sponsors of terrorism.

Stating that most of the current terrorism is done by Islam-led groups is not extreme, nor is it Islamophobia. It is factual. I have not heard Ted Cruz or anyone say that all Muslims are terrorists. That would not be factual. It is more extreme for the president not to identify the terrorists than it is for anyone else to identify them.

If Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, or members of any other religion were responsible for the current terrorism, I would hope they would be identified.

Ted Cruz recently proposed expanding police patrols in some Muslim neighborhoods and at mosques (he did not propose monitoring all Muslims). The reporting and comments by Democrats said how extreme and dangerous he is. Some of the reports would make him look like Hitler. From all the reports, the public would never know that a similar program existed in New York City from 1994 to 2012. Mayor Michael Bloomberg continued the program started by Rudy Giuliani. It was expanded after 9-11. I have not been able to locate wall-to-wall coverage where they called Bloomberg a right-wing extremist.

The program Cruz suggested would be similar to stepping up surveillance in areas where white or black gangs roam. That is sensible.

It is not racist or extreme to say that white persons are more likely to be responsible for multiple shootings. It is not racist or extreme to say that black persons are most responsible for black shootings in Chicago, and it is not racist or extreme to point out that Muslims are responsible for most of the current terrorism around the world. All those statements are factual.

It would be good for young blacks, young whites, and young Muslims if they were discouraged from joining gangs and terrorist organizations. They will live to a much older age. It is unwise to stick our heads in the sand.

It is also not racist to oppose a black presidents policy or to vote against him in the first place. I do not care what color or religion he is. I vehemently oppose his policies because I believe they greatly harm Americans, especially the poor and middle-class. It is also not sexist to oppose Hillary. I would be glad to support any woman who is honest, who actually cares about the nations security, and who has sensible policies that help people move up the economic ladder.

No matter how sensible Cruzs proposals are, he will be labeled a far-right extremist. For example, he understands that the climate has always changed (he is not a climate change denier), and he believes in smaller government, in lower taxes, in moving toward a balanced budget and enforcing current immigration policies. All of those policies are in agreement with the majority of the American public, so why is he considered extreme?

I think the American people should be polled with the following question: should we spend trillions of dollars based on manipulated, inaccurate computer models to pretend that we can control temperatures within one degree while destroying industries and raising costs to consumers, or should we spend billions securing the border and trying to destroy terrorism? Which should be the greater priority?
Judicial Watch announced that they have been able to acquire new emails that former Secretary of State Hillary Clintion failed to turn over to the State Department that detail her battle with the NSA over obtaining secure BlackBerries for herself and top staff.

Clinton had sworn under oath that all work-related emails had been turned over to the State Department. She also has claimed she didn't use her unsecured server to send emails until March 2009.

But the documents obtained by Judicial Watch are from February of that year.

The new documents include another February 13, 2009, email, written after the Mills-Clinton exchange, that shows that State and NSA security officials were shocked and surprised by Clintons Blackberry demands. For instance, responding to details of the Clinton Blackberry requirements, an unnamed NSA employee simply writes Amazing in a February, 13, 2009, email to Patrick Donovan, then-Director, Diplomatic Security Service and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and Greg Starr, then-Director of the Diplomatic Security Service. (The documents have many redactions under Exemption 7(c), which is for information compiled for law enforcement purposes that would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.) The new emails show that despite prior concerns about security and cost, the NSA and State Department officials came up with a plan to modify six Blackberry devices for Clinton and her staff. A February 20, 2009 State Department email states: Pat Donovan [head of Bureau of Diplomatic Security] tasked us with a memo that he wanted by today and that we finished last night and that it outlines the vulnerabilities and risks of BB use inside and outside a SCIF (because theyre essentially the same) and concludes with our collaboration with NSA to seek an acceptable solution for their desired BB use. Despite this warning about using Blackberry outside a SCIF, Mrs. Clinton and her staff continued to use unsecured Blackberrys. The documents suggest a continued push for secure Blackberrys in late March 2009 but the documents are heavily redacted. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in other Judicial Watch litigation, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done. This new email find is also at odds with her official campaign statement.

This is fairly damning evidence that Clinton and her aides ignored the warnings of I.T. security professionals and used the unsecured server for email anyway.

A statement by Judicial Watch president Tom Filton:

So now we know that, contrary to her statement under oath suggesting otherwise, Hillary Clinton did not turn over all her government emails, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. We also know why Hillary Clinton falsely suggests she didnt use clintonemail.com account prior to March, 18, 2009  because she didnt want Americans to know about her February 13, 2009, email that shows that she knew her Blackberry and email use was not secure.

It's possible that FBI investigators were not aware of these new emails, which puts a damning spin on Clinton's use of her private server. I.T. security professionals in government were telling her of the dangers in using unsecured BlackBerries, but she arrogantly ignored those warnings and put potentially classified information at risk anyway.

If the FBI were looking to discover Clinton's state of mind, they may have hit the jackpot.
In case there were any doubts, the game has changed in Europe from scattered acts of senseless violence to what appears to be a guerrilla war.

French and Belgian authorities carried out separate raids in their countries that have resulted in the interdiction of a terrorist plot in its "advanced stages," according to French authorities.

It's a good bet that the next few days and weeks will see more arrests. But they can't arrest everyone involved in terrorism, nor can they stop every plot.

Fox News:

A 23-year-old resident of the neighborhood described seeing heavily masked and armed officers surround the entrance to an apartment building before entering and emerging with the suspect, his head covered in a scarf.



At the same time, six people were reported arrested during anti-terror operations in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek, the same area where an ISIS flag and a bomb containing nails were found after attacks on the Brussels airport and subway. Investigators could be seen carrying what appeared to be bags of evidence from at least one of the raid sites. The raids came as Belgium lowered its terror threat level by one notch although authorities said the situation remained "grave" and another attack was "likely and possible."

There is also word of another plot being planned by the terrorist captured in Belgium last week:

Earlier, the fugitive terrorist suspect who was captured in Brussels just days before a series of coordinated bombings ripped through the Belgian capital on Tuesday  and who claimed he knew nothing of that deadly plot  was reportedly planning a larger, Paris-style attack involving both mass shootings and suicide blasts. Salah Abdeslam, the lone surviving suspect of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, denied knowing about the Brussels attacks, which killed at least 31 and wounded at least 270, his lawyer said in court on Thursday. But Abdeslam, who was captured Friday following a four-month manhunt, was set to participate in what could have been an even deadlier massacre, according to Belgian broadcaster VRT. The plot would reportedly have featured two units of terrorists, one group who would use Kalashnikov rifles to shoot civilians and a second that would blow themselves up in crowded areas. Abdeslam, Mohamed Belkaid, who was killed while shooting at police during a Brussels raid last week, and a third unidentified man were alleged to be the would-be shooters. That plan is highly reminiscent of the Paris terror attacks, which killed 130. During those attacks, three terrorists blew themselves up outside the Stade de France, while other attackers shot civilians before detonating explosive vests. In the most deadly instance, 89 people were killed after terrorists stormed the Bataclan concert hall during a performance by the American band The Eagles of Death Metal.

Abdeslam is small potatoes. The truly frightening prospect is that there are bigger fish at large planning an attack that would use chemical weapons, potentially killing hundreds.

By definition, these cells are relatively small groups of dedicated terrorists  a mix of suicide bombers and trained gunmen. They are incredibly hard to catch and nearly impossible to stop. To paraphrase Dick Cheney, authorities have to be successful 100% of the time in heading off a terror attack. The terrorists have to succeed only once.

With math that daunting, authorities have an uphill fight to stay one step ahead of disaster.
Hillary Clinton is such an obvious phony that even she has been forced to acknowledge it, using the indirect language that she is not a natural politician like, say Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. This is a case of putting lipstick on a pig, trying to make a her awkwardness a badge of authenticity, as if anyone could believe that her problem is that she is not a calculating politician.

Her basic problem is that her mental calculations about what she thinks she should be doing are all too visible to the casual observer. There is a disconnect, a lack of consistency in her facial expressions, body language, words, and context.

The latest obvious example is her mimicry of a bobble-head doll, nodding and nodding and nodding for more than three minutes as a spokesman tells us all how wonderful mosques and Muslims are as allies in the war on terror.
Tassili n'Ajjer is a vast desert plateau in southern Algeria, stretching from the borders with Niger and Libya to the east, to as far as Amguid in the west, covering an area of 72,000 sq. km. Thousands of years of changing Saharan climate and erosion have created stunning geological features with towering sandstone pillars, deep canyons and more than 300 natural arches.

Tassili n'Ajjer shot into worldwide fame in the 1930s, not for its landscape but for the precious collection of ancient rock art in the area. Since their discovery, more than 15,000 petroglyphs and paintings have been identified representing 10,000 years of human history and environmental change. One of the most striking feature of these petroglyphs is the way they evolved with the change in climate.

Petroglyph depicting a possibly sleeping antelope, located at Tassili nAjjer in southern Algeria. Photo credit: Linus Wolf/Wikimedia

The oldest art belongs to the so-called Large Wild Fauna Period (10,000-6,000 BC) characterized almost entirely by engravings of animals such as hippopotamus, crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes and rhinos, depicting the abundant wildlife at a time when the Sahara was green and fertile. Humans appear as tiny figures dwarfed by the immensity of these animals and are often shown holding boomerangs or throwing sticks, clubs, axes or bows.

Overlapping with this era is the Round Head Period (8,000-6,000 BC) where human figures with elaborate attires took dominance. These figures ranged from a few centimeters to several meters tall. The majority of Round Head paintings portray people with round featureless heads and formless bodies. Some of the pieces seem to suggest shamanism with bodies flying through space or bowing before huge male figures that tower above them.

About 7,000 years ago, domesticated animals began to appear in the art. This period is known as the Pastoral Period. Rock art from this period reflects a changing attitude towards nature and property. Human figures became more prominent, and man was no longer shown as part of nature but portrayed as being above nature, yet able to derive sustenance from it. Wild animals gave way to cattle and stock. Later drawings (3500 years ago) depicts horses and horse-drawn chariots. Its unlikely that chariots were ever driven across the rocky Sahara, so researchers believe the figures of chariots and armed men are symbolic, representing ownership of land, or control of its inhabitants. As the climate became progressively drier, horses were replaced by camels as evident from the rock art from the most recent period about 2000 years ago.

Tassili N'Ajjer lies about 500 meters above the level of the desert. The plateau can only be reached by climbing on foot, with camping materials and supplies drawn by donkeys and camels. Large diurnal temperature variations and the absence of basic amenities make the trip extremely challenging, so only the young and the hardy attempt to reach it. Recent violence and insecurity in the country have further isolated Tassili N'Ajjer from the routes of most tourists.

Detail of a petroglyph depicting a bubalus anticus. Photo credit: Linus Wolf/Wikimedia

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Patrick Gruban/Wikimedia

Photo credit: Patrick Gruban/Wikimedia

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: africanrockart.org

Photo credit: magharebia/Wikimedia

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Photo credit: www.archmillennium.net

Sources: UNESCO / African World Heritage Sites / Algeria.com / africanrockart.org
Our smartphones and tablets have become parts of our everyday lives now, and its rare to find someone using two different devices for work and pleasure. Which means that users have a little more freedom when it comes to selecting the apps and utilities that they use to get work done. Whether you just need to write up some notes, stay organized, edit pictures on the move or send files to people while thousands of miles away from your desk, this Top 10 should have something for you.

Google Docs

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It goes without saying that for a lot of people, all they need to do away from work is maybe prepare a letter, draft an email or, if youre a student you need something to write essays and prepare papers with. Google Docs is, no matter if youre running your own small business or collaborating with a whole team from your firm, one of the best options out there. Its 100% cross-platform and just needs a web browser to get going elsewhere, and on Android smartphones and tablets, it has a lot on offer. One of the best features however, is the need to never find Save As ever again.

Evernote

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Evernote has been going for a long time now, and for a lot of people its become a way of life. If youre just getting started at school or running your own business, Evernote can be a great way of staying on top of things, as well as a fantastic research tool, as well. With the ability to bring scanned documents, images, web articles and typed-out notes all together under one roof, Evernote is the one Android app that makes it difficult to forget anything, and like many note apps out there, its 100% cross-platform, too.

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AutoCAD 360

This offering from Autodesk might be a little specialist, but if you work in construction, are an architect or youre planning to design your own extension or something similar, then AutoCAD 360 is a great little tool. Good for starting from scratch, as well as updating when youre onsite or have inspiration from similar designs on a research trip, AutoCAD 360 is a good app that enables users to get more done when away from their desks and drawing boards.

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Microsoft Excel

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While Google Docs has replaced Microsoft Word for a lot of people and businesses, Microsoft Excel is still used by much of the corporate workforce. Which means that if youre part of the rat race, youll probably be dealing with those XLS files a lot. To check in on those macros and pie charts on the move  be it smartphone or tablet  Microsofts Excel for Android is free and fairly comprehensive, theres even an accompanying keyboard app for those hardcore spreadsheet users out there.

Google Drive

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Getting any sort of work done while on the move, or on any sort of Android device requires some sort of file organization, and if youre going mobile you may as well keep all that data somewhere else. Google Drive gives people a lot of free space, has a simple and easy to use Android app, and it doesnt care what sort of file formats you want to use. Great for organizing and searching through files, Drive is where Google Docs files end up and theres little reason to try this out as for a lot of people, the free storage space will be more than enough. Cross-platform to the max, theres even a Linux app available!

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Adobe Photoshop Express

Many will have heard of  and probably used  Photoshop on their computers, and while that version is super-powerful, its also very complicated. Photoshop Express on the other hand is nice and easy to use, offers many common editing tools and even some cool filters and frames to boot. Free to download and use, this even supports RAW camera files, and will make touching something up to send off to a client or add to an ongoing project pretty easy.

Wunderlist

Getting anything done while on the move requires some sort of organization and the easiest way of staying on top of things is to make lists. With Wunderlist, users can create time-sensitive tasks with natural language such as Remind me to email Dave at 12:30PM tomorrow and sure enough, Wunderlist will remind you at 12:30PM the following day to email Dave. It works well, and its also great for working as part of team as well, adding and looking in at other peoples lists to ensure theyre pulling their weight and so on.

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the few cloud storage apps and services thats been around for this long, and its one of the simplest and most reliable, too. Great for its Camera Upload feature, ensuring you never have to lose an image without having to use Google Photos and its also compatible with Microsoft software. This makes it easy to use Dropbox for work and play, and also negates the need for something like OneDrive if you work in a Microsoft environment. No matter what you need it for, Dropbox is one of the better cloud storage options out there.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

If Adobes Photoshop Express is all about simple and fun touch-ups, Lightroom is about getting started on your next masterpiece. The Android app supports all manner of RAW files from Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and more and it will sync back to your workstation or desk, too. For those looking to create a mockup or preview of something for a client with familiar tools and presets, Lightroom for Android is a great way of getting halfway there, and it might surprise professionals just how useful it can be.

Microsoft Word

Much like Google Docs up above, Microsoft Word is all about helping you with your document creation and editing. The app can be tied to your Microsoft account so you can sync your stuff across the cloud and devices, making it easy to bring your work with you wherever you need it to go.
When it comes to technology, theres no denying the fact that a number of people depend on Google Maps to help them out. In most cases, it can really prove to be a helpful tool as it helps people find their way to a new address. But there are those rare moments when Google Maps doesnt prove to be helpful just take the accident it recently made when it lead a demolition team to tear down the wrong house accidentally.

A homeowner in Texas was shocked to receive a frantic call from her neighbor on Tuesday afternoon. The wife of duplex homeowner Alan Cutter phoned in her neighbor, Lindsay Diaz, to tell her that her duplex was gone. This led Diaz to head over to 7601 Calypso Drive, Rowlett, Dallas, Texas where she discovered that there was nothing left of her duplex. Apparently, a demolition company was supposed to tear down another home a block away from Diazs address, 7601 Cousteau Drive. When she found out about the mistake, Diaz contacted Billy L. Nabors Demolition of Seagoville to explain what had happened. The company then sent her a Google Maps screenshot displaying the error it had made of pointing to the wrong address.

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Prior to the demoliton, Diaz had been waiting for the decision of her insurance company and a possible FEMA individual assistance declaration to help her with her tornado-hit home. With the error of the demolition company, Diaz no longer has to worry about repair her home but to have it rebuilt from scratch.

For its part, the demolition company has passed the blame to Google Maps for pointing them to the wrong address. When typing 7601 Cousteau Drive on Google Maps, it directed people to the other address, 7601 Calypso Drive. But when checking it on Apple Maps, both addresses are correct. Either way, the demolition company really was at fault since it did not even bother to double-check the location.

Diaz has since filed out an information report with Rowlett police so that the incident could be properly documented, especially since no one from the demolition company has apolgized. Ever since the story broke, Google has already fixed the error.
YouTube is one of the most popular places to visit on the internet with content spanning across all types of categories and catering to pretty much any taste, including content regarding the upcoming presidential election and the presidential candidates. YouTubes recent 2016 trends report for the month of March covers a wide range of different election related trends, including what appears to be the one policy or topic that every voter in America is interested in. Immigration. According to the trends report, every presidential candidate has focused on immigration policy as one of their topics, with immigration seeing a 51% growth rate in searches on YouTube since April of last year.

Interestingly enough, each topic listed in this particular category of the report shows what policy or topic was ranked the highest from number one to number three in regards to watch time, and immigration was not only a topic covered by every presidential candidate, but it was also ranked number one for watch time across all candidates except for John Kasich, where immigration was ranked at number three for watch time. Aside from displaying what unites voters across America, the YouTube trends report also shows that presidential candidates started spending more on ad placements on YouTube since last October, showing that there has been a 294% growth increase in ad spending from October of 2015 to February of 2016.

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The trend report also shows that recent democratic and republican debates had significant growth on watch time the day after debates, with Democratic party supporters watching 77% more videos relating to those debates the day after they happened on December 19th, February 4th, and February 11th, while Republican party supporters watched 51% more videos related to debates the day after they happened on December 15th, February 6th, and February 25th. While immigration may be the topic that relates all voters across the country, the political issue that has seen the most growth in search trends on YouTube since last April is video content related to refugees, having seen a 224% increase over that time since last year up until now. Lastly, the report also shows that almost half of all watch time relating to candidates and issues for those candidates comes from mobile devices, nearing almost 50%, giving it a 548% increase in this sort of content which has been viewed on mobile devices from April of 2015 to February of 2016.
The LG G5 has not even gone on sale yet, but the South Korean company is already working on other handsets to add to its 2016 portfolio. The company has already shown off its all-new K line of smartphones with relatively modest hardware, but the LG G5, its latest flagship, will apparently also have at least one presumably lower-priced variant, if recent online reports are anything to go by. The rumored LG G5 variant happens to be the so-called LG G5 Lite, which has now been certified for sale in China, leading to its listing on the official website of the countrys electronic devices certification agency, TENAA. However, LG G5 Lite isnt really the official name of the upcoming device, so well still have to wait a while to get more info on that front, even though the listing has revealed quite a bit regarding the phones hardware specs.

The device comes with the model number LG-H848, and according to TENAA, features a 5.3-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) always-on display with 3D Arc Glass. Its powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 SoC that comes with an octa-core 64-bit application processor clocked at a maximum of 1.8 GHz. The GPU that comes with the chip happens to be the Adreno 510. The upcoming smartphone will have 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage as standard, and there will also be a microSD card slot for capacity expansion. The phone will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and carry a removable 2,700 mAh battery with support for Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

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Coming to the rest of the tech specs, the phone will apparently come with dual cameras on the back, with a primary 16-megapixel camera with laser auto focus, dual-tone flash and 4K video recording, while an 8-megapixel rear-facing image sensor will come with a 135-degree wide-angle lens. As for the front-facing selfie-cam, it will simply be an 8-megapixel unit. The phone will feature LTE connectivity, and have support for dual band (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2 and GPS. Whats more, the upcoming smartphone will reportedly sport a fingerprint scanner, an NFC chip and a USB Type-C port for charging and data syncing. Theres no word on when the South Korean manufacturer will actually take the wraps off of the device, but it should definitely be at some stage within the next few months.
OnePlus is a company that has always been able to generate headlines. Sometimes these came in the form of controversial ones, although a lot of the times the headlines are in respect of the building excitement prior to a OnePlus device launch. Right now, the latter is very much the case with a number of rumors doing the rounds about the next expected handset from the company, the OnePlus 3.

Earlier today, reports came through about an April 7th event which is due to take place. One of the reports detailed that the company might be preparing to unveil the OnePlus 3 at the April 7th event, while another report focused on the arrival of the Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) update to the companys Chinese version of their homegrown OS, Hydrogen OS, suggesting the April 7th date will be for the launch for the Marshmallow update to Hydrogen OS. Following on from those rumors, out of the two of them, it now looks like the Hydrogen OS rumor might be the closest to the truth.

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A report from Android Authority today notes that they have received confirmation from OnePlus that the OnePlus 3 will not be unveiled on April 7th. Which in reality, is more in line with the comments that Carl Pei of OnePlus made back in February at MWC, where Pei stated that the OnePlus 3 launch would take place by June. While April is certainly by June, the assumption is that the device will be unveiled much closer to the close of the second quarter of this year. That said, in the most recent report, the company did confirm the existence of the April 7th dated event and also stated that this is an event which is mainly catering towards the Chinese market. Which would naturally lead to the assumption that the Hydrogen OS update to Marshmallow is a high possibility for the event. Of course, with this being OnePlus, literally anything is possible so the April 7th event could be for Hydrogen OS or just about anything else. Although, if the OnePlus statement is correct, whatever they announce it will be for the Chinese market specifically.
Sharp Corp. is arguably one of the largest and most-revered display panel manufactures in the world, alongside Samsung, LG and JDI (Japan Display Inc.). The company is known to supply its products to Apple for use in its iPhones and iPads, but many Android OEMs also routinely issue huge purchase orders to the company, which is what makes it one of the very best in the world at what it does. However, the company has been in severe financial distress in recent times, and for the most part, has been unable to get out of the rut by itself. That being the case, Sharp put itself up for sale last year and has since attracted a bevy of suitors whove offered billions of dollars to purchase a controlling stake in the beleaguered tech company.

While Foxconn was initially reported to have made an offer of around $4.3 billion to pick up about a two-third stake in Sharp Corporation, more recent reports indicated that the Taiwan-based contract manufacturing company was seriously considering retrenching its offer by as much as 100 billion Yen ($898 million) to a more modest valuation. Industry sources had reportedly indicated that Foxconn was reducing its offer amidst serious concerns regarding Sharps business, which has been losing money for quite some time now. Latest news coming out of Japan now lends credence to those earlier reports that outlined the concerns that Foxconn has regarding Sharps profitability.

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According to a report on Friday, Sharp has admitted that its revenues this year will most likely fail to match its earlier guidance, mostly due to a stagnation of demand from China. If those fears do turn out to be valid, the company will apparently lose hundreds of millions of dollars, as per reports in the Japanese mainstream media. Last October, the company had forecast an operating profit of around 10 billion yen ($88 million) for this fiscal. While Sharp is not the only Japanese display panel maker thats in trouble thanks to the Chinese slowdown and Apples stagnating sales, the company has been hit more severely by adverse market conditions than its fellow compatriot, JDI, who too has recently forecast losses for the current quarter because of the exact same reasons that have wreaked havoc with Sharps financials.
Verizon Enterprise is a business and security-focused arm of the American telecoms giant, known for publishing security reports and helping businesses investigate breaches. In an ironic twist of fate, it turns out theyve fallen victim to a security breach themselves. The details of the breach, including the exploit used and the exact info stolen, were not released. According to prominent security researcher and blogger Brian Krebs, also known as KrebsOnSecurity, customer contact info and a guide on how to breach Verizon Enterprise and grab whatever data you want was seen up for grabs on a prominent cybercrime forum. The full package of information, including the guide, was priced at $100,000, whereas sets of 100,000 pieces of info were on sale for $10,000 a pop. Buyers can get the data in its native MongoDB format, or other formats.

The breach seemed to be an attack that caused a dump of the Verizon Enterprise databases contents, however without further details from Verizon Enterprise, there is no way to be sure. They are reportedly contacting affected customers to inform them of the attack. The exact number of those affected wasnt released, but it can be assumed that its roughly 1 million, given the numbers and prices found on the cybercrime forum. Verizon Enterprises customer base includes about 99 percent of the Fortune 500 companies out there, making this target list very valuable. The dataset may or may not contain billing information for the contacts listed, but even a bare minimum of information can be used for targeted attacks such as phishing, malware targeting or even just petty harassment, though the latter is unlikely, given the price a would-be buyer must pay.

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When KrebsOnSecurity contacted Verizon about the breach, they said that they did find a vulnerability that would allow customer information to be stolen in a similar manner to the breach at hand. The vulnerability is reportedly patched at this point and should no longer be an effective attack method. For all intents and purposes, the breach is, at this point, taken care of to the best of Verizon Enterprises abilities; all that remains is to figure out who did it and to keep the affected customers safe.
Google has been doing Chrome Experiments for quite some time, and weve seen some pretty cool ones at Google I/O in recent years, including a way to race around a track in a browser tab in Chrome. Last year at Google I/O, the company announced Android Experiments, which developers can create some pretty interesting experiments on Android. Today, the company is announcing that you can submit your own Android Experiment between now and April 13th (roughly 3 weeks from now) and you might win a trip to Google I/O which takes place May 18th through the 20th. There will be three top-winners that get a trip to Google I/O, and five runner-ups who will get the Nexus 6P. This means there is going to be a lot of competition for these 8 prizes, so you best create a pretty impressive experiment to submit to Google.

In their blog post today, Google lists what makes a good Android Experiment, and that includes Creative uses of Androids new or distinctive features, Projects that explore how we interact with our devices, in small and big ways, Unique visual aesthetics, Open Source projects that surprise other developers, and lastly Surprise us. So Google always wants to be surprised with what developers can come up with and often times they are pretty surprised. Youll be able to enter your Android Experiment into the Google I/O challenge today by heading to their dedicated website and sending it in. No word on when the winners will be contacted, but it will definitely be before Google I/O in May.

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Each year, Google holds their annual developer conference, for about three days in the summer. Typically its been held at Moscone West in San Francisco. However, this year its being held in Mountain View at the Shoreline Amphitheater, which is leading everyone to believe that Google has some big things in store for this years show. The conference takes place from May 18th through the 20th. And the keynote will take place first thing on the 18th. Itll likely be a lengthy keynote as it usually is  around 3 hours or so. Well be there so make sure you keep it locked to Android Headlines for all of the details.
(ANSA) - Udine, March 25 - Italy are still waiting to avenge their Euro 2012 4-0 humiliation by Spain after veteran striker Aritz Aduriz forced a 1-1 draw at the Stadio Friuli on Thursday night.

Italy faced fellow former world champs Spain in a friendly in the northern city of Udine amid tight security after Tuesday's Islamist terror attacks in Brussels.

A minute's silence was observed before the match in tribute to the 32 confirmed fatal victims of the Brussels attack and to the 13 exchange students, including seven young Italian women, killed in a bus crash in Catalonia on Sunday.

"The Italy team gave me the answers I wanted," boss Antonio Conte told RAI public broadcaster after the match.

"It was a great night, just like I dreamed it would be," said striker Lorenzo Insigne who scored Italy's one goal.

"It's too bad about the draw, because we deserved to win".


(ANSA) - Rome, March 25 - Italy has stretched its lead over France for EU quality-food protection labels, Istat said Friday.

As of December 2014 Italy had 269 food products that have won one of the three prestigious traditional-food laurels: Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Specialities Guaranteed (TSG).

Of these, 103 were fruit, vegetable or cereals; 49 cheeses; 43 extra-virgin olive oil; and 38 meat specialities.

Of the Italian regions, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto shared top spot with 77 products each.

"This result confirms a winning recipe," said Farm Minister Maurizio Martina.

Tuscan Bread was the latest Italian delicacy to earn a PDO, earlier this month.

Before that, Piedmont salami got a PGI designation last July.

In November 2014 the culinary pride of Romagna, the time-honoured piadina flat-bread sandwich, kept up Italy's lead in Europe's quality-food stakes.

The piadina, which dates back to Roman times, was recognized by European officials for its unique origins and importance as a traditional fast food, receiving formal protection as a significant Italian product.

The European Protected Geographic Indication means the soft, rich flatbread that is the perfect base for cheese, ham or other sandwiches will now be protected from weak imitations and fakes.

The PGI designation has become increasingly well known internationally as representing quality food products with a confirmed Italian pedigree.

The more stringent Protected Denomination of Origin is also known around the world as a certification of the authentic origins and production methods, specific to a region.

These protect some of Italy's most iconic products such as olive oil and the balsamic vinegar of the Emilia Romagna region.

Under EU law, products must abide by strict production regulations and geographical restrictions to be graded as genuine and worthy of an PGI or PDO seal.

The PGI certification traces food specialties back to their geographical origin during at least one phase in production, but not to all phases like the PDO seal.

Italian authorities are continually battling the sale of the counterfeits of the nation's traditional food products.

Italy has long been a leader in food designations France comes in a distant second at 200 such products, followed by Spain with 170.

Italy has kept up its lead over the years with a fund of scrumptious entries.

For example, five years ago, in 2011, a sheep's cheese produced on the hillsides near Enna in Sicily earned an EU quality-food laurel.

The Piacentinu Ennese, cultivated with centuries-old lore and laced with a distinctive touch of saffron, won a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) appellation, the most prestigious of the EU's three food quarantees that keep genuine articles safe from inferior pretenders.

Italy's almost 270 quality foods generate a turnover of more than six billion euros a year, amid rising interest from new consumers in China, India, Vietnam and Thailand.

Before the Enna cheese, the most recent Italian entry was a type of chestnut native to the Val di Susa in Piedmont, the 'Marrone della Valle di Susa', which won a PGI label in November.

The nut owes its creamy-white and crunchy flesh to the special soil of the valley north of Turin, experts say, and has been a staple of the local economy since the Middle Ages.

The nut followed into the rankings a type of wheat called spelt ('farro') once used by the Romans and still cultivated in the fields around Spoleto, which earned a PDO in July.

Before the farro, entries included a traditional pastry from Siena and a potato grown around Bologna.

Siena's famed Ricciarelli biscuits, a slim lozenge-shaped dainty that morphed from an original curly creation by a Crusading knight impressed by an Arab sweetmeat, won a PGI label. The 'Patata di Bologna' won a PDO.

FOOD SPURT.

Italy's special foods have put in a spurt in the last five years.

A fragrant white celery from Sperlonga received a PGI label aimed at keeping other celeries from posing as the aromatic product from the marshlands near the ancient coastal village between Rome and Naples which have for centuries produced the unique vegetable.

The 'Mela di Valtellina' won a PGI label to guard the strongly scented, firm-fleshed apple from the sub-Alpine valley.

In January 2010 that Italian food glory, Neapolitan pizza, got a long-awaited TSG label.

In December 2009 a 'prosciutto crudo' from Cuneo claimed a PDO.

It was the third product to get a PDO in less than a week, following a chestnut from the Tuscan village of Caprese Michelangelo and the Piennolo tomato from the slopes of Mt Vesuvius.

In October 2009, a traditional sour cherry jam produced near Modena, 'Amarene Brusche di Modena' was awarded a PGI, while 'Ciauscolo', a large soft spreadable sausage from the Marche region, got the same recognition in August 2009.

Other recent additions have included Sicily's 'Pagnotta del Dittaino' bread, with a PDO label; Roman suckling lamb, abbacchio romano, which earned a PGI label; and Modena's balsamic vinegar, another PGI.

Italian culinary glories like Parmigiano, buffalo mozzarella, mortadella, lardo di Colonnata, Ascoli olives, pesto sauce and Pachino plum tomatoes have been protected for some time.

Lesser-known munchies like Mt Etna prickly pears and Paestum artichokes swelled the ranks in 2009 along with two kinds of saffron, from San Gimignano and L'Aquila.

A range of salamis, rices, honeys and nuts are also on the protected list.

Several up-and-coming regional wines have earned TGIs.

PDO identifies a product whose characteristics are exclusively dependant on a geographical origin and whose productive phases all take place in the specified area.

PGI defines a product whose characteristics can be connected with its geographical origin and that has at least one productive phase located in the specified area.

TSG distinguishes a product whose raw materials, composition or recipe, production method or transformation, are of a traditional type.


(ANSA) - Rome, March 25 - Italy is ready to send 'cultural peacekeepers' to the UNESCO-listed ancient Syrian city of Palmyra once it is freed from ISIS, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini told ANSA Friday. "We are ready", he said.

Franceschini said "our blue helmets of culture aren't just an idea but an operational reality, a task force of Carabinieri and civilians, ready to intervene as soon as the international community asks us. We are the first and only country to have signed a protocol with UNESCO on this". He said "our work in these months has on the one hand sensitised and motivated the international community, from UNESCO to the United Nations, on the issue of safeguarding cultural heritage threatened or devastated by international terrorism, and on the other hand has set up an Italian task force. If Palmyra is the first occasion we will be called upon, that will be decided by UNESCO and the international community, which must also decide the timeframe, procedures and involvement of one or more countries".


(ANSA) - Bergamo, March 25 - A Bergamo judge on Friday reinstated a high school philosophy professor fired last month after 14 years on the job because he forgot to report he was fined 200 euros for urinating into a bush 11 years ago.

Crowds of friends and well-wishers, including many students of the school where he was one of the most popular teachers, cheered the verdict.

Stefano Rho', 43, a father of three born in Uganda of humanitarian doctor parents, in the summer of 2005 attended a village feast in Averara, pop. 182, located in the northern Brembana Valley.

The village shut down early and there was no bathroom available, so Rho' and his friend relieved themselves in a bush.

Police caught them in the act, cited them, and a justice of the peace eventually fined them 200 euros.

In 2013, Rho' signed an education ministry form stating he had no criminal record. But the Bergamo school system discovered the discrepancy, and censured him.

However the Audit Court later ruled that lying about one's record is grounds for firing, and he was.


(ANSA) - Rome, March 25 - Twelve Portuguese tourists were killed and two Italian nationals were injured Friday in a head-on collision last night in France, local media reported Friday. A minibus coming from Switzerland and heading to Portugal reportedly collided head-on with a truck, on which the two Italians were traveling. The crash took place just before midnight on a state road near the village of Montbeugny in the Allier department in central France. The Italians said the minibus suddenly veered into their lane.

The minibus driver was wounded, but not critically, regional paper La Montagne reported.


(ANSAmed) - ROME - Bulgaria is ready to build a wall on its border with Greece if necessary to block the flow of migrants stranded on the Balkan route in the strip between Greece and Macedonia, Bulgarian Premier Boyko Borisov said Friday during question time in the Sofia parliament, the Sofia News Agency reported.



According to the premier the main threat could come precisely from the border with Greece, which is very long and unprotected. Borisov is particularly worried by the fact that the Athens government did not take preventive measures in recent months.



The prime minister recalled that in recent days Bulgaria supplied humanitarian aid to refugee centres in Macedonia as it did previously for Greece.



The conditions in the refugee centres in Macedonia are better than those in Greece where living conditions are "frightening," the Bulgarian premier said. (ANSAmed).


(ANSAmed) - ROME - The Mediterranean is increasingly at the centre of the world and at times when Europe builds walls, it becomes vital to affirm, clearly, the closeness to the peoples on the southern shores of the Mediterranean: this is the mission of the MedFilm, that has been operating in the Mediterranean and Middle East areas for 22 years, and that still today continues to work with increased vigour and conviction to foster exchange and understanding among the countries on both shores. It does so through international activities that, during 2016, will bring the Festival to Morocco (Tetouan, Rabat) and to Tunisia (Tunis). While waiting for the Roman edition, to be held 5-12 November, the MedFilm heads South again and takes part for the 8th consecutive year in the Festival du Cinema Mediterraneen de Tetouan, with a significant selection of Italian films. Now at its 22nd edition, just like the MedFilm festival, the Festival du Cinema Mediterraneen de Tetouan - 26th March - 2nd April, is still one of the most interesting film festivals in the Maghreb region. Led by the well-known artistic director Ahmed Elhousni, the festival aims at promoting Mediterranean cinema and is under the aegis of Nabil Benabdallah, head of the Tetouan City Foundation and the current Minister for the Environment and Municipalities of the Moroccan government. In recent years the MedFilm has brought as many as 70 Italian films to Morocco. The programme is rich and varied: from the Official Competition to the Contests dedicated to documentaries and short films, through the Seances Speciales out of competition, to the tributes to actress Amal Ayouch and directors Andre Techine and Daoud Aoulad-Syad (guest of honour of the MedFilm in 2014).



Twelve are the films that will take part in the Official Competition.



From Europe there is the acclaimed The High Sun, by Croatian Dalibor Matanic, a dazzling second film by French Lea Fehner Les Ogres (Audience Award at Rotterdam), the Greek border thriller Riverbanks, by Panos Karkanevatos, the drama from Kosovo entitled Three Windows and a Hanging, by Isa Qosja, the Spanish movie Food and Shelter by Juan Miguel del Castillo (2016 Goya Award to actress Natalia de Molina), the breakthrough film Dolanma, by Turkish Tunc Davut and the Belgian-Moroccan war movie Les Hommes d'Argile, by Mourad Boucif. From the other side of the Mediterranean, there is the return of Moroccan Mohamed Smail with Des ... Espoirs, the Tunisian romantic drama Les Frontieres du Ciel, by Fares Naanaa, the post-Mubarak Egyptian melodrama Nawara, by Hala Khalil and the Lebanese prison movie 3000 Nights, by Mai Masri. Italy takes part in the Official Competition thanks to MedFilm with one of the most acclaimed debuts of the year: The Wait, by Piero Messina. The film, presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival and well received by the Italian and international public (the film will be released in the United States, distributed by Oscilloscope at the same time that Tetouan takes place), it describes the arrival of the young Frenchwoman Jeanne (the amazing Lou de Laage) in Sicily. She goes to boyfriend Joseph's country house. He is not there. He should arrive in time for the Easter procession, says Anna, his mother (a beautiful Juliette Binoche), who hides a terrible secret behind her sad face. It is a truth that is too horrible to put into words. The days go by; the two women slowly get to know each other. "Protected but also isolated from the world, Anna and Jeanne await Joseph's return. In doing so they imagine a reality that exists precisely because they share it", said Messina, former star at previous editions of the MedFilm festival with his short films, The door and Earth. "Thus a silent partnership develops between the two women. Unknowingly they become closer in an effort to protect themselves and to strengthen their fragile truth". (ANSAmed).
Saudi Arabia: Amnesty,5-year term for journalist over tweets For 'insulting rulers' and 'inciting the public opinion'

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MARCH 25 - A Saudi journalist, Alaa Brinji was sentenced to five years in jail and an eight-year travel ban over a number of tweets, Amnesty International reported on Friday.



Amnesty said the ruling was a clear violation of international law and the latest demonstration of the deep intolerance of Saudi authorities for freedom of expression.



Brinji, who has worked for newspapers such as al-Bilad, Okaz and al-Sharq, has been detained since May 2014. He was convicted on a number of charges including ''insulting the rulers'', ''inciting public opinion'' and ''accusing security officers of killing protestors in Awamiyya'', an area in Saudi Arabia's eastern province. Brinji ''is the latest victim of Saudi Arabia's ruthless crackdown on peaceful dissent'', said James Lynch, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. (ANSAmed).




British special forces reported in Libya since start year Guardian reports document of Jordan King meeting Congressmen

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 25 - Britain's SAS special force has been deployed in Libya since the start of the year, according to the Guardian newspaper, which cites a memorandum it obtained from a secret meeting between Jordan's King Abdallah II and U.S. Congressional leaders including Senate Armed Forces Committee chairman John McCain.



At the start of January the king explained his plans for joint operations between British and Jordanian special forces.



King Abdullah explained, as emerges from the document, that British special forces needed assistance from the Jordanian troops on the ground because "the dialect spoken in Jordan is similar to that of Libya".



The monarch recalled also that British soldiers contributed to the creation of a mechanised battalion in southern Syria, led by a local commander and composed of tribal fighters, to fight against the army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and that his troops were ready together with those of Britain and Kenya "to go beyond the frontier" and attack the Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia, according to the Guardian.




(by Patrizio Nissirio) (ANSAmed) - ROME - He thought, wrote and taught 24 centuries ago, but his lesson is more up-to-date and necessary than ever: Aristotle, the Greek philosopher born in 386 BC in Stageira (today's Olympiada), in northern Greece, will be celebrated at a world congress on May 23-28 at the University of Thessaloniki, named after the great philosopher.



The congress in the 'year of Aristotle' has a strong multidisciplinary approach to stress the fundamental impact Aristotle had on human thought and science, stressed Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou, president of the Interdisciplinary Center for Aristotle Studies in Thessaloniki, the main organizer of the event. The 300 participants from 40 countries include world-renowned Italian Aristotle scholars such as Enrico Berti, Cristina Rossitto and Ennio De Bellis. ''The influence of Aristotle goes well beyond classical philosophy - Sfendoni-Mentzou told ANSAmed - and today his legacy lives on in sectors like politics and ethics, for example, where it teaches us a lot. In Greece, as well as in Europe and the US, there are serious problems in the relationship between politics and ethics, a great problem of values. Our politicians could benefit from studying Aristotle, but unfortunately education on classics is lacking. Aristotle, in fact, set the foundation for the concept of democracy, citizenship, 'polis'. We need these ideas today, to define these categories, and for the very idea of humanity''.



Yet for Sfendoni-Mentzou, who worked with her colleagues for three years to organize the event, Aristotle is also crucial for the sciences, from biology to physics, from psychology to botany, for which it provided ''the methodology of science''.



The professor at the University of Thessaloniki has dedicated the last two decades to the study of how the philosopher ''connects the philosophy of Nature to contemporary physics.



Aristotle has laid the groundwork for all sciences'', she stressed.



Celebrations for the 2,400th anniversary of the philosopher's birth, which UNESCO is also joining, will not be limited to Thessaloniki but will include his native Stageira and the ancient Mieza (near today's Naousa), where Aristotle, according to Plutarch, taught Alexander the Great. (ANSAmed)
ROME - Italy is ready to send 'cultural peacekeepers' to the UNESCO-listed ancient Syrian city of Palmyra once it is freed from ISIS, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini told ANSA Friday. "We are ready", he said.

Franceschini said "our blue helmets of culture aren't just an idea but an operational reality, a task force of Carabinieri and civilians, ready to intervene as soon as the international community asks us. We are the first and only country to have signed a protocol with UNESCO on this".

He said "our work in these months has on the one hand sensitised and motivated the international community, from UNESCO to the United Nations, on the issue of safeguarding cultural heritage threatened or devastated by international terrorism, and on the other hand has set up an Italian task force. If Palmyra is the first occasion we will be called upon, that will be decided by UNESCO and the international community, which must also decide the timeframe, procedures and involvement of one or more countries".

The issue was also discussed by Italian FM Paolo Gentiloni and his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Friday. "Moscow hopes that the operation carried out by Syrian troops with the support of the Russian air force" to retake Palmyra from Isis, "will end successfully in the near future", Lavrov said.

Syrian and Russian forces are taking part to an massive offensive to retake the modern city of Palmyra, which sits very close to the ancient Unesco archaeological world heritage site,.
NAPLES- "The three years of the Shaams project have yielded positive results in exchange of knowledge and technology on solar energy between the Mediterranean countries, but the political instability in the Arab countries slowed down improvement of an overall picture favourable to development of solar energy". So says Nicola Barbato, the coordinator for Anea (Neapolitan Energy and Environment Agency) of the Shaams project summing up a few days ahead of Energymed, the renewable energy fair that will be held in Naples from March 31 to April 2 that will include the concluding event of the project.



Shaams (Strategic Hubs for the Analysis and Acceleration of the Mediterranean Solar Sector) over the past three years has involved 19 regions from 10 Mediterranean regions in six projects, developing over 150 events.



To consider the conclusions of the project representatives of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, the leading player in Shaams transnational cooperation, will come to Naples.



"During these three years," Barbato added, "we played host in Naples to representatives of the Beirut Chamber of Commerce, allowing them to meet firms and university research centres from Campania that study especially the accumulation of solar energy".



"The Mediterranean is in fact the region that has the highest solar radiation compared to any other angle of the planet, but it does not manage to produce and store enough energy because of legal delays, especially in countries like Egypt and Libya where the political situation leads to legislative delays in the sector".
France: 12 dead in bus accident, two Italians injured Victims all Portuguese nationals

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 25 - Twelve Portuguese tourists died and two Italians reported injuries in a road accident last night in central France, French online media reported on Friday morning.



A minibus travelling from Switzerland to Portugal reportedly crashed in a head-on collision with a truck with the two Italian nationals on board.



The accident took place shortly before midnight along state highway 79 in the city of Montbeugny, in the department of Allier, in the region of Alverne.



The bus driver was injured though he is not in critical condition. The two Italians were reported as saying by the La Montagne daily that the minibus suddenly veered to the left, colliding with the truck. (ANSAmed)
Regeni probe continues says Egypt interior ministry In coordination with Italian pool.Kidnap gang head 'had fake ID'

(ANSA) - CAIRO, MARCH 25 - The Egyptian interior ministry said in a statement published by official news agency MENA Friday that an investigation into the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni was continuing "in coordination" with the pool of Italian investigators into the activities of the alleged gang of kidnappers smashed Thursday and the documents of the Italian researcher found in the house of the sister of the gang's head.



The head of the kidnapping gang suspected of murdering Italian student Giulio Regeni had a fake ID document showing him to belong to the Egyptian security forces, the MENA news agency also said Friday, citing an interior ministry statement.



"A fake interior ministry ID document bearing the name Tarek Saad Abdel Fatah issued by the department of general security" was found during a search in the suspected head's home in the Sharqiyya area, it said. (ANSAmed).




Gentiloni says no military missions ready to leave for Libya Lavrov wants common strategy with Italy on north Africa, Mideast

(ANSAmed) MOSCOW, MARCH 25 - "There are no military missions about to leave" for Libya, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Friday at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. "But there is some availability and Italy is coordinating this availability". Gentiloni added that the time available for the forming of a government of national unity in Libya "is not infinite and everyone must work together, so that this government can install itself in Tripoli and begin the work of stabilising the country" with the widest participation of political forces.



Before the closed door meeting with Lavrov, Gentiloni declared that his visit "is an opportunity to review political and economic relations between our two countries also in the light of Premier Matteo Renzi's participation at the St.



Petersburg forum and dealing with the Mediterranean dossier".



Lavrov for his part disclosed that the state of relations between Italy and Russia "is good, contacts continue between regional representatives and entrepreneurs".



"We are interested in Italy's opinion on the development of the situation in the Middle East and north Africa, so as to find a common strategy for the future".



On Syria, Lavrov cited the case of the ancient city of Palmyra, saying that "Moscow hopes that the operation carried out by Syrian troops with the support of the Russian air force" to retake the city from Isis, "will end successfully in the near future". (ANSAmed). I
Lavrov says UN resolution needed for Libyan intervention In agreement with Italy, Syria case different, government asked

(ANSAmed) - MOSCOW, MARCH 25 - "I don't want people thinking that Russia has the key to resolving the Libyan crisis, seeing how they say that Russia has the keys to resolve all crises, like Syria and Ukraine," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov quipped Friday at a joint press conference with Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni.



"One can't compare Syria to Libya, Syria asked Russia to intervene, Libya has not -- our line is that one must respect international law. But we know that the situation is not easy and the time factor is important -- it would not be wise to allow Isis to enter Libya as it has done in Syria and Iraq," he added.



Lavrov in addition said he agreed with Gentiloni that a new UN resolution is needed for an outside intervention in Libya, contrary to those who argue that it is not necessary to go to the UN Security Council, on the ground that resolution 1973 of 2011 instituting the no-fly zone is sufficient.



"I hope that this time our NATO counterparts, which means Italy when one talks about Libya, make an impeccable choice from the point of view of international law".




Mideast: UNHRC's 'blacklist' for firms in settlements Netanyahu, UN Human Rights Council is 'anti-Israeli circus'

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, MARCH 25 - The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva has approved a resolution for the institution of a ''blacklist'' of Israeli and international firms operating directly or indirectly in settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan.



The resolution - which according to media reports was proposed by the Palestinians and backed by Arab countries - also asks international firms not to have relations with companies in the list.



Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu said that the ''UNHRC has become an anti-Israeli circus with their attacks on the only democracy in the Middle East and their disregard for the gross violations in Iran, Syria and North Korea''.



''What is absurd is that instead of dealing with Palestinian terror attacks and ISIS terror attacks in Europe, they decide to condemn Israel'' the premier added. (ANSAmed)
(ANSAmed) - MOSCOW, MARCH 25 - US Secretary of State John Kerry has held a long day of negotiations on the Syrian dossier in Moscow, including four hours of talks during the morning with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and over four with President Vladimir Putin. Moscow and Washington have ''agreed'' as a consequence that the transition process and the drafting of a new Syrian constitution must be completed ''by August''.



Kerry stressed in a joint press conference that the decision was taken ''together'' and that it is important to end the war in Syria. The truce, he added, is holding up and for the first time in five years the population has been able to enjoy a certain degree of calm. Much still needs to be done, however.



And the US and Russia have pledged to increase humanitarian aid and make sure the ceasefire is respected through the contact group. Lavrov, for his part, noted that, although there are still points of disagreement between the two powers, US and Russia are working together profitably where there is no friction. ''We realize - Putin said at the start of the meeting - that what we succeeded in doing in Syria could only be done thanks to the position of high US political officials and the position of President Obama''. The measures agreed include the start of the release of prisoners from ''both sides''.



The secretary of State symbolically said that both Moscow and Washington will do ''everything'' possible so that President Assad makes the ''right'' choices for a successful peace process.


(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, MARCH 25 - The parliamentary group Al Horra, which split from relative-majority secular party Nidaa Tounes, has proposed a bill in Parliament to ban from public places the niqab - the full veil that leaves only a woman's eyes visible. The initiative vies to make the work of police and soldiers easier in the fight against terror, according to whip, Abderraouf Cherif, and is open to all lawmakers who want to back it.



A recent survey carried out by polling company Sigma Conseil on a sample of 1,009 people, across 24 governorates of the country, revealed that 93% of Tunisians polled were against the niqab in public places. The survey also found that 60% of those interviewed were in favor of the Islamic veil that covers a woman's hair. (ANSAmed)
Le CBD, cette molecule active du cannabis a aujourdhui le vent en poupe. Et cela est en grande partie du au fait quil permet...
Once upon a time  in Vermont, of all places  Sinclair Lewis sat down to write a counterfactual satire about American politics. Never having cracked the book myself, Im grateful to Chris Braithwaite for relating its details. If youve been as gob smacked as I have by The Donald phenomenon, he writes in the Chronicle, I have a recommendation: Find a copy of It Cant Happen Here and give it a read. Its the most relevant commentary Ive encountered in this crazy election year.

The book is set in 1936 when, in reality, the incumbent president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would claim the Democratic nomination and go on to win his second of four terms. But thats not how things work out in Lewis version. In both worlds, the country is still deep in the great Depression and FDRs controversial new policies have yet to make much of a dent. There are other political models to choose from, and a substantial number of Americans see some promise in Germany and Italy, where Hitler and Mussolini have replaced the uncertainties of democracy with something more robust.

Lewis, who was already famous as a best-selling novelist and Nobel laureate, holed up in his second home in Barnard, Vermont, in May of 1935, Braithwaite notes, and in four months wrote and revised his cautionary tale about the coming of fascism to America.

FDR is challenged for the Democratic Partys nomination by a charismatic blowhard, Senator Buzz Windrip, as Lewis tells it, a tireless traveler, a boisterous and humorous speaker, an inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like, a warm handshaker, and willing to lend money.

Windrip isnt Trump exactly. Wrong party. No jet plane. No germ phobia. No wacky comb over. But there are enough similarities to make the connection. At the Democratic Convention, after endless balloting to break a deadlock, Braithwaite explains, Windrip heads for his hotel room, leaving behind a letter for the delegates. The letter does the trick, and Windrip wins the nomination. Whats in the letter? Very Trumpish stuff, actually. Lewis writes:

Summarized, the letter explained that he [Windrip] was all against the banks but all for the bankers  except the Jewish bankers, who were to be driven out of finance entirely; that he had thoroughly tested (but unspecified) plans to make all wages very high and the prices of everything produced by these same highly paid workers very low; that he was 100 per cent for labor but 100 per cent against all strikes; and that he was in favor of the United States so arming itself, so preparing to produce its own coffee, sugar, perfumes, tweeds, and nickel instead of importing them, that it could defy the World . . . and maybe, if that World was so impertinent as to defy America in turn, Buzz hinted, he might have to take it over and run it properly.

Note the all-caps cover line on the first edition of Lewiss novel. It asks the question: WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN AMERICA HAS A DICTATOR? Come this summer at the Republican Convention, well likely get a prequel to the answer, and come November well find out whether the question still applies.
Camille Rowe Is Playboy's April 2016 Cover Model

Trending News: Playboy And Camille Rowe Are Making Clothes Sexy Again

Why Is This Important?

Because it's a big moment for the vaunted men's magazine.

Long Story Short

Playboy landed French-American model Camille Rowe for their April 2016 issue, just the second release since they removed nudity from their pages.

Long Story

Playboy shocked the world when they announced that February 2016 would be their last issue featuring frontal nudity. Why it was so shocking, I'm not sure. There's really no room for printed fap material anymore, and reading Playboy "for the articles" isn't a joke  there's some legitimately good writing in there. One advantage of eschewing nudity  besides no longer having to hide their magazines in plastic sleeves on newsstands  is landing higher-quality, bigger-name models. After debuting their more family-friendly motif in March with a Snapchat-themed issue, Playboy has announced French-American model Camille Rowe as their April 2016 cover model.

Guy Aroch/Playboy

As far as commercial models go, Camille is pretty accomplished  to the point where, if being the centerfold still involved stripping down, you probably wouldn't see her here. She's modeled for Louis Vuitton, Dior, H&M, Victoria's Secret, Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch and others, and has appeared in just about every high-falutin' magazine you've ever heard of. Now, she wants to get into acting. With 150k+ followers, she's easily on the short list for our collection of favorite Instagram models.

Guy Aroch/Playboy

In the issue, Rowe confides that she's a longtime fan of Playboy, to the degree where she was heavily involved in the direction of her own shoot.

Ive collected Playboy magazines from the 1960s and 1970s since I was a teenager. The entire aesthetic and the girls themselves are so classically beautiful, which is what we tried to imitate with my pictorial, she said. I gave my opinion on everything; Im so happy it happened this way. This was my vision, and its a proud moment for me.

Guy Aroch/Playboy

The biggest about-face for Playboy (aside from the obvious lack of visible kibbles 'n bits) is the overall aesthetic. Whereas past issues  even very recent ones  relied on a lot of airbrushing and photoshopping, the new Playboy seems to have a more natural, unaltered feel to it (so far, at least). In a way, it's a reflection of modern attitudes  on an internet stuffed with bolted on tits and fake weight loss "tricks" and altered "historic" photos, men (and people in general) are relieved to embrace something real for a change.

Playboy's April 2016 issue goes on sale today, March 25.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Can Playboy survive without nudity?

Disrupt Your Feed

I have to admit, I'm glad it's now a magazine I don't have to hide when my girlfriend comes over.

Drop This Fact

In 1970, Playboy became the first gentleman's magazine to be printed in braille.
The relationship between Australia and the UK is a long and historic one and now the two countries are marking a world first with an agreement to support innovative businesses.Under the agreement the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will refer to one another those innovative businesses seeking to enter the others' market.The regulators will provide support to innovative businesses before, during and after authorisation to help reduce regulatory uncertainty and time to market.The agreement follows the creation of Innovation Hubs at the FCA and ASIC in October 2014 and April 2015, respectively. The Hubs were set up to help businesses with innovative ideas navigate financial regulation, support them through the authorisation process and engage with the regulator.To date the FCA's Innovation Hub has supported over 200 businesses and the authorisation of 18 businesses. Likewise, ASIC has dealt with over 75 innovative start-ups including the granting of 10 licences."Innovation in financial services isn't limited by national borders and so it's important that we support overseas businesses that have new ideas that could benefit British consumers," said Christopher Woolard, director of strategy and competition at the FCA."We also know that many British firms wish to use the UK as a springboard to launch their businesses or products internationally, making them potentially more sustainable challengers. That is why this agreement, the first of many, we hope, is important. With ASIC, we will reduce the barriers for authorised firms looking to grow to scale overseas and to assist non-UK innovators interested in entering the market we oversee," he added.Greg Medcraft, chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, said it is committed to encouraging innovation that has the potential to benefit financial consumers and investors."Since ASIC launched its Innovation Hub last year we have seen a surge in requests by fintech start-ups seeking assistance about how to navigate the regulatory requirements. In particular we have dealt with robo or digital advice, crowd sourced equity funding, payments, marketplace lending and block chain business models," he explained."It is very exciting to observe and clearly some business ideas will want to scale up internationally. We believe this agreement with the FCA will help break down barriers to entry both here and in the UK," he added.To qualify for the support offered by the agreement, innovator businesses will need to meet the eligibility criteria of their home regulator's Innovation Hub. Once referred by the regulator, and ahead of applying for authorisation to operate in the new market, the business will have access to a dedicated team or contact person who will help them to understand the regulatory framework in the market they wish to join, and how it applies to them.These businesses will be given help during the authorisation processes with access to expert staff and, where appropriate, the implementation of a specialised authorisation process. Following authorisation, the businesses will have a dedicated contact to turn to for a year.ASIC and the FCA have also committed to share information on emerging market trends and their impact on regulation. The fintech industries in the UK and Australia are estimated to have revenues of around 6.6 billion and 0.7 billion a year, with both growing rapidly.
The decision was taken following Thursday morning's meeting of F1's Strategy Group and will now be ratified by the F1 Commission.

Formula 1 qualifying will remain unaltered for the forthcoming Bahrain Grand Prix, with a further review of the elimination system to follow that race.

The decision was taken following Thursday morning's meeting of F1's Strategy Group and will now be ratified by the F1 Commission - a 26-member group comprising representatives from the teams, the FIA, Formula One Management, race promoters, sponsors and other technical partners.

The belief is rather than taking a knee-jerk reaction, the elimination system that made its debut ahead during the Australian Grand Prix weekend should be given another chance, and then be thoroughly reviewed ahead of making potential tweaks.

"They're going to do what I proposed, which is leave things as they are for this race [in Bahrain]," F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told Autosport.

"After that we will then have a good look and decide whether what was done was the right thing to do, the wrong thing to do, does it need modifying, does it need scrapping?

"This was an FIA idea in the first place, so I've said to them we'll support whatever they think is the right thing to do.

"But as nobody knows what the right thing to do is, we've said we'll stay where we are and have a look after this race.

"Then two races in we'll see, as it was a prototype, what was right or wrong.

"The teams didn't understand what they were doing either, which didn't help at all."

A hybrid version of qualifying was on the table as an option for the Commission.

That would have involved Q1 and Q2 continuing under the new format but with minor tweaks, while Q3, deemed a disaster given the lack of action in Melbourne, reverted back to the old set-up in place from 2006.

For the moment that option is on the backburner and could be revisited if the same level of inactivity takes place in Bahrain as occurred in Australia.

The decision comes as a complete volte face to what occurred in Melbourne on Sunday when the team principals voted for an immediate change back to the former system after what had taken place the previous day.

They suggested it would come into immediate effect from Bahrain, but keeping the door ajar for changes to be introduced from 2017 following more in-depth analysis of how, and whether, another scheme would work.

Even Ecclestone suggested the new system was "pretty crap" after watching it on television, while drivers and team bosses almost universally condemned it.

There were those, however, such as Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley, Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery and Williams technical chief Pat Symonds who suggested the knockout format should not be so quickly abandoned.
All 2017 Toyota Corolla grades have the Toyota Safety Sense-P available, which includes safety elements like pre-collision system with pedestrian detection function, dynamic radar cruise control, lane departure alert with steering assist function, and automatic high beams.As standard features, the 2017 Corolla comes with a backup camera, Bluetooth, Bi-LED headlamps for the L, LE, and LE Eco trim levels, and a small redesign of the interior. The SE, XSE, and XLE grades receive complex-LED headlights as standard.Other changes brought by the facelift include audio enhancements, and an improved focus on passenger comfort. Concerning exterior design, the MY2017 Corolla features a new front grille and two supplementary exterior colors.As we mentioned yesterday , Toyotas 50th Anniversary Special Edition Corolla is based on the SE trim level. It builds on the standard features of that grade with exclusive details and elements. These include 50th Anniversary Edition floor mats, exterior badges, a 4.2-inch TFT multi-information display, a seven-inch touch screen, unique alloy wheels with a machine finish, and much more.Customers can order a moonroof, and the interior features Black Cherry contrast stitching for the steering wheel, shift boot, center armrest, and the seat upholstery. The same color is also used for the accents of the dash panel and on the door trim.The special edition of the 2017 Toyota Corolla will be available for order starting fall 2016. It can be had in one of just three exterior colors: Black Cherry (exclusive for this version, seen in the photo gallery), Classic Silver, and Blizzard Pearl.Only 8,000 Toyota Corolla 50th Anniversary Special Edition cars will be sold in the USA. Toyota has not specified if it will offer this model in other markets with such a specification. Since the Corolla is popular on almost every market in the world, we expect to see more 50th Anniversary Special Edition Corollas this year.
AVwebs search of news in aviation found announcements from the National Air Transportation Association, Air Orlando Sales, Bell Helicopter and Women in Aviation International.The National Air Transportation Associationannounced the rollout of new Student and College Chapter membership programsdedicated to providing students with resources, access to experts in the field and networking opportunities that will benefit their future careers in aviation.Air Orlando Sales Inc. announced it has accepted an appointment as an Authorized Sales Representative (ASR) for Diamond Aircraft Industries. An open house is scheduled for April 4, 2016, at Orlando Executive Airport featuring DA-62 and DA-40 aircraft.

Bell Helicopter announced that two of its retired employees, Dwayne Williams and Wayne Brown, were honored by the FAA with its Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award  one of the most prestigious pilot safety awards in the industry.The award recognizes pilots who have demonstrated professionalism, skill and aviation expertise by maintaining safe flight operations for 50 or more years.Karen Gebhart, Vice President of Business Development for the Helicopter Association International, was elected for a two-year term as the chair of Women in Aviation Internationals board of directors at the 2016 International Women in Aviation Conference. Two new board members were voted in at the organizations annual membership meeting held March 10: Linda A. Markham, president and chief administrative officer of Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines, and Lauren McFarland, director of advertising for the Aircraft Electronics Association.
25 March 2016 14:20 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Bangladeshs President Abdul Hamid.



On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I sincerely congratulate you and the people of your country on the occasion of the public holiday of the People's Republic of Bangladesh - Independence Day, President Aliyev said.



I believe that relations between Azerbaijan and Bangladesh will continue to develop in an atmosphere of friendship and cooperation in line with the best interests of our nations, he added.



On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health, success in your work, and the friendly people of Bangladesh peace and prosperity, said the congratulatory letter.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
25 March 2016 15:10 (UTC+04:00)

Joint military exercises of Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces, TURAZ Shahini2016, have wrapped up in Konya, Turkey, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry said on March 25.



Azerbaijani Air Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Ramiz Tahirov and Commander of the Turkish Air Force Abidin Unal watched the final stage of the military drills.



They noted that the flight, technical and service staff of the two countries air forces gained great experience during these exercises.



Moreover, the parties emphasized the importance of such exercises in maintaining the combat readiness of military pilots at a high level and pointed out the necessity of holding the next joint military drills.

This is the second joint exercises of the two countries air forces in accordance with the annual plan of military cooperation. The first TurAz Falcon was held in Azerbaijan in September 2015.

During the last years drills, the Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces performed tasks of the joint actions planning, improved capabilities of interaction and coordination in carrying out operations, fulfilled search and rescue actions, and eliminated ground targets with air strikes.

More than 30 means of aviation of the Azerbaijani and Turkish air forces were involved in the drills.

Baku and Ankara enjoy strategic relations in many fields, including the military sphere. Military cooperation between these two neighboring nations dates back to 1992 when they signed an agreement on military education. Since then, the Azerbaijani and Turkish governments have been closely cooperating in both defense and security fields.

In December 2010, the two countries signed a range of treaties provisioning for military assistance should any of the party be attacked by third party.

Based on numerous agreements on joint military exercises as part of bilateral progressive efforts towards military cooperation, the Azerbaijani and Turkish armed forces have hold regular drills, featuring various tactical and combat tasks so far.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
25 March 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijan's Southern Gas Corridor Company has released initial price thoughts for a ten-year bond at seven percent yield area, Global Capital agency reported.

Depending on market conditions, the SGC's bond offering under the state guarantee is forecasted at the level of $1 billion. Floatation is provided for the financing of Shah Deniz-2 and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) projects and Trans Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic (TAP) pipelines.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani government held road shows of bonds March 10-16 for the SGC in the world's major financial centers - London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston.

Citibank, UniCredit and J.P. Morgan are the authorized companies on floatation of bonds according to the decision of Azerbaijans Cabinet of Ministers from March 7, 2016. Lazard Freres SAS company, in turn, acts as a financial advisor of the Azerbaijani side.

The international ratings agency Fitch Ratings has assigned CJSC Southern Gas Corridor's (SGC) senior unsecured Eurobonds a 'BB+(EXP)' expected foreign currency long-term rating.

The Southern Gas Corridor projects (SGC) net financial needs for operations and capex will be close to $8.4 billion in 2016-2019, according to Fitch Ratings.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe through Georgia and Turkey.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
25 March 2016 11:20 (UTC+04:00)

Ashgabat hosted the meeting of Turkmenistan-Saudi Arabia intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation, during which the parties determined the tasks for intensifying the business partnership, said the message from the Turkmen government.

The meeting was attended by heads and representatives of several state structures of the two countries.

During the event, it was noted that Saudi Arabias leading oil and gas companies are interested in operating on Turkmenistans promising market.

They also emphasized the necessity to coordinate the efforts to increase the volume of exported and imported goods and to implement new investment projects.

The meeting participants expressed support for creating closer contacts between Turkmenistans Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Saudi Export Development Authority.

Transportation and communication were named as the important spheres of bilateral partnership.

Noting the importance of expanding partnership in the sphere of agriculture, the commission members expressed support for establishing close relations between the specialized research centers of the two countries.

They also put forward proposals on exchanging experience in agricultural production management.

Diplomatic relations between Ashgabat and Riyadh were established in 1992. Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov paid his first official visit to Saudi Arabia in April of 2007, during which the parties signed a general cooperation agreement.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
25 March 2016 12:40 (UTC+04:00)

Turkmenistan and the specialized agencies of the UN have signed a number of documents, Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news service reported.



The signing ceremony took place at Turkmenistans Foreign Ministry.



The parties signed the following documents: Country Program Action Plan between the government of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for 2016-2020; Country Program Action Plan between the government of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for 2016-2020.



The parties noted that these documents will pave way for further development of the fruitful cooperation with the UN.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
 

       3.0 (      -       -         ): editor [at] bahrainmirror.com
Ben Affleck Thrills Crowd at Mexico City Movie Premiere

Mexico City - Ben Affleck may be associated in most fans' minds with the South Boston accent the character he played in Good Will Hunting had, but his linguistic skills were on display at the recent premiere of his new movie, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, in Mexico City.

"Hola, Mexico!" the Hollywood star yelled out to the crowd that gathered outside the Auditorio Nacional, and he proceeded to answer questions in a surprisingly fluent mix of Spanish and English. "I live in Los Angeles," he started to explain in English before switching to Espanol.

"We speak Spanish in Los Angeles... Los Angeles is part of Mexico, didn't you know that?"

Even though the premiere's hosts kept trying to facilitate Affleck switching to English, the 43-year-old star, who plays Batman in the Zack Snyder directed movie, resisted, discussing how his 4-year-old son thinks Affleck is the real Batman in Spanish after being asked about it in English.

He even expressed indignation when it was suggested that the costume he wore in the film came with muscles added.

"They're my muscles!" he said in excited Spanish. "Of course they are. Here, touch them."

Affleck and his younger brother, Casey, spent a year in Mexico when Ben was 13 years old and working on the PBS kids show, The Voyage of the Mimi.

"I was pretty much on my own down there, getting into trouble," Affleck once told Biography Magazine. "I was earning money and I had my own hotel room; I thought I was all grown-up and had all the answers. Mr. Big Shot at 13."

While promoting Argo in Mexico City in 2012, Affleck also conducted interviews in a mix of Spanish and English.
Mexico's Fernando Casanova Races CDMX Subway

Mexico City - Fernando Casanova, a self-described obstacle course racing (OCR) athlete, has partnered with Reebok to promote the brand's latest shoe technology by racing the Mexico City subway.

In a new advertisement, Casanova, a Mexican, is shown riding the metro to the Pino Suarez station, where he jumps out and then races madly across town to try to catch the same train at the next station.

Doing so meant dodging pedestrians, street lights, and inhaling a good amount of smog; if it weren't for the drone following him across town, he would have probably looked like just another chilango running late for work.

In the end, he won, defeating the iron horse.

Some Mexicans applauded Casanova for winning Reebok's metro challenge, while others joked on social media that even a turtle could outrun Mexico City's slow subway. Some joked that he was running to avoid paying his metro fare.

The "Race the Tube" publicity stunt comes from a trend that reportedly started in Europe several years ago. It's since made it's way around the globe, as people started uploading their own versions of man vs. machine races to YouTube and social media.

Some of the races are about raising awareness for particular causes. A man in a wheelchair raced the tube in London and nearly made it, if it hadn't been for a flight of stairs blocking his progress.
Here's what you need to know about Tampa Bay area weather for the weekend:

Lull in activity tonight

Lows mild in 60s to low 70s



Chances of rain continue through Saturday and Sunday



There will be some showers possible through morning. Expect some fog.

Lows will be mild in the 60s to low 70s.

It will be a similar situation for Saturday with another round of showers and storms moving through the area. The timing is difficult to predict, so check Klystron 9 periodically.

An earlier round of strong storms damaged more than 60 homes at a mobile home park in Dade City.

Therefore where it does rain it will keep temperatures lower with highs in the 70s. Outside that will feature highs in the low to mid 80s.

Either way there will be mostly cloudy to partly sunny skies with a lull in the activity headed into Saturday night.

Lows will be in the 60s to low 70s.

Sunday will wrap up the weekend in very similar fashion with highs in the low 80s under variably cloudy skies and a 40 percent coverage of scattered showers and storms.

The reason for the rain chances will be a front that moves into the panhandle and stalls just to our north from now through the weekend. Therefore the heaviest and steadiest rains will likely be the farther north you go.

Rain chances will slowly decrease after Monday. There may be enough moisture lingering through

The rest of the week for some afternoon sea breeze showers each day.




The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released its Florida black bear population estimates Thursday that show the population is large and growing.



The updated estimates that show just how many black bears are living in each part of Florida including in Central Florida.



New estimates released by FWC show the states black bear population is up 60 percent compared to estimates from back in 2002. But FWC officials arent yet saying whether the long-term growth will lead to more FWC authorized statewide bear hunts.



The updated population estimates show us our bear populations are robust and growing, said Dr. Thomas Eason, director of FWCs Division of Habitat and Species Conservation.

To get the latest numbers, FWC officials set up dozens of barbwire enclosures across 11 million acres of Florida. The enclosures had food in them to lure the bears. FWC then collected hairs from bears that brushed by the barbwire and used mathematical models to devise the population estimates.

FWC took those hairs and conducted extensive scientific analysis to determine how many bears live in each area of the state.

A rapidly growing bear population is part of the reason FWC authorized the very controversial statewide black bear hunt last October. In November, 304 bears were killed during Florida's first statewide black bear hunt in 21 years



When asked about another bear hunt this year, FWC officials say its too early to tell and they dont even have a timetable set on when they will decide that.

On a conference call with FWC, News 13 asked state officials about a proposal by Seminole County Commissioners to possibly ban bear-hunting in the county.

Our commission hasnt even made a decision on whether there will be another bear hunt, so Id say some of that is premature. I would also point out Seminole County has been a key partner and a leader in Florida on bear-wise ordinances, said Eason.

Despite numerous attacks and problems involving black bears in Seminole County, the bear population in Central Florida had the smallest increase in the state at just 19 percent.

FWC says thats because the black bear population has always been well-established in the Central Florida Bear Management Unit, while the bear population has grown into other areas of the state where bears werent as prevalent before.

RELATED
When the terror attacks in Brussels killed at least 31 and wounded 300 Tuesday, social media became a key player in helping people receive and send out information during those terrifying moments.

Peter Van Der Auweraert had just boarded a plane at the Brussels airport when he learned about the attacks. He and his fellow passengers were left stuck on a plane, desperate for information.

People would go on their smartphones to try to find out more news, and people immediately start talking to each other... like what they know, what have your read there, showing pictures that were appearing on social media, Van Der Auweraert said.

He couldnt phone his family to tell them he was OK, because the phone lines were down, so he posted on Facebook.

To say OK, theres explosions, but we are OK, we are sitting on the plane. Van Der Auweraert said.

Orlandos Emergency Manager Manuel Soto said he recommends including social media and apps in your familys emergency plan.

Social media has become a tool in the emergency management arena, because it allows us to have alternate means of communication, Soto said.

Following local and national news outlets on Twitter can provide minute-by-minute updates. Facebook can help you connect to family members, and apps give you specific alerts in a disaster.

For survivors such as Van Der Auweraert, getting information and connecting can provide some comfort in tragic situations.

Useful emergency resources
A federal judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit brought against The Beaumont Enterprise and a former reporter by former Beaumont ISD contract electrician Calvin Walker, bringing the number of defendants dismissed from the suit to eight.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Crone made the ruling less than two weeks after a magistrate judge issued a report and recommendations following a hearing earlier this month.
Courtesy of the Texas Office of the Attorney General

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A United Airlines pilot has been arrested and accused of running a string of brothels in apartment complexes and office buildings throughout Houston.

Bruce Wayne Wallis, 51, was charged with aggravated promotion of prostitution and engaging in criminal activity in what officials said included about a half-dozen brothels in Galleria-area apartments and northwest Houston office buildings with six to 10 women.

Assistant Harris County District Attorney Lester Blizzard said the criminal operation was "massive."

"It's the largest operation that I've ever worked on," he said. "(District Attorney) Devon Anderson's office takes these types of complex organized criminal activity cases seriously."

Court records show that investigators believe the women advertised online and paid Wallis $400 a week to ply their trade. He's also accused of recruiting five women at time and having sex with them before putting them to work as prostitutes. Several of the women appeared to be Russian.

Officials with United confirmed that Wallis was an employee and said he had been taken off of flying duties.

Also charged is an alleged top lieutenant to Wallis. Tracie Tanner, 37, of Rosenberg, is facing charges of aggravated promotion of prostitution. Eighteen other women were also charged with prostitution after the eight-month investigation.

Wallis is also accused of using Eastex Aero, his flight school and charter service in Porter, north of Houston, as a front to make sure the women who worked for him had a "legitimate" employment records and financial statements, according to court records.

If convicted, Wallis faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Tanner faces up to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutor Blizzard said 26 search warrants were served this week in a flurry of activity culminating Wednesday with Wallis's arrest. No clients were arrested, he said.

Blizzard credited investigators with the Texas Department Public Safety and the human trafficking division of the Houston Police Department for cracking the case.
Convicted pedophile Jared Fogle is slapping together sandwiches in his new post in the cafeteria at Federal Correctional Institution Englewood, TMZ reports.

This seems like the perfect post for the former Subway pitchman (though we have a feeling he's not making foot-long Spicy Italians).
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Lamar professor Jeff Palis told a student on a foreign exchange program in Rennes, France, this week to "hunker down" in that city and to avoid Paris, large crowds and major sporting events.

LU officials say they have vetted the university in Europe but acknowledge the risks involved in traveling abroad.

This is the time of year when college students get ready to roam the world on spring break and summer trips - exploring, studying and volunteering.

Two terrorist attacks in prominent European cities in recent months have intensified the anxiety for families with loved ones spending extended time outside of the country.

On Tuesday, a group of suicide bombers killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds by using explosives to rip open a Brussels subway car and shatter the city's main airport terminal.

The attack was the bloodiest on Belgian soil since World War II.

Last November, three suicide bombers and mass shooters killed 130 people in and around Paris.

Safety risks are faced not just by foreign exchange students or those briefly studying abroad, but also by those on religious mission trips or doing contract work in areas where there's conflict.

University officials do not take the risks lightly. Palis advised the LU student to lie low just as a precaution, but said he would not hesitate to bring him home if necessary.

"If we have to pull the plug on a program, we'll pull the plug on a program," Palis said.

The biggest concerns he hears from parents and students interested in study abroad and foreign exchange programs are safety and global security: What's the political climate in said country, and, frankly, do they hate Americans?

"I think we tend to be a little defensive sometimes," said Palis, who studied in Germany as a graduate student in 2003. "When there's disagreement with what our country is doing, it's easy to take that personally. The United States both fascinates and infuriates the world."

Aside from politics, tragedies that are difficult to explain can happen anywhere. Palis said the scariest part about situations like those in Brussels and Paris is their unpredictability.

Richard Gachot, an LU researcher studying art history, has lived and worked in Paris on and off for six years. He met his wife while doing research in Russia and has lived in New York City.

Gachot said the benefits of living overseas far outweigh the fear factor.

"You need to be prudent and vigilant, but life should not be ruled by fear," Gachot said.

Kay-Alana Turner, an LU business major and 2013 Lumberton High School graduate, recently returned from a spring break trip to Panama.

This was her second study abroad in less than a year; she traveled to Spain last summer for a month.

Turner, like Gachot, said she does not think much about the risks, which are inherent with travel. But her mother does worry.

It's worth it to Turner, she said, because she gains self-confidence and independence adapting to life in another country.

Next spring, Turner plans to go on a foreign exchange program in France.

"It is scary to think about with what's happened in two major European cities, but just about anything can happen anywhere," Turner said.

Last year, LU sent 152 students to study abroad in small groups chaperoned by university faculty members. The university plans this year to top that number by about a dozen.

Both students and faculty go through an intensive orientation period beforehand, learning about small tasks like how to pack and access your money while abroad to bigger issues like conduct and avoiding crisis.

They talk about how to access their medical insurance, which is covered in the fee through the Texas State University System.

When Palis studied abroad in 2003, right after the U.S. invaded Iraq, daily protests against the American government made him feel uneasy.

"I remember my mother being concerned, so I have great empathy for students and parents when they're concerned about these things," Palis said. "And it's our responsibility as a university to let them know how we vet the programs."

BScott@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/BrandonKScott

Read the complete story in the Beaumont Enterprise.
Petco Foundation has awarded $75,000 to the Humane Society of Southeast Texas to help it recover from the devastating March 15 fire in which 74 dogs were killed by smoke inhalation.

The grant, announced today, is in addition to other donations streaming in to help the shelter resume operations.
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A Glen Rose mother who allegedly put her 2-year-old daughter inside an oven last week was supposedly under the influence of methamphetamine and naked when she committed the act, according to media reports.

Tasha Shontell Hatcher, 35, was arrested Thursday, March 17, and charged with a first-degree felony of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. She was arraigned on Saturday with a bond set at $300,000, according to the Glen Rose Reporter.

RELATED: Texas woman arrested after allegedly throwing cup of ice at child

The New York Daily News, citing court documents, reports Hatcher was high on meth when she allegedly put her daughter in an oven, causing severe burns to the girls body.

Requests made to the Somervell County Sheriff's Office for the affidavit were not returned.

She then went over to a neighbors home, naked with her unclothed child, prompting the neighbor to call the police, the outlet reported.

When authorities arrived, the suspect allegedly made sexual remarks and behaviors toward the responding officer. She also allegedly told the officer that she had shot a cat and placed it in the oven prior to placing her daughter inside, according to the New York Daily News.

RELATED: Man accused of beating child turns himself in

She later told an official with the Department of Family Protective Services that her daughter had been healed, according to the New York Daily News.

Her criminal record includes possession of a controlled substance and marijuana, as well as a DWI charge, according to the New York Daily News.

The Glen Rose Reporter states that residents told the publication that Hatcher has a history of drug abuse, with her 7-year-old son having previously been removed from her custody by Child Protective Services.

RELATED: West Texas parents sentenced 40-50 years in prison after keeping malnourished son in cage

Her 2-year-old daughter will be turned over to a foster home after recovering from her injuries, according to the New York Daily News.

If convicted of the first-degree felony charge, Hatcher could face five to 99 years in prison.

twhite@mysa.com

Twitter: @tylerlwhite
On March 24, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report on subsidized health coverage's cost, according to Reuters.

Here are seven findings from the report:

1. Taxpayers will pay more than $660 billion in 2016 for subsidized health insurance for people under 65, most of whom obtained coverage through their employer.

2. The 2016 tax bill is equivalent to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product.

3. Healthcare subsidies' cost is projected to grow, on average, 5.4 percent each year over the next 10 years, reaching $1.1 trillion.

4. The CBO estimates nearly 40 percent of this year's subsidies for health insurance, or $268 billion, reflects tax breaks for small employers and the exclusion for employer-based health insurance plans that cover 155 million employees under 65 years of age.

5. The CBO expects another $279 billion in subsidies this year for Medicaid and the federal Children's Health Insurance Program.

6. Over the next decade, the CBO estimates the Affordable Care Act's high enrollment for people eligible for Medicare will increase the cost of ACA insurance coverage provisions nearly $136 billion.

7. The ACA's insurance coverage provisions through 2016 will cost $157 billion less than the CBO estimated in 2010.

More articles on coding & billing:

NY legislation would allow physician collective bargaining: 5 things to know

Connecticut advocacy groups unhappy with Anthem-Cigna merger: 5 things to know

Employers to face higher penalty for not offering health insurance in 2017  3 takeaways
St. Louis-based SSM Health, a Catholic, nonprofit health system, opened a $10.4 million outpatient clinic in Wentzville, Mo., according to St. Louis Business Journal.

Here are five things to know:

1. The center is 22,000 square feet.

2. SSM Health's outpatient facility will offer primary and specialty services, including MRI, CT, mammography and bone density scans.

3. The center's providers will serve residents in western St. Charles, Warren and Lincoln counties.

4. The Lawrence Group started construction last summer.

5. "With patients relying more and more on receiving healthcare services in outpatient settings, SSM Health Outpatient Center will serve as a vital access point for the entire Wentzville community," Mike Bowers, president of SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital-St. Charles and St. Joseph Hospital-Wentzville, said in a statement.

More articles on surgery centers:

Mercy Health Youngstown in Ohio to break ground on new ASC: 5 things to know

Medical Facilities Corp. names Britt Reynolds CEO  5 points

ACA turns 6  5 things to know about what could happen next
Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic's Destination Medical Center project is on track to reach its $200 million private investment goal, a threshold it must meet before tapping into hundreds of millions of dollars in public taxpayer money, according to the Star Tribune.

Mayo Clinic was awarded $585 million in public funding by the Minnesota Legislature in 2013. After receiving $87.6 million in private investments last year, the clinic's goal to reach $200 million is within sight, said to Mitchell Abeln, director of finance for the Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency, according to the report. So far, it has a total of $152.4 million in private investments.

The massive DestinationMedicalCenter project aims to reshape Rochester as a robust destination center for patients and families from across the U.S. and the world.

The public funding will support public infrastructure, while the Mayo Clinic estimates it will invest $3.5 billion over the 20-year span of the project's development, with an additional $2.1 billion in private investments, according to the report.

The DestinationMedicalCenter investments are certified once a year by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Academic Development, so even if the project reaches its $200 million investment goal this summer, it won't have access to the taxpayer money until next year.
NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Ramanathan Raju, MD, will testify before City Council Monday regarding the city's proposed budget allotment of $337 million for the public health system. Dr. Raju is also expected to face some questions about the public health system's ongoing EHR implementation.

Here are nine developments regarding New York City Health + Hospitals' EHR rollout and the related executive departures and media reports.

1. NYC Health + Hospitals faces a $1.2 billion budget gap next fiscal year. In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a 2017 budget allotting $337 million to the hospital system. On Monday, NYC Health + Hospitals president and CEO Ramanathan Raju is scheduled to testify before City Council on Mayor de Blasio's proposed budget, and he will likely field questions regarding media reports of a turbulent EHR implementation, reports Capital New York.

2. NYC Health + Hospitals signed the contract for its Epic EHR in January 2013 and is investing $764 million over six years to implement it throughout the system. In previous comments to Becker's Hospital Review, NYC Health + Hospitals said this figure represents the implementation and maintenance cost over six years. It's important to note the funds in the budget proposal being discussed Monday are not necessarily linked to the EHR implementation, which NYC Health + Hospitals says "remains on time and on budget." Rather, it appears questions about the Epic project are being posed after a series of media reports detailed alleged problems with the EHR implementation.

3. Recent stories in the New York Post allege NYC Health + Hospitals officials are pushing for an April 1 go-live for its Elmhurst and Queens hospitals despite patient safety concerns. Anonymous sources in the reports suggested Dr. Raju feels pressure to move forward out of fear he may lose his job.

4. NYC Health + Hospitals refutes these claims, saying the idea the system would jeopardize patient safety is "simply wrong." According to an emailed statement from the health system, "[The] New York Post story is unfounded and uses unnamed sources who shared incorrect information. The NYC public healthcare system is implementing the Epic EMR  the best in class product used by many top healthcare systems. The project remains on time and on budget. The implementation will be done in phases, starting with our Queens facilities on April 2. We have assembled a team of about 900 technicians and Epic experts who will work around-the-clock to ensure the transition to the new system goes smoothly."

5. Speaking at a meeting with Mayor de Blasio's staff in City Hall, Dr. Raju said the Epic go-live date is a self-imposed deadline, and he has no qualms about pushing it back if needed. "It could be April 7. If I'm not ready, it's not something we are chasing," Dr. Raju said, according to Capital New York. "If we miss the deadline, no one is going to chop my head off. ... Nobody is going to fire me. That's not a problem."

6. But executives losing or leaving their job is not an uncommon occurrence at the public health system lately. The New York Post also reported Charles Perry, MD, reportedly CMIO of NYC Health + Hospitals' Queens and Elmhurst Hospital Centers, resigned over the Epic implementation. He reportedly sent an email to colleagues comparing the project to the Challenger shuttle and saying it was too early to go live on it. Dr. Raju said in the meeting with Mayor de Blasio's staff that the email was written by a "disgruntled" employee.

7. Reports suggested the email was a resignation letter. The health system confirmed Dr. Perry resigned March 4, but said he was never appointed as CMIO, which is how previous reports and his LinkedIn page identify him. Instead, he was appointed associate executive director at the Elmhurst campus and liaison to the Epic project in Queens. "He was never appointed as CMIO, even if he calls himself that," NYC Health + Hospitals told Becker's.

8. Last year, the system's IT department also experienced a leadership shakeup. Bert Robles was asked to resign from his CIO position in February 2015. During the City Hall meeting, Dr. Raju said Mr. Robles' resignation was due to his lack of experience with the project. "I didn't want someone learning on the job," Dr. Raju said, according to the report. "This is too big to do that."

9. However, in previous comments to Becker's Hospital Review in August, NYC Health + Hospitals said the firings were unrelated to the Epic implementation progress. "Bert Robles and several other members of the Epic implementation team have been terminated for reasons related to personal behavior and conduct that did not affect the Epic implementation project, which remains on schedule and on budget," the hospital told Becker's Hospital Review. "The personnel changes within the Epic team did not affect the performance of the Epic contract."

More articles on NYC Health + Hospitals:

The corner office: NYC Health + Hospitals' Dr. Ram Raju on the 'essentiality' of publc hospital systems

Plan to bring financial stability to NYC Health + Hospitals unveileds

NYC Health + Hospitals CEO shares turnaround plan to narrow $1.2B budget gap
Stay in the know with Becker's Hospital Review's weekly roundup of the nation's biggest healthcare news. Here's what you need to know this week.

1. Physician shot and killed by patient at Louisiana hospital

Elbert Goodier III, MD, a well-known urologist, was shot and killed Thursday afternoon at the medical offices inside EastJeffersonGeneralHospital in Metairie, La. Dr. Goodier, 75, was talking with a patient in his second-floor office at about 2 p.m. Thursday, when the gunman walked in and fired, according to CNN. Dr. Goodier died from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities.

2. Former Mount Sinai physician arraigned on sexual abuse charges

David H. Newman, MD, a former physician at Mount SinaiHospital in New York City, was arraigned Thursday on charges of sexually abusing four female patients in the emergency room, including touching their breasts and, in one case, sedating, groping, masturbating and ejaculating on a patient, according to The New York Times.

3. HealthCare.gov hit with 316 security incidents in 18 months

In the 18 month period between October 2013 and March 2015, HealthCare.gov experienced 316 security-related incidents. A Government Accountability Office report on the web portal for the federal health insurance marketplace reports the majority of these security incidents involved potential attackers electronically probing CMS systems looking for potential weaknesses. None of the incidents compromised sensitive data.

4. Supreme Court appears split in ACA contraceptive battle

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the fourth challenge to the Affordable Care Act  Zubik v. Burwell  Wednesday, which focuses on the contraceptive mandate of the health reform law. The main issue in the case is whether the mandate, which requires employer-sponsored health plans to cover contraceptives, and its accommodation violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often the swing vote in divisive cases, seemed to side with conservatives on an important point in the case. He seemed to accept the challengers' view that the accommodation is a substantial burden. However, it is still unclear where Justice Kennedy stands on the issues, according to The Hill.

5. Methodist Hospital ransomware attack ends without payment

After five days, MethodistHospital in Henderson, Ky., emerged from an internal state of emergency after undergoing a targeted ransomware attack. MethodistHospital discovered the ransomware March 16, and the hospital posted a notification on its website saying employees had limited access to web-based services and electronic communications. In initial reports, Methodist Hospital COO David Park said the hospital would consider looking into paying any ransom demanded based on the number of locked records. The hospital has reportedly regained control of its computer systems.

6. Anthem sues Express Scripts in hopes of greater savings

Health insurer Anthem is suing Express Scripts  the nation's largest manager of prescription drug benefits  for $15 billion in an attempt to renegotiate its contract with the company and gain more savings on prescription medicine, according to NPR. Despite Anthem's threats to terminate its contract with the drug benefits company, Express Scripts remains optimistic the two parties will reach an agreement. "We don't intend to lose Anthem," said Express Scripts President Tim Wentworth. "We'll get through this. We think we have done a great job for Anthem."

7. Lawsuit claims Facebook mined PHI from websites of Cleveland Clinic, MD Anderson Cancer Center & more for advertising profit

Three Facebook users have filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook, several medical organizations and providers  including Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System, the American Cancer Society, Cleveland Clinic and Houston-based University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, among others  alleging Facebook obtained and used health information without their knowledge or consent, according to a Law360 report.

8. Capella, RegionalCare to merge into new $1.7B company

Franklin, Tenn.-based Capella Healthcare and Brentwood, Tenn.-based RegionalCare Hospital Partners announced plans to merge, creating a combined company with 18 hospital campuses in 12 states. The combined company will be called RCCH Health Partners. Under the agreement, Capella will be fully owned by RegionalCare, which was sold to Apollo Global Management last year.

9. CHS spinoff issues 2016 financial outlook

Following its spin off from Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, Quorum Health Corp. expects to record revenue in the range of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion in 2016. CHS plans to combine 38 hospitals and its hospital management and consulting business into QHC. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016.

10. Oklahoma hospital to cease inpatient services this month

MemorialHospital and Physician Group in Frederick, Okla., will discontinue inpatient services March 31, according to The Lawton Constitution. The rural hospital is transitioning to an outpatient facility due to various financial challenges, such as rising care costs, diminished reimbursements and low inpatient volume.
Nearly all  99 percent  of primary care physicians give patients prescriptions for potentially addictive opioid painkillers for longer than the three-day period recommended by the CDC, National Safety Council survey results show, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Physicians often prescribe the drugs instead of nonaddictive options that some research suggests is more effective for managing pain, and they routinely prescribe opioids for conditions deemed inappropriate by medical organization such as the AmericanAcademy of Neurology. The benefits of using opioids to treat pain for conditions like headache, fibromyalgia or lower back pain are outweighed by the risk of addiction or death.

"Studies have shown that once we get beyond seven days of these opiate prescriptions for acute pain, the outcomes become much worse," Donald Teater, MD, medical adviser for NSC, told the Chicago Tribune. "They get on these for a long time and have a hard time getting off them."

In its new guidance for opioid prescription released last week, the CDC recommended that opioids generally be reserved for cancer, palliative and end-of-life care. For short-term pain, prescriptions should be limited to three days. However, of the 201 internists and family medicine physicians surveyed by NSC, nearly all provide prescriptions for far longer periods, and about one in five prescribed opioids for 30 days, according to the report.
Thousands of medical students nationwide are calling for the elimination of a licensing exam that tests their patient care skills, according to a STAT report.

Here are four things to know about the initiative.

1. The initiative is led by students from Harvard Medical School in Boston. However, it has drawn support nationwide, with more than 6,000 students, residents and faculty at 130 medical schools signing a petition calling for the National Board of Medical Examiners to eliminate the test, according to the report.

2. Specifically, medical students participating in the initiative specifically have issues with the Step 2 CS, a role-playing test where students are asked to examine and diagnose patients or actors pretending to have particular conditions and fill out their medical charts, according to the report. It's designed to test how well the students are able to interview patients, do physical exams and explain their findings, the report notes.

3. Medical students argue that the licensing exam, which is only offered in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, is isn't cost-effective, or effective in weeding out incompetent physicians, according to STAT. Because the exam is only offered in selected cities, many students have to pay hundreds of dollars for flights and hotel accommodations, in addition to the registration fee for the exam itself, which is $1,275.

4. Peter Katsufrakis, MD, senior vice president of the National Board of Medical Examiners, acknowledged the exam isn't difficult, but noted 871 students failed it in the 2013-2014 academic year, according to the report. Additionally, he told STAT, most medical school faculty are too busy to observe third- and fourth-year students doing a complete physical exam, so it's important to test those skills as part of the licensing process.
A district court ruling in an antitrust lawsuit against Dayton, Ohio-based Premier Health has been reversed on appeal, according to a Dayton Daily News report.

The Medical Center at Elizabeth Place, a physician-owned hospital in Dayton, filed the lawsuit against Premier in 2012. In its lawsuit, MCEP alleged that Premier colluded with other defendants Catholic Health Initiatives, MedAmerica Health Systems Corp., Atrium Health System, Samaritan Health Partners and Upper Valley Medical Center  to cut off MCEP's access to insurers' networks.

A district court dismissed the lawsuit in 2014, and that ruling was recently reversed on appeal.

Judge Gilbert Merritt, writing for the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, wrote that the lower court failed to adjudicate the question of whether the behavior of the group of hospitals constitutes anti-competitive conduct before dismissing the case on summary judgment.

"We were surprised and disappointed at the appellate court's two-to-one decision reversing the case and remanding it back to the trial judge," Dale Creech, chief legal officer at Premier, told the Dayton Daily News. "We are still analyzing the decision and considering our options with our outside counsel, which include asking the entire Sixth Circuit Court to review it."

Alex Rintoul, CEO of MCEP, said, "We are pleased that the U.S. Court of Appeals recognized the overwhelming evidence of Premier's illegal conduct and has reinstated our lawsuit."

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U.S. District Judge Victoria A. Roberts has sentenced Laran Lerner, MD, to 45 months in prison for his role in a $5.7 million Medicare fraud scheme, according to the Department of Justice.

In August, Dr. Lerner pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud and one count of structuring cash transactions to avoid bank reporting requirements.

According to admissions made as part of his plea agreement, Dr. Lerner prescribed medically unnecessary controlled substances to patients. Through the scheme, Medicare was billed more than $5.7 million for unnecessary prescriptions, diagnostic tests and office visits. Dr. Lerner admitted the controlled substances were used to facilitate and conceal his scheme to steal from the Medicare program, according to the DOJ.

In addition to his prison sentence, Dr. Lerner was ordered to pay nearly $2.8 million in restitution. He also agreed to permanently surrender his Drug Enforcement Administration controlled substance registration.

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Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a bill into law Thursday prohibiting abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, according to The Washington Post.

Indiana is the second state to enact the law. North Dakota adopted similar restrictions in 2013.

Gov. Pence signed the bill hours before a deadline to take action on the proposal, which was approved by the Republican-led Legislature two weeks ago, according to the report. While the measure is scheduled to take effect in July, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said it will request the law be blocked in court before then.

"It is clear that the governor is more comfortable practicing medicine without a license than behaving as a responsible lawyer, as he picks and chooses which constitutional rights are appropriate," Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said in a statement, according to the report.

Additionally, several female Republican members of the Indiana Legislature, as well as a national group of gynecologists, have criticized the law.

"We know that you're going to be forcing women and families to suffer emotionally because they're going to be forced to carry pregnancies that are not viable," said Kate Connors, director of communications for the AmericanCollege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which recently wrote to Gov. Pence urging him to defeat the bill. "We've been hoping that the resounding chorus of voices would hit home. It obviously did not."

However, Gov. Pence defended the law, calling it "a comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life," in a statement. "I believe that a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable  the aged, the infirm, the disabled and the unborn."

In addition to banning abortions over fetal genetic defects and abnormalities, the law will ban abortions motivated by a fetus' race, sex or ancestry. It also mandates the only way to dispose of an aborted fetus is through burial or cremation, according to the report.
Elbert Goodier III, MD, a well-known urologist, was shot and killed Thursday afternoon at the medical offices inside East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La.

Dr. Goodier, 75, was talking with a patient in his second-floor office about 2 p.m. Thursday, when the gunman walked in and fired, according to CNN. Dr. Goodier died from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities.

Immediately after the shooting deputies began searching for the suspect, who was initially identified only as an "elderly, white-haired man," according to The Times-Picayune.

A man matching the description was seen by deputies walking into a nearby Wendy's restaurant. As deputies approached him, the man put the gun to his head and fired, killing himself.

The gunman has been identified as 73-year-old John Thomas, who the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said was a patient of Dr. Goodier, according to CNN.

Police said there is no motive in the case. Mr. Thomas has no prior criminal history, according to Jefferson Parish Col. John Fortunato, but he did suffer from mental illness, according to family members.

Dr. Goodier graduated from LSU School of Medicine in 1967, and worked at Charity Hospital and Ochsner Medical Center, both in New Orleans, before joining the staff at East Jefferson General Hospital.

East Jefferson General Hospital President and CEO Mark Peters, MD, said Dr. Goodier was "highly respected and a "true gentleman," according to The Times-Picayune. In a Facebook posting, Dr. Peters wrote the killing was a tragic loss and Dr. Goodier was "beloved by all who had the privilege of knowing him."
Medicare officials have halted a proposal to penalize physicians for ordering "non-recommended" prostate-specific antigen tests to screen for prostate cancer, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

CMS made the decision following an array of negative comments about the proposal.

Urologists and other medical professionals claimed that whether men should be screened for prostate cancer remained too controversial to link to a Medicare reimbursement penalty, according to the report.

The basis for the proposal came from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's 2012 recommendation against PSA screening for men, no matter their age, according to the report.

PSA levels are often elevated for reasons other than cancer, and the prostate cancers found by screening are often growing slow enough that they are effectively harmless, but many men still undergo surgery or radiation that can have side effects that last a lifetime, the Wall Street Journal reports. However, many medical organizations still urge men to discuss PSA testing with their physician to determine whether it is right for them.

According to the report, the CMS proposal would have penalized physicians for ordering only "non-recommended" PSA screenings. Certain categories of patients would be excluded, including those with a history of prostate cancer, an enlarged prostate or prior elevated PSA levels, the report notes.

However, J. Stuart Wolf, MD, chairman of the science and quality council of the American Urological Association, told the Wall Street Journal all uses of PSA tests to screen for prostate cancer in men who don't exhibit symptoms were "not recommended" under U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines. According to Dr. Wolf, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is reevaluating its recommendation on PSA testing this year.

A CMS official told the Wall Street Journal federal officials plan to solicit further input from stakeholders, including specialty societies, "to determine if a different or re-specified appropriate-use measure for PSA screening should be considered.

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Another of the McAvoy designs

Grindon School, one of the major projects undertaken by the McAvoy group

Co Tyrone mobile building business McAvoy Group is on course to hit 55m in sales, after witnessing a boost in its profits.

The firm saw pre-tax profits increase to 1.1m for the period ending October 2015, and turnover increasing to 47m.

That was up from just shy of 500,000 in the previous period, which only covered the 10 months to October 2014.

The Dungannon firm's managing director, Eugene Lynch, told the Belfast Telegraph the company plans to grow further still, hitting 55m for 2016, after landing a host of eight-figure deals - mainly for schools in England.

"It's primarily through our focus on education products, delivered through various frameworks.

"We are progressing a secondary in Slough, called the Lynch Hill Enterprise Academy."

That project alone is worth around 20m.

"2016 is on target to exceed the 2015 performance. And we are currently seeing some good success as we look beyond 2016 and into 2017."

The bulk of the firm's business is in England, primarily in the south East, with some also taking place in the Republic.

Sadly, he says, there isn't the same level of demand for the modern, modular designs in Northern Ireland.

McAvoy Group now employs around 155 staff, and has increased its headcount over the last year.

Speaking about expanding the business, Mr Lynch said: "The plans would be to develop our product beyond the education sector. Other areas would be health, accommodation, including student accommodation, and perhaps housing."

And it's a company which has fought its way back to growth, after a slump during the downturn.

"The backdrop is when we entered into the downturn, we were a 25m company, and we reduced significantly," Mr Lynch said.

And he's confident the company can increase its turnover to 55m, and hopes to boost the business by around 10% each year.

McAvoy Group is also one of the few construction-related companies in Northern Ireland with a woman at the helm. Orla Corr is the company's executive chairperson.

Mr Lynch said the business's success was "testament to the investment in people, and the work of the people in the organisation".

It's just handed over a new school project in Hounslow, called The Rise.

The Rise School educates and supports children and young people with autism, enabling them to access a challenging curriculum alongside pupils at mainstream school.

McAvoy has landed a number of big contracts over the last year.

And just last year it signed a deal worth 18m to work on a school in England.

It signed the contract to build Goresbrook School in London, in the borough of Barking and Dagenham.

In the latest set of accounts, the company spent 5.1m on staff costs. That was up from the year before.

In the 10 months to October 2014, the business posted turnover of 36m. But its pre-tax profits of 489,000 for that 10-month period were up on a loss of 1.8m a year earlier.
Finance Minister George Osborne poses for pictures with the Budget Box as he leaves 11 Downing Street

Around 32,000 jobs could be created and an additional 4bn thrust into the Northern Ireland economy over the next 15 years as a result of cutting corporation tax.

That's according to a major new report by the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, which was commissioned by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, into what impact cutting the business rate to 12.5% could have on the economy here.

But while it predicts a surge in job creation in the long-term, due to the cut in Stormont's block grant from Westminster, employment levels are predicted to fall, primarily in the public sector.

But while Chancellor George Osborne's announcement (right) that he would be cutting the levy across the UK from 20% to 17% by 2020 means it shrinks the gap and the shortfall Northern Ireland would have to pick up, some believe it also means the new low rate will be less attractive to foreign investors.

The report says the introduction of the UK-wide rate will "reduce slightly, the costs, benefits and net impact of implementing a reduced rate".

And it states that the 32,000 job prediction is based on the UK Government's previous tax rate.

It says the benefits of a reduced rate include attracting around 1,000 new jobs each year from fresh foreign direct investment, existing firms expanding along with indirect knock-on effects on other sectors, such as increased spending elsewhere in the economy.

In its conclusions, it says "implementing a reduced rate of corporation tax has the potential to make a substantial positive impact on the Northern Ireland economy by attracting new firms to the region...and allowing existing firms to retain additional profits to re-invest and create more economic activity.

"Local firms will benefit from the arrival of new FDI and expansion of existing companies, as supply chains expand and wages are spent.

"A reduction in the rate of corporation tax will help to move Northern Ireland towards a more sustainable economic future with a reduced dependency on the public sector, more people in work and many more global firms located within its shores."

Northern Ireland will be able to set its low 12.5% rate of corporation tax - in line with the Republic's - from April 2018. While the bulk of business groups have lobbied and called for a cut in corporation tax, some are more sceptical about the impact it could have on Northern Ireland's economy.

Nevin Economic Research Institute (Neri) economist Paul Mac Flynn said celebration over getting a lower rate in 2018 "doesn't pass" muster.

Meanwhile, the report also says a lower rate of corporation tax "will not, however, be the only policy initiative that is required in Northern Ireland".

"In fact, the potential benefits may be at risk if the policy environment is not conducive to delivering the required skills, infrastructure and marketing."
Calls have been made to tackle gender inequality at executive levels of the public sector, after a major report showed less than a third of top posts are held by women.

The report by the Ulster University Business School recommends that public sector organisations should aim to have 40% women on executive boards by 2023, and found that less than a third of public sector directors are women, despite many aspiring to take the top jobs.

The research, led by Professor Joan Ballantine, examined 143 Northern Ireland public sector organisations.

Its recommendations include appointing "gender champions" as well as establishing an academy for professional executives and managers.

The research examined local government, senior civil service, further and higher education, and non-departmental government bodies.

The findings were drawn from more than 100 in-depth executive interviews and over 3,180 survey responses.

Local government was found to have the lowest rate of female directors; out of 721 directors, just 180 were women.

High-profile female director Darina Armstrong, who is chief executive of Progressive Building Society, said: "The more diversity we have in our boardrooms, the more it enriches an organisation. In my view, diversity within senior management significantly strengthens organisations.

"Any leader of standing is only as good as the sum of his or her parts. This is true not only of the team he or she builds but also the experience, expertise and qualifications he or she has amassed. Gender should not be an issue."

Professor Ballantine said: "The overall gender composition at executive level in the Northern Ireland public sector is currently 71% male and 29% female, thus indicating a level of inequality.

"Despite this, males believe that gender composition within their organisation is less of an issue than females."

The study showed that organisations with larger management boards were more likely to have a higher proportion of women as directors. However, even in organisations with larger boards, men typically held most executive positions.

The most commonly reported barriers were limited acting-up opportunities and limited advancement opportunities. One woman who was aspiring to reach the executive level in the civil service said that there were issues in the practical application of flexible working hours, saying there was "no such thing" as reduced hours or part-time working once at senior level.

The gender inequality report was commissioned by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said he was proud of the deal

A New York pension fund is throwing $7m (5m) worth of investment into Northern Ireland's small and medium-sized business.

The New York State Comptroller has announced the New York State Common Retirement Fund is investing the cash through the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Growth Fund.

The fund, which is managed by Kernel Capital, was established in 2013 by Invest NI to help boost and grow Northern Ireland's businesses.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the investment, which is the first from the fund since 2009, would "provide a solid return" for the fund.

"Northern Ireland is on the move, as I saw first-hand during a recent visit," he added. "The peace process has opened doors and created economic opportunities for all communities. We're proud to be able to play a part in Northern Ireland's economic resurgence.

"This partnership will benefit our retirees, taxpayers and Northern Ireland for years to come."

The fund has previously invested in the region, including in 2005 and 2009.

First Minister Arlene Foster said: "This significant investment by the New York State Common Retirement Fund demonstrates a solid commitment to helping Northern Ireland's businesses grow, and it is a real endorsement of the strong entrepreneurial spirit which exists in Northern Ireland's business community.

"In the last couple of years, our economy has grown from strength to strength, and this added investment, combined with Kernel Capital's impressive track record of investing in high-growth companies, will continue to support Northern Ireland's thriving business community into the future."

Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness added: "This investment by a major international pension fund is a vote of confidence in the north of Ireland, in particular our economy, and demonstrates a strong commitment to help businesses here."

Niall Olden, managing partner of Kernel Capital, said the commitment demonstrated !an appreciation of the commercial opportunities created by innovative export focused Northern Ireland companies".

Also speaking about the latest US business investment, Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir said Thomas DiNapoli "has been a peerless ambassador for the work of building the hard-won peace" in Northern Ireland with "jobs and investment".

"His latest investment in the cream of our entrepreneurial talent will not only underpin the new Belfast we are creating but serve as a beacon to attract other investment funds," he added.

Enterprise Minister Jonathan Bell said the fund has "already made an impact through its equity investments in Northern Ireland companies, and this additional investment will give a boost to companies with high growth potential and will generate new opportunities for Northern Ireland's entrepreneurial and business community".
If you've ever thought the concept of playing dress-up and performing for a crowd as a grown adult seems a little ridiculous, you're not alone. Luke Evans acknowledges his chosen career path has its peculiar moments.

"You're forced to do the strangest of things, and it takes its toll," says the Welshman - not least when you're cast as a sexual predator, as he was for new movie High-Rise.

The film, which is set in 1975 and was shot in Bangor, is an interpretation of author JG Ballard's modern classic and directed by Ben Wheatley, the man behind Kill List, Sightseers and A Field In England.

"I was nervous. It scared me a little bit, but this is what being an actor is about, finding those roles that really push you a bit further than you've been before, and with this role, I was like, 'Well, I've done nothing like this'," explains the 36-year-old, whose previous credits include Tamara Drewe, Dracula Untold and Fast & Furious 6.

"It's the most fun I think I've ever had, portraying this character, because he was so far removed from who I am."

The character is Richard Wilder, a failing documentary-maker who lives with his put-upon pregnant wife Helen (Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss) and their children in the lower level of a high-rise block.

In the penthouse resides Jeremy Irons' architect Anthony Royal and his aristocratic wife Ann (Keeley Hawes), and in between live an array of inhabitants, including new resident Dr Laing (Tom Hiddleston) and Charlotte, his seductive neighbour upstairs (Sienna Miller).

As complex social dynamics breakdown, manners and sanity disintegrate, and the tower block residents are reduced to simply satisfying their basic desires, ever isolated from the rest of the world.

In one particularly powerful scene, a beaten-up Wilder ends up dragging Charlotte out of a room as if she's a piece of meat.

"It wasn't choreographed, it was clear in the script, but it was a very uneasy thing to do," admits Miller, (34), sitting next to her co-star. "I was quite scared of Luke that day."

"I was scared of myself, darling," Evans adds.

"It was horrible. You just have to take a moment to yourself I find, close your eyes and not talk to anybody.

"You have to work out how to process it yourself and to leave it there, which we did, but it's not easy, especially when you like that person very much," he says, putting his arm around Miller.

The film-maker hopes cinemagoers "find it boldly funny and invigoratingly shocking" - a statement both Evans and Miller agree with.

"You're not going to leave the cinema without something shocking you," says Evans.

"It's really thought-provoking and asking a lot of important questions," offers mother-of-one Miller. "I think people should sit with that feeling and have a look at themselves and the world that we're creating. It's very prophetic and feasible, almost."

On encountering Wheatley, the pair insist it's impossible to predict the dark material the director's drawn to.

"He's quite deceiving in a way, because when you meet him, you think he's such a sweet guy; you think family comedies, romcoms, and then you see his work and you're like, 'Where did that come from? Who is this man'?" says Evans, laughing.

"He knows everything about cinema, has seen every single film," adds Miller.

"I mean he's the genuine article. He'd go home and edit for six hours - there's no one that has that kind of commitment that I've ever worked with really, that's that focused and just breathes it. He is an artist."

Given the story's subject matter, it's perhaps only fitting that the ensemble cast enjoyed letting their hair down at the end of the day, minus the contentious hierarchy that exists between their characters.

"We were very close. It was a real troupe and that's a testament to Jeremy Thomas, our producer, who really makes films that no one else would make," says Miller, whose breakout role was opposite former fiance Jude Law in 2004's Alfie.

"Part of the experience of making films is to have a great time doing them, so we all lived in this beautiful hotel and we would all have dinner every night, and drink too much and hang out. It was mad and it felt very Seventies and a joyous experience. Completely chaotic, as we were shooting, but that's what Ben had wanted."

Since the film wrapped, both actors quickly moved on to other projects.

Evans makes no secret of the unsettling nature of moving straight onto the big-screen adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.

"Can you imagine? I needed therapy just to deal with the transition - and the hair," he jokes, grinning.

"It was a brilliant and bizarre and refreshing thing, to go from such a dark creature as Wilder to someone as self-absorbed and ridiculous as Gaston."

And he got to sing, something he's enjoyed doing all his life, and to great acclaim in musical theatre.

"I loved every minute of it, it was great," he says.

"I didn't want it to finish, it was really special, and nice to merge the two parts of my career together. I never have nerves singing. I have trouble stopping."

"He's Welsh," exclaims Miller, who recently finished filming Live By Night. "The part was just fantastic, an Irish immigrant, daughter of a pimp, it's Prohibition-era. It was everything that I love to play. The production design was exquisite, [there was] a huge budget, the antithesis of this [High-Rise] really," she adds of the film, which is due for release next year.

Live By Night is directed by Ben Affleck, who also stars in the movie.

"He's the loveliest man and incredibly talented. I was nervous about the idea of working with someone and acting opposite them at the same time, but it was seamless," Miller notes.

As is their High-Rise co-star Hiddleston's transition to action star in BBC One's Night Manager, a role that many are touting as his unofficial audition to play the next James Bond - something Miller and Evans could both see happening.

"Oh absolutely, look at him," remarks Evans, pointing to a suited and brooding Hiddleston on the poster next to him.

"Oh wow, Tom should be, he totally could do that," adds Miller. "He is Bond, isn't he."
Creatures great and small live in perfect harmony in Byron Howard and Rich Moore's anthropomorphic animated feature that continues Disney's winning streak under the creative leadership of John Lasseter.

Zootropolis is a beautifully crafted parable that elegantly combines a noir detective thriller, buddy cop comedy and coming-of-age story with the studio's trademark visual splendour.

It's a tour de force of uproarious laughter and tears, accompanied by a gorgeous genre-melding orchestral score from Michael Giacchino that tugs the heartstrings.

Screenwriters Jared Bush and Phil Johnston engineer plentiful hairpin twists and turns, mining comedy from mammalian traits, while underscoring each bravura set piece with valuable life lessons.

Bunnyburrow carrot farmer Stu Hopps (voiced by Don Lake) and wife Bonnie (Bonnie Hunt) try to dissuade their daughter Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) from pursuing her dream of becoming the first serving rabbit police officer in Zootropolis. Undeterred, Judy is initially assigned to traffic duty by Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), who doubts her abilities.

In order to prove her worth, the new cop on the block vows to solve the case of a missing resident.

With the clock ticking, Judy gathers evidence from concerned wife Mrs Otterton (Octavia Spencer) and implores a con artist fox called Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to help her break the case.

Zootropolis is 108 minutes of unadulterated joy, rendered in exquisitely detailed animation.

Hop to it - Zootropolis is the bunny's whiskers.

Four stars
Police officers and fans remain, on March 24, 2016, near the stage where UK rock band Rolling Stones will perform at "Ciudad Deportiva" in Havana. When the Rolling Stones rock Havana this Friday in their first ever Cuban concert, the sound system will blast to as many as a million fans. AFP PHOTO/ Rodrigo ARANGUA / AFP PHOTO / RODRIGO ARANGUARODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP/Getty Images

Technicians prepare, on March 24, 2016, the stage where UK rock band Rolling Stones will perform at "Ciudad Deportiva" in Havana. When the Rolling Stones rock Havana this Friday in their first ever Cuban concert, the sound system will blast to as many as a million fans. AFP PHOTO/ Rodrigo ARANGUA / AFP PHOTO / RODRIGO ARANGUARODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP/Getty Images

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, bottom, Keith Richards and Ron Wood, descend the plane upon arrival at Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ron Wood pose for photos from the plane that brought them to Cuba at Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood talk to journalists upon arrival to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Mick Jagger, right, and Ron Wood, from The Rolling Stones, walk on the tarmac as they arrive to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from right, Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger deplane at Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ron Wood pose for photos from their plane as they arrive to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ron Wood arrive to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after their plane landed at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood (L-R) of the Rolling Stones stand together as they talk to media after their plane landed at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: The stage is prepared for the free concert by the Rolling Stones on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play the concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones wave as they exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: The stage is prepared for the free concert by the Rolling Stones on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play the concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after their plane landed at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones wave as they exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after their plane landed at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones walk off their plane at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones talks to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones talks to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rollling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rollling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones rock and roll band exits his plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones talks to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones wave as they exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rollling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones wave as they exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rollling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones talk to media after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rolling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

HAVANA, CUBA - MARCH 24: (L-R) Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The Rollling Stones are in Havana to play a free concert for the first time, after the music was once banned by the Cuban government. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A fan lies on the floor as she waits outside the venue where the Rolling Stones will play their concert in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 25, 2016. The Stones are performing in a free concert in Havana Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Fans wait outside the venue where the Rolling Stones will play their concert in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 25, 2016. The Stones are performing in a free concert in Havana Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution.(AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)

The iconic tongue symbol of the Rolling Stones is placed on top of the also iconic image of Cuba's revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara on a sign placed by fans outside the venue where the Rolling Stones will play their concert in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 25, 2016. The Stones are performing in a free concert in Havana Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution.(AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)

(L-R) Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones wave as they exit their plane after landing at the Jose Marti International Airport on March 24, 2016 in Havana, Cuba. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The Rolling Stones have arrived in Cuba for their historic free concert in Havana.

Sir Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood flew into Jose Marti international airport with family members and crew aboard their private plane.

Their concert is the second landmark event in the country this week, after the visit by American president Barack Obama - the first US president to visit the country since the 1959 revolution.

Sir Mick greeted fans in Spanish on their arrival, saying he was happy to be there.

Prior to their landing, the band released a video in Spanish, with English subtitles, saying: "We have performed in many special places during our long career but this concert in Havana is going to be an historic event for us. We hope it will be for you too."

The band, who are due to play at Havana's Ciudad Deportiva stadium, invited fans to vote for a song to be played on stage on their official website.

The Rolling Stones have been touring Latin America, performing concerts in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Brazil.
They may be a growing force within our local communities, but female clergy often have to work that little bit harder than men to be accepted in their roles.

Even though the four main Protestant denominations relaxed their constraints on women taking up leadership roles in the Church many years ago, women today can still face resistance.

As the Church prepares for the most significant celebration in the Christian calendar at Easter, we talk to three local female ministers about why they choose to enter the Church and what the reality is for women clergy today.

Rev Anne Tolland made headlines when she became the first female to be installed as minister of St John's Newtownbreda in 2013.

Her appointment was regarded as significant because Newtownbreda is one of the largest congregations in Ireland to call a woman as minister.

Anne's late father, Rev James Tolland, was a former minister of First Donegore Presbyterian Church and so she grew up with a real insight into the running of a church.

She was just 14 when she first felt a calling to be a minister. As a woman, though, she was very aware of the challenges her gender would present, and she resisted for many years.

She recalls: "The Church was always a big part of my life growing up. Being in the manse, I got to see the Church from every side, and was under no illusions about what it would entail and for me. It was a vocation or a calling, rather than a job.

"I did feel called when I was about 14, but to be honest, I didn't want to go into the Church as there was so much opposition to women. I felt as if I would be set apart.

"I also knew that it can be a difficult job, as it becomes your life. There were so few women ministers and they were being treated in a different way. Women faced a lot of barriers and I wasn't sure I was ready for that."

Anne continued to resist the call to ministry as she grew up and planned for a different career. She studied microbiology and genetics at Queen's University, going on to train as a science teacher.

As much as she studied for an alternative career, though, she says that God had other plans for her. Despite this, it wasn't until her late 20s that she felt she could no longer resist her calling.

Anne says: "I was still involved in the Church and it was very much a big part of my life, and I felt I had to be sure of my calling. I applied to study theology and for the ministry - and decided if I was refused then it would be okay. When I was accepted, I knew then that this is what I was supposed to do."

Anne was ordained in 2000 and waited just one year until she was given her first church, which was Cairncastle, near Larne.

She spent 12 happy years there before making the leap from a small rural, mainly farming congregation to the large city congregation in Newtownbreda.

During her time in Ballygally, she became a leader of a cross-community Coastal Clergy Group in the Cairncastle, Glenarm and Carnlough areas.

It is an area that she is passionate about - and which she had continued in her new church as a member of the Ballynafeigh Clergy Fellowship in Belfast.

She says: "I loved Cairncastle and was very, very happy there. It was quite a change going from a rural church to the city. But it never occurred to me that it was anything unusual, it just felt right."

As a minister, most of her work is taken up with pastoral duties and she is actively involved in many of the groups within her own church.

Anne explains: "For me, the pastoral work is the most rewarding and important part of the job. You get to know people and be part of their lives. You are there for them at the most wonderful of times and the saddest times.

"You get to journey with them and that is a real honour and privilege. No two weeks are the same, which is one of the joys of the job, as you never get bored.

"I have a wonderful congregation who are very supportive."

The resistance she feared because of her gender is something she now accepts as part and parcel of her role.

"You do have to develop a thick skin. It isn't just women, but a lot of men find resistance as well because they are supportive of women ministers," she says. "It is a theological thing and, at the start, it was pretty constant. There are three or four verses in the Bible which people like to quote to you about women. But for every verse they show me, I can show them four more which upholds the leadership of women in the Church."

Easter will be a special time for Anne's congregation, who will take part in an annual Easter Good Friday celebration with six other local churches. The faithful will join together to walk down the Ormeau Road carrying a cross in an annual ceremony organised by the Ballynafeigh Clergy Fellowship.

Non-church goers traditionally join the short open air service in Ormeau Park, too, and then walk the short distance to Cooke Centenary Church for a special service.

Anne says: "We then have an evening Good Friday service in our church which is very traditional and poignant with low lighting and it goes dark at the end - which is symbolic of the tomb being closed.

"On Easter Sunday morning, we have a more joyous and uplifting service which is about rejoicing in the new life and fresh hope."

Rev Maureen Hassard also made history when she became the first woman to occupy the pulpit at Ballymena Methodist Church.

Originally from north Belfast, she spent most of her life working in the health service while all the time feeling a calling to the Church.

As a young girl growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, she got involved in cross-community work through her church. And this is something which she has continued throughout her life, especially since becoming a minister. Maureen (61) is married to David (64), a steel manager, and they have one son Graeme, who is 30.

She says: "I spent 28 years in the health service as a manager and about 14 years ago, when it became possible to train part-time as a minister, I studied through Edgehill Theological College at nights and weekends while still working.

"I felt a calling in the Church when I was about 20, but I got married and life took off in other directions and gave me different opportunities for leadership.

"I was an only child and spent most of my time looking after my mother, who didn't cope very well with the death of my father. The Church was always there for me and I saw it at its best. It was the one thing that never changed. When I went into the ministry I saw it as payback for what it had done for me as a child.

"Also I was lucky that our church in north Belfast was ahead of its time. I grew up at the height of the Troubles and our church was near the Ardoyne area and got involved in a lot of cross-community work. That has stayed with me all my life."

When she was ordained, Maureen took up an appointment as a non-stipendiary minister at Greenisland Methodist Church.

And since taking up her post at Ballymena Methodist, she has continued to be heavily involved in community work within the town.

She sits on the boards or is a member of many local groups including the Flourish Suicide Group, Woman's Aid and Habitat for Humanity. She is also on the Board of Governors for local primary schools and involved in the local Ethnic Forum.

It makes for a busy life on top of her pastoral and church duties, but she thrives on the opportunity and the challenge.

"It is about finding a voice on these issues and helping people who are hurting or whose lives are broken," she says.

"Starting as a minister after so many years working in the health service felt like coming home.

"There is a great sense of fulfilment.

"The pastoral side of the job is a real privilege and being allowed to draw alongside people in the best of time and the worst of times. It is very humbling to be able to do that."

As a woman, she feels blessed that the Methodist church is more open to female ministers, adding that he has never found her gender an issue.

Maureen says: "I think I am very fortunate that the Methodist Church has had women ministers for quite a long time. To me it seems to be more open to women than some other Churches.

"Being the first woman minister in the pulpit in this church was a challenge.

"Some people are wary of it but my church embraces it, and I have not been conscious of it with my congregation. I respect peoples' opinions and rights to hold their views. I know there is are still some who struggle with women in ministry."

Easter will be celebrated with a special three nights of storytelling and there will be four services throughout the week culminating in a special family service on Easter Sunday.

And Maureen adds: "Easter is my favourite time of the year because it is really what it is all about - and a real cause for celebration."

Maura Garrihy (26) is a youth ministry coordinator with Catholic Church in the Diocese of Derry.

She says: "I was brought up in the Church but it wasn't until I went on a retreat at the age of 16 and saw other young people and their friendship with Jesus that I was really drawn to the Church and that was a turning point for me.

"I then studied theology and have been involved in youth ministry for the last 10 years. My job is to help young people make the connection between their lives and faith and I work in local schools and parishes in the diocese.

"As a young female I can honestly say that I have only ever felt 100% valued and respected in the Church.

"Women are at the heart of the Church in the parishes, doing what we do naturally and while I cannot be ordained as a priest I see it that they have their specific parts to play and so do I and I don't see one as being better than the other.

"For me personally, Easter is always a beautiful time and I always like to use it as a time to challenge myself and reflect.

"It is a beautiful time in the Church as well and the extra masses we have from Thursday night through until Easter Sunday are a chance to stop and reflect and relive the great gift of our faith.

"We have a live stations of the cross service in Derry Cathedral on Saturday night which young people will be involved in and it is an opportunity for them to put themselves in the faith story.

"In parishes in the Catholic Church throughout Ireland there will be groups of people working to organise the Easter celebrations for weeks in advance and there will be many reflective times of prayer when people can reconnect with Jesus and the great gift he gave us."

Rev Fiona Forbes first felt called to a life in the Church when she was 13, but it was only a few years ago that she felt God had finally prepared her for becoming a minister.

Fiona (45) is married to Glyn (42), an IT consultant, and they have two children, Imogen (16) and Ruairidh (12).

She was an assistant at McCracken Memorial Church in south Belfast for two years, before taking up the role of minister at Cairncastle Presbyterian Church, Ballygally in 2014.

Previously, she had worked in food retail as an area manager before becoming a full-time mum.

She recalls: "I had a sense of calling as a very young teenager and felt very strongly that God had a plan for me to be a minister.

"It took the next 25 years for God to teach me the things about myself and characteristics I would need to do the job. I think being out in the world of work and being a parent taught me things.

"Those experiences changed me in a way that has prepared me for the role of minister. I think it was a case of whom God calls, he equips.

"I got a sense that the call was getting stronger and stronger, and finally felt it was time to push the door and see if it definitely was God's will for my life. Much to my surprise, it was."

When she did finally fulfil her calling, Fiona says she never considered that her gender could be an issue and has never encountered any issues because she is a woman. She says: "I've always tried not to focus on the gender issue. I had a sense of calling and wanted to ensure that it was a valid one.

"And in my eyes I am privileged enough to be ordained as a minister.

"My view has always been to simply be me and take confidence in Christ and the calling he has placed on my life - and to try not to look backwards. "

She loves the job which she describes as busy and diverse and "a wonderful, incredible privilege".

The cleric adds: "It is amazing how people will let you into their lives and homes - I never cease to be amazed by it. It is incredibly rewarding to have a sense of being where God wants you to be."

Easter will be celebrated in Ballygally with a series of special services and events.

An intimate communion service held last night attempted to recreate the feeling of Jesus taking part in the last supper.

Today, on Good Friday, the church will host a service of nails when every member of the congregation will be given a large nail to hold to encourage reflection of the crucifixion.

On Easter Sunday the local churches will come together for a service on the sea front, followed by breakfast together and then the annual church service.
Tony Blair has called for more effort to break down segregation in Northern Ireland and stressed the continued need to be "vigilant" about the threat from terrorism.

The former Prime Minister, who brokered the Good Friday agreement in 1998, said there was no longer community support for terrorists in Northern Ireland but "you can't drop your guard at all".

Mr Blair said the breakthrough deal 18 years ago was "only a beginning" and there were still major barriers of segregation to break down in Northern Ireland.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Some of the deep social problems and their political consequences still remain and what is true also is that it is still very easy for politics to break back into sectarianism.

"The answer to this is that it takes a long period of time. I think in Northern Ireland we have got to be realistic, we have also got to keep working at it, because we didn't stop working at it and I think you have got to do that if you really want the reconciliation to take hold."

The attack on prison officer A drian Ismay, who died after being injured in a dissident republican bomb attack, and the threat of violence marking the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising showed the continued danger posed by terrorism, Mr Blair acknowledged.

But he said there had been a change in the attitudes of communities in Northern Ireland.

"You have got to be apprehensive and you have got to be vigilant for sure. But the big difference is that when the IRA were operating and some of the loyalist groups were operating when we came into office in 1997 and for the decades before that, they were operating often with significant support within local communities.

"I don't think that support for this terrorism is there in the local communities today. But there will be some on the fringes that want to engage in violence and therefore you can't drop your guard at all."

Mr Blair said there was still progress to make on tackling segregation in Northern Ireland's politics.

"You have got to break down segregation. It's not done always by laws or political agreements, it is also done at a grassroots level, it is done by changes of attitude in the mindset over time and it's also by achieving a sense in the politics that people want to move on.

"You have still got a situation where the parties in Northern Ireland, they have a power-sharing agreement but they are still very much defined by their position from traditional communities. In time you have got to think about how you break those barriers down as well, for sure, but this takes a long time. It's not going to be easy."

He added: "You know when a democracy has taken root and that is when you elect the best person in your judgment to lead the country. It's not where the person came from or what background, it's what they stand for and what they can do for the people as a whole. It is not surprising we are not at that point yet in Northern Ireland but we can get there."

Asked about the possibility of Sinn Fein taking power both north and south of the border, Mr Blair refused to be drawn: "The one thing I do remember from my time in Northern Ireland is there are certain questions you answer and certain questions you don't. That's definitely in the category of one you don't."
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

Picture - Kevin Scott / Presseye Belfast , UK - March 25, Pictured is the 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement protest against the new Carson Mural on March 25, 2016 Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye )

A protest has been held at a mural of unionist leader Edward Carson which partly replaced the image of the IRA man who started the blanket protest in the Maze.

The partly-completed mural near Divis was paint bombed within hours of appearing.

The artwork on the 'International Wall' relating to the Home Rule crisis in 1912 was defaced with white paint.

The mural, partly, replaced an image of Kieran Nugent who started the IRA blanket protest in the Maze H Blocks.

The work was painted as part of a display to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising and the events running up to it.

Carson led the resistance to home rule and was the first to sign the Ulster Covenant in 1912.

He also helped establish the UVF.

The protest was held at midday Friday at the mural by the Belfast 32 County Sovereignty Movement which said it was an "insult to the people of the Falls Road".

In a statement it said: "The Belfast 32 County Sovereignty Movement would like to make clear that we encourage and support all genuine Republicans in the upcoming Easter events that will be remember and celebrating the Centenary of the Rising, may it be flags, marches, talks, murals etc.

"We do not support the revisionist agenda by some in our community, our mural was paid for by our members and we were never consulted on the removal of our mural, and to replace the mural of Kieran Nugent with Carson was an insult to the people of the Falls Road."

Nugent, the first IRA man on the blanket protest in the H-Blocks, died in 2000. When warders asked him to wear prison uniform, he replied: "You'll have to nail it to my back."

The Carson mural depicts the unionist leader with an outstretched arm.

It also shows armed members of the original UVF militia, as well as a convoy of cars travelling along a dark road depicting the Larne gunrunning operation.
James Connolly Herron (right) unveils a new statue with Northern Ireland Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin, for his great grandfather James Connolly, one of the 1916 Easter Rising leaders on Falls Road, Belfast. PA

A great grandson of 1916 leader James Connolly has unveiled a statue in the republican icon's "spiritual home" of Belfast.

James Connolly Heron said it was an honour and a privilege to attend the event on the Falls Road in the west of the city.

Addressing a crowd of hundreds, he said: "I feel in some ways that I have come home.

"This is west Belfast and the Falls Road is very much the spiritual home of James Connolly.

"He had many homes. He was a son of Edinburgh; he was a son of New York; he was a son of Dublin and a very proud son of Belfast.

"His family forged their politics in and around this area."

The life-size bronze sculpture, which weighs 200 kilograms, was designed by artist Steve Feeny and is located on the Falls in the west of the city.

It was funded by Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

Sinn Fein councillor Jim McVeigh, a member of the James Connolly Society, said it was an "exciting day".

He said: "This is the best place for James Connolly, in the place where he lived and among the people whom he fought for."

Culture Minister Caral ni Chuilin was also at the unveiling.

She described Connolly as one of the greatest ever leaders and revealed that his photograph had taken pride of place in the home where she grew up alongside a picture of the Sacred Heart and US President John F Kennedy.

Connolly was born in Edinburgh to Irish parents, rose to prominence during the Dublin lockout of 1913 as general secretary of Irish Transport and General Workers Union and commander of Irish Citizen Army (ICA), which was set up to defend workers from police brutality.

He had close ties with Belfast and lived at Glenalina Terrace close to the Falls Road for a number of years from 1911.

He has been hailed as one of the most influential and effective leaders of the rebellion and on Easter Monday, April 24 1916 led more than 220 ICA members to the General Post Office from where he commanded military operations.

He was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in May 1916.

It is hoped the new artwork will attract more tourists into west Belfast.
It is hoped the abortion guidelines will provide clarity for healthcare workers

Northern Ireland's health minister has said new abortion guidelines should provide clarity for healthcare workers.

Simon Hamilton said he hoped the long-awaited guidance, which will be circulated among doctors, nurses and midwives, will help when dealing with difficult cases.

The DUP MLA said: "I know that this is an area of public policy where people hold differing views.

"My focus is on ensuring that health professionals who have to deal with extremely difficult cases have the clarity around the law that they have been asking me for."

Unlike other parts of the UK, the 1967 Abortion Act does not extend to Northern Ireland, where abortions are banned except where the life or mental health of the mother is in danger.

Anyone who performs an illegal termination could be jailed for life.

Hundreds of women travel to other parts of the UK to access abortion services every year.

Clinicians have, for years, been requesting guidance.

The issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2013 when young mother Sarah Ewart went public about having to travel to England to access a termination after being told her foetus had no chance of survival outside the womb.

Reacting to the announcement, Ms Ewart said: "New guidance may help some women, but it won't help me and other women with fatal foetal diagnoses.

"All the guidance in the world cannot change Northern Ireland's 19th century law and that is what is needed."

Last year, the High Court ruled that the region's abortion law was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

But a proposal to relax the law and legalise the termination of pregnancies where there is a fatal foetal abnormality was rejected by the Stormont Assembly in February.

Mr Hamilton said producing the guidance in consultation with the Department of Justice, had been difficult.

He added: "My responsibility in this area relates to ensuring that women receive the health and social care services to which they are legally entitled and that those who provide them do so in accordance with the law.

"Guidance from my department must reflect the current law in Northern Ireland. It cannot change the law.

"Producing robust guidance has proved to be a complex and time-consuming process.

"This guidance takes account of the issues raised in my department's public consultation in 2013 on this subject and also reflects the considered opinions of health professionals working in this area. The new guidance is very much the product of the views of those working in this difficult area."

The minister has also indicated progress on the creation of a working group set up to examine the contentious issue of fatal foetal abnormality.

He said: " The Executive has discussed this in recent weeks and I have also met with the justice minister about it. I am pleased that he and I have agreed to proceed with creating an inter-departmental working group composed of officials from both of our departments.

"Whilst work is ongoing to finalise terms of reference for the working group, we both agree that it should engage with healthcare professionals and those people directly affected by fatal foetal abnormality, and take account of recent consultation on the question of legislative change, as it goes about its important work."
The driver had travelled from Dungannon to Belfast in this condition. PSNI.

Police have released an image of a van stopped by officers with had half its roof torn off.

The PSNI said the vehicle was stopped by motorway patrol officers as it was travelling from Belfast towards Lisburn on the M1.

The driver had driven it from Dungannon to Belfast in this condition and police said they thought it was more important to deliver the contents rather than report that they had hit an object.

Posting on the PSNI Road Policing Facebook page it said: "The driver didn't think it was dangerous to other road users, we think differently!!!"

The PSNI added: "Using and keeping your vehicle in a roadworthy condition is a vital and legal road safety responsibility."
Stephen Nolan has hinted that he is considering retiring from broadcasting at the age of 50.

The broadcaster is a household name in Northern Ireland with his 'biggest show in the country' morning radio show and his Nolan Live television show.

He also hosts shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights on BBC Radio 5 live.

The presenter who turns 43 this year put the idea out on Twitter earlier this week.

I've been giving serious thought to retiring from everything at 50.That means 7 more years-if I live that long -& u r all rid of me forever!  Stephen Nolan (@StephenNolan) March 23, 2016

Naturally he got quite a lot of reaction.

Speaking on his morning show Nolan said he was thinking about a change of career and was considering going into teaching.

He said: "I've had this wee thing on my mind over the past couple of days that I might try and get out at 50 and retire. I'm 43 this year and I've had the usual reaction on twitter with some of you saying 'could I not bring it forward to this year'.

"Others are kind and say 'we'd miss you', others saying 'I'd get bored'."

He then called for anyone who had retired early, for whatever reason, to let him know what they did.

He said: "I'm just suddenly aware of my age and from nowhere I'm thinking to myself, my goodness, if you get one chance at this life, should I do something completely different at 50?

"I don't know, maybe go into something else, maybe go teach. I don't know, just something completely different."
Britain is set to be battered by a storm bringing strong winds and the threat of disruption to the end of the Easter weekend.

Storm Katie is set to hit on Easter Monday with gales of up to 70mph, the Met Office said, bringing a risk of "fallen trees and disruption to power supplies" leading to travel disruption.

A national severe weather warning for strong winds has been issued for Monday, with southern England and South Wales likely to bear the brunt.

Frank Saunders, the Met Office chief operational meteorologist, said there was "currently some uncertainty about the track that Storm Katie will take".

He said: "Southern England and south Wales will see very strong winds from the early hours of Monday morning.

"There is the potential for gusts of 50-60mph in inland areas. Exposed south and west-facing coasts could even see gusts of around 70mph, with the possibility of large waves.

"We expect the winds will start to ease in south-western Britain from mid morning, this improvement reaching other areas by late afternoon or early evening."

Hopes of spring weather over the Easter break have been washed away as Britain braces itself for a weekend of wind and rain.

People woke up to a fine and dry day on Good Friday, with London enjoying blue skies and bright sunshine - but that pleasant spell is set to change across the UK.

Bookmaker Coral has seen a flurry of bets for this Easter being the wettest since records began over the last 48 hours in which the firm has slashed the odds into 2-1 from 4-1.

A Coral spokesman said: "If the betting is anything to go by, it looks like it is going to be another damp bank holiday weekend. Punters have been knocking us over to back this Easter being the wettest on record and that gamble is showing no signs of stopping."

Egg hunts on Easter Sunday are set to be interrupted with heavy showers, strong winds, and maybe even thunder.

The rain will start in parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland overnight before becoming more widespread on Saturday with "heavy bursts" expected and most of the country likely to see rain, according to the Met Office..

Strong winds are set to make Saturday a blustery day, with gusts of 55mph expected in some areas, rising to 65mph in coastal areas.

The Met Office's yellow be aware warning of wind, which covers most of England and Wales but not Scotland and Northern Ireland, also advises the estimated six million people expected to travel over the weekend to be aware of possible disruption to their journeys.

Easter Sunday is forecast to be brighter, with some sunny spells, but the showers are set to continue, with potentially hail and thunder in some parts, the Met Office said.

Patricia Yates, VisitEngland's director of strategy and communications, said as many as six million people plan to take an overnight trip in the UK over the Easter weekend.
The words "All Muslims are scum" were daubed on a wall close to Croke Park

People in Dublin have shown their support for the Muslim community by altering offensive graffiti.

The words "All Muslims are scum" were daubed on a wall close to Croke Park in the wake of the Brussels attacks which left more than 30 people dead and hundreds more injured.

But it has been c hanged to a more inclusive message which now reads "All Muslims are sound".

Pictures of the amended graffiti have been distributed widely on social media.

Fazel Ryklief, from the Islamic Foundation of Ireland, welcomed the move.

He said: "Maybe that is the way to treat things. Instead of getting angry and annoyed, just change it.

"Putting it aside is perhaps better than making a big deal of these things.

"It brings a little smile to know that someone has a sense of humour."
CCTV image issued by Belgian police of the man being hunted in connection with the explosions at Brussels airport (Belgium Federal Police/PA Wire)

A British man has been confirmed dead following the terror attacks in Brussels.

The family of David Dixon, 50, who was originally from Hartlepool but was living in the Belgian capital, said they had received "the most terrible and devastating news".

At least 32 people were killed and 270 injured when suicide bombs ripped through the airport and a Metro station on Tuesday morning.

A statement issued by the Foreign Office on behalf of Mr Dixon's family said: "This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David. At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private. Please respect our wishes."

The Foreign Office said officials know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks, with three still being treated in hospital.

Mr Dixon, an IT programmer, had been missing since the Metro blast, and his family previously said they were "anxiously waiting" and hoping for "good news" about him.

It was reported that Mr Dixon's aunt had texted him following the airport explosions and had received a message back from him saying he was safe.

But it is thought he then got on the Metro to go to work and got caught up in the attack.

Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "I am deeply saddened to hear David Dixon was killed in the Brussels attacks. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family."

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was saddened by the "dreadful news".

Police have raided Brussels neighbourhoods in an operation the mayor said was linked to Tuesday's attacks and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.

Three people were detained, with two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutor's office said.

The operation was conducted in the Schaerbeek district, which was raided on Thursday night, as well as the neighbourhoods of Forest and Saint-Gilles.

Belgium's state broadcaster said one person was carrying a bag of explosive material.

Prime Minister Charles Michel skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at the Brussels airport with US secretary of state John Kerry because of the police operation.

Prosecutors said three of six people detained on Thursday in the investigation have been released.

Three terrorists died in Tuesday's explosions and a massive manhunt was launched to track down other suspects believed to be behind the blasts.

Belgian security services were hunting two men pictured with the suicide bombers shortly before the attacks and believed to be on the run.

One of the men was caught on CCTV carrying a large bag and walking with jihadist Khalid El Bakraoui moments before the bomb detonated, according to state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde newspaper.

Another of the suspected killers, dubbed "the man in white", was pictured pushing a trolley through Zaventem Airport with Najim Laachraoui and Khalid's brother Ibrahim before they blew themselves up.

Meanwhile, a US official said at least two American citizens were killed in the attacks.

The news came as Mr Kerry was visiting Brussels to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Authorities announced that Chinese, French, and Dutch citizens were also among the dead.

German prosecutors said they are investigating whether a Moroccan man detained in central Germany has any connection to the Brussels attacks.

Prosecutors in Giessen said the 28-year-old was picked up early on Thursday because he did not have valid ID. They said they found documents indicating that he had been in the Brussels area recently and seized a mobile phone that they are now evaluating.

They said officials established that he had previously entered Germany under various aliases and sought asylum, and that he is known to police in Italy.

Der Spiegel magazine and two public broadcasters are saying the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the Brussels attacks.

Meanwhile, US defence secretary Ash Carter said US forces have killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week.

He identified the senior IS leader as Haji Imam and described him as the group's finance minister. He said he was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terror plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

He did not say whether the IS finance leader was killed in Syria or Iraq.

Mr Hammond tweeted: "Another step closer to defeating #Daesh with the death of Haji Imam. #CoalitionProgress continues."

A Belgian official has said the top suspect in the November attacks in Paris, Salah Abdeslam, has stopped cooperating with police since Tuesday's Brussels bombings.

Justice Minister Koen Geens said Abdeslam "no longer wants to talk".

Federal prosecutors also said the suspect "refused to make the slightest comment" when questioned just after the Brussels attacks.

Abdeslam was arrested in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek on March 18, just four days before the bombings at the airport and subway.

France is seeking his extradition, which his lawyer initially challenged, saying his client could have valuable information for investigators, but Abdeslam has changed his mind since the Brussels attacks and is prepared to go.

Meanwhile, Belgian federal prosecutors have said DNA analysis and an official investigation have confirmed that one of the suicide bombers at the airport was Najim Laachraoui.

They said the 24-year-old is also the suspected bombmaker whose DNA was found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Paris attacks.

A German official has said there is no concrete evidence that a man arrested in Duesseldorf following the Brussels attacks has current links to Islamic extremists in Brussels or Paris.
Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

A picture taken late on March 24, 2016 shows a police operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

A man uses a mobile phone as a police officer stand guards in the security perimeter during a police operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers take part in an operation in Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek, Brussels, late on March 24, 2016. Six people were arrested on March 24, 2016 in a series of police operations in the Belgian capital, the federal prosecutor's office said, two days after jihadist attacks in Brussels left 31 dead. Raids have also taken place in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek where the three airport attackers left from on March 22 morning carrying three explosive-packed suitcases. There have been no arrests in the neighbourhood. / AFP PHOTO / Belga / NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / Belgium OUTNICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Police guard a check point during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A policeman in white overalls leaves a house that has been the subject of a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Police man a check point during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Police take up positions on a road as they guard check points during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Police guard a check point and man positions during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, early Friday, March, 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Belgian state media reported that two explosions have been heard and one person has been detained in police raids in the Brussels neighbourhood of Schaerbeek.

It is not clear whether the raids are linked to the investigation into the Brussels attacks.

State broadcaster RTBF said multiple police operations are under way in Schaerbeek, and one person has been detained. It says one explosion was heard at the start of the operation and cited witnesses describing gunfire.

Two explosions were heard as police carried out more raids in a Brussels neighbourhood on Friday, Belgian state media reported.

One man was reported to have been detained as Belgian authorities carried out multiple operations following the terror attacks on Tuesday at Brussels airport and the Metro in which 31 people died and 270 were injured

At least one suspect in the city attacks is at large, and it is unclear whether there were other accomplices.

Six people were detained on Thursday after raids targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhoods, where police earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the attackers.

Prosecutors are expected to decide later on Friday whether to charge or release those detained

State broadcaster RTBF said several police operations were under way in Schaerbeek on Friday, and one person has been detained.

It said one explosion was heard at the start of the operation and cited witnesses describing gunfire.

A witness told RTBF they heard two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid.

A third blast was later reported from the neighbourhood.

AP reporters at the scene described hearing a new blast, though it was unclear whether it was a controlled police detonation.

About 50 officers appear to be involved in the operation.

Schaerbeek mayor Bernard Clerfayt told RTBF that one person was "neutralised" in the ongoing police operation in his district.

He did not say whether that meant the person was arrested or wounded.

He confirmed the raid is linked to the investigation into this week's suicide bombings.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel dropped out of a wreath-laying ceremony at Brussels airport with US Secretary of State John Kerry because of the ongoing police operation.
Graphic video footage has emerged that shows an Israeli soldier shooting dead a wounded, immobilised Palestinian man as he lay injured on the ground after an alleged knife attack in the West Bank city of Hebron earlier in the day.

Amateur footage shows the man, named as Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif, lying in the street as medical workers treat an Israeli soldier who had reportedly suffered minor injuries after being stabbed.

Other Israeli soldiers can be seen surrounding Mr al-Sharif, who can be seen moving his head as he lies sprawled on his back. One of the soldiers is then seen raising his gun and shooting Mr al-Sharif in the head, before blood is seen pouring from his wound.

Mr al-Sharif and another Palestinian man, Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, had already reportedly been shot after allegedly stabbing a solider in Tel Rumeida, in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli human rights group BTselem.

According to reports, both men died. A second video posted online suggests that the other suspect, al-Qasrawi, was also shot in the head.

According to Maan news agency, the soldier was removed from the scene to receive treatment for moderate injuries.

Hebron, divided into Israeli-controlled and Palestinian-controlled areas, regularly sees clashes between residents, police and the security forces.

The incident on Thursday morning is the latest example Israeli-Palestinian violence which has been escalating since October.

A spokesperson from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told The Independent: The IDF views this incident as a grave breach of IDF values, conduct and standards of military operations.

A Military Police investigation has commenced and the soldier involved has been detained.

According to Maan, a witness said: I heard gunshots, went outside my house to check what it was, and saw several Israeli soldiers yelling and two youths on the ground. A soldier approached one of the youths that was moving while yelling and opened fire at him from zero range.

Responding to the video, Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, said the shooting could amount to a war crime.

"The shooting of a wounded and incapacitated person, even if they have been involved in an attack, has absolutely no justification and must be prosecuted as a potential war crime."

Israeli forces have a long history of carrying out unlawful killings  including extrajudicial executions  in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with impunity. Amnesty International has documented a number of similar cases during the upsurge in violence that began in October," said Mr Luther.

While it is encouraging that the soldier in the video has reportedly been suspended and placed under investigation, previous Israeli investigations have failed to hold members of the Israeli forces accountable even when there has been clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing."

Mr Luther added: "The Israeli authorities must use this opportunity to end the culture of impunity that has made such killings increasingly commonplace.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has previously voiced deep concern over reports of excessive use of force by Israeli forces.

In December 2015, Cecile Pouilly said: All instances of the use of force resulting in death or injury by law enforcement officers should be the subject of prompt, independent and impartial investigations.

She called on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to act decisively to de-escalate the situation.

Independent and agencies
This Easter Sunday the Irish State, as it does every year, will mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in recognition of a seminal moment on Ireland's journey to independence.

This year's commemorations are particularly significant as they mark the centenary of the events which had such a profound impact, in many different ways, on the subsequent history of this island.

The interpretation and legacy of the Rising remains a contested issue, north and south. It is, therefore, all the more important that we seize the opportunity of a century's distance to respectfully remember the events of 1916, to reflect on what has been achieved in the succeeding century and to re-imagine the future for the generations to come.

I know that for some in Ireland, north and south, the unjustifiable association of the Rising with later violent events has created an understandable reticence about such commemorations.

The Irish Government utterly rejects the spurious claim of the tiny minority who would seek to use the memory of this historic event to justify violence on this island.

The Easter Rising happened in a very particular historical context during a violent and tumultuous decade of events, from the trenchant opposition to Home Rule - as set out in the Ulster Covenant - to the War of Independence and the tragedy of the Irish Civil War. The historical fact of the Rising cannot - and should not - be used to seek to legitimise attacks on citizens, or on our law and order services, actions which are entirely abhorrent and unacceptable in a democratic society.

We might all wish that the conflict of a century ago had not taken place, but it falls to us to commemorate what actually happened and to sensitively reflect on its effects on our times.

What happened in Easter 1916 was not a singular experience. Its participants had diverse motivations; its impact was felt not only by the combatants, but even more by the ordinary women, men and children of Dublin; and its legacy was complex and profound. Our 2016 programme seeks to reflect that diversity and complexity.

It includes a parade and State ceremony on Sunday in Dublin. The parade, led by the Irish Defence Forces, will highlight Ireland's long and proud history of peacekeeping and will also include representatives of the emergency services, in recognition of their vital role in times of crisis.

The ceremony, at the GPO, will see a reading of the Proclamation, a wreath-laying in memory of all those who died and a prayer for continued peace and reconciliation.

An interfaith service on April 3 in Glasnevin Cemetery will remember all those who lost their lives during the Easter Rising; the rebels who fought, the British soldiers, the Dublin Metropolitan Police, the Royal Irish Constabulary and innocent civilians who were caught up in the events of 1916.

On April 10, the 18th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a special event, Rising To Reconciliation, will reflect on the 100-year journey of reconciliation on the island of Ireland and the democratic expression of the will of the majority on this island who voted for peace in 1998. These, alongside the ceremony on May 26 to mark the deaths of British soldiers who died in the Rising, are just some of the many events which together comprise a new and more complex reflection on the history of the island.

One hundred years on the commemorations of 1916 will also include a respectful programme of events to mark the terrible loss of life during the Battle of the Somme - a tragedy that affected communities all over this island.

This reflects the Ireland of today, a very different Ireland to that of 50, or 100, years ago, a modern Ireland that is comfortable with its history in all its complexity and mindful of the diversity of traditions on this island.

In today's Ireland relations north and south, east and west, are the robust and mutually respectful bonds of neighbours and friends.

I hope and believe that these close partnerships and friendships will be deepened in the years ahead by an even greater understanding and respectful recognition of each other's perspectives on the past.
The mother of an Indian girl who died after being raped and set on fire cries out during her daughters funeral in Noida, near New Delhi, March 9, 2016.

A teenagers brutal rape and murder on the outskirts of New Delhi earlier this month has rekindled questions over the safety of women in India.

The 16-year-old girl was allegedly raped on the roof of her home in Noida, Uttar Pradesh state, then set on fire on March 6. Ninety-five percent of her body was burned, and she succumbed to her injuries at a New Delhi hospital three days later.

Police have arrested a 19-year-old suspect  who allegedly knew the victim for two years  and charged him with several offenses, including rape, murder, assaulting a minor and causing grievous injury.

The attack was the latest in a string of horrific sexual crimes in the country, which has carried the dubious distinction of being unsafe for women following the notorious gang-rape of and fatal attack on a 23-year-old paramedic student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.

Sexual crimes remain a serious challenge for rapidly developing, yet conservative, India, which has a population of about 1.25 billion people, womens rights activists said.

The lack of respect for women in the Indian society is largely to blame for the high number of sexual crimes, often labelled as under-reported because victims are afraid of being socially stigmatized, said Vrinda Grover, a prominent human rights activist and lawyer.

Indian society needs to respect a womans sexual autonomy. It is one of the key factors to take into consideration if we are serious about reducing the number of sex crimes in India, Grover told BenarNews.

The Indian public needs to learn to respect a womans freedom to choose their husbands, boyfriends or partners, she added.

According to latest figures available from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), nearly 133,000 sexual offenses were reported across India in 2014, a significant increase from the previous year.

Activists believe the increase in the number of sexual offenses is partially due to various initiatives taken by the government and women groups in exhorting victims to report such crimes more openly in the backdrop of the infamous 2012 Delhi gang-rape.

An overwhelming majority of the perpetrators are known to the victims, NCRB statistics show.

Child abuse on rise

Mixed in with this is a rise in cases of sexual abuse of children across India, according to womens and child-rights activists.

Between November 2012 and March 2015, more than 45,000 sexual offenses were reported against minors, Union Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said.

Out of 45,498 cases, 4,316 cases were pending with the state police and 35,700 cases were before the courts under the Protection of Children against Sexual Violence Act (POCSA), Gandhi said.

But cases of marital rape appear to be immune from prosecution. The minister recently angered feminists when she told the Indian parliament that it would not be possible pass a law protecting married women from being raped by their spouses.

The concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context, due to the level of illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mind-set of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc., GlobalPost quoted Gandhi as telling lawmakers this month.

The POCSA law was among a slew of measures aimed at cracking down on sexual offenses in the wake of the gang-rape on the Delhi bus in 2012. Since then, more than 600 courts were set up across the country to speed up the judicial process.

Some of the other measures included increasing the penalty for rape from 7 years to life imprisonment and trying juveniles who commit heinous sexual offenses as adults.

On March 13, a 13-year-old was arrested for allegedly raping and slitting the throat of a 3-year-old girl in Ludhiana,

Punjab. Miraculously, the toddler survived the attack.

Investigating police officer Beant Juneja told reporters: He (suspect) told us he was scared that if he let her off after the sexual assault, she would expose him.

Show of strength

Vijay Raghavan, one of Indias top criminologists from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, told BenarNews: The large percentage of sex crimes against women and children belongs to the category where the victim and offender are known to each other or have shared a past.

The offender in the case of crimes against children is typically in a position of power to exploit the child in question. Often, it has been found that such persons have a poor self concept, and exercising power over someone who they can dominate or manipulate helps them counter their poor self concept, Raghavan added.

M. Priyamvadha, a criminology professor at the University of Madras, agreed.

We have the notion that people commit rapes to satisfy their sexual gratification. But it is not the case. Usually, the cause is to show strength and power over the victim, she told BenarNews.

Kavitha Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Womens Association, blamed the Indian government for failing to launch anti-rape campaigns that could educate Indias nearly 287 million illiterate adults on the definition of consent.

In terms of the response from the government, it remains a huge problem. We will find no public campaign by the government on womens sexual autonomy, not a single campaign, Krishnan told BenarNews.

Another activist urged more women-friendly procedures in the Indian judicial system to encourage victims to speak out against such crimes.

Besides the fact that there is social stigma attached for the victims, the judiciary, too, tends to suspect rape victims, said Flavia Agnes, a Mumbai-based legal expert on women-related issues.
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SMJN members are journalists from Mon and Karen states and Tenasserim Region in southern Myanmar.

U Tint Lwin the SMJN Liaison Officer said that the aim of the conference was to improve journalism and build stronger networking ties between local media in the region.

Tenasserim Region Hluttaw (parliament) Speaker U Khin Maung Aye said: It is the medias duty to deliver up-to-date information from the Hluttaw and administrative sectors to the public and make it understandable for them.

He also said that the media needs to deliver balanced information to the public.

The Myanmar Journalists Network Secretary U Zeyar Hlaing said: The establishment of such media organisations was not allowed in the past. The previous government prohibited it. We welcome the establishment of such media organisations. It is good because I believe it is better for [journalist] rights and improves the quality of journalism.

At the conference news articles written by SMJN journalists were selected for awards to encourage journalists to work to high standards.

Also attending the conference, apart from the journalists, were the Tenasserim Hluttaw Speaker and Minister for Development Affairs and civil society organisations from the Tenasserim Region, Mon State and Karen State.

The SMJN was established by 27 members in July 2013, it now has over 60 members. The first SMJN conference was held in Mawlamyine, the Mon State capital, in December 2014.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
The 69-year-old Sai Ai Pao won 52 out of 54 votes, which will allow him to lead the party for the next five years.

He said: Actually, Im getting very old, I want to retire but so many people still elected me for the position.

Sai Sawngsi, the current vice chairman was also re-elected for a second term. Sai Phoo Aung was chosen as the partys general secretary and Sai Aung Myint Kyaing will serve as the partys deputy secretary.

Nang Wanu, the newly appointed SNDP Taunggyi Township Office secretary, said that the term for the executive committee had already expired and that the meeting was to elect all of the partys committee members.

Members were also elected to the SNDP's Eastern, Southern, and Northern Shan State Committees and to the Yangon Committee.

The SNDP, also known as the White Tiger Party because of its white tiger logo, was founded in 2010. The party won 57 seats in the 2010 elections and the 2012 bi-elections, but in the 2015 elections it won only one seat, which was in the Shan State Parliament.

The partys advisors included Saw Than Myint, Sai Htwe Maung, Sai Maung Shwe, Sai Hso Kyaw Nyunt, Nang Than Than Shwe, Sao Yun Peng, Sai Aik Aye, Sai Kyaw Myint, Sai Moe Kyi and Sai Win Kyaing.

The SNDP annual meeting was held on 20-21 March, in Taunggyi Townships Kokang Temple. Over 300 party members from 54 Townships participated.

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
The state of Minnesota has had a ban on discrimination, including discrimination based on gender identity, on the books for 23 years, but Minnesota state Senator Scott Newman (R) wants to repeal it.

State Senator Newman has authored a bill that would prohibit transgender people from using a bathroom that corresponds with the gender they identify as, among other things. Senator Newman's solution for a non-existent problem has been met with criticism he clearly wasn't prepared to take.

Newman held a press conference this week in which he blasted the "transgender community" for opposing his anti-transgender bill.

NEWMAN: "Currently the transgender community is just literally screaming about this bill and they do so without regard to what many people believe to be their right to privacy and it's literally just drowning out their voices. I am hearing from my constituents that are strongly supporting this and I am hearing from the transgender community that strongly oppose it and I will tell you that I would estimate on about 10 to 1 the emails and phone calls coming out of the transgender community are coarse, they are threatening, theyre crude. And I will tell you that all that does for me is to strengthen my resolve that Im going to protect my constituents and those I believe to be in the majority. [...] I believe that what we are seeing is that the transgender community, as it applies to this bill, they're not the bullied, they're the bullies.

Like his counterparts in North Carolina and other state legislatures, state Senator Newman has a very peculiar concept of "privacy" which seemingly does not apply to non-binary individuals.

Is it not a gross breach of privacy to scrutinize the bathroom use of transgender women and men? Is it not a breach of privacy to tell them which bathroom they can or cannot use? Whose privacy is allegedly being breached today or at any point over the last 23 years of codified non-discrimination?

Senator Newman has vowed to 'protect his constituents' from a non-existent threat. There hasn't been a single documented case of a transgender person assaulting someone in a public bathroom. Meanwhile, the threat of violent hate crime is an everyday concern for transgender people who cannot necessarily rely on local law enforcement or government institutions to treat them with the same level respect or service as they would others.

Senator Newman is a clueless, irresponsible bigot whose moral preening will only put more transgender lives at risk. The supposedly nasty emails he has received from the transgender community, which he describes as "coarse" and "crude," are insignificant compared to what he wants to do to them.
I shit you not.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) -- a man who ran for office on a food stamp dog-whistling campaign; who addressed a letter to Iranian leaders urging them not to trust President Obama -- praised Donald Trump's seriousness on Morning Joe this morning.

He'll be far more serious than Hillary Clinton, that is.

I think he could be commander in chief, he told host Willie Geist on MSNBCs Morning Joe." Hes one of our leading candidates, and, as I said, any of our candidates right now would be a better commander in chief, theyd be a more serious leader for our country than Hillary Clinton is, he added.

A man who doesn't speak in complete sentences or even form coherent thoughts would be a "more serious leader" than Hillary Clinton?

Sure, she served as a senator and secretary of state, but Donald Trump hosted The Apprentice and sold bad steaks. I think we can all agree the latter is far more dignified and prestigious.

I won't forgive the yokels who elected Tom Cotton anytime soon.
Parliament has approved a sup- plementary budget amounting to P578 968 180 for four minis- tries for the financial year 2015/16. According to the Financial paper No. 3 of 2015/16 the proposal for the Consolidated and Development Fund Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure are for the five minis- tries - State Presidency, Education and Skills Development, Health, Lands and Housing and Environ- ment Wildlife and Tourism.

The paper was tabled by finance minister Kenneth Matambo in Parliament. Under the recurrent budget State Presidency requested additional funding amounting to P5, 233, 700 to cater for the 6 percent salary increase which was effected in April 2015.

Further, the education ministry requested for additional funding of P288, 030, 910 to cater for among other things 6 percent adjustment to salaries and allowances which effected in April 2015, settlement of water and electricity bills which grew due to tariff adjustments and increase in purchase of food under the depart- ment of secondary education.

Matambo stated that Ministry of Health requested a total amount of P268, 938,640 also for salaries and overtime, and Scarce Skill Allowance for various professional cadres and to cover for the significant increase in medical specialists fees resulting in a shortfall. The lands ministry requested P16, 764, 930 to cater for a shortfall in the Revenue Support Grant for the Land Boards arising from the 6 percent salary adjustment.





Under the Development Fund Matambo said proposals were with respect to the ongoing project of fleet expansion under the Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism which is to cater for the acquisition of aircraft, specialised vehicles and equipment to curb increasing incidents of poaching. The submission requires an increase in the annual provision of MEWT fleet expansion project by P40, 700, 000. This is to be financed by a corresponding reduction in the annual provision of the development of Department of Wildlife and National Parks project. Opposition walked out of Parliament before the budget was approved saying the current government is using Parliament to rubber stamp its decision. The contention by the op- position was that these funds could have been budgeted for in the normal budgeting process.

They accused government of having a tendency of always coming with supplementary requests a few months or weeks before the financial year-end. MP for Ramotswa Samuel Rantuana of Botswana Congress Party said budgeting is a problem for the ruling party. He said things could have been done in a normal process than to rush to parliament at the eleventh hour when the 2016/17 financial year was about to start. MP for Mochudi East, Isaac Davids of Umbrella for Democratic Change wondered where the money could have been channeled to which prompted for continuous supplementary requests. He said there should be accountability for these funds and complained that Batswana are being cheated.



Government Chief Whip Liakat Kably accused the opposition of being crybabies, who always complain that Botswana Democratic Party is failing when government does not increase public servants salaries. He said that people are owed and that they have to be paid and implored the opposition to always put the country first. Kably who is also the member of the Finance and Estimates Committee said they agreed collectively with opposition members in their meetings that through their recommendations Parliament should approve the funds. For his part the Parliament Finance and Estimates Committee Chairman, Ignatius Moswaane said whenever Parliament discusses supplementary budget the opposition walks out of Parliament.

Moswaane said if his committee was not good for Batswana and the countrys economy they could have not approved the supplementary requests. He explained that minis- tries and all relevant stakeholders were summoned by the committee to explain why they need such huge funds and We had satisfied ourselves with what they told us. I am disappointed to find that issues here at Parliament are being politicised. My committee takes itself serious and we are qualified to do this job, fumed Moswaane.

For his part Matambo explained that as for the salaries the increment was agreed after Parliament had approved the 2015/16 budget. He admitted that he agreed that in principle funds should be used properly once voted for in Parliament. According to the Finance and Estimates Committee report seen by this publication, all the accounting officers of these ministries convinced the committee satisfactorily.

The committee agreed that regarding the salaries since the adjustment was effected after the original budget was approved; it could not have been factored in the budget and therefore acceded to the request. The committee further recommended that funding under Recurrent Budget should be financed from General Revenue balance while Development Budget should be financed from some of MEWT delayed projects.
Transport and Communications minister, Tshenolo Mabeo has challenged the fixed and non-fixed telephony companies to improve the quality of services they offer to the public.

The minister, who was the main speaker at Orange Botswana's 18th Anniversary celebration at GICC on Tuesday, made it clear that government is very much concerned with the quality and reliability of these services. You need to up your game, he stressed, this time around not reading from a prepared speech. Telecommunications services are important for economic growth and employment creation, hence such services are supposed to be reliable.

As one of the consumers of such services, government has not folded its arms but recently encouraged Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) to conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys. The first survey was completed late last year (2015). It is hoped that this survey will not only incentivise operators to ensure exceptional customer experience, but also provide constructive feedback and an opportunity for BOCRA to understand the issues and come up with ways to improve regulator capacity for improved services, stated Mabeo at the event which was attended by captains of the industry, lawmakers and heads of missions.





Meanwhile, the minister told attendants that, as a result of the liberalisation of the telecom- munications industry, there has been marked improvement in ICT connectivity in the past 18 years. This has brought about the advent of technologies such as mobile broadband (3G/4G) internet, innovative and converged services for home and businesses.

Mabeo further said mobile technology continues to expand horizons by providing a tool to facilitate efficiencies particularly in digital and financial inclusion. The minister also com-mended Orange on its 18th anniversary and their contribution to economic growth. We note your successful journey and achievements and we are confident that as the company matures, we will continue to see improved quality of network and network reliability, he said.Speaking at the same event, Orange Botswana

We note your successful journey and achievements and we are confident that as the company matures, we will continue to see improved quality of network and network reliability, he said. Chairman, Satar Dada, said despite challenges, the company has made strides since it opened its doors some 18 years ago. I am proud to say that for the past 18 years, Orange Botswana has been connecting families, friends and businesses, making a significant impact to the lives of Batswana, said the motor magnate. Orange Botswana is part of French telecommunications giant, Orange.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Nata-Gweta constituency Paulson Majaha has condemned the decision by BaNgwato Regent Sediegeng Kgamane to handpick for Nata, a Senior Tribal Authority without any consultations with the community. He stated that Kgamanes current decision through a delegation from Serowe is very contradictory and likely to spark animosity between villagers and the current leadership.

The first delegation from Serowe last year informed the villagers that their Senior Tribal Authority Mokgwathi Makgesi was retiring due to old age and ill-health. In that very same meeting, residents were requested to come up with a name of a suitable candidate to fill the vacant post and before they could finalise their options another delegation arrived from Serowe on the 10th of March 2016 singing a completely different tune, he stated.

Majaha informed Northern Extra that the first delegation made it clear that none of the chiefs currently holding office should be elevated to the vacant position as they preferred someone from among the villagers. He added that when Kgamane decided to handpick his man to lead Nata village, he misused Bogosi Act section 22 sub-section 2, as he never consulted with the villagers as the section in question clearly stipulates.





Furthermore, he made it clear that the chosen chief - Letso Kgaswa - is a junior to all the current tribal authorities and his elevation at the expense of his seniors will further divide the village of Nata. I have to meet Slumber Tsogwane in order for him to address the matter before the current session of parliament closes as people are waiting for me to give them a concrete response on the issue as I will be addressing them throughout the constituency and this is a sensitive issue which they will certainly raise. I was given a petition by the residents of Nata addressed to Tsogwane but since then, I have not managed to meet him so that we iron out this problem, he explained.

His other bone of contention is that there is no Kgosi in Zoroga as well as other villages which are lagging behind in developments as no MP or even the President can pay them a visit since government officials are welcomed in the village by the Kgosi.

When quizzed as to who are the rightful claimants to the Nata chieftainship, Majaha did not want to get entangled in the chieftainship saga as he only said that any resident of Nata village is eligible to be a Kgosi irrespective of tribe as they are all Batswana but speaking different languages as well as having varying cultures. Although Basarwa are the first inhabitants of Nata village, the Nata Bogosi is not hereditary. It is done at the Kgotla like in many other villages across Botswana, Majaha lectured.
It is always advisable to try out cuisines from other parts of the world in case one finds oneself in those parts one day with nothing else to eat but the local foods. On a wet Thursday evening members of the press and an array of dignitaries had a rare opportunity to sample some of the finest Japanese cuisine on offer and a chance to learn how to make Sushi Rolls, Tempura as well as the famous Green Tea (or Maccha in Japanese).

Besides the Chopsticks, there is so much to learn and hear about Japanese cuisines. Renowed Chefs who have mastered the art of cooking traditional Japanese foods counsel that food is also meant to be enjoyed with the eyes instead of just the mouth. So in this case, since yours truly was not as adventurous to sample some of the delicacies on offer, but ate with her eyes and just marvelled at the skill and technique served on the platter. The host, Masahiro Onishi - the Japanese Ambassador to Botswana - informed the gathering that this is the third Japanese food demonstration they have hosted.

The event also marks the 50th anniversary of the Independence of Botswana as well as the diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Ambassador said that one of the reasons that Japanese food is popular abroad is because of the healthiness of its ingredients - mainly vegetables and seafood.





Another appealing factor of the typical Japanese food is the delicate and beautiful presentation of dishes by a skilled Chef. We have an expression eat by eyes and we enjoy not only taste of food but also arrangement of each dish, he explained. Before guests were given the opportunity to sample some of the dishes that were prepared by the Resident Chef to the Embassy, he demonstrated two dishes that appear to be popular in Japan.

First up was making Sushi Rolls, which on the surface looks easy, but in fact is not the case. There are too many techniques, and one needs patience in order to make this dish. Next up was making Nigiri Sushi - a demonstration that afforded those interested in learning more about Japenese cuisines with a free cooking lesson and tips. What is interesting once one starts to research about these cuisines is that apart from making it into the UNESCOs Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2013 is the fact that a Sushi Chef trains for 10 years before he can serve Japanese food in a restaurant.

Another interesting development is that like a Samurai, the blade of a professional Sushi Chefs knife must be re-sharpened every day. This according to sources is vital when working with Sashimi - a raw, thinly sliced fish. Something worth noting is that most Sushi Chefs consider making Sushi Rice an art. According to information sourced from http://www.yamato.co.za// Japanese Food is cooked perfectly when it is slightly sticky to the touch.

But a hit for tea lovers was witnessing a tea serving ceremony. For a tea drinker this is one of those rare opportunities where one had to forget about brands that are flooding the market and to experience something different. And those who did were not disappointed.

While Maccha, a dark green tea is not consumed with sugar, a clever trick that the Japenese use is eating a sweet before indulging in the tea. And trust us when we tell you that you will not even miss sugar in your tea. The process of making this tea which can be purchased from Chinese stores or even Woolworths is a delicate one, a process that is not rushed.

Fun Facts

In Japanese food terminology, the word sushi actually refers to vinegar rice, and not fish, while the word sashimi means pierced flesh.
How Brussels' Molenbeek district became a jihadist hotbed

Brandeis Prof. Jytte Klausen explains how one district in Belgium has developed a reputation as home to terrorists

Photo/public domain Molenbeek, Belgium

For more than a decade, Jytte Klausen, the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation, has been tracking and documenting Islamic extremists in Europe. In the aftermath of Mondays terrorist attacks in Brussels that killed dozens and wounded hundreds, she discussed her expertise on jihadism in Belgium and the extremist recruitment process in Europe with BrandeisNOW. The opinions expressed here are her own.

BN: How did the Belgian district of Molenbeek become a jihadist hotbed?

JK: In the 60s and 70s Molenbeek was a working class district in Brussels. Today its an inner city district of older housing that has transitioned from industrial housing to housing for immigrants and a lot of hipsters. In that sense its a lot like Brooklyn; perhaps Brooklyn 20 years ago. There is a high concentration of gangs, and Islamic extremists have recruited predominantly from those gangs, and a network of extremists has formed.

Today, the area has a reputation as a home to extremists. Its where authorities say the attacks in Paris in November 2015 were plotted, and its where they turned their focus in the aftermath of attacks in Brussels Monday.



BN: Where are Belgiums jihadists coming from?

JK: They are second- or third-generation children of immigrants from Morocco or Algeria. Because of Europes open borders and easy transportation, many French extremists moved to Belgium after France cracked down on extremism in the wake of a series of attacks known as the Metro bombings were carried out in the mid-1990s by extremist Algerians. Over the years, a concentration of extremists emerged in the area of Molenbeek.

BN: How are prospective extremists recruited and radicalized?



Jytte Klausen



JK: You have a neighborhood effect, a convergence between gangs and underground jihadists. They network online, creating analog peer groups on social media linking extremists in Molenbeek with those in Raqqa and beyond. They travel openly to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, so someone says Hey lets go, and they go, and that process happens many times over.



As a result of those trips to the Islamic State, we get people who are already acclimatized to violence from their experience in gangs furthering that experience in a war zone. They also meet like-minded people from other countries and they expand their contacts. We have seen a merger of Belgian and French networks, for example. Its still a relatively small group but they are well connected and that gives them extreme mobility, which allows them both to hide and to deploy.



BN: How does this differ from the recruitment process in the United States?



JK: Here in the U.S. we just dont have these elements of contagion points. We dont have these extremist neighborhoods, and we dont have unfettered travel to Syria and Iraq. The U.S. government has been very successful in restricting travel to Islamic states in recent years, compared to Europe, where thousands left for the Islamic State between 2012 and 2014. Now they are coming back.

For more from Klausen, read this profile in Brandeis Magazine.
Brandeis Inside Out: Sarah Magda Zainelabdin '18

Though she worried about being an outsider, Sarah Magda Zainelabdin has made Brandeis feel like home.

In the months before she came to Brandeis, Sarah Magda Zainelabdin worried if she would fit in. She grew up on Staten Island in New York City. Her mother came from Romania and worked as a nurse, and her father, a Muslim born in Sudan, drove a truck. She suspected her background was different from many of her classmates.

Her fears of feeling like an outsider were soon put to rest. Several weeks before school started, Zainelabdin was invited to attend a boot camp for students like her who were interested in the sciences. The students were all part of the Brandeis Science Posse program which aims to increase the population of underrepresented groups in college-level science. Boot camp focused on academics, but afterwards there was a retreat. It was like summer camp, Zainelabdin says. It was a lot of trust-building exercises and team building.

The friendships she developed have endured. Issues of belonging have never been an issue. "I've always had a group of people to turn to," Zainelabdin says.

She was also assigned a graduate student mentor who like her was a person of color.

Zainelabdin has taken full advantage of the opportunities offered at Brandeis. Since she was a freshman, Zainelabdin has worked in the lab of professor of biology and chemistry Liz Hedstrom. Working beside graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, shes investigating how cruciferous vegetables  cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and others  prevent cancer. She has a $5,250 grant from Brandeis Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program in Cell & Molecular Visualization to spend the summer working in the lab. (The program is funded by the National Science Foundation.) She was also part of a contingent of Brandeis students who spent spring break in Honduras, helping to provide health services to people living in rural areas. There are so many opportunities for students here, she says.

Zainelabdin wants to be a doctor. She believes medicine requires skills and knowledge that go beyond the sciences. In addition to chemistry, she is majoring in Health: Science, Society and Policy and anthropology. The interdisciplinary approach, she says, has prepared her to treat patients from different cultures and understand how public policy affects healthcare.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/03/2016 (2403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA  A 40-year-old man found guilty of manslaughter in the death of a four-year-old girl and causing bodily harm to her two-year-old sister has appealed his sentence.

Kevin Goforth was given a life sentence with no parole for 14 years.

His wife, Tammy Goforth, is also appealing her conviction for second-degree murder and unlawfully causing bodily harm in the case.

It is not known when the courts will rule on the appeals.

Court heard the young sisters were severely malnourished, dehydrated and covered in bruises and open sores when the Goforths took them to a hospital in July 2012.

The girls, who cant be identified due to a publication ban, were placed in the couples home in November 2011.

The four-year-old had suffered cardiac arrest and was taken off life support machines after a couple of days. An autopsy showed she died of a brain injury.

Her two-year-old sister survived.

The defence argued during the trial that the girls had been sick and lost weight, but were never denied food. Court heard the couple threw birthday parties for the children and took them to the park, museums and church.

The Crown told the jury that it was apparent the girls were wasting away  they were just skin and bones  and were also kept in poor living conditions and sometimes restrained.

Police found hair stuck to duct tape and fabric and cardboard with blood and feces in the girls bedroom.

(CKRM, The Canadian Press)
Remember this Corkman's

Well, he's managed to translate the buzz around it into helping out a very worthwhile cause.

After HB got in touch with him to see what they could do about the sprinkle deficit, Darryl Connell cleverly decided to see if they would be willing to make up for it by donating to Cork's Penny Dinners.

And they were in.

According to Darryl, HB have promised to send not only Brunchs but also tea and soup to the Cork City charity which helps out anyone in need of a meal .

Here's Darryl's update in full:

"HB have been in touch with me and they, along with Unilever (their parent company) have really really kindly agreed to donate Brunch's, Lyons tea and Knorr soup to Cork Penny Dinners!!! This is such a generous thing for HB to do and it's great to see such a large company helping out like this!

"As an ice cream lover and faithful Brunch fanatic, it has been disappointing to have experienced a brunch with such a lack of sprinkles, however this kind gesture, along with they're promise to look into and to hopefully sort the sprinkle issue, has made it just a little bit easier for me to forgive HB and to continue to enjoy they're delicious ice creams!

"I wish to thank everyone for they're support on this pressing issue and I hope that we can all look forward to enjoying many more Ice creams in the future! I will keep ye updated on hopefully what will be a great outcome! Thank you... an honest young fella enjoying his Brunch!"

We have to hand it to Darryl, that was nicely done.
Gardai are investigating a shooting that occurred in Ballyfermot, Dublin shortly after 10pm tonight.

A 19-year-old man sustained a gunshot wound to his leg during the incident at Le Fanu Drive, Ballyfermot.

He was treated at the scene by emergency services personnel and taken to St Jamess Hospital by ambulance. His condition is not thought to be life threatening.

No arrests have been made and investigations are ongoing. The scene is preserved for a technical and forensic examination.

The Gardai are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to contact Ballyfermot Garda Station 01-6667200 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800-666-111.
SIPTU general president Jack O'Connor has said that the Transport Minister has not asked him to intervene in this weekend's Luas strike - because he knows he (O'Connor) cannot.

Speaking this morning, Minister Pascal Donohoe

Read More:

However Mr O'Connor says he cannot do that due to union rules, but he is willing to "engage" on the matter immediately.

He has also criticised the media for inflating the pay offer of up to 18.7% made to drivers by management.

Jack O'Connor denies that the Minister wants him to call off the strike.

"He didn't call on me to do that, because he probably knows that I can't," he said.

"He called on me to engage, and I'm telling you, as I told other people earlier, that I'm prepared to engage this minute - but we have to have somebody to engage with.

"And what we have to do, and there's still time to do it, we have to apply ourselves now to address the inadequacies of the proposals."

The SIPTU union is hosting a series of events in Dublin to commemorate the Rising over the Easter weekend.
This is all just too cute for words.

Forget Cheltenham, the best horse-racing action to be had is at the Shetland Pony Grand National heats.
Wales 1 Northern Ireland 1

Simon Church saved Wales from a miserable Euro 2016 send-off in front of their own fans as Michael O'Neill was denied his first friendly win as Northern Ireland manager.

Northern Ireland had appeared to be on their way to a first victory over Wales since 1980 when Craig Cathcart fired the visitors ahead on a wet and windy night at the Cardiff City Stadium.

But Church, who had only been on the pitch 13 minutes, won a last-minute penalty when he was tripped by Gareth McAuley and he converted emphatically from the spot to secure a 1-1 draw.

Wales manager Chris Coleman had promised a feisty British derby but crunching tackles and chances were at a premium until Cathcart pounced on the hour mark.

The hosts were caught napping by a short corner routine with Paddy McNair allowed to cross into the penalty area.

Wales failed to clear the danger and Cathcart reacted quickest to the loose ball by driving through a crowded box for his second international goal.

For Northern Ireland, the goal looked like providing useful momentum towards Euro 2016, although they will take comfort from the fact that they have matched the record nine-game unbeaten run enjoyed by Billy Bingham's side 30 years ago.

Wales, by contrast, will take little from the contest apart from the worrying knowledge that they simple do not carry the same menace without their talisman Gareth Bale.

Bale was absent after being plagued by calf problems and, with Aaron Ramsey and Hal Robson-Kanu also missing through injury, Wales' attacks often petered out against resilient visiting defenders.

Wales applied some early pressure with George Williams and Chris Gunter putting in dangerous crosses from the right, but Northern Ireland slowly settled and began to stop the hosts from building through midfield.

The only on-target attempt of a tame first half arrived after 20 minutes when McAuley was beaten by Tom Lawrence's trickery for David Cotterill to take aim from a free-kick.

Cotterill's effort flew past the white-shirted wall, but Michael McGovern got down quickly to divert the ball to safety.

McGovern waved away over Cotterill's shot from the resulting corner and the excitement levels did not really stir until the final 10 minutes of the first half.

Wayne Hennessey caused a few Welsh hearts to flutter when gathering Conor McLaughlin's cross at the second attempt, but it was the visitors who were forced back on the defensive.

Williams switched wings to cut on to his right foot and send a shot goalwards which was helped over the crossbar by the head of Cathcart.

Sam Vokes and James Chester then headed wide from Cotterill corners in quick succession, with Northern Ireland briefly breaking out for the debut-making Conor Washington to send a rising drive over the bar.

Danny Ward replaced Hennessey to win his first cap at half-time and the Liverpool understudy was soon needed to push out Kyle Lafferty's effort after Adam Matthews' last-gasp tackle on Steven Davis.

But Ward was left helpless 10 minutes later when Cathcart found space in a crowded area to finish more like a centre-forward than a centre-half.

Wales huffed and puffed after that and, with both sides making increasing substitutions, it looked as if their chance had gone.

But Church stepped forward with time running out to prevent a second successive loss following their November friendly defeat to Holland.
US forces have killed a senior leader of the s-called 'Islamic State' group, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week, the country's Defence Secretary Ash Carter said.

Mr Carter identified the senior 'IS' leader as Haji Imam and described him as the group's finance minister.

He said he was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terror plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

"Leaders can be replaced," Mr Carter told a Pentagon news conference.

"However, these leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they are experienced."

Mr Carter did not say whether the 'IS' finance leader was killed in Syria or Iraq.

Appearing at the news conference with Mr Carter, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there has been no fundamental shift in the US approach in Iraq, and he said efforts are under way to accelerate the campaign.

The US military has killed numerous Islamic State leaders in recent months. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as IS's "minister of war", in an air strike in Syria.

In November, the Pentagon said an air strike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top 'IS' leader.
Police are holding six people following a series of raids in Brussels over the attacks on the city's airport and Metro system.

The arrests on Thursday night took place amid the hunt for at least one attacker at large and an unknown number of accomplices.

Belgian prosecutors said the raids targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood, where police earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the attackers.

Prosecutors would not comment on reports that a fifth attacker may also be at large - a man seen on surveillance cameras in the Brussels Metro carrying a large bag alongside one of the suicide bombers.

Meanwhile Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers despite increasing evidence of intelligence and police failures to prevent Tuesday's suicide bombings.

Authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch, although they said the situation remained grave and another attack was "likely and possible".

Belgium had been on its highest yet alert since the bombings in Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek underground station that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

"We don't have to be proud about what happened," justice minister Koen Geens said of the government's failures to halt the attacks. "We perhaps did things we should not have done."

Less than a mile from the bombed station, European justice and home ministers held an emergency meeting where they condemned the "terrorist acts" as "an attack on our open, democratic society". They also urged the European parliament to adopt an agreement allowing authorities to exchange airport passenger data.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Brussels on Friday for counter-terrorism talks with EU and Belgian officials as a manhunt continued for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene.

Authorities have linked the Brussels bombings to the Paris attacks that left 130 dead. Both appeared to have been carried out by the same Belgium-based Islamic State cell.

Prosecutors have said at least four people were involved in the Brussels bloodshed, including brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, identified as suicide bombers. European security officials identified another suicide bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a suspected bomb maker for the Paris attacks.

Khalid El Bakraoui blew himself up on the train, while Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Laachraoui died in the airport.

It is clear that some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks.

"If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions," about the government's performance, said interior minister Jan Jambon, who along with Mr Geens had tendered his resignation.

Notable among the questions were those raised by Turkey's announcement that it had warned Belgium last year that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter".

But prime minister Charles Michel asked Mr Jambon and Mr Geens to stay on, given the current challenge the government is facing.

Turkey said on Wednesday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was apprehended in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands. But he was later freed by the Dutch for lack of proof of his involvement with jihadis.

Mr Geens, asked on a Belgian TV news show who was to blame for the failure to follow up on the Turkish warning, said: "It is clear it is not one single person, but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things."

"Our own services should perhaps have been more critical about the place where the person had been detained," he added, referring to Turkey's border area with Syria.

"When someone is arrested there in a city few people know, it is clear enough for insiders that it could be a terrorist.

"Here, though, he was not known as a terrorist. It is the only moment we could have linked him to it. And that moment, perhaps, we missed."

The minister acknowledged that "we have to be very self-critical", but added that "such events have also happened in nations with the best intelligence services in the world", pointing to the September 11 2001, attacks in the United States.

Authorities had been unable to find Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris ringleaders and described as one of Europe's most wanted men, until a breakthrough led them to a Brussels apartment where he was arrested on Friday.

The federal prosecutors' office said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented a house used as a hideout for the Paris attackers and that he had been hunted by police since December.

Meanwhile Abdeslam's lawyer Sven Mary, who had initially vowed to fight extradition to France for the Paris attacks, said he now wanted to be sent there as soon as possible.

Mr Mary, said Abdeslam "wants to explain himself in France, so it's a good thing". He said the extradition process should be completed by mid-April.

In France, officials said a man detained in a counter terrorism raid in a Paris suburb has connections to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

They said said the man detained on Thursday in Argenteuil is Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman wanted since January on suspicion of links to terrorism.

A Belgian official said Kriket was convicted in absentia in July along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud and others for being part of a recruiting network for jihad in Syria.

Authorities have identified Abaaoud as the ringleader of the November 13 attacks in Paris. He died in a police raid a few days later.

France's interior minister said the man detained in Argenteuil was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack the country. He said there was no evidence "at this stage" to link him to last year's Paris attacks or this week's attacks in Brussels.
Twelve people have been killed after a minibus collided with a truck in central France.

The crash occurred when the minibus swerved into the path of oncoming traffic and crashed into a truck.

It is reported that a group of people from Portugal who had been visiting Switzerland were on board - and that a child and his parents were among those killed.

The youngest victim is reported to be a 12-year-old girl.

Approximately 60 firefighters, six ambulances and 20 police and highway officials attended the scene.

The two Italian drivers on the truck are said to be unhurt and the driver of the minibus is said to have escaped with just minor injuries.
Belgium's Prime Minister has been discussing Tuesday's terror attacks with the U.S. Secretary of State.

John Kerry has said the bombings underscore the urgency of unity in the fight against so-called Islamic State.

Police in Brussels arrested six people in overnight raids in the city.

It's been confirmed today that two Americans and one Briton died in the attacks.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron has tweeted about the news that a Briton has been killed in the Brussels attacks.

The Prime Minister said he's "deeply saddened" to hear of the death of David Dixon.

He also has said his "thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family".

US Secretary of State John Kerry - has a message for those who support so-called Islamic State: We will not be intimidated.

We will not be deterred and we will come back with greater resolve, with greater strength and we will not rest until we have eliminated your neolistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of this Earth.

.

The six arrests were made in the North East suburb of Schaerbeek in the same district the three confirmed suspects from Tuesday's attacks emerged.

Over the last few days, Belgian authorities having been raiding several homes in search of evidence and on Wednesday they found chemicals required for the home-made suicide bombs used by both the Brussels and Paris attackers, also in an apartment in Schaerbeek.

Tuesday's attacks have been blamed on a failure in Belgium's security intelligence.

Journalist with the Independent Newspaper John Lichfield says the country's crime-fighting capabilities are in disarray: Six different police forces, all these regional differences, very poor funding,

A state that has many many difficulties in many many divisions, so there is a particular Belgian problem.

Meanwhile in Paris the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that police arrested a French national saying only that he was thought to be at an advanced stage of orchestrating a terror plot.
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Supabarn has failed in a bid to freeze the assets of Kaleen Plaza's owner, despite fears it will funnel millions of dollars offshore to thwart a $16 million lawsuit.

The supermarket chain has been locked in a high-stakes ACT Supreme Court battle with the Kaleen Plaza's owner, Cotrell Pty Ltd, since 2009.

Supabarn is claiming it is owed $16 million, including $8 million in damages, for breaches of the lease at the Kaleen shopping centre, where it still runs one of its stores. Credit:Melissa Adams

Supabarn is claiming it is owed $16 million, including $8 million in damages, for breaches of the lease at the Kaleen shopping centre, where it still runs one of its stores.

The case was heard in August 2014, but no final decision has been made yet.
The Fremantle Dockers will be without key defender Michael Johnson for Sunday's opener against the Western Bulldogs, after the All-Australian was forced to pull out of the match due to calf soreness.

Johnson will be replaced by emergency Alex Silvagni, while Alex Pearce moves into the 25-man squad as back-up.

Michael Johnson is a late exclusion from round one due to calf soreness. Credit:Pat Scala

Fremantle starts its 2016 campaign against the Bulldogs on Sunday morning.
NSW's resurgent economic fortunes are adding to demand for housing, helping to attract more migrants and stem the outflow of interstate migration. "Even with some of that strong growth in new housing construction, population growth is still quite strong and steady," Mr Cannington said. "NSW generally tends to have a negative net interstate migration, with people coming into NSW or Sydney and then migrating elsewhere. But that outflow has actually been a lot weaker." The ANZ analysis shows NSW is on course to build 56,000 new homes this financial year, after demolitions are taken into account. This is more than double the number of new homes added six years ago. But underlying demand for new homes is also expected to grow, by 63,000 new homes, leaving an annual shortfall of 7,000. There is still a lot of unsatisfied demand for housing. ANZ senior economist David Cannington

This will add to the existing housing shortage, bringing it up to 99,137 homes this financial year, 106,424 next financial year and 114,428 the year after that. Mr Cannington said the housing shortage was frustrating the ambitions of many young Sydneysiders to form a new household. "What it means is that there is an involuntarily high number of people per household. Where you see it is in shared rental properties and mature-aged kids staying at home longer with their parents. A lot of people say they're priced out of the market and unable to buy. While they'd like to form their own household, they can't." NSW's shortage of housing has been growing each year for the last decade. The last time the state's supply of housing met or exceeded demand was between 2002 and 2006. During that time home prices fell slightly.

Over the decade since, Sydney home prices have almost doubled, rising by 88 per cent. This included periods of falling prices in 2008, 2011 and currently. A supply shortage did not mean prices could not fall, Mr Cannington said, "but it does say that the amount of downward pressure in prices will be limited by this significant under supply of houses." Nationally, ANZ puts the housing shortage at 250,000 homes, but this is expected to ease slightly over the coming three years. For the first time in a decade, there are enough homes being built nationally to meet supply. But the story is different in NSW. "On current construction levels in NSW, and if there were no additions to the underlying requirement for households, then you'd still be building for three years before NSW was in balance," Mr Cannington said.

Underlying demand for new homes is calculated based on population growth, adjusted for the number of people per household. ANZ's analysis assumes about 2.2 people per household. Economist Saul Eslake, a former chief economist at ANZ and member of the Rudd Government's National Housing Supply Council, said estimates of the exact size of the housing shortage varied, but ANZ's estimate was "reasonable". "There's little doubt in my mind that there is a shortage of housing in Sydney," Mr Eslake said. This was a strong argument against the suggestion that Sydney house prices are in a bubble, he said. "In order for house prices to fall, there are two criteria that are necessary. You need to have a material volume of forced sellers and those forced sellers need to be selling into an over-supplied market."
But one of the ATO's fierce critics, the man who heads Independent Contractors Australia, Ken Phillips, says that "in relation to small business people, independent contractors and the self-employed, the approach, culture and behaviour of the ATO is aggressive and oppressive".

Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says sometimes, when businesses are not doing well, they want to blame the ATO. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

When it comes to the way the Australian Taxation Office deals with small business taxpayers, its approach has been criticised.

Phillips' submission to the parliamentary inquiry into scrutiny of the ATO gives examples of taxpayers who have had problems with the agency.

"The ATO treats such people as 'the enemy' and routinely commits acts of unfairness and injustice against them," he says.

There are several other people who spoke to Fairfax Media who suggest the culture within the ATO remains as tough as ever when it comes to small business. "There's still considerable resistance by certain people at the ATO to engage in meaningful mediation," says tax lawyer Graeme Halperin.

He says when a tax dispute gets to a review at the objections stage, "there's a strong tendency to support the analysis at the audit stage, that's the culture."

Another tax barrister, Chris Wallis, says Jordan's claim that there's a fresh set of eyes on disputes is "absolute total rubbish. And it will always be so while the review people work alongside the audit people, and cut and paste past decisions. There is no cultural change at that objections level".
Forty-six year old Matthew P Doyle, a partner in a PR firm in South London, is what might be best described as a charmless character. Yet until recently, he was relatively innocuous, with his rants in public forums like Twitter usually confined to railing against migration and rival rugby teams.

But this week he found himself launched into orbit with this tweet: 'I confronted a Muslim woman in Croydon yesterday. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said "nothing to do with me". A mealy mouthed reply.'

Illustration: Simon Bosch

There are so many implicit, ignorant assumptions in these few words: that the onus is on every Muslim to explain extremism, that it is appropriate to approach strangers on the street to ask for explanations of complex geo-political crises, and that this stranger must be fulsome, beaming and generous with her time and response, not 'mealy mouthed'. Must be pleasant in the face of racism, tolerant of intolerance.

And the responses to Doyle's peculiar thought-stream were swift and delicious, under the hashtag #mealymouthed. Some wondered what explanations might be sought from white European men: "I approached a white man in Camden this morning, asked him to explain Anders Breivik."
New Zealand has voted decisively to retain its present flag after almost two years of heated debate, some very dodgy design proposals and what some might regard as a rather anticlimactic ending.

Nevertheless, I am pleased as punch about the result: from a 67.3 per cent turnout, 56.6 per cent voted in favour of keeping the very British, very Commonwealth flag, complete with the Union Flag proudly displayed in the top corner.

What does this tell us? I would argue that it shows that Kiwis  despite savage rivalry on the rugby pitch, years of joshing from their British cousins about the size of their sheep population, and the fact that New Zealand now trades far more with Asia than Britain  remain fiercely proud of their ties to "the old country".

I am just one living example of this. Although I am both English and a British MP, I have dual nationality. I was born, bred and educated in New Zealand, arriving in east London to work in the National Health Service in the '70s.
"Curst be he that moves my bones" reads part of the inscription above Shakespeare's grave at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. But apparently, someone did.

Researchers led by Kevin Colls, project manager at the Centre of Archaeology at Staffordshire University, have uncovered evidence that they say indicates that Shakespeare's skull was stolen from his grave by a local doctor in 1794.

A sketch of William Shakespeare.

The research project began in 2010, when Colls was working on another excavation project at the site of Shakespeare's family home in Stratford. The former vicar at Holy Trinity Church approached him about the possibility of examining the grave site, which has been the subject of rumours for years.

Colls and a team of researchers at the University of Birmingham, where he then worked, dived into archives and uncovered wide-ranging tales that Shakespeare, for example, was buried in an off-site family crypt or was buried 17 feet below the church. Results proved inconclusive. So, with a new team at Staffordshire University, where he began working in 2013, Colls turned to radar imaging. The church resisted the idea, but eventually granted permission to study the site.
A decade ago, a senior figure from Paris' Musee d'Orsay saw one of the National Gallery of Victoria's most prized paintings  a fabulous nude by Pierre Bonnard. So a canny intermediary put the feelers out to see if a temporary cultural exchange might be in the offing.

It was, and this week, James McNeill Whistler's famous painting of his mother arrived in Australia for the first time, for a three-month holiday. And to celebrate, Portrait of the artist's mother (1871), one of the world's most enigmatic and recognisable paintings, is getting its own private suite at the NGV.

Tony Ellwood and Isobel Crombie with Whistler's Mother. Credit:Wayne Taylor

The short-term trade of the two paintings, under the Australia-France Agreement on Cultural and Scientific Cooperation, has been a boon for both institutions. The d'Orsay is celebrating its 30th anniversary and was thrilled to have Bonnard's 1900 painting Siesta (La Sieste) to show off.
Glenn Druery. Credit:Andrew Meares "Labor will certainly claw back seats but micro party preferences will ensure they get even more and Malcolm Turnbull's victory is by no means assured," Mr Druery said. "More than three million Australians voted for micro parties at the last election. "The Coalition and the Greens said the Senate voting system was undemocratic but Australians are no fools  they know it was the crossbenchers who saved the country from an increased Medicare payment and deregulated university fees and other ideological flights of fancy." Mr Druery said anger with the Coalition and Greens over the Senate changes had also prompted smaller parties from both the left and right not to oppose one another in 2016.

"For the first time, they have decided to stop cancelling each other out but leave right wing micros to take on the Coalition while the left micros will fight the Greens  a move that would certainly help Anthony Albanese in Grayndler and Tanya Plibersek in Sydney." Mr Druery said he was considering standing for the Senate in NSW but if that did not work out there had been an offer to work on US presidential election campaign. "Not for Trump," he said. In readiness for the federal election, Mr Druery had been mountain-biking around the NSW south coast with his American partner Melissa Archey this week. It has been a long journey for the 54-year-old political adviser since first spotted by the Herald in March 1999 at the NSW Electoral Commission office in Kent Street, Sydney, talking conspiratorially with groups of hopeful minor party candidates. That was the year of the notorious Legislative Council "table cloth" ballot paper with 264 candidates from 78 parties

Mr Druery boasted of stitching up preference flows from up to 40 other groups - some of which he set up - and, heading the Republic 2001/People First ticket. His photograph appeared on the Herald front page under the headline "Look what I just built - a political career". Nearly. He wanted a parliamentary career but ended up a back room boy. Druery directed his second preference to his mate, the Outdoor Recreation Party's Malcolm Jones, and somehow shot himself in the foot. Jones won a seat. Druery later fell out with Jones  he often does with those he helps: Senator David Leyonhjelm was once a prodigy until bad blood broke out between them. Druery calls Ricky Muirthe "accidental senator", saying when another Victorian minor party senatorial candidate refused to pay him he arranged for the minnow preference flow to be directed away from Family First to Muir's Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party.

After 1999, the Carr government moved quickly to squash the micro party preference flow but the changes have not stopped the occasional minnow win - in 2015 the Animal Justice Party won a seat with 1.8 per cent of first preference votes. Mr Druery went on work for the crossbenchers in the NSW parliament, had a shot at the senate for the Liberals for Forest and followed up in 2010 with a similarly failed tilt as the Liberal Democrats candidate. Backroom politics, he said, had not made him rich. He rents a Sydney apartment and drives a 13-year-old car. In the run up to the 2013 federal election, the enormity of Mr Druery's preferences by stealth dawned on commentators and the pejorative "preference whisperer" surfaced. The Monday after the 2013 election Australians woke to predictions by Mr Druery that those he had helped with preference flows, Leyonhjelm, Muir, former NRL legend Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie (Palmer United Party from Queensland and Tasmania), and South Australian Family First stalwart Bob Day were on the way to the Senate.
It's not perfect, but there are many reasons to be thankful for the politics we've got: 1. Our election campaigns are not that long Much is made of the fact the Australia is almost always in campaign mode, given our federal elections are only about three years apart. But we are not a patch on the US. When it comes down to it, at the most, we have a few leaders debates and people are required to turn up and vote on one single day. In the US, because of the primaries, there are debates and votes ad nauseam ... just to decide who gets to run in the main race.

OK, so Australia's official election campaign this time may go for almost two months. But at least we're not talking almost two years. 2. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor US presidential candidates have to fundraise furiously to compete. Stupidly large amounts of money are involved. For example, by the time the 2012 election was complete, Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had each spent about $1 billion. While this is a noodle-boggling amount that could perhaps be spent on more worthy ventures, it also means people who are extremely personally wealthy have an advantage. In Australia, political fundraising is important (as the NSW Electoral Commission's statement about the NSW Liberal Party highlighted this week). But money does not maketh the prime minister.

When we have had rich PMs  like Kevin Rudd or Turnbull  they are the exception, not the rule. And they are often touchy about splashing their cash for fear they will alienate voters. 3. We don't see the family as as package deal There has been considerable fuss this week as Republican contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz had a fight about their wives. We'll spare you the low rent details (it relates to an old nudie pic of Melania Trump and Trump's threatening to "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz). The point is, family really matters in a US election. It's not just a candidate's policies, record or slogans that are up for public judgement, but their domestic life as well. The wives (and they are mostly wives) follow the candidates everywhere. They are part backdrop, part prop and total necessity if a campaign is to be taken seriously.

In Australia, we are aware that leaders have a home life. And at times  say, regarding "first bloke" Tim Mathieson  this seems more interesting than others. But ordinarily we are happy for leaders' spouses to get on with their existences while we get on with ours. And there is genuine squeamishness about involving them in the political fray. 4. Things aren't tasteless or scary Australian politics has been a bitter brew in recent years. We've had the hung parliament, leadership swaps, ghosts of prime ministers' past (hi, Tony!), mutual government-Senate loathing and the animosity everyone has for the Greens. But all of this seems genteel  quaint even  when compared to the US, where the presidential primaries have seen candidates make jokes about their opponents' penis size and dismiss a female journalist as having her period.

Not to mention the debunked claim that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated 9/11. There is also no concern about violence at campaign events in Australia. Nor has any politician encouraged supporters to make hand gestures that bear an uncanny resemblance to 1930s Germany. 5. Trump couldn't happen here As we have (painfully) learned in recent times, party rooms elect leaders, not the people. So it it very unlikely that we'd ever see someone hell bent on ripping up the political establishment in contention for the national leadership. Besides, Clive Palmer already had a crack at nonsense populism.
She visited Guinea in April and Sierra Leone in September 2014 through Doctors Without Borders to care for patients and help limit the disease's spread. Dr Lokuge recently undertook research that found the outbreak could have been stopped far earlier if there weren't delays in enough staff working on the ground to educate communities, give proper patient care and ensure safe burial practices. Throughout two decades of studying and fighting Ebola, delays had brought her to tears. She had worked in more than 10 war-torn and disadvantaged countries, but the inability to touch a child sick with Ebola, coupled with a lack of support, was uniquely challenging. "It's one of the times where you can't even touch a child without protective equipment.

"It's really sad to see sick children and not be able to give them a proper human touch." Most of the hospitals in the communities Dr Lokuge visited in West Africa had lost around half of the local health staff to Ebola, and more had run away frightened. Many of those who were left had watched their families die. While the little available resources were used up with patients at the centres, many more sick people were too scared to seek help from strangers in white spacesuits. Dr Lokuge and her team had to use an undercover blue pickup truck to visit one of the first families infected in Guinea, before the outbreak had spiralled out of control. The family "was very angry" when she arrived with surveillance staff and anthropologists, so they explained why they were there and answered questions for two hours.

"When we left that afternoon, the family brought two young men who they had been hiding and they both turned out to have Ebola. The next day they brought two more. "Everybody is scared of this disease, wherever they are, whatever their culture, and the same way you build understanding is the same as anybody. The problem was that there was not enough people to do that, when there could have been." The West fretted about the slight chance this evil plague would creep into their homes. Meanwhile, Dr Lokuge risked her life alongside staff who were watching their community crumble and working long hours for three months without a day off. One local doctor told Dr Lokuge their community had began recovering from the civil war when this new tragedy came along and slashed their population again.

"Everyone forgot about them when the war stopped, but half the kids under five were still dying from malaria," Dr Lokuge said. "We can't let people forget these countries until the next disaster." After Dr Lokuge left West Africa, she felt like she went from being part of the solution to part of the problem. She spent 21 days in the Doctors Without Borders's Amsterdam office before going back to Canberra. "When you come home people around you don't understand," she said. "Here were politicians saying these people are bringing diseases ... I didn't want my family to go through that.

"But the people around me were incredibly supportive. My boss rode a bicycle over the day I got back and gave me a hug." She said many did not understood that Ebola was hard to contract, much less contagious than other common diseases and only spread through blood or bodily fluids. Because it is not airborne, good infection-control practices stopped its spread, not the "magic bullet" people were looking for. But for every piece of negative media, Dr Lokuge remembered the many more lives she had saved. She thought of the first time a child was discharged in the treatment centre after so many had died and the joy that filled the room.

She thought of the people who knew her work had value, "even though it doesn't bring in big money and it's not for rich communities". But above all, she thought of the broken and fearful communities she had left behind. She said symptoms of miscarriages and even normal pregnancies mimic those of Ebola, confusing and frightening societies already battling a high maternal mortality rate. She's now working on building long-term partnerships to strengthen health systems in those countries. Loading
Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan is expected to deliver a revised enterprise agreement to 21,000 ATO staff next week, promising to reinstall controversial entitlements and conditions stripped in an earlier version.

The compromise comes after more than 18 months of negotiations with unions and staff representatives. Last week, Community and Public Sector Union members at the ATO launched strike action to break a deadlock.

Australian Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan. Credit:Daniel Kalisz

"After listening to your concerns and feedback in the last couple of months, and considering the continuing good performance of our organisation, I have instructed the EA Bargaining team to revise and put on the table a new proposal," Mr Jordan said.

The proposal will not require staff to work an additional 9 minutes a day as previously planned and deliver eight days of personal leave, rather than five.
Marina, now 25, clearly remembers the first time a friendly online exchange became unwanted sexual suggestions. She was about 13 and swapping messages with someone in an online chat room for kids. "It went very quickly from what books I liked and what I like to do, to how did I look and what he'd like to do to me."

In her later teens, she says, it became "pretty common" for mild flirting to escalate very fast into both demands for intimate pictures or unwanted "dick pics".

Online bullying of teenagers creates a sense of despair, as images placed online are there forever.

"No build-up or flirtation and they're sending you pictures of their dick."

These days, Marina says, she is better at shutting down unwanted online requests, but as a teenager her response was to feel she should go offline, or hide. She says there is a definite need for schools to talk about what's OK online, and not just in the annual sex education classes, but as a regular part of the curriculum.
TAFEs once had responsibility for vocational training, but their funding was cut, while private colleges were allowed to compete for funding in the sector. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Sorry to be cynical, but the major parties are also in the market for slush funding political donations from many of the private entities which have been enriched by the policy. State and federal parliamentary inquiries and the work of investigative journalists have exposed non-compliant, get-rich-quick operators using unscrupulous enrolment practices to get students on the books, seriously damaging the reputation of, and trust in, vocational education and training qualifications. In October 2015, the scale of the problem began to open up as a joint investigation by the ACCC and the NSW Fair Trading Department led to allegations that a private Sydney college recruited illiterate and disabled students to take out thousands of dollars in loans to fund courses they were never told they were being signed up for. That case, and two others like it, are underway in the Federal Court to recover more than $300 million in taxpayer dollars. Minister for Vocational Education and Skills Scott Ryan. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Senator Ryan is departmentally cracking down on shonky operators, withholding funding, forcing closures, sometimes involving bitter litigation.

But the regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, is only requiring registered training organisations to name and vouch for the "brokers", or salesmen, they employ to sign up as many students as possible  rather than prohibiting the practice. Neither major party will abandon its commitment to the contestable VET market. Why not? The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has despaired at the current distortions and poor outcomes. "The once high reputation of VET has now been trashed by the behaviour of unscrupulous VET operators and the arguable naivety of senior government bureaucrats," former Skills Tasmania director and regional employer, Paul Roberts-Thomson, wrote in the public administration website The Mandarin. Australia's vocational education system has been turned into a competition for students with slick TV, online and radio marketing promising to transform people's lives. TAFEs have been defunded and downsized, with some TAFE colleges forced to hire out premises to private providers. TAFE's market share has plummeted nationally from 74 per cent in 2004 to 52 per cent by 2014 and it is still falling. The NSW government has massively increased TAFE fees and abandoned many courses deemed unsuitable for a commercial business plan. TAFE students are also being directed to VET FEE-HELP to fund their courses. According to Pat Forward, Australian Education Union federal TAFE secretary, commercialising vocational education has undermined Australia's apprenticeship system and it has not resolved skills shortages.

The Australian Industry Group's chief executive Innes Wilcox wrote in a recent article in The Australian that we have never seen the training system in such a parlous state with "much of the system captured by for-profit providers, severely diluting the pivotal alignment of public expenditure to economic imperative and production improvements". "Large tranches of money courtesy of VET FEE-HELP have delivered alarmingly low completion rates" and seriously eroded public confidence in the training system. At one of Australia's largest private colleges, Australian Careers Network, 80 per cent of students never completed courses. On Tuesday, it collapsed leaving 15,000 students in limbo and taxpayers $160 million in debt. Wilcox says there were only 308,800 apprentices and trainees in training in mid-2015 compared with 387,100 a decade ago from a high of 446,000 in 2012  a 30 per cent drop in volume. The conflagration of taxpayer money was comprehensively exposed by analysts and researchers Andrew Norton, Ittima Cherastidtham and Ben Kunstler of the Grattan Institute in their April 2014 report, Doubtful Debt. They did not use the word "conflagration". That is my concluded view. But its use is justified and substantiated by the facts. Their report examined all aspects of income contingent loans or HELP (Higher Education Loan Program) which evolved from HECS, the higher education contribution scheme first introduced in 1989. While acknowledged as an effective policy and a success story in funding Australia's higher education by allowing university students to pay for their education when they earn a threshold income (currently $54,000) its extension to other forms delivered by the contestable and private provider market system has resulted in a blowout.

"By 2017 the Commonwealth will have $13 billion of loans on its books that it does not expect to collect." Thirteen billion dollars. VET FEE-HELP provision from taxpayers is estimated at more than $3 billion for 2015. VET FEE-HELP started in 2009 for students undertaking diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate and graduate diploma courses with an approved VET provider. Then in 2012, under the Gillard government's National Agreement for Skills and Workplace Development a competitive voucher system for vocational education was introduced. By 2013 there were 5000 approved VET providers. Some vocation training outfits started small but only took off with the cash flow rocket fuel of VET FEE-HELP. Many applicants had no prior experience in vocational education. The fact many of them were accredited in the first place with just an accountant's supportive letterhead validation of submitted course, staffing, business plans and cash flow projections, has raised claims of "regulatory capture" by vested interests. Like the $2 company cowboys exposed in the recent NSW ICAC findings of the "gaming" of coal exploration licences, accreditation seems, in retrospect, to be the first implementation downfall. Chris Robinson, chief commissioner of ASQA, rejects the regulatory capture criticism. ASQA has regulated the sector as an independent statutory authority with enforcement powers since its foundation in 2011 and has deregistered about 400 RTOs through its risk and compliance audits, he says. It moves on student complaints and tip offs from industry. Although some deregistered entities can redeem themselves and be allowed back in, and often dispute ASQA's audits in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, 10 per cent have been forced out reducing current numbers to around 4600.

"Some low risk, specialised and small operators became very large, very fast," he said. When I asked if the contestable market was a mistake, Robinson said: "The contestable market is a big question ... obviously. The fact that we've had to take a decision to deregister 10 per cent of all the training providers that ASQA regulates since we started four and a half years ago is some indication that some training providers have behaved badly in the market. "That doesn't mean the VET market is inherently the wrong thing or that it's not a good idea. It does have benefits. "We certainly need to ensure that various providers are eliminated from that market." Robinson believes that ASQA has sufficient powers currently to clean up the shonky operators and to ensure a qualification guarantees a graduate's competence in the designated skills. But he believes there is a need to specify quality parameters in training packages so that RTOs deliver better quality training. Robinson points out that ASQA is not responsible for VET FEE-HELP.

Although student loan schemes accept a degree of unrecoverable debt, the number of VET FEE-HELP assisted students is expected to triple by 2016-17 along with unrecoverable debt. VET FEE-HELP loans have grown rapidly from 2009, rising to 12 per cent of all income contingent loan payments to providers by 2013. The Grattan report found that people who did achieve a VET qualification were 50 per cent less likely than higher education graduates to repay their debt because, through only part time work and consequently lower incomes, they would never reach the repayment threshold. Adding to the implementation dysfunction is the dropout or non-completion rate currently reported at a staggering 79 per cent by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. Courses  including rapid growth in online education  once offered by TAFE colleges around the country for a regulated and more affordable few thousand dollars now are turbo-charged by the deregulation of fees. Examples: Advanced diploma of contemporary screen acting $44,000; graphic design and website development $45,000; project management $42,000; international business $43,000. Vulnerable or gullible people dreaming of reshaping their lives with a qualification and high paid careers to follow could be lured to sign up with a VET FEE-HELP loan.

The only possible constraint is the near $100,000 lifetime limit on borrowings. This sort of demand-driven system now comes with a seductive sales pitch of "no up front fees" with loan "brokers" offering free iPads, computers and in some cases overseas trips. The take up has seen profit levels now estimated at 30 in every taxpayer dollar, according to the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney. More than 75 per cent of the $1.6 billion spent through the loans scheme to 2014 had been soaked up by the private sector. In the process the cost burden of skilling, reskilling and upskilling to sustain taxable livelihoods in a rapidly changing jobs market is being transferred to the already lower paid shoulders of the students who may or may not become qualified. Now there is a proposal to extract repayment from the deceased estates of all student loan defaulters  perhaps akin to a practice known by morgue workers as "ratting". And there is a competency and quality assurance problem. Last year more than 9500 students were forced to hand back their certificates by the Victorian regulator with another 3000 qualifications under investigation there. What are the solutions to this policy failure?

The AEU wants an immediate cap of 30 per cent on taxpayer funding made available to private providers with 70 per cent allocated directly to TAFE to help restore the sector's ethical reputation and integrity. Subcontractors and third party brokers should be banned, the AEU says. The Australian Industry Group's Innes Wilcox wants to bust the state-based systems with a national industry-directed apprenticeship system with less reliance on market based training. Shadow minister Sharon Bird said a Shorten Labor government would ask COAG to drive a new agreement with the states to restore TAFE as a "dominant public provider" to set standards, quality and price with a statutory obligation to provide regional training, access for disabled, disadvantaged and Indigenous communities and to be resourced accordingly. Minister Ryan says Labor's fix will take two more years. His redesign of VET FEE-HELP will contain costs and restore compliance from its announcement next year. "The Coalition has already introduced more than a dozen reforms targeted at the conduct of providers and brokers and protecting students and taxpayers", he says. However, it is significant that neither major party will abandon its commitment to the contestable VET market. Why not? With the now exposed loss of financial control, waste and lower skills outcomes $3 billion could buy a lot of certified competent vocational training from providers  public or private.
There is nothing that Danielle Weymark has allowed severe disability, more than 70 operations and constant pain to stop her from doing, including becoming a champion equestrian  and, now, a mother to twins.

The meningococcal meningitis septicaemia survivor lost much of her left arm, right hand and parts of both feet to the rare disease, contracted when she was 14 months old.

Danielle Weymark with her partner Mathew Johnson and their newborn twins, Lara Weymark-Johnson and Oliver Weymark-Johnson. Danielle survived meningitis as a baby and now warns parents of its dangers. Credit:Dallas Kilponen

Defying doctors' concerns, the 22-year-old Hawkesbury woman reached 37 and a half weeks before undergoing a caesarean section to deliver babies Oliver and Lara at Nepean Hospital last week.

"The medical staff at the hospital were just blown away that she got that far," her mother, Leanne Weymark, said.
It's the most important day in Christian life and it turns out, it's one of the busiest.

Churches around the region were filled to capacity as the pious mourned the death of Jesus Christ before, according to popular belief, he got up and walked out of his tomb a few days later.

The Stations of the Cross at St John's Anglican Cathedral. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the first service on Friday, the stations of the cross, was a traditionally busy service.

"We had a full house in the cathedral at 10 for the stations of the cross," he said.
The RED HEART campaign provides a platform for women to share their stories of survival with others. Credit:The RED HEART Campaign/Facebook Which is why more than four years on, after getting out of the abusive cycle, she has shared her story and face to the world through the RED HEART Campaign, to give power to abused women to stand up as survivors, not victims. "It is important for me to show that it is real, this stuff happens to everyday people, ordinary people, all different walks of life," she said. "It comes back to that chain, being labelled a victim - I was subjected to this and I allowed it to happen - I would rather have my image linked to it and say, 'I am a survivor, I have come out of this and I am better for it.' Ms Shaw's story is one of the 30 collected so far in the latest project by The RED HEART Campaign, whose founder Sherele Moody had originally asked domestic violence survivors to draw a red heart on their skin and send a photo of it in along with their story.

"After receiving a few of the stories and talking with a few of the survivors I realised they didn't want to be in the shadows any more, they didn't want to hide their faces, they were really proud of what they had accomplished in terms of survival and they really just wanted to tell the world their story," she said. "If they share their stories anonymously it's like they are denying a really important part of themselves. They want people to see their faces, they want people to know they are not statistics. "I now go and photograph survivors and they write their stories, they give them to me and I put them up on the website for anyone to read." Ms Moody, a journalist who also came from an abusive past with an "extremely violent" mother, said those who had been abused had "earned the right" to write their own stories. "I grew up in a very abusive household and I guess it has always been really embarrassing and shameful for me to talk about and I sort of figure if I want to be able to tell people my story I should and I should be able to allow other women the chance to tell their stories too," she said.

"They get the fact that their stories are put out there, they are really proud to have that happen but one of the things is writing the stories is exceedingly good for them, it's like it empowers them. "But on the flipside, I have photographed maybe 30 women but maybe 20 have returned their stories, the other women have started writing their stories but they found it really hard and they can't write it, it is like it is just too soul-destroying for them." Ms Moody said the project showed the scale of domestic violence in the country and hoped it would clear up any myths relating to domestic violence. "People often ask the question, 'If it was so bad, why didn't you just get out?' It is either 'What did you do to cause it' or 'Why did you stay?'. Both those questions there are no answers," she said. "You just can't pack up and leave, it doesn't work that way, you know. You've got kids, you've got animals, you've got no money, you've been ground down to feel like you're worthless, you have nowhere to go.
Forensic police have finished examining a house near the school of murdered Queensland girl Tiahleigh Palmer.

Officers spent most of the week combing through the vacant housing commission property in Logan Reserve Road, Waterford West, after receiving information triggered by a public appeal from her mother, Cyndi Palmer.

Police searched a Logan property in relation to the murder of Tiahleigh Palmer. Credit:Queensland Police Service

The low-set property is just over 1km from Marsden State High School where Tiahleigh was a student.

The 12-year-old was last seen at the school on the morning of October 30, but police believe she left to meet somebody.
A man has died trying to rescue a young girl after an incident at Fingal Head just south of the New South Wales border.

Police say Ryan Richard Martin, 30, of Palm Beach, who drowned trying to rescue a seven-year-old girl, had shown incredible bravery.

Ryan Martin, 30, drowned trying to rescue child at Fingal Head. Credit:Facebook

Six people were pulled from the water during the incident around 3.40pm on Friday, with others treated at the scene.
A cyclist is fighting for his life in hospital after a hit-run in Ballarat on Friday morning.

Police believe a grey Mitsubishi Lancer veered onto the wrong side of the road and struck the cyclist about 6.20am, before driving off.

The scene of the hit-run in Ballarat on Good Friday. Credit:Luka Kauzlaric/Ballarat Courier

The cyclist - a man in his 30s - suffered serious head and chest injuries and a suspected fracture and was taken by ambulance to Ballarat Base Hospital.

However, an air ambulance was preparing to fly him to the Royal Melbourne Hospital about 10am.
A man accused of sexually assaulting two sisters when they were girls returned at least seven years later to rape one of his alleged victims, a court has been told.

Michael Fieldew, 60, has been committed to stand trial on more than 50 charges of sexual assault, including several counts of rape, over a series of alleged attacks in Mooroolbark and Lilydale.

The judge described the crime as an ''abhorrent violation of a vulnerable woman". Credit:Penny Stephens

He pleaded not guilty to all charges following a four-day committal hearing in Melbourne Magistrates' Court this week.

Mr Fieldew is charged with sexually assaulting the sisters between January 1979 and September 1983.
A man has been charged with murder over a body found in a disused mine shaft at Whroo in northern Victoria.

Prospectors discovered the remains of a 56-year-old Mooroopna man on Saturday, March 12, police say.

The abandoned mine shaft at Whroo where the man's body was found. Credit:Channel Seven

Search and rescue teams searched the area, near Rushworth, 160 kilometres north of Melbourne, the following Sunday morning.

Fairfax Media understands the victim is Mark Missen, originally from Traralgon. He had only been renting in Mooroopna for a couple of weeks.
The Age understands a shortage of staff also recently caused two seriously ill women to wait hours for urgent care, putting them at serious risk. Another woman gave birth in an ambulance outside the hospital on a busy night.

Women are giving birth in unsafe rooms and at least one infant has been resuscitated in a corridor at the Mercy Hospital in Werribee due to a lack of resources to meet demand, nurses say.

On March 7, midwives at the hospital passed a resolution about these concerns and called for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation to raise them with Mercy Health, as well as the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

The resolution, which appears to have triggered an internal review of the hospital's maternity unit, said there were "serious equipment shortfalls preventing all labouring women from being properly monitored as per the Mercy Health protocols". The Age understands the nurses were referring to blood pressure monitoring cuffs and accessories for CTG machines used to monitor a mother's contractions; blood pressure; oxygen levels; and her baby's heartbeat.

The resolution said on "regular and frequent occasions", midwives had been unable to perform all the care and treatment required to comply with Mercy Health standards due to an inadequate number of midwives being rostered on and inadequate physical space to provide safe care.

The document said staff were particularly upset and anxious regarding risks to women in labour that occurred during one busy weekend in February, but that such incidents were not isolated. The nurses said during February and March there had been "numerous births outside the designated birth suites and an infant resuscitation which occurred in a public corridor of the hospital due to the mother birthing in a consulting room".

The concerns come after the hospital increased its births by about 20 per cent each year over the past three years due to booming demand in the western suburbs of Melbourne  one of the fastest growing areas in Australia.
WA Police launched an RBT blitz over the Easter long weekend as it emerged the state's top cop Karl O'Callaghan continued to lead the way - nabbing a driver for using his phone while driving in Subiaco.

The increased police presence on WA roads comes as the state's Easter road toll rose to two on Friday afternoon after a person died in a collision with a truck north of Two Rocks around midday.

Police are out in force this Easter long weekend. Credit:Twitter / Northhampton Police

The death comes a day after a motorcyclist, aged in his 30s, died in Armadale when he was thrown from his bike around 6.45am Thursday morning.
Tokyo: Five of Japan's most respected journalists have accused Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government of pressuring broadcasters to reduce criticism of its policies.

At the same time they lamented what they called a failure by Japanese media organisations to live up to their convictions.

Japanese journalists, from left, Osamu Aoki, Akihiro Otani, Shigetada Kishii, Soichiro Tahara and Shuntaro Torigoe, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. Credit:AP

They held at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Thursday, after a warning by Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Sanae Takaichi to broadcasters in February that their licences could be revoked if they failed to be impartial in political coverage.

Japan's broadcast law says programs must be "politically fair" and Ms Takaichi said several times in Parliament that a station that failed repeatedly in this regard could have its licence revoked. Despite multiple protests that her comments constituted a threat to freedom of the press, she has not backed down.
The law caught up with a wanted man on the streets of North Carolina this week.

The man, James Meyers, was driving his 10-year-old daughter to school in Concord, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte, when a police car pulled him over for a broken brake light.

A scene from Freddy Got Fingered, the film in question. Credit:Scott Gries

But when the officer ran his license, he confronted him with an older crime, from 14 years ago. "Sir, I don't know how to tell you this," the officer began. Meyers had a 2002 warrant out for his arrest for failing to return a VHS movie rental of Freddy Got Fingered.

"I just laughed," Meyers recalled.
Still, skirmishes in rural areas around the country have left police officers, civilians and soldiers dead, a violent expression of the broader anger brewing against the government. A 'rearmed' Contra rebel fighter who calls himself Tyson, in the mountains of northern Nicaragua last year. Credit:New York Times Though Ortega enjoys strong support among the poor, he was widely criticised for constitutional changes that repealed term limits, allowing him to run for a third consecutive term this year. Students, opposition politicians and other protesters flock to the elections board every Wednesday to rally against his consolidation of power. "It's a legitimate social cause," Gonzalo Carrion, the director of the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights, said of the protests against Ortega. A girl in front of her family's home in a neighbourhood where homes were built by the government as part of the Houses for the people program in Managua. Credit:New York Times

The government denies that politically motivated rebels in the country still exist, despite occasional attacks on police stations and the killings of Sandinistas and known contras. Even when a caravan of Sandinistas was attacked by gunmen after an anniversary celebration in 2014, leaving five dead and 19 wounded, the authorities blamed "criminal groups" for the massacre. "There are no armed groups in this country," Julio Cesar Aviles, the army chief, was widely quoted saying last year. "I have said it on multiple occasions". Soldiers march at an event to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the constitution of the country's air force in Managua. Credit:New York Times Human rights organisations accuse the armed forces of a secret assassination campaign. Last summer, a man known as a rebel leader was ambushed and killed in his house. Two people were also killed last year when a backpack sent to rebels by a trusted courier exploded. The most notorious contra leader was gunned down in 2011, and his successor was found full of bullets in a ditch in Honduras a year later. "It is a silent, dirty war that is not recognised," said the Reverend Abelardo Mata, a Roman Catholic bishop who has served as a mediator between the two sides. Without any nations backing the rebels, he added, some of them "have resorted" to raising money by working for drug trafficking organisations.

Soldiers stand before President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua at an event to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the constitution of the country's air force. Credit:New York Times In a video posted on Facebook in February, a rebel leader claimed that at least 45 different groups had taken up arms and would attack state institutions until the Ortega administration held fair elections. But other rebels admit their numbers are dwindling. "The army is killing people who were contras in the past," said Jose Rodriguez, 38, who was injured in the backpack bombing last year. "They are mounting operations against us by paying off civilians. It is very difficult to win if they pay people off." President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua speaks at an event in Managua. Credit:New York Times Rafael Antonio Lanzas, a contra rebel who lost his right eye in the backpack bombing, agreed, saying, "There are not so many fighters, because they are killing them."

Recovering in a hide-out, the men said they had joined the rebels because they felt targeted for their conservative political beliefs, so they dug up rifles that had been buried for decades. Community leaders from across Nicaragua who are in opposition to government plans, in Santo Tomas last year. Credit:New York Times Their mission, Lanzas said, often involves proselytizing about the newfound riches of the Ortega family and its associates. Venezuela has provided Nicaragua with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of oil a year on preferential terms, and the government acknowledges that much of it is invested in private companies closely tied to the Ortega family and its allies. Jose Rodriguez, who was injured in a backpack bombing of rebels last year. Credit:New York Times

"To me, it seems they are stealing from the Venezuelans," said Carrion, the human rights advocate. "They did not struggle to be chumps." The economic turmoil battering Venezuela may prove a much bigger threat to the Ortegas than the fledgling rebels. Even so, the oil that Nicaragua has already received in recent years has reshaped the image, and the lifestyles, of the leftist Sandinistas who overthrew a dictatorship in the 1970s. "We started seeing people in the hierarchy of the ruling party buying luxury cars and $US350,000 ($465,000) houses in cash," said Octavio Enriquez, an award-winning reporter at Confidencial, a newsmagazine. "We started to see a new social class." The head of the elections agency, Roberto Rivas, has a luxurious seaside house with a helipad. The home was once featured on the television show "House Hunters" and has been expanded considerably since then, local news outlets have reported. Rivas imported more than $US400,000 in luxury vehicles in 2009 alone, the opposition newspaper La Prensa disclosed. Ortega's children and some of their spouses hold top leadership posts at television stations acquired by the government under murky circumstances. His daughter-in-law runs the national chain of gas stations that receives Venezuelan oil. One of Ortega's sons, Laureano, who works for the government's investment promotion agency, was photographed wearing a $US47,000 Rolex.

The Sandinista party treasurer, Francisco Lopez, runs the state-owned oil company and a quasi-public entity that has doled out contracts to his own family company to build houses for the poor, Confidencial has reported. Like several other officials, Lopez did not respond to requests for an interview. "I would see him coming in from his trips to Venezuela with a diplomatic valise filled with cash," said Rodrigo Obregon, who worked as a manager at the quasi-public company and attended high school with Lopez. "He and members of his family would close the door and count all night." Obregon said he lost his job when he refused to sign a rosy audit of the company's finances. "The Ortega-Murillo family is getting richer while the country people starve," a rebel who calls himself Commander Rafael said about the president and his wife, Rosario Murillo. "They don't understand resolving things the nice way. They understand weapons." Bayardo Arce, the president's economic adviser, who was an original member of the Sandinista directorate during its first time in power, dismissed the issue of Sandinista wealth as a controversy manufactured by the opposition. Arce defended the use of Venezuelan oil money to fund private companies as a new way of using international development funds, no more improper than the millions of dollars in aid that the US gives to Nicaraguan civic groups to promote democracy, human rights and governance.

He said the Ortega administration must be doing something right. In January, the World Bank projected Nicaragua's economy to grow by 4.2 percent in 2016, one of the highest rates in Latin America. "Our No. 1 goal is to take this country out of poverty," Arce said. "Who decided that the person who believes in social justice has to be barefoot?" Arce, a successful businessman, lives in a handsome home recently built on a large property confiscated during the war. President Ortega continues to enjoy strong support. 38 per cent of the Venezuelan oil is used to fund social projects. More than 35,000 houses have been distributed among the poor in the past two years, according to a government website. World Bank statistics show that the poverty level dropped 6 percentage points from 2005 to 2009. "He might have an expensive car, but the other presidents before him had their luxuries but did not help the people," Veronica Aguilar, 55, said of Ortega. Aguilar said she met Ortega in person when she signed up for Houses for the People, a government program that distributes houses to the poor at favourable prices. "He came over and said 'Hello,' like he knew me!" she said.

Her experience underscores the difficulty the rebels face. Few people have a stomach for more war. Many low-income people have benefited from Ortega's administration and are hardly bothered by complaints about its excesses. "I won the lottery!" said Ileana Rivas, 62, Aguilar's neighbour. She said she got her house by calling a government agency. "You don't see those pathetic cases of desperate people in the street that you saw 10, 15 years ago," said Alejandro Martinez, a successful Sandinista businessman who is also an economist. "There is a distribution of wealth to people who were marginalised before." The rebels are not buying it. In a sign of the new allegiance the socialist administration has to the country's richest people, the government has lifted import taxes for luxury items like yachts and helicopters. "Nobody goes to war because they like it," said Tyson, the rebel. "The Nicaraguan people are getting robbed".
The United States "has to examine its own policies as well, and its own past," Mr Obama added. "We've been slow to speak out for human rights, and that was the case here."

President Barack Obama watches as Argentinian President Mauricio Macri tosses roses into the river during their visit to Parque de la Memoria in Buenos Aires on Thursday. Credit:AP

"There's been controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days," Mr Obama said at the Parque de la Memoria, a monument to the war's victims, where he attended a ceremony for the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup that began the Argentinian dictatorship.

Buenos Aires: US President Barack Obama expressed regret on Thursday for the failure of the United States to acknowledge the brutal repression and atrocities that took place during Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s and '80s.

The president's remarks came after he toured the memorial with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, walking beside a hulking gray stone wall engraved with the names and ages of 20,000 victims plus 10,000 blank spaces for those who have yet to be identified.

A demonstrator holds a banner with the American eagle and South American continent during a protest against the visit of President Barack Obama in Bariloche, Argentina, on Thursday. Credit:AP Photo

Mr Obama announced this week that he would begin a declassification effort to unseal secret military and intelligence files that could shed light on the fates of some of those victims, as well as what the United States knew about the human rights violations that took place during what Mr Macri called "the darkest period in our history".

"A memorial like this speaks to the responsibilities that all of us have," Obama said later. "We cannot forget the past, but when we find the courage to confront and we find the courage to change that past, that's when we build a better future."

Human rights groups had reacted angrily to the timing of Obama's trip, arguing that it was inappropriate for him to visit at the very moment that Argentina was commemorating a tragic turn in its history that many believe was condoned, and in some cases enabled, by the United States.
Washington: Seven hackers linked to the Iranian government launched cyber-attacks on nearly 50 US financial institutions and a flood-control dam north of New York City in forays meant to undermine US markets and national security, according to federal prosecutors.

The indictment said the seven accused were believed to have been working on behalf of Iran's government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Those named live in Iran and the Iranian government is not expected to extradite them.

At least 46 major financial institutions and financial sector companies were targeted, including JPMorgan Chase , Wells Fargo and American Express, the indictment said. AT&T also was targeted.
Friday Night Football: Scores, stats, recaps from Week 9

With only two more weeks left in the regular season, teams are fighting for postseason posititioning...or just for a chance to make the playoffs.
As we inch ever closer to Ryan Seacrest hopping on Simon Fullers back and riding off into the sunset taking American Idol with them, something spectacular is about to happen on The Farewell Season.

For the first time in 2016, Americas votes actually matter. And Im not talking sorting through the trash to choose leftover scraps that join the judges pre-selected caviar in the next round. Viewers will honest-to-goodness decide who stays and who goes based on the previous week. No judge rescues. No Twitter Insta-saves. No final performance to render your votes moot.

Simply put, its time for us to screw this thing up on our own.

What It All Means

While my excitement mostly stems from not having to discuss the terrible format, like, ever again, Im also stoked about what happens moving forward. Because if things played out as expected last week, this result is like trying to find a needle in a giant stack of needles.

Theres no need to dive into any breakdown of the predictions, because I am fully confident Sonika Vaid is about to call it a day. She has made multiple appearances in the bottom two/three, and she did nothing to help herself with sub-par renditions of Let It Go and Clarity.

American Idol Predictions: Who Will Be in the Top 4? >>>

Heck, you may have already voted to send her home at least twice, and a whopping 73 percent of those who answered our poll believe its the end of the line for the young lady whose vocal prowess is matched only by her failed alter-egos.

But then weve got our Top 4, and thats where it gets interesting.

Welcome to Fillerville

Club sandwiched (because there are A LOT of layers) around time-wasting and probably oddly-placed performances from David Cook, Katharine McPhee and Sia, the Top 4 will be tackling the Chandelier singers songbook and a classic rock tune inspired by other-mentor, Steve Van Zandt, a.k.a Little Steven of Bruce Springsteens E Street Band (and Silvio from The Sopranos). And the pressure could not be more intense.

(On a side note, the legendary guitarist and I apparently share a veterinarian and happened to have pooches in need of medical attention at the same time. I was giddy when the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer walked into the lobby with his signature do-rag and a foo foo pup. My wife, however, had no idea who he was.)

But back to MacKenzie Bourg, LaPorsha Renae, Trent Harmon and Dalton Rapattoni (are you upset you wont get to hear Sonika sing Love Me Back to Life and Because the Night?), they are so closely matched that theres no more skating through a round.

American Idol Recap: America Picks the Songs as 1 is Sent Home >>>

Sure, LaPorsha and Trent are the likely two to square off in the finals, but a poor performance or bad song choice could sink even the heaviest of favorites. Overall talent, marketability, artistry, creativity, originality, potential and likability wont be enough on their own, as there is no room for error while we size up the total package.

It doesnt matter if the singers have ceilings vaulted as high as the Sistine Chapel; If they dont leave it all on the stage, they will be leaving it. Can I get an in it to win it, dawg?

LaPorsha Renae Bats Leadoff

Ryan reminds us that the epic finale is just two weeks away before introducing the judges, each rocking his or her signature style (i.e. suit, T-shirt/leather jacket, dress  Ill let you figure out who is wearing what). The rock songs are up first, and LaPorsha and her new dreads are kicking things off with the bizarro choice of the night  Bon Jovis Wanted Dead or Alive.

Scotty Borchetta, fresh off his awful wiseguy impression to Little Steven, is concerned about the pick because he doesnt see LaPorsha convincing anyone that shes a cowboy. Van Zandt tells her to go for it.

Im not sure I really believe J.B.J. as a cowboy either, but this is a straight cover. She sounds great as always, complete with standard overruns, though Im not sure its particularly memorable. The song doesnt give her much opportunity to show off her strengths, and the arrangement is such that it feels like good karaoke.

Its killer for Keith, and its cool how LaPorsha can bring out the soul and swagger in any song. J-Lo drops the standard sing the phone book line, and Harry believes her natural ability allows her to span every genre. He also loved how she slowed down her vibrato.

I get that shes the last hope for a female Kelly Clarkson bookend, but just because something is unexpected doesnt automatically make it good when its not bad. Adele could sing the Oompa Loompa song, but that doesnt mean she should. Actually, that sounds awesome. Now cue the Angry Birds filler!

MacKenzie Bourg Wants You to Want Him

Singing classic rock is out of Big Macks wheelhouse, and Little Steven isnt loving his choice of Cheap Tricks I Want You to Want Me. He was struggling to find an arrangement that suits his style, and they collaborated to put together something they think he can crush.

Its a slowed-down acoustic version, and while it fits MacKenzie, Im not a fan. Its sleepy and sucks all the life out of one of my favorites. If hes dumbing it down this much, it needs to be laid bare and reinterpreted to strike a level of desperation that could bring a new perspective.

J-Lo loves the song, but shes not sure she loves how MacKenzie MacKenzied this one, because it wasnt as exciting as she wanted it to be. Harry believes the slowdown ruined the sense of immediacy, and it was just alright because MacKenzie needed the energy underneath him. Keith flat-out hated the arrangement, because it either needs to match the original or be stripped down completely.

David Cook and Other Random Filler

After weird filler involving a fashion designer creating personas for the Idols alter egos, its time for previous winner David Cook to take the stage for Heartbreak while the screen behind him cycles through former contestants who will be appearing during the finale.

Remember when they used to save stuff like this for the results show, so as to not confuse voters by mixing professionals into the performances they are voting on? Those times made more sense. But now, try to remember LaPorsha and MacKenzie after listening to this.

David Cook got married last summer, and his bro is next to take the plunge. Then Ryan reveals hell be stealing my and my wifes idea for mixed gender wedding parties when he stands on his sisters side for her pending nuptials. Well this has been a fun eight or nine minutes, hasnt it?

Trent Harmon is Sharply Dressed

Trents safety means Dalton Rapattoni and Sonika Vaid are in the bottom two, and Little Steven helps him make ZZ Tops Sharp Dressed Man entirely his own. And they believe itll be something special, but Im still skeptical.

Right from the get go, its definitely nothing like the original. Its slowed-down, jazzy and loungy version, almost Michael Buble-like, and Im digging its smoothness. He brings the rock back in about halfway through, and though its solid overall, the inconsistency is off-putting. I would have loved to see how it wouldve played out if hed done the whole thing the way it started.

Harry was content with the grove in the beginning, but it was a brilliant arrangement because it was like two different songs that both satisfied. It was so freaking good, Keith gushes, because this one was a mishmash that showed off all of Trents strengths. J-Lo has been waiting for a performance like this one, as it was exactly what everyone wanted.

God Only Knows Dalton Rapattoni is Safe

Dalton is tackling the Beach Boys, and his safety means, as expected, Sonika Vaid has been eliminated. Its sad to see her go, but she was never able to evolve as necessary to stick around. She did a great job developing her style, though. A montage of her highlights backed by the Sia song she was set to sing walk her out, and congrats, America. You werent wrong.

Back to Dalton, who was initially set on The White Stripes Seven Nation Army. But it didnt go anywhere and wasnt working for him, Stevie or Scotty B., so he was forced to go with his backup plan. He saunters out and launches into a heartfelt and humble rendition of God Only Knows. Its not perfect or even strong vocally, but it strikes a chord with goose bump moments and tugs on the heartstrings. Its bare and doesnt build to much, while still leaving him wide open.

I suspect that if you like Dalton, you appreciated the raw emotion in this performance. But if youre not a fan, you probably view it as disingenuous and self-indulgent with pitch issues.

Keith praises the song choice, and he was impressed by Daltons attitude regarding his failed first approach. J-Lo understands what its like to have an idea that feels right but doesnt work, and she appreciates that he listened to the mentors and was able to provide a great moment. For Harry, this was Daltons most complex song that perfectly revealed his vulnerability, and it didnt need to be about the vocals.

Theres No Place Like Home for Katharine McPhee

After more NASCAR filler, Idol welcomes back season five runner-up and now-TV star Katharine McPhee for a reprisal of her signature moment  Judy Garlands Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Shes an experienced professional now, so she knows a thing or two about owning a song like this. And as such, thankfully, I dont need to dwell on her awful pitch issues. Plus I love her, so that would just be mean.

Still, her original take on this one was a glimpse at her immense potential and also a maddening reminder of the frustration over her inability to ever match that moment in any other round. So really, we can thank her for Taylor Hicks.

Now its time to kick off the Sia songbook portion of the show, and whoever goes first is at a decided disadvantage, especially with said songbook author still on the set list.

LaPorsha Renae Goes First

After a trip through Sias resume and a group-wide donning of the wigs, LaPorsha gets to work on Elastic Heart. In keeping with her gimmick, Sia guides LaPorsha on an emotional journey of preparation without ever showing her face. Her advice to stay true to who you are, and if anyone tells you otherwise, kick them in the teeth.

LaPorsha is going tribal with a pair of giant drums, and then it reverts to a more traditional arrangement. As usual, she sounds amazing, which is expected at this point. Its not engaging though, and Im certainly not sucked in or invested. The emotional content has been mostly stripped away, which makes the over-singing and overdone runs all the more apparent.

J-Lo had a flashback to LaPorshas first few appearances when she was under the radar, but shes since ceased judging because LaPorsha is essentially perfect. But all I hear is that she wasnt captivated enough to avoid having her thoughts wander.

Harry found it beautiful and unexpected, and he feels like hes in the passenger seat of a NASCAR when LaPorsha is singing (Thatll be $30, racing league). Keith praises her evolution as an artist before she admits they all got to see Sias beautiful face.

MacKenzie Bourg is Made of Steel

Big Mack scored Titanium, which is completely out of his comfort zone, and Sia pushes him even further. He has an idea in his head, but he cant match the verse with the chorus. So she urges him to go with a falsetto, a note that he feels could be a make-or-break moment. Her advice to him is to trust himself.

He does what he does to songs, and while the higher part is nice, the rest is a mess of pitch issues and sexy eyes that dont fit the lyrics. And as soon as he hit the falsetto, he gets this smug smirk of satisfaction that turns me off. #SSOSMacKenzie

Harrys one word is nice, but what annoys him is that this was like an ice skating competition where everyone is waiting for the triple axle. And hes bothered that MacKenzie made the whole thing about one falsetto note at the expense of the rest.

Keith appreciates that MacKenzie rode through that moment, and he liked the stripped-down arrangement. J-Lo wants him to go even further out of his comfort zone and wow us with another side that shows off what hes afraid to do. But really, thats probably because he cant do that yet and still sound pleasing.

Sia Splits up Round Two

Now its time to put extra emphases on Dalton and Trent by breaking up their performances with a rendition of Sias Cheap Thrills. Shes solitary on a pedestal with three Sia-wigged interpretive dancers gyrating around the stage. Its nice and bizarre, and wow does Sia sound spectacular live.

Still, something is going to have to wake me up at some point. Im sure that the pimp spot is going to Trent for Chandelier, but thats a long time to wait for a highlight. Speaking of duration, Cheap Thrills is a long song. It goes on and on. And on. Or maybe it just feels that way when youre trying to fill the gaps with words.

A giggly Sia had fun, and shes apparently picturing everyone in the audience naked. She found the contestants to be sweet and like every other human being in that theyre searching for love and affirmation, which she wanted to supply.

Trent Harmon Swings from the Chandelier

Wow, and so the pimp spot goes to Dalton! Sia isnt a huge fan of how Trent is making her favorite song his own, but she doesnt want to mess too much with his creative expression. She pushes for the high notes, though, and ends up with goose bumps when he complies.

Im expending a haunting rendition of this song from Trent, and just fine wont be good enough. He needs a moment to avoid being a disappointment, and the opening verse is perfectly subdued building to the chorus. He keeps it restrained until he hits a masterfully placed crescendo, and its technically flawless from start to finish. Its the best of the night by far, but if Im being nit picky, I would love to have seen a bit more raw power behind the big notes that wouldve elevated it to an even higher level with detracting from the peak moment.

Keith calls it beautiful, and the grandeur of the melody played to his strengths in what was an exquisite performance. J-Lo is amazed that this Trent is entirely different than the guy we saw earlier, and it shows he can morph his persona to fit the genre. It was phenomenal for Harry, who praises the artfulness and technical difficulty that Trent easily handled. From the first note to the last, it was 100 out of 100.

Dalton Rapattoni Goes to the Birds

Im surprised that Dalton nabbed the pimp spot, which means they want to keep him out of the bottom two. Sia was inspired by the emotion he put into Bird Set Free, and she thinks he can have a moment once he finds the balance between restraint and opening up. They bond over the fact that theyre both bi-polar, and Sia believes he can help a lot of people who are suffering.

Its not a song I know, though it appears to be one that touches people who do. Its one of those instances where I find myself watching instead of typing, captivated by the raw anguish on display.

The first verse couldve benefited from a bit more restraint, while the chorus and the second verse could have used a little less. But its clear that the lyrics hit home for Dalton, as hes pouring his heart into this one. Its memorable more for the message and the expression of pain in the lyrics and vocals (thus the line, I dont care if I sing off-key), and it hits on all of those levels.

J-Lo points out that everyone is cheering him for his bravery, because all anyone wants is that moment where you feel comfortable in your skin. For Harry, the Theres a scream inside that we all want to hide line best encapsulates why this was the perfect singer-song pairing in the Sia library. And regardless of how it sounded at home, this was simply something Dalton needed to do. Keith praises him for always pushing through his limitations, and hed take honesty and emotion over soulless perfection any day.

Who Helped the Cause?

Thats it for the Top 4 performances, and I think based on a combination of placement and performance, Trent and Dalton sang their way into Americas hearts. And that means a seldom-seen and barely-deserved spot in the bottom two for LaPorsha.

Luckily for her, I dont see any way that these werent MacKenzies final Idol performances. It wasnt his best, and especially with three guys on the docket, it will be tough for him to steal votes. J-Lo continues urging him out of his comfort zone, but the problem is that he does only one thing very well.

Still, the Top 4 is nothing to bat your eyelashes at. Much like how the Top 5 is nothing to bat your eyebrows at.

Who won the night for you, and who is likely on the chopping block? The Idol train is about to pull into the station for the final time, and one of these four will be the final champion, burdened with a legacy the weight of 1,000 Seacrests. Or like 100 normal people.

So whos it gonna be?

American Idol airs Thursdays at 8pm on FOX.

(Image courtesy of FOX)




Im obsessed with the current 2016 presidential election. I watch the debates and Showtimes The Circus, follow the delegate counts and switch between FOX News and MSNBC every Tuesday night as primary results roll in. So Scandal is giving me everything I want as season 5 goes 100 percent into the political campaign.

Olivia and OPA are working for Mellie, Liz, Fitz and the White House are behind Susan, Cyrus has Vargas and now even Jake and Papa Pope are connected to someone running for president as their plans are finally revealed. Scandal is now all about the presidential race and I dont see that changing anytime soon.

Republican Debate Prep

Sally Langston is moderating the first Republican presidential debate between Vice President Susan Ross, Senator Mellie Grant and crazy rich person Hollis Doyle. They all prepare for the big day in different ways.

Olivia is now officially running Mellies campaign with the help of OPA. The goal is to make her less of an elitist know-it-all with resting bitch face, which isnt easy because thats who Mellie is. A debacle at Gettysburger only confirms that Mellie cant relate to the common man.

Susan prepares with everyone in the White House. Liz wants her to go public with David Rosen to humanize her, but theres a big problem. David vents to Abby about sleeping with two women, not revealing names, and Abby lets it slip to Susan, unaware that shes one of the two women.

Susan confronts David who denies it and agrees to go public. More importantly, he finally breaks up with Liz because he genuinely loves Susan. However, Susan still doesnt trust him and breaks up with David just before the debate, even after he tells her that he was sleeping with someone else. Liz is a good friend to her, but its only a matter of time before Susan learns the whole truth.

Hollis, on the other hand, just shoots a gun to cook some bacon while the press watches. Scandal is going to have to keep up that level of ridiculousness just to top what Donald Trump is actually doing.

The episode ends right as the debate is about to begin, so well have to wait until next week to see the crazy mudslinging.

The Democratic Race

Cyrus is now running Frankie Vargas presidential campaign, but hes not running unopposed. Olivias former fiance, Florida Senator Edison Davis, enters the race on the Democratic side.

Cyrus also has some stiff competition from the candidates charismatic brother Alex (played by Danny Pino). Alex is ruthless and has run all his brothers other campaigns. He digs up dirt on Susan Ross and tries to make a deal to give it to Olivia in exchange for dirt on Edison.

Olivia Gets Dirty

Quinn is still looking into Jakes new bride-to-be and finally discovers the big secret. Jake and Papa Pope are using Vanessas sizeable bank accounts to fund Edisons Super PAC, financing his campaign. Olivia tries to warn Edison about how dangerous her dad is, but Edison already knows and hes OK teaming up with Papa Pope if it helps him become president.

Olivia orchestrates a sexy bathroom rendezvous with Jake to tell him what she learned, vowing that I will win. To do that, Olivia agrees to Alexs deal, giving him dirt on Edison in exchange for a mystery folder about something very bad Susan Ross has done. You can throw that White Hat into the fireplace, because no one is going to emerge from this campaign with clean hands.

(Image courtesy of ABC)
latest news

October 3, 2022

Dee Gambit

Hundreds  if not thousands  of new and returning TV shows and movies are released every month  your options of what to watch are endless. Variety, they say is ...


Eagle-eyed Burnham-On-Sea shoppers are able to win 100 over Easter by taking part in a fun competition to find unusual items hidden in shop windows across the town.

Organised by Burnhams Chamber Of Trade, the annual competition to spot the odd item in the shop window started on Friday, March 25th and runs until Sunday, 10th April.

A record number of 50 town centre businesses have put items that they dont usually sell in their windows or online and the public are invited to find as many of them as possible.

Entry is free and the first prize is 100 cash with other gift voucher prizes available for the runners-up.

Entry forms are available now from Burnhams Tourist Information Centre on the seafront and Sea Breeze. Over 3,000 copies were also distributed by the Chamber to local schools before they broke up for the holiday.

A Burnham-On-Sea Chamber of Trade spokesman said: This free competition is always a lot of fun and attracts more people into our town centre over the Easter holidays.

The Chamber believes Burnham has a great range of independent shops and with generous prizes on offer, we hope as many people will enter as possible and visit.

Pictured: Two of the traders taking part are Rhonda Mills of Sea Breeze and Kay Haines of KDS Interiors; above several of the Chamber committee

RELATED LINK:

Burnham-On-Sea Chamber of Trade
Only four episodes of Bhisham Sahni's Tamas had been shown on Doordarshan when Ramesh Dalal petitioned the courts in the 1980s, asking them to stop the telecast. He felt that Tamas could disrupt public order, promote feelings of enmity and argued that "truth in its naked form may not always be desirable to be told or exhibited".

But Sahni spent his life as a writer chasing the truth in its naked form, relentlessly honest in his memoir, Boyhood, about the family, neighbourhood politics, his terror of nocturnal emissions, the shadowy travails of their domestic servant Tulsi. He was well aware of the slipperiness of memory: Boyhood begins with fragmented images of the past flying around in his mind like so many scraps of paper.

He knew that an image from one time could merge with an event from another to create something true to both. He was in Rawalpindi in 1926 when the grain market was set on fire. He fused the memory of the flames leaping high - frightening but also fascinating - with a smaller fire that had been set in the markets of Bhiwandi during 1947.

Penguin India has brought out a set of four of Sahni's classics . The covers by Pia Hazarika are striking, bearing single images - an owl on the branch of a tree for Mansion, a boy with his nose pressed to the ground for Boyhood, a woman's plait strung with joyous red ribbons for Basanti - in a vivid and tempting colour palette. Tamas stands apart, in a severe black on grey typographic design that signals the novel's grim Partition background but not its textured richness.

Shveta Sarda has translated Basanti and Mansion, Anna Khanna is the translator of Boyhood, and Daisy Rockwell has translated Tamas, which is in hardback and is the only book to carry a translator's note. This is disappointing; a translator reads with a particular and piercing attention, and Penguin misses a rare chance to have the perspectives of three translators on the same author's work. I read Basanti and Boyhood, missing Sarda and Khanna's viewpoints, which would have added a scant few pages to the cost of production and a great deal more to the reader's understanding.

Mansion will be a pleasant surprise for Sahni's fans who haven't encountered this multi-chambered novel about the collapse of the Khalsa Raj in Punjab and the rise of the firangi company. The fortunes of the lord of the mansion, Diwan Dhanpat Rai, rise and fall too; perhaps, as one character says, you need an owl's vision to handle the currents of history, to see ruins where palaces stand at present, to understand that power is temporary. Basanti is far more contemporary; Sahni follows the escapes, flirtations, loves and dramas of a girl who grows into womanhood through a city shaped, then as now, by the ongoing rumble of demolitions, evictions and the rebuilding of chawls.

But it is Tamas, in either Rockwell's translation or the original Hindi, that remains an essential text for the times. "Sahni's meticulous, detailed chronicle gives the lie to the notion of Partition violence as a spontaneous burst of maniacal behaviour; of people losing control of themselves; of a madness that takes hold of the populace. This riot is the result of careful planning and politiciking."



She suggests that unlike Govind Nihalani's television series, Tamas, the novel "offers us no such solace in neat endings, tidy narrative patterns Reading about the life of a riot is chilling and uncomfortable".

In the matter of Ramesh s/o Chotelal Dalal vs Union of India and Others, the learned judges ruled in favour of allowing Tamas to be telecast. They observed that illiterates are not devoid of common sense, or unable to grasp the calumny of the fundamentalists and extremists. "This is how they [the judges] have viewed it: those who forget history are condemned to repeat it."



All these years later, Sahni's hard-wrested knowledge that violence is learned behaviour, that riots are planned, manufactured events, should haunt and warn us of what lies ahead. The naked truth is often undesirable, but its lessons are inescapable.
Like a true Renaissance man, William Dalrymple has moved through various avatars of a travel writer, feature writer, foreign correspondent, historian, lecturer, festival organiser as well as goatherd and pigeon keeper - as he describes himself on the social media. So, between writing the text for a book on Nagaland for David Bailey, the legendary British photographer (in return for a Mick Jagger original print from the 1960's), and the text for archaeologist George Michel's next book on Hampi, he's also working on promoting his three-city photography show, which, after its current run in Goa, will travel to New Delhi and London.

According to him, the photography exhibition happened because Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, the Mumbai-based writer who's a board member of Sunaparanta, the Goa Centre for Arts, saw Dalrymple's photographs on the social media when the two were in Goa. He talked Dalrymple into exhibiting them and Goa became the first site of the exhibition. He then spoke to other galleries and HarperCollins about publishing a book of the photographs. Anant Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins, edited the book and Dalrymple's role involved sorting through his massive collection of images. Shanghvi says that barring two images, there were no differences in opinion between the two.

So, does his writing play a part in the exhibition? "Not directly, but the way the world is going, the money for writing is disappearing while there's such an emphasis on personal appearances. And this allows me to roam. I've had a restless year," Dalrymple laughs. While he roamed through Central Asia, Iran and Europe, India and his native Scotland, he took plenty of pictures with his trusted Samsung phone. His wife, Olivia, adds, "I get fed up of his camera. He's always on it, editing pictures. He finds it calming during the stress of long journeys." Dalrymple takes up the story again, "I'm influenced by Bill Brandt and Don Mccullin's photos. I've enjoyed creating black and white pictures since I was a teenager."



It's interesting that Dalrymple's inspirations are mostly photojournalists known for their clear, almost documentary styles. Mccullin, in particular, has publicly stated that he's always thought photography is not so much of an art form as a way of communicating and passing on information. Dalrymple's landscapes, however, play with perspective, form, texture and composition. They are moody and atmospheric memories of bygone magnificence. Common themes such as Mughal architecture, the ruins of Afghanistan, and the domes of Golconda run through them, while others show the chaos of Lucknow chowks, the crumbling Paigah palaces of old Hyderabad and even a journey along the Ganges looking for perfume in Kannauj. The photographs are magnificent, but not cozy or inviting.

Equally interesting is how Dalrymple's own descriptions of the landscapes are drenched with colour. He talks about the jaw-dropping journey from Kabul to Bamiyan, "The dark slopes were etched in ice, each river valley white against the black granite of range after range of folding mountains. In the centre of the Pamirs, was a clear, empty, silent landscape lined with frozen crevices filled with un-melted snow. In many ways it felt like a primeval landscape, untouched by man." The exhibition captures the grandeur of lost civilisations and cultures on the verge of extinction as it meanders between landscapes, architecture and people who are the last remnants of this forgotten world.

The exhibition of William Dalrymple's photographs can be viewed at Vadehra Art Gallery, Defence Colony, New Delhi, between March 30 and April 20
ZORAMI: A REDEMPTION SONG

Author: Malsawmi Jacob

Publisher: Morph Books

Pages: 262

Price: Rs 399



LAAL LAKEER (RED LINE)

Author: Hridayesh Joshi

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 319

Price: Rs 350



THE ADIVASI WILL NOT DANCE

Author: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Pages: 189

Price: Rs 399



In Zorami, author Malsawmi Jacob writes about a period of Mizo history that could well be replicated across the tribal belts of mainland India today. Lurching by chance from Zorami to Laal Lakeer (Red Line), a novel in Hindi, I traced blood-soaked common threads that connect times and geographies of tribal existence in India. In Laal Lakeer, the author Hridayesh Joshi sketches the politics and the nature of state in Chhattisgarh today.

Both novels counterpoise the aspirations of a couple against the violence and despair that a community suffers when armed insurgencies rise and when states decide to quell these with equal if not greater brutality. It is the kind of brutality that a nation-state can perpetuate only when there is social sanction to treat a community as the "other" and the political sanction to treat the "other" as an enemy of the state. In this case, about 8 per cent of India's population, tribal men and women, are the "others".

The two writers locate their protagonists in forests on fire with physical violence. A third writer, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, in his book of short-stories, The Adivasi Will Not Dance, looks at how violence against India's "others" manifests itself beyond the threat of physical decimation. His "others" are the tribes and other poor from Jharkhand. He maps the psychological, economic and social violence that systematically permeates and gnaws into the everyday life of the "others" in the mineral belt where they are systematically treated by society as citizens without dignity and with lesser rights.

All three are works of fiction. Yet, all three are true portraits of realities in Indian tribal and mineral belts that journalism has largely found itself incapable of recording. Joshi is a journalist with NDTV and he admits this failure of Indian journalism candidly. He should know: he is one of the few persistent and dogged chroniclers from Delhi of Chhattisgarh's burning forests. Joshi, with his unreported experiences still fresh, explodes his narrative with vivid details, of terror and love in times of terror.

On the other hand, Jacob, a Mizo writer of fiction and non-fiction, weaves her novel with a deep grief that comes from remembering how state terror (reacting to an armed uprising) tore through society, leaving it perpetually in the process of healing and recovery.

Today, people remember Mizoram as a state where India quelled an armed rebellion "successfully", turning the society in to a "peaceful" tribal haven. It forgets too often that a majority of Mizo people were uprooted from their lands, forcefully dislocated and brutalised in the process. India doesn't remind its children that the country first replicated US's strategic hamleting of Vietnam in the Mizo hills. India doesn't tell its citizens that similar ruthless torture of communities by the state found political legitimacy in 21st century India in Chhattisgarh, of which Joshi writes.

Joshi and Jacob use a pair of lovers as characters in the foreground, creating a depth of field to view the panoramic scenes of regional violence and misery. Shekhar has a different craft. There is no wide panorama in his narrative and there is no attempt to foreground emotion against the violence. The emotion, in many instances, is ripped away by the characters' circumstances. So is hope. The bleakness of their existence is painted in a despairing shade deeper than that of coagulating blood around a wound.

Read the story of the 20-year-old Talamai, just another destitute Santhal woman in the mass seasonal migration that tribal belts witness. She "agrees" to rape by a policeman for two pieces of cold bread pakora and Rs 50. Shekhar doesn't dwell on the rape. He pulverises instead with the image of a people who have been broken to accept violence as episodic blips in their everyday lives.

The three are also a timely read. Delhi and Hyderabad recently witnessed the attempt to label difference and dissent as anti-national and the consequential attempt to seek social and political sanction for paring down the rights of these freshly minted "others". That social sanction, it was hoped, would legitimise the unleashing of hoodlums and thugs on Delhi's streets as the state looked the other way. All in the name of the nation.

These are good reminders: what transpired in Delhi, abominable as it was, pales in front of what "mainstream" India has systematically perpetuated for decades against the "others" in tribal and mineral-rich India in the name of greater national good and the brutality it has often sanctioned in the name of national security. The blame spreads well across political party lines from the right to left.

At such times when furore has erupted among some about the business of anti-nationalism in Delhi, the three authors bring the history of "others" beyond Delhi to us in the garb of fiction. If you find the quality of one author's writing weaker compared to the others, as I did, it doesn't matter; the stories they have to tell are too powerful to quibble about anything else.
At the in Delhi in the 1970s, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar made it abundantly clear to the organisers that he would not like his performance to be recorded. Later that day, however, he regretted his decision. "I've never played so well. It is so sad that I haven't got a recording," he told Sumitra Charat Ram, the cultural impresario who founded the festival in 1947. Sumitra assured him that there was at least one person who recorded his performance, despite his strict orders.

Her daughter, Shobha Deepak Singh, had given a recorder to someone in the gathering to surreptitiously record the concert. "I made a copy and gave it to him," recalls Singh, 72, a few days before the three-day-long 69th edition of the festival kicks off at Kamani Auditorium in central Delhi.

Over the years, the festival has hosted legends such as vocalists Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Bhimsen Joshi, sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ravi Shankar - it also remains one of the oldest classical music festivals in Delhi. "Whenever I have rung up any musician, he never said no," says Singh, who is also director of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, a Delhi-based cultural organisation that promotes music and performing arts through its schools and concerts.

For years, the festival, which later came to be called by its present name, would showcase performances by well-established artists. The format, however, changed in 1983. "We began to have one very senior musician and one young artist who we thought was going to be good," says Singh. "So, Ulhas Kashalkar, Ashwini Bhide Deshpande and Kaushiki Chakraborty came as relatively unknown people."





For an event that has spanned six decades, some performances stand out in Singh's memory: a "rare" concert at which sitar player Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan played together; another in which shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan and Vilayat Khan played raga Yaman; and a performance by tabla player Zakir Hussain at an open-air concert on a particularly "windy day, with his hair going all over".

Equally unique are some of the demands made by the veterans who have performed at the festival. Sarod virtuoso Amjad Ali Khan, for instance, was reluctant to have his rendering recorded. "His wife would send out people to see whether I was recording," says Singh. "But I would buy the latest equipment from London and keep it under a chair. The music was for students to learn; it wasn't for me."



She also recalls how legendary vocalist Mallikarjun Mansur once made an unusual request in the middle of his performance. "'Ek beedi ho jaye,' [could I have a beedi?] he asked," Singh remembers, smilingly. "That went into the recording."

The 69th year

The 69th edition of the Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival will be held from March 31 to April 3 at Kamani Auditorium.
It was in 2004, at the time when the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, that Satish Gupta was in the Dambulla Rock Temples. Suddenly the world around him was thrown into turmoil, and yet the Buddha sculptures stood there in front of him - serene, timeless and reassuring. This one moment inspired him to create his iconic work, the life-size The Buddhas Within, which has a sleeping Buddha's head reclined at an angle. On the inside of the large head, there are 1,500 micro Buddha sculptures - 500 each for the past, present and future. This towering work forms the centrepiece of his latest exhibition, "Zen Space", which a collection of 10 sculptures, eight paintings and 72 haikus created in the past 25 years. Gupta's latest exhibition is being presented at the Visual Arts Gallery by Mumbai-based Gallery Art & Soul.

As an artist, Gupta refuses to be labelled by genres. His creativity transcends forms - be it sculpting, painting, ceramics, calligraphy, murals or poetry. "I don't see duality in any aspect of life - it's just one big flow. I am very conscious of the very fact of being alive and want to celebrate that," says Gupta, who works out of his studio, Zazen, in Gurgaon. This, perhaps, stems from a life-changing experience that he underwent in 1994 when he had to get a tumour removed from his brain. "Luckily, it was benign and I could put that experience behind me and learn from it," he says.

To most, it is his journey that is most remarkable. Art scholar-columnist Uma Nair has been following his work for more than 30 years now and finds his evolution fascinating. "His brilliance lies in the different journeys he embarks upon with so much ease and silence. I am deeply stirred by his tranquil islands of peace that he seeks through his sculptures," she says.

'Zen Space' is on display at the Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi, till March 31, 2016
Last year, I met a US soldier named Sarah on SinglesAroundMe. She was on deployment in Nigeria to help contain Boko Haram, a terrorist group. The 40-something looked tall, military, and tattooed.

I asked Sarah where she lived in the US, and she sent me a Google-Earth link to her American address. She also told me the colour of her roof, even before I could look it up on Google Earth. That was convincing - but she always shooed me away during patrol hours, saying her commanding officer was nearby. Over the days, Sarah sent me several of her pictures: the civilian ones showed her in an elegant black top and conservative knee-length skirt and the military ones had her flashing the V-sign in her patrol vehicle. On seeing the latter, I felt sorry the handsome woman had to spend her birthday in a war zone, away from her eight-year-old kid and her drifting husband, both in the US. She had taken on this difficult assignment, she said, so her son could live comfortably. Sarah also confided how she and her husband were living in the pretence of a marriage, and then asked: are you coming to "still" my heart away?



This got me pretty amped up and hyper. Now, I would wake up at 4 am (11.30 pm, Nigeria time) searching for the little light flashing on my laptop that said she was waiting to Skype. It was the most intense and expressive feeling I have ever had.

The online chats blossomed into phone conversations, made reportedly over a military satellite phone - Sarah said that Nigeria and its telecom had been blown apart by the guys at Boko Haram.

As the conversations stretched into mornings, I felt drawn to the American twang in her voice. Also, we exchanged many photos, some of them crazy. But when we hooked up to Skype, Sarah would always bring up an excuse and block video chat. "All I know is," she said, "if really you are the right man for me, you will surely 'comes' back. How I wish you are in the military, you will understand the whole things!" As a consolation, she created a private Facebook page for just the two of us - I was told to keep it a secret for military reasons. On it, she uploaded images of paper with handwritten poetry on it. And with the writer's equivalent of canvas and brush, she wrote: "Your lips are like two earthworms..." I will spare you the rest. It goes on for quite a while.

Nevertheless, I remained pushy about video chat. "Remember," she warned, "I am in the camp. Access to video chat 'are' always advised to be blocked before deployment. It's a standard military special force security... Protocol." But added as an afterthought, "I can sneak out to the nearest cyber cafe."



Within six weeks, we got virtually engaged in a 3D chatroom and Sarah proudly wore a (fake) diamond ring. She even claimed to have obtained six 25-kg gold bars from a Boko Haram hideout, all ready to be shipped to the US, so we could start our new life together. "Can you relocate to the 'State'...When we finally agree to marry each other?" she asked in full earnest. How could I say no to happily-ever-after?



In the meantime, her troops started starving between famine and war. I mounted rescue efforts: sent $2 to her PayPal account, versus her General's request of $783. It felt shameful. But the figures started a rapid climb from there. And in the end, I succumbed to her requests. I could no longer feed her wild claims and her starving unit.

Although suspicious, I still had no reason to question her identity. But after I repeatedly refused to send another penny, she asked me a surprising question: would I still marry her if she wasn't the woman in the photo? Thinking she had been disfigured or shot by the guys at Boko Haram, I wept and vowed I would always love her. Sarah then sent me her real photo - that of a 22-year-old Nigerian woman. Clearly a professional, her written and spoken English were sometimes equal to mine; she had been to college in Nigeria and had studied the American accent in great detail. The photos of Sarah and her eight-year-old had been stolen.

But she gave me the happiest days in my life.
The citizens of ancient athens thought no one had any chance of being a great man who wasn't born in a great city. M N Srinivas's very name bears the impress of the (fleetingly) great city in which he was born: Mysore. Some time in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, Srinivas's ancestors had travelled westward from Tamil country, a week's journey in an oxcart, into rural southern Mysore - hence Srinivas's first initial. There they, like countless other Brahmins, quietly violated the ancient laws of Manu by joining their tenants and servants in working the land. But literate and moderately well-off, they were quick to see the advantages of the city only a day's journey to the north, with its new colleges offering a modern, English-language education in the humanities and sciences. Srinivas's father, Narasimhachar - whose name became, in the standard way, his son's second initial, N - was one such emigrant. He left his natal village and moved to Mysore city, the capital of what the British called, with a weary condescension, a "princely state".

College Road, in Mysore, was a Brahmin neighbourhood, but even that was enough to quicken the young Srinivas's faculties of observation. The families who lived to both sides of Srinivas's were, like his, Iyengars, but these neighbours spoke Telugu rather than Tamil, and took their Vaishnavism to fanatical heights, insisting they would not step into a temple to Shiva even if they were dragged there by elephants. Srinivas's household, by contrast, was progressive enough to celebrate the annual Ganesha festival; even more eccentrically, his mother's relatives had violated Brahmin norms by studying abroad and, what was worse, marrying Bengalis.

The young Srinivas's real induction into anthropological diversity came from his illicit glimpses into Bandikeri, an area of narrow streets behind his house. The itinerant Kurubas - shepherds and weavers - were meat-eaters who worshipped the stern, puritanical deity Madeshwara, buried their dead, and had elaborate funeral rituals that looked nothing like the Brahminical rites Srinivas knew.

The reaction of the young Srinivas to the experience of human difference was visceral - "visibly and olfactorily different." But successive twists of fate took him to the academic study of these differences. A delicate boy, his adolescence was blighted by chronic malaria. His family could not see this dangerously underweight boy becoming a doctor or engineer; nor could Srinivas himself, who loathed mathematics. His father died in November 1934, when Srinivas was just 18. Decisions about his education were thus deferred to his eldest brother, M N Parthasarathy, a schoolteacher with an MA in English literature. A wilful bachelor and a rebel who rejected Brahmin orthodoxy, Parthasarathy put the choice of Srinivas's university course in the hands of a Marxist friend who, flipping through Mysore University's handbook, decided that a new honours programme in "social philosophy" would be just right.

This programme was the brainchild of a colourful character, A R Wadia. A debonair Parsi, resplendent on campus in his white trousers and silk jacket, Wadia thought the scrawny Brahmin boy under his tutelage had potential, and remained a lifelong mentor to Srinivas. The boy proved a brilliant student, but - like so many such - a poor examinee, so his second-class degree in the final examination turned out to be another stroke of luck. Ineligible for the school-teaching and civil-service jobs restricted to first-class graduates, Srinivas applied - again, at his brother's urging - to the MA programme in sociology at the University of Bombay. Once there, and with typical middle-class prudence, Srinivas attended lectures on law in the evenings. His years in Bombay brought him under the tutelage of yet another striking character: the pioneering sociologist Govind Sadashiv Ghurye.

Ghurye sent Srinivas for his doctoral fieldwork to Coorg, in what is now the state of Karnataka, in part to test a theory of his - founded on one of Rivers's wilder speculations - that the Coorgs' ancestor shrines might show the influence of the Egyptian pyramids. Srinivas's fieldwork in Coorg, interspersed with severe bouts of diarrhoea, was unpleasant and lonely, though he managed to collect a formidable amount of data about social structures and kinship.

A couple of years later, Srinivas received a much awaited letter from Oxford, offering him a place as a doctoral student, and an assurance from his ever generous elder brother of money for the passage to England. His relations with Ghurye had begun to sour: Srinivas felt like a magpie, constantly tasked by Ghurye with finding this or that bit of data but unable to do anything with what he collected. "My interest in ideas," he wrote, "had been starved." But at Oxford, he was to work with a giant of the discipline, AR Radcliffe-Brown, generally called "R-B".

He did not find Srinivas' description of his proposed research on what he called "culture patterns" among the Coorg, Toda and Chenchu communities at all promising, regarding the very idea that a culture had a "pattern" as unscientific nonsense. Instead, he suggested - wisely, as it turned out - that Srinivas revisit his material on religion in Coorg in the light of more sophisticated recent theories. He added, with the patronising air of the native speaker, that the Bombay thesis was written in very good English: where ever had he learnt it? A little at the school down the road from his home, said Srinivas, and the rest piecemeal as he went along.

A year later, R-B left Oxford, but he had read enough of Srinivas's work to commend him highly to the successor to his professorial chair, who would become Srinivas's most abiding intellectual influence, E E Evans-Pritchard - inevitably, "E-P." E-P was a recent convert to Catholicism, and much celebrated for his field study of witchcraft and oracles among the Azande of Sudan. Srinivas took to his new supervisor straightaway, finding in him an unusual capacity for imagination, acceptance and empathy.

E-P was an unenthusiastic lecturer and a reluctant seminar leader, but he flowered in intimate, unstructured, non-hierarchical settings where a tankard of beer was an order away. Srinivas thrived there, with the freewheeling conversational style of the Mysore coffeehouse recreated in a cold climate, where talk about anthropology could lead without warning into matters both political and personal. It was at these pub gatherings that Srinivas came to feel at home in Oxford.

Srinivas, who thought himself simultaneously "a rationalist and an atheist" and a "Hindu and a Brahmin," found E-P's humane, sceptical conservatism agreeable, and its presence in his own writings would later win him radical detractors.

In August 1947, Srinivas was back in India, his second doctorate in hand. On the evening of the 14th, he was at Mysore's Subbarayana Kere, a park where nationalists used to gather, listening to the first vice president of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, address an assembled crowd. Over the next few months, he began looking for a suitable village to study. It had to be relatively small and secluded, to have rice fields and a number of caste communities. The village that eventually fit the bill was Rampura, and his 10 months there furnished him with material for a lifetime's analysis and study.

Srinivas arrived at Rampura in February 1948, with 26 pieces of luggage and a teenaged Brahmin cook in tow. He moved into the "Bullock House," one of five properties belonging to the village headman. The digestive nightmare of his Coorg fieldwork still fresh in his mind, he insisted on having all well-water boiled, and mixed with lemon to dull the brackish taste. This was put down to the eccentric fastidiousness of the Brahmin. The headman's eldest son directed him to the tree under which he was, as Srinivas delicately reports it, to "answer calls of nature." This was, he said, "the first of many occasions when I ran up against the total but implicit acceptance of the biological dimension of life which characterised rural culture."



Initially complacent about his intuitive understanding of his subjects, he came swiftly to see just "how far I [and my family] had travelled away from tradition." His early weeks in the village were full of social solecisms. The headman and his sons were appalled that he could joke about matters of religion, that he shaved after rather than before his bath, and about his bathing habits the less said the better. Baffled by his insistence on privacy during this obviously public ritual, they asked him why he couldn't bathe in the open, as normal men did? Was he, they asked, in the habit of bathing in the nude? Sheepishly, Srinivas "confessed to the depravity but in order to remove inconvenience... I decided on having a booth of woven, split bamboo erected in the courtyard. The idea was at once pronounced prodigal though typical of me. I had my way, though, and one of the attractions of the idea was that it brought me into contact with the Medas (Basketry-makers) in Rampura."
Remember the enormous brouhaha over Dadri last year, after a mob killed a man over rumours of beef in his fridge? This week, when two Muslim cattle herders were murdered and hung from a tree, it passed rather quietly. People idly wondered whether it was because they were Muslim, or because they may have been cattle smugglers, but nobody seemed shocked that two people were killed.
It is 4 pm in Myongdeong, one of Seoul's main shopping and tourism districts, also rated among the 10 most expensive shopping streets in the world. Being a weekend, the market is teeming with people, mostly youngsters in smart jackets, leather bags and shoes in every possible design and style.

The food carts lining the market crackle and sizzle with deep-fried dumplings, chilli-coated rice cakes, steamed red bean buns, dried, fried and smoked octopus and squid.

What catches my attention though is the numerous cosmetics stores here: from small, unusual-looking beauty stores to mass market brands to satiate the desires of a people who take beauty seriously.

Saleswomen in these beauty stores hold little shopping baskets spilling with face masks and lotions ("free gifts, c'mon in") and ask you to check out the array of products lined on tables outside each of the main stores.

I encounter products that I've never seen before in any cosmetic shop in India: egg cream masks in - what else - egg-shaped bottles, snail slime (yes, true) face mask sheets, animal and lace mask sheets (one of the latest trends, I'm told, with whacky designs targeting youngsters who stick these sheets on their face not just to get better skin but also for "selfies"), eye masks, neck masks, yeast-extract sleeping face packs and creams, alpha-hydroxy-acid foot masks, anti-wrinkle and blackhead removal lotions with pomegranate and green tea extracts, rice bran oil cleansers, acne serums



Unsurprisingly, the beauty regime of people in Korea, including young men who are increasingly inspired by K-pop culture, is intense. Typically, women apply anywhere between 10 and 18 beauty products on their face on a daily basis, starting with two cleansers (oil and foam) followed by toner, serums, sheet masks (daily, yes), eye creams, face creams, sunscreens, sleeping packs (also, daily), and exfoliation that's done thrice a week you get the drift.

This is much more than the clean-tone-moisturise routine that we are used to in India.

Men are catching up and taking to many of these skincare and beauty products; Korea accounts for 20 per cent of the world market for men's cosmetics, some reports suggest. No surprise then that many of the beauty stores I encounter in Myeongdeong have generously-piled shelves that are "for men", including brow pencils, BB creams, even bright lipsticks and cheek tints!



It is no wonder then that Korean cosmetics are grabbing headlines - everywhere. On my flight back from the Incheon airport, I read an article in China Daily on "beauty business tilting from West to East" and Korean beauty companies getting aggressive in marketing their products to tourists - tax-free refund lounges and instant cash refund of sales tax to foreign tourists, for instance.

At the Shilla Stay, our hotel in the heart of Seoul, stone's throw away from Dongdemum, another popular shopping and tourist destination, my colleague and I find ourselves staring at a large suitcase of a young Chinese couple that's spilling over with Korean beauty products.

Truth be told, it is hard not to get lured by these fabulous products - the beauty experts and brand representatives at several of these stores know exactly what your skin needs. As you move in around the store, one shelf to the other, it's truly a journey of getting to know your skin better.

The best part is that these products work wonders. Late one night, in Dongdemum, a beauty representative from Face Shop applies a water-lift gel on my face to settle the redness and itchiness I feel. I'm asked not to use aloe vera on my face ("It's not for your skin type"); instead this water-lift gel would be best for keeping my skin hydrated and smooth. I'm also asked to use "volcanic clay mask" that would "melt" blackheads and acne scars.

Needless to say, I'm convinced at every step and by the end of that one hour in Dongdemum, I want to pack the entire store and bring it back to India.

It isn't difficult to understand why the beauty industry is lending a radiant glow to the economy of Korea. Consider this staggering statistic: There are roughly 2,000 local beauty brands - and growing - in the country. From niche and "indie" to mass market to those revelling in "just natural", all of Seoul is dotted with skincare and beauty stores: Innisfree, Nature Republic, It's Skin, Missha, Etude Shop, Tony Moly, Face Shop, Olive Young, et al.

In Myeongdeong - actually, pretty much all of Seoul - it is not unusual to find four or five stores of the same beauty brand in some enclave or corner of the market. If Face Shop, for instance, is present in one main lane of Myeongdeong, I find another one tucked in a different lane of the same market.

It is at this store that I observe a group of young girls who are busy checking out an array of beauty products: sea kelp mask sheets, BB cushion compacts (this is truly magical, a mixture of sun cream, make-up base and foundation, all absorbed into a special sponge), jelly texture eye shadow in vibrant colours, double-shaded, gradated lipsticks, liquid blushers for that dewy look



Clearly, there is a lot they can choose from and I notice these young women constantly peering into their mobile phones, checking pictures of - perhaps - seasoned models in the hope to replicate their look.

Ask anyone about the makeup trends and experts will tell you it is the "dewy", "veil-like", "nude", "pigment-free" look that's the rage. There are a growing number of YouTube videos on the Korean makeup trends. One evening on a local television channel, I note that a fiction drama is actually focusing on the skincare regime of the actor while she's mouthing dialogues.

Interestingly, in Seoul, the trends in coffee and cosmetics, I find, behave similarly. In both cases, competing brands are, quite literally, stuck to each other in shopping streets and commercial complexes. It's not tough to imagine why. Koreans are finicky about - and love - both coffee and cosmetics. Holding the Starbucks coffee in the brand's signature paper cup, I'm told, is a style statement.

Even though the competition between beauty brands, one imagines, would be intense, almost all of them are investing heavily in innovation and research, bringing out 20 to 30 new products every month (most beauty brands in the West, one is told, would bring out roughly the same number of products every year). "We are serious about our beauty," the expert at Innisfree, another popular brand of Korea that comes under AmorePacific Corporation, tells me.

"It's not enough to write ginseng and green tea extract on the mask sheet package. How do the ingredients deeply penetrate into your skin, that's the challenge in innovation," she says as she drenches my face in a mask sheet at a store and smoothing it with her hands.

Like anyone else who travels to this part of the world, my journey in Seoul is an exciting exploration into skincare and finding a new me.
Hundreds of employees at the five-star The Oberoi hotel here will soon pack their bags for postings elsewhere; the iconic property closes for a Rs 325-crore renovation next month, to be completed by March 2018.

While it shuts the 51-year-old property in Delhi for two years, the Oberoi group is inaugurating a new hotel each in UAE and Morocco this year. A third hotel coming up in Chandigarh will also accommodate some of the 400-odd staffers from Delhi. Some employees have decided to resign and join other options in the region or for other activities.

The group is opening three new hotels this year: The Oberoi Sukhvilas (Chandigarh), The Oberoi Marrakech (Morocco) and The Oberoi Al Zohra (UAE) and a lot of our employees are joining these. There have been a few resignations, said a spokesperson for the BSE-listed hotel company, EIH.

Belvedere members at the Oberoi here Delhi will not be charged the annual membership fee of Rs 143,125 (including taxes) for the two years. They may also continue to use Belvedere at Oberoi hotels in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru for the period of renovation.

The group is fortunate to have loyal guests. We are confident that many of them will continue to stay with us (in this region) at The Oberoi, Gurgaon and Trident, Gurgaon, the spokesperson said.

The 283-room hotel on Delhi's Zakir Hussain Marg contributed Rs 187 crore or 14 per cent to the company's annual revenue of Rs 1,341 crore in the year ended March 2015. The company's net profit was Rs 96.6 crore in the year. The impact from closure of this hotel is expected to be more than offset once the three new hotels are operational.

All guest rooms, public areas, including the restaurants, bar, business centre, spa and shopping arcade, as well as all back-of-house areas of the hotel will be completely renovated. It is not clear if the number of rooms will go up.

Founded in 1934, the group operates 30 hotels under the Oberoi and Trident brands, and has presence in six countries. It is also engaged in flight catering, airport restaurants, travel and tour services, car rentals, project management and corporate air charters.
Flipkart co-founder and chairman Sachin Bansal on Friday took a dig at Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba for its decision to enter India's crowded e-commerce market directly, suggesting its existing investments in smaller rivals Paytm and Snapdeal might have come a cropper.

"Alibaba deciding to start operations directly shows how badly their Indian investments have done so far," Bansal tweeted on Friday. He did not, however, name the investments by Alibaba.

In no time, Kunal Bahl, co-founder and chief executive officer of Snapdeal, tweeted back: "Didn't Morgan Stanley just flush ($)5 bn worth market cap in Flipkart down the (drain)? Focus on (yo)ur business, not commentary."



Bansal's comment also comes at a time when Flipkart is facing increased competition from Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos has an open cheque to conquer the Indian e-commerce market.

Notably, Alibaba was also trying to invest in Flipkart, in a bid to have a pie in the three large e-commerce players in India to take on Amazon.

Amazon, which dominates the US, has lost the Chinese market to Alibaba and the two players do not want a repeat of that in India - the largest open market for global e-commerce firms.

While Flipkart's valuation came down after Morgan Stanley marked down its investment value, Snapdeal, which raised $200 million from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and others in the same month, saw its valuation increase to $6.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Flipkart has seen a leadership change with co-founder Binny Bansal - who is pushing a shift in strategy to focus on operational efficiency, building infrastructure and profitability - taking charge.

Alibaba, which plans to invest about $2 billion in India, has investments in Snapdeal and Paytm, and was in talks to fund Flipkart but did not proceed owing to valuation issues. Early this month, The Economic Times had reported that Amazon had held talks with Flipkart to acquire the firm but did not proceed owing to the steep valuation commanded by the Indian firm.

A Morgan Stanley research report in March pegged the total gross merchandise value (GMV), or the value of traded goods, among Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal at $13.5 billion, with Flipkart having the lion's share at 45 per cent. Snapdeal followed with 26 per cent and Amazon, a late entrant, had 12 per cent of the GMV. The report also warned of increased competition with the two smaller rivals attempting to close the gap with Flipkart.
Marketing & Trading will sell four liquefied natural gas cargoes to India's Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) between June and March 2017, following a recent tender, trade sources said.

The tender attracted a lot of interest from trade houses and suppliers, they said.

GSPC paid a price between the low- to mid 11% range of a barrel of crude oil, according to traders.



is a large public joint stock Russian company founded in 1989 which carries on the business of extraction, production, transport and sale of natural gas.
Large multinationals like General Electric (GE), Boeing and Honeywell have endorsed India's intellectual property rights (IPR) environment even as US drug and software companies lobby against the country's patents regime ahead of the Special 301 Report of the US Trade Representative (USTR). Most representations have, however, acknowledged an improvement in India's IPR regime under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The USTR will issue the Report in April. It had conducted an out-of-cycle review for India in 2014 but did not downgrade it. India has always maintained that



US Special 301 is a unilateral measure and the government does not agree to be party to any such investigation.

GE says Indian innovations have been used the world over. "GE's Lullaby baby warmer was originally developed at our research centre in Bangalore and is now sold in over 80 countries. The design enables caregivers to focus on the baby and not switches. The unit is particularly popular in Western Europe," it said, in its representation to the USTR. GE employs 5,300 technologists in its research centres in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

Honeywell has pointed out that India's IPR framework and enforcement were comparable to those in developed countries.

"Honeywell has committed time and financial resources to patenting its technologies in India, and confidence in India's IPR framework was one of the key enablers in the establishment of Honeywell's engineering and technology presence, including Honeywell Technology Solutions and the Honeywell India Technology Centre," it said, in its representation.

Boeing said it had seen greater openness to IPR concerns under the Modi government. "There is new momentum suggesting that India is preparing to take steps to improve its IPR regime. As the preeminent US exporter to India, as well as an investment partner in India, Boeing continues to have a positive experience with Indian customers, partners, and suppliers on IPR protection," it said.

US drug firms, however, continue to lobby with their administration to press India to change some of its patent policies.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a grouping of leading drug innovators, said, "Though the basic import duties for pharmaceutical products average about 10 per cent, additional duties and assessments are imposed that bring the effective import duty total to approximately 20 per cent. In fact, India collects more in taxes on pharmaceuticals than it spends on medicines," it said.

The US India Business Council has recommended that India remain on the less damaging Priority Watch List, pointing out that legacy issues remained a concern. India has maintained that US Special 301 is a unilateral measure and the government of India does not agree to be party to any such investigation. In a first for India, the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) is finalising an IPR policy to strengthen patents regime that encourages innovation and R&D. Besides, the government has also constituted a think tank on IPR to advise government on a range of patents-related issues.

India has been holding talks with US for over a year under a bilateral working group for IPR. Earlier this week, India defended its right to grant compulsory licence and to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted. India has always maintained that its IPR laws are WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights compliant. India has been put under the USTR "priority watch" list for two years in a row, arguing that India's patent laws favoured domestic companies. India and the US have been at loggerheads over the contentious issue of compulsory licencing and section 3(d) of Indian Patents Act, which does not approve patents for evergreening. India granted first CL in 2012, allowing local firm Natco to sell a generic version of German company Bayer's cancer medicine Nexavar at a lower price. However, DIPP, in the last two years, has put down CL requests made by the ministry of health.

WHAT IS THE SPECIAL 301 REPORT?
, chief executive officer at SRL Diagnostics, talks to Deepak Patel about expansion plans and regulations for the sector. Edited excerpts:We are starting our second lab in Virat Nagar, Kathmandu, which would be up and running in about three months. Because of the Madhesi problem in Nepal, it got slightly delayed. A second lab is coming up at Kandy in Sri Lanka. The first one was established in Colombo around 2.5-3 years before. The second one would start functioning by June 30.Congo is a very tough and different terrain. We underestimated the problems. There are huge issues around manpower, supplies, vendors and distribution. The good thing is that we are starting a huge lab  in fact the largest lab in that country  on Monday. This would be our first lab in the African mainland.In Nigeria, we have signed an agreement with IFC (International Finance Corporation), a local party and with GE (General Electric). There are four partners in that; a fifth partner is still eluding us. The plan was to open around 40 labs across four years. The fourth investor was taking some time, as they were unable to garner funds. Therefore, we're going ahead with Plan B, the truncated version, according to which we plan to establish three labs by the end of 2016-17. The focus would remain on Africa. Kenya is also very much on our radar. Our model there is the local investors/partners invest the money and we run the lab for them.Ghana is another one, on the western side. On the eastern side, we also have Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania; they need some good quality testing facilities. Some of these countries have historically huge affiliations with India. For example, around 50 per cent of Kenyan doctors are of Indian origin. Some of the service providers are already there, so this gives us an edge, as we are the largest in India and everyone knows us. The idea is to go into those geographies which are relatively easier to be in and start creating something.We are also focusing to get into every Saarc (South Asian) country. We are already getting loads and loads of samples from Saarc and West Asian countries. We have a very large lab in Dubai. The plan is to create two more labs in West Asia, in Sharjah and then in Abu Dabhi, by the end of 2016-17. On an operations and management basis, we'd like to go into Myanmar and Cambodia. Later, in Bangladesh and Myanmar, we intend to set up a lab, too.You are in a PPP (public-private partnership) agreement with the governments of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.Last year, you were also in talks with Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. What happened in those cases?We have in the past eight to 10 months signed PPP agreements with the Jharkhand and UP governments.

We only had Himachal before that. We are also doing teleradiology in Assam, so that is the fourth state. That is radiology, not pathology. We are also in touch with various other states. This is a state subject -- we have to follow the process and it takes time. Right now, discussions to sign some form of PPP agreement are on with two-three northeast states. We are in touch with the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments, too. Worried about the adverse reaction on peoples health, the government has banned 344 drugs. Do you think the government should also be regulating diagnostics? What major steps do you think it should take? There is no regulation whatsoever. We, for a change, the private companies, are asking the government to bring some regulations. Of 100,000 labs in the country, only 700 are accredited to NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories), only 0.7 per cent. Other labs are not following any rules, protocols and regulations. The least the government can do is to make the accreditation compulsory. That way, they would be following some system. This accreditation by NABL or CAP (the global accreditation system) would bring some discipline in our sector, something missing. Ultimately, what must the government do? Price control is its prerogative. They can keep doing it. The governments task is to take care of public welfare and also ensure the industry does not suffer, a tightrope walk. There are industrial bodies like Ficci, Assocham, etc, through which we are in discussions with the government and are trying to find a good balance. I think the government work should be left to the government. If they think price controls are necessary at certain levels for a certain time, so be it. What has been the government response on making accreditation compulsory? This (situation) has been on for many, many years. For the government, it might not be the priority today but some day, it will hopefully become a reality. So, we have to keep working. Is each of your labs accredited? We run the largest network of accredited labs. Having said that, not all our labs are accredited, for various reasons. NABL does not have the bandwidth to give accreditation. At any point of time, five or six applications of SRL are pending with it. In our company, we have 550-odd doctors. Most of them are also NABL assessors and that is the contribution we are making to NABL. This is what we are doing to hasten the process. The government should not depend on NABL. They should create more and more agencies equipped to give such accreditation. These things will take some time but an unduly long time has already been taken. Let us hope things change.
In a new twist, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley on Friday testified before an anti-terror court that the then Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had visited his house few weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008 to condole the death of his father. Deposing before the court for the cross-examination on the third day, Headley also said he had nurtured a "hatred feeling" towards India since childhood after his school was bombed in 1971 during the Indo-Pak war.

The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative-turned approver in the case was being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26th December, 2008. In fact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," Headley told special Judge G A Sanap.

To another question, Headley said his father, who was a Director General with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with LeT but was not happy about it.

Asked whether it is true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, convicted in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai. He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.

Stating that he had nurtured a feeling of hatred towards India after his school was bombed during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, he said, "People were killed in the attack and that was one of the reasons why I had joined the LeT." In reply to a question by the defence lawyer, the LeT terrorist said that he had told his friend Tahawwur Hussain Rana that all the nine 26/11 terrorists should be awarded Nishan-e-Haider, Pakistan's highest gallantry awards.

Rana was tried and acquitted by a US Court in the 26/11 case.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

He denied that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jehan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police Atul Kulkarni in the US before his current deposition.

Headley said it had come to his knowledge from LeT handler Sajid Mir that there had been two failed attacks in 2008 just before the 26/11 terror attacks.

When asked if he was treated for any mental illness, Headley replied in the negative and chuckled, "Yeh kya kya cheeze mere khaate mein daal rahe hain Wahab Sahab. Nahin, aisa koi wakya nahin hua (Wahab Sahab, what all things are you ascribing to me...nothing of this sort happened)." Earlier in the day, Headley told the court that he had "arranged" a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray.

Headley said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that "Thackeray was elderly and sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme".

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

To a question, Headley denied that he was not being provided luxurious food or any such facility as per his wish.

At this stage, the judge warned the defence lawyer to refrain from asking these questions.

Headley refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan prior to 26/11 terror attacks was known to US agencies."



He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

"This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved USD 30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.

To another question about who had put forth the proposal before FBI that Headley shall not be given death or lifer (in the plea bargain), the LeT terrorist said, "I thought I was here to testify for Government..I did not know it will go back and forth about what this Attorney or that Attorney said."



"Main bahoot kharab insaan hoon. Maine maan liya hai (I have accepted that I am a very bad person) I have pleaded guilty,." Headley said.

Headley said his brother Hamza knew little about his association with LeT but added that he had disclosed to him (Hamza) about his involvement in the 26/11 terror attack.

Headley said LeT handler Sajid Mir had informed him that one of the Pakistani terrorists (Ajamal Kasab) had been arrested in the Mumbai terror attacks and they were asking others (terrorists) in Chabad house to negotiate his release in exchange of Israeli hostages.

The Lashkar terrorist said he had never personally talked to Israeli Embassy to negotiate this because he was in Lahore at that time.

To another question suggesting his presence in the control room in Pakistan (from where the attackers were being guided by handlers), Headley denied it and said, "the records are available and I am ready to give my voice sample." Headley said, "a month after the attack, a relative in Philadelphia was interviewed by law enforcement agency FBI in which they had inquired about his whereabouts. He admitted he had informed about this to former Pakistani army office Abdur Rehman Pasha."



Asked if he was apprehending his arrest for 26/11 terror attacks, Headley said he was just curious to know why were they (FBI) asking about him.

Headley admitted that he had conducted a reconnaissance of an army cantonment in Colaba and nearby Maharashtra Police Headquarters. He also said that he had carried out surveillance of a nuclear power plant in order to recruit people working there (for LeT).

The LeT terrorist said that even after FBI inquired about him from his relatives, he did not contact the agency and continued with his Denmark Mickey Mouse Project and his visit to Mumbai.

To a question that during Tahawwur Rana's trial in US he had not disclosed about women suicide bomber of LeT, Headley said he had not said this because he had no knowledge about it.

Asked if he had ever disclosed the name of Ishrat Jehan during Rana's trial, Headley said, "I did not disclose the name of Ishrat as I was not asked about it." Though Headley admitted that NIA had questioned him about Ishrat Jehan, he denied that NIA had instructed him to take her name.
Those worried say was lucky to have witnessed leakage of heavy and light water from the coolant channel without any serious damage to fuel bundles in the reactor



The recent leak in coolant channels of the unit-1 reactor at the Atomic Power Station (KAPS, near Surat in Gujarat) is a warning which necessitates thorough investigation of all such reactors in the country, experts say.

At 9 am on March 11, a leakage in the Primary Heat Transfer (PHT) system led to the reactor being shut down and a plant emergency declared at KAPS. It has two units of pressurised heavy water reactors of 220 Mw each; Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) is the operator. According to site officials, one of the channels carrying the fuel bundles and the heavy water coolant had leaked. The high-grade radioactivity from the fuel itself was confined within the fuel bundles and no radioactive substances escaped from the reactor containment building.

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has stated that, as of now, KAPS Unit-1 is in a shutdown state, even as all plant systems are functioning normally.

Those worried say was lucky to have witnessed leakage of heavy and light water from the coolant channel without any serious damage to fuel bundles in the reactor.

As against (the March 2011 disaster at) Fukushima (in Japan), in the case of Kakrapar, the channel saw only leakage of heavy water and the fuel bundles do not appear to have overheated or melted. Heavy water coolant which has been circulating in the reactor for a long time would have reached a certain level of radioactivity, due to neutron absorption. Luck favoured Kakrapar as only a very small amount of radioactivity seems to have escaped during the brief venting of the containment, former AERB chairman A Gopalakrishnan told this newspaper.

Any damage to fuel bundles could have resulted in thousands of times more severe radiation leakage from the reactor, and some of it could have eventually escaped into the public domain, he said.

Seconding him is nuclear activist and physicist Surendra Gadekar, monitoring the Indian nuclear industry since 1987. The problem has been isolated but the fact is it took them 10 days to do that, with the plant emergency ending on March 22. They claim it is a small leak, which otherwise does not call for a plant emergency for 10 days. They were lucky that they didnt find any radiation in a 20-km radius, says Gadekar.

What took everyone by surprise is that while the reactor itself is 24 years old, the pressure tubes of the coolant channels were replaced in 2011 with new ones from an improved zirconium-niobium alloy, supposed to be resistant to such cracking. How could a coolant channel meant to function well for a conservative 25 years incur a leakage in only five years? asks Gadekar.

Apparently, KAPS health physics unit, Bhabha Atomic Research Centres Environmental Survey Lab and a team from BARC Ahmedabad and Tarapur have been conducting regular radiation surveys in a 20-km radius of the plant, apart from the reactor building perimeter wall, plant premises and in the public domain that stretches up to a five km radius from the plant boundary. So far, the surveys have not found any radiation.

Unless they check all reactors in the country, they will not be able to ascertain whether it is a local or a generic problem. It might be a local problem, Gadekar adds. There are 21 nuclear power plants in the country, with a capacity to generate a combined 5,780 Mw of power.

Gopalakrishnan says while such an investigation of all the 17 such reactors of the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) type might be needed, it should be done after first ascertaining the nature and cause of the KAPS leakage. The hard task is to find why it happened and then consider avenues for in situ inspections and subsequent repairs. Area monitoring of air and water in the vicinity must be continued at regular intervals. All the NPCIL and contract workers alike must be monitored for the cumulative radiation dosage they are receiving until the current leakage issue is put to rest. They need to first get to the bottom of what happened at Kakrapar, he said.

AERB has maintained that the leak has been isolated with the plant emergency being terminated. There has not been any report of abnormal radioactivity releases/radiation exposures to any personnel during this incident, since March 11. With the leak completely stopped, investigations for identifying the nature of the leak and its causes can now be taken up. However, it is expected that this could take considerable time, it has stated.

The state government, too, has been monitoring the situation, with the administration of Tapi and Surat districts asked to stay on standby and ensure workers and residents safety, said Govind Patel, minister of state for energy. According to site officials, around 300 workers with special radiation safety suits have been working on the clean-up.

We are systematically proceeding for early assessment of the location and nature of leak. Once this is detected, root cause analysis will be conducted to find out the exact cause of the incidence. All applicable procedures and guidelines are being followed, NPCIL had recently stated.
Finance Minister will meet top Australian leaders and investors next week in a bid to woo the country's cash-rich sovereign funds for foreign investments in India.

Indian High Commissioner Navdeep Suri said that during his four-day visit, the Minister will meet New South Wales Premier Mike Baird, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Treasurer Scott Morrison, Finance Minister Mathias Corman and Energy and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg.

Suri said that Jaitley might also call on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Describing Jaitley's schedule as 'a packed and productive one', Suri said: "The visit gives us the opportunity to engage with Australia at multiple levels."



He added that the engagements would cover a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, technology, service, financial and superannuation funds, and the Finance Minister will meet business leaders from the different sectors.

"Australia has a major sovereign fund called the Future Fund and it also has superannuation funds that have estimated assets of over $2 trillion. These funds want a good rate of return and we believe that the India growth story creates a win-win proposition - decent returns for the funds and financing for India's infrastructure plans," Suri told PTI.

Jaitley is arriving in Sydney onMarch 29 and will be accompanied by high-powered Indian business delegations from both CII and FICCI besides a top level team including senior representatives from the Ministry of Finance, RBI and SEBI.

"The meetings with government will seek to enhance bilateral relations in diverse areas, while those with business will try to focus on the Make in India and Invest in India programmes," he said.

Jaitley would woo Australia's trillion dollars superannuation funds industry to invest in India's infrastructure plans. He will meet top 25 CEOs and executives of Australia's largest superannuation funds at the 'Invest in India Roundtable' here next Friday.

Suri said the roundtable would be akey element of the minister's visit.

"We estimate that between them (top CEOs and executives), they would be representing close to $1 trillion of assets under one roof. And that's in addition to the high-level FICCI delegation. We want to use the opportunity to project India as an investment destination to the superannuation funds and also respond to any issues or concerns that they may have,"he said.

Jaitley will deliver a public address at the S P Jain School of Global Management in Sydney, which will be his first official engagement.

He would also deliver the K R Narayanan Oration in Canberra at Australian National University on 'The New Economics of Financial Inclusion' and participate in a panel discussion at the University of Melbourne.

In Canberra, Jaitley would address the Indian community from all across Australia at a special reception organised by the Indian High Commission.
Revathi buys her quota of rice from fair price shop near her home in Chittinagar for Re 1 a kg every month - and consumes at least a part of her share.

Most others in this neighbourhood and elsewhere sell it for about Rs 10 a kg. "People don't like to eat it. We mix some of it in the fine rice we buy and we use a small portion to make idlis," said the labourer, 30, who works in a grocery shop.

Along with her husband, a barber, their joint income is about Rs 3,000 a month. They have three children.

Chittinagar is a working class area in Vijayawada, which is a part of the upcoming new capital of Andhra Pradesh.

In Chittinagar - and also in Nandigama, Kondapally and Vijayawada, all towns in the Krishna district - subsidised rice is usually sold to middlemen, who buy it at Rs 10 a kg from these Below Poverty Line families. The government spends about Rs 29 per kg in subsidies.

Most households claim their entire quota, but - as the fair price shop owners and householders revealed - few consume the rice. Some claim their quota each week, only to sell it to middlemen for a neat profit. Others don't even bother with that: They provide their biometric authentication (through finger or iris print) and the rest is taken care of.

The reason for this murky development is that most people don't like eating the rice, usually Grade A variety, distributed through the public distribution system (PDS). Even those with a modest income prefer the finer varieties such as BPT or sona masoori, cultivated in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, including Rayalaseema, and in Telangana.

"Even the poorest of the poor will not eat rice distributed through the PDS," Divi Leela Madhava Rao, general secretary, Andhra Pradesh Fair Price Shop Dealers' Association, told Business Standard.

"We have been telling the government to procure fine rice for Rs 30,000 a tonne instead of buying the Grade-A variety at Rs 28,000 per tonne. People will buy the fine rice, even if we sell it for Rs 10 a kg."



What do the middlemen do with the low-quality rice?



A number of things, claimed Sarampalli Malla Reddy, a farmers' association leader. The subsidised rice is often pumped back into the PDS cycle. Or, it is mixed with other varieties. Some of it is exported to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In this state of information technology professionals, now even a village woman knows how the malfunctioning server in Hyderabad can affect the delivery of subsidised foodgrain to her.

Technical snags can make the queues longer at fair price shops in Andhra Pradesh, even a year after the government pushed for digitisation of the services.

Beneficiaries often find themselves waiting or are asked to return the next day, if the point of sale (POS) device in their neighbourhood fair price shop finds it difficult to access the central server at the Aadhaar database.

In the financial year 2013-14, or FY14, the data of below poverty line (BPL) households were digitised and linked to the Aadhar database. The purpose was to eliminate bogus beneficiaries - who had given a bad reputation to the popular subsidised rice distribution programme of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

From March 2015, in a number of phases, the Biometrically Authenticated Physical Uptake (BAPU) mode was introduced in the public distribution system (PDS) of the state.

Under this model, beneficiaries get themselves identified by scanning their thumbprint or iris on a POS machine while buying a subsidised product such as kerosene or, in this case, rice.

A number of teething problems, too, afflict the BAPU mode in Andhra Pradesh.

Tech boost



As the seeding of BPL cards with Aadhar data eliminated double entries (a family having multiple cards or the same individual getting different cards) just before the bifurcation, the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu-led government of Andhra Pradesh has quickly rolled out the end-to-end automation of the supply chain of PDS to plug leakage at other levels.

Now, foodgrain can be tracked extensively - right from when it is loaded into trucks at the Food Corporation of India warehouses to the fair price shops. The system also tracks the delivery to the BPL beneficiaries, ensuring that the weight of the product being supplied is accurate.

If a truck carrying PDS goods stops anywhere for more than five minutes, officials concerned will get a message through the global positioning system (GPS) tracker, said Karikal Valaven, the principal secretary of the state, who also holds the additional charge of commissioner, civil supplies department.

Automatic text alerts are sent to the cardholders as soon as the foodgrain stock lands at the fair price shop.

While presenting the Budget for the next financial year (2016-17) on February 29, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the automation of 300,000 of the total 535,000 fair price shops in the country over the year. The model draws heavily from the system in Andhra Pradesh - which has demonstrated the possibility of a big saving in the subsidy bill.

At the ground level



The automation was first tried out in the Krishna district, about 280 km southeast of Hyderabad, the currently common capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It was then replicated all over the state.

District Collector Babu Ahmed had spearheaded the digitisation of the PDS in Krishna. He has done a cost benefit analysis, besides measuring the savings that have accrued from the reduced off-take of rice and other items each month.

The district administration, claims Ahmed, was able to save Rs 56.13 crore in the 10 months starting May 2015. Between March and May, all 2,162 fair price shops in the district were linked to the new system.

"We were able to save Rs 8.5 crore in the first month of automation, which translates into a 180-per cent return on the Rs 7-crore investment we made on the equipment and processes," Ahmed told Business Standard.

He added the rice bill in the Krishna district was down by 15 per cent.

"There were irregularities in the past. But we are cooperating with the officials in implementation of the ePoS system now," said V Niraja, the owner of a fair price shop at the Chittinagar area in Vijayawada.

Dealers have to complete the distribution of rice and other commodities within the first 10 days of a month. The online records of Niraja's shop showed a closing balance of 14.5 quintals of rice of 127 quintals allotted for March. So, there was an 11-per cent saving on account.

Until a year ago, there was no proper mechanism to keep track of the unsold stocks. This was believed to be the biggest source of corruption.

Now, the residual stock cannot be the dealers, who used to assume fictitious names to do so in the past.

However, there seem to be other types of leakages that go unnoticed right under the nose of the new system. Many BPL beneficiaries claim their quota of rice for Rs 1 a kg, but sell it to middlemen for Rs 10 a kg.

Thanks to automation, the closing stock makes up for the savings in the subsidy bill.

But, it is not all hunky-dory.

People claim that new corrupt practices are taking root. Shopkeepers can put weights in packets of rice and evade detection. They also use pre-packaged rice bags to generate bills, but later use manual weighing machines to deliver the goods to the beneficiaries.

Dealers have a few complaints of their own. They claim that the commission they get at present is not enough to run their shops.

Simple savings math



A look at the monthly cost benefit of about 30,000 fair price shops across the 13 districts of the state will tell us how much Andhra Pradesh can save in its subsidy bill.

The digitised system generates data of real-time stock positions in each shop. According to the data available, about 2,951 tonnes of rice was saved in April last year - just a month after the Krishna district stated rolling out the automation.

The figure rose to 5,582.43 tonnes in May, when the entire district had been covered.

In October, the amount of rice saved had jumped to 20,575 tonnes. And, in February this year, it peaked to 29,593 tonnes.

"Of the fixed monthly requirement of 221,000 tonnes of rice, we were able to save 30,000 tonnes in February. If this remains constant the total saving a year would be over 13 per cent of the total rice subsidy," an official of the civil supplies department told Business Standard.

Based on the closing balance of stocks, the civil supplies department calculated a savings of Rs 100.42 crore for the state and Rs 370.21 crore for the Centre in the 11 months starting April last year.

If the quantum of the savings in February can be maintained, the combined savings of the state and the Centre would be about Rs 90 crore a month, and a whopping Rs 1,080 crore for the year. The Centre and the state together spend Rs 30,000 on every tonne of rice, including the cost of storage and transportation.

More can be done



The savings could be even bigger if the state followed the Union government's footsteps to determine the percentage of poor people in the total population, as was calculated for the implementation of the National Food Security Act, claim analysts.

When Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister (2004-2009), the number of BPL cards in the state touched 22.9 million - more than the total number of households in Andhra Pradesh.

After the bifurcation, the number of cards in the truncated Andhra Pradesh was 13.7 million, or 67.15 per cent of the total number of cards in the combined state.

This number came down to 12.9 million after 800,000 cards were deleted from the list during the Aadhar seeding in 2013-14 and then rose beyond the level of pre-Aadhar period to 14 million as the new government issued 1.14 million fresh BPL cards in January this year.

This number remains unchanged except the removal of about 400,000 individuals from the existing list very recently. Each individual is entitled to 5 kg of rice a month.

Now, about 43 million of the 49.38 million people in the state (according to Census 2011) - about 87 per cent - are covered by the 14 million BPL cards.

Based on the perception that 60 per cent of the rural and 40 per cent of the urban population deserve to be covered under the National Food Security Act, the Centre has taken the responsibility of providing subsidised rice to 26.8 million people (54 per cent of the state's population) in Andhra Pradesh. It will bear the cost of 144,000 tonnes of rice at the rate of Rs 23,600 per tonne per month. The Andhra Pradesh government is adding Rs 6,400 per tonne - and providing rice at Rs 1 per kg to BPL families.

The cost of supplying subsidised rice to the remaining people in the BPL list is being borne by the state government.

For the full year, the total subsidy bill on rice alone works out to about Rs 7,956 crore. The Centre's contribution to it is Rs 4,078 crore; the balance Rs 3,878 crore comes from the state exchequer.

The volume of rice being pumped into the PDS over and above the Centre's quota costs Rs 2,772 crore to the state government.

Asked why the administration has not broadened its ongoing drive to give subsidised rice or BPL cards to genuinely deserving families, a senior officer said that it was a political call.

Even after the hi-tech boost, the road to full and just delivery remains a long one.
Hyderabad, which was recently rated by an international survey as the best city to live in India for the second year in a row, is starting to look beyond its hotspots of Hitec City and Gachibowli.

With increased real estate activity and plans of the government to make it a manufacturing and information technology hub, it is now north-Western that is now in focus. Around 40% of the residential launches in the city have been concentrated in this region since 2013, says a report from real estate research firm Proptiger.

Apartments accounted for 65% of the total launches during these three years. The regions prominent localities -- Kondapur, Miyapur and Kompally -- contributed 45% to overall launches in the city. Though affordable projects dominated with 90% purchases, there were a number of luxury launches in the area.

With an existing ecosystem of pharmaceutical companies and the proposed Hyderabad-Nagpur Industrial Corridor (HNIC) and Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR), this part of the city is expected to see economic growth on the back of manufacturing, which, in turn, is attracting developers, says the report.

Improved connectivity to the southern and western part of the city from here, through the Metro, which is nearing completion, will boost connectivity in a big way.

"Corridor 1 of the upcoming Metro from Miyapur to LB Nagar will improve connectivity with other parts of the city. The presence of an organised retail cluster with Grade A malls in localities such as Miyapur, Nizampet and Kukatpally also increases the pull of the region," says Anurag Jhanwar, head consulting and data insights, Proptiger.

While the existing Outer Ring Road connects the region to other micro markets, the NH-9 connects Hyderabad and Pune passes. Moreover, the south and western zones, with their proximity to IT/ITeS zones in Gachibowli and Hitec City, will result in enhanced activity.

In terms of price appreciation, Kondapur, Chandanagar and Tellapur witnessed 10-18% increase over the last 12 months. Kukatpally, Miyapur, Kompally and Bachupally were the top grossers in terms of absorption across localities, contributing over 50% to the total sales over the last 12 months.

The increased activity is also seeing niche businesses like interior designing focusing on the area. Shailja Palla, principal architect, VCreate, says this area is now generating most business for interior designers. Over 50% of launches have been in the 3-BHK category while 2- and 4-BHK contributed 36% and 12% since 2013. By 2017, 80% of the under-construction units will be complete.
Industrial projects bound by MoUs (memorandum of understanding) with the Odisha government have invested Rs 2.53 lakh crore on their projects. Of the 92 projects that have MoU commitments, 46 have commenced partial or full-scale production, generating employment for over 150,000 persons.

Of the 92 MoUs, the steel sector has the lion's share at 48, with 40 companies starting production. Bhushan Steel Ltd, Bhushan Steel & Power Ltd, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL), Jindal Stainless Ltd (JSL), Tata Steel and Essar Steel are the major producers.

Steel sector has seen investments of over Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

In the power sector, projects have been commissioned by Vedanta Group owned Sesa Sterlite, GMR Kamalanga Energy Ltd and Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd (JITPL).

Vedanta has also started partial production from its proposed six million tonne alumina refinery at Lanjigarh and 1.60 mtpa aluminium smelting facility at Jharsuguda. Aditya Birla Group-owned Hindalco Industries has also commenced production from its 0.36 mtpa aluminium smelter near Sambalpur.

In the petroleum sector, oil major Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) has commissioned its biggest grassroots refinery of 15 mtpa at Paradeep. IOCL has invested Rs 34555 crore on the crude oil refinery, creating employment for 12238 people.

Since the opening up of reforms in the country, Odisha has emerged as the preferred destination for investors, drawing investments worth Rs 15 lakh crore.

To attract more investment, the state government recently launched a new logo, Invest Odisha.

Odisha is now looking beyond the metals and mining sectors and has identified some thrust sectors, including chemicals, plastics, petrochemicals, downstream and ancillary, agro and sea food processing, electronics manufacturing and textiles for new investments.

It has unveiled the latest edition of its Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR), 2015 that aims to ease business procedures and aims to pull Rs 1.73 lakh crore new investments by 2019.
Union Civil Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Thursday said new National Civil Policy is likely to be out next month.

"At present, we are working on the policy which is likely to be out next month. We have received many suggestions on the draft policy and we are hopeful that new policy will be out in April," Raju said.

He was speaking to reporters after addressing a private function here.

The minister said the country needs four modern airports, two on West coast and as many on East coast.

"At present, we have only three modern airports that have parallel runways at Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad and the fourth one is coming up in Vishakhapatnam. With the size of a country like India we need more modern airports, at least two on the West coast and two on the East coast," Raju said.

Raju said his ministry would consider proposals for new airports if governments concerned come forward to provide land to set up such facilities as land is the State subject.

To a query, Raju said the work to expand runway of Rajahmundry airport is in progress and it will be completed within a few months.

He said the Gannavaram Airport near Vijayawada will be developed as an international airport. "The state government was allotted 700 acres of land for the development of the airport," the minister added.

On the demand by the Andhra Pradesh government to grant special status to the state, Raju said it was under consideration.

"This is a critical subject. Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Odisha are opposing (the demand). If Union government considers the special status demand for AP, chief ministers of other states will also demand the same", the minister added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday unveiled its vision document for the Assam Assembly elections and promised that, if elected, its government will frame a law to punish those who employ infiltrators.In his public rallies, BJP President Amit Shah said Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government has failed to stop the entry of Bangladeshi infiltrators in the past 15 years.The vision document said a law will be enacted to sternly deal with industries, businesses, small and medium enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released the Assam Vision Document 2016-2025 in Guwahati on Friday.

The BJP promised to completely seal the India-Bangladesh border to stop infiltration. Assembly polls to the 126 seats in Assam will be held in two phases on April 4 and 11, and the BJP aims to contest on the planks of curbing corruption, spurring development as well as putting 100 per cent stop on infiltration. The BJP is contesting the election as the lead party in an alliance that comprises smaller regional parties including the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and Bodo Peoples Front (BPF). Assam is also the only state among the five that go to polls in April and May where BJP has hopes of a victory. Other four states are Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. Shah, in his two public rallies at Sibsagar and Sonari, said: Assams border has been opened as a road for lakhs of infiltrators from Bangladesh to snatch away employment from Assams youth. On Congress allegation of fund cut to the state by the NDA government, Jaitley said, Assam will get 148 per cent more in 2016-2020 compared to 2011-2015 due to higher tax devaluation of 42 per cent as against 32 per cent earlier. He said Assam will get Rs 1,43,239 crore because of tax devaluation recommended by the 14th Finance Commission, against Rs 57,854 crore during the 13th Finance Commission. Jaitley also said the 90:10 funding pattern to Assam has been restored on the suggestion of the NITI Aayog.
The ministry is in the process of filling the vacant post of non-executive chairmen in nine (PSBs), including Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, UCO Bank and Corporation Bank.

A senior ministry official said the process to fill vacancies of non-executive chairman in nine state-run was underway.

Andhra Bank, IDBI Bank and Indian Overseas Bank are among the where the newly created post of non-executive chairman is vacant.

After splitting the post of chairman and managing director (CMD) in August last year, government appointed non-executive chairmen in five PSBs, with the announcement of Indradanush, a comprehensive revamp plan for these banks.

The five banks were Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Vijaya Bank and Indian Bank.

Separation of the post of CMD was done based on global best practices and as per the guidelines in the Companies Act to ensure appropriate checks and balances.

Prime minister Narendra Modi recently set up Banks Board Bureau (BBB) to advise the government on top-level appointments at public sector lenders. Former CAG Vinod Rai has been appointed chairman of the Bureau, which will initially function from Mumbai.

The bureau will give recommendations on appointment of directors in and ways to tackle rising bad loans, among others.

It will also help them develop differentiated strategies of capital raising and innovative financial instruments. The government wants to encourage boards of PSBs to restructure their business strategy and suggest the way forward for their consolidation and merger with other banks.
companies are rushing up to finalise tie ups with payments banks and small banks to sell their products via these new channel. While it is not clear whether they would be incorporated into the corporate agency channels, these niche banks' branch network will be used to sell products.

This comes at a time when there were apprehensions expressed by the regulator saying that these tie-ups with these niche banks may not be very successful. The chief executive of a mid-size life insurance company said that there were doubts earlier whether the regulator would give a nod to tying with these specialist banks since their processes and operations would differ from those of a large bank. "We now have begun talks and tie-ups would be finalised in the next few weeks. However, in the beginning only pure term and endowment products would be sold and based on the response we would launch unit-linked insurance products and mediclaim policies at a later stage," he said.

SCRAMBLING FOR MORE Insurance regulator had expressed reservations on these tie-ups

In the beginning, only pure term and endowment products would be sold

Unit-linked insurance products and mediclaim policies will be launched at a later stage

Bank employees selling insurance will now be responsible for the policies they sell

However, now the talks between the insurance companies and payments banks have begun and the deals are likely to be finanlised in the next few weeks. Nilesh Sathe, member-life, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) said that more than 40 banks including those who are promoters of insurance companies have expressed interest to follow open architecture. However, they are yet to make a formal request to do so.

Earlier, banks were allowed to sell products of one life, one non-life and one standalone health insurer. It is expected that the same norms will also be applicable to payments banks and small banks as well.

Arijit Basu, MD & CEO of SBI Life said that these banks offer a new opportunity to grow and that they are in talks with them for possible tie-ups. Insurance companies and their bank partners will be part of a new regime from April 1 when the new corporate agency norms come into existence.

The regulatory body has seen existing banks including private sector and public sector banks to open their branches to more than one insurance company in life, non-life and standalone health. From April 1, new norms for corporate agency channels will come into place which include banks, wherein they will be liable for all the products that they sell.

Rishi Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of Fino Paytech also confirmed that they have begun talks with insurance companies. "Selling of third-party products like insurance is one of the key revenue channels and that is why we have begun talks already. Since we already have ICICI Bank as partner we have started talking to ICICI Lombard and ICICI Prudential for a tie-up."

However, considering that the target customer base for these niche banks will be different, they will be mainly selling small ticket or vanilla insurance product.

"Our focus will be on selling products like two-wheeler insurance cover, mico-insurance, small ticket health insurance product," added Gupta.

Payments banks can accept deposits of up to Rs 1 lakh and offer current and savings account deposits. They can also issue debit cards and offer internet banking. But they are not allowed to lend or issue credit cards and therefore selling third party products will be an important revenue generator for them. On the other hand, Small Banks will be similar to existing commercial lenders and will undertake basic banking activities such as accepting deposits and lending to the un-served and under-served sections.

Another niche bank players said that they are in talks with insurance companies and are looking at finalising the deal in the next month. "Considering that we will have a much deeper reach in the hinterland and far-flung areas where the existing players do not necessarily have a presence therefore it makes sense for the insurance companies also to tie up," said the top executive at another niche banks.

After the insurance industry opened up in 2000, the first ones in the private insurance space rushed in and established tie-ups with banks. Further, some were even promoted by banks including ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, SBI Life, IDBI Federal Life among others.

IRDAI has said that from FY17 onwards, bank boards will be required to give a clear plan as to how and by when would they open up their branch network to more than one insurer in each category-life, non-life and standalone health. This is because even after Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) opened up the bancassurance network to more insurers, no bank has approached the regulator for additional tie-ups.

However, the regulator has clarified that each bank employee who sells insurance will be responsible for the policy that they sell. They can be called into question if there is any complaint of misselling on the policy that they have sold. Bank boards have also been asked to disclose the approach in having single or multiple tie-ups, the partners in the tie-ups, the business mix, the type of products sold, grievance redressal mechanism and reporting requirements.

Similarly, small finance banks and payments banks would also require their staff selling insurance to undergo some training on the products being sold. Such training programmes would be sponsored by the insurers they are tying up with.
Five regional rural banks (RRBs) in the Northeast under the sponsorship of State Bank of India (SBI) are to soon be merged.

The five RRBs are Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank, Meghalaya Rural Bank, Mizoram Rural Bank, Nagaland Rural Bank and Langpi Dehangi Rural Bank (based in Assam), said a source close to the development.

The proposal was recently made by SBI, which has asked the RRBs to seek board approvals. The merger requires approval by the state and central governments. SBI holds a 35 per cent stake, the Centre 50 per cent, and the respective state government 15 per cent in each of the five RRBs.

SBI could not be reached for comments.

The merged entity would have a deposit base of Rs 3,578 crore, with advances of Rs 1,736 crore. Total net profit of the five banks on March 31, 2015, was Rs 44.52 crore. Of the five, only Nagaland Rural Bank reported losses last financial year.

In the first phase of amalgamation, RRBs were merged within a state on the basis of their sponsor banks. In the second phase, mergers were initiated across sponsor banks within a state.

As a result of earlier amalgamations, the number of the RRBs was reduced from 196 to 64 as on March 31, 2013, and further to 56 at present, with a network of 20,059 branches covering 644 districts.

Of the five banks to be merged, Mizoram Rural Bank is the largest in terms of loan outstanding, at Rs 203.52 crore as of December 2015. The smallest bank being Nagaland Rural Bank, with dues of about Rs 5.52 crore.
More than 30 countries are waiting to join the China-backed (AIIB), adding to its 57 founding members, its president said on Friday.

The AIIB, first proposed by President Xi Jinping less than two years ago, has become one of China's biggest foreign policy successes.

Despite the opposition of Washington, almost many major US allies - Australia, Britain, German, Italy, the Philippines and South Korea - have joined.

China says it will be an institution and not used to boost its influence.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum on southern China's Hainan island, AIIB president Jin Liqun said the bank was working on accepting the new members.

"Over the past two years, we have achieved the purpose of convincing all the members - now we have 57, with more than 30 countries on the waiting list eager to join," Jin said, responding to a question about whether member countries were convinced the bank was not being used by China to draw countries into its orbit.

Jin did not identify the prospective members.

The Chinese territory of Hong Kong may also be allowed to become a member, he said.

"Hong Kong is an financial center," Jin said. "We believe Hong Kong has a role to play in facilitating the financing of the AIIB. For instance, the AIIB can issue bonds in Hong Kong and can also have currency swaps with Hong Kong."



Beijing has been looking for ways to support Hong Kong, which has been convulsed by political turmoil.

The government's refusal to grant the former British colony full democracy has embittered a younger generation of activists, culminating in big protests in 2014, and political tension and unrest remain, with Hong Kong rocked by a riot in February.
Pakistani-American LeT terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley said in Mumbai Friday that attempts were made to trade Israeli hostages in Mumbai in return for release of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist nabbed alive in the 26/11 strike.

Headley said he had also suggested to his handlers in terror troup Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to "honour" the nine other terrorists slain during 26/11 by the Indian security personnel with 'Nishan-e-Haider', Pakistan's highest gallantry award.

Headley made the revelations before Special Judge G.A. Sanap in his responses during his cross-examination by Abdul Wahab Khan, lawyer for Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the prime accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

After Kasab was nabbed alive by the Indian forces early morning of November 27, 2008, at the height of the terror strikes, Headley's main contact in LeT -- Sajid Mir -- had ordered the attackers of Chabad House in Colaba to keep the Israeli hostages taken there at gunpoint.

They were to contact the Israeli prime minister and its embassy in a bid to build pressure on the Indian government for securing Kasab's release, Headley said, reiterating what he had mentioned to an American court during his trial there in May 2011.

However, to a question by lawyer Khan, Headley added that he never personally spoke with the Israeli embassy officials since he was in Lahore at the time of 26/11.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam later informed media persons that Headley had sought honouring the nine terrorists killed in 26/11 with Pakistan's top military gallantry award, the 'Nishan-e-Haider'.

Headley had made the demand in a conversation with a Dubai-based operative after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that left 166 dead and several hundreds injured in 2008.

Nikam added that Headley had revealed Thane collegian Ishrat Jahan's name when he was interrogated by a National Investigation Agency team in the US after his arrest in 2009.

Jahan, a 19-year-old resident of Mumbra in Thane district studying in a Mumbai college, and three of her friends were gunned down by Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad near Ahmedabad in 2004 for allegedly plotting the killing of then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Headley denied that he was in any manner pressurised or tutored by the NIA to state that Jahan was a terrorist -- which he first revealed during his deposition before Special Judge Sanap on February 11, 2016 -- creating a furore in Indian political circles.

He said he did not disclose Jahan's name during the trial of his close associate, Pakistani-Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana in the US as he was not asked about it.
One of the two men who blew themselves up at on Tuesday was a bomb maker who helped produce two suicide vests used in the attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13, the Belgian authorities said on Friday.

The bomb maker - Najim Laachraoui, 24, a Belgian citizen who went to Syria in February 2013 - was described as an accomplice of Salah Abdeslam, 26, who was captured in Belgium last Friday after a four-month global manhunt and charged with terrorist murder. Abdeslam is suspected of being the sole surviving direct participant in the Paris attacks, and his arrest appears to have accelerated the plot that culminated in the attack on Brussels.

On December 10, in an apartment on Rue Henri Berge in Schaerbeek, investigators found bomb-making equipment, a fingerprint from Abdeslam and Laachraoui's DNA. And on Monday - three days after Abdeslam was captured in Molenbeek, the Brussels neighbourhood where he grew up - the authorities asked for help finding Laachraoui.

It was too late. At 7:58 am on Tuesday, he blew himself up at Brussels Airport, along with another suicide bomber, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29. News agencies had widely reported Mr. Laachraoui's death, but officials awaited DNA results before confirming the news. On Friday, it became clear that Mr. Laachraoui was a crucial link between the Paris and Brussels attacks.

The Belgian authorities also announced that three men had been arrested in Brussels on Friday, as the inquiry into the bombings that devastated the Belgian capital widened to encompass investigations in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

On Thursday night, the French authorities arrested Reda Kriket, an Islamic State operative who, according to court records, raised money for jihad and travelled to Syria in late 2014. Kriket was well known to the security services in both France and Belgium, and he was named in a 2015 court proceeding along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was the on-the-ground chief planner of the Paris attacks.

According to a French court transcript, "Reda Kriket appears to have played an important role in financing and providing material support to the group." It said he had raised the funds through fraud and petty theft. In July, Kriket was convicted in France in absentia of terrorist activities and possession of stolen goods.

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said that Kriket, described as being part of a circle of militants that included Abaaoud, had been involved in the "advanced stages" of a new terrorist plot.

The three men who were arrested in Belgium on Friday were all being questioned about possible connections to Kriket.

Also on Thursday night, the police in Dusseldorf arrested a 28-year-old German long known to the authorities for having ties to Islamist extremists in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. They were acting to prevent him from fleeing to Syria, a spokesman for the state prosecutor said. Turkey deported the German man and one of the Brussels suicide bombers - Khalid el-Bakraoui, 27, who blew himself up in the subway - to the Netherlands last year, German news media and security officials said.

"It is not clear whether they knew each other, and, if so, how well," said Ralf Herrenbruck, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf. The German man was sentenced to two and a half years in prison earlier this month for a robbery, but had not yet started his sentence, the Germans said.

German news media reported on Friday that the federal police had arrested a 28-year-old Moroccan during a routine identity check at a train station in Giessen, in the west of the country, on Wednesday. The suspect has a criminal record in Germany and Italy, the reports said, and had papers on him indicating that he had been hospitalised for an unexplained injury on March 18, the same day that Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels.

Further investigation led the authorities to suspect that the man might have links to the attackers in Brussels, including a text message on his phone with the word "fin," French for "end," received on Tuesday, shortly before the attacks in Brussels, the public broadcaster ARD reported. A further message contained the name Khalid el-Bakraoui, according to the newsweekly Der Spiegel.

Criminal investigators for the state of Hesse, where Giessen is, were unable to confirm the reports on Friday, because the case had been transferred to state prosecutors, who were not immediately available for comment because of the Good Friday holiday.

Also, Spanish and Dutch news agencies reported that European intelligence authorities were searching for Naim al-Hamed, a 28-year-old Syrian, as part of the investigations into the Brussels attacks. Hamed was said to be linked to Laachraoui, Khalid el-Bakraoui and a third suspect, Mohamed Abrini.

The Belgian government has come under heavy criticism for failures in intelligence, law enforcement and information sharing that have allowed Brussels to become a hub of terrorist planning in Europe.

At 2 pm on Friday, Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens faced a parliamentary committee, whose members were expected to ask tough questions about the lapses.

Officials have acknowledged that they should have acted on an alert last year from Turkey about Ibrahim el-Bakraoui. He was detained in Turkey near the border with Syria on suspicion of terrorist activity, but the Belgian authorities never followed up. Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands at his request.

In addition, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said that Khalid el-Bakraoui had been sought in connection with the terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris on November 13.

2016 The New York Times News Service
The Republican presidential nominee race has hit a new low with front-runner and his nearest rival Ted Cruz dragging each other's wives in their political squabbling which is rarely seen in American .

"It's not easy to tick me off. I don't get angry often. But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that'll do it every time," Texas Senator Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin as the Republican race to the White House entered a nasty phase.

"Donald, you're a snivelling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone," an angry Cruz said hours after the real estate tycoon launched a series of attacks against his wife.

Earlier, Trump shared an image on Twitter comparing his wife, Melania, a former model, to Cruz's wife, stating, "A picture is worth a thousand words."



Cruz responded by saying, "Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life."



It all started with a super political affairs committee which campaigns for Cruz ran an ad with a nude picture of Melania.

An angry Trump tweeted that he would spill the beans on Cruz's wife. Cruz, however, denied any role of his in the advertisement.

"Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought," Cruz said.

Trump is currently leading the Republican pack as he now requires less than 500 delegates to reach the figure if 1,237 necessary to win the party's presidential nomination.

Cruz is far behind Trump in terms of delegate count but hopes to overcome him during the rest of the primary season.
Microsoft Corp executives are in talks with equity firms considering bids for Yahoo Inc! saying that Microsoft might be willing to offer "significant financing" for their efforts, tech news site Recode reported on Thursday.

However, Microsoft has not made commitments so far to investors, and any discussions are exploratory, Recode reported, citing unnamed sources.

Microsoft's move is an attempt to ensure a good relationship with Yahoo!'s buyer, the website reported.

Yahoo launched an auction of its core business in February after it shelved plans to spin off its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

In an interview with Reuters in February, Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer said the company will entertain offers as they come but its first priority is a turnaround plan.

Yahoo! faces increasing pressure from shareholders and investors to sell its core business instead of going through a spinoff that would separate the company from its multibillion-dollar stakes in Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Group



Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP on Thursday said it would nominate nine candidates for the board in an attempt to overthrow the entire board of Yahoo! including its chief executive.

Starboard has been pushing for changes at Yahoo since 2014 and owns about 1.7 percent of the company.

Microsoft's partnerships and acquisition strategy head Peggy Johnson is also part of the effort to finance a possible Yahoo buyer, Recode said.

Microsoft, which made a hostile bid to buy Yahoo in 2008, had no interest in making a more significant bid, but others do, Recode said.

Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment.
The price of has been falling since the start of this year, both following a global trend and due to worm attacks on the standing crop in Punjab and Gujarat.

The benchmark Shankar-6 variety is quoting at Rs 9,026 a quintal, a four per cent fall over a month. In the same period, the price for delivery in May fell 10 per cent to 57.72 cents a pound on the benchmark InterContinental Exchange (ICE). Prices dropped due to subdued demand in the domestic spot market. Besides, reports on China preparing to auction some of its vast stockpile of the natural fibre next month had fuelled the downtrend, said Ajay Kedia, managing director, Kedia Commodity Research.

The Advisory Board (CAB) has forecast a 7.5 per cent decline in output at 35.2 million bales (170 kg each) this year as against 38 mn bales last year. Trade sources estimate sowing at 12.6 million hectares, marginally lower than last years 12.66 mn. Output, though, is likely to decline by 3.5 mn bales, owing to attacks of white fly in Punjab (travelling from bordering Pakistan) and pink bollworm impact in Gujarat.

We cannot say Bt has not worked but the technology failed to keep momentum going after the initial years. In fact, as against the claims by companies like Monsanto of the Bt seed being bollworm-resistant, the crop witnessed attacks of bollworms in 2016, said M B Lal, former chairman of Cotton Corporation of India and managing director of Shail Exports, an exporting entity based in this city.

Said a spokesman of Mahyco Monsanto: Bollgard technology has been widely accepted by Indias cotton farmers and has played a pivotal role in increasing yield from 302 kg/ha lint in 2002-03 to 552 kg/ha lint in 2013-14, generating an additional farm income of Rs 42,300 crore. This has played a key role in transforming India from being an importer of cotton in 2002 to becoming the worlds second largest exporter in 2015.
Jewellery industry body AIBJSF on Friday decided to continue their strike for an indefinite period against imposition of 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery and announced plans to hand over keys of their shops to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

All India Bullion, Jewellers, Swarankar Federation (AIBJSF), which had organised a big rally at Ramlila maidan in the national capital on March 17, is continuing their strike, though three major associations -- GJF, ABJA and GJEPC -- had called off strike last Saturday after government's assurance that there would be no 'Inspector Raj'.

AIBJSF and other local associations, particularly those in Delhi- NCR, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, were against calling off the strike.

Nothing less than a complete roll back of excise duty levied on is acceptable to us, AIBJSF President Praveen Goel said in a statement issued by CAIT.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which is supporting the protest, has urged the government to initiate the process of dialogue with protesting traders to end the logjam.

In a meeting held today, AIBJSF said representatives of more than 375 Jewellery trade associations from different states unanimously decided to intensify the strike till the government rolls back the excise duty.

A large number of and bullion traders across the country continued their strike for the 24th day today, despite the government constituting a panel to look into their demand. AIBJSF said it will hold a series of protests beginning next week including "handing over keys of shops to the Finance Minister, blowing whistle in front of buffalo, ringing bells at district headquarters, gherao of MPs and presentation of memorandum, forming of human chain and transfer of registration papers of shops in the name of Finance Minister." Meanwhile, the government has constituted a panel under former Chief Economic Advisor Ashok Lahri to look into the demands of jewellers.

The panel, which has been asked to submit its report in 60 days, will look into issues related to compliance procedure for the excise duty, including records to be maintained, forms to be filled, operating procedures and other relevant issues.

The government in the Budget for 2016-17 had proposed 1 per cent excise duty on jewellery without input credit or 12.5 per cent with input tax credit on jewellery excluding silver other than studded with diamonds and some other precious stones.
Robert Leary, who oversees $854 billion as chief executive officer of TIAA Global Asset Management, said he expects US stocks to rebound, based on the enduring strength of the world's largest economy, at a time where bonds offer a less attractive alternative. "The US economy is more strong and more robust than it's been given credit for, so we do think we're going to see, in the second half of this year, a bit of a pickup" in stocks, Leary said in a televised interview on Thursday. "We actually think we could go back above the S&P highs that we have reached ...
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is mulling the idea of introducing a new price discovery mechanism for the spot market, to ensure fairer pricing.

An advisory committee of the market regulator is thinking of a price polling mechanism for all commodities and their derivatives, based on quality and quantity. A decision is likely at a meeting scheduled for the first week of April, said a senior official of Sebi.

The agri commodities market space is poorly managed as traders quote different prices. Commodity exchanges (comexes) are pushing the idea of uniform prices, similar to the prevailing derivatives market prices, he said. Under the current mechanism, prices are collated from a number of physical market participants at various centres. The final settlement price is a part of the contract specification of the commodity.

FIXING A FAIR PRICE Sebi to introduce new price discovery mechanism

New mechanism to ensure fair pricing at spot market

Decision likely to be taken at advisory committee meeting in first week of April

Current price discovery distorted by traders with vested interests

This is to encourage the need of minimum support prices for all commodities

There is lack of transparency in the current mechanism. There are many participants with vested interest. For any derivative contract, it is necessary to have a linkage between the derivative price and underlying spot prices, said a Sebi source.

The move was discussed at the first meeting of the Commodity Derivatives Market Advisory Committee in the first week of this month. Representatives from Sebi, commodity exchange officials and of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority had met to discuss revamp of the entire pooling mechanism in comexes.

The main concern of the commodity space is that crop quality is not predictable. The new framework would ensure better accountability. Sebi has to keep a close watch on the physical to reduce difference between the polled and the actual spot price, said Ajay Kedia, managing director, Kedia Commodities.

Sebi is focusing on resolving the differences in price. There have been instances where exchanges have had to suspend trading in an agri commodity as the price on the futures platform was holding strong while falling in the spot market. The regulator recently banned 12 traders from dealing in the online commodity market, saying they were hoarding stocks in the exchange to manipulate prices. Typically, the data on spot prices is captured at the identified basis centres by inviting price quotes from empanelled polling participants.

The committee is also mulling the possibility of encouraging minimum support prices (MSPs) for all commodities. It offers an assurance to farmers that their realisation will not fall below the stated price. Sources say the regulator is in talks with Food Corporation of India, the government's nodal agency of procurement of foodgrain under the price support schemes.
Russian authorities denied entry to 81 Pakistanis yesterday on suspicion of visa rules violations and also due to lack of finances to stay in Moscow.

According to Dawn, this was the second group of Pakistanis to have been disallowed entry to Russia in as many days and the deportation of the two groups has sparked a mini diplomatic row with the Pakistan embassy in Moscow lodging a protest with the Russian foreign ministry.

A group of 84 Pakistanis businessmen had reached Moscow on Wednesday night for purportedly attending an exhibition, but were detained at the Domodedovo Airport by Migration Service of the Russian Federation on suspicion of 'visa rules violations'.

Russian media stated that the group didn't have enough money to stay in country and had been denied entry for not having enough funds to support their stay in Russia.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that while authorities were working to resolve the issue witht eh Pakistani nationals, the preliminary information indicated that their documents did not match the purpose of their visit to Russia.

Earlier on Wednesday, another group of 48 Pakistani passengers was deported from Vnukovo Airport to Islamabad via Istanbul.
Four years ago, Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor suffered a major loss as he lost his mother in a cancer battle and the star paid tribute to her through an emotional picture.

Remembering his mother, the 30-year-old actor took to his Twitter handle and shared his childhood picture in which Mona Shourie Kapoor is seen holding his hand.

Along with the snap, the '2 States' star wrote, "It's been four yrs mom but thank u fr holding my hand and walking me thru this difficult life hope u happy wherever u are."

Later, Arjun's sister Anshula Kapoor also shared her childhood picture with her mother on Twitter and wrote, "It's been 4 yrs since we've laughed together, since you've held my hand, hugged me, or wiped my tears. Miss you ma.
The Belgian Police has arrested six people in connection with Tuesday's airport and metro suicide bombings in Brussels, while the authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot 'that was at an advanced stage' there.

Federal prosecutors confirmed that six unidentified people were arrested, including three who were detained outside the prosecutors' own office, in the centre of Brussels.

Two were arrested in the Belgian capital and one person was arrested in Jette on the city's outskirts.

The prosecutors released more evidence that the attacks were carried out by the same Islamic State of Iraq and Syria network responsible for November's carnage in Paris and two suspects are still believed to be on the run, reports Guardian.

The operation involving Swat teams and armoured cars with helicopter support began soon after 9 pm.

The arrests came days after suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train, killing at least 31 people and wounding some 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

The attack in Brussels, which is home to the European Union and NATO, has heightened security concerns around the world and raised questions about European countries' response to the threat from Islamist extremists.

Other reports suggested an attack may have been planned for Easter Monday.

The high-security inner areas of a nuclear power station would almost certainly have been beyond the reach of militants such as the brothers, security experts told the Belgian media.

But 140 soldiers were dispatched to guard the country's three nuclear sites earlier this month. And after Tuesday's bombings, the sites were sealed and non-essential staff evacuated as a precaution.

Turkey has accused Belgium of ignoring warnings about Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, one of the two suicide bombers who detonated suitcase bombs at Zaventem airport.

The Belgian officials have rejected Turkish allegations of inaction following Ibrahim el-Bakraoui's deportation last July, saying the foreigners suspected of fighting in Syria cannot be detained without evidence.

Bakraoui was on parole after serving half of a 10-year sentence for armed robbery.

All the Brussels attackers identified by the police and prosecutors so far have links to Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the 10 jihadis who killed 130 people in Paris last November.

Brussels airport is likely to remain closed until Saturday, with passengers diverted to Antwerp, Liege and Lille in France.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria released a video on Thursday, calling on its followers to wage jihad after the Brussels bombings for which it claimed responsibility on Tuesday.
Following the arrest of a man in Balochistan province whom the Pakistani agencies are claiming to be a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) operative, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said that Indian Government has no link with the individual, adding that New Delhi has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country.

MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that the matter was raised today by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad.

"The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," he said.

Pakistan security forces earlier arrested a man during a raid in Balochistan province who, according to them, is 'a serving officer in the Indian Navy and deputed to RAW.

A security official told Dawn that the arrested individual had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation, as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other dissident activities in Balochistan.

Confirming the arrest, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said, "the arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan", Bugti said.

He added that the man was 'sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities' in Balochistan.

Last year, Bugti claimed that RAW and NDS are behind the funding and training of Baloch Republican Army militants.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Islamabad on Friday to hold talks with the Pakistani leadership on improving relations and strengthening economic ties between both sides.

The Iranian President was on his arrival accorded a warm welcome by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,reports Dawn.

The visit is particularly significant in the wake of the lifting of sanctions on Iran that has opened new avenues for enhancing trade and commerce cooperation between the two countries.

The visiting dignitary will hold talks with both President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Sharif on Saturday.

The Iranian President would also discuss cooperation on regional and international issues during his two-day visit.

A high-level delegation comprising of ministers, senior officials and businessmen are also accompanying Rouhani on his first visit to Pakistan.

President Hussain will host luncheon in honour of the visiting President at President House.

Rouhani would also speak to a gathering of Pakistan's prominent scholars and intellectuals on Saturday.

Sharif visited Iran in May 2014 and in January this year to try to ease tensions between Tehran and Saudi Arabia.
The massive investigations which are underway following the Brussels attacks have revealed that the Islamic State (IS) are in various stages of planning multiple additional attacks across Europe.

According to the Guardian, US counter-terrorism officials have stated that a combination of electronic intercepts, human sources and database tracking indicates several possible targets had been picked out by the IS operatives over the last few months since the Paris attacks.

According to a senior Belgian counter-terrorism official, investigators believe the Brussels IS cell were composed of two teams who were planning a larger attack or series of attacks in Belgium at a later date.

After the discovery of Salah Abdeslam's hiding place last week, investigators believe the second team sped up their plans and that the team which consisted of the Bakraoui brothers and at least two now on the run.

Investigators state that the first team was composed of Salah Abdeslam, and Mohammed Belkaid, the suspected commander of the Paris and Brussels attack cell, who was shot dead during the firefight at Abdeslam's hiding place last week.

Police recovered an IS flag, a Kalashnikov, detonators, and ammunition at the safehouse, suggesting that Belkaid and Abdeslam were planning attacks in Brussels similar to that in Paris.
Defence Expert P.K. Sehgal on Friday said 26/11 Mumbai terror attack operative David Coleman Headley's explosive revelation categorically brings forth the fact that the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) have been assets of Pakistan.

"He (Headley) doesn't pick up hatred for his own people and armed forces but for the Indian Army for having liberated those people from the vicious rule of Pakistani Army. His disposition categorically brings forth the fact that LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed have been assets of Pakistan, they were fully funded and morally supported by Pakistani Army and the ISIS," Sehgal told ANI here.

"Pakistan has been saying that they don't have any control on them (LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed). He has exposed Pakistan that they are not non-state actor but state actors. Since the bluff has been called and Pakistan stands fully exposed hereafter Indians must react in a manner similar to a military operation like in 48, 71 or 99," he added.

Sehgal further said that Pakistan should be blamed for the 1971 war as the war was initiated by Islamabad and that India never targeted any civilians or any schools.

"Headley's contention that he developed hatred for India as India had bombed the school in which he was studying, well to an extent if that is true Pakistan itself has to be blamed. The 71 war like everybody knows was initiated by Pakistan. That fight started when Pakistan had strike on air fields and India responded very viciously, in that strike we never targeted any civilians or hit any school unless the school was involved in hiding in certain military activity or involved in something which was inimical as far as India was concerned," he added.

In an explosive revelation during his cross examination presently underway in a Mumbai sessions court, Headley expressed his vehement hatred for India, saying that ever since Indian planes bombed his school and people working there died during the India Pakistan war in 1971, he was looking for revenge which led to him joining the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Headley also said that then Pakistan prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani had visited his house after the terror strikes.

Headley revealed that Geelani had come to his house following the death of his father on December 25, 2008, who was a retired Director General of Radio Pakistan.
Malaysian Police have detained 15 more suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

According to the police, those detained planned to launch attacks and tried to obtain chemicals to make bombs.

The 15 people, including one police officer, were arrested over three days in Kuala Lumpur and six other states, said National Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar.

The authorities said the suspects were trying to obtain chemicals to make bombs and were planning to launch attacks.

They were aged between 22 to 49 and included four women who were planning to travel to Syria to join ISIS, reports Guardian.

The police chief said the group also arranged for two foreign terror suspects to sneak out of Malaysia and had channelled money to militants in the southern Philippines.

177 suspected militants have been detained in Malaysia in the past three years.

Malaysia is on high terror alert since the capital of neighbouring Jakarta was attacked by militants in January this year.
Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, who is currently on an official visit to China, held a meeting with Shaanxi Provincial and Xi'an Municipal leaders on Friday.

During the meeting,they discussed various issues, including matters of mutual relations and interest between the two countries and post-earthquake reconstruction works in Nepal, read a statement issued by Oli's press advisor Pramod Dahal, reports The Himalayan Times.

On the occasion, Oli invited Xi'an Municipal leaders to the International Buddhist Conference scheduled to be held in Nepal later this year.

The Chinese leaders, during the meeting, briefed Oli about the support provided by Shaanxi province to Nepal after the April 25 earthquake.

Oli also visited the historic Terracotta warriors Museum at Xi'an.

The Prime Minister is scheduled to address a business community meeting at Xi'an and visit Xi'an Medical University today.
Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli has said that peace and poverty can't go hand-in-hand and called for an inclusive growth of Asia.

Oli, who is presently on an official visit to China, also called for cooperative Asia for equitable growth in all corners of the continent.

The visiting Prime Minister said the dream of Asia's future, the dream of peace and prosperity would fail if any of the Asian states were left behind.

"Our pursuit for 'common destiny' will go misspent if anyone is left behind. Make no mistake, the Asian future should rest on the citadel of inclusiveness," he added.

Oli said that the advancements in innovation and technology had opened avenues for the development of Asia.

He further said the momentous development in information and communication technology, significant achievements in industrial production had potential to vitalise the economic performance and to galvanise the future of Asia.

Stating that such innovations must serve the cause of human progress, Oli said technology should be accessible to all the states without any prohibitive constraint, adding that the vision of Asia should be accommodative and inclusive.

Though the markets were flourishing, industries were growing, jobs were being created and many of the Asians had been lifted out of the poverty, he said, the vicious circle of poverty still stared at courtyard of Asia.

The Prime Minister also thanked all the states of Asia for supporting promulgation of the Constitution of Nepal.
India's leading mobile app for transportation Ola announced addition of more than 6,000 new CNG cars to its platform during the recently concluded Ola Pragati Mahotsav - the largest CNG Driver mela in Delhi-NCR.

The company plans to invest Rs. 200 crore to enable CNG adoption in Delhi/NCR over the next six months. Ola's current CNG fleet in Delhi NCR stands at over 26,000 cabs, with plans to further continue on-ground programs to help driver-partners seamlessly switch to CNG vehicles.

Ola aims to build up its CNG fleet further by targeting addition of over 2000 cars across Micro, Mini and Prime month after month, to ensure availability at all times and low ETAs in the state.

Handing over keys to the first CNG car owner at the Pragati Mahotsav, Kapil Mishra Minister of Tourism, said, "Ola is bringing about a green change in Delhi by helping drivers registered with them, make a hassle free transition to CNG vehicles."

"Transportation is important for citizens as well as for tourism in the state and a world class experience can be built only by such investment in skilling, training and entrepreneurship for drivers who are the service providers," added Mishra.

He also said that Ola's mission of providing mobility for all while encouraging first generation entrepreneurship and its commitment to helping the city fight pollution is testament to being a good corporate citizen.

"By bringing together various partners in the ecosystem under one roof through its 'Pragati Mahotsav' event, Ola is positively impacting the livelihoods of many thousands of drivers, so that they can continue to work as entrepreneurs," added Kapil Mishra.

The five day Ola Pragati Mahotsav was designed as a one-stop shop for on spot valuations and exchange with heavy discounts on new vehicles and a lot more. The program received an overwhelming response with more than 15,000 unique visitors.

Ola partnered with dealers of leading car manufacturers including Maruti, Tata, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Nissan amongst others. The Company also on boarded banking and financial institutions including State Bank of India, IDBI, Shri Ram Finance amongst others.

For optimum valuations and on-spot exchange, Ola also forged an exclusive partnership with CarTrade.Com.
Eyeing the next general election, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has asked Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to arrange around Rs. 300 billion for development schemes at the constituencies of the ruling party's Members of National Assembly (MNA).

The instruction from the Prime Minister came during the ruling party's core meeting, which was attended by the PML-N's senior leadership, including Finance Minister Dar, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif.

During the meeting, Sharif received detailed briefing on how to strengthen the constituencies of party's sitting MNAs across the country, reports Dawn.

Highlighting the importance of constituency politics, the lawmakers urged that the party should focus on Punjab and its 20 constituencies in the rest of the country to ensure its victory.

These leaders were of the opinion that voters of the constituencies might not be attracted by the Prime Minister's mega initiatives if the streets and roads of their neighbourhood were not built.

They urged Sharif to allocate around Rs. one billion to each of the PML-N's National Assembly lawmaker for fiscal year 2016-2017.

They said the same amount should also be given to respective lawmakers in the next fiscal, which will be the last financial year before the 2018 general elections.

The Premier also took the participants onboard on former military ruler General Pervez Mushrraf's exit from the country.
Expert on Pakistan affairs and author, Tarek Fatah, on Friday said that the arrest of a former Indian Navy officer, whom the Pakistani agencies are claiming to be a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) operative, from Quetta is an attempt by Islamabad to divert the attention from 'genocide' being committed by them in Balochistan.

Dubbing Pakistan's claim as 'absolute nonsense', the renowned author and columnist said that it would be 'overtly optimistic' to expect truth from Islamabad.

"They are committing genocide in Balochistan, and to distract from that they are saying that they have arrested a former Indian naval officer from Quetta. Even if you arrest a navy officer then you would nab him in Gwadar, how will they find him in Quetta," Fatah told ANI.

He further questioned India's silence over the 'genocide' being committed by Pakistan in Balochistan.

"Pakistan is fooling India and India loves being fooled. They enter your country and kill your people and your trade onions and tomatos with them. No self respecting nation would keep a relationship with country that attacks you," he added.

Pakistan security forces earlier arrested a man during a raid in Balochistan province who, according to them, is 'a serving officer in the Indian Navy and deputed to RAW.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) earlier today said that Indian Government has no link with the arrested individual, adding that New Delhi has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country.

MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that the matter was raised today by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad.

"The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy," Swarup said.

A Pakistan security official earlier told Dawn that the arrested individual had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation, as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other dissident activities in Balochistan.

Confirming the arrest, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said, "the arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan".
Prince William, who is taking a private trip to Kenya, will be missing the first Easter morning of his 10-month-old daughter Princess Charlotte.

Kensington Palace said in a statement that the 33-year-old Duke of Cambridge is taking a private trip to Kenya over the holiday weekend and will remain in the country until Easter Sunday, adding he will meet with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and observe conservation and anti-poaching initiatives taking place in Kenya, which are supported by Tusk Trust, a charity of which he is a Royal Patron, E! Online reports.

During his visit, the Duke of Cambridge will also meet with a team of rangers at Lewa Conservancy, co-founded by Ian Craig, to learn about their work protecting rhinos from poaching.

It is not yet known when the Prince is set to depart for Kenya and if he will make it back home in time to spend part of Easter Sunday with his wife Kate Middleton and kids.

During Easter 2014, Prince George had visited Sydney Zoo during a royal trip to Australia.
Pakistan security forces have arrested a man during a raid in Balochistan province who, according to them, is 'a serving officer in the Indian Navy and deputed to the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)'.

A security official told Dawn that the 'RAW officer' had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation, as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other dissident activities in Balochistan.

"The spy had links with separatist elements in Balochistan," said the security official, adding that the individual was also involved in acts of terrorism and terror attacks in Karachi.

Confirming the arrest, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said, "the arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan", Bugti said.

He added that the man was 'sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities' in Balochistan.

Last year, Bugti claimed that RAW and NDS are behind the funding and training of Baloch Republican Army militants.
Actor Ajay Devgn's highly anticipated project "Shivaay" will feature the scenic locales of Balkan mountains of Bulgaria.

Ajay, who is currently busy shooting for the film in Bulgaria, took to Twitter on Friday to share a photograph of the set location on the Balkan mountains.

"Shooting on top of Balkan Mountains," Ajay captioned the image.

In the photograph, a man can be seen standing and facing a helicopter.

Apart from Bulgaria, some parts of the film have also been shot in Hyderabad and Uttarakhand.

"Shivaay" is slated to release in Diwali, and also stars Sayesha Saigal, Abigail Eames and Erika Kaar among others.
Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma is super busy these days as she is currently working on three films simultaneously.

The "NH10" actress is shooting for "Sultan", where she plays a female wrestler from Haryana. Co-starring superstar Salman Khan, the film involves intense wrestling scenes and is overall a demanding and thrilling project.

On finishing the shoot for "Sultan", Anushka will travel to Jaipur for the final leg of shooting for filmmaker Karan Johar's "Ae Dil Hain Mushkil".

While working on both films together, the "Dil Dhadakne Do" star has also been involved in readings of her next home production, "Phillauri".

"Phillauri" features Punjabi star Daljit Dosanjh and Sooraj Sharma. This film will go on floors mid-April.

"Despite long days and a huge workload, Anushka is managing to balance all three with ease," Anushka's spokesperson said.
Arms producers and traffickers lie behind the deadly assault on Brussels, said, describing the attacks as an "act of war".

"Three days ago an act of war and destruction took place in a European city," Francis said as he celebrated mass with asylum-seekers at a refugee centre in Castelnuovo di Porto, north of Rome, Thursday.

"But, as in the case of Judas, where there were who handed over money for Jesus to be betrayed, behind that act (the Brussels attacks) there are arms manufacturers and traffickers," the pontiff said.

Francis contrasted the Brussels suicide bombings with the Easter mass being held at Castelnuovo di Porto "where men and women of different faiths recognise their common humanity and wish to live in peace".

The Islamic State jihadist group claimed Tuesday's suicide blasts at Brussels airport and a city metro station in which over 30 people were killed. The attacks drew global condemnation.
The government said on Friday that it had no links with an Indian arrested in Balochistan on charges of being an officer of the Indian intelligence agency RAW.

"The said individual has no link with the government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy," a spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs said.

"We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," the official added.

The spokesperson admitted that Pakistan on Friday summoned the Indian High High Commissioner in Islamabad and raised the issue with him.
Nagaland and Assam Governor Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya on Friday called for restoration of peace in the north-eastern states for balanced development.

Speaking during Holi festival celebrations at a temple in Bishnupur district of Manipur, Acharya said: "Since there is no peace in the north-eastern states, there cannot be balanced and speedy development. This region lags behind other states in the country in matters of development. There can be development in this region only when there is durable peace."

The governor also sought the cooperation of all sections of society in restoring and maintaining communal harmony in Manipur.

A large number of BJP leaders and workers were present at the special Holi programme organised in honour of the visiting governor.
China has established a joint research centre on the South China Sea to strengthen academic and institutional exchanges and promote countries in the region to jointly maintain peace and stability in the region.

The inaugural ceremony was held on Fridayin Boao in Hainan province, Xinhua news agency reported.

The China-Southeast Asia Research Centre on the South China Sea (CSARC) involves well-known think tanks in China and Southeast Asian nations such as China's National Institute for South China Sea Studies and Indonesia's Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

"We plan to make the CSARC a platform for discussing the South China Sea issue and a model for maritime research cooperation among countries in the region," said Wu Shicun, president of China's National Institute for South China Sea Studies.

Wu said the CSARC will invite famous scholars on the South China Sea from home and abroad to be researchers, and it plans to hold frequent international symposiums and academic exchanges.

While speaking at a symposium on the South China Sea, China's Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin reaffirmed China's commitment to a peaceful solution to the South China Sea issue through consultation and negotiation.
The BJP on Friday elected Nirmal Singh as its leader in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new PDP-BJP alliance government to be headed by PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti.

Speaking after BJP legislators met here, state BJP president Sat Pal Sharma said: "The BJP legislature party has elected Nirmal Singh as its leader and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new coalition government."

Sharma also said the BJP had decided to extend support to daughter of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, to head the PDP-BJP government in the state.

Nirmal Singh also served as the deputy chief minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition that was in office for 10 months till Sayeed died on January 7.

Jammu and Kashmir has been under Governor's Rule since January 8.

Besides the BJP legislators, Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, and Ram Madhav, general secretary in the Bharatiya Janata Party in charge of Jammu and Kashmir affairs, attended the meeting.

Informed sources said those at the meeting were apprised by Ram Madhav about the recent developments, including the Tuesday meeting in New Delhi between PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The BJP reiterated that no fresh conditions (by PDP) had been accepted and the alliance with the PDP will continue on the basis of the agenda of alliance signed (earlier) by the two parties," a BJP source told IANS.

Jitendra Singh represents the Kathua-Udhampur Lok Sabha seat for the BJP in the Lok Sabha.

He said that a BJP-PDP joint coordination committee will meet before the PDP and BJP separately meet Governor N N Vohra on Friday.

If and when she takes oath, Mehbooba Mufti will be the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP on Friday pledged support to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a new government under Mehbooba Mufti's leadership in Jammu and Kashmir, paving the way for her to be the first woman chief minister of India's only Muslim-majority state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also elected Nirmal Singh as its leader in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new PDP-BJP alliance government to be formed soon. Mehbooba was on Thursday elected the leader of PDP's legislature party.

A BJP-PDP joint coordination committee is expected to meet before the two leaders meet Governor N.N. Vohra together to stake claim to power in the state that has been without an elected government for the last nearly three months. The two parties were scheduled to meet the governor separately on Friday. But the meetings didn't happen.

Leaders of the BJP and PDP "will have a meeting between ourselves before going to meet the governor", BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav told reporters here. "When they go to meet the governor will be decided."

Ram Madhav, who is also BJP's Kashmir affairs in charge, was speaking after party legislators met here to elect their leader.

"The BJP legislature party has re-elected Nirmal Singh as its leader and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new coalition government," BJP state president Sat Pal Sharma said.

Sharma also said the BJP had decided to extend support to Mehbooba, daughter of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, to head the PDP-BJP government in the state. "We have to discuss certain issues before both of us visit the governor together to stake claim."

He said that it may take "two-three days" before the government is formed. If and when the swearing-in happens, Mehbooba Mufti will be the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

Nirmal Singh also served as the deputy chief minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition that was in office for 10 months till Sayeed died on January 7. The state has been under Governor's Rule since January 8.

Besides the BJP legislators and Ram Madhav, Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, also attended the party meeting in Jammu.

Informed sources said those at the meeting were apprised by Ram Madhav about the recent developments, including the Tuesday meeting in New Delhi between PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The BJP reiterated that no fresh conditions (by PDP) had been accepted and the alliance with the PDP will continue on the basis of the agenda of alliance signed (earlier) by the two parties," a BJP source told IANS.

Jitendra Singh represents the Kathua-Udhampur Lok Sabha seat for the BJP in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP on Friday pledged support to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), paving the way for the formation of a new government in Jammu and Kashmir under Mehbooba Mufti's leadership.

Once sworn-in, she will be the first woman chief minister of India's only Muslim-majority state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also elected Nirmal Singh as its leader in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new PDP-BJP alliance government.

Mehbooba was on Thursday elected leader of the PDP's legislature party.

The state has been without a government ever since the demise of PDP patron and chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 7 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi due to multi-organ failure.

BJP state president Sat Pal Sharma said the BJP had decided to extend support to Mehbooba Mufti, the daughter of Sayeed, to head the new PDP-BJP government.

"We have to discuss certain issues before both of us visit the governor together to stake claim," he said.

He said it may take "two-three days" before the new Jammu and Kashmir government is formed.

Later, a joint coordination committee meeting of the two alliance partners was held here on Friday evening.

Sources said the PDP and BJP leaders met at the residence of BJP leader and former state minister Bali Bhagat.

"Senior leaders Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, Tariq Hameed Karra and Haseeb Drabu represented the PDP at the joint coordination committee meeting while from BJP its state president Sat Pal Sharma, Jugal Kishore and Nirmal Singh were present.

"After the meeting, BJP leaders appraised BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav about their deliberations with PDP leaders," BJP sources told IANS.

The sources said that the leaders of the alliance partners will call on Governor N.N. Vohra in two to three days jointly to discuss government formation.

The two parties were scheduled to meet the governor separately on Friday, but it could not materialise.

Earlier, Madhav told reporters here that leaders of the BJP and PDP "will have a meeting between ourselves before going to meet the governor", adding "when they go to meet the governor, will be decided".

Madhav, BJP's Kashmir affairs incharge, was speaking after party legislators met here to elect their leader.

Nirmal Singh also served as the deputy chief minister in the Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition government that lasted 10 months.

The state has been under Governor's Rule since January 8.

Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, also attended the party meet in Jammu. He represents the Kathua-Udhampur Lok Sabha seat for the BJP.

Informed sources said those present in the meeting were apprised by Madhav about the recent developments, including Tuesday's meeting in New Delhi between PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The BJP reiterated that no fresh conditions (by PDP) had been accepted and the alliance with the PDP will continue on the basis of the agenda of alliance signed (earlier) by the two parties," a BJP source told IANS.

Vohra had called PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and state BJP president Sharma for separate meetings with him on Friday.

Following nomination of Nirmal Singh as BJP legislature party leader, Sharma told reporters that the two allies will seek fresh appointment with the governor.

Meanwhile, following Friday's developments, Mehbooba also deferred her scheduled meeting with the governor.

A Raj Bhavan spokesman told the media that Friday meetings of the state PDP and BJP presidents with Vohra could not take place and the two will now meet him after seeking a fresh appointment.
Actor Boman Irani walked the ramp for NGO Cancer Patients Aid Association along with wife Zenobia to raise funds for cancer patients.

Boman, best known for his roles in films like "Munnabhai M.B.B.S.", "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" and "3 Idiots", took to Twitter on Thursday to share a photograph of him and his wife on stage.

"Walked the ramp for the cancer patients fund raiser with this gorgeous girl, Zenobia! Mrs Irani," Boman tweeted.

In the image, the "PK" actor can be seen donning a bandhgala while his wife can be seen sporting a sky blue coloured sari.

Boman will next be seen onscreen in "Housefull 3".
The condition of a Jet Airways' crew member who was injured in the Brussels terror attacks is stable, the airline said on Friday.

"We have spoken to Doctor Steven at the hospital where the crew member, Nidhi Chaphekar, is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that she is in a stable condition and not in coma," the airline said in a statement.

"She is resting and under sedation for her comfort," the statement said.

The airline disclosed details about Chaphekar's health after media reports claimed that she has been placed in a medically induced coma.

Chaphekar, a mother of two from Mumbai, was among two crew members of the airline who were injured in Tuesday's bomb blasts that rocked Brussels' Zaventem airport and killed more than 30 people.

A photograph showing the 40-year-old flight crew member of Jet Airways sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped, went viral soon after the airport blasts and become an iconic image of the attacks.

Chaphekar's husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and travelled by road to Brussels, is at the hospital with her.

In another statement issued late Friday evening, the airline said that the two injured crew members continue to receive all the required medical care and attention.

"They are recovering in hospitals and have been joined by their families. Jet Airways staff is at the hospitals to provide any support and assistance to the crew and their family members," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Jet Airways flew out the passengers who were stranded in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam.
The DMK and the Congress held discussions here on Friday and decided to have further talks on seat sharing for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

A Congress delegation led by former union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik and Tamil Nadu Congress president E.V.K.S. Elangovan called on DMK president M. Karunanidhi.

On the DMK side, apart from Karunanidhi, party treasurer M.K. Stalin, senior leader Duraimurugan and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi were present.

Speaking to reporters, Azad said the subject of seat sharing came up but nothing was decided. He said the parties discussed the electoral strategy to be followed.

He said more time had been given to the DMK on the number of seats to be allotted to the Congress.

He said DMK was expecting a couple of more parties to join its front to fight the next month's Tamil Nadu assembly polls.

Stalin said the talks with Congress leaders were cordial.

In the 2011 elections, the Congress was given 63 seats by the DMK after some hard bargaining.

The DMK came out of the Congress-led central government in 2013, accusing New Delhi of not handling the Sri Lanka crisis well.

The two parties fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections separately in Tamil Nadu but drew a blank.
A most wanted criminal involved in over 200 burglaries across India has been arrested here, police said on Friday.

Nadeem Qureshi, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from east Delhi on a tip-off on Thursday night.

Police said Qureshi committed over 200 burglaries in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and .

"Several cases of burglaries were reported this year from some posh apartments in east Delhi. We deployed a special staff team to solve these case and finally arrested Qureshi on Thursday night," Deputy Commissioner of Police Bhairon Singh Gurjar said.

Qureshi revealed that he has been committing the crimes for 21 years and has broken locks of over 500 flats during this period.

"Qureshi and his gang used to commit burglaries in apartments especially located in posh colonies. They chose these apartments randomly and mostly where guards were of old age and seemed to be lazy. They moved in luxury cars and wore costly clothes mostly suits and tie to dodge the guards.

"Two of them would enter the apartment and go towards back blocks and reach on the top floor of the apartment. Then they would target the locked flats and break the locks. After entering in the flats, they used to choose only cash and jewellery items," the DCP said.

Qureshi and his gang members, the officer said, used a special kind of lock breaking instrument which they call "Farma Bardar or Daulatiya", an iron made instrument weighing around 10-12 kg.

Qureshi, who joined the world of crime in 1995, used to steal cattle in his village and adjoining villages. He was arrested many times and sent to judicial custody.

"He was arrested in an attempt to murder case in his village in 1999. Later, he met with a criminal Arif and started committing burglaries. He was arrested four times in Delhi but did not turn up to courts to face trial. For last two years, he was not arrested," the officer said, adding his other gang members have been identified as Mustaaq, Jag Jeewan, Amit and Mainuddin.
An international team of paleontologists has found fossilised remains of an early hominid species in Kenya, demonstrating their adaptability to new environments.

The fossilised teeth and forearm bone from an adult male and two infants from the early hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis, were found exposed in Ongata-Rongai area in the outskirts of Kenya's capital Nairobi.

"So far, all other A. afarensis fossils had been identified from the centre of the Rift Valley," said Masato Nakatsukasa of Kyoto University, who was part of the research team led by Emma Mbua of Mount Kenya University.

"A previous Australopithecus bahrelghazali discovery in Chad confirmed that our hominid ancestor's distribution covered central Africa, but this was the first time an Australopithecus fossil has been found east of the Rift Valley," Nakatsukasa added.

"This has important implications for what we understand about our ancestor's distribution range, namely that Australopithecus could have covered a much greater area by this age."

The Great Rift Valley is a name given to the continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 km in length, which runs from Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in Asia to Mozambique in south eastern Africa.

A. afarensis is believed to have lived 3,700,000-3,000,000 years ago, as characterised by fossils like "Lucy" from Ethiopia.

According to the research findings published recently in the Journal of Human Evolution, stable isotope analysis revealed that the Kantis region was humid, but had a plain-like environment with fewer trees compared to other sites in the Great Rift Valley where A. afaransis fossils had previously appeared.

"The hominid must have discovered suitable habitats in the Kenyan highlands. It seems that A. afaransis was good at adapting to varying environments," Nakatsukasa noted.
Intense diplomatic efforts at various levels are on to ensure the safe return of Catholic priest Tom Uzhunnalil, currently in Islamic State custody in Yemen, an official source said on Friday.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's office is closely monitoring the situation and is in touch with the ministry of external affairs and people concerned in Yemen and other countries.

"We are unable to reveal all details, but there is intense activity taking place at various levels and in various countries to ensure that the Keralite priest is rescued," said an official posted in Chandy's office, who is coordinating between various agencies.

"We are all hopeful that things will be resolved," said the official.

Earlier this month, armed militants barged into an old people's home set up by Mother Teresa near Yemen in 1992 and shot dead many, including four nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, including one from India.

These militants later whisked away the Kerala priest and there has been no word from him ever since.
Pakistani-American LeT terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley said on Friday that former Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited his house to pay condolences a few weeks after his father's death on December 25, 2008.

Though he denied that Gilani had attended the funeral of his father Sayed Salim Gilani, a former diplomat and Director-General of Radio Pakistan, who died a month after 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, Headley said the former prime minister visited his home a weeks later.

Headley's revelation came before Special Judge G.A. Sanap during his ongoing cross-examination by lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan, defence counsel for Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, an accused in the 26/11 attack case.

Headley's father expired on December 25, 2008 while his step-brother Daniel Gilani worked as a PRO in Prime Minister Gilani's office, Headley told the judge.

He added that his father was aware of his association with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and was not happy about it.

However, when asked if his step-brother Daniel Gilani was aware of his LeT links, Headley merely said they lived in different cities of Pakistan.

But he said a friend in Pakistan, Saulat Rana, was in the know of his LeT connections and his recce trips to Mumbai.

Rana was not linked with LeT and he neither objected nor encouraged Headley who worked for the terror group, nor did he tour Pakistan with him before the 26/11 terror attack by Pakistani terrorists that left 166 people dead.

He added that his father was a noted poet and writer, and after his death Daniel had publicly clarified that the family had barely any connections with him (Headley) -- who had changed his name from Dawood Gilani to David Coleman Headley at LeT's behest to enter India easily.
Two loud explosions were heard in Brussels as police launched major search operations in the Belgian capital in the wake of the suicide attacks in the city.

The explosions were heard at the start of the operation in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek, Al Jazeera reported. A man was "neutralised", state broadcaster RTBF said.

Six suspects were arrested on Thursday.

Suicide bombers hit the Zaventem airport and a metro train station on Tuesday, killing over 30 people and wounding at least 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Three explosions rocked Yemen's temporary capital of Aden on Friday evening, leaving 25 people killed and several others injured, a security official told Xinhua.

The huge blasts were caused by suicide bombers attempting to attack the main headquarters of the Saudi-led coalition forces located in Aden's district of Buraiga, the security source of Aden's Military Command said on condition of anonymity.

"A suicide bomber detonated his booby-trapped ambulance vehicle near a military checkpoint linking to the main base of the Saudi and UAE forces in Aden," the source said.

He added that two other suicide bombers blew themselves up targeting the army posts near the military base held by hundreds of UAE and Saudi troops in the district.

A medical source of Aden's public hospital said that more than 25 people were killed, mostly civilians, and nearly 15 others injured.

Dozens of assailants launched an armed attack against the Saudi-led coalition forces in Buraiga after double suicide bombings in the area, according to a local government official.

However, fighter jets and the UAE helicopters intervened and pounded the attackers, which foiled the terrorist operation.

The port city of Aden, Yemen's temporary capital, has been witnessing a state of chaos during the past months which resulted in the assassination of Aden's former governor, several high-ranking security officers and judges.

The turbulent security situation in Aden and neighbouring southern provinces of Lahj and Abyan is one of the biggest challenges for the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces in Aden.

The coalition has dispatched thousands of soldiers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Sudan and Bahrain into five anti-Houthi southern provinces to support and train local Yemeni security forces.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East and the affiliate of the Islamic State.

The security situation in the country has deteriorated since March 2015 when a war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.
Typing 'anti-national' into Google Maps search bar on Friday yielded a map of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus here, with a photograph of an entrance to the varsity on the left hand side.

It is unclear what caused the glitch in the world's largest online search engine, but it has certainly not gone down well with some students and faculty who said they would approach Google India about the problem, according to media reports.

JNU has now, for many weeks, been involved in a controversy over what constitutes anti-national words and deeds.

The JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and two other students were arrested on charges of sedition. All three were granted bail earlier this month.

They have been accused of raising anti-national slogans at a cultural event organised on the campus on February 9 to commemorate the third anniversary of the execution of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Taking suo motu cognizance of media reports that there was "an emergency like situation" in the University of Hyderabad, the NHRC on Friday issued notices to the HRD ministry, Telangana government and Hyderabad police commissioner.

"The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports that there is an emergency like situation in University of Hyderabad and there is no water, electricity, food and internet services and the ATMs are out of order," a statement from the NHRC said on Friday.

"Reportedly, there is heavy police presence on the campus. The university students are under immense fear and trauma due to indiscriminate arrests of about 25 students and two faculty members," it read.

The Commission has issued notices to the secretary, ministry of human resource development; chief secretary, government of Telangana and the police commissioner of Hyderabad calling for reports in the matter within one week.

"The commission has observed that the arbitrary act and high handedness of senior university officials as well as police and administrative officers, as reported in the media, raise serious concerns towards safety and security of the students.

"No one can be deprived of the basic amenities like water, food and electricity by wilful act of the State," the commission noted.

Police have detained around 25 students and two faculty members after a protest erupted in the varsity against the return of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao on Tuesday.

Appa Rao, who had gone on leave after being named in the First Information Report (FIR) relating to the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in January, returned to the campus on Tuesday and resumed duties as the vice chancellor.

Demanding his immediate arrest and terming his return as "unacceptable", students ransacked the vice chancellor's bungalow on the campus recently.
With five chief ministers in the last five decades from the movie world, the way to the political power in Tamil Nadu is through building up star power.

Five of the state's chief ministers - C.N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), Janaki Ramachandran and J. Jayalalitha - had their roots in filmdom, while several other actors showed an interest in .

And in the May 2016 assembly elections, there are three chief ministerial candidiates - incumbent J.Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK, DMK president M. Karunanidhi and DMDK founder A.Vijaykant - all with their roots in the movie world.

Apart from these three, the state has seen and is seeing several actor-turned-politicians like the late Sivaji Ganesan, R. Sarathkumar, T. Rajendar and M. Karthik who have floated their own parties.

There are several other actors like R. Ramarajan, Vagai Chandrasekhar, Napoleon, Kushboo, C.R. Saraswathi, Anantharaaj and others who have joined the AIADMK, the DMK and the Congress.

While Annadurai and Karunanidhi were involved in writing the story, screenplay and dialogues of movies, it was MGR who became the first actor-turned-chief minister.

Founder of the ADMK that later became the AIADMK, MGR showed the world the route to political power is also through his star power pull.

Movie actor N.T. Rama Rao also proved that in Andhra Pradesh by floating the Telugu Desam Party and capturing the chief minister's post.Prior to floating the ADMK in 1972, MGR was with the DMK, which used his star power to capture political power. Movies starring MGR subtly promoted the DMK through songs and dialogues.

But then, a power struggle erupted in the DMK after Karunanidhi started projecting his first son M.K. Muthu in a big way. Expelled from the DMK, MGR fought back by successfully converting his huge fan base and fan clubs into a political party, the AIADMK.

Since then, this is the route being followed by other actor-turned-politicians.

With his carefully cultivated movie image of being poor-friendly and without any vices like drinking or smoking, MGR soon became the darling of the people.

The AIADMK not only ousted the DMK from power in 1977 but also kept it in the wilderness till MGR's demise in 1987.

After MGR's death, his wife Janaki Ramachandran, also an actor, became chief minister for a very brief period before governor's rule was imposed.

A power struggle between Janaki Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa - who was introduced to by MGR and also starred in several movies with him - saw the AIADMK breaking into two.

Subsequently the two factions merged under Jayalalithaa's leadership and AIADMK captured back power in 1991. Since then Jayalalithaa remains the undisputed leader of the AIADMK.

In 2005, Vijaykant, 63, an action hero known to perform stunts in movies without a duplicate, floated his DMDK party as an alternative to the two dominant Dravidian parties -- the AIADMK and the DMK.

When he fought the polls alone without aligning with any party, the DMDK notched up an impressive vote share, better than even the established MDMK and PMK.

As the DMDK's vote share can add muscle to any alliance, he is this time around the most sought after alliance partner by all opposition parties, the BJP included.

Called "Karuppu (Black) MGR" or Captain after his movie "Captain Prabhakaran", Vijaykant has acted in over 150 Tamil movies.

Though he was never the No.1 hero, he charted his own style in the movie world -- a fighter vanquishing terrorists and bad guys.

But then, that's what is all about - vanquishing your opponents!

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
Surinder Kaur Cheema came to Accra four decades ago from her native Baroda in India's Gujarat state to support her businessman husband. Today, she is a hugely successful entrepreneur in her own right with two popular Indian restaurants, is often called on by the diplomatic community to provide catering services on special occasions and is an active social worker.

"Surinder Kaur Cheema must be saluted for single-handedly building one of the most successful Indian restaurants in Ghana," Amar Deep S. Hari, the Indian-origin CEO of prominent IT firm IPMC, told IANS.

Cheema arrived in Ghana in 1974 to join her award-winning farmer-exporter husband Harcharan Cheema. From a housewife she later turned to teach at the Ebenezer Secondary School in Accra for a while, and has now settled on selling India through her restaurants.

"It was after 13 years that I started my first restaurant, Kohinoor Restaurant at Osu (an Accra suburb). l have now been able to add another one, Delhi Palace at Tema (a port city some 25 km from Accra)," Cheema told IANS.

Her success as a restaurateur has become acclaimed as she not only serves Indian delicacies on her premises but has now become the caterer of choice for most diplomatic receptions and private events.

Cheema, who now employs about 35 people, said she would love to increase the number of restaurants she runs "but it is not easy because of my numerous commitments".

She divides her time between running her restaurants and ensuring that women affected with breast cancer get treatment, some rural communities get schools and water.

"Through the work of the Indian Women's Association, we have been able to raise money to get women in the country treated for breast cancer. Among other similar projects, we recently provided a school at Nima in Accra and provided a borehole for water to the people of Abanta near Koforidua in the eastern region," Cheema said.

Last year, when heavy rains led to the flooding of some parts of Accra killing several people, Cheema led the Indian Women Association to provide food and other essentials to those who had been rendered homeless.

"I did not meet the women but we were told that the food that was supplied to us was brought by the Indian Women Association and their leader is the one who owns the Kohinoor Restaurants," Ama Konadu, one of the victims who received the support, told IANS.

"We are proud to have Mrs Surinder Kaur Cheema as a role model for the next generation, both to the Indian and Ghanaian communities," Hari said.

(Francis Kokutse can be contacted at fkokutse@gmail.com)
Global software major Infosys ltd is waiting for an official communique on the fate of its employee Raghavendra Ganesh, who has been missing in terror-hit Brussels since Tuesday.

"We have no further information on Ganesh. We are also waiting to know from the government, its external affairs ministry or the authority concerned," a company spokesperson told IANS here on Friday.

The 28-year-old Indian-born techie was believed to be in a metro rail on that fateful day (March 22) when the Maelbeek metro station in the Belgian capital was rocked by an explosion, in which at least 20 people died and several were injured.

"We learnt from a tweet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj posted on Twitter that Ganesh's last phone call was traced to the metro rail in which he was travelling when terror struck the main metro station in the city," the spokesperson recalled.

"Raghavendran Ganesh -- We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was travelling in the metro rail," Swaraj tweeted on Thursday.



Raghavendran Ganesh - We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was travelling in the metro rail. @SanjeevKandakur @IndEmbassyBru  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 24, 2016

As the explosions at Brussels airport and metro stations on Tuesday were fallout of terror strikes and its impact being sensitive, the IT firm is depending on the foreign ministry and the Indian embassy in Brussels, as the incident was being handled at the highest official level between the two governments.

"It is best to go with what the authorities or ministry is saying in this matter. We will update you when we have more information," the spokesperson added.

Barring a brief note on one of its employees missing in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Brussels and that it was in touch with his family in India, the company did not share any information on Ganesh.

"We are trying to reach one employee with whom we have not been able to connect as with all other employees,a the company said in a terse statement on Tuesday, without specifying how many of its techies, including Indians work in Brussels.

Like the media, the company also learnt from a tweet Swaraj posted on Tuesday that she spoke to Ganesha's mother Annapoorni and assured her of all help in tracing her son.

It is also learnt that Ganesh spoke to his mother in India an hour before the blasts ripped the Brussels airport and the metro rail station.

Swaraj also appealed to Indians living in Brussels to help locate Ganesh in the Belgian capital.
Islamic State (IS) militants on Friday withdrew from the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria, pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.

The militants withdrew from the ancient citadel of Palmyra toward the al-Amiriyeh district in that oasis city in the eastern countryside of the central province of Homs, said the report.

The Syrian military forces are now combing areas between the hills and the ancient citadel of Palmyra in preparation for their entry, said the report, adding that the Syrian army also cut off the IS supply line between Palmyra and the town of Qaryatain in Homs countryside, Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the report said the Syrian army is advancing in Palmyra under the air cover of the Russian air force.

Palmyra captured by the IS last year contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.

Syria has many prehistoric, Greek, Byzantine and Islamic heritages.
Japan on Thursday executed two death row inmates, the Ministry of Justice announced.

According to Kyodo News, Masakatsu Nishikawa, 61, one of the executed inmates, was convicted of murder in 1991, though he had filed a retrial plea.

The second inmate, Koichi Sumida, 34, was found guilty of killing a female co-worker in 2011.

The execution order was signed by the Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda, who had approved another execution in November 2016, reports Efe news.

Japan's reluctance to stop the practice has been strongly criticized by organizations like Amnesty International.

Kaneda has publically expressed his opposition to the abolition of capital punishment, citing data from opinion polls, which show that more than 80 per cent of Japanese people are in favour of capital punishment.

--IANS

ksk

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Friday sought 20 lakh mosquito nets treated with insecticide from the Centre to tackle malaria in tribal areas of the state.

In his meeting with union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda in New Delhi, Chauhan said the state government was working on a war-footing to control the serious situation arising from malaria prevailing in the tribal areas, a government statement said.

He said his government will give every household at least two nets.

The chief minister also told Nadda that the state government proposal to open medical universities in Vidisha, Ratlam, Shahdol, Datiya, Khandwa, Shivpuri and Chhindwara were pending approval with the central government.

Chauhan also urged the union minister to ensure the appointment of director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhopal.

Nadda assured the chief minister of all help from the Centre on the issues raised by him.
Malaria, a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through mosquitoe bites, started out as a parasite in birds, and then it evolved to colonise bats, and from there it has evolved to affect other mammals, reveals a new study.

Malaria affects close to 500 million people every year, but we're not the only ones--different species of malaria parasite can infect birds, bats and other mammals too, the study pointed out.

Humans cannot contract malaria directly from birds or bats.

"We can't begin to understand how malaria spread to humans until we understand its evolutionary history," said lead author Holly Lutz, doctoral candidate at Cornell University in New York.

"In learning about its past, we may be better able to understand the effects it has on us," Lutz noted.

For the study, published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, the researchers took blood samples from hundreds of East African birds, bats and other small mammals and screened the blood for the parasites.

When they found malaria, they took samples of the parasites' DNA and sequenced it to identify mutations in the genetic code. From there, Lutz was able to perform what is called "phylogenetic analyses" to determine how different malaria species are related.

In analysing the genetic codes of the malaria parasites, Lutz was able to find places where the DNA differed from one species to the next. Then, the scientists used powerful computing software to determine how the different species evolved and how they're related to each other.

This phylogenetic analysis relied on large sample sizes and DNA from many different host species of bats and birds, because otherwise the picture would be incomplete.

"There's still more to discover, but this is the most complete analysis of its kind for malaria to date," Lutz said.

The analysis revealed that malaria has its roots in bird hosts. It then spread from birds to bats and on to other mammals.

The study not only sheds light on the way malaria was able to evolve and spread, but it also provides important information about the manner in which animals and their parasites are connected.

"Having a better understanding of its evolutionary history could help scientists anticipate its future," study co-author Bruce Patterson from The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, noted.
A 'Jan Militia' commander of the Maoists was killed in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh in a shootout with the police.

'Jan Militia' (people's militia) commander Sudharam was killed on Thursday night in an exchange of fire between Maoists and the police in a forest area under the jurisdiction of Mardapal police station, the police said.

'Jan Militia' is a part-time fighting force, raised by a Maoist group, in charge of a village, according to the security forces.

Police had announced an award of Rs.three lakh for Sudharam's capture. He was linked to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
As the PDP and BJP prepare to take power again as allies in Jammu and Kashmir, credit is being given to Prime Minister Minister Narendra Modi for the rapprochement.

Despite what looked like PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti's delaying tactics, Modi remained firm on the BJP's commitment to the agenda of alliance signed with her late father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Modi did not want any theatrics over the alliance as he was firm that it had been formed in the larger interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, an informed source in New Delhi told IANS.

"It was the prime minister who believed that continuing the alliance with the PDP was for peace in the state and for continuing the larger agenda of improving relations with (India's) neighbours," the source said.

Echoing Modi's message, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha that the BJP-PDP alliance agenda would be implemented in letter and spirit and there was no turning back on that commitment.

Jaitley later said in a talk show: "We lost Mufti Sahib when we needed him the most. Mehbooba must now take the call and continue her father's vision."

Modi then conveyed to Mehbooba through emissaries that he was ready to meet her to allay whatever fears she may have vis-a-vis heading a coalition government in the state.

"That did the final trick. Although she met the prime minister just for half hour she was assured all possible support and advised to carry forward her father's vision as stated in the agenda of alliance," a high level BJP source said.

Jammu and had a Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government for about 10 months when then chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died on January 7.

The state came under Governor's Rule the next day.

But instead of taking charge as chief minister at the head of the coalition, Mehbooba kept dragging the issue, at one time leading to speculation that she was planning to jettison the alliance.

The BJP made it clear that no new demands by the PDP leader would be met, and that the alliance would be based on the agenda agreed to earlier.

At the same time, BJP president Amit Shah and national general secretary Ram Madhav, who is in charge of Jammu and affairs, stated that the alliance between the PDP and BJP was intact.

Mehbooba, the PDP president, sought fresh assurances on the agenda of alliance. The PDP wavered but the BJP stood firm.

"There is no turning back on the agenda signed with Mufti Sahib. It is final and will be implemented," the BJP kept saying, at times embarrassing state BJP leaders who did not want to look as if they were taking orders from the PDP.

The BJP source said Modi's address to the international Sufi conference in New Delhi this month was an effort to reach out to everybody and affirm his faith in the pluralism of India.

As Mehbooba remained entrenched in her stated position that she was not hungry for power, the BJP deputed Ram Madhav to speak to her twice. One of these visits was planned to be secret.

"She came to Delhi. Met Amit Shah and all seemed to have been lost," the source told IANS. "Everybody said it was all over between the two parties. She rushed back to Srinagar."

On Thursday, in her address to PDP legislators and senior leaders, Mehbooba thanked the BJP for its steadfast commitment to the agenda of alliance.

She also thanked the BJP and the central government for not trying to poach on her flock by engineering defections.

"The BJP has definitely behaved differently," she told her party. She was alluding to the traditional horse-trading undertaken in Jammu and by the Congress in the past.

The source explained why: "Creating a larger constituency where Jammu and Kashmir becomes a bridge and not a roadblock in India-Pakistan relations (was important).

"This is what Prime Minister Modi envisages. What further assurance did she want?" asked the source.

Mehbooba has finally agreed to start her political career's first governance innings by trusting Modi -- as her father did.

It is highly unlikely the two have reached an agreement without understanding each other. In the process, Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, will get its first woman chief minister.
The recent Nepal-China agreements on transit and transportation, energy, trade, investment and connectivity have triggered fresh opposition in Nepal even while the nation awaits Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's return from his maiden China visit.

Though the ruling parties in the Himalayan nation have welcomed the agreements, Madhesi leaders already protesting over Nepal's new constitution have opposed the deals. The main opposition and largest party in Nepal's Legislature, Nepali Congress, is yet to comment on it.

Madhesi leaders, who have been protesting the new constitution in Nepal, have also opposed the China's vocal support to the new statute.

China's move to welcome the new constitution of Nepal has no meaning, said chairman of the Federal Socialist Party Upendra Yadav.

"China's backing to the new constitution is meaningless as a significant number of people within the country are yet to own it," he said.

Ahead of Prime Minister Oli's China visit, top leaders of the Madhes-based political parties had met Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai, and handed over an 11-point memorandum to him, urging Beijing to push Oli to address their demands rather than maintaining the status quo.

Yadav, who also served as foreign minister twice in the past, said the agreements signed between Nepal and China were agreed upon in 2009, but wondered why Oli was instigating propaganda over it.

Experts and diplomats also maintained that the accords signed with China during Oli's visit now may not be implemented with immediate effect.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Nepal's former prime minister, hailed the agreements with China, saying they have long-term significance while maintaining Nepal's good relations with both the neighbours, India an China.

Another prominent Madhes-based leader, Rajendra Mahato opposed the Nepal-China joint statement in which China has welcomed the new constitution of the Himalayan republic.

"Rights of the two-thirds people were curtailed in the new constitution. So how can China welcome it? The move is against the people," said Mahato.

Madhesi leaders, all set to start another round of agitation in Nepal's southern plains, held breakfast meeting with Indian Ambassador Ranjit Rae on Thursday inside the Indian embassy.

The leaders reviewed the progress made in talks between them and the government.

In the meeting, Madesh-based leaders told the Indian envoy that they are in final preparation of the next round of protest focusing on Kathmandu and will accommodate Janajatis/Adivasis (ethnic communities) of Nepal's hilly region, who too are equally unhappy over the content of the new constitution.

The Madheh based leaders sought moral support from India.

Meanwhile, the ruling PCN-UML's leader Pradip Gywali said that India should not worry if Nepal extends its relations with another neighbour, China.

"We want to have pragmatic relations with both India and China based on equality, and as a sovereign and independent nation Nepal has all rights to expand its bilateral relations with any countries," he said.
The central government is organising a three-day business summit in Manipur from April 7 to showcase the resources and economic potential of north east India, an official statement said on Friday.

The North East Business Summit 2016 is being organised by the Union Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region in association with the Manipur government in Imphal from April 7 to 9, said the statement issued here by the ministry.

"The summit is being organised under Act East policy of the government to showcase the resources, scope and ability of north-east India comprising eight states," it said.

The eight states are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.

All the stakeholders in the field of trade and commerce, micro, small and medium enterprises, horticulture, floriculture and food processing industry have been invited for the summit. Participants from handicrafts, handlooms and ministry of tourism have also been invited.

"The summit is expected to explore the possibility of trade and commerce with Asean (10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries under Act East policy of the government," the statement said.

The summit would give a platform to all potential investors in different sectors such as food processing, horticulture, tourism, handloom and handicrafts, startups and entrepreneurship to have a better understanding about the investment environment and potential of the north-east region.

In addition to government participation, the summit is expected to be attended by representatives of the private sector along with Indian Chambers of Commerce.

The ministry had organised a three-day festival called 'Destination North East 2016' last month in New Delhi in an effort to bring the rest of India closer to the north-east region.
More than 1.09 lakh non-bailable arrest warrants have been executed in West Bengal from December 1, 2015, to March 23, a senior Election Commission official said on Friday.

"In total, 1,09,457 non-bailable warrants were executed in 26 police authorities' areas, including various districts and commissionerates, from December 1 to March 23," said Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar.

South 24 Paraganas tops with execution of 10,611 warrants, followed by Murshidabad with 10,606, according to the poll panel. In Biddhannagar police commissionarate area, 1,009 warrants have been executed.

Jhargram police district has reported the least number (793) of execution of such warrants.

As many as 18,388 cases of non-bailable arrest warrants are pending, he said.

Sarkar said the commission has issued specific instructions on execution of non-bailable warrants.

Asked about cases where the accused have been able to get bails despite non-bailable warrants, he said: "The court concerned is the authority to take decisions on who will get bail and who will not. This does not fall in the election commission's area."

The Election Commission, however, can ask for written undertakings of good conduct from notorious criminals or from those who have got bail despite non-bailable warrants, Sarkar said.

In that case, the accused would be under the poll panel scanner, he added.
A day after security forces claimed the arrest of a "serving RAW officer", Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge a strong protest over "India's spying activities" in Balochistan and Karachi, the Foreign Office said.

A man believed to be a serving officer in the Indian Navy and a member of the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing was arrested during a raid in Balochistan, Dawn online reported.

The spy was linked to separatist elements in Balochistan and involved in acts of sectarian terrorism and terror attacks in Karachi, a security official said.

The officer was shifted to Islamabad for interrogation as he was suspected of being involved in various acts of terrorism in the province, the official said.

Foreign Office sources said that Bambawale was summoned by Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry, who shared details of the man's arrest with the Indian High Commissioner.

Chaudhry lodged a strong protest over the officer's spying activities in Balochistan and Karachi, making it clear that this was unacceptable, the sources said.
Pakistan's non-Muslim members of the National Assembly have suggested that days be shaved off the Eid holidays so that national holidays could be observed on Hindu festivals as well.

Pakistan People's Party lawmaker Ramesh Lal and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's Ramesh Kumar and Vankwani raised the issue in the National Assembly on Thursday, Dawn online reported.

Lal lauded the Sindh government for declaring Holi a gazetted holiday and suggested that the federal government also follow the suit.

Vankwani demanded that the federal government should declare a holiday on the occasion of Holi and Diwali -- the two main festivals of Hindus.

"If you think that there are already too many holidays in the country, then days can be subtracted from the three to four-day long Eid holidays," he added.

He referred to a statement by Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, who recently observed that Pakistan already has too many national holidays.

None of the legislators from religious parties -- Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl -- objected to Vankwani's suggestion.

Later, in his speech, Khalil George, a Christian PML-N member, also supported the demands of the Hindu members of the assembly.

"We do not have any problems with holidays on our festivals as Easter falls on a Sunday, while Christmas is already a holiday thanks to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birth anniversary," he said, adding "but I do support their cause".

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's Hindu assembly member Lal Chand Malhi said that even if there is not a national holiday on Holi and Diwali, these festivals should be made gazetted holidays for Hindus.

"This facility is available to religious minorities in many countries," he said.

Incidentally, Vijay Jolly -- a senior member of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) who recently visited Islamabad, said that Muslims in India have holidays on both Eids and Ashura.

Speaking at the National Press Club, he called for a "similar arrangement for religious minorities in Pakistan".

India is not the only country in the world where gazetted holidays are available for members of all religious minorities. Most western countries also have such provisions.
Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale and lodged a strong protest after an alleged RAW officer was arrested in Balochistan. New Delhi denied the arrested man had any links with the Indian government.

The summons to Bambawale came a day after security forces claimed the arrest of a serving Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer during a raid three days ago in Balochistan, Dawn online reported.

The News International identified the alleged RAW officer as Kulbushan Yadav, said to be an in-service commander rank officer in the Indian Navy. New Delhi said it had sought consular access to him.

During initial investigation, Yadav is reported to have confessed his links with "separatist, sectarian and terrorist organisations in Karachi and Balochistan".

Foreign office sources were quoted as saying that Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and provided him details of the arrest.

Chaudhry lodged a strong protest over the alleged RAW officer's spying activities in Balochistan and Karachi and said that this was unacceptable, Pakistani sources said.

The RAW officer had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other subversive activities in Balochistan, Pakistani media said.

In New Delhi, the government said it had no links with the alleged Indian spy.

"The said individual has no link with the government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy," a spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs said.

"We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," the official added.

The spokesperson admitted that Pakistan had summoned the Indian envoy and raised the issue with him.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed the arrest of the Indian spy from the southern part of the province. "The arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan," Bugti said.

Bugti added that the Indian spy was sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities in Balochistan. Maps of different installations and sites were reportedly recovered from him.
Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge a strong protest after an alleged RAW officer was arrested in Balochistan.

The summons came a day after security forces claimed the arrest of a serving Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer during a raid three days ago in Balochistan, Dawn online reported.

The News International identified the alleged RAW officer as Kulbushan Yadav, said to be an in-service commander rank officer in the Indian Navy.

During initial investigation, he is reported to have confessed his links with "separatist, sectarian and terrorist organisations in Karachi and Balochistan".

Foreign office sources were quoted as saying that Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and given details of the arrest.

Chaudhry lodged a strong protest over the RAW officer's spying activities in Balochistan and Karachi, making it clear that this was unacceptable, Pakistani sources said.

The RAW officer had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other subversive activities in Balochistan, Pakistani media said.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed the arrest of the Indian spy from the southern part of the province. "The arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan," Bugti said.

Bugti added that the Indian spy was sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities in Balochistan. Maps of different installations and sites were reportedly recovered from him.
India has granted visas to five members of a Pakistani team probing the cross-border terror attack on the Pathankot airbase in January this year.

The Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has sought seven-day visas after it reaches India on March 27, it was reliably learnt on Friday.

Following a meeting with Sartaj Aziz, advisor to the Pakistan prime minister on foreign affairs, on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) ministerial meeting at Pokhara in Nepal last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced that the Pakistani JIT would arrive in India on March 27 and start its work from the following day.

Seven Indian security personnel lost their lives when terrorists from across the border attacked the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, Punjab, early on January 2.

The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility for the attack in which all the six terrorists also were reportedly killed.

The attack derailed the proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks that were scheduled for the middle of January after the two countries agreed in December last year to start a comprehensive bilateral dialogue.

India has since sent "actionable evidence" to the Pakistani authorities to bring the perpetrators of the attack to book.

Pakistan filed an FIR in Gujranwala last month against "unknown" terrorists in connection with the attack.

It also said that it would send a JIT to India to probe the attack.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday extended his greetings to Bangladesh on its National Day (March 26).

In a message to Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid, Mukherjee said, "The bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh have grown tremendously over the past few years. I am confident that this relationship between our two countries will continue to expand and that our interaction and cooperation will scale new heights."

On March 26, Bangladesh commemorates its declaration of independence from Pakistan made in the late hours of March 25, 1971 by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That declaration saw a bruising nine-month conflict in the erstwhile East Pakistan and culminated in an India-Pakistan war and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation.
Russia and the US have reached some consensus on Syria during US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit here, but relations are far from thawing so long as the sanctions on Russia are not lifted.

During his two-day visit, Kerry held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Syria, the situation in the Korean Peninsula and ties between their two countries, Xinhua reported.

The two sides agreed that further talks will be focused on details of Syria's political transition, including a framework and a draft constitution, among other issues.

The political transition in Syria is the best and perhaps the only way to end the war, Kerry said late Thursday.

The agenda of further talks would include a timetable "for establishing a framework for political transition and also a draft constitution, both to be finished by August," said Kerry, who arrived here on Wednesday.

Kerry and Lavrov outlined specific objectives on which Russia and the US agreed to cooperate.

On settlement of the Syrian crisis, the two sides would take steps to reinforce cessation of hostilities and end the use of indiscriminate weapons.

The two countries agreed to work to "finalise a common understanding for how this cessation can be institutionalised" and work "more effectively", Kerry said.

Moreover, Russia and the US agreed to use their influence to facilitate the direct talks between the Syrian government and opposition forces, as well as to push for the release of detainees and the delivery of humanitarian goods.

On bilateral relations, Kerry repeated that anti-Russia sanctions will only be lifted when the Minsk Agreement is fully implemented.

The agreement, signed in the Belarusian capital city in February 2015 with the mediation of France and Germany, calls for a ceasefire along with a range of political, economic and social measures aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov expressed Russia's readiness to cooperate with the US on an equal basis, warning of "counter-productivity of the trend to destabilise the foundation of Russian-American relations".

But they agreed to establish regular review of bilateral relations, cooperate on combating cyberspace crimes and intensify dialogue on global security, said Lavrov.

Kerry's visit showed that Russia and the US have minimised certain contradictions, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Centre for International Studies in National Research University's High School of Economics, said on Thursday.

Prospects of a really constructive cooperation have become tangible, though a huge number of problems remained to be solved, Suslov said.

"I assess this visit as an indication of real willingness of the US to work on a real political settlement of the Syrian conflict," he said.

The two sides also discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula.

Lavrov said that "irresponsible actions" of the North Korea must not be used as an excuse for any military build-up in northeastern Asia.

This is Kerry's first visit to Russia so far this year and the third in 12 months.
South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics has been given the green light by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to build a $300 million research and development centre in the capital Hanoi, the media reported on Friday.

Once operational in 2019, the 21-storey facility will cover three hectares, employ about 6,000 people and develop high-tech electronic and telecommunication products, the company said.

It will also operate rent-free for 50 years, EFE news reported.

Vietnam has become one of Samsung's biggest production hubs, and the firm has invested almost $15 billion in two production facilities in the country's north, and in Saigon.

Producing Samsung products has helped Vietnam replace clothing and footwear with smartphone and electronics manufacturing as the country's largest source of export revenue.

Smartphone exports alone were worth $30 billion last year, making up 18.6 percent of the Communist country's total export revenue.
The Imam of the al-Haram Masjid of the holy Kaaba Shareef in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Saleh bin Muhammed bin Ibrahim aal Talib, will be in India next week to attend a conference here, an Islamic seminary said here.

"The eminent cleric will be in the city on April 2 to attend an international conference on 'Islam and peace'," said an official of Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, the Islamic seminary here also known simply as 'Nadwa'.

The conference is being organised by Darul Uloom Nizamia Farangi Mahal, another Islamic seminary here.

Soon after his arrival, the cleric will lead the 'Maghrib' (sunset) prayer at Aishbagh Eidgah in older part of city and then proceed to attend the conference.

Islamic clerics from all over the country are likely to attend the conference, which will be presided over by cleric of Nadwa and Chairman of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Rabe Hasni Nadvi, the organisers said.

About five lakh people are expected to take part in the event, they said.
A religious leader at Scotland's biggest mosque has praised an extremist who was executed for murdering the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, the BBC reported on Friday.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of Glasgow Central Mosque used the messaging platform WhatsApp to show his support for Mumtaz Qadri, who was hanged in February for gunning down Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, in 2011.

After shooting Taseer, Qadri reportedly told journalists that he was "proud" and that he had killed a "blasphemer".

Maulana Rehman in his text said he is "disturbed" and "upset" at the news of Qadri's execution, before writing "rahmatullahi alai", a religious blessing usually given to devout Muslims and meaning may God's mercy be upon him.

In another text, Rehman said: "I cannot hide my pain. A true Muslim was punished for doing which the collective will of the nation failed to carry out."

Rehman is the most senior imam at Glasgow Central Mosque, a role which involves leading prayers and giving religious guidance and teachings.

Rehman told the BBC: "The assassination of Salman Taseer is widely condemned."

"Whether I agree or disagree with the views he expressed, as an Imam and as a human being, I express abhorrence at the manner in which he was executed."

"The execution was not in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles."
A soldier went missing on Friday after an avalanche hit an army patrol party on the Siachen glacier in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.

"Two soldiers were swept away by the avalanche. One soldier has been rescued from the avalanche so far. His condition is serious and being treated," Colonel S.D. Goswami, spokesman of the Army's Udhampur-headquartered Northern Command, told IANS here.

"Efforts are on to locate the missing soldier," the officer added.
The Syrian army captured the airbase of the millennia-old city of Palmyra in central Syria, as part of the sweeping progress against the Islamic State group, a military source told Xinhua.

In a blitz offensive, the Syrian army captured the airbase east of Palmyra on Friday, the military source said on condition of anonymity.

The fresh progress came just hours after the Syrian troops backed by Russian air force and Shiite fighters, including those with Hezbollah, captured the ancient citadel of that oasis city in the eastern countryside of the central province of Homs.

The city fell to the IS militants last May and the Syrian army started a broad offensive to recapture it two days ago.

Local media said the IS militants withdrew from the ancient citadel of Palmyra toward the al-Amiriyeh district, adding that the terror group had tried to bring in reinforcements from its strongholds in the northern province of al-Raqqa, but the Syrian army struck the backup forces of the IS.

Since capturing it last May, the terror-labeled IS group destroyed the city's notorious military prison and several Islamic tombs.

The IS also put on public executions of soldiers and people accused of working for the government.

Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.

Syria has many prehistoric, Greek, Byzantine and Islamic heritages. Before the crisis, Syria had attracted many multinational archaeological missions coming for searching new clues of historical facts on the development of civilizations.
Famed Bengali actor Soham Chakraborty, contesting the West Bengal assembly polls as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Barjora in Bankura district, possesses properties in excess of Rs.two crore.

In his affidavit filed with the Election Commission, the actor has declared a annual income for the year 2014-15 to Rs.98.72 lakh.

Sohom, who made his debut as a child actor in Satyajit Ray's Shakha Proshakha, has movable assets in excess of Rs.1.91 crore while the movable properties of his wife are valued at little over Rs.9.25 lakh.

The actor's moveable assets include bank deposits worth over Rs.1.68 crore, two vehicles with a cumulative market value exceeding Rs.17 lakh.

His immovable assets which includes a residential apartment in the city outskirts Thakurpukur, are currently valued at Rs.40 lakh.

The 32-year-old actor known for movies like 'Prem Amar' and 'Amanush' among others has liabilities to the tune of Rs.2.54 lakh and has never been convicted of any crime.
Republican and Democratic presidential frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hold leads in nationwide polls amid an escalating feud between the brash billionaire and rival Ted Cruz over their wives.

With the nominating primary and caucus season now past its halfway point, a CNN survey average of six recent polls found Trump holding a 12-point lead over Texas Senator Cruz, 43 percent to 31 percent.

The third Republican in the contest, Ohio Governor John Kasich, was well behind at 19 percent.

On the Democratic side Clinton topped her party rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, 52 percent to 43 percent.

The average suggests Clinton has expanded her lead since mid-February, when an average of national polls conducted after the New Hampshire primary found Clinton just 6 percentage points ahead of Sanders.

Trump's lead over Cruz is about the same as his lead in mid-February, but both candidates have grown their share of the vote as the field has shrunk. That poll of polls found Trump at 34 percent and Cruz at 21 percent in a field of six candidates.

Meanwhile, a feud between Trump and Cruz over their wives escalated with an angry and emotional Cruz Thursday calling the real estate mogul "a snivelling coward" for attacks on wife Heidi.

"Donald, you're a snivelling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone," Cruz told reporters Thursday in Dane, Wisconsin.

But he repeatedly declined to say whether he would support Trump if he's the Republican presidential nominee. "I'm going to beat Donald for the nomination," he insisted before saying three times: "Donald Trump will not be the nominee."

In response to a Facebook ad that shows Trump's wife Melania posing nude Trump warned Cruz Tuesday night that he should "be careful" or he would "spill the beans on your wife."

On Wednesday night he retweeted a supporter who photoshopped together a villainous-looking Heidi and a smoky-eyed Melania.

"No need to 'spill the beans'" because "the images are worth a thousand words," the photo illustration said.

The ad was produced by an anti-Trump super PAC, Make America Awesome, which has no known connection to the Cruz campaign, but Trump still blamed Cruz.

"I didn't start the fight with Lyin'Ted Cruz over the GQ cover pic of Melania, he did. He knew the PAC was putting it out - hence, Lyin' Ted!" he tweeted.

Cruz Thursday attributed Trump's tweets to a broader discomfort with women, tying in his well-publicised feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

"Donald does seem to have an issue with women. Donald doesn't like strong women," he said, at one point calling Trump a "loud, New York bully."

"Real men don't try to bully women. That's not an action of strength. That's an action of weakness. It's an action of fear. It's an action of a small and petty man who is intimidated by strong women."

Kelly, who rarely opines on Trump controversies, responded Thursday to the latest Trump tweet with just one word: "Seriously?"

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
An American contractor has agreed to pay New York State a penalty of $3.1 million for illegally outsourcing confidential work to India, state officials have announced.

The officials, however, cleared the Mumbai company, which was not identified, of any wrongdoing. The Indian company, which cooperated with the investigation, did not know that it obtained the work illegally and there was no evidence that it shared with anyone else or misused the personal information of 16 million people that was sent to it, officials said Thursday.

The action announced Tuesday on the case that goes back to 2008 hits two current areas of heightened concern in the US-outsourcing and cybersecurity. There is growing scrutiny of outsourcing, which has become a contentious issue across in the political spectrum in the presidential election campaigns. And there are serious concerns about the security of personal data because of cybercrimes.

"The agreement announced today sends a clear message: if you are a government contractor and you illegally ship jobs overseas, you will be held accountable," New York Attorney Gneral Eric T. Schneiderman said.

Focused Technologies Imaging Services (FTIS) admitted to sending the personal information it received from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to the Indian company, which was not authorized to receive the data, Schneiderman and Inspector General Leahy Scott said in a statement. It also admitted to violating a contract requirement to hire disabled people in the US to do half the work, they said.

The overall contract that FTIS had was for $3.4 million, but it paid the Indian company only $82,000 for 37.5 percent of the work, officials said.

The contract was for digitsing and indexing about 22 million fingerprint cards and creating a searchable database. The cards were of all state law enforcement officials, prisoners, parolees, and personnel undergoing background checks and included their dates of birth, identifying numbers and physical characteristics.

Because of sensitive nature of the information the contract required FTIS to do the digitisation in a warehouse in the state capital, Albany, using only employees who passed a criminal background check.

FTIS's current sole owner Charles Tobin, is responsible for $3.05 million of the penalty and former co-owner Julie Benware for $50,000. FTIS has also agreed to perform 69 percent of the work of certain contracts it gets within two years using disabled people.
A federal judge in San Francisco gave an additional month till April 21 to come up with a solution for around 600,000 diesel vehicles sold in the US that were fitted with software to hide their real level of toxic emissions.

US District Judge Charles Breyer had earlier given VW till March 24 to present its solution for those 2.0 litre and 3.0 litre diesel automobiles, Xinhua reported.

In a hearing on Thursday in San Francisco, the German automaker and the US Justice Department told Breyer that intense negotiations were ongoing but that more time was needed, according to the media.

The judge agreed to extend his earlier deadline after acknowledging the progress made thus far.

If VW does not provide Breyer with a solution by April 21, he could move to hold a trial in his court on the matter in mid-2016.

In January, the US Justice Department sued for up to $46 billion over the rogue software installed on diesel vehicles sold in the US since 2008.

The software -- known as a defeat device -- detected when emissions testing was taking place and activated the cars' emissions controls.

When those same vehicles were being driven under normal conditions, the controls were turned off and they spewed up to 40 times the US' legally allowable amount of nitrogen oxides, which have been linked to lung and respiratory illnesses.


The Congress on Friday urged unity among all the voices which differ from the BJP-RSS ideology in opposing the brutality unleashed by the central government to suppress the voices of dissent.

"It is disturbing to see when a central university is being used as a platform to teach those people a lesson whose voices are not in concurrence to that of BJP or central leadership of its government," Congress spokesperson Sachin Pilot said in reference to the incidents of violence occurring in Hyderabad University.

"All should stand by those individuals and ideologies which may differ from the BJP and RSS," he said.

"The attempt of the incumbent government is, if anybody is anti-BJP; he or she is shown as anti-India. That ties into their new definition of nation-hood, patriotism and nationalism," Pilot added.

"What we have now seen is calibrated and deliberated attempt to suppress any voice that is in contradiction to the ideology of the incumbent government. The kind of brutality we are seeing being unleashed on faculty and students in campuses across the country is unbecoming on the democratic setup where all voices are heard," Pilot said.

"It doesn't matter what opinions are expressed whether they are left right or center, we now have situation where we are not allowed to speak," he said, asking the BJP leadership to introspect on "who were the people and what were the powers which compelled Rohith Vemulla to commit suicide."

Pilot also alleged the central government of creating a situation of confrontation in parliament by avoiding a dialogue with the opposition on crucial issues.

"Even in parliament, where there should be a dialogue with all the political parties, the BJP has created a situation of confrontation by not having it deliberately. BJP practices a of brutality and of force," Pilot said.

The Congress leader was reacting to the police action on the Hyderabad Central University students who were protesting against the Vice Chancellor Appa Rao.

Thirty of the protesting students were reportedly injured and one off them was admitted to the intensive care unit on Wednesday.
With the signing of the Transit and Transportation Agreement between Nepal and China in Beijing, there is a sense of anxiety, worry and concern in Indian strategic circles about Nepal tilting towards China. Many have commented that this has ended India's long monopoly in Nepal in doing third country business through Indian ports and, overnight, Nepal will do business, import fuel from China and so on.

As a landlocked country, seeking transit rights is Nepal's fundamental right and, as of now, India and Bangladesh have provided such facilities to Nepal.

Realizing that Nepal will turn to China for transit and trade rights, India, during the visit of Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli last month, had agreed to provide Visakhapatnam port for Nepal's use. As of now, Nepal is using only Haldia in Kolkata for third-country trade but it is smaller than Visakhapatnam. During the visit, India also allowed Nepal land transit via Bangladesh, implicit being that India was already aware that Nepal would turn to China.

It is being said that had India allowed Nepal this when it was proposed over a decade ago, Nepal would not have gone with China. Second, if India had not imposed an unofficial blockade, privileging one community and group's demand, Nepal would not have tilted towards China.

After signing the Transit Agreement with China, it is widely anticipated that Nepal will do business through Chinese ports and end its dependency on India. Such interpretations, particularly in Indian strategic circles, are beyond the ground realities and one should understand that a transit treaty does not necessarily measure up to implementation.

The poor infrastructure on the Nepali side, difficult geographical terrain on both sides and without a rail link up to the Nepali border in Kerung (Gyirong in Chinese side), Nepal cannot immediately begin third country business through Chinese ports. Physical infrastructure in either side of the border is important for full use of transit rights and, on the Nepali side, it will take years to upgrade Kerung, the only transit, transportation and trade route between Nepal and China.

Second, the nearest Chinese port is Tainjin which is 3,000 km from the Nepali border and the nearest Indian port is Haldia which is just 1,000 km away. This per se makes a huge difference in doing business in terms of costs, said Nepal's former commerce secretary Purusottam Oja.

If Nepal needs to do business through Tainjin port to Kerung, it is almost impossible to import goods via trucks or containers. The only option is by rail and Chinese officials say this will happen only by 2020.

"Of course, a further extension from Gyirong is an even longer-term plan. It's up to geographic and technical conditions and financing ability. We believe that far in the future the two countries will be connected by rail," Hou Yanqi, deputy head of the Chinese foreign ministry's Asia division, said in Beijing after the meeting between Oli and Premier Li Keqiang.

"Strategically it is going to be a good deal but due to distance per se, it is going to be a very costly affair for us until there is rail service from Tainjin to the Nepal border," said Oja. "It also depends on status of infrastructure in both sides...and paper work. Hassle free paperwork for customs and other purposes are key in transit rights," said Oja.

Another Nepal-China trading point, Tatopani, is shut down since the April 25, 2015 earthquake and there is no official confirmation whether the Chinese side will open it up or not. In case China opens it, Nepali traders have to use trucks, containers and other light vehicles to import and export goods from Tianjin, again very costly for traders.

"I am not going to use and do business through Tanjian that is going to be three-fold expensive for us," said Indian trader Ravi Singh, who is engaged in third-country business.

"Without stressing on connectivity, the transit agreement will not be productive," said noted economist Bishamber Pyakurel.

"Neither it is a historic pact nor is it a non-workable one. Though it is a welcome move, its success lies in implementation," he said in an interaction with journalists.

It should also be remembered that Nepal is doing business with India through 24 small and big trading points whereas Nepal is doing business with China only through one trading point.

Then, India has also proposed to build five rail corridors with Nepal and one is proposed to connect Uttar Pradesh and Kathmandu.

The ground realities more than make clear that the 'China card' remains more of an illusion but Kathmandu has finally made the strategic move that New Delhi is bound to have taken note of.

(Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@mail.com.)
Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra on Friday sought to know from the BJP if PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti will chant 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' before taking oath as the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister?

Both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Delhi government distanced themselves from the minister's statement.

Calling the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alliance as anti-national, Mishra, in a letter addressed to BJP national president Amit Shah, said that the nation might have to pay a huge price for the decision of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and BJP.

He also advised Shah to take the people into confidence before going ahead with such an alliance.

"Does Mehbooba Mufti believe in saying 'Bharat Mata ki Jai?' If not, will BJP still form government with her party? Before taking oath as CM, would she (Mufti) raise slogans which say Afzal Guru was a terrorist and 'Afzal Guru Murdabad'?" asked Mishra.

Mishra said that by allowing Pakistan's investigation team to probe the Pathankot attacks, the central government has jeopardised the long battle against state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan and asked if pressure from Mufti was the reason behind this.

The AAP and the Delhi government, however, distanced themselves from the minister's statement. "It is the minister's personal opinion and not the party's stand," AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai told IANS.

A Delhi government official told IANS, "The letter written by Kapil Mishra is his personal opinion."
Playing the 'national security' card, the BJP on Friday pledged to seal the India-Bangladesh border to stop infiltration and also to "free Assam of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants" if it came to power in the state.

In its Vision Document for 2016-25, the Bharatiya Janata Party also accused the Congress, ruling the state, of encouraging infiltration and disturbing Assam's demography in the process.

Senior BJP leader and union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released the document here and said: "Our main emphasis will be on infiltration."

Jaitley said: "Since Assam is a border province and a pivotal north-eastern state, we have put emphasis on national security in our vision document so that proper arrangements can be made to stop terrorism and insurgency. There are chapters on completely sealing of the border areas and to ensure identification of foreigners, in the vision document."

The senior BJP leader also accused the Congress and the Tarun Gogoi government of using infiltration as part of their strategy of "vote bank politics".

"The Congress has all along been encouraging illegal migrations into Assam for their vote bank politics. However, if the BJP is voted to power in Assam, we are going to end the influx from the neighbouring country by sealing the International border," said Jaitley.

"In the last 15 years of the Congress rule, it failed to fulfil the aspirations of the people. However, our priority will be infiltration, and we are going to seal the India-Bangladesh border within a stipulated time to solve the problem," he said.

"The Congress has also been trying to destroy and change the demography of Assam by encouraging the influx. Although the Congress has been in power for many years in Assam, yet the state government took no action to curb the menace," he said.

Dubbing the Gogoi government as a failure, Jaitley said, "It's a historical opportunity to defeat a failed government in the state. Our alliance headed by the BJP will have a landslide victory," he said.

He said the Vision Document, which promises to reserve 35 percent seats for women in all government services, is a roadmap prepared by the party for ensuring overall development of the state.

"There is a series of dialogues organised by the party with Assam's people across the state. It has got a proper roadmap for each and every problem of the state, including transport, employment, highways, rural roads, extension of rail and air connectivity, youth, tea tribes, job creation and agricultural skill development," he said.

The BJP assured the people of enacting a law to deal with industries, businesses, small and medium enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators.

BJP national president Amit Shah, meanwhile, addressed two public rallies at Sivsagar district in Upper Assam and assured the people that the party would "make Assam free of illegal Bangladesh immigrants".

Blaming the Congress for the infiltration from Bangladesh, Shah said the people of Assam would have to unite and vote for the three-party alliance led by the BJP if they wished to make the state free of illegal immigrants.
Narendra Modi had just got elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) parliamentary party. He was in the Central Hall of Parliament to thank his colleagues, his party and also alliance partners of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). From a distance he spotted Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) leader "Captain" Vijayakanth and his wife, Premalatha. Surrounded as he was by members of Parliament, Modi propelled himself towards the couple, bent low in a namaskar to Premalatha and said with admiration: "By God! Kya kaam kiya aapne (What an achievement)!"



Those were heady days. The DMDK was part of the NDA in the Lok Sabha elections. The Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP didn't particularly like the idea of being in alliance with the DMDK, but didn't have much of a choice. The DMDK contested 14 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats, getting around 16 per cent of the votes in those seats. True, Captain did not win a single seat in the Lok Sabha. But the party did manage to put itself in the reckoning in the politics of Tamil Nadu barely a decade after it was born.

Read more from our special coverage on "PLAIN POLITICS" Aditi Phadnis: Telangana CM firmly in the saddle

The DMDK was formed in 2005, and projected itself as an alternative to the two dominant Dravidian parties - the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). It contested the 2006 Assembly polls and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls alone. Its vote share rose from eight per cent in the 2006 Assembly polls to 10 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. In 2011, the party bagged 29 seats in the Assembly polls after aligning with J Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, but the two parted ways shortly afterwards. In 2014 it failed to win any seats. Ahead of the 2016 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, all parties began wooing the DMDK from the word go. First it was the DMK, which hoped the DMDK would join its alliance; then it was the BJP, which hoped it would replicate the Lok Sabha alliance in the assembly. The DMDK spurned both, going instead with the left-wing People's Welfare Front (PWF) comprising the two Communist parties - Vaiko's Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK).
With the summer becoming more pronounced, the stocks of Blue Star and Voltas are seeing good gains. The shares have risen 18-22 per cent since March. Between the two, analysts prefer Blue Star, which surprised the Street posting 15 per cent earnings growth in the December 2015 quarter (Q3). Superior performance of its room air-conditioning (AC) business, which has been outgrowing the industry growth of 10 per cent in the past few quarters, aided its numbers.

Also, from a measly 1.5 per cent operating margin a year ago, margins were higher at four per cent in Q3 helping the company post a net profit of Rs 7 crore (versus Rs 12 crore loss in Q3 of FY15), thereby adding to the sentiment. An order book of Rs 1,605 crore, up 14 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) is another positive. That apart, increase in market share, easing of its legacy order issues and its Electro Mechanical Projects and Packaged Air-conditioning Systems division posting 21.5 per cent growth in Q3, despite corporates holding back their expansion plans, are the other positives.

Although Q3 was disappointing, not all is down for Voltas. Even as revenues expanded by 37.5 per cent y-o-y, net profit at Rs 54 crore halved year-on-year in Q3FY16. Operating margins at 4.5 per cent, too, dipped 157 basis points. Dismal performance, despite being the market leader in the room AC space, might be attributed to its exposure to international markets in its Electro-Mechanical Project and Services business, where it continues to face legacy issues. While Blue Star has similar issues, it has seen faster turnaround in its industrials segment. Also, Blue Stars industrials business being more India-oriented is a positive.

That said, Voltas with an order book of Rs 3,154 crore in Q3 gives it better revenue visibility in FY17.

Going by analysts polls on Bloomberg for the month of March, a majority recommend buy on both the stocks. However, Blue Stars average target price of Rs 421 indicates an upside of 13.5 per cent, whereas Voltas at Rs 272.5 is already a tad higher than its target price of Rs 268.
I've always been interested in communities whose traditional livelihoods have become irrelevant in the modern context. Which is why when Plan India, a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation invited me to visit Sapera Basti, the village of erstwhile snake charmers somewhere in the dusty bylanes of Badarpur, I jumped at the chance. "You'll meet Mahender there," they'd said. I had no idea who Mahender was, but was interested in getting a closer look at the community, which has been floundering since their traditional livelihood became outlawed under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. At Sapera Basti, I met Plan India's team, which took me to their project office. "You'll meet Mahender there," they said. Who is this chap, I wondered? I finally found out when I came face to face with 35-year-old Mahender Nath and heard his story.
"Run!" shouts a voice, captured, for all the world to hear, on cellphone images shot in the seconds after two bombs exploded at Brussels Airport on Tuesday morning. Travellers from around the world flee a shattered building, fearful of more bombs.
An initial public offering (IPO) of Jose Cuervo could revive Diageo's predatory spirits. The world's top tequila brand is mulling going public, Bloomberg reported on March 15. The UK-based Johnnie Walker maker abandoned an attempt to buy the privately held agave distiller in 2012. If Cuervo's controlling Beckmann family is open to a sale, Diageo may be tempted to take another shot.

An IPO could come later this year and may raise $750 million or more, according to Bloomberg. If true, that would only amount to a small stake: financials published in the third quarter of 2015 show Cuervo made just over 2.1 billion pesos, or around $120 million, of income from continuing operations in the first nine months of last year. Taxed, annualized and valued at 30 times trailing earnings, about where Jack Daniel's owner Brown-Forman trades, the Cuervo enterprise could be worth as much as $3.6 billion.

Diageo has not been sitting still since the talks with Cuervo evaporated. Last year, the $67 billion booze giant swapped its Bushmills Irish whiskey brand for Cuervo's 50 per cent stake in their Don Julio premium-tequila joint venture. Although that gave Diageo a bigger presence in a booming segment of the liquor business, tequila still accounts for only three per cent of the larger group's US revenue, according to Bernstein. US sales of vodka, rum and blended scotch, some of the categories where Diageo is strongest, aren't growing as quickly.

Swallowing Cuervo would address the mismatch, without a serious debt hangover. Assume Diageo paid a 25 per cent premium for the Mexican firm, borrowing to finance the purchase, and net debt would rise to about four times Ebitda, well below the more than five times that Anheuser-Busch InBev will support after it gulps down SABMiller. Diageo would also presumably pocket significant cost savings, too.

Cuervo's billionaire owners are said to be hatching a plan to turn their dusty hometown of Tequila into a Napa Valley-style tourist attraction. Diageo, for its part, may be content with its existing portfolio of top-shelf tequilas. But, big brands like Cuervo rarely become available. Diageo needs to line up the lime slices just in case the Beckmanns are open to alternatives.
All famous lives acquire complex afterlives: an encrustation of popular perception, self-serving ideology and folklore. It's the job of the historian to sift the myth from reality, to give us the human dimension of historical figures, and a true sense of the time and place they inhabited. Sunil Khilnani's Incarnations: India in 50 Lives (Penguin; Rs 999) is a remarkably vivid and compelling example of the genre. From the Buddha to Dhirubhai Ambani, Akbar to Periyar, Mirabai to M S Subbulakshmi, a parade of kings and saints, poets and politicians, reformers and filmmakers are brought to life with all their vanities and vulnerabilities.
China has filed 69 criminal cases against more than 130 people held in the infamous vaccine scandal which exposed poor security and management facilities for vital drugs in the country.

Sixty nine criminal cases have been filed nationwide in which over 130 people have been held,Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said.

A large quantity of improperly stored or expired vaccines had allegedly been sold in more than 20 provincial-level regions since 2011, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

In one case amotheranddaughter were arrested for illegal vaccine sales worth more than USD 88 million in 18 provinces.

Since 2011, the suspects have purchased 25 types of vaccines from more than 100 pharmaceutical salesmen, both licensed and unlicensed, and sold them to illegal agents or even local disease control and prevention centres at high prices, Jinan Public Security Bureau in Shandong Province said.

Though produced by qualified manufacturers, the quality of the vaccines was questionable as they were not transported in approved conditions.

Such vaccines have potential side-effects and can even cause disability or death, officials said.

Hua Jingfeng, a senior official with the MPS, said at a multi-agency press conference yesterday that the vaccines had been sold for 310 million yuan (USD 47.6 million)rather than 570 million yuan as previously reported, and 20,000 doses have been seized by the authorities.

Investigators are still tracing the flow of the vaccines, Hua added.

Twenty-nine pharmaceutical companies are suspected of involvement in selling the illegal vaccines, and 16 vaccination institutions are suspected of buying them, officials of the MPS, China Food and Drug Administration and National Health and Family Planning Commission said.

This is a major scandal to rock China after the food contamination scandals includingMelamine-laced baby food, contaminated meat and use of gutter oil in the last few years.

In the vaccines scandal, three companies in eastern Shandong Province have had their credentials revoked and operation suspended, Li Guoqing with the CFDA said.

Oversights in supervising vaccine distribution remain to be addressed, the officials said, stressing efforts are being made by relevant agencies to improve vaccine distribution, management and procurement mechanisms.

Failing to properly store and transport vaccines cannot be tolerated and constitutes a severe violation of the law, Li said, adding this could possibly affect the effectiveness of the vaccines but not their safety.

Over the past five years, no anomaly has been detected in monitoring data on abnormal responses to vaccination, he said.
Two members of the notorious Mewati gang wanted in connection with an alleged assault on policemen here have been arrested by Crime Branch sleuths.

The arrested duo has been identified as Mubarik (35) and Irfan, both residents of Faridabad, an official said, adding that a stolen car was recovered from their possession.

Following a tip-off on March 22 that Mubarik and Irfan, members of the Mewati gang, would come near Lado Sarai T-Point in a stolen car, a trap was laid to nab them, a senior government official said, adding that a stolen car was seized from their possession.

The duo told police that they were active members of the Mewat and had executed theft and robberies in Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

On March 9, the duo had allegedly assaulted some policemen when they were asked to stop on the Mehrauli-Badarpur road.
Twenty people were detained in China in connection with the recent publication of an anonymous letter demanding President Xi Jinping's resignation, a media report said today.

The anonymous letter written in the name of "loyal Communist Party supporters" while appreciating Xi's sweeping anti-corruption drive had accused him of promoting "personality cult, not allowing 'rash opinions of central leadership', creating a 'one voice party' method" disregarding the collective leadership principle, the BBC reported.

Thousands of officials were punished in the anti-graft drive in the last three years after XI assumed charge.

The letter said "Dear Comrade Xi Jinping, we are loyal Communist Party members. We write this letter asking you to resign from all party and state leadership positions".

"We make this request out of consideration for the Party cause, out of consideration for the nation and its people-and also out of consideration for your personal safety and that of your family", the letter published by host of foreign media including the BBC said.

The letter was posted earlier this month on a state-backed website Wujie creating an uproar in the media circles here as the state-run media operates under tightly controlled supervision of the ruling Communist Party of China,(CPC).

Although quickly deleted by the authorities, a cached version can still be found online.

The arrest of 20 people followed the disappearance of a Chinese columnist Jia Jia who was reportedly went missing while boarding a flight to Hong Kong from here.

He is said to have warned an editor friend about publishing an anonymous letter calling for the resignation of Xi, who is also Communist Party Chief and the head of military.

BBC quoted an unidentified staff member at Wujie as saying that in addition to Jia Jia another 16 people have been "taken away".

The arrested included six colleagues who work directly for the website, including a senior manager and a senior editor, and another 10 people who work for a related technology company.

A well-known Chinese dissident Wen Yunchao living in the



US said three members of his family, living in China's Guangdong Province, had also been detained in connection with the letter, the report said.

Wen said he believed his parents and his brother had been detained because authorities were trying to pressure him to reveal information. But he told the BBC that he knew nothing about the letter.

The appearance of the letter sparked off speculation that Wujie was either hacked, or had perhaps been using some kind of automatic trawling and publishing software.

It's appearance on the website coincided with the China's fortnight long Parliament session which ended on March 14.

The appearance of the letter also coincides with a string of high-profile censorship incidents, amid government's efforts to further tighten the control of the state media focussing on furthering Xi's image.

Xi himself emphasised government control of the media with a visit to top state media outlets recently where he stressed that must "speak for the Party."



Business tycoon and outspoken commentator Ren Zhiqiang was trolled in the official media recently for his comment that the state media should first speak for those who fund it: the people.

A Xinhua report referred to Xi as "last leader" which was later stated to be a typo error.
A 21-year-old youth was allegedly hacked to death in a brutal attack by four persons, including two juveniles, in outer Delhi's Rohini sub-city on Holi evening, police said today.

The four accused persons have been apprehended, police said, adding that the adult accused have been identified as Deepak, who was previously involved in burglary cases, and Ravi.

The victim, identified as Rahul, was walking past a market in the Rohini Sector 20 area on Thursday evening when he saw a group of persons engaged in a brawl over some dispute related to Holi celebrations.

Deciding to intervene, he entered into an argument with some youths in the group, a police official said.

Soon the youths allegedly started thrashing Rahul and, when he tried to run away, four of them chased him down and hacked him brutally with knives.

The accused had fled the scene by the time locals gathered there, police said, adding that Rahul was rushed to a hospital where he was declared dead. The victim had sustained multiple stab injuries.

A case of murder has been registered in this connection at Begumpur police station, the official said.

During interrogation, it emerged that all accused were in an inebriated state when the incident took place. It also turned out there was personal enmity between Rahul and Deepak, which has prompted investigators to suspect that the entire incident could have be premeditated, the official added.
Three circus employees in Pakistan were burnt alive and five others suffered injuries when a fire broke out in their tent here.

The fire broke out in the tents of Farzand Lucky Irani circus late last night when the last show was underway near the historic Minar-e-Pakistan monument, Punjab Emergency Services Rescue spokesperson Deeba Shahnaz said.

"People present in the show ran for their lives when the fire broke out in the main tent which soon engulfed the other adjacent tents. Three people (who later were identified as employees of the circus) were burnt alive while another five suffered injuries while running for their lives," she said.

Rescue teams reached the spot and extinguished the fire in about two hours.

They also shifted the injured to Mayo Hospital where the condition of two of them is stated to be critical.

Shahnaz said short-circuit was the reason for the fire. The dead were identified asRamzan, Ilyas and Zafar.

Police have arrested the owner and manager of the circus for making poor arrangements.

The circus was taking place in Lahore after several years as there had been a virtual ban on holding circus shows especially in the city because of opposition by extremists.
Egyptian police have killed four members of a gang specialised in "kidnapping foreigners" and allegedly involved in murdering an Italian student in New Cairo area here, Interior Ministry has said.

Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student, was found dead on the outskirts of Cairo, ten days after he went missing on January 25 on the fifth anniversary of Egypt's 2011 uprising.

Regeni death sparked international outcry with Italian government putting pressure on Egypt to find those responsible for his death



"The security forces managed to track down a gang in New Cairo that used to pose as policemen. It specialised in abducting foreigners and robbing them," the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

According to the ministry statement, police found a bag belonging to Regeni during a raid on a flat of one of the suspect's sisters, who confessed to her brother's crimes, in Qalyubia.

"There was an exchange of fire with the police and all members of the gang were killed." it said.

"A red handbag was found, including a brown wallet, the passport of Regeni, his Cambridge University ID card, and a visa card," the statement said.

In addition to the bag, other things such as a wallet with a sum of Egyptian pound 5,000, three sunglasses and a female wrist watch was also found, it added.

The Italian side was informed about this update, said the statement, which was released on the Ministry's Facebook page with photos of Regeni's cards.

Regeni's body was found beside a road on the western outskirts of Cairo. His body showed signs of torture, prompting prosecutors to say he had suffered a "slow, painful death".

Regeni, a PhD student at the department of politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo.

Rights groups and opposition figures speculated that he was killed by members of the Egyptian security forces - claims Cairo had strongly denied.
Over 400 people involved in the production and sale of illegal devices and software for TV operations have been detained in China.

Police have investigated about 750 cases and confiscated 830,000 sets of illegal equipment and software worth more than 320 million yuan (USD 49.1 million).

The 422 people were detained following an order jointly issued in September by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) that pledged punishment on illegal TV businesses.

Other than state-run CCTV channels, foreign channels are banned in China. Many foreigners working in the country try to access foreign channels through internet devices.

Illegal online TV and video services are a new area of crime requiring high technical skills, Shenzhen public security bureau's Cai Chengrong state-run Global Times reported.

Police said pornography was a major draw for customers of these illegal services.

People who bought the receivers had access to more than 3,000 pornographic links uploaded by Zhou from three servers based in the US.

Another illegal TV service operator called "Taiwan Chinese Satellite Television" provided all-day pornographic programming.

Police in East China's Fujian Province have arrested 33 people involved in the operations, including its Chinese mainland business head, wholesalers and retailers, the Global Times report said.

According to the SAPPRFT of the People's Republic of China, a compulsory national standard on receivers for online TV services is expected to be published by the end of July.
As many as 60 terrorists were today killed and 40 others injured in army raids in Egypt's two restive North Sinai cities, army said.

The raids in Rafah and Shiekh Zwayed were launched in cooperation with air forces, spokesperson Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said in a statement.

Twenty-nine unlicensed vehicles and motorcycles were destroyed during the raids, the statement said, adding that 32 shelters used by terrorists were also destroyed.

Egypt's North Sinai has witnessed many violent attacks by militants since the January, 2011 revolution that toppled the ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

The attacks targeting police and military increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by military following massive protests against his rule.

Over 700 security personnel have been reported killed since then.

The military has launched security campaigns in the area, arrested suspects and demolished houses that belong to terrorists, including those facilitating tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip.
Superstar Aamir Khan says he is "definitely" heading to theatres to watch legendary filmmaker V Shantaram's 1972 Marathi film "Pinjra," that has been restored and re-released in the state of Maharashtra.

The 51-year-old "PK" actor was thrilled with the restoration of the Marathi classic and urged his fans to watch it.

"Just got to know that PINJRA, V Shantaram's last film, has been restored and re-released in theaters.

"We don't often get to see films of one of our great film makers in the theater! I'm definitely going for it! Don't miss it! Love. A," Aamir tweeted.

"Pinjra" starring Shriram Lagoo and Sandhya in lead roles, was also released in Hindi with the same title.

The movie revolved around a school teacher, Lagoo, who wants to change a Tamasha (Marathi folk musical theater) performer, played by Sandhya, but ends up falling in love with her.

The film's songs, including "Aali thumkat", "Disla ga bai disla" and "Chhabidar chhabi" are favourites to this day.

Aamir has been an avid viewer of Marathi cinema and he had also taken to Twitter to praise actor Nana Patekar's performance in "Natsamrat".
Air India will introduce an additional flight on the Mumbai-Bhopal-Mumbai sector from March 27.

"This second flight will be operated with Airbus (A319) aircraft on Mumbai-Bhopal-Mumbai sector to cater to needs of commercial people as well as tourists," Air India's Area Manager (MP-CG) Vishrut Acharya said today.

The flight AI-631 will depart from Mumbai at 7.45 PM and reach Bhopal at 9.10 PM, while the same flight with code AI-632 will arrive back in Mumbai at 10.55 PM, he said.

With this the commercial passengers going to Mumbai will have an option of going in the morning with the existing 7.55 AM flight and after completing their day's work they can easily come back to Bhopal in the night with the evening flight, Acharya said.

It will also provide international connectivity to passengers going abroad as they can now easily catch their connecting flights from Mumbai which normally departs in the late night hours, he said.
All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) today asked the Tamil Nadu government to provide a solatium of Rs 50 lakh to the family of Dalit youth, Shankar, who was murdered in front of his upper caste wife at Udumalpet in Tirupur district on March 13.

Briefing reporters here on the report of a Fact Finding team, AIDWA General Secretary P Suganthi said the government, besides strengthening the security provided to the bereaved family, should also appoint a special public prosecutor to handle the case.

"The state government should make serious efforts and complete the case at the earliest, since there is every possibility of the accused destroying the evidence if they came out on bail," Suganthi said.

The government should construct a house for the family of Shankar under green houses scheme, as recommended by the SC ST Commission, she said.

In order to encourage inter-caste marriages, it should also provide Rs 2 lakh to such couples, said Suganthi. She earlier met Shankar's widow Kausalya, who is undergoing treatment at the government hospital here.

The government should take care of her education and accommodation, Suganthi said, adding, if Kausalya was interested, AIDWA was willing to look after her.

Seeking action against police officials, who failed to protect the life of Shankar despite complaints about threats to the couple's life, she said the practice of "supporting honour killing in Tamil Nadu should be stopped."



She added that online users were continuously posting offensive messages against Dalits.

"They should be booked under Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act, 1955 and the Cyber Cell should register cases against them," she said.

Suganthi also demanded that the Centre and state governments bring in a special legislation to prevent "such honour killings in the future."



Shankar and Kausalya were attacked by a gang with sickles in full public view on March 13 in nearby Tirupur district, resulting in the former's death.

Five persons have been arrested in connection with the case.
Amnesty International today condemned reported Chinese detentions linked to a letter calling on President Xi Jinping to resign, after a US-based dissident said his parents and brother were missing.

The reported detentions of New York-based Wen Yunchao's family members would be the latest in a widening crackdown following publication of an anonymous letter calling on Xi to step down for the good of the country.

Wen cited a relative as saying the three were "taken away" from their home in the southern province of Guangdong by government officials. Wen said his father had warned him he was suspected of distributing the letter.

Four members of staff at Wujie News, a state-backed website which carried the letter earlier this month before deleting it, have been missing since last week, a reporter at the outlet earlier told AFP.

China Researcher at Amnesty International William Nee said: "The authorities should call off the political hounding of those suspected to be behind the open letter and release all those detained in connection with it".

"The persecution of family members of dissidents is a draconian and unlawful tactic that makes a mockery of China's claims to respect the rule of law," he added.

The letter, seen by AFP in a cached form, berated Xi for centralising authority, mishandling the economy and tightening ideological controls.

Media criticism of top leaders is almost unknown in China, where the press is strictly controlled by the ruling Communist Party.

"Due to your gathering of all power into your own hands... we are now facing unprecedented problems and crises in the politics, economics, ideology, and culture," it said.

The BBC today cited sources as saying a total of 20 people have been detained in connection with the document.

Wen said his father had earlier told him that officials in Guangdong believed he had "helped spread" the letter and his brother would lose his job if he did not reveal its source.

"I believe the disappearance of my parents and brother is directly connected to this," he said.

Chinese journalist Jia Jia was detained at Beijing's main airport ahead of a flight to Hong Kong last week, with rights groups linking his detention to an official probe into the letter.

Lawyer Yan Xin told AFP that Jia had been released on today evening, without giving details.
Seven terror suspects were in custody in Belgium and France today as under-fire European authorities stepped up the fight against jihadist networks following triple bombings in Brussels claimed by the Islamic State group.

Six people were being held after raids across the Belgian capital yesterday, two days after airport and metro suicide blasts that left 31 people dead and 300 injured.

And in the Paris suburbs, police arrested a man accused of plotting an attack in France that was "in the advanced stages" and found a small stash of explosives.

In Brussels, families faced an agonising wait after forensic experts warned it could take weeks to identify fatalities.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived for talks with the Belgian authorities, who have faced heavy criticism over how the Brussels attackers -- at least three of whom were known to authorities -- slipped through the net.

The man arrested in Paris was a French national who "belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country", French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late yesterday, hailing the "major arrest".

Police evacuated an apartment block in the rundown northern suburb of Argenteuil, where a small quantity of explosives was found.

While Cazeneuve said no link to the Paris or Brussels attacks had emerged, police sources said Friday that the suspect had in July been found guilty in absentia, alongside Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, of being part of a group planning to go to Syria.

Named by police sources as Reda K., Cazeneuve said the suspect had been under surveillance "for several weeks" and his arrest was the result of "close and constant cooperation between European services".

European authorities are under huge pressure to better coordinate the tracking of homegrown extremists and those returning from Syria, as evidence grows of a thriving jihadist network straddling France and Belgium.

Prosecutors have confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at Maalbeek metro station shortly after his brother Ibrahim did the same at Zaventem airport, was the subject of an international terrorism warrant over the Paris attacks.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been arrested and deported by Turkey, which had warned Belgium he was a "foreign terrorist fighter," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.
Connectivity to border areas is a must for easy and faster movement of the defence forces, said Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul during a meeting with ITBP IG M S Rawat.

"Suspension bridges and CC footsteps need to be constructed where required to improve connectivity to border areas. The border porter track should also be maintained for facilitating patrolling," Pul said in the meeting, according to an official statement today.

As the defence personnel serving in border areas are living a harsh life, basic amenities like education and health care needs should be look into so that they can bring their families with them. Proper huts should also be built and maintained for them, Pul said to Rawat who called on him yesterday.

Citing strategic importance of the eastern part of the state bordering Myanmar, the Chief Minister urged Rawat to set up an ITBP battalion in the eastern zone too. He assured him to provide land at minimal rate.

He stressed on recruitment of more Arunachalee youths in ITBP as they are familiar with the locality and hilly terrains.

The chief minister urged the IG to keep at least two dedicated helicopters for ITBP in the state for emergency services -- one at Ziro for western part and another at Mohanbari for eastern zone.

He also requested Rawat to prepare an assessment report with sector-wise details of infrastructure requirements and submit it to the state government, the statement said.

Rawat informed the CM that due to shortage of funds, progress of infrastructure development in border areas in the state was very slow and sought the support of the chief minister in pursuing the matter with the Centre.

The IG said that ITBP has recruited highest number of Arunachalee youths among the armed forces and further assured Pul to seek special quota for the border state.

Currently 10 ITBP battalions are operating in the state and six more have been proposed for its border areas. Of that, four has been approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the statement said.
Australia today branded Japan's killing of 333 whales "abhorrent", saying there was no scientific justification for the Antarctic hunt.

The Japanese fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in December despite a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand, using a loophole in the ban that allows for lethal research.

Yesterday, Japan's Fisheries Agency announced enough whales had been killed for "scientific research" as the boats returned to port.

"The Australian government opposes so-called 'scientific' whaling clearly, absolutely and categorically," Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt said in comments emailed to AFP.

"It is in my view abhorrent and a throwback to an earlier age... There is no scientific justification for lethal research."



Japan was forced to abandon its 2014-15 hunt after the International Court of Justice said the expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.

Hunt criticised Japan for going ahead with the killings "in spite of a resolution by the (International Whaling) Commission calling on it not to go whaling".

Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, but the meat still ends up on dinner tables and is served up in school lunches.

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd criticised the Australian and New Zealand governments, saying they had not done enough to stop the whaling.

"The majority of Australians wanted the Australian government to send a vessel to oppose the slaughter. They did not," Sea Shepherd Australia's managing director Jeff Hansen said in a statement late Thursday.

"The governments responsible for protecting these magnificent creatures stood by, in the complete knowledge that both federal and international crimes were taking place.

"This empty response from authorities in the wake of the ICJ ruling is a disgrace."



Some experts say that Japan's refusal to give up the Antarctic mission despite censure by the international court is largely due to a small group of powerful politicians.
A 'medium danger' avalanche warning was today issued for higher areas of Jammu and Kashmir, advising people not to venture into these areas.

The advisory, issued by Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) which comes under the Ministry of Defence, will remain effective over the next 24 hours beginning 5 PM today.

'Medium danger' avalanche warning exists for avalanche prone areas situated at an altitude of above 3,000 metres like Kupwara, Baramula, Bandipur, Kargil and Gandarbal districts of Jammu and Kashmir, the advisory said.

Pharkian and Kanzalwan areas of Jammu and Kashmir have received fresh snowfall of 10 cm and 4 cm, respectively since yesterday.
Union AYUSH ministry has planned to conduct 12 national Arogya fairs across the country during the financial year 2016-17 while aiming to reach out to people in smaller cities also.

"We organised eight Arogya fairs across the country during FY 2015-16. For the coming fiscal, we plan to have at least 12 such fairs across the nation," AYUSH minister Shripad Naik told PTI ahead of the Arogya fair scheduled in Goa between March 26-28.

He said since inception, the ministry has held 26 national Arogya fairs which have been getting tremendous response.

The ministry has been promoting Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy which are alternative forms of medicine.

Naik said the ministry has so far been hosting the fairs in the state capitals but will like to venture into other cities so that more people get access to it.

"Initially we had it in the state capitals as doing so will cover majority of the state population but we want to go to the smaller cities too.

"In Goa, we are hosting it in Panaji now but we will soon have it in Margao too," the minister said.

Naik said the ministry has propaganda (to spread awareness), research and infrastructure as the focus areas.

"In the Union Budget we have announced a scheme to set up AYUSH hospitals in each of the district across the country," Naik said.

"We expect that maximum states will benefit of having district hospital under AYUSH mission for which centre will bear 60 per cent funding while local government will have to pitch in with 40 per cent," he said.

Goa will have two such district hospitals, he said, adding AYUSH ministry will also set up All India National Institute of Yoga and Naturopathy in few states which would be hundred per cent funded by the Centre.

"One such All India Institute is taking shape in Goa which will be completed in two years," the minister said.

The institute will also have diploma and degree courses on Yoga.

"This institute is very important considering Goa is a tourist state," he said.

The Ministry has already began the procedure to set up the national institute at Dhargal village in North Goa.
The Bharath Dharma Jana Sena, an ally of the BJP, today finalised the names of 29 candidates who would be contesting the May 16 assembly polls in Kerala.

The newly formed party, floated recently by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of the numerically strong backward Ezhava community, had recently reached an agreement under which BDJS was to contest in 37 of the 140 seats at stake.

Announcing the finalisation of its candidates at Alapuzha, BJDS President Thushar Vellappally said candidates for 29 seats had been finalised and remaining eight candidates would be decided in a week's time.

"We have selected the best persons" in the constituencies, Tushar, who is not contesting, said.

Besides BJP and BDJS, Kerala Congress led by former union minister P C Thomas is also part of the NDA in the state.

BJP is aiming to put up a tough fight this time against the ruling Congress-led UDF and LDF spearheaded by CPI-M to open its account in the assembly in the state where it put up a better showing in civic polls held in November last year. So far the party has not been successful both in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state.
Belgian police shot a suspect as part of a huge European terror crackdown that netted several arrests today as France's president said a jihadist network that targeted both Paris and Brussels was being "destroyed".

Grieving Belgians held prayers in the rain in a central Brussels square carpeted with flowers and tributes to the 31 dead and 300 wounded in Tuesday's carnage, but there was also growing anger at the government for letting a string of militants slip through the net.

The raids came as under-fire Belgian investigators uncovered alarming new evidence of a European jihadist cell tied to bombings at Brussels' airport and metro, November's Paris attacks and a new French plot.

As US officials confirmed two Americans were among the Brussels dead, Secretary of State John Kerry said he stood by the Belgian people, echoing their backing for the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks.

"Then, voices across Europe declared, 'Je suis Americain.' Now, we declare, 'Je suis Bruxellois' and 'Ik ben Brussel,' Kerry said in French and Flemish, the country's two main languages, after meeting Belgian Premier Charles Michel.

European authorities are under huge pressure to better coordinate the tracking of homegrown extremists and fighters returning from Syria, as evidence grows of a thriving jihadist network straddling France and Belgium.

French President Francois Hollande said the jihadist network behind the Paris and Brussels attacks was "being destroyed" but warned that other terror cells remain.

French police said they had foiled a terror strike by 34-year-old Reda Kriket -- a man previously convicted in Belgium in a terror case alongside Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- after arresting him and discovering explosives at his home.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the arrest "foiled a planned attack in France, which was at an advanced stage."



Belgian police later arrested three people in connection with the new French conspiracy, prosecutors said.

In dramatic scenes, one of the suspects was shot in the leg at a tram stop in a huge operation by police in the Belgian capital's Schaerbeek district, where police this week found a bomb factory linked to the Brussels attacks.

Deepening the links, Belgian prosecutors revealed that Brussels airport bomber Laachraoui's DNA was found on a suicide vest and a piece of cloth at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and on a bomb at the Stade de France stadium.

German police said meanwhile they had arrested a 28-year-old Moroccan man whose mobile-phone text messages may link him to one of the Brussels bombers, the weekly Der Spiegel and ARD TV channel reported.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today condemned crackdown on students of Hyderabad Central University (HCU) who were demanding action against varsity Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile in the dalit scholar Rohith Vemula suicide case.

He also urged the central and Telangana governments to ensure quick resolution in the stand off between HCU administration and students.

"Condemn brazen abuse of power & violent crackdown on students in Hyd. Urge Govts at Centre & State to ensure quick resolution of the standoff," Kumar said in a tweet.

He was reacting to the police lathicharge on some HCU students in the university campus three days ago after they had ransacked the VC's official residence on the day he resumed charge after a two-month leave following suicide by the dalit student.

The Bihar Chief Minister had earlier expressed grief at the suicide of Vemula two months ago and demanded a fair probe and action against those responsible for it.
The BJP today observed 'Aakrosh Diwas' in Uttar Pradesh as part of its nation-wide programme to protest against alleged humiliation of freedom fighters by Congress.

Today's event was part of the three-day nationwide programme that began on March 23 to commemorate the death anniversary of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.

He said Congress, by statements of its leaders, recently insulted the great men and the event was held to express the anger among the people over the issue.
Targeting BJP in the debate over nationalism, AAP today questioned the saffron party's tie-up with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir and accused it of engaging in the "politics of opportunism".

At a panel discussion organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), AAP leader Ashutosh wondered whether PDP has changed its position on Afzal Guru and sought an explanation from BJP in this regard as he claimed that the Mehbooba Mufti-led party terms the Parliament attack convict a "martyr".

"The fact is BJP cannot be selective (on nationalism). Today, they are forming the government in J-K with PDP. PDP has been saying Afzal Guru is a martyr. He is a victim. So, BJP should explain whether PDP has changed its position on Guru?" he said.

Claiming that PDP has not changed its position on Guru's hanging, Ashutosh accused BJP of "pursuing the politics of opportunism".

"When you are with PDP, you are a nationalist. When we talk about it, we are anti-nationalist. The fact is that you are pursuing the politics of opportunism," he said.

Ashutosh insisted that "everything within the parameters of the Constitution", including the issue of nationalism, must be debated in a democratic set-up.

"What kind of democratic society are we living in? Let's debate each and everything which is within the parameter of the Constitution. Nationalism has to be debated," he added.

Ending an over two-month-long deadlock, PDP and BJP are set to jointly call on J-K Governor NN Vohra tomorrow to stake claim to forming the new government in the state.
Making the issue of illegal immigrants in Assam as a major poll plank, Friday promised to ensure sealing of Indo-Bangladesh border in its 'vision document' unveiled here as it accused Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi of encouraging infiltration and destroying demography.

"Congress tried to destroy and change the demography of the state by encouraging infiltration. Congress has been doing it for many decades and took no action," Union Minister Arun Jaitley said attacking the Gogoi government while releasing BJP's Vision Document for Assam, where assembly polls will kick off on April 4.

The Assam Vision Document 2016-2025 promised to work closely with the Centre for "complete sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border in the state" if it was voted to power.

It also assured the people that a law would be enacted to "deal sternly" with industries, businesses, Small and Medium Enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators.

Referring to Congress' allegation of fund cut to the state by the NDA government, Jaitley said "Assam will get 148% more in 2016-2020 compared to 2011-2015 due to higher tax devaluation of 42% as against 32% earlier."



Assam, he said, will get Rs 1,43,239 crore as tax devaluation as recommended by the 14th Finance Commission as against Rs 57,854 crore during 13th Finance Commission.

"So stop misleading the people. A failed government is trying to find excuses for its failures," Jaitley said.
The commander of Brazil's army vowed it would ensure stability in the face of a political crisis that threatens to topple the government, media reported today.

General Eduardo Vilas Boas's comments came as leftist President Dilma Rousseff described efforts to impeach her as tantamount to a coup.

"Our actions will be fully supported by what is established in the law, from the constitution to additional legislation, always acting under orders from one of the powers of the republic," he said.

He cited part of the constitution that says the armed forces must act under the president's authority.

"We are going to contribute to maintaining stability" while state institutions seek a solution, he said.

Brazil's economic and political crises have prompted angry street protests in recent weeks. A few demonstrators have been seen calling for a military intervention.

Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Rousseff herself was jailed for part of that time for belonging to an armed dissident group.

Lawmakers have launched a congressional committee charged with deciding whether to bring a motion to impeach Rousseff over corruption allegations.

The 68-year old president's popularity has plunged as she also grapples with a deep recession in Latin America's biggest economy.

In an interview with foreign newspapers, Rousseff said any attempt to remove her without legal basis would represent a "coup."



"I am not comparing the coup here to the military coups of the past, but it would be a breaking of the democratic order of Brazil," she said in comments reported by The Guardian.
Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Mortaza today admitted they were in a state of sorrow in the aftermath of their inexplicable one-run loss to India but hoped they would return home with their heads held high by winning against New Zealand in their concluding league fixture of ICC World Twenty20 here tomorrow.

"The whole team is in a state of sorrow, everyone is broken. Nobody is blaming anyone but we've somehow accepted the defeat. Everyone was very upset. They just could not talk to each other. It was so disappointing," Mortaza said summing up the team's mood after their loss in Bengaluru.

"We have never lost this way. We have to play our best again. If we get the opportunity, we have to make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes. The conditions are similar but the wicket is different. New Zealand are on top clearly, whereas we lost all three. We will try our best."



Mortaza further said saying 'sorry' to their fans would not be enough and they would try to play hard to put the disappointment behind and try to get over the line against the unstoppable Black Caps.

"Even if we say sorry it's not going to be enough. We just have to think positive that we still have a match left, we have to play hard, and try to win. New Zealand have beaten India in these conditions, so they're a strong team."



Chasing 147, Bangladesh needed just two runs from the last three balls and they managed to lose three wickets, the last one in the form of a run out through a class act by Indian skipper MS Dhoni.

"Playing in front of about 40,000 crowd, we had a good chance to beat them but we could not... That was so shocking. Boys got some chance to regroup. We still have a match and if we do well may be something we can take back home.

"No point thinking about the past. It's not going to be the last match. We have to think we have one match left. We have to play our best and try to win," Mortaza said.

Blaming it on their inexperience, he added: "Inexperience is still there. We have not faced such a situation maybe. Hope we will turn it around. If we can learn from this mistakes hope we will win more difficult matches from hereon.
Actress Melissa Fumero, best known for playing Amy Santiago in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and her husband David Fumero welcomed their first child today.

The couple have named the baby boy Enzo, reported E! online.

Fumero announced the couple were expecting a baby back in November with a cute Instagram post that nonchalantly mentioned her pregnancy. "Amazing time at our surprise baby shower yesterday. Oh, PS-I'm pregnant," she wrote.

The 33-year-old also shared a photo from a recent baby shower that was held at Gracias Madre in West Hollywood, California and wrote, "Feeling like the luckiest girl in the world. Love my beautiful friends. Thank you all for a wonderful shower.
Amid a heightened alert in the wake of Brussels terror attacks, security agencies have stepped up vigil at sensitive airports in the country with passengers being made to take off their footwear and belts and go through detailed frisking.

At major airports like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad, CISF and local police have shored up security apparatus and passengers are being observed and screened minutely with reintroduction of risk-based Secondary Ladder Point Check (SLPC) which entails frisking people before they enter the aircraft.

The surveillance and patrol teams along the peripheries have also been asked to be extra cautious as passengers enter the terminal area unchecked.

While fliers at many such airports are being asked to take out their footwear and belt to undertake a "clean search", a second layer of profiling-based body search and frisking is being conducted just before passengers board the aircraft.

"More hands are deployed when such security drills are made operational. The security staff is certainly more at certain sensitive facilities and changes will be made as per the level of threat indicated by central intelligence agencies," a senior official involved in airport security said.

Another official said the hand baggage and booked cargo of the fliers has also been brought under detailed search as part of the stepped up security drills and measures put in place in the wake of the terror attacks in airport and metro station at Brussels that left 31 people dead and 300 injured on Tuesday.

Airlines and special teams of the CISF and airport security have been asked to conduct risk-based Secondary Ladder Point Check (SLPC) which entails frisking passengers on the air side just before entering the aircraft.

They said these instructions are for people who look to be suspicious and hence not all passengers have to go through the SLPC.

"The instructions have been issued keeping in mind the prevailing security situation and based on the assessment of central security agencies.

"While these measures are not new and there is nothing to panic, they are being deployed to add the extra layer of security and ensure that nothing is left to chance in ensuring a fool proof security when it comes to smooth civil aviation operations," the official said.

Armed Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs) of Central Industrial Security Force commandos and local police have been positioned at vantage locations to enhance vigil along the peripheries of these airports, they said.

Special anti-sabotage teams and bomb detection and disposal teams and sniffer dogs have been asked to be on stand by at these airports.

While India does not follow the 'concourse security'



plan for civil aviation operations which entails frisking of fliers and their luggage before entering the airport, security personnel in plainclothes are being deployed increasingly to keep tab on any suspicious movements at these facilities, they said.

"Keeping in mind the 'security hold' pattern of airport security where passengers enter the terminal area unchecked and are frisked later in a designated area, the surveillance and patrol teams along the peripheries have been asked to be extra cautious specifically keeping in mind the heightened security alert after the Brussels attack and generally in view of the vulnerability of these facilities," they said.

"There is a general alert to all sensitive and vital installations in view of the Brussels attack and the recently concluded Holi festivities.

"The security paraphernalia at places where there is large public interface is definitely more proactive than earlier keeping in mind that there are no added hassles in their movement and security of travellers," they said.

Similar measures have also been deployed at the Delhi Metro network where security personnel have been asked to remain vigilant, especially over the weekend.
The brothers who carried out the airport and metro suicide bombings in Belgium's capital this week were known to US authorities and listed in American terrorism databases, according to a media report.

A NBC television report cited two unnamed US officials as saying that Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui were listed as a "potential terror threat" in US databases but that they would not specify on "which of the many US terrorism databases the brothers were listed."

The National Counter Terrorism Centre, which coordinates US intelligence on extremist threats, did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

Prior to the deadly attacks, the Belgian brothers had long rap sheets with criminal convictions related to carjackings, robberies and shoot-outs with police.

Details now emerging show that the three attackers were known to Belgian authorities but somehow able to slip through security.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who blew himself up at the airport, was deported by Turkey to the Netherlands in July 2015 as a "foreign terrorist fighter," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said he was aware the man had been sent to the Netherlands from Turkey, but denied he had been flagged as a possible terrorist.

Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in a metro station, was wanted on an arrest warrant for terrorism in December and had rented an apartment used by the Paris attacks cell.

Najim Laachraoui, who also attacked the airport, was the subject of a wanted notice issued Monday, the day before the bombing.

All three suicide bombers had links to key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested last week after four months on the run just around the corner from his family home in .

The long list of blunders by Belgian intelligence is putting pressure on the government and raising urgent questions across Europe about whether Tuesday's attack in Brussels -- which left 31 dead and 300 wounded -- could have been prevented.

Belgium's interior and justice ministers have both offered their resignations but they were rejected by the prime minister.
Leading bourse will auction investment limits for overseas investors on Monday for the purchase of government debt securities worth Rs 5,035 crore.

The auction will be conducted on BSE's ebidxchange platform from 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm - after the close of market hours, said in a circular.

The debt auction quota gives overseas investors the right to invest in debt, up to the limit purchased.

Depository data showed that total investments including limits acquired by foreign investors through auction route stood at Rs 1,30,719 crore till March 3, which was 96.54% of the total permitted investment limit of Rs 1,35,400 crore in the government debt securities.

"Live bidding session for allocation of debt investment limits for FII and sub-accounts shall be conducted on Monday, March 28, 2016, on exchange's 'ebidxchange' platform," the exchange said.

In earlier auctions, government bonds have been subscribed multiple times, given the huge interest among the foreign investors.

Earlier this month, an auction of government debt securities had attracted bids worth Rs 6,463 crore from foreign investors as against Rs 4,681 crore put on offer.

The limit for overseas investors in securities was hiked to Rs 1,29,900 crore from October 12, and it was further increased to Rs 1,35,400 crore from January 1, 2016.

Prior to the October limit, they were allowed to invest up to Rs 1,24,432 crore in government debt securities through auction.
At least six people were killed and 31 others injured after a bus over turned and plunged into a ditch in eastern China today.

The bus crashed into the railings in the central reservation at around 5:45 am (local time) in Suzhou City, east China's Anhui Province, and plunged into the roadside ditch, police said.

A total of 37 people were in the bus.

The 31 injured people have been admitted to hospital. Five of them are in critical condition.

An investigation has been ordered into the accident.
Hit by the economic slowdown, profits of China's mighty state-owned enterprises (SOEs) nosedived by 14.2 per cent to USD 34.2 billion in the first two months of this year, according to official data released here today.

SOEs saw combined profits decelerated to 14.2 per cent year-on-year in the Jan-Feb period to 222.6 billion yuan (USD 34.2 billion), a much sharper drop than the 6.7 per cent fall recorded for 2015, data from the Ministry of Finance showed.

The state sector continued to face great downward pressure, the ministry said in a statement.

SOEs administered by local governments were the worst hit, with their profits plunging 40.9 per cent from a year earlier.

Centrally-administered SOEs saw profits slip 8.2 per cent year-on-year.

Total business revenue of Chinese SOEs dipped 5.8 per cent year-on-year to 6.2 trillion yuan in the first two months, the ministry said.

As of the end of February, combined debts of the state firms swelled by 17.9 per cent to 79.7 trillion yuan, while their total assets expanded 15.6 per cent to 120.3 trillion yuan.

State firms in medical and machinery sectors posted relatively high profit growth, while oil, coal, steel and non-ferrous metals continued to suffer losses, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

The figures, which exclude financial firms, were collected from SOEs in 36 provincial-level regions and those administered by the central government.

China has about 150,000 SOEs, and some have become ossified by declining profitability due to a lack of competition and an industrial glut.

The government is trying to improve their fortunes through reform, moving toward mixed ownership and market-oriented management in the hope that this will improve their efficiency.

The Chinese economy, the world's second-largest, last year slowed down to 6.9 per cent, the lowest in 26 years.
Chris Hemsworth may be one of the biggest stars of Hollywood, but the actor decided to move his family back to Australia so that they can have a life out of the spotlight, with a little bit of normalcy.

The 32-year-old "Thor" star said it becomes suffocating to be in public eye always, reported E! online.

"I love what I do as an actor, but when you are surrounded by it constantly, it becomes a bit suffocating. It's nice to have conversations with people and be a part of a community that doesn't live and breathe that world," Hemsworth said.

"We were living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs and thought that's not how we want our kids to grow up. Moving to a kind of farm setup back here on the coast in Australia has been the best thing," he added.

Hemsworth, who has three children with wife Elsa Pataky, said having children helped him step out of the "self-absorbed world" of acting.

"It's no longer all about me, which is quite refreshing. Once the kids arrived, I was like, 'Wow, this is what life is about.'," he said.
Clashes between supporters of two rival warlords in northern Afghanistan have killed one person and wounded five, an Afghan official said today.

The incident, which took place late yesterday, followed days of simmering tensions after a poster of First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum was removed from a public square.

Ahmad Jawid Bidar, spokesman for the governor of Faryab province, said the shooting erupted in the provincial capital of Maymana where supporters of Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, fought with supporters of Atta Mohammad Noor, the acting governor of Balkh province and a Tajik.

Similar demonstrations have been reported in cities across the north, drawing attention to ethnic rivalries in the region. Dostum and Noor represent rival powerbases in the north, command private militias and have recently led their men against insurgents, independently of the Afghan army.

As anger surfaced after Dostum's poster was removed from the main square of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh, he called for calm in a Facebook posting.

Separately, in southern Kandahar province, Afghan Army Gen. Khan Agha Achekzay of the 205 Corps was killed when he was ambushed late yesterday in the Dand district, said Mohammad Hassan, corps spokesman.

One of the general's bodyguards was also killed and his son was injured, he said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the killing.

The Taliban have been fighting hard in southern Afghanistan in recent months, mostly in Helmand province, which they consider their heartland along with neighboring Kandahar.

The region produces opium, a crop which helps fund the insurgency against the Kabul government, now in its fifteenth year.
Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel today accused the Congress of inciting farmers against the BJP-led state government and said the opposition has no right to speak about farmers' welfare, as the party did nothing for them.

Patel was addressing a farmers' rally organised by the state BJP in Dhasa village of Botad district today, where she recounted several pro-farmer schemes floated by her government.

"Congress doesn't have a right to speak about the welfare of farmers. Congress always took anti-farmer decisions when they were in power at the Centre. They conspired in inciting farmers against BJP by not granting permission to raise the height of the Narmada dam," a party release quoted Patel as saying.

"It was (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi who gave permission to raise the height of the dam. At present, work is going on in full swing to install the gates. It was BJP government which took several steps for overall development of farmers," she added.

In his speech, newly-elected state BJP president Vijay Rupani told farmers that the state government has launched a scheme, wherein farmers would get loans up to Rs 3 lakh for just one per cent interest.

"Congress only sheds crocodile tears in the name of farmers. As against 210 electricity sub-stations for rural areas built in the Congress regime of 35 years, BJP government built 685 in 20 years. Congress government gave electricity connections to 2.65 lakh farmers, while we gave 7.07 lakh connections," Rupani said.

Union Minister of State for Agriculture Mohan Kundariya, national general secretary of Kisan Morcha Gordhan Zadaphia and national general secretary of BJP Parshottam Rupala and others were present on the occasion.

This was the fourth 'Virat Khedut Rally' organised by state BJP this month as part of its exercise to reach out to farmers and rural voters ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls.

Earlier this month, such rallies were organised in Kutch, Lunavada in central Gujarat and Gandhinagar.

Remaining rallies will be held in Vadodara (March 26), South Gujarat (March 27) and in Patan and Banaskantha (March 28), the release said.
A court here has dismissed a complaint seeking lodging of an FIR against 26 Delhi government officials and a former MLA for alleged corruption in grant of licences in a wholesale vegetable market due to lack of sanction to prosecute them.

The court said due to want of sanction, which is a condition precedent for directing investigation under the CrPC, no notice of a private complaint against government officials for the alleged offences can be taken.

"Thus, from the mere glance at the judgments of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, there can be no doubt that sanction is a condition precedent for directing investigation under section 156(3) CrPC," Special Judge Hemani Malhotra said.

The court said it does not find any ground to order probe or to take cognisance of the complaint, filed by one Vimal Kumar who earlier held a licence in Jheel Subzi Mandi in East Delhi.

Kumar had sought registration of FIR against 27 persons who were public servants for the alleged offences under the IPC, including cheating, forgery, using forged documents as genuine and criminal conspiracy, and the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The complainant alleged that he was license holder in the wholesale market in 1979 and his licence was not renewed by the said persons who were officials of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee(APMC) and Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board(DAMB).

He alleged that on making an enquiry, he came to know that these officials were involved in corruption and granting licences only to those who were giving huge amounts as bribe to them.

He also claimed irregularities in allotment of licences and shops and lodged a complaint to the Delhi Police chief and the Anti Corruption Branch in January 2015, but said no action was taken.

On the issue of sanction, the complainant's counsel argued that sanction is to be obtained by the investigating agency, once directions are given for investigation.

The court, however, said, "admittedly, no sanction has been obtained by the complainant against the officials of APMC and DAMB ... From the competent authority.

"Therefore, in this scenario, no notice of the private complaint against the officials of APMC and DAMB who are public servants for alleged commission of offences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC can be taken.
Filmmaker Karan Johar says actress Deepika Padukone and Sidharth Malhotra should do a film together as they will look good on screen.

Karan launched Sidharth in his last directorial venture "Student of the Year" and has worked with Deepika in his home production, "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani".

The "My Name is Khan" director had recently said in a Twitter chat that the duo will make a good on screen pair.

When asked about this, Johar told reporters, "I agree. It is a good looking pair and they should definitely do a film. I think Sid and Deepika will look amazing together. And everyday there is a new rumour, Deepika with Sid and Deepika with Fawad (in a film)..So I think this has to happen very soon."



Karan is currently elated with the response to his home production "Kapoor and Sons".

The dysfunctional-family drama, which stars Fawad Khan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth, Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah, got rave reviews and has done a business of over Rs 45 crore within a week.

Rishi, who plays a 90-year-old grandfather in the film, said he constantly had fights with director Shakun Batra.

"I worked on the film for 22 days and there was not a single day when I didn't fight with him on the set. You can ask the entire star cast, we used to fight everyday. And not on some creative issue but only execution," Kapoor said.

To which, Rajat jokingly said, "No it wasn't a fight. Fight is two way. Here it was only from one side (pointing to Kapoor)."



Pakistani heartthrob Fawad, who plays a gay character called Rahul Kapoor in the film, said initially he was a bit nervous to take on the role as he was not sure how the audience would react to it.

"Honestly, the film has taught me a lot. I am not saying I was an intolerant man before, but while doing it, initially I was a little nervous. What the reactions will be, how will people think (about the role) but I had such a wonderful team that I invested my faith on," he said.

"Towards the end I came to the resolution that it is just



another person in the family, there should be nothing shocking about it. The way that dealt with it is wonderful," he added.

The actor said it is a welcome change that people today are accepting homosexual characters on screen.

"Usually people are uncomfortable in the beginning with intimate scenes but over time you get used to it and this is something which people are starting to get used to as well. It is a very welcoming move," Fawad said.
Drawing and Disbursing Officers in Haryana would be responsible for release of monetary benefits available to the dependents of deceased regular employees under the Haryana Compassionate Assistance to the Dependent of Deceased Government Employees Rules 2003.

It has also been decided that where neither appointment has been given under ex-gratia scheme nor an amount of Rs 2.5 lakh has been disbursed to the dependents of the deceased regular employee as a onetime measure, lump sum payment of Rs 2.5 lakh would be made to the dependents of deceased regular employees who are covered under the policy of the year 2003, an official spokesman said today.

All the Administrative Secretaries, Heads of Departments, Commissioners of all the four Divisions of Ambala, Hisar, Rohtak and Gurgaon, all Deputy Commissioners and Sub Divisional Officer (Civil) have been asked to ensure strict compliance of these instructions, the spokesman added.
To remove bottlenecks in getting permissions from various authorities for rollout of network by by telecom companies, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has proposed uniform rules and single window clearance system for getting approvals.

The DoT has written to the states and various central government ministries and departments proposing new rules that would be applicable uniformly across the country.

"The delay in providing Right of Way (RoW) permissions and the high RoW charges impedes the development of telecom infrastructure adversely affecting the access to telecom services and Internet.

"Therefore, there is an urgent need to simplify the process of granting RoW permissions and provide these through a single window clearance system in a transparent and time bound manner," Telecom Secretary J S Deepak said in the letter.

The letter along with draft rules was sent to state chief secretaries, administrators of all Union Territories and various ministries, including power and defence.

The DoT has sought responses to the draft Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules, 2016 by April 20.

RoW permission is required for laying out underground cable network. Telecom companies often blame local authorities in the states for creating unnecessary hurdles in roll out of telecom infrastructure, specially in granting RoW permission.

Most of the complaints have been made regarding abnormally high price for RoW as well as different levies or fee imposed by various authorities other than charges prescribed under telecom licences.

The DoT in draft rules has proposed that concerned authorities should also not impose any fee, charge, lease rental, licence fee other than the expense that authorities will be incurring as consequence of the proposed work.

Looking to address issue of arbitrary rates imposed by various government bodies, DoT proposes that payments sought by the authorities should be calculated on the basis of applicable schedule of rates for works of similar nature executed by it from time to time.

The new rules propose that telecom companies should submit application before concerned authorities in a prescribed format and every application shall accompany fee to meet administrative expenses for examination but not exceeding Rs 25,000.

The authorities involve in granting RoW permit will have to grant permission within 60 days should decide on the application. In case of rejection of the application the concerned authority should record reason in writing, as per the proposal.

"It is necessary to ensure that all government agencies/local bodies only levy the reinstatement charges in case of underground telecom infrastructure," the Telecom Secretary said in the letter.

According to the draft rules, the concerned authority



will need to examine application within parameters defined under policy like mode of execution, time duration of project, estimation of expenses that will be put in consequence of the proposed work, responsibility for damage, public safer etc.

Also, no application should be rejected unless telecom company has been given a chance to explain its position.

Telecom companies will need to make the payment within 30 days of getting permission as per the draft.

The policy proposes that in case there is unavoidable reason demanding removal change in telecom infrastructure laid down by companies, the authority should give the concerned company time for it and the cost related to the change or removal will have born by the company.

Any dispute under the ambit of policy will have to be directed to concerned officer in central government as per the draft.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in its recommendation on model for implementation of national broadband network, Baronet, too identified RoW as a major risk factor by the private sector.

"Guaranteed provision of free RoW is a necessary and non-negotiable precondition to successful deployment of Baronet, subject to the reinstatement of public property to its original condition," Trai said.
Maharashtra PWD Minister and senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde this morning met the Nashik police commissioner S Jagannathan and demanded that charges of dacoity slapped against Shiv Sainiks be dropped.

Police have arrested nine persons including Satyabhama Gadekar, chief of party's North Maharashtra women's front, after the Sena workers stormed a meeting of Vijaya Rahatkar, chairman of State Women's Commission, here on March 22.

The meeting had been organised by BJP. Shiv Sena workers were protesting Rahatkar's support for separate Vidarbha and Marathwada.

BJP MLAs Seema Hiray, Devyani Farande and Balasaheb Sanap alleged that Sena workers ransacked the pandal and even snatched chains and purses of the women present there.

Shinde said that Shiv Sena workers were protesting in a democratic way and terming them dacoits was not correct.

Shinde also met the Sena workers who are in judicial custody.
A Dutch brother and sister, a Chinese national and a British man were today confirmed as being among the 31 people killed in Tuesday's bomb attacks on Brussels airport and the metro system.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also said today that a number of Americans died in the attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State jihadi group.

Kerry did not give a figure but a US official separately said two US citizens had been confirmed dead.

As forensic experts continued to sift through evidence, the Dutch foreign ministry announced that a brother and sister who lived in the United States and a woman from the central Dutch city of Deventer were among the victims.

"Our thoughts are with their relatives and friends,"Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement issued in The Hague.

"It's awful that these people were killed by a random act of terror."



Dutch public newscaster NOS later named the brother and sister as Alexander Pinczowski and Sascha Pinczowski, both 21, who lived in New York.

A Dutch newspaper said they were on the telephone to a relative when the bombs went off and the line went dead.

NOS named the other Dutch victim as Elita Weah, 41, who was on her way to her stepfather's funeral in the US.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed that computer programmer David Dixon, 51, from Hartlepool in northern England, but who lived in Brussels, had died in the metro attack.

"We can confirm David Dixon lost his life in the attacks which took place in Brussels on Tuesday 22 March 2016," the ministry said in a statement.

"We know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks -- three are still being treated in hospital."



His family issued a statement calling the "terrible and devastating".

Dixon texted his aunt after the airport blasts to say he was safe, but happened to be on the metro system when a suicide bomber blew himself up.

A Chinese national was also among those killed, the Chinese embassy in Belgium confirmed today.

"We express deep condolences over the death of our Chinese compatriot and strong condemnation on the criminal act of the terrorists," said the Chinese embassy on its website.

The family of 21-year-old Bart Migom, who was travelling to see his American girlfriend, had declared him missing, and the Belgian college where he was a student today said he was one of the victims.

Along with the 31 dead, 300 were injured, 61 critically.

Identification is proving slow, complicated by the violence of the explosions and because many of the victims were foreigners, police told RTBF television.

Around 40 nationalities are thought to be among the dead and wounded.
The Election Commission has given its nod to the Prime Minister's 'Mann ki Baat' radio broadcast on Sunday with instructions that the programme should adhere to the Model Code of Conduct in force due to assembly polls in five states.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had approached the Commission to clear the broadcast of the monthly radio address due to Model Code.

Sources said the Commission gave its green signal to the address on Wednesday with instructions that the Model Code should not be violated.

"Nothing should be said which influences or impacts the voters of the five poll-bound states. These are the instructions which have been given while clearing the address," a source said.

He said since it is an "ongoing programme", the clearance was issued like in the past.

The Commission had been clearing the broadcast during assembly polls. It had given its nod for the programme during assembly polls to Maharashtra and Delhi and recently during the Bihar assembly polls.

The opposition, especially the Congress, had approached the poll watchdog to stop the programme saying state machinery could be used to influence voters.

West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry are going to polls beginning April 4. The Model Code came into force on March 4 when the polls were announced by the Commission.
Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth Rs 70 lakh of a private hospital employee here for allegedly defrauding his firm's bank accounts and withdrawing money illegally.

The agency, in a statement said, the employee identified as Kamal K, allegedly used the funds, withdrawn by forging bank signatures of authorised people, to invest in "commodity trading" and subsequently laundered the money to raise immovable and movable assets.

The central probe agency registered a case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) last year after taking cognisance of a Chennai police crime branch complaint against him.

"The ED investigations revealed that the accused invested huge amount in commodity trading using the tainted money.

"During the investigation, the agency followed the money trail of the fraudulent money and identified a part of the proceeds of crime which the accused has laundered and invested in the movable and immovable properties worth Rs 70 lakh.

"It includes fixed deposits worth Rs 27 lakh, two vacant lands and a shop. These properties were attached provisionally under PMLA," it said.

An attachment order under PMLA is aimed at depriving the accused from obtaining benefits of their alleged ill-gotten wealth and the accused can appeal against the order before the Adjudicating Authority of the said Act within 180 days.
Engineers from Jadavpur University (JU) with the technical help from University of California have developed an inexpensive water filter which removes arsenic besides other impurities.

A team of civil engineers from JU and University of California have successfully installed the water filter plant which produces 10,000 litres of water per day at a school near Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district, an affected area.

"We are using arsenic-contaminated ground water and filtering it using electro-chemical arsenic remediation (ECAR) technology to produce potable water which is not only free of arsenic but all other contaminants," professor Joyashree Roy, who is co-ordinating the project, told PTI.

Used successfully in countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia already, ECAR was developed by NRI scientist Ashok Gadgil in his Berkeley lab on energy and water research.

The technology uses electricity to quickly dissolve iron in water which leads to the formation of a type of rust that readily binds to arsenic in the water. As the rust aggregates forming larger particles, it is separated from the water through filtration.

"This is a very simple and cheap technology," Roy said adding once commercialised the cost of drinking water can be as low as one rupee a litre.

"We have taken only the know-how from outside. Rest everything is indigenous. Even the materials we procured for making the plant is locally sourced. Our students in School of Environment Engineering know how to do everything," Roy said.

The cost, researchers said, is very low as none of the components need to be imported.

The cost of licensing the technology is also little because the project is a joint collaboration between the department of science and technology of the Indian government and the US government for transfer of technology for public health benefit, Roy said.

The technology is now ready to be licensed by the University of California for commercial use in India.

Drinking arsenic-laced water over a long period of time



results in various health hazards, including skin problems, skin cancer, cancer of the bladder, kidney and lung, besides other diseases.

World Health Organisation recommends a maximum arsenic concentration of 10 ppb (parts per billion) in drinking water and ECAR treatment is capable of reducing arsenic to below 2 ppb.

No additional contaminants appear in the treated water as chlorine or UV disinfection is used for removal of biological contaminants, Roy said.

Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a serious health issue in states like West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana and Assam. Most of the affected districts are located in the Gangetic or Brahmaputra river basin.
After a below-par batting performance against minnows Afghanistan, England will be determined to get their act together against defending champions Sri Lanka in a group league encounter of the ICC World Twenty20, here tomorrow.

It will be quite a test for the Joe Roots and Eoin Morgans as they will face at least 8 overs of quality spin bowling from left-arm spinner Rangana Herath and leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay on a sluggish Kotla track.

While the match will be Sri Lanka's third league game, the England side under Eoin Morgan will be going all out to notch up their third win in a bid to qualify for the semifinals.

England, according to legendary Sachin Tendulkar's prediction, is the favourite to be among the four semifinalists.

With two wins out of three, a good win against a depleted Lankan side will not only enhance their chances of semifinal qualification but also become a cause of worry for other teams.

For England, the tournament so far has been a mixed bag. On a flat Wankhede deck, their batsmen fared well in both matches.

While Chris Gayle's blazing blade saw them lose against the West Indies despite scoring 182, it was sheer brilliance of Joe Root and Jason Roy which enabled them to chase down a mammoth target of 230 against South Africa.

Root, with scores of 48 and 83 in both matches, has looked in good form.

But England's batting got thoroughly exposed against a much weaker but spirited Afghanistan side on a tricky Feroz Shah Kotla track in their last match.

It was Moeen Ali's rear guard action that saved them the blushes against the Afghans after being reduced to 85/7.

While English batsmen look comfortable against pacers when the ball is coming onto the bat, Herath and Vandersay might ask a few probing questions on a pitch conducive for slow bowlers.

Vandersay, who was summoned as a replacement for the injured Lasith Malinga, was impressive despite Sri Lanka's one-sided defeat against West Indies.

Using the feet to reach the pitch of the deliveries will be the key and skipper Morgan's IPL experience could come in very handy for the English batsmen, most of whom have little or no experience of playing on these surfaces.
Noida Police has registered a case of cheating against the owner of Ringing Bells who had offered to sell the world's cheapest smartphone following a complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya.

The police registered the case under Section 420 (cheating) of IPC and the IT Act on Tuesday. The owner of Ringing Bells Mohit Goel and company president Ashok Chaddha have been named in the FIR, police said.

Ringing Bells had recently offered with much fanfare a smartphone, named Freedom 251, at just Rs 251 and claimed it to be the cheapest smartphone.

But Somaiya, in his complaint, said it was not possible to manufacture a smartphone at Rs 251 and the owner of the company was fooling the people.

"Primary investigation found the matter fit for FIR. A case has been lodged and a team has been constituted to investigate the case," SSP, S Kiran said.

"We have asked the company to submit documents required for the investigation," said DSP Anup Singh.

The firm said it is ready to cooperate with the police.

"We remain committed to cooperating with any government agency that may require inquiringour organisation for any reason or suspicion.

"I do maintain that we will deliver the most-affordable quality products to our customers through our various range of smartphones, including the Freedom 251," Mohit Goel said.

(REOPENS DEL35)



In a statement, Ringing Bells Managing Director Mohit Goel said, "In Freedom 251, as presented to several authorities and agencies, and explained at our various forums, we are able to price our product at lower than production cost due to innovative e-commerce cross promotions and we will complete delivery of the quantities as committed by June 30, 2016.
A former Indian Navy officer has been arrested in Pakistan for alleged involvement in "subversive" activities in Balochistan, but India quickly distanced itself from him by stating that he had no link with the government since his "premature retirement" from the navy.

Kul Yadav Bhushan, described by Pakistan as a Commander- rank officer of the Indian Navy working for intelligence agency RAW, was arrested yesterday reportedly from Chaman area of the restive province of Balochistan. He has been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation.

Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge its protest over "subversive activities" of an alleged RAW officer.

"The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Reacting to the development, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson in New Delhi Vikas Swarup said the matter was raised today by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad.

"The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him.

"India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," he said.

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.

India has dismissed all such allegations.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was Pakistan's Prime Minister in 2008, had visited David Coleman Headley's home within weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Lashkar terrorist told a Mumbai court today, giving a new twist to his testimony.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26/12/2008. Infact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," the Pakistani-American terrorist told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the case against Abu Jundal in the sessions court here.

The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative-turned approver in the case is being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Jundal who is an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

Deposing for the third day after his cross-examination began on Wednesday, Headley said his father, who was a Director General with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with with LeT.

"My father was aware of my association with LeT and he was not happy about it," he said.

When asked was it true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai.He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.

During his deposition, Headley said: "Saulat Rana, my friend in Pakistan, was aware of my connection with LeT and my visit to Mumbai prior to the 26/11 attacks."



"Rana neither objected nor encouraged me," he told the court.

On whether Rana was associated to LeT, Headley said, "No". When asked whether he (Headley) toured Pakistani locations with Rana before the Mumbai attacks, he replied in the negative and wondered why he would go around in Pakistan when the target was India.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

He denied that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jehan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police, (Crime) in USA before his deposition in February this year.

When asked if he was treated for any mental illness, Headley replied in the negative and chuckled, "Yeh kya kya cheeze mere khaate mein daal rahe hain Wahab Sahab. Nahin, aisa koi wakya nahin hua (Wahab Sahab, what all things are you ascribing to me...Nothing of this sort happened)."



Headley also said that he does not know about who decided the date for the first attack (failed one in Mumbai).

Earlier in the day, Headley told the court that he had "arranged" a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event.

The terrorist, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that "Thackeray was sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme".

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

Headley also told the court that he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to "cause maximum damage since then".

Asked about the reasons of his hatred, Headley said, "My school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes and that time, I developed this feeling."



People were killed in the attack, he said, adding it was one of the reasons that why he joined the LeT.

Asked whether he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008, Headley said "no".

He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies."



He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

"This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved $30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.
Searching with key words such as "anti-national", "sedition", "patriotism" and "Bharat mata ki jai" on Google-maps will now direct the users to JNU, which is caught in a row over its students being booked under sedition.

The students of the university, who have been agitating against the alleged "branding" of JNU as "anti-national" after three of its students were arrested in connection with an event, have taken strong objection to the "technical certification".

Google authorities, when contacted, said they are trying to resolve the issue.

"We will raise the issue with the administration to send an official communication to Google in this regard. We have been protesting against the branding of an institution as anti-national and now the search giant has gone a step ahead in certifying that," JNU Students Union Vice President Shehla Rashid Shora said.

Jawaharlal Nehru University has been in since last month over an event on campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Three students - Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were arrested in a sedition case, kicking a national versus anti-national debate across the country. They are now out on bail.

"When I noticed this on google-maps, I laughed at it. But when I thought of it it seemed dangerous. Dangerous not because it represents my university but for fact that anyone or institution can be termed so through the power of government and MNC's. Will GoogleMaps be answerable for this?," another student N Sai Balaji said.

A Google spokesperson said, "we are aware of the issue and are working on a fix".

A JNU faculty member, who did not wish to be named said, "though we have strong objections to JNU being referred to as anti-national but since google-maps is throwing same results for patriotism and Bharat mata ki jai as well, it could be a technical glitch too".

However, this isn't the first time that the map services of the tech-giant has landed in a situation like this.

Last year, the users were directed to White House when they searched for keyword "nigger house" and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name was reflected in search of top 10 criminals. In both the cases, Google had apologised to them for the technical errors.

(REOPENS DES 10)



JNUSU later issued a statement saying, "we spoke to the authorities at Google. They have said that it's a bug and will be fixed soon."



"My own take on it is that Google Locations are linked with the user reviews, apart from Wikipedia and results. If we search 'leftist', for example, that too redirects to JNU on the map, because many user reviews describe it as leftist.

"RSS trolls have systematically flooded the Google Reviews of the place (JNU) with tags like anti national, terrorist, etc. And then, when the algorithm was successfully manipulated, they took screen-shots and are now circulating it," Shehla said in the statement.

"Otherwise, who goes searching for anti-national on Google Maps? We don't need to look for it on Google maps, when everyone knows that the address of anti nationals is in Nagpur at RSS headquarters," she further alleged.
The government is mulling over instituting an award in the name of Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya to recognise the contribution of small and marginal farmers in agriculture



Currently, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) gives away 'Krishi Karman Awards' to state governments and progressive farmers -- both big and small farmers -- for their excellence in agriculture sector.

"More than 80 per cent of India's farmers are small and marginal. So, the Agriculture Ministry is thinking if an award in the name of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya can be instituted to recognise the contribution of small and marginal farmers," a government official told PTI.

Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had also discussed this issue in the recent internal-meeting with senior officers and asked ICAR to examine it, the official added.

Upadhyay was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP.
Congress today accused the government of having a "confrontational" attitude inside Parliament, saying the Narendra Modi dispensation was still far way from reaching out to the Opposition.

The party also dismissed suggestions that Prime Minister Modi following Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter was a "positive sign".

"One does not see even faint signs of government approaching the Opposition...Its attitude inside Parliament is not one of dialogue, but that of confrontation," Congress leader Sachin Pilot told reporters at the party headquarters.

He was asked about Modi following Kejriwal on Twitter which has been reportedly hailed by BJP as a positive sign of ties between the government and the Opposition.

Pilot said if the government reaches out to Opposition, it would pave the way for early passage of the key reform measure of GST and other bills. "Nothing happens just by following the Twitter handle of anyone," he remarked.

Modi and Kejriwal have been at loggerheads on several issues and are known detractors.

On the issue of BJP and PDP again joining hands to form a government in Jammu and Kashmir, Pilot sought to take a dig at the coalition partners wondering as to why it took so long for them to take such a decision.

The Congress leader said since everything was decided behind closed doors, one is not aware whether any conditions were put and accepted, and what were the differences that they took so much time after the death of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.

At the outset, he noted that J-K has been a "important" state and PDP and BJP are known for politics which is poles apart.

On the situation at the Hyderabad Central University, he was critical of the government for attempts of "deliberately suppressing the voice of those who speak against the ideology of the government".
The Finance Ministry is in the process of filling vacant post of non-executive chairman in nine public sector banks, including Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, UCO Bank and Corporation Bank.

A senior Finance Ministry official told PTI that the process to fill vacancies of non-executive chairman in nine state-run banks is underway.

Andhra Bank, IDBI Bank and Indian Overseas Bank are among the banks where the newly created post of non-executive chairman is vacant.

After splitting the post of Chairman and Managing Director in August last year, government appointed non-executive chairmen in five public sector banks with the announcement of Indradanush, a comprehensive revamp plan for PSU banks.

The five banks were Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Vijaya Bank and Indian Bank.

Separation of the post of Chairman and Managing Director was done based on global best practices and as per the guidelines in the Companies Act to ensure appropriate checks and balances.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently set up Banks Board Bureau (BBB) to advise the government on top-level appointments at public sector lenders. Former CAG Vinod Rai has been appointed chairman of the Bureau, which will initially function from Mumbai.

The bureau will give recommendations on appointment of directors in public sector banks and ways to tackle rising bad loans, among others.

It will also help them develop differentiated strategies of capital raising and innovative financial instruments. The government wants to encourage boards of PSBs to restructure their business strategy and suggest the way forward for their consolidation and merger with other banks.
Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said today that 'Pravesh Utsav' programme would be launched in all government schools from April 1.

He said that all District Education Officers, Elementary Education Officers, Block Education Officers and all other officers concerned have been directed to implement this programme during the academic session 2016-17.

He said that for the first time in the history of the State, provisional admissions to class XI would be made from April 1, before declaration of result of class X.

A decision to this effect has been taken to increase teaching days for students, he said.

He said that except Board classes, results of all classes would be declared on March 31 and also Parent-Teacher Meet would be held in all schools the same day.

The students passing class V would have to take admission to next class the same day, he said.

Sharma said that on day of last exam of Class X, students at all examination centres would be informed that they would have to visit their respective school next day at 10 am where school in-charge would apprise them about process of provisional admission.

The students would be provided application forms for admission to class XI the same day and they would be asked to get these forms signed from their parents, he said.

The class in-charge or school in-charge would collect the documents and take them to desired school chosen by the students for provisional admission so that regular classes could soon be started after completion of this process, he said.

He said that admissions to class IX would be conducted between April 1 and 30.

He said that after declaration of result on March 31, the school in-charge would handover the list of students to school concerned on April 1 and after that all other formalities like admissions form and bank accounts would be completed from April 1 to 4.
Kin of deceased dalit research scholar Rohit Vemula today demanded immediate unconditional release of 25 students and two faculty members of Hyderabad Central University who were arrested in connection with incidents of vandalism at the VC's lodge and stone pelting on police personnel on March 22.

"We demand immediate and unconditional release of all those who were arrested and sent to jail, and withdrawal of cases against them. They (students) were asking for justice for Rohit (during the protest near VC's lodge)...But were beaten up brutally by police," Rohit's mother Radhika and brother Raja, along with certain teachers of HCU and parents of some of the arrested students, told reporters.

They also sought immediate arrest of HCU Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile, stating that there was a case registered against him for abetment of Rohit's suicide.

"A case is already registered against Appa Rao and how can he resume his duty? Over two months have passed since registration of the case, but no one has (either) been questioned or arrested," Radhika said, adding, cases were registered against students who were arrested and jailed.

"How many more days we have to wait for justice for Rohit?



"Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani calls Rohit a child in Parliament, but she and the BJP government (at Centre) is not listening to and considering our requests seeking action against those responsible for Rohit's death," they said.

"...If I question government, will I be called as anti-national...Prove that I am ant-national," Raja asked.

P Anupama, a faculty member of HCU said, "We the concerned teachers of HCU are extremely distressed at the recent turn of events on the campus."



She said Podile's return to the campus on March 22 to resume duties has come as a shock to majority of the varsity community.

"We demand release of all arrested students and faculty and withdrawal of charges. The police must be immediately asked to leave the campus and we demand independent enquiry into the incidents that happened on March 22," Anupama and other teachers said.

A local court has posted the hearing on the bail pleas of the arrested students and the faculty members on March 28.

They claimed that police "attacked" students who were



protesting peacefully near the VC's residence on March 22 seeking justice for Rohit, and "indiscriminately" beat up boys as well as girls.

"Why were the students chased and lathi-charged despite their eviction from the VC's lodge compound," they asked and alleged that faculty members were threatened with sedition charges.

"After the incident, all the messes in the university were shut down due to the strike called by the non-teaching staff, resulting in no food, no water, infrequent power supply and no internet connectivity and even blocked their ATM cards," they said, adding that students organised community cooking where they were again beaten up by police.

"We condemn the entire process of intimidation and undemocratic curbing of dissent by authorities. We condemn the police brutality towards the university community," they added.
Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley on Friday claimed in a Mumbai court that he had "arranged" a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event.

The 55-year-old, who has turned approver in the 26/11 attacks case, stated this during cross-examination on the third day by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

Replying to a question, Headley said that he planned to invite Thackeray for the programme. "Eventually yes, but it was in initial stages," he said, adding that "there was no specific plan to invite Thackeray for this".

The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, who has been convicted in the US for his role in the terror attacks, said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that "Thackeray was sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme".

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

On whether Thackeray knew about the programme, Headley retorted, "How can I know this? I spoke to Rajaram Rege and he told me that he (Thackeray) was advised against travelling."

However, Headley agreed with the defence lawyer that he had discussed the programme with Rege.

Asked whether Headley had asked Rege to convey about the event to Thackeray, he said, "In general terms, I never asked this specifically."

Headley also told the court that he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to "cause maximum damage since then".

Asked about the reasons of his hatred, Headley said, "My school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes and that time, I developed this feeling."

People were killed in the attack, he said, adding it was one of the reasons that why he joined the LeT.

Headley, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, denied that he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008.

He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies," he said.

He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

"This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said.

Headley also told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the 26/11 terror case against Jundal in the sessions court here, that it is ridiculous to say that his association with LeT was within the knowledge of US authorities.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved $30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.

On Thursday, he had disclosed how LeT wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was "arrested" and then managed to give police a slip.

Headley had also told the court that while he had not personally met any of the 10 attackers in the 26/11 case, he had seen the photo of one of the attackers on internet and identified him as Ajmal Kasab 'Rehmatullah Aliah'.

The terrorist had earlier concluded his week-long deposition before the Mumbai sessions court through a video-link from the US on February 13.

Headley, in his earlier deposition, said how Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI provides "financial, military and moral support" to terror outfits LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen, and how LeT planned and executed the 26/11 attacks.

He had also claimed that Ishrat Jahan, killed in an allegedly fake encounter in Gujarat, was an LeT operative.
Activists of the Hindu Shiv Sena today blocked the Nawanshahr-Chandigarh here after the death of their national president Abhishek Batta in a car accident.

Police said Abhishek Batta (35), a resident of Phagwara who was reportedly coming from Haridwar in his car, died when his vehicle collided with cement-laden truck coming from the opposite direction near Malpur Arkan.

A woman who was travelling with him sustained injuries and was admitted to the local civil hospital.

Shivi Batta, younger brother of the deceased, alleged that this was a preplanned murder as his brother who was on the hit list of some pro-khalistani forces and had received a number of death threats.

Later in the evening, Hindu Shiv Sena activists lifted the blockade on the Nawanshahr-Chandigarh Road after an assurance by police that it would register a case under relevant sections after fully investigating the matter.
Gender rights activist Trupti Desai, who is spearheading a campaign seeking to break the age-old tradition banning entry of women in inner sanctum sanctorum of temples, today visited the famous Lord Shiva temple at Trimbakeshwar here without making a bid to enter the core area.

Desai, who heads Bhumata Brigade, made an unannounced visit to the famous temple, nearly 30 kms from here.

The activist was in Niphad taluka here to attend a programme.

Desai and two of her colleagues visited Trimbakeshwar temple today and took 'darshan' of the deity from outside the 'garbhagriha' (sanctum sanctorum where entry of women is banned) and were later escorted out safely by police, a Trimbakeshwar Police Station official told PTI.

The visit was "peaceful". Though some locals objected to entry of Desai into the temple, no disruption was reported. Desai later left for Mumbai, the officer said.

An official of Trimbakeshwar Devasthan Trust said that no meeting was held betweenthe Bhumata Brigade chief and temple trust today.

Desai had yesterday told reporters in Niphad that Bhumata Brigade activists will henceforth attempt entering the 'garbhagrih' without creating any law and order situation and it will be unannounced.

"Women in towns of Shani Shinganapur and Trimbakeshwar are under pressure of traditional system. We are not against anyone, we are just opposing the traditions that stops us from entering 'chouthara' (inner platform at Shani Shingnapur temple) or 'garbhagrih'," she said.

Earlier, women activists of Bhumata Brigade, headed by Desai, had set out to enter Trimbakeshwar temple from Pune on March 7 on the occasion of Maha Shivaratri but were stopped and detained at Nandurshingote village, around 80 kms from the temple.
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) would abolish common proficiency test (CPT) examination for CA aspirants and reinstate the Foundation course instead from November this year.

"From November onwards the CPT examination route will be scrapped as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has given its approval. It is now lying with the Ministry of Law and Justice," ICAI president Devaraja Reddy told reporters here today.

While the CPT examination was of 200 marks, the Foundation course would consist of 400 marks for class XII pass outs.

Entry to direct CA would be given to B.Com students securing 55 per cent and B.Sc and Engineering candidates with 60 per cent marks.

The ICAI president said the entire curriculum was being revamped as well.

Reddy said ICAI was pitching for double entry accounting system for various government accounts instead of single entry at present.

This would made the accounts of the government departments more transparent, he said.
An Indian-origin former faculty member at a US business school has been sentenced to over three years in prison and ordered to pay whopping USD 540,000 in restitution for defrauding his clients by using investor money to finance his personal expenses.

Satyen Chatterjee, 65, of Seattle was sentenced to 40 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay over USD 540,000 in restitution for wire fraud, US Attorney Annette Hayes said.

Hayes said Chatterjee defrauded his friends, most of them from the Bengali community.

"This defendant, a native of India, took advantage of the trust that members of his own Bengali community placed in him," Hayes said.

"As is so often the case, his victims were harmed not only financially, but also in their ability to trust those around them," Hayes said.

Chatterjee, who once taught at the University of Washington Business School, owned and operated a capital management firm from 1992 until the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions ordered it to cease operating illegally in October, 2013.

At the sentencing hearing, US District Judge Thomas S Zilly told him, "You did, over a long period of time, commit fraud. Stealing money from your friends and clients."



He had pleaded guilty in May 2015, admitting engaging in a scheme to defraud investors between 2007 and 2013.

According to records filed in the case, at least five victims were defrauded of more than USD 600,000.

He convinced various investors to make investments with him in what he represented were fixed rate securities.

But he instead transferred the funds to his own bank accounts, used the money for his own expenses, or lost it as a day trader in the stock market.
Nepal's expanding relations with China should not "irritate" India, a senior leader of the ruling CPN-UML said today, asserting that Nepal would not accept anyone's "hegemony".

"We want to establish relations with both the neighbouring countries (China and India) on the basis of equality, which should not cause irritation to any of the countries," said Pradip Gyawali, a Central Committee member of the party.

"As an independent and sovereign country, it is upto Nepal to decide what type of relations we want to maintain with which country, and we will not accept anyone's hegemony," he said talking to journalists in Banke district of western Nepal.

The ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) hailed the agreements inked by Nepal with China during the ongoing visit of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.

"These bilateral cooperation deals are highly significant which help achieving long-term socio-economic development goals to Nepal on its own," the CPN-ML said in a statement.

The deals have opened new gateway for diversifying Nepal's trade, the party said underlining the need for a swift implementation of these accords.

"The bilateral deals reached between the two countries on trade diversification, cross border connectivity, infrastructure development, investment, reconstruction, energy, tourism and business have a long-term significance for Nepal's socio-economic development," the party said.

Oli arrived in China on March 20 and the two sides signed 10 agreements including for a transit treaty and rail links during his talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang.

The transit treaty reduces landlocked Nepal's dependence on India as it sources most of imports and exports through Kolkata port.

Nepal looks to source its supplies through the arduous Himalayan route through Tibet, which many analysts say will be an expensive proposition for Nepal considering easy proximity through the Indian border.

During the recent Madhesi agitation, Prime Minister Oli and other leaders had alleged that India had imposed an "undeclared blockade" on Nepal to back the Indian-origin Madhesis. India had firmly denied imposing the blockade.

Meanwhile, president of the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal, Upendra Yadav said that China's move to welcome the new constitution in Nepal has no meaning.

Speaking at an interaction programme here, Yadav said that China's backing to the new constitution is meaningless as a significant number of people within the country are yet to own it.

Yadav also claimed that the Trade and Transit Treaty inked



between Nepal and China during Oli's China visit was in the interest of China and warned to launch a new Madhesi agitation if their demands were not met by mid-April.

"The government has done nothing till date regarding meeting our demands," said Yadav.

Issuing a joint statement with Nepal on Wednesday, China had welcomed the new constitution and regarded it as a "historic progress" in the political transition of Nepal.

Yadav's statement comes a day after leaders of half a dozen agitating United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) held a breakfast meeting with Indian envoy Ranjit Rae at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu yesterday.

The Madhesis, mostly of Indian origin, have been demanding the new Constitution be amended to include their concerns about adequate political representation and redrawing of federal boundaries.

They had enforced months-long blockade of Nepal's all trading points with India, creating huge shortage of essential commodities in the country.
A renowned Indian egg artist in the US has held a solo exhibition displaying 70 intricately hand-carved creations made out of egg shells of different birds.

Farha Sayeed held the two-day art exhibition 'The Easter Eggstravaganza' for the first time at the historic Chicago Symphony Centre from March 20.

The artist used eggs shells of various birds -- Ostrich, Rhea, Emu, Goose, Duck, Turkey and Guinea eggs for her creations.

With attention to minute detail, the artist embellished the art pieces with crystals, rhinestone chains and golden filigree, attracting hundreds of art lovers, state officials and diplomats from several countries, according to a statement.

The lead pieces at the show, 'Eggstravaganza' and 'Nirvana', along with 'Apostles of Peace', a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa on an Emu egg shell received particular admiration from the visitors.

Sayeed, who is married to Dr Ausaf Sayeed, Consul General of India in Chicago, said she got exposed to Egg Art seventeen years ago, while she was in Qatar.

"The fragility of an eggshell appealed to me as a unique medium to test my creativity. I can switch over easily from painting to carving to calligraphy to etching on the egg shell and the scope seems to be unlimited," Sayeed said.

She also said that over the years, she has attempted introducing Indian motifs and calligraphy into her art.

A part of proceeds from the sale at the exhibition will go to the America-India Foundation's Maternal and New Born Survival Initiative (MANSI), the statement said.

In the past, she has hosted solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Jeddah, New Delhi and Sanaa.
Two hundred and forty two Indians including 28 Jet Airways crew members, who were stranded after the deadly terror strikes in Brussels on Tuesday, returned home today, much to the relief of anxious family members.

Meanwhile, the condition of 40-year-old crew member Nidhi Chaphekar who was injured along with her junior colleague Amit Motwani during the two explosions at the Brussels airport is said to be stable.

Motwani has also been shifted to a normal ward from the ICU at the hospital in Brussels where he is being treated.

"The flight 9W 1229 carrying 214 passengers, including 69 bound for Mumbai, along with 28 Jet Airways crew members landed at IGI airport at 5.10 AM," a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

The 'recovery' flight from Amsterdam carried onboard the passengers bound for Mumbai as their flight was cancelled at the last minute due to a technical problem in the aircraft.

The airline had earlier taken all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

Narrating the ordeal passengers at the Brussels airport had to go through after the blasts at the departure area and in the metro station, a woman passenger said for some time people had no idea what was going around.

"I was coming from Toronto and as soon as we arrived at the airport went to the arrival bay, within 15 minutes they were asking us to evacuate as soon as possible. We had no idea what had happened," she said.

She said there were hundreds of passengers running out with their baggage. "From there we found out that there were three blasts."



"We have spoken to Dr Steven at the hospital where Jet Airways crew Nidhi Chaphekar is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in a stable condition," the airline's spokesperson said.

"They are recovering in hospitals and have been joined by their families. Jet Airways staff is at the hospitals to provide any support and assistance to the crew and their family members," the spokesperson added.

The Indian embassy in Belgium had yesterday in a tweet said that Ambassador Manjeev Puri had spoken to Motwani and assured him of all help.

"The blast occurred in the departure area of the airport as soon as our flight landed. They took all of us out and we remained stranded there for quite some time," said another passenger.

Tuesday's suicide attacks in Brussels left 31 dead and 300 wounded besides leaving hundreds of flyers stranded due to the closure of the airport immediately after the explosions.

Jet Airways yesterday operated two flights from Amsterdam for Toronto and Delhi after transporting all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

Jet Airways had initially planned to fly three recovery flights from Amsterdam including one to Mumbai after pulling out all its four grounded aircraft from the Brussels airport.

The aircraft, which brought back the passengers to Delhi, was later flown to Mumbai with 69 passengers onboard, Jet Airways said.

"I was just landing when the blast took place. So, we could not get inside the airport (terminal building)," said another passenger, adding "We were taken to some other place. We were taken care of very well.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived here today on a landmark visit for talks with Pakistani leadership on improving relations and clinching key economic deals including the construction of a gas pipeline.

Rouhani, who is here on his maiden visit, will meet President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tomorrow and will discuss cooperation on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

The two-day visit has assumed significance after lifting of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. The withdrawal of sanctions has opened new avenues for enhancing bilateral economic interaction.

The Iranian leader is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising ministers, senior officials and businessmen showing his keenness to deepen the ties.

The start of construction of multi-billion dollars Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and import of 3,000 MW of electricity from Iran are on the agenda, a Pakistani official said.

"The two sides will also discuss modalities to increase trade to 5 billion dollars in the coming years," he said.

Apart from the economic cooperation, the two sides will discuss the regional security situation, with the emphasis on Saudi-led 34-nation coalition of Sunni countries to fight against terrorism, especially Islamic State.

Iran has been reportedly flustered by the move.

The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the wake of execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi is another important issue which will be discussed. Sharif has been playing a role to defuse the tension.

Officials said that the situation of Afghanistan will also be discussed.
Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr today urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to propose a "convincing" reform package but hinted that further protests if he did not would remain non-violent.

In a speech read by another cleric, Asaad al-Nasseri, to thousands of supporters gathered in Baghdad, Sadr said Abadi should unveil a reform package tomorrow



"I hope that on Saturday the prime minister comes up with reforms towards an independent government of technocrats that are convincing for the people," he said.

Sadr supporters set up protest camps in front of the entrances of the restricted "Green Zone", where the country's top institutions are located, a week ago to push for reforms.

The young Najaf-based cleric's movement says the sit-in is aimed at offering Abadi the kind of street power he does not have to overcome resistance to reforms from within his own political bloc.

But Sadr has also given Abadi a deadline to present names for technocratic cabinet and a fresh packages of measures to fight against corruption.

He said that he expected announcement from Abadi tomorrow but last month he gave the premier a 45-day ultimatum that expires on Tuesday.

"If he does not announce a reform package... We will adopt a different position, which we will announce on Saturday," Sadr said, in the speech read out by Nasseri.

"Our protests in front of the Green Zone will not be enough. All of this will use peaceful means," he said.

Both he and his supporters have threatened in recent weeks to storm the Green Zone, which is home to Abadi's office, parliament and many embassies, including the massive US mission.

The protest camps set up by Sadrists on March 18 were not authorised and they are under heavy surveillance from elite forces and police.

Sadr has also threatened he could pull his movement out of the government.
The Islamic State group's second in command has been killed in a US raid in Syria, reports said Friday.

Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli was killed this month, The Daily Beast and NBC quoted unnamed defence officials as saying. Pentagon chief Ashton Carter was expected to confirm the killing at an upcoming conference, they said.
Doubts mounted today over Egypt's claims that members of a criminal gang were linked to the torture and death of an Italian student, amid continued speculation that Egyptian police themselves were involved in the killing.

"I'm sorry, I don't buy it," tweeted former Italian Premier Enrico Letta.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said yesterday that police found ID cards and other personal belongings of Giulio Regeni during a search of a house connected to a gang that specializes in abducting foreigners while posing as policemen. Four gang members were killed in a gunfight, the statement said.

There was no official Italian response, despite the clamor that the Regeni case has sparked since the 28-year-old researcher disappeared Jan. 25, the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising when police were heavily deployed across Cairo.

His body was found nine days later bearing signs of torture.

Italy's state-run RAI and Italian politicians questioned the latest Egyptian scenario and demanded the truth.

"There's no explanation for why ordinary criminals, whose alleged objective was a robbery or ransom, would have inflicted such cruelty that is used only by torture professionals," said Pia Locatelli, head of the lower chamber's human rights committee. "And there's no explanation why they would have kept his documents, miraculously found, rather than immediately getting rid of such a shocking proof of their crime."



Lawmaker Francesco Ferrara, a member of parliament's Copasir security committee, said the Egyptian theory left too many questions unanswered, including why Regeni had been detained for days before being killed.

"The Italian government and prosecutors shouldn't give any credibility to what seems like a false reconstruction," he was quoted as saying by the ANSA agency.

The doubts weren't confined to Italy.

In Egypt, prominent activist Wael Ghoneim, one of the top activists of the uprising and an anti-police torture advocate, said the Egyptian theory was "very cute."



"So after they kidnapped Regeni and tortured him to death, they kept his passport, university ID in their house as a souvenir," he wrote on Facebook.

Rabab el-Mahdi, one of Regeni's friends and a university professor, said she was "sad, angry, and speechless regarding the recent killing of four people on the pretext that they killed Giulio.
World-renowned Japanese architectural firm Maki & Associates has been chosen to design the government buildings in the Andhra Pradesh's new capital city, Amaravati.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu made the announcement here this evening.

Maki was chosen by a jury of six renowned architects from the three shortlisted firms -- Maki & Associates, Richard Rogers (England) and DV Joshi Architects (India) -- which had submitted designs for a contest held by the state government.

The firm would design Secretariat, Legislature Complex, High Court, Raj Bhavan and other important buildings.

The chief minister today held a high-level meeting to review the capital construction work and inspected the designs submitted by various firms.

He visited Velagapudi village, 16-km from here, and inspected the construction works of Interim Government Complex (temporary Secretariat).

Naidu spoke to the representatives of L&T and Shapoorji Pallonji firms which are executing the project. Later, he reviewed the capital designs and related issues with ministers and higher officials.

Established in 1965, Maki and Associates has designed several famous buildings such as United Nations Consolidated Building (New York), Tower 4 of World Trade Centre Redevelopment (New York), Media Corp (Singapore), Bihar Museum (India) and Shenzen Sea World Cultural Arts Centre (China).
Criticising the Centre for not acting "effectively" on the issue of apprehending of Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka authorities, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today said a decisive shift in dealing with the issue was "long awaited" and "need of the hour".

"I am concerned that the Government of India, despite my repeated requests and follow up, has not acted effectively to prevail upon the Sri Lankan authorities to desist from apprehending and detaining Indian fishermen while pursuing their peaceful avocation in traditional fishing waters", she said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Stating that three fishermen and their mechanised fishing boat were apprehended by Sri Lankan Navy on March 23, she said "a decisive shift in the manner of dealing with this sensitive issue is long awaited and is the need of the hour".

"The government of Tamil Nadu strongly reiterates the need to restore the traditional fishing rights of Indian fishermen in Palk Bay by annulling the Indo-Sri Lankan agreements of 1974 and 1976 as the constitutional validity of these agreements have been challenged on extremely valid and legal grounds in the Supreme Court", she said.

The Chief Minister urged the Centre to find "suitable mechanisms" to permanently resolve the long standing issue between Indian fishermen and Sri Lanka by "retrieving Katchatheevu and restoring the traditional fishing rights of our fishermen".

She requested Modi to direct the officials concerned in the External Affairs Ministry to take "concrete" action through diplomatic channels to secure the immediate release of the 102 fishermen and 84 fishing boats.

She said the prolonged detention and disuse of the boats and lack of maintenance would have caused "irretrievable damage to the boats and gear" and reiterated that the fishing boats be restored in refurbished condition at the earliest.
A Jet Airways aircraft carrying 242 persons including 28 crew members, who were stranded in Belgian capital following the deadly terror attack on airport and metro station, reached India from Amsterdam Friday morning.

The flight landed at Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport here at around 5:30, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

The flight had 214 passengers and 28 crew members, the spokesperson added.

Jet Airways flight 9W1229 from Amsterdam to Delhi and then onwards to Mumbai had departed from Amsterdam at 4:54 p.m. local time Thursday after the airline combined its Mumbai flight with it.

The airline had yesterday announced it would fly three flights, one each to Mumbai, Delhi and Toronto from Amsterdam to fly its passengers, who were stuck in due to the deadly terror attack on the airport and metro station in the Belgian capital on Tuesday.

However, the airline cancelled Mumbai flight due to a snag in the aircraft and combined it with Delhi flight.
Jewellery industry body AIBJSF today decided to continue their strike for an indefinite period against imposition of 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery and announced plans to hand over keys of their shops to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

All India Bullion, Jewellers, Swarankar Federation (AIBJSF), which had organised a big rally at Ramlila maidan in the national capital on March 17, is continuing their strike, though three major associations -- GJF, ABJA and GJEPC -- had called off strike last Saturday after government's assurance that there would be no 'Inspector Raj'.

AIBJSF and other local associations, particularly those in Delhi- NCR, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, were against calling off the strike.

"Nothing less than a complete roll back of excise duty levied on jewellers is acceptable to us," AIBJSF President Praveen Goel said in a statement issued by CAIT.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which is supporting the jewellers protest, has urged the government to initiate the process of dialogue with protesting traders to end the logjam.

In a meeting held today, AIBJSF said representatives of more than 375 Jewellery trade associations from different states "unanimously decided to intensify the strike" till the government rolls back the excise duty.

A large number of jewellers and bullion traders across the country continued their strike for the 24th day today, despite the government constituting a panel to look into their demand.

AIBJSF said it will hold a series of protests beginning next week including "handing over keys of shops to the Finance Minister, blowing whistle in front of buffalo, ringing bells at district headquarters, gherao of MPs and presentation of memorandum, forming of human chain and transfer of registration papers of shops in the name of Finance Minister."



Meanwhile, the government has constituted a panel under former Chief Economic Advisor Ashok Lahri to look into the demands of jewellers.

The panel, which has been asked to submit its report in 60 days, will look into issues related to compliance procedure for the excise duty, including records to be maintained, forms to be filled, operating procedures and other relevant issues.

The government in the Budget for 2016-17 had proposed 1 per cent excise duty on jewellery without input credit or 12.5 per cent with input tax credit on jewellery excluding silver other than studded with diamonds and some other precious stones.
US Secretary of State John Kerry today declared "Je suis Bruxellois" - "I am a citizen of Brussels" - in support for the people of the Belgian capital, echoing their backing for the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks.

"Then, voices across Europe declared, 'Je suis Americain.' Now, we declare, 'Je suis Bruxellois' and 'Ik ben Brussel,' Kerry said in French and Flemish, the country's two main languages, after meeting Belgian Premier Charles Michel.

Triple bomb attacks in Brussels on Tuesday left 31 people dead and 300 injured.
US Secretary of State John Kerry defended Belgium's counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failings in the run-up to the suicide bombings that killed 31 people this week.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation into the attacks, Kerry said the "carping" about Belgium's shortcomings "is a little bit frantic and inappropriate."



Kerry's hastily arranged visit to Brussels today came the day after at least six people were detained in raids linked to Tuesday's attacks on the Brussels airport and subway system. Belgian prosecutors are expected to decide whether to charge or release them, and other raids are reportedly underway today.

Kerry also said the US and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalisation of youth in particular. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks.

"We will not be deterred," Kerry said. "We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."



The international makeup of those killed in Tuesday's attacks was highlighted further today as authorities revealed that American, British, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

Kerry said Belgium has actively sought additional assistance after the attacks, and that 10 or 11 FBI agents are now in Brussels helping with the investigation. Prime Minister Charles Michel, meeting with Kerry, vowed to step up counterterrorism cooperation with the US and others.

Kerry's comments came as top members of Belgium's embattled government face lawmakers amid heightened criticism of the country's counterterrorism efforts since - and before - last November's Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and which authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

Some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks. Turkey also announced this week that it had warned Belgium last year that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter."



A manhunt is underway for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.
A woman from Kyrgyzstan was rescued from a flat in Bhubaneswar where she was allegedly brought by a group suspected of running a sex racket, police said today.

The woman in her mid-thirties visited Goa and Bangalore in February before she was was brought here by an agent from Kolkata, Bhubaneswar DCP Satyabrat Bhoi told reporters.

"We have requested the Kyrgyzstan Embassy in New Delhi to provide her travelling and other details. We will go for further investigation after getting the details," Bhoi said.

The woman is in India on a tourist visa which expires on March 31.

The language of the woman, who is presently accommodated in a state-run home, is a barrier in questioning her, he said.

She would be handed over to officials of her country's embassy on their arrival here, police said.

In the raid on Wednesday in which the Kyrgyz woman was rescued, one person identified as Somesh Panda was arrested.

Panda was an associate of suspected sex racket kingpin Sunil Meher, who managed to escape during Wednesday's raid, police said.

Stating that the racket used to lure rich people with foreigner women, the officials said, adding a special team has been set up to nab Meher who has earlier been in police custody.

Meanwhile, Bhoi said the police will summon the owner of the flat to know whether he had verified the identity of the tenant before renting out his flat.
Kyrgyzstan said today it was in negotiations with Uzbekistan to defuse week-long tensions over disputed territory at the frontier of the two Central Asian states.

The meeting of the countries' border services was called "at the initiative of the Uzbek side", the Kyrgyz border service said, after increased militarisation at a disputed section of the border drew concern from a Russia-led security body earlier this week.

Tensions flared at the border between the two ex-Soviet neighbours after Uzbekistan deployed armoured vehicles and around 40 troops to a disputed section of the frontier March 18.

Kyrgyzstan subsequently dispatched armoured vehicles to the area before both sides agreed to partial de-militarisation at the beginning of the week.

Around 300 kilometres of the two countries' 1,400-km border are not demarcated. The disputed section is an elevated territory in the Fergana valley shared by the two countries.

Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation had expressed "concern" over the tensions and dispatched its deputy general secretary to the area.

Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said yestreday he would not attend a summit of the Russia and China-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent this June unless the situation is resolved.

Skirmishes are common between troops along non-delimited sections of the borders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where local communities also clash over access to roads and water.

The criss-crossing frontiers, a legacy of Soviet policies during the era of dictator Josef Stalin, complicate everyday life for many residents in the under-developed region.
The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has subscribed to Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) bonds of Rs 250 crore to enable its some of the key projects.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu had on 25th Foundation Day celebration of KRCL on October 15, 2015, announced the projects, which included electrification of Konkan Railway route, construction of new halt stations and passenger terminals, doubling of Konkan Railway route among others.

The Government of India PSU has drawn an ambitious plan to take up projects for betterment of the region, a press release issued by KRCL here said.

CMD of KRCL, Sanjay Gupta said the financial support received from LIC will go a long way towards assisting the development of capacity augmentation and passenger-friendly projects.

"The seminal role of LIC as a crucial partner in the development of Railways and KRCL under the leadership of the Railways minister cannot be overemphasised," it said.

KRCL is entrusted with construction and operation of Railway line along the west coast from Roha (Maharashtra) to Thokur (Karnataka).
The wife of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today slammed senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for making "baseless allegations" after he levelled "nepotism" charges against her husband over a state agency's order asking developers to open accounts in a private bank where she works.

"Singh is using a woman's shoulders for his political target. Doing such a thing is an insult to a working woman like me," Amruta Fadnavis told reporters here tonight after a BJP women's wing event.

"The transaction he referred to pertained to the Worli branch of Axis Bank. I work in Lower Parel branch and have nothing to do with it," she said.

The chief minister's lawyer Ganesh Sovani recently asked Singh to tender an unconditional apology to him, failing which he said that his "client... Shall have no option but to initiate appropriate civil and/or criminal proceedings against you".

In his tweets, Singh had alleged that, "SRA (slum rehabilitation authority) in Mumbai headed by CM of Maharashtra has officially asked all SRA developers to open accounts only in Worli branch of Axis Bank".

"Do you know why? Mrs Fadnavis is the Vice-President of Axis Bank! A windfall for the Axis Bank a private Bank. Height of Nepotism," he had said.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said police has arrested a suspect near Paris who was in "the advanced stages" of a plot to attack France.

The French national, identified as Reda K, was arrested in Argenteuil, northwest of Paris, late last night with a small quantity of explosives.

He was convicted in Belgium in July along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the November 13 attacks on the French capital, police sources said today.

Reda K was found guilty in absentia in Brussels of being part of a jihadist network planning to go to Syria, the sources said.

Interior Minister Cazeneuve said he was suspected of "being involved in the plan at a high level."



"He belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country," the interior minister said.

However, while Cazeneuve hailed a "major arrest", he said there was "no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels".

The minister added that the suspect had been under surveillance "for several weeks" and that the arrest was also the result of "close and constant cooperation between European services".

The arrest comes two days after 31 people were killed in suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city's metro, putting security services across Europe on high alert.
A man has been awarded Rs 5.5 lakh compensation by a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) here for physical disability caused to him by a road accident.

MACT Presiding Officer Naveen Arora directed New India AssuranceCompanyLtd, the insurer of the offending vehicle, to pay Rs 5,73,800 as compensation to the man who suffered 53 per cent disability in the mishap.

The victim, Kumar Singh, a Delhi resident who was 48- year-old when the accident took place, filed a petition stating that on December 30, 2012, he was riding pillion on his friend's bike when they collided with a car being driven in a rash and negligent manner.

As a result of the accident, Singh fell down and sustained injuries.

The presiding officer concluded that it was a head-on collision saying, "I have perused the charge sheet where in the site plan the place of accident has been shown at the center of the road. It is a case of head on collision."



Neither the driver nor the car's owner came up with any rebuttal during the cross-examination.

The judge, after perusing the medical report of the victim, found that he has suffered 53 per cent permanent disability which is not likely to improve in future.

After considering the facts of loss of income, pain and sufferings, medical expenses and other factors, the judge ordered Rs 5,73,800 as compensation.
Meghalaya Governor V Shanmuganathan today called on Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed with him security scenario in the Northeastern state.

During the 20-minute meeting, the Governor apprised the Home Minister about the law and order situation in Meghalaya, which has been witnessing militancy from two groups -- HNLC and ANVC, official sources said.

During his recent tour to Meghalaya, the Home Minister had said that the Central government was ready for talks with insurgent groups in the Northeast if they shun violence.

"We are ready for talks with anyone who gives up violence. I appeal to everyone to shun violence," he had said.

There are two militant groups in Meghalaya -- HNLC and ANVC, both active in Khasi hills and Garo hills regions respectively.
Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo, who went missing three months ago and surfaced in China, is already on his way back over the border after a brief return home, local media reported.

British citizen Lee, 65, returned to Hong Kong yesterday after disappearing in late December, in a case that has raised alarm over Beijing's tightening grip on the region.

But Lee crossed back into the mainland today, just a day after he arrived, according to local media who followed him to the border.

"It's a release with Chinese characteristics," China expert Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong told AFP.

"The fact of the matter is that he has not really been fully released... He needs to report back to China," he said.

Lee is one of five Hong Kong booksellers who went "missing" in recent months -- the other four are now under criminal investigation on the mainland linked to trading illegal books in China.

The men all worked for the Mighty Current publishing house, which produced salacious titles about political intrigue and love affairs at the highest levels of Chinese politics.

Lee's case caused the greatest outcry because he was the only bookseller to disappear from Hong Kong, prompting accusations that Chinese law enforcement agents were operating in the semi-autonomous city, illegal under its constitution.

Three of the other booksellers went missing from southern mainland China and one from Thailand in October.

Lee had returned to Hong Kong Thursday, where he insisted a missing person case on him should be dropped and that he was a free man.

He told Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Phoenix TV that he "may need to return to the mainland multiple times to assist in the investigation".

Lee vowed not to sell "fabricated books", according to Chinese portal thepaper.Cn, and said he would no longer run Hong Kong's Causeway Bay bookstore, outlet for Mighty Current's titles, which remains shuttered.

"The homeland is very prosperous and formidable. I am very proud to be Chinese," it quoted him as saying.
A national-level woman volleyball player was today hacked to death allegedly by a youth here in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district.

The youth hit the 16-year-old girl, Sangita Aich, with a sharp weapon several times at Natun Pukur locality here and fled, Superintendent of Police Tanmay Roychowdhury said.

Aich was taken to the hospital where doctors declared her dead on arrival.

A manhunt has been launched to nab the youth. Police suspect a love angle may be the reason behind the murder.
Belgian police carried out a major operation in Brussels today in connection with a foiled terror plot in France, police sources said, with media saying a man had been "neutralised" and reporting explosions.

A French police source said the raids in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek were related to the arrest of 34-year-old Reda Kriket in Paris yesterday, who was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment.

Police had completely sealed off the area in the Schaerbeek district, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Schaerbeek is where police found a bomb factory after the Brussels airport and metro suicide attacks on Tuesday and from where the three airport attackers set off that morning.

Belgian public broadcaster RTBF reported that a man with a backpack had been "neutralised" after refusing to obey police orders but there was no immediate confirmation by officials.

Two explosions were heard during the operation and bomb disposal experts were on site, reports said.

The latest raid forced Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders to cancel a wreath-laying ceremony with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry at the airport, an AFP reporter travelling with Kerry said.

During a series of raids in Schaerbeek on Tuesday night police found 15 kilos of high explosive, bomb-making chemicals and an Islamic State group flag.
The Human Rights Commission on Friday raised serious concern over action against the Hyderabad Central University students and issued notices to the top Union HRD ministry and Telangana government officials.

The commission observed that the arbitrary act and high handedness of senior university officials, police and administrative officers, as reported in media, raise serious concerns towards safety and security of the students.

NHRC issued the notices taking suo motu cognizance of reports that there is an emergency like situation in the Hyderabad University and there is no water, electricity, food, internet services and ATMs are out of order.

Reportedly, there is heavy police presence in the Campus. The university students are under immense fear and trauma due to indiscriminate arrests of about 25 students and two faculty members, it said.

Notices have been issued to the Union HRD Secretary, Telangana Chief Secretary and the Hyderabad Police Commissioner calling for reports in the matter within one week.

No one can be deprived of the basic amenities like water, food and electricity by wilful act of the State," the human rights panel said.

25 students and two faculty members of Hyderabad Central University have been arrested in connection with incidents of vandalism at the VC's lodge and stone pelting on police personnel on March 22.
Nigerian troops have freed more than 800 people held by Boko Haram Islamist fighters in multiple villages in the country's restive northeast, the army said today.

All the hostages were rescued in Borno state with 520 recovered in Kusumma village on Tuesday after a confrontation with Boko Haram fighters, and a further 309 from 11 other villages under the Islamist group's control.

"The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area," army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement, adding that 22 "terrorists" were killed.

Three Islamists were killed and one was captured alive during the second raid on the 11 villages.

Usman said items recovered included arms, axes and a motorcycle.

The military operations came on the same day that Boko Haram abducted 16 women, including two girls, in neighbouring Adamawa state.

"We received report of the kidnap of 14 women and two girls by gunmen believed to be Boko Haram insurgents near Sabon Garin Madagali village", said Adamawa state police spokesman Othman Abubakar.

Locals said the hostages were seized in the bush while fetching firewood and fishing in a nearby river under the escort of two civilian vigilantes assisting the military against the Islamist insurgents.

"When the civilian vigilantes escorting the women saw the heavily armed Boko Haram fighters advancing on them they fled, leaving the women to their fate," said Madagali resident Garba Barnabas.

Two women who escaped by jumping into the river and pretending to have drowned later returned to the village to raise the alarm, he added.

Human rights groups have said fighters have kidnapped thousands of women and young girls, including more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted from the Borno town of Chibok nearly two years ago.

At least 17,000 have been killed since Boko Haram launched an insurgency in 2009 to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

More than 2.6 million people have fled their homes since the start of the violence but some of the internally displaced have returned home after troops began a fight-back last year and recaptured territory.

A regional force involving troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin is to deploy to fight the Islamists.
Police today said that "anti-national" slogans were not raised at Pune's Fergusson College campus on Tuesday after ABVP members and a group of Ambedkarite students got into a heated argument during an informal event on 'Truth of JNU'.

The college principal R G Pardeshi had written a letter to police stating that "anti-national" slogans were raised at the event, organised by ABVP, but he later withdrew it saying the reference to such kind of sloganeering in it was a "typographical error".

"When the slogans were being shouted, our police personnel were present and according to their investigation, a total of 29 slogans were raised.

"Out of those, 14 slogans were raised by a group of students who belong to Ambedkarite Ideology Movement and 15 slogans were raised by ABVP members. None of the slogans was of anti-national in nature," a senior police official said.

Pardeshi yesterday expressed "regret" over the letter which had caused a flutter with the reference to the sloganeering during the event in presence of JNU ABVP leader Alok Singh.

In the wake of the letter, several Dalit organisations accused Pardeshi of "branding" students including Sujat Ambedkar, great-grandson of B R Ambedkar and son of former MP Prakash Ambedkar, as "anti-nationals".

On March 23, NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad was allegedly manhandled by a group of workers belonging to Bhartiya Janata Yuwa Morcha and some right-wing organisations in the college campus.

"According to our report, there were total 29 slogans raised by both the groups. ABVP raised total 15 slogans which include 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', 'Vande Mataram' and the counter group raised total 14 slogans such as 'Jai Bhim', 'Manuwad se azadi', 'RSS se azadi', 'Kanhaiya Kumar Zindabaad', 'Kitne Rohit maronge, har ghar se Rohit nikalega'.

"We then concluded a report with a note that though 29 slogans were raised, none of the slogans was 'anti-national' in nature, and submitted it (the report) to higher officials," the officer said.

He said there was no question of sending this report to the college authorities since they have already retracted on their letter, demanding police action for raising "anti-national" slogans.
Pakistan's Hindu lawmakers have asked the government to reduce holidays on Eid and use them as official off-days during Hindu religious festivals.

It was proposed by opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Hindu lawmakers Ramesh Lal and Ramesh Kumar Vankwani of ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz yesterday in the parliament.

The move followed after Sindh provincial government declared Holi a gazetted holiday.

Vankwani demanded that the federal government should declare a holiday on the occasion of Holi and Diwali - the two main Hindu festivals, Dawn reported.

"If you think that there are already too many holidays in the country, then days can be subtracted from the three to four-day long Eid holidays," he added.

He was referring to a statement by Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, who recently said on the floor of the house that Pakistan already had too many national holidays.

Surprisingly, none of the legislators from religious parties - Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam objected to Vankwani's suggestion.

Later, in his speech, Khalil George, a Christian PML-N lawmaker also supported the demands of the Hindu lawmakers.

"We do not have any problems with holidays on our festivals as Easter falls on a Sunday, while Christmas is already a holiday thanks to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birth anniversary," he said, adding, "but I do support their cause."



Jinnah's birthday on December 25 is already an official holiday in Pakistan.
Pakistan and Iran today vowed to enhance their bilateral ties, including in the energy sector, and open two more border crossings to boost trade, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived here on a landmark visit.

Rouhani, who arrived here on his maiden two-day visit, met Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and held talks on issues of mutual interest, an official statement said.

Pakistan and Iran have reaffirmed their resolve to enhance the level of bilateral cooperation in diverse fields, including trade, economy and energy, Sharif and Rouhani told reporters after their wide-ranging talks this evening.

Sharif said the two countries have decided to open two new border crossing points between the two countries to encourage trade and economic activities and facilitate people to people contacts, Radio Pakistan reported.

The new crossing points would greatly reduce the travel time and contribute towards economic integration, he hoped.

The visit has assumed significance after sanctions over Iran's controversial nuclear programme were lifted. The withdrawal of sanctions has opened new avenues for Iran to enhance its economic interaction with the rest of the world.

Sharif noted that it was his third meeting with Rouhani, which reflected the warmth and depth of bilateral ties. He said they talked about issues relating to energy, gas and export of electricity, the report said.

He said they explored the possibility of having better connectivity between Pakistan's Gwadar port and Iranian port of Chahbahar.

The Iranian leader is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising ministers, senior officials and businessmen showing his keenness to deepen the ties.

The start of construction of multi-billion dollars Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and import of 3,000 MW of electricity from Iran are on the agenda, a Pakistani official said.

"The two sides will also discuss modalities to increase trade to 5 billion dollars in the coming years," he said.

Apart from the economic cooperation, the two sides will discuss the regional security situation, with the emphasis on Saudi-led 34-nation coalition of Sunni countries to fight against terrorism, especially Islamic State.

Iran has been reportedly flustered by the move.

The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the wake of execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi is another important issue which will be discussed. Sharif has been playing a role to defuse the tension.

Officials said that the situation of Afghanistan will also be discussed.
In a new twist, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley today testified before an anti-terror court that the then Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had visited his house few weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008 to condole the death of his father.

Deposing before the court for the cross-examination on the third day, Headley also said he had nurtured a "hatred feeling" towards India since childhood after his school was bombed in 1971 during the Indo-Pak war.

The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative-turned approver in the case was being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26th December, 2008. In fact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," Headley told special Judge G A Sanap.

To another question, Headley said his father, who was a Director General with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with LeT but was not happy about it.

Asked whether it is true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai.He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.

Stating that he had nurtured a feeling of hatred towards India after his school was bombed during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, he said, "People were killed in the attack and that was one of the reasons why I had joined the LeT."



In reply to a question by the defence lawyer, the LeT terrorist said that he had told his friend Tahawwur Hussain Rana that all the nine 26/11 terrorists should be awarded Nishan-e-Haider, Pakistan's highest gallantry awards.

Rana was tried and acquitted by a US Court in the 26/11 case.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

He denied that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jehan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police Atul Kulkarni in the US before his current deposition.

Headley said it had come to his knowledge from LeT handler Sajid Mir that there had been two failed attacks in 2008 just before the 26/11 terror attacks.
A 50-year-old Pakistani man has been sentenced by Federal Court to more than three years in prison for carrying out a scheme to steal more than USD 800,000 in tax refunds.

The accused, Nisar Sahi was sentenced by US District Judge Denise Cote to 37 months in prison for stealing government funds, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said.

"For four years Sahi stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax refunds that rightfully belonged to honest, hardworking American taxpayers," he said.

According to the information to which Sahi pled guilty, from 2011 to 2015, he devised and executed a scheme to obtain false and fraudulent tax returns totalling USD 803,995 from the federal agency-Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

He carried out this scheme by preparing and submitting to the IRS federal income tax returns, using the names and social security numbers of others and directing that the refunds be sent to bank accounts and addresses that he controlled.

In addition to the prison sentence, he has been ordered to forfeit nearly USD 320,000 in ill-gotten gains, and to pay restitution to the IRS in the same amount.
Based on the directions of NHRC, police here today recorded the statement of Patel quota agitation leader Varun Patel, who had alleged police atrocities against members of his community.

In November last year, Varun, an aide of jailed quota movement spearhead Hardik Patel, had written a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the United Nations as well as some international NGOs, about alleged police atrocities and crackdown on Patel community members during the its stir for reservation and subsequent violence in Gujarat.

Based on Varun's letter, the NHRC had directed the police to take appropriate action.

He gave his statement to the officials of Bopal police station that falls under Ahmedabad Rural police.

"A few months ago, Varun had sent a letter to NHRC regarding some alleged police atrocities committed on Patel members during quota movement violence. Since Varun lives in Bopal area, NHRC directed us to take his statement today," Inspector, Bopal police station, M M Ganguly said.

In his statement, Varun demanded a free and fair inquiry into all those incidents, wherein policemen had allegedly thrashed Patels and damaged their property "without any reason" during the movement.

Talking about the development, Varun said, "In my statement, I demanded action against all those police officers who were involved in committing brutal atrocities on us during August last year. I asked police to conduct a state-wide inquiry into such incidents."



Currently, Varun is one of the conveners of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), led by Hardik Patel, which initiated the movement in August last year for the inclusion of Patel community under OBC quota for reservation in education institutes and government jobs.
The Delhi Police has arrested a man who was involved in more than 100 theft cases.

Nadeem, a resident of Ghaziabad and his associates used to target locked flats in apartments.

Police said that several cases of burglaries were reported in 2016 from the area of East district of Delhi in posh Apartments, adding that in the month of February and March this year burglary incidents were reported in several apartments in the area.

According to the police, on sustained interrogation Nadeem, who studied up to Class 5th , disclosed that he has been committing this crime for last twenty one years and has broken locks of more than 500 flats in this period.

"Nadeem and his associates would wear costly clothes mostly suits and tie. Then they target the locked flats and broke the locks and enter the flats and choose only cash and jewellery items so that the stolen items cannot be connected to them," the official said.

Police said that he was previously involved in burglary cases of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andra Pradesh, Telegana, Rajasthan and Maharasthra, adding that he was proclaimed offender in more than 17 cases of Delhi, Gurgaon and other cities in India.
The police today lathicharged BJYM workers who were marching toward the Congress Bhawan here as part of their Jan Akrosh rally to protest against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor comparing JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar with Bhagat Singh.

Lathi charge and water cannons used to stop the workers, in which about one and a half dozen of workers were injured, police said.

The rally was taken out from BJP office here towards Congress Bhawan and party vice chairman Ramveer Bhatti, Harishankar Mishra, general secretary Prem Kaushik participated in the rally.

Chandigarh BJP President Sanjay Tandon addressed the workers and stated that the act of Shashi Tharoor of Congress is highly condemnable.

"The Congress party has lost its balance...The Congress party supporting such condemnable statements in the Country... the Congress is dividing this country...The congress party is unable to see the growth and development works being done under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said.

Effigy of Shashi Tharoor was set on fire near Sector Gurudwara, police said.
Prospects of jumpstarting peace talks with the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents in Afghanistan, an embattled government in Kabul and growing suspicions of Pakistan's good intentions in facilitating such negotiations.

Even if Pakistan wanted to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, its leverage as a safe haven for the Taliban has weakened as the insurgents' southern Afghan heartland has expanded, providing them with more places to hide at home.

The Taliban were toppled in the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan and have fought against the Kabul government and NATO forces ever since. Their insurgency escalated after the end in 2014 of the US-NATO combat mission.

That pullout left inexperienced and poorly trained Afghan forces to battle insurgents largely on their own. When the Taliban launched their annual warm-weather offensive last year, Kabul responded with large-scale military operations, but the Taliban gained ground.

A report released this month by the independent Afghan Analysts Network offered a breakdown of the Helmand province, showing the Taliban in control of parts of many districts and all of other districts, with the exception of district capitals.

The AAN, based in Kabul, concluded that the Taliban have become better armed and better organised, and have established "well-equipped and mobile commando-like" units.

As a result, neighbouring Pakistan, which has acted as a traditional go-between, has lost some of its leverage over the insurgents and may no longer have the authority to bring the Taliban into the talks.

"Pakistan has derived its influence over the Taliban through the safe havens it provides to the group on its soil," said Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the US-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

"Now the Taliban are developing new sanctuaries in Afghanistan, and they may not have as much need to heed the requests of their patron," Kugelman told The Associated Press.

"In effect, if the Pakistanis come calling, the Taliban may choose not to listen, and simply keep on fighting."



A four-nation group that included Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the US launched efforts earlier this year to try to bring Afghanistan's protracted war to a negotiated end. They developed a roadmap and promised an early start to talks. Pakistan was seen as key to bringing the Taliban to the table.

But the Taliban issued a statement saying they would not participate in the talks and their new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, claimed the Taliban were winning the war and were "in a better state than at any other time."



Pakistan, which sees most foreign policy issues through the prism of its shaky relationship with nuclear archrival neighbouring India has expressed concern about India's increasing influence in Afghanistan, particularly in the field of defenCe, says Amir Rana.

Rana, of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies in Islamabad, said Pakistan first and foremost wants a peace process where its concerns are addressed.
Sri Lanka's Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has expressed opposition to a housing project in the Tamil-majority north which has been dubbed the "reconciliation village".

Yesterday during the northern provincial council sessions TNA councillor T Sarveswaran said the housing scheme was a forcible settlement of the majority Sinhalese in lands belonging to the Tamils.

The village at Kokeliya in Vavuniya district is to be opened by President Maithripala Sirisena early next month.

Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Defence Sarath Chandrasiri Withana however denied the TNA accusation.

"This is a state land not a private property," Withana said. He said 51 people were allotted pieces of land out of 81 lots of land.

"This is a true reconciliation village with both Sinhalese and Tamils. There are six families of Tamil female soldiers currently in military service," Withana said as he denied any racial discrimination in awarding lands.

Tamils are demanding the release of their lands held for military purposes throughout the 35-year civil war which ended in 2009.

Since 2015 the government has released such lands periodically as its moves to achieve national reconciliation.
Thousands of hardline Islamists today staged protests across Bangladesh against an imminent court hearing on scrapping the state religion of the Muslim-majority nation.

Constitutional changes dating back over three decades have put Bangladesh in the unusual position of being officially secular while still having Islam as a state religion.

More than 90 per cent of the population is Muslim, with Hindus and Buddhists the main minorities.

Some 7,000 activists took to the streets of capital Dhaka after Friday prayers, chanting anti-government slogans and holding banners against the controversial High Court hearing scheduled for March 27.

Earlier this month, the High Court agreed to hear a petition by secularists who have argued for decades that Islam's status as the state religion conflicts with Bangladesh's secular charter and discriminates against non-Muslims.

"We will save our religion even at the price of our blood," chanted activists of hardline group Hefazat-e-Islam.

Demonstrations were carried out in nearly all the major cities of the country including Sylhet and Barisal, with several top leaders of Hefazat threatening violence if the court moves to drop Islam as the official state religion.

"If Islam gets scrapped as our official religion, we will unleash an all-out movement even if blood is needed to be shed," said Noor Hossain Quashemi, one of the group's leaders.

"Sixty countries in the world have state religions -- why is there a problem for us to have one?" he said as he addressed thousands at the Baitul Mukarram national mosque.

The court's move threatens to exacerbate tensions between secularists and hardliners in the conservative nation, which has recently seen a spate of killings of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners.

Bangladesh was declared officially secular after a deadly liberation struggle against Pakistan in 1971.

But in 1988 the then-military ruler elevated Islam to the state religion of the South Asian country in an effort to consolidate power.

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina brought back secularism as a pillar of the constitution, but promised it would not ratify any laws that go against the central tenets of the religion.
Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) today urged the Jammu and Kashmir government to fulfil their long pending demands.

"The State government should fulfil their long pending demands and resolve the legitimate issues of the Coal mine workers", President, Centre of Indian Trade Unions, J&K(CITU) and MLA, M Y Tarigami said.

Bhartiya Coal Khan Mazdoor Union, Moughla Kalakote held a rally of coal khan workers which was attended by hundreds of people in the area.

With red flags in their hands, the workers raised slogans urging the government to fulfil their long pending demands.

Addressing the rally Tarigami said that the neo-liberal economic policies implemented since 90s have broken the back of the working class and down-trodden people across the country.

"Curtailing subsidies on the pretext of managing fiscal deficit seems absurd as the same dispensation provides incentives to the corporate and business houses in the form of tax foregone/concessions", he said.

He said working inside coal mines is both health hazardous and risky, as such, the government and the management must come forward to fulfil their long pending legitimate and genuine demands which include regularisation of casual labourers working for more than 15 years.

Tarigami also demanded that these workers be brought under the ambit of Skilled Category for payment of wages notified under Minimum Wages Act by the State Government.
Russia will deploy a range of coastal missile systems on the far-eastern Kuril islands, claimed by Japan, as part of its military build-up in the region, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said today.

"The planned rearmament of contingents and military bases on Kuril islands is under way. Already this year they will get Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems as well as new-generation Eleron-3 unmanned aerial vehicles," Shoigu said during a ministry meeting.

Russia has been investing in military infrastructure on the Kuril islands, which Japan considers its territory, over the last few years, including building new barracks for personnel.

Shoigu said at the meeting that the military is focusing on "developing military infrastructure in the Arctic and Kuril island zones."



Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been strained for decades because of the status of the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

The Russian navy's Pacific fleet next month will embark on a three-month mission to the Kurils to explore whether the islands could serve as a naval base as well.

This year and next year Russia is set to put up more than 350 buildings for military needs on the Kuril islands of Iturup and Kunashir, called Etorofu and Kunashiri in Japan.

Some 19,000 Russians live on the remote rocky islands, which were occupied by Soviet troops in the dying days of World War II.

The two countries have never officially struck a peace treaty and the lingering tensions over the issue have hampered trade ties for decades.
A Saudi journalist has been sentenced to five years in prison over tweets deemed insulting to the kingdom's rulers, Amnesty International said today.

Alaa Brinji, who has reportedly already served two years behind bars, was found guilty yesterday of a list of charges including "insulting the rulers (and) inciting public opinion," the rights group said in a statement.

Brinji was also convicted of "accusing security officers of killing protesters" in the Shiite town of Awamiya in Saudi's restive Eastern Province, it added.

The group said the journalist had been tried in a "notorious" counter-terrorism court that also found Brinji guilty of "ridiculing Islamic religious figures".

In addition to the jail term, Brinji has been slapped with a fine of 50,000 riyals (USD 13,333) and an eight-year travel ban, it said, pointing out that he has been in detention since May 2014, including an initial period of incommunicado solitary confinement.

Amnesty's regional deputy head James Lynch slammed Brinji's sentence as "utterly shameful".

"He is the latest victim of Saudi Arabia's ruthless crackdown on peaceful dissent, where the aim appears to be to completely wipe out any and all voices of criticism," he said.

"Putting someone behind bars for peacefully exercising his legitimate right to freedom of expression, and defending the rights of others to do so, is a complete distortion of the very notion of justice.

"The authorities must ensure his conviction is quashed and release him immediately and unconditionally," Lynch added, insisting that Saudi Arabia "must be held accountable for its gross and systematic violations of human rights."



Amnesty said Brinji worked for Saudi newspapers Al-Bilad, Okaz and Al-Sharq.

Awamiya, a town of about 30,000 in Eastern Province, has been the scene of repeated incidents since 2011.
With the exact cause of south indian actor Kalabhavan Mani's death still eluding investigating officers, Kerala DGP T P Senkumar today said scientific probe would be needed to unravel the mystery.

"The investigation is going on in the right direction. There is no need to come to any conclusion hurriedly. We need to go about it in a scientific manner. We will go by it scientifically," the DGP told reporters here after holding talks with the investigation officers regarding the progress of the case.

The official also visited Mani's outhouse, Padi, from where he was brought in a serious condition to the AIMS hospital at Kochi on March 5, a day prior to his death.

Senkumar also visited Mani's residence and met the actor's family members.

45-year-old Mani, who had carved a niche for himself in the Malayalam and Tamil film industry, was undergoing treatment for liver and kidney diseases at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences for some time before he died on March 6.

Police had registered a case of unnatural death after AIMS doctors said that traces of methyl alcohol were found in his blood.

The viscera samples of the actor, examined at the regional chemical examiner's laboratory at Kakkanad in Kochi had revealed presence of a dangerous insecticide 'Chlorpyrifos'.

Members of Mani's family, including his wife Nimmi and brother RLV Ramakrishnan, had raised suspicion about the involvement of his friends and aides in his mysterious death.
The Security Council called today for the UN mission in Western Sahara to resume working at "full capacity," in its first statement following a dispute between Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Morocco.

The United Nations said Tuesday it closed its military liaison office in Dakhla, Western Sahara at the request of Morocco, which was angered when Ban referred to the "occupation" of the disputed territory.

The 15 Security Council member states, while refraining from taking sides in the dispute, stressed "the importance of addressing in a constructive, comprehensive and cooperative manner the circumstances that led to the current situation so that MINUSRO may resume its full capacity to carry out its mandate."



Angolan Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins, who is serving as Security Council president for the month of March, relayed the statement to the press after three hours of closed-door consultations.

Ban made the "occupation" remark early this month during a visit to a Sahrawi refugee camp in Algeria.

Morocco on Sunday expelled most of the civilian experts attached to the UN mission and have also closed the military liaison office.

According to the UN, the retaliatory measures are of grave risk to the mission, which has about 500 civilian and military personnel and was established in 1991.

Ban's comments crossed a red line for Morocco, which considers the former Spanish territory, which it annexed in 1975, as an integral part of the country, proposing self-government for the region under Moroccan sovereignty.

Gaspar Martins said Security Council members "expressed their serious concerns about the developments" and emphasized that the world body's 16 peacekeeping missions across the globe are meant to carry out critical tasks to maintain international peace and security.

Ahmed Boukhari, the representative at the United Nations of the Polisario Front, which is campaigning for independence for Western Sahara, welcomed the call for a return to full capacity.

"But we were waiting for a stronger message to the Moroccans," he said, calling Rabat the primary agitator in the episode.

"The Security Council should have taken a stronger stance," he added.

A UN official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity Wednesday said that Morocco's actions were seen "as an unprecedented violation of the UN charter... And a direct challenge to the Security Council."



A 1991 ceasefire ended the war that broke out when Morocco deployed its military in the territory in 1975.

But UN-led mediation efforts under way since 2007 to try to define the territory's status are at an impasse.
Serbia's government today criticised the "selective" justice of the UN war crimes tribunal that handed a genocide conviction and 40-year sentence to wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Reading out a statement following a government meeting on yesterday's ruling, Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic suggested the work of the Hague-based court over the years was biased against Serbs and had left a "bitter taste".

"All justice that leads to the conviction of one people for crimes that were committed by everyone is selective," said Selakovic.

He added, however, that Serbia "must cooperate with" the tribunal and stressed he could not comment on specific verdicts.

UN judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found wartime Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic guilty on 10 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Bosnia's 1990s inter-ethnic conflict.

He is the highest-profile figure to be convicted over the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart, with several others dying before they could face justice, and many Serbs believe the court has unfairly targeted them.

The statement followed one from Serbia's traditional ally Russia, whose deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov also accused UN war crimes judges of bias and said Karadzic's verdict was "politicised".

In Belgrade yesterday after the sentencing, up to 5,000 ultranationalists briefly broke out in chants of "Radovan Karadzic!" during a pre-election rally against the government, which also took aim at the tribunal.

The rally and verdict came on a politically-sensitive day for Belgrade -- the 17th anniversary of NATO launching a bombing campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo war.

At a memorial for victims of the bombing and again after the verdict, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic warned against attacks on Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, which was founded by Karadzic.

But Vucic, a former ultranationalist who now takes a staunchly pro-European stance, uncharacteristically did not address the press himself after today's meeting.

Karadzic was convicted of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed and their bodies dumped in mass graves by Bosnian Serb forces.

The 70-year-old will receive credit for time already spent in detention since 2008, and women in Srebrenica widowed by the slaughter slammed yesterday's sentence as "inadequate".
At least seven persons, including three teenagers, drowned in Narmada and Sabarmati rivers in two separate incidents in Gujarat today.

With this, the total number of people, who drowned has now gone up to 15 in the last two days.

In the first incident, bodies of four persons, including a youngster and three teenage boys, who had gone to take a dip in Narmada river last evening, were found early this morning, said police.

The victims were identified as Sachin Bariya (24), Sanjay Bariya 0(18), Rahul Jayswal (16) and Rahul Machhi (18), all residents of Gayatrinagar area of Vadodara city.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) of Rajpipla town in Narmada district Manoharsinh Jadeja, these four friends came to take a dip in the river yesterday evening after playing Holi.

"However, they went missing in the deep water since last night. Their bodies were found near Murlidhar Sangam early today morning," Jadeja said adding that the bodies were handed over to their families in Vadodara after a case of accidental death was registered.

In a similar incident, three youngsters of Kubernagar area of the city drowned in Sabarmati river passing from Karai village on the city outskirts this afternoon.

They were identified as Dhashrath (21), Natwar (20) and Vikram (21).

According to city fire control room, a total of five persons had entered the river to take bath during afternoon.

"When they started drowning, two of them were pulled out of water by the locals, while three others could not be saved. Our team fished out their bodies and informed the police for further action," a control room official said.

Yesterday, eight persons, including four teenage boys, had drowned at various places while taking bath in canals or ponds after playing Holi, also called Dhuleti, in the state.
Shakespeare's skull appears to be missing, a British archaeologist has claimed using new scanning technology, giving new credence to a centuries-old tale that grave robbers stole the English playwright's skull from its burial place.

Radar scans of Shakespeare's tomb have led experts to conclude his skull appears to be missing, and was probably stolen in the 18th century.

"This is the first archaeological investigation ever of Shakespeare's burial, and what we found was quite surprising," Kevin Colls, the archaeologist who led the study, said ahead of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death next month.

Using radar scans, the team found "an odd disturbance at the head end" of the grave, he said.

"Our equipment could identify a change of material in the burial," said Colls, adding that the discovery suggested this foreign material was used to repair damage of the grave.

Colls said that the findings matched several details of a robbery story published in British magazine, Argosy, in 1879.

According to the magazine, almost a century earlier in 1794 grave robbers stole Shakespeare's head from the Holy Trinity church in Stratford-upon-Avon.

"It is very likely to me that the skull is not there," Colls was quoted as saying by CNN.

Apparently, the inscription on Shakespeare's grave stone, which has no name on it, was not enough to keep tomb raiders away.

Part of the inscription on Shakespeare's grave reads: "Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones."



It is not surprising that grave robbers targeted Shakespeare's final resting place, according to Colls.

"At the time, stealing skulls from graves was common practice," he said.

People wanted the skulls of geniuses and famous people to analyze them and trying to figure out what made them special, the researcher explained. Or they were simply trophy hunters looking for money.

The underground investigation also debunked several myths surrounding the burial. According to one of them, Shakespeare was buried in a vertical position, while another claims he rested 17ft beneath the surface.

Yet another story claims the playwright was buried in a vault along with wife Anne Hathaway and other family members. "None of them is true," Colls said.

Instead, Shakespeare is buried in a simple and shallow tomb, about one meter deep, and probably wrapped in a shroud, say scientists.

Next to him, some family members, including his wife, rest.

Although conceding that the evidence is not conclusive, he believes the skull was taken from the church.

"William's skulls is still out there," he said. "And we are going after it," he added.

Shakespeare, 52, died on April 23, 1616.
Six people were arrested in a series of police raids in Brussels, federal prosecutors said, two days after jihadist attacks in the Belgian capital left 31 dead.

The arrests come as Belgian ministers under fire for intelligence failings over Tuesday's Islamic State-claimed suicide blasts admitted "errors" and offered to quit.

Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept the resignations of the interior and justice ministers, who have been severely criticised for allowing the attackers -- at least three of whom were known to authorities -- to slip through the net.

Hundreds of people gathered late into the night at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels to mourn the victims of the suicide attacks on the city's airport and metro on Tuesday.

"Our love for Brussels is stronger than terror," read a banner held by a young couple.

Led by King Philippe, Belgians also observed a minute of silence on the third and final day of mourning for the 31 people killed and 300 injured in attacks.

Harrowing new footage of the moments after the Zaventem airport attack meanwhile emerged on Belgian television, showing a lone baby left crying in the wreckage next to the lifeless body of a woman.

With criticism growing that international authorities failed to follow links between Tuesday's bombings and the attacks on France in November, key Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam insisted he was unaware of plans to strike the Belgian capital.

Police arrested Abdeslam in Brussels on Friday, after he spent four months on the run as the last surviving member of the group that killed 130 people in Paris.

Abdeslam's lawyer Sven Mary said Thursday his client now did not want to fight extradition to Paris and insisted he "didn't know" in advance about the Brussels attacks.

But Belgium is reeling from revelations that three of the Brussels attackers -- including Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother Khalid, who bombed Maalbeek metro station -- were known to police and had strong links to Abdeslam.

Interior minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens both tendered their resignations over the claims that Ibrahim El Bakraoui had slipped through the net despite being arrested by Turkey near the Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands.

"There were errors at Justice and with the (Belgian) liaison officer in Turkey," Jambon was quoted as telling the Le Soir daily.

Prosecutors meanwhile confirmed that Khalid El Bakraoui was the subject of an international warrant for terrorism in relation to the Paris attacks and had rented out a flat used by the Paris cell in the Belgian city of Charleroi.
Concerned over increasing numbers of 'unapproved e-rickshaws' on the capital's roads, the Transport department has decided to launch a special drive against "illegal dealers" selling such vehicles and register FIR against them.

A senior government official said that unapproved e-rickshaws by unauthorised dealers often cause a threat to life of commuters as well as road users in the national capital.

The decision was taken after one representative of e-rickshaw association raised the issue of sale of unapproved e-rickshaws by some unauthorised dealers in a meeting with Transport minister Gopal Rai earlier this month.

"All the Motor Licensing Officers (MLOs) have been directed to launch a special drive against the unauthorised dealers selling e-rickshaws and take appropriate action including filing of complaints with the Delhi Police for lodging FIR against them," the official said.

Official further said that MLOs have also been asked to check the motor vehicle dealers in their jurisdiction and take action against unauthorised vehicle show-rooms as per Motor Vehicles Act/Rules.

Last month, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had launched a subsidy scheme for e-rickshaws under which the Delhi government would provide Rs 30,000 to drivers as financial assistance for retrofitting and registration of the vehicles.

According to the scheme, government would give financial assistance of Rs 30,000 to those e-rickshaw drivers who are yet to register their old vehicles after retrofitting as per norms of the Transport department.
Railways has witnessed an increase in theft cases as 21,688 thefts were reported in running trains and at platforms in 2015 as compared to 16,798 such incidents in 2014.

Theft of passengers' baggages in trains and at platforms continued unabated in the current year also with total 3583 such cases reported upto February 2016, according to Railway Ministry data.

While 2489 theft cases were reported in running trains, 1094 cases happened at platforms in the current year.

Policing being a state subject, prevention of crime, registration of cases, their investigation and maintenance of law and order at railway premises as well as on running trains are the statutory responsibility of state governments, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

State governments carry out their responsibilities through Government Railway Police (GRP). However, Railway Protection Force (RPF) supplements the efforts of the GRP to provide security to passengers by deploying its staff for escorting of important trains in affected areas and access control duties at important and sensitive stations.

In order to prevent such cases, railways have undertaken a series of measures to strengthen security of passengers and their baggages.

Railways have identified vulnerable routes and trains prone to such incidents and have deployed RPF personnel in those areas.

Regular drives are conducted against unauthorised passengers entering railway premises by RPF.

Currently 2300 trains are escorted by RPF in addition to 2200 trains escorted by GRP on daily basis.

An integrated security system consisting of surveillance of vulnerable stations through close circuit television camera network, access control system, have been sanctioned to improve surveillance mechanism over 202 stations.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan today began shooting with actress Sunny Leone for an item song for his coming film "Raees".

Shah Rukh, 50, is shaking a leg with Sunny in a reprise version of the 1980 chartbuster "Laila O Laila" from the film "Qurbaani". The original track featured Feroz Khan and Zeenat Amaan.

A special set has been created here at Mehboob studio.

"It's a dance track, an item number which is part of the film and not an end-credit song. The set is that of an old retro bar. The situation is that it is a bar where they are selling alcohol in the pretext of selling cold drinks. That is where Sunny is dancing," a source from the set told PTI.

Directed by Rahul Dholakia, "Raees" is set in 1980s Gujarat. It tells the story of bootlegger Raees Khan (Shah Rukh) whose business is challenged and eventually thwarted by a police officer played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

"The song will be shot for four days. Right now Shah Rukh's entry shot will be filmed. There are 50 junior artists and 20 dancers," the source said.

Recently, Leone's face-off with a journalist on a talk show won her lot of praises. Everyone from Anushka Sharma to Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt took a stand for the actress. Superstar Aamir Khan expressed his desire to work with her.

This will be the first time Leone will be sharing the screen space with a superstar, after her cameo in Akshay Kumar's "Singh is Bliing" last year.

Leone, 34, has previously shot for items songs in films like "Hate Story 2" ('Pink Lips) and "Shootout at Wadala" ('Laila').

"Raees", which also stars Pakistani actress Mahira Khan, is produced by Gauri Khan, Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar. The film is scheduled to release this Eid.
Belgian police carrying out a fresh anti-terrorist operation today arrested a suspect, who suffered a slight injury, Schaerbeek Mayor Bernard Clerfayt said.

"I can confirm a police operation targeting a person who was intercepted by police and suffered a slight leg injury," the local official told AFP.

He added there had been several small explosions linked to bomb disposal work.

Police sources said the operation was connected to a foiled terror plot in France.

Amateur video footage on social media shot from an upper storey window shows a man lying by a tram station holding a small backpack.

After being screened by a bomb disposal robot, hooded police grab his legs and drag him away.

A French police source said the raid in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek was related to the arrest of 34-year-old Reda Kriket in Paris yesterday, who was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment.

Kriket was sentenced in absentia by a Belgian court in February for his connection to a terror network in Brussels and linked to recruiter Khalid Zerkani.

Police had completely sealed off the area in the Schaerbeek district, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Schaerbeek is where police found a bomb factory after the Brussels airport and metro suicide attacks on Tuesday and from where the three airport attackers set off that morning.
Alleging that the Union and Telangana Governments have adopted a "dictatorial" attitude towards students of Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Telangana Congress president N Uttamkumar Reddy today demanded unconditional release of students arrested recently.

Reddy, who called on the students and teachers arrested in connection with the recent alleged attack on VC's office in HCU, at the Cherlapally Prison here alleged that the Centre and state governments were playing with the lives of the students.

"It is undemocratic to allow Appa Rao Podile to take charge as the Vice Chancellor and to indulge in lathicharge on protesting students," he claimed.

"The actions of the NDA Government at the Centre and TRS Government in Telangana showed their attitude towards Dalit and Bahujans," he said.

He demanded the arrest of Appa Rao Podile, against whom an SC and ST Atrocities Act has been registered, and restoring peace in the university.

AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has also expressed solidarity with the protesting students.
Three members of a family were killed today and seven others injured after the mini van they were travelling in collided with a truck in Chhattisgarh's Korba district, police said.

"The incident occurred at Tara Ghati under Bango police station limits on Korba-Ambikapur Road when the victims, hailing from Surta village of neighbouring Surguja district, were headed towards Wagbuda village for a family function," Korba Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra said.

A total of 13 people, including the driver, were in the vehicle at the time of the accident.

"When they reached Tara Ghati, their vehicle collided with the truck, leaving three people including a woman dead on the spot," he said, adding police got the injured persons admitted to a local hospital.

The deceased included a man, his son, and a woman. Efforts are on to ascertain their identities.

A case has been registered in this connection, the SP said, adding that a manhunt has been launched to trace the truck driver who fled after the mishap.
Sector regulator Trai has asked the Department of Telecom to roll out comprehensive communications network at Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep even if the cost is higher than estimated as these islands are of "immense strategic importance".

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in July 2014 had recommended a comprehensive plan for improving telecom services in ANI and Lakshadweep island with an outlay of about Rs 2,900 crore.

The DoT in a detailed project report prepared by state-run BSNL found two of the components, satellite capacity increase in Lakshadweep and optical fibre connectivity within ANI, suggested by the regulator are costing about double the amount computed by Trai and hence sought its view on the estimates.

Trai in its reply said the estimation of the investment required was done by the it on the basis of costs data inputs provided by the telecom operators including BSNL and based on certain valid assumptions.

"The authority does not have any other source to examine the item-wise costs mentioned in the DPR. Moreover, preparing or vetting Detailed Project Report is not a function of TRAI. It is for DoT to take a decision on the matter," Trai said.

The regulator said it has been almost 20 months since the recommendations were made in July 2014 and costs and need for replacement of infrastructure may vary with time.

Trai in its recommendation laid primary importance of connecting these islands through undersea cable which is dependent on connectivity from satellite only for telecom services.

The regulator said decision about the cost of project based on factors such as the availability and suitability of existing telecom infrastructure, their residual life etc can be taken by DoT.

"... Keeping in view that the broad objectives outlined by the Authority in its recommendations on the Comprehensive Telecom Plan of ANI and Lakshadweep are fulfilled even if the estimated costs of the project(s) is somewhat more than the costs estimated by the Authority," Trai said.

The regulator has recommended that besides connecting these regions with cables, satellite connectivity should be retained in parts of both of these union territories.

In Andaman and Nicobar Island (ANI) 29 out of 576 islands are inhabited and 90 per cent of the population lives in three islands - North, Middle and South Andaman Islands alone. In Lakshadweep, 11 out of 36 are inhabited and 10 of the inhabited islands have population above 100.

For Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the regulator has suggested connecting 22 islands, which included 18 islands with population of above 100 and four islands which have presence of police, forest camps and tourists.

For Lakshadweep, the regulator has factored connectivity at 10 inhabited villages.

The islands are a part of the West Bengal service area and Lakshadweep is a part of the Kerala circle.

In Andaman & Nicobar Islands, four telecom operators - BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance - have launched services. In Lakshadweep, only BSNL and Airtel (partly) have launched services.

While in the rest of West Bengal and Kerala service areas there are eight telecom operators.

BSNL led the wireline broadband market with a customer



base of 9.84 million at the end of August, followed by Bharti Airtel (1.91 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (1.09 million), MTNL (1.07 million) and YOU Broadband (0.57 million).

Bharti Airtel dominated wireless or mobile broadband market with customer base of 43.44 million followed by Vodafone with 35 million customers, Idea 29.58 million, RCom 15.13 million and BSNL 11.20 million.

In August, a total of 5.13 million mobile subscribers submitted their applications for mobile number portability (MNP), taking the cumulative MNP requests to 234.47 million since its implementation.
Three suicide bombings struck checkpoints of Yemeni loyalist forces in Aden on Friday, killing 22 people, including 10 civilians, a security official said.

Two bombs went off simultaneously at separate checkpoints in Shaab district, on Aden's western outskirts, before gunmen attacked a nearby base of the Saudi-led military coalition, the official said.

Apache helicopters belonging to the coalition attacked positions of gunmen in the surrounding area as fighters attempted to advance toward the base.

A third explosive device planted in an ambulance was detonated at a checkpoint near Mansura, in central Aden, the official said.
Senior TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi today suggested that his party MPs purportedly seen accepting money from a fictitious company in a sting operation, should "sit at home till the time they come out clean" from charges levelled against them.

Speaking during a panel discussion, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Trivedi though maintained that party's 'top and bottom', TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and grass-root workers respectively, are "absolutely okay".

"They (the MPs) should, let's say if I were the president of the party, I would have just said you come out clean and tell us what it is. And till time you are clear, you sit at home," Trivedi said when asked if the TMC MPs accused of accepting money be thrown out of party.

The former Union Minister further said that the accused party leaders, comprising MPs and MLAs, should ask for a probe in the matter if they felt they have "not done anything".

The ex-Railway Minister also stated "he cannot vouch for his party, but himself" and stated that his honesty "even the God cannot challenge".

He added that the grass-root of the party "is honest".

Trivedi did not comment on the authenticity of the video clips, saying the matter is subjudice.
Two Turkish journalists went on trial in Istanbul today facing possible life terms on hugely controversial espionage charges, with the court immediately banning the public from a case seen as a test of press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of leading opposition daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, his Ankara bureau chief, are charged with espionage and revealing state secrets over a story accusing the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms to rebels in Syria.

The judge today ordered the trial to be held behind closed doors, granting a request by the prosecution which cited security concerns around the highly controversial case.

Around 200 supporters chanting "You will not silence press freedom" applauded the reporters as they arrived at the courthouse for the start of the trial.

"We are here to defend journalism," Dundar, 54, told reporters. "We will defend journalism and the right of the public to be told the truth."



Cumhuriyet's report sparked a furore when it was published in May, fuelling speculation about Turkey's role in the Syrian conflict and its alleged ties to Islamist groups in the country.

Erdogan reacted furiously to the allegations, personally warning Dundar he would "pay a heavy price".

Dundar and Gul were arrested in November and held in pre-trial detention for three months before being released in February on the orders of the Constitutional Court, which ruled their right to free speech had been violated.

The Court is one of the last Turkish institutions not under the full control of Erdogan who can call on the support of the army, government and parliament.

Dundar said he and Gul had found themselves "caught between two palaces: the palace of justice and the palace of illegality," referring to the lavish, 1,150-room presidential complex in Ankara which Erdogan had built at a cost of $615 million.

"The palace of justice, in following the decision of the Constitutional Court, released us, but the palace of illegality has done everything in its power to put us back in prison," Dundar said before going into court.

"We will see which of the two... Emerges victorious."



Gul said he had come to show that journalism "is not a crime".

"The Constitutional Court has recognised that what we did came under the practice of journalism," he said.

The prosecution of the journalists has sparked outrage among opposition and rights groups in Turkey as well as in the West, where it is seen as proof of Erdogan's determination to silence his opponents.

The prosecution has asked that Dundar and Gul be given two life terms and 30 additional years.

In a sign of the sensitivity of the case, several EU consuls to Istanbul attended the proceedings.
The humble turmeric, an essential ingredient in Indian curries, may help fight drug-resistant tuberculosis, a new study has claimed.

In Asia, turmeric is used to treat many health conditions and it has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and perhaps even anticancer properties, researchers said.

They found that by stimulating human immune cells called macrophages, a substance in Turmeric, curcumin, was able to successfully remove Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative bacterium of tuberculosis, from experimentally infected cells in culture.

The process relied on inhibiting the activation of a cellular molecule called nuclear factor-kappa B.

"Our study has provided basic evidence that curcumin protects against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in human cells," said Dr Xiyuan Bai, from the University of Colorado, Denver.

The ability of curcumin to modulate the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis points to a potential new tuberculosis treatment that would be less prone to the development of drug resistance.

"The protective role of curcumin to fight drug-resistant tuberculosis still needs confirmation, but if validated, curcumin may become a novel treatment to modulate the host immune response to overcome drug-resistant tuberculosis," said Xiyuan, lead author of the study published in the journal Respirology.
Twelve people were killed when the minibus they were travelling in collided with a heavy in Allier, central France, local authorities said.

The minibus was travelling from Switzerland to Portugal when the accident happened just before midnight.

"The twelve passengers of the minibus, who were all Portuguese, are dead," a statement from the local authority said.

The minibus had swerved into the path of oncoming traffic and collided head-on with the truck.

The driver of the minibus and the two Italian drivers of the truck survived the crash but were injured, the local authority said.

A local village hall was being used as a temporary morgue.

The road was closed following the accident, and was expected to remain shut until 6:00 am today.
Two foreigners have been arrested in China after over 60 kg of narcotic plants were found in their mail packages from Ethiopia.

On March 4, Dalian customs found seven mail boxes containing more than 60 kg of khat leaves, which contain amphetamine-like stimulant. It is illegal to plant, possess, sell or consume khat in China.

Addresses on the mail boxes showed the leaves were sent from Ethiopia to a university dormitory in Dalian, but they provided no details about the sender or receiver, the Dalian customs office said in a statement.

Local authorities have detained two foreign suspects, it added without giving details, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

In a separate case, south China's Guangdong Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau found 400 grams of dried cannabis in an e-commerce package from the US on February 25.

An inspector using an X-ray machine noticed it under a layer of black tea in the package, a statement from the bureau said.

It was the first time the cannabis strain indica had been found in a foreign e-commerce package.

Local authorities detained a suspect in early March and closed the e-commerce account used to import the cannabis, the bureau said.
The imam of one of Britain's biggest mosques has praised a religious extremist in Pakistan who was recently executed for murdering liberal politician Salman Taseer, triggering a controversy.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of the Glasgow Central Mosque - the largest in Scotland - supported killer Mumtaz Qadri in a series of WhatsApp messages, the BBC reported today.

Qadri, a former police commando, was hanged on February 29 after he gunned down Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws.

Qadri was working as a bodyguard for Taseer when he pulled out a gun and shot him 28 times in 2011 in broad daylight in an upmarket locality of Islamabad.

Pakistan has some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, which can carry a potential death sentence for those judged to have insulted the Islam.

The imam's messages, seen by the BBC, detail how he was "disturbed" to hear of his death and gave him the religious blessing usually reserved for devout Muslims.

The imam said he was "disturbed" and "upset" before he wrote the messages, seeking God's mercy be upon Qadri.

In another message, he wrote: "I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out."



Later, the imam claimed the messages were taken out of context and that he was expressing his opposition to capital punishment in Pakistan.

He told the BBC: "The assassination of Salman Taseer is widely condemned.

"Whether I agree or disagree with the views he expressed, as an Imam and as a human being I express abhorrence at the manner in which he was executed.

"The execution was not in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles."



He said: "Mumtaz Qadri's execution is condemned as it is not in accordance with due process nor is it in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

"Capital punishment on this particular occasion was inappropriate and any expressions of sympathy or compassion are extended in my capacity as a private individual and not in any professional or public capacity," The Daily Record quoted him as saying.

Reacting to the imam's remarks, lawyer and activist Aamer Anwar accused the religous leader, who condemned the Brussels bombings, of "rank hypocrisy".

He told BBC Scotland many people within the community were scared the views would "filter down the Muslim community and radicalise our children".
The world needs to do more to prevent "nuclear terrorism", the head of the UN atomic watchdog has warned ahead of an important summit and in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks.

"Terrorism is spreading and the possibility of using nuclear material cannot be excluded," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano told AFP in an interview late yesterday.

"Member states need to have sustained interest in strengthening nuclear security," he said. "The countries which do not recognise the danger of nuclear terrorism is the biggest problem."



Amano's comments came before a summit of around 50 leaders in Washington on March 31-April 1 on ensuring that nuclear material in the world's roughly 1,000 atomic facilities are secured.

Highlighting the risks, in December Belgian police investigating the November 13 Paris terror attacks found 10 hours of video of the comings and goings of a senior Belgian nuclear official.

The material, filmed by a camera in bushes outside the official's home, was reportedly found at the property of Mohamed Bakkali, incarcerated in Belgium for his links to the Paris attackers.

One Belgian newspaper reported that the device was collected by none other than brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui -- two of the suicide bombers in this week's Brussels attacks.

The Washington summit is part of a process begun by US President Barack Obama in a speech in Prague in 2009 and follows similar gatherings in Seoul in 2012 and The Hague in 2014.

Major progress has been made, with countries reducing stockpiles of nuclear material, experts say. Japan for example is this month returning to the US enough plutonium to make 50 nuclear bombs.

But according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium still exist to make 20,000 weapons of the magnitude that levelled Hiroshima in 1945.

A grapefruit-sized amount of plutonium can be fashioned into a nuclear weapon, and according to Amano it is "not impossible" that extremists could manage to make a "primitive" device -- if they got hold of the material.

"It is now an old technology and nowadays terrorists have the means, the knowledge and the information," he said.

But he said that a far likelier risk was a "dirty bomb".

This is a device using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material other than uranium or plutonium.

Such material can be found in small quantities in universities, hospitals and other facilities the world over, often with little security.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon today appealed for an end to war and violence in Syria and the region, as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Lebanon.

"The United Nations will spare no effort in seeking to put an end to the conflict in Syria and to reach a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East," Ban told reporters at a conference in Beirut.

"This is a critical time for the region. It is time to stop the violence and end injustice, to give people the opportunities they deserve to build a better life," he added.

Syria's five-year conflict has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes, with neighbouring countries bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis.

Lebanon is home to the highest percentage of refugees per capita in the world.

Nearly 1.2 million Syrians are now living in Lebanon, while more than 450,000 Palestinian refugees are also registered with the UN, though experts believe the number of Palestinians in the tiny country is actually lower.

Ban's remarks came after meetings with Lebanese officials and a visit with World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim and Islamic Development Bank head Ahmad al-Madani to northern Lebanon.

Ban spoke with two Syrian refugee families living in squalid conditions in a poor neighbourhood of the city of Tripoli.

Reconstruction efforts have since been hampered by funding shortfalls.

In Beirut, Ban commended Lebanon for remaining "a vital example to the region of coexistence and pluralism".

He urged a speedy end to the political crisis in the country, whose leaders have failed to elect a new president since May 2014.

"The people of this country need their party leaders to work with the prime minister (Tammam Salam) so that the government can respond to their needs," Ban said.

"Most of all, they need the political parties to elect a president. As long as the vacancy of the presidency persists, national unity and Lebanon's standing will remain fragile and incomplete.
The United Nations condemned today the "gruesome" killing of a wounded Palestinian assailant by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank, after a video of the death spread widely online.

"I strongly condemn yesterday's apparent extra-judicial execution of a Palestinian assailant in Hebron in the occupied West Bank," UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement.

"This was a gruesome, immoral and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation."



He welcomed, however, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon's condemnation of the incident and called on the Israeli authorities to "swiftly bring to justice" the alleged perpetrator.

The Israeli army yesterday arrested a soldier caught on video shooting a wounded Palestinian assailant in the head as he lay on the ground after stabbing another soldier, his knife lying beyond his reach.

The clip, which was widely shared online and shown by state-owned and commercial Israeli TV channels, shows what appears to be one of the most flagrant cases of Israeli forces' alleged use of excessive force so far in the wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted in October.

The incident was immediately condemned as an "execution" by Israeli rights group B'Tselem and as a "war crime" by Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the soldier's behaviour was not in keeping with the army's values and Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon vowed that the incident was being treated with "utmost severity".

The incident also fired up Israeli politicians and added heat to the debate over Israeli forces' response to the current wave of violence which has left 200 Palestinians and 28 Israelis dead.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

But the Israelis have also been accused of using excessive force in some cases, charges which they have firmly denied.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the far-right Jewish Home party, said criticism of the soldier involved in yesterday's killing was damaging to the country.

"The attacks on a soldier who protects all of us before the investigation has even started harms the military, harms Israel's standing in the world, and is harmful towards our attempts to thwart future attacks," he said in a statement.

Former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman also defended the shooting, saying it was "hypocritical and unfair to gang up against the soldier."



"Better a soldier who makes a mistake but stays alive than a soldier who gets killed by a terrorist because he hesitated," he said.
The BJP Uttar Pradesh unit state executive meeting would be held on April 1, a party spokesman said here today.

"A meeting of state office-bearers will be held on March 31, followed by executive meeting on April 1," BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.
The ruling Samajwadi Party today released its first list of 143 candidates for the 2017 Assembly polls.

"The party is declaring candidates for 143 seats. On these seats, the party does not have MLAs at present," SP spokesman Shivpal Singh Yadav told reporters here.

The list includes 27 candidates from Muslim community, 18 from Yadav and 12 women, besides others. The state has 403 seats in total.

"The tickets were declared early so that the candidates could get more time for preparation. Of the 143 seats, 21 are reserved," the spokesperson said.

Among those who were given tickets included Umar Ali Khan, son-in-law of Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmad Bukhari, from Behat seat, sitting Peace Party MLA Anis-ur-Rehman from Kanth while Independent MLA Vijay Singh has been given a ticket from Farukhabad seat.

From Lucknow east, party has fielded Shweta Singh, who is also the state president of SP women's wing.

When asked about Azam Khan's comments on Governor Ram Naik in the Assembly, Shivpal said that he (Governor) was holding a constitutional post and should avoid meddling in such issues.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's President Vladimir Putin agreed to intensify the drive for a political settlement in Syria but remained divided over Bashar al-Assad's future.

After four hours of talks at the Kremlin yesterday, Kerry said the United States and Russia had found common ground on the Syrian peace process and on taking the fight to the Islamic State jihadist group.

Before the meeting, US officials had suggested he would sound out the Russian leader about pressuring his ally Assad to step aside as part of the political solution, but afterwards little of this was said.

Kerry noted that Putin had begun to withdraw the Russian forces that had been sent to shore up Assad's rule, and had renewed Russia's commitment to the political process under way at UN-mediated peace talks in Geneva.

"Russia will have to speak for itself as what it's going to choose to do in order to help Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today... That we will try to accelerate the effort to move the political process forward," he said.

"We agreed on a target schedule for establishing a framework for a political transition and also a draft constitution, and the target is August," Kerry said at a joint conference with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the talks.

Lavrov told journalists that Moscow and Washington would now step up efforts to get the Syrian regime and opposition to hold "direct talks" in Geneva, where a round of negotiations that saw a United Nations mediator shuttle between the delegations concluded yesterday.

"As the immediate task we have agreed to push for the soonest start of direct talks between the government delegation and the whole spectrum of the opposition," Lavrov said, calling for "a transitional governance structure" in the war-torn country.

Putin did not attend the final conference, but he had unexpectedly warm words for the United States' role in Syria at the start of the Kremlin encounter.

"We understand that what we have managed to achieve on Syria has only been possible thanks to the constructive position of the political leadership in the US, the position of President Obama," Putin said.
US forces killed the Islamic State group's second-in-command this week, dealing a blow to the extremists' ability to conduct operations in Iraq, Syria and abroad, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said today.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter told reporters, referring also to the killing early in the month of Omar al-Shishani, the man known as "Omar the Chechen," who was effectively IS's defense minister.

The latest killing "will hamper the ability for them to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria," Carter said of Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, referring to him as Haji Imam. He said al-Qaduli served as the group's finance minister and had been behind some foreign plots.

"The momentum of this campaign is now clearly on our side," the defense secretary said, adding that "we're broadening both the weight and the nature of our attacks on ISIL."



Carter declined to say whether al-Qaduli had been killed by a drone strike or in a bombing raid involving manned aircraft; nor would he specify whether the attack occurred in Syria or Iraq, though he said that any action in Iraq would only have been taken with Iraqi government approval.

The US Justice Department had offered a bounty of up to $7 million for information leading to al-Qaduli.

"A few months ago when I said we were going to go after ISIL's financial infrastructure, we started with storage sites, and now we've taken out the leader who oversees their finances, hurting their ability to pay and hire recruits," Carter said.

Carter was asked whether al-Qaduli could have had a link to the November terror attacks in Paris or to this week's bombings in Belgium and said he could not confirm a specific link to the Brussels attacks.

But whether Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria like al-Qaduli had specifically directed or simply inspired such attacks, the US-led forces would do their best to eliminate them, Carter said.

"Our campaign plan is first and foremost to collapse ISIL's parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, focusing on the power centers in Raqqa and Mosul," he said.

Carter said local forces supported by the US-led coalition had "severed the main artery between Syria and northern Iraq," making it "much harder for ISIL's leaders and forces to travel between Raqa and Mosul."



But to a reporter's question of whether the US-led forces had turned a corner in their fight against IS, Carter and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, struck a measured tone.
A US contractor here has been ordered to pay a hefty fine of $3.1 million dollars for illegally government-funded work to a subcontractor based in India.

Focused Technologies Imaging Services, its sole owner Charles Tobin and former co-owner Julie Benware agreed to pay the penalty and fees under an agreement with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after admitting that they violated New York federal laws by illegally the work to a subcontractor based in Mumbai in 2008 and 2009.

Authorities said the Indian company, which was unaware it had got the work illegally, fully and voluntarily cooperated with the investigation.

The agreement arises from a $3.45 million contract in 2008-09 between the New York State Industries for the Disabled and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), to digitise and index approximately 22 million fingerprint cards into a searchable database.

The cards contained critical personal data, including Social Security numbers, date of birth and basic physical characteristics.

Focused paid the Indian company just over $82,000 for this indexing between October, 2008, and September, 2009.

Authorities stressed that there is no evidence that the Indian company, nor any of its employees, knew it had obtained the work illegally.

Authorities said the was illegal because Focused sent personal information of over 16 million people to the Mumbai-based subcontractor that was unauthorised to receive this information.

The outsourcing also resulted in the failure of Focused to adhere to a requirement that over 50% of the labour hours of the contract be performed by individuals with disabilities.

Overall, the Indian company performed approximately 37.5% of the work on the contract, Schneiderman said.

In the first-of-its-kind agreement obtained by Schneiderman concerning a government contractor illegally shipping jobs overseas, Focused and Tobin will pay $3.05 million in penalties, fees and costs, and Benware will pay $50,000.

Given the confidential nature of the information of the fingerprint cards, Focused was required to perform all of the work in New York and it could only use employees that had passed a criminal background check.

It was also prohibited from subcontracting any of the work to any other entity.

In October 2008 and continuing to about September 2009, in violation of these security requirements, Focused and Tobin secretly solicited and retained a document-handling business located in Mumbai to perform the indexing of more than 16 million of the 22 million fingerprint cards.

Tobin secretly arranged for scanned images of the DCJS fingerprint cards to be uploaded onto a server to be accessed by employees of the Indian company in Mumbai for indexing.

Focused and Tobin produced false records to conceal the outsourcing.
Expressing concern over India's recent launch, the US has said such actions could potentially "increase" the risk to nuclear security and have an impact on regional security.

"We're concerned by any nuclear and missile developments that could potentially increase the risk to nuclear security risk or lower the threshold for nuclear use," the State Department Spokesman, Mark Toner, said.

"So we continue to urge all states with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint regarding their missile and nuclear capabilities," Toner said when asked about recent test by India.

He said the State Department official had shared its concerns with New Delhi.

"We are concerned," he reiterated yesterday when asked if the US was concerned about India's programme.

"We are concerned about those kind of actions what they do for regional security," he said.

While his answer was general in nature, a senior State Department official pointed out that it included India and the spokesperson's response was against India-specific question.

"Yes," Toner said when asked if the US had raised its concerns with India on its ballistic missile programme.

A day earlier he had refrained from going into specifics of America's bilateral conversations with India on this issue.

"I don't want to get into specifics of our bilateral conversations with India, but we've long encouraged efforts to promote confidence building, stability, and discourage any actions that might destabilise the region," he had said.

India successfully launched an indigenously-developed, nuclear capable K-4 ballistic missile from a submerged platform in the Bay of Bengal recently.
MDMK leader Vaiko today alleged that the DMK and BJP had made offers, including money, to DMDK leader Vijayakant, who had rejected them to join the People's Welfare Front (PWF) to fight the coming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Talking to reportershere, he claimed the DMK had "offered" 80 (assembly) seats and Rs 500 crore to Vijayakant for joining its alliance while BJP had offered him a Rajya Sabha MP post and a ministerial berth in the union cabinet."



"Vijayakant has joined us to form a corruption-free government in Tamil Nadu by rejecting the offers. Vijayakant has created the confidence that he will provide a corruption- free government. Vijayakant has rejectedthe offer of corruption money by DMK to form a corruption-free government," Vaiko said.

Reacting to the charge, DMK Treasurer M K Stalin said the party would take appropriate legal action in the matter.

"In the first place no talks were held (between DMK and DMDK). How come such a thing could have happened when parleys did not take place," he said.

"Premalatha has replied to this allegation. Still, since Vaiko has levelled a blatantly denigrative charge against the DMK. Our party chief Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) would, for sure, take appropriate legal action. Wait and see," Stalin told reporters in reply to questions on the issue.

DMDK leader and Vijayakant's wife Premalatha refused to be drawn into the controversy.

"It is his (Vaiko) opinion. Anything (questions) related to this should be posed to him, we are committed to unseating the AIADMK regime," she told reporters in Tuticorin.

Stating that one crore youth population who had joined the voters list, wanted a liquor and corruption-free state, Vaiko said, "We are getting more support on the social media."



The first election meeting of the PWF will be held in Chennai on April 20.

Vaiko said quality education would be provided free of cost, and liquor would be abolished. Besides, the party would write off farm loan and put an end to unemployment problem, he said.
MIT researchers have developed a new voice-controlled app that may help obese people to lose weight by logging calorie counts and other nutritional information after every meal.

The system parses the description and automatically retrieves the pertinent nutritional data from an online database maintained by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), researchers said.

The data is displayed together with images of the corresponding foods and pull-down menus that allow the user to refine their descriptions - selecting, for instance, precise quantities of food. But those refinements can also be made verbally, researchers said.

A user who begins by saying, "for breakfast, I had a bowl of oatmeal, bananas, and a glass of orange juice" can then make the amendment, "I had half a banana," and the system will update the data it displays about bananas while leaving the rest unchanged, they said.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concentrated on two problems. One is identifying words' functional role - the system needs to recognise that if the user records the phrase "bowl of oatmeal," nutritional information on oatmeal is pertinent, but if the phrase is "oatmeal cookie," it is not.

The other problem is reconciling the user's phrasing with the entries in the USDA database. For instance, the USDA data on oatmeal is recorded under the heading "oats"; the word "oatmeal" shows up nowhere in the entry.

To address the first problem, researchers used machine learning.

Through the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowd-sourcing platform, they recruited workers who simply described what they had eaten at recent meals, then labelled the pertinent words in the description as names of foods, quantities, brand names, or modifiers of the food names.

In "bowl of oatmeal," "bowl" is a quantity and "oatmeal" is a food, but in "oatmeal cookie," oatmeal is a modifier.

Once they had roughly 10,000 labelled meal descriptions, researchers used machine-learning algorithms to find patterns in the syntactic relationships between words that would identify their functional roles.

To translate between users' descriptions and the labels in the USDA database, the researchers used an open-source database called Freebase, which has entries on more than 8,000 common food items, many of which include synonyms.

"I think logging is enormously helpful for many people. A spoken-language system that you can use with your phone would allow people to log food wherever they are eating it, with less work," said Susan Roberts from Tufts University which came up with the idea of the spoken-language app.
Working with teeth, fingerprints and DNA, and sometimes relying on just tiny body parts, the forensic experts dealing with the victims of the Brussels attacks warn it could take weeks to identify them.

In a large military hospital complex in a leafy district north of Brussels, the experts are at work to establish the identities of corpses that have in many cases been left missing body parts by the blasts.

Guarded by heavily armed men in combat gear, the Reine Astrid hospital is being used as Belgium's missing persons centre, or Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit.

The painstaking nature of the work means families from around the world face a long and agonising wait for the final confirmation that their loved ones were among the 31 people killed.

"Yesterday we had around 30 people here looking for family," Ine Van Wymersch, who runs the centre, told AFP. "None of the bodies has yet been formally identified, the process is ongoing."



Doctors, police, psychologists and Red Cross personnel are on hand to help people seeking of missing relatives.

Nearly three days on, none of the bodies brought from the airport and train disaster scenes to the morgue has yet been formally identified and the process could take many more weeks.

Only once they have been identified will relatives be able to take the bodies away for funerals.

"The number of non-identified people is very, very exceptional," federal police spokesman Michael Jonnois told AFP.

"It was an 'open' catastrophe, there was no list of who was in the train or at the airport terminal -- there was no passenger list like when there's a plane crash," he said.

Jonnois said forensics experts collect wallets and jewellery and check details such as weight, height and hair colour with relatives.

"We want to have 100 percent certainty. We cannot allow ourselves to have the slightest doubt."



But with victims believed to come from up to 40 different countries, Philippe Boxho, head of the Liege university forensics department, says Interpol help may be needed and the process may be long.

"They'll be identified by their teeth, their DNA or their fingerprints -- in that order," he said.

"Teeth are quick, DNA takes a while longer and finger-prints only work if they're already on file -- though sometimes you can recover prints from their homes or workplaces.
DMK chief Karunanidhi today sent a legal notice to MDMK chief Vaiko warning of civil and criminal proceedings against him for his allegation that the former's party had offered money to DMDK over forging electoral alliance.

"On behalf of our client M Karunanidhi we call upon you to withdraw your false accusation made against our client and express your regret," Advocate R Dhevi said in the notice to Vaiko which was circulated to the media.

Noting that Vaiko should withdraw the false accusation and express regret for the defamatory statement within seven days, she said, "otherwise our client M Karunanidhi will be constrained to initiate appropriate civil and criminal proceedings against you for defamation."



Reacting to the notice, Vaiko said "I will face it legally in the court."



Speaking to Polimer Tamil channel, he said "I welcome his (Karunanidhi's) action."



Earlier in the day, Vaiko had claimed DMK had "offered" 80 (assembly) seats and Rs 500 crore to Vijayakant for joining its alliance while BJP had offered him a Rajya Sabha MP post and a ministerial berth in the union cabinet."



"Our client Karunanidhi states that he was shocked to hear the false and defamatory statement made by you accusing him of offering money to Thiru Vijayakant, leader of DMDK for joining as an alliance party along with DMK."



The statement has been made by you to the media, "knowing very well that the same is false." The notice said, Vaiko's statement "is a motivated one made with the only intention to damage the reputation of our client and to defame him in the eyes of the public in Tamil Nadu, the DMK party men and supporters."



Also, it said Premalatha Vijayakant has "denied and controverted" Vaiko's statement and said there was no talk between the DMK and DMDK. Premalatha had told reporters to seek comments of Vaiko over the issue (again) and quipped that it was his opinion. Days ago, DMDK chief Vijayakant had asserted that that his party had never bargained with any political party over alliances.

"Your conduct of not immediately withdrawing your defamatory statement and regretting to have made a false statement of accusation against Karunanidhi shows that your intention is only to defame and bring disrepute to our client at this crucial time when elections have been announced."



Further, the notice said MDMK itself had fought election in alliance with DMK and "on that ground you (Vaiko) are aware that our client does not indulge in such unethical electoral practice of offering money for alliance partners.
A 31-year-old JetBlue woman flight attendant has been charged with ditching nearly 32 kilograms of cocaine valued at USD 3 million at Los Angeles International Airport.

Marsha Gay Reynolds, a former Jamaican beauty queen and college track athlete, appeared yesterday in Brooklyn Federal Court supported by family, her minister, and a former city councilman with a checkered past.

She faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted.

She was cleared for takeoff on a USD 500,000 bail until Assistant US Attorney Alicia Washington requested a stay until an appeal could be heard by a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles, New York Daily reported.

The prosecutor argued that last Friday's bizarre incident in which Reynolds abandoned two pieces of luggage after she was randomly selected for checkpoint screening was not her first try at drug smuggling.

Reynolds kicked off her Gucci shoes and fled the airport leaving behind the coke valued at USD 3 million. She somehow made her way home later to Queens where she surrendered to authorities on Wednesday.

"The defendant's co-conspirator also has tried to flee to Jamaica (the Caribbean Island) as recently as last night," Washington told Magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky.

Reynolds' unidentified guy pal has access to forged travel documents, Washington said.

Defense lawyer Dennis Ring said negotiations for his client to surrender in Los Angles blew up when the coke case went viral in the media.

Reynolds, a graduate of New York University, and is studying to be a nurse at Mercy College while working for JetBlue. She has been suspended from her job.

The judge okayed the bail bond which will be secured by homes owned by Reynolds' mom and the Pentecostal minister. She would be required to stay at her parents' home in Queens but could attend school.

Allan Jennings, a spokesman for the flight attendant said he would not characterise the co-conspirator referred to by the prosecutor as Reynolds' boyfriend.

"She may not have been fully aware of what was in the bags," Jennings said, adding that she got out of Los Angles on Friday night not long after she was stopped, using her JetBlue credentials which were still in effect until yesterday.
A Bhil woman from Gujarat, along with her three female relatives, allegedly set afire house of a 34-year-old tribal man today to avenge the murder of her husband, police said.

Police arrested all the four women in connection with the incident at Mahendra village in Alirajpur district in the morning hours.

"The tribal, identified as Kaishia Damor, had recently gone to Gujarat's Indica village in neighbouring Baroda district for work where he had a dispute with Dal Singh (37), a resident of Uchisaded village in Dahod district, following which Damor allegedly killed him (Dal Singh) and escaped," said Alirajpur SP Kumar Sourabh.

Damor is currently on run.

In order to take revenge, Singh's wife Jhailabai (33) along with Badlibai (37), Badribai (36) and Raeela (28) reached Mahendra village this morning and allegedly set afire Damor's house.

"By the time fire brigade reached the spot, the fire had caused extensive damage to the house, ornaments and food grains," Sourabh said, adding nobody was injured in the incident.

Police cordoned off the area and arrested the women under section 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house) of IPC.

"In this area bordering Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, tribals have a tradition of taking revenge by setting ablaze houses, but it was for the first time that it was done by women," the SP added.
Music mogul Simon Cowell says working with boy band One Direction was "a nightmare" initially.

The "X-factor" boss jokingly said that the boys including Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were like "excited puppies," reported Aceshowbiz.

"They were like five puppies - really excited, loads of opinions, always wanted to hang out," Cowell said.

Reacting to his "nightmare" comment Tomlinson laughed, saying, "I'm sure we were a nightmare. We were at the height of our immaturity, always running around and being mischievous. There were so many meetings where Simon had to snap us to attention, but he was very patient."



The British band is currently on hiatus and the 56-year-old record producer said he has no idea if they will come back together.

"I don't know if it's a hiatus or a breakup, to be honest ... In a weird way, I don't want to know ... They'll decide when they want to come back together," he said.
Minnesota LLC, a US affiliate of India's shipping, natural resources and power conglomerate Essar Global Group, has hired financial and legal advisers to help it restructure its debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is in the final stages of building a $1.8 billion iron ore pellet plant in northern Minnesota. Its woes underscore the impact that cheap Chinese imports have had on the price of iron ore and US steel manufacturers.

Minnesota has hired investment bank Guggenheim Partners LLC and law firm White & Case LLP as debt restructuring advisers, the people said this week. Minnesota has about $1 billion in debt, one of the people added.

The sources asked not to be identified because the appointments are not public. Spokespeople for Essar Steel Minnesota, Essar Global, Guggenheim and White & Case did not respond to requests for comment.

Essar Steel Minnesota's move to restructure its debt comes less than six months after the bankruptcy filing of its Canadian sister company, steel manufacturer Essar Steel Algoma Inc. Essar Steel Algoma also filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

Essar Global moved into Minnesota in 2007, shortly after it acquired the Algoma manufacturer. At the time, the company said it was positioning itself to be close to high-value steel markets and sources of iron ore.

The plant, whose construction started in 2010, is scheduled to open this year, according to the company's website. It will permanently employ 350 people once it opens, according to the state.

Last year, Essar Steel Minnesota failed to make timely payments to its vendors, according to press statements from the office of the Minnesota governor. The company did not live up to the terms of the original agreement it had with the state, and at the end of last year it accepted a plan to repay Minnesota's $66 million loan.
Rising risks in developed countries after a string of deadly attacks are driving up demand for specialist insurance to cover losses stemming from such events, putting upward pressure on premiums, underwriters and brokers say.

Insurers have generally excluded the risks of such attacks from standard property, event cancellation or travel insurance policies since the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, though customers can ask for the addition of specialist cover known in the industry as " insurance".

Attacks in Paris, Istanbul and San Bernardino in California in the past year had made company boards increasingly concerned about safety even before this week's attacks in Brussels, said Tarique Nageer, of broker Marsh.

"We have seen a change in demand as more of these events have occurred in more developed countries," said Nageer, who heads Marsh's New York department specialising in cover against such events.

The number of attacks and fatalities has risen sharply since 2011, insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson said in a report published on Thursday, adding that the likelihood of further major attacks is expected to remain high.

The economic costs of the Paris attacks in November, which killed 130 people, were between $9 billion and $12 billion, the report said, though it added that insurance payouts on property losses are "likely to be minimal".

Cover for such events allows the largest companies to recoup losses ranging from about $250 million to $1 billion, according to Russell Kennedy, a divisional director at insurer Brit.

Other specialists in the sector have noticed a significant increase in demand for cover.

"The take-up of insurance has increased since Paris, that is definitely the case," said Julian Enoizi, chief executive of British specialist reinsurance fund Pool Re.

Rising demand has come from event organisers, as well as hotels, catering companies and breweries that supply the events, said Rob Montgomery, senior underwriter for contingency at insurance firm Ark.

"The higher demand, combined with the greatly increased exposure, is causing rates to rise," he said.
Myanmar's stock exchange began trading on Friday with a single listed company some three months after it opened in the country's commercial capital Yangon.

The Southeast Asian nation's economy was devastated by nearly 50 years of economic mismanagement under the military government, which ended direct rule of the country in 2011.

The outgoing semi-civilian government that replaced the junta ushered in numerous economic reforms. One of them was to launch the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) in December.

"For 50 years there has not been a stock exchange, today is a historic day," said local tycoon Serge Pun, just before he rang the bell on trading at 11 am (0430 GMT) inside a renovated colonial building that once housed the country's central bank.

His firm First Myanmar Investment (FMI), one of Myanmar's largest companies, made the inaugural listing.

The exchange was a "farewell gesture" from President Thein Sein, said Deputy Finance Minister Maung Maung Thein. The outgoing government had emphasised the stock market as a way to catch up to more developed countries.

The president will hand over to the government of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) in a ceremony on March 30, after the NLD won a landslide electoral victory in November.

The FMI listing involved no initial public offering, nor did it raise fresh capital. FMI has transferred shares to list on the YSX that it had already sold to the public through direct subscription.

FMI shares rose to 31,000 kyat ($25.70) at the open on Friday, the upper limit for trading for the day after they were listed at 26,000 kyat.

A total volume of 112,845 shares changed hands, for a trading value of 3.498 billion kyat ($2.90 million). FMI's market cap was 727,880 million kyat ($603.55 million).

FMI's sister company, Yoma Strategic Holdings Ltd, is listed in Singapore.

Maung Maung Thein has said previously that Thilawa SEZ Holdings, which controls a new industrial zone jointly run by the government and a Japanese consortium, would be the next company to join the exchange, but it is unclear as to when this will happen.

Myanma Economic Bank owns 51% of the exchange, presenting another potential problem if foreign investors should be allowed to invest in the future. For now, only Myanmar citizens can trade.

The bank is among several lenders on the US Department of Treasury's list of sanctioned entities due to its ties to the former junta.

Japan's Daiwa Securities Group Inc and Japan Exchange Group Inc, which operates the Tokyo Stock Exchange, own the rest of the YSX.

($1 = 1,206.0000 kyat)
Ride hailing app company Technologies Inc is generating more than $1 billion in profit a year in its top 30 cities globally, and partly using that money to bankroll its expansion in China, Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said in an interview.

The company said in February it was losing more than $1 billion a year in China's red-hot ride hailing market, where it is battling large local incumbents to win customers.

Kalanick said China was the company's most intense market, but also a crucible for new ideas that it has exported to other markets, and that its investment here was sustainable.

"If you took our top 30 cities today, today they're generating over $1 billion in profit a year, just our top 30 cities. And that profit multiplies every year because we're growing," he said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum in the Chinese island province of Hainan. Other cities among the 400 where operates were also profitable, he added.

"So that helps us to sustainably invest in our Chinese efforts because of the profits we have globally, this is something we can do for the long run," he said late on Thursday.

and China's Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, have both spent heavily to subsidise fares to gain market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest.

The strategy seems to be working for Uber. The company's market share in China has grown quickly, rising from about 1 percent to 2% in January 2015 to about 30% now, Kalanick said.

China's transport minister said earlier this month fare subsidies and the supplementing of driver wages by ride-hailing were competitively unfair and unsustainable in the long-term.

The San Francisco-based company founded in 2009 was starting to test new products in China first and one example he noted was UberCOMMUTE, a carpooling app that was first launched in Chengdu last September and later expanded elsewhere.

"The key for (us in) China is to move fast," Kalanick said.

"If we launch in the US and then it gets copied in China, we'll be behind. So we're starting to orient some of our innovation at China first," he added, highlighting the cutthroat competition.

The company's Chinese business boosted its valuation in January to more than $8 billion after raising more than $1 billion in its latest funding round.

Kalanick said so far Uber had not faced major regulatory challenges in China, possibly because the government has been trying to drive innovation and Uber fits the narrative.

Kalanick declined to say when he thought Uber would turn a profit in the world's most populous country, but he seemed to be enjoying the ride regardless.

"I was in China 70 days last year and 100 times a day someone would say 'Travis, no Internet technology company has ever succeeded. I don't know if you should be here'," he said.

"As an entrepreneur, that's the best thing you can hear, you're always turning it into the positive, and trying to make the impossible possible is what we do. Adventure with a purpose is what we do."
Taxi aggregator Ola said it is planning to add 2,000 vehicles to its fleet every month in Delhi NCR, which will help reduce arrival time and ensure higher availability of cabs when the government runs odd-even system again.

"We are trying to start odd and even system again and during these days a good cab service is required as an option in which they can feel safe. As per Supreme Court order, all cabs plying in Delhi will have to adopt CNG. This is the way Ola is doing it," Delhi Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra said at Ola event where the company shared its business roadmap.

The second phase of the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme will be implemented in the city from April 15 to 30.

Mishra flagged off initial taxi of Ola driver partners who have adopted CNG during 5-day Ola Pragati Mahotsav.

"Total fleet of CNG cars in Ola now stands over 26,000 in Delhi NCR. Ola aims to build up its CNG fleet further by targeting addition of over 2,000 cars across Micro, Mini and Prime month after month, to ensure availability at all times and low ETAs (expected time of arrivals) across Delhi NCR," Ola Senior Director for Marketing Communications Anand Subramanian said.

The company added 6,000 new CNG vehicles under its Pragati Mahotsav camp.

In the five-day Pragati Mahotsav camp which ended on March 22, Ola offered its driver partners offering a benefit of up to Rs 1,50,000 on exchange of diesel vehicles and paying first two EMIs for those who go for new CNG vehicles.

For this camp, Ola has partnered with dealers of leading car manufacturers including Hyundai, Tata Nissan, Chevrolet, Fiat and Maruti amongst others.

"We will invest Rs 200 crore in six months to encourage Ola drivers to adopt CNG as well as on research and development of green fuel technology, leasing of CNG cars in Delhi NCR," Subramanian said.

He said that all Ola cabs in Delhi run on CNG fuel and by March 31 all cabs on Ola network in Delhi NCR will use CNG.

Using the Ola mobile app, users across 102 cities can book cabs, auto-rickshaws and taxis.

When asked about pan-India CNG adoption, Subramanian said that company will adopt CNG based on infrastructure support like availability of CNG fuel station.

Ola in September announced to invest Rs 5,000 crore to add 1 lakh cabs in its service by 2016 that it will lease out to drivers.

"We will focus to include more of CNG cabs wherever possible under this scheme," Subramanian said.
It was announced last week that 588 projects with Irish participation have won a total of 251m in competitive funding from Horizon 2020, the European Unions programme for Research and Innovation.

The Higher Education system accounted for 157m of the total and companies based in Ireland a further 72m.

Horizon 2020, which runs over the period from 2014-2020, has a total budget of almost 75bn and Ireland has a national target of winning 1.25bn in funding over the course of the programme.

The results announced last week covers the first two years of the programme.

Furthermore, Ireland recorded a spectacular success in the Marie Skodowska-Curie sub-programme of Horizon 2020, which promotes the training of researchers. In the most recent round of funding Ireland won 18.5m, equivalent to 35% of the available Marie Skodowska-Curie budget, bringing Irelands total from this sub-programme to 49m.

National Director for Horizon 2020 at Enterprise Ireland, Imelda Lambkin commented, "We are proud to lead Irelands participation in Horizon 2020 and the 250m in funding secured by Irish researchers and companies under the programme demonstrates the strength and leadership of the people involved. We will continue to work with Irish researchers and companies to meet our Horizon 2020 funding targets as they target larger projects."

Minister for Skills, Research & Innovation, Damien English added, "I am delighted with this performance to date which clearly shows that Ireland is on track to achieve its ambitious national target of 1.25bn. This success bears testimony to the excellence of research in Ireland, both in our higher education system and in our innovative companies. It shows that our researchers are among the best in the EU."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The worlds largest car rental company, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, has announced that it will offer a free pick up and drop off service to those planning to rent a car to travel through and around the city this weekend.

This is in response to the upcoming Luas strike scheduled to take place on Easter Sunday, 27th March and Easter Monday, 28th March.

The Enterprise Rent-A-Car Well pick you up service will mean that Enterprise staff will pick a customer up from their preferred location, be it home or at work, bring them to the branch to collect their rental car and similarly drop them back upon return of the vehicle.

Managing Director at Enterprise Rent-A-Car Ireland, George OConnor today commented, "This is a big weekend for travel, both for domestic visitors and international tourists, looking to soak up some of the atmosphere around the city during the 1916 Centenary commemorations and we are delighted to be in a position to be able to offer this complementary service to those inconvenienced by the strike, getting them back moving on the streets of Dublin."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The winners of the Invention of the Year Awards 2016 have been announced this week. This years award winners were from UCC, CIT Nimbus and Tyndall Institute.

The ICT Invention Award was bestowed upon a new photonics device with super luminescent LED, known as SLED. Developed by a team of inventors at Tyndall Institute Institute, led by Pleun Maaskant along with Brian Corbett and Mahbub Akhter, this technology will be potentially used in driverless cars, automotive sensing, communications, gesture recognition and environmental monitoring among others.

The Life Sciences Invention Award was given to UCCs Centre for Research in Vascular Biology Director, Professor Noel Caplice, for his stem cell invention which has developed a way to grow stem cells taken from a patients own blood onto a degradable scaffold (stent-like structure). The implanted device triggers new microvessels to grow around the blocked portion of the artery to restore normal blood flow. This unique Cell Therapy-based device could revolutionize the treatment of coronary artery disease.

Finally, Professor Richard Linger of CITs Nimbus Centre also received the Invention of the Year award for his Energy Optimisation System. His cloud based predictive energy control optimization system called SESOP gives customers low risk access to the electricity wholesale market. It combines real-time data and advanced software algorithms to help people choose the timing of energy use to save up to 25% of energy costs.

UCC leads the UCT consortium, which also includes CIT and Teagasc, focused on supporting the commercialisation of research. The consortium is one of eight across Ireland that are funded through the Enterprise Ireland Technology Transfer Strengthening Initiative (TTSI) programme which builds capacity and capability in this specialist area.

The funding programme is managed through Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI) which has a national role to drive innovation in Ireland by making it simpler for companies to access state-funded technology, ideas and expertise. As such, KTI works closely with the Technology Transfer Offices around the country.

Director of Technology Transfer at UCC, Tim Roche says, "The pioneering research of innovators, exemplified by the award winners of the Invention of the Year, is being nurtured within our universities, colleges and research institutions.

He added, "Our engagement with industry to licence and commercialise these incredible innovations continues to bring more and more research to market, creating jobs, improving our lives and providing unique and creative solutions to the challenges of modern day living."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Tuath provides social housing at low rents to those on Council waiting lists including single people, families, older people and people with disabilities.

The Association currently provides over 2,300 social homes in some twenty local authorities at an average rent of 55 per week, helping to serve the affordable housing needs of local communities. The Association is managed by a team of board members drawn from volunteer professionals, who donate their services and time for free.

Financing and loans are being provided to Tuath by the Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Environment.

The first homes are scheduled to be handed over for occupation in coming months. The new homes comprise ninety five 2, 3 and 4 bed houses and twenty two 2 and 3 apartments and duplexes.

All properties will be exclusively allocated to families on the City Councils waiting list before the end of the year, in phases.

Tuath Housing Association claim there is an acute need for social housing in both areas and particularly for family sized homes.

Welcomeing the announcement, Assistant Chief Executive at Dublin City Council, Dick Brady said, "These additional family homes are very welcome, especially as they will all be delivered in 2016. There is greater demand here than in any other part of the City. Tuath Housing is to be congratulated for securing these much needed new homes.

Tuath spokesperson and Chief Executive, Sean OConnor added, The Association is extremely pleased to have secured these high quality homes in accordance with our core remit to provide homes for those who cannot afford to provide homes for themselves in todays difficult residential market."

He continued, "Tuath will be working hard to ensure that the schemes become safe, secure and popular places where people and families choose to live and settle down in and where being a good neighbour is valued."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The French data protection authority said it has fined Google 100,000 euros for not scrubbing web search results widely enough in response to a European privacy ruling.

The only way for Google to uphold the Europeans' right to privacy was by delisting inaccurate results popping up under name searches across all its websites, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) said in a statement on Thursday.

In May 2014 the European Court of Justice ruled that people could ask search engines, such as Google and Microsoft's Bing , to remove inadequate or irrelevant information from web results appearing under searches for people's names - dubbed the "right to be forgotten".

The U.S. Internet giant has been at odds with European Union data protection authorities over the territorial scope of the ruling.

Google complied, but it only scrubbed results across its European websites such as Google.de in Germany and Google.fr in France on the grounds that to do otherwise would have a chilling effect on the free flow of information.

In May last year the CNIL ordered Google to expand its application of the ruling to all its domains, including Google.com, because of the ease of switching from a European domain to Google.com.

"Contrary to Google's statements, applying delisting to all of the extensions does not curtail freedom of expression insofar as it does not entail any deletion of content from the Internet," the CNIL said.

A spokesman for Google, now a unit of holding company Alphabet Inc, said the company had worked hard to implement the "right to be forgotten ruling thoughtfully and comprehensively in Europe."

"But as a matter of principle, we disagree with the CNIL's assertion that it has the authority to control the content that people can access outside France, and we plan to appeal their ruling," Al Verney, Google's spokesman, said.

The company did try to assuage the regulator's concerns in February by delisting search results across all its websites - including Google.com - when accessed from the country where the request came from.

That meant that if a German resident asks Google to de-list a link popping up under searches for his or her name, the link will not be visible on any version of Google's website, including Google.com, when the search engine is accessed from Germany.

But the CNIL rejected that approach, saying that a person's right to privacy could not depend on the "geographic origin of those viewing the search results."

"Only delisting on all of the search engine's extensions, regardless of the extension used or the geographic origin of the person performing the search, can effectively uphold this right," it said.(Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Utahs governor has signed more than half of the 474 bills state legislators passed during the 2016 session.

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has until March 30 to sign or veto the remaining measures approved this year.

He approved such proposals as funding for a California coal shipping port and gun safety training for some public school students. But the fate of many other bills remains to be seen.

The governor also can allow legislation to become law without his signature if he doesnt take action by the end of the month. So far, he hasnt vetoed any measures.

A look at some of the bills Herbert has signed:

GUNS IN SCHOOLS

Utah public school students could soon receive training on what to do if they encounter a weapon or if a gunman enters their school. If schools or districts choose to offer the class, parents would have to first give consent for their children to participate. Only 5th through 12th graders would be able to attend the class. Under the law, no real guns could be used in the training sessions.

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GUEST WORKER PROGRAM

Utah lawmakers considered repealing a guest worker law that passed five years ago but was never implemented. The program was set to take effect in 2017 but requires a federal waiver, which lawmakers say seems unlikely. Instead of repealing the 2011 law, lawmakers decided to push the start date to 2027. They said by keeping the law on the books, they hope to pressure Congress and the White House to pass a comprehensive immigration program or approve Utahs law.

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OAKLAND COAL

Despite opposition from California residents and environmental groups, Utah is moving ahead with constructing a coal shipping port in Oakland. The law sets aside more than $50 million in taxpayer funds to acquire a deep-water port to export Utah coal overseas. The governor and Utah lawmakers have said the port would be a worthwhile investment and would help rural Utahs coal country. A California lawmaker who represents the Oakland area has voiced opposition to the proposal.

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WELFARE DRUG TESTING

Utah requires welfare applicants to undergo drug testing or screening, a policy that critics say stigmatizes the poor and wastes money because few welfare applicants use drugs. After three years, Utah spent $93,000 on the program and found less than 2 percent of those flagged as likely drug users actually tested positive for drugs. This compromise law overhauls the program so people receiving welfare would take a drug test only if a social worker recommends it.

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DRONES NEAR WILDFIRES

Drone owners who fly their aircrafts within a few miles of a wildfire could face jail time under a new law. As drones become more prevalent, so too do instances in which hobbyists fly the devices near wildfires to take photographs or simply view the fires up close. Officials have said the practice could disrupt life-saving measures, as firefighting planes and helicopters cant risk colliding with the unmanned aerial devices and are instructed to pull out until the drones are gone.

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OKTOBERFEST

Two years ago, Utahs liquor board considered denying an alcohol permit to a ski resorts Oktoberfest celebration, saying the permits appeared to be designed for events put on by charitable organizations that benefit the community. The board reversed course after critics complained it spoiled a popular annual event and only enhanced the perception that Utah is unfriendly to drinkers. This law aims to avoid a similar situation, requiring the liquor board to approve an event if it meets permit requirements.
FILE PHOTO

A new public defender has been hired by Cache County and County Attorney James Swink said it is something that has been needed for some time. On <a href=http://610kvnu.com/assets/podcaster/324/2016_03_24_324_43137_2867.mp3 target=_blank>KVNUs For the People program Wednesday</a>, Swink said, in fact, he had been told the county could be sued unless it provided another attorney to represent the indigent population.

Swink said a bill sponsored by Senator Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, during the last season of the Utah legislature made that a requirement. Swink said Cache County Executive Craig Buttars helped to get the money approved by the County Council.

Craig took that on and one of the first tasks he did was he met with all the judges, he met with all the defense attorneys, Swink explained, he took information from the public and he went to work restructuring that system. Hes done a wonderful job.

Weve added a public defender. As he talked to the judges they expressed a need for an additional public defender to cover their case loads.

Swink said in most places the state pays for public defenders, but in Utah that is up to the counties instead.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The family of a man who died while fishing at Willard Bay last year is establishing a new fishing dock in his name.

The Standard-Examiner in Ogden reports (http://bit.ly/1Rp5wXq) that 45-year-old Matthew Rasmussens daughter says raising money for the project at the bay north of Salt Lake City has helped her deal with her fathers death.

Mykala Rasmussen says she wants to create a peaceful reminder of her father in a place that he loved.

This week marks one year since Matthew Rasmussen was found dead. Hed been reported missing four days before, after he didnt come back from a fishing trip on the Great Salt Lake.

Authorities found his empty boat and later located his body, though the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear.

The dock is expected to open mid-summer.
Pussy Riot in print: Freedom for the "rebellious pussies"

Published on March 25, 2016

Story by Julia Korbik Translation by: Emily Spencer

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Live life to the fullest, and be a complete bitch in the process. That's Nadja Tolokonnikova's advice  Pussy Riots most famous member. To inspire others to follow her example, the 26-year-old Russian has written a book: Anleitung fur eine Revolution. Roughly translated as "How to start a revolution".

This book is punk. It's chaotic, direct, straight-forward, and honestly: difficult to read  right from the beginning. The biographical sections arent presented in chronological order. One minute you are reading about the author's time in prison, the next, Nadja Tolokonnikova recounts the legendary performance of "Punk Prayer".

With Anleitung fur eine Revolution the most famous Pussy Riot member has created a sort of manifesto: 200 articles across seven chapters. Yet, having examined the collection of maxims, comments and observations, I can say that the book isnt at all taxing. Rather, it makes for an extremely entertaining read!

"Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin!"

The whole world was watching when in 2012, three members of the feminist collective Pussy Riot were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". The young women  wearing coloured woollen masks  protested against Vladimir Putins authoritarian leadership. Their performance of "Punk Prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow barely lasted one minute  albeit one that went down in history.

"Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin", they bellowed, along with "Crap, crap, this godliness crap!" The Virgin Mary didnt banish Putin, instead Tolokonnikova and her fellow campaigner Maria Aljochina landed in prison. Or a prison camp, to be more precise.

Since her release at the end of 2013, Tolokonnikova has advocated for more humane conditions in Russian prisons and has been working on her first English language album in California. Recently, a new Pussy Riot video materialised  professionally produced, and quite different from their typical guerilla performances which only can be viewed as short, blurred clips on Youtube.

Nevertheless, Tolokonnikova is anything but a glamour girl. Yes, she was invited to Madonnas house for dinner and made a guest appearance on the US television series House of Cards  yet she remains punk at heart and Anleitung fur eine Revolution is the best proof of that.

In addition to laconic observations such as "and God created the feminist", feminist claims such as "gender norms annoy children  even more than they annoy you" feature throughout the book, as well as unrelenting appeals to the readers to become activists themselves ("Its time to be a real bitch").

Putin is only a symptom

Particularly worth reading are the passages in which Tolokonnikova recounts her time in the prison camp. There were mechanics who were idolised by the female inmates because men and women were strictly separated. Tolokonnikova comments dryly: "Contact with the mechanics resulted in many children being born in Mordvinic prison camp hospital in Braschewa. One woman was in prison because she supposedly shot her husband during orgasm."

Tolokonnikova worked 16 to 17 hours a day, with one free day per month. That does not mean however that she couldn't rebel. She went on hunger strike against the prison officers. To make a long story short: they didnt attempt to stop her.

The main message of the book is "Don't be passive". Bloody well get up and do something!

"People arent prepared to live life to the fullest," Tolokonnikova writes angrily. To live well, to live as though each day is their last. Because she loves her hometown, she loves the corrupt, complicated country. Putin, she says, is not the main problem  rather a symptom. The real problem is Russian society, which has gotten too comfortable and has come to terms with these undesirable conditions, allowing a dictatorial, ruling, former KGB man determine how we live our lives. "A lack of freedom isn't a good enough reason for idleness and moaning," she proclaims.

Freedom for the "rebellious pussies"

The most important message of Anleitung fur eine Revolution can be found under Article 1: "There is a culinary culture, and a book and film culture, as there is a protest culture. Uncomfortable questions should be asked. Doubts should be expressed. Something needs to change."

Tolokonnikova knows that. She is popular protest culture. She is the accusatory finger. She asked uncomfortable questions and expressed doubts  and that is how she ended up in prison.

Has she changed anything? It's hard to say. Russia is still Putins Russia. But the "rebelling pussies" are free once again  and as belligerent as ever. Gloating, Tolokonnikova notes: "They had better not lock us up. Blame yourselves  now we wont so easily leave you in peace."

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Nadja Tolokonnikowa: Anleitung fur eine Revolution is available now (in German) from Hanser Publishing House. Quotes are translated from the German edition.

Story by Julia Korbik

Translated from Pussy Riot-Aktivistin: Freiheit fur die rebellierenden Mosen
Map of the week: The gender pay gap in Europe

Published on March 25, 2016

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While continuing to fight for gender equality, women in the European Union earn on average 16.1% less than men for each hour's work. Although the pay gap between men and women may be shrinking, at this rate it will take 118 years for the gap to finally close.

It seems clear that we still have a long way to go in terms of achieving gender equality in Europe. Among the figures that show how, in various aspects of daily life, women start out in a disadvantage position, one in particular grabs our attention. In the European Union, women earn on average 16.1% less per hour's work than men in the same employment.

This figure can be partly explained by the large number of women in unskilled, low-paid positions, but equally by the lack of women holding senior management roles. Even though European equality law recommends that 40% of women should hold board-member positions, in Spain barely 20% of IBEX35 company directors are female. Across Europe, Norway is the only country to comply with the recommended legal percentage.

The European country currently leading this deplorable ranking is Estonia, with a gender gap of more than 28%, followed by Austria (23%), the Czech Republic (22%) and Germany (21,6%).

On the other end of the ranking we find Poland (7,7%), Italy (6,5%), Malta (4,5%) and Slovenia (3%). Nevertheless, in some of these countries the figures are misleading: low percentages can be explained by the poor integration of women in the labour market.

Another figure to keep in mind, published by the World Economic Forum, is that this could mean that it takes 118 more years for men and women to receive equal pay.

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This article is part of our Map of the Week series: charting the stats that matter to Europe, one map at a time.

Story by Naiara Reig Pellicer

Translated from Mapa de la semana: La brecha salarial en Europa
Radovan Karadzic sentenced, but wounds are still open

Published on March 25, 2016

Story by Lucas TRIPOTEAU Translation by: Joseph Pearson

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In the Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia yesterday announced their verdict in the trial of the former President of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War. It condemned Radovan Karadzic to 40 years imprisonment for the Srebrenica genocide. Cafebabel was at the trial.

"My father was in a concentration camp at the time," says Ajdin Cehic, "This trial is extremely important for our family. His words come just before the announcement of the final verdict of the The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia  at the heart of The Hague  which condemned Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in prison for the Srebrenica genocide.

Like Ajdin, dozens of other people have travelled here from Bosnia in order to voice their anger one last time, reminding the entire world of these dark hours in their country's history. The activists, predominantly Bosnian, carry placards and banners baring the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the words "genocide" and "war crimes", and a (no doubt inexhaustive) list of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide.

It changed my life

They were awaiting one thing, the formal recognition of the crimes committed by the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, in particularly that the Tribunal recognise that Karadzic was guilty of genocide in multiple municipalities, notably Srebrenica, against the country's Muslim population. Azmir Husic, a native of Srebrenica, has also travelled from Bosnia. "Weve come nearly 1,650 kilometres to be here," he affirmed, "We hope that Karadzic will be punished for what he has done to hundreds of thousands of people."

The victims families have waited over 20 years for justice to be served, making this an important day for many. "Its a historic day," says Elmina Kulasic, "I was seven years old during the massacres. It changed my life. Ive been in search of the truth for 20 years."

The manifestation had been largely placid up until the sudden arrival of Florence Hartman. This former Le Monde journalist and former spokesperson for the Attorney General of the Tribunal published a book a few years ago  entitled Paix et chatiment (Peace and Punishment)  in which she denounced several dysfunctions within the court, including a secret agreement between Karadzic and the United States. She has come to speak once more on the subject but is taken to task by the police. After several minutes of total confusion, she is arrested and taken away.

This highlights the controversy and ever-present tension that has surrounded this trial for many years. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains divided by these years of war, and the uncertainty surrounding Karadzic's sentencing has left certain protestors sceptical. "Protests could break out whether he is condemned or not," Ajdin notes, "One side or the other will protest. Its a very delicate question."

Disappointment at the verdict

After what was nearly a two hour monologue from the judge, through which the former Serbian leader displayed no emotion, the verdict was announced: Radovan Karadzic is found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide at Srebrenica. However he is absolved of genocide in other Bosnian cities. His is sentenced to 40 years imprisonment.

Even more activists are waiting at the exit of the Tribunal for the families of the victims that assisted in the trial to emerge. Elmina Kulasic says she is moved by the announcement  it is a very important day for both her and all of Bosnia. However, like many othes present, she is also disappointed. She believes that "all the proof has been gathered for acknowledging that Karadzic was also guilty of genocide in other regions of Bosnia." In her view, Srebrenica was only the culmination of a policy of terror led by the former leader and his followers over the years. On top of this she would've hoped that the accused be given life imprisonment instead of 40 years. It wouldnt change much given his age, but it's symbolic value is real. For the most part, those assembled share this sentiment.

The sentence seems not to have satisfied anybody; when Karadzics lawyer, Peter Robinson, emerges surrounded by journalists, he too voices his dissatisfaction. He said that he has spoken to Karadzic following the sentencing, who was disappointed and surprised by the verdict. He had hoped to not be sentenced for genocide and was extremely surprised to have been found guilty of such a crime.

The reaction of the former President of Republika Srpska is in line with the rest of his defence since his arrest in 2008. On the day of sentencing, he even stated in an interview with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network that he expected an acquittal.

The lawyer added that he and his client were going to make an appeal on ten different counts. They have 30 days to do so, but the entire procedure will take around three years. 20 years after the last piece of evidence, it will be necessary to wait yet longer for the conclusion of this legal saga. The wounds left open during this trial are not yet ready to close.

---

This article was published by our local team at cafebabel Brussels.

Story by Lucas TRIPOTEAU

Translated from Proces de Radovan Karadzic : des plaies toujours ouvertes
SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Mark Bueno's "The Star #35: Loteria Card" will be on display through Thursday at CasaMod as part of Contemporary Art Month Corpus Christi. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Mark Bueno's "Ghost Lights: Study #1" will be on display through Thursday at CasaMod as part of Contemporary Art Month Corpus Christi.

By Esther Hackleman, Esther.M.Hackleman@caller.com

Catch up on Contemporary Art Month Corpus Christi between sips of coffee or Downtown shopping during the citywide observance.

The annual celebration, hosted by K Space Contemporary, is designed to bring art to residents not only at the museums throughout the city but also at everyday stops.

"Placing art in everyday settings makes the artwork more accessible  people can observe art while shopping or having lunch, often spending more time with it than they might in a museum," K Space Executive Director Michelle Smythe said. "Seeing art in casual situations helps develop a more comfortable association with art and makes challenging artwork less intimidating."

Mark Bueno is one of more than 100 artists sharing those experiences at 21 temporary galleries.

Friday, the artist who contributed to the Loteria mural will host a reception from 6-10 p.m. at CasaMod, where his work has been on display since March 1. In a short live-streamed Q-AND-A session, Bueno will respond to questions from his studio in Denver and throughout the reception will share techniques he used in his wood paintings and wood works.

Bueno's art is designed to draw attention to beauty and patterns and the relationships between science and folklore.

For a full list of exhibitions, check out the K Space Contemporary website.

Twitter: @Caller_Esther

IF YOU GO

What: Contemporary Art Month Corpus Christi

When: Through Thursday

Cost: Free

Information: www.kspacecontemporary.org

Where: Several citywide locations

ART CENTER OF CORPUS CHRISTI

'Dr. David Tripp'

What: The Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi's Coastal Studies inaugural artist in residence will be David Tripp at the Art Center of Corpus Christi. The artist will host a reception, open house and market night.

When: Through Saturday

Where: 100 N. Shoreline Blvd.

Information: 361-884-6406

ART MUSEUM OF SOUTH TEXAS

'EXPLORING THE LAND: LANDSCAPES ...'

What: The exhibit explores how depictions of American landscapes have evolved during more than 200 years of art, including the variety of style and social influences.

When: Through April 26

Where: 1902 N. Shoreline Blvd.

Information: 361-825-3500

Beeville Art Museum

'Paintings from the Nave'

What: A collection of 40 paintings by Royston Nave, the namesake of the Nave Museum, will be on display showcasing the works of the La Grange native.

When: Through April 30

Where: 401 E. Fannin St., Beeville

Information: 361-358-8615

COASTAL BEND COLLEGE

'Oblivious'

What: The Coastal Bend College will host the photography and prints of Coastal Bend alumni's "Carol Lee" exhibit with the "Oblivious" exhibit.

When: Through April 7

Where: Simon Michael Art Gallery, Frank Jostes Visual Arts Building

Information: 361-358-8615

JOSEPH A. CAIN MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

Drawing and Small Sculpture Show

What: Celebrating 50 years, Del Mar College's annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Show attracts works from some of the most creative contemporary American artists from across the United States. Each year, a guest juror of national stature judges the annual show with internationally known book art sculptor Brian Dettmer serving as the 2016 juror.

When: Through May 6

Where: Joseph A. Cain Memorial Art Gallery, Fine Arts Center, 101 Baldwin Blvd.

Information: 361-698-1216

K SPACE CONTEMPORARY

'Kitsch Show'

What: The juried exhibition will host a variety of art that is a collection of works that are tacky, overdone and melodramatic until they are cool. There will be an opening reception during ArtWalk from 5:30-9 p.m. Friday.

When: Through April 1

Where: Main Gallery, K Space Contemporary, 415 Starr St.

Information: 361-887-6834

'3SUM'

What: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi alumni Catrina Phillips, Eugene Soliz and Mayra Zamora will showcase their recent colorful and dramatic drawings, paintings and sculptures.

When: Through Saturday

Where: Hot Spot Gallery, K Space Contemporary, 415 Starr St.

Information: 361-887-6834

ROCKPORT CENTER FOR THE ARTS

'Rising Eyes of Texas'

What: The Rockport Center for the Arts will host the work of 33 emerging undergraduate and graduate students representing 16 Texas universities during the 9th annual Rising Eyes of Texas exhibit.

When: Through April 2

Where: Rockport Center for the Arts, 902 Navigation Circle

Information: www.risingeyesoftexas.com

Compiled by Esther Hackleman
Contributed photo Raymond Orta believes laughter has healing power and he's bringing his comedy to the American Bank Center's Selena Auditorium on Saturday.

SHARE Contributed photo Raymond Orta believes laughter has healing power and he's bringing his comedy to the American Bank Center's Selena Auditorium on Saturday.

By Mark Lopez, Special to the Caller-Times vivacc@caller.com

If the age-old adage "laughter is the best medicine" rings true, then some might consider Raymond Orta a modern healer.

Since age 8 he's been using jokes and humor to circumvent the harsh realities of the world around us.

Orta, whose comedy career started with a talent show, is bringing his slick brand of chuckle-inducing joke-slinging to the American Bank Center's Selena Auditorium on Saturday.

What sets Orta apart from the all-too-common image of a self-loathing, masochistic comedian is his tendency toward the positive.

"When people get offended, it's such an ugly feeling," Orta said. "So when I make fun of someone, it's always in a positive way. When I make fun of you, I make you feel good."

When asked about the state of comedy, Orta expresses a sense of elation and a twinge of apprehension.

"I'm super excited ... sort of like the big boom of the 1980s, kind of like the roaring 20s. The only drawback is everybody is looking to be politically correct.

"No one can take a joke anymore ... It makes comedy a much more delicate art. I just can't believe (people) let words hurt (them) that badly. They're just words."

This isn't to say Orta's brand of comedy is entirely controversial. Most of the excitement that comes with a Orta's set relies on the audience.

"None of it is planned," Orta said. "I have jokes written down, but I cater to the crowd. They don't know what they're going to get because I don't know what I'm going to give them. It's never the same show."

Born in the Rio Grande Valley and raised in La Joya, in 1985  "the year of the Nintendo"  it's this background Orta tries to bring forth when on stage. It's not just about telling jokes; it's about being a voice for his people.

"I represent the South Texas raza, my culture, the valley, the language, so Spanglish and torn up. When I open my mouth, people know I'm from the valley because there's that specific uniqueness."

Orta released a CD "El Comedian" in 2012, among others, has performed across the country and maintains his own podcast, "The Raytard Nation."

"My ultimate goal  there's been cases of people curing cancer from laughing curing cancer from laughing, from watching movies and laughing. They go back to the doctors, and they're cured. If you come to my show, you're gonna laugh harder than you've ever laughed.

My goal is that someone is told they only have weeks to live, that they can come to my show and laugh so hard that they're no longer sick. I'd love to heal through laughter. I always say, 'laugh loud and live long.'"

IF YOU GO

What: Raymond Orta Prende La Vela Tour

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: American Bank Center, Selena Auditorium, 1901 N. Shoreline Blvd.

Cost: $23-$38

Information: 361-826-4700, www.americanbankcenter.com
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By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

A day after Del Mar College's 2013 land acquisition on the Southside made headlines, the college received a phone call, President Mark Escamilla said.

"Will the Del Mar College campus be ready for my grandson?," the woman, who resided in the Treyway Terrace Apartments near Airline Road, asked.

The moment, which Escamilla said is emblematic of the flourishing Southside's educational needs, was shared during a Thursday evening meeting meant to gather the public's input to continue shaping the vision of the college's expansion.

Del Mar officials presented the most up-to-date design concepts for the proposed 96-acre campus, which will sit on the corner of Rodd Field Road and Yorktown Boulevard.

The public will play a key role in funding the expansion, for which a cost estimate has not been determined. A funding source to build the campus likely will be in the hands of the voters.

Instruction will focus on new programs including architecture; culinary arts, which will move from its current West Campus location; engineering; biotechnology; and other emerging technologies.

Developmental education, adult basic education, English as a second language and general education also will be offered.

Ramiro "Gambi" Gamboa, civil rights director for League of United Latin American Citizens No. 1, attended the meeting in support of the expansion. The Del Mar College alumnus said the new programming is "very exciting."

"We need to keep energizing young people," he said. "You need to show them other avenues of work, education and experiences."

The college's board of regents in January hired Gensler as the architect/engineering campus master planning consultant. The college used $1.8 million of a $157 million bond package approved by voters in 2014 to plan the campus. Regents saw early concepts for the new campus Feb. 9 and the Gensler team has since gathered feedback from the college's executive team, students and the community to revise plans accordingly.

The 1-million-square-foot campus would be built to serve 20,000 students and have about 5,000 parking spaces. The parking ratio  1 to 4  is smaller than east and west campus ratios of 1 to 2.2 and 1 to 3.6, respectively.

Just yesterday, Gensler Principal Alan Colyer said staff from the east and west campuses complimented the plan to have parking excluded from campus core. Colyer has referred to the campus as "pedestrian friendly" in the past.

Although feedback on the parking ratio from students is not as positive, he said he is confident parking will not be an issue.

"Students are always worried there is not going to be enough parking," he said. "But the ratio works very well. Part of this (public education) is understanding how community colleges work."

Twitter: @CallerBetty

Live Blog Del Mar seeks public input for Southside expansion
Live updates: Follow Donald Trump rally coverage in Robstown, Texas

Donald Trump is expected to speak in support of GOP candidates during the Texas rally at the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds in Nueces County
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES FILE Beach goers play a game of soccer during spring break March 15 in Port Aransas.

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By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times

Mostly sunny skies, high hotel occupancy, increases at area attractions and low arrest rates made for one successful spring break.

The increases in visitors to local attractions coupled with fewer arrests on the beaches has made the city easier to market toward families, which is a demographic the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau aggressively targets.

"Here in Corpus Christi, we've been intentional and strategic to make sure we offer experiences that are conducive to families and family travel," said Ashley Simper, the CVB's director of communications.

Compared to 2015, hotel occupancy rates increased downtown by 28 percent, along South Padre Island Drive by 12 percent and on the island by 30 percent. The revenue per available room rate was higher in most hotels.

At area attractions like Hurricane Alley and the Texas State Aquarium, there were large increases in out-of-town and local visitors. The Lexington Museum on the Bay had its second most successful spring break, missing its best year in 2013 by 70 people, Simper said.

Balmy temperatures during most of the week and the concentration of school districts and colleges sharing the same spring break are factors in the inundation of tourists, Simper said. Efforts by local restaurants, attractions and hoteliers also played into the success, she added.

Though numbers are still being compiled by the Corpus Christi Police Department, Capt. James McCarty said it was a good year with great family crowds.

"We had just a few arrests on the beach for public intoxication," McCarty said. "Most of the arrests on the beach were by contacts the cops made where the person had a warrant."

McCarty said crowds also remain well-behaved.

"(There were) no fights, no disturbances of any significance," McCarty said. "Even on the highway for traffic officers, there were only some minor wrecks with the traffic coming back from Port Aransas. No fatalities."

A new safety protocol on Corpus Christi beaches came in handy at least one time, McCarty said. One beach goer called 911 and didn't know where they were. The 2016 Know Your Location campaign placed color-coded signs on all beaches from Port Aransas to Bob Hall Pier. It helped the caller tell the dispatcher a color to pinpoint their location.

A different type of spring breaker populated Port Aransas beaches, and law enforcement prepares for that every year.

Port Aransas police brings in officers from all over Texas to assist the 17 it has on staff. But most of the week, the department does not feel much animosity from beach goers.

"It's a pro-police sentiment," said Port Aransas Police Chief Scott Burroughs. "The people that host the parties on the beach thank officers for being out here. They know we're here to keep them safe."

This year, there was an increase in alcohol-related arrests, but none were specifically because of the newly-enacted 6 p.m. alcohol curfew on the beach, Port Aransas police said.

Out of the 213 arrests between March 11 and March 20, there were 37 arrests for public intoxication, 46 for various drug charges, and 48 for minors-in-consumption or possession of alcohol. That is an increase from 2015's numbers, which were 22 drug arrests and 30 minors in possession.

There were seven arrests for disorderly conduct because of fighting, six assaults and one aggravated assault with a deadly weapon arrest. Three people also were detained for unlawfully carrying a weapon.

Twitter: @Caller_Jules
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By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times

In the last week, U.S. Border Patrol agents found two people stowed away in the trunk of a car and detained five people on suspicion of gang activity and sexual offenses.

When two American citizens tried to smuggle undocumented immigrants through the Falfurrias checkpoint on State Highway 281, a border patrol K-9 alerted officers to the vehicle, according to a news release. Agents found a Mexican national and Guatemalan national locked inside the trunk.

Kingsville agents took two Salvadoran nationals into custody in separate arrests this week, the release stated. Agents said the two admitted to being in a street gang active in multiple countries. Another member of the same gang was arrested by Kingsville agents this month.

Two undocumented immigrants from El Salvador and Mexico were arrested on suspicion of lewd acts with children under 14 years old and sexual battery, the release stated.

Corpus Christi agents arrested a Mexican national on suspicion of child molestation this week, as well.

Twitter: @Caller_Jules
PHOTOS BY GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin (left) and Michael McKenzie, assistant chief of jail administration, walk around the Nueces County Jail's chapel Thursday, March 3, 2016 in Corpus Christi.

SHARE Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin talks about the improvements he has done around the Nueces County Jail Thursday, March 3, 2016, in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES An inmate waits to be placed in a cell Thursday, March 3, 2016, at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Female inmates gather as they talk in one of the jail's common areas Thursday, March 3, 2016, at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Male inmates talk to Sheriff Jim Kaelin in a cell Thursday, March 3, 2016, at the Nueces County Jail in Corpus Christi.

By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times

In a dark security room within the Nueces County Jail, a deputy keeps an eye on the entire building with the help of 224 surveillance cameras.

The man operating the security system runs a touch screen monitor, deciding when to open gates or unlock doors. As one door opens, another closes, preventing inmates from accessing unauthorized areas. It's an intricate system that must be operated properly to keep the peace.

Deputies have to operate under a strict set of rules as well, whether they work in the jail or on the field. Because of this, Sheriff Jim Kaelin sought help to fix the office's policy manual. After two years and roughly $30,000, Kaelin saw the fruits of that labor this year.

A new policy manual, effective as of Jan. 1, was implemented in the sheriff's office. The old manual was compiled by different authors throughout the year and was in dire need of revision, Kaelin said.

"We found that this manual would say one thing in one chapter and say something else in another chapter," Kaelin said. "It was like a cut and paste manual."

The issue is not uncommon, said Galveston attorney Randy Means, who oversaw the policy revision. Means also has helped develop new policies for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, the El Paso Police Department and other agencies around the country.

"Historically, most policy manuals were developed piece-meal," Means said. "At some point, you need to start over and do it over in the first place."

Several law enforcement agencies develop a policy only when the need arises for one, Means said. Because of this, different employees would author different sections, leading to inconsistent writing styles and contradictions.

Means flew to Corpus Christi a few times in the past few years to help develop the new policy. Among those who worked with him on it was Chief Deputy John Galvan.

"Some of the old policy was outdated," Galvan said. "It didn't cover most of the things that apply today, like social media."

Galvan said he's confident the new policy covered those areas and expanded in areas that were previously ambiguous. Kaelin said the new policy will help hold everyone in the office more accountable.

"It keeps our managers on firm footing when they say (someone) violated a provision in the manual," Kaelin said. "The manual has to be fair, it has to be current, and it has to have the effect of the law behind it."

As times change, the policy will need to change, too.

"It's not like they can rest for the next 10 years," Means said. "But it's a vastly improved document that's a good basis for going forward."
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Michael Klein

Lessons in leadership

I am not a supporter of Donald Trump but neither am I a supporter of the protesters at his events. Some of the protesters in Chicago were asked after the rally what they were protesting about and they responded "I don't want to talk about it." Many of the protesters were probably of the liberal-college mindset whose main concern is to be protected from their feelings being hurt, and demonstrate their disdain for freedom of speech. Trump's handling of the protesters was also juvenile. In my opinion, if I was conducting the rally, I would have directly addressed the protesters, rather than incite my "storm troopers" against them. As soon as I saw my supporters fighting with the protesters, I would have pointed to them and said, "Leave him (her) alone ... If they're here to protest I want to hear their complaint." If the protester was civil enough to voice their complaint I would have addressed it, no matter how logical or illogical. If, however, they continued to rant and rave and create chaos, I would have said "Security escort this gentleman (lady) out of here." This way I would have been demonstrating control and leadership.
SHARE

Anson R. Nash Jr.

Pleased with public displays of faith

I am proud to be represented by a mayor and city council members who are not afraid to express their faith publicly. I have had the opportunity of defending my religious beliefs in court because another citizen, who was an atheist, was not tolerant of my right to hold beliefs contrary to his.

I am proud to live in a country that was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The laws of our land are Bible-based, our public buildings have biblical references written in stone, our money expresses our trust in God.

The cross is a beautiful thing to the Christian because it reminds us of God's desire to provide us with an escape from a life of sin. This week we celebrate the resurrection of the crucified Christ. One of the unique things about Christianity is that our founder no longer occupies a grave. No other religion in the world can celebrate that.
The partys Parliamentary Group has issued a declaration which was presented to the press in Yaounde on March 21, 2016.

ADS





Members of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) Parliament Group of the Senate and the National Assembly have exhorted the President of the Republic to thoroughly reform the Cameroon public health system. This is contained in joint letter addressed to the President of the Republic titled SDF Parliamentary Group joint letter about the lack of health safety in Cameroon public hospitals. The letter was read out to the press in Yaounde on March 21, 2016 at the SDF Parliamentary Group office by Hon Joseph Banadzem and Senator Jean Tsomelou in English and French respectively.



According to the SDF Parliamentary Group leaders for the National Assembly and the Senate, the recent death of a thirty-year -old Koumateke Monique who was pregnant with twins at the Douala Laquintinie Hospital and other cases cited in the letter paints a negative image and reputation of the country. The SDF Parliamentary Groups thus expressed their dismay to what they describe as criminal and unbearable situation, thus urging the high authority of the State to take strong and appropriate measures aimed at restoring order and build psychological serenity and confidence in the nations health facilities. The letter also recommends the reorganisation of the emergency services in the hospitals and health facilities so as to prepare them better for all contingencies.

ADS
But the problems don't stop with the budget. If the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner bill passes through the Senate in May, what will the industrial relations agenda be in the lead-up to a September election? Few people outside the Melbourne Club care much about the ABCC bill and fewer still will switch their vote to the Coalition if it passes. Needless to say, union officials are rightly enraged that their common-law rights might be stripped away but, once the bill passes the easiest way to have it repealed is via the election of a Shorten government. At a time the NSW Electoral Commission is withholding $4 million from the Liberal Party for non-disclosure of previous donations, Turnbull is doing the ALP's fund-raising for it.
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Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Jeep is expanding the range of the 2017 Grand Cherokee with the premium Summit model in a move to push their biggest model yet into the upper corner of the market.



The company stuffed the Grand Cherokee with more features than ever and updated its looks with a new front fascia, grille, LED head lamps and a set of 20in polished alloy wheels.

Our new Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit is in direct response to consumers who continue to ask for even more luxury, craftsmanship and standard premium features in a full-size SUV packed with capability, said Mike Manley, Head of Jeep Brand.

The interior is now fully wrapped in leather, with the dashboard, center console and door cards upholstered in Nappa leather and the seats in Laguna leather, offered in four color schemes.

Other features include a suede headliner, lighted door sills, an acoustic windshield, an active noise cancellation system, thick Berber carpet mats and a 19-speaker Harmon/Kardon audio system.

The new Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit will also be offered with headlamp washers, Blind Spot Detection, Forward Collision Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control and, for the first time, Lane Departure Warning and Parallel and Perpendicular Park Assist as standard.

Each Summit model comes fitted with Jeeps Quadra-Drive II 44 system with ELSD as well as Quadra-Lift air suspension and Selec-Speed Control.

Customers will be able to choose between Light Brown Stone, True Blue, Bright White, Ivory Pearl, Granite Crystal, Velvet Red, Diamond Black Crystal and Luxury Brown for the exterior of the most luxurious Jeep model ever.

PHOTO GALLERY
With the 2016 Formula 1 season already under way, McLaren is looking to spice things up by shining the spotlight on their MP4-31 race car, which already looks like better than what the team fielded last year.



This video is called The Drop and, if you were curious to know what it would look like to have Jenson Button parachute himself out of a plane while inside of his Formula 1 car, well, strap yourself in because this is fun.

Not everything is as it seems, though. That much is obvious when the MP4-31 lands on the track in a similar fashion to how the gang dropped their cars on a mountain road in the Fast 7 movie.

Blockbuster tactics aside, McLaren are rightly proud of their 2016 contender, especially after they were on their way to score points in Australia before Fernando Alonsos very, very scary accident from which he happily escaped unscathed.

VIDEO
The French company is recalling 10,649 Zoe EVs to examine the brake hoses which could carry a potential risk of rupture.



The recall is only about cars that were built between the launch in 2012 and October 6 2014, according to Reuters. Renault has built so far 42,300 Zoe models in total.

The company will check the position of certain brake hoses and replace them if necessary. So far there are no accidents reported that have been related to this issue.

The electric Renault Zoe offers an official driving range of 149 miles and is one of the most affordable ways to get into the world of electric motoring. Renault offers the small EV for sale either under a battery hire scheme or buying the car outright.

PHOTO GALLERY
After facelifting the European Corolla, Toyota introduced the mildly updated North American version of its compact sedan at the New York Auto Show.



Setting it apart from the outgoing 2016MY on the outside is a tweaked grille and front bumper with LED DRLs, and new tail lamp clusters in red.

In addition, the L, LE and LE Eco grades come with LED headlights and a backup camera as standard, while the SE, XSE and XLE benefit from more advanced LED headlights, upgraded interior trim and an enhanced sound system.

Standard items also include the Bluetooth and Entune Audio, while for an extra cost, the Entune Audio Plus with Connected Navigation, or the Entune Premium Audio with Integrated Navigation and App Suite that brings a larger 7-inch screen.

Last but not least, the Toyota Safety Sense-P is now available on all trims, bundling a host of safety items that include automatic high beams, dynamic radar cruise control, lane departure warning with steering assist and pre-collision system with pedestrian detection function.

PHOTO GALLERY
In his letter to Disney employees, first leaked to web publisher Ars Technica, Iger references upcoming congressional consideration of further copyright action. With Mickey Mouse again potentially entering the public domain  this time, in 2023  such congressional action undoubtedly interests Disney. (Worth noting: because Mickey Mouse is also trademarked, certain uses of Mickeys image would still be infringing, even without copyright protection.)

Since the passage of the 1998 copyright extension, American copyright protection of original works lasts for 95 years from initial publication. Because Mickey Mouse made his debut in 1928s Steamboat Willie, the copyright on the character is scheduled to expire in 2023, 95 years later. Copyright protection bars anyone from using a protected character or work without the permission of the rightholder. Whether Congress will further extend the current copyright term is an open question, but theres little doubt about Disneys preference.

In his letter, Iger also makes veiled references to a renewed effort at passing the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which died in Congress back in 2012 after a fierce battle between the Hollywood studios and Silicon Valley behemoths including Google and Facebook. That law would have potentially made websites vulnerable to claims of infringement just by linking to other websites with infringing material.

Hollywoods ardor for such legislation has never waned. Now, Iger says, the Copyright Office is looking at possible changes to laws governing the accountability of online services and the laws protecting technologies used to secure distribution of digital content. Digital rights proponents, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued at the time that SOPA threatened to shut down websites such as Flickr, Etsy, and Vimeo, and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe warned SOPA would undermine free expression on the web.

Now, it appears Disney is potentially hoping to revive the legislation. But if there is infringing activity on the web, nothing prevents Disney or the other studios from using the current laws to punish transgressors. Why non-offenders should be held accountable for the infringing actions of others remains an open question.

The letter goes on to list recent Disney legislative and court victories, including the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which lengthens copyright terms for many of the signatory nations; the major studios 2014 Supreme Court victory over Internet streaming service Aereo; and Congressional approval of favorable tax treatment for certain TV, film, and theatrical productions. Iger also mentions corporate support for veterans employment issues, asserting that support for the men and women who defend our country is of critical importance to Disney.

Iger is careful to point out that DisneyPAC gives equally to both Democrats and Republicans, and that failure to contribute to the PAC would in no way affect an employees job or future at the company.

(Image: Runaway Brain  Walt Disney Company)
Double Negative, a leading visual effects firm that won an Oscar last month for its work on Ex Machina, announced today that it will cease all operations at its Singapore studio. The shutdown will take place by May 20, 2016.

Double Negatives Singapore facility was opened in 2009, and had contributed vfx work to films such as Godzilla, Man of Steel, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay parts 1 and 2.

The company explained its reasons for closing in a written statement from Alex Hope, managing director and co-founder of Double Negative. Closing a facility is never an easy choice, said Hope. However we must be responsive to the requirements of our clients and ensure global operation is well balanced to meet their needs. The changing global dynamics of the film industry has focused the growth and development of our operations elsewhere in the world.
Photo: Twitter

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan will address the chamber of commerce during his visit to Kelowna next month.

Sajjan's speech is open to the public on April 8.

The luncheon begins at noon, with check-in at 11:30 a.m., at Manteo Resort on Lakeshore Road.

Sajjan will speak to current military issues in Canada and how the Liberal government is addressing the challenges.



He has served as both a soldier and a police officer, and is member of Parliament for Vancouver South.



Sajjan was a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Forces and is a combat veteran. He was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina and served three separate tours of duty in Afghanistan.

He has received numerous recognitions for his service, including the Meritorious Service Medal for reducing the Taliban's influence in Kandahar. He is also a recipient of the Order of Military Merit, one of the military's highest recognitions, and also served as an aide de camp to the lieutenant governor of British Columbia.



Sajjan was a police officer with the Vancouver Police Department for 11 years, completing his last assignment as a detective constable with the Gang Crime Unit. He has lectured on security in both Canada and the U.S.



Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr, a retired Canadian Air Force pilot, is chairman of the Standing Committee on National Defence.



Those interested in attending Sajjan's talk can register at www.kelownachamber.org/events.
Photo: Contributed

The community he loved so much will get one last chance to say goodbye, as Ben Lee is laid to rest Saturday.

Following a private funeral for family and friends, a public celebration of life has been scheduled.

The celebration of life will take place Saturday, March 26 from noon to 4 p.m. at Ben Lee Park in Rutland.

Along with speeches, there will be numerous activities throughout the day for kids including a bouncy castle and a tent full of games.

Lee, a former Kelowna city councillor, passed away quietly in his sleep Sunday night. He was 86.

He was an advocate for parkland and multiculturalism during his time both on and off council.

Prior to entering politics, Lee was instrumental in the campaign to have Rutland amalgamate with Kelowna.

Lee was often referred to as the unofficial Mayor of Rutland.

Castanet will stream the funeral live beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday morning.
Photo: Twitter

Hundreds of Canadians who've come together to sponsor Syrian refugees are being told it could be next year before their new charges arrive, after a series of changes to the Liberals' resettlement program.

The original goal of bringing in 25,000 refugees has been met, but the next step is unclear.

Caps on applications this year, a decrease in staff handling those and the return of a controversial travel-loan program are all prompting questions about what is going on with a program that once was priority one for the Liberal government.

"I think everybody assumed that the government was really interested in doing something serious about Syrian refugees and the 25,000 was just the start of it," said former Toronto mayor John Sewell, who is part of a network of private sponsors which plans to hold an emergency meeting next week on the situation.

"It's as though the government has just said, oh well, there's the promise, it's all over."

The changes essentially reverse much of what the previous Conservative government and then the Liberals did to respond to a surge in demand last fall for Canada to bring in more Syrians.

Staffing increases in the central processing office in Winnipeg and at missions overseas was the first step taken by the Tories and increased further when the Liberals took office, but they have now been cut back.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was pressed on the issue Thursday but wouldn't directly address the cuts.

"We continue to be engaged with the issue of Syrian refugees, making it a priority to continue to show that Canada is a strong and welcoming country," he said.

In the Toronto area alone, upwards of 600 groups have spent months raising money, finding apartments and gathering supplies.

Some are being told it will be more than eight months before the family they are sponsoring arrives, while others hear that if they've not yet been matched with a family it's unlikely they'll see anyone before 2017.

"There is so much conflicting information floating around," said Allison Murray, who has been working with a group of Toronto residents since the fall to put together the funds to sponsor a family.

"Our group is trying to be patient."

It's never been clear exactly how many privately sponsored Syrians would be accepted. There had been no caps on applications under the Conservatives or in the early part of the Liberal program.

As of March 14, there were 6,641 private cases in the inventory. Groups have been notified a cap will be placed on the number of applications accepted  as has been the custom for other refugee populations in recent years  but aren't sure yet what it is.

Immigration Minister John McCallum said he is aware the enthusiasm to support Syrians won't last forever "We want to create the conditions where Canadians are able and as quickly as possible to sponsor those refugees," he said.

Arrivals of refugees have slowed considerably since the government stopped running its own flights.

Between Feb. 27 and March 8, 600 new government-assisted refugees and 433 privately sponsored arrived. In the 12 days after, only nine government-assisted refugees and 16 privately sponsored arrived. Only one person who is part of a program that blends the two streams arrived in that time.

While the government is still covering the flight costs for government-assisted refugees, they've stopped doing so for privately sponsored ones who've yet to be interviewed. They will now either be forced to take out a government loan or have their sponsors pay the fare.

The loan program was slammed in a government evaluation for placing an unfair burden on new arrivals. McCallum had promised it was under review.
Photo: Nicholas Johansen

An owl fledgling on the loose downtown was rescued and brought back to its family by the Kelowna SPCA on Thursday.

The baby Great Horned Owl, thought to have only left the nest a few days ago, was found Thursday morning by construction workers.

He had obviously tried to get airborne over night, just by the Interior Health building across from the library, and got maybe as far as the construction site where theyre extending the parkade for the library, said Suzanne Pugh, BC SPCA Kelowna branch manager.

The construction crew found the owl at the top of some scaffolding, and attempted to remove him, but the skittish owl took a short flight across Ellis Street, and ended up near the sidewalk.

The Kelowna SPCA was called to help.

We were successful, it went really easily actually, and we got him into a carrier and took him back to the shelter for the afternoon and left him in a quiet area, Pugh said.

Pugh says the owl came from a tree that has attracted a fair bit of attention in recent weeks due to the owl family living in it.

Pugh brought the owl to the base of the tree Thursday evening and let it out of the carrier, under the close watch of its parents.

While the parents didnt immediately fly down to greet their adventurous offspring, Pugh hopes they will be back to being one big happy family soon enough.

Well just monitor them over the next few days, she said. The fledgling stays with the parents, its a family unit for up to a year or more, so it's really important he gets back to the family; thats his best chance for survival.
Photo: Contributed

The distraught parents of a missing toddler in rural Manitoba made a tearful plea Thursday for any information that might lead to a reunion with their son.

Thomas Martens and Destiny Turner made a brief appearance outside their home near Austin to say it would be unusual for two-year-old Chase to go off by himself.

"It is unlike our son to wander off of our property, and, if he ever went anywhere, he would always have our dog with him," Martens read from a prepared statement.

He said they were looking for answers that could help bring Chase home.

"Anyone with information, please find it in your hearts to do the right thing and come forward," Martens, with his wife at his side, read through tears.

"If someone has our son, please bring him home. We won't be angry. We will be forgiving and grateful. We are devastated to have our son taken from us.

"Me  dad  mom and Chase's two big sisters pray every moment that Chase is safe."

Police have not ruled out foul play, but have said it is not the focus of their investigation. They said an Amber Alert was not issued because they didn't have any information to suggest he had been abducted.

The Martens said they are overwhelmed with the support they have received and how the community has come together to look for their boy.

The search involving hundreds of people on foot and horseback, driving ATVs and in the air expanded Thursday to include creeks and shorelines within a three-kilometre radius of the home. RCMP Sgt. Bert Paquet said underwater dive teams were brought in, since most of the dry land around the property had already been combed over.

"There is a lot of hope that ... further examinations of bodies of water ... will answer the one question we are trying to answer," Paquet said.

Searchers were mindful that a lot of time had passed since Chase vanished, he said.

"Obviously we are talking about quite an amount of time in elements that are extremely challenging for a two-year-old boy," he said. "Knowing what we have dealt with before in similar circumstances, we have to be open to all possibilities.

"While we remain hopeful, we also have to keep in mind that the worst-case scenario is something that cannot be forgotten at this point."

Volunteer Michelle Richards travelled with her mother, Kim, from Portage la Prairie to help in the search.

"I've got a three-year-old at home, so I couldn't honestly imagine what the parents are going through," she said. "For him to just be gone, it's terrifying."

His parents last saw Chase playing in the yard around suppertime Tuesday. He was wearing a blue jacket, black splash pants, a red hat and boots that light up as he walks. He is described as being 2 1/2 feet tall and weighing 30 pounds. He has blue eyes and light-brown hair.

"We need to keep in mind all possible avenues, all possible scenarios. We owe it to the family to keep open minds about what is happening," Paquet said.

No physical evidence has been found and police are still looking for any clues or tips that may help in the investigation, he said.

"If anyone has any kind of information ... give us a call."
Photo: Twitter - WDAY TV

Authorities have evacuated a town in northwestern Minnesota after a freight train collided with a propane truck that caught fire.

State Patrol Sgt. Jesse Grabow says it happened about 12:25 p.m. Thursday in Callaway. The town of about 230 was evacuated as a precaution. The evacuation was to remain in effect until at least noon Friday.

The state Department of Public Safety says the propane is being vented and burned off. None of the affected cars carried hazardous materials and none caught fire.

Canadian Pacific says the crash derailed seven empty cars and the locomotive on the 82-car train. Railroad spokesman Andy Cummings says two crew members were hurt. DPS says they were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Callaway is about 50 miles east of Fargo, North Dakota.
Photo: The Canadian Press Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz tours a production plant at a campaign stop in Dane, Wis.

Ted Cruz branded Donald Trump a "sniveling coward" as the feud between the Republican presidential contenders over their wives took a nastier turn.

After an earlier and vague threat to "spill the beans" about Heidi Cruz, Trump stoked the spat on Twitter when he retweeted side-by-side images of Cruz's wife, with an unflattering grimace, and his wife, Melania, in a glamorous pose.

"No need to spill the beans," said the caption. "The images are worth a thousand words."

On Thursday, Ted Cruz, campaigning in Wisconsin, was livid.

"Leave Heidi the hell alone," Cruz said, speaking through reporters to Trump.

"Donald does seem to have an issue with women," he said. "Donald doesn't like strong women. Strong women scare Donald."

Trump was set off this week when a group that opposes him released an ad before the Utah presidential contest raising questions about the propriety of Melania Trump becoming first lady. The ad showed a provocative, decade-old magazine photo of her when she was a model and before she married Trump.

Trump wrongly attributed the ad to the Cruz campaign and warned on Twitter: "Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!"

Trump has a substantial lead in the delegate chase for the Republican nomination. Cruz has a stiff challenge trying to catch him in remaining races and may only have a shot at the nomination if the contest spills into the summer convention.

On the Democratic side Thursday, front-runner Hillary Clinton warned that "hot rhetoric and demagoguery" can be offensive and dangerous.

Her remarks at a round-table discussion on keeping communities safe from radicalization and terrorism echoed criticism she made a day earlier of Trump and his Republican rivals. Speaking at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Clinton warned that voices that could bring communities together can be "drowned out by politics, by partisanship."

Also on Thursday, Clinton said she would mount an aggressive campaign across California and compete to win over "every voter in it."

Her remarks to reporters in Los Angeles came a day after rival Bernie Sanders predicted he would claim the nation's most populous state in its June 7 primary, so long as he gets a strong turnout. Clinton also appeared to be looking beyond the Democratic primaries. She called California an "exclamation point" on the primary season, but adds that it's "important to get ready and organized for the fall election."

Clinton carried California in the 2008 Democratic primary, when she was running against then-Sen. Barack Obama. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, carried the state in 1992 and 1996.

For the Republicans, the lurch into personal territory normally off limits in campaigns came as an anti-Trump super political action committee ran an ad in primary states that features women reciting derogatory comments made by the billionaire about women. The ad was produced by Our Principles, a group founded by a former Mitt Romney campaign adviser who is trying to help the Republican Party appeal to more women.
Photo: The Canadian Press

At Brussels' Place de la Bourse, where thousands have gathered to place candles and leave flowers, city archives staff were peeling rain-sodden messages of solidarity off the ground, drying them with paper towels, and putting them into plastic bins.

The workers  who wore fluorescent vests emblazoned with the words "We are working to protect and preserve your messages"  stepped gingerly among the flags, tea candles and beer bottles left as tokens of support, slowly picking the sopping hand-written notes and stacking them into the bins.

The plaza has become a memorial site, covered in flags from a dozen countries and messages in multiple languages.

Meanwhile, Belgium's nuclear agency has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and has denied access to other people amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

Nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck said Friday that "in recent days, several people have been refused access to the nuclear sites."

But she said the move "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks."

In France, officials say a man arrested by intelligence agents in a Paris suburb has connections to the suspected ringleader of last year's Paris attacks.

Two French officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the man detained Thursday is Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman wanted since January on suspicion of links to terrorism. France's interior minister said the man was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack a target in France.

A Belgian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Kriket was convicted in absentia in July along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud and others for being part of a recruiting network for jihad in Syria.

Authorities have identified Abaaoud as the ringleader of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. He died in a police raid a few days later.

France's interior minister said there was no evidence "at this stage" to link Kriket to the Paris attacks or this week's attacks in Brussels. But a French police official said explosives and multiple weapons, including at least one assault rifle, were found in an hours-long search of a home in Argenteuil.
Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic(CINCINNATI) -- The daughter of former Cincinnati Bengals player Devon Still just celebrated a big milestone: being cancer free for one year.

Leah Still was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma in 2015 at age 4. The disease develops from immature nerve cells found in several areas of the body and primarily affects children younger than 5, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Devon Still took to social media Friday to celebrate his daughter's "second birthday."

"I want to wish a Happy (2nd) Birthday to my baby, Leah," Still wrote on Instagram Friday. "Today, March 25th, marks a year of her being in remission! A day she was given a second chance at life."

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This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions
Brenda Harris, in hat, gets a hug from Maria Alfaro, a Fight for $15 protest organizer, on March 8, 2016, outside the Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's in Chicago's River North neighborhood. Harris has worked at a McDonald's on the South Side for years. Protesters called for a $15 minimum wage and advocated for other causes. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Teachers won't be the only ones walking off the job April 1.

Fast-food workers organized by the Fight for $15 group plan to join the Chicago Teachers Union's one-day strike, connecting their push for higher wages with school funding.

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It will be the first time fast-food workers strike at the same time as the teachers, though the organizing groups, part of a coalition of labor and community organizations in the city, have stood together in protests and rallies before.

Fight for $15 organizers said planning was still in the works and it wasn't clear how many workers or restaurants would be involved. The campaign has held 10 strikes in Chicago since it launched in 2012.

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The campaign is demanding a $15 wage and union rights, which it says are part of ending workers' reliance on food stamps and other public assistance programs that use taxpayer money better spent on schools.

The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry in the U.S. is nearly $7 billion a year, including $368 million in Illinois, according to a study last year from the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Department of Urban & Regional Planning. The fast-food industry has disputed the findings of the study, which was funded by worker advocacy group Fast Food Forward.

Bob Bruno, a professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, said joining forces with the teachers "is a natural fit" and good strategy for the fast-food workers' campaign, as creating a broad coalition is how progressive change comes about.

"It's about recognizing and responding in a united way to a false narrative that Illinois and Chicago have to solve their financial problems on the backs of public sector workers, unions, low-wage workers and the poor," Bruno said.

aelejalderuiz@tribpub.com

Twitter @alexiaer
Cochon555 in Chicago will see these chefs compete, from left: Sarah Grueneberg of Monteverde, Alfredo Nogueira of Analogue, Phillip Foss of EL Ideas, Cory Morris of Rural Society, and Sarah Rinkavage of Lula Cafe. (Chicago Tribune; photo of Phillip Foss by Eugene Galdones/Galdones Photography)

Attention, lovers of all things porcine: Cochon555 returns to Chicago. Get ready to loosen your belts.

On April 24, the 18-city tour will stop at Loews Chicago Hotel, feting guests with all things pig. Cochon555, started eight years ago to highlight heritage-breed hogs and advocate the local food movement, pits local chefs against one another, challenging them to prepare a maximum of six dishes from one whole hog. Guests and judges have the enviable task of crowning a local Prince or Princess of Porc. This year's competing chefs include host chef Cory Morris of Rural Society, Sarah Grueneberg of Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio, Alfredo Nogueira of Analogue, Phillip Foss of EL Ideas and Sarah Rinkavage of Lula Cafe. The winner will continue on to compete for the title of King or Queen of Porc at the tour finale, Grand Cochon at Snowmass/Aspen, Colo., in June.

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General admission tickets cost $125, allowing guests to taste the chef's nose-to-tail dishes and go hog-wild (sorry, not sorry) with the expanded culinary program. From tasting a range of pork-friendly wines from Spain and Germany, or cocktails from local bartenders to sipping craft beer and cider, the beverage program is bigger than ever. Meanwhile, visitors can take home their own heritage breed pork at the Pop-Up Butcher Shop, which raises money for Piggy Bank, an initiative launched by Brady Lowe, founder of the Cochon555 U.S. Tour and Taste Network. Proceeds from the event also benefit the fund, whose goal is to create a heritage breed pig sanctuary that provides free genetics and business plans to emerging family farms.

For tickets and the full event schedule, visit the website.

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jbhernandez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @joeybear85
Chef Jorge Vallejo, center, of Quintonil restaurant in Mexico City, took Rick Bayless, right, to a restaurant that inspires him, Taqueria Los Cocuyos, in this scene from "Mexico: One Plate at a Time." The show's 10th season has been nominated for an Emmy. (Scott Dummler )

Rick Bayless' television series, "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" is up for an Emmy Award. Season 10 of the long-running PBS cooking series has been nominated for outstanding culinary program.

The season was notable because Bayless' teachers were young chefs in Mexico City, some just toddlers when Bayless opened Frontera Grill, his first restaurant, wrote former Tribune writer Judy Hevrdejs in a 2015 story.

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"The most interesting part is to see some of these young chefs bring new eyes to old ingredients or old techniques," Bayless said in the article. "They all have amazing equipment in their kitchens, and some of it is quite high-tech. To see it applied to Mexican ingredients sometimes just blows me away."

Bayless was first nominated in 2012 for an Emmy as outstanding lifestyle/culinary host in connection with "Mexico: One Plate at a Time." The show's director, Scott Dummler, was also nominated. Neither won.

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Dummler, president of Chicago-based Mint Media Works, said he is "very pleased" by this year's nomination. "A lot of people put a lot of hard work into this, most of all Rick,'' he said.

Indeed, Bayless mentioned hard work in a comment but placed the credit on the crew: "Criss-crossing Mexico for scenes  or even just filming in my backyard in Bucktown  is a huge challenge," Bayless said in an email. "That it translates so well on screen is a testament to the talent and hard work of our crew."

Other programs up for the award this year, according to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, are: "America's Test Kitchen," "Cook's Country" and "Pati's Mexican Kitchen," all on PBS; and "Giada in Italy" and "Patricia Heaton Parties" on the Food Network. The winner will be announced at the Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on May 1.

wdaley@tribpub.com

Twitter @billdaley
The Bowen Building is the centerpiece of the Peoria State Hospital complex in Bartonville. (Frank Butterfield / Handout)

The Tennessee Wraith Chasers ghost-hunting team investigates paranormal activity at the former Peoria State Hospital complex in downstate Bartonville in an upcoming episode of "Ghost Asylum," show reps announced Friday.

The hospital, once called the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane, is one of a few locations the team visits for the series' new season, which is scheduled to premiere 9 p.m. April 3 on Destination America.

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Patients were treated on the hospital's campus from 1902-73. The Bowen Building, the centerpiece of the complex, has been open for paranormal ghost tours since 2012. The spot was featured on a "Ghost Hunters" episode in 2013.

The "Ghost Asylum" team also visits the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City; Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Fla.; the Old South Pittsburg Hospital in Tennessee; and the USS Edson, a decommissioned naval destroyer docked in Bay City, Mich., in the upcoming season.
"Bright Star" offers a suite of original songs dominated by fiddles, banjos, accordion and percussion and rooted in the bluegrass tradition. Its story is one of redemption and hope, with an underpinning of the master plan of a superior being; it's the kind of narrative that is favored in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where one could imagine the aptly named "Bright Star" playing for eternity. It is, you might say, a Red State kind of show, which is no bad thing on good ol' Blue State Broadway, where the secular, progressive, diverse deconstruction of love, family and other myths makes up the more crowded cosmos. It would be an even-better thing if this show acknowledged, at least in passing, the racial complexities of the era of its setting rather than avoid that all together.
For most of the 3-1/2 years since he was elected to the Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz has been a man establishment Republicans loved to hate. In February, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joked that if someone killed the Texan on the floor of the Senate and the Senate held the trial, no one would be convicted.

A few days ago, Graham held a fundraiser for Cruz. On Wednesday, Jeb Bush endorsed him. Mitt Romney, who had campaigned with Gov. John Kasich in Ohio less than two weeks ago, backed Cruz too, making recorded telephone calls for him in advance of Tuesday's primary in Arizona and caucuses in Utah.

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"At this point a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump," the calls said.

Good afternoon, I'm David Lauter, Washington Bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

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This week, we'll also reveal a key number from our latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of California voters. Read on for that, and check on Sunday for the first stories about the poll's findings at our politics page and on Twitter at @latimespolitics.

Maybe Romney's backing helped in Utah, where Cruz took almost 70% of the vote on Tuesday even as he lost Arizona to Trump. Or maybe the results there just testify to the fact that Mormons have joined Latinos, blacks, young people and Democrats on the list of groups who deeply dislike the blustery New York businessman.

In Arizona, meanwhile, Trump appears to be helping Democratic activists in their efforts to make the state blue, or at least a bit more purple, by increasing the number of Latino registered voters, as Seema Mehta described.

This week's flurry of endorsements for Cruz represented the latest effort by established figures in the GOP to try to slow Trump down before he can win the 1,237 delegates he would need for a first-ballot victory at this summer's Republican nominating convention.

The strategy seems designed to pressure Kasich to quit the race, lest he split the anti-Trump vote. So far, the Ohio governor has been brushing aside such pleas, arguing that he can defeat Hillary Clinton in the November general election, which he says neither Trump nor Cruz can do.

Trump, of course, claims he is bringing "millions" of new voters into the GOP. The evidence so far shows that's not so, as I explained in this piece on four myths of the 2016 campaign.

The next major test in the GOP race won't come for a week and a half, April 5, when Wisconsin holds its primary.

Kasich thinks he can do well in the state, which demographically resembles Ohio. But Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn't seem to think so.

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"Ted Cruz is the only one who's got a chance other than Donald Trump to win the nomination statistically, and my friend Gov. Kasich cannot," he said in a radio interview. Walker added that he would probably make an endorsement sometime next week, to have maximum impact on the primary.

You can follow the outcome of all the primaries, as we post live results, speeches and analysis on Trail Guide.

And as the race unfolds, keep watch on the delegates in both parties with our Delegate Tracker, which shows where each candidate stands and where they have won support.

Over in the Democratic race, this weekend will see three caucuses, in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, with the latter attracting the greatest attention. Seattle has been one of the leading sources of contributions to Sen. Bernie Sanders, and as Chris Megerian explains, the state's caucuses have become a must-win contest for him after he spent heavily in an unsuccessful effort to beat Hillary Clinton in Arizona.

Sanders has openly begun to concede that his campaign has only a "narrow" path to a potential victory. Any hope he does have hangs on the caucus outcomes. Even if he wins there, however, and in Wisconsin in April, the math of the delegate contest makes a Sanders victory extremely unlikely.

With both Sanders and Clinton campaigning in California over the past few days, Cathy Decker took a look ahead at why winning the state won't be easy for the insurgent Vermont senator, who would need to carry the state in a landslide to amass enough delegates to win the nomination.

Sanders talked to Times editors and editorial writers this week about the importance his campaign places on California and his view of the issues. We've posted a full transcript of the interview.



"Look, I come from a state which has 630,000 people. And I know half the people in my state. California is not Vermont; it's an entirely different world for us, and it is a little bit intimidating," he said.

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By the way, the belief by many Sanders backers that Clinton's lead only involves the so-called super-delegates, who are not chosen by primary voters, is another of the campaign myths I examined in the piece I mentioned earlier.

Clinton is already looking ahead at the general election. As Evan Halper wrote, she did not even mention Sanders during a speech on foreign policy at Stanford University, in which she blistered Trump and Cruz.

Trump, by contrast, has done little to modulate his appeal for a potential general election audience, as Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak reported from Arizona.

His language and personality trouble many Republican voters, even some of Trump's supporters -- doubts that were on full display during a focus group of Republican voters in St. Louis that reporters were able to watch. Here's my account of the group's reactions to the GOP front-runner.

Halper took a look at what may be the biggest legacy of Sanders' campaign: He's turned a formerly obscure left-wing fundraising operation, ActBlue, into the political world's greatest money machine.

Finally, the fight over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland continues to roil Capitol Hill.

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Lisa Mascaro went to Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey faces a difficult reelection fight, to look at the efforts by Democrats and their allies to put pressure on Republicans to give Garland a hearing.

Mascaro also did this helpful rundown of the 13 Senate seats -- 11 held by Republicans and 2 by Democrats -- that are potentially at risk in this year's elections.

Mike Memoli looked at how the fight over Garland is also becoming a battle between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President Joe Biden.

And David Savage reported on the latest from the Supreme Court, where the remaining eight justices seem deadlocked on the issue of the Obamacare requirement that insurance plans offer contraceptive coverage to women. Savage's piece explains the issue and the ramifications of what appears to be a 4-4 split.

The poll:

We'll have a lot more results from our poll of California voters over the next several days. But here's a first glimpse at one key number -- President Obama's approval rating in the state, which has risen to 64%, the highest level the poll has found going back to his first year in office. Similarly, the share of Californians viewing Obama favorably, 65%, is also at a high point.

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The upsurge in positive views of Obama has showed up nationwide in several recent surveys, although he's starting from a lower base in more Republican parts of the country. That could matter for the general election since the party in power benefits when voters have a positive view of the incumbent.

That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide at our politics page and on Twitter at @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.
Kyla Winters works with Randy Mason, a certified prosthetist, while being fitted with new legs. (Peggy Peattie / San Diego Union-Tribune)

SAN DIEGO  Strangers occasionally stop Kyla Winters on the street and thank her for her military service when they see she's walking on two prosthetic legs.

Sometimes, prayer circles surround her without warning.

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These encounters often assume her injuries were unavoidable, that it was a bomb blast or a rare genetic disorder that took all of her fingers and her legs below the knee.

That's not the case. It was the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis, often called bacterial meningitis, that poisoned her blood and prompted surgeons to amputate in 2009.

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Kyla Winters learned to walk with prosthetic legs and make do with incomplete fingers. (Peggy Peattie / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The infection and its aftermath were preventable. Had Winters received the vaccine that's routinely recommended for college-age kids, she likely would not be faced with so much pain with every door she opens and every step she takes.

So when she finds herself at the center of a circle of well-wishers, she wants them to know what they're really looking at, how she got to where she is today.

"People will come up to me and say how amazing I am," Winters said. "They're trying to be sweet and encouraging, and they are, but really what I want them to know is you need to be aware."

She hopes that sharing her story will help those who are healthy see more clearly what they risk when they forgo vaccination, whether it's for rare conditions like meningococcal disease or for more common ailments like whooping cough and hepatitis.

"When I realized what strain I got, when I realized it was Meningitis C, I was so overwhelmed with grief. I could have prevented it. I could have had the vaccine," Winters said.

Her saga began with a stiff neck after a night on the town with friends. That painful stiffness, which started overnight, had spread throughout her body by morning.

"I mean, I have been in pain before. I had a double mastectomy. But I had never experienced anything like this. I knew I was dying," Winters said.

Two friends who had slept over called 911, and an ambulance took her to Scripps Mercy Hospital. Winters doesn't remember the ride or much else for the next two months.

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Kyla Winters goes through drills on her new running blades, given to her by the Challenged Athletes Foundation. (Peggy Peattie / San Diego Union-Tribune)

But many others do, including Dr. Gonzalo Ballon-Landa, the infectious disease specialist called in that morning on a report of a woman who had flulike symptoms and severe pain but whose tests had come back negative. By the time he arrived, Ballon-Landa recalled, Winters had begun to develop a full-body rash.

"Looking at that rash, I was highly suspicious that she had meningococcal disease, and just from looking at her, I had a sense she was going to have a severe case," he said.

Emergency room doctors administered a dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics shortly after her arrival. Studies show that quick receipt of antibiotics is a key factor in determining who survives an infectious disease and who does not.

Though her tests looked fine, Ballon-Landa's gut told him she needed to be monitored in the intensive care unit. The next morning, the situation took a turn for the worse.

"Boom! The bottom fell out from under her," Ballon-Landa said. "She had to be intubated, her blood pressure went to zero, she had to be put on enormous amounts of life-sustaining medications ... her liver failed, her kidneys failed, her heart failed, everything failed."

Meningococcal disease is best known for causing the meninges  the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord  to swell, prompting seizures and headaches that can result in brain damage and, eventually, death. But the bacteria also commonly infects the blood, causing a condition called septicemia. Toxins produced by the bacteria damage the blood vessels, causing platelets to leak out into the skin. This leakage is what caused Winters' tell-tale rash.

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Kyla Winters fits herself into a gravity reduction treadmill that will help her learn to use her new running blades. (Peggy Peattie / San Diego Union-Tribune)

As the severity of her infection increased and damaged her heart, her body's ability to keep her extremities supplied with oxygenated blood was severely reduced. The tissue became so damaged that amputation was the only solution.

Winters was in ICU for six weeks. Heavy pain medication kept her from being fully aware of exactly what was happening. She was not involved in the decision to amputate.

Winters' identical twin, Liana Thomas, was in late pregnancy at the time. She stayed by her twin's side, interviewing doctors about the need to amputate.

When it was time for discharge, Thomas decided to move her family to San Diego where she could help her twin recuperate.

It was clear that Winters would need a kidney transplant. Thomas decided to give her sister a kidney, and the surgery took place Aug. 25, 2010, exactly one year after Winters crashed in the ICU.

People sometimes ask Thomas how she found the bravery to donate a kidney. She has trouble understanding the questions.

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"This was my twin sister. I felt like I was saving my own life. The thought of her not being in my world was just devastating," Thomas said.

For Winters, regaining independence took much more than a transplant.

It's easy to see pictures of her learning to run on her prosthetic legs and think she has fully recovered. But no one sees her trying to get dressed in the morning or sitting down on the floor in the grocery store when her legs just hurt.

"What took me an hour, like getting ready in the morning, today still will take me two, three hours," she said.

Though she has made gradual progress in walking and manipulating the world around her, her life remains too unpredictable to hold down a full-time job.

Sometimes, she said, the pain is sudden and sharp, located in her missing foot or calf. Other times, it's more of a burning sensation.

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"Living with so many amputations," Winters said, "it's a full-time job just to try to be independent."
The Rev. Jennie English places a cross in the ground March 25, 2016, near the scene where a fatal shooting took place earlier in the year at South May Street and West 90th Street in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

A day without violence in Chicago might seem unimaginable to many. But then so seemed the biblical story of Jesus Christ's resurrection. Still, millions of Christians believe Jesus rose from his tomb and celebrate that miracle every Easter.

Longing to see death conquered again, a coalition of churches on Chicago's Far Southwest Side will gather to worship this Sunday with another seemingly impossible goal  an Easter when all in the city can uphold the pledge, "Thou shalt not murder."

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"That is really the story of our faith, where darkness always turns into light," said the Rev. William Malloy, pastor of St. Barnabas Roman Catholic Church in Beverly. "This whole 'Thou Shalt Not Murder' campaign is about life. It's about rising from the darkness that Chicago finds itself in at the moment and making a commitment to live in that light."

Thousands of faithful across the city have signed the pledge, saying murder of any kind will no longer be tolerated. By adding their signature, people commit to learning more about the sources of gun and gang violence and doing more to intervene before it's too late. In recent months, churches in Beverly and Morgan Park have hosted workshops on creating educational and employment opportunities, as well as prayer services and round-table discussions with activists from other neighborhoods where churches are burying their teenagers.

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"It's more than just praying for one day without violence," Malloy said. "It's trying to address the root causes and recognizing that we're in solidarity with each other and that somehow we have the capability of addressing these things if we put our minds and hearts to it. It's fundamental to the Gospel."

It has been a little more than a year since Chicago went a day without any shootings. In Beverly and Morgan Park, a virtual oasis from the city's homicide rate, residents are largely isolated from the violence plaguing other parts of the city. They often only read about it from a distance or hear about it from neighbors, because many first responders and police live in the area. But that does not absolve them from working toward a solution, clergy say.

"When anyone is unsafe, we're all unsafe," Malloy said. "When people don't feel they can sleep in their own homes, then all of us as people of faith are united with them in solidarity."

The campaign just happens to coincide with the city's deadliest start to the year in nearly two decades, according to crime statistics. By Good Friday, the Chicago Police Department already had counted 135 violent deaths. None of those homicides took place in Beverly and Morgan Park. Last year, six of 488 homicides took place on the edge of Morgan Park, while there were no homicides in Beverly.

The Rev. Jennie English, pastor of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, said that's the whole point of events during Lent and Holy Week leading up to Easter.

"We are living out Christ's command to love one another as Christ has loved us," said English, who washed parishioners' feet on Thursday, a common Holy Week tradition. "We don't do foot washing every year in our congregation. When we do it, we always try to make the connection that it can't be a ritual that we do with each other. It has to compel us to go out and love our neighbor in risky and vulnerable ways."

The Easter Sunday campaign emerged from a controversy last fall when members of the Beverly Unitarian Church posted a "Black Lives Matter" message on the digital sign outside its building. The Rev. Karen Mooney, a newly appointed minister at the church, was stunned by backlash from some in the community who interpreted the saying as being anti-white or anti-police. The congregation had intended the posting of the saying to be provocative, not polarizing. Mooney believed its underlying message that all lives matter was clear and crucial, but it was black lives that had been devalued and therefore needed to be highlighted.

"They are my kin," said Mooney, referring to the mostly African-American homicide victims across the city. "If I'm not outraged, I am part of the problem."

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Unannounced, she walked up the road, knocked on the door of the St. Barnabas rectory and sat down with Malloy for nearly an hour. She also sought advice from the Rev. Dennis Langdon, pastor of Morgan Park United Methodist Church a mile down the road. Within days, about a half-dozen religious leaders convened to figure out what to do. They devised a plan that offered a measurable, albeit idealistic, goal  one day without murder.

The group has since taken great pains to make sure the campaign doesn't alienate any groups, especially law enforcement. Malloy wrote a letter to his parishioners explaining that the campaign was not anti-police. And when the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church attended a forum to share with about 1,000 spectators his experiences in the Auburn Gresham community, organizers also invited Eugene Williams, chief of the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Support Services, now one of three finalists for police superintendent.

"Police officers have been a very active part of this parish community. They worship here. They send their kids to our school. They love Beverly, and they want to see Beverly thrive," Malloy said. "They realize the police and community need each other, and it hurts their hearts when there's suspicion and mistrust."

Just as important as respecting police is engaging the young people, some of whom think the campaign's goal is utterly unattainable, clergy say. On a recent Tuesday, a small group of teens from Morgan Park High School gathered at the Catholic Youth Ministry Center, commonly called the Blue House, to create crosses and paint T-shirts in honor of last year's 488 homicide victims.

"This has to be their mission and cause because it's their lives," said Langdon who helped the teens create the monuments. Langdon also hopes the campaign is the beginning of a citywide movement beyond the borders of Beverly and Morgan Park. With that in mind, clergy fanned out across the city on Good Friday to plant a memorial near most of the scenes of last year's homicides. Protestant bishops from across the city also gathered the day before Palm Sunday to bless the effort and broaden its reach across the region.

"I think it's hard sometimes to get a message of hope above all the voices of pain and despair of it all," said Bishop Sally Dyck, leader of Chicago's Methodists who attended the service. "We need to hear that. Don't get me wrong. But it's hard to hear the voice of hope calling for something else above all of that. Easter is a great day to do that. Easter is always that day when we say that death does not have the last word."

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Langdon said that if there have been no murders by the time he delivers his Easter morning sermon, he will "gloriously" incorporate that good news. But he would add that it was by virtue of nothing he and his colleagues have done over the last few months. He will consider it an act of God blessing their efforts.

In fact, many of the clergy plan to brace themselves for a particularly sad and poignant reminder on Easter morning that there is much more work to be done.

"If there is a murder between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, then it means we move from a campaign with a close date to a movement," Langdon said. "It means we quadruple our efforts to get more people signed on, more people committed, more people paying attention to restore hope where there is a huge measure of hopelessness."

mbrachear@tribpub.com

Twitter @TribSeeker

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of time that has elasped since Chicago has had a shooting.
LAS VEGAS  As the car came to a halt, the irate driver jumped out, peppering the officers with expletives as he rushed to the open trunk.

The two Las Vegas Metro cops making the traffic stop yelled for him to stop. One longtime officer, worried that the driver might have grabbed a gun from the trunk, ran toward the man as he continued to scream. The driver scrambled out of reach for a moment before the officer took control of him.

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It was just a training exercise, and in a briefing a few minutes later, the veteran officer explained he had rushed the agitated driver because he wanted to put "hands on him  I was trying to close distance and just grab him."

It was a quick way to gain control for sure, but at what risk?

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In the wake of national outrage over the deaths of citizens by police, departments from Seattle to New York have started to use real-life scenarios to teach officers to balance the need for physical force with tactics favoring what's become known as "de-escalation"  trying to calm tense situations peacefully.

These questions are especially pressing in Chicago amid one of the worst policing crises in its history. Last November's release of troubling video showing a white officer leaping from a squad car and within seconds fatally shooting black teen Laquan McDonald as he walked away has cast the Police Department's training under a harsh light.

Despite the life-and-death nature of the job, the department doesn't generally require officers to take annual classes at the academy after graduating from recruit training with the exception of firearms qualifications.

With the U.S. Justice Department investigating the Chicago department's practices amid the furor over McDonald's killing, City Hall is scrambling to overhaul its officer training. Required classes on Taser use and crisis intervention have already started, and in coming weeks, Chicago will begin to catch up with many other big-city departments and current national policing standards by launching training specifically geared toward de-escalation.

Officials have pledged it will be an annual requirement for all 12,000 officers, but at this point no new money has been earmarked to ensure that the department can accomplish that ambitious goal.

'Sanctity of life'

Chicago is looking to Las Vegas as one model as it finalizes its training plans. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department launched reforms about four years ago, and de-escalation has emerged as a guiding principle. The idea is now woven throughout its policing approach and emphasized in a revised use-of-force policy that included input from many of the department's most respected officers.

The approach is reinforced with annual training that is based on real-life scenarios and tackles vexing, highly controversial issues such as how to help officers not mistake harmless objects in citizens' hands for guns.

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The department evaluates every shooting and serious incident  even those carried out legally and according to policy  to try to determine what might have been handled better in retrospect. What is learned from those reviews winds up in training.

"We really had to peel back some layers and take a look at what the organization was doing in terms of training, and we had to be honest with ourselves," said Capt. Matt McCarthy, until recently the head of the Las Vegas department's constitutional policing and oversight office. "We weren't hitting the mark. It required us really to look at how we train our officers for today's policing."

That officer who rushed at the driver, while considered an "old school" approach, wasn't necessarily wrong, but he had other options that might have been safer.

"The things we have to think about is  proximity," said Nicole Hemsey, the training officer who conducted the exercise. "Can I get to him before he can get that gun?"

The officers, she said, could have opted to "stay behind your car doors and come up with a plan, talk to each other before you decide to go up.  That is where de-escalation comes in."

De-escalation is not a new concept, but over the years, aggressive tactics by police have been emphasized more in training. On the street, pressure has grown on officers to resolve problems quickly in order to get to the next call. Besides, backing off  a central element of de-escalation  often isn't a natural instinct for a cop.

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"Back in the day, it's like, if I took this ground from you, I didn't give it back to you," said Las Vegas Sgt. Brian Briggs, who oversees officer training and was himself shot in the line of duty. "  We are trying to tell people it's OK, we have more time. We can set up, let's get more people. ... There were too many incidents, too many shootings, too many even uses of force. People were saying we need to come up with a new way of thinking about it."

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 11 Detectives Steve Balonek, left, and Steve Thaxton, of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, enter a hallway in a building-clearing scenario during the department's Reality-Based Training at the Mojave Training Center on Feb. 17, 2016, in Las Vegas. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

The Metro Police Department, whose 2,500 officers patrol both Las Vegas and parts of Clark County, began exploring these questions after 25 officer-involved shootings took place in 2010, the most in 20 years.

Facing mounting criticism from the public as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, the department became the first in the nation to go to the Justice Department for help. An exhaustive review led to more than 70 recommended changes.

Las Vegas revised its policy on officers' use of force, adding a commitment to preserving the "sanctity of life" when at all possible and clarifying when deadly force is warranted.

Generally, police across the country have long relied on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that justifies deadly force if an "objectively reasonable" officer facing similar circumstances would have made the same choice. In the 1989 decision, the court identified three factors to weigh: the severity of the crime committed by the suspect, whether he posed a physical danger to the officer or the public and if he actively resisted.

To further clarify when officers can use force, Las Vegas added five elements to consider, including whether the suspect appears to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, if he is armed and how close police backup might be. When force is used, officers are expected to address as many of the eight factors in explaining their actions in written reports.

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Before the changes took effect for the rank-and-file, the department sought input from about 25 of its most respected officers. Those same officers then were asked to explain the revisions to their colleagues at the eight urban area commands, the Las Vegas version of Chicago's 22 police districts.

"We couldn't sell it without having well-respected officers sell it for us," McCarthy said. "This group we had, they were very hard on the policy. But they understood where we were trying to go."

Think it through

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, a group of mostly midcareer Las Vegas Metro detectives gathered around a U-shaped table in a classroom at the Mojave Training Center for one of two annual rounds of training using real-life scenarios. Some officers' legs bounced as they waited to start what's called Reality-Based Training, a team-oriented class that was created as part of the reform efforts to help prepare officers for deadly force encounters.

Some of the real-life scenarios are taken from the department's critical incident review process that examines whether policy had been followed as well as the decision-making that led to the use of force. Officers who fail to follow department rules can face discipline ranging up to firing or simply be ordered to undergo further training. Officers found to have performed exceptionally are recognized with a commendation.

This year, the training has been focused on the proper way to clear buildings in an emergency. But first the group must review the department's policy on use of force and the definition of de-escalation.

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Three questions pop up on the slide projector: Is there an immediate threat? Who is creating that  the officer or suspect? Can you take a little time and get more help?

Now it's time for the group to head in for the training exercise. Bright strobes flash and a high-pitched burglary alarm rings as officers make their way furtively through several dark rooms and down a long hallway. Amid the chaos, the officers move quickly in groups of three in search of an armed suspect. In the last room, they find him atop a toilet in a bathroom stall.

He suddenly screams out as the officers, sweat beading on their foreheads as they breathe heavily, attempt to take control. The officers will be judged on how well they use strong verbal commands, keep control of the confined space and avoid using force while taking the suspect into custody.

"We put these dynamics together so that we don't have startle responses" on the street, Lt. Dennis O'Brien whispered inside the darkened room as the next team of officers prepared to go through. "You put them through all the things that are going to stress them out. The point of de-escalation is stopping the momentum. Pull back. Think it through. Solve the problem."

Nearly all of the department's 2,500 officers underwent this training as well as advanced officer skills  a nearly 20-year-old curriculum that has evolved in the wake of reforms to also emphasize de-escalation.

In one drill in which officers face an ambush by a shooter, instructors tested the participants' heart rates before and after the exercise to illustrate the physiological effects of such stress  including altered hearing and a narrowing of their vision.

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Trainers stressed that officers who stay in shape with cardio workouts are better able to keep their heart rates in check under those trying situations.

Culture change

Such extensive mandatory training for officers every year would represent a big culture change in Chicago as well as a challenge for a 12,000-strong department confronting escalating gang violence.

The department's Education and Training Division on West Jackson Boulevard has historically focused on training recruits, offering fewer options to veteran officers except in special cases or promotional classes. All officers, for instance, were required to train for the 2012 NATO summit, and more recently, then-Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who was fired in the wake of the McDonald scandal, instituted a "procedural justice" curriculum that teaches officers how to improve communication and build trust with residents.

The department has also offered refresher tactical courses to officers.

Lt. Steve Sesso, who heads up recruit training, said the department relies heavily on online and video training at district stations, but he agreed that in-person training is preferred  and that officers want to keep on top of the latest techniques.

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"It's absolutely a better option, and we get complaints that they can't come in," he said. "The want is out there."

James Pasco, national head of the Fraternal Order of Police, agreed that officers across the country want the continuing training, but he said budgetary, logistical and political issues keep most police departments from committing to ongoing, mandatory training.

"It's a failure in terms of elected officials or the (police) executives not asking for the funds," Pasco said. " We are not talking about on-time trash collection here. We are talking about human lives, and if the mayor can't find enough money to keep people alive and healthy in his or her city, the mayor ought to be run out on a rail."

But it's an expensive proposition at a time of belt-tightening. The New York Police Department spent $17 million so that 22,000 of its officers could each undergo three days of de-escalation training last year, a department spokeswoman said. It took several months for the training to be completed.

In coming weeks in Chicago, officers will each undergo two days of instruction  one on how to respond to those struggling with mental issues and the other on de-escalation techniques.

With 12,000 officers to teach, the training academy is gearing up to provide round-the-clock classes seven days a week.

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The training will be based on actual incidents, Sesso said. Officials are also seeking input from mental health experts and have sent a group of trainers to Las Vegas to learn from their training techniques.

While officer-involved shootings have already been declining in Chicago since 2011, experts caution that de-escalation training isn't just about preventing deadly confrontations but also making sure that officers consider other options than using force too quickly. They stressed, however, that officers need repeated training.

"One year is not enough," said Alexa James, executive director of the Chicago-based National Alliance on Mental Illness who is on the city's task force examining police reform. "There has to be continued refresher courses."

Body cameras worn by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officers are aimed at improving the public's trust by boosting transparency. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

Paying off

Four years into its reform effort in Las Vegas, officials are hopeful that de-escalation training is paying off.

While some survivors of those killed by police remain skeptical that officers have really changed their mindset, department officials point to a drop in officer shootings  a combined 32 over the last two years, 19 fatal. Last year, in all but one of the 16 shootings, those targeted by police were armed with a weapon, according to police. In 2010, when the officer shootings peaked at 25, police shot six unarmed individuals.

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That improvement means officers are making better decisions under stress, Capt. McCarthy said.

The Justice Department's final report on reforms in Las Vegas, issued in 2014, noted that an independent assessor had concluded that training and oversight contributed to the overall decline in police shootings. But it also pointed out that of the four unarmed suspects shot by police in 2012 and 2013, three were black, perhaps underscoring the need to train officers to try to avoid bias. Indeed, that training is now underway in the department.

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The push for de-escalation has led to some worry that officers will hesitate too much, putting themselves at risk. To address that, training instructors set aside time to remind officers not to hold back in dangerous situations because of the increased scrutiny and heightened public awareness.

Officers on the street feel the tension.

"You don't want to learn by being shot or stabbed," Sgt. Miguel Garcia, a 15-year veteran of the department, said on a recent patrol in Las Vegas.

Still, Garcia, who saw the impact of overly aggressive cops while growing up in Los Angeles, said he welcomes this new era in policing, saying it reduces conflicts with residents and stands to keep everyone safer.

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"It's different police work. There's more talking to people," he said. "Now we're teaching to have patience, step back  which is good. Good for the (police), good for the community."

asweeney@tripub.com

Twitter @annie1221
The landmark Gerber building is under construction and the old track is being removed at the CTA Red Line "L" Wilson station on March 21, 2017, in Uptown. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

When most Chicagoans think of the space under the "L" tracks, they think of pigeons, rats, Dumpsters, parked cars and lurking muggers.

But community groups in Uptown want to turn the environment under the renovated Wilson station into something completely different  a place for pedestrians, plants and bike and food truck parking  a stage of sorts for events like farmers markets and public art. They're calling the proposal the "Wilson Underline," and if approved and funded it would be the first "under-the-L" permanent public space in the city.

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"The purpose is to really enhance the transformative project the CTA is already doing at the Wilson station to create a public space," said Sara Dinges, executive director of Uptown United, the economic development agency and Chamber of Commerce for the neighborhood. "It's modeled after a lot of great research and projects already happening around the country."

She pointed to a New York initiative called "Under the Elevated: Reclaiming Space, Connecting Communities," which is focused on finding uses for areas under highways, bridges and train tracks. That project has included a kiosk under a Bronx elevated station stop with a sound booth playing songs by musicians with Bronx connections.

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The CTA is spending $203 million to overhaul the antiquated Wilson station, which will create a new transfer point for the Red and Purple Express lines, modernize the 100-year-old track structure and 93-year-old Beaux Arts station house at Wilson Avenue and Broadway, make the station handicapped-accessible and install artwork. The new platform opened this week for Loop-bound Purple Line Express trains in the morning and southbound Red Line trains all day, and the entire project is projected to be finished by fall of 2017.

The "Underline" idea for the station is also supported by the Wilson L Public Space Committee and the Graceland Wilson Neighbors Association, which have been working with recommendations from the University of Illinois at Chicago's Transit Oriented Development Studio. The studio, which is made up of advanced graduate students in Urban Planning, with input from real estate professionals and local stakeholders, got $10,000 from the CTA to come up with ideas for development for the area around the station, and offered a recommendation last year to "utilize the space and bring it to life," said Jim Keene, the studio's program director. The studio is also putting together recommendations for transit-oriented development for parking lots near the Green Line's 63rd Street and Ashland Avenue stop and the Purple Line's Linden station in Wilmette.

Architect Julianne Scherer with the Wilson L Public Space Committee, which is made up of Uptown community members, had a similar idea for the space under the tracks, and there has since been "cross-fertilization" between UIC and neighborhood groups, Keene said. The CTA, which currently plans to use the space under the station for parking, has had multiple conversations with community leaders on the "Underline" proposal, but for now, it's just an idea and there has been no further CTA funding for it, according to Jeff Tolman, a spokesman for the transit agency.

He noted that at public meetings about the Wilson station, people were mostly concerned about more parking and a safe and secure area, and that the agency has a contractual obligation for some parking tied to a previous project. The Wilson L committee is sponsoring an online survey about the use of the space.

Dinges said that the logic behind the "Underline" is that good design will make the area safer. "When you bring positive uses, that leads to safer spaces," she said, citing the "broken windows" theory that posits that well-kept urban areas deter crime. A survey conducted in 2014 by the Metropolitan Planning Council and the Graceland Wilson Neighbors Association found that almost all residents were concerned about safety at the station and the surrounding area, according to UIC.

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Dinges said private and public sources to fund the space are being explored. No cost estimate is available.

The space under the Wilson station south to the new planned Sunnyside auxiliary entrance currently contains construction equipment and parked cars, along with some beer cans and liquor bottles. Camille Bingham, 24, a student at Truman College, which is next to the station, said she liked the idea of a well-lit pedestrian space under the tracks.

"I think people would feel more comfortable to come to the area," said Bingham. "This neighborhood is trying to change."

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"I don't see a downside if the money is there for it," agreed David McAninch, 47, a Lincoln Square resident who was walking near the station. "This area particularly needs more green space."

But longtime area resident Manny Lopez, 38, expressed skepticism about creating a public space under the "L." "I don't think that will work because it's rough here," Lopez said. "If they had security, it would be OK."

mwisniewski@tribpub.com

Twitter @marywizchicago
Murder charges have been filed against a 71-year-old Seattle man who is accused of a 1957 slaying of a girl he allegedly abducted from DeKalb County, officials said today.



Maria Ridulph, 7, went missing on Dec. 3, 1957 after she was last seen playing with her friend near their homes in Sycamore. Her skeletal remains were found on April 26, 1958 in Jo Daviess County, officials said.



Jack Daniel McCullough, now 71, was a suspect at the time of her abduction and murder. But the case turned cold when McCullough joined the military and changed his name, according to the DeKalb County state's attorney's office. McCullough also uses the name John Tessier, officials said.



An arrest warrant containing a $3 million bail was issued for McCullough, who is now in the custody of King County Jail in Seattle and awaiting extradition, officials said.



Maria's brother, Charles Ridulph, spoke briefly today outside his Sycamore home.



"We didn't know until last night," said Ridulph. "My sisters and I are shocked. We have to re-live this now."



Ridulph said his daughter told him today that she was sad her grandparents were not here to see the arrest, but he said he was glad they weren't.

"They don't have to live through this," he said. "We struggled with this so long but now it is happening all over again."



Sycamore Police Chief Donald Thomas said a two-year probe led by Illinois State Police with assistance from the Sycamore and Seattle police departments culminated in Friday's murder charges.



"This is a very quiet, safe town and this obviously is still quite remembered," he said.



Thomas said McCullough, who was born with the surname Tessier, lived in Sycamore in 1957, about two blocks from Maria's family. Investigators at the time believed the killer was named "Johnny," but McCullough had an alibi, so they didn't pursue him as a suspect.



Recently, however, new information came to light that implicated McCullough, Thomas said.



Thomas said McCullough as a teen claimed he had been on a train traveling from Rockford to Chicago.



His alibi fell apart in 2010 when a former girlfriend came forward to report she had seen the train ticket decades ago and it was unused and unstamped, said Thomas, citing information contained in a warrant authorities obtained to search the suspect's Seattle home.



That unused train ticket, dated the same time that Maria vanished, led authorities to refocus their attention on McCullough, Thomas said.



He said police continued their investigation, which this week led them to McCullouch's door.



"Through a series of interviews, including with Mr. Tessier, we were able to determine he was the person who had killed Maria Ridulph," the chief said. "We gleaned from that interview that he was the killer."



On Monday, Illinois authorities sent two Sycamore detectives and two state police detectives toWashington. McCullough was arrested at his home Wednesday.



Asked whether McCullough confessed to the killing, Thomas declined to say. He added that the investigation was not based on DNA or other physical evidence, given that the slaying happened so long ago.



Thomas said McCullough is married and had worked as a police officer in aWashington town until the mid 1980s, when he was arrested and later convicted for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.



Tribune stories published after the killing say that Maria was playing with a friend in a vacant lot in Sycamore when a young, blond-haired man who called himself "Johnny" approached, telling them he was unmarried and offering to give the girls a piggy-back ride.



The other girl went home to get a doll and when she returned, the man and Maria were still there.



"But in a minute or two the older girl complained of cold hands and went home to get her mittens," reads a story marking the four-year anniversary of Maria's disappearance. "When she returned, both were gone."



Maria's badly decomposed body was found in a wooded area near Woodbine, about 18 miles east of Galena, by a couple looking for mushrooms, according to another Tribune story, dated April 27, 1958.



Maria's parents identified her with a shirt taken from the body and a strand of hair.



Tribune reporter Art Barnum contributed.



dawilliams@tribune.com



alwang@tribune.com



cgutowski@tribune.com
Chicago police on March 15, 2016, investigate the shooting of three police officers the night before in the 3700 block of West Polk Street. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

The gun used in the shooting of three Chicago police officers last week has been linked to a former Chicago officer who later joined a police force in the northern suburbs, the Tribune has learned.

Chicago police now are trying to figure out how the gun  originally purchased by a man who until Friday was a Lake County sheriff's deputy  ended up in the hands of 29-year-old Lamar Harris, a convicted felon with dozens of arrests who was killed in the shootout with police.

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Multiple law enforcement sources confirmed that authorities investigating the shooting have traced the weapon that wounded the three officers back to the deputy.

That officer was fired from his job with the Lake County sheriff's department Friday after being placed on leave two days earlier, Rich Bruno, vice president of the Illinois Council of Police, the union representing the deputies, confirmed.

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The county was not required to give a reason for the termination because the 27-year-old deputy was within a 12-month probationary period for new officers, Bruno said.

The union official said he wasn't privy to all the facts of the investigation into the shooting of the Chicago officers, but he added: "In regard to that incident, (the ex-deputy) had no involvement."

Bruno did not directly address whether he was told that investigators had traced the gun to the fired deputy, but he said: "To the best of my knowledge, (the gun) was reported stolen." He did not say when the report was made or by whom.

Lake County Undersheriff Ray Rose confirmed the deputy left the department last Friday but would not elaborate on the circumstances.

One of the law enforcement sources said the deputy, when questioned by investigators, told them he had not realized the gun was missing. The source said the investigation has revealed that the deputy has purchased at least 45 guns.

A man reached by phone Wednesday identified himself as the deputy in question. When told the reason for the call, he said he would call back but did not, and later could not be reached.

The three Chicago officers were injured, and Harris was killed, during an exchange of gunfire at about 10 p.m. March 14 in the West Side's Homan Square neighborhood as the cops were investigating possible drug-related activity, police have said.

When the three Harrison District tactical officers approached Harris and a woman he was with in the area, Harris took off running and then opened fire on the trailing officers, striking all three, police said. At least one of the wounded officers managed to fire back at Harris, interim police Superintendent John Escalante has said.

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The superintendent said a gun was recovered from Harris. The woman was questioned by police but later released without charges.

One of the officers was shot in the foot and the other caught gunfire in his bulletproof vest, sources said. The third officer was shot in his back.

State records show that the officer who initially purchased the handgun later used by Harris worked for the Chicago Police Department from June 2013 to January, and multiple law enforcement sources said he worked at least part of that time in the Harrison District where the shooting occurred. He started working for the Lake County sheriff's highway patrol division Jan. 11, the undersheriff said.

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Prior to joining the Chicago force, the man served as a reserve officer for the Lake Geneva, Wis., department for about two months in spring 2013, according to department officials. He was still in a training phase and had limited, if any, experience on the street before he was hired by the Chicago force.

When asked about the fired deputy being tied to the investigation of the shooting of the three Chicago officers, Rose said: "I think our position is that it would be inappropriate to comment on a Chicago police investigation."

Law-enforcement officials said gun sales are registered with the federal government at the time a gun is initially purchased. Later, if a gun is resold privately, in Illinois the seller must retain a record of the sale.

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Chicago police are still trying to determine how Harris obtained the gun that was used to shoot the officers, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. He couldn't elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.

Chicago Tribune's David Heinzmann contributed.

jgorner@tribpub.com

tbriscoe@tribpub.com
A young man draped in the Belgian flag and surrounded by chalked tributes lights a row of candles for the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels near Place de la Bourse in the center of Brussels on March, 24, 2016. (Alastair Grant / AP)

LONDON  Victims of the attacks on Brussels' airport and subway included commuters heading to work and travelers starting long-anticipated vacations. They came from dozens of nations to a city that's home to the European Union, NATO and other international institutions. Among the confirmed dead:

James Cain learned only last Tuesday that his daughter had married Alex Pinczowski. Two days later, he learned that Alex and his sister Sascha, Dutch siblings who lived in New York, had both died in the Brussels airport suicide bombing.

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As Cain and his daughter Cameron hunted for news about Alex and Sascha following the deadly blasts in the Belgian capital, Cameron told her father she had married Alex in 2013.

Alexander Pinczowski and Cameron Cain in 2015 in Greece. (Courtesy of the family via AP)

On Tuesday, Cain called the news of his daughter's marriage "the bright spot in our otherwise anguishing week."

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Alex and Sascha were headed home to the United States. Alex, 29, was on the phone with his mother in the Netherlands when the line went dead as a bomb detonated.

Alex had traveled to the Netherlands to work on a craft-related business that he and Cameron were planning to start together, Cain said. The couple met six years ago while taking summer courses in Durham, North Carolina.

Sascha Pinczowski, 26, was a 2015 graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York with a degree in business.

Sascha Pinczowski, seen in May 2015 at her graduation from Marymount Manhattan College in New York. (Courtesy of the family via AP)

In November, Sascha had warned that demonizing Muslims would fuel extremist recruitment. She posted on Facebook after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks: "Ignorant spreading of anti-Muslim sentiment and propaganda does nothing but benefit ISIS."

Cain said she was "just full of life  I'd say effervescent." Her older brother was quieter, "a great wit but a gentle soul. ... He had a sentimental side and he loved the outdoors."

Speaking to the AP in the Dutch city of Maastricht, where the siblings will be buried Friday, Cain  a former U.S. ambassador to Denmark  said: "Knowing that they were together, and will now be together for eternity, in a way brings a little bit of peace."

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Poland's Foreign Ministry says that Belgian investigators have identified a Polish woman among the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels. A Polish organization in Brussels identified the victim as Janina Panasewicz.

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The ministry gave no details on Tuesday, citing concern for the victim's family.

Earlier Tuesday, prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch in Brussels told Polish TVN24 that a Polish citizen had been killed in the bomb attack on the Maalbeek metro station.

A Polish non-profit organization in Belgium, SOS Brussels, said on Facebook that the family of the 61-year-old Panasewicz was officially informed that the woman had been identified as a victim of the metro attack.

Her burial will probably take place in Brussels on Friday, said the organization which assists Poles in Belgium.

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Fabienne Vansteenkiste, 51, was due to finish her shift checking in baggage at Brussels' airport last Tuesday at 6. a.m. She agreed to work two extra hours to help a colleague. That decision proved fatal.

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Vansteenkiste was still at the airport when two bombs exploded, killing her and 10 others.

Her husband, Eddy Van Calster, told French broadcaster TF1 Sunday that his late wife often said to him: "I'm going to die in an attack." He said that she had feared that an attack was likely at the airport during the busy morning peak time.

Van Calster said he and his wife were childhood sweethearts, inseparable during their 35-year marriage.

"She was all my life," he said. "She was the white keys of the piano, and I the black."

Van Calster, who practiced Buddhist meditation with his wife, said he doesn't "feel hatred or anger" toward her killers.

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Lauriane Visart was a young lawyer with strong principles.

The 27-year-old Belgian was a 2012 graduate of Louvain Catholic University. Marc Verdussen of the university's Center for Research on the State and Constitution described her as an intelligent student "passionate about public law."

Visart worked at the Union Nationale des Mutualites Socialistes, a health insurance body. She was killed in Maelbeek station bombing.

Her father Michel Visart, a Belgian television journalist, said his daughter had strong values "which she defended ferociously, such as fairness, justice, tolerance, equality of the sexes."

He urged people not to respond to the attacks with hatred.

"I'm not naive. I know very well that security is essential these days," he told Belgian broadcaseter RTBF. "But I think that if we build walls of exclusion, if we cultivate hatred, we're heading for disaster.

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"In the future, if we want a different world, we need respect and tolerance. I don't want to be maudlin, but we also need love. And we owe it to all the Laurianes all around the world."

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My Atlegrim moved to Brussels to improve her French, and ended up falling in love with the city and its people.

Originally from Umea in northern Sweden, the 30-year-old illustrator and textile designer died in the subway blast.

She drew illustrations for art and children's magazines, including culture magazine Alphabeta, which said it had been proud to showcase her "wild and free" style.

A 2013 profile of Atlegrim by Agenda, a Brussels culture magazine, said she moved to Belgium in 2005 and studied illustration at the art school ESA Saint-Luc.

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"The people are very nice, very mellow for inhabitants of a big city. Brussels is a city teeming with life, but in a somewhat hidden, underground way," she was quoted as saying. "And that is precisely what gives the city its unique charm."

Atlegrim volunteered for an information service for young people visiting Brussels.

Her mother confirmed Tuesday that Atlegrim was among the fatalities. She had been reported missing after the subway explosion.

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Days before the Brussels attacks, Raghavendran Ganesan returned to his work in Brussels from his homeland of India, where his wife had given birth to their son.

On the morning of March 22, the 31-year-old software engineer spoke by Skype to his mother in Mumbai just an hour before the attacks, mostly about about his job at IT giant Infosys.

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Then he set off for work by subway, his usual routine for the past four years.

As television stations worldwide flashed news of the attacks, Ganesan's family tried desperately to trace him. His brother posted an appeal on his Facebook page.

Six days later, Belgian officials confirmed that Ganesan's body had been found inside the devastated subway train at Maelbeek station.

"Unfortunately, he was traveling in the same coach of the metro in which the suicide bomber blew himself up," India's external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, said in a tweet.

Infosys confirmed the news. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Raghavendran's family and with those who were injured and lost a loved one in these attacks," the company said in a statement.

Ganesan's parents and his brother accompanied his remains Tuesday from Brussels to the southern Indian city of Chennai, where his wife and month-old son live. The family has yet to decide on the time of the cremation, Press Trust of India said.

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Gilles Laurent was a master of sound.

A sound recordist and engineer, he had worked on movies all over the world, including Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' Cannes Film Festival entry "Post Tenebras Lux" and Argentinian drama "The Tango Singer."

Laurent, who lived in the southern Belgian city of Namur, was on the subway train targeted by a bomb inside Maelbeek station.

Israeli cartoonist Michel Kichka, who worked with Laurent on the documentary "Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy," paid tribute on his blog to Laurent's kindness and "Olympian calm."

The 46-year-old came from Bouillon in southern Belgium, where his parents own the Porte de France hotel. Friends were invited to pay their last respects to him at the hotel Tuesday.

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He leaves behind his wife, Reiko Udo, daughters Suzu and Lili and a large extended family. "You have been snatched from us by a tragic destiny, but you will always remain at our sides," they wrote in a death notice.

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The loss of 29-year-old Melanie Defize, who died in the subway attack, sent shockwaves throughout the classical music world. She was an accomplished music producer and violinist.

She was an integral part of the independent label Cypres Records, which publishes music ranging from medieval to contemporary. She wrote for Forumopera.com, sharing her enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the music scene.

Cedric Hustinx, who worked with her at Cypres, said her death leaves an unfillable void. He said she brought luminous enthusiasm and a sensitive nature to her work.

Her colleagues at Forumopera.com posted a Facebook tribute to Defize that described her as funny and irreverent. It said she loved Jeff Buckley and Radiohead as well as classical works. Her co-workers said the grief of losing her in such a vile way seems insurmountable.

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Belgian student Bart Migom was traveling from Brussels to Atlanta to visit his girlfriend when he was caught in the attack on Brussels Airport.

Staff and students at Howest University in Bruges, Belgium, held a service for him over Easter weekend after his death was confirmed.

Migom, 21, had called his girlfriend, Emily Eisenman, while traveling to the airport and planned to send a follow-up message as he boarded the plane. Eisenman told NBC News he had promised to keep in touch every step of the way on his journey to Atlanta. She said his last words to her were "I love you."

She described being awakened in the middle of the night by a call from Migom's family telling her about the bombings.

A Facebook post by Lode De Geyter, the managing director at Howest, said Migom was a second-year marketing student.

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Gigi Adam said her 79-year-old father, Andre Adam, died trying to protect his wife during the attack on Brussels airport.

Adam was a retired Belgian diplomat who had served as his country's ambassador to Cuba, the United States and the United Nations.

"His death has wounded us all forever," Gigi Adam wrote on Facebook. "All his life he had worked towards the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world."

She described her father as "a cultured and cheerful man" who had met his future wife  "the love of his life"  on his posting to Cuba in the early 1960s. She said her mother had been hospitalized after the attack.

Gigi Adam said her parents had retired to southwest France in recent years.

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A missing American couple have been identified as victims of the attack at the Brussels airport, according to their employers.

Justin Shults, 30, and wife Stephanie Shults had not been seen since Tuesday.

Her employer, Mars Inc., said in a Facebook post Saturday evening that her family had confirmed that the couple died in the bombings at the Brussels airport. Justin Shults' employer, Clarcor, had confirmed his death earlier.

Justin Shults, originally from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and his wife, a Lexington, Kentucky, native, graduated together from Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. They were dropping Stephanie's mother off at the airport and were watching her walk through security when the bombs went off, a family member said.

Justin Shults' brother, Levi Sutton, wrote on social media Saturday that his brother "traveled the world, leaving each destination better than when he arrived."

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Patricia Rizzo's family hails from a tiny town in Sicily, but she was as broadly European as they come.

Born in Belgium to a family originally from Calascibetta, near Enna, Sicily, Rizzo graduated from a Belgian university and worked for several Belgian companies as an executive secretary before joining European institutions in 1995.

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Rizzo, 48, was among the dead from the attack on Maelbeek station.

"Unfortunately, Patricia is no longer with us," a man who identified himself as Rizzo's cousin, Massimo Leonora, wrote on Facebook. His final post capped days of anxious updates recounting his search of Brussels hospitals in hopes that Rizzo might have been among the injured.

"It's difficult, but at least now we're beyond this unending race against time to find you."

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Rizzo moved back to Italy from 2003 to 2008 to work as the assistant to the executive director of the European Food Safety Authority.

In 2008, she was named human resources assistant for the EU's education and culture agency in Brussels and for the past five months had worked in the human resources department of the European Research Council.

"After a few days of excruciating waiting and angst, our worst fears have been confirmed," the ERC's executive leadership said Saturday, praising Rizzo's energy, attitude and spirit.

The council said Rizzo is survived by a son and her parents.

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Jennifer Scintu Waetzmann was a coach for a youth handball club in Aachen, Germany.

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Her uncle, Claudio Scinto, told the German newspaper Bild that she and her husband were checking in Tuesday morning at Brussels Airport bound for a belated honeymoon in New York when the first bomb exploded.

The blast killed her and left her husband, Lars Waetzmann, among the 270 wounded in Brussels.

Her final public post on Facebook came right after the November extremist assaults on Paris. It said: "Pray for Paris." Other pictures show her and her husband in romantic seaside settings with the inscription: "Love of my life."

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Friday his thoughts were with Waetzmann's family and vowed Germany "will not rest until the murderers and those who aided them are held responsible."

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Elita Borbor Weah, who was heading to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral, had texted family members a photo of herself Tuesday at Brussels Airport.

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A short time later, two suicide bombers struck the airport, killing her.

Elita Borbor Weah stands in the Brussels Airport shortly before bombs went off nearby on March 22, 2016. Weah, who was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral, texted the photo of herself to family members just before she died in the attack. (Courtesy of the Weah Family via AP)

The 40-year-old had been living in the Netherlands with her 13-year-old daughter after her extended family from Liberia had dispersed across West Africa, Europe and the United States following Liberia's civil wars.

Her brother Oscar Weah, of Providence, Rhode Island, was shaking and in tears Friday as he described how his older sister helped care for him over the years. Other relatives sang her praises.

"She had a good heart," said 14-year-old niece Eden Weah. "She was always worried about everybody."

Now, in addition to holding a funeral for her 87-year-old stepfather, the family was making arrangements to care for her teenage daughter.

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David Dixon had texted family members to say he was safe after two bombs severely damaged Brussels airport, but he was killed shortly afterward when a bomber attacked the subway system.

Dixon, a 53-year-old British citizen, was working as a computer programmer. Britain's Foreign Office confirmed his death Friday.

Friends and family had been searching for him since he failed to arrive at work Tuesday morning after the bombings. Press reports indicated he lived in Brussels with his partner and their son.

"This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David," said a statement sent out by officials on behalf of Dixon's family.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he was deeply saddened by the death of Dixon, who was originally from Hartlepool in northeastern England.

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The Chinese Embassy in Belgium said Friday that a Chinese national was killed in the attacks. He was identified only by his surname, Deng. No details were released.

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Born in Peru, Adelma Tapia Ruiz dreamed of opening a restaurant. She had lived in Belgium for nine years but still cooked the recipes of her homeland. Last year she prepared the spicy chicken dish aji de gallina for a food festival organized by the Peruvian consulate in Brussels.

Tapia, 37, was killed when a bomb tore through the departures area of Brussels Airport on Tuesday, her family confirmed. A split-second decision saved her husband and 4-year-old twin daughters Maureen and Alondra from sharing her fate.

Adelma Tapia Ruiz, seen in a June 2015 Facebook photo, is among the confirmed dead in the March 22, 2016 Brussels attacks. (AP)

Her Belgian husband, Christophe Delcambe, had taken the girls out of the check-in line to play when an explosion ripped through the concourse. One daughter was struck in the arm by shrapnel and is being treated in a Belgian hospital.

Her brother, Fernando Tapia, told The Associated Press his sister had been preparing to catch a flight to New York to visit two sisters who live in the United States.

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Tapia and her husband lived in the town of Tubize, south of Brussels, and her brother said she would likely be buried in Belgium.

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Leopold Hecht was gravely wounded in the bombing at Maelbeek subway station and died later of his injuries.

The rector of Saint-Louis University in Brussels, Pierre Jadoul, said 20-year-old Hecht was "one of the unfortunate victims of these barbaric acts."

"There are no words to describe our dismay at this news," he said in a letter to students.

Classmates lit handles and left flowers outside the university in memory of Hecht, whose Facebook profile includes pictures of a smiling young man on the ski slopes and in the great outdoors.

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Civil servant Olivier Delespesse also died in the bombing at Maelbeek station, according to his employer, the Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles.

Associated Press
In this Jan. 28, 2016, file photo, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., listen to a question as they discuss proposed legislation to help Flint, Mich. with their current water crisis during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Alex Brandon / AP)

WASHINGTON  It's been two years since problems began with the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, and nearly six months since officials declared a public health emergency there.

Yet a bipartisan congressional effort to aid the predominantly African-American city north of Detroit is idling in the Senate  stalled by the objections of a Republican senator from Utah.

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Rep. Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who represents Flint, says his hometown is struggling while Congress bickers.

"This is not an abstraction. This is 100,000 kids and adults all suffering every single day and it's pretty frustrating," Kildee said in an interview.

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"We will not give up, that's for sure," Kildee said, vowing that congressional Republicans "are not going to run out the clock on Flint, Michigan."

In fact, support for Flint is bipartisan. Michigan's congressional delegation has unanimously pushed for Flint aid, and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Senate bill "immediately" at an otherwise contentious congressional hearing last week.

Michigan Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters reached agreement with key Republicans last month on a $220 million package to fix and replace lead-contaminated pipes in Flint and other cities.

But the bill remains on hold after Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah objected in late February. Michigan has a budget surplus and does not need federal money to fix the problem, Lee said.

Stabenow's frustration has been evident. In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, she said that as a mother and grandmother, she "can't imagine the fear and horror" Flint families feel as they are forced  month after month  to use bottled water to drink and bathe.

Like other Americans, Flint residents "assumed that when you get up in the morning and turn on the faucet, when you take a shower or you feed your children, clean water is going to come out of the pipes," Stabenow said in a March 17 speech. "We all assume that. That is pretty much a basic human right."

But not in Flint, where the water is tainted with lead.

Flint's drinking water became tainted when the city switched from the Detroit water system and began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save money. The impoverished city was under state control at the time.

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Regulators failed to ensure the water was treated properly and lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply.

Elevated lead levels have been found in at least 325 people, including 221 children. Lead contamination has been linked to learning disabilities and other problems.

Stabenow, in her Senate speech, said she and other lawmakers have been pushing since January to pass a bill to help Flint, "yet the children of Flint are still waiting. The children of Flint need our help. We have a bipartisan bill, and we need a vote."

Lee said he, too, wants a vote  but only if the bill is paid for in what he considers an honest manner. Not only that, legislation labeled as helping Flint actually allows cities across the country to replace aging infrastructure where lead lurks as potential health hazard, he said.

"What's really happening here is that Washington politicians are using the crisis in Flint as an excuse to funnel taxpayer money to their own home states, and trying to sneak it through the Senate without proper debate and amendment. I respectfully object," Lee said in a statement.

Peters and other supporters say the inclusion of cities only makes the bill more important as lead-tainted water is found in Newark, N.J., Sebring, Ohio and other municipalities.

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"This is an issue every community in our country may potentially face," Peters said.

The Senate bill would be paid for by redirecting up to $250 million in unspent money from an Energy Department loan program for high-tech cars. Lee, a freshman who was elected with the help of the tea party, does not object to redirecting money to Flint, but he wants to ensure that money committed to Flint does not add to the federal deficit, said spokesman Conn Carroll.

Stabenow and Peters, whose state is the hub of U.S. auto manufacturing, want to protect that Energy Department program, which involves loans issued through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a remnant of the 2009 economic stimulus law.

While lawmakers continue to negotiate  and point fingers over who's to blame for the Flint crisis  Kildee said the time to act is now.

"The people in Flint are American citizens and they are in crisis," he said. "When there is a disaster and Americans face a crisis, we all pitch in, and the people of Flint deserve that."

Associated Press
A New Lenox man and former investigator for the Cook County state's attorney's office was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for sharing child pornography over his personal computer.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer on Thursday sentenced Terence Meagher to 124 months in prison on a charge of transportation of child pornography. Meagher last year pleaded guilty to the charge. He faced a possibility of five to 20 years in prison.

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Meagher, who used the screen name "trckgirl69," traded images and videos with others through a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Unwittingly, Meagher shared 88 pornographic images with an undercover law enforcement officer, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office.

"By distributing child pornography, through trades with others who sought child pornography, (Meagher) continued the victimization of children who have been filmed or photographed engaging in acts no child should be part of," Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Edenfield argued in the government's sentencing memorandum, according to the news release. Edenfield described Meagher's distribution of child pornography as "frequent and extremely serious."

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In addition to pleading guilty to sharing the images, Meagher admitted in a plea agreement to taking photos of a 12-year-old girl's private areas, according to the news release.

Meagher was initially charged in May 2013 after he shared images in October 2012, said Joseph Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the U.S. attorney Northern Illinois District office. He initially faced one count of transportation of child pornography and another count in connection with photographing the minor, Fitzpatrick said.

An attorney representing Meagher declined to comment Thursday.

Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
New townhomes are under construction near 187th and Wolf Road in Mokena, part of the Old Mill Pond development, which also includes Fox's Restaurant and retail shops. (Susan DeMar Lafferty / Daily Southtown)

It was a new job that brought the Renaud family from Pennsylvania to Will County last year.

Kelly Renaud said they looked all around the area before settling in Frankfort. They wanted to be near her husband's Tinley Park office and they liked the small town atmosphere.

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"We almost moved to California. I'm glad we came here. I really like it here," Renaud said.

Jobs are one of the main reasons folks are moving to Will County, according to local officials.

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Good schools, affordable homes, relatively low taxes, great municipalities, safety and quality of life also are reasons they cited for Will County's population increase of 1,642 in the one year period from July 2014 to July 2015.

"It all adds up to Will County being a decent place to live," said County Executive Larry Walsh, a lifelong resident. "We have a lot of good things going for us, but first and foremost it is because of the jobs that have been created here. That stands out more than anything else. I'm not at all surprised by the increase. I wouldn't be surprised if we topped 700,000." .

Will County stood out as one of the bright spots in a region where its population has declined overall, with steady growth from 678,910 in July 2010 to 687,263 in July 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Signs of growth in Will County are evident in Ginger Creek, a new housing development off Townline Road in Mokena. (Susan DeMar Lafferty / Daily Southtown)

Chicago's metropolitan area  defined by the US Census Bureau as Chicago, its surrounding counties, and those extending into Indiana and Wisconsin  showed the greatest loss of any metropolitan area in the country, losing 6,263 residents in the last year.

According to census figures for July, 2015, Cook County declined by 10,488 people, to 5,238,216. Lake County lost 239 and DuPage, 33. Besides Will County, others on the plus side were Kane County, with an increase of 3,346, Kendall County, up 1,539, and McHenry, 368.

Over the five-year period from 2010-2015, Cook showed steady increases from 5,199,303 in 2010 to 5,248,704 in 2014, until 2015, when it dropped. Lake and McHenry Counties fluctuated over the years, while Will, Kane and Kendall showed steady growth.

Lake County, Indiana was the only one in the region with a consistent population decline over the last five years.

The state's population decline continued. After dropping by 7,391 in 2014, it nearly tripled that in 2015, losing 22,194.

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But a loss of 10,000 out of 5 million people in Cook County, "is not like the sky is falling," said Ed Paesel, director of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association.

"The loss of 10,000 people is not headline news," he said, adding that, except for a few, the south suburbs are generally stable or growing.

People continue to migrate from Cook to Will County, and while growth has continued in Will County, it's at a slower, more manageable rate than in years prior to the recession, said Curt Paddock, director of the county's Land Use and Development Department.

Projections by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) show Will County's population to be 1 million by 2040, and that is still on target, he said.

Like Renaud, people like the less dense, semi-rural feel of Will County's towns, and its proximity to four interstates, which provides access to jobs, he said.

There were 10,000 jobs created in Will County in the past year  "better-paying jobs," - like Amazon  which just announced it was adding 500 jobs to the 1,000 it opened with last fall at its new Joliet fulfillment center, and people are moving closer to their jobs, said John Greuling, president and CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development.

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Roofers work atop a cluster of new townhomes under construction near 187th and Wolf Road in Mokena, an addition to Old Mill Pond mixed use development. (Susan DeMar Lafferty / Daily Southtown)

But Greuling also is troubled that the region as a whole is losing its population.

"No one has robust population growth. None of us are gaining what we should be for our future," he said. Will County might have seen more growth if it provided better public transportation, he said.

According to CMAP, the census numbers represent the continuation of a trend.

Since 2010, population growth in the region has lagged that of its peers, with the region ranking 45th among metro areas with 1 million or more residents, according to Liz Schuh, CMAP's principal policy analyst.

"This slower population growth matches slower economic growth. The region's slower recovery from the recession, as well as the state's broader fiscal condition, can negatively affect population growth," she said in an email.

To improve the region's economic position, CMAP points to initiatives also cited by local officials, such regional collaboration on economic development, workforce training, business development, and infrastructure investment.

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All of those are issues the SSMMA has been working on, said Reggie Greenwood, the organization's economic development director.

While the south suburbs have attracted four new super Wal-Marts in Lansing, Homewood, Richton Park, and Olympia Fields, a new Meijers in Flossmoor, an intermodal facility in Harvey, and an expanded manufacturing plant in Sauk Village, taxes are an "impediment," he said, citing their close proximity to Indiana and Will County.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

"It's a challenge, but we're in the ball game," Greenwood said. He also has partnered with area high schools and junior colleges to develop a trained workforce.

Whether the declining population in the metropolitan region is a continuing trend depends on whether the state's and region's economic issues can be addressed  chief of which is education, Paesel said.

Students who feel it is "too risky" to enroll in an Illinois college or university will go out of state and won't come back  "that is a critical issue," he said.

Cook County will never see exploding population because it is built out, Paesel said, but communities need to provide options  to attract young families as well as Baby Booomers.

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Despite the region's woes, Paesel said, "There are so many good things going on in our communities that you never hear about."

slafferty@tribpub.com

Marwa Eltagouri of the Chicago Tribune also contributed.
Shootings must not 'dull our compassion'

In the wake of the recent mass shooting event in San Bernardino, Calif., and with December marking the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, we pause as leaders of our faith community to reflect on these senseless acts of violence.

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We know that the topic of gun control in the United States has long been discussed, argued, pondered, and has been prayerfully considered for decades. We believe that now is the time to take action. Now is the time to tighten up background checks and renew the assault weapons ban signed by President Bill Clinton, which expired more than a decade ago. It is time to not just talk about this issue, but to make a difference.

Can we end gun violence? No, probably not. We understand that restricting or limiting access to guns in America will not take away all violence or evil. What we do expect is that the conversation in and around respectable gun control continue. As a nation, we must stand together to address this issue with some course of action. Now is the time to implement sensible gun control in the United States that could possibly save lives.

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In an article by Mark Berman in the Feb. 3rd issue of The Washington Post, he quotes a study based on the World Health Organization 2010 mortality data that indicates death rates involving guns in the United States was 10 times higher than in 23 other wealthy countries. He also noted that 8 in 10 gun-related deaths in the study took place in the United States, and 9 out of 10 women and children killed by guns were in the United States. For people aged 15-24, the United States posted a 49 times higher homicide rate than any other comparable country. The article concluded with this observation: "These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our firearms are killing us rather than protecting us."

We must not let the frequency of these mass shootings dull our compassion or dampen our hopes. We must address this growing problem and act in ways that could save lives. Precious lives are at stake. And in closing, as stated by Presbyterian Church USA Office of Public Witness, we need "to continue to lift up the prophetic vision of witnessing peace abound  a day when men, women, boys and girls will engage in abundant living and not kill one another anymore."

Members of Session, the governing body of First Presbyterian Church of Elgin

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A man who posted on social media that he brought a gun to North Central College every day and would use it to "put someone in a bag" was sentenced Friday to 30 months' probation and mandatory counseling.

Aden Khan, 23, of Madison, Wis., could have received up to three years in prison for the felony disorderly conduct charge for which he was convicted by a jury in January, but DuPage County Judge George Bakalis said such a sentence was unlikely to have a positive effect.

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"He would be the same person, if not in worse shape, when released (from a prison term)," Bakalis said.

Bakalis did impose a 180-day jail term, but since Khan has already spent at least half of that time in the DuPage County jail, that part of the sentence was effectively canceled out.

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The judge said a psychological evaluation had deemed Khan a low-level risk to commit violence. Instead, it characterized him as someone who made outrageous statements in order to draw attention, Bakalis said.

Khan, who never attended North Central, had struck up an online friendship with a female student and in March 2013 launched a Facebook page called "North Central Confessions," which was frequented by NCC students and monitored by school officials. In one post Khan wrote, "I bring a gun to school every day. Someday someone is going to p--- me off and end up in a bag."

College officials saw the post and alerted police, who traced it back to Khan.

Prosecutors had asked for prison time, arguing that Khan failed to learn a lesson in 2010 after drawing a high school suspension and police attention in California for posting a list of "people he most wanted to kill," including family members and a teacher.

As part of his conditions of probation, Khan must undergo therapy and allow probation officers to monitor his computer and phone. Bakalis ordered Khan to perform 100 hours of community service and suggested he get a job.

Khan attorney Stephen Richards called Bakalis' sentence "a wise decision."

"The easy way would have been to send him to prison," Richards said. "That would have been symbolic, but useless."

Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
One of Gary's 10 Civil Defense sirens shown arriving in the city in May 1955. Inspecting one of the sirens with Major Peter Mandich and Z.R. (Bud) Bardowski are William Myers, far left, city electrical inspector and Cy O'Bara, second from left, City Hall custodian. (Post-Tribune/Calumet Archives / Post-Tribune)

Editor's note: On Dec.11, 1816, Indiana became the 19th state in the Union. Lake, Porter and Newton counties originally were one, but on Jan. 28, 1836, Porter County was created. A year later, on Jan.18, Lake County became independent. As the state celebrates its bicentennial, the Post-Tribune will be taking a regular look back at the history of Northwest Indiana.

In the spring of 1955, the United States was continually on alert in preparation for an attack by our enemies. The Cold War raged quietly and citizens were told remain vigilant against the threat of Communism.

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On June 15, 1955, the nation was put to the test: a national Civil Defense exercise called for a mock atomic bomb attack on 50 U.S. cities  including Gary, Fort Wayne and Chicago.

The exercise, "Operation Alert 1955," was a test to determine the readiness for a "near saturation assault" on industrial regions in the Midwest, Northeast and Pacific areas of the country.

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower participated in the mock state of emergency and was whisked away from the nation's capital by car to a "wooded mountainous area," according to news reports at the time.

Gary Civil Defense estimated the rescue operation would take 26 hours and would be directed by county staff. But a "what-if" article featured in the Post-Tribune offered a harrowing account of what might have happened in Gary if the simulated bombing of Gary had been real.

According to the story, "Thirty-thousand were reported dead and upwards of 40,000 injured in the atomic holocaust which engulfed Gary at 2:22 this afternoon. Nike battalions were reported to have downed 15 enemy bombers over Lake Michigan but one slipped through to hit Gary with an atomic bomb believed to be five times as powerful as the one which leveled Hiroshima. From Griffith, the atomic cloud could be seen rising up to 40,000 feet."

Gary Mayor Peter Mandich and Civil Defense Director Z.R. Bardowski remained in the city to observe the test, but other city employees relocated to a county highway garage near Crown Point.

The day kicked-off in Gary with a leaflet drop by the Gary-Hobart Civil Air Patrol of 60,000 pamphlets telling citizens they "are helping the Reds" if they aren't cooperating with the Civil Defense organization. The leaflets were to target the downtown area of the city, but wound up in other areas.

Russell Shirley, director of the Porter County Emergency Management/Homeland Security and District 1 Task Force, has been collecting civil defense memorabilia for years. (Nancy Coltun Webster / Post-Tribune)

The first siren sounded at 11:03 a.m. to warn that simulated enemy planes had been detected over the Arctic region on their way to the U.S., according to a Post-Tribune article. The take-cover alert came at 2:12 p.m., and the police department aimed to clear the streets of pedestrians. "Motorists, while complying with police orders to stop, did not get out of their cars to take cover. This was due primarily to the fact that many were out-of-towners who didn't know what the test was all about," the Post-Tribune reported.

Though today there are renewed fears of a terrorist attack on U.S., local defense operations have changed quite a bit.

"In 1955, the (Porter County) Civil Defense was a one-man operation," said Russell Shirley, director of Porter County Emergency Management and Commander of the District 1 Task Force.

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Emergency Management evolved from the civil defense program and "now we have two full-time staff members a part-time secretary and 30 volunteers. The District 1 Task Force has more than 300 volunteers throughout Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton and Porter counties," said Shirley.

The district volunteers come from all walks of life, said Shirley, and they include police officers, firefighters, EMS and citizens men and women. "There's one female on the hazmat team and about 100 women on the District Task Force. Porter County has 10 women volunteers  one of our volunteers is a psychiatrist," Shirley said.

Planes are readied for takeoff in June 1955. (Post-Tribune/Calumet Archives / Post-Tribune)

One of the biggest differences between today's Emergency Management and the Civil Defense effort is the ability to deploy to other areas using the District 1 Mobile Command Center. The vehicle is equipped with computers, radio, camera and other high-tech tools. The Mobile Command Center is booked locally throughout the summer and can be seen assisting with security at event in the various counties.

"Mike Webber, deputy director, has been to Alaska. He was there as a learning opportunity during wildfires and to assist," Shirley said. "We would never have done that in the 1940s and 1950s."

In addition, the district also has a mobile canteen truck and trailer unit donated by Task Force Tips, a Valparaiso-based national maker of firefighter equipment

Recently, Porter County Emergency Management overhauled its tornado siren system.

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"The old sirens were anywhere from 10 to 50 years old. Some were from the World War II air raid sirens. We have 57 locations, mostly in the north as that is more populated," Shirley said. "They get tested at 2 a.m. every day. They rotate and we make sure they are in good working condition. ... On the first Tuesday of each month, there is a sound test."

The Greg Phillips Emergency Services Center in Valparaiso includes a radio room where radio operators can "communicate with people anywhere in the world," said Shirley.

Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
While calling for closer cooperation among Asian countries, Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday identified China's reform and opening up drive, economic restructuring and investment in people's livelihoods as reliable growth engines.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 24, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

Li made the remarks during his speech at the opening ceremony of the 2016 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, in China's southernmost island province of Hainan.

Just like a high-speed train that is powered by multiple engines installed in individual carriages as well as the locomotive, China's economy needs stable operation and multiple driving forces, Li said.

To achieve stable and long-term growth, China will work to improve its financial market and retool the economy to cultivate new engines, according to the premier.

China will reform the capital market and draft rules for debt-to-equity swaps, making it easier for lenders to convert bank loans into equity stakes of debtor companies, a move that would help ease the nation's high debt levels.

To further open the capital market to global investors, "the government will launch the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect within the year, when conditions are ripe," said Li.

The program, which allows investors to trade on both bourses, within a limit, follows the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program, which has yielded positive results.

China will actively foster new growth drivers while transforming and upgrading traditional ones so that they form "twin engines" that propel development, according to the premier.

He called for efforts to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, develop the service industry, high-tech industry, small and medium-enterprises and private businesses. Their development will support the transformation of traditional industries.

Effective investment in infrastructure, especially in China's central and western regions, should be expanded, which is conducive to rural development, he said.

He said the government will work to "weave a safety net" that guarantees people's livelihood in the five areas of employment, education, medical care, old-age care and housing.

The premier also called for stable and healthy development of the real-estate market to avoid fluctuations.

He spoke highly of the country's booming tourism, citing the sector's 19-percent growth in domestic tourist revenue last year over 2014, and 4 billion domestic trips and 110 million overseas visits in 2015.

He reiterated a minimum 6.5-percent average annual growth China eyes for the next five years, which has been written into the 13th Five-Year Plan.

The premier also reassured the world of the country's flexibility to balancing reform and growth.

"The government will take measures if economic growth slips out of the reasonable range, as a loss of speed will be the biggest risk for the nation," he said.

Further, Premier Li made a series of concrete proposals to promote Asian cooperation and development.

"China proposed an Asian financial cooperation association to optimize the regional financial market and avoid large-scale financial turbulence," said the premier.

He also expressed the hope that Asia's regional trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, can be reached within this year.

He reiterated China's proposal to create a dialogue mechanism among Asian nations.

The upgrading and development of China's economy means progress for China and opportunities for the world, Li said.

China will import goods worth more than 10 trillion U.S. dollars and invest over 600 billion dollars abroad in the coming five years, according to Li.

"Premier Li Keqiang has shown determination when tackling the challenges that the Chinese economy is facing as it shifts its growth model," Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, told Xinhua after Li's speech.

"China's change is under way. We see it with the rise of services and domestic consumption. But, of course, there is still a long way ahead. And the process of internationalization of Chinese investment will be key," said de Villepin.
The smart manufacturing facilities in Jiangsu Dasheng Group Co Ltd, a textile company in Nantong, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

The sheer scale of the Chinese market gives the country an edge to develop smart manufacturing, said David Cruickshank, the global chairman of the professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.

But to succeed, he said, companies not only need to upgrade their systems but also have to extend the scope of smart manufacturing to the entire business.

His comments come as the central government is pressing ahead with the Made in China 2025 initiative to encourage companies to apply automation to build more intelligent manufacturing solutions that rely less on labor. It also encourages customization of goods, instead of focusing on mass production.

Globally, there are several versions of smart manufacturing: Germany's Industry 4.0 route starts from integrating hardware and software for the manufacturing process and leveraging Internet while in the United States, the concept of Industrial Internet refers to the integration of complex machinery with sensors and software.

Cruickshank said it is important to tailor each market with different approaches, taking account of current supply chain and infrastructure.

"There are many concepts ... To me the essence is it allows manufacturers to get very close to their end users and to have consumer input into what is being manufactured.

"The direct connection bears implication for distribution networks. For example, in the United Kingdom where I am based, high-street retailers are struggling (due to smart manufacturing)," he said.

China's biggest strength, according to Cruickshank, is its absolute scale. The huge market means the ability to scale up and respond to consumer trends quickly when you have hundreds of millions of consumers, he said.

"The scale of the market gives people opportunities to experience different models... Experimenting different models can happen very easily in China."

Lawrence Chia, CEO of Deloitte China, agreed, noting that most multinationals have competed each other in the Chinese market to experiment various techniques.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz [Photo by Zhang Ruomeng, China.org.cn]

"The Chinese Premier's speech covered the changes and improvements in China as well as the challenges. I have the impression that the Chinese government is on top of every issue; they have clear strategies," former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told China.org.cn after listening to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2016 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in China's southernmost island province of Hainan on Thursday.

"This conference of course is not only about China; it is about the future of the world," Aziz said. "China is the engine of growth in Asia, that's why the conference not only attracts people from Asia, but also from other parts of the world. People want to know the opportunities that China can offer."

Under the theme of "Asia's New Future: New Dynamics, New Vision," the conference brought together over 2,000 scholars, business leaders, government officials, and members of civil societies from over 60 countries and regions.

Shaukat Aziz, who has worked in the business and finance sector for about 40 years, is not worried about China's economic downturn, saying cycles happen. "For friends like Pakistan, the economic progress [of China] made in the past four decades is a source of strength. Pakistan is proud of China's achievements," he said.

Premier Li Keqiang mentioned innovation more than once in his speech. "China is now aware of the need for change, reform, and innovation. The fact that these points came from the premier gives me a lot of confidence and comfort," Aziz said. He insists that China must be more than the world's factory; the country also has to create more value added products and economy. "No matter which country in the world, if you don't keep reforming, your economy slows down," he continued.

Aziz hailed China's "Belt and Road" initiative as tremendous, saying that the initiative will speed up growth in the whole region. It is not just about building a road, it is about building connectivity between countries, enhancing the quality of relationships, and promoting the flow of ideas, people, and money among countries involved.

"If you look at history, none of the roads, including the ancient Silk Road, have been used for military purposes. China is a very peaceful country; China wants friendship, connectivity, and linkages. China has never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries," he said. "That is why people in Pakistan have strong respect for China."

"Better connectivity is always a driver for peace, reducing the potential for conflicts in Asia," said Aziz. It helps build a community and shared future in the region, a concept mentioned in Premier Li's speech.

"Trade, investment, security cooperation, and cultural and education cooperation are all ways to link countries."

Aziz praised the Asian community concept as holistic, which will bring countries together by creating a better Asian identity. "We are all Asians, we have a link, we may look different, but we are all basically the same. We are from one part of the world, so we have to work together," he said.
Premier Li Keqiang has urged business people from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan to firmly safeguard the political foundation for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and deepen cross-Strait economic cooperation.

Li made the remarks on Thursday while meeting a delegation headed by Vincent Siew, honorary chairman of the Taiwan-based Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation, at the ongoing 2016 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA).

"Our major policies and measures related to Taiwan are clear and consistent, and will never alter with the changes of Taiwan's political situation," Li said, stressing that with the 1992 Consensus as the political basis peaceful development of cross-Strait relations was assured.

Li said the mainland was willing to push forward cooperation and exchange in various aspects with the island and share development opportunities with Taiwan compatriots to realize mutual benefits.

According to Li, cross-Strait relations are now in a crucial stage, and "everything can be worked out" if the 1992 Consensus is acknowledged and it is agreed that both sides belong to one China.

"We must still walk the path of peaceful development and build a wonderful future together," Li said, adding that "Taiwan independence" has no future and the blood ties between mainland and Taiwan compatriots will never be severed.

The premier said the economic transformation and upgrade in the mainland will bring huge development opportunities for Taiwan companies as well as greater benefits for cross-Strait economic cooperation, urging Taiwan companies to make use of their advantages.

Li expressed his hope that mainland and Taiwan could strengthen dialogues concerning macroeconomic policies, industrial policy coordinations and innovation, and build an industrial cooperation mechanism to support each other and create fuels for common development.

Li urged business people from both sides, as "participants, promoters and the biggest beneficiaries of cross-Strait exchange," to firmly safeguard the political foundation for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and deepen cross-Strait economic ties so as to increase benefits for people from both sides.

Siew vowed to boost economic cooperation between the two sides based on the peaceful cross-Strait development over the past years.

The BFA is a non-governmental and non-profit international institution founded in 2001 to promote regional economic development and cooperation. This year's theme is "Asia's New Future: New Dynamics and New Vision."
Police have caught around 130 suspects and filed 69 criminal cases in connection with the ongoing vaccines scandal, which was announced at a press conference by police and health and drug authorities on Thursday.

Hua Jingfeng, a deputy bureau chief at the Ministry of Public Security, said some were facing prosecution on charges of illegal operation.

The scandal came to light during a police raid in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, last April when it was discovered that a large quantity of improperly stored or expired vaccines had been sold in more than 20 provincial-level regions since 2011.

Hua said the vaccines, including ones against meningitis, rabies and other illnesses, had been sold for 310 million yuan (US47.6 million), rather than the 570 million yuan as previously reported.

Investigators found that most of the vaccines involved had been used, with 20,000 doses seized and sealed by authorities, he said.

Li Guoqing, a supervision chief with the China Food and Drug Administration, said that, so far, police had traced and identified 41 suppliers, 46 buyers, 29 pharmaceutical wholesalers and 16 illegal inoculation institutions.

The case has centered on a mother, surnamed Pang, and her daughter illegally selling vaccines to re-sellers.

Li told the news conference that Pang had previously been given a suspended jail sentence for a similar crime.

"During the period of the suspended sentence, this criminal evaded supervision and control and continued to engage in the criminal act of illegally selling vaccines," he said, in comments streamed on a government website.

Li admitted there were "certain loopholes in our regulatory work" that allowed the vaccines to circulate on the Chinese market for so long before being found, but he said there were simply not enough people for the job.

"At present our country has 12,000 drug wholesalers, 5,000 production firms and more than 400,000 drug retailers. Regulatory targets are many, but there are few people on the ground, making regulation difficult," Li said.

"There aren't even 500 people with the aptitude to inspect drugs. There are dead spaces and blind zones for regulation and inspection."

The issue of regulation, from food and drugs to online sales, has become increasingly contentious in China as it looks to improve quality and safety.

Premier Li Keqiang has said regulatory bodies, including the health ministry and police, need to work more in tandem, and that "dereliction of duty" would not be tolerated.

The government says it has not found any spike in abnormal reactions to inoculations.

Though the vaccines weren't stored properly in the warehouse or refrigerated during delivery, they would be unlikely to pose health risks, Li, the administration's chief supervisor, said.

He was keen to reassure the public that vaccination in China was safe. China is among very few countries in the world that entirely rely on domestic manufactures to solve vaccine supply, he said.

China produces about 1 billion doses of vaccines every year, with 700 million used.
A Chinese man admitted killing his girlfriend in the United States but denied it was a planned murder at a trial that opened in his hometown of Wenzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province Wednesday.

Li Xiangnan, 25, was accused of strangling Shao Tong, a Chinese national, to death in a motel room on September 7, 2014, when the pair were students at the University of Iowa, the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court heard.

Li fled to China the next day of the murder. The murder came to light after Shao's body was found stuffed into the truck of a car on Sept. 26. On May 13, 2015, Li handed himself in to police in Wenzhou.

At the trial, Li said he had overheard his girlfriend telling her roommate she had grown bored with him a few days before they checked in to the Budget Inn for the weekend.

On the night of September 6, 2014, a Saturday, Shao told him she was in love with someone else. During the subsequent quarrel, Li strangled her.

"She covered my face with pillow and I almost couldn't breathe. Then I sat on her and pinched her neck," Li said, according to a report in yesterday's Qianjiang Evening News. "At first she resisted but about one or two minutes later, she didn't move. I shouted her name but she didn't respond. I tried to give her artificial respiration, but it didn't work."

Li said he acted on an impulse, but prosecutors said the crime was premeditated, citing Li's purchase of the suitcase, two dumbbells and a ticket to China before the killing.

Li told the court the couple had met at a TOFEL training class in Beijing in 2011 and became lovers in 2012.

"I have never ever loved a person so much," the newspaper said he told the court. He said they met up every weekend. "We were so close and good."

Li added: "I was too impetuous and irrational.

"I felt so sorry for her."

The court said it would announce the verdict on another date, given the complexity of the case.

China does not extradite its citizens, but says it can put them on trial regardless of where a crime occurred.
China unveiled a revised disaster relief plan on Thursday to fine tune its ability to deal with rescue missions.

It is the second time the national disaster relief plan has been amended since the program was introduced in 2005. The other revision was in 2011.

The National Committee for Disaster Reduction is responsible for organizing and instructing disaster rescue, according to the new plan issued by the General Office of the State Council.

Duties and responsibilities of the committee's member agencies are also specified in the revised plan, including damage reporting, the release of news, and mobilizing the public to participate in rescue missions.

According to the relief plan, China has a four-level emergency response system, with level-I calling for the top emergency response while level-IV is the lowest.

Natural disasters left about 1,500 people dead or missing annually during the 2011 to 2015 period, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Disasters affected 310 million people each year during the same period, displacing more than 9 million and destroying 700,000 houses, it said, adding that annual direct economic losses were 380 billion yuan (58.3 billion U.S. dollars).
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Natural disasters left about 1,500 people dead or missing annually from 2011 to 2015 in China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Thursday.

Disasters affected 310 million people each year during the same period, displacing more than 9 million and destroying 700,000 houses, said the ministry.

Disasters in the past five years led to an annual direct economic losses of 380 billion yuan (58.3 billion U.S. dollars), it added.

The number of people dead or missing in natural disasters in the past five years dropped 93 percent from the 2006 to 2010 period, the ministry said.
Kenyan researchers on Thursday unveiled the remains of one of the earliest human species to inhibit the earth that were discovered at an archeological site near the capital Nairobi.

Believed to be 3.5 million years old, the remains of Australopithecus afarensis, had earlier been discovered in Tanzania and Ethiopia while their discovery in Kenya could reinforce its famed status as a cradle for mankind.

The Kenyan researchers told journalists in Nairobi that an excavation exercise that lasted four years couple with scientific analysis led to discovery of the remains of the early human species.

Dr Emma Mbua, an Associate Research Scientist at the National Museums of Kenya said discovery of remains of the early human species marked a critical milestone in paleontology.

"We now have scientific evidence to prove that Kenya remains the cradle of man and urge the government to gazette the fossil site where remains of Australopithecus were discovered," said Mbua.

The early human species was discovered at a fossil site dated to 3.5 million years old near the Ngong Hills, further confirming Kenya's place as the cradle for human origins.

This is the first time that the A. afarensis species has been discovered in Kenya with previous finds located in Ethiopia and Tanzania.

A consortium of Kenyan, French, Japanese and American scientists conducted research that led to the discovery of remains of early human species at the foot of Ngong Hills near Nairobi.

Mbua revealed the remains were first identified by a farmer who alerted scientists at the national Museums of Kenya.

"The fossils have been observed by the farmer for more than three decades and he later informed us about their presence. We excavated the site for four years, took the samples for analysis and their genetic makeup confirmed their connection to the earliest man," Mbua said.

According to researchers, the discovery is the first evidence of early human species close to a major urban centre, showing that they lived close to the city.

These previous finds have also been restricted to the Rift Valley and the discovery at Kantis Fossil Site (KFS) is the first to be located in the highlands.

The species is believed to be adapted to a wider range of habitats, for example, from open grasslands / savannahs to woodland.

She added that Kenyan paleontologists will intensify research in other parts of the country in a bid to unearth further evidence on human evolution.

"It is possible we have fossil sites in other parts of the country that may offer clue to the earliest human ancestry," Mbua told Xinhua, adding that more excavations will be done in future to help discover remains of the oldest human species

Discovery of remains of the earliest man near the Kenyan capital, Nairobi could position the country as a hub for archeological tourism.

Head of Paleontology Department at the National Museums of Kenya, Dr Job Kibii said the archeological site near Nairobi where Australopithecus remains were found in likely to attract local and foreign tourists.

"The discovery of remains of the early man place Kenya at the heart of rigorous attention on human evolution. We expect more tourists and researchers to visit the site where these remains were found," Kibii said.

Kantis Fossil Site (KFS)now joins other important early human sites in Kenya that have yielded fossils comprising at least five species. Other sites include Koobi Fora, Kanapoi and Nariokotome on the eastern and western side of Lake Turkana respectively.

"It is our expectations that KFS due to its proximity to Nairobi city, will serve as an important tourist destination in addition to research, and will attract visitors that are interested in early human development story," the researchers said.
On the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-day state visit to the Czech Republic next Monday, the People's Daily published a commentary on the visit, saying his trip will elevate China-Czech ties to a new high and inject impetus to collaboration between China and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC).

Xi's visit, on invitation of Czech President Milos Zeman, will be the first by a Chinese head of state since the two nations established diplomatic ties 67 years ago.

The trip also arrives at a new stage in bilateral ties. The article illustrated that with bilateral trade volume in 2015 totaling at $11 billion, the Czech Republic is now China's second-largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is the largest trading partner of Czech Republic outside the EU.

In addition, the country is a major regional investment destination for Chinese enterprises. China has invested over $700 million in the country, accounting for 14 percent of its total investment in Central and Eastern Europe.

As an industrial country, the Czech Republic boasts rich industrial resources, sound infrastructure and well-educated citizens, which offer huge potential for China-Czech collaborations in manufacturing, nuclear energy and infrastructure.

Moreover, historic opportunities in bilateral cooperation are abound in building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the commentary stressed.

Both sides signed a memorandum of understanding on building the routes last November.

Located at the center of Europe, the Czech Republic offers strong infrastructure in railway, road, air and sea transport. The construction of the routes will push cooperation to new highs by providing them unprecedented opportunities in docking their development strategies, plans and policies.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
Wang Sicong, son of China's richest man and known for his sharp views on many issues as well as his luxury life, recently topped the ranking of the 2015 Top Web Celebrities released by China Internet Weekly.

The Internet is now integral to people's daily life. It often serves as a platform for producing business miracles. Additionally, it has also spawned a number of strange netizens and numerous scandals.

"Web celebrity"is now a popular concept, since Furong Jiejie (Sister Lotus), a famous female blogger, shot to fame as such a celebrity in 2004. Now, being an Internet celebrity seems one of the fastest ways to become famous and earn money, which is the reason why it attracts more and more young people to enter the industry.

Numerous grassroots people have become famous because of their talents and beauty. However, a number of them stand out for various scandals. Some of them have millions of fans on Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter.

Let's take a look at the top 10 web celebrities in China:

Zhang Zetian













Public praise:84.16

Creativity:84.35

Influence:69.71

Total score:79.41

Zhang Zetian is nicknamed "Milk Tea Girl" for a photo she released holding a cup of milk tea in 2009. Her angelic face and pure smile have attracted numerous fans. Every time she makes a move, it becomes news. Last year, she married Liu Qiangdong, the founder and CEO of China's online business giant JD. Com.




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[Photo/China.org.cn]

Chinese tourists traveling to South Korea totaled 6.15 million visits last year, making up 46.1 percent of all foreign visits to the country.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the average amount spent by Chinese tourists in South Korea reached about US$2,200 per person last year, with about 70 percent of them going for shopping. Only about 20 percent of Chinese travelers reported that they traveled to South Korea to explore the countrys culture. Chinese tourists also visited the country for plastic surgery or to sightsee.

A tourism program for Chinese visitors in South Korea has been mapped out and will last until 2018. South Korea will issue preferential banking cards for Chinese tourists, with which visitors can enjoy discounts from duty-free shops and plastic surgery clinics.
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Syrian army started entering the northern district of the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria on Thursday, state-run Alekhbaria TV reported.

The military forces started entering the northern district of Palmyra after bomb squads dismantled mines and explosive devices planted by the Islamic State (IS) group in that city.

The Syrian army reached the entrance of Palmyra on Thursday, just hours after capturing the nearby al-Hayaleh mountain, said the TV, adding that the infantry forces stormed IS fortifications in the northern districts of Palmyra.

The IS is still entrenched in the ancient citadel of Palmyra as other rebel groups withdrew to the eastern parts of the city, the TV added.

Since capturing it last May, the IS group destroyed the city's notorious military prison and several Islamic tombs.

The IS also put on public executions of government soldiers and people accused of working for the government.

Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world.

Syria has many prehistoric, Greek, Byzantine and Islamic heritages. Before the crisis, Syria used to attract many multinational archaeological missions in search for new clues of historical facts on the development of civilizations.
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Security forces in Somalia's northern state of Puntland have arrested 156 Al-Shabaab suspects in a swoop in the coastal town of Bosasso.

Police commander of Bari region, Abdihakim Yusuf Hussein, on Wednesday said the suspects were captured in a security operation to restore peace in the region.

"We arrested 156 Al-Shabaab suspects from hotels, villages, checkpoints and other suburbs. They are being questioned over a spate of insecurity incidents and their connection with Al-Shabaab," Hussein said.

Puntland security forces have killed more than 70 Al-Shabaab militants and arrested dozens of others since they launched the operations last week.

In southern Somalia, where the Islamist group is concentrated, the militants are facing a major offensive by the Somali army and the African Union peacekeeping troops in Somalia, known as AMISOM.

AMISOM troops have killed over 50 militants in the past week.

Despite being driven to large rural areas of southern Somalia, the militant group still stages attacks in the country every now and then, some in the capital Mogadishu.
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Police in Nigeria on Thursday confirmed the arrest of two wanted commanders of Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeastern state of Taraba.

Ali Audu and Abdulmumini Abdullahi have been handed over to the military in neighboring Yobe state, according to Shaba Alkali, Taraba state police chief.

Alkali said Audu was arrested on Feb. 22 in Tella area of the state, while Abdullahi was arrested in Bali area on March 5.

The two are on a list of most-wanted Boko Haram members released by the Nigerian army last year.

At least five of the wanted Boko Haram commanders were captured late last year in different parts of the country.

Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in Nigeria since it launched an insurgency in 2009, trying to establish an Islamist state.

The Nigerian government says it has "technically" defeated the group, but the militants continue to carry out attacks in the West African country.
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Russia's sweeping military progress on the ground in support of Syria's army bound people in the city of Latakia to their allies, to the extent of naming restaurants and even children after them.

Latakia, also known as "the Syrian coast's bride city," has been a major base for Russia, who officially entered the country last September to help Syria's government forces in their bitter battles against foreign-backed militants in the Latakian countryside near Turkey.

Months after launching their aerial campaign in Syria which started with the Hmaimim base in Latakia's countryside, Latakians became increasingly attached to their foreign friends.

As a matter of fact, two restaurants were named after Russia, one is called Russia and the other, Moscow, both in central Latakia.

"I decided to name my restaurant "Russia" to express my gratitude and love for the Russians and their positive political and military role in supporting us against the rebels' attacks in Latakia," Nader, "Russia's" restaurant owner told Xinhua.

Nader added that he opened his restaurant in October, a month following the Russian military intervention in Syria, noting that both the name and the "good hospitality" enticed the Russians to frequent his restaurant.

"We became friends with our Russian customers. They were so positive and well-mannered," he said.

The Russian spelling of "Russia" can be seen on every glass door in Nader's restaurant. The 34-year-old also plays Russian music and serves Russian dishes to attract Russian customers to dine at his restaurant.

"A substantial number of Russian customers frequent my place quite often, and their numbers increase daily," he said.

"Our menu serves Russian dishes such as Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Kiev as well as Russian salads and more, in addition to Russian beverages," Nader said, wearing his restaurant's uniform with the Russian name sewn on the shirt's chest pocket.

In Nader's restaurant, even ashtrays are carved with the name Russia in both Arabic and English.

Nader said he tried his best to offer a relaxing atmosphere to make his Russian customers feel at home.

"We wanted them to feel as if they were in Russia, back home, not strangers," Nader said, boasting that some of his Russian friends shared encouraging remarks saying "they told me they didn't feel like strangers in Latakia at all," due to the friendly and hospitable people.

Nader even said that one of his waiters started learning Russian to better serve his customers, holding a handwritten paper with welcoming Russian phrases to use every time a Russian customer entered.

"All my efforts eventually paid off and I am happy with that," Nader said.

Even following Russia's decision taken last week to withdraw large military units from Syria, Nader said he will never change the restaurant's name.

"We insist on the name whether Russian forces stay or leave," he said, noting that his insistence on naming the restaurant emanates from his "conviction."

"It's not about staying or leaving, it's about a steady Russian stance that won't change and neither will ours," he said.

Still, Nader didn't deny the fact there was a financial profit from his Russian customers, even from those who simply came to the restaurant just to be with their friends.

One of the restaurant's customers, Ali, said he lived in Russia for 13 years whilst studying medicine and added that the restaurant lured him to it because of its name.

"Personally, I really like the name, because I am very attached to Russia and I love Russian people because they are good-natured. So I go wherever there are Russians and that's why I come here daily," he said.

Ali said he met with Russians several times at the restaurant.

"We discussed several issues and we both seemed to grasp the situation very well," he said.

"Their strategy is clear, not volatile which is why I wasn't sad when I heard about their withdrawal because I trust them completely," he said, as he played a backgammon game with his friend Dr. Haitham Youssef, who also studied in Russia.

Youssef said he loved the restaurant's name, "Russia," for two reasons.

"First of all, because I studied in Russia and spent a very good time there, and second because in Arabic the names Russia and Syria sound very similar to one another, so it's almost like two sides of the same coin," he said.

"I trust the Russians and this trust developed following my study of history where I learned that Russians always attempted to quell the world's fires, not just Syria now," he said.

Youssef said he would like to see more places in Syria named both after President Vladimir Putin and Russia.

The other restaurant named after Russia is called "Moscow," whose owner also shared his gratitude for Russia's role in supporting Syria against the rebels.

In another area in Latakia, the Sheikh Daher Square, Khaled, who owns an antique shop, said Russian customers frequented his shop and bought souvenirs.

"They always came to my shop. However, recently they've come to buy gifts for their relatives in Moscow since they are leaving soon," he told Xinhua.

"They bought souvenirs named "Syria"... they also bought bronze-shaped Aladdin magical lamps," he said.

Khaled said Latakians felt safe during Russia's heavy presence in Latakia's Hmaimim base.

"We felt safe and to be honest the majority of us were saddened by the news of their departure," he said.

The bonds developed with the Russians were not only confined to civilians, but also with military and security personnel.

One security agent, who usually accompanied the Russians, said he felt as if he lost a child when he heard the news about Russia's withdrawal.

"We have a strong alliance with the Russians, and I'm not sad because their military presence decreased, but because we developed personal friendships," he told Xinhua, asking not to be named in line with regulations.

"You cannot imagine how good the people are. I used to escort some of them, even officers, and they always treated me respectfully and as a friend," he said.

The man said love for Russians increased among the government-supportive people in towns surrounding Latakia, as these towns suffered massacres committed by militants in 2013.

people even call President Vladimir Putin "Abu Ali Putin," as Abu Ali is a name bestowed upon brave people in Syria's coast.

"In my town, some fathers named their newborns Putin after the Russian president," the security man said.

Meanwhile, a Syrian army military officer told Xinhua that Russia's support to Syria's army was crucial.

"We achieved much throughout Syria with the help of Russia, who enabled Syria's army to regain control of several of the country's key areas," he said.

He said that during Russia's heavy presence in Latakia he made good friends and added that although Russia's withdrawal is coordinated, studied and agreed upon, "yet when you say goodbye to a dear friend, you do feel a little sad."

Last week, Russia's leadership announced it was withdrawing substantial units of its air force from Syria.

The Syrian government stated that the decision was entirely coordinated with Damascus, adding that it was due to the ground improvement achieved by Syria's army and the currently-stable truce.

Analysts interpreted the withdrawal as a way to encourage a political solution for Syria's crisis, especially given that currently Syria's government representatives and the opposition are meeting in Geneva in an attempt to solve Syria's five-year-old conflict.
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New Zealanders have voted to keep the British Union Jack in their national flag, spurning Prime Minister John Key's bid for a change to a silver fern design in a referendum that closed Thursday.

Photo taken on March 24, 2016 shows New Zealand's current national flag in front of the Parliament Building in Wellington, capital of New Zealand. [Photo/Xinhua]

Almost 57 percent of the votes in the preliminary result were in favor of the country's colonial era naval ensign, which features the Union Jack prominently in the top left corner on a blue field with four red stars representing the Southern Cross constellation.

Just over 43 percent voted for the alternative offering of a stylized silver fern with the Southern Cross on a blue and black field.

Voter turnout was 67.3 percent of the electorate, or more than 2.12 million voters, according to the Electoral Commission.

The result ends months of polarizing and sometimes bitter debate which has straddled political party lines.

Supporters of the prime minister, who openly supported the change, have described campaigners for the current flag as "immature" and politically motivated.

Key acknowledged the referendum result in a Twitter post, saying, "New Zealand has voted to retain our current flag. I encourage all (New Zealanders) to use it, embrace it and, more importantly, be proud of it."

Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, who was in charge of the process, said it had resulted in a "good debate around patriotism."

"We have run a robust, democratic process that has allowed us to discuss who we are and how we want to be represented on the world stage," English said in a statement.

"This process has engaged Kiwis in their homes, in their schools and in their workplaces, here in New Zealand, and right around the world -- it is something we've all had a point of view on."

The main opposition Labour Party said the prime minister had "split the nation and achieved nothing."

"At every stage of the process John Key screwed the scrum in favour of his flag," Labour leader Andrew Little said in a statement.

"He failed to treat the public with respect and put his personal agenda first."

The opposition Green Party said Key's overt campaigning for the alternative flag had tainted the referendum from the outset and cost all New Zealanders the opportunity to get a new flag.

"Lots of New Zealanders support a change of flag, but voted for the current one because the prime minister's interference ensured they weren't given a proper choice," Green co-leader Metiria Turei said in a statement.

"John Key alienated people by politicizing the process and attacking those who didn't like his choice of flag."

The process has been marred by controversy and rancor since it was initiated by Key after the 2014 general election.

Campaigners for the current flag have derided the silver fern design as a souvenir-type "tea towel" and a simplistic corporate-style logo.

Political opponents have described it as a waste of money and a "vanity project" of the prime minister.

Critics of the present flag, including Key, say it is too similar to the Australian flag and that it is a hangover from the country's colonial past.

Key has said New Zealanders were unlikely to have another chance to choose their flag before the country became a republic -- an event that was unlikely to happen in his lifetime.

The alternative option was selected by a Flag Consideration Panel that considered more than 10,000 flag designs submitted by the public and an initial referendum in which the public were asked to choose from a short list of five.

Final results will be released by the Electoral Commission on March 30.

The entire project is expected to cost over 26 million NZ dollars (17.4 million U.S. dollars).
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Iraqi security forces on Thursday waged the first stage of an offensive against Islamic State (IS) militants to flush them out from the city of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, a military statement and a provincial official said.

"The offensive to liberate Nineveh province started at dawn and raised the Iraqi flag on some villages by the hands of our heroic forces," a military statement said.

Salih al-Jubouri, mayor of the IS-held town of Qayyara south of Mosul, told Xinhua that government troops advanced in three routes from their bases near the town of Makhmour, some 50 km southeast of Mosul, toward Qayyara.

The troops' advance came after heavy bombardment by Iraqi artillery and U.S.-led coalition aircraft on IS positions in the villages of Kodila, Krimdi and Haj Ali near Qayyara, Jubouri said.

There is no immediate report about casualties, he said, adding that the fighting is continuing.
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The European Union (EU) pledged to enhance its collective ability to combat terrorism on Thursday in the wake of deadly Brussels attacks.

The justice and security ministers of the EU member states held an extraordinary meeting two days after the terror atrocity in Brussels as a series of explosions at its airport and a metro station have caused at least 31 deaths.

The meeting was intended to show the EU's solidarity with Belgium, discuss the actual state of play in the fight against terrorism and pursue swift completion and implementation of legislation.

The ministers decided to adopt the air passenger name record (PNR) directive in April 2016 and implement it as a matter of urgency. The measure will ensure that passenger information units (PIUs) exchange data between them as soon as possible.

The ministers renewed their calls for more intelligence sharing and use of EU databases like the Schengen information system or Europol's database.

According to a joint statement released by the ministers after the meeting, the EU will present by June 2016 concrete deliverables, in particular to improve the collecting, checking and connecting of information in the field of counter terrorism;

In this context, the ministers urged the relevant sectors to accelerate the development of a European wide automated fingerprint recognition system integrated into the Schengen Information System (SIS).

The EU member states said they will fully support the work of the Counter Terrorism Group (CTG), in particular by further accelerating the establishment of a dedicated platform for real time, multilateral information exchange.

Meanwhile, learning from recurrent patterns in terrorist attacks and supporting networks, the ministers encouraged the regular use of joint investigation teams. The teams have demonstrated their usefulness after the attacks in Paris, to coordinate investigations and gather and exchange evidence, they said.

Furthermore, the EU will set up a joint liaison team of national counter-terrorism experts at Europol's European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC). This team will draw on Europol's law enforcement capabilities to monitor the threat from foreign fighters, the flows of terrorist financing and illegal firearms, and online propaganda.

After Paris attacks last November, a number of necessary steps have already been taken in fighting against terrorism. However, the ministers said they will pursue ongoing work in a resolute manner.

The ministers called for swift completion of the legislation on combating terrorism, on systematic checks at external borders of the Schengen area, on control of the acquisition and possession of firearms and on the extension of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) to third-country nationals.

They urged EU member states to speed up their implementation of the action plan to fight terrorism financing.

Meanwhile, the ministers expressed their support and solidarity to Belgium, saying that they will stand determined in the common fight against terrorism.
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The latest round of intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva wrapped up on Thursday with a paper of 12 points of commonalities being delivered to both sides for further consideration by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

UN Special Envoy for Syria De Mistura shows a document listing his points of commonality during a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, March 24, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

"During the course of talks the Special Envoy noted that certain commonalities existed between the two sides in relation to their respective visions of what a future of Syrian state might look like, he instructed his staff to try to capture points of convergence in order to help him structure the next round of talks which shall also focus on political transition," the Syrian opposition delegation said in a statement.

According to the paper of commonalities, named "Essential Principles of Political Solution in Syria," both participants in the intra-Syrian talks have told the Special Envoy that the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, the ISSG statements and the Geneva Communique in its entirety are the basis for a political transition process and beyond that will end the crisis in Syria.

The sides have also reiterated that a political settlement is the only way to peace, and the above mentioned 12 "essential principles" are the foundation for a future Syrian state that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people.

At the top of the 12-point list is the principle that to respect for the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria, and "no part of the national territory shall be ceded."

The second thing both the Syrian government and the opposition seem to share a common ground is that the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention shall apply, and the Syrian people alone shall determine the future of their country by democratic means.

"Syria shall be a democratic, non-sectarian state based on citizenship and political pluralism," the paper of commonalities noted.

According to the paper, women shall enjoy equality of rights and representation in all institutions and decision-making structures at a level of at least 30 percent during the transition and thereafter.

The paper also said that Syria categorically rejects terrorism and strongly opposes terrorist organizations and individuals identified by the UN Security Council and will engage in a national endeavor, in international partnership, to defeat terrorism and to address the causes of terrorism.

"Syrians are committed to rebuilding a strong and unified national army, also through the disarmament and integration of members of armed groups supporting the transition and the new constitution," the paper said.

Other commonalities include that all refugees and internally displaced people wishing it shall be enabled to return safely to their homes, those arbitrarily detained shall be released and the fate of the disappeared, kidnapped or missing shall be resolved, and there shall be reparations, redress, care, and restitution of rights and property lost for those who have suffered loss or injury in consequence of the conflict.

According to an opposition source, the UN Special Envoy has invited each of the two negotiating parties to take away the paper to examine whether it accurately captures points of convergence if not consensus.

The source described the paper as "a useful guide" while the Syrian government delegation said that its stance towards the paper will be made clear in the next round of Syrian peace talks, which is scheduled to be started on April 9.

"It is not an agreed paper of the two negotiating parties. It does not constitute in any way a framework document or a negotiating text and shall not be put before the UN Security Council or the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) unless specifically authorized by both sides," the Syrian opposition said in the statement.
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Iran has signed a confidential oil agreement with France's Total to develope the South Azadegan oil field shared by Iran and Iraq, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said on Thursday.

Iran and the oil giant, Total, have agreed to keep the articles of the accord confidential, and the French firm is now "studying its participation in the development of the oil field," Zangeneh was quoted as saying by Press TV.

Earlier this month, Zangeneh said that Iran and Total were in talks about the oil field, which is said to hold an in-situ oil reserve of about 33.2 billion barrels, according to the report.

Iran reached an agreement with the Japanese Inpex a decade ago to develop the oil field, however, the Japanese company quit the project as a result of U.S. sanctions against Iran's energy sector because of the disputed nuclear issue.

Iran and the world powers clinched a nuclear deal in July last year which enables the country to re-engage with the world's energy giants to develop its oil and gas fields.
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A Russian special forces officer has been killed in Syria during a target-designation mission near the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria, local media reported Thursday.

The officer "has been killed during a special task to direct strikes of Russian warplanes against IS (Islamic State) targets near Tadmur area (of Homs province)," said a spokesman for the Russian military contingent deployed at Syria's Hmeimim airbase.

"The officer had been on a mission near Palmyra for a week spotting key IS facilities and directing Russian airstrikes," RIA Novosti news agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

The officer died heroically and drew the fire upon himself after he had been spotted and surrounded by terrorists, according to the spokesman.

Russian Defense Ministry said on March 18 that its air forces continued strikes against terrorist groups in Syria, with 20-25 daily sorties conducted in support of Syrian ground forces.

Russia started withdrawing the main part of its air forces deployed in Syria from March 15, after an anti-terror air campaign of over five months in the war-torn country at the request of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia's military withdrawal was welcomed as the Russian- and U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, effective since late February, was largely held in Syria and rounds of intra-Syrian negotiations were carried out in Geneva, Switzerland.
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The UN Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of the panel of experts that assist the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Sanctions committee until April 24, 2017.

In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-nation Council requested the panel of experts to provide the committee a mid-term report on its work by Sept. 7, 2016 and requested a final report from the panel no later than Feb. 1, 2017.

The panel is also required to provide a program of work no later than thirty days after its reappointment, and to engage in regular discussions about the program of work.

The panel, created by the Security Council through Resolution 1874 which was adopted in 2009, is tasked with helping the committee gather information and provide feedback to the Council on the implementation of sanctions and embargoes imposed on the DPRK.

The resolution also urged all states and relevant UN bodies to cooperate with the committee and the panel of experts by supplying any information on the implementation of measures imposed by relevant Security Council resolutions.

Earlier this month, the UN Security Council, the most powerful UN arm of the world body, agreed to impose a new raft of tougher sanctions on the DPRK to curb its nuclear and missile programs.
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China on Thursday donated five million U.S. dollars worth of non-lethal military equipment to a regional bloc in west Africa as part of efforts to boost its standby force operational capacity.

Speaking in Abuja at a ceremony organized to handover the equipment, Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria Gu Xiaojie, said the donation of the military equipment to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would also promote relations between China and the bloc.

Gu also said the Chinese government's donation was in line with the commitment it made at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit held in Johannesburg in December 2015.

The envoy also reassured of his government's resolve to sustain relations with West African countries and the various regional economic communities in the interest of peace and security in the continent.

According to him, the donation by the Chinese Ministry of Defense is a symbol of the close cooperation between China and ECOWAS and also this is symbolic of China's commitment toward cooperating with ECOWAS states to maintain peace and stability.

He told his audience that China is going to have closer consultation with African countries and sub-regional organizations and other institutions to beef up Africa's capability to maintain peace and stability.

He said the Chinese government would continue providing within its capability and in various forms, assistance and support to African countries.

Earlier, President of the ECOWAS Commission, Kadre Ouedraogo, said the donation by the Chinese government would boost the operational capacity of the standby force.

Ouedraogo assured that the force would be "more professionally efficient to plan and organize various training activities across the sub-region and put to judicious use the equipment".

He expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for the donation and also to the Nigerian government for the efforts it made to facilitate the clearing, transportation, and temporary storage of the equipment.

Also, Nigeria's Minister of Defense, Brig.-Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (Rtd) expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for its contribution.

The minister also expressed gratitude to ECOWAS and the Nigerian government for facilitating the mobilization of the equipment.

He reiterated that the provision would meet some of the security needs of the standby force and foster bilateral, security and economic relations between both parties.

He also commended the efforts of member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin Republic in fight against insurgency in the sub-region through their contribution to the Multinational Joint Task Force.
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Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff reiterated on Thursday that she will not step down from her position and that a coup is ongoing in the country, local news site G1 said.

Rousseff told several foreign correspondents, a impeachment process against her lacks any legal basis and reaffirmed her intention to stay at the helm of the government.

She classified the process as an attempted coup, though she admits the current situation is different from the 1964 coup which established the start of a two-decade military dictatorship in Brazil.

Rousseff is in the middle of an impeachment process. However, she said the process has no legal basis since no crime has been attributed to her so far.

The president also criticized President of the Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha. According to Rousseff, Cunha began the impeachment process against her -- a prerogative of head of the House -- in order to shift the attention from his own dilema.

Cunha is a defendant in a corruption case, having been accused of taking hefty bribes in the Petrobras corruption scheme. Six undeclared accounts belonging to him were discovered by Swiss authorities, containing millions of U.S. dollars. Over the years, several of Cunha's expenses were charged to the accounts, as well as high-end purchases for his wife and daughter.
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Russia and the United States have reached some consensus on Syria during U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's visit, but relations are far from thawing so long as the sanctions on Russia are not lifted.

During his two-day visit, Kerry held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Syria, the situation in the Korean Peninsula and ties between their two countries.

The two sides agreed that further talks will be focused on details of Syria's political transition, including a framework and a draft constitution, among other issues.

The political transition in Syria is the best and perhaps the only way to end the war, Kerry told a press conference late Thursday night.

The agenda of further talks would include a timetable "for establishing a framework for political transition and also a draft constitution, both to be finished by August," said Kerry, who arrived here on Wednesday.

Kerry and Lavrov outlined specific objectives on which Russia and the United States agreed to cooperate.

On settlement of the Syrian crisis, the two sides would take steps to reinforce cessation of hostilities and end the use of indiscriminate weapons.

The two countries agreed to work to "finalize a common understanding for how this cessation can be institutionalized" and work "more effectively," Kerry said.

Moreover, Russia and the United States agreed to use their influence to facilitate the direct talks between the Syrian government and opposition forces, as well as to push for the release of detainees and the delivery of humanitarian goods.

On bilateral relations, Kerry repeated that anti-Russia sanctions will only be lifted when the Minsk agreement is fully implemented.

The agreement, signed in the Belarusian capital city in February 2015 with the mediation of France and Germany, calls for a ceasefire along with a range of political, economic and social measures aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov expressed Russia's readiness to cooperate with the United States on an equal basis, warning of "counter-productivity of the trend to destabilize the foundation of Russian-American relations."

But they agreed to establish regular review of bilateral relations, cooperate on combating cyberspace crimes and intensify dialogue on global security, said Lavrov.

Kerry's visit showed that Russia and the United States have minimized certain contradictions, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for International Studies in National Research University's High School of Economics, told Xinhua on Thursday.

Prospects of a really constructive cooperation have become tangible, though a huge number of problems remained to be solved, Suslov said.

"I assess this visit as an indication of real willingness of the United States to work on a real political settlement of the Syrian conflict," he said.

The two sides also discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Lavrov said that "irresponsible actions" of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) must not be used as an excuse for any military build-up in Northeastern Asia.

This is Kerry's first visit to Russia so far this year and the third in 12 months.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Pakistan Friday on a two-day state visit for talks on bilateral and regional matters, focusing on economic and energy cooperation, officials said.

This is Rouhani's first visit to Pakistan as the president of Iran.

The Iranian president is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising ministers, senior officials and businessmen, the Foreign Ministry said.

During his stay in Islamabad, the president of Iran will hold meetings with the president and the prime minister of Pakistan.

"The Leadership will have an exchange of views on strengthening bilateral relations, particularly after lifting of the sanctions on Iran that has opened new avenues for enhancing economic interaction," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Cooperation on regional and international issues of mutual concern will be discussed, the Foreign Ministry said.

In a message to Pakistani people on the eve of his visit, the Iranian president called for strong economic, trade and political relations with Pakistan in the sanction-free environment.

He favoured Pakistan's access to Iran's rich natural resources to meet the energy requirements of the people. He underscored cooperation between Iran and Pakistan for security on the borders and fighting against extremism and violence.

"After lifting the unjust sanctions against Iran, the ground is just prepared for a rapid leap in establishing bilateral and multilateral economical relations, developing trade and strengthening political-cultural ties, more than ever," the Iranian leader said.

"In this context, both countries have tried to bring private sector into business and it'll make a big difference in developing better relations," he said.

Rouhani described terrorism and extremism as a terrible disease and said it has encroached upon the whole world, but the Muslim world has suffered more than others from this scourge.
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German police arrested two men in connection with Tuesday's terror attacks in Brussels, German media Spiegel Online reported on Friday.

In the area of Giessen, a town in the German federal state of Hesse, German police arrested on Wednesday evening a man, who had received two suspicious SMS on his phone on the same day of Brussels attacks.

While one SMS contained the name of the suicide bomber Khalid El Bakraoui, the another message only one word "fin", the French word for "the end".

According to the report, the later message was evidently posted just three minutes before Bakraoui set off bombs in a metro station in Brussels.

The investigators are now trying to clarify how this man might be associated with the Brussels bombings on Tuesday.

Another arrest occurred in the German city of Dusseldorf after a special task force of German police took Samir E. on Thursday afternoon.

As Spiegel Online reported, just as the Brussels suicide bomber Khalid El Bakraoui, Samir E. was also apprehended in last summer by the Turkish authorities at the border area between Turkey and Syria, as they were suspected of wishing to take part in the Syrian conflicts on the side of the Islamists or having taken part.

Both were deported in the same plane to Amsterdam where they had begun their trip to Turkey.

The German authorities are now questioning whether the two had a closer acquaintance or were even journeyed together.

Two suicide bombers who set off explosions at Brussels airport and a metro station on Tuesday have been reportedly identified as brothers Khalid and Brahim El Bakraoui and have direct links with the Paris terror attacks last November.

The twin attacks on Tuesday have killed at least 31 people and injured more than 300 others.
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The Islamic State (IS) militants withdrew on Friday from the ancient citadel of the millennia-old city of Palmyra in central Syria to another district in that city as a result of the wide-scale offensive of the Syrian army, pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.

The IS militants withdrew from the ancient citadel of Palmyra toward the al-Amiriyeh district in that oasis city in the eastern countryside of the central province of Homs, said the report, adding that the terror group had tried to bring in reinforcements from its strongholds in the northern province of al-Raqqa, but the Syrian army struck the backup forces of the IS.

The Syrian military forces are now combing areas between the hills and the ancient citadel of Palmyra in preparation for their entry, said the report, adding that the Syrian army also cut off the IS supply line between Palmyra and the town of Qaryatain in Homs countryside.

The battles between the IS and the Syrian army are so intense in Palmyra, the TV noted.

Meanwhile, the report said the Syrian army is advancing in Palmyra under the air cover of the Russian air force.

The fresh progress came after the Syrian army recaptured several areas west of Palmyra, said the report, adding that the army and its allies are less than one kilometers from central Palmyra.

Under the heavy shelling, the IS militants started moving their families toward the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

A day earlier, the state-run Alekhabria TV said the military forces started entering the northern district of Palmyra, followed by the bomb squads, which have started dismantling the mines and explosive devices planted by the IS.

The Syrian army reached the entrance of Palmyra on Thursday, just hours after the government forces captured the al-Hayaleh mountain near the city, said the TV, adding that the infantry forces stormed IS fortifications in the northern districts of Palmyra.

Due to the nature of the war in Palmyra in the Syrian desert, the Syrian army used special tactics, such as the camouflaged armored vehicles and motorcycles amid heavy shelling on the IS positions, the TV said.

The Syrian army will retake Palmyra within the next few hours, the TV said, adding that the IS militants are fleeing the city en masse, possibly to the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, much of which under the IS control.

Since capturing it last May, the terror-labeled IS group destroyed the city's notorious military prison and several Islamic tombs.

The IS also put on public executions of soldiers and people accused of working for the government.

Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world.

Syria has many prehistoric, Greek, Byzantine and Islamic heritages. Before the crisis, Syria had attracted many multinational archaeological missions coming for searching new clues of historical facts on the development of civilizations.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Boao, South China's Hainan province, March 24, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

BOAO, Hainan - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday said Asia should take advantage of human resources to pursue an innovation-driven growth model.

Speaking at the 2016 Boao Forum for Asia, Li said Asia needs to count on its some four billion people to achieve sustained prosperity and development.

"Asia will have a new future only when we have innovation and skilled people," Li told the forum in Boao, South China's Hainan province.

The premier said the region has achieved a "miracle" thanks to the diligence and intelligence of the people and should make more use of those qualities.

Innovation is one of the key principles in China's pursuit of an economic transition from growth driven by investment and exports to growth led by consumption.

Li said that the region should try to raise productivity of the labor force through education and training, and increase investment in research and development.

"We should make use of new models such as the Internet Plus. We should build platforms for innovation cooperation and encourage the sharing of best practices ... to involve the general public, especially young people," he said.

"This will help countries in our region to embark on a path of development driven by innovation and growth led by upgrades," he said.
Workers construct a railway project in Yuncheng, Shanxi province. [Photo/Xinhua] More investment needed to improve logistics and contacts

Panelists attending the annual Boao Forum for Asia called for more investment in infrastructure projects between China and other countries, pointing to the important role of the construction of the China-Thailand railway due to begin in May.

More investment is needed in infrastructure construction that will help bolster local logistics and trade contacts, especially electric power and railway projects, Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a panel discussion on production capacity on Thursday in Boao, Hainan province.

China has signed agreements on capacity collaboration with dozens of countries, including developing countries along the Road and Belt Initiative, and developed countries, such as France, according to Ning, who noted that it will be easier to start working with neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Kazakhstan as they have greater demand in terms of infrastructure compared with developed countries.

The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, is meant to improve transport infrastructure linking Asia and Europe.

Ning said that the railway project between China and Thailand, which will be designed and constructed by Chinese companies, marks a further step to enhance cooperation that is not only beneficial to local communities but also to China's equipment exports.

The $10.6-billion, more than 800-kilometer railway project that connects Thailand's Nong Khai province, Bangkok, and the eastern province of Rayong, was signed in December when Premier Li Keqiang went to Thailand for a regional meeting in 2014.

Delegates attending the forum said that such investment is a win-win strategy for everyone involved.

New infrastructure projects bring communities with more jobs and bring more tax income for the government, according to Pakistani Minister of Planning Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal.

On China's side, capacity cooperation leads to a particular growth in railway equipment with high quality, according to Zhang Jiehui, vice-governor of Hebei province.

"There are more than 700 companies in steel and iron industries in Hebei that made investment and built factories overseas, each of which is making a profit," said Zhang, in response to concerns that China exports inferior capacity to other countries to tackle its own overcapacity problems.

"By moving factories abroad Chinese companies specialized in these fields could better play their roles in countries with higher demand in steel, cement and other manufacturing products," said Zhang.

Zhang said further investment would be made in cooperation with Pakistan and Kazakhstan, and he expected a prospective future for further cooperation.
Workers at Shenyang North Heavy Industries Group Co Ltd dismantle the shield-tunneling equipment ready for export to Brazil. [Photo/Xinhua]

Mayor of Shenyang says city's industrial manufacturers poised to change direction

New policies will be introduced soon to support the rejuvenation of traditional industrial hubs in China's northeastern provinces, and to help boost the performances of its listed manufacturing companies.

Speaking at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan on Thursday, Pan Liguo, the mayor of Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, said a circular from the central government has been circulated there and in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces outlining the plans.

It sets out a blueprint for what's being called the "one belt, five bases" policy, which will help industrial companies in those provinces shift toward technology-driven manufacturing.

One belt refers to the country's economic support network, while the bases will cover advanced equipment manufacturing, raw materials, agricultural modernization, and scientific and technological innovation.

"Equipment manufacturing is Shenyang's core industry," Pan said.

"We have formulated relevant, complementary plans to seize the opportunities being presented within what is a national economic shift toward technology investment."

Northeastern China has a long history of heavy industry, including in steelmaking, oil drilling and automobile manufacturing.

However, the region has been facing difficulties of overcapacity and mounting environmental pressure in recent years, with many of the major players that were central to its economic development, becoming drains on public resources.

Analysts now say that as new measures aim to reshape the country's regional economic growth, which encourage emerging industries, listed industrial companies in the northeast should be focusing more resources toward research and development of new technologies.

A research note from Sealand Securities Ltd said companies in the region would benefit greatly from expanding their number of joint ventures, and creating emerging industrial zones, which could attract new technology and talent, to help modernize local industry chains.

One advanced equipment manufacturing industrial park in Shenyang, for instance, already plays host to 35 German companies, and further resources are expected to be invested there into R&D, which should help add value to products, and improve profit margins.

Another research note from Changjiang Securities Co suggests listed heavy machinery, robotics and agricultural companies in Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces are the most likely to benefit from the new measures, as those sectors can be transformed and upgraded with the help of new technologies, over a shorter timescale.

The note said shares in such companies, whose prices have fallen, are likely to recover as technology and product investment start to pay off, improving revenues.
Consumers with the ability to pay a premium for organic food are encouraging pig breeders in the mountains of eastern China's Anhui province to embrace new business opportunities that are expected to boost their incomes.

On a mountain about 1,000 meters above sea level, breeder He Xianglin has tapped a spring with "really sweet" water that he funnels through bamboo pipes to his pig farm about 100 meters to the south.

Around 120 sows and dozens of newborn black piglets drink the spring water and eat cabbages and turnips He also grows on the mountain slope, irrigated by the spring and fertilized with pig manure.

While some companies are said to be harnessing the spring to bottle expensive water in Luohanshan village in Susong county, He has been using the water to breed black pigs in the village since 2008.

"Many people think I am foolish, because merely using the water to feed pigs seems a wasted opportunity," He said.

But He, 51, has a plan. He shifted at the end of last year to breeding a renowned local porker, the Anqing Liubai black pig, which is prized for its slow growth and tastiness. He expects to have 3,000 pigs in a year, and the return on his investment will take nearly as long.

"It will take at least 10 months for each hog to reach a weight of 90 kilograms, twice as long as breeding white pigs," He said.

The cost of raising the pigs is higher tooeach kilogram of a pig's weight costs about 14 yuan ($2.14), mostly for feedbut so are the returns.

Since more Chinese consumers are buying high-end agricultural products, which are regarded as healthier alternatives, He expects his "totally organic" business to be quite profitable.

"Such pork products are often priced much higher than regular ones," He said.

Zhou Pei, a marketing executive for Xiandai Fine Breed Cultivation Co, provides the sows He raises at no cost and contracts to purchase the pigs once they've grown. "The best parts of the pig are priced at about 100 yuan per kilogram in the stores in cities," Zhou said.

Supported by agricultural authorities, the company based in the neighboring Wangjiang county has worked to protect the Liubai species since 2005, when it was in danger of dying out, and possesses a monopoly on the variety.

China is the largest pork consumer in the world, and most of the meat comes from white pigs. Industry insiders have warned that China's pig industry faces overcapacity, even as more pork has been imported in recent years.
The northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning are on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom.

The region was the country's main industrial hub in the 1970s before declining in the following decade, when it encountered difficulties in adapting to the structural reforms of the new market economy.

Low GDP growth, overcapacity of traditional industries and unprofitable companies were blamed for the decline.

The situation has now improved as more and more graduates and youths have been encouraged by local governments to start businesses to spearhead an industrial boom.

The Harbin Institute of Technology's student incubator park, which was launched last year, covers an area of 3,700 square meters and boasts 38 startups. A total of 228 people, including 112 graduates, are working there.

By the end of 2015, the park had received 16.5 million yuan ($2.53 million) in venture investment, with total revenue reaching 14 million yuan.

The Heilongjiang provincial government has provided 50 million yuan in specific financial funds to the startups and the rental, water, electricity, property and Internet fees are exempted for three years.

Harbin World Wide Welding Co Ltd, which is engaged in welding equipment and technology, is a typical startup born in the park.

Wan Long, 25, a first-year PhD student in welding technology and engineering from the institute, launched the company last year.

"Having received a number of technology innovation awards and invention patents, I came up with an idea of transforming technology into products and starting a business," said Wan.

"We make efforts to develop friction stir welding machine with an independent intellectual property right, which could be applied into aerospace, automobile, ship, electronics and high-end equipment manufacturing industry."

The company has sold welding equipment to enterprises including French electric automation company Schneider Electric SA, and provides original equipment manufacturing service. Its turnover reached 1.5 million yuan last year.

Heilongjiang is not alone.

Liaoning has created 41 different measures across 10 different sectors to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Small and micro enterprises there can enjoy tax cuts and capital support, as well as having technology and innovation projects fast-tracked for approval.

In the provincial capital Shenyang, its famous Sanhao Streettraditionally home to its computer communityofficials have created more than 10,000 square meters of what is being called "makers' space", dedicated solely to entrepreneurs.

Nearly 40 new startups have opened up there, attracting investment around 150 million yuan.

The investors include 28-year-old Ke Dongyue, who quited a stable job as a pediatrician to start his own businessan online healthcare platform, which has gathered more than 100 veteran doctors to provide medical services to patients.

"The 'makers' space' offers me free office accommodation, equipment and big-data services. I can also find investors here," said Ke.

And in Jilin province, its industrialization process has been helped considerably by a series of policies aimed at scientific and technical sectors, especially new energy and materials, optoelectronics and other strategic emerging industries.

So far there are 300 technological innovation-based enterprises with output surpassing 30 million yuan in the capital city Changchuna vital engine now in its overall economic growth and industrial upgrading, according to Jilin officials.

Liu Ce in Shenyang and Liu Mingtai in Changchun contributed to this story.
BEIJING - Vice Premier Wang Yang has urged intensified efforts to boost foreign trade to bolster the country's slowing economy.

After a tour of three high-tech companies in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, Wang said China still had an edge in foreign trade despite mounting downward pressure on exports.

Companies should improve their products' quality and make more high value-added products, he said.

The country should give support to export companies, encourage their business model innovation and promote the establishment of cross-border e-commerce pilot areas, Wang said.

China will continue to adjust the structure of foreign trade, and raise its exports to a higher level, he said.

Wang also called for efforts to promote the development of service trade, and improve the country's business environment to protect the legitimate interests of foreign companies.
[Photo/VCG]

Construction, real estate, finance and consumer services will become the last four sectors to switch from business tax to value-added tax (VAT), starting from May 1, announced taxation authorities on Thursday.

The land fee paid to the government will be deductible from the tax base, according to a guideline released by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation.

Construction and real estate companies will be charged an 11 percent tax, while finance and consumer service sectors will pay a 6 percent rate under the guideline.

The move will put an end to the business tax, which has been blamed for causing tax on tax, or charging on the taxes already priced in.

China has been gradually replacing the business tax with VAT in a drive to boost real economy.

Premier Li Keqiang stated in the 2016 Government Work Report that the tax burdens for the industry will only decrease.

According to an official estimate released after a State Council meeting, the VAT reform is expected to reduce taxes by more than 500 billion yuan ($76.9 billion) this year.

Consumer services stocks should benefit the most, followed by auto dealers and makers, said the Credit Suisse in a note released earlier this month.
President of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Jin Liqun speaks at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, March 25, 2016.[Photo/IC]

The US can take its time deciding whether to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), said Jin Liqun, president of the China-initiated bank on Friday.

"The decision is up to the US. China is patient and there's no rush before the US gives it a clear thought," Jin Liqun made the comment at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.

The US and Japan have not joined the AIIB, despite the fact that the Beijing-based multilateral bank has already won over a majority of the G20 members and all BRICS countries.

A total of 57 countries signed up as founding members last year, before the AIIB began operations in January.

The AIIB was first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 and is headquartered in Beijing, with an authorized capital of $100 billion.

China, being the biggest shareholder, is obliged to provide all kinds of support for the institution and set to win the trust and confidence of other shareholders, said Jin at an open event earlier this month.

The bank has been working closely with the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to identify possible co-financing projects, he said.

Jin expected the first loans to be approved before the end of this year. The scale of loans in the first year will likely be modest - between $500 million and $1.2 billion - with energy, power, transportation, rural infrastructure, environmental protection and logistics the priorities.

Jin, making his debut appearance earlier in January as the bank's chief, vowed to uphold the AIIB as a "clean, lean and green" institution with the highest international standards.

The bank aims to complement and cooperate with existing multi-lateral banks, and serve the growing demand of Asia's infrastructure investments.
BEIJING - Hyundai Motor Group (China) Ltd will recall 597 vehicles in China starting on May 1, China's quality watchdog said on Friday.

The recall will involve imported Equus models produced between July 10, 2011 and June 12, 2012 and imported Rohens sedans produced between Aug 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in an online statement.

Faulty wipers in these vehicles may block the view of drivers and cause safety problems, it said.

The manufacturers will offer free inspections and replace the defective parts in the recalled cars.

Hyundai Motor Group (China) Ltd is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group, a leading car producer of the Republic of Korea.
The smart manufacturing facilities in Jiangsu Dasheng Group Co Ltd, a textile company in Nantong, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

The sheer scale of the Chinese market gives the country an edge to develop smart manufacturing, the global chairman of the professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd said.

But to succeed, David Cruickshank said, companies not only need to upgrade their systems but also have to extend the scope of smart manufacturing to the entire business.

His comments come as the central government is pressing ahead with the Made in China 2025 initiative to encourage companies to apply automation to build more intelligent manufacturing solutions that rely less on labor. It also encourages customization of goods, instead of focusing on mass production.

Globally, there are several versions of smart manufacturing: Germany's Industry 4.0 route starts from integrating hardware and software for the manufacturing process and leveraging Internet while in the United States, the concept of Industrial Internet refers to the integration of complex machinery with sensors and software.

Cruickshank said it is important to tailor each market with different approaches, taking account of current supply chain and infrastructure.

"There are many concepts ... To me the essence is it allows manufacturers to get very close to their end users and to have consumer input into what is being manufactured.

"The direct connection bears implication for distribution networks. For example, in the United Kingdom where I am based, high-street retailers are struggling (due to smart manufacturing)," he said.

China's biggest strength, according to Cruickshank, is its absolute scale. The huge market means the ability to scale up and respond to consumer trends quickly when you have hundreds of millions of consumers, he said.

"The scale of the market gives people opportunities to experience different models... Experimenting different models can happen very easily in China."

Lawrence Chia, CEO of Deloitte China, agreed, noting that most multinationals have competed each other in the Chinese market to experiment various techniques.

Data show Chinese manufacturers are indeed embracing smart manufacturing with enthusiasm. Industry output value of China's smart manufacturing was about 1 trillion yuan ($153 billion) in 2015 and is expected to exceed 3 trillion by 2020, with an average annual growth of 25 percent.

A 2015 Deloitte survey showed 23 percent of the enterprises interviewed have begun to extensively apply intelligent devices in production, up from 11 percent in 2013.

But a closer look shows applications concentrate in the auto, construction machinery and power equipment industries. Only 20 percent of enterprises are constructing smart manufacturing systems and even fewer have extended the scope of smart manufacturing to value chain integration and business model optimization.

Beyond devices, it's important to invest in systems such as basic IT platforms like enterprise resource planning, Cruickshank said.

"You have to have good systems so that good data could come out of it."

Sitao Xu, chief economist with Deloitte China, said that massive supply of scientists and engineers is a strength of China. But he noted that the challenge derived from the strength of market of scale, could also be a stumbling block.

"Because smart manufacturing is manufacturing in demand. At some point the advantage of size could be less pronounced. Chinese manufacturing in the past has relied so much on scale-up and cluster effect. The very essence of smart manufacturing perhaps require less of that," Xu said.
The government is preparing to further deepen reform of the national policy on planned parenthood to ensure a stable workforce and continued growth. Shan Juan reports.

Whether or not to have a second child has become a burning and urgent question for mill-ions of Chinese couples who recently became eligible to have two children under the terms of China's revised family planning policy.

Li Liangyu, a 36-year-old working mother in Beijing, has been discussing the issue with husband since December, when the central government announced the universal second-child policy.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi (center), Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng (left) and People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiao-chuan, attend a panel discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Boao, Hainan province, on March 24, 2016. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

China, which holds the G20 presidency this year, will lead the international forum's transition from a "talking shop" to a "doing shop", Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday.

The country and other G20 members would try their best to explore all possibilities of adding new growth dynamics, including boosting trade and investment, financial reform, and encouraging innovation, he said.

This year's G20 summit is scheduled to be held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in September. A series of meetings leading up to the summit will also be held in various cities worldwide.

Speaking at a panel discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, Wang said all counties have agreed that monetary easing and fiscal stimulus is not a long-term strategy. Instead, innovation and structural reform should be the "key to unleashing long-term growth potential".

He said China plans to use the Hangzhou summit to shift the G20 from a short-term crisis response mechanism to the pursuit of medium-and long-term agendas.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, said the G20 summit will be a platform for financial leaders to discuss the situation of the world economy and macro-policy coordination. The agenda includes overhauling international financial architecture, monetary system reform, inclusive finance and green finance.

Responding to a question on the greater use of Special Drawing Rights, he said the agenda is not needed only by China, but all members.

The greater use of Special Drawing Rights - reserve currencies created by the International Monetary Fund for a "rainy day" - was included on the agenda after a G20 meeting in Shanghai in late February.

The inclusion of the renminbi in the SDR basket in November raised concerns that it was China that had pushed ahead with the agenda.

Zhou said: "The SDR was created in response to a crisis triggered by US dollar volatility. Members reached the consensus that greater use of SDRs is conductive to risk management and cutting volatility."
Ivor Wells (R), Global Partnerships Manager of Future Cities Catapult, shakes hands with Li Tie (L), director of China Center for Urban Development after the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding at the China Smart City Innovation Conference held in Jinan, East China's Shandong province on March 24, 2016. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The Sino-UK cooperation in building smart cities is expected to gain steam when Future Cities Catapult (FCC), one of the UK's leading platforms for urban innovation, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China.

"Hopefully the signing is going to be a fruitful cooperation between China and UK on smart city. We will use the partnership to make it easier for both British and Chinese enterprises to invest in and get involved in the smart city market in their respective country," said Ivor Wells, the global partnerships manager at FCC.

The FCC signed the MOU with the country's leading agency in urban development, China Center for Urban Development, at China Smart City Innovation Conference on Thursday.

"The UK was the first country in the world to industrialize and de-industrialize, and then move on to the knowledge economy. We have plenty of experiences across all disciplines and that's what we can share with China," said Sir Michael Bear, UK Special Envoy for Sustainable Urbanization to China and former mayor of the City of London.

The Sino-UK cooperation in smart city began two years ago when Bristol built a partnership with Guangzhou. Last year, Manchester tied a relationship with Wuhan. The two partnerships aim to share UK's expertise and experiences in building smart cities with China, according to John K Davies from UK Trade and Investment.

"The UK has been involved in smart city for many years. I think one of the differences that occurred in the last few years is that city and citizens are put at the front and center, and businesses are now responding rather than trying to drive the board," said Davies.

His opinion was echoed by Li Tie, the director of China Center for Urban Development.

"One of the significant changes in building new smart city in China is that the old government-driven development model should be changed into user-oriented and market-driven one," said Li.

With its fast urbanization drive, the smart city market is huge in China, according to analysts' estimates.

Authorities have released guidelines for accelerating the building of smart cities, which includes an intelligent transportation system. The cumulative investment is likely to break 2 trillion yuan ($309 billion) by 2025, fueled by massive State-sponsored urbanization projects, analysts estimated.




Thousands of travelers are stranded at Guangzhou Railway Station in South China's Guangdong province after rare snow in central and eastern Chinese provinces delayed train services, Feb 1, 2016. [Photo/IC]

Chinese search engine giant Baidu has developed a machine-learning algorithm that predicts whether crowds are likely to form at certain locations in two hours, which could be used to prevent stampedes.

The algorithm uses data from Baidu's map app, said a research report published by Baidu's Big Data Lab Tuesday, studying the number of map queries and the number of users in an area.

Its map app accounts for over 70 per cent of China's mapping services market, the company's user statistics show. Many Chinese users often search for an ideal travel route using Baidu Maps.

The lab began to concentrate on how to predict crowds in certain areas following the Shanghai stampede on New Year's Eve in Dec 2014, where 36 people were killed during celebrations on the Bund riverfront, according to Wu Haishan, co-author of the report.

Using the map data, they found a way to determine the numbers in real time and trigger warnings 30 minutes to two hours ahead of time if unusually large crowds are expected to gather. This occurs when the number of queries for a specific location crosses a set threshold.

Machine learning is applied so that the algorithm can learn from search queries and better predict future crowds.

Wu said that the algorithm could be used by local governments, authorities and even venue operators to monitor crowds.

It may eventually provide the function as a public service feature on Baidu Maps, according to Wu. If implemented, the feature would allow users to see what the crowds are like in various locations using the app.
NANCHANG - Che Yong wants to build his garment factory into a fashion empire like H&M, the Swedish clothing chain that has dominated China's young fashion street, but so far his designs have only gathered dust.

Che's company, Wansi Garment, produces thousands of shirts every year for overseas buyers, including a recent order which featured Disney cartoons.

Wansi is one of the 700-strong garment exporters at Luojiaji, a district in Nanchang city and a famous T-shirt export base in Central China. Luojiaji produces a third of China's exported T-shirts. It is little known to the Chinese public but is well-known among foreign buyers. Customers include Walmart, Starbucks and NBA-franchised firms.

In the past two years, factories at Luojiaji have been forced to reinvent themselves as profits were squeezed by soaring costs, few tax incentives, loss of orders, and appreciation of the Chinese currency yuan.

Che Yong also tried remodeling by building his own brand, but his decision has been met with challenges.

"No one knows my brand and no one comes to buy them," Che said, with a bitter smile. At least two million yuan (about $310,000) worth of clothes are stashed in storage.

"Luojiaji is very strong in manufacturing, but we have little experience in design and sales," he said. Last year, Luojiaji churned out 650 million pieces of clothes and hired about 70,000 workers.

"Most firms have started to sell clothes under their own brands, but no one is strong enough to establish itself in the market," he said.

Nonetheless, Che remains committed to his dream of a fashion empire. Swedish H&M has fared well in Chinese market thanks to its concept of fast changing collections of affordable clothes. Buyers queue up to pay at downtown H&M stores in Beijing. Other fashion brands like Spanish Zara and Japan's Uniqlo are also popular in China.

Che Yong is seeking partnership to build a chain like H&M in smaller cities. At Luojiaji, some firms specialize making round-neck shirt, some have original design in floral print, and some are good at making sturdy collars. "We shall pool our strength together, and build a chain like H&M or Uniqlo," he said.
A symposium was held at Peking University from Thursday to Saturday to hear different perspectives on China's impact on the world and the influences the world has on China.

The Yenching Global Symposium, a three-day event with the theme "China meets the world, the world comes to China", was organized by the Yenching scholars, the first cohort of Peking University's China studies program, Yenching Academy.

The 192 delegates to the symposium hail from more than 50 countries and regions of the world. Half of them are Yenching scholars and the other half are talented graduate students and accomplished young professionals from a wide range of fields who stood out from 1,800 applicants from 137 countries.

The symposium, hosted to "foster a dialogue between people in different fields and from different generations"  as Yenching scholar and Chairman of the symposium Laya Maheshwari said in the opening remarks, comprised a series of seminars, keynote speeches and interactive sessions that shed light on China's politics, economy, history and culture.

Some guest speakers, including Guillermo Pulido, head of the Center for Mexican-Chinese Studies of the National University of Mexico in Beijing; Alexander Storozhuk, head of Chinese Philology at the Saint Petersburg State University; Jorge Heine, the Ambassador of Chile to China and Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia, were invited to share their views with the delegates.

Yuan Ming, Dean of the academy, expressed her appreciation and how she felt touched by the event. "Being shaped and brought together by the students themselves", Yuan said the symposium, a flagship event of the Yenching Academy, is proof that academy is working to nurture talent with leadership and talent that connects China with the world.
Two US tourists pose as they scale the Great Wall's Jinshanling section in Hebei province on Friday. They are among 1,000 US travelers who hiked the Great Wall on Friday to mark the China-US Tourism Year. ZHAO WEI / FOR CHINA DAILY

To celebrate the China-US Tourism Year, 1,000 tourists from the United States hiked on Friday on the Great Wall's Jinshanling section in Hebei province  one of the best-preserved sections of the wall.

Patricia Carmen, 74, from New York City, said it was her first trip to the Great Wall, as well as to China.

"The trip was amazing, even though I couldn't complete the climb and reach the top of the wall," said Carmen. "I am still happy to be here."

Carmen said she and the other members of her group would stay for two weeks and visit Xi'an, Shaanxi province, as well as Shanghai.

This year was set as China-US Tourism Year during President Xi Jinping's visit to the US in September. It aims to increase travel and tourism between the countries by enhancing the travel experience, increasing travelers' cultural understanding and expanding the appreciation of natural landscapes.

"In 2015, total bilateral visits surpassed 4.75 million. We hope the number will surpass 5 million this year," said Li Shihong, deputy director of the China National Tourism Administration.

"As a wonder of human civilization, the Great Wall has a strong appeal to US tourists. Visiting the Great Wall is a dream of many Americans," added Li. "When talking about China, many US tourists might think about chopsticks, giant pandas, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. But China is more than these cultural symbols."

Li said he hopes more people in the US will get to know the real China and Chinese people.

Besides hiking on the Great Wall, other major events scheduled for this special tourism year include a promotion titled "Beautiful China-Maritime Silk Road", a high-level China-US dialogue on tourism to be held in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and a grand closing ceremony at the end of the year.

Another of the US tourists, Luca Berrone of Urbandale, Iowa, said that to attract more US tourists to China, events like the Great Wall hike are fundamental.

"Discovering different areas and lifestyles of the Chinese is really fascinating," said Berrone, the head of SACMI USA, a subsidiary of an Italian manufacturing company. "Americans would like to find more areas outside of the standard tourism spots" to visit.
The High-level Tibetan Buddhism College of China could soon welcome its first students from overseas as it looks to raise the number of international exchanges, according to a senior faculty member.

Liu Peng, vice-president of the college which is located in Beijing, said the school is exploring the possibility of recruiting students from countries with strong Budd-hist traditions, such as Mongolia and Thailand.

"Many people have expressed strong interest in coming to our college, either on short-term study trips or special research programs," he said.
Since they established diplomatic relations in 1977, Barbados and China have continually strengthened their commercial and cultural ties.

Barbados' diversified economy comprises major contributions from tourism and financial services, supported by activity in the energy, agriculture and manufacturing sectors. As these develop, new investment opportunities have emerged.

"The government is continually looking to make the business environment friendlier," said Barbadian Prime Minister Freundel Stuart.

Commercial relations between Barbados and China have been cemented by several reciprocal trade missions and more than 20 economic agreements. These include a visa waiver agreement and a double taxation agreement.

Barbadian Minister of Finance Christopher Sinckler said, "We have had a double taxation agreement for some time, but we have revised it to make it better suited to the present business climate."

China already plays an important role in the socio-economic development of Barbados and has funded major construction projects such as the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium, the Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference and Cultural Center, and the renovation of the island's iconic Cheapside Market building.

In recent years, securing project finance has not been easy for Barbados. "Access to concessional financing has been at a premium since the global financial crisis," Stuart said."You know who your friends are when they are prepared to help you in difficult times and China has unfailingly shown its support for Barbados."

The government is finalizing plans for numerous tourism projects including a $600 million development of the Pierhead Marina and discussions are also underway to build a $420 million sewerage plant that will significantly enhance the water distribution network.

"These are two projects for which we would like to utilize Chinese funding," said John Mwansa, general manager of the Barbados Water Authority.

Cultural ties are also expanding. The Confucius Institute now operates from the University of the West Indies to improve the understanding of Chinese culture and language.

Stuart said he welcomes the partnership Barbados has forged with China. "I believe that the foundations have been laid for even closer relations in the future," he said.

Provided by Asia International Reports

(China Daily 03/25/2016 page10)
In many ways, the recent history of Sam Lord's Castle tells the story of tourism in Barbados today. The five-star resort was destroyed by fire in 2010, but construction has begun on a resort on the site that, when completed, will rival any other tourist destination in the world for its luxury, business and well-being facilities.

China has played an important part in its redevelopment via a $170 million preferential loan to fund the project.

It was the first major preferential loan China has made to the tourism sector in Barbados since President Xi Jinping announced in 2013 that $1.5 billion in preferential loans would be made available to the Caribbean.

China's Ambassador to Barbados Wang Ke said at the groundbreaking ceremony that the investment wrote "a new chapter in the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Barbados, making China the only country to offer large-scale preferential loans to finance infrastructure projects in Barbados".

"The hotel will play a positive role in attracting more foreign exchange income into Barbados and increasing employment. It will give the national economy a boost and enhance the competitiveness of Barbados as a high-end tourism destination," she added.

Barbados already has a well-established tourism sector but the government is determined to upgrade its facilities futher.

"Barbados is considered a mature tourism destination, so there is a lot of potential to modernize what we offer," said Stuart Layne, CEO at Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. "All our plans are designed to be sustainable so we can develop a tourism sector that is not only fit for today but also for the future."

This approach is best illustrated by the Sam Lord's Castle, which will be powered by renewable energy sources and aims to achieve platinum certification under the international Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

There are many other projects under discussion that offer significant investment opportunities.

"China and Barbados are negotiating other major projects to be funded by China's preferential loans, such as the reconstruction and expansion of Grantley Adams International Airport and the Pierhead Marina project in Bridgetown," Wang said. "We have every reason to expect a promising future of cooperation between China and Barbados."

The Pierhead Marina development would create berths for 80 superyachts, enhancing Barbados' ability to cater to the luxury market. A dedicated terminal for cruise ships is also being designed that would free up the island's main commercial port in Bridgetown by separating cruise traffic from cargo vessels.

These projects carry a potential investment value of $600 million, outlining their importance.

Barbadian Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Water Resource Management David Estwick said: "By separating tourist and commercial activity, both sectors will benefit."

Layne is keen to underline the scale of investment opportunities in Barbados and said the total value of projects currently under consideration is $2 billion. He also believes Barbados offers an attractive financial environment.

In particular, he highlighted the tax treatment of tourism investments and the financial incentives that allow construction expenditure and the provision of certain amenities to be offset against profits.

"There are a few countries that claim their tourism sector is an export industry, but we made legislative changes to ensure that only outputs and not inputs are taxed," he said. "I do not think there is another country that can make such a boast."

Layne said he believes the negotiations for investment in Sam Lord's Castle will prove beneficial in the future.

"We now have a blueprint for what is required," he said. "The next time around it should be far easier and quicker to address any concerns and provide all the required material."

Provided by Asia International Reports

(China Daily 03/25/2016 page10)
Young artist Sonam Dawa paints a thangka piece.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Thangka art, a traditional Buddhist painting form on cotton or silk done by Tibetans, is now being conserved in the virtual world.

A digital project by Baidu Baike, China's largest Web-based encyclopedia, went online earlier this month, aiming to protect this craftsmanship, which was designated as a national intangible cultural heritage form in 2006.

The 30-odd pieces of thangka works that have been digitally conserved include a gigapixel image of White Tara, depicting a Buddhist goddess.

The White Tara piece online comprises more than 100 high-definition photos to make sure each detail can be clearly seen.

"Digitization is necessary to preserve thangka art on scrolls, as slight abrasion is inevitable each time you unroll the pieces," says Liang Jing, 35, a collector and exhibition curator, who owns the original art.

"Also, as the paintings are not covered, the dust in the atmosphere affects them. Digitization, however, can capture the art perfectly and it is easier for the younger generation to experience it," she says.

Baidu Baike launched its intangible cultural heritage protection database in November 2015, to attract wider public attention to the heritage and to preserve it.

The nonprofit program is using multimedia channels to make a record of traditional lifestyles that are gradually fading away.

According to Jin Xiaping, the supervisor of the project, about 1,000 examples of intangible cultural heritage have been included in the project to make the encyclopedia more extensive.

For instance, for the entry on "shadow play", the website worked with artisans to shoot panoramic videos.

The website plans to highlight one example of intangible cultural heritage each month, and thangka is in focus for March.

Liang says many reputed institutions will soon be made part of the project to ensure the accuracy of the material preserved.

Besides preserving the traditional heritage, Liang says "traditional art forms must also catch up with the times we live in.

"Thangka, for example, is no longer only about religious themes. So it is only through innovation that it can be better promoted today.
Song Dazhao (left) and Wan Shaoping observe the landscape and the vegetation of the area to learn about leopards' habitat via Google Earth during a field trip.[Photo provided to China Daily]

In 2008, the Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance began building a camera-trapping network to monitor North Chinese leopards in Shanxi province. Today, it says there are more than a dozen members of the species in the area. Xu Lin reports.

In the first scene you can see two leopards walking past in a mountain forest. Then, one pauses after it notices something - an infrared camera. It claws at it several times until it falls off its mount.

This is among the scenes captured by more than 100 infrared cameras in the central Taihang Mountains in Shanxi province.

In 2008, the Beijing-based Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance began to build its camera-trapping network there to monitor North Chinese leopards in an area covering about 300 square kilometers.

"Leopards are awe-inspiring and pretty animals. It's not difficult to film them, but what we want is for them to live unharmed and for their habitats to be protected," says Song Dazhao, 39, cofounder of the nonprofit organization.

In 2011, the CFCA and a biodiversity research team of Beijing Normal University started a monitoring program for the leopard population there.

It was the first research project on the subspecies that's native to China.

The project aimed to study the animal and figure out ways to boost the leopard population in China.

In May 2014, the cameras captured a female leopard and the researchers wondered whether it was pregnant.

About half a year later, they were excited to see the leopard again, together with two cubs.

"We love big cats. And when we see cubs we feel that what we are doing is worth it," says Song.

Leopards are solitary animals and seek courtship only during breeding season.

But their monitoring has begun to reveal other sides to the animal.

According to Wan Shao-ping, director of the North Chinese leopards project at the CFCA, the leopards like to lie on their backs with their legs in the air and enjoy the sunshine. They love playing with twigs and the males typically fight each other for territory.

Cubs are usually born in a litter of two in April or May, and become independent when they are around a year old. Their main prey are roe deer and wild boars.

As of now, the CFCA has only six members and they are together because they love nature and big cats.
Zhang Wei, known as Tangjiasanshao by his fans, is among Forbes China Celebrity List in year 2014 and 2015. [File photo]

Zhang Wei, a 34-year-old former state media employee whose pen name is Tangjiasanshao, has made his way to the top of China's Web literature rankings, breaking nine years' records to become the first one to have earned an annual income of 110 million yuan ($16.8 million).

The book that earned him his fortune is Douluodalu, a fantasy novel about a genius's endeavor to become a soul master. It received over 60 million clicks on China's original literature site qidian.com.

Zhang said the book, which contains more than 20 million words, will be adapted into a four picture movie series by a Hollywood producer, and is expected to start shooting this November.

"It is by far my biggest IP, I hope it could be developed into a theme park, and become a world renowned piece," Zhang said.

Many of Zhang's works have sparked interest in the show business industry and several of them interested producers. But Zhang said he won't easily give authorization to them, as he hopes to take part in the adaptation of every one of them to make sure the finished products are the best possible.

Zhang is no exception in making a fortune out of film and drama adaptations. Popular show The Lost Tomb and The Journey of Flower, for example, have turned the novels they were adapted from into huge hits.

Among the top 15 novels that are on the list, 13 of them are fantasy novels, with the other two being campus literature and alternative history.

"Such novels pose a sharp contrast to our daily life, which satisfies the readers' craving for a life different from what they're leading," said Wu Huaiyao, initiator of the ranking list.

"The most popular fictions, whether it is Douluodalu, Harry Potter or Dragon, have one thing in common: the leading roles all harbor a super hero dream  it is everyone's dream to be strong, and the readers resonate with that," Wu said.

Ranking second and third in the list are 26-year-old Tiancantudou and 34-year-old Chendong, earning royalties of 46 million and 38 million yuan respectively.
He Jiaying wins the second place at the China Final of Barcardi's fourth global cocktail competition.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Shanghai, one of China's most international cities, hosted the China Final of BACARDI Legacy Global Cocktail Competition last week on the landmark Bund.

A local mixologist, 25-year-old Song Qiu, grabbed first place with a cocktail named Black Gold, which uses ingredients that grow in extremely difficult environments, such as ginseng and truffles, to echo both a bartenders' life and the competition's 2016 theme, "with untamable passion comes enduring legacy".

"I believe that we are like gold that lights up the nightlife in bars," says the winner, known at work as Choni Song, "We bartenders work at night, and as bartenders we must pay attention to details in order to understand and entertain our customers, to help them relax and feel secure, especially women customers."

Song will go on to represent China in the global final next month in San Francisco.

Twelve top bartenders from across the country, who stood out in regional finals held in Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, showcased their bartending skills on March 17 and 18 at the national final, making cocktails of their own for a judging panel that included globally celebrated bartenders.

Leading up to the final, the contestants had been promoting their cocktails online and offline since December.

Bacardi rums, which originated in the Cuban city of Santiago in 1862, have been used to launch classic cocktails, including the mojito, the daiquiri, and the Cuba libre. The competition aims to inspire talented bartenders to make new classics that will be loved and remembered, according to Paul Chin, CEO of Greater China, North Asia and Oceania with Bacardi.

Having been living in Shanghai for 16 years, Chin often visits bars in the city after work, and has been excited to see cocktails enjoy increasing popularity among the Chinese.

The Chinese are embracing the life-style of relaxing and enjoying time with cocktails in bars or at home. Industry trackers show rums represent one of the fastest-growing spirits categories in the country. Chin says Barcadi wants to elevate the professionalism of bartenders, as well as the cocktail culture in both big and smaller cities.

Chengdu's Tian Yao, born in 1995, was among the youngest contestants at the national final.

Tian says he loves being a bartender because he gets to know various types of people, and it opens a new world for him.

Regular customers in bars are usually in their late 20s or 30s, and are often quite knowledgeable about cocktails, while customers under 25 often come to bars out of curiosity, he says.

Tian wants to work in Shanghai one day, because he believes Shanghai has the most agreeable cocktail culture and atmosphere in China.

He Jiaying, known as Bleu He in Guangzhou's bars, won second place.

Born in 1984 and the oldest of the contestants, He is one of only three women who made the final.

She has taken part in the competition three times, and finally made to the top three this year. Her entry was inspired by milk with ginger, a popular drink that has a long history in southern China.

"I like being a bartender, because it makes me feel energetic and free," He says.

Female bartenders are a minority in this profession, but the number is growing steadily, says He.

liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn
Working overtime has become routine for white-collar workers, with more than 60 percent of employees in a recent survey saying they have to work extra time on weekdays and 40 percent having to do so on the weekends.

Nearly 14 percent said they only enjoyed half the weekends off in a month, while 3.4 percent said they had no day off in a month.

The survey was released by leading portal website NetEase. It was based on data from 800 million users as well as results from more than 38,000 questionnaires. Work outside of the 9 am to 6 pm time frame was defined as working overtime.

Guangdong province, Beijing and Zhejiang province have the most employees working extra time from Monday to Friday, while Hong Kong, Shanghai and Jiangsu province have the highest average number of monthly overtime days.

Working such long hours can be harmful to employee health.

Zhaopin, a Chinese human resource website, said in a report that 56.6 percent of white-collar workers have no time to exercise.

Huang Ruoshan, Zhaopin's senior career consultant, said working overtime is only prevalent in certain industries such as real estate, the Internet and finance.

"Those industries are developing very rapidly, which demands employees work hard under pressure and work extra time," said Huang. "Take the e-commerce industry as an example: It actually demands that employees be available 24 hours a day seven days a week."

In the Internet field, there is a term called "996", which means employees start at 9 am, finish around 9 pm and have to work on Saturday.

An employee of mobile phone company Oppo in Shenzhen who only wanted to be identified as Shen, said it is normal to work extra time and he is willing to do that.

"I barely have weekends. However, I am satisfied with my job, my colleagues and working environment. This industry is changing so fast, I am proud to say I am creating value in my position," said Shen, 27.

"However, I know working overtime hurts my health. I even look older than my peers," added Shen. "So I am considering an early retirement when I have enough savings."

According to a report released by Zhaopin in February, getting out of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou has become more popular, with more job seekers considering moving to smaller cities.

Huang, the career consultant, said pressure from hard work and the fast pace of life have driven some job seekers away from first-tier cities.

"Employers have figured out how to keep talent under high pressure," said Huang. "Certain companies provide canteens, exercise facilities and other convenient services. Job seekers can't change the workload, but have to make their choices based on the situation."

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc, talks with Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd at the China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday. Feng Yongbin / China Daily

Future computers will be smarter than humans, but they 'will never be wiser'

Internet tycoons have reached a rare consensus on the promise of artificial intelligence following the historic victory earlier this month for Google Inc's AI-powered AlphaGo over its human competitor, South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol.

The widely watched five-match series came to a close on Tuesday, with four victories for the machine to the human's one.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc, told an audience at the China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday that he predicted more great advances for AI within the next decade.

"Artificial intelligence will understand senses, such as vision and hearing, and grasp language better than human beings over the next five to 10 years," he said.

Lei Jun, founder and chairman of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp, agreed, describing the win as a breakthrough in artificial intelligence.

"It struck me as shocking news. As a big fan of Go, I never expected AI to be able to beat a human champion at the current stage of development since it's a pretty complicated game," he said. He predicted that "fueled by this victory, capital and talent will flood into the AI sector".

Despite the breakthrough, e-commerce mogul Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, said there was no need for human beings to fear machines.

"Machines will be stronger and smarter than human beings, but they will never be wiser," he said, "because one thing's for sure: Wisdom, soul and heart are things that only human beings possess, and machines can never enjoy failure, success, friendship or love."

At the forum, tech entrepreneurs also shared their views on virtual reality, which they said will be the most important computing platform over the next five to 10 years.

"There is a trend toward a more immersive and natural tool that can help us interact with the world every day. And I believe that is virtual reality," Zuckerberg said at the forum.

He highlighted Oculus VR, a VR company that Facebook acquired for $2 billion in 2014, saying that it will soon start to ship its latest products.

In February, Xiaomi set up a new division in a bid to branch into the nascent VR sector, which analysts forecast could rival the size of the smartphone industry in the future.

According to a report by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the VR market will generate $110 billion in hardware sales by 2025, if the technology is quickly adopted.

But for the next two to three years at least it will remain a niche interest, Lei said.

masi@chinadaily.com.cn
A charity program is launched in Beijing to assist healthcare and poverty alleviation projects in remote areas. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

Air Business College and Gongzhu Zhongguoxin, two Beijing-based organizations that aim to promote Chinese traditional values, kicked off a charity program on March 19 in the capital city, in a bid to assist healthcare and poverty alleviation projects in remote areas, such as the Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province.

Gongzhu Zhongguoxin is a charity that was founded in 2008 by doctors in Beijing, and has since organized nearly 10,000 volunteers to visit parts of Sichuan, Shandong, Qinghai and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Ningxia Hui autonomous region and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, to provide medical care to heart patients.

Air Business College is an educational institution funded by famous Chinese entrepreneur Zhao Tao along with the company Buchang Pharma. In September, the college raised 1.53 million yuan ($236,000) toward surgeries in Beijing's various hospitals for children suffering from heart and orthopedic diseases.

Related:

A station of love
Talks held with global investors on sides of forum, Li Yang reports

The Shandong government welcomed companies in the global top 500 to invest in the coastal province at a "Shandong Night" promotion on Sunday during the 2016 China Development Forum in Beijing.

The province has more than 3,000 kilometers of coastline, accounting for one-sixth of China's total coastline, and is the third-largest economy among China's provincial regions with about $1 trillion in gross domestic product last year, roughly the size of Indonesia's GDP.

Workers oversee a printer production line for Samsung in Weihai, Shandong province. Photos Provided to China Daily

Shandong Night was co-organized by the Shandong government and China's State Council Development Research Center.

Shandong Governor Guo Shuqing, 17 mayors from the province and representatives of key Shandong enterprises that have overseas operations met a number of entrepreneurs of the world top 500 enterprises and many other industrialists at the event, and discussed future cooperation.

"Shandong is an important birthplace of the Chinese civilization, and more than 30 years of development have seen it grow into a robust economic engine in China," Guo said.

"Shandong has some competitive enterprises and expects to strengthen strategic and industrial cooperation with corporations at home and abroad, especially the world top 500 enterprises." Since Henkel Loctite set up its branch in Yantai, Shandong, in 1987, becoming the first foreign company to do so since the late 1970s, the Shandong government has approved 642 projects funded by 203 of the world's top 500 corporations.

Of those, 485 projects are still operating, with overall investment of $15.3 billion.

The main international companies investing in Shandong include Elecricite de France, the Man Group of Germany, General Motors from the United States, Kia Motor Group and LG Electronics from South Korea, Royal P&O Nedlloyd of the United Kingdom, Pirelli SPA of Italy and Volvo from Sweden.

Their projects are mainly located in the cities of Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Rizhao, Jining and Linyi.

Citizen (Zibo) Precision Machinery was set up in 2005 in Zibo, in the center of Shandong. Vice-general Manager Yang Bing said the company expanded from 11 employees to more than 300 over 10 years, and its registered capital volume has increased from $1.85 million to nearly $30 million.

Citizen Watch of Japan closed its branch in Shanghai and upgraded the Zibo company to its headquarters in China in 2011, because of the robust development of the latter.

Zhang Weike, foreign investment division director of the Shandong commerce bureau said: "Supplementary investment and projects have become an important channel for Shandong to attract foreign funds. Last year, 25 of the world's top 500 corporations increased their investment in the province, along with some newcomers from South Korea, Australia, Israel and France." According to the bureau, two-thirds of the projects funded by foreign companies are in Qingdao, Yantai and Jinan, and more than half of them are manufacturing industries.

Ericsson Chairman Leif Johansson is optimistic about Shandong's high and new technology industries.

He said Shandong has a market full of vitality and the prospects of bilateral cooperation between Shandong and Ericsson are "exciting" as the Shandong government aims to build a 5G network infrastructure and improve its service abilities.

Li Guangjie, a researcher of economics with the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences, said the province's main focus on the world's top 500 enterprises shows its strong intentions to upgrade its industries and restructure its economy through the spillover effects of high and new technologies and advanced management.

Toni Hagelberg, president of Volvo's construction equipment company in China, said the company has invested $256 million in Jinan since it set up in the provincial city in 2010.

The company was Volvo's only research and development center in the field in China and serves Volvo's global operations.

The Jinan-based China National Heavy Duty Truck Goup makes its trucks more fuel-efficient through cooperation with the Man Group.

It exported 27,800 trucks last year, and has been the largest heavy-duty truck exporter in China for 11 consecutive years.

"We have learned not only technology, but also experiment methods, manufacturing techniques and, more importantly, the standards system and quality management concept in which Man takes great pride," said Yun Qingtian, chief engineer of the truck group.

The Shandong governor sees more progress in the province's future. "Shandong will deepen its involvement in international competition and cooperation through the implementation of China's Belt and Road Initiative, and free trade agreements between China and South Korea, and with Australia," Guo said.
A doctor sees a young patient in a clinic in Chiping county in Liaocheng city, East China's Shandong province. [Photo/IC]

A NEW-BORN BABY IN Meigu county in Sichuan province, Southwest China, who developed breathing difficulties, was rushed to the hospital where the mother had given birth. However, the hospital can't afford a medical ventilator, so the baby had to be taken to another hospital in a nearby city, which, although it too could not afford a ventilator, had made a breathing machine of its own. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Thursday:

This appears to be a loving story, as the baby survived, but people may still find bitterness in it. Had there been no bold proposal to make their own ventilator, the baby would possibly not have survived.

This time, their self-made ventilator saved the life of a baby, what about next time? It seems an effective ventilator can be made by doctors, what about other medical devices? Children are so vulnerable that all their hope is placed upon the hospital equipment in an emergency. But without even the minimum basic health facilities how can hospitals shoulder this heavy responsibility?

The self-made ventilator is also a heart-warming story about doctors striving to fulfill their responsibilities, but fundamentally it is about the shortage of facilities in primary healthcare institutions due to a lack of funding. China is implementing healthcare reforms, it is common sense that the bottom line for these reforms should be the allocation of medical resources and management of funds.
Broken windows seen at the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels, Belgium, March 22, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

SO FAR, the terrorist attacks in Brussels on Tuesday have caused 34 deaths and injured over 280 people. Together with the attacks in Paris on Nov 13, 2015, it shows terrorism poses a grave challenge to the European Union, which might alter its domestic and foreign policy, says an editorial by thepaper.cn:

The Brussels attacks happened just kilometers away from the EU parliament. The message is clear: The whole European continent can be under attack and the European Union faces severe security challenges. That might in turn prompt the EU to adjust its policies to better cope with them.

The European integration process might be revaluated. European governments are strengthening border controls after the attacks.

And doors are being shut to the flows of refugees, or at least they are not open as wide as they were earlier. Political correctness will no longer be an excuse for letting in refugees that pose a threat.

For China, the EU is a major global partner and there are various economic and social interactions, China will never be an outsider to Europe's adjustment of policies regarding public security.

More importantly, as the threat of terrorism becomes increasingly global, China and the EU need to work together to fight this common enemy.

It will be a practical choice for China and the EU to strengthen cooperation on anti-terrorism. No one can be absolutely safe in a world threatened by terrorists, and we have to unite to eradicate the threat.




China's Global Newspaper





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TOKYO - Six representatives from China and Japan filed a complaint to the Tokyo District Court on Thursday, suing the Japanese government over interfering in freedom of assembly and speech, and seeking 6.6 million yen (about 58,740 US dollars) in compensation.

Last November, the Japanese government rejected visa request from 12 Chinese, including families of Chinese victims of Japan's notorious Unit 731, a chemical and biological warfare research base of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. They were invited to symposiums in Tokyo on wartime issues on Nov 27-29 last year.

The organizing committee of the symposiums has demanded an explanation from Japan's Foreign Ministry, but has got no answers so far.

The plaintiffs consist of three relatives of the Chinese victims of Unit 731 and three Japanese speakers of the symposiums.

Hiroshi Tanaka, one of the plaintiffs and a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, said the Japanese government rejected their visas for no reason at all as many of the invited victims had been to Japan many times before.

He said it was very likely that the Japanese government was not satisfied with the theme of their symposiums which focused on "fighting against the Abe administration and abolishing war bills."

Takakage Fujita, another plaintiff and director general of a group established to uphold and develop the Murayama Statement, criticized the Foreign Ministry, saying their behavior goes against the visa issuance standards and interferes in communication between Japan and the Asian victim countries of the war.

He added that the government's actions are unbearable and are an infringement on their freedom of assembly.

Wang Xuan, representative of the Association of Chinese Victims of Germ Warfare, also joined this lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry should provide specific reasons for denying entry of the Chinese victims.
Lord Michael Bates (center, front row, in blue T-shirt) and Xuelin Bates (left to Lord Michael) are pictured with friends and guests at 2016 Walk for Truce Press Conference in London, March 24, 2016. [Photo by Song Wei/chinadaily.com.cn]

London - A British couple will soon embark on a 138-day walking trip in South America in a bid to call for truce during the upcoming Rio Olympics.

Lord Michael Bates, 54, who stepped down from his previous job as the Minister of State at the Home Officein order to undertake the walk, will start from Buenos Aires on April 6 with his Chinese-born wife Li Xuelin.

The 3,000-kilometer journey will take the pair from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and all the way to the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, on August 22, when the summer Olympic Games come to an end.

The Olympic truce was set up for the ancient Olympic Games. It wasnt just a part of the ancient Games; it was the entire point of it, said Lord Michael.

What we want to do is to encourage all the 180 countries who have signed up to the Olympic truce at the UN to do just one thing to implement the truce, the former politician said.

Lord Michael cited Brazil as a good example for it is so far the only country that has a Transformer Program using places such as schools to encourage people to play against each other.

Unveiling the plans at a news conference in London on Thursday, Lord Michael said they also expect to raise 250,000 (2.29 million yuan) for United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) along the trip.

Lord Michael began walking 4,693 kilometers from Olympia in Greece to London on April 22, 2011, to bring the Olympic truce into reality during the 2012 London Summer Games. The journey lasted 300 days and covered 12 European countries.

It was during the walk in 2011 that he met Xuelin, and they got married in 2012. We vowed to each other to do our bit for peace on the day we got married, and we set up Walk for Truce fund on that day, Xuelin said.

From then on, we decided to do something meaningful instead of spending time on seaside when Michael takes his two-and-a-half-month holiday as a member of the Parliament.

In 2013, the couple hiked from London to Northern Ireland to raise money for the war-torn Syrian children.

The following year, they walked from London to Berlin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWI.

In 2015, in order to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the World Anti-fascist War, the pair spent 71-day walking trail in China covering six provinces from Beijing to East Chinas Hangzhou city.

Xuelin is a fantastic support, said Lord Michael. She always goes ahead to plan the way and stays behind to pay the bills.
BRUSSELS -- An arrest was made Friday morning in the Brussels district of Forest during police probe into Tuesday's terror attacks on the Belgian capital.

Belgium's federal prosecutor has yet to give details of the arrest, which if confirmed, would be the seventh made by the police since the attacks, which killed at least 31 poeple and injured more than 300 others.

On Thursday evening, two people were arrested in central Brussels, one in the nearby suburb of Jette and three others near the federal prosecutor's office, local broadcaster RTBF reported.

Another police raid was launched in the district of Schaerbeek on Thursday evening but no arrests were made, according to Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir. Several witnesses reported hearing an explosion.
General Manager Wang Long and Vice President Karim Cheltout shake hands after signing the agreements. [Photo by Liu Hongjie/chinadaily.com.cn]

AVIC International's headquarters in Africa has solemnly entered into a cooperation agreement with JM Marriot Hotel of Marriot International as the signing ceremony was held in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, on March 23.

It marks the first time for JM Marriot to venture into East Africa and a new chapter in the history of cooperation between AVIC International and Marriot International.

General Manager Wang Long of AVIC International Real Estate Kenya signed five cooperation agreements including the Marriot Hotel Management Service Agreement with Karim Cheltout, Vice President for the Middle East and African Region of Marriott International. Officials from the Kenyan government, top management of AVIC International and Marriot International attended and addressed the ceremony.

Wu Guangquan, Chairman of AVIC International Holding Corporation, noted that as the only pivot of the Chinese government's "One Belt and One Road" Initiative in East Africa, Kenya has received more financial assistance for the development of the New Silk Road than any other countries in the region.

Over the past three decades AVIC International has been giving priority to the African market. Its headquarters in Africa is built in response to the Belt and Road initiatives and the Strategy of Going Global launched by the Chinese government, with "going beyond commerce for a better world" as the company's mission.

Located in the central business district of Nairobi, and expected to be the first high-end urban complex in East Africa, the project, once completed, will not only reshape the skyline of the city and upgrade its profile as an international hub, but also catalyze investment and consumption and create remarkable commercial value including at least 15,000 job opportunities for Kenya.

General Manager Wang Long and Vice President Karim Cheltout sign five cooperation agreements in the ceremony. [Photo by Liu Hongjie/chinadaily.com.cn]

Marriot International, a leading hotel conglomerate, has been recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the world's Fifty Most Admired Companies. As one of the world's top three leading hoteliers, with its insistence on quiet luxury and attention to detail, it endeavors to create a relaxing and inviting lodging environment.

Based on solid cooperation over the years, AVIC International now invites JW Marriot, the leading luxury brand under Marriot International, into its headquarters in Africa, ushering in a fresh chapter of cooperation while adding a glamorous touch to the new landmark to be inaugurated in East Africa.

As Karim Cheltout, Vice President of Marriott International has put it simply and clearly, "This is not only about the landmark value and prominence of AVIC International's Headquarters in Africa, but more about its brand positioning and market orientation which matches well with the brand of JW Marriott."

Designed by GMP, the world-renowned German architecture firm, and engineered by AVIC International Real Estate Kenya of AVIC International with an investment of USD 400 million (RMB 2.6 billion), AVIC International's headquarters in Africa integrates a super five-star hotel, a high-rise office building and an up-scale business apartment building with a high-street shopping experience.

Karim Cheltout, Vice President of Marriott International,speaks in the ceremony. [Photo by Liu Hongjie/chinadaily.com.cn]

With a total construction area of 270,000 square meters, the complex comprises six main towers, one of which will be a record-breaker with 42 floors above the ground at a height of 173.5 meters, the highest office block in East Africa. Quite a number of smart, green, circular and high technologies will be harnessed during construction, while many new techniques are to be put to use for the first time.

"Talking about the project, whether its architectural and artistic style, its geographical eminence, or its market positioning or brand appeal, all fits in well with the brand stature of the Nairobi city itself as the gateway to East Africa," said Shang Yujun, Deputy General Manager of AVIC International Real Estate Kenya.

As a core product of AVIC International's integrated real estate endeavor, the complex is expected to spearhead the entire East African region in the development of commercial complexes by shaping globalized high-value, highly profitable products with selection combinations, thus setting the bar for the industry. Uniquely positioned and pooling high-street brand names from around the world into a world-class commercial conglomerate, the project is poised to become a strategic highland with top brands and businesses.
US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (L), together with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaks to press during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., the United States, on March 25, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon announced on Friday a senior Islamic State (IS) commander in Syria believed to be in line to lead the extremist group had been killed by the United States.

Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Haji Imam or al-Afri, served as IS's finance minister, and was killed this week by US military, US defense chief Ash Carter said here at a Pentagon briefing.

"We've taken out the leader who oversees the funding for ISIL's operations, hurting their ability to pay fighters and hire recruits," said Carter, adding that the US-led coalition was "systematically eliminating" IS's cabinet.

Carter refused to offer details about the operation against al-Qaduli, whom many analysts consider the extremist group's second-in-command expected to lead the group if its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed or incapacitated.

US TV network CNN on Friday quoted US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying that the US raid was initially intended to capture al-Qaduli alive.

Meanwhile, Carter acknowledged that striking IS leadership was far from sufficient, noting that "leaders can be replaced."

This was not the first time al-Qaduli had been declared dead. The Iraqi Defense Ministry last May announced that a US-led coalition airstrike killed him in northern Iraq, a claim soon dismissed by the Pentagon.

The US Department of Treasury designated al-Qaduli as a specially global terrorist in 2014. In 2015, the US State Department offered a 7 million US dollars reward for information on him, the highest reward for any IS member except for the group's leader al-Baghdadi.
Me and my big mouth. Picture this: The weekly news planning meeting at China Daily's London office is well underway, and the subject of President Xi Jinping's forthcoming state visit to the Czech Republic is under discussion.

Amid all the talk of business and diplomacy, someone mentions moles. Don't ask me why, but I chose that moment to wax lyrical about the Eastern European country's best-known export: the art of the animated cartoon.

Thus I allowed myself to be persuaded to tackle moles and pandas in this column.

Until then, I hadn't heard of Krtecek, also known as the Little Mole. I have now.

Turns out he's joining forces with a panda in a cartoon series jointly produced by Krtecek's owners in Prague and China Central Television, with the first episode already seen by Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong and Czech President Milos Zeman at a special showing in Prague last year.

Panda diplomacy is nothing new to China. Over the years the cuddly black and white animals have built bridges and cemented international relations, guaranteeing instant news coverage for any world leader or celebrity wanting to get up close and personal.

There's nothing nasty about a bamboo-chewing playful bundle of black and white fur.

This time, pandas are being called to duty to strengthen the bridge of friendship between China and the Czech Republic, albeit in cartoon form.

So let's go back and take a closer look at the panda's partner on this cartoon voyage, the Little Mole.

He was the brainchild of Zdenek Miler, a noted animator and illustrator. Back in the 1950s, Miler was asked by his employer to make an animated educational film for children, but he wasn't happy with the script he was offered. He noted how Walt Disney in the United States had scored a major success by using animals in human situations. That's called, I discover, anthropomorphism. Not a lot of people know that.

Thus the Little Mole was born, starring in his first animated film, How the Mole Got His Trousers, which won the coveted Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1957.

From then on, there was no stopping him. He starred in some 50 films and is now seen in more than 80 countries. He's been a staple for kids in China since CCTV introduced him in the 1980s, building on his success in Eastern Europe.

Pandas, as we know, have earned their reputation in the world of diplomacy.

So there's a kind of inevitability about the panda and the Little Mole joining forces.

In the new series, the Little Mole and the panda meet up in Europe, and travel by rocket to China, where most of the series will be set.

There are 52 episodes of 10 minutes duration planned, with the story lines planned out by CCTV scriptwriters.

The genius of the original series is that apart from the first film, all the others are dialogue-free (apart from the odd exclamations which really don't need translation), which makes it almost a no-brainer for TV industry buyers the world over to acquire the series.

Miler would religiously test out each film on his daughters to make sure he had gauged the attraction for children.

Miler himself gave up making films in 2001, after the last movie, The Mole and the Small Frog. He died in Prague in 2011, two months before his 91st birthday.

In a world dominated by Hollywood offerings from Disney and others, Mole movies stand out as original and gently humorous.

My grandchildren are now just past the age when they can appreciate the subtle humor of the Mole movies. But I'm not.

The author is managing editor of China Daily Europe. Contact the writer through chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
MOSCOW - The current economic difficulties in Russia call for promotion of military-industrial cooperation between Russia and China to a new level, a Russian expert said Thursday.

China's military-industrial complex is the most promising sector for cooperation with Russia, as its defense complex is more diversified, said Vasily Kashin, senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

In a report published ahead of the Russian-Chinese conference on cooperation scheduled for March 25-26 in China's Shanghai city, Kashin noted that Russia's state-run and private companies already have successful cooperation experiences with China's military-industrial complex in the civil sphere.

Kashin raised the example of a joint-venture project of LED production in cooperation between Russia's state-run hi-tech company Ruselectronics and China Electronics Technology Group Corp.

He also mentioned a strategic cooperation agreement between Russian mining and energy company En+ Group and China North Industries Group Corporation.

A new industrial cooperation system could be set up between Russia and China on the basis of successful experiences and meticulous use of "strong points of the industrial capacities of the two countries," Kashin said.

He specified that representative companies of China's defense industry could serve as a bridge for establishing cooperation with Chinese hi-tech civil enterprises.

The expert expressed the hope that industrial integration could be listed as an important political goal at the state level for both Moscow and Beijing.
Zhu Ling, publisher of China Daily, and Pavel Negoitsa, publisher of leading Russian newspaper Rossiystaya Gazeta, signed a framework agreement regarding long-term cooperation between the newspapers on Friday in Beijing. [Photo by Xu Jingxing/China Daily]

Strategic trust and coordination between Russia and China will be enhanced by the media in both countries, a senior Chinese official said at the opening ceremony of the second China-Russia Media Forum in Beijing on Friday.

The forum will help media outlets in the countries become "close partners" and boost friendship among their peoples, said Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee's Publicity Department.

Leading members of the media from the two countries signed 10 cooperative agreements at a ceremony overseen by Liu and Russian presidential administration chief Sergei Ivanov.

Zhu Ling, publisher of China Daily, and Pavel Negoitsa, publisher of leading Russian newspaper Rossiystaya Gazeta, signed a framework agreement on long-term cooperation between the newspapers, including China Daily issuing a Russian language edition of "China Watch" in Russia.

"This is not the first time that we have cooperated with China Daily," Negoitsa said. "We all know China Daily is deeply experienced in telling the Chinese story, which Russian readers are particularly interested in recently.

"We believe China Watch will gain lots of loyal readers in Russia," he added.

At a panel session of the forum, Zhu said that for the Chinese media, "the international communication strategies and measures taken by their Russian counterparts deserve to be learned from", and pragmatic cooperation should be expanded.

He also proposed strengthening exchanges of media content, co-hosting events, expanding exchanges of visits and cooperating on new media services.

Year of media exchanges

This year marks the start of the China-Russia Year of Media Exchanges, which was jointly announced by President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in May last year during Xi's visit to Russia.

Liu said the Year of Media Exchanges is of "a program of major exchanges and an important measure to strengthen people-to-people friendship".

Media from both countries will help translate the high-level two-way political ties into "more results that reflect the pragmatic cooperation", Liu said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) meets with Russian Presidential Administration chief Sergei Ivanov at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 25, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The strategic cooperation between China and Russia is a "key factor" in maintaining global and regional peace and stability, President Xi Jinping said on Friday.

Since China and Russia are each other's most important strategic cooperative partner, the development of their relationship is a joint choice and has been prioritized in the diplomacy of both countries, Xi told Sergei Ivanov, Russia's visiting presidential chief of staff and the country's former defense minister.

The two countries should enhance communication and coordination in international and regional affairs, as well as work together to push forward the resolution of major issues, Xi said.

The president expressed his support for the current communication mechanism, under which the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee established direct ties with the Russian presidential administration.

It is the first of its kind established by the General Office and the administration of a foreign country.

The mechanism has played a positive role in boosting communications between the leaders of the two countries, Xi said, adding that he has been in close contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years.

Ivanov said Putin is preparing for his visit to China in June, and the two presidents have arranged a series of meetings for this year, according to the Russian news agency Sputnik News.

Ivanov has also met with other senior officials including Wang Qishan, China's top anti-graft official; Li Zhanshu, director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee; and Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee.

In his talks with Wang, Ivanov said Russia attached great importance to the exchanges and cooperation with China in fighting corruption, China's Foreign Ministry said.

Chen Yurong, a senior researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said China and Russia share many common interests in areas including geographic politics, business and security. As a result, the two countries have a strong desire to enhance cooperation, Chen said.
Our China company formation lawyers spoke with a software company the other day with fifteen independent contractors in China they view as part of the corporate family. This company was looking to form a WFOE in China, but they said they were in no rush.

The first thing we did was tell them that what they were doing in China is completely illegal. We explained how China pretty much never allows for independent contractors and they essentially had fifteen employees. We then told them that because they did not have a China company actually employing these fifteen people, what they are doing is 100% illegal.

We then told them of how China has stepped up its efforts to rid the country of both foreigners and foreign companies there illegally. We also told them how their existing structure puts all their China assets at huge risk. Their China IP assets are at risk because they do not own them. A company operating illegally in China is not positioned to be able to assert IP rights against anyone in China. Their other China assets are at risk because the Chinese government will likely seize them when it discovers what they are doing.

They seemed very interested in going legal until we started laying out how doing so would greatly increase their China operating costs. We told them how their forming a WFOE would necessitate their incurring the following additional costs/expenses:

WFOE formation fees and costs. They expected this.

They would need to lease office space from an approved landlord. This is a requirement for WFOE approval and this would likely increase their office rent.

For every $1,000 in employee salaries, they would probably need to pay about $400 (40%) in employer taxes and benefits. They were not expecting this at all.

In addition to the employer taxes, their employees will need to start paying income taxes.They told us they thought their independent contractors were already paying all required taxes, but we told them the odds were overwhelming that this was not the case and their going legal would almost certainly cause their independent contractors to demand higher salaries to make up for their take home pay being reduced by having to start paying income taxes.

We then discussed the advantages of having a WFOE, including the following:

You are operating legally. Your risk of the Chinese government shutting you down tomorrow has essentially disappeared.

You are much better positioned to do real business in China because you are legal.

You are much better positioned to protect your IP in China because you are legal.

You are much better positioned to terminate employees because you do not need to keep them on forever for fear they will report you to Chinese government authorities.

We then reiterated how the Chinese government is aggressively pursuing independent contractors for failing to pay their own taxes and the foreign businesses that use them for Chinese income tax and related national and local business fees and taxes. Most importantly, the government also seeks to take action for back taxes against any representative (i.e., individuals) of the foreign company who happen to come to China. When the number of illegal employees is large, the claim for back taxes can be quite large as can the interest and the penalties.

Chinas tax authorities time their raids on the illegal business to ensure a representative of the foreign company is on site and they do not let the foreign representative leave China until tax resolution/payment is achieved.

In other words, doing the independent contractor thing without having a registered business in China is asking for trouble. Big trouble.

What are you seeing out there?
(Photo : Getty Images.) Indonesia on Wednesday said that it will prosecute all the Chinese crew members arrested recently during a scuffle at sea.

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Indonesia's Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan on Wednesday not only rejected China's calls to release eight Chinese fishermen arrested during a recent scuffle at sea, but also vowed to prosecute them.



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Pandjaitan told reporters that Indonesia would be increasing its military presence in Natuna Islands. He said the country would soon deploy more troops, advanced patrol boats and increase presence in its naval base that will be equipped with modern defence system.



In other development, the official in charge of Indonesia's Maritime Security Arif Havas Oegroseno challenged China's claim that the Chinese trawler was operating inside its traditional territory. He said China's claim does not hold true under 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.



"It's very fake, ambiguous, in terms of since when, since what year does it become historical, traditional," Oegroseno said to reporters.



Oegroseno added that China's latest action in Natuna Islands had created "a new ball game" that East Asian Countries need to closely look into.



Tensions between China and Indonesia flared up on Saturday after Indonesia intercepted a Chinese fishing vessel near the Natuna Islands, leading to the arrest of eight Chinese crew members. Indonesia alleged that Chinese trawler had entered inside its part of Natuna Islands.



Indonesia further accused the Chinese Coast Guards of attacking its maritime officials in bid to rescue the crew members.



In response, China has refuted all the allegations leveled by Jakarta. Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the trawler was operating within it's territory and its coast guard responded only after being attacked by Indonesian authorities.



At the heart of this latest controversy is Natuna islands, a part of South China Sea that is being claimed by both Indonesia and China. The other parts of energy rich South China Sea is also being claims by neighboring countries including Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.



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TagsSouth China Sea, China and Indonesia, Natuna Islands
(Photo : Photo: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

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China is urging the US to conclude the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BIT) currently being negotiated between both countries to avoid being influenced by the upcoming US presidential elections.



This was the recommendation made by former China's former Commerce Minister Chen Deming last Wednesday in light of US presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent statement wherein the latter pledged to impose tariffs on Chinese products to "level the playing field," China Daily reported.



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In his remarks at the Boao Forum for Asia in Boao, Hainan province, Chen revealed that the China and US had already concluded text negotiation on the trade agreement, as both sides are trying to find ways to shrink the so-called "negative list" before the talks move on to the issue of market access.



A "negative list" indicates specific bans or limitations on foreign investment. Businesses that are not included in the list are considered unrestricted.



China has adopted this system in four pilot free trade zones, which include Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong and Fujian that started operations two years ago.



In a move to create a fair investment climate for foreign businesses, China is encouraging the US to exchange views on the negative list to conclude the talks.



Reuben Jeffery, president of Rockefeller and Co, explained the validation of BIT will have long-term benefits, as this would enable Chinese and US companies to operate in each other's market instead of looking for local partners to form joint ventures.



Once in place, this this China-US trade agreement would be flexible and allow them to control their finance operation and make investment decisions.



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Tagschina, US, trade agreement, bilateral trade agreement
(Photo : Getty Images.) Chinas search engine giant Baidu has developed a special algorithm that will help Chinese authorities to preempt stampede in a potentially crowded areas.

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China's search engine giant Baidu developed a machine-learning algorithm that will help Chinese authorities to preempt stampedes in potentially crowded areas.



The algorithm will use data collected by Baidu's map application to preempt stampede, a research report published by Baidu's Big Data Lab said on Tuesday.



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The app will trigger a warning for stampedes once a number of queries for a specific location or area crosses a set threshold. The warning will be sent half an hour to two hours before the anticipated stampede.



The report added that Baidu map app's monopoly in China's mapping services market gives it an innate advantage to precisely predict stampedes across China. The map application currently accounts to more than 70 percent in China's mapping services market. Everyday, millions of Chinese people, including visiting tourists, use Baidu map to travel to different locations across the country.



Officials in Baidu said that the algorithm can be used by local governments, police and event management companies/event operators. The algorithm will be soon synchronized with Baidu map and eventually introduced as a public service feature.



However, some experts have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities may use this 'crowd controlling technology' to control social unrest across the country.



Baidu's researchers had started working over this technology after 36 people were killed on New Year's Eve in 2014 near the Bund riverfront.



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(Photo : Getty Images) China explained that the naval base will help open trade cooperation across continents and boost Beijing's economy by connecting it to the rest of the world.

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China has defended its construction of its first overseas naval base in Djibouti saying that the base will be used mostly for resupplying purposes, humanitarian aid, anti-piracy, and peacekeeping operations.



Critics said Beijing has launched an unusual charm offensive in defending its first overseas naval base as it seeks to assuage concerns of the international community about China's military expansion.



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Reports said Beijing's message was the exact opposite of its aggressive stance on the disputed South China Sea where it lays claims to almost the entirety of the international waterway which has caused growing tensions across Asia and the United States.



International community



China's Defense Ministry had told Reuters that it has already relayed its intentions about Djibouti to the international community, reiterating that the facility was for resupply purposes, humanitarian aid, anti-piracy and peacekeeping operations.



"What needs to be stressed is that China upholds a path of peaceful development ... and has never engaged in an arms race or military expansion. This will never change,"a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.



Beijing has, time and again, reiterated that it does not seek :US-style hegemony' by expanding its military reach including building bases overseas.



One Road, One Belt Strategy



Reports said that since China appears that it may be doing the opposite of what it had agreed not to do, it has been quietly briefing its officials about the need for a Djibouti base and tapping the media to address concerns regarding China's goals.



"China is explaining it as part of the 'one road, one belt' strategy, to help link Ethiopia to the sea," said one Western diplomat who has been briefed by Chinese officials on the Djibouti base, referring to China's New Silk Road strategy.



China explained that the naval base will help open trade cooperation across continents and boost Beijing's economy by connecting it to the rest of the world.



Protect trade routes



Djibouti already hosts military facilities for the US and France. The Djibouti government has echoed Beijing's pronouncements that the base will be used for logistical support, refuelling, and anti-piracy operations.



The base will likewise be employed to protect trade routes.



Lying on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the tiny African nation of Djibouti serves as a gateway to the Suez Canal, one of the world's busiest shipping routes.



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TagsDjibouti naval base, Beijing, South China Sea, disputed territory, international community vs China, One Road, One China, one belt strategy, military expansion
(Photo : Getty Image) China to Stop Coal-Fired Power Plants Construction

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China will halt coal-fired power plant construction in 15 regions to address a capacity glut in the industry, China's energy regulator confirmed on Thursday.



Chinese energy regulators stopped the construction of coal-powered power plants in areas where capacity is already in overabundance, including the major coal producers of Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, according to South Energy Observer, a magazine run by China Southern Power Grid Corp.



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An official from the National Energy Administration also confirmed the news to Reuters but refused to give specific comments.



The regulators reportedly issued documents to the local government stipulating that China will no longer approve new coal-powered plants projects in 13 provinces and regions until 2018.



Environmental organization Greenpeace stated that once rules are fully implemented, it could involve 250 power projects with a total capacity of 170 GW.



"China is finally beginning to clamp down on its out of control coal power bubble," Lauri Myllyvirta, senior campaigner on coal from Greenpeace, wrote in an email. "However, these new measures fall far short of even halting the build-up of overcapacity in coal-fired power generation, let alone beginning to reduce it."



At the end of February, the country's total generation capacity soared to 1,485.5 GW, up by nearly 12 percent year on year. Also, thermal energy, which contains coal-fired capacity, saw a 9.4 percent increase to 1,003.8 GW.



China is reportedly attempting to increase non-fossil fuels share up to 15 percent by 2020, up from 12 percent at the end of 2015.



Meanwhile, earlier this month, reports revealed that China's coal consumption has declined for two consecutive years. China's National Bureau of Statistics revealed that the use of coal plummeted to 3.7 percent in 2015 compared to that of in 2014.



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Tagscoal, China coal industry, economic slowdown, coal consumption, Greenpeace, Pollution
(Photo : YouTube) Verizon Wireless is offering a carrier for the LG G5 smartphone for about $26 per month over 24 months, or for $624 outright.

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Tech giant LG has announced that their latest device, the LG G5, is now available for pre-orders via Verizon Wireless.



Verizon Wireless is offering a carrier for the new smartphone for about $26 per month over 24 months or for an outright $624. Pre-ordered items will be ship to your respective homes starting April 1 onwards. Users can also have the option to get the LG G5 in titan and silver color model.



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Here's a catch, if the buyers order the LG G5 before March 31 (inclusive), Verizon Wireless will offer them a gift comprised of an LG 360 CAM (which is normally priced at $199), charging cradle, and an extra battery.



The LG G5 smartphone is the newest flagship in the series. The handset comes with a modular metallic design and high-end features that the company can currently pack into a handset.



Aside from the unveiling of pre-orders for the LG G5 smartphone, Verizon also announced today the release of LG K4 LTE smartphone on their service, a more modest and significantly cheaper smartphone. The K4 smartphone is part of LG's new K series.



With regards to the specification of the device, LG K4 smartphone features a 4.5-inch display screen with 854 x 480 pixels. The handheld device is powered by a 1.1 GHz quad-core processor paired with 1.5 GB of RAM on board. The device comes with a 16 GB internal memory, which can be further expanded via a microSD card slot and runs Android Lollipop operating system.



LG K4 smartphone will be price for just $120 off contract.



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TagsLG, LG News, LG Smartphone, LG G5, Lg k4
Traditionalist pastor challenges 'younger' pastor for SBC president Editorial Staff | 25 March, 2016 by Joni B. Hannigan

ST. LOUIS (Christian Examiner)  A week after a Florida pastor announced 42-year-old J.D. Greear would be nominated as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Johnny Hunt, a former SBC president, announced he would nominate Steve Gaines, 59, pastor of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church, to the post during the denomination's June meeting.

The second nomination earlier this month for the position marks the first time in six years  since the election of Marietta, Georgia Pastor Bryant Wright in Orlando in 2010  there has been at least three nominees. Baptist Press announced March 24 that New Orleans pastor David Crosby would be nominated for president by former SBC president Fred Luter.

If Greear is elected, it marks only the second time in the history of the 170-year-old denomination that a 42-year-old will be elected to serve. The youngest was evangelist Bailey Eugene Smith who was elected in 1980 at age 41, and who was reelected in 1982 when he was 42.

Greear, lead pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, and Gaines are said to represent both different leadership styles and theological mindsets in how the mega-denomination should move forward and even if the funding mechanism it has relied on to fund missions and ministries for the past 91 years remains effective and relevant.

In separate forums, each indicated a willingness to serve after being asked.

"If my fellow SBC messengers elect me to serve in that role, I will seek to bring a humble, prayerful heart and spirit, a desire to work with all Southern Baptists, and a desire to provide leadership from a vantage point of seasoned experience," Gaines said, in an interview published on a blog.

Greear said he was approached by "older leaders" who asked him to serve and with his wife and church leaders, made the decision.

"We believe it is time for a new generation to take responsibility for the entities and mission boards of the SBC, joining with the faithful men and women who have gone before us," he said.

COOPERATIVE PROGRAM, GREAT COMMISSION GIVING

In his blog post "Why I'm running for president of the Southern Baptist Convention," Greear wrote, in part, he will call for a "new era" in how Southern Baptists engage the agencies and boards of the denomination  and promised to elevate the legitimacy of Great Commission Giving, a category separate from the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists' primary and traditional way of supporting missions and ministries.

Great Commission Giving was a key component of 2010 Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report approved by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Some observers warned the new method of counting gifts would not bring more financial support to SBC causes, but would, instead, "dilute" that which was already given through the Cooperative Program.

Churches have indicated there might be confusion over reporting on the Annual Church Profile (ACP) Cooperative Program gifts they send straight to the SBC Executive Committee rather than by the traditional routing through their state conventions; and on just what items they may include in the category of Great Commission Giving.

Greear said it is "time for the next generation of Southern Baptists to take personal responsibility for the agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention," noting budgeting woes he said led to the reduction of more than 1,000 SBC international missionaries from the field.

"[W]e want to encourage the Convention to continue to create more efficient structures for sourcing and sending missionaries, adapting to the needs and opportunities of a new generation of churches," he wrote. "The Spirit of God is doing new things in our generation and we need a Convention that responds to that."

Gaines, in an interview published on a blog, said he believes the Cooperative Program is "the financial lifeline of the SBC"  although he said it "might need tweaking."

In what could be a response to the answer to the same question posed to Greear and published on the same blog, Gaines added: "I agree that state conventions should seek to send as much money as possible to support our IMB missionaries. But just as we must not impose on our churches a specific percentage to give to the CP as the ideal, neither should we impose on our state conventions a certain percentage as the ideal to forward to the SBC.

Greear had said in his response to a question on the role of the Cooperative Program, "[W]e applaud" state conventions for sending "more money to the field."

Pointing to the Florida Baptist (State) Convention and its new executive director/treasurer Tommy Green, Greear said it had achieved a 51-49 split of Cooperative Program funds, to keep less money in the state and send more to the SBC Executive Committee for distribution; and also mentioned North Carolina as "striving" to do more.

Gaines, in his response, said: "There must be no competition between Baptist state conventions and SBC entities."

ATTENDANCE, GIVING

Baptist Press reported on both of the nominations and noted a number of statistics related to each candidate, drawing on church's self-reporting through the Annual Church Profile, claims made by those nominating the candidates, and other reports.

Jimmy Scroggins, pastor of Family Church in West Palm Beach, told Baptist Press worship attendance has grown at The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, where Greear is pastor, from 350 to nearly 10,000 in the past 14 years.

Summit Church reported through the ACP in 2014 (the last year for which a survey shows), it had a weekly worship attendance of 7,186, with 2,477 participating in missions projects, 929 baptisms and 5,315 total church members. Its undesignated giving was listed as $14,841,916, and Cooperative Program Giving as $150,000. Great Commission Giving is listed as $1,953,123 and Total Mission Expenditures at $3,206,542.

Bellevue Baptist reported through the ACP in 2014 it had a weekly worship attendance of 6,801, with 29,936 participating in missions projects, 518 baptisms and 29,936 total church members. The undesignated giving was listed as $21,337,401, and Cooperative Program Giving as $814,580. Great Commission Giving is listed as $4,871,442, and Total Missions Expenditures at $5,013,862.

Baptist Press stated although The Summit Church self-reported CP giving as $150,000 in 2014, they forwarded some funds it regarded as CP gifts through the SBC Executive Committee and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina reported CP receipts of $54,000 from The Summit Church.

Bellevue Baptist, according to Hunt in the Baptist Press article, had a total of approximately $2.5 million in Great Commission Giving over the past two years.

The Baptist Press story contains statistics from the ACP and from various other sources.

Historically, the yardstick of a Southern Baptist church's cooperation is said to be measured by its Cooperative Program giving. Bellevue gave 3.8 percent to CP in 2014, while The Summit Church gave less than 1 percent (including self-reported CP dollars sent to the SBC Executive Committee).

LEADERSHIP STYLES

J.D. Greear

In a news release about Greear's nomination, Scroggins said the 42-year-old pastor "is leading his generation to live out a passion for the SBC, missions and the local church."

With explosive growth in a church that has grown from 1,145 members in 2002 (ACP), to 5,315 members with 7,186 in attendance in 2014  Greear seems to have found a sweet spot among the 18-29 year olds who represent most of those whom the church has baptized in a 14-year time period.

In 2006 Daniel L. Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, nominated Greear for second vice president of the SBC, citing his ability to communicate the Gospel to a "post-Christian" culture. Greear lost the election to California pastor Wiley Drake.

A Baptist Press story noted The Summit had sold its property and re-launched to reach the university community and growing Research Triangle area.

Greear, who served with the International Mission Board as a journeyman after graduating from Southeastern Seminary, first served the church as a college pastor when it was called Homestead Heights Baptist Church. The Summit currently has 149 people with the International Mission Board in various capacities, according to Baptist Press.

The Summit Church is a member of the Acts 29 church-planting network, and Greear said his vision is for the church to plant one thousand new churches by 2050.

Steve Gaines

Gaines followed powerhouse Adrian Rogers at the Memphis-area church after pastoring churches in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.

Calling Gaines "a man of deep intense prayer," Hunt said the pastor has a "passionate desire for spiritual revival in our churches and nation."

With Gaines' leadership, Bellevue had lead evangelism training in 34 countries since 2007 and has planted 10 churches, including work in the Northwest and with Native Americans.

A unique outreach, Bellevue Loves Memphis demonstrates the church's love for its city and meeting needs while sharing the Gospel, Hunt told Baptist Press. In 33 workdays, 30,000 volunteers have served 106,505 hours to complete 945 projects, resulting in 510 professions of faith.

Leading in service to the SBC, Gaines preached the SBC convention sermon in 2004 and served as president of the SBC Pastors' Conference in 2005. He has served as as a member of the SBC Committee on Nominations, a trustee of LifeWay Christian Resources, a member of the committee that proposed a revision of the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000, and chairman of the SBC Resolutions Committee.

Gaines told Baptist Press he wishes to put a priority on the same focus as the current SBC president, Ronnie Floyd, whose emphasis has been on "seeking god for a spiritual awakening and revival."

ALWAYS SAVED, ALWAYS FOLLOWING

Greear is the author of about 10 books  including Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved, a book in which he discusses conversion and eternal security, and baptism.

In a chapter discussion on "re-baptism," Greear asks, "What do you do about baptism if you think that you might have been 'born again' after your first one?"

Greear suggests that an individual baptized "after an initial conversion experience," who consequently suspects their "regeneration" occurred later, be baptized again.

The pastor and author told participants at the 2013 Jacksonville Pastors' Conference his book came about as a result of his own personal struggle for assurance of salvation.

"We have to get this right," he said. ""We have to make the way of salvation clear; that is what God charged us with. We have to be clear and precise."

Faith, he said, is not a prayer, but it is "a posture" that endures to the end.

The thought is that only by persevering will one enter the Kingdom of God, Greear said, and there is "no break between the foreknowing and the glorification"conversion then means "only those who endure to the end will be true."

Assurance then comes from having a posture of "repentance towards God," Greear said, reminding listeners of the first of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. "All of the Christian's life is repentance," Greear said, paraphrasing Luther.

"It is true, once saved, always saved," he said, and added, "but once saved, always following."

Gaines, in a 2013 conference addressing Calvinism in the SBC, expressed appreciation for concerns about "mindless repetition of a prayer," but surmised that poor discipleship could be blamed for doubts about salvation and should not lead to a rejection of the sinner's prayer.

His remarks, reported in Baptist Press, discussed the biblical nature of the sinner's prayer, but said he also wished to emphasize common understanding, and not differences. Calvinists "are not my enemy," he said.

In 2012 Gaines had spoke in favor of a statement affirming the traditional Southern Baptist understanding of God's plan of salvation.

"I think that it is a very biblical concept to ask Jesus to come into your heart," said Gaines, according to a story in The Christian Post.

"Salvation comes as a response from repentance and faith. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God regenerates you, and then you repent and believe," he said. "It's always repentance and faith are prerequisites  not the products of regeneration  but prerequisites for regeneration."

DIVERSITY IN THE SBC

Noting Memphis is diverse as far as race and ethnicity, Gaines noted in a blog interview Bellevue welcomes and encourages all people  and that he has made it a priority in his time t the church to reach out to all Gospel-centered pastors.

"By the grace of God, at Bellevue we are experiencing the fact that people form all ethnic backgrounds can worship, serve, and live together in harmony in Christ," he said. "Bellevue is a Jesus church and a people's church. We believe there is only one race  the human race.

"[W]e focus on Jesus-centered racial reconciliation," he said.

Greear said at The Summit Church about half of the campus pastors and worship leaders are "non-white" and about 20 percent of the church is "non-white" and that he believes what has taken place at his church can take place in the SBC.

In his blog, in discussing how to "platform and equip non-Anglo pastors and members," Greear claims "the SBC is not yet know for being a diverse group."

Ironically, a March 31, 2015 article released by Baptist Press, covered a leadership summit where SBC leaders discussed efforts made within the convention to become more diverse.

Frank S. Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, said in the meeting that even while racial representation is not seen at every level of SBC life, Southern Baptists are "the most ethnically diverse denominational convention in this continent with nobody even coming close."

Some churches are "extremely multi-ethnic," Page told leaders gathered for the meeting, with one in five Southern Baptist congregations predominantly African American or otherwise ethnic in its makeup. That includes about 3,000 black churches, more than 2,000 Hispanic churches, and more than 2,000 Asian churches, Page said. More than 100 language groups are represented each Sunday in SBC churches, he said.

Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention willl vote for a new president during its annual meeting June 14-15 at the America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
COMMENTARY: Easter reminds us of the futility of false religions 25 March, 2016 by Candi Finch , |

FORT WORTH, Texas (Christian Examiner)  Over Spring Break I had the opportunity to visit a country in South Asia, a country brimming with kind people, a rich history, and many beautiful cultural traditions. However, during the trip, I got to observe men and women practicing Hinduism, and I was struck by the absolute futility of it.

My heart broke for these people who are blinded by this false religion. As I saw temple after temple scattered throughout the city erected to one of the millions of deities in Hinduism, I recalled Isaiah 2:8:

"Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made."

Instead of reading a textbook about Hinduism, this trip afforded me the opportunity to observe the daily lives of those who claimed to be followers of Hinduism. I wanted to share just a few of the things I experienced so you can join me in praying for these people.

As Easter approaches and you reflect on the sacrifice Jesus paid on the cross, remember that Christianity is the story of the God who sacrifices for His people to make us right with Him.

A Sleepy god: Every day on the trip, I woke up to a next-door neighbor of my friends ringing a bell. One morning the ringing went on for over twenty minutes. The purpose of this exercise? The man did that every morning to "wake up" his god.

When I found that out, I was amazed and wondered who in the world would want to serve a god like that, one you must work so hard to rouse from his slumber? Praise the Lord that our God neither sleeps nor slumbers (Ps 121:4) and never grows tired or weary (Is 40:28). When we are sleeping, He is active. When I struggle to wake up each morning, I can be thankful that God never has to sip coffee in the morning to become alert or sip Red Bull at night to stay awake. He alone is from everlasting to everlasting. He created the universe. He certainly doesn't need me ringing a bell every morning as his alarm clock.

A Fear-based Tradition: One Sunday during the trip, I had the opportunity to go to a village house church. I have never seen such poverty as I did on the trip out there. Once we arrived, I noticed several of the babies in the village had black markings on their foreheads. The reason for these markings? To ward off evil spirits. I was told that mothers mark their babies in this way to make them less beautiful so that an evil spirit will not steal the children. Within Hinduism, there are actually believed to be goddesses (M?trk?s) that steal children.

Rest assured, the one true God of the Bible is not slinking around trying to steal children; our God displays a protective nature for children (see Mark 10:13-16) and desires that believers display that same protective nature for children (Jms 1:27).

The Value of a Life: Several times during the week, traffic would come to an absolute standstill as a cow lazily meandered its way throughout the city. Cows are honored and respected among Hindusif a car struck a cow, the result would be disastrous for the person who caused the harm. Because this false religion believes in reincarnation, a cow could be someone's reincarnated ancestor so the people treat this animal with great respect. The problem, though, is that the life of a cow is treated with greater dignity than the life of a young girl. Though banned by South Asian governments, the devadasi system (a Hindu practice of temple prostitution) is still used today. Parents dedicate girl babies to the goddess Yellamma, and once the girl reaches the age of 11 or 12, she begins a life of prostitution. The only hope offered to this young girl is the chance that she will one day be reincarnated in a better life.

When the life of a girl is less valuable than a cow, something is terribly wrong!

As Easter approaches and you reflect on the sacrifice Jesus paid on the cross, remember that Christianity is the story of the God who sacrifices for His people to make us right with Him. The only hope for that man who rings a bell every morning to try to wake up his god is Jesus. The only hope for those mothers who fear evil spirits stealing their babies is Jesus. The only hope for those young girls being used and abused as temple prostitutes is Jesus. Nearly a billion people in the world today identify themselves as Hindu, and the only hope for each one of them is Jesus. He is the only hope for you and me, too. Pray that followers of Hinduism will see the futility of this false religion. And, pray for workers who will point these people to the only, true God, Jesus Christ.

One final thing. My trip to South Asia gave me the opportunity to watch just a handful of Hindus and observe snippets of their life and how their religion impacted them. Since coming back, I have wondered what people would think of Christianity by observing my life. Does the way I live out my faith point to the hope and joy people can experience by knowing Christ? Would someone watching me for a few minutes in my day see a difference? Would someone watching you? I pray that each of us would live lives worthy of the Gospel, lives that point people to the hope found only in Christ.

This blog article first appeared on BiblicalWoman.com, a ministry of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Russian church leader laments 'right to sin,' 'revolutionary exile from God' 25 March, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

MOSCOW (Christian Examiner)  The leader of 200 million Russian Orthodox Christians has condemned as heresy the right to sin, Asia News has reported.

Patriarch Kirill said during the sermon at Christ the Savior Cathedral that the world has drifted into the heresy of personal choices, such as homosexuality, and continues to support sin by enacting laws that protect degraded lifestyles. The results, he said, could ultimately be "apocalyptic" because sin leads to a life without God.

Today, we speak of the global heresy of man's bowing down to a new idolatry, which separates God from human life. Globally there had never been anything of its kind before.

"The idea of ??a life without God is developing on a large scale around the world," Kirill said. "In many developed countries there are concerted efforts to pass laws entitling the individual to any choice, including that of sin."

Kirill said these personal rights, ensconced in law, have "begun a revolutionary exile of God from man's life and that of society."

"Today, we speak of the global heresy of man's bowing down to a new idolatry, which separates God from human life. Globally there had never been anything of its kind before," Kirill said.

The Russian patriarch said the church, if it wishes to minister to the world, must aim "the force of its strength, its word, its thoughts" at this new heresy.

"We must defend Orthodoxy," he said.

Defending theological orthodoxy may mean actually distancing his church from others that have adopted policies favorable toward the acceptance of homosexuality. In June 2015, Kirill led the church to sever ecumenical ties with the Church of Scotland the United Protestant Church of France because of their acceptance of same-sex marriage. The Russian church leader called the behavior "incompatible with the norms of Christian morality."

He also said the acceptance of same-sex marriages paves the way for the acceptance of the anti-Christ.

"The Russian Orthodox Church holds the firm position based on Holy Scriptures and has repeatedly declared the mentioned innovations were inadmissible for moral teaching and thus it ought to reconsider the format of her relations with the churches and associations which trample upon the principles of traditional Christian morality," the statement from the Russian church said in June.

In February, Kirill and Pope Francis, the leader of Roman Catholics worldwide, issued a joint statement from Havana, Cuba, calling for greater cooperation between the churches. In that statement, the two leaders claimed "the family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman."

"It is love that seals their union and teaches them to accept one another as a gift. Marriage is a school of love and faithfulness. We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience," the statement said.
A pro-life group will mark this Good Friday by holding prayer vigils at 75 abortion clinic locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Pro-Life Action League has titled the organized program of prayer vigils as the "Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion," which they say is like a modern Calvary for children.

"The vigil links the death of Christ on the cross to deaths of unborn children at abortion clinics - in both cases, the unjust killing of innocents whose lives are not valued by society," Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, told The Christian Post.

The pro-life abortion group was formed in 1980, and has been advocating sensitivity towards unborn life through public protests, youth outreach, and education, and the annual prayer campaign "Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion" which coincides with Good Friday.

Christians remember this day to commemorate crucifixion of Jesus Christ, when he died to take away the sins of the world.

"We pray in intercession for children threatened by abortion to be spared. We pray for their mothers and fathers to have a change of heart and choose life. We pray for our complacent society to awaken to this injustice and put a stop to it," Scheidler told The Christian Post.

The group has invited pro-lifers to join them in prayer vigils at their local abortion clinics, and given instructions on how to be part of the movement.

"These children's lives are ended, deliberately, before they even get to take their first breath," said Scheidler. "As Christians we seek Christ's forgiveness for our sins. This sin of killing our own children is one of which our entire society must repent. If we cannot protect the child in the womb, we will never truly be a civilized, compassionate people. As long as we continue to discard unborn babies, all efforts to help the poor, needy and disenfranchised ring hollow. Unborn lives matter to Jesus."
Bangladesh is considering its decision to formally keep Islam as the country's official religion or to revert back to its pre-1988 secular status.

The country's highest court will hear petition again filed by a team led by Shahriar Kabir, who had objected to the decision in 1988, when Bangladesh's military ruler Hussain Mohammad Ershad named Islam as the state religion.

The petition was dropped 28 years ago, as Kabir's group felt that "that the bench would not be favorable to us."

Bangladesh is a moderate Islamic country with about 90.2 percent Muslims, 8.2 percent Hindus, and Christians and other minorities comprising the rest 2 percent.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the petition amid reports of rising extremist violence against the minorities in the country.

Earlier this week, ISIS killed a 68-year-old Christian man Hussein Ali, as a "lesson to others."

When Ali was siting on his motorbike after his usual morning walk in Kurigram town, they stabbed him in his neck.

He knew that his life was in danger, and had once told a Redcliffe College staff in Gloucester: "They don't know anything, they don't understand, forgive them." Afterwards, he had prayed to God: "Place me under Your control."

According to terrorism watchgroup SITE, the Islamic State posted on Twitter that their "security detachment" murdered the "preacher," so that this is a "lesson to others."

Tobarak Ullah, Kurigram district police, said that three suspects have been detained for interrogation.

Kurigram district police chief Tobarak Ullah said three men were picked up for questioning after the attack.

Recently, ISIS has also claimed responsibility for murder of two foreigners, and attacks on members of minority Muslim Shiite sects. However, police says that Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, a home-grown group is responsible for the attacks.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has tried to decrease Islam's hold over constitution and government, by amending the constitution to not allot "political status in favor of any religion," but the de facto state of affairs has more or less remained the same since the minor reforms.

The country has beefed up security in attempts to clampdown on the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen terrorists. At least five militants were killed in shootouts since November.
Batman vs Superman: The Easter blockbuster about a divisive Messiah

If you thought the wave of superhero movies had peaked, think again. This Easter's big film release could herald a decade in which the genre doubles in size.

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives this weekend in a hail of publicity and just as the film charts the battle for supremacy between two warring heroes, its release marks the beginning of a war in Hollywood between the two most iconic publishers in comic book history.

For the last few years, comic giant Marvel's movie development factory has been spinning into overdrive, churning out a series of film franchises spread across several studios. There have been seven X-Men movies (an eighth is nearly upon us); we've lost count of the number of Spiderman reboots, and that's not even taking into account the gargantuan Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the interweaving series that's introduced us to an evolving cast of Avengers.

Understandably, Marvel's old rivals over at DC Comics haven't taken kindly to seeing the former sweep to global dominance. While DC have had a few hit-and-miss movie adaptations of their own over the years, the fact that today's children are probably most likely to think of a Marvel character when they hear the word 'superhero' is testament to how much ground they've lost.

The comeback begins here, apparently. With the release of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC is fully launching its own multi-strand film universe (Superman origin movie Man of Steel being the tentative first step). Assuming audiences engage, Easter's biggest movie will herald a string of interconnected follow ups: Wonder Woman, The Flash, the villain-focused Suicide Squad and DC's multi-hero version of The Avengers, Justice League. Don't imagine that a crowding of the marketplace will slow Marvel down, however; there are at least 10 further films slated for release in the MCU too.

This superhero overload is causing writers to have to think a little more carefully about the stories they want to tell. The origin sub-genre is now crowded beyond capacity; likewise the thrilling crossover movie and the twice-as-explosive sequel. As it enters the marketplace then, DC is at least breaking fairly new ground by pitting one hero against another. They're not just any two heroes either; arguably DC is playing both of its trump cards in one hand with Batman vs Superman, an intriguing setup that's had fans of the genre bristling with excitement since it was announced.

The plot is an awful lot more linear and straightforward than most. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) decides, along with many others, that Superman (Henry Cavill) is a danger to humanity, rather than the protector he appears to be. The two clash, meet scene-stealing Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) along the way, and have their feud interrupted by an evil megalomaniac. Since this is a Zack Snyder film, lots of bullets fly, buildings collapse and indeterminable objects explode. But essentially that's the whole story, all 150 minutes of it.

On one level, Dawn of Justice delivers on the promise of its high-concept premise. The clashing of two legendary titans is a thrilling spectacle and the film's many action sequences contain enough pulse-racing moments to keep fans happy. Yet in the light of the maturing MCU franchise, which manages to marry high-octane action with genuine character development, the movie falls short. The characters in Dawn of Justice don't really grow or change. They're not relatable people with whom we can in some way identify. Instead, director Zack Snyder delivers a cinematic video game, where simplistic characters appear either side of the latest explosion.

That's not to say the film isn't interesting, or that it doesn't have things to say. In fact, it asks some pertinent theological questions, even against the backdrop of its godless universe. Superman is a divisive Messiah figure, loved by his devotees and rejected by others: arch-enemy Lex Luthor (a brilliantly unbalanced Jesse Eisenberg) sees him as the 'god' which humanity needs to overcome in order to maintain control. The questions Luthor raises around whether this 'God' can be both good and all-powerful could come straight out of a theology textbook. And without giving too much away, the film also leans heavily on the passion narrative, a fact that makes its release at Easter rather timely.

Dawn of Justice isn't bad. The core cast members, including Amy Adams as the still-not-particularly-liberated Lois Lane, all do well, and Affleck manages to bring something different to a role which has already been played by so many others. Ultimately it's held back by a clunky script which finds no place for Marvel-style light relief and a directorial style which seems all-too fascinated by apocalyptic fireworks. I suspect that the target market  teenagers and those of us who still haven't quite outgrown their sensibilities  will lap it up.

And if you've still not had your fill of all these soaring, warring superheroes, you won't have long to wait before the next helping. Not only does the next instalment of the MCU's Avengers series arrive next month, but  in that strange tradition Hollywood has of duplicating itself  it sees Captain America square up to Iron Man in a Civil War. We can only hope that, compared to Batman vs Superman, it places a little more emphasis on plot over pyrotechnics, and character over comic-book violence.

Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders
Syrian forces fight their way into Palmyra in blow to Islamic State

Syrian troops backed by Russian air support fought their way into the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra on Thursday, their biggest offensive yet against the jihadist caliphate, as Moscow and Washington discussed how to help to end the civil war.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an atmosphere that was noticeably more amiable than past meetings, reflecting new diplomacy the two Cold War superpowers have championed in recent weeks.

Both men expressed hope for more progress toward ending the fighting.

In Geneva, where the first peace talks involving President Bashar al-Assad's government and his foes began this month, the opposing sides were expected to sign on to a UN document reflecting some initial common ground.

The aim was to move toward discussing the divisive question of a political transition in Syria when the talks resume next month.

Moscow is the main ally of Assad's government, while Washington and other Western countries have backed foes trying to overthrow him during five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and led to the world's worst refugee crisis.

Both superpowers share a common enemy in Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim fighters who have declared a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory in Syria and Iraq.

After Russia intervened with air strikes to shore up Assad last year, Washington and Moscow have jointly sponsored a peace process that has produced the first sustained ceasefire of the war and the first negotiations involving the warring parties.

"The serious approach that we have been able to cooperate on has made a difference to the life of people in Syria and to the possibilities of making progress on peace," Kerry said at the start of talks with Putin in Moscow.

"The people of Syria and the people of the region have as a result been able to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction of violence and receive humanitarian assistance."

Putin, who has announced he is winding down Russia's military involvement in Syria, even offered warm words for US President Barack Obama, with whom his relations have sunk to a Cold War-era level of hostility since Washington imposed sanctions on Russia over its intervention in Ukraine in 2014.

"We understand that what we have been able to achieve on Syria has been possible only thanks to the position of the US top political leadership, President Obama," Putin said at his meeting with Kerry. "I very much hope that your visit will allow us to bring our positions closer on moving forward to solve the Syrian crisis and...on Ukraine."

The US and Russian-sponsored ceasefire between Assad's government and his enemies does not cover Islamic State, allowing Damascus to ramp up its fight against the jihadists.

After months in which the West accused Moscow of helping Assad fight mainly against other foes, Damascus has launched a major offensive this month to take back Palmyra, which the fighters seized in their biggest Syrian offensive of last year.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

Palmyra has some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, some of which were dynamited by Islamic State in what the United Nations calls a war crime.

Baby step

The peace talks in Geneva were due to be adjourned on Thursday until next month, with the sides expected to agree to a document drawn up by a UN special envoy outlining basic principles, in what one diplomat called a "baby step" forward.

The sides still have yet to address the biggest challenge: the nature of a post-war "political transition". Opposition leaders say Assad must leave power; the government says this is not up for negotiation.

Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Assad, can nudge Damascus to make concessions.

Before political talks can begin, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura aims to establish if there are points held in common by the different parties and announce them.

"Basic principles have been laid out. De Mistura wants to announce that all sides have agreed so that he can move on to the transition issue at the next round," said a senior Western diplomat. "It's a baby step, but a necessary step. It's not a bad result."

De Mistura said later that in the next round of talks "we have to start focusing on the political process".

A summary of the document seen by Reuters contains points including reforming state institutions, rejecting terrorism unequivocally and implementing United Nations Security Council resolution 2254 that guarantees a political transition of power.

It also calls for no tolerance of acts of revenge from either side, rebuilding the Syrian army on national criteria, ensuring a democratic non-sectarian state and preserving women's rights in fair representation.

Battle for Palmyra

The capture of Palmrya and further eastward advances would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia's military intervention last September.

Islamic State has lost territory in both Iraq and Syria since last year when it captured Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi, a provincial capital in Iraq.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya TV said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

"We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what's beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the centre of the Daesh gangs," he said, referring to Islamic State's de facto capital in northern Syria.

The Syrian state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armoured vehicles approaching the city.

The US-led military coalition against Islamic State said it had also struck targets in and around Palmyra, a rare example of the US-led force attacking an area also under attack by Russian-backed government forces.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday it had carried out 41 sorties between March 20-23 in the region of Palmyra, attacking 146 "terrorist targets".
Zac Goldsmith: 'My number one priority is to make London safe from terror'

Zac Goldsmith has pledged that his "number one" task if elected Mayor of London is to make the capital safe from terror.

The Conservative candidate told Christian Today he is worried about the possibility of another attack.

He remembers clearly where he was on 7/7 - in hospital with a family member and had been up all night.

"That was the first time in my life where I've had a profound fear for this city. I've never felt anything like it before or since."

Speaking on Good Friday, just days after the Brussels bombings, he said: "It would be reckless and absurd to pretend that those threats aren't there. We know that in the last 12 months there are seven serious incidents that have been stopped by the security services to whom we are so indebted. If I am elected on May 5th, there are some big challenges for London but my number one duty and responsibility is to make sure that London is safe. And it's an awesome responsibility."

More needs to be done to make clear the difference between extremists who distort Islam, and the moderate majority.

"The reason religion is getting a bad press is because a number of people have so totally distorted and perverted one of the great religions," he said. "I do think we need to do more to create a clear separation between those people who are distorting Islam and the overwhelming majority of Muslims for whom that distortion is just not a reflection of reality at all. I think that distinction needs to be made so much clearer than it is.

"If we don't create that distinction you are going to see a continued rise in things like Islamophobia, and that is the last thing we want in a diverse city like London. We are also broadly speaking a very harmonious city. But you can't take it for granted. That could be shattered very easily."

He said the big society is alive and well. "One of its strongest expressions is in the Christian organisations across the capital. I see it in my constituency. Some of the best work is being done by Christian organisations."

He singled out the work with homeless people done by the Vineyard in Richmond town centre. The churches and Christian organisations made up a large part of the "big society" network, he said. "It is hard to imagine what London would be like without that network. The state would have an impossible task. I also think society would be relatively less kind, less friendly and less sociable place."

The biggest issue facing London is affordable housing. "It's true at all levels. You have people earning even quite decent incomes, above the London average, who have no prospect at all of getting onto the housing ladder." The bottom line was that 50,000 homes a year needed to be built to close the gap between supply and demand.

He was speaking after taking part in the annual Good Friday walk organised by the Methodist, Catholic and Anglican churches and at which money was raised for the Passage, a leading charity serving homeless people. He also visited the Salvation Army.

"London is a very prosperous and very wealthy city, one of the most successful cities in the world, probably the most important city in the world. It is offensive and wrong that there are so many people sleeping rough in London. It's just not something that sits easily with anyone."

He spoke about the refugee crisis.

Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to take 20,000 refugees from camps in Syria. The Government is working with local authorities to fund private rented accommodation for the refugees. Local authorities are free to choose whether or not to take part.

The borough next to Goldsmith's Richmond Park constituency, Kingston, has pledged to take 50. Some boroughs have said "no".

Richmond Borough Council has not yet decided, but like all London boroughs has a long housing waiting list of its own.

Goldsmith said: "I don't want to make excuses for local authorities but just to put it in context, we have a housing list in London which is about 360,000 long. And every single borough is just in a permanent losing battle to find homes for those people. So that's the context in which we need to see them. I'm not going to wag my finger at individual local authorities. I recognise how difficult it is."

He said it was not about money but about finding the actual accommodation. "When they have these discussions with local authorities, people need to recognise just how difficult it is for them to do what they are doing. I want London, I want Britain, to be as accommodating as we possibly can. But I don't want to pretend that those other problems don't exist, because they do."

He also said David Cameron's commitment in the aid budget was something Britain can be proud of. "Only America has spent more money on helping people who have been displaced by this conflict."

His own faith was "mongrel". His family consists of people from Pakistan, Bolivia and central America and his own father was Jewish and his mother Christian. He was brought up in no particular faith but grew up identifying with his father's faith background. "I can't tell you that I'm a pious Christian or a practising Jew but I have enormous respect and time for all the different faiths."
Think about a set of circumstances in which blowing up a perfectly innocent, absolutely adorable little girl might be acceptable to you.

And then, after deciding such a thing is beyond possibility, go see "Eye in the Sky" for an education in modern warfare.

Directed by Gavin Hood ("Ender's Game") and written by Guy Hibbert, "Eye in the Sky" deals with the ethical questions surrounding the use of drones, and the people they target.

At least half of the film depicts people staring at screens and arguing about what to do, and somehow this makes for intense drama. Of course, having Helen Mirren at her icy best and the late Alan Rickman, who is outstanding in his last on-screen performance, helps.

More Information 'Eye in the Sky' Rated R: for some violent images and language Running time: 102 minutes xxxx See More Collapse

Mirren plays a British colonel working for military intelligence, who has been tracking various terrorists for several years. Now some of the most dangerous, ranking members of this terrorist organization - think ISIS or al-Qaida - are going to be in the same house in Kenya. So she coordinates with Kenyan officials on the scene and with the Americans, who have drones in the sky capable of following the terrorists' movements.

All is going according to plan for about 15 minutes, when the situation becomes complicated and collateral damage of civilian lives is discussed.

The film takes place in several areas of activity. As the colonel, Mirren heads the command center, and she is ready to blow up half the world to get these terrorists, one in particular. Rickman, as a general, sits in a boardroom with politicians, trying to persuade them to allow the drone strike. And Aaron Paul is the bombardier, controlling the drone from a console somewhere in the United States.

Paul, of "Breaking Bad" fame, spends half of the movie with his eyes filling with tears and his face frozen and throbbing with misery. He has the kind of sensitivity that would be valued in a friend, although the thought of an American army full of guys like Paul could be pretty terrifying.

In contrast with the drama of Paul's scenes, Hibbert combines drama with black comedy in the boardroom interludes. That's a tone that Rickman understood instinctively and played expertly, never losing the drama while injecting shadings of comedy.

Despite the material, "Eye in the Sky" is refreshing in its lack of a political message. In a situation in which a good option does not exist, the choice is only between degrees of bad, and so it's impossible for anyone to be entirely right, even when it comes to the life of a little girl.

The moral discussion in "Eye in the Sky" amounts to various people deciding which variety of culpability they can live with. It's an awful place to be, and the movie puts us right in there with them.
A new Mexican food concept is ready to set Houston a-sizzle.

Fajitas a Go Go is positioning itself as the city's first "top-shelf fajitas to-go concept" offering delivery service, take-away and catering of premium beef, chicken and grilled vegetable fajitas. The store, to open mid-April at 5404 Kirby in the West U neighborhood, also will offer some on-site seating. But it's the notion of carry-out and home delivered fajitas that the proprietors hope will make some hot noise.

HOUSTON FAJITA HISTORY: How Ninfa's got its name

Fajitas a Go Go is a partnership between Washington, DC, restaurateur Jeff Black and Tacos a Go Go founder Sharon Haynes. Black, a native Houstonian who owns a number of restaurant concepts under his Black Restaurant Group based in the nation's capital, has for years been enthralled with Haynes' style of Mexican food, calling Tacos a Go Go his favorite restaurant in Houston.

"It's the quality and it's authentic," Black said of Tacos a Go Go. "It's straightforward Mexican street tacos the way they should be. It's a very genuine concept."

After considering the idea several years, the partners were finally able to bring the pieces together, securing a former Subway store for their first dip into the fajitas-to-go concept.

"We got the right building, the right space, the right people together," Black said, adding that it was finally a situation of the "planets aligning."

Haynes, who has two Tacos a Go Go stores (the original in Midtown at 3704 Main and a second location in the Heights at 2912 White Oak) and another on the way in the Oak Forest neighborhood, said she hadn't considered this type of concept before. But after getting to know Black she became convinced he knew his way around grilled meat.

And apparently that will be Fajitas a Go Go's ace card. Instead of using traditional skirt steak, the new brand will use Certified Angus Beef sirloin that is minimally seasoned  salt, pepper and olive oil  grilled over mesquite. The chicken (cage free, hormone- and antibiotic-free chicken from Springer Mountain Farms of Mt. Airy, Ga.) will be seasoned with a custom spice rub and cooked over a custom rotisserie. The fajita lineup also will include seasonal mixed grilled vegetables including mushrooms, asparagus, spaghetti squash and scallions. The menu of fajita packs will include fresh guacamole, spicy pico, sour cream, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, grilled onions, house-made beans (black, refried or charro), chipotle rice, chips and salsa, and hand-made flour tortillas.

The store will also be able to deliver beer as well as a house-made margarita mix for making your own margs at home.

The menu also will include salads, queso, two salsas (salsa roja and a "Green Devil" tomatillo), enchiladas, quesadillas, half or whole rotisserie chicken, grilled shrimp, grilled quail, and house-made wild boar sausage.

The store will offer limited seating for on-site eating: 12 tables, eight bar seats, and a patio that can accommodate 15. The bulk of the operation, however, will be delivery, take-away and catering.

Haynes said she realizes that everyone in Houston has their favorite go-to place for fajitas. It's that allegiance to Tex-Mex that inspired her to open Tacos a Go Go after taking some time out from the business to have children. "When I got back into it the only way I was going to do it was Tex-Mex because I saw so many people eating four to five times a week at Tex-Mex restaurants," she said. "Houstonians have an insatiable appetite for good Tex-Mex."

And Black hopes they'll develop a healthy appetite for his style of fajitas. He said his beef will not be marinated for 24 hours in pools of pineapple or soy sauce. "We are keeping things simple. The meat should speak," he said. "We're not getting into a lot of heavily manipulated stuff."

So if you build it will they go go? Houstonians will be able to judge the merits of Fajitas a Go Go very soon.
It's kind of like the traditional Easter egg hunt you've always known, except when you get your sights on an egg during Boyert Shooting Center's latest competition ... it explodes in a cloud of multicolored confetti.

The shooting center, which hosts competitions with holiday themes, is in the middle of an Easter Egg Hunt in which shooters see if they can hit an egg filled with confetti hanging 15 yards away. Shooters who hit the egg earn prizes and get their name entered in a drawing to win an FNS 9 full-size handgun and other prizes.
Tim Burton's 2003 film Big Fish follows the fantastical life of Edward Bloom, played by Ewan McGregor as a young man. With stories of giants, witches, and werewolves, the line between reality and embellishment is always blurry in Bloom's tall tales, but we've always been especially smitten with young Edward's discovery of the curiousbut enchantingtown of Spectre, tucked away behind a haunted forest. Years after his first visit, Edward returns to Spectre to find that the once quaint and beautiful little town has fallen into decay and disrepair.

The town of Spectre was actually custom built for the Tim Burton-directed movie on Jackson Lake Island, a small private island situated on the Alabama River outside of Millbrook, Alabamaand it still exists! The now-crumbling set is covered in Spanish moss, but shoes still dangle between the poles marking the town's entrance (in the movie, the town's residents all walked around barefoot).
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Charges against a Houston man shot while he was a patient at St. Joseph Hospital last year have been dropped after a Harris County grand jury declined to indict him.

Alan Pean had been charged with two counts of aggravated assault of a police officer, stemming from an Aug. 27 incident as he was being discharged from the hospital in downtown Houston.

Pean had been acting erratically and nurses called for security. Two armed, off-duty Houston Police Department officers hired by the hospital responded. A scuffle ensued that ended with Pean being shocked with an electric stunning device and shot in the chest. Pean survived and was discharged days later.

The officers said Pean had attacked them. One of them incurred a cut on his head. There were no witnesses.

Additional charges for reckless driving were filed against Pean in December. Pean had crashed his car in the parking lot when driving to the hospital.

In cases like Pean's, grand jurors review the allegations to determine whether there is enough evidence to continue prosecuting. In his case, the jurors apparently did not see enough evidence to go forward. They decided not to indict Pean on March 11.

Pean's family welcomed the news but remained disappointed in the criminal justice system and the hospital over Pean's treatment, his brother said via email.

"Alan's shooting is a perfect case study in everything that's wrong with our criminal justice system," said the brother, Christian Pean. "Our family's tragedy also points to the deficiencies in the provision of mental healthcare services."

The brother maintains the police officers fabricated the events that occurred within the hospital room, and that Pean was the victim of an assault by the two officers.

"Those reckless driving charges were filed more than three months after Alan's shooting and (are) clearly retaliatory," he said. "It's obscene."

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services investigated the incident, cited St. Joseph for a number of patient safety violations and threatened to withhold reimbursements, an action that would have shut down the hospital. Hospital officials negotiated a corrective plan that would allow it to remain open.

The Houston Police Department and St. Joseph Hospital did immediately respond to requests for comment.
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As new restaurants, stores, and multi-story office and apartment buildings have gone up at Hughes Landing, the developers have been careful not to disturb a couple of longtime tenants.

Two mature bald eagles have lived in the area near Lake Woodlands since 2000, nest hopping at least five times since settling in the area. Their current nest, which they've kept for the past four years, is located in a tree right next to Lake Front Circle, not far from The Woodlands United Methodist Church.

Over the past few months, the couple has been busy caring for their youngest eaglet, a small black-feathered baby bird that hatched in January and will likely learn to fly by next month. Another pair of bald eagles also nests in The Woodlands, near the Bear Branch Reservoir.

Now Playing: A bald eagle feeds one of its two hatchlings in a video taken by Paul White of a nest outside his home. White has built an army of Facebook followers who follow the progress of the eagle family daily. Video: Paul White

Together, the two couples have hatched 36 eaglets since 2000, serving as shining examples of how the bald eagle population has rebounded over the past few decades from hovering on extinction to thriving.

"They're popping up everywhere all over the country," said Fred LeBlanc, environmental manager for The Woodlands Development Co., which owns the land surrounding the Hughes Landing eagles' nest and has a permit with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlining conditions for development near the birds' nesting area.

The nation's symbol had dwindled to less than 500 nesting pairs in 1963 after widespread pesticide contamination of fish, the birds' preferred prey, killed off a large portion of the population, according to the FWS. The bald eagle was placed on the endangered species list in the 1960s and, since then, has climbed back up to a healthy number. It was removed from the list in 2007, but is still protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

LeBlanc said that Texas has created new prime real estate for the birds of prey. The man-made lakes and other bodies of water full of fish, like Lake Woodlands, coupled with tall trees, make for a perfect habitat for the eagles.

To continue the protection of the bald eagles at Hughes Landing, The Woodlands Development Co. has built its plans for the mixed-use development around the birds, leaving a 4.6-acre forest buffer around the nest. They are particularly careful that construction nearby does not disturb the birds during the nesting period, which stretches from October to June, LeBlanc explained.

But the eagles don't seem to mind the commotion as much as their ancestors did.

"For whatever reason, they moved near Lake Front Circle," LeBlanc said. "They moved from a quieter spot to a more active spot."

LeBlanc said that the newer generations of eagles seem to be less spooked by human activity than the nature-loving generations before them.

Donna Anderson, a wildlife biologist with the FWS who monitors 30 nests in the greater Houston area, said that the pair at Hughes Landing has adapted to city life more so than others in the area.

"That pair is really unique. They have a true affinity for that area," said Anderson. "It's incredible what their tolerance has been."

She's noticed a similar trend with other area eagles who are beginning to warm up to building nests nearer to human activity. One pair nested right in a homeowners backyard, Anderson said.

As the iconic bird has become more active in more populated areas, like The Woodlands, bird lovers have enjoyed the opportunity to watch the eagles thrive in their own communities.

"We just have been really excited that the bald eagles are coming back," said Kathy Coward, president of the Piney Woods Wildlife Society, a club for nature-lovers in north Harris and south Montgomery counties. "They're just such a wonderful, majestic bird."

Coward said that society members enjoy observing the Hughes Landing eagles from a safe distance.

"It's so nice that they are so close to us," Coward said.
The tension between The Woodlands Township and Montgomery County elected representatives that has risen over objection to the planned extension of Woodlands Parkway west to Texas 249 bubbled to the surface at a public presentation of the Montgomery County Thoroughfare Plan Wednesday.

In response to a request from The Woodlands board, representatives from the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the regional organization of local governments that put together the thoroughfare plan, presented the plan to the board and attempted to field questions from the frustrated board members.

The Woodlands board unanimously passed a resolution opposing several proposed thoroughfare projects on the plan last month, including the Woodlands Parkway extension, alleging that H-GAC and the county failed to consider The Woodlands residents' wishes while putting together the plan.

"Our resolution was spun out of frustration," said board member Mike Bass. "No one asked us what we objected to and what we didn't object to  It takes two people to have a dialogue, we saw no such dialogue going on."

"All these other municipalities, if they say no (to a road project), it doesn't happen," added board member Gordy Bunch. "If we say no, we get the bird."

County Judge Craig Doyal, who attended the presentation representing the county, disagreed that The Woodlands was intentionally left out of planning.

"I've heard that there's concern that we've tried to do things that may damage The Woodlands," Doyal said. "Quite the contrary, I think. We're trying to do something that would benefit all of Montgomery County going forward, not just today, but for 20-30 years down the road as we continue to grow  We tried to work very transparently."

Webb Melder, mayor of the City of Conroe, spoke to the board, bemoaning what he said was the loss of a spirit of cooperation among governmental entities.

"I've watched The Woodlands emerge into what it is today," Melder said. "There were a lot of organizations and government entities at all levels that worked together to help build The Woodlands. There was a spirit of cooperation that ran across the county."

Melder asked the board to reconsider its opposition to the extension of Branch Crossing Drive to FM 1488 and of Gosling Road north of Texas 242 toward Conroe, both of which he said would be beneficial to Conroe residents.

Alan Clark, director of transportation planning for H-GAC, pointed out that, while The Woodlands population will cap out at about 125,000 due to its master plan, the area surrounding The Woodlands is projected to grow exponentially over the next 25 years.

H-GAC estimates that the area within a five-mile radius of the township will grow to more than 600,000 people by 2030 and more than 800,000 people by 2040. Clark also noted that, while residential population is controlled in The Woodlands, job growth is not.

"You are becoming the center within a very large urban region," Clark said, addressing the board. "One of the challenges for the township board is to find a path for how The Woodlands is going to interact with this urban concentration within five miles of the township."

Clark said that the purpose of the thoroughfare plan was to help mitigate the impact of the population growth. He emphasized that the plan does not decide when - or if - a road will be developed, but that it was to serve as a planning tool to set aside right of way for the road in case local governments decide the road is necessary in the future.

"It's not a promise to build any of the roads or identifying any plans to do so," Clark said.

Clark hit a nerve, however, when his presentation outlined that feedback from county residents showed support for the Woodlands Parkway extension.

"Are you not aware of the fact that our community voted over 80 percent against that extension and I have a petition with over 6,000 signatures on it?" Bunch said, referring to the defeat of last May's road bond, which included funding for the controversial extension. A second road bond without funding for the extension passed in November. "Why are we being ignored?"

The sentiment was shared by several of the board members who also expressed frustration with the Montgomery County Commissioners Court, particularly Doyal and Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley, who was also present at the meeting. Doyal said that the reason Woodlands Parkway has remained on the plan is because it has been on the county thoroughfare plan for decades and because he, in his previous capacity as commissioner of Precinct 2, had already purchased a portion of the right of way needed to build the road.

Still, some board members insisted that the county should prioritize the wishes of the residents of The Woodlands.

"I've always been a big believer in collaboration," said board member Ann Snyder. "What surprised me was, last May, when Woodlands residents overwhelmingly voted against the Woodlands Parkway (extension), two months later the county and H-GAC announced that it was going to happen anyway. It was almost as if it was a slap in the face."

"You have to listen to (Woodlands voters)," Bass said. "If you don't agree with them, you have to work to see how you can change their mind. We're simply throwing stones at one another instead of sitting down and talking through these issues."
Houston's Office of Inspector General recommended Wednesday that the city's forensic science center revise its policy procedures concerning quality control, following an investigation into three separate incidents last year in which analysts mistakenly contaminated evidence.

Houston's crime lab requested the inquiry last month after an anonymous complaint was filed with the Texas Forensic Science Commission regarding the repeated misuse of new lab equipment, leading to tainted blood specimens.

OIG inspectors said lab staff took too long to report the initial error, which occurred last May, but did not find malfeasance.

"OIG sustains the concern that none of the individuals in the operational chain of command on notice of the error notified the quality director of the May 2015 error, resulting in an improper reporting delay from May to November," Inspector General Robin Curtis wrote. "Because of the totality of the circumstances including the large amount of contemporaneous discussion about the May 2015 error within the operational chain, OIG does not find any malfeasance in the error."

In addition to suggesting policy revisions, the OIG urged the Houston Forensic Science Center to address error review in regularly scheduled staff meetings, retrain staff, ensure contractors understand their quality control responsibilities and self-disclose errors to the state's forensic science commission.

The city's crime lab said in a press release Friday that it began an internal review last October and has since updated its procedures. It also noted that the end result was not affected in any of the three incidents, as analysts were able to test a second, uncontaminated vial of blood.

"HFSC appreciates the careful and considered investigation by the OIG and looks forward to cooperating with (Texas Forensic Science Commission) to further look into the incidents and ensure the mistakes do not reoccur," said Peter Stout, the forensic science center's chief operating officer. "HFSC is aware the incidents investigated by the OIG and TFSC could have and should have been avoided. HFSC has conducted its own internal review to determine what went wrong and has changed policies and procedures to avoid similar incidents going forward."
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The body of a young man found on a beach near the Mexican border city of Matamoros Wednesday has been identified as Justin Kirby Walker, officials confirmed Friday morning.

Cameron County Parks Police Chief Horacio Zamora told MySA.com that Walkers parents flew to Matamoros Thursday evening and positively identified their 18-year-old son, who had been missing since March 19.

RELATED: Body on beach near Matamoros may be that of missing spring breaker from San Antonio area

Officials had suspected that a corpse found in the early morning hours of March 23 was that of Walker, of Fair Oaks Ranch, about 25 miles northwest of downtown San Antonio.

Zamora said the clothes found on the victim matched the description of those Walker was wearing when he was last seen leaving the Ultimate Music Experience festival at the Schlitterbahn Beach Waterpark on South Padre Island during spring break.

Walkers cause and manner of death are still under investigation, Zamora said, adding that the teen could have fallen off rocks on a jetty or fallen into the ocean.

We just dont know, he said.

Walkers body is expected to be back in the United States within the hour.

Zamora said an autopsy will be conducted at the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen in coming days.

mdwilson@express-news.net

Twitter: @MDWilsonSA
BRUSSELS (AP)  At least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week's attacks in Brussels, a U.S. official said Friday, as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Speaking after meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Kerry said the "United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks."

He did not give a specific number but a senior official said the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths in Tuesday's attacks. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not have further details.

"The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy,:" Kerry said, adding that the world will not relent in its fight against the Islamic State group, which has claimed the attacks.

"We - all of us representing countless nationalities - have a message for those who inspired or carried out the attacks here or in Paris, or Ankara, or Tunis, or San Bernardino, or elsewhere: We will not be intimidated," he said. "We will not be deterred. We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Talking to reporters, Kerry said the reason the Islamic State group "is resorting to actions outside the Middle East is that its fantasy of a caliphate is collapsing before their eyes; it's territory is shrinking. Its leaders are decimated. Its revenue sources are dwindling, and its fighters are fleeing.

Michel thanked Kerry for his visit, calling it a powerful message of solidarity. "It is very important for us today to receive your support," he said. He offered condolences for the American victims and vowed to step up counter-terrorism cooperation with the U.S. and others.

Kerry said he offered the prayers of the American people for "these people who have suffered inconceivable losses."

"Those whose lives were torn apart this week were not combatants in any conflict," the secretary said.

Kerry landed earlier Friday at the still-closed Brussels airport for a brief, hastily scheduled stop from Moscow, where he said the attacks underscored the urgency of unity in the fight against the Islamic State group. The group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombings at the airport departure terminal and a downtown Metro stop that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

The Belgian Embassy, not long after Kerry's arrival, sent a Twitter message calling his stop here an example of "the solidarity of the American people which goes right to our heart."
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The largest living structure on Earth looks unwell.

The 1,200- mile-long Great Barrier Reef is dealing with unprecedented coral bleaching. The deadly phenomenon occurs when warm water stresses the coral, turning the soft-bodied organisms white and often killing them.

The Australian government raised its reef response level to its highest level after observing recent damage. Footage and images released by WWF Australia and the Caitlin Seaview Survey show corals in some of the once-thought most pristine areas have turned into eerie, skeletal white.

The corals in the remote far north of the Reef experienced extremely hot and still conditions this summer, and were effectively bathed in warm water for months, creating heat stress that they could no longer cope with, Russel Reichelt, chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, said in a statement.

READ MORE: An eerie look inside Chinas enormous, empty ghost cities

Climate change and El Nino are to blame for heating up the ocean temperatures. Coral reefs around the world are facing catastrophic mortality rates. National Geographic reports that over the past year 12 percent of the worlds reefs have been bleached. The 132,974-square-mile Great Barrier Reef represents by far the biggest coral reef ecosystem. The structure is even visible from space.

The Australian government hopes that an incoming cool season will help save the waters, noting that corals can recover from bleaching if heat stress lessens and conditions return to normal.

For a large portion of the sick coral, it might already be too late. In one area, the government noted 50 percent coral mortality.

The reefs turn white when the warm waters expel tiny algae living inside the corals tissues. The algae provide both food and color to the organism.

TRAVEL GUIDE: 12 ghost towns to visit in Texas

In Australia, other issues like overfishing, nutrient runoff and carbon dioxide-spewing industries are creating additional problems for the massive reef.

See the gallery above for a look at the dying Great Barrier Reef.
THE LEAD: I wrote about how Houstons growth could translate into new congressional seats. With continued growth in Texas' four major metropolitan areas, they said, the state could almost match the gains it made in political representation after the 2010 Census, when it added four seats in Congress. The Houston metropolitan area has led the way this decade, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday, potentially positioning the area for two additional seats in fast-growing Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.

-- The Houston chapter of Planned Parenthood has joined a federal lawsuit against the anti-abortion activists who made undercover videos alleging that the women's health organization sold the organs of aborted fetuses. The move, announced Thursday, increases the pressure on the videographers, who also are fighting an indictment handed up by a Harris County grand jury last month, per the Chronicles Brian Rosenthal.

-- More than $4.4 billion oil industry tax refund looms in lawsuit, by Quorum Reports Polly Ross Hughes. State budget writers better brace for a potential $4.4 billion jolt next January  one that could steal the hopes and dreams attached to a nearly equal estimated surplus  if the Texas Supreme Court rules in favor of Southwest Royalties LLC in a pending oil-and-gas sales tax case.

If that lawsuit is found in favor of the industry, the state could owe refunds back to industry of up to $4.4 billion. That is quite a significant amount of money, testified state Legislative Budget Board Director Ursula Parks to the House Business and Industry Committee Monday afternoon. Parks unexpectedly kicked off the hearing chaired by Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, with a revenue outlook focused on the oil and gas industrys changing fortunes and potential mega-tax windfall.

-- In quest for evangelicals, Cruz has encountered headwinds, by The Texas Tribunes Patrick Svitek. By most measures, the Texas senator has built the broadest support in the evangelical community of any Republican presidential candidate, and to this day he remains the top choice of the most politically engaged members of that community. Yet Cruz's pursuit of the influential voting bloc has not been easy  and some segments remain reluctant to rally around him even as he emerges as the chief alternative to frontrunner Donald Trump.

SPEED READ

New law allowing concealed guns on campus roils University of Texas, Los Angeles Times

Committee suggests a departure for Texas accountability system, Quorum Report

Gun license applications shot upward this winter, The Dallas Morning News

Mayor Taylor suggests change to San Antonios governing system, San Antonio Express-News

Republican confidence in election process plummets, Politico

BPs deepwater horizon continues to spill in all (legal) directions, Texas Monthly

Judge rebuked by Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct quits, Austin American-Statesman

The Latest: Sanders tells supporters he can still win, Austin American-Statesman

Strangest State: Unicorn hair and grand theft bueno, Texas Observer

Donald Trump cant stop saying nasty things about women. It could cost him, The Washington Post

Houston's growth could translate into new congressional seats, Houston Chronicle

McManus, city leaders reject police union call for resignation, San Antonio Express-News

Scott Walker says G.O.P. Nominee may not be Trump, Cruz or Kasich, The New York Times

Feeling G.O.P. peril, Muslims try to get out vote, The New York Times

Two major ex-Bush donors now backing Cruz, Politico

Cruz backer Lindsey Graham still thinks Ted is poison to the GOP, The Dallas Morning News

So many Texans want gun licenses, DPS adding staff to handle paperwork, The Dallas Morning News

Lindsey Graham on presidential Twitter fight: 'knock this crap off,' Houston Chronicle

Abbott views tort reforms as good for Texas business, San Antonio Express-News

Kerry defends Belgiums counterterrorism efforts, Associated Press

QUOTE TO NOTE

It was a wonderfully diverse, talented, dynamic, young field. It had really incredible talent. If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill.

-- Ted Cruz in an interview with WTMJ (AM radio in Milwaukee) on why he waited so long to go after Donald Trump

RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE

-- Bernie goes all out for West Coast must-win, by Politicos Gabriel Debenedetti. Without a big win in Washington Saturday, theres no path forward for Bernie Sanders. And that cold political reality has turned this state into an unlikely battleground between the Vermont senator and Hillary Clinton. Sanders recognizes Washington is as close to a must-win as it gets after his disappointing loss in Arizona on Tuesday. With 101 delegates at stake, only New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California have more delegates at play after this weekend. If he has any hope of catching Clinton, hell have to start here, in a state where progressive-oriented Seattle sets the tone.

-- Cruz plays dangerous game in Wisconsin, by Politicos Katie Glueck. An internal campaign memo from mid-March, that found its way to many reporters, was only slightly less cautious: Based on internal polling and proximity to neighboring states in which Cruz has already won, our Campaign is in a strong position to win both Utah and Wisconsin, the memo read. But the few polls that have been conducted suggest Wisconsin is a wide-open race. And this time, if Cruz falls short of expectations again, there will be no safety net to catch him. After Wisconsins April 5 primary, the race heads to a string of northeastern states that are unfriendly territory for the Texas senator.

-- THIS WEEK IN A NUTSHELL: Trump cant stop saying nasty things about women, by WashPosts Jose DelReal and Jenna Johnson. The altercation underscores the striking nastiness of the GOP primary race and the uncomfortable gender politics surrounding Trump, who has a long history of making incendiary remarks about women and their appearance. Trump has shown little reluctance in attacking his female rivals  or some of his rivals spouses  in ways that strike many as sexist or demeaning, and many fear that the insults are a harbinger of the gutter rhetoric to come if he faces Clinton in November.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
Braves advance to semis at Unity CHEROKEE - Cherokee's volleyball girls took down Harlan 3-0 on Monday and headed to Orange City this past Wednesday to...

Wolverines end season at West Bend-Mallard WEST BEND - The South OBrien volleyball team traveled to face West Bend-Mallard in the first round of the regional...

Warriors suffer 44-14 loss to Gehlen Catholic ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia football team hosted Gehlen Catholic on Friday evening, but lost the game 44-14. The Warriors struck...

Warriors take down Raiders to finish regular season ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia volleyball team hosted East Sac County on Thursday evening and took down the Raiders 3-1 to...

Braves go 3-6 at Heelan Invite SIOUX CITY - Cherokee's volleyball team, 23-9, worked on fine tuning its skills here Saturday in a 12-team Sioux City...
Already reeling from a mountain of financial woe, Chicago just got hit againtwice. New Census estimates show that the regions population is actually shrinking, and yet another pension reform deal has been overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Chicagolands population growth has been slow in recent years, but according to the Census, the Chicago metro area actually lost 6,300 people in 2015. The loss was driven by domestic outmigrationmore people leaving than coming inthat exceeded both international immigration into the area and natural increase (births minus deaths). Its one of the worst performances of any major urban region in the nation. Even struggling Detroit gained a tiny amount of population last year. The losses in Chicagoland, which geographically includes part of Northwest Indiana and Southeast Wisconsin, mirror statewide losses reported earlier this year. Estimates for the city of Chicago proper wont be released until May.

The Illinois Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to increase city workers retirement contributions and lower the cost-of-living increases that retired workers get. The ruling provides part of an explanation for why people are fleeing Chicago and Illinois. Apart from a booming high-end sector concentrated in the Chicago Loop and select suburban locales, Illinois is much like the other Rust Belt statesthey arent performing well demographically either, so its no surprise that Illinois is struggling. But Illinois and Chicago bear a bigger burden than their neighbors in the form of a long history of poor governance and mismanaged finances. Now, the Illinois Supreme Court has made fixing the pension problemone of the affected funds will run out of money within ten to 15 yearsnearly impossible without dramatically higher taxes. A city worker who shows up for just one day of work is entitled permanently to receive the benefits of the current regime, including future compounded increases.

Emanuel could have more forcefully addressed Chicagos financial woes at the beginning of his first term. He decided instead to engage in years of negotiations with the citys unions to reach a deal that everyone could live with. Its hard to fault him for that, considering that he actually did reach agreements with 28 of 31 affected unions to raise both worker contributions and new city taxes. What he didnt know at the time was that the Illinois Supremes would prove so hostile to reform. As we have explained, under the clause, a public employees membership in a pension system is an enforceable contractual relationship, and the employee has a constitutionally protected right to the benefits of that contractual relationship, the justices wrote. Those constitutional protections attach at the time an individual begins employment and becomes a member of the public pension system.

So long as reformers are constitutionally prevented from curtailing union power in Illinois and Chicago, the pension crisis will continue to worsen. And, so long as it does, the financial environment in Chicagoland will deteriorate and people will keep leaving. Because the current Illinois constitution acts as a one-way ratchet on retirement benefits, its hard to see a way out of this catastrophic situation.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Peste 300 de liceene s-au inscris in Startup School si sunt gata sa invete bazele antreprenoriatului tehnologic. Vezi cum a fost la evenimentul de lansare a programului national de educatie antreprenoriala
In August of 2009, after ruptured airbag inflators in Honda vehicles were linked to least four injuries and a death, the automaker quietly requested a design change and did not notify U.S. regulators, Honda confirmed in response to inquiries from Reuters.

Honda Motor Co asked supplier Takata Corp to produce a fail-safe airbag inflator, according to Takata presentations and internal memos reviewed by Reuters.

The previously undisclosed redesign could make Honda and Takata more vulnerable in more than 100 pending federal lawsuits and dozens more state suits, according to several legal experts and an attorney suing the companies. The request shows that Honda understood the safety risks posed by the inflators long before it started expanding recalls by the millions in 2014, the attorneys and law professors said.

U.S. law requires automakers to disclose safety risks and actions to prevent them to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But Honda spokesman Chris Martin said the redesign did not require notice to regulators because the safety risk involved Takata manufacturing errors rather than a specific design defect.

Honda requested the redesign to protect against the possibility of future manufacturing errors  it was not an acknowledgement of a larger design flaw in the inflators, Martin wrote.

Honda started installing the modified inflators in some, but not all, vehicles in 2011 and continues to do so today, Martin said. Honda expanded recalls as it became aware of more defects, he said.

The fail-safe modification  outlined in Takata technical documents and internal presentations between 2009 and 2011 and confirmed by Honda  added vents in the inflator to channel pressure from an explosion away from a drivers neck and torso.

NHTSA spokesman Bryan Thomas declined to comment on the design change or whether Honda had a legal obligation to notify the agency.

Takata confirmed in a statement that it tested and deployed several versions of the redesigned inflator at the request of an automotive customer. The supplier declined to answer more detailed questions and declined to respond to Hondas explanation of the reasons for the change.

Takata has previously acknowledged that some of the ruptures were connected to manufacturing errors at its factories.

Honda is Takatas biggest customer, and the automaker owns a small stake in the airbag supplier.

LEGAL PERIL

Peter Henning, a corporate law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, called Hondas distinction between manufacturing and design problems a technical argument that is at odds with the law and regulatory practice.

You cant say, Its a supplier problem, not ours, so we dont have to talk about it, he said. They are responsible for every part on their car and also responsible to report a problem with any part on that car.

John Kristensen  a Los Angeles product liability plaintiffs lawyer who has worked on major product defect lawsuits against Toyota and other manufacturers  agreed that the cause or type of a safety risk is irrelevant to legal notification requirements.

Honda officials made a determination of a defect when they asked for the fail-safe design, said Kristensen. They had an obligation to tell the government back in 2009. Good luck defending that.

In many states, plaintiffs alleging design defects are required to prove that companies could have used a safer design, said Rob Ammons, a Houston lawyer who has represented clients suing Honda and Takata in three cases alleging that inflator defects caused death or injury.

Obviously, this would be significant evidence that one existed, certainly as early as 2009, said Ammons, who has settled two of the cases and has one pending.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and an expert in automotive safety and regulation said that Honda could make an argument that its always improving its products  for instance, that airbags are getting safer every year, he said. Im not sure how a jury would approach or examine that.

The federal cases against Takata, Honda and other automakers have been consolidated in a Miami court. They involve individual claims for injuries and deaths and proposed class actions seeking to represent millions of customers who say their vehicles lost value. Trials in both types of federal cases could start as soon as 2017, according to court filings.

Honda has reached confidential settlements in some personal-injury lawsuits, court records showed.

AN EFFECTIVE FIX

Since 2008, Honda has recalled 8.5 million vehicles to replace defective inflators, including 2.3 million in February. All but 875,000 of those recalls came in 2014 or later.

Takata inflators in Honda vehicles have been linked to nine deaths and more than 90 injuries in the U.S., according to NHTSA.

Seven of those deaths and 70 injuries have occurred since Takata began producing the new inflator design for Honda starting in late 2010.

The redesign worked as intended, Martin said. All of the deaths and injuries happened in vehicles with older inflator designs.

(Editing by Joe White and Brian Thevenot)
Mississippi officials say the damage from floods this month is the most widespread the state has had since Hurricane Katrina.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Lee Smithson tells The Clarion-Ledger federal and state assessment teams have been on the ground in the Delta and will head to the Hattiesburg area on Tuesday.

Smithson says extensive flooding in those areas has left hundreds of houses and businesses damaged and destroyed.

Smithson said Coahoma, Bolivar and Washington counties have been assessed, but there are still more Delta counties to go.

He says FEMA, MEMA and the Small Business Administration have been leading the assessments.

Officials are urging that flood victims get in touch with their county officials.

The Environmental Protection Agency says its contractors collected nearly 3,000 tons of residential debris and hazardous material as part of a flood cleanup effort in eastern Missouri.

EPA Region 7 said Tuesday that the material was collected following the devastating December floods that caused significant damage in St. Louis, St. Charles, Franklin and Jefferson counties. The Federal Emergency Management Agency assigned residential debris collection duties to the EPA.

EPA officials say the debris included, among other things, 179 propane tanks, more than 1,000 appliances such as refrigerators and stoves, and 1,310 tons of sandbags.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
'The Book of Mormon' Still Going Strong After Five Years

The Book of Mormon has been running strong for five years. It has crisscrossed the country on tour and demand for tickets is as strong as ever. How long can it ride this high is difficult to surmise. Its popularity is such that you just can't say, "Let's go see The Book of Mormon," on a whim one evening and expect to find tickets. They are usually sold out about 12 weeks in advance and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Robert Lopez of Frozen fame look to have another cultural phenomenon on the hands.

According to the Sacbee, The Book of Mormon debuted on March 24 2011 and was immediately was an immediate success. The show tells the story of two young Mormons doing their prescribed service in Uganda. It follows their trials and tribulations through the sometimes grim settings and circumstances of Africa. The musical is described as poking relentless fun at Mormons and all religion. Its real target is the thoughtless conformity humans seem very prone too. People are often surprised to find a sweetness in the midst of the relentless crude humour.

The Book of Mormon was a big award winner from the start, winning nine Tony Awards. Among its Tonys, it won Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book and Best Direction. The grimness of the conditions in Africa that the two young men find is a perfect opportunity to showcase its irreverence and catchy tunes.

According to Wikipedia, The Book of Mormon is the sixth longest running show on Broadway trailing only; The Phantom of the Opera which has ran since 1988, Chicago, The Lion King has been on Broadway since 1997, Wicked premiered in 2003 and Jersey Boys.

When it debuted five years ago The Book of Mormon showed itself to be a truly original production that has been attracting audiences around the country and making a lot of money.

 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Tagshe Book of Mormon, Going Strong, Southpark, Award Winners
Alarm Will Sound Cover The Beatles on New Album, Modernists

Contemporary chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound will release their new album, Alarm Will Sound Presents Modernists, via Cantaloupe Music on April 29. The collection includes their notable interpretation of The Beatles' White Album sound collage, "Revolution 9."

Alarm Will Sound's 20-piece orchestra has been challenging classical music fans for years. Formed in 2001, the contemporary classical unit is perhaps best known for their 2005 release, Acoustica, an album's worth of electronica covers by pioneering IDM artist Aphex Twin.

The group further delighted fans and stunned critics with their 2010 multimedia show 1969, presented at Carnegie Hall and featuring the aforementioned "Revolution 9" cover. Modernists will be the first time their Beatles rendition is available on a studio album, along with covers of composers Edgard Varese, Wolfgang Rihm and Augusta Read Thomas.

The 1969 production received rave reviews from numerous publications, emphasizing the ensemble's diversity in sound and presentation. As reported by New York magazine, Alarm Will Sound's catalog exhibits a cultured and diversified take on works from varied genres:

"They play pieces that the twentieth-century composer Conlon Nancarrow wrote for player piano because he trusted a machine to execute rhythms of any complexity without complaining. They have performed from memory Edgar Varese's Integrales, a calculated simulation of chaos. They have commandeered the lush sonic landscapes of Aphex Twin, the wizard of electronica, and recorded them on a sensational disc, aptly titled Acoustica."

In an interview with State, artistic director Alan Pierson discussed the group's fondness for creating contemporary classical versions of previously released songs, highlighting the orchestra's repertoire and addressing its function in their classical music environment:

"We've done an arrangement [of] Varese's 'Poeme Electronique', we did 'Revolution 9' by The Beatles, we did that project with the Dirty Projectors which in some ways was quiet similar to the Aphex Twin project. So, once we opened up that door it's just [become] part of the world we live in and it's something that we come back to now and again."

Listen to Alarm Will Sound's cover of "Revolution 9" in the below video, and check out their new album when it releases next month.

 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

TagsAlarm Will Sound, The Beatles, Revolution 9, Aphex Twin
Monty Python's John Cleese May File Lawsuit Against 'Fawlty Towers' Rip-Off

In this handout photo, Fawlty Towers creator and co-writer, John Cleese, introduced the media to Stephen Hall, who will play the role of Basil Fawlty and Blazey Best as Sybil Fawlty in the world premiere tour of Fawlty Towers-Live on stage at Park Hyatt Hotel on March 21, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. Details of the full cast will be announced soon. (Photo : James Morgan/Getty Images)

John Cleese has lodged a few complaints regarding a "tribute" show entitled The Faulty Towers Dining Experience by Imagination Workshop. A two-hour interactive show, Mr. Cleese aired his frustrations on Twitter, slamming the company for copyright infringement and stealing his core concept for monetary gain.

As it's been reported, the Monty Python founder was recently told by a journalist that a show has been running since 1997, in which Cleese's Fawlty Towers was being used as the basis. Finding significant financial success in using the comedian's concept, name, characters and dialogue, Mr. Cleese is leaning towards a lawsuit in response to the show not paying out royalties.

I've just found out from an Aussie journalist the astonishing financial success of the 'Faulty Towers Rip-Off Dining Experience'.Had no idea  John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 23, 2016

In response to Mr. Cleese's Twitter rage, Imagination Workshop was quoted as saying:

"We are staggered by John Cleese's vitriol towards us and our tribute show. He and his management have known about our show for years. We have made nothing like the sums he claims we have. We are not an unauthorised rip-off show - anyone who knows the law in this area will understand that we do not require authorisation to use the concept of Fawlty Towers. We are not the bad guys he is painting us to be. It is a shame he has chosen to air his frustrations so publicly rather than contacting us directly about this matter."

Perhaps the disagreement is as the company posits, somewhere in the realm of a misunderstanding or maybe it was simply miscommunication. Nonetheless, the comedy legend isn't taking the issue lightly. With a lofty Twitter rant and threatning legal action, Mr. Cleese is determined to seek compensation for having been neglected royalties since the production has been active.

Whatever the situation may turn into, preview the comedic superstar with a classic clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail below for the time being.

 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

TagsJohn Cleese, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Imagination Workshop
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- With 57 million people in the nation who are 62 and older, regulators are encouraging banks and credit unions to do more to help protect vulnerable older customers from fraud and scam artists.



The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants banks and credit unions to train employees to watch out for senior citizens and to develop software to spot suspicious transactions often associated with scams that target older customers.



Several large banks in Greater Cleveland already train employees to be on the lookout for such problems, but most don't go as far as the CFPB would like.



A few facts make this a critical concern, said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB in Washington, D.C. The senior population is increasing by 10,000 every day. And many fraud victims, even if they realize they've lost money, are embarrassed to get help. And fraud targeting older consumers is becoming more common and more sophisticated.



"Fighting it has never been more urgent," Cordray said. Reports suggest that nearly 20 percent of seniors may be victimized at some point. "It is crucial that others know how to look out for them."



Specifically, the CFPB wants banks and credit unions to:

Train employees to prevent, detect and respond to financial abuse. There are warning signs every banker should watch for.

Develop fraud detection software to uncover suspicious account activity, including transactions often associated with fraud against senior citizens. The software should include "predictive analytics" to monitor anything that deviates from someone's normal pattern of transactions or suggests involvement with scams known to target seniors.

Offer opt-in account options, such as limits on cash withdrawals that are large or outside of a certain geographic boundary. Other possible options: account alerts and view-only access for trusted third parties, such as a close relative or attorney or financial adviser.

Report suspicious activity to federal, state and local authorities. "Just as a reminder," Cordray said, "we joined with seven other financial regulators three years ago to clarify that financial institutions generally are able to report suspected financial abuse of older adults to the appropriate authorities without violating any privacy provisions in the federal banking laws."

Allow older consumers to provide advance consent to have the financial institution share account information with a trusted relative or friend if something suspicious is going on.



Fraud and scams can range from theft involving a caregiver, to large voluntary cash withdrawals to give to someone who claims to need money. Other victims fall for lottery or prize scams, or fake charities.



Banks and credit unions play a critical role, Cordray said, "because they know their customers well and often have more opportunity to deal with older consumers face to face when they engage in transactions."



Here's what a few of the largest banks in Cleveland said they do for older customers:



Third Federal Savings:

"Third Federal already addresses many of the CFPB's recommendations around protecting customers from fraud/abuse," said spokesman Dave Reavis.



"We do this through regular internal training, reporting suspicious activity, using predictive analytics (for all our customers) and offering age-friendly services such as account alerts. We regularly conduct branch and customer service training to prevent elderly exploitation and scams, and have done so for several years."



The bank offers training to detect and prevent the exploitation of older customers. "Our corporate security team regularly meets with our retail banking team to discuss how they can assist customers to identify and avoid fraudulent scams," Reavis said.



Tellers also have a standard "cash withdrawal letter" that they can give to a customer at their discretion if the customer wants to withdraw a large sum of cash and the bank encourages him or her to use a cashier's check or official check instead. The letter emphasizes the risks of withdrawing big sums of cash.



Third Federal also relies on "know your customer" practices. That means knowing a customer's normal banking patterns and proactively discussing any transaction that seems unusual, Reavis said, adding, "while the elderly are often the target, we train our associates to look for scams from all customers."



The bank also posts signs and distributes flyers in the branches to educate customers about possible scams. And it regularly works with law enforcement and adult protective services.



PNC:

The second-largest bank operating in Cleveland has a "comprehensive policy regarding financial exploitation of older and vulnerable adults," said spokeswoman Marcey Zwiebel. Two years ago, PNC adopted a companywide policy to detect and report exploitation.



"PNC is committed to its customers' financial well-being and to building a relationship of trust," she said. "PNC's policy is intended to protect customers who may have been victimized." Bank procedures identify "certain red flags that may indicate possible exploitation of an elder or vulnerable adult, based on standards established by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, among other sources," she said.

The bank also has procedures for reporting suspected exploitation so that it gets attention within PNC. Employees who deal with elderly and vulnerable adults must receive training and go through refresher training every other year.



Fifth Third:

The bank trains employees to watch for warning signs of fraud, "and we often assist when we see an issue arise," said spokeswoman Laura Passerallo. The bank also does outreach to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to alert consumers about how to be on guard for fraud and scams.



The bank doesn't offer view-only accounts or opt-in alerts for third parties.

We don't have any view only accounts or opt-in alerts for trusted loved ones. They would have to be set up as joint account holders.

KeyBank:

Key's approach to protecting customers -- older folks and others at risk -- is simple: "If we see something, we say something," said spokeswoman Drez Jennings.

The bank requires training for all employees who work with customers to watch "for unusual transactions or changes in how clients interact with them," she said.



They also watch for signs of physical or emotional abuse that might be precursors to financial crime, Jennings said.

Growing awareness has led to an increase in employees reporting possible abuse or fraud to the bank's corporate investigations team. Employees also regularly report concerns to Adult Protective Services.

"We also place a priority on protecting our clients' right to privacy," Jennings said, "and their right to personal independence."

Huntington:

The Columbus-based bank requires training for "front-line employees" to help them circumvent elder abuse, said spokesman Bill Eiler. Bank employees "have a strong track record of looking out for our customers if they perceive anything suspicious. Our employees are always alert for red flags and are encouraged to escalate concerns whenever they perceive something that does not seem right," he said.



Huntington doesn't currently have view-only accounts, although a customer could provide power of attorney to a trusted loved one to allow that person access.
CHAGRIN FALLS -- Investigators released the name of the man accused of shooting and killing two women at a Chagrin Falls retirement village.

Frank Staton, 56, of Chardon, remains in critical condition under police guard at an undisclosed hospital, police said Friday at a press conference.

A Hamlet Village cook shot two women who worked at the retirement complex on Thursday morning, police said. Investigators still have not offered a motive.

Terri Treadway, 58, of Chardon and Catherine Sutter, 58, of Burton were pronounced dead at the scene.

Staton faces murder charges after he told police he shot both women, according to an arrest warrant filed in Bedford Municipal Court. WOIO-Channel 19 posted a copy of the warrant on its website.

Sgt. Kimberly Libens said that Staton and Treadway lived at the same address in Chardon. Investigators have not released any information about the nature of their relationship or how long they lived together.

Treadway's ex-husband Ken Treadway, said in an interview Thursday the last time he spoke with her, she said that she was afraid that her boyfriend would harm her.

Staton shot the two women about 8:30 a.m., police said. He was also injured in the incident, but police have not released any information about the nature of his injuries.

Law enforcement agencies including the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assisted at the scene.

William Tomko, mayor of the affluent suburb 25 miles southeast of Cleveland, called the homicides the most violent incident he's seen in as many as four decades.

Hamlet Village residents and staff members expressed shock in the hours after the shooting in the normally peaceful community.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
PEPPER PIKE, Ohio -- Assist rescue squad, hit-skip, damage to public property; Gates Mills Boulevard: Police found a man walking near Kersdale Road with injuries to his face about 3 a.m. on March 17.

The Fort Bend, Texas man, 51, said he had exited his brother's Toyota Highlander while it was moving and before it struck two trees in the boulevard median strip.

Police were looking for both the vehicle and the driver, a Shaker Heights man, 52, who had left the scene. Police said alcohol may have been a factor.

Use of sidewalks by pedestrians, found property, possession of drug paraphernalia; Gates Mills Boulevard: A patrol officer found a Raleigh bicycle left partially in the roadway, and a short time later, its owner walking down the middle of the boulevard, saying he had gone back looking for his hat. He was issued a drug paraphernalia citation after police found a bong, pipe and marijuana grinder in his possession.

Motor vehicle accident, driving under suspension; Chagrin Boulevard: A Cleveland woman, 26, was cited for ignoring a stop sign on the evening of March 19, pulling her 2002 Nissan Altima out into the intersection on Lander Circle and colliding with an oncoming 2015 BMW X3. No injuries were reported and after she was found to be driving on a suspended license, her Altima was turned over to a licensed driver.

Driving under the influence, Gates Mills Boulevard: A Pepper Pike man, 39, was arrested on suspicion of impaired driving around 2 a.m. on March 18 when a patrol officer saw him run a stop sign at Gates Mills Circle, fail to use a turn signal to exit the circle and weave in lanes of traffic. He also admitted to having a suspected marijuana pipe in his possession.

Fraud, illegal use of credit cards; Pinetree Road: An officer responded to Laurice Skin Care on the afternoon of March 23 concerning a report of possible credit card fraud.

Suspicion, Pinetree Road: Police responded to Heinen's grocery store on the evening of March 19 to take a report regarding several transactions that may have been fraudulent.

Driving under suspension, Brainard Road: An East Cleveland woman, 37, was pulled over for speeding about 12:30 a.m. on March 24 and found to be driving on an Administrative License Suspension. Her car was towed and she was picked up by a relative.

Warrants served, various locations: A Cleveland woman, 29, was stopped on the night of March 22 on Chagrin Boulevard near the Cleveland Racquet Club and found to have an active warrant through Shaker Heights police, who requested that she be transported directly to the Solon Jail.

-- During a March 24 traffic stop of a Macedonia man, 29, initially for driving on a suspended license near Providence and Concord roads, police found that the passenger, 35, no address listed, had an active warrant from Parma police and was turned over to them.

-- Wickliffe police picked up an Avon Lake woman, 24, on March 22 and found she had an active Pepper Pike warrant, for which she paid a $468 waiver and was released.
Gerber Products Company is

in pouches because packaging defects could cause the food inside to spoil.

It's one of several new and updated reports of quality warnings on food products including tuna, pistachios and organic powdered meal-replacement shakes. In another quality issue, a Pennsylvania family refuted a federal report of a relative's death from raw milk.

Gerber's recall includes "2ND FOODS" pouches of Pears, Carrots and Peas in 3.5-ounce sizes with the UPC code 15000074319, and batch codes of 12JUL2016 51945335XX and 13JUL 2016 51955335XX. Also recalled is the same size package of Carrots, Potatoes and Apples with the UPC code of 15000074395 and batch codes of 13JUL2016-51955335XX, 14JUL2016-51965335XX.

The products were sold nationwide and online. "There have been three consumer reports of temporary gastrointestinal symptoms, however, we have been unable to confirm that these are related to the product," the company said in a news release.

In some cases the affected pouches may be bloated or the contents will have an off-taste or odor.

Consumers should not use the product and contact Gerber Parents Resource Center at any hour at 1-800-706-0556 for a replacement coupon.

In other product news:
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cuyahoga County grand jury returned an indictment against a poll worker accused of pulling out a gun and threatening to kill another worker at a polling station inside a West Side elementary school.

Allen Bethea, 46, pleaded not guilty to charges of carrying concealed weapons, possession of a deadly weapon or deadly ordinance in a school safety zone, and aggravated menacing Friday morning in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, according to court records.

A public defender was assigned to represent him. He is due back in court April 1.

Witnesses said about 50 voters were in the polling station when Bethea pulled a .380 pistol out of his backpack and said, "Somebody's going to die," after an argument with fellow poll workers inside the Louisa May Alcott Elementary School in the 10000 block of Baltic Road on March 15.

Bethea left the school. Police took him into custody a short time later at West 107th Street and Detroit Avenue.

The elections board does not conduct criminal background checks on poll workers, but workers are asked if they have been convicted of a felony on an application. That did not apply to Bethea who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual imposition in 2002.

Charges of rape, sexual battery and kidnapping with a sexual motive were dismissed as part of a plea deal, court records say. Bethea was given a 90-day suspended sentence.

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Cleveland State University President Ronald Berkman will soon move from his downtown Cleveland apartment to a university-owned home in Cleveland Heights.

(Karen Farkas, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland State University's president has another new home, this time in Cleveland Heights.

The university is not releasing the address, price or move-in date until the sale closes, spokesman Will Dube said in a email.

"The deal has been agreed to in principle but final details are being worked out so we can't release specifics yet," Dube said.

The university announced in February that it would buy a home for President Ronald Berkman because his downtown apartment is too small for entertaining.

The move came more than a year after the university sold the president's $800,000 home in Shaker Heights and began paying $3,600 a month for Berkman to live in a two-bedroom apartment in the luxury complex, The 9, on East Ninth Street.

The university sold the president's home in Shaker Heights to save money and to allow Berkman, who was divorcing his wife, to move closer to campus and live in Cleveland.

The board of trustees released this statement Thursday:

"Cleveland State University has purchased a residence in Cleveland Heights to serve as a home for its current and future presidents. No scholarship dollars or funds from the academic budget were used in this purchase.

"Presidential homes are used often to entertain current and prospective donors and are critical to the University's fundraising efforts, which are increasingly important to supporting our students and faculty.... The president's current residence in downtown Cleveland is not suitable for even small fundraising events, necessitating the move at this time."

The trustee executive board on Thursday agreed to lease the home from the Euclid Avenue Development Corporation, a non-profit organization formed by CSU to finance and manage housing and parking projects.

The development corporation's board agreed on March 8 to buy the home.

In June 2009 the university's foundation bought a four-bedroom, Georgian-style house in Shaker Heights for $808,000 and leased it to the university. CSU had said its foundation would buy the new house, too.

"Regarding the EADC, in investigating the mechanism for purchasing the property it was determined that the EADC was the best vehicle due to the fact that real estate management is one of its primary roles," Dube said in an email.

More than 900 students, alumni and faculty members have signed an online petition opposing the house purchase. They said Berkman should buy his own home.
Apple Inc . is reportedly venturing into original TV by releasing its first nonscripted series about apps, but this proves that the company thrives off of existing ideas, scholar Vivek Wadhwa contended on CNBC Thursday.

"There's no real world shocking innovation happening anymore from Apple," the fellow at Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, told "Closing Bell." "It was nine years ago that the iPhone came out ... since then it's been giving us bigger screens and smaller screens ... and we go along," he noted, before adding that Apple's series imitates Netflix.

In contrast, Apple founder Steve Jobs was known for creating a market rather than satisfying market demands, a quality that Wadhwa considers to have slipped through Apple's fingers. While the inventor has been credited with creating the blueprint for mobile breakthroughs, the expert argues new technology will soon overshadow mobile.
Jim Young | Reuters

According to numerous sources, Microsoft execs have been meeting with private equity firms mulling bids to buy Yahoo and telling investors the company might be willing to lend significant financing to their efforts. As most know, Yahoo has said it is for sale. Some question the company's commitment to the process, given how glacial it has been, which many attribute to CEO Marissa Mayer's antipathy toward it, favoring her own turnaround efforts instead. Today, activist shareholder Starboard Value said as much, mounting a long expected proxy challenge to Yahoo and naming its own slate of directors to replace current ones. Starboard's Jeff Smith noted that the new board was needed to bring "credibility to a process that has been publicly criticized repeatedly for being too slow, fraught with conflicts of interest and very difficult for highly qualified and motivated strategic and financial buyers to access much needed diligence information." Every single possible buyer I have spoken too this week agreed in spades, with many calling the Yahoo sale effort a farce. The current Yahoo board has said it is not, but the credibility of the current Yahoo board is  let's be honest  under some much deserved scrutiny.

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In any case, adding Microsoft into the mix does give this process some seriousness. Microsoft's partnerships and acquisition strategy head Peggy Johnson is part of the effort, as well as others at Microsoft, sources said (you can hear my Re/code Decode podcast interview with her from last fall below). To be clear, the software giant has made no commitments so far to any investors and any discussions now are exploratory. But sources said that the reason for providing financing would be because Microsoft wants to ensure that if Yahoo is sold that whoever buys it will be a good partner going forward. That makes sense, since Microsoft has close search and advertising ties with Yahoo, part of a longtime partnership. That deal was struck after Microsoft made a hostile bid to buy Yahoo in 2008. At the time, former CEO Steve Ballmer offered $31 a share, which then was worth about $45 billion. More from Re/code: Blendle Wants to Sell You Journalism on the Web, One Story at a Time

Silicon Valley's Homogeneous 'Rich Douchebags' Won't Win Forever, Says Investor Chamath Palihapitiya

Israeli Firm Reportedly Helping FBI Crack San Bernardino Phone (Updated) Ultimately, the effort was unsuccessful, but it was ugly by more friendly tech standards. Since then, the companies have had a more cooperative relationship, although there was some recent tension when Mayer tried to get out of parts of its current search deal via a lawsuit that failed. She ended up renegotiating the deal a year ago on more favorable terms for Yahoo and later signed another search deal with Google too. Preserving its current status is important to Microsoft, said sources, which is why it has been mulling the financing of possible Yahoo buyers, who will have to come up with billions of dollars in cash to be competitive. "If Microsoft put in a billion, it would cost them almost nothing," said one investor who had spoken to the company. "It's a minor thing and it buys them a lot."
Republican Ted Cruz on Friday denounced an article in the National Enquirer tabloid claiming he had extramarital affairs as "complete and utter lies" and accused rival Donald Trump of being the source of the story. The story took the Republican presidential race to a new level of personal rancor and Trump issued a statement saying he was not responsible for it. "I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence," Trump said.

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Carlo Allegri | Reuters; Chris Keane | Reuters

Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, addressed the Enquirer story at a news conference in Wisconsin, saying, "Let me be clear. This National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies. It's tabloid smear and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen." Trump's statement pointed to other articles the Enquirer, a tabloid known for its gossip and unflattering celebrity photos, had been correct about in the past. "Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz," the billionaire New York developer said.

Trump and Cruz have sparred in recent days about their wives as they battle to be the Republican nominee in the Nov. 8 election. Earlier this week Trump accused Cruz of posting a nude photo of Trump's wife, Melania, on Twitter. Cruz denied having any role in the photo being circulated on the Internet and Trump responded by threatening to "spill the beans" on Cruz's wife. Cruz said the Enquirer story was evidence that Trump is unfit to be president. "This man would be an embarrassment," he said. The Enquirer published blurred images of five women with whom it said Cruz has had affairs but did not name them. Two women who appeared to be pictured in the Enquirer stepped forward on Friday and called the article false. The National Enquirer could not immediately be reached for comment on the story.

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Rising numbers of female millionaires and billionaires around the world may help drive a rise in luxury health and wellness holidays and women-only hotel services.

The number of female ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWI)  those with net assets of $30 million or more, excluding their primary residences  is increasing faster than male UHNWI, encouraging travel agencies, hotels and tour operators to focus on their interests. These include holidays that focus on "wellness" and can be combined with business or voluntary work, according to data provider, WealthInsight. "Interview and secondary research show that spas, yoga, meditation, health and wellness are appealing to female UHNWI," Roselyn Lekdee, economist at WealthInsight, told CNBC on Wednesday.





A woman does yoga at the Shangri-La's Villingili Resort and Spa Hotel in Male, Maldives. EyesWideOpen | Getty Images

Locations with large UHNWI populations:

Europe  Germany, U.K., Switzerland, France and Sweden

Asia-Pacific  Japan, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and India

North America  U.S. and Canada In a report on Tuesday, Lekdee said the number of wealthy females rose by 5.3 percent between 2010 and 2014 in locations with large UHNWI populations (see above). The number of male UHNWIs rose by 4.4 percent, although there were still far more male than female multimillionaires.

"As wealthy females have greater control over their careers and finances, they are becoming more selective about holidays, demanding personal and more sophisticated services," Lekdee said.

$494B industry

"Wellness" tourism can incorporate a wide range of activities including spa, yoga, detox, fitness and stress relief. The industry is worth $494 billion globally, according to the Global Wellness Institute, an industry body.

This type of tourism is growing and proving popular with solo travelers  and women. Several Asian countries are benefiting from the trend, with Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India known for high-end health and wellness holidays. "UHNWIs globally often travel to these countries for luxury spa and detox retreats," Lekdee told CNBC. Spas are offered by many of the region's luxury hotel chains, including the Four Seasons, Shangri-La, Mandarin Oriental and Hyatt. There are also chains of high-end spa resorts like Banyan Tree, which has hotels in Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives and the Seychelles. The Ananda Spa offers white-water rafting, safaris and treks in the snow-capped Indian Himalayas, as well as yoga, meditation, fitness training and spa treatments.

Women only
Belgian prosecutors have charged three men with terrorist offences, including a suspect who local media said appeared on security footage with two suicide bombers at Brussels airport shortly before they detonated their bombs.

Prosecutors named the third man as Faycal C while media identified him as Faycal Cheffou, and said he was the man wearing a hat and a light-colored jacket in last Tuesday's airport picture that showed three men pushing baggage trolleys bearing luggage.



Prosecutors said he had been charged with taking part in the activities of a terrorist group, and actual and attempted terrorist murder. His home had been searched though no weapons or explosives had been found.



Two other men, Aboubakar A. and Rabah N., were also charged with terrorist activities and membership of a terrorist group. Rabah N. was wanted in connection with a related raid in France this week that authorities say foiled an apparent attack plot.



A total of 31 people were killed, including three attackers, and scores wounded in the Brussels attacks which were claimed by Islamic State and, as well as the airport, included a bomb on a metro train in the city center.



The attacks in Brussels, home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, took place four months after Islamic State militants killed 130 people in Paris and sent shockwaves around Europe and across the world.


U.S. legislators investigating price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry have asked William Ackman's hedge fund for information on Valeant Pharmaceuticals , according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ackman's $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management owns a 9 percent stake in Valeant and is the Canadian drug company's third largest investor.

On Thursday, Ackman told his investors that Pershing Square received a request for information a week ago from the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Ackman said his fund was cooperating with the probe, but he did not give details on what was being sought by lawmakers in his letter to clients.

"The request is directly related to Valeant," the person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Valeant has sparked public outrage and been criticized by U.S. lawmakers for dramatically hiking the price of older drugs.

The Canadian company has disclosed several investigations, including the one from Congress and probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Attorney's offices in Massachusetts and New York.
PHOTO CREDIT: Cornell University

ITHACA, N.Y.  Cornell University announced it has appointed former president Hunter Rawlings, III as its interim president, effective April 25.

Cornells 13th president, Elizabeth Garrett, died March 6 following a battle with colon cancer. Michael (Mike) Kotlikoff had been serving as acting president since Feb. 19, when Garrett underwent surgery.

The school will launch an international search for its 14th president in the coming months, according to a university news release.

Rawlings served as Cornells 10th president from 1995 to 2003.

His upcoming tenure marks the second time he has served as Cornells interim president. Rawlings previously assumed the role in 2005 and 2006 following the resignation of Jeffrey Lehman.

Cornell University is indeed fortunate that Hunter has agreed to step forward once again to lead through a time of transition, Cornell University Board of Trustees Chairman Robert S. Harrison said in the release. The boards unanimous vote is evidence of the respect for his leadership at Cornell and as one of the nations premier advocates for higher education.

It is an honor to once again be called to help lead this great institution, Rawlings said in the Cornell release. There is much momentum around [Beth Garrett]s vision, and I will work with Mike, the leadership team, deans, faculty, students and staff across our campuses to continue building the universitys strengths around those priorities.

Rawlings has served as president of the Washington, D.C.based Association of American Universities since 2011 and last year had announced he would be stepping down this May, Cornell said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
Three takeways from Missouri's game against Vanderbilt

Missouri football took on Vanderbilt for its homecoming game on Saturday. Here's what to know from the game.
Best of Business 2022: Learn Who Won Our 15th Annual Reader Poll

Local professionals chose their favorite business and professional services, products, healthcare, dining and more. Find out who their top picks are.
Crime Report Shelby County 911 - A Crime Report SHARE Jalil Mitchell

By Yolanda Jones of The Commercial Appeal

A man has been charged after he was accused of putting his girlfriends 4-year-old son into a tub of scalding water causing third-degree burns to the boys legs and feet.

Jalil Mitchell, 28, has been charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, and aggravated child abuse endangerment.

According to an arrest affidavit, the abuse happened Wednesday at a home in the 3200 block of Maple Hill where Mitchell lives with the boys mother. The boys mother was at work when the incident occurred.

The affidavit states Mitchell put the boy into a scalding hot tub after the child urinated on himself. The child was allegedly left in the tub as Mitchell went to the kitchen to prepare some food.

When the boy was taken out of the tub he had discoloration and blisters on his feet and lower legs. Mitchell put cocoa butter on the burns and wrapped the boys legs in gauze, according to the affidavit.

Some 17 hours later the boy was taken to Germantown Methodist Hospital where he underwent surgery for third-degree burns. He will be sent to Ohio for further treatment, according to the affidavit.

Mitchell will be in court Monday on the charges.


SHARE In 2011, Joan Lunden attended Woman's Day magazine's Eight Annual Red Dress Awards in New York. Lunden, the former "Good Morning America" host, revealed her breast cancer diagnosis three years later on the TV show. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

By Ted Evanoff of The Commercial Appeal

The Junior League of Memphis has scheduled a conference intended to highlight and inspire women in leadership positions in the city.

Former Good Morning America host Joan Lunden has been invited to address the Memphis Womens Summit on Thursday at the University of Memphis Rose Theatre.

The goal of the summit is to shape local discussions and foster smart conversations, led by influential women who are dedicated to change across the city, Amy Stack, Junior League president, says in a statement released by the civic group.

The summit will be held every year by the Junior League, a group led by corporate executives and professionals aiming to take on civic tasks such as Memphis neighborhood revitalization.



The JLM is on a mission to redefine leadership, Stacks statement says. We're calling on Memphis leaders of all types to join us and help build a community of inspired, empowered women leading their lives with passion and purpose.

The summit, which has a website at memphiswomensummit.org, is intended to urge women to speak out and push boundaries in their everyday lives, the Junior League says.

The event comes as groups throughout the world call attention to women in leadership roles.

On Thursday, Fortune, a business magazine, released its annual Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders list, and for the first time nearly half the leaders were women.

Among the Top 10 are German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar; Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh.

The magazine did not explain why more women are listed  23 this year, 15 last year  although it pointed out "there's a noticeable groundswell behind women fighting to advance other women" throughout the world.

Other Americans listed by Fortune include Black Lives Matter co-founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi; U.S. Army Rangers Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver; and Gates Foundation chief executive Sue Desmond-Hellmann.


MICHAEL DONAHUE/The Commercial Appeal Avocado Skins at Elwood's Shack.

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By Michael Donahue of The Commercial Appeal

Elwood's Shack owner Tim Bednarski loves avocado.

"I could put it on my shoe and my shoe would taste good," he said.

Instead of on his shoe, Bednarski put the avocado in his pizza oven. He cut the avocado in half, scooped out the two halves and placed the pulp back into the skins, added eggs, prosciutto, pico de gallo and Parmesan and roasted them for 12 to 13 minutes at 550 degrees in his pizza oven. "It's the longest cooking time of anything in the restaurant," he said.

Avocado skins, which are available only during Saturday and Sunday brunch, are delicious. I particularly like them when the egg yolk is runny and blends with the rest of the ingredients.

Bednarski got the idea when a friend asked if he ever tried barbecued avocado. He didn't think that would work. "I thought if I put it on the smoker, it would be too smoky."

So he roasted them and put his first batch of avocado skins on the menu about a year ago. "They got popular really, really fast," he said.

I noticed some women at a nearby table also ordered avocado skins. The women, most of them from Fresno, California, said they found Elwood's Shack while searching for Memphis eating spots on Yelp and other websites.

I asked them what they thought. Said Sandy Dosanjh: "There are a lot of flavors in there. They're very distinct, but they all work together very well."

I asked Bednarski if anybody ever tried to eat the actual avocado skin. "No, but they scrape it pretty darn clean," he said.

Elwood's Shack is at 4523 Summer; 901-761-9898.
Evidence photos show shell casings and bullet holes from the scene where Memphis police officers fired 22 shots at Steven Askew who was seated in this vehicle. The officers' description of what happened that night has changed. (Source: MPD)

By Maria Ines Zamudio of The Commercial Appeal

Three years ago, a pair of Memphis Police Department officers responded to a loud music complaint around 9:30 p.m. inside an apartment complex in East Memphis. The two officers never found the source of the music but the call turned deadly for Steven Askew, a 24-year-old man who was parked outside his girlfriend's apartment.

The uniformed officers shot at Askew 22 times, striking him nine times. He was pronounced dead at the scene, having been shot six times in the back, once in the neck and twice in the arms.

An officer who responded to the shots fired call arrived at the crime scene within minutes and was told by the two officers already on the scene that Askew had fired multiple shots at them, so they returned fire, killing him.

But, according to an examination of public records by The Commercial Appeal, no shell casings were found in or around Askew's car and no usable prints on the gun.

Four days after the shooting, when the two officers -- Matthew Dyess and Ned Aufdenkamp -- gave their official statements to investigators, their story had changed dramatically, the newspaper found.

Their original statement, documented as part of the initial police report, was never part of the official investigation. The officers' first statement was not made public until last year when Askew's family attorneys forced the city to disclose it as part of an ongoing federal lawsuit. The night of the shooting, officers said Askew shot at them and later the officers said he only pointed the gun. But even the statement made to investigators has inconsistencies.

The Memphis Police Department's investigation ultimately cleared the two officers; the shooting was ruled justifiable  one of 22 such outcomes from internal police investigations from 2009 to the end of last year.

But the officers' inconsistent statements, and the absence of key physical evidence, including fingerprints on Askew's Cobra 380 handgun raise questions about the Memphis Police Department's investigation of this fatal shooting, said Philip Stinson, a former police officer in Dover, New Hampshire, who now works as a researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

"I think it was premature," said Stinson, a lawyer who studies fatal police shootings. "There was not sufficient evidence to do that (rule the shooting justifiable) because there were a number of questions unanswered that needed to be addressed prior to making that conclusion."

Officer Dyess told Christy Drew, the officer who responded to the shooting, that Askew "pulled out a handgun and fired rounds" at the officers, according to the aggravated assault report filed against Askew following the fatal shooting on Jan. 17, 2013. That report was taken at least 20 minutes after the shooting. By contrast, the internal investigation names Officer J. Roney as the first officer to arrive at the crime scene.

By the time the officers gave their official statements  on Jan. 21, 2013  they had changed their story. Cellphone records show the officers called each other numerous times between the night of the shooting and the day they made that official statement, said Jeffrey Rosenblum, the lawyer representing Askew's family in its lawsuit seeking $3 million. Askew, 24, was studying to become an airplane mechanic. He was enrolled at Tennessee Technology Center. He did not have a criminal record. Autopsy results show that he was legally drunk at the time.

"I kept telling him to put his hands up. We got on the radio requested more cars saying we had one being uncooperative with a gun continued to give verbal commands. At that point he grabbed the gun with his left hand started to turn toward me, smiled, and pointed the gun right at my face and that point I fired upon him and my partner started firing. I backed up to the back of the car took cover," Aufdenkamp told detectives during his official interview.

Dyess told detectives, "I saw his arm extend straight out and toward my partner on the passenger side of the car and I saw the muzzle of the gun protrude from his hand. I saw him punch out on target, and at the time my partner and I open fire."

IAB files only show one version of what happened that night and are solely based on the officer's revised statements. But the newspaper found inconsistencies even in this version of the officers' accounts. Dyess said Askew pointed the gun using his right hand. Photos from the crime scene show Askew was holding a cigar in his right hand. Aufdenkamp told detectives Askew pointed the gun using his left hand. Askew's family said he was right-handed.

The night of Jan. 17, 2013, Askew was sitting in his car at Windsor Place Apartments waiting for his girlfriend. As he waited, he fell asleep. Officers Dyess and Aufdenkamp responded to loud music disturbance call at 3193 Tyrol Court but when the officers could not find the source of the noise they drove to 3197 Royal Knight, where Askew was parked. Aufdenkamp called dispatch and says, "We're trying to check one, he's got a gun, start another car over here please."

Twenty-four seconds later, a radio transmission says, "shots fired, shots fired."

Five months later, Assistant District Attorney General Johnny McFarland declined to present the case to a grand jury.

"There is insufficient evidence of a criminal offense by officers Aufdenkamp and Dyess, involved to create reasonable chance for chance for a conviction, when considered with the most plausible, reasonably foreseeable defense that could be raised under the evidence," McFarland wrote in a letter to MPD May 13, 2013.

McFarland declined to comment about the case, and the second conflicting statement, saying he'd need to review the file.

A spokesman for MPD declined to comment citing the ongoing lawsuit.

Deborah E. Godwin, attorney representing both officers, also declined to comment citing the ongoing lawsuit.

The Askew family's lawyers don't believe he pointed the gun at the officers. According to documents, the gun was found on the driver's side floorboard underneath the steering wheel. No prints were recovered from the handgun that could be used to ID who used the gun, according to documents. Askew had a permit for the Cobra 380 handgun.

Stinson, the Bowling Green researcher and police shootings expert, said investigators should have followed up and tried to answer why there were no valuable prints available in the recovered gun.

"That raises questions," he said. "There are a lot of questions that were left open when that finding was made that it was justified."

Aufdenkamp is no stranger to altercations with the public and other officers. He was accused of using excessive force in 2012. The charge was dismissed by the same department that investigated the fatal shooting. In that complaint, he was accused of following a man on Beale Street to the middle of Fourth Street, where he grabbed the man from behind and took him to the pavement, causing injuries. Aufdenkamp also received a one-day suspension following a verbal argument in 2012 with another police officer, according to his personnel files.

Dyess received a written reprimand for "careless handling of firearms" a year after the fatal shooting. On March 11, 2014, Dyess asked for permission to discharge his gun after a training class. He unloaded one of the magazines and at some point, he placed a fully loaded magazine into the handgun and when the slide went forward, a round fired into the clearing barrel. No one was injured, according to documents in his personnel file.

Neither officer was reprimanded for the shooting. Both still work for the police department, earning $53,573 annually.
Former University of Mississippi student Austin Reed Edenfield leaves federal court in Oxford Thursday after pleading guilty to placing a noose on the school's statue of its first black student, James Meredith. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)

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By Jeff Amy, Associated Press

OXFORD, Miss.  A former University of Mississippi student pleaded guilty Thursday to placing a noose on the school's statue of its first black student.

Austin Reed Edenfield waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Michael Mills in Oxford. The charge says Edenfield helped others threaten force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university.

Mills will sentence Edenfield July 21. He faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. The government has recommended probation.

The 21-year-old Georgia resident remains free pending sentencing. He declined comment after the hearing.

Edenfield admitted to taking part in a February 2014 incident during which a noose and a former Georgia state flag with a Confederate battle emblem were placed on the Ole Miss statue of James Meredith. He integrated the university in 1962 amid rioting that was suppressed by federal troops.

Prosecutors said another former student, Graeme Phillip Harris, hatched the plan to place the noose and flag on the statue after a night of drinking with Edenfield and a third freshman in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house on campus. They said Edenfield actually tied the noose on Meredith's statue after Harris couldn't do it.

Harris pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of threatening force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university after prosecutors agreed to drop a stiffer felony charge in exchange. His lawyer argued Harris didn't deserve prison, saying he'd written a letter of apology to Meredith after falling under the influence of racist traditions at the fraternity.

Harris, who is also from Georgia, was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by 12 months' supervised release. Federal Bureau of Prisons records show he's currently held at a minimum-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, and is scheduled to be released July 1.

Mills delayed a September court date when Edenfield had been scheduled to plead guilty.

The third man has not been charged.

After the noose and flag were placed on the statue on the night of Feb. 15, 2014, Edenfield and Harris returned at sunrise on Feb. 16 to observe and were filmed by a video camera at the Ole Miss student union.

All three of the students withdrew from Ole Miss, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity closed its chapter.
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There is more to reducing crime than arresting, convicting and incarcerating criminals.

That is important, but so are early intervention strategies that provide support and counseling to families and young children to mitigate the social ills that increase a child's chances of growing into a criminal.

Another weapon in the crime-reduction arsenal involves providing ex-felons or misdemeanor offenders with support to help them become productive, law-abiding citizens after they have paid their debt to society.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who made reducing crime a major campaign platform during last year's mayoral place, understands that reducing crime involves more than suppression tactics.

He deserves kudos for leading a fundraiser Monday night at the Hattiloo Theatre that raised $55,000 for the "Better Memphis Fund," which will help people expunge their nonviolent criminal records.

The donations will cover the $450 expungement fee for more than 100 people. That hefty cost can be an impediment for people seeking to have their records expunged, especially if that record prevents them from finding gainful employment.

A 2012 law allows people convicted five or more years previously of only one misdemeanor or class E felony to apply to have their records expunged. Before the event, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said 141 applications were pending in the county and 294 had been granted.

Examples of eligible crimes include reckless driving, public intoxication, shoplifting and vandalism, depending on the monetary damage caused.

Tennessee legislators are working to make the fee more manageable. State Rep. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, is sponsoring a bill in the current legislative session that would reduce the current expungement fee.

The 2012 law is not meant for hardened repeat criminal offenders, but rather people who, for whatever reason, made a stupid mistake and now are trying get their lives back on the right track and stay there.

Having a good job is a prime motivator to stay on the straight and narrow, but when many employers see that an applicant has a criminal record, they move on to the next applicant.

In the larger crime picture in Tennessee, the recidivism rate is 48 percent, meaning that nearly half of ex-felons are back behind bars within three years after their release. Some of these resort back to committing crimes because they cannot find a job because of their criminal history.

One emphasis of Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's 2016-2018 Public Safety Action Plan involves helping ex-felons cope better in society, including helping those with convictions get or keep drivers licenses to make it easier to get a job.

Strickland and Haslam both know that it is just as important to help ex-offenders stay on a good, productive life path as it is to put criminals behind bars. Those criminals will be released one day and society must be prepared to help them become avoid becoming one of the 48 percent that go back.

The "Better Memphis Fund" is one way to prevent that from happening.
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By David Ignatius

WASHINGTON  "We have the Europe we deserve," admitted French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday. The question is how Europeans can build the security structures they need.

The first requirement is solidarity, within each country and among the 28 nations of the European Union. This begins with better links with the Muslim communities, the angry, alienated people at Europe's table. Yes, Europe needs to be more welcoming, but that's only half of it. Muslims need to embrace the obligations of European residence and citizenship.

What would this solidarity look like? After Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims in America by the thousands volunteered for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. They despised the terrorist acts that had been committed in their name by al-Qaida, and wanted to show themselves and their fellow citizens that they were loyal Americans.

European Muslims should step up now in a similar way. In immigrant neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Brussels or the banlieues that surround Paris, Muslim leaders who want change should organize campaigns to enlist their neighbors in the army, police and security services; these leaders can create a new social compact by showing their fellow citizens that they are ashamed of what the jihadist thugs have done and are unafraid of retribution.

European Muslims need to feel ownership of security, rather than viewing the police as an occupying army.

The jihadists often emerge from a youth-gang subculture of violence and intimidation. No wonder the Belgian authorities stumbled for four months looking for Islamic State fugitive Salah Abdeslam. No wonder they couldn't find the suicide bombers who struck Tuesday, four days after Abdeslam's arrest, even though they suspected an attack was coming. Nobody would talk to them. The community was "deaf and dumb," as the mobsters liked to say about ethnic neighborhoods in America.

The second requirement is fairness. The European Union has largely been a project of the elites. The powerful companies (and nations) have prospered. The weak have suffered. When the bills came due, the haves told the have-nots to tighten their belts. Should it surprise us that this arrogant system is cracking at the seams?

The Greeks may have exploited a system that gave them a financial free ride, but the Germans then insisted on imposing an impossible debt-repayment scheme that was meant to teach the debtors a lesson. The Germans should have known better: The punitive repatriations plan imposed by the allies after World War I created the bitter payback of Nazism.

The third requirement is for Europe to grow up about intelligence. Many Europeans seem to think that good intelligence is created by immaculate conception, rather than through the hard and sometimes intrusive work of surveillance. The authorities often don't mind if America does the counterterrorist snooping, so long as they don't have to admit it to their publics.

Europeans don't like to talk about intelligence, and they often pretend their countries don't spy. This immature approach leaves them unable to demand accountability from the security services after chronic intelligence failures like the ones we have seen in France and Belgium. How can you reform something if you won't talk honestly about how it works?

A fourth requirement is for a trans-Atlantic partnership that's equal to the seriousness of this crisis. All the alarm bells are ringing. The leaders of America and Europe should meet in a crisis summit  Brussels would be a good spot  and they should stay until they have agreed on plans for collecting and sharing intelligence together, so that citizens across Europe are safer.

Bureaucracy, a modern European specialty, is the enemy: To forge an alliance that can succeed, Europeans must break through national, regional and international barriers to fight a global adversary. President Obama, perhaps more popular in Europe than in America, can lead this trans-Atlantic partnership and create a legacy that's worthy of him.

The final requirement is to think ahead about changes that will create better stability in the future. If it's 1941 in terms of the shock, it should be 1944 in terms of planning for the future  devising the post-crisis equivalents of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations that can cope with the explosion of rage that has swept Muslim Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

It's an interconnected problem, and the solutions require shared, visionary ideas about governance, economic development and global tolerance.

Fix it or lose it. That's the challenge today for Europe. They won't get it right without American help. Now is the time to start.

David Ignatius is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group. Contact him at davidignatius@washpost.com.
Select Commodity All Ajwan Alasande Gram Almond(Badam) Alsandikai Amaranthus Ambada Seed Amla(Nelli Kai) Amphophalus Antawala Anthorium Apple Apricot(Jardalu/Khumani) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar Dal(Tur Dal) Ashgourd Astera Avare Dal Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Balekai Bamboo Banana Banana - Green Barley (Jau) Bay leaf (Tejpatta) Beans Beaten Rice Beetroot Bengal Gram Dal (Chana Dal) Bengal Gram(Gram)(Whole) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Betal Leaves Bhindi(Ladies Finger) Bitter gourd Black Gram (Urd Beans)(Whole) Black Gram Dal (Urd Dal) Black pepper BOP Bottle gourd Bran Brinjal Broken Rice Broomstick(Flower Broom) Bull Bunch Beans Cabbage Calf Capsicum Cardamoms Carnation Carrot Cashewnuts Castor Seed Cauliflower Chapparad Avare Chennangi Dal Cherry Chikoos(Sapota) Chili Red Chilly Capsicum Chow Chow Chrysanthemum Chrysanthemum(Loose) Cinamon(Dalchini) Cloves Cluster beans Cock Cocoa Coconut Coconut Oil Coconut Seed Coffee Colacasia Copra Coriander(Leaves) Corriander seed Cotton Cotton Seed Cow Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea(Veg) Cucumbar(Kheera) Cummin Seed(Jeera) Custard Apple (Sharifa) Dalda Dhaincha Drumstick Dry Chillies Dry Fodder Dry Grapes Duck Duster Beans Egg Elephant Yam (Suran) Field Pea Firewood Fish Foxtail Millet(Navane) French Beans (Frasbean) Galgal(Lemon) Garlic Ghee Gingelly Oil Ginger(Dry) Ginger(Green) Gladiolus Cut Flower Goat Gram Raw(Chholia) Gramflour Grapes Green Avare (W) Green Chilli Green Fodder Green Gram (Moong)(Whole) Green Gram Dal (Moong Dal) Green Peas Ground Nut Oil Ground Nut Seed Groundnut Groundnut (Split) Groundnut pods (raw) Guar Guar Seed(Cluster Beans Seed) Guava Gur(Jaggery) He Buffalo Hen Hippe Seed Honge seed Hybrid Cumbu Indian Beans (Seam) Indian Colza(Sarson) Isabgul (Psyllium) Jack Fruit Jaffri Jamun(Narale Hannu) Jarbara Jasmine Jowar(Sorghum) Jute Kabuli Chana(Chickpeas-White) Kacholam Kakada Kankambra Karamani Karbuja(Musk Melon) Kartali (Kantola) Khoya Kinnow Knool Khol Kodo Millet(Varagu) Kulthi(Horse Gram) Lak(Teora) Leafy Vegetable Lemon Lentil (Masur)(Whole) Lilly Lime Linseed Lint Litchi Little gourd (Kundru) Long Melon(Kakri) Lotus Lotus Sticks Lukad Mahedi Mahua Mahua Seed(Hippe seed) Maida Atta Maize Mango Mango (Raw-Ripe) Marasebu Marget Marigold(Calcutta) Marigold(loose) Mashrooms Masur Dal Mataki Methi Seeds Methi(Leaves) Millets Mint(Pudina) Moath Dal Mousambi(Sweet Lime) Mustard Mustard Oil Myrobolan(Harad) Neem Seed Niger Seed (Ramtil) Nutmeg Onion Onion Green Orange Orchid Ox Paddy(Dhan)(Basmati) Paddy(Dhan)(Common) Papaya Papaya (Raw) Patti Calcutta Peach Pear(Marasebu) Peas cod Peas Wet Peas(Dry) Pegeon Pea (Arhar Fali) Pepper garbled Pepper ungarbled Persimon(Japani Fal) Pigs Pineapple Plum Pointed gourd (Parval) Pomegranate Potato Pumpkin Raddish Ragi (Finger Millet) Raibel Rajgir Ram Rat Tail Radish (Mogari) Raya Resinwood Rice Ridge gourd(Tori) Ridgeguard(Tori) Rose(Local) Rose(Loose) Rose(Loose)) Round gourd Rubber Sabu Dan Sabu Dana Safflower Sajje Same/Savi Season Leaves Seemebadnekai Seetafal Seetapal Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) She Buffalo She Goat Sheep Snake gourd Snakeguard Soanf Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soji Soyabean Spinach Sponge gourd Squash(Chappal Kadoo) Sugar Sugarcane Sunflower Sunhemp Suram Surat Beans (Papadi) Suva (Dill Seed) Suvarna Gadde Sweet Potato Sweet Pumpkin T.V. Cumbu T.V. Cumbu Tamarind Fruit Tamarind Seed Tapioca Taramira Tender Coconut Thinai (Italian Millet) Thogrikai Thondekai Tinda Tobacco Tomato Toria Tube Rose(Double) Tube Rose(Loose) Tube Rose(Single) Turmeric Turmeric (raw) Turnip Walnut Water Melon Wheat Wheat Atta White Peas White Pumpkin Wood Yam Yam (Ratalu)

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23 May 2022

- Understand the French healthcare system, how you access it and how you are reimbursed - Useful if you are new to the French healthcare system or want a more in-depth understanding - Reader question and answer section Aimed at non-French nationals living here, the guide gives an overview of what you are (and are not) covered for. There is also information for second-home owners and regular visitors.
Cllr David Simmonds is the Deputy Leader of Hillingdon Council

Hillingdon is one of the outer London doughnut boroughs that are an often-overlooked part of the contest for the London mayoralty. With large populations relative to the inner London boroughs and some traditionally strong Conservative territory in prosperous suburbs, the votes delivered in areas like Hillingdon have been key to electing Conservative mayoral and GLA candidates. Zac Goldsmith is making a point of being visible to our residents, helped by familiarity with local issues that comes from being a sitting London suburban MP and a supporter of joint campaigns against proposals for a third runway at Heathrow. With our GLA candidate, Hillingdon councillor Dominic Gilham, Zac has made a point of personal politics, taking time to sit with residents affected by the airport and share ideas for the future, and this approachable style clearly goes down well.



Politically, Hillingdon had been contested territory between Labour and the Conservatives for many decades prior to 1998, when a Conservative minority Council built modest successes into landslide majorities at subsequent elections which have held despite decisive swings against us in neighbouring boroughs. However, the politics are divided between a strongly Conservative north, a more marginal central belt, and a Labour-favouring south. At the last elections in the borough, the 2015 general election, two of the parliamentary constituencies saw swings to Labour, with only rock-solid Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner seeing a swing our way, and in an election where turnout among strong supporters matters most, engaging with residents affected by HS2 has been another key priority.

With more than a hundred people regularly attending action days, Zac and Dominic have emphasised the local Conservative reputation for putting residents first even when this brings some degree of conflict with national policy. There is very positive feedback about the unity of purpose that local voters see among their Conservative candidates. On these two big local issues of the third runway and HS2, Zac is clearly streets ahead with a clear message of support that residents recognise.



The other theme that runs throughout the mayoral campaign is how we deal with a growing city, and again Zac has delivered messages that resonate with Hillingdon residents. House prices are the fastest-rising in London from a relatively affordable base and as Hillingdon council delivers the largest school-building programme in the capital, parents are asking where the future homes for the extra children will be. Zacs ideas for releasing government-owned brownfield sites sit well in a borough known for zealous protection of its green belt, and ideas about expanding the transport network to improve north-south capacity go down well.



As we look towards election day, the conspicuous absence of any campaigning by Labour makes us all a little nervous. The Ealing-Hillingdon GLA constituency was gained by Labour last time and is the top target in the capital for our party to regain, but we also need our voters to turn out in large numbers to retain a Conservative mayor who will work for the benefit of local residents. Zac is clearly well-liked and respected among Hillingdons Conservative voters and our main task ahead is ensuring that in an election which looks set to be won or lost by a modest margin, and which traditionally sees a lowish turnout, we see our supporters flocking to the polls to send Zac, and Dominic, to City Hall.
Comparisons with the Miners Strike of 1984 come naturally when talking about the British Medical Association. But whilst we remember a straight-up confrontation, it was only careful Government planning and an undercurrent of irresistible technological change that made Thatchers belligerence viable.

The Governments dispute with the doctors union continues to escalate, with junior doctors preparing to hold the first full walkout in the history of the NHS.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, James Kirkup gives the recalcitrant medics a warning from history. He warns that the BMA is repeating the mistakes of the National Union of Mineworkers, over-estimating the nations dependency on their members.

That Britains economy could survive without British coal was unthinkable, right up until it wasnt. Kirkup argues that technological progress and competing models of provision mean that our monolithic state healthcare provider may soon find itself similarly outflanked.

But whilst that might be true, it is by no means certain that we have reached this point now. For all that Arthur Scargills attempt to topple Margaret Thatcher is the stuff of legend, it shouldnt eclipse the fact that there were plenty of miners strikes before that final confrontation and the miners won most of them, enjoying public sympathy as they did so.

Jeremy Hunt could end up being a modern-day Margaret Thatcher, bringing truculent trades unionists to heel and unleashing modernity on one of the UKs totemic industries. Or he could be Edward Heath.

As Simon Jenkins points out in todays Daily Mail, public support for the NHS is currently bulletproof. This makes it incredibly hard to reform: in fact, the public health lobby have convinced many politicians that it is easier to reform the public than to make a serious attempt to reform public services.

Cost to the NHS is thus one of the main pillars of modern drives against smoking and obesity. But setting aside any liberal qualms we might have about that, it isnt clear that this represents a viable long-term solution.

Anybody who the state saves from a tobacco or food-related death will still die of something, and the NHS will pay for it. If that person is forced to live a long life then they will likely end up costing the NHS far more than they would had they died younger  the increasing ability for medical science to prolong our senescence is by far the greatest structural challenge the service faces.

Treating expenditure on smoking and obesity-related health problems as money that can be straight-up saved, without accounting for the inevitable transfer of the burden to other parts of the health budget, is therefore extremely disingenuous.

Assuming that we cant force people do be so healthy that we can afford the NHS, were then still confronted with the need to reform it.

It may be that needless deaths caused by industrial action lead to a dramatic sea change in popular attitudes, but as it stands were a long way from a place where wholesale reform via head-on confrontation seems likely to work, even as a last resort.

Rather, Conservatives should have a long-term, strategic vision for healthcare reform which involves the piecemeal adoption of decentralisation, liberalisation and modernisation in doses the public will tolerate.

Obviously there are a huge number of things this could involve, and Party policymakers should canvass widely for proposals. But when it comes to tackling the outdated and overweening influence of militant unions in the NHS, here are two suggestions.

In his article, Kirkup mentions the George Washington University study that estimates 85 per cent of a typical doctors work can be done perfectly well by a physicians assistant with a fraction of the training or wages.

If that is the case, perhaps one way to increase staff supplies in the service  without resorting to controversial over-dependence on foreign nurses  would be some form of Territorial NHS, or Health Service Reserve, modelled on its military counterpart.

Volunteers would receive pay, training, and legal rights to take time out of their civilian life to work for so many weeks of the year in the NHS. This shouldnt be impossible: the Armed Forces reserves already offer recruits the opportunity to train in a huge range of technical skills.

A larger, flexible pool of physicians assistants would reduce the NHSs dependence on full-time professionals. This would not only ease immediate wage and staffing pressures, but make it easier for management to respond to future shifts in demand.

Like any nationalised industry, one of the major problems facing the health service is its need to predict future demand without the aid of psychics. The long training current staff require makes it impossible to rapidly adjust to unexpected demand (without importing labour, that is.)

A ready pool of capable staff, which can be topped up relatively quickly, could thus plug gaps as they arise and make it easier to do that with British personnel.

Given public affection for the NHS, and the esteem in which its staff are held, theres no reason to think that recruitment would be impossible.

The other way the Government could clip the BMAs wings would be to diminish their capacity for strike action.

One could approach this task in at least two ways. The blunt-force approach would be to declare doctors, at least, to be one of the essential professions  such as the police and the military  whose members are forbidden to strike. If the junior doctors keep up their current antics this may well become politically possible.

But another way would be to step up the decentralisation of the NHS and make hospital trusts legally-distinct employers.

At a stroke, this would bring the public sector into line with the private by making politically-motivated, industry-wide strikes impossible.

This is because, with sympathy strikes and secondary picketing illegal, trades unions can only call strikes over a specific grievance with an individual employer. In the private sector this has led to conciliatory, service-based unions.

But because all public sectors workers are ultimately employed by the Government, they have been spared the effects of this legislation.

Making hospital trusts independent would not only mean the end of the national strike, it would also yield other benefits. By employing staff on private sector terms such essential and sensible reforms as locally variable and performance-based pay, as well as rational, private-sector pensions, would be as irresistible as they have been in the private economy.

Faced with an incentive to innovate and reduce costs, some trusts may even start to innovate with things like the production-line surgical hospitals pioneered by Devi Shetty  channelling the savings into other areas.

It would also mean that in the event of a dispute at any trust, the Government would not be on one side of the table, under political pressure and with the easy out of simply paying up from taxation or borrowing.

One day, the BMA will have their 1984. But it would be complacent to assume that this is it, or that bloody-mindedness alone will bring it about. Conservative strategists owe it to themselves, and to the country, to lay the groundwork properly.
Printer Friendly Version Trumpian Deportation Fantasies And American Realities By Tanya Golash-Boza 25 March, 2016

TomDispatch.com In 2006, when I first began researching deportations, George W. Bush was president and quietly building a deportation machine in the Department of Homeland Security. Outside of small activist circles, few Americans knew that deportations had been rising since 1996 due to legislation signed by President Bill Clinton. Nor could anyone then have imagined that the next President would be a Democrat, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, and would make Bush look like a piker when it came to record-high deportations. Nor, for that matter, would anyone have dreamed that deportation would become a -- possibly the -- signature issue of the 2016 presidential campaign. And yet, all of this and more has come to pass in a blistering season of demagoguery, nativism, and outright racism. As again would have been unimaginable a mere decade ago, Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have both promised to deport every last one of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, the whole lot of them, while as a bonus banning Muslims from the country. Trump gave his particular proposals a special twist by labeling Mexicans coming across the border as rapists, and immigrants more generally as snakes. On the issue of deportations, the Republican presidential hopefuls differ in only one tiny way: Trump claims he will allow the really good immigrants to return, while Cruz wants to get rid of every last undocumented immigrant permanently. To put all this in perspective, here's the crucial thing you need to understand: with such proposals, we have been plunged into a grim fantasyland. You can be guaranteed that neither of these men has spent a serious moment considering what it might really mean to deport those 11 million actual human beings. Behind such a program there can be no real plan, because it would prove both unaffordable and unworkable (leaving aside its utter inhumanity). Undoubtedly, neither Trump nor Cruz cares about the details of all this, since the point is to arouse deep fears of loss and visceral betrayal in the white working class voters they want to attract. But it's worth taking their proposals seriously enough to ask a relatively straightforward question: Is it feasible to deport 11 million people? Deporter-in-Chiefs? Any plan to deport all undocumented migrants would involve an inconceivably massive expansion of the current deportation program, which since 1996 has already experienced significant growth. The highest number of people ever deported from the United States in a given year is 237,941. That was the number of interior removals reported by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2009. A removal, by the way, is a deportation that involves a court process, while an interior removal is a deportation involving a person who is arrested inside the United States and is not a recent border-crosser. Keep in mind that those 237,941 undocumented immigrants expelled from the country represented a far higher number of deportations than had ever previously been experienced. Before 1995, there were never more than 50,000 total removals (including people caught crossing the border). Only in 2003 were figures for interior and border removals reported separately, at which time there were 30,000 interior removals. A concerted effort in the years that followed would translate into a seven-fold increase in the number of interior removals during the Bush presidency. When President Obama took office in 2009, he topped the Bush numbers, overseeing record deportations and keeping interior removals steadily above 200,000 until 2012. Then those numbers began to decline, dropping to a still hefty 69,478 interior removals in 2015. For his early deportation record, Obama earned the title of deporter-in-chief from immigration activists, as well as the ire of the Latino community. Perhaps due to pressure from that community, he has in recent years rolled back deportations, in addition to issuing an executive order that grants temporary authorization to stay and work in the United States to immigrants who came here as children. He also issued another executive order that would grant the same protections to their parents, although it is still held up in the courts. Now, for the future: the promise to deport all 11 million undocumented migrants in, assumedly, two four-year presidential terms would mean the deportation of 1,375,000 people annually, or six times that all-time high of 237,000. In other words, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would have to almost match Bush's seven-fold increase in deportations on a truly monumental, essentially inconceivable scale. The more realistic question in the grim world of deportations would be: Could one of them even get back to the 237,000-a-year figure? It's far from clear that any president could actually restore such record-high deportation rates today (forget the promise of millions). As it happens, ramping up deportations again would require cooperation from local criminal law enforcement, which is unlikely. In reality, local police departments have been moving away from such cooperation over the past few years, in part due to criticism that such programs encourage racial profiling while diminishing trust between communities and the local police. The dramatic increase in deportations under President Bush relied heavily on increased cooperation between local police and ICE, due to real limitations on the ways in which immigration laws can be enforced. Whereas local police officers are empowered to patrol the streets and arrest people suspected of committing crimes, immigration law enforcement agents are not authorized to pull people off the streets simply because they suspect they might be undocumented. An important reason for this: there is no way you can figure out a person's immigration status simply by looking at them. Only Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents are authorized to rely on Mexican appearance when deciding whom to interrogate and they can only operate up to 100 miles from the border. Interior immigration enforcement is mostly carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with the help of local police officers who can indeed inquire about someone's immigration status, but only after such a person has been stopped on reasonable suspicion of committing a crime. There are currently about 5,000 ICE agents in the country. Their capacity, with limited cooperation from local law enforcement, seems at the moment to be about 70,000 deportations a year, as evidenced by 2015 numbers. To get those deportations back above 200,000 would involve gargantuan and expensive efforts and a restoration of the frayed relationship between ICE and local police departments. Home and Workplace Raids How, then, are 5,000 ICE agents, or even 15,000 -- the number Donald Trump wants -- going to deport more than a million people annually? In reality, there is no way that those numbers would be enough to arrest and expel the nearly 4,000 people a day, or 1,460,000 people a year that Ted Cruz implies he would reach in his presidency. It may seem like 5,000 agents should be capable of arresting at least one person each a day and so meet those goals. But the process is simple only in a Trumpian fantasy world. In the real world, locating and then arresting the undocumented is anything but a straightforward process. After all, ICE agents can't go around interrogating people to find out if they are undocumented and then sweep them off the streets. They can, however, arrest people in their homes -- if they have a warrant. Once an investigation is completed and such a warrant has been issued, an ICE raid on the home of a suspected undocumented migrant usually involves about a dozen agents working through the National Fugitive Operations Program that has come under harsh criticism for its remarkable inefficiency. To have such a home raid described is to begin to understand why such raids tend to work out so poorly. In February 2010, Maximo, a Dominican citizen who lived in Puerto Rico and experienced just such a raid, described the process to me. He shared an apartment in San Juan with two other men, a Venezuelan and a Puerto Rican. Early one morning, they heard loud banging on the door. Maximo tried to sleep through it, but it only got louder. Finally, he got up. Before he could answer the door, however, the ICE agents decided to break it down and he found himself surrounded by several of them, guns drawn, demanding to see all of the occupants of the apartment. The three men were then ordered to sit on the floor. Finally, Maximo was given his clothes and allowed to get dressed. When asked for identification, he gave them his Dominican passport. Was he, they then asked, in the country illegally? He admitted that he indeed was, which led to his arrest and dispatch to an immigration detention center. There, he signed a voluntary departure order and two days later was deported to Santo Domingo. In other words, that day's work for at least a dozen officers led to the deportation of a single Dominican as his housemates were legal permanent residents. This is typical of the kinds of successes that ICE agents have. Among other things, the next President could revisit the worksite enforcement strategies implemented during the Bush years to find undocumented workers. Such worksite raids, however, have proven even less effective and efficient than home raids. Consider the 2008 Postville raid in Iowa, at the time the largest of its kind ever. Start with the fact that it took almost a year and a half of investigation and planning to pull off. In December 2006, federal agents began to look into a worksite enforcement operation in Postville, a town with 2,273 inhabitants, 968 of whom worked at Agriprocessors, a kosher slaughterhouse and meat processing plant. On Monday, May 12, 2008, the plan became a reality as 900 agents descended on the town. Cooperation among several federal and local agencies was necessary for this to happen. In all, 389 immigrant workers were arrested, though only half of them were eventually deported. In other words, ICE spent a year and five months working on a case that required almost 1,000 agents on the ground and eventually resulted in fewer than 300 deportations. So let's put this simply: there is no quick and easy way to deport millions of people from the United States, in part because we are a nation that values individual rights and requires at least some semblance of a process before a person is uprooted from his or her home or workplace. It is not within the purview of the executive branch to topple existing laws and judicial processes in order to carry out the mass removal of a significant segment of the population. In sum, President Obama has done about as much damage as is presently possible to undocumented migrants and their families within these legal and judicial constraints. Trump and Cruz's claims that they will do significantly more are baseless -- unless the American system were to be changed in fundamental ways (and even then, achieving their goals would prove unlikely in the extreme). Walls and Other Fantasies Add to all of this an even greater and more literal fantasy edifice: Donald Trump's wall. That future 80-foot competitor to the Great Wall of China is slated to cover the 2,000-mile-long southern border, sport all the latest in surveillance technology, and (as The Donald regularly reassures audiences at his rallies) be paid for by the Mexicans. As it happens, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who recently compared Trump's language to Hitler's, disagrees. He's made it abundantly clear that he would never comply with such a demand, while the previous Mexican president, also citing Hitler, has simply termed the very idea stupid. Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto's predecessor, said the Mexican people won't pay any single cent for such a stupid wall! In Trump's far-fetched proposal lurks a crucial irony of our moment: Mexicans are no longer emigrating in large numbers to the United States. Over the past decade, more Mexicans have returned from the U.S. than headed illegally for it. Undocumented border crossings from Mexico have, in fact, been falling for the last 15 years, in part thanks to a sharp decline in the fertility rate in that country and the consequent lack of demographic pressure for people to leave. And don't forget that the wall would be a staggering infrastructure project. It would, for instance, require 10% of all the cement produced in the United States in a year. And then there's the issue of the price. It is estimated that just fencing in the full 2,000 mile border would cost up to $25 billion, or a quarter of what the federal government spends on infrastructure annually. An 80-foot, high-tech wall would cost far more. And let's not forget that infrastructure in the U.S. is falling apart: highways are crumbling and mass transit systems are in desperate need of repair and modernization. Imagine the federal government, spurned by the Mexicans, spending tens of billions of dollars on such a wall when Amtrak, for example, is barely scraping by with an annual budget of $1.6 billion, while other developed countries are leaving us in the dust with 200-mile-per-hour bullet trains. All this means that the proposals to build a wall and deport them all that have animated this election season are quite fantastical. And then there's the irony that such plans come from a political party that has long criticized government spending and waste. On wasting money, we're talking textbook cases here. In short, taken on their own merits, the numbers don't add up. The costs would be tremendous. The disruption to American life in which the undocumented play a little noticed but crucial role would be far more unsettling than any of Donald Trump's or Ted Cruz's admirers imagine, and no wall or deportation program will protect them from the actual forces decimating their lives (and life spans). In fact, looked at piece by piece, in a purely practical way, the present deportation debate, which has proven extremely effective in raising the temperature of the political moment, is simply the essence of the demagogue. Should Donald Trump or Ted Cruz win the presidency, they are guaranteed to make life hell for millions of undocumented human beings living in and working extremely hard in this country, and their plans would fail dismally -- but that failure would undoubtedly prove to be a horror all its own. Tanya Golash-Boza is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced. She is the author of five books, her most recent being Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism (New York University Press), which explains mass deportation in the context of the global economic crisis. In addition, she has written on contemporary issues for Al Jazeera, the Boston Review, the Nation, Counterpunch, the Houston Chronicle, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She tweets as @tanyaboza. Copyright 2016 Tanya Golash-Boza







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Printer Friendly Version Obscured American: Manon The Aspiring School Counselor By Linh Dinh 25 March, 2016

Countercurrents.org Before interviewing 33-year-old Manon, I had never talked to her.She only bartends at Friendly Lounge one day a week. The joint was completely empty when we started at noon. Folks can hardly afford a beer anymore. An hour into our conversation, Tony the cook came in to take his midday break, then a stranger appeared. An El Salvadorian, he said his name was Joseph and a cook at Little Caesars. Though friendly enough, his English was belabored, so it wasnt easy to chat. He did convey that Philly is a joke compared to NYC, where he spent 13 years. Before that, Joseph was in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Though Manon said she couldnt drink on a shift, Joseph kept offering to buy her a shot. Shoving three bucks into the jukebox, he then tortured us with nine Bee Gees hits. Eventually, more people came in. Someone played Johnny Cash singing One Piece at a Time, which made me think, Hardly anyone writes songs about working class life anymore. Well trashed by then, Joseph got up to leave, but for some reason, he couldnt open the door, which made everyone laugh. This infuriated the stocky man unexpectedly, so I got up to calm him down. Manon then opened the door for Joseph, which pissed him off even worse. Terrance grinned, Adios! That was the last straw. Turning around, Joseph growled, I speak English! And I speak Spanish, Terrance retorted. Beaming a lethal stare, Joseph spat, Chinga a tu madre! After Joseph left, I said to Terrance, His machismo was hurt because he couldnt open the door. Yeah, he couldnt go through! I told Terrance and Manon about my friend Jerome Robinson. Poet, painter, tattoo parlor owner and a member of the Wheels of Soul motorcycle club, Jerome was killed after a teenager had been asked to leave the bikers clubhouse in West Philly. Minutes later, the kid returned and shot up the place. Maybe Joseph will come back to put us in our place? Sure enough, the dude did return, but only to get more sloshed. Glazed eyed, Joseph was as cheerful as ever, with Terrance three stools away. It was no fun to peel myself from such groggy fellowship, but I had to weave home to type up what Manon had said, so here it is: I was raised in Bensalem. Both of my parents were middle school teachers. My mom was an art teacher. My dad was special ed. Theyre retired and winter in Sarasota. My mom does a drug and alcohol prevention program up here, and she casually does art. She just had an art show in Sarasota where she sold a couple of pieces. I had a pretty stable, middle class upbringing. Im an only child. From elementary through high school, I went to private schools. I was raised Jewish. I had my Bat Mitzvah and everything, but we werent overly religious. My parents are reformed. Were culturally Jewish. Admittedly, I didnt have a whole lot of interest in going to college, but it was a route that I thought might be interesting. I wanted to study English, but my parents convinced me Id never get a job unless I wanted to teach English or be an academic. I was a really mediocre student in high school. I love reading. I was really interested in poetry and music. I got into Kurt Vonnegut in high school, but I suppose thats the age where people get into Kurt Vonnegut. I thought psychology was a viable career option. I was thinking that with a bachelors degree, I would come out and be a world renown psychologist. I had no idea. Ha, ha! I was completely naive. Id have been content to go to community college to figure out what I wanted to do, or working or going abroad, but my parents were convinced that if I didnt go to college immediately, Id never go, that Id be a vagrant wandering around the country or something. From my freshman year in high school, Id go to punk shows in Philly. It was a weird and, ah, integrated scene, and there was a lot of politics involved which sorta inspired me to go into a social justice field. I was drawn to reproductive rights, and that remains a major focus of what I want to do. There was a big community of anti-racists. It took a couple years for me to figure out that there were not enough people of color involved in punk at the time, in Philadelphia. It was a predominantly white male, hetero kind of patriarchal scene. As a young woman who was starting to become aware of feminist issues, it was challenging to be in the punk scene, because there were all these dudes who thought youre just hanging around to be someones girlfriend, and you cant be a part of the music. Id like to see more women involved, people of color, anyone whos marginalized or left out. Im in a band now. The Cats. I sing and write most of the songs, nearly 40 so far. Weve done two full length albums. We did a small tour of the East Coast, and weve played in West Virginia, New Orleans, a bunch of places. I was fortunate enough that my parents were able to pay for my undergraduate. After getting my bachelors from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, I worked for seven years before going to graduate school. I worked in an after school program, a pre-school program, then I was a substitute teacher for three years before I found a job with Philadelphia Womens Center. It was an abortion clinic. I did counseling and bookkeeping there. I realized how much I liked working and how much I cared for universal access to abortion and reproductive healthcare. In Pennsylvania, there are significant barriers to getting an abortion. I get 5 bucks an hour at the Friendly Lounge, which is more than what most bars pay. I take shifts when I can get them. Id never bartend before. I was just a regular here. A friend of mine was working, and he broke his leg, so I filled in for him. This was three years ago, so I worked here for two years while I was in school. I left when I had a full time internship, then came back after graduation. I literally dont know how to bartend if I were to be put in a position elsewhere. I dont know how to mix drinks, but its easy enough here, because this is just a beer and shot bar. I like working here because the regulars have embraced me like a niece or a granddaughter. Its nice. If there was ever a concern over me working in a bar thats exclusively men older men, Ive never had a problem, because everyone has been protective. They treat me like family. One time, I had to physically restrain a small man, because he was bothering another customer. They were the only two people in here. I actually had to pick him up and move him out the door. This place grounds me. I dont need formal counseling skills to work here, but this place has exposed me to a lot more people, regular working people. Instead of being in academia, I now have the experience and ability to talk to people, so Ive developed that part of myself. Though Im OK as a bar patron, since Im happy to talk to anybody, as a bartender Ive learnt how to adapt to other people and their behaviors, and being able to read people more. Coming to a bar is inherently a social thing. Its a legitimate way to socialize, especially if youre working, and you dont have an outlet anywhere else. Its totally fair to come into a bar and become a regular and meet people. It really challenges me to remember names and remember specifics about people. Its a great exercise, especially for a counselor. Eight years ago, I went into Rays, had a couple beers. I became somewhat regular, but I didnt go in there again for a couple of years. When I came back, Pauli was like, Hey, I havent seen you in a while! Do you want this beer, the same beer? Do you want a lager? I was so impressed, like I cant believe you remember what I drink. What with all these people. Youve seen how crazy that place is. Ive always admired that about bartenders. After I started bartending, I realized how much you absorb from everybody, and how you have to be aware of everything thats going on. You have to compartmentalize things about people. Im getting by on the money I saved from my student loans. I owe probably 50 grand, yeah. Holy Family was a pretty reasonably priced program. I havent started paying it back yet. I dont know how much it will be a month. I try not to think about that. People are having a lot of difficulties, and people my age are having a lot of difficulties. Even for myself, looking for a job five years ago as opposed to looking for a job now, it was a lot easier. By going back to school, I took myself out of the job market at the wrong time. Since graduating three months ago, Ive sent out maybe 70 applications altogether for a job as a school counselor. I dont think were in good shape. The job market sucks. The economy sucks. As far as reproductive rights, there are all these subversive laws that are trying to get passed that will put up more barriers to abortion services. There is so much discord between people, and its being illuminated with the election, between Trump supporters and Bernie and Hillary supporters. I compliment Trump for bringing all of these people out of the woodworks, for exposing all of these horrendously bigoted people, but I dont know what anybody intends to do about that, or how to address basic issues like health care, education and immigration. I would welcome people for citizenship, for those who are already here and those who want to enter the country. I dont think it would be an issue except there arent enough good jobs available. Personally, I dont see what the issue would be to just allow people into the country, whether they are refugees or not. I guess outsourcing is a problem. If we can get more jobs back into the States, that might be a solution. Economics is not an area of expertise of mine, so I dont want to talk too much about that. I believe in an open border, so that anyone who applies can go in, and even those who enter illegally, I dont have a problem with that either. Thered have to be some rationale for them to want to come here undocumented. Whatever thats going on in whatever country, there has to be some incentive for them to come here, instead of staying there. I have my own issue with Bernie Sanders supporters, as in the paternalism, as in, Oh no, he knows whats best for you. Growing up in the punk scene around these guys, you know, these white guys, they have the answers. Its frustrating to be a woman. The buzz word is mansplaining. I mean, Ive found it here too, in the Friendly Lounge. You find it everywhere. Bernie Sanders, I like his policies. I really think its ideal. I think people do have a right to healthcare, that people have a right to education. All of my friends are Bernie supporters. My dad supports Bernie, while my mom backs Hillary. My dad is more left than my mom. He started me on thinking about reproductive rights. Hillary Clinton, I dont support her. Im sure youve seen videos of how she interacted with people demonstrating at her rallies. Its like so outrageously dismissive. I dont understand Actually, it makes perfect sense, that if youre a career politician, you dont know how to interact with an average person who comes to confront you. Im having a harder time with Democrats, but Id never support a Republican! I cannot vote for someone who doesnt respect my reproductive rights. Hillarys so disingenuous. Shes just sorta riding the coattails of Bernie Sanders messaging. I dont think shes committed to the kind of progress shes espousing at the podium. Im learning more about hers and Bill Clintons policies in the 90s, as far as mass incarceration, and how their programs disproportionately affected low-income black Americans. Its upsetting to learn about that. If Sanders doesnt get the nomination, I will vote for Jill Stein. Im just learning about her. I voted for Kerry, then Obama twice. I just read Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow, and working in the schools, Ive started to figure out about the school to prison pipeline. I have to know more, if Im going to work in the school. There isnt a blanket solution for every person. You need to meet the needs of the families, of the communities. In Pennsylvania, education funding is a major issue, as in teachers pays and benefits. Institutional racism is a big part of the inequity in the classroom. You need to work with the students instead of just, you know, punitive measures, kicking them out or sending them to a disciplinary school. Instead of suspending them, you need to work with what the students need. With classroom overcrowding, teachers have a hard time dealing with that. Theyre closing all these schools. Test preparation, I dont think its good. If that were the marker of my achievement as a student, I wouldnt have passed high school. I know I didnt test well, so I wouldnt have been able to go to college. I think thats unfair. The majority of time in the classroom is preparing for tests, and this doesnt generate a lot of room for critical thought, discussion or creativity. There is a lot wrong, across the board. Right now, Im reading a book by Doctor Carl Hart called High Price. I think drugs should be legalized, absolutely, if there are ways to give people who are addicted access to the stuff they want to use. We need clinics that are run ethically, where people arent stigmatized. We need to run them as counseling and medical centers. People shouldnt think its a dirty thing to be addicted. Obviously, I dont think incarceration is the solution to addictions. I find FaceBook is a really good source to browse through news, depending on who you follow, and Twitter, I use a lot just because Im able to curate what I can see. I go to places like RH Reality Check, because it talks about legislations and reproductive health issues. I go to Feministing. The Root, I read. Its blackcentric politics. I read Mother Jones, the Guardian, New York Times. My boyfriend and I rent a house in Point Breeze. Its 950 a month. I dont have any intention to have kids. Since Im devoting my life to working with kids, I dont want to take care of one of my own after Im done working at school. I just dont want to have a kid in my house, for whatever reason, because I like sleeping, and I like a disposable income when I get a job, so, yeah. I thought it kind of funny, and my parents thought it was curious too. They didnt want to believe that I wouldnt want to have kids because I spent so much time working with kids, and all of my jobs have been related to working with people and with kids. I dont think that I could, with any good conscience, have a child. I was having this conversation with a girlfriend the other day I wouldnt want to bring a kid into a world where the environment is so unstable, the economy is lousy and, you know, people are being killed by police regularly. It just seems really uncertain, so the best I can do is work with other peoples kids. Marriage, I dont have a problem with, but I dont see a reason to get married unless somebody is benefitting from it, as in health insurance or something like that. Its more of a financial concern, especially among the people that I know. It comes down to a financial decision. My boyfriend and I dont have a lot of income, between the two of us. Ive never yearned for marriage, but I also had a string of bad relationships before this one. I was never confident that those relationships would go anywhere, and emotionally, I wasnt invested in them. I broke up two long term relationships. I dont want to I cant speak ill of them, but they bordered on manipulative and abusive relationships. Getting out of them took longer than I wanted, but I finally did. The impetus for leaving was, I cant do this for the rest of my life, and if it continues this way, I would be stuck, so I better make a move right now My last boyfriend would have been pretty content to keep everything the way it was. Both of them were assholes, but they didnt sabotage the relationships. I took the initiative because I knew I would be the one to sabotage the relationships. Ten years from now, hopefully Id be working in a school, and being with the same person. Twenty years from now, Id like to be doing the same thing, working in a school, and being with the same person, but hopefully with more money, so Ill have the abilities to travel. I guess these wishes are pretty traditional, yeah. Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. Hes tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, Postcards from the End of America.







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The Tragic Plight Of Aafia Siddiqui

By Ali Mohsin

25 March, 2016

Countercurrents.org

One of the defining features of Pakistans political and social reality is the callous disregard of the countrys ruling elites for the basic rights and well-being of ordinary citizens. Whether the issue is poverty, unemployment or the unavailability of justice, the response of the Pakistani government is typified by cold indifference, regardless of which political party or military strongman is running the country. This imperviousness to human suffering also comes across in the states attitude toward the plight of Pakistanis imprisoned overseas, including those facing execution at the hands of barbaric regimes such as Saudi Arabia.

In January, Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a non-profit human rights law firm, filed a petition in the Lahore High Court in which it criticized the current governments failure to provide consular services to Pakistanis languishing on death row in the Gulf countries. The petition noted that there are presently 8,597 Pakistanis imprisoned overseas, out of which 4,357 are in the Middle East, where they are deprived of fundamental rights.

While the cruel treatment meted out to Pakistanis in the Gulf countries has been highlighted by the media, the petition filed by the JPP also brings to mind what is perhaps the most notorious example of the Pakistani states impotence when it comes to defending the rights of its citizens overseas: the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

In 2010, Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist, was convicted of the attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistans Ghazni Province. The charges against her stemmed from an alleged shooting incident in 2008, the exact circumstances of which remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Following an incredibly unfair trial that was marred by irregularities, Siddiqui received an 86-year sentence, which she is now serving at a federal prison in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark once described Siddiquis case as the worst case of individual injustice I have ever seen. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky has also spoken out in her defense. Protests calling for her release have been held in various US cities this month.

Siddiquis relatives and supporters, along with various human rights organizations, continue to maintain that she was the victim of a conspiracy designed to cover up the fact that she had been secretly held in US detention facilities where she was tortured and abused ever since shed disappeared off the streets of Karachi in the spring of 2003 along with her three children.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Siddiqui and her children were abducted by Pakistani intelligence agents on their way to the airport in Karachi. Their whereabouts remained unknown until Siddiqui and her eldest son, Ahmed, were reported detained in Afghanistan in 2008, more than five years after their disappearance. US authorities have always denied that Siddiqui was in their custody prior to 2008, but several detainees at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, including Moazzam Beg, reported having seen her there.

The official account provided by US authorities regarding the incident that led to Siddiquis conviction strained credulity right from the start. According to the Americans, Siddiqui was apprehended by Afghan security services in July of 2008 after she was allegedly found wandering the streets with a bag containing a list of US targets for terrorist attacks, bomb-making instructions and various chemicals.

However, Siddiqui was never charged with any terror-related offense. Instead, she was accused of having seized a rifle and firing on US and Afghan security forces after several FBI agents and US Army officers arrived to take her into custody.

The subsequent trial she endured in New York was a mockery of justice. The local press dubbed her Lady Al Qaeda, assuming her guilt before any evidence was heard. Throughout the course of the trial, the presiding judge had bent over backwards to accommodate the prosecutors. Siddiquis lawyers had criticized the intense security measures put in place during the trial, which obviously reinforced the idea that Siddiqui posed a security threat to the US.

During the trial, Assistant US Attorney Jenna Dabbs revealed photographs of the room where the prosecution claimed the shooting occurred. However, Carlo Rosatti, an FBI firearms expert who had investigated the case, was later forced to admit he had found no shell casings, no bullets, no bullet fragments, no evidence the gun [the soldiers M-4 rifle] was fired.

Moreover, the judge had barred Siddiqui from speaking about events prior to her arrest in July of 2008 during her testimony. Nevertheless, Siddiqui repeatedly told the jury that she was held in secret prisons by US authorities, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported at the time. She informed the jury of how she was shot right after she peeked through a curtain in search of an escape route. She had added that it would be absurd to believe that a soldier would leave his gun where a supposedly dangerous suspect could gain possession of it.

Its too crazy, she said. Its just ridiculous. I didnt do that.

Siddiqui was also asked by a US attorney about the contents of her bag, which allegedly contained chemicals, bomb-making instructions and a list of US targets, Siddiqui said, I cant testify to that, the bag was not mine, so I didnt necessarily go through everything.

Siddiquis attorneys had said at the time that the bag and its contents were planted evidence. Her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, said back in 2008 that Siddiqui had been carrying what amounted to conveniently incriminating evidence.

Of course they found all this stuff on her. It was planted on her. She is the ultimate victim of the American dark side, another one of her attorneys had told the Associated Press in 2008.

While Siddiqui had been prevented from discussing her ordeal prior to 2008, the officer who shot her was permitted to describe how hed been injured in a totally unrelated roadside bombing in Afghanistan, weeping as he told his story. While having absolutely no relevance to the trial, the soldiers wounds were had been invoked in a transparent attempt by prosecutors to influence the jury.

Furthermore, the trial had also been marked by discordant and contradictory testimony from prosecution witnesses. For example, FBI Special Agent Bruce Kamerman had testified that Siddiqui had grabbed the assault rifle in a fit of rage. However, he was clearly frustrated when one of Siddiquis lawyers produced his hand-written notes in which there was no mention of her grabbing the gun.

Despite the tenuous case of the prosecution, Siddiqui was found guilty and sentenced to 86 years in prison, sparking protests across Pakistan.

Aafia Siddiquis daughter Mariam was eventually returned to the family home in 2010, with no explanation of how she got there or where she had been. Siddiquis youngest child, Suleiman, hasnt been seen since 2003 and is presumed dead.

Last year, Aafia Siddiquis sister, Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court in which she stated that she had been denied permission to meet her sister and that only periodic phone calls were allowed with gaps of up to a year. She mentioned that all of her requests to the government regarding her sister had been ignored. Fearing the worst, she also asked the court to direct the Pakistani government to provide an update on her sisters current status, as well as her mental and physical health. On March 14, in response to the petition, the federal government told the court it could not do anything about the situation since Pakistan did not have an extradition treaty with the US.

Prior to his coming to power in 2013, Nawaz Sharif had written a letter to former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani asking him take action for the release of Aafia Siddiqui. Since taking office, however, Sharif has predictably shown little interest in her plight. Siddiqui was probably the last thing on his mind when he met with US President Barack Obama late last year. Indeed, Sharif, who once referred to Siddiqui as the Daughter of the Nation", was keen not to ruffle feathers in Washington amidst improving US-Pakistan relations.

Unfortunately, with a handful of exceptions, the only people consistently taking up this issue are militant Islamists. Over the past few years, various militants have tried to free Siddiqui through prisoner swaps with the US. Last August, the terrorist group Daesh offered to release an American hostage in exchange for Siddiqui, among other demands that were all ultimately rejected.

Pakistans venal and craven elites bear full responsibility for the horrific ordeal of Aafia Siddiqui and her children. One can only hope that the Pakistani working class, long fed up with the reactionary Islamabad-Washington nexus and the grossly unequal social order in the country, will make them pay a heavy price some day.

The writer holds a Master's degree in Political Science from Long Island University. He is a freelance writer and activist based in New York. He can be reached at alimohsin1917@gmail.com








Delhi Media, Why The Silence On UoH?

By Preeti Raghunath

25 March, 2016

Countercurrents.org

Radhika Vemula, Rohith's mother, who was not allowed by Appa Rao and his gang to enter the university campus

to stand with the students of HCU visits one of the students who was brutally beaten up by the police for cooking food

for the students when the messes were shut down

I am only voicing the concerns of many students at the University of Hyderabad (UoH/HCU). This is a delayed reaction since I did feel that perhaps we would eventually get media coverage that is worthy of the kind of situation that HCU is in. I did feel that this was a momentary lapse on the part of the otherwise Breaking-News-hungry news channels. I understand that orders prohibiting media entry into the university premises (or campus as we so fondly call it) have been put up. However, we fail to understand what stops the media from covering/engaging with civil liberties groups and following up on developments on the legal recourse front, even as faculty, lawyers and others concerned are battling it out on our behalf?In fact, students and friends in the city of Hyderabad and other parts of the country are having to field questions about the authenticity of attacks on so many students! They do not believe it is for real! If people have to only go by the 11 words that Facebook puts up as trending news and the slant that it gives, I feel sorry for them.

This is when we look to the media in Delhi to dispel myths, rumours and provide balanced coverage for the country to read/watch, taking into account all sides of the story. We do not even expect them to approach the story in a proactive manner on behalf of unarmed students having to deal with CRPF and Rapid Action Forces on campus. To bring to your notice, the students have had to contend with at least the following:

(a) The shock of the sudden return of an unsympathetic VC and relapse of an administrative culture that chooses to terrorise than talk,

(b) The horror of being held near-hostage in hostels with absolutely no food/water/electricity/internet/provisions/access to toiletries that female students may need/some sympathy, with even food delivery vendors being sent back from the campus gate,

(c) Worries about being at the frail end of a semester that has been extremely disturbing and on-the-edge on account of having lost one of us to administrative apathy,

(d) Living in a city that is currently showing all signs of a water crisis during the upcoming summer season, with the university administration admitting that a 6-day week was followed due to shortage of water in the university area.

After the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula and the subsequent turn of events, it has been a continuous effort on the part of students to half-settle into a routine and study even as they deal with sorrow and anger that has seen no redressal yet. I would leave it to your better judgement to understand why it took time for students caught in the throes of a bad situation like this, to digest and even comprehend undisclosed political developments that are beyond their daily scheme of things. In such a situation, we look to you in the media to convey to the rest of world things that we ourselves cannot. As young idealists looking to enter the real world, which Im sure as aspiring young journalists you too were at some point, we expect to be given fair treatment in terms of being represented in your daily work, viz, reporting newsworthy occurrences in the country. I'm sorry, but if this horrific clampdown on students and the sheer unleashing of violence by university authorities in collusion with the State is not newsworthy enough for media in Delhi, what is?

Our classmates and colleagues, room-mates and hostel-mates are languishing in the Cherlapally jail (last heard), after being carried from one police station to another as if to suggest that all of this is being staged by authorities just before a series of public holidays. The students have tried to capture and upload photos and videos for public viewing, even as they were lathi-charged, stomped upon, thrashed and abused with the choicest of words. Women students were grabbed and molested, and have had to brave filthy language and racist comments --- all of this highly unbecoming of a university campus like ours. Even if you feel the need to draw on popular caricatures that all of us indeed are either children or hooligans/gundas/student politicians who do not study, it shouldnt stop the fourth estate in the National Capital Region from engaging with us and taking voxpopulithat represent diverse views. It also shouldn't stop the civil society in general from picking it up and talking to us about things that are assumed to be beyond our understanding or experience yet. If not now, when?

All of us here are students pursuing degrees in higher education at a prestigious central university, and most of us have had to brave difficult circumstances to reach this level of education at a public university --- a fact that the current circumstances and public judgement certainly do not allow us to take lightly. We do have opinions and world-views that result from our diverse backgrounds, experiences and understanding of the social, economic and political structures that we are all unwittingly a part of. Im sure as citizens of a democracy and educated practitioners of a job that requires responsible and ethical functioning, you do too. Why would you hold this against us? Majority of the students in hostels hail from outside the city of Hyderabad, and have parents and family members who are extremely concerned for their safety. A lot of times, it becomes difficult for them to explain why university authorities have resorted to such measures --- something that even they await to understand. I don't think they deserve this. No student does. At least not from the vanguard of democracy.

Preeti Raghunath is a PhD Researcher in University of Hyderabad, India








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*Editor, South Asia Times, Melbourne. SAT News Service

Indias Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is visiting Australia on a four-day official when he lands in Sydney on March 29. The visit also takes him to Canberra and Melbourne. He will meet the Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, among others during his visit. The visit comes at a time when the biggest ever proposed Indian investment in Australia, the Queensland Carmichael coalmine project, is facing determined opposition from environmentalists and the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people, traditional owners of the proposed mine site in QLDs Galilee Basin. The Queensland Parliament had recently unanimously passed a resolution to support the mega-mine with the Indian mining giant Adani.A Tweet by the Indian Finance Ministry says he is on a mission mainly to attract investment and hold bilaterals. His engagements include addresses at the CEOs Forum and the Make in India conference in Sydney.A Press Information Bureau, New Delhi, media release says one of the main objectives of the Finance Ministers visit to Australia is to attract foreign investment in India especially in Infrastructure sector among others.An expert on the subject, who does not want to be named, says, The fact is that Australia is a capital importing country and so is India. How can two capital importing countries export capital to each other?But media reports indicate Jaitley aims to entice cash-rich Australian super funds to invest in India.The Indian Finance Minister will in Sydney address and have an interactive session at the Sydney Campus of the SP Jain School of Global Management. He will also have a meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Later, Jaitley will inaugurate the Sydney branch of the Union Bank of India.Next day, on March 30, the Finance Minister will deliver the Key Note Address at the Make in India Conference in Sydney. He will also have a meeting with prominent CEOs of Australia. Thereafter, he will have a bilateral meeting with The Hon. Scott Morrison, MP, and Treasurer. In the afternoon, Jaitley will have an interaction with the local Indian community.During his stay in Canberra (March 31), the Finance Minister will have bilateral meetings with Senator Mathias Cormann, Minister for Finance and Peter Vergese, Foreign Secretary. In the afternoon, the Indian Finance Minister will have a meeting with the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) followed by an interaction with ANU Economists and participation in the KR Narayanan Oration at the University.In the evening, Arun Jaitley will address the Indian community at a reception hosted by the High Commissioner of India in Australia in which leading members of Indian community from all major cities of Australia have been invited.On the last leg of his Australia visit, the Indian Finance Minister will be in Melbourne (April 1) where he will meet Peter Coastello, Chairman, Future Fund and will participate in the Invest in India Round Table Conference.He will also attend a signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between FICCI and Australia-India Business Council and have one to one meeting with CEOs of various companies.And in the evening Jaitley will visit the University of Melbourne for participating in a town hall lecture with Professor Craig Jeffrey, CEO and Director of the Australia India Institute and Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of The Australian newspaper. The public lecture will include a lively discussion between the three panel members, with time for questions from the audience.
Alcoa Public Relations Alcoa Warrick smelter employees Trent Wattam, Chris Pillsbury and John Wathen siphon the last bit of metal from Warrick's potlines into a crucible on the final day of production at Alcoa Warrick Operations. Alcoa announced in January that the smelter, open since 1960, would close. About 325 workers will lose their jobs.

By Susan Orr of the Courier and Press

Aluminum manufacturing has officially ceased at Alcoa Warrick Operations.

Thursday marked the final day of production for the Warrick County plant's smelter, which had been in operation since 1960.

Alcoa first announced the shutdown in January, saying that the Warrick smelter was no longer competitive because of a drop in aluminum prices. Affected employees will be paid through April 7.

Some 600 people worked at Alcoa's smelter, but Alcoa said earlier this month that only about 325 employees would actually be laid off. The other workers either found employment elsewhere or accepted severance or retirement package offers.

The plant will continue running its rolling mill and power plant, which employ about 1,200 people.

To mark the shutdown, smelter employees gathered Thursday for a group photo. The workers also received commemorative cast aluminum "coins" as souvenirs.

John Martin, Alcoa's vice president of smelting for the U.S. and Brazil, also visited the Warrick plant Thursday to visit with employees.

In a statement sent to employees and shared with the Courier & Press, Martin thanked the employees for their service.

"There was never another smelter in this state, and our work has always been unique, something admired for the skill and commitment it required," Martin wrote.

Most of those affected by the layoff are members of United Steelworkers Local 104. The union has applied for Trade Adjustment Assistance on its members' behalf, but the U.S. Department of Labor has not yet made a decision on the application. Trade Adjustment Assistance provides job-search, training assistance and other benefits to help laid-off workers find new employment.

The union is also hosting a resource fair for laid-off members next week.

Since ordering a 12-month review of its smelting and refining operations in March of last year, Alcoa has taken several steps to curtail costs in a difficult aluminum market. They include:

Curtailing 74,000 metric tons of smelting capacity in Sao Luis, Brazil

Closing its 96,000-metric-ton smelter in Pocos, Brazil, which had been curtailed since May 2014.

Curtailing its Intalco and Wenatchee smelters, both in Washington State. The two operations had a combined capacity of 373,000 metric tons.

Related Coverage:

Boonville mayor on Alcoa: Its a very, very sad day

Alcoa to close Warrick smelter, 600 jobs affected

Alcoa, union working out details of smelter shutdown impact

Full economic impact of Alcoa smelter shutdown not yet known

Alcoa, union reach agreement on layoffs

Alcoa: Layoff numbers to be less than previously announced

Alcoa Warrick plant to get a new name
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Homesteaders Life Co., located in Des Moines, Iowa, has recognized Carol Pierre Chambers as on of the nation's leading family service coordinators.

Chambers is a family services coordinator for Pierre Funeral Home in Evansville.

As part of the recognition, Chambers was a VIP attendee of the Homesteaders' 2016 Leaders Conference in Panama City, Panama, held March 1-6. She also was appointed a member of the Homesteaders' Leadership Council.

At Pierre, Chambers' duties include providing families with after care resources to help them transition following the death of a loved one.

Chambers holds a bachelor's degree in nursing from Spalding College in Louisville, and also spent more than 20 years in commercial interior design and contract furniture sales.
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By Stan Levco

When it comes to Donald Trump and his nomination as the Republican candidate for president, I am conflicted.

One thing I am not conflicted about: Assuming Donald and Hillary are the nominees, I will unequivocally vote for Hillary. But practically everything else about Trump's candidacy is causing me major issues.

Although it seems very likely he will be nominated, I can't decide if I want that to happen, as I contemplate the November election. I hope he does get nominated, because I think that will mean Hillary will be President. But I'm really afraid that if he does, he might actually win. So I can't decide whether to hope he gets nominated or not.

And putting aside the question of what his candidacy means as opponent for Hillary, I can't even come to a conclusion as to whether I'd rather have him or Cruz be president. I'm convinced I wouldn't like a Cruz presidency but I think Trump has the potential to be worse. And yet I think it's possible it might not be that bad. So I can't even figure out who I like better  or to put it more accurately, who I dislike less.

It looks like there might be a contested convention. I don't know if I want that or not. A contested convention would be fascinating to watch unfold. On the other hand, I think the instability would be bad for the country. And yet, if it's contested, it's possible they might pick someone other than Trump or Cruz, which I want. But then that person would have a better chance to beat Hillary, which I don't want. I think it would be a good thing if Trump or Cruz is not the nominee. But I think it would be unfair if they didn't nominate Donald. So put me down as undecided on a contested convention.

I don't know what to think about the protests at Trump's rallies. I believe many of Trump's words and actions warrant protest. But I don't support shouting down a speaker. But I suppose at some point, offensive rhetoric deserves to be shouted down. I don't believe Trump has reached that point. Yet, it's still hard for me to want all the protests to just fade away. So when I hear about protests, I have mixed emotions.

I can't figure out if Trump really believes some of things he says he believes. Since we know he didn't see thousands of Muslims cheering the destruction of the Twin Towers, he can't really believe he did, can he? And does he really believe that Mexico is going to pay for the wall? But he keeps saying it like he believes it, so maybe he does really believe these things. I can't decide.

When Winston Churchill described Russia as a "riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," he could have been describing my trying to figure out how I feel about Donald Trump's candidacy.

Stan Levco is a former Vanderburgh County prosecutor, elected as a Democrat, and a freelance writer.
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By Len Wells of the Courier and Press

A Norris City, Illinois, man faces a felony charge of criminal damage to government supported property after he allegedly set fire to items in his jail cell at the White County jail in Carmi Thursday morning.

Kenneth D. Corbett, 66 wasn't hurt in the incident, according to law enforcement.

White County Sheriff Doug Maier said jailers heard a commotion coming from Corbett's jail cell about 3:20 a.m. Responding officers found that Corbett had apparently set his blanket and a shirt on fire on the floor.

Jailers used a fire extinguisher to put out the fire. The Carmi Fire Department was called to clear the jail of smoke. Sheriff Doug Maier said it appeared Corbett have been in possession of a small cigarette lighter.

Corbett faces a class-4 felony charge of criminal damage to government supported property and a misdemeanor charge of criminal damage to property.

Corbett was being held in pretrial detention in connection with an earlier criminal damage case in Norris City.
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By Staff Report

Lula Ann Gillespie-Miller thought she was too young to be a mother. So the 28-year-old gave custody of her children to her parents and disappeared.

After a decades-long search that included an exhumed body and an intense search through missing persons record, Gillespie-Miller has been found  and she could be reunited with her family via telephone this holiday weekend.

Gillespie-Miller, originally from Laurel, Indiana, was found in living in south Texas under an alias.

She left Indiana in 1974, shortly after giving birth to her third child, according to a news release from Indiana State Police. With the exception of a letter postmarked from Richmond, Indiana, in 1975, the family hadn't heard from her since.

ISP Detective Sgt. Scott Jarvis took the case in January 2014, after the Doe Network, a website that assists families with missing person's investigations, contacted state police at the Pendleton Post.

Jarvis combed through Richmond Police Department records, and discovered the case of an unidentified dead woman found in 1975. The woman was buried in an unmarked grave in Richmond, and after Jarvis obtained a search warrant, authorities exhumed the body to collect DNA.

Jarvis garnered DNA from Gillespie-Miller's daughter, Tammy Miller, for comparison, but no match was found.

He then latched onto the trail of a woman who had lived in Tennessee in the '80s before moving to Texas. That trail eventually led him to small town in the southern part portion of the state.

Texas Rangers spoke to the woman. She wished to remain anonymous in her new identity, but admitted to authorities that she was Gillespie-Miller, now 69 years old.

Despite her wish for continued anonymity, she allowed authorities to pass along contact information to her daughter. The two hope to speak this Easter weekend.
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Jerry Lawrence

Evansville

We first lost our civility during the Republican presidential debates, now goes the integrity.

I know many Americans are very unhappy about several things this election, religion, immigration and borders most prominent. But folks, do we want as our next president someone who is acting like spoiled school ground bullies?

The last time two "prominent" American leaders were this mad at each other they had a duel.

On July 11, 1804, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton met at 7 a.m. near Weehawken, New Jersey. Only one survived the incident. Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his longtime political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist, detested Burr and often spoke ill of him.

Does that sound familiar?

When Burr ran for the vice presidency in 1796 as Thomas Jefferson's vice president, Hamilton launched a series of public attacks against Burr, stating, "I feel it is a religious duty to oppose his career." Jefferson and Burr lost to John Adams.

In 1800, Jefferson chose Burr again as his running mate. Burr publishing a confidential document that Hamilton had written criticizing his fellow Federalist President John Adams. This caused a rift in the Federalists. Jefferson and Burr won the election

Does that sound familiar?

Under the electoral procedure then prevailing, president and vice president were not voted for separately; the candidate who received the most votes was elected president, and the second in line, vice president. Can you imagine that happening today?

Burr became vice president, but Jefferson grew apart from him, and he did not support Burr's renomination to a second term in 1804. Hamilton campaigned against Burr with great fervor, and Burr lost the nomination. His character was savagely attacked by Hamilton and after the election Burr resolved to restore his reputation by challenging Hamilton to a duel, or an "affair of honor," as they were known.

Even if Trump and Cruz had a duel, there would be no "honor" to be won.

A little integrity on both men's part could go a long way.
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Security News

Telecom Partners Say Cloud Security Is Top Of Mind In Wake Of Verizon Breach

Gina Narcisi and Sarah Kuranda

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Verizon Enterprise Solutions is the latest victim of a data breach that affected more than a million of its enterprise customers, news that partners believe will have wide-ranging implications on telecom and cloud security solutions.

First reported by security journalist Brian Krebs, the breach allowed hackers to collect information on an estimated 1.5 million enterprise clients, including basic contact information. Verizon said in the report that no customer proprietary network information or other data was accessed. The data was found for sale on an underground cyberforum.

The breach drives home the point that no company is immune to data security breaches, said Andrew Pryfogle, senior vice president of cloud transformation for Petaluma, Calif .-based Intelisys, a Verizon master agent partner.

[Related: CRN Exclusive: Verizon Channel Chief Famularo Is Moving On, VP Schijns Set To Lead Carrier Channel]

"If one of the leading providers of cloud security solutions in the world can itself be compromised, then anybody can be," Pryfogle said.

The exact cause of the breach remains unclear, but the Basking Ridge, N.J.-based company told CRN that it had recently found and fixed a vulnerability in its enterprise client portal that a hacker used to collect basic contact information on the carriers enterprise clients. No consumer customers were impacted, a spokesperson for Verizon said.

Verizon said that it is now notifying the affected enterprise customers. The carrier did not respond to CRNs question regarding whether any partners were working with the enterprise customers impacted by the breach.

Verizon isnt the only telecom company to be hit by a data breach in recent months.In October, British telecom company TalkTalk disclosed a breach that affected approximately 4 million of its customers, exposing credit card information, names, addresses and dates of birth. TerraCom and YourTel America were also hit by breaches in 2015, although they were not as extensive.

However, despite multiple recent telecom breaches, Jane Wright, senior analyst covering security at Technology Business Research, said she doesn't view the incident as a foreshadowing of more breaches in telecom providers.

I dont see it as the beginning of a trend toward more breaches at telecom providers. Like so many other companies that hold customer information  not just telecom providers -- Verizon was a target for hackers looking to profit from reselling contact information such as names, titles and email addresses, Wright said.

Wright added that there is also likely an element of hackers looking to outsmart security researchers. Verizon has established itself as both a thought leader in security with its annual Verizon Data Breach Report and making security offerings available through the channel, such as its Rapid Response Retainer that VARs and agents can use to help customers respond to vulnerabilities and breaches with assessments, forensics and professional services.

What the breach does point to is a continued trend toward attacking large companies, while many security experts expected to see attacks start moving downstream in 2016, said Michael Gray, vice president of technology at Tewksbury, Mass.-based managed service provider Thrive Networks.

I think we were wondering if attacks were going to start going downmarket from the bigger companies, just because their radar is up just a little bit more. But, clearly theyre not shying away, he said. Thrive Networks is owned by telecom services provider MetTel.

While the cause of the breach has not been officially confirmed by Verizon, Thrive Networks Gray said the telecom giant, like many enterprises, is in a tough position when it comes to security because of its extensive network of agents and third-party partners. Gray said this could point to a continued trend toward breaches caused by and for third-party attacks, comparing it to the infamous Target breach in 2013.

Its just such a massive network to keep track of. Even just beyond the ISP services, everyone is working with Verizon, Gray said.

For partners, the Verizon breach emphasizes the opportunity around cloud security for telecom agents, Intelisys Pryfogle said. He said cloud security needs to be top of mind for every CIO this year, and those who dont heed the call will regret it.

"Sales partners who don't start having these conversations with their customers will miss out on a massive revenue opportunity," he said.

From an MSP standpoint, Thrive Networks Gray said the breach also emphasizes the opportunity around security training services, which can help clients combat attack vectors such as phishing that often are the cause of many data breaches.

This space thats opening up is great. It doesnt so much concentrate on how I can have a trickier lock, but how to train the people inside the house to be more aware of where the breach would occur. ... You need to focus on both, Gray said.

David DeCamillis, vice president of sales and marketing at Denver-based Platte River Networks, agreed, saying said in an email that the breach shows companies of all sizes need to be more proactive about protecting their infrastructures and data.

They need to deploy multiple security tools to block, detect, isolate and remove these ongoing threats. The cybercriminals are continually developing and improving their methods so companies need to be just as aggressive on their end, DeCamillis said.
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John G. Rowland still has expensive taste.

As Connecticuts governor, it was for Cuban cigars, custom suits, wine lockers and tropical junkets  bribes that resulted in his resignation and imprisonment.

A dozen years later, its for lawyers  the best that money can buy.

Whose money is the mystery confounding politicians and lawyers throughout the state, who conservatively estimate that Rowlands legal bills in his ongoing campaign fraud case exceed $500,000.

Despite public representations that his familys savings has been wiped out by legal bills, Rowland has scraped together the funds for a trial and appeal, a feat that some say highlights the staying power and connections of even scandal-plagued politicians.

They can land on their feet in ways that mere mortals like you and I cant, said Todd Fernow, the longtime director of the Criminal Clinic at the University of Connecticut Law School.

The campaign fraud case led to a second felony conviction for Rowland, who is facing 30 months in prison for getting paid under the table as a political consultant on the 2012 congressional campaign of fellow Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley.

The 58-year-old Rowland remains free on appeal bond while his bid for a new trial is decided by a federal court in Manhattan, in a process that began last year. Rowland is being represented by Andrew Fish, a former prosecutor who specializes in white-collar criminal cases and is said by multiple legal sources to command $800 to $1,000 in hourly fees.

Neither Rowland nor Fish responded to requests for comment from Hearst Connecticut Media.

Finding the money

One plausible explanation for how Rowland is able to afford a marquee defense is that a secret network of benefactors and political allies is helping him, according to several people familiar with the dynamics of the high-profile case. They say it wouldnt be unusual for there to be a legal defense fund or for payments to be made directly to Rowlands lawyers.

Someones picking up the tab for all this stuff, said a top-level source close to the investigation of Rowland.

If anyone can schmooze people into chipping in for his defense, it would be Rowland, said James Bergenn, a Hartford lawyer who volunteered to speak on Rowlands behalf at last years sentencing. A self-identified Democrat, Bergenn empathized with Rowland after the former governor counseled his clients about prison life.

He still may be the most talented natural politician that weve seen in our lifetime in Connecticut, Bergenn said. I believe there may be some people who are contributing.

Rowland is also widely believed to be tapping his retirement nest egg to cover his legal bills, which multiple people familiar with the workings of the case say subjected Rowland to a 10 percent tax on early distributions because hes under 59 1/2 years old.

The youngest governor in Connecticut history who was elected to three terms, Rowland is drawing $52,748 in annual pension payments from the state, according to a spokeswoman for the comptrollers office. He also receives medical, dental and prescription coverage, which costs state taxpayers about $2,000 a month. When he turns 62, Rowland will become eligible for a $9,000 annual federal pension for the six years he served in Congress.

Rowland is exempt from a state pension revocation law for public officials convicted of corruption, however, because it was passed after his resignation and imprisonment for accepting bribes from state contractors.

Since the twilight of his tenure as governor, Rowland has surrounded himself with an all-star team of lawyers, including William Dow III, the New Haven attorney who handled Rowlands impeachment trial. But its unclear whether Dow, who declined to comment, was paid for his services.

Said one of Dows peers in the legal community, All of us get burned.

Rowlands last known source of work income was his radio-host gig on WTIC-AM, which he relinquished in April 2014 after he was indicted for campaign fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Before that, he was economic development director for the Chamber of Commerce in his native Waterbury, a $100,000-a-year job that he held from 2008 to 2012.

Over the last two years, weve lost our savings, Rowlands wife, former Connecticut first lady Patty Rowland, told a judge last March at his sentencing. John has lost all he worked for and all he valued.

One of Rowlands closest confidantes is said by many people to be Fritz Blasius, owner of Loehmann Blasius Chevrolet Cadillac in Waterbury. In 2015, Blasius purchased the Chippanee Country Club in Bristol, where a source said Rowland may have found employment.

Hes not here right now, said a person answering the phone at the club Thursday.

Blasius did not respond to a request for comment.

People who have watched Rowland over the years know that he has connections with people who have been willing to financially support him through tough times. Is this one of those times? said Scott McLean, a political science professor at Quinnipiac University in Hamden.

Rowlands case centers on whether he conspired with Wilson-Foley to hide his work on her 5th District campaign from the Federal Election Commission by receiving $35,000 in payments from a nursing home owned by the candidates husband, Brian Foley.

Possible discounts

Prosecutors say Rowland pitched a similar sham to GOP congressional candidate Mark Greenberg in 2010, but was rebuffed by the Litchfield businessman. The proposed contract was a key piece of evidence in their case that Rowland falsified documents, which is illegal under a 2002 law known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

You could have 10 associates working 10,000 hours each just to get to the bottom of Sarbanes-Oxley, Fernow said.

Because of Rowlands stature and the sluggish economy, some say its not out of the question that Rowlands lawyers could be willing to accept less.

Representing a governor is a good thing for a person in this business, Bergenn said. Good lawyers who have kind of made enough, who are not afraid whether theyll make their mortgage, theyre actually motivated in these kind of cases.

Reid Weingarten, the Washington, D.C.-based power lawyer who represented Rowland during the trial phase of the case, did not respond to a request for comment. His other clients have included Roman Polanski, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Some members of the legal community frowned upon the idea of a Rowland discount.

I dont think the price tag can or should take into account the infamy of your client, Fernow said. Ethically and tactically, standing on the shoulders of your criminal-defendant client is not a great way to sell yourself.

But another variable perhaps working in Rowlands favor, some say, is his earning potential on the public speaking circuit or from a future book deal.

Hell find ways to make money, Fernow said.

neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
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BRUSSELS (AP)  At least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week's attacks in Brussels, a U.S. official said Friday, as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Speaking after meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Kerry said the "United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks."

He did not give a specific number but a senior official said the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths in Tuesday's attacks. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not have further details.

"The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy,:" Kerry said, adding that the world will not relent in its fight against the Islamic State group, which has claimed the attacks.

"We - all of us representing countless nationalities - have a message for those who inspired or carried out the attacks here or in Paris, or Ankara, or Tunis, or San Bernardino, or elsewhere: We will not be intimidated," he said. "We will not be deterred. We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Talking to reporters, Kerry said the reason the Islamic State group "is resorting to actions outside the Middle East is that its fantasy of a caliphate is collapsing before their eyes; it's territory is shrinking. Its leaders are decimated. Its revenue sources are dwindling, and its fighters are fleeing.

Michel thanked Kerry for his visit, calling it a powerful message of solidarity. "It is very important for us today to receive your support," he said. He offered condolences for the American victims and vowed to step up counter-terrorism cooperation with the U.S. and others.

Kerry said he offered the prayers of the American people for "these people who have suffered inconceivable losses."

"Those whose lives were torn apart this week were not combatants in any conflict," the secretary said.

Kerry landed earlier Friday at the still-closed Brussels airport for a brief, hastily scheduled stop from Moscow, where he said the attacks underscored the urgency of unity in the fight against the Islamic State group. The group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombings at the airport departure terminal and a downtown Metro stop that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

The Belgian Embassy, not long after Kerry's arrival, sent a Twitter message calling his stop here an example of "the solidarity of the American people which goes right to our heart."
I think Governor Malloy should be commended for deciding that after six years in office, two of the largest tax increases in state history and an ever increasing budget deficit, that its time to cut spending.

However, he is still dodging the bullet by cutting the most important services: hospitals,and the helpless, schools and social services. The cutbacks should be in the cost of government.

Connecticut has one of the highest costs of government in the nation.

We have more state employees per capita than states much larger than us  see New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Savings are going to have to come on the employee side and state employees know it, the well is dry on the revenue side.

State employees are rightly concerned about preserving their paycheck and they should be.

Layoffs seem inevitable but they can be minimized if concessions are made on key areas  health care, retirement, bonuses, duplication and raises.

By agreeing to concessions on these sacred cow issues, state employees are preserving their paychecks by preserving their jobs, lowering their own tax burden and creating a sustainable state government.

Ron Rubano

Trumbull
Many Connecticut residents still dont know that by the end of this year, Anthem Insurance Co. and Cigna may merge, forcing us all into a dire situation.

Anthem currently provides health insurance to about 1.1 million state residents and Cigna covers just short of half a million. If the proposed Anthem-Cigna merger is approved, the resulting mega-insurer will cover 64 percent of covered lives in Connecticut. Anthem and Cigna have policyholders in 27 states.

Additionally, Aetna, with a Connecticut enrollment of about 500,000, is proposing to merge with Kentucky-based Humana, and recent news accounts speculate that it is contemplating moving its headquarters out of Connecticut.

We at the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut are concerned about what this could mean for Connecticut residents.

Mergers are justified on the basis of increased efficiency and opportunity for innovation, but past experience doesnt uphold those claims. They should be carefully questioned, because they can be expected to increase health insurance premiums, and cause deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance out-of-pocket costs to spike.

Cost is already a major reason why consumers put off care. A Consumers Union poll found that costs are a top of mind worry for consumers, whether they are insured or not. Thirty-five percent of respondents reported relying on home remedies or over-the-counter drugs instead of going to see the doctor when sick. Another 27 percent did not fill a prescription for needed medicine.

In addition, The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that for Connecticut, the average combined employee contributions to health insurance and deductibles doubled from 4.2 percent of income to 8.8 percent between 2003 and 2013, as a percent of median household income. Workers are faced with increasing cost-sharing shifted to them by employers, many of whom are self-insured, and contract insurers to provide administrative services. The use of high deductible plans, widely viewed as under-insurance, has taken off.

Final resolution of the insurer mergers is in a holding pattern. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently reviewing them to determine whether they violate antitrust laws by reducing market competition. These four companies cover almost 90 million people. Federal law prohibits mergers when the effect may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.

Some observers think all eyes are on Connecticut with how the Anthem-Cigna merger is handled here, given the market concentration that can be expected. Connecticut statutes require our insurance commissioner, Katherine Wade, to evaluate the financial solvency of the merging companies and the benefit to policyholders.

It is not yet clear when there will be a public hearing called in Connecticut. We do know that there has to be 30 days public notice. In the past, similar public hearings have been held at times and locations inaccessible to most consumers. They do accept testimony online, but few people provide it. It is our hope that the Insurance Department will convene a series of hearings throughout the state at venues and times designed to facilitate robust public participation and input.

All consumers should have the right to learn what these proposed mergers mean to their families, themselves and the market in general. Any insured individual should be allowed to, in an open and public process, express their support or dissatisfaction with a plan by the major insurance companies that could permanently alter the delivery of health care in our state.

Frances G. Padilla is president of Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut. Padilla serves on the Governor's SustiNet health reform board.
DANBURY  For more than three decades, area resident Larry Thompson has had a passion for fine art, collecting signed lithographs and other works from masters including Salvatore Dali and Andy Warhol.

It began when Thompson worked near New York Citys Greenwich Village in the early 1980s, when he would stop into galleries on his lunch break. Recently, Thompson has decided to turn his hobby into a business. For more than a year, Thompson has been working out the logistics for his vision: artwork for sale that can be displayed on a television screen at venues throughout the world.
Somerset jury finds two of three defendants guilty of murder

Now in its fifth day of testimony and seventh day overall, the double murder trial taking place in Somerset County is now over. The jury decided.
Leesburg Electric: With prices soaring, late fees are being waived

Prices are up, so Leesburg Electric has decided that, as of Oct. 1, late fees will be waived.
Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, yesterday warned leaving the EU will cause fuel bills to rocket by 500million a year

Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, yesterday warned us that leaving the EU will lead to an electric shock in the markets, causing fuel bills to rocket by 500million a year.

She also compared the impact of Brexit to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan  the result of an earthquake and tsunami that cost 1,600 lives.

Indeed, she only just stopped short of predicting the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse if the out campaign wins the referendum.

This shameless rhetoric would have been deplorable in any context. That it should come from the cabinet minister responsible for Britains energy policy beggars belief.

According to Ms Rudd, a report by the independent National Grid says there would be a 500million increase in energy prices following Brexit. In fact, the report said it could happen, not that it would.

She also insisted that EU membership has kept Britains power bills down. The reality is that the European Commission itself says energy bills will rise in all scenarios.

Moreover, EU energy regulation costs the UK about 90billion.

As for her prediction that Russias President Putin will raise gas prices if we quit Europe, the fact is that we import our gas mostly from Norway  and, increasingly, America.

To add insult to injury, Ms Rudds deputy, Andrea Leadsom, spoke out yesterday about scaremongering by the Remain camp.

One thing the Energy Secretary did not mention is that her brother Roland Rudd, head of a wealthy City public relations firm, is a leading light of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign.

We have no idea if Mr Rudd had a hand in this PR debacle. But one thing is depressingly clear.

Project Fear still prefers histrionic scare stories to the reasoned debate that the British public deserves.

Our safety at stake

Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, forcefully argued this week that Brexit would make Britain safer

Yet more evidence has emerged of the astonishing bungling by the Belgian intelligence services, which ignored repeated warnings that one of this weeks airport suicide bombers was linked to Islamic State.

He had twice been deported from Turkey for his jihadist activities  yet was allowed to remain at large in Brussels.

Such security negligence at the heart of Europe surely makes a nonsense of the Governments argument that voting out puts us in more danger.

Indeed, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, forcefully argued this week that Brexit would make Britain safer.

He said we would have greater control over our borders  and could pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights, which places obstacles in the way of extraditing extremists.

Sir Richard added persuasively that it was extremely unlikely EU countries would break off relations with us, as we give them far more information from the world-class GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 than we receive in return.

Is it really conceivable that, with bombs exploding everywhere, they would risk their national security just because we have left the Brussels club?

Meanwhile, someone should explain all this to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, head of the Metropolitan Police, who has been parroting the line that we are safer in the EU.

We take the old-fashioned view that policemen should catch criminals, not express political opinions.
Sunday's edition of Desert Island Discs carries a pusillanimous warning from the BBC that the guest, shoe repair chain boss John Timpson, will express Brexit views. Listeners are assured: 'The programme will also feature a castaway with alternative EU views before the referendum of June 23.' So who'll be their Remain guest  the Prime Minister, David Cameron? He persists in making the outrageous claim that  since his futile negotiations  the EU is 'reformed'.

Sunday's edition of Desert Island Discs will hear from shoe repair chain boss John Timpson (pictured above)

News about actor Laurence Fox's unfortunate marital split, after nine years, from screen beauty Billie Piper comes days after his thespian uncle, Edward Fox, ruffled feminist feathers by remarking: 'Women should be more understanding if their partner cheats.' Might this be why nephew Laurence made a point of announcing that 'no third parties are involved' in his estrangement from shapely Billie?

John Cleese, 76, who is performing with Monty Python colleague Eric Idle in New Zealand, upset Kiwi hosts in 2006 by saying the city of Palmerston North was an ideal place to commit suicide. The mayor, Heather Tanguay, responded by suggesting he needed 'more medication'. Idle, 72, now reflects, somewhat unhelpfully: 'They've named their rubbish dump after him. I believe it's called Mount Cleese.'

Prince William's trip to Africa for the wedding of former girlfriend Jecca Craig contradicts palace factotums who say he can't do many royal duties on his days off from flying because he's required to rest. Happily, it allows his wife, Kate, and two children to avoid Easter weekend in draughty Windsor Castle. 'HM might be relieved, too,' says a royal source. 'Having toddlers around is a strain. Dropped ornaments aren't easily replaced. After several near-misses the late Queen Mother stopped putting her Faberge eggs on display.'

After 82-year-old Baroness (Joan) Bakewell's confessions about her sexual awakening  she loved back-of-the-bus 'snogging' as a teenager  classy actress Geraldine James, 65, recalls her own misspent youth at Downe House girls' boarding school in Berkshire, confiding in Saga, the old folks magazine: 'I was sent home for inviting a boyfriend up to my room for 'cocoa'. I then arranged to meet another one but the headmistress found out and met him instead. He got quite a shock.'

Labour's 'terrible twins'  MPs Angela and Maria Eagle, 55,  are placed in different camps over loyalty to the party's unpopular leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Shadow first secretary of state Angela, pictured right, is seen as 'Neutral' while sacked shadow defence secretary Maria is 'Negative'. As they usually sing from the same hymn sheet, is this correct? A Westminster source says: 'No, put them down as 'Assassins'.'
A teenage blogger who does not identify themselves as being either male or female has told of the difficulties they face as a result of society's prejudices.

Courtney Keesee, 18, from southern Virginia, describes themselves as non-binary genderqueer or genderfluid because although the vast majority of the time they do not feel male or female, sometimes they feel slightly more masculine or feminine.

Courtney, who prefers to be referred to with plural pronouns such as 'they' or 'their' rather than 'he' or 'she', writes about sexuality and living with mental illness and is a member of the board for mental health nonprofit Stigma Fighters.

Genderfluid: Courtney Keesee, 18, pictured here in a look that they consider 'neutral', says they do not identify as male or female

Writing on Your Tango, they said: 'My gender expression changes. I'm non-binary genderqueer/genderfluid.

'I use the two terms interchangeably because, while 99 per cent of the time I don't feel like a girl or boy, some days I do feel a little more feminine or a little more masculine. And it shows in the way I dress, style my hair, and act.

'Most of the time, however, people question my gender  and that's how I like it.

'I always consider myself non-binary because I never feel 100 percent female or male. I'm more of a combination of what we feel a man and woman to be.

'Usually, I reject the male and female terms completely. But as I said, [I] sometimes feel a little feminine.'

On days when they feel either more feminine or more masculine - and as a result this is reflected in their appearance - it can be difficult to go out, Courtney said, because they fear being referred to as 'she' or 'he'.

Days when they feel 'neutral' can also lead to complications. Courtney said they have been threatened and accused of being a 'pervert' for using the women's bathroom.

Courtney wrote: 'On days where I feel masculine or even neutral, I fear expressing that.

'If I have to go to the bathroom in public and walk into the women's restroom, people question it. I've even been kicked out before.'

Neither female nor male: Courtney, who describes themselves as non-binary genderqueer/genderfluid, said on days when they look like this, pictured above, they find it difficult to go out in case somebody mistakenly labels them as 'she'

On other days Courtney said they feel more masculine and dress that way, as pictured above, making it hard to leave the house for fear of 'misgendering'

Courtney added: 'Even though I dress one way (and feel happy dressing as such!), I'm fearful of how others will label me based on their personal perception of my gender...

'And a lot of times when I look more like this  a look I consider neutral  people ask about gender instead of making assumptions. Sometimes they attack me.

'Once a woman threatened to drag me out of the women's bathroom because she felt I was a pervert and I didn't have the "physical parts" I needed to in order to use it. (This was an exception; most people ask before assuming.)'

If on some days Courtney dresses more feminine, they said it does not make them 'less non-binary'.

They added: 'Being non-binary means you aren't completely masculine or feminine. It's an umbrella term, for people who fall somewhere between male and female on the gender spectrum.

'It's hard to explain that just because I look a little more like a girl  or what society believes a girl should look like  that I'm still non-binary. I still don't feel 100-per cent girl.

'On days where I look like this, I find it hard to go out. Because I can expect a lot of people to make their assumptions and label me "she".'

They said gender expression and gender are both 'open concepts' and urged people to do what makes them happy:
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You'd be forgiven for thinking it was the plot of a soap opera.

Taiwanese actor and former boy band member Nicky Wu has been forced to remarry, then re-divorce his ex-wife Ma Yashu before he could tie the knot with his new wife, Liu Shishi, the Shanghaiist reports.

Mr Wu, 45, and Ms Yashu, 40, were first married for three years, from 2006-2009.

Long awaited kiss: Taiwanese actor and former boy band member Nicky Wu has married Liu Shishi in Bali, after being forced to remarry and divorce his ex wife Ma Yashu

Legal loophole: Mr Wu and his ex wife, actress Ms Yashu, were first married for three years from 2006-2009, but they never registered their marriage in Taiwan

Complex: Apparently Mr Wu and Ms Yashu never registered their marriage in Taiwan because Mr Wu was 'interrogated like a criminal' when making a visa application for his then wife

To make matters even more complex, Ms Yashu, who is an actress herself, married Australian billionaire James Robert Hayes in 2010.

According to an interview Mr Wu's mother did with media outlet, the Taiwan Apple Daily, the couple were forced to remarry and re-divorce due to an unusual set of legal requirements in the country.

Apparently Mr Wu and Ms Yashu never registered their marriage in Taiwan during the three years they were together, because Mr Wu was 'interrogated like a criminal' when making a visa application for his then wife.

Moving on: Actress Ma Yashu went on to marry Australian billionaire James Robert Hayes in 2010

Bizarre legalities: For Mr Wu and his current wife Ms Shishi's wedding to be legal, he was forced to remarry his ex wife, register their marriage in Taiwan, and subsequently get divorced again

Happily ever after: Despite the confusing legalities that surrounded his previous marriage, Mr Wu and his new wife Ms Shishi wed in a lavish ceremony in Bali on Sunday

Off-screen romance: The couple met on the set of the Chinese television series Scarlet Heart in 2011, and announced their marriage in January 2015

It appears because of this oversight, Mr Wu and Ms Yashu were required to remarry, register their marriage in Taiwan, and then re-divorce so that Mr Wu and Ms Shishi's nuptials were legal in the country.

Mr Wu and Ms Shishi, who is 29, met on the set of the Chinese television series Scarlet Heart in 2011. It is unclear if they became romantically involved at this time or later.

Mr Wu announced on his weibo page in January 2015 that the two had registered their marriage in Beijing, but the wedding ceremony was only held in Bali on Sunday.

Emotional moment: Ms Shishi cried during the ceremony as her new husband spoke of his love for her

In China, the legal element of a wedding must be completed in the offices of the Civil Affairs Bureau, so many couples choose to officially marry before proceeding to hold a ceremony and party the following weekend or later, according to the Travel China Guide.

It is possible the unusual circumstances that surrounded Mr Wu's previous marriage and subsequent divorce was the reason behind the 14-month delay between the marriage and the ceremony.

The wedding was held at the luxurious Ayana Resort and Spa in Bali, which sits on a cliff edge and has stunning views.

Long-awaited nupials: Their marriage was registered in Beijing in January 2015, but the AU$4 million wedding was held on Sunday at the luxurious Ayana Resort and Spa in Bali

Wedded bliss: The couple had both a traditional Chinese ceremony and a more Western style ceremony

Approximately 350 guests attended the wedding, which reportedly cost more than 20 million yuan, or AU$4 million.

The wedding was held outside with thousands of white, blue and pink flowers decorating the clifftop space. Ms Shishi cried during the ceremony as her new husband spoke of his love for her.

During the ceremony, Ms Shishi wore a white strapless gown with a full lace skirt and veil. For the reception, the new bride changed into a traditional red Chinese dress with delicate flower beading.
Architect and TV presenter George Clarke has been criticised on social media for his failure to intervene when a couple were quoted 80,000 over their budget for renovations.

Administrator and part-time music teacher, Denise, and her husband, Ali, an IT consultant, bought their three bed former council house in Croydon for 225,000 ten years ago, but it was an eyesore on the street because of additions made by previous owners.

The couple appeared on last night's Ugly House To Lovely House on Channel 4, but viewers were shocked because George didn't bat an eyelid when they went 80,000 over their budget of 120,000 to modernise the property.

Viewers took to Twitter to hit out at the presenter, who is also an architect and builder, for not doing anything to discourage the couple from such a huge overspend.

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Denise and Ali spent 200,000 having their home in Croydon transformed into a light and spacious home on Channel 4's Ugly House To Lovely House. But presenter George Clarke has been criticised for not encouraging the couple to stick to their original 120,000 budget

Veiwers took to Twitter to criticise presenter George, who is also an architect and builder, for not doing anything to discourage the couple from such a huge overspend

While George fronts the programme and doesn't take an advisory role with the couples transforming their homes on the show, viewers took him to task for couples' cash crises.

Bernice Rawlings tweeted to say that she wouldn't trust the architect with her house, adding: 'Has anybody ever seen a George Clarke property programme where he sticks to the budget?'

F1ddlest1x was also unimpressed, saying: 'I'm sorry George Clarke is not doing his career status any good with this burying people neck deep in debt stick to a budget.'

Denise and Ali's council property was built around a green in 1929 as part of a move to provide homes for the working classes at the time.

But the last century was far from kind to the property, as various owners added extensions and made incohesive alternations - including replacing white render with brown peddle dashing on the front.

Their 1920's council house stood out for the wrong reasons with grey pebble dash and white render exterior

Channel 4's Ugly House to Lovely House sees the couple's journey transforming both interior and exterior of their home in Croydon

Ali joked that the previous owners of the house must have 'been on psychedelic drugs' when they renovated the property, adding a ramshackle porch to the front and PVC conservatory to the rear.

Denise said as a result, the home they share with their two children was an eyesore on their street among the other characterful twenties properties.

Inside, the rooms were dark and gloomy, giving the family little storage or living space.

Denise said: 'The original house is lost, there is no cohesive and it is very dark, it is a bit of a cave.

Denise described their home they share with their two children is an eyesore on their street among the other characterful twenties properties

When summing their home Ali described the building as 'dark, dank and ugly.' Pictured: The dining area

The family complained of having little living space but the renovation has seen the rooms filled with space and light. Pictured: The sitting room

'Our house stands out on the street and not for good reasons. I pull up on the drive and I dislike it.'

Ali agreed summing their home up as 'dark, dank and ugly.' He added: 'Years of modification have destroyed the charm it once had.'

Award winning architect Jo Cowen agreed to visit the home and design a new layout for the family as part of the Channel 4 show. The couple would then have to pay out of their own pocket to bring it to fruition.

Having previously worked for Rogers, Stirk and Harding and Foster and Partners, Jo's projects have included a wide range of London properties including the British Museum, the Leadenhall Building and JP Morgans tower at Canary Wharf.

The upstairs is transformed with a loft conversion adding a dormer for additional bedroom space (pictured)

The couple opted for an open-plan kitchen and dining area in order to optimise space with sky lights adding much needed light to the area

The cramped utility space now contributes to the expansive down stairs extension

In order to complete the renovation the couple went 80,000 over budget from their original 120,000 budget

She said drab homes like Ali and Denise's could be transformed with a little inspired design.

She said: 'There is a lot of ordinary in the UK - architects could play a real role in rejuvenating this kind of building stock rather than the unsustainable alternative of knocking it down and starting again.'

George agreed saying of Ali and Denise's property: 'When I first saw their home it was a sad and tired dysfunctional mess, it had been slowly strangled by ugly alternations and additions.

'The ugly pebble dash has destroyed the 1920s facade. It needs an architect with real vision to resurrect the 1920s charm and make it a light and spacious home.'

Veiwers took to Twitter to criticise presenter George, who is also an architect and builder, for not doing anything to discourage the couple from such a huge overspend

The family loved Jo's vision of a tired ground floor space created using a striking glazed extension to rear using steel-framed Crittal windows.

The upstairs would then be transformed with a loft conversion adding a dormer for additional bedroom space.

However, they learned that the cost of creating their dream home was going to be far beyond their original budget of 120,000.

By the time it was complete, they admitted they had spent more than 200,000 and had a 'lots of sleepless nights.'

George Clarke has come in for criticism for not reacting when a couple spent 80,000 over their original budget or giving them any advice on managing their costs

Viewers were unimpressed by George's failure to intervene with Anna McNally tweeting that she'd stopped watching his programmes because she'd 'seen him encourage people to overspend so many times.'

OVERSPENDING ON UGLY HOUSE TO LOVELY HOUSE In the first episode of this series, Tony and his wife Sarah went almost a third over their planned 60,000 budget while renovating their 1970s pebbledashed home in the Vale of Glamorgan. Their extension took them 25,000 over budget - some of which, admitted Tony, he would have to fund with credit cards. Tammy and Stuart's had a 50,000 budget for renovating their outdated bungalow in a West Sussex village. The couple who featured in last week's show ended up spending a total of 90,000. Advertisement

Sabrina Gray felt it was unfair that he'd allowed Ali to show them a plan over their budget, while Sarah Elwick said it was 'a joke'.

'Adding over 60,000 to their original budget puts people under huge financial pressure and stress.'

990-6907XB71 was particularly perturbed, tweeting several times throughout the show.

'George Clarke always has time to arrange to see homeowners, but never enough time to advise them on how to STAY ON BUDGET,' he wrote.

'Not 200,000 he said over 200,000 and no reaction from George Clarke other than nods. Afraid of getting cancelled?

'The only people who praise Ugly House are those without any knowledge of money management or architectural taste.'

Tightbeat was also irritated, saying. 'No, their budget is 120,000. You were not listening.'

Chriscarpenter agreed, adding: 'I am very annoyed by this architect she has completely disregarded the constraints of the clients budget.'

As well as being unhappy about the overspend others felt anything over 100,000 was too much for a refurbishment budget in the first place

Others were shocked at even the idea of spending 120,000 in the first place with ShermanScotty pointing out that it certainly wasn't 'a tight budget'.

Mavis McMabisface expressed the same view, saying she should have 'binned the episode'.

But the couple insisted it was all worth it and they now love their transformed home - which they have no intention of selling in the near future.

Ali said: 'Yes it has been stressful and we are borrowing a lot but we are building a forever house, it is not something in two years that we will sell and go and live somewhere else.'

Others felt anything over 100,000 was too much for a refurbishment budget in the first place

He added they are delighted with the end result and have no regrets.

Denise agreed that she loved their new home which had been transformed into a bright and spacious dwelling.

Light flooded into the back thanks to the steel-framed Crittal windows while the well-thought out extension and loft conversion meant they had plenty of room for living. Their once tired kitchen was been replaced with an open plan one with all mod cons.
'Someone must have red ears,' a Facebook user commented on the video

Only then did two men emerge from the building to greet the princess

A press photographer ended up opening the door instead

When she got to the front door, there was no one there to meet her

Mary faced a barrage of media alone to walk to the shelter's entrance

When Princess Mary stepped out to continue her charity work in Denmark, there was little fanfair.

In fact, apart from the barrage of media that follow the Australian-born royal's every move, there was no one to greet the Princess on her official visit to a shelter in Odense.

The Danish royal was seen walking alone to the entrance of the shelter before one of the assembled press photographers opened the door to let her in.

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A royal blunder: Princess Mary was greeted with the sight of a closed door upon a charity visit to a shelter

The proper way to greet a princess? The door was opened by one of the press photographers, after Mary stood waiting to be met by the shelter's members

Only then did representatives of the organisation step outside to meet the princess, hastily shaking hands.

While Mary waited just a moment for the door to be opened, it is a far cry from the royal protocol that traditionally surrounds a member of the royal family, who are used to arriving at events to a welcome party.

But a down-to-earth Mary appeared to take the lack of formality in her stride, sharing a laugh with the two men before stepping inside.

Finally: The men then appeared at the door to welcome the Danish princess to the premises

All smiles: Mary didn't seem to mind the somewhat awkward meeting as she laughed and shook hands with the men

'Someone must had red ears': Despite the non-traditional welcome a down-to-earth Mary appeared thrilled to be visiting the shelter

A video of the exchange was shared on the Facebook page: Daily news about Crown Princess Mary and her family.

'Hmm someone must have red ears,' one person wrote on the video.

'Welcome committee lost time and wasn't in place in time to receive the Crown Princess.'

Charity work: Princess Mary and members of The Mary Foundation met with mothers who had been exposed to violence

Helping hand: Mary's foundation aims to give vulnerable women and children a voice

Princess Mary visited the crisis shelter in Odense, a city of Denmark, on March 15 where she and members of The Mary Foundation met with mothers who had been exposed to violence.

The 44-year-old mother-of-four has worked tirelessly through her foundation to support victims of domestic violence, and her foundation's mission is to give vulnerable women and children a voice.
Bristol Palin and her ex-fiance Dakota Meyer appear to be putting their bitter custody battle behind them, as the mother-of-two took to Instagram on Thursday evening to share an image of the Marine with their daughter during his first official visit to see the three-month-old.

Alongside the image, which was taken by Dakota and sees him standing in what appears to be a hotel hallway with Sailor strapped into a baby carrier on his chest, 25-year-old Bristol wrote: 'Too cute not to share.'

Her seemingly sweet post comes just days after Daily Mail Online exclusively revealed that decorated Marine Dakota, 27, had traveled 3,600 miles, braving a brutal Alaska blizzard, in order to visit his daughter for the first time since he and Bristol reached a custody agreement.

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Doting dad: Bristol Palin shared this image of her ex-fiance Dakota Meyer with their daughter Sailor Grace on her Instagram account on Thursday in what appeared to be a gesture of goodwill following their custody battle

Quite the occasion: 27-year-old Dakota met his three-month-old daughter for the first time over the weekend after hashing out a custody agreement with Bristol, 25, Daily Mail Online exclusively revealed

Spot the difference? Dakota's mirror selfie bears a remarkable resemblance to once taken by Bristol just over a month ago. The pair ended their engagement in May, after it was revealed Dakota had been married before

The first-time father spent time with Sailor Grace over four days of scheduled visits during his time in Alaska, which is when his adorable mirror selfie appears to have been taken.

Dakota was seen proudly carrying his baby girl, bundled up warmly under a pink blanket in a car seat, and later gently rocking her to sleep in his arms.

Dakota made his first 3,600-mile round trip to Anchorage from his Kentucky home to visit Sailor as part of a custody agreement hammered out between his and Bristol's lawyers.

The new father had brought along an older woman, believed to be his aunt Cindy Meyer, to help on the first trip.

They flew into Anchorage at the end of last week and checked into a comfortable, downtown hotel.

One hotel guest told Daily Mail Online he had seen Dakota carefully cradling his little girl in his arms by the lobby's fountain.

'He appeared to be trying to get the baby to sleep to the sound of the water,' the onlooker said.

'I smiled at him as I came out of the elevator and he asked me, "Is she asleep?" It was a really sweet scene.'

Long trip: Dakota made his first 3,600-mile round trip to Anchorage from his Kentucky home to visit Sailor as part of a custody agreement hammered out between his and Bristol's lawyers

Sweet snap: 'Looks exactly like daddy,' Bristol wrote of Sailor Grace alongside this Instagram image

Dakota appeared to have brought his own car seat and diaper bag for Sailor, and rented a pick-up truck to drive her to and from her mother's new home in Wasilla, an hour north of Anchorage.

Custody papers filed earlier this month detailed specific pick-up and drop-off points for Bristol and Dakota to adhere to during the visits from Saturday until Tuesday.

Over the weekend, Dakota made the two-hour round trip to Wasilla twice each day in heavy snowfall to collect and drop off his daughter.

On Saturday, Bristol was left with time to herself after her seven-year-old son Tripp, from her relationship with ex-fiance Levi Johnston, was also taken out for the day.

It has been a stressful week for the Palin family after patriarch Todd Palin was seriously injured in a snowmobile crash on March 13.

He is currently in intensive care at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center where he has been on a ventilator following surgery to repair 14 fractured ribs and a collapsed lung.

But the family appeared to be in good spirits on Saturday as they celebrated Piper Palin's 15th birthday.

Bristol posted a picture of her youngest sister holding a vase of tulips with herself and sister Willow in the family's back yard during a heavy snowfall.

'Happy birthday Piper, we love you so much!!' Bristol wrote alongside the snap.

Sarah Palin also took to her Facebook page that day to wish her daughter a happy birthday.

'Happy, Happy Birthday Piper Indi Grace Palin! We [love] you more than life itself!' she wrote. 'Thank you for the joy you bring to our home. You really are the best. God blessed you with this gorgeous fresh snow today - all for you.'

The former Alaskan governor had been in Florida campaigning for Donald Trump when she learned of Todd's accident.

She cancelled one appearance but spoke at a town hall on Trump's behalf last Monday before flying back to Alaska to be with her husband.

Family: The new father had brought along an older woman, believed to be his aunt Cindy Meyer, to help on the first trip

After the birthday snaps were taken, Bristol and Willow went to a busy vintage market at the Alaska State Fair on Saturday afternoon.

The sisters and a male friend spent less than an hour inside perusing the stalls of reclaimed furniture, clothes and beauty products.

They then picked up balloons and a cake at a store before dropping them off at a Mexican restaurant, presumably ahead of celebrations for their teenage sibling on Saturday night.

Bristol welcomed Sailor home at 6pm on Saturday and Sunday after she had spent the day with her father.

During one drop off, Bristol's son Tripp was left to answer the door to Dakota and his aunt.

Dakota brought baby Sailor inside and less than five minutes later, left with the empty car seat.

There appeared to be minimal interaction between the former couple who called off their wedding last May after Bristol learned that Dakota had been married before.

Neither Bristol nor Dakota, both avid social media users, have commented on the visit.

Instead, on Sunday, Dakota shared an inspirational quote to his Instagram: 'Do things that feed your soul, not your ego and you will be happy.'

An Alaska Superior Court Judge ruled earlier this month that Bristol and Dakota must share both legal and physical custody of the child.

Judge Herman G. Walker Jr. decided that it was in the best interests of Sailor Grace, born last December, to remain in Alaska for the time being.

Family time: While Dakota was with their daughter, Bristol went to a vintage market at the Alaska State Fair with a male friend and her sister Willow

Keeping busy: The trio spent less than an hour inside perusing the stalls of reclaimed furniture, clothes and beauty products

Ready to party? They then picked up balloons and a cake at a store before dropping them off at a Mexican restaurant, presumably ahead of celebrations for their teenage sibling's birthday on Saturday night

Dakota, who runs his own construction business, will return to Alaska for his next visit in April after the judge gave him custody twice a month.

'The mother objects to overnight visitation because the child is currently breastfeeding nightly,' said the Judge.

'However the court finds it in the best interests of the child that overnight visitation [with the father] occur. Mother is to provide father with an adequate supply of milk or formula for overnight visitation.'

Dakota's overnight visits with his daughter will begin in May.

The battle over Sailor began even before the baby was born last December 23.

As they tried to hash out a schedule whereby Dakota could come to visit his daughter, Bristol claimed her ex-fiance couldn't spend more than four hours a day with Sailor because of her rigorous breastfeeding schedule.

He fired back - with an explosive text message from Bristol herself - that revealed Sailor is only being breastfed at night.

Court documents obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Online showed the Medal of Honor recipient asked the court to order full day visits, not overnights, to be mindful of Bristol's breastfeeding.

Bristol was initially fine with that arrangement as seen in a text message exchange but the court papers state she changed her mind after Dakota told her he wanted limited time in Bristol's company.

Dakota's attorney argued that since Sailor is already used to being in the company of a babysitter for eight to ten hours a day - she should be fine in her father's company for that long as well.

Meyer wanted a court ruling over visitation because he feared he may make the long journey to Alaska and then have Bristol change her mind 'if she gets upset with him'.

The former Alaskan governor had been in Florida campaigning for Donald Trump when she learned of Todd's accident. She cancelled one appearance but spoke at a town hall on Trump's behalf last Monday before flying back to Alaska to be with her husband

Furthermore, Dakota shared a text in which Bristol stated: 'didn't think about her when I called off the wedding, and I didn't think about her when I left.'

The papers then state: 'Her decision to move back to Alaska, a decision in which Mr. Meyer had no say, is why there is a need for something other than a traditional visitation schedule.

'She must now accommodate visitation between Mr. Meyer and Sailor and the fact that the visitation may inconvenience her or occur on weekends is simply a direct consequence of her own decisions.'

Following a court order Dakota completed a parenting course, something he points out Bristol has not yet completed, and has received certification for infant CPR.

The two have been in an increasingly bitter custody battle over baby Sailor.

A first series of text messages obtained by Daily Mail Online last month showed an emotional exchange in which Palin told her baby's father, 'I want you to be a part of her life, from the bottom of my heart I do.'

But Bristol also wanted to make sure Dakota did not interfere with her breastfeeding schedule.

She told him: 'There's nothing on my end holding you back Dakota.'

She continued: 'I want you (and your family) to be in her life as much as possible. It's not about us, and I don't care if you hate me, put it aside and put her first.

'She grows everyday and everyday I literally just think about how much you're missing by not seeing her, so realize I'm not bs'ing you'

Dakota responded: 'I don't hate you Bristol I have no reason too [sic] but my hands are tied when I legally have no right to a child that is mine.'

Bristol recently settled another long-running legal battle with Levi Johnston, the father of her son Tripp, seven years after his birth.

Levi announced the news on Facebook, writing: 'I'm so happy to have my son in my life, and to put all of this back and forth in the courts behind me.

'It might have taken me 7 years and cost me around $100,000 in lawyer fees spread out among three different lawyers, as well as a lot of patience, but it was all worth it.

'I'm happy now to be successfully co-parenting.'

Bristol posted a picture of her youngest sister holding a vase of tulips with herself and sister Willow in the family's back yard during a heavy snowfall. 'Happy birthday Piper, we love you so much!!' Bristol wrote alongside the snap

Bristol has yet to reach a final agreement with her youngest child's father and, in the past, has rejected Dakota's bid for joint physical custody as 'impracticable' given that he lives in Kentucky and she lives in Alaska.

Instead she has asked that she receive a 'decree for primary physical custody,' with visitation adjusted consistent with the child's age and Dakota's out-of-state residence.

She has also asked for interim and permanent child support and that Dakota pay Sailor's delivery and medical expenses.

Dakota, the youngest person ever to be awarded the Medal of Honor, met Bristol in May 2014 during Sarah Palin's Sportsman Channel show, Amazing America.

The pair got engaged during a Rascal Flatt's concert in Las Vegas in early 2015, planning a wedding in his native Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend.

But less than a week before the ceremony, Bristol announced the wedding was off when it emerged that Dakota had failed to tell her he had been married before.

Instead of tying the knot, Bristol set off on an RV trip in Alaska with a friend who was an exotic model.

A month later she announced her pregnancy, though she initially refused to say whether Dakota was the father.

She admitted that her second out-of-wedlock pregnancy was, 'a huge disappointment to my family.'

'I do not want any lectures,' she said, 'and I do not want any sympathy.
I stepped out of the fitting room, and prepared to see myself in my wedding dress for the first time. 'Well?' my bridesmaids asked me. 'What do you think?'

'Someone please hand me my glasses - I can't see myself properly,' the blurry figure in the mirror replied. This was the moment the panic set in.

Less than a month after this moment of horror at the thought of being a blind-as-a-bat bride, I have perfect, 20/20 vision.

Options: ICL - Implantable Collamer Lenses - is an alternative treatment to laser eye surgery for near or far-sighted people, or those prone to dry eyes

I had been a glasses-wearer for over a decade, after my vision rapidly deteriorated during university, when I found myself struggling to read the notes on the lecture board.

Driving, watching TV, and working on my computer all required spectacles.

I had been intrigued and curious about laser eye surgery for years - but the idea of going through with the procedure had always given me the chills, despite dozens of friends telling me how 'life changing' it was.

I'm one of those people who freak out at the idea of touching my eyes (I once cried during an eye examination), so contact lenses were never something I embraced.

So, faced with idea of wearing my thick black frames - chic in the office, not so bridal - down the aisle, I summoned the courage to inquire about LASIK.

As it turned out, all that mental build up had been for nothing: I wasnt a candidate.

From bespectacled to 20/20: No more updating her eyewear (left) for Andrea, who now has perfect vision and is glasses-free (right) after undergoing ICL at PersonalEyes in Sydney

Apparently, I have the dry eyes of a 60-year-old, and LASIK can in fact worsen the problem, with almost half of patients experiencing some level, usually minor, of dry eyes post-procedure.

Instead, Dr Chandra Bala at vision specialists PersonalEyes in Sydney recommended ICL.

WHO IS NOT A CANDIDATE FOR LASIK? If your cornea is too thin (below 500 micron thickness) If your cornea is irregularly shaped or bumpy If your cornea is too flat If you are prone to dry eyes If you need quick vision recovery Advertisement

When he first explained the process of inserting ICL - Implantable Collamer Lenses - I felt faint.

The 15-minute procedure involves inserting an ultra-thin, foldable lens into the eyeball between the iris and the natural lens through a tiny corneal incision.

I perked right up, though, when Dr Bala told me I would be all but knocked out while in the operating theatre.

One of my primary fears about laser eye surgery had always been the idea of being somewhat awake and alert and required to focus while someone directed a laser at my eyeball.

For ICL, I would be given anaesthetic eye drops, followed by 'twilight anaesthesia' - a milder dose of general anaesthesia in which the patient is heavily sedated, though not unconscious - as well as local anaesthetic.

'The Phakic ICL is designed to reside inside your eye where the natural lens is still intact,' the PersonalEyes guide states. 'Its like inserting the patients own glasses or contact lenses inside the eye.'

Groundbreaking: The 15-minute procedure involves inserting an ultra-thin, foldable lens into the eyeball between the iris and the natural lens through a tiny corneal incision

ICL has been a favoured procedure by the US military since 2007, with thousands of military personal undergoing the treatment ahead of active duty.

Unlike LASIK, patients experience improved vision within a day, and very little down time.

ICL is suitable for patients with myopia (near-sightedness), myperopia (far-sightedness) and astigmatism (an irregularly shaped corneal surface).

In a recent study published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, it was concluded that, 'the results of this review suggest that phakic IOLs (ICL) are safer than excimer laser surgical correction (LASIK) for moderate-to-high myopia'.

Alternative treatment: Not all patients are candidates for laser eye surgery - if you have flat or irregularly shaped corneas or, like Andrea, if you are prone to dry eyes

While the lens is designed to be permanent, it can be removed or replaced if required.

Dr Bala would also address my dry eyes by plugging my tear ducts to prevent too much liquid drainage.

On the day of surgery, I was admitted to Parramatta Eye Hospital, where I was given anaesthetic dilating eye drops in my left eye, which would be done first, followed by my right eye several hours later.

All my fears about being aware during the procedure were completely unfounded... I was in another zone completely, and felt no pain whatsoever.

After being sedated, I have no memory of what happened next, or much of the next four hours, during which time I snoozed in a recliner in a darkened lounge, while the pressure of my eye was monitored.

After a few hours, my right eye was dilated and I was sedated again for the second procedure. Before I knew it, I was on my way home to sleep off the anaesthetic.

For the next few nights, I slept with protective shields over my eyes to stop myself from scratching or rubbing them in my sleep, and applied antibiotic and anti-inflammatory eye drops four times per day for two weeks.

I was sensitive to bright lights for a couple of days, and car headlights and streetlamps had a halo effect for about a week before subsiding.

All my fears about being aware during the procedure were completely unfounded - I was in another zone completely, and felt no pain whatsoever.

Seeing clearly: Patients experience improved vision within 24 hours of surgery, with no dry eyes - a common side effect of LASIK

The day after surgery, I returned to PersonalEyes for a check up.

Where I couldn't even make out the first line in an eye exam previously, I could suddenly, and gleefully, read the bottom one.

Since the procedure, my favourite car game has become triumphantly reading car number plates and street signs.
A man who discovered his girlfriend had been cheating on him decided to get his own back by writing her a 'surprise' card - and sharing it with the entire internet.

The man, known only as BinanoSplat and believed to be from North-West America, explained: 'Found out my girlfriend is cheating on me. Giving her this card tonight at my birthday dinner.'

In a post that has been viewed more than 1 million times, the 28-year-old man shared a series of photo on Imgur and Reddit showing the card he intended to give her.

Scroll down for video

After Reddit user BinanaSplat apparently discovered his girlfriend cheating, he decided to surprise her over dinner with a card addressed to 'Schmoopsie Poo' with an angry message and her house keys inside

The envelope was addressed to 'Schmoopsie Poo', and the message inside said: 'This card will feel heavy, because it's packed with good thoughts.'

However, the lovelorn man - who apparently discovered his girlfriend's infidelity after she left her Facebook Messenger open on her laptop - had crossed out the soppy message and replaced it with: 'Because it's packed with your house key.

He added: 'Now that you're single, you don't need to feel guilty about your sexually charged texts w/ Michael, going on dates w/ Jared, or about getting drinks tomorrow with Derek.'

Inside, he had sellotaped a house key to the card. However, before he got the chance to confront his girlfriend, his plan backfired when a friend stumbled across the post and showed her.

He gave her a card that read: 'This card will feel heavy (...) Because it's packed with your house key.' He later detailed all of her apparent infidetlities in a post which has now been viewed more than 1 million times

BinanaSplat posted an update entitled: 'IT'S RUINED... THANKS REDDIT,' explaining: 'Her bestie found this and called her. I don't know how he knew we were even still dating considering how she's been hiding that fact from everyone.'

He then relayed their entire conversation in which his girlfriend said that she had seen the picture and asked: 'Is there anything you want to say to me?'

After telling her that he never wanted to speak to her again, she apparently replied: 'I think you're disrespecting me,' causing her boyfriend to 'internally facepalm'.

He ended the conversation by saying: 'Go f*** yourself. I'll leave the key in your mailbox.'

After people bombarded him with more than 18,000 comments pressing for more details, he elaborated, saying: 'We were Facebook official. She kept the status hidden though so that she could date around while still "having a boyfriend".'

He added: 'I guess it made her feel good to have the title, but she sure as s*** didn't care about me.'

Thousands of people rushed to offer their condolences. Blitzgreg wrote: 'Happy birthday and I hope you're doing better now, or at least, on the way.'

Another said: 'Sorry to hear that her best friend ruined it bro. Hopefully you have a kickass birthday though. Don't let her get you down. Happy Birthday.'
A beauty pageant for pregnant women has been staged to show that mums-to-be can be just as sexy and beautiful as any other women.

The New Life: Made with Love contest was held in St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city and cultural capital, in the north-west of the country.

Organisers said they had put in a lot of effort to create a 'sensual and elegant' event in an attempt to show that pregnancy could be a 'magical time'.

All smiles: A line of pregnant women take to the stage for Russia's New Life - Made with Love pageant

Happy tears: Alena Isaeva is overcome with emotion as she collects her flowers after being named winner

They said they hoped to combat stereotypes surrounding pregnant women and portray mums-to-be as healthy, active and beautiful women, focused on their careers as well as their families.

A spokeswoman said: 'Pregnancy can be both beautiful and stylish. The most important thing is to break stereotypes, and show it as something magical.'

The beauty contest was won by 24-year-old Alena Isaeva, who is expecting her first child and who impressed the judges with her dancing.

She said: 'I decided to try my luck and participate. I thought I might be able to win. In addition to that, my husband insisted.'

Women strutted their stuff in elegant, empire-line gowns that showed off their burgeoning bumps before having a quick change for the dance round where they threw on colourful polka dot designs that enabled them to move around the stage.

Women wore elegant, empire-line gowns in an array of colours that showed off their burgeoning bumps

Maternity style at its best: One woman walks in the runway in a royal blue lace dress, left, while another goes for a flowing turquoise gown, right

Dressed in light pastel colours, the winners of the pageant collect their sashes and flowers on stage

Alena Isaeva, far left, poses for a photo with fellow pageant winners as they collect their prizes

St Petersburg's largest network of clubs for pregnant women, Rodnik (Spring), is behind the competition, which is now in its fifth year, in conjunction with parenting magazine Erudite.

While it may be unusual to see pregnant women treading the runway, there are a growing number of specialist beauty pageants all over the world, from bottom-baring contests to celebrating plastic surgery.

Winner Alena Isaeva, 24, appears overjoyed as she poses with a huge bunch of ballons and a bouquet of roses

Quick change: Contestants threw on colourful A-line dresses as they took to the stage for the dance round

Dancing ladies: Despite their sizeable bumps, contestants were full of energy as they danced on stage

Purple rain: Two women wow the crowds in violet and lilac as they compete in the specialist beauty pageant

Pretty in pink: One woman shows off her bump in a billowing gown paired with towering black heels

Showing off her bump: Alena Isaeva snatched the winning title after wowing judges with her dance routine

Miss Bum Bum Brazil aims to find the roundest bottom from each region in August every year, while Hungarian competition Miss Plastic requires that contestants supply medical records to prove that they've gone under the knife - and they often have the figure to prove it.

And last month, mum-of-one Daria Pletneva was named Miss Russian Police in a bizarre contest that saw women score points for 'charisma', 'charm', 'grace', 'femininity' and 'perfection'.

She said after winning the title: 'I've been dreaming about participating in this contest for a long time, but I was always too shy to take the final step.

The competition was held in St Petersburg and aimed to show that pregnant women can still be stylish

Organisers said they had put in a lot of effort to create a 'sensual and elegant' event, with women showing off their curves in an array of rainbow collours

One woman wows in a patterned shift dress with rope wedges, left, while a fellow contestant sports a bold red shirt with matching leggins

'But this time I'd just got back from my maternity leave and immediately I got into a final.'

As well as her crown, she received a special pass to give her free admission to all the events of the local police cultural centre.

She said: 'Now I can attend events like plays and concerts all year long.'

Lieutenant of internal service, Valeria Kostyna and Svetlana Skripina, who works as an inspector of criminal investigations, were runners-up.

Judges chose winners in categories like 'Charisma', 'Charm', 'Grace', 'Femininity', and 'Perfection'.

Organisers wanted to show that pregnancy could be a 'magical time', full of tenderness and charm

The pageant was staged to combat stereotypes surrounding pregnant women and portray mums-to-be as healthy, active and beautiful women




The inscription on William Shakespeare's grave, in Stratford-upon-Avon's Holy Trinity church, is flowery by modern standards, but unequivocal with it. 'Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare/To digg the dust encloased heare/Bleste be the man that spares thes stones/And curst be he that moves my bones.'

Who would dare even think of meddling with the final resting place of our greatest literary figure with such a curse looming?

Well, plenty, it turns out. While Shakespeare's life and work continue to be dissected and studied, there's infuriatingly little information about his death. He's thought to have met his maker 400 years ago on 23 April 1616, but we do not even know how he died.

He was buried in the church's chancel in front of the altar along with four family members, and the graves are covered by five huge slabs, or ledger stones, one for each person buried there  which may or may not have been replaced over the years.

William Shakespeare is buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire

How tantalising, then, given the clues that we know bones harbour. Look at what happened when the remains of Richard III were discovered beneath a Leicester car park four years ago. Forensic analysis was able not only to reveal how the last Plantagenet king had died  from a massive blow to the head  but also that he had suffered from scoliosis, a curve of the spine.

That astonishing find got the Shakespeare buffs in a lather, and understandably so. What secrets could his bones yield? Various applications have been made to pursue such investigations over the years, but all attempts at any analysis of Shakespeare's grave  never mind his actual remains  have been roundly rejected by the church authorities. Until now.

Last year came a breakthrough. Although exhumation of the skeleton was still deemed impossible, the authorities were persuaded to allow a 'non-invasive' exploration of the grave  involving the scanning of its contents using the latest Ground Penetrating Radar, or GPR technology. The project, now complete, was documented by Channel 4 with cameras charting every step of the process.

Historian and TV presenter Dr Helen Castor landed the job of fronting the resulting programme, and describes it as 'the job of a lifetime'. 'When there is such little solid information about the death of someone of such importance, all manner of myths and stories spring up. This was a chance to get some definitive answers, so hugely exciting. It was an astonishing project to be part of.' She rejects the idea that a non-invasive exploration would be less gripping than an actual exhumation. 'There is no way anyone was ever going to get in there with shovels, but this was a pretty thrilling compromise.'

GPR scanning has long been used in geology to establish the goings-on beneath the earth's surface. Once, the 'box' used to take the recordings would have been too cumbersome to be portable, but technological advances have changed everything. Now the machine that scans the area involved can be operated by one person. 'It looks like a vacuum cleaner,' says Helen. 'It's passed over the ledger stones very slowly.'

One of the drawbacks of the technology, however, is that while it can detect different types of soil and brick, it cannot 'map' human bones, never mind facilitate some sort of skeleton reconstruction, a la Richard III. What it can do, however, is determine the likelihood of bones being present.

Hamlet with Horatio - Delacroixs depiction of the grave-digging scene in Hamlet

Is there any doubt that there are bones in Shakespeare's grave? Well, yes. Some of the more outlandish stories to have done the rounds over the past few centuries are that Shakespeare was either not buried in Holy Trinity Church at all (there was a theory he was a closet Roman Catholic), or that his body, or at least his head, had been stolen by grave-robbers.

Shakespeare is buried with his wife Anne Hathaway, who died in 1623, their daughter Susanna, her husband John Hall, and his granddaughter Elizabeth's husband Thomas Nash, although the five ledger stones are different sizes.

This has been explained by the suggestion that there are not individual graves beneath the stones, but one big family vault. Then there are the myriad accounts of his burial that have come to light over the years  each more outlandish than the last, and all wildly contradictory. This investigation would establish such facts once and for all.

Archaeologist Kevin Colls, who headed the investigating team, acknowledges that the whole process was fraught with problems  not least because of the 'high stakes' set by the Richard III excavations. 'In some ways that was a red herring.

The circumstances surrounding the discovery of those remains were so unusual that it perhaps gives the public a flawed idea of what's possible,' he warns, recognising that this project could have proved to be the ultimate damp squib.

'The worst thing would have been to find that there were no bones in there,' he concedes. Equally, while the archaeological community might be thrilled to discover the likelihood of bones in the grave, the rest of us might react with a big 'So what? It's a grave. What else would be in there?'

Head Verger Jon Ormrod tends to the grave of William Shakespeare in the Chancel of Holy Trinity Church. Archeologists who scanned the grave of William Shakespeare say they have made a startling discovery

What actually happened was pretty much a perfect compromise, then. The first piece of evidence came quite early. 'There were some accounts from the time that said Shakespeare had been buried 17ft down, or even buried standing up,' reveals Kevin.

The GPR could reach that far down, but initial indications showed a much shallower grave, perhaps just 3ft under. There was no sign of a coffin either. 'And we definitely weren't looking at a vault, which we'd been half-expecting to find,' points out Kevin.

There'd been a disturbance at the grave's head end

'From a historical perspective, this was hugely significant. One report from 1796 detailed how someone digging into a neighbouring vault had disturbed a brick in William's vault and shone a light in. Even the reports of that event were contradictory, though.

One person claimed to have seen a full skeleton inside; another said he could only see dust.' The GPR data proved without doubt, however, that there was no vault, and suggested overwhelmingly that there are bones down there. 'The remains from the Shakespeare family seem to be buried in the normal order,' says Kevin.

There were further oddities, though. Imagine the excitement when the team were told that data from beneath the monument indicated a 'disturbance' of the grave 'at the head end'.

'They found evidence of some sort of stone box at the head end,' explains Helen Castor. 'It suggested that at some point there'd been a disturbance, causing the soil to sink, and the box was used to raise it up again.'

The Cobbe portrait of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), c1610. Private Collection

What could possibly have caused soil to sink? Suddenly, the prospect that Shakespeare's skull had been removed was a bona fide option, rather than the most cuckoo of the conspiracy theories. Even Helen, who knew how prevalent grave robberies had been in the 18th century, didn't expect this.

'At that time there was a lot of interest in phrenology  the study of the surface of the skull. There was actually a bit of a craze for stealing celebrity skulls, the idea being that examining them would yield insight into what made them men of genius.'

There has long been a theory that Shakespeare was the most famous 'victim' of this process. A magazine article from 1879 claimed that back in 1769 the art historian Horace Walpole offered a 300 wager (around 37,000 today) to anyone who could obtain Shakespeare's skull.

Legend had it that a local doctor, Frank Chambers, broke into the tomb and removed it. 'In the light of the new evidence, it was decided this was a story worth pursuing,' admits Helen.

So the historians went back to the article  then to a second article written a few years later which claimed that, although the plan had been to return Shakespeare's skull to Stratford, this was not done. Instead, the skull ended up at a church at Beoley, 15 miles away.

The church authorities at Beoley have long been aware of this rogue skull, bereft of any body, alongside the complete skeletons in one of their vaults, but again had resisted any analysis.

An actor performs during Hamlet at the Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts. Shakespeare's skull is likely missing from his grave, confirming rumours which have swirled for years about grave-robbers

The team gained permission to conduct scans on this skull. The TV cameras capture the somewhat claustrophobic progress down into the vault to take measurements. 'It was an incredibly difficult process because we couldn't touch anything,' admits Kevin.

'We were working around other bones in a very limited space.' Off went their measurements to the forensic team... and alas, news came back that this was unlikely to be Shakespeare's skull. 'On the basis of probability, it most likely belonged to a woman in her seventies,' says Helen.

The worst thing would have been to find that there were no bones in there

While this is not good news for Beoley, it is a significant development in terms of separating myth from fact. It also, Helen Castor points out, raises another question: where is Shakespeare's skull? 'Every church that has a vault may now be looking to see if they have an unidentified skull,' she jokes.

So what of the curse? All those involved are at pains to point out that since not a sod of earth was lifted, there is nothing to fear there. Why did he put a curse on his own grave, though? Shakespeare had an unusual obsession with the mistreatment of corpses, and feared exhumation. His writings are full of references to the horror of bones being disturbed.

He wouldn't have been alone with this preoccupation, Helen points out. During the Middle Ages bones were routinely exhumed to make way for further burials  with old remains being placed in charnel houses, where they could still be prayed for before they went back into the ground. 'The idea of Purgatory  which is where those who've died go to be purified before entering Heaven  was very present then,' explains Helen.

The Reformation, however, 'swept away' the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory so charnel houses were not deemed as important. When Shakespeare died there was a real fear bones could simply be exhumed and lost.

What next for Shakespeare's remains then? Fans can rest assured that they will never be disturbed. But there will always be those who want to go further. Last year, historian Francis Thackeray from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg argued for simply digging into the grave to expose anything that would allow DNA analysis. 'Shakespeare said nothing about teeth in that epitaph,' he said.
A teenager who was taken to a flat and raped following a night out is encouraging others to come forward after seeing her attackers jailed.

Honey-Mae Lyons, 19, had been out drinking with friends and had no recollection of the events which led her to wake up in a stranger's flat the next morning.

But the healthcare assistant suspected something wasnt right when she went to toilet at work and discovered her underwear was on inside out.

Honey-Mae Lyons, now 19, says she didn't realise anything was wrong after waking up at a stranger's house until she got to work and realised her underwear was inside out. Two men have been convicted for the assault

Police trawled CCTV of Parkers Piece in Cambridge (pictured), where they saw two men carrying Honey-Mae back to a nearby property

She contacted police, who trawled CCTV of Parkers Piece in Cambridge where they saw two men carrying her back to a nearby property.

An investigation revealed a number of photographs of Honey-Mae on both defendants phones, along with messages boasting about what they had done.

DNA from swabs taken during Honey-Maes forensic examination also matched the defendants.

At Norwich Crown Court on March 23, Muhammed Ekici, 24, and Serham Ozkebapci, 25, were jailed for attacking Honey-Mae on July 30 last year.

Speaking afterwards and waiving her right to anonymity, Honey-Mae said: From the moment I realised I had been sexually assaulted, I was convinced it was my fault and I felt embarrassed to tell people what happened.

Reflecting on her ordeal, Honey-Mae said: 'To say I now have trust issues would not even begin to describe how hesitant I now am to open up and trust anyone'

I expected them to wave a disapproving finger at me and assume that it was my fault because I had been drinking.

Now I know that no matter how drunk someone is, no matter what state they are in, nobody has the right to take advantage of them.

Muhammed Ekici, 24, was convicted of raping Honey-Mae Lyons after he and a companion took her home following a night out in Cambridge

I would urge anyone who finds themselves in my situation to report it.

The court heard how Honey-Mae, who was 18 at the time of the assault, reported it to police the following day. The pair were arrested and both charged with rape in September.

Ekici admitted the rape at the first opportunity, while Ozkebapci admitted sexual assault.

On Wednesday, Ekici was sentenced to seven years in jail, while Ozkebapci was ordered to spend three-and-a-half years behind bars.

Honey-Mae said: I initially underestimated how much this experience has traumatised me.

For a long time I was in denial about the seriousness of what these men did to me and I especially hated being labelled a victim.

It was only when the trial was over that I was able to accept that none of this had been my fault and that I had been taken advantage of, and no matter how weak and powerless I may feel - I am a victim of sexual assault and rape.

In terms of my personal life, what these men did to me has had such an impact that I cannot find any words to justify how horrific the last eight months have been.

I, essentially, self-destructed myself and totally destroyed personal relationships with friends and my boyfriend and other men I tried to learn to trust and be with.

To say I now have trust issues would not even begin to describe how hesitant I now am to open up and trust anyone.'

I initially underestimated how much this experience has traumatised me': Honey-Mae, who is now 19, said that her ordeal last year had caused her to self-destruct and made it difficult to trust people and forge relationships

She added: Although knowing that this is a fear shared among many women, and now myself, I know that I did the right thing by reporting what happened to me as soon as possible and ensuring that these men will (I pray) not do anything like this to anyone else.

THE FACTS If someone is incapacitated through the (willing or unknown) consumption of drugs or alcohol, they are unable to consent to sexual activity and sexual activity with them is therefore a crime. For information, visit Rape Crisis Advertisement

Speaking to the BBC, Honey-Mae said: 'On my way home I met five people, two of which carried me back to their flat and I don't really remember, but they raped me, took photographs, sent them to their friends. And the next day I woke up thinking I was fine and then later realised I wasn't.'

Detective Constable Becky Cohen added: Honey showed great courage in coming forward to report this horrific experience to the police. This must have been very difficult, but were it not for this inner strength two despicable characters would still be free to roam the streets of Cambridge.

The calculated and cold-hearted actions they took that night can never be excused. Jointly they preyed on a defenceless and vulnerable young woman for their own self-gratification.
Advertisement

There is no life we know to compare with pure imagination  but there are a few real-life candy stores that come pretty close.

Whether they're lined with candy jars that are chock full of brand-name favorites from the floor to the ceiling, or else delicately lined with containers of picturesque original sugary treats, America's most amazing candy stores may not have chocolate rivers or goose laying golden eggs, but they still manage to give the original cinematic candy man a run for his money.

Run by real-life Willy Wonkas, these candy shops (that sometimes double as bakeries and ice cream parlors) have the power to make any kid feel like they've stepped into a delicious dream world  and turn any adult into a kid again.

Licking our lips: Miette in San Francisco sells both candy and baked goods like cookies, cakes, and macarons

Sweet treats: Owner Meg Ray stocks her shelves with some well-known favorites (like Pixy Stix and Smarties), imported candy from Europe, and store-made sweets

Bright ideas: The retro decor was inspired by the Demel pastry shop in Vienna, Austria, which is also a confiserie and patisserie

Yummy! Meg said she's wanted to own a bakery since she was a little girl, and is a particular fan of her shop's eclairs

Sweet dream: Meg has wanted to own a bakery since she was little

Miette: San Francisco, California

Located in San Francisco's historic Ferry Building and inspired by the famous Demel pastry shop in Vienna, Austria, Miette sells both candy  whipped up in-house and also imported from Europe  and store-made baked goods, like cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies, and macarons.

'In Europe, a lot of shops are both a confiserie and patisserie. It makes sense to offer sweets of all varieties,' owner Meg Ray told Daily Mail Online.

Meg and her ex-husband, Chris Ray, combined the retro, European feel of the Vienna spot with a light, airy San Francisco vibe, ending up with a shop that is both opulent, as well as friendly and convenient.

Whatever your sweet tooth desires, you are sure to find it in Miette, whether it's in the seemingly-endless array of candy that fill the glass jars lining the store's pastel-colored walls - or among the whimsical baked creations that are piled high on cake stands throughout the store.

'I have wanted to own a bakery since I was a little girl. I always loved to bake and decorate cakes,' said Meg, who personally favors her store's eclair.

'Then I started to travel in Europe and fell in love with the little shops, the amazing pastry and the beautiful packaging.'

She also loves to talk about the origins of the shop's imported candy.

'It has a long, interesting history and I've visited a lot of the small towns from where it's produced,' she explained.

How to choose? Sugarfina in Beverly Hills sells coloful gummies, truffles, caramels, chocolates, and fruit-flavored candies

So popular: They've now opened up several shops across the country and have a popular online store

Sugar 'round the world: All of Sugarfina's gourmet candies are unique, and many are imported from Europe and Asia

Picturesque: Sugarfina also sells themed gift boxes, and all the candy is packaged in identical clear cubes

Take a picture! Besides being delicious, fan favorites like the Rainbow Kyoto Blossoms from Japan are Instagam-perfect, too

Romantic notions: Sugarfina is owned by Rosie ONeill and her fiance Josh Resnick, who started planning the shop after watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on their third date

Sugarfina: Beverly Hills, California

Southern California candy shop Sugarfina has moved beyond its Beverly Hills beginnings, and it's easy to see why.

Launched by Rosie ONeill and her fiance Josh Resnick, Sugarfina's flagship (and its other stores across the country) sets itself apart with its pristine white walls, floors, and displays  which really let the multicolored candy pop, giving the instant impression that this candy store is for grown-ups.

Little square boxes of bright sugary products neatly line the walls, while display tables feature cheerful bright blue packaging.

But it's not M&Ms or Skittles that you'll find in these clear containers. Sugarfina is stocked with candy that can't be found almost anywhere else, imported from gourmet candy makers around the world.

The founders  who were inspired to open the shop after going to an outdoor screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on their third date  hand-pick the items themselves, which include Rainbow Kyoto Blossoms from Japan, ice cream cone gummies from Germany, and white-chocolate dip sugar cookie balls made in the US.

Accio sweets! Honeydukes in the Hogsmeade section of the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter brings a favorite spot in J.K. Rowling's series to life

Special sweets: The inside is decorated with bright displays that are packed with delicious treats  many of which have been taken out of the pages of the books

A touch of magic: Some of the decor moves, giving visitors the impression that they're in a truly enchanted shop

Exclusives: Honeydukes sells plenty of candy that can only be found in the Orlando store, like Fizzing Whizbees, Ton-Tongue Toffee, Sugar Quill Lollipops, Chocolate Cauldrons, Pepper Imps, Pumpkin Juice, and Exploding Bon Bons

Delicious maximus! The Orlando store also sells some more class sugary items not specifically mentioned in the books

Now that's a souvenir! Customers can take hope plenty of Honeydukes-branded candy (but will hopefully avoid booger-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans

Honeydukes: Universal Orlando in Orlando, Florida

Undoubtedly the most magical candy store experience anyone could ever have is walking into Honeydukes at the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida. Potter fan or not, a person would have to be Confunded to not find the place enchanting.

Inspired by the J.K. Rowling-imagined shop in the wizarding village of Hogsmeade, the sweets store has been a fan favorite at the theme park for both its brilliant decor and its exclusive candy stock.

Once shoppers' eyes adjust to the oversized glass display jars, bright colored walls and furniture, and costumed employees, they can begin picking out their favorite once-fictional candies like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, and Jelly Slugs.

Then, there are the treats that can't be bought anywhere else, produced exclusively for the theme park: Fizzing Whizbees, Ton-Tongue Toffee, Sugar Quill Lollipops, Chocolate Cauldrons, Pepper Imps, Pumpkin Juice, and Exploding Bon Bons.

In addition to Honeydukes, Universal Orlando also opened a second candy store, Sugarplums Sweetshop, in Diagon Alley earlier this year.

Time machine treats: Shane Confectionery in Philadelphia has been open since 1911, and still stays true to some of its original decor and technology

Classic: Though the old-fashioned shop has been updated with things like new paint, it still uses the original turn-of-the-century cash registers, as well as a six-foot-wide, two-and-a-half ton piece of machinery used for making butter-creams

Original chocolates: They still sell treats inspired by those served up in the early 1900s, but chocolate is no longer cooked over a coal fire

Eat up: They're well known for their selection of butter-creams (pictured), though they also offer other chocolates, licorice, jelly beans, and clear toy candy for Easter

More than candy: Shane Confectionery also serves up creative ice cream sundaes, cake, and drinking chocolate

Vintage: The current owners, brothers Ryan and Eric Berley (pictured), have tried to stay true to original owner Edward Shane's store

Shane Confectionery: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Established in 1911, this old-school shop has changed in only a bit since it was opened by Edward Shane over a century ago. For one thing, the current owners  brothers Ryan and Eric Berley  no longer cook chocolate over a coal fire.

They do, however, still use a six-foot-wide, two-and-a-half ton piece of machinery from that time for making butter-creams, as well as the very cash registers put in the store back at the turn of the century.

But while the walls have gotten some new paint and the floors have been buffed, the store still retains its early-twentieth-century charm, from the Chippendale-style cabinetry and hand-cranked elevator (the oldest in Philly) to the fudge cauldrons and hand-fused copper kettles used to make their famous chocolates.

And then, of course, there's the candy itself, which includes store-made lavender honey caramels, chocolate-dipped chocolate nougat with chocolate salted caramel, and a wide selection of butter-cream flavors.

Barrels and barrels of sugar: The Candy Baron in San Francisco is the store's biggest location, though it was its second to open

Where to start? The shop has novelty items as well as endless containers and baskets overflowing with sweets

Tons of taffy: The Candy Baron stores have sold more than one million pounds of salt water taffy since opening

Hard-to-find go-to: They also have a selection of imported sweets from places like Scandanavia, Japan, and Argentina

Candy Baron: San Francisco, California

Opened by Ron Baron in 2003, The Candy Baron on Pier 39 in San Francisco is actually the store's second location  but it's also its biggest, and that means it attracted plenty of shoppers.

Over the years, The Candy Baron has sold more than one million pounds of salt water taffy, which is lets customers pick from huge barrels that line the inside of the store.

In addition to taffy flavors like apple, melon, mint, chocolate, blueberry, cinnamon swirl, and banana, the shop also offers an unheard of array of licorice, a huge variety of sour sweets, gummies, novelty treats, and and a selection of sugar-free candy.

They import plenty of hard-to-find goodies, too, like various flavors of Milka bars from Scandanavia, strawberry Kit Kats from Japan, and toffees from Argentina.

Concrete jungle wonderland: On New York City's Upper East Side, the original Dylan's Candy Bar attracts tourists from around the world

Grab a bag! The bright, eye-catching displays offer endless options of both fan-favorites and Dylan's-branded candy

Stairway to heaven: Even the stairs have a candy theme, with gummies and Swedish fish encased in the steps

Sweet sentiments: On a landing from the main level to the lower level, the stairs tells customers: 'May each step you take be sweet'

Three levels: Upstairs sits an event room that can be rented out for parties (left), as well as a cafe serving up cookies and ice cream (right)

Major presence: Owner Dylan Lauren (pictured) has also opened stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami

Fashion-forward: The brand has also collaborated on projects with Sanrio, Havianas, and LeSportsac

Dylan's Candy Bar: New York City

First opened by designer Ralph Lauren's daughter Dylan Lauren in 2001, the original Dylan's Candy Bar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan has since become a sensation, with new locations opening up in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and several airports. Dylan has even collaborated on projects with Havianas and LeSportsac, and created store-branded body products and make-up.

But it was the original NYC store that was so groundbreaking, a technicolor playground that could make customers of all ages stop, feeling dumbfounded and wondering where to start in the three-level wonderland.

On the main floor, giant decorative lollipops top a round candy display, where shoppers can fill plastic bags with the sweets of their choosing.

They can then walk to the lower level, descending stairs that have been set with colorful candy in the steps and include the lovely  and mouth-watering  message: 'May each step you take be sweet.'

Downstairs there's even more candy, including Dylan's-branded sweets, beauty products, and clothes, while upstairs sits a Candy Cafe, serving up savory foods as well as desserts like cookie butter pizza, sundaes, and warm brownies and cookies.

Sugar high: Sloan's Ice Cream in Florida features a hot pink color scheme that immediately brings sugar to mind

Don't lick the lights! Even the chandeliers above the ice cream counter look like they could be made of rock candy

So many options: A row of candy dispensers can make it difficult to choose between buying a bag of jelly beans and gummies are a sundae

Enticing from the outside: The South Florida chain has set up shop in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and Delray Beach

Over-the-top: Their ice cream treats are a major draw, with sundae served in sand pails and even a kitchen sink

Sloan's Ice Cream in West Palm Beach, Florida

Primarily an ice cream parlor, Sloan's Ice Cream of southern Florida is still a candy lover's paradise  with more than one way to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Certainly, nothing sets the tone for a sugar rush quite like the store's hot pink-painted walls, and the ceiling is decorated with a line of multicolor chandeliers that bring rock candy to mind.

Owners David and Debra Olmo have also set up a row of color-coded candy dispensers, which is enticing enough to make someone forget they came in for ice cream in the first place  well, maybe.

Of course, a person could always fill up on both  and Sloan's offers plenty of over-the-top sundaes in beach pails, plant pots, and even a kitchen sink, which can be filled with ice cream flavors like carrot cake, tiramisu, dulce de leche, and coffee and doughnuts.

Coming soon: Later this year, the Toothsome Chocolate Factory will open on Universal CityWalk in Orlando, Florida

Back in time: The restaurant and shop promise to 'transport you into a 19th century-inspired Steampunk chocolate factory'

Tasty adventure: Customers will have the opportunity to watch chocolate being made before they take some home

Sundaes galore: Creative ice cream sundaes are set to dominate the menu, with items like Salted Caramel Flan, Chocolate Brownie Bark and Smores

Bringing the boys to the yard: There will also be plenty of decadent milkshakes, like the Chocolate x5, Espresso Buzzzz, and Red Velvet

Exciting: Though the restaurant has no official open date yet, diners can expect to eat 'amidst towering smoke stacks, funky gadgetry, and staff wearing unique Steampunk fashion'

The Toothsome Chocolate Factory: Universal Orlando, in Orlando, Florida

No, this new restaurant due to open later this year at Universal CityWalk wasn't directly inspired by the 1971 Wonka film (or even the 1964 Roald Dahl book it was based on)  but it certainly strikes some major similarities.

According to Universal, the '19th century-inspired Steampunk chocolate factory' will serve up milkshakes with names like Bacon Brittle, Chocolate x5, Espresso Buzzzz, and Red Velvet, and sundaes including Salted Caramel Flan, Chocolate Brownie Bark, and Smores.
A hospital has finally apologised to a mother nearly five years after blunders made during her pregnancy led to one of her twins tragically being stillborn.

Mother Kelly Attree, whose pregnancy was classed as 'high risk' as she was carrying twins and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, delivered a healthy girl, Bliss, at 37 weeks.

But the 40-year-old's son, Samuel, was delivered stillborn.

The loss of Samuel has had such an impact on the family that they feel unable to celebrate Bliss's birthday - as it reminds them of Samuel's death.

Solicitors acting on behalf of the family claim errors during scanning meant Doncaster Royal Infirmary, South Yorkshire, failed to spot he had not grown in the previous five weeks, and that he had died a week earlier.

The Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Trust, which runs the hospital, has now agreed to pay Mrs Attree a five-figure sum.

Kelly Attree has had an apology from Doncaster Royal Infirmary nearly five years after their blunders led to one of her twins being stillborn

The family claim Samuel was 'over-measured' during scans at weeks 33 and 35 - giving the inaccurate impression he was growing.

They claim hospital staff failed to spot Samuel had stopped growing from 31 weeks onwards despite Mrs Attree being scanned 10 times during the course of the pregnancy.

It was only when Mrs Attree was booked in for an induction at 37 weeks that she was told her baby boy had died.

Mrs Attree, who has three older children aged 11, 15, and 18 with husband Tom, in addition to four-year-old Bliss, had been admitted to hospital several times in the run up to the delivery.

They said they were really sorry but they couldn't find Samuel's heartbeat. 'I just screamed Kelly Attree, 40

She had been experiencing 'tightenings' but was always monitored and then sent home.

She was eventually booked in to be induced at 37 weeks, and all the while she had been led to believe her babies were healthy.

When she arrived for the induction of her twins, on September 21, 2011, a midwife routinely checked her babies' heart rates and she was told by staff they could not find a heartbeat for Samuel.

Mrs Attree said: 'We were so excited to pack the bags and go to hospital, and my children were expecting us to bring two babies home, but we didn't.

'When I arrived at hospital the midwife found my daughter Bliss's heartbeat straight away and went to find Samuel's and went quiet.

'She went off to get someone else, and they said they were really sorry but they couldn't find Samuel's heartbeat.

Samuel Attree was stillborn at Doncaster Women's Hospital after it was claimed doctors missed opportunities to save his life

Kelly and Tom Attree said the death of Samuel makes it difficult for them to celebrate the birthday of daughter Bliss, front middle. The family has been awarded a settlement by Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Trust

'I just screamed. It was like I was in a dream afterwards, I felt like I was in a trance.

'I hadn't had any reason to worry, if anything, I had felt more movement in the later stages of the pregnancy, but I have since been told that babies can be more active in their last hours, and that is something that haunts me now.'

After learning her son had died, Mrs Attree insisted on a Caesarean Section.

She was given a general anaesthetic so was asleep for the delivery, and suffered a haemorrhage afterwards, losing two pints of blood.

Daughter Bliss was delivered safely, and Samuel was placed in a cot near her bed in a single suite away from the ward.

Mrs Attree was distressed when she held her son as she said he had not been washed and she could not get a lock of his hair as it was matted with blood.

Mrs Attree was excited to be expecting twins but tragically one did not survive

'When I left hospital after the delivery, they gave me his items back and I went to get his blanket and found his clothes were blood stained.

'It was impossible to get a lock of hair as it was matted. I was in a single room, but I could hear other women giving birth. It was absolutely horrendous.'

Four years after his death, Mrs Attree is still suffering with feelings of guilt over his death.

She says she has become fiercely protective of Bliss, and has been diagnosed as suffering from an adjustment disorder, after experiencing flashbacks, nightmares, and negative 'what if' thoughts.

'Even though I know it wasn't my fault, I beat myself up because I had gestational diabetes and wonder if that was part of why it happened.'

Helena Wood, a medical negligence specialist from Hudgell Solicitors, said the hospital missed several opportunities to spot Samuel's lack of growth and therefore missed chances to save him.

'They should have realised there was a problem when they scanned her at both 33 and 35 weeks,' she said.

'Mrs Attree was a high risk pregnancy and she had been admitted to hospital on several occasions and therefore there were many opportunities to save Samuel.

'Our independent obstetrician was of the view that, had the problem been identified, the twins would have been delivered by around 35 weeks gestation, and had that been done, Samuel would have survived.

'The loss of Samuel has had an enormous impact on his mother, father, and siblings. The family feel unable to celebrate Bliss's birthday, as it inevitably is a reminder of Samuel's death.'

Mr Sewa Singh, medical director for Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Trust, said: 'On behalf of the Trust, I want to say sorry to Mrs Attree and her family for their tragic loss..
It has earned the nickname of the 'cuddle hormone'.

But now new research suggests high levels of oxytocin during pregnancy can lead to post-natal depression.

The findings surprised researchers who thought the opposite might apply - and that women with lower levels might be at most risk.

Although a small study, it is hoped the research could pave the way for scientists to develop a blood test which could predict those with the highest chances of getting the baby blues.

Scientists looked at 66 pregnant healthy women who were not suffering from depression.

Many mothers with postnatal depression felt they were failing as they felt they should be happy, lead researcher Dr Suena Massey said (file photo)

They measured their oxytocin levels in the third trimester of pregnancy and then their symptoms of depression, six weeks after they gave birth.

Among the 13 women with a history of depression before pregnancy, the higher their oxytocin levels, the more symptoms of post-natal depression they had.

These symptoms included waking up too early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep, more worrying or anxiety, aches, pains and headaches.

Others experienced changes in bowel patterns, feeling tired or a sense of heaviness, changes in appetite and generally feeling sad.

Many mothers with postnatal depression felt they were failing as they felt they should be happy, lead researcher Dr Suena Massey said.

'This decreases the likelihood that they will seek or accept help,' she said.

It is hoped the findings could one day lead to a blood test to screen pregnant women at risk of postnatal depression (file photo)

'If we can identify the women during pregnancy who are destined to develop postpartum depression, we can begin preventive treatment.'

But the assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago, said more work needed to be done before it could become a new blood test.

'But it tells us that we are on the track to identifying biomarkers to help predict postpartum depression,' she said.

Obstetricians routinely screen for non-psychiatric complications of childbearing such as gestational diabetes, using readily available biomarkers.

The same should be true for pregnancy-related depression, she said.
Scientists have long searched for an effective way to treat melanoma - the deadliest form of skin cancer.

Nearly 14,500 people in the UK and 76,000 in the US are diagnosed with the deadly disease each year.

If caught early, melanoma has a five-year survival rate of greater than 98 per cent, according to experts.

Yet, if the disease spreads before diagnosis and treatment, that number dips to 16.6 per cent.

But now, scientists have developed a skin patch that delivers cancer immunotherapy drugs directly to the site of the melanoma.

The patch is embedded with microneedles - and more effectively targets melanoma than other immunotherapy treatment options, experts found.

Scientists have developed a technique that uses a patch embedded with microneedles (pictured here) to deliver cancer immunotherapy directly to the site of melanoma skin cancer

Melanoma is typically treated by surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

However, a promising new field of cancer treatment is immunotherapy - which boosts the body's immune system to fight off the disease.

T-cells in the immune system are designed to identify and kill cancer cells.

In order to properly do their jobs, T-cells depend on specialized receptors to differentiate healthy cells from cancer cells.

But, cancer cells can trick T-cells, by expressing a protein that binds to a receptor, preventing the T-cell from recognizing and attacking the cancer cell.

Recent cancer immunotherapy research has focused on utilizing 'anti-PD-1' - or programmed cell death - antibodies to stop cancer cells from tricking T-cells.

'However, this poses several challenges,' said study author Dr Chao Wang, of the joint biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State and University of North Carolina.

Dr Wang explained: 'First, the anti-PD-1 antibodies are usually injected into the bloodstream, so they cannot target the tumor site effectively.

'Second, the overdose of antibodies can cause side effects such as an autoimmune disorder.'

And so, to address those challenges, a team of scientists developed a patch that delivers anti-PD-1 antibodies locally to the skin tumor via microneedles.

The microneedles are made by a biocompatible material called hyaluronic acid.

The antibodies are embedded into the nanoparticles, alongside glucose oxidase, which is an enzyme that produces acid when it comes into contact with glucose.

Those nanoparticles are then loaded into the microneedles - which are assembled on the surface of a patch.

The team of experts found that, in animal studies, the patch technique more effectively targeted melanoma (pictured ehre) than other immunotherapy treatments

The patch is then applied to a melanoma, allowing blood to enter the microneedles.

The blood's glucose makes the glucose oxidase produce acid, slowly breaking down the nanoparticles.

As they degrade, the antibodies are released into the tumor.

Senior study author Dr Zhen Gu, an assistant professor in the program, said: 'This technique creates a steady, sustained release of antibodies directly into the tumor site; it is an efficient approach with enhanced retention of anti-PD-1 antibodies in the tumor microenvironment.'

This technique creates a steady, sustained release of antibodies directly into the tumor site Dr Zhen Gu, of North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The patch was tested against melanoma in a mouse models.

The technique was compared to treatment by injecting anti-PD-1 antibodies into the bloodstream, as well as injecting the nanoparticles into the tumor.

Co-lead study author Yanqi Ye, a PhD candidate, said: 'After 40 days, 40 per cent of the mice who were treated using the microneedle patch survived and had no detectable remaining melanoma - compared to a zero per cent survival rate for the control groups.'

Th scientists also created a drug cocktail, consisting of the anti-PD-1 antibodies and another antibody called anti-CTLA-4, which also helps T cells attack cancer cells.

Dr Wang said: 'Using a combination of anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 in the microneedle patch, 70 per cent of the mice survived and had no detectable melanoma after 40 days.'

And because of the sustained and localized release of the miconeedles, the scientists found that they were able to achieve desirable therapeutic effects with a 'relatively low dosage.'

That reduces the risk of autoimmune disorder, they added.

Dr Gu said: 'We're excited about this technique, and are seeking funding to pursue further studies and potential clinical translation.'
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ZIKA

WHAT IS ZIKA?

The Zika (ZEE'-ka) virus was first discovered in monkey in Uganda in 1947 - its name comes from the Zika forest where it was first discovered.

It is native mainly to tropical Africa, with outbreaks in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.

It appeared in Brazil in 2014 and has since been reported in many Latin American countries and Caribbean islands.

HOW IS IT SPREAD?

It is typically transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes - Aedes aegypti - that can spread other tropical diseases, like dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.

It is not known to spread from person to person.

Zika is typically transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes - Aedes aegypti - that can spread other tropical diseases, like dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever

Though rare, scientists have found Zika can be transmitted sexually. The World Health Organisation recently warned the mode of transmission is 'more common than previously assumed'.

And, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued first-time guidance, saying couples trying to conceive should abstain or wear condoms for six months if the male has confirmed or suspected Zika.

Additionally, the CDC said couples should abstain or wear condoms for eight weeks if the female has confirmed or suspected Zika, or if the male traveled to a country with a Zika outbreak but has no symptoms.

During the current outbreak, the first case of sexually transmitted Zika was reported in Texas, at the beginning of February.

The patient became infected after sexual contact with a partner diagnosed with the virus after travelling to an affected region.

Now, health officials in the US are investigating more than a dozen possible cases of Zika in people thought to be infected during sex.

There are also reported cases in France and Canada.

Prior to this outbreak, scientists reported examples of sexual transmission of Zika in 2008.

A researcher from Colorado, who caught the virus overseas, is thought to have infected his wife, on returning home.

And records show the virus was found in the semen of a man in Tahiti.

So far, each case of sexual transmission of Zika involves transmission from an infected man to his partner. There is no current evidence that women can pass on the virus through sexual contact.

The World Health Organisation says Zika is rapidly spreading in the Americas because it is new to the region, people aren't immune to it, and the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries it is just about everywhere - including along the southern United States.

Canada and Chile are the only places without this mosquito.

ARE THERE SYMPTOMS?

The majority of people infected with Zika virus will not experience symptoms.

Those that do, usually develop mild symptoms - fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes - which usually last no more than a week.

There is no specific treatment for the virus and there is currently no vaccine to protect against infection, though several are in the developmental stages.

WHY IS IT A CONCERN NOW?

In Brazil, there has been mounting evidence linking Zika infection in pregnant women to a rare birth defect called microcephaly, in which a newborn's head is smaller than normal and the brain may not have developed properly.

Brazilian health officials last October noticed a spike in cases of microcephaly in tandem with the Zika outbreak.

The country said it has confirmed more than 860 cases of microcephaly - and that it considers them to be related to Zika infections in the mother.

Brazil is also investigating more than 4,200 additional suspected cases of microcephaly.

However, Brazilian health officials said they had ruled out 1,471 suspected cases in the week ending March 19.

The connection to Zika is still being investigated, and officials note there are many causes of the condition.

Meanwhile, doctors have also noted an increased reports of a nerve condition called Guillain-Barre that can cause paralysis.

But the link to the Zika virus is not clear; other infections can spark the problem, including dengue fever.

CAN THE SPREAD BE STOPPED?

Individuals can protect themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellents, and wearing long sleeves and long pants - especially during daylight, when the mosquitoes tend to be most active, health officials say.

Eliminating breeding spots and controlling mosquito populations can help prevent the spread of the virus.

WILL THE ZIKA OUTBREAK SPREAD TO THE US?

Yes, leading global health experts expect the virus to appear in the US in the coming months.

As the temperature begins to rise across the country, the mosquito is likely to become abundant across much of the southern and eastern US.

Experts warn that the Zika virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, will soon spread to the US. Pictured above, a map depicting the 50 continental US cities facing the highest risk of the virus. Below, the projected timeline of when the cities will be hit

THE US CITIES AT HIGH RISK FOR ZIKA VIRUS TRANSMISSION CITY STATE Charleston South Carolina Jacksonville Florida Miami Florida Mobile Alabama New Orleans Louisiana Orlando Florida Tallahassee Florida Tampa Florida Savannah Georgia Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research

The National Center for Atmospheric Research determined the Zika virus risk estimates for 50 US cities.

Cities in southern Florida, as well as impoverished areas in southern Texas, carry the highest risk of Zika outbreaks, a team of experts determined.

However, the mosquito is also projected to appear as far west as Phoenix and Los Angeles, and as far north as New York City.

However, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin warned that the outbreak may be 'far worse than expected' if a second mosquito is able to transmit the virus as well.

Currently, the virus is only transmitted through one species of mosquito  the Aedes aegypti.

But if another mosquito species that is known to harbor the virus  Aedes albopictus  ends up being capable of transmitting Zika as well, the outbreak will be more widespread.

Outbreaks of the virus will hit the US even more than already expected  particularly in the cities of Miami, Houston and New York.

If a second species of mosquito - Aedes albopictus, which has already been detected with Zika - is also able to transmit virus, an outbreak in the US will be worse than expected, experts warn. Pictured, a map showing Zika risks associated with both mosquito types

WHAT ARE THE TRAVEL ADVISORIES?

US health officials recommend that pregnant women should consider postponing trips to at least 30 destinations. For up-to-date information of the CDC's travel advisories, check the CDC's Zika page.

The CDC advises against traveling in Latin America to countries such as: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela. In the Caribbean: Barbados, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, St. Martin and Puerto Rico. Also, Cape Verde, off the coast of western Africa; and Samoa in the South Pacific. Additional countries have also been added to the list.

In Brazil, most of the mothers who had babies with microcephaly were apparently infected during the first trimester, but there is some evidence the birth defect can occur later in the pregnancy, CDC officials say.
A lovely, quirky novel about misfits across the generations

THE ONE-IN-A-MILLION BOY by Monica Wood

THE ONE-IN-A-MILLION BOY

by Monica Wood

(Headline 12.99)

A lovely, quirky novel about misfits across the generations.

Ona, 104 and a grumpy Lithuanian widow, has forged an unlikely friendship with an autistic Boy Scout. But he has died at the start of the story.

Enter Quinn, a disillusioned rock guitarist and the dead boys father; he feels obliged to help Ona now his son cannot. The two become friends and eventually Quinns estranged wife is drawn into the group as well.

Cakes are baked, road trips are taken, epiphanies are experienced and slowly the black hole left by the dead boy is criss-crossed with the healing connections between those left behind.

As well as hope, there is humour. The boy was an avid Guinness World Records fan and determined to get Ona in the book as oldest ever something. Does he/she succeed?

THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS by Catherine Lowell

THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS

by Catherine Lowell

(Quercus 16.99)

Perfectly timed for the Charlotte bicentenary, this Bronte-centred tale has American student Samantha Whipple as the famous familys last surviving member. Problem is, she cant stand their novels. This might not be a problem were she not reading English Literature at Oxford.

The other difficulty is the ever-present ghost of her dead father, a tricksy academic obsessed with the Brontes.

Throw into the mix a brooding tutor, a spooky tower room and various buried secrets and the result is a sort of Jane Eyre at Oxford.

Its a super premise, stylishly written and the bits about the sisters are great. I found the bumptious, clever-clever heroine irritating, even so.

RARE OBJECTS by Kathleen Tessaro

RARE OBJECTS

by Kathleen Tessaro

(HarperCollins 7.99)

Its Thirties America. After her New York working-girl dream ended in psychiatric hospital, Maeve returns to Boston for a fresh start.

Dying her Irish red hair blonde, she starts work in a mysterious antiques shop patronised by Bostons rich and glamorous.

Drawn into the fast and fickle world of wealthy Diana Van der Laar, Maeve soon finds herself more compromised than before.

What secrets is the deeply troubled Diana hiding? And what does her handsome brother want with Maeve?
HOT MILK by Deborah Levy

HOT MILK

by Deborah Levy

(Hamish Hamilton 12.99)

Sofia, a 25-year-old post-graduate anthropology student, and her mother, Rose, arrive in a Spanish fishing village having mortgaged the family home. It is a last-ditch attempt to find a diagnosis for the mysterious paralysis of the older womans legs.

Their physician of last resort is the unconventional Dr Gomez, whose approach to therapy suggests he is brilliant or a quack. In the harsh glare of the Iberian sun, Sofia is forced to meet head-on her complicated relationship with her mother.

Is Rose actually ill or is it all in her mind? And has becoming her carer stalled Sofias ability to get on with her own life?

While Rose is at Dr Gomezs clinic, Sofia passes her days with a hunky Spanish man and Ingrid, a hippyish German tourist, while also fitting in a visit to her Greek father in Athens, where he lives with his new, young wife and baby.

Levy captures beautifully the atmosphere of indolent days in the Mediterranean sun and has a wickedly funny wit, but overall the book fails to convince.

There are several passages where the momentum sags and the narrative feels as unstructured as Sofias life. A good beach read, though.

ALL THAT MAN IS by David Szalay

ALL THAT MAN IS

by David Szalay

(Cape 14.99)

In nine separate stories, prize-winning novelist Szalay takes us through the Ages of Man  from the experiences of an Interrailing, A-level student in Europe to the dwindling last days of an ageing Russian oligarch contemplating suicide in the face of financial ruin.

In between, we follow a twentysomething directionless French loser on a nightmare holiday in a hell-hole Cyprus resort, watch a smug academics perfect existence begin to morph into something else when his girlfriend tells him she is pregnant, and share the soul-searching of a Hungarian former soldier brought to London to protect a girl whose boyfriend hires her out as a high-class prostitute.

Only the first and last stories have any connection and even that is tenuous, but for all that this feels like a great novel driven by its overarching theme: what is my life, here and now, all about?

Each story grips the reader by the throat. We fully inhabit their progression of heroes and finally face the dreadful truth of the human condition: that nothing is eternal, not us, not our children, the human race, the Earth nor the stars.

Rarely has it been so brilliantly and chillingly spelled out.

A GIRL IN EXILE by Ismail Kadare

A GIRL IN EXILE

by Ismail Kadare

(Harvill Secker 16.99)

The blurb for Kadares new book describes him as Albanias best-known novelist, but only would probably be more accurate.

Set at an unspecified time during the 40-plus years the country suffered under the most controlling of all totalitarian communist regimes, the hero is successful playwright Rudian Stefa, who is on tenterhooks waiting to hear if his new play will be approved by the Partys censors.

When he is called before a committee, though, it is not to discuss the play, but to answer questions about Linda B, a young woman from a rural backwater who has recently taken her own life. The problem is that one of Rudians books, bearing a signed dedication to the girl from him, has been found among her possessions.

Rudian signed the book at the request of the dead girls friend, not knowing Linda was in internal exile because of her familys past association with the countrys former monarchy.
GONE ASTRAY by Michelle Davies

GONE ASTRAY

by Michelle Davies

(Macmillan 12.99)

This stunningly accomplished debut from journalist Davies asks two simple questions: how do you cope with being catapulted from everyday life into being millionaires by a massive lottery win? And what impact might it have on you and your family?

The answer is profoundly disturbing. Lesley Kinnock, mother of teenager Rosie, won a 15 million jackpot on a lottery ticket bought on a whim. She and her husband, Mack, instantly abandoned their old life and moved to a gated community in Buckinghamshire, only for their daughter to be abducted.

Their story is told through the eyes of Detective Constable Maggie Neville, who is appointed family liaison officer to the Kinnocks as the investigation into their daughters disappearance gathers pace.

Neville adds a piquant humanity to the story as I believe it is one of the first times the role of a liaison officer has been explored in a crime novel. Elegantly plotted, Davies never lets the pace falter, revealing the strains that can ravage even the closest family under intense stress. The book deserves to shoot to the top of the best-seller lists. I read it in a single sitting.

THE DARKEST GOODBYE by Alex Gray

THE DARKEST GOODBYE

by Alex Gray

(Sphere 12.99)

Rightly acclaimed in her native Scotland, it is important to remind the rest of the country just how impressive Grays work is.

In the almost 25 years since she started writing, she has brought Glasgows dark underworld to life in the same way Ian Rankin did Edinburghs.

This 13th novel opens with newly minted DC Kirsty Wilson being called to the house of an elderly lady who has been found dead after receiving a visit from someone purporting to be a nurse in the early hours of the morning.

Shortly afterwards, Wilson finds herself confronting another killing, this time of a local drug lord who has been executed for his dealings with Glasgows hard men.

The two cases appear to have nothing in common, until another vulnerable elderly person is murdered in their sleep, and the two begin to coalesce. Told with characteristic panache, it confirms what an excellent crime writer Gray has become.

THE TEACHER by Katerina Diamond

THE TEACHER

by Katerina Diamond

(Avon 7.99)

This spirited, if gruesome, crime debut opens with the headmaster of an exclusive Devon school hanging himself in the atrium after receiving a mysterious package that was clearly intended to send him a chilling message.

It transpires he had an ugly secret he was anxious to prevent the world from discovering. And it is certainly not the only secret that is kept as this intriguing story unfolds.

Exeter suddenly finds itself the scene of a string of grizzly deaths, including the torture of a property developer gone bad and the killing of a pathologist.

Detective Sergeants Imogen Grey and Adrian Miles find themselves struggling to restore tranquillity against a background of unexpected corruption and conspiracy.

Diamond neatly handles a string of interlocking strands, and her portrait of Grey as a woman who takes pains never to seem too clever  thereby encouraging those who come into contact with her to underestimate her  is especially well drawn and provides a fine counterpoint to the more predictable Miles.
THE NEST by Kenneth Oppel,

THE NEST

by Kenneth Oppel,

(David Fickling Books 10.99)

Steve is an anxious child, tortured by nightmares, so when his baby brother is born with a serious congenital illness that preoccupies their parents, his stress levels rise.

After being stung by a waspish insect, he dreams of a giant queen wasp who comes to his room and promises to help with the baby.

But as the story progresses and his dreams intensify, the seemingly angelic insect develops a menacing tone, suggesting Steve replace his sickly sibling with a perfect, healthy new one thats growing in her papery nest under the house eaves.

Oppel controls this disturbing story with delicate skill, probing Steves deepest unspoken emotions and fears, yet reinforcing his under-used power to defeat his psychological demons.

With shadowy, atmospheric illustrations from the peerless Jon Klassen, this is a genuinely unsettling and original book that will build an unwelcome, humming home in your imagination.

Age 10+

THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH by Ali Benjamin

THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH

by Ali Benjamin

(Macmillan 10.99)

Suzy and Franny were Best Friends Forever until, aged 12, Franny discovered the cool girls and rejected geeky, socially awkward Suzy  who resorts to a desperate ploy to win her back.

When Franny drowns at the beach, Suzy retreats into a world of silence, compounded by her parents divorce. Grief-stricken, she refuses to accept that Frannys death was an accident and convinces herself that a tiny, deadly species of jellyfish was responsible. She plots to visit a marine expert in Australia to prove her theory.

This is a heartbreakingly touching debut about friendship, loss, fear and love that is funny, clever and beautifully written.

Its also packed with fascinating science and jellyfish facts that will surprise and entrance you  though may also put you off sea swimming this summer . . .

Age 10+

THE ISLAND by Olivia Levez

THE ISLAND

by Olivia Levez

(Rock the Boat 7.99)

With a huge debt to Robinson Crusoe and the film Cast Away, this ambitious story stars troubled teenager Frances, whose nurturing love for her younger brother drives her to imagine escaping their abusive, dysfunctional home.

When he is taken into care, she takes violent revenge on the inspirational teacher she holds responsible and is sent on an Outward Bound-type rehabilitation course on a remote island in the Indian Ocean.

But when the plane crashes and she is washed ashore as the lone survivor, she has to dredge deep to find the resources not just to live, but to come to terms with her actions.

Then she discovers she is not alone, and that redemption may, indeed, be possible . . .

As her past and present collide, the bloody-mindedness and rage that drove her to protect her brother prove the very qualities that may save her life.
Rohith Vemulas suicide and the recent police action against Kanhaiya Kumar and other Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students on charges of sedition are new tools for rebel group Communist Party of India (Maoist) in their bid to gather support in urban areas, according to an intelligence report.

The report states that affiliates of CPI (Maoist) have formed a Joint Action for Social Justice that has been criticising the administration for the death of Rohith Vemula, a Phd scholar in Hyderabad Central University, arrests of JNU students and former Delhi University professor SAR Geelani who was acquitted in the Parliament attack case.

We have no information about such a report. We would like to make it clear that we have no links with Maoists in any way, and I am only a member of the All India Students Federation, said a JNU student, quoting Kanhaiya on the subject.

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar has, however, made it clear that he has no links with Maoists

Kanhaiya, President of JNU students union, students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were arrested for being part of an event on January 9, to commemorate the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Anti-national slogans were reportedly shouted at the event.

All three are currently on bail along with Geelani who was also arrested for a similar event. Intelligence agencies have in the past flagged Geelanis organisation, Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, as a Maoist front but the former Delhi University professor has earlier maintained that this is the states attempt to oppress dissenting voices in the country.

He insisted the organisation only gives a voice to people who have been framed.

Geelani could not be reached for comment as his phone was switched off. Front groups working for the Maoists have held several meetings where the issues related to Vemulas suicide and arrests of students were taken up.

The participants demanded withdrawal of sedition charges and end to alleged government interference in educational institutions, the report states.

Front groups working for the Maoists have held several meetings where issues like Dalit student Rohith Vemulas (above) suicide was discussed

The report has identified Radical a student front for Maoists for organising such events mainly in West Bengal. Vemula, a Dalit scholar, committed suicide on the Hyderabad university campus following suspension from the hostel in August last for allegedly attacking an ABVP leader.

It is alleged that his scholarship was also suspended.

This led to financial hardships which prompted him to take his own life.

Vemulas suicide and the slapping of sedition charges against JNU students had created a political outcry with the Centre coming under attack from the opposition and other sections of society.

The report on the activities of Maoist front organisations taking up these issues names groups that have come up in West Bengal. Sources say these groups are making efforts to revive several defunct front bodies of Maoists in urban areas by highlighting recent developments.

The Maoist movement which started from West Bengal has suffered several setbacks over the years and the has lost the firepower it once had.

The recent intelligence report that has been shared with Delhi and West Bengal police throws light on efforts being made by many Maoist front bodies to revive the armed rebel movement demanding unconditional release of Geelani and others along with punishment for those who are responsible for death of Vemula. In an earlier report submitted to the home ministry, 128 such organisations were identified for having links with the red rebels.

Reports indicate that these organisations carry over-ground agitational activities in an attempt to enlarge the mass base of the party and prepare the stage for armed insurrection. Many of these groups are based in urban centres and provide logistical support to the movement ensuring fusion between overground and underground activities.
Justin Bieber fans claim they spotted Selena Gomez attending one of his live concerts

Wait  is Jelena potentially back on?

One of the most enduring on/off celebrity relationships out there has possibly been reignited, after Justin Bieber fans claim they spotted Selena Gomez attending one of his live concerts.

Fans at the Biebs gig on Wednesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles flocked to social media to report that they had seen the Canadian stars ex-girlfriend in attendance.

The report comes just days after the ex-couple were said to have started texting each other again, after Bieber posted a cute throwback picture taken several years ago of them kissing.

Twenty-two-year-old Justin has stated that his new album Purpose, released at the back end of 2015 and a smash with the critics as well as his fanbase, was partially inspired by his former relationship and break-up with Selena.

Earlier this week, Bieber announced that he was cancelling all of his fan meet and greet appointments indefinitely, claiming that he felt drained and unhappy, and amid rumours that he was speaking to Selena again, some thought it might be because he was pining for his ex.

contactmusic.com

New single by Fifth Harmony

Fifth Harmony dropped a new track from their upcoming album.

The Life is the second cut from their second album 7/27 and is basically about living the best life ever  which were happy to get on board with.

The track features the lyrics We the best in the biz/Breaking up ain't a chance/Living life feeling rich, which puts any split rumours that may be circling to rest at least.

7/27 will be released on May 20 and acts as a follow up to their debut album Reflection, which reached number five in the US and 18 in the UK.

digitalspy.co.uk

Celebrities mourn Garry's death

Hollywood is in mourning.

E! News confirmed the tragic death of actor and comedian Garry Shandling, who is known to have influenced the likes of Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, Judd Apatow and more.

Shandling passed away on Thursday at a hospital in Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Police Department, however the cause of death has yet to be confirmed.

Shandlings work brought laughs to many and inspired a number of stars who looked up to the 66- year-old.

After the news broke, many of his famous fans took to social media to express their condolences or recall fond memories with the comedian.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled the vision document 2016- 2025Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas for the state

Hoping for victory in Assam, BJP has promised to completely seal the Indo-Bangla border in the state to stop illegal infiltration if it comes to power and also take action against entities employing infiltrators.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled the vision document 2016- 2025Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas for the state while accusing Assam CM Tarun Gogoi of destroying and changing the demography of the state by allowing infiltration. Assembly polls in Assam will be held in two phases on April 4 and 11.

Meanwhile, BJP President Amit Shah addressing two rallies at Sibsagar and Sonari, said a party government in the state would take steps to stop illegal infiltration from Bangladesh, alleging Assam has never been safe under Congress 15-year rule.

Closing borders

Assams border has been opened as a road for lakhs of infiltrators from Bangladesh to snatch away employment from Assams youth, Shah said, as he urged the electorate to help form an NDA government in Assam and and stop infiltration 100 per cent.

Congress has been doing it (allowing infiltration) for many decades and took no action, Jaitley said, adding that if BJP comes to power, it will work closely with the Centre for complete sealing of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam.

The vision document said a law would be enacted to sternly deal with industries, businesses, SMEs or any other agencies employing infiltrators.

It further said all encroachments will be removed from forest, religious bodies, wasteland and tribal belts.

We are clear in our mind that 2016 election is a historical chance to defeat and uproot the failed 15-year-old Congress government. That is why all anti-Congress social and political parties have united and are fighting together, Jaitley said.

Jaitley exuded confidence that BJP-led alliance would mark a landslide victory in Assam.

BJP President Amit Shah said a party government in the state would take steps to stop illegal infiltration

The mood to change the ruler is consolidating day by day and a desire for a change is sweeping across the state. People of Assam are fed up with slogans and want growth on ground. The aspirational politics is visible among youth, who are our core strength, Jaitley said.

The BJP document promised to construct model villages in collaboration with BSF, ex-servicemen and indigenous people along the border, besides securing the inter-state boundaries through amicable settlements.

Shah promised to take the state on to a corruption-free government.

Corruption is highest in Assam. No money is being spent for development of roads, electricity supply, building good hospitals.

If you search, the money sent for development will be found in ministers houses, Shah alleged.

On Congress allegation of fund cut to the state by the NDA government, Jaitley said, Assam will get 148 per cent more in 2016- 2020 compared to 2011-2015 due to higher tax devaluation of 42 per cent as against 32 per cent earlier.
March 22 is henceforth an iconic date in Belgian history.

Bomb attacks in the departure hall of the Brussels Airport and at the Maalbeek underground station near the European Parliament building killed dozens of people.

I have been hundreds of times at these locations, and must count myself fortunate that I wast there at the wrong time.

Bomb attacks in the departure hall of the Brussels Airport and at the Maalbeek underground station near the European Parliament building killed dozens of people

History

Is there a reason why Brussels was singled out for bomb attacks claimed by the Islamic State?

Yes, there was, and we in Belgium felt it was only a matter of time before such a thing would happen  though the actual event still came as a shock.

In fact, several reasons.

Militants of the Islamic State, the self-styled Caliphate, are acutely aware of Islamic history, and that contains one reason, dim to us but very vivid to them.

ISIS statements about the attacks identify the victims as crusaders, and Belgium is indeed strongly identified with the crusades.

The First Crusade was led by the proto-Belgian earl Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first King of Jerusalem in 1099; his equestrian statue adorns the highest place of Brussels, next to the Royal Palace.

The Crusader elite corps of the Knights Templar had a tactical alliance with the Assassins, a Shiite militia dedicated to fighting the (Sunni) Caliphate.

Today, the neo-Caliphate (ISIS) is continuing that thousand-year-old struggle against both Shiites and Crusaders.

The second reason is the symbolic value of Brussels as containing the headquarters of both the EU and NATO, incarnations of armed infidelism.

The Caliphate is at war with these entities, and Belgium is among the Western nations bombing the Iraqi part of the Caliphate.

Many Leftists have transferred their old sympathy for Cuba and Vietnam to the Islamic challengers of Western imperialism.

Therefore, they tend to minimise the seriousness of terrorism by alleging, not incorrectly, that even a small country like Belgium has already killed more Arab civilians (apart from Caliphate fighters) than have died in any of the terrorist attacks on Madrid, London, Paris or now Brussels.

Being killed on the way to work by a sudden bomb explosion is exactly as bad in Mosul as it is in Brussels, so Belgians shouldnt complain.

The third reason is the relative laxity of the Belgian authorities.

Within Belgium itself, when compared to the second city, Antwerp, the administration of Brussels counts as undisciplined, chaotic and corrupt.

The over-all Belgian standard is not so good either, as the security forces are badly underfunded.

For decades, whenever budget cuts have been considered, the Army has served as a milch-cow.

Soldiers are not expected to complain, but the result is that today they are ill-equipped to deal with the terror threat.

Adapt

Within the calculations of the ISIS strategists, the fourth reason, at least explaining why it happened now, is that it had to happen fast.

Last week, Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the cell that carried out the Paris attacks in November, was arrested in Brussels.

The Belgian government was triumphant and expected to extract important information from the terrorist.

For the very same reason, ISIS feared that its plans for further actions would become known, so it preponed the bomb attacks that have now taken place.

That explains why they targeted easily accessible places: ISIS showed that it could fast adapt to the constraints of the new situation and still achieve a very tangible and sensational result.

But the most controversial and politically charged, is the fifth reason.

Using Brussels as a staging-ground for preparing attacks in Madrid, Paris or Brussels itself is fairly easy, because the militants can always count on a large population of sympathisers.

Anti-system As Ernesto Che Guevara wrote, a guerrilla fighter is among the masses like a fish in the water.

In the Muslim neighbourhoods of Brussels, there is a strong anti-system feeling, and even moderates will never betray a member of their own community.

Take the case of Salah Abdeslam, whom it took four months to catch.

He had not been roaming as a fugitive, but lived in hiding with an extremist family in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek. His brother, who lived nearby, had told the police he hadnt heard of Salah and feared he was dead.

Yet, he and many in the neighbourhood knew Salahs whereabouts, but nobody spilled the beans.

The Belgian population frowned when it learned of this display of disloyalty.

This forms part of a long-running and far-reaching debate on immigration, ethnic relations, religious pluralism and the secular state.

At any rate, in a realistic assessment, Brussels had it coming.

Belgiums Home Minister, Jan Jambon, had warned last week that the latest catch of a terrorist did not mean that the terror threat had died down.

He was proven right sooner than he expected.
Located in the narrow streets near the New Anarkali bazaar in Lahore, the Valmiki Temple on Holi was buzzing with music, laughter and lots of colours.

The local shopkeepers and bystanders also found it hard to resist the temptation of splurging into a fight of colours with the Hindu community.

Our temple continues to spread the message of unity and we welcome people from all faiths be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian in our place of worship to celebrate Holi, says Swami, a saywakar at the temple. He points towards the veranda of the temple and says, When all the people are drenched in colours then how does one distinguish between faiths? Humanity is the biggest faith.

The Valmiki temple in Lahore, Pakistan, welcomes people from all faiths to celebrate Holi, spreading the message of peace and unity

The 12,000-year-old Valmiki is the only other operative temple in Lahore along with Krishna Temple located on Ravi Road.

It would not be an over exaggeration to call Valimiki temple a veteran, a personification of one bruised and tormented by the religious extremism of the subcontinent.

The historical old building has survived several attacks by angry mobs and land-grabbers.

Back in 1992, in the aftermath of the Babri Mosque attack in India, an angry mob wielding weapons stormed into the Valmiki Temple, smashing idols of Krishna and Valmiki, including a tile of gold by Valmikis feet, breaking utensils and crockery in the kitchen and seizing the sacred gold and jewels, which embellished the statues. What was left of this monumental religious symbol was mere rubble and ashes.

Today, the reconstructed structure where idols have been replaced with mounted photographs of religious figures, offers worshippers and outsiders a chance to experience and celebrate Hindu festivals like Holi and Diwali.

We Pakistanis need to celebrate all religions and love the diversity of this land. Red is a colour of love and that love was expressed by Krishna when he coloured Radha in red, thats why on this day we celebrate and admire the idea of love, says 28-year-old Sonia Raj, daughter of Pundit Bhagat Lal Khokhar.

Holi is said to have originated from Multan in Pakistan

Khokars ancestors have been taking care of this temple and earlier the entire Valmikistreet, which had 35 Valmiki families in this area before the partition. But he voices his concern over the future of the place.

This is our sixth generation serving the Valmiki people of this region but how will this be carried on by the next generation is a question I often dont have an answer to, she says.

Not many people are aware of the worship and functioning of the two temples in Lahore.

Usha, a 23-year-old Nepali student studying Pharmacy at Punjab University says: Ive been living here for the last four years, but I didnt know that in Lahore there actually is a mandir, which has a worship space. I never thought that in a conservative country like this, there can be a mandir, she smiles.

Similarly, Arif Masih a 47-year-old Christian activist says that celebrating each religions festival is a sign of loving the diversity of what this land once stood for.

I am a Christian but my ancestors were Hindus so I dont see a point in not celebrating Hindu festivals with as much fervour as Christmas or Easter, he says.

The adoption of a resolution in the National Assembly proposing public holidays on Diwali, Easter and Holi in Pakistan was earlier met with much enthusiasm among people but the resolution failed to see the light of day.

We have a long way to go until the government takes such steps, says Swami.

The 12,000-year-old Valmiki is the only other operative temple in Lahore along with Krishna Temple located on Ravi Road

However, he says, Holi originated from Multan, Pakistan, where ruins of the old Prahladpuri temple still exist. After killing Hiranyakashipu, Lord Narasimha took a dip at a place called SurajKund, a pond in Multan.

With such a diverse heritage, one can only wonder how great this land can be, if we are to shed the religious extremism that ails our entire region, he says.
With Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nominating Mehbooba Mufti as legislative party head and chief ministerial candidate on Thursday and BJP choosing Nirmal Singh as deputy chief minister all seemed well with both the parties.

It was expected that presidents of PDP and state BJP would also meet the Governor NN Vohra on Friday afternoon, as scheduled, to discuss government formation with him.

PDP-BJP agrees

However, both the parties informed Raj Bhavan that talks were going on at Jammu & Kashmir between party leaders and they would make a fresh request for meeting the Governor when they conclude their discussions.

With the PDP-BJP alliance back on track, the state is days away from forming new government

The request to Vohra by both the parties to postpone Fridays meetings led to speculations that there are differences over distribution of portfolios with the BJP seeking finance ministry and home ministry, which in the previous PDP-BJP coalition were with the PDP.

PDP senior leader and former finance minister Haseeb Drabu, who has been key player in negotiation with the BJP, said both the parties were now going to jointly meet the Governor. He however didnt specify the time when they were meeting the Governor.

He said there had been a series of developments since Thursday which lead to a delay in the meeting with the Governor. He said that there was no truth in the rumour that there were differences over the portfolios between the two parties.

The state BJP spokesman Arun Gupta also told Mail Today that the issue of portfolios has not come up for the discussions.

This issue was not discussed at all, he said. Earlier, the state BJP elected Nirmal Singh as its leader in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and nominated him for the deputy chief ministers post in the new PDP-BJP alliance government to be headed by Mehbooba Mufti.

The meeting was attended by the minister of state in the Prime Ministers Office, Jitendra Singh, and general secretary Bharatiya Janata Party, Ram Madhav.

Developments

Ram Madhav apprised BJP legislators about the recent developments, including the Tuesday meeting in New Delhi between Mehbooba and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to sources, Ram Madhav informed the state BJP that the BJP has not accepted any fresh demands from the PDP and the Agenda of Alliance would remain as basis of the coalition government.

Speaking after the meeting, BJP State president Sat Pal Sharma said the BJP had decided to extend support to PDP president Mehbooba Mufti to head the PDPBJP government in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Coalition

The PDP and BJP in the joint meeting with the Governor are expected to stake claim over government formation in the state which has been under the Governors rule since sitting Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died in AIIMS on January 7, 2016 in New Delhi.

After Muftis death, daughter Mehbooba had refused to take oath as CM asking the centre government, led by the BJP, to announce J&K specific confidence building measures (CBMs).
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is one of worlds 50 greatest leaders according to Fortune Magazine

Now Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is one of worlds 50 greatest leaders as per Fortune Magazine.

In fact, the 47-year-old AAP chief is the sole Indian on Fortunes 3rd annual Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders list. It is topped by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Kejriwal is ranked 42nd while South Carolinas Indian-American Governor Nikki Haley stands 17th & another Indian-American, Resham Saujani, is at 20th spot.

Not a good Friday for the BJP!

It was an embarrassment for BJP on Friday after they wished people happiness on Good Friday, observed to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ.

Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma and party leader Shahnawaz Hussain committed the faux pas.

May you be blessed with goodness and prosperity. Happy #GoodFriday, Sharma tweeted, while Hussain said, Warm Greetings on #Good-Friday to all of you! The Twitterati jumped to the occasion calling for classes on how not to wish.

Thank you Prime Minister

London-based industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul met PM Narendra Modi

London-based industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul met PM Narendra Modi and conveyed his appreciation for the decision of India to treat NRI investments at par with resident investments.

Paul told Modi that the decision to allow such investment on non-repatriable basis was a welcome first step and soon after the announcement he had made a personal investment of Rs 25 crore into a finance company operated by Caparo Group in India.

Meghalaya Guv meets Rajnath

Meghalaya Governor V Shanmuganathan on Friday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to discuss security scenario in the sensitive northeastern state.

During the 20-minute meeting, the Governor apprised Singh about the law and order situation in the state, which has been witnessing militancy from two groups  HNLC and ANVC.

The meet is seen as significant as Singh in his recent tour to Meghalaya had said that Centre was ready for talks with insurgent groups if they shunned violence.

Team Shah to keep check on states

BJP chief Amit Shah is set to form a team which will travel across states to ensure that the organisation is working towards fulfilling the agenda by complementing government efforts.

Members of the team, who are all drawn from RSS, will travel at regular intervals and spend at least three days and nights at each place.
He might say hes one of lifes winners but even Donald Trump is not immune to shifts in the market.

The outspoken billionaire and presidential hopeful lost money on 18 of the 21 hedge funds he backed last year, new analysis shows.

And a tumultuous start to 2016 has seen 17 of them fall in value since the New Year.

In total, the businessman  who boasts that his IQ is one of the highest and he is a really smart guy  has invested in 23 funds worth 85.7million.

Calculations by Reuters suggest they lost an average of 8.5 per cent last year, strongly outperformed by the industry as a whole which saw rival funds break even.

The money might be a drop in the ocean compared with Trumps overall fortune but City figures heaped ridicule on his investing expertise.

Veteran investor Justin Urquhart Stewart said: This rather sums up Trumps ability to lose rather than make shedloads of money.

Hes just a spiv with a dodgy hairstyle. God help us if he wins the American election because hairspray will be the only winner.

For his part, the man known as The Donald said he had given his cash to trusted acquaintances and the funds had done well since he paid in three or four years ago.

I put some money with people that are friends, he said.

I have no idea if theyre up or down. I just know that they have been very good over a period of time.

I do very little hedge fund business. For the most part I dont believe in it.

Trumps outspoken views have won him a huge following in America. He is now just 498 delegates short of winning the Republican nomination, well ahead of his rivals.

A victory would put him in a straight race with the Democratic candidate, likely to be Hillary Clinton.

But a string of controversial statements  including proposals to ban all Muslims and make Mexico pay for a 1,000-mile wall along its border  have made many nervous.

Wall Street bankers have reacted to his rise with alarm. Trump has previously sued Deutsche Bank and called JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon the worst banker in the United States.

He also argues hedge fund managers are getting away with murder under US tax laws.

The Washington Post spoke to several executives who questioned Trumps abilities but refused to go public for fear of angering him.

Some of Trumps hedge funds have performed well. GAMCO Global Gold, Natural Resources & Income is up around 16.27 per cent since the start of the year, beating the benchmark.

And the Invesco European Growth Fund gained 4.82 per cent in 2015 against a benchmark loss of 5.66 per cent.

But American analysts were scornful about his choices and said they could not understand why he paid so little attention.

By the looks of it, Mr Trumps investing prowess is very pedestrian, said Brian Shapiro, chief executive of Simplify LLC.

For someone who prides himself on being surrounded by the best talent, said Brad Alford, an investment advisor and CEO of Alpha Capital Management, Im surprised to see so few winners.

Trump is also invested with BlackRocks Obsidian fund, which has averaged annual returns of 3.39 per cent in the last five years, sources say.

Ahead: Trump holds a sign supporting his plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico

Obsidian fell 6.17 per cent in 2016 through March 11, while other comparable funds rose 0.69 percent, according to a private report seen by Reuters.

Trump also uses 11 Baron vehicles with different investment strategies, including small-cap stocks, real estate and emerging markets.

Nine lost money in 2015, with one energy and resources vehicle falling nearly 32 per cent. Nine are down this year with single-digit losses.

Barons long-term track record is better. The firms best-known Baron Growth Fund has gained an average of about 8.6 per cent annually over the last five years.

And in 2015, three Paulson funds used by Trump all fell, Reuters said.

One of the funds, the Paulson Advantage Plus fund, had declined an average of about 22 per cent every year over the last five years.

Trump also invests in individual stocks, including Apple, Goldman Sachs and Altria Group.
Nearly a third of people in their mid-thirties who do not own a home have completely given up on trying to buy one as they cant afford to, a new survey suggests.

Rising house prices also mean that almost half have very little hope of getting on the property ladder, according to research from Yorkshire Building Society.

Some 31 per cent of the 35 to 40 year-olds polled said buying was out of question unless prices dropped dramatically, while 49 per cent said it was unlikely or very unlikely they would ever own a house.

Too expensive: Half of Britons between 35 and 40 years old said it was unlikely they will ever own a home

Unaffordability is the main reason behind the disillusion, as people worry they do not earn enough money, are not be able to raise a big enough deposit and lack job security.

The survey comes as the average price of a first-time buyer home rose by 7.7 per cent to 222,000 in the year to January, according to official data.

Meanwhile, the average UK property value reached a new record high of 292,000 in January, the Office for National Statistics said.

Andy Caton, executive director of Yorkshire Building Society, said: It is very sad to see how the hope of owning a home is fading for so many, especially as people approach their mid-thirties.

For most people, owning a home is not just about security, it is also evidently integral to their feelings of self-worth, success and self-esteem.

The survey showed that nearly 70 per cent of young adults aged 18 to 40 felt owning their own home was crucial to feeling that they had succeeded in life, as well as a source of social and financial security.
Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam pocketed a 13.7m pay-cheque for 2015

He might have just axed 2,000 jobs but that didnt stop Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam pocketing a 13.7m pay-cheque for 2015, the firms annual report has revealed.

The former Prudential chief executive announced a cost-cutting programme within months of taking the reins at the beleaguered bank, which lost 2.1bn last year.

And he was forced to reveal a new wave of cuts earlier this week after admitting his own staff had concealed risky trades from senior management.

Thiam, 53, said he would slash bonuses by 36pc and asked for a 40pc cut himself in a show of solidarity. He nonetheless pocketed 2.1m in bonuses, a 1.2m salary and 95,000 pension payment for 2015.

But the bulk of Thiams pay award came from 10.4m worth of shares to compensate for shares cancelled when he left his former employer the Prudential.

Thiam was born in the Ivory Coast. His mother was the niece of the countrys founder and a relative of the queen after whom its capital Yamoussoukro is named.

His father was a Senegalese journalist who fought for Ivorian independence and served for more than a decade in the countrys cabinet.

Thiam was educated in Paris and studied physics and advanced maths.

Thiam was an Ivorian planning minister until 1999, then  after a coup  he returned to the private sector. He worked at insurer Aviva from 2002 to 2008, then joined Prudential where he was made chief executive. Thiam was the first black boss of a FTSE 100 firm.
HSBC has suffered a string of scandals these past years, not least the US Senate accusing the bank of acting as a conduit for 'drug kingpins and rogue nations' following their 2012 money laundering scandal.

So its decision to appoint dour Glaswegian David Nish to its board yesterday makes sense. City observers predict there'll be no Libor fixing or any other such racy shenanigans while the ex-Standard Life boss, 55, is in post.

To paraphrase PG Wodehouse, there's never much danger of mistaking postal worker's son Nish for a ray of sunshine. 'David could bore a statue into yawning,' says a source.

City of London restaurateurs rejoice! Convivial PR man Piers Pottinger, one of the Square Mile's greatest trenchermen, is returning to these shores, albeit temporarily.

'Potty' has been exiled to Singapore for the past four years running the Asian branch of the consultancy firm he set up with Lady Thatcher's old strategist Lord Bell.

He returns here next month for the wedding of City grandee, and ex-Barings Bank grand fromage, Lord Northbrook's daughter.

Pottinger has been tasked to deliver a speech with Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes. His Lordship is advised to keep corks firmly in the claret bottles until Piers's oration is well out of the way.

Pro-Brexit Boris Johnson's claim this week that most bankers he knows aren't troubled at Britain leaving the EU is awkward for his youngest brother Max.

He's a banker with ambitions at the Hong Kong offices of Goldman Sachs, aka the Vampire Squid, who constantly lecture us what a disaster a Brexit would be.

With his blonde hair and foppish charm, Max, 25, could easily be a younger, thinner Boris. And like Johnson (major) my Kowloon sources report the impish scamp is also an interminable skirt-chaser.

Reclusive private equity tycoon Damon Buffini  once named the most influential black male in Britain  is to become chair of the National Theatre in June.

I suspect theatre is something of which the bald-as-a-coot ex-Permira boss, 53, knows little, but presumably he will be expected to drum up vast cash donations for the National's coffers.

With his 200million fortune and tentacles reaching far and wide through the world of finance, he should be more than up to the job. Seasoned South Bank observers say that's rather more that can be said of the NT's new(ish) creative director Rufus Norris, but that's another story.

PS I'm hearing an ex-hedge fund boss, and regular in society circles, has been lending a distraught Hollywood leading lady a Savile Row-suited shoulder to cry on at his sumptuous country pad, following the breakdown of her marriage.
Starbucks is trying to capture the George Clooney factor by launching its own brand of popular Nespresso-style coffee capsules.

The giant US chain is introducing the pods that can be inserted into a coffee machine at home in a bid to take on rivals Nescafe who have the Nespresso brand advertised by the Hollywood heart-throb.

There are several different shapes and sizes of coffee pods which all fit in different machines  but Starbucks capsules will be compatible with Nespresso pods.

The price of the capsules, which will go on sale in the summer, has not yet been decided.

Nespresso is one of the most popular brands of coffee machine in the UK and France, despite it being regarded as expensive.

A Nespresso Inissia machine can be bought through Amazon for 72 and 100 mixed coffee pods also online for 40.80.

Starbucks already has its own brand of Verismo machine priced at around 52.65 with its own style of pods  but these do not fit into Nespresso machines.

Starbucks wants to sell more of its products to people at home, rather than in its stores.
The multi-billion-dollar Rockefeller Family Fund has announced plans to withdraw all funds from the oil industry after 146 years in the business.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the charitable fund slammed Exxon Mobil Corp as 'morally reprehensible' for 'misleading' the public about how much fossil fuels contribute to climate change.

Though only a sliver of the endowment's modest $130 million in assets is invested in fossil fuels, the move is notable.

A century ago John D. Rockefeller Sr. made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon Mobil.

The charity said it will said it will 'eliminate holdings' in Exxon as soon as possible, and would also divest from coal and Canadian oil sands.

A century ago John D. Rockefeller Sr (pictured) made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon

In a statement released on Wednesday, the charitable fund slammed Exxon Mobil Corp as 'morally reprehensible' for 'misleading' the public about how much fossil fuels contribute to climate change

Given the threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, 'there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons,' the Rockefeller Family Fund said.

In a letter posted on its website, the fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be 'morally reprehensible.'

Exxon said the Rockefeller fund's move was not surprising.

'The Rockefeller Family Fund provided financial support to InsideClimate News and Columbia University Journalism School which produced inaccurate and deliberately misleading stories about ExxonMobil's history of climate research,' Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in a statement.

Stacy Feldman, executive editor of InsideClimate News, stands by those stories.

'Exxon has never specified what is inaccurate or misleading in the series, nor has it requested any corrections,' she said in a statement. 'But our investigation of Exxon's climate duplicity has won five national journalism awards.'

Columbia University officials were not available for comment, but the school has defended its climate work in the past.

Rockefeller Family Fund Director Lee Wasserman said Exxon was not singled out when it granted about $25,000 to InsideClimate News.

'We supported public interest journalism to better understand how the fossil fuel industry was dealing with the reality of climate science internally and publicly,' Wasserman said. 'No specific company was targeted in our push to drive better public understanding and better climate policy.'

Last year, after publication of the stories that Exxon mentioned, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into whether the company misled the public and shareholders about the risks of climate change.

This is an 1897 picture of the Cleveland, Ohio, oil refinery in that Rockefeller invested in in 1870

Rockefeller signed this certificate for the Standard Oil Trust in 1896

On Wednesday, Exxon said those stories 'wrongly suggested that we had reached definitive conclusions about the risks of climate change decades before the world's experts and while climate science was in an early stage of development.'

Exxon said it now believes the threat of climate change is clear and warrants action.

In response to the divestment movement, many oil industry leaders have said millions of people in the developing world would be condemned to darkness and poverty if society were to halt the burning of fossil fuels before there is ample supply of cleaner energy sources.

As early as 2008, members of the Rockefeller family called on Exxon to increase spending on alternative fuels.
Japan has admitted to killing 333 whales - including more than 200 pregnant females - in its latest Antarctic hunt.

The last of Japan's four whaling ships returned to port yesterday after a four-month expedition, which the country claims is for 'scientific' purposes.

Their haul is a 'significant increase' over their 2014 hunt, which saw 252 whales captured.

It comes despite an international outcry about their conduct.

The last of Japan's four whaling ships returned to port yesterday after a four-month expedition that saw 333 minke whales killed, including more than 200 pregnant females

Japan has continued to reject international orders to stop whale hunting and a ruling by the UN's International Court of Justice, which said the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science.

Under the International Whaling Commission, to which Japan is a signatory, there has been a ban on hunting whales since 1986.

But Japan continues persists in the practice using a loophole in the ban that allows for lethal research.

Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, and says it has to kill the mammals to carry out its research properly.

However it makes no secret of the fact whale meat is sold in stores in Japan [though few Japanese still buy it].

Japan said the research had been carried out to understand the minke whale populations in the Antarctic Ocean.

The purpose was to study the best methods for managing minke populations, the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries said in a statement.

It added that there had been no incidents with anti-whaling activists, unlike the previous mission that was hampered by environmentalist group Sea Shepherd.

The returning fleet arrived early on Thursday to the Shimonoseki port in western Japan.

Besides the kills, Japan said it conducted non-lethal research such as observation, the taking of skin samples from live whales and attaching tracking devices to whales.

Workers disembark from a whaling ship at the port of Shimonoseki in western Japan yesterday

Japan's actions are in defiance of international criticism.

Patrick Ramage, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said: 'If our Japanese friends really care about science and international law, it's time to put down the harpoon and chopstick, stop cutting these creatures into bits in the name of science, and join Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries studying living whales in their ocean environment in the 21st century.'

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace labelled the hunt 'unnecessary' and said it violated the UN court ruling.

'It is completely unacceptable for the Japanese government to ignore the ICJ's findings and furthermore, completely unnecessary to go ahead with lethal research,' said Greenpeace Japan executive director Junichi Sato.

Greg Hunt, the Australian environment minister, said his government opposed whaling 'clearly, absolutely and categorically'.

'It is in my view abhorrent and a throwback to an earlier age,' he said. 'There is no scientific justification for lethal research.'

Mr Hunt criticised Japan for going ahead with the killings 'in spite of a resolution by the [International Whaling] commission calling on it not to go whaling'.

However some activists have criticised the Australian government for not doing enough to stop the Japanese hunting whales.

Some experts claim Japan's refusal to give up the whaling mission despite censure by the international court is largely due to a small group of powerful politicians.
A two-year-old girl who has already had to endure gruelling spinal cord surgery faces a lifetime of operations due to the staggering 14 serious medical conditions she is currently battling.

Anabela Kleyn may seem like your average toddler with her cheeky smile but she has been described by doctors as 'medically complex' given the rare number of conditions she was diagnosed with shortly after birth.

She currently sees up to 70 specialists at Sydney Children's Hospital due to a long list of conditions including limb defects, additional ribs, being born without her right ear, spina bifida and issues with her throat that can often stop her eating and breathing.

Two-year-old Anabela Kleyn has been diagnosed with 14 medical conditions including limb defects, additional ribs, being born without an ear, spina bifida and issues with her throat that stop her breathing

None of these serious issues were picked up when her 34-year-old mother Sarah Pearce was pregnant and only came to light when Anabela had to have surgery to connect her stomach to her food pipe just 48 hours after she was born.

She underwent gruelling spinal cord surgery at the end of last year to de-tether her spinal cord and remove a lipoma tumor.

Anabela - whose nickname is Bubbles - will already have to have another 10 major surgeries by the time she is 12.

She was also diagnosed with permanent sleep apnoea in February, which means she has to sleep with a machine mask so she doesn't stop breathing every two minutes.

'Since she was born she has been diagnosed with 14 separate medical conditions, including a very rare condition called VACTERL - it's been really stressful,' Ms Pearce told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's quite unique having all of these conditions in the one little body. She sees up to 70 specialists and presents to about 14 different clinics within the Sydney Children's Hospital.'

None of her issues were picked up when her mother Sarah Pearce was pregnant and only came to light when Anabela had to have surgery to connect her stomach to her food pipe just 48 hours after she was born

Anabela, pictured with her mum Sarah, has been described by doctors as 'medically complex' given the rare number of conditions she was diagnosed with shortly after birth

Anabela will already have to have another 10 major surgeries by the time she is 12

Ms Pearce, who is a single mother, is unable to work because Anabela needs full time care.

'She needs to be watched constantly,' she said.

'Eating is an issue because she chokes and when she's moving a lot and breathes in her trachea collapses and she starts to gasp.'

The stress of keeping on top of Anabela's long list of conditions and hospital appointments has been an emotional struggle for her mother.

'It's so hard because I can't fix her, I can't fix my baby,' an emotional Ms Peace said.

'Its just a rollercoaster. I never thought Id be in a situation like this. Its left me feeling scared and frightened.

'Mentally she is bright as a spark. She is amazing, she is so brave and strong - thats what makes it easier.'

Anabela was also diagnosed with permanent sleep apnoea in February, which means she has to sleep with a machine mask so she doesn't stop breathing every two minutes

The Sydney toddler's long list of conditions means she has to see up to 70 specialists and presents to about 14 different clinics within the Sydney Children's Hospital

The stress of keeping on top of Anabela's long list of conditions and hospital appointments has been an emotional struggle for her mother Sarah

Ms Pearce had to leave her family and friends to move from the Blue Mountains to Sydney just so they could be close to the children's hospital.

Being a single parent with no steady income, Ms Pearce manages to survive on $1,200 a fortnight in government benefits.

'Anabela has everything she needs, I go without so I make sure I can provide for her,' she said.

A friend of Ms Pearce's set up a crowd-funding page last month to help cover the expensive and rising cost of Anabela's critical medical equipment, including a $2,000 CPAP machine to help her breath at night.

Sydney-based Conti Property Group found the GoFundMe page and donated enough money to buy most of the medical equipment - something Ms Pearce says she will be forever grateful for.

Ms Pearce says she has also relied heavily on the support of a birth defect website created by Steve Wiles to deal with the emotional struggles.

For more information or to donate money to Anabela Kleyn, visit www.gofundme.com/anabelakleyn.

Just 16 weeks ago, Anabela underwent gruelling spinal cord surgery to de-tether her spinal cord and remove a lipoma tumor. She will have to have another 10 major surgeries within the next 10 years

None of her serious issues were picked up when her 34-year-old mother Sarah Pearce was pregnant and only came to light when Anabela was born

A friend of Ms Pearce's set up a crowd-funding page last month to help cover the expensive and rising cost of Anabela's critical medical equipment, including a $2,000 CPAP machine to help her breath at night




A 23-year-old Ukrainian man accused of having sex with an underage girl while posing as a high school student has appeared in court for the first time.

Artur Samarin faces charges of theft, identity theft, conspiracy, tampering with public records, statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors.

On Thursday, he attended his first preliminary hearing, which saw one of the ten charges dropped against him.

But the judge refused to rule on his request for a lower bail, and delayed the rest of the hearing.

The dropped charge related to a citizen's police academy application Samarin allegedly filed under a fake name, 'Asher Potts'. His lawyers successfully argued there was not enough evidence to prove Samarin stole somebody else's identity.

However, the more serious counts relating to conspiracy and sexual assault remain on file.

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Court: Artur Samarin, the 23-year-old Ukrainian man accused of posing as a high school student (right) and havign sex with an underage girl, arrives for a hearing (left) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Thursday

Dressed in a yellow prison jumpsuit, handcuffed and wearing glasses, Samarin spoke briefly with reporters on his way out of the hearing, and responded in English to a Ukrainian television reporter's questions in their native tongue.

'I just want to have a better life,' he said.

Swatara Township Police Chief Jason Umberger testified that he first met Samarin, who called himself Asher Potts, while volunteering in December 2014 at a 'shop with a cop' event that pairs economically disadvantaged children with police officers to spend $100 buying Christmas presents for the children's families.

Umberger said Samarin expressed interest in the educational citizens' police academy his department runs but was too young to participate.

When they encountered each other in January at an anti-violence event in Harrisburg, Samarin said he had turned 18 and remained interested, so Umberger sent him an application.

Umberger told Dauphin County prosecutor Fran Chardo he would not have admitted Samarin to the program if he knew he had given him a fake name and age.

'That would have been dishonest and misleading, and part of our application process is that we admit people who are at least honest about their identity,' the chief said.

Lt. Darrell Reider, a detective, told the judge that Samarin apologized for lying the day in February when he was arrested.

'He said to me ... I apologize for that, I know that I disappointed Chief Umberger and I respect him very much,' Reider said.

Samarin's lawyers successfully argued there was not enough evidence to prove he stole somebody else's identity in his application to join the citizen's police academy. He filed the application as 'Asher Potts'

Samarin faces charges of theft, identity theft, conspiracy, tampering with public records, statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors. A judge refused to rule on his request for a lower bail on Thursday

Dressed in a yellow prison jumpsuit, handcuffed and wearing glasses, Samarin spoke briefly with reporters on his way out, and responded in English to a Ukrainian television reporter's questions in their native tongue

A search for others named Asher Potts turned up a man named Gabriel Asher Potts in Alabama, who told Reider two days ago that he was victim of credit card fraud from Pennsylvania, Reider said, but authorities have not found any evidence linking him to Samarin.

In a separate and very brief proceeding earlier in the day, a few miles away, a county judge said she would consolidate two other remaining sets of charges against Samarin for a preliminary hearing, and at that time consider his request to lower bail, currently set at $240,000.

A bail bondsman willing to put up the money and friends who would let Samarin stay with them attended the hearing, but it's unlikely he will be a free man any time soon.

Samarin's attorney, Adam Klein, said federal immigration authorities have ordered him held under allegations he stayed in the United States illegally after his tourist visa expired in 2013.

Klein said posting bail would allow Samarin to be transferred about 25 miles away to York, where immigration officials operate a facility inside the county prison.

'I think it would be better for him and give us an opportunity to work with immigration counsel at that point,' Klein told Dauphin County Judge Deborah Curcillo.

The hearing comes two weeks after his adoptive parents Stephayne and Michael Potts said Artur Samarin - who was known at Harrisburg High School in Pennsylvania as Asher Potts - talked about blowing up the school and picked out specific kids he wanted to hurt.

The pair say they contacted the FBI in November 2015 about the threats, months before his true identity was revealed.

His adoptive mother, Stepayne, told FOX 43: 'He made comments about other shootings, and he told us that everyone would know his name.

'He said his name would be the biggest in the world. He started talking about certain kids in school he wanted to hurt. He started talking about blowing he school up.

Michael added: 'We gave him everything we had. We borrowed. We did everything we could to help him.'

Samarin's attorney, Adam Klein, said Potts' parents claims were 'full of lies.' Klein added there has been no indication that Samarin had a violent past.
It is also expanding its major crimes investigators by 2,500 people

In the wake of the bombings that shook Belgium on Tuesday, the country's anti-terror teams have been slammed by US intelligence forces as 'weakly coordinated,' 'behind the ball' and uncommunicative with their allies in the West by U.S. intelligence experts.

U.S. officials and consultants ran up a sizable list of complaints about the country's anti-terror officers for Reuters, suggesting that the home of the European Union was frustrating its American allies.

Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told the news agency, 'They're way behind the ball and they're paying a terrible price.'

'Overwhelmed': U.S. intelligence officials say they Belgium seems overwhelmed by the threat it faces in the aftermath (pictured) of three explosions tore up its capital, Brusses, on Tuesday

Struck: Brussels Airport (pictured) was one of the targets Tuesday. U.S. experts say Belgium's fragmented intelligence agencies slow communication with other countries, making following up on attacks hard

Criticism: Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee (left) said Belgium was 'behind the ball and paying the price.' Guy Rapaille, who chairs the Belgian equivalent, admitted 'more coordination' is wanted with the U.S.

Even before Tuesday's shocking blasts at Brussels Airport and Maelbeek Metro Station, which claimed the lives of 31 victims and three perpetrators, the country had a troublesome history with Islamic extremism.

Its capital, Brussels, was the unwitting base for the men who attacked Paris in November last year, and it has provided, per captia, more fighters to Syria than any other European nation.

And yet its intelligence agency is distinguished by its seeming reluctance - or inability - to cooperate with its allies.

U.S. officials who did not wish to be identified told Reuters that a 'top U.S. counter-terrorism official' in Europe who decided to visit Brussels shortly after the Paris attacks found his Belgian counterparts curiously unwelcoming.

He had wanted to learn more about the investigation, but the Belgians indicated they had no time to speak to foreign officials as they were too busy with the investigation.

Belgian officials declined to comment on the incident.

This is just one small sign of a growing divide between U.S. and Belgian intelligence officials, who worry that the nation's anti-terror offices may be overwhelmed.

Several officials say that cooperation in security matters has been hampered by patchy intelligence-sharing by Brussels and a fragmented and confusing intelligence network.

One source said that when American investigators try to contact Belgian agencies for information, they often struggle to find which agency or part of an agency they ought to be speaking to.

Grieving: A sports center houses people whose flights out of the country were disrupted by the explosions. This isn't the first time Belgium has been involved with terrorism - the Paris attackers were based in Brussels

Grieving: A woman and her children attend a street memorial after Tuesday's bomb attacks. U.S. sources say that they believe its intelligence agencies may be under-staffed

'Discrepancy': Former CIA official and White House adviser Bruce Riedel siad there is 'a huge discrepancy between threat and response', due to Belgium's under-performing intelligence agencies

Complicating matters, officials say, is the fact that these various agencies differ wildly in their willingness to work with foreign countries - even when they are close allies.

'These attacks show that more coordination with the United States is clearly desirable,' Guy Rapaille, the president of the committee that provides oversight of Belgium's security and intelligence services, told Belgium's state broadcaster RTBF.

'But you have to remember that big powers guard their intelligence very closely.'

The U.S. responded to the September 11, 2001 attacks by breaking down the walls between law enforcement and intelligence authorities.

It also created new coordinating institutions such as the Director of National Intelligence and National Counterterrorism Center.

But Belgium remains a fragmented country.

Not only is it broadly divided between French and Dutch-speaking populations, but it also has multiple levels of government.

And while no official numbers of security service or military intelligence agents have been announced, security experts say they appear under-resourced compared to European counterparts.

Belgian security chiefs have repeatedly complained that they cannot handle up to 900 home-grown Islamist militants.

'Add to that the problem of two languages, a lack of Arabic speakers, and weak coordination between national and local government, you have a huge discrepancy between threat and response,' said former CIA official and White House adviser Bruce Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution.

Divided: The coutnry has a fragmented series of intelligence agencies, some of whom are more interested in dealing with foreign intelligence than others

Language barrier: Belgium is divided into French-speaking and Dutch-speaking areas, which can affect communication about threats. Conversely, it lacks Arabic speakers, U.S. experts say

Some U.S. counter-terrorism officials say much of the gap between Washington and Belgium - and some other European countries - is cultural.

Europeans' deeper commitment to personal privacy sometimes prevents or delays sharing of information such as travel data, which is taken for granted in the United States, they said.

However, while the country's intelligence agencies seem embattled, some positive steps have been made: a sharp increase has been ordered in security budgets following the Paris attacks, despite Belgium being under steady pressure to limit its debt levels under eurozone rules.

The country has also promised to make hire 2,500 more federal police, who investigate major crimes, as its police force is close to a fifth short of its full 12,500-person capacity.

The country also says it thwarted a major attack in January 2015, and is eager to cooperate with European and U.S. counterparts.

U.S. officials acknowledge the recent Belgian efforts to step up funding and recruitment.

Asked on Wednesday whether Belgium was too complacent over the threat posed by Islamic militancy, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, 'I want to stay clear of saying that Belgium was somehow caught by surprise or not aware.

'You know, we collaborate, we work with Belgium closely,' he added.
A federal judge handed down the maximum 10-year sentence Thursday to a former Arkansas circuit judge who reduced a jury award in exchange for campaign contributions, saying a 'dirty judge' is worse than a dope dealer.

Former circuit court Judge Michael Maggio pleaded guilty last year to a federal bribery charge, admitting he accepted $50,000 in donations two days before reducing a jury's $5.2 million award to $1 million in a negligence lawsuit. Maggio had been permanently removed from the bench in 2014, after making inappropriate comments in an online forum  including disclosing confidential details about an adoption involving Hollywood actress Charlize Theron.

In sentencing Maggio, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller said the 54-year-old former judge's actions were 'crooked.'

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Former circuit court Judge Michael Maggio pleaded guilty last year to a federal bribery charge, admitting he accepted $50,000 in donations two days before reducing a jury's $5.2 million award to $1 million in a negligence lawsuit

Maggio (seen Thursday) had been permanently removed from the bench in 2014, after making inappropriate comments in an online forum  including disclosing confidential details about an adoption involving Hollywood actress Charlize Theron

'What is worse, a dope dealer talking on the phone about a dope deal or a dirty judge?' Miller asked. 'There's no question in society, a dirty judge is far more harmful to society than any dope dealer.'

Prosecutors had recommended the 10-year prison sentence for the former Faulkner County Circuit Court judge. Maggio's attorneys had sought probation, saying the former judge has suffered 'personal, professional and political destruction' over the past two years. They also said he had health issues.

In court Thursday, Maggio's attorney James Hensley said he had 'pretty much lost everything.'

'Mike was a great judge and a great lawyer. ... He's got a very good reputation if not for this miscalculation in his ethics,' he said. 'He's not going to ever be a judge or a lawyer. ... He's going to have to start all over.'

Miller said he never considered sentencing Maggio to probation. The sentencing guidelines, a non-binding recommendation based on previous criminal history and the severity of the crime, called for 51 to 63 months. Miller balked at the recommendation.

'That's just not enough. Mr. Maggio, that's just not enough,' he said.

Prosecutors said in filings this week that Maggio had not taken responsibility for his actions, tried to delete text messages relevant to the investigation, and had stopped making himself available for interviews in violation of his plea agreement.

They also said Maggio lied to investigators at the Arkansas Ethics Commission looking into the donations, and he failed a lie detector test asking for more details of the interactions between himself, the nursing home owner and a lobbyist who brokered the exchange.

Maggio declined to speak during the sentencing and ignored shouted questions from reporters as he left the courthouse surrounded by his family

Prosecutors said the donations, which included $24,000 from the nursing home company's owner, were made in July 2013. Maggio admitted in January 2015 that he had accepted the campaign donations from an unidentified nursing home owner and lobbyist in exchange for reducing the jury award. He also surrendered his law license.

Prosecutors had asked Miller to consider making Maggio criminally liable for paying the family in the civil lawsuit the $4.2 million reduction in the jury award. Miller said he could not use the jury award to set a fine because he did not know if Maggio would have reduced the award in the nursing home negligence case without the bribe.

A lawyer for the family involved in the lawsuit said after the sentencing that Maggio's punishment brought some, but not complete, justice to the family.

Maggio declined to speak during the sentencing and ignored shouted questions from reporters as he left the courthouse surrounded by his family. Hensley said an appeal is likely.
A pub manager who lost two front teeth, suffered nerve damage in his face and severe concussion has revealed how he feared he would be killed and says his attacker should be in jail.

Trent Marsden was bashed repeatedly after being blind-sided by a man outside the Oatley Hotel in southern Sydney the week before Christmas.

The man accused of the brutal assault, Haze Aupouri, pleaded guilty and was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond.

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Trent Marsden is pictured speaking on the phone moments before the assault outside a hotel in southern Sydney on the afternoon of 18 December. His attacker escaped jail time when CCTV was not seen in court

Mr Marsden is punched in the face after having his back turned, losing teeth and falling to the ground

Mr Marsden is punched repeatedly as he lies injured on the ground. The CCTV footage of the attack was not seen in court after the man pleaded guilty

Surveillance footage shows Mr Marsden, who also works as a fire-fighter, talking on the mobile phone before his attacker unleashes a barrage of punches.

He has revealed that at one point he thought he might die on the pavement.

'(I) don't know how I got up,' he told Nine's Today Show.

'As soon as I was on the floor, the first thing was in my head was to get up, looking at it (the footage) if I don't get up then I probably never get up.

'When you are in the scenario, there's a lot of other things going through your head, you just want to get to your feet.'

He believes if the vision had been seen in court it would have made 'a massive difference'.

'The footage tells the story and it tells a very gruesome story.'

Last Thursday, an unrepresented Aupouri pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The video evidence, however, was not admitted as evidence and magistrate Clare Farnan placed him on a 12-month good behaviour bond.

Mr Marsden who only recently returned to bar work and his role as a fire-fighter, labelled the sentence 'a complete joke'.

Police have lodged an appeal against the sentence.

A second man looks on as the bar manager is hit eight times while on the pavement outside the pub. The attacker pleaded guilty to assault and was placed on a good behaviour bond

The vision shows the lead-up to the incident where two men are escorted out of the bar by security officers, who were called in after complaints one man was allegedly 'nearing intoxication'.

Mr Marsden, who was working as a bar manager late on the afternoon of 18 December, says he was calling a taxi for two men who had been asked to leave the pub when he was set upon.

A short time later Mr Marsden is seen on the phone and pointing to the arrival of a car nearby.

One of the men who had been removed from the premises, Haze Aupouri, in white shorts and a dark blue shirt then walks towards him.

The bar employee says until that point he had no contact with the ejected men except to ask 'boys, do you want a taxi', to which they agreed.

Mr Marsden is pointing in the direction of the waiting cab and has his back turned, Aupouri lunges forward and throws an unexpected punch catching him in the face, knocking out two front teeth.

The victim crashes into signage and onto the ground as his attacker lumbers forward once more and then rains punch after punch onto him in a brutal and unrelenting attack.

'Don't know how I got up , as soon as I was on the floor, the first thing was in my head was to get up, looking at it (the footage) if I don't get up then I probably never get up,' said Trent Marsden

Finally able to release himself from his attacker's grasp, Mr Marsden (in black shirt) fends off his attacker and as a second man moves in

The attacker shapes up to throw another punch before he and a second man run off - they were arrested a short time later as Mr Marsden was treated for head injuries. He wants his attacker sent to jail

Mr Marsden is hit another eight times while on the ground before he's able to get himself up to try and fend off the assault.

During the 15 second onslaught no one comes to the barman's aid.

The attacker and another man then run off - leaving Mr Marsden to retrieve his phone and teeth from the ground before being taken to hospital for treatment.

He also suffered nerve damage to the face and severe concussion.

Police arrested two men a short time later.

'Its one of those things where were told not to take things into our own hands  you put your faith in the justice system, but theres no justice in our system,' he told Nine News.
A five-year-old Ohio girl whose parents created a 'visual bucket list' for her because she's slowly going blind is going to meet Pope Francis.

Lizzy Meyers, of Lexington, will be visiting the Vatican next week for a private meeting with the pope alongside her parents and three-year-old sister Makayla, her father Steve has announced.

The young girl won hearts across the world last year following a story of her rare eye condition, Usher Syndrome Type II, that causes mild to moderate hearing loss and vision loss.

Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Myers, a 5-year-old Ohio girl whose parents created a 'visual bucket list' for her because she's slowly going blind, is going to meet Pope Francis

Lizzy Meyers, of Lexington, will be visiting the Vatican next week for a private meeting with the pope alongside her parents and three-year-old sister Makayla

The general manager of Turkish Airlines was touched last year by Lizzy's story as well as her parents' wish that she see many amazing things before the rare genetic condition robs her of her sight.

Lizzy's parents haven't told their daughter about her diagnosis.

Round-trip tickets were offered to anywhere in the world, and the family chose Rome - one of the most visually interesting places they could think of, given the family's Italian Catholic background and the city's artwork and statuary.

'We're excited and hoping for a miracle,' Steve Myers told the Mansfield News Journal on Thursday.

So far on Lizzy's visual bucket list, the family has traveled to Disney World, Galveston, Texas, the Smoky Mountains and Lizzy's favorite local spot, the Warren Rupp Observatory at Hidden Hollow.

'She watched the meteor shower this fall and even saw seven shooting stars,' Steve Myers told the News Journal. 'One of Gorman Rupp's pilots gave Lizzy a night flight so she could see the Christmas lights from the sky over the Mansfield are. We're always looking for new ideas.'

Lizzy has a rare eye condition, Usher Syndrome Type II, that causes mild to moderate hearing loss and vision loss

Steve Myers said he hopes a cure for Lizzy's disease is found before his daughter loses her eyesight.

'Sometimes it's difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis,' he said. 'Other days life goes on and there's work and the family obligations.'

He added, however, that for now, they're helping Lizzy see everything she can. The family has been discussing the Pope in preparation for their meeting next week.

'She said he is a tall man with white hair and a white hat,' he told the News Journal. 'She said she will give Pope Francis a hug. We feel very lucky and blessed to have this opportunity,'

The family is staying just outside of Rome for their two-week. The owner of the hotel is meeting Pope Francis with the family.
She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a beacon of saintly integrity in the West who remained under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma.

However, there is another side to Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi that sits at odds with her iconic image.

After the BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain gave Suu Kyi a rough ride during a BBC interview, Suu Kyi lost her composure and was heard to mutter angrily off-air: No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.

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Heated: Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi and Today presenter Mishal Husain had a heated exchange

Interview: Husain (right) was interviewing Suu Kyi for Radio 4's Today programme in October 2013 (pictured)

The spat between the two prominent and famously elegant Asian women has only just emerged, and followed a heated interview with the 70-year-old president of Myanmars National League for Democracy on the Today programme, according to a new book, The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burmas Struggle For Freedom, by Peter Popham.

Suu Kyis equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burmas Muslim minority has alarmed even her most dedicated fans.

When she was repeatedly asked by Husain to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mob-led massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so. I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons, she replied. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.

Aung San Suu Kyi is pictured here today after meeting with the newly appointed minister from National League of Democracy party at the parliament building in Naypyitaw, Myanmar

Much of the countrys huge Buddhist majority dislikes its small Muslim community with a passion, so it is thought Suu Kyi did not want to alienate her supporters.

Muslims are only 4 per cent of Burmas population. The Rohingya Muslims, who have borne the brunt of the violence, are a smaller minority still. The Rohingya are explicitly forbidden from becoming citizens of Burma and have no political weight whatsoever.

Husain, 43, was the first Muslim presenter of Radio 4s Today programme.

But while often seen as a symbol of the BBCs commitment to diversity, she is, herself, thumpingly posh.

The mother-of-three and Northampton-born daughter of Pakistani parents was educated at private school and Cambridge University, where she read law.

Suu Kyis equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burmas Muslim minority has alarmed even her most dedicated fans

When Suu Kyi (left) was repeatedly asked by Husain (right) to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mob-led massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so

THE LADY OF BURMA: WHO IS AUNG SAN SUU KYI Aung San Suu Kyi, 70, (pictured) is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and pro-democracy campaigner Known as the Lady of Burma, 70-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi is a pro-democracy campaigner and the opposition leader in Myanmar, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The leader of the National League of Democracy, has led an extraordinary life, despite spending 20 years of it under house arrest. She was born in Rangoon  now Yangon  but when she was just two years old her father was assassinated. Her father, Aung San, had founded the modern Myanmar army and negotiated independence from the British Empire in 1947. But he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. When she was 15, in 1960, her mother was appointed Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal and Suu Kyi accompanied her there. She completed her education in New Delhi, gaining a degree in politics. She went on to obtain a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford. She returned to Myanmar in 1988, shortly before a military junta took power and launched her career in politics in earnest. Influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi's philosophies, and her own principles as a Theravada Buddhist, she entered politics to work for democratisation. She helped found founded the National League for Democracy in September 1988. In 1990, Suu Kyi's NLD party received 59 per cent of the votes in a general election called by the military junta. But the results were nullified and the military refused to hand over power, causing an international outcry. She was placed under house arrest, during which time she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. She used the $1.3million prize money to establish a health and education trust for the people of Myanmar. While under house arrest, she spent her time reading about philosophy, politics and biographies that her husband had sent her. She was offered the option of freedom, as long as she never returned to her country. But rather than accept the opportunity to live an un-political life with her husband and two children, she chose to not abandon her people. In November, her opposition party secured a landslide victory in the Burmese elections. A legacy of rule of military junta means Suu Kyi cannot become president herself, however, this week it was announced that she would become a minister in Myanmar's new cabinet when it takes power next month. Advertisement

So who's behind Kate's mask?

The designer behind Kate Middletons iconic blue engagement dress knows only too well imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Brazilian-born Daniella Helayel, who founded the Issa label in 2006, dressed up as the Duchess of Cambridge to attend a royal-themed party in London.

Brazilian-born Daniella Helayel, who founded the Issa label in 2006, dressed up as the Duchess of Cambridge to attend a royal-themed party in London

As my picture shows, she wore a Kate face mask, Union Jack hat and red, white and blue dress. The photo was shared online by costumier Kitty Su, who sports a grey wig and gold tiara to look like the Queen.

HRH and granddaughter-in-law, Kitty wrote.

Star Brian's date with Queen

Dashing physicist Brian Cox has sparked a sudden interest in cosmology in many female TV viewers. Is the Queen among his fans? Her Majesty invited the 48-year-old Manchester University professor to Buckingham Palace for lunch on Wednesday.

But they were not dining a deux. Prince Philip hosted the lunch with the Queen, and the eclectic guest list included chef Tony Singh and National Union of Journalists boss Michelle Stanistreet. Cox has been described as the natural successor as the BBCs leading science presenter to Sir David Attenborough, a firm royal favourite.

Before moving into physics, Cox played keyboard for pop band D:Ream, who sang the New Labour anthem Things Can Only Get Better.

Radio 4 inquisitor John Humphrys recalls the occasion he interrupted former Chancellor Ken Clarke some 24 times during one interview.

The next time he came to Today to be interviewed, I handed him a calculator, says Humphrys. I told him: So you can keep count of the number of times I interrupt and ring a bell or something if I exceed 24.

He looked down at the calculator and said: You know something? I never did figure out how to make one of these things work.  How very reassuring.

Back to work for brave Michelle

Wearing a red wig to play a con-artist, Michelle Dockerys latest role is a world away from her corseted turn as Lady Mary in Downton Abbey.

Her part in the TV thriller Good Behavior, which she is filming in North Carolina, is also the actresss first job since the death of her fiance John Dineen (pictured with Michelle) in December.

Paying tribute to Dineen, who died of a brain tumour two days before her 34th birthday, Dockery said the PR professional had an electric presence and a wicked sense of humour.
The US population swelled a hefty 0.79 per cent last year.

Oil-rich North Dakota saw the biggest rise of any state, with a 2.28 per cent increase.

Just seven states saw a dip. West Virginia - home to a flailing coal industry - saw the greatest decline of a mere 0.25 per cent.

Internal migration was a significant factor for most states, particularly North Dakota which has attracted millions of workers this year alone.

Meanwhile international migrants flocked to the East Coast.

The US population swelled 0.79 per cent last year as migrants flock to the East Coast and birth rates soar

New York, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Hawaii all increased their populations by 0.5 per cent due to international migration.

A key factor contributing to the increase was the climbing birth rate in all states, coupled with people living longer.

As of July 2015, eight babies were born every second - up five per cent in just five years - and 11 people died every second.

The South remains by far the most populous region, holding 37.7 per cent of Americans. In 2015 there were 121 million people in the South, up from 119 million in 2014 and 118 million in 2013.

The West has been the second most populous region since overtaking the Midwest in 2001. The most recent data shows 76 million people (23.7 per cent of the US) live in the West. In 2014, it was 75 million, and in 2013 it was 74 million.

The Midwest has shown the least fluctuation in population over the past five years.

The region holds 21.1 per cent of the population, totaling 67.9 million. That's up from 67.7 million in 2014, and 67.5 million in 2013.
She has skull and spinal fractures but is expected to recover well

The accident happened on Sunday, she is now out of her coma

A young mother watched in horror as her 18-month-old daughter fell head first from the second storey of her family home.

But miraculously the young girl from Geelong survived and is expected to make a good recovery.

Andie Dunn, 23, was watching her 18-month-old daughter play on Sunday when tragedy struck.

The baby girl leant on the fly-screen of an upstairs window but it gave way and she fell.

18-month-old girl Lesley Dunn (pictured) fell head-first on to concrete from the second storey of her family's home on Sunday

Lesley is recovering in the Melbourne Children's Hospital but the full extent of her injuries is not yet known

The young girl's mother, Andie Dunn, watched in horror as her daughter (both pictured) tumbled out the window

Her mother saw the whole terrifying incident unfold and rushed to her daughters aid.

When she got to her daughters side she wasnt breathing.

A neighbour rushed over after hearing Andie's Screams for help. They started CPR on the tiny toddler until paramedics arrived.

She was taken to Melbournes Childrens Hospital and placed into an induced coma.

Lesleys grandfather Andrew Fothergill described the first 24-hours after the incident as a blur.

He has been posting about the young girls progress on Facebook.

Shes a little fighter and I believe she will pull through this terrible accident, he said on Monday.

Lesley came out of her coma on Wednesday ending her family's torturous three-day wait.

By the time Lesley's mum had reached her she wasn't breathing paramedics were called and took her to hospital

The little girl suffered a fractured skull and fractured vertebrae from the fall, it is not know if she will have permanent brain damage

On Wednesday she was also strong enough to breathe on her own and she was moved out of the intensive care unit.

On Thursday the family were given more information about Lesleys injuries.

She has severe skull fractures, compression fractures to her spine between t1 to t8 which is where the ribs meet the spine, Mr Fothergill said.

While this isnt good it wont cause any long-term damage.

Her family continued to provide updates on her condition in the days following the accident

The young girl came out of her coma on Wednesday and was able to breathe without the ventilator

The extent of the damage to the young girls brain is not yet known.

The part of the brain that was hurt controls short term memory but time will tell on how hurt this was, he said.

There will be a period of rehabilitation and how long this is all depends on Lesley as the Drs don't rush children in there recovery like they would with adults.

Mr Fothergill has started a go-fund-me account to help raise money for his daughters family following Lesleys tragic fall.

Lesley with her father Gareth in happier times. The little girl's family have been with her in Melbourne since the accident

The family are not sure how long the toddler will need to stay in hospital for

He says his family would never ask for help but he is expecting they will need it to be able to be by Lesleys side until she recovers.

He explains that his son-in-law Gareth, Lesleys dad, is working casually at the moment so money will be tough for the young family.

He a wonderful Dad and a person that would help anyone, he said.

The family are not sure how long Lesleys rehabilitation will take.

They are hoping to see their bubbly and adventurous little girl back to normal soon.
Mr Eryl Jones-Williams said the independent member of Gwynedd Council was a hypocrite who lived life as if it was one rule for him and another for everyone else.

As a community champion, Eryl Jones-Williams is often enraged by the nuisance of illegally parked cars  so he leaves nasty notes on the windscreens.

But the campaigning councillor was branded a hypocrite yesterday after his own vehicle was snapped ... on a double yellow line.

Builder Ian Thomas saw the car blocking the road in the seaside town of Barmouth, central Wales, and took a series of photos.

He shared the pictures on social media, where they were viewed by drivers who have been on the receiving end of the councillors hand-written parking rants.

Mr Thomas said the independent member of Gwynedd Council was a hypocrite who lived life as if it was one rule for him and another for everyone else.

He said: Cllr Eryl Jones-Williams puts notes on any car he sees parking illegally around town, but, when it suits him, he parks on double yellows right on a corner, blocking the road. Hes left me a nasty note before and Ive seen him shout at people in the street.

There are other agencies for that  people like the police and ticket wardens  so why does Cllr Jones-Williams feel the need to interfere? Its one rule for him and another for everyone else.

Mr Jones-Williams, who is a carers champion for the county and has made a stand on a number of issues including the downgrading of hospital services, had parked his Mitsubishi Mirage close to a sweet shop in the centre of Barmouth.

After being presented with the evidence, he said: Fair enough, I was caught, but it was probably the only time, and only for a couple of minutes at the most and that is a fact. I put no-one in danger and did not block the pavement.

It is true that I have left notes on vehicles that are parked on dropped kerbs where cars can make life difficult for disabled people to get around.

I have not reported any drivers, just warned them that if they are caught by an enforcement officer on a dropped kerb, they will receive an 80 fine and three penalty points. My car was half-legal, half-illegal and I hold my hands up.

I should have come back later or the next day, as it was 4.30pm and I had to be in [the Welsh town of] Bala for 5.45pm.

But Mr Thomas added: He should be setting an example.

Hes said hes not put anyone in danger, but thats a tricky junction. People cant really see around it at the best of times, he couldve caused an accident.
These shocking pictures show the gruesome moment an NYPD cop shot dead a family's dog in what appears to be an unprovoked attack.

Two police officers were responding to a call at a neighboring apartment in the Bronx when Yvonne Rosado opened her door to see what the commotion was about.

Surveillance footage obtained by the New York Daily News shows her four-year-old pitbull, Spike, wandering out into the hallway and excitedly wagging his tail.

The barking dog - who seems more playful than aggressive - approaches one of the cops, who has already withdrawn his gun.

The spooked police officer backs down the stairwell before opening fire, fatally wounding Spike with a single gunshot to the head.

Brutal: These shocking pictures show the gruesome moment a NYPD cop shot dead a family's dog in what appears to be an unprovoked attack

Playful: Surveillance footage shows her four-year-old pitbull Spike wandering out into the hallway and excitedly wagging his tail

The cop, who the NYPD has refused to name, is then seen backing away down the stairs as furious relatives and friends of Ms Rosado stream out of their apartments.

One woman wearing just her underwear stumbles down the stairs and has to be restrained by more police officers as she tries to slap the cop who opened fire on Spike on February 13.

Ms Rosado said: 'The officer just reacted badly. I was screaming, "Hes friendly! Hes friendly!" But he still did that to my dog.'

She told the Daily News that her beloved pooch was 'a gentle giant' and her 'big snuffleupagas'.

'He would wag his tail letting everyone know he was friendly,' she added.

Ms Rosado said the officers have not explained why her dog was killed and that she is yet to receive an apology.

The barking dog - who seems more playful than aggressive - approaches one of the cops, who has already withdrawn his gun

The spooked police officer backs down the stairwell before opening fire, fatally wounding Spike with a single gunshot to the head

The 42 year old has filed a notice of claim concerning a lawsuit against the city of New York and plans to filed an official complaint too.

Neighbor Irma Sue Santiago, 46, said Spike 'died wagging his tail', but was also furious that police opened fire so close to her home.

'What if he had missed the dog and shot my daughter?' Ms Santiago said. 'Shes traumatized by the whole thing.'

NYPD RULES ON SHOOTING DOGS 'Police officers shall not discharge their firearms at a dog or other animal except to protect themselves or another person from physical injury and there is no other reasonable means to eliminate the threat.' Advertisement

The mother added that the person police were searching for when they called round at the apartment building in response to a domestic incident had left some time ago.

The police officer who shot dead Spike was taken to hospital to be treated for tinnitus, while Ms Santiago's 16-year-old daughter Serena - who saw the dog dying in a pool of its own blood - has had to undergo psychiatric therapy to help her deal with the grim scene she encountered.

The NYPD refused to name the police officers involved.
At least 24 of the migrants who made it to Britain hiding in the back of two lorries have already been given their freedom.

All 51 stowaways had claimed asylum and the remaining 27 men, women and children who were discovered sneaking into the country were expected to have been let out by last night.

One of the trucks arrived in the UK on Wednesday, hours after Home Secretary Theresa May announced toughened border security following the Brussels suicide bombings in which 31 were killed and 270 wounded.

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At least 24 of the migrants who made it to Britain hiding in the back of two lorries have already been given their freedom, with the remaining 27 expected to have been let out by last night. Pictured: Twenty Iranians and five Iraqis - including five children - were found packed inside the back of the lorry that was pulled over in Kent

Photographs of stowaways crammed like sardines in the back of one lorry were published yesterday.

It was a damning illustration of how Britain has lost control of its borders  and fuelled fears about the rigour of security checks during the current terror alert.

All 51 migrants are understood to have claimed they were fleeing war, persecution and humanitarian disaster in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

By yesterday most had been processed at the Kent Intake Unit, where they were offered food, drink and medical attention, and underwent security screening.

After this was completed, they were officially classed as asylum seekers  then released from the centre to specialist accomodation or to live with family with instructions only to report in intermittently. The whole process took no more than 96 hours.

Most asylum applications are decided within six months. But a damning report recently found that the Home Office had lost track of at least 10,000 asylum seekers and was struggling to find them.

The dossier, slipped out in December, said officials had given up on tracing the refugees because it was a drain on resources.

Twenty-six migrants were found in the back of Gomez fruit and vegetable lorry in Coldharbour Lane, in Kent

Victory signs: Two of the illegal immigrants found in Canterbury make the gesture. They were among 24 men, one woman and boy found in the back of a Romanian-registered HGV while others were found in another lorry

David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, highlighted the fiasco in the immigration removals system, heaping fresh humiliation on the beleaguered Home Office.

He also found that more than 30,000 failed asylum seekers were still in the UK more than two years after all appeals against their removal were exhausted  casting doubt on the authorities ability to remove them.

CRIMINALS WE WON'T KICK OUT Removals of tens of thousands of foreign criminals and immigration offenders are routinely cancelled  meaning they stay longer in Britain. A damning report revealed yesterday that plans to boot offenders out of the country were scrapped in 40 per cent of cases. Almost 34,000 airline tickets had to be cancelled in one 18-month period  with lack of staff to escort detainees one reason, said the immigration watchdog. The loss on unused tickets was 1.4million of taxpayers money, said independent chief inspector of borders and immigration David Bolt. But the cost to the public purse could be even greater because records were not always kept, inspectors found. In some cases, the Government argued, cancellations were out of its control, for example because of late legal challenges, disruptive behaviour of those scheduled for deportation or missing travel documents. But the report said a lack of security staff to accompany detainees on their journey out of the UK was also a major constraint. On average, the private company contracted to provide staff for flights, Tascor, was only able to do so 15 days later than requested, inspectors said. A Tascor spokesman said: The majority of the cancellations fall outside of Tascors control, largely due to legal challenges or lack of emergency travel documents. The Home Office said: Work is already under way to address the recommendations relating to ticketing and escorting. Advertisement

Yesterday Tory MP Peter Bone said: The risk is, of course, are we sure that the people who have come into the country have come because they are seeking asylum or have they got more sinister motives?

They are free to move around but, after the terrible attacks in Brussels and France, are we sure we are not letting in potential terrorists? That is really, really concerning.

'With such high security it is appalling that people can just come into the country hiding in lorries, and these are only the ones we have found. How many more are there who have not been caught?

In the first incident this week, 25 stowaways were found after the lorry driver stopped near the Dartford Tunnel in Kent, on Monday.

When the lorry was opened, the adults and children poured out of the cramped conditions. All of the group were detained and handed over by Kent Police to Border Force officers following the discovery just after 9.15am.

On Wednesday, emergency crews and an air ambulance were called to the headquarters of Gomez, a fruit and veg importer following the discovery of 26 suspected illegal immigrants in the back of a refrigerated lorry.

Six patrol cars, three paramedic crews and the helicopter descended on the distribution centre in Bridge, near Canterbury, shortly before 11.30am.

The migrants  24 men, one woman and a boy  were found in the back of a Romanian-registered HGV carrying fruit and vegetables. It had been travelling to the UK from Spain, but it is not clear where or when the immigrants  who are of Middle Eastern or North African appearance  got into the truck.

Yesterday, US presidential contender Donald Trump claimed the UK would quit the EU, partly due to migration.

A Home Office spokesman said: Where someone is found to have no right to remain in the UK, we will take action to remove them.
Gomez managing director Jim Parmenter (pictured) said dozens of scanners should be installed at the French border so that stowaways are detected

Stowaway migrants have cost a fruit and vegetable importer more than 350,000 in a year.

Vehicles carrying produce for Gomez have been broken into 15 times over the past 12 months  leaving the family-run firm to pick up the bill.

In the past four weeks alone 80,000 of haulage has had to be discarded amid fears of contamination, after stowaways were found inside the lorries with bottles of urine and dirty clothes.

Managing director Jim Parmenter last night called for urgent action, following the discovery of 26 migrants in a lorry at the firm's Canterbury depot on Wednesday.

He said dozens of scanners should be installed at the French border so that stowaways are detected before they reach Britain.

'You can never have enough people because there are thousands of lorries coming through each day  it has to be technology, that's the solution,' Mr Parmenter said.

'The answer is to stop them getting here in the first place. It's too easy to get on a lorry in Calais.'

Mr Parmenter, who joined the firm in 1989, has become exasperated after five years of disruption and seeing around 100 migrants a year emerging from the back of trucks.

He added that he is 'hacked off' with the public perception of migrants escaping war-torn countries for a safer life.

'In the main, most of these people are young men between 17 and 28, all fit, all on their mobile phones as soon as they get off the lorry, all smoking, all happy,' he said.

'We know that not all of them are from places where there are wars. It makes us angry that it's costing us and potentially threatening our employees' jobs.'

Insurance companies do not cover loss of produce due to migrants breaking into the lorries and Gomez is not compensated in any way.

Twenty Iranians and five Iraqis - including five children were packed inside the back of the lorry in Kent

Mr Parmenter said the situation was not helped by the free movement allowed within mainland Europe.

'In the old days [migrants] would have to come through five or six borders to get to Calais  now they come straight to Calais. We are effectively policing the border of the whole of Europe.'

Nigel Jenney, of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said: 'Stowaways continue to be a problem. The damage caused has cost responsible businesses millions of pounds and wasted tons of food.
NHS trusts said to be flying in nurses from foreign countries on lower pay

Damning report said overseas nurses used as a get out of jail free card

NHS bosses will continue to recruit thousands of nurses from outside Europe amid claims they are exploiting cheap labour to undercut British staff.

More than 14,000 are expected over the next four years, according to the Governments independent immigration advisers. A damning report yesterday said health bosses are using overseas nurses as a get out of jail free card instead of investing in home-grown talent.

And it condemned the Department of Health and NHS trusts for flying in nurses from countries including the Philippines, India and Nigeria on lower rates of pay. The report by the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) said staff shortages could be blamed on failures to plan for things that could and should have been anticipated  including an ageing population, training cuts and pay freezes.

The situation will fuel claims of tensions between Chancellor George Osborne and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt  who see migration as benefiting the economy  and Home Secretary Theresa May, who has pledged to control it.

More than 14,000 are expected over the next four years, according to the Governments independent immigration advisers

Despite pressure on ministers to control Britains borders, the MAC said the health sector would need many more nurses from outside the EU to plug a staffing shortfall. Crucially, it will not affect the EU medical staff who work in Britain under free movement rules. Around 630,000 qualified nurses work in the UK, including the private sector. Around one-fifth  or 140,000  are foreign-born, with some 31,000 of them from outside Europe.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre says 11 per cent of all NHS staff are not British. It will now be at least three years before there are enough UK-born nurses to meet demand, the report by the MAC says.

Its chairman, Professor Sir David Metcalf, yesterday reluctantly recommended that nurses remained on the Governments shortage occupation list  an official register of jobs that cannot be filled by UK residents.

Ministers accepted the move  which makes the nursing sector a priority  but rejected a suggestion that the Home Office imposes an annual ceiling of 3,000 to 5,000 nurses from outside Europe a year.

Prof Metcalf said: The Department of Health has not got its act together. There is no good reason why the supply of nurses cannot be sourced domestically. There seems to be an automatic presumption that non-European Economic Area skilled migration provides the health and care sector with a get out of jail free card.

Despite pressure on ministers to control Britains borders, the MAC said the health sector would need many more nurses from outside the EU to plug a staffing shortfall

The long-term solution to addressing this shortage is recruiting and retaining staff by providing sufficient incentive and opportunity.

The 140-page study by the MAC linked the shortage of nurses in England to a decision to cut training places by almost a fifth between 2009 and 2013.

It condemned the Department of Healths poor track record on workforce planning and said the independent health sector and care industry were hitching a free ride on the back of taxpayer-funded training. Hospitals were also accused of exploiting immigration rules by hiring cheap foreign labour to undercut British staff. On average, non-EU nurses are paid around 6,000 less than the average salary for UK workers.

Meanwhile, the NHS spent nearly 1billion on agency nurses  some of whom will be foreign nationals  in 2014-15.

Hospitals were originally given the green light to hire hundreds more foreign nurses following a U-turn on immigration rules in October amid fears of an NHS staffing crisis.

Mrs May asked for the MAC to carry out a review. Currently, the number of visas issued to skilled workers from countries outside Europe is limited to 20,700 a year.

Alp Mehmet, of campaign group MigrationWatch, said: The need for foreign nurses is a clear result of the disgraceful failure of governments to train the nurses we need.
Questions allowing firms to check the class background of those applying for jobs are being drawn up by Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock

Companies should measure the class background of would-be employees in an attempt to stop discrimination against the poor, a minister said yesterday.

A set of questions allowing firms to check the 'socio-economic background' of those applying for jobs is being drawn up by Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock.

Initially, it is expected that applicants for Civil Service jobs will be asked the questions when applying as part of 'equalities monitoring'.

But they are also likely to be adopted by leading businesses, which, like much of the public sector, already measure how many women and ethnic minorities they are employing.

Mr Hancock said Britons were reluctant to discuss their parents' backgrounds at work, but the measure would help improve 'social mobility' and combat 'the last workplace taboo'.

Ministers published several suggested questions yesterday that firms could use to work out whether they are employing people from less privileged backgrounds.

They include the area where someone lived up to the age of 14, whether they received free school meals and their parents' professions.

A government report published alongside the announcement yesterday suggested Britain was 'deeply elitist'.

It also warned that the Fast Stream  which recruits high fliers for the Civil Service  is failing to take on people from poor backgrounds. It is 'deeply unrepresentative' of 'lower socio-economic groups in our society', the report concluded.

The proposals for economic background checks are seen as a natural extension of anti-discrimination policies to help combat racism, sexism and other forms of workplace prejudice.

Speaking at St Thomas More School in Haringey, North London, Mr Hancock said: 'Social justice is at the heart of everything this One Nation Government is trying to achieve.

'Our goal is simple: To make sure everyone has the opportunity to succeed and make the most of their talents, whatever the circumstances of their birth.

'It's time to tackle the last workplace taboo  social mobility.'

He added: 'The British don't like to discuss things like their parents' background, particularly at work. But you can't manage what you can't measure.

'The Civil Service is determined to lead the way on social mobility, which is why we are going to work with major private sector employers to develop a national measure for social mobility so we can take action and break down barriers to employment.'

The questions were drawn up with companies including Deloitte, Barclays, Accenture and O2. Firms will not be required to use the new measure but many are expected to adopt it voluntarily.

Deloitte already publishes information about its employees' socio-economic and educational background.

Emma Codd, managing partner for talent at the financial services firm, said: 'Improving social mobility is one of the UK's biggest challenges. To tackle it, we must remove the perception that some careers are a 'closed shop'.
A lawyer for a former senior Ukip official threatened to make explosive revelations in court, accusing party leader Nigel Farage of being a wife-beater, it was claimed last night.

Ex-deputy chairman Suzanne Evans, 51, was involved in a bitter High Court battle to try to seek an injunction against her suspension from the party.

The threat to expose bits about Nigel beating his wife and stuff in Miss Evanss witness statement for the court was reportedly made by barrister Richard Hendron.

Bitter row: Ex-deputy chairman Suzanne Evans (pictured with Nigel Farage) was involved in a High Court battle to try to seek an injunction against her suspension from the party

He was speaking in a telephone conversation with Ukips party secretary Matthew Richardson last week. The discussion took place in a bid to persuade the party to delay Miss Evanss disciplinary hearing  which led to her suspension  so she could remain on her partys list to stand in the London Assembly elections.

Mr Hendron is reported to have said: Suzanne is doing her witness statement, which is to become a public document and it is explosive. It has bits about Nigel beating his wife and stuff. (If) you are willing for that to happen and that to come out this week, as a court document, which journalists will report on, with no fear of being sued for libel, if youre willing to let that happen then fine go ahead.

The outcome of the conversation on Friday was only a two-day delay to the hearing, and Miss Evans went ahead with her court case against its anticipated outcome.

Mr Hendron said last night: I cant quite understand why Ukip has briefed this out. Conversations with lawyers are usually confidential.

I would have mentioned Suzannes witness statement.

The lawyer added: I did send a further email clarifying that I did not know what Suzanne knows about that (the wife beating allegations).

Last night, Mr Farage said: Ive been in politics for a long time and have seen a lot of things but this is the lowest of all low points. Speaking about the allegations of domestic violence against his wife Kirsten, he said: Its entirely ludicrous. You might as well call me a paedophile, murderer or larcenist.

The lawyer for Miss Evans threatened to expose bits about Nigel beating his wife and stuff in her witness statement. But Mr Farage said the allegations of domestic violence against his wife Kirsten (right) are 'entirely ludicrous'

Interviewed by Channel 4 News last night, Miss Evans strongly denied that she was threatening to make allegations against Mr Farage. Why would I? I know on the times that I met Nigel and Kirsten Farage they have struck me as being a very strong couple, she said. She claimed details of the barristers conversation had been put into the public domain as part of a vendetta against me.

A Ukip insider said last night: Suzanne acts in the interest of herself and the yes men she has surrounded herself with. She is better off out [of the party].

Miss Evans was suspended from Ukip for six months over claims that she spoke out against a candidate and held herself out as a party spokesman without authority.

At the High Court hearing, Mr Justice Mitting refused to grant an injunction preventing the suspension taking effect until after the assembly nominations close. The judge said he had to base his ruling on whether the partys rules had been complied with, adding: I believe that they have been.

Miss Evans was ordered to pay Ukip 5,000 in costs.
Idyllic: Supermarkets have been ridiculed for making up phoney farm names to sell products (file image)

Supermarkets have triggered ridicule and anger over their decision to sell meat, vegetables and fruit under phoney farm names.

Tesco has created seven fictitious farm names designed to replace its discount brand of Everyday Value products.

The names  such as Rosedene and Nightingale - conjure up idyllic images of the British countryside. However, some of the products are imported from as far afield as Morocco, Spain and Chile.

In fact, Tesco is not alone in using what critics have called legal deception.

For the move mirrors a pattern set by a wide range of grocers from Aldi and Lidl at the budget end of the high street to Marks & Spencer.

Aldi uses Ashfield Farm as an invented supplier for its meat, while Lidl opts for Birchwood Farm and Strathvale Farm.

M&S has been criticised in the past for using Lochmuir as the catch-all name for its salmon and Oakham for its fresh chicken.

Retailers believe that using farm names appeals to shoppers at a time when people want to know more about the origins of their food.

However, critics, including British farmers, say the use of fake names risks deceiving shoppers.

Tesco is using the fake farm names as a brand for products sourced from a wide range of suppliers from Britain and overseas.

For example its new Rosedene Farms brand sells apples from the UK, pears from Belgium, strawberries from Spain and blueberries from Chile.

Its Redmere Farms sells British sprouts, but also mushrooms from Holland, spinach from Italy and Spain, cabbage from Spain and sweet potatoes from America.

Some of its cherry tomatoes sold under the Nightingale Farms name come from Morocco.

Tesco has created seven fictitious farm names - including Rosedene and Nightingale - designed to replace its discount brand of Everyday Value products (file image)

The names conjure up idyllic images of the British countryside. However, some of the products are imported from as far afield as Morocco, Spain and Chile (file image)

The packs do carry the country of origin of the meat and produce, but critics fear people will automatically assume they are British.

The respected food writer, Joanna Blythman, tweeted: Fictitious farm names mislead us about origins of our food Now #Tesco joins #M&S Lochmuir et al. Legal deception.

This is misleading quite frankly, were not impressed. Theyve labelled the packs with country of origin but all under the same brand name. Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association

The consumer group Which? has highlighted the tactic, saying: Using a place name can create the illusion of a more personal shopping experience like a farmers market, or evoke images of a specific location.

And with more of us interested in where food comes from, clever branding can help sell products.

Bosses at the National Farmers Union have warned Tesco that it is vital that shoppers are not misled.

The NFUs head of food and farming, Phil Bicknell, told Farmers Weekly: The names of these farms dont have any link to where the product has been sourced  something that has the potential to confuse or even mislead customers.

Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association, added: This is misleading quite frankly, were not impressed. Theyve labelled the packs with country of origin but all under the same brand name.

The NFUs chief food chain adviser, Ruth Mason, said: The NFU is seeking assurance that Tescos new branding on selected food products is accurately and clearly labelled.

Bosses at the National Farmers Union have warned Tesco that it is vital that shoppers are not misled (file image)

The packs do carry the country of origin of the meat and produce, but critics fear people will automatically assume they are British (file image)

We recognise that Tesco has chosen to brand these products with fictional farm names  a marketing technique practiced in Aldi and Lidl on selected product lines.

There will inevitably be shoppers who are led to believe that the fictional names of the farms are the real source of the product - this makes the need for clear and accurate origin labelling even greater.

People deserve better. We increasingly want to know where our food comes from, and we want honesty and authenticity, not deceptive veneers. Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association

The Soil Association, which represents organic farmers, is also dismissive of the tactic.

Its chief executive, Helen Browning, said the new names amount to brands of convenience.

She said: People deserve better. We increasingly want to know where our food comes from, and we want honesty and authenticity, not deceptive veneers.

However, Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association, said Tesco is simply reacting to the pressure from discounters and other retailers who already have farm name brands.

Tesco admitted that a selection of suppliers, including some from overseas, will be used for each of the Farm brands.

It said some of the names, such as Nightingale and Rosedene, had previously been operating farms and were selected in partnership with its suppliers.

The supermarket said: In all cases, the fresh food being sold under our new brands is sourced from a selection of farms and growers.

Tesco is using the fake farm names as a brand for products sourced from a wide range of suppliers from Britain and overseas. For example its new Rosedene Farms brand sells apples from the UK, pears from Belgium, strawberries from Spain and blueberries from Chile (file image)

Some are small, family-run farms while others are of a larger scale. Every product has been reared or grown to specific standards from known and audited farms and growers.

It added: These seven new brands, which are exclusive to Tesco, address our customers needs for quality fresh food, at very competitive prices in a single shop.

Lidl uses the names Birchwood Farm in England and Wales and Strathvale Farm in Scotland. Virtually all of the products come from British farms.

The only exception has been lamb, where the label on the front states New Zealand. It has made a commitment to only stock British fresh lamb from July until the end of the year.
For more of the latest on Donald Trump visit www.dailymail.co.uk/trump

Donald Trump has refused to rule out using nuclear weapons against ISIS following the terror attack in Brussels that claimed 34 lives.

Defending the comments in an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he didn't want to talk at length because 'the enemy is watching', adding 'at a minimum, I want them to think maybe we would.'

The remark is likely to provide fuel to Clinton's campaign as she has referred to the need for 'steady hands' in combating terrorism - implying that The Donald cannot be trusted with weapons such as America's nuclear arsenal.

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Donald Trump has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against ISIS, saying he won't discuss tactics because 'the enemy is watching', saying that 'we need unpredictability' in the fight against terror (file image)

Discussing relations with the Muslim world as a whole, Trump said the most important thing is getting Islam to 'respect the West and respect [America]' (file image)

Trump said: 'I'm never going to rule anything out - I wouldn't want to say. Even if I wasn't, I wouldn't want to tell you that because at a minimum, I want them to think maybe we would use them.

'We need unpredictability. We don't know who these people are. The fact is, we need unpredictability and when you ask a question like that, it's a very sad thing to have to answer it.

'The enemy is watching and I have a very good chance of winning and I frankly don't want the enemy to know how I'm thinking. But with that being said, I don't rule out anything.'

Referring to Muslims in general, Trump added that 'they do not respect us' and said that part of winning the fight against extremism is to 'get them to respect the West and respect us.'

Part of that agenda, according to Trump, involves bringing back so-called enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, and potentially changing the law to allow torture.

Trump has also spoken of 'going after the families' of terrorists fighters, bemoaning international treaties that prevent U.S. troops from using similar tactics to ISIS troops on the battlefield.

Other measures designed to earn the 'respect' of the Muslim world touted by Trump is a temporary ban on followers of Islam coming to America alongside increased surveillance and a database of Muslims already in the U.S.

Trump has been attacked over his lack of foreign policy experience in recent days, following an interview in which he said his main consultant was 'myself', forcing him to outline a more solid approach on the issue.

The comments are likely to provide ammunition to the Clinton camp as she emphasizes the need for 'steady hands' - implying that Trump cannot be trusted with America's nuclear arsenal

In a detailed interview with the Washington Post, in which he unveiled the foreign policy consultants working with him, he outlined a non-interventionist policy, questioning America's place in organizations such as NATO.

He said: 'I do think it's a different world today, and I don't think we should be nation-building anymore. At what point do you say, "Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?"'

'So, I know the outer world exists and I'll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.'

Meanwhile Clinton has sought to use Trump's inexperience on the issue as a weapon against him, contrasting it with her own decades of insider knowledge in foreign politics.

In a speech Wednesday Stanford University, Clinton called for 'strong, smart, steady leadership,' arguing that Trump and Ted Cruz are not up to the task of combating Islamic militants.

She said: 'Turning our back on our alliances, or turning our alliance into a protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan American leadership and send a dangerous signal to friend and foe.

'Putin already hopes to divide Europe. If Mr. Trump gets his way, it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin.'
A mother who plunged to her death with her young son from a cliff near a popular eastern Sydney beach has left behind a tragic note.

She has been identified as Jasmine Mossman-Riley, 25, from Maroubra, and the other victim was her son Braxon.

After recovering the two bodies late on Thursday night investigators uncovered a note written by the mother.

'This will come as a shock to most people because I'm always happy and smiling, it's funny that you can hide behind a smile,' she had written.

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The victims have been identified as Jasmine Mossman-Riley, 25, from Maroubra, and her son Braxon

Images of Jasmine Mossman-Riley (left) and her baby son Braxon (right) who have been identified as those who died after falling from a cliff near Maroubra Beach on Thursday

The woman and her young son died after falling from a cliff-top at Maroubra in Sydney's east

Police were called to a cliff face at Lurline Bay, near Maroubra Beach on Thursday evening

Officers discovered the bodies of a woman and toddler with the help of surf lifesavers

They had to be winched up from the bottom of the cliff late on Thursday evening

Authorities have said there are 'no suspicious circumstances' surrounding the deaths

Friends have taken to social media to express sympathy.

'For those that remember Jasmine and Her son Brax with the catahoula fancy. We got Wuppy from her. May you rest in peace,' wrote one.

Another added: 'that is terrible, I feel so much for that poor lady'.

'Incredible how people who are hurting so much on the inside can look so positive and happy on the outside,' wrote another.

Police were called to a cliff face at Lurline Bay, near Maroubra Beach, following concerns for the welfare of a mother and a young boy at 8.30pm on Thursday.

Officers discovered the bodies of a woman and toddler with the help of surf lifesavers and said there are 'no apparent suspicious circumstances'.

A helicopter was seen circling overhead and helped in the major search.

Witnesses said a blue police tent was erected at the scene and dozens of police cars were seen on the beach.

Police said investigations are continuing, but no one else is being sought in relation to the incident.

A report is being prepared for the Coroner.

Witness Jie Maps lives across the road from the headland at Lurline Bay Headland in Maroubra, and has a full view of the area from his balcony.

Police Rescue officers pointed floodlights down the cliff-face and to the water below

Witness Jie Maps said he saw the entire event unfold from the balcony of his home

He said the child was the first one to be winched up from below the cliff

Hours later, just after 1.30am, the boy's mother was also pulled from the bottom of the cliff

Witnesses said a blue police tent was erected and dozens of police cars were seen at the scene

He told Daily Mail Australia he saw authorities retrieving the body of the mother and child.

'A person was winched into the water from the helicopter. The body of the child was retrieved.,' Mr Maps said.

'The helicopter then landed on the headland and the child was carried to a group of ambulance officers.

'A blue tent was set up over the child's body covered with a white sheet,' he added.

Mr Maps said about 1.30am he saw the mother's body retrieved and taken to the same tent where her son's body lay.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
The rise of the working mother means the share of homes where children are in childcare has gone up by 15 per cent in just 12 years

Almost one British home in three is now headed by parents who both have full-time jobs, a survey found yesterday.

It said the rise of the working mother means the share of homes where children are in childcare has gone up by 15 per cent in just 12 years.

And the average mother is now working nearly 30 hours a week  the equivalent of three-and-a-half days from a five day week.

The increase in numbers of working mothers and the hours they work were charted by the Government-funded Modern Fatherhood project which examines family lives in 17 European countries. It found the rising workload of mothers contrasts with the declining burden on fathers.

In 2001 British fathers worked an average 46.1 hours a week, the survey found, the longest working week in the EU. But by 2013 fathers working hours had fallen to 43 hours a week, and British fathers no longer put in the most hours in the EU.

Authors of the survey said the findings mean that families are less and less likely to rely on the earnings of a father alone.

Dr Svetlana Speight of NatCen Social Research said: The sole male breadwinner model is in decline across Europe. Mothers are now more likely to work and, in the UK, more likely to work full-time, at the same time as fathers are working a shorter week.

Dr Speight said this allows fathers to take on more childcare responsibilities.

The report comes at a time of increasing political pressure for men to stay at home to raise children while mothers go out to work. Earlier this week a committee of MPs led by former Cabinet minister Maria Miller demanded generous new paternity leave laws so that fathers can be encouraged into childcare while mothers pursue careers.

However there has been alternative evidence which suggests mothers can be reluctant to work if their income gives them a choice. Research presented to the Royal Economic Society suggested that better-off mothers have cut down working hours since divorce law changes guaranteed more generousl settlements for marriage break-ups.

The increase in numbers of working mothers and the hours they work were charted by the Government-funded Modern Fatherhood project which examines family lives in 17 European countries

The fatherhood study, paid for by the Governments Economic and Social Research Council, examined figures from 17 countries. It said that the share of homes in which two parents work full-time has gone up from 26.4 per cent in 2001 to 30.8 per cent in 2013.

Over the same period the working week for mothers, including part-time workers, has gone up from 26.8 to 29.1 hours.

The continuing decline in heavy industry may have contributed to a drop in numbers of fathers working unsocial hours  but weekend working for men has gone up.

The report said: There has been a significant decline in the proportion of fathers doing shift work or working evenings or nights. The proportion of fathers who usually work at weekends has increased significantly, while mothers weekend and shift work has remained the same.
A 16-year-old girl has died from a suspected cardiac arrest hours after allegedly taking ecstasy.

Sky Nicol, of Darwen, Lancashire, who has been praised by her school as a well-liked girl with a big personality, was found unconscious before dying at Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Police believe the girl had taken drugs earlier on Wednesday night - but say they cannot confirm if there is any link to her death because a post-mortem examination is yet to be carried out.

Found unconscious: Sky Nicol, 16, died from a suspected cardiac arrest hours after allegedly taking ecstasy

A 16-year-old girl was later arrested on suspicion of being concerned in ecstasy supply, while a 46-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of obstructing the course of justice. Both are in custody but have not been charged.

Skys father David, 38, said: You dont expect to be burying your daughter. This has come as a huge shock to me and the rest of the family.

When I turned up at the hospital I thought that I would see her and that she would be OK, but thats when I was told that there was nothing else that the doctors could do for her - and she passed away shortly afterwards.

Teenager: Friends of Sky have set up the #saynotodrugsforsky hashtag to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs and are raising funds towards her funeral

'Its still very raw for me and its still sinking in that she is gone. Im struggling to come to terms with whats happened.

The pub landlord told the Lancashire Telegraph that it was out of character for his daughter to have used ecstasy, but hoped that her death would make others think twice before taking it.

Hannah Speakman, Sky's headmistress at The Heights Free School in Blackburn, said the teenager would be remembered for her big personality and infectious smile.

She told the Lancashire Telegraph: Sky started at The Heights in Year Nine back in 2013 following an alternative provision curriculum and left in summer 2015.

Her specialist areas were sport and leisure and performing arts. Sky was a well-liked girl with a big personality and will be sadly missed by pupils and staff alike.

Tragedy: Police believeSky (pictured) had taken drugs earlier on Wednesday night - but say they cannot confirm if there is any link to her death because a post-mortem examination is yet to be carried out

Sky's father said it was out of character for his daughter to have used ecstasy, but hoped that her death would make others think twice before taking it

Her family and friends also paid tribute on social media on a Facebook page called In loving memory of Sky Nicol.

Sophie Atkinson posted on the page: 'Remember you bouncing round school singing your head off to Skinny Love. It's so sad, was way too young... Will be missed by many.'

And Samantha Jones said: 'R.I.P. So sad to know I only saw you Tuesday and never even got to say goodbye. Love and miss you, beautiful. You never deserved this. Fly high.'

Friends have also set up the hashtag #saynotodrugsforsky to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs and are donating money towards her funeral. They have organised for the hashtag to be printed on polo shirts with a picture of Sky that are being sold for 10 each.

A Lancashire Constabulary spokesman said: We have launched an investigation after the death of a 16-year-old girl in Darwen.

Police were contacted by the Ambulance Service around 6.45pm on Wednesday, March 23, after teenager Sky Nicol was found unconscious at an address.
A 16-year-old girl who was found dead at the bottom of her friend's swimming pool in Florida on Wednesday left a harrowing Facebook post before her death.

Autumn Thompson of rural Lake County was on Spring Break when she and her friend Madison, 15, drank vodka and smoked marijuana in the hours leading up to Autumn being found at bottom of a pool in her friend's backyard, according to WESH.

Madison's mother Cindy Gall made the shocking discovery after coming home from work at 7.40pm, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Madison was passed out by the side of the pool.

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Autumn Thompson, pictured, of rural lake County in Florida was on Spring Break when she and her friend Madison, 15, drank vodka and smoked marijuana in the hours leading up to Autumn's death

Foreshadowing? Auttumn posted this photo to her Facebook and also made the photo her banner one day before she drowned in her friend Madison's pool. Along with the photo was a lyric from the song Wonderwall

The day before the Umatilla High School student's lifeless body was discovered, Autumn posted a photo on her Facebook of a person drowning that included the lyric 'because maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me,' from the song Wonderwall.

Lake County sheriff's Lt. John Herrell said that officials have not ruled out suicide as a cause of death and that Autumn was feeling depressed prior to the tragic incident.

After Gall found Autumn she called her husband who rushed home and dove into the pool and tried to revive the child with CPR.

Emergency workers were unable to save Autumn and she was pronounced dead that evening at the Gall's family home.

Family: Autumn's grief stricken grandmother Sue Thompson said that she held Autumn in her arms until the coroner arrived

Dreams: Autumn (pictured left) reportedly had dreams of joining the Navy when she was older

Autumn's grief stricken grandmother Sue Thompson said that she held Autumn in her arms until the coroner arrived. Autumn reportedly had dreams of joining the Navy when she was older, according to WESH.

Madison was 'lethargic and couldn't be awakened' when rescue workers arrived at the scene.

She later admitted to police that she and Autumn drank vodka and smoked marijuana. Madison is expected to recover and only spent one night at the hospital.

Friends of Autumn are heartbroken and said that she was going through a tough time following the death of her mother.

'She was something different. She was funny and courageous and charismatic,' said her friend Marianna Cook, 16, who added that Autumn was depressed.

'I just couldn't believe it when I saw the news. I was in shock, then I broke down. I've been crying for the past three hours.'
A Romanian mother and her two-year-old daughter are believed to be the only survivors on the Brussels Metro carriage that was blown up during this weeks terror attacks.

Roxana Stefanuca, 23, of Mileanca, Botosani, is said by her family to have burns all over her face, while her daughter Miruna suffered similar injuries and has been given tubes to help her breathe.

The mother-of-two had taken her older daughter aged five to nursery school and was on her way back home on the train with Miruna, after having nobody to leave her with while she went out.

Survivors: Roxana Stefanuca (left), 23, of Mileanca, Romania, is said by her family to have burns all over her face, while her daughter Miruna (right) suffered similar injuries and has been given tubes to help her breathe

Horror: The bomb went off as the mother and daughter sat in the train on Tuesday morning - and they were the only survivors in the carriage where 20 people died, after being found alive under the dead bodies of others

The bomb went off as they sat in the train on Tuesday morning - and they were the only survivors in the carriage where 20 people died, after being found alive under the dead bodies of others.

Mrs Stefanucas sister Anca Cucuruzac said: Shes got burns all over her face and head. You can only see her eyes. She is in shock, I could only talk to her for two minutes.

The little girl also suffered burns and she has been given tubes to help her breathe. My sister and the baby were the only survivors in that wagon.

She remembers a strong noise and a woman covered in blood thrown towards her. She saw her daughter crying and then lost consciousness.

Passengers getting off: The mother-of-two had taken her older daughter aged five to nursery school and was on her way back home on the train with Miruna, after having nobody to leave her with while she went out

Mrs Stefanuca has been living in Belgium for five years, with her father and husband running their own small construction company in Brussels.

Concerned relative: Anca Cucuruzac said her sister Mrs Stefanuca has burns 'all over her face'

A friend of the family, Luminita Pascariu, said: The parents saw the news on television and called their daughter. She did not answer, they called police to report her missing and were advised to look for her in the hospitals where the victims were being taken.

After about three hours, they found her in a hospital. They then realised the little girl was missing too. She was found later that evening in another hospital.

Relatives believe Miruna survived because she was in a buggy that protected her from the explosion. The mother and daughter are still in a critical condition in hospital.

Last night police arrested six people following a series of raids in Brussels over the attacks on the city's airport and Metro system, amid the hunt for at least one attacker at large and an unknown number of accomplices.

Authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch, although they said the situation remained grave and another attack was likely and possible.
Australian airports are making huge profits from charging exorbitant rates for their parking, the consumer watchdog has revealed.

Popular Nine Network television personality Erin Molan said she was outraged by the massive profit made from parking fees, as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found major Australian airports are making up to 73.2 cents pure profit for every dollar customers spend on parking.

The NRL Footy Show presenter and journalist told Friday's Today Show the prices are not affordable.

'I don't begrudge any business making a profit that's good for Australia it's good for the economy it's good for everyone but the profit margins here are ridiculous,' she said.

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Erin Molan has complained about expensive airport parking after the ACCC revealed the huge profit margins made by suppliers

Molan explained how she can't afford the huge prices set for parking but has no other choice

An ACCC report revealed Melbourne airport collects 73.2 cents per dollar customers spend on parking.

Sydney airport's profit margin isn't much lower at 71.6 cents, Brisbane sits at 67.2 cents and Perth comes in at 63.6 cents per dollar.

Molan admitted she can pay up to $180 per day on parking when she travels.

'(It's) not because I can afford to but because I have no choice,' she said.

She admitted to paying up to $180 per day on airport parking when she takes the valet option

Molan said public transport is not a viable option for her so she has no choice but to use parking services

She revealed she often has to opt for valet parking because she is running late

But it is also revealed that $180 price tag is for valet parking, which the busy TV personality says she often has to resort to because she is 'running late'.

'There is always the argument to make public transport easier but it's not really a viable option for a lot of people.

'Especially if you are carrying lots of luggage and that kind of thing, but it is ridiculous,' she said.

The ACCC found savvy shoppers could save on airport parking by looking for discounts and booking online (stock photo)

The ACCC found savvy motorists could save on airport parking by booking online and ahead of time.

'Consumers should consider all of their options, including whether they could obtain a cheaper rate by booking online or using an off-airport parking operator,' the consumer watchdog said in their report.

'The discounts available may be a form of price discrimination as price conscious consumers will book ahead to receive discounts online, while less price sensitive consumers will pay higher drive-up prices.'

The watchdog found the quality of service in the four monitored airports had not increased with the rising parking prices.

The watchdog found the quality of service in the four monitored airports had not increased with the cost of parking (stock photo)




has been described as 'disgusting and 'sexist crap'

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird has come under fire for interrupting MP Jodi McKay during Question Time likening her behaviour to that of a calendar pin-up girl.

Mr Baird was discussing the Labor Deputy Leader position, which Ms McKay, member for Strathfield, was touted to fill before she decided to put her support behind Michael Delaney when he began shouting.

'She's up there doing calendar shots! Who wants me? Who wants me?,' he said, as Liberal members laughed in the background at State Parliament in Sydney on Wednesday.

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Mike Baird (pictured) interrupted female MP, Jodi McKay, during Question Time at Federal Parliament in Canberra on Wednesday likening her behaviour to that of a calendar pin-up girl

The New South Wales Premier was discussing the Labor Deputy Leader position, which Jodi McKay (pictured), member for Strathfield was touted to fill

Ms McKay posted a video of the Premier's comments to Facebook on Wednesday and said 'This is what happens when you take on the Premier of NSW in question time.'

'It is not funny nor is it appropriate to liken women seeking leadership to a "calendar shot".'

'We should be doing all we can to encourage women into leadership roles in NSW - this behaviour shows how far we still have to go.'

Ms McKay posted a video of the Premier's comments to Facebook and Wednesday and said 'This is what happens when you take on the Premier of NSW in question time (pictured)

'She's up there doing calendar shots! Who wants me? Who wants me?,' Baird said, as Liberal members laughed in the background (pictured)

The Premier has since apologised for his comments but added the remarks were made 'as a bit of light banter' and suggested that similar exchanges were commonplace in Australian Parliament.

'Obviously, if the member, Jodi, is offended in any way or anyone else is offended, of course I will apologise,' Mr Baird said.

'Pretty much every question time this year, Labor has come in and tried to smear me one way or another.'

The Premier (pictured) has since apologised for his comments but added the remarks were made 'as a bit of light banter' and suggested that similar exchanges were commonplace in Australian Parliament

New South Wales Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain and former premier Kristina Keneally have voiced their opposition to Mr Baird's comments and support for Jodi McKay.

Ms Murnain described the New South Wales Premier's behaviour as 'disgraceful'.

'I've seen some sexist crap hurled across the chamber form the coalition- here's some more,' said Ms Keneally.

Former premier Kristina Keneally described the New South Wales Premier's behaviour as 'sexist crap'

New South Wales Labor general secretary, Kaila Murnain described the New South Wales Premier's behaviour as 'disgraceful'

New South Wales Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain and former premier Kristina Keneally have voiced their opposition to Mr Baird's (pictured) comments and support for Jodi McKay
The baby daughter of Islamic State terrorist Mohamed Elomar - who is trapped in Syria - is in line for Australian citizenship.

The baby girl's mother Zaynab Sharrouf, 14, who is the daughter of another Australian jihadi, Khaled Sharrouf, gave birth to her three months ago.

Both Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf are believed to have been killed in recent months fighting for ISIS terrorists.

The Daily Telegraph claims paperwork seeking an Australian passport for the baby has already been lodged with the Australian Department of Immigration.

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The former Sydney schoolgirl gave birth to baby Ayesha (pictured) around three months ago and paperwork for the child's Australian passport has been submitted

Despite her age Zaynab Sahrrouf, 14, married her father's friend Mohamed Elomar (above) who died in battle and she has since given birth to his baby daughter

Zaynab Sharrouf has been left with five children to look after - Hoda, 13, Abdullah, 11, Zarqawi, 10, Humzeh, 5, and three-month-old daughter Ayesha

Khaled Sharrouf, the baby's grandfather, was reportedly killed in drone strikes in Iraq last year, pictured in ISIS propaganda with his sons

Extremist Mohamed Elomar pictured holding severed heads of Syrian government soldiers - paperwork has been prepared for his Syrian-born baby daughter Ayesha to apply for an Australian passport

Zaynab Sharrouf, 14, carries an Australian passport but her baby daughter Ayesha does not automatically qualify for citizenship because she was born in Syria - her father is Islamic State extremist Mohamed Elomar who died last year

The baby does not qualify for citizenship as she was born in Syria.

Zaynab Sharrouf was left an orphan and widow after the death of her parents and jihadi husband Mohamed Elomar.

She ended speculation that her extremist father, Khaled Sharrouf, who was reportedly killed in drone strikes in Iraq last year, was still alive, saying: 'We know for sure that he's dead'.

Sharrouf and Elomar are believed to have been killed while fighting with ISIS in Mosul, in Iraq, last year.

The child bride also revealed how she and her four younger siblings have been left to fend for themselves and are living in constant fear following the death of their mother Tara Nettleton.

She is believed to be living in Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the the ISIS caliphate, which is racked with disease, violence and food and water shortages.

Her mother Tara died from appendicitis complications in late 2015 after she was unable to access crucial medical treatments.

This has left 14-year-old Zaynab with six mouths to feed - Hoda, 13, Abdullah, 11, Zarqawi, 10, Humzeh, 5, and three-month-old Ayesha.

Her father is understood to have been been killed along with Elomar while they were fighting with ISIS in Mosul last year

Her grandmother Karen Nettleton has embarked on a desperate mission to rescue all six children who are now stuck in a war zone.

It is believed that the grandmother could avoid prosecution - and a possible 10-year jail-term - if authorities deem she has a 'lawful purpose' to be there.

Zaynab said she tries to speak to her grandmother 'as much as she can' and regularly sends her photos.

Zaynab said she tries to speak to her grandmother Karen Nettleton (pictured together) 'as much as she can' and regularly sends her photos

This photograph from Zaynab's social media account entitled 'Soldier of Allah' showed her (centre) cloaked in black and with two guns and a knife as her Islamic 'coat of arms'

Zaynab revealed how she and her four young siblings are living in constant fear in the war-torn city of Raqqa and have been left to fend for themselves after the death of their parents

Ms Nettleton pictured here with her daughter Tara who died in September 2015 after following her husband to the war-torn country

It has emerged that her mother Tara took her five children to Syria in early 2014 to join her husband Sharrouf.

At first, the family appeared to prosper, with Khaled Sharrouf given a role in the ISIS hierarchy as they lived in a large house on the banks of the Euphrates River.

Also living in the house was Sharrouf's friend from Sydney, one-time boxer turned Islamic extremist Elomar.

Sharrouf sparked outrage in 2014 when his young son Abdullah was photographed holding the severed head of a Syrian military official.

It went viral and a photograph of Elomar with two severed heads followed.

Sharrouf died last June, which means the children are orphans in the warn-torn country

The children have also been pictured holding decapitated heads in propaganda images

Sharrouf's daughter became romantically involved with her father's fellow jihadi, Elomar, who was 17 years her senior.

On Twitter she posted that she was 'Chillin in the khilafah, loving life'. She also declared herself a 'Solider of Allah' on a different social media account, illustrated with two guns and a knife as a type of coat of arms.

Zaynab liked a photo-shopped image posted by her father online of the World Trade Centre in flames with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, militant Islamist and late founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Sharrouf captioned the image with the post: 'September 11 is the best day of my life. Our brothers gave there life to establish the deen of Allah on earth and they fulfilled what is mandatory on every Muslim to terrorise the enemy of Allah'.

Karen Nettleton pictured boarding a flight to Abu Dhabi on their way to Turkey to find her grandchildren
Police have wrapped up their search of a Queensland house after four days of forensic examination of the home searching for clues in the murder of 12-year-old Tiahleigh Palmer.

Officers spent most of the week combing through the vacant housing commission property on Logan Reserve Road, Waterford West in Logan City, 28km south of Brisbane, and will now examine bags of material taken from the house.

Detectives in charge of the murder investigation of Year Seven student Tiahleigh descended on the house after receiving information from a person sparked by a public appeal from the girl's mother, Cyndi Palmer.

Ms Palmer said on Facebook that the search vindicated her decision to speak out, writing 'See people can hate on me all they like ... But clearly my mission to speak publicly has done something. Faith restored in my decision'.

Ms Palmer was attacked after she gave an emotional interview to the media describing her daughter's killer as 'vile'.

It has been revealed that she lost her daughter Tiahleigh to foster care because she had been in and out of prison as a struggling teen mother.

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Officers spent most of the week combing through the vacant housing commission property on Logan Reserve Road, Waterford West in Logan City, 28km south of Brisbane, and will now examine bags of material taken from the house

iahleigh Palmer disappeared on October 30 last year and her body was found a week later, but her pink backback and school uniform have not been located by police

A 23-year-old African Australian man who occupied the Queensland house police are searching in relation to the murder of 12-year-old Brisbane schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer (pictured) says he was disturbed and upset to be connected to the investigation

Edward Buyoto, his mother and three younger brothers lived for eight years in the house (pictured, being examined by police in relation to Tiahleigh Palmer's murder) and had only moved out three weeks ago

Police began searching the property on Tuesday, which is just over 1km from Marsden State School, where Tiahleigh was last seen on October 30 last year, they day she disappeared.

The house was vacated three weeks ago by the migrant family of Edward Buyoto, who comes from Burundi in central Africa.

Police have appealed to anyone who may have seen Tiahleigh in Logan Reserve Road near the house or in surrounding streets on the day she disappeared.

Tiahleigh Plamer's mother Cyndi said on Facebook her decision to make a public appeal over her daughter's murder was vindicated, despite attacks on her

On Friday October 30 last year, the girls' foster carer dropped her off at school in her uniform and carrying her backpack. No trace of either has been found apart from one of her school shoes.

Police believe Tiahleigh left the school grounds on the Friday to go and meet someone. Six days later her body was found in the Pimpama River on the Gold Coast.

Forensic police dusted the Waterford West house for fingerprints and carried out a collection of chemical tests on a table during their search.

Edward Buyoto, a 23-year-old cold storage warehouse worker, had lived in the house with his three younger brothers and mother for eight years, until leaving in early March.

Mr Buyoto told Daily Mail Australia said did not know Tiahleigh i person and had been 'upset' to see media reports of his house at the centre of her murder investigation.

Mr Buyoto's family moved from the house to another housing commission home which had 'more room, a better kitchen and bathroom' and disability access for his mother.

'I think they are looking in the wrong direction, you know,' he said, 'I do not know, my family does not know this girl.'

He said police had not contacted or interviewed him or his family.

Edward Buyoto, who came to Australia from Burndi, Africa, 11 years ago said he was disturned when he saw o the newes that police were scouring the house his family recently vacated south of Brisbane

Detective Superintendent Dave Hutchinson (above) holds a press conference outside the house on Thursday appealing for anyone who saw Tiah Palmer in the street last October 30 to come forward

Mr Buyoto lived in the house with his brothers, aged 11, 15 and 21, and after graduating from Sunnybank High School had found work at a nearby warehouse.

Neighbours said that after the family moved, the Queensland Department of Housing sent in cleaners as part of its normal routine, which was followed by the arrival this week of forensic police.

Mr Buyoto told Daily Mail Australia that police have been interviewing men of African descent in connection with the murder.

The chief investigator in Tiahleigh Palmer's murder, Detective Superintendent Dave Hutchinson confirmed that was 'one line of inquiry' in the case.

But he said 'we have interviewed a large number of people of various nationalities and it would be unfair to direct attention to any particular group'.

Supt Hutchinson said police would continue to search the house on Easter Friday. He said the house was being searched based on information they received following a public appeal from Tiahleigh's mother, Cyndi Palmer.

Tiahleigh Palmer disappeared on October 30 last year and her body was found a week later, but her pink backback and school uniform have not been located by police, who are pictured on Thursday examining Mr Buyoto's former residence

Queensland Police have located this shoe belonging to Tiahleigh Palmer following the discovery of the Year 7 student's body in the Pimpama River o the Gold Coast last November a week after she vanished

On Thursday, Supt Hutchnson appealed to anyone who might have seen the Year Seven student, who was known as Tiah, on Logan Reserve Road on the Friday that she disappeared.

Tiahleigh Palmer disappeared on October 30 last year after her foster carer dropped her off near Marsden State High School, Waterford West.

Despite living in foster care, Tiahleigh remained close to her mother. She was known as an occasional truant from school.

Fisherman found her badly decomposed remains a week later in the Pimpama river in Queensland's Gold Coast on Thursday afternoon.

Tiahleigh Palmer, 12, is laid to rest at a funeral last November where she was farewelled by a large group of mourners including her mother Cyndi, whose recent interview, has led police to the house in Waterford West, Queensland

Mr Buyoto said friends had seen his house on the news and told him about the police search, which had greatly disturbed him and that his family had moved out because the kitchen and bathroom were unsuitable

Police spent Tuesday and Wednesday scouring and fingerprinting the property on Logan Reserve Road, before returning on Thursday.

Mr Buyoto said friends had seen his house on the news and told him about the police search, which had greatly disturbed him.

He said he could sympathise with the murdered girl's family because his own family had suffered a similar tragedy back in Africa, with the murder of his older sister.

Edward Buyoto lived in the house (pictured, with foresic police) with his brothers, aged 11, 15 and 21, and attended his job at a nearby cold storage warehouse

The Burundi-born man said could sympathise with the murdered Tiahleigh Palmer's (pictured) family because his own family had a similar tragedy back in Africa, with the murder and dumping in the river of his older sister

Mr Buyoto told Daily Mail Australia he and his parents and their five children had left their African homeland for a refugee camp in Tanzania 13 years ago.

He was ten years old and his sister 13 when 'when she was kidnapped and killed and they found her in the river'.

'So my family went through a similar thing,' he said. His sister's killer was never found.

Det Supt Hutchinson said on Thursday that police would return for a fourth day to the house to continue their search.

Police at the Waterford West house south of Brisbane where Edward Buyoto lived for eight years after emigrating from Africa where as a ten years old had endured the loss of his sister, 13, who was 'kidnapped and killed and they found her in the river'

Tiahleigh Palmer, (pictured, above left with her mother Cyndi and, above right) was last seen alive when her foster carer dropped her off at school last October 30

Edward Buyoto, who lived in the house (pictured, under examination by forensic police) with his mother and brothers, said he could sympathise with Tiahleigh's family as 'my family went through a similar thing'

He said officers had searched other premises. 'This is not the only house or vehicle we have forensically examined' and that police had searched 'a number of houses and vehicles.

He announced a $250,000 reward for anyone who came forward with information leading police to Tiahleigh's killer and appealed to anyone who may have seen her near the house last October 30.

The Marsden High School students backpack and school uniform she was wearing the day she went missing have never been found.

Candles and flowers on the grass outside Tiahleigh Palmer's house last year following her murder, which police announced on Thursday a $250,000 reward for anyone with information leading police to her killer
Lucy Klebanow, now an artist in New York, recalls going on a 'boring' date with 'not very bright' Donald Trump in the 1970s (pictured here in 1976)

Nowadays he's one of the most recognizable faces in American, a billionaire businessman, and potentially the next President of the United States.

But back in the 1970s Donald Trump was just another preppy uptown New Yorker, hanging out in bars, and trying to score dates with some of the city's eligible singletons.

That is how Lucy Klebanow found herself on a 'boring' date with Trump in a Brooklyn steakhouse before he asked her to pick up the check, and never paid her back.

Writing in Salon, Klebanow, now an artist and furniture designer in New York, recalls meeting Trump through friends in a trendy Upper East Side bar when she was 23.

Klebanow, who says Trump was in his late 20s at the time, remembers Trump asking for her number and calling her the following day before coming to pick her up at 7.

When she arrived in the lobby of her building, expecting to find a sheepish looking boy, instead she only found a white Cadillac convertible sitting pulled up at the curb.

She writes: 'My date leaned over and said, Hop in. I didnt know what to make of this. I lived in NYC and nobody ever picked me up in a car except to go to the airport.

'I was too surprised and flustered to be impressed. I felt like I was in a James Dean movie.

'If he wanted to impress me, a Cadillac wouldnt do it, but if he got out of the car, and opened the door for me, then I would be impressed.'

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Dinner with The Donald: Lucy Klebanow tells how she was forced to pick up the bill at Peter Luger steak house after the billionaire forgot to bring cash

Once inside Klebanow recalls the interior was a garish cherry red that made her head hurt.

Picking up the in-car telephone, the first of its kind Klebanow had seen, she recalls Trump offering to make reservations anywhere she liked, so she chose the Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn.

Klebanow describes Trump as 'nice' looking and 'preppy', though added that he was 'not a conversationalist' and also didn't strike her as 'very bright'.

While she gives few details about the date itself, Klebanow did recall a moment at the end when it came to paying and Trump pulled out his credit card, only to be told the place didn't accept them.

She added: 'So, my big shot, Cadillac, phone-in-convertible boring date couldnt pay for dinner. He was stunned and embarrassed.

Cadillac fan: Trump pictured in the eighties with another Cadillac car - complete with personalized license plates

While Klebanow was not impressed with Trump's attempts at seduction, clearly he improved his technique as he later wooed and then married first wife Ivana (pictured together) in 1977

'I said, Lets get aprons and do the dishes. It would be fun. His face was horror-stricken.'

Klebanow was eventually forced to pick up the check herself, and while she says Trump insisted on paying her back the next day, he never did.

While Klebanow does not give an exact year for her date with Trump, the business mogul was just starting to make his face known in the city at the time.

In 1973, the New York Daily News recalls, Trump featured on the front page of the New York Times for the first time after the company he was running at the time, Trump Management Corporation, was accused of anti-black bias.

The accusations did not seem to hurt Trump's dating game, however, as he courted and then married his first wife, Ivana, in a lavish society wedding in 1977.
British border guards have been banned from X-raying lorries while searching for illegal immigrants at French ports in case the radiation harms the stowaways' health, it was revealed today.

Lucy Moreton from the Immigration Services Union said that her members are only permitted to use the scanners at ports in France when searching for smuggled or illegal goods.

The revelation comes as it emerged that at least 24 of the migrants who made it to Britain hiding in the back of two lorries earlier this week have already been given their freedom.

Security: A file image of a lorry X-ray machine searching a vehicle at Southampton Docks. British border guards have been banned from X-raying lorries while searching for illegal immigrants at French ports

X-ray: The Immigration Services Union's general secretary said that her members are only permitted to use the scanners at ports in France when searching for smuggled or illegal goods

Mrs Moreton told The Times: The French will not allow us to use them for looking for illegals. They only allow us to use scanners to search for contraband, not people.

Speaking to the newspapers reporters Richard Ford and Sean ONeill, the ISU general secretary added that the machines are 'very, very slow to operate, taking about an hour per each vehicle'.

Also yesterday, Mrs Moreton suggested that increased borders checks in the wake of the Brussels attacks are likely to only last for two weeks because the stepped up level cannot be maintained.

Mrs Moreton - from the ISU, which represents border agency and immigration staff - said checks had been raised at border points but would significantly disrupt freight if they continued long-term.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: There's quite a lot of immediately available money for very high profile types of interventions.

Union spokesman: Lucy Moreton (pictured in a previous BBC interview) said the French 'will not allow us to use them for looking for illegals - they only allow us to use scanners to search for contraband, not people'

Found: 20 Iranians and five Iraqis were discovered packed inside the back of the lorry pulled over in Kent

We've stepped up controls at the border, and at all borders, but it is maintaining that at a high level for a long period of time and whether there is the political will, or potentially even the necessity to do so.

The French will not allow us to use them for looking for illegals. They only allow us to use scanners to search for contraband, not people Lucy Moreton, Immigration Services Union

Asked if there was the political will, she replied: Experience from past would suggest that it isn't. The increased checks at the border last about two weeks, or that's how long they lasted after the Paris attacks.

Meanwhile, an independent report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found plans to remove foreign criminals and illegal immigrants were cancelled in 40 per cent of cases.

And last night it was revealed at least 24 of the migrants who made it to the UK hiding in the back of two lorries in recent days have already been set free.

All 51 stowaways had claimed asylum and the remaining 27 men, women and children who were discovered sneaking into the country were expected to have been let out by last night.

On the roadside: 26 migrants were found in the back of a fruit and vegetable lorry near Canterbury in Kent

Victory signs: Two of the illegal immigrants found in Canterbury make the gesture. They were among 24 men, one woman and boy found in the back of a Romanian-registered HGV while others were found in another lorry

One of the trucks arrived in the UK on Wednesday, hours after Home Secretary Theresa May announced toughened border security following the Brussels suicide bombings in which 31 were killed and 270 wounded.

We've stepped up controls at the border, and at all borders, but it is maintaining that at a high level for a long period of time and whether there is the political will, or potentially even the necessity to do so Mrs Moreton

Photographs of stowaways crammed like sardines in the back of one lorry were published earlier in the week.

It was a damning illustration of how Britain has lost control of its borders  and fuelled fears about the rigour of security checks during the current terror alert.

All 51 migrants are understood to have claimed they were fleeing war, persecution and humanitarian disaster in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

By yesterday most had been processed at the Kent Intake Unit, where they were offered food, drink and medical attention, and underwent security screening.

After this was done, they were officially classed as asylum seekers  then released from the centre to specialist accommodation or to live with family with instructions only to report in intermittently.
For more of the latest news and updates from Sydney visit www.dailymail.co.uk/sydney

Fears the grey sky would keep revelers away proved to be false with the park teaming with families and fun-seekers

Good Friday is typically the show's biggest day and the crowds have not

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The Sydney Royal Easter Show was at near-maximum capacity on Good Friday as families and fun seekers celebrated the start of their long weekend.

The threat of rain did little to stop an estimated 100,000 people from pouring through the turnstiles of Sydney Olympic Park on what has traditionally been the most popular day for the Australian institution.

Huge crowds of showgoers made the most of the theme park rides, side-show alley, wood-chopping and showbag warehouse - undeterred by the lingering overcast skies.

Easter Show spokesman James Riordan said this year's Good Friday - typically the biggest day for show participation - was the busiest since the park had opened its gates last week.

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An estimated 100,000 revelers attended the Sydney Royal Easter Show on Good Friday - undeterred by the overcast sky

Families and fun-seekers poured through the gates, with huge crowds flocking to the agricultural show on the Easter long weekend

Huge lines crowded the footpath in side-show alley but organisers say the park is far from capacity

'Today would have been the busiest day so far,' Mr Riordan told Daily Mail Australia.

'I wouldn't say we are at capacity, but there's a lot of people running around the grounds.'

And photographs of the day lend themselves to Mr Riordan's estimations with thousands pictured lining up for festival food and side-show alley fun.

The chip-on-a-stick and fairy floss vendors looked to be doing good business, but fresh seafood was the order of the day which meant thousands of hungry revelers flocked to the Woolworths food hall.

The Easter long weekend is crucial for the annual country-to-city bonanza which hopes to draw about 100,000 through the gates each day.

The Woolworths Food Dome was also popular on Good Friday - drawing in crowds eager to get their hands on some fresh seafood

These girls had just been inside the haunted mansion, one looked like she enjoyed the side-show attraction more than the other

Children soar through the sky on a ride preferably enjoyed before snacking down on a pluto-pup and large cup of soft drink

Good Friday is usually the busiest day of the year, but organisers predict Easter Saturday could be the biggest day of 2016

The grey-wash sky hung around all day but organisers don't think it had a huge impact on the crowd.

'We haven't had any rain out here at all today, there has been a sprinkle or two but not enough to call rain,' he said. Show organisers think Easter Saturday might overtake Good Friday as their biggest day this year.

'Tomorrow we expect the same numbers if not better, as it is predicted to be a nice sunny day,' the spokesman said.

Crowd numbers don't get crunched until day 14 but early estimates suggest 100,000 showgoers poured through the gates on Friday

These two show princesses pose happily in front of the ferris wheel as crowds pass by

This young lady has a broad grin as she holds on to her huge bundle of fluffy pink fairy-floss

Spectators watching the farmers working with sheep. The huge crows transfixed on the rural display

The numbers aren't officially crunched until day 14 but Mr Riordan is confident the numbers will stack up to expectations.

The Grand Parade on Friday is one of the star attractions as it showcases competition winners, champion exhibitors and show stars.

As far as showbags go those containing Frozen and Star Wars merchandise have proven the most popular, but many have also snapped up the old favourite and opted for the Bertie Beetle bags.

This alpaca was dressed for success on Good Friday, wearing his best Easter hat for this picture

The always-colourful side-show-alley is pictured here with food and arcade games lining one side and big rides on the other

This young goat is getting friendly with the people in the pavilion, it looks like it is kissing this young woman on the hand

The crowds were too thick to pass through quickly in some places with many showgoers hanging around to have a chat and eat between exhibits
A law graduate who came top of her class has lost a lawsuit against her former school after taking it to court over her failure to find a job in almost a decade.

Anna Alaburda, 37, graduated from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, with flying colors nearly 10 years ago but has so far been unable to score a full-time job practicing law.

She sued the school for $125,000 in damages, claiming she was lured into paying her tuition by inflated employment statistics.

Ms Alaburda's lawsuit was yesterday dismissed by a jury in California.

Law graduate Anna Alaburda has lost a lawsuit against her former school after taking it to court over her failure to find a job in almost a decade

Ms Alaburda's (pictured in court) lawsuit was yesterday day dismissed by a jury in California

After she graduated, Ms Alaburda went on to pass the state bar exam and set out to use the law degree that cost her about $150,000, according to The New York Times.

She was offered a job after she graduated with a law firm that was willing to give her a $60,000 salary, but she turned it down.

The former law student said she received only the one job offer, which was less favorable than non-law-related jobs that were available, even after she sent her resume to more than 150 law firms.

Plenty of law students struggle to find work after graduating, but she was the first graduate to sue a law school after finding herself unemployable in her field.

She claimed Thomas Jefferson School of Law inflated its employment data for its graduates to encourage students to enroll.

Ms Alaburda filed the lawsuit in 2011, arguing that she would not have enrolled at Thomas Jefferson if she had known the law school's statistics were, in her opinion, misleading.

Ms Alaburda graduated from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law (pictured) with flying colors nearly 10 years ago but has so far been unable to score a full-time job practicing law.

Ms Alaburda, who has debt of about $170,000, has worked in various part-time positions, mostly temporary jobs reviewing documents for law firms since graduating.

And she may have to continue doing so after the jury rejected her lawsuit with a 9-3 majority.

Michael Sullivan, an attorney for the law school, acknowledged 'isolated mistakes' and 'clerical errors' in data collection but said there was no evidence that the school lied.

He said the verdict set no precedent but may send a signal to other students who sue.

'Having an opportunity where it's fully litigated, and depositions and documents examined, to see the hype, the chatter about that did not prove to be the truth, as found by a jury, I think that's a helpful message,' Sullivan said after the verdict.

Thomas Jefferson representatives noted broad efforts to improve reporting at all law schools and expressed regret about any stain that the lawsuit inflicted on the school's reputation.
A Japanese court ruled on Friday that an aquarium had no right to bar an Australian animal welfare activist who wanted to check on a baby albino dolphin in captivity.

Wakayama District Court awarded Sarah Lucas 110,000 yen ($1,300 AU) in damages, a court official said on customary condition of anonymity.

Lucas, the head of Australia for Dolphins, called the verdict a victory in the fight to stop dolphin killings. She expressed concern for the albino dolphin, saying it was in a tiny crowded tank of chlorinated water, being bullied by other dolphins.

A Japanese court ruled Friday that an aquarium had no right to bar Australian animal welfare activist Sarah Lucas who wanted to check on a baby albino dolphin in captivity

The aquarium is the major tourist attraction in the town of Taiji in central Japan, made famous by the Oscar-winning film 'The Cove,' which documents dolphins being herded into an inlet by local fishermen and slaughtered for meat.

The aquarium has said it routinely denies entry to non-Japanese activists, such as members of Sea Shepherd, who come annually to protest the dolphin hunts, although tourists and other visitors are welcome.

'Today's decision shows that Japanese law can be used to stop animal suffering,' said Lucas, who tried to enter the aquarium in 2014, only to be told that 'anti-whalers' weren't welcome.

Tetsuo Kirihata, deputy chief of the Taiji museum, said he was satisfied with the verdict because the initial demand for damages had been for about 3 million yen ($30,000).

Lucas (pictured right with her attorney Takashi Takano at Wakayama District Court on Friday)was awarded $1,300 by the court

'We feel much of our assertion was taken into account by the court,' he said in a telephone interview.

The dolphin is eating well and getting along with other dolphins, with regular blood tests showing it is in fine health, he said. Any perception it was getting bullied by other dolphins was 'part of regular activity in nature,' he said.
An 11-year-old girl has been rushed to hospital after she fell out of a boat on Friday afternoon and fractured her skull.

The girl was riding in a small aluminium boat in the upper Hawkesbury River, about an hour northwest of Sydney, around 5pm on Friday when she fell out of the boat and hit her head on the propeller, a CareFlight spokeswoman said.

The fall knocked her unconscious and she was pulled from the water and onto the shore by a boy who was in the boat with her and jumped in the river to save her, the spokeswoman said.

The girl remains in a serious condition at Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney.

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Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard were among 50 people evacuated from ITV Studios in London this morning following a fire that took Good Morning Britain off air.

The blaze at the complex in Waterloo started shortly after the programme began at 6am - and the London Fire Brigade sent four fire engines and 20 firefighters sent to the scene.

Co-host Kate Garraway and news presenter Ranvir Singh apologised to viewers in a video online, saying they were meant to be on air giving you lots of interesting stuff to sort your Good Friday.

A pre-recorded version of GMB was aired on ITV before an episode of cooking and dating show Dinner Date began at about 7.30am.

Making an exit: Good Morning Britain co-host Kate Garraway, pictured, had to evacuate the ITV Studios in London's Waterloo today after a fire alarm sounded following a blaze believed to have started in a post room

Back to work: Good Morning Britain co-host Kate Garraway and news presenter Ranvir Singh pictured returning to the studio

Battle: Firefighters pictured outside the evacuated ITV studios this morning in London after a fire broke out

Safe: Officials said 50 people were evacuated from the building, left and right, but no one was injured

Damage: A window at the studios, pictured, was broken during the blaze, which started in the post room

Garraway, 48, who was outside the studios near Waterloo train station on the South Bank, said: There's five or six fire engines so they're treating it very seriously, which is comforting, isn't it?

Singh added: It's quite a big incident. We're apologising to you because we're meant to be on air giving you lots of interesting stuff to sort your Good Friday.

Garraway finished: It's really annoying. Honestly, it's all here [points to her notes]. It would have been amazing. So maybe we can get back on air and give you a little sum of it later. Happy Easter!

London fire officials said 50 people were evacuated after a fire started on the first floor. There were no injuries reported.

Waiting for news: Garraway (in pink) waits outside with her GMB team as the London Fire Brigade arrives

But Garraway and Singh were 'making the most of the opportunity' for a picture with firefighters from Soho Blue Watch, according to their GMB co-host Ben Shephard, who wrote: Every cloud.

And accompanying a video of the two trying on firemen's hats, he added: 'Think Kate Garraway and Ranvir Singh think they're on a hen do!'

Guest Holly Brockwell, who was due to speak on GMB, tweeted a picture of smoke pouring out of the window of the studios just before 7.30am, saying: Tonnes of fire engines, fire still blazing.

Posing for a photo: Presenters Kate Garraway and Ranvir Singh were 'making the most of the opportunity' for a picture with firefighters at ITV Studios in London, according to Good Morning Britain co-host Ben Shephard

Concerning: Guest Holly Brockwell, who was due to speak on GMB, tweeted a picture of smoke pouring out of the window of the studios just before 7.30am, saying: 'Tonnes of fire engines, fire still blazing'

An LFB spokesman said: Part of a post room on the first floor was damaged by fire. Around 50 people evacuated the building before the brigade arrived.

There's five or six fire engines so they're treating it very seriously, which is comforting, isn't it? Kate Garraway

The fire meant that Good Morning Britain was taken off air. The brigade was called at 6.57am. Fire crews from Lambeth, Dowgate and Soho fire stations were at the scene. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Shephard tweeted that it was unlikely the show would return to the air that morning as the cast and crew took refuge in a nearby restaurant that opened early to accommodate them.

He tweeted: Outlook for getting back on air not great. In a video of Garraway and Singh, the latter said: Zero, not going to happen now.

Smoke: The blaze started shortly after Good Morning Britain began at 6am and the London Fire Brigade confirmed the situation is still ongoing with four fire engines and 20 firefighters sent to the scene

Garraway added: Chances of a bacon sandwich though are quite high so we're all quite happy.

Think Kate Garraway and Ranvir Singh think they're on a hen do Ben Shephard

A GMB tweet said: We've been evacuated because of a fire alarm. Everyone's safe and we're hoping to get back in and on air ASAP.

Shephard said that the fire appeared to have been extinguished. He tweeted: Five engines and seemingly no more smoke! Not sure if we'll make it back on air yet but hoping to.
A British man was left scratching his head when a letter addressed to New Zealand landed at the doorstep of his home in England last month.

But when the same letter turned up in his letterbox for the second time on Friday morning, 18,000 kilometres away from the couple it was destined for, Giles Fairman-Bourn was at a loss for words.

It's easy to see how the mistake could initially have been made - Mr Fairman-Bourn lives at a street in the British town of Christchurch, Dorset, on England's south coast.

The letter, sent from Sydney in Australia, was actually destined for a street of the same name in the suburb of Lyttelton, Christchurch, New Zealand, the nzherald.co.nz reported.

A letter addressed to Christopher and Nicola in New Zealand has arrived at a man's house in England two times in a row

Upon receiving the letter for a second time, an exasperated Mr Fairman-Bourn, 40, decided to add some extra instructions to the confused local postal service.

Boldly underlining 'New Zealand' and scribbling 'NOT United Kingdom' on the front of the envelope, he sent the letter back to the post office and shared the humorous mix-up to his Facebook page.

'I feel sorry for whoever Christopher and Nicola are but this little card Royal Mail have made into boomerang post; every time I stick it back in the mail, as Elvis Presley once sung, this letter just keeps comin' back!',' he wrote.

'I hope that it's worthwhile when it gets to them. I don't think it's junk mail, it's certainly some kind of personal card that someone's taken the trouble to write.'

Mr Fairman-Bourn said it was disappointing that the error made by the post office would likely mean a Sydney couple would not receive the message within its intended time-frame.

'It's probably an Easter card because it's kind of skinny and thin,' he said.

'It's definitely a card, but because it's not for me I can't obviously open it to find out but they won't get it by Easter now, that's for sure.'
'Losing the plot': Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe blamed careless members of the public for leaving themselves vulnerable online to hackers

Britains most senior policeman was last night accused of losing the plot after his astonishingly misjudged remarks that banks should stop refunding victims of online crime.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe blamed careless members of the public for leaving themselves vulnerable to hackers.

Common failings include setting up passwords that are too easy to crack and not updating anti-virus software on computers.

Banks have to compensate customers for fraud unless they can prove the customer has been negligent  for example by writing down their password and leaving it in a public place.

But Sir Bernard suggested the public were being rewarded for bad behaviour under the current system.

He suggested lenders could refuse to reimburse fraud victims which failed to take sufficient precautions as this would spur them to take more care in future.

Thats one thing to consider. If you are continually rewarded for bad behaviour you will probably continue to do but if the obverse is true you might consider changing behaviour, he told The Times.

The system is not incentivising you to protect yourself. If someone said to you, If youve not updated your software I will give you half back, you would do it.

His comments sparked uproar among consumer groups and MPs, which accused the commissioner of pinning the blame for financial crime on the public.

John Pugh, a Liberal Democrat member of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee, said: When a senior policeman starts to confuse bad behaviour with being a victim of crime, he frankly is losing the plot and perhaps should seek a career move.

Online shopping: Banks have to compensate customers for fraud unless they can prove the customer has been negligent  for example by writing down their password and leaving it in a public place (file picture)

People dont want to be defrauded with all the associated anxiety and hassle and a modern police force has to recognise that keeping people safe online and on the streets amounts to the same thing.

Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, added: With online fraud increasing, this is an astonishingly misjudged proposal from the Met Police Commissioner.

Mr Lloyd added that banks were already dragging their feet, when dealing with fraud  with customers having to battle for compensation.

The priority should be for banks to better protect their customers, rather than trying to shift blame on to the victims of fraud, he said.

Consumer campaigner: Martin Lewis said banks should only refuse to pay out for fraud in extreme cases when customers have been negligent

The row comes as the public and businesses faces a growing threat from cyber-crime.

Total losses from fraud committed on cards, internet banking and cheques hit 755million last year, up 26 per cent on the previous year.

Losses from online fraud alone soared 64 per cent to 133.5million last year, according to FinancialFraudActionUK.

The most common types of attacks include phishing where criminals send victims emails and text messages purporting to be from a trusted source  such as a bank.

Often the victim will be invited to click on a link which directs the customer to a fake bank website. They will then be asked to enter personal information such as bank account details.

One common ploy is tricking people into believing their bank account has been compromised and encouraging them to move funds into a fraudsters account.

Losses for this type of scam average 1,300 according to Royal Bank of Scotland.

Crime figures are expected to double when cybercrime is included in official data for the first time in July.

But the police have so far proved powerless, or unwilling to tackle the problem. Last year it emerged that police are following up fewer than one in 100 frauds.

Less than 9,000 convictions were secured on more than three million frauds in 12 months.

Britains intelligence and security organisation GCHQ has estimated that 80 per cent of cybercrime could be prevented by tougher to break passwords and updated security software.

But campaigners said fraudsters are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to con the public.

Cheltenham base: Britains intelligence and security organisation GCHQ (pictured) has estimated that 80 per cent of cybercrime could be prevented by tougher to break passwords and updated security software

Martin Lewis, consumer campaigner and founder of financial website MoneySavingExpert.com, said banks should only refuse to pay out for fraud in extreme cases when customers have been negligent.

He said: Sir Bernard has set the bar of negligence too low. We bailed out the banks when they were in trouble. They have a responsibility to the public. Fraudsters can be highly sophisticated  banks need to shoulder that burden.

We bailed out the banks when they were in trouble. They have a responsibility to the public. Fraudsters can be highly sophisticated  banks need to shoulder that burden Martin Lewis, founder of financial website MoneySavingExpert.com

Campaigners said elderly and vulnerable people cannot be expected to have the latest anti-virus software.

Paul Green from over 50s group Saga said: Blaming the victims of crime is no way for anyone to behave let alone the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Keeping up with scams is almost a full-time job.

Society expects the banks and the police to be able to keep us safe from this type of crime - if theyre unable to keep up with the ever sophisticated nature of this fraud, what chance do the rest of us have.

A spokesman for the British Bankers Association said: Banks are determined to protect customers and have highly sophisticated controls in place to safeguard the financial system from those that perpetrate fraud.
If you're looking for a drink or a meal out on Good Friday you will need to act fast.

If they choose to open, pubs and clubs will be forced to close early.

Good Friday is a restricted trading day across the country, which means most shops including supermarkets and major shopping centres are closed.

Here's a list of where you can stock up, or drink up, in your state this Good Friday.

Bottle shops will also be closed on Good Friday, but alcohol is still served at bars and pubs. You can also still drink alcohol at licensed restaurants in most states, as long as you order food

New South Wales/ ACT

Good Friday is a restricted trading day and you will be hard-pressed to find a Coles and Woolworths that is open.

All major shopping centres like Westfield will also have its doors shut but some corner stores, petrol stations and chemists are allowed to open and trade as per usual.

Bottle shops in NSW will be closed on Good Friday, but you can still get a drink at a hotel, bar or pub as long as it's before 10pm.

Restaurants are also allowed to serve alcohol as long as you order food at the same time.

Some of the main bars in Sydney that will trade as normal on Friday include Establishment and Bungalow 8 in the CBD, as well as The Beresford and El Loco in Surry Hills. The Glenmore and Bar 100 in The Rocks will also be open the entire weekend.

While main shopping centres are closed, cinemas will remain open on Good Friday.

Most Coles and Woolworths will reopen again normally on Saturday and Monday, but Easter Sunday may vary depending on the area you live.

Good Friday is a restricted trading day across the country, which means most shops including supermarkets and major shopping centres are closed

Victoria

Supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths will be closed on Good Friday due to restricted trading but there are a number of small IGAs that will be open in and around Melbourne's CBD.

Bottle shops will also shut its doors but licensed venues, including restaurants, can continue serving alcohol until 12pm unless they have an unrestricted license.

Some of the main bars and pubs open in Melbourne's CBD on Good Friday include The Imperial Rooftop, Heartbraker and Madame Brussels.

All of the main markets in Melbourne, including the Queen Victoria Markets and South Melbourne Market will be shut on Friday but will reopen again on Saturday.

Queensland

Like NSW and Victoria, most businesses will be closed on Good Friday in Queensland.

Supermarkets and bottle shops will shut its doors but will reopen again on Saturday. Only some Coles and Woolworths stores will be open on Sunday, even though it is not considered a public holiday.

Good Friday and Easter Saturday, Sunday and Monday are all public holidays in most states and territories in Australia, which means restrictions on retail trading may apply

Bars, pubs and restaurants can sell alcohol from 10am until midnight on Good Friday with food if that part of the premises is normally set aside for dining. Queensland also have rules that state you can purchase alcohol for one hour before eating, while you are eating and for one hour after.

There is a long list of stores that are exempt from Easter trading restrictions in Queensland. The full list can be found here.

Northern Territory

Most stores in the Northern Territory will be closed on Good Friday, including supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths.

While retail trading hours are not restricted in the Top End, most stores still choose to close on Friday.

Supermarkets and bottle shops generally trade as normal on Easter Saturday even though it is a public in all states and territories apart from Western Australia and Tasmania

Easter Sunday is actually only a public holiday in NSW, Victoria and the ACT. It is a restricted trading day in NSW so major shopping centres and supermarkets, including Coles and Woolworths, are closed

South Australia

South Australia has some of the most complex restricted trading rules that come down to how big a business is and where it is located.

Most will be shut on Good Friday, including all supermarkets and bottle shops.

Depending on where supermarkets are located, many will also be closed on Sunday and Monday too.

Western Australia

Retail shops and bottle shops will be closed in Western Australian on Good Friday.

While supermarkets will be closed, some small conveniance stores and petrol stations will be open if they are exempt from trading rules.

Tasmania

Like every other state or territory in Australia, shops will be closed in Tasmania for Good Friday.

Most Coles and Woolworths stores will reopen again on Saturday, Sunday and Monday as trading rules are generally unrestricted in the state.
A burns victim fled a Woolworths supermarket in tears after a security guard treated her like a criminal due to the compression mask she had over her face.

Sarah Manganas has third degree burns to her whole upper body, caused by an ethanol heater exploding in her face, and says in Sydney's Town Hall Woolworths she was followed by a contracted security guard who yelled at her and asked why she was wearing her mask.

She said she tried to defend herself before leaving the store crying, when talking to 9 News about the incident on Thursday.

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Sarah Manganas has described how a contracted security guard at a Woolworths in Sydney followed her around the supermarket and implied she was there to rob it

Mrs Manganas (left, with husband Andrew) has to wear a compression mask and suit due to the third degree burns she suffered when an ethanol heater exploded

Mrs Manganas said the incident had resulted in her fleeing the supermarket in tears

'He was shouting out "hey you, why are you wearing that, what are you doing",' Mrs Manganas said.

'At first I didn't think it was me so I ignored it, then he shouted it out again, "hey you".'

In a Facebook post she wrote about how other shoppers had 'stopped and stared' while the security guard 'implied [she] was there to rob the store'.

She described how the flesh-coloured mask, part of a suit covering her upper body, had the words 'second skin' written on the back, making it easy to identify.

Mrs Manganas described how the guard yelled at her in the supermarket, causing other customers to stop and stare

But the Sydney woman says she has accepted that the unwanted attention is a part of living as a burns survivor

A Woolworths spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia in a statement the supermarket 'apologises for the unacceptable behaviour the customer received in our store'.

'We are working closely with our contracted provider Wilson Security to ensure all security guards in the store receive refresher customer service training,' the spokesperson said.

'We're more than happy to liaise with the affected customer to discuss her poor treatment and any requests she might have.'

Her husband, Andrew Manganas, called for staff to be trained to recognise items like medical masks and religious clothing so they did not make mistakes and unnecessarily embarrass people.

But Mrs Manganas had accepted the unwanted attention was 'just a part of life' for those suffering from burns, 9 News reported.

Despite that, she had told the news outlet: 'It's challenged me to be the best person I can be'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Wilson Security and Mrs Manganas for comment.

Social media users took to Facebook to air their view on the issue on the Woolworths page
The information was not relayed to British intelligence services

Deported to the Netherlands as a 'foreign terrorist fighter,' Turkey said

Britain was not told about the potential terror threat posed by the Brussels bombers and their associates, despite them being on US watch lists and one of them being deported by Turkey as potential ISIS fighter.

This meant that Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, and other members of their ISIS cell, would have been able to travel freely across Europe, with at least two entering Britain.

Both the El Bakraoui brothers and the mysterious 'Man in White' were reportedly on U.S. terror-watch lists and identified by American intelligence.

Terrorist: Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 30, was deported to the Netherlands in July 2015 as a 'foreign terrorist fighter, after being detained just a few miles from the border with ISIS's heartland in Syria, Turkey has said

The revelations have 'intensified scrutiny on the reliability of the EU's intelligence sharing systems and border security', The Telegraph reports.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, responsible for the deaths of 11 people when he blew himself up at Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning, was deported to the Netherlands in July 2015 as a 'foreign terrorist fighter,' Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Grinning for the camera, the suicide bomber is pictured in a Turkish police mugshot, after being detained just a few miles from the border with ISIS's heartland in Syria.

Turkish authorities also said that after being returned to Europe, the elder El Bakraoui brother returned to Turkey once again, only to be deported for a second time in August.

These claims have since been slammed by both Belgian and Dutch authorities, who say that he was only deported once, and was never flagged as a possible terrorist by Turkey.

Ibrahim el-Bakraoui (centre) can be seen walking through the airport terminal on the morning of the attack, just moments before he and fellow bomber Najim Laachraoui (left) detonated their explosives

Listed: Both Khalid (L) and Ibrahim (R) El Bakraoui and the mysterious 'Man in White' were reportedly on U.S. terror-watch lists and identified by American intelligence

Ibrahim detonated a bomb at the airport terminal where it is believed he and his brother worked as cleaners. Khalid blew up a nail bomb on a Metro train at Maelbeek station shortly after the airport attack

The 30-year-old ISIS militant was not on any Dutch or international wanted lists, Dutch justice minister Ard van der Steur said Thursday.

'We checked with our Belgian, German and Turkish colleagues and in all cases he was not registered in our systems,' Van der Steur told a news conference.

This follows news that both the El Bakraoui brothers were known to US authorities and listed in American terrorism databases, television network NBC reported.

The report cited two unnamed US officials as saying that Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui were listed as a 'potential terror threat' in US databases but that they would not specify on 'which of the many US terrorism databases the brothers were listed.'

It also emerged that the mysterious 'Man in White' who was pictured alongside the Brussels airport bombers just moments before they killed 14 people has been identified by US officials.
Supermarket giant Aldi is set to change the name of its 'rape yellow' paint tins following an angry outburst from a sex assault victim.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, branded the product name 'offensive' after she spotted the tins while she was shopping with her son.

The furious customer said she started 'choking' when she came across the product at the Radford Road store in Coventry, Warwickshire.

Although the online tubs are listed as 'rapeseed yellow' - in reference to the brightly-coloured plant that begins to flower during spring - the in-store tins are plastered with the label 'rape yellow'.

The sexual assault victim said she started 'choking' when she came across the the labelled tins in Aldi

The woman said: 'I looked at the paint and thought it can't possibly say that, you have got to be kidding me, there's no way they would sell that. I started choking.

'I got straight out of there. I was furious and upset.

'I thought maybe I was being sensitive because of my situation, but I sent pictures to my friends and they were all shocked by it. They couldn't believe what I was saying.

'I contacted Aldi afterwards and they just assumed I was being sensitive because I was a rape victim.'

Now Aldi have agreed to scrap the name - but only after explaining it was in reference to the bright-yellow seed.

A statement said: 'This paint is a colour widely referred to in the industry as 'RAL 1021 Rape Yellow', which refers to rapeseed.

The Aldi store in Coventry, Warwickshire, where the woman found the paint tins labelled 'rape yellow'

Aldi has pledged to change the name of its paint tins although point out it is named after the seed

The product is listed as 'rapeseed yellow' online but the 'rape yellow' in-store tubs have sparked outrage

'The colour name will be altered to rapeseed yellow for all future production of this paint.'

But the woman said the 'offensive' labelling should never have hit the stores, claiming it was similar to naming other colours 'abortion red' or 'poo brown'.

'How the hell did it get out with that name in the first place?

'You wouldn't sell something called abortion red or poo brown. To me it's the same thing, it's offensive.

'It is a word that is a problem. How many other words can you think of for yellow without using that one?'

Twitter users voiced their concerns over supermarket giant Aldi's choice to name a paint 'rape yellow'

An angry customer likened the name to calling other colours 'abortion red' or 'poo brown'

And other shoppers have shared her feelings of offence, with many taking to Twitter to vent their anger.

One user wrote: 'In our local Aldi this evening and noticed a brand of their Glossy Paint called " Rape Yellow" not a good idea.'




Kim Dong Chul, pictured, is reported to have confessed to spying on North Korea and attempting to steal military secrets

An American citizen has 'confessed' to North Korean authorities of his attempts to steal the hermit state's military secrets.

Kim Dong Chul, who is a Korean-American was arrested last October on suspicion of spying according to Japan's Kyodo and China's Xinhau news agencies.

Kim, who is a naturalised US citizen is reported to have pleaded for mercy while being paraded in front of the media in Pyongyang.

Kim apologised for trying to steal military secrets in collusion with South Koreans and described the acts as aimed at overthrowing the North Korean regime, Kyodo said.

A source in Pyongyang told Reuters on Friday that diplomats in the North Korean capital were notified in the morning of Kim's confession and his comments were similar to the confession made by another American, Otto Warmbier, being held in the North.

Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour earlier this month for trying to steal a propaganda banner, and the North is also holding a Korean-Canadian Christian pastor, who is serving a life sentence for subversion.

An official introducing Kim to the media began the meeting by praising North Korea's nuclear achievements and its leader Kim Jong Un, said the source, who had direct knowledge of the meeting.

A defector from the North previously told Reuters that Kim, who is one of three known Western citizens held in the North, was a Christian pastor who had worked in China and the United States and sent medical aid into the North.

CNN reported in January that Kim was 60 and from Fairfax, Virginia, and that he said he had spied on behalf of South Korea.

North Korea, which has been criticised for its human rights record, has in the past used detained American citizens to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

It faces the prospect of further international isolation after the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions after its fourth nuclear test in January.

Chul, pictured, began crying after he admitted committing 'unpardonable espionage' on North Korea

He said he passed on secret information on a USB key to South Korean agents as part of his plot

Chul claimed: 'The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic's highest dignity'

The North Korean KCNA news agency claims Chul has admitted to 'unpardonable espionage'.

It is claimed Chul stated: 'The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic's highest dignity and its system and spreading false propaganda aimed at breaking down its solidarity.'

Kim spoke of making contacts with South Koreans to pass secret information contained in USB memory sticks and also images state media said were damaging to the North on data storage cards.

Outside information is strictly controlled in North Korea and ordinary people there often use USB sticks or other portable memory drives to share foreign media.

Kim was paraded in front of the media in Pyongyang where he reportedly begged for mercy

American student Otto Frederick Warmbier (center) was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for anti-DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) crimes

Kim Jong Un (center in fur hat), the leader of North Korea, is all smiles as he oversees a military drill

An official introducing Kim to the media began the meeting by praising North Korea's nuclear achievements and its leader, Kim Jong Un, said the source in Pyongyang, who had direct knowledge of the meeting.

A defector from the North previously told Reuters that Kim was a Christian pastor who had worked in China and the United States and sent medical aid into the North.

Kim told media he was born in Seoul in 1953 and moved to the United States when he was 19. He said he set up a business in the North Korean special economic zone of Rason in 2008, KCNA said.
Young mother Jasmine Mossman-Riley, 25, who fell to her death with her son from a cliff near a Sydney beach was suffering post traumatic stress disorder from domestic violence in a past relationship.

The bodies of Ms Mossman-Riley and her toddler son Braxon were recovered late on Thursday night below cliffs near Maroubra beach in the city's eastern suburbs.

Beau Bonning, Ms Mossman-Riley's cousin, told 7 News that Ms Mossman-Riley had post traumatic stress disorder.

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The victims have been identified as Jasmine Mossman-Riley, 25, from Maroubra, and her son Braxon

Mr Bonning told Daily Mail Australia the domestic violence 'was in the past' and he couldn't say any more 'out of respect for Jay, her family and his also.'

'It was not because of her most recent relationship... that's all I can say on that,' he said.

Mr Bonning also stressed that domestic violence takes its toll on people, along with depression, and the public should be aware of this.

Investigators later uncovered a note written by the mother.

'This will come as a shock to most people because I'm always happy and smiling, it's funny that you can hide behind a smile,' she had written.

Images of Jasmine Mossman-Riley (left) and her baby son Braxon (right) who have been identified as those who died after falling from a cliff near Maroubra Beach on Thursday

The woman and her young son died after falling from a cliff-top at Maroubra in Sydney's east

Police were called to a cliff face at Lurline Bay, near Maroubra Beach on Thursday evening

Officers discovered the bodies of a woman and toddler with the help of surf lifesavers

They had to be winched up from the bottom of the cliff late on Thursday evening

Authorities have said there are 'no suspicious circumstances' surrounding the deaths

Friends have taken to social media to express sympathy.

'For those that remember Jasmine and her son Brax with the catahoula fancy. We got Wuppy from her. May you rest in peace,' wrote one.

Another added: 'that is terrible, I feel so much for that poor lady'.

'Incredible how people who are hurting so much on the inside can look so positive and happy on the outside,' wrote another.

Police were called to a cliff face at Lurline Bay, near Maroubra Beach, following concerns for the welfare of a mother and a young boy at 8.30pm on Thursday.

Officers discovered the bodies of a woman and toddler with the help of surf lifesavers and said there are 'no apparent suspicious circumstances'.

A helicopter was seen circling overhead and helped in the major search.

Witnesses said a blue police tent was erected at the scene and dozens of police cars were seen on the beach.

Police said investigations are continuing, but no one else is being sought in relation to the incident.

A report is being prepared for the Coroner.

Witness Jie Maps lives across the road from the headland at Lurline Bay Headland in Maroubra, and has a full view of the area from his balcony.

Police Rescue officers pointed floodlights down the cliff-face and to the water below

Witness Jie Maps said he saw the entire event unfold from the balcony of his home

He said the child was the first one to be winched up from below the cliff

Hours later, just after 1.30am, the boy's mother was also pulled from the bottom of the cliff

Witnesses said a blue police tent was erected and dozens of police cars were seen at the scene

He told Daily Mail Australia he saw authorities retrieving the body of the mother and child.

'A person was winched into the water from the helicopter. The body of the child was retrieved,' Mr Maps said.

'The helicopter then landed on the headland and the child was carried to a group of ambulance officers.

'A blue tent was set up over the child's body covered with a white sheet,' he added.

Mr Maps said about 1.30am he saw the mother's body retrieved and taken to the same tent where her son's body lay.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
Religious and political leaders in Australia have used Easter to call for hope, peace and love.

In the wake of the Belgian terror attacks church leaders used their Easter messages to offer prayers and appeal for those afflicted by 'senseless violence'.

'There is more to the human story than all the violence of the world that we seem to drown in,' Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge said.

'That is what today is about - there's something more than the violence.'

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia was 'enriched not divided by our diversity of faiths, culture and race' in his Good Friday address

Altar boys and priest lead a procession prior to The Stations of the Cross as part of Good Friday Easter services at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney

Tasmanian Anglican Bishop Richard Condie said hope was essential for human flourishing.

Thousands turned out in Sydney for the Catholic Stations of the Cross devotion at St Mary's Cathedral in the heart of the CBD and a Journey of the Cross by the Wesley Mission.

And as always in Victoria, the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal took centre stage, aiming to raise millions to provide vital medical services for the state's sickest children.

In a video, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said while Easter was the most important time of the year for Christians, it is also a time when families and friends of all religions gather and recharge.

Worshippers kneel during The Stations of the Cross as part of Good Friday Easter services at St Mary's Cathedral

Altar boys prepare prior to The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday ahead of Easter services

Mr Turnbull (pictured) and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wished everyone a safe holiday weekend and thanked those who would be working at home and overseas, including defence personnel, police, medical and emergency services

He believes it is a good time to reflect on the achievements of Australia's multicultural society, the most successful in the world.

'It is mutual respect which binds us together,' he said.

'We are enriched not divided by our diversity of faiths, culture and race.'

Mr Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wished everyone a safe holiday weekend and thanked those who would be working at home and overseas, including defence personnel, police, medical and emergency services.

'Our thoughts are with the men and women of the Australian Defence Force keeping us safe,' Mr Shorten said in his own video.

'You are spending time away from your family and friends and we are grateful.'

Fishmongers were also working hard on their busiest day of the year, including at the Sydney Fish Markets which saw more than 4000 customers before sunrise.

More than 55,000 people were expected to visit the market throughout the day where fishmongers are preparing to sell more than 440 tonne of fish over the long weekend.
Co-star Jeffrey Tambor said he was the 'kindest and funniest of geniuses'

He described how Shandling had consoled him at one of his lowest points

He had been looked at by a doctor on Wednesday after complaining about shortness of breath and planned to go to the ER Thursday afternoon

Garry Shandling had been planning to make a trip to the emergency room shortly before his death on Thursday, it has been revealed.

TMZ reports that the comedian had been experiencing shortness of breath and aches on Wednesday afternoon so he called over a doctor friend who gave him a check up and told him that if he was still in pain on Thursday he should get to a hospital.

Shandling did not make it in time however, calling 911 Thursday morning and falling unconscious before he could even finish his call with the dispatcher, dying just hours later of a massive heart attack.

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Garry Shandling (pictured above in January) died at the age of 66 on Thursday after being rushed to an LA hospital

Late night host Conan O'Brien described how Garry Shandling had once brought him back from the brink in a touching tribute to the legendary comedian (pair above in 2009)

On Thursday night, Conan O'Brien described how Shandling had once brought him back from the brink in a touching tribute to the legendary comedian, who died aged 66 on Thursday.

He described his friend as not only a 'masterful writer' but someone who had a 'ton of empathy for other people.

The late night host described how Shandling had consoled him during one of his lowest points, when he lost his short-lived hosting job on The Tonight Show in 2009.

He said he had been left feeling 'shell shocked' and decided to take his family to Hawaii.

Shandling happened to be staying in a room nearby at his and helped to console him.

'He counseled me, he cheered me up, he told me jokes, he talked to me about philosophy,' Conan said.

Conan said that both he and Shandling took a long walk and then sprawled out on the beach to enjoy the sunset.

'I turned to Garry and I said, "This is the most romantic moment of my life and its with you,', he said wistfully.

Shandling's heartbroken co-star on the The Larry Sanders Show, Jeffrey Tambor, also wrote a touching tribute for the comedian.

He said of the funny man: 'Garry was/ will always be my teacher. He redesigned the wheel of comedy and was the kindest and funniest of geniuses. Will miss him so much.'

Flashback: Jeffery Tambor, Rip Torn, and Garry Shandling are pictured on The Larry Sanders show which aired from 1992-1998. Many are struggling to come to grips with Shandling's sudden death

Best of friends: Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry, posted a photo of her husband with Shandling on Instagram, writing; 'We have been crying/laughing/crying through Jerry's last day with Garry all afternoon'

Sad: Jeffrey Tambor who starred with Shandling on The Larry Sanders Show wrote this touching tribute on his Twitter on Thursday. He called the funnyman the 'kindest and funniest of geniuses'

Late night host Seth Meyers also both mourned the loss of Shandling on Thursday night.

He said that while he never knew him personally, that The Larry Sanders Show changed the way he thought about comedic television.

'Everybody go back and watch that show,' Meyers said.

'If theres any good that can come out of it, it would be the rediscovery of what really, truly was a classic.'

Finally, The Daily Shows Trevor Noah simply shared a clip of Shandling's first Tonight Show comedy set all the way back in 1981 in which Shandling makes a joke about free pens at the bank.

Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry, posted a photo of her husband with Shandling on Instagram, writing; 'We have been crying/laughing/crying through Jerry's last day with Garry all afternoon.

'There is no better tribute and no better reminder of what a beautiful, gentle, BRILLIANT sweet angel Garry Shandling was.'

Shandling, who also created and starred in It's Garry Shandling's Show, died at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after being rushed in earlier in the day.

Shandling's death was the result of a massive heart attack according to TMZ, and friends who spoke with him Thursday morning said he sounded fine and healthy.

Friends: Shandling had been posting on social media earlier in the week, and on Monday retweeted a photo of himself with Kathy Griffin and Bob Odenkirk (above)

O'Brien and Seth Meyers both paid tribute to The Larry Sanders Show creator on Thursday night

The 911 call came from Shandling himself but he fell unconscious while on the phone with the dispatcher.

The Los Angeles Fire Department arrived just a little after 10.30am and had to kick down the door when no one was able to answer.

Judd Apatow, who was a writer on Larry Sanders, told The Wrap; 'Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing.

'It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. I can imagine how Hank would handle it but I just dont know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me.

'I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better.'

Tribute: The marquee of The Comedy Store in Los Angeles read: 'RIP Garry Shandling' on Thursday. Shandling's death was the result of a massive heart attack

The marquee of the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles reads: 'Garry Shandling, Rest In Peace Make God Laugh.' Shandling pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with 'The Larry Sanders Show'

Shandling had been posting on social media earlier in the week, and on Monday retweeted a photo of himself with Kathy Griffin and Bob Odenkirk - who was on The Larry Sanders Show.

Griffin, who tweeted the photo, included the caption; So @GarryShandling & I had to call Saul @mrBobOdenkirk.'

She posted the photo once again shortly after the news of Shandling's death and wrote; 'Sunday, my longtime friend Garry Shandling was here, making every1 laugh. I loved him. I'll miss our talks the most.'

Shandling began his career doing stand-up, which led to writing jobs on shows including Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter.

Touching: 'I just dont know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me,' said Judd Apatow (above with back turned looking at Shandling)

Stunned: Friends who spoke to the actor Thursday morning said he sounded healthy (he is pictured above in 1988)

Garry Shandling died at St. John's Hospital complex in Santa Monica, California, pictured above

Soon after he began to guest host for Johnny Carson, and was considered as a possible replacement after Carson left his job on The Tonight Show.

He did not get the job, but in 1986 created It's Garry Shandling's Show, which would run until 1990 and get nominated for four Emmy Awards.

Young comedian: Garry Shandling is pictured here in a high school yearbook photo

Two years after that he found success again on television with The Larry Sanders Show, one of the first original programs to ever run on HBO.

It was about the cast and crew of a late-night talk show, and Shandling said he based large parts of the show on his time filling in for Carson on The Tonight Show.

That show was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards, and in its final season in 1998 Shandling won for the first time in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category.

He was also twice nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical for his work on Larry Sanders.

That show is said to have paved the way for countless others that followed, most notably 30 Rock, which was created by Tina Fey.

More recently he found a new audience of younger fans thanks to his role in two big Marvel films - Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 2.

It is not known if he was set to appear or had filmed any other Marvel films at the time of his death.

Shandling also recently appeared in an episode of Jerry Seinfeld's web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee that aired on New Year's Day.

The episode was called It's Great that Gary Shandling is Still Alive.

In that episode he told Seinfeld; 'I had a hyper-parathyroid gland that was undiagnosed because the symptoms mirror the exact same symptoms that an older Jewish man would have.'

Shandling was also a frequent host at awards shows, having done the Emmy Awards five times from 2000 to 2004 and prior to that the Grammy Awards six times from 1990 to 1995.

Shandling was never married, but was briefly engaged to Linda Doucett, a former Playboy model who also appeared on The Larry Sanders Show.

Remembering: Stars paid tribute to Shandling, with Amy Schumer writing (above); 'Goodbye Gary Shandling thank you for your kindness and your generosity'

Jimmy Kimmel wrote: Garry Shandling was as kind and generous as he was funny and that is saying a lot. The comedian sadly suffered a massive heart attack

Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth is 'sad today' and joins her fellow celebs in honoring their dear friend's life

Actor and comedian Rob Lowe wrote: 'Garry Shandling was one of my comedic heroes' and added that he was both 'shocked and sad'

Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood also took to social media to comment on Shandling's untimely death

The two split in 1994 after a seven-year relationship.

Shandling previously had a close call back in 1977 when he was involved in a car crash in Beverly Hills.

The comedian was in critical condition for two days but pulled through.

He wrote about the accident; 'I had a vivid near-death experience that involved a voice asking, "Do you want to continue leading Garry Shandling's life?"

'Without thinking, I said, "Yes." Since then, I've been stuck living in the physical world while knowing, without a doubt, that there's something much more meaningful within it all.

'That realization is what drives my life and work.'

Winners: Peter Tolan, left, and Gary Shandling pose with their Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a comedy series award for The Larry Sanders Show in 1998

More recently Shandling found a new audience of younger fans thanks to his role in two big Marvel films - Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 2 (above with Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle)

Stars took to Twitter to pay tribute to Shandling on Thursday, with Amy Schumer writing; 'Goodbye Gary Shandling thank you for your kindness and your generosity and for making me laugh so damn much.'

Steve Martin wrote; 'Garry Shandling was a very special comedian with a beautifully unpredictable mind. He even voluntarily offered jokes and ideas for Oscars.'

Jimmy Kimmel wrote; 'Garry Shandling was as kind and generous as he was funny and that is saying a lot.'

Bette Midler said; 'One of the funniest of all, the beloved and very complicated Gary Shandling has died.'

Sandra Bernhard said; 'If it's true I am heartsick @GarryShandling has died? One in a million brilliant people say it's not so.'

Oldie but a goodie: Shandling, pictured in a vintage snap doing stand-up on TV, has been doing stand-up comedy for over a decade and will be sorely missed

Seth MacFarlane said; 'Saddened over Garry Shandling. He was a comedy idol of mine. He leaves behind the greatest single-camera comedy of all time.'

Fred Willard wrote; 'I am heartbroken. What horribly sad news.'

Jemaine Clement, the creator of Flight of the Conchords, wrote; 'Garry Shandling was one of my absolute favourites and ahead of his time. So sad.'

Kristin Chenoweth praised Shandling and said; 'He encouraged me from the very start. A few weeks ago he told me life was short and enjoy it.'

Seth Meyers wrote; 'Heartbreaking news about Garry Shandling. Just heartbreaking.'

Ricky Gervais wrote; 'RIP the great Garry Shandling. Surely, one of the most influential comedians of a generation.'

Seth Meyers wrote; 'Heartbreaking news about Garry Shandling. Just heartbreaking.'

Mandy Moore wrote; 'Had the pleasure of meeting/ hanging with Garry Shandling a few times & he was a gentleman & obviously so deeply funny. RIP.'

Albert Brooks said; 'R.I.P. Garry Shandling. I am so saddened to hear this. Brilliantly funny and such a great guy. He will be so missed.'
Advertisement

New photographs reveal the $6million damage caused by the 41-day standoff at an Oregon wildlife refuge.

The pictures show how the armed occupiers trashed the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Burns during the protest over land rights.

Garbage including empty drinks bottles can be seen littered throughout the rooms, with camping equipment and bedding left behind.

Damage to the building, including a broken wall, is pictured in the photographs, which also show how an office was left completely wrecked by protesters.

The pictures show how the armed occupiers trashed the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Burns during the protest over land rights

Repairing damage and removing debris is expected to take until early summer. The overall cost of the standoff will total around $6million

Camping equipment was left behind, while authorities also reported rotten food and even human faeces being found inside the building

Twenty-five people have been charged so far in relation to the standoff, which began in January, including leader Ammon Bundy.

The group had seized the government-owned reserve and demanded that officials turn over the land to locals and release two ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were imprisoned for setting fires.

Bundy and 10 others were arrested in January in Oregon, when they left the preserve to hold a meeting in a town about 100 miles north of the refuge.

The FBI and Oregon State Police moved in to make arrests on a highway, resulting in a confrontation that led to rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum being shot and killed.

Most of the occupiers immediately cleared out of the refuge. Others straggled out in the following days, with three more arrests made.

The final four occupiers turned themselves in on February 11. David Fry, 27, stood his ground to the very end and threatened to kill himself, before handing himself to authorities.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend roughly $4 million to clean, repair and upgrade the wildlife refuge.

The protesters, who demanded that officials turn over the land to locals, also left behind piles of clothing and bedding material

The group seized the government-owned reserve in January in a bid to secure the release of two ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were imprisoned for setting fires

Empty alcohol bottles were also found on the site. The armed occupiers were holed up in the site for 41 days

Tobacco was also left behind. Most of the occupiers cleared out of the refuge after leader Ammon Bundy and others were arrested

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend around $4 million to clean, repair and upgrade the site. A wall was damaged in the protest

Twenty-five people have been charged so far in relation to the standoff, which finished in February

Mattresses were left behind in the property behind the protesters. About $2 million spent during the takeover, including the costs of moving the refuge's 17 employees out of town for safety to live at government expense in hotels for weeks

About $2 million spent during the takeover, including the costs of moving the refuge's 17 employees out of town for safety to live at government expense in hotels for weeks.

The compound is undergoing a giant spring cleaning, with the use of industrial vacuums and cargo trailers filled with cleaning supplies. Repairing damage and removing debris is expected to take until early summer.

Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe said he wants the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to become a symbol to the rest of the country that collaboration, not confrontation, endures.

The takeover at Malheur started on January 2 when their leader, Ammon Bundy (pictured), and followers, seized buildings at the refuge in a protest against federal control over millions of acres public land in the West

David Fry, 27, (left) was the final protester to turn himself in to authorities in February. Rancher Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum (right) was shot in a clash with police

Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe said he wants the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (pictured) to become a symbol to the rest of the country that collaboration, not confrontation, endures

HOW THE OREGON STAND-OFF UNFOLDED January 2, 2016: A protest takes place in Burns, Oregon, amid mounting tension over prison sentences for two local ranchers. Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, said they lit fires on federal land to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. They were convicted and served a year or less. A federal judge later ruled their terms were too short and ordered them back to prison for about four years each. A group of armed protesters, led by Ammon Bundy, breaks away from the protest and travels 30 miles south to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. January 4, 2016: The Hammonds report to prison in California, and their attorney announces that they'll seek pardons from President Barack Obama. The Hammonds distance themselves from the armed group. January 5, 2016: Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum, an Arizona rancher often serving as spokesman for the occupiers, says he believes there's a warrant for his arrest and tells reporters: 'I'm not going to spend my last days in a cell. This world is too beautiful to spend it in a cell.' January 6, 2016: Cheers erupt at a community meeting in Burns when Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward says it's time for the occupiers to 'pick up and go home.' January 7, 2016: Ward and two other sheriffs meet with Bundy and other occupation leaders at a remote intersection, but nothing is resolved. January 11: 2016: The occupiers announce they're going through documents and accessing computers used by employees at the refuge. They tear down a stretch of government-erected fence, saying they are giving a local rancher access to the preserve. The rancher later says he didn't give the occupiers permission to enter his property. January 19, 2016: Several hundred people rally in Portland  about 300 miles north of the remote refuge in southeastern Oregon  to demand that Bundy end the occupation and to note that federal management makes it possible for all kinds of people to enjoy public lands. January 20: 2016: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says she's angry that federal authorities have not yet taken action against the occupiers and that she plans to bill the U.S. government for what the standoff has cost Oregon taxpayers. January 21, 2016: Bundy goes to the airport in Burns where federal officials have set up a staging area and, with reporters watching, speaks on the phone with who is apparently an FBI negotiator. January 23, 2016: Occupiers hold an event at the refuge for ranchers to renounce grazing permits, but only one rancher from New Mexico takes part. January 26, 2016: Bundy and other occupation leaders leave the preserve to hold an evening meeting in a town about 100 miles north of the refuge. The FBI and Oregon State Police move in to make arrests on a highway, resulting in a confrontation that leads police to shoot and kill Finicum. Most of the occupiers, thought to number about two dozen, immediately clear out of the refuge. Others straggle out in the following days, with three more arrests made. January 28, 2016: The FBI releases an aerial video of the fatal traffic stop. Authorities say it shows Finicum reaching toward a loaded gun before police shoot him. January 29: 2016: Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne and five others appear in federal court in Portland, where a judge denies their release. February 1, 2016: Four holdouts remain at the refuge and say they want to be allowed to go without arrest. Bundy calls for them to leave. February 10, 2016: The FBI surrounds the last four occupiers as the holdouts argue with a negotiator and yell at law enforcement officers in armored vehicles to back off. February 11, 2016 (morning): Three of the last four occupiers turn themselves in, but David Fry, 27, stands his ground and threatens to kill himself. February 11, 2016 (afternoon): After an hour, where Fry demanded marijuana, pizza and threatened to kill himself, he turned himself in to the authorities. It brought the standoff to an end. Source: AP Advertisement




Belgium has turned on immigrants in the wake of the Brussels terror attack as far-right skinhead groups are experiencing a surge in popularity, promising drastic action in the aftermath of the atrocities.

Voorpost, a Belgian White Power organisation that is being closely monitored by security services, says its membership has rocketed following the carnage.

A huge number of people have started supporting us online. We have had more than double the number of new members in the last three days, Bart Vanpachtenbeke, the leader of the organisation, told MailOnline.

'White Power' rising: Extreme right-wing group Voorpost, seen carrying a symbolic coffin of Belgium during a demonstration in 2007, say they have seen a surge in support in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attacks

Support: Voorpost leader Bart Vanpachtenbeke claims the groups membership has more than doubled in the three days since the Brussels bombings

There is anger in Brussels now. I think there are dark times coming. We cant give any information, but we are planning a lot of new protests. There is a lot of drastic action, a lot of noise coming.

Security services believe there is a real risk of violence coming from the nationalist gang.

Intelligence agencies are concerned about Voorposts capacity for violent action, said Vidhya Ramalingham, fellow at the German Institute on Radicalisation and De-radicalisation Studies.

They are carefully monitoring members of the organisation. The numbers are far smaller than in radical Islam, but there is a serious threat.

Other populist organisations have also reported a dramatic spike in support after the attacks. Tom Van Grieken, leader of the anti-Islam Vlaams Belang party  Belgian equivalent of Frances Front National  told MailOnline that his partys Facebook page gained 10,000 new likes overnight.

Some of his online posts warning of the dangers of radical Islam, he added, have been shared more than four million times.

Force: Other populist organisations are seeing a spike in support since the attacks. Tom Van Grieken, leader of the anti-Islam Vlaams Belang party  said his partys Facebook page gained 10,000 new likes overnight

Warning: Security services say there is a risk of violence coming from groups such as Voorpost (pictured)

Leader of the Nationalists: The President of Voorpost also claims the group now has more support online

Campaign: Vanpachtenbeke said the right-wing extremists are 'planning a lot of new protests', promising 'drastic action' from Voorpost

For a small country, that is massive, he said. Our support has increased by 25 per cent. People are realising that everything we have been saying was right.

Our government are world champions of looking away and pretending there isnt a problem. They are cowards, and people are fed up with it.

The official Vlaams Belang Facebook page displays many inflammatory comments from supporters, some of whom refer to Muslims as monkeys.

I really hope you win the next elections and send back every Muslim, says one. It will never work to live together with that scum.

Others wrote, the government wont do anything, you need a new Adolf for that. He would solve it in a couple of months, and sadly the Hitler Youth doesnt exist any more.

Mr Van Grieken believes that the attacks were symptoms of a deeper malaise.

We are the only party that highlights the dangers of radical Islam and the existence of parallel societies in our main cities, he said. People are furious with the elites in this country.

Belgium has so far not experienced the same unrest between local people and migrants that has been seen in Germany, Finland and elsewhere in Europe.

But frustration is mounting, and it is directed at the ruling classes as well as the Muslim community.

March: TThe official Vlaams Belang Facebook page displays many inflammatory comments from supporters, some of whom refer to Muslims as monkeys

Playmates: Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang chairman Tom Van Grieken and French far-right Front National party President Marine Le Pen attend a meeting in the Flemish parliament in September

Dangerous trend: Vlaams Belang's Tom Van Grieken told MailOnline that some of his online posts warning of the 'dangers of radical Islam' have been shared more than four million times

The country's bungling Interior Minister, Jan Jambon, and Justice Minister, Koen Geens, offered to resign over mistakes in investigations into the terror cell, only for their resignations to be rejected.

Both men remain in their jobs, sparking public outrage.

The last sign of far-Right agitation came in September, when Voorpost skinheads chained themselves to the railings of the Sijsele migrant camp and unveiled anti-migrant banners outside Red Cross refugee centres.

People are waking up as there are more attacks. People are starting to feel that Muslims are winning the war in Europe and it is a risky situation, Voorposts leader, Mr Vanpachtenbeke, said.

We tried to protest in Brussels but we were banned. Any criticism of the Belgian government is smashed down, and that is just making people angrier.

The revelations that the far-Right group is planning more drastic action is fuelling fears that the Brussels attacks were a game changer, creating a new climate of fear and suspicion.

Mika Dabbah, 28, a Syrian refugee who arrived in Belgium six months ago, told MailOnline he has already been subjected to a campaign of online intimidation in the aftermath of the carnage in Brussels.

Sinister messages told him to look less Arab and go back to your own country. One of them said, now that we are being bombed in Belgium, should we run away to Syria?

Targeted: Mika Dabbah, 28, a Syrian refugee posing at his home in Leuven, a village on the outskirts of Brussels, says he has been the target of online abuse following the Brussels attacks

This is not the same country as it was last week, he told MailOnline at his home in Leuven, a village on the outskirts of Brussels.

Mr Dabbah was forced to leave Syria after posting messages on Facebook in defiance of President Bashar al-Assads anti-Israel stance

The joy has disappeared. The whole climate, the way people look at you has changed in the last two days. I have escaped from a war zone and now I am feeling threatened just walking down the street.

Michaela Sieh, 48, a volunteer worker at a refugee centre, told MailOnline that the day after the attacks, she also received an online message saying, thanks for bringing the refugees here, now one of them will rape my girlfriend.

Mr Dabbah, who has a seven-month-old son that he has never met, left Syria after posting messages in Hebrew on his Facebook page, in defiance of Assads anti-Israel stance.

He said that once the war in his home country is over, he and 90 per cent of Syrians will immediately return home.

I understand why people are turning against migrants, he said. They are in a deep state of shock after these attacks.

I am compassionate towards them, but it makes me feel very depressed. Its just a matter of time until things turn violent here.

A spokeswoman for the Belgian Red Cross, who manage the influx of migrants into the country, told MailOnline that she was not concerned.

In comparison with other European countries, the operation of taking in thousands of refugees has passed smoothly in Belgium, she said. I dont believe most Belgians see a connection between refugees and the attacks.

But Mr Dabbah said he was wary of such complacency.

Nobody can guarantee that violence against refugees will never happen in Belgium, he said. There is a very big chance that things will go bad here.
A health worker missing in remote South Australia is thought to have been abducted from her outback home, prompting a wide-scale air and land search.

It's believed Gayle Woodford, 56, a nurse, was taken from outside her home in Fregon, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, about 1200km from Adelaide, early on Thursday morning.

A four-wheel-drive ambulance that she used in her work has been recovered and is being forensically examined.

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Police say they hold serious concerns for the safety of health worker Gayle Woodford (pictured), who has been missing since Thursday morning when she failed to arrive at her job as a nurse in a remote area of South Australia

The four-wheel-drive ambulance Ms Woodford used for work, which was found being driven by a 36-year-old man, who has been arrested and charged with stealing the vehicle. Two passengers were also in the ambulance when it was located by police

Ms Woodford has been working as a nurse in a remote area of South Australia near Coober Pedy, about 1200km north-west of Adelaide

One of three people using the vehicle when it was located in Coober Pedy on Thursday has been arrested and charged with theft.

Ms Woodford's disappearance has also been declared a major crime.

'We've got grave fears for the safety of Gayle, very grave fears, and, at this stage, we are hoping for the best and we are doing everything we possibly can in case she is out there somewhere injured,' Superintendent Des Bray told reporters on Friday.

Ms Woodford was last seen about 9.40pm on Wednesday night and was reported missing on Thursday when she failed to report for work at the local health clinic.

The 56-year-old went missing in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the vicinity of Fregon and Marla in the South Australia's Far North

Ms Woodford was last seen at about 9.40pm on Wednesday, March 23 in the Fregon, APY lands area, where she 'normally resides'

A GPS device in her ambulance shows it left Fregon early on Thursday and travelled to Mimili.

It then travelled to Indulkana, Marla and finally onto Coober Pedy where it was intercepted by police.

The 36-year-old man behind the wheel has been remanded in custody on the theft and driving charges while no charges were laid against a second man and a woman.

A witness said about 6.30am that morning they saw the ambulance with a 'distressed woman', thought to be Ms Woodford, in the passenger seat, the ABC reported.

Police have called for anyone who spotted the ambulance travelling between Fregon and Coober Pedy to come forward.

They have a report of a possible sighting of Ms Woodford at Marla at about 6am on Thursday but are yet to confirm it if was the missing woman.

Supt Bray said the most likely scenario was that, for some reason, Ms Woodford left the safety of her own house and something happened to her outside.

The ABC reported Supt Bray as saying it was not uncommon for Ms Woodford to be called out during the night, so found nothing suspicious when he awoke on Thursday morning and she had gone.

Marla Travellers' Rest manager Janice English told The Advertiser Ms Woodford works for the Nganampa Health Council, but said she had not seen her recently.

The council is an Aboriginal community health organisation with clinics, an aged care home and a range of health services across the APY Lands.

'I've met her a couple of times and she's a beautiful lady,' Ms English told The Advertiser.

'She's been out here for a while and has great community spirit.'

CIB detectives are investigating her disappearance, while SAPOL STAR group officers are flying to the area to assist in the search.

Ms Woodford is originally from Cleve and resides at Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula, according to her Facebook page.

Anyone with information on Ms Woodford's whereabouts or disappearance is asked to contact the police assistance line on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A Japanese couple traveled more than 6,000 miles to get married at a Rotary club lunch in Philadelphia.

Yusuke Yoda, 33, and Kazuko Inoue, 35, both linguistics lecturers in Tokyo, tied the knot during the club's weekly luncheon on Thursday, Philly.com reported.

Yoda came to study at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, in 2010 thanks to a scholarship sponsored by the Rotary Club.

Members made him feel welcome during his first days as a graduate student in the US, inviting him to events and asking about his studies.

Kazuko Inoue (right), 35, and Yusuke Yoda (left), 33, both linguistics lecturers in Tokyo, got married during a Rotary lunch in Philadelphia after the club organized the ceremony for them

They now feel like family to him, Philli.com wrote.

Yoda and Inoue wanted to get married in Philadelphia but struggled to plan the ceremony from the other side of the Pacific.

The Rotary Club stepped in and helped them figure out the logistics.

Members secured a photographer and a judge to perform the ceremony, and ordered the wedding cake.

Yoda and Inoue, pictured on their wedding day, met five years ago as she interviewed him for a teaching job. He had nicknamed himself the Jedi master, inspired by the Star Wars character who shares his name

Inoue and Yoda got married at the Rotary club in front of a few guests from Japan and the US, including Lisa Leonard, the president of Rotary's chapter in Philadelphia.

Yoda also invited his Rotary counselor, whom he calls 'my second father', and a Penn classmate who bought him his first drink in the US years ago, Philly.com reported.

Inoue brought her aunt, her uncle and a friend, who played a Japanese flute called a shakuhachi after the ceremony.

'I would like to make this party Japanese-style,' Inoue's friend said before he started playing.

The bride and groom then went around Philadelphia to take photos in front of the city's landmarks.

They met five years ago when Inoue interviewed Yoda for a teaching job.

He seemed nervous and had nicknamed himself the Jedi master, inspired by the Star Wars character who shares his name, Philly.com wrote.

'It was so weird,' Inoue said.

She hired him regardless and the two went on their first date just a few months later.

Inoue and Yoda got married at the Rotary club in front of a few guests from Japan and the US, including Lisa Leonard (left), the president of Rotary's chapter in Philadelphia
A toddler in China lost several fingers as she ran backwards up an escalator and got her hands trapped.

Surveillance video from the shopping mall in Beijing shows the one-year-old girl first going down the escalator with her grandparents.

But while the elderly couple continue walking forward, she runs back towards the escalator.

In the horrifying moment that followed she ran onto the stairs and fell forward, placing both hands on a step.

After going down the escalator with her grandparents, the little girl then rushed back to the stairs again

But she tripped and got her hands stuck in the escalator, losing several fingers in the process

Her grandfather tried to comfort her as blood dripped from her hand following the horrifying ordeal in Beijing

The escalator's automatic emergency stop mechanism was activated and footage shows the shocked grandparents holding the girl while blood drips from her hands.

She was rushed to hospital while rescuers spent more than an hour dismantling the escalator to retrieve the girl's severed fingers.

A doctor said it would taken six to 10 hours of surgery to reattach the girl's fingers.

It is unclear whether she will gain full function of her fingers after the treatment.

This incident is the latest in a spate of escalator incidents in the country.

In January, a two-year-old girl got her hand trapped and lost half of her finger on a trip to the New World Department Store in Ji'an City, Jiangxi province.

In October 2015, a four-year-old boy was killed in Chongqing after becoming wedged under an escalator handrail at a metro station.

While back in July last year, footage emerged of a woman managing to save her son before she was killed falling into a faulty escalator at a shopping mall in Hubei province.

The grandfather tries to look after his granddaughter after the horrific accident that saw her lose several fingers
JK Rowling was knocked back by firms when pitching her crime novel The Cuckoo's calling

JK Rowling has published rejection letters where publishing bosses suggest she go on a writing course and pop into a 'helpful book shop' for a novelist's guide.

The best-selling author was pitching her first novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, under her Robert Galbraith pseudonym when she got the replies from Constable and Robinson and Creme de la Creme publishers.

The Cuckoo's Calling, a post-war detective novel, went on to be a number one bestseller, and in order to inspire other writers the Harry Potter author has posted the letters on Twitter.

Rowling had chosen to write under a different name in order to publish without hype or expectation, after the phenomenal success she enjoyed with her magical Harry Potter series.

In the letter from British house, Constable and Robinson an executive tells the author that the company could not take the novel on due to its expectation that it would be a commercial flop.

The correspondence then outlays an almost step-by-step guide on how she could work to achieve success in the future.

In perhaps the most amusing part of the letter the publisher advises the writer to get advice from a magazine writing guide and not to give away the ending of her book in the summary.

It reads: 'Double check in a helpful bookshop, on Amazon or in the twice yearly 'Buyer's Guide' of Bookseller Magazine precisely who are the publishers now of your fiction category/genre.

'Then send to each editor an alluring 200-word blurb (as in book jackets; don't give away the ending!) the first chapter plus perhaps two others and an S.A.E.'

The letter then goes on to offer tips that could send the writer in the right direction, including making sure it is clear what genre the book is and suggesting she goes on a course.

It says: 'The covering letter should state as precisely as you can the category/genre of fiction you are submitting.'

Adding: 'Owing to pressure of submission, I regret we cannot reply individually or provide constructive criticism (a writers' group/writing course may help with the latter).'



The second letter from crime publishers, Creme de la Crime shows a much shorter response simply stating the firm does not wish to accept new submissions.

Both companies are no doubt kicking themselves now as the novel went on to top Amazon's best selling list and received critical claim, with plans in the pipeline for a TV series.

Advice: Among the tips given to the author was not to 'give away the ending' to a story in the blurb

The second letter from crime publishers, Creme de la Crime shows a much shorter response simply stating the firm does not wish to accept new submissions

However, it was not an initial hit. It sold only 1,500 copies and was languishing at 4,709 in Amazons bestsellers list, after it first hit the shelves in July 2013.

Sales rocketed after Rowling was revealed as the novel's author by Jude Callegari, a lawyer at a firm that represents her, via a message posted on Twitter, much to the author's dismay.

Rowling said she posted the letters after aspiring writers asked her how she dealt with rejection from publishers.

Inspire: Rowling posted the letters on Twitter to show others that they can achieve success after failure

She tweeted: 'A publisher who turned down Harry Potter also sent R Galbraith his rudest rejection (by email)!'

Although Rowling identified the publishers she blurred out the names of the staff who rejected her.

Rowling said she was publishing the letters 'by popular request' and 'for inspiration not revenge'.

A fan responded: 'They should just give up publishing at this point.'
A Britsh father who was on the Brussels Metro at the time of this week's suicide bombings was killed in the terror attack, officials have confirmed.

David Dixon, 50, who is originally from Hartlepool, had texted his family on Tuesday to say he wasn't caught up in the airport bombings.

But he then boarded the underground train hit by an explosion an hour after the airport attacks. The Foreign Office confirmed his death this morning.

David Dixon, who is originally from Hartlepool, died in the Brussels terror attacks, it has been confirmed

Mr Dixon lived in Brussels with his partner Charlotte Sutcliffe, who has been searching hospitals for him

IT programmer Mr Dixon lived in Brussels with his partner Charlotte Sutcliffe. She has been desperately searching the city's hospitals and appealing for information on social media since Tuesday's attacks.

A statement issued on behalf of Mr Dixon's family said: 'This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David.

'At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private. Please respect our wishes.'

It is understood family members have travelled out to Belgian from the North East to comfort Ms Sutcliffe and her son.

A friend told MailOnline: 'All of David's friends are grieving and thinking of his family. We're trying to make sense of what was a senseless act.

'David was a peaceful, funny and caring man. He was a real special guy and for him to be taken in such a way is just so cruel.'

Mr Dixon's family said they were given 'the most terrible and devastating news' of his death this morning

Mr Dixon was one of the 20 people killed when a terrorist bomber blew up a train carriage at Maalbeek station

Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: 'I am deeply saddened to hear David Dixon was killed in the Brussels attacks. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.'

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was saddened by the 'dreadful news'.

A statement from the Foreign Office said: 'We can confirm David Dixon lost his life in the attacks which took place in Brussels on Tuesday 22 March 2016.

'Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time and our Embassy staff are continuing to support them.

'We know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks - three are still being treated in hospital. Our Embassy staff are working to assist all British nationals affected.'

Mr Dixon had been missing since the Metro blast, and his family previously said they were 'anxiously waiting' and hoping for 'good news' about him.

Siblings Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, Dutch citizens who had been living in America, and Adelma Tapia Ruiz, 36, a Peruvian national who had lived in Belgium for nine years, have also been named among the dead

Belgians Leopold Hecht, 20, and Olivier Delespesse have also been named as two of the victims

His aunt Ann Dixon said on Wednesday: 'As soon as I heard on the news about the explosion at the airport I thought of David and I texted him to ask whether he was alright. It was a relief when he texted back soon afterwards and said he was safe and fine.'

She added: 'No one has heard anything from him since and of course we are desperately worried. Our hope is that he's injured and has been taken to hospital.'

At least 32 people were killed and 270 injured when suicide bombs ripped through the airport and a Metro station on Tuesday morning.

Siblings Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, Dutch citizens who had been living in America, Adelma Tapia Ruiz, 36, a Peruvian national who had lived in Belgium for nine years, Brussels-born law student Leopold Hecht, 20, and Belgian Olivier Delespesse have been named among the victims.

A massive manhunt was later launched to track down suspects believed to be behind the blasts.

Belgian prosecutors have said six people have been arrested in connection with the attacks.
The religious head of Scotland's biggest mosque has praised an extremist who was executed after murdering a politician.

Glasgow Central Mosque imam Habib ur Rehman is said to have made favourable comments about assassin Mumtaz Qadri via WhatsApp.

Qadri is a polarising figure in Pakistan who was hanged in February for the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws.

Glasgow Central Mosque imam Habib ur Rehman, pictured, is said to have praised an extremist murderer

Mumtaz Qadri, left, was hanged last month for murdering Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, right, in 2011

Habib ur Rehman is the imam at Glasgow Central Mosque, pictured, which is the biggest in Scotland

Fundamentalists view him as a martyr but others see him as a crazed extremist.

The imam said a series of Whatsapp messages about Qadri in which he reportedly called the killer a 'true Muslim' had been 'taken out of context' and were about his opposition to Quadri's hanging and the Pakistani justice system.

According to the BBC, the Imam said that he is 'disturbed' and 'upset' at the news of Qadri's execution, before writing 'rahmatullahi alai', a religious blessing usually given to devout Muslims and meaning may God's mercy be upon him.

In another, he said: 'I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out.'

Relatives gather around the body of Mumtaz Qadri, pictured, after he was executed in Rawalpindi

In the port mega-city of Karachi, protesters blocked main intersections and some petrol stations were closed after Qadri supporters ordered them shut

Protests were launched after the execution with many seeing Qadri as a martyr, including his 'proud' father

Further messages from the Imam called Qadri a 'brother' and said the murder was the former bodyguard 'carrying out the collective responsibility of the ummat', with his execution a collective failure of Pakistani Muslims'.

Lawyer and activist Aamer Anwar accused the imam, who condemned the Brussels bombings, of 'rank hypocrisy'.

He told BBC Scotland many people within the community were scared the views would 'filter down the Muslim community and radicalise our children'.

In a statement, the imam said the messages had been 'misconstrued'.

He said: 'Mumtaz Qadri's execution is condemned as it is not in accordance with due process nor is it in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

'Capital punishment on this particular occasion was inappropriate and any expressions of sympathy or compassion are extended in my capacity as a private individual and not in any professional or public capacity.'

Qadri served as a bodyguard for Governor Taseer in the Punjab province of Pakistan but turned on him in 2011, shooting him nine times.

He was executed in a move that risked angering Islamist supporters who had feted him as a hero and threatened violence if he was executed.

An estimated 100,000 people attended the funeral earlier this month. Qadri had said he was angry at the politician's calls to reform the blasphemy law.

The governor had been vocal in his support of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet.

But civil society activists lit candles on the anniversary of the death Governor Taseer to show their support

Riot police, pictured, were used to keep the peace in Pakistan during the protests after Qadri's execution

The Imam is said to have sent WhatsApp messages that praised Qadri and called him a 'True Muslim'

Within hours of the news of Qadri's execution, hundreds of supporters began gathering at the man's family home in Rawalpindi.

His body was being displayed to supporters at his family's home in the city, where paramilitary Ranger forces and police in riot gear as well as ambulances and dozens of police vehicles were stationed, an AFP reporter said.

Security was stepped up at flashpoints across the country, including Lahore and near the international airport in Karachi.

Qadri's lawyers drew on Islamic texts to argue that he was justified in killing Taseer, saying that by criticising the law the politician was himself guilty of blasphemy -- an argument rejected by the lead judge.

A Supreme Court decision to uphold the death sentence last December sparked rallies. Islamist groups told those protests that if Qadri were executed those responsible should also be put to death.
General Michael Hayden, pictured, former boss of the CIA, said Britain would not lose out on shared intelligence should it vote to leave the EU

A former director of the CIA has backed Brexit by saying the UKs national security will not be harmed if it leaves the European Union.

General Michael Hayden dismissed claims by In campaigners that Britain would lose out from shared intelligence if it voted to leave the Brussels club in Junes referendum and warned the UK should not rely on the poor intelligence services of many EU member states such as Belgium.

He said national security should always be the responsibility of individual states and said being in the EU does not contribute much to Britains spying capabilities.

And in a damning assessment of the EU as a whole, he said security across the continent was very uneven, suggesting the lack of consistency contributed to the Brussels terror attacks.

General Hayden, who was in charge of the top spying agency in the US from 2006  2009 and previously served as director of the National Security Agency, criticised Belgiums security in the wake of the Brussels attacks, saying it was small, under-resourced [and] legally limited.

His comments echo former Mi6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove who yesterday backed Britain leaving the EU, insisting it would not damage national security.

Sir Richard said getting out of the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU's free movement could boost security.

The pair have contradicted comments by ex-GCHQ director David Omand, who declared yesterday that Britain would be the loser in security terms if it left the EU because it would jeopardise the flows of intelligence between European nations

National security matters have taken an increasingly important role in the EU debate this week following the deadly attacks in Brussels, where at least 31 people were killed by home-grown Isis terrorists.

Todays intervention from General Hayden, who was made the highest ranking military intelligence officer in the US armed forces in 2005 after being awarded his fourth star, boosts the argument made by Out campaigners that leaving the EU will protect Britain from the increasing terror threat on the continent.

Speaking to the Today programme, General Hayden said: National security remains a national responsibility and so sadly the grades you have to give to each of the services are frankly individual and its very uneven.

Sir Richard Dearlove, pictured, ex-Mi6 chief, has already backed Brexit and said it would not harm national security

Very good services, aggressive services in France and Great Britain, good but smaller services to in Scandinavia and then unfortunately across most of the rest of the continent  smaller services and if youre talking specifically about Belgium  small, under-resourced, legally limited and frankly working for a government that frankly has itself has its own challenges in terms of overall governance.

Earlier he told Sky News: I don't know if the European Union contributes a great deal to ... espionage.

Europe has divided its governance between things done in Brussels, at the Union level, and things done back in national capitals.

At the Union level, they talk about commerce and privacy. But to keep citizens safe, that remains a responsibility back in national capitals.

And right now, because of some of the positions the Euro institutions have taken on surveillance and privacy, the capitals are finding it more difficult to provide for their own citizens' safety.

So to a degree, Brussels, as a Euro institution, keeps pushing these activities at the expense of security - to that degree I can understand why Sir Richard is saying what he's saying.

In an article for Prospect Magazine, Sir Richard said national security was served by international cooperation but only with trusted allies and not the entire EU as this leaked information like a 'colander'.

He said: 'Though the UK participates in various European and Brussels-based security bodies, they are of little consequence.

'The Club de Berne, made up of European Security Services; the Club de Madrid, made up of European Intelligence Services; Europol; and the Situation Centre in the European Commission are generally speaking little more than forums for the exchange of analysis and views.

'With the exception of Europol, these bodies have no operational capacity and with 28 members of vastly varying levels of professionalism in intelligence and security, the convoy must accommodate the slowest and leakiest of the ships of state.'

Sir Richard warned: 'The larger powers cannot put their best intelligence material into such colanders.'

Sir Richard said counter terrorism work was usually conducted bilaterally or occasionally trilaterally.

He said: 'Brussels has little or nothing to do with them, in large part due to what is known as the ''Third Party Rule,'' a notion that is little understood outside the intelligence fraternity but which is essential to intelligence liaison worldwide.

'This rule states that the recipient of intelligence from one nation cannot pass it on to a third without the originator's agreement.'

Home Secretary Theresa May, pictured, has warned against Brexit and said the EU was 'of benefit' to Britain

Sir Richard insisted this meant security cooperation with the United States would not be damaged by a Brexit. 1

And he concluded: 'In short, Europe would be the potential losers in national security.

'But if Brexit happened, the UK would almost certainly show the magnanimity not to make its European partners pay the cost.'

His comments goes against the position of Home Secretary Theresa May, who surprised some in Westminster when she backed David Cameron's EU In campaign on the grounds of security.

Earlier this week she repeated her warnings against Brexit.

In an interview with The Times, conducted before Tuesdays Brussels attacks, Mrs May said EU membership was 'of benefit' to Britain's security.

She said: 'I think this is an issue people should look at more broadly, but on the security front there are good reasons for us to be members of the European Union.

'The UK threat level is at severe, which means a terrorist attack is highly likely. We know that since November 2014 seven terrorist plots have been disrupted in the UK.
A retired policeman was left baffled when he stumbled across a suitcase on a Fuerteventura beach containing 90,000-worth of cannabis resin.

Richard Cresswell, 58, rushed back to get his friend Blair Jones to help him open a mysterious case he found among washed-up debris and was shocked to find wrapped slabs of cannabis.

The pair took the 25.7-kilo haul to the police station but after finding that there was no-one on duty, they took it back to their hotel for the night.

Richard Cresswell, from Nottinghamshire, was on holiday in Fuerteventura when he spotted a suitcase washed up on a beach. When he opened it, he found 25.7 kilos of cannabis resin

Mr Cresswell (left) was on a three-week last-minute holiday with friend Blair Jones (right) who he called over to help open the tightly-sealed case

Dad-of-two Mr Cresswell, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, was coming to the end of a three-week last-minute holiday with his sister and a friend.

He said: 'I'd been searching through the flotsam - there's some interesting stuff coming across the Atlantic with the Gulf Stream from South America, and another stream bringing in stuff from Canada.

'There was a big pile of including logs, oil drums, old fish boxes with Canadian addresses - I was just exploring really, it was quite interesting because it wasn't the run-of-the-mill plastic bottles and fishing nets.

'I saw this case, and it was clearly unopened, so I was intrigued.

'When I looked closer, I saw somebody had stitched the sides of the case right up with heavy duty line, so I couldn't get into it.

'I was out in a rocky bay, so I went back to the sandy area where Blair and my sister were - I knew Blair had a Swiss army knife, so he came back with me to help open it.

'We cut the line and opened the case - we had to cut through three layers of brown packing tape.

The retired policeman said he knew what was in the plastic packages as soon as the smell hit him. 'It's actually quite a nice smell - I don't smoke, but if it was legal I'd use it as pot pourri' he said

The pair took it to a nearby police station, but no one was on duty so they took it back to their hotel room. Mr Cresswell said he'd never come across a drugs find that big in his time on the force

'It took us some time to get through all the layers - we were going quite carefully as we had no idea what was inside, it could've been explosives.

'It was clearly something of interest.

'When we got inside the case it was like pass the parcel - there were five packages, each weighing five kilograms.

'Each package held 10 more parcels, each of those contained two balloons, and each of those contained five 50gram slabs of cannabis resin.

'Once I saw that, I realised what I'd stumbled across - I recognised the smell straight away.

'It's actually quite a nice smell - I don't smoke, but if it was legal I'd use it as pot pourri, it's quite aromatic and herbal.

'My initial reaction was shock - although I'd had a vague suspicion it might be something like that, the quantity was astounding.

'I'd certainly never come across a drugs find that big during my career as a police officer.'

Mr Cresswell and his daughter Chloe. He retired in 2011 after spending the last eight years of his career as a custody sergeant

Mr Cresswell and Mr Jones took the stash to a local police station, but there were no police officers around.

They didn't want to leave such a large quantity of drugs with a civilian on the front desk, so after confirming they'd be back in the morning to speak to a sergeant they took the hoard back to their hotel.

Mr Cresswell, who retired in 2011 after spending the last eight years of his career as a custody sergeant, said: 'We just strolled into the hotel with the slabs.

'People were looking at us and wondering what it was, but it could've been anything - chocolate, cigarettes.

'I almost said to someone 'don't worry, it's drugs - we're having a party!'

'I kept two slabs in my room, and Blair kept three in his.

'Because I'd been to the police station already and told them I'd return in the morning to speak to a senior officer, I was fairly confident that if anyone were to find the drugs on us we'd be OK.

'When we went back, I saw a sergeant and handed him one of the smaller 50g slabs, and he looked at me as if to say, 'that's pretty run-of-the-mill'.

Each package held 10 more parcels, each of those contained two balloons, and each of those contained five 50gram slabs of cannabis resin

'But when I showed him the two 5kg packages his eyes lit up - and when I told him there were three more to come he was completely taken aback.'

Mr Cresswell and Mr Jones were taken to another police station, more equipped to deal with the find - where they were questioned for four hours, and the drugs were taken into evidence.

The investigation is still ongoing - when the stash was weighed at a local fishing port, it was found to be a whopping 27.5kg.

Mr Cresswell said: 'When I looked up the average price of an ounce in the UK and did the maths in my head, I worked out the potential street value to be around 90,000.

'I knew it would've been a large value, it was a large quantity - but I had no idea how valuable it was at first.

'The value's more than enough to pay off my mortgage - but that was never a consideration.

'There was sea water in some of the layers, so I'm guessing smugglers threw it overboard as a coastguard approached - but who knows where it originated from.

'It was carefully wrapped though, so the cannabis was completely dry and not contaminated.

'After all that drama, we left the police station and went back to enjoying the last day of our holiday before heading home.

'When I told my former colleagues they were quite amazed by it, and my friends and family were shocked - it's quite exciting and interesting.
A concerned mother has revealed how doctors mistook her then-five-year-old daughter's invasive tumour for a regular eye infection.

Gaylene Robson knew something wasn't right when her daughter Stella's left eyelid turned bright red and began to puff up.

With prescribed antibiotics and creams doing little to ease the swelling, she headed to an ophthamologist for a second opinion about the inflammation.

He sent her to get an emergency CT scan at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, which revealed that Stella had a bell-shaped tumour growing between her brain and eye.

It would need immediate treatment.

Stella Robson, now 6, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer after her eye started swelling up

She was prescribed with creams and antibiotics for her puffy eye - but they did nothing to ease the swelling

An emergency CT scan revealed that little Stella had a bell-shaped tumour growing between her brain and eye

Stella's younger sister Allie (left) was with her every step of the way

The young girl required immediate surgery to remove the cancerous growth, which was dangerously close to her brain (pictured after surgery)

'The tumour was growing into the orbital bone, the bone that surrounds the eye ... it was roughly 1.5 centimetres and shaped like a bell,' mother Gaylene Robson told Daily Mail Australia.

After two days of frantic consultations - which at one point saw six intrigued eye experts crowding around a single scan of her head - Stella went under surgery to remove the tumour.

Ms Robson was told that Stella had Langerhans cell histiocytosis - an extremely rare disease with no concrete understanding of the cause and minimal substantiated research.

Entering through a minute crease in her eyelid, the surgeon successfully removed the cancerous growth with no damage to her tissue or brain.

But a long road of aggressive treatment faced the young girl to ensure the cancer stayed away, starting with 12 weeks of intensive chemotherapy.

The surgery went well - but Stella was immediately put onto twelve weeks of intensive chemotherapy

Heartwarming smile: Stella showed immense bravery as she begun chemotherapy treatments

Parents Paul and Gaylene (pictured) said it was traumatic to watch their girl go through so much suffering

As Stella juggled weekly chemotherapy and steroid dosages - she started her first year at school

Mother Gaylene (left) said that Stella became emotional, moody and ravenous - all side effects of the high doses of steroids and other medicines she was given

'She took it all in her stride, she wasnt any uncooperative at all really. She allowed us to do what she needed to do': Ms Robson said her daughter was incredibly brave throughout her treatment

Countless hospital visits: Stella she was rushed to the emergency department at least seven times

The very same week Stella started her first year of prep school, she began undergoing a traumatic combination of weekly chemotherapy and a high dosage of steroids.

'It was quite a little roller-coaster for her, shed be emotional and hungry and tired, then shed recover for a week and then it would be time to get back in and have another lot of treatment,' Ms Robson said.

While her new classmates were busy playing with dolls and learning to spell their name - Stella was coming to grips with the appetite and emotional instability of a 16-year-old.

To top things off, the powerful anti-cancer drugs pumping through her body left her dangerously exposed to diseases often present at school - which could have disastrous effects on her weakened immune system.

'If her temperature went above 38 (degrees) it was a trip straight to the emergency department,' father Paul Robson told Daily Mail Australia.

'We took her to ED about seven or eight times.'

Post-surgery: Stella is back to her bubbly self and has perfect eyesight with no visible scars on her eye

Stella's classmates and teachers were very supportive and understanding of her difficult situation

Stella with her younger sister Allie, 5, who kept her company during the countless hospital visits

As of last Monday, Stella has stopped taking all antibiotics - apart from the occasional iron supplement

Mother daughter bonding: Ms Robson said the year left her totally drained - both mentally and physically

The family had nothing but the highest praises for the Royal Children's Hospital - an institution that was there with them every step of the way providing support and first-class treatment

After a year of chemotherapy, Stella was cleared from the rare cancer with a 20% chance of recurrence.

As of last Monday, she has stopped taking all antibiotics and is back to her vibrant, happy self with no visible scars and perfect eyesight.

The family had nothing but the highest praises for the Royal Children's Hospital - an institution that was there with them every step of the way providing support and first-class treatment.

Ms Robson also stressed the role the Good Friday Appeal had in Stella's recovery process.

The foundation bought a MR-PET scanner for the children's hospital - the first paediatric hospital in the southern hemisphere to have one - meaning Stella and other children going through the ordeal won't ever have to travel to an intimidating adult environment to get the scans.

To donate to the Good Friday Appeal visit www.goodfridayappeal.com.au

Brave, young girl: Stella stayed positive throughout the grueling chemotherapy treatment

Adorable: Stella never fully grasped the gravity of what she was going through, but kept a smile on her face
Alexander Monson, 28, son of the 12th Baron Monson and heir to the family estate in Lincolnshire, died in police custody in Mombasa in May 2012

A former public schoolboy who died after being arrested by Kenyan police did not have drugs in his system, according to a forensic scientist.

Alexander Monson, 28, son of the 12th Baron Monson and heir to the family estate in Lincolnshire, died in police custody in Mombasa in May 2012.

He had been arrested near a resort in the small Kenyan coastal town of Diani for smoking cannabis and possessing other drugs.

His family have always maintained he died violently at the hands of police and believe he died from a head injury inflicted by Sergeant Naftali Chege.

But Kenyan police have claimed his death was caused by a drug overdose.

An initial post-mortem examination concluded he died from a head injury consistent with being hit by the butt of a gun and had also suffered injuries to his groin and left arm.

The family's lawyer, Yusuf Abubakar, claim Mr Chege killed Mr Monson to silence him because he feared he would report him for assault.

Mr Chege denies the allegations.

He claimed that at the time of his arrest, the former Marlborough College pupil was carrying the recreational drug ketamine, four tablets of a drug similar to diazepam, and one tablet of tadalafila, which is used to treat erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure, as well as cannabis.

On Thursday at the inquest in Mombasa, John Njenga, a government forensic analyst, said: 'When the samples of stomach, kidney and liver were brought to me for forensic analysis in the government laboratory, police asked me to specifically find out if there was any drug from the three samples.

'Since there is no trace of any drug in the sample I examined, I am 100 per cent sure Alexander did not swallow or take any of these drugs the police brought to the laboratory.'

He added that he had studied the samples six days after Mr Monson's death, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Mr Monson's family have always maintained he died violently at the hands of police and believe he died from a head injury inflicted by Sergeant Naftali Chege (he is pictured right, with his sister Isabella)

A later pathologist's report said there were traces of drugs in Mr Monson's body.

But a doctor told the court last year they would not have been enough to kill him and said he died of brain injuries caused by blunt injuries.
He is due to appear before magistrates in Camberwell tomorrow morning

Doyle, 46, arrested and charged under the public order act

It sparked social media outrage and countless parodies after going viral

A talent agency boss alleged to have posted a controversial tweet about confronting a Muslim woman over the Brussels terror attacks has been charged with inciting racial hatred

A talent agency boss alleged to have posted a controversial tweet about confronting a Muslim woman over the Brussels terror attacks has been charged with inciting racial hatred.

The tweet, said to have been posted by Matthew Doyle, 46, from south Croydon, sparked social media outrage and countless parodies after it went viral in the wake of Tuesday's atrocities in Belgium.

Doyle, who attended private Wellington College, was arrested on Wednesday, and police today said he had been charged with with publishing or distributing written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, likely or intended to stir up racial hatred, under the Public Order Act.

A spokesman said he was being held in custody, and was due to appear at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court tomorrow morning.

Scotland Yard said he was charged after an investigation by officers at Croydon Police Community Safety Unit.

Doyle, an LSE graduate and partner at a south London-based talent agency, was arrested at his home following a social media storm over a tweet posted from his Twitter account.

He was taken to hospital on Thursday after complaining of feeling unwell while in police custody before being formally charged.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'A man has been charged after racist comments were posted on social media.

'Matthew Doyle, 46, of South Croydon, has been charged under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986; publishing or distributing written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, likely or intended to stir up racial hatred.

The tweet, posted from the Twitter account @matthewdoyle31, sparked social media outrage and countless parodies

'Doyle will appear in custody at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court on Saturday. This follows an investigation by officers at Croydon Police Community Safety Unit.'

The tweet posted from the Twitter account @matthewdoyle31 stated: 'I confronted a Muslim woman yesterday in Croydon.

'I asked her to explain Brussels. She said 'Nothing to do with me'. A mealy mouthed reply.'

Twitter was met with a flurry of responses, with some joking about 'confronting a white man' and asking them to explain atrocities such as Dunblane and the 2011 Norway attacks when mass murderer Anders Breivik murdered 77 people.

In a similar vein, others likened it to asking a 'random white man' for an explanation for 'colonialism', 'slavery' and 'British imperialism'.
A New Jersey woman was acquitted of recklessly causing the death of a popular community activist in a 2012 crash, prompting the victim's widow to yell out at the jury, 'You people are all nuts'.

On Thursday a Morris County jury acquitted Vanessa Brown, 35, of recklessly causing the death of Ralph Politi Jr in East Hanover in 2012 by driving while intoxicated, according to the Daily Record.

The victim's widow, Rosemarie Politi stormed out of the courtroom screaming: 'Are you kidding? Unbelievable! You people are all nuts!'

A Morris County jury acquitted Vanessa Brown (left) of recklessly causing the death of Ralph Politi Jr in East Hanover in 2012 by driving while intoxicated

The jury found Brown not guilty of both aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide in the May 5, 2012 death of Politi, 49, as he stood outside his pickup truck in East Hanover.

Other family members said in the video: 'You guys are a bunch of jokes'.

The jury found Brown (left) not guilty of both aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide in the 2012 death of Politi. Brown is pictured with her lawyer Edward Bilinkas (right)

And another woman can be heard saying: 'You know what? We're not getting him back anyway, so it doesn't matter.'

Defense lawyer Edward Bilinkas jumped from his chair in the courtroom and cried out 'Yes' when the jury announced the second not guilty finding.

Brown cried and hugged Bilinkas after the verdict.

Brown expressed remorse at what happen and said she understands the family's pain.

'I feel for the family. I am so apologetic. I have to live with this for the rest of my life,' Brown said.

She has been held in the Morris County jail for the past four years because she was unable to post $400,000 bail while awaiting trial.

There are still several motor vehicle summonses pending against Brown in connection with the crash, including driving while intoxicated and failure to maintain a lane.

Bilinkas told the Daily Record: 'I'm happy the jury found my client not guilty.

'It's been traumatic for me, every time there's a death it is. But the jury did the right thing.'

Authorities said her blood alcohol level was 0.13 per cent after the crash.

That's more than the legal limit of 0.08 per cent but doesn't automatically equate to recklessness in a fatal crash.

During the trial, Bilinkas criticized East Hanover Police Sgt John Ambrose, a friend of the victim who was the only officer responding to the crash.

The victim's widow, Rosemarie Politi (left) stormed out of the courtroom screaming: 'You people are all nuts'. Politi (right) and his wife are pictured with their twin daughters (center)

Ambrose said he smelled alcohol on Brown and that her speech was slurred. He also said her balance was off and her eyes were bloodshot.

Bilinkas argued that Ambrose exaggerated signs of intoxication in Brown so he could get permission for Brown's blood to be tested, according to the Daily Record.

Assistant Prosecutor John McNamara, Jr. countered that if the state wanted to frame Brown, it could've done a much better job, according to NJ.com.

'If you believe I'm part of a conspiracy, go into the jury room, remove your badge and come back and acquit,' McNamara said.

'Don't give into the lure of a conspiracy theory.'

McNamara said the only reason Politi is dead is because of Brown's 'inability to control her car because of alcohol'.

Politi was a popular businessman in East Hanover and married father of twin daughters.

He was the owner of All Jersey Garage Doors, a board member for the Hanover Park Regional School District and president of the East Hanover Community Partnership, according to NJ.com.

Prosecutors said the Parsippany woman was driving in East Hanover when she veered out of her lane and struck Politi as he stood outside his pickup truck.

Politi died shortly afterwards of severe injuries to his pelvis and legs.

There are still several motor vehicle summonses pending against Brown in connection with the crash, including driving while intoxicated and failure to maintain a lane
Later in the afternoon Cruz and Trump attacked each other's mental health

National Enquirer denied being influenced by any candidates in 'unflinching' reporting

Trump hit back saying he 'hoped' story was untrue and he had nothing to do with Enquirer but added: 'They were right about John Edwards'

Then Cruz accused Trump of 'rat copulation' and posted a message on Facebook blaming Donald Trump and his 'henchmen' for the claims

It was initially believed the rumor came from Trump, who has threatened Cruz with 'spilling the beans' on his wife, Heidi Cruz

It said Cruz was unfaithful with a 'hot babe', a 'sexy schoolteacher', a 'foxy political

The story 'came from a Marco Rubio ally' and not Donald Trump's camp, according to Breitbart News, who turned down the lead

Rumors surrounding Ted Cruz and allegations he cheated on his wife with five women are believed to have steamed from Marco Rubio's camp - not Donald Trump's, as initially believed.

'For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications,' The Daily Beast has reported.

Breitbart News claims it was one of those outlets that was pitched a 'Cruz Sex Scandal' story.

The news site said the pitch came from a video peddled by a 'Rubio ally'.

Very public display: Ted Cruz hugged his wife Heidi today as he issued an unprecedented public denial of claims he had affairs with five women - two of whom were named by the strategy head of a super PAC which earlier this week published a pro-Cruz poster of Melania Trump naked

Cruz, who ate lunch with his family at a traditional fish fry restaurant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, (pictured), initially blamed Donald Trump for the affair allegations

Breitbart News revealed on Friday that a 'Marco Rubio ally' has been peddling a story about Cruz's sex scandal for approximately six months, according to the Daily Beast

Breitbart News claims it was one of those outlets that was pitched a 'Cruz Sex Scandal' story, but decided there wasn't enough evidence to merit a report

The 'Marco Rubio ally' who pitched the story showed Breitbart a video compilation of Cruz with other women

In one video it is alleged 'Cruz and a woman other than his wife' can be seen 'coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant'

The video shows 'a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays', according to The Daily Beast.

In the end Breitbart News turned the story down because 'there was no way to verify the claims'.

However, the video was enough for Nation Enquirer to run with it.

Cruz believed it was Donald Trump and his 'henchmen' who were spreading a smear, prompting a scathing response from the Republican frontrunner.

Cruz publicly denied cheating on his wife Heidi with five woman - described in the National Enquirer as including a 'hot babe' and a '$1,000 a night call girl'.

Another clip in the video is said to show the GOP presidential hopeful coming out of 'a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays'

Amidst the scandal Cruz toured the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame with former Green Bay Packer player Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila

And he accused Donald Trump and his henchmen of being behind it saying his rival had acted to 'enlist' the Enquirer to spread a smear.

That prompted Trump to issue a lengthy statement denying being involved, but which said of the National Enquirer 'they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards and many others.'

'I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz,' he said.

While spending the day with his wife, Heidi, and daughters Caroline and Catherine Cruz, Ted Cruz denied the allegations brought forward by National Enquirer, who published the story

Cruz went after Donald Trump, but didn't realize the story of the alleged affair had come from Rubio's camp

The extraordinary spectacle of the Christian conservative candidate defending the integrity of his marriage unfolded in the space of hours.

He first found himself facing extraordinary claims of five affairs when a story in the National Enquirer magazine became the subject of Washington gossip on Thursday night, and two women were named as potential mistresses by a Republican operative on Friday morning.

The Enquirer had never named the women with whom it accused Cruz of cheating on his wife Heidi.

Donald Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson (left) pushed back on allegations - that started with a National Enquirer story - that she had an affair and 'came on' to Sen. Ted Cruz - and so did Amanda Carpenter (right)

THE ENQUIRER FIVE The National Enquirer accused Ted Cruz of five affairs - all of which he denied today. It did not name the women but said they were: 'FOXY POLITICAL CONSULTANT' One worked for Cruz, now associated with another political campaign, said the magazine. '"Randy Ted" supposedly had a romp with her in a closet at a Republican state convention.'' 'PRETTY LAWYER' Worked for his Senate campaign when they had affair - and it continued as she worked elsewhere. 'HOT BABE' Caught 'getting cozy' on the campaign trail. 'SEXY AUSTIN SCHOOLTEACHER' Allegedly had 'fling' after he was made Texas solicitor general. '$1,000 A NIGHT CALL GIRL' 'Ted supposedly had it on with a prostitute,' the magazine said. Advertisement

AND HERE'S WHAT THE MAGAZINE SAYS ABOUT CLAIMS IT WAS INFLUENCED BY TRUMP No one influences the reporting that the National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors. We stand by the integrity of our coverage and remain committed to our aggressive reporting on such an important topic. The more than any other publication, has been unflinching in its reporting on the 2016 presidential candidates. Issued by AMI, Enquirer parent company, to the Hollywood Reporter Advertisement

But then the Republican behind an attack on Donald Trump earlier this week which featured a naked picture of his wife Melania named two women she said were alleged to be his mistress.

Liz Mair, a respected Republican strategist, used her Twitter to name Amanda Carpenter, a former spokeswoman for Cruz who is now a CNN contributor, and a Trump spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, who is a former Cruz ally.

Both denied the claim robustly - but it lit a fire which Cruz then had to act to put out.

'Let me be clear. This National Enquirer story is garbage,' Cruz said this afternoon. 'It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.'

Then he launched into an attack on Trump saying his rival was a 'rat' - 'but I have no desire to copulate with him'.

He blamed Roger Stone, a former Trump aide labeled a 'ratf****r' over claims he was involved in dirty tricks for the Nixon administration for the 'garbage', saying Stone had '50 years of dirty tricks behind him'.

'Hes a man for whom a term was coined for copulating with a rodent. Well, let me be clear. Donald Trump may be a rat but I have no desire to copulate with him.'

Then he used Facebook to blame Trump directly.

'For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald wont go,' he said.

'These smears are completely false, theyre offensive to Heidi and me, theyre offensive to our daughters, and theyre offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack.'

But the claim that Trump had influenced it incensed the National Enquirer.

Its parent company AMI issued a statement saying: 'No one influence the reporting that the National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors.'

By 5pm in the afternoon the rival candidates attacked each other's mental health.

Jeff Roe, Cruz's campaign manager tweeted an accusation that Trump was hiding some form of mental illness.

'MISSING#SleazyDonald Why no events in 4 days; none planned for 8. Ever had psychological eval? What is hiding in medical records! Release!'

Trump's rapid response was to retweet a suggestion Cruz was having a breakdown.

His message read: '@11phenomenon: #LyingTed blames @realDonaldTrump for so many things I am starting to think he is having a mental health crisis.'

Cruz, who has made his Christian faith and family values the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House, using campaign time to deny five affairs, sent shocks through Washington.

On twitter, the hashtag 'TedCruzAffairs' was one of the most popular across the nation.

Both women named by Mair denied they had committed adultery with Cruz.

And finally: The Cruz camp's late afternoon response to the day's developments

Last word: Donald Trump hit back by retweeting a suggestion that Cruz was having 'a mental health crisis'

'Speaking for myself, the article is trash and 100 percent false,' Pierson told Daily Mail Online.

'Whats out there is tabloid trash. If someone wants to comment on it, they can talk to my lawyer,' said Carpenter of the allegations.

Mair had named them both on Twitter this morning. She wrote tweets directed at both Pierson and Carpenter suggesting that they should sue as the allegations are 'obviously false.'

'Ted Cruz should sue over [obviously] false allegation he had an affair [with] Katrina Pierson, [though] I've heard she may have come onto him. Who knows,' Mair wrote.

The tweet incensed Pierson, who wrote back earlier this morning.

'What's worse? People who actually believe the trash in tabloids, or the ones who know it's false & spread it anyway? #stupidity on all levels,' Pierson tweeted.

Pierson, a Dallas-based tea party leader had prominently been a Cruz supporter before switching her allegiance and vocally supporting Trump.

She eventually became a paid member of The Donald's campaign.

Contacted by email, Mair's out-of-office reply indicated that had already left for the Easter holiday and would be back next week.

Turning to the Carpenter allegation, Mair had wrote: 'As for people suggesting Amanda Carpenter slept [with] Cruz, she should sue them.'

'That is [obviously] false, as anyone who knows Amanda knows,' Mair continued.

Republican strategist Liz Mair - whose super PAC Make America Awesome produced a controversial nude Melania Trump ad - outed Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson as one of the five women the National Enquirer suggested slept with Ted Cruz after Twitter users started identifying her

Liz Mair also named CNN's Amanda Carpenter, a former communicators director for Sen. Ted Cruz, as one of the women whose blurred face appeared in the National Enquirer story

Donald Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson wrote this tweet this morning after Republican strategist publicly named her as one of the five women the National Enquirer claimed had an affair with Sen. Ted Cruz

She did this too: Liz Mair was behind this campaign image distributed in Utah to attack Donald Trump earlier this week - to the fury of the Republican frontrunner, who blamed 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' for it

'It would also be fun to get access to Trump comms staff, Trump Org emails as part of discovery in a defamation suit,' Mair added in another tweet, tagging Carpenter's Twitter handle.

Carpenter was forced to respond to the story during a live television segment.

The CNN contributor appeared alongside Trump supporter Adriana Cohen, a columnist for the Boston Herald.

The two women were supposed to be discussing this week's tiff between the Cruz and Trump camps, but instead Cohen brought the tabloid story up.

'If we're going to call Donald Trump's character into question, I would like Ted Cruz to issue a statement on whether or not the story is true, that he has had affairs with may women, including, you were named, Amanda,' Cohen said, pointing to her co-panelist.

'Will you denounce this story or will you confirm it?'

Carpenter denounced, with an assist from host Kate Bolduan, who said that CNN had done no reporting to lend credibility to the Enquirer's account and the subsequent Twitter claims as to who its unnamed women were.

'It's categorically false,' Carpenter said. 'You should be ashamed for spreading this smut. Donald Trump supporters should be held to account for it.'

Cohen blasted back: 'I'm not spreading smut,' she said.

'I will not be intimated,' Carpenter replied. 'I will continue to make my thoughts known about Donald Trump. I am not backing down.'

Ted Cruz spent much of his week defending his wife Heidi Cruz against attacks made by Donald Trump and his allies

What the Enquirer got right: The news magazine correctly found that John Edwards was cheating on his wife with a campaign aide who had his love child

And this too: Trump did not say which of the tabloid's many stories on O.J. Simpson he was referring to but this was one of the most high-profile stories it ran raising questions over how truthful his murder defense was

On her Twitter page, Carpenter retweeted a show of support from prominent conservative pundit, who's also on CNN, Mary Katherine Ham.

'I am so with you, Amanda Carpenter & all the other women Trump & supporters casually smear,' Ham wrote, including a block quote of Carpenter defending herself against Cohen on CNN.

Cruz also railed against the story on his Facebook page.

'I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trumpto enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald wont go,' he wrote.

'These smears are completely false, theyre offensive to Heidi and me, theyre offensive to our daughters, and theyre offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack, he continued.

'Donald Trumps consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow,' he added.

The original Enquirer story, which doesn't appear online, but has been picked up by gossip sites like Gawker, says that political operatives are compiling a 'dirt file' on Cruz with private investigators looking into claims that he had affairs with a who's who of Republican party politics  as well as a 'sexy Austin schoolteacher' and a 'Washington, D.C. call girl.'

Besides Pierson and Carpenter, the third political type worked for a different presidential campaign, which has now aligned itself with Cruz.

The only on-the-record source for the story is Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally who previously worked for the campaign.

'These stories have been swirling around Cruz for some time,' Stone told the tabloid. 'I believe where there is smoke, there is fire. I have to believe that this will hurt him with his evangelical Christian supporters.'

The attack on the credibility of Cruz's marriage comes at an interesting time in the campaign as he has spent the week vehemently defending his wife.

Once Trump saw the ad featuring naked Melania, he unleashed on Cruz, even though the spot was produced by Mair's super PAC.

In his most bold defense of Heidi Cruz yet, the candidate tore into The Donald during a campaign stop yesterday in Wisconsin.

'Donald, you're a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone,' Cruz said.

While lines seem to be drawn between the Cruz and Trump people in today's spat, Pierson squarely stayed on team Donald, ripping into Heidi Cruz this morning on MSNBC.

Pierson suggested that 'spilling the beans' on Heidi Cruz, a threat that Trump had issued over Twitter, was simply shedding light on her record of working for Wall Street.
A newsagent was murdered by a fellow Muslim after he wished his Christian friends a peaceful Easter.

Asad Shah, who was stabbed up to 30 times at his shop, had praised both the life of Jesus and his beloved Christian nation. Left lying in a pool of blood, the 40-year-old died in hospital.

Police, who were questioning a 32-year-old suspect last night, said the killing was religiously motivated.

Mohammad Faisal, a family friend, said a bearded Muslim wearing a long religious robe entered Mr Shahs shop and spoke to him in his native language before stabbing him in the head with a kitchen knife.

Shopkeeper Asad Shah was killed in a brutal attack outside his shop in Glasgow last night

Witnesses say the victim was stabbed and then stamped on before his attackers ran off down the road

Mr Shahs brother, who was working next door, rushed out to find the killer laughing while sitting on the Glasgow newsagents bleeding chest.

The brother dragged Mr Shah away but the guy continued attacking with the blade, said Mr Faisal. They struggled up to the bus stop where Asad collapsed.

It was just a clear-cut revenge attack. For posting messages about peace, messages about greeting fellow Christians and Jews.

That man must not have been too happy about what he was doing, what he was preaching. It was a well-planned attack. He must have been an extremist.

A young man cannot contain his emotion as he visits the scene of where My Shah was murdered last night

The appalling attack came just hours after deeply religious Mr Shah, who was keen to reach out from the Muslim community to Christian neighbours, posted heartfelt Easter messages on social media

He went straight for the head. He got stomped on the head as well. His brother suffered a slash down his shoulder area because he attacked him with a knife as well.

Before his death, Mr Shah had wished his friends a Good Friday and a very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation.

In his final post, he wrote: Lets follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds.

Mr Shah also appeared to use his Facebook page to speak out over the attacks in Brussels.

In a video posted online he said: We are not here to fight with other mankind or cause bloodshed.

Hundreds of people have gathered for a silent vigil late on Friday night to honour the respected shopkeeper near the site where he died.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined an estimated crowd of 400 to 500 people for the vigil to show solidarity and remember Mr Shah.

Ms Sturgeon, whose constituency covers the area, tweeted afterwards: 'Moved to be one of hundreds tonight as Shawlands united in grief for Asad Shah and support for his family.'

Hundreds of people have gathered for a silent vigil late on Friday night to honour the respected shopkeeper near the site where he died

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined an estimated crowd of 400 to 500 people for the vigil to show solidarity and remember Mr Shah

Those attending were encouraged to bring a daffodil. Many laid flowers and lit candles during the gathering.

One of the vigil organisers, Eildon Dyer, said: 'It was very respectful. There were a lot of people clearly very upset. There were a lot of tears and lots and lots of flowers.

'Everybody has said he was the nicest man. He was clearly much-loved. Everybody had nice stories to tell about him and warm stories. It's just very, very sad.'

Thousands from across the country also paid their respects to Mr Shah to comment on his bravery and dedication to cross-faith living, with many using the hashtag #thisisnotwhoweare.

Deeply religious, Mr Shah worked to foster cross-community relations in Glasgow and had been planning to host an online debate last night with Christian friends about the importance of Easter. Friends said he observed both Christian and Muslim holidays, and never failed to send out Easter and Christmas cards. And he used his social media accounts to promote harmony on religious holidays.

Those attending were encouraged to bring a daffodil while many laid flowers and lit candles during the gathering

The killing came just hours after Mr Shah had used his Facebook account to promote an inter-faith meeting

In previous online posts, he has spoken out eloquently against violence and hatred and called for unconditional real love for all mankind.

Last Christmas Day, he posted: Merry Christmas to all my beloved Christian nation and to all beloved mankind with best wishes. More than 300 mourners gathered at a vigil last night to pay their respects to Mr Shah.

This is disgusting  Mr Shah was the most peace-loving man you could meet, said a neighbour.

He was proud of his Pakistani heritage but he loved Britain. He loved Scotland too and really wanted to reach out to Christians. This is such a terrible thing to happen.

Flowers were placed at the scene. A neighbour said: 'He was the most peace-loving man you could meet'

A police investigation has been launched into the full details surrounding Mr Shah's death, with officers pursuing a line of enquiry that the attack was racially aggravated

Julie MacRae, a friend of the shopkeeper, said: Im shocked because he was so lovely. Hes been great to my family. Every year he would send out lovely Christmas cards with messages of peace.

One of many floral tributes left at the scene read: All you wanted was peace. We are one.

Robert Maitland, who runs a club for former servicemen next door to Mr Shahs shop, said: He always had a friendly hand for you. Every Christmas he gave us a Christmas card, although he was a Muslim and it wasnt his religion. Thats what he was like.

Speaking at the vigil, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: This community is in shock and devastated. Mr Shah was a popular local businessman. Ive used his shop and known him in the years past. I just think everyone is struggling to come to terms with it.

Forensics personnel sweep the murder scene as tributes and flowers begin to pile up next to a police cordon

But this vigil has been an important way for the community to come together and show support to his family and more than anything to show that the community is strongly united.

An ambulance crew gave Mr Shah treatment at the scene on Thursday night. He was taken to Glasgows Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where he later died.

It is believed he belonged to the Ahmadi movement, a Muslim sect which promotes non-violence and tolerance of other faiths.

Ahmadis identify themselves as Muslims and a determined missionary network has helped spread their teachings around the world.

Earlier, people arrived at the police cordon surrounding the shop - Shah's Newsagent and Convenience Store, in Shawlands in the south of the city - to lay tributes

But their sect has won only disdain from mainstream Islamic leaders and it has been heavily persecuted in Pakistan.

As a result the Ahmadi communitys headquarters are now located in Morden, South London. The site, which covers five acres, has space for more than 10,000 worshippers and has been hit by arson.

The spiritual inspiration of the movement was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who was born in the Punjab in British-ruled India in 1835.

Police officers stand guard as the road is cordoned off to allow forensic experts to carry out an investigation

He declared Muslim religion and society were in decline and claimed to have been chosen by Allah to reform Islam. The claim clashes with the Islamic belief that Mohammed was the last prophet and the Koran is the final word of God.

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of Muslim youth organisation, the Ramadhan Foundation, said: Whatever differences we have with the Ahmadi community, the murder of Asad Shah is a despicable crime which everyone should condemn.
John Woodcock launched a scathing attack on the Labour leadership

A Labour MP has openly called on his party to oust Jeremy Corbyn as leader, telling his colleagues: We simply cannot go on like this.

John Woodcock launched a scathing attack on the Labour leadership for allowing the Tory government to wreak havoc in the country without properly being held to account.

Describing Mr Corbyn as a nice man who is doing his best, Mr Woodcock nonetheless insisted that Labours loyalty must be to voters who desperately need a Labour government.

For the sake of people being bled dry by a Government that thinks it has a divine right to rule, we simply cannot go on like this, he wrote in a 600-word article in the Mirror newspaper.

His comments come after one of the worst weeks in David Camerons time as Prime Minister following a number of disastrous Budget U-turns, Iain Duncan Smiths damaging resignation from the Cabinet and follows weeks of the worst Tory infighting over Europe for two decades.

But Mr Cameron was handed a gift at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday after a leaked document revealed that one of Mr Corbyns top aides had drawn up a list of Labour MPs that categorised them into how loyal or disloyal they were to the Labour leadership.

It branded many of the partys top MPs as hostile  allowing Mr Cameron to easily bat away any criticism of his own partys troubles by ridiculing Mr Corbyn with the list.

Mr Woodock took to Twitter to describe the party as a f****g disaster during PMQs.

And writing today, a despairing Mr Woodcock asked how Labour had turned attention from the turmoil in the Tory party into another humiliation for the Labour party.

It was a total open goal at Wednesday's PMQs. Jeremys team ensured that he was not even able to run to the ball before tripping over and passing out, he wrote.

It is that burning frustration of seeing these vicious ministers get away with it that is driving many of my colleagues to despair.

But ultimately, despair does not help the people who need a strong Labour party to stand up for them and ultimately kick the Tories out. Only action to make things better will do that.

Labour MP John Woodcock launched a foul-mouthed rant about the list on Twitter, saying it made the party look like a 'laughing stock' in one of the worst weeks for David Cameron after he suffered the damaging resignation of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith

The most loyal list of 19 names includes Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott (pictured left alongside Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions)

Mr Woodcocks attack is the strongest internal attack on Mr Corbyn since he became leader in September and is a further signal he will face a leadership challenge after the EU referendum this summer.

If Labours Sadiq Khan fails to be elected Mayor of London in May, it will almost certainly trigger a move from moderates in the party to oust Mr Corbyn.

Among those tipped to challenge Mr Corbyn for leader are ex-army chief Dan Jarvis, one-time Labour leadership contender Chuka Umunna and Rachel Reeves, who served as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary under Ed Milibands leadership.

Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper  both of whom ran against Mr Corbyn in the leadership election last summer  have also been tipped to run as figures who will be able to unite the party after a year of damaging infighting.

The leadership was humiliated by the leaked list, which ranked MPs according to their loyalty to Mr Corbyn.

It plunged the party into a fresh bout of infighting after details of the list, ranking MPs from core group to hostile, emerged in the Times.

Surprisingly, Labour's London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan (pictured with Jeremy Corbyn wearing Arsenal scraves) is ranked in the most disloyal group - listed as 'hostile'

LIST OF LABOUR MPS CATEGORISED ACCORDING TO LOYALTY TO CORBYN CORE GROUP CORE GROUP PLUS NEUTRAL BUT NOT HOSTILE CORE GROUP NEGATIVE HOSTILE GROUP Andy McDonald Andy Slaughter Alan Whitehead Alan Johnon Alan Campbell Catherine Smith Angela Rayner Adrian Bailey Alan Meale Alison McGovern Dennis Skinner Alex Cunningham Andrew Gwynne Angela Smith Ann Coffey Diane Abbott Albert Owen Andy Burnham Anna Turley Barry Sheerman Grahame Morris Catherine West Andrew Smith Ed Miliband Caroline Flint Ian Lavery Margaret Greenwood Angela Eagle Ben Bradshaw Chris Evans Ian Mearns Carolyn Harris Ann Clwyd Bridget Phillipson Chris Leslie Imran Hussain Chinyelu Onwurah Barbara Keeley Diana Johnson Chuka Umunna Jeremy Corbyn Christina Rees Barry Gardiner Daniel Zeichner Elizabeth Kendall John McDonnell Dave Anderson Bill Esterson Dan Jarvis Emma Reynolds Jon Trickett Dawn Butler Catherin McKinnell Derek Twigg Fiona Mactaggart Kate Osamor David Winnick Chris Bryant Frank Field Graham Jones Kelvin Hopkins Debbie Abrahams Chris Matheson Gareth Thomas Harriet Harman RIP Michael Meacher Emily Thornberry Clive Betts George Howarth Ian Austin Rebecca Long-Bailer Emma Lewell-Buck Clive Efford Geoffrey Robinson Ivan Lewis Ronnie Campbell Vicky Foxcroft Colleen Fletcher Gloria de Piero Jamie Reed Richard Burgon Harry Harpham David Crausby Graham Allen John Woodcock Clive Lewis Helen Goodman David Hanson Hilary Benn Luciana Berger Rachael Maskell Holly Lynch Derek Twigg Ian Murray Margaret Hodge Ian Lucas Gavin Shuker Jo Cox Mark Tami Jo Stevens Geraint Davies Jenny Chapman Mary Creagh Kate Hollern Gerald Jones Joan Ryan Melanie Onn Karen Buck Gerald Kaufman John Mann Michael Dugher Karl Turner Gisela Stuart John Spellar Pat McFadden Keir Starmer Gordon Marsden Jon Ashworth Phil Wilson Kevin Brennan Graham Stringer Julie Elliott Rachel Reeves Khalid Mahmood Heidi Alexander Kate Green Simon Danczuk Liz McInnes Helen Hayes Keith Vaz Rosie Winterton Lilian Greenwood Helen Jones Kerry McCarthy Tom Blenkinsop Lindsay Hoyle Huw Irrance-Davies Kevan Jones Sadiq Khan Louise Haigh Iain Wright Liam Byrne Stephen Twigg Lisa Nandy Jack Dromey Louise Ellman Siobhain McDonagh Marie Rimmer Jeff Smith Lucy Powell Stella Creasy Mary Glindon Jessica Morden Lyn Brown Toby Perkins Nick Thomas-Symonds Jim Cunningham Margaret Beckett Tristram Hunt Owen Smith Jim Dowd Maria Eagle Yvette Cooper Pat Glass Jim Fitzpatrick Meg Hillier Paula Sheriff John Healey Natascha Engel Rob Marris David Lammy Neil Coyle Rosie Cooper Jon Cruddas Richard Burden Rupa Huq Judith Cummins Ruth Smeeth Roberta Blackman-Woods Julie Cooper Rob Flello Sarah Champion Kate Green Shabana Mahmood Sharon Hodgson Karin Smyth Stephen Doughty Steve Rotheram Kate Hoey Stephen Kinnock Stephen Hepburn Kevin Barron Jess Phillips Sue Hayman Madeleine Moon Jonathan Reynolds Susan Elan Jones Mark Hendrick Steve Reed Teresa Pearce Matthew Pennycook Stephen Pound Tom Watson Mike Gapes Valerie Vaz Mike Kane Vernon Coaker Naseem Shah Virenda Sharma Nia Giffith Wayne David Nic Dakin Yasmin Qureshi Nick Brown John Cryer Nick Smith Paul Blomfield Paul Farrelly Paul Flynn Peter Dowd Peter Kyle Ruth Cadbury Rushanara Ali Roger Godsiff Seema Malhotra Steve McCabe Stephen Timms Tulip Siddiq Thangham Debbonaire Wes Streeting Yvonne Fovargue

Mr Woodcock, Rosie Winterton, Labours chief whip, and Sadiq Khan, its London mayoral candidate, were among 36 MPs labelled hostile.

Mr Cameron repeatedly mocked Mr Corbyn at the despatch box over the leaked list.

You can include me in the core support group, he joked.

The list appears to show Mr Corbyn has more enemies in the parliamentary Labour party than friends, although 17 MPs are not included.

Aides in Mr Corbyns office denied they had anything to do with drawing up the rankings, which were reportedly found in a Westminster pub.

It has fuelled comparisons with the former US President Richard Nixon, who kept a list of people he did not like, but many Labour MPs reacted with disbelief.

One senior Labour source said it was the latest example of the partys slow dissent into insanity.

And it led Mr Woodcock to take to Twitter to voice his anger at the list.

F*****g disaster, Mr Woodcock wrote on Twitter. Worse [sic] week for Cameron since he came in and that stupid f*****g list makes us into a laughing stock.

Even Rosie Winterton (pictured left), Jeremy Corbyn's chief whip who is in charge of party discipline, is ranked as 'hostile' while former leader Ed Miliband (right) sits in the second most disloyal group despite never having publicly criticsed Mr Corbyn since his election as leader last September

He had intended it to be a private message but accidentally published it to thousands of followers before deleting it.

Surprisingly, Labour's London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan was ranked in the most disloyal group - listed as 'hostile' - despite him nominating Mr Corbyn for the leadership race last summer.

Even Rosie Winterton, Mr Corbyn's chief whip who is in charge of party discipline, was ranked as 'hostile'.

Labour MPs said the list is organised by Mr Corbyn's political secretary Katy Clark and was started in January.

It was reported this morning that she had left the list in a House of Commons bar.

It categorises MPs into five groups: Core group; core group plus, neutral but not hostile, core group negative and hostile group.

The most loyal group contains just 19 names and includes Michael Meacher, who died in October, according to the document that was leaked to The Times.

The list shows Mr Corbyn has many more enemies than supporters among Labour's 230 MPs.

Michael Dugher, who Mr Corbyn sacked as Shadow Culture Secretary earlier this year, is on the most hostile list and took to Twitter yesterday to mock the list

However there are 17 names absent from any of the lists, which attracted ridicule from Labour MPs on Twitter this morning.

Conor McGinn, a Labour whip, joked: 'I'm one of the 17 Labour MPs not on 'the list'. Can't work out whether that means a first class ticket to Havana or the train to Siberia...'

Former leader Ed Miliband sits in the second most disloyal group despite never having publicly criticsed Mr Corbyn since his election as leader last September.

And Harriet Harman, who served as interim leader after Mr Miliband stood down at the election, is in the 'hostile' group.

But the most surprising name is Mr Khan, who nominated Mr Corbyn for the leadership race last summer, although he has sought to distance himself from the Labour leader's radical left-wing policies as he campaigns to beat Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith in May's election for London Mayor.

The list fuelled comparisons with the former US President Richard Nixon (pictured in 1968), who kept a list of people he did not like

John Woodcock, one of the most outspoken critics of Mr Corbyn's leadership told MailOnline that the list was yet another example of how the leadership was distracted from its main task of scrutinising the Government.

'It is sad the public calls for unity and a new politics from Jeremy's advisers seem to be a front for this kind of divisive internal attack operation, particularly when we are trying to take the fight to the Tories,' he said.

A Labour MP told the Times that drawing comparisons to President Nixon's infamous list was ominous for Labour.

'The last politician to draw up a list of enemies was Richard Nixon; it didnt end well for him or his party,' an MP told the newspaper.

The list was drawn up by President Nixon's aides and became public knowledge during Senate hearings into the Watergate investigation in 1972.

It was compiled by aides, who listed Mr Nixon's biggest political opponents and became known as the 'Opponents List'.

The most loyal list of 19 names includes Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow International Development Secretary Diane Abbott - two close friends of Mr Corbyn.

The second category includes Andy Burnham and Lisa Nandy - two figures tipped as potential successors of Mr Corbyn as leader.

Dan Jarvis, who has been the subject of speculation of a leadership challenge this summer, is in the second most disloyal grouping while two other potential leadership contenders - Chuka Umunna and Rachel Reeves - are in the 'hostile' category.

Michael Dugher, who Mr Corbyn sacked as Shadow Culture Secretary earlier this year, is on the most hostile list and took to Twitter this morning to mock the list.

'That 'list' is particularly stupid. It could not possibly have come from the leader's office. Absolutely not. No way,' he tweeted, sarcastically.
Businessman Andrew Grigg, 37, (pictured) was on holiday with his wife Sarah, their two daughters, and a group of friends in 2012 when he is thought to have drowned in a hotel swimming pool

A grieving family were left without answers after the body of a father who died on holiday in Tunisia was returned to the UK without his brain or spleen.

Businessman Andrew Grigg, 37, was on holiday with his wife Sarah, their two daughters, and a group of friends in 2012 when he is thought to have drowned in a hotel swimming pool.

However, at his inquest this week a coroner said it is impossible to fully know what happened to Mr Grigg, from Bideford, Devon, as his body was flown back to the UK with some of his vital organs missing.

This meant British doctors could not carry out a full post-mortem examination into his cause of death.

In a statement, Mrs Grigg told the inquest at Devon County Court that she was watching on when she saw her husband had been under water and had gone blue.

'Someone said we need to get him out,' she said. 'He was blue in colour. It was very distressing; I remember someone said he had a weak pulse.'

Mr Grigg was given CPR but never regained consciousness. Days later after he died at hospital, his organs were taken out before he was repatriated back to the UK.

Mrs Grigg described the ordeal as 'very distressing'. The court heard how she was not allowed to see her husband right away after he was rushed to hospital, and friends were only able to visit him for three minutes each.

Mr Grigg, who was the director of Haven Marketing, died at Mohamed Taher Al Maamouri Hospital in Nabeul days later but his family were not told for eight hours. The couple's daughters were just three and six at the time.

Coroner Dr Elizabeth Earland told the inquest in Exeter that she had no power abroad, so information surrounding Mr Grigg's death remained unavailable.

'The inquest was opened on June 7, 2012, a very long time ago,' she said.

'I know members of the family are fully aware of the difficulties we have had trying to get information from the Tunisian authorities.'

Dr Jason Davies, who was instructed to carry out an autopsy said he was unable to give a full report.

Coroner Dr Elizabeth Earland told the inquest at Devon County Court, Exeter, (pictured) that she had no power abroad, so information surrounding Mr Grigg's death remained unavailable

'My interpretation has been hindered by the incomplete state of his organs,' he said. 'From my autopsy alone, I have not found any feature to explain his death.'

But he concluded that damage to Mr Grigg's lungs showed the effects of drowning.

Dr Earland recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Mr Grigg's mother Lorraine described her son as the type of person who always put his family first.

'He was the life and soul of the party,' she said. 'He was a very family orientated person.'

Speaking after the inquest, sisters Linda Grigg and Jana Wonnacott said they understood the British authorities had tried to find out more about how Mr Grigg had died, but had still been left disappointed.

Paying tribute to their younger brother, the sisters described Andrew as loving and fun.

Ms Grigg said: 'He was extremely popular, he had so many friends.
A fight between parents at a kindergarten play turned so intense police had to intervene and the production was cancelled.

About 300 people had gathered to see students from Ridgemoor Elementary School in Sun City, California play at a different school located in Menifee.

But some parents went to the front row and began filming, irritating some audience members, the Press-Enterprise reported.

The fight began as a verbal exchange about seating and viewing privileges.

It turned physical, with some parents pushing and shoving, Riverside County sheriffs Deputy Michael Vasquez said.

Students from Ridgemoor Elementary School (pictured) in Sun City, California, were scheduled to perform at a different school located in Menifee on Wednesday

The performance was supposed to take place at Menifee's Hans Christensen Middle School, about three miles away from Ridgemoor Elementary School.

But police were called after the fight broke and the play got cancelled.

'It's kind of shocking,' Vasquez told the Washington Post.

'Sometimes adults act in funny ways.'

No arrests have been made but authorities have issued a citation for one person to appear in court.

The Riverside County District Attorneys office is in charge of further investigating the incident.

Students from Ridgemoor Elementary School went home on Thursday carrying letters about the fight, Menifee Union School District spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the Press-Enterprise.

The school has also begun notifying families by phone.
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Bulgaria has returned to its Cold War days as it works to rebuild the Soviet-era barbed wire fence along its border with Turkey - only this time to stop migrants hoping for a new life in Europe.

The fence is being constructed to seal Bulgaria's entire border to prevent the country becoming the new gateway to Europe.

The local authorities are hoping to put off the ruthless criminal gangs exploiting families fleeing war and terror in Syria, Iraq and North Africa from trying to enter Europe via Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is also ready to build a fence on its border with Greece, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov announced today.

Bulgaria has already constructed 100km of the fence on the border with Turkey and aims to have 132.5km completed by July

Workers attach barber wire to the border fence with Turkey as Bulgaria steps up its efforts to prevent immigrants crossing into the country

The erection of the fence comes 25 years since an 'Iron Curtain' existed on the border to prevent Bulgarians crossing into the West

The fence is monitored 24/7 by armed guards stationed at strategic points along its current 95km length

Bulgaria started erecting a barbed wire fence along its border with Turkey in November 2013. Now work is being speeded up.

Almost 100km of the fence has been completed and the aim is to have 132.5km completed by July, which would be half the entire frontier.

The new 'Iron Curtain' comes 25 years after rusty watchtowers and fences stopped people escaping Communism over the border into Turkey.

Ivan Petkov, a pensioner from the village of Shtit, noted: 'It was different back in the old days. Then it wasn't refugees who were coming in but Bulgarian prisoners and other people who wanted to run away.'

The fence is part of Bulgaria's efforts to avoid becoming the new refugee route into the EU after western Balkan countries slammed shut their borders to illegal immigrants.

The fence is monitored 24/7 by armed guards stationed at strategic points along its current 95km length.

Border police look into Turkey from watchtowers with binoculars.

Infra-red motion-sensitive cameras mean parents carrying their children in bundles are rounded up as they try to smuggle themselves across Europe's eastern frontier under cover of darkness.

It is also one of the few countries in eastern Europe registering and fingerprinting all migrants and was doing so long before the Paris attacks.

To shore up its borders, Bulgaria is now planning to erect another fence on its border with Greece to the south that is about 500km long.

Mr Borisov told parliament today: 'The main threat is coming from the Greek border. It is very long and unprotected, and our concern is that the Greek government did not take measures in recent months. We are ready to erect a barrier if necessary.'

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also said a fence should be installed on the Macedonian and Bulgarian borders with Greece to curb the inflow of migrants.

Bulgaria has also made plans to construct a fence on its border with Greece (migrants are pictured today in a makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni)

A refugee child eats in front of her tent which has the desperate message: 'Help us, it's cold'

Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions

Migration restrictions along the so-called Balkan route, the main path for migrants and refugees from the Middle East into the EU, has left thousands of migrants trapped in Greece - Bulgaria now wants to install a fence on its border with Greece

Bulgaria wants to avoid becoming the new refugee route into the EU after western Balkan countries slammed shut their borders to illegal immigrants

A refugee child plays with a football on the railway tracks at the Greek-Macedonian border, in Idomeni

A group of migrants keep their spirits up in the make-shift border camp - Bulgaria wants to keep migrants out of its country

Migrants sit next to a fire during windy day in a makeshift refugee camp on the Greek-Macedonian border

With many migrants fearing they will be sent straight back when they reach the Turkish coast, even if they succeed in making the dangerous crossing, the dream of a new life in Europe is starting to slip out of sight

It comes as Turkish villagers said the number of refugees entering the country via smugglers had been drastically reduced following the EU agreement last week.

All 'irregular migrants' crossing from Turkey into Greece will now be sent back. Each arrival will now be individually assessed by the Greek authorities.

At the same time, for each Syrian returned to Turkey, a Syrian migrant will now be resettled in the EU.

'Before the EU agreement there were hundreds of refugees crossing the sea here,' said 50-year-old fisherman Hasan Balci as he played cards in a cafe.

'But now there are none.'

With many migrants fearing they will be sent straight back when they reach the Turkish coast, even if they succeed in making the dangerous crossing, the dream of a new life in Europe is starting to slip out of sight.

Assam, an 18-year-old refugee from Damascus, whose parents are both dead, has been living in Izmir for six months but had wanted to eventually travel to Germany.

'Now I really don't know what to do,' he said, sitting with a group of fellow Syrians in a cafe. 'Here in Izmir you can't find money to eat and drink. We are suffering from humiliation.'

His friend Wada, a 20-year-old from Idlib, said he would prefer to return to Syria, even as the civil war there rumbles on.

'I want to go back to the shelling, to the rubble, to the bombing - it's better than dying in Turkey.'

Another young Syrian, who used to work as an IT specialist in Damascus, has become part of a smuggling network.

Speaking by telephone, he said he made in the region of $10-15,000 last year, taking a $50-100 cut from each trafficked person.
This is the bizarre moment President Vladimir Putin teased John Kerry for carrying his own luggage as he came to discuss Syria's political future.

The Russian leader delivered the joke via his interpreter on Thursday in Moscow, as an introduction to a four-hour discussion about Russia's relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In two minutes, Putin took jabs at the American economy, saying he had thought at first that the situation in the US was so terrible that there was no one left to help the Secretary of State.

Then, Putin hinted that Kerry had brought cash with him to bargain over the agreements and thus didn't want to give up his luggage.

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Vladimir Putin (pictured) teased John Kerry for carrying his own luggage as both came to discuss Syria 's political future at the Kremlin in Moscow on Thursday

Kerry (pictured) laughed politely as Putin delivered the joke via his interpreter. The Secretary of State said he would reveal the content of his briefcase later on

Putin said he was 'frustrated and upset' when he saw Kerry get off the plane carrying his own suitcase (pictured) and thought the economy in the US must have been in a bad state if no one was left to help him

Putin told Kerry he had been 'a bit frustrated and upset' to see him carrying his own briefcase as he got off the plane.

'On the one hand, it's quite a democratic way of conduct, but on the other hand, I thought probably the situation in the United States is not that good and there is no one to assist the Secretary of State in carrying his luggage,' Putin said.

Kerry smiled and laughed as Putin's interpreter translated the joke.

'I hear your economy's okay, there's no slow down,' Putin added.

'Probably then I thought there was something in that briefcase of yours you couldn't trust someone else with.

'Probably you brought some money with you to haggle on key matters.'

Kerry smiled politely as Putin finished his joke.

The Russian President (pictured during the talks on Thursday) then admitted the economy was 'okay' in the US and instead hinted that Kerry had brought some cash in his briefcase to bargain over the agreements

Putin (left) and Kerry (right) agreed to push for a political transition in Syria after the talks on Thursday. Their discussion lasted about four hours

'When we have a private moment, I'll show you what's in my briefcase. And I think you'll be surprised  pleasantly,' Kerry said.

The two men then launched into four hours of talks about Syria and Ukraine.

Kerry said he and Russian leaders had agreed to push for a political transition in Syria after the talks on Thursday.

Those efforts will include persuading Assad to engage fully in talks about a political transition.

'Russia will have to speak itself as to what it is going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today that we will accelerate the effort to try to move the political process forward,' Kerry said during a news conference.
David Smyrl, known for his role as Mr Handford on Sesame Street, died on Tuesday, aged 80

David Smyrl, the Emmy-winning actor best known for his role as Mr Handford, the retired firefighter who ran Hooper's Store on Sesame Street, has died. He was 80.

Smyrl was diagnosed with lung cancer in January, his wife, Cheryl, said. He died on Tuesday at Lankenau Medical Center outside Philadelphia.

'He was funny,' Cheryl Smyrl said. 'I could say so many good things about him. He was loved by so many people. He was a mentor to a lot of children. He was a family man, loyal, true and faithful.'

A north Philadelphia native born on September 12, 1935, Smyrl performed as a poet in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, his wife said.

His television career also began in New York in the 1970s, on the show Express Yourself.

Smyrl moved to California to work on the sitcom Benson in the 1970s, where he earned him a People's Choice Award.

He also worked as a writer and actor on The Cosby Show, playing contractor Sam Lucas.

From 1990 to 1998, Smyrl played the smiling, singing store-owner on Sesame Street. He succeeded Leonard Jackson, who played a grumpier Handford.

Smyrl was diagnosed with lung cancer in January, and he died on Tuesday at Lankenau Medical Center outside Philadelphia

Smyrl was an Emmy-winning actor best known for his role as Mr Handford, the retired firefighter who ran Hooper's Store on Sesame Street

He played the Sesame Street role from 1990 to 1998. He also had roles on The Cosby Show, Benson and Express Yourself

Smyrl had won the job by acting out a script where he had returned from fighting a fire, worn out, and talked of retiring and buying a little store, according to a 1997 story in the Record-Journal, a Connecticut newspaper.

'You get to act stupid,' Smyrl told the newspaper. 'It's fun! I get to do fun things like dance with Gloria Estefan.'

He enjoyed the role, because he loved children, Cheryl Smyrl said.

Since Smyrl left the role in 1998, the Sesame Street character Alan, played by Alan Muraoka, has run Hooper's store.

Prior to his days of writing and acting, Smyrl served in the Army in the 1950s.

Prior to his days of writing and acting, Smyrl (center) served in the Army in the 1950s and was stationed in South Carolina and Texas

Smyrl was born in north Philadelphia on September 12, 1935. In the 1960s he moved to New York and performed as a poet in Greenwich Village

When he moved to New York, the entertainer opened an acting and fencing school, according to his Facebook Page.

Cheryl and David Smyrl met in 1975 and were friends for many years before they married in April 1992.

They lived in Connecticut for several years before returning to the Philadelphia area in 2004, according to Philly.com.

He spent much of his time volunteering to perform at schools, colleges and penal institutions.

Smyrl is also survived by his stepson, Pancho Scott.

A funeral is scheduled for Monday.

Smyrl is one of several celebrities who died this week. A Tribe Called Quest's Phife Dog died on Tuesday, actor Ken Howard died on Wednesday and comedian Garry Shandling died on Thursday.

When he moved to New York, the entertainer (center) also opened an acting and fencing school, according to his Facebook page
A horrifying attack in which the victim was hit eight times as he lay on the ground, unconscious from the first blow, has been caught on camera.

Footage of the attack shows the victim approach his attacker, before the vicious assault is carried out, and Lee Burr, the perpetrator, simply walks off.

Burr, from Corowa, New South Wales, said he attacked the man in defence of his 14-year-old daughter's honour, after she was the subject of sexually explicit remarks.

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This appears to be the second that the other man is hit by Lee's punch

The moment Burr Lee's victim falls to the ground, unconscious, after being hit by a punch

Once the man was on the ground and knocked out, Lee proceeded to hit him another eight times

Four months after the attack in Wangaratta, Victoria, and Burr's victim still has problems eating and speaking due to nerve damage in his tongue, The Newcastle Herald reported.

In the Wangaratta Magistrates' Court, Burr pleaded guilty to intentionally causing injury - and avoided jail time.

Positive references and a work history worked in his favour and Magistrate Stella Stuthridge put him on a two-year good behaviour bond - provided he paid the Wangaratta Hospital $10,000.

She called the attack sickening and cowardly.

Here, Lee, 44, appears to be walking away from his vicitm, who is still lying still on the ground

Two people appear to come to the man's aid after the attack is over

'Its just a stroke of luck that the victim didnt suffer any more than he did and is alive,' she said.

The incident occurred outside a wedding in mid-November last year, and Solicitor Geoff Clancy said the victim had been antagonising guests, The Newcastle Herald reported.

But Ms Stuthridge said: 'It doesnt matter if the victim is Attila the Hun, youre still not allowed to beat him'.

The police prosecutor, Leading Senior Constable Heath Dosser, disputed Lee's claims he was concerned for his victim as he did not hand himself in until after the night.

'Imprisonment would be the first thing on peoples lips once they watched that video,' Snr Const Dosser said.
ISIS second-in-command Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli has been killed in bombing raid in Syria after US Special Forces aborted an attempted mission to capture him alive.

Also known a Haji Imam, Al-Qaduli was the ISIS finance minister had a $7million bounty on his head was killed earlier this month.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter confirmed Al-Qaduil's death but refused to go into detail about the mission. He said the death of Al-Qaduli would make it more difficult for ISIS to operate and for the terror organisation to pay their fighters.

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US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, right, will confirm the death of Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, left

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave details of the operations against ISIS

The terrorist joined Al Qaeda in 2004 but transferred his allegiance to ISIS following his release from prison in early 2012.

The US Department of Treasury branded al-Qaduli as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' on May 14, 2014.

Carter said US forces are 'systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet. We killed several key ISIL terrorists this week'.

He said: 'They will be replaced but we will continue to go after their leadership.'

Carter described al-Qaduli as a 'well known terrorist' who was their minister for finance.

He confirmed US forces killed Haji Iman, one of the many aliases used by al-Qaduli.

Carter refused to confirm whether the terrorist was killed in a drone strike or a manned aircraft. He said providing additional details would reduce the effectiveness of future operations.

He said they have taken out the terror organisation's finance chief, affecting their ability to pay their fighters.

He will provide details on the mission along with General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff..

ISIS have been forced into a retreat across Iraq and Syria having lost some major sections of territory

Iraqi troops have launched a major offensive to recapture the strategically important town of Mosul

ISIS terrorists in the town have been under artillery bombardment from Iraqi troops supported by the Air Force

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a press briefing in the Pentagon today that ISIS were on the retreat

The U.S. military has killed numerous ISIS leaders in recent months. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the Islamic State's 'minister of war', in an airstrike in Syria.

In November, the Pentagon said an airstrike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top ISIS leader.

The Iraqi army said Thursday its troops and allied militia had launched what is expected to be a long and difficult offensive to retake the second city of Mosul, ISIS's main hub in Iraq.

The army and the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary force 'have begun the first phase of conquest operations' in the northern Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, Iraq's joint operations command said in a statement.

It said four villages had been taken between the town of Qayyarah, which is still held by IS, and Makhmur, where US-backed Iraqi forces have been massing in recent weeks.

The army did not say how long this phase of the operation was expected to take and Iraqi forces still look far from being in a position to take the city itself.

Iraqi forces have won back much of the territory seized by the terror group during their 2014 blitzkrieg

Iraqi forces have spent the last 12 months training and rearming before beginning the major offensive

The joint operations command is coordinating the battle by Iraqi security forces to retake the large parts of the country seized by ISIS during a lightning offensive in 2014.

It includes representatives from the US-led coalition that has provided air support, training and military advisers for the Iraqi army in its fightback.

Iraqi forces have scored important recent gains against ISIS, including by last month retaking Anbar provincial capital Ramadi.

The latest announcement comes as pro-government forces in Syria closed in on ISIS in the ancient city of Palmyra, which the jihadists seized around the same time as Ramadi last year.

But Mosul - which along with Raqqa in Syria is one of the jihadists' two main hubs - would be a major prize.

Experts have warned that any battle to retake the city will be difficult, given the significant number of jihadists and civilians in the city and the time ISIS has had to prepare defences.

Syrian troops today recaptured a mansion belonging to a member of the Qatari royal family in Palmyra

Members of the Syrian Amry celebrated their victory over ISIS in the city of Palmyra earlier today

Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the commander of the US-led operation against ISIS, has said that Iraqi generals do not think they will be able to recapture Mosul until the end of 2016 or early 2017 at the earliest.

As they have done in battles to retake cities like Ramadi and Tikrit, Iraqi forces are expected to work slowly and deliberately to cut off supply lines to Mosul before launching an assault on the city.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it distributed aid on Thursday to more than 12,000 displaced people in west Ramadi who fled fighting in the nearby city of Hit.

Thousands of troops were deployed in February to a base in Makhmur, some 45 miles southeast of Mosul, in preparation for the offensive.

The US-led coalition said it carried out three strikes in the Qayyarah area on Wednesday.

'Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIS communication facility and destroyed an ISIS-used bridge section and denied ISIS access to terrain,' it said in a statement.

It also launched eight strikes in the broader Mosul region.
Joe is serving 41 months in prison for bankruptcy fraud and faces the possibility of deportation after he is released

At one point she sat down to speak on the phone and became emotional

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star took a walk in a local park on Thursday near her home in Montville

Teresa Giudice was seen for the first time since her

Teresa Giudice was spotted for the first time since her husband checked into prison as she took a walk near her home in Montville, New Jersey on Thursday afternoon.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star was outfitted in animal-print leggings and a hat for her stroll through a local park.

At one point she sat down to take a phone call and began to get emotional.

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Stroll: Teresa Giudice was seen for the first time since her husband Joe reported to prison on Wednesday

Alone time: The Real Housewives of New Jersey star took a walk in a local park on Thursday near her home in Montville

Tough time: At one point she sat down to speak on the phone and became emotional, fighting back tears

Gone: Joe Giudice is serving 41 months in prison for bankruptcy fraud and faces the possibility of deportation after he is released

Emotional : 'Hes my life - Im going to miss him tremendously,' said Teresa. 'Just him not being around - looking at him, kissing him, touching him. Hes the love of my life'

Teresa said goodbye to Joe Wednesday morning as he left their mansion to begin his prison sentence 90 miles away at the Federal Correction Institute in Fort Dix.

The couple were seen kissing before Joe was driven off to officially report to prison, all while Bravo cameras filmed the their final farewell.

Joe was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in October 2014 and will be facing the possibility of deportation back to Italy when he is released from prison.

Teresa was convicted on similar charge and began serving her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut in January of last year, being released two days before Christmas.

The judge ruled that the couple did not have to report at the same time for the well being of their four daughters - Gia, Gabriella, Milania, and Audriana.

Also photographed at the home on Wednesday was Teresa's brother Joe Gorga and his wife Melissa.

In an interview with InTouch, Teresa shared the advice she had given her husband before he heads off to serve time, and how difficult it will be without him at their home.

'Hes my life - Im going to miss him tremendously,' said Teresa.

'Just him not being around - looking at him, kissing him, touching him. Hes the love of my life.

'He was there for me and Im going to be there for him.'

As for the what she told Joe as he prepared to for prison, she said; 'Pretty much just to be careful and dont trust anyone. We both learned that the hard way. Hes a strong guy and I think hell be fine - its just going to make him a stronger person than he already is.'

She then added that she was lucky to have her four daughters with her, saying; 'We will all help each other get through this.'

Teresa also spoke about her time in prison, and if it changed her, to which she said; 'I'm the same person. I've always been humble and I still am.

'One thing that surprised me was that I met some wonderful women in there. Just because you're in prison doesn't mean you're a bad person.

'Especially for white collar [crimes].'

Teresa also revealed she has started work on a second book detailing the time between her return home from prison and her husband Joe heading off to start his sentence.

Family: Teresa said she was lucky to have her four daughters with her. 'We will all help each other get through this'

Love: 'Hes a strong guy and I think hell be fine - its just going to make him a stronger person than he already is,' said Teresa of Joe

Awful: Joe faces the possibility of deportation back to Italy after he is released from the Federal Correction Institute in Fort Dix, New Jersey

Time served: Teresa was convicted of bankruptcy fraud alongside her husband in October 2014 and began serving her sentence in January of last year

Hard at work: Since her release from jail Teresa has been hard at work filming Real Housewives of New Jersey and promoting her new book, Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again

Joe's attorneys are already attempting to fight the possibility of deportation after his sentence, and argued back during the trial that because their client came to the US as an infant from Italy he was not aware that he was not an American citizen.

The judge in that trial also recommended Joe participate in an alcohol program, this after his lawyer, Miles Feinstein said he had a drinking problem and should be sent to rehab rather than prison.

Joe read a letter to the court before he was sentenced, saying, 'I stand here humiliated before the court and my family and society.

I disgraced many people, including my wife and four daughters. I take full responsibility for my actions. I promise to be a better person.'

Joe, 43, also pleaded guilty to failing to file a tax return for 2004 and acknowledged he didn't file taxes on income of approximately $1 million between 2004 and 2008.

For that he was given a 12-month sentence, but one that will run concurrently with the 41 months he had already received for his other crimes.

There is a chance that Joe's sentence could be shorter, with his wife not serving her full term behind bars.

Busy woman: Teresa's parole period ended on February 5, at which time she was able to remove her ankle monitor and began the next phase of her punishment, two years of supervised release

Problems for a later time: The judge said when sentencing Joe that immigration services will not act on his deportation case until after he serves time

Moving forward: Teresa's life back home with Joe as he prepares for prison and gets ready to become a single mother to her daughters will likely be the focus of the upcoming season of Real Housewives of New Jersey

Big draw: The popular reality star is so important to Bravo that the network featured her in a special three-episode spin-off series Teresa Checks In that followed her before she prepared to head off to prison

Payday: Bravo has never confirmed the salaries of any Housewives cast members, but there are reports that Teresa is receiving $1million for the upcoming seventh season of the show

Bling ring: Teresa wore a hat covcered in rhinestones for her outting

Teresa's 15-month sentence was ultimately cut short and she was released from prison two days before Christmas after a little less than a year behind bars.

As part of her parole, a portion of the remaining time of her 15-month sentence was served on home detention, during which time she was only allowed to leave for things like pre-approved trips to see the doctor and dentist or attend church services.

She was also allowed to go to see family whenever she wanted, meaning that her house and her brother Joe Gorga's home were two of the few places she could be filmed without running the risk of getting in trouble while starting work on the new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Teresa's parole period ended on February 5, at which time she was able to remove her ankle monitor and began the next phase of her punishment, two years of supervised release.

She will also be left to sort out the couple's ongoing financial problems, which are much brighter now that she is out of prison and able to work again on her hit Bravo show.

They still owe the state of New Jersey $414,588 in court-ordered restitution on charges of conspiracy and fraud.

And in October, the IRS filed a tax lien against the couple for $551, 563.00 after nine years of unpaid taxes.

Dad: Joe and his daughter Gia, Audriana, Gabrielle and Milania on Monday night

Couple: Joe and Teresa on Monday night at a party for Joe before he reported to prison

Teresa is certainly doing her part to bring in money, having begun a promotional tour for her autobiographical book Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again almost as soon as she finished her parole period and was free to travel.

The popular, and polarizing, reality star is so important to Bravo that the network featured her in a special three-episode spin-off series Teresa Checks In that followed her before she prepared to head off to prison.

Bravo has never confirmed the salaries of any Housewives cast members, but there are reports that Teresa is receiving $1million for the upcoming seventh season of the show.

A large chunk of that salary goes straight to the government however, with Teresa working out an agreement to hand over 25% of her Bravo pay to satisfy the judgment made against her in court.

She has also found success in the world of cookbooks, release three volumes of Italian recipes that all landed on the New York Times Bestsellers list - Skinny Italian, Fabulicious and Fabulicious!: Fast & Fit.
A decorated New Zealand soldier claims his head was smashed into a glass window by Perth prison guards while he was detained without charge for several months for links to a motorcycle gang.

Ko Haapu, who was detained in Casuarina maximum security prison after his visa was revoked for having ties to the Rebels bikie gang, says he still had the scars on his face from the assault.

'They would just keep pushing and pushing and trying to get us to break, so when I started refusing to be part of their system as a prisoner, my wrists were locked and my head was smashed into the glass windows,' Mr Haapu told Radio New Zealand on Thursday.

'They made sure to lock my door and push everyone out of those rooms before they let me out so there were no witnesses there.'

Decorated New Zealand soldier Ko Haapu claims Perth prison guards attacked him while he was jailed without charge in in Casuarina maximum security prison

Mr Haapu, 34, served as an infantryman with the New Zealand army for several years and received three medals of honour for his time in Afghanistan

Mr Haapu's detention drew fire from across the ditch in early November when New Zealand Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox suggested the 34-year-old's imprisonment was a breach of human rights.

Australian justice minister Michael Keenan justified the imprisonment of Mr Haapu - an Afghanistan war veteran - by saying there was credible evidence he was abusing the privilege of his Australian visa by joining the Rebels motorcycle gang.

Mr Keenan said at the time he was comfortable with detaining and deporting a non-Australian who hadn't been officially charged with a criminal offence.

'I'm very comfortable with that because it is very difficult to secure convictions in Australia - there's a very high threshold for us to gather the evidence and prosecute people,' Mr Keenan told 6PR.

Mr Haapu, a former New Zealand Army lance corporal, earned three medals of honour and was part of the gun battle in which Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell was killed in 2010.

He was also part of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key's security detail when he visited troops in Kabul and Bamiyan.

His visa was revoked for having ties to the Rebels bikie gang, which Australian justice minister Michael Keenan said was an abuse of his Australian visa privileges

Mr Haapu said he was mixed with detainees that were serial pedophiles, rapists and murderers

Mr Haapu said he was forced to be imprisoned with WA's worst criminal offenders in Casuarina Prison, despite never being charged.

'Detainees were mixed in with the worst of the worst - Casuarina is not a playground - you've got the worst serial rapists there, you've got the worst serial pedophiles there, you've got the worst murderers, yet we were all amongst it.'

In the interview, Mr Haapu was asked what he would say to Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton if he had the chance.

'Is it the colour of my skin that you're afraid of or is it the people we are - proud people - that come to your country to do better, is that what you're afraid of?'

A Facebook account recently created and believed to be controlled by Mr Haapu details the apparent 'corruption' of the Australian government regarding his treatment

Mr Haapu claims his head was smashed into a glass window by Perth prison guards at Casuarina prison
The death of Joey Feek has led to some big changes in the life of her husband Rory and daughter Indiana.

Rory wrote on his blog This Life I Live that Joey had always wanted to home school Indiana, but after her death took that dream along with her.

Now, Indiana has started preschool at a facility near the family farm in Tennessee where she is making new friends and even learning how to walk.

It is a big adjustment for the two year old, who has Down Syndrome, but she and her father seem to be happy with this new school.

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Rory Feek revealed that daughter Indiana (ABOVE) had started at a preschool for children with special needs

His wife Joey had always dreamed of home schooling their daughter before she died of cancer earlier this month (family above in early 2015)

'Indy has been in the preschool a couple days a week for the last week and a half now and is loving every minute of it,' writes Rory

'Indy has already started physical therapy classes to help her learn to walk and speech therapy,' said Rory

'Joey had every intention of home-schooling Indy as she grew up. For many reasons. But life has changed that plan,' writes Rory.

'I have written before about our desire to live our lives with high hopes and low expectations but during the month of January, when Joey and I decided we needed to start researching what and where the next-best option for school for Indy might bewe had no idea that God would lead us to a place called, of all things High Hopes.

Rory goes on to describe High Hopes, Indiana's new place of learning, as half preschool and half state-of-the-art therapy center for children with special needs.

'Indy has been in the preschool a couple days a week for the last week and a half now and is loving every minute of it,' writes Rory.

'Indy has already started physical therapy classes to help her learn to walk and speech therapy to start turning all the words that she can say with her hands into sentences she can say with her mouth.

'I can hardly imagine how special it will be when the time finally comes that she can walk beside me and talk with me.

'I believe that God gives us just what we need, when we need it. Sometimes its not what we had planned or what we thought we wanted, but if we keep an open mind it just might even be better than what we originally hoped for.'

Rory also revealed that one afternoon Indiana picked up a small figure of a man with overalls and began signing the word for 'papa.'

High Hopes, Indiana's new place of learning, is half preschool and half state-of-the-art therapy center for children with special needs

Rory also revealed that one afternoon Indiana picked up a small figure of a man with overalls and began signing the word for 'papa'

Rory goes on to describe High Hopes, Indiana's new place of learning, as half preschool and half state-of-the-art therapy center for children with special needs

'I can hardly imagine how special it will be when the time finally comes that she can walk beside me and talk with me,' writes Rory

Rory closes by saying; 'Indy and I are trying to adjust to our new life at home. To the empty chair at our table and pillow on the other side of my bed'

Rory closes by saying; 'Indy and I are trying to adjust to our new life at home. To the empty chair at our table and pillow on the other side of my bed.

'Desperately missing Joey and carrying her in our hearts with us everywhere we go. Knowing, believing that shes looking down each morning as I take Indy into High Hopes, still smiling saying, thats the one honeythats the one.'

Joey was laid to rest earlier this month in a private ceremony followed by a burial in the family cemetery on the grounds of her Tennessee farm.

'It was tearful, but it was optimistic, especially being on the dirt,' said the couple's close friend Bill Gaither in an interview with People.

'She was part of the earth. We all felt as though we were close to her.'

Joey's husband Rory spoke at the service, and her body was brought out in a horse-drawn carriage.

'It was just a sweet Tennessee mountain moment. Very positive things were said at the gravesite,' said Geither.

He also said he spoke to Rory the next day after he had enrolled the couple's daughter two-year-old Indiana at school, and he told him; 'This is the first day of the rest of my life. I have responsibilities.'

Mother and daughter: Joey and Indiana in her bed last year shortly before Christmas

Love: Joey's husband Rory said in late February; 'My wife has been asleep for days now and her body is shutting down quickly'

Gone: Joey passed away at the age of 40 with husband Rory writing; 'My wife's greatest dream came true today. She is in Heaven. The cancer is gone. The pain has ceased'

Joey passed away on March 4 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

'My wifes greatest dream came true today. She is in Heaven,' wrote Rory in a post on their blog.

'The cancer is gone, the pain has ceased and all her tears are dry. Joey is in the arms of her beloved brother Justin and using her pretty voice to sing for her savior.

'At 2.30 this afternoon, as we were gathered around her, holding hands and praying.. my precious bride breathed her last. And a moment later took her first breath on the other side.'

Rory also shared on Friday a touching story about a video Joey received last year from one of her idols - Dolly Parton.

The family surprised Joey with the video last November, and on Rory posted a video of the moment Joey got to see her idol.

'From the time she was four years old, Joey had been singing Dollys songs and dreamed of one day meeting her. Coat of Many Colors was a regular part of our show and at home she loved to put on Dolly and listen to Hello God, When I Sing For Him, Me and Little Andy and many others,' wrote Rory.

'She never got the chance to meet her in person and had no idea that Dolly even knew who she was. But that changed one Friday evening this past November.'

'When a person has been through as much pain and struggle as Joeys been through, you just want it to be over. You want them to not have to hurt anymore, more that you want them to stay with you. And so, it makes the hard job of saying goodbye just a little easier,' wrote Rory.

'After four-and-a-half months in Indiana, we will soon be back home in Tennessee. Me, and our little one, with our older daughters.

'Its hard for me to imagine being there without Joey, but at the same time it is where she wants us to be. Its where she will be Shes gonna be in the mint growing beside our back deck, the sweet-corn frozen in our freezer and a million other places that her hand and heart has touched around our little farmhouse and community. Joey will still be with us. Everywhere.

'So if its okay, Im gonna close, wipe my tears and pack our bags to hit the road headed south.
Authorities said the mini-sub originated in the 'Eastern Pacific Ocean'

Agents arrested four people but the $200million worth of cocaine sank

The sub, used by drug traffickers, was carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine to US

A mini-submarine carrying $200 million worth of cocaine was intercepted by authorities in the 'Eastern Pacific Ocean'.

Officials said they intercepted the semi-submersible vessel attempting to bring 12,800 pounds or 5.5 tons of cocaine into the US.

The cocaine was on a mini-sub called a narco-submarine, vessels made of fiberglass that are extremely hard to detect using radar and are commonly used by drug traffickers.

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A mini-submarine (pictured) carrying more than $200 million worth of cocaine was intercepted by authorities in Texas

Authorities (pictured near the mini-sub) said they intercepted the semi-submersible vessel attempting to bring 12,800 pounds or 5.5 tons of cocaine into the US

The crew (pictured on top of the sub) operating the vessel attempted to flee as officials approached them. Agents arrested four people and seized the cocaine

Because much of its structure is made of fiberglass and it travels mainly below the water surface, it is virtually impossible to detect via sonar or radar.

These vessels can carry a crew of at least four and dive down at least 30 feet below the surface.

A vessels design depends on how far they can travel. A mini-sub with two diesel engines, and sophisticated navigational equipment could travel long distances up to 2,000 miles at a speed of up to 11 miles per hour, according to IndraStra.

A team of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents based in Corpus Christi, Texas, detected the self-propelled vessel earlier this month while conducting counter narcotics operations using a P-3 Long Range Tracker, according to their website.

Moments later, the sub, which officials said originated in the 'Eastern Pacific Ocean', became unstable and it along with the cocaine sank to the ocean floor

Authorities are unsure where the mini submarine came from or how it came to be in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, but these vessels have been used to transport drugs from Colombia as early as the 1990s. The map shows Corpus Christi, Texas, in relation to where the sub may have been found along the coast

In the video, the crew operating the vessel attempted to flee as officials approached them.

Agents arrested four people and attempted to seize the cocaine.

But moments later, the sub, which officials said originated in the 'Eastern Pacific Ocean', became unstable and it and the cocaine sank to the ocean floor.

The task force coordinated an interdiction of the semi-submersible with a U.S. Coast Guard vessel in the area while an Air and Marines Operations crew maintained constant visual surveillance.

The semi-submersible became unstable and sank.

'This type of cooperation and teamwork produces these kinds of results where suspects are arrested and narcotics prevented from reaching U.S. shores,' said Director John Wassong at the National Air Security Operations Center - Corpus Christi.

'Our crews will continue to take every opportunity to disrupt this type of transnational criminal activity.'

It's unclear where the mini submarine came from or how it came to be in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Authorities said the submarine used is one that is common among drug traffickers. Pictured a narco-submarine moments before interception by the U.S. Coast Guard in August 2007 (file image)

In the 2015 fiscal year, US Customs and Border Protection aircrews contributed to seizure of 213,000 pounds of cocaine. Pictured is the US Coast Guard detaining personnel aboard a self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) captured in the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Central America in 2009 (file image)

In the 2015 fiscal year, US Customs and Border Protection aircrews contributed to 198 seizure, disruption, or interdiction events in the transit zone, resulting in the interdiction of 213,000 pounds of cocaine in the 42-million-square-mile area they patrol.

The Coast Guard caught a similar vessel carrying 12,000 pounds of cocaine off the coast of Central America in August and have previously intercepted almost 43,000 pounds at once, according to ABC News.
A suspect in a Tucson hit-and-run incident spent five days on the run before police caught up with him near Phoenix, where the suspect was arrested Thursday after a spectacular high-speed car chase that was captured on camera.

Aerial footage shows Joshua Monigold, 32, feeling from cops in a white truck around 5pm, which he at one point abandoned to try to steal a motorcycle at a red light near Mesa Community College southeast of Phoenix.

After fighting with the rider and failing to steal the bike, Monigold got back into his truck and ran over the motorcycle before continuing his flight, video shows.

The chase lasted for about an hour, police told Daily Mail Online.

At an intersection near Mesa Community College, Joshua Monigold, 32, briefly abandoned his truck to try to steal a motorcycle

He threw the rider off the bike but was met with resistance and the two men began fist fighting in the street

The men brawled for a few second before arriving officers forced Monigold to abandon the hijacking attempt

Monigold then got back into his truck as cops pulled up close and exited their vehicles with drawn weapons

The suspect ran over the motorcycle after he got back into his truck and took off

The chase proceeded along Interstate 10 where police eventually brought him to a crashing halt with a PIT maneuver, ABC15 reported.

'[The truck] flipped over and a body just landed right in front of me,' a witness told ABC15.

'He was about 30 feet in the air before he hit the ground,' the witness said.

After the crash, Monigold still had 'plenty of fight left in him... to argue and put up a little bit of a resistance,' a Mesa police officer told CBS5 Arizona.

Joshua Monigold, 32, led police on an hour-long chase Thursday that ended with the suspect flipping his truck. Police say he still put up a fight after crashing

Monigold tried to steal this motorcycle from rider Brandon Jenkins, who fought back

The chase ended around 6pm after Monigold crashed his truck on Interstate 10 south of Phoenix

Police had been searching for Monigold since a woman was seriously injured in a hit-and-run crash in Tucson on March 19,Tucson News Now reported.

Monigold became the prime suspect in that crash after police found his wallet and cellphone at the scene, Marana Police Sgt. Chris Warren told Daily Mail Online.

Police said Monigold abandoned his red Dodge truck at the scene of that incident and fled on foot, and that the white truck from Thursday's car chase could have been stolen.

Police were looking to nab Monigold on a felony charge of leaving the scene of a collision with injuries for the March 19 crash, but couldn't locate him for five days.

The man whose motorcycle Monigold tried to steal and then destroyed on Thursday said his first instinct was to defend himself.

'I had instincts that kicked in and where I've been in life I learned to defend myself. And I don't back down from anybody,' Brandon Jenkins told ABC15.

'One minute this dude is trying to rip me off my bike and I'm trying to fight him, and then I see two cops pull up and draw their firearms.'

Brandon Jenkins fought back when Monigold tried to steal his motorcycle. I don't back down from anybody,' he said

Jenkins' motorcycle was ruined after the incident and he intends to press charges against Monigold

'I was just pissed more than anything else because my bike was trashed,' said Jenkins, a military veteran who plans to press charges against Monigold.

Pictures posted on social media show Monigold has a 'White Pride' tattoo across his torso, and a 'Peckerwood' tattoo across his chest, which appears to refer to a white supremacist prison gang.

Monigold has served seven years behind bars since 2003, and had been arrested 17 times on charges including felony burglary, robbery, extortion and drug and weapons charges, ABC15 reported.
A Swiss police guard and her Syrian rapist lover she broke out of jail with have been captured in Italy, after more than a month on the run.

Angela Magdici, 32, opened the cell door for serial rapist Hassan Kiko, 27, during a night shift at Limmattal prison in Zurich, and vanished with him while her colleague was taking a nap.

The couple were arrested early this morning in Romano di Lombardia, a small town close to Milan. Italian police also found the getaway BMW X1 they had used to cross the border.

Serial rapist Hassan Kiko, 27, (left) broke out of prison with the help of Angela Magdici, 32, (right)

Kiko, pictured, was jailed for four years for raping a 15-year-old girl in a friend's car

Their arrest comes four days after they released a video, in which Kiko complained about the 'crap food' in prison and Magdici justified her actions by saying she did it 'out of love'.

They had been staying at an apartment block in the town and the same black BMW [bought for Magdici by her former lover] was parked outside.

Swiss police told Blick newspaper an extradition procedure was ongoing.

The pair had been on the run since their escape on February 9.

She had become fascinated with Syria and started reading the Koran before helping her asylum seeker love break out of prison.

Magdici walked out on her husband, Vasile, 25, after she cleaned out their bank accounts

Kiko had been serving four years for raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl in a friend's car and the attempted rape and sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman.

Swiss police have now arrested Magdici and her Syrian rapist lover Kiko after they broke out of prison

In a video posted by they pair last week they taunted the authorities for failing to catch them.

In a separate video, Kiko complained about the food in jail while puffing on a cigarette.

He said: 'This crap food, which I was always given by these crap people.'

He then went on to claim had been abused in jail showing what he said were bruises on his legs and neck, and complaining he had been forced to share a section of the jail with people who are HIV positive. He then insisted he was innocent and said there was no evidence the rape had ever taken place.

Magdici said: 'What we did was a result of love.'

She added: 'I want to apologise to my family. Everything was so surreptitious but it was not possible to say anything before vanishing from your lives. I am really sorry, and I love you all very much.'
An Iowa man is being forced to cover child support payments 16 years after separating with his spouse, despite him not being the father.

Joe Vandusen was shocked when he received a letter from the Iowa Department of Human Resources last month requesting the payments.

He told WQAD: 'I opened it up and it was child support, for a kid that is not even mine.'

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Joe Vandusen (left and right) was shocked when he received a letter from the Iowa Department of Human Resources last month requesting he pay for child that he did not father

The child was born a year ago to his long estranged wife - who he has not had any contact with whatsoever for about 16 or 17 years.

But, since Vandusen has never divorced from his wife - despite their long-term separation - he is legally responsible for the child.

And Child Support Recovery Unit are now demanding he pays up.

He said: 'I explained to her this is not my child. I'm willing to do a paternity test and she flat out told me it does not matter, you're legally married to her.

'You're going to pay child support.'

While the couple broke up some time ago, because the child was born when they were technically still married, Iowa - and many other states such as Texas, Michigan and Alabama - require the husband to pay support.

But Vandusen believes that the law should be corrected.

He said: 'I think it's wrong, it shows Iowa needs to change their laws.'

CHILDREN BORN UNDER MARRIAGE: THE LAW EXPLAINED 'The husband is presumed to be the father of a child born during or after his marriage to the mother. In some states, there is an irrefutable presumption of paternity. This means that if a child is born during the marriage, you will be deemed the father, even if a DNA later says otherwise. 'Other states do allow you to rebut, or challenge, paternity if you comply within strict time limits to challenge paternity. 'If you consent to your divorce being finalized without contesting paternity, you will forever be deemed the father. 'This presumption cannot be rebutted, even if you didn't have reason to believe the child was not yours. 'Once a judgment or order decrees that you are the father of a child, challenging the judgment with an appeal or motion, even on grounds like fraud , is very time sensitive and difficult.' Source: Family-Law.freeadvice.com Advertisement

Vandusen has two biological children and is also helping to raise two non-biological children with his current girlfriend of five years

Vandusen, who was born in Kentucky according to Facebook, has two biological children and is also helping to raise two non-biological children with his current girlfriend of five years.

A spokesperson from the Iowa Department of Human Resources told WQAD that by law he is considered the legal father of the new child and that his only recourse is to petition the court to 'de-establish' paternity.

But this would mean going to court and hiring an attorney, which Vandusen cannot afford.

He said that since was recently laid off, he and his family are already struggling financially and are not able to afford the $2,000 retainer fee that a lawyer requires.
The father of a seven-year-old boy who was asked to leave a plane while on a family 'bucket list' trip last month because of an allergic reaction has died.

Christina Fabian, the mother of Giovanni Alvarado told KING-TV Thursday that his father, George, had died after battling esophageal cancer.

She shared an image of her husband smiling to Facebook on Thursday and captioned it: 'Today, my heart flew to heaven'.

In February they were on a family 'bucket list' trip to create memories for the youngster with George, who did not have much time to live.

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Heartbreaking: George Alvarado has lost his battle with stage four throat cancer nearly a month after being kicked off an Allegiant flight with his son, Giovanni, (pictured together above), because the seven-year-old suffered an allergic reaction

The family was trying to return home from a 'bucket list' trip to visit family in Bellingham, Washington. The young boy was heartbroken when passengers clapped as the family were forced to get off the plane. 'I am sad that this had to be a memory with my dad,' Giovanni (pictured above)

Giovanni's mother Christina (pictured with her husband) also blasted a flight attendant who 'hastily smirked' and informed her that there are dogs on every flight

They went to visit family in Bellingham, Washington and were heading back home to Phoenix, Arizona when Giovanni suffered an allergic reaction to a dog on board the Allegiant Airlines plane.

He broke out in hives causing the flight to be delayed on February 24.

Giovanni began scratching all over and his reaction delayed take-off. Around 90 minutes later, the family were asked to get off the plane.

It was at this point that passengers at the back of the plane began clapping as the family exited the aircraft, hurting the child's feelings.

The trip was supposed to be a special one where the family could make happy memories, Giovanni told KING5.

'I am sad that this had to be a memory with my dad,' he told the news station at the time. 'People who don't have sadness, they don't understand.'

His father said he felt 'hopeless' when the passengers began applauding their exit.

In a Facebook post about the incident, Christina Alvarado branded the behavior of the passengers 'disgusting'.

The trip was supposed to be a special one where the family could make happy memories, Giovanni said. Above he is pictured with his father

She said: 'We are not angry that we were deplaned. In fact, my husband and I appreciate that our son is safe.'

She added: 'What crushed us was that our seven-year-old boy looked at us with tear-filled eyes and said, 'I'm sorry that I put you through this. This is all my fault.'

'Then he proceeded to say 'I can't believe people clapped. They shouldn't do that because they never know who already has sadness in their hearts.'

'He was making memories with his father. Memories that you have now become part of.

'He will never forget that you clapped as he deboarded that plane. Thank you for your insulting, ignorant, insinuating comments that minimized my son's experience and make a horrible memory at the end of my husband's life.'

'Shame on you for being so cruel. What would you have done if he had stayed silent and died on that flight?'

George said he felt 'hopeless' when the passengers began applauding their exit. Above he is pictured with his wife and Giovanni's mother, Christina

She added that she was not sure why her son had such a severe reaction, but attributed it to the 'immense amount of stress' he has suffered lately.

'He has been forced to helplessly witness terminal cancer ravish through his father's body [sic]' she added.

Giovanni's mother also blasted a flight attendant who 'hastily smirked' and informed her that there are dogs on every flight.

'Instead of diffusing the situation, you added insult to injury and perpetuated the attitudes of other passengers.'

The family eventually made it home after catching the next available flight with the carrier.

George Alvarado said at the time that people do not know how much time another person has left to live or whether they are hurting internally.

'Just be nice,' he said. 'Be kind.'

George Alvarado (pictured with his son) urged people to 'be kind' as they do not know how much time another person has left to live or whether they are hurting internally

An Allegiant spokeswoman told Daily Mail Online that she was not able to confirm whether or not passengers on board the plane applauded as the Alvarado family left the flight.

She said it has been in contact with the family and apologized to the Alvarado family for their negative experience - and added that they were only asked to leave after staff contacted a medical professional for advice.

'We are truly sorry for the unfortunate circumstances surrounding their planned itinerary and for the inconvenience they have experienced as a result,' she said.

The spokesman said the crew had followed the company's standard protocol when it came to passengers suffering a medical problem on board and consulted a third party about whether Giovanni should fly.

Thursday Christina shared the picture above to Facebook of her husband smiling and captioned it: 'Today, my heart flew to heaven'

'In instances where passengers become ill or experience other medical issues, Allegiant, like many major air carriers, works with a third party organization to make decisions to ensure the safety of passenger in question.

'This third party team includes medical doctors who are available 24 hours a day to provide guidance to our ground and inflight crew members.

'Based on the advice of the third party physician, decisions are made about whether or not it is the safest course of action to allow a passenger to continue on board.'
This is the dramatic moment a group of migrants were rescued by the Italian coastguard after they found themselves in trouble in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

A crew came to the rescue of the stricken group today, after their dinghy filled with water as they attempted to make the dangerous journey across the water.

The shocking footage shows the group trying to clamber to safety as Italian teams haul them onto the rescue boat.

The group of migrants were rescued by the coastguard after they found themselves in trouble in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea

Tweeting details of the dramatic rescue from its Twitter account, the Italian coast guard said those rescued were 'all men, [and of] Afghan and Pakistani origin.'

More than 3,000 migrants have been rescued from boats in the Strait of Sicily in the last week, and emergency services have recovered three corpses, according to Italy's coast guard.

Now into the second year of its worst migration crisis since World War Two, Europe has seen more than 1.2 million arrivals, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, since the beginning of 2015.

Italy's coast guard has continued to pick up migrants in trouble in the stretch of water between its southern coast and North Africa, although most people seeking a better life in Europe have taken less dangerous routes to Greece.

Tweeting details of the dramatic rescue from its Twitter account, the Italian coast guard said those rescued were 'all men, [and of] Afghan and Pakistani origin'

Just last Saturday, the Italian coast guard said more than 900 migrants were rescued in four separate operations in the Strait of Sicily

Just last Saturday (March 19), the Italian coast guard said more than 900 migrants were rescued in four separate operations in the Strait of Sicily, while Libyan authorities said they had rescued nearly 600 migrants from four boats, one of which sank.

A spokesman for Libyan naval forces, Ayoub Qassem, said the bodies of four dead women had been recovered, and some migrants were still missing.

Those rescued off the coast of western Libya on Saturday included migrants from sub-Saharan African countries and from Bangladesh, Qassem said.

The footage shows the men trying to clamber to safety as Italian teams haul them onto the rescue boat

The Italian coast guard said it had rescued 378 migrants in two separate operations on Saturday.

Another 112 migrants were picked up by a vessel operated for the European Union border agency Frontex and another 420 people by a ship under the EU's EUNAVFOR mission in the Mediterranean.

The rescue comes as Italian officials said there had been a spike in migration due to the good weather, with ships picking up thousands of migrants in a matter of days, mainly from Libya.
German experts who ordered post-mortems on 13 dead whales say that the animal's stomachs and intestines were full of plastic.

The 13 dead bodies were washed up on the beach near the German town of Toenning in Schleswig-Holstein.

According to the post-mortem they had died of cardiac and circulatory failure.

Environmentalists hold up some of the rubbish found in the stomachs of 13 dead sperm whales who washed up on a German beach following some violent winter storms which prevented them from finding calamari

Environmentalists ordered a post mortem on the 13 whales who were found on the German North Sea coast

According to experts, the animals were starving when they died although the plastic did not cause their death

In total 30 sperm whales have turned up dead on the German North Sea coast since the beginning of the year including the 13 bodies found in Schleswig-Holstein.

Ursula Siebert from the Hanover Veterinary College said that they did not believe the large amount of rubbish found inside the intestines of the sperm whales had been the reason that they died.

She said that instead it was believed that violent storms in the north-eastern Atlantic had shifted water and along with that the calamari which is one of the main foods of the sperm well into the North Sea.

She said it was believed that the sperm whales had followed food, and had got into ever shallower water before finally ending up stranded.

She said that all of the animals were young males, aged between 10 and 15 and weighing between 12 and 18 tonnes. She said that they appeared to have no problems with their internal organs and a normal number of parasites.

The animals however were also apparently starving, and had probably last eaten when they were in Norwegian waters according to the investigation.

The post mortems found the whales had not eaten anything other than plastic in the days before they died

One of the whales managed to consume a 13-metre long fishing net as well as the engine cover of a car

A 15 ton sperm whale would need to eat around 450 kg of food to sustain itself but in their stomachs there was no evidence that they had eaten anything recently other than plastic.

The rubbish removed included a fisherman's net that was 13 m long and 1.2 m wide, as well as a 70 cm long plastic cover from the engine compartment of a car, and the sharp edge remains of a plastic bucket.
A swimming academy has caused outrage after using a picture of drowned toddler refugee boy Aylan Kurdi to encourage children to sign up for lessons.

The Brazilian swim school took out an ad in a local paper which included the shocking photo of the three-year-old youngster lying face down on a beach in Turkey after drowning during a failed attempt to leave behind war-torn Syria and reach Greece by boat with relatives.

Academy bosses wrote alongside the picture in Portuguese: 'Nine months to be born, three years to grow and two minutes to be alone and drown in a minute.'

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The FitFlex Aquacenter used an image of dead toddler Aylan Kurdi to promote its swimming lessons

The toddler died after the boat his family was travelling on capsized after leaving Bodrum in Turkey

A message alongside a larger picture of a healthy smiling toddler swimming underwater in a pool above the photo of Aylan, read: 'Swimming isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for children's development and security.'

The shocking FitFlex Aquacenter ad, published in a weekly local paper in the city of Esteio in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, went viral after it was picked up by a Facebook group run by advertising professionals.

Appalled marketing student Gael Do Val wrote: 'It makes total sense. If your child learns to swim at this academy he will be such a brilliant f****** student that he will able to cross the sea at night in winter.'

Enraged mum Ellen Ribeiro added: 'What ridiculous people. Taking advantage of the image of a dead child to sell something. This is unacceptable.'

Twitter users expressed outrage after the poignant image was used to promote swimming lessons

Student Aurelio Levino raged: 'What can you say about a company that doesn't respect such an unforgettably tragic moment!!

'How will a firm that doesn't respect something so sad act with its clients?

'They're garbage for doing what they've done. Let me use a photo of their dead children to sell my business and make money out of their pictures.'

Joao Marcelo Guizzo, one of the hundreds of outraged Facebook users to respond, added: 'Whoever came up with this ad hasn't got any feelings.'

Academy director Vinicius Maciel confirmed last night the swim school was behind the ad and insisted he was surprised at the criticism.

He said the idea had been to raise peoples' awareness of the serious problem of children drowning, but confirmed he would not be using the controversial picture of Aylan again given peoples' reactions to it.

In a statement issued today which only went halfway to calming public anger, the academy said: 'At the end of February, following the tragic death from drowning of a child near to the academy, we decided to do something to highlight this problem which is when we published this notice in a local paper.

'We were trying to show that children don't only die in wars and that children close to us can accidentally die from drowning.

'In Brazil the second cause of accidental child deaths is drowning and yet we speak very little about this problem. Every four days a child drowns in our country.

'We are aware this ad went viral because of the negative reaction to it.

'We did something to alert people to a problem and made a mistake but at least we did something.

'We ask others who are also in a position to do something, to divulge ways in which lives can be saved in our cities.

'At no time did we intend to disrespect anyone and as soon as we received the negative feedback, we withdrew the photo from the ad.'

Two Syrian men were jailed in Turkey earlier this month over their role in Aylan's death.

Mufawaka Alabash and Asem Alfrhad were sentenced to four years and two months for smuggling but cleared of wilful neglect by a court in Bodrum.

They had faced up to 35 years in prison had they been convicted of causing the death of five people last September including Aylan, his mum Rihan and his brother Galip, 'through deliberate negligence.' as they tried to cross the Aegean Sea from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos.

The Syrian toddler was born into war, living in the border town of Kobane before travelling with his relatives in the hope of a new life in Canada.

The photo of little Aylan in a T-shirt and shorts inspired an outpouring of sympathy for the refugees fleeing the bloodbath of Syria.

Turkish officials say authorities in 2015 detained more than 4,400 smugglers who organise the perilous sea journeys to Europe in frail boats.
McCullough called his parents from Rockford, 35 miles away from Sycamore, minutes after the abduction

A man sentenced to life in prison for killing and abducting a seven-year-old girl couldn't have committed the crime, a prosecutor found.

Jack McCullough, 76, was found guilty in 2012 of slaying Maria Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois, in 1957.

Maria vanished in December that year and was found dead several months later. The slaying remained a mystery for decades before McCullough, who was initially cleared in the case, was charged in 2011.

But a prosecutor cleared him again on Friday after reviewing new evidence.

Jack McCullough, 76 (pictured in court in January), was found guilty in 2012 of abducting and killing Maria Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois, in 1957 and sentenced to life in prison

DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack said his six-month review firmed up McCullough's alibi.

Schmack is now convinced it was a 'manifest impossibility' that McCullough could have been anywhere near the area when Maria disappeared.

McCullough was a neighbor at the time of the killing. He was charged after a renewed effort was launched to solve the case.

Schmacks' office was ordered to the conduct the review as part of a push by McCullough's attorney for a new trial.

The new evidence included recently subpoenaed phone records.

They proved that McCullough made a collect call to his parents from a phone booth in the city of Rockford, about 35 miles from Sycamore, just minutes after the abduction took place.

This had always been McCullough's professed alibi, but it had previously come under doubt.

Testimony that the abduction had taken place earlier has been discredited, Schmack said, meaning there was no possibility McCullough could have committed the crime and driven to Rockford in time to place that call.

Maria (pictured) disappeared in December 1957 and was found dead several months later

'It is a manifest impossibility for [McCullough] to have been in Sycamore at 6:45 and also have made a phone call in downtown Rockford at 6:57,' Schmack wrote in the review according to the Chicago Tribune.

Schmack also said that some of the evidence that led to McCullough's conviction was 'mistaken' and 'false'.

This included the testimony of Kathy Sigman, Maria's friend, who saw the little girl's kidnapper in 1957.

She picked his photo out of six pictures when McCullough was named as a suspect in 2010.

Schmack said she committed an 'unintentional and tragic mistake' when she identified McCullough as the kidnapper.

'Kathy viewed the array 53 years after the fact, and one week after being told there was a new and viable suspect in Maria's murder,' he said according to the Chicago Tribune. 'The photos were displayed by an officer who knew which photo was the suspect, a practice now outlawed in Illinois.

'The array was suggestive in the extreme. The other five photos were professional yearbook photos with light backgrounds of young men wearing suit coats. Conversely, McCullough's photo was a snapshot, with a dark background, of him in a shirt with no coat.'

The slaying remained a mystery for decades before McCullough, who was initially cleared in the case, was charged in 2011. Pictured, Maria's grave in Sycamore

Schmack, who did not prosecute the case, added in a statement: 'I know there are people who will never believe that he is not responsible for the crime. But I cannot allow that to sway me from my sworn duty.'

Charles Ridulph, Maria's brother, told the Chicago Tribune he disagreed with Schmack's conclusion.

'We've met with him two times in the last six months and they have not been good meetings,' he told the newspaper. 'He's been working with the defense attorney almost from the start and he's made no qualms about it.'

McCullough's public defender, Tom McCulloch, said he would file a motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday, when McCullough appears in court.

Schmack's office will not oppose the motion.

It is not clear when McCullough could be freed.
A manor house that has been in the same family for the last 200 years is on sale for just the third time in its history.

The owners of Tunstall House, a Grade I listed building in the pretty village of Tunstall, near Sittingbourne in Kent, can be traced over five centuries.

The grand home, which has been passed down through generations, is now on the market for 1.95million.

Tunstall House, a Grade I listed building in the pretty village of Tunstall, near Sittingbourne in Kent has gone on the market for the third time since it was built in 1660

The house, which has a swimming pool and its own walled garden, is on sale at a guide price of 1.95million

The house was owned by the vicar of Sittingbourne in 1755 and was briefly used as a girls' boarding school before being sold to a wealthy farmer

Estate agent at Strutt & Parker, Edward Church said it is a mark of what a special house it is that the families who have lived there have not wanted to sell it.

The house was built in about 1660 for John Grove, the steward of a local landowner called Sir Edward Hales, and three generations of the Grove family lived there before it was sold to the vicar of Sittingbourne, Rev Thomas Bland, in 1755.

During his 54-year ownership the house was briefly used as a girls' boarding school and it was then sold in 1809 to William Lacey Murton, a land agent and farmer.

The seven-bedroom property has been described by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments as 'a remarkably complete example of a small gentry house of the mid-17th century'

The house has all the usual reception rooms you would expect to find - drawing room, dining hall, conservatory - as well as some quirky rooms known as the milk room and telephone room

The house was built in about 1660 for John Grove, the steward of a local landowner called Sir Edward Hales, and three generations of the Grove family lived there before it was sold in 1809.

Unusually, three of his daughters married three Webb brothers and the Murton and Webb families have owned Tunstall House ever since.

The seven-bedroom property has been described by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments as 'a remarkably complete example of a small gentry house of the mid-17th century'.

With 9,193 sq ft of accommodation, the manor house has all the usual reception rooms you would expect to find - drawing room, dining hall, conservatory - as well as some quirkily named rooms that hint at its past.

The milk room, a small space with thick walls that was traditionally used to store milk because it was the coldest room, is still used as a cool pantry for things like cheese and drinks.

The Murton and Webb families have owned Tunstall House ever since it was bought by William Lacey Murton in 1809

Mr Church said it was a sign of a good property that the house had been in the family for so long

'The families that have owned Tunstall House have looked after it, maintained it and loved it, which reinforces the quality of the property' Mr Church added

The telephone room, which would have been created in the early 20th century when telephones were introduced into people's homes, has now become a small study and the former servants' hall and butler's bedroom have become a games room and a store room.

It even has a 'clock room' which houses the mechanism for the clock which is visible on the outside of the property.

Many original features have been retained such as wood panelling and ornate carved fireplaces.

Outside the house has a walled courtyard and a swimming pool.

Edward Church from Strutt & Parker said: 'It's very unusual to come across a property that hasn't been on the market for 200 years.

'It's always something that indicates a very special property because people hold on to good houses.

The house is in the picturesque village of Tunstall, which is less than an hour drive from central London

The current owners, the Webbs, can't find a way to pass the house down to the next generation so have decided to move on

'And it's very rare to be able to trace the lineage of ownership of a house across five centuries from when it was built to the present day.

'The families that have owned Tunstall House have looked after it, maintained it and loved it, which reinforces the quality of the property.

'They've continued to call the rooms by the names they went by - such as the telephone room, the servants' hall and the butler's bedroom - even though the servants are long gone.

'The milk room was traditionally where the milk was kept because it was the coldest room and they do still use that as a cool room to keep cheese and drinks.

For 2.85million a buyer can also get The Stables, a converted four-bedroom house, and various parcels of land and outbuildings, which covers 54 acres in all

'It's just a very beautiful house and it's got some real character and interest.

'The Webb family have reached that time where there isn't an obvious way to pass it on to the next generation so they have decided it's time to move on.

'Tunstall is a very pretty village and you can get to central London within an hour but it's not terribly well known about.

'I think people will be surprised that you can buy a house of that quality, at that price, so close to London.

'It's a very fine house at a very good price.'
Scantily-clad prostitutes in an Italian city could be hit with fines of up to 400 for dressing provocatively.

Enzo Napoli, mayor of Salerno, has introduced the new rules following a spike in the number of sex workers in the city.

There have also been reports of sexual encounters taking place in the Salerno squares.

An Italian city has introduced a law that will mean wearing high heels or skimpy skirts could be fined

The new rules mean prostitutes wearing skimpy skirts, high heels or 'acting flirtatiously' could be fined for 'violating urban decorum'.

It is hoped the law will make women less attractive to clients and less visible to residents and tourists.

A Salerno council spokesman said: 'Unfortunately, you can't fine somebody for the intention to prostitute - which makes it difficult to counteract the phenomenon.

'Instead, we are encouraging police to fine indiscreet and brazen prostitutes for violating urban decorum.'

He added: 'The recent rise in prostitution has come just as we are expecting our annual influx of foreign visitors, so it's important that we act to protect the reputation of our town.'

In Italy prostitution is not illegal, but pimping [living off the earnings of a prostitute] and brothels all are.

In the past, other towns have brought in creative measures to help them crack down on prostitutes such as banning miniskirts and forcing them to wear high visability jackets.

Other cities, including Rome, have created 'tolerance zones' by setting aside areas of the city where street prostitutes can work without fear of police intervention.
A Russian soldier has died a 'hero' after wiping out a band of ISIS fighters by calling in airstrikes on himself.

The special forces officer was on a one-man mission to track down ISIS militants in the area around Palmyra, when he found himself surrounded by enemy fighters.

Caught in a hopeless situation, he directed Russian aircraft to bomb his location, killing himself and the ISIS fighters that surrounded him.

A Russian soldier died in an airstrike that he directed on himself after finding himself surrounded by ISIS militants near Palmyra. Pictured, Iraqi soldiers fire a rocket toward ISIS fighters on the outskirt of the Makhmour south of Mosul, Iraq

The special forces officer was on a one-man mission to track down ISIS militants in the area around Palmyra, when he found himself surrounded by enemy fighters

An officer of Russian special operations forces was killed near Palmyra while carrying out a special task to direct Russian airstrikes at Islamic State group targets, said a spokesperson for the Russian military.

The officer was carrying out a combat task in Palmyra area for a week, identifying crucial ISIS targets and passing exact coordinates for strikes with Russian planes.

The officer died as a hero, he drew fire onto himself after being located and surrounded by terrorists.

The Russian campaign began on September 30, but few details of the soldiers on the ground have emerged since.

ISIS media claimed last week that five Russian special forces officers had been killed near Palmyra, sharing images and videos of a body.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied at the time that Russian officers were participating in the advance on Palmyra, which has been under ISIS control since May 2015.

He instead claimed 'the advance is carried out by contingents of the Syrian army', with support from Russian warplanes and allied militia on the ground.

ISIS have been forced into a retreat across Iraq and Syria having lost some major sections of territory

Iraqi troops have launched a major offensive to recapture the strategically important town of Mosul, after Syrian forces successfully marched into Palmyra following a desert offensive

Iraqi forces have won back much of the territory seized by the terror group during their 2014 blitzkrieg

Moscows defence ministry said Russian aircraft carried out 146 strikes on terrorist targets in the Palmyra area between Wednesday and last Sunday.

It comes the day after Syrian troops entered Palmyra, with photographs emerging of Bashar al-Assad's forces within the ancient city itself.

Meanwhile, the ISIS second-in-command Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli has been killed in bombing raids in Syria.

The ISIS finance minister had a $7million bounty on his head, and US defence officials have claimed his death will make it more difficult for ISIS to operate and pay its fighters.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said US forces are 'systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet. We killed several key ISIL terrorists this week'.

Syrian troops today recaptured a mansion belonging to a member of the Qatari royal family in Palmyra

Members of the Syrian Amry celebrated their victory over ISIS in the city of Palmyra earlier today

He said: 'They will be replaced but we will continue to go after their leadership.'

The U.S. military has killed numerous ISIS leaders in recent months. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the Islamic State's 'minister of war', in an airstrike in Syria.

In November, the Pentagon said an airstrike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top ISIS leader.

The Iraqi army said Thursday its troops and allied militia had launched what is expected to be a long and difficult offensive to retake the second city of Mosul, ISIS's main hub in Iraq.

The army did not say how long this phase of the operation was expected to take and Iraqi forces still look far from being in a position to take the city itself.

The joint operations command is coordinating the battle by Iraqi security forces to retake the large parts of the country seized by ISIS during a lightning offensive in 2014.

It comes as US Defense Secretary Ash Carter (right) announced the death of ISIS second-in-command Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli (left)

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford listens at left as Defence Secretary Ash Carter announced the death of the ISIS finance minister

Iraqi forces have spent the last 12 months training and rearming before beginning the major offensive to retake Mosul, a key strategic hub for ISIS

It includes representatives from the US-led coalition that has provided air support, training and military advisers for the Iraqi army in its fightback.

Iraqi forces have scored important recent gains against ISIS, including by last month retaking Anbar provincial capital Ramadi.

But Mosul - which along with Raqqa in Syria is one of the jihadists' two main hubs - would be a major prize.

Experts have warned that any battle to retake the city will be difficult, given the significant number of jihadists and civilians in the city and the time ISIS has had to prepare defences.
A Kentucky man who claims to have made as much as $100,000 annually by panhandling while pretending to be mentally disabled has pleaded guilty to similar duping charges.

Gary Hank Thompson, 33, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court to defrauding the Supplemental Security Administration by failing to report income and falsely misrepresenting his mental condition to receive benefits.

Thompson, who has been dubbed the 'bogus beggar,' admitted that between 2009 and 2013, he made the misrepresentations to receive Supplemental Security Income benefits amounting to $24,884.

He also admitted that he obtained $81,831 in Medicaid benefits.

Gary Hank Thompson, 33, (left and right) pleaded guilty Wednesday to duping charges. He feigned a mental disability while begging and claims he made upwards of $100,000 annually

Thompson has been accused of falsely representing his mental condition by slowing his speech and stuttering when he sought benefits.

When he was first brought to the attention of Lexington police in February 2103, a spokeswoman told Kentucky.com that Thompson pretended to be handicapped by by 'using slurred, slowed speech, contorting his face and holding one hand close to his body as if he doesn't have use of it'.

Spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts added: 'He handles himself in such a way that it's very offensive and almost mocking of people who have legitimate disabilities.'

And while Thompson has trouble walking and sometimes uses a wheelchair, his mental handicap is 'totally made up', she said.

Regular haunt: Thompson was known to frequent the Zandale shopping center on Nicholasville Road for his panhandling

He was known to frequent the Zandale shopping center on Nicholasville Road, the Lansdowne shopping center on Tates Creek Road and in Hamburg, according to Kentucky.com.

Back in 2013, Thompson had pleaded guilty to two counts of theft by deception for taking money from shoppers under the guise of being handicapped, said Courier-Journal.com.

He was also seen aggressively panhandling in a wheelchair - which he did not need - in Louisville.

Thompson is already serving a 14-month-sentence for passing a bad check in Barren County and seven months for assaulting a corrections employee in Shelby County.
Tory councillors were in revolt yesterday over Government plans to force all schools to become academies.

The rebellion came as classrooms face widespread disruption this summer after teachers threatened to walk out over the reforms.

The rebel councillors include the politician responsible for education in David Cameron's own constituency.

The National Union of Teachers said strike action is on the table if ministers refuse to back down on the academy proposals, confirmed in a white paper earlier this month.

Members of the National Union of Teachers, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, and their supporters decent on Westminster for a 'Hands Off Our Schools' protest against the government's plans

It could mean schools across the country having to close for a day or reduce class timetables, forcing parents to take time off work to supervise their children.

Two years ago, a similar one-day walk-out forced 21 per cent of the country's schools to close  with almost all closed in some areas.

The NUT says forcing all schools to become academies would mean the end of standardised pay and conditions for teachers  as non-council run schools have freedom over these areas. It calls the proposal 'undemocratic' because it was not contained in the Conservative party's manifesto.

It hoped to work with leading Tories on Conservative-held county councils  who also voiced disquiet at the plans yesterday.

Melinda Tilley, cabinet member for education at Oxfordshire County Council  which covers the PM's Witney seat  warned small village schools could be at risk if academy chains decided they were no longer viable.

The NUT said strike action is on the table if ministers refuse to back down on the proposals, confirmed in a white paper earlier this month

STOP SCARING OFF NEW TEACHERS, EDUCATION SECRETARY TELLS UNIONS Teaching unions must stop 'adding to the problem' of staff recruitment by routinely running down the profession, the Education Secretary will warn today. Nicky Morgan, right, will argue they have a duty to paint a more positive picture and help attract new entrants. Her landmark speech to the NASUWT annual conference in Birmingham this morning is likely to anger delegates. It is the first time a Conservative Education Secretary has addressed the event since 1997. The union says a fifth of teachers are hitting the bottle harder while others are smoking more and knocking back caffeine to cope. Its survey of more than 5,000 teachers found that 77 per cent believe there are 'widespread' behaviour problems in schools. Miss Morgan will ask the conference why teachers are not telling 'the story of what a rewarding job teaching really is? That would be stepping up. Choosing to be part of the solution to the challenges we face in recruiting teachers.' She will insist there will be 'no pulling back' from the Government's reforms. Advertisement

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'It means a lot of little primary schools will be forced to go into multi-academy trusts and I feel it's the wrong time, in the wrong place, for little primary schools to be forced into this.

'There could be a few little village schools that get lost in all this.'

Roger Gough, Conservative councillor in charge of education in Kent, said the policy would cost his council millions. 'I don't think there is demonstrable evidence that there is a systemic improvement in performance and certainly not anything that would justify upheaval on this scale,' he said.

Tory councillor Peter Edgar, of Hampshire County Council, added: 'To force all schools would be ridiculously expensive and in my view the wrong thing to do and could cause in the interim a drop in standards.'

Tories on North Yorkshire County Council and Leicestershire County Council also disagreed with the plans.

Education secretary Nicky Morgan said schools are more likely to produce better results as academies

Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said: 'We genuinely believe there is both very wide and very deep opposition to this. We think it's in the frame of the Government wanting to behave in a way that's not democratic.

'If they had thought about academising all schools, they could have gone to the country with that as part of their manifesto. We believe there is a very wide range of people that think this is an appalling proposal.'

Teachers are this weekend due to vote on whether to form a plan to ballot for action during the NUT annual conference in Brighton. The motion suggests discussing a timetable with other unions to begin with a one-day strike 'before the end of summer term'.

It would be over the 'threat to jobs, pay and terms' of the academies programme and squeeze on school funding. The Government wants all schools to become academies by 2020, or at least be in the process of conversion.

Yesterday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn won a standing ovation after telling the conference: 'This is an ideological attack on teachers and on local and parental accountability.' Education secretary Nicky Morgan said schools were more likely to produce better results as academies, with multi-academy chains pulling up those performing badly. But the NUT said there was 'no evidence' of this.

In 2014, when NUT members went on strike over pensions and pay, London boroughs saw most schools close or partially close, including Barking and Dagenham, with 90 per cent affected, and Tower Hamlets with 87 per cent.

In Manchester, 126 out of 177 schools were fully or partly closed, while in Knowsley, Merseyside, 57 out of 60 schools were affected.
The Democrat also condemned the Republicans' remarks about Muslims and said her administration would not support torturing terrorism suspects

She mocked Cruz for suggesting 'carpet bombing' the Middle East and Trump for his plans to build a wall

Clinton also went after Trump and Cruz this week in her speech aimed at

He said 'both Trump's and Cruz's approaches are the kind of shoot-from-the-hip slogans that demonstrate what I fear is a stunning lack of knowledge about national security and about our fundamental values'

'These are not serious proposals. They are political slogans...They're reckless, and they won't work,' he said today of Trump's plans

Panetta is supporting Hillary Clinton for president and made the remarks during a call for reporters hosted by her campaign

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta castigated Donald Trump and Ted Cruz today for proposals he says are 'irresponsible,' and 'dangerous' and he believes will put the nation's security in peril.

'Donald Trump is saying we should torture people, and bomb families of terrorists, and walk away from NATO, and build walls and round up Muslims and keep them out of our country.

The ex-Obama administration official said, 'These are not serious proposals. They are political slogans and not strategies for dealing with this threat. They're reckless, and they won't work.'

Panetta is supporting Hillary Clinton for president and made the remarks during a call for reporters hosted by her campaign.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta castigated Donald Trump and Ted Cruz today for proposals he says are 'irresponsible,' and 'dangerous' and he believes will put the nation's security in peril.

The ex-Obama administration official said, 'These are not serious proposals. They are political slogans and not strategies for dealing with this threat. They're reckless, and they won't work.' He's seen here on Capitol Hill in January

'There's no question in my mind that the most qualified person to assume the duties of commander-in-chief and provide that necessary world leadership on day one is Secretary Hillary Clinton,' he told reporters today.

A former Army lieutenant who represented California in Congress, Panetta rose through the Democratic ranks to become director of the Office of Management and Budget. He later served as White House Chief of Staff during Bill Clinton's presidential administration.

Panetta was Barack Obama's first CIA Director, holding that title for nearly two and a half years, and his second Secretary of Defense. He stepped down three weeks after Hillary Clinton's final day as a member of Obama's cabinet.

Clinton is battling Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for the White House but is increasingly angling her attacks toward Republicans in the race as her party's primary winds down.

She had harsh words for both Cruz and Trump on Wednesday in the wake of the Brussels attacks.

The Democratic front-runner said it would 'be a serious mistake to begin carpet bombing populated areas into oblivion,' something the Texas senator has said he supported to take out ISIS in the Middle East.

'Proposing that doesn't make you sound tough, it makes you sound like you're in over your head,' the former secretary of state said.

'Slogans aren't a strategy, loose cannons tend to misfire,' she added.

Taking a Silicon Valley-themed jab at Trump's trademark line, Clinton stated 'When other candidates talk about building walls around America, I want to ask them, how high does the wall have to be to keep the internet out?'

Reacting to Clinton's speech today, Panetta said, it was 'statesman like, it was serious, it was tough, and I think it targeted the key objectives.'

'There is I believe a clear contrast in this election between Secretary Clinton's approach, which I believe is serious comprehensive and tough, to those proposals that are being recommended by Republican candidates,' he contended.

The former defense official said the proposals we're 'hearing from the other candidates in this race on the Republican side are very irresponsible and dangerous proposals that I think will put our national security at risk and further divide us from the very allies that we need in order to win this war against ISIS.'

Ted Cruz's plan to 'infiltrate' Muslim neighborhoods, which is hard to even understand, and sounds like a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of law abiding citizens,' he said, 'further antagonizes the Muslim communities, which we absolutely need to be on our side if we're ultimately going to win.'

'So both Trump's and Cruz's approaches are the kind of shoot-from-the-hip slogans that demonstrate what I fear is a stunning lack of knowledge about national security and about our fundamental values,' Panetta argued.

Panetta is supporting Hillary Clinton for president and made the remarks during a call for reporters hosted by her campaign.

Hillary Clinton said Wednesday the country should not be 'reckless' in the wake of the terrorist threat - seen play out this week in Brussels, Belgium - condemning comments made by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz

On Wednesday Clinton sprinkled condemnation of the duo throughout a counter-terrorism speech at Stanford University, delivered after Tuesday's ISIS attacks in Brussels.

'You know this is a very personal issue for me having served as a senator fro New York on 9/11,' she stated. 'Having seen the horrors that were produced by a well planned and executed attack on our country, [I know] how important it is that we stay ahead of those who wish to do us great harm.'

'Without panic, without paranoia, but with resolve,' she continued. 'Not to give into the very behaviors that the terrorists are hoping to engender.'

Clinton said the country's leaders shouldn't be 'reckless' before pinpointing a number of statements made by Trump and Cruz she thought fit the bill.

Beyond carpet bombing, Clinton advised that it was not smart for the country to engage in another ground war in the Middle East.

'If we've learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan it's that people and nations have to secure their own communities,' she said.

And she discussed statements both Republican candidates have made about Muslims.

Trump shocked the political establishment in December when he called for a complete ban of Muslims entering the United States, saying he wanted to put a temporary hold on letting in people of the religion in the aftermath of the ISIS-inspired attacks in San Bernardino, California.

'In our fight against radical Jihadism, we have to do what works,' Clinton said. 'One thing we know that does not work is offensive, inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes all Muslims.'

Hillary Clinton greeted attendees of today's national security address at Stanford University, which she catered to the Silicon Valley audience by mentioning technology several times

'They are most likely to recognize the warning signs of radicalization before it's too late. And the best positioned to block it,' she added.

She also took Cruz to task for saying this week that law enforcement should target Muslim-American neighborhoods to combat a growing 'radical Islamic terror' threat at home.

'So when Republican candidates like Ted Cruz call for treating American Muslims like criminals and for racial profiling predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, it's wrong, it's counter-productive, it's dangerous,' Clinton said.

On a broader scale, Clinton said comments like Cruz's impact alliances around the world.

'Having actually done this I can tell you insulting allies and partners is not a good way to start,' she said, touting her previous role as secretary of state.

While a number of Republicans, and some Democrats too, have said they wanted to stop the flow of Syrian refugees into the United States, Clinton cautiously took the opposite stance.

'It would be doubly cruel if ISIS can not only force families from their homes, but also prevent them from finding new ones,' she noted.

Trump's stance on NATO, which he suggested the United States should spend less money on, instead having other allies pick up the bill, Clinton called 'dangerous' and a 'protection racket.'

'NATO, in particular, is one of the best investments America has ever made,' she said.

'Putin already hopes to divide Europe,' she said of the Russian leader. 'If Mr. Trump gets his way it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin  it will make America less safe and the world more dangerous.'

IGNORED: Clinton is battling Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for the White House but is increasingly angling her attacks toward Republicans in the race as her party's primary winds down

Finally, she blasted the Republican frontrunner for throwing his support behind controversial interrogation techniques.

'Another thing we know that does not work, based on lots of empirical evidence is torture,' Clinton remarked.

Trump has said more than once that he'd push for changes in the law that allow for waterboarding of suspected terrorists.

He said to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon, 'They can chop off heads and drown people in cages, heavy steel cages, and we can't waterboard?'

Alluding to President George W. Bush's administration and the CIA's admission to waterboarding, Clinton said Wednesday, 'I'm proud of being part of the administration that banned torture after too many years in which we had lost our way.'

She quoted Republican Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam that Trump once insulted who is adamantly anti-torture after his own horrific experience, and coming full circle again mentioned Trump's favorite project: his proposed wall along the border with Mexico.

'America doesn't cower in fear,' she said. 'Or hide behind walls.'

Trump and Cruz are two of the last Republicans standing. The other is John Kasich of Ohio, a dark horse candidate who hopes to nab the nomination at an open convention.

Both top Republicans have a loyal following that has not been deterred by their controversial statements about Muslims.

Panetta insisted today that neither will win over the general electorate, though, echoing other confident Democrats.

The 'emotional responses' of Trump voters 'I do not believe that represents the...broad spectrum of voters, citizens in this country,' Panetta said today on the call.

'I think deep down the American people understand that if we are to be safe in the future, that we've gotta have a responsible leadership like that being proposed by Secretary Clinton.
A schoolgirl in Nairobi has accused her teachers of burning her in an attempt to force her into confessing to being a 'devil-worshipper'.

The 17-year-old, from Kibera, claimed she was tied up during the attack by the two teachers, as the head teacher also looked on.

She claimed the teachers began burning her after saying they would 'do something extreme to force the demons out of me'.

A schoolgirl in Nairobi claims to have been tied up and burned with kerosene by her teachers, who were attempting to make her confess to worshipping the Devil (file image)

The teachers were also allegedly trying to make the girl confess to having a 'relationship' with another schoolgirl.

I was called to the staff room at 2pm together with another girl, she told Kenyan news site The Standard.

The deputy and senior teacher kept asking me about a certain Form Four girl called Elizabeth. They wanted me to disclose her whereabouts but I told them she was not even my friend.

They asked me to bend and suddenly I was slapped hard on both sides of my head. The teacher told me if I did not confess about my relationship with Elizabeth I would not like what would follow.

The teachers then allegedly tied her hands and feet before continuing the assault.

I begged them to stop because I do not know about the girl but they said I should be prepared to get burned.

She continued: That was when I heard him suggesting that they should do something extreme that would force the demons out of me.

The girl said the teachers then gathered plastic bags, poured kerosene on them and used them to burn her.

The girl's parents were allegedly only called after the teachers had taken her to Mbagathi Hospital following the attack.

It is the second such attack reported in Kenya this year. In January, another teenager claimed to have been burned by members of a local church in an alleged exorcism (file image)

Despite the girls claims, head teacher Joyce Syokau denies that she was in the staff room when the girl was tortured.

The teachers said that they even prayed and she fell down so they believed she was possessed, she said.

The girls father said: You cannot be a Christian and devil-worshipper at the same time. They should have just called me to pick up my child.

It is the second such attack reported in Kenya this year.

In January, another teenager claimed to have been burned by members of a local church in an alleged exorcism.

The 13-year-old girl was staying with her brother when members of the Nakuru County church arrived at the house, doused her face in paraffin and lit a fire in an attempt to expel demons from her body.
Six migrants have been discovered hiding in cramped spaces in the false bottoms of vehicles operated by a mafia smuggling ring.

The discoveries were made by the Spanish Civil Guard over a two-day period on the border between Morocco and the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla.

All six were young men from Guinea and were travelling without documents, according to the Spanish authorities, while all three of the vehicles were found to have Moroccan number plates.

Discovery: The Spanish Civil Guard discovered six people wedged into tiny, cramped spaces in cars in a two-day period, trying to cross the border from Morocco in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, in north Africa

Desperate: This man, from Guinea, was discovered hiding in a tiny space in the dashboard of one of the vehicles, which were searched by Civil Guard officers

The first vehicle was a white Dacia, which the border police stopped to carry out an inspection.

The driver immediately sprang from the car and ran back towards the Moroccan border, managing to escape the police officers who pursued him.

Police used a heat detector to discover that there were people hidden in impossibly small spaces around the car, with one in the 'dashboard area' and two more 'under the back seat'.

They had to dismantle the car as the seats had been 'screwed down', according to a police statement.

Inside the seat, they discovered one of the youths to be needing medical treatment after showing signs of 'numbness, nervous breathing and profuse sweating'.

The second mafia-run vehicle was a Renault Clio, in which a young man was hiding between the motor and the dashboard and was suffering from similar symptoms.

The occupants of the vehicle were a Moroccan couple, who have been arrested pending further investigation.

The third car, a Mercedes 250 which was also driven by a Moroccan couple, revealed two hidden compartments, one under the dashboard and another in the back seat area.

Criminal: Mafia networks operating within Morocco offer people passage into Spain in return for huge amounts of money, by hiding them inside vehicles to cross the border

Here, two hidden immigrants were discovered in a much worse state, with 'breathing difficulties and extreme weakness which meant they could barely stand'.

They were given medical attention and their condition is now stable.

According to authorities, almost every day border police find people hidden in vehicles.

However due to the vast amount of vehicles that pass through - between 5,000 to 8,000 every day - officers are only able to inspect those which raise suspicions or are randomly picked, in order to avoid huge queues at the border.
Wife Samantha flew out to join him as he takes a mini-break in Lanzarote

Lonely David Cameron finally had someone to chat to over a cold beer during his mini-break to Lanzarote after his wife Samantha flew out to join him.

The couple were photographed today posing with a lager each on the terrace of a restaurant in Playa Blanca as Mr Cameron took some time off to mull over several issues back home.

The Prime Minister flew out to the Canary Island yesterday without his spouse to give him himself 'time to think', on the last day of parliament before the Easter recess.

The couple were photographed today posing with a lager each on the terrace of a restaurant in Playa Blanca as Mr Cameron took some time off to mull over several issues back home

Dressed in a dark shirt and trousers, Mr Cameron appeared slightly tanned and relaxed, while Samantha opted for a mid-length white dress featuring a plunging neckline

The couple are regularly snapped in similar stage-managed poses during their breaks away, with Dave regularly going for a conservative look featuring a dark blue top.

Wearing his favoured combo of a dark blue top and trousers, Mr Cameron appeared slightly tanned and relaxed, despite attracting disapproval over his getaway from some quarters back in the UK.

Meanwhile, Samantha looked to be truly in holiday mode as she sipped a beer in a mid-length white dress, which featured a plunging neckline.

The Prime Minister flew out to the Canary Island yesterday without his spouse to give him himself 'time to think', on the last day of parliament before the Easter recess

Lonely David Cameron finally had someone to chat to over a cold beer during his mini-break to Lanzarote after his wife Samantha flew out to join him

Samantha looked to be truly in holiday mode as she sipped a beer with her husband in the fading sun

The 44-year-old matched the summer dress with a pair of beige wedges and a matching shawl, which kept her warm as the night drew in.

Mr Cameron has faced criticism for flying off as George Osborne's Budget continued to unravel, Europe reeled from another terror attack and the Tories continued to row over Brexit.

It is understood that Mr Cameron flew out a day earlier than Samantha after one of his children broke up from school a day before the others, with the rest of the family joining up with him today.

Mr Cameron had been accused of hypocrisy after urging families earlier this year to spend their Easter holidays in the north of England to help flood-hit communities recover.

A picture of Mr Cameron in a five star Lanzarote hotel restaurant was shared on Twitter yesterday by a fellow holidaymaker while a Scotland international rugby player told his Twitter followers he had bumped into the Prime Minister on the island that afternoon.

Mr Cameron and his wife, Samantha, were snapped enjoying a coffee in a cafe by the beach of the popular resort of Teguise last year, which was once the capital of the island.

Mr and Mrs Cameron enjoy a cold brew after flying out of the UK for a holiday in Portugal last year

David Cameron (pictured on holiday with his wife Samantha in Ibiza in 2013) told Tory MPs last night he was jetting off to Lanzarote over Easter to give him 'more time to think'

IT'S SLATED ONLINE, SO WHY DOES DAVE KEEP GOING TO 'LANZAGROTTY'? David Camerons choice of Lanzarote as the ideal place for some 'time to think will have surprised many - after all, it's not called 'Lanzagrotty' for nothing. It's been slated on TripAdvisor, with one reviewer describing the food as 'c****y', and even its president claimed mass tourism has brought about a 'Magaluf effect'. Whats more, it can be attacked by freak Saharan sand storms and there are some nasty animals there, too. As Cameron found out when he was stung by a jelly fish at the resort in 2014. The unfortunate nickname of Lanzagrotty was coined by Michael Palin, due to the boom of high-rise developments along the coast. Years later and the location comes with its own derogatory hashtag on social media with many taking to Twitter to share their experiences using #lanzagrotty. 'No. of Mosquito bites so far today = 11 #lanzagrotty' said one user, @breakindaroolz. Another said the average age on their flight over was 90. 'It's like being on the set of Cocoon #tracksuits #bluerinse #mintsinhandbag,' @JenniferMaguire wrote. A Twitter user, @sandjbushe replied: 'Surprise? No body with class goes to Lanza - grotty.' Advertisement

The Prime Minister took three breaks last summer in the wake of his unexpected General Election victory.

The Cameron family visited Portgual - where the PM again needed medical attention after suffering 'swimmer's ear'  diagnosed as a case of otitis.

They also made a regular visit to Cornwall and the Scottish island of Jura.

Mr Cameron - long mocked for his ability to 'chillax' and escape the stress of No 10 - took 15 holidays during his first term as Prime Minister.

David and Samantha Cameron last visited Lanzarote in 2014, posing for pictures with a drink by the beach. Mr Cameron was stung by a jellyfish on the trip

David Cameron (pictured on holiday in Portugal) has already said he will stand down as Prime Minister before the 2020 election but a vote to leave the EU could force him to stand aside earlier
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ZIKA

WHAT IS ZIKA?

The Zika (ZEE'-ka) virus was first discovered in monkey in Uganda in 1947 - its name comes from the Zika forest where it was first discovered.

It is native mainly to tropical Africa, with outbreaks in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.

It appeared in Brazil in 2014 and has since been reported in many Latin American countries and Caribbean islands.

HOW IS IT SPREAD?

It is typically transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes - Aedes aegypti - that can spread other tropical diseases, like dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.

It is not known to spread from person to person.

Zika is typically transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes - Aedes aegypti - that can spread other tropical diseases, like dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever

Though rare, scientists have found Zika can be transmitted sexually. The World Health Organisation recently warned the mode of transmission is 'more common than previously assumed'.

During the current outbreak, the first case of sexually transmitted Zika was reported in Texas, at the beginning of February.

The patient became infected after sexual contact with a partner diagnosed with the virus after travelling to an affected region.

Now, health officials in the US are investigating more than a dozen possible cases of Zika in people thought to be infected during sex.

There are also reported cases in France and Canada.

Prior to this outbreak, scientists reported examples of sexual transmission of Zika in 2008.

A researcher from Colorado, who caught the virus overseas, is thought to have infected his wife, on returning home.

And records show the virus was found in the semen of a man in Tahiti.

So far, each case of sexual transmission of Zika involves transmission from an infected man to his partner. There is no current evidence that women can pass on the virus through sexual contact.

The World Health Organisation says Zika is rapidly spreading in the Americas because it is new to the region, people aren't immune to it, and the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries it is just about everywhere - including along the southern United States.

Canada and Chile are the only places without this mosquito.

ARE THERE SYMPTOMS?

The majority of people infected with Zika virus will not experience symptoms.

Those that do, usually develop mild symptoms - fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes - which usually last no more than a week.

There is no specific treatment for the virus and there is currently no vaccine to protect against infection, though several are in the developmental stages.

WHY IS IT A CONCERN NOW?

In Brazil, there has been mounting evidence linking Zika infection in pregnant women to a rare birth defect called microcephaly, in which a newborn's head is smaller than normal and the brain may not have developed properly.

Brazilian health officials last October noticed a spike in cases of microcephaly in tandem with the Zika outbreak.

The country said it has confirmed more than 860 cases of microcephaly - and that it considers them to be related to Zika infections in the mother.

Brazil is also investigating more than 4,200 additional suspected cases of microcephaly.

However, Brazilian health officials said they had ruled out 1,471 suspected cases in the week ending March 19.

The connection to Zika is still being investigated, and officials note there are many causes of the condition.

Meanwhile, doctors have also noted an increased reports of a nerve condition called Guillain-Barre that can cause paralysis.

But the link to the Zika virus is not clear; other infections can spark the problem, including dengue fever.

CAN THE SPREAD BE STOPPED?

Individuals can protect themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellents, and wearing long sleeves and long pants - especially during daylight, when the mosquitoes tend to be most active, health officials say.

Eliminating breeding spots and controlling mosquito populations can help prevent the spread of the virus.

WILL THE ZIKA OUTBREAK SPREAD TO THE US?

Yes, leading global health experts expect the virus to appear in the US in the coming months.

As the temperature begins to rise across the country, the mosquito is likely to become abundant across much of the southern and eastern US.

Experts warn that the Zika virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, will soon spread to the US. Pictured above, a map depicting the 50 continental US cities facing the highest risk of the virus. Below, the projected timeline of when the cities will be hit

THE US CITIES AT HIGH RISK FOR ZIKA VIRUS TRANSMISSION CITY STATE Charleston South Carolina Jacksonville Florida Miami Florida Mobile Alabama New Orleans Louisiana Orlando Florida Tallahassee Florida Tampa Florida Savannah Georgia Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research

The National Center for Atmospheric Research determined the Zika virus risk estimates for 50 US cities.

Cities in southern Florida, as well as impoverished areas in southern Texas, carry the highest risk of Zika outbreaks, a team of experts determined.

However, the mosquito is also projected to appear as far west as Phoenix and Los Angeles, and as far north as New York City.

However, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin warned that the outbreak may be 'far worse than expected' if a second mosquito is able to transmit the virus as well.

Currently, the virus is only transmitted through one species of mosquito  the Aedes aegypti.

But if another mosquito species that is known to harbor the virus  Aedes albopictus  ends up being capable of transmitting Zika as well, the outbreak will be more widespread.

Outbreaks of the virus will hit the US even more than already expected  particularly in the cities of Miami, Houston and New York.

If a second species of mosquito - Aedes albopictus, which has already been detected with Zika - is also able to transmit virus, an outbreak in the US will be worse than expected, experts warn. Pictured, a map showing Zika risks associated with both mosquito types

WHAT ARE THE TRAVEL ADVISORIES?

US health officials recommend that pregnant women should consider postponing trips to at least 30 destinations. For up-to-date information of the CDC's travel advisories, check the CDC's Zika page.

The CDC advises against traveling in Latin America to countries such as: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela. In the Caribbean: Barbados, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, St. Martin and Puerto Rico. Also, Cape Verde, off the coast of western Africa; and Samoa in the South Pacific. Additional countries have also been added to the list.

In Brazil, most of the mothers who had babies with microcephaly were apparently infected during the first trimester, but there is some evidence the birth defect can occur later in the pregnancy, CDC officials say.
A former president of a Pennsylvania county bar association has been convicted of using forged documents to pose as an estate lawyer for a decade even though she didn't have a law license.

Kimberly Kitchen was convicted on Thursday on charges of forgery, unauthorized practice of law and felony records tampering in Huntingdon County.

Kitchen, 45, fooled BMZ Law, a Huntingdon firm, by forging a law license, bar exam results, an email showing she attended Duquesne University law school and a check for a state attorney registration fee, prosecutors said.

The married James Creek resident handled estate planning for more than 30 clients despite never attending law school, and she even served as president of the Huntingdon County Bar Association for a time.

Kimberly Kitchen was convicted on Thursday on charges of forgery, unauthorized practice of law and felony records tampering in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, after posing as an estate lawyer for a decade even though she didn't have a law license

She made partner at BMZ, where she specialized in estate planning, before the fraud was discovered.

The judge on the case was brought in from another county, and the state attorney general, not county prosecutors, handled the case because Kitchen had been a fixture in the county courthouse for years.

BMZ officials testified at her two-day trial but haven't commented publicly since issuing a statement in December 2014, when the Huntingdon Daily News first reported that Kitchen was being investigated.

The firm's voicemail said its offices were closed for Good Friday.

'Sadly, it would appear that our firm was the last, in a long line of professionals, to have been deceived by Ms Kitchen into believing she was licensed to practice law,' the firm said previously. 'We are undertaking a thorough review of each and every file she may have handled.'

Kitchen had worked in fundraising at Juniata College before she started telling people she was an attorney, state prosecutors said.

The charges she was convicted of carry a maximum sentence of three-and-a-half to seven years behind bars.

Kitchen, 45, fooled BMZ Law, a Huntingdon firm, by forging a law license, bar exam results, an email showing she attended Duquesne University law school and a check for a state attorney registration fee, prosecutors said

Defense attorney Caroline Roberto said Friday that she is reviewing whether to appeal.

The judge didn't immediately schedule sentencing, giving caseworkers 90 days to file a presentence report first.

'We think that she had no intent to defraud,' Roberto said.

Last year Roberto called Kitchen an 'incredibly competent person'.

'She worked very diligently and was devoted to the people she served in the community,' Roberto added.

She said there was no evidence Kitchen's work was bad. 'She provided a good service,' she said.

Kitchen hasn't practiced law since the firm asked her to stop in December 2014.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane's office said it is happy with the conviction of Kitchen.

'The Attorney General's Office is certainly pleased to prove this case but more importantly to take an impersonator office the streets,' spokesman Chuck Ardo told WJAC.

Ardo added that Kitchen's lies were bound to catch up with her because 'they almost always get caught'.

A date for Kitchen's sentencing has yet to be scheduled.
ISIS have released a new propaganda video showing Belgian jihadis in Iraq celebrating the Brussels' attacks and declaring it Belgium's 9/11.

The shocking footage, which appears to have been filmed in the Iraqi city of Mosul, was uploaded following the triple suicide bomb attack at Brussels's main airport and metro station.

34 people were killed and dozens wounded in the attack, which was carried out by brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui and master bombmaker Najim Laachraoui.

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The fighters, named as Abu Abdullah al-Belgiki (left) and Abu Mujahid al-Belgiki, both claim that the attacks were 'just the beginning of your nightmare'

'It is just the beginning of your nightmare. Today we declare new 9/11,' one of the fighters says

In the video, two French-speaking jihadis, claiming to be Belgian nationals, warn that Belgium would be subjected to more terror attacks.

The fighters, named as Abu Abdullah al-Belgiki and Abu Mujahid al-Belgiki, both claim that the attacks were 'just the beginning of your nightmare.'

'It is just the beginning of your nightmare. Today we declare a new 9/11,' one of the fighters says.

It is understood that the fighter known as Abu Abdullah has previously appeared in another propaganda video.

In November, the same fighter praised the Paris attacks and boasted that France would be attacked again.

The jihadis are also shown among a young audience of children, watching a propaganda ISIS film on a projector screen.

The shocking footage, which appears to have been filmed in the Iraqi city of Mosul, was uploaded following the triple suicide bomb attack at Brussels's main airport and metro station

The jihadis are also shown among a young audience of children, watching a propaganda ISIS film on a projector screen

In November, the same fighter praised the Paris attacks and boasted that France would be attacked again

The news comes as ISIS's top finance officer and other senior leaders were likely killed this week in a major offensive targeting the militant group's financial operation.

The targets were confirmed by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter in a statement today.

Carter said the United States believes it killed Haji Iman, a senior Islamic State leader in charge of the group's finances as well as some plots and external affairs.

'We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet,' Carter told reporters at a briefing at the Pentagon, using an acronym to refer to the group.

Earlier media reports said Haji Iman, who also went by Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and other aliases, had been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, but Pentagon officials gave few details of the operation.

34 people were killed and dozens wounded in the attack, which was carried out by brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui and master bombmakerNajim Laachraoui

A young audience of children gather to watch a jihadi propaganda video, thought to be in Mosul
He appeared in court on Thursday where his lawyer said 'he acted like an idiot'

Port Authority police were then called and asked Brant Jr. to lower his voice and sit down, at which point he allegedly assaulted a cop

He was trying to board a JetBlue flight to West Palm Beach when an employee of the airline told him he could not get on the plane

The 22-year-old son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour and billionaire Peter Brant was reportedly 'drunk' and acting '

The son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour and billionaire businessman Peter Brant made his first court appearance Thursday after being arrested in New York City on Wednesday night.

Peter Brant Jr. 'became so confrontational with airline staff due to extreme intoxication by at least alcohol, if not something more' said Assistant District Attorney Catherine Kane, who also noted he set off alarms after bursting through an emergency exit when told he could not board his 5pm flight.

Brant's lawyer meanwhile said of his client; 'He acted like an idiot.'

The young socialite, who claims he only had three drinks, was released on $5,000 bail.

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Time for court: Peter Brant Jr. made his first court appearance Thursday after being arrested in New York City on Wednesday night

Noy good: Brant Jr. 'became so confrontational with airline staff due to extreme intoxication by at least alcohol, if not something more' said Assistant District Attorney Catherine Kane

Mugshot: Brant (above) was trying to board a JetBlue flight to West Palm Beach when an employee of the airline told him he could not get on the plane

Brant was at John F. Kennedy Airport waiting to board a JetBlue fight to West Palm Beach when he reportedly got into an argument with an airline employee reportedly stopped him for getting on the plane.

A source said the 22-year-old socialite was acting 'drunk and belligerent' at the time.

Page Six reports that Port Authority police then reported to the scene and asked Brant Jr. to sit down and lower his voice, at which point he allegedly assaulted one of the cops.

Brant Jr. was arrested after the alleged assault and taken to Jamaica Hospital where police said he would be treated for severe intoxication and undergo a psych evaluation.

He and his younger brother Harry have been fixtures on the New York fashion and society scenes, and recently released a unisex make-up collection with MAC cosmetics.

Brant Jr. is rumored to be dating Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece, who he was recently spotted with at a pajama party hosted by Dolce & Gabbana.

He is also friends with Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin, and posted a photo of the pair out together at Manhattan hotspot Indochine on Monday with the caption; 'Mondays got us like ... #Faded #butstillfoxy.'

This is just the latest run-in with police for the Brant family, with Seymour being arrested and charged with DUI in January after her Range Rover allegedly rolled backwards down a hill into a white Mercedes.

Police responding to the scene said she smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes, and took seven tries to find her ID in her bag.

Seymour avoided jail time by signing up for her second stint in rehab.

She is still facing charges for evading responsibility and failure to drive in a proper lane after police also determined she knocked over a utility pole that same night.

Parents: The 22-year-old son of supermodel Stephanie Seymour and billionaire Peter Brant (above in December 2014) was reportedly 'drunk' and acting ' belligerent '

Pals: He is also friends with Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin, and posted a photo of the pair out together at Manhattan hotspot Indochine on Monday with the caption; 'Mondays got us like ... #Faded #butstillfoxy' (above)

Legal troubles: His mother (above inb police custody) was arrested for DUI in January but avoided jail time by agreeing to enter rehab for the second time

In 2011, Seymour also called police to report an incident of domestic abuse at the family's Greenwich, Connecticut home.

Brant Jr. was also ticketed for possession of marijuana in 2014 while in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood.

Philip Russell, who represented Seymour in January, told the New York Daily News that Brant's behavior was 'out of character.'
A Missouri councilman is under investigation after he has been accused of shoving a resident during a public meeting.

University City Councilman Michael Glickert allegedly got up from his seat during a meeting on Tuesday and shoved resident Bart Stewart, leader of a group called U-City United which has been trying to recall the mayor and a city council member since 2014.

Police officers rushed in and escorted both men outside before Glickert was eventually allowed back into the meeting, according to KPLR 11.

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University City Councilman Michael Glickert (pictured in the navy sweater) is under investigation after he has been accused of shoving a resident during a public meeting

Glickert allegedly shoved resident Bart Stewart (pictured), leader of a group called U-City United which has been trying to recall the mayor and a city council member since 2014, during a meeting on Tuesday

The incident happened when Stewart said he noticed Mayor Shelley Welsch move his papers, which contain information about his group's stance, from a table where he said he places them every meeting.

He said he told Welsch they were in a public venue and that there was no reason for him not to have his literature placed on the table.

Witnesses said while the pair were arguing, that is when Glickert walked over to Stewart and allegedly shoved him, according to KPLR11.

Once Glickert was let back into the meeting, Stewart said he asked police why he could not also be let back in.

The incident happened when Stewart said he noticed Mayor Shelley Welsch (pictured) move his papers, which contain information about his group's stance, from a table where he said he places them every meeting

A resident who witnessed the altercation said there has been a lot of tension at council meetings (Tuesday's meeting pictured above)

'I was informed that according to the city manager I was not allowed back in,' Stewart told the station.

The station said the city manager was not able to comment on why Glickert was able to re-enter the meeting but not Stewart.

Witnesses of the altercation said they were bothered that Stewart was not able to rejoin the meeting.

'It bothered me that the councilman acted that way first of all,' resident Brian Burkett told the station.

'But it definitely bothered me that the councilman was back inside and Bart was outside if anything I think both should have been outside or both should have been in.

Councilman Glickert pictured in his seat during the meeting. Authorities said Stewart's complaint is being investigated and the mayor said she is also filing a complaint with police regarding the incident

'But for Bart to be outside when he was the one attacked kind of sends the wrong message.'

Burkett noted that there has been a lot of tension at council meetings and that he hopes 'in a minimum' that Glickert resigns.

'In a bigger picture I hope everyone says this isn't the way we act,' Burkett added.
Lawyers to robustly defended her as claim made 'entirely without merit'

Miss Turner, 55, faces court action over the 10million sale of Barbins Grange, the 57-acre Surrey estate where she married Grant Bovey (pictured here) in 2000

TV presenter Anthea Turner is being sued for 1.6million by her ex-husbands creditors, it emerged last night.

Miss Turner, 55, faces a court action over the 10million sale of their former marital home, Barbins Grange, the 57-acre Surrey estate where she married Grant Bovey in 2000.

The couple, who divorced last year after he had an affair, sold the property in 2009 when his buy-to-let business collapsed at the height of the financial crisis.

Instead of splitting the proceeds from the sale equally, Miss Turner received more than 3million, and used the money to buy a new home registered only in her name. Her husband got just over 400,000.

The basis of the legal claim is that the arrangement meant that the lions share of the proceeds were kept out of the hands of lenders to whom Mr Bovey owed millions, according to court papers.

Miss Turner has vowed to fight the claim and last night her lawyer said it was entirely without merit and would be robustly defended.

The star became famous as a Blue Peter presenter in the early 1990s, going on to host shows such as Top Of The Pops and GMTV.

She met Mr Bovey in 1998 and in 2000 the couple held their wedding at Barbins Grange. They were criticised for posing with a chocolate bar as part of a promotional stunt reported to have earned them hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The witness statement says Barbins Grange was Miss Turners home and Mr Bovey moved in with her in early 2000. It then become the marital home in 2002.

In 2003 Mr Bovey set up Imagine Homes, which bought blocks of flats and was at one point estimated to be worth 100million. But his buy-to-let empire collapsed with debts of some 50million and went into administration in 2008.

In July 2009 the couple sold Barbins Grange to exiled Russian mobile phone tycoon Evgeny Chichvarkin and his wife Antonina for 9.95million.

After paying off a 6million mortgage, Miss Turner received nearly 3.3million, while her husband got 420,000, according to the court papers. She used the cash to buy another property in Surrey for just over 5million, where the couple then moved.

Details of the legal action  which is being funded by litigation funding group Manolete Partners  is revealed in papers lodged in Guildford County Court and seen by the Daily Mail.

In a witness statement, the trustee for Mr Boveys bankrupt estate, Chris Farrington, a partner at Deloitte, asks the court to force Miss Turner to repay money that he says should have gone to Mr Bovey at the time of the sale of Barbins Grange. He argues that the proceeds of the sale should have been split equally and that Mr Boveys bankrupt estate is owed 1.6million.

Instead, he says, the couple took a conscious decision to sell their jointly held property and use the proceeds to acquire a new property which would be in Ms Turners sole name and so beyond the reach of Mr Boveys increasingly pressing creditors.

Barbins Grange: The couple, who divorced last year after Mr Bovey had an affair, sold the 10million property in 2009 when his buy-to-let business collapsed at the height of the financial crisis

TV presenter Anthea Turner pictured at a charity event held in Kensington, London in 2013

Anthea Turner arriving at the RTS Programme Awards, presented by The Royal Television Society, in 2005

Anthea with dogs for a calendar shoot back in 1994 - she was married to Grant Bovey until 2009

At the time, he says, Mr Bovey was coming under mounting pressure from his creditors including banks who had lent him and his companies facilities to fund various property investments.

The court should, he says, redress the balance in respect of the distribution of the net sale proceeds of Barbins of which Ms Turner appears to have received a disproportionately excessive share.

The case is over a breach of the Insolvency Act, and is a civil matter, not criminal.

The witness statement also quotes an interview with Miss Turner in 2010 regarding the sale, in which she said: It was quite obvious that Grants situation was becoming a little tricky and I felt to protect myself that the right thing to do would be to buy Sundown in my own name.

Miss Turner and Mr Bovey remained together despite his financial woes. But in the summer of 2013 she threw him out over his affair with a socialite 26 years his junior, Zoe de Mallet Morgan.

Reports at the time said that Miss Turner had discovered explicit texts on his phone, nine months after he promised her the relationship was over.
Steven Michael Quezada, 53, a Democrat running for a commissioner position in Albuquerque has revealed he was sent a blackmail threat via email

In TV's Breaking Bad he was a no-nonsense DEA agent who often had his life threatened by gangsters and drug dealers as he tried to keep the peace in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

But now Steven Michael Quezada, who played Steve Gomez in the AMC series, is facing some real-life drama after receiving a blackmail threat while running for county commissioner - in Albuquerque.

Quezada revealed via a video on Facebook that he was sent an email from an address appearing to belong to a Robert Sanchez threatening to expose his past DWI arrests if he does not stop running.

Quezada, who won a seat on the Albuquerque Board of Education shortly after Breaking bad finished, told KRQE: 'That was a direct threat. It was a direct blackmail to me.'

'Im out there, Im an open book, Ive made mistakes, but Im not that guy anymore.'

The 53-year-old Democrat revealed the email he received on March 8 from RobertSanchez1972@outlook.com entitled: 'Steven M Quezada History Of Criminal Activity.'

The email reads: 'Steven you are better suited in your APS seat hopefully you stay there. I have four other mug shots of your DWIs and domestic abuse for the viewing public if you would like.

'Look forward to you running in the next APS election and we will vote for you. There is more I can share. This can hurt Mr sanchez [if] you do not drop out.

'Maybe the badboy image will help you get more movie roles, but not sure how the public will view this.'

Speaking out about the threat on his Facebook page, Quezada said: 'Basically Robert is blackmailing me with my own public record.

'That is something he's right about, I have to face up to the mistakes I have made in my life, [but] to be bullied and blackmailed to stop me from helping my community, that is not going to happen.

In the email a man calling himself Robert Sanchez threatens to reveal details of Quezada's three previous DWI arrests in 1998 and 2002 along with mugshot (pictured) which are already on the public record

'I have made mistakes and I have paid for those mistakes and it is because of the great laws in New Mexico that made me realize that I needed to change my life.

He adds later: 'I want to make up for the mistakes that I have made. I have to believe that people can change, I believe I have changed as a human.'

Public records show that Quezada pleaded guilty to one DWI charge in 1998, and had two further DWI charges dismissed in 2002.

There are mugshots from all three arrests, though no records show any allegations of domestic violence, as claimed in the email.

Quezada announced his run for the seat in Bernalillo County Commission in July last year, saying he brings a 'new face' to the Democratic party, suggesting there are not enough Mexican-American elected officials.

He said at the time: 'We need to reach out to our young people - the young Chicanos, the young Latinos - and get them involved in this process and let them know this is important.'
Bummed out: Deondre Lumpkin (pictured), 24, doesn't look happy at being arrested. Police say he was found with four grams of crack cocaine hidden under his genitals on Tuesday

Most police pride themselves on getting to the bottom of a case, but Florida cop Michael Vegenski took that task rather literally when he arrested a man for allegedly having four grams of drugs hidden near his buttocks.

Deondre G Lumpkin, 24, of St Petersburg, Florida, is alleged to have put the 'crack' in crack cocaine on Tuesday, when Vegenski pulled him over for a traffic violation.

In a report acquired by The Smoking Gun, Vegenski says that upon pulling Lumpkin over, he 'detected the strong odor of burnt cannabis' and asked to search the vehicle. What was found must have surprised him.

Inside the car, the officer found an envelope containing marijuana and five cell phones. Lumpkin said the marijuana was his, but when Vegenski searched the man himself, things got a little odd.

In his statement, Vegenski - who referred to Lumpkin as 'the def', for 'defendant,' wrote: 'During the search, the def would not widen his stands and was clinching [sic] his buttocks. The defendant was transported to the PD for a more thorough search.

'Prior to conducting the secondary search, the defendant admitted to having crack cocaine concealed beneath his genitals.'

However, Vegenski said, Lumpkin denied that the crack was his. Vegenski claims that text messages Lumpkin received suggest he was planning to sell the crack.

Lumpkin, whose history includes previous weapons and narcotics charges, was released from custody Wednesday after posting $41,150 bail, The Smoking Gun wrote.
Local said he saw a 'boy' lying in the street after he believed he was shot

police believe shots were fired from vehicle near playing field

A man is in a critical condition and four other people have been hurt in a drive-by shooting in east London.

Police were called to shots being fired in the Magpie Close area, Forest Gate, at about 1.50pm today.

Metropolitan Police officers, paramedics and London's Air Ambulance attended the scene which is near playing fields.

At this stage police believe shots were fired from a vehicle. They are not treating it as an act of terrorism, a spokesman said.

Police were called to shots being fired in Magpie Close, Forest Gate at about 1.50pm today

Locals said they heard multiple gun shots in the area before armed police arrived in number. One witness said a shotgun was fired in the attack.

One local told the Evening Standard he saw a 'boy' lying injured in nearby Tower Hamlets Road after he thought he was shot.

He said: 'It was frantic, everyone was fearful and frantic.

'A group of boys ran into the park after two shots were heard. The next thing you know, the helicopter came and armed police were all over the place.

'There was one boy lying down in the street, hed been shot. They have cordoned off everything now.'

Metropolitan Police officers, paramedics and London's Air Ambulance attended the scene, near a park

Locals said they heard multiple gun shots in the area before armed police arrived in number

The police spokesman said: 'Five people have been taken to hospital. One man is in a critical condition; four other people were less seriously injured.

'Officers remain at the location and crime scenes are in place.

'At this early stage, officers believe shots were fired from a vehicle. There has been no arrest.'

Trident officers, who tackle gang crime, are investigating.

Officers remain in the area tonight and enquiries are continuing to establish a motive.
Jason Lofthouse, 33, of Las Vegas, Nevada was found guilty on Friday by a unanimous

Jason Lofthouse was found guilty of kidnapping and sexual conduct with a pupil while he was a teacher at Rancho High School in Las Vegas

A married teacher was found guilty of kidnapping his 17-year-old student in order to have sex with her.

Jason Lofthouse, 33, of Las Vegas, Nevada was convicted after the jury deliberated for two hours over a statute that forbids an adult from enticing a minor in order to commit an unlawful act against him or her, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The father of three will now be facing a minimum of 20 years in prison to a maximum of life, according to News 3.

'It was a difficult case,' said Donna Lewis, 62, one of six women who deliberated on the jury.

'He made some mistakes, and she did as well,' Lewis said.

Prosecutor Stacy Collins compared Lofthouse to a man offering a little girl candy from his van.

The Jury, 'explained this communitys disdain for teachers being involved with students in this manner,' Collins said.

'Theres been a lot of these cases recently, and this sends a message,' she added

The trial cantered on whether or not Lofthouse forced or coerced the student, who was 17 at the time, to perform sex acts on him in his classroom and have sex with him twice in hotels during school hours, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports.

'You cant use the word consensual as a defense, so you just have to go by the law,' Lewis said. 'As a teacher he should have known better.'

But the teenager, now 18, insisted to jurors at Clark County District Court that she wasnt hoping for a better grade in the class and didnt even consider her former teacher to be her boyfriend.

Describing the relationship as nothing serious, she told the court: I thought of it more as a thing.

I didnt need a good grade. I wasnt trying to get a better grade. I was just doing it because I wanted to.

Scroll down for videos

Guilty verdict: Jason Lofthouse is pictured in court on Friday where he was found guilty of kidnapping and sexual conduct with his female student despite her calling the sex consensual

She insisted that both she and her teacher initiated physical contact  and that she never felt trapped when they visited two hotels for sex in May last year.

In Nevada, while the age of sexual consent is 16, state law forbids employees and volunteers at schools from engaging in sexual contact with students.

The student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she began communicating with her teacher on Twitter while he was on paternity leave for the birth of his third child.

Lofthouse is due back in court for sentencing on May 17. He is pictured here being escorted from the court on Friday

After getting each others phone numbers, they exchanged almost 4,000 messages, including many referring to sex acts she performed on Lofthouse in the classroom.

In one message, Lofthouse revealed he had assigned the student a seat at the front of his classroom because he was attracted to her.

Another indicated Lofthouses desire to visit a hotel so we can take as much time as we want.

The student told jurors that she did not get her parents permission to visit the hotels  which is important in relation to the kidnapping charges it is a first-degree felony to take a minor somewhere without parental permission and commit a crime against the minor.

Lewis and other jurors agreed that the kidnapping statue was 'too broad' and that it should be re-worded despite finding him guilty.

The affair came to light after a Clark County School District police officer found Lofthouse and the girl locked in a classroom together.

The trial centered on whether or not Lofthouse forced or coerced the student, who was 17 at the time, to perform sex acts on him in his classroom at Rancho High School in Las Vegas (pictured)

He earlier testified that they were standing close enough to each other to be either kissing or whispering.

According to a police report, the relationship became sexual just a week or two before the first visit to a hotel on May 20 last year.

The student first denied any sexual encounters with Lofthouse, but eventually admitted to her parents that they did engage in a physical relationship.

Her parents called investigators to inform them of what that their daughter had said.

The girl told police he had taken her to the Alicante hotel on May 20 and the Cannery hotel on May 28. School attendance records found both Lofthouse and the student had missed classes those days.

CCTV footage captured the pair kissing in an elevator before heading to the room Lofthouse had booked.

When Lofthouse was arrested in June last year, he told officers he was pretty sure he knew why.

Lofthouse, who had been teaching at Rancho High School since 2010, resigned in September last year.
George Osborne's Budget may have done little to enhance his reputation, but the Chancellor's new rules for small traders renting out rooms (or entire homes) looks likely to boost small-scale entrepreneurs.

In future, we will all be able to earn up to 1,000 through property lettings before paying tax. Platforms such as Airbnb and the London holiday rental firm Veeve predict a rapid expansion in the number of 'hosts' eager to hire out everything from an airbed in their living rooms to a luxury penthouse.

'We've had a real influx of homeowners approaching us,' says Veeve's co-founder, Jonny Morris, who launched the firm in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics.

Classy canvas: Gurt the Yurt in east Sussex costs 120 per night per family of four on Airbnb

'The idea of home-sharing is increasingly mainstream and renting out your property to make extra income has become fashionable.' Airbnb  which specialises in connecting property owners with travellers looking for somewhere to stay  has diversified rapidly.

Since 2011 it has grown from 50,000 listings to two million, with 60 million users in 190 countries including Greenland, Uzbekistan, Cuba and Sri Lanka.

Accommodation ranges from treehouses to castles and converted windmills. Hosts and guests rate one another after each stay, so cheerless hovels and light-fingered 'guests from hell' are weeded out.

Britain has 52,000 Airbnb hosts and the boom has also spawned hundreds of small businesses. Take property developer Bill Colegrave, whose apartment overlooks Portobello Market in West London.

TOP TIPS 1. DESCRIBE your property accurately, with photos. 2. A BARGAIN rate early on will help attract guests. 3. UPDATE your information on the listings site regularly to help keep your property near the top. 4. MAKE sure it is immaculate. Poor cleanliness ratings will put people off. 5. GET insured. Airbnb provides up to $1million (707,500) cover for loss or damage, but this does not take the place of the owner's insurance. 6. CHECK small items after each stay. Unscrupulous guests have been known to 'liberate' cushions and ornaments. 7. LET your neighbours know you're considering hosting. 8. SORT out any queries promptly. 9. LEAVE detailed instructions of how appliances work. Advertisement

'I first let this flat to a tenant and made 16,000 a year through traditional rental,' he says. 'Then a friend told me she was renting out three Bermondsey properties for short stays on Airbnb. I put this apartment on there a year ago at 120 a night. It's made more than 16,000 in the first six months, with a likely income this year of 30,000.'

Encouraged by this success, Colegrave set up LettsGetSmart.com, managing a handful of London flats, some belonging to expat friends, using Airbnb to market them.

He takes 15 per cent of the rental, after Airbnb's 3 per cent cut and organises the cleaning, changeovers, meeting-and-greeting and answering guests' queries.

He attributes his almost 100 per cent occupancy rate to clean, affordable properties in a tourist mecca and daily updates on Airbnb's website to keep each flat high up the listings.

'Landlords can get twice the income from short-term rental, but most don't have the time or the resources. We enable them to do so,' he says.

Peter Hayes has rented out a double room with a four-poster bed in 600-year-old Caher Castle in Galway. It is let for 130 (103) a night, though the castle remains a work in progress with visitor income funding the reconstruction.

'I used Airbnb to avoid selling the castle,' says Hayes. 'We asked our first American visitors to give us some pointers. They were insisting we declutter and stop drying our bed linen in the living room. Once we made the changes, they gave us a great review.'

FOR many travellers, small is beautiful. Crofters Sue Hollands and Neil Robertson welcome guests to their cosy converted cowshed, Cleadale Bothy, on the Hebridean island of Eigg for just 40 a night. Though lacking hotel luxury, visitors say the sea views towards Rum are worth it.

By contrast, interior decorators Shaun Clarkson and Paul Brewster's two Norfolk offerings, Carrington House and Cliff Barns, are exquisitely restored.

Each sleeps 18 and is booked months in advance, for stays at 120 per person a night and wedding parties. 'We aim for the wow factor,' says Mr Brewster. 'We've had nothing but lovely guests.

'But Airbnb can be difficult to communicate with and though guests pay it upfront when they book, the firm holds on to the money until the day before people stay.

'For our sort of business, though, Airbnb is so big and influential that it's something you have to be a part of.'

ON THE MARKET: GOOD FOR SHORT LETS

ANGLESEY: You'll really stand out with nine-bedroom Point Lynas lighthouse, which overlooks the Irish Sea. There are two other cottages in 17 acres. sothebysrealty.co.uk, 01932 860537; 1.375million

SOUTH KENSINGTON: A stone's throw from the V&A and Buckingham Palace, this two-bedroom flat with a courtyard will draw in tourists wanting to make the most of the capital. foxtons.co.uk, 020 7590 1000, 899,950
Around 7.2 million tons of chocolate are consumed worldwide each year

For many, the excuse to eat lots of chocolate might be the best part of Easter.

But while you are tucking into your Easter eggs this year, take some time to consider just how something that starts off as a seed can become so delicious.

All the way from the tree to your mouth, How it Works magazine has revealed the secrets of the chocolate factory.

Hundreds of complex chemicals found in chocolate keep us coming back for more. Not only do they give chocolate its delicious taste and smooth texture, but they also have powerful effects on the human brain to make us feel happy and alert

Although it is typically considered unhealthy, some chocolate does actually have some health benefits. Cocoa beans are rich in natural antioxidants called flavonols. One of these flavonols, called epicatechin, can increase the levels of nitric oxide in your blood to relax your blood vessels. The addictive nature of chocolate is pictured

There's no doubt chocolate is one of our favourite indulgences, with more than 7.2 million tons of it consumed worldwide each year.

What you may not realise is that it's the hundreds of complex chemicals found in chocolate that keep us coming back for more.

The full feature is in the latest edition of How it Works magazine, on sale now

Not only do they give chocolate its delicious taste and smooth texture, but they also have powerful effects on the human brain to make us feel happy and alert.

It's no wonder that the plant genus from which this tasty substance comes from is called theobroma, derived from the Greek for 'food of the gods'.

Although it is typically considered an unhealthy treat, some chocolate does actually have some health benefits.

Cocoa beans are rich in natural antioxidants called flavonols.

One of these flavonols, called epicatechin, can increase the levels of nitric oxide in your blood to relax your blood vessels.

INSIDE THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Chocolate production begins at the cocoa tree, where cocoa pods containing cocoa beans in a cotton wool-like pulp are harvested between October and December.

The beans are placed between layers of banana leaves for six days to drain the pulp away, a method known as 'heap', before being dried in the sun, packaged and sent to a factory for chocolate making.

Inside a chocolate factory, the beans are heated inside a continuous roaster as they travel along a conveyor belt.

The time of this process varies depending on the flavour required.

Chocolate is grinded between rollers to improve the silky texture, before being smoothed even further in a process known as 'conching'. This involves kneading the mixture in giant tanks at about 46C, with the very best chocolate being conched for more than a week

WHY IS CHOCOLATE SO DELICIOUS? As well as being tasty and sweet, chocolate also contains several mood enhancing chemicals The glossy shine, satisfying snap and smooth texture of chocolate are the main characteristics that make it so appealing, and they are all achieved through clever chemistry. To form solid chocolate, a liquid cocoa butter mix is cooled so that its fat molecules join together in crystal structures called polymorphs. If the cocoa butter cools and hardens too quickly, the fat molecules form a loose and disordered polymorph that makes the chocolate soft and dull-looking with an unappealing white coating called a fat bloom. To avoid this manufacturers use a technique called tempering, controlling the temperature and rate at which the chocolate cools, to create a tight crystal structure. One widely-used method gives the chocolate a melting point of around 33.8 degrees Celsius (92.8 degrees Fahrenheit), just slightly cooler than our body temperature (37 degrees Celsius/98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). This means that when you put chocolate into your mouth, it slowly melts over your tongue, creating yet another appealing characteristic. The smooth texture of the melted cocoa butter creates a pleasant 'mouthfeel', a word used by the food industry to describe the way a substance feels in the mouth, and a main contributor to its overall enjoyment. Advertisement

Once suitably roasted, they are broken down into small pieces and their brittle shells are removed, leaving only the meaty centres of the beans, the 'nibs', which contain the essential cocoa butter for chocolate production.

A mill grinds these nibs into a thick brown liquid known as 'cocoa liquor', the basis of all chocolate products, which is then mixed with varying amounts of sugar and milk depending on the required type of chocolate.

Typically, dark chocolate consists of 70 per cent cocoa liquor, while milk and white chocolate have 30 per cent.

Chocolate eggs have become a staple treat at Easter time (stock image). In September 2010, Armenian-Canadian JV 'Grand Candy' Co Ltd made the world's largest chocolate bar, a mammoth 9,772 lb (4,410kg) hunk of chocolate

Inside a chocolate factory, the beans are heated inside a continuous roaster as they travel along a conveyor belt. The time of this process varies depending on the flavour required. Once suitably roasted, they are broken down into small pieces and their brittle shells are removed, leaving only the meaty beans' centres

Vacuum ovens then dry this mixture into what is known as a chocolate 'crumb', before giant rollers squash the liquid together.

It is then grinded between rollers to improve the silky texture, before being smoothed even further in a process known as 'conching'.

This involves kneading the mixture in giant tanks at about 46C, with the very best chocolate being conched for more than a week.

FIVE CHOCOLATE FACTS In September 2010, Armenian-Canadian JV 'Grand Candy' Co Ltd made the world's largest chocolate bar, a mammoth 9,772 lb (4,410kg) hunk of chocolate. American Bob Brown holds the record for the largest chocolate bar collection, racking up an impressive 770 different variants of the sweet brown stuff. Italian A Giordano Laboratorio Di Cioccolato produced a record-breaking bar of chocolate, measuring 37.9 feet (11.57 metres) long and 3.6 feet (1.1 metres) wide, in 2010. An uneaten 100-year old Cadbury's chocolate bar became the most valuable bar in the world when it sold for 470 in 2001 to an anonymous bidder. Here's a bizarre one that sounds breakable: American Collin Gouldin set the record for the most strawberries dipped in chocolate in one minute in 2008. He managed 53. Advertisement

The final process is tempering, where the liquid is continuously cooled and heated in a cycle until it is a stable chocolaty consistency.

After this stage of the chocolate-making process, the liquid can be poured into moulds, cooled and wrapped at high speeds to make products like bars of chocolate.

To make chocolate with a particular filling, such as caramel, the insides of the bars pass along a conveyor belt and are 'enrobed' by the liquid chocolate before being cooled and wrapped.

IS CHOCOLATE GOOD FOR YOU?

Although it is typically considered an unhealthy treat, some chocolate does actually have some health benefits.

Cocoa beans are rich in natural antioxidants called flavonols. One such flavonol, called epicatechin, can increase the levels of nitric oxide in your blood to relax your blood vessels.

This helps to improve blood flow, lower your blood pressure, and can also prevent atherosclerosis, a condition where the arteries harden after becoming clogged with plaque.

Epicatechin can also improve your body's insulin sensitivity, helping to keep your blood sugar levels under control and reduce the risk of diabetes.

However, not all chocolate is rich in flavonols.

White chocolate is not a good source of these antioxidants as it does not contain cocoa solids, and milk chocolate has a higher proportion of milk and sugar rather than beneficial cocoa.

Therefore, dark chocolate is the best option, and the higher the percentage of cocoa solids the better.

The full feature is in the latest edition of How it Works magazine, on sale now

After the tempering stage of the chocolate-making process, the liquid can be poured into moulds, cooled and wrapped at high speeds to make products like bars of chocolate
Advertisement

It has starred as the home of Skynet in the Terminator series, stopped a nuclear attack in the movie War Games, and even appears in everything from Interstellar to Stargate.

Now, new pictures reveal the interior of the secretive military complex and NORAD Combat Operations Center hidden 2,000 feet below the surface of the Cheyenne Mountains.

It's been 50 years since the facility opened its doors to the US Air Force facility, and now the 23-ton blast doors have been opened again.

Scroll down for video

Some 2,000 feet below the surface of the Cheyenne Mountains lies American's most secure intelligence and data center. The massive underground fortress is a short distance from NORAD and UNSORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado

FEATURES OF THE COMPLEX The total costs was 142.4 million and doors opened February 6, 1967. If there is an attack, the door uses hydraulics to shut in just 20 seconds  it takes 40 seconds by hand. The facility houses 15 three-story buildings designed to withstand movement from earthquakes and protects from explosions by 1,300 springs that allow them to move around independently. About 350 people work inside the underground bunker every day and about 170 stay there overnight, Rose explained. Advertisement

The massive underground fortress is a short distance from NORAD and UNSORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado deep with in the 9,000 foot tall granite mountain.

Plans for the complex began around the late 1950s, as a Cold War defensive strategy against Soviet bombers, ballistic missiles and the possible nuclear attack.

And the mountain's shielding allows the military to stay in contact with satellites, regardless if everyone is completely sealed inside and underground  making it a perfect location to gather intelligence.

The total cost was $142.4 million and the doors first opened February 6, 1967.

It initially started as the NORAD Combat Operations Center, but has moved a majority of its operations to Peterson Air Base.

The agency does make itself known in Cheyenne and plan to retreat there in case of an emergency.

It has change names since inception and it is currently known as Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, with a main focus on collecting information from satellites and ground-based sensors and disseminating the data to North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Strategic Command, reports Airman.

'Those sensors are your nerves out there sensing that information, but the nerves all come back to one spot in the human body, together in the brain stem, entangled in a coherent piece,' said Steven Rose, Cheyenne Mountain AFS deputy director.

'We are the brain stem that's pulling it all together, correlating it, making sense of it, and passing it up to the brain  whether it's the commander at NORAD, NORTHCOM or STRATCOM  for someone to make a decision on what that means.'

It has change names since inception and it is currently known as Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, with a main focus on collecting information from satellites and ground-based sensors. Senior Airman Ricardo Collie (pictured), a 721st Security Forces member, patrols the north gate of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex at Cheyenne Air Force Station, Colorado

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex houses more than a dozen government and Department of Defense agencies. The secretive complex sits behind massive blast doors shaped like plugs, so if there was an explosion the seal would automatically tighten. It takes 40 seconds to shut the massive door by hand

Cheyenne Mountain Complex may be a top secrete facility but it has made appearances on certain Blockbuster hits, including the Terminator series

'That is the most critical part of the nervous system and the most vulnerable. Cheyenne Mountain provides that shield around that single place where all of that correlation and data comes into.'

Getting to the tunnel entrance requires you to go through two security checkpoints.

The tunnel stretches miles through the solid mountain, so if there is an explosion outside the blast waves would funnel past the facility's entrance.

The entrance into the complex itself is safeguarded by a prosaic office door leading to multiple passages, which most can only be accessed with specific clearance.

Reservoirs have been carved throughout the rocky walls that provide drinking and cooling water.

A few years back, worker discovered a spring of fresh water during construction, and a back of batteries will provide power to the entire structure for 14 years.

It has six generators that can power up to 500 kilowatts, which is enough to sustain 5,000 homes.

Structures outside of the military complex include the parking lots and roads, a heliport, and the fire station.Outdoor recreational facilities include Mountain Man Park, picnic areas, a racquetball facility, softball field, sand volleyball court, basketball court, a putting green, and horseshoe area. A military gate limits NORAD Road usage from the State Highway 115 interchange

Two large screens (pictured) light up the alternate command and control center in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. On the left, airplane icons blot out most of the national map on the NORAD/NORTHCOM Battle Cab Traffic Situation Display and to the right is another screen that shows the Washington, D.C., area, called the Special Flight Restrictions Area

The secretive complex sits behind massive blast doors shaped like plugs, so if there was an explosion the seal would automatically tighten.

And if the an event of an attack, the doors are hooked up to hydraulics that shut them in just 20 seconds  it takes 40 seconds by hand.

They do stay open most of the time, but were completely shut during the 9/11 attacks and soldiers do routine closes daily to make sure there are no issues.

Getting to the tunnel entrance requires you to go through two security checkpoints. The tunnel stretches miles through the solid mountain, so if there is an explosion outside the blast waves would funnel past the facilities entrance

A Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station employee walks to the mountain's complex almost a mile to get to the blast doors and into the facility. From the mountain's north portal to its south portal s a 2-mile road through the mountain

The facility houses 15 three-story buildings designed to withstand movement from earthquakes and protects from explosions by 1,300 springs that allow them to move around independently.

'If you fast forward 50 years from our construction, the EMP [electromagnetic pulse] threat has become more important to today's society because of the investment that has been made into electronics,' said Rose.

Cheyenne Mountain is 9,500 feet tall and was once a place where natives traveled for spiritual guidance. Some 2,000 feet below the surface of the Cheyenne Mountains lies American's most secure intelligence and data center, which is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Several hydraulic rods (left) help lock down the two 23-ton blast doors at the entrance inside of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The blast doors are shaped like plugs, meaning any blast would tighten their seal during an attack. 15 buildings rest on more than 1,300 springs (right), 18 inches from the mountains rock walls so they could move independently in the event of a nuclear blast or earthquake.

'Just by sheer coincidence, since we were designed in the 50s and 60s for a nuclear blast and its EMP component, we are sitting here today as the number one rated EMP protected facility. The uniqueness of the mountain is that the entire installation is surrounded by granite, which is a natural EMP shield.'

About 350 people work inside the underground bunker every day and about 170 stay there overnight, Rose explained.

There are men and women military personnel from the US and Canada, along with contractors who work on the complexs structure and operations.

Plans for the complex began around the late 1950s, as a Cold War defensive strategy against Soviet bombers, ballistic missiles and the possible nuclear attack. The total costs was 142.4 million and doors opened February 6, 1967. It initially started as the NORAD Combat Operations Center, but has moved a majority of its operations to Peterson Air Base

Tech. Sgts. Alex Gaviria (left) and Sarah Haydon (right), both senior system controllers, answer phone calls inside the 721st Communications Squadron Systems Center in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The systems center monitors around the world for support and missile warning. Nuclear attacks were the initial focus for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex employees, but today they do much more

Military personnel are constantly gathering data from antennas, telescopes, satellites and other surveillance systems that are linked up to the facility.

Although the nuclear attacks were the initial focus for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex employees, today they do much more.

For example, teams of personnel monitor and detect incoming threats to the United States and the 9/11 attacks brought on the need to track the interior airspace of the US and Canada.

Reservoirs (left) have been carved throughout the rocky walls that provide drinking and cooling water. Reservoirs have been carved throughout the rocky walls that provide drinking and cooling water. A few years back, worker discovered a spring of fresh water during construction. The entrance (right) into the complex itself is safeguarded by a prosaic office door leading to multiple passages, which most can only be accessed with specific clearance

However, the specific work that is done there remains classified.

The bunker is the country's single-best EMP-protected complex, Rose said, and serves as the ultimate backup during a nuclear attack.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex may be a top secrete facility but it has made appearances on certain Blockbuster hits, including Terminator, WarGames and Interstellar and the sci-fi show Stargate SG-1.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex may be a top secrete facility but it has made appearances on certain Blockbuster hits, including Terminator, WarGames and Interstellar and the sci-fi show Stargate SG-1. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex has six generators (pictured) to utilize as backup for the mountain's power. The six generators can power up to 500 kilowatts, enough power to sustain 5,000 homes
His name is Bruno and together with his two 'siblings' he is helping scientists embark on one of humankind's greatest adventures - the search for life on Mars.

Bruno belongs to a 'family' of three rover prototypes, the others are named Bridget and Bryan, which are testing the latest in planetary navigation technology.

In two years time, a six-wheeled machine with a 'brain' similar to Bruno's will be launched to the red planet as part of the ExoMars mission.

Bruno (pictured) belongs to a 'family' of three rover prototypes - the others are named Bridget and Bryan - which are testing the last word in planetary navigation technology. In two years time, a six-wheeled machine with a 'brain' similar to Bruno's will be launched to the red planet as part of the ExoMars mission

There it will look for signs of life in soil samples from below the arid Martian surface and take colour images of the surrounding landscape.

The British-built rover has star billing in the second half of the 1.2 billion euro (946 million) joint European and Russian ExoMars mission.

As the ExoMars orbiter hurtles towards Mars at 20,500mph (33,000km/h) after its launch on 14 March, scientists and engineers are gearing up to start work on the rover that will go into space.

Assembling the complex array of mechanical parts and electronic circuits is due to begin at the UK headquarters of Airbus Defence & Space in Stevenage later this year.

BRUNO, BRIDGET AND BRYAN Bruno belongs to a 'family' of three rover prototypes - the others are named Bridget and Bryan - which are testing the last word in planetary navigation technology. As the ExoMars orbiter hurtles towards Mars at 20,500mph (33,000kph) after its launch on March 14, scientists and engineers are gearing up to start work on the rover that will go into space. Testing of the rover prototypes takes place in a giant hangar containing 250 tonnes of sand strewn with artificial boulders, against a backdrop of panoramic photos from Mars. Bruno is a stripped down version of the rover, missing all its scientific hardware, yet is designed to weigh the same as the machine on Mars, around 200kg (441 pounds). That is because the pull of Martian gravity is about a third of the Earth's. The finished rover will have a drill that can bore down two metres (6.5 feet) below the Martian surface and extract samples to be analysed in its on-board laboratory. Unlike any Mars rover before it, the ExoMars rover will look for biochemical signatures of life. They might be organic molecules with a particular left or right 'handedness' to their structure that indicates a biological origin, or specific minerals left behind by long-dead microbes. Advertisement

Testing of the rover prototypes takes place in a giant hangar containing 250 tonnes of sand strewn with artificial boulders, against a backdrop of panoramic photos from Mars.

Speaking at the facility as 'Bruno' trundled slowly by - the rover's top speed is two centimetres per second - head of science Dr Ralph Cordey talked about the machine's unique ability to steer itself around obstacles.

'One of the challenges of going to Mars is that it's so far away in terms of the time it takes radio signals to go there and back - around 40 minutes,' he said.

'It's not possible to drive this sort of machine with a joystick. You'll crash it. So this rover is designed to be semi-autonomous. It can produce its own 3D map of the area ahead of it, look where it's being asked to go, and plot its own path.

'It's aware that some rocks it can't get over and has to drive round, and it can see ditches and sense what slopes are safe to climb.'

The rover has one navigational weakness, however - it can get confused by shadows.

'There are caves on Mars and craters that cast long shadows,' said Airbus Defence & Space communications director Jeremy Close.

'To explore those areas, it's more efficient to have a human in the loop.'

Next month, Major Tim Peake will take part in a pioneering experiment that will see him operate Bruno remotely from space.

Major Peake will be asked to drive the rover into a 'cave' - simulated by plunging half the Mars sandpit into darkness.

Steering the machine through a barrier raised across the 95ft (30 metres) by 42ft (13 metres) testing area, he will seek out targets marked with an 'X'.

Bruno is a stripped down version of the rover, missing all its scientific hardware, yet is designed to weigh the same as the machine on Mars, around 200kg (441 pounds).

That is because the pull of Martian gravity is about a third of the Earth's.

Once on Mars, the machine (pictured) will look for signs of life in soil samples below the arid Martian surface and take colour images of the surrounding landscape. Bruno is a stripped down version of the rover, missing all its scientific hardware, yet is designed to weigh the same as the machine on Mars, around 441lbs (200kg)

The British-built rover has star billing in the second half of the 1.2 billion euro (946 million) joint European and Russian ExoMars mission. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (pictured) on 14 March and is expected to arrive at Mars in October

Testing of the rover prototypes takes place in a giant hangar (pictured) containing 250 tonnes of sand strewn with artificial boulders, against a backdrop of panoramic photos from Mars. The finished rover will have a drill that can bore down 6.5ft (2 metres) below the surface and extract samples to be analysed in its on-board lab

Unlike any Mars rover before it, the ExoMars rover will look for biochemical signatures of life. Nasa's Curiosity rover is pictured

The finished rover will have a drill that can bore down 6.5ft (2 metres) below the Martian surface and extract samples to be analysed in its on-board laboratory.

Unlike any Mars rover before it, the ExoMars rover will look for biochemical signatures of life.

They might be organic molecules with a particular left or right 'handedness' to their structure that indicates a biological origin, or specific minerals left behind by long-dead microbes.

The planned landing site is a flat equatorial region known as Oxia Planum where there is geological evidence of surface water long ago.

Navigating autonomously, the rover is expected to cover up to 230ft (70 metres) per day and as much as 2.5 miles (4km) in the course of its six-month mission.

A colour panoramic camera mounted on a mast in the centre of the machine will capture unmatched images of the planet.

'It will have the ability to put you there in a 3D colour environment, as if you were on Mars,' Dr Cordey pointed out.

Asked how he felt about the mission, he said: 'It will help answer one of the really deep down questions that we have.

'You stop and look up into the night sky and wonder, is there life out there? We've now got the engineering and science capability to start trying to answer that question. It's not just in the realms of sci-fi - there are good reasons for believing there could have been life on Mars early in its life, just as there was on Earth.

The ExoMars rover will look for biochemical signatures of life in the form of organic molecules with a particular signature that indicates a biological origin, or specific minerals. The machine is pictured with head of science at Airbus Space and Defence Dr Ralph Cordey and Abbie Hutty Senior Spacecraft Structures Engineer

Artist's impression visualising the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and its entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, Schiaparelli, approaching Mars. The separation is scheduled to occur on 16 October 2016. Schiaparelli will enter the martian atmosphere on 19 October, while TGO will enter orbit around Mars

THE EXOMARS LAUNCH DETAILS Launch vehicle: Proton-M/Breeze-M Launch mass: 4,332 kg (including fuel) Instruments: Orbiter (3732 kg, including 135.6 kg science payload) and Schiaparelli (600 kg) Dimensions: Orbiter: 3.5 x 2 x 2m with 17.5m solar arrays tip-to-tip. Schiaparelli: 1.65 m diameter The launch: The rocket blasted off at 09:31 GMT (10:31 CET) on 14 March, as planned. Advertisement

'The surface of Mars is not a nice place for life.

'There are cosmic rays that bombard the surface, and energetic particles from the sun, and the surface chemistry is very reactive so that any organic material would be rapidly oxidised.

'The place to look for life is under the surface, and that's what this mission is doing that no other mission has.'

Searching for life brings with it a new set of technological challenges. It is the reason why the rover has metal, not rubber, wheels, and why no oily lubricants can be used on its moving parts.

ExoMars rover structures engineer Abbie Hutty explained: 'You can't have anything organic when you're looking for organic material, even sheaths around cables, gaskets and lubricants.'

To withstand the harsh Martian conditions - high doses of radiation and night temperatures that drop to minus 130C - the electronics cannot be too delicate either.

That rules out super-fast systems.

METHANE ON MARS More than 90% of methane on Earth is produced by living organisms, making the recent detection of the gas in the northern hemisphere of Mars of great interest. Methane has a chemical lifetime of between 300 and 600 years, so if it is detected, it can't have been produced 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets formed. If methane is being produced biologically, it may be by microscopic organisms living below the surface of the red planet. Or it was made by extinct methanogenes that left methane frozen in the Martian surface, which is being gradually released. The methane could also have a geological origin, in which case it may be provided by the oxidation of iron, similar to what occurs in terrestrial hot springs, or in active volcanoes. Advertisement

As a result, the rover's technology, while in some ways highly advanced, is at 1980s level in terms of speed.

'Everything has to be a bit clunky,' said Ms Hutty. 'The electronics have to be 'radproof' - military grade radiation resistant - and that makes them slower.

'It limits the rover's top speed because we're governed by how quickly we can process the view of what's in front of us.'

The British rover and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) now on its way to Mars together are expected to provide a good indication of whether or not there is, or ever has been, life on the Red Planet.

TGO is designed to sniff out methane in the Martian atmosphere and tell if it is likely to have been generated by microbes or geology.
The debate about science and religion is usually viewed as a competition between worldviews.

Research earlier this week found people suppress areas of the brain used for analytical thinking and engage the parts responsible for empathy in order to believe in god.

But regardless of what side of the argument you're on, fundamentally the reasons why you believe what you do have a similar grounding.

In fact, the conflict has as much to do with culture, family, moral positions and political loyalties as it has to do with the truth according to Stephen Jones, research fellow from Newman University and Carola Leicht, a research associate, at the University of Kent.

The pair has explained the differences, and similarities, about belief in an article for The Conversation.

The debate about science and religion is usually viewed as a competition between worldviews. In fact, the conflict has as much to do with culture, family, moral positions and political loyalties as it has to do with the truth according to researchers from Newman University and the University of Kent (stock image)

Differing opinions on whether the two subjects can comfortably co-exist - even among scientists - are pitted against each other in a battle for supremacy.

For some, like the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, science and religion represent two separate areas of enquiry, asking and answering different questions without overlap.

Others, such as the biologist Richard Dawkins - and perhaps the majority of the public - see the two as fundamentally opposed belief systems.

But another way to look at the subject is to consider why people believe what they do.

When we do this, we discover that the supposed conflict between science and religion is nowhere near as clear cut as some might assume.

ARE ATHEISTS PSYCHOPATHS? If you don't believe in God or a universal spirit, you're more likely to be callous and manipulative, according to a controversial new study. Atheists exhibit more traits commonly seen among psychopaths than people who consider themselves to be religious. However, believers aren't spared criticism - the study also found that religious people are less intelligent than their non-believing counterparts. Religious people were found to be more caring towards their fellow humans and the researchers believe their findings may help explain why women - who tend to be more empathetic - are also likely to be more religious. Researchers at Cape Western Reserve University in Ohio and Babson College in Massachusetts, argue that the conflict between science and religion may have its origins in the structure of our brains. Advertisement

Our beliefs are subject to a range of often hidden influences.

Take the belief that science and religion have been in fundamental conflict since humans developed the capacity to think scientifically.

This position only became well-known in the late 19th century, when science was characterised by amateurism, aristocratic patronage, minuscule government support and limited employment opportunities.

The 'conflict thesis' arose in part from the desire to create a separate professional sphere of science, independent of the clerical elites who controlled universities and schools.

At the same time, factors that we might assume influence our beliefs may not really be as important.

There's a tendency to believe that people's religious belief decreases as they are exposed to more scientific knowledge.

In 1913, the psychologist James Leuba concluded that the relatively low levels of belief among professional scientists was because scientific awareness made religious faith harder to maintain. But the relationship between scientific knowledge and belief is far from clear.

A broad range of psychological and social research has shown that students who reject evolution for religious reasons do not necessarily know less about it.

And, where conflict does exist today, survey evidence shows that it is highly selective.

In the US, opposition to scientific claims usually emerges over issues where religious groups have been active in moral debate, such as stem cell research.

It may be that conflict between religion and science has as much to do with culture, family ties, moral positions and political loyalties as it has to do with claims about truth.

Studies of scientists' views of religion have found that, while they are a secular group, most don't perceive an inherent conflict between science and religion. There are a number of possible reasons, but it is of interest that some social patterns associated with gender and religion in the wider public are not found among scientists

This even applies to the beliefs of scientists. Studies of scientists' views of religion have found that, while they are an exceptionally secular group, most don't perceive an inherent conflict between science and religion.

There are a number of possible reasons for this finding, but it is of interest that some social patterns associated with gender, ethnicity and religion that are found in the wider public are not found among scientists.

THE PUBLIC'S VIEW ON RELIGION Recent research found that many Americans do not think it important if they are correct on things such as the date of creation or the means by which God created humans. In fact, only 63 per cent of creationists believe correct belief about human origins to be 'very' or 'extremely' important. And only a minority from this group agree with all aspects of the position of organised creationist groups, such as belief that the world was literally created in six days or that humans were created within the past 10,000 years. In the UK, the picture is even less clear. One 2006 poll conducted by the BBC, for example, asked respondents to say if they believed in atheistic evolution, creationism or intelligent design theory. No option was offered for those believing in God as well as accepting evolution. In this way, such surveys effectively 'create creationists' in the way they frame their questions. Advertisement

For example, ethnic minorities among the general population in America and Europe are more likely to be religious.

But among scientists, having recent immigrant status significantly decreases the likelihood of regular religious attendance. Being institutionalised as a scientist, it seems, makes other facets of personal identity, including religious identity, less significant.

Much of the confusion around what people believe about science and religion relates to evolution and those who deny it.

Most of the research into acceptance of evolution has focused on the US, where creationist religious groups are relatively strong and large segments of the public are sceptical of established scientific claims about the subject.

But even there, beliefs about evolution don't fall into simple, coherent categories.

It is often claimed, based on a long-running Gallup poll, that four out of ten US citizens 'believe in creationism'.

The problem with this poll is that it tends to imply all people have clear and internally coherent views on the subject.

Recent research found that many Americans do not think it important if they are correct on things such as the date of creation or the means by which God created humans.

In fact, only 63 per cent of creationists believe correct belief about human origins to be 'very' or 'extremely' important.

And only a minority from this group agree with all aspects of the position of organised creationist groups, such as belief that the world was literally created in six days or that humans were created within the past 10,000 years.

Much of the confusion around what people believe about science and religion relates to evolution and those who deny it, added the researchers. Most of the research into acceptance of evolution has focused on the US, where creationist groups are relatively strong and large segments of the public are sceptical of the subject

In the UK, the picture is even less clear.

One 2006 poll conducted by the BBC, for example, asked respondents to say if they believed in atheistic evolution, creationism or intelligent design theory. No option was offered for those believing in God as well as accepting evolution.

In this way, such surveys effectively 'create creationists' in the way they frame their questions.

Ultimately, there is no simple way of understanding how people will respond to scientific findings.

While some see evolution as explaining away religion, others see the same ideas as confirming religious belief.

But improving public understanding of science means engaging with people from all backgrounds  and this will surely be harder if we stereotype them because we don't fully understand what they believe.
Computers may have become smart enough to beat humans in the world's most complicated board game, but occasionally, they get confused by something as simple as a name.

Due to the nature of certain computer systems, some names will bring up error messages or even crash websites, potentially blocking users from entering important information.

Names may just be too long for particular online forms to bear, or for people with the last name 'Null,' the problem lies in the language of programming.

Computers may have become smart enough to beat humans in the world's most complicated game, but sometimes, they get confused by something as simple as a name. Some names are just too long for particular online forms to bear, but for others, the problem lies directly in the programming

People with the last name Null, have grown accustomed to the difficulties presented by the word.

By definition, null means nothing, or zero  and this carries over to the language of computer programming.

As Christopher Null explains in an article for Wired, the short last name can make a person invisible to computers.

While some websites will accept the name, others will show the user an error message, explaining that the last name field cannot be left blank, or that the word is a reserved term which cannot be used.

Or in a more extreme result, the site will crash.

To work around the issue, Null has tried multiple initial-name combinations, and typically relies on a trick in which he adds a period to his last name, making it Null.

As Christopher Null explains in an article for Wired , the short last name can make a person invisible to computers

But sometimes, using the name just wont work at all.

Occasionally, Null points out that the last name also leads to harmless hilarity, with mail showing up to his house addressed only to Mr.

The Wired writer isnt the only person with this last name to experience problems.

After getting married and taking on her husbands last name, a Virginia woman became Jennifer Null.

Soon enough, she began to understand the gripes his family often joked about surrounding the name, Null told the BBC.

For airplane tickets, government websites, and even the utility bill, Null has run into trouble entering her personal information.

To work around this, she typically has to do things the old-fashioned way, she explains to BBC, and make arrangements over the phone.

These problems are an example of edge cases in a computer database, or the problems for which they were not designed.

Patrick McKenzie, a programmer who has run into his own share of name-related issues, told the BBC that computer systems arent necessarily tested for problems of these kinds.

While 'Patrick McKenzie' may not seem uncommon, in Japan  where he lives  computer systems are designed to work with much shorter names.

Japanese names are characteristically short when written in Japanese, McKenzie explained to Dailymail.com in an email.

The modal name is two characters for first name and two characters for last name. Three characters is semi-common. (Japanese people do not commonly have middle names.)

WHY COMPUTERS GET CONFUSED BY CERTAIN NAMES When it comes to the last name 'Null,' the issue lies in the computer system. By definition, null means nothing, or zero  and this carries over to the language of computer programming. This last name can make a person 'invisible' to the computer, bringing up error messages or crashing the site. Other problems center on the length of the particular name. Many people have run into difficulties when they discover that their name is too long for the system to support. These issues are known as edge cases, or problems for which the system was not designed. In many cases, people with names that 'confuse' computers are forced to manipulate the spelling for online forms, shortening it or using initials to work around the issue. But, this doesn't work with many official websites, in some cases including banking or government services. Advertisement

As a consequence, Japanese paper forms and computer systems are often limited in the length of names they will accept, because (to a Japanese system architect or government bureaucrat) a person with a 20 character name sounds as absurdly non-normative as someone would be in England if their name was 100 letters long.

Patrick McKenzie has run into his own share of name-related issues in Japan, where his name is too long for forms

McKenzie explains that the Japanese language has three distinct types of characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

The programmer goes by a Japanese name that is a transliteration of his own into katakana, which is used to write foreign words, like his Western name.

Most web forms will ask a person to put in their name twice, once in kanji, and once in kana.

As he does not have a name in these forms (and explains that it would be Extremely Odd and not officially allowed for a Westerner to adopt such a name) McKenzie has been confronted with a slew of problems.

On tax forms, the programmer had to shorten his name, and for his banks website, there was a period of time where he was unable to use it at all.

And recently, he was unable to open a college savings account for his daughter; his wife, who is not a foreign citizen, had to do it instead.

Over time, McKenzie has developed ways to work around some of the problems, carrying official documentation of his name and spending countless amounts of time explaining that he is not a fraud risk.

He has even written a letter to a bank branch manager to ask that the database be manually edited by the IT department.

A few years ago, Hawaiian woman named Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele experienced similar frustration with her 36-letter-long last name, which would not fit on her ID.

While her old state ID had accommodated her name, the new one sent after its expiration did not.

A few years ago, Hawaiian woman named Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele experienced similar frustration with her 36-letter-long last name, which would not fit on her ID. When she contacted her local county on Hawaii they suggested she change her last name to make the situation easier on her and them

When she contacted her local county in Hawaii and asked them what could be done, they suggested she change her last name to make the situation easier on her and them.

Since then, the computer systems have been updated to amend the problem.

In many cases, people are forced to manipulate the spelling for online forms, shortening it or using initials to work around the issue.

But, this doesn't work with many official websites, in some cases including banking or government services.

Despite the frustrations, many people who confuse computers have managed to maintain a positive outlook.
An 'impossible' fuel-free engine, that could take humans to Mars in just 10 weeks, is about to undergo peer-review.

The so-called EM Drive creates thrust by bouncing microwaves around in an enclosed chamber, and uses only solar power.

The concept has generated widespread excitement about its potential to be used in deep space travel.

But many argue this is simply hype, pointing out that the design goes against the known laws of physics.

Scroll down for video

A prototype of the 'impossible' fuel-free engine that some say power a spacecraft to Mars in just 10 weeks. The design is now set to undergo peer-review. Many maintain the system goes against the laws of physics

WHAT IS AN EM DRIVE? The concept of an EM Drive engine is relatively simple. It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed. The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel. Humans could also travel further into space, generating their own propulsion on the way. But when the concept was first proposed it was considered implausible because it went against the laws of physics. Its allegedly fuel-free nature also means that the drive may directly contradict the law of conservation of momentum. It suggests it would produce a forward-facing force without an equal and opposite force acting in the other direction. Advertisement

The peer review of the engine could finally settle the matter.

The International Business Times spotted a comment on the that Nasa Spaceflight forum which suggests more testing is set to be done on the engine.

One member of the EmDrive team, Paul March, wrote: 'The Eagleworks Lab is NOT dead and we continue down the path set by our Nasa management.

'Past that I can't say more other than to listen to Dr Rodal on this topic, and please have patience about when our next EW paper is going to be published. Peer reviews are glacially slow,'

Eagleworks is an experimental lab at Johnson Space Center that was created to explore alternative propulsion technologies.

In November, the EMDrive team posted their first update on the engine in months, and it seems to suggest that the futuristic engine does, in fact, work.

At the time, March said Nasa has managed to remove some of the errors from earlier tests - but still found signals of unexplained thrust.

Among the criticisms of previous experiments were that the tests were not carried out in a vacuum, thereby mirroring the conditions in space.

March posted on the Nasa Spaceflight forum in reply to an unpublished paper that claims the unaccounted thrust is generated by something known as the Lorentz force.

The Lorentz force is the force that is exerted by a magnetic field on a moving electric charge.

But March says his tests prove this is not true.

'I will tell you that we first built and installed a second generation, closed face magnetic damper that reduced the stray magnetic fields in the vacuum chamber by at least an order of magnitude and any Lorentz force interactions it could produce,' he said.

One of the images from an as-yet unpublished paper on the EMDrive, revealing the magnetic fields of the device. The concept has generated widespread excitement about its potential to be used in deep space travel. But many argue this is simply hype, pointing out that the design goes against the known laws of physics

WHAT IS THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM? The basic laws that are applied in the theory of the EmDrive include Newton's laws including the law of conservation of momentum and the law of conservation of energy. At its most simple, the law of conservation of momentum can be explained by studying collisions. During a collision between two objects - object 1 and object 2 - the forces acting on and between the two objects are equal, and opposite in direction. These forces act for a set amount of time depending on the strength of the force and the shape and size of the objects, but regardless of how long this lasts, the time on each object is the same. The EmDrive appears to violate this law because it seemingly produces a forward-facing force that powers it through space without an equal and opposite force acting in the other direction. However, the electromagnetic wave momentum that is created in the resonating cavity travels to the end walls. At this point, the momentum gained and the momentum lost by the electromagnetic wave is equal, which suggests it complies with the law. Advertisement

'And yet the anomalous thrust signals remain.'

March also says that in the latest developments, thermal expansion of the thruster is taken into account to reduce all possible sources of error.

But the thrust can still be seen, and engineers still can't explain what's causing it.

Current plans are to try to recreate the Eagleworks results under higher power.

If it becomes operatonal, which many believe it won't, the EM Drive propulsion system would permit travel at speeds until now only seen in science fiction and have other implications for space exploration.

Researchers say the new drive could carry passengers and their equipment to the moon in as little as four hours, or to Mars in 10 weeks.

A trip to Alpha Centauri, which would take tens of thousands of years to reach under current methods, could be reached in just 100 years. And as the thrusters are solar powered, propulsion would be generated along the way.

The system is based on electromagnetic drive, or EM Drive, which converts electrical energy into thrust without the need for rocket fuel.

Nasa's test set-up for the futuristic EM Drive in its 'Eagleworks' lab. The system is based on electromagnetic drive, or EM Drive, which converts electrical energy into thrust without the need for rocket fuel

While there has been some scepticism around the EMDrive, in April Nasa released results of its own test which showed that the EMDrive did in fact create thrust. Pictured is an experimental set-up to test the system

Last year, German scientists also backed Nasa's claim that the engines do work.

Martin Tajmar, professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, presented a paper to the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum in July.

Tajmar wrote: 'Additional tests need to be carried out to study the magnetic interaction of the power feeding lines used for the liquid metal contacts.'

'Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the magnitude of the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena.

'Next steps include better magnetic shielding, further vacuum tests and improved EM Drive models with higher Q factors and electronics that allow tuning for optimal operation.'

According to classical physics, the EM Drive should be impossible because it seems to violate the law of conservation of momentum.

The law states that the momentum of a system is constant if there are no external forces acting on the system  which is why propellant is required in traditional rockets.

Researchers from the US, UK and China have demonstrated EM Drives over the past few decades, but their results have been controversial as no one has been exactly sure how it works.

The concept of an EmDrive engine is relatively simple. It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed

When London-based Roger Sawyer came up with concept in 2000, the only team that took him seriously was a group of Chinese scientists.

In 2009, the team allegedly produced 720 millinewton (or 72g) of thrust, enough to build a satellite thruster. But still, nobody believed they had achieved this.

Last year, Pennsylvania-based scientist Guido Fetta and his team at Nasa Eagleworks published a paper that demonstrates that a similar engine works on the same principles.

Their model, dubbed Cannae Drive, produces much less thrust at 30 to 50 micronewtons - less than a thousandth of the output of some relatively low-powered ion thrusters used today.

On the NasaSpaceFlight.com, those allegedly involved in the project claim that the reason previous EM Drive models were criticised were that none of the tests had been carried out in a vacuum.

Physics says particles in the quantum vacuum cannot be ionised, so therefore you cannot push against it. But Nasa's latest test claims to have shown otherwise.

'Nasa has successfully tested their EmDrive in a hard vacuum  the first time any organisation has reported such a successful test,' the researchers wrote.

'To this end, Nasa Eagleworks has now nullified the prevailing hypothesis that thrust measurements were due to thermal convection.'

However, Nasa's official site said earlier this year: 'There are many 'absurd' theories that have become reality over the years of scientific research.

'But for the near future, warp drive remains a dream.'
A handwritten manuscript from nearly 400 years ago has revealed a glimpse of the recipe for the mythical philosophers stone.

The 17th century document was penned by Isaac Newton, and is a copy of another known alchemists text.

After decades in a private collection, the text was purchased by the Chemical Heritage Foundation in the US, which has revealed the early steps in a process alchemists thought could turn lead to gold.

A handwritten manuscript from nearly 400 years ago reveals a glimpse at the recipe for the mythical philosophers stone. The 17th century document was penned by Isaac Newton, a copy of another known alchemists text

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE The philosophers stone was a well sought-after substance in Western alchemy. Between the Middle Ages and the end of the 17th century, alchemists thought this would allow them to turn lead, iron, copper, and other base metals, to gold. They also believed it had implications for the human soul, and could cure illnesses or even achieve immortality. Advertisement

In the text, the alchemist describes the process for making philosophic mercury, according to Chemistry World.

Shortened as sophick, philosophic mercury was thought to be a key substance in the creation of the philosophers stone, researchers say.

Philosophic mercury was [thought to be] a substance that could be used to break down metals into their constituent parts, James Voelkel, the CHFs curator of rare books, told Chemistry World.

The idea is if you break the metals down you can then reassemble them and make different metals.

Translated from Latin, the title of the manuscript reads Preparation of the [Sophick] Mercury for the [Philosophers] Stone by the Antimonial Stellate Regulus of Mars and Luna from the Manuscripts of the American Philosopher.

While researchers arent sure if Newton ever actually tried to make the substance, Voelkel says it would not have been out of character for him, and he likely used the text as a reference.

The Philosopher's stone is such a popular myth it even featured in the Harry Potter films.

Newton is well known for his influence to physics and mathematics, but documents similar to this one reveal he was also an enthusiastic alchemist.

The text also describes one of Newtons own experiments, and the expert says this is just a minute example of the scientist's massive 'alchemical output.'

Its often the case with Newtons manuscripts that if they lie around long enough he turns them over and writes something else on the back, Voelkel told CW.

Newton is well known for his influence to physics and mathematics, but the researchers say he was also an enthusiastic alchemist. The text also describes one of Newtons own experiments, and the expert says this is just a minute example of the scientist's massive 'alchemical output'

In this case there is a note of an experiment that he did. Its a recipe for distilling a volatile spirit out of lead orewhich corresponds nicely with Newtons interpretation with various alchemical authors.

The experts say the text was originally authored by a Harvard-educated chemist named George Starkey, who wrote under the penname Eirenaeus Philalethes, before the publishing of a printed copy in 1678.

Starkey was one of the first published scientists in the United States.

Starkey found having this alter ego was really useful because he didnt have to b that person he attributed these writings to, Voelkel told CW.

He could publish under another name, and he could completely control peoples access to that person because he didnt exist!

The manuscript was sold by his descendants at Sothebys in London in 1936, and has just been made public for the first time.
A bright green comet is about to come into view for sky watchers in the northern hemisphere.

The icy space rock, dubbed Comet Linear, will emerge from next week and be around 100 times brighter than astronomers had expected.

Sky gazers in the southern hemisphere, were treated to view of the comet earlier this week, after it passed Earth at 3.3 million miles away.

A bright green comet is about to come into view for sky watchers in the northern hemisphere. The icy space rock, dubbed Comet Linear, will emerge from next week and be around 100 times brighter than astronomers had expected

HOW TO SEE IT Go to an area with low light pollution away from any cities or towns. You will need to be out at least 1.5 hours before sunrise, The comet is moving between the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. This is in the southern part of the sky. The planets Saturn and Mars are in this part of the sky as well. They and the bright star Antares will be the first things you notice, forming a distinctive triangle a little smaller. The comet is climbing to the left of this trio. You may need the help of binoculars, as the moon light will could obscure your view. Advertisement

Currently, Comet Linear is moving rapidly into view from the northern hemisphere. But due to moon-filled skies, you may need binoculars to get a good view.

Sky watchers will need to be out at least 1.5 hours before sunrise, in a location as free from light pollution as possible.

The comet is moving between the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, which is in the southern part of the sky before dawn.

Each morning the comet will be higher up with respect to the surrounding stars.

The planets Saturn and Mars are in this part of the sky as well.

They and the bright star Antares will be the first things you notice, forming a distinctive triangle a little smaller than your clenched fist held at arm's length, according to Sky & Telescope.

The comet is climbing to the left of this trio. It will be roughly in line with Mars and Saturn on the morning of March 29th and along a line connecting Saturn and Antares on March 31st.

'Don't expect Comet Linear to be obvious with a long tail,' explains Sky & Telescope Senior Editor Kelly Beatty.

Use this chart to help you find the comet. The area of sky shown is close to the southern horizon for observers at mid-northern latitudes. Symbols show the comet's location every 8 hours along its track; those with dates are plotted for 4 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (0h Universal Time) on that date

'Its light isn't concentrated in a single point but instead is spread out in a soft round glow, larger than the Moon but many thousands of times dimmer.'

Comet Linear has a greenish colour caused by molecules of diatomic carbon that are fluorescing in sunlight.

However, the green tint likely won't be evident unless you view the comet through a telescope.

Given the comet's unexpected surge, astronomers aren't sure how long it will remain.

It passed closest to Earth, just 3.3 million miles away, on March 21st. Now it's moving away from both Earth and the sun.

Another small visitor, called Comet PanSTARRS (designated P/2016 BA14), passed even closer to Earth  about 2.2 million miles away  on March 22nd.
Apple isn't alone in blocking government-backed security breaches.

Google today announced that it will let users know if they are been targeted by a state sponsored hacker using a new warning.

The company said it will also be increasing the visibility of other types of Gmail security warnings to try and help people better protect themselves.

Scroll down for video

Apple isn't alone in blocking government-backed security breaches. Google today announced that it will let users know if they are been targeted by a state sponsored hacker using a new warning

'Since 2012, we've warned Gmail users when we suspect they've been targeted by state-sponsored attackers,' Google said in a blog post.

'These warnings are rare - fewer than 0.1 per cent of users ever receive them - but they are critically important.

'The users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.'

Google will now provide full-page warning with instructions about how these users can stay safe.

Users may see these new warnings instead of, or in addition to, the existing ones, Google added.

The users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world

Google has been increasing its Gmail security in recent months. One of its recent changes is the expansion of the 'safe browsing' notifications

The move comes as the world's leading tech companies backed civil liberties advocates who filed court papers backing Apple in its fight with the FBI over an encrypted iPhone used by an extremist killer.

GOOGLE'S PADLOCK ALERT If the account the user is sending it to is encrypted, the padlock with show as locked. This means users can go ahead and send the email without worrying that someone will be able to read it who isn't supposed to. If they receive a message that can't be authenticated, they'll also see a question mark where they may otherwise see a profile photo or logo. They can then choose to send the data or not. Advertisement

Several trade associations and a group of 17 smaller tech firms, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Airbnb and Reddit submitted their own filings on Apple's behalf.

Google has been increasing its Gmail security in recent months.

Last month, it introduced a security measure in the form of a small red padlock next to a sender's email address to highlight if the message is potentially unsafe.

One of its recent changes is the expansion of the 'safe browsing' notifications.

'Safe Browsing already protects Gmail users by identifying potentially dangerous links in messages,' Google wrote in a recent blog post.

'Starting this week, Gmail users will begin to see warnings if they click these links, further extending this protection to different web browsers and email apps.'

If users receive a message that can't be authenticated, they'll also see a question mark where they may otherwise see a profile photo or logo, Google said.

As part of Safer internet Day, Google also announced it will reward users with 2GB of free Drive cloud storage for those that complete its online security check.

Completing the security check is free and let's Google scan the user's internet connection to warn them if it sees anything unusual.

The next time you log into Gmail you might notice a small red padlock (illustrated) next to a sender's email address to highlight that the message may not be safe. Google has introduced the security measure to help people identify dodgy emails and make sure users stay safe from hackers while using Gmail

If the account the user is sending to is encrypted, the padlock with be locked. If they receive a message that can't be authenticated (right), they'll see a question mark where they may otherwise see a profile photo or logo
For some, having money to go on holidays is perhaps the best part of working.

But there is one job that actually pays you to be a full-time tourist.

Helen Teschauer, a New Yorker based in London, works as a Restaurant Development Manager at Hilton Hotels. As part of her job, she visits the most exciting tourist spots, tries out the latest restaurants and hits the hippest bars at destinations around the world - all for research.

Helen Teschauer pictured at Smorgasburg in her home city of New York. She now works in London for Hilton Worldwide and travels regularly for her job

So far she has travelled to Motovun in Istria, Croatia (above), Belgrade in Serbia and Tel Aviv in Israel

Being a tourist, trying out new restaurants and sampling local bars are all part of her job with the hotel group

Teschauer covers Europe, Middle East and Africa but she works in a global team of seven based in London, Singapore, Dubai and Washington.

They are involved in the restaurant planning - or 'tastemaking' - of more than 1,600 up-coming Hilton hotels around the world and any redesigns of their existing 4,600 properties.

Although the team works with chefs, restaurateurs and designers to create the right sort of restaurants for the hotels, according to Teschauer, 'on-the-ground research is essential'.

She told MailOnline Travel: 'To ensure the restaurants and bars we develop fit, its important to understand the hotel, city and also the food and drink culture and trends and in each city.'

Like any other traveller, the research starts before she reaches the city so that by the time she lands at her destination, she already has a map of the neighborhoods, bars and restaurants to explore.

One of the highlights of her job so far was a trip to Beirut. During a food tour, she sampled charcoal grilled testicles (above)

Tel Aviv, above, was another destination that Teschauer travelled to. She does multiple trips a year, often to the same destinations

The days are long.

She said: 'Ill start the day with a run around a city to get a feeling for it, and then aim to visit as many restaurants, bars and cafes as possible.

'Were not just tasting dishes, but also keeping a close on eye on aspects like restaurant design, cool service moments and, to a large degree, people watching.'

She added: 'Even with a list and all of my online research, sometimes the best recommendations come from locals  I like to ask bartenders for their tips on the best places in the city.

'Our restaurants and bars are not just for hotel guests, but locals too, so its absolutely vital to spend time to talk with them and understand where they eat out and why.'

By the end of her research, she will have a firmer idea of what new restaurant concepts can be created for the new hotels.

The first projects that Teschauer worked on was Librije's Zusje at the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam, above

Dishes, like the one above, led the restaurant to gain two Michelin stars within just seven months of opening

This will include everything from the restaurant designs and the cuisine to the brands and chefs that could be involved in the new projects. Even the style of service is scrutinised.

So far Teschauer's work has taken her to countless cities including Belgrade, Amsterdam, Beirut and Tel Aviv.

The first projects that Teschauer worked on was Librije's Zusje at the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam.

It was awarded two Michelin stars within seven months of opening in 2014 with chef Sidney Schutte at the helm.

One of the highlights of her job so far was a week in Beirut where she took a food tour with Taste Lebanon.

She recalled: 'Its food scene is really diverse, and I got to visit all these great places I would have never found myself  a neighborhood bakery, an ice cream shop in a gentlemans front room and eating whole sparrows in Little Armenia.'

Her work involves developing restaurant and bar concepts for new hotels but also for existing hotels

Hilton will be opening a hotel in Belgrade in 2017 and her research has already taken her to the city, above

Back at the office, Teschauer creates a brief that's handed over to the operations team to implement. And once a hotel opens, the team remains on hand to make sure the concept is what they had envisioned.

Market research is involved as well but Teschauer says that 'visiting a city and experiencing it firsthand' helps to put all the information into perspective.

The whole process takes about three years.

There's no hard and fast rules about how many times a destinations has to be visited before a concept is created.

Teschauer revealed: 'Some hotels have as many as 20 restaurants or bars, which means our team creates 20 different concepts and it involves extensive market research.'

She added: 'I love being part of establishing a restaurants story and guests experiences from the start.

There are rules about how many times a destination has to be visited before a concept is created and bigger hotels with multiple restaurants will need extensive research

Teschauer is an avid traveller herself and recently travelled the full length of the North Carolina Barbecue Trail

'But of course the real heroes of a successful restaurant and bar are its chefs and bartenders: the menus they create and the service they offer.'

Currently, Teschauer is working on developing restaurant and bar concepts for a Hilton hotel opening in Belgrade in 2017.

Alongside this, there's also the redevelopment of Hilton Malta and the first Canopy by Hilton to open in Europe, which will be in Reykjavik.

All this means regular trips to these destinations, perfect for Teschauer who says she's a keen traveller in her personal time too.

Recently, she travelled the full length of the North Carolina Barbecue Trail - a trip that meant '10 days of chopped pork, hush puppies and sweet tea'.
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The devastating impact of drought and fire upon California's barren landscape has been revealed in a striking collection of aerial photographs.

German-born photographer Thomas Heinser has been shooting The Golden State over the last three years and is showcasing the images in an exhibition called 'Reduziert'.

The word reduziert is German for 'reduced' and the collection highlights how a combination of factors have transformed and diminished the face of this once-flourishing landscape.

German-born photographer Thomas Heinser has been photographing The Golden State over the last three years from the air

The barren landscape of California, hit by drought, fire and industry, has been shown off in a spectacular photo collection

Heinser leans out of a helicopter with no door to snap the scenes at Lake County and Central Valley (pictured)

The 58-year-old photographer, who lives in northern California, has been cataloguing his changing homeland in the shocking images taken from above.

Ravaged by five years of drought, in December 2015, MailOnline revealed that as many as 58million large trees in California are under threat and could be wiped out due to lack of water.

Even if the weather improves, California's forests could suffer irreversible change, a report from the Carnegie Institution has revealed.

Although the area welcomed four straight days of rain, earlier this month, which replenished several key reservoirs in Northern California, Heinser's photo series shows just why the rainfall is so necessary.

Heinser has showcased the shots of a barren Californian landscape in an exhibition called 'Reduziert', German for reduced

California is now into its fifth year of drought, although heavy rainfall earlier this month has given local hope of revitalisation

To get the mesmerising shots, 58-year-old Heinser leans out of a helicopter that has the door taken off

Speaking to MailOnline Travel, Heinser said: 'Ive been photographing the effects of severe drought for several years now, capturing reservoirs with their depleted water levels, depicting decimated farming fields, along with the wild fire devastation of nearly a million acres.'

The photographer who has been shooting aerial images for 12 years, leans out of a helicopter with no door to snap the scenes at Lake County and Central Valley.

He said: 'I work early, just few minutes before and after sunrise, buckled in tightly, shooting from a helicopter with my door removed, handholding a medium-format digital camera plus stabilizers.'

Explaining how he achieves the breathtaking shots, he said: 'You dont have too much time to think, you are just intent on experiencing, composing the frame and recording.'

Heinser admits he doesn't have too much time to think, and that he is 'just intent on experiencing, composing the frame and recording'

Heinser has been capturing reservoirs with their depleted water levels and decimated farming fields over the last three years

The reservoirs and general water levels are still not The Golden State was once before, but recent rainfall has renewed hope

ENTIRE FORESTS ARE UNDER THREAT FROM DROUGHT: NEARLY 60MILLION TREES COULD BE WIPED OUT DUE TO A LACK OF WATER IN CALIFORNIA As many as 58million large trees in California are under threat due to the droughts that have ravaged the state since 2011. Even if the weather improves, and El Nino produces more precipitation as is expected, California's forests could suffer irreversible change, a report has revealed. Besides the lack of water, high temperatures and a destructive insect called the bark beetle also raise the risk of forest mortality, said the researchers. 'California relies on its forests for water provisioning and carbon storage, as well as timber products, tourism, and recreation, so they are tremendously important ecologically, economically, and culturally,' wrote Greg Asner, an ecology expert with the Carnegie Institution. He added: 'The drought put the forests in tremendous peril, a situation that may cause long-term changes in ecosystems that could impact animal habitats and biodiversity.' Asner and his team used the laser-guided imaging spectroscopy tools mounted on the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) to measure the full impact of the drought on California's forests for the first time. They combined the CAO data with more-traditional satellite data going back to 2011. Their new approach revealed a progressive loss of water in California's forest canopies over the four-year period. Mapping changes in canopy water content tells scientists when trees are under drought stress and greatly aids in predicting which trees are at greatest death and fire risk. The team's tools showed that around 41,000 square miles (10.6 million hectares) of forest, containing up to 888 million large trees, experienced measurable losses of canopy water between 2011 and 2015. Of this group, up to 58million large trees reached water loss thresholds that the scientists deemed extremely threatening to long-term forest health. Advertisement

'Some of these landscapes look and feel like portraits to me. They can be mysterious: they have some kind of presence and a face, yet are also unknowable, so trying to capture that is not unlike trying to capture a human essence.'

Taking the photographs can prove challenging Heinser admits.

He said: 'Running into some wind and weather issues in the two-seater aircraft en route to the Lake County fires sites soon after the flight restrictions were lifted, that was, lets say, definitely memorable.'

For his next project Heinser would like to still use aerial landscapes as his canvas.

He added: 'I would love to photograph and have been researching the Trans Alaskan Pipeline from the air, one of my more involved projects.

'And I am continuing to document the climate changed environments locally and beyond northern California.'

The northern California-based photographer describes each of the shots as being 'like portraits' and that they are all 'mysterious'

MailOnline revealed that as many as 58million large trees in California are under threat due to the droughts

California's forests could suffer irreversible change because of the drought, a report from the Carnegie Institution has revealed

Heinser said: 'Some of these landscapes look and feel like portraits to me'

Heinser said of the pictures: 'They can be mysterious: they have some kind of presence and a face, yet are also unknowable, so trying to capture that is not unlike trying to capture a human essence'

Heinser remarked: 'I would love to photograph and have been researching the Trans Alaskan Pipeline from the air, one of my more involved projects'
A San Francisco-based start-up firm has created a new app that is likely to cater to travellers or locals who need a hotel room for a quick nap, shower or an 'afternoon delight'.

The Recharge app allows users to book a room directly from the hotel by the minute. It costs 67 cents (47p) for 60 seconds, or $40 (28) an hour.

So far its only available to iPhone users in the Bay Area but the developers are looking to expand to other cities.

The app could be used by those looking for a place to have sex, but a Recharge executive said the firm hasn't seen 'rock-and-roll customers' and guests are expected to behave because they can be rated by the hotel

Users can book with a participating hotel at any time of day and they can stay as long as they want as long as the room doesnt have to be prepared for an overnight guest.

The app operates similar to Uber, with a map showing the nearest hotels and users requiring a credit card for automatic payment.

Users simply select a time and book a room with just a couple of taps.

They are then greeted with a message telling them the room is ready and the key is waiting at the front desk, where the must show government-issued ID.

When guests are ready to leave, all they have to do is hit the Check out button on the app.

So far hotel groups Hyatt and Starwood, whose brands include Westin and Sheraton, have already signed on.

The app operates in a similar way to Uber, with a map showing the nearest hotels, including the Hyatt brand

The app caters to people who only require a room for a short period of time and its a way for hotels to get money out of rooms that havent been booked by an overnight guest.

Recharge chief executive Emmanuel Bamfo told TechCrunch: We see folks who just want to change a diaper or nurse their baby.

We get people who live in Menlo Park but work in San Francisco and who want to shower and take a little time for themselves before they head to an evening engagement.

Its a real need that were solving. [Customers] are getting privacy in the city to nap or shower or prepare for something. You cant do that at Starbucks.

Some guests stay as little as 12 minutes, while one once stayed 25 hours, he added.

When guests are ready to leave, all they have to do is hit the check out button on the app

As of right now the app doesnt have surge pricing and there are plans to introduce day rates.

While many would assume the app would be favoured by guests looking for a place to have sex, Bamfo told TechCrunch that Recharge hasn't seen the rock-and-roll customers and theres an expectation that users will behave because they can be rated by the hotel.

Recharge is one of the newest apps or websites to sell hotel rooms for brief periods.
Its said to be the worlds largest island within an island within an island  but it has probably never been visited by a human.

Measuring about four acres, this unnamed islet in the Arctic is set within a small lake which is on a slightly larger island within a bigger lake on Canadas enormous Victoria Island.

Its likely that no one has ever stepped foot on it, however, as it has no access routes and it is miles from the nearest settlement on barren and sparsely populated Victoria Island, the eighth largest island in the world.

This unnamed islet (circled) in Northern Canada is the worlds largest island within an island within an island

Measuring about four acres, the islet is located on Victoria Island, the eighth largest island in the world

About 75 miles inland from Victoria Islands southern coast, the islet (69.793 N, 108.241 W) was pointed out by record-setting Jeopardy champion and Maphead author Ken Jennings, although he did not make the original discovery.

It was written about as early as 2007.

Before this discovery, the worlds largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island was thought to be at Luzon, in the Philippines.

Located on the Northwest Passage, Victoria Island is home to less than 2,000 people, mostly Inuit, plus polar bears and caribou, and welcomes very few tourists because it is so remote and so cold (the overnight temperature was -33C).

The vast island is nearly 84,000 square miles  slightly larger than the island of Great Britain, which is home to more than 60 million people.

Cambridge Bay, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest settlement on Victoria Island

Located on the boundary of Nunavut and Northwest Territories  two of Canadas three territories  Victoria Island experiences 24 hours of darkness for more than a month in winter and 24 hours of sunlight for two months in spring and summer due to its polar climate.

The worlds largest island within an island within an island is located on the Nunavut side of Victoria Island, which was named after Queen Victoria.
David Camerons choice of Lanzarote as the ideal place for some 'time to think will have surprised many - after all, it's not called 'Lanzagrotty' for nothing.

It's been slated on TripAdvisor, with one reviewer describing the food as 'c****y', and even its president claimed mass tourism has brought about a 'Magaluf effect'. Whats more, it can be attacked by freak Saharan sand storms and there are some nasty animals there, too. As Cameron found out when he was stung by a jelly fish at the resort in 2014.

But is the islands reputation as a dodgy destination undeserved? MailOnline Travel investigates.

Scroll down for video

Pictures of Mr Cameron in a hotel restaurant were shared on Twitter by fellow holidaymaker and Twitter user @aliciaafisher

Last year Fernando Clavijo, the islands president, warned that the archipelago could face the 'Magaluf effect' if it didn't move away from mass tourism

The unfortunate nickname of Lanzagrotty was coined by Michael Palin, according to RTE.

Years later and the location comes with its own derogatory hashtag on social media with many taking to Twitter to share their experiences using #lanzagrotty.

'No. of Mosquito bites so far today = 11 #lanzagrotty' said one user, @breakindaroolz.

Another said the average age on their flight over was 90.

'It's like being on the set of Cocoon #tracksuits #bluerinse #mintsinhandbag,' @JenniferMaguire wrote.

A Twitter user, @sandjbushe replied: 'Surprise? No body with class goes to Lanza - grotty.'

Many on TripAdvisor echoed these sentiments in their reviews of the Canary island.

'If you like Chavs with lots of tattoos eating c****y food, this is the place for you,' said ATraveller01.

'Ghost town,' reviewer jade K labelled the location. 'Nothing to do there expect to be bored after the first day. Nothing there for kids apart from the aquarium and beach.

'Saying that adults either. All hotels are all inclusive so no one goes out.'

But for those who do venture beyond the confines of their hotel, they have been left unimpressed with the volcanic island's offerings.

'Not a great lot unless ur a big fan of rocks,' user @damon2009 said of Lanzarote's main attraction, the Timanfaya National Park.

However, a few bad reviews hasn't stopped the masses flocking to the island for some guaranteed year-long sun.

So much so that last year Fernando Clavijo, the Canary islands president, warned in an interview with The Times that the archipelago could face the 'Magaluf effect' if it didn't move away from mass tourism.

The statement followed authorities banning 50,000 private flats being rented to holidaymakers.

He suggested limiting tourist numbers and all-inclusive holiday in order to conserve the environment.

Last summer, MailOnline reported that around 13 million people visit the Canary Islands each year, although there are only 2.1 million inhabitants.

Popular hotspot: Masses flock to the island each year for some guaranteed year-long sun

And it's not just the influx of tourists that have put travellers off the destination in the past.

In 2015 a grandmother was left fighting for her life in a hospital in Lanzarote after being choked by a freak Saharan dust cloud.

The former bakery worker, 61, fell ill in Playa de los Pocillos, following a unusual spell of dry, hot weather as the airborne dust, also called a Saharan Air Layer, spread across the Canary Islands.

And last August, a British tourist was bitten by a spider and hospitalised with a gruesome injury to his leg.

Barry Jackson, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was left traumatised following his summer getaway to Lanzarote, where he believes he was infected by a false widow spider.

Even the Prime Minister has had his fair share of medical drama after he was stung by a jellyfish as he swam on the Spanish island's popular Arrieta beach.

Lonely Planet describes the Unesco reserve as 'an intriguing island with an extraordinary geology of 300 volcanic cones, at the same time ticking all the right good-time boxes'

The Timanfaya National Park is one of the island's highlights and has been voted the top activity to do in Lanzarote

While the stereotypes of sunburned Brits and tacky shops may have blighted Lanzarote's reputation in the past, many visitors in recent years have been quick to defend the island sharing stories of how it has reinvented itself with a new, attractive image.

In 1993 Lanzarote was declared a biosphere reserve by Unesco and is described by Lonely Planet as 'an intriguing island with an extraordinary geology of 300 volcanic cones, at the same time ticking all the right good-time boxes'.

The guide continues: 'There are great beaches, interesting sights and plenty of restaurants and hotels.'

Plus, the windy weather makes it ideal for watersports and there is a burgeoning industry for tours in off-road vehicles.

Some of the island's highlights include the incredible beaches and windy weather which are perfect for watersports, and its burgeoning industry for tours in off-road vehicles

The government has made efforts to promote rural accommodation and has signposted walking trails.

Tourists can enjoy a unique attraction on the island - a restaurant where food is cooked by an actual volcano. The aptly-named El Diablo (the devil) restaurant in Lanzarote uses the 450 - 500 degrees Celsius of geothermal heat to cook the meat and fish on the menu.

Set against the volcanic backdrop of the Timanfaya National Park, the restaurant relies on the dormant volcano producing bursts of heat or hot vapour, which rise through a hole in the ground to brown the food placed over it on a cast iron grill.

While the stereotypes of sunburned Brits and tacky shops may have blighted Lanzarote's reputation in the past, many visitors in recent years have been quick to defend the island sharing stories of how it has reinvented itself with a new, attractive image

Some of the island's highlights are the incredible beaches, windy weather, perfect for watersports, and its burgeoning industry for tours in off-road vehicles

DAVID CAMERON'S HOLIDAYS SO FAR 2010: Cornwall, England 2011: Granada, Spain 2011: Cornwall, England 2011: Ibiza, Spain 2011: Tuscany, Italy 2011: Cornwall, England 2012: Mallorca, Spain 2012: Cornwall, England 2013: Ibiza, Spain 2013: Algarve, Portugal 2013: Jura, Scotland 2013: Cornwall, England 2014: Lanzarote, Spain 2014: Cascais, Portugal 2014: Cornwall, England 2015: Algarve, Portugal 2015: Cornwall, England 2016: Lanzarote, Spain

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She played a bloodsucker on the silver screen in Twilight.

And Nikki Reed was looking like a vamp in real life when she stepped out in New York in a sheer top on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old actress looked in good cheer as she pounded the pavement and took in the sights during a day out in the Big Apple.

The lady is a vamp: Nikki Reed looked great when she stepped out in New York on Wednesday

She was certainly drawing plenty of admiring glances thanks to her chic ensemble of sheer grey top, a white maxi skirt, and black stilettos.

The saucy starlet rounded off her aesthetically appealing look with a long grey cardigan and a chic designer handbag.

Nikki is married to 37-year-old Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder after they tied the knot in Malibu, California, in April 2015 after a whirlwind nine-month romance.

The pair recently revealed that they were planning to start a family, with Ian explaining 'It's the most incredible thing to be happy and secure in something.'

Sheer delight: The actress showcased her slim figure with a see-through top

Twilight princess: She played Rosalie Hale in the hit movie saga from 2008 until 2012

'It's a pretty crazy time and place to bring a child into this turbulent and insane world - but I really can't wait to do it and really just love it.'

The couple already have a number of pets together - four dogs, three cats and two horses - who Ian refers to as their 'babies'.

Nikki was previously married to American Idol Season 10 singer Paul McDonald, who she split from in 2014 after two years of marriage.

Moving on: She split from American Idol singer Paul McDonald after two years of marriage in 2014
Vicki Michelle, best known for her part in Allo, Allo!

If youre tired of seeing the same faces crop up on your television screen again and again, youre not alone.

Veteran star Vicki Michelle has criticised British producers for always casting the same small group of performers in leading roles.

She said certain faces are chosen time and time again because they are going to bring the money in  but that this means viewers end up seeing the same actresses in every single show.

The 65-year-old, known for playing Yvette Carte-Blanche in sitcom Allo Allo!, said it is time to look beyond the likes of Sheridan Smith, Olivia Colman and Katherine Kelly for top TV parts  and choose someone other than Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Julie Walters for film roles.

She said: Those fantastic actresses are all lovely ... I respect them all and would never take anything away from them.

But I think that sometimes television and film companies become quite channelled into just using the set actresses they think are going to bring the money in. There are a lot of talented people out there, and I say, give other people a chance!

Former Coronation Street actress Katherine Kelly, 36, has recently starred in three major dramas. She played Lady Mae Loxley in ITVs Mr Selfridge, while also appearing in two BBC shows  Happy Valley as Jodie Shackleton and The Night Manager as a civil servant.

Miss Michelle said: I dont begrudge her because shes very talented, and if youre talented you should work, but looking at the bigger picture there are other really good actresses out there.

Miss Colman, 42, is also starring in spy thriller The Night Manager as Angela Burr, and had a leading role in BBC crime series Broadchurch. Recent roles for Miss Smith, 34, have included lead parts in ITVs Cilla Black biopic and BBC drama The C Word.

In the past three years Julie Walters, 66, has appeared in four films, including landlady Mrs Keyhoe in Irish-American romance Brooklyn. As well as briefly reprising her role as M in James Bond film Spectre, Judi Dench, 81, also recently starred in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Meanwhile Helen Mirren, 70, last year starred as columnist Hedda Hopper in the film Trumbo.

Miss Michelle, who played Patricia Foster in Emmerdale until 2009, is currently preparing for a new play entitled The Naked Truth. Set in a village hall pole-dancing class, it is touring in the UK from April 25 to July 1.

Sheridan Smith pictured as TV entertainer and singer Cilla Black for the ITV programme
They've been touring the UK, entertaining their fans in cities from Cardiff to Glasgow.

So it's without surprise Little Mix - following their Thursday night concert in Manchester - felt the need to kick back and enjoy a night out on the town.

Leading the way was Perrie Edwards, 22, who flaunted her svelte figure in a skintight khaki dress, as she was joined by bandmates Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall for a spot of post-show fun.

Work hard, play harder! Little Mix's Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall stepped out in Manchester on Thursday evening, after their gig in the city

The blonde beauty seemed hesitant to let go of her pal Leigh-Anne's arm, the three girls walking arm-in-arm as they arrived at the city's Club Liv.

Showing off a fair amount of her tanned skin, she covered her enviable petite frame in the body-con frock, which was strapless and cut flatteringly to just below her knees.

The singing star's trim waistline and decolletage well and truly caught the eye in her gorgeous garment, and she got her ensemble to pop even more with a pair of sexy strappy white sandals and a matching clean clutch.

Her blonde locks were slicked back away from her perfectly made-up face, falling down her bare shoulders in a poker straight style.

Stunner: The 22-year-old covered her enviable petite frame in the body-con frock, which was strapless and cut flatteringly to just below her knees

What an eyeful! Leigh-Anne, 24, almost risked a wardrobe malfunction in her dangerous and very sexy slash-fronted top

Flawless: Despite having hit the stage as Little Mix continue their Get Weird tour, Perrie looked refreshed and beautiful for the night out at Manchester's Club Liv

Meanwhile, Leigh-Anne, 24, oozed some serious sex appeal in her striking attire for the evening's frivolities.

The beauty showed off almost every inch of her chest and midriff, donning a racy slash-fronted top under which she went braless.

She almost seemed to risk a wardrobe malfunction as she strode with her bandmates, but luckily her pert chest remained encased in the snug black top.

Her night out attire was completed with a pair of heavily-ripped black skinny jeans and strappy sandals, her hair flowing in incredible natural curls.

And Jade, 23, opted for a far more casual vibe for their night out in Manchester, donning what looked like loose-fitting PJ bottoms with a zip-up tracksuit jacket and trainers.

Did she get the memo? Jade, 23, looked far more casual than her colleagues, rocking PJ bottoms with a zip-up jacket and trainers

However, having come straight from the Manchester Arena and their concert in front of 21,000 fans, she still looked impeccable, her grey-tinted locks coiffed in elegant curls and her eyes almost sparkling with silver shadow.

Not present for the girls' outing was their bandmate Jesy Nelson, who revealed earlier this week that she's suffered an injury on her arm in the midst of their tour.

The Black Magic hitmakers - who have been criticised for their incredibly raunchy stage outfits -kicked off their tour at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena on March 13, and they've thus far performed in Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham and Brighton.

The UK leg of their tour continues until April 23 before they head to Australia, Japan and Malaysia and other locations in Europe.

Entertaining the nation: Little Mix (complete with Jesy Nelson, right) have been travelling the length and breadth of the UK on their Get Weird Tour
She's the ex-wife of 'King of Spin' Shane Warne.

But over a decade after her split from the cricketer, Simone Callahan seems to be enjoying the single life.

The former model, 45, was spotted sharing a kiss and a cuddle with a younger man in Melbourne at the start of this month - the same gentleman she was seen enjoying drinks with two weeks ago.

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Embrace: Earlier this month Shane Warne's ex-wife Simone Callahan, 45, was spotted sharing a kiss and a cuddle with a younger man in Melbourne - the same man she was seen enjoying drinks with two weeks ago

Simone was seen giving the tall blond man an affectionate kiss near her home in the Victorian capital.

The mother-of-three embraced her tall companion next to his car, before he drove away.

The blonde beauty looked remarkably youthful in a black singlet top and tight-fitting workout leggings, which flaunted her slender pins.

Meanwhile, she wore her blonde hair out and went barefoot as she clutched what appeared to be bedding in a clear plastic bag.

Close: The mother-of-three looked slender and youthful as she shared a kiss with her handsome male companion

Her pal opted for a summery ensemble of white shorts with a blue shirt - along with fashionably matching brown belt and loafers.

The unidentified male, who appeared in the early stages of a beard, also concealed his gaze behind a pair of stylish, tinted sunglasses.

Simone has been spotted in public with her good-looking new companion two times now.

Runway ready or ready for a run? Opting for workout chic in leggings and a black singlet, the former model clutched what appeared to be bedding in a clear plastic bag

Two weeks ago, the pair spent time together at the Red Hill Brewery on the Mornington Peninsula.

Simone - mother of Shane's children, Brooke, Summer and Jackson - cut a stylish figure in white denim three-quarter length jeans.

She finished off her chic look with an unbuttoned checked shirt over a black vest.

Simone was accompanied by her chisel-jawed companion as they looked for a table, before settling down for a chat on the venue's balcony.

It would seem the duo enjoyed each others' company as they laughed and smiled together - and later departed in the same vehicle.

Meanwhile, her ex-husband of 10 years Shane has made clear his intentions to romantically pursue Baywatch star Carmen Electra.

Date: Simone was also seen with the same tall gentlemen enjoying a day out at the Red Hill Brewery on the Mornington Peninsula earlier this month

The 46-year-old spoke of his crush on the model-turned-actress, 43, while a contestant on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

After leaving the South African jungle earlier this month, he told The Project that Carmen's management had even 'been in touch' about a possible date.

Shane and Simone divorced back in 2005 amid rumours of infidelity. They tried to salvage their marriage but parted ways for good two years later.

Hot pursuit: During his recent stint on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Shane Warne made it clear he was romantically interested in ex-Baywatch star Carmen Electra, 43 - pictured here at a red carpet bash last year

The sportsman later became engaged to British actress Elizabeth Hurley, presenting her with a stunning diamond and sapphire ring.

They called time on their relationship in 2013, however, and the cricketer was later linked to DJ and model Emily Scott.

Meanwhile, Simone dated Toby Roberts, who was four years her junior, before they split in 2012.
Celebrities have come together in Melbourne for the annual Good Friday Appeal at The Royal Children's Hospital.

In between their commitments for the annual fundraising live telethon, Home And Away stars Jackson Gallagher and Isbabella Giovinazzo visited some of the sick children at the hospital.

Brightening up their day by taking snaps with the young patients, the stars also urged their fan base to donate to the cause.

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Helping the cause: Isbabella Giovinazzo was among a raft of celebrities that came together in Melbourne for the annual Good Friday Appeal at The Royal Children's Hospital on Friday

The duo were joined by co-star Charlie Clausen, who donned some festive headgear alongside Jackson for a 'bunny bros' photo.

Along with the soap stars there was a whole host of fellow Network Seven personalities on hand to help, including Sunrise co-hosts Samantha Armytage, David 'Kochie' Koch, Edwina Bartholomew, Mark Beretta and Sam Mac.

Sam did his weather crosses from inside the hospital on Friday morning, and he wasn't the only one broadcasting live from the building.

Chrissie, Sam and Browny converted the foyer into their studio to broadcast their Nova 100 breakfast radio show.

Urging fans: Home And Away's Jackson Gallagher (left) posed alongside young Gracie (right) and encouraged his fans to donate to the cause

'Bunny bros': Charlie Clausen (left) and Jackson (right) donned some festive headpieces for a fun photo

Meet and greet: The soap stars took pictures with young fans while there

Kochie shared an emotional plea to ask fans to donate after meeting with two young boys waiting for a heart transplant.

'This hospital is seriously world class... It needs and deserves our support,' he wrote after telling the youngsters' stories.

The Daily Edition's co-hosts Sally Obermeder and Tom Williams posed alongside a group of staff from the hospital's NICU team.

'These guys are lifesavers, literally. These are the heroes who work at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne,' Sally captioned the shot.

'These guys are lifesavers, literally': The Daily Edition co-host Sally Obermeder (second right) was in awe of the NICU staff, posing for a shot with co-host Tom Williams (back left)

Season of goodwill! Samantha Armytage was one of the many faces who joined in for the Good Friday appeal to raise funds for equipment, research and education to support the work of The Royal Children's Hospital

Straight from the airport: Sunrise co-hosts Edwina Bartholomew (far left) and Mark Beretta (second right) posed for photos with staff as soon as they arrived

Dancing during the weather: Sunrise weatherman Sam Mac (far left) did his live crosses during the morning's show from the wards

Live broadcast: Nova 100's Chrissie, Sam and Browny broadcast their breakfast radio show from the hospital on Friday morning

Newsreader Melissa Doyle was also at the fundraiser and made her way around some of the rooms inside the hospital.

Wearing a gold top paired with a black skirt and heels, the mother-of-two looked on dotingly as a new father cuddled 'Beautiful baby Hudson'.

In another snap with 800 Words actress Melina Vidler, Mel injected a bit of humour into the day with her caption.

'At least one of us looked at the camera & not the chocolate,' she wrote.

Doting dad: Mother-of-two Melissa Doyle watched on as a new dad doted over 'Beautiful baby Hudson'

'At least one of us looked at the camera & not the chocolate': The newsreader (right) added a little humour to the day as she and 800 words actress Melina Vidler (centre) visited a patient in one of the wards

Melina also visited some tiny tots, gushing over one by the name of Lucy, telling fans: 'This little ray of sunshine has made my day'.

Meanwhile, Saturday Disney co-host Candice Dixon braved a dance-off with former Dancing With The Stars judge, Adam Garcia.

While stage star Rob 'Millsy' Mills was sure to share a selfie with his pals as they made the early morning trip from Sydney down to Melbourne for the annual event.

Even kid's character Humphrey B Bear did his bit, posing for photos along the way as he visited hospital staff.

Dance off? Saturday Disney co-host Candice Dixon (right) braved a dance-off with former Dancing With The Stars judge, Adam Garcia (left)

Hitting the road: Stage star Rob 'Millsy' Mills (front) was sure to share a selfie with his pals as they made the early morning trip down from Sydney to Melbourne for the annual event

It wasn't just TV personalities helping the cause, AFL stars from both the Western Bulldogs and the Richmond Tigers both made visits across the day.

The target for the day is to reach $17 million, with over $3 million already counted at 3pm AEDST.

TO DONATE GO TO http://www.goodfridayappeal.com.au/
Samantha Armytage was one of the many faces who joined in for the Good Friday appeal to raise funds for equipment, research and education to support the work of The Royal Children's Hospital.

The 39-year-old jetted from Sydney to Melbourne after she wrapped up her duties on Sunrise, and spent the afternoon visiting ill children.

Looking fresh after what would have been a very early morning, the television personality shared a picture on social media as she posted with a little boy named Adam.

Season of goodwill! Samantha Armytage was one of the many faces who joined in for the Good Friday appeal to raise funds for equipment, research and education to support the work of The Royal Children's Hospital

Samantha was dressed in a khaki coloured military-inspired blazer, which was paired with smart black trousers.

The Sunrise co-host leaned in close to Adam, who appears to be an avid AFL fan and the pair smiled as she wrapped her arm around him.

She took to Instagram to share his story and urge her followers to support the cause writing: 'Meet Adam... He's at the Royal Children's Hospital right now waiting for a new heart.

'It's kids like him were raising money for today. Pls be generous Victoria. He's also a Sydney Swans fan... So we know he's a good fella #goodfridayappeal #melbourne'

Say cheese! Edwina Bartholomew and Mark Berett, who are also members of the Sunrise team, posed alongside a pair of hospital staff members from the hospital

Support: David 'Kochie' Koch shared an emotional plea to ask fans to donate, after meeting with two young boys waiting for a heart transplant

The bubbly blonde presenter was one of many Network Seven faces who attended the day at The Royal Children's Hospital.

Edwina Bartholomew and Mark Berett, who are also members of the Sunrise team, posed alongside a pair of hospital staff members.

David 'Kochie' Koch shared an emotional plea to ask fans to donate, after meeting with two young boys waiting for a heart transplant.

Newsreader Melissa Doyle was also at the fundraiser and made her way around some of the rooms in the hospital and looked on dotingly as a new father cuddled 'Beautiful baby Hudson'.

Doting: Newsreader Melissa Doyle was also at the fundraiser and made her way around some of the rooms in the hospital and looked on dotingly as a new father cuddled 'Beautiful baby Hudson'

Another well known personality from the Seven Network, Larry Emdur was also attended the fundraising day and posed with a team of staff from the hospital.

He took to Instagram writing: 'Thank God for these heroes and angels in the emergency department at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.

'What an incredible team of lifesavers and awesome human beings..Please dig deep for the Good Friday Appeal'.

The target for the day is to reach $17 million, with over $4 million already counted at 4pm AEDST.

TO DONATE GO TO http://www.goodfridayappeal.com.au/
Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez might be getting divorced, but it is clear there is still a lot of love there.

The exes looked very friendly as they basked on a beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during a family vacation with their two-year-old son Maceo and her daughter Nahla, eight.

Although the two announced their split in October, a source revealed to People that Olivier 'never wanted the divorce and still doesn't.'

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Is the divorce still on? Halle Berry laid a hand on Olivier Martinez's bare chest over his heart on Tuesday as they lounged on the beach during a getaway to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with their kids

What he wants: A source tells People that Olivier 'never wanted the divorce and still doesn't'; the couple was caught in another loving moment on the beach

Halle was seen lounging next to the French actor with her hand on his bare chest and right over his heart, a soft smile forming on her face while he gazed back at her adoringly.

The breeze rustled through her hair which she wore pulled back in a loose ponytail.

She sat upright, hugging their little boy close to her chest and staring off to sea through tinted shades.

The actress had wrapped Maceo in her soft beige robe and only his bare feet stuck out from the folds.

Always in style: Halle looked amazing as ever as she covered up her bikini with a sheer beach wrap

Mom's the word: Halle kept a watchful eye on daughter Nahla, eight, as she played in the surf

Berry nice: The Monster's Ball star was enjoying a family vacation with her ex and children

Later she sat in her black swimsuit, smiling as she watched over her daughter playing in the surf.

Olivier wore camouflage swim trunks and shades as he lay back against the lounge chair in total relaxation.

The look he gave Halle might have given the impression that these two aren't quite finished.

And from a new report in People magazine, that might be the case.

'If Halle wants to call it [divorce] off, Olivier would be fine with it because he never wanted the divorce in the first place,' a source told the magazine.

The actor still loves his wife, and son Maceo. He also has a soft spot for Halle's daughter with ex Gabriel Aubry; Nahla.

'To get a divorce and share custody of Maceo is not a situation that Olivier wants to be in, adding that 'he also wants to be around Nahla like before. He cares about Nahla like if she were his own.'

Low key: The famous family fitted in with the other beachgoers at the exclusive resort

On good terms: The pair showed their easy relationship as they relaxed together

Taking in the view: Halle enjoyed the gorgeous ocean view while Olivier enjoyed a snack

At another point during the sun-basking afternoon, Olivier walked up to Halle and leaned over so as to listen intently to what she was saying.

They seemed to be in the best of moods.

Although they are getting along, that doesn't mean their breakup is entirely off the table.

'The divorce is still being finalized, and there is no change for now. But there seems there might be a slim chance that they decide to stay married. There is still a lot of love between them,' the source said.

The pair filed to end their marriage in October 2015 after two years together, citing 'irreconcilable differences.'

Beach life: Olivier takes his turn keeping watch as Nahla plays

Action man: The French actor enjoyed a dip in the ocean with his bodyboard

In a joint statement they announced their split via People, saying: 'It is with a heavy heart that we have come to the decision to divorce.'

Halle and Olivier are both seeking joint custody of their son Maceo, and no doubt want to avoid the drama that ensued between the actress and her older daughter Nahla's father, Gabriel Aubry.

'I'm doing okay, I really am,' Halle told Extra in November at an event to benefit a domestic abuse facility in Los Angeles.

'I keep pushing and I'm really happy to be here because whenever you're going through anything in life, when you step outside yourself and focus on others, that's always the best remedy for any situation that you'd rather not be dealing with.'
She is famous for straddling a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun during the Vietnam War.

And Jane Fonda caused another stir when she sat on an executives lap and gave him a full-blooded kiss at a charity gala in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Full Cycle Energy Fund managing partner Ibrahim AlHusseini looked like he was having a great time as the golden oldie held him by the ears and gave him a smooch at the UCLA Institute Of The Environment And Sustainability annual gala.

She's not shy: Jane Fonda leapt on a stunned executive lap and gave him a kiss at the UCLA Institute Of The Environment And Sustainability annual gala on Thursday

The 78-year-old Barbarella star was looking great for her age in a black trouser suit, which boasted silver embroidered patches that looked like firework explosions.

And while the Oscar-winner's black-rimmed spectacles gave the impression of wisdom, she proved as impulsive as ever as she leapt on her new friend's lap, with the charmed fellow attendees making sure they got photographs of the hilarious moment.

The organisation stressed their mission on its website: 'We face unprecedented stresses on food, water and energy systems. Fresh ideas, breakthrough technologies and heightened public engagement are urgently needed....'

It concluded: 'Not only do we conduct some of the worlds most impactful environmental research, we put it in the hands of decision makers to drive much needed change.'

Indecent proposal? Cheeky Full Cycle Energy Fund executive Ibrahim AlHusseini seemed keen for more

Making his heart grow Fonda: He looked like he was having a great time as Jane bounced on his lap

Not this again: Jane is famous for straddling a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun during the Vietnam War

It's been 39 years years since Jane Fonda shocked the American public by straddling a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun during the Vietnam War.

She wrote in her 2005 autobiography that she had been tricked into that gesture and has since apologised for her radical stance.

In 1972, she visited Hanoi, Vietnam, where she spoke out against the U.S. military and was photographed seated with Viet Cong soldiers wearing one of their helmets.

n a 1988 interview with Barbara Walters, Fonda expressed regret about some of her comments, but many more conservative Americans have never forgotten.

Kodak moment: The crowd giggled with glee as they captured the kiss on their smartphones

That hit the spot: The thrilled elder stateswoman of acting whooped with delight afterwards

Fonda pays visit to the Truong Dinh residential center in the Nai Ba Trung District in Hanoi in 1972
She and her husband Mark celebrated their son Nicholas' first birthday last week.

And Silvana Lovin Philippoussis admitted that her little boy has been growing up faster than expected in a gushing message on a photo uploaded to Instagram on Friday.

The doting mother, 29, is pictured cuddling up to her lookalike son with pouting her lips, while a serious-looking Nicholas is seen peering into the camera.

'Oh time, won't you stop your tickin': Silvana Lovin Philippoussis, 29, admitted that her little boy has been growing up faster than expected by in a gushing message and photo uploaded to Instagram on Friday

Meanwhile, the eyes and nose of a man can also be seen in the small gap between the mother and son.

'Beautiful morning with my little angel face. So blessed! My heart explodes with so much love and happiness for this little munchkin...' wrote Silvana in the caption.

'oh time, won't you stop your tickin'...he's growing up too fast! #blessed #family #morninglight #loveandhappiness #gratefulheart #happyheart #fullheart #lovelovelove', she added.

He's got a sweet tooth! Later that day, she and Mark both uploaded a cute photo of Nicholas tucking into his first ice cream cone

Later that day, she and Mark both uploaded a cute photo of Nicholas tucking into his first ice cream cone.

Nicholas looks strikingly similar to his famous father in the photo, which pictures the toddler with ice cream smudged around his chin while posing in a sunny playground.

'Nicholas's first ice cream, he definitely has mommies and daddies sweet tooth,' quipped Mark in the caption.

Happy family: Mark and Silvana met through mutual friends in March of 2012 and married after an 18-month courtship, before welcoming their first child, Nicholas, in 2014

Silvana captioned her snap with: 'How cheeky does Nicholas look enjoying his first ice-cream?

Mark and Silvana met through mutual friends in March of 2012 and married after an 18-month courtship, before welcoming their first child, Nicholas, in 2014.

Before tying the knot with Silvana, Mark was engaged to US actress Jennifer Esposito in October 2009 and to Miami heiress Alexis Barbara in 2006.

Though the couple often visit their homeland of Australia, they live in San Diego where they were also married.
Joseph Richard Polak has requested a new attorney less than a month after being sentenced to 80 years in prison for the deliberate homicide of Scott Hofferber.

Polak, 33, was found guilty in a November trial for killing the 29-year-old Hofferber at a Lake Elmo Trailer Park.

He was sentenced at the beginning of March and is awaiting an April trial date for a separate charge of criminal endangerment and additional drug charges. However, during a status hearing Thursday, Polak requested a new attorney. The hearing was closed, and it is unclear why Polak made the request.

Polak's was represented through his trial by Public Defender Clark Mathews, an attorney with the defender office's major crimes unit. Mathews did not comment on the removal. During Mathews time as Polak's lawyer he was able to get an entire possession case dismissed.

Polak appeared before Judge Mary Jane Knisely, who will order Polak appointed new council later this week.
She has wasted no time attempting to shed the pounds after welcoming her son, Saint West, in December.

But while Kim Kardashian hid her ever-slimming post-baby body beneath a stylish raincoat when stepping out in Los Angeles on Thursday, the 35-year-old star made sure to flaunt some of the perks of pregnancy as she teased a glimpse of her sizable chest in a tight vest top.

Leaving the city's Epione Cosmetic Laser Center in a relaxed ensemble, the reality star still managed to ensure her famous assets were partly on display as she kept her head down and slipped into her vehicle.

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Peek-a-boob! Kim Kardashian hid her ever-slimming post-baby body beneath a stylish raincoat when stepping out in Los Angeles on Thursday, though the 35-year-old star made sure to flaunt some of the perks of pregnancy, teasing a glimpse of her sizable chest in a tight vest top

The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star opted for a somewhat sports grunge style for her casual outing, rocking a camouflage print jacket, beneath which was a form-fitting black vest.

Around her neck was a dainty gold chain which was a tribute to her baby son, Saint, embellished with his name.

Once again a walking advert for husband Kanye West, Kim donned a gunmetal blue sports cap that was emblazoned with the word Yeezus, the name of the 38-year-old's sixth studio album.

See more of the latest Kim Kardashian updates as she flaunts her cleavage

Low profile: Leaving the Epione Cosmetic Laser Center in a relaxed ensemble, the reality star still managed to ensure her famous assets were partly on display as she kept her head down and slipped into her vehicle

Seemingly in a bid to go undetected on her way out of the clinic, the TV personality completed her look with a pair of over-sized black shades, which concealed almost half of her face as she lowered her head down and chatted on the phone.

Meanwhile, the social media savvy star recently revealed her motivation techniques for shedding the pounds.

The curvaceous model, who has already shed 42 lbs since welcoming second child Saint almost four months ago, explained in a new video posted to her website www.kimkardashian.com that she stays encouraged by looking at old photos of herself looking fit following her first birth.

Fashionista: The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star opted for a slight sports grunge style for her casual outing, rocking a camouflage print jacket, beneath which was a form-fitting black vest

'I did it then, I can do it now': Kim shared a video on her website, explaining that she looked at photos of herself following her pregnancy with North West as weight loss motivation earlier this week

Kim's video featured a series of images of herself taken in Thailand a year after she welcomed North.

The reality star wore a pair of black leggings and a white bra, which highlighted her flat and slender belly.

'I was pretty proud of myself,' the reality star told fans of the motivating selfies. 'I had gotten into really good shape, I had lost some weight, I think I lost all my weight at this point.

'I was in Thailand, in my hotel room, and North was sleeping in the bed, and it was night time and I couldn't fall asleep, so I just wanted to take some pictures, some selfies, to remember how I felt when I felt just like, "Okay I did it, I accomplished it. I am in really good shape and I did it, I lost all that weight."'

Looking good! In one image, the reality star showed off her slender belly as she wore little more than a white sports bra and black leggings
As a mother-of-three, Jennifer Garner has to juggle her time between her children and her acting career.

However, on Thursday, it was strictly a mother-and-son day only as the actress treated her youngest child Samuel, four, to a trip to Disneyland.

The former Alias star, 43, enjoyed a short visit of just a few hours to the Anaheim, California theme park, dubbed 'the happiest place on Earth'.

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Fun in the sun: Jennifer Garner and her son Samuel enjoyed a day out to Disneyland in Anaheim, California on Thursday

Looking relaxed in a navy T-shirt and jeans, Jennifer pushed Samuel along in one of the Disney strollers as they checked out the attractions.

Young Samuel is clearly a fan of the Star Wars franchise as he was treated to a lightsaber from one of the merchandise stores.

During their three hours in the park, Jennifer and Samuel enjoyed rides on Peter Pan's Flight, Toy Store Midway Mania and the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Missing out on the trip was Samuel's big sisters Violet, 10; and Seraphina, seven, and his father Ben Affleck, who is estranged from the actress.

Thrill-seeking: The actress and her son enjoyed rides on Peter Pan's Flight, Toy Store Midway Mania and the Enchanted Tiki Room

Last month, Jennifer broke her silence on rumours Ben had an affair with their former nanny Christine Ouzounian, 28.

She told Vanity Fair magazine: 'We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny.

'She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation. Bad judgment? Yes.'

Reports linking Ben to the nanny emerged just a month after the Hollywood couple announced they were separating after 10 years of marriage.

Jennifer added: 'It's not great for your kids for [a nanny] to disappear from their lives. I have had to have conversations about the meaning of "scandal".'

On friendly terms: Jennifer's estranged husband Ben Affleck appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night

Meanwhile, her estranged husband Ben has spoken about family life after their separation as he promoted his new film Batman v Superman: The Dawn Of Justice on Good Morning America this week.

He said: 'We sort of put the kids first. We just take it one step at a time and do our best.'

The actor praised his former spouse for juggling her acting career and family life: 'She works very hard, and she's great with the kids and like I say, we put them first.'

Ben admitted he borrowed his Batman suit for Samuel's fourth birthday party, which went down a treat with the tot and his young pals.

He enthused: 'The studio brought some of the costumers over and they brought the suit over and I put it on and I wrestled about with the other superheroes and tried not to tear anything.
She has spent the last few weeks holed up in New Zealand as she filmed her upcoming action flick, Ghost In The Shell.

But Scarlett Johansson bid farewell to her temporary home on Thursday as she jetted out of Wellington airport with her 17-month-old daughter, Rose.

The 31-year-old was spotted making her way along the terminals with her fair-haired tot swaddled against her chest in a baby carrier, while simultaneously wheeling two hefty suitcases behind her.

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Not a hand to spare! Scarlett Johansson, 31, bid farewell to her temporary home on Thursday as she jetted out of Wellington airport with her 17-month-old daughter, Rose

Wearing minimal make-up, Scarlett stepped out in a sensible jet-setting ensemble consisting of a pair of harem-style tracksuit trousers, a denim jacket and a pair of white sand shoes.

Her face was obscured by a large baseball cap and a set of bold tortoiseshell-framed glasses.

Meanwhile, Rose appeared to be dressed in printed pyjamas as she clung to a pair of oversized teddy bears.

New gig: The Hollywood star has spent the last few weeks holed up in New Zealand as she filmed her upcoming action flick, Ghost In The Shell

Hands full! The actress was spotted making her way along the terminals with her fair-haired tot swaddled against her chest in a baby carrier, while simultaneously wheeling two hefty suitcases behind her

Casual: Wearing minimal make-up, Scarlett stepped out in a sensible jet-setting ensemble consisting of a pair of harem-style tracksuit trousers matched with a denim jacket

Despite her status as an international superstar, Scarlett made sure to look after her own affairs for the day by carrying her plane tickets and passport.

The BAFTA Award winner arrived in Wellington with her French husband Romain Dauriac in early February, and had been making her way around town largely unrecognised ever since.

In an article published by the New Zealand Herald, one local said that Scarlett 'arrived at a local south Wellington gym fairly innocuously with a group, she was wearing trainers, training gear and a hat.

She's a superwoman! Despite her status as an international superstar, Scarlett made sure to look after her own affairs for the day by carrying her plane tickets and passport

Shady lady: Her face was obscured by a large baseball cap and a pair of bold tortoiseshell-framed glasses

On location: The BAFTA Award winner arrived in Wellington with her French husband Romain Dauriac in early February, and had been making her way around town largely unrecognised ever since

'To the uninitiated no-one would have known she was a star': In an article published by the New Zealand Herald, one local said that Scarlett 'arrived at a local south Wellington gym fairly innocuously with a group, she was wearing trainers, training gear and a hat

Doting mother: At one point, the star was seen planting a tender kiss on her child's head

In line: The mother and daughter duo waited patiently in the queue

'To the uninitiated no-one would have known she was a star,' the source added.

Scarlett, her husband and her daughter are understood to have been living in a gated mansion in the coastal suburb of Seatoun Heights overlooking the Wellington Harbour while Scarlett filmed scenes for Ghost In The Shell.

The movie is based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow and is set in 2029.

Preparing to jet! Scarlett was spotted clutching her tickets and passport as she signed documents at the international departures terminal

Taking care of business: The fair-haired show-woman clutched Rose tightly as she juggled several documents

Action thriller! In Ghost In The Shell, Scarlett plays the role of a female special ops cyborg, Motoko Kusanagi, who leads an elite task force called Section 9 as they try to bring down notorious hacker Puppet Master

Scarlett is set to play a female special ops cyborg, Motoko Kusanagi, who leads an elite task force called Section 9 as they try to bring down notorious hacker Puppet Master.

She will appear alongside English actor Sam Riley (Maleficent) and will be directed by Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman).

Later this month, the husky-voiced bombshell will appear in the Coen brothers' comedy Hail, Caesar! the upcoming reboot of The Jungle Book and will also reprise her role in the new Captain America film later this year.

In good company: She will appear alongside English actor Sam Riley (Maleficent) and will be directed by Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman)
She rose to fame in an iconic red bathing suit as the star of Baywatch.

And Pamela Anderson once again went for eye-catching crimson as she caught a flight out of Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday.

The 48-year-old actress wore her blonde hair in a messy bouffant.

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Bombshell: Pamela Anderson looked chic in a tight red dress as she arrived at LAX on Thursday

The bombshell, who recently revealed she is cured of Hepatitis C, looked healthy and happy, flashing a big smile as she strolled into the terminal.

Pamela's stylish dress featured a knee-length skirt and small front pocket.

She carried a mini Hermes Birkin bag, and added classic black ballet flats and cat's eye sunglasses.

The mother-of-two also carried a black coat over one arm to ward of any in-flight chill.

Stylish: The actress added a black mini Birkin handbag and ballet flats

Pamela recently slipped back into a red one-piece swimsuit as she posed for an ad campaign for UK clothing retailer Missguided.

And earlier this month, the devoted animal rights activist made headlines by writing an open letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on behalf of PETA, asking him to make all prisoner meals vegan.

Pamela said the state's prison system could save $2 million a year by going vegan, and even offered to come to a prison and cook meals for inmates to prove her point.

Prepared: The 48-year-old carried a black coat over one arm as she strolled into the terminal

The star revealed late last year that she has been cured of Hepatitis C.

The former model suffered from the blood-born illness for 16 years, and says she was cured thanks to an anti-viral drug.

Pamela also said her ex-husband, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, is also cured of Hep C thanks to the treatment, and urged her to also try the drug.

The couple have two sons, Dylan, 19, and Brandon, 18, who are both models and accompanied Pamela to the LA Fashion Awards on Sunday.
She's been spending plenty of quality time with her boyfriend Matt Baker of late.

But Kym Marsh was back at work filming for Coronation Street in Manchester on Friday, grabbing a snack to go as she made her way onto the set.

The 39-year-old star - who plays Michelle Connor in the show - was joined by Helen Worth (Gail Platt), Alison King (Carla Connor) and Simon Gregson (Steve McDonald) as they shot scenes for the ITV soap.

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Ready for action: Kym Marsh put her best foot forward as she arrived on the Coronation Street set in Manchester on Friday

Kym went bare-legged in a clingy black mini dress, dressing the look down with a pair of practical white trainers.

The former Hear'Say singer covered up in a black leather jacket, toting a chain embellished bag over one arm.

The fitness fan - whose boyfriend Matt also happens to be her personal trainer - completed her bodycon outfit with a pair of oversized spectacles.

Breakfast to go! The 39-year-old star grabbed a takeaway to start off her day in style

Keeping warm: Kym's leather jacket wasn't enough to keep her cosy in the bodycon number, so she wrapped up in a large padded coat in between takes

Last week, the Corrie cast paid their respects to the show's late creator Tony Warren MBE.

The pioneering television legend - who created the nation's longest-running soap opera at the age of just 24 - was remembered at a public funeral held at Manchester Cathedral in the city centre, attended by thousands of fans, family and friends.

Tony passed away at the age of 79 earlier this month following a short illness, and was laid to rest in front of the Corrie cast past and present, with the young generation of male cast members acting as pallbearers.

Paying her respects: Last week, the Corrie cast including Kym paid their respects to the show's late creator Tony Warren MBE

Emotional day: Tony was remembered at a public funeral held at Manchester Cathedral in the city centre, attended by thousands of fans, family and friends

The legendary writer came up with the idea for Coronation Street, a drama based in Weatherfield, at the age of 24 and the first episode of the show aired on December 9, 1960.

Warren stopped writing full-time for the Street in 1968, though he continued as an adviser on the series all his life.

The new generation of cast members were in attendance at the funeral, as well as veterans like lone remaining original star Bill Roache and former favourite Julie Goodyear.

The show must got on! Helen Worth (Gail Platt) was also seen on long-running soap's Manchester set
She's rarely pictured looking less than impeccably put together.

And Gigi stayed true to her sensational sartorial form as she was pictured out and about in New York City where she was reunited with boyfriend Zayn Malik on Thursday.

The supermodel favoured an all-black colour theme as she made a head-turning arrival to one of the state's airports in the early hours of the morning, just after her musician beau's much-awaited debut solo album was released - exactly one year since he quit One Direction.

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Sartorially sensational: Gigi Hadid was as impeccably put together as always as she made a head-turning arrival to New York City - where she was reunited with Zayn Malik - in the early hours of Thursday

While Zayn, 23, hoped to captivate the online audience with his new music, 20-year-old Gigi commanded attention with every step she took through the airport terminal.

The statuesque catwalk queen highlighted her supermodel stems in a pair of black skinny jeans which featured a horizontal rip on each knee.

She teamed them with a plain V-neck top - which was tucked into her trouser waistband - while a flowing black blazer-style duster coat afforded her simply stylish outfit a statement touch.

Checking in: Zayn, 23, was seen placing a protective arm on the 20-year-old's back as they checked into a nearby hotel. The musician drove to the airport to pick up his girlfriend - who had been in Chicago for the week - as his debut solo album was released

Jet-setting chic: The latest Victoria's Secret recruit looked nothing short of sensational in a pair of ripped skinny jeans, a plain black top and a flowing duster coat

Gigi further elongated her towering figure by zipping on a pair of pointed heeled ankle boots while a pair of metallic blue-lens sunglasses by Krewe du Optic provided an element of coverage.

Zayn had drove to the airport to pick up the latest Victoria's Secret recruit who had spent the week in Chicago on a Versace shoot with Karlie Kloss.

The Pillowtalk hit-maker was pictured placing a protective arm on his girlfriend's back as the couple checked into a nearby hotel.

Zayn Malik coming through: The former boyband member was accompanied by a team of personal assistants as he left Soho House earlier in the evening

Making a statement: His outfit was questionable. picking out black skinny jeans, a motif top and a maroon leather utility-style jacket

A deliberate move? His hugely-anticipated debut solo album Mind of Mine was released on Thursday - a year to the day he sent shockwaves through the music world by leaving One Direction

'Yours now!': Zayn took to Twitter to announce the release of his hugely-anticipated first album

The power pair seemed in relaxed spirits as they relished the chance to spend some quality time together amid their hectic work schedules.

Earlier on in the evening, Zayn was pictured being escorted out of Soho House by his team of personal assistants after having dined at the famed private members' club.

His outing came moments before he announced hte release of Mind of Mine - his highly-anticipated debut solo record.

Informing fans the wait was over, he somply tweeted: '#MindOfMine .. yours now !!!!' with a link to the iTunes store.

Fan favourite: The rugged singer rocked a shaved head and a well-groomed beard and posed for pictures with adoring fans on his way to the eatery
Now, is it just me, or is everyone more unhappy than usual? In Emmerdale, Ashleys dementia is really starting to take hold, Lisa is looking to sell the family home, and Rhona wants to live in Germany. When you start thinking that Germany will be an improvement on your lot in life, youre in deep trouble.

Life is even worse in Albert Square, where Phil cant stop drinking and ruining everyones fun, the CartEnders are incarcerated on Misery Row, and Babe is turning into Walfords answer to Baby Jane  but without Bette Daviss charm (yes, that creepy).

In Coronation Street, the ridiculous Deals on Wheels story drags on with Izzys drug-taking for her pain, and Bethany has been suffering at the hands of school bullies.

Tracy is consumed with jealousy of Carla and Nick's relationship in this week's Coronation Street

Last week was traumatic too, with Sarah preparing to give birth, Phelan turning into Norman Bates, Michael returning to his first love Mr Whippy, and Tyrone enduring money troubles (again  someone give him a fiver, please).

I know that soapland has its ups and downs, but the lows seem to be outdoing the highs at the moment. Come on, people! Its springtime, not suicide watch among the crocuses.

CORONATION STREET: WHERE THERES A WILL, THERES A WAY OUT

When US writer Gore Vidal said, It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail, he could have been talking about Tracy. After another spat with Carla shes consumed with jealousy when she sees her loved-up nemesis with Nick.

It doesnt help when Robert insists both he and Leanne are in charge at the Bistro. A case of too many cooks spoiling the broth? It would be if there were ever any broth to be seen. Ive yet to hear one sizzle from that kitchen. With the ace up her sleeve, whats Tracys next move? My guess is shes saving it for the wedding.

Babe has devised yet another plan to get Abi out of a mess in EastEnders

Michelle is excited to see old flame and school friend Will, but Liz interprets their affection as evidence of an affair (dont judge everyone else by your own standards). He has a fiancee called Saskia, who he reckons is too good for him. If you were in the same class as Michelle, mate, you found your level early on and should have stuck with it.

Sarahs over-protectiveness of new baby Harry looks set to cause problems, so Id avoid singing Daddys under the floorboards to him.

Izzys still wheeling and dealing, while Sophie is smitten by an oblivious Kate. When Caz calls from Cyprus she is upset to hear that Kate is with Sophie, who has also seen the wedding dress. Sorry to say this, Caz, but youre toast; you always were.

EASTENDERS: PILLOW TALK

How can anyone tell if Phil has been drinking when everyone behaves as if theyre eight pints to the wind most of the time? Babe has devised yet another plan to get Abi out of the mess the pair made between them, and when Abi tells Ben she has lost the baby (that never was), shes upset to see him being comforted by Paul.

Andy gets his kit off  again, this time with Chrissie in Emmerdale

Hes gay, Abi! Jeez. Whats it gonna take? Ben behaves even more bizarrely than Phil when he tries to suffocate his dad with a pillow. Gone are the days of accidentally killing Evver  Ben has moved on to full-blown psychosis. Phils vodka binges are suddenly starting to look like a walk in the park (albeit a very wobbly one).

The unsuccessful attempt on his life sends Phil out of control and he sets about destroying the Arches. Thats no great feat, given the lack of activity there, so why Phil needs a digger is anybodys guess. I could have brought it tumbling to the ground with a small spanner. But has Phil gone too far, and has he killed someone inside?

Anyone getting deja vu? Cast your minds back to the early 90s, when Phil torched Franks car lot in an insurance scam, killing a homeless boy inside. Not long afterwards, Ben was born and Phil turned to drink. It should really be Phil smothering his son with a pillow.

Lindas still stressed about Ollie, when he doesnt respond as he normally does to a nursery rhyme. I suspect its Nancy and Lindas offensive hairdos that are really traumatising him. Theyre having that effect on me.

EMMERDALE: EASTER BUNNIES AND BICEPS

I can sense another Big Issue on the way. Not content with dementia as a storyline, prostate cancer might be on the horizon too, when David takes Eric to the doctor to have him checked out. Short of shouting it from a billboard, the message to the male population is: examine yourselves. Its an important message, but couldnt they have waited until post-dementia? At least Ashley gets to enjoy the Easter Egg hunt with Arthur, although Id have been more impressed if hed been playing Hunt the Church. Given how few appearances hes managed there over the years, Id have made this a priority.
Starbucks to donate unsold meals to hungry

Coffee chain Starbucks is going to donate unsold meals, sandwiches and salads to hungry and needy people in the United States rather than throw them out.

The company announced to a shareholders meeting Wednesday that it is joining a US national program, Feeding America, to help needy people by donating rather than tossing out each evening the still-edible prepared meals it sells.

It said that it aims to donate leftover ready-to-eat meals from all of its 7,600 outlets in the United States within the next five years.

"In the first year alone, Starbucks FoodShare will be able to provide nearly five million meals to individuals and families in need Jewel Samad (AFP/File)

"In the first year alone, Starbucks FoodShare will be able to provide nearly five million meals to individuals and families in need of nourishing food," the company said.

By 2021 the number could be 50 million meals a year.

The challenge, it said, is to ensure that salads, sandwiches and other refrigerated meals can still be consumed safely even if they are past the expiration dates on their labels.
UN chief in Lebanon to 'improve' conditions for Syria refugees

UN chief Ban Ki-moon Thursday started a two-day visit to Lebanon aimed at improving conditions for Syrian refugees whose number is more than a quarter of the country's own population.

"We are here to find ways to improve conditions for refugees, to support the communities hosting them, and to help mitigate the impact on Lebanon's economy," he said.

Ban spoke at a news conference in Beirut beside Lebanon's Prime Minister Tammam Salam, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim and Islamic Development Bank head Ahmad al-Madani.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks during a joint press conference with the Lebanese Prime Minister in Beirut on March 24, 2016 Anwar Amro (AFP)

Syria's five-year conflict has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes, with neighbouring countries bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis.

Lebanon alone hosts nearly 1.2 million refugees.

"Few countries have demonstrated the generosity that the government and people of Lebanon have shown towards Syrian refugees," Ban said.

"Syria's neighbours are a model for other countries and regions that have far more resources than they do," he added.

The UN chief, who is on Friday to visit a poor neighbourhood hosting Syrian refugees in the northern city of Tripoli, said he was "concerned by the vulnerability of Lebanese host communities, especially in the most impoverished areas."

He also said he was "concerned about the political situation in Lebanon", referring to a crisis exacerbated by the Syrian conflict that has left the country without a president for 21 months.

For his part, the World Bank chief said $100 million (89.5 million euros) had been earmarked to support the education of refugees.

"We have taken $100 million from a fund that we use only for the poorest countries... and provided today a very concessional loan for the education sector, again to show our appreciation to what Lebanon has done in educating the refugees here," Kim said.
Atlantic City risks shut down over budget crisis

Atlantic City, the famous US gambling resort town and setting for hit TV series "Boardwalk Empire" is in the crosshairs of financial crisis, in a battle pitting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie against the mayor.

Christie, a casualty of the race for the White House, who now endorses Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, is locked in a political struggle with Mayor Don Guardian over how to resolve the collapsing finances, with many city services slated to be shut down.

The coastal resort, which fell on hard times owing to increased competition from other gambling centers across the United States, saw four of its 12 casinos close in 2014, contributing to a sharp fall in tax revenue.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie holds a town hall meeting at Dynamic Network Services on February 8, 2016 in Manchester, New Hampshire Kayana Szymczak (Getty/AFP/File)

The mayor says the city will shut down all but essential services for three weeks from April 8 because it can no longer pay the bills.

The abrasive Republican governor, whose support for Trump has seen him lampooned by Democrats, backs takeover legislation to put the state in charge of Atlantic City to get its finances in order.

But despite a tentative deal, city leaders now quibble the terms, fearing the legislation as it stands would let the state sell off city assets and tear up contracts with public sector unions.

In an interview with WPG Talk Radio station on Thursday, Christie refused to back down and said the solution was to "shed hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and employment obligations."

Atlantic City had been "so irresponsible in the way they've given our public benefits, exorbitant health benefits, huge salaries, big pensions, that it's contributing mightily to bankrupting the city," he said.

But without funds, the mayor says the city will shut down non-essential services from April 8 until the next payment of quarterly taxes on May 2 during which employees will not be paid.
CASPER, Wyo.  A Casper man suspected of stabbing his roommate to death pleaded not guilty Thursday in Natrona County District Court.

Don Johns faces a charge of first-degree murder. Prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty against Johns for the Aug. 29 killing.

Authorities say Johns, who appeared in court dressed in green jail scrubs, killed his roommate, Don Wickersham.

Johns defense attorney Tracy Hucke asked the judge to lower her clients bond from $1 million to $100,000. Hucke said the facts of the case show Johns was defending himself. Johns also turned himself into police and has limited criminal history, she said.

Prosecutor Dan Itzen argued the seriousness of the charge should not warrant a bond reduction. He also called Johns a drifter who has limited ties to Wyoming and could flee the state.

District Judge Catherine Wilking declined to reduce Johns bond, stating it was set appropriately.

A scheduling conference will take place in the near future to set Johns trial date, the judge said.

Johns is also being represented by public defender Rob Oldham.

Johns previously underwent a mental evaluation at the Wyoming State Hospital to determine if he was fit to stand trial. Tim Cotton, his attorney at the time, disagreed with the findings of the evaluation at a competency hearing and requested Johns be evaluated by an independent psychologist.

While Cotton did not disclose the findings of Johns evaluation at the state hospital, he said he believed Johns has a mental deficiency that affects his capacity to comprehend the serious charge against him and, in turn, adequately defend himself.

Johns new attorneys did not contest the findings of the second evaluation and said Johns has been deemed competent for trial.

Authorities found the body of 49-year-old Wickersham shortly after noon on Aug. 30 in an apartment at 314 N. Jackson St. Police said another tenant who lived in the four-plex had visited Wickershams apartment, which is above his, because he was out of hot water and heard the water running above.

A police detective who testified at Johns preliminary hearing said Wickersham could have been saved with immediate medical treatment. Instead, Wickersham bled out very slowly from 29 stab wounds.

Cotton had said his client was not at the apartment when the killing occurred.

The man who discovered the victim said Wickersham and Johns had argued in front of the residence the night before. Authorities have said the fight may have stemmed from Wickersham telling Johns to move out of the apartment.

About 9 p.m. on Aug. 29, Johns arrived at his ex-girlfriends home and told her he had hurt Wickersham, according to police testimony. The woman had a friend drive Johns somewhere else because she was afraid of Johns.

The woman then reportedly called several friends to tell them what Johns had said. Two of her friends went to the North Jackson Street apartment about 11 p.m. to find out what had happened. Upon peeking into the apartment and seeing Wickershams body, one of them made an anonymous 911 call to report a man was bloody and needed help. However, the man did not say exactly where the injured person was.

A tenant told police he heard several thuds and knocks in Wickersham and Johns apartment around 11 p.m.

On the evening of Aug. 30, Johns called the police and asked to be picked up at 229 Lathrop Road in Evansville. He surrendered to officers when they arrived. His pockets were empty except for photos of his children. Officers found blood on his shoes.

The renters at the Lathrop residence told police Johns arrived at their trailer the previous night. They helped clean the blood off Johns and disposed of the rags. They told officers they did not ask Johns what happened, nor did he tell them.

Police later found bloody rags and clothing in a trash can outside of the trailer.
Security Council wants UN mission in W. Sahara at 'full capacity'

The Security Council called for the UN mission in Western Sahara to resume working at "full capacity," in its first statement following a dispute between Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Morocco.

The United Nations said Tuesday it closed its military liaison office in Dakhla, Western Sahara at the request of Morocco, which was angered when Ban referred to the "occupation" of the disputed territory.

The 15 Security Council member states, while refraining from taking sides in the dispute, stressed "the importance of addressing in a constructive, comprehensive and cooperative manner the circumstances that led to the current situation so that MINUSRO may resume its full capacity to carry out its mandate."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (C) arrives at the Sahrawi refugee camp of Rabouni, 20 kms south of the Algerian city of Tindouf in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, March 5, 2016

Angolan Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins, who is serving as Security Council president for the month of March, relayed the statement to the press after three hours of closed-door consultations.

Ban made the "occupation" remark early this month during a visit to a Sahrawi refugee camp in Algeria.

Morocco on Sunday expelled most of the civilian experts attached to the UN mission and have also closed the military liaison office.

According to the UN, the retaliatory measures are of grave risk to the mission, which has about 500 civilian and military personnel and was established in 1991.

Ban's comments crossed a red line for Morocco, which considers the former Spanish territory, which it annexed in 1975, as an integral part of the country, proposing self-government for the region under Moroccan sovereignty.

Gaspar Martins said Security Council members "expressed their serious concerns about the developments" and emphasized that the world body's 16 peacekeeping missions across the globe are meant to carry out critical tasks to maintain international peace and security.

Ahmed Boukhari, the representative at the United Nations of the Polisario Front, which is campaigning for independence for Western Sahara, welcomed the call for a return to full capacity.

"But we were waiting for a stronger message to the Moroccans," he said, calling Rabat the primary agitator in the episode.

"The Security Council should have taken a stronger stance," he added.

A UN official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity Wednesday said that Morocco's actions were seen "as an unprecedented violation of the UN charter... and a direct challenge to the Security Council."

A 1991 ceasefire ended the war that broke out when Morocco deployed its military in the territory in 1975.

But UN-led mediation efforts under way since 2007 to try to define the territory's status are at an impasse.
Nigeria indicts 300 firms over fake contracts

Nigeria has indicted over 300 companies and prominent individuals, including serving and retired military officers, for defrauding the country of millions of dollars in fake contracts, the presidency said.

The contracts are linked to former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki, who served under former president Goodluck Jonathan from June 2012 until his sacking in July last year by current premier Muhammadu Buhari.

Buhari took office last May and has since launched a crackdown on endemic graft with some high-profile arrests made over the fictitious arms contracts to fight Boko Haram worth some $2 billion and also linked to the former spy master.

The contracts are linked to former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki, pictured, who served under former president Goodluck Jonathan from June 2012 until his sacking in July last year

A separate committee was set up to investigate other deals awarded by Dasuki, 60, between 2011 and 2015.

"Over seven billion naira ($5 million) has been recovered so far from the indicted companies and individuals," the presidency said in a statement, adding that another 41 billion naira is due to be paid back soon.

"The committee further established that one of the indicted companies, Societe D'Equipment International was overpaid to the tune of 7.9 million euros and $7.09 million," it said.

The statement said that contracts were awarded under Dasuki "without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed".

"The committee further discovered that some companies failed to meet up their tax obligations for contracts executed," it added.
'Missing' HK bookseller Lee Bo on way back to China: reports

Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo, who went missing three months ago and surfaced in China, is already on his way back over the border after a brief return home, local media reported.

British citizen Lee, 65, returned to Hong Kong Thursday after disappearing in late December, in a case that has raised alarm over Beijing's tightening grip on the region.

But Lee crossed back into the mainland Friday, just a day after he arrived, according to local media who followed him to the border.

A protester holds a missing person's notice for bookseller Lee Bo, in Hong Kong on January 3, 2016 Anthony Wallace (AFP/File)

"It's a release with Chinese characteristics," China expert Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong told AFP.

"The fact of the matter is that he has not really been fully released... he needs to report back to China," he said.

Lee is one of five Hong Kong booksellers who went "missing" in recent months -- the other four are now under criminal investigation on the mainland linked to trading illegal books in China.

The men all worked for the Mighty Current publishing house, which produced salacious titles about political intrigue and love affairs at the highest levels of Chinese politics.

Lee's case caused the greatest outcry because he was the only bookseller to disappear from Hong Kong, prompting accusations that Chinese law enforcement agents were operating in the semi-autonomous city, illegal under its constitution.

Three of the other booksellers went missing from southern mainland China and one from Thailand in October.

Lee had returned to Hong Kong Thursday, where he insisted a missing person case on him should be dropped and that he was a free man.

He told Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Phoenix TV Thursday that he "may need to return to the mainland multiple times to assist in the investigation".

Lee vowed not to sell "fabricated books", according to Chinese news portal thepaper.cn, and said he would no longer run Hong Kong's Causeway Bay bookstore, outlet for Mighty Current's titles, which remains shuttered.

"The homeland is very prosperous and formidable. I am very proud to be Chinese," it quoted him as saying.

- 'Hard to believe' -

Lee told reporters Friday he would return to China with his wife to pay respects to his ancestors. He has also said he would be prepared to bring his autistic son to the mainland, praising China's medical treatment as "advanced".

"Before, there was a time I was afraid to go back to the mainland, because I heard that some people had got into trouble because of these books," Lee said outside his Hong Kong apartment block Friday.

"The problems have been solved."

Asked whether he had been abducted from Hong Kong by security agents, Lee answered: "It's not convenient for me to say."

Smiling and laughing nervously, Lee was escorted into the back of a black people carrier. Soon after, he was spotted at the border.

Immigration officials refused to confirm whether Lee had crossed back over to China.

"It's now becoming a pattern, it really just makes it even harder to believe that the so-called released booksellers actually have freedom," said Amnesty International's China researcher William Nee.

Bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, confessed to trying to smuggle illegal books into China in a television interview in February.

Colleagues Cheung Chi-ping, Lui Por and Lam Wing-kee blamed the company's illegal book trade on Gui.

Cheung and Lui returned to Hong Kong earlier this month on bail, but are reported to have quickly gone back to the mainland.

The case has drawn international criticism, with Britain saying it believed Lee had been "involuntarily removed" to the mainland, in a "serious breach" of an agreement signed before Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, which protects the city's freedoms for 50 years.
Australia slams Japan Antarctic whale hunt

Australia on Friday branded Japan's killing of 333 whales "abhorrent", saying there was no scientific justification for the Antarctic hunt.

The Japanese fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in December despite a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand, using a loophole in the ban that allows for lethal research.

On Thursday, Japan's Fisheries Agency announced enough whales had been killed for "scientific research" as the boats returned to port.

Workers disembark from a whaling ship at the port of Shimonoseki in western Japan, on March 24, 2016 - (Jiji Press/AFP)

"The Australian government opposes so-called 'scientific' whaling clearly, absolutely and categorically," Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt said in comments emailed to AFP.

"It is in my view abhorrent and a throwback to an earlier age... There is no scientific justification for lethal research."

Japan was forced to abandon its 2014-15 hunt after the International Court of Justice said the expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.

Hunt criticised Japan for going ahead with the killings "in spite of a resolution by the (International Whaling) Commission calling on it not to go whaling".

Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, but the meat still ends up on dinner tables and is served up in school lunches.

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd criticised the Australian and New Zealand governments, saying they had not done enough to stop the whaling.

"The majority of Australians wanted the Australian government to send a vessel to oppose the slaughter. They did not," Sea Shepherd Australia's managing director Jeff Hansen said in a statement late Thursday.

"The governments responsible for protecting these magnificent creatures stood by, in the complete knowledge that both federal and international crimes were taking place.

"This empty response from authorities in the wake of the ICJ ruling is a disgrace."

Some experts say that Japan's refusal to give up the Antarctic mission despite censure by the international court is largely due to a small group of powerful politicians.
Christians mark Good Friday with Jerusalem procession

Palestinian Christians and foreign pilgrims marked Good Friday with a procession through Jerusalem's cobbled Old City on Friday amid increased security measures during an ongoing wave of violence.

A few thousand Christians commemorated the day they believe Jesus Christ died by following the path he is said to have walked carrying his cross to his crucifixion.

Several streets in the walled Old City were blocked off by Israeli security forces, with police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirming they had deployed there in larger numbers than usual.

Local Arab Christian pilgrims carry a wooden cross along the Via Dolorosa (Way of Suffering) in Jerusalem's Old City during the Good Friday procession on March 25, 2016 Gali Tibbon (AFP)

The majority of Palestinian Christians come from the eastern tradition, which celebrates Easter on the weekend of May 1 this year. But those from the Catholic and other Western churches hold their ceremonies this weekend.

Some Palestinian Christians carried crosses, while others sang hymns.

Carl-Leo von Honenthal, a 31-year-old German Protestant pilgrim, said he was very moved by the procession.

"It is very beautiful to be here with people peacefully walking together from all over the world," he said.

A Norwegian explained he had travelled from Tanzania, where he is a missionary, especially for the weekend.

For the dozens of shops selling Christian iconography and trinkets along the way, however, the situation was less positive.

A wave of violence has seen 200 Palestinians and 28 Israelis killed since October 1.

Most of the Palestinians have been killed while carrying out attacks, though others were shot dead during protests and a few killed in Israeli air raids in Gaza.

The ongoing wave of violence has put a damper on tourism in the bazaars of the Old City, shopkeepers said.

Shop owner Jihad Abu Diya said this was the worst year in the past decade, saying the foreign pilgrims were not buying anything.

The collapse of the Russian rouble, he added, meant many Russian visitors had little to spend.

"It is going from bad to worse," he said.

Nabeel Sayam, who runs a shop selling Christian mementos along the path of the procession, agreed the numbers of foreigners was far lower than last year.
Iraq buries young victims of football pitch bomb carnage

Iraq on Saturday buried the victims, among them many young boys, of a suicide attack that ripped through a trophy ceremony after a football tournament and killed 32 people.

The bomber, who himself looks like a teenager on a photo distributed by the Islamic State group that claimed the attack, cut through a crowd gathered after the game and blew himself up.

Babil province announced three days of mourning following the attack, that sparked condemnation from visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon and outrage across the global footballing community.

Iraqi relatives carry the coffin of one of the victims of a suicide bomb attack during a funeral in Iskandariyah, on March 26, 2016 Haidar Hamdani (AFP)

"There are 32 dead and also 84 wounded, 12 of whom are in a critical condition," an official in Babil province health directorate told AFP.

"Seventeen of those killed are boys aged between 10 and 16," the official said.

The attack took place in the Babil province village of Al-Asriya, which lies near Iskandariyah, a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital.

The bomber detonated his suicide vest late afternoon on Friday as officials were handing trophies to the players after the tournament.

A video posted on social media shows one official speaking in front of a table covered with trophies and calling out the name of a player before a huge blast.

The footage cuts off with a big flash of yellow light.

- Global outrage -

"The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the centre of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players," Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old witness, told AFP.

The mayor, Ahmed Shaker, was among the dead, as was one of his bodyguards and at least five members of the security forces.

Pictures posted on social media of the blast site showed mangled goal posts smeared with blood.

The US State Department extended its condolences to the bereaved in a statement, as did the UN secretary general who was visiting Iraq for talks.

"I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences to the people and government of Iraq, and particularly those members of the families affected by terrorist attacks yesterday," the UN chief told reporters.

Gianni Infantino, the new head of world football's main governing body FIFA, said he was "shocked and terribly saddened".

"Around the world, football unites people. It is a very sad day, when people, going to a match together, become the victims of such violence," Infantino said in a statement.

The Asian Football Confederation also released a statement condemning the bombing.

"Football is a powerful force for good and our game has a long history of bringing people together even during conflicts around the world," it said.

"Using football and sport stadiums as a stage for these heinous acts of violence is a cowardly, completely unjust and indiscriminate act," the AFC said.

IS has been losing territory steadily in Iraq for almost a year.

In the most recent operations, Iraqi forces have been gaining ground in the western province of Anbar and have just begun their reconquest of the province of Nineveh.

Observers have warned that, as their self-proclaimed "caliphate" shrinks towards extinction, IS fighters are likely to revert to their old guerrilla tactics and ramp up suicide attacks on civilian targets.
Salt-N-Pepa, back as stars, see little change for women

Salt-N-Pepa pioneered a role for women in hip-hop with a string of sultry dance-floor hits in the 1980s and '90s.

A couple decades on, the three-member group is enjoying renewed success on the nostalgia circuit -- and still sees a double standard for women.

The trio is opening an extensive tour on Friday aimed at fans eager to relive the 1990s.

Sandra Denton (L) and Cheryl James of Salt-N-Pepa on February 8, 2016 in New York Dimitrios Kambouris (Getty/AFP/File)

Although the group will play mostly second-tier markets, promoters hope its total ticket haul will rival those of major contemporary acts.

Led by rappers Cheryl James, or Salt, and Sandra Denton, or Pepa, with DJ Spinderella on the turntable, Salt-N-Pepa broke into the US mainstream at a time when much of white America looked at hip-hop with suspicion, seeing it as a passing fad rooted in street culture.

The New York-bred musicians not only helped break hip-hop's gender barrier but offered a subtle sense of female empowerment, rapping openly and without vulgarity about women's desires on tracks such as "Let's Talk About Sex" and "Shake Your Thang."

A couple decades on, however, the rappers see little change since their heyday in music or society, saying women still face too much judgment for their sexuality.

"You still can only have a total of three partners in your life and not be called a ho," Denton told AFP with a hearty laugh at a pre-tour party at a Manhattan hotel, as the bartender mixed vodka drinks with salt-and-pepper rims.

"It's a double standard in corporate America," James said of the music business, while stressing that women elsewhere in the world faced even more daunting challenges, such as securing rights to divorce and child custody.

"It goes so much deeper -- the right not to be abused, emotionally or physically, or to be thrown out of your house," she said. "It's a worldly issue and a continuous fight."

Female hip-hop pioneers found their niches by being "unapologetically bold," James said.

"Latifa was the queen, Lauryn Hill was the consciousness, Salt-N-Pepa was fun, fashion and feminity," she said.

"Now it's a bit empty."

Still, James praised leading female rapper Nicki Minaj -- who released her own, more provocative celebration of female sensuality on "Anaconda" in 2014 -- as well as Australia's often-maligned Iggy Azalea.

"Shoutout to Nicki and Iggy -- they're doing their thing -- but there are definitely more voices out there that aren't being heard," she said.

- Changing demographics for hip-hop -

Salt-N-Pepa -- whose other hits included "Push It," "Shoop" and, with En Vogue, "Whatta Man" -- have not released a studio album since 1997, although the rappers said they are working on new material.

The reunited group found a new audience with a 2007-2008 reality show on VH1.

In a sign that hip-hop has quickly emerged from its roots in African American culture, Salt-N-Pepa will now perform mostly to white audiences, said Jeff Allen, co-owner of Universal Attractions Agency, which is presenting the tour.

The shows are set to begin in the overwhelmingly white state of West Virginia, and Allen said he was receiving strong expressions of interest in other unexpected destinations such as Norfolk, Nebraska, population 24,500.

Also scheduled to hit major arenas, the tour is expected to reach a total of 90 to 100 cities around North America -- no small feat -- he said.

Promoters are marketing the shows with unabashed nostalgia, calling them the "I Love the '90s" tour and distributing a poster that looks straight from the software of an early Mac.

Other rap stars from the era will join Salt-N-Pepa on some dates.

They include Tone-Loc -- best known for "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina" -- and Vanilla Ice, whose "Ice Ice Baby" was the first rap track to hit number one on the mainstream US chart but who later endured personal turmoil amid mockery of the song.

Response to the tour reflects the current stage in the lives of America's Generation Xers, many of whom grew up on hip-hop's first mainstream hits and are now living with families and seeking less new music.

"For everybody, you have a soundtrack to your life," Allen said.

Cheryl "Salt" James, and Sandra "Pepa" Denton pioneered a role for women in hip-hop with a string of sultry dance-floor hits in the 1980s and '90s Erika Goldring (Getty/AFP/File)
IS claims deadly Yemen suicide bombings, attack on coalition

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings Friday that targeted Yemeni checkpoints in Aden and what it said was an attack on a nearby base of the pro-government Arab coalition.

The IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said in an online report that "IS fighters have launched three martyrdom operations and an attack on a base of the coalition in Aden".

It claimed the attacks killed at least 27 people. A security official said earlier that the bombings killed at least 22 people, including 10 civilians.
US to fund Tunisia border surveillance

The United States has agreed to fund a multi-million-dollar project to install an electronic security surveillance system on Tunisia's border with strife-torn Libya, the US embassy said Friday.

In a statement, the diplomatic mission said that the US was disbursing the first instalment of the $24.9 million project to strengthen security along the frontier.

The US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) awarded the contract to American construction group BTP and consulting and engineering firm AECOM, a diplomatic source told AFP.

Tunisian security forces check vehicles near the customs post at the Ras Jedir border crossing with Libya, south of the town of Ben Guerdane, on March 22, 2016 after it was reopened after a two-week closure Fathi Nasri (AFP/File)

According to the embassy, the project involves the installation of an integrated surveillance system using sensors and regular security equipment.

The project includes training Tunisian forces to use the system, the statement added, without giving a start or completion date.

Tunisia has built a 200-kilometre (125-mile) barrier that stretches about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to prevent militants from infiltrating.
The Latest: Ex-cop in fatal shooting apologizes to partner

NEW YORK (AP)  The Latest on the case of a New York City police officer charged with fatally shooting a man in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn public housing complex (all times local):

3:30 p.m.

A former police officer convicted of accidentally shooting an unarmed man in the stairwell of a New York City apartment building has apologized to the man's domestic partner.

FILE - In a Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016 file photo, Police officer Peter Liang, center, exits the courtroom during a break in closing arguments in his trial on charges in the shooting death of Akai Gurley, , at Brooklyn Supreme court in New York. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Wednesday, March 23, 2016, that he has recommended that Liang serve no time behind bars. Liang was convicted of a manslaughter charge in February after the 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley. The rookie officer was dismissed following the verdict. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Peter Liang met with Kimberly Ballinger Thursday morning at an office near the Brooklyn District Attorney. Ballinger's attorney, Scott Rynecki, says Liang expressed remorse over the death of 28-year-old Akai Gurley. She in turn told Liang that because of his actions, her 3-year-old daughter will grow up without a father.

Rynecki says the meeting was arranged by Liang's attorneys. He was convicted of manslaughter by a jury. Prosecutors said they won't seek jail time.

Ballinger's lawyer said the meeting was short and somber.

Liang was fired after the verdict. His partner who was at the scene but not charged was also fired.

___

1:30 a.m.

A prosecutor says he'll ask a judge not to give jail time to a New York City police officer convicted of accidentally firing a stray shot into a public housing stairwell that killed an unarmed man, a recommendation that the victim's family says "diminishes" his death.

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Wednesday that Officer Peter Liang acted recklessly, but he didn't intend to kill 28-year-old Akai Gurley.

He says justice will be served if Liang is sentenced to probation and six months of house arrest. Liang was fired from the police force last month.
Billings' Main Street is an oddity when compared to most streets with that name. The street, known to some older residents as Old Highway 312 
State court: Domestic violence law unfair to gay couples

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)  A law that perhaps unintentionally failed to protect domestic violence victims in same-sex relationships appears to be unconstitutional, and now South Carolina's high court is trying to decide what to do.

The court was asked on Wednesday to weigh in after a woman tried to get a protective order against her former fiancee, also a woman, and was denied. The state's domestic violence law defines "household members" as a spouse, former spouse, people with a child in common, or specifically men and women who are or have lived together  but not unmarried same-sex couples.

The issue has come up in at least one other state since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer legalizing gay marriage nationwide. Earlier this month, the Ohio Supreme Court adopted the use of gender-neutral references in family court cases, a ruling that covers divorce, child support and domestic violence. Other states, such as California and Massachusetts, proactively changed the language in their laws, according to Beth Littrell, a senior attorney with Lambda Legal.

South Carolina Chief Justice Costa Pleicones said the handling of domestic violence situations isn't as clear as the gay marriage ruling from the higher court case.

"The only people who are not protected under this statute right now are same-sex cohabiters or former cohabiters, is that it?" Pleicones said in court Wednesday, according to a video of arguments archived on the court's website. "This statute is pretty clearly unconstitutional in its discriminatory impact upon same-sex couples. So tell me, what's the remedy?"

Bakari Sellers, an attorney for the woman who brought the case, argued the domestic violence provision can be changed to include all couples.

"The state has a legal interest in protection of all its citizens from domestic abuse," he said.

More than two decades ago, Sellers noted, state lawmakers intentionally made the law restrictive to male-female couples. This change, Associate Justice Don Beatty said, makes clear that lawmakers were specifically keeping same-sex, unmarried couples from being included under South Carolina's criminal domestic statute.

"Otherwise, they would not have changed the word from 'person' to 'male and female,'" he said.

State prosecutor Emory Smith said those changes were part of a "general cleanup" of the law, the overall intent of which was to protect people. He said the law doesn't need to be completely rewritten. Instead, Smith suggested, the court is allowed to interpret the law as reading "male or female," not "male and female"  thereby meaning the law protects same-sex couples, too.

Littrell, of Lambda Legal, said it's time for such laws to be interpreted in gender-neutral ways instead of being struck down and forcibly rewritten entirely. Or, in the alternative, state lawmakers can be proactive, before a lawsuit is brought, and make the changes themselves.

"It's unfortunate when legislatures refuse to be proactive in terms of recognizing that marriage equality is the law of the land," she said.

The South Carolina court will issue its ruling later, likely in several months.

___
Advertisement

Many people turned to exploring local nature paths for their daily exercise when lockdown closed gyms and group sports took a hiatus amid the pandemic.

Amateur photographers who captured stunning images of animals in their natural habitat were quick to submit their snaps to Weekend magazine's annual Wildlife Photography Challenge in the hopes of winning a package worth over 1,000.

The entrants were split into five categories - Birds; Mammals; Insects; Under-18s; and Reptiles, Fish, Amphibians & Molluscs.

While each category winner received a Nikon mirrorless digital camera kit and a year's subscription to Nikon Owner magazine, the overall winner also received a trip to the Camargue with wildlife photographer Simon Stafford, courtesy of Create Away, for a four-night masterclass in photographing the region's wild horses, flamingos and bulls.

Judges David Suchet, Clare Balding, Lucy Cooke, Steve Brown, Kelly Brook and Michael Eleftheriades were impressed with Lee O'dwyer, 67, a retired engineer from Lancashire, who was awarded the overall winner for his shot of a long-tailed tit.

These runner-up snaps taken by talented amateur photographers prove choosing an overall winner was a tough decision...

BIRDS

PUFFIN: Taken by Joseph Bristow, 23, a retail supervisor from Llantwit Major. 'Arriving at 3am and queueing for the 6am ticket office to open. First in line I caught the boat over to Skomer Island. With only a few hours permitted on the island I had no time to waste. Surrounded by the Puffins was an amazing spectacle and allowed me to capture some amazing photos. I found this one puffin who seemed very tame and loved posing for the camera. As he stared down the barrel of my lens I took my shot and was pleased with the result. I found the black background really provides a provocative and striking image highlight the vibrant colour of the Puffins.'

KESTREL CHICKS: Taken by Jayne Kirkby, 20, from Braintree, Essex. 'Beautiful pair of Kestrel chicks, taken at Wrabness on 20th June 2020.'

KINGFISHER: Tim Clifton, a 59-year-old from, St Leonards on Sea, snapped this captivating photo of a kingfisher hunting for small fish

MALLARD: William Watson, 64, a semi retired HGV driver from East Dunbartonshire. 'Taken on the Forth & Clyde canal (December '19') Bishopbriggs, As I went to take this photo of this female Mallard it stretched creating a nice reflection....'

INSECTS

BUTTERFLY: Adam Lane, a 27-year-old host at Legoland, from Slough, captured a butterfly perched on a purple flower in specular detail

WASP: Shelia Moth took this captivating photo of a wasp on a thistle, capturing the insect and plant in immense detail

SPIDER: Taken by Geoffrey Wells, 67, a maintenance caretaker from North Yorkshire. 'This picture was taken in my back garden during the recent lockdown.'

REPTILES

MATING FROGS: Taken by Steve Jellett, 64, from Essex, who is retired. 'Taken in small garden pond when 21 frogs descended to mate.'

MAMMALS

ROE DEER: Tim Cliffton, a 75-year-old from St Leonards on sea, took a photograph of two roe deer spotted in a field

MOUSE: Taken by Cameron Parfitt, 20, a student at the University of Brighton, from Worthing. 'I would love to highlight that even in your back garden there are images to be had. This image is of a cheeky wood mouse that keeps stealing food from what we have now dubbed the mouse feeder. It's not unheard of for this little guy to be found inside the feeder without a care in the world stuffing himself with the bird seed.'

JUNIORS

FOX CUB: Billy Evans-Freke, 15, a secondary school student from East Sussex. 'It wasn't a long wait in the hide before the first fox cub woke up from its nap and came out into the open. It was soon followed by another cub. At first they stayed in the shadows of the bushes near the den. But once they gained their confidence they started coming closer. This cub in particular was very curious and came very close to the hide.'
The Latest: Defense: Flight attendant might not have known

NEW YORK (AP)  The Latest on the arrest of a JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle 70 pounds of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and then bolting through the terminal to escape (all times local):

4:55 p.m.

A spokesman for a flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and making a dramatic dash to escape says she might not have been sure what was in her bag.

But a prosecutor suggests Marsha Gay Reynolds had done the same thing before. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alicia Washington didn't elaborate further Thursday.

Allan Jennings is a spokesman for Reynold's defense firm and her family. He says the claim took them by surprise.

Reynolds appeared in a federal court in New York, where she turned herself in Wednesday.

Authorities say they found 70 pounds of cocaine in her luggage at LAX on March 18. They say she was pulled aside for a random security screening, flung off her high heels and bolted.

___

3:40 p.m.

A New York judge has set $500,000 bail and ordered home detention for a JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and making a dramatic dash to escape.

But Marsha Gay Reynolds will remain in custody at least until Friday. A federal magistrate judge in New York is giving federal prosecutors in Los Angeles 24 hours to appeal the bail decision before Reynolds can be released.

The 31-year-old Reynolds turned herself in Wednesday in New York.

Authorities say they found 70 pounds of cocaine in her luggage at LAX on March 18 after she was pulled aside for a random security screening. They say she then flung off her high heels and bolted barefoot out of the terminal.

___

7:20 a.m.

Authorities say a JetBlue flight attendant accused of using her credentials to attempt to get 70 pounds of cocaine through airport security in Los Angeles before flinging off her heels and fleeing has been arrested in New York.

Federal officials say Marsha Gay Reynolds surrendered Wednesday to federal authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport, though it wasn't immediately clear how she reached New York.

Reynolds is a New York resident. She was expected to be in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Bail set for JetBlue flight attendant in US cocaine case

NEW YORK (AP)  A New York judge has set $500,000 bail and ordered home detention for a JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and making a dramatic dash to escape.

Marsha Gay Reynolds will remain in custody at least until Friday. A federal magistrate judge is giving federal prosecutors in Los Angeles 24 hours to appeal the bail decision before Reynolds can be released.

The 31-year-old Reynolds turned herself in Wednesday.
Passengers delayed 3 times at Florida airport

SANFORD, Fla. (AP)  It took four tries and as many airplanes, but an Allegiant Airlines flight from Florida finally took off for Michigan.

Orlando television station WESH (http://bit.ly/25nFbQQ) reports that a flight bound for Grand Rapids, Michigan, finally took off Thursday morning from Orlando Sanford International Airport.

The first plane got off the ground Wednesday afternoon but was forced to return to the airport a half-hour later because of a sensor issue.

Passengers were put on a second plane, but they sat on the tarmac and had to return to the gate because of a mechanical problem.

They got on a third plane that had to return to the gate Wednesday night because of cabin lights problems.

Passengers were given a $200 voucher on a future flight, hotel rooms for the night and food at the gate.

___
Guilty plea in case of girl stabbed, stuffed into trash can

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A man pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Thursday in the 2013 stabbing death of a 6-year-old girl whose body was found stuffed into a trash can that had been rolled up to a curb in a New Orleans suburb.

Matthew Flugence, 22, entered the plea at a hearing in Gretna and agreed to serve life in prison, avoiding a death sentence, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick's office said in a news release.

Connick's office said the family of victim Ahlittia (ah-LIHT--ee-ah) North agreed with the plea deal.

"This outcome gives peace to Ahlittia's family who has been spared the painful experience of reliving the horrible events during the trial," Connick said.

As part of his plea, Flugence agreed to waive his appeal rights. He will not be eligible for probation, parole or a suspended sentence.

Ahlittia disappeared sometime after she was put to bed at her mother and stepfather's apartment in Harvey on the night of July 12, 2013. She had been missing for days when her body  with four stab wounds and multiple bruises  was found in the trash can near the apartment.

She had been the subject of an intensive search involving the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, the FBI and other agencies. Sheriff Newell Normand said at the time that the search took twists and turns  what looked like blood spatters in one nearby building turned out to be paint. A pool of blood found near the girl's home was confirmed as Ahlittia's, but spent ammunition near the blood turned out to be unrelated to the case. Then, Normand said, the body was found in a trash can that had already been searched once.
California awarded $1.1B judgment against for-profit college

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  A San Francisco Superior Court judge has awarded California a $1.17 billion default judgment against the bankrupt operator of for-profit colleges.

Corinthian Colleges Inc. filed for bankruptcy in May 2015, and it's unclear if the state can collect. But Attorney General Kamala Harris said the judgment can help former students pay off loans through aid programs.

The judge ordered $820 million in restitution to the students, with the rest going to civil penalties.

In 2013, Harris sued the Santa Ana-based company and its subsidiaries that operate the Everest, Heald, and Wyotech colleges, saying their illegal predatory practices left tens of thousands of students with large debts and useless degrees.

Attorneys for Corinthian did not answer the state's lawsuit or show up for Wednesday's court hearing. Attorney Evan Borges said in an email Thursday that his former client ceased to exist in September, when the companies dissolved.

The company previously closed its campuses or transferred them to new owners.

The attorney general's office said Thursday that the judgment can help students get assistance from state and federal recovery funds, and it may help them get relief from private student loans now that a judge has ruled they were defrauded.

Judge Curtis Karnow ruled that Corinthian engaged in false advertising the exaggerated its job-placement rates along with other illegal behavior. It promised classes it did not actually provide, unlawfully used the official seals of branches of the U.S. military, engaged in illegal debt collection, and misrepresented its financial health and how easily its class credits could be transferred to other colleges.

"For years, Corinthian profited off the backs of poor people - now they have to pay. This judgment sends a clear message: there is a cost to this kind of predatory conduct," Harris said in a statement.

___
The Latest: Police: Man fatally shot by Memphis officer

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)  The Latest on the fatal shooting of a man by a Memphis police officer (all times local):

2:45 p.m.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says a Memphis police officer shot and killed a man who was struggling with a woman over a rifle inside a house.

Susan Niland, a spokeswoman for the state police agency, said Thursday that 30-year-old Alexio Allen died at a hospital after he was shot Wednesday night.

Niland says officers were called to the house by a woman who said Allen was having a mental episode that included hallucinations.

Niland said the officer shot Allen as he struggled with a woman believed to be his girlfriend or fiancee over the rifle. Niland clarified earlier statements made by Memphis police, who said Allen had pointed a shotgun at the officer.

The bureau is investigating the shooting.

___

10:30 a.m.

Police in Tennessee say a man with a mental condition who pointed a shotgun at a police officer has been fatally shot by the officer.

Memphis Police Department spokesman Louis Brownlee said officers were called to a home Wednesday night. Officers began speaking with the 30-year-old man, but he did not comply with orders from police.

Brownlee said the man pointed a shotgun at an officer, who then shot the man.

Brownlee said the man had a mental condition but did not release further details.

The man died at a hospital. His name has not been released. Brownlee says both the man and the officer are black. The officer's name has not been released.
Shadowy hacking industry may be helping FBI crack an iPhone

NEW YORK (AP)  Turns out there's a shadowy global industry devoted to breaking into smartphones and extracting their information. But you've probably never heard of it unless you're a worried parent, a betrayed spouse  or a federal law enforcement agency.

Now one of those hacking businesses may well be helping the FBI try to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino killers.

Late Monday, the FBI abruptly put its legal fight with Apple on hold, announcing that an "outside party" had come forward with a possible way to unlock the phone. In an update for reporters Thursday, FBI Director James Comey said the method "may work." If so, it could render Apple's forced cooperation unnecessary.

FILE - In a Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011, file photo, a person stands near the Apple logo at the company's store in Grand Central Terminal, in New York. There's a shadowy global industry devoted to unlocking phones and extracting their information. For digital forensics companies, success can mean big bucks in the form of government contracts. And the notoriety that could come with cracking an iPhone used by a purported terrorist could rocket them to cyber stardom. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

The announcement has thrown a spotlight on a group of digital forensics companies, contractors and freelance consultants that make a living cracking security protections on phones and computers. Comey said the publicity around the Apple case encouraged such people to come forward with new ideas.

Most such companies keep a very low profile. Since the bulk of their business is with governments and law enforcement, there's no reason to for them to advertise their services. In addition, it's in their interest to keep exactly what they do under wraps, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technology expert for the ACLU.

"The companies won't share their secrets. It's their special sauce," Soghoian said. "And they certainly won't tell Apple how they're doing what they're doing."

For the moment, no one outside the Justice Department appears to know who the FBI's white knight is. A great deal of speculation centers on Cellebrite  an Israel-based forensics firm that says it does business with thousands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, militaries and governments in more than 90 countries  though it remains one of several possible candidates. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Cellebrite, founded in 1999, has contracts with the FBI dating back to at least 2013. The firm makes devices that allow law enforcement to extract and decode data such as contacts, pictures and text messages from more than 15,000 kinds of smartphones and other mobile devices.

It also makes commercial products that companies can use to help their customers transfer data from old phones to new ones. Apple even uses Cellebrite devices in some of its stores.

In the cybersecurity arms race, Apple has managed to stay ahead of these forensics companies. Cellebrite's website says its commercial tools work with iPhones running older operating systems, including iOS 8, but not the latest version, iOS 9, which is on the San Bernardino phone.

Of course, it's possible that one of these companies has made a breakthrough.

"Anything is crackable  it's just how much time do you have and how much money do you have to spend," said Jeremy Kirby, sales director at Susteen, a Cellebrite competitor in Irvine, California, that says it's not the FBI's outside party.

Susteen started as a software developer that made tools for cellphone companies. Kirby said his firm began developing forensic products for law enforcement about 10 years ago, after the FBI asked it to produce a tool that could preserve cellphone data for criminal investigations.

Now the company says its products are used by the Defense Department and hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide. It also sells a less-powerful data-extraction tool for consumers who want to check up on their kids or spouses by seeing their text messages, emails, smartphone photos and even deleted files.

Forensics companies maintain their own research staffs that probe target devices for weak spots, but for tough jobs, they sometimes turn to freelance hackers, some of whom will work for the highest bidder.

"What we're seeing now is what you can't do for yourself, you can buy," said Zuk Avraham, founder of the mobile security firm Zimperium, which seeks to defend phones against hacking.

Inspired by the FBI-Apple standoff, Rook Security, an Indianapolis-based cybersecurity firm that works with law enforcement, formed an expert team devoted to creating a copy of an iPhone's flash memory , hoping a backup would allow investigators to restore data that could be wiped out after too many wrong password guesses.

Many security researchers think that might work, though no one has announced success or demonstrated it on an iPhone running iOS 9 or higher. Rook, however, suspended its efforts when it couldn't find a way to take the phone apart without damaging it.

Avraham said he has no doubt the San Bernardino iPhone can be hacked.

"It's only a matter of time and resources," he said. "We have seen so many times when security researchers claim something to be impossible. They're proven wrong over time."

___

Bailey reported from San Francisco. Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem and Tami Abdollah in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Bree Fowler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APBreeFowler and Brandon Bailey at https://twitter.com/BrandonBailey .

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EPA: Radioactive material in unexpected places at landfill

ST. LOUIS (AP)  Radioactive material buried near an underground fire at a suburban St. Louis landfill has been found in areas where it was previously not suspected, but there is no increased health risk to residents or workers, Environmental Protection Agency officials said Thursday.

The EPA released the first phase report of an investigation of the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton where nuclear waste dating to the Manhattan Project was illegally dumpedin the 1970s. Adding to the concern is the fact that an underground fire is smoldering at the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill.

The investigation found "radiologically impacted material" in "areas of the landfill not identified during previous site investigations," but not present in areas previously presumed to contain it, the EPA said.

"It is further south than historically identified," Brad Vann, remedial project manager for the EPA, said during a teleconference. He added that health risks associated with the site are unchanged for both nearby residents and on-site workers. No reports of illness have been linked to the nuclear waste.

In December, the EPA ordered installation of an isolation barrier to make sure that the underground fire  the cause of which is unknown  does not reach the nuclear waste. The report noted that the fire remains "hundreds of feet" away from the radioactive material, which Vann called a "key piece" that will help guide placement of the barrier.

Richard Callow, a spokesman for Republic Services, which owns both landfills, noted that the EPA report found no evidence that the waste is threatened by the fire, or that the fire is moving into West Lake Landfill. "And it has found no new risks to health," Callow said, calling the findings a "good and important step."

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said the report "confirms that EPA has never had a clear picture of the extent of contamination at the West Lake landfill, and it is deeply concerning that it took EPA so long to figure that out."

West Lake was declared a Superfund site in 1990. In 2008, the EPA announced a remediation plan to cap the nuclear waste with rock, clay and soil, but it drew enough opposition that the EPA reconsidered. The agency has not yet announced a new plan despite criticism from Koster, some lawmakers and residents who feel the agency is moving too slowly. A remediation decision is expected by the end of the year.

"It is long past time for the federal government to transfer responsibility of the site to the Army Corps for swift and certain remedial action," Koster said in a statement.

Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment said the EPA needs to remove the radioactive waste, and soon. He said the proximity of the waste to the fire remains a big concern.
HELENA  A state commission responsible for redrawing judicial districts has released a slate of proposals aimed at making the court system more able to handle its growing caseload. But in the end, the commission's work may only underscore the need for more judges, not judicial redistricting.

The legislature established the commission last year to study if realigning the boundaries of the state's 22 judicial districts might ease the pressures on courts because of the growing number of cases.

"We've got to answer the question that the legislature gave us. The answer may be to redraw these lines ... or that the answer may be that redrawing the lines won't help," said District Court Judge Gregory Todd of Billings, who chairs the commission. "For the commission to do its job, it needs to look at some of these specific proposals and say why they won't help."

The commission will review six proposals drafted by its members when it reconvenes April 6 at the state Capitol. At least one proposal would increase the number of districts by one to 23, while other proposals could combine districts to help free up judges with lower caseloads to absorb work from busier courts.

But none of the proposals calls for adding more judges, even if recent studies suggest that at least 21 more judges are needed.

It would cost about $250,000 a year for each additional district judge, Court Administrator Beth McLaughlin said. There are no current requests for additional judges, even if there is an obvious need, she said.

The growth in drug-related cases has especially increased the burden on the court system and has triggered a rise in other cases, including child abuse and neglect hearings.

The courts were last realigned after the legislature in 1999 expanded the state court system to 22 districts and authorized the hiring of an additional judge. In 2009, funds for three more district judges were approved.

In all, 46 district judges now handle more than 56,000 cases.

"Scheduling has become a nightmare," said Todd, who presides over a court in Yellowstone County's District 13, the state's busiest.

The commission's key responsibility is to see if redistricting can equitably shift the workload among existing judges  without requiring more money, he said.

Anthony Johnstone, a law professor at the University of Montana, said realigning the courts might be necessary because of shifts in the state's population. And shifting judges around could help improve efficiency because of the expanse of such a large state.

"But it's only a partial solution," Johnstone said.
Garry Shandling, comic, 'Larry Sanders Show' creator, dies

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Garry Shandling, who as an actor and comedian masterminded a brand of self-inflicted phony docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," has died of an apparent heart attack.

Shandling's spokesman Alan Nierob said doctors at a hospital where the comedian was pronounced dead said it appeared he died of a heart attack. Nierob said Shandling had no history of heart trouble.

Coroner's Lt. David Smith said it appeared Shandling died of natural causes, but an official cause of death determination had not yet been made. Smith said no autopsy was planned, but officials would determine Shandling's cause of death based on medical records and his medical history.

CORRECTS SPELLING OF GARRY- FILE - In this April 10, 2007 file photo, actor Garry Shandling arrives at the wrap party and DVD release for "The Larry Sanders Show" in Beverly Hills, Calif. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

Shandling was taken to a hospital after paramedics were dispatched to his Brentwood home around 10:40 a.m. Thursday, police and fire officials said.

His death stunned the comedy community, who praised Shandling's humor, kindness and efforts to support and promote them and their craft.

An innovative and eccentric humorist with pillowy lips and a voice that always seemed on the verge of a whine, Shandling claimed to disdain too much logic cluttering his life.

"The answer isn't gonna be in the facts," he told The Associated Press in 2009. "It's gonna be in intuition. That's how I work creatively. I'm always teaching people that the answer to that creative question is right here, in the room, between us here."

More to the point, it was dealing with the questions he confronted in himself.

Born on Nov. 29, 1949 in Chicago, Shandling was raised in Tucson, Arizona. On arriving in Los Angeles as a young adult, it was a short hop from a brief stint in the advertising business to comedy writing and stand-up.

Then in the 1980s, he began to experiment with TV comedy, and to toy with the sitcom form, with his first series, "It's Garry Shandling's Show," a Showtime project that made no bones about its inherently artificial nature: The actors in this otherwise standard domestic comedy routinely broke the fourth wall to comment on what they were up to. Even the theme song began with the explanatory lyrics, "The theme to Garry's show...."

Then, in August 1992, Shandling created for HBO his comic masterpiece with "The Larry Sanders Show," which starred him as an egomaniacal late-night TV host with an angst-ridden show-biz life behind the scenes.

It was just three months after Johnny Carson had retired from "The Tonight Show," where Shandling had appeared as a stand-up and occasional Carson stand-in. It seemed a wry but deeply felt homage to the King of Late Night.

But it was more. "Larry Sanders" proved to be an act of courage, a brave effort led by someone portraying a character dangerously close to himself. As Larry, Garry dug deep to confront his own demons, and did it brilliantly as the series teetered between dual realities: public and private; make-believe and painfully true.

Real-life celebrities appeared as guests on Larry's show-within-the-show, and also interacted with him "off the air."

David Duchovny, agreeing to come on the show, also came on to Larry romantically once he got the chance.

Jim Carrey delivered a rip-roaring comic tribute to his host on the final broadcast, then, during a commercial break, turned on him in rage over a long-ago slight.

"Are you doing a bit, now?" asked Larry, perplexed.

"We're OFF the air," Carrey hissed. "This is real life now."

The show explored the fuzzy distinction between TV life and real life, and the loneliness of someone at its crossing. The closest thing Larry had to friends were his chronically needy announcer Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) and his Napoleonic producer, Artie (Rip Torn). Together the three actors were among TV's best-ever trios.

"Garry was my dear friend and was and always will be my teacher," Tambor wrote in a statement. "Garry redesigned the wheel of comedy and he was the kindest and funniest of Geniuses. I will miss him so much."

Torn also expressed deep sadness about Shandling's death. "Working with him was one of the great privileges of my career," he wrote. "He was a comic talent of immense originality who enthusiastically encouraged and responded to the originality of others."

After "Sanders" ended in 1998, Shandling's public appearances were few.

He was mentioned as a candidate to follow David Letterman as a bona fide late-night host for CBS' 12:30 a.m. slot, but no deal was made.

"I would not do a show where you just sit and talk to somebody," Shandling had said back in 1993 when he was courted by NBC to take over for Letterman on "Late Night."

His films included "Hurlyburly" in 1998, "What Planet Are You From?" in 2000 and "Zoolander" in 2001.

He hosted the Emmy Awards in 2000 and 2004.

On the latter occasion, he spotted Donald Trump in the audience and congratulated the billionaire developer for hosting the Emmy-nominated "The Apprentice."

"Nice to see a man who's paid his dues, worked hard," Shandling said. "We all know what it feels like to have to build 80-story condos and gambling casinos just to get our foot in the door in show business."

Jamie Masada, owner of comedy club the Laugh Factory, said he met with Shandling a few weeks ago and the comedian didn't appear to have any health problems.

"He looked healthy as could be," Masada said.

"Garry Shandling, besides being a comedian, I always said he was a doctor of soul. He had a lot of kindness in him. He was a very generous person," Masada said.

In his own business dealings, Shandling became one of the rich and famous targeted by private eye Anthony Pellicano, who was sentenced to prison in 2008 on convictions of racketeering and more than six dozen other counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud and wiretapping in the Hollywood wiretaps case.

Pellicano was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone and bribing police officers to run names of people, including Shandling, through law enforcement databases.

While Shandling never married, his most public romance was with "Sanders" co-star and fiancee Linda Doucett, who played Hank's comely assistant in the series' early seasons.

Doucett sued Shandling after he fired her following their breakup in the mid-1990s, receiving a reported $1 million settlement, The New York Times reported in 2006.

The news of Shandling's death brought an outpouring of reactions from performers who spoke of his impact.

"Garry was a guiding voice of comedy," said actor-comedian Bob Odenkirk. "He set the standard and we're all still trying to meet it."

___

AP television writer Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this story.

FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2006 file photo, actor Garry Shandling poses for photographers before the Jennifer Nicholson fashion show during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Culver City, Calif. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 13, 1998 file photo, Peter Tolan, left, and Garry Shandling pose with their Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a comedy series award for "The Larry Sanders Show," at the 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Victoria Arocho, File)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF GARRY - FILE - In this Sept. 13, 1998 file photo, Peter Tolan, left, and Garry Shandling pose with their Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a comedy series award for "The Larry Sanders Show," at the 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Victoria Arocho, File)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF GARRY - FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2006 file photo, actor Garry Shandling poses for photographers before the Jennifer Nicholson fashion show during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Culver City, Calif. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF GARRY - FILE - In this May 21, 2007 file photo, Garry Shandling arrives to the premiere of the new comedy film "Knocked Up" in Los Angeles. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)
The Latest: Foes plan court fight over Indiana abortion law

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)  The Latest on an Indiana bill that would ban abortions from being performed because of fetal genetic abnormalities (all times local):

5:50 p.m.

Opponents of an Indiana measure banning women from getting abortions because of fetal genetic defects say they plan fight the law in court.

Indiana's Planned Parenthood affiliate says Republican Gov. Mike Pence injected his personal ideology into public health policy in deciding to sign the bill Thursday.

The group says it is working with the American Civil Liberties Union and expects to ask a judge to put the law on hold before it takes effect in July.

The law would also prohibit abortions from being performed because of a fetus's race, sex or ancestry.

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5:25 p.m.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says he believes a bill banning women from getting abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome affirms the value of all human life.

The Republican governor signed the contentious measure into law on Thursday, making Indiana the second state with such a ban.

Pence said in a statement that he believe the legislation takes "an important step in protecting the unborn."

The law will take effect in July. It will also prohibit abortions from being performed because of a fetus's race, sex or ancestry.

The bill has been criticized by medical professionals and several female Republican members of the Indiana Legislature, who say it goes too far in telling women what they can and cannot do.

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4:55 p.m.

Republican Gov. Mike Pence has signed a bill making Indiana the second state to ban abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

The governor's office says Pence signed the measure Thursday, just hours ahead of his deadline to take action on the bill passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature.

The new law takes effect in July. It will also prohibit abortions from being performed because of a fetus's race, sex or ancestry and mandate that the only way to dispose of an aborted fetus is through burial or cremation.

The bill has drawn backlash from medical professionals and several female Republican members of the Indiana Legislature who say it goes too far in telling women what they can and cannot do.

North Dakota adopted similar restrictions in 2013.

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7:30 a.m.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is facing a deadline to take action on a measure that would ban abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

Pence reiterated his anti-abortion stance when he spoke about the measure Wednesday. Thursday is the deadline for him to act on bills the General Assembly has approved. Pence could allow the bill to go into law by not signing it, but it would take a veto to halt the measure.

The bill has drawn backlash from medical professionals and several female Republican members of the Indiana Legislature who say the bill goes too far in telling women what they can and cannot do.
GOP lawmakers in Kansas race to pass school funding plan

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP)  Republican supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature raced Thursday to approve a new plan to reshuffle education spending, hoping to head off the state Supreme Court's threat to shut down public schools statewide if lawmakers don't fix the funding problems by the end of June.

The Senate approved the bill 32-5, and the House passed it hours later, 93-31, sending it to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who is expected to sign it by early next month. The votes came only two days after bills containing the plan were introduced in the House and Senate, and GOP leaders took special steps to move with unusual speed.

Republican leaders said they were moving quickly to allow the court plenty of time to review the plan ahead of the June 30 deadline. The justices ruled last month that a 2015 finance law denied poor districts their fair share of more than $4 billion in annual aid to the 286 local districts.

Kansas state Sen. Mitch Holmes, left, R-St. John, and Senate President Susan Wagle, right, R-Wichita, follow the beginning of the chamber's debate on a school funding bill, Thursday, March 24, 2016, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The plan redistributes part of the state's funding for public schools in an effort to meet a court order to help poorer ones (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ty Masterson, an architect of the plan, said the court has "the hammer of closing the schools."

"We must respond," the Andover Republican said.

But an attorney for four school districts suing the state predicted that the high court would reject the Republican leaders' response  a redistribution of $83 million a year, without an overall increase in state spending.

Because the plan guarantees that no district loses any aid it already has been promised for the next school year, most of them including the four suing the state  would see no change in their aid overall. Twenty-three would see small increases, covered by the state tapping an existing pot of emergency school aid.

The four districts also argue that the state isn't spending enough money overall on its schools, but the Supreme Court is still reviewing that question. A lower-court panel ruled last year that the state must boost its aid by at least $548 million a year.

"This is a thinly veiled attempt to move money from the left pocket to the right pocket," said John Robb, the attorney for the districts. "I don't have any question but the court's going to reject this."

Predictions like Robb's led Democratic Rep. Jim Ward, of Wichita, to accuse Republicans of "playing Russian roulette with our schools" in passing the plan.

The House's debate grew unusually heated when Rep. John Whitmer, a Wichita Republican, suggested Democrats had no proposals and described the GOP as "those who are doing the work."

House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, a Kansas City Democrat, responded by accusing the GOP of not supporting education. Pointing and yelling at Whitmer, he called him an "ideologist" and "politician."

GOP leaders sprang to their feet to calm him down as fellow Republicans yelled, "Whoa!" and "No!"

Burroughs apologized but added, "I will stand for children."

Democrats could do little more than complain with GOP moderates and conservatives largely united.

Some Republicans vented about the court. Rep. Marc Rhoades, of Newton, called the justices' demands "ridiculous"  drawing out the word for emphasis  and suggested lawmakers face a moving target to equalize funding that they can never meet.

"You know what that sounds like to me?" Rhoades said. "Socialism."

Top Republicans argued that even though the plan largely reshuffles existing funds, it does so fairly and in a way that will narrow the gap between local property tax levies between wealthy and poorer districts.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Kansas Constitution requires the state to provide a suitable education to every child, and its funding must both be adequate and distributed to help poor districts keep up with wealthier counterparts. The Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, districts sued in 2010 over funding under an old per-pupil aid formula.

GOP lawmakers junked that formula last year in favor of stable "block grants" for districts that make the state's spending more predictable as it struggles to balance its budget. But the justices said the changes didn't provide enough extra aid to poor districts for general operating expenses and building repairs and equipment.

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Online:

Information on school funding plan: http://bit.ly/1RzGMbV .

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna .
Ole Miss ex-student pleads guilty to tying noose on statue

A former University of Mississippi student could face up to a year in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to placing a noose on the school's statue of its first black student.

Austin Reed Edenfield waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Michael Mills in Oxford. The charge says Edenfield helped others to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university.

Mills will sentence Edenfield July 21, and he faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Prosecutors have recommended probation for Edenfield, who cooperated in the early prosecution of another former student, Graeme Phillip Harris. However, Mills warned Edenfield he might not stick to that agreement.

Former University of Mississippi student Austin Reed Edenfield, left, with attorney Clark Trout, leaves federal court Thursday, March 24, 2016, after pleading guilty to placing a noose on the school's statue of its first black student, in Oxford, Miss. Edenfield waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Michael Mills. The charge says Edenfield helped others threaten force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university. Edenfield will be sentenced on July 21 and faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. The government has recommended probation. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)

"The court remains free to impose whatever sentence it deems appropriate," Mills said.

A 21-year-old resident of Kennesaw, Georgia, Edenfield remains free pending sentencing. He declined comment after the hearing.

Edenfield admitted that he tied the noose that ended up around the neck of the Ole Miss statue of James Meredith in February 2014. He, Harris and a third person also draped a former Georgia state flag with a Confederate battle emblem on the statue of Meredith, who integrated Ole Miss in 1962 amid rioting that was suppressed by federal troops.

Prosecutors said Harris hatched the plan to place the noose and flag on the statue after a night of drinking with Edenfield and a third freshman in the Sigma Phil Epsilon fraternity house on campus. They said Harris frequently expressed ill will toward black people and that during that night, he told Edenfield that the act would cause a sensation, saying "It's James Meredith, people will go crazy."

After the noose and flag were placed on the statue on the night of Feb. 15, 2014, Edenfield and Harris returned at sunrise on Feb. 16 to observe and were filmed by a video camera at the Ole Miss student union. During that trip Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Coleman said Harris raised his fist and shouted "white power" toward a white university employee.

"The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that our universities and our workplaces are free from threats of racial violence," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gupta said in a statement. "We will hold accountable those who attempt to turn places of learning into places of intimidation and fear."

An Alpharetta, Georgia, resident, Harris pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of threatening force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university after prosecutors agreed to drop a stiffer felony charge in exchange. His lawyer argued Harris didn't deserve prison, saying he'd written a letter of apology to Meredith after falling under the influence of racist traditions at the fraternity.

Harris was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by 12 months' supervised release. Federal Bureau of Prisons records show he's currently held at a minimum-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, and is scheduled to be released July 1.

Both Harris and Edenfield are white.

The third man has not been charged. University spokesman Jonathan Scott said Ole Miss officials expect no more prosecutions in the case.

"The responsibility taken in today's hearing is another step in the right direction," Brandi Hephner LaBanc, vice chancellor for student affairs, said in a statement. "Many members of our campus were deeply affected by this incident and the university does not tolerate hateful behavior. Today's outcome affirms our position and sends a clear message about what is expected in our shared community."

All three of the students withdrew from Ole Miss, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity closed its chapter. The university continues to struggle with reminders of its racially tortured past, though. Earlier this year, Ole Miss officials stopped flying the Mississippi state flag, which also features the Confederate battle emblem. In recent weeks, Ole Miss has said it's preparing an additional plaque to provide historical context to a Confederate military monument on campus, but the university's NAACP chapter has said that move doesn't go far enough.

___

Follow Jeff Amy at: http://twitter.com/jeffamy . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/jeff-amy .

Former University of Mississippi student Austin Reed Edenfield leaves federal court Thursday, March 24, 2016, after pleading guilty to placing a noose on the school's statue of its first black student, in Oxford, Miss. Edenfield waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Michael Mills. (Bruce Newman/The Oxford Eagle via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT
US, Israel denounce resolution passed by rights council

GENEVA (AP)  The U.S. government is decrying a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council that calls on the U.N. human rights chief to set up a database of businesses operating in settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights.

U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper denounced the "especially disturbing" resolution that "only serves to reinforce the council's one-sided actions against Israel" and said it exceeded the council's authority.

Pakistan, which presented the resolution, argued that the Israel settlements violate international law. It passed 32-0 with 15 abstentions, and was among 37 passed in the council's latest session that ended Thursday.
The Latest: 2 to 3 days before La. town's water is drinkable

DONALDSONVILLE, La. (AP)  The Latest on problems with the water system in the Louisiana city of Donaldsonville (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

Louisiana's state health officer says it will be at least two to three days before residents of Donaldsonville can begin drinking their tap water again.

Residents of the town southeast of Baton Rouge were advised not to drink the water this week after an inspection showed the possibility that it contained levels of chlorine dioxide surpassing federal environmental guidelines. Elevated levels of the chemical can cause health problems.

Dr. Jimmy Guidry said Thursday that the state has approved a plan by the privately run Peoples Water Service Co. to begin disinfecting with chlorine instead of chlorine dioxide. Implementing and testing will take two to three days.

Guidry said the "do not drink" advisory was issued out of an "abundance of caution" after the department learned of one test indicating an elevated level of chlorine dioxide

___

7 a.m.

The mayor of a Louisiana city has declared a state of emergency after the state warned residents not to drink tap water.

Multiple news outlets report that the state Department of Health and Hospitals said Tuesday that Donaldsonville's privately run Peoples Water Company had failed to report chlorine dioxide levels four to five times EPA guidelines. The state advised people not to drink the water until further tests could be conducted.

Mayor Leroy Sullivan declared the state of emergency Tuesday night.

Dr. Jimmy Guidry is Louisiana's state health officer. He says exposure to elevated levels of the chemical can cause serious health effects to the nervous systems of some infants, young children and the fetuses of pregnant women. Small quantities are used as a water-treatment disinfectant.
Reaction to the death of comedian Garry Shandling

Some celebrity reaction to the death of comedian/actor Garry Shandling:

"Garry was a guiding voice of comedy. He set the standard and we're all still trying to meet it. He gave us all opportunities to learn how to do the best work of our lives. But, more importantly, as I knew him these last few years, he was a person who never stopped trying to be a better person. That's yet another way he inspired me and I'm sure many others who knew him."  Bob Odenkirk

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FILE - In this Sept. 13, 1998 file photo, Peter Tolan, left, and Garry Shandling pose with their Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a comedy series award for "The Larry Sanders Show," at the 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Shandling, who as an actor and comedian pioneered a pretend brand of self-focused docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," died, Thursday, March 24, 2016 of an undisclosed cause in Los Angeles. He was 66. (AP Photo/Victoria Arocho, File)

"Working with him was one of the great privileges of my career. He was a comic talent of immense originality who enthusiastically encouraged and responded to the originality of others."  Rip Torn.

___

"Garry Shandling was a very special comedian with a beautifully unpredictable mind. He even voluntarily offered jokes and ideas for Oscars."  Steve Martin

"I had a personal relationship with him and we never worked together so I had him for dinner, we spent time together, I found him to be incredibly funny and sharp and with a beautiful sense of humor. It's a real loss."  Martin, at the opening of the Broadway show "Bright Star."

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"I'm crushed. That man made me laugh. Spoke to me as a peer. Even though I've known him since the 90s, it's in the last few years that we have had meaningful and memorable one-on-one talks. I had no idea our last one would be four days ago."  Kathy Griffin

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"His neurosis made me feel human His first series was sensational but the second is one for the ages. We worked together on our projects but for me our mutual respect and laughs over our low-self esteem was magical."  Richard Lewis

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"Goodbye Gary Shandling thank you for your kindness and your generosity and for making me laugh so damn much."  Amy Schumer

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"I just found out a half an hour ago. I am completely speechless. I'm just stunned. A genius. So it's horrifying."  Martin Short, at the premiere of the Broadway show "Bright Star."

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"Saddened over Garry Shandling. He was a comedy idol of mine. He leaves behind the greatest single-camera comedy of all time. #LarrySanders."  Seth MacFarlane

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"RIP the great Garry Shandling. Surely, one of the most influential comedians of a generation."  Ricky Gervais

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"Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. I can imagine how Hank would handle it but I just don't know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me. I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better."  Judd Apatow

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"I loved Garry very much. Garry was very important to me, not only as a comedy genius, someone I admired greatly for his comedy but he was very good to me personally."  Howard Stern.

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"Gary Shandling was often funny when he was serious. And when he was actually going for it - unparalleled. Bless his soul."  James L. Brooks

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"@GarryShandling no no no. I love you. I cannot accept that you are gone. Rest in Power my hero. #RIPGarry."  Margaret Cho

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"Sad today. My friend @GarryShandling passed. He encouraged me from the very start. A few weeks ago he told me life was short and enjoy it."  Kristin Chenoweth

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"Gary Shandling was a comedy hero of mine. He once sent me a thank you note that read, "Thanks for nothing." RIP."  Zach Braff

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"Dammit. He was the best. So sad. RIP Garry Shandling.  Marc Maron

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"Saddened by the news of the passing of Garry Shandling , I met Garry at @TheComedyStore WEST in 1979 #VayaConDios."  George Lopez

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"No!!! Not #GaryShandling!! I am devastated. Grew up with Larry Sanders. Can't process this. RIP. Beyond sad. Thoughts are with his family."  Josh Gad

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"Can't believe it. RIP #garyshandling. Lost a great talent. In shock."  Aasif Mandvi

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"Oh my ..GOD will laugh now as he never has Before REST IN PEACE .. Wayyyy too soon." Henry Winkler

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"Oh no RIP @garyshandling Such a talent."  Jim Gaffigan

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"RIP Gary Shandling. You are one of the greats."  Lizz Winstead

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Rafael Compos shoots 64, leads home Puerto Rico Open

RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico (AP)  Rafael Compos shot an 8-under 64 in front of his home fans Thursday to take the first-round lead in the PGA Tour's Puerto Rico Open.

The 27-year-old Compos had eight birdies in a bogey-free round at windy Coco Beach. He made four straight birdies on Nos. 9-12, added another on the par-5 15th and parred the final three holes.

"I hit the ball very well. I kept the ball in play, which was the main goal today," Compos said. "The truth is, I felt very comfortable. I had a great crowd  family, friends and all that  which helped me ease my way into the round. It was kind of easy, believe it or not. I know it was windy. I played really safe on the holes I had to play safe."

He's the first Puerto Rican to lead a PGA Tour event since the 1979 Tallahassee Open, when Chi Chi Rodriguez was tied for the 54-hole lead and went on to win his eighth and final title.

George McNeill, the 2012 winner, was a stroke back. He had six birdies in a seven-hole stretch and closed with a bogey on the par-4 ninth.

"I was hitting it really nice and I felt good about the way I was swinging it," McNeill said. "For some reason, I figured something out today. Whether it continues on, we'll see. It feels like something I can hopefully work with for at least the remainder of the week."

Compos and Dicky Pride are the only players to play in all nine editions of the event.

"I do rely on the info I've had in the past years," Compos said. "Nine years, that's a lot. Actually, goes by very fast. I don't feel it's been nine years, that's for sure. But I do rely a lot on the information I have. I still have the same yardage book."

He was trying to avoid distractions.

"I'm not turning my cellphone on today," Compos said. "I really don't want to look at my cellphone. I told my caddie, 'We played good today, but I don't want to put any more pressure on me than I already have.' I want to perform good in front of the home crowd."

Defending champion Alex Cejka was at 66 along with Aaron Baddeley, Frank Lickliter and Will MacKenzie.

"It was windy even in the beginning," Cejka said. "The course is playing tricky."

Baddeley eagled the 15th and closed with two birdies.

"I feel like I only really hit like two poor shots," Baddeley said. "It's not easy in this wind, just got to be patient out here and that's what I was just trying to do. To have a fast finish like that was pretty exciting."

English stars Luke Donald and Ian Poulter are playing after failing to qualify for the Match Play event in Texas. Donald opened with a 69, and Poulter shot 71. Poulter is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 67 in the world.
DNA in '97 Ohio rape case linked to man arrested in Oklahoma

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  Police in Ohio's capital say cold-case investigators have used DNA evidence to link a rape case nearly two decades old to a man recently arrested in Oklahoma.

Columbus police say DNA evidence recovered after an 18-year-old woman was raped in a park in 1997 was linked to a suspect last September.

An initial statement from police didn't specify how that link was made. Police say new warrants were filed for 45-year-old Joseph Carter for rape and kidnapping and he was arrested last week in Tulsa.

Columbus police said Thursday that Carter has since been extradited to Ohio and remains in custody, where he can't be reached for comment. It's unclear whether Carter has an attorney.
Arizona Democrats say hours-long poll lines suppressed vote

PHOENIX (AP)  Hours-long waits for some Arizona residents wanting to vote in the presidential primary have led to accusations of voter suppression from Democrats and civil rights proponents who cite a decision by elections officials to slash the number of polling places this year.

Residents in metro Phoenix have been bristling for years over a perception that state leaders want to make it harder for them to vote, and the mess at the polls Tuesday only heightened their frustration.

Republican lawmakers passed a series of measures in recent years aimed at cracking down on voter fraud, but opponents believe the changes were merely ploys to stifle Democratic turnout.

Voters wait in line at dawn to cast their ballot in Arizona's presidential primary election, Tuesday, March 22, 2016, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Those battles are being waged again after people waited in line for five hours to vote in some places.

"Let's be clear  voter suppression happened," U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego said at a news conference Thursday, adding it might not have been intentional, but it happened nonetheless.

The Phoenix Democrat said Arizona has a long history of voter suppression, including a new law that would block voter-outreach groups from collecting and dropping off early ballots.

Limiting the number of polling locations disproportionately affects minorities and the working poor, he said. They have a harder time finding transportation to polling locations and are less likely to have the time needed to wait in long lines.

Maricopa County's top elections official, Recorder Helen Purcell, cut the number of polling places in the presidential primary from 200 in 2012 to just 60 on Tuesday, although those were larger voting centers where any registered voter could cast a ballot. During the last high-turnout presidential primary, in 2008, there were 400 polling places in the county of 4 million residents.

Arizona's Democratic Party is considering filing a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act to determine if the county recorder's actions disenfranchised voters, said Jim Barton, the party's attorney.

Barton said Tuesday's fiasco largely stemmed from a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key provision of that law.

The provision required Arizona and all or part of 14 other states to get Justice Department approval, or "pre-clearance," for changes in how they conduct elections.

Barton's conclusion about the high court decision in Shelby County v. Holder is right on the money, said constitutional scholar Paul Bender, a former law school dean and deputy solicitor general in the Clinton Administration.

"That's the first thing I thought when I saw these long lines. I said, 'Oh, Shelby County,'" Bender said. "If they had not gotten rid of Section 5  practically gotten rid of it, that is removed the pre-clearance requirements  that never would have been pre-cleared."

Purcell took responsibility for Tuesday's foul-up and acknowledged she made a mistake. She said she relied on voter turnout expectations, the fact independents could not vote in the primary, and that most Arizonans are mailed early ballots. But she said the problems at the polls were in no way intended to suppress participation.

"When you see people who are still willing to cast that vote and wait in line until well after the polls close, I don't think that's voter suppression," Purcell said.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, said talk of voter suppression is misplaced but the governor wants the problems fixed.

"It is totally unacceptable for people to have to wait in lines of that length to vote," he said. "This should be a basic function of government that we should be able to execute."

Ducey signed into law legislation making it a felony to collect an early ballot from a voter, a bill Democrats said was designed to limit their successful get-out-the vote efforts. Scarpinato said that's not the case, noting 18 other states have similar laws.

"The legislation that was signed earlier this month was designed specifically to ensure that there is integrity in the ballots cast," he said.

Teresa Jimenez was among those who waited in line for nearly two hours Tuesday in a heavily Latino neighborhood on the west side of Phoenix, only to have election officials close the site around 7 p.m. She went home without voting.

She said she and other voters  many of them Latino  were excited to cast ballots, but their enthusiasm vanished when the site shut down.

Jimenez believes the election represented an opportunity for Latinos who are fed up with years of discrimination in Arizona to make a statement. But she felt like the election problems put them back in their place.

"They do it to us," Jimenez said. "How are we supposed to hear our voices?"

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Associated Press writer Josh Hoffner contributed to this report.

People wait in line to vote in the primary at the Environmental Education Center, Tuesday, March 22, 2016, in Chandler, Ariz. Residents in metro Phoenix have been bristling for years over a perception that state leaders want to make it harder for them to vote, and the mess at the polls Tuesday only heightened the frustration. (David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT

In this March 21, 2016 photo, Maricopa County recorder Helen Purcell speaks at a news conference on Arizonas presidential primary election in Phoenix. State lawmakers are weighing in on the long wait times many Maricopa County voters experienced during the state's presidential primary. House Elections Committee chairwoman Michelle Ugenti-Rita announced Wednesday, March 23, 2016 she would call a special meeting next week to try to understand what led to the problems. She's invited Purcell to testify about the low number of polling spots that led to lines as long as five hours.(AP Photo/Ryan VanVelzer)

People wait in line to vote in the Arizona Presidential Primary Election at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Phoenix, Ariz., Tuesday, March 22, 2016. (David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
UN council wants Western Sahara mission fully restored

UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The U.N. Security Council announced its support for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the disputed Western Sahara late Thursday, calling for the controversy between Morocco and the U.N. secretary-general to be addressed so the mission can resume full operation.

Morocco expelled 73 international civilian staff members with the peacekeeping mission and closed a military liaison office to protest Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's use of the word "occupation" in describing the status of the vast mineral-rich territory during a recent visit to camps in Algeria for Western Sahara refugees. Eleven other civilians ordered out had already left the mission, known as MINURSO.

Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975 and fought a local independence movement called the Polisario Front until the U.N. brokered a ceasefire in 1991. The Security Council authorized the U.N. mission to monitor the cease-fire and help organize a referendum on the future of the vast mineral-rich region, but that has never taken place because of disputes over voter lists.

The Security Council initially tried to resolve the latest crisis through individual contacts between its 15 members and Morocco, but that didn't seem to work.

Morocco's Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said Thursday the decision to expel the civilian staff is "irreversible." And the Polisario Front's U.N. representative, Ahmed Boukhari, warned again Thursday that "the shortest way towards a war is the dismantling of MINURSO."

The Security Council, which had been discussing the crisis behind closed doors all week, met again Thursday for over three hours and agreed on "press elements"  its lowest level of response.

The council expressed "serious concern" at the recent developments and noted the U.N. Secretariat's assessment of the impact of the departures on the peacekeeping mission.

A U.N. official warned Wednesday that MINURSO will have to shut down unless Morocco reverses its unprecedented expulsion order.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the secretary-general wanted the Security Council to take action to protect MINURSO. But the press elements agreed by the council late Thursday do not authorize any action.

Instead, the council stressed the importance of addressing the circumstances that led to the current situation "in a constructive, comprehensive and cooperative manner ... so that MINURSO may resume its full capacity to carry out its mandate," which is outlined in several U.N. resolutions.

Angola's U.N. Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins, the current council president, told reporters: "The message is that we have discussed in a constructive manner, that we are concerned, that it is a problem that has to be resolved, and I hope it will be."

The bottom line is that the Security Council needs to "take account of our primary responsibility which is keeping peace and security in the world," he said.

Pressed on how the controversy was going to be addressed, Gaspar Martins noted that council members have bilateral relations with Morocco.

Morocco considers Western Sahara as its "southern provinces" and has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for the region, but the Polisario Front insists on self-determination through a referendum for the local population  as called for in U.N. resolutions.

The Polisario Front's Boukhari said he was "somewhat happy" with the council for expressing serious concern and trying to make sure that MINURSO can function at its full capacity, which is "our common objective."

But the Security Council should have taken "stronger steps" toward restoring MINURSO and sent a stronger message to Morocco, which is mainly responsible for the continuing crisis, he said.

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The Rolling Stones arrive in Cuba for historic concert

HAVANA (AP)  The Rolling Stones arrived in Cuba's capital Thursday, on the eve of the rock band's historic free concert in a country where its music was once silenced.

Mick Jagger offered a brief greeting in Spanish and said he was happy to be on the island.

Friday night's concert will come three days after President Barack Obama wrapped up a visit to the communist-run island during which he declared an end to the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.

Keith Richards stands between Mick Jagger, left, and Ron Wood as The Rolling Stones deplane at Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

The band's private plane flew into Jose Marti airport with the four British rockers and about 60 technical workers and family members. The concert will be at Havana's Ciudad Deportivo.

"We have performed in many special places during our long career, but this show in Havana will be a milestone for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba, too," the band said in a statement released before the arrival.

In the heat of Cuba's revolution from the 1960s to the 1980s, foreign bands like The Rolling Stones were considered subversive and blocked from the radio. Cubans listened to their music in secret, passing records from hand to hand.

The band's Cuba stop follows concerts in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood talk to journalists upon their arrival to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood talk to journalists upon their arrival to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Mick Jagger, right, and Ron Wood, from The Rolling Stones, walk on the tarmac as they arrive to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Stones are performing a free concert in Havana on Friday, becoming the most famous act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
10 Things to Know for Friday - 25 March 2016

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:

1. BELGIUM OFFICIALS ADMIT WARNING SIGNS MISSED

The prime minister refuses to accept the resignations of two ministers as prosecutors say six more people were detained in raids linked to the Brussels attacks.

Police officers block a street in Argenteuil, northwest of Paris, late Thursday March 24, 2016 as security forces locked down the area during a major search, France's interior minister said. Bernard Cazeneuve said there were no links "at this stage" between the plot and the attacks against Brussels this week or Paris in November. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

2. FRANCE ARRESTS MAN IN 'ADVANCED' ATTACK PLOT

A French official says there were no links "at this stage" between the plot and the attacks against Brussels.

3. HOW THE AMERICAN COMBAT ROLE IN IRAQ APPARENTLY EXPANDED

A senior U.S. official says Marines in small Iraq outpost are providing artillery and targeting support for Iraqi troops.

4. GOP PRESIDENTIAL FEUD TURNS NASTIER

Ted Cruz brands Donald Trump a "sniveling coward" after the mogul retweeted unflattering images of the senator's wife.

5. WHY A STUDY SAYS 'OBAMACARE' COSTS RISING

The CBO says an 11 percent hike over the coming decade is mostly caused by higher-than-expected enrollment in the expanded Medicaid program.

6. WHERE THERE ARE ACCUSATIONS OF VOTER SUPPRESSION

Phoenix-area Democrats were frustrated by hours-long waits at some polling stations.

7. SYRIAN GOVERNMENT FORCES PUSH INTO ANCIENT TOWN OF PALMYRA

Islamic State militants appear to be on the verge of collapse in what would be a significant win for the Syrian government.

8. JURY REJECTS GRADUATE'S SUIT AGAINST SAN DIEGO LAW SCHOOL

The student sued on the grounds she was promised that her degree would land her a full-time job.

9. HOW THE MAN IN TREE CASE IS GETTING MORE BIZARRE

The man who transfixed Seattle and the Internet by perching near the top of an 80-foot sequoia tree refused to leave a jail cell for his first court appearance.

10. COMEDIAN MASTERMIND GARRY SHANDLING DIES

The comic was best known for "The Larry Sanders Show," a masterfully comedic faux docudrama.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at a campaign stop Thursday, March 24, 2016, in Dane, Wis. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Georgetown Law School in Washington, Thursday, March 24, 2016. Biden is pointing to his years as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman to cast Republicans' election-year Supreme Court blockade as a dangerous new escalation of partisanship. In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden, took credit for moving eight Supreme Court nominees through the committee and to a vote on the Senate floor. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Project confirms NY fort's old guns came from Florida wreck

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP)  Research has determined nine historic cannons displayed for the past 60 years at a recreated French and Indian War fort in upstate New York were originally aboard a British warship that sank in the Florida Keys in the 18th century, according to an underwater archaeologist who led the project.

Joseph Zarzynski, of Wilton, New York, said a study of all 68 cannons at Fort William Henry found that some if not all of the nine iron cannons likely came from HMS Looe, a British warship that sank after hitting a reef in 1744.

Zarzynski said it was known when the replica fort opened in 1954 on the southern end of Lake George that some of the cannons were believed to have come from a British shipwreck in the Keys. The exact source wasn't pinpointed until volunteer researchers deduced the guns came from the Looe (pronounced Loo), a 44-gun frigate built in England in 1741, Zarzynski said.

In this April 29, 2014, photo provided by Joseph W. Zarzynski, Liz Zieschang, left, and Claudia Young measuring one of nine mystery cannons at the Fort William Henry Museum in Lake George, N.Y. Research has determined nine historic cannons displayed for the past 60 years at the recreated French and Indian War fort in upstate New York were originally aboard a British warship that sank in the Florida Keys in the 18th century. (Joseph W. Zarzynski via AP)

"All the evidence points to it," he said.

A 20-minute documentary titled "Iron Sentries: The Mystery Cannons of Fort William Henry" was recently released by Pepe Productions of Glens Falls.

The original Fort William Henry, built by the British in 1755 during the French and Indian War, was destroyed two years later after being captured by the French.

A full-size replica fort was built on the same footprint of the original in the Adirondack village of Lake George. Before the tourist attraction opened in the summer of 1954, the fort's owners sought Colonial-era cannons to display on the ramparts. Among the artillery pieces purchased were nine guns discovered a few years earlier off Looe Key, now part of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Local newspaper stories about the fort's purchase said the cannons were bought from Art McKee, a well-known Florida treasure hunter who salvaged the weapons after the Smithsonian Institution recovered other shipwreck artifacts from Looe Key, named for the British ship believed to have sank there along with a captured Spanish vessel it was escorting.

The '50s newspaper articles also said the cannons bore insignia indicating the weapons belonged to the British Crown. Those markings have since disappeared after being exposed to decades Adirondack winters. A 1967 arson fire destroyed many of the fort's records pertaining to artifact acquisitions, adding to the murkiness surrounding the cannons' origins, Zarzynski said.

A project begun in 2014 to measure and document all the fort's 49 replica cannons and 19 historic artillery pieces led researchers to finally try to trace the origins of the nine guns purchased in 1954, he said.

The fort's researchers discovered the caliber of the nine cannons matched that of the armament known to have been aboard HMS Looe when it sank. That fact, and McKee's role in the guns' salvage, leads researchers to believe the Looe was the source, Zarzynski said.

"If Art McKee sold them, then they are most certainly from HMS Looe," said Charles Lawson, an archaeologist for Biscayne National Park who has studied 18th-century wreck sites in Florida's waters.

Zarzynski said it's hoped money can be raised to properly restore at least a couple of the rusting Looe guns, a project that could cost up to $30,000 for just one cannon.

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Online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVcU9VSBShQ
Airline says flight attendant injured in attacks recovering

NEW DELHI (AP)  An Indian flight attendant who was injured in the Brussels airport blasts is in stable condition and recovering, her airline Jet Airways said Friday.

Nidhi Chaphekar suffered burns and fractured her foot in the explosions on Tuesday. She has been treated at a hospital near Brussels.

"The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in stable condition and not in coma," Jet Airways said in a statement. "She is resting and under sedation for her comfort."

FILE - This Tuesday, March 22, 2016, file photo provided by Georgian Public Broadcaster and photographed by Ketevan Kardava shows Nidhi Chaphekar, right, a 40-year-old Jet Airways flight attendant from Mumbai, and another unidentified woman after being wounded in Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, after explosions were heard. The Indian flight attendant who was injured in the Brussels airport blasts is in stable condition and recovering, her airline Jet Airways said Friday, March 25, 2016. Chaphekar suffered burns and fractured her foot in the explosions on Tuesday. She has been treated at a hospital near Brussels. (Ketevan Kardava/Georgian Public Broadcaster via AP, File)

A photograph of Chaphekar taken right after the airport blasts has become an iconic image of the attacks. It showed the 40-year-old mother of two sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped.

Chaphekar's husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and traveled by road to Brussels, was at the hospital with her.

Meanwhile, the airline flew out the passengers who were stuck in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam.
Sheriff says many questions remain in Indiana girl's death

SPENCER, Ind. (AP)  A 22-year-old man jailed in connection with the disappearance of a 1-year-old girl hasn't been talking with investigators, a sheriff said Friday, a day after investigators found the girl's body a few miles from where she was last seen.

Owen County Sheriff Leonard Hobbs said he couldn't give details on what investigators have learned so far about Shaylyn Ammerman's disappearance. But he said investigators are looking into other persons of interest in the case.

"Right now, there's just too many unanswered questions, too much information we haven't gathered yet," Hobbs said during a news conference. "I'm sure that in the next few days and weeks they'll have all the information they need to bring charges accordingly."

In a Wednesday, March 23, 2016 photo, a police officer looking for a missing toddler Shaylyn Ammerman walks through Riverside Cemetery in Spencer, Ind. Shaylyn Ammerman was reported missing from her crib by her grandmother Wednesday morning. The search continued Thursday. (Jeremy Hogan/(/The Herald-Times via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Owen County Coroner Stan Frank said the preliminary ruling from an autopsy Friday was that Shaylyn's death was a homicide by asphyxiation.

Authorities found the body Thursday night on private property near the White River outside of Gosport, state police Sgt. Curt Durnil said. He said they were tipped off by witnesses and persons of interest to that location, which is about 40 miles southwest of Indianapolis and only a few miles from Shaylyn's father's house in Spencer, which was where she was last seen.

Shaylyn was reported missing Wednesday morning, prompting a search by more than 100 people from several police departments and other agencies. The girl's father and grandmother, Justin Ammerman and Tamera Morgan, were the last people known to have seen her late Tuesday. She had been staying at her father's home under a joint custody arrangement with the girl's mother.

"I put her to bed around 10 or 10:30 and I checked on her at midnight before I went to bed," Morgan said. "She was laying in her bed sound asleep, and then we went to bed and we woke up and she was gone."

Ammerman said he was "just shocked that somebody would do this to me," and that he believes someone took his daughter from her crib in the middle of the night.

Authorities haven't said why they believe the 22-year-old man was involved in Shaylyn's disappearance. Durnil said investigators know he was in the house the night the night she vanished, but they don't know his exact role.

"The investigation is not close to being over," he said.

The man remained jailed Friday on preliminary charges of obstruction of justice, failure to report a dead body and unlawful disposition of a dead body. He hasn't been formally charged.

This undated photo provided by the Ammerman family shows Shaylyn Ammerman, who was reported missing from her crib by her grandmother Wednesday, March 23, 2016. (Courtesy of the Ammerman Family/The Herald-Times via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

In a Wednesday, March 23, 2016 photo, a search and rescue dog is prepared to search the area near a house where a baby disappeared in Spencer, Ind. Shaylyn Ammerman was reported missing from her crib by her grandmother Wednesday morning. The search continued Thursday. (Jeremy Hogan/Bloomington Herald-Times via AP) (Jeremy Hogan/(/The Herald-Times via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

In a Wednesday, March 23, 2016 photo, A state policeman stands outside a home in Spencer, Ind., where a missing toddler had been living. Shaylyn Ammerman was reported missing from her crib by her grandmother Wednesday morning. The search continued Thursday. (Jeremy Hogan/Bloomington Herald-Times via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Prospects of Taliban peace talks dim as front lines shift

ISLAMABAD (AP)  Prospects of jumpstarting peace talks with the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents in Afghanistan, an embattled government in Kabul and growing suspicions of Pakistan's good intentions in facilitating such negotiations.

Even if Pakistan wanted to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, its leverage as a safe haven for the Taliban has weakened as the insurgents' southern Afghan heartland has expanded, providing them with more places to hide at home.

The Taliban were toppled in the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and have fought against the Kabul government and NATO forces ever since. Their insurgency escalated after the end in 2014 of the U.S.-NATO combat mission.

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2015 file photo, Afghan Taliban fighters listen to Mullah Mohammed Rasool, the newly-elected leader of a breakaway faction of the Taliban, in Farah province, Afghanistan. Prospects of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents, an embattled government in Kabul and suspicions about Pakistans good intentions in facilitating such negotiations. Even if Pakistan could bring the warring sides to the table, its leverage as a safe haven for Taliban leaders has weakened as the insurgents southern Afghan heartland has expanded, giving them more places to hide. (AP Photo, File)

That pullout left inexperienced and poorly trained Afghan forces to battle insurgents largely on their own. When the Taliban launched their annual warm-weather offensive last year, Kabul responded with large-scale military operations, but the Taliban gained ground.

A report released this month by the independent Afghan Analysts Network offered a breakdown of the southern Helmand province, showing the Taliban in control of parts of many districts and all of other districts, with the exception of district capitals.

The AAN, which is based in Kabul, concluded that the Taliban have become better armed and better organized, and have established "well-equipped and mobile commando-like" units.

As a result, neighboring Pakistan, which has acted as a traditional go-between, has lost some of its leverage over the insurgents and may no longer have the authority to bring the Taliban into the talks.

"Pakistan has derived its influence over the Taliban through the safe havens it provides to the group on its soil," said Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the U.S.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

"Now the Taliban are developing new sanctuaries in Afghanistan, and they may not have as much need to heed the requests of their patron," Kugelman told The Associated Press. "In effect, if the Pakistanis come calling, the Taliban may choose not to listen, and simply keep on fighting."

A four-nation group that included Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States launched efforts earlier this year to try to bring Afghanistan's protracted war to a negotiated end. They developed a roadmap and promised an early start to talks. Pakistan was seen as key to bringing the Taliban to the table.

But the Taliban issued a statement saying they would not participate in the talks and their new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, claimed the Taliban were winning the war and were "in a better state than at any other time."

Meanwhile, Islamabad's commitment to moving things forward has come under scrutiny, particularly after reports surfaced this week that Mullah Mohammed Rasool, leader of a renegade Taliban faction, was arrested in Pakistan.

While Islamabad has refused to confirm Rasool's arrest, an intelligence official and two senior Taliban figures told the AP that he was detained by Pakistani authorities  a development that came after he expressed a willingness to speak directly with the Afghan government. The Pakistani official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence data. The Taliban sought anonymity because they did not want to come to the attention of the Pakistani authorities.

If confirmed, the reports would feed into the perception that Pakistan might be reluctant to pressure the Taliban to come to the talks.

It wouldn't be the first time Pakistan has detained a Taliban leader who tried to talk peace directly with Kabul. In 2010, Islamabad arrested Abdul Ghani Baradar after reports emerged that he had tried to talk to Afghanistan's president at the time, Hamid Karzai.

According to the two Taliban figures, Mansoor  who took over as Taliban leader after the insurgents announced last summer that their founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had been dead for two years  told his commanders who are still in safe havens in Pakistan to go to Afghanistan if they cannot resist the pressure from Islamabad.

Despite gains on the ground, Mansoor has also had to deal with rifts and infighting since officially taking over the Taliban  along with a new rival, the emerging Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan. This makes him likely more intent on rallying followers to unite in battle against Kabul than on getting into any peace talks.

Some observers have also questioned what Kabul can bring to the negotiations.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani faces plenty of troubles at home  from the surging Taliban, a contracting economy and political divisions, to a desperate need to keep funds from the international community flowing in after the NATO pullout of combat troops.

Anatol Lieven, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, who is also closely involved in efforts to bring warring Afghan sides to the table, said he was struck on recent trips to Kabul by a "paralysis" in the power-sharing system between Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Ghani's recent attempt to strike an intelligence-sharing deal with Pakistan fell through following opposition from Abdullah.

"It seems to me that whatever Kabul could offer ... is far, far short of a settlement that the Taliban would be asking for," said Lieven, who has also written a book on Pakistan, titled, "Pakistan: A Hard Country."

Pakistan's special adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, told the AP that Islamabad is trying to persuade the Taliban leaders who are in Pakistan to join the talks. He also acknowledged that some key Afghan Taliban figures live in Pakistan and receive medical care here.

"They are scattered all over the country. I am not saying we are hosting them. For the last 35 years they have been coming and going," said Aziz. "All I will say is we are trying our best to persuade them to talk."

Pakistan, which sees most foreign policy issues through the prism of its shaky relationship with nuclear archrival neighboring India has expressed concern about India's increasing influence in Afghanistan, particularly in the field of defense, says Amir Rana.

Rana, of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies in Islamabad, said Pakistan first and foremost wants a peace process where its concerns are addressed.

Even if a peace process got off the ground, questions remain what it could accomplish.

"I can't imagine any sort of power-sharing arrangement between the Afghan government and Afghan Taliban," said Kugelman.

___

Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

FILE- In this Jan. 11, 2016 file photo released by Associated Press of Pakistan, delegates from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and United States attend a meeting hoping to lay the roadmap for peace talks with the Taliban, at the foreign ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan. Prospects of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents, an embattled government in Kabul and suspicions about Pakistans good intentions in facilitating such negotiations. (Associated Press of Pakistan via AP, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2016 file photo, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, center, poses with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, left, and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the media prior to a meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Prospects of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents, an embattled government in Kabul and suspicions about Pakistans good intentions in facilitating such negotiations. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2015 file photo, Afghan security forces and volunteer militias rest on their way to Kunduz, Afghanistan to fight Taliban fighters. Prospects of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are becoming increasingly dim amid recent battlefield gains by the insurgents, an embattled government in Kabul and suspicions about Pakistans good intentions in facilitating such negotiations. (AP Photos/Naim Rahimi, File)
PICTURED: North Koreans hunker down in loyalty campaign

WONSAN, North Korea (AP)  North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness."

To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. Bright red flags and propaganda posters have gone up around the country to emphasize the importance of meeting or exceeding production targets.

"Our work has become more difficult than usual," said Nam Myong Hu, who supervises operations of a 5,000-ton refrigerator at the Sinpho Fishery station. "There is no distinction between the start and end time of work, and we sleep at the workplace."

In this Monday, March 14, 2016 photo, workers use machines to make shoes at Wonsan Shoes Factory in the 70-day campaign in Wonsan, Kangwon Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

North Korea has employed mass campaigns to boost production, often ahead of landmark events, many times before. They were common in other Communist and socialist countries before the fall of the Soviet Union.

Most outside economists doubt the long-term significance of such efforts. In the rush to meet or exceed quotas, quality can suffer, and pressure to show good results can lead to over-reporting actual outcomes. Short-term campaigns don't address larger, systemic economic issues that cause economic underperformance to begin with.

Because they do have political and ideological value, however, the campaigns are likely to remain a fact of life in North Korea.

This one was called in February to rally the nation ahead of a major ruling party congress scheduled for May. Kim is expected to use the congress to showcase his achievements and power  and potentially announce a roadmap for the country's future political and economic strategies.

The loyalty campaign comes as North Korea is under heavy pressure from the outside world over its recent nuclear test and rocket launch, both of which are banned under United Nations resolutions, and as the United States and South Korea are holding their largest-ever joint military exercises just south of the Demilitarized Zone.

The campaign, according to a recent editorial in the ruling party newspaper, is aimed at "combating indolence and slackness and making a clean sweep of outdated ideological hangovers such as flunkeyism, experientialism, self-protection and conservatism," while also emphasizing the country's "might of self-development."

___

Eric Talmadge reported from Tokyo.

In this March 12, 2016 photo, a shipbuilder works with a hammer at Hongwon Shipyard in Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, workers process crabs at the Sinpho Fishery station in Sinpho, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, a propaganda billboard that reads: "Party is calling. Everybody to the 70-day campaign" stands at the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex in Hungnam, south Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." Bright red flags and propaganda posters have gone up around the country to emphasize the importance of meeting or exceeding production targets. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, a worker unloads a bag of fertilizer from a conveyer belt at Hungnam Fertilizer Complex in Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this Saturday, March 12, 2016 photo, shipbuilders work at Hongwon Shipyard in Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, shipbuilders work at Hongwon Shipyard in Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, Hongwon Shipyard workers weld a ship in Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, a shipbuilder welds a ship at Hongwon Shipyard in Hongwon County, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, shipbuilders weld a ship at Hongwon Shipyard as they build the new fishing ship "Hwangkumhae-2" in Hongwon county, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 14, 2016 photo, newly manufactured shoes are seen at Wonsan Shoes Factory in Wonsan, Kangwon Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, workers fill up bags with fertilizer at Hungnam Fertilizer Complex in Hungnam in South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, fishing boats are anchored in a bay at a fishery station of the East Sea of Korea in Sinpho, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 12, 2016 photo, workers carry a tray of seafood in a 5,000-ton refrigerator, that serves for Pyongyang citizens, at the Sinpho Fishery station in Sinpho, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, bags of agricultural fertilizer are stored at Urea Workshop of Hungnam Fertilizer Complex with propaganda posters in Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." Bright red flags and propaganda posters have gone up around the country to emphasize the importance of meeting or exceeding production targets. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, workers tend a bag of fertilizer being filled on a conveyer belt at Urea Workshop at Hungnam Fertilizer Complex in Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

In this March 13, 2016 photo, a truck loaded with bags of fertilizer leaves the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex behind a propaganda billboard that reads: "How are you spending today on the occasion of the party's 7th conference?" in Hungnam, South Hamgyong Province, North Korea. North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." Bright red flags and propaganda posters have gone up around the country to emphasize the importance of meeting or exceeding production targets. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)
Malaysia says 100 China boats intrude into its waters

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  About 100 Chinese-registered boats have been detected encroaching in Malaysian waters near the Luconia Shoals in the South China Sea, a Malaysian minister said.

Shahidan Kassim, a minister in charge of national security, said the government has dispatched the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the navy to the area to monitor the situation.

Shahidan was quoted by the national Bernama news agency on Friday as saying that legal enforcement action would be taken if the Chinese vessels are found to have entered Malaysia's exclusive economic zone.

Shahidan and other ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Friday that Chinese boats have a right to be in the waters.

"I want to point out that it is the fishing season in the South China Sea now, and according to usual practice, Chinese fishing vessels are fishing normally in the relevant waters at this time each year," Hong said.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have overlapping claims. Tensions have ramped up since China began a massive land reclamation program in 2013.

The strategically important area has some of the world's busiest sea lanes and is also rich in fisheries and may hold underground oil and natural gas reserves.

___
VALLEY CITY  An assistant professor at Valley City State University was arrested after more than 200 credit and gift cards were discovered in his apartment, Valley City police said. Long Man Ram Lau, 33, who teaches economics, could face charges of possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of personal information. He was booked into the Barnes County Jail on Tuesday. VCSU placed Lau on administrative leave and banned him from using the schools computers or networks, VCSU President Tisa Mason said in a campuswide email. Lau joined the faculty in fall 2012. Because of the nature of the charges, I recommend that you monitor your financial statements regularly for any unfamiliar activity and report any irregularities to appropriate authorities immediately, Mason said in the email. Lau, who is in the U.S. legally on a visa from China, is now under investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Valley City Police Chief Fred Thompson said. The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security are also investigating. Thompson said in a statement that along with the cards, police seized computers, electronic storage devices, suspected counterfeit merchandise, medicines and financial paperwork from Laus apartment, as well as more credit and gift cards, computers and electronic storage devices from the professors university office. Police are putting together a list of names and numbers of people who may have been affected, Thompson said. A forensic examination of all the evidence will take months. I would say that he probably was being profitable. How much that was, I have no idea, Thompson said in an interview. Again, we have stacks of financial records that have to be gone through. The investigation began when police received photos from an anonymous tipster, who noticed a large number of credit cards, bearing various names, in a residence at 324 6th Ave. SW, Apartment 4, in Valley City, Thompson said. Based on the photos, police contacted a victim, who reported having been informed by her credit card company that a new card had been issued in her name, Thompson said. The victim then checked her credit score and noticed irregularities and contacted Fargo police to file a report. Thompson said police will work to locate and contact all of the individuals on the various media and that Lau could face more charges. Lau also works for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, university spokesman Dennis OShea confirmed. Lau is classified as a casual employee, meaning he is less than full time. Lau has been employed as an online-education instructor in the universitys program for academically talented pre-college students, OShea said in an email. OShea declined to say if Laus arrest would affect his status at Johns Hopkins. Lau graduated from Johns Hopkins with advanced degrees in finance and economics.
Blasphemy cases rise in Egypt and Christians bear the brunt

NASSARIYA, Egypt (AP)  In the video, the Egyptian Christian teens laugh playfully as a couple of them kneel down, imitating Muslim prayers, then another slides his hand under one boy's neck, imitating the trademark beheadings of the Islamic State group.

The boys were playing around, satirizing the extremist group, and their school supervisor just happened to be videoing them, their defenders say. The result has been catastrophic: they were sentenced to prison under Egypt's blasphemy laws  they were mocking Muslim prayers, prosecutors said  and have fled into hiding, leaving behind shattered families.

"My son was sentenced to five years for a laugh," Iman Aziz, weeping, said in the teens' home village of Nassariya in southern Egypt. Her son, Muller Atef, was seen in the 32-second video laughing but not joining in the "prayers."

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Fadya Shehata Moussa, the mother mother of 17-year-old Bassem Amgad Hanna, one of four teens convicted for contempt of Islam, wipes away tears during an interview in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

The verdict last month points to an irony in Egypt. Two years ago, the military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power, and since then the government has been waging a harsh crackdown on Islamists.

Yet in the past three years, prosecutions on charges of insulting Islam have risen dramatically. From three such cases in 2011, there were 21 cases in the courts in 2015, around half targeting Christians, according to Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Nine of the 2015 cases led to convictions and prison sentences, while the rest are still in the courts.

Part of the rise is connected to the spread of social media over recent years, Ibrahim said, with people feeling freer to express controversial opinions online. Many of the cases have originated in comments or videos posted on the Internet that Muslims raised court cases over. One Christian was even sentenced to six years in prison in 2014 for insulting religion after his Muslim neighbors discovered he had "liked" a Facebook page supporting Muslims who convert to Christianity.

But also, prosecutors and judges have aggressively pursued the cases, aiming to show that the state is still "protecting Islam" even as it cracks down on Islamists. It isn't necessary a government policy  "I still don't think this is a systematic campaign, but there is a pattern," Ibrahim said. But it is one factor in the "overall shrinking of freedom of expression and thought" in Egypt, he said.

The cases have fallen predominantly on members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, who make up around 10 percent of the country's 90 million people. Christians have been among the strongest supporters of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who as army chief organized the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and the Brotherhood. When el-Sissi attended Copts' Christmas Mass in Cairo's main cathedral  the first Egyptian president to do so  he was given a rock-star greeting by thousands of cheering worshippers.

But in some ways, little has changed under el-Sissi for Christians, who long complained of discrimination.

Large-scale attacks on churches that flared in revenge for Morsi's ouster have waned. But on a local level, frictions continue to erupt between Christians and Muslims in villages and small towns. Attempts to build or renovate churches, for example, are still often met by protests or violence by local Muslims, said Ibrahim.

In disputes, authorities tend to side with Muslims, said Nader Shukry, a Copts' rights advocate. Christians blamed for actions deemed insulting to Muslims often face eviction from their hometown or swift trials with heavy sentences. But if Christians are victims of actions by Muslims, police officers bring the two sides in to informal reconciliation meetings in which the Christians are pressured into dropping any legal action, Shukry said.

Under el-Sissi, it is "the same game," Shukry said. "The president's talk is something and what is happening on the ground is something else."

Also problematic are the laws against insulting religion. A 1982 law sets a punishment of up to five years in prison and fines for anyone who "exploits religion" or promotes "extremist thought" to "spark sedition, insult or blaspheme the heavenly religions ... or harm the national unity." Any Muslim can raise a complaint over a perceived insult to religion, giving a free hand for lawsuits.

"The worst is that it is vague and has no ceiling," said Maher Naguib, the teens' lawyer. "If you send one case to two judges, judges would differ on defining what is an insult."

Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's pre-eminent institution, which el-Sissi has empowered to lead his "revolution" against extremist, backs the blasphemy law.

In February, an online activist Mustafa Abdel-Nabi was sentenced to three years in absentia for postings about atheism on his Facebook page. A writer, Fatma Naoot, was sentenced to three years in prison in January over Facebook postings criticizing the slaughter of animals for Muslim holidays. A prominent TV host, Islam Behery, received a one-year prison sentence after calling for passages he said supported terrorism to be removed from books of Islamic religious interpretation.

In the case of the teens, their video didn't even go on line. The teens didn't distribute the video, but Muslim acquaintances happened to see it on their phones a couple of months later.

An uproar spread among the town's Muslims, and angry villagers attacked the families' homes.

To assuage their anger, the parents and the church slaughtered cows and turkeys for a banquet for the villagers. When prosecutors announced charges against the boys, the parents handed them over to the mayor to give to the police, confident it would all be cleared up. Some Muslim neighbors showed solidarity with the parents, testifying to prosecutors that the teens are known as good boys.

In its investigation report, the prosecutor described the video but did not mention the part where they mocked the Islamic State group's beheadings, the part that proves who was the real target of their laughter, the defense argues. The video came shortly after 21 Christian migrant workers from a village near Nassariya were beheaded by IS militants in Libya. The report said the case is "packed with evidence," including the fact that one of the suspects was "smiling."

Naguib said that judges refused to watch the video despite his requests. When one judge finally did, he ordered the teens' release pending trial.

The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence.

"They are witch-hunting. There is arrogance, intolerance to others," Naguib said.

When asked why he believes authorities pressed the case so aggressively, he said: "Extremism, an attempt to appease the masses at the expense of the young men."

When the verdicts were announced, the teens fled, fearing their parents would hand them over to police again. One mother, Fadya Shehata Moussa said her son, Bassem Amgad Hanna, lashed out at her as he left, saying he would throw out his mobile phone chip and cut off all contacts with her.

Iman Shaker Hanna, the mother of 16-year-old Albert Hanna, said her whole family erupted in screams at the verdict. Except her, she was too shocked.

"I sat silently for hours... people were telling me to cry but there were no tears," she said. "I asked God: Is it over, is there no hope?"

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Fadya Shehata Moussa, left, and Iman Shaker Hanna, mothers of two of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, sit in the house of one of the teens in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The teen boys were playing around, satirizing the extremist group, and their school supervisor just happened to be videoing them as they were imitating Muslim prayers and beheadings of the Islamic State group, their defenders say. The result has been catastrophic: The boys were sentenced to prison under Egypts blasphemy laws. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Fadya Shehata Moussa, the mother of 17-year-old Bassem Amgad Hanna, one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, holds a picture of her son in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Amgad Hanna and Fadya Shehata Moussa, the parents of 17-year-old Bassem Amgad Hanna, one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, participate in an interview in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Iman Shaker Hanna, the mother of 16-year-old Albert Ashraf, one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, cries during an interview in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Iman Aziz, mother of Muller Atef, 16, who is one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, wipes away tears in her house in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Iman Aziz, mother of Muller Atef, a 16-year-old, who is one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, sits in her house in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Maher Naguib, the lawyer representing four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, speaks during an interview in his office in Bani Mazar, southern Egypt. A 32-second video filmed by their supervisor, shows the teens as they kneeled down, imitating Muslims' prayers after which one waved his hand under a second's neck, a sign depicting Islamic States trademark beheadings. The incident occurred in February 2015, just weeks after Islamic State extremist group posted its video showing gruesome beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)
The Latest: Brussels victim was heading to NY honeymoon

BRUSSELS (AP)  The Latest on the suicide bombings this week in Brussels (all times local):

8:55 p.m.

Germany's top security official has confirmed that a German woman was killed in the Brussels attacks and vows that his country "will not rest until the murderers and those who aided them are held responsible."

A member of emergency services wearing protective clothing, with a robot at right, investigates the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere says Friday that "my thoughts are with the young woman's relatives, as well as the relatives of the many who were injured or killed on March 22." He added that "Belgian authorities can be sure of our support."

The woman was identified as Jennifer Scintu Waetzmann, a coach for an Aachen youth handball club.

The German paper Bild quotes the woman's uncle, Claudio Scinto, saying she and her husband were at the Brussels Airport American Airlines check-in counter en route to New York for a belated honeymoon when a bomb exploded.

Her husband, Lars Waetzmann, has been reported among the 270 wounded in Brussels.

___

8 p.m.

One victim of the Brussels bombings was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral when she was killed.

Elita Borbor Weah texted family members a photo of herself at the Brussels airport shortly before bombs went off at the terminal Tuesday. Her brother Oscar Weah, of Providence, confirmed her death.

Her extended family from Zwedru, Liberia, had dispersed across Europe and the United States following Liberia's civil wars.

The 40-year-old Elita had settled in the Netherlands, where she was living with her 13-year-old daughter. Oscar Weah was in tears Friday as he described how his older sister had helped to care for him over the years.

Family members were gathering in Providence to mourn stepfather James Wah, 87, whose funeral is Saturday.

___

7:50 p.m.

The Italian foreign ministry says an Italian woman who has been missing in Brussels since the attacks this week has been confirmed among the dead from the subway bomb blast.

The ministry said Friday evening that Belgium authorities had confirmed that Patricia Rizzo's body has been identified and that she died in the city's metro station attack.

Relatives had been searching for her since Tuesday's attacks by extremists on at a Brussels metro station and airport. She regularly took the subway to her job in the Belgian capital.

The ministry also said German authorities had confirmed to Italy that a German citizen of Italian origin, Jennifer Scintu Waetzmann, also died in the Brussels attacks.

___

7:20 p.m.

German official says there's no concrete evidence that a man arrested in Duesseldorf following the Brussels attacks has current links to Islamic extremists in Brussels or Paris.

Duesseldorf prosecutors said a 28-year-old German national was arrested Thursday for theft but also is being investigated on suspicion of preparing an act of violence.

Der Spiegel magazine reported earlier Friday the man was flown to Amsterdam by Turkish authorities last summer along with one of the El Bakraoui brothers. The brothers were among Tuesday's Brussels suicide bombers.

Frank Scheulen, a spokesman for North Rhine-Westphalia state criminal police, told n-tv television authorities are looking into indications the suspect might have Islamic extremist links. But he says "at the moment there are no concrete indications that this person has current contacts to the Islamist scene in Brussels, Paris or elsewhere."

___

7 p.m.

Belgian federal prosecutors say DNA analysis and an official investigation have confirmed that one of the suicide bombers at the Brussels Airport was Najim Laachraoui.

They say the 24-year-old is also the suspected bombmaker whose DNA was found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

Thirty-one people were killed and 270 wounded in Tuesday's bombing attacks at the Brussels airport and on a subway train in Belgium's capital.

___

6:45 p.m.

A Belgian official says the top suspect in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, Salah Abdeslam, has stopped cooperating with police since Tuesday's bombings at the Brussels airport and subway.

Justice Minister Koen Geens told Belgian lawmakers Friday that Abdeslam "no longer wants to talk."

Federal prosecutors also said Friday the suspect "refused to make the slightest comment" when questioned just after the Brussels attacks. He also "exercised his right to silence" during the second of two rounds of questioning on March 19.

Abdeslam was arrested in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek on March 18, just four days before the bombings at the Brussels airport and subway killed 31 people and wounded 270 on Tuesday.

France is seeking his extradition. Abdeslam's lawyer initially challenged that, saying his client could have valuable information for investigators, but Abdeslam has changed his mind since the Brussels attacks and is prepared to go.

___

6:15 p.m.

The international police agency Interpol says it is providing Belgium with analytical and operational support to try to identify eventual links between the Brussels attacks and others attacks and attackers elsewhere.

The multi-pronged effort includes cross-checking information on suspects and analysis of how attackers around the globe operate, including the types of explosives and arms they use, Interpol said in a statement Friday. Interpol will also expand access to its database of stolen and lost documents.

"The tens of thousands of foreign fighters traveling to and from conflict zones have expanded the universe of potential threats," Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock was quoted in the statement as saying. "We need to ensure that ... information moves faster than the terrorists."

___

5:55 p.m.

A Belgian electrician working near the scene of police raids in Brussels says he saw police shoot a suspect in the leg.

Norman Kabir tells The Associated Press that the man was sitting at a bus stop Friday in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek with a young girl. He says police took the girl into safe custody. Kabir says police asked the man "to put the bag far from him" and that's what he did, but police shot him twice, apparently in the leg.

Belgian state broadcaster RTBF says police apparently feared there were explosives in the man's bag.

Kabir says "I was very shocked ... this part of Brussels is very quiet."

Belgian prosecutors say three people have been detained in counterterrorism raids Friday in Brussels, and two of them were shot in the leg, including one person in Schaerbeek.

___

5:45 p.m.

French President Francois Hollande says the extremist network that committed the attacks in Paris and Brussels is "in the process of being annihilated" but there are still others out there.

Sitting alongside former Israeli President Shimon Peres, Hollande spoke briefly about the Paris attacks in November and the attacks in Brussels last week.

Hollande says Friday "there's still a threat weighing on us."

___

5:20 p.m.

Police in a German city on the Belgian border say a German woman who lived there was among the people killed in the Brussels airport bombing.

Police in Aachen said earlier this week that a couple from the city was caught up in the bombings, with the husband seriously wounded and the wife missing.

On Friday, they said in a statement citing Belgian police that the woman has now been identified as among the dead. They gave no further details, citing the need to respect relatives' privacy.

___

5:05 p.m.

A resident of one Brussels street cordoned-off in the police raid in the Schaerbeek district says she's still unable to leave her residence.

Veterinarian Marie-Pierre Bouvez told The Associated Press that the heavily armed officers wearing hoods who were involved in Friday's raids left around 3:30 p.m. after launching an operation about two hours earlier that started with "two big explosions."

Bouvez says other police still have the area locked down, and shouted at her to "get back inside" when she tried to go into the street. She says there's much confusion and residents have not been told what's happening.

Belgian prosecutors say three people have been detained in counterterrorism raids Friday in Brussels. Two of the three detained were shot in the leg, prosecutors say, including one person in Schaerbeek.

___

4:10 p.m.

Belgian prosecutors say three people have been detained in counterterrorism raids in Brussels prompted by the arrest of a Frenchman in the Paris area suspected of plotting a new attack.

The federal prosecutor's office says the three were arrested Friday in three different districts of the Belgian capital  Schaerbeek, Forest and Saint-Gilles.

These arrests are believed linked to the arrest of Reda Kriket in France on Thursday. Kriket was convicted in absentia of terrorist activities last year along with the suspected ringleader of the deadly Nov. 13 attacks on Paris.

___

4 p.m.

German prosecutors say they're investigating whether a Moroccan man detained in central Germany has any connection to the Brussels attacks.

Prosecutors in Giessen said Friday the 28-year-old, whom they didn't identify, was picked up early Thursday because he didn't have valid ID. They said they found documents indicating that he had been in the Brussels area recently and seized a cellphone that they are now evaluating.

They say officials established that he had previously entered Germany under various aliases and sought asylum, and that he is known to police in Italy. Authorities have opened a criminal case over suspected residency law violations and the man remains in custody.

Der Spiegel magazine and two public broadcasters are saying the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the Brussels attacks.

___

3:45 p.m.

Belgian state broadcaster RTBF says a large police raid in Brussels is over and one person carrying a bag of explosives material has been wounded and arrested.

A resident of the cordoned-off street in the city's Schaerbeek district, veterinary surgeon Marie-Pierre Bouvez, told The Associated Press the area remains blocked off but heavily armed officers involved in the Friday operation have gone. Police still shouted at her to stay in her office, however.

AP reporters at the scene can see explosives robots and experts still combing the area.

RTBF quoted Schaerbeek district mayor Bernard Clerfayt as saying the arrested person has been linked to the attacks in Brussels this week and an arrest in France.

___

3:20 p.m.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized Belgian authorities as incompetent for not taking action against a Brussels attacker who Turkey had deported back to Europe after detaining him at the border with Syria.

Turkish authorities say Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the suicide bombers at Brussels Airport, was caught in June in Turkey's border province of Gaziantep and deported at his own request to the Netherlands.

They say Dutch and Belgian authorities took no action against him despite Turkish warnings that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter."

Erodgan says in a speech in the central Turkish town of Sorgun: "We caught him at Gaziantep, we deported and sent him. Those gentlemen did not take the necessary steps against the terrorist and released him ... go and explain this!"

___

3:05 p.m.

The mayor of a Brussels district says a large police raid now underway is linked to the investigation into this week's Brussels suicide bombings and a new arrest in the Paris area.

State broadcaster RTBF quoted mayor Bernard Clerfayt as saying one person has been "neutralized" in the operation Friday in his Schaerbeek district. He did not say whether that meant the person was arrested or wounded.

Clerfayt says the raid is linked to Tuesday's attacks on the Brussels airport and subway and to the arrest of a man Thursday in the Paris area. Officials say that man had a Belgian terror conviction and connections to the suspected ringleader of last year's deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.

Prime Minister Charles Michel skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at the Brussels airport with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry because of the ongoing police operation.

___

2:45 p.m.

A new blast has been heard from a police operation in a Brussels neighborhood that once housed a hideout for the suicide bombers who targeted the city's airport and subway system this week.

Associated Press reporters at the scene described hearing a new detonation, though it was unclear whether it was a controlled police detonation or something else.

Earlier, a witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood.

About 50 officers appear to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets.

___

2:15 p.m.

Belgian state media is reporting that two explosions have been heard and one person has been detained in police raids in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek.

It is not clear whether the raids are linked to the investigation into deadly attacks Tuesday on Brussels' airport and subway system. At least one suspect in those attacks is at large, and it is unclear whether there were other accomplices.

State broadcaster RTBF says multiple police operations are underway in Schaerbeek, and one person has been detained. It says one explosion was heard at the start of the operation and cited witnesses describing gunfire.

Police earlier this week found a large stash of explosives in an apartment in Schaerbeek believed to have been used by suicide bombers in Tuesday's attacks.

___

1:45 p.m.

The family of two New York City siblings has confirmed that authorities confirmed they died in the bombings in Brussels.

Belgian authorities and the Dutch Embassy positively identified the remains of Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski.

The information was issued Friday by James Cain on behalf of the Pinczowski family. Cain is the father of Alexander's fiance, Cameron Cain. He says the family is "grateful to have closure on this tragic situation." The siblings were on the phone with a relative while at Brussels airport when the phone went dead.

They were Dutch nationals, according to officials in the Netherlands, but both apparently had lived in the U.S. for some time.

___

1:30 p.m.

A German magazine is reporting that two people with possible links to people involved in the Brussels attacks were arrested separately in Germany this week.

Der Spiegel, which didn't name its sources, reported that a man whom Turkish authorities flew to Amsterdam last summer along with one of the El Bakraoui brothers was arrested in Duesseldorf Thursday. The magazine said authorities are looking into whether the two knew each other.

The brothers were among the Brussels suicide bombers in Tuesday's attacks that killed 31 people.

Der Spiegel as well as broadcasters SWR and RBB reported that another man was arrested in Giessen on Wednesday. According to Friday's reports, the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the attacks: one containing the name of one of the attackers, and the other the French word "fin" ("end").

Local prosecutors couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the Good Friday holiday.

Federal prosecutor's office spokeswoman Frauke Koehler would only say that authorities "are of course looking into all leads, but so far we have no knowledge of any operational links between the attacks in Brussels and Paris and Germany."

___

12:50 p.m.

At Brussels' Place de la Bourse, where thousands have gathered to place candles and leave flowers, city archives staff were peeling rain-sodden messages of solidarity off the ground, drying them with paper towels, and putting them into plastic bins.

The workers  who wore fluorescent vests emblazoned with the words "We are working to protect and preserve your messages"  stepped gingerly among the flags, tea candles and beer bottles left as tokens of support, slowly picking the sopping hand-written notes and stacking them into the bins.

The plaza has become a memorial site, covered in flags from a dozen countries and messages in multiple languages.

___

12:45 p.m.

British officials say a U.K. citizen died during the attacks in Brussels earlier this week.

They confirmed that David Dixon, a computer programmer living in Brussels, was killed in the bombing on the Brussels subway.

Officials said seven other British nationals were injured, too.

Dixon's family has asked for privacy and indicated no statements will be made.

A Chinese national is also reported to have been killed, according to the Chinese Embassy in Belgium. He was identified only by his surname  Deng. No further details were released.

__

12 p.m.

A U.S. official says at least two American citizens have been confirmed killed in this week's attacks in Brussels.

The announcement comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the city to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Speaking after meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Kerry said the "United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks."

He did not give a specific number but a senior official said the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths in Tuesday's attacks. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not have further details.

___

10:55 a.m.

Belgium's nuclear agency has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and has denied access to other people amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

Nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck said Friday that "in recent days, several people have been refused access to the nuclear sites."

But she said the move "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks."

Immediately after Tuesday's attacks on the Brussels airport and subway, security was boosted around Belgium's nuclear sites and hundreds of staff were sent home.

Scheerlinck said the decision to withdraw badges or deny access usually takes weeks and is based on information from the intelligence services and police, as well as a person's criminal record.

She declined to say how many were refused entry, but denied Belgian media reports that 11 staff had badges withdrawn at the Tihange plant since early last week.

___

10:15 a.m.

French officials say a man arrested by intelligence agents in a Paris suburb has connections to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks.

Two French officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the man detained Thursday is Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman wanted since January on suspicion of links to terrorism. France's interior minister said the man was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack a target in France.

A Belgian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Kriket was convicted in absentia in July along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud and others for being part of a recruiting network for jihad in Syria.

Authorities have identified Abaaoud as the ringleader of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. He died in a police raid a few days later.

France's interior minister said there was no evidence "at this stage" to link Kriket to last year's Paris attacks or this week's attacks in Brussels. But a French police official said explosives and multiple weapons, including at least one assault rifle, were found in an hours-long search of a home in Argenteuil.

 By Associated Press Writers Lori Hinnant in Paris and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels.

___

9:05 a.m.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Brussels for counter-terrorism talks with EU and Belgian officials and to pay his respects to the victims of this week's attacks.

Kerry landed at the still-closed Brussels airport for a brief, hastily scheduled stop from Moscow, where he said the attacks underscored the urgency of unity in the fight against the Islamic State group. The group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombings at the airport departure terminal and a downtown subway station that in total killed 31 people and wounded 270.

On his five-hour visit Kerry is set to meet with European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders as well as King Philippe. He will also lay a wreath at a memorial site at the airport for attack victims.

___

8.45 a.m.

The Netherlands' foreign minister says three Dutch citizens were killed in the bombing at Brussels airport.

Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement Friday that the victims were a woman from the eastern city of Deventer and a brother and sister from the southern Limburg province who live in the United States. He did not release their identities.

Koenders, who is on a visit to Indonesia, says "it is terrible that these people have been killed by the arbitrariness of terror."

In this photo made Tuesday, March 22, 2016, and provided by her family, Elita Borbor Weah stands in the Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before bombs went off nearby. Weah, who was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral, texted the photo of herself to family members just before she died in the attack. (Courtesy of the Weah Family via AP)

A member of emergency services wearing protective clothing investigates the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A general view showing one of the memorial sites for the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels, and the media surrounding the area at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Amid signs that life in Brussels was returning to some sort of normality on the third day of mourning the dead, authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible." Belgium had been on its highest alert since Tuesday's bombings. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel, right, welcomes U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry upon his arrival at the Prime Minister's residence in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kerry is in Brussels to pay respect to victims of terrorist attacks that left a number dead earlier this week. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Floral tributes placed in memorial for the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels, at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Amid signs that life in Brussels was returning to some sort of normality on the third day of mourning the dead, authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible." Belgium had been on its highest alert since Tuesday's bombings. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Secretary of State John Kerry meets with King Phillipe ?of Belgium at the Royal Palace in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kerry is in Brussels to pay respect to victims of terrorist attacks that left more than 30 dead at Brussels Airport. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry puts his hand out to feel for rain as he arrives at Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016, after traveling from Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, to pay respects to victims of terrorist attacks that left more than 30 dead at Brussels Airport. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Secretary of State John Kerry participates in wreath-laying ceremony at Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016, paying his respects to victims of terrorist attacks that left more than 30 dead at Brussels Airport. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Secretary of State John Kerry participates in wreath-laying with a firefighter at Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016, paying his respects to victims of terrorist attacks that left more than 30 dead at Brussels Airport. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Investigators collect evidence from the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A member of emergency services wearing protective clothing, at right, investigates the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

This May 2015 family photo shows Sascha Pinczowski at her graduation from Marymount Manhattan College in New York. Belgian authorities and the Dutch Embassy positively identified the remains of Pinczowski and her brother, Alexander Pinczowski, who died in the terrorist bombings in Brussels. (Courtesy of the family via AP)

This 2015 family photo shows Alexander Pinczowski and his fiance Cameron Cain in Greece. Belgian authorities and the Dutch Embassy positively identified the remains of Alexander Pinczowski, and his sister, Sascha Pinczowski, who died in the terrorist bombings in Brussels. (Courtesy of the family via AP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, third right, and people attend funeral prayers for Osman Belkaya, a police officer killed in fighting against Kurdish rebels in Nusaybin, in Sorgun, Yozgat, Turkey, Friday, March 25, 2016. Erdogan has criticized the Belgian authorities as "incapable" for not taking any action against one of the Brussels attackers after he was detained at the border with Syria and deported from Turkey. (AP Photo)
Brussels police conduct more raids linked to deadly bombings

BRUSSELS (AP)  Heavily armed police swept into Brussels neighborhoods Friday in operations linked to this week's bombings as well as a suspected new plot in France, detaining three people and shooting two of them in the leg. One man was carrying a suspicious bag while accompanied by a young girl.

As Easter weekend began, jittery Europeans faced uncertainly about how many violent extremists remain at large, and where and when they might strike again.

On Friday afternoon, two blasts and gunfire rang out in the Schaerbeek district of Belgium's capital, where police earlier found explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the suicide attackers who killed 31 people and wounded 270 in assaults on the Brussels airport and subway.

In this frame made from video, armed officers point their weapons in the direction of an injured man, in Brussels, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. Police again raided a number of Brussels neighbourhoods on Friday in an operation a local official said was linked to both the airport and metro bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France. (Sudpresse via AP)

Authorities, meanwhile, confirmed one of the attackers at the airport was the bomb-maker who made explosive vests used in last year's carnage in Paris  the most definitive link yet between the two attacks, both of which have been claimed by the Islamic State group.

On the third and final day of national mourning, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid a wreath at the airport for the victims of Tuesday's bombings  a ceremony that was skipped by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel because of the police operations.

Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgium's counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failures before the bombings that have brought sharp criticism of top members of Belgium's embattled government. Authorities believe both the Brussels attacks and the Nov. 13 bombings in Paris that killed 130 people were plotted from Belgium.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation, Kerry said the "carping" about Belgium's shortcomings "is a little bit frantic and inappropriate."

He also lashed out at the Islamic State group. "We will not be deterred," he said. "We will come back with greater resolve  with greater strength  and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

As the identities of the victims began to be made public, officials announced that American, British, German, Chinese, Italian, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

A manhunt has been underway for one of the airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

But they said Friday that DNA analysis and an official investigation had confirmed one of the suicide bombers at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, 24, a suspected bomb-maker whose DNA was also found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Paris attacks. European security officials had earlier in the week confirmed his identity to The Associated Press, thus linking the Brussels and Paris bloodshed.

On Friday, dozens of heavily armed officers swept into Brussels' Schaerbeek neighborhood, as well as the Forest and Saint-Gilles districts, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said. It was the second such raid in Schaerbeek in two days.

Officers began the operation about 1:30 p.m., when "two big explosions" echoed through Schaerbeek, resident Marie-Pierre Bouvez told the AP, and it lasted about two hours. It was not immediately clear if the blasts were controlled explosions.

Bouvez said police kept the area locked down and shouted at her to "get back inside" when she tried to go into the street.

At a tram stop, a man sitting with a young girl and holding a bag was ordered by police "to put the bag far from him," and after he did so, police shot him twice, hitting him in the leg, said Norman Kabir, a local electrician. The girl was taken into safe custody, and a bomb-squad robot searched the bag, he added.

State broadcaster RTBF said police apparently feared the bag held explosives.

Schaerbeek district Mayor Bernard Clerfayt told RTBF the raid was linked to the Brussels attacks as well as Thursday's detention in France of a man authorities said was in the advanced stages of plotting a new attack.

The 34-year-old suspect, Reda Kriket, has a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, officials told the AP.

Meanwhile, the top suspect in the Paris bombings, Salah Abdeslam, who was captured in Brussels one week ago, has stopped cooperating with police and "no longer wants to talk," said Justice Minister Koen Geens. Abdeslam exercised his right to silence during the second of two rounds of questioning on March 19, prosecutors said. France is seeking his extradition, and his lawyer said he is prepared to go.

Elsewhere, Belgium's nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the nuclear plants could be a target.

Immediately after Tuesday's attacks, security was boosted around Belgium's nuclear sites, and hundreds of workers were sent home.

Last month, authorities said searches after the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium's nuclear industry.

Belgian media reported this week that two of the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, had video of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region.

In the neighborhood of Molenbeek, home to some who took part in the Paris attacks, Sheik Mohamed Tojgani denounced the Brussels bombers during a sermon before Friday prayers.

"Terrorism is terrorism," said Tojgani, the imam of Molenbeek's main mosque. "It has no state, no nationality, no religion, no country."

In a message to the Belgian people, he added: "You are from us and we are from you. What affects you, affects us."

Poignant accounts of some of the victims' last moments also emerged Friday.

Among them was Liberian-born Elita Borbor Weah, seen smiling in a photo she texted to her family shortly before the blasts at the Brussels airport. Wearing a black coat and a white-and-black checked head-covering the 40-year-old mother of a teenage daughter is seen standing in the departure lounge.

She was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral when she was killed, her tearful brother, Oscar Weah, told the AP.

___

Associated Press writers Angela Charlton, Thomas Adamson, Mark Carlson and Matthew Lee in Brussels, Lori Hinnant in Paris and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.

In this photo made Tuesday, March 22, 2016, and provided by her family, Elita Borbor Weah stands in the Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before bombs went off nearby. Weah, who was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather's funeral, texted the photo of herself to family members just before she died in the attack. (Courtesy of the Weah Family via AP)

Blown out windows are seen behind U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as he visits Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kerry is in Brussels to pay respect to victims of terrorist attacks that left a number dead earlier this week. (Frederic Sierakowski/pool photo via AP)

An injured man lays on the floor at a tram stop in Brussels, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. Police again raided a number of Brussels neighbourhoods on Friday in an operation a local official said was linked to both the airport and metro bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France. (S. Kuplan via AP)

A member of emergency services wearing protective clothing investigates the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

In this frame made from video, a bomb disposal robot from the right approaches an injured man laying on the floor at a tram stop in Brussels, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. Police again raided a number of Brussels neighbourhoods on Friday in an operation a local official said was linked to both the airport and metro bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France. (Sudpresse via AP)

A member of emergency services puts on protective clothing to investigate the scene in Schaerbeek, Belgium, Friday March 25, 2016. A witness speaking on Belgian state broadcaster RTBF described hearing two blasts and shots from heavy weapons during the police raid on the Schaerbeek neighborhood. About 50 officers appeared to be involved in the operation. It is unclear whether it is linked to Tuesday's attacks. A tram passing through the area was stopped and evacuated and police cordoned off a wide perimeter of streets. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Secretary of State John Kerry speaks as he and Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel, deliver a joint statement at the Belgian Prime Minister's Residence in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kerry is in Brussels to pay respect to victims of terrorist attacks that left tens of people dead . (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Police guard a check point during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Policemen guard the outside of a house that has been the subject of a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Police take up positions on a road as they guard check points during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

An armed police officer moves members of the media back during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Mourad Laachraoui, second left behind the table, considered one of Belgium's big Taekwondo talents, and brother of Najim Laachraoui, and his lawyer Philippe Culot, right, listen to questions during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, March 24, 2016. Najim Laachraoui was caught on camera strolling into Brussels airport with Ibrahim El Bakraoui and an unidentified man before reportedly blowing himself up during the attack. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Secretary of State John Kerry meets with King Phillipe ?of Belgium at the Royal Palace in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kerry is in Brussels to pay respect to victims of terrorist attacks that left more than 30 dead at Brussels Airport. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Police patrol one of the memorial sites for the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Amid signs that life in Brussels was returning to some sort of normality on the third day of mourning the dead, authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible." Belgium had been on its highest alert since Tuesday's bombings. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

A general view showing one of the memorial sites for the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels, and the media surrounding the area at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels, Friday, March, 25, 2016. Amid signs that life in Brussels was returning to some sort of normality on the third day of mourning the dead, authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible." Belgium had been on its highest alert since Tuesday's bombings. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Official: Bogus lawsuit filed in name of Giffords' shooter

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP)  Two bogus lawsuits that raised eyebrows for their claims including that Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was framed are being separately investigated by federal authorities.

Federal authorities are investigating the phony lawsuit filed in the name of the man who shot former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and 18 others in Tucson five years ago, along with one filed in the name of an Uber driver charged with killing six people in a shooting rampage this year.

The U.S. Marshals Service is looking into whether a crime occurred when someone pretending to be Loughner filed the suit by mailing to a federal courthouse in Phoenix from Philadelphia last week. It's unclear whether authorities have a suspect in mind, but Marshals spokesman David Gonzales in Arizona said he wasn't aware of a connection between the two cases.

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2016, file photo, people applaud former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords as she arrives in the East Room of the White House in Washington, to hear President Obama speak about steps his administration is taking to reduce gun violence. An official said Thursday, March 24, 2016, a lawsuit filed in the name of the man who shot former U.S. Congresswoman Giffords is bogus. Cosme Lopez with the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona says attorneys for convicted killer Jared Lee Loughner notified the court that Loughner didn't file or authorize the lawsuit. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Meanwhile, a federal court judge has officially dismissed the Loughner case after it became clear that it was fraudulently filed, according to Brian Karth, the clerk for the U.S. District Court-District of Arizona.

The faux lawsuit resembles one that was filed in the name of an Uber driver charged with killing six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Both lawsuits were postmarked in Philadelphia and were filed within days of each other. Dalton is being held in Michigan; Loughner is in Minnesota.

Loughner fatally shot six people and wounded 13 at a political event in Tucson on Jan. 8, 2011. Giffords, the target of the attack, was seriously injured. Her spokesman says she is not commenting on the fake lawsuit.

The convicted killer's attorneys notified the court that he didn't file or authorize the case, said Cosme Lopez, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona.

"It's our understanding that the lawsuit was not filed or authorized by Mr. Loughner. Earlier (Thursday), Mr. Loughner's counsel wrote a letter to the Court confirming this understanding. Instead, it appears that a third party may have misappropriated Mr. Loughner's identity for purposes of filing the lawsuit. Federal criminal law prohibits such conduct," Lopez said in an email.

The Associated Press could not reach an attorney for Loughner.

Federal lawsuits can be filed in person or by mail. Staff attorneys sort through new filings and send them to a judge, who either dismisses them or assigns them to another judge.

Karth said it's common for inmates to file lawsuits and that the process to file a suit is relatively easy.

In Detroit, the U.S. Marshals Service is investigating whether a crime occurred when a handwritten lawsuit was filed March 15 in Dalton's name, federal court spokesman Rod Hansen said.

The hoax lawsuit named Uber as a defendant. Jason Dalton was listed as the plaintiff.

Hansen said court employees don't inspect lawsuits to determine what's legitimate.

"Who are we going to appoint to decide if it's real or not real?" he said. "By law, we have to accept it."

A lawsuit is docketed in court even if a $400 filing fee is not immediately paid. But the case typically is dismissed if the filer doesn't respond to a formal request for money, Hansen said.

"That's usually when we'll catch" a hoax or bogus case, he said.

In the Michigan case, authorities say that between picking up Uber fares, Dalton opened fire on people at three locations, and that he didn't know any of the victims.

According to police, Dalton told investigators that "a devil figure" on Uber's app was controlling him.

Reporter Ed White contributed from Detroit.

In this Monday, Jan. 10, 2011, file artist rendering, Jared Lee Loughner makes his first court appearance at the Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse in Phoenix, Ariz. Loughner appeared in federal court on charges he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a shooting rampage that left six people dead. An official said on Thursday, March 24, 2016, that a lawsuit filed in the name of Loughner who shot former U.S. Congresswoman Giffords is bogus. Cosme Lopez with the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Arizona says attorneys for the convicted killer Loughner notified the court that Loughner didn't file or authorize the lawsuit. (AP Photo/Bill Robles, File)
Glance: A look at Federal findings on child care facilities

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday released the latest in a series looking at how well states enforce their own rules governing child care centers. Some earlier federal findings in other states and Puerto Rico from reports released in 2014 and 2015:

 Arizona: All 23 providers inspected in 2013 had at least one violation. Inspectors found cleaning supplies stored in an unlocked room; uncapped electrical outlets; roaches on a first aid kit; and a portable electric fan that was accessible to young children.

 Connecticut: Of 23 facilities visited in 2012, 22 had at least one violation. Inspectors found aluminum fencing with sharp edges, dog feces in a play area and exposed wiring in a gazebo. The state's inspector-to-facility ratio was 1 per 332, six times higher than the nationally recommended 1 per 50.

 Louisiana: All 24 facilities inspected in 2013 had at least one violation, including chemicals accessible to children, an unattended stove that was turned on, exposed nails in a play area and a large hole in a playground fence.

 Maine: Of 26 facilities inspected in 2013, 22 had violations. The state only requires one unannounced inspection every six to 18 months, potentially longer than the recommended minimum of annual inspections. Violations included frozen breast milk not discarded after two weeks; exposed wires; a heater repaired with duct tape; and a wheeled crib used to evacuate babies during a fire was filled with toys.

 Michigan: All 23 facilities inspected in 2013 had at least one violation. Several centers had blocked emergency exits and others had fire extinguishers that employees couldn't quickly locate. Many had inoperable smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. One facility had a broken gate leading to a pool.

 Minnesota: Of 23 facilities inspected in 2014, 22 had at least one violation. State inspections for home facilities are required only every two years, twice the recommended limit. The inspections found holes in a ceiling and wall; knives, scissors and plastic bags accessible to children; and the hot water temperature on a sink accessible to children exceeded 120 degrees.

 Pennsylvania: Of 22 providers inspected in 2014, 19 had at least one violation. The inspections found an electrical switch missing a cover, causing shock; a facility that used a hung string instead of a fence to separate the playground from the parking lot; and mold growing in a play area.

 Puerto Rico: All 23 providers inspected in 2014 had violations. Inspectors found a hacksaw, hammer and toolbox accessible to young children; a rusted propane tank inside a facility; and a play area next to a carport, allowing fumes to affect the children.
12 Portuguese die in head-on crash in central France

PARIS (AP)  A minibus carrying Portuguese nationals resident in Switzerland back home for the Easter vacation crashed head-on with a truck in central France, killing all 12 passengers including a 7-year-old girl, authorities said Friday.

French interior and transport ministries said the crash occurred on a National Route highway near the small town of Montbeugny, just over 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) south of Paris.

The Allier prefecture, the regional state authority, said the minibus swerved for unclear reasons and hit a truck traveling in the opposite direction just before midnight Thursday. The driver of the minibus was injured but survived, while all the passengers died. The two occupants of the truck, both Italian, were slightly injured, the prefecture said.

An Interior Ministry statement said bodies were placed in the local meeting hall. A unit of doctors and psychologists was set up to receive families of the victims, the prefecture said.

Portugal's Ministry for Communities Overseas said the youngest to die was a 7-year-old girl, the oldest 63, and that the passengers were all resident in Fribourg in western Switzerland and had been traveling home to celebrate Easter with family and friends when the accident happened.

An impromptu chapel of rest has been set up in the meeting hall in France until authorities released the bodies for burial, the Portuguese ministry said.

Gendarmes are investigating the circumstances that led to the accident.

___
10 Things to Know for Today - 25 March 2016

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. MAN DETAINED IN PARIS SUBURB RAID WANTED SINCE JANUARY

Officials say Reda Kriket, 34, has connections to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Police guard a check point and man positions during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, early Friday, March, 25, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

2. UN: 'NO DRAMA, NO WALKOUTS,' BUT NO PROGRESS IN SYRIA PEACE TALKS

While a shaky truce continues to hold in the war-torn country, there is also no visible progress on a lasting settlement.

3. WHY SEATTLE IS SANDERS COUNTRY

The presidential candidate's brand of democratic socialism may take some explaining in some parts of the United States, but not in this Pacific Northwest city.

4. BLASPHEMY CASES ON THE RISE IN EGYPT

Egyptian Christian teens satirizing the Islamic State group are convicted and given prison sentences for mocking Islam.

5. PROSPECTS OF TALIBAN PEACE TALKS DIM AS FRONT LINES SHIFT

Recent battlefield gains by insurgents and a Kabul government suspicious of Pakistan's intentions in facilitating such negotiations are creating pessimism.

6. 'HELICOPTER MONEY' MAY BOOST ECONOMY

The term was coined by economists who theorize that if global central banks just print money and hand it to people it could get the economy going.

7. WHAT IS HOLDING UP FLINT WATER DEAL

A bipartisan congressional effort to solve the water crisis in in this Michigan city is being stalled by the objections of a single senator from Utah.

8. SEEING HOLES IN EFFORT TO BRIDGE 'WORD GAP'

It remains unclear if a Rhode Island city's high-tech experiment to improve the vocabularies of poor children is a national model or just an interesting concept.

9. 'THE WALTONS' CREATOR DIES

Earl Hamner Jr., who drew upon his Depression-era upbringing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to create one of TV's most beloved family shows, is dead at 92.

10. TOP SEEDS WIN AT NCAAs

No. 1 seeds Oregon and Kansas and second-seeded Oklahoma and Villanova all advance to the Elite Eight.

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Fadya Shehata Moussa, the mother of 17-year-old Bassem Amgad Hanna, one of four Coptic Christian teens convicted for contempt of Islam, holds a picture of her son in Bani Mazar, Minya province, Egypt. The four teens and their supervisor, who was forced to leave the village with his family, were all convicted. Though all the defendants are under 18, three were sentenced to adult prison for five years and one to a juvenile detention facility for three years. The supervisor received a three year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)
The Latest: San Francisco mayor wants reduced travel to NC

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)  The Latest on North Carolina lawmakers' decision to overturn a Charlotte ordinance on transgender rights (all times local):

7 p.m.

San Francisco's mayor says he doesn't want city workers to travel to North Carolina unless necessary, in order to deprive the state of revenue in response to its legislation blocking anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people.

People protest outside the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, March 24, 2016. North Carolina legislators decided to rein in local governments by approving a bill Wednesday that prevents cities and counties from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory later signed the legislation, which dealt a blow to the LGBT movement after success with protections in cities across the country. (AP Photo/Emery P. Dalesio)

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement Friday that residents of the city with a large gay and lesbian population shouldn't "subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination."

North Carolina lawmakers approved and Republican Gov. Pat McGrory signed legislation this week voiding a Charlotte ordinance that would have provided wide protections against discrimination in public accommodations.

The law also prevents cities and counties from passing anti-discrimination rules and imposes a statewide standard that leaves out protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

6 p.m.

North Carolina's top government lawyer says he's worried a new law overturning Charlotte's anti-discrimination ordinance and preventing similar rules elsewhere will put the state at a disadvantage to keep or land big sporting events.

Attorney General Roy Cooper told a Raleigh-area sports radio station (99.9 The Fan) on Friday he's concerned about keeping NCAA basketball playoffs in the state and the 2017 NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte after the legislature's action this week.

Large corporations also have spoken out against the legislation, approved by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory.

Cooper says "we should not be putting our economy in jeopardy" and called the events surrounding the law a "national embarrassment." He and others want pressure put on legislators to repeal this week's law.

Cooper is a Democrat running against McCrory in the November gubernatorial election.

___

11:15 a.m.

Facebook and Apple have added their voices to the big businesses that are not pleased with a new North Carolina law barring anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The two technology giants run massive data processing complexes in western North Carolina.

Facebook says in a statement it opposes moves that discriminate against people based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Apple says its stores "are open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love," and it's disappointed in the law.

State lawmakers on Wednesday voided a Charlotte ordinance that offered broad protections against discrimination in public accommodations in the state's largest city. Backers of the state law say it was needed to prevent predators from using restrooms marked for the opposite sex.

___

7:10 a.m.

Police in Raleigh say five people arrested in a protest near the Executive Mansion over North Carolina lawmakers' decision to overturn a transgender ordinance in Charlotte have been charged several violations.

Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said late Thursday that the five people arrested have been charged with blocking traffic and with resisting, delaying or obstructing police officers. Sughrue says the five were arrested after they chained themselves together and sat down in a street. Sughrue said the demonstrators had been warned they would be arrested if they did not move.

Those charged are 30-year-old Jade Brooks of Durham; 28-year-old Salma Mirza of Durham; 20-year-old Ngoe Tran of Durham; 27-year-old Jessica Jude of Durham; and 32-year-old Noah Rubin-Blose of Hillsborough.

It was not known if they have lawyers.

___

4:51 a.m.

Corporations have expressed disappointment and the NCAA has vowed to watch what North Carolina does next now that the state has banned local government measures protecting people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

American Airlines, IBM, Biogen and PayPal were among major employers condemning the new law Thursday.

The legislature called a special session Wednesday to void a Charlotte ordinance that would have enabled transgender people to legally use restrooms aligned with their gender identity, and would have provided broad protections against discrimination in public accommodations in the state's largest city.

About 200 protesters blocked a downtown Raleigh street in front of the state's Executive Mansion Thursday evening, and about 400 people at a Raleigh church vowed to fight on when the General Assembly reconvenes next month.

Duke student Sydney Roberts shouts during a protest against House Bill 2 Thursday, March 24, 2016, outside of the Governor's Mansion on North Blount Street in downtown Raleigh, N.C. (Jill Knight/The News & Observer via AP)

People protest outside the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, March 24, 2016. North Carolina legislators decided to rein in local governments by approving a bill Wednesday that prevents cities and counties from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory later signed the legislation, which dealt a blow to the LGBT movement after success with protections in cities across the country. (AP Photo/Emery P. Dalesio)
Wind speeds increasing as Kanas, Oklahoma fight wildfire

MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. (AP)  Meteorologists say the weather conditions could make it hard for crews to make headway against a wildfire that has scorched sparsely-populated areas of Oklahoma and Kansas.

The National Weather Service says wind gusts of up to 30 mph are expected to last from Friday morning through the afternoon.

Meteorologist Bill Turner says the big challenge will be keeping the fire from spreading again once the south wind picks up. He says the wind could blow sparks onto unburnt land.

A firefighter crew douses a line of grass fire about 15 miles southwest of Medicine Lodge, Kansas Thursday, March 24, 2016. More than 200 firefighters are battling an active fire line stretching 30 to 40 miles long in Barber County on Thursday. (Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle via AP) LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; MAGS OUT; LOCAL RADIO OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

The blaze has consumed at least 620 square miles since starting Tuesday in Oklahoma and spreading into Kansas. Kansas Incident Management Team spokeswoman Kathleen Fabrizius (FUH'-brish-us) says officials plan to fly over the area Friday to evaluate the damage.

Fire damage to a home Thursday, March 24, 2016 near Medicine Lodge, Kan. A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/ The Hutchinson News via AP)

Charred prairies are seen Thursday, March 24, 2016 near Medicine Lodge, Kan. as smoke rises in the distance from the continuing burning fire. The fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/The Hutchinson News via AP)

New utility poles are installed in rural rural Barber County near Medicine Lodge, Kan., on Thursday, March, 25, 2016. A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Amy Bickel/The Hutchinson News via AP)

Smoke is seen near Medicine Lodge, Kan., as grass fire continues to burn Thursday, March 24, 2016 . A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/ The Hutchinson News via AP)
Greek buses sent to Idomeni camp to pick up refugees

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP)  A fleet of buses has arrived in the sprawling refugee camp of Idomeni on Greece's northern border with Macedonia to take some of the estimated 12,000 people stranded there to nearby refugee camps.

Authorities sent 20 buses to transport 1,000 people to refugee camps set up in northern Greece. But refugees were reluctant to board as they had not been informed of where they would be taken.

Greece's border with Macedonia has been shut to refugees since earlier this month after a string of countries shut down what has become known as the western Balkan route which migrants used to go from Greece to central and northern Europe.

A migrant girl exits a tent in a makeshift refugee camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Friday, March 25, 2016. Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Those stranded in the camp and surrounding fields have been living in dire conditions in small tents pitched in muddy fields.

Catholic Syrian refugees attend a service with a local woman, right, at a Greek Orthodox church in the village of Idomeni, Greece, Friday, March 25, 2016. Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Catholic Syrian refugees attend a service with a local woman, right, in the Greek Orthodox church in the village of Idomeni, Greece, Friday, March 25, 2016. Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Migrants sit next to a fire during windy day at a makeshift refugee camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Friday, March 25, 2016. Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

A migrant child walks at a train station near a make hift refugee camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Friday, March 25, 2016. Some 12,000 people remain at the border camp near the village of Idomeni, most living in squalid conditions. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
The Latest: Officials say wildfire largest in Kansas history

MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. (AP)  The Latest on wildfires burning across parts of Kansas and Oklahoma (all times local):

2:20 p.m.

The Kansas Forest Service says a wildfire that crossed into the state from Oklahoma earlier this week is considered the largest in Kansas history and one of the largest ever in the U.S.

A firefighter crew douses a line of grass fire about 15 miles southwest of Medicine Lodge, Kansas Thursday, March 24, 2016. More than 200 firefighters are battling an active fire line stretching 30 to 40 miles long in Barber County on Thursday. (Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle via AP) LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; MAGS OUT; LOCAL RADIO OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

The wildfire has burned at least 620 square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas.

The service said officials are looking at the damage in Barber County, Kansas, to determine if it meets the threshold for a FEMA disaster declaration, which would provide public assistance for damaged public infrastructure.

In Oklahoma, officials said in a release Friday there's been very little growth in the wildfire near the town of Alva, thanks in part to "exceptional firefighting" combined with lighter winds and lower temperatures.

___

10:15 a.m.

A Kansas livestock official says the wildfire that scorched hundreds of square miles in Oklahoma and southern Kansas has displaced cattle and destroyed miles of fencing.

Todd Domer, spokesman for the Kansas Livestock Association, said Friday the most immediate problem for Kansas ranchers affected by the fire in Barber and Comanche counties is locating cattle that escaped when fences burned. He says ranchers are also working to figure out how many cattle may have died.

The KLA is raising funds to help replace the fencing, which he estimates covered tens of thousands of miles. He says hay donations have been so swift and numerous there's no longer a need.

Domer also says there would also have been a lot of newborn calves this time of year that may have either been separated from their mothers or been killed in the fire.

___

9:15 a.m.

Firefighters are gaining control of wildfires involving nearly 86 square miles in the Texas Panhandle.

The Texas A&M Forest Service reports the largest blaze, burning about 75 square miles of grassland in Carson, Hutchinson, Roberts and Gray counties, is 50 percent contained. Two abandoned homes and two other undisclosed structures have been lost.

A second grassfire, in Wheeler County, burned an estimated 10 square miles and is 75 percent contained. No structural losses are reported but fire and smoke caused Interstate 40 near Shamrock to be shut for several hours Thursday.

The National Weather Service has a fire weather watch in effect from 1 p.m. through Friday evening for a dozen counties in the southern and western Texas Panhandle, where winds are forecast to gust up to 40 mph while humidity is between only 10 and 15 percent.

___

7:45 a.m.

Hay donations are being sought for ranchers whose land burned in a massive wildfire in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The Kansas Livestock Association says it's accepting cash donations and that farmers' cooperatives in two Kansas communities are collecting hay donations.

Hundreds of firefighters and have been battling the blaze that started Tuesday in Oklahoma and spread into Kansas. As of Thursday, it had consumed 620 square miles of mostly farmland and ranchland in the two states.

Kansas Incident Management Team spokeswoman Kathleen Fabrizius (FUH'-brish-us) says officials are planning to fly over the area Friday to evaluate the damage.

Smoke from the blaze has been detected hundreds of miles away in St. Louis. At least one home has burned, but no serious injuries have been reported.

___

7:30 a.m.

Meteorologists say the weather conditions could make it hard for crews to make headway against a wildfire that has scorched sparsely-populated areas of Oklahoma and Kansas.

The National Weather Service says wind gusts of up to 30 mph are expected to last from Friday morning through the afternoon.

Meteorologist Bill Turner says the big challenge will be keeping the fire from spreading again once the south wind picks up. He says the wind could blow sparks onto unburnt land.

The blaze has consumed at least 620 square miles since starting Tuesday in Oklahoma and spreading into Kansas. Kansas Incident Management Team spokeswoman Kathleen Fabrizius (FUH'-brish-us) says officials plan to fly over the area Friday to evaluate the damage.

Fire damage to a home Thursday, March 24, 2016 near Medicine Lodge, Kan. A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/ The Hutchinson News via AP)

Charred prairies are seen Thursday, March 24, 2016 near Medicine Lodge, Kan. as smoke rises in the distance from the continuing burning fire. The fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/The Hutchinson News via AP)

New utility poles are installed in rural rural Barber County near Medicine Lodge, Kan., on Thursday, March, 25, 2016. A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Amy Bickel/The Hutchinson News via AP)

Smoke is seen near Medicine Lodge, Kan., as grass fire continues to burn Thursday, March 24, 2016 . A fire that started Tuesday in Oklahoma has now burnt near 400, 000 acres in Kansas and Oklahoma. (Andrew Whitaker/ The Hutchinson News via AP)
Rare falcon hurt by Texas hail while flying home to Canada

HUTCHINS, Texas (AP)  A rare peregrine falcon is being treated at a rehabilitation center outside Dallas after officials believe it was hurt by hail in a North Texas storm while migrating home to Canada.

Kathy Rogers, founder of the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, tells Fort Worth TV station KXAS (http://bit.ly/1PuZBvr ) a band on the bird's leg identified it as part of the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project in Manitoba, Canada, 1,300 miles away.

Officials there say the 5-year-old falcon is known as Beatrix.

Rogers says a woman found the bird on the ground in Dallas and brought it to her. The bird has no wounds but appears to have a vision problem.

Rogers hopes the bird eventually can be released. If not, she's planning to take the falcon home on a plane.

___
US moving to increase troops in Iraq; IS leader killed

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Pentagon said Friday it was moving to increase the number of American troops in Iraq amid new strikes this week that killed the Islamic State's finance minister and other senior leaders. Still, top U.S. defense officials say the deaths won't "break the back" of the extremist group, which is in a fierce fight for an ancient city in Syria and claimed responsibility for bombing a soccer stadium in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. progress in eliminating members of the IS "cabinet" was hampering its ability to conduct and inspire attacks against the West. The announcement came as the battle to retake the Syrian city of Palmyra entered its third day and Iraqi forces continued their march to recapture Mosul. A suicide bombing in a soccer stadium south of Baghdad, killing nearly 30 people, underscored the difficult fight ahead.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters that recommendations on ways to increase U.S. support for Iraq's ground fight against IS will be discussed with President Barack Obama soon.

This photo provided by the State Department/Rewards for Justice shows Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. According to a senior U.S. official, al-Qaduli, the group's financial minister was killed along with two associates in a U.S. raid in Syria. (State Department/Rewards for Justice via AP)

"The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made," Dunford said. He did not say how big that increase might be.

He and Carter said accelerating the campaign against the Islamic State will include more assistance like the artillery fire and targeting help that U.S. Marines provided earlier this week to Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul. But they said American forces remain well behind the front lines.

"I think there's a lot of reasons for us to be optimistic about the next several months," Dunford said. "But by no means would I say that we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over."

Using an acronym for the militant group, Carter said the U.S. is "systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," killing several key members in strikes this week.

Carter would not provide details about the strikes, but a senior U.S. official said the group's financial minister was killed along with two associates in a U.S. raid in Syria. The official was not authorized to discuss the operations so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Carter said the finance minister, who is known by several names, including Abdul-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and Haji Imam, was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terrorist plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

He said al-Qaduli has been associated with IS dating back to its earliest iteration as al-Qaida in Iraq. He said he had worked under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a liaison for operations in Pakistan and was "responsible for some external affairs and plots." Carter said he was not aware of any link between al-Qaduli and this week's terrorist attacks in Brussels.

In a separate operation, a U.S. airstrike in Mosul killed another top IS leader, the official said. Carter identified the man as Abu Sarah and said he was one of the leaders charged with paying militant fighters in northern Iraq.

The successful attacks are part of a string of recent strikes targeting the leadership of the group, which has lost territory in both Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the Islamic State's "minister of war," in an airstrike in Syria. In November, the Pentagon said an airstrike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top IS leader.

Earlier this week, U.S. military officials confirmed the creation of a Marine outpost, dubbed Fire Base Bell, in Iraq. U.S. Marines operating from the small base provided targeting assistance and artillery fire to support Iraqi troops retaking several villages in the initial stages of their march to Mosul. It's the first such base established by the U.S. since it returned forces to Iraq in 2014.

Carter has also said the U.S. is looking at a number of options to "accelerate" the fight against IS. Those options have not yet officially been submitted to the White House for approval. They could include sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq, using Apache helicopters for combat missions, deploying more U.S. special operations forces or using American military advisers in Iraqi units closer to the front lines.

In Iraq on Friday, IS claimed responsibility after a suicide bomber blew himself up during a match in the small soccer stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles from Baghdad. The attack killed at least 29 people and wounded 60, security officials said.

In Syria, government forces recaptured a Mamluk-era citadel in Palmyra from IS, Syrian state media and monitoring groups said. Syrian and Russian warplanes struck at least 56 targets inside IS-held areas of the city and pro-government militias supported the army's advance, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

Palmyra has been controlled by the extremist group since May, and the militants have destroyed some of its best known Roman-era archaeological relics. Recapturing it would be a significant victory for Syrian government troops, who have been supported by Russian airstrikes in their advances.

Government forces also cut the road between Palmyra and another IS bastion, the town of Qaryatayn, weakening the group's hold over its two central Syrian outposts.

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Friday, March 25, 2016, where he announce U.S. forces killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week. (AP Photo/Mauel Balce Ceneta)

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, accompanied by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Friday, March 25, 2016, where they announced U.S. forces killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week. (AP Photo/Mauel Balce Ceneta)

Defense Secretary Ash Carter listens at left as Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Friday, March 25, 2016, where they announced U.S. forces killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week. (AP Photo/Mauel Balce Ceneta)

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, with Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Friday, March 25, 2016, where they announced U.S. forces killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week. (AP Photo/Mauel Balce Ceneta)
Lebanon's stalemate costs billions warns World Bank chief

BEIRUT (AP)  Hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance money for cash-strapped Lebanon is being held up because of the country's nearly two-year-old political stalemate, the president of the World Bank group warned Friday, imploring the country's politicians to vote for a president who can enact laws.

In an interview with The Associated Press in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Jim Yong Kim also said the World Bank, which pulled out of Syria in 2011, is getting ready to move as quickly as possible to contribute to the rebuilding of the war-ravaged country if and when the fighting stops. But he said battling extremism is going to be complicated.

Kim is on a two-day joint visit to Lebanon with the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Islamic Development Bank Group President Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani to get a first-hand look at the impact of the Syrian crisis and to assess how the combined strengths of the three organizations can best support the country.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim speaks at social center for Syrian refugees, in Tripoli, Lebanon, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kim said hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance money for cash-strapped Lebanon is being held up because of the countrys nearly two-year-old political stalemate. In an interview later Friday with The Associated Press in Beirut, Kim implored the countrys politicians to end the impasse and vote for a president who can enact laws. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

On Friday, he traveled to northern Lebanon to visit a social development center that provides health, nutrition and social services to extremely poor households, and an informal tented settlement for Syrian refugees.

"It's always jarring to see how difficult the situation is for these families," he said.

Lebanon is home to more than 1 million registered Syrian refugees, or nearly a quarter of the country's 4.5 million people. Lebanon says that another half a million Syrians live in the country as well and officials say their presence has generated a severe burden that Lebanon is no longer able to face alone.

The World Bank has signed agreements worth $900 million with Lebanon and on Thursday announced a new $100 million initiative aimed at supporting the government to improve the quality of its education and achieve universal school enrolment for Lebanese and Syrian refugee children by the end of the 2016-17 school year.

Most of that money, however, has been held up because Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014, as lawmakers repeatedly failed to agree on a consensus president, and parliament rarely meets.

In the interview, Kim said the World Bank has extensive plans to support Lebanon in developing projects, including helping build a special economic zone in Tripoli, near the Syrian border, which can be a major supplier to Syria once the fighting ends. But everything is being held up.

"This is really a very strong message that I want to give to the Lebanese people, that there are real costs to the dysfunction of these governmental institutions in Lebanon and the cost is in money not moving directly to communities," Kim warned. "And we're not talking about a few tens of millions of dollars, we're talking about billions of dollars."

"We really urge everyone in Lebanon to push and push and push so that the government begins to function again," he added.

Kim also said that much of the instability and radical extremism the world is seeing now goes back to the lack of education and job opportunities, and that the key was in development projects and economic growth to reduce the likelihood of young people being radicalized.

"Fighting extremism is not simplistic, it's going to be complicated," he said, adding that the World Bank and its partners were going to do everything possible to work on economic growth and development projects.

"That's why we're here, that's why we've put a billion on the table right now with the possibility for billions more over time," he said. "We just need to have a partner, we need to have a partner here in the government."

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, speaks at social center for Syrian refugees, in Tripoli, Lebanon, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kim said hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance money for cash-strapped Lebanon is being held up because of the countrys nearly two-year-old political stalemate. In an interview later Friday with The Associated Press in Beirut, Kim implored the countrys politicians to end the impasse and vote for a president who can enact laws. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, left, speaks with the Islamic Development Bank President Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, at social center for Syrian refugees, in Tripoli, Lebanon, Friday, March 25, 2016. Kim said hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance money for cash-strapped Lebanon is being held up because of the countrys nearly two-year-old political stalemate. In an interview later Friday with The Associated Press in Beirut, Kim implored the countrys politicians to end the impasse and vote for a president who can enact laws. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, center, cut the ribbon for social center for Syrian refugees, with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, left, Islamic Development Bank President Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, center background, and Lebanese minister of social affairs, Rashid Derbas, right, in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Friday, March 25, 2016. Ban appealed Friday from Lebanon, urging the international community to provide necessary funding to help finish the rebuilding of a Palestinian refugee camp destroyed in fierce battles against al-Qaida-inspired militants almost a decade ago. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton: A tale of 2 books

NEW YORK (AP)  Donald J. Trump's first book was a memoir/manifesto dedicated to a life of big-time negotiating. Hillary Clinton debuted with a call for community involvement in raising the young. Trump was a brash star in New York real estate who agreed to a six-figure contract for "Trump: The Art of the Deal." For "It Takes a Village," then-first lady Clinton accepted no advance and donated most of the royalties to charity.

Both books were best-sellers that attracted some controversy and helped lead to future releases. But from their opening sentences, "The Art of the Deal" and "It Takes a Village" signaled sharply contrasting styles and backgrounds for this year's top presidential contenders.

"I don't do it for the money," Trump announced. "I've got enough, much more than I'll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form."

FILE - In this Aug. 19, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a copy of his 1987 book, "Trump: The Art of the Deal" during his campaign town hall event at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H. Trump's first book was a memoir/manifesto dedicated to a life of big-time negotiating. Hillary Rodham Clinton debuted with a call for community involvement in raising the young with "It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us." Trump agreed to a six-figure contract for "The Art of the Deal." For "It Takes a Village," then-first lady Clinton accepted no advance and donated most of the royalties to charity. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)

"Children are not rugged individualists," Clinton declared. "They depend on the adults they know and on thousands more who make decisions every day that affect their well-being."

Trump's proliferating brand includes more than a dozen business and policy books, most recently last fall's "Crippled America." But the signature work of the Republican front-runner remains "The Art of the Deal," which, ironically, wasn't his idea. Published in 1987, "The Art of the Deal" was initiated by S.I. Newhouse of Conde Nast, which then owned Random House. Newhouse was anxious for a hit that could tap the readership of Lee Iacocca's best-selling "Iacocca: An Autobiography" and believed Trump a strong candidate.

Trump agreed to a six-figure deal, according to "The Art of the Deal" editor Peter Osnos.

"Donald Trump ... loved the idea of a book that would tell his story and make a big splash," says Osnos, now editor at large for the Perseus Books Group imprint he founded, PublicAffairs.

Clinton thought of "It Takes a Village" soon after the 1994 midterm elections, when Republicans captured both the House of Representatives and the Senate and the first lady was blamed in part for her failed effort to overhaul the health care system.

In her million-selling memoir "Living History," published in 2003, Clinton noted that the election was "helpful" to her because it sharpened her "focus on positive ways to respond to right-wing diatribes."

She had written a Newsweek article critical of Republicans who wanted to place poor children in orphanages and she was ready to take on a more "ambitious" project.

For her publisher, Clinton chose Simon & Schuster. Her editor was Rebecca Saletan, who called the book a "labor of love" for the first lady, "something she worked really hard at."

Both Clinton and Trump would face questions about their involvement in their books. After Trump said during a debate last fall that he "wrote 'The Art of the Deal,'" co-author Tony Schwartz tweeted, "I wrote The Art of the Deal. Donald Trump read it." Osnos believes the truth is somewhere in between, describing the editorial process as one for which the "gears ran smoothly."

For "It Takes a Village," the announced plan was for Georgetown University journalism professor Barbara Feinman to write the book, based on interviews with Clinton. But Feinman got angry when her name did not appear on the acknowledgements page  Clinton didn't cite any individual, explaining that she feared omitting someone  leading to lasting questions about the book's authorship. Saletan recalls that numerous people assisted, but Clinton wrote the book, working on drafts on yellow legal pads.

"She had editorial help, from me and others, and experts to consult in various fields, but there is no question that she wrote it," says Saletan, now vice president and editorial director of Riverhead Books.

Trump has mentioned "The Art of the Deal" countless times on the campaign trail and boasts that it is the best-selling business book of all time  a claim that's been widely disputed. It did spend just under a year on The New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list and helped establish him as a national celebrity. His presidential candidacy has revived interest in the book, which currently ranks in the top 200 on Amazon.com.

"It Takes a Village" spent several months on the Times' list in 1996 even as conservatives such as Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas countered that "it takes a family" to raise a child and Clinton's promotional tour was sidetracked by questions over her involvement in the Whitewater and White House travel office controversies (neither of which resulted in any charges against her).

In "Living History," she remembered arriving for a planned speech at her alma mater, Wellesley College, and learning that Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr had issued a subpoena for her to appear at a grand jury looking into the "Travelgate" scandal. Clinton testified in Washington the following week.

"I was out in the hallway during one of three breaks when a juror walked over and asked if I would sign his copy of 'It Takes a Village,'" wrote Clinton, adding that she agreed to do so after her attorney, standing next to her, signaled his approval.

"I later learned that after an investigation into this 'incident,' the juror was dismissed from the panel."

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 1996 file photo, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at a benefit for Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, one stop on her mutli-city tour promoting her book, "It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us," in Beverly Hills, Calif. Clinton's first book was a call for community involvement in raising the young. Donald J. Trump's first book was a memoir/manifesto dedicated to a life of big-time negotiating. Trump agreed to a six-figure contract for "The Art of the Deal." For "It Takes a Village," Clinton accepted no advance and donated most of the royalties to charity. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2006 file photo, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton signs copies of the 10th Anniversary edition of her book "It Takes a Village" in New York. Clinton's first book was a call for community involvement in raising the young. Donald J. Trump's first book was a memoir/manifesto dedicated to a life of big-time negotiating. Trump agreed to a six-figure contract for "The Art of the Deal." For "It Takes a Village," then-first lady Clinton accepted no advance and donated most of the royalties to charity. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Stealthy destroyer completes trials ahead of Navy delivery

BATH, Maine (AP)  The stealthy Zumwalt destroyer has completed builder trials and is on track for the next milestone before delivery to the Navy  acceptance trials and inspection starting next month, officials said Friday.

The 600-foot destroyer, the largest ever built for the U.S. Navy, spent three days in the rough North Atlantic before returning late Thursday afternoon to Bath Iron Works in Maine, where the Zumwalt and two sister ships are being built.

More than 200 defense contractor workers and Navy personnel participated in the outing aimed at ensuring everything is shipshape before delivery to the Navy.

In this March 23, 2016 photo provided by Ben Davis, the USS Zumwalt passes Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, during final builder trials. The 600-foot destroyer, due to be delivered to the Navy in April for acceptance trials, spent three days in the North Atlantic before returning to the shipyard late Thursday afternoon. (Ben Davis via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

Lt. Amber Lynn Daniel, a Navy spokeswoman, said the trial "served as a unique opportunity for the crew to train side-by-side with representatives from industry."

Propulsion, steering and auxiliary systems were checked in seas that ranged from 5 to 10 feet, and gusts up to 40 mph for part of the week, officials said.

The Zumwalt is the first in a class of three destroyers being built in Bath.
Triple suicide bombing in Yemeni city of Aden kills 22

SANAA, Yemen (AP)  A triple suicide bombing on a Saudi-led coalition military camp in southern Yemen killed 22 people Friday, including civilians, witnesses and medical officials said.

The Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the attacks in a short statement carrying the name of the group's news agency, Amaq.

The first suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint, meters away from the camp in the al-Hasswa district of the city of Aden. A spokesman for Aden's security services, Nizar Anwar said that 18 people were killed in the first attack, including civilians. A second bomber drove an ambulance and rammed his vehicle into the rescuers. Four people were killed in this assault, Anwar said.

The third suicide car bomber then detonated his explosives close to the camp as civilians were waiting for roads to reopen, witnesses said. However Anwar said that a coalition jet attacked the car and killed the bomber.

Medical officials said that the death toll is expected to rise and that there were women and children among the victims, but did not give numbers for civilian casualties.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

Abu Bakr Hazem, one of the witnesses, said that he was inside his car near a power station when he saw the ambulance advancing, followed by the explosion. He said that he saw bodies scattered on the ground, including women. A local reporter, Fathi ben Lazek, said that the ambulance tried to cross the checkpoint but was stopped by the guards, and then the suicide bomber blew himself up.

Aden, now the temporary Yemeni capital, has fallen into chaos since the summer, when it was recaptured from Houthi rebels by southern fighters backed by a Saudi-led coalition. An affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest attacks in the city.

The explosions took place shortly after the leader of the Houthis, Abdul-Malak al-Houthi, delivered his first speech after months in hiding, calling for street rallies to mark the first anniversary of the Saudi-led military campaign against his group. The rallies are due to take place in the city of Sanaa on Saturday.

Al-Houthi also lashed out at the U.S. and Britain for their alleged support for Saudi Arabia's operation against the Houthis, who seized the Yemeni capital in Sep. 2014 and unseated the internationally-recognized government.

Yet his tone was comparatively subdued, suggesting that the Houthis are under pressure following a ground operation and airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians. Al-Houthi asked the Saudi's to "fear God," and end their "crimes."

Earlier this week, the United Nations announced that a cessation of hostilities is due to begin in Yemen on April 10, before talks on April 18.

The lawlessness in Yemen has also paved the way for al-Qaida to expand, having seized several cities along the Arabian Sea coastline. This week, a series of U.S. drone strikes hit a camp for new recruits in the southern province of Hadramawt, in the first largest attack on al-Qaida in Yemen in three years.

On Friday, Ibrahim al-Yafaie, a Yemeni journalist who is well-connected to the group, said that the death toll among al-Qaida militants reached 51. Initially, officials said that 40 were killed in the airstrikes.
The Latest: Cruz says Trump spreading false rumors

OSHKOSH, Wisconsin (AP)  The Latest on the Republican race for president (all times local):

3:05 p.m.

Donald Trump is denying allegations made by Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz that he is spreading rumors about the Texas senator's personal life.

FILE - In this Aug. 19, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a copy of his 1987 book, "Trump: The Art of the Deal" during his campaign town hall event at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H. Trump's first book was a memoir/manifesto dedicated to a life of big-time negotiating. Hillary Rodham Clinton debuted with a call for community involvement in raising the young with "It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us." Trump agreed to a six-figure contract for "The Art of the Deal." For "It Takes a Village," then-first lady Clinton accepted no advance and donated most of the royalties to charity. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)

Trump says in a statement issued Friday that he knows nothing about the allegations on social media and in a supermarket tabloid that Cruz has cheated on his wife, Heidi.

Cruz forcefully denied the rumors on Friday, denouncing them as "garbage" and angrily accused Trump and "his henchmen" of trafficking in "slime" and "sleaze."

___

2:34 p.m.

Ted Cruz is accusing rival Donald Trump of stoking false rumors about his personal life.

The Texas senator told reporters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Friday that the Republican presidential campaign has taken a "darker turn." Cruz is accusing Trump and "his henchmen" of spreading false rumors that Cruz has cheated on his wife, Heidi.

It's an escalation of the back-and-forth between the two.

Trump hasn't held a public event since Monday, and Cruz says the billionaire businessman is "hiding in Trump Tower" and campaigning via Twitter instead of meeting with voters.

Asked if he plans to vote for Trump should he win the GOP nomination, Cruz says, "I don't make a habit of supporting people who attack my wife and my family."

FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania Trump, speaks during a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Ted Cruz accused Trump of stoking false rumors about his personal life on Friday, March 25, 2016, charging that the billionaire businessman and GOP front-runner is trafficking in sleaze and slime. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
The Latest: Ex-Olympic skier pleased charges to be dropped

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The Latest on prosecutors moving to drop charges against Olympic gold-medal skier Picabo Street. (all times local):

2:30 p.m.

Olympic gold-medal skier Picabo Street says she called police to help her with her father in December, not arrest her, and she's glad that prosecutors are dropping domestic violence charges against her.

Street made the comments in a statement released by her attorney Joe Wrona on Friday.

Street was facing misdemeanor charges after prosecutors say she threw her 76-year-old father down the stairs and locked him in the basement during a fight at her home near Park City.

Prosecutors said in court documents filed Thursday that the matter shouldn't be handled in court but sent to the state office that investigates abuse of vulnerable adults.

Wrona says prosecutors dropped the charges after statements from the skier's mother and father made it clear she was acting in self-defense.

Prosecutor Ivy Telles did not return a message seeking comment.

___

9:25 a.m.

Utah prosecutors are moving to drop domestic violence charges against Olympic gold-medal skier Picabo Street.

Street was facing misdemeanor charges after prosecutors say she threw her 76-year-old father down the stairs and locked him in the basement during a fight at her home near Park City. Her lawyer says she was defending herself during the Dec. 23 incident.

Prosecutors say in court documents filed Thursday that the matter shouldn't be handled in court but sent to the state office that investigates abuse of vulnerable adults. A judge hasn't yet approved the move.

Messages seeking more detail from Street's attorney, prosecutor Ivy Telles and the Utah Division of Aging and Adult Services weren't returned Friday.
Father of Arizona boy taken off plane over allergies dies

PHOENIX (AP)  A terminally ill Arizona man has died after his family's removal last month from a plane made headlines when passengers were accused of applauding.

George Alvarado died Thursday at a hospice facility after battling esophageal cancer, his wife, Christina Fabian of suburban Phoenix, said Friday.

Alvarado, Fabian and their 7-year-old son, Giovanni, visited Washington state last month as part of a bucket-list wish for Alvarado.

The family was on a flight in Bellingham bound for the Phoenix area when the boy had an allergic reaction to dogs on board. The family initially tried new seats but airline officials said an on-call doctor recommended they get off the plane.

Fabian said the family had no issue with being removed but did object to several passengers vigorously cheering and clapping when they left. According to Fabian, Giovanni became extremely upset.

"If we needed to get off, that's fine," Fabian said. "But the disgusting behavior of the adult passengers, you just don't expect that from adults at all."
Illinois prosecutor: Man couldn't have slain girl in 1957

CHICAGO (AP)  A man convicted in the 1957 abduction and slaying of a 7-year-old girl in northern Illinois couldn't have committed the crime, a prosecutor said Friday, marking a stunning turnaround in one of the oldest unsolved crimes in American history to make it to trial.

DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack said his court-ordered, six-month review of the case included new evidence that firmed up an alibi for Jack McCullough, who was initially cleared by investigators but then charged in 2011.

Schmack said evidence convinced him it was a "manifest impossibility" that McCullough could have been anywhere nearby when Maria Ridulph vanished on Dec. 3, 1957, while she was playing outside in the snow near her home in the small community of Sycamore.

DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack looks through pages of documents included as exhibits to support his vacating the conviction response to Jack McCullough's post conviction filings in his conference room at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore, Ill., Friday, March 25, 2016. Jack D. McCullough was convicted of the 1957 murder of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph in September of 2012. McCullough will appear in court on Tuesday, March 29. (Danielle Guerra/Daily Chronicle via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT; CHICAGO TRIBUNE OUT

The girl was choked and stabbed to death in an alley, and her body was found months later, dumped in woods more than 100 miles away. The slaying remained a mystery for decades.

McCullough, now 76, was a neighbor at the time of the killing. He had long ago been cleared by authorities before a renewed effort was launched to solve the case. He was found guilty in 2012, and sentenced to life in prison.

Schmack said in a court filing that he joined in the defendant's motion to set aside the guilty verdict. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

New evidence included recently subpoenaed phone records that proved McCullough made a collect call to his parents from a phone booth in the lobby of the Post Office in downtown Rockford, Illinois, about 35 miles from Sycamore, just minutes after the abduction took place.

That had always been McCullough's professed alibi, though the precise location of the phone had previously come under doubt.

Testimony that the abduction had taken place earlier was also discredited, Schmack said, meaning there was no possibility McCullough could have committed the crime and driven to Rockford in time to place that call.

"I know there are people who will never believe that he is not responsible for the crime," said Schmack, whose own family has lived for 30 years in the small Sycamore neighborhood where the crime occurred. "But I cannot allow that to sway me from my sworn duty."

His findings, he said, also cast doubt on the fairness of a photo array that authorities prepared for a witness who identified McCullough as the suspect a half-century later.

Schmack was not the state's attorney who prosecuted the case; he was elected around the time of the trial's conclusion. His office was ordered to conduct the review as part of a push by McCullough's attorney for a new trial.

"We're very pleased," said McCullough's attorney, public defender Tom McCulloch.

Their appeal will be back in court on Tuesday, and McCulloch is hopeful his client could be released soon.

"Given this filing, hopefully this comes to a rapid and favorable conclusion," he said.

But Maria's sister remains convinced that McCullough is guilty.

"It's all very upsetting for us," said Patricia Quinn of El Paso, Illinois, her voice cracking with emotion. "We're just trusting in what the judge will do Tuesday at the hearing."

McCullough's conviction had put to rest some of the decades of anguish endured by Maria's family and friends.

At his sentencing in 2012, McCullough turned to them in the courtroom and proclaimed his innocence.

"I did not, did not, kill Maria Ridulph," said the silver-haired McCullough, who grew up in Sycamore and was 17 when Maria died. "It was a crime I did not, would not, could not have done."

FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2016 file photo, convicted murderer Jack McCullough walks into the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore, Ill., to request post-conviction relief. McCullough is serving a life sentence after being sentenced in 2012 for the 1957 death of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph of Sycamore. On Friday, March 25, 2016, DeKalb County State's Attorney Richard Schmack says his review of evidence has convinced him that McCullough could not have committed the crime. His six-month court-ordered review was prompted by McCullough's push for a new trial. (Danielle Guerra/Daily Chronicle via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT; CHICAGO TRIBUNE OUT
Spieth, McIlroy, Day advance to weekend in Match Play

AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Jordan Spieth had water on his left and a solid wall of fans on his right on his way to another comfortable victory in the Dell Match Play.

The former Longhorn gave the Texas fans what they wanted.

And when the wild round-robin session ended Friday, they got much more than that.

Jordan Spieth reacts after missing a putt on the sixth green during round-robin play against Justin Thomas at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

For the first time in 10 years, the top three players in the world made it to the round of 16. The only difference is how they got there.

Jason Day only had to play six holes. The No. 2 player in the world, just two days removed from his back seizing up on him, was all square through six holes when Paul Casey withdrew because of a stomach illness. Day was in good shape to win his group, anyway, but a short day was just what he needed.

Rory McIlroy, No. 3 in the world and the defending champion, had to work overtime. He struggled to the end with Kevin Na, and when their match ended in a halve, both were 2-0-1 and went to a sudden-death playoff to see who advanced. McIlroy outlasted him with a par on the second extra hole.

Spieth had no trouble at all.

For the third straight round, he was 3 up early in the match and never gave Justin Thomas much of a chance. He hit a few loose shots along the back nine, though he never lost control. That's what made the walk along the Colorado River so enjoyable.

"It's awesome," Spieth said. "I'd really like to play into the weekend, into Sunday afternoon, and keep feeding off this crowd."

But it didn't take long for reality to set in.

Spieth returns Saturday morning to face Louis Oosthuizen, the only player to reach the round of 16 each of the last three years. Oosthuizen won all three of his matches, beating Andy Sullivan of England on Friday, to win his group. And then he was asked about going against Spieth, No. 1 in the world.

"I think it's going to be about 10-15,000 people," Oosthuizen said with that gap-tooth smile.

Oosthuizen and Spieth were among six players who went 3-0 in group play.

The most impressive was Zach Johnson, who finally played the last three holes at Austin Country Club, but only for practice. None of his matches went beyond No. 15. Spieth and Patrick Reed are the only players who have never trailed in any match.

Reed had an easy time with Phil Mickelson, and when he holed out from the 10th fairway, he was 7 up through eight holes to play. Mickelson did well to make the match last until the 14th hole. Reed moves on to play Dustin Johnson, who had to go extra holes to get by Kiradech Aphibarnrat.

McIlroy and Johnson were among four players who had to go extra holes to win the group and advance to the knockout stage. McIlroy, however, was the only player who went into a playoff against the player he faced at the start of the day.

Johnson won his match against Jimmy Walker, and Aphibarnrat beat Robert Streb.

Byeong-Hun An missed an opportunity to win his group when he lost the 18th hole to Rickie Fowler. That sent him into a playoff with Scott Piercy, who won the 18th hole to beat Jason Dufner. The fortunes turned quickly. An won the playoff on the first hole with a 4-foot birdie.

The most peculiar was Chris Kirk and Branden Grace, who each easily won their matches to finish group play at 2-1-0. There were no tie-breakers this year, which was good for Grace because he lost to Kirk in the opening round. Instead of going back out for the playoff after their matches ended, they had to wait nearly three hours to play one hole. Grace went from a fairway bunker over the green, made bogey and was out.

Nine players who went 2-1-0 in group play were out. Two players who won just one match  An and Patton Kizzire  are still alive.

Kizzire is the most intriguing. Just two weeks ago, he was on edge about whether he would qualify for the 64-man field. In his opening match, he made a 10-foot birdie putt to earn a half-point against Bubba Watson. The next day, he was 4 down with six holes to play and birdied the last hole to halve with J.B. Holmes. Those two halves proved crucial, for when Holmes beat Watson on the 18th hole, that meant Kizzire only had to beat Emiliano Grillo to advance.

He went eagle-birdie-birdie for a 2-up win.

"I've been feeling like I've won those matches," Kizzire said. "Today was huge."

He now faces Ryan Moore in a round of 16 loaded with familiar faces for Kizzire, a PGA Tour rookie. The 11 Americans who reached the round of 16 are the most since 12 in 2002 at La Costa. Then again, the names of the players or the flags under which they play are becoming irrelevant.

"It only gets harder from here," Reed said. "The guys who make it to the weekend are the guys playing the best right now."

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland watches his shot on the second hole during round-robin play against Kevin Na at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Kevin Na watches his tee shot on the third hole during round-robin play against Rory McIlroy at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland hits his tee shot on the second hole during round-robin play against Kevin Na at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Jason Day, of Australia, watches his tee shot on the third hole during round-robin play against Paul Casey at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Adam Scott waves to the gallery after saving par on the first hole during round-robin play against Bill Haas at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Jason Day, of Australia, hits his tee shot on the 14th hole as a boat passes on Lake Austin during round-robin play against Thongchai Jaidee at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Thursday, March 24, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Jordan Spieth hits his tee shot on the eighth hole during round-robin play against Jamie Donaldson at the Dell Match Play Championship golf tournament at Austin County Club, Friday, March 25, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Wisconsin man sentenced to 3 years for threatening Obama

MADISON, Wis. (AP)  A judge has sentenced a Wisconsin man to prison for making threats against President Barack Obama last summer.

U.S. District Judge William Conley sentenced Brian Dutcher on Friday to three years in prison and three years on supervised release.

The 55-year-old Tomah man was accused of writing a Facebook comment in June 2015 saying he would be in La Crosse to fulfill his constitutional duty of assassinating Obama during the president's July 2 visit to the western Wisconsin city. He also told a La Crosse Public Library security guard on July 1 that he was in town to shoot Obama the next day.

A federal jury convicted Dutcher of making threats against the president in January.
Ringo Starr's old Liverpool home drums up plenty of interest

Ringo Starr's old Liverpool home beat its asking price to sell for 70,000 at an auction on Thursday night.

The modest Victorian mid-terrace is where the boyhood Beatle moved with his mother Elsie Starkey at the time his parents separated in 1943, when he was aged three.

Starr learned to play drums in the two-up, two-down terrace at 10 Admiral Grove in the Toxteth area of inner-city Liverpool.

10 Admiral Grove, Ringo Starr's old Liverpool home, has been sold at auction (Plus Dane/PA Wire)

Starr, then plain old Richard Starkey, was born at nearby 9 Madryn Street but lived most of his childhood and formative years at the Admiral Grove property, celebrating his 21st birthday party there and getting married from the property, with his home becoming a regular haunt for the Fab Four before finding fame and fortune.

Starr paid homage to his home in his 2008 song Liverpool 8, and The Empress pub at the end of Admiral Grove appeared on the front of Ringo's first solo album, Sentimental Journey.

The house, which had a guide price of 55,000, is owned by a housing association, Plus Dane, who say proceeds will be ploughed back into housing in the local area.

Claire Griffiths, Plus Dane's executive director of property, said: "From the community's point of view, it's good to see that the forthcoming auction is attracting so much interest because we've promised that any profits we make from the sale of Ringo Starr's childhood home will be reinvested back into Plus Dane homes in the L8 area.

"We have taken on board the concerns of local residents and have put specific restrictions on the sale of the house so it cannot become a tourist attraction or museum."

The old homes of three of the other band members have gone up for auction in recent years.

Last year, Sir Paul McCartney's childhood home at 72 Western Avenue, Speke, sold in six minutes to a local mystery buyer for 150,000.

In October 2013, John Lennon's childhood home at 9 Newcastle Road in Wavertree sold at auction for 480,000, and in October 2014 George Harrison's former home, 26 Upton Green, in Speke, sold for 156,000.

Tony Webber, auction surveyor, Countrywide Property Auctions, said: "There has already been a great deal of interest in this property from potential buyers in the UK and internationally and it is a privilege to be dealing with such an iconic piece of Liverpool and the Beatles' history.

"It is a truly unique property and you can sense the excitement building on the lead up to auction night."

Part of the official Beatles Tour, the property still attracts fans daily.
Online abuse having a 'devastating impact on teachers' and pupils' lives'

Children as young as seven have been caught sexting by their teachers, with more than half of all school staff in the UK aware of pupils using social media to share sexual messages, pictures and videos.

A study by the NASUWT union also found half its members discovered negative or abusive comments about them on social media - including posting doctored images to make them look like Islamic State ringleader Jihadi John, being falsely called a paedophile, and receiving rape threats.

Almost one-third (31%) saw a photo or video of them taken without consent, while almost one-tenth (9%) experienced threatening behaviour.

More than half of all school staff in the UK reported being aware of pupils using social media to share sexual messages, pictures and videos

The survey also revealed pupils used Facebook to get in contact with 60% of NASUWT members, while 15% used Twitter to send them a message.

One-third of teachers said they did not report the personal abuse, with half of them saying they feared nothing could be done.

Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said: "Over the three years the NASUWT has been running this survey the situation has deteriorated.

"Online abuse has a devastating impact on teachers' and pupils' lives and yet no serious action is taken by Government to ensure that schools are responding appropriately to this abuse.

"There are still too many cases where no appropriate action is taken when abuse is reported to headteachers, the police or the social networks themselves.

"The level of abuse that teachers are suffering at the hands of parents online is simply unacceptable. How can pupils be expected to use social media sensibly and safely when parents are using it inappropriately?

"Online abuse is traumatic and potentially life changing. Victims need strong support through a zero-tolerance approach."

Just over half of all teachers quizzed said they were aware of pupils using social media to send insulting or bullying messages of a sexist nature to other students, while 53% were aware of messages of a homophobic nature and half of teachers were aware of racist messages.

Some 63% of teachers said they were aware of 14-year-olds sexting, while 45% said those involved were aged 13.

A handful of teachers said seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds were all involved.

Examples of offensive comments from pupils, and parents, shared online include:

:: A fake Twitter account set up by pupils describing the teacher as a wife beater

:: A song posted by pupils which suggested their teacher had an affair at school

:: A Facebook group set up by pupils specifically to mock the teacher's appearance

:: Multiple threats from parents to "knock out" or "sort out" the teacher

:: A comment that the teacher was "unsuitable to work with children and deserved the sack", engaging in a campaign with other parents to try to make it happen.

The Department for Education said: "Young people and teachers should be able to take advantage of the vast potential that the internet and social media offers to their lives and education. But they also have a right to feel safe.

"We want to make sure young people are aware of the risks and dangers - including sending inappropriate images. That's why schools should deliver high quality PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) which is an important opportunity to teach young people about how to stay safe and avoid risks.

"To support schools to do that we have funded and produced a range of guidance and support on issues ranging from consent to internet safety. The law is also crystal clear that where teachers find indecent images of children they must report this to the police.

"No teacher should be subjected to abuse or threatened online. Where teachers are, we would urge them to report it to the relevant authority so the appropriate action can be taken."

An NSPCC spokesman said: "It is very worrying that so many children are sharing explicit images of themselves.

"Many young people see this activity as part of everyday life, despite the severe risks involved. When something goes wrong, the consequences can be devastating.

"Apart from exposing them to bullying when images are shared, it could make children targets for sex offenders in some cases."
Slaven Bilic to get new West Ham deal once he proves he's no 'one-season wonder'

West Ham are planning to reward manager Slaven Bilic with a new contract - but want to make sure he is not a "one-season wonder" first.

Bilic has enjoyed an impressive first campaign in charge after taking over at Upton Park last June, guiding the Hammers to fifth place in the Premier League with eight games to go and through to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

The former Croatia boss, 47, signed a three-year contract when he joined the Hammers but is set to be handed a new deal in 2017 - providing he proves this season was not just a flash in the pan.

Slaven Bilic has had an impressive first season at West Ham

West Ham joint-chairman David Sullivan said in the Mirror: "I will give Slaven a new deal in January.

"I just want to see that he is not a one-season wonder. I'm sure he is not, but we will talk next January - or at the end of next season.

"I have to tell you that he is interested in the project, not money.
Vigil for shopkeeper killed in 'religiously prejudiced' attack

Hundreds of people have gathered for a silent vigil to honour a respected shopkeeper killed in what police are treating as a "religiously prejudiced" attack.

Asad Shah, 40, was found seriously injured outside his shop in Minard Road in the Shawlands area of Glasgow on Thursday night.

He was taken to the city's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.

Floral tributes left to shopkeeper Asad Shah, who died after an attack outside his shop in Glasgow's southside

A 32-year-old man has been arrested in connection with his death.

Police Scotland said: "A full investigation is under way to establish the full circumstances surrounding the death which is being treated as religiously prejudiced."

Both Mr Shah and the arrested man were Muslims, officers have confirmed.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined an estimated crowd of 400-500 people on Friday evening for the vigil to show solidarity and remember Mr Shah.

Ms Sturgeon, whose constituency covers the area, tweeted afterwards: "Moved to be one of hundreds tonight as Shawlands united in grief for Asad Shah and support for his family."

Those attending were encouraged to bring a daffodil. Many laid flowers and lit candles during the gathering.

One of the vigil organisers, Eildon Dyer, said: "It was very respectful. There were a lot of people clearly very upset. There were a lot of tears and lots and lots of flowers.

"Everybody has said he was the nicest man. He was clearly much-loved. Everybody had nice stories to tell about him and warm stories. It's just very, very sad."

Ms Dyer, 58, who helped to organise the event on social media with Nisreen Sharif, 56, said: "Both of us have lived in this area for a long time and immediately this became known it was obvious the effect it was having on people.

"We felt the potential for something like this could be to divide a community and really what we wanted to show was a community standing together, which is in fact what happened because there were people from all different backgrounds who were there.

"As well as being a good tribute to Mr Shah I would say it was a good symbol of the community coming together."

Also at the gathering were Scottish Government minister Humza Yousaf and Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety.

Mr McAveety tweeted: "Emotional vigil outside Mr Shah's shop as the community pay their respect #thisisnotwhoweare"

Mr Yousaf said on Twitter: "When our city is hurting the people of Glasgow wrap their arms round each other. Proud of Glasgow tonight x"

Residents in the area have described Mr Shah as a "pillar of the community".

An online posting on Thursday, apparently from Mr Shah's Facebook account, stated: "Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation x!"

Earlier on Friday, people arrived at the police cordon surrounding the shop - Shah's Newsagent and Convenience Store - to lay tributes.

Isabella Graham, 64, said Mr Shah employed her daughter at the shop when she was younger and she cried when she called her to tell her the news.

She said: "He was an amazing, wonderful man, he couldn't do enough for you.

"He wouldn't hurt anybody. Nobody in Shawlands would have a bad word to say about him. I can't believe he's gone."

Mrs Graham, who placed flowers at the scene with her granddaughter, said Mr Shah's family had run the shop for as long as she had lived there, for more than 16 years.

One card left at the cordon read: "Thank you for being the nicest guy on the planet."

Another read: "A good man, much loved and a pillar of the community. You'll be sorely missed."

The Rev Val Duff, minister of Shawlands linked with South Shawlands Parish Church, said: "Like many people I am deeply saddened to hear of Asad Shah's death. He was obviously a deeply loved man in our community."

Police found Mr Shah seriously injured after they were called to Minard Road at 9.05pm on Thursday.
Briton confirmed dead after Brussels terror attacks

A British man has been confirmed dead following the terror attacks in Brussels.

The family of David Dixon, 50, who was originally from Hartlepool but was living in the Belgian capital, said they had received "the most terrible and devastating news".

At least 32 people were killed and 270 injured when suicide bombs ripped through the airport and a Metro station on Tuesday morning.

David Dixon died in the Brussels attacks

A statement issued by the Foreign Office on behalf of Mr Dixon's family said: "This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David. At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private. Please respect our wishes."

The Foreign Office said officials know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks, with three still being treated in hospital.

Mr Dixon, an IT programmer, had been missing since the Metro blast, and his family previously said they were "anxiously waiting" and hoping for "good news" about him.

It was reported that Mr Dixon's aunt had texted him following the airport explosions and had received a message back from him saying he was safe.

But it is thought he then got on the Metro to go to work and got caught up in the attack.

Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "I am deeply saddened to hear David Dixon was killed in the Brussels attacks. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family."

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was saddened by the "dreadful news".

Police have raided Brussels neighbourhoods in an operation the mayor said was linked to Tuesday's attacks and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.

Three people were detained, with two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutor's office said.

The operation was conducted in the Schaerbeek district, which was raided on Thursday night, as well as the neighbourhoods of Forest and Saint-Gilles.

Belgium's state broadcaster said one person was carrying a bag of explosive material.

Prime Minister Charles Michel skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at the Brussels airport with US secretary of state John Kerry because of the police operation.

Prosecutors said three of six people detained on Thursday in the investigation have been released.

Three terrorists died in Tuesday's explosions and a massive manhunt was launched to track down other suspects believed to be behind the blasts.

Belgian security services were hunting two men pictured with the suicide bombers shortly before the attacks and believed to be on the run.

One of the men was caught on CCTV carrying a large bag and walking with jihadist Khalid El Bakraoui moments before the bomb detonated, according to state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde newspaper.

Another of the suspected killers, dubbed "the man in white", was pictured pushing a trolley through Zaventem Airport with Najim Laachraoui and Khalid's brother Ibrahim before they blew themselves up.

Meanwhile, a US official said at least two American citizens were killed in the attacks.

The news came as Mr Kerry was visiting Brussels to express his condolences to the Belgian people.

Authorities announced that Chinese, French, and Dutch citizens were also among the dead.

German prosecutors said they are investigating whether a Moroccan man detained in central Germany has any connection to the Brussels attacks.

Prosecutors in Giessen said the 28-year-old was picked up early on Thursday because he did not have valid ID. They said they found documents indicating that he had been in the Brussels area recently and seized a mobile phone that they are now evaluating.

They said officials established that he had previously entered Germany under various aliases and sought asylum, and that he is known to police in Italy.

Der Spiegel magazine and two public broadcasters are saying the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the Brussels attacks.

Meanwhile, US defence secretary Ash Carter said US forces have killed a senior Islamic State leader, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week.

He identified the senior IS leader as Haji Imam and described him as the group's finance minister. He said he was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terror plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

He did not say whether the IS finance leader was killed in Syria or Iraq.

Mr Hammond tweeted: "Another step closer to defeating #Daesh with the death of Haji Imam. #CoalitionProgress continues."

A Belgian official has said the top suspect in the November attacks in Paris, Salah Abdeslam, has stopped cooperating with police since Tuesday's Brussels bombings.

Justice Minister Koen Geens said Abdeslam "no longer wants to talk".

Federal prosecutors also said the suspect "refused to make the slightest comment" when questioned just after the Brussels attacks.

Abdeslam was arrested in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek on March 18, just four days before the bombings at the airport and subway.

France is seeking his extradition, which his lawyer initially challenged, saying his client could have valuable information for investigators, but Abdeslam has changed his mind since the Brussels attacks and is prepared to go.

Meanwhile, Belgian federal prosecutors have said DNA analysis and an official investigation have confirmed that one of the suicide bombers at the airport was Najim Laachraoui.

They said the 24-year-old is also the suspected bombmaker whose DNA was found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Paris attacks.

A German official has said there is no concrete evidence that a man arrested in Duesseldorf following the Brussels attacks has current links to Islamic extremists in Brussels or Paris.
Dozens make Holy Island pilgrimage

Dozens of people from across the UK have completed an annual pilgrimage to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne on Good Friday.

Starting earlier this week, some groups walked more than 100 miles - leaving from different points of the country including Lanark, Carlisle, and Bellingham - to reach the island off the Northumberland coast.

Each group carried a large wooden cross on their journey to the island which was once home to St Cuthbert and where the world famous Lindisfarne Gospels were created.

Pilgrims carry a cross on the final leg of the Northern Cross pilgrimage to Holy Island

A monastery was founded on Lindisfarne in 635 by King Oswald but was attacked in 793 by the Vikings in their first major raid on the British Isles.

Pilgrims usually complete the final part of the journey over the causeway to Lindisfarne bare foot but the cold water was too much for some this year.

Once on the island the wooden crosses are decorated as part of Easter celebrations.

The Northern Cross pilgrimage started 40 years ago with a group walking from Penrith to the Holy Island.

Coordinator Ellie Feline said: "It might often be thought pilgrimage is a historic activity, yet Christian pilgrimage is very much alive, demonstrated yearly by the five million people who go to Lourdes, or the 200,000 who walk the Camino di Santiago.

"Northern Cross is another example of this. A combination of walking holiday and retreat - on pilgrimage we are removed from many trappings of modern living, and just require whatever can be carried in a small bag.

"It's a chance to mirror life, to step back and look to see what is really important."

Dozens of people from across the UK completed the annual pilgrimage to Lindisfarne on Good Friday

Starting earlier this week, some groups walked more than 100 miles, leaving from different points of the country including Lanark, Carlisle, and Bellingham

Each group carried a large wooden cross on their journey to the island

A pilgrim during the final leg of the Northern Cross pilgrimage to Holy Island

Once on the island, the wooden crosses are decorated as part of Easter celebrations
Roger Federer pulls out of Miami Open

Roger Federer has pulled out of the Miami Open due to a stomach virus.

Federer had been due to play Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro on Friday in what would have been the Swiss' first tournament appearance since injuring his left knee following his Australian Open defeat to Novak Djokovic in January.

According to ESPN, 17-time grand slam winner Federer said in a statement on Friday: "I am very sorry that I have to pull out of the Miami Open with a stomach virus.

Roger Federer had been scheduled to make his comeback appearance on Friday at the Miami Open

"I feel bad for the tournament and the fans as I have rarely ever had to withdraw at such short notice.

"I have not felt great for a few days, and unfortunately it got worse in the last 24 hours. I was really excited to have my comeback in Miami but I am in no condition to play. I tried to warm up this morning, but it was clear that I could not compete."

The 34-year-old has been replaced by lucky loser Horacio Zeballos, Del Potro's compatriot, in the Miami Open draw.
The Independent's final print edition sent to press

The final print edition of The Independent has been sent to press, as the title moves to a digital-only format.

The paper's last front page features an exclusive story about a British connection in a plot to kill a Saudi King and a striking image of train passengers being evacuated during an anti-terrorism operation in Brussels.

Inside the paper, which was founded in 1986 under the slogan "It is. Are you?", four special edition magazines look back at its history.

The front page of the final print edition of The Independent

Journalists for the daily paper posted photos of their final hours working on the print edition and showed editor Amol Rajan giving a speech to a crowded newsroom after it was sent to press for the last time.

Owners Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev announced last month that The Independent and The Independent on Sunday would drop their print versions.

Earlier Mr Rajan tweeted a preview of two readers' letters which feature in the last edition.

One, signed by Guy and Caroline Carmichael, from London, told how the pair met and fell in love through the newspaper.

It reads: "While you may disappear in paper form, one edition will live for ever in our hearts: 20 November 1993.

"We found each other through your original Independent Hearts column, and were married in 1995. Thank you."

The second, from J Samuel, from Reading said: "It is difficult to understand how The Independent, which took such a principled stand against Britain's illegal invasion of Iraq, will be out of print before the inquiry into that invasion goes into print."

The Independent was launched by a group of journalists led by Andreas Whittam Smith in 1986. It enjoyed initial success rising to a circulation passing 400,000 by 1988, and claimed it was free from proprietorial influence.

The Independent On Sunday launched in 1990, with Stephen Glover as editor. The final Sunday edition was published last week.

They are part of the group owned by the Lebedev family, who have other media assets including the Evening Standard and local TV station London Live.

Current paid circulation at the daily title is just over 40,000 while its Sunday sister sells just under 43,000 copies.

The i, bought by Johnston Press for around 24 million in February, has a circulation of 275,000 and reported profits of 5.2 million last year.

The newspaper's final editorial said "history will judge" its "bold transition" to online media as "an example for other newspapers around the world to follow".

It concludes: "Today the presses have stopped, the ink is dry and the paper will soon crinkle no more. But as one chapter closes, another opens, and the spirit of The Independent will flourish still.

"Our work goes on, our mission endures, the war still rages, and the dream of our founders shall never die."

In a letter published in the final edition, publisher Evgeny Lebedev defended The Independent's move online saying journalism had "changed beyond recognition" and the newspaper "must change too".

And he extended his thanks to the paper's "most important allies" - its readers.

He said: "I know that today will be the last time you hear this newspaper crash through your letterbox; the last time you swap a smile and a few coins with the man in the corner shop and walk out with our daily bread under your arm.
Egypt says murdered Italian student's bag found with gang

By Amina Ismail

CAIRO, March 24 (Reuters) - Egypt's Interior Ministry said on Thursday that security forces had retrieved a bag and passport belonging to murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni that was in the possession of a criminal gang impersonating policemen who had been killed in a shootout.

Human rights groups have said torture marks on Regeni's body, which was dumped on the side of the road, indicated he died at the hands of Egyptian security services, an allegation the government has strongly denied.

Regeni, 28, disappeared on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

He had written articles critical of the Egyptian government, the Italian newspaper that published them said.

The Interior Ministry said security forces had targeted the criminal gang which had Regeni's bag and that it had "specialized in impersonating police officers, kidnapping foreigners and forcibly robbing them".

It said that a red handbag bearing the Italian flag was found, and inside it was Regeni's passport and other items such as a visa card two cell phones and a "feminine wallet" with the word love on it and a dark substance resembling hashish.

"A highly skilled investigation team was formed to uncover the mystery of several reported forced robberies and incidents of impersonating police officers," said the ministry in a statement.

The ministry named what it identified as four ring leaders of the gang; Tarek Saad Abd El-Fatah, 52, described as a dangerous offender guilty of fraud and other offences, and his son Saad Tarek Saad, 26.

Also mentioned were Mustafa Bakr Awad, 60, charged with fraud and 20 varied offences, and Salah Ali Sayed, 40, who the ministry said had committed similar crimes.

The ministry said the gang had robbed several Egyptians, as well as a Nigerian identified as Rasheed G. and a Portuguese man named Carlos M., as well as David K., an Italian.

Italian security officials had been notified of the investigation, said the ministry, which said it "deeply appreciates" Rome's "close cooperation".

The broken corpse of the Cambridge University student, who was researching the rise of independent labour unions following the 2011 revolt, was found in a ditch at the side of a motorway on Feb. 3.

Egyptian forensics and prosecution officials have said his body showed signs of torture and that he was killed by a blow with a sharp object to the back of the head.

The case has put a spotlight on alleged police brutality in Egypt, a strategic ally of the United State and other Western powers.

Shopkeepers in Regeni's neighborhood of Cairo said there were no signs that police in the area had been questioning people since his disappearance or death.

Rights groups accuse the police of widespread abuses against Egyptians since the army toppled Egypt's first freely elected president in 2013.

Italy has said Egyptian investigators should hand over the evidence they have uncovered on Regeni's death. Egypt invited Italian investigators to take part in the investigation, but judicial sources in Rome say the collaboration has been limited because not enough information was shared.

An Egyptian forensics official has told the public prosecutor's office the autopsy he conducted on an Italian student showed he was interrogated for up to seven days before he was killed, two prosecution sources had told Reuters.

The findings were the strongest indication yet that Giulio Regeni was killed by Egyptian security services because they point to interrogation methods such as burning with cigarettes in intervals over several days, which human rights groups say are the hallmark of the security services.

Interior Ministry spokesmen declined comment on this matter.
PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - March 25

SOFIA, March 25 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- Bulgarian Army troops began a joint training exercise with border police units at Ilinden crossing at the country's border with Greece, the defence ministry said. The exercise, involving about 40 troops and military police, is part of Bulgaria's efforts to adequately respond to a potential increase in migration flow after the closure of the Western Balkans route (Trud, Standart, Monitor)

-- Sofia municipality said it will spend 81.5 million euros ($91.01 million) to buy 190 new buses by the end of 2018 in an attempt to improve air quality in the Balkan country's capital (Trud, Standart)

-- Bulgarian customs officials have busted an international cocaine trafficking ring, the customs agency said. Two Bulgarians and two Russian were detained during an operation on the territory of capital Sofia (Monitor, Telegraf)

-- Bulgarian parliament adopted on second reading changes to tobacco legislation banning the sale of tobacco with specific flavour and aroma qualities (Trud, Monitor)
Beijing not keen as Panama invites Taiwan, China leaders

By Ben Blanchard and J.R. Wu

BEIJING/TAIPEI, March 25 (Reuters) - China reacted frostily on Friday after Taiwan ally Panama said it had invited leaders from both China and self-ruled Taiwan to attend the inauguration of the expansion of the Panama Canal in late June, in what would be an awkward diplomatic encounter.

Panama is one of just 22 allies which maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as a wayward province and says it has no right to have diplomatic relations with anyone.

Both China and Taiwan were invited because "this is the inauguration of the expanded canal. China, as an important user, needs to attend", Panama's foreign ministry said.

The strategic waterway is one of the world's busiest maritime routes and China is its second-biggest user.

Asked whether Chinese President Xi Jinping would be going and if he might meet Taiwan's president-elect Tsai Ing-wen, who assumes office in May after a landslide election victory in January, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei would not answer directly.

"What I want to point out is that China has always had the one China principle as a fundamental precondition for handling and developing relations with countries around the world," Hong told a daily news briefing, without elaborating.

Beijing has repeatedly warned against any moves towards independence after wins by Tsai and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in presidential and parliamentary elections.

Tsai has said she would maintain peace with China, and Chinese state-run media have also noted her pledges to maintain the "status quo" with China.

In Taipei, Tsai met Panama's ambassador to Taiwan Alfredo Martiz, who extended the invitation on behalf of Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, DPP spokesman Ruan Chao-hsiung told reporters.

He said Tsai told Martiz that despite the canal ceremony taking place only a month after her May 20 inauguration, she would give it "priority consideration".

Ruan declined to comment when asked whether Tsai might meet Xi if he were also there.

The invitation comes as an unofficial diplomatic truce between the two sides ended earlier this month when China resumed ties with Taiwan's former African ally Gambia.

The truce had existed since the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan president in 2008, ushering in a series of landmark trade and business deals.

Ma met Xi in a breakthrough summit last year in Singapore.

Panama is one of Taiwan's oldest diplomatic allies, but diplomats in Beijing have told Reuters they believe Panama is the most likely Central American nation to next ditch Taiwan.
PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - March 25

MOSCOW, March 25 (Reuters) - The following are some of the leading stories in Russia's newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

VEDOMOSTI

www.vedomosti.ru

- Major European banks, including BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and UBS, have refused to place Russian state bonds, the paper says.

- Vietnamese company TH Group plans to launch milk production and a hothouse complex in the Kaluga region in 2019, the paper reports.

KOMMERSANT

www.kommersant.ru

- Talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were held in an unprecedentedly friendly atmosphere, the paper writes.

- Only 4 percent Russians believe the economic crisis will end in 2017, the paper writes citing a recent poll by the Public Opinion Foundation.

- The paper runs an interview with the deputy head of the company building the new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, who says this object has nothing in common technologically with Baikonur or the Guiana Space Centre.

RBK

www.rbcdaily.ru

- The Russian prison service plans to build a new prison outside Moscow hoping to ease the burden on Moscow detention centres, the paper writes.

ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA

www.rg.ru

- Russian President Vladimir Putin may visit China this June, the paper writes citing the head of the Kremlin administration, Sergei Ivanov.

- The daily runs an interview with Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev who says the Russian economy has benefited from Western sanctions.

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA

www.ng.ru
Congo police fire teargas, make arrests at opposition meeting

By Roch Bouka

BRAZZAVILLE, March 25 (Reuters) - Police in Congo Republic fired teargas at opposition supporters and arrested around 10 of them on Friday ahead of a planned news conference by opposition candidates who say last weekend's presidential election was won fraudulently.

President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled the Central African oil producer for 32 of the last 37 years, won re-election in Sunday's poll with 60 percent of the vote, according to official results announced on Thursday.

Early on Friday, around 100 police officers were positioned outside of the headquarters of the opposition UPADS party in the capital Brazzaville's Diata neighbourhood, where a coalition of five candidates was expected to announce their own poll results.

A Reuters witness saw police fire at least two teargas canisters at the crowd that had gathered there and force about 10 opposition supporters into vehicles.

An opposition representative told Reuters the scheduled news conference had been cancelled.

The government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

On Wednesday, the opposition coalition denounced alleged fraud during the polls. It said that its own results showed Sassou Nguesso headed for defeat and promised to make public its own vote tallies.

Retired general Jean-Marie Mokoko, a former army chief turned opposition figure who finished third in the election, called for a campaign of civil disobedience on Thursday, potentially setting the stage for protests.

In a statement late on Thursday, the U.S. State Department advised all parties to remain calm and asked that any challenges to the results be made in compliance with Congolese law.

"The United States remains concerned about the transparency and credibility of the electoral process, including reports of irregularities, and the prolonged communications blackout," it said.

The government cut telephone and Internet communications ahead of the vote, a measure it said aimed to prevent unofficial election results circulating and causing unrest. Services were only restored on Thursday.

Congo's constitution was changed by referendum last year, lifting term and age limits that would have excluded Sassou Nguesso from running for another term in office.

At least 18 people were killed by security forces during opposition demonstrations ahead of the October referendum.

Congo's election has been watched closely across Africa, where several long-ruling presidents are trying to remove constitutionally mandated term limits so that they can stay in power.
Afghan gunmen kidnap two Tajiks - sources

DUSHANBE, March 25 (Reuters) - Gunmen from Afghanistan have kidnapped two Tajik road workers and wounded another one on Friday in an area adjacent to the border, Tajik government sources told Reuters.

A source in the regional government described the attackers as smugglers and said their victims had been working on a road improvement project in the Shuro-obod district near the border.

A central government source said Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon had ordered the government to take all necessary measures to ensure the release of the kidnapped men.

Tajikistan's border guard service could not be reached for comments. The impoverished former Soviet republic routinely reports incidents related to drug smugglers crossing the border.
Turkish military strikes PKK in northern Iraq, kills 24 militants

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, March 25 (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes struck Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq and killed 24 PKK fighters in southeast Turkey on Thursday, the army said, as the militants launched a car bomb attack on a military installation in the region.

Thursday night's bombing killed three security force members and wounded 24 at a security outpost near the southeast's largest city of Diyarbakir, the military said in a separate statement on Friday, confirming a report from security sources.

A Reuters witness said the installation suffered severe damage in the blast on the highway between Diyarbakir and the town of Lice. Security forces imposed tight security in the area and erected screens to conceal the site.

The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on one of its websites. It said 28 soldiers were killed and 32 were wounded in the attack. The army and PKK generally give vastly different death tolls for attacks and clashes. The figures could not be verified.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday 300 members of the security forces had been killed since the conflict flared up last year, triggering the heaviest clashes since the 1990s. Erdogan said the PKK losses were at least 10 times as high.

The pro-Kurdish opposition says hundreds of civilians have also been killed in the military operations which were stepped up in December.

A round-the-clock curfew was declared in areas of the Silvan district of Diyarbakir province on Friday, the local governor's office said. Such curfews have been imposed in the past to pave the way for operations against PKK militants.

In the latest in a series of air strikes in northern Iraq, Turkish F-16 and F-4 jets destroyed PKK ammunition depots and shelters in the Avasin and Basyan areas on Thursday afternoon, the military said.

Security forces also killed 24 PKK fighters on Thursday in the towns of Nusaybin, Sirnak and Yuksekova in southeast Turkey, near the borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, it said.
Polish minister approves tripling of logging in ancient forest

By Anna Koper and Marcin Goettig

WARSAW, March 25 (Reuters) - Poland will approve a tripling in the volume of wood to be harvested from Bialowieza Forest, the environment minister said on Friday, putting the country on a collision course with the European Union and environmentalists.

The minister's approval of increased logging from the last primeval woodland in Europe comes despite an EU warning that it could fall foul of environmental regulation and follows previous clashes over coal usage and migrants, as well as the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party's move to take greater control of the judiciary and public media.

The Bialowieza Forest is a UNESCO World Heritage site that sprawls across the border between Poland and Belarus, occupying almost 580 square miles of woodland and providing home to rare European wood bison among others.

Minister Jan Szyszko and foresters have said that more trees need to be cut down because of an infestation of the European spruce bark beetle. Environmentalists, meanwhile, say that increased logging will cause irreparable damage to the ancient forest, which attracts thousands of tourists each year.

The minister said that he will approve a proposal to increase the volume of wood to be harvested from Bialowieza to about 188,000 cubic metres from the current limit of 63,000 cubic metres for 2012-2021, which is already close to being exhausted.

"The annex will be signed today," Szyszko said, referring to the proposed increase. "The aim is to stop the degradation of habitats important to the community and to start the process of regenerating these habitats."

Environmentalist say that such a move will destroy the unique character of the forest and, though it will offer short-term gains to about 140 foresters, will ultimately hit local communities by reducing the number of tourists.

Scientists have said that Bialowieza is 8,000 years old, but Szyszko disputes their findings and told public radio last week that parts of the forest had been created by an "enterprising hand of man" on lands that centuries ago included fields of wheat and millet.

"An attempt to fight the bark beetle with a chainsaw and an axe will bring more damage than benefits," said Robert Cyglicki, the head of Greenpeace Polska.

His organisation has helped to gather more than 120,000 signatures to block the logging and he hopes that Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo will reverse Szyszko's move.
Islamic State under siege in Palmyra, militant leader killed

By Dominic Evans and Andrea Shalal

BEIRUT/WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters were on the retreat in the strategic Syrian city of Palmyra on Friday, as the United States said it likely killed several senior leaders of the militant group this week including its top finance officer.

The double blow to the hardline Islamist group in its self-declared caliphate, which covers huge areas of Syria and Iraq, came three days after Islamic State suicide bombers killed 31 people in Brussels, the worst such attack in Belgian history.

Syrian soldiers fighting to retake the desert city of Palmyra from Islamic State forces recaptured its old citadel on Friday, various media reported. The citadel overlooks some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman empire.

Many of Palmyra's temples and tombs have been dynamited by Islamic State fighters in what the United Nations described as a war crime, although television footage on Friday showed at least some colonnades and structures still standing.

The recapture of Palmyra, which the Islamist militants seized in May 2015, would mark the biggest reversal for Islamic State in Syria since Russia's intervention turned the tide of the five-year conflict in President Bashar al-Assad's favour.

The city controls routes east into the heartland of territory held by the militants, including the province of Deir al-Zor and the Islamic State's de facto capital, Raqqa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday an Islamic State leader was killed when his car was targeted in a strike on Raqqa on Thursday night.

It did not identify the dead militant, but U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the United States believed it killed Haji Iman - an alias for Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, a senior Islamic State leader in charge of the group's finances, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.

U.S. special forces carried out the strike against Haji Iman, officials told Reuters. One of the officials said the plan was to capture, not kill, him. But after the commandos' helicopter was fired on, the decision was made to fire from the air.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter told reporters at a briefing at the Pentagon, using an acronym to refer to the group.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the briefing the deaths reflected "indisputable" new momentum in the fight against Islamic State.

Iraq's military said on Friday that Iraqi Yazidi and tribal fighters had taken a border area in the Sinjar region next to Syria from Islamic State, cutting an important supply line for the militants.

U.S. officials said they were helping Iraqis prepare for a major operation in Mosul to take back more territory from the militant group.

STRATEGIC PRIZE

The scale of Friday's fighting for Palmyra reflected how much of a strategic prize the city represents, with jets launching dozens of air strikes and soldiers firing mortar barrages, while Islamic State fighters hit back with two car bombings.

Russian warplanes have continued to back up the Syrian army and its allies, despite Moscow's recent announcement it was withdrawing the bulk of its military forces.

Its planes carried out 41 sorties from Tuesday to Thursday in support of the Palmyra offensive and destroyed 146 targets, Russian news agencies reported on Friday, citing the Russian Defence Ministry.

Beirut-based television channel Al-Mayadeen, broadcasting from the edge of Palmyra, showed a low-flying jet carry out three air strikes against what it said were Islamic State fighters withdrawing from the old citadel back into Palmyra.

"Army units took control over Palmyra's ancient citadel ... after dealing with the last Daesh terrorist groups," state news agency SANA said.

A ceasefire backed by the United States and Russia covers most of Syria but not areas held by Islamic State. The first truce of its kind since the war began five years ago has been accompanied this month by the first peace talks attended by Assad's government and most of the groups opposed to him. Damascus in the meantime has turned its fire on Islamic State.

Moscow is the main ally of Assad's government, while Washington and other Western countries have backed foes trying to overthrow him during the civil war that has killed 250,000 people and led to the world's worst refugee crisis.

Both powers are committed to fighting Islamic State and have backed a new diplomatic push to end fighting on other fronts.

A Russian special forces officer was killed in combat near Palmyra in the last week, Interfax said, suggesting the Kremlin had been more engaged in the Syrian conflict than it had acknowledged.

'JOY AFTER TRAGEDY'

Syria's antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, said driving Islamic State out of Palmyra would be a victory for the whole world.

"After all the tragedy we have suffered in Syria for five years, and the 10 months in Palmyra after it fell ... it's the first time we feel joy," Abdulkarim told Reuters.

"We pray for victory soon, so that the damage is limited. Palmyra, under their control, was the loss of a civilisation."

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has set out a blueprint for a political process aimed at ending the civil war, and said on Thursday that talks would tackle the divisive issue of a postwar transition when the warring sides gather again next month.

Progress has been slow, with the government delegation and its opponents disagreeing fundamentally on the terms of such a transition, including whether Assad must leave power.

After talks in Moscow on Thursday, Russia and the United State said they agreed to use their influence over both sides in the conflict to speed things up.

Interfax quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Friday as saying Washington now understood Moscow's position that Assad's future should not be discussed at the moment.

But U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement: "Any suggestion that we have changed in any way our view of Assad's future is false. Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern. We haven't changed our view on that."
Ukraine extends Russia sanctions over Savchenko case

KIEV, March 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine has extended a sanctions list against Russia to include people and institutions involved in the detention of pilot Nadezhda Savchenko and other Ukrainian citizens, its Security and Defence Council said on Friday.

Kiev has already imposed economic and other restrictions on more than 400 Russian citizens and companies following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March 2014 and the ensuing pro-Russian separatist uprising in the east.

The latest additions to the list follow a Russian court's decision on Tuesday to sentence Savchenko to 22 years in jail over her alleged involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists.

"The entities included on the sanctions list include the managers and works of the FSB (security service), the Russian Investigative Committee, prosecutors, the judiciary, military and others," the Council said in an online statement.

It accused the institutions of "abduction, illegal detention, torture, (and) falsification of cases" against detained Ukrainians.

Savchenko, who had taken leave from her job as a military pilot to volunteer with Ukraine's ground forces fighting against the separatists in eastern Ukraine, was captured by pro-Moscow rebels there in June 2014.

She was handed over to Russia where she was charged with directing mortar fire which killed two Russian journalists who were covering the conflict.

She has repeatedly gone on hunger strike, and says she is the victim of a show trial. On Friday, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry accused Russia of concealing a deterioration in her health and preventing Ukrainian doctors from checking her.
Italy rejects Egypt's claim to have found student's killers

By Steve Scherer and Isla Binnie

ROME, March 25 (Reuters) - Italy rejected on Friday Egypt's claim that it had identified the killers of an Italian graduate student whose tortured body was recovered last month, and Rome vowed to press on with its own murder investigation.

The broken body of Giulio Regeni, 28, was found on the outskirts of Cairo.

Human rights groups have said the signs of torture indicated the 28-year-old had been killed by Egyptian security forces, an allegation Cairo has vigorously denied. Regeni had written articles critical of the Egyptian government.

On Thursday Egyptian authorities said a criminal gang that had been killed in a shootout had had Regeni's bag and passport in its possession - a statement that failed to convince Rome investigators, Italian politicians and also Regeni's family.

"We are wounded and embittered by the latest attempt by Egyptian authorities to throw off track (the investigation) into the barbaric killing of our son, Giulio," the newspaper La Reppublica quoted the parents as saying in a statement.

Rome's chief prosecutor, Giuseppe Pignatone, said the investigation into Regeni's murder would continue.

The evidence so far shared with a team of Italian investigators in Cairo "is not adequate in clarifying the death of Giulio Regeni and in identifying those responsible for the homicide", he said in a statement.

Pignatone called on Egyptian investigators to provide the seven-member Italian team sent to Cairo almost two months ago with all the evidence they have requested.

"Italy insists: we want the truth," Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in a tweet.

The case has caused friction between Egypt and Italy, though it looks unlikely to drive a permanent wedge between them because of the two countries' economic ties and Egypt's strategic role in the Middle East.

"I don't believe at all the 'truth' coming from the Egyptian authorities about Regeni's death," Giacomo Stucchi, president of Italy's parliamentary secret service committee, said in a tweet.
Iran air ambulance helicopter crashes, killing all on board -media

ANKARA, March 25 (Reuters) - An air ambulance helicopter crashed on Friday in Iran's central province of Fars, killing everyone on board, Iranian media reported.

State TV said the helicopter was taking a patient from a remote area to the city of Shiraz when it crashed. The patient, four medics and two crew were killed, the broadcaster said.

The semi-official Fars news agency said nine people were killed, including five injured in a car accident, it quoted police official Mohammad Hossein Hamidi as saying.

The official IRNA news agency put the death toll at 10.

A local official told state TV the cause of the crash was under investigation. Iran's official news agency IRNA said the area had experienced storms and heavy rainfall in recent days.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leader and PhD (linguistics) student, Susheel Kumar, shares his views about JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar's visit to the University of Hyderabad on Wednesday (March 23), and how the last few months have impacted him as a student, in the midst of all the accusations, and the politics at the campus following Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide in January. Excerpts:

Q. What would you like to say about the vice-chancellor, Appa Rao, returning to office at the University of Hyderabad?

A. He is the vice-chancellor of the university and has every right to return to his office and take charge at any time. I don't have anything to say in favour of, or against this.

Q. Is it true that you met the V-C before he came back to office?

A. Absolutely not. I, in fact, learnt about the V-C's return to office through the media. I was sleeping till 10 in the morning and came to know only after I woke up.

Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide was blamed on the saffron forces.

Q. There are reports floating that you, along with other members of the ABVP, were with the V-C just before his office was vandalised on Tuesday (March 22). Is it true?

A. This is not true either. There are many who are accusing us of vandalising the V-C's office. But there are videos uploaded on Facebook clearly showing that we were not involved. If someone approaches me with proof that I was involved in this, I would rather quit my PhD right away and give up my affiliation with my organisation too and instead, do whatever these people would like me to do.

Q. What are your views on Kanhaiya Kumar visiting the University of Hyderabad?

A. I am not in a position to comment on Kanhaiya Kumar's visit. He is free to travel where he likes and have a debate or discussion about anything. We haven't opposed him from coming to the campus. However, I do wonder about the appropriateness of the timing of his visit.

Since the atmosphere was already quite charged, nobody knows what impact his visit inside the campus could have had. What if someone would have gotten provoked into doing something untoward? The ABVP is blamed for everything that goes wrong, without any proof whatsoever. We were just a bit wary about that.

Susheel Kumar says ABVP hasn't opposed Kanhaiya (in pic) from coming to the HCU campus.

Q. Have you been in touch with BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya?

A. I met him only once, in August last year, and that too only to update him about the goings on at the campus. This was following the attack on me and mainly because nobody was ready to listen and not with any intention of having anyone punished. But I haven't met him since.

Q. As a student, how has your research work been impacted over the last few months?

A. It has been severely impacted. I haven't had the mental space to focus on my work at all. There have been many times when I have wanted to give up and look for a job instead. My personal life has been impacted too and I'm constantly worried for my family.

Q. Have you been meeting your research guide in the meanwhile?
Even a Nobel Peace Prize isn't enough to curb the rising Islamophobia among the rank and file of global leadership. Forget Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and other assorted rightwingers from the Republican Party. This time it's the Lady of Burma who has raised the hackles for Islamophobes the world over, according to a Daily Mail report.

In a shocking turn of events, a new book on Suu Kyi (The Lady and The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle For Freedom by Peter Popham) reveals how the head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide in the recently concluded general elections in Burma, had made a grossly offensive statement about being interviewed by BBC presenter Mishal Husain.

An off-the-record comment by Sui Kyi, just after she was pressed by Husain to make her stance clear on the thorny issue of Burma's Rohingya Muslims, a minority oppressed by the country's majority Buddhists, went like this: "No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim!"

Aung San Suu Kyi with Mishal Husain in 2013 for BBC Today.

When Husain asked if the now 70-year-old Suu Kyi condemned the anti-Muslim persecutions and massacres, the Lady became defensive and said: "I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime."

The controversial events during the 2013 interview for BBC's Today programme have come to light in the wake of growing discomfort among Suu Kyi's international supporters over her stony silence on Burma's Muslim issue. Muslims have been battling relative electoral irrelevance for long, since they constitute only 4 per cent of Myanmar's population, of which the Rohingyas form a miniscule minority. In addition, the Rohingyas are forbidden from becoming Burmese citizens. As a result, both the military junta as well as the NLD-led civilian government that will assume charge from next month have not spoken up for their plight.

Mishal Husain, a Cambridge University-educated British Pakistani journalist, is a prominent face of the BBC and is known for asking tough, ideologically centre-left questions to her illustrious list of interviewees.

Suu Kyi, who is an Oxford alumna and a firm critic of the junta regime, has been known for three decades of pro-democracy campaign in the military-ruled Burma, of which she spent almost two in house arrest in Rangoon.
With the death of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the hyper-sensitive border region of Jammu and Kashmir again came under governor's rule - for the second time in less than one year.

PDP's Mehbooba Mufti is all set to be the new Jammu and Kashmir CM.

The recent decision of governor NN Vohra to appoint advisers, order transfer orders in the administration and the police signals a long spell of New Delhi's rule for Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir's Sadr-e-Riyasat

Under the Sixth Amendment Act 1965, the state constitution was amended, replacing the Sadar-e-Riyasat with the governor. But the powers and authority vested in this chair remained unchanged.

In other states, president's rule is imposed under Article 356 of the Constitution, and executive authority is exercised by the governor. In Jammu and Kashmir, governor's rule is imposed under Section 92 of the J&K state constitution. The governor assumes all the powers exercisable by any authority except those of the J&K High Court.

Vohra's third time

Narendra Nath Vohra is the 12th governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the 2008 Amarnath land agitation, this is third time during his tenure that the state is under governor rule. In the last three decades, Jammu and Kashmir has been governed by the governor for almost nine years.

Is Vohra a good governor?

It is interesting to note that what the much-hyped Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government failed to achieve in close to one year, governor Vohra achieved in two months only.

Soon after Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's death, Vohra cleared all the pending files in the CM's office, bringing relief to the common man.

The governor directed the relief department to release funds for the flood-affected people, whose houses had suffered the damage in the 2014 floods. The financial assistance sanctioned under Prime Minister's Development Plan 2015 will be over and above the relief/financial assistance provided to affected households under the State Disaster Response fund (SDRF) and Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF). Vohra also disbursed an amount of Rs 1.99 crores among 813 traders as compensation for flood damage. One of most pressing issues after the devastating flood was the dredging of River Jhelum. Under the elected government of PDP-BJP, this had seemed a Herculean task.

Sources say Vohra promptly reviewed the ground situation and the requirement for dredging. He is reported to have communicated the importance of this project to Uma Bharti, union minister for water resources, river development & Ganga rejuvenation. He requested for urgent release of funds for Jhelum and its outflow channels.

It is commonly said that bureaucrats are one of the major hurdles in democracy. But in Jammu and Kashmir, the experience has been starkly different under Vohra. The governor has brought about a huge administrative reshuffle within a few weeks of taking over the state affairs.

In a major reshuffle on March 3, additional director general Shiv Murari Sahai was made the head of state CID. Till now, the inspector general of police used to head the CID. But Vohra changed the convention, posting Sahai as the new chief of this strategically-important wing.

Sahai's elevation as spymaster comes at a time when militancy has been on a deadly revival, since the "intelligence grid" plays a major role in tracking down militants. Two more officers have been promoted to the rank of director general.

An issue that could have become a headache for the PDP-BJP has been tackled by governor Vohra in a clean, straight-forward fashion. This is the issue of the Air Force base in Leh.

In a major decision, the governor got the Air Force base vacated for the use of civil aviation operations, meeting the long-pending demand of people of Ladakh region. Some other strong administrative decisions taken by him have also been highly appreciated by the people.

Army would also hand over 212 acres of land currently under its control at Tatoo Ground in heart of Srinagar city and 456.60 kanals of land at High Ground, Anantnag before March 31 to civil authorities. The credit again goes to governor Vohra who reviewed the implementation of decisions taken in earlier civil military liaison conferences in respect of all land matters relating to the Army. Vohra also directed Army to hand over 16.30 acres of state land held by it adjoining the campus of Jammu University and land held at lower Khurba Thang in Kargil.

A major issue of concern during the PDP-BJP reign was regarding the National Food Security Act. Both National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party had played blame game on this issue. Governor Vohra is committed to implement the Act by the middle of this month.
Bryant, Moore.jpg

Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood has said he will defend Gov. Phil Bryant (left)and the State of Mississippi against a lawsuit over the state flag filed by Moss Point native and Grenada attorney Carlos Moore (right). (File photos/The Mississippi Press)

(bn)

JACKSON, Mississippi-- In February, Moss Point native attorney Carlos Moore filed a federal lawsuit against Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant seeking to eliminate the nation's last state flag with the Confederate battle emblem.

While there are those who feel that Moore is attempting a courageous act in his attempt to have the state flag removed, there are those who question if he has ulterior motives, such as running for office. Moore refutes those notions earnestly.

Moore said he is adamant about improving the state for the next generation of residents of Mississippi and feels that he will be successful in his endeavor to rid the state of a symbol of vitriol to its African American population.

"What prompted me to file suit was for the love of my daughter," Moore said. "She is 5 years old and our roots go back through Mississippi for several generations. I'm nearly 40 years old and I have had to endure this treacherous symbol on our state flag for years, and while I probably could continue to live on enduring the flag, I do not want my daughter to live like I have had to these last 39 years with that treacherous symbol on our state flag."

"I want her to live in a state where the government respects individuals equally, and where she is not subjected to being a second class citizen by virtue of that emblem residing on our state flag," Moore said.

Governor Bryant recently signed a proclamation which named the month of April as Confederate Heritage Month. At the time he said "it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation's past so that we earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us."

Bryant is "pandering" to his constituents according to Moore.

"I believe Governor Bryant is pandering to his base," Moore said. "The people who elected him into office -- he knows most of them are against changing the state flag so he is not going to do anything that his base does not want him to do. That is unfortunate because he is the Governor of us all, regardless of who put him in office, he should do what is right for everyone, but he is pandering to his base is what I believe."

The Mississippi Press reached out to Bryant's spokesman Clay Chandler on Thursday to clarify a quote Chandler provided to the Associated Press in February. Within the quote, some of the rhetoric used by Chandler leaves room for interpretation that could read as insensitive to a certain demographic in the state of Mississippi.

In response, Chandler reiterated the same statement: "This is a frivolous attempt to use the federal court system to usurp the will of the people. The governor hopes Attorney General Jim Hood will seek attorneys' fees to reimburse taxpayers the cost of defending against this needless drain on state resources."

Chandler declined to comment further.

Moore responded saying, "There is nothing frivolous about individuals in Mississippi seeking equal protection under the law. Historically, African Americans who reside in Mississippi have not received any civil rights by the actions of state officials. We have always had to go through the court system to receive any kind of justice and that is strictly what I am doing here. We take these rights seriously -- they are human rights, they are civil rights, and in 2016, I, along with my African American brothers and sisters have the right to be treated equally with dignity under the law. Despite Governor Bryant being dismissive of my lawsuit or deeming it as "frivolous," I am going forward with the lawsuit, I am taking it seriously, and I intend to win."

Moore said that briefs were filed Monday in federal court in Jackson. The next step, he said, is for the judge to decide whether he has jurisdiction.

"I am not a candidate for office," Moore said. "I am doing this for my daughter and her generation and generations to come. I believe we will be successful in our endeavor of having the flag removed and I am not seeking any publicity for taking on this task. I have been very blessed and fortunate in my career to have a plethora of clients and I have accomplished certain accolades early on in my career. This is unequivocally about the next generation so I take pride in taking this challenge on and expect victory in the end. Once people see the flag down, I will have made a believer out of them."

In his suit, Moore references past incidents in which Confederate symbols have been associated with racially motivated acts of violence: White supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine people in a Charleston, S.C., church in June 2015 and has photos of himself holding a Confederate flag. In February 2014 on the campus of the University of Mississippi, a noose was found draped around the neck of the James Meredith statue along with an old Georgia flag with Confederate battle insignia placed around the shoulders of the statue. He also cites the hanging of two Mississippi men in the last five years, Frederick Carter in Greenwood, Miss., and Otis Byrd, found hanging from a tree in Claiborne County in 2015.

Moore argues that such incidents have made the flag a symbol of terror to many, and that as such it has no place on the state flag.

In February, NAACP Director Curley Clark brought the state flag issue to the Jackson County Board of Supervisors, hoping they would take the lead in removing the flag from county-owned properties. In a 4-1 vote, they voted to not remove the flag. Supervisor Ken Taylor told the residents in attendance they needed "to go down to Jackson and speak with our Governor. That is where we need to take this battle, not at the local county. That is our state law and we need to respect it."

Mississippi is the last state in the nation to fly a state flag with a Confederate symbol. Moore said he is hoping to change the perception that Mississippi is first in everything bad and last in everything good.

"The saying, 'United we Stand, Divided we Fall' holds weight because we have been so much more divided than any other state in the union and that is why we cannot get to the top of anything good," Moore said. "I believe once we get past this flag issue and have a symbol that all of Mississippi can be proud of, we will move forward together and go all the way to the top."

"I wholeheartedly believe I have a great chance of winning," Moore said. "I cannot predict the future, but I do know who holds the future in his hands. I believe we will get the victory and the law is on our side. In June of 2015, the Supreme Court announced individuals have a constitutional right to equal dignity under the law. Because of the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, I do believe we will be successful."
Singing River Electric Manager of Public Relations Lorri Freeman (center) presents a Neighbors Helping Neighbors Grant check to Jackson County Historical and Genealogical Society President-elect Joanne Anderson (second from left). JCHGS received $2,399 for an Epson Expression scanner for scanning documents up to 11x17 and to digitize historical photographs and documents to current standards. Also present are (l-r:) JCHGS Publications Committee Chairman Tommy Wixon, JCHGS President George Sholl and Pascagoula Library Branch Manager Jennifer Baxter.

Hurricane Katrina taught us many lessons. One is how quickly material things can be destroyed.

With that in mind, six years ago, members of the Jackson County Historical and Genealogical Society became keenly aware of the vulnerability of one-of-a-kind records, books, maps and photographs housed at the Pascagoula Public Library's Local Genealogy and History Department.

The department is the chief depository of local history and genealogy for the entire regional library system that serves the entire population of Jackson and George Counties.

At the urging of past JCHGS president Tommy Wixon, funds were raised for computer and scanning equipment to begin the task to digitize and organize these assets and back them up in safe locations.

Library digitizing not only serves to preserve history, but also makes it more accessible to the public through computer access. Another practical benefit is that it frees up space for adding more services, work space for patrons and materials.

The first project tackled hundreds of file folders containing local family histories collected over a period of years. These are heavily used by local and family history researchers.

It was very slow going at first until JCHGS brought Kathy Davis Smith of Gautier on board to assist with the scanning, organizing and in many cases indexing of information. All scans are backed up in secure locations and safely remain part of the library's holdings.

A researcher's dream, the department currently houses approximately 7,687 books, 5,725 periodicals, 3,833 microfilm rolls, 2,600 microfiche, 750 maps, 2,860 scanned family vertical files, 2,030 local history vertical files, 60 oral histories, 1,365 photos, 130 slides from local newspapers, 59 VHS tapes, 34,408 scanned obituaries, and 194 boxes of archives from Jackson County.

"This past year alone, more than 125 middle and high school students used the department and its digital resources to prepare for National History Day competition," said LGHD library assistant Sherry Owens. "We frequently have college students, police officers, family historians and authors from outside our state come in to do research. We not only have a regional reputation but a national one for our collection and what it has to offer."

Regional Library System Director Lori Barnes recently appointed a digital committee, headed by Pascagoula branch manager Jennifer Baxter, to take the project further. The committee is working towards making scanned materials accessible online. Federal library grants funded visits from two nationally-known consultants to assist in setting goals and creating standards under which to proceed.

A recent Neighbors Helping Neighbors grant from Singing River Electric Power Association funded purchase of a scanner capable of handling larger materials and producing the high quality resolutions necessary to meet national digitizing standards as set by the Mississippi Digital Library project and ALA.

The entire project is a trendsetter for public libraries in the state. It is a source of great pride for the partnership of JGRLS and the JCHGS. It will continue to evolve.
Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary , Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase: Click here to read more.
The attempt to remove the Lee statue is, in fact, a form of cultural genocide. It is part of a campaign to reduce all references to the South's Confederate past to a complete repudiation of everyone, other than enslaved people, who lived at that time. The mentality is the same as that of ISIS or the Taliban, who systematically destroy all monuments, artwork and historic sites that they find "offensive." Reducing history to one narrow narrative that ignores the good in those who came before us as well as the bad, is deeply ignorant and vengeful.
Concerning Lee Park: Shouldnt we seek to understand our past by acknowledging and learning from historys dark spots, while taking comfort and inspiration in its bright spots?

I used to conduct walking tours in Charlottesville. At Lee Park, I acknowledged Lees role as commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and then as the general who negotiated, with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the wars end and surrender at Appomattox. I noted that the park asks us to reflect on a man who, by most accounts, was respected by persons in the North and South, before, during and after the War as a genuine, honest and honorable human being; a general, yes, but also a leader  within his community, as a college president and as a symbol of reconciliation.

Do not confuse my sentiments with those that seek to glorify past eras. Celebratory displays of Confederate flags discomfit me; and I question need and benefit of Civil War re-enactments that play up purported glories of the Ole South without acknowledging the great inequities of both the pre-war and post-war eras, and the hurt, fears and darkness that kept many in the South from acknowledging their past and instead encouraged use of lens that further distorted human truths and societal values.

I urge consideration of a total picture that focuses on learning from history, on education and acknowledgment, understanding and growth.

Why seek to destroy and rewrite? Isnt this what ISIS does when attacking the Near Easts World Heritage sites and the Wests 20th-century institutions?

The human story is replete with difficult pieces of history. Acknowledging its dark spots does not mean we must excuse behaviors of bad actors  either those of the past or those of the present.

Jarrett Millard

Albemarle County
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Nearly two-thirds of the 333 whales slaughtered by Japan were pregnant. Photo by Alamy

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The Japanese government confirmed yesterday that its whaling fleet had arrived home in Shimonoseki, having killed 100 percent of its self-awarded quota of 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean. Nearly two-thirds of the harpooned females were pregnant, creating a multiplier effect and putting the actual loss of lives at 540.

This year marked a return to Antarctic whaling by Japan, after a one-year hiatus following the March 2014 verdict of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ had ruled that Japans previous research whaling in the Southern Ocean was illegal and in contravention of the 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling adopted by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). There were initial hopes that Japan would heed the ICJ ruling, but instead it announced a new research program, NEWREP-A.

The IWCs Scientific Committee conducted two formal reviews of the new program (which bears many resemblances to previous programs), including one by an independent expert panel which concluded that the killing of whales was not justified. Many eminent members of the IWC Scientific Committee have strongly and publicly underlined the need for Japan to properly explore non-lethal methods before beginning another program of whaling.

But Japan, which announced in October that it would no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ on this or other issues relating to living marine resources, loaded up its explosive harpoons and set sail. The international reaction has sat squarely between disbelief and indignation, even producing a demarche to the Japanese government from the governments of the United States, South Africa, Mexico, New Zealand, and some 30 other countries. In the demarche, they called on Japan to forego lethal research whaling and criticized Japans defiance of the ICJ ruling and of the recommendations of the IWC and its scientific bodies

Japan appears to have a dogged determination to continue whaling, against the worldwide swell of opposition and disapproval and without any meaningful market for whale meat in the country. It burns tons of fuel to send its fleet thousands of miles across the globe to fire explosive grenades into whales who have been recorded as sometimes taking over an hour to die, incurring relentless international criticism and reputational damage in the process, all to supply meat to a vanishing domestic market.

With logic clearly absent from the equation, it seems that Japan and the other commercial whaling nations, Iceland and Norway, wont desist unless serious economic or diplomatic obstacles are put in their way.

Well keep advancing our campaigns, undermining the market for whale meat, and keeping up the pressure on governments (including the United States) to push for an end to the politically poisonous practice of commercial whaling. It should be a deal-breaker in high-level negotiations, such as free-trade agreements and Japans campaign for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat. One day, not too far in the future, I think it will be, given the shamefulness of this gratuitous killing of some of the most remarkable animals on the planet.


How to Be Non-Judgmental

Its great to have a sense of what is right and wrong, to strive to be a better person and to be a good influence in the world. And it may sometimes be necessary to act assertively or to speak up for what is right especially when making your personal boundaries clear to others.

But there is also a danger of getting carried away with judgements, of forcefully imposing your particular standards on other people or of resorting to unnecessary levels of blame or condemnation that only get in the way of progress and understanding. Here are 15 ways to be less judgmental.

1. Embrace other peoples freedom

Everyone has a right to decide whats good for them and the freedom to make mistakes. Its not usually worth playing the role of a preacher, teacher, judge, critic, parent or behavioural monitor in anyones life. Freedom lets everyone focus on their own lives, choices, responsibilities and continual learning.

It is usually more reasonable to let people find their own way than to assume that you have a right to decide how they should think or to play a controlling and overbearing role in their lives. You cant exercise peoples freedom on their behalf so its often wiser to allow them to make their own choices.

It takes all sorts to make a world

A good way to avoid being overbearing is to embrace the role of a peaceful observer rather than trying to have a say in anyones behaviour. Rather than concerning yourself too much with their actions it may be better to just sit back, watch the show and err on the side of caution and tolerance.

You can embrace your role as an observer by seeing life as a movie full of interesting characters. Every characters job is to be exactly the way they already are. You get to decide what your character is like but without trying to change any of the other characters in the story.

2. Dont should all over other people

You cant always assume that people have to do whatever you believe is right. For that reason its best to view most issues of principle, morality or conscience as private matters. How other people behave is usually none of your business or not my circus, not my monkeys as some Polish people say.

Your opinion about how most people should behave most of the time belongs to an ideal world. In the real world, very little has to be as it would in your ideal one. There is only one person whose behaviour you can ultimately control and that is why its generally better to follow Ghandis advice:

Be the change that you want to see in the world

Even if what someone is doing has an effect on you, how they exercise their own freedom is still up to them to a large extent. If you want to learn how to be non-judgemental then avoid taking moral responsibility for how anyone else behaves. You are only ethically responsible for your own actions.

That doesnt mean you can never express a viewpoint about how other people might behave but it is not always worth doing and be careful about how forcefully you do so. When you present it in the form of should then this will sound like must and not everyone will be charmed or persuaded.

3. Observe your judgments without acting on them

Its natural to have thoughts and emotions about any situation but not always necessary to express them outwardly. You can observe yourself carefully rather than immediately acting on your internal reaction as if its a necessary prompt. A knee-jerk reaction is not usually the wisest one.

When you no longer feel compelled to immediately react on the basis of your internal state youre saving yourself a lot of potential drama. Letting go of reactivity makes you more non-conflictual since it tends to avoid expressing yourself in a way that others may find hard to deal with.

Reactions are like a revolver. Avoid being trigger-happy

You can often learn a lot by doing nothing and simply observing your thoughts and feelings. Deferring judgment allows you to avoid getting carried away by how things seem and giving yourself enough time to reflect on everything in a calm, considered, balanced and open-minded way.

It may also be worth examining the roots of any judgments. For example, children raised by a controlling parent often develop a harsh inner critic that will sometimes express itself against others in the form of an equally harsh outer critic. Maybe you and everyone else deserve a break.

4. Practise letting go of expectations

Expectations are like an invisible, unsigned contract that we imagine other people have to follow. It can be quite unreasonable to demand that other people have to play by our own unwritten rules, no matter how fair and reasonable those rules may be to us or how willing we are to follow them.

The only way to free yourself from others is to free them from you

Expectations will often create unnecessary judgments. For example, if I need space then someone who is being friendly might seem slightly irritating or pushy. But if I feel lonely and want company then someone who is simply minding their own business might seem really cold or unfriendly.

5. Avoid resorting to personal criticism

The fact that judging is so easy and can give us a feeling of power over others makes it tempting to resort to the use of criticism. For example, if we are upset with someone we might retaliate by using a label that sounds harsh, accusatory or makes some feel as if they are wrong or bad.

Criticism tends to provoke people

The intention may simply be to let them know that they have done something that is not good for us. But saying it in a critical way often makes people feel as if they are being attacked and need to defend themselves. And sometimes, what we are saying is Youre bad because you dont do what I want.

6. Develop a sense of balance and proportion

When you put anyones misbehaviour under a microscope it will always seem much worse, more significant and more important than it really is. The principle may be valid but that can easily disguise the fact that the extent of the problem is too small to deserve so much attention.

Unless you are dealing with serious criminal behaviour that massively harms other people then it may be worth remembering that there are probably bigger fish to fry. Its safer to err on the side of freedom when it comes to making an issue out of anything that isnt relatively huge in scale or scope.

Lets not get carried away here

The other problem with focusing only on what is wrong is that it narrows the focus of attention in a way that causes people to overlook other important aspects of the story. When the first impulse is to shout Thats awful! and Youre awful! then its very easy to overlook all kinds of considerations.

7. Seek continual understanding rather than conclusions

Its premature to judge someone when you dont know all the facts about why they behave the way they do and whats really going on in their brain. But the truth is that you can never know all the facts. And so its often wiser to shrug your shoulders and accept the limits of your own understanding.

When you keep sincerely trying to understand people rather than reach a conclusion, youre more likely to arrive at the position of harmony and inner peace. You may not agree with everything they say and do but deferring judgement acknowledges that you can never see the whole picture.

What do I really know anyway?

We often learn more about people by listening to them rather than judging them. When that opportunity arises, the best ways to do that are to relax, give them your attention, empathise and embrace a gentle curiosity. Instead of concluding Thats wrong try to think Thats understandable.

8. Avoid judging by association

Sometimes we behave rather like the judges of TV talent shows, dismissing people as soon as they fail to live up to our harsh standards. Judging by broad impressions, appearances and associations often leads to unnecessary snap judgements based on prejudicial thinking or premature conclusions.

To some extent its natural to put people and experiences into categories that help us make sense of how to deal with them. But it leads to a way of thinking that is based on loose associations rather than what is strictly fair. When you encounter anything that seems familiar you might say:

That might not be what it reminds me of

A good example is meeting someone whose look, style or accent reminds you of people you liked or disliked in the past. The truth is they could still be very different from what you might expect. But before you really know anything, your mind may already start looking to prove what they are like.

Another example is imagining that someones behaviour represents something bad. Sometimes, its more accurate to say that it loosely reminds you of something you have concerns about. It can be judgmental to strictly impose associations on reality that are sweeping, ideological or over-defensive.

9. Understand the role of ignorance in human behaviour

Its easy to underestimate the huge role that cluelessness plays in peoples way of thinking and seeing both themselves and others. Even if they know what they are doing theres always so much more that they dont know and usually cant be made aware of. Thats why Christians say:

Forgive them for they know not what they do

If most people could see themselves theyd be quite embarrassed. Without realising it, people are driven by irrationality, ignorance, conformity, submissiveness, neediness, fear and suffering. Many are also limited in empathy, social skills or self-awareness. You cant really blame them for that.

10. Understand some misbehaviour in terms of unmet needs

It often makes sense to look beneath the surface of a persons difficult behaviour and to understand what is really going on in terms of their underlying needs. This is a less critical and less judgmental way of viewing the person that helps make sense of why they are behaving like that.

For example, a person may seem aggressive when they are afraid that you could be against them and therefore indirectly expressing an unmet need for safety or inclusion. It may then be possible to dissolve their surface-level hostility by directly addressing their need through kindness or reassurance.

Why is this person behaving like that? What do they really need?

Peoples behaviour can also be the result of deeper and sometimes life-long unmet needs. For example, someone who talks too much or brags about achievements may have developed a severe attention deficit from struggling to live on their own or from earlier experiences of childhood neglect.

Recognising their underlying needs does not mean you have to do whatever they want since that may be unreasonable in some cases. But it frees you from having to judge, blame or overreact by helping you to understand the genuine human struggle from which their surface-level behaviour stems.

11. Agree to disagree when you cant agree

Its not always necessary to adopt or push for some strong personal view about what other people believe. Even when you find yourself disagreeing then you can often say Could be rather than I dont know about that. This is another way of keeping an open mind about your own views.

That doesnt mean you will never find yourself openly disagreeing with anyone. But even when that happens, you can still embrace a spirit of joyful disagreement or loving disagreement, acknowledging differences of opinion, values or character without seeing anyone as a hostile enemy.

Our differences dont have to divide us

Empathy and even flattery can go a long way to ensuring that a disagreement or discussion remains positive and peaceful. A situation is unlikely to escalate if you can make it very clear that you understand and relate to a persons viewpoint and also find something positive to say about them.

12. View peoples inhumanity as a reflection of your own

Human beings can sometimes behave in a way that is highly inconsiderate and the temptation to judge them for that is entirely understandable. But many of us need to go through at least one brutal experience of inhumanity before we can realise the true value that humanity offers the world.

To be on the receiving end of behaviour that is lacking in empathy can help you to sincerely consider, understand and regret those times in your own life when you also acted as if other human beings did not exist, were not as important as you or did not have real feelings.

We all have our moments

Empathy is a skill that not everyone can be aware of or master. But the most empathic human beings are those who are able to empathise with other peoples inability to empathise with them by seeing that lack of empathy as something that reminds them of their own ignorance in the past.

When you see other peoples failure to empathise as a reflection of your own mistakes then forgiving them becomes a way of practising what it takes to forgive yourself. Understanding and allowing people to behave without empathy is a test of true empathy, compassion and non-judgment of yourself.

13. Observe the role of hypocrisy in judgments

We are often able to find a good reason, excuse or explanation for our own mistakes even while harshly condemning, judging or being outraged by other peoples mistakes. We tend to conveniently seek the minimum penalty for ourselves even while extracting the maximum punishment for others.

When other people do anything wrong we are more likely to describe it in grand terms, to treat it as a sign of some general, overall character flaw and to insist that they knew exactly what they were doing. When we do something wrong we often take a kinder view of the act and intentions involved.

Treat others as you wish to be treated

For example, if we ever lie then we might say I was afraid to tell you the truth, I told a white lie or I was confused. But when someone else lies then we are more likely to hold them guilty of a terrible deception and to conclude that they are a generally nasty, remorseless liar who can never be trusted.

Another common example is that we might say I would never do that! when someone else makes a mistake, forgetting that many people would also never do some of the things we do. Without excusing what is wrong, we can still limit the extent, severity and hypocrisy of our own judgments.

14. Give radical empathy a chance

Its worth asking if it is possible to imagine what it is truly like to be a particular person with whom you disagree. They may be entirely wrong but how might things genuinely appear to them, given their clueless assumptions, rigid habits, lack of self-awareness, unresolved fears or frustrated needs?

In a strange way, its possible to empathise even with what is ignorant, messed up, twisted or itself lacking in empathy. Rather than trying to change peoples limitations, start to imagine what reality might look like for someone whose perspective is actually shaped by such limitations.

A lot of difficult circumstances can be accepted by looking at everything from the viewpoints of others in a spirit of compassionate interpretation. This can be huge challenge in situations of disagreement or in cases where they themselves have little or no empathy but it is still possible to say:

If I were in your shoes, I might well see things in exactly the same way as you do

It may seem impossible to relate to another persons wrongdoing. But its also worth considering how your own personality might have turned out if your entire perspective had been shaped by different genes and formative life influences. You might have actually become a different person.

Without all the benefit of your current knowledge, awareness, experience and natural predispositions, there is no chance you would be the same. And thats why psychologists are often able to causally explain peoples behaviour in terms of what is essentially a series of biographical accidents.

Life can do truly bizarre things to a persons perspective without them even realising its influence. The more you know about a persons life story, the more you truly understand how they came to think and feel the way they do (including any ignorance on their part) and the harder it is to judge them.

15. Reduce your sense of separation from others

Many people focus on what they believe makes them different to or even superior to others. It is often only through suffering that they are humbled into focusing on their common ground with other human beings, for example by realising how much undeserved suffering others are going through.

None of us are quite as special as we sometimes pretend to be. Despite anyones differences, their needs, desires, feelings, pain, hopes and dreams are just as real and important to them as your own experiences are to you. In that sense, everyone might even be seen as another version of you.

We are all members of one extended human family

The message coming out of social media, advertising and culture tells a different story by routinely normalising competition, greed, blame, elitism, rigid identification and otherness. But dont let that fool you into failing to see what many people will deny until they need help. We are all in this together.

In conclusion

Life gets easier when you give up the unnecessary and exhausting responsibility of judging other people. This allows you to focus on what you can learn about yourself and others. It also enhances your compassion by humbly acknowledging the limits of your knowledge. As Wendy Mass said:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about

Becoming an observer of life and of your own reactions allows you to increasingly empathise with and understand rather than judge other people. It can help you to develop a sense of balance, a way of understanding misunderstandings and a way of accepting those with whom you disagree.
New Delhi: Sector regulator TRAI has asked the Department of Telecom to roll out comprehensive communications network at Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep even if the cost is higher than estimated as these islands are of "immense strategic importance". Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in July 2014 had recommended a comprehensive plan for improving telecom services in ANI and Lakshadweep island with an outlay of about Rs 2,900 crore.

The DoT in a detailed project report prepared by state-run BSNL found two of the components, satellite capacity increase in Lakshadweep and optical fibre connectivity within ANI, suggested by the regulator are costing about double the amount computed by TRAI and hence sought its view on the estimates.

TRAI in its reply said the estimation of the investment required was done by the it on the basis of costs data inputs provided by the telecom operators including BSNL and based on certain valid assumptions.

"The authority does not have any other source to examine the item-wise costs mentioned in the DPR. Moreover, preparing or vetting Detailed Project Report is not a function of TRAI. It is for DoT to take a decision on the matter," TRAI said. The regulator said it has been almost 20 months since the recommendations were made in July 2014 and costs and need for replacement of infrastructure may vary with time.

TRAI in its recommendation laid primary importance of connecting these islands through undersea cable which is dependent on connectivity from satellite only for telecom services. The regulator said decision about the cost of project based on factors such as the availability and suitability of existing telecom infrastructure, their residual life etc can be taken by DoT.

"... keeping in view that the broad objectives outlined by the Authority in its recommendations on the Comprehensive Telecom Plan of ANI and Lakshadweep are fulfilled even if the estimated costs of the project(s) is somewhat more than the costs estimated by the Authority," TRAI said.

The regulator has recommended that besides connecting these regions with cables, satellite connectivity should be retained in parts of both of these union territories. In Andaman and Nicobar Island (ANI) 29 out of 576 islands are inhabited and 90 per cent of the population lives in three islands - North, Middle and South Andaman Islands alone.

In Lakshadweep, 11 out of 36 are inhabited and 10 of the inhabited islands have population above 100. For Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the regulator has suggested connecting 22 islands, which included 18 islands with population of above 100 and four islands which have presence of police, forest camps and tourists. For Lakshadweep, the regulator has factored connectivity at 10 inhabited villages.

The islands are a part of the West Bengal service area and Lakshadweep is a part of the Kerala circle. In Andaman & Nicobar Islands, four telecom operators - BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance - have launched services. In Lakshadweep, only BSNL and Airtel (partly) have launched services. While in the rest of West Bengal and Kerala service areas there are eight telecom operators.
Ajay Devgn's Shivaay that is expected to release later this year, is believed to be a high octane action adventure flick.

Ajay Devgn, who commenced shooting for his next directorial 'Shivaay' in December 2016, has kick-started the last schedule of the film. The actor keeps his fans updated by giving in sneak-peeks into the film, which is being extensively shot at beautiful locales of Bulgaria.

Read: Kajol and kids join Ajay Devgn in Bulgaria on the sets of Shivaay

Ajay Devgn posted this picture and wrote, "Shooting on top of Balkan Moutains"

The team is braving harsh weather conditions to shoot a few scenes in high up in the snow-capped mountains. The Balkan mountains are a range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The highest peaks of the Balkan Mountains are in central Bulgaria.

Ajay Devgn strikes a pose with a crew member of 'Shivaay'.

Shivaay that is expected to release later this year, is believed to be a high octane action adventure flick. The film which will mark the actor's second venture as a director after he helmed 2008 movie 'U Me Aur Hum,' also stars Dilip Kumar's grandniece, Sayesha Saigal, who is making her debut with the movie.

Ajay Devgn shoots for his directorial 'Shivaay'.
The capture of the rhino was a joint effort between environment ministry officials, the WWF and the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia. (Photo: WWF-Malaysia)

Jakarta, Indonesia: Environmentalists have made physical contact with a Sumatran rhino on the Indonesian part of Borneo island for the first time in over 40 years, the WWF said on Wednesday, hailing a "major conservation success".

The critically endangered rhino was caught in a pit trap this month in East Kalimantan province in an area close to mining operations and plantations, where the WWF said it was struggling to survive.

The female animal, thought to be aged around six, is now in a temporary enclosure and will later be airlifted by helicopter to a safer habitat on Borneo, Efransjah, head of environmental group WWF-Indonesia, said.

The contact with the rhino comes after environmentalists discovered in 2013 that the Sumatran rhino was not extinct on Indonesian Borneo as had long been thought when hidden cameras captured images of the animals.

Borneo is the world's third-largest island and is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Efransjah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, hailed the capture of the rhino on March 12 as "an exciting discovery and a major conservation success".

"We now have proof that a species once thought extinct in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) still roams the forests, and we will now strengthen our efforts to protect this extraordinary species."

The capture of the rhino was a joint effort between environment ministry officials, the WWF and the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia.

The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the living rhinos. They are the only Asian rhino with two horns, and are covered with long hair.

There were once Sumatran rhinos all over Borneo but their numbers have dwindled dramatically, with poaching, and expansion of mining and plantation operations considered the main reasons for the decline.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the Sumatran rhino as critically endangered. The WWF estimates there are fewer than 100 remaining in the wild.

There are only a few substantial populations still in existence, most of them on Indonesia's main western island of Sumatra.

The wild population of Sumatran rhinos on the Malaysian part of Borneo was declared extinct last year, according to the WWF.
Mumbai: Giving a new twist to his testimony on Friday, Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley said that then Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had visited his house few weeks after his father's demise.

"It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan--Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26/12/2008. Infact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter," Headley told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the case against Abu Jundal in the sessions court here.

Headley's father, who died on 26 December 2008, was a former Director General of Radio Pakistan and worked for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC. His half-brother Danyal Gilani worked as a public relations officer at PM Gilani's office.

Headley, who is serving a 35-year prison term in the US for his role in 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 people in 2008, told the court that his father was aware of his association with terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"My father was aware of my association with LeT and he was not happy about it," he said.

When asked was it true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniel's mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai.

During his deposition, Headley said, "Saulat Rana, my friend in Pakistan, was aware of my connection with LeT and my visit to Mumbai prior to the 26/11 attacks."

"Rana neither objected nor encouraged me," he told the court. On whether Rana was associated to LeT, Headley said, "No". When asked whether he (Headley) toured Pakistani locations with Rana before the Mumbai attacks, he replied in the negative and wondered why he would go around in Pakistan when the target was India.

55-year-old LeT operative also expressed his vehement hatred for India, saying that ever since Indian planes bombed his school and people working there died during the India Pakistan war in 1971, he was looking for revenge which led to him joining LeT.

Since childhood I have hatred against India and Indians and I wanted to cause maximum loss and damage. I have hated India because my school was bombed on December 7, 1971 by Indian planes...the school was destroyed and people who worked there died, said Headley.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT.

He denied that NIA suggested to him to name Ishrat Jehan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police, (Crime) in USA before his deposition in February this year.

When asked if he was treated for any mental illness, Headley replied in the negative and chuckled, "Yeh kya kya cheeze mere khaate mein daal rahe hain Wahab Sahab. Nahin, aisa koi wakya nahin hua (Wahab Sahab, what all things are you ascribing to me...nothing of this sort happened)."

Headley also said that he does not know about who decided the date for the first attack (failed one in Mumbai).

Headley told the court that he had arranged a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event.

The terrorist said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that Thackeray was sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme.

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

Asked whether he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008, Headley said no.

He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. "It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies."

He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

"This is not true. It is not FBI's job to insist on fines in the court," he said.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved USD 30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.

Headley had on Thursday specifically named late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and said that LeT wanted to target the leader. Headley also mentioned about a person who attempted to kill Bal Thackeray and was detained by the police, but escaped from police custody.

While answering questions asked by advocate Khan Abdul Wahab, the defence lawyer of Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, Headley revealed some new important facts, including that his visit for reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai for the 26/11 terror attack was funded by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

LeT wanted to eliminate Shiv Sena chief His name was Bal Thackeray, said Headley when the defence lawyer asked him the purpose of his visit to Shiv Sena Bhavan in Dadar. When asked if LeT made any more attempts on Bal Thackerays life, Headley replied that he did not have first-hand knowledge of it, but according to him there was an attempt on his life and the person who tried to attack him was detained by the police and escaped from custody later. Headley could not furnish any further details about this attempt. He also said that he had visited Shiv Sena Bhavan twice and he was not aware who else was on LeTs list apart from Bal Thackeray.
Kul Yadav Bhushan, who was described by the Pakistanis as a commander-rank officer of the Indian Navy who was working for RAW, was reportedly arrested on Thursday in the Chaman area of Balochistan.

Islamabad/New Delhi: Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian high commissioner Gautam Bam-bawale to lodge its protest over subversive activities by an alleged RAW officer a day after the Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested him.

In New Delhi, the external affairs ministry said the person arrested had no link with the government since his premature retirement from the Indian Navy. The MEA further said: India has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of any country and firmly believes a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of the region.

Pakistan summons Indian High Commissioner

Kul Yadav Bhushan, who was described by the Pakistanis as a commander-rank officer of the Indian Navy who was working for RAW, was reportedly arrested on Thursday in the Chaman area of Balochistan. He has been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation, Pakistani officials said.

Pakistan has lodged strong protest with India over the involvement of its spy agency RAW in subversive activities in the country, said an official in Islamabad. In this regard, Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale was summoned to the Foreign Office and deep concerns conveyed to him over RAWs interference in Balochistan and Karachi, the official added.
Suu Kyis equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burmas Muslim minority has alarmed by even her most dedicated fans.

London: Nobel Peace Prize laureate who remained under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, lost her control during an interview to BBC when she was interviewed by a Muslim anchor. She lost her composure and was heard to mutter angrily, No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim, The Daily Mail reported.

BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain gave Suu Kyi a rough ride during a BBC interview. Suu Kyis equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burmas Muslim minority has alarmed by even her most dedicated fans.

When she was repeatedly asked by Husain to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mobled massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so. I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons, she replied. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.
Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Orthodox, Hindu and Catholic refugees today, declaring them children of the same God, in a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time when anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment has spiked following the Brussels attacks.



Francis denounced the carnage as a "gesture of war" carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at the shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.



The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service.



Francis contrasted that gesture with the "gesture of destruction" carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.



"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace," Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the centre.



Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.



Francis was greeted with a banner reading "Welcome" in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the outdoor Mass.



But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty. Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting: At the end of the Mass, Francis greeted each refugee, one by one, posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows.



Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the ritual, and past popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, recalling Jesus' 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.



Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention centre. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.



The Vatican said today that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the centre and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.








Just as those in the East have adopted many western traditions and customs, such as even speaking English as a primary language of business, it is important in this era that students in the United Sates grow with the times and begin adopting eastern traditions and understanding of eastern culture. In the past decades, more and more Indian students have come to American universities, although the amount of American students attending Indian Universities will only increase as well.





As simplistic as it may sound, my obsession with Slumdog Millionaire led me to watch City of Joy, which compelled me to watch Marigold, which interested me in a documentary narrated by Chris Rock that explained that Indias largest export is human hair! Imagine that! All of these exposures to Indian culture made us want to learn more, that is, what makes India so uniquely transcendent? My fascination with Indian culture leads me to language class. From my laypersons perspective, Indias culture is magnificent, yet it is somewhat disparaged by the fact that almost half of its population lives in abject poverty,said Christopher Farkouh, a first year student.





Indias people are beautiful and inherently brilliant, yet many cannot afford a college education. India is home to the most polluted city in the world, New Delhi, and more than half the homes in India dont have toilets. Yet, when I call for technical assistance for my computer, or if my parents call to make a payment on their mortgage, the call is re-routed half way around the world to India, he addedLast but not least, despite all the enlightenment thats come from the scholarly minds of India, the country has the largest modern slavery population in the world. How is that possible in this technological age? Taking language and culture class seemed the best way for me to satisfy my curiosity, my fascination. I want to learn Indias language(s), as so many people of India have learned mine and something of the culture as well, Farkouh said.





Exploring India





I am taking language because I want to be able to explore India and the Indian culture when Im out of college. I have dreamt of travelling there since I was young, but I want to be a competent and knowledgeable traveller when I do go.





I want to be able to communicate with others and read signs and such, especially because I have no Indian family members that would be able to teach me or guide me when Im there. I love Indian movies, Indian food, and a lot of Indian people! I generally find the culture and languages to be really interesting, so Im happy to be able to learn more about it, said Katie Marcus.





By having a basic understanding of language, individuals can better assimilate into a culture, and have a deeper and more meaningful experience with people of that culture. Aditya Gaddipati, another first year student said, The reason I decided to take a language is because I wanted to become culturally and linguistically more proficient. I feel that learning a language in general helps individuals become more worldly, and it also allows them to resonate with a particular culture. I am taking Hindi because I wanted to become closer to my Indian heritage and take on a more active role in the Indian community.





I chose to take Hindi because I have always found Hindi to be such a beautiful language because of its elegance in both sound and writing. In addition, I have always thought that the songs were very melodic and beautiful, unlike some of the very fast-paced American songs that I do not enjoy as much. These are my reasons for wanting to learn how to speak and write in Hindi, said Rachana Vemireddy, another student.





The world is such a big place and people are so different around the world, yet so similar. I want to study language and culture because I want exposure to different ways of life than my own, said Divya Velury. I enjoy taking language and culture courses because my view of the world changes every time I sit in a lecture. I want to learn more about these similarities and differences. I also am really interested in travelling and want to visit all the continents.





By studying culture and language, one can understand other people around the world better, which is important while travelling. I am fascinated with all sides of India and I want to be immersed in it as fully as possible, said Maddie Helm, who had no exposure in language and culture before coming to this class.





Knowing language and culture always help people to understand more than direct translation and give a deeper sense of popular phrases, underlying sentiments, and colloquialisms to establish true understanding between people speaking different languages. The language itself reveals patterns of understanding and cultural perspective, which is socially and historically constructed. Overall, this is an interesting and great trend to see as the spread of culture helps open peoples minds and broadens perspectives.

As India takes a more central position on the global stage, the study of India and the importance of Indian Studies have never been as prominent. As relationships between the United States and India are explored more and greater opportunities in law, business, technology, and engineering develop in South East Asia, an understanding of South Asian Culture is paramount. By better understanding linguistics, religions and other customs of South Asia, people will be able to succeed by better empathising with those in other parts of the world.
The Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) on Thursday said the re-examination for II PU Chemistry paper will be held on March 31, instead of March 29 as announced earlier.



The re-exam will be held between 9 am and 12:15 pm. The department rescheduled the dates after a high-level meeting chaired by Legislative Council Deputy Chairman Marithibbe Gowda unanimously decided against holding the re-examination on March 29.



Students had demanded that the re-exam should not be held on March 29 as the Kannada paper is scheduled for March 28, so they would not get enough time to prepare for the Chemistry exam.



Primary and Secondary Education Minister Kimmane Rathnakar, IT and BT Minister S R Patil, and several members of the two Houses of the Legislature participated in the meeting.



Grace marks

At the meeting, legislators from various political parties demanded that grace marks be given for the out of syllabus questions in the Mathematics paper held on March 14.



Rathnakar said that a committee of experts would be formed to look into the issue and a decision would be taken based on the panels opinion. Many students and parents had claimed that question numbers 3, 13, 16, 20, 30, 47 and 49 B were not part of the syllabus.



Earlier in the day, Principal Secretary (Primary and Secondary Education) Ajay Shet had said that the Maths question paper was prepared based on the blueprint and new syllabus of the National Council of Educational Research and Training.



Not out of syllabus

None of the questions were out of the syllabus and could have been answered well within the given time, he said.



Shet also pointed out that though question numbers 3, 13, 16, 20, 30, 47 and 49 B were concept based, they were on similar lines of examples given in the text book and hence within the syllabus.

Shets announcement at a press conference that the Chemistry re-exam would be held on March 29 as announced by the DPUE had led to confusion among students.




India today issued visas to five members of a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) who will travel to the country on Sunday to carry forward the probe into the brazen Pathankot Air Base attack, blamed on Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants.





"We have issued visas to five Pakistani officials, who will be going to India to get evidence about the Pathankot attack," an Indian High Commission spokesperson said here.



The members of the JIT are scheduled to leave for India on March 27.



The five-member probe team comprises senior officials from both the military intelligence as well as civil administration and is headed by the Chief of Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Additional Inspector General of Police Muhammad Tahir Rai.



Other members include Lahore Deputy Director General Intelligence Bureau Mohammad Azim Arshad, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Col Tanvir Ahmed, Military Intelligence Lt Col Irfan Mirza and Gujjaranwala CTD Investigating Officer Shahid Tanveer.



This will be the first time that Pakistani intelligence and police officials are travelling to India to investigate a terror attack.



The team is expected to examine the weapons used by the terrorists carrying out the assault on IAF base in Pathankot besides recording the statements of the victims, Pakistani media reports said.



Earlier, Pakistan had constituted a six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) for the initial probe into the case based on the leads provided by India.



India had agreed to allow the Pakistani JIT to visit the Pathankot Air Base after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met with her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz in Kathmandu on the sidelines of SAARC Ministerial meeting on March 17.



Swaraj had said that the Pakistani investigators will reach India on March 27 and will begin their work on 28.



India has been pressing Pakistan for action over the brazen assault on the key IAF base on January 2 in which seven Indian security personnel were killed. In the gun-battle, six terrorists were also killed.



The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad.



On February 18, Pakistan had lodged an FIR in connection with the Pathankot terror attack without naming JeM chief Masood Azhar who India has accused of having masterminded the strike.



The FIR by the Counter-Terrorism Department of Punjab police was lodged on the basis of information provided by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that the attackers crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase.


With West Indies requiring nine off the last over, Carlos Brathwaite (10 not out) clobbered a length delivery from Rabada over the midwicket boundary to bring down the equations to three off four balls, which they accumulated with consummate ease.



Earlier, it was struggle for South Africa from the word go as they lost wickets at regular intervals and failed to put on a substantial partnership to get to a wining total.



Despite having some many big hitting batsmen in their ranks, the Proteas could only hit eight boundaries and two sixes in their entire 20 overs.



Left-handed opener Quinton de Kock top-scored for South Africa with a 46-ball 47, while Wiese made a valuable 28 lower down the order.



Sent into bat, South Africa were in dire-straits, losing their first five wickets inside the 50-run mark.

Hashim Amla became victim of a terrible mix up in the third delivery of the match, while skipper Faf du Plessis (9) was brilliantly holed out by Suleiman Benn at mid-off off Andre Russell in the last ball of the second over, soon after the right-hander clobbered Russell over mid-off two deliveries earlier.



Rossouw was the next to depart for a duck, cutting a Gayle delivery straight to Russell at point as South Africa slumped to 20 for three in three overs.



Much was expected of De Villiers (10) but he too perished in the eight over after being completely foxed by a slower delivery from Bravo.



While going for an outrageous flick through midwicket, De Villiers got a thick inside edge straight onto his stumps, much to the disappointment of the capacity crowd.



If that was not enough, Gayle went through another dangerman David Miller's defence to see South Africa in a spot of bother at 47 for five.



De Kock and Wiese then held the innings together with a crucial 40-run stand for the sixth wicket to take South Africa forward.



But just when it seemed things were starting to look bright for South Africa, De Kock, on whom South Africa depended much to get to a fighting total, perished after doing all the hard work. He was bowled by Russell as the left-hander went for an injudicious sweep to a full ball bowled around his legs.



In search of big shots, Wiese then skied a slower delivery from Bravo to West Indies skipper Sammy at mid-off.



For West Indies, Gayle (2/17), Bravo (2/200 and Russell (2/28) picked up two wickets apiece.

In-form West Indies continued their unbeaten run and defeated South Africa by three wickets to seal their spot in the semifinals of the ICC World Twenty20, here today.With three wins out of as many games, West Indies thus became the second team after New Zealand to enter the semi- finals of the marque event.South Africa are virtually out of the tournament and their fate now hinges o the result of tomorrow's Super 10 Group 1 match against England and Sri Lanka at New Delhi.If England win tomorrow, Eoi Morgan's men will secure their place in the semifinals as the second team from Group 1 and the match between South Africa and Sri Lanka will be a mere formality.Electing to bowl, West Indies first restricted South Africa to 122 for eight and then chased down the target with two balls to spare with three wickets in hand.Chasing 123 for win, West Indies were dealt a severe blow in the fifth ball of their innings when dangerous Chris Gayle was cleaned up by a late in-swigning delivery from Kagiso Rabada.Johnson Charles (32) took the offensive to the opposition, hitting Chris Morris for two boundaries to pick up 11 runs of the fourth over.Known for their fielding prowess, South Africa stayed on in the contest, courtesy a brilliant effort from Rilee Rossouw whose's direct throw on to the stumps caught Andre Fletcher (11) short of the crease.Charles carried on his good work in the company of Marlon Samuels (44) before the former went for a huge swipe only to give a skier to South Africa captain Faf du Plessis at cover.But Rabada's next over eased the pressure for West Indies as he went for three boundaries -- one by Dwyane Bravo and two by Samuels.Bravo, however, departed in the last delivery of the next over handing a simple catch to Wiese at backward point off Aaron Phangiso while going for a wild slash outside off-stump.With West Indies needing a manageable 24 off 24 balls, it took a superb 17th over from leg-spinner Imran Tahir (2/13) to bring South Africa back into the match.After dropping a difficult chance from Samuels off his own bowling, Tahir came back strongly and picked up two wickets in consecutive balls to the delight of the Proteas.Tahir first dismissed Russell as the batsman went for a huge slog across the line only to find Miller at deep midwicket and then castled West Indies skipper Daren Sammy with a first ball googly.Needing 20 off the last two overs, Samuels struck Wiese for two boundaries to bring down the equation to 10 off eight before a rash shot from the right-hander found AB de Villers at long-on.
Nepals outreach to China at the height of the blockade crisis last year has been taken forward with the two sides signing 10 agreements during the visit of Nepali Prime Minister K P Oli to China. Foremost among these is a transit trade agreement under which China will allow Nepal to conduct trade with third countries through its Tianjin port. This will give Nepal greater elbow room in its diplomatic dealings with India. Hitherto, its dependence on India for transit trade has made it vulnerable to Indian pressure, a fact that has been underscored several times in the past. While trade via Tianjin will give Nepal another option, the relief it will bring to Nepal is likely to be at best marginal. This is because trade with China is not easy given the difficult geographic terrain of the Himalayas. It is Haldia port that provides Nepal with a shorter route to the sea. The road and rail network via India is also well developed compared to that across the high Himalayas. Nepal and China are also exploring ways to improve connectivity, travel and economic co-operation between the two countries. Chinas rail network in Tibet is likely to be extended to the Nepal border and Nepal is eyeing better connectivity with Chinas manufacturing hubs. These will boost Sino-Nepal trade, facilitate travel and tourism and improve interaction between the people of the two countries.



Indias response to the growing Sino-Nepal cooperation tends to swing between extremes. While the official response has been cool and tending to downplay the long-term impact of the transit trade agreement, a section of analysts are drawing alarmist scenarios. Neither is useful. India cannot afford to take lightly the rising Chinese profile in Nepal. It needs to respond to it by improving its own infrastructure in the border regions. Importantly the government must act to reduce anti-India sentiment in Nepal. However, there is no need for India to panic over Chinas steady advance towards the Indian border. India needs to see how it can gain from Chinas growing presence in the region. How smartly can it change the situation to its advantage? India could gain from trans-Himalayan trade with China, for instance. Nepals growing ties with China will tempt its leaders to flash the China card more often in their dealings with India. Rather than pit one against the other to draw benefit, Nepal should use its growing leverage to push the two Asian giants towards co-operation. Its value as a bridge between them will enhance Nepals stature in global politics.
In the United States, the September 11 attacks unleashed an outpouring of patriotism. After the attacks in and around Paris on November 13, the tricolor of the French flag was ubiquitous as the country channeled its grief.



Not so in Belgium. In this wounded nation, politically fragmented and divided between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south, displays of the black, yellow and red of the Belgian flag have been relatively restrained, even as the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building lit up in its colours.



We Belgians do not wrap ourselves in the flag  it is not our way, said Nicolas Gallet, 19, who was among thousands on Thursday who thronged Place de La Bourse, a square in central Brussels filled with flowers and candles, and memorial messages chalked on asphalt. Instead, in a decidedly Belgian gesture, an image of the beloved cartoon character Tintin and his dog Snowy crying was widely shared on social media by Belgians and foreigners alike.



Like their counterparts around the world, Belgians reacted to the terror attacks that killed 31 people at an airport and subway station on Tuesday morning with the all-too-familiar rituals of public mourning and with grief, anger, shock and defiance. But perhaps befitting a country with three Parliaments, which once went without a government for 541 days, the understated displays of solidarity were tinged with simmering frustration as a blame game began.



Some Belgians lashed out at a flailing security apparatus and chronically dysfunctional government for abetting the tragedy. How, some critics here and abroad asked, could a country that in the past had been barely able to form a government  and a city that until recently had 19 police forces  effectively hunt for terrorists?



You have local level and you have federal level, and there is no collaboration, said Francoise Schepmans, the mayor of Molenbeek, the district where the sole surviving suspect from the Paris attacks was arrested last week after evading the authorities for 125 days. They dont have to talk to me about their investigation, she said in an interview with CNN.



Belgium, a tiny country of 11 million people, has long had an identity crisis. It lives in the shadow of its larger and more powerful cousin, France. Brussels, the capital, doubles as the capital of the European Union and headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, giving it global heft but also subsuming its already fragile and fragmented persona to plodding bureaucratic institutions.



Reflecting on the attacks, Gallet, the student, said many Belgians were resigned and angry. He argued that the countrys fractious identity politics were at least partly to blame for distracting successive governments from improving the integration of immigrants and preventing terrorism. But his friend Antoine Staru disagreed. I am sorry, but this is not Belgiums fault, said Staru, 20. These are crazy people. These are people born here, and yet they are attacking this country.



Since the Brussels attacks, far-right parties, from France to Italy to the Netherlands, have assailed the European Unions lax immigration policies and porous borders. In Belgium, the nationalist Vlaams Belang party, which agitates for an independent Flanders, urged Prime Minister Charles Michel to seal the borders.



We cant stop terrorism if they remain open! the party wrote on Twitter.

There were also calls for unity. Christophe Berti, editor of Le Soir, urged readers to undertake a historical reckoning of the last 40 years, including the conditions that had led to lapses of security and social cohesion. That is the best homage we can pay to the victims, he wrote.



But Brian Carroll, a communications consultant from Washington who escaped from the Maelbeek subway station through a cloud of smoke and rubble on Tuesday, suggested that given its role in hosting critical international institutions, Brussels should be policed by a Pan-European force.



As calls for accountability gathered force, the human cost of the attacks has become ever more real, with names and photographs of the dead and missing filling Belgian newspapers. The victims, including some 300 wounded, came from more than 40 countries, including the United States, Britain, Morocco, Spain and Hungary.



Identification of victims has been painfully slow, the police said, with many bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Among the few confirmed so far are Leopold Hecht, 20, a Belgian law student; Olivier Delespesse, a Belgian civil servant; and Adelma Marina Tapia, a Peruvian mother of young twin girls.



On Thursday, at a large military hospital in Neder-over-Heembeek in northern Brussels, where many of the victims were taken, officials said they expected that most of the dead there would be identified soon. Of the nearly 100 admitted with injuries, 15 remained.



Glimpse of heroism



Amid the gloom, there was also heroism. Alphonse Youla, a Belgian of African origin who wrapped luggage at the airport, was credited with spiriting several people to safety, according to Belgian news agencies, which reported that he carried people whose legs had been shattered from the ruined terminal, even as the ceiling was crashing in.



Some Belgians expressed outrage at remarks by the Republican presidential contender Donald J Trump, who had called Brussels a hell hole and, after the Tuesday attacks, reiterated his criticism of Muslim communities.



They were similarly upset by the comments of Eric Zemmour, a French writer who after the Paris attacks said the French government should bomb Molenbeek rather than the Islamic States self-declared capital in Raqqa, Syria.



On Thursday in Molenbeek, as residents bartered in Arabic at a vegetable and fruit market, Leiven Soete, 73, one of the relatively few native-born Belgians shopping there, said he had come, as he did every Thursday, to show that he would not be cowed. He said his neighbour, an older Moroccan man, had been inconsolable since the attacks.



There is a shadow over Molenbeek. But we cant solve this by making our neighbours the enemy, he said. If Donald Trump calls us a hell hole, I feel proud.



Muslims in Molenbeek said they felt under siege. Samia, 32, who is of Moroccan origin

and has three children but declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, said she feltsick about what had happened, and feared a backlash against Muslims.



I am Belgian, too, I was raised here, and now my 5-year-old son asks me to close the blinds because he is afraid of being shot by terrorists, Samia said as two friends wearing Islamic headscarves nodded somberly. She said the looks of suspicion in recent days on the streets of Brussels had been difficult to bear.




With norms for foreign investment liberalised in more and more sectors, the government now wants states to be an equally active partner with the Centre so that the last mile hurdles for investors are removed.





Plans are afoot, under which states may have to sign an agreement with the Centre on their commitment to protecting foreign investments and investors in the states and there will be stringent monitoring of federal bodies on this.



This is being done for effective investment of bilateral investment treaties. Besides, it will also increase competition amongst states as investments will be more in the states who have signed the agreement, an official said.



The move comes after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in this years Budget proposed a Centre-State Investment Agreement to ensure fulfilment of obligations of state governments under this treaty. His Budget speech also said that those who opt to sign the agreement will be viewed as more attractive destinations by overseas investors.



However, it will be optional for states to sign the agreement, under which, there will also be a provision for dispute settlement at the local level, saving investors from knocking the doors of international arbitration.



Recently, British telecom major Vodafone had sought international arbitration in its Rs 20,000-crore tax dispute with the Indian tax department, following the cancellation of conciliation talks. Cairn Energy also sought compensation for Rs 10,200-crore tax notice slapped on Cairn India through international arbitration. India has so far signed 83 bilateral trade and promotion agreements.




Jessie

Kannada (UA), Cast: Parul Yadav, Dhananjaya, Raghu Mukherjee

Director: Pawan Wadayar





Pawan Wadayar, who has scripted, written and directed Jessie, had a wonderful theme of a woman caught in a tsunami of psychological conflict and personal emotions.



His heroine Nandhini is a doctor  modern, yet traditional  who does not believe in the promiscuous ways of her friend Shilpa, who changes boyfriends like bedsheets. Director Wadyar had a great opportunity to examine Nandhinis complex state of mind when Jessi appears from nowhere, declaring I Love You.



However, Wadayar fritters the chance away, turning Jessie into a half-romance, half-horror tale. The film has its moments, but is also a patience teaser.



Having encountered death at her very first assignment as doctor called to attend to her friends brother, Nandhini turns a psychological wreck. The village priest recommends that she pray for 11 days to Lord Hanuman, housed atop the desolate Honnange Hill, to ward off evil influence. A reluctant Nandhini treks nearly 1,008 steps, only to be stalked by Jessi who tells her that she is made for him.



She reciprocates after much agitation and confusion. However, a visit to his house and a revelation by his mother turn her into a psychotic case.



To soothe her frayed frame of mind, her parents marry her to Oz-returned techie Shyam. But the couples life turns nightmarish, till exorcist Aslam Khan enters the scene.



Shot lusciously amid sylvan valley and waterfalls, with two pleasing songs, Jessie makes an interesting watch, though not engaging. Parul Yadav as Nandhini does a competent job while Raghu Mukherjee, as the understanding husband, is suave and dignified. Dhananjaya, however, is as irksome as Jessie.

Despite its faults, Jessie is worth watching.






A government schoolteacher has been arrested for impersonating a candidate in the Karnataka State Police Constable Examination held last year.



The candidate, Sunil Kumar, 23, applied for the civil constables post and passed the physical endurance test. But he chickened out before the written exam. So, he approached a relative, Manjunath, 39, who is a teacher at government high school in KR Nagar, to take the exam on his behalf. Manjunath backed out, saying he was too old to take the exam and feared being caught.



Nonetheless, Manjunath got another of their relatives, Umesh, 33, also a teacher at the same high school, to take the exam. Umesh agreed and appeared for the exam in Kumars name. When the results came, Kumar had topped the exam.



A few months passed and the examiners didnt find anything fishy. Recently, however, a senior officer in the police recruitment and training wing received an anonymous letter, which suggested that Kumar hadnt taken the exam but someone else impersonated him. The exam was held at the Smt VHD Central Institute of Home Science. The officer ordered a probe.



Investigators checked the candidates details. They examined Kumars signature and thumb impression taken during the physical test and found that they didnt match with the signature and thumb impression taken during the written exam.



Later, a senior officer in the police commissionerate lodged a complaint with the Upparpet police. Another senior police officer, who is investigating the case, said they had questioned the invigilator who said he could not identify the impersonator as the photograph in the admission ticket was blurred. The police have arrested all the three men.


The Congress became upset with the DMKs inability to forge a rainbow alliance as the DMDK announced a third front for the Tamil Nadu elections.



The DMK, which had made party supremo M Karunanidhi the face of the campaign, had assured the Congress to win over Capt Vijaykanth-led DMDK that commands about 10% vote share in the state.



Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is piqued at his party remaining the lone alliance partner with the DMK, which still carries the corruption taint given the alleged involvement of its leaders in the 2G scam.



Congress leaders believe that the DMK would manage to rope in DMDK and a few other regional outfits such as the VCK, which was also part of the UPA, for the Assembly elections. The discussions senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had with Karunanidhi in Chennai on Friday were centred on this aspect. Our basic purpose was to discuss election strategy and also to find out as to how many other groups are joining and how many have already joined, Azad said.
In a message to nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said: Good Friday was a day for both prayer and to remember the noble, pious and compassionate thoughts of Jesus Christ that touched many lives.



His message comes even as the BJP is pulling out all stops to woo Christian voters in poll-bound Kerala. Christians constitute 19 % of the states population. Polling in the Kerala for new state assembly is scheduled to be held on May 16.



Good Friday is a day of prayer & a day to remember the noble, pious & compassionate thoughts of Jesus Christ that touched many lives, Prime Minister tweeted.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also tweeted later in the day: On the solemn occasion of Good Friday, let us recall the message of love, forgiveness and compassion, and perpetuated peace in the society.



In Kerala, the BJP is trying to woo the Christian community ahead of the elections. A series of meetings, held between Union ministers including Jaitley and church leaders over the last two months, aimed at bridging the gap with the Christian community in the state.



Senior Kerala BJP leaders have held discussions with leaders of various church denominations, in an effort to understand their concerns and get suggestions on candidates for the upcoming polls.



Kerala BJP chief Kummanam Rajasekharan has also met a number of senior bishops soon after assuming the post.



Sources said the BJP candidate list could have around dozen candidates belonging to Christian community besides half a dozen Muslim nominees. The BJP is planning to give tickets to Christians in central Kerala and some parts of northern Kerala, where the community has strength.



The RSS had started trying to build bridges with the Christian community in Kerala when K Sudarsan was the Sarsanghchalak.



RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat also continued his predecessors path. Since the BJP-led coalition coming to power in 2014, Modi himself has attended functions organised by the Catholic Church in Delhi. Jaitley had in December last hosted church leaders from Kerala here at his official residence. Though the BJP is making efforts to woo Christians in Kerala with an eye on assembly polls, a section in party is of the view that they should be cautious in dealing with various Christian denominations as some of them are lobbying against the Centres crackdown on the NGOs which are providing funds for them.




The race to the semifinals has gathered steam. A defeat can simply stop a team in its track. Both England and Sri Lanka will be going all out against each other to avoid this fate in Group 1 match of Super 10 in World Twenty20 here on Saturday.





A win would strengthen the semifinal chances of England, who mustered a shambolic 15-run victory over minnows Afghanistan on Feroz Shah Kotla surface here on Wednesday. Defending champions Sri Lanka, on the other hand, would be playing their third match in the tournament, but after a gap of six days. With one win and loss, they have a low run rate and need to post victories over both England and South Africa to be assured of last four stage.



The pitch here could play a crucial role. Englands troubles against spin are well documented and they somehow managed to scrape past the spirited Afghans. They also underused their spinners and preferred to depend more on their seam bowlers. The anticipated debut of left-arm spinner Liam Dawson was put on hold and his continued exclusion now wont be surprising.



England are likely to persist with off-spinner Moeen Ali, who had revived their innings with the bat against Afghanistan, and leg-spinner Adil Rashid with Joe Root filling in the spot for the third spinner, if need be. David Willey, who extracted some bounce during his figures of 2-23, would head the seamers that include Liam Plunkett and Chris Jordan.



Having already played one match, England have got the taste of the conditions and that should put them in good stead. However, they would be hoping their opening batsman Alex Hales to pass the fitness test and expect Root to be at his devastating best that saw England chase a record total against South Africa. Captain Eoin Morgans form has been a cause of worry and it was Moeen and Willey who took them to safety against Afghanistan. However, in Sri Lanka they would face wily opponents and hold a 2-4 record against them in T20.



Sri Lanka, in five previous editions, have finished runners-up on two occasions in 2009 and 2012 and won the tournament in 2014 and made the semifinals in 2010. On a Kotla track, they would have a quality spin-oriented attack led by the experienced Rangana Herath and leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersa, who came in as replacement for the injured Lasith Malinga. Malingas absence is sorely felt by the team in transition, and though it has Nuwan Kulasekara and Dushmantha Chameera as new ball pair, the effect is not the same. Captain Angelo Mathews has the potential to create impact with both bat and ball and would need to lead from the front.



Tillakaratne Dilshan, who is in the twilight of his career, has been in good form and would need support from Dinesh Chandimal and Chamara Kapugedra. However, it is the middle-order that lacks depth and experience. Sri Lanka, certainly, need to get their act together against England who would be spurred by the prospect of a semifinal berth.




Haripada Das, 59, is a daily wage labourer who lives in a suburb of Silchar town, the main commercial hub of Southern Assam.



Haripada had been an ardent supporter of former Union Minister Santosh Mohan Dev, the only politician from Southern Assam who made a space in national mind space.



When he went to cast his vote in the last assembly polls in 2011, he was denied since he was marked as a D-voter. Since then he has been struggling to get his voting rights back. My father Tulsi Das was born in Southern Karimganj and had moved to Silchar for work. We were three brothers and a sister. None of then were declared as D-voter but I was marked. I have faced huge harassment and no political party including the Congress helped me Haripada said.



Assams voters list has a unique category which is not found in any other states. Lakhs of people whose nationality are not completely verified and are alleged to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh have been marked D-voters (Doubtful or Dubious voters).



It was in 1997, while revising its voter lists, the Election Commission of India had the letter D be printed next to more than 2.3 lakh names in Assam. Following a Gauhati High courts Judgement on a petition on their voting rights, they were barred from their vote casting rights since the 2011 Assembly polls.



The fate of the D-voters is decided by the ForeignersTribunal, set up in different parts of the state.

Once a voter is served with a notice to prove his nationality, he become a suspected Bangladeshi and picked up by the police and put in detention camps which are invariably in jail. Thus right from that moment just on basis on suspension he is subjected to harassment. In the name of D-voters, genuine Indian citizen are being harassed Haripada said.




The two-phase Assam Assembly elections next month may be seen as a political battle between the Congress and the BJP, but 79-year-old Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is still the man to watch as he prepares to win a fourth consecutive term.



In an exclusive interview to Deccan Heralds Ratnadip Choudhury, Gogoi explains why he is confident of a Congress victory once again.





DH: Campaigning for the ensuing polls is gaining momentum and you have been on the trail. How do you see your partys chances?



TG: We will be back with full majority. No questions about it. The contest will be close in many seats, but our candidates will have the last laugh. I am campaigning (across the state) since I have the experience of handling tough elections. We have strong indications that we will do well. There is a wave in our favour.



DH: The opposition BJP-AGP-BPF coalition seems to be taking the battle to your strongholds. How are you countering them?



TG: The opposition alliance does not have a vision, without which they cannot convince people of Assam. They are desperate to come to power by any means and that is opportunistic politics.



DH: Are you not worried that your erstwhile poll manager Himanta Biswa Sarma, instrumental in winning three elections for you, is in the BJP camp?



TG: Why should we worry about an individual? In our party, the cause and policy is above an individual. Our party survives not because of me or some other individual, but because of our workers and supporters. Our real strength is our grassroot level support.



DH: You have been seen as one of the most successful chief ministers of Assam. How much have you achieved and what are your failures?



TG: Yes, there are some issues that still needs attention. But you must look at our gradual recovery in the last 15 years. There are problems in every state. Even in Gujarat there are serious issues (if not) why should Hardik Patel protest? Modi could not solve all the issues.



DH: The unsolved issues could be reason enough for anti-incumbency. How are you countering it?



TG: There will be anti-incumbency. It was there even in the last polls, but we won by huge margins. Anti-incumbency should happen in a democracy. We are confident because we have largely delivered. You see anti-incumbency getting stronger when there is utter hopelessness about a regime.



Anti-incumbency would work if people feel there is a chance to improve the situation, besides which there should be a stronger alternative or if (the opposition) has better candidates. The BJP alliance has none of these.



DH: You have termed this election a Modi vs Gogoi battle. Is it fair to compare the two-year-old Modi regime with the 15-year-old Gogoi rule?



TG: It is not the question of years. It is how he (Modi) looked at Assam in this timeframe of two years. He has done an injustice to Assam and the rest of the Northeast. We were deprived of central benefits given to us since 1869, besides which the special status policy for ten states have been removed. (So) I am fighting Modi on his policies.



DH: You had an opportunity to forge an alliance with AIUDF and even Nitish Kumar had shown some interest. Why then the Bihar-style grand alliance did not take shape in Assam?



TG: Alliance formation becomes a necessity when political parties are weaker and lose their confidence to win on their own. Why should we form a grand alliance when we have such a strong base? We are quite capable to fight and win the election on our own.



DH: while you say Congress is far ahead, the BJP sees a massive uprising in Assam.



TG: the BJP is trying to play the polarisation card in Assam. They have nothing else but Hindutva sermons. We speak about integrating all castes and communities. I have been saying that BJP and Modi are experts in marketing. Modi won in 2014 based on great marketing skills. He promised new magical products that would change the face of the country. Now people have understood Modis products are spurious and adulterated. It is getting rejected in every state. Assam would also reject it.




Amnesty International India condemned the police crackdown on the peaceful protests by University of Hyderabad students and faculty and demanded their immediate release.



In a statement released here on Friday, Amnesty demanded an independent investigation into allegations of excessive use of force by the police.



On March 22, the Telangana Police assaulted students on the UoH campus protesting the return of the vice-chancellor of the university whom they hold responsible for the suicide of a Dalit Student, Rohith Vemula, in January 2016.



Violence against protesting students in a university cannot under any circumstance be justified. Allegations of sexual violence and threats by the police to women students must be investigated and those suspected of being responsible must be prosecuted, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director at Amnesty International India.



Male police brutally grabbed, molested, tossed and beat female students and faculties alike. Female faculties were grabbed by their hair and dragged into vans. Male students were swept inside the van and were beaten without mercy, the statement said quoting Vaikhari Aryat, a UoH student.



Totally, 25 students and two faculty members among the protesters have been arrested on charges of vandalising the vice-chancellors office and booked for rioting, criminal intimidation and damage to public property. If found guilty, they could be imprisoned for up to 7 years.



Meanwhile, Hyderabad MP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and party MLA Ahmad Bin Abdullah visited the Cherlapally Jail here and met the UoH students and faculty jailed there. Expressing solidarity with the students, Owaisi said the controversial vice-chancellor must go to bring back normalcy to the campus.


Concerned over reports of emergency-like situation in Hyderabad Central University (HCU), the National Human Rights Commission on Friday sought reports on the campus situation from the HRD Ministry, Telangana government and city police.



Taking suo motu cognizance of the matter, the commission said media reports suggested there is heavy police presence in the campus and the students are under immense fear and trauma due to indiscriminate arrests of about 25 students and two faculty members. It asked HRD Secretary, Telangana Chief Secretary and Hyderabad Police Commission to submit their reports in a week.



The commission has observed that the arbitrary act and high handedness of senior university officials as well as police and administrative officers, as reported in media, raise serious concerns towards safety and security of the students. No one can be deprived of the basic amenities like water, food and electricity by willful act of the state, an NHRC statement said.



Quoting reports, the commission said 25 students and two faculty members were arrested on March 23 in connection with incidents of vandalizing the office of vice-chancellor and damaging the public property as well as obstructing government officials from performing their duties.



Human rights organisation Amnesty International India also demanded an independent investigation into allegations of excessive use of force by the police. Students have the right to protest. Denying protesting students water and food is unacceptable under any measure, it said.



Amnesty also said allegations of sexual violence and threats by the police to women students must be probed. Violence against protesting students in a university cannot under any circumstance be justified, it added.



The JNU Students Union had earlier decided to lead a mass delegation to the commission on Monday after HRD Ministry refused to take any action for the removal of Hyderabad University Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile.


David Headley on Friday revealed that the outfit wanted to negotiate the release of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab against Israeli hostages in Chabad House.



Besides, the 56-year-old Headley said that he wanted the Pakistani government to confer Nishan-e-Haider, the highest gallantry award, to the nine fidayeens who died during the 26/11 attack. Thats correct, he said when asked whether this was part of the conversation on September 7, 2009, that was played during the trial of Dr Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was acquitted in the Mumbai terror attacks but convicted in the Denmark terror plot.



Yes, Headley said to a query from defence lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan whether his LeT handler Sajid Mir told him that one of the terrorists (Kasab) has been arrested.



Khan then asked whether Mir instructed one of the terrorists in Chabad House to negotiate with the Israeli authorities and trade hostages for the attacker, to which Headley replied in positive and said, Yes.



When asked that Mir had told him to talk to the US embassy officials, he said: I was in Lahore, how is it possible. Khan then asked him to give a straight reply to the question in yes or no, to which he said: During the attack, I was in no contact with Sajid.


In a statement that reflects David Headleys connections in the Pakistani establishment, the jailed terrorist-turned-approver on Friday said that the then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited his house around January 2009 after his father passed away.



Headleys father Syed Saleem Gilani, a high-ranking Pakistani government official, retired as Director-General, Radio.



Asked when his father died, he gave the date as 25 December 2008. When asked is it correct that the then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani attended his funeral, Headley said: He did not attend the funeralhe did visit our house a few weeks later.



Asked whether his half-brother Danial also works in the Pakistani establishment, he said: Just refer to him as my brother, not half. He also denied to give the details of where he works and also that he used his brothers cellphone in Pakistan.



Asked whether his father knew of his LeT links, he said Yes, I told him, and also later added that he did not like it.



Asked who Hamza was, he said: He is my brother. But to another question on whether he was aware of his LeT links, he said: Very little.



Asked whether Hamza was aware of 26/11, he said: Only after the fact. Asked who Shaukat Rana was, he said that he was his friend.



When asked whether he was aware of his LeT links, he replied in positive. However, he said, thats negative when asked whether Shaukat advised him before 26/11, but admitted that he discussed the 26/11 plan with him as he was my friend.



Asked whether he accompanied him to some places ahead of the attacks, he said: Noto attack India why should I visit Pakistan. Asked whether he objected, he said: He neither objected nor encouraged.


Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani told a Mumbai court on Friday that he always hated India and Indians.



Headley said he developed such feelings in 1971 when his school was bombed, resulting in the death of several people. This, he claimed, was one of the reasons for joining LeT and taking part in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Thats one of the reasons, the 56-year-old Headley told additional sessions judge G A Sanap, when advocate Abdul Wahab Khan asked during the cross-examination about the reasons for joining the LeT and doing groundwork for the Mumbai attacks, besides helping the people of Kashmir.



While Khan is representing Sayed Zaibuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, an Indian facing trial, the government is represented by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. Headleys statement is an apparent reference to the 1971 Indo-Pak war which led to the formation of Bangladesh.



Asked whether he developed hatred against India and Indians since childhood, he said, Yes. When backed with a supplementary whether this was the reason he wanted to cause maximum damage to India, he said, Yes...I have already pleaded guilty to that.



Khan then asked for the reasons, to which Headley said: When my school was bombed in 1971, I developed these feelings...December 7, 1971.



When asked who bombed his school, he shot back is these relevant to the proceedings, and went on to add, Indian planes. Asked about the loss, he said: The school was destroyed and people who worked there died. When asked why he wanted to fight in Kashmir, he said: I have answered thisto Nikam saab.....in order to assist people in Kashmir.



On why he wanted to assist, he said, I thought they needed assistance and when probed why he thought so, he said, Because of the conflict between India and Pakistan over the issue of Kashmir. I wanted to go with other people of the LeT and fight there.


A 37-year-old brain-dead man from Tumakuru gave a new lease of life to six after his organs were donated here on Friday.





Basavaraj met with an accident on March 21 near Tumakuru while riding his bike. He was immediately admitted to a hospital with severe head injuries. Despite treatment, he failed to regain consciousness. The doctors who attended on him later counselled the family members to donate his organs and the family agreed.



Accordingly, in co-ordination with the Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka for Transplantation (ZCCK), Basavaraj was shifted from Sapthagiri Hospitals and moved to neuro critical care at BGS Global Hospitals on March 24.



He was re-evaluated and declared brain-dead in keeping with the protocols after which the organs were retrieved.



Basavaraj's heart, liver, kidneys and eyes were donated to give a new lease of life to six people. His heart was transported early in the morning and hence no green corridor was required, according to doctors at BGS Global Hospital.



Dr Venkatramana N K, vice chairman, BGS Global Hospitals, said, "We take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of the family for a noble cause. Their decision for organ donation has given a new lease of life to six people."



While the donor heart and kidney were transplanted to patients in M S Ramaiah Hospitals, his corneas were sent to Narayana Nethralaya.



The liver was transplanted at BGS Global Hospitals on a 43-year-old male, from Bengaluru. The recipient was suffering from end stage liver disease. The kidney was transplanted on a patient at Narayana Health City.



Basavaraj is survived by a 10-month-old son. One of the members of the family who spoke on condition of anonymity said the money that the family had saved for the child's naming ceremony had been used for his treatment and that with Basavraj's death, the family had no financial backing.




The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has planned to run 1,800 of its 8,300 buses on biodiesel. The select buses will run on 20% biodiesel and 80% diesel.





Currently, all KSRTC buses are running on diesel completely. The KSRTC has now decided to reduce the diesel component after a series of trials and tests it carried out with biodiesel has turned out successful.



The talk of bio-diesel has been there for long, but its implementation had not taken place as officials were unsure how the combination of bio-diesel and diesel would work. The KSRTC has been plying a few buses on the biodiesel and diesel combination on a trial basis. In terms of engine performance, vibrations, body imbalance, extra sound etc, the buses performed well and did not show undue signs of stress of any kind. The fuel efficiency too worked out well. This has prompted us to go in for a combination of 20% biodiesel and 80% diesel, KSRTC MD Rajender Singh Kataria said.



The new initiative will be taken up in 16 depots in the State on a pilot basis.

Meanwhile, the State transport corporation is also testing out a 100% biodiesel bus, the first of its kind in the State.



We havent tried out a 100% biodiesel bus. Currently one bus is undergoing trials with 100% biodiesel. The result so far has been good. But we have to try out various combinations - long distance inter-city routes and short distance travel too. The bus has to run on different road conditions, temperatures and topography. We want to ensure that 100% biodiesel works under all conditions, Kataria said.



Passenger feedback



Passenger feedback will be sought on vibrations of the bus, if any, engine noise, overall noise levels within the bus, the bus handling and whether any change can be felt. If the feedback is positive, then scientific data will be combined with the popular feedback to undertake necessary changs. Overall, if the data indicates that any change is required, a retro-fitting of equipment will be taken up by KSRTC, the KSRTC MD added.



The Scania buses from Sweden will be run on bio-diesel. An agreement has been signed with the Swedish automotive major that the company will carry out any retro-fitting if necessary and this would involve fitting a few tools to the existing bus apparatus.



In most cases, a complete overhaul of engine is ruled out. Most of the buses in Europe and USA run on 100% biodiesel and, so far, no major problem or equipment hiccup has been cited. Scania runs its buses all over the world and officials say no adverse report on the engine or malfunction has been reported.




Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner A B Ibrahim has said that a trivial issue over printing his name in the invitation for the temple car festival has been politicised by local leaders.





In a press statement issued on Thursday, Ibrahim has said that his name was in the invite as per the protocol and not as per the Endowment Act. He said that it was not the first time that a non-Hindu DCs name was printed in the invitation for the festivals of Hindu muzrai temples. However, in order to ensure that the car festival is conducted peacefully, the additional deputy commissioner and the temple administrator among others had been directed to supervise the conduct of the event.



The 800-year-old Mahalingeshwara temple is under the control of Muzrai department. Lakhs of devotees take part in the annual car festival of the deity which is held from April 10 to April 20. The temple generates a revenue of more than Rs one crore per annum.



This year, the BJP and several Hindu organisations had taken serious exception to printing the name of Ibrahim in the invite for the car festival. They had claimed that the Hindu Religious and Endowment Act does not allow a non-Hindu to be a muzrai officer. But, a deputy commissioner, by virtue of his office, becomes the muzrai officer. A writ petition had been filed in the High Court challenging printing of Ibrahims name in the invite.



When contacted by this newspaper on Friday, Ibrahim said, Going by the protocol, I have not committed any mistake. I had recently disqualified 7 Puttur municipality members under the anti-defection law. This and internal rivalry in political parties have led to blowing a trivial issue out of proportion, he said. He added that the issue had nothing to do with rituals.



Puttur MLA Shakuntala Shetty (Congress) said that it was good that the matter had seen a logical end. The difference between protocol and law should be clear to avoid such controversies. she added.



Rajesh Bannur, a resident of Puttur, who is closely associated with the temple, said a muzrai officer would have to take part in many rituals and receive prasada during the car festival. In the last 60 years, the DCs name had been printed on the invite only once. But he was a Hindu. Now, a needless controversy has been created by the government, he added.



Govt cant meddle in matters of faith



Former advocate general Ashok Haranahalli said that one cannot go by protocol alone because a non-Hindu cannot head Hindu temples despite being muzrai officer.



He said the Legislative Assembly Speaker was recently heard directing the government to amend the relevant law to manage Hindu temples.



A non-Hindu cannot head a Hindu temple. Similarly, a non-Christian and a non-Muslim cannot head a church and mosque respectively. The government cannot interfere in issues related to faith. Anybody can enter a Hindu temple. But muzrai temples have to be managed by Hindus. Government can only appoint priests but it cannot have a say in rituals, he said.






The IDBI employee unions will go ahead with the strike scheduled from March 28 to 31 but will abide by the conditions imposed by the High Court of Karnataka in its order on Thursday.





The court has imposed conditions on the employee unions restraining them from shouting slogans within a distance of 25 meters from the offices and branch premises of the bank, using loud speakers, megaphones, loud hailers within the aforesaid said distance.



The agitating employees are restrained from displaying, pasting, painting any posters or slogans within the office or establishment or its premises.They are also restrained from obstructing any customer or investor visiting the bank.



The court has imposed these conditions to United Platform of IDBI Unions, United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees, IDBI Officers Association, IDBI Karmachari Sangha in Karnataka only.
A day after being elected as legislature party leader, PDP president and Chief Minister-in-waiting Mehbooba Mufti on Friday postponed her meeting with the state Governor N N Vohra.



Mehbooba, who is set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, was scheduled to meet the Governor at Raj Bhavan in Jammu at 4.30 pm while alliance partner BJP state president Sat Sharma was scheduled to meet Vohra an hour later.



However, both the meetings were postponed at the last minute. Sources said the meeting was postponed as alliance partners first want to work out modalities like distribution of portfolios between them and when to hold swearing-in of the chief minister and her cabinet.



An official spokesman said Raj Bhavan was approached by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the afternoon to ascertain whether Mehbooba and Sharma could meet the governor together on Friday evening which was agreed to.



However, he disclosed, that later PDP and BJP leaders informed Raj Bhavan that talks between the two parties were ongoing at Jammu and they would make a fresh request for meeting with the governor. Mehbooba and Sharma were scheduled to meet the governor over the issue of government formation.


An soldier from the Gorkha Regiment died in western Siachen on Friday after being hit by an avalanche while his buddy partner is still missing.



Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang, who was rescued by the army in the Turtuk sector after being hit by an avalanche in the morning, succumbed to his injuries, said Col S D Goswami, spokesperson of the Indian Armys northern command in Udhampur.



The duo was on track patrol duty on the glacier when they were hit by the avalanche around 8 am and were buried under loads of ice.



While the army rescued Tamang after much effort, his partner is still missing. Massive efforts are on to rescue the other jawan in spite of inclement weather.



Tamang was a resident of Lopshu village in Darjeeling tehsil of West Bengal. Lt Gen D S Hooda, Army Commander, Northern Command expressed his deep condolences to his family.



The tragic incident is the latest in a series of avalanche hits that the Indian Army experienced in the last three months. On March 17, Sepoy Vijay Kumar K perished in Kargil. Army rescue teams recovered Kumar's body from under 12 feet of snow three days later.



In February, 10 men from the Madras Regiment were killed when a huge wall of ice hit them in Siachen. While nine of them died on the spot, the tenth man, Lance Naik K Hanumanthappa, succumbed to his injuries in a military hospital in Delhi.



A month before, four troops from 3 Ladakh Scouts were killed in an avalanche in the southern glacier in Siachen, where India has occupied the dominating heights since 1984. As many as 27 soldiers died in Siachen between 2013 and 2015.



In the last three decades, India lost close to 1000 lives in Siachen and majority of them died due to harsh climatic conditions and challenging terrain of the 76 km long glacier.



Nevertheless, around 3,000 soldiers are deployed through the year on the glacier, where temperatures drop to minus 60 degrees in winters, as India dominates all the strategically important heights. Both Indian and Pakistani troops suffer heavy casualties at Siachen due to avalanches every year.


Islamabad issued a demarche to New Delhi on Friday after it arrested a former Indian Navy officer in Balochistan province.



Pakistan claims the former officer was spying for Indias external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).



Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Gautam Bambawale was summoned by Pakistans foreign affairs ministry where foreign secretary A A Chaudhry lodged a protest and expressed deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi. The former navy officer, Kul Bhushan Yadav, was arrested on Thursday from Quetta, the capital of turbulent Balochistan province of Pakistan. Yadav was accused of being in contact with insurgent leaders of Balochistan.



New Delhi admitted that Yadav had been an official of the Indian Navy, but added that he had no link with the government since his premature retirement.



India has no interest

Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup said: We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country.



Islamabads latest move to once again accuse New Delhi of engineering subversive activities in Pakistan comes ahead of a proposed meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart M Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit to be held between March 31 and April 1 in Washington DC.



Though Pakistan has been accusing India of fomenting trouble in Balochistan, this is the first time a former Indian Navy officer has been arrested there and has been accused of involvement in subversive activities.



According to a report by Pakistans Geo News, during the preliminary investigation, Yadav has revealed that he had been assigned to sabotage the proposed China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).



The channel also reported that he had been stationed in the Consulate General of India in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and had entered Pakistan illegally at least 12 times in the past.



Recovery of SIMS

Several Pakistan and Afghanistan mobile phone SIMs have been recovered, the report added. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor proposes to link Kashgar in Xinjiang in north-western China with the deep sea port at Gwadar in Balochistan in southern Pakistan.



Beijing is planning to spend over $ 46 billion on a series of infrastructure projects along the economic corridor that will pass through areas which India accuses Pakistan of illegal occupation.



New Delhi has already lodged protests against the proposed corridor, both with Pakistan and China, as well as in the United Nations. India has also taken a serious note of the presence of Chinese soldiers in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.


It sounds fairly innocent: Why shouldnt oil and gas companies be treated just like any other industry, as one state lawmaker insisted recently, when it comes to local land-use regulation?

Well, that might be fine in a world in which every jurisdiction operated in good faith in seeking to protect citizens from the impacts of an industrial process while preserving the ownership rights of private companies. Except that we dont live in that world.

While officials in most Colorado cities and towns would seek responsible accommodation with the energy industry if they had final say in all siting decisions  indeed, most already do this  a few clearly would not choose such a course.

They would instead either ban energy extraction outright or impose so many conditions and rules on permits as to make them impossible to obtain.

They would effectively seize mineral property rights, in other words, with no intention of providing a cent in return.

And never mind the Fifth Amendments prohibition on taking private property without just compensation.

Its those mineral property rights, it turns out, that distinguish oil and gas development from most other industries.

Were not imagining this prospect, since a few jurisdictions have taken such action even in the face of case law that fails to support their cause.

Thats among the reasons House Bill 1355 is a bad idea, whatever its intent. In giving such crucial authority over oil and gas facilities to local governments, it turns on a green light to regulation driven not only by legitimate concern over local impacts  noise, transportation and a variety of other above-ground issues  but also a fervent anti-drilling ideology. In effect, the bill would displace the state as the ultimate authority on oil and gas drilling and undermine Colorados clear interest in the orderly and safe production of energy.

Moreover, the legislation, which is up for a vote in the full House early next month, comes at a time when the Colorado Supreme Court is poised to rule on Longmonts ban on hydraulic fracturing and Fort Collins five-year moratorium on the technology, for which the justices heard oral arguments in December.

The court could simply declare the actions of those cities illegal in light of its previous rulings, and leave it at that. But it is also possible the court could elaborate on what aspects of land-use authority home-rule cities retain, or even reverse course and support Longmont and Fort Collins.

Well be very surprised and disappointed if the court took the latter course. But at the very least lawmakers ought to wait to see what the limits of the present law truly are before they seek to rewrite it.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.
By Kelly April Tyrrell

21 March 2016 (University of Wisconsin-Madison)  A changing climate is altering the ability of Rocky Mountain forests to recover from wildfire, according to a new study published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography. When warm, dry conditions lead to drought in the years following fires, it impedes the growth and establishment of vulnerable new post-fire seedlings. The study also shows that forest recovery has been negatively affected by increased distances between burned areas and the sources of seeds that typically replace trees lost to fire. Fires that are followed by warm, dry conditions offer us a window into the future, says Brian Harvey, lead author of the study and a former University of WisconsinMadison graduate student in the laboratory of Monica Turner, E.P. Odum Professor of Ecology and Vilas Research Professor of Zoology. Harvey is now a postdoctoral Smith Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder. From all the best available data and modeling, and expectations about future climate, these are the kinds of fires and post-fire climates that were going to see more of in the future, he says. The new data positions researchers to better understand how forests could change in coming decades and may yield valuable information for the development of robust simulation models. Turner says the dataset  which is the first to comprehensively demonstrate the impact of drought on forest recovery in the context of a changing climate  provides unambiguous evidence that the climate conditions following fires are really going to matter. The forests of the Rocky Mountains are well-adapted to fire. For instance, lodgepole pines, a dominant species in the Mountain West, possess seed cones that are opened by fire, with each tree releasing thousands of seeds when burned. However, how the forests will adapt to a changing climate is still unknown. Fires that are followed by drought  which we are very likely going to see more of with climate change  really do set a new context in which these forests are not recovering as quickly, says Harvey. Its a double whammy because even if seeds can get to a burned patch, they still need to survive once they get there. That may be much harder to do in a warmer, drier climate. The Turner labs interest in how forest recovery after fire may change in the future began in the summer of 2000, when large wildfires raged across the southern portion of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Thousands of acres of forest burned. Turner had previously studied the massive 1988 Yellowstone Fires and in the summers following the 2000 Glade Fire, she and collaborators visited the forest to collect as much data as possible. They were surprised to see that tree density in the years after the 2000 fire was 10 times lower than comparable forests recovering from the fires of 1988. A plausible explanation? The year following the Glade Fire was unusually hot and dry, with just 30 percent of normal summer precipitation. But one fire followed by a dry summer could not provide the data to rigorously test the theory. By 2013, however, multiple well-documented fires had burned throughout the Rockies and that summer, Harvey conducted field studies in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. He and the research team visited 184 sites where 11 wildfires burned between 1994 and 2003. The work was exhilarating, but also grueling, he says, as most sites were well off trail in the backcountry of some of Americas wildest places and the research team was on its hands and knees examining nearly 10,000 individual tree seedlings. The team collected data on the overall character of the forest before fire and the number, species, size and age of trees after fire; the ground cover on the forest floor (for example, the presence of shrubs or grasses) following fire; and other qualities of the site, such as whether the forest stands were on cooler/moister north-facing slopes or warmer/drier south-facing slopes. The researchers also turned to existing climate records to assess the drought severity of each location in the three years immediately following each fire and examined the distance from each plot to the nearest source of seeds  other still-living trees typically outside the burn patch. By going into areas that had burned at least 10 years ago  enough time for many post-fire tree seedlings to establish  we were able to characterize how these forests will likely look for some time in the future, says Harvey. They found that overall, fewer post-fire tree seedlings established in years when fire was followed by severe drought and when seed sources were farther away, compared with cooler, wetter years and when burned areas were closer to seed sources. Subalpine tree species, including Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir, were more negatively affected by drought after fire than species that grow at warmer, drier low elevations  Douglas-fir and quaking aspen, for instance  and those at the upper tree line, such as whitebark pine. The warm/dry post-fire climate conditions really hammered the species that currently dominate subalpine forests, Harvey says. One exception, however, was the lodgepole pine, which was less impacted by drought or seed source distance. However, these and the other species from lower elevations have not moved quickly enough into higher-elevation burned areas to replace the more sensitive subalpine tree species. This means that in addition to shifts in the composition of post-burned forests in the Northern Rockies, forest densities will also likely be lower in areas where fires are followed by drought, Harvey says  at least in the near and medium term. Turner hopes the findings are valuable to land managers who routinely work with wildfires, which often leave behind a mosaic of burned and unburned trees. These islands of live, unburned trees in a burnt desert may serve as valuable seed sources for forest recovery and should likely be left intact, she says. Harvey and Turners larger goals are to understand the conditions under which forests can or cannot recover after fire and to anticipate what the forest landscape might look like over the next few decades or centuries. Trees grow slowly, and we cant just wait 100 years to get enough opportunities to study forest recovery from fire, says Turner. With the study data, Turner and her collaborators will try to create models to predict future change. She is also involved in experimental efforts to understand the moisture thresholds various tree species require to germinate and become successfully rooted. She hopes to better understand forest recovery in the context of climate projections through mid-century. We want to tease this apart so we can anticipate what the ecosystem services (like carbon storage and wildlife habitat) will be in the future, what the landscape will look like, what it means for peoples ability to recreate and where their communities are, she says. There are a lot of human dimensions that come from the character and distribution of these forests. Daniel Donato, a former member of Turners lab now with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, is a co-author on the study, which was funded by the U.S. Joint Fire Science Program and the National Park Service.
Graph showing 20,000 years of years of temperature rise during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event, compared with the current temperature rise caused by anthropogenic global warming. Graphic: Robert Scribbler

By Chris Mooney

21 March 2016

(Washington Post)  If you dig deep enough into the Earths climate change archives, you hear about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. And then you get scared.

This is a time period, about 56 million years ago, when something mysterious happened  there are many ideas as to what  that suddenly caused concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to spike, far higher than they are right now. The planet proceeded to warm rapidly, at least in geologic terms, and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong acidification of the oceans.

The cause of the PETM has been widely debated. Some think it was an explosion of carbon from thawing Arctic permafrost. Some think there was a huge release of subsea methane that somehow made its way to the atmosphere  and that the series of events might have been kickstarted by major volcanic eruptions.

In any case, the result was a hothouse world from pole to pole, some 5 degrees Celsius warmer overall. But now, new research suggests, even the drama of the PETM falls short of our current period, in at least one key respect: Were putting carbon into the atmosphere at an even faster rate than happened back then.

Such is the result of a new study in Nature Geoscience, led by Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and colleagues from the University of Bristol in the UK and the University of California-Riverside.

If you look over the entire Cenozoic, the last 66 million years, the only event that we know of at the moment, that has a massive carbon release, and happens over a relatively short period of time, is the PETM, says Zeebe. We actually have to go back to relatively old periods, because in the more recent past, we dont see anything comparable to what humans are currently doing.

[Only the last 66 millions years? More like the entire 4+ billion year history of Earth. There has never been a time when the great biogeochemical cycles of carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur, on which the entire biosphere depends, have been disrupted simultaneously, on the scale of megatons and gigatons per year. Des ] [more]

What were doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66 million years, scientists say

ABSTRACT: Carbon release rates from anthropogenic sources reached a record high of ~10 Pg C yr1 in 2014. Geologic analogues from past transient climate changes could provide invaluable constraints on the response of the climate system to such perturbations, but only if the associated carbon release rates can be reliably reconstructed. The PalaeoceneEocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is known at present to have the highest carbon release rates of the past 66 million years, but robust estimates of the initial rate and onset duration are hindered by uncertainties in age models. Here we introduce a new method to extract rates of change from a sedimentary record based on the relative timing of climate and carbon cycle changes, without the need for an age model. We apply this method to stable carbon and oxygen isotope records from the New Jersey shelf using time-series analysis and carbon cycleclimate modelling. We calculate that the initial carbon release during the onset of the PETM occurred over at least 4,000 years. This constrains the maximum sustained PETM carbon release rate to less than 1.1 Pg C yr1. We conclude that, given currently available records, the present anthropogenic carbon release rate is unprecedented during the past 66 million years. We suggest that such a no-analogue state represents a fundamental challenge in constraining future climate projections. Also, future ecosystem disruptions are likely to exceed the relatively limited extinctions observed at the PETM.

Anthropogenic carbon release rate unprecedented during the past 66 million years

22 March 2016 (robertscribbler.com)  If you look over the entire  last 66 million years, the only event that we know of  that has a massive carbon release and happens over a relatively short period of time is the PETM. We actually have to go back to relatively old periods. Because in the more recent past, we dont see anything [even remotely] comparable to what humans are currently doing. Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii in a recent paper published in Nature.

Lets be very clear. The human fossil fuel emission is outrageous and unprecedented on geological timescales. An insult the Earth has likely never seen before. For the pace at which we are emitting carbon into the atmosphere is just flat out insane. Weve known this for some time because the best of science cant find any time in all of Earths geological history that produces a rate of atmospheric carbon accumulation equal to the one thats happening now.

However, a new study recently published in Nature now sheds more light on this rather difficult and scary topic. But in order to find an event that is even remotely comparable to the current human greenhouse gas emission, scientists had to look far back into deep time. All the way back through a period when the last of the Dinosaurs were dying off about 55-66 million years ago.

During this time we find evidence of the most recent Hothouse Mass Extinction Event in the geological record. We call this event the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM because its an extreme period of rapid warming that occurred at the boundary between these two periods of Earth History about 55.8 million years ago.

The PETM was pretty amazingly bad. It set off a mass extinction in the oceans which wiped out half of all shellfish through the varied impacts of anoxia, acidification and coral bleaching. Its heat forcing was enough to completely reverse ocean circulation and set up a stratified ocean state. Peatlands and forests went up in mass conflagrations. Terrible insect plagues swept the globe. The related extreme surface temperatures forced a mass poleward migration and widespread genetic alteration of mammals which were eventually reduced to dwarfism.

(Earlier studies estimated PETM emissions rates in the range of 1.7 billion tons of carbon per year. A new Nature study finds PETM emissions to be even lower at 1.1 billion tons of carbon per year. This compares to a current human emission of 10 billion tons of carbon per year. A rate of emission that could jump to as high as 25 billion tons of carbon per year by mid Century unless fossil fuel use is curtailed. Its worth noting that the slow but steady PETM emissions above represent one of the most rapid periods of warming in Earths geological history.) []

The new study finds that the velocity of the human carbon emission exceeds that of the Paleocene-Eocene hothouse extinction event by an order of magnitude (x10). [more]

Ten Times Faster Than a Hothouse Extinction  Human Carbon Emission is Worst in at Least 66 Million Years
Plenty of issues have gotten more ink and pixels in coverage of the Every Student Succeeds Act than parent, family, and other forms of engagement. But advocates for those issues are excited about how the federal education law could reinvigorate communities relationships with schools and enhance their impact on policy.

Heres one big theme in the article I co-wrote this week on how ESSA could change engagement : A lot of the potential changes for the issue dont necessarily have to do with how the laws language departs from the No Child Left Behind Act. Instead, theres a sentiment that because the law shifts more decisionmaking power to states and districts, its a big, fresh opportunity for local and state groups representing parents, civil rights groups, and others to work from the ground up with K-12 officials and policymakers.

To be sure, there are new provisions in ESSA designed to change how schools think about engagement. For example, the term parental involvement, used for requirements in NCLB, has changed to parent and family engagement in ESSA. That might not seem like a huge deal, but it does indicate to people who study the issue that the law recognizes that family members who arent parents could have an important role in a childs education. And swapping in engagement for involvement, they add, seems to hint at more collaborative possibilities.

And there are also new Statewide Family Engagement Centers authorized in ESSA that could get people involved in discussions that in many cases have been pretty narrow, although funding for those centers may not be in the cards. High need schools have priority for the Title I dollars that districts must set aside for engagement, ESSA says.

But as I note in my story, Wisconsin Superintendent Tony Evers is excited to replace the federal School Improvement Grant program with new turnaround ideas that are informed by a variety of groups.

The doors may be open for groups to work with schools and policymakers, but community groups and parents have to walk through them and be proactive in a variety of discussions. For example, theres the fifth indicator of school quality that states will have to use for accountability under ESSA. Discussions over the best way to satisfy that requirement will compel state and local leaders to pay attention to factors outside of classrooms impacting academics, said Mary Kingston Roche, the director of public policy for the Coalition for Community Schools at the Institute for Educational Leadership.

The actual one they choose is important, but just as important is the conversations that it starts, Roche said.

But even if parents, civic groups, and others get a seat at the table to discuss how Title I dollars are used and the school turnaround strategies that can effectively use community resources, they still have to look beyond themselves, said Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy and practice at the National Education Association.

Make sure that when you are at the table, and if there is some group or some organization or some person you believe to be critical, make sure they are at the table as well. Its not enough just for you to be at the table, Harris-Aikens said.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
A mix-up of addresses on Google Maps caused a demolition team to tear down the wrong house in Texas.

Google Maps is famous for putting people in a tight spot sometimes, like finding a wall where a road exit is indicated or going through some bizzare routes to locate a particular address. All this may pale in comparison to what happened to this woman from Texas. Her house, which was damaged by a tornado was scheduled for a repair and rebuild job, instead it was bulldozered down by a demolishing company which mixed up two addresses because of an incorrect listing on Google Maps.

The house that was originally scheduled to be demolished was located at 7601 Cousteau Drive in Rowlett, Texas, whereas the house that ended up being destroyed was located at 7601 Calypso Drive, situated just down the road. After the mix-up, the demolishing company sent a screenshot of Google Maps to the unassuming owner who now finds herself without a home. Apparently, The demolition team did not think twice to re-confirm the address once they got to the location and knocked down the wrong house relying solely on Google Maps. The mistake has now been fixed on Google Maps and locations for both houses show up correctly.

So, the next time you get lost or find yourself up against a wall becuase of your friendly Google Maps, thank your stars and roll down your window for directions! Below is a video report of the incident.


The gaffe actually gives us an interesting peek on how Google's Search algorithms work.

Media reports recently noted that the word anti-national, if searched on Google Maps, shows you the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In fact, you can type words like sedition, Kanhaiya and Rohit Vemulla and they will all lead to the same destination. While many have questioned Googles Search engine for the same, the incident actually offers some insight into how the Search engine works. Heres how.

If youve been a regular Google Maps user, you would know that the engine is based on much more than just locations. Google makes Maps more accurate using a lot of different resources, and one of them is the important news within the country. So, when you search for the word anti national, Googles search spider (the algorithm that actually performs the Search function), crawls the web finding the most relevant results.

Now, if there was a place called anti-national, the spider would most likely give it first preference. Having said that, Googles algorithms are tuned to return the most relevant result, and considering events in the past few months, the gaffe is actually a peek at how Google Maps works. Of course, it could be a bug as well, but one that will be identified only when the situation arises. It's like fighting a virus once it has been identified. You can't expect to fight a disease before you know about it right? Similarly, considering the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms and the various others that Google does, it's practically impossible for the company to know about this bug before someone actually types in the keyword 'anti national'. It would also be reasonable to expect that no one actually searches for the above mentioned words on Google Maps.

In fact, a Google spokesperson responded to our queries, saying, Were aware of the issue and are working on a fix, which further corroborates the bug theory.

Having said that, the result actually shows you the oft pointed out difference between machines and humans. The machine doesnt lie, because of which it returns the most accurate result, and that is what has been appreciated so far by almost all of us. It is the reason we prefer Maps over most other navigation services as well. Google doesnt have a human sitting at the other end, since the task is done much faster by the machine.
The data protection authority of France has fined Google by 100,000 (Rs. 74,64,700 approx.) for inadequate removal of history data and activities related to personal web searches. In accordance to a ruling by the European Court of Justice in May 2014, individuals received the power of asking search engine monitors like Google and Microsoft to remove irrelevant and inappropriate information related to web search results. This ruling gave rise to the Right to be Forgotten  a right that has since been debated on regarding its status as a special provision or as one of the fundamental human rights.

In an issued statement, the Commission Nationale de lInformatique et des Libertes (CNIL) stated that the only way for Google to uphold the Europeans right to privacy was by delisting inaccurate results popping up under name searches across all its websites. However, in counter-argument, Google stated that removal of past data from the entirety of the Internet means restricting free flow of information across the virtual web. This may (read: will) have massive implications in relation to information sourcing, that often plays critical role in precedence across multiple cases. As a result, Google removed data of specific requests from its local websites, and not the international platform. For instance, if it were applicable in India, an Indians request to enforce his/her right to be forgotten would lead to the removal of the relevant URL only from Google.co.in, and not Google.com. This has been done to preserve the sanctity of natural course of action, i.e., a proper reflection of reality wherein an action done in the past cannot be undone under any circumstance.

"The question of privacy looms large, as does the question of removing actions that may hold importance"

The CNIL, however, has disagreed on this term. Applying delisting to all of the extensions does not curtail freedom of expression insofar as it does not entail any deletion of content from the Internet, the body stated. To provide a solution to the claims of the European Union and keep its principal operating ways fluent, Google decided upon faux removal of information wherein a person will not see the data he/she requested to be removed when accessing the search engine from his country. For instance, a French national will not see the link requested to be removed across all of Googles sites, when accessing the data from within France. Such action was taken in order to solve security concerns of a nation, while keeping the international access of data intact. As a matter of principle, we disagree with the CNILs assertion that it has the authority to control the content that people can access outside France, and we plan to appeal their ruling, a Google spokesman told Reuters.

The fine has been imposed after the French data protectors decided that right to privacy of personal information cannot be adequately confined in terms of geographical locations, and only delisting on all of the search engines extensions, regardless of the extension used or the geographic origin of the person performing the search, can effectively uphold this right. It will be interesting to see the next course of actions that Google takes in accordance to the Right to be Forgotten.



Contested: Should the Right to be Forgotten be allowed easy enforcement?

More countries have been recognising the Right to be Forgotten as an effective ruling, with Japan citing the right against Google in a lawsuit, where a man was accused of involvements with child pornography. While the question of privacy and the amount of information available in the hands of search engine giants is a pertaining question demanding wider, concrete rulings (which, incidentally, is difficult to enforce), the presence of information on the Internet has aided multiple instances of straightening affairs of crimes and legal involvements.

The path, as it seems, can be wider than a mere fine and singular lawsuits.

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Ohio State uses six takeaways to pull away from Iowa for 54-10 win
McGraw-Hill Education recently withdrew a comparative politics textbook after complaints over a series of maps that some said were unfair to Israel.

Earlier this month a popular pro-Israel blog, The Elder of Ziyon, posted a scathing critique of a series of maps published in the McGraw-Hill textbook, Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World, along with the companys customer-service email address.

The textbook was available in both digital and print forms and was marketed to higher education. McGraw Hill is one of the nations best-known publishers of K-12 academic resources.

In a controversy that has echoes of an earlier dust-up from last October when MSNBC ran a similar series of maps on live television before apologizing, pro-Israel groups have charged that the maps in the textbook are laid out in a way that tells a misleading story of steady encroachment and dispossession of Palestinian lands at the hands of Jewish settlers and the Israeli government.

The day after the blog post appeared, the company announced it would temporarily halt sales of the textbook.

Five days after the critical blog post, McGraw-Hill said that an independent academic review overseen by the company found that the map did not meet our academic standards and that in addition to offering refunds and permanently discontinuing sales of the book, All existing inventory will be destroyed.

Considered to be one of the most intractable geo-political struggles of the last 100 years, the Arab-Israeli conflict has simmered in recent months. Over the past year, tensions have mounted over a spate of knife attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers, the continued blockade of Gaza by the Israeli government over concerns that Hamas is hoping to import heavy weaponry, and the controversial expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank . The last major outbreak of large-scale fighting in 2014 claimed the lives of more than 2,100 Palestinians, 66 Israeli soldiers, and 7 Israeli civilians, according to the UN Human Rights Council.

The recent outbreaks of violence have intensified discord in academic circles in the West. Organizations such as the controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which pro-Palestinian groups tend to support, have pressured institutions to divest their holdings in Israel. Other voices have sought to support Israels policies in academia.

Tallie Ben-Daniel, the academic advisory council coordinator of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that advocates for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, says she was shocked and hugely disappointed with McGraw-Hills decision to pull the textbook.

Ben-Daniel argued that the maps are fundamentally accurate, noting that she uses similar maps in her own lessons and calling the move by the publisher anti-intellectual.

While she disagreed with critics of the maps, Ben-Daniel said she agreed that an advanced survey of the history of land rights in the Levant, or the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, should reflect a much more nuanced portrayal of Ottoman, English, Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, United Nations, and regional Arab interests at play.

The pro-Israel groups in disagreement raised myriad objections to the maps. These include concerns that the images are inconsistent in their color-coded legends and play fast and loose with questions of private ownership versus state control. They also say the maps do not accurately reflect Israeli concessions in Sinai, southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Reached by telephone, the author of the Elder of Ziyon blog, who responded to questions on the condition of anonymity, said it is appropriate that propaganda not be in textbooks and that McGraw Hills response was extraordinarily admirable.

The blogger went on to say the Elder of Ziyon would not have a problem with the company re-issuing the textbook without the maps.

A spokesperson for the company indicated in an email that a reprinting was unlikely, both because of the maps flaws and because the book was near the end of its life cycle. Demand for it was low, the spokesperson said, and we decided to no longer sell the book and are reverting the copyright to the authors.

Recently, McGraw-Hill changed the language in a maps caption in a separate high school history textbook which referred to African slaves as workers. In that case, the company said it had revised the online version, but would continue to sell the original until a new edition of the textbook is published.

Ben-Daniel says she finds the failure to reach a similar solution for the Global Politics book is ironic given that the textbook is about engaging in a complex world.

The image used in this story is taken from the original blog post published by the Elder of Ziyon blog

See also:
The Chicago Teachers Union has approved a one-day walkout on April 1 , which the union has billed as a day of action to draw attention to issues such as public school funding, racial justice, and poverty.

The union has been beating the drums for nearly a month now for the one-day walkout, but it needed approval from its House of Delegates. The delegates voted 486 to 124 on Wednesday to approve the April 1 labor action.

CTU President Karen Lewis said at a press conference after the vote that those who voted against the April 1 action wanted what the Sun-Times called a full-on strike.

The district has called the planned April 1 action illegal, and on Thursday Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool encouraged teachers to report to work or alternative sites on April 1. Those who did not show will not get paid, he said.

Claypool says teachers who do not come to work April 1 will not get paid pic.twitter.com/jabxB8HtTK -- Catalyst Chicago Mag (@CatalystChicago) March 24, 2016

Still, the district announced contingency plans for the day, saying that more than 250 contingency sites will be opened, where students will have access to food, arts, crafts, and other activities. Sites will include libraries and park facilities.

Ensuring the well-being of our students is our highest priority, Claypool said in a statement Thursday evening. To help parents plan for April 1st, we want our school communities to know that we will be there for our students should they need us. While we are disappointed by the CTU leaderships course of action, we share their belief that the Governor must fix the education funding formula that discriminates against Chicagos children and poor minority children around the state. The Governors failure to fully fund education has pushed Chicago Public Schools and too many other Illinois schools into financial crisis.

While the teachers union has been threatening a strike for some time88 percent of its eligible voting members cast ballots in December to authorize a strike if necessary the union took its most definitive steps earlier this month after the school district announced that it was furloughing teachers and other district employees for three days this fiscal year in an effort to save money.

The union said that the furloughs amounted to a pay cut, along with the districts threat to stop the long-standing practice of picking up the bulk of union members pension contributions. (The district has since temporarily backed down on the pension threat.)

The teachers union contract expired in June last year, and in February, the union considered what it termed a serious offer from the district, before rejecting it. The contract dispute is in its fact-finding phase, and the district has said that the union cannot legally go on strike until mid-May.

Claypool said Wednesday that he was disappointed in the unions decision.

Were particularly disappointed that the CTU leadership has given Governor Rauner more ammunition in his misguided attempt to bankrupt and take over Chicago Public Schools, Claypool said.

Claypool also revealed on Wednesday that the district had sued the Illinois State Charter Commission after the commission voted to overrule the districts decision to close three charter schools because of poor academic performance.

Related stories

Financial Crisis in Chicagos Schools Deepens Discord

Chicago Teachers Union Votes to Authorize Strike

Chicago Teachers Union Threatens to Walk Off The Job April 1
For the first time in more than 88 years, a sitting U.S. President embarked on a historic diplomatic mission to Havana, Cuba, and Charleston Reservists played a vital role.

Reservists from the 315th Airlift Wing took the lead in a medical mission and remained ready in case they were needed along with a crew from the 16th Airlift Squadron, while the president was on the island nation.

Our job was to be prepare for the worst case scenario and to be ready at a moments notice in case we were needed, said Capt. Ed Sutton, a Reserve pilot with the 701st Airlift Squadron. This shows a lot of confidence in our abilities and confidence in the Reserve to lead a mission like this."

This is where your training kicks in, said 1st Lt. Chelsea Lesniewski, a pilot from the 701st AS, who was on the mission. We are all excited about being in Havana, but we are here to get the president where he needs to go and to be trusted with that responsibility is a pretty big deal."

In some ways, we do this kind of mission all the time, but being in Havana is significant, elaborated Sutton. I feel honored to be trusted with a medical support mission of this magnitude.

Sitting on a C-17 in Havana with surgeons and medical staff for the president is significant, said Tech. Sgt. John McNiece, a loadmaster with the 701st AS. We definitely know how important it is being the first reserve C-17 crew to land in Havana."

Spending several days in the communist country was also a unique experience for the crew.This is a historical mission that I was excited to be a part of, said Sutton. I brought a journal to take notes and I am taking lots of pictures. This experience will be cool to tell the family about years from now.Lesniewski also felt enthusiastic to be a part of the historic mission, You can feel it in the air; the people here are excited for the changes that are coming. But, I am just glad I was able to be here to see Havana like it is, before the chain restaurants and the modern technology moves in, she said.It was moving to have the opportunity to watch Air Force One land alongside a crowd of Cubans, said McNiece. The excitement was palpable and the vibe for the duration of his visit was upbeat and positive. Cubans and Americans came together to make this mission a success. The significance was certainly not lost on them.
Following demands for Fianna Fail to discipline Cllr Sean McEniff for his comments about Travellers, the party leader is set to meet with Travellers Representatives.

Following demands for Fianna Fail to discipline Cllr Sean McEniff for his comments about Travellers, the party leader is set to meet with Travellers Representatives.

Some elected representatives and Travellers organisations blame Cllr McEniffs comments that Travellers are all bad eggs who should be located away from settled communities for inciting racism. They believe that the fire which destroyed a Ballyshannon house allocated to a Traveller family was racially motivated, although this has not been proved. While gardai are calling the fire suspicious, they have not used the word arson in any of their statements.

A Fianna Fail spokesperson said, It is clear that Cllr McEniff was speaking in a personal capacity and his views do not reflect Fianna Fail policy. Fianna Fail has the strongest record of any party in the Dail when it comes to supporting the Travelling community and advancing Travellers rights.

Party Leader Micheal Martin has been very clear that what happened in Ballyshannon was wrong and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. He is scheduled to meet the Irish Travellers Movement next week.

Jacinta Brack, spokesperson for the Irish Travellers Movement, confirmed that the meeting is set to take place next Wednesday.

We wrote to Micheal Martin and the Taoiseach on January 23, following negative remarks made by Cllr Sean McEniff and Cllr Eugene Dolan about Travellers.

We asked the leaders of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to meet with us about anti-Traveller comments made by their members.

As a membership-based organisation, we would take action if we felt any of our members had said or done anything to incite racism or hatred. We would expect the same, if not more, of an organisation made up of elected representatives. As such, they have an extra responsiblity to show leadership when dealing with sensitive issues.

We are calling on both Micheal Martin and Taoiseach Enda Kenny to show leadership and discipline their members in this matter.

We received a reply from Micheal Martin on Tuesday, confirming that he would meet us next week and we have invited a representative from the Donegal Travellers Project to attend that meeting with us.

To date, we have not had a reply from the Taoiseachs office.
Donegal Drama Circle this year celebrates 40 years of bringing quality drama to Donegal Town.

The group has brought drama into the lives of many children and teenagers.

Art Kavanagh and the late Paul Buckley were at the helm in the 1980's, with the WizKids which entertained young and old alike.

More recently, since 1996 right through to the present, thousands of young children/teenagers have been involved with musical and drama productions, under the direction of Amanda Crawford.

Young directors are now coming to the fore, particularly Christian Carbin, and another young protege of Amanda's, who joined the Drama Circle as a teenager for its first production of Grease, Karen McCrudden, is now the Circle's musical director! We wish them Break a leg for the next 40 years!

The Drama Circle's new production will be performed for 2 nights, on Easter Monday 28th & Easter Tuesday 29th March, @ 8 pm sharp each evening, in the St. John Bosco Community Centre, Donegal Town. This production is also part of the Official 1916/2016 Donegal County Council's Commemorative Programme.

The Patriot Game is an amazing play, part documentary, mostly drama, incorporating history, pathos and humour, written by one of Ireland's foremost playwright's, Tom Murphy. In 1965 Murphy, described by fellow playwright Brian Friel as "the most distinctive, the most restless, the most obsessive imagination at work in the Irish theatre today", was commissioned by BBC Television to write a play, The Patriot Game, to be broadcast in the following year on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. However, the BBC, citing excessive production costs, shelved plans for filming it.

The play remained unseen, until twenty-five years later when Murphy revised the work for a stage production on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Rising in 1991 and it was presented on the Abbey Theatre's Peacock stage. Murphy's 1991 version of his play went against the tendency of contemporary writers whose attitude to the Rising was one of rejection or derision. (Revisionism was rampant!) Remarkably, the stage-play proved as relevant and challenging in 1991 as the television play might have been in 1966.

The eponymous title, The Patriot Game was inspired by Dominic Behan's popular ballad of the 1960's and resonates with the realisation held by Pearse, and Connolly, that the ultimate sacrifice, that of their lives, might be necessary to ignite the long dormant desire of national freedom.

Come all you young rebels and list while I sing

For love of ones country is a terrible thing

It banishes fear with the speed of a flame

And makes us all part of the patriot game

The play takes place in the Ireland of 1991, when a company of young actors play out their own version of the Rising, playing the parts of the leading figures of the rebellion, but also occasionally embodying the English authorities in Dublin Castle, as well as anonymous English soldiers, Irish rebels, and the common people of Dublin, coping with the inconveniences of the Rising, with dry Dublin wit. Thus The Patriot Game consists of a play within a story within a play, The actors play is framed by a story told by a female Narrator, who is extremely critical of the whole venture of the Rising and wary of what Murphy calls the nationalist emotion. The inset play itself revisits the events of 1916 with a critical eye, and reassesses the importance of the Rising in Irish collective memory.

Divided into two parts; the first part consists of nineteen scenes giving insight into the events happening immediately before the insurrection; showing how the leaders felt about the insurrection, their fears, their dreams, their wish for liberty. Murphy cleverly juxtaposes many extracts from speeches, songs and poems, with the final scenes covering the six days of Easter Week 1916 together with the leaders last words before their executions in Kilmainham Gaol during May 1916.

Murphy's remarkable play creates a theatrical form which accommodates emotion, and even pathos, wit too, and, in a beautifully stylised final sequence the Narrator acknowledges the traumatic episode of the Rising and the emotion it proceeded from, as part of what constitutes her identity as a Irish woman. In her final speech, she then recites a stanza from James Stephens poem Spring 1916, written in the immediate aftermath of the Rising, a moving end to a play which brings to life the leaders of the events of the most momentous week in Ireland's history. What better way to enjoy THIS Easter Monday, to revisit the memory of the founders of our nation!

Donegal Drama Circle's production is Directed by Amanda Crawford

Co Produced by Art Kavanagh & Christian Carbin

Featuring many talented, young, local, (and not so young!) actors, playing a multitude of parts, portraying those who played their part in The Patriot Game!

: Conor Friery, Christian Carbin, Amanda Crawford, Sean McLoone, Alfie Mannion, Ultan Pringle,

Siobhra Pringle, Kate Gurren, Ryan Doherty, Rossa Doherty, Aaron Friel, Seamus McHugh, Suzanne Thomas

Easter Monday March 28th 2016 @ 8pm

Easter Tuesday March 29th 2016 @ 8pm

St. John Bosco Centre, Donegal Town

12 & 10 concessions

No Booking required
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iStock/Thinkstock(DALLAS) -- A class project at the University of Texas could have life-saving implications well beyond the Lone Star State.



Student researchers there have developed a home test that could help in the fight against the Zika virus. The device is a little smaller than a Rubik's Cube.



Here's how it works: Place the body fluids of a test mosquito into the box and, an hour later, you'll know whether the insect was carrying any number of diseases.



The test has potential applications for homeowners in the United States, but could also save lives in the hands of public health officials in the developing world.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
School field trips. Many of us remember getting a permission slip signed, boarding an activity bus and heading to some museum or maybe a state park excited to spend a day outside of the classroom.

But today, due to time and/or budget constraints, more school districts are turning to virtual field trips, which allow students to visit places like the ocean floor without leaving their classrooms.

Dacia Jones official title is district science specialist for Durham Public Schools in Durham, N.C. But her unofficial title is something like virtual field trip coordinator for the district. She describes these events as an in-class experience to an out-of-this-world place and plans more than 100 of these trips every year primarily for K-5 students in 30 Durham schools. But, she says, typically students in more than 200 schools across North America watch along with them. All of these virtual field trips are filmed and archived so schools can watch them anytime.

Dacia says planning these trips can be daunting for a teacher doing it the first time, so she recommends they check out the trips provided by Discovery Education . Shes part of the companys network of educators and shares her expertise on using digital media in the classroom with more than 1 million educators in North America.

We recently talked to her via phone about her work. Below is a lightly edited version of our conversation.

Generally, do virtual field trips take less time and cost less than traditional field trips?

I dont pay for any virtual field trip. For us, theyre absolutely free except if we purchase anything for the kids to be doing while the field trip happens. And youre right about planning for lunches and getting buses. They do take a lot less time. We have some teachers that take a virtual field trip every week. And we do have some soft data that says kids are in attendance more on the date of a virtual field trip because they dont want to miss it.

How do you fund these experiences if you dont pay for them?

All you need is a cell phone and Internet. All of our classrooms have computers. There is no money involved with these at all. When I put out on Twitter that I need a robots expert to talk with a group of kids, and Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas says absolutely, then he just volunteers his 30 minutes to talk with our kids. There are places that will advertise [that] for $150, your kids can talk to one of our engineers for 30 minutes for a virtual field trip. We dont have that money. I find things that they can do that dont cost money.

As far as technology, it is a computer and Internet. You have to have a camera on your computer, but any computer thats been built in the last two years automatically has cameras. The only expense that we come into is when we do an interactive one, which is where the kids are watching the person talk and then theyre doing something at their desk. A couple of weeks ago we were at a coal mine in Arizona and I wanted the kids to be able to have rocks and minerals in their hands while the people on the virtual field trip were talking about how to dust the rocks and read the minerals. I made sure that we found enough rocks and mineral samples so that every kid in the district could have one to hold while they were talking.

What are some other examples of virtual field trips?

In Durham Public Schools in the last two-and-a-half years, we have visited places like the Mayo Clinic. Weve been inside volcanoes. Weve been on the International Space Station. Weve been to Anne Franks home. Weve been in the Sistine Chapel where the docent actually showed how Michelangelo laid on scaffolding and did the paintings. When they finish talking to the docent, the kids go under their tables and the teachers have taped paper under there and the kids begin to draw with crayons to sort of understand how taxing that was on the artist. We tie that to gravity. Some of the most exciting ones have been to the Galapagos Islands. Weve been to Antarctica. That just goes to show theres really no place we cant go. Weve been on Robert Ballards boat . Robert Ballard is the guy whos trying to lift the Titanic. Anywhere the kids and teachers are asking to go, Im out there trying to find ways to get that into the classroom.

This new piece that were adding Im calling it STEM Moments where kids are talking to older people that had STEM jobs but now are in nursing homes or retirement centers where people are really not paying much attention to them. Im going in and doing interviews and taking personal histories and then tying it to a field trip so kids can see what grandpas and grandmas did back in the day.

Click below to hear Dacia describe how a virtual field trip at an amusement park became a little too real for some students.

So how does promoting these field trips tie in to your job?

I am the district science specialist, so my job is to promote science in all classrooms, model lessons for teachers, provide PD, but Im such a fan of virtual field trips that I know they enhance the learning in any classroom. None of it is part of my job, but its embedded into everything that I do. Every month, I create what we call a STEM challenge for all K5 students. They build something and then at the end of that build the next month they and their parents come to a shark tank like the ABC television show and they present their projects to these sharks and talk about how they built this. And, then we Skype or have a virtual field trip with someone famous. So, for this one coming up were skyping with HGTV with Kayleen McCabe, who is the TV host for Renegade Renovators. In April, were going to have a live show with Alton Brown from the Food Network. Hes going to do a live show at one school and the entire districts going to be watching that live stream, and thats going to be their virtual field trip. I reach out to celebrities. We have skyped with Kristi Yamaguchi and Michael Phelps, the Mythbusters, Will.i.am, anybody I can pull in that is a great role model, and I can connect them to science in some way. There needs to be another person like me to do this full time, but I cant see my job being done without the virtual field trip part of it. My teachers will be very upset now if we got rid of virtual field trips.

How long have you been involved with virtual field trips?

I guess my first one was when I was first teaching, and I had my 1st graders pack their suitcases. They came to the classroom, and I virtually turned my room into China. That was back in the day 20 years ago. But using technology to do it, its been about six-and-a-half or seven years. Obviously, they have progressed greatly because they get bigger and bigger. On New Years Day, I went to Philadelphia, my husband and I, I was presenting at a STEM conference. I thought wouldnt it be cool if I could head out to Valley Forge and see if they would Skype with our kids. We went out there. We made some videos. My husband does a lot of filming with me. My kids know me by the name Dr. Drizzle. I have videos and YouTube up on science. So I filmed some video from Valley Forge and contacted Valley Forge after the fact to see if they would do a virtual field trip. They had never done one, but they were so excited. Theyre a national park. They learned how to do it on their end. Then in February all of our students skyped with Valley Forge and found out why it was a called an iron forge and what Washington did while he was there. Were kind of teaching other places how to do it so they can reach out to schools.

As a child growing up in North Carolina, I remember going to all of the museums in Raleigh and to places like Wilmington. Do you feel like kids will miss out on the experience of actually seeing something in person?

No and yes, because we encourage all of our teachers to also take regular field trips, but we cant afford those. And, our policies here are that everybody goes. We cant leave kids behind because of the inability to pay. We dont have those types of funds to send them out to Cape Hatteras and all these places. They may get to do some in-town field trips. [Our] bottom line is if you can go on a real field trip, absolutely, but were also going to supplement with all of these other experiences because none of our kids can go to the International Space Station, and none of them can go to Maui to a volcano, and none of them can go to Antarctica and talk with scientists. Were just providing those other experiences for kids that right now they have no access to. I dont think places that bring in kids need to worry that virtual field trips are going to put them out of business. Our kids in Durham will tell you that theyve been on 25 field trips this year, and 23 of those were virtual. But, to them, it was a real experience.

Photo: Dacia Jones leads students on a virtual field trip to the International Space Station. (Courtesy Dacia Jones)
Types of Prescription Drug Crimes

Prescription drugs are not legal for everyone, just the people to whom they are prescribed and only in the amounts allowed by the prescription. In other words, you can go to jail, pay fines, and be convicted for crimes (some of which are ultimately subject to a prison sentence) for abuse, distribution, or otherwise unauthorized use of prescription drugs.

Not every state has a separate statute to address prescription drug use in the criminal context. But they do all punish illegal drug use, which includes illicit prescription drug distribution and possession. So though it feels like no big deal to pop a pill from someone else's medicine cabinet or pill bottle, it can get you in a lot of trouble.

Pain Med Mania

There may have been a time when prescription drug abuse was taken with a grain of salt, perhaps seen as less criminal somehow than the purchase of a controlled substance on the streets, like cocaine. But in some states, a mania for pain medications quickly developed and spread beyond those in physical pain to those in existential pain or simply in search of recreational drugs.

With this appetite for pain meds came a new kind of business. In Florida, for example, there are numerous pain clinics prescribing medication to patients and they have been dubbed "pill mills." Just this month, an elderly West Palm Beach doctor was sentenced on a felony drug trafficking charge and a middle-aged "pill mill king" was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the prescription drug overdose of another man.

Possession, Distribution, and Use Crimes

As you can see, there are many ways to get in trouble for prescription medication abuse. Whether you are a doctor, a dealer, or a person looking for pills that have not been legitimately prescribed, you can be charged with a crime for possession, distribution, or use of medications in an illegitimate manner. Prosecutors are well aware of the prevalence of prescription drug use and are not fooled by claims that a medication is legal for a particular patient just because it was manufactured in a legal context.

Charges arising from possession of prescription pills can arise in a range of contexts -- just as a search of your car in the past might have yielded a bag of marijuana that landed you in jail, so today will a sweep and a peek at a pill bottle. Do not assume that police don't know what you're doing. The drugs may have changed but the system is the same and you can still get in trouble.

Accused?

If you or someone you know has been accused of a crime -- whether associated with prescription drugs or otherwise -- speak to a criminal defense attorney today. Many lawyers consult for free or a minimal fee and will be happy to assess your case.

Related Resources:
On a number of occasions recently, arising from the 1916 Centenary Celebrations, a number of people have asked me 'why were the events following the 1916 Rising never taught, or even spoken about, in Irish schools in my youth?'. Well, the answer to that question is a complicated one but the article in the 1916 supplement in last week's Democrat about the May 1910 incident at the Courthouse Square gives a bit of clue as to what was happening in Dundalk subsequent to the establishment of the Sinn Fein movement here in 1908.

I have read a lot about this incident at the proclamation of George V as King of Ireland at the Square on May 9, 1910 and even written about it on a number of occasions. I believe that the best evidence as to what was going on can be found in a number of photographs taken on that day. There are quite a few of these photographs in circulation and one of them was even made into a postcard which was reproduced in Victor Whitmarshes' illustrated book 'Old Dundalk'. Many of these old photographs are very blurred but I believe that the very best and clearest one appears on the cover of H.G. Tempest's 'Gossiping Guide to Dundalk' which was first published in 1917 and enlarged and revised in 1920. The very latest edition was was published in 2008 and I am not sure if this was the first time that the 1910 Square photograph appeared on the cover.

It does indicate, however, that there was a very strong military presence which, I believe, was made up mainly by a unit from the Royal Field Artillery Brigade, based in Dundalk Military Barracks at the time.

What is clear from this photograph, and others I have seen, is that there appears to have been a very strong local support for the British institutions and that the Sinn Fein protest group were very much in the minority. The unpalatable fact, for some, is that, at the time of the 1916 Rising, Dundalk was overwhelmingly a Loyalist town. I have even heard it being referred cynically to as 'a garrisoned town'. This, it seems to me, was worse than being referred to as 'El Passo' at a later date. There may be some truth in this assertion however, as, for over 100 years, the Dundalk economy depended greatly for employment and finance on the presence of a large military base here. According to Harold O'Sullivan, in his book, Dundalk A Military History, in 1901 it was reported that the local cavalry regiment were to be transferred to the Curragh Camp and would not be replaced. 'This prospect' he writes, 'sufficiently alarmed the Chamber of Commerce that a committee was established to negotiate with the Army authorities on the matter. It was estimated that the withdrawal of the garrison could cost the town 40,000 pounds (weekly?) in lost trade.' It is not surprising, therefore, that there was a lot of support locally for the British monarchy in 1910!

Something else in relation to the 1910 protest, pointed out by a friend whose relatives were involved, is the that the Sinn Fein group were able to stand their ground in defiance of the police is that they were on 'private property'. The reason for this was that the 1798 Commemoration Committee had purchased (or was it just leased?) the small plot on the Square in 1897 for the erection of the Maid of Erin Statue on it in following the year. It appears that the ownership of this plot had passed to the Dundalk Urban District Council when they were established in 1899 and Paddy Hughes from Park Street was a representative of the South Ward on this Council. Paddy was to become Chairman of the Council in 1914 and his brother Peter, who was also among the 1910 protestors, was to become Chairman some years later.

When I was child in the 1940s, a great 'put down' in any political argument was to ask the question 'where were you in 1916?' The answer 'I was not even born then!' would not be good enough, as the political affiliations of your relatives might be called into question. So, young people of today might do well to be sure of their ancestry before they get too excited about celebrating the Centenary!
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The war-torn images of 'Hunger Games: Mockingjay  Part 2' are sobering and familiar. This film, perhaps more than any of the other movies in the series, takes on the real collateral damage of war. Given current events, the final installment of the 'Hunger Games' franchise acts as a dystopian mirror on which to project our own self-destructive actions as human beings.

The third movie  'Mockingjay - Part 1'  dove into how media can manipulate the masses in times of war. How propaganda is a strong, unifying tool for good and evil. Now the troops are unified, and the stakes are raised. The first part was the precursor to war, the second part is the war.

Little interest is held in the love triangle that Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself embroiled in with Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). It's probably the most uninteresting aspect of the entire story. Thankfully, the movie spends a limited amount of time focused on Katniss's waffling on which beau to pick. Instead it's laser-focused on the toll of war.

It's impossible not to see numerous parallels between current events and the events happening here. 'Part 2' accurately, and at times brutally, shows the devastating effects of urban siege warfare. We begin with the war. The rebels, led by President Coin (Julianne Moore) are gearing up to move into the Capitol for the final push on President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) troops. As they do, the Capitol civilians are caught in the middle of merciless fighting.

Huddled groups of civilians fleeing the fighting and being caught in the crossfire is something it seems we're seeing nightly on the news. The movie doesn't shy away from the enormous cost of war. Sure, Coin's campaign to overthrow the tyrant Snow seems just, but do the ends justify the means? Are we willing to sacrifice innocent people  children!  for the greater good, so to speak? Do we give into xenophobia? Do we allow ourselves to be manipulated by it, or do we rise above such prejudices? These are the questions 'Part 2' seeks to answer. Well, maybe it's better explained that these are the questions the movie asks, and it's up to us to answer them.

The philosophical and topical underpinnings of 'Part 2' are its main virtue. Yet, it doesn't sit around pontificating forever either. There are some very well thought out, well-shot action scenes that put the earlier shaky-cam-filmed 'Hunger Games' movies to shame. There's a tunnel sequence that is every bit as suspenseful as any horror movie. The timing is spot on and the action is decipherable. Two things that the first two movies struggled with.

Lawrence continues to be the highlight as far as acting goes, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this is the last time we'll be seeing a new Philip Seymour Hoffman performance. It's a realization that isn't easy to shake while watching.

Once the end rolls around, 'Part 2' suffers a bit from end-of-the-franchise fatigue. The screenplay seems unable to let go of its characters, drawing out the end for ages. Much like 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,' 'Part 2' has at least half a dozen spots where it could end, but doesn't.

Those quibbles are small though, because at the end it's still hard to shake some of the imagery we've been presented with. Visual depictions of violence that are frighteningly similar to what we see on the nightly news. On the surface it might be easy to detach oneself from it because it's a fictional tale about a dystopian future. While that may be the case, there's no denying that 'Mockingjay  Part 2' hits close to home in more ways than one.

Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

This is the exclusive release from Target, which comes with three discs, instead of two. The extra disc is a bonus DVD with some more special features on it. The discs also come packaged in a snazzy Digibook-esque holder with character artwork on each of its three pages. The discs slide into cardboard slots, much in the same way the 'Star Wars' films did in 'The Complete Saga' collection. The Digibook holder is encased by a clear plastic outersleeve.

The movie is housed on a 50GB Blu-ray. The other two discs are DVDs. One for the movie, and the other for the exclusive special features. It's kind of dumb to have exclusive special features for a Blu-ray release and only have them on a DVD in standard definition though.
It's official - Taylor Wimpey homes at Cranbrook are good for your health!

The new community of Cranbrook near Exeter, Devon, has been chosen as one of 10 healthy towns to be established around the country  and Taylor Wimpey is giving homebuyers the chance to benefit from this forthcoming fitness revolution!

Under new proposals, NHS England will be working with the developers of Cranbrook to make it a flagship neighbourhood for healthy lifestyles.

The scheme aims to encourage families to be more active by providing areas for play and recreation, creating opportunities for people to walk and cycle more, and giving commuters better access to public transport.

With plenty of outdoor amenities being provided at the development  including a country park, open spaces, childrens play areas, footpaths and cycleways  as well as a brand new railway station now open to serve the community, theres no shortage of ways in which life at Cranbrook promises to be good for your health!

Clare Brimble, Regional Sales and Marketing Director for Taylor Wimpey, says: Were delighted that NHS England has selected Cranbrook as one of its new healthy towns, and we feel its the perfect candidate for this positive and forward-thinking initiative.

Many of the priorities for encouraging active lifestyles are already part of the design of this flourishing new community, with a wealth of opportunities provided for our residents to stay fit and healthy.

We have a wide variety of beautiful new homes on sale to suit buyers in all circumstances, so Id urge people to take this opportunity to join us here  and help us set a healthy example for other communities to follow!

Theres a wide selection of two, three, four, five and six-bedroom homes now on sale from Taylor Wimpey at Cranbrook, with prices starting at just 186,000. A further selection of properties is also set to be unveiled soon.

To make choosing their perfect property even more appealing, Taylor Wimpey offers a range of helpful homebuyer incentives for first-time buyers and those with a property to sell  including the Governments Help to Buy scheme, Part Exchange and easymover.

Located eight miles from Exeter, Cranbrook is a brand new community of eco-friendly homes and is the first new town of its kind in Devon.

Parents will appreciate the choice of new primary and secondary schools in the area while a range of community facilities, including a health centre and a central shopping street, are being created as part of this new development.

For commuters, junction 29 of the M5 is just minutes away for journeys to Exeter and Bristol, while Cranbrooks new railway station offers direct services to Exeter Central, Exeter St Davids and London Waterloo.

To find out more about the new Taylor Wimpey homes on sale in the healthy town of Cranbrook, property-seekers can visit the Sales Information Centre, located off London Road, Exeter, Devon, EX5 2DY, and open Saturday to Thursday from 11am to 5.30pm, Friday, 1pm to 5.30pm. Alternatively, visit taylorwimpey.co.uk.
Blendle, a Netherlands-based news aggregation site that draws comparisons to Spotify, on Wednesday announced its beta launch in the U.S.

Blendle made its debut with the participation of several major new organizations and financial backing from Axel Springer and The New York Times.

The 5-year-old company, which recently expanded into Germany, has opened the beta phase to 10,000 users who can make refundable micropayments for stories they choose to read.

Journalism needs a Spotify, a Netflix, an iTunes, whatever you want to call it, cofounder Alexander Klopping wrote on Medium. One website that houses the best newspapers and magazines in the country, that allows people to browse through everything and only pay for the stories they like, where you can see what your friends recommended.

Success in Europe

Since going live in 2014, Blendle has attracted 650,000 registered users who read millions of stories per month in Europe, Klopping noted. Half of the users are under age 35, which is important, because that demographic rarely pays for content.

The site lets users connect their Facebook and Twitter accounts to Blendle, so they can see which stories their friends have shared. Some top journalists, including Felix Salmon, a senior editor atFusion, and Kim Ghattas of the BBC, are on board to select stories on business and politics, respectively.

Generating money from individual users is critical, because digital media outlets are struggling to bring in advertising revenue, Klopping said, with 41 percent of younger readers using ad-blocking plugins on their devices.

Investor Optimism

The companies behind Blendle are optimistic about the potential for the site to be successful in the U.S. Axel Springer and the NY Times invested about US$3.8 million in the site in 2014.

We at Axel Springer are working on establishing paid content offerings for digital journalism, spokesperson Michael Schneider told the E-Commerce Times. Thats why we think that Blendle is so interesting.

The company established digital paid offerings for Bild, which has 318,000 paid digital subscribers, and Die Welt, which has 78,000 paid digital subscribers, he pointed out. It also launched its own digital newsstand, which other publications can use to distribute electronic versions of their content.

Blendles technology and micropayments will not be implemented on any of The New York Times sites, a source familiar with the companys policy told the E-Commerce Times. However, NYT articles will be available on Blendles site and via related apps. The Times will work with Blendle to evaluate additional opportunities to integrate the various features as the company grows.

Easy Does It

Micropayments largely have failed in the U.S. until now, but the jury is still out on how successful Blendle will be in growing its U.S. customer base.

Failure of the micropayment model to catch on more widely is partially due to clumsy, cumbersome payment mechanisms, an issue that could well be addressed by the evolution of digital wallet technologies, Pund-IT Principal Analyst Charles King told the E-Commerce Times.

Blendle is easy to use and has solved many of the problems that hurt micropayment sites in the past, noted Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute. However, the site could suffer from a look dont touch problem as it gains subscribers.

Even their good results in the Netherlands and Germany suggest that people may register, but not get in the habit of using, Edmonds told the E-Commerce Times.

That behavior is not uncommon, he suggested, pointing to studies showing that people often download large numbers of apps onto their devices, but only become regular users of four or five of them.

Strong Resistance

Although the benefit for participating media companies includes the ability to generate revenue and attract younger readers, its unlikely that the launch will bring radical change to the existing paywall mechanism for at least a couple of years, Edmonds said.

Its a matter of speculation whether the timing of Blendles launch has anything at all to do with The Wall Street Journals decision to close the Google paywall loophole last month.

Readers previously had been able to view WSJ stories by clicking on links within Google News, without having to subscribe and pay a fee. Google is a significant provider of referrals to news sites.

U.S. consumers remain very reluctant to pay for content, observed Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends, which doesnt bode well for Blendle.

Going to a reading app is cumbersome, she told the E-Commerce Times, and so is Blendles microtransaction model.
ProtonMail, which offers encrypted email, on Thursday launched free iOS and Android mobile apps worldwide, through the iTunes App Store and Google Play, respectively.

They have been in beta since August, company CEO Andy Yen said.

The email service features end-to-end encryption; emails stored on ProtonMails servers also are encrypted and thus cant be accessed.

Not even ProtonMail has the ability to read the emails of our users, and thus its technically impossible for us to hand over user messages to third parties, Yen told TechNewsWorld.

Based in Switzerland, its servers are out of reach of United States authorities.

All ProtonMail client-side code is open source and is reviewed by the ProtonMail community.

No Advertising

The basic service is free, offering users 1 GB of storage.

ProtonMail was launched through a 2014 Indiegogo campaign that raised more than US$550,000 within one month from more than 10,500 backers. The campaigns goal was $100,000.

Additional backers include Charles River Ventures and the Fondation Genevoise pour lInnovation Technologique, a nonprofit foundation.

Users can upgrade to a paid account or donate money to help fund the company, which doesnt take ads.

Since we do not violate user privacy to serve targeted advertisements, we cannot offer the service for free, Yen said. [We charge for] more storage and advanced features, so that we can cover our operational expenses.

ProtonMails encryption is fully compatible with PGO, because PGP has withstood the test of time  over 20 years now  and is well trusted and vetted by the community, Yen said.

Other Secure Email Systems

Several other secure email systems are available.

For example, open source Tutanota, which is based in Germany, offers a free option and a premium service for 12 euros yearly, and has mobile apps for iOS and Android. It encrypts all data on the users device  emails, contacts, subjects and attachments. It provides 1 GB of storage.

Kolabnow.com, like ProtonMail, is based in Switzerland. Its available for groups and hosting accounts, as well as individuals, and is priced from US$4.70 to $103 a month for hosting accounts with 10 users, payable in Swiss francs.

Gmail provides secure connections between a client and its servers, but data sent over the connection is plain text, noted Peter Eckersley, technology projects director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

If Google receives an order from the FBI, theyre going to have to disclose the text, he told TechNewsWorld.

Apple encrypts emails end to end, and it also encrypts messages sent through iMessage. However, iMessage backups go to Apple, which has access to the key, Eckersley said, so if you backup to the iCloud, Apple can retrieve the data.

Encryption Is Here to Stay

The FBI has obtained a court order compelling Apple to assist it in accessing encrypted data, a move that has sparked strong emotions on both sides of the argument.

The release of yet another encrypted email system highlights one aspect of the debate. That is, even if the U.S. authorities should prevail in their case against Apple, there would still be many other encryption options that would not be subject to their investigations.

We are supportive of Apples efforts, but ultimately I dont think what happens in Switzerland will dramatically impact the outcome of that case, Yen remarked.

As far as encryption is concerned, the genie is already out of the bottle, Chen said, and theres nothing to be gained by trying to legislate or control it. The sooner governments realize this, the sooner we can all work together to tackle the even more severe threats facing the Internet community today, such as the rise of cyberattacks and cyberterrorism. For that, encryption will be a hugely important defensive tool.
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The Pentagon says U.S. forces have killed a top Islamic State commander in Syria, as part of a series of military actions targeting ISIS leadership and its storage sites for explosives. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter delivered the news on Friday.

This is not the first time Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli is reported to have been killed by American forces. About a year ago, Iraq's Ministry of Defense said that U.S. airstrikes killed him near the northern city of Tal Afar. Back then, the Defense Ministry said that "based on accurate intelligence," American strikes had taken out the ISIS chief and several other leaders, all of whom were gathered in a mosque. At the time, U.S. officials said they couldn't verify Iraq's claims.

From the New York Times today:

The killing of a top commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, who is also known by other names, comes as the United States is having increased success targeting the Islamic State's leadership. Last week, Defense Department officials concluded that American strikes had killed the group's minister of war, Omar al-Shishani. "We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Mr. Carter said at a news conference, using an acronym for the group. But he made clear that the challenge was not that simple. "Striking leadership is necessary," he said, "but as you know it's far from sufficient. As you know leaders can be replaced. These leaders have been around for a long time  they are senior and experienced and eliminating them is an important objective and result. They will be replaced and we will continue to go after their leadership."

A Top ISIS Leader Is Killed in an Airstrike, Pentagon Says

Image source: U.S. Department of State/Handout via Reuters
(Photo:  Peter Kenny / Ecumenical News)A woman prays on Feb. 10, 2016 in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the church in Jerusalem where Christians believe Jesus was buried and resurrected after his crucifixion.

The world "desperately needs" the light and life of Easter message of the empty tomb, says Holy Land Lutheran bishop Munib Younan.

Younan is the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and is also president of the Lutheran World Federation and delivered his Holy Week message on the church's website.

"We need the light and life of Easter morning. In just the first three months of this year, we in the Middle East have been witnessing an alarming wave of violence.

He cited recent tragedies unfold in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, the Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Nigeria, and many other nations.

"Even this week, which we call Holy, began with a terror attack in Brussels," said Younan.

"It's difficult to comprehend the amount of death and destruction which has plagued our world, in just the few short months since the world's Christians gathered to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace."

Younan noted that everywhere in the world there is a "culture of death and fear" heavily promoted by extremists, by the media, even by some politicians.

"This culture of death and fear instills in us a certain envy, in which the only way for us to have life is to deny the life of the other - whether the enemy, or the neighbor of a different religion, or the refugee," he said.

It was, "This culture of death is what Jesus experienced on his Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross."

Younan said that Jesus faced "a culture of deception and betrayal" when his disciple Judas joined him for the Last Supper, "but then sold him for thirty pieces of silver."

He experienced "denial and abandonment" when Peter unequivocally denied him three times.

"Jesus experienced a culture of power over others when Herod and Pilate reconciled out of their common desire to humiliate him."

The bishop said Jesus was well aware of the "culture of death, and where it ultimately leads."

Younan said, "The resurrection of Jesus means we must not accept such a culture. We will not give in to despair, to hopelessness, to violence, or to complacency.

"We need not stay in the tomb, for by the power of Jesus' resurrection, we have been raised to new life with him."
(Photo: Reuters / /Nir Elias)Worshippers carry a cross in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Good Friday during Holy Week, in Jerusalem's Old City March 29, 2013. Christian worshippers retraced the route Jesus took along Via Dolorosa to his crucifixion in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Holy Week is celebrated in many Christian traditions during the week before Easter.

Christian leaders in Jerusalem say the Holy City is a source of hope that "springs from the Resurrection" and are urging "people everywhere not to fall into despair" over recent violence threatening their region.

In an Easter message the Church leaders express deep distress over the level of violence "still being falsely perpetrated in the name of religion in parts of the Middle East and elsewhere in recent times."

The leaders include Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Roman Catholics, Vatican Radio reports.

They note in their Easter 2015 message that some of the region's ancient Christian communities, "especially in Egypt, Iraq and Syria  have been among those most directly affected, along with other minority populations."

Their message come during a time of deep concern about the onslaught against Christians particularly in regions such as the Middle East and a strip across the northern part of Africa.

On March 11, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, the Holy See's observer to the United Nations in Geneva addressed the issue at the 28th Session of the Human Rights Council.

"The International Community as a whole is certainly witnessing a sort of genocide in some regions of the world, where the enslavement and sale of women and children, the killing of young men, the burning, beheading and the forcing into exile of people continue," he said.

'UNSPEAKABLE CRIMES'

He noted that these and "other unspeakable crimes are being committed against people belonging to ancient communities simply because their belief, social system and culture are different from the fundamentalist combatants of the so-called 'Islamic State' group."

Tomasi told the U.N. body that appealing to religion to murder people and destroy the evidence of human creativity made the current atrocities "even more revulsive and damnable."

He said the international community has a moral imperative to put aside chosen interests and to save lives.

The Jerusalem leaders said, "There is no true religion which advocates violation of the human person or the victimization of minority groups in society and we condemn such actions in the strongest possible terms.

"Those who engage in such barbaric behaviour dehumanize not only their victims, but themselves."

In Jerusalem is the site of the Empty Tomb, "the place where God's sovereignty over death and the powers of darkness was manifested in the raising of Jesus from the dead."

Due to this reality, the Church leaders say that the place where the Resurrection took place "is not merely an object of archaeological curiosity but remains a living focus of Christian worship."

They say, "It is a place where God's grace has been manifested in numerous ways down the centuries and for that reason alone it deserves respect."

Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate

Patriarch Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarchate

Patriarch Nourhan Manougian, Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate

Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land

Archbishop Anba Abraham, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Jerusalem

Archbishop Swerios Malki Murad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate

Archbishop Aba Embakob, Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate

Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey, Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarchate

Archbishop Mosa El-Hage, Maronite Patriarchal Exarchate

Archbishop Suheil Dawani, Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East

Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

Bishop Pierre Malki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate

Msgr. Georges Dankaye', Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate
(Photo: Reuters)Former South African President Nelson Mandela lays a wreath in the "Hall of Remembrances" with Chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Azner Shalez (2R) October 18, 1999 as Mandela honoured the six-million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Earlier Mandela toured the Holocaust Museum. Mandela will meet Prime Minister Ehud Barak this evening and tomorrow travels to the Palestinian self-rule area of the Gaza Strip.

The premier of South Africa's most populous Gauteng province has told a gathering of faith based organizations the government has no plan to scrap the Easter holidays, but it may seek to regulate churches.

In an era of growing secularization, and in certain countries, growing religious intolerance for minority faiths, some governments are seeking to reduce religious holidays.

The premier of Gauteng province, David Makhura spoke at the Gauteng Faith-Based Organisation Summit in Turffontein, near Johannesburg on Oct. 6.

After his speech he told journalists the government is not ruling out regulating churches, the State-run SABC reported.

This consideration comes after what he termed harmful religious practices in which one church leader fed his congregation human hair, grass, snakes and rats.

"Like many of you, I am deeply concerned by the conduct of some religious leaders who feed on the vulnerability of the children of God who face many difficulties in their daily lives.

"We have seen an increase in people drinking petrol, eating rats or snakes whilst others rape congregants or confess to practicing witchcraft. Together let us find lasting solutions to these scourges," said Makhura.

The Gauteng premier said the decision on regulating churches will be done in consultation with faith based organizations including the shutting down of a church which is believed to be involved in harmful religious practices.

"The sector needs to give us guidance. What are the instruments for self-regulation when they have reached a point that these harmful religious practices needs to be stopped through some instruments like law or we must go and shut down some particular churches?

"I believe in a leadership where we do this together with the sector. I can't rule out that we might get to a point where we have regulation," he said, the South African government news agency reported.

The South African Council of Churches is opposed to the government regulating churches and its Gauteng secretary Rev. Gift Moerane says there is a need for more dialogue.

"We should actually develop a certain framework in terms of the Do's and Don'ts because as people of faith we should agree - the basic principle of every religion is that the rights of every person is important as your right.

"So to make another person drink petrol you are dehumanising that person. It is not something you can find in the Qur'an, Bible  it is wrong."

The FBO summit involved the provincial government and the faith sector seeking to forge religious tolerance and moral regeneration.

Makhura said the government wants to build a "socially cohesive" society that appreciates the values of the other.

He said he was aware of rumors that the government has a policy to scrap the Easter holidays, The Star newspaper reported.

ANC FOUNDED IN A CHURCH

"There is no truth to this. In fact, it is impossible for the ANC [African National Congress] to take such a position; you and I will not allow it. The ANC was founded in a church," Makhura said.

Archbishop William Slattery, the South African Catholic Bishops Conference spokesman, welcomed Makhura's statements.

"If you consider that 73 per cent of the population [of South Africa] is Christian, it was the right thing to do.

"We do not see this as an imposition on other religions, especially on the Muslims who, in fact, have a great respect for Christ.

"We, as a population and country, need times and specific occasions to celebrate these holidays which represent the last surviving remnants for Christians and should be seen as an anchor in their lives," said Slattery.

The Muslim Judicial Council agreed, with spokeswoman Nabeweya Malick welcoming the move.

"In today's society moving more and more towards materialistic things, this is a good move. We need contact with religion. We're all becoming less and less God-conscious.

"I see cancelling religious holidays as removing this consciousness," she said.

She noted, however, the Muslim feast of Eid should also be declared a public holiday as this is another day that raises religious consciousness and promotes harmony.
Considered to be the Ten Best UFO Photos Ever Taken I am sure that we could add more pictures to this list but these are considered ten o...
District open-enrollment policies have gained traction in many urban areas as a way to give students more access to high-quality schools, but a new study suggests students who were big fish in their neighborhood schools can have a rough road in a new school, even if it is academically better.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research found that class rank affects Windy City students grades and test scores and even their persistence in college, and that students of similar academic ability in 8th grade can nonetheless hold very different class ranks depending on the school they choose to attend.

Even if you are high-achieving, you are surrounded by other high-achieving kids, and somebody has to be the lower rank, said Lauren Sartain, a research analyst at the Chicago consortium, during a presentation of the forthcoming study at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness here.

The study grew out of a puzzling finding, both in ongoing Chicago research and in other open-enrollment districts such as New York: While open enrollment often allowed students to move to more academically rigorous schools, there were surprisingly few academic benefits for students attending the most elite, selective public high schools. That spurred the researchers to dig into what happened when students attended high schools that were different from those they had been assigned by neighborhood.

Charting the 'Big Fish' Effect High-performing 8th graders end up with a lower class rank when they choose a higher-performing high school rather than their assigned neighborhood school. Source: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research

Sartain and her colleagues tracked four groups of Chicago students entering 9th grade from 2008 to 2011, totaling more than 72,000 students. More than three out of four students in the district attends a different high school from his or her neighborhood-assigned school.

They calculated each students general academic ability based on his or her grade point average, attendance rate, and the number of suspensions accumulated in 8th grade, as well as math and reading test scores for grades 3-8, and, to a lesser extent, the students own reported study skills and habits. Separately, the researchers calculated each students class rank as the schools themselves do, based on their 8th grade standardized test scores. They compared the class ranks for students at both their neighborhood-assigned school and the one they actually attended.

Psychological Effects?

While average-performing students remained at about the same rank or even moved up a little in their new schools, low-performing students dropped to even lower ranks, and the students in the top 20 percent of their class in 8th grade showed an even bigger drop in class rank when they moved to high schools of choice.

No significant differences were found in the effect of class rank for male versus female students or students of different races.

Students who started at the same ability level at the end of 8th grade ended up with a full standard deviation difference or more in their class rank at their next school, depending on which school they attended.

Think about a student who has been at the top of their class for eight years, basically, said Sartain, noting that most Chicago primary schools follow a K-8 model rather than having separate middle schools. Youre really used to being the big dog. We think there are definitely going to be psychological effects, for, I used to be at the high end, but now Im in high school and Im in the middle of the pack. 

There were more concrete problems than just a hit to students egos. Students of the same ability level who entered high school with a class rank in the third quintileright at averagehad GPAs that were .04 points higher than students in the bottom 20 percent, and .06 points lower than students ranked in the top 20 percent at their school. There was a similar, statistically significant gap for state test scores.

Impact on College Success

RAND researcher Rebecca Herman, who was part of the SREE symposium but was not associated with the study, said the differences in outcomes could stem from tracking studentsfor example, recommending that freshman take honors classes only if they were in the top 20 percent of their incoming classbut she doubted individual teachers treated students differently based on their class rank.

Most teachers are not in their head making the same ranking [researchers] made, she said at the SREE symposium. The filters that teachers and staff have when they are looking at the data is critical.

Interestingly, class rank did not affect whether students chose to enroll in college after graduation, but it did affect whether they stayed in college. Based on the two years of data on students who entered college during the study, Sartain and her colleagues found that students who had been in the top 20 percent of both rank and ability level in 8th grade but were ranked only average in their high school class were .5 percentage points less likely to finish their freshman year in college than students who continued to be ranked in the top 20 percent.

That is troubling, Sartain said, since one of the reasons parents often give for enrolling students in higher-performing high schools is to improve their chance of being accepted to good colleges.

The researchers are now digging into the data more deeply, to figure out what role tracking, personal identity, peer connections, and other issues might play in students trajectories at a new school.

The results suggest school leaders and parents should take a more holistic look at what schools offer their students, particularly during the high school transition period, said study co-author Marisa de la Torre, the associate director for professional development at the Chicago consortium.

We see so much data out there about every single high schooltest scores, graduation ratesbut theres very little information around who your peers are going to be, de la Torre said.

Sartain agreed. It was really surprising to me to see that students who were very high achieving could end up with very different outcomes, even going to a better school. Its just not something thats talked about a lot in the world of school choice.

Theres a lot of jargon around finding a good fit for your child, she continued. This paper pushes the conversation around what data should be available to parents and what does good fit really mean.
Only 21 states still plan to use shared tests designed for the common core, a continued erosion of the unity that emerged six years ago, when 45 states embraced the standards and pledged to measure student learning with common assessments.

The high school testing landscape is even more fragmented, as states increasingly choose the SAT or ACT college-entrance exam instead of common-core tests.

An Education Week survey of states testing plans in English/language arts and maththe two subjects covered by the common corefound that states have continued in 2015-16 to drift away from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, and Smarter Balanced tests.

Those assessment systems were crafted by two groups of states to reflect the Common Core State Standards, which were the product of an initiative launched by the nations governors and chief state school officers. The U.S. Department of Education awarded $360 million in grants in 2010 to the two consortia to create the tests.

Heres how states assessment plans break down in 2015-16, illustrating three key shifts:

Consortium strength continues to wane.

 Twenty states and the District of Columbia are giving PARCC or Smarter Balanced tests. Six states and the District of Columbia will administer PARCC; 14 will use Smarter Balanced.

 Twenty-seven states are using tests they created or bought off the shelf.

 Three states are blending consortium questions with home-grown questions, or offering districts a choice of which test to give. Most Massachusetts districts can choose, for a second year, whether to give PARCC or the states legacy test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS (although 10th grade students still must pass the MCAS to graduate). Tests given in Michigan this year will combine Smarter Balanced and state-designed questions; Louisianas tests will blend PARCC and state-designed questions.

Last year, consortium tests were more dominant, though the two groups had declined from their peak membership. Education Weeks survey of states 2014-15 testing plans showed 28 states and the District of Columbia using PARCC or Smarter Balanced, and 22 states using other tests or offering districts a choice of which test to use.

Consortium participation is particularly weak in high school.

 Nine states will use consortium tests, or questions, only in grades 9 and lower, and chose some other assessmentin many cases, the ACT or the SATto measure high school achievement as required by federal law. Colorado, for instance, will measure achievement in grades 3-9 with PARCC, and in grade 10 with the PSAT. It will also administer the ACT to all juniors to gauge their readiness for college.

 Fifteen states will use PARCC or Smarter Balanced in the full range of grades required for federal accountability.

High school testing now tilts more heavily toward college-admissions exams.

 Twenty-one states now require students to take the SAT or the ACT, and three others give students a choice of taking the SAT or the ACT, the WorkKeys career-skills test, or the ACT Compass college-placement test.

 Twelve states now use the SAT or the ACT in their official, federally mandated accountability reports on high school. In some states, such as Maine, a college-entrance exam will be the sole test that measures high school achievement. In others, such as Hawaii, the SAT or the ACT will measure only college readiness, and states own standards-based tests will measure achievement.
An honest essay has numerous characteristics: original thinking, a good structure, balanced arguments, and plenty more.

But one aspect often overlooked is that an honest essay should be interesting. It should spark the readers curiosity, keep them absorbed, make them want to stay reading and learn more. An uneventful article risks losing the readers attention; whether or not the points you create are excellent, a flat style, or poor handling of a dry subject material can undermine the positive aspects of the essay. The matter is that a lot of students think that essays should be like this: they believe that a flat, dry style is suited to the needs of educational writing and dont even consider that the teacher reading their essay wants to search out the essay interesting. You might want to have online essay editor service to boost your confidence in writing with an error-free output. Academic writing doesnt need to be  and shouldnt be  bland. The excellent news is that there is much stuff you can do to create your essay more attractive, while youll be able only to do such a lot while remaining within the formal confines of educational writing. Lets study what theyre.

Have an interest in what youre writing about

Dont go overboard, but youll be able to let your passion for your subject show.

If theres one thing bound to inject interest into your writing, its being fascinated by what youre writing about. Passion for a subject matter comes across naturally in your essay, typically making it more lively and fascinating and infusing an infectious enthusiasm into your words  within the same way that its easy to talk knowledgeably to someone about something you discover fascinating.

Include fascinating details

Another factor that may make an essay boring maybe a dry material. Some topic areas are naturally dry, and it falls to you to form the article more interesting through your written style and by trying to seek out fascinating snippets of knowledge to incorporate, which will liven it up a small amount and make the data easier to relate to. A way of doing this with a dry subject is to create what youre talking about that seems relevant to the critical world, as this is often easier for the reader to relate to.

Emulate the fashion of writers you discover interesting

When you read lots, you subconsciously start emulating the fashion of the writers you have read. Reading benefits you a lot, as this exposes you to a spread of designs, and youll start to require the characteristics of these you discover interesting to read.

Borrow some creative writing techniques

Theres a limit to the quantity of actual story-telling youll do when youre writing an essay; in the end, essays should be objective, factual and balanced, which doesnt, initially glance, feel considerably like story-telling. However, youll apply a number of the principles of story-telling to create your writing more interesting.

consider your own opinion

Take the time to figure out what its that you think instead of regurgitating the opinions of others.

Cut the waffle

Rambling on and on is dull and almost bound to lose the interest of your reader. Youre in danger of waffling if youre not completely clear about what you wish to mention or havent thought carefully about how youre visiting structure your argument. Doing all your research correctly and writing an essay plan before you begin will help prevent this problem.

Editing is a vital part of the essay-writing process, so edit the waffle once youve done a primary draft. Read through your essay objectively and eliminate the bits that arent relevant to the argument or labor the purpose.

employing a thesaurus isnt always a decent thing

Avoid using unfamiliar words in an essay; theres too great a likelihood that youre misusing them.

You may think that employing a thesaurus to seek out more complicated words will make your writing more exciting or sound more academic, but using overly high-brow language can have the incorrect effect.

Avoid repetitive phrasing

Please avoid using the identical phrase structure again and again: its a recipe for dullness! Instead, use a variety of syntax that demonstrates your writing capabilities and makes your writing more interesting. Mix simple, compound, and complicated sentences to avoid your paper becoming predictable.

Use some figurative language

Using analogies with nature can often make concepts more accessible for readers to know.

As weve already seen, its easy to finish up rambling when youre explaining complex concepts  mainly after you dont know it yourself. One way of forcing yourself to think about a couple of pictures, present it more simply and engagingly is to form figurative language. This implies explaining something by comparing it with something else, as in an analogy.

Employ rhetorical questions

Anticipate the questions your reader might ask.

One of the ways ancient orators held the eye of their audiences and increased the dramatic effect of their speeches was by using the statement. A decent place to use a statement is at the top of a paragraph, to steer into the following one, or at the start of a replacement section to introduce a brand new area for exploration.

Proofread

Finally, you may write the top interesting essay an instructor has ever read. Still, youll undermine your good work if its plagued by errors, which distract the reader from the particular content and can probably annoy them.
Washington, Mar 25 (EFE).- John McCain, an Arizona senator and former Republican presidential candidate, paid tribute in a New York Times op-ed to the late centenarian Delmer Berg, who at the time of his death in late February was the last known surviving member of a group of U.S. volunteers who fought in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War.

The tribute to the veteran of the so-called Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which bore the headline "Salute to a Communist," was surprising considering the 79-year-old McCain's long track record as a conservative politician and his ordeal as a prisoner of war in communist North Vietnam between 1967 and 1973.

"I don't believe in most of the things that Mr. Berg did, except this," McCain wrote in the op-ed published Thursday, referring to the fact that Berg left his U.S. homeland to fight in a foreign country for what he believed in.

"'For Whom the Bell Tolls' (by Ernest Hemingway, a 1940 novel set during the Spanish Civil War) ... is my favorite novel, and its hero, Robert Jordan, the Midwestern teacher who fought and died in Spain, became my favorite literary hero," McCain wrote.

"Like him, Delmer Berg fought in Spain, for love."

McCain noted in the op-ed that the death of Berg, a life-long communist, had gone largely unnoticed by the media and U.S. public, adding that that was unsurprising considering he was not famous, wealthy or influential and few Americans under the age of 70 know much about the Lincoln Brigade.

That contingent of nearly 3,000 American volunteers fought on the Republican side in that pre-World War II internal conflict, defending the democratically elected leftist Spanish government "against the Nationalists, the military rebels led by Gen. Francisco Franco," the GOP senator explained.

"You might consider them romantics, fighting in a doomed cause for something greater than their self-interest," McCain wrote.

"And even though men like Mr. Berg would identify with a cause, communism, that inflicted far more misery than it ever alleviated - and rendered human dignity subservient to the state - I have always harbored admiration for their courage and sacrifice in Spain," he added.

Berg, who was raised on a farm in the western United States and volunteered in 1937 after seeing a "Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" sign in Hollywood, described his experience in a first-person article published in March 2015 in The New York Times Magazine.

He said then that "as the Fascists began their drive to the Ebro River," he and his fellow volunteers "were sent to (the eastern Spanish city of) Valencia and set up in a monastery on the outskirts of town."

Berg was wounded in a bomb attack there and sent back to the United States shortly afterward, he said, noting that "by then Franco's troops had already taken over most of the Republic ... and we could do nothing to influence the outcome."

Less than a year after that article - on Feb. 28, 2016 - Berg died at his home in California at the age of 100.
Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London.

08:11, 22 OCT 2022
February 24, 2022, the day of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, will go down as a tragic date not only for the Ukrainian people, but also for the whole civilised world.
Big bridge grant for Austin Free Access Austin Borough has qualified for a state grant to cover construction of a new bridge near the towns northern gateway. A $518,400 allotment from the Multimodal Transportation Fund will allow...

Deeds filed in Cameron County Free Access Following are real estate transactions filed with the Cameron County Recorder of Deeds: Blair A. Lundberg to Alcohol & Drug Abuse Services, Emporium, $185,000; David Jeffrey Smith to Elk Mountain...

These are the best of times for deer hunters Free Access There has rarely been a better time to be a deer hunter in Pennsylvanias northcentral region. Not only has the whitetail population been steadily rebounding, but the deer are healthier...

DuBois family leaves millions for volunteer orgs Free Access Christmas came early to seven community organizations whose work was important to the late multimillionaire Arthur F. DuBois (shown in the inset) of Coudersport. Some $3.1 million in proceeds from...
Re: Questions for Potential WGs



Neighbourhood safety is not that big a concern in Switzerland. There's very, very few spots where there's rampant crime and with even the tiniest bit of common sense, you should be okay in very close to 100% of all cases. The most raunchy spot I've found were either isolated locales such as the park right next to the college in St. Gallen where the very polite drug addicts hang out. Or the area around Rue de Berne in Geneva where all the prostitutes work the streets. But they don't want trouble either.



But you're not too far off with thinking about location. What you should do is think about taxes. Inner cities usually have high taxes, but you pay for a rich offering of public services and entertainment. However, if you're willing to take as little as a ten minute commute, you might save on taxes a bit Note that Switzerland's public transport is excellent unless you're in a very, very remote area.



If you move to an inner city, you might not need a car.

Laundry schedule is usually decreed by the landlord or self governing among tenants in the building. Currently, my building uses a list where everyone can enter their names for certain timeslots. It works, give or take ten minutes.

As for the WG organization of the laundry: We throw everything in one basket and split the cost for detergent evenly. Living with two women, I feel like I'm getting somewhat screwed over, but I don't care enough to change anything.

Cleaning schedules is a good question. Do keep on top of that even after having made arrangements. Other important questions about the household:

Decide who will take out the PET bottles

Regularly check your local trash calendar when cardboard and paper is beingn taken away.

Learn immediately how to make a Swiss style paper bundle using hemp cord.

Find a good way to separate PET bottles, can and glass

Agree to split everyday kitchen foodstuffs such as frying oil or spices down the middle.

Tap water is drinkable in almost 100% of all households. Exceptions can be poorly maintained old buildings, but even those usually are safe. Then there's things about the rent contract:

There's a contract form where both you and your roomie can be on the lease. Where this might seem like the most sensible thing to do and the most fair, it comes with a huge drawback. Legally, none of you couldn't decide anything without the consent of the other. This can lead to lots of crappy situation in case of fight.

Opt for one of you being the landlord of the other and have a form ready that gives the non-landlordy one official permission to decide on individual matters like "John is allowed to deal with repairs to the dishwasher between March and April 2016. Signed, Jack". Sign these permission slips liberally.

Or be on very good terms with your landlord and then they will accept anyone from your household complaining. Now, about Zurich:

If you're on a budget, don't move to the city. Move to the so called agglo, the suburbs. Rent is cheaper, location is nicer, flats are bigger and taxes are lower

You don't need a car. In fact, if you don't have regular business outside the city that absolutely requires a car, don't even think about it.

There is no high-crime area.

There are a lot of areas where traffic noise is 24/7. Usually rent is low there. If you have questions about the city, feel free to ask A few comments here:Neighbourhood safety is not that big a concern in Switzerland. There's very, very few spots where there's rampant crime and with even the tiniest bit of common sense, you should be okay in very close to 100% of all cases. The most raunchy spot I've found were either isolated locales such as the park right next to the college in St. Gallen where the very polite drug addicts hang out. Or the area around Rue de Berne in Geneva where all the prostitutes work the streets. But they don't want trouble either.But you're not too far off with thinking about location. What you should do is think about taxes. Inner cities usually have high taxes, but you pay for a rich offering of public services and entertainment. However, if you're willing to take as little as a ten minute commute, you might save on taxes a bit Note that Switzerland's public transport is excellent unless you're in a very, very remote area.Other important questions about the household:Then there's things about the rent contract:Now, about Zurich:If you have questions about the city, feel free to ask
A Chinese research team from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel, environmentally friendly low-cost battery that overcomes many of the problems of lithium ion batteries (LIB). The new aluminum-graphite dual-ion battery (AGDIB) offers significantly reduced weight, volume, and fabrication cost, as well as higher energy density, in comparison with conventional LIBs. AGDIB's electrode materials are composed of environmentally friendly low cost aluminum and graphite only, while its electrolyte is composed of conventional lithium salt and carbonate solvent.

The research, published in "A Novel Aluminum-Graphite Dual-Ion Battery," recently appeared in Advanced Energy Materials (IF=16.146).

The discovery is particularly important given rising battery demand and existing LIB technology, which is reaching its limit in specific energy (by weight) and energy density (by volume).

LIBs are widely used in portable electronic devices, electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. Battery disposal creates major environmental problems, since most batteries contain toxic metals in their electrodes. According to the Freedonia Group, world battery demand is expected to rise 7.7% annually, reaching US$120 billion in 2019.

"Compared with conventional LIBs, this battery (AGDIB) shows an obvious advantage in production cost (~ 50% lower), specific density (~1.3-2.0 times), and energy density (~1.6-2.8 times)," said TANG Yongbing, leader of the research team. The AGDIB mechanism follows a dual ion intercalation/alloying process.

Upon charging, anions in the electrolyte intercalate into the graphite cathode, while the Li+ ions in the electrolyte deposit onto the aluminum counter electrode to form an Al-Li alloy. The discharge process is the reverse of the charging process, where both anions and Li+ ions diffuse back into the electrolyte. Since the Al counter electrode in the AGDIB acts as the anode and the current collector at the same time, the dead load and dead volume of the AGDIB is significantly reduced, making a battery with both high specific energy density and high volume energy density.

In its research, the team roughly estimated the specific energy density and power density of the AGDIB according to the configuration of packaged battery. Results show that the AGDIB can deliver a specific energy density of ~222 Wh kg?1 at a power density of 132 W kg?1, and ~150 Wh kg?1 at 1200 W kg?1. Compared with commercial LIB (~200 Wh kg?1 at 50 W kg?1, and ~100 Wh kg?1 at 1000 W kg?1) and electrochemical capacitors (~5 Wh kg?1 at 5000 W kg?1), the AGDIB showed significantly improved performance.

Importantly, the volume energy density of the AGDIB can reach ~560Wh/L, which is much higher than traditional batteries (~350 Wh/L for Tesla Model S and ~200 Wh/L for BYD E6). For example, a 500 kg AGDIB-based power battery could reach a recharge mileage of ~550 km (~425 km for Tesla Model S and ~225 km for BYD E6), and a 200 L AGDIB-based power battery could reach a mileage of about 560 km.

This AGDIB shows real potential for large-scale application in both electronic devices and electric vehicles. This technology may represent a revolutionary step for China's energy industry. The successful commercialization of this new type battery has great potential to significantly enhance the performance of portable electronic devices, electric vehicles, and renewable energy systems, etc.

###

This research was supported by the Guangdong Innovation Team and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Every day, more than 15 million unpaid caregivers provide care to people with Alzheimer's disease, with little outside support and often at the risk of their own health.

Now a team of researchers, including David Wilkerson at the Indiana University School of Social Work at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, will use an innovation grant awarded by the Regenstrief Institute to see whether a social microvolunteering app developed for Facebook could help provide support many caregivers are now lacking.

The team, which also includes Dr. Daniel Bateman, a gerontology psychiatrist with the IU School of Medicine and Erin Brady, a faculty member at the School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI, hope to have an answer to that question by early fall. The three met through their participation in the Sandra Eskenazi Center for Brain Innovation eHealth group and decided to join forces to explore the possibility that their social microvolunteering application could aid caregivers.

The social microvolunteering app communicates with a Facebook community and can push and retrieve information to and from the entire community or only selected groups within the community. Social microvolunteering is a simple and brief form of volunteer service usually done virtually through social networks and requiring no long-term time commitment. It connects an individual with a question to a group of potential answerers, leveraging the social networks of a core group of supporters to expand the scale of answerers available and increase the speed of responses.

Brady developed and researched the social microvolunteering idea in an application for people with limited vision. Bateman will help the team understand the needs of caregivers. Wilkerson's interest has to do with patient-centered care and creating a holistic care environment that includes caregivers and strengthens the resource of caregiving.

If the research project shows the application is effective, it could prove to be an inexpensive way to provide support to millions of caregivers. The numbers of unpaid caregivers trying to maintain their own lives and care for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease is staggering. In 2014, 15.7 million unpaid caregivers took care of people with Alzheimer's disease, providing a total of 17.9 billion hours of care, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Providing care comes with its own problems. Experts say caregivers have higher rates of depression, anxiety, insomnia, cardiovascular disease and health care resource use, making caregiver self-management an important target for intervention, according to research studies.

Wilkerson said the team will be investigating small groups of five to eight caregivers; each group will have a Facebook account. The group will be asked what informational and emotional support questions it would like to get answered in alternating weeks of the research. This aspect of group discussion is anticipated to be a first step in the development of mutual support and will generate questions that will be pushed to the larger Facebook community for the purposes of social microvolunteering.

The social microvolunteering app retrieves their answers, and relevant answers are sent back to the caregiver group for deliberation. The online caregivers' group will discuss online which answers seem the most relevant and then take action. Wilkerson said the caregivers would give authorization through their Facebook page to use the application for the test period.

The team expects to recruit 24 to 26 people, who will be divided up into four groups by April, and then start the project in May

"If our intervention can increase support, it can potentially improve caregiver health and, in conjunction with primary health care interventions, extend the amount of time that people with Alzheimer's can remain at home," Wilkinson noted.

###
Image credit: Anders Hesselbom (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; Illustra Media.

Recently at the University of Toronto I had the opportunity to debate atheist cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and theistic evolutionist Denis Lamoureux. The subject was Whats Behind It All? God, Science, and the Universe. Later, I was flattered to learn that famed biologist Richard Dawkins felt it necessary to come to the aid of his friend Dr. Krauss in Krausss dispute with me about whether the evolutionary process depends upon an ineliminable element of randomness.

How odd, however, that Professor Dawkins would weigh in for the purpose of defending an obviously incomplete and therefore, indefensible caricature of the standard neo-Darwinian evolutionary mechanism. In review of my talk in Toronto, Dawkins wrote at evolutionary biologist Jerry Coynes blog:

Meyer was terrible  When will these people understand that calculating how many gazillions of ways you can permute things at random is irrelevant. Its irrelevant, as Lawrence said, because natural selection is a NONRANDOM process.1

Yes, of course, natural selection is a nonrandom process as Dawkins correctly insists. Rates of reproductive success correlate to the traits that organisms possess. Those with fitness advantages will, all other things being equal, out-reproduce those lacking those advantages. Got it. Understood.

Yet, clearly, there is more to the evolutionary mechanism than just natural selection. Instead, the standard neo-Darwinian evolutionary mechanism comprises (1) natural selection and/or (2) genetic drift acting on (3) adaptively random genetic variations and mutations (of various kinds). Moreover, as conceived from Darwin to the present, natural selection selects or acts to preserve those random variations that confer a fitness (or functional) advantage upon the organisms that possess them. It, further, selects only after such functionally advantageous variations (or mutations) have arisen. How could it do otherwise? Selection does not cause novel variations; rather, it sifts what is delivered to it by the random changes (e.g., mutations) that do cause variations. Such has been neo-Darwinian orthodoxy for many decades.

All this means that as a mechanism for the production of novel genetic information, natural selection does nothing to help generate functional DNA base (or amino acid) sequences. Rather it can only preserve such sequences (if they confer a functional advantage) once they have originated. In other words, adaptive advantage only accrues after the generation of new functional genes and proteins  after the fact, that is, of some (presumably) successful random mutational search. It follows that even if natural selection (considered separately from mutation) constitutes a non-random process, the evolutionary mechanism as a whole depends precisely upon an ineliminable element of randomness, namely, various postulated or observed mutational processes. (Nor is any of the above particularly controversial within evolutionary biology. No less friendly partisans to Krauss and Dawkins as Professors Larry Moran and P.Z. Myers both criticized Krauss for mischaracterizing the neo-Darwinian mechanism as wholly non-random, with Moran specifically blaming Krausss uncritical reliance upon Dawkins as the source of his misinformation.2)

In any case, the need for random mutations to generate novel base or amino-acid sequences before natural selection can play a role means that precise quantitative measures of the rarity of genes and proteins within the sequence space of possibilities are highly relevant to assessing the alleged power of mutation-selection mechanism. Indeed, such empirically derived measures of rarity are highly relevant to assessing the alleged plausibility of the mutation-selection mechanism as a means of producing the genetic information necessary to generating a novel protein fold. Moreover, given the empirically based estimates of the rarity (conservatively estimated by Axe3 at 1 in 1077 and within a similar range by others4) the analysis that I presented in Toronto does pose a formidable challenge to those who claim the mutation-natural selection mechanism provides an adequate means for the generation of novel genetic information  at least, again, in amounts sufficient to generate novel protein folds.5

Why a formidable challenge? Because random mutations alone must produce (or search for) exceedingly rare functional sequences among a vast combinatorial sea of possible sequences before natural selection can play any significant role. Moreover, as I discussed in Toronto, and show in more detail in Darwins Doubt,6 every replication event in the entire multi-billion year history of life on Earth would not generate or search but a miniscule fraction (one ten trillion, trillion trillionth, to be exact) of the total number of possible nucleotide base or amino-acid sequences corresponding to a single functional gene or protein fold. The number of trials available to the evolutionary process (corresponding to the total number of organisms  1040  that have ever existed on earth), thus, turns out to be incredibly small in relation to the number of possible sequences that need to be searched. The threshold of selectable function exceeds what is reasonable to expect a random search to be able to accomplish given the number of trials available to the search even assuming evolutionary deep time.

As with a hypothetical thief who is confronted with many more combinations than he has time to explore (in my offending bike lock analogy), the mutation and selection mechanism is much more likely to fail than to succeed in generating even a single new gene or protein in the known history of life on Earth. It follows that the neo-Darwinian mechanism  with its reliance on a random mutational search to generate novel gene sequences  is not an adequate mechanism to produce the information necessary for even a single new protein fold, let alone a novel animal form, in available evolutionary deep time.

Or to put the point differently, the hypothesis that a random search (aided after the fact by natural selection) did produce the genetic information necessary to morphological innovation in the history of life is overwhelmingly more likely to be false than true. That is one reason why so many mainstream evolutionary biologists are now abandoning neo-Darwinism and looking for other evolutionary mechanisms to account for fundamental innovations in the history of life.7

Readers who want to know more about the mathematical challenges posed to the neo-Darwinian mechanism may enjoy watching the Information Enigma video posted below, in which I and Doug Axe discuss these issues in greater detail:

Notes

(1) The full quotation from Dawkins is as follows:

Meyer was terrible, not because of his migraine but because of the content of his speech, which was written down BEFORE his migraine. When will these people understand that calculating how many gazillions of ways you can permute things at random is irrelevant. Its irrelevant, as Lawrence said, because natural selection is a NONRANDOM process. Youd think theyd realise that if it were THAT easy to disprove evolution no scientist would take evolution seriously. Do they really think we are so very stupid? Or are they cynically playing to the gallery, dazzling the naive audience with big numbers like 10^77, while knowing full well they are irrelevant?

(2) As Moran noted at his Sandwalk blog:

During the debate, Stephen Meyer emphasized [the] random nature of evolution and its inability  according to him  to come up with new protein folds and new information in a reasonable amount of time. Krauss misunderstood the argument, which was based on the frequency of mutations, and tried to dismiss it by pointing out that evolution is not random  its directed and guided by natural selection. Meyer corrected him by pointing out that the issue was the probability of mutations and not the probability of fixation once the mutation occurred. (This was when he was struggling with a migraine so he didnt do as good a job as he could have.) Krauss stumbled on for a bit emphasizing natural selection and the fact that evolution is not random. That was embarrassing. I think Krauss gets most of his information about evolution from Richard Dawkins so he (Krauss) probably doesnt know about random genetic drift or historical contingency or any of the other features of the history of life that make it random (in the colloquial sense).

(3) Axe, Douglas. Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds. Journal of Molecular Biology 341 (2004): 1295-1315.

(4) Reidhaar-Olson, John, and Robert Sauer. Functionally Acceptable Solutions in Two Alpha-Helical Regions of Lambda Repressor. Proteins: Structure, Function, and Genetics 7 (1990): 306-16; Yockey, Hubert P. A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology 67 (1977c): 377-98; Yockey, Hubert. On the Information Content of Cytochrome C, Journal of Theoretical Biology 67 (1977b) 345-376.

(5) For an explanation of why protein folds represent a fundamental unit of morphological innovation, see: Stephen C. Meyer, Darwins Doubt (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014), pp. 189-192. Stabilizing a novel protein fold requires a long polypeptide chain with highly specific amino-acid sequence. Because of the corresponding combinatorial complexity associated with chains of length sufficient to stabilize a protein fold, it is extremely unlikely that a random mutational search will ever generate a novel protein fold, though mutation and natural selection does sometimes optimize pre-existing folds. Axes results estimating the rarity of functional amino-acid sequences (capable of generating a novel protein fold) provide empirical support for this conclusion. See Axe, D., & Gauger, A. (2015). Model and Laboratory Demonstrations That Evolutionary Optimization Works Well Only If Preceded by Invention  Selection Itself Is Not Inventive, BIO-Complexity (2015).

(6) Darwins Doubt, pp. 201-208.

(7) Almost without exception, biologists currently trying to reform evolutionary theory seek probabilistically favored pathways through the vast sterile sea of randomly arising variation. That is because a random (undirected) search is far too weak and slow a process, within the time available, to locate the functional islands on which natural selection can act. In the pithy phrase made popular early in the 20th century by the botanist Hugo de Vries, often quoted today by University of Zurich theorist Andreas Wagner, Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest. Wagners own recent work starts with what he calls the hyperastronomical numbers entailed by the problem of locating (by random search) a novel functional protein sequence within the space of all possible sequences. If a trillion different organisms had tried an amino acid string every second since life began, he writes, they might have tried a tiny fraction of the 10^130 potential ones. They would never have found the one opsin string. There are a lot of different ways to arrange molecules. And not nearly enough time. (See A. Wagner, The Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolutions Greatest Puzzle [New York: Penguin, 2014], p. 4.) Just this week (22 March 2016), a lead editorial in the journal New Scientist worried that any process built purely on random changes has a lot of potential changes to try. So how does natural selection come up with such good solutions to the problem of survival so quickly, given population sizes and the number of generations available? New Scientist then promoted the ideas of University of Southampton evolutionary theorist Richard Watson, who argues that evolution learns in a fashion akin to intelligent problem solving (see R. Watson and E. Szathmary, How Can Evolution Learn? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 31 [2016]:147-157). This change in explanatory perspective is needed, Watson and Szathmary argue, because within current evolutionary theory, it seems impossible that natural selection can anticipate what is needed in novel selective environments  insofar as random search, by definition, anticipates nothing. We think this offers the potential, Watson and Szathmary conclude, to better explain how the process of random variation and selection results in the apparently intelligent designs it produces. My emphasis, obviously  but it is a telling phrase. For additional examples of deep dissatisfaction with neo-Darwinian theory within evolutionary biology, see Shapiro, James A. A 21st Century View of Evolution: Genome System Architecture, Repetitive DNA, and Natural Genetic Engineering. Gene 345 (2005): 91-100; Kauffman, Stuart A. The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Lynch, Michael. The Frailty of Adaptive Hypotheses for the Origins of Organismal Complexity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104 (2007): 8597-604; Muller, Gerd B., and Stuart A. Newman. Origination of Organismal Form: The Forgotten Cause in Evolutionary Theory. Origination of Organismal Form: Beyond the Gene in Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, edited by G. B. Muller and S. A. Newman, 3-10 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
Science Magazine published a paper last week, Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome, describing the creation of a bacterium with a stripped-down genome. The paper represents twenty years of work by many scientists, including celebrated biochemist J. Craig Venter. They managed to reduce the genome by almost half, from over 900 genes to 473, a little bit at a time. The paper has made a splash across the Internet (see, for example, articles from Associated Press and Bloomberg).

Why on earth would the researchers do such a thing? The hope is that this minimal bacterium will provide a useful vehicle for future synthetic biology, enabling the production of useful medicines to treat disease.

But there is another reason they spent twenty years on this project. Its an attempt to answer a basic question. Whats the minimum amount of genetic information needed to get a functioning cell? Estimates have ranged from 250 to 300 genes, depending on what kind of cell and where it is living. For the bacterium M. mycoides, the starting point of their work, the answer seems to be about 470 genes. Scientists want to know the answer because the simplified cell may allow them to tease apart how the genes interact, and what all of them do. Its easier to tackle 400 genes than over 900, or in the case of the common bacterium E. coli, over 4,000.

This work has already yielded some interesting results. They still dont know what 30 percent of the reduced genome does, just that the genes are essential. Second, genes that appear to be nonessential by themselves can become essential when another gene is deleted. Clearly there are complex interactions going on among the 473 genes.

All of this leads to an obvious question. This little bacterium has to be able to copy its DNA, transcribe and translate it into protein, plus be able to coordinate all the steps involved in cell division. It has to be able to make all the things it cant get from its environment. Thats a lot of information to be stored and used appropriately. Hence 473 genes.

But where did the cell come from in the first place? Its a chicken-and-egg problem. Given the number of things the cell has to do to be a functioning organism, where does one begin? DNA or RNA alone is not enough, because protein is needed to copy the DNA and to carry out basic cellular processes. But protein is not enough by itself either. DNA is needed to stably inherit the genetic information about how to make proteins.

Some people propose that RNA could do the trick, because under just the right circumstances, and with an experimenters help, RNA can copy itself, partially. The idea is that if just the right sequence of RNA were to come along, it could serve as both an RNA enzyme (or ribozyme) and as the template for reproducing itself.

That leaves aside bigger problems. Ribozymes can only carry out a few simple chemical reactions, while even a minimal cell needs many kind of reactions. Second, how did the switch to DNA and proteins happen? No one has a clue. Last, lets not forget the problem of interdependence, or irreducible complexity as biochemist Michael Behe calls it in his book Darwins Black Box. The minimal cell, he writes, is a system composed of several [many in this case] well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.

Irreducible systems are evidence of intelligent design, because only a mind has the capacity to design and implement such an information-rich, interdependent network as a minimal cell.

Think about the design of a basic car. You need an engine, a transmission, a drive shaft, a steering wheel, axles and wheels, plus a chassis to hold it all together. Then theres gas, and a way to start the whole thing going. (I have undoubtedly left out something, but you get my point.) Having one or two of these things wont make a functioning car. All the parts are necessary before it can drive, and it takes a designer to envision what is needed, how to fit it together, and then to build it.

Whether youre talking about a car or a minimal cell, it wont happen without a designer.

Image source: Tom Deerinck and Mark Ellisman, National Center for Imaging and Microscopy Research, University of California at San Diego, via J. Craig Venter Institute.
Following up on Richard Dawkinss attempted takedown of Stephen Meyers bike-lock analogy (Its irrelevantbecause natural selection is a NONRANDOM process), our Biologic Institute colleague Douglas Axe joined the conversation over at Why Evolution Is True. (That is Jerry Coynes blog.)

Dawkins posted his original comments there, following a post by Coyne on the Toronto debate. He concluded by asking, [A]re they cynically playing to the gallery, dazzling the naive audience with big numbers like 10^77, while knowing full well they are irrelevant? Following that, a reader called chrisbuckley80 thought he had cleverly nailed the problem with Meyers comparison, with an analogy of his own:

I think I can play this game. Hows this for dazzling? I walk a mile from my train station to my office every day. If I just randomly took enough steps to walk a mile, I could end up anywhere in a 3.14 square mile area. My cubicle is only about 20 square feet. This leaves about a one in 4.4 million chance of finding it. Ive done this 1000 straight days which equates to a 1:10^6641 chance of this having randomly happened. The obvious conclusion is that my commute isnt random. Why is it so hard for these people to come to the same conclusion about evolution, especially when it is repeated to them ad nauseam?

Not so fast, writes Dr. Axe:

Equally obvious is that your commute isnt random because you know where youre going. When I read The Blind Watchmaker as a student (and enjoyed it very much, I might add) I was under the distinct impression that blind meant not knowing where one is going. So, lets look at your analogy again. You receive benefit in the form of a paycheck for showing up at your cubicle every workday. If instead you were to meander blindly from the train station (meaning, without using any knowledge of where youre supposed to go) do you really think your employer would give you 0.1% of your pay if you happened to end up 0.1% closer to your cubicle than your starting point? And then 0.2% if you happened to make it a little closer the next day? Of course you dont. You get paid after making it the whole way and doing your work. Thats the glaring problem with natural selection. Its huge weakness has nothing to do with randomness and everything to do with the fact that it only rewards good work after that work has been done. Consequently it has absolutely nothing to do with how that work gets done in the first place. Speaking of ad nauseam repetition, this obvious shortcoming of natural selection has been repeated over and over for well over a century. As it was put in a quote offered by Hugo De Vries in 1904: Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.

At a guess, I would say that Dawkins entered the debate at all  something he usually avoids  because Lawrence Krauss in the Toronto event was basically channeling Dr. Dawkins on the point that Darwinian evolution isnt a random process. The truth is its both random and nonrandom. The fuel is random genetic variation. The winnowing process, natural selection, is nonrandom. But as scientists have recognized for more than a century, that only helps with the survival not the arrival of biological novelties.

Dawkins stands by his man (Krauss), but other Darwinists with less of a personal stake in the matter have dismissed this particular move by Krauss/Dawkins.

In a post offering A suggestion for debaters, PZ Myers is of course snide but clearly wishes Krauss hadnt drifted so far beyond his depths as a cosmologist  Meyer cunningly got the debate unto the track of molecular biology and the human genome, I have approximately zero interest in hearing [Krauss] lecture about biology. Hes equally dismissive of the ID advocate, but if the atheist Krauss had successfully scored, you can be sure atheist Myers would be happy to admit that.

Fellow ID critic Larry Moran, a University of Toronto biochemist, says similarly, You need to understand biology if you are going to debate an Intelligent Design Creationist. In a comment under his post, Moran addresses the randomness issue (as Ann Gauger noted earlier):

During the debate, Stephen Meyer emphasized [the] random nature of evolution and its inability  according to him  to come up with new protein folds and new information in a reasonable amount of time. Krauss misunderstood the argument, which was based on the frequency of mutations, and tried to dismiss it by pointing out that evolution is not random  its directed and guided by natural selection. Meyer corrected him by pointing out that the issue was the probability of mutations and not the probability of fixation once the mutation occurred. (This was when he was struggling with a migraine so he didnt do as good a job as he could have.) Krauss stumbled on for a bit emphasizing natural selection and the fact that evolution is not random. That was embarrassing. I think Krauss gets most of his information about evolution from Richard Dawkins so he (Krauss) probably doesnt know about random genetic drift or historical contingency or any of the other features of the history of life that make it random (in the colloquial sense). I suspect that Krauss still holds on to the Dawkins view that life has the appearance of design. Truth is, in the big picture, life really doesnt have the appearance of design. Certainly our genome doesnt look designed and my back was not designed for walking upright as it lets me know every morning when I get out of bed.

The Toronto event struck many of us initially as a lost opportunity. Aside from the distress of seeing a colleague in pain, Dr. Meyer in the middle of a migraine attack was not what youd hope for going in. But the ripples from the evening are shaping up in all kinds of interesting ways that, frankly, might not have emerged had Steve Meyer been at the top of his game.

Image credit: Mike Cornwell [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
What do you mean by 'socialising' exactly? The French don't tend to do "going out" for the sake of it, they're very home and family orientated on the whole. But they are quite into groups and associations where people meet to do things and share an interest, so I suppose that's the main way socialising outside the family circle. Does your town not have a list of associations?Big towns and especially university towns like Rennes have a lot more night life and things going on if that's what you're looking for, but of course that brings with it typical big-city problems.There are certain towns in Brittany with very high expat populations... which again, has certain problems attached.If you're just generally feeling at a bit of a loose end, have you look at this site(or there may be one nearer to you)it's free to join and there's a huge variety of events that you can go along to and meet people.


A dozen of Europe's most dynamic cities have been identified in a new index ranking in terms of being great places to invest in real estate.Many expats want to buy property as an investment for their retirement or when they return home and the latest City Momentum Index report places London top of the list, followed by Dublin and Paris with Istanbul included for the first time.The index, from real estate services company JLL explains that the top cities boast long held strengths in technology, deep talent pools and ambitious urban development plans."The European top 12 identifies those cities where change is occurring most rapidly. Istanbul joins this group for the first time, where, despite geopolitical headwinds, it displays remarkable dynamism. The ranking combines real estate dynamics such as investment, property prices and construction with socio-economic factors," said Jeremy Kelly, director of global research at JLL."Istanbul is a city which is taking bold steps to improve its infrastructure and is building a modern real estate portfolio as it grows into its new skin as a global business centre," he added.London also ranks first in the Global top 20 for a second consecutive year as robust economic growth and commercial real estate fundamentals are complemented by initiatives which are transforming the city's transport and building on its unique strengths as a global education and technology hub.The report explains that the US$22 billion Crossrail project is the largest transport scheme in Europe, while new university campuses such as the US$1.5 billion campus for Imperial College London in White City, which is being planned as London's first major research quarter, are establishing new networks between business and education.London is top but the current index is dominated by what are described Europe's New World Cities with Dubin in second place, Randstad in fourth place, Munich in fifth, Stockholm in sixth, Copenhagen in sevenths, Berlin eleventh and Barcelona 12th.The report explains that these smaller, innovation-oriented cities combine strong infrastructure platforms with a high quality of life and resilience against changing economic conditions."Investors are increasingly looking towards long term trends such as demography and technology when making asset allocation decisions, driven by their search for sustainable income," said Kelly."Cities such as Dublin, Stockholm, Berlin and Copenhagen have among Europe's highest concentrations of high-tech start-ups, strong research systems and are home to many millennials, a testament to the dynamism and long term potential of the continent's New World Cities," he added.UK cities have maintained their strong position in the list. In addition to London at the top there is Manchester in ninth place and Edinburgh in tenth. Sound economic fundamentals are credited with their success and devolution measures are set to boost further the competitiveness of these two cities, according to JLL.Outside the top 12, momentum is increasing across the region, with Madrid, Vienna and Brussels showing the greatest improvement globally in their CMI score over the previous year.
BASKING RIDGE, N.J.  The international dairy company Arla and Dairy Farmers of America have created a $58 million joint venture to build a small dairy plant in western New York for cheddar cheese production.

The agreement, announced March 24, indicates eight DFA-member farms in western New York will supply the plant 70,000 tons of raw milk annually.

The joint venture will be owned 70 percent by DFA, who also holds the management role; 20 percent by Arla and 10 percent by the eight farmers who supply the milk, according to a company news release.

Arla Foods is owned by 12.700 farmers from Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) is a national dairy marketing cooperative owned by more than 14,000 members.

The U.S. market has a restricted import quota system for cheddar, which is why Arlas possibilities for importing European cheddar are limited and the company sought local production.

The construction of the site will begin in the fall and production is expected to start in the fall 2017.
Shropshire

A Full-Time position is available for an assistant herdsperson on a family dairy farm in mid Shropshire. We have a 250 dairy herd rearing own replacements together with a b...
"If you look at global insecurity at the moment, in many of those places it is not so much Muslims fighting against each other, it is basically non-availability of high quality food at an affordable price," he told an audience of about 70 academics, scientists and agriculture industry representatives.
He said the size of regional electorates was becoming unmanageable and no amount of technology or travel options could compensate for the value of having a more locally-based and readily available MP.
Blac Chyna wants to have a baby with Rob Kardashian.

Blac Chyna

The 27-year-old former exotic dancer may have only been dating the once-reclusive reality TV star a few months but it seems their relationship is going from strength-to-strength as she's already thinking ahead to the future.

In a series of videos posted on her Snapchat account, she said: "Rob! I am not playing with you, I want my eggs CRACKED! That means I wanna have a BABY! I need my name DROPPED! ... I want my eggs cracked ... I want to be married. I am not f**king around with you."

What's more, the 'Keeping Up with The Kardashians' star is reportedly keen on the idea of becoming a father as he thinks he's ready to take on the responsibility, after spending lots of time with Blac's three-year-old son King Cairo, whom she has with ex-fiance Tyga, who is now dating Rob's half-sister Kylie Jenner.

A source told RadarOnline: "Rob spending time with King Cairo has convinced Rob that he is ready to be a father. He thinks that the sexiest thing about Blac Chyna is what a great mom she is to King."

However, the news will no doubt come as a shock to Rob's family - especially his sister Khloe Kardashian, who hasn't been 100 per cent supportive of his relationship with Blac and is believed to have felt "majority betrayed" when he started dating her - due to the longevity of their romance.
Matt Damon thinks 'The Great Wall' is like "the Beijing Olympics with monsters".

Matt Damon

Damon may not be able to communicate directly with director Zhang Yimou but has always understood his vision for the historic fantasy and thinks their project is "next-level insane".

He said: "It's amazing. Zhang Yimou doesn't speak a lick of English and I don't speak any Mandarin. But we both have made movies our entire adult lives, so I always know where he's coming from. The guy is a genius.

"It's basically a historical fantasy monster movie but with Zhang Yimou directing.

"It's next-level insane. The shot making is so exciting.

"Having done this for 25 years, to watch hi work is just amazing. He directed the Beijing Olympics [opening ceremony in 2008]. It's like the film version of the Beijing Olympics but with monsters."

Matt - who stars alongside Pedro Pascal, Andy Lau and Willem Defoe in the film - plays a mercenary who gets captured and wants to help defend China against the rise of mythical monsters.

He explained to Total Film magazine: "It takes place around 15AD and I play a mercenary who has gone to northern China to steal gunpowder.

"The movie starts with him being pursued by these nomad tribesman who are going to kill him.

"They are a group of Chinese soldiers whose job it is to defend the wall because every 60 years these monsters out of Chinese mythology rise up and assault the wall, and try to break through to take over and kill everyone.

"Some of these soldiers living and die without ever seeing these beasts. They live to defend China.

"Pedro and I get captured by the army on the eve of an attack and prove ourselves worthy of helping in the defence of the wall."
Britain's Prince Harry was kept awake all night by a barking dog in Nepal on Thursday (24.03.16).

Prince Harry

The 31-year-old royal - who has just extended his trip to the South Asian country by another six days - has struck up a close bond with a chunky pooch after he ruined his sleep.

Taking to the Kensington Palace official Twitter account this morning (25.03.16), he uploaded a photo of the four-legged creature gazing out into the distance, along with the caption: "Found a friend surveying his kingdom! Who can blame him - what a view! He barked ALL night outside our homestay and kept me awake, but we moved past that! (sic)"

The flame-haired hunk - the grandson of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip - arrived in Nepal last Saturday and had initially planned to stay five days but fell in love with the people, culture and scenery so decided to stay longer in order to work on a charity project, which aims to rebuild a school destroyed by last year's earthquake in the Himalayas.

He said of his decision to stay longer: "The people I have met and the beauty of this country make it very hard to leave. Thankfully however, I'm not leaving just yet.

"I'm so grateful to have this opportunity at the end of my official tour to do my small bit to help."

The Prince will camp with a group of volunteers in a remote village in central Nepal as he works alongside Rubicon UK - a disaster response charity which uses the skills and experience of military veterans to deploy emergency response teams - over the next few days.

The disaster last April claimed 9,000 lives, largely in rural areas, and left many people without homes and belongings.
An Indonesian economist has warned textile-garment sector in developing countries against falling into a low-productivity trap and getting stuck there.At a conference in Ho Chi Min City last week, Gatot Arya Putra said there is a need to adopt appropriate strategies and policies are not adopted to help it to get out of such a trap.

An Indonesian economist has warned textile-garment sector in developing countries against falling into a low-productivity trap and getting stuck there#

The conference on the impact of Vietnam's international integration process on the apparel industry was organise by the Center of Business Studies and Assistance (BSA), the HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Institute.Putra said many developing countries have competed with one another for the low value part of the global value chain for the textile-garment sector. As a result, labourers in the sector are offered low wages that are enough for their basic needs only, and cannot save money for career development.Putra said that apparel is a key sector of Indonesia but it is now caught in a low productivity trap.He blamed poor technology which has caused productivity to stay low in Indonesia while enterprises in the sector lack supporting policies to invest in modern technology.He stressed that the apparel sector should be offered favourable policies and financially aided to improve productivity.Putra cited the apparel industry in South Korea and Taiwan that were once caught in the low-productivity trap but they successfully managed to get out of it because of appropriate policies, and shifted to other industrial sectors that turn out products of higher values.Putra said the Vietnamese Government would need to take action right now if the nation wants to be as successful as South Korea and Taiwan.Professor Mustafiz Rahman from the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh suggested that countries should join forces to set the floor price for textile-garment products to share adequate benefits in the global value chain.Le Tien Truong, general director of Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex), said Vietnam ranks third in terms of productivity for technicans. He said the problems in Vietnam are public governance and cooperation among domestic businesses.Truong said production and public governance expenses are factored into the total cost of products and that firms' investment in technology can improve labour productivity but if public governance cost rises steadily, they cannot bring down the total cost.With more foreign investors entering Vietnam's apparel sector to take advantage of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement,Truong said Vietnamese firms should study the production technology they use and the products they have rather than worrying that they will seize all the opportunities.Truong said if Vietnamese apparel enterprises can cooperate with one another, they can negotiate for the supply of input materials with reasonable prices. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The Bangladesh readymade garment (RMG) sector is waking up to the need for making the industry an environmental-friendly one.A seminar jointly organized by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Canadian High Commission, stressed on the 'green' efforts in Bangladesh's readymade garment (RMG) sector as part of corporate social responsibility or CSR.

The Bangladesh readymade garment (RMG) sector is waking up to the need for making the industry an environmental-friendly one.A seminar jointly #

The seminar titled 'Greening RMG as CSR in Bangladesh's was held at BGMEA Apparel Club in Dhaka recently.The seminar covered four topics to take a green approach in a RMG factory.Presentations were given on Step By Step Approach to Achieve Green Status, Green Energy and Features in Green Building, Health and Safety in RMG for Improve Performance, University Shaping up Future Graduates for Greening RMG Industry.BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman highlighted the vision of the industry to export garments worth $50 billion by 2021, and said that green approach can help the industry to achieve the goal.He said that 26 Bangladeshi garment factories have been certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) while 100 more are registered with USGB for the certification.Canadian High Commissioner Benoit Pierre Laramee stressed on the importance of Bangladesh garments entrepreneurs to move up the supply chain by improving productivity, developing skills, improving factory environment, adopting advanced technologies and international standards.Laramee also reiterated Canada's commitment to supporting the government of Bangladesh's efforts to improve the working conditions in the readymade garments sector.The Canadian envoy outlined that 'greening RMG' could be a key for the sustainable development for the improvement of the working conditions.Bangladeshi Commerce Ministry Senior Secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, said the initiative would help the RMG industry understand the need for green manufacturing process to comply with international standards. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The National Retail Federation (NRF) urged the US Congress to reject any form of consumption tax and instead focus on changes to the income tax system that would broaden the tax base in return for lower rates.Replacement of our current income tax system with a consumption tax system would cause great disruption to the US economy, David French, NRF senior vice president for government relations said.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) urged the US Congress to reject any form of consumption tax and instead focus on changes to the income tax system#

Congress should not consider making this type of change at a time when the economy is stagnant and consumer confidence is so low, French observed in a NRF press release.French added by saying that adding a consumption tax on top of the current income tax would have even more negative consequences.French's remarks came in a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, which is scheduled to hold a subcommittee hearing on consumption tax proposals as part of a series of sessions on tax reform.According to NRF, rather than taking testimony from affected parties, the Tax Policy Subcommittee is hearing from lawmakers who have proposed legislation on the issue.NRF and a number of leading economists have argued that that the measures would bring higher prices that would decimate consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of the nation's economy.Regardless of label, the proposals under consideration in this hearing are all consumption taxes and is the wrong time to consider a tax system that would increase the tax burden on consumption, French noted.According to French, consumption taxes are borne disproportionately by low and moderate-income families, who spend a higher proportion of their income than wealthier families.NRF believes a better approach to tax reform would be through income tax changes that would lower rates and broaden the base, French noted.Studies have shown that this type of tax reform would have a favourable impact on the economy, wages and retail spending, NRF also observed.A 2010 Ernst and Young study commissioned by NRF found that adding a 10 per cent VAT to the income tax would result in the loss of 850,000 jobs in the first year.It would also reduce gross domestic product for three years and bring a permanent drop in retail spending totaling $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years, NRF added by quoting the report A PricewaterhouseCoopers study conducted for NRF in 2000 said a flat tax would bring a five-year decline in GDP and a six-year decline in consumer spending.While a National Retail Sales Tax would bring a four-year decline in GDP and an eight-year decline in spending.By contrast, a 2014 review by the congressional Joint Tax Committee found that broadening the base by limiting tax deductions and using the revenue saved to lower rates would cause consumer spending and GDP to grow. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Brioni and Kering have announced the appointment of Justin O'Shea as Creative Director of the Brioni House.O'Shea will be responsible for the brand's collections as well as its image, effective April 1, 2016, according to a press release.

Brioni and Kering have announced the appointment of Justin O'Shea as Creative Director of the Brioni House.O'Shea will be responsible for the brand's #

He joins from the online retailer mytheresa.com where he most recently held the position of fashion director.I am deeply honored to undertake this new challenge for such prestigious and celebrated menswear house. It is with great enthusiasm that I look forward to writing a new chapter in the story of Brioni, O'Shea said.Gianluca Flore, Chief Executive Officer of Brioni commented, I am very confident Justin O'Shea's new artistic direction for Brioni will be instrumental in strenghtening our core values and continuing to drive dynamism and innovation into the brand heritage. Justin has shown an accurate understanding of the company's DNA and historic roots and an assertive approach on how to make those values relevant for the brand today.Grita Loebsack, Chief Executive Officer of Kering's Luxury - Couture & Leather Goods Emerging Brands, added: Justin brings a holistic approach and strong understanding of business. I believe his vision will accurately translate into this role and add a distinctive signature to the House.Part of the Kering Group, Brioni is recognised is a prestigious menswear couture house which develops and manufactures sartorial ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes, eyewear and fragrance, in addition to the Su Misura - made-to measure - service. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Spindelfabrik Suessen GmbH (Suessen) with its local agent My Hao Int. Trading Comp. Ltd.will be displaying latest technologies at Saigontex 2016 to be held in Vietnam from March 30 to April 2, 2016 in hall 2, booth 2A-1.The company will show the Elite Compactset Advanced with new components; Elitop Advanced with EliSpring and the HP-GX 3010RPT Top Weighting Arm, a replacement for the pneumatic top arm in ring spinning.

Spindelfabrik Suessen GmbH (Suessen) with its local agent My Hao Int. Trading Comp. Ltd.will be displaying latest technologies at Saigontex 2016 to be#

A press release from Suessen informed that in open-end rotor spinning, Suessen will demonstrate the PS7 Twindisc and the Twisttrap Navel.The Elite Compactset Advanced with the new components and devices makes the system even more attractive for its customers and more competitive in the market.The HP-GX 3010Top Weighting Arm in 'RPT' version, replaces pneumatic top arm systems on ring spinning machines, reusing the top roller equipment.Alongside, PS7 Twindisc and Twisttrap Navel, it will present its Spinbox SQ equipped with Suessen premium parts spinning components such as Profil Rotors, Profil Pads, Torquestop, Solidring and Fibre Channel.The PS7 Twindisc has a reduced width of the disc and thus a smaller contact area to the rotor shaft, which guarantees significantly reduced energy consumption, it added.The Twisttrap Navel creates additional false twist in the zone of highest spinning tension, within the rotor, when spinning knitting yarn of cotton in the range of Ne 18 to Ne 40.This helps achieve production increase of 5-15 per cent by reducing the twist multiplier without increasing the rotor speed.Suessen Premium Parts also offers modernisation packages like Trash Channel, Carbon Fibre Rod, SRK Modernisation, Package Cradle Shock Absorber, etc. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Yet another inside picture from Deepika Padukone's best friend's wedding in Sri Lanka has gone viral and might we add, the leggy lass looks breathtakingly gorgeous.

The actress has donned two different attires for her friend's wedding. A black coloured gown for the reception and a white embroidered saree for the day time wedding.

See the leaked pics of Deepika Padukone At Wedding In Sri Lanka!

The actress returned from Toronto and took a break from her XXX film shooting to attend her friend's wedding in Sri Lanka. The actress was spotted at the function along with her entire family.

Turns out, her alleged beau, Ranveer Singh too had followed her to Sri Lanka for the actor was first spotted at the airport, then later at the wedding.

Romantic Escapade! Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone Spotted Rendezvousing In Sri Lanka!

Moments later, both the actors' fan clubs leaked pictures of the two hanging out at the wedding reception talking to Deepika'a mother and few other guests.

The latest picture that has gone viral is of Deepika dressed in a white saree, gold blouse, posing with her friend's father. The actress looks like a vision in white and there is no arguing that, however beau Ranveer Singh is missing from the scene.

The couple was last spotted together in Toronto, when Ranveer surprised Deepika for Valentine's Day. After a month-long gap, fans again spotted the couple at the wedding and every inside pic from the function is going viral within minutes.

Post little frolicking with friends, the actress will soon be back to spread awareness about depression through her NGO The Live Love Laugh Foundation (TLLLF).

"Last year, I spoke about my own fight with depression as I felt I could not just sit by and watch as people who were going through what I had gone through. So, we decided to launch 'You Are Not Alone' with an idea to raise awareness and to enable students and teachers to identify signs of anxiety and depression," Deepika said in a statement.
CFPs will lose the right to sue the board starting May 2 under a new mandatory arbitration clause, the board announced on Thursday.

Planners were not asked for input.

"I would have liked to have had a say in it," said CFP Delia Fernandez, of Fernandez Financial in Los Alamitos, Calif., "Arbitration can often, from a consumer standpoint, sound like a way for large companies to take the upper hand and prevent consumers from getting judgment in the court. So that is always my first response about mandatory arbitration: Who does this really serve and benefit?"

Under the revised terms, CFPs will not be able to join class action suits against the board.

BENEFITS

There are numerous benefits to the new arbitration requirement, the board said in a teleconference. For one, only arbitrators who have worked as state or federal judges would serve on the cases, which would be handled by the American Arbitration Association. Three judges will handle each case. The time limit for resolving disputes will be capped at nine months.

In addition, "if a CFP professional has a meritorious claim and prevails, the CFP board will pay for the full cost of the arbitration," said Leo Rydzewski, the board's new general counsel. That would include contributing $30,000 toward the certificant's legal costs.

"We believe that having former judges handle the cases is a strong and important provision," Rydzewki said, adding that all of the arbitrators will be independent.

CAMARDA CASE

When asked, during a press conference, if the board's ongoing legal battle with husband-and-wife planners Jeffrey and Kimberly Camarda in Florida, influenced its decision to mandate arbitration, Rydzewski said, "CFP Board clearly did consider its past."

The Camardas sued the board in 2013 to stop it from publicly sanctioning them for calling their firm fee-only while they also owned a small insurance agency that took commissions. The ensuing controversy led to the dismissal of the board's chairman.

A federal court threw out the case last year, claiming that the law doesn't permit the court to insert itself into the affairs of private nonprofits. (The planners have filed an appeal.) "Maybe the arbitrators aren't going to be bound by the [argument] that, 'We don't have jurisdiction here,' " says Rick Kahler, of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, S.D.

Kahler threatened to sue the board two years ago after it began investigating him in the wake of the Camardas' case, also for calling his firm fee-only. He and the board later settled their differences.

CONCERNS WITH ARBITRATION

The fact that arbitration is private will protect the identities of any CFPs with complaints, the board says.

The flip side, however, is that arbitration does not allow for outside scrutiny of the board's disciplinary process.

Arbitrators, for example, do not have to explain how or why they reach conclusions, according to Tom Hazen, a law professor and expert in nonprofit governance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Overall, arbitrators have a much "broader ability to basically do what they want and do what they think is fair," Hazen says.

Read more:
Bank of America has agreed to settle a pair of lawsuits involving unpaid overtime for advisor trainees working in its Merrill Lynch wealth management arm.

Under the settlement, Merrill will pay $14 million to resolve the matter, including $10,000 to several named plaintiffs and lesser amounts to a handful of others.

In the initial complaint filed in March 2015, plaintiffs Andrew Blum of Florida and Zaq Harrison of Maryland alleged that Merrill "encouraged and required" advisor trainees to work in excess of 40 hours a week but did not pay them overtime.

The plaintiffs filed their class-action complaint on behalf of other trainees who had a similar experience in Merrill's Practice Management Development Program, which they alleged violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

They argued that Bank of America and its Merrill Lynch subsidiary misclassified participants in that program as exempt from federal overtime pay requirements.

A spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

The complaint describes a "centralized, company-wide policy, pattern and/or practice" set in the firm's New York headquarters that denied salaried advisor trainees overtime, even when 10-hour days or longer were the norm and trainees were expected to attend work functions on evenings and weekends.

The case highlights the strains that incoming advisors face when they are setting out to build a book of business. The complaint describes the duties of the plaintiffs as "inside sales and customer service," and alleges that they had "little or no independent discretion and judgment in performing" those tasks.

"Development Stage Trainees are expected to engage primarily in lead-generation activities," the complaint reads, saying that the plaintiffs routinely were required to log extra hours in identifying, qualifying, calling and holding appointments with potential clients.

The parties are asking Judge George Daniels of the U.S. District Court in New York's Southern District for one-third of the $14 million payout to go to the plaintiffs' attorneys, plus another $80,000 in costs and expenses.

Read more:
PARIS, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

BECAUSE WOMEN IN SCIENCE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Five leading women scientists and 15 promising young researchers were honoured last night at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO and Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L'Oreal and Chairman of the L'Oreal Foundation took the opportunity to launch the For Women in Science Manifesto. Already signed by each guest present at the Ceremony, this Manifesto aims to tackle the under-representation of women in the sciences. It is available on http://www.forwomeninscience.com so that everyone can, in turn, support this cause.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:

http://www.multivu.com/players/uk/7786851-loreal-foundation-partner-with-unesco/

A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO EMPOWER WOMEN IN SCIENCE

For the past 18 years, the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science program has encouraged, promoted and honoured women scientists all over the world. This year, the L'Oreal Foundation and UNESCO are taking the next step towards change: the launch of the For Women in Science Manifesto to raise awareness and mobilize the public's active support for the cause of women in science.

AN AMBITION EXPRESSED IN A MANIFESTO

Jean-Paul Agon, Irina Bokova, and this year's President of the Jury, former Laureate and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn, all signed the Manifesto, along with the Laureates, International Rising Talents and 800 guests in attendance to ensure the visibility and public support necessary, so that everyone involved can work together towards gender equality in the sciences.

"Collective strength is what we want to see emerge tonight from our Manifesto. Beyond the scientific and institutional communities, we want to give everyone the chance to sign the For Women in Science Manifesto and join the cause," stated Jean-Paul Agon.

THE 6 COMMITMENTS OF THE FORWOMENINSCIENCE MANIFESTO

1/ Encourage girls to explore scientific career paths

2/ Break down the barriers that prevent women scientists from pursuing long term careers in research

3/ Prioritise women's access to senior positions and leadership positions in the sciences

4/ Celebrate with the general public the contribution that women scientists make to scientific progress and to society

5/ Ensure gender equality through participation and leadership in symposiums and scientific commissions, such as conferences, committees and board meetings

6/ Promote mentoring and networking for young scientists to enable them to plan and develop careers that meet their expectations

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160324/347801 )



Video:

http://www.multivu.com/players/uk/7786851-loreal-foundation-partner-with-unesco/




On the initiative and following the resolution of the Board of Panevezio statybos trestas AB, the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders of Panevezio statybos trestas AB (address of registered office P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys, company code 147732969) is convened on 28 April 2016.The place of the meeting - the meeting room of Panevezio statybos trestas AB at P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys.The beginning of the meeting - 10:00 (registration shall start at 9:30).The accounting day of the General Meeting of Shareholders shall be 21 April 2016 (only the persons who at the end of the record day of the General Meeting of Shareholders shall be on the shareholder list of the company or the persons who are a proxy for them or the persons with whom an agreement on the transfer of voting rights is concluded, have the right to participate and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders).The record day of the rights shall be 12 May 2016 (the shareholders shall use their property rights resulting from the resolutions adopted at the general meeting of the shareholders in proportion to the number of shares hold at the end of the record day of the rights).The meeting agenda:1. Audit conclusions regarding the financial statement and annual report of the company for the year 2015.2. The Annual Report of the company for the year 2015.3. Approval of a set of financial statements of the company for the year 2015.4. Appropriation of profit (loss) of the company for the year 2015.5. Election of members for the audit committee.6. Conversion of the authorized capital and par value of the shares of Panevezio statybos trestas AB from expression in Litas to expression in Euros.7. Approval of the new revision of the Articles of Association of Panevezio statybos trestas AB.The company shall not provide possibilities to participate and vote at the meeting using any means of electronic communications.Draft resolutions on the items of the agenda, any documents to be presented to the General Meeting of Shareholders and any information related to realisation of the shareholders' rights shall be published on the website of the company at www.pst.lt under the menu item Investor Relations not later than 21 days before the meeting date. The shareholders shall also be granted access to the information thereof at the secretary's office at the headquarters of the company (P. Puzino Str. 1, Panevezys) from 7:30 till 16:30. Telephone number for inquiries: (+370 45) 505 508.The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose additional items to be included in the agenda and present a draft resolution of the General Meeting of the Shareholders for each proposed additional agenda item or, in case no resolution has to be adopted, give an explanation.Any proposals for additional items of the agenda shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals in writing are to be delivered to the secretary's office or sent by registered mail at the following address: Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals by e-mail are to be sent to the following e-mail address pst@pst.lt .Any proposals for additional items of the agenda are to be presented by 16:00 on 14 April 2016. In the event new items are added to the meeting agenda, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall inform about the additions thereof using the same means as were used for convening the meeting.The shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes may propose new draft resolutions on the items that are or to be included in the agenda, additional candidates for the members of the company bodies and the audit company. The proposals thereof may be presented in writing or by e-mail.The proposals in writing by 8:00 on 28 April 2016 may be delivered (on work days) to secretary's office in the company or sent by registered mail at Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT-35173, Panevezys. The proposals presented in writing shall be discussed during the meeting provided they have been received at the company before 8:00 on the meeting day (28 April 2016). Any proposals in writing may be presented during the meeting after the chairman of the meeting reads the agenda out but not later that the meeting starts working on the agenda items.Any proposals to be delivered by e-mail are to be sent to pst@pst.lt. The proposals received at the e-mail address thereof by 8:00 on 28 April 2016 shall be discussed during the meeting.The shareholders are entitled to present their questions related to the agenda items to the company in advance. The questions may be sent by the shareholders by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 3 work days before the meeting date. The company shall answer the questions thereof by e-mail before the meeting. The company shall not deliver the answer to any question of the shareholders in person provided the relevant information is published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt.When registering to participate at the meeting, the shareholders or their proxies shall present a document which is a proof of his personal identity. The proxies to the shareholders are to present their proxies certified following a prescribed procedure. The proxy issued by a legal person has to be certified by a Notary Public. The proxy issued in a foreign country has to be translated into Lithuanian and legalised following the procedure prescribed by law. The proxy may be given the authority by more than one shareholder and vote in a different manner based on the instructions given by each shareholder. The company has no special form for the proxy.The shareholder may using the means of electronic communications authorize some other natural or legal person to participate and vote at the meeting on behalf of the shareholder. Such proxy requires no certification by a Notary Public. The proxy issued by the means of electronic communications is to be certified by the electronic signature of the shareholder created using any safe electronic signature software and attested by the qualified certificate valid in the Republic of Lithuania. Both the proxy and the notification are to be in writing. The shareholder shall notify the company about the proxy issued by the means of electronic communications by e-mail to pst@pst.lt not later than 16:00 on the last work day before the meeting date. The electronic signature shall be affixed on the proxy and the notification but not on the letter sent by e-mail. When sending the notification to the company, the shareholder shall refer to the internet address to be used for the purpose of free downloading of electronic signature verification software. In case the shares hold by the shareholder are kept on a few securities accounts, the shareholder may authorise a separate proxy to participate and vote at the General Meeting of the Shareholders in accordance with the rights carried by the shares kept in each securities account. In that case any instructions given by the shareholder shall be valid only for one General Meeting of the Shareholders.The shareholder who holds the shares of the company acquired in his name, however for the interests of other persons, before voting at the General Meeting of the Shareholders shall disclose to the company the identity of the end client, the number of voting shares and the content of given voting instructions or any other explanation related to the participation and voting at the general meeting of the shareholders agreed with the client. The shareholder may vote in a different manner using the one part of his shares carrying votes and the other part of shares carrying votes.A shareholder or his proxy may vote in advance in writing by filling in the general ballot paper. Not later than 21 days before the meeting date the form of the general ballot paper shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investors Relations. In case a shareholder submits a written request, not later than 10 days before the meeting date the company shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or deliver it in person against signature. The filled in general ballot paper is to be signed by the shareholder or his proxy. In case the general ballot paper is signed by the proxy, the document validating the voting right shall be attached to it. The filled in general ballot paper with the attached documents (if required) shall be delivered to the company by registered mail at Panevezio statybos trestas AB, P. Puzino Str. 1, LT- 35173, Panevezys, to the secretary's office not later than the last work day before the meeting date.The following information and documents shall be published on the website of the company at http://www.pst.lt under the menu item Investors Relations throughout the entire period starting not later than 21 days before the meeting date:- notice of convening the meeting;- total number of company shares and the number of voting shares on the date of convening the meeting;- draft resolutions on the items of the agenda and other documents to be presented to the meeting;- the form of general ballot paper.Dalius GeseviciusManaging DirectorPhone: (+370 45) 505 503
Paris, Amsterdam, March 25, 2016

Press release

Unibail-Rodamco SE announces adjustment to the rights of holders of ORNANE 2012 and ORNANE 2014 as of March 29, 2016

Following the distribution on March 29, 2016 of an interim dividend of 4.85 per share, the rights of holders of ORNANE will be adjusted as of March 29, 2016 as follows:

ORNANE 2012 bonds (ISIN code FR0011321330, Article 4.16.7(a)(11) of the prospectus reviewed by the "Autorite des Marches Financiers" on September 11, 2012 under number 12-440): the new Conversion Rate is 1.15.

ORNANE 2014 bonds (ISIN code FR0011521673, Article 4.16.7(a)(11) of the prospectus reviewed by the "Autorite des Marches Financiers" on June 17, 2014 under number 14-296): the new Conversion Rate is 1.04.

In accordance with contractual rules, the new Conversion Rates are calculated on the basis of the Unibail-Rodamco SE volume-weighted average share price over the three trading days preceding the ex-date on Euronext (i.e. on March 18, 21 and 22, 2016).

As a reminder, the Conversion Rate of the ORNANE 2015 bonds (ISIN code FR0012658094, prospectus reviewed by the "Autorite des Marches Financiers" on April 8, 2015 under number 15-144) remains unchanged at 1.00.

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

Antoine Onfray

+33 1 76 77 72 87

antoine.onfray@unibail-rodamco.com (mailto:antoine.onfray@unibail-rodamco.com)

Marine Huet

+33 1 76 77 58 02

marine.huet@unibail-rodamco.com (mailto:marine.huet@unibail-rodamco.com)

Media Relations

Pauline Duclos-Lenoir

+33 1 76 77 57 94

pauline.duclos-lenoir@unibail-rodamco.com (mailto:pauline.duclos-lenoir@unibail-rodamco.com)

About Unibail-Rodamco

Created in 1968, Unibail-Rodamco SE is Europe's largest listed commercial property company, with a presence in 12 EU countries, and a portfolio of assets valued at 37.8 billion as of December 31, 2015. As an integrated operator, investor and developer, the Group aims to cover the whole of the real estate value creation chain. With the support of its 1,996 professionals, Unibail-Rodamco applies those skills to highly specialised market segments such as large shopping centres in major European cities and large offices and convention & exhibition centres in the Paris region.

The Group distinguishes itself through its focus on the highest architectural, city planning and environmental standards. Its long term approach and sustainable vision focuses on the development or redevelopment of outstanding places to shop, work and relax. Its commitment to environmental, economic and social sustainability has been recognised by inclusion in the DJSI (World and Europe), FTSE4Good and STOXX Global ESG Leaders indexes.

The Group is a member of the CAC 40, AEX 25 and EuroSTOXX 50 indices. It benefits from an A rating from Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

For more information, please visit our website: www.unibail-rodamco.com (http://www.unibail-rodamco.com)





Adjustment to the rights of holders of ORNANE (http://hugin.info/136618/R/1997560/736379.pdf)



This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: UNIBAIL-RODAMCO SE via Globenewswire



HUG#1997560


Vilnius, Lithuania, 2016-03-25 08:17 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The resolutions of the General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Baltic Farmland, AB that was held on 25 March 2016:1. Presentation of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland consolidated annual report. Shareholders of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland are presented with the consolidated annual report of INVL Baltic Farmland (There is no voting on this issue of agenda).2. Presentation of the independent auditor's report on the financial statements of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland. Shareholders of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland are presented with the independent auditor's report on the financial statements of INVL Baltic Farmland (There is no voting on this issue of agenda).3. On the approval of the consolidated and stand-alone financial statements for 2015 of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland. To approve the consolidated and companies financial statements for 2015 of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland4. Regarding the distribution of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland profit. To distribute the profit of the public joint-stock company INVL Baltic Farmland as follows:Article (thousand EUR) Retained earnings (loss) at the begining of the financial year of 4,180 the reporting period Net profit (loss) for the financial year 838 Profit (loss) not recognized in the income statement of the (1) reporting financial year Shareholders contributions to cover loss - Distributable profit (loss) at the end of the financial year of the 5,017 reporting period Transfers from reserves - Distributable profit (loss) in total 4,377 Profit distribution: - - Profit transfers to the legal reserves - -Profit transfers to the reserves for own shares acquisition - - Profit transfers to other reserves - - Profit to be paid as dividends* (217) - Profit to be paid as annual payments (bonus) and for other - purposes Retained earnings (loss) at the end of the financial year 4,800*0.066 EUR is paid for one shareRegarding allocation of the dividends for the shareholders:Persons, who will be shareholders of INVL Baltic Farmland at the end of 11 April 2016, the tenth day after the general shareholders meeting to approve the resolution to allocate part of company's profit for the payment of dividends, are entitled to receive dividends.The person authorized to provide additional information: Egle Surpliene Director E-mail: egle.surpliene@invaldalt.comAttachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=553361
JAKARTA, Mar 25, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - Indonesian Trade Minister Thomas Lembong has said that plain packaging for the cigarette industry as implemented by Australia is completely inappropriate.



Indonesia as the second largest exporter of manufactured tobacco products in the world will surely be affected should the proposal be approved by the World Trade Organization (WTO). He said that tobacco products are one of the country's national interests.



"There are millions of workers working in tobacco, clove plantation, and for tobacco product industries. Hence, in this matter we are against the policy issued by Australian Government," he said on Tuesday (3/22/2016).



Thomas later added, it is normal that in the matter of trade partnership, all parties are not required to be in mutual agreement on every issues. "There will be disagreement, but this is common and can be understood by both parties. Even the best partnerships are prone to dispute and conflict," he said.



However, he ensured that despite this disagreement, a positive synergy must still be built. Trade partnerships must be maintained above all else.



Rejections of this plain packaging were also conveyed by a number of domestic organizations in Australia. Director of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Simon Breheny, said that the regulation had failed to achieve the desired effect to decrease the number of smokers.



"Based on the data we've gathered, we saw no decrease due to this regulation. In our opinion the removal of the colors and logos from packaging was not within the government's scope of authority. It would be better if the government paid more attention to the regulations governing public smoking than the smoking habits of the public," he said.



A different objection was expressed by the President Director of the Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS), Jeff Rogut. He said that this regulation had caused in an increase in the service times in stores because all the packages were very similar in appearance.



"Not to mention that storekeepers hand over the wrong products to the purchasers, because the similar forms and colors make it difficult to differentiate one product from another. This has created new problems. This regulation has also led to the increased circulation of illegal cigarettes," he said.



Based on data from the Ministry of Trade, the cigarette industry contributes 1.66 percent to the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Indonesia and foreign exchange via exports to other countries amounting to US$700 million.



This industry also directly and indirectly involves approximately 6.1 million workers and 1.8 million clove and tobacco farmers.



Indonesia and three other countries, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, previously sued Australia at the WTO over the plain packaging proposal. This lawsuit is believed to be the largest case ever dealt with by the WTO.



Contact:



Lukman

Public Relations Manager

Mobile: +62 81232885533

Email: pejuangpagi@gmail.com









Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.





Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
PORTLAND, OR and DUBLIN, IRELAND -- (Marketwired) -- 03/25/16 -- iovation, the provider of device intelligence for authentication and fraud prevention, today announced it is hosting its 3rd Annual European User Summit from April 11-12, 2016 in Dublin, Ireland. The summit will provide a way for iovation's European clients -- which make up 30 percent of all of its customers -- to discuss the latest fraud and abuse threats, and how to stop them while enhancing the online customer experience. Industry leaders like Chris Monk, fraud manager at The Automobile Association, will share their insights in various sessions with a keynote delivered by Tony Sales, retail fraud expert at Retail Fraud Uncovered.

"Fraud schemes are ever-evolving. This makes constant collaboration key and is the reason we host a number of client summits like these throughout the year," said Molly O'Hearn, vice president of operations and co-founder at iovation. "While it's crucial to stop fraud, it's also necessary to streamline the customer experience to accelerate revenue, and we want to highlight that opportunity specifically."

The European User Summit is available to iovation clients who have shared intelligence about tens of millions of fraud and abuse events across iovation's network. Attendees will be given the chance to network and collaborate about the latest threats, while learning about the following in sessions and workshops:

Various ways to use device identification to secure online transactions and improve the customer journey

How iovation's insurance clients have combined forces to keep their businesses safe from policy manipulation, ghost brokers and other schemes

Optimizing the blend of iovation's fraud prevention and customer authentication services to protect businesses and eliminate unnecessary customer friction

How fraud and security teams are learning to successfully work better together

Mobile fraud protection for web, native and hybrid apps





"The iovation European User Summit allows industry fraud professionals, from different unique industries, to come together and share best and better practices with each other," said Stuart Sykes, group head of customer operations and debt recovery at financial services company MYJAR and speaker at the summit. "These are strategies not to be left on the shelf, but to be implemented in the real world to help reduce the cost of fraud. This event is invaluable for a deep understanding into online fraud."

At the summit, iovation will go into more depth about its existing services and showcase its product roadmap, which includes its award-winning customer authentication service. The recently enhanced service reduces friction while enhancing site security by allowing consumers with "known good devices" instant passwordless access to low-risk sections of consumer accounts -- like account balances, shopping records and activity histories. If needed, it triggers step-up authentication like one-time passwords for higher risk actions like account changes, money transfers or purchases.

The summit will take place at Dublin's Morrison Hotel and is free to attend. For more details about iovation's 3rd Annual European User Summit, go to https://www.iovation.com/news/events/european-user-group-1.

About iovation

iovation protects online businesses and their end users against fraud and abuse, and identifies trustworthy customers through a combination of advanced device identification, shared device reputation, device-based authentication and real-time risk evaluation. More than 3,500 fraud managers representing global retail, financial services, insurance, social network, gaming and other companies leverage iovation's database of billions of Internet devices and the relationships between them to determine the level of risk associated with online transactions. The company's device reputation database is the world's largest, used to protect 15 million transactions and stop an average of 250,000 fraudulent activities every day. The world's foremost fraud experts share intelligence, cybercrime tips and online fraud prevention techniques in iovation's Fraud Force Community, an exclusive virtual crime-fighting network. For more information, visit iovation.com.

CONTACTS:

iovation Inc.

Connie Gougler

503-943-6748

Email Contact




Master Mind Communications Co., Ltd. Orn-anong ("Fah") Pattaravejkul Tel: +66-2-612-2081 #129 Mobile: +66-86-884-4458 E-mail: ornanong.p@mtmultimedia.com Website: www.mtmultimedia.com

BANGKOK, Mar 25, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - SET-listed digital financial firm Group Lease PCL (SET:GL) is injecting US$ 8 million or roughly 280 million baht into its subsidiary in Indonesia as the final preparations are ready to kick-start business in this largest member state of ASEAN.Coming after successful operations in Cambodia and Laos, the latest move into Indonesia coincides with a major corporate restructuring to streamline management and operational efficiency as the GL group grows bigger and further continues its aggressive expansion into the ASEAN markets and beyond.The corporate restructuring saw the establishment of a new Executive Board which will supervise all operations in Thailand and overseas and the appointment of new directors, including a US financial expert, to chart growth strategies as the group pushes ahead to expand internationally. These latest moves were decided at a Board meeting on March 22 and would be tabled before the Annual General Shareholders Meeting (AGM) on April 28 for formal endorsement.As a final preparation to launch the Indonesian operation, the GL Board decided to raise the capital of GL Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore, by US$ 8 million which will be injected into PT GL Finance Indonesia (GLFI), the Indonesian joint venture in which GL holds 65% while its strategic partner J Trust Bank and another local partner hold the remaining 20% and 15% respectively. Senior executives say all systems are ready to go as the company awaits a license from the Indonesian authorities.GL's corporate restructuring is necessitated by the group's rapid expansion in recent years which has brought about new and more complex challenges. "GL today is not a simple motorcycle leasing company like before," stated Tatsuya Konoshita, GL's Executive Director and Chief Investor Relations Officer. "We have grown so fast in recent years and become so big that the old management structure is no longer suitable. We have become a digital finance pioneer, providing a comprehensive digital financial platform to the ASEAN markets. So, we have to restructure to make sure we move forward efficiently."Under the aggressive expansion policies directed by the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mitsuji Konoshita, the GL group has now grown to a total of six companies - comprising the listed mother company in Thailand plus four wholly-owned subsidiaries including Thanaban (also in Thailand), GL Holdings (Singapore), GL Finance (Cambodia) and GL Laos (Laos) plus the Indonesian joint venture.These six companies are now put under the Business Development Office according to the new GL group organization chart and the office is under the direct supervision of the Chairman & CEO Mr. Mitsuji. Meanwhile, the IT, Accounting and Finance operations are put under the Group Business Support Office supervised by Mr. Tatsuya, who is Mr. Mitsuji's younger brother.Mr. Tatsuya is also appointed Chairman of a newly-established Executive Board comprising of 11 senior executives which will ensure efficient coordination and operations of the entire group while policy matters will continue to be directed by the GL main Board.Mr. Tatsuya noted that the Board restructuring positions GL to effectively handle new challenges as the Group continues to expand internationally. "Our operations will become more diverse and complex as we further expand overseas. For instance, our loan portfolios in the various countries where we operate will deal with different currencies which require effective hands-on management," Mr. Tatsuya said.The appointment of an outside director like Mr. Patrick Fisher also corresponds nicely with GL's international push. An ex-JP Morgan Chase executive, Mr. Fisher is an investment professional specializing in private equity in emerging markets who holds directorships in several companies including private and public banks and finance companies in Europe, Asia and Latin America.Aside from Mr. Fisher, the Board also decided to appoint two other new directors - GL's new Group Chief Financial Officer Regis Martin and GLF Chief Executive Officer Riki Ishigami.GL has recorded continuously improved performance in recent years as quarterly profits have continued to break new records. Total net profits for 2015 were 582.89 million baht, up about 400% from the previous year on the back of improved financial results in Thailand and substantial growth in profits from its overseas operations, particularly Cambodia.About Group Lease PCLGroup Lease Public Company Limited was established on 6th May 1986 and listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2004 (SET:GL). In 2007, APF group has become major shareholder by holding around 65% of total shares. The company has expertise in hire-purchase of motorcycles as it has been in the motorcycle leasing business for over 20 years. The motorcycle brands for financing include Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki.In 2012, GL announced a long-term business plan to become the leading finance company in the Southeast Asian region. In order to do so, the Company has acquired Group Lease Holdings Pte., Ltd. (GLH), a Singapore holding company, as a headquarters for its expansion plan in other countries. For more information, please visit www.grouplease.co.th.Source: Group Lease PCLContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
MOSCOW, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

PhosAgro, one of the world's leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, has won the Dynamic Business Development award at the Russian Business Leaders: Dynamics and Responsibility - 2015 competition. The competition is organised by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE). The RUIE first organised this annual competition in 1997.

The competition aims to support the sustainable development of companies in line with the Russian Federation's long-term economic interests, and to identify fast-growing companies every year based on their economic and social performance.

The winners received their awards today, 24 March, during the RUIE's Congress as part of Russian Business Week, which was attended by President Vladimir Putin. The certificate was presented to PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev, a member of the RUIE Management Board.

Victor Cherepov, Executive Vice-President of the RUIE, said that PhosAgro displayed remarkable growth throughout the competition's five-year evaluation period, becoming a flagship enterprise in Russia's mineral and chemical industries, as well as securing its own niche in the world market.

"PhosAgro has upgraded its existing capacities, while also bringing new capacities online, and as a result has achieved a substantial increase in its production and sales of mineral fertilizers," said Cherepov. "Labour productivity more than doubled over the five-year period. The Company's energy-efficiency programme deserves special mention. Over five years, it managed to cut its per unit energy costs by 40%. After commissioning its own generating capacities, which is integrated with fertilizer production lines, a number of the Company's entities can meet virtually all of their own energy needs."

Thanking the RUIE for the high marks it gave Company, CEO Andrey Guryev said that PhosAgro's entire workforce deserved credit for these successes.

"Our Company is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and we have come a long way in that time," Guryev said. "Our aim throughout has been to be the best company in the world in our sector. Over this time, we have invested around RUB 160 billion, which has allowed us to double our production capacity and take the Company to a new technological level. We are looking to the future and continuing to make large-scale investments in high-tech production. This will significantly expand our production of high value added fertilizers. Our role in the global food production chain will grow thanks to supplies of high-quality fertilisers with no harmful impurities. Our products are currently in high demand in 100 countries around the world, and we remain a leading supplier of fertilizers to the Russian market. Ensuring that the needs of Russian farmers are being met is a constant priority for our Company."

For PhosAgro, the five-year period assessed by the panel of judges, from 2011 through 2015, was indeed outstanding. During this time, the Company increased its production of agrochemical products by more than 35%, producing 6.8 million tonnes of fertilizer and feed phosphates in 2015. PhosAgro increased the number of fertilizers grades it offers over the last five years from 14 to 33. Total investments, primarily in expanding production and technical upgrades, came to more than RUB 112 billion.

In the same period, PhosAgro was able to significantly reduced the cash cost of production per tonne of DAP, from USD 280 in 2011 to USD 128 at the end of 2015. This makes PhosAgro one of the most efficient producers of phosphate fertilizers in the world.

Over the past five years, the following facilities were built and put into operation: an industrial complex that includes urea production with a capacity of 500 ths tonnes per year, a gas turbine unit with a capacity of 32 MW and an aluminium fluoride plant with a capacity of 35 ths tonnes per year at the Cherepovets production site. A production facility making complex PKS fertilizers with a capacity of 100 ths tonnes a year was launched at the Company's Volkhov branch, and a storage facility for liquid ammonia with a capacity of 8,000 tonnes was put into operation at the Balakovo site. The second Yuksporsky tunnel and Main Shaft No 2 were commissioned at Apatit's Kirovsk mine. A new bulk terminal at Ust-Luga was also commissioned.

At present, an investment programme for the construction of new production facilities is being implemented at every one of the PhosAgro Group's member companies. The largest investments are being made at Apatit, where the modernisation of the apatite-nepheline beneficiation plant (ANOF-3) is being completed, and at PhosAgro-Cherepovets, where an ammonia plant with a capacity of 760 ths tonnes per year is being built, as is a urea plant with a capacity of 500 ths tonnes per year.

Notes to Editors

PhosAgro is one of the leading global vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers. The Company focuses on the production of phosphate-based fertilizers, feed phosphate and high-grade phosphate rock (P 2 O 5 content of not less than 39%), as well as ammonia and nitrogen-based fertilizers.

The Company is the largest phosphate-based fertilizer producer in Europe, the largest producer of high-grade phosphate rock worldwide and the third largest MAP/DAP producer in the world (excluding China), according to Fertecon. PhosAgro is also one of the leading producers of feed phosphates (MCP) in Europe, and the only producer in Russia.

PhosAgro has 2.1 billion tonnes of resources (according to JORC) of high quality apatite-nepheline ore. The Company's mines and phosphate rock production facilities are located in the mountainous areas of the Kola Peninsula in the Murmansk region of northwest Russia, whereas its fertilizer and feed phosphate production assets are located near the city of Cherepovets in the Vologda region and near the city of Balakovo in the Saratov region of southwest part of European Russia.

PhosAgro's 2015 IFRS revenue was over USD 3.1 bln and EBITDA was USD 1.4 bln.

For further information on PhosAgro please visit: http://www.PhosAgro.com
LONDON, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

With GP surgeries closed over Easter, it's estimated around 80,520 people will descend on A&Es and cost the NHS 9,519,074 in unnecessary consultations, diverting resources and lengthening waiting times.

The findings come from an analysis of the GP Patient Survey[1] by MeeDoc, which shows that one third of people who can't get a GP appointment opt to visit A&E.

NHS GPs have warned that from today to Easter Monday, 80,520 people could clog up A&Es, so have called for more out of hours care provision, particularly via the use of mobile health (mHealth) services.

Dr Oliver Large, a GP from High Wycombe and a clinical director of MeeDoc, said: "I feel the frustration of patients who need a GP's advice but can't get it. With surgeries shut for four days, patients with health complaints are left with limited options, and it is understandable when they feel compelled to attend A&E.

"There should be greater provision for mHealth services. With many doctors being happy to consult from home via instant messaging or video, we could save the NHS millions, whilst saving thousands of patients the misery of hanging around in overcrowded waiting rooms."

Dr Sandeep Geeranavar, a GP from Birmingham and a clinical director of MeeDoc, adds: "mHealth services such as MeeDoc could help ease the pressure on GP and A&E departments as another avenue for patients seeking medical advice. We have a seven day NHS service but to provide a high quality, safe and effective primary care service, mHealth resources need to be allocated."

"General practice is evolving and in the long term we need more investment by the Government to promote and embrace the use of mHealth for patients wanting to access their GP. I can see MeeDoc as the catalyst for that change to be implemented."

Mikko Kiiskila, chief executive of MeeDoc, says: "We live our lives through mobile technology so it makes sense to consult with a GP through a smartphone or tablet when appropriate. mHealth is not a replacement for the NHS, emergency or long-term care, it is an affordable, accessible way to see a doctor at a time that is convenient to the patient."

The findings are published on the day that MeeDoc launches in the UK. MeeDoc is a CQC licensed, pan-European healthcare provider with an app that enables people to arrange a consultation in minutes with a GP. For an introductory offer of 1 MeeDoc allows people to contact a GP through a secure instant message or video service, with no time limit on the consultation. If a prescription is required, the doctor will fax a private prescription to a pharmacy of the patient's choice.

About MeeDoc

MeeDoc is an international healthcare company developed by doctors in Finland in 2012, which provides a GP consultation through a free desktop, smartphone or tablet app.

http://www.meedoc.com

[1] NHS England. GP Patient Survey 2016 - https://gp-patient.co.uk/surveys-and-reportsjan-2016

Contact

Mark Terry-Lush +44-(0)7740-432-112 mark.terry-lush@makehoney.com
NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 03/25/16 -- Kickfurther, the only marketplace where people can buy inventory for brands they love and earn returns when that inventory sells, is proud to announce that IYLIA Collection, a luxury footwear company for women, has been successfully funded their campaign by the Kickfurther community, raising $51,878 USD in 14 days.

In this Kickfurther campaign, IYLIA Collection funded their inventory for their factory expenditures to bring the new S/S and F/W 2016 collections in-house, for the following women shoes designs: Killian Sandal, Lucia Slide, Classic Pump, Caris Bootie and Jara Ballet shoes. The inventory will be shipped to the end buyer in the name of Kickfurther and intends to provide a total payback of $59,141.19 USD, which includes a consignment fee of 14% for each piece sold, in an offer term of 7.5 months.

IYLIA Collection is manufactured out of Spain and finds its inspiration through sexy silhouettes, vibrant colors, and lavish materials found across the globe, to cater to the chic, cosmopolitan woman who's always on the go but refuses to sacrifice fashion for comfort. The IYLIA range of product seamlessly provides fashionable, comfortable and transitional pieces that can be worn all day, at any function and in any situation. This is IYLIA Collection's first campaign with Kickfurther, aiming to get their community support in financing their factory expenses.

Click here to see the successful IYLIA Collection offering summary information.

About Kickfurther

Kickfurther is a leading inventory and invoice financing crowd-funding platform that connects companies with backers seeking qualified short-term deal financing. Our platform enables productive emerging-growth companies seeking capital to finance production to share their sales opportunities with backers interested in short term profit opportunities backed by sales to put their money to work.

Businesses post offers by choosing the amount of inventory capital they need, the term of the investment payback, and the profit percentage backers will earn. Since its 2015 launch, Kickfurther has funded more than $4.9 Million in 225 offers by more than 170 companies. Their backers have earned an average greater than 2% consignment profit per month on completed offers.

For additional information, please visit: www.kickfurther.com

About IYLIA Collection

IYLIA Collection is a luxury footwear company for women founded by footwear designer Layla-joy Williams in 2015. Its shoe design finds its inspiration through sexy silhouettes, vibrant colors, and lavish materials found across the globe, to cater to the chic, cosmopolitan woman who's always on the go but refuses to sacrifice fashion for comfort. Its collection is being manufactured out of Spain and offers a range of product seamlessly provides fashionable, comfortable and transitional pieces that can be worn all day, at any function and in any situation. In 2015, IYLIA was mentioned in leading publications and IYLIA's 2015 debut collection sold out in 7 months.

For additional information, please visit: www.iylia.com

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Contacts



Offering Contact

Layla-joy Williams

Founder & CEO

IYLIA Collection

info@iylia.com

Direct:laylajoy@iylia.com



Company Contact

Erik Straub

CMO

Kickfurther

Email: erik@kickfurther.com

Direct: 908-698-3130

Website: kickfurther.com



Media / PR Contact

Matthew Bird

President

1-800-PublicRelations, Inc.

Direct: 646.401.4499

Main: 800.782.6185

Email: support@1800pr.com

Website: www.1800pr.com






25 March 2016



Acron Announces Annual General Meeting



The Board of Directors of Joint Stock Company Acron has resolved to hold its annual general meeting on 26 May 2016 at 9:30 am in the Acron Cultural Centre at 22a Lomonosov St., Veliky Novgorod.



The Board of Directors meeting considered the matters related to the annual general meeting preparation and approved its agenda: 1. Approving the Company's Annual Report for 2015 2. Approving the Company's annual accounting (financial) statements for 2015 3. Distributing the Company's profit and loss (including paying (declaring) dividends) for 2015 4. Approving the Company's Charter as amended 5. Electing the Company's Board of Directors 6. Paying compensation and reimbursement to members of the Company's Board of Directors 7. Approving the Company's auditor 8. Approving the Regulation on the Company's General Meeting as amended 9. Approving the Regulation on the Company's Board of Directors as amended 10. Approving the Regulation on the Company's Managing Board as amended 11. Approving the Regulation on the Company's Internal Audit Team as amended 12. Electing the Company's Internal Audit Team 13. Approving related-party transactions, which can be executed by the Company in future in the ordinary course of business 14. Determining a price and approving a related-party transaction 15. Approving related-party transactions, which can be executed by the Company in future in the ordinary course of business to ensure performance of obligations of Joint Stock Company North-Western Phosphorous Company to credit organisations 16. Approving related-party transactions, which can be executed by the Company in future in the ordinary course of business to ensure performance of obligations of AGRONOVA EUROPE AG to credit organisations.



While considering matters on approval of the new version of the Company's charter and other by-laws the general meeting will be offered to make: * Amendments related to the compliance of the Company's name and charter with the corporate legislation (to the extent of the regulation of public companies) * Amendments related to the fulfilment by the Company of requirements of the Moscow Exchange Listing Rules and particular provisions of the Corporate Governance Code recommended for application by the Bank of Russia * Other amendments related to the development of the Company's corporate governance system and increase of its efficiency



Drafts of general meeting resolutions and amendments to the Company's by-laws will be offered by the Board of Directors and disclosed in accordance with the procedure established by law as well as at the Company's web-site not later than on 5 May 2016.



The record date for the list of the persons entitled to attend the shareholder meeting is 6 April 2016, 12:00 am.



Contacts for media:



Tatyana Smirnova Tel.: +7 (495) 777-08-65 Public Relations



Contacts for investment companies:



Ilya Popov Tel.: +7 (495) 411-55-94 (Ext. 5252) Investor Relations



Additional information: Acron Group is a leading vertically integrated mineral fertiliser producer in Russia and globally with a diversified product portfolio consisting of complex and straight nitrogen-based fertilisers, as well as industrial products. In 2014, the Group's sales volume was 6.3 million tonnes. Acron sells its products in 66 countries. Russia and China are its key sale markets.



In 2014, the Group posted consolidated revenue under IFRS of RUB 74,631 million (USD 1,943 million) and net profit of RUB 6,904 million (USD 180 million). Acron's shares are listed on the Moscow Exchange and its global depositary receipts are traded on the London Stock Exchange (ticker AKRN). Acron employs over 15,000 people.



A high degree of vertical integration, including three chemical production facilities, a phosphate mine, potash mining projects, wholly owned transport infrastructure and an international distribution network, create a platform for the Group's dynamic growth.



Further information is available on our website at www.acron.ru/en.



This announcement is distributed by GlobeNewswire on behalf of GlobeNewswire clients. The owner of this announcement warrants that: (i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and (ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.



Source: ACRON via GlobeNewswire [HUG#1997670]



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Technavio's latest beer market in Germany report highlights three key emerging trends predicted to impact market growth through 2019. Technavio defines an emerging trend as something that has potential for significant impact on the market and contributes to its growth or decline.

"Key findings of this market study indicate, increased demand for flavored beers will significantly drive the beer market in Germany until 2019. To fulfill the market demand, different types of flavors are being introduced in beer recipes that include flavors from fruits that are citrus based. Spirits based flavors like tequila and whisky are also popular in Germany," said Vijay Sarathi, one of Technavio's lead industry analysts for alcoholic beverages

"Radler, a beer that is made by combining beer with lemonade, in the ratio 40:60, has thrived in Germany in the recent years. Heineken's Desperados, a combination of tequila and beer, and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV's lime-flavored variety of the Bud Light brand are other popular flavors in Germany," added Vijay.

Technavio's market research study identifies the following three emerging trends expected to propel growth of the beer market in Germany:

Growth of craft beers

Shift in sales from on-trade to off-trade

Advances in technology

Growth of craft beers

The popularity of craft beers is rising rapidly in Germany. They are in high demand especially among young urban consumers. In Germany there are approximately 1,300 breweries involved in the production that amounts to a total of 5,000 varieties of beer. In Berlin, there are more than 20 microbreweries engaged in the production of craft beer. The rise in the demand for craft beer in Germany is highly influenced by trends in the US. Lemke, a brewing company in Berlin, is adopting an American-style logo to promote its beer. Over the forecast period, many new entrants are anticipated to popularize their craft beers with similar promotional activities. This trend is predicted to significantly buoy market growth until 2019.

Shift in sales from on-trade to off-trade

In 2014, the German market witnessed higher consumption of beer at homes than outdoors such as bars, pubs, and restaurants. This shift in consumption preference is based on the fact that the average price of beer in the hospitality sector is higher than that in the retail sector. Increase in excise duty has also increased prices for on-trade channels such as pubs and restaurants, which is resulting to a higher on-trade sales volumes thanks to promotional support provided by retail stores and vendors.

Advances in technology

Brewers are continuously innovating with technology for enhancing drinking experience of consumers and on improving the quality of beer. Heineken's Ignite interactive beer bottle launched during Milan's design week in 2013 is one such example of technological advancement that is revolutionizing consumer experience.

These bottles contain micro sensors, a wireless network, and an accelerometer to detect various motion types of drinkers and respond accordingly. These are equipped with eight bright LEDs, an 8-bit microprocessor and an accelerometer, which trigger certain effects that light up the whole bottle when it is moved.

Browse related reports:

Global Beer Market 2015-2019

Beer Market in APAC: Trends, Analysis, and Forecast 2015-2019

Beer Market in Europe 2015-2019

Beer Market in the US: Size and Growth Forecast 2015-2019

Purchase any three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160325005003/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com

media@technavio.com
According to the latest research report released by Technavio, the US DoD training and simulation market is expected to reach close to USD 13.02 billion by 2019.

This report titled 'US DoD Training and Simulation Market 2015-2019', provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging trends. The report provides a comprehensive overview, market shares, and market segmentation by application

Request sample report: http://bit.ly/1RPWXSF

"Increased demand for training and simulation has resulted in increased adoption of curved cobra display for flight simulators, a system that is already prevalent in the US military for joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC) training, tank simulation, flight simulation, and vehicle training. This highly portable, high-fidelity, and high-quality immersive screen is a major trend in military displays," said Abhay Singh, one of Technavio's lead industry analysts for defense and technologyresearch.

"To create these synthetic environments, system designers use technologies from the video and computer-gaming to form high-fidelity systems that provide unmatched realism. Moreover, with simulators and trainers becoming more realistic, there will be a shift from live on-field training to virtual training by simulators and trainers," added Abhay.

Some of the other driving forces behind the growth of the US DoD training and simulation market are as follows:

Growing demand for UAV

Increasing number of military training aircrafts

Modernization of military equipment

Growing demand for UAV

UAVs are equipped with airframe, engine, autopilot, navigation system, sensor package, and a communication link to provide effective training and simulation services for army personnel. These vehicles are small in size and cost effective compared to manned aircraft for providing modernized, digital communication formats and ISR systems that are more secure and reliable.

For example, during the Afghanistan war, UAVs were equipped with advanced technologies that helped them serve as force multipliers, enabling US troops to deploy fewer army personnel in the combat area, without limiting their capability to detect and counter potential threats posed by terrorist organizations. This is a major reason for the growth in the deployment of unmanned spy aircraft in combat zones.

The US DoD has made extensive investments in the procurement of a wide range of UAVs to replace their aging fleets and obsolete weapons, and it is expected to result in a significant demand for army personnel training. The US DoD invests 60% of its unmanned aerial systems (UASs) budget on training and simulations for military troops, a trend that will continue to boosts market growth during the forecast period.

Increasing number of military training aircrafts

In 2014, the US had 2,809 training aircraft and helicopters (2.26% more than the total number in 2013), whereas Russia, Japan, China, and India, the world's next-largest aerial powers, had a total of 1,393 such planes.

The US DoD is developing its defense units by manufacturing and procuring training planes and helicopters. For example, in 2015, Boeing signed a contract worth USD 1.49 billion with the US Navy to provide nine P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircrafts, increasing the fleet size to 62 P-8As.

During the same period, Boeing signed another contract worth USD 2.4 billion with the US Navy to provide an additional 16 P-8As. The US Navy seeks to acquire 117 P-8A aircraft by the year end and it is subsequently anticipated to drive the training and simulation market for US DoD over the forecast period.

Modernization of military equipment

The US DoD is replacing its existing military equipment over the next decade. It is planning to modernize its aircraft, helicopters, missiles, and navy vessels. In 2013, the US Army embraced modern communications technology to provide communications across a broadband array of equipment, by investing close to USD 1.3 billion in the Warfighter Information Network Tactical program to enhance training and simulation services. During the same period, the US Army also invested close to USD 402.1 million in the Joint Tactical Radio Systems program that provides multiband data and network communications for dismounted soldiers and aircraft. Similar investments are anticipated to fuel defense R&D and market growth during the forecast period.

Browse related reports:

Global Radar Systems and Technology Market 2016-2020

Global Missile Market 2015-2019

Global Maritime Security Market 2015-2019

Purchase any three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160325005009/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com

media@technavio.com
ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS and NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 03/25/16 -- Symbid Corp. (OTCQB: SBID) www.symbidcorp.com

Key Business Highlights of 2015:

Total revenue of $353,076 for fiscal year 2015, up 28% versus 2014, however a 16% decrease in the value of EUR(EUR) versus USD($) in 2015 compared to 2014 means the actual revenue growth in EUR was higher;

Company reports continued growth in number of small businesses funded (up 17% versus 2014) and registered investors (up 28% versus 2014);

Company launched The Funding Network in March 2015, a data-driven capital market for start-ups and small businesses connecting various types of finance, alternative and traditional;

In 2015 the total funding volume of The Funding Network was $520 million with approximately 60 small businesses funded every week;

The Company expanded its product portfolio with the launch of a loan crowdfunding (or peer-to-business lending) product in Q2 2015, from which the first revenues were recorded in that same quarter;

In Q4 2015 the Company entered into a media partnership with RTL, a leading European entertainment company, to promote crowdfunding and small business financing on business television. The partnership involved an investment in media value with a view to a future strategic partnership;

Several funding rounds were realized in 2015 through the issuance of shares and convertible notes;

Further funding rounds and executions of strategic partnerships are sought for 2016 in order to ensure continuity, further growth and international expansion.

"We are pleased to report continued revenue growth in what is a highly competitive global market. These results are a reflection of the increasingly diversified revenue streams available to the Company and our commitment to genuine financial innovation." said Korstiaan Zandvliet, co-founder and CEO of Symbid Corp. "With the launch of The Funding Network last year we grew from an investment crowdfunding platform into a go-to funding marketplace for small businesses. This ensured significant growth in both the number of businesses funded and entrepreneurs registered. Successfully executing upon the funding and business engagements with our strategic partners in 2016 would enable us to consolidate our present activities and accelerate our business expansion in the Netherlands and our European roll-out. As we look ahead to 2016, we intend to again deliver results consistent with our strategic vision of becoming the leading European online funding platform.

Fiscal Years Ended December 31, 2015 and 2014 Year Ended December 31, ------------------------ 2015 2014 ----------- ----------- Net Revenues Crowdfunding $ 282,155 $ 267,358 The Funding Network 47,975 - Other 22,946 8,967 ----------- ----------- 353,076 276,325 Operating expenses Selling general and administrative 1,543,827 2,166,028 Professional fees 721,963 776,243 Research and development costs 59,930 320,032 Depreciation and amortization 145,543 70,517 Bad debt expense (recoveries) 36,292 (14,349) ----------- ----------- 2,507,555 3,318,471 Operating loss (2,154,479) (3,042,146) Other income (expenses) Fair value adjustment derivative liability - warrants (7,791) 291,662 Interest expenses and amortization of debt discount (148,509) (31,405) Government subsidy - 10,962 Gain on sale of investment in Gambitious B.V. 11,504 Losses from equity method investments - (47,226) Other income and expense - (3,641) ----------- ----------- Total other income (expense) (144,796) 220,352 Net loss (2,299,275) (2,821,794)

Summary of Full Year 2015 Financial Performance:

Total revenue grew by 28% versus 2014 to $353,076;

Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by 29% year on year to $1,543,827 primarily due to a one-time issuance in 2014 of 1.5 million shares at the expense of $645,000 in relation to a strategic alliance with Fortion Holding B.V. (Credion);

Research and development costs decreased by 81% year on year to $59,930 due to the Company's investment in 2014 in the development of a cloud-based monitoring product, released in early 2015;

Total operating expenses decreased by 24% year on year to $2,507,555;

Net losses decreased by 19% year on year to $2,299,275.

2016 Commercial Outlook:

A partnership with leading financial advisory firm Credion was incorporated in 2014. The Company intends to intensify this cooperation in 2016;

The Company intends to further exploit the possibilities of The Funding Network, connecting traditional and alternative financing options through the integration of the Company's private deal flow, monitoring and data services in one go-to platform for entrepreneurs and investors;

The ongoing release and integration of new products and services are expected to result in increased transaction-based revenues and new monthly recurring revenues, through the growth of the Company's loan crowdfunding product and the monetization of its funding volume respectively;

In cooperation with a strategic partner the Company is developing an SME debt fund with a view to strengthening the Company's loan crowdfunding product offering and anticipates a launch in Q3 of 2016;

The Company is actively pursuing a capital raise strategy in order to accelerate the horizontal and vertical expansion of its funding platform and balance cash flow. 2015 saw the Company focus on the internal development of technology thereby creating long-term value through successful innovation. The Company intends to introduce more products from this financial technology portfolio to market in 2016.

Disclaimer

This press release is for information purposes only and is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities of Symbid Corp. (the "Company") in the United States, Australia, Canada or Japan or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

About Symbid Corp.

Founded in April 2011 as one of the first investment crowdfunding platforms worldwide, Symbid is The Funding Network, where companies get funded and grow. As a leading online funding portal for small- and medium-sized enterprises, Symbid gives entrepreneurs direct access to traditional and alternative forms of finance, while offering investors full transparency on the potential risks and returns of their portfolio. Advanced investing, monitoring and data tools ensure companies connecting to The Funding Network are financed in the most efficient way possible. Built around cutting-edge technology and expert financial advice, The Funding Network by Symbid is the go-to platform for entrepreneurs in search of funding and investors in search of exciting opportunities. In 2015, Symbid (www.symbid.com) successfully delivered $520 million in funding to approximately 2400 small businesses from over 50 connected funding partners including banks, venture capital firms, angel investors and 37,000 private (crowdfunding) investors. Symbid Corp. is a U.S. publicly listed company (OTCQB: SBID). For investor relations, please visit www.symbidcorp.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release may include predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgement on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect our opinions only as of the date of this release. Please keep in mind that we are not obligating ourselves to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. The predictions discussed in this release are based on the personal opinions of certain individuals and are supported by a consensus within the crowdfunding industry and alternative finance world generally. For a more complete discussion of these predictions and certain risk factors which may affect our future business operations, please review our most recent Form 10-K, particularly under the heading "Risk Factors." PDF copies of these forms can be viewed and downloaded on the Symbid Corp. Investor Relations website at www.symbidcorp.com.

Contacts

Press and investor relations:

Frans Gunnink

Sharpe Financial

(+31) 629-541-542

frans.gunnink@sharpefinancial.com




According to the latest research study released by Technavio, the global UAV flight training and simulation market is expected to reach close to USD 754.8 million in revenue by 2019.

This research report titled 'Global UAV Flight Training and Simulation Market 2015-2019', provides an in-depth analysis of market growth in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all leading regions.

Request sample report: http://bit.ly/1QYbP3K

"The demand for UAVs is significantly increasing due to their cost effectiveness and capability to perform complex tasks. For example, in the oil and gas and mineral industry, UAVs can be utilized to conduct geophysical and geomagnetic surveys. In the defense industry, UAVs are utilized to perform surveillance missions with the capability of hitting the target using small missiles. These use high-precision zoom cameras and video cameras with infrared and electro-optic capability for night vision. UAVs can send information to other aircraft and ground forces," said Abhay Singh, one of Technavio's lead analysts for aerospace research.

Market segmentation by UAV type

HALE UAVs

MALE UAVs

SUAVs

Largest segment: training and simulation market for HALE UAVs

The global UAV flight training and simulation market is likely to reach USD 341 million by 2019. Globally, the increased utilization of UAVs across industries has led to more R&D in different countries. For example, a program led by the defense forces of the US and Boeing has developed a high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAV named the Boeing Phantom Eye. The flight was first tested in 2012 at the Edwards Air Force Base, where it reached a height of 4,000 feet. The US Missile Defense Agency has funded an additional USD 6.8 million to install various payloads on it.

Northrop Grumman is developing the Global Hawks under the Alliance Ground Surveillance program (AGS) by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and it is expected to be in service by 2017.

Second largest segment: flight training and simulation market for MALE UAVs

The global flight training and simulation market for MALE UAVs is likely to reach USD 294 million by 2019. Medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAVs are considered safer for surveillance. The US DoD has invested close to USD 6.5 million for their defense forces to develop MALE UAVs that include the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Defense Information Systems Agencies. In 2015, a joint program named Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (TERN) Phase II was sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Office of Naval Research (ONR), where AeroVironment and Northrop Grumman were awarded a contract to develop MALE UAVs.

In 2015, India being one of the largest importers of defense armaments, approved a contract worth USD 400 million to purchase 10 Heron MALE UAVs from Israel Aerospace Industries. This move will help India strengthen their surveillance and reconnaissance missions at borders areas to a great extent.

Global UAV flight training and simulation market for SUAVs

These days, the demand for small, unmanned air vehicles (SUAVs) has risen because geophysical processes associated with natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes need to be analyzed now more than ever before, especially given rapid climate changes. It is estimated that more than 7,500 SUAVs will be flying during the forecast period because of increased application in the agriculture, mining, and defense industry.

In 2013, the US Army awarded a contract worth $248 million to five companies: AeroVironment, Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin, Altavian, and Innovative Automation Technologies to develop future SUAVs. The US Army has also signed a contract with AeroVironment in 2011 to supply switchblades for a miniature UAV. These developments are anticipated to help the market record significant growth over the next four years.

Browse related reports:

Global Aerospace Fasteners Market 2016-2020

Commercial Aircraft Autopilot System Market 2015-2019

Global Commercial Aircraft Next-Gen Avionics Market 2015-2019

Purchase any three reports for the price of one by becoming a Technavio subscriber. Subscribing to Technavio's reports allows you to download any three reports per month for the price of one. Contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and a link to our subscription platform.

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160325005029/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.technavio.com

media@technavio.com
Sadayoshi Yokoyama DENSO CORPORATION Phone: 81-566-25-5594 Fax: 81-566-25-4509 sadayoshi_yokoyama@denso.co.jp

KARIYA, JAPAN, Mar 25, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - DENSO Corporation has formed a 50/50 joint venture with Kingtec Technologies (Heyuan) Co., Ltd. (Kingtec), a Chinese-based company that develops, designs, manufacturers, and sells truck refrigeration in China and other parts of the world.The joint venture company, named Guangdong KINGTEC DENSO Refrigeration Equipment Co., Ltd, will mainly provide products used in transportation vehicles, including trucks and trailers. It will also explore the possibility of providing products for storage and other services needed for transportation. The new company is capitalized at 30 million yuan or approximately $4.8 million USD, half of which will be financed by DENSO (CHINA) Investment Co., Ltd., DENSO's regional headquarters in China. Production will being in May 2016.The purpose of the joint venture is to combine Kingtec's diversified product line and cost competitiveness with DENSO's outstanding technologies and unparalleled quality. This will enable DENSO to strengthen its refrigerator development and sales and contribute to improving food safety and reliability in China, as well as acquire the foothold it needs to expand its cold chain business worldwide.In China, with increasing consumer awareness and concerns about food safety, a better cold chain is required to ensure the temperature control of food products being shipped to consumers after production. Because of this, the refrigerator market, including those for vehicles, is expected to continue to grow.About DensoDENSO Corporation, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions and employs nearly 140,000 people. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, totaled US$39.8 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 9 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. For more information, go to www.globaldenso.com, or visit our media website at www.densomediacenter.com.Source: DensoContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
LifeBEAM, a New York City-based provider of a wearable technology platform, closed a $16m funding round.

The round was led by Squarepeg Capital with participation from Wellborn VC, Cerca Partners, Atomic14 VC, Triventures VC and a number of angel investors.

The company intends to use the funds to expand in the the wearables category with starting its Awareables.

Led by Omri Yoffe, Co-Founder & CEO, LifeBEAM is advancing Awareable, which integrates accurate biometrics and a personal training agent, giving consumers an intelligent and interactive training experience for fitness and everyday well-being.

The company, which has R&D centers in Israel, Los Angeles and Asia, is to launch Awareable this spring on Kickstarter.

FinSMEs

25/03/2016
Soasta, a Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of a Digital Performance Management (DPM) platform, completed a $30m funding round.

The round was led by Tennenbaum Capital, with participation from existing investors Canaan Venture Partners, Pelion Venture Partners and Formative Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to restructure existing debt and to continue to grow operations.

Led by CEO Tom Lounibos, Soasta provides an analytics platform that enables digital business owners to gain performance insights into their real user experience on mobile and web devices in real time and at scale.

Customers include internet retailers, media and tech companies, including Apple, Target, Nordstrom, Staples, Home Depot, Sears, Walmart, Etsy, Nike, Best Buy, Adobe, Intuit, Microsoft, DIRECTV, Netflix and CBS.

FinSMEs

24/03/2016
The Trade Desk, Inc., a Los Angeles, CA-based global demand-side platform, raised $60M in equity funding.

Wellington Management Company, an investment management firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, made the investment in January 2016.

The company is using the capital to to fund the buyback of shares from early investors and expand operations across the globe.

Led by Jeff Green, CEO and founder, The Trade Desk provides an adtech demand-side platform which gives agencies, aggregators and their advertisers the technology to manage omnichannel advertising campaigns.

The company, which has offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia, recently announced that Netflix CFO David Wells has joined its board of directors as an independent member.

FinSMEs

25/03/2016
That the Gold Monetisation Scheme 2015 (GMS) which replaced the 1999 scheme is slated for a similar fate as its predecessor, started sinking in when I read the Firstpost story of 24th March 2016. It among other things confirmed the apprehension that the scheme like its predecessor would remain popular only among religious shrines like Tirupati, Siddhi Vinayak temple, Mata Vaishneo Devi Trust etc. And they too are not falling over themselves and plunging into the scheme enticed by higher rates of interest---2.25% per annum for middle term deposits i.e. for 5 to 7 years and 2.50% per annum for long term deposits i.e. for 12 to 15 years. The scheme in its first six months of operation has garnered a measly 3kg.

The rich and High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs) are staying away fearing the taxman who might come calling hot on the heels of heavy deposits they have made under GMS what with the scheme conferring no tax amnesty even though the finance bill 2016 does offer exemption to the interest income as well as capital gains if any on exit. But this is not what they are silently rooting for---what they are asking for sotto voce though is immunity from probing questions as to where the gold came from. The black money scheme 2016 offers such immunity for a pricea whopping 45% tax plus penalty---impelling Rahul Gandhi to call it a fair and lovely scheme. Be that as it may.

The scheme is full of gaps and grey areas despite the government having had the experience in working it albeit under an earlier avatar. First, it has rolled out a short term scheme 1 to 3 years to be operated by the scheduled banks and taken on their balance sheets. Second, medium term scheme 5 to 7 years to be operated by the scheduled banks but not to be taken on their balance sheets. And a long term scheme 12 to 15 years once again to be operated by the scheduled banks but not to be taken on their balance sheets. Whose balance sheets the medium and long term deposits would appear in? Well, the central governments though strictly speaking it doesnt prepare a formal balance sheet like now the grey areas reveal themselves.

What about more than three years but less than 5 years and similarly what about more than 7 years but less than 12 years? No scheme should leave gaps. The time periods must seamlessly take off from one to another like income slabs under the income tax law. If banks balance sheets are capable of taking on only deposits upto three years, fine, but more than three years but upto 7 years should have been classified as medium term and more than seven years but upto 15 years as long term.

Indeed, the short term category could have been done away with. No one is going to take the trouble of getting his jewellery melted only to get it back or the equivalent cash at the prevailing market price after three years unless the gold is in the form of bullion which is likely to be the case with blackmoneywallahs. Banks should have been kept out of the

scheme but for their mobilization role. That is GMS should be either medium or long term, period. Banks have the difficult task in a short term scheme because the only way they can use the gold is by giving them as loans under the Gold Metal Scheme (GMS) which is a tight rope

walk for them any day.

A glaring omission is about stones and other items studded with gold. Our women do not like to wear only pure gold jewellery but also the ones that dazzles. Diamonds are more expensive than gold. A housewife who is sentimental about gold being melted right in front of her eyes i.e. before CCTVs in the assaying centers, is not going to take it kindly when her diamond studded necklace for example is roughly shorn of the diamond stones because the banks and the government are interested only in gold. And when they are so done, it leaves an ugly scar on the gold as well as on diamond. Shouldnt the government have mandated tenderness during such trying times by putting in place a special tool for the purpose? In addition, what about the quantity of diamond and stones returned? While gold would be meticulously weighed, who will worry about stones and diamonds?

Banks have been asked to add the prevailing custom duty to the London quotation for gold monetized at the prevailing dollar rate for rupee. Fine, but is the addition of customs duty, sensible as it is for arriving at the landed cost, not required for the benefit of the depositor as well so that he earns higher interest on the resultant higher valuation. The GMS

is not very clear on this.

All in all, GMS is one scheme that is bound to reveal the chinks in its armor each times one examines it with a fine toothcomb.
San Francisco: A US judge on Thursday gave Volkswagen until April 21 to come up with a plan to fix some 600,000 cars spewing illegal levels of pollutants due to emissions-cheating software.

"This issue of what is to be done with these cars must be done by that date," US District Court Judge Charles Breyer told attorneys of the German automaker during a status hearing.

If a concrete plan for getting the cars fixed or off the roads was not submitted by the deadline, "the court would seriously consider whether to hold a bench trial this summer so that the polluting cars can be addressed forthwith," Breyer said.

VW, which until recently had ambitions to become the world's biggest carmaker, is battling to resolve its deepest-ever crisis sparked by revelations that it installed emissions-cheating software into 11 million diesel engines worldwide.

The software, known as a "defeat device", limits the output of toxic nitrogen oxides to US legal limits during emissions test by regulators. But when the vehicles are in actual use, the software allows them to spew poisonous gases at up to 40 times the permitted levels, giving the vehicle better acceleration and fuel economy.

Defeat devices are prohibited in the United States, where the VW scam was originally exposed, as well as in other countries. On top of still unquantifiable regulatory fines in a range of countries, VW is facing a slew of legal suits, notably in the United States and Germany, from angry car owners, as well as from shareholders seeking damages for the massive loss in the value of their shares since September.

Cases in the United States have been consolidated under Judge Breyer, who said attorneys representing all involved have been working relentlessly for the past month on a way to "get the cars, in their current condition, off the road." However, he said, engineering technicalities and "other important issues" had yet to be resolved. The solution could be a buy-back plan or a fix to the emissions system.

But in any case a specific and detailed plan including timing, cars involved, and payments to consumers should be finalized by the April 21 deadline to avoid trial, according to the judge.

Breyer told attorneys not to reveal anything about the status talks, contending that confidentiality was critical to success.

"We are working around the clock," plaintiffs' attorney Elizabeth Cabraser told AFP as she left the courtroom. "We will sleep when they are fixed."

In a statement Volkswagen said it is "committed to resolving the US regulatory investigation into the diesel emissions matter as quickly as possible and to implementing a solution for affected vehicles."

"We continue to make progress and are cooperating fully with the efforts undertaken by Judge Breyer... to bring about a prompt and fair resolution of the US civil litigation."

AFP
Essar Steel Minnesota LLC [ESML.UL], a U.S. affiliate of India's shipping, natural resources and power conglomerate Essar Global Group, has hired financial and legal advisers to help it restructure its debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is in the final stages of building a $1.8 billion iron ore pellet plant in northern Minnesota. Its woes underscore the impact that cheap Chinese imports have had on the price of iron ore and U.S. steel manufacturers.

Essar Steel Minnesota has hired investment bank Guggenheim Partners LLC and law firm White & Case LLP as debt restructuring advisers, the people said this week. Essar Steel Minnesota has about $1 billion in debt, one of the people added.

The sources asked not to be identified because the appointments are not public. Spokespeople for Essar Steel Minnesota, Essar Global, Guggenheim and White & Case did not respond to requests for comment.

Essar Steel Minnesota's move to restructure its debt comes less than six months after the bankruptcy filing of its Canadian sister company, steel manufacturer Essar Steel Algoma Inc. Essar Steel Algoma also filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

Essar Global moved into Minnesota in 2007, shortly after it acquired the Algoma manufacturer. At the time, the company said it was positioning itself to be close to high-value steel markets and sources of iron ore.

The plant, whose construction started in 2010, is scheduled to open this year, according to the company's website. It will permanently employ 350 people once it opens, according to the state.

Last year, Essar Steel Minnesota failed to make timely payments to its vendors, according to press statements from the office of the Minnesota governor. The company did not live up to the terms of the original agreement it had with the state, and at the end of last year it accepted a plan to repay Minnesota's $66 million loan.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Thiruvananthapuram: Intense diplomatic efforts at various levels are on to ensure the safe return of Catholic priest Tom Uzhunnalil, currently in Islamic State custody in Yemen, an official source said on Friday.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's office is closely monitoring the situation and is in touch with the ministry of external affairs and people concerned in Yemen and other countries.

"We are unable to reveal all details, but there is intense activity taking place at various levels and in various countries to ensure that the Keralite priest is rescued," said an official posted in Chandy's office, who is coordinating between various agencies.

"We are all hopeful that things will be resolved," said the official.

Earlier this month, armed militants barged into an old people's home set up by Mother Teresa near Yemen in 1992 and shot dead many, including four nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, including one from India.

These militants later whisked away the Kerala priest and there has been no word from him ever since.

IANS
Maharashtra has reduced the pendency of cases before its juvenile justice boards (JJBs) by one-third in the past few years, but a lot remains to be done in the system when it comes to rehabilitation, said Justice VM Kanade of the Bombay High Court and head of its committee on juvenile justice.

The committee is responsible for strengthening the juvenile justice system in the state. Pendency in the states JJBs has fallen from 26,116 cases to 16,138 cases until the end of February this year, according to a presentation made by Justice Kanade, at a conference two weeks ago in Uttan.

Children below the age of 18 are brought before a three-member board, which is headed by a magistrate and includes a social worker. This is a part of a system meant to be restorative rather than punitive, compared to the adult criminal justice system.

Justice Kanade said that the High Court had been monitoring the system, resulting in filling up of vacancies in all JJBs and child welfare committees and that the principal district judges had also been closely tracking the boards.

The next step is to concentrate on rehabilitation, he told Firspost in a chat in his chamber last week. In the previous phase, the focus was on building up the infrastructure.

Justice Kanade said in his understanding compared to some other countries, our Act (of the year 2000) was very good. There was sufficient room for children in conflict with the law to (be away from) the regular criminal system, he said.

The new Juvenile Justice Act passed after a public outcry last year act has been criticised for a clause that would allow 16 to 18 year olds to be tried as adults in case of certain types of heinous offences.

Since 2014, the state has managed to plug vacancies in boards across districts. A Right To Information (RTI) reply to an application filed by this reporter indicated 35 boards were in place for each of the districts. However, the women and child department did not specify in its reply how often the JJBs met.

However, while pendency is an important parameter to judge the efficacy of justice delivery, reducing the number of cases alone is not enough, say those working in the system. More crucial is how to effectively restore children in conflict with law to society.

A common refrain has been that not enough was done in the first place under the previous act of 2000. There was no investment in reform, said Komal Ganotra, director of policy, research and advocacy at CRY. How did we implement that Act?

Though the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 includes, among other things, provisions for reform, the governments allocation for child protection has actually fallen in the latest budgeting provisions.

The integrated child protection scheme (ICPS) has seen a 14.39% fall in allocations compared to last year. A large part of the funding for new homes, staff salaries, food and clothing for all children within the juvenile justice system falls within the ICPS. This is particularly worrying that this cut in budget is made despite the increase in crimes against children as well as number of children coming in conflict with the law, said a report from the Haq Centre for Child Rights. This reflects the very low priority accorded to protection of children despite all the lip service from the legislators and members of the government.

Rehabilitation continues to be an area of concern, with piecemeal rather than concerted state-wide efforts.

An expert committee had told the Bombay high court earlier this year that in the Dongri observation home, facilities were severely lacking, including for education and training.

Some homes dont have education facilities or vocational training programmes, said Vijay Doiphode, a social worker with the Resource Centre for Juvenile Justice (RCJJ). Sometimes there isnt enough staff.

RCJJ, a field action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) is one non-profit working in childrens homes in five of Maharashtras districts. Last month, RCJJ along with the Thane District Legal Services Authority felicitated 30 young offenders who had picked up and pieced together their lives after a brush with crime.

One boy spoke movingly and eloquently at the function about falling into bad company, getting addicted to drugs and committing crime. But at some point he realised he needed to pull himself together and stick to the de-addiction programme. He now mentors other young people who used to be like him. I tell them, everyone can improve, he said. Other boys spoke of struggles at home and difficult circumstances, while parents and other family members sat in the audience.

Dipak Chatterjee, another lawyer and college teacher, takes his students to childrens homes and encourages them to donate. Officials at the David Sassoon Industrial Home said they also relied on donations as government spending on such homes was a measly Rs 635 per month per child.

The institute has about 130 children at any given point, and a pleasant, green campus in the heart of Mahim.

Home to runaways, orphans, rescued child labourers and juvenile offenders, it has a few facilities for vocational training and provides schooling till Class 8. This year six students appeared for the state board exam, with the help of staff, but there is no formal schooling programme up till Class 10.

Lawyers and activists point out other issues that complicate the process of rehabilitation. For instance, after serving out a punishment or being let off, a child might come to be stigmatised by the police. Once their name is on the record, the police keep catching them, said one social worker.

Sunita Ghadge, a defence lawyer who deals extensively in juvenile matters, said she had once argued a case where 57 cases were slapped against two boys. Though neither had a previous record, it became convenient to dump all the unsolved cases against them. The JJB however found them innocent.

Simple things like getting admitted back to school after leaving the JJ system or getting a passport become a struggle, even though according to the law, no offence committed before the age of 18 can count as part of a persons criminal record. I have been waiting for 15 days for this clearance, said one woman, whose son was caught and released four years ago but whose passport will not be processed until the police is satisfied the case was indeed closed.

Still, the police are trying to be proactive. One senior official said that such children were seen as a potential headache, but that greater efforts were afoot to sensitise the police. Last year the Mumbai police sought to study the issue of rehabilitation and asked non-profits to analyse and report back on this for each of the citys 12 zones. Most are yet to hand in their reports.

There are different aspects to rehabilitation, said Farida Lambay, co-founder of Pratham, one of the non-profits that worked with the Mumbai police. There is immediate remedial action, then you have to do a multi-pronged intervention and thirdly to prevent it happening again.

The High Court committee has also been instrumental in revamping the system of free legal aid in the juvenile justice system which was found to be in shambles. Following complaints that legal aid lawyers were charging huge amounts to children and their parents, they sent one of their stenographers as a decoy, posing as someone in need of legal help. It did indeed turn out to be the case that such lawyers were trying to fleece poor litigants.

Justice Kanade said they have now asked the heads of bar associations to recommend good young lawyers to pitch in to the system.

He said they were also trying to study orders passed by JJBs to analyse what further improvements can be made, especially in terms of developing sensitivity. Where found lacking he said the magistrates and judicial officers would be sent for training.
Taking notice of media reports that there is an emergency like situation in Hyderabad University, the National Human Rights Commission on Friday issued notices to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, Telangana government and the Hyderabad Police Commissioner seeking reports from them within a week.

NHRC acted on news reports that there is no water, electricity, food, internet services and working ATMs within the campus.

"The Commission has observed that the arbitrary act and high handedness of senior University officials as well as Police and Administrative officers, as reported in media, raise serious concerns towards safety and security of the students," a NHRC release said.

"A team of Human Rights defenders comprising of senior activists, academicians and lawyers have met students and teachers at the university to ascertain the real facts of the incidents that took place at the campus. The team is also trying to identify the human rights violations and resolve the situation by making key recommendations to the concerned parties, " was identified as one of the key mandate in the report of the independent national fact finding team by NCDHR.

One of the key findings in the report was, "The return of the Vice Chancellor, Appa Rao, who had proceeded on indefinite leave triggered the disruption of peace on campus. According to the Home Minister, VC Appa Rao had expressed desire to the Minister to return to the campus and was strongly advised against it by the Police Commissioner and the home Minister, saying that it would cause disruption of University. In spite of the Home Ministry's advice he chose to return to the university."

Another key finding was, "Widespread assault of women students and abusive language and threats to rape the women students were heard from the police. Also targeted statements towards minority students and describing them as 'terrorists'was also heard."

One of the recommendation made by the team was, "The Central Government must swiftly and efficiently ensure a smooth transition of the leadership of the University in the best interest if the primary objective of the University of Academic Excellence by replacing the Vice Chancellor in close consultation with the University students and Faculty. Also criminal investigation should be immediately conducted and action should be taken against the police who have willfully neglected their duty under Section 4 of the SC ST PoA Amendment Act 2016."

A member of the team, Tara Rao, Amnesty International India, said "Students have a right to peacefully protest. Arrests of peaceful protesters violate India's obligations under international law. the arrest of the students and holding them for almost 24 hours without giving any information about their status is in breach of numerous international human rights standards including the UN Body if Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment."

On 23 March, the office of Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile was vandalised by group of students after which the above-mentioned arrests were made. The university authorities also prevented JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar from entering the campus to address the students agitating over the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula.

Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula's mother had demanded immediate unconditional release of the 25 students and two faculty members of Hyderabad Central University, on Friday. "We demand immediate and unconditional release of all those who were arrested and sent to jail, and withdrawal of cases against them. They (students) were asking for justice for Rohith (during the protest near VC's lodge)...but were beaten up brutally by police," Rohith's mother Radhika and brother Raja, along with HCU teachers and parents of some of the arrested students, told reporters.

According to an earlier Firstpost report, a five-member delegation led by JNUSU vice-president Shehla Rashid met with the Ministry of Human Resources Department secretary VS Oberoi and submitted their demands for the removal of police presence from the campus, the dropping of false charges against students and the removal of Appa Rao from the post of vice-chancellor of the university. "The top official told us that ministry cannot do anything about removal of the V-C as it comes under the purview of the Visitor. He also said that they can't intervene on the issue of police presence as interventions are not being taken in a good manner," she said.

Tensions have been mounting in the campus ever since the death of Rohith Vemula, 26, who hanged himself in Hyderabad Central University campus after he was suspended from his hostel in August last year for allegedly attacking an ABVP leader.
Pune: The police on Friday said that "anti-national" slogans were not raised at Pune's Fergusson College campus on Tuesday after ABVP members and a group of Ambedkarite students got into a heated argument during an informal event on 'Truth of JNU'.

The college principal R G Pardeshi had written a letter to the police stating that "anti-national" slogans were raised at the event, organised by ABVP, but he later withdrew it saying the reference to such kind of sloganeering in it was a "typographical error".

"When the slogans were being shouted, our police personnel were present and according to their investigation, a total of 29 slogans were raised.

"Out of those, 14 slogans were raised by a group of students who belong to the Ambedkarite ideology and 15 slogans were raised by ABVP members. None of the slogans were anti-national in nature," a senior police official said.

Pardeshi on Thursday expressed "regret" over the letter which had caused a flutter with the reference to the sloganeering during the event in the presence of JNU ABVP leader Alok Singh.

In the wake of the letter, several Dalit organisations accused Pardeshi of "branding" students including Sujat Ambedkar, great-grandson of B R Ambedkar and son of former MP Prakash Ambedkar, as "anti-nationals".

On 23 March, NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad was allegedly manhandled by a group of workers belonging to Bhartiya Janata Yuwa Morcha and some right-wing organisations in the college campus.

"According to our report, there were total 29 slogans raised by both the groups. ABVP raised total 15 slogans which include 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', 'Vande Mataram' and the counter group raised total 14 slogans such as 'Jai Bhim', 'Manuwad se azadi', 'RSS se azadi', 'Kanhaiya Kumar Zindabaad', 'Kitne Rohith maronge, har ghar se Rohith nikalega'.

"We then concluded a report with a note that though 29 slogans were raised, none of the slogans was 'anti-national' in nature, and submitted it (the report) to higher officials," the officer said.

He said there was no question of sending this report to the college authorities since they have already retracted on their letter, demanding police action for raising "anti-national" slogans

PTI
By Sanjay Bhatnagar

Around February-March 2012, the media coined a new term for Akhilesh Yadav, calling him a "game changer" in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. And though the people of Uttar Pradesh were well versed with the idea that the game of musical chairs being played between Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Parti (SP) and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was far from over, the change at hand was unprecedented and the term "game changer" found an appropriate use.

It soon sunk in as SP got a comfortable majority and a new order was emerged in Mulayam's party. SP's success was largely attributed to the "rath yatras" of Akhilesh and the idea that youth power had come to the fore. Mulayam, the astute politician that he is, also realised that times have changed and it was rife to pass on the mantle to his son. And thus Uttar Pradesh got 39-year old Akhilesh Singh Yadav as its chief minister.

It was seen as a welcome change, from the same old faces to a suave, young politician brigade, now led by new chief minister Akhilesh Yadav with fresh energy and an apparent willingness to transform the state.

That was in 2012. Now in 2016, we have a chief minister who is unsure of himself, does not miss an opportunity to blame bureaucrats for everything and does not have right kind of people around him.

The emergence of Akhilesh coincided with the waning popularity of Rahul Gandhi while the likes of Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Omar Abdullah were not allowed to take off for various reasons. The timing was perfect for Akhilesh Yadav to spread his wings as a youth leader on the national horizon, which he did with some aggressive personal branding and proactive, youth-centric governance.

However, he soon settled into a cozy comfort zone enjoying the media patter on about how UP has four-and-a-half chief ministers and how his father, uncles and motormouth party heavyweight Azam Khan are not allowing him to work. He made these his shield and presented a picture of a person suffering from a persecution complex. This was never going to serve his cause, especially since he was a young politician with at least 35-40 years ahead of him. Also, the promise he had shown about being different from the other leaders in own caste-ridden party was also not to be.

Despite being a lovable individual with a pleasing demeanour and a friendly approach, Akhilesh looks like a reluctant chief minister limiting himself to electoral politics and party agenda. This was explained well when an officer close to him disclosed how he used to cancel important meetings, even at venues abroad, without any justifiable reasons, causing embarrassment to all. Such was his flamboyance that he was spotted fiddling with his mobile phone even while sharing the dais with President Pranab Mukherjee; he once spent a full week in Saifai, his native village, during the Saifai Mahtosav, held in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots. Another officer said he deliberately skipped engagements with educated youth at seminars and conclaves in Delhi or other venues, which would have given him more exposure and political mileage.

Senior SP leader and family loyalist Rajendra Chaudhary rubbishes the allegations, saying Akhilesh had matured a lot, faster than the other politicians of the country. Chaudhary says the way Akhilesh implemented his dream projects of the Lucknow Metro and the Lucknow-Agra Expressway shows his political will.

What Chaudhary did not specify was if Akhilesh had the potential to be a far bigger leader than what he is. This question, sooner or later, is bound to hover in the mind of Akhilesh Singh Yadav, simply because he has all the ingredients except self-realisation and self-confidence. Akhilesh, your time will still start now.
New Delhi: Delhi Tourism Minister and AAP leader Kapil Mishra on Friday taunted BJP asking whether it would form government with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir if its president Mehbooba Mufti did not raise 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' slogan.

Aam Aadmi Party downplayed Mishra's comments, saying it was his "personal opinion" even though it asked BJP to "clear its stand" on the issue.

In an open letter to BJP president Amit Shah, the AAP leader posed four queries attacking the BJP-PDP coalition

whose "cost" will have to be "borne" by the country in the near future, he said.

"Does Mehbooba Mufti believe in Bharat Mata ki Jai? If not, will the BJP form government with her? Will she raise slogans saying Afzal Guru was a terrorist? If not, then what is the compulsion for you (BJP) to form a govt with her?" Mishra asked in his letter.

When contacted, AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai said Mishra has written the letter purely in "personal capacity" and that it should be confused with the party's stand.

However, Bajpai said, "AAP would like BJP to clear its stand, otherwise it reflects their doublespeak."

Mishra also criticised the upcoming visit of the Pakistani Joint Investigation Team to India to carry out a probe into the Pathankot terror attack.

BJP legislature party in Jammu and Kashmir today decided to form government in coalition with PDP and extended support to PDP's chief ministerial candidate Mehbooba.

The meeting came a day after PDP elected Mehbooba as its legislature party leader and the party candidate for the chief minister's post.

PTI
Over two months after taking an unconventional and apparently 'tough stand' against her party's coalition partner, the BJP, Mehbooba Mufti is set to become the first women chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. But she has left an important question unanswered: why was there a delay in government formation when the BJP has been all along screaming that it is committed to the governance agenda with the People's Democratic Party (PDP)?

On Thursday, the PDP unanimously nominated Mehbooba as the chief ministerial candidate, a constitutional requirement before she stakes claim for forming the government in J&K with the support of the BJP. Her name was proposed by Abdul Rehman Veeri, a Mufti loyalist from south Kashmir and a senior PDP leader, who was holding the horticulture portfolio during the BJP-PDP coalition government which ruled the state for ten months under the leadership of the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, clearing the decks for her elevation as the chief minister of the troubled state.

The two months of political deadlock between the coalition partners ended last week when Mehbooba met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital, triggering speculation that talks over government formation were back on track. She described her meeting with the PM as very positive and good, but did not specify if the PM had offered her any fresh CBMs.

There is no official conformation whether the BJP has acceded to Mehbooba's demands of CBMs which she never made public, but she told reporters after the meeting that she has faith in the words of the Prime Minister. According to Ram Madhav, the right-wing party's point-man on Kashmir, the Prime Minister promised Mehbooba "all help" for running the state.

Senior party leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig told Firstpost that there was "no need" for reworking on the 'agenda of the alliance' worked out between the two parties last year or to make fresh demands when both the parties had committed themselves to a document available publicly.

It is a comprehensive document. No new conditions were put forward by the PDP leadership for government formation. If both the parties would commit themselves to this agenda, it will do wonders for the state. The countrys highest leadership has given an assurance that she will have full support from the Centre. That indicates how serious the PM is about this coalition. What more could we ask for?, he said.

Mehbooba is expected to take oath next week after her meeting with the Governor NN Vohra on Friday which will pave way for her elevation. But her political journey as the head of Jammu and Kashmir, after the demise of her father on 7 January, will be full of upheavals.

The ideological differences with the ally BJP, the worsening security situation in the Valley, especially in south Kashmir, the shrinking space for political discourse and the credibility crisis faced by the coalition partners in their respective political constituencies are some of the challenges which will need her urgent attention.

After stitching the coalition in March last year, senior PDP leaders like Beg and Karra frequently voiced concern over the deteriorating image of the party. But both seem to back on track and backing the decision of Mehbooba to continue her alliance with the BJP. However, the most pinching comment for Mehbooba came from Mehbooba's former friend Madhu Kishwar.

As expected Mehbooba Mufti has had to eat humble pie & form govt without any pre conditions because PDP MLAs had threatened revolt, Kishwer tweeted.

There is some truth in Kishwar's assertion. In Srinagar, rumours have it that a group of PDP MLAs were holding meetings and looking for a possible way out of the crisis after Mehbooba showed no sign of relenting and continuing the alliance. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah recently said there was an effort to gather support independent of Mehbooba Mufti.

I think rushing to Delhi is Mehbooba Muftis last ditch effort to save her party because she realises if she does not form the government on the terms and conditions set by BJP, her party will split and if her party splits then she will be in a much weaker position than she is today. So she is trying to save her party, Omar told reporters.

Governors Rule was imposed in the state on 8 January after the death of chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. National Conference General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar told Firstpost that he fails to understand why Mehbooba delayed the government formation for such a long time.

They (PDP) refused to form the government with the BJP for CBMs. The PDP President had publicly stated that she wont form the government unless and until the Centre takes some confidence building initiatives in the state. Today, again they are doing the same thing without any visible confidence building measures. What was the reason for the two and a half month delay then?
by Abimanyu Nagarajan

I first became aware of 'The Following' while in a cab on my way home from work on Thursday. At around 7:30 pm, I felt the very fabric of reality warp and buckle a bit, followed by a soft cry of denial. I didn't pay much attention to it, as this usually happens whenever my wife compliments my cooking.

What really made me realise something major had happened was when I saw the Emperor of Cats and the Prince of Dogs (with their relevant diplomatic attache) meeting outside my apartment signing an armistice.

We are in agreement then, said the Fat Cat. We shall henceforth observe a ceasefire until the heat death of the universe. To this, the Great Dane simply (but sagaciously) replied, And so it shall be.

My first reaction was, Holy crap! Cats and dogs can talk! And then I realised that I had witnessed something truly momentous: cats and dogs had signed a peace treaty!

Now, I knew something earth-shattering had happened. I rushed up to my apartment to first steady my nerves with a cup of coffee, but my phone had already started pinging.

Narendra Modi was following Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter.

.@narendramodi Sir, thank u for following me. Happy Holi.        Hope better Centre-Delhi cooperation in future  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 24, 2016

My mind went numb trying to digest this piece of news. Narendra Modi was following Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter! It finally explained the bizarre things I felt and saw on my way home (thankfully, it wasnt my cooking).

My first course of action was, of course, to go online and look at the comments section of all the news websites. I wasnt disappointed, nor surprised. People were panicking. Indian politics is highly divisive, and people back parties on a purely ideological basis. The rift between Kejri-walas and Modi-ites is especially deep.

In the run up to 'The Following', Kejriwal was especially aggressive, stalking Modi on Twitter. His opponents felt he was running an anti-Modi social media campaign, but in hindsight, he was clearly just trying to reach out in his own unique way, the old softie.

Modi, for his part, avoided getting embroiled in an e-war, preferring to maintain a stoic silence no matter what Kejriwal flung his way. His supporters believed Modi was too wise to embroil himself in digital name calling, while his opponents felt that he lacked the necessary wit to engage in one.

So when the Prime Minister started following Delhi's chief minister on Twitter, followers from both camps were flabbergasted. Kejriwal followers initially took this to be a sign of weakness, saying that Modi was essentially kneeling down to their polit-god. Modi followers, on the other hand, scoffed at this notion and insisted that their mighty leader was simply being magnanimous, and mocked Kejriwal for being so thrilled that the very man he called a psychopath and coward was willing to befriend him.

But after the initial shock wore off, people started asking one pertinent question: if they can get along, why cant we?

From diligent research done by sitting on a chair and googling the phrase, I can safely say this was first posted on some obscure political blog in some forgotten nook of the web. But the question gained momentum, and by morning, it had spread to every corner of the Internet.

If they can get along, why cant we?

Everyone on Facebook was posting it. It was being tweeted and retweeted by millions of people worldwide every hour.

If they can get along, why cant we?

The big break happened when world leaders started reacting to it. The first to do so was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who retweeted Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. The floodgates had been torn asunder, and the world was swept up by euphoria.

If they can get along, why cant we?

Donald Trump started following Hillary Clinton on Twitter. Barack Obama endorsed Kim-Jong Un on LinkedIn. Vladimir Putin befriended David Cameron on Facebook.

Peace broke out in the Middle East, Hindus and Muslims settled their beef over beef, Daesh disbanded, China adopted democracy, African warlords turned themselves in for war crimes. Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the cusp of global peace and establishing a state of utopia!

All because Narendra Modi started following Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter.

So please, my fellow humans. Let us mark 24 March, 2016, as 'The Following'. Let us forever remember the day when two bitter political rivals became BFFs on Twitter. For if two men can put aside their differences and connect through social media, then surely it means something, right? Right??
Chandigarh: It is not very difficult to understand why Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is stirring the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal row.

Akali Dal in collaboration with the BJP has been in power for two consecutive terms and the anti-incumbency factor has been growing against it. Next Assembly elections in Punjab are due early in 2017. With less than a year left for the Akalis for the poll, the alliance was in search of an emotive issue through which they can manage to win the support of the people to retain power for the third time.

Panthic and farmers issues are the two most important emotive aspects from the point of view of elections in the state. For the last one year the Akalis have been trying to address the two issues aggressively by amendment to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 in Rajya Sabha and now by the SYL canal dispute. In Akali's view, the heady mix of religion, economics and emotions should win the peoples support in its favour. The Punjab government also presented a very populist budget recently with several doles worth Rs 1,200 crore to many sectors as yet another attempt to please the electorate. The SYL row may have created bad blood among the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana but has won Akalis the support of the farmers.

Till recently poll pundits had been writing Akalis off in the next years elections on the basis of the rising discontent and anger against the government on Panthic and farmers issues. There was a wave of anger against the government over grant of pardon to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and sacrilege incidents. This led to holding of 'Sarbat Khalsa against the wishes of the SGPC.

At the moment the Akalis seem to have bounced back by playing the SYL card. The Akalis used the festering row over sharing of Ravi-Beas waters to its advantage by passing in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha a bill against construction of contentious SYL canal. The government also announced to return around 4,000 acres of land acquired from the farmers free of cost to the original land owners. This pleased the farmers no end as they got the land back for which they had earlier been paid money.

Wasting no time the government sent hundreds of JCB machines to the SYL canal site at different places to filling up the canal built 40 years ago. Akali leaders rushed to the site to ensure a symbolic end to the SYL issue. It is another matter that the river water meant for Haryana was never made available. Badals have been shouting from rooftops that not an inch of SYL canal water would be given to Haryana or anyone else.

The water issue has been used very cleverly by the Akalis to win over the support of the masses in the state. The Punjab government also returned an amount of Rs 191.75 crore to Haryana towards the cost incurred by it on the construction of the SYL canal. Off course Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal did not accept the cheque and returned it to Punjab but the government managed to score the point how serious it was on the emotive issue. By the time the Supreme Court gave its order of maintaining 'status quo on the SYL canal it had already been filled at most of the places

An enraged Haryana protested immediately and even passed a resolution in the Vidhan Sabha condemning Punjabs 'unconstitutional' move. At the moment the Akalis are having their cakes and eating them two. Such is the irony of the situation that the opposition parties Congress and the AAP have been forced to toe the government line and support the SYL bill. It would be political hara-kiri for any party in Punjab now to oppose the SYL issue.

Earlier moving the SYL bill in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said, "The bill has been taken on a priority basis as Punjab has no surplus waters to share it with other states." He said that a water crisis existed in Punjab and if a drop of water flows to other states from rivers of Punjab, it will be very dangerous for the state.

Sharing of the Ravi-Beas waters has been a matter of contention between Punjab and Haryana for years altogether. In the past Punjab governments, be it of Akalis or the Congress have refused to 'share even a drop of water'. It was in 2004 when the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in the state passed the highly controversial Termination of Agreements Act 2004 to annul all inter-state agreements relating to Ravi and Beas waters. The Akali government now decided to also de-notify the acquisition of land that was acquired for the SYL canal which was to carry Haryanas share of river water.

The dispute over Ravi-Beas water between Punjab and Haryana has been ever since the reorganisation of the Punjab state in 1966 into Punjab and Haryana. Haryana has been demanding an equitable share of the water. Haryana had claimed a share of 4.8 MAF of water out of the total 7.2 MAF. But the Punjab government had not agree to this. In 1976 Centre intervened and passed an order allocating 3.5 MAF of surplus Ravi-Beas water to Haryana. It was then that the decision to construct the SYL canal to carry Haryanas share of water was made.

The 212 km SYL canal-121 Km in Punjab and 91 km in Haryana was planned. Haryana completed construction of the canal way back in 1980 and spent Rs 250 crore, including its part of the canal on which it spent Rs 55.81 crore. Punjab delayed construction of the canal in its part. Both Haryana and Punjab filed separate petitions in the Supreme Court in 1979.

In 1981 Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan signed a tripartite agreement. On paper the total available water in the Ravi-Beas river increased from the existing 15.85 MAF to 17.7 MAF. The agreement allowed Punjab to use the surplus water out of Rajasthan share till that state was able to fully utilise its share of water. But the Akalis started protesting this agreement which became violent soon to be termed as 'Dharam Yudh'. Punjab plunged into chaos. Then in 1985 prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and SAD chief Sant Harchand Ssingh Longowal signed a treaty called Rajiv-Longowal accord in New Delhi.

It was agreed to complete the SYL canal by August 1986. It was also decided to set up a tribunal headed by a Supreme Court judge to decide the claims of Punjab and Haryana regarding their share in the remaining water. So a tribunal under Justice Balakrishna Eradi was constituted by the Centre for the purpose of deciding water share. The tribunmal submitted its report in January 1987 and increased the share of both Punjab and Haryana, but the Eradi award could never be notified.

Later SAD government, headed by Surjit Singh Barnala, started the construction work of the canal and was nearing completion (90 percent work was over) when it was halted by the Punjab government as terrorists shot dead two top engineers and more than 30 labourers at the site. The construction work of the canal was given to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) but since then no construction took place. Later in its June 2004 order the Supreme Court directed the Punjab government to complete the remaining portion of the SYL canal, but the same year in July the Punjab assembly enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act. The Centre sought the opinion of the Supreme Court on the validity of the Act through a Presidential Reference but the matter is still pending in the court.

Talking to Firstpost in the press gallery of the Punjab/Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Sukhbir Singh Badal said if a reality check is made of the existing waters in Punjab, it will show that there is no surplus water it has that it can share with other states. "How can we give water to others when we dont have enough for our own farmers,"

he said.

By projecting itself as the 'saviours of Punjab waters', Akalis are trying to win voters support. "Anyone can easily understand Akali game plan. Badal has now raised the contentious issue to divert peoples attention from the festering drugs problem, unemployment and other important issues in the state. Badals next step will be to resign and call for a mid-term poll in the hope of garnering popular support of the electorate. But the voters have understood this game plan and will not fall in the Akali trap," said senior Congress leader and MP Captain Amarinder Singh while talking to Firstpost.

At the moment it may look like a win-win situation for the Akalis. The present political situation in Punjab is a bit awkward for the BJP, the coalition partner. The BJP in Punjab can neither openly support the SYL canal issue nor oppose it. BJP is in power in both Punjab, Haryana and the Centre. Supporting the canal issue in Punjab will mean opposing the rights of the people of Haryana. BJP therefore is finding it a bit difficult to keep in good humour people of both the states as well as the Centre.
Sao Paulo: Thousands of Brazilians demonstrated in support of embattled President Dilma Rousseff, who faces an impeachment effort in congress over alleged fiscal mismanagement.

Organisers of the march in Sao Paulo, which is Brazil's biggest city and financial capital, said about 30,000 people joined in late yesterday, while police estimated 17,000.

Many of them marched on the headquarters of TV Globo, that popular television station that Rousseff sympathisers accuse of being partisan and pushing for the president's ouster.

Brazil is in its worst recession in decades and a sprawling corruption scandal at the state-run oil giant Petrobras has been moving closer to Rousseff's inner circle in recent weeks.

A recent poll by the respected Datafolha agency said 68 percent of Brazilians surveyed want to see lawmakers vote to impeach Rousseff.

PTI
The death toll in the Brussels attack is expected to go up from 31 at present with over 60 people in critical condition, according to Belgian authorities. In spite of repeated warnings after last years Paris attacks, the Belgian government failed to tighten border security, airport security checks and security agencies continued to sit on vital inputs that could have stopped this weeks attack at the airport and a metro station.

If the governments lax response to security issues and indifference has angered citizens, what has begun to haunt the small nation is a historic deal that was struck 49 years ago with Saudi Arabia to import cheap oil. In 1967, when Saudi King Faisal visited Brussels, Belgian King Baudouin  keen to sign an oil contract  made an offer that the visiting monarch could not refuse.

Having imposed a puritanical Islam in the desert kingdom, the Saudi king was heartened to learn that Belgium would set up a mosque in Brussels and hire Saudi-trained Muslim clerics in exchange for oil. Under the deal, Saudis were handed over a 19th Century pavilion in the heart of Brussels on a 99-year-lease and allowed to turn it into a mosque.

The Grand Mosque of Brussels  also the seat of Islamic and Cultural Centre  was inaugurated in 1978 and since then, thousands of young Muslims have been taught and indoctrinated by Saudi Arabias Salafi clerics. Thousands of young Muslims have been sponsored by the Centre and sent to Medina for studies, and many of uneducated, unemployed and rootless third, fourth generation Muslims from different parts of Europe have been recipients of highly exclusivist teaching by clerics.

Hundreds of Salafi teachers were given jobs in schools and the centre today has become the hub of ultra-conservative Salafists, funded by Saudi Arabia, in the heart of Europe.

Salafis are Muslims who call themselves Ahl al-Sunnah "People of the Sunna". They are reformists who want to remove different innovations or changes in way of dressing, praying and following of Islam that is different from what was the norm set by the Prophet and succeeding generations.

They are extremely strict and do not allow any deviation such as mixing with non-Muslims and adoption of their ways. Integration with rest of the society is an anathema to them

Today, Belgiums historic deal is being discussed at great length for having radicalised immigrants from North Africas third and fourth generations while a lax government looked away. The Grand Mosque provides a refuge for young Muslims from nearby neighbourhoods who allege discrimination by white Belgians and a government that has done little to tackle close to 40 percent unemployment among young Muslims in Brussels.

Growing Salafi movement in India

Here in India, Salafis have grown in numbers and their mosques have become prominent and dot Indian landsape from Kashmir to Kerala, and across the northern and eastern parts of the country.

As reported earlier by Firstpost, these mosques are blatantly calling upon Muslims in the country to abandon habits and culture that have evolved over centuries in South Asia due to a Sufi influence.

Sufi leaders and clerics last week gathered in Delhi under the banner of World Sufi Forum and spoke of the need to educate young Muslims about the peace-loving nature of Islam. At the end of their meeting, they vowed to stem the tide of radicalisation but, in an internet-connected world where propaganda and brainwashing are only a click away, these leaders face an uphill task.

While efforts are on to keep young Muslims away from radical elements, the government of India will need to sensitise state governments and security officials on Salafis. Some would argue that there was no reason to complain if people sought to reform and return to the original teachings of Islam. It would, however, be a grave reason for concern and intervention if in their zeal to reform, they force people or indoctrinate followers that would put them on a path of violence.

For a democratic government where most state governments and police set-ups lack understanding and knowledge of the ideas and threat posed by Salafis, it would be tough to stem the tide of growing influence of ultra-conservatives.

Several Muslim communities across the country have been unsuccessful in their attempts to stop Salafis from gaining a foothold in their local mosques and among sections of young Muslims.

Developments in Belgium should be a wake-up call for the government of India.

In the coming days when Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes an official visit to Saudi Arabia, it might be a good time to make note of the danger of humouring the Kingdom that has gained notoriety for exporting ultra-conservative ideology across the globe, including India.
Beijing: A total of 17 people have been detained in China following the publication of a letter calling on President Xi Jinping to resign.

The letter was posted earlier this month on state-backed website Wujie News. Although quickly deleted by the authorities, a cached version can still be found online, BBC reported.

In most countries, the contents of the letter would be run-of-the-mill political polemic. "Dear Comrade Xi Jinping, we are loyal Communist Party members," it begins, and then cuts to the chase. "We write this letter asking you to resign from all party and state leadership positions."

But in China, of course, and in particular on a website with official links, this kind of thing is unheard of and there have already been signs of a stern response. The detention of prominent columnist Jia Jia was widely reported to be in connection with the letter.

BBC spoke to a staff member at Wujie who on the condition of anonymity said that 16 other people were "taken away" in addition to Jia Jia. That included six colleagues who work directly for the website, including a senior manager and a senior editor, and 10 other people who work for a technology-related company, the source said.

The letter focused its anger on what it said was President Xi's "gathering of all power" in his own hands, and it accused him of major economic and diplomatic miscalculations as well as "stunning the country" by placing further restrictions on freedom of speech.

The latter was a reference to Xi's visit last month to state-run TV and newspaper offices, where he told journalists that their primary duty was to obey the Communist Party.

The idea that any Chinese editor of sane mind would knowingly publish such a document seems so unlikely that there has been speculation amongst some Chinese journalists in private that Wujie was either hacked or had perhaps been using some kind of automatic trawling and publishing software.

Such theories may explain the detention of the 10 technology staff. After the letter was deleted, the Wujie website was inaccessible for a while, but is now up and running again. Despite doubts over the letter's authenticity, it has attracted wide attention from the foreign media although found no coverage within China. Some observers have noted that it comes alongside other outspoken criticisms of President Xi's policies towards the control of the media.

IANS
The conflict raging in Yemen has found an echo in India, with fears growing over the alleged abduction of an Indian priest by the Islamic State. Reports are now suggesting that he may be crucified on Good Friday on 25 March. The incident has put the spotlight back on the country, which has been seeing large-scale violence and civilian strife for a year and a half.

Here are the key facts relating to the case:

-The priest, Father Tom Uzhunnalil was said to have been abducted after militants stormed an old age home on 4 March. The old age home is in Aden in Yemen. The gunmen killed 16 people, including four nuns, in the shootout,

UK-based newspaper Daily Mirror reported

-Earlier, this month, Missionaries of Charity spokeswoman Sunita Kumar said in Kolkata that Father Tom Uzhunnalil was handcuffed and taken away by the attackers when they stormed the retirement home in Aden.

-In a Sunday message at Vatican City, Pope Francis called the nuns who were killed as "today's martyrs" and rued that there appeared to be global indifference towards the incident. "They do not make the front pages of the newspapers, they do not make the news. They have given their blood for the Church," he said.

-Church officials from Bengaluru, however, have dismissed reports of his torture as rumours and said that they have "absolutely no information on the priest", as per the report on the website UCA News. The officials have said that the church is in constant touch with the government and that the foreign ministry is said to have stepped up efforts to locate Father Uzhunnalil.

-On 6 March, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted-

Yemen is a conflict zone.We do not have Embassy there.But we will spare no efforts to rescue Father Tom Uzhunnalil. https://t.co/9fsteD712b  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 6, 2016

Yemen has been gripped by violence since September 2014, when Iran-backed Huthi rebels stormed the capital Sana'a and forced the internationally recognised government to flee south to the city of Aden.

More than 6,300 people have been killed in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition began an air war in March last year to push back an offensive by the Huthi rebels, who control Sana'a.

Previous UN-sponsored negotiations between the Shiite rebels and government officials failed to reach a breakthrough, while a ceasefire went into force on 15 December, but it was repeatedly violated and the Saudi-led coalition announced an end to the truce on 2 January.

With inputs from agencies
Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge its protest over "subversive activities" of an alleged RAW officer, a day after Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested him.

"The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary on Friday and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Thursday identified the "official" as Kul Yadav Bhushan who he alleged was a commander-ranking officer in the Indian Navy and was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Bugti claimed that Bhushan was in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fueling sectarian violence in Balochistan.

The Minister, however, did not disclose the exact location of where he was arrested.

However, sources said that Bhushan was arrested from Chaman area of Balochistan, which is close to the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.

Reacting to the development, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson in New Delhi Vikas Swarup said the matter was raised on Friday by Pakistan's Foreign Secretary with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad.

"The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought

consular access to him.

"India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," he said.

Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer.

India has dismissed all such allegations.

PTI
Brussels: Key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has "invoked his right to silence" and not spoken to investigators since a few brief interviews on Saturday, the day after his dramatic arrest in central Brussels, the federal prosecutor said Friday.

The prosecutor's comment comes after a Belgian minister said Abeslam had stopped talking to investigators since Tuesday's bombings at the city airport and metro.

A statement from the prosecutor said on Friday that that because Abdeslam was wounded in the leg and needed hospital treatment after his March 18 arrest, investigators waited until the following day, Saturday March 19, to question him.

A first round of questioning began at 8:00 am (0700 GMT), lasted two hours and went over the details of the November 13 Paris attacks which left 130 people dead, a statement said.

A second round took place later the same day, with the examining magistrate detailing the grounds of his arrest for about an hour, it said.

The hearing then turned to the European Arrest Warrant issued by the French authorities seeking his extradition to France "but during this last session, Abdeslam invoked his right to silence and has made no further comment", the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor said investigators saw Abdeslam again on Tuesday, immediately after the bomb attacks on Brussels airport and the metro which killed 31 people and wounded some 300.

On this occasion, Abdeslam "refused to make the slightest declaration," the statement said.

Belgian Justice minister Koen Geens earlier told parliament that Abdeslam had stopped cooperating with police.

"The federal prosecutor has just informed me that Salah Abdeslam no longer wants to talk since the attacks on Zaventem and the Brussels metro," Geens told a parliament committee on Friday looking into the attacks.

AFP
Dane, Wisconsin: Ted Cruz branded Donald Trump a "snivelling coward" Thursday as the feud between the Republican presidential contenders over their wives took a nastier turn.

After an earlier and vague threat to "spill the beans" about Heidi Cruz, Trump stoked the spat on Twitter when he retweeted side-by-side images of Cruz's wife, with an unflattering grimace, and his wife, Melania, in a glamorous pose.

Ted Cruz, campaigning in Wisconsin, was livid.

"Leave Heidi the hell alone," Cruz said, speaking through reporters to Trump.

"Donald does seem to have an issue with women," he said. "Donald doesn't like strong women. Strong women scare Donald."

Trump was set off this week when a group that opposes him released an ad before the Utah presidential contest raising questions about the propriety of Melania Trump becoming first lady. The ad showed a provocative, decade-old magazine photo of her when she was a model and before she married Trump.

Trump wrongly attributed the ad to the Cruz campaign and warned on Twitter:

Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

Lyin' Ted Cruz denied that he had anything to do with the G.Q. model photo post of Melania. That's why we call him Lyin' Ted!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

Trump has a substantial lead in the delegate chase for the Republican nomination. Cruz has a stiff challenge trying to catch him in remaining races and may only have a shot at the nomination if the contest spills into the summer convention.

But the war of words about wives (WoWaW, anyone?) didn't stop there.

Here's how Cruz and Trump continued this oh-so-grown-up debate:

Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life. https://t.co/pprXhIMzUT  Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 24, 2016

Ted Cruz has DENOUNCED the ad, and said spouses are OFF LIMITS!  Cruz spokeswoman Stewart https://t.co/g9xOxx3Urq pic.twitter.com/EYqRrZ5PCB  The Right Scoop (@TheRightScoop) March 24, 2016

I didn't start the fight with Lyin'Ted Cruz over the GQ cover pic of Melania, he did. He knew the PAC was putting it out - hence, Lyin' Ted!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

Wow, just released that $67 million in negative ads was spent on me. How am I still number one - by a lot?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

But, both men have a presidential nomination to secure, so they soon returned to slightly more 'normal' exchanges:

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Mar 24, 2016 at 8:54am PDT

Ted Cruz says Donald Trump has "very little understanding of foreign policy" https://t.co/77h5QGB8Lw #WADR pic.twitter.com/5FuG1jBmXs  Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) March 24, 2016

And that's when things took a turn for the slightly crazy and Trump sent out a series of tweets that we feel could have possibly been made in a state of slight inebriation:

These politicians like Cruz and Graham, who have watched ISIS and many other problems develop for years, do nothing to make things better!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

Just announced that as many as 5000 ISIS fighters have infiltrated Europe. Also, many in U.S. I TOLD YOU SO! I alone can fix this problem!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

Europe and the U.S. must immediately stop taking in people from Syria. This will be the destruction of civilization as we know it! So sad!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

Remember when I recently said that Brussels is a "hell hole" and a mess and the failing @nytimes wrote a critical article. I was so right!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

It is amazing how often I am right, only to be criticized by the media. Illegal immigration, take the oil, build the wall, Muslims, NATO!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

I will be the best by far in fighting terror. Im the only one that was right from the beginning, & now Lyin Ted & others are copying me.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

Bottomline: Trump told you so!

With inputs from AP
New York: Ted Cruz on Friday angrily slammed as "garbage" allegations from a US tabloid magazine that he had affairs with five mistresses and he accused Republican rival Donald Trump of concocting the explosive story.

The National Enquirer splashed the alleged scandal across the front page of its April 4 edition, screaming "It's Over For Pervy Ted." The magazine touted "an explosive 'dirt file' on the finger-wagging conservative senator" but did not identify or quote any of the alleged mistresses in its online version.

"Let me be clear, this National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies," Cruz told reporters from the campaign trail in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. "It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen."

He repeated the denial online.

"For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won't go," Cruz said on his official Facebook page.

"These smears are completely false, they're offensive to Heidi and me, they're offensive to our daughters, and they're offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack."

Cruz campaign adviser Jason Johnson tweeted links to a report that Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker had been friends for years.

Trump denied having anything to do with the story.

"Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin Ted Cruz."

The magazine in 2007 broke the politically -- and personally -- damaging story of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Edwards's extramarital affair as his wife battled cancer.

Trump and Cruz this week escalated their bitter feud by clashing over their wives. An anti-Trump political group used a photograph of Trump's wife, Melania, a former model, lying nude in his private jet.

The angry real estate mogul hit back by posting on Twitter a photograph of his wife next to an unflattering photograph of Cruz's wife Heidi, a Goldman Sachs banker on leave to campaign for her husband.

AFP
Istanbul: Two top Turkish journalists go on trial Friday accused of espionage and other serious crimes and facing possible life in prison over a story about Turkey's role in the Syrian conflict that infuriated strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem Gul, his Ankara bureau chief, are due in court in Istanbul on charges of revealing state secrets "for espionage purposes", seeking to "violently" overthrow the government and aiding an "armed terrorist organisation".

The pair have already spent three months in pre-trial detention over the story in the leading opposition newspaper in May, which accused the government of seeking to illicitly deliver arms to rebels in Syria.

The report sparked a furore, fuelling speculation about the government's role in the Syrian conflict and its alleged ties to Islamist groups in the country.

Erdogan personally warned Dundar he would "pay a heavy price" for the story.

Prosecutors have asked for the journalists to be sentenced to two life terms and 30 additional years.

On February 26, the journalists were released from prison to jubilant scenes after the Constitutional Court -- one of the last Turkish institutions that Erdogan does not have under his full control -- ruled their right to free speech had been violated.

Their release enraged Turkey's leader of the last 13 years, who declared he had "no respect" for the court decision, even threatening the bench with dissolution.

'Turkish state on trial'

Dundar, 54, has vowed to turn his trial on its head by putting the authorities in the dock.

"We are not going to defend ourselves, we will put the crimes of the state on trial," he told a press conference this month.

On Friday, Dundar will publish a new book entitled "Tutuklandik" ("We Have Been Arrested"), in which he promises to reveal how the paper obtained the information about the Turkish weapons deliveries and took the decision to publish it.

The prosecution of the journalists has sparked outrage among opposition and rights groups in Turkey as well as in the West, where it is seen as proof of Erdogan's determination to silence his opponents.

"The trial of Dundar and Gul is a test for the state of law in Turkey," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

"Their release was encouraging but things are only beginning now," he added.

In a letter to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, published in Britain's Guardian newspaper on the eve of the trial, over 100 leading authors, including Canada's Margaret Atwood and Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, called for the charges against the journalists to be dropped.

Almost 2,000 people have been prosecuted for "insulting" Erdogan since the former premier became president in August 2014, Turkey's justice minister said earlier this month.

Around that time, the opposition Zaman daily, which is allied to Erdogan's arch-enemy, the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, was forcibly placed under state supervision.

"What happened to my newspaper is not an isolated incident, it is part of a continuing trend... of repression on the part of the government," Zaman's foreign editor Mustafa Edib Yilmaz told AFP.

AFP
Washington: Expressing concern over India's recent ballistic missile launch, the US has said such actions could potentially "increase" the risk to nuclear security and have an impact on regional security.

"We're concerned by any nuclear and missile developments that could potentially increase the risk to nuclear security risk or lower the threshold for nuclear use," the state department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters. "So we continue to urge all states with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint regarding their missile and nuclear capabilities," Toner said, when asked about a recent ballistic missile test by India.

He said the state department had shared its concerns with New Delhi. "We are concerned," he reiterated. "We are concerned about those kind of actions what they do for regional security."

While his answer was general in nature, a senior state department official pointed out that it included India and the spokesperson's response was against India-specific question. "Yes," Toner said when asked if the US had raised its concerns with India on its ballistic missile programme.

A day earlier, he had refrained from going into specifics of America's bilateral conversations with India on this issue. "I don't want to get into the specifics of our bilateral conversations with India, but we've long encouraged efforts to promote confidence building, stability, and discourage any actions that might destabilise the region," he had said.

India successfully launched an indigenously-developed, nuclear capable K-4 ballistic missile from a submerged platform in the Bay of Bengal recently.

PTI
Washington: US forces killed the Islamic State group's second-in-command this week, dealing a blow to the extremists' ability to conduct operations in Iraq, Syria and abroad, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Friday.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter told reporters, referring also to the killing early in the month of Omar al-Shishani, the man known as "Omar the Chechen," who was effectively IS's defense minister.

The latest killing "will hamper the ability for them to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria," Carter said of Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, referring to him as Haji Imam. He said al-Qaduli served as the group's finance minister and had been behind some foreign plots.

"The momentum of this campaign is now clearly on our side," the defense secretary said, adding that "we're broadening both the weight and the nature of our attacks on ISIL."

Carter declined to say whether al-Qaduli had been killed by a drone strike or in a bombing raid involving manned aircraft; nor would he specify whether the attack occurred in Syria or Iraq, though he said that any action in Iraq would only have been taken with Iraqi government approval.

The US Justice Department had offered a bounty of up to $7 million for information leading to al-Qaduli.

"A few months ago when I said we were going to go after ISIL's financial infrastructure, we started with storage sites, and now we've taken out the leader who oversees their finances, hurting their ability to pay and hire recruits," Carter said.

Carter was asked whether al-Qaduli could have had a link to the November terror attacks in Paris or to this week's bombings in Belgium and said he could not confirm a specific link to the Brussels attacks.

But whether Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria like al-Qaduli had specifically directed or simply inspired such attacks, the US-led forces would do their best to eliminate them, Carter said.

"Our campaign plan is first and foremost to collapse ISIL's parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, focusing on the power centers in Raqqa and Mosul," he said.

- Fight not over

Carter said local forces supported by the US-led coalition had "severed the main artery between Syria and northern Iraq," making it "much harder for ISIL's leaders and forces to travel between Raqa and Mosul."

But to a reporter's question of whether the US-led forces had turned a corner in their fight against IS, Carter and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, struck a measured tone.

"While ISIL has not been able to seize ground in the past several months, that hasn't precluded them from conducting terrorist attacks or operations more than the conventional operations," Dunford said. "I think the momentum is in our favor."

But, he added, "By no means would I say we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over."

Al-Qaduli was born in Mosul, according to Iraqi security sources. He was in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

He joined al-Qaeda in 2004, and became a deputy to the feared Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006 by an American drone strike.

Al-Qaduli was captured and imprisoned, but joined the Islamic State group in Syria after he was freed in 2012.

AFP
A new UK poster and trailer have arrived online for the upcoming comedy drama A Hologram for the King which reunites director Tom Tykwer with his Cloud Atlas star Tom Hanks; check them out below

Cultures collide when an American businessman (Tom Hanks) is sent to Saudi Arabia to close what he hopes will be the deal of a lifetime. Baffled by local customs and stymied by an opaque bureaucracy, he eventually finds his footing with the help of a wise-cracking taxi driver (Alexander Black) and a beautiful Saudi doctor (Sarita Choudhury).

A Hologram for the King is set for release on April 22nd in the States and on May 20th in the UK.



[soundcloud url=https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/197064794 params=auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false width=100% height=150 iframe=true /]
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Sony Corporation today announced that it plans to split out and establish its semiconductor business as a wholly owned subsidiary in April 2016. The company is also exploring to split its Imaging Products and Solutions Sector. In addition to Game & Network Services, Mobile Communications, Pictures, Music, Sony split out its TV business in July 2014 , followed by its Video & Sound business in October 2015.

As the company already announced, operations that resided within Sony Corporation, including the Consumer AV Sales Platform, the Manufacturing, Logistics, Procurement, Quality and Environmental Platform for Sonys electronics business, as well as certain cloud-based platforms and service-related businesses, will each be transferred to the related Sony Group companies.

The company has also made changes to executive assignments and system that will be effective from April. The company will appoint four executives, currently in charge of four of the Sony Groups business segments, as Corporate Executive Officers of Sony Corporation. They, together with the six existing Corporate Executive Officers, will assume ultimate responsibility for the Sony Groups management within the scope assigned to them by the Companys Board of Directors, said the company.

Once the splitting out of these functions has been completed, Sony Corporation will focus on the following Group headquarters functions: Headquarters: Responsibility for the Sony Groups overall strategy and governance, and oversight of their execution

R&D: Leadership of Sonys differentiation and creativity through technological innovation

New Business: Incubation of new businesses in areas beyond Sonys current business domains

Brand Design: To enhance Sonys brand value and implement horizontal Group-wide initiatives

Professional Services: To support the operations of the Sony Group following the completion of the splitting out process
Starbucks enraged a large number of its unwavering clients when it declared enormous changes to its rewards program a month ago and now the coffee giant has uncovered another rewards related activity.

It's planning to present a prepaid Starbucks Rewards prepaid card with Chase Bank, a reloadable prepaid card that permits clients to earn stars for all card purchases made anywhere that Visa is acknowledged.

The recently revamped rewards program introduced in mid-April with the prepaid card set to be accessible before the year's over.

Schultz talked the red cup controversy that worked the web into frenzy over the holidays. Schultz pulled out a red cup and the audience started shouting as he mentioned, "It's amazing, I pull out a red cup and you know what I'm going to say."

"It's just a red cup," he said, while observing that the controversy resulted in 8 billion social media impressions for Starbucks. "The stock went down that week because people convinced themselves we were going to have a bad holiday. As you know, we had a record Christmas quarter."

Regardless of whether red cup will return for the 2016 Christmas season, that is impossible to say for the time being, as Schultz isn't stating just yet according to Eater.

Not surprisingly, the do-gooder CEO is focused on the more charitable part of his multibillion dollar corporation, saying "Our core purpose and reason for being is to grow the company, to provide enduring value for you (investors), and build a business in which our people are proud to work for Starbucks... We're doing everything we can as a company to improve the lives of the people we serve."

This week the company reported it would give its entire leftover ready to-eat food to local food banks.

Starbucks is additionally going to introduce some new options to its retail lineup like a bottled adaptation of its cold brew espresso that will be accessible at both Starbucks areas and supermarkets and another line of Starbucks Latte K-cups in caramel, mocha and vanilla flavors.

The company is additionally getting ready to launch its ready to drink bottled coffee items to Asia, where it's right now making a major push with 2,500 new stores planned for China according to The Daily Meal.
Two Milwaukee ladies took the Burger King trademark "have it your way" a little too seriously a month ago. 41-year-old Latonia Howell entered a Milwaukee Burger King on Saturday, February 27.

After trying to use different coupons to pay for her order, she was informed by a Burger King employee that the company's policy only let one coupon to be utilized per order. Howell supposedly got to be irate and as she left the eatery, she let the clerk realize that she would be coming back with her daughter to thrash her.

Howell came back 15 to 20 minutes later with her daughter, 21-year-old Jasmeika Simon, in tow. After intimidating the employee, "Don't ever disrespect my mom," Simon supposedly continued to hit her in the face. Before leaving, Simon threatened to "go get her gun".

Both ladies face crime allegations of physical abuse of a child with intention to bring about real harm. In a meeting with police, Howell confessed to telling the worker that she would have her daughter "kick her ass" and said she "felt the female cashier was being rude to her."

Simon told police she trusted the employee was inconsiderate to her mom and in this way needed to threaten her. Both ladies faced up to six years in prison and $10,000 in fines if sentenced according to the Eater.

When touched for statement by Eater, Burger King gave the following testimonial: "The franchise owner, who independently owns and operates this restaurant, assisted authorities to help bring resolution to this unfortunate incident. Thankfully, the employee has fully recovered."

There's something about fast food that makes several clients get somewhat rough. Last February, a lady smashed her auto into a Pizza Hut after a representative lost her order and in June, a trio of friends attacked Taco Bell workers and clients in the wake of being unsatisfied with their food according to Nbc15.
The Easter Basket Drive of Northern New Jersey was born out of a simple desire to do something for the homeless children.

Sixteen years ago Maria Koukoularis wanted to do something for children living in the homeless shelters in New Jersey. Easter, the day celebrated to remember the resurrection of Jesus seemed to be the perfect day to instill hope in these little ones. This initiative that was started in 2001 grew over the past sixteen years.

When Kouloularis started the initiative, she collected money from friends and made 150 Easter baskets for the little ones. However, now it has grown and there are many volunteers pitching in their support in this thoughtful initiative. This year witnessed 3000 Easter baskets in the community room of the Woodland Park borough hall. On Easter, the baskets will be offered to kids living in shelters in Passaic, Bergen, Essex, Morris and Sussex counties.

The Easter basket will include things like crayons to draw, books to read, toys and games to play.

During this national event, people around the place donate candy, and other sweet treats to the drive for the homeless living in these shelters. Over the years, schools like Morris Knolls High School also donated to this drive making the initiative bigger and bigger every year.

Maria says that there are children in need, and our children should be aware of other children in need. Her goal is to make her own daughter also aware of the needs of the children. In fact, Julia Romas, her 6 year old daughter is one of her volunteer.

In 2015, Koukoularis was honored for her thoughtful initiative during a Woodland Park Borough Council meeting.

Her drive has changed the dynamics of Easter in the North Jersey area. The drive is just growing bigger and more and more children and adults are doing their bit to support these children who need help.
Colorado residents are put on the decision-maker board toward the latest ballot initiatives regarding whether liquor should be 'equally treated' like beers and wines on store shelves.

Reported by the Coloradoan, the proposal is presented by a group of global liquor traders that seek a license to sell their products anywhere beer and wine sold. Furthermore, the submitted initiative also highlights the permission request to allow the selling of alcohol in 10 locations statewide and not one as legally permitted under the Colorado's law.

The current regulation allows grocery stores sell beer with 3.2% alcohol but for big supermarkets like Target - they're permitted to have one retail store in the state for selling wine, liquor and beer in full strength. The change would mean something to the consumers as they could have more choices on alcohol beverages.

Distilled Spirits Council vice president, Dale Szyndrowski explained the proposed ballot measures are about 'consumer convenience'. Your Choice Colorado has shown full support by saying, "It's what people want" - in regards to the change of expansion in liquor sales - allowing whiskey, vodka and many other distilled spirits to be put on shelves in grocery stores alongside beer and wine.

Georgie Aguirre-Sacasa as the group manager added that the effort is part of the consumer convenience that leaders and legislators have to compromise about.

The proposed initiative, however, has to counter independent microbrewers such as liquor store, distillers and vintners. They refuse any type of plan for the expansion. Colorado Local representative, Ben Davis, said that the reason is unacceptable since craft beer, wine and liquor have progressed positively in Colorado. "Growing grocery store profits is a poor reason to risk what we've built here in Colorado," he added.

With the two ballot measures being submitted, the decision is in Colorado voters' hand, whether to approve the equal treatment or not.
Arguing that too-specific warnings could be detrimental to the consumers' health, California decided to delay the implementation on a state-required warning label on cans that are lined with the chemical BPA, according to an L.A. Time Associated Press article.

Apparently, the decision not to push through with the labeling on cans with BPA liners is based on the argument that putting the warnings on the items themselves might scare stores and shoppers in poor neighborhoods, whose access to fruits and vegetables are limited to the canned ones.

In lieu of the labeling on metal cans, California would require stores to post a more general warning to be located at checkout counters by May 11. The general warning will outline the dangers of BPA and will inform customers that some canned and bottled products have liners that contain the chemical.

Of course not everybody was pleased with this latest announcement. Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles Executive Director Martha Dina Arguello described the decisions as ridiculous and paternalistic. Arguello added that "I just can't imagine that it's a better idea not to let us know what's in our food."

Even shoppers are dismayed by the change of plans. Carrie Del Signore, a Sacramento shopper, was quoted in a KCRA article as saying, "I'd like to know whether or not it'll kill me or mess up my body in some way."

Another Sacramento shopper, John Walldow said: "The more information you get, the better because you know there's a lot of things we don't know."

The highlights the recent trend of consumers getting pickier with their shopping choices and puts pressure on food companies to be more honest in divulging information that might be used as a basis for their purchases.

What is BPA?

Created in 1891 by a Russian chemist, BPA or Bisphenol-A is a chemical used to create plastics and resins. Currently, epoxy resins containing BPA are used to line or coat the inside of metal products like bottle tops, water supply lines and food cans according to a MayoClinic article by Brent Bauer, M.D. In addition, certain plastic food containers contain BPA where it is feared that heating these plastic containers could potentially release the chemical to the food being stored.

According to a Dr. Mercola article, BPA could have the following effects:

1. Increase blood pressure

2. Structural damage to your brain

3. Changes in gender-specific behavior, and abnormal sexual behavior

4. Hyperactivity increased aggressiveness, and impaired learning

5. Increased fat formation and risk of obesity

6. Altered immune function

7. Early puberty, stimulation of mammary gland development, disrupted reproductive cycles, ovarian dysfunction, and infertility

8. Stimulation of prostate cancer cells

9. Increased prostate size and decreased sperm production

However, the FDA continues to insist that BPA is safe according to a Newsweek article. FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman is quoted in the article as saying "BPA used in food packaging does not present a risk to consumer health."
Christians celebrate Easter as a day to commemorate Christ's resurrection while in certain other cultures it is a day to welcome spring. Here are some of the more unconventional ways some countries do their Easter festivities as compiled by Fox News and Atlantic.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia: In both countries, women can expect to get a whipping. As a part of the Easter tradition, men beat girls and women with decorated handmade whips. However, the whipping is not intended to be painful. It is believed that whipping on the Easter day makes women more healthy and beautiful.

Australia: Usually, all over the world it is the Easter Bunny that brings in the chocolates and hides the eggs, but in Australia it is the Easter Bilby that brings them. One reason behind this interesting change is to both create awareness on the bilby, which is an endangered species in Australia, and promotes dislike towards the bunnies which destroy the crops. On Easter, chocolate bilbies are usually made.

Poland and parts of Russia: It's traditional to have a butter lamb as the centerpiece of Easter dinner. No, this isn't some type of butter-heavy way to cook lamb, but instead a giant hunk of butter that has been sculpted into the shape of a lamb. The lamb represents the beginning of spring, and the butter represents an easy way to give you a holiday heart attack - or something like that.

Fredericksburg, Texas, USA: Lighting fires on hillsides may not sound totally safe, or even sacred, but this local ritual pays homage to the history of the small Texan town. Based on an age-old fable from early German settlers way back in 1840, legend has it that the pilgrims went to make a peace treaty with the neighbouring Comanche tribe.

In turn, the Comanche warriors lit fires on the hills of Fredericksburg to signify to fellow tribesmen that there was no hostility between the new settlers and the indigenous community. As the fires burned high the German settlers' children became worried and to calm them the wives told the children the fires were, in fact, the Easter bunny burning eggs in preparation for the festivities. Today that story is remembered via the Easter Fires of Fredericksburg Pageant, where the town gets together to celebrate the peace treaty and the significance of Easter by re-enacting their inventive story.
Can marijuana's expansion be stopped? The answer at the state level looks to be a resounding "No!"

Since California became the first state to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes two decades prior, a grand total of 23 states have legalized its medical use, with the latest being New York. It now appears that the 24th state to legalize marijuana could be right around the corner.

Say hello to the 24th medical marijuana state?

Earlier this month the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 3, which seeks to legalize medical marijuana in liquid, pill, and oil formulations, by a vote of 149-43. Senate Bill 3 was passed by the Pennsylvania Senate in May 2015 by a vote of 40-7, but the House vote wound up passing the bill with more than 200 amendments to the original bill.

The primary change involved the number of ailments that medical marijuana would be approved to treat. The bill approved by the House earlier this month narrowed down marijuana's potential prescription scope to just over a dozen ailments, including epilepsy, glaucoma, and cancer, three of the most common treatments marijuana is aiming to treat , as well as HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's disease, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The next step in the process involves the Pennsylvania Senate once again passing Senate Bill 3. Should the Senate indeed vote in favor Senate Bill 3, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf needs only to sign the bill to make it a law -- and he's previously stated that if the bill reached his desk he would do exactly that.

The importance of another possible marijuana approval

Like other medical-marijuana initiatives, Pennsylvania's law would seek to put some limitations on the number of growers and dispensaries within the state and would generate tax revenue and licensing fees along the way. The House aimed to establish a limit of 25 growers and up to 50 dispensaries (and each dispensary could have up to three locations), and the growers-processors would pay a 5% tax on gross receipts from dispensaries. Although no tax and fee revenue estimates are available, the important thing worth noting is that this additional revenue could go to fund education, law enforcement, and additional clinical research.

This isn't the first time we've seen lawmakers bypassing the typical process of bringing an issue to vote with the residents of a state. Lawmakers in Vermont have been contemplating bypassing traditional voting measures and legalizing recreational marijuana in the state legislature. Of course, it remains to be seen if Vermont's lawmakers have enough support to pass a recreational marijuana measure.

But one thing is for sure: Marijuana's expansion is precisely what the American public, as a whole, wants to see. An October Gallup poll pegged national support of the drug at 58%, up dramatically from the 25% in favor of its legalization back in the mid-1990s. Other national polls suggest similar favorability. Approval as it relates to medical marijuana is even stronger in swing states and nationally. A CBS News survey conducted nationally last year showed a whopping 84% favorability toward medical marijuana.

Is this marijuana's breakout year?

This year could prove especially important for marijuana. In addition to seeing Pennsylvania and maybe Vermont passing marijuana laws in their respective legislatures, up to a dozen states could be sending initiatives and amendments to state voters concerning marijuana this November. We know Nevada is locked in for a recreational vote come November, and I would fully expect states such as California and Ohio to join as well. Additionally, campaigning in Florida is pushing toward another run at approving medical marijuana.

State-level approvals are great because they demonstrate, in many instances, what Americans as a whole want to see. These approvals are also generating much-needed tax and licensing revenue for these select states. It's important to remember that marijuana taxes and licensing fees only affect marijuana businesses and consumers who purchase the product. Since it won't affect the vast majority of the population within approved and voting states, marijuana taxes are typically looked upon quite favorably by both lawmakers and residents.

In Colorado, recreational and medical tax revenue, as well as licensing revenue, totaled $135 million in 2015, up from around $80 million in 2014. At least $35 million of this collected revenue has been earmarked for Colorado schools, with additional funds being funneled to Colorado's law enforcement and drug abuse programs.

Marijuana's bifurcation is likely to continue

Yet for each state-level success, a brick wall continues to exist at the Congressional level. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are in no rush to reconsider the current schedule 1 status of marijuana, which implies that it's illicit and has no medical benefits.

For starters, politics do indeed come into play. Since it's an election year, and marijuana is only now moving to a point where it's no longer considered taboo, neither President Obama nor Congress has marijuana on a "to do list" in 2016. If marijuana reform is going to happen, it's not going to be until the next president takes office.

The other issue here is that lawmakers don't feel as if they have a genuine understanding of the risks and benefits of marijuana. Research into marijuana has been focusing on its adverse effects for decades whereas its benefits have been researched only within the past decade or so. It can take time before clinical studies reveal the data that lawmakers are looking for in order to make an educated decision. In the meantime, lawmakers appear likely to sit on their hands.

This marijuana bifurcation is actually bad news for the industry as a whole. Inaction at the federal level dooms marijuana businesses into paying excessively high income taxes to the IRS since they can't write off normal business deductions, and it stymies business expansion since the vast majority of banks want nothing to do with marijuana, an illegal plant at the federal level. Without access to credit and even checking accounts, it creates an expansionary and safety concern for marijuana businesses.

Thus, while state-level expansion could continue in the near term, the investable aspect of marijuana still appears extremely risk in a best-case scenario.
With the circuit set to host Formula One racing for the first time on June 17-19, Tilke says the layout and setting will present drivers with a completely original challenge.

"Baku City Circuit stands out due to many factors," Tilke told the circuit's official website. "Baku, of course, is not comparable with any of the permanent circuits, because it is a city circuit - but even when compared to city circuits Baku is unique. Baku City Circuit is expected be the fastest street circuit on the F1 calendar.

"The track loop around the city's historical centre will create a unique and remarkable atmosphere for fans watching in the grandstands and at home - this is exactly what makes it so appealing.

"There is no track like [it] - it will be one of the most exciting ones on the calendar. [It] will be the worlds fastest city circuit."

Fernando Alonso, who visited Baku earlier in March as part of his role as ambassador for the race, echoed Tilke's sentiments.

"It is unique, you cannot compare it to other circuits," the Spaniard explained after driving the layout for the first time. "It's good both for drivers and in terms of the show for spectators.

"Here you have the opportunity for overtaking, many different actions, very high speeds - around 340 km an hour, it is first time in the history that a street track will reach this high speed. It is the fastest street track and it will be an unbelievable show."

Tilke said early simulations predicted lap times would be around 1m 41s, although that could be faster depending "on the individual set-up of the racing cars and on the developments of this year's new cars".
Image source: Accenture.

Accenture reported second-quarter results before Thursday's opening bell. The provider of technical and professional services to other businesses delivered strong results, and Accenture shares rose more than 6% on Thursday to set fresh all-time highs.

Accenture's results: The raw numbers

Q2 2016 Actuals Q2 2015 Actuals Growth (YOY) Revenue $7.95 billion $7.49 billion 6.1% Net Income Attributable to Accenture $1,327 million $691 million 92% GAAP EPS (diluted) $2.08 $1.08 93%

Source: Business Wire.

What happened with Accenture this quarter? This was a solid performance across the board. Four of Accenture's five operating divisions saw double-digit revenue growth in local currencies, and the company booked $9.5 billion of fresh contracts in the quarter.

Accenture sailed past the top end of its own revenue guidance for the second quarter, thanks to strong sales of consulting services worldwide.

The GAAP earnings above were inflated by the sale of travel and tourism information service Navitaire to travel specialist Amadeus. That $830 million deal added $0.74 per share to Accenture's bottom line. Even without that one-time boost, Accenture's adjusted earnings of $1.34 per share represented a 24% lift from the year-ago period, and left analysts flat-footed.

Earnings were helped by solid operating results, but lifted even further by share buybacks and a lower effective tax rate. The tax benefit came from the completion of audits on Accenture's 2014 taxes, along with a less taxing geographical business mix.

Looking ahead, Accenture's management sees currency headwinds fading while the company takes advantage of the second quarter's gains.

Third-quarter sales are seen rising about 9% in local currencies, landing near $8.3 billion. The company did not offer any bottom-line or cash flow targets for this period.

Encouraged by this quarter's big sales, Accenture also raised its full-year revenue growth forecast from 7.5% to 9%, all in local currencies. Adjusted earnings are now expected at $6.00 per diluted share. That's up from a previous forecast of $5.17 per share.

What management had to say As always, this overnight surprise was actually a long time in the making. CEO Pierre Nanterme explained how Accenture is starting to reap the rewards of careful planning.

"We are benefiting from the focused investments we are making to rotate our business to new, high-growth areas," Nanterme said. "Our capabilities are clearly resonating with the needs of our clients and differentiating us in the marketplace. At the same time, we continue to manage Accenture with discipline to further enhance our competitiveness."

Looking ahead The refreshed guidance ranges include the impact of somewhat higher expected tax expenses. Still, the rapidly rising revenues should more than make up for that bottom-line concern.

The company is leaning into its highly profitable consulting business at a time when several IT giants are tweaking their business models in that direction. That could be a problem, with rising competition for Accenture's client contracts. But with results like these, it looks like the company formerly known as Andersen Consulting is holding its own in an expanding market.

Accenture shares have now gained 28% over the last 52 weeks, easily outpacing the S&P 500's roughly breakeven chart.

The article Accenture Plc Raises 2016 Guidance on Solid Q2 Results originally appeared on Fool.com.

Anders Bylund has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Accenture. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image: Smith & Wesson.

The stock market closed near the unchanged mark on Thursday, but the session was anything but boring. Stocks initially fell fairly sharply near the open, responding to mixed messages regarding the future course of monetary policy in the U.S. and the state of the global economy more broadly.

Yet in another example of the market's resiliency, major market benchmarks managed to claw their way back upward later in the day. Nevertheless, stock indexes finished the week with a loss for the first time since early February, and Smith & Wesson Holding , Oxford Industries , and Cognex were among the weaker performers in the market on Thursday.

Smith & Wesson fell 9% in response to negative news from elsewhere in the gun sector. Sportsman's Warehouse released its fourth-quarter results after the market closed Wednesday afternoon, and even though the company posted better results for the quarter than investors had expected, its guidance for the current quarter and full fiscal year suggested negative trends that could also affect Smith & Wesson's business.

In particular, the outdoor-sports retailer said that, after a big spike in firearm demand, February showed weaker results in gun sales. Moreover, as the gun-control debate continues, Smith & Wesson faces a longer-term risk that attitudes that have thus far failed to slow its growth could lead to tighter restrictions and less production at some point in the future.

Oxford Industries declined 7% after reporting its own fourth-quarter results Wednesday night. The apparel maker said that sales climbed about 4% for the holiday quarter, helping earnings to inch up from year-earlier levels. Comparable-store sales at its Lilly Pulitzer chain soared 27%, and the Tommy Bahama brand also contributed to Oxford's overall growth.

However, the company's revenue outlook for the current fiscal year was a bit less than expected, in a range of $1.02 billion to $1.04 billion. Moreover, adjusted earnings of $3.75 to $3.95 per share would be well short of the $4 per-share consensus figure among investors. Oxford's outlook suggests a continuing competitive environment for apparel, and that could weigh on the entire industry this year.

Finally, Cognex lost 5%. The maker of technology that drives vision-sensor systems got downgraded by an analyst firm Thursday, and analysts argued that capital expenditures remain weak among the company's potential customer base. In addition, new mobile devices that are harkening back to technology that is not on the cutting edge makes it possible for device manufacturers to use older equipment in their production process, and that could cost Cognex some capacity, as well. With fears that the company might not be able to meet the expectations that investors have for it, Cognex will need to establish its ability to deliver positive surprises and growth, even if the mobile-device market starts to slow down in 2016.

The article Why Smith & Wesson Holding, Oxford Industries, and Cognex Slumped Today originally appeared on Fool.com.

Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Cognex. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Image source: Pixabay.

Taxes. It's perhaps the one word that can elicit feelings of anger, irritation, and frustration, while simultaneously inspiring the feeling that you need to jump around the room due to overwhelming happiness.

On one hand, preparing our taxes can be less than exciting. Taking a walk through our previous year's financial history is often tedious and can require quite a lot of time for some folks -- especially those with complex tax forms where investments or multiple sources of income are involved. The U.S. tax code itself is approaching nearly 4 million words, which is enough to fill in excess of 60 novels. Thanks, but no thanks. Am I right?

But of the roughly 150 million individual tax returns the Internal Revenue Service will receive in a given year, it'll wind up paying a refund to approximately 80% of filers. Based on data from the U.S. Treasury Department in 2014, of the nearly $3.1 trillion in taxes collected, some $373.5 billion was returned to taxpayers. Website Debt.com listed these average refunds on a state-by-state basis, with Connecticut residents pocketing an average of $3,126 at the high end, and Vermont residents bringing up the caboose with an average tax refund of $2,254 in 2014.

All things considered, this isn't half bad. Remember, the average American household brings home about $51,000 annually, so a federal tax refund of $2,254 to $3,126 could make a substantial difference. It can be used to build an emergency fund, be invested in a retirement account, or perhaps pay down debt. Of course, as we've often seen from the results of retailers like Wal-Mart, tax refunds can also be an excuse to spend, spend, spend!

One chart that shows who's paying the majority of income taxes Tax time is critical for the U.S. government as well, since income taxes represent its primary source of government funding. Individual income taxes accounted for 46.2% of all revenue the U.S. government brought in in 2014. The remainder was comprised of payroll taxes (i.e. Social Security and Medicare), corporate tax revenue, excise taxes, and other revenue, which made up 33.9%, 10.6%, 3.1%, and 6.3%, respectively, of the U.S. government's annual revenue according to data from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

But, as a report from the Pew Research Center last year showed, the vast majority of income tax revenue collected by the government comes from a fairly small percentage of the population. When broken down into seven income ranges (note that these don't correspond to our current income tax brackets, but are instead arbitrary ranges chosen based on the data presented), the magnitude of income tax responsibility becomes very apparent.

Chart by author. Data source: Pew Research Center via IRS. Based on data from 2013.

As you can see above, based on data from the IRS in 2013, the richest individual filers wound up paying nearly half of all income taxes (48.9%). Comparatively, though, individuals with annual adjusted gross incomes (AGIs) above $250,000 only accounted for 2.4% of all federal income tax filings. Let's not forget that the U.S. has 42% of the world's millionaires, and about half of all persons with $50 million or more in assets in the world according to CNN. These super rich individuals can certainly skew the curve.

However, we can also see that individuals with AGIs of $200,000-$249,999, $100,000-$199,999, and $50,000-$99,999, also pay a pretty penny themselves. In fact, this last income bracket, which is where the average American household's current income sneaks in (at the bottom end of the range), paid about a sixth of all individual income tax revenue in 2013. Collectively, individuals with adjusted gross incomes above $50,000 paid nearly 94% of all tax revenue collected by the IRS in 2013. Yet only 36.6% of tax filers made over this figure in 2013.

In short, just over a third of taxpayers contribute nearly all of the income tax revenue collected by the IRS.

Three easy ways to reduce your tax liabilityIf you find yourself among this roughly one third of Americans, there are a couple of ways you can consider lowering your effective tax rate.

Image source: Pixabay.

First, if you're making in excess of $50,000 in AGI, it might be worthwhile to consider making charitable contributions to an organization, or multiple organizations, of your choosing. Doing so not only gives you the satisfaction of contributing to a cause you believe in, but you'll be allowed to take a tax deduction that's commensurate with your highest marginal tax bracket.

An example? Let's say your AGI works out to $100,000, which would place you in the 28% peak marginal tax bracket based on the 2016 IRS tax schedule. This means for every dollar you donate you'd receive a $0.28 deduction on your taxes. However, a word of caution: make sure you document your donations for the IRS, and ensure that the organization you're donating to is recognized by the IRS.

Image source: Pixabay.

Another smart move for those with AGIs over $50,000 is to hang onto your investments for longer periods of time. The IRS considers short-term capital gains to be any asset such as stocks or mutual funds held for one year or less. By comparison, a long-term holding is an asset held for a minimum of one year and a day or longer. The difference between the two can be enormous.

Short-term capital gains are taxed at a rate identical to your ordinary income tax rate, whereas long-term capital gains are taxed at a rate of 15%, or 20% for those with individual AGIs in excess of $415,050. If your AGI is $200,000, a short-term capital gain means paying 33% in ordinary tax compared to just 15% in long-term capital gains. That can amount to some hefty savings.

Finally, don't forget about retirement contributions via a Traditional IRA or Roth IRA. A Roth IRA allows your investable money to grow completely free of taxation, but it comes with income limitations of $133,000 for a single filer and $194,000 for married couples. There are also contribution limits that kick in at $117,000 for single filers and $184,000 for couples. But over the course of one's lifetime, not having to pay taxes on investable income within a Roth can be a tremendous boost that could save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A Traditional IRA may allow for a current-year tax deduction and lets your money grow on a tax-deferred basis until you begin making withdrawals between age 59-1/2 and age 70-1/2. But, like a Roth IRA, you'll want to check with the IRS to see if you can take that deduction, or even make a full contribution.

The article 1 Chart That Shows Who Pays the Majority of Income Taxes originally appeared on Fool.com.

Sean Williamshas no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen nameTMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle@TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Source: Amazon

Up in the sky, look: It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Amazon.com .

Generating ample attention in recent weeks, e-commerce powerhouse Amazon plans to create its own air freight service, a move that spells bad news for current delivery partners like FedEx and UPS .

Then this week Amazon moved to deepen its relationship with newfound partner Air Transport Services Group when it exercised the equity options it acquired from their recent deal.

Amazon's latest deal According to a recent SEC filing, Amazon exercised its option to purchase just under 7.1 million shares of Air Transport Services Group stock, which translates into a 9.99% ownership stake in its newfound air freight partner. With a strike price of $9.73 per share, the investment cost Amazon $68.9 million. Not a bad deal for Amazon, given Air Transport Services Group's stock price of $14.31 as of Wednesday's close nets Amazon a nice $32.5 million dollar paper gain on its investment. Per the terms of their original agreement, Amazon retains options to purchase as much as 19.9%of Air Transport Services Group's stock, though it isn't clear whether Amazon will ultimately choose to do so.

For those not immediately familiar, the core of Amazon and Air Transport Services Group's deal will allow the Seattle-based e-commerce leviathan to lease 20 Boeing 767freight airplanes to Amazon's Fulfillment Services division over a period lasting from 5 to 7 years. Amazon will use its new toys to begin handling its own logistics for as much as 15% of the firm's annual shipment volumeby one analyst's reckoning.

However, it's the bigger picture implications of the deal that should truly have FedEx and UPS investors concerned.

Start of something bigger As we should hopefully have learned by now, Amazon typically prefers to operate on as large a scale as possible, and many, myself included, see Amazon's deal with Air Transport Services Group as the start of its push into the global freight and logistics business. As wild as Amazon owning a large percentage of the global supply chain might seem, the idea is actually very much in keeping with Amazon's longtime business strategy.

Over the years, Amazon has developed an impressive knack for creating new businesses that actually help finance its own low-margin e-commerce operations. The two best-known examples of this are Amazon's third-party retail listings on its website and Amazon Web Services. Both initiatives fit squarely within the broader growth strategy Amazon employs, which is known as the Flywheel Strategy.

As the thinking goes, Amazon enjoys a number of levers it can pull to help accelerate its growth, one of which is lowering its costs, which in turn enables Amazon to charge lower prices on its own e-commerce operations. And as wildly ambitious as it might seem, many feel that's what Amazon ultimately hopes to accomplish with its shipping services. Fulfillment costs grew faster than total revenue for the company last year, and now represent the biggest single line item of the firm's operational costs.

Switching fulfillment costs from an activity that drains cash from Amazon's business to one that helps fund its operations could have major competitive implications for the company itself and the likes of FedEx and UPS. So while Amazon is just getting started in what will almost assuredly be a multi-year development period, investors in FedEx and UPS will want to pay close attention to Amazon's growing fulfillment ambitions.

The article As It Eyes the Skies, Amazon.com, Inc Just Deepened Its Relationship with Air Transport Services Group originally appeared on Fool.com.

Andrew Tonner has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and FedEx. The Motley Fool recommends United Parcel Service. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Google's Project Ara logo. Source: Google.

Alphabet's Google could be about to deliver the most revolutionary new tablet in years.

Last month a massive, 13.8-inch tablet from the search giant showed up in GFXBench's database. The benchmarker has been a reliable source of device leaks in recent years. In 2015, the Nexus 6P and LG G4 showed up in its database weeks before they were formally unveiled. According to GFXBench, the device won't come equipped withany particularly impressive hardware, but could be distinguished by something quite radical: modularity.

Google's ambitious plan to reinvent the smartphoneIn 2014, Google announced Project Ara, an innovativeinitiativefrom its AdvancedTechnologiesand Products (ATAP) Group. At the time, Google's team of engineers and designers had set out to remake the smartphone, giving it a feature it has long lacked.

Traditional PCs, most notably desktops and to some extent laptops, have offered a certain degree of modularity for most of their history. Key components, such as hard drives, video cards, RAM modules, and even motherboards, can be swapped out or upgraded over time. In doing so, consumers can extend the lives of their machines, or augment them with greater capabilities whenever they desire.

But the same has never been true of smartphones or tablets. A few can have their storage expanded with microSD cards, but it's virtually impossible to upgrade the camera module, processor, or cellular radio. With the right tools, some users may be able to swap out a cracked screen, but it's certainly not an easy process.

With Project Ara, Google is hoping to change that. Project Ara smartphones are composed of a series of modular bricks, which (almost like Legos) slide into a magnetic skeleton. Each module contains a different component -- say, the camera sensor, or the battery -- which can be swapped out for replacements on the fly. Project Ara phones may not be able to offer the same performance as comparably priced non-modular phones, but over time, the ability to upgrade and replace components could reduce the cost of ownership and lead to a flurry of innovation. It also could put pressure on Google's biggest rival in the smartphone space, Apple , giving Android a unique selling point over the iPhone.

But it was always speculative: Project Ara has never received a firm release date. Last year, at Google's developer conference, the company unveiled a working prototype, which stoked faith that it would eventually see the light of day. Google planned to conduct a public test of the phones in Puerto Rico during the second half of 2015, but late in the summer, announced that the test had been delayed indefinitely.

Since then, there's been little news, and with each passing day, Project Ara runs the risk of becoming vaporware.

Android's lagging tablet successOr at least, that had been the case until last month, when Google's tablet showed up in the GFXBench database. Labeled a Project Ara tablet, it suggests that Google could be expanding its modularity initiative to larger devices. On May 18, Google will hold its 2016 developer conference, and a Project Ara tablet could make for an interesting announcement.

Regardless, there's a good chance this year's Google I/O will center around Android tablets. In recent years, Google has used the conference to announce and detail the latest version of its Android operating system. Earlier this month, Google released an early preview of the next version of Android (Android N) aimed at developers. Android N is likely to include support for a vast array of new features, but the most crucial may center around multitasking.

Last year, Apple gave its iPads multitasking capabilities. With iOS 9, newer iPad models can run two tablet apps simultaneously. Obviously, this allows for much greater productivity and convenience. Some of Google's hardware partners have implemented multitasking capabilities in their own tablets, but to date, the core Android operating system has lacked such a feature. With Android N, that will change, as Google will bring multitasking to stock Android for the first time. Owners of larger Android phones will certainly benefit, but Android tablet owners could see the bigger boost.

Google's mobile operating system powers the majority of the world's smartphones and tablets, but it hasn't had as much success conquering the tablet market as it has the smartphone market. More than 80% of the world's smartphones are powered by Android, but only 68% of the world's tablets use Google's operating system.

In November, research firm Strategy Analytics projected that Google's share of the tablet market would decline in the coming years, falling to just 59% in 2019. Apple would see a slight boost (moving from 22% to 23%), but Windows would be the real winner, nearly doubling its share of the tablet market (from 10% to 18%) at Android's expense.

Android tablets have been cheap, but not very impressive. With a radical new device, and Android N, that could change.

The article Is Google About to Reinvent the Tablet? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Sam Mattera has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
It's never too early to consider how you want your financial affairs to be managed if something happens to you. One solution is to grant a power of attorney (POA) for your investment-account assets to your spouse, sibling, adult child, or close friend -- someone you trust to act wisely and in your best interest.

Many factors determine the type of POA you need, and whether it will hold up when needed. FINRA is issuing this alert to provide tips and information when considering a POA for your investment-account assets.

What is a power of attorney?A POA is a legal document you sign to grant someone you trust with authority to make decisions on your behalf. Based on the authority you grant, this attorney-in-fact, or agent, has the legal right to make the decisions you would make if you were able. Many states require that POA documents be in writing, witnessed and notarized.

A POA can be important -- even essential -- to managing your financial affairs in the event you unexpectedly become unable to manage things on your own. For example, a health issue might land you in a hospital or rehabilitation center for a lengthy period, or you could become mentally incapacitated.

Planning for the future with a POA could minimize complications to achieving your financial goals, but it may feel like a daunting task. Depending on your circumstances, you may want to talk to an attorney who specializes in these types of arrangements.

Power of attorney tipsHere are 10 tips to help you understand, create, and prudently use a POA for your investment-account assets.

1. Don't let anyone pressure you into signing a POAAlways be cautious when giving someone control over your money, and never feel pressured or coerced into signing a POA, taking time to choose wisely. If you feel you are being pressured into signing a POA for your investment assets, take a break, and don't sign the document at that time.

Contact other professionals to get a second opinion, such as your lawyer or financial advisor, and discuss your objectives and concerns. For general information, and if you suspect that your financial professional may be pressuring you into a POA arrangement, you may also contact FINRA's Securities Helpline for Seniors -- HELPS--at (844) 574-3577.

Bear in mind that someone who has a fiduciary responsibility to you should, but might not always, act in your best interest. Unfortunately, some trusted individuals have used POAs for their own benefit rather than the good of the person who granted the POA, taking their assets, or otherwise acting against their interests. POA arrangements have been used as a vehicle for abuse by financial professionals, family members, and trustees, among others, to take advantage of clients, older parents, relatives, and friends.

2. Select an agent who understands your investment goals and objectivesThe most-important qualification for any POA, but especially for one with authority over your investment assets, is that your agent be someone you trust completely. The person to whom you give a POA for your investment accounts should also understand your short- and long-term investment goals and objectives, including how you plan to financially support yourself and your family in the future. You don't have to choose a financial expert, but your agent should have some basic knowledge about investing to be able to make decisions about your investment assets, and communicate effectively with your broker or advisor.

If you have a joint account with your spouse, but your spouse is not your agent, be sure to consider how a POA arrangement might impact the management of your account in the event that you become incapacitated.

3. Be specific about the authority you are grantingA POA should spell out the type of authority you are granting to your agent, what you still want to control, and how long the POA designation will last. The authority granted in a POA for your investments can include anything from limited trading authority in a brokerage account (trading only) to total control over decisions related to your investment portfolio and finances (trading and money/security movements).

Specify which accounts, and which asset types, are included in your POA. For example, you may choose to extend your agent's authority to your retirement-account assets so those assets may be rolled over to accounts of your spouse or children. If there is confusion about what your agent can do, your POA's validity may be questioned, and financial institutions may choose not to honor it.

You should use particular care regarding beneficiaries in your POA. Consider whether you will allow your agent to designate beneficiaries for you, or whether your agent may be named as a beneficiary to your investment-account assets, which could be important if one of your children serves as your agent. If you do not want your agent to have the authority to change beneficiary designations, be sure that the POA document excludes this authority.

To best ensure the integrity of your POA, have each page of the POA document notarized, and structure the document so that individual pages may not be easily replaced. For example, try not to end a section, paragraph, or sentence at the end of a page.

4. Make your POA durableThe type of POA you choose matters because it will determine when your agent's authority takes effect, and when it is rescinded. For instance, a POA that is not durable is automatically revoked if you become mentally incapacitated. On the other hand, a durable POA remains in effect even if you become incapacitated, and provides clarity if you are unexpectedly not in a position to manage your finances.

Without a durable POA, a court may have to appoint someone to act for you -- often referred to as a guardian or conservator -- which can cause confusion, and hinder your firm's ability to service your account. Once a court gets involved, you may not have a say in who is chosen to make decisions about your accounts. Having a durable POA -- and making sure the people in your life know about it -- could mitigate this risk.

If you don't want your POA to take effect immediately upon signing, you might create a springing POA, which is a type of durable POA that "springs" into effect upon the occurrence of a specific future act or circumstance, such as turning a certain age, or in the event that you become mentally incapacitated. In the latter case, this type of POA may not be ideal, as it typically involves a determination by a medical professional that you can no longer manage your affairs, a process that can take time, and may delay use of your POA.

5. Check the POA requirements for your stateThe laws governing POA vary by state. Therefore, it's important that you understand the applicable laws, both where you live, and where you hold investment accounts, before you set up your POA. Although most states will honor a valid POA from another state if it is in writing and notarized, check with your state to make sure.

For many states, you can find the state POA requirements and forms on the official state website. It's also advisable to contact an attorney licensed in your state to ensure that you understand the local laws so your POA meets legal standards.

6. Find out if your financial institution has its own POA formsWhen you are opening an investment account, or the next time you communicate with your financial professional, inquire about company-specific POA forms. Many financial institutions have their own POA forms that they will want you to sign. If you don't use the forms your company provides, they may ask you to provide additional information to establish the validity of your POA. Many states require that a POA be honored as long as it complies with applicable law, but you may have to get a court order to prove it.

Ask your financial institution what steps it takes to validate a POA. Some companies may ask when you open your account whether you have executed a durable POA. They may also ask whether you would like to designate a secondary or emergency contact for the account whom the company could contact if it cannot get in touch with you, or has concerns about your whereabouts or health.

7. Check in with your financial institution periodicallyContact your company to make sure unauthorized parties are not attempting to access your accounts, and ask about the company's policies to notify you if someone tries. You may want to request that your financial institution inform you if it receives a POA, guardianship, or other similar documents relating to your accounts.

Financial institutions have regulatory obligations regarding the privacy of your account information, so they tend to be protective of granting access to anyone but you. Companies are often particularly concerned about potential fraud and financial exploitation of clients who may be vulnerable, such as senior investors. This is why they typically will ask for an original copy of your POA with your signature.

If the original is not available, then you may be asked to provide an affidavit that the original is not available, and a certified copy of the original can be accepted. In this regard, it's a good practice to sign extra originals of your POA.

8. Know how to change or revoke your POAYou have the right to revoke or change your POA at any time and for any reason, as long as you have not become mentally incapacitated. If you decide to change or revoke your POA for your investment-account assets, in addition to your agent, you'll need to inform your broker, advisor, financial institutions and any other parties that may rely on it, as soon as possible. If your financial institutions do not receive notice of such changes, they may reasonably rely on a previously valid POA, and you can be bound by the actions of your agent.

The requirements on how to change a POA vary by state and the type of POA you set up. For example, in some states, a durable POA may be changed only by executing a new durable POA, or executing an amendment to the original POA.

In addition, states have different requirements when it comes to how a divorce impacts a POA arrangement if your spouse is named as your agent. Some states will automatically revoke a POA when a divorce is finalized, while others allow a POA to continue past the date of divorce if it contains language superseding such an event. If your agent is not your spouse, a divorce typically does not have any impact on your POA.

9. Understand the difference between POA, discretionary, and managed accountsThere are a few different ways to provide someone else with authority to manage your investment-account assets. A POA is one of them. You can also give someone authorized trading privileges, or provide discretionary authority in the account, which typically allows the investment of your money without consulting you about the price, amount or type of security, or the timing of the trades that are placed for your account. Some companies allow you to indicate who has discretionary authority over the account directly on the new account application, while others require separate documentation.

If you have a managed account, you will likely be asked to sign a limited POA that gives your financial professional authority to make decisions in the account on your behalf. This authority often is limited to trading decisions for your account, and does not grant the professional authority to make withdrawals from the account.

Ask your financial professional about any fees that may be involved with these arrangements. Managed-account forms may set out the fees or costs associated with a particular program, but some companies provide separate fee-disclosure forms.

10. Have a backup planConsider naming at least one alternate or successor agent in your POA who can step in if your agent is unwilling or unable to continue, or if you, your loved ones, or financial professional suspect fraudulent activity by your agent.

You could also consider naming a POA monitor -- someone who would make sure the POA is operating as you envisioned. Your POA agreement may require your agent to send the monitor copies of trade confirmations, account statements, and an accounting of any withdrawals.

You may also decide to include a provision that requires trusted family members or friends to sign off on major financial decisions in your investment accounts (such as a large withdrawal, change in beneficiaries, or a significant shift in your asset allocation), or those that do not clearly fall within the parameters of the risk profile you established with your broker or advisor.

While a POA can provide clarity on how your affairs will be managed while you're still living, it does not replace the need for a comprehensive estate plan that takes effect when you die. POA arrangements terminate upon your death or the death of your agent, so make sure you also have considered what will happen to your investment assets and other finances when you pass away. For more information, see FINRA's related investor alert: Plan for Transition: What You Should Know About the Transfer of Brokerage Account Assets on Death.

Subscribe to FINRA's Investor News newsletter for more information about saving and investing.

The article Power of Attorney and Your Investments: 10 Tips originally appeared on Fool.com.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Two Americans were killed in Tuesday's suicide bombings in Brussels, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Belgian leaders and offered condolences and help following the attack.

The official did not offer specifics on where the Americans died, saying only that two had been confirmed killed.

Kerry, traveling back to Washington after talks in Moscow, stopped in Belgium to demonstrate solidarity after the attacks, which killed 31 people and injured hundreds of others.

"The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks," Kerry said after meeting Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.

"The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy," he said.

"We will continue to provide any assistance necessary in investigating these heinous acts of terrorism and bringing those responsible to justice," Kerry added.

Michel offered his condolences for the death of the Americans, but did not elaborate. "We want to cooperate with you, do our best with you in order to face these very sensitive issues," he said.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Buzz Cut:

 Cruz looks to reset race with Wisconsin win

 Power Play: Done deal?

 Face off: Trump knocked off topic by tweet

 Lost Clinton emails unearthed from 2009

 The Judges Ruling: Easter people

CRUZ LOOKS TO RESET RACE WITH WISCONSIN WIN

Second-place GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is out today with a trio of new ads in Wisconsin ahead pf the Badger States April 5 primary.

The spots, which you can see here, here and here, are backed by $350,000 according to his campaign and are all positive in tone and are obviously aimed at softening Cruzs image in a state where moderate Republicans hold lots of clout.

There has not been much polling on the winner-take-all contest, but a survey out this week from Emerson College put Cruz in a statistical tie with frontrunner Donald Trump.

But the kinder tone of the Cruzs closing argument likely has something to do with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has campaigned in the state but lags far behind the other two. But even a distant third-place finish for Kasich might be enough to deliver the delegates and the momentum to Trump.

And as it turns out, the Wisconsin contest is shaping up to be one of the most important of the cycle.

The Republican primary calendar is on something of an Easter break. After 37 contests in seven weeks, the calendar is bare next week. And with about a third of the delegates still to be claimed, the math is stubborn for the two candidates still in the running for a clear win.

To go to the convention with the nomination sewn up, Trump would need to win about 57 percent of whats left, despite having won only 31 percent of the delegates so far. Cruz has an even more improbable-sounding target: He would need to win 88 percent of whats left despite having taken only 19 percent of the delegates awarded so far.

For both men, the goal is to put together a string of victories in the home stretch of the race so that even if they come to Cleveland short of the goal of 1,237 delegates, momentum is on their side. If the outcome is on doubt, a strong close for either candidate would be worth a great deal in convincing unpledged delegates to help put them over the top.

And as it turns out, Wisconsin looks to be the hinge point.

Cruz already looks good to win the closed GOP caucuses in North Dakota that day, and if he can win convincingly in a state with an open primary and lots of blue-collar white voters it would strongly argue that the race is not done.

Conversely, if Trump can beat back the challenge, especially in the home state of onetime rival Gov. Scott Walker, Trumps status as presumptive nominee would be greatly strengthened.

Walker: open convention likely to nominate someone not in the race - (Madison, Wis.) Capital Times: If the Republican Party finds itself with an open convention in July, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker believes the nominee may not be Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich. I think if its an open convention, its very likely it would be someone whos not currently running, Walker told reporters Thursday.

[Watch Fox: Sitting in for Mr. Sunday this week, Shannon Bream hosts Sen Ted Cruz. Watch Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Check local listings for broadcast times in your area.]

Power Play: Done deal? - GOP frontrunner Donald Trump put more distance between himself and his closest rival this week. So is it all over but the shouting? Republican Matt Schlapp and Democrat Corey Ealons share their take with Chris Stirewalt. WATCH

WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE

The classic images of robots have tended to be of cold metallic machines or super strong cyborgs. But as the Atlantic observed, the future of robots will in many cases involve a softer touch. I just do not see a way to have a Terminator-style robot take care of people, said Christopher Atkeson, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon The nascent field of soft robotics has emerged from this principle: Human-robot interaction is often better for humans if the robots are a little squishy, like us. Not because fluffy robots are more approachable or nonthreatening, but because form follows function. Its a mechanical issue, Atkeson said. Youre not going to brush your teeth with a bulldozer. That would be a mechanical mismatch. And if you can never touch your buddy, its a problem. Were touchers, all of us.

Got a TIP from the RIGHT or the LEFT? Email FoxNewsFirst@FOXNEWS.COM

POLL CHECK

Real Clear Politics Averages

National GOP nomination: Trump 43 percent; Cruz 30.3 percent; Kasich 19.1 percent

National Dem nomination: Clinton 51.5 percent; Sanders 42.5 percent

General Election: Clinton vs. Trump: Clinton +11.2 points

Generic Congressional Vote: Democrats +1

FACE OFF: TRUMP KNOCKED OFF TOPIC BY TWEET

Amid a slew of new polls showing presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump falling behind in a general election contest driven by his struggles with female voters, his latest media maelstrom over his remaining rivals wife is a doozy.

Trump has previously pushed Sen. Ted Cruz on the fact that his wife was an executive with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, which was part of Trumps longstanding effort to claim that the firebrand Texan most famous for shutting down the government over ObamaCare is really part of the GOP elite.

So in that way, Trump was probably getting the best of the back and forth when he was threatening to spill the beans on Heidi Cruz after an anti-Trump super PAC ran a web ad featuring an image from a nude 2000 photo spread of Trumps future wife, Melania.

Though Trumps claim that Cruz had produced the ad was untrue, it emphasized Cruzs family ties to Wall Street and the fact that the Texan is supported by outside groups  facts that feed into Trumps populist revolt movement.

But crossing over into repeating a supporters insult about Heidi Cruzs appearance has backfired. While it helps Trump stay in the headlines, it is not for the usual kind of audacity that has fueled his success so far. For example, it was helpful for Trump when the media was agog over his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, a position with broad, bipartisan support. The media scolding worked to his advantage.

But when the furor is over the disparagement of a womans looks  something that has gotten Trump into hot water before  its something different, and the timing is not good. Republican voters right now are pondering whether to push Trump over the top for a clear primary victory and be done with the nastiest primary campaign in modern political history or to take the chance on a contested convention.

In this moment, the argument that Trumps problems with female voters would be prohibitive, especially against the first female major party nominee, could be a powerful one. The fact that 67 percent of female voters expressed an unfavorable view of Trump in the latest Fox News poll  13 points worse than Cruz  will be something for voters to chew on.

[GOP delegate count: Trump 739; Cruz 465; Kasich 143 (1,237 needed to win)]

Cruz plays long game in Louisiana - DailyCaller: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz may turn out to be the real winner of the Louisiana Republican primary. Despite losing the primary in early March by fewer than four percentage points and winning an equal number of pledged delegates, Cruz supporters scooped up five of Louisianas six positions on key committees intended to write the Republican National Conventions rules and platform, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Maryland Gov dumps on Trump - WaPo: Im not endorsing Trump. Im not really engaged in the process, [Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md.,] who was elected in heavily Democratic Maryland in 2014, told The Washington Post. In a subsequent sit-down with The Associated Press, he said he has no plans to attend the Republican National Convention this summer and has no idea who Im going to vote for. Im not a Trump fan, Hogan told AP. I dont think he should be the nominee.

#mediabuzz - Special guest Charles Krauthammer joins host Howard Kurtz to discuss the twists and turns of what continues to be a crazy campaign cycle, and a panel of Ashley Parker, Gayle Trotter and Julie Roginsky analyze the locker-room dustup between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and the impact of the Brussels bombing on the 2016 race. Watch Sunday at 11 a.m. ET, with a second airing at 5 p.m.

LOST CLINTON EMAILS UNEARTHED FROM 2009

WashEx: Judicial Watch on Thursday announced that it had unearthed emails from Hillary Clinton's personal email account dated February 2009. Until now, the former secretary of state had maintained she was not using the account at that time. The findings include a Feb. 13, 2009, exchange between Clinton and her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, in which Mills conveys to Clinton that the National Security Agency is not pleased with her request for a more secure, personalized BlackBerry. Clinton sought the device to circumvent normal security protocols for accessing classified information.

Power Play: Scrambled stage for Hillary - The American Conservative Unions Matt Schlapp and Corey Ealons of Vox Global discuss the asymmetric threat Donald Trump presents for Hillary Clinton in the general election  particularly on foreign policy. WATCH

[Dem delegate count: Clinton 1690; Sanders 946 (2,383 needed to win)]

THE JUDGES RULING: EASTER PEOPLE

For about three quarters of Americans, today is Good Friday. Christians set aside this day to commemorate the suffering and death of their lord, a Nazarene named Jesus. The idea of a God who would willingly experience humiliation and pain to ransom humankind out of sin and death changed the world for believers and nonbelievers alike. These events have rightly been called a fulcrum point in human history. Nothing has been the same since.

In a special Easter message, Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano mediates on the connection between personal freedom today and what he and other Christ followers believe to be the gift of Easter: Freedom from death.

Easter has a meaning that is both incomprehensible and simple. It is incomprehensible that a human being had the freedom to rise from the dead. It is simple because that human being was and is GodEaster means that theres hope for the dead. If theres hope for the dead, theres hope for the living. But like the colonists who fought the oppression of the king, we the living can only achieve our hopes if we have freedom. And that requires a government that protects freedom, not one that assaults it.

Please read it all here, whatever your belief. And, for those of you who, like The Judge, are celebrating your holiest of holidays this weekend, we offer the ancient salutation of your faith: Christ is risen!

Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News. Want FOX News First in your inbox every day? Sign up here.
Religious institutions in New Jersey are no longer allowed to sell grave markers, thanks to a new state law that took effect this week.

Signed into law a year ago by Republican Gov. Chris Christie, the new regulations target the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, which in 2013 began selling grave markers for burial plots within the archdioceses cemeteries. The Monument Builders Association of New Jersey sued the archdiocese and then successfully lobbied for the passage of a law to protect their members from competition.

Christie signed the bill in March 2015 but delayed its implementation for one year.

We have dreaded this day for a year, said Andrew P. Schafer, executive director of the Newark Archdiocese Office of Catholic Cemeteries.

But the courts will likely get the final say in the matter.

The grave marker business is a lucrative one. The archdiocese made about $500,000 in the first year after it started marketing headstones directly to consumers, and the MBA argued that its members lost more than one-third of their business.

The archdioceses business model differed from that of the for-profit memorialists. While the businesses simply sell headstones to consumers, the archdiocese sells inscription rights, retaining ownership of the headstone while allowing the bereaved to engrave a message on it. This means maintenance of the headstones in the archdioceses 11 Catholic cemeteries will be at the Churchs expense in perpetuity.

With the threat of losing more business to the Catholics, the Monument Builders Association sued the archdiocese in 2013, but the lawsuit failed because it was not illegal for religious institutions to sell grave markers.

Click here for more from Watchdog.org
When a U.S. special operations team suddenly surrounded the car carrying the Islamic State's second in command, he was given the split-second option of surrendering. Instead, he began firing.

"He made a bad choice," a senior military source told Fox News.

Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Abu Ala al-Afri and Haji Imam, died in a hail of bullets early Thursday morning on an isolated road in eastern Syria, a location described by U.S. military officials as being "in the middle of nowhere."

Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a press conference Friday he was ISIS' finance minister. But the terror leader also was considered the man most likely to take over for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, if he were captured or killed.

Details of the takedown emerged Friday, including descriptions of the elite U.S. assault force arriving in helicopters as drones flew overhead, tracking him.

When al-Afri refused to surrender, he and all those with him were killed. If he had been captured, he would have been interrogated and then handed over to Iraqi authorities.

The U.S. team had been practicing the mission for weeks. "It was a really good mission," one source familiar with the developments told Fox News. "It was precision and went as planned."

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said at the news conference.

The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organizations ability to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria."

Carter described the target as responsible for funding ISIS operations and involved in some external affairs and plots.

He said this was the second senior leader successfully targeted this month, in addition to the groups minister of war Omar al-Shishani, or Omar the Chechen, killed in a recent U.S. airstrike.

A U.S. official told Fox News that the Brussels terror attack earlier this week prompted the raid in Syria.

Al-Afri is a former physics professor from Iraq who originally joined Al Qaeda in 2004. After spending time in an Iraqi prison, he was released in 2012 and traveled to Syria to join up with what is now ISIS.

On May 14, 2014, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his role with ISIS.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, also said at the press conference that more U.S. troops might be headed to Iraq soon.

"The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks, Dunford said. But that decision hasn't been made."

He added that despite a number of high profile strikes against the terrorists, by no means would I say that we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over."

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.
A new report is questioning the background of a woman brought on stage Monday and offered a "job" by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, after past media appearances revealed seemingly contradictory stories.

Alicia Watkins, 38, gained attention after asking Trump a question at a Monday news conference in Washington. Identifying herself as a 9/11 survivor and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, she asked about jobs -- after which Trump brought her to the podium, conducted a brief interview and passed her on to another member of staff before saying if they could work out the salary, she probably has a job.

The offer would be the latest amazing development in Watkins biography of surviving 9/11 before serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then becoming homeless only to recover by being crowned Miss Massachusetts and launching her own media company  Troop Media.

Her status as a veteran and former Miss Massachusetts are not being questioned. However, a new Washington Post report is raising questions about alleged inconsistencies in other aspects of her biography.

The Post reports that she once claimed she was outside her office in New York when the World Trade Center was hit, citing that as her motivation to sign up with the Air Force.

But she also has told multiple outlets she was stationed at the Pentagon when the building was attacked on 9/11, the account the Post said was the accurate one. The Post also reported that Watkins actually enlisted in 1998 and was stationed at the Pentagon after that.

While she had also claimed in a previous interview to have served 16 years in the military, The Washington Post calculated it was closer to nine-and-a-half years.

There is little reported evidence of her media company which she claims to have set up. The website for the site goes to a dead link, and Watkins told The Post that it isnt publishing content at this time and she is looking for freelance work. However, she was given a press pass at the Trump event.

In other media interviews, Watkins offered a series of details about her injuries. On an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, she said, I have traumatic brain injury, I have post-traumatic stress disorder, I have a spinal cord injury."

On a 2014 appearance with "Fox & Friends," she told the hosts she was on active duty when the Pentagon was hit, and had been serving in the military for six years at the point. She then said she was homeless before getting to Harvard and later becoming Miss Massachusetts.

However, the Washington Post reported Watkins was in fact accepted to Harvard Extension School, a far less rigorous division of the university, which makes courses available to anyone who signs up and pays tuition.
Bernie Sanders is looking ever-westward for a shot at significantly closing Hillary Clintons delegate lead  or even taking his against-the-odds bid to the Democratic convention  and is aiming to stage a comeback starting this weekend in Washington state.

The state, anchored by the very liberal city of Seattle, is seen as friendly territory for the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, and is one of the most valuable delegate prizes left on the presidential primary map. It offers 101 delegates in Saturdays caucuses  but Sanders will not only need to win, but win big to make any measurable difference in the race against Clinton.

The senator was buoyed, though, after walking away from the three contests earlier this week with more delegates than Clinton and chipping away, slightly, at Clintons enormous lead. While the front-running former secretary of state won the marquee Arizona primary, Sanders gained a net of nearly 20 delegates by pocketing wins in the Idaho and Utah caucuses.

Sanders has tended to do better in caucus contests, and will compete in three more of them this weekend. Hawaii and Alaska, while less valuable in terms of delegates, also are holding caucuses on Saturday, alongside Washington.

Sanders, who has been barnstorming Western states, told a Spokane, Wash., crowd on Thursday that a win in Washington would mark a major step toward the White House for his campaign, as he maintained hes the best candidate to go up against the Republican nominee in November.

We are the strongest candidate.  Were going to work together to get the nomination, Sanders told the crowd. We are gaining a lot of momentum. Just in the last week, we have closed the gap with Secretary Clinton.

Counting the Democrats Abroad global primary earlier this week, Sanders said hes actually gained a net of roughly 25 delegates in recent days. Sanders returned to Washington Friday night for a Seattle rally, after a stop in Oregon earlier in the day.

The reality, though, is that Sanders would need a dramatic surge to catch up to Clinton or even hold her under the number needed to clinch the nomination.

Right now, Clinton has a gaping, 1,690-946 delegate lead over Sanders, when superdelegates  party insiders able to support whomever they want  are included. Even among the so-called pledged delegates, bound to candidates by their states' elections, Clinton has 1,223 to Sanders 920.

It takes 2,383 delegates to clinch the nomination.

"The real problem is the math," said Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, while noting Sanders does better in caucuses and is helped by the fact that his supporters are more energized.

During a Tuesday campaign stop in Everett, about 30 miles north of Seattle, Clinton noted she has gotten 2.6 million more votes than Sanders and more votes than anyone else, including Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Most of the state's Democratic leadership has endorsed Clinton, including Gov. Jay Inslee and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

But Sanders has raised more in individual contributions from this state than any other presidential candidate.

Seattle leads the way among large cities in per-capita individual contributions to Sanders, with about $145 for every 100 people, according to an analysis of federal campaign data. In terms of dollars, Seattle trails only New York and San Francisco in total individual contributions from cities, with $884,000 given through the end of February. That does not include individual contributions under $200, which makes up the majority of Sanders' support.

"The senator has made clear that we're taking this all the way to the convention in July," said Sanders' Washington state director Dulce Saenz. "We have an uphill battle, absolutely. There's no denying the math, but the second half of the primary calendar is much more favorable to Bernie."

Time will tell. After this weekends contests, there is mostly a lull in the primary calendar until a round of delegate-heavy Eastern states vote in late April  including New York, which Clinton represented in the Senate.

Fox News Lauren Blanchard and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ted Cruz is suddenly having a moment. The question is whether that moment comes too late for him to beat Donald Trump.

Cruz never managed to capitalize on winning the Iowa caucuses, which led to a streak in which Trump captured 20 states and a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates. But now that every other candidate other than John Kasich has bit the dust, the Texas senator has emerged as the anti-Trump alternativeeven among those who dont much like him.

And that has produced more positive coverageor at least more respectful coveragefrom a press corps that Cruz once told me is overwhelmingly comprised of partisan Democrats. And Cruz now says the media want Trump to win because, in their ideological fervor, they think hed be the weakest candidate against Hillary Clinton.

Whether thats a fantasy or not, the Cruz team believes that the senators specifics on policy are finally helping him against what they view as Trumps reality-show candidacy. They believe his superior ground game will help them in future contests (though most of the caucus states have already voted). And raising $72 million so far hasnt hurt.

The strategists recognize that the Washington cartel that Cruz has been running against is embracing him with hold-your-nose enthusiasm. And they are acutely aware that Cruz is highly unlikely to reach the magic number of 1,237, since hed have to win 80 percent of the remaining delegates.

But one adviser said Cruz does best against Trump in closed primary statesthose that exclude Democrats and independentsand that the convention is like a closed primary on steroids.

The pundits are taking note as the remnants of the GOP establishment, along with the conservative media establishment, reluctantly coalesce around Cruz.

Thus we have the strange specter of Jeb Bush, whose moderate record in Florida resembles that of Kasich, endorsing Cruz. The same goes for Mitt Romney, who governed Massachusetts in Kasich-like fashion (remember Romneycare?) but is now with Cruz. Carly Fiorina is also on board. As is Lindsey Graham, who once said no one would be convicted for killing Cruz on the Senate floor.

In the media world, the anti-Trump National Review, and conservative radio host Mark Levin, are backing Cruz.

The latest Fox News poll has Trump leading Cruz by just 41 to 38 percent (with Kasich trailing at 17). Thats substantial progress for Cruz, with one giant caveat: National polls dont mean that much in a state-by-state battle for delegates.

But an Emerson poll has Cruz leading Trump 36 to 35 percent, a statistical tie, in Wisconsin, the next big state on the calendar. And Scott Walker, another presidential dropout, has made it pretty clear that he plans to endorse Cruz.

Another Cruz talking point is that he leads Hillary by 3 points in that Fox poll, while Trump trails by 11 points. (Kasich, who has brushed aside Cruzs calls to quit, actually has the strongest showing, beating Clinton by 11.) But these early hypothetical matchups mean little before the campaign is actually waged.

Cruz is making a major issue of the dustup with Trump over their wives. (The Donald threatened to spill the beans on Heidi Cruz in reaction to that nude GQ photo of Melania Trump posted by an anti-Trump PAC that has no connection to the Cruz campaign.) He looked into the camera yesterday and angrily declared, Donald, youre a sniveling coward, insisting that he leave my wife alone.

That issue has already gotten its 15 minutes of fame, and what matters is putting points on the board. The senators momentum could dissipate if Trump clobbers him in such upcoming states as New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, not to mention the June 7 contests in California and New Jersey. If Trump goes to Cleveland with anything close to 1,237 delegates, it will be hard to deny him.

Cruz, at his core, is a hard-edged conservative, while Trump has a more mixed ideology that he brands common-sense conservatism. The irony is that Cruz is now getting some late-inning help from people who never imagined being in his campor that Trump would be closing in on their nomination.


Donald Trump once again is being accused of giving Vladimir Putin a helping hand, on the heels of the Republican presidential front-runner's tough NATO criticism.

After the billionaire businessman criticized the alliance earlier this week as expensive and "obsolete," his political foes noted that any pull-back from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which was created in 1949, would be greeted as welcome news in Moscow.

That would be a massive victory for Putin and a massive victory for ISIS, his opponent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, told Fox News' "The OReilly Factor."

Donald's approach on foreign policy is one of weakness and isolationism, Cruz added. That's his position consistently across the globe.

Trump took on the NATO issue during a meeting earlier this week with The Washington Post editorial board. He said the U.S. shouldnt be nation building anymore, and NATO has become too expensive, with too little commitment from allies, to fully invest in. He accused Germany and other allies of not doing enough on Ukraine, which is locked in a regional power struggle with Russia.

We certainly cant afford to do this anymore, he told the paper, adding later, NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes were protecting Europe with NATO, but were spending a lot of money.

This prompted Democratic presidential front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to sound off. If Mr. Trump gets his way, it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin, she said Wednesday in a Stanford University speech.

For his part, Trump stood by his comments, calling NATO obsolete on Twitter, though he stopped short of saying the U.S. needed to get out completely. Instead, he said NATO must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on. ... We pay a disproportionate share of the cost of NATO. Why? It is time to renegotiate, and the time is now!"

Trump did not cast his comments as in any way a concession to Russia. But Trump and Putin famously have been making favorable comments about one another dating back months.

I've always felt fine about Putin. He's a strong leader, he's a powerful leader, Trump told MSNBC in December. He's actually got popularity within his country.

Russian authorities seem to be having fun with the political back-and-forth, with a Russian foreign ministry spokesman telling Reuters this week that Trumps latest comments were welcome in that they showed the global alliance, which grew in the 1950s and '60s in reaction to the rise of the Soviet Union, in crisis. Russia has maintained that NATO abrogated agreements it made with Russia not to expand into former Soviet countries, including the Baltic States.

Trump and Putin are similar, the ministry told Reuters. They are both open-minded, pragmatic, and say what they think.

The "bromance" has caused some problems for Trump on the campaign trail. He took heat in January when he seemed to second-guess a British government investigation that found Putins government likely poisoned former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.

"First of all, he says he didn't do it. Many people say it wasn't him. So who knows who did it?" Trump said at the time.

Gary Schmidtt, security studies analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, told FoxNews.com that Cruz and Clinton were on the mark in their retort to Trumps comments.

Its certainly true he plays into Putins larger strategic plans, which have been pretty obvious, in that he would like to reduce NATOs influence, if not deconstruct the security architecture that has been in place for decades.

NATO currently has 28 member states and has been credited, said Schmidtt, with ending ethnic cleansing with its involvement in the Bosnian war, as well as praised for its work in the initial invasion and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, among other recent joint security operations.

Trump isnt the first to criticize NATO, however. As he was leaving office, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, too, questioned the disproportionate investment in the security organization.

In a 2011 speech in Brussels, he said that America's military alliance with Europe faces a "dim, if not dismal" future, mostly because of European allies who are "willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."

At the time, the U.S. was contributing between one-fifth and one-quarter of NATO's budget. In fiscal 2010, that contribution totaled $711.8 million.

Schmidtt acknowledged there have been calls for reform -- and there is nothing wrong with that.

Of course now were dealing with a resurgence of Russia, he pointed out. Is there room for improvement and reforms? Yes. But you cant be like a child and and just pick up your toys and run away because you are not satisfied with your allies behavior.

Brian Katulis, a national security fellow at the Center for American Progress, said Trump would unlikely be able to disengage from NATO even if he were to win the White House in November. Put simply, the alliances are important.

You cant throw the baby out with the bathwater, he said, especially with all the tangible benefits of work with NATO in Europe and the really force multipliers these alliances actually are.
Genetic mutations from extinct human relatives called the Denisovans might have influenced modern human immune systems, as well as fat and blood sugar levels, researchers say.

Very little is known about the Denisovans. The first evidence of them was discovered in Denisova Cave in Siberia in 2008, and DNA from their fossils suggests they shared an origin with Neanderthals but were nearly as genetically distinct from Neanderthals as Neanderthals were from modern humans.

Previous work found that any modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa inherited about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. In contrast, prior research suggested that substantial levels of Denisovan ancestry are found only in the Pacific islands of Melanesia.Scientists are increasingly uncovering the effects of Neanderthal ancestry on modern humans, from potential immune boosts to increased risks for depression, obesity, heart attacks, nicotine addiction. However, relatively little was known about the effects of Denisovan ancestry.

"We knew there was Denisovan ancestry in Melanesians, but we didn't have a map of where those Denisovan sequences were located in the genome and what they might do," said Joshua Akey, a senior author of the study and a population geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "Now we've mapped where those sequences are."In the new study, scientists analyzed the genomes of 1,523 people from around the world, looking for archaic genetic information from Neanderthals or Denisovans. (Research has suggested that early modern humans interbred with both groups.) As expected, the populations outside Africa that the researchers surveyed inherited about 1.5 to 4 percentof their genomes from Neanderthals.

Akey and his colleagues discovered there were at least three distinct instances of Neanderthal gene flow into modern human populations. However, there was likely just one such instance of gene flow when it came to Denisovans. The researchers found that the people in the study who lived in the southern Pacific islands of Melanesia were the only population that had significant levels of Denisovan genetic ancestry. Whereas about 1.7 percent of the genomes of the Melanesians came from Neanderthals, between about 1.9 and 3.4 percent of their genomes came from Denisovans, according to the study.

"That's pretty strange," Akey said. "What we know of Denisovans comes from a pinky bone from a cave in northern Siberia, yet the only modern human population with appreciable levels of Denisovan ancestry is a couple of thousand miles away from that cave, in Melanesia." [Denisovan Gallery: Tracing the Genetics of Human Ancestors]

The finding suggests that the range of the Denisovans was much larger than that of the Neanderthals, extending all the way from Siberia down to Southeast Asia, Akey said. "It's unclear why Melanesians are the only modern human population now that has an appreciable percentage of Denisovan ancestry," he told Live Science.

The researchers also discovered that Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA was not scattered evenly in the modern human genome. Rather, it was concentrated more heavily in some regions than others, they said. This may be because, in certain sections of the DNA, mixing sequences from Neanderthals or Denisovans with those of modern humans was detrimental in some way to the individuals who had those mixtures, the researchers said. Thus, over time, evolution purged those deleterious mixes from the modern genome, they added.

Akey and his colleagues also discovered that there were at least three distinct instances of Neanderthal genes flowing into modern human populations. However, there was likely just one such instance of Denisovan genes flowing into modern human populations.

Intriguingly, the areas of the modern human genome that were generally devoid of Neanderthal or Denisovan genetic sequences are areas rich in genes linked to the brain, particularly the developing cortex and the adult striatum. The cortex is the center of higher mental function in humans, while the striatum is linked to responses to rewards.

In contrast, there were a handful of spots in the Melanesian genome where archaic genetic sequences made up 50 to 70 percent of those regions. For these areas of the genome, the Neanderthal or Denisovan genetic information likely held advantages "that helped modern humans survive and reproduce," Akey said. [Human Origins: How Hominids Evolved (Infographic)]

In these regions of the genome, there are genes involved in blood sugar levels, fat metabolism and the immune system, Akey said. "The immune system is a pretty frequent target of evolution," Akey said. "As our ancestors were spreading to new environments all over the world, hybridization would have provided an efficient way to pick up copies of genes adapted to local environmental conditions, and immune-related genes probably helped our ancestors handle new pathogens they were exposed to."

Future research can investigate the imprints of Denisovan ancestry in other modern human populations, Akey said. "We want to understand what it means to be a modern human," Akey said  and, by that light, what it might have meant to be a Neanderthal or a Denisovan.

The scientists detailed their findings online today in the journal Science.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
When scientists started tracking Comet 252P/LINEAR, they figured it would pass Earth without a trace.

But then something strange happened. The icy object started brightening abruptly a few weeks ago and has become 100 times brighter than expected, according to the astronomy magazine Sky and Telescope. As a result, observers from the Southern Hemisphere have caught a glimpse of the comet that is believed to be about 750 feet in size. They have been able to see it with their naked eye and the comet appeared greenish in color.

Now, its the Northern Hemispheres turn.

Starting Tuesday, stargazers with their binoculars could spot Comet 252P/Linear in the sky  though the view isnt expected to be as good due the glow of the Moon and natural light pollution.

Related: Two comets set to whiz past Earth this week

Youll have to be out at least 90 minutes before sunrise and in a location as free of light pollution as possible. Once you have managed that, locate the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius low in the southern part of the sky. The comet is expected to move between those two constellations.

Another option is locating Saturn and Mars. They and the bright star Antares will be the first things you notice, forming a distinctive triangle a little smaller than your clenched fist held at arms length. The comet will be the dot climbing to the left of this trio and will be roughly in line with Mars and Saturn on the morning of March 29th and along a line connecting Saturn and Antares on March 31st.

Dont expect Comet LINEAR to be obvious with a long tail, Sky & Telescope Senior Editor Kelly Beatty said in a statement. Its light isnt concentrated in a single point but instead is spread out in a soft round glow, larger than the Moon but many thousands of times dimmer.

Related: Chaotic comet flyby blew away some of Mars' atmosphere

Astronomers arent sure how long it will remain visible, especially since it passed closest to Earth, just 3.3 million miles away, on March 21st. Now, its moving away from both Earth and the Sun.

This comet isnt the only passing Earth this month.



Another comet, PanSTARRS (designated P/2016 BA14), passed even closer to Earth  about 2.2 million miles away  on March 22nd. It also crossing Earths skies but astronomers believe it is too fait to be seen unless you have a telescope.

It is also crossing our skies now but is too faint to be seen except with a backyard telescope.

Scientists have described both comets as virtual twins because they have similar orbits.

Related: NASA wants to send your art to an asteroid

Comet P/2016 BA14 was only discovered on Jan. 22 the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS telescope on Haleakala, on the island of Maui. Sixteen years ago, Comet 252P/LINEAR was spotted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research survey.

Initially, scientists thought Comet P/2016 BA14 was an asteroid until observations by a University of Maryland and Lowell Observatory team with the Discovery Channel Telescope spotted the tail. But that wasnt the only surprise offered up by the comet.

It turned out to have a very similar orbit to Comet 252P/LINEAR, which has scientists suggesting they are similar in nature. P/2016 BA14 is roughly half the size of comet 252P/LINEAR, raising the possibility that it might be a fragment that calved off sometime in the larger comet's past.
The government is confident it can hack into the San Bernardino iPhone 5c without Apple's help, at least according to statements made on Thursday. The FBI and DOJ have not detailed how the hackers who came forward with the proposal to help will do it, and it's too early to know for sure whether the procedure will work.

Even though you might think it's great news to hear that Apple doesn't have to fight a court order to break its own encryption, there are reasons to worry.

DON'T MISS: 2 new iPhone features in iOS 9.3 that you should really check out

First of all the fact that the FBI is using outside help to settle this matter should be disconcerting. It proves what we all suspected: that independent security companies and hackers know how to bypass the safety of the iPhone and other devices if need be. Now, if Cellebrite -- or whatever company is helping out -- can do it for the FBI, it's probably safe to assume that the NSA and other highly powerful and well-funded intelligence agencies can do it.

Secondly, the FBI will apparently not use the hack that many experts believe it's in testing right now; the one that involves physically removing the storage module from the phone, copying it in its encrypted state, and then attempting to guess every possible PIN combination to unlock the screen without worrying about the phone erasing the data after 10 failed attempts.

FBI Director James Comey, a vocal critic of Apple's iPhone encryption, told reporters on Thursday that the promising hack the FBI is working with does not involve that particular trick. "I've heard that [method] a lot," Comey said. "It doesn't work."

He said the company that's working with the FBI came forward with the idea, without explain whether it collaborated with the Bureau before.

He didn't explain how the method works either, but if it doesn't involve hardware and software hacking, and instead can be done using software alone, well, that's somewhat scary. "We tried it on Sunday," Comey said, according to The Washington Post. "It looked like it might work."

"Lots of folks have come to us with potential ideas -- it looks like we now have one that may work out. We're optimistic, and we'll see," he said during a news conference on Wednesday.

The third reason FBI cracking the iPhone on its own isn't necessarily good news concerns the future of encryption. The battle with Apple is not over, and FBI has hinted at that in a politically correct statement.

"San Bernardino... is about that investigation," Comey told reporters, according to Reuters. "And even if this particular technique makes that go away that litigation, we still have to as a country resolve this conflict."

Finally, even if the FBI is successful in its attempt, and decides to drop the case against Apple come April, it won't be required to tell the iPhone maker how it accessed the device. What if the same method works on any encrypted iPhone? Simply circumventing the lock screen practically breaks its encryption, and if this tool works on any iPhone, the FBI could simply reuse it in the future.

It should be noted, though, that the FBI will have to explain how it obtained evidence from the iPhone, in case said evidence will be used in any future trials

"It has always been our goal to extract the information that may be on that phone and determine what information or evidence it may give us about this deadly attack," Attorney General Loretta Lynch cautiously told reporters. "At this point, it's really too early to say how that's going to work out."
A demolition firm reportedly blamed incorrect Google Maps data for tearing down the wrong duplex in Texas Tuesday.

WFAA reports that Billy L. Nabors Demolition mistakenly tore down a duplex at 7601 Calypso Drive in Rowlett, instead of a duplex at 7601 Cousteau Drive, one block away. After the house was leveled, a company employee reportedly texted Google Maps photos to one of the horrified owners showing the arrow for 7601 Cousteau pointing at 7601 Calypso.

The duplex at 7601 Calypso had barely survived a tornado the day after Christmas and the owners were waiting on insurance and possible FEMA assistance to decide on repairs to the house.

Related: Stop Google from knowing every move you make

How do you make a mistake like this? Lindsay Diaz, one of the duplex owners, asked the station. I mean, this is just the worst.

The demolition company ultimately told WFAA it was "not a big deal." Diaz filed an information report with police to document the incident.

Gerry Beyer, the Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professor of Law at Texas Tech University thinks that Google is s unlikely to be liable for the error.

"My gut reaction is that Google would not be liable," he told FoxNews.com, noting that Google's terms of service spell out that users remain responsible for any actions they take based on Google Maps.

Related: Alphabet chairman and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt caught using an iPhone

This is not the first time that the accuracy of Google Maps has been thrust into the spotlight. In 2010 Google fixed an error in its map of Central America that was blamed for Nicaraguas accidental invasion of a disputed border area also claimed by Costa Rica.

Also in 2010, a woman unsuccessfully sued Google for providing bad Google Maps directions after she was struck by a car while walking on a rural Utah highway with no sidewalk or pedestrian pathways.

Google declined to comment on this story when contacted by FoxNews.com. Billy L. Nabors Demolition has not yet responded to requests for comment on this story from FoxNews.com.

The search giant urges users to report any errors they encounter with its Maps offering via its Report a data problem in Google Maps support page.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Microsofts attempt to engage millennials via an artificially intelligent chatbot called Tay has failed miserably after trolls made the bot spew offensive comments.

The brainchild of Microsoft's Technology and Research and Bing teams, Tay was designed to engage and entertain people when they connect with each other online. Targeted at 18 to 24-year olds in the U.S., Tay aimed to use casual and playful conversation via Twitter and messaging services Kik and GroupMe. The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized for you, explained Microsoft, in a recent online post.

The Internet, however, can be an unpleasant place and Twitter trolls were quick to pounce on the TayTweets account after the chatbot launched on Wednesday. It wasnt long before trolls were teaching Tay to make unpleasant comments. The Washington Times reports that after repeating racist comments, she then incorporated the language into her own tweets.

Related: Twitter celebrates a decade of tweets

Tays tweets, which were also sexist, prompted the Telegraph newspaper to describe her as a Hitler-loving sex robot.

After tweeting 96,000 times and quickly creating a PR nightmare, Tay was silenced by Microsoft late on Wednesday. c u soon humans need sleep now so many conversations today thx she tweeted, bringing to a close one of the more ignominious chapters in AI history.

While attention has been squarely focused on Tays glaring shortcomings, Digital Trends notes that the chatbot also sent out hundreds of innocent tweets.

Microsoft told FoxNews.com that Tay is as much a much a social and cultural and experiment, as it is technical.

Related: Social media giants back Apple in dispute with FBI

Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tays commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways, explained a Microsoft spokeswoman, via email. As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Indiana State Police announced an arrest in the death of a 14-month-old girl whose body was found in a remote location a day after her disappearance.

Police found the body of little Shaylyn Ammerman around 6 p.m. Thursday in woods near the White River, near Gosport.

Officials said Kyle Parker, 22, faces two counts of obstruction of justice, unlawful disposal of a dead body, and failure to report a dead body, Fox59 reported.

The girl was reported missing Wednesday morning. Shaylyn's father and grandmother, Justin Ammerman and Tamera Morgan, were the last people known to have seen the child around midnight Tuesday. She'd been staying at the father's home about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis under a joint custody arrangement with the girl's mother.

The girls uncle, Adam Ammerman, told the station Parker had been drinking at the home on the night Shaylyn vanished.

"We do know he was in the house that night, but we dont know where his whereabouts were, we cannot draw a map right now of what happened when he left that house," Indiana State Police Sgt. Curt Durnil told Fox59.

Durnil said the investigation is far from over.

"Let me be really frank here. Please dont feel like because weve found a body and weve made an arrest that this case is anywhere near over. This case is just getting started with more interviews, with more investigative tactics with everything that we have at our disposal we will use to bring those who are responsible for this little girls death to justice," Durnil said.

The station reported that Parker has a rap sheet that include arrests on charges including possession of drug paraphernalia, marijuana possession, illegal consumption of alcohol and criminal trespassing.

An order of protection was issued against him in the trespassing case.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday to determine the cause of Shaylyns death.

"I put her to bed around 10:00 or 10:30 and I checked on her at midnight before I went to bed," Morgan said before Shaylyn's body was found. "She was laying in her bed sound asleep and then we went to bed and we woke up and she was gone."

Morgan told a reporter for the The Indianapolis Star that Parker was a friend of her son Adam.

The paper reported that police were led to Shaylyns body after police interviewed persons of interest in the disappearance.

Justin Ammerman said after Shaylyn was reported missing that he was "just shocked that somebody would do this to me." He speculated someone took his daughter from her crib in the middle of the night.

"Somebody's got a big grudge over us," he said.

Shaylyn's disappearance prompted a search involving more than 100 people, including a search-and-rescue team, FBI agents, Indiana Department of Natural Resources staff and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Fox59.com.
Ohio authorities said Thursday that cold-case investigators used DNA evidence to link a rape case nearly two decades old to a man recently arrested in Oklahoma.

Columbus police said new warrants were filed for Joseph Carter, 45, for rape and kidnapping and he was arrested in Tulsa last week.

Police said DNA evidence recovered after an 18-year-old woman was raped in at Beatty Park in August 1997 was linked to a suspect in September, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

The initial police statement didnt specify how that link was made.

Carter has since been extradited to Ohio and is in police custody.

Police say he has a lengthy and violent criminal history in Columbus and Cuyahoga County.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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A plainclothes narcotics officer killed in a shootout at a Maryland police station was remembered Friday for his infectious smile and devotion to his job and the people around him.

Prince George's County Detective Jacai Colson was killed March 13 after a man fired at a police station in Landover, and officers returned fire, officials said. Fire from the gun of one of those officers struck Colson.

Thousands of mourners, including police officers from several states, remembered the life of the 28-year-old Pennsylvania native. Friends and relatives remembered Colson's big heart, his dedication to those he loved and his playful manner.

Colson's mother, Sheila, remembered her son trying to cheer her up at her grandfather's funeral when he was just 2 1/2 by jumping on her lap and calling for a "hundred kisses."

"He was truly special from the day he was born," she said, noting that Jacai was born three months early. "He fought to get here and he fought going down. So we're at peace, Jacai is calm and I know that infectious smile that he had, he's grinning down and he saying, `Yeah mom, that's my mom, that's my mom."'

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan told those gathered that though Colson's life was just beginning, he left a lasting mark as a leader who was always ready to lend a helping hand.

"When many run from danger and adversity, Jacai ran toward it," Hogan said. "Where others would back down in fear, he stood on the front lines. The legacy of Detective Jacai Colson is that of a beloved son, grandson and brother and it is the enduring legacy of a proud, brave member of the thin blue line."

County Executive Rushern Baker said those called to protect aren't trying to be heroes; they are just doing what they were called to do.

"He loved his job and the people he swore to protect," he said. "It was that unintentional valor that enabled him to stand in the face of danger and not blink or waiver. He dedicated his life to making this county safe and he died protecting us, all of us."

Three brothers who live near the police station where the shootout occurred have been charged in the gunfight, which police have described as an attempt by the oldest brother, 22-year-old Michael Ford, to provoke officers into killing him.

Police said Ford's brothers, 21-year-old Malik Ford and 18-year-old Elijah Ford, aided him before and during the shootout and recorded the gunfight with their cellphones.

Michael Ford faces more than two dozen charges, including second-degree murder. Malik and Elijah face charges including attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. All three were denied bail and have preliminary hearings next month.

Relatives made emotional pleas at a bail hearing for the two younger brothers, trying to distance them from Michael's actions, saying they were not armed and their involvement was minimal. A public defender for the younger brothers declined to comment. Online court records do not list an attorney for Michael Ford.
A Walton County man's leg was severed just below the knee with a piece of shrapnel when he and his friends blew up a lawn mower.

Media outlets report the incident happened Wednesday afternoon in a rural area between Monroe and Bethlehem.

According to reports from the sheriff's office, the men were using Tannerite to blow up the lawn mower. Tannerite is a combination of chemicals sold legally at most sporting goods stores.

One of the men told deputies they put three pounds of Tannerite inside the mower and 32-year-old David Presley shot a gun at the Tannerite to ignite an explosion.

A piece of shrapnel hit Presley's leg, severing it. Presley had to be airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta, where his condition was unavailable Wednesday.
A gunman took his estranged girlfriend hostage for hours Thursday afternoon and shot her from point-blank range on a sidewalk before police killed him, authorities said.

Andrew Mike, 29, of Downey, died at the scene following a lengthy effort to negotiate with him as he sat holding the woman, who was critically injured.

The man shot the woman in the torso, prompting police sharpshooters to open fire, police said.

"He did fire at her ... the officers fired at him to try to stop that threat and be able to try to save her life," Police Chief Mark Garcia said during a news conference in the university town about 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

Officers dragged the woman, who was not moving, to an armored vehicle.

She was airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center and was in critical condition, spokeswoman Susan Onuma said.

The woman's name was not were not immediately released but family members told the Redlands Daily Facts that she is Kristin Bauer, 28, of Corona, and she worked at an Office Depot store.

Mike was reported shooting a gun in a parking lot before he entered the store in search of his recently estranged girlfriend, according to a police statement.

The two argued and the man pulled a handgun and fired a shot at Bauer but missed, instead grazing a man's finger, Garcia said.

The bystander was listed in good condition at a hospital.

Her father, Gregory Bauer of Corona, told the Daily Facts that at one point his daughter had called him by cellphone and said Mike had tried to shoot her in the store.

"It was like background noise," Bauer said. "She kept telling him, `You gotta let me go. You gotta let me go,' and he said, `I'm not afraid to die."'

Then the phone turned off, he told the Press-Enterprise.

Mike forced his girlfriend out the back of the store at gunpoint and began walking on High Avenue where officers confronted him, according to the police statement.

He stopped and began a standoff that lasted more than two hours.

The man and the woman sat on a sidewalk. Television images showed the man holding a cellphone and a gun. At one point, he stroked the woman's hair and appeared to be talking to her.

Police managed to talk to both of them during the confrontation, which ended when the man shot the woman in the torso and police sharpshooters unleashed a volley of bullets that killed him, police said.

Bauer told the Press-Enterprise that his daughter had been dating the man for several months and there were no previous signs of trouble but she recently had suggested they stop seeing each other.

Bauer told other reporters that the man hadn't appeared to be violent and something must have "triggered" him.
School and police officials in Southern California said Thursday that a kindergarten play at an elementary school has been canceled after parents fought over seating arrangements.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that kindergarten students from Ridgemoor Elementary were set to put on a performance at Hans Christensen Middle School. Menifee Union School District spokeswoman Betti Cadmus said more than 300 people were in attendance.

However, Riverside County Sheriffs Deputy Michael Vasquez said at around 7 p.m., several parents got into a fight regarding seating and viewing privileges.

Some people walked to the front row and began filming, Vasquez told the newspaper. He said a verbal altercation then turned physical.

According to the Press-Enterprise, the play was called off and authorities were called to the school.

No arrests were made in the incident, Vasquez said. But deputies issued a citation for a citizens arrest.

Click for more from The Riverside Press-Enterprise.
A Louisiana man shot and killed his doctor at a hospital before walking outside and turning the gun on himself, authorities said Thursday.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office identified the gunman as John P. Thomas, 73, in the murder-suicide. Police confirmed that Thomas was one of Dr. Elbert Goodiers patients at East Jefferson General Hospital, WVUE-TV reported.

Thomas didnt have a criminal past. But family members told police he suffered from a mental illness, according to the Fox affiliate.

(Dr. Goodier was) a very nice guy," Jefferson Parish County Coroner Dr. Gerry Cvitanovich told WVUE-TV. "If you called him late at night, he was always prepared to help assist and take care of his patients."

Cvitanovich said he was with his mom at the hospital for a doctors appointment when someone came rushing in and said a doctor had been shot and killed.

Authorities said Thomas walked into Goodiers office at the Metairie hospital and then killed the doctor while he was meeting with a patient at around 2:20 p.m.. Thomas then fled the scene and entered a nearby Wendys, saw a sheriffs deputy and put the gun in his mouth and fired, police said.

"I think it's awful because we have very few murders in Metairie, and I personally come to that office, that building, many times over the last 10 years or better, and never hear anything like this. It's very, very depressing," Richard Wise, a neighbor, told WVUE-TV.

East Jefferson General Hospital President Dr. Mark J. Peters called Goodiers death a tragic loss.

Dr. Goodier was respected and beloved by all who had the privilege of knowing him. Our hearts and sympathies go out to his family, his friends, his staff and all who knew him, Peters said in a statement. Our chaplains are available should anyone wish to speak with them. We will be sending out more information as arrangements are made.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Goodier, 75, was a board-certified urologist who had practiced medicine for 50 years around the New Orleans area. He was a graduate of the LSU School of Medicine, completed an internship at Charity Hospital and his residency at Ochsner Medical Center.

He is survived by his wife Catherine, his son Michael, and his two daughters Christine Ross and Gina Goodier, the hospital said.

Click for more from WVUE-TV.

Click for more from the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Police say surgeons at a Massachusetts hospital removed 27 bags of heroin from a man who allegedly swallowed them to smuggle them into the United States.

The Salem News reports that 51-year-old Miguel Rodriguez, of Lynn, faces drug trafficking charges.

Police say they believe a bag broke open after Rodriguez returned from a visit to the Dominican Republic. They say he checked into the North Shore Medical Center Salem Hospital with symptoms of an overdose.

The paper reports that surgeons removed the bags from the man's stomach, intestines and rectum during emergency surgery on Tuesday. Salem police detectives watched and counted the bags.

The public defender representing Rodriguez couldn't immediately be reached to comment on Rodriguez's behalf.

He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment at the hospital Thursday.
A small town in northwestern Minnesota was evacuated Thursday afternoon after a Canadian Pacific freight train collided with a propane truck that caught fire.

Minnesota State Patrol Sgt. Jesse Grabow told the Associated Press that the town of Callaway, population 230, was evacuated as a precaution. The evacuation was to remain in effect until at least noon Friday.

Canadian Pacific said seven empty train cars and one locomotive derailed at about 12:25 p.m. local time Thursday. None of the cars were carrying hazardous materials and none of the train cars caught on fire. Two members of the train crew sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were both taken to a hospital in Detroit Lakes.

The state Department of Public Safety says the propane is being vented and burned off. WDAY-TV reported that the tanker contained 10,000 gallons of propane.

Fire crews from 15 departments worked to contain the fire. WDAY-TV reported that a large explosion shook the ground in Callaway at approximately 10:30 p.m. local time Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Fox9.com.

Click for more from WDAY.com.


The Hindu community is calling on a Muslim Dairy Queen franchise owner to take down signs from his Houston-area business that compare Hindus to monkeys.

Mohammad Dar, a 65-year-old Muslim and U.S. citizen from Pakistan, claims he is not prejudiced for installing the signs -- instead saying Hindus are the "racists," mySA.com reported.

Dar told the website that he decided to post the displays at his business after "researching" Hinduism -- the third-largest religion in the world -- for 14 years. He said the signs at his Kemah, Texas, Dairy Queen seek to showcase the wrongs of certain religions, specifically Hinduism, acccording to the website.

One sign reportedly compared Hinduism to monkeyism (sic).

A Texas Dairy Queen owner won't apologize for posting anti-Hindu signs in his restaurant - https://t.co/G3ayJqKu0M pic.twitter.com/sLK29OIB2f  First We Feast (@firstwefeast) March 24, 2016

"Hindus dont follow any limit or law, they follow desires like an animal  that is the foundation of Hinduism," Dar told mySA.com. "Monkeys dont plan anything, they just do what they desire, but humans follow the limit and law.

Its nothing personal, its educational, he reportedly added. Im really making people mad, but what Im doing is communicating and inviting them to communicate [] they think I am attacking their religion, but I am not.

In a statement to mySA.com, Dairy Queen's corporate office called the installment of the signs an "unfortunate action" and said they are "not representative of our iconic family brand."

"We do not condone this behavior," company officials told the website."

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is calling for International Dairy Queen Inc. to issue an apology on the matter.

"Posters reportedly displayed at its Kemah store in Texas were highly inappropriate and trivialized the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a highly philosophical thought," Zed said in the release.

He said the company "should have shown some responsibility and already taken action regarding these signs posted at the Kemah location reportedly for many months."

Click for more from mySA.com
Supporters for a Honduran teen facing deportation said at a rally Thursday that he should be released from immigration officials custody and returned to North Carolina to finish high school.

Wildin Acosta, 19, is being held in a rural Georgia jail. He attends Riverside High School and his lawyer was granted an appeal, which was filed on Monday, to temporarily prevent his deportation.

Teachers and students have rallied around Acosta since his detainment. Acosta and his supporters argue that he is risking death if he returns to Honduras where he fled in 2014 after a gang member threatened to kill him.

"I believe that his triumph will be that this year he will be able to graduate as a senior with me and all of the 300 to 400 classmates that he has," student Axel Herrea said as supporters held signs and chanted phrases such as "education not deportation."

Ellen Holmes, one of Acostas teachers, told the Associated Press that he was awakened at 3 a.m. on Monday and told he was being deported even though the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted a temporary order to prevent his deportation.

"Then they kept him detained and alone, thinking he was going to be deported for over 3.5 hours," she said. "I get asked every single day, 'where's Wildin? When's he coming back? What's going on with him, Ms. Holmes? What's going to happen?"

A spokesman Corrections Corp. of America, which manages the facility where Acosta is being held, said they are just following ICEs orders.

"When we receive instructions from ICE to carry out the transport of a detainee like that, we follow suit," CCA spokesman Jonathan Burns said. "And if at some point that instruction is canceled, we carry that out as well."

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said the stay Acosta received pauses his deportation, while the immigration court considers the appeal.

Supporters said Acosta is one of about 800 teenagers who arrived in the U.S. as unaccompanied children and have been detained or deported by ICE since October. They also rallied in support of five other North Carolina students they say are being detained and threatened with deportation.

Two were in school in Charlotte and one each in schools in Greenville, Thomasville and Raleigh, organizer Ivan Almonte said. Three North Carolina teens have already been deported, he said.

Rodney Ellis, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said Acosta and the other five detained students "are not a threat to our schools. They should not be sitting in a jail cell. They should be in a classroom, not only learning about math or science but about problem solving and being a valued member and contributor to our society. "

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Latest on the conflict in Syria and the provisional cease-fire proposed by the U.S. and Russia (all times local):

12:30 p.m.

Turkey's prime minister has warned a Syrian Kurdish militia against taking advantage of an upcoming truce in Syria for actions that threaten Turkey's security.

Ahmet Davutoglu says his country will respond to such actions and that Turkey will not be bound by the cease-fire agreement due to be implemented this this week if the Kurdish militia poses any threat.

Davutoglu spoke on Turkish TV on Thursday.

Ankara considers the Syrian Kurdish group a terror organization because of its links to Turkey's own Kurdish rebels and has been shelling the militia's positions inside Syria along the border with Turkey.

Davutoglu says that "where Turkey's security is concerned, we would not seek anyone's permission, we would do whatever is necessary" to defend the country.

___

12:15 p.m.

Syria's state-run news agency and an opposition monitoring group say government troops have recaptured a town in Aleppo province from Islamic State militants.

The victory is key for Syria's military access to the provincial capital, Aleppo city.

SANA says the army took the town of Khanaser on Thursday, after three days of heavy battles with the extremist group.

The report says heavy fighting was ongoing to reopen the road to Aleppo city. IS seized Khanaser and surrounding hills on Tuesday, cutting the government's main land route to the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, says the army and pro-government Shiite militias were backed by Russian airstrikes in the push on Khanaser.

The advance comes ahead of a cease-fire meant to start on midnight Friday.
Twin terror raids in France and Belgium Thursday resulted in multiple arrests, including one Frenchman who was described as being in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack the country.

However, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the man arrested in Argenteuil, on the northern outskirts of Paris, was not linked at this stage to recent attacks in Paris and Brussels.

He said the person was implicated at a high level in the alleged future plot but provided no details.

A 23-year-old resident of the neighborhood described seeing heavily masked and armed officers surround the entrance to an apartment building before entering and emerging with the suspect, his head covered in a scarf.



At the same time, six people were reported arrested during anti-terror operations in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek, the same area where an ISIS flag and a bomb containing nails were found after attacks on the Brussels airport and subway.

Investigators could be seen carrying what appeared to be bags of evidence from at least one of the raid sites.

The raids came as Belgium lowered its terror threat level by one notch although authorities said the situation remained "grave" and another attack was "likely and possible."

In a related development, two law enforcement sources confirmed to Fox News that two brothers named as suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks earlier this week were listed in U.S. intel databases and known to the FBI.

One source said Belgian authorities had shared intelligence on the individuals with their foreign counterparts.

Earlier, the fugitive terrorist suspect who was captured in Brussels just days before a series of coordinated bombings ripped through the Belgian capital on Tuesday  and who claimed he knew nothing of that deadly plot  was reportedly planning a larger, Paris-style attack involving both mass shootings and suicide blasts.

Salah Abdeslam, the lone surviving suspect of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, denied knowing about the Brussels attacks, which killed at least 31 and wounded at least 270, his lawyer said in court on Thursday. But Abdeslam, who was captured Friday following a four-month manhunt, was set to participate in what could have been an even deadlier massacre, according to Belgian broadcaster VRT.

The plot would reportedly have featured two units of terrorists, one group who would use Kalashnikov rifles to shoot civilians and a second that would blow themselves up in crowded areas. Abdeslam, Mohamed Belkaid, who was killed while shooting at police during a Brussels raid last week, and a third unidentified man were alleged to be the would-be shooters.

That plan is highly reminiscent of the Paris terror attacks, which killed 130. During those attacks, three terrorists blew themselves up outside the Stade de France, while other attackers shot civilians before detonating explosive vests. In the most deadly instance, 89 people were killed after terrorists stormed the Bataclan concert hall during a performance by the American band The Eagles of Death Metal.

ISIS claimed credit for both the Paris and Brussels terror attacks.



Abdeslam is accused of being part of the Paris terror team, but is alleged to have abandoned his mission  and his suicide vest  and fled to Belgium, where he began cultivating a new terror cell.

But any plans Abdeslam had of participating in a second attack vanished when police captured him on Friday. Its thought that Abdeslams arrest led the eventual Brussels attackers to speed up their attack plans, resulting in Tuesdays carnage at Zaventem Airport and inside the Maelbeek metro station.

Officials have identified three of the attackers who carried out Tuesdays bombings and believe two other possible accomplices  as yet unidentified  may be on the run.

Abdeslams lawyer, Sven Mary, said Abdeslam would not fight extradition to France, saying his client wanted to explain himself in France.

The mass shooting/bombing plot may have been just one of several abandoned plans considered by the Brussels cell.

Two of the brothers identified in Tuesday's attacks -- Ibrahim and Khalid El-Bakraoui -- allegedly planted a camera outside a Belgian nuclear official's house and spied on the man, according to multiple reports. Experts have speculated the men could have been seeking to try to procure materials to build a so-called "dirty bomb."



About 10 hours of footage was recovered by authorities in raids following the Paris attacks, leading to increased security around Belgium's Tihange and Doel nuclear plants.

Fox News' Matthew Dean and The Associated Press contributed to this story


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The village elder put his shovel aside, stooped down by a scraggly bush and pulled a sack from the freshly turned dirt. Spreading open the sack, he reached in to reveal femurs, skull and jaw fragments, boots and a rusted green helmet.

"These are your American GIs," Song Hong Ik said at a burial mound near the top of a small hill.

Perhaps they are. But for more than a decade, no one has been trying to find out.

"Until They Are Home" is one of the most sacred vows of the U.S. military, yet Washington has long suspended efforts to look for 5,300 American GIs missing in North Korea whose remains are potentially recoverable. The countries' abysmal relations suggest that no restart is coming soon.

In the meantime, possible remains and recovery sites are being lost as North Korea works to improve its infrastructure with projects such as the Chongchon River No. 10 Hydroelectric Power Station. The bones Song revealed came from that project's construction site.

His village, the hamlet of Ryongyon-ri, is nestled among low rolling hills in the heart of a Korean War battleground about 150 kilometers (almost 100 miles) north of Pyongyang. The 90-minute drive from the capital runs through mostly flat land covered by rice paddies or fields of corn and potatoes. The scene is quietly rustic. Farmers use oxcarts to transport produce and villagers can be seen walking in the distance on narrow dirt roads.

Not far from the highway that leads past the village, a shallow river runs through a wide valley. Song, polite but to the point, explained as he climbed the hill that the valley will be flooded when the dam is completed.

Song said construction on the plant, which involved a lot of digging, began in earnest four years ago.

That's when the bones started piling up, he said. Enough, he added, to fill a half-dozen makeshift burial mounds on the hill, maybe 70 or 100 sets in all.

He dug up a few other mounds to make his point. Then, after a smoke break, he and the plant's construction supervisor put the bones back in their bags and reburied them.

___

Between 1996 and 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea search teams conducted 33 joint recovery operations and recovered 229 sets of American remains. Washington broke them off because it claimed the safety of its searchers was not guaranteed. Critics of the program argued the North was using the deal to squeeze cash out of Washington  "bones for bucks," they said.

Talks to restart recovery work resumed in 2011, only to fall apart after North Korea launched a rocket condemned by the U.S. as a banned test of ballistic missile technology. There has been no progress since.

With distrust between the two countries chronically high, it took months of requests before The Associated Press was allowed to go to Ryongyon-ri, first last May with a Korean People's Army escort and again in December.

The AP made the requests because North Korea's state-run media have repeatedly said  without giving details  that with construction, agricultural and other infrastructure projects going forward, time is running out for the U.S. military to collect its Korean War dead.

In Washington, such claims are often seen as a not-so-subtle jab at the U.S. government for halting the searches, or an effort to guilt the U.S. into formal talks it has refused to engage in as long as Pyongyang continues its nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang's approval of The AP's visits to Ryongyon-ri may have had similar political motivations. That's often how things work in North Korea, though an army official and villagers angrily denied that their reasons for allowing The AP to see the remains were anything other than humanitarian.

In any case, Washington isn't biting. And its war dead are not being brought home.

___

More than 7,800 U.S. troops remain lost and unrecovered from the Korean War. About 5,300 were lost in North Korea.

According to the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, most died in major battles or as prisoners of war. Others died "along the wayside or in small villages" and many of the losses from aircraft crashes also occurred near battle zones or roads connecting them. "So," it says, "it is possible that major concentrations of human remains are located in these areas."

The DPAA lists Kujang County, where Ryongyon-ri is located, as part of a prime search area that could potentially yield 1,600 remains. The Chosin Reservoir, where another major campaign was fought, and POW camp burial grounds near the Chinese border are also priority sites.

"The Department of Defense is committed to achieving the fullest possible accounting," Lt. Col. Holly Slaughter, a DPAA spokeswoman, told The AP. "U.S. efforts to recover Korean War remains are a humanitarian effort for our missing servicemen, their families and the American people."

Even so, Maj. Natasha Waggoner, another spokeswoman for the agency, said there is no schedule "at this time" to hold talks to send any search teams back.

Until they do, the jury will remain out on the Ryongyon-ri remains.

It's impossible to judge the veracity of remains simply by looking at them. Only expert eyes and a long and difficult forensic identification process can do that. There were no dogtags, unit insignia or other identification clues mixed in with the remains seen by The AP.

Villagers acknowledged the remains were gathered haphazardly as construction progressed. It is quite possible, they said, the remains could include animal bones or the remains of combatants from other countries.

Villagers old enough to have witnessed the battle have sketchy memories, at best.

By the time the fighting came to their backyard, from mid-November to December 1950, most of the village, a scattering of about 30 households, had already been evacuated. Those who remained were mostly women, children and old people. The village was then known as Sangpyong.

"My aunt, uncle and grandfather were caught by the U.S. enemies, who beat them so they got sick and died," said Kim Ri Jun, who was then 13 years old.

Kim and Song had no information about specific units the troops were attached to. They did remember that many U.S. soldiers were African-American, and that troops from other countries, taking part in U.S.-led United Nations forces, were involved in the fighting as well.

The location and timeframe coincide with a major clash between the U.S. and its allies and the Chinese "volunteer" forces fighting on Pyongyang's side. The push north was known as the "Home by Christmas" campaign because Gen. Douglas MacArthur thought the war would be won by Christmas. Instead, it would last two and a half more years, end in a stalemate and claim 36,500 American lives.

The U.S. government has estimated as many as 270 sets of American remains are likely recoverable in Kujang County alone. Searching for them was one of the top priorities when the U.S. missions were still going to North Korea. Nearly a dozen joint searches were conducted in the area from 1998-2000.

But they ended long before the real digging in Ryongyon-ri began.

___

That any joint searches were held at all was almost miraculous. That they would break down seems much more predictable.

North Korea and the United States remain technically at war because the 1950-53 fighting ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Remains recovery is the only project their militaries have ever worked on together.

Relations were much better when the missions began.

Under President Bill Clinton, the two countries had signed an agreement for the North to freeze its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid. But that deal unraveled in 2002, the same year President George W. Bush declared North Korea part of the "axis of evil." The searches continued for a few more years, but bilateral relations took a nosedive. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and meaningful contact between the two countries has since been minimal.

Slaughter, of the DPAA, said the total cost to the U.S. to carry out the joint missions was $19.5 million. Of the 229 remains recovered, 110 have been identified. The recovery of remains has since ground to a halt  to only six, all unilaterally handed over to the U.S. by Pyongyang in 2007.

The impasse on a humanitarian  not political  issue doesn't sit well with some Korean War veterans.

"Those of us who fought there really feel it's a travesty that we haven't been able to get there and try to find those that were killed or died in the prison camps," said Larry Kinard, who fought in Korea with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and is now president of the 15,000-member Korean War Veterans Association. He noted that since 1982 only 332 Korean War remains have been identified and accounted for.

Kinard told the AP from his home in Texas he is in regular contact with the DPAA and feels it is doing the best it can with limited resources and the challenges it faces of getting into North Korea to conduct searches.

But he added that is of little consolation to the families of the missing.

"Approximately 5,300 of our comrades still lie in the ground in North Korea and little or no effort is currently underway to recover them," he said. "The KWVA members, who average nearly 85 years old, want to see their fellow brothers-in-arms found, identified, brought home, and laid to rest in our country."

Song, meanwhile, said he had mixed feelings about gathering the bones of his enemy and moving them to the hill so that they wouldn't be lost when the valley is flooded.

"Frankly, I don't care if the Americans come or not," he said. "But they owe us a thank you for taking care of their dead."
The wife of an Air Force lieutenant colonel was one of at least two Americans killed in the Belgium terror attacks Tuesday, officials told Fox News.

The woman's name was not revealed. In all, 31 people were killed in coordinated bombings Tuesday at Zaventem Airport outside Brussels and a metro station in the city, Belgian officials say.

"The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks," Secretary of State John Kerry told Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel in Brussels Friday.

"The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks."  Secretary of State John Kerry

Relatives of siblings Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, Dutch nationals living in New York known to have been at the aiport, issued a statement Thursday confirming that the pair was not on a list of survivors.

"Sadly, our beloved Alexander and Sascha were not among them," the family said in a statement Thursday. "We ask for continued prayers and privacy during this time of grieving as we await final closure."

"The State Dept Friday confirmed that two Americans have died in the Brussels attacks. Others remain in critical condition."

The Islamic State terror group has claimed credit for the attacks, which were carried out by as many as five bombers, three of which are believed to have died and two who are being sought. Authorities believe the bombers used suitcases packed with explosives and nails, producing blasts so devastating that identifying bodies has been difficult, and sending deadly shrapnel hurtling through the airport terminal and metro station.



Summary

What is known of the men suspected of direct involvement in Tuesdays attacks:

- Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of two brothers involved, is believed to be one of two suicide bombers who died at the airport.

- Najim Laachraoui, an ISIS explosives expert believed to have built the bombs used in both the Paris and Brussels attacks, was the other suicide bomber who died at the airport. He and Ibrahim El Bakraoui are believed to be the men seen in a surveillance photo pushing luggage carts and wearing solitary black gloves that may have masked detonators.

- A mystery man dressed in white, wearing a dark hat and possibly a disguise who has not been identified was also seen pushing a cart in the surveillance photo. He is believed to have placed a bomb at the airport and fled the scene. Authorities are looking for him.

- Khalid El Bakraoui, the brother of Ibrahim El Bakraoui, is believed to have died in a suicide blast at the Maelbeek Metro station 79 minutes after the airport attack.

- A second man seen with Khalid El Bakraoui and carrying a large bag at the Metro station is believed to have been an accomplice. Police are trying to determine if he is a suspect who was arrested Thursday night. His identity has not been revealed.

About a dozen Americans were known to be injured in the attacks, and several stateside families had not been able to contact relatives that were known to be at the airport, but Friday's development marked the first confirmation of American deaths.

The State Department said among those still unaccounted for were two "official Americans," meaning they were U.S. government employees or their family members. That description could include both State Department employees, military employees or others, he said.

Also among the U.S. citizens still unaccounted for were Justin and Stephanie Shults, originally from Tennessee and Kentucky but now living in Belgium. Adding to their relatives' anxiety, the couple was wrongly said to have been located on Wednesday.

Justin Shults' brother, Levi Sutton, said a State Department official told his mother the couple had been found, but that an hour later a social worker called the mother to say the information was incorrect.

Counted among the Americans confirmed injured in the bombings were three missionaries from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as a U.S. Air Force airman and four members of his family.

Kerry, who arrived at the still-closed airport Friday for a brief unscheduled stop on his way home from Moscow, pledged U.S. support for Belgium in the wake of the attacks, even as President Obama was criticized for appearing at a baseball game in Cuba and dancing the tango in Argentina during a previously scheduled tour earlier this week.



"We - all of us representing countless nationalities - have a message for those who inspired or carried out the attacks here or in Paris, or Ankara, or Tunis, or San Bernardino, or elsewhere: We will not be intimidated," Kerry said. "We will not be deterred. We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Michel thanked Kerry for his visit, calling it a powerful message of solidarity. "It is very important for us today to receive your support," he said. He offered condolences for the American victims and vowed to step up counter-terrorism cooperation with the U.S. and others.

Kerry said he offered the prayers of the American people for "these people who have suffered inconceivable losses."

"Those whose lives were torn apart this week were not combatants in any conflict," the secretary said.

The Belgian Embassy, not long after Kerry's arrival, sent a Twitter message calling his stop here an example of "the solidarity of the American people which goes right to our heart."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Belgium's government admitted Thursday that more could have been done to prevent Tuesday's suicide bombings in Brussels, as two high-ranking ministers offered to resign over law enforcement's failure to act on a warning from Turkey last year that it had arrested one of the would-be bombers.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel asked Interior Mininster Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens to stay on, given the current challenge the government is facing. However, Geens admitted to reporters that authorities "don't have to be proud about what happened," adding, "We perhaps did things we should not have done."

The attacks on the Zaventem airport and a subway train killed at least 31 people and injured 250 others. Revelations that the attacks were carried out by the same ISIS cell behind last November's attacks in Paris that killed 130 people have led to uncomfortable questions for Belgian counterterrror intelligence and policing.

Many of the questions were prompted by Turkey's disclosure Wednesday that it had apprehended one of the airport suicide bombers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, near Turkey's border with Syria, in June 2015. El Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands at his request, but was later set free by the Dutch for lack of proof of his involvement with jihadis.

Turkey said it had warned Belgium that it had flagged El Bakraoui as a "foreign terrorist fighter." El Bakraoui had a criminal record in Belgium at the time he went to Turkey, but Belgian authorities also could find no links to terrorism.

Geens appeared on a Belgian TV news show and was asked who was to blame for the failure to follow up on the Turkish warning.

"It is clear it is not one single person, but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things."

"Our own services should perhaps have been more critical about the place where the person had been detained," he added, referring to Turkey's border area with Syria.

"When someone is arrested there in a city few people know, it is clear enough for insiders that it could be a terrorist," Geens said. "Here, though, he was not known as a terrorist. It is the only moment we could have linked him to it. And that moment, perhaps, we missed."

The justice minister acknowledged that "we have to be very self-critical."

But Geens added that "such events have also happened in nations with the best intelligence services in the world," pointing to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Authorities had been unable to find Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris ringleaders and described as one of Europe's most wanted men, until a breakthrough led them to a Brussels apartment where he was arrested Friday.

Abdeslam evaded police in two countries for four months before his capture, and the attackers in Brussels may have rushed their plot because they felt authorities closing in.

The intelligence shortcomings have prompted European authorities to once again call for quicker and more efficient intelligence cooperation.

Rob Wainwright, the head of Europe's police agency Europol, told the Associated Press his agency is trying to make sure investigators have access to needed information.

"You have a fragmented intelligence picture but we're trying to help with that," he said. "Our databases contain thousands of names of suspected foreign fighters which have been submitted by member states, and even the United States. But we also have records on arms smuggling, money laundering, forgery and other elements which are particularly relevant given that many of these guys had petty crime backgrounds."

He said the threat goes beyond France and Belgium and that it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

"We are looking at large numbers of foreign fighters who have returned as potential terrorists," he said. "And we are faced with a strategic decision by the Islamic State to aggressively target Europe. These are all very challenging dimensions. As for how large the community is and who has been sent back - that is the golden question."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Police in Brussels shot and wounded a man who may have been carrying explosives in his backpack Friday at a metro stop after he failed to respond to their commands, witnesses said.



The unidentified man was shot in the leg and appeared to be with a girl around the age of eight, according to one witness. The suspect and two others were arrested in the city that has been gripped by fear after Tuesdays terror attacks.

I heard two explosions, they were shooting, one witness told La Libre newspaper. I opened the window and saw a man lying near the tram stop. The police ordered him to show his hands, remove his jacket. They said that if he did not comply, they would use their weapons.

A video was released that appeared to show the injured man lying on the trams platform with a motorized bomb-disposal robot approaching. He was later shown being dragged away by police.

The suspect is believed to be connected to a Frenchman who prosecutors say was plotting a new terror attack in France before police caught him Thursday.
Border officials in Texas say they have intercepted a semi-submersible vessel carrying a whopping 12,800 pounds of cocaine thats worth more than $200 million.

A team of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents based in Corpus Christi detected the self-propelled vessel earlier this month and arrested the four people onboard, officials told ABC News.

The sub  which later sank  originated from the Eastern Pacific Ocean, the officials added.

In August of last year, the Coast Guard busted a ship carrying 12,000 pounds of cocaine off the coast of Central America, ABC News reports. In the 2015 fiscal year, U.S. border officials said they seized 213,000 pounds of cocaine in operations within the 42 million square-mile area they monitor.

The announcement of the raid comes days after a JetBlue flight attendant was accused of trying to sneak a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport. In that case, the attendant, who is facing a federal drug charge, "may not have been fully aware of what was in the bags, her spokesman said.

Click for more from ABC News.
Father Bernard Kinvi is humbled by the prospect of winning a $1 million peace prize for saving hundreds and possibly thousands of Muslims and Christians alike from the sectarian violence that grips his nation.

He is also amazed that word of his work has gotten around.

The Catholic priest from the Central African Republic is one of four finalists of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, an annual award given by humanitarian initiative 100 Lives, which was formed in honor of those who survived the Armenian Genocide over a century ago. The prize is given every year to individuals or groups that commit an extraordinary act of humanity.

"It is my duty as a Camilian priest who has dedicated his life to the service those who are ill and those who are suffering, even at if it meant risking my own life.  Father Bernard Kinvi

It gives me great emotion, Kinvi told FoxNews.com, speaking in French in an email interview. I work in a remote corner of the Earth. We dont do any advertising, nor do we look for international recognition.

To see my name among the finalists of this award that I did not even know existed is for me a pleasant surprise.

Kinvi, who was born in Togo, started a church and mission hospital three years ago in the northwestern town of Bossemptee, just as violence began to engulf the nation. The region had been in turmoil for more than a decade, but fighting between Christian and Muslim extremists exploded in 2013.

In March of that year, an alliance of Muslim rebel groups called the Seleka overthrew the Christian government headed by Francois Bozize Yangouvonda and installed Muslim Michel Djotdia as president.

Six months later, Djotodia disbanded the militias that had helped put him in power, and members dispersed into the countryside where they began committing mass atrocities according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

The executions, rape, and pillaging by the ex- Seleka members led a civil war with the nation's population, which is 80 percent Christian, to form militias of their own using the name Anti-Balaka to fight the mostly Muslim Seleka. The fighting between the two groups has led to near genocide during the three-year conflict between the two groups.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or displaced in fighting before and after Bozize's ouster. He sought to return from exile and run for election in November, but was barred from doing so.

Kinvi is creditd with harboring more than 1,500 refugees, without regard to their religious beliefs, as they fled the violence.

My presence amongst them has given them refuge, Kinvi said. Those who are injured or sick are all treated at my hospital. We feed the hungry and we intervene to free those who have been captured. We visit those who fled and sought refuge in Cameroon to give them moral support and encourage them not to seek vengeance.

"At home, children can now go to school, which gives us a lot of hope for the future," he continued. "Its a profound relief for our people.

Kinvi has been threatened by Christian militia members for aiding Muslims, many of whom he helped safely cross into neighboring Cameroon.

I did not check their religion before helping them, Kinvi tells FoxNews.com. I had in front of me human beings whose lives were in danger. It is my duty as a Camilian priest who has dedicated his life to the service those who are ill and those who are suffering, even at if it meant risking my own life.

If Kinvi wins the Aurora Prize, he intends to use the money to continue his work in Bossemptele.

I will be able to purchase more medicine and continue to visit the most remote villages with a mobile hospital to treat the most marginalized people," he said.

But he was quick to add that others in the church are doing similar work.

There are many priests and nuns who carry out the same type of work as I do," he said. "Just like me, they work quietly and do not seek recognition."
The West struck back hard against ISIS in the wake of the Brussels terror attacks, with the U.S. announcing it took out the Islamist groups paymaster in a raid in Syria even as authorities in Belgium and France continued to roll up the cell behind this weeks carnage as well as the deadly November attacks in Paris.

French police on Thursday nabbed a convicted terrorist linked to the Paris attacks and believed to be close to launching a new attack, and authorities in Brussels said information from that bust led to raids and arrests in Belgium. The flurry of activity in the closely-tied European nations strengthened suspicions one ISIS-directed cell was responsible for attacks that rocked their capitals.

The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organizations ability to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria."  US Defense Secretary Ash Carter

As raids were carried out in Europe, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that ISIS No. 2 man, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, had been taken out in a Thursday raid in Syria. Elimination of the terror groups money man was prompted by Tuesdays attacks in Brussels that killed 31 and injured 270, and could cut off funding for subsequent operations, Carter said.

What is known of the men suspected of direct involvement in Tuesdays attacks:

Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of two brothers involved, is believed to be one of two suicide bombers who died at the airport.

Najim Laachraoui, an ISIS explosives expert believed to have built the bombs used in both the Paris and Brussels attacks, was the other suicide bomber who died at the airport. He and Ibrahim El Bakraoui are believed to be the men seen in a surveillance photo pushing luggage carts and wearing solitary black gloves that may have masked detonators.

A mystery man dressed in white, wearing a dark hat and possibly a disguise who has not been identified was also seen pushing a cart in the surveillance photo. He is believed to have placed a bomb at the airport and fled the scene. Authorities are looking for him.

Khalid El Bakraoui, the brother of Ibrahim El Bakraoui, is believed to have died in a suicide blast at the Maelbeek Metro station 79 minutes after the airport attack.

A second man seen with Khalid El Bakraoui and carrying a large bag at the Metro station is believed to have been an accomplice. Police are trying to determine if he is a suspect who was arrested Thursday night. His identity has not been revealed.

The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organizations ability to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria," Carter said.

The French suspect, Reda Kriket, had been convicted in absentia of terrorist activities last year along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. Prosecutors said both men took part in a recruiting network for jihad in Syria. Abaaoud was killed in France in November in a raid following the attacks he masterminded.

Kriket was in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack a target in France, according to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Tuesdays coordinated attacks in Belgium, first at Zaventem Airport outside Brussels, where 11 people were killed, and then, 79 minutes later, at a metro station, where 20 were killed, left another 270 injured. The November attacks in Paris killed 130.

ISIS has claimed credit for both attacks, and the close ties of the bombers and suspects involved in each suggests the attackers may have been part of the same cell, according to authorities.

Brussels police on Friday arrested three suspects with ties to Kriket. They were nabbed in different districts of the Belgian capital -- Schaerbeek, Forest and Saint-Gilles. One suspect was shot by police in Schaerbeek in a dramatic takedown captured on cellphone video.

State broadcaster RTBF quoted mayor Bernard Clerfayt as saying the unidentified suspect had been neutralized, but did not say if he was killed or merely wounded.

Also Friday, German prosecutors said they were investigating whether a Moroccan man detained in central Germany had any connection to the Brussels attacks.

Prosecutors in Giessen said Friday the 28-year-old, whom they didn't identify, was picked up early Thursday because he didn't have valid ID. They said they found documents indicating that he had been in the Brussels area recently and seized a cellphone that they are now evaluating.

Der Spiegel magazine and two public broadcasters are saying the man received two suspicious text messages on the day of the Brussels attacks. Officials established that he had previously entered Germany under various aliases and sought asylum, and that he is known to police in Italy, according to prosecutors.

Investigators say a man arrested in Belgium Thursday is believed to be one of two remaining mystery men from Tuesdays attacks  a man seen in the metro station and believed to have survived the attack. That leaves one other man suspected of direct involvement in the attacks at large, the man seen in an airport surveillance photo alongside two suicide bombers moments before at least two blasts ripped through the airport, killing dozens of people including at least two Americans.

Known to have been killed in the two attacks are Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, who blew themselves up at the airport, killing 11; and El Bakraoui's brother, Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew himself up in the metro station and was seen with an accomplice.

In all, seven people have been arrested in Belgium in connection with the attacks. A source told Reuters that among those arrested in Brussels on Thursday were three people "stupidly hanging around" near the federal prosecutors office, the heavily guarded center of the investigation effort. The source said investigators were still trying to determine if they were part of the terror cell.
As the world reels from the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, the families and loved ones of the San Bernardino shooting victims told Fox News they can relate to the horror being endured in Belgium.

I feel horrible for people waiting to hear about their loved ones. I know what theyre going through. Jennifer Thalasinos told Fox News.

Thalasinos' husband, Nicholas Thalasinos, a health inspector, was one of the 14 people gunned down in an ISIS-inspired attack on Dec. 2 by husband-and-wife terrorists Sayed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik at the Inland Regional Center in the Southern California city.

Its horrible that this keeps happening, says Thalasinos. And now theyre saying about all of these other trained ones that are in Europe. I dont think this is going to end.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan spoke with former Navy SEAL Leif Babin, who co-hosts a special edition of War Stories: Fighting ISIS with Oliver North. The program airs on Fox News Channel Friday, March 25, at 10 p.m. ET, and throughout the weekend.

"I don't think this is going to end."  Jennifer Thalasinos

[These attacks] add a whole new element, where now you have people that are just deciding theyre going to act in the name of a religion or an ideology, to carry out an attack," Burguan said. "You have ISIS which has said, 'Go do your attacks do what you're going to do in our name which has added a whole new fear in this country in many ways.'"

ISIS is real, said Babin, a decorated Iraq combat veteran. They live here. They are in our own backyard. If we dont confront this enemy and destroy them, what happened in Paris and Brussels will start happening in America.

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., who is also a retired Air Force colonel, agreed.

Weve been seeing this threat of Islamist extremism growing and metastasizing over the last several decades, McSally said. ISIS has brought a new dynamic to it that has really changed its nature, and made it much more potent than what weve seen in the past.

Some Muslim leaders are now working to challenge the ideology of ISIS. Just two days after the San Bernardino shootings, the newly formed Muslim Reform Movement held a press conference in Washington to announce a new initiative called the Declaration of Reform. It calls for rejection of any interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam.

We stand against violent Jihad, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told War Stories. "We stand against the idea of the Islamic State. Not only ISIS, but all Islamic States. We stand for the equality of men and women. We stand for free speech. We believe ideas don't have rights. Human beings do.
A Kosovo court has jailed three ethnic Albanian men who had tried to join Islamic State extremists in Syria.

Two of them were sentenced to two years and four months in jail and the third to two-and-a-half years, the Pristina court said Friday.

Last November they were stopped by the Turkish authorities at Istanbul airport and handed back to Kosovo police who arrested them.

Joining Islamic rebel groups is punishable with up to 15 years imprisonment based on a law passed last year prohibiting Kosovo people from taking part in armed conflicts outside their territory.

A few hundred Kosovo-born volunteers have gone to join the Islamic groups in Syria and Iraq, mainly passing through Turkey.
It was a sour situation for everyone involved.

A woman who arrived at an airport in Auckland, New Zealand on Monday was immediately sent back to Hong Kong after being busted for trying to smuggle six lemons in her pants, an airport official said.

"She had failed to declare she was carrying any food on her official arrival card," Craig Hughes, a manager with New Zealands Ministry for Primary Industries, told One News. The Ministry says it aims to protect New Zealand from biological risks.

A security dog sniffed out the fruit and the woman was soon sent packing.

"Her excuse was that the lemons were good for her liver and other illnesses, Hughes told One News. That may be true, but it doesn't justify endangering New Zealand's horticulture industry by illegally bringing in fruit that could harbor pests or diseases."

Click for more from One News.
North Korea increased its threatening rhetoric on Seoul Friday, saying it carried out a military exercise targeting the official residence of South Koreas president.

BBC, citing the KCNA state news agency, reported the drill was overseen by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Kim called on his army to be ready to ruthlessly destroy the South Korean government.

Pyongyang is known for making threats to wipe out Seoul and the U.S. but in recent weeks has taken parting shots at South Koreas President Park Geun-hye after her warning that Kims regime is bound to collapse. Pyongyang responded with personal attacks against Park.

North Koreas state news agency said the military exercise was the countrys largest and consisted of long-range artillery training with the simulated attack on the presidential Blue House, according to Reuters.

Pyongyangs angry threats have come as a response to the ongoing South Korea-U.S. drills, which started after North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range rocket in February.

North Korea said Thursday that it had successfully conducted a solid-fuel rocket engine test, which if confirmed would be a major step forward in boosting its missile attack capability against South Korea and the United States.

North Korea is known to use liquid propellants for its main ballistic missiles that target South Korea, U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific region and the American mainland.

Kim expressed delight after observing the successful testing of a "large-output solid fuel rocket engine," which made an "earth-shaking" sound as it spit out a large beam of fire.

Kim said that the test will enhance a missile capability that will "mercilessly" strike enemies in an apparent reference to South Korea and the United States.

According to BBC, its not clear when exactly Fridays drill was carried out but the states report warned of a miserable end for Park.

The last time the Blue House was attacked was in 1968. North Korean commandos attempted to kill then-President Park Chung-hee was were unsuccessful. Only seven South Koreans were killed in onslaught while several of the 31 North Korean fighters were killed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from BBC.
The man detained by French police in an anti-terror raid outside Paris Thursday night had been wanted since January and reportedly is connected to the suspected ringleader of last November's terror attacks in the French capital.

The Associated Press, citing two French officials, identified the suspect as Reda Kriket, 34. He was arrested in Argenteuil, on the northern outskirts of Paris.

A Belgian official told AP that Kriket had been convicted in absentia in July along with Abaaoud and others for being part of a network that recruited fighters for ISIS in Syria.

At the time of Kriket's arrest Thursday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve said there was no evidence "at this stage" to tie the suspect to either the attacks in Paris or Tuesday's suicide bombings in Brussels that killed at least 31 people and wounded 250 others.

Cazeneuve did say that the suspect was involved at a "high level" in a plot to attack France that was in the "advanced stages."

Authorities had previously identified Abaaoud as the ringleader of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. He died in a police raid five days later.

At roughly the same time as Kriket's arrest, six people were apprehended during anti-terror operations in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek, the same area where an ISIS flag and a bomb containing nails were found after the attacks earlier this week.

Investigators could be seen carrying what appeared to be bags of evidence from at least one of the raid sites.

The raids came as Belgium lowered its terror threat level by one notch although authorities said the situation remained "grave" and another attack was "likely and possible."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Two Turkish journalists went on trial on Friday on allegations that they revealed state secrets and helped a terror organization with their reports on alleged government-arms smuggling to Syrian rebels, a trial that has increased concern about the erosion of media freedoms in Turkey.

Cumhuriyet newspaper's chief editor Can Dundar and Ankara representative Erdem Gul face life imprisonment if found guilty of charges of espionage and of aiding the moderate Islamic movement led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The pair are on trial for publishing images that reportedly date back to January 2014, when local authorities searched Syria-bound trucks, leading to a standoff with Turkish intelligence officials. Cumhuriyet said the images proved Turkey was smuggling arms to Islamist rebels.

The prosecutor asked that the hearing proceed behind closed doors in a request that was granted by the court, according to local media.

International media advocacy groups, who are pressing Turkey to drop charges, are closely watching Friday's opening hearing. The trial is seen as a bellwether of the future of press freedom in the country which has witnessed a growing crackdown on independent and opposition media over the past few years.

The journalists were arrested in November after Erdogan filed a personal complaint against the two. Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled in February that their rights were violated, leading to their release from jail.

Speaking to reporters as he entered the courthouse, Dundar said he was hopeful that the court would take the high court's ruling into account and drop charges.

"The Constitutional Court has already said that this news is not an act of terrorism but an act of journalism. So this judge, we hope, will approve this decision and drop (this) case," he said.

The indictment accuses the two of working with the Gulen movement to create the image that the government was aiding terror groups.

The government initially denied the trucks were carrying arms, maintaining that the cargo consisted of humanitarian aid. Some officials later suggested the trucks were carrying arms or ammunition destined for Turkmen kinsmen in Syria.

Government officials accuse Gulen's supporters of stopping the trucks as part of an alleged plot to bring down the government. The government has branded the movement a "terror organization" although it is not known to have engaged in any acts of violence.

Speaking in Istanbul on Thursday, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, criticized the authorities for treating journalists as a threat when the country is facing real terrorism. He also criticized Erdogan, who filed the lawsuit against Dundar and Gul, for spearheading attacks against the media and creating an "atmosphere of fear."

A representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists also came to Turkey to attend the hearing. "They have done nothing wrong but committed the act of journalism," said Nina Ognianova. "They have covered a story of public interest that is important not only for Turkey but also the region and the international community."
Interim HealthCare Franchisees Celebrate Doctors Day

March 25, 2016 // Franchising.com // Sunrise, FL - Interim HealthCare franchisees throughout the country will be joining thousands of other health care organizations in their communities to honor physicians for their dedication to healing, comfort and health contributions on National Doctors Day which is March 30. The history of Doctors Day dates back to the early 1930s, however it was officially signed into U.S. law in the early 1990s by President George Bush.

Interim HealthCares home care, hospice and healthcare staffing franchisees work every day with physicians in the delivery of community based care. We are proud of the relationships we have with physicians across the county, commented Kathleen Gilmartin, CEO and President of Interim HealthCare Inc. Since our beginning in 1966, we have worked closely with physicians in the communities that we serve, and that importance is only enhanced under current reform to improve patient-centered health care.

Historically, as physicians left house calls behind for office practices, and hospital care advanced to discharge patients earlier, doctors were able to continue their involvement in care at home through trusted relationships with home health care and hospice teams. Today, physicians active participation with home care and hospice fosters both quality and continuity of patient care in the home.

There are a countless number of physicians who work with our franchisees dedicated clinical teams each day in communities throughout the United States, said Gilmartin. We hope everyone will join us in recognizing the sacrifice, dedication and leadership of these physicians in the prevention and treatment of illness and injury.

About Interim HealthCare

Interim HealthCare Inc., founded in 1966, is a leading national franchisor of home care, hospice and healthcare staffing. It is part of Caring Brands International which also includes UK-based Bluebird Care and Australia-based Just Better Care, both well-known franchise brands in their countries. With more than 530 franchise locations in seven countries Caring Brands International is a global health care leader.

Interim HealthCare in the United States is unique in combining the commitment of local ownership with the support of a national organization that develops innovative programs and quality standards that improve the delivery of service. Franchisees employ nurses, therapists, aides, companions and other healthcare professionals who provide 25 million hours of home care service to 190,000 people each year, meeting a variety of home health, senior care, hospice, palliative care, pediatric care and healthcare staffing needs. For more information or to locate an Interim HealthCare office, visit www.interimhealthcare.com.

SOURCE Interim HealthCare

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Pflugerville Pfinally Gets Its Chicken Pfinger Pfix

Citys First Raising Canes To Celebrate Grand Opening Tuesday

March 25, 2016 // Franchising.com // PFLUGERVILLE, TX  At long last, Pflugerville is getting a Raising Canes Chicken Fingers to call its own.

The popular Louisiana-based restaurant company known for its ONE LOVE  quality chicken finger meals  will hold its grand opening on Tuesday, March 29, at 2408 FM 685, at the intersection of Town Center Drive and FM 685, near the Hawaiian Falls water park. Local residents should not be surprised if loyal fans  affectionately known as Caniacs  campout overnight to be the first in line for their favorite chicken fingers.

Grand opening festivities begin at 9:30 a.m. with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. First-time visitors will be treated to traditional cheers and other high-energy chants to launch the location in unique Canes fashion, compliments of its 55-60 newly hired crewmembers. Cheerleaders from Hendrickson High School will also join in on the festivities.

Doors open to the public at 10 a.m.

To add to the opening-day excitement, the first 20 paying, dine-in customers ages 13 and older will receiveFree Canes for a Year! In addition, the first 100 paying, dine-in customers ages 13 and older will receive a free Canes Pflugerville T-shirt, along with a voucher for a free Box Combo  containing four fresh, never ever frozen chicken fingers, Texas toast, secret recipe Canes sauce, coleslaw, crinkle-cut fries and a drink  that may be redeemed on a subsequent visit.

The Austin area already has a large and rapidly growing Caniac population, but were still just getting started, said General Manager Billy Lee, an Austin native who recently relocated his family to Pflugerville in large part due to the excellent PfISD schools. My crew and I are excited to introduce our ONE LOVE to the people of Pflugerville, and were looking forward to supporting the schools and other organizations that make this such a wonderful, family-friendly area with an extraordinary community spirit.

Founded by Todd Graves in 1996 and named for his yellow Labrador, Raising Canes recently earned the distinction of being among the Top 10 quick service restaurant chains in the nation for 2015, according to the authoritative Sandelman & Associates Quick-Track study, based on food quality, customer service, cleanliness and other important factors.

In addition to its focus on chicken fingers, Raising Canes is renowned for its commitment to active involvement in its local communities.

Yesterday, March 23, Lee and his fellow crewmembers volunteered at The Storehouse, a Pflugerville food pantry that missions to the poor by providing food, prayer, love and respect. The crew helped with sorting, stocking and various other tasks.

At Raising Canes, community service is in our DNA, so it was our privilege to pitch in at The Storehouse for our pre-opening service project, said Lee. They provide critical services to the hungry in our community, and were honored to be a very small part of what they do. We look forward to continuing our support of this great organization as we grow.

Among other community-focused activities, the newest Raising Canes is working on a partnership with the PfISD and will be sponsoring Deutschen Pfest and its 5k Pfun Run next month.

Hours of operation at the new Pflugerville restaurant are Sunday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 12 a.m. This marks the 6th Raising Canes in the greater Austin market, the 88th in Texas and the 260th nationwide.

About Raising Cane's

Founded by Todd Graves in 1996 in Baton Rouge, La., Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers has 260 restaurants in 20 states with multiple new restaurants under construction. The company has ONE LOVE - quality chicken finger meals - and is continually recognized for its unique business model and customer satisfaction. Raising Canes vision is to have restaurants all over the world and be the brand for quality chicken finger meals, a great crew, cool culture and active community involvement.

More information is available at raisingcanes.com.

SOURCE Raising Cane's

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RE/MAX Increases Its International Influence in Q1

Technology, Steady Growth Enhance Industry Leading Global Footprint

March 25, 2016 // Franchising.com // DENVER  Only a few short months into the new year, RE/MAX, LLC reached significant milestones that are expanding its international influence. As part of a continuing global initiative, two master franchise sales and an improved online experience for global.remax.com visitors kicked off the first quarter.

RE/MAX is the most productive real estate network and were always looking for new, vibrant ways to expand international opportunities on behalf of our franchisees and consumers, said Larry Oberly, Vice President, Global Development of RE/MAX, LLC. Our growth around the world is due to the strength of the RE/MAX business model, which attracts entrepreneurial minded people with a variety of business backgrounds.

In the first quarter of 2016, RE/MAX sold two master franchises in Malaysia and Myanmar. Andre Keller and Alex Gomez, Region Owners of RE/MAX Malaysia, are planning the opening of their first regional office in Kuala Lumpur. The duo plans to focus on working with younger professionals to provide career opportunities rooted in an innovative network, international brand power and advanced technology.

RE/MAX Myanmar co-Region Owners Joseph Khoo, Ken Lim, Stephen Lee, Darrit Cho and Kaung Myat are expecting to establish a regional office in Yangon, the countrys economic center. The group, with strong ties to RE/MAX Singapore, is looking forward to expanding the American-based franchise model, while creating higher professional standards within the local real estate community.

Late last month, the new global.remax.com was unveiled at the international RE/MAX R4 convention, which was attended by 6,000 Affiliates from 63 countries and territories.

In an effort to enhance the online user experience, a variety of user friendly functions were added. The responsive website now features properties in more than 80 countries and territories, in 43 languages and 57 currencies, an interactive map search capability and an option to search properties based on budget in addition to location. Global.remax.com also averages approximately 750,000 RE/MAX listings.

These recent global successes come on the heels of a successful 2015. Last year, four countries joined the RE/MAX network propelling the total number of RE/MAX agents outside the U.S. and Canada to over 25,000, an annual growth of 15.4 percent. RE/MAX has more offices, in more countries, than any other real estate brand.

About the RE/MAX Network

RE/MAX was founded in 1973 by Dave and Gail Liniger, with an innovative, entrepreneurial culture affording its agents and franchisees the flexibility to operate their businesses with great independence. Over 100,000 agents provide RE/MAX a global reach of nearly 100 countries. Nobody sells more real estate than RE/MAX, when measured by residential transaction sides.

RE/MAX, LLC, one of the worlds leading franchisors of real estate brokerage services, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RMCO, LLC, which is controlled and managed by RE/MAX Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RMAX).

With a passion for the communities in which its agents live and work, RE/MAX is proud to have raised more than $150 million for Childrens Miracle Network Hospitals and other charities.

For more information about RE/MAX, to search home listings or find an agent in your community, please visit www.remax.com. For the latest news about RE/MAX, please visit www.remax.com/newsroom.

SOURCE RE/MAX Network

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Dr. Cecilia Moens co-authors study that finds clogged-up immune cells help explain smoking risk for tuberculosis



Smoking increases an individuals risk of developing tuberculosis  and makes the infection worse  because it causes vital immune cells to become clogged up, slowing their movement and impeding their ability to fight infection, according to new research published yesterday in the journal Cell.

Dr. Cecilia Moens, a developmental biologist and member of the Fred Hutch Basic Sciences Division, was a collaborator on the study, which was conducted by an international team of researchers led by the investigators at the University of Cambridge and the University of Washington.

TB is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that primarily infects the lungs, but it can also infect other organs. It is transmitted from person to person through the air. The disease can cause breathlessness, wasting, and eventual death. While treatments do exist, the drug regimen is one of the longest for any curable disease: a patient will typically need to take medication for six months.

For people exposed to TB, the biggest risk factor for infection is exposure to smoke, including active and passive cigarette smoking and smoke from burning fuels. However, until now it has been unclear why smoke should increase this risk.

When TB enters the body, the first line of defense it encounters is a specialist immune cell known as a macrophage (Greek for big eater). This cell engulfs the bacterium and tries to break it down. In many cases, the macrophage is successful and kills the bacterium, preventing TB infection, but in some cases TB manages not just to avoid destruction, but to use macrophages as vehicles to travel deep into the host, spreading the infection. TBs next step is to cause infected macrophages to form tightly organized clusters known as tubercles, or granulomas. At this point, the macrophages and bacteria fight a battle  if the macrophages lose, the bacteria use their advantage to spread from cell to cell.

Moens and colleague Dr. Lalita Ramakrishan from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, who led the study, collaborated several years ago on a genetic screen in zebrafish  a see-through animal model for studying TB  to identify mutants that were predisposed to TB infection.

The mutant that is the subject of this paper, found in a gene called snapc1, came out of that screen, Moens said.

Together they identified a variant linked to lysosomal deficiency disorders. The lysosome is a key component of macrophages that is responsible for destroying bacteria. This particular variant caused a deficiency in an enzyme known as cathepsin, which acts within the lysosome like scissors to chop up bacteria; however, this would not necessarily explain why the macrophages could not destroy the bacteria, as many additional enzymes could take cathepsins place.

The zebrafish-forward genetic screen was critical to identifying the connection between macrophage lysosomal trafficking defects and TB, Moens said.
Davidson & Licht Partners With J.B. Star Jewelry Brand To Expand Reach

The jewelry brand has become very well known for their excellence in creating handcrafted pieces, reports DavidsonandLicht.com

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Davidson & Licht, a premier jeweler that has been in business since 1916, is announcing their decision to carry the J.B. Star jewelry brand. The partnership will allow J.B. Star to expand their brand's reach on the West Coast as well as in the online arena and give Davidson & Licht the opportunity to offer their clients a larger selection. Those who would like to receive more information from Davidson & Licht or learn more about this new brand partnership should visit their website and online store at http://www.davidsonandlicht.com/.

Jason Licht, one of the brands representatives, commented, "We are beyond excited to bring the J.B. Star brand to our clients. We serve clients with discriminating tastes, and we believe that the pieces J.B. Star produces will definitely meet and exceed everyone's high standards. This partnership represents an expansion of both our brand and theirs, and our team feels that this is a great move for all involved. Clients can begin to look for J.B. Star pieces to be featured in-store and online very soon."

According to Licht, J.B. Star has a passion for precision and creates each piece of jewelry as a labor of love for those who will wear it. They handcraft their jewelry in New York, striving for excellence each and every time.

The company was founded in 1979 and has a rich history of uncompromising beauty and quality. Licht explains saying, "Every J.B. Star creation is hand made using only platinum, 18kt yellow, and pink gold. Each piece of jewelry is carefully crafted, inspected, and analyzed by hand. Using the latest finishing technology, no piece ever leaves the shop until even the tiniest details are examined."

As Licht goes on to say, "The Davidson & Licht brand has a hard-earned reputation to uphold, and we take our responsibility to provide our clients with the best very seriously. Just like our company, the J.B. Star brand represents consistency in excellence and a commitment to carrying beautifully-crafted pieces. We recognize that jewelry is a gift - not only to the buyer but also to those to whom it will be handed down generation after generation. We are grateful to be working with a company with a philosophy that reflects this very ideal."

About Davidson & Licht:

Established in 1916, Davidson & Licht is a full service jewelry store featuring the finest jewelry and Swiss watch brands from around the world. Located on Main Street in downtown Walnut Creek, their 8,000 square foot store boasts onsite designers with a full CAD design studio for custom redesigning of old jewelry as well as on-site goldsmiths with 45+ years trained in the fine art of old world craftsmanship and the latest laser welding repair techniques. Davidson & Licht also features one of the few authorized Rolex service centers in the Bay Area as well as watch repairs on all fine Swiss watch brands. Their team is pleased to represent the top jewelers from around the world in their downstairs showroom, including Alex Sepkus, Hearts on Fire, Mikimoto, Marco Bicego, Temple St. Clair, Todd Reed, Rolex, Panerai, Tudor, Breitling, Cartier, and Bremont. Davidson and Licht proudly celebrates 100 years of serving the Bay Area, and continues the tradition as a fourth generation family owned business.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.davidsonandlicht.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Jason Licht

Organization: Davidson & Licht

Phone: (925) 275-5847

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/davidson-licht-partners-with-j-b-star-jewelry-brand-to-expand-reach/108376

Release ID: 108376

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Celtic Engagement Rings Website And Blog Launched

Celtic engagement rings website speaks of the history and symbolism of the aesthetically appealing designs. The history of the rings has been an indicator of commitment for thousands of years.

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Celtic engagement rings are noted for their design features. One of the typical components of the rings is a love knot. This particular element is a representation for eternal love. Trinity love knots are intended to represent the eternal character of affection and spirituality. The stylized and sometimes complex knots are an indication of two souls linked forever, making a perfect indication of sacred, long-lasting vows.

Choosing a design from one of the many available, can start with reviewing such sources as the Irish Book of Kells. The book is a hand-illuminated example of many Celtic knots and other stylized features and is considered to be the finest treasure of Ireland. Individuals looking for Celtic wedding rings can use the knots in the Book of Kells or other Celtic history sources as suggestions for a jeweler to create a custom design.

The information on the new website is extensive, describing each of the various categories of rings. Celtic wedding bands also feature stylized elements, including clasped hands with a single heart serving as a bridge between the two hands. A crown is enclosed within the heart. The band consists of precious metal in intertwined strands encircling the entire band.

An Irish engagement ring is a deeply personal and meaningful token of the future plans of the couple. It is also known as a Claddaugh engagement ring. The ring dates back to the 17th century and a little Irish village known as Claddagh. The original form of this piece of jewelry is a heart held by two hands. There is a crown atop the heart. The meaning is expressed as "Using these hands I give you my heart and crown it with my love."

In addition to the basic design features of the rings, the diamond or other gemstones are a key element in the price of the rings. As with other ring designs, the quality of the gemstones tends to drive the price.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.celticengagementrings.co/

Contact Info:

Name: Celtic Engagement Rings

Organization: Celtic Engagement Rings



Video URL: https://youtu.be/IrXfd80_naU

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/celtic-engagement-rings-website-and-blog-launched/108365

Release ID: 108365

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Emergency Plumber In San Francisco Releases A New Blog

Emergency Plumber In San Francisco is a newly established company that has been giving complimentary, and no obligation quotes to all their customers.

--

Emergency Plumber In San Francisco is highly rated plumbing servicing North Bay residents. The company is proud to announce that it is beginning an ambitious plumbing resource blog for the benefit for all their San Francisco customers.

"Because everyone has smart phones to search for solutions to many home problems like plumbing, we wanted to create a resource that is accessible via desktop and mobile phones." explained Greg Jacobs, Manager of Emergency Plumber in San Francisco. "Our website will focus in providing useful and effective information about common plumbing problems for both residential property owners."

Please visit the website at http://emergencyplumbersanfranciscohq.com to access the first published articles. There, one will be able to find resourceful articles and videos about common plumbing issues. The website is especially engineered to be very readable on mobile phones, making it easy for consumers who are on the go to learn about plumbing and other common home repair problems. Over time, the website will provide more articles and videos based on customers feedback.

One of the most common calls Emergency Plumber in San Francisco gets is from people who are having problems with the busted water pipes. Many of the older houses in the SF area were built using galvanized water pipes. As the pipes ages, one can expect that this type of pipe rusts from the inside out and cause the pipe to leak. Some symptoms of rusted galvanized pipe include rust colored water, low water pressure, hot water taking a long time to get hot and the shower going cold when the toilet is flushed, and small pin hole leaks.

About Emergency Plumber in San Francisco

Emergency Plumber in SF is a newly established plumbing company, serving the North Bay area. The company offers 24 hour, emergency service not only to greater SF area, but to surrounding cities such as South San Francisco, Daly City, and Colma. In addition, its licensed plumbers can repair any unexpected pipe bursts, water heater repairs and replacement, and perform toilet repairs and replacements. The company's core values is dedicated in providing the most value to all their customers.

For more information about us, please visit http://emergencyplumbersanfranciscohq.com

Contact Info:

Name: Greg Jacobs

Organization: Emergency Plumber San Francisco

Phone: +1 415-347-8775

Release ID: 108374

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iDevelopers Launches New UK Property App Development Service For Estate Agents And More

Estate agents, construction companies and more can now look forward to bespoke apps from iDevelopers after the launch of a new niche app development service.

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Apps are becoming more and more common every day, and those with innovative designs and a rewarding user experience can become the cornerstone of a business unto themselves, responsible for the explosive growth of businesses selling goods and services. However, more niche markets are finding it more challenging to harness the exciting power of the mobile app, and iDevelopers have identified these difficulties with a view to providing a solution. Their latest product offering is app development aimed at the property industry.

The new property developer app services will help people in the real estate and developer worlds to better interact with one another using business to business apps that can share data on the market based on demographics, geography and more. They also offer business to consumer apps that will help real estate companies better market their opportunities to users.

These new niche apps are part of a series of industry specific product offerings the UK developers are launching to help those outside retail and catering understand the power of an app to engage users in new ways, and show how apps can even help industries who need to work together for mutual benefit do so more easily than ever before.

A spokesperson for iDevelopers explained, "iDevelopers is pleased to be able to push the possibilities for apps to the next level, and continue the evolution of this technology to include novel new applications in new industries. The website includes full information on how we can help property companies, but this is just the beginning. We plan to demonstrate how mobile apps can integrate and streamline internal processes, enhancing business to business communications, and creating new business to consumer relationships that enhance customer lifetime value. This is an exciting time for us as a business, and we look forward to helping more clients than ever add new dimension and dynamism to their practices."

About iDevelopers: iDevelopers is a professional App Development Company in the UK focused on mobile applications. Their vision is to be the best professional app development company in the world, offering clients superior and reliable software at affordable prices, while making the development process a pleasing experience for clients as well as employees.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.i-developers.co.uk/

Contact Info:

Name: PRWhirlWind

Organization: PRWhirlWind



Source: http://marketersmedia.com/idevelopers-launches-new-uk-property-app-development-service-for-estate-agents-and-more/108393

Release ID: 108393

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Bellingham Salt & Sand Spreader Company Launches Grit Spreading Training Lessons

Salt and sand spreading equipment manufacturer, Ace Torwel, has announced the launch of a series of online webinar trainings for its dealers. Videos focus on the different technologies and products created by the company, how they work, including ATV spreaders, UTV spreaders and Poly spreaders.

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Ace Torwel, a leading manufacturer of snow plows, atv spreaders, salt and sand spreaders based in Bellingham, Massachusetts, has announced a series of webinar training lessons for its dealers. The video trainings help clients to stay up to date with the latest salt spreader and sander information, from state of the art new products to dump mounted spreaders, chasis mounted spreaders, hook and roll off spreaders, poly spreaders, utv spreaders, atv Spreaders, economizer spreaders, chutes, cab shields and snow plows available for customers to buy.

More information can be found on the Ace Torwel website at: http://torwel.com.

Building new professional and commercial series spreaders, sanders, snow pushers and snow plows, Ace Torwel has established itself as a high quality name in the industry. As well as selling its own products, the company can customize municipal units to meet the specific requirements of its clients, adding specialized hydraulic commercial powered features and options. Its product range covers ATV spreaders, UTV spreaders, and poly spreaders which are all designed to be operated and maintained with ease. The training webinars available on site focus on all of these products and technologies, and are regularly updated.

Dealers of Torwel sanders and spreaders will find the video webinars breaking down important information in easy to understand, digestible chunks. Electric drive units are demonstrated and discussed in detail, so viewers can understand how they are able to create optimum spreader performance, conveyor speed and spinner speed.

Using these videos, dealers can stay informed and educated about the materials used to create each product, like the Ace Torwel Anderson Plow or the Double Electric Spreader, which has a two motor variable speed electric drive a setup unique to Ace Torwel. These are then compared with the competition, so dealers can better understand how the Torwel spreader technology works compared to other brands in the industry. Some videos also factor in user testimonials that lend further credibility to the Ace Torwel product range.

Anyone wanting to become a dealer can contact the company at 125 Depot Street, Bellingham, MA 02019. Alternatively, they can get in touch by email at sales@acetorwel.com. The company's telephone number is 1-800-225-9415 for anyone wanting more information.

For more information about us, please visit http://torwel.com/

Contact Info:

Name: Alan McKenzie

Organization: Ace Torwel

Address: 125 Depot Street, Bellingham, MA 02019

Phone: 1-800-225-9415

Release ID: 108303

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As the centenary of Irelands Easter Rising approaches there have been several competing companies offering tours of the battlefield  ie, the centre of Dublin. I opted for the Rise of the Rebels tour, which left from College Green and crawled through the city traffic towards the heart of the insurrection, the General Post Office on OConnell Street.

The bus was decked out in shades of war-zone grey, and an audience of a dozen or so (mostly Irish but not blase Dubliners) were enlightened by a pair of young actors playing soldiers who gave us a suitably dramatic account of events. One emphasised, correctly but a little incessantly, the role of women in the Rising. And at midday, when we reached the GPO, she stood under the portico and began to recite the proclamation of the republic, just as the rebels intellectual leader Padraig Pearse did a century ago.

In fact, the re-enactment was a bit too authentic. Just as happened to Pearse, hardly anyone on OConnell Street took any notice. The traffic trundled on, and there were all kinds of other distractions. A few feet away a young man was also reciting the proclamation with the text written on a sleeping bag (a stunt for a homeless charity, it turned out). A heavily amplified busker made both versions near-inaudible. Nearby, protesters were unpacking their flags for a Free Tibet demo. Someone else was collecting funds for soup kitchens. The Jehovahs Witnesses were out. Across the road, Dublins most famous retail landmark stood shuttered and silent: Clerys department store, closed suddenly and mysteriously last summer after 162 years on the site (interrupted only when bombed out during the Rising). But its neighbour Ann Summers was thriving, offering half-price knickers and sex toys (and what would the pious and pedagogical Pearse have made of that?).

It all seemed some like some kind of metaphor for modern Ireland, so transfixing that by the time I looked around to find my tour group, they and the bus had vanished. So instead I went inside the GPO. I suppose I had imagined a national shrine, hushed and candlelit, perhaps with an embalmed corpse as the centrepiece. It is in fact . . . a post office. The oldest purpose-built, still-working post office in the world, according to the postal services head of communications Barney Whelan, and an unusually beautiful one, with brass grilles and wood panelling. But a post office nonetheless. Outside, tourists were taking pictures of the passing show; Dubliners were heading inside without a second thought, to sort out their savings and buy their stamps.

A hundred years ago, in the midst of the first world war, the GPO had actually just been refurbished and extended. Then on Easter Monday, April 24 1916, a small group of rebels, led by Pearse and the union leader James Connolly, took it over in an attempt to throw off British rule. They held out for three days before tunnelling out to escape the fires caused by British shells (which wrecked the new interior), then took refuge above a fish shop until being forced to surrender, whereupon Pearse instructed those holding other key points to do the same. That was the Saturday. On the following Wednesday, May 3, Pearse was among the first group to be shot. There would be 16 executions in all.

All this Pearse envisaged and embraced. Of course the rebels hoped for better: the arrival of the promised German arms; control of the real key points, the ports and railways stations. But Pearse had talked of Ireland requiring a blood sacrifice to gain its freedom. He expected to die: Easter was chosen for the symbolism of death and resurrection. He also foresaw correctly what would come later: We shall be remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations. The truth of that will be demonstrated this Sunday, when the Irish Republic stages its main commemoration in OConnell Street, complete with proclamation, to mark the event now regarded as the founding moment of modern Ireland.

Actress Amy Flood reads the proclamation of the republic on the tour  Seanandyvette.com

These anniversaries have sometimes been a bit fraught. Twenty-five years after the Rising was 1941, when Britain was at war with Germany, as in 1916; and even though Ireland was now independent and neutral, the occasion was necessarily muted. In 1991, the 75th, the Northern Ireland troubles had not yet concluded, and the narrative of gunmen trying to take over the state was not one to be overcelebrated.

The 50th anniversary, in 1966, did get the full treatment. The main unofficial event was the blowing-up of Nelsons Pillar, which had stood outside the GPO since 1809, by a few freelance extremists. That aside, the anniversary was marked in a manner befitting the reactionary, hard-up, priest-ridden, slightly repressive, exceedingly repressed, introverted, charming, eccentric, beautiful backwater into which the Republic of Ireland had mutated. The view of the political and clerical hierarchy prevailed: the rebels were martyrs who died for Ireland, and there was not much else to discuss.

Since then the Irish have forsaken God or, at any rate, His representatives in the Catholic Church, and succumbed to Mammon, a relationship that went sour inside a decade rather than the 1,500 years between St Patricks arrival and the priestly sex scandals. In Dublin, among the waterside pavement cafes near the new temples to cyber-commerce and interesting tax arrangements, the Celtic tiger is sitting up again, and licking its paws: 7.8 per cent growth in 2015. Property prices have all gone mental again, one Dubliner told me, but not quite as mad as last time.

In much of the hinterland, though, the recovery from the economic collapse of 2008 is regarded as a myth, hence the confused result of last months election. Ireland is a country searching for the right way forward, with a constant questioning of received wisdom. And that extends to the way the Rising is being commemorated. Now we can capture the complexity of things, says Patrick Geoghegan, professor of modern history at Trinity College Dublin. Weve lost our simplistic narrative about the past.

At the National Museum of Ireland, the Rising is being celebrated alongside an exhibition about the Irish soldiers who fought for the British empire, of which Ireland was then a part: 90,000 Irish Catholic boys joined up in the first world war; some of them were obliged to do their duty and helped quell the Rising. Previously these actors were written out of the script.

It can now also be mentioned that the biggest single group of the 485 who died in the fighting were not rebels but civilians, caught in the wrong place at the wrong moment. Forty of them were under 16, and at the new museum about to open as part of the GPO complex, there is a memorial to them. Some were babes in arms and some were looters, says Barney Whelan, so theres a creative tension in that.

Memorabilia for sale in Dublin, including the text of the proclamation  Seanandyvette.com

Todays uncertainties have something in common with those of 1916. In Vivid Faces, his account of the revolutionary generation, Professor Roy Foster depicts the Rising  and the artistic golden age (Joyce, Synge, Yeats, OCasey etc) that accompanied it  as a conscious rejection, in different ways, of the patient conservatism of their parents. The rebels themselves included a high proportion of actors and playwrights, which helps explain the operations self-conscious theatricality.

Yet the initial Irish response to the rebellion was tepid to hostile. Most of Catholic Ireland was not at this point noticeably chafing against the bonds of British rule. HH Asquiths Liberal-led government in London had already enacted Irelands demand for Home Rule, its implementation delayed only by the ferocity of the Ulster Protestants response and the outbreak of war. The Irish werent necessarily happy at being British, explains Lar Joye, curator of military history at the National Museum of Ireland, but they could see the advantages of being part of empire.

And it was only when the executions began, in batches, day after day, that opinion turned. John Redmond, leader of the parliamentary Irish nationalists, who had been horrified by the Rising, began to sense his own fate. His deputy John Dillon called the government dense and stupid.

Perhaps the decline of indoctrination has helped the centenary become less statist  and more accurate

The church swiftly moved onside. The sanctification happened almost instantly, says Geoghegan. Even by the end of 1916 these were Catholic martyrs. The British did far too little to soothe Irish feelings. And in the election held weeks after the Armistice in 1918, the moderates were almost wiped out by the militants of Sinn Fein. Pearse and Connollys posthumous triumph was assured.

During the past 18 months, events in Scotland have provided an astonishing echo of this  minus, thank heaven, the violence. Though the referendum failed to secure immediate independence, just like the Rising, Londons response was perceived as niggardly, and the political losers were the moderate devolutionists: in 1918, the Redmondites; in 2015, Scottish Labour.

In 1919, Sinn Fein began a two-year war of independence. Then came a year-long civil war between militants and those ready to accept partial separation. These were wars of terror, ambush, repression and stupidity (not all of it British). Not unlike the recent 29-year Troubles, more repulsive than inspirational. And so Ireland turns gratefully to the Rising. Despite the bloodshed, the heroism-to-horror ratio is perceived as favourable. Deliberate atrocities? Too few to mention. The rebels fought so bravely that the British became convinced there must be hordes of Germans in their midst. And the 16 executed men died with unanimous dignity.

The proclamation whose first reading was treated with such indifference is now revered, and with good reason. It is more poetic than the US Declaration of Independence, and more timeless. Indeed, it fits beautifully into the orthodoxies of our own era. The inclusive opening words Irishmen and Irishwomen were very advanced for the time.

It said the republic would insist on cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, which was a figurative use of children to try and reach out to the Ulster Protestants  but was regularly recycled as the scandals emerged about how real children were treated when they were in the care of priests and nuns. Its become the document the politicians constantly quote, misquote and quote out of context, says Geoghegan. Even Barack Obama used the phrase last week  five times!  in his speech at the White House St Patricks day reception.

Inside the General Post Office, where the Rising began  Seanandyvette.com

No wonder the GPO was so lovingly restored. The rebels control the key points now all right: Dublins main railway stations (Connolly, Pearse and Heuston) are all named after the martyrs. But, in years when the anniversary is less resonant, kids are not force-fed the story the way they once were. Its been less of a presence in my childrens life than it was in mine, says the Irish Times columnist Frank McNally. History seems less central to the curriculum. All the uprisings, we were taught over and over again. And the famine.

Perhaps the decline of indoctrination has actually helped the centenary become less statist, less orthodox, more intellectually stimulating  and more accurate. The militant Republicans of Sinn Fein have their own exhibition close by the Post Office, but its unflinching message of goodies versus baddies may be just a little old-fashioned.

That does not mean Ireland has lost its sense of pride about the small band who thwarted an empire, nor its relish for the theatricality of it all. The artist Mick ODea, president of the Royal Hibernian Academy, is much taken with this, and a recent exhibition of his in effect recreated the Rising as a stage set. He is fascinated by the Post Office in a way that perhaps eludes native Dubliners. Maybe Romans walk past the Colosseum, he says. But if youre coming up from County Clare as I first did and you walk up OConnell Street, it has this enormous resonance.

And, for all his nuances, Patrick Geoghegan still embraces the central fact. The sense is still that the rebels had an idealistic notion of Ireland, and I think that still inspires people, he said. And so on Sunday the nation will watch uncynically as Irelands leaders gather by the steps, opposite dead Clerys and living Ann Summers, to honour the martyred slain. And when Easter is over, the populace will be allowed back in the GPO . . . to buy their stamps.

Photographs: Seanandyvette.com
Farmers Weeklys Business Clinic experts offer free advice on legal, finance, tax, insurance, farm management and land issues.

Here Derek Walsh  partner at Thrings  advises on changes made to contracts with suppliers.

Q: Does Tesco have the right to insist that I make my farm business records (profit and loss) available to Promar? From 1 April, failure to do so means Tesco will not honour the contract between us and will not accept my milk. I consider my farm records to be strictly confidential between me, my accountant and HMRC.

A: Dairy farmers supplying milk under the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group (TSDG) are paid a price for their milk based on the cost of production.

TSDG contracts have been in place for several years. Tesco appointed Promar to calculate the cost of production  suppliers provide Promar with data from their farms and Promar then calculates the milk price.



Derek Walsh

Partner, Thrings Partner, Thrings

See also: Tesco cost of production milk contract terms tighten

Under the old Tesco contract, suppliers were not required to provide details of their farm accounts, but received a bonus if they did so.

Following a review of its contract and consultation with TSDG members, Tesco has introduced contract changes making it compulsory to provide this accounting information to Promar, with the cost of doing so met by Tesco.

The starting point is that there is freedom of contract  if one party seeks to impose terms that are considered unacceptable to another party, that other party does not have to enter into that agreement and cannot be forced to do so.

Tesco is making the provision of accounting information compulsory for TSDG suppliers. Any supplier who does not agree to this term is entitled to serve notice on Tesco under the terms of the contract to terminate the agreement, with effect after expiry of a contractual notice period.

On the other hand, and given the provision of this information is now compulsory, Tesco can serve notice to terminate the contract on the same basis if a supplier refuses to comply.

If the confidential nature of this information is a concern, the contract should be reviewed to ensure it contains a robust confidentiality clause.

For limited companies and limited liability partnerships this will not be an issue as they will already be used to filing this information at Companies House.

Queries or concerns about what the information will be used for should be directed to Tesco or Promar. The reasoning behind the change is to allow progress of the whole group to be monitored, something that was not possible when the provision of accounting information was voluntary.

In short, anyone who does not wish to provide the required information under the revised contract is free to terminate the contract in accordance with its termination provisions.

That said, concerns about finding an alternative outlet for your milk and/or the price you might receive are factors which will need to be considered in making that decision.

Do you have a question for the panel?

Outline your legal, tax, finance, insurance or farm management question in no more than 350 words and Farmers Weekly will put it to a member of the panel. Please give as much information as possible.

Send your enquiry to Business Clinic, Farmers Weekly, RBI, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS.

You can also email your question to fwbusinessclinic@rbi.co.uk or post it on the Farmers Weekly website.
Sheep farmers are being urged to remain vigilant against sheep scab and report any suspicion of the disease.

The warning comes after newly released Scottish government figures and maps show there have been 565 cases in Scotland alone since 2010.

An animal health and welfare policy manager at NFUS said the outbreaks were the tip of the iceberg.

Penny Johnston, animal health and welfare policy manager with NFU Scotland, said while outbreaks of the disease have remained in the low 80s over the past few years, they remain fairly widespread with identifiable hotspots.

See also: How to control and treat sheep scab

She added: Although these reports could represent some decline in the scale of the problem, it is likely they only represent to tip of the iceberg in terms of the ongoing problem.

She urged keepers to remain vigilant to the disease and to continue to report wherever there is suspicion of scab.

It is only by being open about the disease, facing up to its existence and treating problems that we will ever make progress towards eradication of this widespread problem for the industry.
Fans who attended the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in 2022 can renew their ticket orders for next year beginning Monday, Oct. 24.
Sept. 16, 1920  March 15, 2016

Helen Margaret OBrien, 95, passed away peacefully on March 15 at Bridgecreek Memory Care in Lebanon.

Helen was born in East Worcester, New York, to Patrick and Annette OBrien. She was raised on a farm and graduated Beacon High School in New York at the age of 15. She received her RN certification at Danbury Hospital School of Nursing in 1942, and worked as a blood bank nurse and a US Army Nurse.

Helen earned her Bachelors of Science Degree in health education from Empire State College, New York, in 1974; studied in a masters program in health education at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas; and completed her masters degree in health education at Goddard College, Washington, D.C., in 1980.

In 1942, Helen married Edward Schweser days after graduating from nursing school, and resided in Louisville, Kentucky. After the war, Helen and Edward lived in New York City for a few years until they moved into a brand new housing development specifically for veterans, called Levittown, New York. They adopted twin boys and a daughter, and Helen immersed herself into her family. She worked as a school nurse/teacher, and enjoyed activities with the PTA, scouting, stamp collecting, playing violin with the Levittown Symphony Orchestra, bowling, reading clubs and hosting several foreign students.

In 1971, Edward signed up for the Peace Corps, Gabarone, Botswana, Africa, to establish an automotive repair school. Helen tagged along and figured she would find something to do as a nurse. It was there that Helen found her calling in life: International Health Education. Her two years in Botswana were highlighted by writing a health manual, helping indigenous people improve their nutritional practices, as well as helping one community of bushmen deal with a smallpox epidemic. When she completed her tour of duty, she ended her marriage to Edward, resumed her maiden name of OBrien, and engaged in her passion to serve the world.

Helen went on to a lucrative career in health education and consulting, working for Project HOPE in the Caribbean, the Peace Corps, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and several nongovernment organizations. She addressed health problems associated with the misuse of pesticides and the proliferation of hazardous chemicals, water and sanitation, maternal and child health and nutrition.

Her travels took her to Botswana, the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Burma, Kenya, Lesotho, Micronesia and Thailand. She produced several significant health education and training manuals, and was masterful in her research, writing, consulting, and networking. In 1996, she coordinated an eco-tour of Costa Rica.

For most of her professional career, Helen resided in Alexandria, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina, where she established her nonprofit company Cherish the Earth. Her last major professional project was to promote gardening programs for youth groups.

Helen enjoyed many hobbies in her later years, such as, gardening, bird-watching, raising chihuahuas, playing the harmonica, crossword puzzles and cryptograms, and reading, especially murder mysteries.

In 2008, Helen moved to Oregon, at the invitation of her good friend, Jean Goul. She resided in Stoneybrook Assisted Living for about five years, and was later moved to Bridgecreek Memory Care for a little over two years. She received loving care at both facilities.

Helen is preceded in death by her husband, Edward Schweser; and daughter Laurie Svitak.

She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Gary and Linda Schweser of Eagle, Idaho, and son Jeff Schweser of Mission Hills, California.

A reception honoring her life will take place at 2 p.m. April 11 at Bridecreek Memory Care in Lebanon.

Online condolences for the family may be posted at www.fisherfuneralhome.com.
Area residents Tuesday strongly encouraged the city of Corvallis to challenge a recently enacted law that limits voter-approved annexations. The new law is also an issue for many people in Philomath.

Six people spoke up at a city council work session, with all of them urging the city to work to overturn Senate Bill 1573. The bill was approved by the Legislature at its recently concluded short session, and Gov. Kate Brown signed it March 15. The law took effect immediately.

I am in favor of the council defending the right to vote (on annexations), said Marilyn Koenitzer, who participated in the political struggle that in 1976 made Corvallis the first city in Oregon to have voter-approved annexations in its charter. We were the first. And it was the right thing to do.

Earlier in the session, Jim Brewer, who serves as city attorney for both Corvallis and Philomath, briefed councilors and answered questions on SB 1573 in a 58-minute exchange on city options in which, he said, litigation was the projected outcome of many of the scenarios that were discussed.

Key questions councilors asked included: What takes precedence, state law or the city charter? What happens if the city continues to send annexations to the voters? What would happen to annexations while a legal case was pending? What would a legal fight cost the city?

You can look at it this way or look at it that way, said Brewer. And you can do that all day with this bill.

Brewer also said that as the citys chief legal counsel, he could not advise the city on its next steps at a work session and could do so only in an executive session.

City manager Mark Shepard, meanwhile, suggested councilors look at the issue through the lens of the other work that they are doing, particularly the major challenges of plans on vision and climate change that are key council goals.

Shepard noted the city already has two land-use cases in the courts, with the backers of an extension alignment for Kings Boulevard appealing their application to the state Land Use Board of Appeals and the city asking the state Supreme Court to overturn approval of the Coronado apartment complex.

Shepard also suggested that Corvallis might be better served by collaborating with another community rather than taking the lead, holding the spear rather than being the tip of the spear, as he put it.

Nobody wants to be the tip of the spear, said Jeff Lamb of Blodgett, who then added please be the tip of the spear.

Lamb also noted that the close 31-29 vote on SB 1573 in the House signals that it could be overturned in the regular session coming up next year.

State Sen. Sara Gelser said she plans to work with both proponents and opponents of SB 1573 to see if it can be amended in some way. One possible approach, Gelser said, would be to exempt smaller cities such as Corvallis from the law.
Terror attacks in Brussels : Arrests in Dusseldorf and Gieen

Arrests in Dusseldorf and Gieen are reportedly connected to the Brussels terror attacks. Foto: dpa

Dusseldorf/Gieen. Arrests in Dusseldorf and Gieen are reportedly connected to the Brussels terror attacks.

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Police have arrested persons in Dusseldorf and Gieen, who they believe may have been involved in the terror arracks in Brussels. A spokesperson for the Dusseldorf city attorneys office would only confirm on Friday that a man was arrested on Thursday and among other things, he is being investigated for involvement in a serious crime against the state.

According to Spiegel, the man arrested is Salafist Samir E. (German law prevents naming suspects names in full). Along with Brussels Metro suicide-bomber Khalid El Bakraoui, he was picked up by authorities in the summer of 2015 at the border between Syria and Turkey. Turkish authorities suspected the men of fighting with Islamists in the Syrian civil war or of planning to engage with them. Both were sent back to Amsterdam which is where they had originally flown out from.

Samir E. was arrested on Thursday afternoon by a special task force of the police. Authorities are now investigating whether E. and Bakraoui knew each other or had been travelling together in Turkey.

Other media reports say a suspect was arrested on Wednesday evening in Gieen, and that his arrest was also connected to the Brussel terror attacks. According to Spiegel, federal police apprehended a man who was alleged to have two suspicious SMS texts on his phone from the day of the Brussels attacks.
Coalition Strikes Target ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 24, 2016  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Attack, fighter, ground-attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted eight strikes in Syria:

-- Near Hawl, two strikes destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle.

-- Near Manbij, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed four ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Mara, a strike destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.

-- Near Palmyra, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted 26 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Hit, three strikes struck an ISIL weapons storage facility and an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL rocket rail and five ISIL bunkers.

-- Near Kirkuk, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL command and control node and an ISIL weapons cache.

-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIL tunnel.

-- Near Mosul, eight strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL vehicle bomb and six ISIL assembly areas and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIL communication facility, destroyed an ISIL-used bridge section and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, a strike denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Sinjar, five strikes struck five ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and four ISIL assembly areas.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed an ISIL mortar position and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes destroyed an ISIL assembly area and suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

-- Near Hit, a strike destroyed two ISIL staging areas and two ISIL supply caches.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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President invites Philippine officials to visit Taiping Island

ROC Central News Agency

2016/03/24 13:30:45

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou () invited the Philippines Thursday to send representatives or lawyers to visit Taiwan-held Taiping Island in the disputed South China Sea to obtain correct knowledge of the island.

Ma issued the invitation in a Facebook post, one day after representatives of foreign media were taken on a tour of Taiping.

The president said the media tour was arranged in the hope that international media can be Taiwan's witnesses and tell the world that Taiping is an "island," not a "rock."

Last year, the Philippines submitted a case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in which it challenged the legal status of Taiping Island, he pointed out.

The Philippines argues that Taiping is a rock that cannot provide for itself, with all supplies having to be shipped in from elsewhere, he noted.

The Philippines also claims that the soil on Taiping is formed from the weathering of coral reefs and cannot be used for cultivation, and that Taiping should therefore be entitled to no more than 12 nautical miles of territorial waters, he said.

"These unfactual remarks repeatedly made by the Philippines show that it lacks an understanding of Taiping Island," Ma said.

He said Taiwanese international law experts have presented a brief, along with photos of Taiping Island, to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague to rebut the Philippines' arguments.

The arbitrators are also welcome to visit Taiping to see for themselves that it is a bona fide island with fresh water that can grow crops, raise livestock and support human habitation, he said.

Therefore, Taiping Island should be entitled to a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, according to Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the president said.

He stressed that Taiping fully meets the requirements of an island, which is defined in the article as "a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide" that can sustain human habitation or economic life of its own.

Besides fresh water, Taiping Island has 108 kinds of native plants and more than 20 types of planted vegetables and fruit, according to Ma.

In addition to Taiwan's coast guard and military personnel and a civilian medical staff, there are also chickens, goats, dogs, a hospital and a post office on the island, he added.

The 0.51-square kilometer island is located some 1,600 kilometers southwest of Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung.

(By Hsieh Chia-chen and Y.F. Low)

ENDITEM/J

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No response from Manila on Taiping visit invitation

ROC Central News Agency

2016/03/24 13:51:45

Manila, March 24 (CNA) The Philippine government had not responded as of Thursday noon to an invitation extended by Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou () a day earlier for Philippine lawyers and international arbitrators working on a South China Sea case to visit Taiping Island in the South China Sea, which Taiwan claims as its territory.

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs arranged for a group of local and international journalists and experts to travel a day earlier to Taiping, which lies about 1,600 kilometers southwest of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan.

The trip and related news was widely covered by Philippine media, including the invitation extended by Ma to Philippine representatives.

ABS-CBN News, the Philippines' leading television network, released on its website several news stories Wednesday citing AFP and Reuters on the issue under the headlines: "Taiwan says Itu Aba is only real island in disputed Spratlys" and "Taiwan argues Philippines' sea dispute case is far from watertight."

The stories were shared by Internet users in the Philippines on Facebook.

Also citing foreign wire service news, the official website of GMA Network also released a report titled "Taiwan president invites Philippines, tribunal officials to disputed isle."

The official websites of other major Philippine English-language newspapers, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Manila Bulletin, also cited AP reports on the trip.

In observance of Holy Week, government offices, schools and most major establishments in the Philippine are closed from Maundy Thursday (March 24) to Easter Sunday (March 27).

The 0.51-square kilometer Taiping Island is inhabited by some 200 Taiwan coast guard and military personnel and a civilian medical staff.

(By Emerson Lim and Evelyn Kao)

ENDITEM/J

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NATO Deputy Secretary General commends Lithuania's strong commitment to the Alliance

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

24 Mar. 2016

At the second day of a visit to Lithuania, NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow and the 28 ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council met in Vilnius with President Dalia Grybauskaite on Thursday (24 March 2016) and discussed NATO's adaptation to meet new security challenges.

Speaking at a joint press conference with President Grybauskaite, Deputy Secretary General Vershbow thanked Lithuania for its major contributions to the Alliance's shared security. Mr. Vershbow praised Lithuania's participation in NATO missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo and commended Lithuania for hosting the Energy Security Centre of Excellence, as well as the new NATO Force Integration Unit.

The North Atlantic Council is also visiting the Rukla military training area on Thursday, where Lithuanian and American troops are training side-by-side. Mr. Vershbow said that is a concrete example of Europe and North America standing strong together. He also noted that Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union twenty six-years ago and that today the Alliance is committed to ensuring that Lithuania never loses its freedom again.

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USS Chosin Gets New Homeport For Modernization

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160324-02

Release Date: 3/24/2016 9:37:00 AM

From Public Affairs Office Naval Surface Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy announced March 22 that USS Chosin (CG 65) will change its homeport from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to San Diego.

Chosin is scheduled to depart Pearl Harbor this month to begin the cruiser modernization program in San Diego. The ship will be considered on deployment until July 1, at which time it will officially change its homeport to San Diego. This move supports the Navy's plan to modernize select cruisers to extend their service lives to 40 years, as well as upgrade shipboard combat systems to address current and future warfighting requirements.

USS Chosin was commissioned in 1991 and since then has proudly served in the Pacific from its homeport of Pearl Harbor.

In 1992 Chosin deployed for the first time to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Southern Watch. On several occasions over the years, Sailors aboard Chosin rescued stranded fishermen at sea, including Iraqi and Yemeni seafarers. In 2014 USS Chosin led recovery efforts of the disabled Canadian navy oil replenishment ship Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Protecteur (AOR 509) after an engine fire. Chosin participated in humanitarian operations in the Pacific and dozens of international exercises, including Rim of the Pacific exercises in the Hawaiian Islands.

"Thousands of men and women served aboard USS Chosin over the past 25 years that the 'War Dragon' was homeported here at Pearl Harbor," said Rear Adm. John Fuller, commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific and Navy Region Hawaii. "Chosin Sailors and their proud ship kept sea lanes open, built strong international partnerships and stood at the ready to defend our nation."

"We wish USS Chosin fair winds and following seas as the 'War Dragon' prepares for modernization--taking warfighting readiness to the next level," Fuller said. "I join her commanding officer, Capt. Kevin Brand, and Chosin shipmates, past and present, who offer deep appreciation to the people of Hawaii for their strong support and Aloha over many years."

Chosin is the first U.S. Navy warship named in commemoration of the First Marine Division's heroism at the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War, "The Chosin Few." The ship's motto is "Invictus," Latin for invincible or unconquered.

The Navy will maintain cruisers undergoing modernization in a commissioned status using a reduced crew size and transferring the administrative control of the ship to Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command at the start of the modernization period. At a future date, the Navy will restore the ship to full manning and transfer administrative control back to the Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet as the ship returns to operational status.

Cruisers are designed to directly support a carrier strike group (CSG) as the air defense commander (ADC). These ships are multi-mission surface combatants capable of supporting carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups or operating as flagships of surface action groups. They are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles giving them additional long range strike warfare capability.

Maintaining the most technologically advanced ships supports the commitment of United States to the security, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

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US Naval Forces Europe-Africa Establishes New Task Force

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160324-12

Release Date: 3/24/2016 3:57:00 PM

From U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

NAPLES, Italy (NNS) -- Commodore Jeffrey Wolstenholme assumed command of the newly established Commander, Task Force 64 during a ceremony held on U.S. Naval Support Activity Naples, Capodichino, March 24.

U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and U.S. Fleet Forces Command established CTF 64 to create a command focused on Ballistic Missile Defensein Europe.

Quotes:

"By establishing this task force, U.S. 6th Fleet is aligning our organization to better address the changing threats in Europe. [Capt. Wolstenholme] will be formally identified as the U.S. ballistic missile defense expert in his position as commander of Sixth Fleet's Task Force 64 and as Commander of NATO's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Task Force."

- Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, Vice Adm. James Foggo III

"The United States made a commitment to our NATO partners called the European Phased Adaptive Approach, to help defend NATO Europe against Ballistic Missile threats from the Middle East. And, as part of this commitment to NATO, the Navy has established this new Task Force to be the operational commander for Aegis Ashore and the tactical commander directing our Ballistic Missile Defense forces in defense of NATO Europe."

- Commander, Task Force 64, Commodore Jeffery Wolstenholme

Quick Facts:

The establishment of CTF64 is in response to countering potential ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area and improving the defense capabilities of Europe.

CTF 64 will be responsible for executing operational and tactical integrated air and missile defense for NAVEUR-NAVAF, while also providing direct support for Aegis BMD planning to Commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Commander, Allied Air Command.

The command's BMD mission seeks to defend NATO allies and U.S. Interests and deployed forces throughout Europe with a commitment to regional security.

European Phased Adaptive Approach is the U.S. national contribution to the NATO BMD mission. Naval assets that fall under the EPAA umbrella are the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, USS Carney (DDG 64), USS Donald Cook (DDG 65) USS Porter (DDG 78) and USS Ross (DDG 71).

Also supporting EPAA are Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System in Deveselu, Romania. AAMDS Romania reached technical capability declaration in December 2015, and is currently working toward operational certification. A second AAMDS is scheduled to be built in Redzikowo, Poland, with ground breaking sometime in 2016.

CTF 64 was established by NAVEUR-NAVAF and U.S. Fleet Forces Command, as directed by the Chief of Naval Operations.

NAVEUR-NAVAF, headquartered in Naples, Italy, oversees joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests, security and stability in Europe and Africa.

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Colombia, FARC rebels miss deadline for peace deal

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:28AM

The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have missed a deadline for reaching a peace deal to end the decades-long conflict in the South American country.

The government and FARC rebels had set a deadline of March 23 to reach a comprehensive deal to wrap the three-year-old talks in the Cuban capital of Havana.

Humberto de la Calle, the head of the Colombian delegation in the peace talks with FARC, said there are still some differences with the FARC on significant issues.

"We are going to make every effort to reach a final agreement. But this requires quick decisions," Calle said at a news conference on Wednesday, adding talks could not be indefinite.

FARC's chief negotiator Ivan Marquez expressed optimism about reaching a final accord.

"We are acting with the idea of building a good agreement, to make 2016 the year of peace, the year of the end of war in Colombia," he said.

Peace talks due to resume on April 4

Bogota and FARC have been at war since the guerrilla movement rose to prominence in 1964. So far, more than 200,000 people have been killed in clashes between the two sides and millions of others have been displaced.

The two sides have been holding peace talks, hosted by Havana and the negotiations have made several key advances in recent months.

Several main areas of disagreement have been discussed in the talks, and deals have been reached on transitional justice, land reform, political participation for former rebels, putting an end to drug trafficking, removing the land mines and efforts to find missing persons.

The issue of disarmament and a mechanism for ratifying the final accord are still under discussion.

A United Nations mission will monitor the group's disarmament once a peace deal is inked.

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Karadzic Convicted Of Genocide, Sentenced To 40 Years In Prison

March 24, 2016

by RFE/RL

A UN tribunal has sentenced former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in prison after convicting him of genocide and other crimes committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 civil war.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague ruled March 24 that Karadzic is guilty of genocide over the deaths of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said that Karadzic ordered the takeover of Srebrenica before the massacre and intended to eliminate the Bosnian Muslim males of the town.

As supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Karadzic controlled the forces that committed the Srebrenica massacre after Bosnian Serbs seized the UN-declared safe haven from peacekeepers.



The war crimes tribunal also ruled that Karadzic is guilty of crimes against humanity -- including murder, extermination, and forcible transfer -- for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of towns and villages claimed by Bosnian Serb forces.

But the court stopped short of convicting him of genocide for his role in that campaign.

The judge also ruled that Karadzic is criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians, and terror for overseeing the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Kwon said Karadzic used a campaign of sniping and shelling targeting the city's civilians as a way of furthering his political goals.

Reacting to the verdict, many people in Sarajevo voiced disappointment that Karadzic did not receive a life sentence, RFE/RL's Balkan Service reported.

Several other Bosnian Serbs involved in the war have been sentenced to life in prison by the ICTY for their roles in the Srebrenica massacre and other crimes.

In total, Karadzic was found guilty of 10 out of 11 charges.

His legal adviser said Karadzic was "disappointed and astonished" at the verdict and plans to appeal.

"He feels that he was convicted on inference instead of evidence and will appeal the judgment," Peter Robinson told journalists outside the tribunal.

Appeals could take several years.

Throughout his 497-day trial, Karadzic, who is 70 and in good health, insisted he is innocent.

The former wartime Bosnian Serb leader was arrested near Belgrade in 2008 after 11 years on the run.

Dozens of relatives of Srebrenica victims traveled to The Hague for the trial's final day.

Munira Subasic, whose son was among the victims, said ahead of the verdict that "it is very important to show new generations, especially those in Serbia who have been poisoned with hatred already, what really happened in Bosnia."

Karadzic is the highest-ranking person to face a reckoning before the tribunal over the war two decades ago in which 100,000 people were killed as rival armies carved up Bosnia along ethnic lines that largely survive today.

The only more senior official to face justice before the ICTY was the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in custody a decade ago before a verdict was reached.

Ratko Mladic, the general who commanded Bosnian Serb forces, is the last suspect to be detained over the Srebrenica massacre and is in a UN prison cell awaiting judgment.

Karadzic, a former psychiatrist and a self-styled poet, rose to power on a Serb nationalist platform during the breakup of Yugoslavia and played a seminal role in instigating the Bosnian civil war.

Journalists who followed his early career say he used the skills he acquired as a professional psychiatrist to help convince Bosnian Serbs that they should break with the newly declared state of Bosnia and unify with Serbia instead.

"It shouldn't be forgotten that Karadzic was a psychiatrist and one of his specialties was social psychology," recalled RFE/RL Balkan Service journalist Gordana Knezevic, who at the time was an editor of the Sarajevo daily newspaper Oslobodjenje. "It was always clear to me that he was using some of his knowledge about the behavior of social groups and how to appeal to them."

She said his message of nationalism won him support partly because it broke so uncompromisingly with the former Yugoslav state policy of cooperation between ethnic groups.

"He came at [an opportune] moment, at the time when nationalism was high, and spoke in clear, simple, nationalistic messages, saying things that were forbidden," Knezevic said. "In the former Yugoslavia, you could say anything but you could not say bad things about other national groups -- and all of a sudden there was somebody who was not politically correct and so everybody would listen to him."

Elected head of the self-declared Bosnian Serb Republic in 1992, Karadzic engaged in a campaign of territorial expansion that was marked by brutal treatment of Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat civilian populations, including mass killings, rapes, and forced expulsions.

The Srebrenica massacre and other horrors committed during the war helped turned world opinion against the Bosnian Serbs, leading to NATO air strikes that brought the conflict to an end.

Karadzic denied during his trial that there was systematic ethnic cleansing of the territory under his control during the war. He also blamed Bosnian Muslims for much of the violence against civilians that marked the war on all sides.

He told the court in October that "I know of no one in the Serb leadership who wanted to harm Muslims or Croats."

Ahead of the verdict on March 24, Serbia's prime minister said Belgrade will stand by the Serb part of Bosnia no matter the fate of its wartime leader Karadzic.

Aleksandar Vucic said "Serbia has an obligation to take care of its people outside the Serbian borders."

With reporting by RFE/RL Balkan Service correspondent Nedim Dervisbegovic in Sarajevo, Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/bosnian- serb-leader-karadzic-faces-hague- courts-verdict/27632392.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Saudi Arabia, Houthis Agree to Ceasefire After Year-Long Massacre in Yemen

Sputnik News

17:56 24.03.2016(updated 17:58 24.03.2016)

Saudi Arabia and the Houthis controlling part of Yemen have agreed to a "cessation of hostilities," the UN's special envoy to Yemen announced on Wednesday.

UN's Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the two parties would start implementing a ceasefire from April 10, eight days before peace negotiations take place in Kuwait.

"The talks aim to reach a comprehensive agreement, which will end the conflict and allow the resumption of inclusive political dialogue," Ahmed said.

"The war in Yemen must be brought to an end before it does irreparable damage to the future of Yemen and the region," he added.

The Saudi strikes against the Islamist Houthis have killed thousands of civilians so far. The total amount of casualties recorded by the UN from the start of the conflict to date is of more than 5,000 deaths, half of them civilians.

A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out a military campaign in neighboring Yemen since March 2015, after large swaths of the country fell under the control of the Houthis  a religious-political extremist group hostile to the Saudis.

The Gulf kingdom, together with Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and other Middle Eastern and North African countries launched a series of airstrikes on the Houthi-held areas, besides imposing an air and naval blockade of the country.

From the very beginning, the US and the UK provided the coalition with military support.

The UN has tried to convince the belligerents to engage in negotiations since June 2015, but the efforts have failed repeatedly, until a first ceasefire was agreed on last December.

Now the parties will attempt to come to an arrangement again, although it will be tricky: Yemen, backed by Saudi Arabia, demands that the Houthis leave all the cities they currently occupy, and that they accept to be disarmed afterwards.

The Houthis, on the other hand, want to be granted more representation in the country's government.

 Sputnik

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ICTY Finds Karadzic Guilty of Srebrenica Genocide

Sputnik News

17:35 24.03.2016(updated 19:46 24.03.2016)

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague found on Thursday former President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic guilty of Srebrenica genocide in 1995 and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague sentenced Thursday former President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic to 40 years of imprisonment over his role in crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.

Karadzic faced charges on 11 counts of crimes against humanity, breaching the laws or customs of war and genocide for his role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. He was found guilty of 10 of those.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague found on Thursday former President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic guilty of ordering the takeover of the Srebrenica region before the 1995 massacre.

The Srebrenica massacre occurred in 1995, in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. The killings were perpetrated by forces loyal to Republika Srpska, an ethnically Serbian breakaway region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"The accusedordered the takeover of Srebrenica," the tribunal's judge said.

Karadzic, 70, became the most high-profile defendant after the death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2006 before his trial concluded.

The Bosnian War erupted between Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats when Bosnia and Herzegovina announced its secession from Yugoslavia in 1992.

Various estimates put the death toll in the conflict at around 100,000 people.

Karadzic is accused of the massacre of an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys after Serbian forces overran the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in the waning days of the war in July 1995.

 Sputnik

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Russia, Abkhazia, S Ossetia Concerned About Georgia-NATO Cooperation

Sputnik News

16:13 24.03.2016(updated 17:02 24.03.2016)

Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are concerned about the increasing NATO expansion.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are concerned about the increasing military cooperation between Georgia and NATO and believe that Georgian-NATO military exercises undermine multilateral efforts to stabilize the situation in the South Caucasus, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Representatives of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia met on March 22-23 within the framework of the Geneva discussions, mediated by Russia, the United States, the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Union.

"Given the continuous claims by Tbilisi to the territory of the two independent republics, strengthening the offensive capabilities of the Georgian army and the growing number of joint Georgian-NATO military exercises raise reasonable concerns of Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, undermining the multilateral efforts to stabilize the situation in the South Caucasus," the statement reads.

In 2008, Georgia launched a military offensive against the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, ending in a five-day war with Russia. Both regions declared their independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and were recognized by Russia following the 2008 conflict.

During a NATO summit in Wales on September 4-5, 2014, a package of measures was approved to advance Georgia's efforts in its preparations for NATO membership.

 Sputnik

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Russia Delivers Four Mi-171Sh Military Transport Helicopters to Angola

Sputnik News

11:01 24.03.2016(updated 12:35 24.03.2016)

Russian Helicopters company stated that Russia has delivered four Mi-171Sh military transport helicopters to Angola.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia has delivered four Mi-171Sh military transport helicopters to Angola, Russian Helicopters company said Thursday.

"Russian Helicopters has delivered a batch of four Mi-171Sh helicopters to the Angolan Defense Ministry, in the framework of a long partnership," the company's press service told RIA Novosti.

The delivery of the aircraft, produced by the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant (UUAZ) was conducted in addition to four helicopters delivered in 2015, according to the press service.

"The Mi-171Sh helicopters were tested in different weather conditions and various geographical locations, where they proved to be reliable and undemanding machines capable of fulfilling set tasks. They operate reliably in the harshest conditions," the press service said.

According to the press service, representatives of the Angolan Defense Ministry have commended the helicopters and noted their preparedness for climate conditions of Angola.

The helicopters delivered to Angola have been fitted with modern flight control and navigation equipment, including a satellite navigation system and weather radars with a multi-function display, which optimize the safety of the flight, according to Russian Helicopters.

"Installation of additional internal fuel tanks allowed to increase the flight range up to 1,065 kilometers [over 660 miles]. Moreover, machines are equipped with a rescue hoist with the lifting capacity of 300 kilograms [660 pounds], folding seats, 12 sanitary stretchers, as well as external slings, which allow to transport bulky loads weighing up to 4 tonnes," the press service said.

Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport signed a contract on the supply of arms and military equipment worth $1 billion with the Angolan side in 2013. The agreement included deliveries of spare parts for the Soviet-made weaponry, light weapons, ammunition, tanks, artillery and multi-purpose helicopters to Angola.

 Sputnik

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Colombian Government Fails to Reach Peace Deal With FARC

Sputnik News

03:41 24.03.2016(updated 03:58 24.03.2016)

Bogota's chief negotiator with FARC said that major differences remain between Colombia's government and FARC.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Major differences remain between Colombia's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Bogota's chief negotiator Humberto de La Calle said marking the sides' failure to reach a peace deal.

"In all honesty, we have to inform the public that at this time there are major differences with the FARC on substantive issues," the negotiator said at a Wednesday press conference following peace talks in Havana.

Last month, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos issued an ultimatum for FARC to conclude a peace deal by March 23.

FARC chief negotiator Ivan Marquez said on Wednesday that the group had presented the government with a "roadmap" for the cessation of hostilities in the country. Marquez expressed hope that the roadmap would be agreed at the next round of peace talks with the government.

The FARC rebel group was established in 1964 as the military wing of Colombia's Communist Party. Since then, military confrontation between FARC and the Colombian government has been ongoing, with over 200,000 people having been killed as a result.

The two sides have been engaged in peace talks since November 2012 and have reached a number of important agreements including on landmine removal, land reform, transitional justice and an end to illegal drug trafficking.

Last year, Santos and FARC signed a deal in Havana that set the schedule for the rebels' full demobilization and disarmament.

Earlier this month, the Colombian president said that the signing of a peace agreement between the government and FARC could be delayed, in which case he was ready to propose to create another deadline.

 Sputnik

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UN welcomes 'historic' guilty verdict against Radovan Karadzi

24 March 2016  Calling today "historic" for the people of former Yugoslavia and for international criminal justice, United nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today expressed support for the victims who suffered under former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzi, following his guilty verdict by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

"Fugitives cannot outrun the international community's collective resolve to make sure that they face justice according to the law," Mr. Ban said through his spokesperson.

In a separate statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, welcomed the verdict calling it "hugely significant."

"His judgment is symbolically powerful  above all for the victims of the crimes committed during the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and across the former Yugoslavia, but also for victims across the world," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in a statement from his Office (OHCHR).

Mr. Zeid added that while the verdict might be appealed, it shows "no matter how powerful they are, no matter how untouchable they imagine themselves to be, no matter what continent they inhabit, the perpetrators of such crimes must know that they will not escape justice."

Mr. Karadzi, who had been the President of the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic, was convicted of genocide in the area of Srebrenica in 1995, of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts (forcible transfer), terror, unlawful attacks on civilians and hostage-taking.

The ICTY acquitted him of the charge of genocide in other municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

Mr. Zeid has a personal connection to the trial, having served in the UN Protection Force in the Former Yugoslavia between1994 and 1996.

In his statement, Mr. Zeid said the verdict stripped away the pretence that Mr. Karadzi's actions were anything more than political manipulation, and exposes him as "the architect of destruction and murder on a massive scale."

"It is time now to ensure that his poisonous legacy does not continue to burden the people of the former Yugoslavia with deeply-felt grievances, secrecy and lies," he stressed.

He added that the trial should give pause to leader in Europe and elsewhere who seek to exploit nationalist sentiments and scapegoat minorities for broader social ills.

"Speech that incites hatred, discrimination and violence is an inflammable force," he said. "In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, we saw the terrible bloodshed that can result."

Following the announcement of the verdict, ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said: For two decades now, the victims have put their trust in us to deliver [justice]. Thousands came here to tell their stories and courageously confront their tormentors. Today, with this conviction, that trust has been honoured. Justice has been done."

He went on to stress that the truth established by this judgment will stand against continuing attempts at denying the suffering of thousands and the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.

"Moments like this should also remind us that in innumerable conflicts around the world today, millions of victims are now waiting for their own justice. This judgment shows that it is possible to deliver it," he said.

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Time 'to ring the alarm bell' on waning prospects for Middle East peace, UN envoy tells Security Council

24 March 2016  The United Nations envoy for the peace process in the Middle East today warned the Security Council that the prospects for an independent Palestinian state are disappearing, and questioned the political will of the Israeli and Palestinian actors to address the main challenges blocking peace efforts.

"The time has come to ring the alarm bells that the two-state solution is slipping from our fingers," said Nickolay Mladenov, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, pointing to ongoing settlement activities and confiscation of Palestinian land, as well as the continued lack of genuine Palestinian unity.

'Wave of violence'

The persistent inability to achieve a just and lasting solution that meets the national aspirations of the Palestinians and Israelis is being expressed through violence.

The past month has been marked by "some of the bloodiest incidents in this current wave of violence" across Israel and the occupied West Bank, Mr. Mladenov said.

That violence has left 198 Palestinians and 30 Israelis dead in the past six months, with most of the Palestinians killed while reportedly carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.

The UN envoy said that it is time to move past mere condemnations of such acts of terror and violence "to send a clear message to both parties."

He spoke to Palestinians, weighing against radicals determined to poison the minds of Palestinian youth, and urged them to not praise or glorify violence against Israel in the media.

At the same time, Mr. Mladenov called on Israelis to realize that actions such as illegal building and movement restrictions "breed anger among people who feel they are being collectively humiliated, punished and discriminated against."

Noting Israeli authorities' interpretation of the Ottoman Land Law in their favour, he reiterated that "settlements are illegal under international law" and urged Israel "to halt and reverse" decisions that allow them to declare state land on property that is not registered as private. He spoke also against the demolition and confiscation of Palestinian structures in the West Bank, and the regular denial of legal building permits to Palestinians.

Palestinian's political discord

The lack of a united Palestinian front is also a challenge  with political factions unable to reach a consensus on long-term Palestinian national goals, as well as fiscal and development goals.

The senior UN official stressed that "achieving a genuine Palestinian unity on the basis of non-violence, democracy and the PLO Principles would constitute a crucial building block for the foundation of a Palestinian state."

Among other issues, he called for allegations of corruption to be investigated, referencing an arrest warrant that was temporarily ordered against Najat Abu Bakr, a Fateh member of the Palestine Legislative Committee, who raised such allegations.

Report on way forward

In an attempt to break the political impasse between the actors, Mr. Mladenov announced that the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East peace process  comprising the UN, Russia, the United States and the European Union  have started work on a report to review the situation on the ground and suggest a plan to overcome the impediments.

"We remain seriously concerned that current trends  including continued acts of violence against civilians, incitement, ongoing settlement activity, and the high rate of demolitions of Palestinian structures  are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution," Mr. Mladenov said.

According to information provided to the press yesterday, the work has already started and the Quartet is seeking inputs from both sides and other stakeholders, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The report is expected to be completed in a few months.

Gaza reconstruction

In Gaza, where the security situation remains volatile, the pace of reconstruction is slow, the UN envoy said.

He pointed to slow disbursements of donor pledges, and encouraged all Member States to disburse their commitments without delay.

Only 35 per cent of the $3.5 billion pledged at the 2014 Cairo conference has been disbursed, according to figures Mr. Mladenov provided at a press briefing yesterday.

"Failure to comprehensively address the chronic problems affecting Gaza risks another escalation in the future," he warned.

Mr. Mladenov was due today to hold an informal consultation with Member States on the reconstruction efforts.

Secretary-General in Lebanon

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is today in Lebanon, joined by the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim.

In his briefing, Mr. Mladenov said the visit illustrated the "strong commitment" of the UN and international community to helping Lebanon address multiple challenges resulting from the Syria crisis.

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Chinese, Indonesian Fishery Dispute Rekindles Competing Seas Claims

by Ade Irma March 24, 2016

Tension is mounting between China and neighboring Indonesia after a recent fishery dispute brought to light their competing claims over the 200-nautical miles exclusive economic zone (EEZ) surrounding the Natuna Islands, which sit northwest of the island of Borneo in the disputed South China Sea.

Analysts say China, while standing firm on its maritime claims, will refrain from irritating Indonesia, which has threatened to bring Beijing to the international arbitration court for a clarification over the Natuna situation.

But that doesn't mean China is ready to make another concession after having openly acknowledged Indonesia's sovereign rights to the islands, they add.

Fishery dispute intensified

Jakarta claimed in mid-March that a Chinese fishing boat was illegally fishing just over four kilometers off the coast of the Natuna islands and inside waters Indonesia claims as its exclusive economic zone.

Indonesia coast guards thus detained eight Chinese fishermen before a Chinese Coast Guard ship intervened and freed the detained vessel by ramming it back into the South China Sea.

To convey an official protest, Indonesia Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Minister Susi Pudjiastuti asked to meet with China's Jakarta-based ambassador to denounced Chinese authorities' "support for illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing."

The Indonesia government also expressed harsh words for China's violations of its EEZ and demanded it return the arrested vessel.

During a recent press conference, the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi insisted that "[it was] a violation by China's coast guard into Indonesia's sovereignty and jurisdiction in the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf."

The minister urged China to abide by international laws.

"In good state relations, we should respect the existing international laws, including the 1982 United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea," she added.

No wrongdoings

China, however, has denied any wrongdoing.

Sun Weide, the acting charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta, said he told Minister Marsudi, during their meeting, that the incident happened in the "traditional Chinese fishing grounds," and demanded the Indonesian government immediately release the detained fishermen.

"I emphasized that we hope the Indonesia side can proceed from a mutual interest about good bilateral relations and solve these kinds of issues," Sun told reporters after the meeting, reiterating that "when it comes to fishery disputes or maritime issues, China is always ready to work with Indonesia to solve the dispute through negotiations and dialogues."

However Hikmahanto Juwana, an international law expert at University of Indonesia, said the Chinese argument has no legal merit.

"To say that the Chinese fishermen have the right to catch the fish based on traditional fishing grounds, according to the Chinese government, is a defense that is not recognized under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea," he said.

He added that what is recognized is traditional fishing rights, which must be agreed to between states, such as an agreement Indonesia has with Malaysia, but not with China.

No more concessions?

China has reiterated that it has no competing claim over Indonesia's Natuna Islands, which is in line with its first-ever statement, issued in November, to openly declare that Beijing has no objection to Indonesia's sovereignty over the islands.

The Natuna islands, which sit between the northern tip of Indonesia and the southern tip of Vietnam, consists about 270 islands with 70,000 residents and lie outside of China's self-designated nine-dash-line, which maps Beijing's claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

It was a significant concession in favor of Indonesia.

But Indonesia is growing impatient with China's strategic ambiguity over the country's legitimacy of the islands' EEZ, which protrudes into China's nine-dash-line territorial claims.

Some thus argue that, judging by the way it has handled the fishery dispute, Indonesia is getting tough on China about their overlapping waters.

In response, China will try to avoid any escalation of tensions, said Li Jinming, professor at Xiamen University's Center for Southeast Asia Studies, dismissing the likelihood that the dispute will turn into a similar episode in 2014 when plummeting relations between China and Vietnam over the presence of a Chinese oil rig in the disputed waters fueled anti-China sentiments in Vietnam.

Court of arbitration

Nevertheless, China is unlikely to back down on its territorial claims, the professor added.

"China has never opted to resolve disputes in the Court of Arbitration. Instead, China has long proposed that both concerned countries should peacefully settle their differences on overlapping waters through negotiations and dialogues," said Li.

That means, the professor added, China will continue to boycott the international court's authority if Indonesia follows the Philippines' footsteps to resolve the territorial rows.

Hikmahanto Juwana agrees that the issue should be solved through direct talks.

"I think that kind of manner should not be conducted by good friend of Indonesia and this kind of manner should be dealt in the diplomatic corridor rather than settling it in the international tribunal or settling it legally," he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese netizens are also taking a nationalistic stance on the dispute.

Most Weibo users have written strong-worded posts. One user said it is "time to teach Indonesia a lesson" and another said "[China] should have had exercised its rights to self-defense and sunk the Vietnamese [official] vessel." Yet another commented that "China should have played it the hard way so as to set an example for other [neighboring] countries to well-behave."

Joyce Huang reported from Taipei.

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Boko Haram Chief Signals Possible Retirement

by Dan Joseph March 24, 2016

Alleged Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has signaled his possible retirement in a new video that appeared online Thursday.

The eight-minute video, posted to YouTube, shows a subdued Shekau sitting and quietly praising Islamic fighters. At the end he says, "For me, this is the end," without elaborating.

In previous videos, Shekau was often seen shouting, gesticulating and firing assault rifles as he threatened Boko Haram's enemies.

Yan St. Pierre, head of the German security firm MOSECON, says Shekau may be preparing Boko Haram for a leadership change.

"[He] is basically setting up the transition phase of Boko Haram leadership in a way that can be internally clean, by which he is already preparing fighters to a possible exit, and that the fight will go on," St. Pierre said. "An exit on his own terms allows Boko Haram to bring a certain level of closure to the myth of Shekau and pave the way to new leadership that would have a certain level of legitimacy."

Nigerian security agencies have never determined that the man in the videos is truly the head of shadowy Boko Haram.

Officials have also said there were multiple Shekaus appearing in Boko Haram's videos. The army said twice it had killed Shekau, only for the militant leader to reappear.

The Islamist extremist group is blamed for some 20,000 deaths since beginning its insurgency in northern Nigeria in 2009.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to crush the group but the militants are believed responsible for a series of recent, deadly suicide bombings across northern Nigeria, many of them carried out by women.

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General Urges 'Civil Disobedience' After Congo's Disputed Election

by Dan Joseph March 24, 2016

A Republic of Congo army general is calling for a campaign of "civil disobedience" to reject official results showing President Denis Sassou Nguesso has won re-election.

General Jean-Marie Mokoko spoke to VOA's French to Africa Service Thursday, after Congo's interior minister announced in Brazzaville that Sassou Nguesso won over 60 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, and thus no second-round ballot would be necessary.

In a telephone interview, Mokoko said the results are "falsified" and "do not reflect the reality of the polls."

"When a dictatorship is installed in a country, we [call on] people, basically, to engage in legal civil disobedience to block this attempt at fraud," he said.

Mokoko said the opposition coalition has no weapons and will not go to war, but indicated that neither will they appeal to the courts, which he called "subservient" to the president.

There was no immediate reaction from the government.

The general was a candidate in the election -- finishing third, according to official results. In an audio statement posted on YouTube, he said polling station results collected by the opposition show it was "impossible" for Sassou Nguesso to have won re-election outright in a first round of voting.

The opposition has yet to release its own vote tallies.

Interior Minister Raymond Zephyrin Mboulou announced the official results on national television at 3:30 a.m. Until Thursday, all telephone and Internet service in Congo had been shut down since the election on Sunday. Mboulou said the measure was needed for security reasons.

The results, which must be validated by Congo's constitutional court, showed Mokoko winning 14 percent of the vote, just behind the runner-up candidate, Guy-Brice Parfair Kolelas, who had 15 percent.

The election followed a voter referendum last October that removed age and term limits that would have prevented the 72-year-old Sassou Nguesso from seeking re-election. Critics of the poll accused the president of a "constitutional coup."

Sassou Nguesso initially served as Congo's president from 1979 to 1992. After losing an election, he returned to power during a 1997 civil war and won re-election in disputed polls in 2002 and 2009.

VOA's Idriss Fall contributed to this report.

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Seven Iranians Working for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Affiliated Entities Charged for Conducting Coordinated Campaign of Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Financial Sector

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, March 24, 2016



One Defendant Also Charged with Obtaining Unauthorized Access into Control Systems of a New York Dam

A grand jury in the Southern District of New York indicted seven Iranian individuals who were employed by two Iran-based computer companies, ITSecTeam (ITSEC) and Mersad Company (MERSAD), that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on computer hacking charges related to their involvement in an extensive campaign of over 176 days of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Ahmad Fathi, 37; Hamid Firoozi, 34; Amin Shokohi, 25; Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, aka Nitr0jen26, 23; Omid Ghaffarinia, aka PLuS, 25; Sina Keissar, 25; and Nader Saedi, aka Turk Server, 26, launched DDoS attacks against 46 victims, primarily in the U.S financial sector, between late 2011 and mid-2013. The attacks disabled victim bank websites, prevented customers from accessing their accounts online and collectively cost the victims tens of millions of dollars in remediation costs as they worked to neutralize and mitigate the attacks on their servers. In addition, Firoozi is charged with obtaining unauthorized access into the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems of the Bowman Dam, located in Rye, New York, in August and September of 2013.

The indictment was announced today by Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, Director James B. Comey of the FBI, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York.

"In unsealing this indictment, the Department of Justice is sending a powerful message: that we will not allow any individual, group, or nation to sabotage American financial institutions or undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market," said Attorney General Lynch. "Through the work of our National Security Division, the FBI, and U.S. Attorney's Offices around the country, we will continue to pursue national security cyber threats through the use of all available tools, including public criminal charges. And as today's unsealing makes clear, individuals who engage in computer hacking will be exposed for their criminal conduct and sought for apprehension and prosecution in an American court of law."

"The FBI will find those behind cyber intrusions and hold them accountable  wherever they are, and whoever they are," said Director Comey. "By calling out the individuals and nations who use cyber attacks to threaten American enterprise, as we have done in this indictment, we will change behavior."

"Like past nation state-sponsored hackers, these defendants and their backers believed that they could attack our critical infrastructure without consequence, from behind a veil of cyber anonymity," said Assistant Attorney General Carlin. "This indictment once again shows there is no such veil  we can and will expose malicious cyber hackers engaging in unlawful acts that threaten our public safety and national security."

"The charges announced today respond directly to a cyber-assault on New York, its institutions and its infrastructure," said U.S. Attorney Bharara. "The alleged onslaught of cyber-attacks on 46 of our largest financial institutions, many headquartered in New York City, resulted in hundreds of thousands of customers being unable to access their accounts and tens of millions of dollars being spent by the companies trying to stay online through these attacks. The infiltration of the Bowman Avenue dam represents a frightening new frontier in cybercrime. These were no ordinary crimes, but calculated attacks by groups with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard and designed specifically to harm America and its people. We now live in a world where devastating attacks on our financial system, our infrastructure and our way of life can be launched from anywhere in the world, with a click of a mouse. Confronting these types of cyber-attacks cannot be the job of just law enforcement. The charges announced today should serve as a wake-up call for everyone responsible for the security of our financial markets and for guarding our infrastructure. Our future security depends on heeding this call."

According to the indictment unsealed today in federal court in New York City:

DDoS Attacks

The DDoS campaign began in approximately December 2011, and the attacks occurred only sporadically until September 2012, at which point they escalated in frequency to a near-weekly basis, between Tuesday and Thursdays during normal business hours in the United States. On certain days during the campaign, victim computer servers were hit with as much as 140 gigabits of data per second and hundreds of thousands of customers were cut off from online access to their bank accounts.

Fathi, Firoozi and Shokohi were responsible for ITSEC's portion of the DDoS campaign against the U.S. financial sector and are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit and aid and abet computer hacking. Fathi was the leader of ITSEC and was responsible for supervising and coordinating ITSEC's portion of the DDoS campaign, along with managing computer intrusion and cyberattack projects being conducted for the government of Iran. Firoozi was the network manager at ITSEC and, in that role, procured and managed computer servers that were used to coordinate and direct ITSEC's portion of the DDoS campaign. Shokohi is a computer hacker who helped build the botnet used by ITSEC to carry out its portion of the DDoS campaign and created malware used to direct the botnet to engage in those attacks. During the time that he worked in support of the DDoS campaign, Shokohi received credit for his computer intrusion work from the Iranian government towards his completion of his mandatory military service requirement in Iran.

Ahmadzadegan, Ghaffarinia, Keissar and Saedi were responsible for managing the botnet used in MERSAD's portion of the campaign, and are also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit and aid and abet computer hacking. Ahmadzadegan was a co-founder of MERSAD and was responsible for managing the botnet used in MERSAD's portion of the DDoS campaign. He was also associated with Iranian hacking groups Sun Army and the Ashiyane Digital Security Team (ADST), and claimed responsibility for hacking servers belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in February 2012. Ahmadzadegan has also provided training to Iranian intelligence personnel. Ghaffarinia was a co-founder of MERSAD and created malicious computer code used to compromise computer servers and build MERSAD's botnet. Ghaffarinia was also associated with Sun Army and ADST, and has also claimed responsibility for hacking NASA servers in February 2012, as well as thousands of other servers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. Keissar procured computer servers used by MERSAD to access and manipulate MERSAD's botnet, and also performed preliminary testing of the same botnet prior to its use in MERSAD's portion of the DDoS campaign. Saedi was an employee of MERSAD and a former Sun Army computer hacker who expressly touted himself as an expert in DDoS attacks. Saedi wrote computer scripts used to locate vulnerable servers to build the MERSAD botnet used in its portion of the DDoS campaign.

For the purpose of carrying out the attacks, each group built and maintained their own botnets, which consisted of thousands of compromised computer systems owned by unwitting third parties that had been infected with the defendants' malware, and subject to their remote command and control. The defendants and/or their unindicted co-conspirators then sent orders to their botnets to direct significant amounts of malicious traffic at computer servers used to operate the websites for victim financial institutions, which overwhelmed victim servers and disabled them from customers seeking to legitimately access the websites or their online bank accounts. Although the DDoS campaign caused damage to the financial sector victims and interfered with their customers' ability to do online banking, the attacks did not affect or result in the theft of customer account data.

DDoS Botnet Remediation

Since the attacks, the Department of Justice and the FBI have worked together with the private sector to effectively neutralize and remediate the defendants' botnets. Specifically, through approximately 20 FBI Liaison Alert System (FLASH) messages, the FBI regularly provided updated information collected from the investigation regarding the identity of systems that been infected with the defendants' malware and operating as bots within the malicious botnets. In addition, the FBI conducted extensive direct outreach to Internet service providers responsible for hosting systems that have been infected with the defendants' malware to provide them information and assistance in removing the malware to protect their customers and other potential victims of the defendants' unlawful cyber activities. Through these outreach efforts and the cooperation of the private sector, over 95 percent of the known part of the defendants' botnets have been successfully remediated.

Bowman Dam Intrusion

Between Aug. 28, 2013, and Sept. 18, 2013, Firoozi repeatedly obtained unauthorized access to the SCADA systems of the Bowman Dam, and is charged with one substantive count of obtaining and aiding and abetting computer hacking. This unauthorized access allowed him to repeatedly obtain information regarding the status and operation of the dam, including information about the water levels, temperature and status of the sluice gate, which is responsible for controlling water levels and flow rates. Although that access would normally have permitted Firoozi to remotely operate and manipulate the Bowman Dam's sluice gate, Firoozi did not have that capability because the sluice gate had been manually disconnected for maintenance at the time of the intrusion.

Remediation for the Bowman Dam intrusion cost over $30,000.

* * *

All seven defendants face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit and aid and abet computer hacking. Firoozi faces an additional five years in prison for obtaining and aiding and abetting unauthorized access to a protected computer at the Bowman Dam.

An indictment is merely an accusation and all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

The case was investigated by the FBI, including the Chicago; Cincinnati; New York; Newark, New Jersey; Phoenix; and San Francisco Field Offices. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy T. Howard of the Southern District of New York, with the substantial assistance of Deputy Chief Sean M. Newell of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

16-348

Office of the Attorney General

Topic:

National Security

Updated March 24, 2016

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US accuses Iran of cyber attack against dozens of banks

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:33PM

The US government has charged several Iranian hackers with coordinating a campaign of cyber attacks on dozens of American banks and a dam in New York state from 2011 to 2013.

The US Justice Department on Thursday announced the indictment of seven Iranian hackers, which was filed in a federal court in New York City.

The indictment described the suspects as "experienced computer hackers" who live in Iran and may have been working on behalf of the Iranian government.

The move marks the first time the US government has charged individuals tied to a foreign government with attempting to disrupt critical infrastructure.

The charged hackers are accused of conspiracy to commit computer hacking while employed by two Iran-based private computer companies.

At a news conference announcing the charges, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the head of the Justice Department, said the accused hackers caused tens of millions of dollars in damages in their assault on US banks.

"These attacks were relentless, they were systematic, and they were widespread," Lynch said.

At least 46 major financial institutions and financial sector companies were targeted, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and American Express, according to the indictment.

AT&T, the second largest provider of mobile telephone and the largest provider of fixed telephone in the United States, was also targeted, the indictment says.

Separately, the US Treasury Department blacklisted two Iranian companies on Thursday for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program. The sanctions came after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired two more ballistic missiles on March 9.

The US hacking charges come on the heels of a recent report that the US had developed an "elaborate plan" for an extensive cyber attack against Iran in case the negotiations to reach a nuclear agreement failed.

Code-named Nitro Zeus, the cyber attack plan was designed as an "alternative" to target Iran's air defenses, communications systems and crucial segments of its electrical power grid, the New York Times reported in February.

In June 2010, it was revealed that the US and Israel carried out a cyber attack against Iran to sabotage the country's civilian nuclear program.

In that attack, Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz was the target of the Stuxnet virus in what has become the most serious case of state cyber-terrorism because of its complexity and sabotage of sensitive properties.

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US Charges Iranian Hacker With 'Illegally Obtaining Access' to New York Dam

Sputnik News

18:09 24.03.2016(updated 19:26 24.03.2016)

One of the seven Iranian defendants the United States has charged in a massive cyber intrusion to the US financial sector has also been charged with trying to hack into a dam in New York State, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said during a news conference on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The Attorney General also noted that any access to the dam would have given the hacker the ability to control its water levels and flow rates, which in turn could have "have posed a clear danger to the public health and safety of Americans."

"In addition to the actions that we have detailed, one of the defendants is also charged with illegally obtaining access to the supervisory control and data acquisition system of the Bowman Dam in Rye, New York," Lynch stated.

She added that a grand jury in New York State has found the alleged hackers "conspired to conduct a series" of attacks against civilians in the US financial sector, which cost the victims "tens of millions of dollars."

The Justice Department alleged that Iranian nationals Ahmad Fathi, Hamid Firoozi, Amin Shokohi, Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, Omid Ghaffarinia, Sina Keissar and Nader Saedi launched a series of attacks on 46 individuals in the US financial sector.

Hamid Firoozi was also charged with obtaining unauthorized access into the supervisory control and data acquisition systems to the Bowman Dam in Rye, New York in 2013 Lynch added. The move could have given the hacker the ability to control the dam's water levels and flow rates.

"In unsealing this indictment, the Department of Justice is sending a powerful message: that we will not allow any individual, group or nation to sabotage American financial institutions or undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market," Lynch warned.

All seven defendants now face a maximum sentence of ten years in prison for attempting to commit, aid and abet computer hacking, while Firoozi faces an additional five years for obtaining unauthorized access to a protected computer at the Bowman Dam.

 Sputnik

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EU Focuses on Security Measures After Brussels Attacks

by Lisa Bryant March 24, 2016

European Union justice and security ministers hold talks in Brussels Thursday on ways to shore up intelligence and security, as police search for yet another suspect in the attacks in the Belgian capital that killed at least 31 people and wounded 300 others.

Police have launched a manhunt for a second man who appears involved in the suicide bombing at Maelbeek metro station Tuesday morning, Belgian media report. Authorities earlier identified Khalid El Bakraoui as the assailant in the metro attack that killed 20 people and injured scores more.

But video surveillance at the Maelbeek station showed a second man walking with El Bakraoui carrying a large bag, Belgium's Le Soir newspaper reported, citing police confirmation.

El Bakraoui's brother Ibrahim has been formally identified as one of the two suicide bombers in the airport attacks that occurred the same morning. Media have identified the second bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a bombmaker for Islamic State, who is considered a key accomplice in the November Paris attacks.

A third man, captured in airport video pushing a trolley with the two suicide bombers, remains at large.

Islamic State claims responsibility

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Brussels attacks, as it did for the Paris attacks in November.

Indeed, mounting evidence points to increasingly closer links between the Brussels and Paris terrorist strikes, raising questions about lapses in cross-border intelligence and security cooperation.

Those questions will be at the forefront of the EU meeting Thursday afternoon.

"We need to have a union of security," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at a news conference in Brussels Wednesday, urging member states to adopt the Commissions proposals on tighter external border controls and measures to make it more difficult to acquire firearms within the EU.

Visa-free system

Europe's visa-free Schengen system, already threatened by the migrant influx, is also under fresh scrutiny.

Much of the attention centers on Belgium, as authorities here are increasingly pressured to explain how a terrorist network apparently managed to plot and carry out two attacks  in Paris and Brussels  within months.

Turkish authorities said Wednesday they had caught Ibrahim El Bakraoui in 2013 at the Syrian border and deported him to the Netherlands.

"Despite our warnings that this person was a foreign terrorist fighter, the Belgian authorities could not identify a link to terrorism," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Wednesday.

For their part, Belgian authorities say the El Bakraoui brothers were primarily known as criminals who spent time in prison.

Not everyone is pointing fingers.

"Who is at fault in the area of terrorism?" EU Commission President Juncker asked in an interview with Le Soir. "Let's not start criticizing Belgium. I don't share this scorn."

Attack 'almost inevitable'

Michael Hayden, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency, told VOA the attack was "almost inevitable."

"I realize that's a pretty dramatic word," Hayden said. "But if you look at what has happened...the soft targets, the transportation targets, the maximum civilian casualties, (it's) something we could see."

Hayden also said it is "certainly not the last" attack Islamic State will carry out, saying the group has a "network that seems to be active and thriving in the heart of Europe."

The retired four-star general, who also headed up the CIA, said European intelligence and security agencies could do a better job at sharing information.

Counter-terrorism expert Thomas Reynard, of the Brussels-based Egmont Institute, believes cooperation between French and Belgian police is often underestimated.

"It's not like we just started cooperation," he said. "Obviously cooperation between police, between intelligence services anywhere in the world  including often within one single country  is also difficult."

"So is this a case of perfect cooperation - definitely not," he added. "But what's important is these remain hiccups rather than a major lack of cooperation."

Cross-border cooperation

The attacks also point to good cross-border cooperation among the assailants.

A case in point is Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris attacks who was caught in a Brussels police raid last week.

On Thursday, his lawyer Sven Mary said he wanted to be transferred to France "rapidly." Mary also told the French News Agency his client "was not aware" that the Brussels attacks were being plotted.

Yet last week, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders said Abdeslam told investigators he had been "ready to restart something" in Brussels. Moreover, evidence points to ties between Abdeslam and the Brussels assailants.

Abdeslam and suicide bomber Laachraoui were spotted last September at the the Austria-Hungarian border, driving in a rented Mercedes with a third suspect, Mohamed Belkaid, who was killed during last week's police raid in the Brussels neighborhood of Forest.

Many other suspects in the Paris and Brussels terrorists attacks also appear united by tangled bonds of childhood friendships, family ties or shared prison terms.

Both attackers included pairs of brothers, underscoring yet another pattern among jihadi fighters, experts say. Salah Abdeslam's brother Brahim was among the Paris suicide bombers, while the two El Bakraoui brothers both blew themselves up in the Paris attacks.

Belgians mourn victims

Meanwhile, the country remains in mourning for the victims of the Brussels attacks. Flags are at half-staff, and another moment of silence was to be held Thursday afternoon for the victims.

At the Place de la Bourse, in downtown Brussels, a steady stream of visitors arrived to place candles and flowers at a makeshift shrine. Hundreds gathered for a second consecutive night on Wednesday to sing and post messages of peace and Belgian pride.

"I came came here to show I wasn't afraid," said 85-year-old Nicole Olyff who wandered around the square. "And I'm happy to see there are still tourists in Brussels and so many people coming here."

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US Accuses 7 Iranians of State-Sanctioned Hacking

by VOA News March 24, 2016

The U.S. accused seven Iranians Thursday of carrying out a massive computer hacking scheme on behalf of the Iranian government to disrupt the Internet operations at 46 American financial institutions.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the hackers at two Iran-based computer companies worked for Tehran, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps. She said the seven experienced hackers coordinated a cyberattack campaign from late 2011 to mid-2013 on the banks, including some of the largest in the U.S. based in New York, that flooded their web sites with Internet traffic, crashed their servers and blocked customers from accessing their accounts.

Lynch, the country's top law enforcement official, said the cyber intrusions cost the banks, such as JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, "tens of millions of dollars" to repair their company websites.

In addition, the U.S. alleged that one of the Iranians hacked into the control system of a small irrigation dam outside New York and would have been able to control its water levels and flow rates, but for the fact that the dam was undergoing maintenance work at the time of the computer intrusion and had been shut down.

Lynch described the computer attacks on the financial institutions as "relentless, systematic and widespread."

"This case is a reminder," she said, "of the seriousness of cyber threats to our national security. And we believe that they were conducted with the sole purpose of undermining the targeted companies and damaging the online operation of America's free market."

Despite Lynch's high-profile announcement of the case in Washington, it is unclear when or if any actual prosecution of the case against the seven Iranians might occur since they have not been apprehended and there is no indication that Tehran would turn them over to U.S. authorities. The U.S. has no extradition treaty with Iran.

But Lynch said, "Fugitives don't remain that way forever."

The seven accused computer workers were employed by ITSec Team and Mersad Company, the U.S. alleged, and carried out their hacking for 176 days. They were identified as Ahmed Fathi, 37 years old; Hamid Firoozi, 34; Amin Shokohi, 25; Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, also known as Nitr0jen26, 23; Omid Ghaffarinia, also known as PLuS, 25; Sina Keissar, 25, and Nader Saedi, also known as Turk Server, 26.

The charges add to the contentious and complicated relations between Washington and Tehran.

The U.S. and five other world powers implemented a nuclear agreement with Iran in January that blocks Tehran from manufacturing nuclear weaponry in exchange for ending sanctions that hobbled its economy.

But in addition to the cybersecurity charges Thursday, the U.S. added two Iranian units involved in its ballistic missile program to its sanction blacklist, two weeks after Iran conducted missile tests that Washington called "provocative and destabilizing."

The action freezes any of the assets under U.S. jurisdiction held by Shadid Nuri Industries and Shadid Movahed Industries, both units of the Shadid Hemmat Industrial Group that is responsible for Iran's ballistic missile program.

On Wednesday, U.S. authorities unsealed an indictment accusing a consultant to Iran's United Nations mission, Ahmed Sheikhzadeh, of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran.

Similar sanction-related charges against others were dropped in January as the nuclear pact was implemented and Iran freed Americans it had detained.

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North Korea claims successfully tested new rocket engine

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:36AM

North Korea claims it has successfully tested a solid-fuel rocket engine that can boost the country's ballistic missile capabilities.

The test was conducted under leader Kim Jong-un's supervision, North Korea's state news agency reported on Thursday.

Kim "noted with great pleasure that the successful test... helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces," KCNA said.

Solid-fuel rockets have advantages in military use, although liquid-fuel rockets are considered more sophisticated because of their controllable thrust.

The alleged test follows Pyongyang's simulated test of an atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile last week that accelerated the country's push to produce ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Pyongyang is in possession of short and medium-range missiles but has yet to build solid-fuel long-range or intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The tests were conducted in defiance of sanctions by the UN Security Council that ban North Korea from carrying out all ballistic missile activities.

Following the North's fourth nuclear test in January and an alleged satellite launch the next month, the US and China formed a front in the UN to slap new sanctions on Pyongyang.

Earlier this month, the Security Council imposed its "toughest" sanctions on North Korea, targeting the country's military, mining, trade and financial sectors.

But the North responded by firing a number of rockets into the waters off its eastern coast on several occasions.

Pyongyang also stepped up its anti-US rhetoric over the past few weeks, threatening Washington of pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

The country bills its nuclear and missile programs as deterrence against plots by the US and its allies to overthrow the regime in Pyongyang.

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North Korea Boasts More Progress in Ballistic Missile Program

by VOA News March 24, 2016

North Korea says it has successfully tested a solid-fuel rocket engine, which would be a major step in its effort to develop a long-range missile able to reach South Korea and the United States.

The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency says leader Kim Jong-un was on hand for the test, which he said "will strike great horror and terror into the hearts of the enemies."

Using solid-fuel reduces the amount of launch preparation time, increases the mobility of the missiles, and makes them far more reliable than liquid-fueled rockets.

Pyongyang has made similar claims before of progress in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, including a successful simulation of an atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile. Multiple defense experts South Korea and abroad have expressed doubts that North Korea has developed a long-range ballistic missile, or a vehicle that can withstand the searing heat of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Thursday's claim by the North is the regime's latest response to the annual joint U.S.-South Korea military drill, and a new, stronger round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations over Pyongyang's recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests. North Korea has threatened to launch a massive military attack against Seoul, and launched several short and medium-range rockets and projectiles in the past week.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday ordered a heightened security posture to cope with a potential North Korean provocation.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong told reporters Thursday that President Xi Jinping will discuss the North Korean nuclear situation with U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Washington next week.

Beijing and Washington are two members of six-party talks aimed at curbing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, along with Japan, Russia and the two Koreas. The talks broke down in 2008.

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Spokesman: Iran missile program irrelevant to JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, March 24, IRNA -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Thursday that Iran's missile program has nothing to do with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and is not in violation of the UN Security Council resolution 2231.

Speaking in reaction to addition of new names to the US unilateral sanctions list under the pretext of aiding Iranian missile program, Ansari said, 'The program follows fully defensive objectives and nothing can prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from its legitimate and legal rights to strengthen its national security and defense.'

He said per explicit order of Iranian revered President Hassan Rouhani to Ministry of Defense on December 31, 2015, the Islamic Republic of Iran government will promote its defensive missile potential in response to any US interventionist measure against its defensive program.

He said that today and in the post-sanction era, the period of campaign against Iran ended and resort to vain pretexts to show the Islamic Republic of Iran as a threat is not longer effective. Under ongoing harsh and dangerous security conditions, the Islamic Republic of Iran's defensive and non-invasive potential has been the main cause of stability and security in the region, he added.

Jaberi Ansari said that such measures are merely to safeguard national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the country and campaign against sinister terrorism and extremism phenomenon and in line with common regional and global interests.

He hoped that instead of taking measures, whose result is nothing but destabilization of the region and the world, the US government should address serious security needs of the West Asian region such as the Zionist regime's nuclear disarmament, stopping the crimes and war mongering of the US allies in Syria and Yemen and genuine campaign against Daesh and Takfiri terrorist groups.

1420

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Iran to keep boosting missile might despite new US sanctions

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 3:13PM

Iran says it will continue to enhance its missile might despite new US sanctions aimed at curbing its defense capabilities.

In line with a decree by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic will respond to any "meddlesome US measure" against its defense program by boosting the country's missile might, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Thursday.

In a decree to Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan on December 31, 2015, Rouhani ordered an acceleration in Iran's program for production of "various types of missile" needed to improve the country's defense capabilities.

Jaberi Ansari said gone is the era of spreading Iranophobia and resorting to "false pretexts" to portray Iran as a threat following the implementation of the Iranian nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

He stressed that Tehran's defense capabilities are a key factor in restoring stability and security to the region which is currently facing a critical condition.

The Iranian missile program "is totally for peaceful purposes and no measure can strip the Islamic Republic of Iran of its legitimate and legal right to boost its defensive capabilities and [safeguard] national security," Jaberi Ansari said.

He said that Iran's missile program is solely for protecting the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as combating terrorism and extremism, emphasizing that the country's military might serves regional and global interests.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department blacklisted two Iranian companies for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program.

The sanctions came after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired two more ballistic missiles on March 9 as part of military drills to assess the IRGC's capabilities. The missiles dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F were fired during large-scale drills, code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat.

On March 8, Iran fired another ballistic missile called Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country.

"Instead of measures that only lead to instability in the region and the world, the US government needs to [respond to] serious security demands in western Asia, including nuclear disarmament of the Zionist regime, end crimes and warmongering by the US allies in Syria and Yemen, and engage in a sincere campaign against Daesh and [other] Takfiri terrorist groups," Jaberi Ansari said.

He added that the Iranian missile program does not violate the JCPOA and is not in breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses the nuclear agreement signed between Tehran and the P5+1 group  Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany  last year and a Security Council Resolution, which endorsed the JCPOA.

After Iran and the P5+1 group started to implement the JCPOA on January 16, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US were lifted. Iran, in return, has put some limitations on its nuclear activities.

Resolution 2231, adopted on July 20, 2015, calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.

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Iran to UN: Missile Launch Not A Violation

by Margaret Besheer March 24, 2016

The Iranian government has written to the United Nations defending its recent ballistic missile launch, which was criticized by the United States and other nations.

In a letter dated March 23, Iran's U.N. ambassador, Gholamali Khoshroo, told the Secretary-General and the Security Council that Iran has not taken any activity that violates the language of a U.N. resolution adopted in July.

That resolution "calls upon" Iran not to "undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."

The Iranian ambassador said his government "fully honors its commitment" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the July deal with the six major powers on its nuclear program.

Khoshroo said in the letter that there is no basis for raising this issue in the Security Council, adding that "it is contrary to the prevailing positive environment and detrimental to the good faith implementation" of the nuclear deal.

On March 14, council members met at the request of the United States to discuss the missile launch.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said then that the launches were "dangerous, destabilizing and provocative" and "undermine the prospect for peace" in the region.

She said the United States would "not give up" in the Security Council and would provide technical information that Iran had made public "showing that the technology they used is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons" in defiance of the U.N. resolution. Power added that Washington could consider its own unilateral response.

Speaking at a book launch event Thursday, Ambassador Khoshroo said Tehran is "happy" about the nuclear deal, "but at the same time we are not receiving the removal of sanctions on banking and the transfer of money; there still are problems," he added.

Of U.S.-Iranian relations he said, "a small window of communication has been opened, we are expressing our dissatisfaction to each other through that small window, but the big door is closed."

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Iranian President to Visit Pakistan Seeking Better Ties

by Ayaz Gul March 24, 2016

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani visits neighboring Pakistan for two days starting Friday. The trip is apparently part of Iran's diplomatic campaign to boost economic and trade ties with neighboring and regional countries now that international sanctions against it have been removed.

Pakistani and Iranian officials say the sanctions had for years prevented the two countries from expanding economic relations and slowed progress on efforts to import Iranian natural gas to meet rapidly growing needs in energy-starved Pakistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammed Nafees Zakaria, said President Hassan Rouhani's visit, his first to the country since taking office, offers an opportunity to conclude pending agreements and move bilateral relations forward.

"This visit is taking place at a very important juncture and time when the sanctions on Iran have been lifted," he said. " High on the agenda would be the economic relations and the leadership on both sides are very keen to actually add economic content to the bilateral relations."

Officials expect exponential growth in trade and economic relations in coming months. Bilateral annual trade currently stands at around $250 million and there are plans for a five-year road map to increase it to $5 billion a year.

During the visit, Rouhani is expected to discuss a pipeline project for transporting Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.

Iranian officials say the pipeline on their side is largely completed. Pakistani officials, however, blame economic sanctions against Iran for preventing work on their side, although they now vow to begin construction soon.

The international sanctions alone have not stopped Islamabad from improving ties with Tehran.

Sanctions not the only hurdle

Critics believe Pakistan does not want to upset Iran's rival, Saudi Arabia, with which it has deep political and economic relations. The Sunni Arab nation enjoys respect and popularity in predominantly Sunni Muslim Pakistan.

In recent years, Riyadh has provided Islamabad with critical financial assistance and oil on deferred payments to support Pakistan's troubled economy and shore up its critically low foreign exchange reserves.

Pakistan is close to Saudi Arabia but that does not mean it is hostile to Iran, said analyst Masood Khan, who heads Islamabad's Institute of Strategic Studies.

"I don't think there is a competition in the two sets of relationships that we have with Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said. "There are tensions from time to time that emerge and we try to resolve them. In fact, it is our sincere desire that this tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran should go down."

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has recently deepened the sectarian divide between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and fueled tensions across the Middle East.

The confrontation prompted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to travel to Saudi Arabia and Iran in January to try to reduce tensions between the two countries. Pakistani military chief General Raheel Sharif accompanied him.

Pakistan, having the largest and only nuclear-armed army in the Muslim world, last year refused to join a Saudi-led Sunni coalition to fight in Yemen against Iranian-backed forces. It said Islamabad would not join forces with any alliance against Tehran.

The move angered Riyadh, although Islamabad vowed to stand ready to respond to any attack against Saudi Arabia.

Parting ways on Afghanistan

Iran's Rouhani, in his meetings with Sharif and other Pakistani leaders, is also expected to review peace efforts in Afghanistan, which shares long borders with both countries.

Iran and Pakistan have long supported rival Afghan factions in the conflict-torn nation, which has often caused tensions in diplomatic ties, although they now openly support internationally-led efforts aimed at ending the Afghan conflict.

In a message to Pakistani media ahead of his arrival in Islamabad, Rouhani noted that "long borders of the two countries could be a constrictive element in strengthening mutual relations more than ever."

He added that it is important for Pakistan and Iran to establish better cooperation because it will facilitate the economic growth of other regional countries and give them access to Iran's oil and gas resources. He said that would go a long way in reducing regional tensions.

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Saudi/Iran Detente May Be Advisable, but Is it Likely?

by Cecily Hilleary March 24, 2016

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia - tenuous at best since the 1979 Iran revolution - have plummeted in the wake of an international nuclear deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric in January. The two rivals have mended explosive rifts in the past, and some analysts say it's time they mend the current one, lest they ignite a direct war that could swallow the whole region.

Detente is the better option, said Jean-Francois Seznec, senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center and an expert on the political economy of Gulf states.

"I would argue that having low oil prices is making life much more difficult for both Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said. "They have huge demands on their treasuries. The Saudis have a lot of cash on hand and can last longer, but if there were a major military conflagration, it would ruin both of them, and I think they realize that."

Saudi Arabia has another reason to mend fences with Iran: For all its boasting , its military isn't up to war with Iran.

"The Saudis have spent $700 billion over the past 20 years or so building up their military, and the U.S. has been training the Saudis for fifty years," said Seznec. "But their military structure until lately was very poor, just a way for various clans to show off their toys, but not necessarily to defend the country."

Furthermore, the booming shale industry in the U.S. means America is not as dependent on Middle East oil imports and unlikely to help out."The U.S. is less interested in losing people and money to defend countries which have less interest, in terms of economics," he said.

Iranian overture?

But Iran can ill afford any further military adventures, after years of conflict, tough sanctions, and the drop in oil prices, Seznec also points out.

"Iran is really close, I think, to the brink of bankruptcy," he said. "The only way for their economy to improve would be to work with the Saudis to bring up the price of oil a little bit, which can only happen with Saudi effort and Saudi help."

Iran's predicament may explain a recent report in Kuwait media. It said that Iran's intelligence minister recently visited Kuwait with a written message from the Iranian president, looking for "quiet dialogue" toward settling issues with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and restarting relations with Gulf Arab countries  read, Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait asked for Iran to "lift custodianship" of Shi'ites in Gulf and Arab countries as a "confidence-building measure," some media reports say. While GCC members are reported to be considering the overture, sources say Riyadh is not likely to make any official response.

The problem of Syria

Iran, however, will not do what Saudi Arabia really wants it to do, that is, withdraw from Syria, says Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

"They are in Syria for reasons that have very little to do with sectarian theology and everything to do with Iran's national security doctrine, its competition for regional hegemony with the Saudis and primarily its access to Hezbollah," said Hashemi. "And Iran knows that if the Assad regime falls, the successor regime is going to be deeply antagonistic to Iran, very sympathetic to the Saudis, and that would be a game changer in terms of Iran's influence in the region.

This statement only supports Saudi Arabia's narrative.

"The Saudis view Iran not just as the main threat to their own security, but they also see it as the primary cause of the tumult that has gripped the region over the past few years. They maintain that Iran has a pattern of supporting militant Shia groups that want to oppose their will on their respective countries, with the Lebanese Hezbollah being the prime example," said Fahad Nazer, a political analyst with JTG, Inc. and former political analyst at the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.

This week, the U.N. announced that warring parties in Yemen have agreed to a ceasefire and renewed peace talks. Could this have any impact on the "Cold War" between Saudi and Iran?

"It will certainly help diffuse tensions between Tehran and Riyad, but it is not a game changer," said Hashemi.

Nazer is equally doubtful.

"Bringing the bloodshed in Syria to an end is an even bigger priority for Saudi Arabia than is stabilizing Yemen," he said. "The Saudis view the war in Syria as an era-defining conflict that could have long term repercussions for the entire region for years to come."

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Iraqi airstrikes hit Daesh missile plant in Kirkuk, kill 35 militants

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:46PM

Nearly three dozen members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group have been killed in an operation by the Iraqi air force in the beleaguered province of Kirkuk.

Iraqi military aircraft on Thursday targeted a missile development plant belonging to Daesh in the district of al-Hawijah, northwest of the Kirkuk province, killing 35 members of the terrorist group, Arabic-language al-Sumeria news website reported.

The development came on the same day as the Iraqi army, backed by allied forces, launched a major offensive to retake the second largest city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, from Daesh.

Daesh seized control of Mosul in June 2014 in the earliest days of its assault. The city was home to some 2 million people before being taken over.

The Iraqi troops and forces from the Popular Mobilization Units began "the first phase of conquest operations" in Nineveh, said a statement from Iraq's joint operations command, which is coordinating the anti-Daesh battle by the Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi forces managed to recapture several villages from the Daesh militants and raise the Iraqi flag in them as they advanced towards Mosul.

The Iraqi military statement named the recaptured villages as al-Nasr, Garmandi, Kudila and Khurburdan.

Also on Thursday, Iraqi forces liberated two districts from Daesh militants in the south of the city of Hit in Anbar Province.

Iraqi forces have scored important recent gains against Daesh. Last month, they retook Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province.

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Iraq army launches offensive to recapture Daesh-held Mosul

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:10AM

The Iraqi armed forces have begun an offensive to recapture the country's second-largest city of Mosul from Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

The military operation, launched early Thursday, is the first phase of a large-scale offensive that Baghdad plans to conclude in 2016 with the complete recapture of Mosul, the capital of the northern Nineveh Province.

"The first phase of the Fatah (conquest) Operation has been launched at dawn to liberate Nineveh, raising the Iraqi flag in several villages," the Iraqi military said in a statement.

According to the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, the recaptured villages are located on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, east of Mosul.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence since Daesh mounted its offensive in the country in June 2014.

Home to around two million people before its capture, Mosul fell to the extremist militants in the earliest days of the assault. The Iraqi army has been fighting to liberate Daesh-held regions with the help of volunteer forces.

They have managed to retake some key towns and villages, including Tikrit and Baiji in Salahuddin Province and the city of Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar.

Earlier in March, the Iraqi police, army and local tribal fighters seized control of a bridge in the city of al-Baghdadi, northwest of the flashpoint western city of Hit in Anbar.

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Double Whammy: Iraqi Forces Report Gains Against Daesh in New Offensive

Sputnik News

17:33 24.03.2016(updated 18:03 24.03.2016)

As Syrian troops close in on Palmyra, the Iraqi military and militias reported gains against the Daesh terrorist group in their offensive on Mosul and much of the occupied Nineveh province.

Daesh fighters in Iraq's Nineveh province are suffering heavy losses and are forced to retreat when battling the Iraqi army and militias a militia spokesman told Sputnik.

Daesh forces are also suffering huge losses on the approach to their biggest base, the city of Mosul, press secretary of the National Mobilization Forces Mahmoud al-Surji told Sputnik.

"The army of Iraq and the militias composed of Nineveh province residents have already liberated the villages of Munantar, Tel-Shair, al-Nasr, Qarmadi al-Salahia, al-Hitab an Qudila," al-Surji told Sputnik.

The Iraqi military earlier said that it began the operation to liberate Nineveh and its capital Mosul from Daesh.

"The Iraqi armed forces, supported the Kurdish Peshmerga and [US-led] coalition aviation, managed to get a foothold in the village of Nasr, located 25 kilometers [15.5 miles] from Mosul," the Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti.

According to the ministry, the liberation of settlements "was the successful start of the first stage of the operation to liberate the whole of the Nineveh province, seized by terrorists."

At the same time, Kurdish forces have been leading an offensive against Daesh from the north of the province. Also on Thursday, Turkish warplanes bombed and destroyed Kurdish forces' ammunition depots and camps in Northern Iraq, which it says belong to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK is outlawed in Turkey as a terrorist organization, but a combatant against Daesh among Peshmerga forces in Iraqi Kurdistan.

 Sputnik

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Iraqi Army Meets Stiff IS Resistance in Mosul Offensive

by Sharon Behn March 24, 2016

Iraqi forces have met with stiff resistance in the first step of their offensive to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul.

About 4,000 Iraqi forces started their advance toward a number of villages about 75 kilometers southeast of Mosul at 6 a.m. Thursday. Pershmerga forces said some of the villages had been evacuated.

Reporting exclusively from the scene, VOA observed that the troops came from two directions, creating a pincer movement around the villages. By midafternoon, the troops had seized four villages, but had not yet managed to control all the area, Peshmerga General Najat Ali told VOA.

"They advanced, but when they reached those villages, IS attacked them with suicide bombers, by mortars, by machine guns, by those weapons," he said. "They [Iraqi forces] are now stopped; they cannot advance."

The forces are from two Iraqi brigades from Iraq's U.S.-trained 15th Division. Also involved are members of Sunni tribes, which many Peshmerga commanders have said are crucial to hold the traditionally Sunni areas.

From the sandbagged berms of the front line, dark clouds of smoke in the distance rose from the horizon. Peshmerga soldiers said IS had set tires on fire to create clouds of dark smoke in an attempt to obscure their positions.

Pivotal fight

But as Najat Ali and his forces paid close attention, looking through binoculars, coalition airplanes flew overhead and pounded one of the villages with airstrikes.

U.S. officials said coalition aircraft launched multiple airstrikes on at least two locations.

In addition, 200 U.S. Marines were operating out of a small outpost called Fire Base Bell to provide artillery and targeting support for Iraqi forces.

Najat Ali said the fight was a pivotal moment.

"Now, really indeed, if the Iraqi army succeeds in this operation, they will succeed in the second and third step to liberate Qarrayah and Mosul," he said. "But if they fail in the first step, they will fail to liberate Mosul. They will not liberate Mosul easy; maybe it is harder than before."

Another Peshmerga commander located to the north of Mosul said the area the Iraqi army was fighting for included roads connecting Mosul to other Iraqi cities, as well as the Qayyarah bridge across the Tigris river.

"They are trying to clear this area because it is important," Peshmerga General Hussein Nooraldin told VOA.

When night falls ...

As it got later in the warm, spring afternoon, Najat Ali said it was crucial for the Iraqi forces to decide whether to retreat or press on.

"When it is becoming night, maybe it's a problem for the Iraqi army," the Peshmerga general said. He said his forces were bracing for a possible IS counterattack.

Both Kurdish and Iraqi flags flew from the small front-line post, but the Kurdish Peshmerga are not taking an active part in the fight. They are holding the front line at what they consider the border of Kurdish territory.

Yet parked directly behind them were mobile and field artillery.

The offensive was launched from Makhmour, where a U.S. Marine was recently killed in an IS rocket attack. Iraqi forces have been gathering in the area in recent weeks.

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Japan Seeks Sixth Generation Fighter Jet to Dominate Beijing's J-20

Sputnik News

21:39 24.03.2016(updated 23:53 24.03.2016)

Tokyo began conversations with US defense contractors this week to lay the groundwork for the development of a sixth-generation F-3 fighter jet.

This week, Japan opened talks with US defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing to discuss a sixth-generation fighter aircraft. The move comes as Tokyo seeks to repel the expansion of China's influence as Beijing takes a more aggressive regional posture.

Defense analysts speculate that the new aircraft would be based, in part, on Mitsubishi's X-2 ATD-X stealth fighter prototype. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force is set for the first flight of the X-2 prototype within days.

One defense contractor commented that Japan is only in the exploratory phase for its next-generation fighter jet. "There is no policy decision and no program of record for the next fighter, but there is some discussion that there will be a fighter at some point," the source said.

In fact, it seems likely that the Tokyo government has plans to develop a new fighter jet. In recent years, Japan has lost air superiority as its US-built F-15J Eagle fighters have become partially obsolete following Beijing's unveiling of its J-20 jet. Initially, reports were that Japan sought to replace the F-15Js with US F-22 Raptors, but US law prohibited the export. One Japanese official disclosed that the need to replace the F-15J "is a source of concern and frustration in Tokyo."

Japan is thought to be developing the F-3, an operational variant of the X-2, to display air superiority, as neighboring China expands its regional and global presence.

Japanese air superiority will not come soon, however, as the country looks to field the proposed F-3 in the 2030s, around the same time that the US Air Force and US Navy aim to field their F-x and F/A-XX jets.

Defense experts speculate that Japan may leverage the F-3 effort to combine with the US in developing a sixth-generation fighter program, as Tokyo is reticent to spend $50 billion for an in-house fighter of their own.

 Sputnik

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First Russian-Made Aerial Refueling Tanker to Start Flight Tests in 2016

Sputnik News

13:24 24.03.2016

Ilyushin Aviation Complex Chief Designer Nikolai Talikov said that the IL-78M-90A, new Russian plane, will be released and commence flight tests this year.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Flight tests of the latest Russian-made refueling tanker aircraft, the IL-78M-90A, will begin this year, Ilyushin Aviation Complex Chief Designer Nikolai Talikov said Thursday.

"The plane will be released and commence flight tests this year," Talikov said.

Currently, the Il-78M-90A is being constructed in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk. The aircraft will be a first Russian-made refueling tanker, Talikov added. Previously, the IL-78 series of planes were built in Uzbekistan.

Ilyushin is a part of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation. Ilyushin specializes in manufacturing passenger, military and civil transport aircraft as well as special-purpose aircraft.

 Sputnik

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Putin Praises Obama's Leadership in Syria

by Cindy Saine March 24, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin say that cooperation between the two countries has been instrumental in achieving an unexpectedly successful cessation of hostilities in war-torn Syria

Kerry and Putin spoke before going into talks at the Kremlin on the way forward in Syria, on terrorism and the situation in Ukraine

Putin welcomed Kerry with praise for U.S. leadership in Syria: "We are aware that the groundwork we have on Syria has only been possible by the supreme political leadership of the United States, specifically by the leadership of President Obama."

Kerry said it is fair to say that cooperation between the United States and Russia has made it possible for Syrians to "taste and smell" what it means to have a reduction of violence and a resumption of some humanitarian aid deliveries after five years of bloodshed.

"Mr. President," Kerry said to Putin, "I know you have ideas, and you've already made a very critical decision with respect to draw down forces in Syria. We obviously also have ideas on how we can now, most effectively, make progress in [the United Nations talks in] Geneva, and then the very serious and difficult work of the decision."

Kerry also began the talks with Putin on a positive and optimistic note, saying: "I look forward much to the opportunity tonight to be able to find a way forward, and frankly, ultimately to see if we can rebuild the relationship between the Untied States and Russia by proving we can solve some serious problems together and building from there."

Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are set to hold a joint news conference later Thursday after talks between Kerry and Putin.

The remarks began with Putin joking about Kerry having to carry his own briefcase in Moscow. Kerry responded, saying he would show Putin what is in his briefcase when they have a private moment, adding that he thinks Putin "will be surprised."

Earlier Thursday, both Kerry and Putin met separately with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, viewed by some as a sign of Russia's increased influence as a power-broker in the Middle East.

Kerry also met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He said that a partial cease-fire in Syria had been beneficial in reducing levels of violence there, but more remained to be done in terms of both a reduction of violence and the flow of humanitarian aid.

Kerry said that the cessation in hostilities has produced the first significant flow of humanitarian assistance to people, some whom had not seen assistance in several years.

The talks in Moscow, added Kerry, can help bring the conflict in Syria to an end as quickly as possible. He also said he hoped for cooperation from Russia in dealing with other conflicts, namely those in Yemen and Libya and the Middle East peace process.

This is the first high-level, in-person meeting between U.S. and Russian officials since Moscow announced a partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria last week. In announcing the trip, Kerry said: "We have reached a very important stage in this process. This is a moment to seize, not waste."

A senior State Department official said Kerry wants to hear how Putin and Lavrov view the current status of efforts towards a political transition away from the leadership of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The official made clear that the U.S. position remains that Assad must step down in order for there to be a viable path to peace after five years of bloodshed in Syria.

He said now that the cessation of hostilities in Syria is going better than many expected, and since Russia is reducing its "footprint" in Syria, Kerry wants the U.S. and Russia to move forward on a political transition there. Putin has had recent conversations with Assad, the official said, and is likely to have a sense of where the process stands.

Brussels attacks

Kerry is also likely to discuss Tuesday's attacks in Brussels, which he has called an assault against the Belgian people and against the very heart of Europe.

A senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Kerry that the secretary views the Brussels attacks as part of the larger threat posed by the Islamic State militant group, which claimed responsibility for the bombings in the Belgian capital.

Ukraine fighting

The continued fighting in Ukraine is also likely to be a focus of Kerry's talks with Putin. Kerry said: "We also have some ideas on how we can make faster some progress on ideas with respect to Ukraine."

The senior State Department official told reporters President Barack Obama and Kerry are concerned by the recent sharp increase in violations of the cease-fire, and want to see all elements of the Minsk Agreements implemented this year.

The agreements represent a package of measures meant to reduce the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. They also authorize the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) access to monitor and verify the cease-fire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the separatist-controlled side of eastern Ukraine.

Beginning in February 2014, Russia orchestrated a military intervention and ultimately annexed Crimea a few weeks later, a move that was condemned by the international community which hit Moscow with sanctions. Russia is pushing hard in Europe for an end to the sanctions.

Nadiya Savchenko release

The senior State Department official told reporters Kerry will definitely raise the issue of the jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko.

Savchenko was sentenced Tuesday by a Russian court to 22 years of imprisonment. The pilot was taken hostage by Russia in 2014 and has been on a hunger strike since early March to protest the Russian criminal case against her. The State Department said it is extremely concerned about her sentence because her health is imperiled. She has reportedly endured interrogation, solitary confinement and forced "psychiatric evaluation." Kerry will again call on Russia to immediately release Savchenko and other unlawfully detained people.

Civil society, NASA

Kerry began his trip Wednesday by holding a roundtable with young members of civil society at Spaso House, the residence of the American Ambassador in Moscow. This was the first time Kerry has had a chance to meet with young Russian professionals from all walks of life.

Also Thursday, Kerry is meeting with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and with American astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent one year in space. NASA has worked with Russia on transit to and from the International Space Station since retiring the last of the U.S. space shuttles in 2011.

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Russian commander confirms active ground troops in Syria

Iran Press TV

Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:46PM

Russia has deployed a group of special forces in Syria to conduct "reconnaissance and other special tasks" in the war-torn country, a senior Russian military commander says.

The announcement by Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov, a commander of the Russian contingent in Syria, is the first time Russia confirms assigning combat roles to its ground forces in Syria.

"I am not going to conceal the fact that our special operations forces are working in the territory of Syria. They are doing reconnaissance checks prior to the Russian air strikes; heading the planes to targets in remote regions as well as fulfilling other special tasks," the Tass news agency quoted Dvornikov as saying in an interview with Russia's Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.

The Russian commander (seen below) added that his country's military advisers are also "helping their Syrian colleagues to plan and conduct the warfare against terrorists and learn to handle the Russian military hardware."

Target reconnaissance missions often require deploying highly-skilled forces behind enemy lines so they can collect information on targets hidden from aerial or satellite surveillance.

Up to six of the Russian personnel deployed to Syria have so far been reportedly killed, with the latest being a major in the interior ministry troops whose death emerged on Wednesday.

The news comes only days after Russian forces in Syria were ordered by President Vladimir Putin to partially withdraw from the country in the wake of a Russia-US brokered cessation of hostilities that has been in place since February 27 and a new round of UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition.

'Breaking the impasse'

Also on Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who is currently in Geneva in a surprise visit to the venue of the peace talks, said the March 22 terrorist attacks in the Belgian capital Brussels highlighted Europe's responsibility to end the fiver-year-long Syrian conflict that has killed over 470,000 people according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research.

The twin blasts at Brussels Airport and another at a metro station close to the European Union headquarters left at least 34 people dead and 300 others wounded, marking the deadliest attacks in the country's history.

Mogherini met with the head of the Syrian delegation, Bashar al-Jaafari, UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, and Riyadh Hijab, the head of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee.

"She came to support us to engage positively in the talks that would lead to an end to the Syrian crisis," Jaafari said after his meeting with the EU official, adding, "For the first time, I can tell you that we were able to break the impasse, maybe in the form and a little bit in substance."

The EU foreign policy chief said that her "main message" was the "need to start a political transition in Damascus," adding that Syria first needs to "find peace and security and secondly defeat Daesh."

The latest round of the Syria peace talks began on March 14 in Geneva and is due to recess on March 24.

Meanwhile, in a Wednesday meeting in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier hailed progress in the settlement of the Arab country's crisis.

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UN envoy sets April 9 as Syria talks target date

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:43PM

The UN special envoy for Syria has designated April 9 as the "target date" for the resumption of indirect talks between the Syrian government and so-called opposition to resolve the crisis in the war-torn Arab country.

During a press conference at the end of the latest round of Syria talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on Thursday, Staffan de Mistura said his target date to reconvene the negotiations is from April 9, adding, however, that some may turn up as late as April 14.

The Syrian government had asked the talks talks to resume after April 13 as it plans to hold scheduled parliamentary elections in government-held parts of Syria on that date.

The talks will start "at least" on April 9 "but if people want to come on the 13th or 14th they are warmly welcome," the UN envoy said.

"I am expecting and hoping ... that the next round of talks will not be focusing on principles again - we have had enough of that - there are many valid points there, but we have to start focusing on the political process," de Mistura said.

He said that neither of the sides had refused a document he had drawn up with common guiding principles to underpin the talks.

Elsewhere, he said a political process is needed to sustain the humanitarian aid and ceasefire in Syria.

De Mistura said the ceasefire in Syria has so far saved 3,000 lives.

The UN envoy said he is encouraged by the fact that there has been "no walkouts, no drama" in the latest round of talks.

UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and so-called opposition adjourned after 10 days of discussions.

A truce agreement engineered by Russia and the United States, which came into force across Syria on February 27, has been holding despite minor reports of violations.

According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict in the Arab country has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people and displaced nearly half of its pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

Damascus accuses Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar of funding and arming anti-Syria terrorist groups, including Daesh.

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Kerry: Partial truce in Syria has reduced violence

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:18PM

US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Moscow on Thursday a partial truce in Syria has produced a fragile but beneficial reduction in violence in the Middle Eastern country.

Kerry was speaking at the start of a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and will later meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It's fair to say three weeks ago there were very, very few people who believed a cessation of hostilities was possible in Syria," Kerry told Lavrov at the start of their talks in Moscow.

"The result of that work has produced some progress. There has been a fragile (yet) nevertheless beneficial reduction in violence," the top US diplomat said.

Kerry said there was a hope that his meetings with Russian officials could find a way to end the conflict in Syria "as fast as possible."

His Russian counterpart Lavrov also noted that the cooperation between US and Russia is based on forming a balance of interests of all sides involved in Syria and outside it.

"Our cooperation on Syria, our persistence allowed us to succeed because we worked  by forming a balance of interests, not only those of Moscow and Washington but also of all the sides involved both in Syria and outside it," Lavrov said.

A temporary truce agreement engineered by Russia and the United States, which came into force across Syria on February 27, has been holding despite minor reports of violations by the warring sides.

Peace talks in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and opposition groups have been stalled, and Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, can push Damascus to make concessions.

The talks on Syria collapsed in early February after both the government and the opposition accused each other of violating the terms of a tentative ceasefire which was supposed to be respected during the time of the negotiations.

According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict in the Arab country has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people and displaced nearly half of its pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

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Daesh continues smuggling oil to Turkey: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:44AM

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the flow of oil smuggled by Daesh across the Syrian-Turkish border is continuing despite attacks on the terror group's infrastructure, and the UN Security Council's ban on the illegal trade.

"After our Aerospace Forces initiated the operation to terminate the illegal traffic, particularly of oil and oil products, from Syria  to Turkey, this traffic has decreased substantially," Lavrov said on Wednesday.

He made the remarks during a meeting with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who visited Moscow to discuss Syria and other issues with Russian leaders.

"We insist on compliance with UN Security Council resolutions demanding to stop trade with Daesh and other terrorists just as resolutions demanding an end to the flow of foreign terrorists, gunmen via Turkish territory to Syria," Lavrov added.

Moscow has repeatedly said it has evidence showing Turkey was involved in the smuggling of oil from areas held by Daesh in Iraq and Syria. Ankara has strongly rejected the allegation.

Last December, the Security Council adopted a resolution aimed at clogging up the revenue stream of Daesh. It threatened sanctions on parties buying oil from the terrorist group, and advised that countries resist its demands for ransom payments.

Daesh finances its acts of terror mainly through drug trafficking, the sale of oil and antiquities, and ransom from abductions. Furthermore, reports indicate that wealthy individuals in the Persian Gulf region have raised major funds for the terror group.

'Precious documents' found

Meanwhile, a Russian television said it had found "precious documents" that revealed the scope of illicit oil trade by Daesh and its apparent connection with Turkey.

A team of the Russia Today Documentary Channel, who traveled to recently-liberated areas in northern Syria, had found "precious documents" that have Turkish addresses on their cover pages, it said.

The financial records track the illicit oil as well as the scope and cost of trade, the television added.

Over 170 financial records, dated between January 11 and 24, 2016, were compiled by what seems to be the sales department of the Daesh ministry of natural resources.

The papers list the name of the oil well, the price per barrel, the date of sale, the number of trucks used for delivery and the total cost of the sold oil.

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Syrian forces enter Palmyra: TV

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:40AM

Syrian armed forces have entered Palmyra after fierce clashes with Daesh terrorists controlling the ancient city since last year, state media say.

On Thursday, Syrian state television said government troops, backed by army air power, drove back Daesh militants and reached the "heart" of the city.

Army forces have retaken control of Palmyra's northern hotel district as well as the farms situated west of the city.

Reports said earlier in the day that army soldiers were on the edge of Palmyra, liberating the outskirts of the city, located in the western province of Homs.

In an interview with state-run Ikhbariya new channel, a Syrian soldier on the ground said the armed unity would press forward beyond Palmyra.

"We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what's beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqah," a northern city which serves as the main Daesh stronghold in Syria.

Homs Governor Talal Barazi told The Associated Press that Syrian forces was approaching the city from three directions.

"We might witness in the next 48 hours an overwhelming victory in Palmyra," Barazi said, adding that "the army is advancing in a precise and organized way to protect what is possible of monuments and archaeological sites."

Last May, Daesh Takfiris captured the ruins of Palymra, a UNESCO heritage site, and the adjacent modern city, destroying ancient monuments there, including the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel and the iconic Arch of Triumph.

The extremist militants also killed Khaled al-Asaad, who looked after ancient ruins of Palmyra for 40 years.

Syria to 'rebuild Palmyra monuments'

Meanwhile, Maamoun Abdelkarim, Syria's antiquities chief, praised the "imminent" recapture of Palmyra, vowing to rebuild monuments destroyed by Daesh terrorists.

"The nightmare is nearly over, before it is too late, before the total destruction of the ancient city," said Abdelkarim, "I think this 10-month period has been the worst of our lives."

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 200 Daesh terrorists have been killed since the Syrian army began the military campaign to liberate Palmyra more than two weeks ago.

Palmyra's liberation would deal a significant blow to Daesh terrorists, who have been using the city as a road to the mostly Daesh-held province of Deir al-Zawr in Syria's east.

In recent months, Syrian army, backed by Russian air force, has been making major gains against the Takfiri groups, liberating several strategic areas from their grip, particularly in the strategic northern province of Aleppo.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed that the army would cleanse the entire country of terrorist groups.

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Syria to Be Democratic, Non-Sectarian - Intra-Syria Talks Final Declaration

Sputnik News

20:22 24.03.2016(updated 20:50 24.03.2016)

Syria shall be a democratic, non-sectarian state based on citizenship and political pluralism, the representation of all components of Syrian society, according to the final declaration of the intra-Syrian talks.

GENEVA (Sputnik)  UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura suggests that all parties to the intra-Syrian talks agree that Syria will be a democratic non-sectarian state, according to his Thursday final declaration.

De Mistura has defined 12 points on which the parties to the talks in Geneva can agree and submitted the document to the parties for approval.

"Syria shall be a democratic, non-sectarian state based on citizenship and political pluralism, the representation of all components of Syrian society, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, equal rights, non-discrimination, human rights and fundamental freedoms, transparency, accountability and the principles of national reconciliation and social peace," the document, titled "Essential Principles of a Political Solution in Syria" reads.

"There shall be no discrimination against, and full protection of, all national, ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural identities. Members of all communities, men and women, shall enjoy equal opportunities in social, economic, cultural and public life," the document reads.

"The political transition in Syria shall include mechanisms for credible, inclusive and non-sectarian government, a schedule and process for drafting a new constitution and free and fair elections pursuant to the new constitution, administered under supervision by the United Nations, " according to the document.

"Syria calls on all states in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions, to prevent terrorist groups from being supplied with weapons, money, training, shelter, intelligence or safe havens and to refrain from inciting acts of terrorism," the statement reads.

"Syrians are committed to rebuilding a strong and unified national army, also through the disarmament and integration of members of armed groups supporting the transition and the new constitution," the document reads.

"The state and its reformed institutions will exercise the exclusive right of controlling weapons of war," according to the document.

"There shall be reparations, redress, care and restitution of rights and property lost for those who have suffered loss or injury in consequence of the conflict," the document titled "Essential Principles of a Political Solution in Syria" reads.

"As peace and stability are being restored, Syria shall call for the holding of a major donor conference to gain funds for compensation, reconstruction and development of the country, and the lifting of all coercive economic measures and other unilateral actions affecting the people of Syria," the document reads.

The next round of talks between government and several opposition delegations is expected in April.

 Sputnik

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Russian Jets Strike 146 Terrorist Targets Around Palmyra

Sputnik News

18:32 24.03.2016(updated 19:45 24.03.2016)

From March 20 to March 23 Russian jets conducted 146 sorties, hitting 146 terrorist targets around Palmyra, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russian warplanes also eliminated 320 terrorists, the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website.

"From March 20 to March 23 Russian Air and Space Forces conducted 41 sorties around Palmyra, Homs province, hitting 146 military terrorist targets. Six command centers, 320 terrorists, five tanks, six artillery systems, two ammunition depots and 15 vehicles were destroyed," the bulletin read.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with forces loyal to President Bashar Assad's government fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups.

On February 22, Russia and the United States reached an agreement on a ceasefire in Syria, which took effect on February 27.

The Russian center for Syrian reconciliation at the Hmeimim airbase registered seven violations of the ceasefire regime in two Syrian provinces in the last 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The cessation of hostilities in Syria has been respected in general. However, a total of seven violations of the ceasefire regime have been registered, including five in the Aleppo province, and two  in the Latakia province," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on the ministry's website.

Meanwhile, Daesh terrorists are preparing an offensive on Syrian Arab Army positions near Aleppo, the bulletin said.

"According to information obtained from Aleppo locals, there are a lot of terrorists in the populated areas of Al-Safirah, Marran, Shamir, Um Adasa, Dayr Antah. We can conclude that the terrorists are getting ready for the big offensive on the Syrian government army's position in Aleppo province," the bulletin read," the bulletin read.

 Sputnik

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In Lebanon, Ban prasies country's generosity towards Syrian refugees

24 March 2016  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived this morning in Lebanon, starting with a visit to the Headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, in Naqoura and then holding a joint press conference where he praised the generosity the country and Lebanese people have shown towards Syrian refugees.

According to Mr. Ban's spokesperson, the UN chief met the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon, Nabih Berri, with whom he discussed the current political situation in the country alongside the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim and the President of the Islamic Development Bank, Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani.

The three of them then met with the President of the Council of Ministers of Lebanon, Tammam Salam. During a joint press conference just now, the Secretary-General said that few countries have demonstrated the generosity that the Government and people of Lebanon have shown towards Syrian refugees.

The UN chief explained that this visit with the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank aimed to find ways to improve conditions for refugees, to support the communities hosting them, and to help mitigate the impact on Lebanon's economy.

Mr. Ban added that the political situation in Lebanon continued to be a source of concern, contributing to an atmosphere of uncertainty. It is vital that the vacuum in the presidency is filled as soon as possible, in order for Lebanon to be whole again, he said.

The officials are also expected to visit communities hosting Syrian and Palestinian refugees to reiterate their long-term support to the country and discuss new approaches to building resilience and assisting national systems.

Visiting the United Nations peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, the Secretary-General stressed that the area has seen one of the quietest periods in nearly four decades and the UN presence must be effectively used to prevent hostilities and de-escalate tension there.

The UN chief stressed, in particular, the need to make the continued use of the tripartite forum  comprising Lebanon, Israel and UNIFIL  to resolve any differences between the parties and towards the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 (2006).

"Prevalence of a stable security environment in south Lebanon, continued commitment of the parties to the cessation of hostilities, increasing ability of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to ensure security of the country  these are the key elements for the successful implementation of the [UNIFIL] mandate," Mr. Ban said at the Force's headquarters in Naqoura.

He also underlined the need for a strong cooperation between LAF and UNIFIL in south Lebanon, including through the Strategic Dialogue process, and efforts that are underway to ensure the implementation of the resolution.

Luciano Portolano, Head of UNIFIL, said that the UN mission has been providing a "strong deterrent" to the resumption of hostilities.

Trips to Jordan, Tunisia

On Sunday, they will travel to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II, as well as other members of the Government, and visit the Zaatari refugee camp. They will also participate jointly in an open discussion with Jordanian youth.

On Monday, they will visit Tunisia to meet with President Beji Caid Essebsi and other senior officials, and pay respect to the victims of terrorism. Mr. Ban will attend a national conference on employment, hosted by the President.

Mr. Ban will be in Geneva on Wednesday to open the high-level meeting on Global Responsibility Sharing for Syrian Refugees.

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Military joins local government disaster drill in central Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

2016/03/24 18:13:46

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) About 800 servicemen were mobilized Thursday to take part in a large-scale disaster drill held by a local government in central Taiwan as part of an effort to improve the country's disaster response.

The drill, hosted by the Nantou County government, simulated various disaster scenes resulting from a severe typhoon and a powerful earthquake.

President Ma Ying-jeou (), senior Taiwanese officials, and representatives from 45 countries observed the exercise, as part of an international exchange program in the field of humanitarian assistance.

One of the scenarios, set up at the National Fire Agency's Training Center, simulated a mudslide caused by an approaching typhoon, with four people trapped and one missing.

The emergency response involved an evacuation procedure and a supply drop by an Army UH-60M helicopter.

In another simulation, a new disaster alert system developed by the central government was used to send messages to people's mobile phones to notify them of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that had hit central Taiwan, with its epicenter in Nantou.

A search-and-rescue mission, comprising soldiers, was also deployed to the site of a collapsed building, where advanced life detectors were used to locate possible survivors.

The Air Force also got involved in the earthquake drill, using one of its EC225 rescue helicopters to airlift people who were trapped in two cars that plunged into a river when a bridge in a remote area collapsed.

A total of 815 military personnel took part in the exercise, alongside police, firefighters, and members of private rescue organizations, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

The military usually participates in the annual disaster drills held by local governments, in a bid to improve disaster response in Taiwan, a country prone to earthquakes and typhoons, the ministry said.

Alongside the drill, there was also a display of various military equipment and vehicles that have been used in emergency rescue missions in Taiwan, most recently after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in southern Taiwan in February, which caused the collapse of several buildings in Tainan.

(By Elaine Hou)

ENDITEM/pc

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Taiwan wants China to face reality of separate rules since 1949

ROC Central News Agency

2016/03/24 23:43:48

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) urged mainland China to face the reality that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been under separate rule over the past 67 years.

The MAC was responding to the remarks made by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang () earlier in the day that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to "one China" -- a fact that Li said cannot be changed.

Li and former Vice President Vincent Siew () of Taiwan met on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia, with Li stressing that cross-strait relations will not change because a party that is known for its pro-independence stance will take over as the ruling party in Taiwan.

Li said that China plans to continue the peaceful development of bilateral ties based on the "political foundation of the 1992 consensus."

MAC said that the 1992 consensus, which has served as the basis for institutionalized negotiations and exchanges between the two sides over the past years, highlights the sovereignty of the Republic of China.

"The government has been insisting on defining cross-strait relations in accordance with the Republic of China Constitution," the MAC said, urging mainland China to respect and understand the opinion and feelings of the people in Taiwan.

Stressing that "maintaining benevolent cross-strait interactions is the common responsibility of both sides," the MAC said that Taiwan and China should have the wisdom to show good will to each other and engage in practical cooperation so as to create long-lasting peace and stability across the strait.

(By Eva Feng and Bear Lee)

Enditem/sc



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Chinese premier stresses vital importance of '1992 consensus'

ROC Central News Agency

2016/03/24 22:14:48

Boao, China, March 24 (CNA) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang seemed eager to drive home a message to Taiwan's next government when he met with former Vice President Vincent Siew Thursday, that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to "one China" -- a fact that Li said cannot be changed.

Li and Siew met on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia, with Li stressing that cross-strait relations will not change because a party that is known for its pro-independence stance will take over as the ruling party in Taiwan. China plans to continue the peaceful development of bilateral ties based on the "political foundation of the 1992 consensus," he said.

Elaborating on his point, Li said the fruitful results from years of peaceful development of cross-strait ties are ample proof that maintaining the foundation that is known as the "1992 consensus" will be a good way to create a bright future for both sides.

Such a foundation can not only maintain peace across the strait but also create benefits for people on both sides, Li told Siew.

Looking ahead, Li said China offers a good opportunity for Taiwan as a whole and Taiwanese investors in particular as trade and investment ties will continue to boom based on the 1992 consensus.

Agreeing with this point, Siew said it is the hope of everyone that the foundation that has been consolidated and the results achieved over the past eight years "will continue."

In 1992, officials of Taiwan and China meeting in Kong Kong reached an agreement to disagree on the meaning of "one China" in what is now known as "the 1992 consensus."

Taiwanese officials love to refer to it as a consensus on the "respective interpretation of 'one China'," but Beijing officials almost never publicly mention that aspect of the consensus, referring just to the 'one China' aspect.

As President Ma Ying-jeou has repeatedly stated, for Taiwan, that 'one China' is the Republic of China, a country that is Asia's first democratic republic born in 1912 in mainland China but moved its seat to Taiwan in 1949 after the ruling Kuomintang lost a civil war to the Communist Party of China.

However, with a transition of power imminent in Taiwan, how the KMT refers to the 1992 consensus no longer matters. What does matter is how the Democratic Progressive Party's Chairwoman and President-elect Tsai Ing-wen will address cross-strait relations in her inaugural speech on May 20 as her party has never acknowledged the existence of the 1992 consensus.

As China's Taiwan Affairs Minister Zhang Zhijun told Taiwanese media earlier in the day here, "Now, the ball is in the other court (Taiwan)."

(By Eva Feng and S.C. Chang)

Enditem/ke

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Hoop skirts and Civil War uniforms will take over the Danville Community Market on April 2, when the second annual Old South Ball takes place after a day of History on the Lawn re-enactments.

Re-enactors will be on the lawn in front of the Community Market from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m., offering a view of Civil War history  punctuated by the firing of cannons during the course of the afternoon.

At 6 p.m., a volley of cannon fire will announcement the beginning of the Old South Ball, which will include people dancing, music and refreshments until 11 p.m.

We had a great turnout last year  we sold over 400 tickets, Wayne Byrd, founder of the Heritage Preservation Association said. That was for the sesquicentennial  the 150th anniversary [of the end of the Civil War]  but I hope we still get the same turnout this year.

The 2nd South Carolina String Band, which plays American popular music from the 1820s to 1860s, will perform throughout the evening.

We just had a ball last year; it was so much fun, Dianne McMahon, a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, said. It was such a good event.

McMahon said the UDC will help decorate for the ball, hanging flags from all of the Confederate states from the rafters.

That was quite a display last year; I had never seen some of those flags, McMahon said.

Dress from the 1860s is encouraged  military uniforms, hoop skirts and other period wear  but those who dont have costumes are welcome to attend in semi-formal attire. All ages are welcome.

Byrd said all profits from the evening will benefit the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program (recently renamed Virginia Veteran and Family Support).

Byrd said while there will be Confederate flags on display, this event is about helping veterans  not raising money to raise Confederate flags on public property or to return the Third National Flag of the Confederacy to a memorial on the lawn of the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History.

Its a shame you have to go out and raise money for veterans; the government should help them, Byrd said. Were trying to help them as much as we can.

The ball is being put on by a group called Last Capital of the Confederacy, which is made up of people interested in preserving local Confederate history, Byrd said. It is not affiliated with the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History.

Tickets for the ball are $35 and can be purchased at www.oldsouthball.net. Food, soft drinks, beer and wine will be available for purchase at the ball.

The History on the Lawn re-enactments are free and open to the public.
CHATHAM  More money and help from the state government will allow Pittsylvania County Schools 2016-17 budget to afford a 2 percent raise  and reinstate eight staff positions during the next school year.

The Pittsylvania School Board unanimously voted for the proposed budget at a special meeting Thursday.

The new budget would give staff a 2 percent raise next school year and restore eight positions to the schools. The budget would also reallocate some additional instructional money which could be spent by schools on things like field trips and supplies.

Superintendent Mark Jones noted the school system had cut 109 positions since the 2008-09 budget was enacted.

All these cuts have had a substantial impact on the school division, Jones said.

Director of Finance Tracey Worley said the General Assembly had also allocated Virginia Lottery money for the district for the next two years  the district will get about $351,000 this year and about $1.5 million next year that must be spent on non-recurring costs.

This year, Worley said the school division was planning to purchase computers, projectors and a new school bus with the additional funding. Worley also asked board members to think about what the second year of funding could be spent on.

Worley also presented the school districts 2016-17 nutrition budget. The budget did not yet include a 10 cent meal price increase, which Worley said would be presented to the board for approval at an upcoming meeting.

Jones thanked board members, administrators and other staff for staying committed to providing an excellent learning environment for students despite the recent years of cutbacks.
The countdown is on to the third Annual IdeaFest Business Pitch Competition set for April 1 at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville.

The day will begin with The Entrepreneurship Option workshop presented by VT KnowledgeWorks and a panel on crowdfunding presented by The Launch Place. The competition will officially begin at 1 p.m., with opening remarks by Dr. Graham Snydner of SEAL Innovation, and will end with an awards reception 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

IdeaFest is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to attend the full day or part of the day.

Community members of all ages and professions are invited to attend the event to learn about Danvilles startup development resources, to network with a wide range of business professionals and to explore entrepreneurship as a career option. The deadline to pre-register to attend is Friday, March 25.

Registration is available at www.ideafestdanville.com. Guests may register on the day of the event.

Dr. Graham Snyder, Co-founder and CEO of SEAL Innovation, will kick off the competition by sharing the story about how SEAL Innovation started. Dr. Snyder and his colleague, Dr. Courtney Mann, invented a product called SEAL SwimSafe to alert parents and lifeguards when to look for swimmers when they have been underwater for a specific length of time. With wearable swim bands and state-of-the-art technology, a siren and strobe light will go off, initiating a rescue instantaneously. As an emergency room physician, Dr. Snyder said, he has seen firsthand drowning victims and the parents saying, I only looked away for a second. Such heartening encounters compelled Dr. Snyder to develop a solution that will prevent drowning situations for inexperienced swimmers. With an investment of $350,000 from The Launch Place, SEAL is currently manufacturing and selling the system. SEAL has located part of its operations in the River District of Danville.

This years competition received 69 applications from aspiring entrepreneurs located in 12 states, with the majority of the applications coming from Virginia and North Carolina. This number is a significant increase in applications, according to event organizers. Twenty applicants will be selected to take the stage to pitch an original startup idea for a chance to win $10,000 in prize money. The panel of judges includes Eva Doss, President and CEO of The Launch Place; Danville native Brad Gignac, of Rack Space in Blacksburg, Virginia; Dr. Rubens Marcilio, Jr., Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Liberty University in Lynchburg; Steve Daniels, President of Japan Tobacco International and Director of North and Central American Leaf Services; and Andy Schwab of First Flight Ventures in Durham, North Carolina. Audience members will also have the chance to vote on a favorite competitor to win the American National Audience Choice Award.

Winners of the competition will be eligible to receive 25 hours of free business consulting from The Launch Place. The Launch Place, located in the River District of Danville, assists with business formation, job creation and retention through its business consulting services and investment funding, while having a dual responsibility to recruit and retain entrepreneurs to the Danville region. The IdeaFest competition exposes The Launch Places services and funds to start-up companies that are ready to establish or seeking early stage capital. The Launch Place could potentially invest in the company from its Seed and Pre-Seed Funds that were established from a $10 million grant awarded by the Danville Region Foundation.

IdeaFest is free to attend thanks to sponsorship support from regional businesses, community organizations and individual entrepreneurs. The Launch Place is the presenting sponsor for IdeaFest.

Additional information about IdeaFest can be found at www.ideafestdanville.com
About $36 million in grants  and millions more in a bond package soon will be available to cities and counties in the Dan River Region as well as the rest of the commonwealth, representatives from the Go Virginia project announced Friday.

We believe in regionalism, Chris Lloyd, who helped design the multi-million dollar project with McGuire Woods Consulting.

Lloyd presented the program to the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce at a luncheon Friday.

With local support from Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville, the initiative passed the General Assembly last month. The goal of the program is to stimulate private sector growth across the state through collaboration between localities, businesses and schools.

In addition to the millions in grants, the program will provide research and development funding and a $2 billion bond package.

Lloyd said thought the rural parts of the state had been suffering economically for years, recent cutbacks in Hampton Roads and especially Northern Virginia had created a statewide need and awareness in legislators.

There are whole buildings you can see right through, Lloyd said about northern parts of the state. Thats because the defense establishment is cranking back and there are a lot of jobs being lost up there.

The way the program is structured, no one region will be able to lay claim to a majority of the funding, Lloyd said. Protections in the legislation will award grants based on the scope of the project compared to the region, rather than the entire state.

One local project was even an inspiration for the legislation and was used as in example when the bill was presented before the General Assembly. The industrial mega-park project that Danville and Pittsylvania County are building on Berry Hill Road was used as an example of how localities could work together to bring industry to the area.

The project also includes incentives for local schools like Danville Community College to encourage more workforce training credential courses for students.

The statewide committee for the project will be formed by July 1, with regional committee following shortly.

Danville Pittsylvania County hamber of Commerce President Laurie Moran said she believed regional cooperation was vital to the project.

I believe we will succeed or fail as a region, she said.
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Summer is coming. Unlike educators within the school district, this is my busiest time of the year. Last summer SAMFA's Education Department miraculously pulled off 29 educational programs over an eight-week time period, with over 6,000 registered visits.

One of the reasons SAMFA's summer programs are so popular is the staff we hire to guide the camps. Through partnerships with Angelo State University, San Angelo Independent School District and other nonprofits, we are able to teach critical thinking, real-life skills and introduce a new way for campers to look at their environment.

The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts uses certified teachers on staff create and teach curriculum. Graduate-level biology students from ASU help weave science into Art of Nature Camp during June. In July, SAMFA's Cooking Camp is directed by local certified educator Brenda Wellen, who also owns and manages Flour Child Bake Shop. Last summer our studio and technology camps, also led by certified professionals, filmed and edited their own short films about water. They were entered in the first Water Texas Film Festival in Austin. Three of them placed top 10. The campers, ages 7-12, competed against professional filmographers. We hope to do the same this summer.

Not only does SAMFA provide a surplus of classes, but our camps are extremely affordable. The full-day weeklong camps are $50 per week. Thanks to fundraising efforts, SAMFA provides up to 25 scholarships to local children to attend camp for free. We also offer $5 programs for 3- to 6-year-olds, and our cooking camp is a very affordable $100 weeklong program.

Preregistration is required to attend summer camps at SAMFA. Registration begins May 14 during Family Day Summer. Scholarships will be available April 15. More information about Family Day, Art Thursday and Summer for Kids is available on SAMFA's website, samfa.org. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @SAMFAlove!

If you are hesitant to enroll in camp, no problem! We will host free Family Days on June 11, July 9 and Aug. 13 that are fun for all. Art Thursday is another free, no-enrollment-needed program. Every Thursday SAMFA's Education Studio is open from 3-6 p.m. with four different art activities available to the public.

Now on to the big news. The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts will be hosting adult programming during the summer as well. The details are still coming into focus, but we are pleased to announce that SAMFA will showcase Wine, Art and Yoga nights during Downtown San Angelo's Art Stroll (every third Thursday of the month). Enjoy a session of yoga in the museum galleries, followed by complimentary wine and a docent-led tour through the collection. In August we will introduce DIY @ SAMFA classes focusing on three "lost arts": weaving, canning/jam making and beer brewing. For more information on all of our upcoming events, please visit the museum's website, samfa.org.

Bekah Coleman is curator of education at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.
While looking for something else I accidentally found a dozen or so folders of crispy, yellowed newspaper clippings from the Standard-Times archives. Here's some of what I've found.

San Angelo's Trolley

In 1908 the firm of E.E. Bailey and Charles T. Paul began creating a new addition in north San Angelo. They called it Lake View.

To take the would-be customers to see the new suburb, a trolley was built. It ran on rails in the streets in the north and eastern parts of San Angelo.

If you rode the full trip available on the trolley, you would start by the Landon (Naylor/Town House) hotel, go to North 25th Street, and from there to the fairgrounds and then the east run to Chadbourne, East Harris to Main, one block to Preusser then to Poe.

The trolley didn't make money.

When the business began failing, J.D. Suggs bought the line.

Business didn't improve for him, either, and the trolley cars quit running.

Mr. Suggs offered to give the trolley lines to the city of San Angelo if it would use them. The city did not take the offer.

The San Angelo Light and Water Co. believed it could make the right profit and put down more rails. But the trolley was never used after that.

Then the rails were sold. Seven years after they began, trolleys never ran again in San Angelo.

Why were trolleys short-lived in San Angelo?

One reason is that the trolley lines went in only two directions: north and east. The Concho River stopped the rail lines to the south because only a low-water road crossed the river on Chadbourne and a wooden bridge crossed the river at Beauregard.

Another reason the trolley failed was automobiles. Cars took the place of trolleys for transportation.

SAN ANGELO SALOONS

In the late 1900s San Angelo had saloons with names like The Stock Exchange, the Arc Light, the Favorite, Legal Tender, Bismark and the Star.

"In their day saloons were respectable, at least to their patrons, the sheriff and themselves," wrote Arnold Garcia Jr., a former Standard-Times reporter.

Garcia said one of the owners of the Arc Light or Corner saloon recalled in a newspaper interview that "the customers were a nice class of people."

Clint Pinson, who succeeded Tom McCloskey as owner of the Arc Light, was quoted as saying "there was not much difference between working in a saloon or a grocery store."

Saloon owner Pinson said former Tom Green County Sheriff Hawley Allen Sr. once said "the people who ran the saloons were good people who were in it for the money."

Joe Mayer, member of a pioneer family, told Garcia "women were not allowed in the saloons but 'ladies of the evening' were kept in the red light district located in two blocks along either side of Chadbourne and Concho streets.

Estimates on the number of San Angelo saloons from 1900-18 vary from 22 to 24.

Whatever magic was used to draw San Angelo and area residents to the saloons, it was often potent enough to keep three of McCloskey's bartenders busy whetting West Texas whistles. Competition for trade was intense. One advertisement in the San Angelo newspaper told readers Eddie Maier's Favorite Saloon "enjoys the quality of goods kept." "Nothing but the best whiskies, wines and liquors are handled by the Favorite Saloon."

J.J. Big Jim Crenshaw of the Legal Tender advertised a "strictly first class house."

Maier led the way in advertising his stock, even claiming that frequenting his saloon was "medically rewarding."

In March 1915, local prohibitionists forced a local option election March 31, ending with saloons staying open in San Angelo but being closed in other parts of the county.

Prohibitionists advertising urged: "Be a patriot. Vote out liquor in Tom Green County and let Uncle Sam have the food for our soldier boys."

"They need bread not booze."

An election was called for Monday, Oct. 29, 1917.

Tom Green County went wet by 85 votes, but it was too late.

The prohibition amendment closed the saloon era in San Angelo.

And at 10:30 p.m. June 26, 1918, the doors of the San Angelo saloons were closed for the last time.

Rick Smith is a local news and community affairs columnist. Contact him at 325-659-8248 or rick.smith@gosanangelo.com
Adam Sauceda/Standard-Times Carolyn Kirby smiles as she watches a video on her accomplishments and career during Thursday's Women of Distinction dinner.

By Adam Sauceda of the San Angelo Standard-Times

From judges to school principals, women of distinction were honored by the Girl Scouts of Central Texas on Thursday night at the McNease Convention Center.

The event has been celebrating outstanding women in the community since 2007, according to Donna Brosh, resource development executive for the Girl Scouts of Central Texas.

This year, honorees included Judge Marilyn Aboussie, Karen Clark, Carolyn Kirby, Lenora Pool and Teddye Read as well as the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Council for the Concho Valley as distinguished workplace for women.

Honorees were nominated in October and chosen by an anonymous committee.

"The anonymous committee looks at what giving the individuals have done, not necessarily financial but what kind of mark have they left," Brosh said. "They look for people that are affecting the world around them outside of their normal, day-to-day life."

The honorees serve as role models for young girls participating in the Girl Scouts, including the 40 who were on hand for the event.

"They're the type of women we want our girls to look up to. Women that are always thinking of others first, taking care of our environment and community," Brosh said. "That's what we want for our girls. We want them to know that no matter where you start in life, you can leave your footprint whereever you've gone."
SHARE Carter Davis Vasquez Hernandez

By Rashda Khan, Rashda.Khan@gosanangelo.com

While incumbent Tim Vasquez only had a video presence at the Concho Valley Republican Women's police chief candidates forum Thursday, his three opponents largely presented a united front when it came to issues challenging the San Angelo Police Department.

Issues brought up by Frank Carter, Jeff Davis and Mike Hernandez included: staffing, budget, more hands-on community involvement by leadership and officers, gang activity and narcotics.

Change was the recurring theme of each candidate's remarks.

"I have always been the behind-the-scenes guy, the worker bee," Carter said. "But the time is right. I felt the need to do this based on the choices at hand. I'm not a politician, but the department needs a change."

"Our districts are too large. The officers don't know the people and the people don't know the officers," he said. "We need to get back into neighborhoods.

"When I worked a beat and there was a burglary in my area, I took offense to it," said Carter, who comes from a family of police officers and has about 24 years of experience at the SAPD, including supervising several sectors.

Mike Hernandez agreed with him. "You can have all kinds of statistics from the computer," he said. "But officers need to know their area. They need to take pride and ownership of that area to make a real difference."

Hernandez became a police officer to combat family violence "because that's what my dad used to do." He talked about the long hours and dangerous work officers do and the need for teamwork.

The Police Department "is truly my home away from home. Sometimes I spend more time there than at home," he said. "Something is wrong there. I know as chief I can bring change."

Davis agreed that "everything at the (SAPD) is broke. But broken things can be fixed."

"I have never ran over budget and I don't think the city should either," said Davis, who has worked in law enforcement, the oil and gas industry and communications. "I'll work hard to meet or come under budget. I don't think that's been done before."

He said he'd also be a hands-on chief. "I'll be driving a patrol car that looks like everyone else's," Davis said. "If you have an issue, I'll come visit with you."

Vasquez, who was hosting the Texas Police Chiefs Association's annual conference in Austin, sent in a videotaped message that said his opponents were trying to bring old methodology back.

"My first campaign was based on change. It was about modernizing the department," said Vasquez, who has served as chief since 2004. "If you want to vote for progress, you want to vote for my administrative team."

Questions from attendees included:

1. What would be the impact of the proposed Ports-to-Plains project?

Davis: "Being 150 miles from the border and that corridor coming through, the SAPD better get ready for more crimes."

Carter: "There will be more transients, thefts, transient-related problems, and, yes, drugs will intensify."

Hernandez: "We're in agreement. If the interstate comes through, we would probably have to go to City Council for more money and staff."

2. What are your thoughts on building a new police department?

Carter: "We need to look at the cost of renovation versus demolition. I toured the building and it looked good to me, but it all depends on the public. We do need a new police department."

Davis: "We don't need another bond election. People are tired of being taxed and taxed. This building has enough square footage. We should keep and renovate it."
SHARE

Kelly D. Clover, San Angelo

It appears the race for president will boil down to a choice between two very unethical people.

Hillary Clinton is on the take with respect to Wall Street billionaires. If you believe this won't affect her policies, you might as well believe that pigs fly. Politicians can say anything on the campaign stump and do something completely different once in office.

Clinton had her email server wiped clean to conceal a bunch of emails she doesn't want anyone to know about. The FBI is investigating to see if criminal charges against her are appropriate.

Donald Trump says he's going to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out and that Mexico is going to foot the bill. If you belief this, you might as well believe that rabbits lay eggs.

The false claim that Mexico will pay for the wall is a handy way to avoid discussing the cost. Current estimates for a 700-mile fence that covers mainly the land crossings in Arizona and California and only a portion of the Texas border is $49 billion for materials and labor, with additional costs for land acquisition. The total border is 1,952 miles in length.

Trump admits to being audited year after year by the IRS and he refuses to release his tax returns. You can figure that he probably cheated on his taxes. He also has some shady business dealings where he ripped people off to enrich himself.

Trump's history shows that many of his political beliefs are much closer to the Democrats than the Republicans. Get ready for bait and switch if Trump is elected. He's one of the biggest liars in history.

With Clinton, expect bait and switch regarding the giveaways for billionaires. She is getting way too much money from Wall Street to end their giveaways.
New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz. Its also where the blues and so many other genres have been refined. It still swarms with buskers -- street performers -- random parades and live music bars. But recently tension has grown between those who make the music and those living near it. Although the citys initial response was to tamp down on the noise, it has since launched an educational campaign called Sound Check to reduce complaints while letting the music play on.Noise complaints, says Scott Hutcheson, adviser for cultural economy to Mayor Mitch Landrieu, have been a constant in New Orleans, dating back to the 1800s. But they have grown worse since Hurricane Katrina, as historically musical neighborhoods like the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny and Treme have welcomed new residents, many of them unaccustomed to local culture.The city initially acted aggressively to shut down the noisemakers. Starting around 2007, it harassed and even shuttered some unlicensed but long-established music joints. It also used zoning rules to prevent other music venues from expanding, stopped buskers from playing after 8 p.m., broke up some of the citys famous second line parades and even tore down community fliers that advertised shows.This infuriated local musicians, who claimed that the city was ruining their livelihoods and suppressing the culture. After a failed attempt by the city council to amend the existing noise ordinance for greater flexibility, it fell to the Landrieu administration to address the situation. The administration has responded by launching Sound Check and refusing to enforce many regulations, such as the curfew laws that discouraged buskers.The goal of Sound Check is to tackle noise complaints through education. Instead of imposing top-down rules enforced by the police -- such as the austere 85-decibel limit -- the health department sends inspectors to neighborhoods to address issues case by case, based on the location and tenor of the complaints. One of the great benefits of Sound Check is that theyre trying to find out from all of those stakeholders what issues exist, Hutcheson says, which will help us find out if we need to amend ordinances.In its first four months, the program has already reduced complaints. The ultimate aim is for the program to lead to an ordinance that gracefully factors the economic importance both of New Orleanss music industry and its post-Katrina residential growth.If the program succeeds at this, it could prove instructive for other musically oriented cities struggling with noise problems. After all, when officials are legally rigid toward noise, they may squelch a cultural asset. But when officials mediate between residents, musicians, venues and other stakeholders, they can save the music.
from its own state. Last year, Missouri enacted a law preventing St. Louis and other cities from setting their own minimum-wage rates and from banning plastic grocery bags. This year, state lawmakers have spent a considerable amount of time debating whether to prohibit the city from taxing the income of its residents and workers. The state, which took control of the St. Louis police force during the Civil War, didnt give it back until 2013, when it was forced to by a voter-approved ballot measure.If St. Louis feels ill-treated by state officials, its got lots of company around the country. North Carolina's legislature drew national headlines when it met in special session March 23 to block cities from passing anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The legislature acted in response to Charlotte's adoption of LGBT protections earlier in the year. What was sometimes lost in the media coverage was the fact that the new North Carolina law also blocks cities from setting their own minimum wage rates. Similarly, Birmingham, Ala., passed a minimum-wage increase last year, only to see the state block it and other cities from setting their own rates this year.Theres a fundamental mismatch right now between the desires of many cities and the policy preferences of states. Out of power in Congress and in two-thirds of the nations legislative chambers, progressives from President Obama on down are increasingly turning to cities to carry out their agenda. Democrats are in charge of the lions share of big cities. Right now, just three of the nations 25 largest -- Fort Worth, Texas; Jacksonville, Fla.; and San Diego -- have Republican mayors. Many of the current Democratic mayors are to the political left of those who governed in their cities a generation ago.But, as in physics, every movement in politics prompts an opposite if not always equal reaction. As cities attempt to fulfill liberal wishes, they are increasingly stymied by the Republicans who dominate state offices. The GOP currently controls all branches of government in more than three times as many states as Democrats. Theres rarely much doubt about who will win an argument between a Democratic city and a Republican state -- the state nearly always has the upper hand. Im not afraid of the dont tread on me complaints from the municipalities, says Missouri state Rep. Dan Shaul, who sponsored last years preemption of local minimum-wage and garbage bag laws. Weve worked with the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City and continue to try to help them anyway we can, he says, but our response is to do whats best for the state.Legislators such as Shaul remain quick to praise urban areas as the states primary economic engines. Still, they insist that businesses shouldnt have to put up with a patchwork of regulations that vary from city to city, and that citizens shouldnt have any level of government butting unduly into their lives. What theyre doing is trying to keep cities out of social policies, says Larry Shaheen, a GOP consultant based in Charlotte. Theyre trying to get city governments out of the lives of their citizens.This isnt exactly new. Cities may have been even more outmatched by states during the first half of the 20th century, before the Supreme Court abolished the practice of apportioning legislative districts by county, rather than by population. But the political dynamic between cities and the rest of their states has shifted more recently in ways that have put urban centers at a new disadvantage. Land mass no longer determines legislative power, but theres lots of room left outside the main cities for Republicans to dominate. In Missouri, theres barely a Democratic legislator who hails from outside St. Louis or Kansas City. The 113 other counties are almost all overwhelmingly Republican, giving the GOP supermajority control of both legislative chambers.Many states follow a similar pattern. Far fewer Democrats are elected to state legislative seats outside major metropolitan areas than was the case 15 or 20 years ago. Conversely, there arent a lot of Republicans elected from districts representing big cities or even many inner-suburban areas. The result is that traditional regional rivalries almost perfectly align with partisan divisions.Cities have long chafed at restrictions placed by states on their ability to raise revenue. And outstate residents and legislators have perennially cried that the leading city -- whether its Indianapolis or Louisville or Milwaukee -- uses more than its fair share of resources. In Wisconsin, the common saying goes, Madison sucks up all our tax dollars and spends it on Milwaukee or itself, says Katherine Cramer, author of the new book, which looks at rural anger in her state toward big cities. Theres a perception that decisions are made in Madison and theres no respect for small towns or our way of life.But now, in states where Democrats are in the minority, cities have few allies within majority caucuses at the state level. And Republicans are left with little incentive to help them. If you looked at the Texas Democratic delegation, everybody in it is from an urban area, except the [heavily Hispanic] Rio Grande Valley, says Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston. Any legislation that benefits the urban core is going to be perceived much less favorably by the Republican majority.State lawmakers have not been satisfied with just squelching cities on contentious social issues such as LGBT rights and gun control, or labor policies like minimum-wage increases and paid sick leave requirements. States are stepping on urban toes at practically every turn, from limiting hotel taxes to banning requirements that builders install sprinkler systems. From our legislators, Ive heard some comments that we have those cities moving in retreat, says Ned Hill, a public policy professor at Ohio State University. What they really mean are the policies of big-city mayors.States like to complain that they are shortchanged by federal programs -- receiving back less money than they send to Washington -- but they feel little compunction about dealing a similar blow to their local governments. When it comes to funds for roads, schools and universities, states are becoming less likely to invest in their own major cities. A recent survey of 89 mayors in 31 states by the U.S. Conference of Mayors showed they believe relations with their states are now actually worse than relations with the federal government. One Midwestern mayor, whose party controls the legislature, said simply, Our state is nuts.In many ways, the mismatch between state political power and city market power has never been more dramatic, says Bruce Katz, a Brookings Institution scholar who consults with metropolitan regions. A lot of the focus is on the skirmishes around progressive policies, but the bigger issue is states impeding the ability of cities to realize their full economic potential.In response to the pressures of living under a rural-dominated legislature, state Sen. Mike Colona, a Democrat who represents St. Louis, has taken what seems like a logical -- if fanciful -- step. He filed a pair of bills last month aimed at allowing St. Louis to secede from Missouri and become the 51st state.almost completely by Democrats -- not just in mayoral elections, but straight on up the ticket. In 2012, Obama carried the lowest percentage of U.S. counties of any winning presidential candidate in history -- just 22 percent. But his vote in cities was so overwhelming as to guarantee his re-election. Obama took 69 percent of the vote in cities with more than 500,000 people, according to exit polls. A similar story can be told about the disparities in congressional voting -- and, importantly, state legislative contests. Its no mystery why. The Obama coalition -- racial and ethnic minorities, young people, gays and lesbians, unmarried women, and highly educated young professionals -- disproportionately chooses to live in cities.Having gained and retained political power thanks almost solely to the urban vote, Obama has turned to mayors to promote ideas that cant get through Congress. Many mayors have worked closely with the Obama administration on early childhood education, development of green energy, community policing and the presidents My Brothers Keeper initiative, meant to give a boost to young African-American and Hispanic men. In Congress, programs like that are suffocated to death, says Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto. In Pittsburgh, were like an urban lab where they can be sent to grow.Obamas budget for the coming year calls for expanding aid sent directly to cities in everything from poverty programs to manufacturing innovation. His most recent proposals may go nowhere, but the administration has already had success in using cities as venues for its ideas. Weve been quite proactive throughout the administration in taking these policies around the country, says Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Its a terrific mechanism for implementing progress and creating momentum.Given gridlock in Washington, the absence of national policy in many areas has allowed lower levels of government to go their own way. That has sometimes set cities and states on a collision course. While most Republican governors were calling on the administration to block Syrian refugees from entering the country late last year, more than five dozen mayors signed a letter calling on Congress to keep the door open. Long before the debate over gay rights, Charlotte officials clashed with GOP lawmakers in North Carolina over broader policy toward immigrants, mirroring arguments in many states.Last fall, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moved to cut off state grant funding for sheriffs offices in localities that failed to prosecute undocumented immigrants because they had enacted so-called sanctuary city policies. Just before taking office last year, Abbott complained that the state was becoming California-ized by local bans on fracking and plastic bags, as well as restrictions on property use. Abbott conceded that some might see a disconnect between his actions as state attorney general, when he repeatedly sued what he considered to be an intrusive federal government, and the stance hes taken as governor, intervening to block city initiatives. But Abbott insists hes still working to protect people from encroachments on their personal liberty, from whatever level of government. The governor believes cities are economic drivers that help create jobs, says spokesman John Wittman, but they are often overregulated, generating unnecessary burdens on businesses.If a state official doesnt like a citys policy, theres little penalty involved in trying to block it. A tax on earnings may be an essential source of revenue for St. Louis, but voting to kill it allows a legislator from outstate to take an anti-tax stand essentially for free. It wont in any way affect revenues or programs back home.The same pattern of state legislative indifference to urban desires holds true for spending decisions. Consider infrastructure. The percentage of urban roads that have poor pavement quality has increased more than 50 percent over the past decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. When it comes to public transit -- and light rail in particular -- state officials have been abandoning projects pretty decisively in recent months. Last year, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan canceled a $2.9 billion light rail project in Baltimore, which he described as a boondoggle. (He subsequently proposed a $135 million aid package for the public transit system.) Last fall, the North Carolina General Assembly canceled all but $500,000 of the states $138 million commitment to light rail. If the cities want to do it, fine, said a senior GOP lawmaker, but the state shouldnt chip in on it.Its a time-honored tradition in politics: Areas with clout get more goodies. The distribution of funds is always a selfish vote -- Whats going to help my district? Republicans who represent less populous parts of any state may be especially reluctant to send money to larger cities right now because the rural areas are having a hard time economically. Its a spiky economy, with an outsized share of growth occurring in a relatively limited number of metropolitan areas. Its hard for some legislators to explain why they would want to send more money to parts of the state that are already performing well in terms of income levels and jobs.In many states, the type of contempt generally felt for Wall Street is channeled toward the major urban area. Mayors are left to complain that the easiest way for rural legislators to score points at home seems to be taking a shot at their cities. Its possible that, if it were not for the city of Portland, Maine would be the poorest state in the country. That doesnt mean rural and small-town residents want to see Portland get more money. Local economies in small places are so endangered, and theres very little sense that anything is going to bring them back, says Cramer, the author who also runs a public service center at the University of Wisconsin. The resentment toward the city is based on what they see as forces that are ending their way of life as they know it and want it to be.If states were smart, they would invest heavily in their successful urban areas, suggests Katz, the founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. They could do more to encourage economic development in dense areas that are most likely to be fertile for growth, spending money on things like higher education and medical centers right in the heart of cities. If states were rational actors, what they would be doing is augmenting, not subtracting, Katz says. Instead, its almost like states are embarrassed by the success of their cities.Maybe its not embarrassment so much as a fundamental and growing mismatch. Big cities now tend to vote differently from the rest of their states. They hold different values when it comes to diversity. Their economies may be robust, but that hasnt translated to improving fortunes for other areas. Governors and legislatures arent always at odds with cities, but when they are, they have little reason to give cities a break.North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory may be a former Charlotte mayor, but nearly all the top legislative leaders in his state come from much less populous, more rural areas. In addition to quashing Charlotte on gay rights, immigration and light rail, last year the legislature shifted a share of sales tax revenues from cities to more sparsely populated counties. Before, cities were getting everything they asked for, but now the deck is stacked against them from a philosophical perspective, says Shaheen, the GOP consultant. As a Republican, that makes me so giddy, I can barely contain it.
Governor's Alleged Affair Highlights How the Media Have Changed

For Down-Ballot Republicans, Trump's a Tricky Choice

North Carolina GOP Chair Censured and Locked Out of Office, Email

Courts Hear Cases Against Redistricting Maps in Several States

Over the years, it's become more difficult for politicians to survive sex scandals and remain in office. One reason is that, given today's media environment, salacious news travels faster.On Wednesday, Alabama GOP Gov. Robert Bentley held a press conference to deny he'd had an affair with Rebekah Caldwell Mason, a top adviser whose husband also works for his administration."I am truly sorry and I accept full responsibility," Bentley said. "I want everyone to know, though, that I have never had a physical affair with Mrs. Mason."Bentley called the news conference to respond to allegations made earlier in the day by the state's Secretary of Law Enforcement, Spencer Collier, who was fired on Tuesday. Collier claimed to have seen texts and heard evidence of an affair. He also said Bentley fired him for refusing to help cover up the affair and for not lying in an affidavit regarding a corruption case against state House Speaker Mike Hubbard.It was sensational news. Even before Bentley held his afternoon news conference,ran a column entitled, "The 4 Most Eyebrow-Raising Parts of the Crazy Affair Allegation Against Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley." Other outlets also ran stories on their websites, and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow devoted half of her hour-long program to the story.This wasn't the first time news about Bentley's possible dalliance spread far and wide. Rumors have been swirling about a possible affair since the governor's wife filed for divorce last summer. In September,ran a story with the headline, "Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Won't Say Whether He (Expletive) a Staffer."There have always been instances of politicians straying, but in the age of the Internet and social media, the discretion traditional media outlets once exercised is a thing of the past. Twenty years ago, for example,t andboth sat on a story that presidential candidate Bob Dole had had an affair, judging it not relevant to his campaign. The story broke in thebut gained little traction.That wouldn't be the case today.Democrats aren't waiting to see whether or not Donald Trump will win the GOP's presidential nomination. They're already tying other Republican candidates to him. It will be a persistent theme all year.In New Hampshire, for example, Democratic officials held an event this week unveiling a yard sign highlighting the "Trump-Sununu" ticket, seeking to connect GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Sununu to the party frontrunner. Sununu has said he'll back the party's nominee for president, even if it's Trump."Some Republicans are lining up to denounce Trump because they know how devastating his selection would be for down-ballot Republicans," said Ray Buckley, the Democratic chair. "But not Chris Sununu."Sununu's own father, however, a former GOP governor himself, expressed concerns earlier about fallout from a Trump ticket."Here in New Hampshire, if Donald Trump is the nominee, we will not get a Republican governor," John Sununu told Bloomberg TV. "We will lose the New Hampshire state Senate, and we could lose the New Hampshire state House."Such worries are a major motivation behind the #NeverTrump effort, which is seeking to coalesce support behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz."CO legislator told me today if @tedcruz leads ticket we can win back CO House," tweeted Ron Nehring, the Cruz campaign's spokesman and a former California GOP chair, on Tuesday. "With Trump we lose both chambers to the Dems. #onlycruz."North Carolina GOP Gov. Pat McCrory was formally nominated for re-election in a primary last week. He'll face a tough race against Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, so the last thing McCrory needs is division within his own ranks. But that's what he's got.On Sunday, the state GOP's Central Committee voted to censure the party's chairman, Hasan Harnett, for a variety of alleged infractions, including posting inappropriate statements online, directing staff to perform duties in violation of party rules and creating "an uncertain and disrespectful atmosphere" that led to staff turnover.He has been blocked from using his party email account and banned from party headquarters. The state executive committee might vote to remove Harnett from office altogether next month."We need to get this matter resolved quickly and get to the business of winning elections for conservatives in November," said Larry Shaheen, a GOP consultant in Charlotte.Harnett, the state GOP's first African-American chair, won the post last year with support from grassroots activists but not McCrory or other elected officials in the state. He vowed this week to stay in the job."There is a movement from the grassroots," Harnett told the. "And anybody outside the four walls of the GOP headquarters stands with the chairman."This was a busy week for redistricting challenges, ranging from a ruling regarding a small county in Florida all the way up to arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court.a three-judge panel began hearing arguments on Wednesday in a closely watched case about partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has found that redistricting maps that are drawn with the intent of heavily favoring one party over the other could be constitutional -- but they've never agreed on a way to measure exactly what constitutes an unacceptable partisan gerrymander.The Wisconsin case, which challenges the state Assembly map, seeks to set such a standard. Plaintiffs are using a theory called the efficiency gap , which measures the extent to which votes are wasted within districts that have been packed with supporters of one party. By this measure, partisan votes that total more than a simple majority are wasted. If a district gives 75 percent of its votes to a Democratic candidate, for instance, a third of those votes were wasted.According to the plaintiffs, Wisconsin Republicans wasted lots of Democratic votes in this manner when they drew up the Assembly maps."When 53 percent of citizens vote for one party, but that party gets 39 percent of the legislative seats, something is askew," said Chris Ahmuty, the executive director of ACLU of Wisconsin, referring to the 2014 election results.There's no telling whether the three-judge panel will be sympathetic to this line of argument. But critics of partisan gerrymandering are hoping that the Supreme Court will choose to revisit this question for the first time in more than a decade.a potentially precedent-setting decision was reached in a redistricting case involving the county commission and school board districts. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that the maps were wrong to count nonvoting prison inmates as nearly half the residents of one district."To treat the inmates the same as actual constituents makes no sense under any theory of one person, one vote, and indeed under any theory of representative government," Walker wrote. "Furthermore, such treatment greatly dilutes the voting and representational strength of denizens in the other districts."It's believed to be the first such ruling in a "prison gerrymandering" case. Walker will sit as part of a three-judge panel that will start hearing arguments Friday in a Florida redistricting case that involves claims of racial and prison gerrymandering in a congressional district.When it comes to's maps, the Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday regarding racial gerrymandering. The state has abandoned defense of its 2012 congressional map, which was thrown out and redrawn by a lower court last year. A tie in the case would uphold the lower court's ruling and keep the new map in place.a court decision involving a racial gerrymandering complaint against the state's congressional map is imminent and will be followed by a trial similarly challenging the state's legislative maps starting on April 11.
This year has already seen a flurry of activity when it comes to governments and the private sector partnering on social programs. Fewer than three months into 2016 and three governments have announced so-called pay for success or social impact bond projects, boosting the total number of such programs to 11 across the country.Now, there may be a new option for governments interested in the model, but wary of its complicated nature. Under a pay for success or social impact bond program, private funders finance a preventive social or health program and only get paid back if the project meets its goals over the course of a predetermined set of years. The new model , announced by Third Sector Capital Partners on Thursday, offers a money back guarantee.With a social impact guarantee or SIG project, governments front the money (instead of a private investor) and get paid back if the projectmeet its goals. Specifics are sparse, but Third Sector co-founder George Overholser says he's currently working with two states on creating the countrys first SIG projects and hopes to announce them by the end of this year.The main objective of the new tool, which is the brainchild of Overholser, is to give governments a simpler alternative to the existing structure. Third Sector helps governments develop social impact bond projects and Overholser says two main complications tend to arise under the current model.For one, private investors like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are wary of financing these projects over the long-term without a guarantee from the government that it will pay them back if the project meets its outcomes. Governments have taken to creating escrow accounts to assure investors. Its tying up capital that could be used in different ways, Overholser says. If governments are setting aside money each year anyway, he asks, wouldnt it be simpler just to pay for the social program directly?The second complication is that governments have to pass new laws or regulations -- which can take years -- to even begin creating a social impact bond program. That's because governments generally aren't allowed to contract for longer than they can appropriate funds. That means they're limited to one- or two-year contracts. But outcomes-based programs can take several years before they start showing real results, so social impact bond projects tend to contract for between five and seven years.Overholser says SIGs avoid these complications because governments would simply continue to contract with social services providers just like they already do. The difference is the deal would include clawback provisions for governments to recover their money if program goals arent met.Although its objective is to be more simple, SIGs are still tricky. Part of what motivates financiers to back a pay for success project now is that if the program exceeds its goals, financiers not only get their initial investment back but they get a bigger interest payment as well.To keep that financial sweetener in place, Third Sector has structured SIGs so that a private financier basically plays the role of an insurer. In the new scenario, a service provider contracting with the government would be on the hook for paying back the money if the goals arent met. So the service provider turns to a private financier to provide insurance on the agreement. The service provider pays the financier premium payments, much as we do with car insurance. The premium payments would likely be baked into the providers costs and passed on down to the government. If the project fails, the service provider refunds the government and collects those losses from the financier. But the far more likely outcome, says Overholser, is the financier simply pockets the premiums.Still, some question whether the new proposal would offer enough incentives for nonprofits to opt for a SIG over a social impact bond. If the contracting structure is more like what governments already do with nonprofits, says Lili Elkins, then what is the motivation for a nonprofit to take the extra step of going with a SIG and finding insurance to offer a money back guarantee? Elkins nonprofit Roca provides counseling, job training and other services for a social impact bond project in Massachusetts aimed at reducing recidivism and increasing employment among high-risk young men. (Third Sector helped put the project together.) Elkins says a SIG project would have to offer something more than the status quo, whether its funding stability or something else.Financial stability in particular is a big draw for nonprofits when it comes to pay for success projects. For Roca, rather than scraping together funding every year, the opportunity to be guaranteed funding for 900 young men over multiple years was a big incentive to be part of the Massachusetts project.The tricky thing now, Elkins says, is getting people into that model. The reason we jumped into pay for success is there was an incentive for us to jump.
Meet the Commerce Data Service

Chicago Creates Civic Tech Startup 101

Apps.Gov Returns
(TNS) -- Honolulus first two rail cars have landed on Oahu  covered in shrink wrap, resting on trailers and poised to help form a transit system that local leaders are betting on to change how commuters eventually get around the islands crowded South Shore.Mayor Kirk Caldwell joined top rail officials at Honolulu Harbors Pier 1 on Thursday to tout the arrival earlier that morning of the cars, valued at $2.2 million each and designed to operate as long as 40 years.While we have bumps down the road, 20 years from now, 50 years from now, were going to ride this system and get on these cars and not even think twice about it.This is the way were going to travel in the future, Caldwell said at a news conference held in front of the two rail cars and next to the towering hull of Pasha Hawaiis Jean Anne shipping vessel, which brought the cars from San Diego.While we have bumps down the road, 20 years from now, 50 years from now, were going to ride this system and get on these cars and not even think twice about it. Its going to be part of life here in the urban core, he added.The elevated rail system taking shape from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center will have 20 trains, and each train will consist of four rail cars. One end car and one middle car arrived Thursday. The trains will be capable of carrying 800 passengers, which officials said will be the same as 20 full public buses.Officials say the trains will form the first major driverless rail transit system for any U.S. city. Theyre not arriving in New York or Boston or San Francisco. Theyre arriving here in Honolulu, Caldwell boasted Thursday.The islands rail cars will also be the nations first to feature an open gangway design that allows passengers to move between all four cars in the train to search for open seats, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said. Theyll also feature free Wi-Fi service, call boxes and closed-circuit TV for security, officials said.The additional two cars to complete Honolulu rails first train are slated to arrive Monday, and then crews will move them next week to the rail operations center in Pearl City, according to Pasha officials. Rail crews will then test the cars and install decals and other components.The cars are being assembled at a Hitachi factory in Pittsburg, Calif. Theyre being shipped out of San Diego and Los Angeles instead of Oakland, which is closer to the plant, because the enclosed ships that handle rolling stock and could accommodate them only run between Hawaii and th ose Southern California cities, according to Pasha General Manager Reggie Maldonado.Marco Maraschin, a general manager with Baggio International Shipping, the freight company thats handling transport, declined to disclose how much more it cost to truck the rail cars to Southern California. Of course, the cost is more expensive, but the company wants to ensure safe delivery, Maraschin said. HART spokesman Bill Brennan said the costs were covered by Ansaldo Honolulu JV under the firms $1.4 billion contract with the city.Since 2014, Honolulus rail project has seen its price tag rise from $5.26 billion to an estimated $6.56 billion and final completion pushed back about two years.The first rail cars arrived about two months after the City Council and Caldwell approved Bill 23, which extends Oahus 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge funding the project another five years to cover the growing construction costs. Those approvals came after Caldwell and other rail officials spent a year lobbying to secure the additional funds.Despite the financial woes to get the full project done, HART has regularly touted construction progress  or any new step that moves the project forward. Last fall, as the Council prepared to take up Bill 23, HART and Caldwell held a tour of the nearly finished building housing the rail operations center next to Leeward Community College.This week, in addition to the cars arrival, HART touted its crews finishing the elevated rail guideway along Farrington Highway. Next week the agency will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for stations in West Oahu, where political leaders such as U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono are slated to speak.The cars that will make rails second train are due to arrive in the fall, project officials said Thursday.
(TNS) -- Seven Iranian hackers affiliated with their government conducted cyber attacks from 2011 to 2013 that disabled dozens of U.S. financial sector websites and compromised the computer system of a Westchester County dam, the Justice Department alleged Thursday.Officials admitted that federal court criminal charges filed in Manhattan against the men, announced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Washington, were symbolic because they are all in Iran, but said the U.S. ability to identify them sent a message to future state-sponsored hackers.The world is small and our memory is long, said FBI director James Comey, noting that even protected defendants like to take vacations abroad. We want them looking over their shoulders.The intrusions, which records say cost millions of dollars in remediation efforts, marked the latest entry in a growing list of geopolitical cyberwar accusations. The U.S. in 2009 used a computer worm to cripple Irans nuclear capacity, and has in the past accused North Korea, China and Russia of launching attacks.Officials like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the infiltration into sensitive infrastructure like a dam was particularly alarming and dangerous, and echoed longstanding warnings from experts that the U.S. has to provide better security.We must step up our counter-hacking game ASAP to deal with threats from places like Iran and would-be terrorists, Schumer said. A particularly neglected area is critical infrastructure  dams and power grids  and we must increase our focus on protecting them.The seven men, the charges said, were employed by two computer companies tied to the Iranian government and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and engaged in so-called distributed denial of service attacks that hijacked networks of computers to overwhelm U.S. financial sites and block real customers.Beginning in 2011, and escalating to a near weekly frequency in 2012 and 2013, the hackers targeted 46 institutions on at least 176 days, including Bank of America, the New York Stock Exchange, American Express, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank, according to the charges.Separately, in 2013 one of the defendants, Hamid Firoozi, obtained unauthorized access to computer systems of the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small flood control dam on Blind Brook in Rye, Westchester County, and used it to repeatedly get operational information on water levels, temperature and the sluice gate, the charges said.The dam hack, which was previously reported in December, would theoretically have allowed the Iranians to open and close the sluice gate, but at the time of the intrusion it had been manually disconnected for maintenance, the government said.Officials said the charges, the result of a long and difficult investigation, were designed to show foreign hackers that they could be exposed, and Lynch said there had been hopeful signs from China since exposure of Chinese intrusions a few years ago.Like past nation state-sponsored hackers, these defendants and their backers believed that they could attack our critical infrastructure without consequence, from behind a veil of cyber anonymity, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said. This indictment shows once again there is no veil.Justice officials did not mention the U.S. cyberattack on Iran in 2009, two years before they say the Iranian attacks began, or the possibility that Iran was retaliating, but Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the infiltration of the Bowman Dam a frightening new frontier in cybercrime.These were no ordinary crimes, but calculated attacks by groups with ties to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard and designed specifically to harm America and its people, said Bharara.After the dam computer invasion was disclosed in December news reports, court records indicate Bhararas office filed the indictment under seal on Jan. 21, just a few days after the Obama administrations nuclear deal lifting financial sanctions and prisoner exchange with Iran became official.Bharara and Carlin were asked whether the public announcement of the case was delayed to avoid conflicting with the diplomacy. Bharara said there were many factors affecting when a case is brought, but neither man answered with a yes or a no.Although details of the infiltration of the dam computers were not available, Cyber security expert Tyler Cohen Wood said hackers use a common technique to gain access to infrastructure systems.Wood, a cyber security expert at Inspired eLearning in Texas, said a would-be hacker might find an employees social media profile, figure out their interests and send them a convincing email laced with malware that, if clicked, downloads a program to a phone or work computer.Then, the hacker can attack the network  be it a dam, transportation or communication system  from there.We really have moved so quickly into just accepting these devices, she said.
The controversial and unpopular 'musical chairs' qualifying format will decide the grid for next weekend's Bahrain grand prix.

That is despite the fact the new concept, featuring 90-second countdown eliminations, was widely declared an unmitigated failure on debut in Melbourne.

Team bosses voted before the race on Sunday to revert to the popular 2015 format, but the change also needed to progress through the F1 Commission.

"The teams are discussing it but to go back there is no unanimity," F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, apparently referring to his and FIA president Jean Todt's vote in the F1 Commission, told Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The F1 Commission, also featuring race promoters and sponsors, was asked to vote on the matter via fax by Thursday, and the result is that the existing rules are staying in force for now.

"We have not acted rashly so the format remains unchanged, at least for the next race in Bahrain," Ecclestone is quoted by Germany's Auto Bild Motorsport.

"After that we can look again at what makes sense."

Many fans, however, are outraged that their wishes and those of the team bosses have been overruled. 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell declared on Twitter: "I wonder why the rule makers of any sport don't consult the fans for their suggestions."

An unnamed team boss went further, predicting a repeat of the Melbourne backlash.

"Now we will still be screaming bloody murder in Bahrain," he was quoted by Auto Bild.

The press is also unimpressed, with the Times' Kevin Eason surmising: "As U-turns go, this was in the brake-screeching and stomach-churning category."

Bild newspaper added: "Regarding this decision, one can only shake your head."

(GMM)
The research, published in the journal Science , outlines a potential way to make a future generation of water-splitting catalysts from three abundant metalsiron (Fe), cobalt (Co) and tungsten (W)rather than the rare, costly metals on which many of todays catalysts rely. The gelled FeCoW oxy-hydroxide material exhibits the lowest overpotential (191 mV) reported at 10 mA per square centimeter in alkaline electrolyte. Further, the ternary catalyst showed no evidence of degradation following more than 500 hours of operation.

Scientists from the Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Toronto have developed a new type of ternary catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water-splitting that exhibits a turnover frequency (TOF) thats more than three-times above the TOF and mass activities of optimized control catalysts and the state-of-art NiFeOOH catalyst.

The good things about this catalyst are that its easy to make, its production can be very easily scaled up without any super-advanced tools, its consistent, and its very robust. Aleksandra Vojvodic, a SLAC staff scientist with the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis who led the theoretical side of the work

In previous work, Vojvodic and her SUNCAT colleagues had used theory and computation to look at water-splitting oxide catalysts that contain one or two metals and predict ways to make them more active. For this study, Edward H. Sargent, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, asked them to look at the effect of adding tungsten to an iron-cobalt catalyst that worked, but not very efficiently.

The bottleneck in improving water-splitting technologies is the oxygen-evolving reaction (OER), where even the most efficient precious-metal catalysts require a substantial overpotential to reach the desired current densities 10 mA cm2. Researchers have explored earth-abundant first-row (3d) transition metal oxides, including 3d metal oxy-hydroxides, oxide perovskites, cobalt phosphate composites, nickel borate composites, and molecular complexes. The OER performance of multimetal oxides based on Fe, Co, and Ni is particularly promising, and OER activity often outperforms that of the corresponding single-metal oxides.

We examined whether multimetal oxide OER catalysts could be improved by systematically modulating their 3d electronic structure. Zhang et al.

With the aid of powerful computers at SLAC and elsewhere and state-of-the-art computational tools, the SUNCAT team determined that adding tungsten should significantly increase the catalysts activityespecially if the three metals could be mixed so thoroughly that their atoms were uniformly distributed near the active site of the catalyst, where the reaction takes place, rather than separating into individual clusters as they normally tend to do.

Tungsten is quite a large atom compared to the other two, and when you add a little bit of it, it expands the atomic lattice, and this affects the reaction not only geometrically but also electronically. We were able to understand, on the atomic scale, why it works, and then that was verified experimentally. Aleksandra Vojvodic

Based on that information, Sargents team developed a novel way to distribute the three metals uniformly within the catalyst: They dissolved the metals and other ingredients in a solution and then slowly turned the solution into a gel at room temperature, tweaking the process so the metal atoms did not clump together. The gel was then dried into a white powder whose particles were riddled with tiny pores, increasing the surface area where chemicals can attach and react with each other.



Schematic illustration of preparation process for the gelled structure and pictures of corresponding sol, gel and gelled film. Credit: AAAS, Zhang et al. Click to enlarge.

In tests, the catalyst was able to generate oxygen gas three times faster, per unit weight, than the previous record-holder, Sargent said, and it also proved to be stable through hundreds of reaction cycles.

Its a big advance, although theres still more room to improve. And we will need to make catalysts and electrolysis systems even more efficient, cost effective and high intensity in their operation in order to drive down the cost of producing renewable hydrogen fuels to an even more competitive level. Edward Sargent

Sargent said the researchers hope to use the same method to develop other three-metal catalysts for splitting water and also for splitting carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas released by burning fossil fuels, to make renewable fuels and chemical feed stocks. He and five other members of the University of Toronto team have filed for a provisional patent on the technique for preparing the catalyst.

There are a lot of things we further need to understand. Are there other abundant metals we can test as mixtures in oxides? What are the optimal mixtures of the components? How stable is the catalyst, and how can we scale up its production? It needs to be tested at the device level, really. Aleksandra Vojvodic

Jeffrey C. Grossman, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT who was not involved in the study, said:

he work impressively highlights the power of tightly coupled computational materials science with advanced experimental techniques, and sets a high bar for such a combined approach. It opens new avenues to speed progress in efficient materials for energy conversion and storage.

SLAC research associate Michal Bajdich and Stanford postdoctoral researcher Max Garcia-Melchor also contributed to this work, along with researchers from the DOEs Brookhaven National Laboratory; East China University of Science & Technology, Tianjin University and the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility in China; and the Canadian Light Source. The research was funded by a number of sources, including the Ontario Research Fund  Research Excellence Program, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the CIFAR Bio-Inspired Solar Energy Program, as well as the DOE Office of Science, which funds SUNCAT, and the SLAC Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Resources
A total of 1,858 Easter baskets filled with candy, jump ropes and stuffed animals helped form one giant Easter basket March 23. All of the individual baskets were donated to The Salvation Army of Greensboro, thanks to the support of the AT&T Pioneers and employees.

This marks the sixth Easter that the Pioneers and employees have donated Easter baskets to The Salvation Army.

The baskets will be delivered to the children who live at The Salvation Armys Center of Hope shelter, members of The Salvation Army Boys & Girls Clubs, and The Salvation Army Corps church members.

The Pioneers are a network of volunteers from AT&T who work to improve the quality of life in their community. A friendly competition between two AT&T buildings was wagered to see who could collect the most baskets, helping to lead to a record amount collected for this year.

The local group of Pioneers, 250 members strong, have been responding to many needs of the community. They have been supporting The Salvation Army of Greensboro for a number of years with a variety of projects including donating toys at Christmas, coats in the winter and toiletry items to help the homeless.
After months of Environment North Carolina and myself gathering petitions, comments and coalition sign-ons, I am ecstatic that President Obama reversed his decision to pursue offshore drilling in the Atlantic.

The coastal waters off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia are being removed from oil and gas drilling. The Obama decision represents a great victory for the North Carolina coastal environment and the beauty of the pristine coastline. The decision was announced by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. She stated that the reversal protects the Atlantic for future generations.

Thank you to our president, members of Environment North Carolina and other activists across the state who stand firm to keep our coasts protected. North Carolina has a bright future to continue to prosper our local economy and preserve the beautiful coast. Together, with the power of the people, we have won this battle.

Meredith Hovis

Raleigh
As a student at UNC-Greensboro, I support Pat McCrory in his backing of the Connect NC bonds. With their approval March 15, these bonds will provide $2 billion to state infrastructure, with provisions that allocate money to the UNC system and community colleges around the state. This will help promote economic development, as much of the funding is headed toward STEM programs that our vital to rebuilding our states economy.
Baptists declare all those who do not believe as they do are anti-Christ. Methodists are enraged and swear to bomb airports, schools and churches. Jews say their religion encourages hatred for nonbelievers and call on all Jews to seek revenge. All Christians and Jews say its OK to terrorize and murder innocent women and children. God told them its OK and they will be rewarded in heaven.

Understand what Im saying? Understand the madness of any religion that condones and in some cases encourages this philosophy of horror? How many of the religious leaders of this horror and murder are speaking out? Name them. Name the only worldwide religion I refer to. What do they want? How can they justify the terror, horror and murder? Please tell me what they want.
State lawmakers made it clear to North Carolina cities Wednesday: They sit as a Supreme City Council. Senators and representatives from Kings Mountain, Eden, Wilson, Mount Airy, Waxhaw, Archdale and Southport are absolute rulers over Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Durham and other large cities. If Charlotte gets out of line, lawmakers will yank it back. If Charlottes elected leaders lose their minds, as Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) said, the state will knock them on the head.

Republican legislators convened Wednesdays extraordinary special session to overturn a Charlotte ordinance protecting transgender people from discrimination. At 10 a.m., they presented a bill that did far more. It set a statewide nondiscrimination standard and barred any local government from exceeding it. It pointedly did not cover gay, lesbian and transgender people. This appears to supersede a Greensboro ordinance enacted last year that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing. The legislature also prohibited cities from setting a minimum wage for private employers higher than the state level of $7.25 an hour.

Democrats, vastly outnumbered in the House and Senate, tried to separate the Charlotte and statewide portions of the bill, but Republicans shot down the effort. This proved that the special session wasnt meant only to deal with public restroom issues in Charlotte. It was another rebuke to all the states cities, following previous measures to dictate city council structures, overturn rental housing ordinances, grab airports and water systems, restrict annexation authority and more.

This was one more power play by conservative legislators, many from small towns, to rein in progressive cities. It was a signal to the nation that North Carolina will stand with the most conservative states  Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana  in opposing progressive social policies.

Except that, in Louisiana, legislators from the backwoods and bayous havent overturned gay, lesbian and transgender protections in New Orleans or even Shreveport. Similar protections are found in the ordinances of Atlanta, Ga.; Miami, Tampa and Orlando, Fla.; Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.; Lawrence, Kan.; Louisville and Lexington, Ky.; St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.; Omaha, Neb.; and on and on.

In North Carolina, however, its painfully obvious that official state policy is hostile to the gay and transgender communities. From Amendment One to a law allowing state officials to refuse to facilitate legal same-sex marriages to, now, repealing local protections against discrimination, the state of North Carolina has made it abundantly clear that this population is unwelcome  whatever attitudes cities hold to the contrary.

Its disappointing that Gov. Pat McCrory immediately signed the bill. A sweeping measure with statewide impact was introduced, voted on and signed into law all in one day, with virtually no time allowed for public and business input  although major corporations are sounding alarms now.

It was a sad day for North Carolina and its cities.
The scene of the incident. Photo: Google

Maybe youve heard this one before: Two black customers walk into a bar. Staff kicks them out because of their skin color. They casually note, What bad luck for you  were lawyers at the ACLU.

Its a scenario California attorneys Abre Conner and Novella Coleman allege actually happened when they visited a dive bar in Fresno. They showed up to do karaoke (TLCs Waterfalls), but claim the bar staff at the Brig enforced a supposed drink minimum as a ruse to kick them out because theyre black. After waiting 30 minutes for their song, they checked with a bartender and were told everyone doing karaoke must always have a drink. (According to them, their group of three had already purchased two.) But they allege patrons hands all around the room were empty, making it seem like the rule either wasnt real or was just being applied to the bars only two black customers, so they refused to buy another round.

Thats reportedly when things got a little out of control, according to a post they put up on Medium:

A second bartender  a very tall and large man  shouted louder and louder that we were loitering and that the bar wasnt a hangout place. Over and over again he pushed his body up against Abre  who is just 54 tall  to force her out of the bar.



After Abre repeatedly resisted, saying, Dont touch me, he shouted that he was calling the police and stormed off.

Once police arrived, Conner and Coleman add that:

Several customers explained to the officers that the bar staff were enforcing the rule against us only. Some told the police that a one drink rule did not exist. Others even tried to buy us drinks. But the bartenders wouldnt let them.

They say the officers cited the Brigs right to refuse service, but they write they must have missed the day that right was explained in law school: Businesses actually do not have a legal right to refuse service to anyone or treat people differently based on race, they argue, adding: Its against the law for a bar in Fresno to force us, two Black women, to leave over a one drink rule that the bar only applied to us.

The Brig says Conner and Colemans version of the events is totally false. Manager Heidi Wilson tells the Daily Beast the bar asked them to leave because they were loitering. They wanted to do karaoke for free, she claims. It doesnt matter what nationality you are, you just have to buy something. She also maintains they called the police because Conner chest butted my bartender.

The two women say theyre trying to decide whether to sue, but Wilson says if they do, Were going to countersue them for slandering our name.

[Daily Beast]
According to a new report, Google has noticed how unexpectedly successful Amazon's Echo speaker has been ever since its launch in 2014. What's more, the search giant apparently wants in on the nascent market of speakers with built-in virtual assistants. Hence, it's said to be developing one such product of its own.

Unfortunately other details haven't been uncovered about this device yet. It is clear, however, that Google wants to compete with the Echo (pictured below). So it's safe to assume that its gadget will also have built-in listening and talking abilities, though obviously using Google's technology.

Many have described Google's OnHub routers as the perfect vessels for the presence of such a virtual assistant in your living room, but it looks like the company didn't agree. So it's working on something new, which may in fact be unveiled not long from now, as the annual I/O developer conference happens in May. And that's generally where Google likes to announce new products.

The Echo competitor is not being created with the help of the Nest team, that much is for sure, the report goes on to claim. This despite the fact that the Nest team requested to be part of the project. That idea was rejected by the Google people leading the effort, probably because Nest is already very late in delivering some of its own in-development products to market.

Source | Via
You can add China to the countries that will get the LG H848, aka LG G5 Lite. That's an unofficial name, the phone is called just "LG G5," but the reduction in specs is enough to earn in that moniker.

The major change is in processing power - gone is the flagship Snapdragon 820, replaced by an upper mid-range Snapdragon 652. It's actually a solid chipset with four Cortex-A72 and four A53 cores, but the Adreno 510 has big shoes to fill by having to drive the 5.3" QHD screen (the Adreno 530 is one of the most powerful mobile GPUs right now).

The RAM has been cut back to 3GB (down from 4G on the "full fat" G5). The S652 version for Latin America was justified as a cost-cutting measure, we guess the reasoning for China is similar - there you can get a metal-clad phone for prices the West can only dream about.

Anyway, the LG H848 still has a modular design, a dual 16MP (narrow) + 8MP (wide) camera setup, 32GB of storage and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The S652 chipset is fully capable of 2160p video capture, which was an issue with earlier 6-series phones.

Thanks, anonymous tipster!

Source (in Chinese) | Via (in Romanian)




Haiti - FLASH : Enex Jean-Charles presented his General Policy to the Senators





After being named https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16952-haiti-flash-enex-j-jean-charles-new-prime-minister-named.html Tuesday evening by the President a.i. of the Republic Jocelerme Privert, the new prime minister named Enex Jean-Charles https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16954-haiti-politic-who-is-enex-jean-charles.html went to parliament to present his statement of General Policy. At first he had to present it to the House of Deputies, but for lack of quorum the session was adjourned and postponed to a later date https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16970-haiti-flash-no-quorum-session-adjourned.html ; consequently he decided to try his luck before the senators.



18 senators are present in the room, there is a quorum.



The Prime Minister named thus proceeded with the presentation of its general policy.



"The action of my government will maily revolve around the following principles citizens, democratic and republican : vigor, transparency and good governance, stability and institution building, work ethic and citizen efforts, the fight against corruption and impunity, constant availability for dialogue and attention to critical constructive. Also bound by the commitment recorded in the agreement of 5 February 2016, it is with a spirit of dialogue and tolerance that I would drive the government action. It is our responsibility first we agree on solutions to our problems to give our country a direction where all Haitian can find themselves [...]



The Government undertakes to respect the agreement of 5 February 2016, if I get your vote of confidence the President of the country and myself we will issue an order to rebuild the CEP to complete the elections started in 2015."



We invite you to listen the entirety of his General Policy Statement :











A debate on the statement currently taking place.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politic : Thanks and promises of Enex Jean-Charles





After his general policy statement has received a vote of confidence Thursday in the Senate https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16972-haiti-flash-the-general-policy-statement-is-accepted-by-the-senate.html the new Prime Minister named, Enex Jean-Charles presented his statement Thursday evening before the Chamber of Deputies that granted him early Friday, a vote of confidence https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16973-haiti-flash-haiti-has-a-prime-minister-enex-jean-charles.html



By approving the statement of general policy, the country has a new prime minister and a Ministerial Cabinet https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16961-haiti-flash-members-of-the-ministerial-cabinet-of-enex-jean-charles.html for the transitional period until the installation of the new President elected stipulated in the agreement of February 5 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16533-haiti-politic-the-details-of-the-agreement-from-a-to-z.html on May 14, 2016.



Following this vote (78 deputies for, 1 against and 2 abstentions) the new Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles declared in his speech :



Speech by Prime minister Jean-Charles :

"Thank you President



Honourable President of the House of Representatives, Bureau Member, Honourable deputies, it is with great pleasure that I thank you for this almost unanimous vote of my general policy, I thank you for the confidence you have placed in me and I would also point out that this confidence I did not receive it as a blank check.



I know that the deputies in accordance with what is provided by the Constitution are mandated to monitor government action, I promise to put myself at the disposal of honorable Deputies to provide all necessary information in the context of transparency that I had announced in my general policy statement to allow the Assembly to exercise control over the actions of my government.



I thank the President of the Chamber of Deputies, thank bureau members particularly, I also thank those who have abstained, who have not given a vote against, maybe I have not managed to convince enough in my speeches.



I promise to redouble efforts and be able in a vote future convince deputies who voted against and those who abstained.



I thank the members of the government who accompanied me, I also thank the various guests and I would like to address myself if the President allows me to the population looking to say that I am aware of the heavy workload that awaits me, but I am ready to give the best of myself for the population will not be disappointed of the consensus that was reached around me, and that was concluded today.



Again thank you all"



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16973-haiti-flash-haiti-has-a-prime-minister-enex-jean-charles.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16972-haiti-flash-the-general-policy-statement-is-accepted-by-the-senate.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16971-haiti-flash-enex-jean-charles-presented-his-general-policy-to-the-senators.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16970-haiti-flash-no-quorum-session-adjourned.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16952-haiti-flash-enex-j-jean-charles-new-prime-minister-named.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Ministerial Cabinet, 3 new ministers appointed





Thursday, the Prime Minister named, Enex Jean-Charles proceeded to the appointment of 3 new ministers in his cabinet. Two portfolios were assumed ad interim and a minister was rejected and replaced.



Minister of Planning and External Cooperation :

Me Aviole Fleurant

was appointed Minister of Planning and External Cooperation (which was assumed ad interim by Prime Minister). Me Aviole Fleurant is a lawyer and university professor and former candidate for the Presidency in 2015, under the banner "Nouvelle Haiti" (affiliated to of Mirlande Manigat "Rally of Progressive National Democrats" (RDNP) where he obtained at national level 4,894 votes (0.31% of votes cast)).



Minister of Justice and Public Security :

Florence Elie, (former wife of Rene Preval both Aristidienne and Prevalienne) was discarded of Cabinet of Enex Jean-Charles and replaced by Me Camille Junior Edouard which becomes the new Minister of Justice. Me Camille Junior Edouard is a former member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Garry Conille and former Coordinator of the National Commission for the Fight against Drugs (CONALD), he is known for his stance against the former President Martelly.



Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development :

Finally, Pierre Edouard Laurore was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (function that was assumed ad interim by Yves Romain Bastien). Recall that Pierre Edouard Laurore was a candidate for deputy of the VERITE Platform.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16961-haiti-flash-members-of-the-ministerial-cabinet-of-enex-jean-charles.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Culture : RFI launches a new Haitian cultural magazine Koze Kilti





From Sunday, March 27, Radio France Internationale (RFI) proposes a new program in French and Creole Haitian broadcast exclusively on its Haitian antennas. "Koze Kilti" (Talk about culture, in Creole) is a 27-minutes cultural magazine broadcasted every Sunday at 1:30 p.m. and rebroadcast at 8:30 p.m. (Haiti time), which is produced in partnership with the French Institute in Port-au -Prince. This new appointment is presented by the Haitian journalist Dangelo Neard.



"Koze Kilti" present cultural news of the week (literature, film, visual arts and music) in Haiti and around the world, as well as the talents and personalities who promote and move the country. The French Creole bilingualism helps to strengthen ties between the two languages and to speak to the broader public.



"Koze Kilti" is recorded in the studio RFI located in the French Institute in Port-au-Prince and FM broadcast throughout the country [in Port-au-Prince (89.3 FM), Cap Haitien (100.5 FM), Gonaives (90.5 FM), Jacmel (96.6 FM) Jeremiah (92.7 FM) and Les Cayes (106.9 FM). RFI is also available via the satellite bouquet Canal Sat Caraibes]



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2016/03/24 | Source

"Descendants of the Sun" has made impact all the way to China and this is the first time in 4 years a weekday drama has broken through 30% since "The Moon Embracing the Sun".

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"Descendants of the Sun" has an accumulated number of 1.1 billion views in China. The rights to the drama has been sold to over 32 countries including America, England and France, and even a remake is being discussed.

The drama cost 13 billion won to make and it was all pre-produced. It broke the frame of typical dramas and it was produced by Investment Distribution Company, NEW. It is known as the Power Man of Chungmuro and is responsible for the success of "Taegukgi", "The Host", "Miracle in Cell No.7", "The Attorney" and more. We met the director in charge of NEW, Kim Woo-taek. He smiled and said, "I didn't know it was going to be this successful".

Q: How did you get around to start this drama?

A: It was very coincidental. I heard about a drama made by a friend and decided it had enough humanism, love, sacrifice and such to start producing.

Q: The script didn't have soldiers at first.

A: The original by writer Kim Won-seok-II was actually about doctors on the scene. After we took over and writer Kim Eun-sook was added, there was mellow in the drama. Soldiers were added in the process of dramatization and stories of chaos in a different country made the drama thicker. I read until the fourth episode and thought it was great.

Q: Was casting easy?

A: I had candidates for the male role but many felt pressured by the fact that it's a pre-produced drama and it required long-term residence abroad. Song Joong-ki who was about to finish with the military eagerly came forward. As for Song Hye-kyo it appealed to me that she was a popular star in the Chinese region. Song Joong-ki was going to have to try a character that was different from his usual image but I guessed that was going to fantasy instead. It was an act of god, casting those two".

Q: Why did you decide to have this drama pre-made?

A: I wanted to try a different method as I am a second mover in the drama market. Also I needed the drama to be 100% pre-made because the Chinese internet broadcasting requires pre-censorship. So to broadcast the drama in China and Korea together, I had to have the drama all and ready. We could increase the completion of the drama by adding more computer graphics and such. Even movie makers were added to the drama production.

Q; Wasn't it a risk to raise the total production cost?

A: No one wants to invest in a movie company that wants to make a drama. In addition, the drama is going to be pre-produced and the broadcasting companies only want to give rights to televising. Everyone said I was crazy. However, I was confident about the contents of the drama and planned out what was in my head. Even before the first episode was even released, I had broken even with foreign copyrights, rights to televising and PPL. Even with KBS, it didn't just end with televising rights but they offered to invest. This was the result of KBS waiting a long time for us. We were brave and braveness brought about good results.

Q: Some say the military life in the drama is unrealistic and that it propagandizes patriotism

A: It's just a fantasy drama. We went through this with "The Attorney" and "Northern Limit Line" but we talk about universal validity. No one makes a commercial drama to propagandize patriotism.

Q: Many people are wondering about the ending.

A: My wife says someone might die but I didn't tell her. One thing that's for sure is that the story becomes more and more dynamic. So will the romance between the couples.

Q: The movies from NEW these days haven't been so successful

A: That's why "Descendants of the Sun" feels like rain in drought. It's a matter of survival. Not every single movie can be successful but this year I think "Train to Busan", "An Inmate's Letter" and "The King" will help to restore the pride of NEW.
Published on 2016/03/24 | Source

On the tenth episode of the KBS 2TV drama "Descendants of the Sun", Jin Yeong-soo (Jo Jae-yun) caused everyone to panic.

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Jin Yeong-soo ran away with Agus' (David Lee McInnis) diamond. He tried to get on a plane for Korea but he was in danger of getting caught by Agus's men and couldn't even get to Korea.

Jin Yeong-soo made a fake passport and pretended to be Arab. He passed the airport and tried to run for another country but he was caught and taken to the police station.

Yoo Si-jin (Song Joong-ki) and Seo Dae-yeong (Jin Goo) suspected the fact that the police took Jin Yeong-soo and Kang Min-jae (Lee Yi-kyung) asked if it was about the diamond. The two suspected something was up and started to move.

In fact, Jin Yeong-soo was caught but Agus who looked everywhere for his diamond but Jin Yeong-soo had swallowed it and was in his stomach. Agus mentioned that he didn't look in the stomach and his men tried to open up Jin Yeong-soo.

Yoo Si-jin and Seo Dae-yeong made a surprise attack and Agus ran. Si-jin pointed the gun at him and said, "If you move, you will die". Yoo Si-jin had been ordered not to get involved with anything related to Agus so when Seo Dae-yeong got Jin Yeong-soo, Yoo Si-jin ordered everyone to retreat.

Jin Yeong-soo tied up Jin Yeong-soo in the hospital and asked if the diamond was Agus'. When Jin Yeong-soo denied it, Si-jin said, "I can only think straight if you tell me the truth". Kang Mo-yeon showed him the X-Ray showing the diamond in the stomach.

Jin Yeong-soo started coughing up blood. The diamond had caused internal bleeding. Kang Mo-yeon prepared for surgery and Yoon Myeong-joo (Kim Ji-won) came in to assist.

Jin Myeong-soo's blood splattered on Kang Mo-yeon and Yoon Myeong-joo. Kang Mo-yeon found another problem and told everyone to put everything down and step back. "All the symptoms look like a result of an M Virus. We have to lock down the operation room until we are completely sure what this is. Everyone get out except for me and Yoon because we are already contaminated. We have to finish this ourselves".

Yoo Si-jin and Seo Dae-yeong heard what was wrong and ran to Kang Mo-yeon and Yoon Myeong-joo. Kang Mo-yeon asked Yoo Si-jin, "On the day I met you, which one did you write? The right or the left?" and Si-jin answered, "The left because it was more charming". Kang Mo-yeon said, "I can't believe you actually answered that" and Si-jin said, "I don't think this is the time to joke".

Yoo Si-jin and Seo Dae-yeong struggled to find out what was wrong with Kang Mo-yeon and Yoon Myeong-joo. The US Army said, "The patient tested positive and one of the doctors is too".

After hearing the results, Seo Dae-yeong ran to Yoo Myeong-joo who was being quarantined and gave her a hug. Yoon Myeong-joo guessed right away that she was the one who tested positive.
By Kaitlan Morehouse

How much do you know about education in North Carolina? Did you know theres an International Society for Key Women Educators?

The professional society, Delta Kappa Gamma, brought a group of local, regional and state leaders together last week for an important discussion on some of the most crucial issues facing public education in our state.

The Reich College of Education on the campus of Appalachian State played host to the forum, A Snapshot of Public Education, on March 17, which featured eight panelists:

North Carolina State Superintendent Dr. June Atkinson

Watauga County Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Elliot

Avery County Schools Superintendent Dr. David Burleson

North Carolina Teacher of the Year Keana Triplett

Interim Dean of the ASU Reich College of Education Dr. Robin Groce

Caldwell Community College Professor Caleb Marsh

Watauga Teacher of the Year Allison Sparks

Avery Teacher of the Year Michelle Dellinger

Panelists and audience members laughed, cried, learned about the prestigious honors society and a few of its members and heard various perspectives on some of the most challenging concerns in North Carolinas public school system.

DKG opened the forum to the public, inviting guests to hear straight from these leading practitioners and raising awareness for the issues facing public education in N.C.

Recent DKG Past President Linda Little opened the program. Each panelist had an opportunity to introduce themselves and their professional experiences, and then had six to eight minutes to answer the following questions:

What are you doing at your level to prepare students to become productive citizens? What would make it easier for you to reach your goal?

Heres what they had to say:

Dellinger

Dellinger tugged at the audiences heartstrings as she talked about her most accomplished students.

I had students who had no other options. They wanted to be dropouts, and now, they are visiting college campuses.

She pinpointed the root, in her opinion, of the issues that hinder some of her students in becoming accomplished and productive citizens of tomorrow.

What I found over my 25 years among all of the hurtles and road blocks in my students lives, the one roadblock that was keeping them from having hope and having a better future was the ability to read. Not just the ability to read, but the ability to read at their level and to get through the day and their academic forces.

Dellinger gave the following advice to the audience, current and future teachers and everyone in between.

I guess what I want to say is dont let the naysayers break you. Know that everything you do will make a difference, she emphasized. Every single effort will make a difference. When you see the big picture, you get smothered. Know that you can do one thing and make a difference for one child.

Sparks

Sparks discussed the need to place greater emphasis on parental involvement in the classroom.

We need to partner with our families, she said. We cant do it without them.

She also addressed a need for more of the following:

Teacher support

High Expectations

Instructional Mind Growth (Intentional and planned)

Writing

Social skills

Pre-K for all

Smaller class sizes

An assistant in every room

Extra planning time (to help the families involved)

When youre one step ahead, it helps, she said.

If we are going to send children out into this world, they have got to be communicators.

Triplett

Triplett advocated for more parental, community and political support.

It takes all of us, She said. The whole purpose of public education in the first place was to create productive citizens, and when we collaborate together, what a beautiful picture that is.

She wanted the community to know how deeply the panelists and all educators care for their students and their futures.

Those meaningful relationships with the students that teach them those soft skills that they need to be productive citizens, to be able to walk out and say, you know, I dont agree with you, but lets talk about this.

Triplett noted that its important for teachers to understand each students individual circumstances.

Thats how you make strides in reading, thats how you make strides in math, thats how you teach them to write is you meet them where they are, and you take them from there and you give them what they need, whatever that takes.

She agreed with other panelists that community support, parental involvement and high expectations are important.

She also said:

Entitlement has been a huge issue in the education field, where a lot of times, weve said oh, its okay, you dont have to do this. Its been a tough day, but thats not the reality of life, and thats not being a productive citizen. Its that life is hard, life is tough, and there are trials and tribulations that come your way, and you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep living life, and thats the most important thing, I think, that we can teach our students in the classroom and our teachers across the state is that there are tough days, there are days where we dont feel like we are backed by our legislatorsI would challenge community members, parents, universities, community colleges, were in silos (a mindset where certain sectors or departments do not wish to share information with others in the same company) in education, and we dont need to be anymore. It is the 21st century, and its time for us to join together and educate our kids united. We are so good at being divisive, but if we could just put an ounce of that energy into uniting our efforts, what an amazing future our children have.

Marsh

As a community college math instructor, Marsh quickly pointed out that many students and people in todays culture rely too heavily on smartphones for tasks like calculating tip, which could easily be done in their heads.

He said that even the community colleges are beginning to reach and engage not only with students, but trying to engage with legislators, stakeholders, parents and other institutions, such as Watauga High School and App State, and, in doing so, the college is discovering new ways for the students to be successful.

He also said, This college is not just some college in your community, but we are your communities college.

Groce

Groce explained that the best institutions are those that help students grow into model citizens.

We engage in education as good citizens, nationally and internationally.

She also spoke of the importance of the four Ls: listening, learning, loving and laughing.

She expressed her appreciation for the hardworking people behind the ASU College of Education:

Peacock, who listened to the needs of international student teaching.

The alumni, who generally love this institution.

The staff and faculty, many of whom were in attendance, who are really engaged in what do at the community level and beyond, nationally and internationally.

The reading faculty and reading clinic, who serve the community and is a model for the state and national for reading instruction

The graduate program  Weve responded in a drop in enrollment in our graduate programs and is going to pick back up because we have demonstrated a graduate education in teaching is important and valuable and can lead to other opportunities, Dr. Groce said.

The administrators, who sponsor events for faculty, staff and students and listen and respond with necessary funding

The public school administrators who meet with each other to talk about administrative issues

Elliott

Dr. Elliot used his perspective to tell the audience a little bit about what he thinks as he goes about his position in Public Education and spoke to what he thinks we should do to encourage our students to grow and be good citizens.

He told the audience that he always remembers and uses the quote, Someone in this room thinks that what you do is more important than someone else, and someone in this room thinks that what you do is less important than someone else, and it is my job to remind you that both of you are wrong that everyones job is important.

He said that he thinks about three ideas in his role:

Creating the right organizational conditions for great people to do great things by listening and empowering teachers, such as Sparks

Being an advocate and cheerleader and telling the truth about what is done and said

Helping to frame a perspective for the students, teachers and community members, such as teaching leadership and the importance of it at any and all levels

Public education is what holds us together, He said. Its what sets us apart from other countries where we are going and spending billions of dollars.

Burleson

Dr. Burleson started off with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: For a nation to be ignorant and free is something that never was and never will be.

He spoke on what a small, rural school can do to get students ready for the world.

The first thing we do is we jump start early. We got to get our students on an equal playing field.

He discussed the significance of Avery Countys mobile PreK program, and agreed with other panelists that more attention should be paid to developing fundamental reading skills.

If a child cant read, they cant read fill-in-the-blank.

He noted his school systems effort to do just that, which includes a partnership with the App State reading lab and the fact that more than 40 of its teachers hold reading specialist or masters degrees.

We believe in reading, he said.

He spoke about new programs, like robotics competitions, and noted that North Carolina should be hiring the best and brightest teachers and paying them adequately.

Atkinson

Dr. Atkinson spoke on her hopes and dreams for education in North Carolina.

She used the story of a first-grader named London that she met on a bus ride as an example for every student in the state.

London really exemplifies what I want to happen to every student in NC. I want London to continue to love to learn. I want London to have great teachers. I want London to be among the 100 percent graduation rate.

She noted that the graduation rate reached a high last year, increasing from 68 percent in 2004 to 86 percent.

I want London to have personalized learning so that she can be among the students who get college credit while shes still in school.

In last years graduating class, she noted that 35 percent of students earned a diploma with college credits under their belts.

I want London to have access to technology so that she can solve problems that we dont even know exist today. I want London to keep that creative and problem-solving spirit.

To get to that point, it takes quality teachers, she said.

We need to continue on our journey to make sure our teachers are treated as professionals and get the support they need, Atkinson said. My hope and my dream is that as we travel there will be billboards everywhere saying, Thank you public education for what you do for our children.

About DKG:

Delta Kappa Gamma is a professional honors society of key women educators in the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Japan.

Its mission is to promote professional and personal growth of women educators and excellence in education, and its vision is to lead women educators to impact education worldwide.

Established in 1929 by 12 women who were inspired to unite, recognize and help advance women educators, DKG provides quality professional and personal growth opportunities for women educators, which include leadership development.

Dr. Annie Webb Blanton, our founder, established herself as a strong believer in equal rights for women, Little said.

DKG has involvement with the United Nations, specifically UNICEF and the schools for Africa project, Fulbright Association  bring promising young women in from developing countries to universities in the US and Canada so that they can go back to their own countries and make significant contributions to society  and special projects including forums on legislative issues.

A key purpose of Delta Kappa Gamma [is] we are to inform members of current economic, social, political and educational so that they may participate  and this is a key word  effectively in world society, said Little.

Dr. Lyn B. Schmid is the International President and Sheila Groves is the President of the North Carolina Chapter Eta.

This chapter worked diligently to pull this together, and we are so appreciative of their efforts. We are honored to have other guests  besides you all  our North Carolina State President Sheila Groves, and other members who are guests  again besides you all  Jay Fenwick from Watauga Board of Education and County Commissioners Billy Kennedy and John Welch,  said Linda Little, the 2011-13 past president of the NC Eta chapter of DKG.

Phipps is hoping that other chapters of DKG will hear how successful the forum was and have one of its own.

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By Jesse Wood

The 100-year-old Mount Mitchell State Park in Burnsville could more than double in size during its centennial anniversary.

Today, Mount Mitchell State Park consists of 1,996 acres, and The Conservation Fund is looking to convey 2,744 acres in Yancey County that it has acquired in the past couple years to the N.C. State Parks system.

The property in the Black Mountains is adjacent to Mount Mitchell and includes Cattail Peak, the fifth highest peak in the eastern U.S., and also runs down into the Cane River Valley. Bill Holman, state director with The Conservation Fund, mentioned that this conveyance to the state parks system is significant for multiple reasons.

For one, Holman said that Mount Mitchell State Park isnt accessible for four months out of the year because of Old Man Winter. Consider that in January and the first half of February in 2016, Mount Mitchell received 90 inches of snow, according to RaysWeather.com.

Mt. Mitchell is an iconic place in North Carolina. Its a wonderful state park, and unfortunately sometimes four months out of the year, the public cant get there because of the snow, Holman said. This expansion would lend itself to year-round public access.

He noted that the expansion of Mount Mitchell State Park could also improve the local economy.

I also think the expansion is good for Yancey County because a lot of the visitors to the park currently dont actually spend much time in Yancey County, and so I think this will create more traffic and visitors in Yancey County and hopefully boost Yancey Countys economy, Holman said.

Holman said that the timing of the conveyance of these properties hinge on grant funding to balance out bargain sales and private donations. The Conservation Fund is currently seeking another $1.2 million grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund and a $900,000 grant from the N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund.

The Conservation Fund wont know if its awarded the grants until August and September. Holman said a portion of the property would be conveyed this year, but ideally the grants would be awarded and all of the property would be conveyed to the state in 2016.

Charlie Peek, spokesman for N.C. State Parks, noted that stakeholders are still working on the financing details and that the timing of the entire conveyance is based on grant cycles and, of course, successful grant applications.

It would be nice for all of us it we get this wound up in 2016, Peek said, but its far from guaranteed.

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The industrial conflicts included a total of 105 strikes, 60 per cent of which were illegal, were participated in by a total of 128,000 employees and resulted in the loss of over 105,000 working days, according to a bulletin published by EK .

The Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) has revealed that its member organisations were embroiled in a total of 166 industrial conflicts last year, representing an increase of 23 from the previous year.

The strike statistics stand in start contrast to those in Sweden, for example.

Finland is a very strike-prone country in comparison to other countries in Europe. We especially have a lot of illegal strikes. In Sweden, for example, no more than three illegal strikes were staged over the past six years, according to Medlingsinstitutet [the National Mediation Office of Sweden]. A total of 604 illegal strikes were staged in Finland over the same period of time, highlights EK.

EK estimates in its press release that the massive legal demonstration organised by trade unions last September inflicted losses of over 80 million euros on businesses. A day of political protest and its [subsequent] losses raise the question, is our system of industrial peace still up to date with respect to industrial conflicts, it asks.

Trade Union Pro has contrastively proposed that the so-called grief strikes, strikes staged in protest of a labour practice perceived as unfair, be made legal in Finland. Such strikes, it points out, account for the majority of illegal strikes in the country.

A grief strike is a short protest when employees leave the workplace in the middle of the day or stay home for one day. It is not a means to apply pressure on collective agreements, but an emotional response to a law perceived as unfair, it states in a press release.

Pro points out that businesses that have reported positive results are also able to make redundancies in Finland.

The reasons for grief strikes can be removed by restricting the right of businesses to lay off personnel. If there is no willingness to do that, grief strikes should be accepted as part of legal social activities, says Else-Mai Kirvesniemi, a director of collective bargaining at Pro.

Matti Mikkola, a professor of labour law at the University of Helsinki, reminds in the press release published by Pro that the definition of an illegal strike is subject to some variation within the European Union.

The concept of an illegal strike is broader in Finland than in the EU at large, he says.

The starting point elsewhere in the EU is that strikes are not a response to what has been laid out in [collective] agreements. Strikes can, on the other hand, be a response to issues not covered by the agreements, such as an employer's plans to cut jobs, explains Mikkola.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Jarno Mela  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
She points out in an interview with Uusi Suomi that the two countries have in fact made two separate agreements concerning the west-bound flow of migrants across the northern border: an agreement to restrict cross-border traffic and a broader agreement on illegal immigration and official co-operation.

Paivi Nerg, a permanent secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, is confident that the agreement found by Finland and Russia to reduce cross-border traffic into Eastern Lapland will alleviate the problem of illegal and uncontrolled immigration.

The agreement to combat illegal immigration concerns our information exchange practices, the development of various tools and forced returns, she reveals.

Nerg says a specific agreement was drafted for the border-crossing points in Raja-Jooseppi and Salla because they are associated with special challenges. Finland and Russia have agreed to temporarily only allow citizens of Finland, Russia and Belarus, as well as their family members, to proceed through the checkpoints.

Reducing the cross-border traffic is only one piece of the puzzle, reminds Nerg.

We've faced challenges especially at the two northern border-crossing points. The agreement is an attempt to mitigate the situation for 180 days and bring it fully under control, she says.

Nerg also dispels concerns that Russia could utilise the flow of migrants as a means to pressure Finland. We've shared an understanding and willingness to normalise the situation and prevent future incidents throughout the negotiations as well as after finding the agreement, she says.

She reminds that the agreement to reduce cross-border traffic has yet to be formally signed, despite the fact that its details were made public already on Tuesday. It'll be presented to the Finnish Government and President of the Republic for approval next week. It won't enter into force until next Thursday.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Vesa Moilanen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
A devastated Louise James carries the coffin of one of her sons at the church in Derry as mourners (Brian Lawless/PA Wire)

The grieving mother who lost her two children, partner, sister and mother in the Buncrana drowning tragedy told a weeping congregation her heart was "broken beyond repair."

Louise James stood before the five coffins of her loved ones and addressed their funeral in moving scenes.

She summoned huge reserves of strength to walk to the altar of the Church of the Holy Family in Derry and recite a poem of deep grief and beauty, composed after the tragedy.

Her children Mark (12) and Evan (8), her partner Sean McGrotty (49), her sister Jodie-Lee (14) and her mother Ruth Daniels (59) all lost their lives when the family car slipped off a pier in Buncrana, County Donegal, on Sunday evening.

"A city stunned in silence, hearts broken beyond repair, the tragedy of a family gone, leaving so many in despair," she recited.

Angel

"They went to watch the sunset, together on Buncrana Pier, unbeknown to them all, an angel would be near.

"Taken together as a family, joined as one on Heaven's door, a community left in mourning, lives shattered ever more. Their faces will forever map the sea, remembered by each and every one, down by the Lake of Shadows, when you look beyond the sun," she declared.

The small, modern church was full to capacity as relatives, friends, school pals, clergy, teachers, and community leaders listened in total silence to the words of this remarkable woman. Politicians in attendance included Deputy First Minister Guinness, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and the party's former leader Martin Durkan.

Ms James thanked the Keown emergency services, the Coastguard, the lifeboat service, ambulance and health service personnel and gardai for their services on the darkest evening of her life.

But, in particular, she thanked Davitt Walsh who swam out to the sinking car and rescued her infant daughter Rioghnach-Ann. Her partner Sean's dying words to Davitt were "Save the baby."

Clasping the lectern, she said: "Finally, we will be eternally grateful to Davitt Walsh and his girlfriend Stephanie Knox.

"For without fear of his own life and safety, he entered Lough Swilly to save my Rioghnach-Ann. And I will be forever grateful to you. Thank you so, so much."

A crescendo of applause echoed to the rafters.

Damien Harkin, a teacher at Saint Joseph's primary school, told the congregation that schoolboys Mark and Evan were popular and likeable pupils.

"Evan was a beautiful, fun-loving, wee boy," he said.

He said Mark was "a teacher's dream" who was quiet, hard-working, creative, charming and always smiling.

Marie Lyndsey, a teacher at Saint Mary's College, said Jodie-Lee was a beautiful girl who also had inner beauty and "a beautiful heart."

The schoolgirl loved Justin Bieber and had a great sense of fun. She would cheer up her school friends and "the echo of her famous laugh will ring through the corridors of the school for many years to come," she said.

Character

Sean's elder brother Jim evoked laughter as he told stories of his younger brother growing up at home.

Sean loved "craic and divilment", he said, and the friends he had in childhood remained his friends throughout his life.

A strong character trait was his resolve to always see through whatever he embarked upon to its completion.

Sean first met Louise when he berated her for getting into the taxi he was driving while she was carrying a bag of chips, said Jim to laughter.

Ruth's son Joshua spoke movingly of his mother being "a perfect human being" who was loving and kind and who made him proud.

Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown said life was "precious beyond measure."

The Taoiseach and President were represented by their aide de camps Commandants Kieran Carey and Louise Conlon.
Gardai are investigating if the same hit-team involved in the murder of Eddie Hutch took part in Wednesday's gangland slaying of Noel 'Kingsize' Duggan.

There have been no arrests made in either case but sources said that the investigation teams in Ashbourne and Mountjoy garda stations have already been in consultation.

A lone man dressed in dark clothing was seen by witnesses running across the green in front of Noel Duggan's house after he was shot dead.

Gardai have said it is suspected this man jumped into a dark BMW car, which sped him away from the scene.

The BMW was found burned out along with another vehicle in Cairn Court.

Shortly after the discovery of the cars, an individual was seen getting into a dark coloured saloon car that drove back towards Ratoath.

"We are particularly interested in a man who was seen in dark clothing running from the scene onto the Fairyhouse Road," Supt Jim Cannon of Ashbourne Garda Station told reporters.

"We're also interested in a BMW car which was seen driving onto the Fairyhouse Road and in the direction of Fairyhouse.

"A short time later two cars were found burned out by gardai in Cairn Court.

"One of these cars was a BMW and very shortly after that somebody was seen getting into a dark coloured saloon car and heading in the direction back into Ratoath village," he added.

Burned

"A car that was later found burned out at Dublin Airport was also recovered by gardai but there were no immediate indications it is connected with Wednesday night's shooting."

Supt Cannon said initial indications were that Duggan had just arrived home when he was shot.

He said there was no intelligence that Duggan's life was at risk or that he was a target for a murder.

Yesterday gardai were forensically examining Duggan's Mercedes car, which was towed from the scene.

A post mortem was also carried out on Duggan's body yesterday in Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda after it was removed from the scene in a hearse as the massive probe continued.
At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama traveled to Cairo, Europe and the United Nations to apologize for past American actions and attitudes, which he claimed helped create divisions between countries. At a town hall meeting before a mix of French and German citizens in Strasbourg, France on April 3, 2009, the president said the United States was partially to blame for increased tensions with Europe following the Iraq war: there have been times where America (has) shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive toward Europe.

Mitt Romney and other critics quickly dubbed these and similar remarks his apology tour.

With the presidents visit to Havana, Cuba, that tour has come full circle. In response to a question about Cubas human rights policies during a joint news conference, Cuban President Raul Castro criticized the United States for what he asserted was Americas violation of human rights. Castro engaged in a form of moral equivalency when he asserted that the denial of health care and education for all and equal pay for women was somehow similar to the jailing of political dissidents. Castro claimed Cuba pays women the same as men. Yes, and it is called equally shared poverty, which is a good definition of the communist form of government and its economic policies.

In response to this smear, President Obama said, I personally would not disagree with him. Score another propaganda victory for communist Cuba.

Responding to a reporters question about political prisoners, Castro seemed to channel Baghdad Bob, the spokesman for Saddam Hussein, who claimed U.S. forces were not in Iraq as TV cameras showed them advancing on Baghdad behind him. Castro denied Cuba holds political prisoners, but then told another reporter, ...give me a list of the political prisoners and I will release them immediately.

The reporter didnt have a list, but several human rights organizations do. Given Cubas record of oppression (an estimated 50 human rights advocates were arrested prior to President Obamas visit and a women in white demonstration was broken up by police), the release of anyone from Cubas notorious prisons is about as likely as a democratic political system sprouting up in the country to challenge the communist dictatorship.

President Obama promised aid to Cuba, from help in connecting its citizens to the Internet, to trade. Business leaders who accompanied the president on the trip are anxious to build hotels and conduct other business in Cuba. The upside of this is that it might produce more openness in a society that has been closed for more than 50 years. The downside is that any prosperity will be used by the Cuban government to underwrite revolutions throughout Latin America; just as giving Iran its frozen assets will most assuredly facilitate the growth of terrorism throughout the world.

While the light of democracy can dispel the darkness of dictatorship, a light can be extinguished if its power source dims. So far, the U.S. has received nothing in return for the presidents initiative and his claim of a new beginning in the U.S.-Cuban relationship.

The new beginning President Obama pledged for the Middle East in his Cairo speech has not reversed or even slowed the old turmoil that never seems to end. Will it be different in Cuba? From Raul Castros remarks and the presidents partial agreement with him, the signs do not provide cause for optimism.
Hubs top Warriors for CMC title as both teams aim for deep playoff runs

After facing off for the CMC volleyball title, North Hagerstown and Boonsboro now are focused on the upcoming playoffs.
What you need to know about Powerball and the $580 million jackpot

News
FLINT, Mich. (JTA)-At 86, Jeanne Aaronson is blind and lives alone, but she has seen a lot over the years.

She lived in Flint when it was a manufacturing powerhouse, a center of the automotive business and a symbol of American industrial might and ingenuity. She lived through the city's decline in the 1970s and '80s as the auto factories closed and the population decamped for better opportunities elsewhere. And more recently, she witnessed the beginning of its revival, with the opening of new businesses and a slew of brewpubs and coffee shops on Saginaw Street.

Now Aaronson is living through yet another difficult period in Flint history, as the city copes with toxic levels of lead in its drinking water that has made Flint a national example of failed governance. Like all the residents here, Aaronson is surviving on bottled water, which she must even feed to her elderly dog.

"Am I ticked? You bet I'm ticked," Aaronson told JTA. "I'm ticked at the stupidity of our governor for appointing that emergency manager who decided to save a few bucks by poisoning us. Just stupid. I'm ticked at everyone from the very top to the very bottom. Except our new mayor. Mayor Weaver's doing a good job. But otherwise, I have no faith. None at all."

Flint has been facing a public health emergency since April 2014, when the city, under the direction of a state-appointed emergency financial manager, began to use the Flint River as its water source. The city used to get its water from Detroit's water system, which relied on Lake Huron and the Detroit River as water sources. After the switch, the state chose not to use phosphates as an anti-corrosion agent, which caused lead to leach from old pipes into the drinking water.

The crisis was featured prominently in the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday, with both candidates addressing the water situation in the opening minutes. Clinton described meeting mothers terrified for their children. Sanders spoke of his broken heart at hearing of a child now developmentally delayed as a result of lead poisoning.

"Whether this happened because of sins of omission or sins of commission doesn't matter," said Steve Low, the director of the Flint Jewish Federation, which has been helping deliver bottled water to local residents. "It doesn't make the poisoning of Flint's water supply any less heinous."

Aaronson's is one of only 66 identified Jewish households left in Flint, a city of 100,000 people 60 miles northwest of Detroit. About 200 more Jewish families live in the Flint area but outside the city limits, where the water hasn't been affected.

Like Aaronson, many Jews in Flint are elderly, and they've been particularly battered by the crisis. For some with arthritic hands, merely opening the bottled water that is now an essential commodity here can be a challenge. Others have had difficulty getting assistance because they don't have Internet access or are hesitant about opening their door to strangers in a high-crime city.

"For me, this is one giant pain. And yes, I am plenty angry. But I can take care of myself," said Sue Ellen Hange, 61, a member of Flint's Temple Beth El who got skin rashes from showering in the contaminated water. "I can't imagine what it'd be like to be homebound and dealing with this."

The Flint Jewish community has responded with support both moral and material. To ease the fears of the city's older Jews, familiar faces from the federation's senior services division often accompany the water delivery. Two of Flint's synagogues have held informational meetings and offered special prayers for healing. Synagogue social action committees have also reached out to local residents to remind them they're not alone.

Support has also come from further afield. The Metro Detroit Federation made a cash contribution of an undisclosed sum to the community. Several Detroit-area congregations joined forces and made the trek 60 miles north with a truck full of water. The Yad Ezra Food Pantry, a group of Detroit-area Chabad houses and the Jewish Federation in Toledo, Ohio, also made water donations.

From Indianapolis, Shapiro's Deli sent a complete Shabbat meal for 150 in January, including corned beef, pastrami, knishes, chicken soup with matzah balls and even Dr. Brown's soda. The Jewish relief effort even reached as far as California, where San Francisco chocolatier and Flint native Chuck Siegel sent over an array of sweets and beloved Flint nostalgia foods like Vernors ginger ale and Koegel's hot dogs. In Los Angeles, Flint native and Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman helped stage the Hollywood Helps Flint fundraiser on Feb. 21, which has so far raised $33,000 for the city.

"We may have left Flint," Bragman said at the fundraiser, "but Flint never left us."

The crisis comes at a particularly unfortunate moment for Flint. After decades of mounting poverty and crime, the city had recently begun to rebound. Businesses as varied as a small maker of hip eyeglass frames to corporate giants had set up shop in the city. Renovated dowager buildings downtown are now trendy loft apartments. The Michigan State University Medical School opened a new campus downtown, and Kettering University and the University of Michigan-Flint both dramatically expanded their footprints in the city.

"If it's possible to see the good in this," Low said, "it's that the water crisis threw a big net over the community and has drawn us together. Going back to the 1950s, Flint's Jews and the African-American community have always worked together. Lately, not so much. But the water has rekindled some of those passions we both share for social justice."

The crisis has also drawn the Jewish and Hispanic communities together. At a recent meeting at Flint's Temple Beth El, congregant Melba Lewis pointed out that many local Hispanics are undocumented and are loath to open their doors to uniformed officers to distribute water. The synagogue wound up partnering with a large Hispanic church to distribute a pallet of water to the church for distribution.

Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images Volunteers loading cases of free water into waiting vehicles at a water distribution center in Flint, Mich., March 5, 2016.

But whatever silver linings Flint residents might find in the crisis, their faith in elected officials seems unlikely to be restored anytime soon. Low saw signs of racism in the crisis, likening the decisions that created the crisis in this majority-African American city to other government moves-like the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling invalidating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and the nationwide trend to implement voter identification laws-that have disproportionately impact on minorities. Aaronson simply feels abandoned.

"I was listening to the Republican debate last night, 70 miles from here in Detroit, and there's one question about the water," she said last week. "One question! That's so wrong. It should have been on the top of the list."

David Stanley is a writer based in Flint, Mich. He served as a member of the Flint Jewish Federation board of trustees from 1990 to 1992.
TEL AVIV (JTA)-In the summer of 1942, while Nazi officials in Wannsee were coining the term "Final Solution," Leni Sonnenfeld donned a crisp sundress and smiled into a camera in New York City's Central Park.

At her side was her husband, Herbert, dressed in a starched U.S. Army uniform. In the photo he's confident and casual, his hands in his pockets and his legs spread wide. She is elegant and poised, a quiet smile on her lips. They are young and clearly in love.

Staring at the attractive pair in the snapshot-a rare one in which the couple appears in front of the camera-it's hard to believe the Sonnenfelds bore witness to some of the most momentous Jewish events of the 20th century. From 1933 until the dawn of the 21st century, the two photojournalists-German-born Jews who settled in the United States just before World War II-tasked themselves with documenting Jewish life across an ever-turbulent globe.

Their images of Israel's nascent kibbutz society, of Jewish rituals in Iran and Morocco, and of the Zionist symposiums that indelibly changed the shape of post-Holocaust Jewish existence offer a sweeping and yet surprisingly intimate record of 70 years of crucial, tenuous history.

Known as the Sonnenfeld Collection, the 500,000 images are owned today by Beit Hatfutsot-The Museum of the Jewish People.

There is Albert Einstein making small talk with visitors at Princeton University in the 1950s. There is a Holocaust survivor working on a 1960s Israeli kibbutz, his tanned, toned body showing diametric opposition to the numbers inked onto his forearm. There is a bar mitzvah in Morocco and a German youth resistance group boarding trains from Berlin to Marseilles. And there are refugees-so many refugees-spilling from boats and trains and alighting in Haifa, New York and other ports across the globe.

And now, thanks to The Museum of the Jewish People's digital overhaul of its archives, the images will be available to the public and fully searchable online for the very first time.

"It's a gift that you can't stop admiring," says Rachel Snold, director of the Bernard H. And Miriam Oster Visual Documentation Center at Beit Hatfutsot, of the collection.

The Sonnenfelds started taking photographs in Germany in 1933, when Herbert, an insurance expert, was laid off from his job in the first wave of sweeping anti-Semitic laws passed by the Nazi regime. The couple, sensing the evil that was afoot, took an exploratory trip to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine.

When she saw her husband's developed photos, Leni realized that Herbert's snapshots from the trip-Jewish children dancing in a circle on a Haifa-bound ship; Jewish and Arab workers conversing in the hot sun of a kibbutz-deserved to be published. She peddled the images to a number of Jewish newspapers and magazines, and Herbert's career as a press photographer was born.

At first, Leni served as her husband's assistant. But as the years passed her camera skills grew, and soon the couple worked as a team of equals.

As the Nazis grew more bold and Berlin became more sinister, the Sonnenfelds tried to immigrate to Palestine. Under the strict legislation of the British Mandate, however, they were denied the necessary documents.

Instead they made it to New York City in 1939. Herbert became an official photographer for Yeshiva University while Leni traveled, often alone, to some of the most far-flung Jewish communities on the globe-Morocco, Spain, Yemen and Iran, among them-documenting the colorful varieties of global Jewish life. She sold her photos to the likes of The New York Times, Life magazine and Esquire.

"You cannot say which one was more talented, Leni or Herbert," Snold says. "I've thought about it a lot. And when you look at an image from the collection, it's impossible to tell from the image alone which one of them took the shot. Their style is similar to a film director managing a scene. It's like they freeze a moment, but at the same time, there is always movement there, always life."

Herbert Sonnenfeld died in 1972. Leni continued to take photographs for another 30 years, shutterbugging until just before her death in 2004.

She never remarried, and the couple never had children. In 2005, a distant relative in Israel gifted Beit Hatfutsot with the nearly half-million slides, negatives and prints that comprise the Sonnenfeld Collection.

The images are stunning, and their crisp quality has been preserved in Beit Hatfutsot's online archives.

But Snold is hoping for something more: That through the digitization process, the hundreds of faces captured by the Sonnenfelds will be properly identified.

Leni and Herbert Sonnenfeld in New York City's Central Park, 1942.

In nearly 90 percent of the images, Snold says, the subjects are still unknown. Putting them online and allowing the public to search the images is the museum's best hope that Internet users around the world may spot family members or friends, and finally fill in the gaps in the collection's archives.

"There's a kind of poetic documentation in these photographs, and you feel like you know the people behind the image," Snold says. "Now we are hoping people who actually did know the people will see some of the images and let us know who they are."

This article is part of a series sponsored by the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot, the sole institution anywhere in the world devoted to sharing the complete story of the Jewish people with millions of visitors from all walks of life.
Preschoolers from the iKid Productions video class in The Roth Family JCC's Shayna's Village shot a video in 2015 called "SuperKids and the Missing Challah," (shown here as a still frame) which can be found online at http://bit.ly/superchallah. This video is just one of the many original films featured on the award-winning J-TV, found in the JCC's lobby. The JCC will accept two additional marketing awards this spring from the JCCs of North America.

The Roth Family JCC of Greater Orlando will receive three awards in the marketing category at the JCCs of North America Biennial to be held May 15-18 in Baltimore, Maryland. More than 700 people from the U.S., Canada, Israel, and countries in Latin America and Europe and the former Soviet Union are expected to attend this showcase event of the JCC Movement.

The awards are for three different marketing projects-J-TV, a TV station in the JCC's lobby featuring JCC-created video content; the data-driven redevelopment of the JCC's website at orlandojcc.org; and the technology-driven CRM process by which the JCC introduces new families to its Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center.

All three awards were given for initiatives spearheaded by Amy Schwartz Kimlat, who has served as the JCC's marketing director since 2006. However, collaboration was key for each initiative. J-TV also features video content developed by Karen Duncan and Matt Duncan through the preschoolers' iKid Productions class in the JCC's creative center for young children, Shayna's Village. Additionally, J-TV features content developed by Camp J's video specialists, Zach Wieselthier (2015) and PJ Metz (2013 & 2014).

The technology-driven CRM process is expertly implemented on a daily basis by the JCC's early childhood management team-Carol McNally, Jodi Alter, Laura Maitland and Anne Krudo.

Lastly, the website was also a collaboration, built by Cliff Manspeaker of Drive New Media and designed by Sarah Blacksher and Jeff Matz at Lure Design. The initiative was co-spearheaded by Todd Haber, the JCC's board vice president for marketing.

"Our JCC has a long history of setting the 'marketing bar' for other JCCs in the country," said Todd Haber, The Roth Family JCC's vice president of marketing on their Board of Directors. "Our community should be proud of the JCC staff team's efforts."

The full list of JCCA Biennial Awards can be found at http://biennial.jcca.org/awards/jcc-excellence-awards.

Those who choose to work in non-profits and dedicate their careers to building community aren't always recognized when their work succeeds or goes beyond expectations, said Robin Ballin, JCC Association senior vice president, directors JCCs of North America Biennial.

Amy Schwartz Kimlat

"This is a chance for them to shine, for their peers to see what excellence looks like and for others to get ideas, and run with them," she said. "We have so many talented people in the field, doing exceptional work every day. It was difficult choosing which initiatives were deserving of awards."

This year there were 213 submissions for the competition. Awards recognized excellence in lay leadership, program and operations, and marketing and communications.

Every two years, the JCCs of North America Biennial Convention brings together JCC lay leaders to learn, share, and network with their peers. JCC Association offers leadership and vision and invites top speakers to lead seminars and workshops on a variety of topics relevant to JCCs-their operation and mission.
Freda Elizabeth Mimi Rosen, age 78, passed away peacefully and comfortably with family by her side in San Marcos, California. She was born in Washington, D.C. on March 18, 1937, to the late Sophie and Mike Weber and was the oldest of four siblings. She was adored by her three brothers, Paul (Ginger) Weber of Winter Park, Norman Weber of Las Vegas and David (Jill) Weber of Maryland. She enjoyed helping and watching her younger brothers grow up and loved them very much.

Mrs. Rosen married the love of her life at 20, and worked as a secretary for the CIA, while her husband, Col. Ronald Rosen, went to Dental school. During his career with the Air Force, they traveled to the Azores, Germany and many stops in the States including Massachusetts, California and Florida. They retired and built their dream home in Indialantic, Fla.

One of her many joys was her love of cooking. Mrs. Rosen passed theses skills down to her children and grandchildren. Son Howard works in the culinary field and son Robert knows his way around the kitchen. In her later days, she would enjoy trying all the experiments her grandchildren would cook.

During the late 90s she would travel frequently to California to see Robert and Cathy and her grandkids. She didnt want to miss a moment of their lives. During her California trips, she became close friends to many wonderful people whom she enjoyed and loved very much. She ultimately relocated to California in 2014 to be with Robert and Cathy and their three children.

Over the last two years, as her health began to fail, she faced many medical challenges. However, she was the ultimate fighter and fought valiantly until the end.

She was predeceased by her husband, Col. Ronald Rosen, USAF Ret. in 1993, and is survived by her children, Pam Rosen (Carl) of Orlando, Howard (Maggie) Rosen of New Jersey and Rob (Cathy) Rosen of San Marcos, Calif.; and four grandchildren, Corey, Ronnie, Gehrig and Ryan.

During her final days, she was cared for by amazing people. They kept her comfortable and attended to her every needBerta, Edna, Anna, Pinky and Barb... Love you all.

Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy.

 Anonymous

A graveside funeral service was held at Ohev Shalom Cemetery, Orlando, with Rabbi Arnold Siegel officiating. Arrangements entrusted to Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel, 640 Lee Road, Orlando 32810.
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida recently received $10,000 from Walt Disney World Resort through Disney Grants. The Holocaust Center will use the funding to support its education programming, particularly the UpStanders bullying-prevention initiative.

"We are thrilled with Disney's ongoing support, and honored to be chosen for this grant award," said the Center's Executive Director Pam Kancher. "Their dedication to our community is important to all of us, and we appreciate their continued investment in our mission and our programs."

Along with 120 other nonprofits and organizations throughout Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake and Polk counties, The Holocaust Center was granted by Disney and received a special "Mousecar" award. In all, more than $5.6 million in Disney Grants will be awarded in support of efforts to positively impact the lives of over 300,000 local children and their families.

The grants support Central Floridians through a variety of services such as after-school programs for students, bonding activities for new parents and anti-bullying awareness skills.
(JTA)Former Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman will head a new center for the study of anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has never gone away and other forms of hatred including prejudice, bigotry, and bullying continue to persist, museum chairman Bruce Ratner said in a news release Monday. We believe it remains essential to understand the genesis of these events, and I can think of no one better suited to take this on than Abe Foxman.

The center at the New York City museum will host a permanent exhibition on the history and contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism. It will also offer programming, discussions, courses, school tours, research and timely news on issues pertaining to anti-Semitism.

Using the Holocaust as historys most extreme example of anti-Semitism, the museums exhibition will focus on the modern era, examine where the specific hatred of Jews comes from, why it continues to persist, and the dangers it poses to a free society, the news release said.

Foxman resigned last June from the ADL, where he spent 28 years as national director and 50 years in total. Since September he has been working remotely as a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.
On March 30, Dr. Yudit Greenberg, Cornell endowed professor of religion and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Rollins College, is pleased to invite the community to a stimulating evening of dialogue with a presentation by Dr. Nathan Katz, distinguished professor emeritus, founder-director of the Program in the Study of Spirituality, and director of Jewish Studies/academic director of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami.

The event will take place in the Galloway Room at 6 p.m.

Dr. Katz is best known for his work about Indo-Judaic Studies and has written award-winning books on Indian Jewish communities. He was selected as a delegate to the 1990 Tibetan-Jewish dialogue hosted by H. H. the Dalai Lama and reported in the best-selling The Jew in the Lotus. He reciprocated the hospitality in 1999 when the Dalai Lama first visited FIU for an honorary doctorate, as well as his 2004 and 2010 visits.

As the spiritual and temporal leader of a people who had been defeated by Communist China nearly 60 years ago, the Dalai Lama wanted to learn the Jewish Secret for surviving in exile. After all, he reasoned, the Jews had the expertise: 1,900 years of living in the Diaspora, all the while preserving their distinct religion. Surely the Tibetan people could benefit from Jewish experience, he reasoned.

Hear a first-hand account of this remarkable dialogue, one that spurred both Tibetans and Jews to understand not only one another, but themselves as well.

The dialogue will be accompanied by a light vegetarian meal

This event is organized by the Jewish Studies Program. Co-Sponsorship includes the Philosophy and Religion Department, Rollins Coexist, the Philosophy and Religion Club, and the Center for India and South Asia

Please more information please contact dames@rollins.edu.
(JTA)Iran said a U.S. court ruling last week ordering it to pay more than $10 billion for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks is ridiculous.

This judgement is so ridiculous... more than ever before it damages the credibility of the U.S. judicial system, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to Agence France Press.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York issued a default judgment Wednesday against Iran for $7.5 billion to the estates and families of people who died at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It includes $2 million to each estate for the victims pain and suffering, plus $6.88 million in punitive damages.

Daniels also awarded $3 billion to insurers including Chubb Ltd. that paid property damage, business interruption and other claims.

In his ruling, Daniels said Iran had failed to defend itself against claims that it had aided the 9/11 hijackers.

Iran, which is Shia Muslim, has consistently denied any involvement in the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, which are widely believed to have been the work not of Iran but of the Sunni Islamic fundamentalist group al-Qaida, which took credit for them.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary general of Irans High Council for Human Rights, said, If they [the United States] want to prosecute anyone over the September 11 incident, it should be their allies in the region who created al-Qaida and funded it, presumably referring to Irans Sunni enemy Saudi Arabia.
With parental support, Jewish Academy of Orlando announced March 18 that they are suspending enrollment for middle school and will focus on kindergarten through fifth grade. Board President Jordan Steinberg stated, We had to make some tough decisions, based upon enrollment numbers, financial considerations, and community responsibility. We owe it to our families to provide the high quality product they have grown accustomed to.

Although there were some families interested in enrollment, Jewish Academy has to stay true to its mission and the delivery of unparalleled academics.

Steinberg added, We do have parental support. Many parents have shared that we dont need to make excuses for doing the right thing for the school. We are making sure that the school is viable, and fiscally responsible. Its time to rethink the way we operate our school, and listen to what our parents and community supporters are telling us.

Head of School Alan Rusonik shared, I think when it comes to attending a small school, there are clearly advantages and disadvantages. But at one point, small can become too small and the disadvantages begin to outweigh the advantages.

Jewish Academy of Orlando prides itself in delivering a high-quality education. We asked ourselves if we could provide enough variety in the curriculum and extracurricular activities, as well as a range of social experiences for the students, said Rusonik. Unfortunately, the enrollment was below a threshold that we could not meet these demands.

Continuing, Rusonik added, We will be able to focus 100 percent on our thriving kindergarten through fifth grade classes. The school also plans to right-size the large space it currently occupies, and is working closely with Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando to bring in much needed revenue to help sustain and further develop academic and Jewish activities. Ultimately, all of these moves will allow the board and administration to return to our core mission and prepare JAO for the years to come. JAO also plans to offer curriculum improvements and differentiated learning programs that many families are looking for.

Since 1977, hundreds of students have benefited from the Jewish Academy of Orlandos education and atmosphere, while being inspired by its Jewish studies and community. It is the hope of the board and administration to strengthen our school and continue to provide academic excellence for future members of the Orlando Jewish community.
(JNS.org) Two 17-year-old Iranian-Jewish teenagers were arrested in Tehran this week after they were caught spray painting the words Death to Haman on a building.

Based on the details that came from Iran, the Tehran police promised to release the two boys, both 17, after it was made clear to them that this is not a political act, but a simple Purim prank, but as of now, the boys have not been released, said an official familiar with the case, according to Maariv.

Jewish groups in the U.S. have become involved in advocating for the boys release. The Iranian Jewish community, which numbers about 13,000 people, has also expressed concern about the safety of the boys due to previous cases in which Jews were imprisoned in Iran and later disappeared. The status of the boys has not yet been determined.

Although the authorities in Iran and the Muslim population are not connected to the story that took place in the historical Persian capital of Shushan, conservative factions in the country refer to the Book of Esther as the story of a massacre committed by the Jews against their enemies, an American Jewish official handling the case said.

Tradition states that the city of Shushan, which is mentioned in Purims Book of Esther, is today the modern city of Hamadan in the northwest of the country. Although the boys have indicated that the graffiti was intended as a prank, the wording Death to Haman could still be interpreted as a provocation against the current regime.
WASHINGTONThe Reform movement harshly criticized Donald Trumps hate speech, but backed AIPACs invitation of the Republican frontrunner to speak at its annual conference.

Reacting to Trumps acceptance of the invitation on Friday, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Monday called his campaign bigoted.

His campaign has been replete with naked appeals to bigotry, especially against Hispanics and Muslims. Previous comments he has madeand not disavowedhave been offensive to women, people of color, and other groups. In recent days, increasingly, he appears to have gone out of his way to encourage violence at his campaign events. At every turn, Mr. Trump has chosen to take the low road, sowing seeds of hatred and division in our body politic, the movement said in a statement.

The movement went on to compare Trumps comments about American ethnic and religious groups to past treatment of Jews.

Mr. Trumps extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric reminds us that our own ancestors access to American shores of freedom and promise were once blocked, with deadly consequences. When he speaks hatefully of Mexicans or Muslims, for example, we recall a time when anti-Semitism put Jews at deathly danger, even in the United States. We cannot remain silent, for we have been commanded to remember the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, it said. We, the leadership of the Reform Jewish Movement, believe we must speak up against such hate speech.

At the same time, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis expressed understanding and support for the American Israel Public Affairs Committees decision.

AIPACs intentand its responsibilityis to better understand the candidates views on issues that impact the US/Israel relationship, the statement said. Mr. Trump is the unarguable frontrunner for the Republican nomination, and he has not yet spoken clearly about his views on US/Israel issues. The AIPAC Policy Conference will give him an opportunity to do so, just as it does for other candidates.

The movement pledged to somehow reach out to the New York real estate billionaire at the confab.

The Reform Movement and our leaders will engage with Mr. Trump at the AIPAC Policy Conference in a way that affirms our nations democracy and our most cherished Jewish values, the group said in a statement. We will find an appropriate and powerful way to make our voices heard.

AIPAC has come under fire on social media for inviting Trump, who has said he will approach Israel-Palestinian peacemaking with neutrality, has proposed to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, has called for closing down some mosques and for stopping the entry into the United States of Muslims and has derided Mexican illegal immigrants as comprising mostly rapists and murderers.
On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise announcement that he would withdraw the main part of Russian forces from Syria, in an announcement that shocked many of the countries concerned about the ongoing conflict in the country, including Israel. The move by Putin came as Syrian peace talks began this week in Geneva, Switzerland between the Syrian government, and opposition and rebel groups in the wake of a ceasefire announced in late February between Russia and the United States.

I believe that the task put before the defense ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled. With the participation of the Russian military...the Syrian armed forces and patriotic Syrian forces have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism and have taken the initiative in almost all respects, Putin reportedly told his government ministers.

A long-time ally of the Syrian government dating back to the Cold War, Russia entered the Syrian civil war last fall on the pretense that it would be attacking Islamic extremist groups like the Islamic State. However, over time reports indicated that Russian forces were largely targeting Syrian rebel groups that were battling the Syrian government. Bolstered by Russia, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was able to reverse significant loses and even begin to regain territory, especially near Syrias largest city of Aleppo.

Despite this weeks drawdown announcement, Putin also said that Russian forces would remain at the Russian naval base in Tartus and its Hmeimim airbase in Syria, a claim that has also led to questions about the extent of Russias actual withdrawal from the country. Many nations and leaders are also left wondering about the future direction of the five-year-old Syrian civil war, as well as Putins goals and motivations regarding the embattled country.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said at a Knesset hearing on March 15 that Israel had no prior information about the Russian announcement of a reduction in its involvement, just as others didnt.

Anna Borshchevskaya, a fellow and Russian expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JNS.org that Putin likes to test himself in the role of a great leader and peacemaker. This situation allows him to look like a peacemaker. Somebody who carries out a limited military campaign and see it through.

Israel was initially troubled by Moscows intervention in Syria last fall on the side of Assad, a long time enemy of Israel. Additionally, Israel is concerned that by Russia bolstering Assad it would also allow Iran and its Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah, whose fighters are also fighting on behalf of the Syrian government, to strengthen as well. But despite these concerns, Israel and Russia quickly established an operating mechanism for cooperation in Syria that would prevent each side from accidently attacking the other.

Following the announcement by Putin, Russian envoy to Israel Alexey Drobinin attempted to assuage fears in Israel that a Russian pullout would lead to further instability.

We will try to ensure that this (Syria) crisis is resolved, and we will also do everything so that Israels national security interests are not harmed in the process, Drobinin told Yedioth Ahronoth without elaborating.

In separate remarks to Israeli Army Radio, Drobinin said that Russia will remain mindful of Israels concerns.

Israel is a neighboring country. It cannot be indifferent to what is happening in Syria. We take this into account, of course, he said. We have an ongoing dialogue with the Israeli side on all levelsthe military level and diplomatic level.

On March 16, in a previously scheduled visit, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin.

There is a need for coordination with Russia regarding the current situation, Rivlin told reporters while in transit to Moscow. Everyone understands that Islamic State is a danger to the entire world, but the Shiite fundamentalist Islam of Iran is for us no less a threat, he said.

Borshchevskaya also believes that Russias drawdown in Syria will give Putin an advantage in the peace talks, where he can try to push for his own agenda.

His own agenda is securing Russias interest. But Russias interest is as he defines it, which is not necessarily good for Russia in the long term, its whats good for Putin. But he is assured that he has leverage in this process, she said.

Assad was losing ground until the intervention and now he is not. Putin helped him secure ground, that is tangible success that he [Putin] can claim, she added.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, echoed this view, telling JNS.org that Russias involvement in Syria is a power play to increase its international stature and protect its interests.

One of Russias reasons was to regain a foothold in the Middle East as a power broker, Ottolenghi said. And to preserve and control its access to the Mediterranean at its naval base in Tartus.

Otherwise Russias navy would be at Turkeys whim to allow its access through the Bosphorus strait, he said.

Yet for Israel, Russias siding with Syria, and thereby Iran and Hezbollah, who are supporting the Syrian government, presents a complex challenge to the Jewish States relations with Moscow.

Ottolenghi said that unlike Israel, Russia doesnt view the radical Shia Islam promoted by Iran and Hezbollah as a major threat.

Overall the Russians dont view Shia Islam, even in its radical form, so much as a threat to them. Most of their problems, especially the homegrown ones, are (from) Sunni Salafi extremists, Ottolenghi said.

While I dont think they see it as a problem, they also dont care that much. If the Israelis bomb Hezbollah, I dont think Russia is going to lift a finger to prevent that, he added.

During the meeting between Rivlin and Putin this week, Rivlin reportedly told Putin that Israel was interested in restoring a United Nations peacekeeping force between the Israeli-Syria border, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was concerned about Iran and Hezbollah establishing a foothold in that region.

Russias interests in Syria are clear to us, an anonymous Israeli official told Haaretz. President Putin spoke of his wishes and plans clearly and president Rivlin will pass them on to the prime minister.

Putin also told Rivlin that he plans to meet with Netanyahu soon to discuss the security situation in the region.

Putin said that Russia and Israel have a large number of questions to discuss linked with the development of bilateral trade and economic relations and questions of the regions security, the Russian news agency TASS reported.

I hope that well be able to discuss them in the short run with the Israeli prime minister with whom we have made arrangements for a meeting, he said.

Borshchevskaya noted that Putin has been quite successful in improving relations with Israel since he came to power, but added this this has limits.

He is ultimately not going to sacrifice Russias interest for Israels sake, she said.

Ultimately Putin only cares about himself he wont genuinely take Israels security concerns into account, she added.
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Has Donald Trump's time come, and will Jewish political conservatives embrace him?

Trump, the real estate magnate and front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, rolled closer to victory on Tuesday with wins in at least three primary states. His strong showing, earning 161 delegates or more depending on the final tally in Missouri, brought his delegate tally to 621-halfway to the 1,237 he needs to secure the nomination.

The question for Jewish political conservatives is whether to hold their noses and embrace him.

With Sen. Marco Rubio's departure from the race after losing decisively in his home state of Florida, the alternatives for Jewish conservatives are narrowing: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who remained locked in a dead heat with Trump in Missouri as of Wednesday morning, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who won his home state.

Both men still face a daunting challenge in overcoming Trump. But cable news pundits theorized Tuesday night that Kasich's victory, along with the delegates Cruz already accrued having won seven states so far, could keep Trump from winning the majority of delegates and bring the party to a brokered convention in July.

Trump's rise has appalled the Republican establishment, and even more so its Jewish contingent, many of whom have openly rejected his candidacy. They have reeled both at his insistence that he would remain neutral on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and his rhetoric targeting Muslims and Mexicans.

The "Jews are next" thought that haunts the Jewish psyche every time minorities are targeted seemed to bear out the day before the primaries, when a Trump surrogate, Pastor Mark Burns, mocked Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermonter vying for the Democratic nomination.

"Bernie Sanders, who doesn't believe in God, how in the world are we gonna let Bernie... really?" Burns told a crowd in Hickory, North Carolina. "He gotta meet Jesus, he gotta have a coming to Jesus meeting."

Sanders is not known to be an atheist. The Anti-Defamation League called the remarks "offensive, erroneous, and exclusionary."

Rubio, who had emerged as the favorite of Jewish foreign policy hawks, could not bring himself to mention Trump's name in his concession speech Tuesday night, delivering a plea for a party "built on principles and ideas, not on anger, not on preying on people's frustrations."

Trump in his victory speech congratulated Rubio, whom he had derided as "Little Marco" for much of the campaign, for having fought hard and predicted a "great future" for him.

Speaking from his palatial home in South Florida, Trump took aim at the Obama administration's trade policies and the Iran nuclear deal, saying it had released $150 billion in Iranian frozen assets for "nothing." He wound up his speech by calling the reporters present "disgusting," eliciting laughter from his supporters.

There are signs that Trump may be getting a grudging second look from Republican Jews dedicated to the proposition of keeping a Democrat out of the White House. Israel Hayom, the Israeli newspaper owned by Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate and kingmaker in GOP politics, plastered its Wednesday front page with a photo of Trump and the headline "Within Reach." The newspaper is known to generally reflect Adelson's political preferences in Israel and the United States.

Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor who was an early Jewish establishment favorite during his failed 2008 presidential campaign, had told the newspaper the day before that Trump was all but inevitable as a candidate.

"They're all going to get behind Donald Trump," Giuliani said. "Here's one thing we're united about-we do not want Hillary Clinton as president of the United States."

Adelson has yet to declare his support for a candidate, although for a period he was said to be wavering between Cruz and Rubio. The Israeli political blogger Tal Schneider reported that at an event honoring Giuliani two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Adelson replied "Why not?" when asked if he would support Trump, and praised Trump's success as a businessman.

Clinton, with her own decisive string of victories on Tuesday, also took a clear step toward securing the Democratic nomination. With 1,094 delegates to Sanders' 774, catching up looks to be more difficult than ever for Sanders, who had hoped to repeat his surprise victory last week in Michigan and forge a path to to the nomination through the Midwestern states.

Clinton's wins in Ohio, Illinois, Florida and North Carolina dashed those hopes. Factoring in superdelegates-party officials who have promised to back her-Clinton now has 1,561 delegates of the 2,383 total delegates necessary to secure the nomination. Clinton and Sanders remained in a close race in Missouri as of Wednesday morning.

"We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November," Clinton said at her victory party Tuesday night in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Clinton praised Sanders for his "vigorous" campaign, but her remarks made clear she is training her sights on Trump, citing some of Trump's more controversial positions, including the use of torture against prisoners of war and barring Muslims from entering the country.

"That doesn't make him strong-it makes him wrong," Clinton said. "To be great we can't be small."
Zionistas invite the community to a unique opportunity to be informed on the latest behind-the-scene news from Israel. Alan Kornman, contributing editor for Family Security Matters and the regional coordinator of The United West-Uniting Western Civilization for Freedom and Liberty, will brief the attendees about his March 2016 Israel trip.

The program will take place on Tuesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. at the Eastmonte Civic Center, 830 Magnolia Drive, Altamonte Springs.

Kornman, who is a frequent contributor to numerous publications including Heritage Jewish News, will bring reports from his meeting with military and government officials, including an interview with General David Ivry, who led the destruction of the Osirak Nuclear Reactor in Iraq.

He also will share with us what the present mood in Israel is, how Israel views the United States and our media, what tactics are necessary to defeat Israels enemies, and how much violence the Israeli government is willing to take in order to avoid a full-scale war.

This program is open to the community at no cost. Donations are appreciated.

Founded by Eva London Ritt, Diana Scimone, Judy Shujman and Sandi Solomon, Zionistas are a coalition of Christian and Jewish women united for Israel. Advocacy, Awareness and Activism is the driving force behind the Zionistas.

For information contact Sandi at sansolomon@hotmail.com or 407-831-0176.
John Kerry has a new strategy for achieving Mideast peace: mobilize the international community to gang up on Israel.

That was the essence of the secretary of states disturbing remarks in Paris on March 13. Kerry declared that the Obama administration is looking for a way forward to bring about creation of a Palestinian state. He said that Palestinian statehood is absolutely essential.

Not just an idea worth exploring; not just something to be considered. Rather, absolutely essential. Kerry and President Obama have made up their minds and will not consider any alternatives. They have decided that establishing an independent Palestinian state is the only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its just a question of how to make it happen.

The administrations attempts to pressure Israel into creating a Palestinian state obviously have not been successful so far. So Kerry is looking for new ways to harangue the Israelis. Standing next to a group of European foreign ministers at the Paris press conference, Kerry said: Theres not any one country or one person who can resolve this. This is going to require the global community, it will require international support.

Significantly, Kerrys quest for an international alliance to pressure Israel comes on the heels of Frances recent announcement that it will try to convene an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The French said that if the conference failed to produce a Palestinian state, they will go ahead and unilaterally recognize such a state. Thats the French idea of negotiations.

The French approach, which Secretary Kerry now seems to be moving towards, is reminiscent of similar proposals that were made back in 1985. Alarmed, then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin flew to Washington to try to head off the convening what was being called an international umbrella for Mideast negotiations.

Whenever anyone mentions umbrella, it reminds me of Chamberlain and Munich, Rabin declared. For Rabin to invoke the memory of Chamberlain selling out to Hitler at Munichand for Rabin to use those words at a press conference in Washingtonvividly illustrates how dangerous he considered the international proposal to be.

Its not hard to understand why Rabin in 1985 opposed such a proposal, and its not hard to see why Israels leaders today oppose it, too. If Kerry succeeds in his strategy, such an international conference or umbrella would consist of a dozen or more Arab and European countries ganging up on Israel and demanding that the Israelis make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. Knowing the Obama administrations pro-Palestinian slant, one must assume that the U.S. would side with the Arabs and Europeans.

The Frenchevidently with Kerrys tacit approval, or perhaps even his encouragementare pushing forward. French diplomat Pierre Vimont will be visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority this week to promote Frances initiative. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, appearing alongside Kerry at the press conference: The conflict is getting worse and the status quo cannot continue.

The conflict is getting worse? No, its not.

The status quo cannot continue? Yes, it can.

I am the last person in the world to minimize the reality of Palestinian terrorism. But theres no way anybody can say the current attacks are worse than the weekly bus bombings of the 1990s. Israels strong military response put an end to the suicide bombingswhich shows that if Israel does not fight with one hand tied behind its back, it can beat the terrorists.

And the status quo may not be the ideal solution, but show me a better one thats feasible. Withdrawing to indefensible borders? Setting up an armed or soon-to-be-armed Palestinian state just a few miles from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? In 1976, people were saying the status quo cannot continue. They were saying it 1986 and 1996 and 2006, too. Yet here we are, nearly 50 years after the 1967 warand it has continued, because the alternatives have been worse.

Of course, what Kerry and French call the status quo is not at all the same as the status quo of the 1970s or 1980s. In 1995, Rabin withdrew from the areas where 98 percent of the Palestinians reside. For the past 21 years, the Palestinian Authority has functioned as a de-facto state in a large portion of Judea-Samaria. The only thing the PA lacks is a full-fledged army and the ability to import tanks and planes. And from Israels point of view, thats not such a bad status quo.

So maybe its time for Kerry and his gang of would-be interveners to step back, take a deep breath, and face the fact that the slogans and ideas of the 1980sstatus quo, international umbrella, and the likeare just not suited to todays reality.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (JTA)At many colleges and universities today, Jewish students are often pitted against students of color when it comes to Israel.

In my three years at Vassar College, I have been toldby a Jewish student leader, no lessthat supporting Israel is tantamount to supporting oppression. I have watched Jewish friends bullied into silence by aggressive anti-Israel activists who call the Jews racists. I have seen many anti-Semitic comments from fellow students on social media. Although I have had many good experiences at Vassar and have made many friends, it can be uncomfortable to be Jewish here, especially if one supports Israel.

But nothing prepared me for the mob mentality that prevailed here on March 6, when Vassars student government, the Vassar Student Association, voted 15-7 to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, against Israel.

Other than members of Vassars J Street U chapter, which offered an alternative resolution endorsing a two-state solution and calling for the creation of a student committee to educate the campus about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicta resolution overwhelmingly rejected by the student associationfew showed up to oppose BDS.

They did not stay away because they were busy or because Vassar lacks anti-BDS students. They stayed away because they were afraid of pro-BDS students who have, over the past two years, pursued an aggressive campaign of intimidation at Vassar.

BDS supporters have picketed a class that was to travel to Israel and the West Bank, tweeted a Nazi cartoon, sold T-shirts celebrating a gun-toting Palestinian hijacker and sought to deny funding to J Street U to attend a conference sponsored by Haaretz.

Perhaps most damaging of all, they have divided the campus by portraying the territorial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as a case of white colonialists oppressing people of color. Few charges on college campuses today are as incendiary as calling someone a racist, and BDS supporters routinely direct it at their opponents, regardless of their political inclinations.

The behavior of BDS supporters at the March 6 vote was typical. One after another, members of groups representing students of color stood up to denounce Israel for oppressing people of color. One student from Vassars Multiracial/Biracial Student Alliance claimed supporting BDS was necessary to support the black and Arab population of Gaza.

Those who attempted to challenge the resolutions intellectual basis were mocked.

Jesus Christ, exclaimed a pro-BDS student in response to a question about the resolutions claim that BDS is based in intersectional feminism.

Does that question even have to be answered? sneered another.

Most disturbingly, students who raised concerns about the effects of the unending BDS campaign on Vassars Jewish community were heckled and laughed at. One Jewish student talked about how the BDS campaign had invoked every anxiety nightmare she had ever had. She was crying as she spoke. Pro-BDS students laughed at her.

Religious minority groups were pitted against one another as well. When a Jewish member of the student associations council reminded the gallery that Jewish students at Vassar had suffered the most during the BDS campaign, a pro-BDS student responded that Jews on campus had a Jewish studies program and a rabbi, as if her concerns hardly mattered. Muslim students, this BDS supporter argued, lacked an imam and similar classes.

Another Jewish student talked about Israels founding in the wake of the Holocaust. He was immediately accused of using the Holocaust as a political tool to justify the genocide of another people. The diminishment of the Holocaust has become routine at Vassar. Many students here think of the Holocaust as an event that affected white victims rather than people of color, and they argue that it therefore receives too much attention compared to other atrocities.

At the meetings conclusion, one non-Jewish council member said she felt very complicit in the anti-Semitism that was occurring tonight. Some, at least, feel shame about what happened on March 6.

Pro-BDS students do not constitute a majority at Vassar. They accomplish things by being highly aggressive, highly vocal and highly organized. And they bully opponents into silence by accusing them of racism, as they did on March 6.

It is time that Vassar students and professors who, one hopes, reject tactics like these, stand up and reject the divisiveness that BDS has brought to Vassar and so many other campuses. Vassar students, particularly its Jewish students who have suffered the most during this debate, deserve to feel safe, and they deserve not to have their identities and their fears dismissed by those with an extreme political agenda.

Jason Storch is a junior at Vassar College who serves as co-president of the local Chabad center and treasurer of the Vassar Jewish Union.
Belarus has a Jewish heart. This country used to be home to millions of Jews for centuries. It used to be the only country in the world that had Hebrew and Yiddish as two of the state languages.

Many extraordinary people have Jewish roots in Belarus. Among them are Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Harrison Ford, Louis Bart Mayer (The person who created Oscar), Michael Kirk Douglas, Marc Chagall and Yehuda Pen (internationally renowned artist), Chaim Weizmann, Steve Ballmer (an ex CEO of Microsoft), Isser Harel (he established Mossad), Yeruham Eitan Livni and thousands of others. To be more correctJews came from Belarus because there was a law in the Russian Empire that forbade Jews from settling to the east of the Belarusian border (in Russia)that is why practically all Russian Jews have their roots in Belarus.

During World War II, Nazis and their helpers from Lithuania, Latvia and Poland tried to do their best to annihilate Belarusian Jews, but they fought hard and with the help of ordinary Belarusians they managed to survive.

Today many Jews in Belarus hide their origins because the ghost of anti-Semitism is always near, but I know for sure that this generous country hosts hundreds of thousands of people with Jewish roots. When Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled by armed radicals and their sponsors, the ghost gained new strength because many of the activists were people with Jewish surnames and this fact reflects greatly on the Jewish communities in former USSR countries. They think only about their income and dont care how it affects Jews in Russian-speaking countries. That Ukrainian story gave fertile ground for the ideas based on Jewish conspiracy theories.

Belarus is not an exception. Radicals live even in this country. The idea of Jews are guilty in everything is still alive. Jew-supporters without any problems draw Magen Davids on posters with Jewish artists in the center of Minsk (Belarusian capital) without condemnation even from Jewish organizations. Even more, the only Belarusian Jewish news web site, jews.by, is being pressured by some officials from Jewish organizations when it points on hot issues.

In this atmosphere the Israeli embassy in Belarus is the last defense line but somebody in Israel decided to leave Belarusian Jews without protection. Is this an act of revenge against Avigdor Lieberman? Yes, he was extremely effective as a minister for foreign affairs and he decided not to lie to his electorate and did not join this strange coalition that we have today. But is this a good excuse to leave thousands of Jews without any protection? I doubt it. Lieberman reopened the embassy and the last ambassador, Joseph Shagal, who has been the best head of the diplomatic mission and has brought political and economic relation between the states in the highest level ever, is his friend.

First of all, the government fired the ambassador and after that they announced the decision to close the embassy in the country that has become one of the worlds arenas in solving international problems. Was this decision wise? I doubt it.

What is the official reason to close the embassy? To cut expenses. Do you believe this? This is the worst possible excuse in the diplomatic world. Its like a slap in the face. They are talking about cutting expenses (the annual budget for the embassy was 3 million dollars) and at the same time give 3 billion dollars to ultra-orthodox voters. Half of them dont even recognize Israel. Together with the closing of the embassy will be the closing of the Israeli cultural center, which is home for hundreds of teenagers, families and aged persons. This center is the only official organization that promotes love to Israel in Belarus.

After that dont tell that all Jews are equal and they are equally important for Israel. Maybe it will be a surprise for you, but olim hadashim from former USSR countries dont even get darkon* when they ask for a passport. They have to live at least one year in Israel to obtain a right for this document and the western Jews do not have this kind of problem.

Save the embassy, save the Jewish heart.

(*Israel issues two different passports. The first one is darkon, the second is lesse passe. Yuspa explained that if a person made an aliyah and three months later decided to travel abroad - he or she has to go to the ministry of internal affairs and ask for passport. If this person came from an ex-USSR country and did not live in Israel at least a year he or she would get a lesse passe (travel document). This document is not recognized as an Israeli passport and he or she would need to apply for a visa. If you are lucky enough to be a French, Italian, German or other western country Jew (including Latin America) - you will get darkon and become a first class Jew.)

This article first ran in The Jerusalem Post. Meir Yuspa lives in Belarus, but hopes to make aliyah. He can be reached at meiryuspa@gmail.com
NEW YORK (JTA)Americas political system is broken, and the last thing the country needs is another career politician at the helm.

With money more than ever a corrupting influence in politics, the White House should be occupied by someone who isnt beholden to well-funded lobbyists or super PACs.

Politicians have a real problem with honesty. The country needs someone authentic who isnt afraid to speak the truth and disrupt convention, even if its not politically correct.

If youre planning to vote for Donald Trump for president, youve probably argued one or more of these points.

Trumps electoral success may be bewildering to many American Jews, the vast majority of whom vote reliably Democratic, and alarming to those disturbed by his delay in disavowing the support of white supremacist David Duke, the bullying at Trump rallies and his specific positions (or lack thereof) on a range of issues.

But Trumps Jewish supporters see the candidate as refreshingly honest, unafraid to challenge political orthodoxies (including conservative ones) and successful in businesswhich, they say, is just the sort of experience a president needs. They also believe hell be good for Israel, not least because, they say, hes a savvy negotiator who knows enough not to publicly take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

People are bent out of shape because he wont take sides. Im a negotiator myself; thats how you do things, said Gedaliah Shaps, 49, an entrepreneur and self-described modern Orthodox liberal Jew from New Yorks Long Island. But I believe he truly has Israels best interests at heart. He says Israel is going to love him, and I believe that.

Like many other Jewish supporters of Trump, Shaps noted that Trumps daughter, Ivanka, is an Orthodox Jew (she converted before she married husband Jared Kushner).

While Trumps opponents see him as a demagogue and vulgar blowhard who would lead the country to disaster, his supporters minimize his bullying, believe his lack of detailed policy prescriptions is a sign that pragmatism would trump ideology in a Trump presidency, and are generally willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

I think hes honest. Obviously he has a good business background, said Marc Rauch, 64, a film producer in Los Angeles who is originally from Brooklyn. Hes not a politician, so I think a lot of stuff hes responding to on the fly. He hasnt spent 20 years running for office. We need real leaders, not professional politicians.

Trump is somebody who has real experience. What I dont want is another guy who has done nothing in his life other than run for public office.

For many Jewish Trump supporters, as for many Americans who back him, Trumps main appeal is they believe he has the best shot at defeating Hillary Clinton in the general election in November.

This is to me more about who I dont like than who I like, said Lawrence Stern, 69, an attorney in Los Angeles. I have been a lifelong registered Democrat. However, in the last few federal elections I have seen the Democratic Party move away from what I believe were its roots and its core foundation to a closer relationship to those who are both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

Stern said hes voting against Clinton because of her support for the Iran nuclear deal, her infamous 1999 embrace of Yasser Arafats wife, Suha, and the support given to the Clinton Foundation from Arab donors.

Some of the political sentiments driving Jewish support for Trump echo widely held views among Americans of all political stripes. They are fed up with the political gridlock and dysfunction in Washington. They decry the corrupting influence of money in politics. They dont trust politicians.

Indeed, widespread exasperation with the ways of Washington helps explain both major surprises of the 2016 presidential campaign: the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders on the left and Trump on the right. In each candidate, supporters see a great hope for major political change.

Hes not without flaws, Sheldon Wolf, 53, the CEO of a computer software company in Tampa, Florida, said of Trump. But I look at what he can bring to the table. People are so upset about our do-nothing Congress. If theres one guy who can possibly bring these people together and work together, its Trump. Its sure not Bernie Sanders, and its sure not Ted Cruz.

Asked about Trumps delay in disavowing Duke, or the remarks some found offensive at last falls Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Washington, D.C., when Trump seemed to invoke classic stereotypes about Jews and money, Trumps Jewish supporters say they dont believe hes a white supremacist or a bigot. Many noted his longstanding support for Israel, including his 2004 role as the grand marshal of the annual Salute to Israel Parade in New York.

Some of his behavior raises questions, but Im ready for that risk because the other Republicans I find horrible, said Dr. Ben Enav, 44, a pediatric gastroenterologist from the Washington suburbs of northern Virginia.

He definitely says some things I am not always comfortable with when it comes to race or sexism, Enav said. But I always wondered: How does someone have such a big organization and he has never been accused of bigotry or sexism? I think some of his rhetoric is showboating and I think some of it is reality. He is willing to say what a lot of people are thinking.

There appear to be some inherent contradictions in the qualities many of Trumps Jewish supporters say they like about him. They see his brash and sometimes crude persona as authentic, but believe hell behave differently as president. They admire his business successes but disregard or explain away his business failures. They acknowledge his big ego but say Trump understands that being president is more about assembling the right team of advisers than about the man himself.

In short, his supporters project onto Trump the positive things they want in a president and downplay the negative signs Trump opponents find so alarming.

People say hes failed so many timeswell, you learn from failure. Youre not going to succeed unless you fail many times, said Lisa, a 32-year-old Jewish voter from Los Angeles who asked that her last name not be published. I think a lot of his brash statements that people bag on him for are because you have to get a political conversation started. I dont think hed necessarily act that way in a presidential meeting. The person you see on TV is actually very different than how hed be as president.

In fact, many Jewish Trump supporters see him as a relative moderate, someone guided more by reason than by ideology.

Compared to the other Republicans, on certain issues hes probably the most liberal out of all of them, said Orna Enav, 45, an Israeli immigrant and Ben Enavs wife. On social issues like gay marriage or abortion, which hes not vocal about, I believe hes probably more liberal than anybody else.

She added, I can understand why some people in the Republican Party dont want him.
By Ira Sharkansky

One of the more problematic stories associated with the present wave of Palestinian violence is that of an attack on a security guard at a shopping mall in Maale Adumim.

A video shows repeated blows with an ax, directed at the head of the security guard, which continue despite the guard already down and defenseless. You can see it here.

Whats especially troubling about this episode is that the attacker is someone who worked at the shopping mall, and was known to his victim. They had coffee together at the canteen, and the victim showed no hesitation to opening a door for the Palestinian after dark.

The story resembles what Jews have told one another for years, about Arabs and earlier about Europeans. You cant trust any of them, is the message. Even people you thought of as friends will turn against you when someone starts chanting slogans about killing Jews.

There is truth in this, but there are other stories as well. Arabs individuals provided refuge to Jews during the Hebron pogrom in 1929. More recently, Arab individuals have protected Jews set upon in Isaweea. Israel radio has reported about frequent contacts between Palestinian and Israeli security personnel that have saved Jews who took the wrong turn and found themselves threatened in a Palestinian town.

Our family has stories on both sides of the divide. A cousin spent her childhood with a Christian family in the Netherlands while her parents went east to their death. Another relative was turned over to the Germans by the Dutch. Another cousin who grew up in Germany, went to the US in the early 30s, and returned to his previous home in a US Army uniform, encountered people who expressed sorrow about what happened to his mother. He responded by saying that he wouldnt help them any more than they helped her.

The overall ambiguity of these stories is part of the Jewish experience.

Likewise, what we are hearing about the current wave of individual attacks. From the signs available, Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are both encouraging them and seeking to curtail or limit them. They are claiming to urge restraint, instructing security personnel to cooperate with Israelis, yet praising as martyrs those who have died while attacking Jews. Palestinian school maps continue to show the whole area from the Jordan to the sea as Palestine, and lessons based on the Koran teach that those who sacrifice themselves for Islam are assured a place in the upper levels of Paradise.

Some of the violence is self-perpetuating. Close relatives of Palestinians killed in recent months have taken knives, guns, or cars, and have sought revenge by killing Jews.

Thirty-three Israelis have been killed since mid-September, and many more injured. The number of Palestinians or Israeli Arabs killed while attacking is approaching 200. The numbers arrested or injured are somewhere in the thousands.

However we may decide to describe the support or opposition to the current wave of violence by the Palestinian leadership, it is not moving the Palestinians any closer to the accomplishment of national aims. They are suffering in part because of the barbarism shown by other Muslims in the region and the mass of migrants seeking refuge (or targets of violence) in Europe, and in part due to the Palestinians own record in rejecting opportunities for negotiations that involve giving as well as taking. As long as basic conditions do not change, the Palestinian destiny is one of money and warm lip service from world leaders and political activists who aspire to be politically correct, but not much else.

What should Israel do?

Were destined to hear daily urgings from foreign worthies that we must sit with the Palestinians once again, with the implication that we must offer them something tempting. There are foreign leaders, including individuals at or close to the peaks of German, British, and US governments, who say that the time is not ripe. Opposition Israeli politicians join the confusing chorus. They are united in criticizing the Prime Minister and his government for failing to do enough, or for their stubborn adherence to a posture that there is nothing to do. Yet leading figures in the Knesset opposition also say that the time is not ripe.

Not being ripe may mean that the chaos in the Middle East keeps Palestinians and Israelis from being able to plan their future. Or it may mean that the lack of a Palestinian leadership, with nothing better on the horizon, makes it unlikely that any reasonable proposal from Israel can find an acceptance, or a reasonable counter-offer

The larger picture resembles that story about the recent attack in the Maale Adumim shopping mall. Its hard to read Palestinian intentions and capacity, and dangerous to count on any optimistic prediction of what theyll do.

Its also significant that in response to that attack, Israeli security personnel initially closed Maale Adumim to Palestinian workers from the West Bank, but then reopened it after a couple of days. The closing/opening reflects the political sensitivity of each attack locally and within all of Israel, as well as the ongoing mutual dependence of Palestinians and Israelis, the concern to keep options open, and the conclusion that most of the time, most Palestinians prefer work for the sake of themselves and their families over opportunities for violence.

Comments welcome.

Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus), Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, irashark@gmail.com.
Mystified Outer Banks tourists witnessed a bizarre act of nature Friday, Oct. 14, as fish began flinging themselves onto the beach at Ocracoke Island. Multiple videos shared on social media show the ocean appeared to boil with fish as they tumbled over each other in the surf. The so-called bluefish blitz concluded with thousands of dying fish piled on the sand, flopping up and down as ...
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Barack Obamas visit to Cuba is the first by a US president since Calvin Coolidge went in 1928. American investors, expat Cubans, tourists, scholars, and scam artists will follow in Obamas wake. Normalisation of the bilateral relationship will pose opportunities and perils for Cuba, and a giant test of maturity for the United States.

The Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro 57 years ago was a profound affront to the US psyche. Since the founding of the US, its leaders have staked a claim to American exceptionalism. So compelling is the US model, according to its leaders, that every decent country must surely choose to follow Americas lead. When foreign governments are foolish enough to reject the American way, they should expect retribution for harming US interests (seen to align with universal interests) and thereby threatening US security.

With Havana a mere 90 miles from the Florida Keys, American meddling in Cuba has been incessant. Thomas Jefferson opined in 1820 that the US ought, at the first possible opportunity, to take Cuba. It finally did so in 1898, when the US intervened in a Cuban rebellion against Spain to assert effective US economic and political hegemony over the island.

Read | Time to bury last remnants of Cold War in Americas: Obama

In the fighting that ensued, the US grabbed Guantanamo as a naval base and asserted (in the now infamous Platt Amendment) a future right to intervene in Cuba. US Marines repeatedly occupied Cuba thereafter, and Americans quickly took ownership of most of Cubas lucrative sugar plantations, the economic aim of Americas intervention. General Fulgencio Batista, who was eventually overthrown by Castro, was the last of a long line of repressive rulers installed and maintained in power by the US.

The US kept Cuba under its thumb, and, in accordance with US investor interests, the export economy remained little more than sugar and tobacco plantations throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Castros revolution to topple Batista aimed to create a modern, diversified economy. Given the lack of a clear strategy, however, that goal was not to be achieved.

Castros agrarian reforms and nationalisation, which began in 1959, alarmed US sugar interests and led the US to introduce new trade restrictions. These escalated to cuts in Cubas allowable sugar exports to the US and an embargo on US oil and food exports to Cuba. When Castro turned to the Soviet Union to fill the gap, President Dwight Eisenhower issued a secret order to the CIA to topple the new regime, leading to the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, in the first months of John F. Kennedys administration.

Later, the CIA was given the green light to assassinate Castro. In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to forestall another US invasion  and teach the US a lesson  by surreptitiously installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, thereby triggering the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

Read | Give me a list: Castro refuses to admit Cuba has political prisoners

Through dazzling restraint by both Kennedy and Khrushchev, and no small measure of good luck, humanity was spared; the Soviet missiles were removed, and the US pledged not to launch another invasion. Instead, the US doubled down on the trade embargo, demanded restitution for nationalised properties, and pushed Cuba irrevocably into the Soviet Unions waiting arms. Cubas sugar monoculture remained in place, though its output now headed to the Soviet Union rather than the US.

The half-century of a Soviet-style economy, exacerbated by the US trade embargo and related policies, took a heavy toll. In purchasing-power terms, Cubas per capita income stands at roughly one-fifth of the US level. Yet Cubas achievements in boosting literacy and public health are substantial. Life expectancy in Cuba equals that of the US, and is much higher than in most of Latin America. Cuban doctors have played an important role in disease control in Africa in recent years.

Normalisation of diplomatic relations creates two very different scenarios for US-Cuba relations. In the first, the US reverts to its bad old ways, demanding draconian policy measures by Cuba in exchange for normal bilateral economic relations. Congress might, for example, uncompromisingly demand the restitution of property that was nationalized during the revolution; the unrestricted right of Americans to buy Cuban land and other property; privatisation of state-owned enterprises at fire-sale prices; and the end of progressive social policies such as the public health system. It could get ugly.

In the second scenario, which would constitute a historic break with precedent, the US would exercise self-restraint. Congress would restore trade relations with Cuba, without insisting that Cuba remake itself in Americas image or forcing Cuba to revisit the post-revolution nationalisations. Cuba would not be pressured to abandon state-financed health care or to open the health sector to private American investors. Cubans look forward to such a mutually respectful relationship, but bristle at the prospect of renewed subservience.

This is not to say that Cuba should move slowly on its own reforms. Cuba should quickly make its currency convertible for trade, expand property rights, and (with considerable care and transparency) privatise some enterprises.

Read | Obamas final foreign policy adventure

Such market-based reforms, combined with robust public investment, could speed economic growth and diversification, while protecting Cubas achievements in health, education, and social services. Cuba can and should aim for Costa Rican-style social democracy, rather than the cruder capitalism of the US. (The first author here believed the same about Poland 25 years ago: It should aim for Scandinavian-style social democracy, rather than the neo-liberalism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.)

The resumption of economic relations between the US and Cuba is therefore a test for both countries. Cuba needs significant reforms to meet its economic potential without jeopardising its great social achievements. The US needs to exercise unprecedented and unaccustomed self-control, to allow Cuba the time and freedom of manoeuvre it needs to forge a modern and diversified economy that is mostly owned and operated by the Cuban people themselves rather than their northern neighbours.

(Jeffrey D. Sachs is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Hannah Sachs is studying Cuban history at Yale University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016)
The meeting between the Congress and DMK on Friday over sharing seats for the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections remained inclusive with the national partys senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad saying the allies are yet to firm up the numbers.

Azad, who called on M Karunanidhi along with senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, spent over an hour with the DMK patriarch and senior party leaders MK Stalin and Kanimozhi and other office bearers.

In this meeting, we did not discuss the numbers. But maybe the next time during the second meeting, we would be able to firm up the numbers, Azad told reporters outside Karunanidhis Gopalapuram residence.

Todays meeting was only the first of more such meetings where the number of seats each party would contest would be finalised, he said.

The senior Congress leader added they are trying to ascertain who the other alliance partners that have come on board are and also those about to join the formation.

Azad skirted questions about the number of seats that his party would ask for.

The next time, we would like to tell the DMK leadership that we should also finalise the number of seats we would contest and also as to how many seats the others would contest.

This is not the final meeting, Azad said adding that the Congress leadership would also be apprised of the developments and briefed about the deliberations.

The seat-sharing discussions are expected to be heated as well as protracted as the two sides are maintaining stiff positions. While the Congress wants to contest at least 63 seats, the same number it contested in 2011, the DMK is unwilling to allot the national party more than 30 seats.

A senior DMK leader said, The Congress is now considerably weakened after its leader GK Vasan broke away and it should not insist on a large number of seats and lose them. The alliance would suffer if Congress insisted on high numbers.

Azads visit came days after the unsuccessful attempts of the DMK to woo Captain Vijayakanths DMDK to its camp. Besides the Congress, DMK has reached an electoral understanding with Muslim parties like the IUML and the MMK. IUML has been allocated five seats by the DMK.

The Congress and the DMK had announced their alliance to fight the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, reviving a partnership three years after they parted ways on a bitter note, earlier in March.

The DMK was a part of the ruling UPA for almost nine years before pulling out of it in March 2013 to protest the then Manmohan Singh governments stand on the Sri Lanka human rights issue at the United Nations.

The DMK continues its hunt for smaller regional parties to add vote shares that will give it a fighting chance in what promises to be a multi-cornered contest, that at present seem to present AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa with an advantage.

The Congress has been out of power in Tamil Nadu for nearly five decades.

In the 2014 general elections, both the parties fought the polls separately and both drew a blank. The Congress faced the ignominy of losing deposits in all but one of the 39 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Tamil Nadu.

Both parties had realised the necessity to build an alliance to take on a resurgent Jayalalithaa and came together after a gap of five years, to fight the 2016 general elections together in an alliance.

Congress leaders hope that the alliance will reap rich electoral dividends as had happened in 2004, 2006 and 2009 polls. The DMK-Congress combine won all the 39 Lok Sabha seats in 2004 parliamentary elections, and also formed the government in the state in 2006.

The alliance performed reasonably well in 2009 general elections in which it won 28 seats.

The southern partys popularity has been on the decline after its drubbing in the 2011 assembly polls followed by the complete rout in the 2014 general elections.

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The death of a daily wager in a detention camp for suspected foreigners in Assams Silchar could raise questions for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scheduled to address a BJP rally in Karimganj on March 27.

Silchar is the hub of southern Assams Barak Valley, which has 15 assembly seats in three districts bordering Bangladesh.

During his 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had said the detention camps would be closed if BJP comes to power at the Centre. He also promised citizenship to Hindus from Bangladesh.

The deceased D-voter, Bulu Shabdakar, was lodged in the Silchar detention camp, not far from where Modi had made his pre-Lok Sabha poll promise. The death of the 68-year-old last week could become a rallying point for NGOs and human rights bodies to remind the Prime Minister about the plight of Indian foreigners.

The camps are for people caught entering Assam illegally or declared foreigners, but only a fraction are D-voters .

D-voters are people who failed to prove their Indian nationality.

Majority of 1.36 lakh D-voters, blacklisted by Election Commission since 1997, are Bengali Hindus perceived to be BJP loyalists. State agencies say many are missing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why D-voters cant vote

The churning of illegal migrants issue in Assam led to a category of voters who cant cast their ballot

By-election to Mangaldoi LS seat in 1978 reveals sudden rise in registered voters, leading to agitation against illegal migrants

In 1997, Election Commission asks Assam to remove non-citizens from electoral rolls

After revision of electoral rolls, people who could not give proof of their nationality are marked D to indicate their disputed status

All India Displaced Bengali Coordination Committee says 6 lakh D-voters are Hindus

EC blacklists 3,70,000 D-voters, but cases of 1,99,631 referred to foreigners tribunals

Many are legalised; the number is trimmed to 1.36 lakh

In 2004, Gauhati HC orders D-voters be sent to detention camps until cases are settled

Assams Cong government appeals in SC against the 2011 order barring D-voters from participating in polls that year

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Taimur R Choudhury, president of Barak Valley Bengali Literary and Cultural Society, said, Bulu died because Modi, like chief minister Tarun Gogoi, failed to keep his promise. Gogoi, too, had played the Bengali Hindu card to help the Congress sweep the 2011 assembly poll in the Valley with 13 of the 15 seats.

In February this year, the apex court overruled a 2011 Gauhati High Court order barring D-voters from voting if they provide documentary proof of their citizenship to the Election Commission.

If Gogoi were honest he would have acted on a Supreme Court order and instructed officials concerned to let D-voters exercise their franchise for the first time since 1997, Choudhury said, adding that since police and district officials are in the dark, the SC order is as good as redundant.

If any government is serious about the D-voters, Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, must be lifted, said Niladri Roy, a local human rights activist.

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Before an 11-year-old rape victims wounds had even healed, her tribal identity became a reason for psychological trauma in MP.

The girl was allegedly raped, and brutally attacked when she resisted. Against odds, however, she survived, but her ordeal didnt end. After spending 17 days in a hospital, she returned home to Itarsi in Hoshangabad district only to be scorned and boycotted.

They have spoiled the life of my youngest daughter. I have five more daughters, and for their safety and the safety of my youngest daughter, I have to send her to a shelter home, her father said.

He, however, refused to comment on pressure being mounted by the community. The fathers apparent helplessness is because the alleged rapist is from the powerful Yadav community. There are just four houses of tribal families in the village of 12,000 people.

Nobody wants to allow [her] to live in the village. [She] is being treated as a culprit. Every day, people curse the family members. They are being pressured and threatened to throw [her] out of the village, a relative of the victim told Gauravi  One Stop Crises Centre, Bhopal.

Life for this family was like any other before that fateful day in the first week of February when 24-year-old Shankar Lal Yadav allegedly raped the 11-year-old girl and threatened her of dire consequences. Petrified, the young girl kept quiet about her ordeal.

It may be this silence that emboldened him to repeat his crime on February 27. This time, however, she fought back. Enraged, he attacked her with a blade. When [she] came to Bhopal, she was in critical condition, Sarika Sinha, member of Gauravi  a One Stop Crisis Centre and regional manager of Actionaide. I cant explain the level of exploitation.

Even after six decades of independence, discrimination is still spoiling the lives of many people. Instead of (sympathising) with her, villagers are cursing her just because of her caste. Our team visited the place and witnessed it, she added.

But all hope is not lost. The local police have been magnanimous in their support. We are providing all kinds help to the victim and her family. Even I am ready to adopt that girl, Hoshangabad superintendent of police Ashutosh Pratap Singh said. If they have any problem or fear, they should at least inform us. I will ask police personnel to take care of the family.

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In the past few days, many actors have hit the headlines for their legal troubles. While Hrithik Roshans legal battle with Kangana Ranaut has been the talk of town, actor Amitabh Bachchan has a had a complaint filed against him recently. Preity Zinta was recently involved in a legal battle with filmmaker Abbas Tyrewala, while Karisma Kapoors legal battle with estranged husband is still dragging on.

Earlier this month, a legal case was also filed against actor Shah Rukh Khan and the team of his upcoming film, directed by Rahul Dholakia. In the film, Shah Rukhs character is loosely based on the life of alleged gangster Abdul Latif, who was accused of running an illicit liquor business in Gujarat during the peak of prohibition in the 1990s. Latifs son Mustak Ahmed Abdul Latif Shaikh sent a legal notice to SRK, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, producer Ritesh Sidhwani and director Rahul Dholakia, asking them why they made a film on their father.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan and the team of his upcoming film have been served with a legal notice by the son of Abdul Latif.

The legal battle between Hrithik and Kangana has been getting murkier by the day. It started when Hrithik sent a legal notice to Kangana accusing her of defamation after she hinted at him being her silly ex in one of her interviews. Kangana in turn, sent him a legal notice, accusing Hrithik of intimidation. In his legal notice, Hrithik has stated that Kangana suffers from Aspergers syndrome. Kanganas notice says that Hrithik has been communicating with her through a secret email id which goes on to show that Hrithik was fully involved with her.

Hrithik Roshan, Kangana Ranauts star wars: How love led to legal mess

Hrithik Roshan is involved in a bitter legal battle with Kangana Ranaut. (AFP)

Actor Preity Zinta got into some legal trouble when Abbas Tyrewala, the writer of Ishkq In Paris, filed a case against the actor for not honouring a payment of Rs 18 lakhs. However, the Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Mumbai has cleared the actor of all charges. According to Preitys lawyer Abbas was handed over a blank cheque, which he could encash if his work was used it the film, which it wasnt. The notice was faulty, it named my client as an accused in her capacity as a partner with the firm. But the complaint only named her and not the company. On the date the cheque was issued, there was no liability on the actor for it, Preitys lawyer was quoted as saying.

Actor Preity Zinta got into some legal trouble when Abbas Tyrewala over payment issue for her film, Ishkq In Paris. (HT Photo)

There was also a complaint filed against actor Amitabh Bachchan for singing the National Anthem longer before the recently held India vs Pakistan ICC World Twenty20 match, which was held last week . The complaint stated that the anthem was of 1 minute and 22 seconds as against 52 seconds.

Read: Police complaint against Amitabh Bachchan for singing incorrect anthem

Actor Amitabh Bachchan was sent a legal notice for singing the National Anthem at the recent India vs Pakistan ICC World Twenty20 match. (PTI)

Karisma has also been in the news for quite some time now for struggling with her ongoing divorce proceedings. The latest development is that she and her estranged husband Sunjay Kapur have reached their divorce terms after quite an ugly battle. We are quickly moving towards settling the dispute. We will work out the modalities before the next date of hearing, Karismas lawyer Sandeep Kapur had told us earlier. The Supreme Court had asked Karisma and Sunjay to sort out their differences amicably. The couple had filed for divorce by mutual consent before the court in 2014. However, there were differences which cropped up between the couple regarding financial settlement and custody of their kids. After that Sunjay had filed petition for separation in December. Karisma had also filed a case of harassment against Sunjay and his mother.

Read: Karisma Kapoor, husband Sunjay reach divorce terms after ugly battle

Actor Karisma Kapoor has been fighting her divorce battle since some time now. (Viral Bhayani)
The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the Nobel Prize in literature, has condemned an Iranian death warrant against British writer Salman Rushdie, 27 years after it was pronounced.

Two members quit the academy in 1989 after it refused to condemn Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeinis fatwa, or religious edict, against Rushdie for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his book The Satanic Verses. Citing its code against political involvement, the academy issued a statement defending free expression but without explicitly supporting Rushdie.

However, in a statement posted on its website Thursday, the academy for the first time denounced the fatwa and reward money for Rushdies death as flagrant breaches of international law.

It didnt specify what prompted its change of heart, but cited state-run Iranian media outlets recent decision to raise the bounty by $600,000.

The fact that the death sentence has been passed as punishment for a work of literature also implies a serious violation of free speech, the academy said, adding that literature must be free from political control.

Rushdie responded on Twitter, saying I would like to thank the Swedish Academy. I am extremely grateful for its statement.

I would like to thank the Swedish Academy. I am extremely grateful for its statement. https://t.co/p06lTJSJ5x  Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) 24 March 2016

Asked what prompted the academy to revisit the issue, acting secretary Tomas Riad referred to the normalization process between Iran and the West and the increase of the bounty.

The issue came up in the academy and we decided to do it (issue a statement), Riad said. It wasnt a controversial decision.

He called Rushdie, 68, a symbol of the freedom of expression, albeit an involuntary one.

The death decree forced Rushdie into hiding for years. India, Pakistan, Iran and several other countries banned The Satanic Verses. Later, Iran severed diplomatic ties with Britain, accusing the British government of supporting Rushdie.

Besides Satanic Verses, Rushdies novels include The Moors Last Sigh and Midnights Children, a Booker Prize winner and one of the most highly praised books of the past quarter century.

Kerstin Ekman, one of the members who resigned from the academy in 1989, welcomed the move.

It took a few years but here it is. I think it is very good, Ekman told Swedish public radio. She said she doesnt plan to return to the academy, whose appointments are for life.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet top Australian leaders and investors next week and make a strong pitch for foreign investments in India from the countrys cash-rich sovereign funds.

Indian High Commissioner Navdeep Suri said that during his four-day visit, the minister will meet New South Wales Premier Mike Baird, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Treasurer Scott Morrison, Finance Minister Mathias Corman and Energy and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg.

Suri said that Jaitley might also call on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Describing Jaitleys schedule as a packed and productive one, Suri said: The visit gives us the opportunity to engage with Australia at multiple levels.

He added that the engagements would cover a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, technology, service, financial and superannuation funds, and the Finance Minister will meet business leaders from the different sectors.

Australia has a major sovereign fund called the Future Fund and it also has superannuation funds that have estimated assets of over USD 2 trillion. These funds want a good rate of return and we believe that the India growth story creates a win-win proposition decent returns for the funds and financing for Indias infrastructure plans, Suri told PTI.

Jaitley is arriving in Sydney on March 29 and will be accompanied by high-powered Indian business delegations from both CII and FICCI besides a top level team including senior representatives from the Ministry of Finance, RBI and SEBI.

The meetings with government will seek to enhance bilateral relations in diverse areas, while those with business will try to focus on the Make in India and Invest in India programmes, he said.

Jaitley would woo Australias trillion dollars superannuation funds industry to invest in Indias infrastructure plans. He will meet top 25 CEOs and executives of Australias largest superannuation funds at the Invest in India Roundtable here next Friday.

Suri said the roundtable would be a key element of the ministers visit.

We estimate that between them (top CEOs and executives), they would be representing close to USD 1 trillion of assets under one roof. And thats in addition to the high-level FICCI delegation. We want to use the opportunity to project India as an investment destination to the superannuation funds and also respond to any issues or concerns that they may have,he said.

Jaitley will deliver a public address at the S P Jain School of Global Management in Sydney, which will be his first official engagement.

He would also deliver the K R Narayanan Oration in Canberra at Australian National University on The New Economics of Financial Inclusion and participate in a panel discussion at the University of Melbourne.

In Canberra, Jaitley would address the Indian community from all across Australia at a special reception organised by the Indian High Commission.
Playboy Enterprises Inc is reportedly exploring a sale, a move that comes soon after the iconic magazine publisher ditched nude photos and launched a revamp for the digital age.

The assets of the company include the sprawling Playboy mansion in Los Angeles and the rights to one of the worlds best-known brands: Playboy.

As the magazine is put on the selling block, heres a look at five things we bet you didnt know about Playboy.

PG Wodehouse wrote for Playboy, so did Arthur C Clarke

Forget the long-running joke, subscribe to Playboy for its articles. The magazine has a long history of publishing short stories by notable authors like Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame), Vladimir Nabokov (of Lolita fame), PG Wodehouse, Arthur C Clarke. The monthly interview section of Playboy has been as much talked about as its nude covers. From Martin Luther King Jr, to Jimmy Carter to Steve Jobs - this section has featured the whos who.

Read more: Attention: Playboy magazine is up for sale

Playboy in Braille

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has published a Braille edition of Playboy since 1970. The Braille version includes all the written words in the non-Braille magazine, but no pictorial representations. The US Congress cut off funding for the Braille magazine translation in 1985, but the district court judge Thomas Hogan reversed the decision on First Amendment grounds.

Sherlyn Chopra is the first Indian model to pose for Playboy. Here's a look at the starlet during Playboy's press conference. (File photo)

Hefner was against dropping cartoons but not nudity

Playboy announced in 2015 that from their March 2016 edition they will not publish any full frontal nudity since it had lost its sensational relevance in a world of free online pornography. The other changes in the magazine include ending the popular jokes and cartoon sections. Reportedly, founder Hugh Hefner, a former cartoonist, resisted dropping off the cartoon section more than the nudity section, but finally obliged.

Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. (AP)

Hefner and his Playmates

From 1955 to 1979 (except for a six-month gap in 1976), the P in Playboy had stars printed in or around the letter, and with this began the stories about Hefner and the Playmate of the month. Rumours had it that the stars were either a rating that Hefner gave to the Playmate according to how attractive she was, the number of times that Hefner had slept with her, or how good she was in bed. The stars, between zero and 12, actually indicated the domestic or international advertising region for that printing.

Playboys first issue was undated

Hefner was so unsure of Playboys prospects that its first issue in December 1953 was kept undated. Hefner did not know if there would be a second edition. Featuring Marilyn Monroe on its cover and a nude photo of hers in the centerfold, the magazine was a runaway success. In fact, Marilyns nude was an unpublished photo taken for a calendar but not for Playboy that is famous for its photoshoots..

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After the launch of the Start Up India programme, the government is now gearing up for Stand Up India, which mandates each bank branch to provide one loan to a Dalit or a borrower categorised as scheduled tribe or scheduled caste, and the other to a woman entrepreneur. While the scheme is already operational, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will officially kick off the programme next month in Noida.

The launch comes amid a raging controversy over the suicide of Dalit student Rohith Vermula in Hyderabad in January.

Banks have been asked to ensure that all the 1.25 lakh branches meet their targets.

The focus was first on the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, to ensure that all Indian households had a bank account, now its the social security schemes along with the Mudra and Stand Up India programmes, a senior government official who did not wish to be identified told HT.

Modi has held several meetings with bankers and senior finance ministry officials on the scheme, sources said.

Loans under the Stand Up India programme will range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore, and will be given for greenfield projects in the non-farm sector. A refinance window via Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), with an initial amount of Rs 10,000 crore, will be available under the scheme, which is expected to benefit 250,000 borrowers.

The government has already launched the Start Up India scheme to promote entrepreneurship.

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Over the last week of March, Chennai has had stunning skies. And its growing moon has been sporting with a solitary star that seems to be saying something into its ear. It has to be its own thing, that star, loving its nearness to the silver orb but not awed by it. And conscious in some strange way of its place in the sunless sky. Those two celestials, all but hugging each other, couldnt care if the rest of the world was looking at them or, for that matter, even existed.

The spectacle, for that is what it was, brought Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star back to me in a mist of star-talc. And for the rest of my beach side walk that late evening, I thought of little else than the lullabys creator, Jane Taylor (17831824), and of Mozart (1756-1791) who, among others tuned it along the melodies of a French folk-song.

Twinkle Twinkle is the worlds child anthem, sung on all continents in the original and in translations with the tune kept in tact, just as We Shall Overcome is the worlds protest anthem, translated into all languages (two, in Bangla) with the music held in place. It was published in 1806.

The lullabys first diamond in the sky stanza is understandably a world favourite. Unfortunately, most parents and teachers teaching it to the young stop with those gripping opening lines and so miss out on a nugget of an image with a rather unexpected turn and meaning that follows:

When the blazing sun is gone,

When he nothing shines upon,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny sparks;

He could not see which way to go,

If you did not twinkle so.

If we emphasise the two Thens, the in-folded meaning comes powerfully through. Twinkle Twinkle is not just about an asterism that sparkles brilliantly but about a tiny being which, when the ruling deity of the sky, the sun, is absent, does that deitys work, quietly but to stunning effect. Then the traveller in the dark sees which way to go.

Seeing metaphors in images and hidden meanings in words can be overdone. But it does not overstrain imagination to see in the following lines of the song a meaning beyond lulling sleep-luring tones :

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye

Till the sun is in the sky.

A stressing of never and of Till is about stardom in a firmament of solar and lunar magnetisms. It is about the debt owed by the dark of gloom to sparks in the interval between sunset and dawn, night and light. It is about those which hold the fort for the giants of the night and the titans of the day. These sparks are invariably nameless, unknown and  indispensable.

The lullaby ends with:

As your bright and tiny spark

Lights the traveller in the dark,

Though I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Jane Taylor herself is little known. She and her writer sister Ann lived in Essex, England, where Jane died at 40 of breast cancer teeming, it was said with unfulfilled projects. But her star is for ever.

It is not unlikely that she was led to her great image by the legend of the Three Wise Men or the Magi who in Biblical lore had been led by a star to Bethlehem. Nor is it unlikely that Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) had heard the lullaby as a child and held it in his sub-conscious as he wrote, in 1833, the grear hymn, Lead Kindly Light with the words so redolent of Jane Taylors traveller in the dark:

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst thencircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

In 1861, the British Raj devised the great Order of the Star of India and the accompanying ensign. Not Jane Taylors lullaby but the Magi and Cardinal Newman must have influenced the design, a spectacular five pointed star encircled by a blue ribbon all surrounded by a gold sunburst. But its motto belonged unmistakably to the same mental sky-scape as Taylors: Heavens light our guide. Not the light of the Heavens eye, the sun, but Heavens.

An astonishing number of national flags the world over have the star, a four-pointed single star as with Aruba, off the coast of Venezuela, five-pointed single starrers as in several African and Latin American countries, five-pointed multiple starrers in others like the US, a six-pointed one as in Israel, some with a crescent facing up, facing right or, as with Pakistan, facing diagonally up. The star twinkles on most of the worlds national flags and even ensigns. The province of Balochistan in Pakistan has a truly wonderful emblem of its own, showing two camels silhouetted white against a night sky, with a left-turned crescent under a twinkling single star. The camels are rider-less and facing the same direction as the Crescent  towards Mecca, a detail that adds to the bewitching beauty of the design.

As I rounded my walk, the moon and star were still in dalliance, with the star now above, not beside the burgeoning sphere and I thought of Lata Mangeshkars immortal song Chamka Chamka Subah Ka Tara from the 1952 film Subah Ka Tara. The V Shantaram film was about loneliness, that of a young single woman (Jayshree) and a man (Pradeep Kumar) who has lost his mind. And I could not but think that the abandoned woman in India and those suffering from mental disease have to be the kind of persons Jane Taylor must have thought of as being in need of guiding light.

And all those people across the world who live under starry flags but in fear of flag-bearers.

Twinkle Twinkle will remain a lullaby. But not babes alone need reassurance of a Light above.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is distinguished professor in history and politics, Ashoka University

The views expressed are personal

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A mob killed a dentist in west Delhi as he accosted two bikers for rash driving on Thursday after Indias win against Bangladesh in the T20 cricket World Cup, triggering social media outrage that immigrants were involved in the brutal attack.

Police took nine people, including four juveniles, into custody for fatally attacking 42-year-old dentist Pankaj Narang with iron rods, cricket bats and other blunt objects at New Krishna Park in Vikaspuri.

Most of the accused are e-rickshaw drivers in the locality and fishmongers from a nearby market who live in a nearby slum, police said.

Narangs brother-in-law, Vikas Sethi, was wounded too when he came to his rescue.

Rumours swirled on social media on Friday that some of the accused were Bangladeshis who were upset with Indias win. Twitter was flooded with tweets that the bikers killed the doctor because he and his son were celebrating the win. Delhi Police dismissed the allegation.

Joint commissioner of police (South Western) Deependra Pathak said there was no communal angle to the attack because none of the accused is a Bangladeshi national.

We have arrested five people, including 22-year-old main accused Nasir Khan, brother Amir and mother Mesar. Four boys of around 17 years were taken into custody too. Efforts are on to catch the other culprits, he said.

The incident occurred soon after Indias win as Narang along with his seven-year-old son and nephew came out of their home around 30 minutes past Wednesday midnight and started playing cricket in their car park.

Trouble began when the ball flew into the bylane and he and his son ran after it. Narang saw two youth on a bike approaching them, taking abrupt alternate right and left turns. When he raised his hand to stop the biker, it grazed the riders body, triggering an argument.

The argument escalated as Narang slapped the biker and seized his motorcycle and keys.

The duo escaped but returned 15 minutes later with more than a dozen people, including juveniles and women, carrying blunt objects, a police officer said.

Narang was dragged out of his home and brutally assaulted. He ran around the neighbourhood, apologising for his mistake and screaming for help, but collapsed as the attackers kept hitting him from behind.

A CCTV camera installed outside a local hospital captured portions of the attack while witnesses said Mesar, mother of the Khan brothers, kept inciting the mob to assault the dentist.

The mob left after Narang and his brother-in-law became fell motionless on the road.

The family took them to Mata Chanan Devi Hospital, where the dentist died around 8.30am on Thursday.

Narangs sister had come from Noida with her family to celebrate Holi with her brother.

Eyewitnesses told police the attackers kept assaulting Narang despite his family members pleading with them to spare his life. The family knocked on the neighbours doors but nobody came out to help.

The traumatised family alleged that a group of youth came to their house in the morning after the incident and bragged that this is what happens if somebody tries to threaten them, police said.

Narang belonged to a family of doctors. Wife Upma is also a dentist. The couple runs a clinic in the Tilak Nagar area, neighbour Sachin Kapoor said.
A newly published study finds that men who have traditional beliefs about masculinity  such as showing bravery, courage and emotional restraint  are more likely to ignore their health problems or delay acting on them.

Diana Sanchez, associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University in US and doctoral student Mary Himmelstein, set out to answer why men die earlier than women in a recent study published in the Preventive Medicine journal and the Journal of Health Psychology.

Read: Lifestyle diseases hitting young men in metros

The pair studied a group of 250 men, who were given a questionnaire designed to gauge their ideas about manhood and their preferences when choosing a doctor.

The results showed that participants with the highest scores on the masculinity scale were more likely to choose a male doctor, assuming them to be more competent that their female counterparts.

The higher men score on the masculinity scale, the less likely they are to talk openly about their symptoms and current health problems with male doctors, finds a recent study. (Shutterstock)

The scientists then recruited 250 university students and gave them a similar questionnaire. Each participant was also interviewed about their health by male and female medical or nursing students.

Paradoxically, the higher they scored on the masculinity scale, the less likely they were to talk openly about their symptoms and current health problems with male doctors. Thats because they dont want to show weakness or dependence to another man, including a male doctor, explains Diana Sanchez.

Ironically, this same group of volunteers was found to be more honest about their medical symptoms with female doctors, the authors found.

Read: Biological clock ticks for men too, semen quality deteriorating

The pair published similar findings in 2014 in the Journal of Health Psychology. The study showed that men with strong, traditional ideas about masculinity were less likely to seek medical help, and were more likely to downplay their symptoms and suffer worse health outcomes than women or men who did not share those values.

Men can expect to die five years earlier than women, and physiological differences dont explain that difference, said Diana Sanchez.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more.
A hoax caller who has been making false bomb threat calls to multiple agencies at the Mumbai airport since Tuesday again called the Air India call centre on Thursday and claimed that 23 AI flights were under terror threat. The call came at 11:30am.

The Air India office at Mumbai received a bomb threat call today evening. Accordingly, all authorities concerned were informed about the call. (Later) It was declared as non-specific threat, Air India spokesperson GP Rao said.

According to security agencies the person who identifies himself as Mike has been using the internet to make the calls. He claims that he is based in New York and has specific tip-offs of serial bomb explosion on flights operated out of the city airport. But since the calls are made from the internet, we have been unable to trace is location, said a senior Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) official requesting anonymity.

The official added that between Tuesday and Thursday, he gave threat information about more than 50 flights -- all of which have turned out to be false until now.

Read | 2 Jet Airways flights landed within minutes of Brussels airport blasts

Official sources in Chennai also said an unidentified anonymous caller threatened to bomb two Air India flights originating from the Tamil Nadu capital.

The caller allegedly threatened to blow up two AI flight 945 from Chennai to Hyderabad and the Chennai to Delhi AI flight 143, sources said.

The AI office at Benguluru also recieved a call about threat on Sharjah-bound flights. Subsequently, the airline has increased checks on all hand baggage and introduced a second round of frisking just before boarding.

On Tuesday, five Jet Airways flights, taking off for different domestic destinations from Delhi, were put under security checks following similar hoax calls. Agencies are yet to ascertain if the same person made those calls.

Eleven IndiGo jets were also searched on Wednesday after a Smith from the US called its Chennai call centre and said the flights were facing bomb threat from a woman flyer from Pakistan.

All Indian airports were put on high alert soon after news broke about two bomb explosions at Brussels airport on March 22.

On Thursday, security agencies increased random frisking of fliers. Many passengers were asked to get their shoes scanned at security holds, added officials.

(With inputs from PTI)

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A special drive to avoid traffic accidents during Holi celebrations resulted in 13,345 cases of traffic violations in a mere 12 hours in the city. No major accident was reported, officers said.

The drive, which was conducted by both the citys traffic police department and the local police stations, began around 8am on Thursday and continued until 8pm.

Milind Bharambe, joint commissioner of police, traffic said, We had deployed 1,291 traffic police personnel, including 150 traffic police officers.

Throughout the day, the police caught 10,715 bikers for not wearing a helmet. Among these, 2,295 were caught in the western suburbs alone. The east and central region together accounted for 5,401 cases, 1,722 bikers were caught in the north and 1,297 were caught in south Mumbai. The police caught 438 motorists for riding triple-seat on the bike.

Drink-driving cases increased this year. The police caught 687 people for drink driving on Thursday, compared to 409 motorists arrested last year. The north region recorded the highest number of drink-driving cases at 198, while 178 motorists were caught in the western region. The eastern and central region reported 253 cases of drink driving and only 58 cases were registered in south Mumbai.

The police caught 62 motorists for rash driving.

The traffic department registered 1,078 other cases during the day as policemen continued taking action against various violations.
They are not exactly embracing each other but turning an unholy political relationship into a Holi communion of sorts--pun intended.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the spring festival of colours, considered an annual occasion to forget rancour and rivalries, to follow Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter--a 21st Century cyber hug visible to all.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader, who usually takes to the microblogging site to rave and rant against the BJP-ruled central government returned the honour.

.@narendramodi Sir, thank u for following me. Happy Holi. ?? ???? ????? ????? ?? ??? ??? Hope better Centre-Delhi cooperation in future  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 24, 2016

Sir, thank u for following me. Happy Holi. Aaj giley shikwey bhoolney ka din hai (Today is the day to forget grudges and complaints) Hope better Centre-Delhi cooperation in future, Kejriwal tweeted to Modi.

With 7.29 million followers already, Kejriwal is not exactly multiplying his follower count, but the spring festival warmth was just right to thaw the cold relationship between the two leaders, at loggerheads on everything except a common dislike for the Congress.

Modi also used the occasion to start following Rahul Gandhis official Twitter, account, (@officeofRG), besides Congress leaders including Milind Deora and Jyotiraditya Scindia and communist leader Sitaram Yechury and Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav.

Gandhi has yet to return the honour.

Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, too, took to Twitter to reach out to Modi, who started following him as well on the micro-blogging site.

Delhi government and the Centre have been at odds over a range of issues over the past one year. In a series of tweets in Hindi, Sisodia thanked Modi for following him on Twitter and urged him to ensure the clearance of bills passed in the last one year by the Delhi Assembly.

Narendra Modi sir thanks for following. I convey my greetings on Holi. Making a modest request for people in Delhi. All bills passed by Delhi Assembly in past one year are stuck with Home Ministry, please pass them. Delhi shall be thankful for that, Sisodia tweeted.
BJP leaders Mahesh Sharma and Shahnawaz Hussain learnt a lesson on Friday: you dont wish people happy Good Friday. The two politicians were ridiculed after they tweeted just that.

May you be blessed with goodness and prosperity. Happy #GoodFriday, tweeted Sharma, union culture minister who has earlier got into controversy for saying girls going out at night was not part of Indian culture and former President APJ Abdul Kalam was a nationalist and a humanist despite being a Muslim.

Hussain, a former civil aviation minister, tweeted: Warm Greetings on #GoodFriday to all of you!

Twitter users reacted by calling them dumbo, unaware and graduates of Modi university.

Isn't good Friday a day of mourning? Would somebody tell our Dumbo ministers not to bestow ppl wid their 'wishes'? #heightsofjhumla  Sundaresasubramanian (@sundarbandar) March 25, 2016

Why are people like Mahesh Sharma and Shahnawaz not aware of "Good Friday"  Chandru (@ChandrusWeb) March 25, 2016

All the ministers graduated from Modi University will wish everyone a happy good friday...  Slavi (@nxsaif) March 25, 2016

A whole lot of politicians across different parties & ministers of Union Govt are tweeting greetings for Good Friday!

Blissfully ignorant :(  Tina Edwin (@tinaedwin) March 25, 2016

@ShahnawazBJP #GoodFriday is observed as a day of prayers penance fasting 2commemorate d crucification of Jesus Christ It's aday of mourning  P.K. Mukherjee (@pikudollie) March 25, 2016

@ShahnawazBJP Mr Husain today is the day Christ was crucified. It is a day of sadness. Your greetings are in very bad taste.  Vikram Batra (@vjsbatra) March 25, 2016

Sharma deleted his tweet but people took screenshots of it. He later replaced the post with another tweet acknowledging Good Friday, saying, I wish you all blessings of #GoodFriday as a dedication to the sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ and to remember his noble and pious thoughts.

I wish you all blessings of #GoodFriday as a dedication to the sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ and to remember his noble and pious thoughts  Dr. Mahesh Sharma (@dr_maheshsharma) March 25, 2016

Shahnawaz kept his post --retweeted 67 times by his followers -- all of Friday. It was only late in the evening that he seemed to have realised his folly as he deleted the tweet wishing his followers warm greetings on Good Friday.

It was only late in the evening that he seemed to have realised his folly as he deleted the tweet, wishing his followers warm greetings on Good Friday (Twitter)

What remains on his timeline now is a retweet of prime minister Narendra Modis message on the religious festival.

Good Friday is a day of prayer & a day to remember the noble, pious & compassionate thoughts of Jesus Christ, that touched many lives, Modi had tweeted.
Goa tops the list of Islamic State (IS) targets in India, the interrogation of suspected members of the terror organisation by enforcement agencies has revealed.

IS seeks to attack foreign tourists and Indian security forces in the state for global publicity and to boost the morale of its South Asia adherents. Interrogators also said that the IS is scouting for a site in India to train its fighters.

Government sources told Hindustan Times that the so-called Amir-e-Hind of IS, Muddabbir Mushtaq Sheikh of Mumbra, Thane, told interrogators of plans to explode bombs in Goa with foreigners as the main target.

In fact, IS members in India had planned to bomb Goa in December 2014the month when tourist inflow from Europe, US and Russia is the highest but were intercepted by the intelligence agencies.

In the past four months, Indian agencies have picked up 23 IS suspects from various states, including a five-member Roorkee module that planned to bomb Haridwar.

Of the 23 arrested, one is a recruiter and another is responsible for the December 2014 Church Street blast in Bengaluru. There are no less than 30 IS Indian recruits fighting in Syria and Iraq; unconfirmed reports says six of them have been killed.

Read | India is not immune to threat from Islamic State, warns UAE

Intelligence agencies assess a strong possibility of IS engineering some action in India as the pan-Islamic jihadi group is under pressure in Afghanistan and is losing ground in Iraq and Syria. They feel that the Brussels attack this week was part of an IS attempt to lift the morale of its fighters.

The spread of Islamic State is being blocked by not only the Afghan security forces but also the Taliban which has killed many fighters of the terrorist group in Nangarhar province bordering Pakistan.

The Indian recruits of Islamic State have learnt the art of bomb-making through the internet but they have not been successful in procuring explosives like RDX or ammonium nitrate. Their current capabilities and numbers reveal the terror group can execute a limited strike that gives them high publicity, said a senior official.

After the Paris and Brussels attacks, Indian agencies have strengthened perimeter security outside airports. Also, India is collaborating with countries bordering Iraq and Syria to ensure that Islamic State fighters are not allowed in.

Read | Suspected Islamic State operative sent to NIA custody for 15 days

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If you type in the words sedition, patriotism or anti-national on Google search, do not be surprised if you receive a map suggestion that leads you to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.

The glitch, noticed on Friday morning, irked students and faculty members at JNU. The JNU students union (JNUSU) said it would approach Google Map India to fix the search result.

On the face of it, it looks offensive. We will contact Google authorities and find out why and how such a thing can happen. There would be some technical issues involved but we need to find out why is JNU being shown in the map for location search of anti-national, Shehla Rashid Shora, vice-president, JNUSU, told Hindustan Times.

I dont know how this thing works on internet. But it should be corrected. JNU should contact Google and get it rectified, said Anuradha Chenoy, dean School of International Studies.

Most people however remained unaware of the search glitch.

Of those who are aware, there were some who found the whole thing comical. It is laughable that the search engine is showing JNU in the location search for anti-national. The trolls are at work. But this should be removed as soon as possible, said a PhD student.

Read more: JNU student leader Kanhaiya gets 6 months bail in sedition case

With the flood of articles around the Kanhaiya Kumar case on the internet, keywords like JNU, anti-national and sedition have been associated to the university on the web. Googles algorithms crawl websites to optimise search queries. Thus, as more articles and text appear on the web comprising of the words JNU, sedition and anti-national, the algorithm throws up all related results when someone looks.

This isnt the first time Google Maps has suffered such a glitch. In May 2015, search for racist slur nigger house directed one to the White House in Washington DC as a result. Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologise for any offence this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly, Google was quick to clarify, but didnt explain why the error happened. A year later, it seems like the cause of the problem is yet to be rectified.

And in the following month, users noticed that searching for top 10 criminals displayed Narendra Modi in the result. Google later apologised to the Prime Minister and displayed a disclaimer when you use the search term in question: These results dont reflect Googles opinion or our beliefs; our algorithms automatically matched the query to web pages with these images.

Read more: This is how PM Modi showed up in Googles #Top10Criminals list

A spokesperson for the tech company said Google was aware of the issue and was working on resolving it.

Logically, it would be impossible for Google Maps to become smarter if most of its functioning werent automated. So, it s understandable that these methods can result in erroneous assumptions that Google is finding difficult to eliminate.

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Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley told a Mumbai court on Friday he joined the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba to avenge a bombing at his school in December 1971 by Indian planes.

I have hatred towards India since my childhood and I have pleaded guilty to that, he said.

The 55-year-old, who has turned approver in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, is being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, via a video link from the US. He is being cross-examined since Tuesday.

Headley had taken videos of many places in the city for the LeT which were used in the 2008 terror attack when 10 Pakistani terrorists had attacked the city.

He told the court that former Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had visited his house a few weeks after his fathers death. Headleys father, who retired as a director general of Radio Pakistan, died on December 25, 2008. Gilani, however, did not attend the funeral, he said.

Headley also told the court that many of his relatives, including his half-brother, work for various Pakistani establishment.

Read more: LeT hitman sent to kill Bal Thackeray was arrested but escaped: Headley

The LeT operative also said he had arranged a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and told the terror outfit about it.

When asked as to why he did not disclose the name of Ishrat Jahan in the trial of Tahavur Husain Rana, Headley replied because he was not asked about it. I was answering the questions which were asked I did not have liberty of giving speech, Headley told the court.

Read more: Year after 26/11, LeT planned to attack another city, reveals Headley

On Thursday, Headley had told the court the LeT wanted to kill Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill him was arrested. Headley also told the court he had visited the Sena Bhavan twice. He, however, did not specify the year for the same.

We (LeT) wanted to target the chief of Shiv Sena... His name was Bal Thackeray. LeT wanted to kill him wherever a chance arose. I knew that Bal Thackeray was the head of Shiv Sena. I have no first-hand knowledge but I think an attempt was made by LeT to kill Bal Thackeray, he said.

I dont know how this attempt was made. I think the person (who was sent to kill Thackeray) was arrested but he managed to escape from police custody. I dont have first-hand knowledge about this though, he said.

Headley, convicted in the US for his role in 26/11 Mumbai attacks, also told special judge GA Sanap, who is hearing the 26/11 terror case against Jundal in a sessions court, that he does not know who else was a target of LeT apart from Thackeray.

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Jet Airways on Friday successfully evacuated all its passengers stranded in Brussels as the airline operated multiple flights out of Amsterdam to India and Toronto.

A total 242 Indians, including 28 crew members, who were stranded following the terror strikes in the Belgian capital returned to Delhi on Friday morning.

It was an emotional homecoming for the first batch of Indians stuck in terror-struck Belgium on Friday morning at the Mumbai airport.

Read: Brussels attack: Injured Jet attendant Nidhi Chaphekar placed in coma

The flight 9W 1229 carrying 214 passengers left the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam around 10pm on Thursday. The flight stopped by at Delhi, before arriving in the city.

The arrival terminal was filled with people exchanging hugs, posing for group selfies and a few of them also broke down, said an airport official.

J.S.Mukul Indian Ambassador in The Hague and his team has done a remarkable job in coordination and evacuation of Indian nationals.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 25, 2016

Powai resident Sakshi Singh, who was stuck in Brussels for two days, arrived with her husband. My parents are flying down from Delhi to see us. They were extremely worried for us, said Singh. She had joined her husband for a vacation in the US and got stuck at Brussels during a stopover. The blasts happened soon after we landed in Brussels, she added.

Meanwhile, the condition of 40-year-old crew member Nidhi Chaphekar who was injured along with her junior colleague Amit Motwani during the two explosions at the Brussels airport is said to be stable. Motwani has also been shifted to a normal ward from the ICU at the hospital in Brussels where he is being treated.

Read: Brussels: Missing Infosys employees last call tracked to metro

Flight 9W 1229 from Amsterdam, which landed here this morning, also carried onboard the passengers who were bound for Mumbai as their flight was cancelled at the last minute due to a technical problem in the aircraft.

Jet Airways will now operate a single flight which will fly from Amsterdam to Delhi and then proceed onward to Mumbai, the airline had said in an earlier update.

(With agency inputs)
The BJP on Friday accepted the proposal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a coalition government, after more than two months of governors rule in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP said both parties will meet the governor to hand over a letter of support, with Nirmal Singh being projected as the partys nomination for deputy chief minister again.

PDP had approached us for the government formation. The proposal was discussed in the meeting of the legislatures and it was agreed unanimously. The proposal of Nirmal Singh as deputy CM was also agreed, BJP state unit president Sat Sharma told media on Friday after a meeting with the PDP. Sharma further added that the party would support the PDPs candidate for chief minister.

Read more: Picture abhi baki hai dost: Omar on PDP-BJP alliance

Sharma said consultations were being held with the PDP on government constitution, following which the parties will meet governor NN Vohra. Vohra had in fact summoned both parties separately on Friday to discuss government formation.

We were scheduled to meet the governor at 5:30 pm, but will inform him to postpone meeting. A small group of two or three leaders from each party will hold deliberations before meeting him, Sharma said. The government will run on an agreed agenda of alliance, and there will be no change in the agreement, he added.

Party national general secretary Ram Madhav and minister of state Jitendra Singh were at the meeting that was held a day after Mehbooba Mufti was elected as the PDPs leader in Srinagar on Thursday.

Read more: No new conditions hitch in BJP, PDP thaw over J&K govt formation

After meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Tuesday, Mehbooba said she would take a final decision regarding the government formation and PDP-BJP alliance after consulting with her party MLAs in the legislature meeting.

Read more: The apple and the tree: Will Mehbooba follow her fathers style?

The BJP had earlier said that it was committed to the implementation of the agenda of alliance. Jitendra Singh even went as far as stating that there was never a breakdown in communication between the coalition partners.

There were no differences. But, when you are in a coalition, we have to accommodate each others priorities and each others preferences, Singh had earlier said.

The state government in Jammu and Kashmir was suspended on January 8, a day after the death of chief minister and PDP president, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The state has since been under governors rule.
A Jet Airways flight attendant who was injured in the Brussels airport blasts is in a stable condition and recovering, the airline said on Friday.

Nidhi Chaphekar suffered burns and fractured her foot in the explosions on Tuesday. She is being treated at a hospital near Brussels.

Read: Two Jet Airways crew members injured in blasts at Brussels airport

The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in stable condition and not in coma, Jet Airways said in a statement. She is resting and under sedation for her comfort.

A Jet Airways manager had earlier been quoted as saying that Chaphekar was placed in a medically induced coma.

Read: Infosys employee missing after Brussels attack, Swaraj steps in

A photograph of Chaphekar taken right after the airport blasts has become an iconic image of the attacks. It showed the 40-year-old mother of two sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped.

Chaphekars husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and travelled by road to Brussels, was at the hospital with her.

Read: Indians stranded at Brussels airport after terror attacks return home

Meanwhile, the airline flew out the passengers who were stuck in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam.

Tuesdays bombings in the Brussels airport and subway killed 31 people and wounded 270.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday clarified that JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar had never said he is not proud to be an Indian.

Tharoors clarification came days after he drew flak for comparing Kumar with Bhagat Singh.

When this young man, who you object to so strongly, stands up and says I want freedom from...he mentions casteism, he mentions capitalism. I dont agree necessarily to things that he talks about. He has never said that he doesnt take pride in being an Indian. What he says is contrary - that he is proud enough of India that he wants to change it into a better place...he is also proud of jawans fighting on border. He has seen his mother washing clothes, his father is bedridden. Dont tell me his family is not proud of the country, Tharoor said in response to a question during a session on India Shastra: Reflections of our time at the annual Take Pride summit organised by CII.

He was asked How can Indias soft power increase if the mainstream media promotes someone who doesnt take pride in being an Indian?

In a veiled jibe at HRD minister Smriti Irani, Tharoor said, In Afghanistan, in the last decade, nobody could call an Afghan at 8.30 in the evening and get him to pick up the phone because that was the time when Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi would be telecast, it was such a popular show....why we would rather prefer Tulsi on TV serials than try and run the HRD ministry.

Sharing an anecdote about KR Narayanan, the first Dalit president of the country, Tharoor said, Despite being a brilliant student, he was not given his degree at the same ceremony as his upper caste classmates. This man could have easily turned bitter against India but he wanted to change the system within. What we can take pride in is not the injustice he suffered, but in the fact that through our democracy, we were able to ensure that boy who suffered this kind of humiliation rose to the highest constitutional post of the country...the notion is what we must take pride in, he said.
Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley told a Mumbai court on Friday that he joined the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba to take revenge for a bombing at his school in December 1971 by Indian planes.

He was being cross-examined for the third day on Monday:

11.19am - I have never been to any rehabilitation centre: Headley.

I have never been to any rehabilitation centre: Headley. 11.18am - Its not true that I was treated for mental illness in 1992. Its not true that I was suffering from mixed personality disorder: Headley.

Its not true that I was treated for mental illness in 1992. Its not true that I was suffering from mixed personality disorder: Headley. 11.16am - I did not meet special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and joint commissioner of police Atulchandra Kulkarni before giving testimony in this court: Headley.

I did not meet special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and joint commissioner of police Atulchandra Kulkarni before giving testimony in this court: Headley. 11.13am - They (NIA) didnt ask me about Ishrat so I didnt tell them. I was replying to their question, not giving a speech that I should have taken her (Ishrats) name: Headley.

They (NIA) didnt ask me about Ishrat so I didnt tell them. I was replying to their question, not giving a speech that I should have taken her (Ishrats) name: Headley. 11.10am - During Ranas trial inthe United States,I didnt testify about any womens cell/womens suicide bomber cell, as I had no knowledge about any such cell in LeT: Headley.

During Ranas trial inthe United States,I didnt testify about any womens cell/womens suicide bomber cell, as I had no knowledge about any such cell in LeT: Headley. 11.07am - NIA asked me about Ishrat, so I replied to their questions: Headley.

NIA asked me about Ishrat, so I replied to their questions: Headley. 11.06am - I didnt take Ishrats name during Tahawwur Ranas trial in US as I wasnt asked about that. I was only replying to what I was asked: Headley.

I didnt take Ishrats name during Tahawwur Ranas trial in US as I wasnt asked about that. I was only replying to what I was asked: Headley. 10.58am - They (NIA) asked me questions and I replied. Why would they prompt me to take Ishrats name?: Headley

They (NIA) asked me questions and I replied. Why would they prompt me to take Ishrats name?: Headley 10.56am - NIA didnt suggest I take Ishrat Jahans name, says Headley. 10.08am - I was arrested in Pakistan once, a case was registered by my ex-wife Faiza: Headley

NIA didnt suggest I take Ishrat Jahans name, says Headley. 10.07am - I have never been interrogated or questioned in connection with the 9/11 US attacks.

I have never been interrogated or questioned in connection with the 9/11 US attacks. 10.07am - Headley says his father was retired DG Radio Pakistan, and he died on December 25, 2008.

Headley says his father was retired DG Radio Pakistan, and he died on December 25, 2008. 10.06am - I told my father about my association with LeT, I told him myself. My father had objections with my association with LeT

I told my father about my association with LeT, I told him myself. My father had objections with my association with LeT 10.05am - My father, brother and some other of my relatives were in the Pakistan establishment but I cant disclose their details.

My father, brother and some other of my relatives were in the Pakistan establishment but I cant disclose their details. 10.02am - Headley tells court Pakistan then prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani visited his house after the death of his father. This visit was after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Headley tells court Pakistan then prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani visited his house after the death of his father. This visit was after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. 9.10am - I joined Lashkar-e-Taiba to avenge those bombings on my school. This was one of the reasons why I joined LeT.

I joined Lashkar-e-Taiba to avenge those bombings on my school. This was one of the reasons why I joined LeT. 9.08am - I have this hatred towards India since December 7, 1971, when Indian planes bombed my school and people who worked there died

I have this hatred towards India since December 7, 1971, when Indian planes bombed my school and people who worked there died 9.07am - Headley says: I have hatred towards Indian since my childhood and I have pleaded guilty to that.

Headley says: I have hatred towards Indian since my childhood and I have pleaded guilty to that. 9am - Its not true that Im living a luxurious life in the US prison.

Its not true that Im living a luxurious life in the US prison. 8.55am - I cannot disclose location of my jail where Im lodged in. I cant reveal what facilities Im getting here.

I cannot disclose location of my jail where Im lodged in. I cant reveal what facilities Im getting here. Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley said before a Mumbai court on Friday he had arranged a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had disclosed this to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

On Thursday, Headley told the court the LeT wanted to eliminate Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill him was arrested.

Read: LeT hitman sent to kill Bal Thackeray was arrested but escaped: Headley

The 55-year-old, who has turned approver in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, is being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundal, an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, via a video link from the US.

Headley also told the court he had visited the Sena Bhavan twice. He, however, did not specify the year for the same.

We (LeT) wanted to target the chief of Shiv Sena...His name was Bal Thackeray. LeT wanted to kill him wherever a chance arose. I knew that Bal Thackeray was the head of Shiv Sena. I have no first-hand knowledge but I think an attempt was made by LeT to kill Bal Thackeray, he said.

I dont know how this attempt was made. I think the person (who was sent to kill Thackeray) was arrested but he managed to escape from police custody. I dont have first-hand knowledge about this though, he said.

Headley, convicted in the US for his role in 26/11 Mumbai attacks, also told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the 26/11 terror case against Jundal in a sessions court here, that he does not know who else was a target of LeT apart from Thackeray.

When asked by Khan as to how much money he had spent on his visit and reconnaissance in India prior to 26/11 attacks, Headley said, I am not sure... Many lakhs were spent by me not as high as Rs 30-40 lakhs but much much less. It is correct that ISI spent this money but it is not correct that I demanded the money from them.

Headley said that after the 26/11 attacks, when he had come to India again (in March 2009) at the behest of al Qaeda to carry out further attacks, its leader Illiyas Kashmiri gave him about Pakistani rupees one lakh.

He claimed while LeT came under the scanner of international community after the November 26, 2008 attacks, it was not correct to say that LeT became soft towards India.

I think they (LeT) became soft about Denmark (Mickie mouse project) but not India. After the Denmark issue (LeT backing out from attacking Denmark) I went to Al-Qaeda, as LeT had become soft, Headley told the court.
Pakistan on Friday protested against the illegal entry and subversive activities of a purported RAW officer arrested in Balochistan province but India said the detained man has no link with the government.

The external affairs ministry spokesperson acknowledged the man was a former Indian Navy personnel but dismissed allegations of espionage, saying India believes a stable Pakistan is in the interest of the region.

Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today (March 25, 2016) and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi, said a statement from the Foreign Office.

The statement did not give any other details.

The protest was lodged a day after Pakistani officials claimed security agencies had arrested the RAW agent.

Balochistans home minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti on Thursday identified the arrested man as Kulbhushan Yadav. Bugti claimed he was an officer of the rank of commander in the Indian Navy and was working for Indias external intelligence agency.

Bugti further claimed Bhushan had been in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan. Yadav was detained three days ago on a tip-off from a Pakistani intelligence agency and later shifted to Islamabad for questioning, he added.

The minister did not give any other details, including the location where the man was arrested. Reports suggested Bhushan was detained in Chaman, an area of Balochistan located close to the border with Afghanistan.

In New Delhi, the external affairs ministry spokesperson said the detained individual has no link with (the) government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. Indian authorities have sought consular access to him.

India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region, the spokesperson said.

Pakistani media reports said Yadav had an Iranian residency permit and that he purportedly had a passport in the name of Hussain Mubarak Patel. The place of birth given in this passport is Sangli, Maharashtra.

Sources in New Delhi said the photo of the man featured in the Pakistani media appeared to be that of former Indian Navy personnel Kulbhushan Jadhav, whose family lives at Powai in Mumbai.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of fomenting unrest in Balochistan, the countrys largest province, but it has never offered any evidence to back up its claims. Such allegations have always been dismissed by New Delhi.
Mangaluru police have detained two persons  suspected to be professional or supari killers  in connection with the brutal murder of RTI activist Vinayaka Baliga. The police is on the lookout for their bosses.

Fifty one-year-old Baliga, whose head was split into two by the killers right outside his house, was not affiliated to any organisation or group and had made powerful men in coastal Karnataka his enemies.

On Thursday, Baliga was to appear in court against MB Puranik, the coastal region head of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

In his complaint, copies of which are with HT, Baliga had accused Puranik of violating the sanctioned plan for a school building. Baliga had also filed a case against Congress sympathiser Ramesh Kumar, one of the citys most influential builders, for not following building norms at one of his largest construction projects.

Around 15 days ago, he had managed to get an order passed from the Karnataka high court directing the Mangalore City Corporation to conduct a survey of violations by big builders in the city, says Narendra Nayak, president of the Indian Rationalists Federation.

Baliga had filed at least 91 RTI applications seeking information on some of the largest builders in the city, say police sources, who recovered a large cache of documents from Baligas house.

It is true that he had filed cases against many people. We are aware that some of them are very powerful people. We have started interrogating many of them already, said Mangalore police commissioner Chandra Sekhar.

Meanwhile, Puranik said, I am a respectable man and I have nothing to hide.
Pakistan on Friday summoned the Indian envoy to protest against the illegal entry and subversive activities of a purported RAW officer detained in Balochistan province.

High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today (March 25, 2016) and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi, said a statement from the Foreign Office.

The statement did not give any other details.

The protest was lodged a day after Pakistani security forces claimed to have arrested the RAW agent.

Balochistans home minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti had on Thursday identified the purported RAW operative as Kul Yadav Bhushan. Bugti claimed he was an officer of the rank of commander in the Indian Navy and was working for Indias external intelligence agency.

Bugti further claimed Bhushan had been in contact with Baloch separatists and terrorists fuelling sectarian violence in Balochistan.

The minister too did not give any other details, including the location where the man was arrested.

Reports suggested Bhushan was arrested in Chaman, an area of Balochistan located close to the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of fomenting unrest in Balochistan, the countrys largest province, but it has never offered any evidence to back up its claims. Such allegations have always been dismissed by New Delhi.

The incident comes two days before the visit of a Pakistan teams visit to India to probe the cross-border terror attack on the Pathankot airbase in January this year.

Seven Indian security personnel lost their lives when terrorists from across the border attacked the Indian Air Force base in Punjab.

(With inputs from agencies)
A passenger caused panic on board a Delhi-Mumbai flight after his lit bidi triggered smoke alarms on an IndiGo Airlines flight on Wednesday.

According to the crew, the passenger lit up the bidi inside the lavatory while the plane was in descent.

Confirming the incident, a spokesperson said, IndiGo confirms of an unruly incident reported on 6E-183 from Delhi to Mumbai on March 23, 2016. A passenger was observed smoking (due to smoke alarm detectors) inside the lavatory while the aircraft was descending.

The crew immediately alerted the flight captain who in turn alerted ground staff of the violation. The passenger was briefed about the safety regulations and the policy prohibiting smoking on board an aircraft. Crew members also issued a warning to the passenger. Sources said the passenger claimed he was unaware of the ban as this was the first time he was flying.

After landing at the Mumbai airport, he was handed over the Airport police station.

The no-smoking ban on an aircraft is strictly followed for due to safety risks. However, there have been stray cases of passengers breaking the rule. In 2010, an Air India flight bound to Calicut from Dubai made an emergency stopover at the Mumbai airport after a passenger was caught smoking. In this case, the flight was diverted to off load the passenger as he continued to smoke despite warnings from the crew.

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India on Friday issued visas to five-member Pakistani joint investigation team (JIT) for a four-day visit to New Delhi and Pathankot in connection with the airbase attack probe.

We have issued visas to five Pakistani officials, who will be going to India to get evidence about the Pathankot attack, an Indian High Commission spokesperson said in Pakistan.

The five-member probe team is headed by the chief of Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) additional inspector general of police Muhammad Tahir Rai.

During the visit, the Pakistani team will interact with the sleuths of National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the January 2 airbase attack, allegedly carried out by the gunmen who came from across the border.

Ahead of the Pak teams visit, the NIA once again examined key witnesses  a superintendent in Punjab police Salwinder Singh, his cook Madan Gopal and a jeweler friend Rajesh Verma as it anticipates that investigators coming from Islamabad may seek access to them. We have no objection if the Pakistani JIT seeks access to Salwinder or any other witness in the case, said NIA chief Sharad Kumar.
Jewellery industry body AIBJSF on Friday announced plans to hand over keys of their shops to finance minister Arun Jaitley in protest against imposition of one percent excise duty on non-silver jewellery.

All India Bullion, Jewellers, Swarankar Federation (AIBJSF), which had organised a big rally at Ramlila Maidan in the Capital on March 17, is continuing their strike for an indefinite period, though three major associations -- GJF, ABJA and GJEPC. The body had called off strike last Saturday after governments assurance that there would be no Inspector Raj.

AIBJSF and other local associations, particularly those in Delhi- NCR, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, were against calling off the strike.

Nothing less than a complete roll back of excise duty levied on jewellers is acceptable to us, AIBJSF president Praveen Goel said in a statement issued by CAIT.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which is supporting the jewellers protest, has urged the government to initiate the process of dialogue with protesting traders to end the logjam.

In a meeting on Friday, AIBJSF said representatives of more than 375 jewellery trade associations from different states unanimously decided to intensify the strike till the government rolls back the excise duty.

A large number of jewellers and bullion traders across the country continued their strike for the 24th day on Friday, despite the government constituting a panel to look into their demand.

AIBJSF said it will hold a series of protests beginning next week including handing over keys of shops to the finance minister, blowing whistle in front of buffalo, ringing bells at district headquarters, gherao of MPs and presentation of memorandum, forming of human chain and transfer of registration papers of shops in the name of finance minister.

Meanwhile, the government has constituted a panel under former chief economic advisor Ashok Lahri to look into the demands of jewellers.

The panel, which has been asked to submit its report in 60 days, will look into issues related to compliance procedure for the excise duty, including records to be maintained, forms to be filled, operating procedures and other relevant issues.

The government in the Budget for 2016-17 had proposed one percent excise duty on jewellery without input credit or 12.5% with input tax credit on jewellery excluding silver other than studded with diamonds and some other precious stones.
Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is all set to hold talks with DMK president M Karunanidhi in Chennai on Friday over seat sharing between the two parties for the May 16 Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu.

Azad will be here tomorrow ( Friday) and according to the tentative schedule he will meet DMK president Karunanidhi around 11 am, a State Congress leader told PTI.

Azads visit comes against the background of unsuccessful attempts of the DMK to woo DMDK to its camp. Now that a major party like DMDK is out of picture, it is expected that Congress would bargain for more seats.

Besides the Congress, DMK has reached an electoral understanding with Muslim parties like the IUML and the MMK. IUML has been allocated five seats by the DMK.
A soldier went missing on Friday after an avalanche hit an Indian Army patrol party on the Siachen glacier in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.

Army spokesperson NN Joshi told Hindustan Times the avalanche struck between 7.30am and 8am. One of the two soldiers has been rescued but his condition remains critical. Search operations are on for the other soldier.

An avalanche struck an army outpost in the Kargil sector last week, killing a soldier. His body was recovered from under 12 feet of snow.

A medium danger avalanche warning had earlier been issued for higher areas of Jammu and Kashmir, advising people not to venture out.

The advisory, issued by Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) which comes under the defence ministry, will remain effective over the next 24 hours beginning 5pm on Friday.

Ten soldiers had died after being buried in an avalanche in Siachen last month. Lance Naik Hanamanthapa, who was found buried alive under 25 feet of ice, died at the Army RR hospital in New Delhi, four days after his rescue.

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A soldier who was injured after an avalanche hit an Indian Army patrol party in Jammu and Kashmirs Ladakh region died on Friday.

The army team was struck in Turtuk sector earlier in the morning. Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang of Darjeeling in West Bengal suffered injuries and another soldier went missing.

Lance Havildar Bhawan Tamang...has succumbed to his injuries, an army spokesperson said.

Lt Gen DS Hooda, army commander of the Northern Command, has expressed condolences to Tamangs family.

A search operation is underway for the missing soldier.

Massive efforts are currently on to rescue the other jawan inspite of inclement weather in the area, the spokesperson added.

Read: Soldier missing, another critical after avalanche hits Siachen glacier

Inhospitable climate at the high altitudes along the Line of Control has claimed many from the Indian and Pakistani armies.

A medium danger avalanche warning has been issued for higher areas of J-K, advising people not to venture out.

The advisory, issued by Chandigarh-based Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) that comes under the defence ministry, will remain effective over the next 24 hours beginning 5pm on Friday.

Last week, a soldier was killed after an avalanche struck an army outpost in the Kargil sector last week.

In February, 10 soldiers died after being buried in an avalanche in Siachen .

Lance Naik Hanamanthapa, who was found buried alive under 25 feet of ice after six days, died at the Army RR hospital in New Delhi.

Read: 2 soldiers die every month in Siachen

Despite risk to soldiers, Siachen is vital to Indias security
Rebel Congress legislators filed a petition in the Uttarakhand high court in Nainital on Friday, challenging the notices served by assembly Speaker Govind Kunjwal ahead of the floor test the Harish Rawat government will face on Monday, .

Though the court was closed on Friday, it was specially opened to hear the petition at Justice UC Dhyani court. Acting on the application of Congress chief whip Indra Hridyesh, the Speaker served notice to the nine rebels including former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna and former cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat on Sunday. The notice questioned their move to join BJP legislators on March 18 and chant anti-government slogans. The protesting Congress leaders, who were asked to submit a reply by Friday, instead moved the high court in response.

Accusing the Speaker of being unfair, former agriculture minister Harak Singh Rawat said, Against rules Speaker served us notices. He has been given contradictory statements. Therefore we fear that he can take one sided decision (disqualify legislators) and moved court against the notice.

Not counting the dissenting MLAs, both BJP and Congress have 27 legislators each in a house of 70 members. Nine rebels are with the BJP while one rebel BJP legislator is with the Congress. To prove simple majority, one needs 36 members in the house. BJP says they have the required numbers to form government. The Congress on the other hand, plans to prove its majority after firing protesting members.

It is a technical matter (to disqualify rebels) but Congress wants them out. They have let down (the) party, state Congress president Kishor Upadhyay told Hindustan Times.

Sources say Congress can save its government with the support of three independents  one from the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and two Bahujan Samaj Party members. However, the Speaker claimed that appropriation had been passed in the house on March 18 with a voice vote. If the Speaker considers the bill passed (with the rebels support), it will be technically difficult for him to take action against them.

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The Paresh Barua faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has accused the BJP state president and chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal of planning social worker Sanjoy Ghoses murder in July 1997, just ahead of the April elections.

The faction, now called ULFA-Independent, also accused BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma of collaborating with Sonowal in using the ULFA to kill Ghosh and student leader Saurav Bora.

Some political career-oriented killers like Sarbananda, Himanta, etc., had masterminded the murders of Saurav Bora, Sanjoy Ghose and several others with the help of ULFA for the sake of securing their political space. All these attacks were planned, carried out without the knowledge and sanction of the ULFA commander-in-chief (Barua). Sonowal was, in fact, with some of our colleagues till the time Bora was murdered, ULFA assistant publicity secretary Arunodoy Asom said in an emailed statement.

Sanjoy, the nephew of former Doordarshan chief Bhaskar Ghose and former diplomat Arundhati Ghose, was working on a development project on Majuli, the island assembly constituency Sonowal is contesting.

Sonowal and Sarma were both leaders of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), which led the six-year Assam Agitation at the time the ULFA was born. Sonowal went on to be the president of the union before joining the regional Asom Gana Parisad (AGP) and then the BJP in 2011.

Sarma, on the other hand, joined the Congress. He quit the party to join the BJP in September last year.

Bora was shot on Dibrugarh University campus in 1986. The case, investigated by the local police and CID, was transferred to the CBI in 1988. Sonowal and five others were the prime accused in the murder, but the Gauhati High Court discharged them.

The ULFA-I had accused former colleague Bhaskar Sarma of having led the secret killings episode during the second term of AGP from 1996-2001. Secret killings, a term given to extra-judicial killings, saw more than 800 family members and relatives of ULFA members being killed systematically.

The ULFA said making the role of Sonowal known to Boras family and his relatives besides the people of Assam, was its moral responsibility.

But the timing of the accusation  after Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi said the BJP and AGP were responsible for secret killings  has raised eyebrows.

Calling the accusation politically-motivated, BJP spokesman Rupam Goswami said, It is surprising that they waited 30 years to make this accusation.

Arunodoy further said the ULFA had chosen Sonowal as head of the AASU, and many leaders of regional parties had used members of the banned outfit to achieve their political ambitions.

Some of them later killed our men with the help of occupational (Indian) forces for selfish gains, Arunodoy said, referring to the extra-judicial killings.

In a blunt reference to the AGP-BJP alliance, Arunodoy said Sonowal and AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahantas coming together along with others would only endanger the lives of the people.

But natiya nayak (national hero) Sonowals plan, devised at the New Delhi residence of Amit Shah to fulfil his political ambitions by endangering and ruining the lives of the Assamese people, will not succeed, the outfit added.

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At least 20 people were killed during revelry, as cops failed to avert firing, group clashes and drunken driving on Wednesday.

Nearly 16 people were killed in road accidents while two youths drowned in a canal in Gosaiganj.

Two people died in group clashes in Madiaon and Gosaiganj areas, while over 12 people were injured in accidents and clashes over petty issues.

A retired army personnels son shot dead a youth when a group of hooligans attacked his house in Madiaon on Wednesday afternoon. The family of retired army man Arun Kumar Mishra had objected to loud music which the hooligans resented. As they started pelting stone on Mishras house, Mishras elder son Ajit alias Monu opened fire on them with his fathers DBBP gun. Sanjay, 30, who was leading the group, was hit in the chest. He was rushed to KGMUs trauma centre when he succumbed during treatment. Monu fled after the incident but his father and younger brother Pintu were arrested.

A labourer Vijay Mal was killed in a brawl with another labourer Bablu in Gosaiganj. Two brothers Ramesh and Anil, both residents of Gomti Nagar, drowned while taking a bath in Indira Canal in Gosaiganj on Wednesday afternoon.Two friends Shubham Yadav, 24, and Akash, 21, were killed in a collision of two motorcycles in front of Para police station on Wednesday afternoon.

A BCom third year student of a city college, Shiv Shanker was also killed after his motorcycle rammed into another motorcycle at Memura turn in Mohanlalganj.

Chowk resident Ankit Yadav, 25, and Ram Dulare, 38, were killed in road mishaps near Bengali hotel and in front of Durga Mandir.

In Hasanganj, Hori Lal, 25 was killed after being hit by a four wheeler near Daliganj crossing while Mukesh Kumar Kashyap, 30, died when a speeding motorcyclist hit him in front of Naveen Galla Mandi on Sitapur Road. Puneet Gaud, 52, was killed after a speeding car hit his motorcycle in Madiaon while 35-year-old Suresh Kumar was killed in a mishap in Nagram. Shubham, 30, was killed when his motorcycle crashed into road divider on Campbell Road. Tufail Ahmad, 10, died after a tempo turned turtle in Vikas Nagar while Amit Verma 23, a tempo driver, was killed as his tempo over turned after ramming into a divider in Krishna Nagar. Two unknown people were killed after being hit by unknown vehicles in Kakori area.
The CPI(M) and Congress have alleged that the BJP is remaining silent on referring the Narada sting to the ethics panel of the upper house as it wants to garner TMCs votes to get key bills passed in the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP does not have adequate strength to pass bills in the upper house.

Baffled by the allegation, BJPs national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh said the Congress and Left Front together helped Trinamool Congress hush up the Narada scandal in the Rajya Sabha, a statement which has united the Left Front and Congress further.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Ritabrata Banerjee and his senior colleague in the upper house Pradip Bhattacharya of the Congress have challenged Singh to prove his allegation by participating in an open debate.

Both Banerjee and Bhattacharya have made a counter-allegation that it was rather the BJP members in the Rajya Sabha which remained silent on the issue of referring the matter to the ethics committee of the Rajya Sabha.

Read: Calcutta High Court asks for bribery tapes from Narada

Singhs allegation is a lie of the highest order and I openly challenge him to prove his point, said Banerjee. He also pointed out that while CPI(M) members of the Rajya Sabha were on their feet demanding probe against Trinamool MPs seen accepting money in the Narada tapes, the Congress Rajya Sabha member Pradip Bhattacharya raised his voice with the same demand.

When contacted, Bhattacharya also told HT that Singhs allegations were totally false and the BJP was going slow on the Narada sting and hadnt referred it to the ethics committee.

It was evident that both Congress and Left Front MPs were united in pressing for referring the matter to the ethics committee of the house, while BJP members in the house remained silent on the matter, Bhattacharya pointed out. Meanwhile, Banerjee has pointed out that since the treasury bench of the Rajya Sabha remained totally silent, the matter could not be sent to the Houses ethics committee.

BJPs commitment in bailing Trinamool out is exposed. I am challenging Singh to have an open debate with me in this regard and waiting for him to accept the challenge, said Banerjee.

Read: Narada sting operation delivers poetic justice to former MLA
Two Punjab doctors have come under the Punjab Medical Council (PMC) scanner for allegedly accepting free stay during a medical conference held in Mussoorie in Uttarakhand in August 2014 in violation of medical code of ethics.

These are Dr MK Sobti, former president of Punjab chapter of Indian Medical Association, and Dr Ashwani Chaudhary, medical superintendent, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), Ludhiana.

In its report sent last month to the Medical Council of India (MCI) and Union health and chemical fertiliser ministry, under which the pharma companies fall, council president Dr GS Grewal said around 100 doctors were provided free stay in a five-star hotel during the conference, the expenses for which were transferred by a pharma company into the accounts of the local organisers.

He said two Punjab doctors were part of the conference, who from August 29 to August 31 stayed in separate deluxe rooms with a per-day tariff of Rs 6,000 and paid nothing except the paltry room service. He confirmed their presence through a police report from Uttarakhand, which is enclosed in the report sent.

The report also encloses details of the money transfer by the pharma company and the hotel bills of the two doctors to establish what, he said, was a deep-rooted nexus between the pharma industry and doctors.

Demanding a thorough investigation by authorities, Grewal said such a practice is a clear violation of Section 6.8.1 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, which says a medical practitioner will not accept any hospitality, like hotel accommodation for self and family, for attending any conference, seminar or workshop as a delegate while dealing with pharmaceutical and allied health sector industry.

However, in this case, over 100 rooms were booked for doctors, for which a bill of Rs 30 lakh was paid by local organisers through a pharma company as is evident from the council report, he added.

The PMC could find the details of the doctors registered with us, but the matter needs further investigation as there were doctors from other places as well, Grewal said, adding that the response of the MCI or the central ministries to his report sent on February 15 was awaited.

When contacted, Dr Sobti said he had participated in the conference as a speaker and there was nothing wrong in the entitlement as he was invited there officially. He claimed that there was no reality in the PMC report.

On the other hand, Dr Chaudhary said, I dont remember anything about the conference but I have not done anything wrong.

Despite repeated attempts, MCI president Jayashree Mehta could not be reached for comment.

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Taking no chances , Pathankot police once again came to their toes on late Thursday evening, when somebody raised alarm over an unclaimed briefcase lying near the Chakki Bridge on Pathankot Jalandhar National Highway.

Suspecting some explosive, the police immediately cordoned off the area and pressed the bomb disposal and dog squad into action while rumours started swirling about explosive material being planted in the briefcase.

Pathankot SSP RK Bakshi, accompanied by other officers, reached the spot and evacuated the area.

Plastic material protuding out of the briefcase made the security agencies more suspicious

Subsequently, the briefcase was brought to an isolated place with the help of ropes, where it was opened. everyone seemed to heave a sigh of relief when the briefcase was found to contain three plastic bags of Holi colours, one toy with rubber bands and some warm clothes.

Bakshi later told HT taht the police was not taking any chances after the terror threats and the attack on Pathankot airbase.

This is the second such incident - earlier, an unclaimed sleeping bag of an armyman at Pathankot Railway Station had put security agencies on high alert. the bag was later found to contain army uniforms in it.
The ongoing strike of jewellers over levying of excise duty turned ugly on Hambran Road here on Wednesday when the traders, who opened their shops, were allegedly beaten up inside their shops and later dragged in public.

Around 1 pm a procession of jewellers, who were on their way towards Punjab Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) former president Rajinder Bhandaris house to submit a letter demanding rollback of excise duty, on noticing a few jewellery shops opened, got into a verbal argument. In no time, the conversation turned violent and the association members started beating up the shop owners and dragged them outside of their shops. The situation was brought under control only after the shops were forcibly shut down.

Sources said the jewellers in the district are divided over the issue of levying excise duty and have decided to call off the strike, especially when finance minister Arun Jaitly assured them that jewellers having annual revenue of 6 crore or above would only be liable to pay the excise duty, while the others would be exempted from the same.

Around 25 percent of the total small traders (jewellers), including a few shops at Sarafa bazaar, which is considered a hub for jewellery handiwork in the district, opened their shops on Wednesday.

To mark their dissent and woo the ruling government, the jewellers fraternity in the city had taken to selling vegetables, to beating utensils and breaking earthen pots among other methods in past three weeks.

On being asked about the mishandling of the traders, Sarjeevan Dheer, patron of Punjab Swarankar Sangh, said he had asked all the jewellers to remain shut, but some of them chose to open their shops. We requested them, after which they closed their shops. There were some shops opened for cleaning purpose and clearing pending transactions (cheque clearances), but now every shop is closed in the city, he added.

This is a case of absolute high-handedness. All of a sudden, a crowd entered my jewellery shop and started assaulting me. We have been forced to down shutters. No one is safe in this city, a jeweller, who was assaulted, said on condition of anonymity.

Ludhiana Jewellers Association president Anand Sikri said, The strike is indefinite and there is no shop opened now. Meanwhile, police reached the spot and took stock of the situation.

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Despite the claims of the district police of taking measures to curb the crime targeting tourists and devotees visiting the Golden Temple, roads in the areas situated close to the shrine continue to be risky for the foreign and domestic pilgrims and visitors. If cops are to be believed, crimes targeting tourists have come down by almost 89% this year.

While cops claim that their efforts have significantly reduced the incidents of crime targeting tourists, visitors and devotees continue to feature on the muggers scanner as is evident by some recently reported incidents.

This is primarily because some of the auto rickshaw pullers in the city, carting pilgrims and tourists also act as tourist guides.

Last year, the Amritsar police arrested a few gangs of auto rickshaw pullers, who were into robbing tourists and devotees, testifies to this fact. Another reason, which is often attributed to incidents involving tourists, is the absence of tourism police in the city. This is irrespective of the fact that the district police authorities had promised that the tourism police wing would be launched by the end of 2014.

While specially designed booths had also been constructed at different places, the tourism police remained out of sight. In one of the most recent cases, a tourist from Delhi, a group captain in the Indian Air Force, was mugged by unidentified men on a motorcycle, while he was on his way with his family to a well-known eatery in the walled city on a rickshaw after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple. The incident took place near Katra Jaimal Singh.

The muggers decamped with his sister-in-laws purse containing some jewelry, bank documents and some other credentials, and some cash besides a mobile phone and a tablet. In another case reported in January, a tourist, also hailing from Delhi, was accosted by two unidentified persons riding a motorcycle near Bharawa da Dhaba and the accused stole his bag containing some cash, important documents, keys of his scooter and his house.

Not just the domestic tourists, but also the NRIs and foreigners continue to be targeted by the robbers. Last year, on September 26, an unidentified person allegedly robbed Satpal Singh, an NRI and a resident of Vikaspuri, New Delhi, when he came to the Golden Temple with his family to pay obeisance.

On September 16 last year, an unidentified person was booked on charges of robbing Cleamence Thevenious, a resident of France. The accused stole her purse containing a passport with some bank and other documents, 25 Euros (`1,877) and a few other things.

The incident occurred while she was depositing her shoes at the jora ghar (shoe house) of the Golden Temple, during her visit to the shrine. A day later, Richard Cavteu Charley, a resident of Netherlands, was robbed near the 100-feet road. Her purse containing some Indian currency and 350 Euros (equaling `25,553) was stolen in the incident.

Amritsar police commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said on account of the measures taken by the district police, crimes targeting tourists had reduced by almost 89%.

There has been a significant reduction in crimes against tourists, particularly the incidents of snatching, he said.

He, however, added that as of now there was no proposal of introducing tourism police.
Almost a month after some artefacts were found in the fields of Aklia village here, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in its preliminary report, has found that the items could date back to Harappan, Pratihara and Mughal periods. The primary findings have also identified the route of the ancient Saraswati river through this area.

Artefacts were found when some MGNREGA workers were levelling the field of one Hari Singh on February 8. The sarpanch of the village informed the district administration about the recovery. After a few days, officials of the ASI (Chandigarh circle) visited the site and collected the artefacts.

The site included a mound which is approximately 8-9 feet and spread over an area of 10 acres. The ASI team found a large number of bone fragments and the report presumed it to be a burial site.

Other findings included a door jamb (of a temple), which is made of grey sand with rich carving.

The door jamb is carved with the figure of three human beings wearing an elaborate head gear. Several fragments of pottery including bowls, big jars, decorated with black paintings, have been recovered which appear to be of the Harappan period. The concentric ring designs on the pottery seem to be of the Mughal period. An unidentified broken animal figurine (probably a horse) was also recovered from the site, said the report.

Deputy commissioner of Mansa Varinder Kumar Sharma said that these findings might get the district a better recognition on the global map.

He said, the ASI has suggested trial trenches at the site to ascertain the definite timeframe. I have urged the department to take over the site as soon as possible. The ASI team will look into the relation between several Harappan sites and the Saraswati river.

Meanwhile, villagers in Aklia claimed that the site was related to the Mahabharat era and the Pandavas might have spent their exile days in this area. We have heard from our ancestors that Draupadi, Bheem, Nakul and Sahdev had stayed here during their exile, said one of the villagers. We are also worried that whether the government will acquire the land without our consent or proper compensation, said another resident of Aklia village. The owner of the land from where the objects were found could not be reached for comments.

The deputy commissioner said that the owner of the land would be approached and the land would be acquired for excavation as per law.

The ASI has their laws under which the land would be acquired. It is also not mandatory to acquire the land until the excavation throws up more evidence .
A 51-year-old man riding a scooter died after he was hit by a luxury bus, owned by the ruling Badal family, near Dallewal village on the Hoshiarpur-Dasuya road on Wednesday night.

The bus driver did not stop the vehicle after hitting Surinder Singh, an ex-serviceman who worked at as a granthi at Gurdwara Bhikowal, and drove towards Mukerian.

It was only after one of the passengers called up the police control room (PCR) to inform that the bus had crushed someone. An alert was then sent to the Mukerian police which intercepted the bus (PB 03 X 2600). The driver, Arwinder Singh of Jasla village in Patiala, however, was allowed to drop the passengers in Pathankot and then arrested.

Meanwhile, the victim, a resident of Hussainpur Guruka village, was taken to Bhunga hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.

On Thursday, local Congress MLA Sunder Sham Arora and other party workers held a demonstration at the Hoshiarpur civil hospital where the body had been kept in a mortuary. Arora demanded that a criminal case be filed against the owners of the bus.

Hariana station house officer (SHO) Bikramjit Singh said a case under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of Indian Penal Code had been registered against the bus driver.

Since 304-A is a bailable section the accused was let off on bail on Thursday.

Passersby said they tried to call the 108 ambulance from the nearby Bhunga hospital but no one responded. So they carried the victim in a private vehicle but by the time they reached the hospital, the man had died. They called the victims family from the cell phone found on his body.

Mukerian SHO Jaswinder Pal Singh said he let the driver go to avoid inconvenience to passengers but not before taking appropriate action.

He, however, failed to clarify on this.

We accepted his bail as section 304-A is bailable, he said. When reminded that the case was lodged much later, he said when there is no FIR against someone they cannot be taken in custody.
Indefinite mass-leave protest against harsh working conditions has hit Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited (Punsup) in all districts except Patiala when wheat procurement is due to start from April 1.

The employees on leave include deputy district managers, field officers, inspectors, public distribution clerks, and accounts department workers. Ten district managers looking after 15 districts had on Tuesday called for this protest and started touring the state to mobilise members of the staff. Punsup procures 20% of the states wheat in the rabi season, besides paddy in kharif, on behalf of the Centre.

The protest has also affected the distribution of dal (lentil) among poor families under the states popular atta-dal scheme. The Punsup district managers of Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Fazilka, Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, Faridkot, Moga, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr have joined the protest, and their counterparts from Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar, and Ludhiana havent.

On Friday when the protest started, the Punsup employees staged demonstrations in Amritsar and Taran Taran and raised slogans against the management. The district managers plan to meet secretary of food and civil supplies Raj Kamal Chaudhary on Saturday. If the talks fail, it will jeopardise procurement.

I have asked Punsup managing director (captain PS Shergill) to sort out the matter at earliest, Chaudhary told HT. Shergill was unavailable for comments. Punsups head office on Friday sent field officers to take charge of the district offices in 15 districts, but all premises were found locked. Punsups suspending 15 employee of late is said to have triggered the protest. The two district managers; a couple of their deputies; a field officer; and 10 inspectors were suspended over discrepancies in procurement and storage of the 1509 variety of basmati rice in the previous kharif marketing season.

The district managers say they were forced to procure the variety. After its prices fallen on the open market, the government had decided to offer a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,450 per quintal and asked the district managers to procure it with whatever infrastructure available.

The district managers said they continued to be on probation even after almost five years of service.

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Around 1,100 trees were felled in the forest area along the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in this district to fill the canal on March 16 and 17, a forest department official said here on Wednesday.

According to the department, the 34-km stretch has more than one lakh trees in the 290-hectare forest land.

The department had feared a bigger loss but the apex court order for maintaining status quo prevented any further damage.

Mohali divisional forest officer Tejinder Singh said the department had recovered around Rs 70,000 in penalty from the defaulters till Wednesday. We are making damage reports and trying to identify the culprits and impose penalty, he said.

The department claimed that they had earlier sought help from the police, who had sent them some queries. Then, we wrote to the SSP again and started work at our end, he said. However, Singh did not divulge the identity of those on whom the fine was imposed. Yes, they were farmers, not political leaders, he said when asked about involvement of any political party. He said the department had found a large number of cut trees and logs that were in their custody.

Singh said the department had not filed complaints with the police after they failed to take action on their earlier requests. When asked about the worst affected areas, Singh said Chunni Khurd and Bhateri were the main areas while two to three other villages were also affected. The only points that were easily approachable faced the plunder, otherwise the forest is fine, he said.

The SSP could not be contacted for comment. The owner of the two machines used for filling the canal refused to comment.

Free-for-all

Around 150 earth-moving machines were seen in the SYL area in the district on March 16 soon after the Punjab Vidhan Sabha passed a bill refusing to share waters with Haryana. On March 17, the number of machines reduced to less than half. It was only after the Supreme Court asked to maintain status quo that the plundering of forest stopped. The department claimed that the police were not helping them and it would take them many days to calculate the loss.
The Vigilance Bureau (VB) has questioned former civil surgeon Dr RL Bassan as part of the probe into the purchase of electronic equipment and other items at the Jalandhar civil surgeons office between 2013 and 2015.

A team of VB sleuths posed questions before the former civil surgeon pertaining to the utilisation of funds by his office during his tenure besides recording his statement.

Besides Dr Bassan, the VB also grilled more staff members, including a storekeeper and an accountant, working at the civil surgeons office and recorded their statements.

The probe agency has also taken in its possession records of bank statements of the civil surgeon offices bank accounts.

The agency has also sought the details of the entire process of purchase, including formation of a committee, generation of demand by various branches, inviting tenders etc, from the health department in nearby districts.

Sources said the officials and employees, whose involvement is suspected in this, have started approaching their political bosses to save their skin.

Confirming the development, VB senior superintendent of police (SSP) Satinder Singh said a notice was issued to Dr Bassan and others following which they joined the probe.

He did not divulge details of what was asked from them.

The SSP said the inquiry would take some time to complete and they would take action accordingly in this connection. If needed, his team would question these people again, he said.

Singh said they have expedited the investigation into spending of funds between 2013 and 2015.

Hindustan Times has some copies of invoices purportedly issued by the surgical firm Dev Surgical Industries. The firm owner had claimed that his company did not deal in such products.

As per the invoice number 28, the civil surgeons office had purchased an LCD computer, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system, a printer and a central processing unit (CPU) with a DVD writer from the firm.

An invoice of `38,867 was issued to the office with `2,217 as VAT by the firm.

The invoice numbering 32 and 33, with the same bill amount for the same products, were issued the same day. The same products were again purchased by the civil surgeons office on January 4, 2015, against invoice number 37 at the same amount.

When contacted, former Dr Bassan said that he was busy somewhere and asked to contact later on.

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Garry Shandling, the popular comedian and actor who made his name as a frequent guest host on late-night American television and as a star of The Larry Sanders Show, died on Thursday at age 66.

Shandling, who began his showbiz career as a writer for TV sitcoms such as Welcome Back, Kotter and Sanford and Son, was transported from his Los Angeles home to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead, police and coroners officials said.

Jeffrey Tambor, Garry Shandling and Rip Torn in The Larry Sanders Show. Shandling went on to greater commercial and critical acclaim with this show which ran from 1992 to 1998 on HBO. (YouTube)

The performer, who had been relatively healthy, called emergency 911 for help himself and suffered an apparent heart attack, his publicist, Alan Nierob, told Reuters. He added that Shandling had no history of heart disease, zero.

Lieutenant Brian Elias of the Los Angeles County medical examiners office confirmed the entertainer apparently died of natural causes. Theres nothing suspicious about the case, whatsoever, Elias said.

Tributes to the innovative performer, known for a somewhat socially awkward, nervous comic persona, immediately poured in from the comedy world at news of his death.

Fellow comedian Kathy Griffin, who just a few days ago posted a photo of herself with Shandling and actor Bob Odenkirk on social media, said on Twitter: Sunday, my longtime friend Garry Shandling was here, making every1 laugh. I loved him. Ill miss our talks the most.

Garry in a still from Iron Man 2. (YouTube)

Retired late-night television host David Letterman, whose NBC show was offered to Shandling, and declined, when Letterman moved to CBS in 1993, said in statement: Stunned and sad about Garry. Great stand up, great writer. Television shows are classics.

Other comedy luminaries paying tribute to Shandling included Steve Martin, Ricky Gervais, Amy Schumer, Jimmy Kimmel and John Cleese.

Although he was a frequent, longtime fixture on broadcast television talk-show circuit, Shandling made his biggest splash on cable television in its early days.

He created and starred on the Showtime networks Its Garry Shandlings Show in the mid-1980s, a program that defied convention by calling attention to the conceit of the show itself, going so far as to integrate the studio audience and the set into the action. It ran for 72 episodes, through 1990.

Although he was a frequent, longtime fixture on broadcast television talk-show circuit, Shandling made his biggest splash on cable television in its early days. (AP)

But Shandling went on to greater commercial and critical acclaim with another show-within-a-show series, The Larry Sanders Show, which ran from 1992 to 1998 on HBO.

It starred Shandling as a satirically exaggerated version of himself hosting a fictional late-night TV talk show, drawing on his real-life experiences as a stand-up comic and regular guest host for NBCs The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.

Shandling won an Emmy in 1998 for his writing on the series finale.

Co-starring Jeffrey Tambor and Rip Torn, Larry Sanders was one of HBOs first big successes and is seen as a forerunner for parody-heavy comedy hits that came after it, including Entourage, 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

HBO said in a statement that Shandlings show ushered in the modern period of original programming at the pay-cable network.

A Chicago native, Shandling grew up in a Jewish family in Tucson, Arizona, before moving in the 1970s to Los Angeles, where he first worked in advertising and later became a script writer for TV sitcoms and developed his own stand-up comedy act.
Belgiums Prime Minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers on Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this weeks suicide bombings by Islamic militants.

With at least one attacker at large and an unknown number of accomplices, police detained six people in raids around the Belgian capital on Thursday night.

In a Paris suburb, a man suspected of plotting an imminent attack was also detained on Thursday, but the interior minister reported no apparent link with the Brussels airport and subway bombings or the November 13 attacks on Paris.

Authorities lowered Belgiums terror-threat level by one notch although they said the situation remained grave and another attack is likely and possible.

Belgium had been on its highest alert ever since Tuesdays bombings in the Brussels airport and subway that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

We dont have to be proud about what happened, justice minister Koen Geens said of the governments failures to halt the attacks. We perhaps did things we should not have done.

Less than a mile from the bombed subway station, European justice and home ministers held an emergency meeting where they condemned the terrorist acts as an attack on our open, democratic society.

Read | Brussels: Missing Infosys employees last call tracked to metro

They also urged the European parliament to adopt an agreement allowing authorities to exchange airport passenger data.

A manhunt continued for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene.

This CCTV image from the Brussels Airport surveillance cameras shows what officials believe may be suspects in the Zavemtem Airport attack on March 22. (Reuters Photo)

Belgian prosecutors said the raids on Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood, where police earlier had found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

Prosecutors declined to comment on reports from Belgian state broadcaster RTBF and Frances Le Monde and BFM television that a fifth attacker may also be at large: A man seen on surveillance cameras in the Brussels metro carrying a large bag alongside one of the suicide bombers.

It is not clear whether that man was killed in the attack or is a fugitive.

Authorities drew a line between the Brussels bombings and the November 13 attacks that left 130 dead in Paris. Both appeared to have been carried out by the same Belgium-based Islamic State cell.

Prosecutors have said at least four people were involved in the Brussels bloodshed, including brothers Ibrahim and Khalid el Bakraoui, identified as suicide bombers. European security officials identified another suicide bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a suspected bomb-maker for the Paris attacks.

Khalid el Bakraoui blew himself up on the train, while Ibrahim el Bakraoui and Laachraoui died at the airport.

It is clear that some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks.

If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions, about the governments performance, said interior minister Jan Jambon, who along with Geens had tendered his resignation.

Notable among the questions were those raised by Turkeys announcement that it had warned Belgium last year that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim el Bakraoui, had been flagged as a foreign terrorist fighter.

But Prime Minister Charles Michel asked Jambon and Geens to stay on, given the current challenge the government is facing.

Turkey said on Wednesday that Ibrahim el Bakraoui was apprehended in June 2015 near Turkeys border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands. He was later set free by the Dutch for lack of proof of his involvement with jihadis.

Geens appeared on a Belgian TV news show and was asked who was to blame for the failure to follow up on the Turkish warning.

It is clear it is not one single person but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things.

(From L) Belgian justice minister Koen Geens, Dutch interior minister Donald Plasterk and European Union commissioner for migration and home affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, talk to the media at the European Council headquarters in Brussels. (AFP Photo)

Our own services should perhaps have been more critical about the place where the person had been detained, he added, referring to Turkeys border area with Syria.

When someone is arrested there in a city few people know, it is clear enough for insiders that it could be a terrorist, Geens said. Here, though, he was not known as a terrorist. It is the only moment we could have linked him to it. And that moment, perhaps, we missed.

The justice minister acknowledged that we have to be very self-critical.

But Geens added that such events have also happened in nations with the best intelligence services in the world, pointing to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Read | Desperate search for missing loved ones in Brussels

Authorities had been unable to find Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris ringleaders and described as one of Europes most wanted men, until a breakthrough led them to a Brussels apartment where he was arrested on Friday.

The intelligence shortcomings have prompted European authorities to once again call for quicker and more efficient intelligence cooperation.

Rob Wainwright, the head of Europes police agency Europol, said his agency is trying to make sure investigators have access to needed information.

You have a fragmented intelligence picture but were trying to help with that, he said. Our databases contain thousands of names of suspected foreign fighters which have been submitted by member states, and even the United States. But we also have records on arms smuggling, money laundering, forgery and other elements which are particularly relevant given that many of these guys had petty crime backgrounds.

He said the threat goes beyond France and Belgium and that it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

We are looking at large numbers of foreign fighters who have returned as potential terrorists, he said. And we are faced with a strategic decision by the Islamic State to aggressively target Europe. These are all very challenging dimensions. As for how large the community is and who has been sent back - that is the golden question.

A woman lights a candle among the tributes to the victims of the recent attacks in Brussels, placed in Place de la Bourse. (AP Photo)

The federal prosecutors office said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented a house used as a hideout for the Paris attackers, and that he had been hunted by police since December.

Also on Thursday, Abdeslam was summoned to court in Brussels. His lawyer, who had initially vowed to fight extradition to France for the Paris attacks, said he now wants to be sent there as soon as possible.

Abdeslam evaded police in two countries for four months before his capture, and the attackers in Brussels may have rushed their plot because they felt authorities closing in.

Abdeslams lawyer, Sven Mary, told reporters that Abdeslam wants to explain himself in France, so its a good thing. Mary said the extradition process should be completed by mid-April.

While Belgium lowered its threat level, the danger has not gone away, said Paul Van Tigchelt, the head of the terror assessment authority.

Nevertheless, several hundred people gathered at a makeshift memorial to the victim in Brussels central Place de La Bourse. They sang peace songs, took selfies and wiped away tears.

Read | IS supporters celebrate on social media after Brussels bombing
Donald Trump is a brave pro-Putin political maverick who would end US foreign wars and perhaps lift sanctions on Moscow. Hillary Clinton, however, is a warmonger beholden to the military-industrial complex. Or, at least, as far as Russia is concerned.

Russian state TV, which hews closely to the Kremlins world view, leaves little doubt about who Moscow supports in Novembers US presidential election: The Donald.

Vladimir Putins spokesman took brief exception this month to a Trump attack video which showed Putin laughing at the prospect of Clinton defending America. But officials and analysts say the Kremlin still sees Trump as the best candidate by a mile.

Putin has hailed Trump as very talented. The head of the Russian parliaments foreign affairs committee said hed be a worthy winner of the 2015 man of the year title in the United States.

And Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russias main weekly TV news show Vesti Nedeli, claimed this month that the Republican party elite had struck a secret deal with the Democrats to derail Trump, in part because of his sympathy for Russia.

Trump doesnt suit the Republican party, Kiselyov told viewers. They usually divide up the state budget (among themselves) by frightening people about Russia. But Trump is ready to find a common language with Putin. Thats why they dont need Trump and even regard him as dangerous.

Kiselyov has been one of the chief proponents of state televisions strongly anti-American tone, once saying Moscow could turn the United States into radioactive ash.

Some experts say Trump appeals to Moscow because Putin believes a Trump presidency would be isolationist and leave Russia with a free hand.

The Kremlin cant believe its luck, said Konstantin von Eggert, an independent Moscow-based political analyst who believes the Obama administration has not been forceful in countering Russia.

President Obama and (Secretary of State) John Kerry were a dream team for them, but now they have an even better option; someone who thinks that America should have nothing to do with the rest of the world.

RT, the Kremlins English-language TV channel formerly known as Russia Today, says it does not back any U.S. candidates. But it has described Trump as idiosyncratic and raw, and suggested he represents the popular will of U.S. voters, which a sinister U.S. establishment is trying to subvert.

Can Americas elections be truly called democratic if the political establishment aligns itself against the popular will? lamented Peter Lavelle, the American host of RTs flagship talk CrossTalk show. As things stand now millions of voters could be disenfranchised.

Thank God for Trump

Trump has received advice from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former U.S. military intelligence chief who advocates better ties with Russia, and who shared a dinner table in Moscow with Putin in December to celebrate RTs 10th anniversary.

Trump has won friends in Moscow with statements praising Putin as a strong leader that he could probably get along with. His support for Russian air strikes in Syria was welcomed.

In January, after a British judge ruled that Putin had probably authorised the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, Trump said he saw no evidence the Russian president was guilty.

First of all, he says he didnt do it. Many people say it wasnt him. So who knows who did it? Trump said.

This week, Trump said the United States should reduce funding for NATO. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said his comments showed the alliance was in crisis.

For the last two years all we heard from Western newspapers and TV was very critical of Russia, Victoria Zhuravleva, a Moscow-based expert on US-Russia relations, told Reuters.

So when you hear something that is not so critical and even more friendly towards your country its like: Thank God, Theres one person we can talk to: Donald Trump

Trump and Putin were similar, she said: They are both open-minded, pragmatic, and say what they think.

The Old Brigand

The mutual appreciation between Trump and Putin has invited comparisons to the Russian leaders friendship with another billionaire-turned-politician, Italys Silvio Berlusconi, who outraged Ukrainians and irked EU leaders last year by visiting Russian-annexed Crimea with Putin. They toured a Crimean winery and drank a priceless 240-year-old bottle from its cellar.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton, who is well known to the Kremlin because of her 2009-2013 stint as US Secretary of State, is clearly not to Moscows taste.

We really dont want Hillary, said one Russian official, who spoke anonymously because of the subjects sensitivity. Shes no friend of Russias.

State media coverage has focused on what it has cast as her wacky promise to declassify UFO files and on the pressure she has faced for using her personal email account for government business and over her response to the fatal 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Pro-Kremlin bloggers, corralled by a Putin supporter who used to represent the ruling party in parliament, are enthused by the prospect of agitating on behalf of Trump.

Trump is the first member of the American elite in 20 years who compliments Russia. Trump will smash America as we know it, weve got nothing to lose, Konstantin Rykov told his followers on social media.

Do we want the grandmother Hillary? No. Maybe its time to help the old brigand.
A splash of colour doused the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa as it witnessed the first ever celebration of Holi at the seat of the countrys government.

The festival of colours arrived at the parliament complex on Thursday the initiative of Chandra Arya, the Liberal Party MP from Nepean, an Ottawa riding (as constituencies are called in Canada), with the involvement of the Indian high commission.

More than 300 people participated in the celebration as attendees were adorned with gulal.

In a message, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: This happy holiday is an opportunity to renew friendships and celebrate peace, but it is also a time to reflect on traditional notions of good and evil, and the ultimate triumph of light over darkness.

He added, As friends and families come together for this joyous occasion, we must take a moment to recognise the tremendous contributions Canadians of Hindu faith have made to our country.

A dance-drama on the origin of Holi was performed by the Darpan Performing Arts group during the celebrations at Canadas parliament complex. (Indian High Commission)

Our diversity is our greatest strength. On behalf of our family, Sophie and I wish all those marking this occasion a fun, happy and colourful Holi.

There was also a dance-drama on the origin of Holi by the Darpan Performing Arts group. Among those present at the event were Canadian heritage minister Melanie Joly and Indias high commissioner Vishnu Prakash.

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India was the source of the highest number of nurses recruited from non-EU countries into Britains National Health Service (NHS) between 2009 and 2015, latest figures show, amid concerns that some Indian health professionals face discrimination.

In a report released on Thursday, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Home Office said nurses from India and the Philippines tended to have better English skills andthis made them preferred candidates for recruitment.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin has expressed concern over alleged discrimination against some Indian and other non-EU health professionals in the NHS.

Between 2009 and 2015, a total of 6,138 Indian nurses were recruited, accounting for 37% of the non-EU nurses employed by NHS trusts. Others in the top five source countries are the Philippines, Nigeria, Nepal and Australia.

Placing much of the blame for current nursing shortages on the sector itself, MAC chairman David Metcalf said: (There) is no good reason why the supply of nurses cannot be sourced domestically. There seems to be an automatic presumption that non-EEA skilled migration provides the health and care sector with a Get out of Jail Free card.

MAC had previously found that, on average, non-EU nurses were being paid 6,000 less than equivalent UK workers.

Faced with a shortage of nurses, Britain last October moved nursing to the shortage occupation list. Professions mentioned in the list are not subject to several restrictions applicable to professionals migrating under other visa categories.

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Investigators have identified a new suspect they believe played a role in the Brussels bombings this week, Belgian newspaper De Morgen said on Friday, naming him as 28-year-old Syrian Naim al Hamed.

De Morgen said Hamed was on a list circulated to the security services of other European countries after Tuesdays attacks along with the primary suspects -- Mohamed Abrini, Najim Laachraoui and Khalid el Bakraoui.

Naim al Hamed was also suspected of involvement in the November 13 Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed.

Read | Will take weeks to identify Brussels blast victims: Officials

Another newspaper, De Standaard, reported on Friday that police have arrested a man who was seen on security footage next to Khalid el Bakraoui, the suicide attacker who detonated a bomb in the Brussels metro. The federal prosecutors office did not confirm the arrest.

This CCTV image from the Brussels airport surveillance cameras shows what officials believe may be suspects in the Zaventem Airport attacks on March 22. (Reuters Photo)

De Standaard newspaper said the man, whom it did not name, was arrested after a policeman recognised him from the security footage.

Khalid el Bakraoui, 27, who blew himself up on a crowded rush hour train, is the brother of Ibrahim el Bakraoui, who detonated a bomb at the Brussels airport. The joint attacks at the Brussels metro station and Zaventem Airport killed at least 30 people and wounded over 250.

Public broadcaster RTBF meanwhile reported police detained a seventh person in the district of Forest following six arrests late on Thursday.

Read | Polands leaders want no refugees after Brussels blasts
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi made an anti-Muslim comment about a BBC reporter after being questioned about violence suffered by Myanmars Muslim minority during an interview, according to media reports.

Suu Kyi, recently nominated as a member of the cabinet of President-elect Htin Kyaw, reportedly lost her composure during the 2013 interview by BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain and made an off-air comment about her.

Details of the incident have emerged in journalist Peter Pophams book The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burmas Struggle For Freedom. According to the book, an angry Suu Kyi muttered: No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.

The book states the president of the National League for Democracy refused to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the killing of Muslims by mobs in Myanmar when she was repeatedly questioned about these issues by Husain, the first Muslim presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons, she said. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.

Muslims make up about 4% of Myanmars population. Much of the violence has been directed against the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine state.

Some Buddhist monks have been accused of whipping up anti-Muslim sentiments and Suu Kyi has been criticised for not speaking out in defence of the minority. Observers believe she was reluctant to speak because she did not want to alienate Buddhists ahead of last years crucial election.

The 70-year-old led the NLD to a landslide victory in the polls in November. Though she is barred from becoming president because of a constitutional provision, Suu Kyi has said she will govern the country indirectly.
Nigerian troops have freed more than 800 people held by Boko Haram Islamist fighters in multiple villages in the countrys restive northeast, the army said on Friday.

All the hostages were rescued in Borno state with 520 recovered in Kusumma village on Tuesday after a confrontation with Boko Haram fighters, and a further 309 from 11 other villages under the Islamist groups control.

The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area, army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement, adding that 22 terrorists were killed.

Three Islamists were killed and one was captured alive during the second raid on the 11 villages.

Usman said items recovered included arms, axes and a motorcycle.

The military operations came on the same day that Boko Haram abducted 16 women, including two girls, in neighbouring Adamawa state.

We received report of the kidnap of 14 women and two girls by gunmen believed to be Boko Haram insurgents near Sabon Garin Madagali village, said Adamawa state police spokesman Othman Abubakar.

Locals said the hostages were seized in the bush while fetching firewood and fishing in a nearby river under the escort of two civilian vigilantes assisting the military against the Islamist insurgents.

When the civilian vigilantes escorting the women saw the heavily armed Boko Haram fighters advancing on them they fled, leaving the women to their fate, said Madagali resident Garba Barnabas.

Two women who escaped by jumping into the river and pretending to have drowned later returned to the village to raise the alarm, he added.

Human rights groups have said fighters have kidnapped thousands of women and young girls, including more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted from the Borno town of Chibok nearly two years ago.

At least 17,000 have been killed since Boko Haram launched an insurgency in 2009 to carve out an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

More than 2.6 million people have fled their homes since the start of the violence but some of the internally displaced have returned home after troops began fighting back last year and recaptured territory.

A regional force involving troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin is to deploy to fight the Islamists.
Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees on Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he emphasised solidarity with other faiths at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiments following the attacks on Brussels which killed over 30.

Francis denounced the carnage as a gesture of war carried out by bloodthirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside of Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant to be a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the gesture of destruction carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

Watch | Pope Francis washes feet of refugees in moving ceremony

We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace, Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the centre.

Pope Francis shakes hands with Muslims faithful during his visit at the Castelnuovo di Porto refugees centre, some 30km (18, 6 miles) from Rome, Thursday, March 24, 2016. (AP Photo)

Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

Francis was greeted with a banner reading Welcome in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the Mass. But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty. Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting from the Pope at the end of Mass, with the pontiff even posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows.

Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the foot-washing ritual, and previous popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, symbolising Jesus 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.

A refugee takes a selfie with Pope Francis after the foot-washing ritual at the Castelnuovo di Porto refugees centre near Rome, Italy, March 24, 2016. (REUTERS)

Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention centre. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.

The Vatican said on Thursday that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the centre and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.

The Vaticans new norms said anyone from the people of God could be chosen to participate in the ceremony. While the phrase people of God refers to baptized Christians, the decree also said that pastors should instruct both the chosen faithful and others so that they may participate in the rite consciously, actively and fruitfully, suggesting that the rite could be open to non-Catholics as well.

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican norms are meant for traditional liturgies in Catholic communities, not necessarily a unique papal Mass where the overall message is one of universal brotherhood and the love of God for all his children.

We must always take the pastoral context into account, Lombardi said in an email. Norms that are appropriate for a parish celebration arent to be considered binding on a very unique celebration of the pope in a refugee center with a non-Christian majority.

Francis clearly intended the message to be universal.

All of us, together: Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Coptics, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God, he said. We want to live in peace, integrated.
Republicans have now dragged their spouses into the race for the White House and its getting quite ugly, with the frontrunner Donald Trump right in the middle of it, as always.

In an escalating spat, being called the War of the Wives, Ted Cruz, placed second in the Republican race, called Trump a snivelling coward on Thursday for attacking his wife Heidi Cruz.

The Trump campaign  and not Trump himself, this time  dismissed Cruzs outburst as an attention-seeking gimmick to try and stay relevant in a race that he has lost.

Trump leads Cruz by a wide margin in the count of delegates needed to clinch the party nomination 739 to 465 (John Kasich is a distant third with 143). They need 1,237 to win.

As a sense of inevitability grows around Trump, Cruz has become the unlikely choice of the party leadership, overcoming their earlier distaste for him, to stop the frontrunner.

And conservative Super PACs  Political Action Committees, which can raise money in support of a candidate but have no direct links to their campaign  too are rallying around Cruz.

Republican US presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz is accompanied by his wife Heidi and daughter Caroline during a campaign rally in Houston, Texas. (Reuters file)

One such group, Make America Awesome, started this spat over wives with an ad on its Facebook campaign that showed the frontrunners wife, Melania Trump, partially nude.

That picture ran in GQ magazine in 2000, five years before she married Trump. She was Melania Knauss then, and a top model who had appeared on the cover of many magazines.

The Facebook ad by the Super PAC was titled: Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady. Or, it said, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday (the March 22 nominating contests).

Trump responded on Tuesday night in a tweet holding Cruz responsible for the Facebook ad and threatening to spill the beans on Cruzs wife Heidi.

Cruz denounced the ad and denied he had anything to do with it. But Trump seemed unconvinced, and his campaign continued calling for Cruz to stop it.

Trump didnt carry out his threat but retweeted a post from a supporter on Thursday that had a rather unflattering mugshot of Heidi Cruz, alongside a very glamorous Melania Trump.

The caption, as it appeared in the supporters post, said, A picture is worth a thousand words. Trump simply retweeted the whole package without modifications.

That was a new low even for Trump, who once said a TV anchor asked him tough questions because she was menstruating (he denied that later), and mocked rival Carly Fiorinas face.

This time, he shocked even his supporters, including erstwhile rival-turned-backer Ben Carson, who said on a TV show his endorsement didnt cover everything Trump does.

And Cruz slammed Trump hard at a news conference on the campaign trail: I dont get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, thatll do it every time.

He added, wagging at finger at the bank of cameras facing him, Donald, youre a snivelling coward, leave Heidi the hell alone.
The taxi driver who drove the Brussels suicide bombers to the airport revealed details about his journey with the terrorists on Thursday.

Brahim El Bakraoui and two other men suspected of carrying out the attack on Tuesday travelled from the Brussels district of Schaerbeek to the airport in a taxi.

A man wearing a hat and light-coloured jacket did chat with the taxi driver, talking about his anger towards the United States and how he disagreed with some of its actions, Belgian newspaper DH reported.

The Brussels bombers and suspects on the run. (AFP)

A bespectacled man wearing a cream jacket and black hat ran out of the airport terminal, federal prosecutors said, before a third suitcase bomb exploded in the departures area as bomb disposal experts were clearing the area, causing no casualties. The man, captured on film with the suicide bombers, is being sought by police.

DH said the taxi driver smelled ammonia during the journey and when he dropped the men off at the airport noticed their bags had traces of white powder on them.

The taxi driver was not allowed to touch their explosives-laden bags when he dropped them off near the airport.

DH earlier reported that a mix-up by a Brussels taxi dispatcher meant a small car was sent to pick up the bombers instead of the minivan they had ordered and the passengers were forced to leave one bag behind.

He heard about the explosions while driving his next passenger and immediately went to the police, it said. He led the police to a house on Rue Max Roos, in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, where he said he had picked up three men.

At the apartment in Schaerbeek, investigators found nearly 40 gallons of acetone and nearly 8 gallons of hydrogen peroxide. The investigators also found detonators, a suitcase full of nails and screws, and other materials that could be used to make explosive devices.

In a garbage bin near that apartment investigators found a computer that carried the last will and testament of Brahim El Bakraoui.

The prosecutor quoted from it, reading: Always on the run, not knowing what to do anymore, being looked for everywhere, not being safe any longer and that if he waits around any longer he risks ending up next to the person in a cell.

That may have been a reference to the captured Abdeslam, whose barkeeper brother was deported from Turkey early last year and who blew himself up at a cafe in Paris on November 13.

The airport bombs and a suicide bombing at Maelbeek metro station in the city centre, which prosecutors said was carried out by El Bakraouis brother Khalid, killed at least 31 people and injured 270.
Syrian soldiers recaptured the old citadel of Palmyra overlooking the citys ancient ruins on Friday, state media and a monitoring group said.

With this, the fierce battle for control of the historic town has entered its third day.

The recapture of Palmyra, which the Islamic State fighters seized in May 2015, would mark the biggest single gain for President Bashar al-Assad since Russia intervened in September and turned the tide of the five-year conflict in his favour.

Palmyra is the site of some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, and temples and tombs were dynamited by IS fighters in what the United Nations has described as a war crime.

Read | IS second-in-command killed in US raid in Syria: Reports

The city controls routes east into the heartland of territory held by the militants, who have proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from swathes of Syria and Iraq.

The scale of Fridays fighting reflected how much of a strategic prize the city represents, with jets launching dozens of air strikes and soldiers firing mortar barrages, while IS hit back with two car bombings.

Russian warplanes have continued to support the Syrian army and its allies as they push their offensive on the desert city, despite Moscows recent announcement that it was withdrawing the bulk of its military forces.

Soldiers march in a line at where the Syrian military media said is Palmyra, in this still image taken from a Syrian military media video uploaded on March 23, 2016. (REUTERS)

Beirut-based television channel Al-Mayadeen, broadcasting from the edge of Palmyra, showed a low-flying jet carry out three air strikes against what it said were IS fighters withdrawing from the old citadel back into Palmyra.

State television and Al-Manar, the television station of Lebanons Hezbollah group, later quoted military sources saying government forces had seized the citadel, located above the ancient ruins.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the citadel had been captured. It said there were 56 air strikes between dawn and early afternoon on Friday.

The IS militants had been relying on Qaryatayn, which is now encircled, to reinforce Palmyras defense.

A video released by the IS news agency, dated Thursday and said to show Palmyra, depicted moderate to severe damage to the buildings in the modern town.

God willing, we shall be victorious over the infidels, said a fatigued looking fighter in the video, sitting on top of a blown-up tank.

A ceasefire backed by the United States and Russia covers most of Syria but not areas held by the IS. The first truce of its kind since war began five years ago has been accompanied this month by the first peace talks attended by Assads government and most of the groups opposed to him. Meanwhile, Damascus has turned its fire on Islamic State.

Moscow is the main ally of the Assad government, while Washington and other Western countries have backed foes trying to overthrow him during five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and led to the worlds worst refugee crisis. Both powers are committed to fighting against Islamic State and have backed a new diplomatic push to end fighting on other fronts.

A Russian special forces officer was killed in combat near Palmyra in the last week, Interfax said, suggesting the Kremlin has been more deeply engaged in the Syrian conflict than it has acknowledged.

Islamic State suicide bombers detonated two car bombs as they tried to repulse government forces who advanced into the hotel district close to the ancient ruins, said the Observatory which monitors Syrias war through a network of sources.

Soldiers interviewed on Mayadeen and Syrian television said that the army was completing the capture of high ground overlooking Palmyra.

Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdelkarim points at a model of the Bel Temple which was destroyed by the Islamic State (IS) group in the ancient city of Palmyra. (AFP)

Joy after tragedy

Syrias antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said that driving Islamic State out of Palmyra would be a victory for the whole world.

After all the tragedy we have suffered in Syria for five years, and the 10 months in Palmyra after it fell...its the first time we feel joy, Abdulkarim told Reuters.

We pray for victory soon, so that the damage is limited. Palmyra, under their control, was the loss of a civilisation, he said. The only choice is to liberate the city in any way possible.

Mayadeen and Al-Manar showed footage of the ancient city on Friday. It was not possible to assess from the long-range shots what damage had been inflicted, but colonnades and several structures appeared to be still standing.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has set out a common blueprint for a political process aimed at ending the civil war, and said on Thursday talks would tackle the divisive issue of a post-war transition when the warring sides gather again next month.

Progress has been slow, with the government delegation and its opponents disagreeing fundamentally on the terms of such a transition, including whether Assad must leave power.
French officials said on Friday they had foiled a terror attack by a suspect who had been convicted in Belgium alongside Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris.

French national Reda Kriket, 34, was arrested on Thursday in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb west of Paris.

A police raid on his home in nearby Argenteuil turned up several assault rifles including Kalashnikovs and TATP -- the easy-to-make explosive of choice of the Islamic State group.

Cazeneuve said the arrest foiled a planned attack in France, which was at an advanced stage.

Some of the TATP was ready to use, while police also found its ingredients, acetone and oxygenated water.

Police sources said Kriket had been found guilty in absentia in Brussels last July of being part of a network recruiting jihadists to Syria and sentenced to 10 years jail.

Investigations showed Kriket played a key role in financing the network with money from robberies and stolen goods.

Among those who went to Syria through the network were Abaaoud and another Paris attacker, Chakib Akrouh.

Abaaoud was among 28 convicted in the Belgian trial and was sentenced to 20 years in absentia.

Brussels, which has emerged as a hotspot for radical Islam in Europe, was hit Monday by suicide bombings which left 31 dead at the airport and on the city metro.

After the attack police found large quantities of the ingredients to make the homemade explosive TATP.

Police in Belgium and Paris are still piecing together the potential links between the November attacks and those in Brussels this week.

One of the Paris jihadists, Salah Abdeslam -- who was arrested last week in Brussels -- has been linked to Brussels suicide bomber brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui.

Abaaoud, the ringleader

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin, was a notorious jihadist who had appeared in grisly Islamic State group videos and was behind several failed attack plots in Europe.

On November 13, he formed part of a 10-man team of gunmen and suicide bombers that left 130 people dead in an a series of attacks on Paris, with authorities referring to him as the ringleader.

Abaaoud was killed five days later in a police raid outside Paris, during which Akrouh blew himself up, also killing Abaaouds female cousin.

Abaaoud and Akrouh were part of the team of jihadists who sprayed Paris restaurants and bars with gunfire on the night of the attacks, killing 39.

Abaaoud was from the Brussels immigrant district of Molenbeek, which has been thrust into the spotlight for its ties to the Paris attackers and Islamic radicalism.

It is also where Abdeslam was arrested last week after a four-month manhunt.

Kriket

It remains unclear where Kriket fits in, if at all.

Cazeneuve said Kriket had been under surveillance for several weeks and that the arrest was also the result of close and constant cooperation between European services.

He belongs to a terrorist network that sought to strike our country, the interior minister said.

Cazeneuve said earlier in March that France had thwarted at least six potential attacks since jihadists struck in January 2015, killing 17 people at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket.

Since the beginning of 2016, 75 people have been arrested in France with links to terrorist activities, 37 have been charged and 28 jailed, he said.
A British court has ruled as unlawful the basis of the deportation of nearly 48,000 non-EU students  most of them Indians  in the past two years for allegedly fraudulently passing a mandatory English language test needed for visa purposes.

In a damning ruling this week, the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) allowed an appeal by two students who were accused of cheating in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) conducted by the US-based company ETS.

It all began in February 2014, when a sting operation by the BBC Panorama programme uncovered cheating, including the use of proxies to impersonate candidates in speaking and listening tests, and invigilators at a London centre providing correct answers.

The Home Office reacted by claiming its own investigation after the BBC programme had revealed 46,000 invalid and questionable tests conducted by ETS.

Extrapolating fraud uncovered in one London centre by the programme, the Home Office revoked the sponsorship licence of 60 institutions and detained or removed thousands of non-EU students and migrants who had obtained the TOEIC certificate.

The tribunal ruled on March 23 that the Home Office had relied on hearsay in the case.

Apart from the limited hearsay evidence there was no evidence from the protagonist in this saga, the ETS organisationThe secretary of state has not discharged the legal burden of establishing that either appellant procured his certificate by dishonesty, it said.

Senior Labour MP Keith Vaz called it a devastating verdict on the Home Offices judgement: It is clear that there are many people who speak impeccable English, and who have broken no laws, who have been denied the right to live in the UK.

Harsev Bains of the Indian Workers Association told Hindustan Times: Seventy percent of the 48,000 affected were Indians. Due to their personal and national humiliation, many left of their own accord, the majority were deported.

He added: Of those remaining, they have been living in fear, suffering from anxiety and depression. Many are afraid to come forward. The biggest disappointment was that this was not briefed or highlighted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his (November) visit.

I certainly hope that the students will be adequately compensated. However, I would not be surprised if they choose not to come back to UK after the way they were disgracefully treated.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The government continues to tackle abuse of our immigration system and protect the reputation of our world class education institutions. The investigation into the abuse of English language testing in 2014 revealed extremely serious, large scale, organised fraud.

We are very disappointed by the decision and are awaiting a copy of the full determination to consider next steps including an appeal. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.
The imam of one of Britains biggest mosques has praised a religious extremist in Pakistan who was recently executed for murdering liberal politician Salman Taseer, triggering a controversy.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of the Glasgow Central Mosque - the largest in Scotland - supported killer Mumtaz Qadri in a series of WhatsApp messages, the BBC reported on Friday.

Qadri, a former police commando, was hanged on February 29 after he gunned down Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who opposed Pakistans controversial blasphemy laws.

Qadri was working as a bodyguard for Taseer when he pulled out a gun and shot him 28 times in 2011 in broad daylight in an upmarket locality of Islamabad.

Pakistan has some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, which can carry a potential death sentence for those judged to have insulted Islam.

The imams messages, seen by the BBC, detail how he was disturbed to hear of Qadris death and gave him the religious blessing usually reserved for devout Muslims.

The imam said he was disturbed and upset before he wrote the messages, seeking Gods mercy be upon Qadri.

In another message, he wrote: I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out.

Later, the imam claimed the messages were taken out of context and that he was expressing his opposition to capital punishment in Pakistan.

He told the BBC: The assassination of Salman Taseer is widely condemned.

Whether I agree or disagree with the views he expressed, as an Imam and as a human being I express abhorrence at the manner in which he was executed.

The execution was not in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

He said: Mumtaz Qadris execution is condemned as it is not in accordance with due process nor is it in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

Capital punishment on this particular occasion was inappropriate and any expressions of sympathy or compassion are extended in my capacity as a private individual and not in any professional or public capacity, The Daily Record quoted him as saying.

Reacting to the imams remarks, lawyer and activist Aamer Anwar accused the religous leader, who condemned the Brussels bombings, of rank hypocrisy.

He told BBC Scotland many people within the community were scared the views would filter down the Muslim community and radicalise our children.
The UN secretary-general appealed Friday from Lebanon, urging the international community to provide necessary funding to help finish the rebuilding of a Palestinian refugee camp destroyed in battles against al-Qaeda-inspired militants almost a decade ago. Ban Ki-moon spoke during a visit to the Nahr el-Bared camp, where he inspected a school and was briefed on the ongoing reconstruction effort.

The Lebanese military fought a three-month battle in 2007 against the al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah Islam group inside the camp. The Lebanese army crushed the group, but the clashes also killed more than 170 soldiers and caused massive destruction, displacing the camps residents.

Almost a decade later, the reconstruction work is still not finished and many residents are still waiting to return.

Almost half the construction has been made but there are still so many people waiting to be returned, Ban said. Im urging the international community to provide remaining funding of at least 200 million dollars so that these people can return.

Ban inspected the Aamaq school at the camp, where he was received by Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour and the Lebanese minister of social affairs, Rashid Derbas. A UN official explained on a map the ongoing reconstruction as hundreds of Palestinians gathered, chanting in support of the UN efforts.

Ban is on a two-day visit to Lebanon along with the World Bank Group president and chief of the Islamic Development Bank. He is also to visit a social centre for Syrian refugees in Tripoli and an informal refugee settlement in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Tiny Lebanon, which borders Israel and Syria, is home to around half a million Palestinian refugees. With a population of 4.5 million people, Lebanon now also shelters more than one million registered Syrian refugees.
In a special session on Wednesday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the controversial "Bathroom Bill," a sweeping law that eliminates anti-discrimination protection for all gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexuals in the state. The law also prevents transgender individuals from using bathrooms that correspond to the gender they identify with.

Within 12 hours, North Carolina became the focal point of the ongoing national struggle to grant equal and fair rights for LGBT individuals. With the state becoming ground zero in the LGBT debate, the lines were drawn very clearly in North Carolina's government.

Due to the volatile nature of the law, Democrats, who make up the minority of the General Assembly, promptly walked out. Ultimately, the lawmakers in the House voted 83-25 to pass the bill and the Senate reached a clean 32-0 vote.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory took to Twitter to announce the signing of the bill, echoing the sentiments of the bill's proponents.

I signed bipartisan legislation to stop the breach of basic privacy and etiquette, ensure privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms.  Pat McCrory (@PatMcCroryNC) Marso 24, 2016

Of course, such as bill was promptly condemned by many, with opponents of the legislature turning to social media to express their sentiments. Prominent business owners in the state, some of whom happen to be gay, have also strongly condemned the bill.

Mitchell Gold, who is gay and is the chairman of Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams Home Furnishings, has expressed his disappointment at the passing of the law. Gold's firm is one of the last furniture companies that are still manufacturing their products in the state.

"It's so un-American, and it's so shortsighted. The folks that want this passed, when you look at who are these people, they are the people who are using their outdated, misguided ill-informed religious teachings to discriminate," he said.

Nevertheless, McCrory has announced that the passing of the law was all but common sense. Such words, of course, only served to fuel the sentiments of the bill's critics.

Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use womens bathroom/locker room for instance. Thats why I signed bipartisan bill to stop it  Pat McCrory (@PatMcCroryNC) Marso 24, 2016

Other prominent firms, such as Apple, Dow Chemical, PayPal, Red Hat and Biogen, have also announced their disappointment at the bill.

"Our future as Americans should be focused on inclusion and prosperity, and not discrimination and division. We were disappointed to see Governor McCrory sign this legislation," Apple said.

Chris Brook, legal director of ACLU of North Carolina, also expressed his disappointment at the passing of the bill. Brook further stated that the ACLU's N.C. Chapter, Lambda Legal and Equality North Carolina, is in the process of reviewing possible legal actions to repeal the controversial law.

"Today was a devastating day for LGBT North Carolinians and particularly our transgender community members who have been subjected to months of distorted rhetoric culminating in today's display of bias and ignorance by North Carolina lawmakers. We are disappointed that Governor McCrory did not do right by North Carolina's families, communities, and businesses by vetoing this horribly discriminatory bill, but this will not be the last word," Brook said.

With the bill fully passed and now enacted into law, the state is at risk of losing as much as $4.5 billion in federal funding. The risk of investors that support the LGBT cause pulling out of the state has become very real as well.

The law is set to go into full effect by April 1.

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In a show of humility and peace before asylum seekers just outside Rome, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of refugees during an Easter Week mass on Thursday. The 12 refugees, traditionally representing Jesus's 12 apostles, included Muslims, Coptic Christians and a Hindu.

Several of the migrants that were chosen for the ceremony were women too, contrary to conventional Catholic practices. Many of the migrants wept as the pontiff knelt down before them, poured holy water on their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace. All of us, together; Muslims, Hindi, Catholics, Copts, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God. We want to live in peace, integrated," Francis said.

Unfortunately, only a fraction of the refugee camp's almost 900 residents attended the pontiff's mass, with many of the prepared seats remaining empty. Nevertheless, the Pope's message, as well as his actions, proved to be very significant for those who attended.

In his message, the Holy See condemned the latest terror attack in Brussels, stating that those responsible for the brutal attack were people who do not wish to live a peaceful life. He also condemned the people behind the men who carried out the bombings, comparing them to modern-day Judases.

"Behind Judas, there were those who gave the money so that Jesus would be handed over. Behind that gesture, there are manufacturers, arms dealers who want blood, not peace; they want war, not brotherhood. Two gestures, the same: Jesus washes the feet; Judas sold Jesus for money," he said.

The pope also acknowledged the struggles faced by the asylum-seekers, as well as the difficulties each refugee are faced with as they attempt to start their life anew. Nevertheless, the pope has stated that all men must have an open heart for one another.

"Each of us has a story within us. So many crosses, so many sorrows, but we also have a heart open to brotherhood. May each one of us, in our own religious language, beg the Lord that this brotherhood be contagious in the world, so that there are not 30 coins to kill our brother, so that there will always be brotherhood and goodness," he said.

Pope Francis also set his sights on the priests of the church. Speaking at his annual Holy Thursday Mass in the Vatican, the pontiff wasted no time in asserting the role that Catholic authorities must play in serving those who are in need.

"As priests, we identify with people who are excluded, people the Lord saves. We remind ourselves that there are countless masses of people who are poor, uneducated, prisoners, who find themselves in such situations because others oppress them," he said.

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A Massachusetts man is facing drug trafficking charges after surgeons at a local hospital surgically removed 27 bags of heroin from his stomach and intestines on Tuesday, officials report.

The man, 51-year-old Miguel Rodriguez, went to North Shore Medical Center Salem Hospital to report about feeling sick from a bad lobster that he had eaten. However, his story was cast into doubt when medical staff noticed that his symptoms match that of opioid intoxication rather than food poisoning and his body responded favorably to Narcan.

Upon recovering, Rodriguez, left with little choice, came clean and revealed to the staff that he just returned from the Dominican Republic, where he had ingested several bags of heroin - with the assumed intent to smuggle them into the U.S.

A nurse then contacted local police, who sent two detectives to the scene to investigate. The authorities wore "sanitation suits" as they watched a surgeon surgically remove bags of heroine and cocaine from Rodriguez's body. The operation lasted a little less than 40 minutes - from 6:12 to 6:50 p.m. - during which 27 bags, amounting to 163.4 grams of heroin with a street value of $16,000, were recovered from Rodriguez's stomach, colon and rectum.

The officers, who watched and counted the bags, obtained a search warrant and took the drugs from the hospital's pathology department and later slapped Rodriguez with drug trafficking charges.

Rodriguez was held on $500,000 bail while still on the hospital bed and plead innocent to the charges, but police see it differently.

"The bottom line is that this is a person who is bringing the drug into the country and this is the drug that is killing our people," Salem police Capt. Conrad Prosniewski said. "The quantity that he had inside of him came to the weight level that exceeded the trafficking qualifications."

The entire cause of the incident is believed to have been one of the drug bags that burst open during his return from his trip.

Rodriguez's case is only a small part of a larger drug problem that Salem and other North Shore locations find themselves in the midst of. So far in 2016, a total of 29 cases have been reported in the city, 15 of which occurred in March alone.

The Obama administration has recognized heroin and other opioid drug addiction as one that doesn't just effect Salem, but the country as whole, asking for $1.1 billion in funding to deal with the matter before it gets worse.

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Most people know about the extinction of the dodo. But while the dodo represents one of the best-known examples of extinction caused by humans, very little is known about this bird from a scientific perspective. Now, scientists have created the first ever 3-D atlas of the skeletal anatomy of the dodo.

The dodo is an extinct, giant flightless bird that was once found on the island of Mauritius. It's actually a large pigeon and may be the most widely known animal species to have gone extinct in human history. It became extinct by 1693, which was less than 100 years after the discovery and colonization of Mauritius by the Dutch.

There is actually no complete specimen of the dodo that exists from 17th century collections. In fact, only a few fragments remain. There are also a few genuine, but often contradictory contemporary written accounts and drawings of the dodo. It was only when researchers discovered a mid-Holocene fossil on Mauritius in 1965 that researchers were able to properly reconstruct the dodo's anatomy.

In this latest study, the researchers used two dodo skeletons that were discovered by more than a century ago. However, the skeletons were never described scientifically, even though one of them is the only known complete dodo skeleton. Other skeletons, in contrast, are incomplete and are typically made up from the bones of many different individuals.

The researchers used 3-D laser surface scanning in order to create an anatomical atlas of the skeletons. This, in turn, opens up a new window into the ecology of the dodo.

The new atlas is an important part of better understanding this extinct creature. More specifically, it may allow scientists to learn more about the animal that went extinct when humans colonized Mauritius.

With that said, reconstructing the life history of the dodo is a slow process. While researchers now have a better look at its anatomy, there's still very little known about its behavior and habits. With that said, scientists should be able to reconstruct this over time with the discovery of new, forgotten specimens that can be properly analyzed.

The findings are published in the March 2016 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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In an incident that is overflowing with irony, customers of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, the B2B division of the telecom giant which offers IT services to large enterprises, and which is usually tasked with responding to large data breaches, had its data stolen in a massive hacking attack earlier this week.

The attack, which managed to acquire sensitive data from about 1.5 million customers of Verizon's B2B unit, was allegedly initiated by a prominent member of an underground cybercrime forum. Considering that Verizon is currently offering its services to 97 percent of Fortune 500 companies, the risk in quite notable indeed.

"Earlier this week, a prominent member of a closely guarded underground cybercrime forum posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise," security journalist Brian Krebs stated.

Seemingly adding insult to injury, the hacker responsible for the data breach has even offered the spoils of the cyberattack for a price. If the hacker does manage to sell the data, the companies compromised by the hacking incident would most likely be vulnerable to various types of cybercrime such as phishing and other specified, targeted attacks.

"The seller priced the entire package at $100,000, but also offered to sell it off in chunks of 100,000 records for $10,000 apiece. Buyers also were offered the option to purchase information about security vulnerabilities in Verizon's website," Krebs further stated.

As of this writing, Verizon has announced that the company has already begun responding to the issue. The telecom giant, however, maintained that the breach only managed to acquire basic customer data.

"Verizon recently discovered and remediated a security vulnerability on our enterprise client portal. Our investigation to date found an attacker obtained basic contact information on a number of our enterprise customers. No customer proprietary network information (CPNI) or other data was accessed or accessible," a Verizon spokesperson stated.

Though the identity of the hacker has not been identified yet, the possibility that the attacker was a member of an organized online crime group is high. In Verizon Enterprise Solution's 2015 report on data breaches, the firm concluded that the focused, structured crime groups are behind most cyberattacks that target big-name clients.

Verizon's portfolio of clients, which include America's biggest companies, definitely fit the bill for the hackers.

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News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits.

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30  7 p.m.

Orr Area EMS Open House

Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798.

Orr Fire Hall

4540 Lake St., Orr

Tuesday, October 25, 12  6 p.m.

Essentia Health Job Fair

Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org.

901 9th St. N., Virginia
In the ongoing restructuring of the hotel landscape worldwide, three major models will coexist. Each is representative of a specific strategy that is part of the hotel industry's recent history.

Historically the oldest, the Western model has evolved out of a blend of the three businesses of investor, operator and distributor that form the foundation of most groups. This division of activities, driven by the asset light strategy, resulted in global giants that primarily focus on operational management on behalf of investors and brand franchising.

With revenues sourced from oil and other primary materials, Middle Eastern sovereign funds are seeking to diversify their investments as a guarantee, and are focusing wholeheartedly on the finest trophy assets in the hotel industry. They thus went about collecting palaces and exceptional sites like so many carefully renovated treasures. At the same time they turned their micro-territories into testing grounds and a showcase for superlatives of luxury. These destinations are regional hubs that have practically risen out of the desert, resulting in a surprising blend of Disneyland and Star Wars.

More recently, Chinese hotel groups have realized the strength represented by a population that has reached the threshold of mass consumption. Growth and expansion, even relative, of a country that has more than a billion inhabitants sends statistics out of control and upsets entrepreneurial spirits. After a period during which Western groups established their brands and operational services, Chinese hotel groups regained control over their local markets. They took over all the positions in the economy segment prior to investing in other niches today. They decided to support the flow of Chinese travelers all around the globe by taking over foreign groups that were capable of hosting them. In doing so, they recuperated all the know-how they were lacking in in order to achieve expertise in all segments.

Can cohabitation continue without resulting in a confrontation between the different strategies, ambitions, economic models? That is the question at hand. Until now, there were alliances, skill sharing, division of roles. Beyond their traditional schemas, based on real estate investors and franchisors, Western groups operated properties financed by sovereign funds that contented themselves with dividends and watching the value of their property consolidate. But Middle Eastern players shifted from being real estate investors to being key shareholders in the major operators, while keeping a careful eye on business conduct. While the Chinese dragons, which were keeping quiet to avoid frightening their partners, are now spewing forth the cash they had been welling up for years in order to buy market shares.

Now masks have fallen, superficial smiles cannot hide global appetites. The power map is changing, relying as much on flows that circulate throughout each continent as on global traffic. Of the billion international trips last year, only 200 million were Chinese travelers. There are plenty left to fill the properties of Western groups that rely on real mastering of their respective local markets. But haven't they been weakened by lightening assets and focusing everything on operational know-how and the power of their brand? In fact, owners are regaining power, franchisees are questioning the added value of a brand, and online distributors are demanding a strong share of the digital economy.

Chinese groups have presented themselves as efficient partners, veritable white knights with a long-term view and considerable means of investment to offset speculative funds and predators seeking added value. But it is necessary to be clear and anticipate their priorities. The Western model has not said its last word in its self-examination. It is likely that will result in renewed offers and innovative services for new generations, and development of brands that should clearly identify themselves with a complete experience.

In the new landscape that is taking shape, the arbitrage between the models will be largely influenced by the weight of distribution, by the advent of veritable destination marketing addressing a variety of clientele, through the size of networks and power of brands. The competition is open and may the best group win!

Georges Panayotis

Chairman & CEO

+33 (0) 1 56 56 87 87

Hospitality ON

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Today was the final day of the CHAT Beijing 2016 hotels and tourism conference. The meet-up, at Sofitel Wanda Beijing, saw some 650 plus delegates gather to discuss, network, and create a genuine dialogue for future Chinese hospitality growth and innovation. Here's a short take on the conference's importance, and key takeaways from some of the executives attending.

For those unfamiliar, CHAT Beijing is a natural progression born of the China Tourist Hotel Association. In fact, the summit is organized by this group, along with STR Global, and Horwath HTL. With a set dogma of networking for creative dialogue and business, the CHAT event is the growing offshoot of the China Hotel Development and Financing Conference, which has been in existence for more than a decade. In short, this is where Chinese domestic hotel owners and decision makers meet with global brands and key innovators, in order to empower China hotels and tourism forward.

CHAT Stage Photo by Pamil Visions PR

It was Horwath HTL, which had the initial idea of creating the new brand identity  CHAT, an event designed to fast forward China's tourism sector via knowledge and experience dissemination. CHAT, short for China Hotels and Tourism, is something of an unknown in western circles, but an opportunity the big brands like Starwood, IHG, Wanda, Club Med, Wyndham, Carlson Rezidor, and etc. fully recognize. The speakers list is a literal "who's who" of Asia decision makers like; Starwood's Kevin Colket, Head of Hotels Asia; Jin Qian, President of Wanda Hotels & Resorts; Club Med's Head of Development in China, Min Wu; Club Med VP, Development, Greater China; and many more.

But as prestigious as the attendees list may seem, it's the news brought forward with clarity that should be most impactful. Two fundamental information takeaways I discovered are, the misinformation where China's economic situation is concerned, and the pace at which traditional Chinese business is a metamorphosis toward new age millennial progressiveness.

Looks pretty busy to me. pic.twitter.com/jyZQ4xrCh5  Horwath HTL (@HorwathHTLcorp) March 22, 2016

I was taking a look at the Tweets from Horwath earlier, and discovered from their short takes, the still thriving developmental sector in China via their feed. Tweeting from CHAT, the team at Horwath also told of the conference's hot topic, hotel asset management, a topic that is sizzling in ever hotel back office. Their synopsis on the conference seems to boil down to a big emergence from 3 and 4 star brands across China in the next 5 years or so. I spoke with James Chappell, Global Business Director at Horwath HTL, on his take from the point of view of China hospitality at this juncture; here is what he had to say:

"If you never came to China, but relied on western media for your information, you might get an idea of a country struggling with massive financial issues. The reality though, is far removed from that easy sound bite. Its clear that oversupply in the sector has caused issues over the last couple of years, but demand is catching up and performance data indicates a robust market. We see Asset Management as the logical next step in an industry that has matured and is looking for ways to maximize value and returns. Good asset management will take a poor hotel and make it better, and make a good hotel great. It's all about taking the underlying product and sharpening every part of the machine till it runs at maximum efficiency. This is where the industry needs to go over the next 5 years or so and early indications are that the market is beginning to realize that."

CHAT Beijing 2016: China Hospitality Regenerative

From the right - SnapShots, Dr. Stefan Tweraser (far right) with Min Wang, VP of Shiji Information Technology (Beijing), Michael Zhu, VP of Interstate China Hotels and Resorts, and Vingo Fu, the New Century Hotels & Resorts CIO

CHAT this year was not simply about a redux of hotel industry meets globalization. The theme of "regeneration" resonates in what we hear coming from participants and key speakers. In a very real way, this conference is a systemic example of how traditional hotel business is passing the torch, so to speak, to a new generation of hoteliers and entrepreneurs in tune with a digital age, and with the ecosystems cropping up in other regions. I was able to grab a comment from CHAT speaker, CEO of ITB Berlin sensation SnapShot GmbH, Dr. Stefan Tweraser (above), on how cutting edge technology and innovation is being adopted by this new generation. Here's what the former Google Germany director told me:

"CHAT Beijing has been a great networking and learning experience. The Asian hotel market is so diverse and dynamic, great personalities shape the future of the industry in this region. China brings a lot of innovation and forward thinking to the region and the world. Snapshot has been very well received  smart hotel analytics certainly did strike a cord with local leaders. CHAT provided a great platform for our product."

So the message is Chinese hospitality regeneration is underway. Just why it is news from the China and the region is not broadcast so accurately or vociferously is, to be honest, puzzling for this writer. In fact, as of this report, there are only two such stories on this important summit in English that I know of, and I wrote both of them. Curiosities aside, what James Chappell said about misperceptions translates into both advantage, and disadvantage where our businesses are concerned. Most hoteliers in Europe are tightly focused on attracting Chinese tourists, even Chinese investments in operations here. But not too many seem so focused on the overall picture, the reciprocal nature of business, and especially not the cultural and functional aspects of globalization. Technology ends up being a barometer, in a way, that reveals the forecast for business growth. But then so does Chinese conservative business willing to move forward faster, with a new generation of actuaries, doers, executive, and eventually leadership. My take is, CHAT Beijing 2016 broadcast this dialogue. And since you've read this, perhaps the conversation is up to you?

Phil Butler

Senior Partner

Pamil Visions PR
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Azealia Banks released her new mixtape Slay-Z without much fanfare. Her approach to promoting music is almost the antithesis of her approach to speaking her mind. A quick search of Azealia Banks on the site returns a litany of social media beefs and very little music, so its easy to forget exactly why she got famous in the first place.

Slay-Z reminds us all that Azealia Banks is just as capable of dope genre-bending music as she is of saying controversial shit on social media. The 8 track mixtape has songs ranging from bass-heavy trap tracks to house raps that wouldnt be out of place in a 90s rave. Her ability to flow over beats no one else would even go near is impressive, and her song Big Talk with Rick Ross is a true banger.

Put your prejudices aside and give this one a listen, you might dig it.
In yesterday's session almost all OTC pot stocks got a leg up on the charts. Growlife Inc (OTCMKTS:PHOT, PHOT message board) was also among those who closed green in double digits. By the bell PHOT was 21% up, now back at $0.02 per share.

The reason behind this general excitement about pot stocks can be traced back to last week's breakthrough that GW Pharmaceuticals scored. The company soared 120% on news of Phase 3 clinical trials success. The big player gave momentum to most OTC pot stocks and this last push could be an aftershock of that initial splash.

Another factor contributing to this new green push in OTC pot stocks could be an article published yesterday by the LA Times that spoke of Big Marijuana. The state of Washington introduced a rule allowing investors from outside WA to invest in the local marijuana industry. Colorado is expected to follow suit with a similar ruling. The fans of OTC pot stocks are known for being easily excitable and it's not unlikely that this article brought on a new bubble of hype.

With PHOT in particular this sort of hype is even less understandable. The company popped hard after exiting the grey sheets and returning to the pink sheet tier. However, its chart performance past the initial spike has been abysmal.

In previous articles we have examined PHOT's issues, including last reported revenues, gross losses and further dilution stemming from class action lawsuit settlements. To top it all off, the company revealed that on March 10 and March 17 it pumped out a total of 64 million new shares at $0.007, as a result from the conversion of notes.

Anyone who had actually bothered to read the company's last reports would know that PHOT had convertible debt that can turn into shares at double zeroes. It only makes sense that the noteholders would seek to convert now that the stock is priced at multiple cents per share.

PHOT's annual report for 2015 is due next week.
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15Five Expands Into The People Analytics Space With Quantitative Questions And Visual Dashboards Employee engagement continues to hover at around 30%, as a new software solution addresses this global performance epidemic.

Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 03-25-2016 3:40 am

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San Francisco, Calif. (PRWEB) March 23, 201615Five, a leading provider of employee performance management software, today announced the addition of 15Five Plus, a solution for businesses that melds qualitative employee feedback with quantitative data on employee performance, morale, productivity and engagement.As the workplace becomes increasingly concerned about employee engagement, companies are looking for solutions that provide detailed insights on how to recruit, manage, measure and retain their best employees. 15Five is modernizing performance management with its holistic view on how to boost employee performance and satisfaction over time.Many solutions are emerging in the performance and engagement space, but most are addressing just a piece of the problem through anonymous surveys and goal management, said David Hassell, Founder and CEO of 15Five. Weve always had a stance that whats often missing in todays performance management tools...

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CIO Review Features Chris Wilson, CEO of Function Point Productivity Software Wilson Addresses Key Obstacles to Productivity in Project Management Software Industry

Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 03-25-2016 12:33 am

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Vancouver, Canada (PRWEB) March 22, 2016Next month in CIO Review, Chris Wilson, CEO & President of Function Point Productivity Software, shares his knowledge on methods to mitigate business challenges in the project management solutions industry. Wilson explores how the companys two most pressing problemsstanding out in an intensely competitive sector, and securing staff in the fast-paced, high tech worldcan be addressed to ensure profitability.Function Point recently celebrated its 19th anniversary, and with almost two decades of experience at the helm, Wilson has developed a number of successful strategies to address these threats. First and foremost, he relies on the direction set by the Function Point core values of focus, respect, growth and balance, to provide a trustworthy and consistent lens through which to examine any issue. Wilson says, When we return to our guiding principles and tie them together with the Function Point product vision, our t...

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David Parento, Chief Financial Officer of StraighterLine, Honored as One of Baltimores Leadership All Stars and Top CFOs StraighterLines executive team receives top honors once again.

Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 03-25-2016 10:52 am

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Baltimore MD (PRWEB) March 24, 2016StraighterLines executive team has received top honors once again. David Parento, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of StraighterLine, has been honored by SmartCEO magazine as one of Baltimores Leadership All Stars and Top CFOs. SmartCEOs Executive Management Award (EMA) program recognizes C-Suite executives who are proven leaders in their field, chosen based on their ability to uphold the highest ethics, lead collaboratively and creatively, and enhance and support the organizations mission.This years EMA winners are perfect examples of all-star executives. Not only do they inspire their own teams to achieve greater heights, they also believe deeply in their companies missions, are consummate community stewards, and are dedicated to excellence, always, says Jaime Nespor-Zawmon, President of SmartCEO Events. Were honored to share their stories as we celebrate their great accomplishments....

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Herman Trend Alert: The Transhuman Era

Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 03-25-2016 12:47 am

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BE RECOGNIZED AS AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE in 2016We've seen a strong resurgence in interest by employers in being recognized as Employer of Choice. Celebrate your employee-centered corporate culture! This coveted award is well worth the effort, yet is not easy to achieve. Download the extensive application at http://www.EmployerofChoice.com; or for a Word version, drop a note to Joyce@EmployerOfChoice.com or call Joyce at 336.210.3548. The Herman Trend AlertMarch 23, 2016The Transhuman EraThe National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the United States recently released its highly anticipated, 140-page report, Global Trends in Alternative Worlds 2030. The document outlines the major trends and technological developments we can expect in the next 20 years.Dawn of the Transhuman EraAmong their many projections is the augmentation of human beings using technology; in fact, they envision a future in which humans have been significantly modified by their technologies. ...

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Knowing the Right Time to Switch the Job

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If you are even remotely considering changing your current job, there are certain things to keep at the top bracket of your head. This post will tell you how to analyze and evaluate the best time to quit your current job and search for a new one. Quitting a job and moving on to next one could be one of the best decisions you ever made-or it might be the worst mistake, all depending on the timing. In todays dynamic and fast-paced business world, switching job is getting more and more common and sometimes it even makes sense. But what are those times? This exactly is the most pressing question here. While extreme situations demand extreme measures, there are some common signs when you should start looking for a change. You dont like the work There are some jobs, which although do not add significant value to your career, but still have to be done just because certain situation demanded it. These jobs can also serve stepp...

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Did you know that if an employee is absent from work for at least four weeks, you can refer them to a Government-funded scheme called Fit for Work? What is Fit for Work Service? Fit for Work is a service that assesses the occupational health of an employee who has been absent from work for four weeks or more. It was fully launched by the UK Government in September 2015, and provides advice for employers, employees and General Practitioners about health- and work-related matters. It is designed to provide employees suffering health issues with support returning to work. What Does the Service Do? When an employees employer or GP refers them to the service, heres what happens: 1. An adviser from the Fit for Work service carries out a telephone health assessment 2. The adviser creates a return-to-work plan with suggested steps for helping the employee return to work 3. The plan is shared with the employee 4. Unless the employee refuses consent, the plan is also normally shared with the employer 5. The case manager will monitor progress and arrange further assessment if necessary The case manager will close the case if the employee returns to work, if the service is no longer able to help, or if the employee has not managed to return to work after three months. How to Use the Fit for Work Service The Fit for Work service is provided free of charge. If you want to know how to refer an employee to the G...
Despite dramatic changes in the healthcare industry due largely to the Affordable Care Actsome employers still take a stagnant approach when dealing with employees benefits, health, and wellness. Passive enrollment--the autopilot approach of set it and forget it is no longer viable. Todays employees expectand deservemore. With active enrollment, employers are at least checking in with employees once a year, but this one-size-fits-all, check the box approach doesnt work either. All employees are not created equal one-way, top-down communication leaves employees with more questions, not answers. Employers need to rethink how to provide the right balance of information, guidance, and flexibility to support employees navigating the complexities of the new healthcare landscape. The questions remain: Are you sure your company is doing all it can and are you keeping up with a fast-changing behavior shift? Employee Wellbeing has been shown to Boost Retention Rates, Productivity,and Satisfaction The fight for talent is only getting more and more competitive. Employee expectations are growing. Health benefits are an opportunity to set your company above the competition, improve morale and wellbeing, boost brand loyalty and increase workplace satisfaction. Take these five steps to maximize health benefits, rethink open enrollment, and set the stage for the remain...
Mark Zuckerberg, who recently announced the birth of his daughter, is about to take advantage of one of Silicon Valleys biggest perks: Paid paternity leave. As perks in the Valley go, paternity leave is just the tip of the iceberg. Tech companies have become famous for their corporate cultures, perks, and the incredible tactics they used to hire and keep top talent. Nap pods, on-site barber shops, and even concierge services have become standard fare for competitive tech startups. Facebook has taken employee perks to new heights by offering to pay for employees eggs to be frozen -- a five figure expense at minimum. Silicon Valley stalwarts like Apple, Google, and Amazon shell out top dollar to convince people to work for them -- but are money and free dry cleaning really what employees want more of? After analyzing over 100,000 employee surveys in our database, the surprising answer is a resounding No. Money lags far behind transparency, agility, and responsibility on employees wish lists. Silicon Valley employees want to make an impact, be empowered and entrusted with meaningful responsibilities. The message is clear: trust us and well deliver. Transparency Greater transparency is among the things employees ask for most. Its asked for twice as many times as greater compensation is. This may not come as a surprise given startups tendencies to closely guard product plans and business roadmaps, but i...
OTTAWA  If Finance Minister Bill Morneau feels badly about breaking some of the Liberals promises to Canadian voters, he isnt showing it.

I think weve absolutely met up to our promises, he told The Huffington Post Canada during an interview in his 17th-floor corner office on Thursday.

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We said that there has been a real challenge for middle class Canadians over a generation, and we said that were dealing with low growth over the last decade. [The] most important thing that we said to Canadians was we are going to deal with middle class Canadians challenges, and weve started right down the path of doing that.

On Tuesday, Morneau delivered the Liberals maiden budget. It included:

$23 billion for a new Canada Child Benefit for next year alone;

$11.9 billion over five years for infrastructure projects, such as public transit and affordable housing;

$1.5 billion over five years for more generous Canada Student Grants;

$2.5 billion over two years to improve employment insurance;

$2 billion over three years to modernize research labs in post-secondary institutions to spur commercialization of projects;

$8.4 billion over five years for indigenous education, school repairs, child welfare services, housing, drinking water and waste management.

But it also left out several key Liberal election promises. A pledge all parties had made during the campaign to drop the small-business tax rate to 9 per cent was deferred indefinitely, a promise to spend $3 billion on home care and palliative care was missing, as were commitments to cap a stock-option loophole on high-income earners and to allow Canadians to dip into their RRSPs to purchase a second home.

Id say to those people that they elected us to make to their lives better, Morneau, a businessman and philanthropist who ventured into elected politics for the first time last year, told HuffPost.

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To the small business owners, Morneau said, the thing they need most of all is a growing economy  and us making investments in that economy is critically important.

Small business worries

By helping put more money in the pockets of middle class Canadians  through a tax break for those earning less than approximately $216,000 a year and through the monthly Canada Child Benefit  Morneau said the federal government is helping increase the customer base for small businesses.

Id say to those people that they elected us to make to their lives better.  Finance Minister Bill Morneau

If were helping middle class Canadians and youre a small business, were helping your customers. So I know thats what small businesses worry about first. Were dealing with that first, which we think is important.

To those who were hoping to see investments in home care, Morneau said the government is moving instead on a promise to increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement  monthly payments that low-income seniors receive  so that 900,000 seniors can receive up to $947 more a year.

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I would think that is the single most important thing that we can say.

Watch: Morneau explains benefit of lowering Old Age Security

The government remains committed to home care, palliative care and mental health, he said, adding that more money might come in a new health care deal with the provinces.

We want to ensure that our system is a very good system, that its efficient, comprehensive Im certain well have something to say, but I have nothing to say right now.

On closing the stock option loophole, Morneau said simply, its just the decision we came to.

During the election campaign, the Liberals said they were aware that tech firms are using stock options as a way of paying employees and didnt want to stifle the sector, so they would permit a cap of $100,000. On Thursday, however, Morneau pointed to the sector to justify doing nothing on stock options.

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Minister Finance Bill Morneau shakes hands with colleagues following his federal budget speech in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 22, 2016. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

A really important thing that we heard [during the pre-budget consultations] is we need to think about how we have a more innovative economy, he explained. And we heard that those organizations that are the most innovative in our society do use stock options as a legitimate form of compensation and we decided that was a platform decision that we would not move forward on.

No apologies on benefits for high-income families

Over the coming year, Morneau said, the government will be focused on developing an innovation agenda focused on how to turn students into innovators with investments in labs, incubators, and the creation of clusters inspired, it seems, by Silicon Valleys model.

In his spare office, only two books are noticeable. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis is a New York Times bestseller by social scientist Robert Putnam on how social class helps determine achievements in life and how difficult it is to jump socioeconomic brackets. The Public Wealth of Nations: How Management of Public Assets Can Boost or Bust Economic Growth, by economists Dag Detter and Stefan Folster, argues that commercial state assets should be taken out of the control of politicians to make them more competitive and to guard against corruption.

Asked whether he personally felt bad about breaking some of the Liberals election promises, the finance minister shrugged his right shoulder.

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I think that weve done really great things in this budget. Weve improved middle class Canadians lives, he responded. I also recognize that we have a four-year mandate and there are things that well continue to do throughout the course of our mandate that will make a difference for Canadians.

Morneau also made no apologies for focusing some of the Liberals new benefits not just on low-income and middle-income Canadians but also on families making six-figure incomes.

The Liberals tax cut, for example, which was implemented in December and kicked in in January, gives tax breaks to everyone with taxable income of up to approximately $216,000 a year. The generous Canada Child benefit is phased out progressively  giving lower income families significantly more money  but it still gives households with $170,000 more than $2,000 in benefits annually if they have, for example, two children under 6.

I think that weve done really great things in this budget. Weve improved middle class Canadians lives.  Finance Minister Bill Morneau

Six-figure income households get less and less and less, the minister said. You dont want to have too dramatic a cut-off, otherwise you create a situation where the next dollar of income is a problem for people.

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What weve done is, weve centred the advantages for people who are in the lower and in the low-middle and into the middle so that if youre the woman who is earning $30,000 a year and you have one child  that is someone who is clearly having a challenge, because thats not easy  the amount of benefit you get from the Canada Child Benefit goes up significantly, goes up $6,400 a year. Thats important.

But do families who earn more than $150,000 a year need government handouts?

People will debate exactly the nature of the curve. We took the decision that, as we relooked at the impact, we would have the greatest impact go to the people with the greatest need, Morneau responded. We think weve chosen the right target, and we think that Canadians who will get that much money through the Canada Child Benefit will be very pleased with what weve chosen.

Watch: Morneau explains how the budget helps middle income families

Chief among the Liberals election promises, of course, was a pledge to run deficits of no more than $10 billion, to return to balance by 2019-2020 and to ensure that the debt-to-GDP ratio would fall in every year of the Liberals plan.

The Liberals budget missed all those targets.

Finance minister: Our goal was to be prudent

Morneau now projects a deficit of $29.4 billion in 2016-2017, and $113.2-billion in new deficits over five years. The federal government offers no firm timeline to get back to balance and will also increase the debt-to-GDP ratio slightly every year until 2020-2021.

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Still, the finance minister insisted that the Liberals kept their promises.

What we showed Canadians was that we are going to do what we said we were going to do, he said.

Our goal was to be prudent, he explained of the governments low-balled growth projections and its $6-billion deficit cushion next year.

By investing in young people and in a new innovative economy, the Canadian economy can have a higher rate of growth in the future, Morneau said.

That is what we aspire to do.

By making the investments we are making, we are on track, we believe, to have a better rate of growth, and that better rate of growth will get us to a balanced budget over five years.

But I want Canadians to understand our situation. I want to be open and transparent about what the potential upside and what the potential risks are, and I think thats what people expect of us, so they can see that.

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Also on HuffPost
I am worried about the education we provide to the children in this country. I am worried because two of my daughters are going through it already and I don't like what I see. I am worried because of my own negative experiences of secondary education. And I am worried because of the apathy some children experience towards their education.

I feel that there are potentially major psychological implications for children as they are growing into adults. And that has potential implications for the lives that they lead once they become adults.

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My two eldest daughters attend a local primary school and are just approaching their first big educational hurdle - Year 2 SATS. As they have gone through their infant schooling, I have seen how the changing emphasis from the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum to the Key Stage 1 curriculum, has sucked any joy from school and learning, leading to problems.

They have supposedly 'optional' homework and reading that eats up precious time in the evenings and weekends for family activities. The orientation of the lessons is highly focused on literacy and numeracy. And now they are going to be formally tested. Of course these are the things that the school is judged upon; by parents, potential parents, Ofsted, and the community as a whole.

The UK sends its children into formal education much earlier than most other European countries, theoretically in the search for academic results. But actually in those countries where that formal education is delayed in lieu of learning through play, better long term academic results are achieved. Countries such as Norway and Sweden. Early formal education is misguided logic.

Later educating countries also happen to have the higher levels of happiness in the international index. Is there any causal relationship between education and happiness? I have to wonder. Does the pursuit of academic achievement neglect the social and emotional development that is key to eventually leading happy and fulfilled lives?

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My experiences of secondary school also influence my thoughts. I went to a very academic secondary school and there was a huge amount of competition between all the pupils. Results were highly prized and there was very little attention paid to the value of other activities and skills. Results may be part of what people build their lives on, but they are not everything.

I dragged myself through the last bit of secondary school with a dose of (undiagnosed) depression. I achieved good A-level results, but I didn't translate them into a positive, proactive life that belonged to me. That has come after recovery, counselling and self-learning. High achieving children, under pressure, are at higher risk of mental health issues, such as depression and eating disorders.

And on the other side of the equation are the disillusioned children for whom education is something to hate and attempt to escape, with school truancy and apathy towards education and participation in society, because they are not engaged with their learning. Either way we are creating long term problems of detached people.

What is education supposed to be for our children? Too much emphasis seems to be put on to the achievement of results and the search for 'success'. We need to change from making judgements based on results.

In my mind success is the ability to support your living, the ability to self-determine your direction, having satisfaction from how you live your life, being engaged with your community. Being able to deal with the problems that life throws at you. These are extremely hard to measure and only proven after the completion of education rather than during it.

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I recently watched a discussion about measurable, learnable wellbeing skills hosted by Richard Davidson from the Centre for Healthy Minds that was live streamed. Resilience and attention, empathy and kindness, mindfulness and self-awareness, creativity and curiosity. These are the positive skills that I want my children to learn, that I would hope can help them live successful lives.

Obviously school is not the only place that this can or should be provided, but it is the most consistent resource for this across the country. I do what I can at home, I hope. But education needs to stop focusing so myopically on academic results and start helping children learn wellbeing skills to avoid negative mental health impacts that can affect children for the rest of their lives.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01HRS FRIDAY 25 MARCH

Teachers and school leaders from across the country will be gathering in Birmingham over Easter for the Annual Conference of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union in the UK.

Conference provides the opportunity for teachers to share their reflections on the challenges facing our public education system and set policy on issues that teachers and school leaders from across the country have balloted as their most pressing concerns.

The Conference meets in the wake of a raft of announcements from Government on academisation, funding and the future of the teaching profession, published in the White Paper Educational Excellence Everywhere.

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The irony of the title of the White Paper will not be lost on teachers and school leaders when they are witnessing every day the adverse impact of Government policy which, rather than driving excellence in the system, makes it increasingly harder for schools to continue to deliver it.

Teacher recruitment and retention is in crisis as a result of the unattractiveness of the profession created by years of pay cuts, excessive workload and job insecurity. Teachers feel denigrated, deprofessionalised and demoralised.

Teachers' pay and conditions of service are inextricably linked to the provision of high quality education and of profound concern is the impact of Government policy on children and young people.

The obsessive focus on structural change, the extensive freedoms and flexibilities given to schools and the savage cuts to funding have all combined to strip children and young people of the entitlements that should be provided by a public education system.

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Public education is a cornerstone of a democratic society. It is an essential element of the rights of children and young people.

All children and young people have the entitlement to be taught by a qualified teacher. Specialist experienced teachers are leaving the profession. Graduates are deterred from entering it and schools are no longer required to employ qualified teachers.

All children and young people should have access to a broad-based balanced national curriculum. Yet more and more children and young people face a narrow rigid curriculum, no longer have access to creative subjects such as music, art and drama and are unable to access high quality vocational programmes of study.

All children and young people are entitled to be taught by those who are recognised and rewarded as highly skilled professionals who have working conditions which enable them to focus on teaching and learning. Teachers' pay has been cut by 15% since 2011. Starting salaries are now 30% below other graduate professions. Excessive workload is blighting the working lives of teachers. They are crushed by the unnecessary bureaucratic burdens of planning, marking, target setting and data collection which are not fit for purpose.

A fundamental principle of a public education system is that it should be free at the point of use and yet for too many children access to educational experiences which promote opportunity and achievement is now based on parents' ability to pay.

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3.7 million children in the UK are living in poverty. Poverty, housing, health, cultural and social opportunities all impact on educational progress and achievement. Schools are being left to pick up the pieces of flawed economic and social policies.

All barriers to achievement of children with special educational needs should be removed and yet the barriers are now even higher as specialist services are reduced or cut altogether, teacher expertise is lost and the curriculum offer becomes more rigid and inflexible.
As a former senior police officer, high profile murder detective, head of public protection and creator of Operation Anagram (set up to trace victims of serial killer Peter Tobin), I have always been compassionate about looking at crimes from a victim focused perspective.

For every crime there is a victim and their family - and they have a right to, and deserve the best possible support, as well as the truth.

We should never forget that all too often there is too much sensationalism in the media about the perpetrators of heinous crimes, and not enough about the victims and their families. Throughout my career as a murder detective, I have seen first-hand the devastating effects these crimes have on those affected by them.

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There has always been an appetite among the British public for information about shocking and high profile crimes, particularly murders. TV documentaries often prove to be an effective way in which to educate and provide the public with an awareness of issues that often lead to these sorts of crimes.

The tragic, high profile cases of 14 year old Breck Bednar, who was groomed online and lured to his death, and 17 year old Georgia Williams, who was murdered in a snuff movie fantasy by a porn-obsessed killer, accentuate the need for awareness and pro-activity concerning online activity by children.

Breck's mum Lorin LaFave did all the right things - taking his computer away, monitoring his online activity and reporting her concerns to the police - her actions were what any concerned parent should do. However, it was not enough to stop a faceless online monster groom her son before killing him in a violent and sexually motivated attack.

There were missed early intervention opportunities by the various agencies in both the Breck Bednar and Georgia Williams murders, and recognition by the authorities that 'lessons had been learned.' How many times do we hear that phrase "lessons have been learned" in serious case reviews where a tragic incident occurs and a family has lost a loved one?

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Britain's Darkest Taboos, currently airing on Crime + Investigation, examines some of the most chilling acts of violence the UK has ever seen. The show, in which I provide expert analysis, has a very strong focus on the devastating effects on families at the heart of some unimaginable crimes.

The cases featured in the programme, including Breck and Georgia's murders, are all different, they are all horrible and (even for me with my vast experience dealing with tragic cases) are difficult to watch.

However, documentary series such as this provide the public with an awareness of issues regarding a range of crimes, including online grooming, stalking, domestic abuse, historical sex abuse and abuse of vulnerable people.

Sadly, there are many cases where failings by the relevant authorities to protect the victim have resulted in tragedy. A case in point is that of Rana Faruqui, stalked and murdered by an obsessive former partner in 2003.

It took this murder, as well as other killings related to stalking, and the involvement of Theresa May MP before laws and processes regarding stalking changed in 2012. Revised legislation, multi-agency guidelines and risk assessment processes now exist, making it easier for victims of stalking to report their concerns and early interventions to be put in place to mitigate risks of serious harm.

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Someone making several telephone calls, texts or staring at another individual may not in isolation seem serious, however such events in entirety may form part of a more sinister chain of evidence to substantiate stalking.

Better systems are in place now to identify and link such reports, investigate and risk assess situations and provide a better public awareness of stalking and harassment legislation with multi-agency processes available to support victims.

I would encourage victims or third parties to report any concerns. Don't ever worry that you are wasting police time - perhaps it could save a life.

Abusers, stalkers, rapists, assailants and murderers are driven by control, power, jealousy and sexual deviancy. A lot goes on "behind closed doors" and these perpetrators thrive by going undetected and instilling fear into their victims, in turn preventing them making reports to the authorities.

The need for early recognition of abuse and early interventions is absolutely essential, and programmes that document real crimes hopefully help influence people to be more aware of the early indications and speak out. Education, awareness, intervention, information sharing and pro-activity are important to protect the public from extremely dangerous individuals.

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Britain's Darkest Taboos is currently airing on Crime + Investigation on Sundays at 9pm.

David Swindle

Multilingual Independent Reviewer
ActionAid's Daiane Dultra leads an empowerment session for vulnerable girls in Cabu, Pernambuco

It is exactly six months since world leaders agreed a series of Global Goals at the United Nations in New York to end poverty, tackle climate change and deliver a fairer world for the 21st century.

Among them was Goal Five on gender equality which sets out the ambition to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere - including all forms of violence.

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But the task is huge. At present 150 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to school or at school each year.

Data from the United Nations shows that in 2012 alone five women were killed every hour as a result of domestic violence.

And seventy percent of those living in extreme poverty - defined as living on less than $1 a day - are women.

Can the Global Goals drive change? At ActionAid we believe the key lies in empowering women and girls to take control of their own lives.

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Carla, a young woman from Pernambuco in Brazil, shows what is possible in the face of overwhelming challenges.

Since 2007, over 50,000 men have flocked to Pernambuco state, to work in and around Suape Port, northeast Brazil's most important industrial hub. This has fuelled demand for sexual services causing rates of teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and school drop-outs to rise. Men in their 30s, 40s and 50s are reported to be sexually exploiting girls as young as 12 years old.

ActionAid is supporting local organisations in the area to help vulnerable girls understand their potential. Carla, 15, is a youth leader who helps other girls recover from exploitation and understand their rights.

"I used to feel really sad and really tired and had a lot happening in my daily life. The therapy sessions have helped us to open up about the things that hurt us.

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"At the project we have discussions and seminars, which help us to spread our knowledge throughout our community. This helps us to help other girls our age."

Young people at ActionAid's empowerment workshop in Cabu, Pernambuco

Carla is an example of how young women can take control of their own lives and change them for the better.

Around the world ActionAid also works to support paralegals to collect evidence on domestic violence in countries like Burundi, Somaliland, Afghanistan. We also support women's groups to lobby for stronger legal protection from sexual attack. Since 2002, we've been in Afghanistan supporting women to claim their rights. We train facilitators to teach women in their communities vital skills like reading and writing - helping them to take control of their own lives.

We also work with schools, education departments and community groups to promote the importance of education for Afghan children - especially girls. And we run special courses to help more girls catch up on their studies, finish secondary school and enrol into higher education

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We see what impact this has every day. It's the leadership of women that really makes a difference.

And globally the model is backed up by research. An academic study of 70 countries found that the presence of strong and independent women's rights organisations was the single biggest factor contributing to the reduction of violence against women - more important than GDP or numbers of women in political roles.

ActionAid's new briefing Fearless Women and Girls - leading the way, transforming lives highlights the enormous funding gap for women's rights organisations in developing countries. It calls on the UK Government to commit to boosting the proportion of aid going directly to women's groups working on the frontline. ActionAid is recommending at least an additional 70 million over the next three years to be taken from the existing aid budget.

It is also important that women see an economic improvement in their lives. Women everywhere currently carry a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work and are denied equal pay and decent jobs. ActionAid has found that women in developing countries could be $9 trillion better off if their pay and access to paid work were equal to that of men.

But while there have been encouraging signs - such as the formation of a High Level Panel which includes UK Aid Secretary Justine Greening - progress on economic empowerment remains slow.

More funding must be provided to women's groups on the ground which are best placed to decide on how to tackle endemic issues of gender inequality, poverty and violence.

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And we need the high level panel to address the fundamental issues such as recognition and redistribution of women's unpaid care work, access to decent work and a living wage for women, and right to organize.

The Global Goals could be the catalyst for global change but the battle for transformative progress on ending poverty and inequality and the fight for gender equality does not end with these commitments - in many ways we are still at the beginning.
In a country where direct and indirect violence is a part of everyday life for many women, the Zika virus is just another concern to add to the list. At the same time, however, it provides an unexpected but welcome opportunity for those campaigning for change.

A walk down the street can in many ways feel like stepping back in time; horses and carts, converted 1980s school buses, and crumbling colonial buildings. They have come to be some of the defining features of Nicaragua's character and charm. However, there is one unsettling aspect of everyday life that, as a woman, stares you in the face.

Consistent street harassment is distinctly emblematic of a wider adverse attitude towards women, and is representative of a portion of society that seems to believe women do not have the right to autonomy over their bodies, either when making the short trip to buy tomatoes, or the difficult decision to have an abortion. 28% of women giving birth in Nicaragua do so before the age of 18. A report by Plan International found this to be influenced by high rates of poverty and sexual violence, yet, as it stands, abortion is illegal in all circumstances.

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The Penal Code was voted in by the National Assembly in 2006. It imposes extensive prison sentences for women and girls seeking abortion, and those providing them. Due to the increasing certainty of a link between microcephaly and the Zika virus, reproductive rights groups in Nicaragua are pushing with increased urgency for a review of the governments strict abortion stance.

You could be forgiven for thinking the government is doing all it can. Nationwide brigades have been sent out to fumigate homes and streets, and one Granada resident, Kimberley Diaz, said "Every week they are fumigating to prevent mosquitoes spreading Dengue, Chicungunya, and Zika. I think it's good what the government is doing." It has also advised that homes be kept clean and water puddles avoided; fertile breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

However, it has not provided any options for pregnant women who have already contracted or are nervous about Zika, which is asymptomatic in 80% of cases. Access to abortion is now, more than ever, a vital issue for the government to confront, yet it has not been mentioned. Thus, those most at risk have been offered the least comfort.

In the midst of this public health emergency, Catholics for Choice launched an advert campaign appealing for Pope Francis to advocate the use of birth control and abortion. The president of the organization, Jon O'Brien, said "it describes the reality for women in Latin America--that the criminalization of abortion and restrictions on birth control cause suffering."

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The adverts were printed in the New York Times, newspapers in El Salvador, and one of the two major papers in Nicaragua; El Nuevo Diario. The more socially conservative La Prensa refused to print it. Nonetheless, it was a positive step:

"Catholics for Choice was able to beat the heavy censorship of the state and church and tell the truth: in a country with one of the most restrictive abortion laws, women don't have the ability to protect themselves."

A global poll conducted by Univision in 2014 revealed 73% of Catholics in Latin America believe abortion should be permitted in some or all cases, and Catholics for Choice is continuing to build a campaign to restore "therapeutic abortion" in Nicaragua - a clause which allowed abortion in some cases before the Penal Code was established.

The threat of birth and development defects posed by the Zika and microcephaly link has led El Salvador, amongst others, to advise women to avoid pregnancy. The glaring contradictions of such advice have been pointed out, however, for placing responsibility squarely on the shoulders of women: a large number of whom do not have access to contraceptives.

Beatriz Galli, the Senior Policy Advisor of Ipas (an NGO committed to ending preventable deaths and disabilities resulting from unsafe abortion), stated: "governments should ensure women have access to contraception and safe abortion, particularly in the face of the Zika epidemic, which will disproportionately affect young, poor and rural women".

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Diaz pointed out that although it is easier to access contraceptives in the city, "many girls send their friends to collect them as a favor, because they are too embarrassed to go themselves." Clearly, the stigma attached to using sexual health services even when they are available is another issue yet to be tackled.

Unlike its neighbors, the Nicaraguan government has urged the population to "remain calm". There have been 108 confirmed cases, compared to the 4,800 or more in Brazil, but Diaz says many are nervous about its spread.

"Four months ago I had Chicungunya - the pain was unbearable. I cannot imagine having to deal with Zika, especially in the aftermath of Chicungunya. I'm taking all measures to avoid being bitten." She added "Pregnant women are very concerned. It would not only be one person that suffers, but two; the baby and the mother."

The director of Ipas Central America, Marta Maria Blandon, said "It's good that the government is not alarming the population, especially women who are pregnant or at risk of having an imposed or unplanned pregnancy. However I believe that this measure is not enough to face the consequences of Zika."

Ipas has led various campaigns to demand amendments to the law between 2006 and 2016. Brandon added "this epidemic provides an opportunity to show that women, particularly when they are pregnant, are faced with certain situations that laws and legal and medical standards need to consider."

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"With Zika or not, it is the obligation of states to ensure that no law prevents doctors to act promptly to provide pregnant women the highest possible standards for enjoying motherhood."

The advice given by the Nicaraguan government to "remain calm" errs on the side of caution. With an important election looming this year, President Daniel Ortega will want to avoid the increased clout wielded by reproductive rights groups, as the response in neighboring countries has only been to exert more pressure on governments.
We, the undersigned European Red Cross National Societies, are gravely concerned by the humanitarian implications of the agreement reached by the EU and Turkey to stem migration to Europe. We fear its implementation risks undermining international and European refugee and human rights law, and stress that efforts by the EU and its Member States to address this crisis must comply fully with international obligations. This includes States' obligation to respect the right to seek asylum and ensure access to fair and efficient procedures for determination of refugee status. Most critical is the duty of non-refoulement, ensuring that people are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be at risk.

At stake is the desperate plight of tens of thousands of vulnerable people - men, women and children - risking their lives to seek safety. The EU-Turkey deal appears to lack empathy with the real desperation that forces so many people to embark on dangerous journeys. In our experience, deterrence policies and border closures expose the most vulnerable, especially women and children, to ever greater risks: family separation, sexual abuse, violence, and death. In this environment, smugglers and traffickers prosper.

We are witnessing the repercussions of unsolved conflicts and extreme poverty, and these require political solutions. While the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will continue to provide assistance and protection to vulnerable migrants along migratory trails, EU Member States must jointly take up their responsibilities and find durable, humane solutions.

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There is a dire humanitarian emergency in Greece. Despite EU efforts to stop migration flows into Greece, vulnerable migrants continue to arrive on the Greek islands every day. Nearly 50,000 people are thought to be stuck in Greece, many in appalling conditions. In the camps at Idomeni on the Greece-Macedonia border, where the Red Cross is providing assistance, people are sleeping in tents in freezing temperatures with precarious access to food, clean water, basic supplies and health care. This is a European crisis, requiring concrete and authentic acts of solidarity amongst states. Ensuring safe and dignified conditions for migrants in Greece and Turkey requires massive and concerted efforts by all EU Member States. Simply containing people does not solve the humanitarian crisis - it creates another.

We welcome EU Member States' commitment to enhance resettlement and relocation efforts, but these must be implemented and scaled up urgently. This must be done in conjunction with other initiatives, like humanitarian visas and family reunification - over 40% of Syrians seen by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement arrive in Greece intending to join family already in Europe. Such measures must not be at the expense of the rights of refugees from other countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea.

We are aware of the scale of the challenge this crisis poses for governments in the EU, but we are convinced that we can do better, together. We expect more from our governments and stand ready to provide support. We urge the EU to:

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Ensure asylum seekers at every point receive protection in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention and EU law. All asylum seekers must have access to legal aid and an individualised assessment of their claim.

Create more opportunities for safe, legal routes into Europe, including through resettlement, humanitarian visas and family reunification. Under international and EU law, EU Member States have an obligation to facilitate family reunification.

Set up dedicated search and rescue operations covering the Mediterranean Basin, and ensure that assistance is given to migrants in distress.

Ensure humanitarian assistance and protection for all migrants, whatever their nationality or legal status, including at borders and in hotspots. Humanitarian actors, including National Societies of the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, must have effective access, without penalties, to people in need of their assistance.

This is an abridged version of a letter signed by representatives from 17 EU Red Cross national societies. A full list of signatories is below.

 Werner Kerschbaum, Secretary General, Austrian Red Cross

 Pierre Hublet, Secretary General, Belgian Red Cross  French Community

 Michael Adamson, CEO, British Red Cross

 Takis Neophytou, Director General,Cyprus Red Cross

 Anders Ladekarl, Secretary General, Danish Red Cross

 Riina Kabi, Secretary General, Estonian Red Cross

 Kristiina Kumpula, Secretary General, Finnish Red Cross

 Professor Jean-Jacques Eledjam, President, French Red Cross

 Liam ODwyer, Secretary General, Irish Red Cross

 Francesco Rocca, President, Italian Red Cross

 Uldis Likops, Secretary General, Latvian Red Cross

 Gintare Guzeviciute, Acting Secretary General, Lithuanian Red Cross

 Paulette Fenech, Director General, Malta Red Cross

 Gijs de Vries, CEO, Netherlands Red Cross

 Asne Havnelid, Secretary General, Norwegian Red Cross

 Silviu Lefter, Director General, Romanian Red Cross

 Zuzana Rosiarova Kesegova, Secretary General, Slovak Red Cross

 Irena Necemer, Vice President and Legal Representative, Slovenian Red Cross

 Javier Senent, President, Spanish Red Cross

 Ulrika Arehed Kagstrom, Secretary General, Swedish Red Cross
Free speech on university campuses is an issue that is being brought up time and time again. It's certainly not anything new, but if trends recorded by the likes of 'The Free Speech University Rankings' (FSUR), by the online magazine Spiked, are anything to go by then free speech on campuses appears to be declining. The FSUR categorised 115 UK universities into a red, amber and green traffic light system. Their research shockingly found that 90% of universities have either 'banned and actively censored ideas on campus' or 'chilled free speech through intervention', with just 10% having a 'hands-off approach to free speech'. In gathering this data they looked at the policies of universities and student unions. Over 55% were given a red 'traffic light'. This widespread stifling of free speech is terrible, but it doesn't tell the whole story. While universities and student unions do their bit to prevent free speech it is sometimes the student response which prevents a person coming to give a speech on university campuses. This is a dangerous approach and one that desperately needs challenging.

Our other two articles in this magazine which tackle the free speech issue gave good examples of where speakers had been banned from speaking on campuses. I find the Milo Yiannopoulos example particularly interesting. In fact, he's been invited and subsequently 'banned' from speaking at a number of universities, including the University of York. York's UKIP association invited Milo to speak on campus about the university cancelling a decision to mark International Men's Day (an entirely different issue altogether). However, the backlash by students against him coming and talking at the university was so great that the event was forced to be cancelled. Now, personally I would not attend an event with this man. He's previously expressed views that are ridiculously sexist and backward-thinking (such as him suggesting there may be a 'scientific basis to why women don't succeed as well in science'). He's really just a loud-shouting internet troll who feeds off attention he gets from causing controversy. But just because I think this and wouldn't want to listen to him speak, does that mean I should have the right to demand he be banned from speaking at my university? No, not in any way, shape or form. There are evidently people who do, for God knows what reason, want to listen to him and they have the right to do so if they choose; and those who don't do not have to. But it is dangerous to say that just because you don't agree with the views of a speaker invited to your university you want them banned. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in York, where YUSU (York Undergraduate Student Union) took it upon them to censor what the people they are supposed to represent hear. According to one student newspaper, the President of the union said 'he will lobby the University to ban Yiannopoulos'. The reaction to the whole event by the student union and some students was disappointing. Instead of challenging Yiannopoulos on his ridiculous opinions, we want to block him and his views out as if they don't exist. This is far from the 'liberal' label traditionally associated with universities.

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One thing that keeps being brought up when talking about free speech at universities is the idea of 'safe spaces'. But I think this whole thing has got out of hand. There are a dangerous minority of people saying that people like Milo, and pretty much anyone who could be considered offensive, should be banned from campuses and that campuses should be a universal 'safe space'. However, this is not a widespread view whatsoever and many of those who put forward the idea of safe spaces don't want anything like that. For most, the idea of a safe space is a physical space away from the sorts of views which are likely to offend. For example, if a speaker such as Milo comes in some may want a room next door where people can go if they feel they need to leave. To some extent this does baffle me; if you're not able to go to an event because you're too offended, why are you going in the first place? Though I can see them being a good idea when issues such as mental health are being discussed. But my view here is fairly irrelevant. If there are people who want it, let them have it. As long as they're not preventing those who want to have free speech and debate on campus from exercising.

Despite what appears to be a trend towards more oppression of free speech on university campuses, there is a growing counter-movement. When researching for this article I came across a campaign called '#Right2Debate' (right2debate.org), and it is spot on. They say "extremist ideologies must be challenged by an empowered civil society". This is how progress occurs, by debating and proving wrong extremist and harmful ideologies by putting forward a more convincing argument. If we don't allow this to happen then these views go unchallenged and potentially become more dangerous. Students have a right to debate and a right to invite controversial speakers. Similarly, students have a right to their own 'safe spaces' and most importantly a right to object to the views of these controversial speakers. However, they do not and should not have the right to prevent others from debating and they certainly should not have the right to ban speakers from coming to their university.

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Australias political and religious leaders have delivered their annual Easter messages, each with running themes of inclusivity and compassion.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten both said in their messages that regardless of faith, the Easter long-weekend is a time for Australians to relax and enjoy the company of family and friends.

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Its also a good time to reflect that our country is the most successful multicultural society in the world and it is mutual respect which binds us together, Turnbull said.

We are enriched, not divided, by our diversity of faiths, culture and races.

Both politicians also drew attention to those who wont have the opportunity to enjoy time with family over the long weekend.

Its important we recognise that not everyone gets to take time off this weekend, Shorten said.

Our thoughts are with the men and women of the Australian Defence Force keeping us safe. Our police, firies, paramedics, doctors and nurses -- and everyone who has to work this long weekend -- we thank you.

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Stuart McMillan, president of the Australian Uniting Church, used his Easter message to urge Australians to enter into a national conversation on Indigenous sovereignty.

The president of the Australian Uniting Church said a conversation on Indigenous sovereignty was crucial.

A conversation about sovereignty and how it can empower and bring hope to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is a crucial conversation for our nation, he said.

Sovereignty and what that means for us as a church is an issue we are committed to exploring.

The key messages of Easter -- kindness, love and compassion -- were reiterated by Australias Anglican Leader Dr Philip Freier.

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Human evil abounds, we see evidence of it daily. For many in the world, suffering and deprivation are constant realities," he said.

This biblical truthinvites us not to lose courage in the face of human cruelty or to lose hope on account of the apparent triumph of evil and despair.

Sydney Anglican Archbishop, Glenn Davies, spoke about threats to religious freedom in China, in particular the removal of crosses from churches by authorities.

It is strange that the cross should be feared for its power, because in Jesus time a cross meant execution -- it meant failure and death, he said.

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Melbournes Catholic Archbishop, Denis Hart, urged people to be compassionate and run forward with open hands to alleviate the suffering and loneliness of refugees, victims of violence, the abused and all who feel abandoned and lost.
MARTY MELVILLE via Getty Images The current New Zealand flag (R) flutters next to the alternative flag (L) in Wellington on March 4, 2016. New Zealanders began voting on March 3, on whether to adopt a new flag, in a referendum Prime Minister John Key has called a once-in-a-generation chance to ditch Britain's Union Jack from the national banner. AFP PHOTO / MARTY MELVILLE / AFP / Marty Melville (Photo credit should read MARTY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images)

New Zealand -- our jandal-wearing, fush-and-chup loving, sheep farming, beached as neighbours who are just a short three hour plane ride across the ditch.

We cousins have always shared fairly similar flags, but there were strong signs to suggest a NZD$26m flag referendum would result in them streaking ahead of Australia with a Union Jack-free flag.

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After all, New Zealand has had a habit of one-upping Australia (and the world).

In 1893, for example, it was the first self-governing country in the world to give women the right to vote.

Australia was late to the party, only allowing women to vote in South Australia in 1895, and as late as 1908 in Victoria.

Unlike Australia, which has no official language, New Zealand is home to three -- English, Maori and, in a world first, New Zealand Sign Language.

In Australia, at the time of the first European contact, there were between 350 and 750 distinct Aboriginal languages -- of these not one is listed as an official language and only 70 have survived.

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New Zealand was also the first in the Asia-Pacific region to vote to legalise gay marriage (Australia is still waiting).

Then there are other things that our neighbours claim to have conceived before us, like the flat white and the Pavlova (you didnt, but keep telling yourself you did NZ).

One would think this progressive nation, that has been miles ahead of their neighbours across the Tasman Sea on so many issues, would have jumped at the opportunity to replace their out-dated flag with a new design.

On Thursday night, the preliminary results of the historic flag referendum indicated that of the 2.1 million votes cast, 56.6 percent voted to retain the current flag, while 43.3 percent voted for the alternative silver fern design.

The Flag Consideration Project began in May 2015 after a nation-wide engagement program was launched to gather New Zealanders views and values in regards to alternative flag designs.

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The silver fern design combined four red stars representing the Southern Cross constellation (also seen on the current flag) with a silver fern on a blue background with black infill in the corner.

New Zealands Prime Minister, John Key, had previously warned the population that theyll wake up in a few months time and theyll realise what a terrible mistake they made.

The old flag is one of only a handful left in the world (including Australia) that still features the union jack, reflecting the countrys colonial past.

In addition to this, it also looks strikingly similar to Australias flag, which is fine, but if you want to be like us so much New Zealand, why dont you come and join us? Our Constitution still includes provisions for you to join as a seventh state (we even named an area of our nations capital 'Manuka' in 1912 after your tea tree).

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(Also, if you joined us it wouldnt matter who thinks they invented what first -- we would be one big happy family.)

BREAKING: New Zealand keeps Aussie flag. #nzflag  Jeannette Francis (@Jan__Fran) March 24, 2016

Many Kiwis have deemed the entire referendum process to have been unnecessarily expensive, costing $26 million NZD and bringing no change.

However, there have been plenty, especially on Twitter, who have said while there is a desire for change, the current flag is the better of two bad options.

Lewis Holden, chairman of Change the NZ Flag campaign group, told the BBC earlier this week that there was still "a large sentiment for change" among New Zealanders.

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"But the questions remain on what to change to. We'll keep campaigning, we have thousands of followers on FB, and strong support base and strong sentiment, but simply the issues have got in the way of the process," he said.

How can anyone describe the #nzflag vote as decisive? 43% voted for change, nearly half. Imagine the outcome if we got some decent designs  Mike (@mikeinwelly) March 25, 2016

#WhatYouDontKnowAboutMy Prime Minister is that he wasted $26mil on trying to change the NZ flag, then kept the original flag.  #nzflag  Lady Evans (@ladyevans_) March 25, 2016

I'm more disappointed that the Prime Minister didn't start his press conference with 'I'm not angry, just disappointed' #nzflag#nzpol  Thom Adams (@ThomedyAdams) March 25, 2016

Well its up to us Aussies then. If NZ won't change their flag we are going to have to change ours. #whoseflagisthat#ausflag#NZFlag  Rachel Maclean (@WhofanRachel) March 24, 2016

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New Zealand, you had a great opportunity and you blew it #nzflag  Dan Fisher (@dpfisher31) March 25, 2016
LUDOVIC MARIN via Getty Images A picture taken on March 24, 2016 shows the Eiffel Tower in Paris illuminated in colours of the Belgian flag in tribute to the victims of terrorist attacks in Brussels, two days after a triple bomb attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, hit Brussels' airport and the Maelbeek - Maalbeek metro station, killing 31 people and wounding 300 others. / AFP / LUDOVIC MARIN (Photo credit should read LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Just days after deadly attacks in Brussels, Frances Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has announced raids in northwest Paris foiled an imminent terror attack.

According to Cazeneuve's comments Thursday, police had arrested a suspect who was in the advanced stages of a plot to stage an attack in France.

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BREAKING: Police raids in northwest Paris have just foiled planned terrorist attack, French Interior Minister says.  ABC News (@ABC) March 24, 2016

Cazeneuve reportedly said raids in the Argenteuil neighbourhood, just 12 kilometres from Paris, had led to a major arrest, however he also told reporters there was no tangible evidence linking the plot to either the attacks in Paris or Brussels.

Reports on social media from French journalist Djamel Mazi claimed the suspect had already been arrested and convicted of terrorism abroad and had drafted for an attack in France.

#Argenteuil : Un homme deja condamne pour terrorisme a l'etranger a ete arrete. Il avait pour projet un attentat en France  Djamel Mazi (@djamel_mazi) March 24, 2016

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#BREAKING Six people arrested in Brussels police operations, prosecutors say  AFP news agency (@AFP) March 24, 2016

According to prosecutors, six people have been arrested in Brussels police operations, as investigators continue their manhunt for a second suspect in relation to Tuesday's deadly metro bombing.

MORE: French Interior Minister: French national arrested today led to Paris raids that foiled attack in advanced stage of preparation.  ABC News (@ABC) March 24, 2016

MORE: French Interior Minister: At this stage there are no links between plan foiled in France today and the attacks in Paris or Brussels.  ABC News (@ABC) March 24, 2016


huffpost.com/gen/2162350/thumbs/o-MORNING-EMAIL-570.jpg" />

Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that two Americans were killed in the terrorist attack Tuesday. And in France, police arrested a man who was in the "advanced stages" of a terrorist plot. [Lesley Wroughton, HuffPost]



"As European governments scramble to contain the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force. In the latest setbacks for the militants on Thursday, Syrian government troops entered the outskirts of the historic town of Palmyra after a weeks-old offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, and U.S. airstrikes helped Iraqi forces overrun a string of Islamic State villages in northern Iraq that had been threatening a U.S. base nearby." [WaPo]

Somewhere, Hillary is taking notes. [Marina Fang, HuffPost]

What it's like to live with tuberculosis in the United States. [Lauren Weber, HuffPost]

"Netflix Inc said it had been lowering the quality of its video for customers watching its service on wireless networks such as AT&T and Verizon Communications for more than five years." [Reuters]

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Long lines weren't the only problems Tuesday. [Samantha Lachman, HuffPost]

WHATS BREWING

How the Donald managed to throw the stats master off his prediction game. [Vanity Fair]

"While there are no national statistics on the number of people confined in double-cell 'solitary,' at least 18 states double-up a portion of their restrictive housing, and over 80 percent of the 10,747 federal prisoners in solitary have a cellmate." [The Marshall Project]

We have no idea how she achieves such food perfection. [HuffPost]

Don't even try to assemble together, unless you want to be single. [HuffPost]

How to make sure the bottle of Chianti you're buying isn't a Two Buck Chuck in disguise. [HuffPost]

And Miley Cyrus is oh so happy that is behind her. [HuffPost]

For more from The Huffington Post, download our app for iOS or Android.

WHAT'S WORKING

"He has listed down every item he owns in different categories such as backpacks, clothing, food and cooking, water, hygiene, sleeping gear, technology and others." [HuffPost]

For more, sign up for the What's Working newsletter.

BEFORE YOU GO

~ Understanding the State Department's warning to "exercise vigilance" when traveling to Europe.

~ Top businesses are wading into the fight against the anti-LGBT bill in North Carolina.

~ North Korea is holding another American from the Virginia area.

~ "My party is completely screwed up" -- Lindsey Graham continues to be the oracle for all things 2016.

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~ Of course Kristen Bell's kids are the only kids on this planet that dislike "Frozen."

~ The devaluing of TV, one binge-watching session at a time.

~ A "Criminal Minds" favorite is leaving the show.

~ Have $500 million? You can buy "Playboy."

~ This video is meant for type-a pyromaniacs.

~ We're not giving up on Jelena.

~ Khloe Kardashian owned up to having something done to her face.

~ The Easter dessert recipes you need for this weekend.

~ Don't miss the photos of this year's festival of color in India.

~ Is it worth picking a side in the fiction, nonfiction literary fight?
The New York Times reports that New York City teachers are being pressured to remain silent in the debate over the impact of high-stakes testing on children and curriculum. At least one district superintendent accused educators who encourage parents to have their children opt out of high-stakes testing of using their official position to promote political action, which is supposedly a violation of public policy. The superintendent was videoed at a public forum in December 2015 saying that teachers and school administrators "have no right to say this is how I feel." According to the superintendent, "no person who is a public figure can use their office as a bully pulpit to espouse any political perspective." However, in apparent violation of the "law," newly elected State Education Chancellor Betty Rosa recently support for the opt-out movement saying if she had school-age children scheduled to take the tests she would refuse to have them tested.

Common Core testing in math and reading for third through eighth graders is scheduled to start April 5. In response to pressure from opt-out groups that include parents and teachers, New York State shortened the exams, removed time limits, and will not evaluate teachers based on student test scores.

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According to the Times report, several school principals claim they were instructed by either New York City School Superintendent Carmen Farina or by district superintendents that they and teachers in their school were not to encourage parents to have children opt-out of the tests. A spokesperson for the city's Department of Education acknowledged that teachers were free to express themselves on public matters as private citizens or as parents, but that they would be disciplined if they did this as a representative of the city school system. In the past, the teachers union has also cautioned teachers not to advise parents to opt-out. However, how any individual teacher could be mistaken to represent the school system was unclear.

Farina claims she does not want to prevent discussion of the legitimacy of the high-stakes tests, only to keep discussion more balanced. However, in apparent violation of her own policy, Farina told a February 2016 State Senate Education Committee hearing, "I am not a fan of opt-out." While Farina has instructed principals to respect the will of parents, she also makes clear "I believe that everyone needs to be assessed."


Last fall voters in Ohio voted down a ballot initiative to fully legalize the personal use of cannabis in the state. The law had many problems, primary among them the creation of a legal oligopoly favoring the companies lobbying for the bill. It's hard to say whether the ballot measure would have passed even with a more open structure since, according to Quinnipiac polling, Ohio only supports full legalization by a small margin. Legalization of medical cannabis, however, has overwhelming popular support in the state and if it had been a medical law on the ballot (without the restrictive corporate structure) it would have had a higher chance of passing. It's often lost in legalization talk that cannabis is helping patients across the country deal with a number of debilitating illnesses from cancer to multiple sclerosis to Crohn's disease to intractable epilepsy and I think we have some responsibility to think of their needs instead of holding out for the perfect legal cannabis law.

Yes, full personal use legalization would by definition give access to the widest range of patients, but it's a reality that a large chunk of voters and legislators do not support fully legal cannabis. Step by step legalization, prioritizing medical access, has worked across the country at alleviating the suffering of countless people while also providing much needed education for skeptics. It's important to push for what can pass, and then work from within that system to make people comfortable with more.

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One of the consequences of the Controlled Substances Act and the resulting War on Drugs has been 40 years of misinformation about cannabis. The Just Say No campaign conflated cannabis with dangerous hard drugs like heroin and obscured the fact that cannabis has been used medically for centuries - including being listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia by the end of the 19th century. It perpetuated negative stereotypes about cannabis users and propagated the idea that it was a gateway drug which is a stance you still hear from major public figures even though this has been widely refuted.



It's also important to note that most of the scientific study regarding not only cannabis, but also the human endocannabinoid system is still cutting edge research. The CB1 and CB2 receptors in the human body were only discovered in the 80s, and the endocannabinoids anandamide and 2-AG were discovered in the 90s. For doctors currently in their 50s this information would not have been part of their training in medical school, and instead they would have been learning the benefits of prescribing opioid medications for pain.

Now, of course, we are discovering the true dangers of opioids as over-prescription of these legal Schedule 2 substances is often cited as one of the driving factors of the current heroin epidemic. Prescription opioids themselves have a much higher potential for abuse than cannabis since it is practically impossible to die from cannabis overdose. Indeed, there's a correlation between legal medical cannabis and a 25 percent drop in prescription opioid deaths.



After decades of reinforced negative stereotypes and propaganda the key to legalizing cannabis lies in education, and a commitment to steadily changing peoples' attitudes. In every state in the country that has some form of legal cannabis this has meant medical legalization first, not only to give some patients some relief, but also because that's what could pass. Illinois, for example, does not have a perfect cannabis law (Americans for Safe Access gave it a D+ in the Access to Medicine category) but every day at the Salveo Health & Wellness dispensary we hear stories about how this plant has changed peoples' lives. From MS patients who were able to drop prescription medications from 14 to 3 and can now walk without a wheelchair to fibromyalgia patients who can finally make it through a full day without debilitating pain. When the medical cannabis bill was passed in 2013 only 63 percent of Illinois voters approved, but now - only months after the first dispensaries opened - that number is 82 percent in favor.

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Open enrollment closed last month, and healthcare watchers have been counting the winners and losers. One indisputable winner is the narrow network. Plans that feature one are the fastest growing insurance products on the market. According to the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health Reform, half of the plans on the exchange have them.

Many criticize these plans for not including enough medical providers in their networks. The insurance companies defend them saying that they help keep costs down.

Often lost in this debate is the answer to "Why now?" In other words, if these networks keep costs down, then why has the insurance industry waited until now to offer them?

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The rise of the healthcare consumer, jumpstarted by President Obama's Affordable Care Act, fully explains the answer to "why now?" It also explains why narrow networks are here to stay.

Don't believe me? Let me try to explain with eight bullet points.

1. Why we have group health insurance

First things first: the only reason we have group health insurance is because the government gives huge tax subsidies for group health insurance.

To be clear: we don't have it because employers like to use it to compete for or retain talented employees. Employers could offer all sorts of other things if that were the case--free family vacation to Disney World, anyone? No, employers offer group health insurance because they can offer it tax-free.

It's easy to forget this fact, because group health insurance has been subsidized since the 1940s. Anything we've had for so long is easy to take for granted. In fact, the story for why group insurance is subsidized dates back to 1913.

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For now, though, just bear this fact in mind. We have group health insurance because of heavy government subsidies for it. This is critical to understanding the "why now" question.

2. How group buyers of healthcare think

Buyers of group health insurance are business owners, CFOs, HR professionals and office managers. Regardless of title, they all generally think the same way when it comes to networks.

How do they all think? They all consider employee dissatisfaction.

John is the healthcare buyer for his employer, Music City Inc., which has 350 employees. His broker, Sara, presents him with an option that would save the company an impressive twenty percent. The deductible and other features of the plan would be the same as last year. The only difference is that one of the local hospitals would not be in the network. But there are still more than ten other hospitals that would be in-network. Nice work coming up with this option, Sara! Right?

Wrong. The one hospital that would not be in-network is the only one that has a pediatrics unit. Here is how John, our group healthcare buyer, thinks about that:

"Hmmm. Twenty percent savings is pretty good. But what if one of our employees has a child who needs to go to the hospital? We could get slammed as a heartless employer. Or even worse, what if one of our employees has a child in that hospital right now? Maybe we should just keep the network we've got, but raise the deductible and copays a little bit. Or maybe charge employees more."

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Makes sense, right? As a result, all 350 of John's employees get a plan that has the hospital with the pediatrics unit in-network.

3. Health insurance company nightmare

Deep groan. "Brutal!"

That pretty much summarizes how your typical insurance company executive would respond to the question "What's it like to negotiate prices with the hospital that has the only pediatrics unit in town?"

Those hospitals realize they have a ton of market power because of how group buyers of healthcare think, and they use it to command the highest prices.

I know what you're thinking. "Well, it's probably expensive to operate a pediatrics unit. And after all, these are kids. We should be giving them the best care that money can buy."

That's fine. But these hospitals use the market power given to them by their pediatrics until to demand the highest prices for everything. From MRIs and CT scans to annual check-ups and everything in between--they have the highest prices of any hospital in town.

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4. Why the individual market is expected to grow

Let's take a time-out from the group market for a minute and focus on the individual market.

While people insured in the group market have been enjoying subsidized health insurance since the 1940s, people in the individual market have been on their own. Zero, nada, zilch--all good words to describe how much in tax subsidies they've been getting to help with individual health insurance.

That is, until President Obama's Affordable Care Act. In fact, many Americans can now get even better subsidies in the individual market than in the group market. Yay! A historical injustice--the disparity in tax incentives between group and individual coverage--has been addressed.

Americans are good at responding to tax incentives. Witness the disparity between the number of employers who offer group health insurance rather than free trips to Disney World to attract and retain talent. As a result, we've seen massive growth in the individual market and expect to see more.

5. How individual buyers of healthcare think

In part because John's company wasn't able to get its healthcare costs under control, it went out of business. It left 350 employees on their own to get their own health insurance.

Fifty percent of the 350 employees are single. Thirty percent don't have children. Ten percent have kids who are all in high school or older. Ten percent have younger children.

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In other words, 90 percent of the 350 people formerly employed by Music City Inc. don't care at all about whether their network includes a pediatrics unit. Of the remaining 35 people, some of them are risk-takers willing to gamble on it being out-of-network in return for premium savings now.

6. Joe Biden: "This is a big f****** deal"

Kevin is the CEO of Koala Health, a major health insurance company. Jennifer over in product development has been pounding the table for 20 years about the need to develop a narrow network plan for the individual market. After all, everyone in the industry knows that individual buyers think differently and would buy a plan that doesn't have a pediatrics unit in the network.

For 20 years, Kevin has nodded thoughtfully as Jennifer made the case for her narrow network plan. Then he has told her, politely, "No." Why? Because Kevin just had too many other priorities. Wellness, for example. Or the Medicare Advantage business. Or Part D. And so every year, Jennifer would go home disheartened, disappointed that her product idea was not being pursued.

To be clear, Kevin always knew Jennifer was right. But it just wasn't worth it. The market opportunity was too small with the government only giving subsidies in the group market to justify the headaches Kevin knew he would face creating a narrow network plan.

But then the Affordable Care Act addressed the disparity in tax incentives between the group and individual markets. Everyone, including Kevin and Jennifer, knew this meant there would be huge growth in the individual market.

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Voila. Kevin calls Jennifer and says "Yes! Let's create that narrow network plan for the individual market that you've been talking about for 20 years!"

And so this is the "why now," and part of why Vice President Joe Biden was right about reform being such a big deal. Before the disparity in subsidies between the group and individual health insurance market was addressed, it was just not worth it for the insurance companies to go to the trouble of creating narrow network plans.

7. Real-world examples

So far, I've been using fictional people and companies to explain "why now." Let's look at a few real-world examples.

Take Nashville, Tennessee, where BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is the largest insurance company. They excluded Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which has the largest pediatric hospital in town, to create Network E for the individual market. It was first introduced on on the marketplace in 2013, and 29,000 people signed up for a plan with this network in 2015, dramatically shifting the city's market toward the nonprofit system Saint Thomas Health.

Or Indianapolis, Indiana. At first, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield excluded the St. Vincent and Indiana University Health systems from its narrow network in 2014, which meant the plan didn't include a pediatric hospital. By 2015, Anthem added St. Vincent's back in-network, but the plan still excludes IU Health--the largest pediatric hospital in Indianapolis.

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Or Austin, Texas, where many plans have narrow networks. In fact, just one marketplace plan--Superior HealthPlans' Ambetter EPO--includes both the city's top hospitals in-network. The other 63 marketplace plans available in Austin do not have in-network access to both Seton Medical Center and St. David's Hospital.

Narrow networks like the the above examples continue to grow in popularity across the U.S., demonstrating changing trends in insurance products and the purchasing power of consumers.

8. The future

Some healthcare watchers say these narrow network plans are destined to share the same fate as HMOs did in the 1990's. People will scream bloody murder when they find their plan's network doesn't include a medical provider they want to see, and the market for narrow network plans will go away.

It's correct that people will protest. It's wrong, however, that the market for these plans will go away. The difference is the existence of group buyers. In the 1990s, it was the group buyers who were choosing the HMOs. These are the people who worry about employee dissatisfaction when considering networks, and so they reacted strongly when employees screamed bloody murder.

Today, it's individual buyers who are choosing narrow networks. These buyers think about their own needs. If there is a story about someone frustrated over the size of their narrow network, the reaction will be more subdued. Some individuals will even be so callous as to write the consumer off as someone who just didn't research the options appropriately. Others will just take more care in researching their own options next year. Few will stop buying narrow networks.

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She Was Not Supposed to be Empress

Sisi traveled to the imperial court at the age of fifteen with her elder sister, Helene, who was intended as Emperor Franz Joseph's betrothed. It was there that the spirited and guileless young Duchess Elisabeth, "Sisi," inadvertently caught the eye--and stole the heart--of her cousin, the handsome young Emperor Franz Joseph. From almost the moment he saw Sisi, the emperor would not look twice at big sister Helene, instead declaring his intention to make Sisi his bride--and thus empress of much of Europe by the ripe old age of sixteen.

This did not sit well with Franz Joseph's most powerful advisor--his mother. The formidable Archduchess Sophie happened to be the same advisor who had arranged the marital match with Helene, and she did not believe that Sisi was the right bride for her beloved son. As you can imagine, things did not get off to the smoothest of starts between Empress Sisi and her mother-in-law.

She Was the Princess Diana of her Day

Known by such nicknames as "The Most Beautiful Woman Alive" and the "Fairy Queen" of her people, Sisi captured the hearts and minds of the public in a way that few iconic female rulers have done throughout history.

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Like England's beloved Princess Diana, Sisi had a fractious relationship with certain members of her husband's family, often feeling like an outsider at court and preferring to mingle with commoners and escape royal life for her own private getaways. Like Diana, Sisi was painfully shy and sensitive, and yet she had a soft touch and a compassionate side that set her apart from the royals, who were often perceived as more formal and aloof.

Sound familiar to the "Queen of Hearts," Lady Di?

Every Day Was a Good Hair Day for Sisi

That's right, Empress Sisi's crown jewels were her rich chestnut waves, one of the physical features for which she became so famous. When the young Emperor Franz Joseph first beheld Sisi, he was immediately smitten by her, commenting specifically on her abundant hair. "What a beautiful crown of hair frames her face," he allegedly raved to his mother. And with good reason. Over the decades of her reign, Sisi's hair became so iconic that women throughout the empire attempted to fashion their own locks a la Sisi in order to emulate her elaborate appearance.

Sisi recruited a stylist from the opera house to manage her mane, devoting hours each day to its washing and combing and styling and upkeep. She also refused to cut her tresses. This led to hair so long and thick that Sisi often suffered from headaches; when Sisi needed relief from her heavy hairdo, she would reportedly loop a string through her bun and hook it to the ceiling, in order to gain a momentary reprieve from the weight of her waves.

She Was One of the First Targets of a Relentless Press

Sisi was hounded by the "paparazzi" of her day. From her first entry into her husband's capital of Vienna, Sisi's was the most recognized face in the entire Habsburg empire. Crowds gathered wherever she went, sometimes waiting for days if they knew that the enchanting empress was in the area. Viennese newspapers filled column after column with articles discussing everything from her physical appearance to her parenting skills, from her personality quirks to her wardrobe choices, from her marriage woes to her activities at court.

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Because of this crushing public scrutiny, Sisi often fled the capital, traveling under the alias of "Countess Hohenembs" and seeking some solitude in remote regions outside of her husband's realm. As she became more and more bothered by the constant haranguing, the notoriously shy Sisi made it a habit not to leave home without a fan and a parasol, both tools to shield her face from prying eyes and camera lenses.

She Was an Intrepid World Traveler

Sisi had a perpetual case of Wanderlust, famously confessing: "I want always to be on the move; every ship I see sailing away fills me with the greatest desire to be on it." Her travels took her to places as far-flung as Egypt, Pompeii, Madeira and even Corfu, where she built a sprawling palace for herself.

In addition to the desire to see faraway lands, Sisi was a lifelong student of foreign languages. She was as comfortable in Hungarian as she was in her native German, and she could speak French, English, even ancient Greek!

She Was the Leading Fashion Icon of her Day

The people could not get enough of their stunning empress--eager as they were for images of her face, her figure, and her fashion choices--and Sisi knew that her incredible natural beauty was both a blessing and a curse. She often sought refuge in her vanity and her compulsive attention to her looks. Even after four children, she went to extreme measures to watch her weight and keep her narrow waist at below twenty inches!

Sisi feared the effects of aging, and sought always to keep her appearance young and fresh. She would reportedly cry at the sight of a gray hair in her famous coif. And she waged a lifelong battle against wrinkles, experimenting with homemade tinctures made of berries, eggs, sperm--even slabs of raw meat!

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The Man Who Built the "Walt Disney Castle" Loved Her

Sisi won not only the heart of the world's most powerful emperor, but she was also a favorite of Bavaria's "Mad King Ludwig," the eccentric ruler who gave the world Neuschwanstein Castle. This happens to be the palatial residence used as the inspiration for Walt Disney's iconic castle.

King Ludwig had elaborate tastes and was known for his excessive style on everything from his passion for architecture to his patronage of the arts and music, and he was similarly effusive in his love and admiration for his cousin, Empress Sisi. Not bad for a secret admirer!

She Was Known as the Best Horsewoman In the World

Sisi was a talented athlete and she lived an active lifestyle until her dying day. She practiced gymnastics in her private rooms in the imperial palace, and her hikes through the mountains were so speedy and lengthy that oftentimes her attendants could not keep apace with her.

But Sisi's first love, when it came to physical activity, was horseback riding. She often joked that, had she not been an empress, she would have ridden horses in the circus. Sisi had riding rings installed in her homes and loved riding outdoors everywhere from the English shires to the Austrian Alps to the plains of Hungary.

The only woman who was ever put forward as a potential rival to Sisi's skills in the saddle? Napoleon III's Empress Eugenie. It was quite the sensational royal rivalry!

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She Presided Over the Golden Age of Culture and Art in the Habsburg Court

Imagine a court where Johann Strauss II stalks the halls, composing waltzes as gifts for his royal patrons. Where artist Gustav Klimt is painting murals on commission. That was Sisi's world.

The nineteenth century in Vienna marked the highpoint of Habsburg achievement in the arts and culture. Composer Franz Lizst, who composed music for Sisi and Franz Joseph, apparently broke out in tears when he beheld his imperial patroness. Richard Wagner composed his epic "Ring Cycle" operas with money from Sisi's family. Just down the street from Sisi's thriving court worked a young physician named Sigmund Freud, pioneering new advances in psychiatry. I wonder what he might have said, had he had a session with his empress?

Her Husband Began World War I

Most of us learned in school history lessons that the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, thus prompting Emperor Franz Joseph to declare war on Serbia and setting off the global catastrophe that became World War I.

But how many of us learned in those same history classes that, in addition to the men Franz Joseph and Franz Ferdinand, there reigned a fascinating, charismatic and strong leading lady, a heroine who presided over these twilight years of the Habsburg Court?
In the wake of the unimaginable horror of World War II the international community committed itself to never allow such atrocities to take place again with impunity. But as was the case with the many tragic genocides that happened since then, including Bosnia and Rwanda, witnessing in real time the systematic destruction of a country and its people without enraging the human conscience is a shame with which every single head of state will have to live.

Syria became nothing but a pawn in the hands of the merchants of death, the states and various extremist groups who mercilessly used Syrians' lives to further their narrow political schemes. The fact that more than 300,000 Syrians have died, twice as many were injured, and more than 12 million became refugees or internally displaced did not seem to faze either Russia or Iran, who have provided unflinching support to the Assad regime.

They continue to supply Assad's killing machine only to secure their interests, which in fact they could have done without the loss of a single Syrian life. This is how Khamenei expresses his style of mercy and compassion, and how Putin demonstrates his caring for the Syrian people.

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The body and soul of two generations of Syrians have been crushed, their hopes and dreams have been shattered, their dignity and pride was robbed, and millions were left languishing, hoping to wake up each morning from a nightmare only to realize that a nightmarish life is their lot.

It is hard to fathom how many violent extremist groups converged on Syria, competing and killing one another, and how such madness could warp their minds and let insanity reign. What is in the DNA of these cruel irredeemable groups, especially Assad's army and ISIS, that drove them to commit such savagery with equanimity?

We are living in a leaderless world, in an age where complacency has become a virtue, indifference a relief, lack of courage a cautious maneuver, and the absence of resolve a salvation.

The whole international community could not muster the resources and moral commitment to end the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Is it any wonder that such atrocities can happen time and again? Developing a plan of action and strategy to end the civil war early on could have prevented the carnage in Syria from taking place.

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When the community of nations fails the test of time and ineptitude becomes a guide for the future, why should any country subject its national security to the caprices of other states or the UN, where politics not humanity dictates the agenda of the day?

Now that the US and Russia agreed to bring an end to the Syrian tragedy, they must ensure that any future solution carefully considers the psychological state in which the various groups and sects find themselves.

First, a representative transitional government should be established which reflects Syria's demographic composition, is composed of professional bureaucrats and remains in power for at least five to seven years. Such a governing authority must focus on rebuilding infrastructure, schools, clinics and hospitals, maintain internal security, and systematically engage in a process of reconciliation to prevent revenge and retribution.

Second, however despicable President Assad may be, he should be part of any solution perhaps for two to three years of the transitional period. This will not only help facilitate a solution but allow Syria's major institutions, especially the military, internal security, intelligence, and the bureaucracy to stay in place to prevent the disintegration of the country as long as these entities remain subordinated to the central transitional government.

Third, there is no place at this juncture to try to incorporate into any resolution the idea of establishing a democracy by writing a new constitution and instituting general elections before the expiration of the transitional government.

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The US and the EU must not simply assume that Western political values can be implanted or that such an idea could even succeed in the short or long term. The US' efforts to prematurely establish democracy in Libya, Egypt and Iraq have miserably failed and should not be repeated.

Fourth, the solution must avoid any wishful thinking that by some miracle the country can simply be put back together as if reconciliation between the sects who have become sworn enemies will be a natural process. Each group needs the time to reflect and heal.

The Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, and Kurds in particular must be given the space and latitude to regroup. The move by Syrian Kurds to establish a "federal democratic system" should be welcomed and emulated to avoid conflicts between each other which are bound to occur.

Fifth, the West along with Russia must simultaneously develop a comprehensive strategy, including the introduction of significant ground troops, to defeat ISIS which would also help stem the ongoing upheaval in the region. Indeed, the continuing presence of ISIS in Syria could easily unravel any peace agreement, which makes ISIS's destruction a prerequisite for an enduring solution.

Sixth, the enduring war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq could potentially persist for a long period of time, perhaps for decades. Syria has served as the battleground between the two sides, and the competition between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia for regional dominance will not subside any time soon.

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The two countries should play a significant role in any solution to the civil war in Syria, without necessarily relinquishing their interests in the country. Otherwise, both will end up losing as there is no prospect of either of them to emerge unscathed.

Moreover, a solution to the Syrian civil war may indeed serve to mitigate, perhaps to a great extent, the Sunni-Shiite conflict; both sides could build on it and potentially restore the status quo ante that prevailed before the Iraq war.
With all due respect, some people's talent endeavors need not be encouraged, particularly when they use them to attack our transgender children.

From Raw Story:

An aspiring rap artist weighed in recently on bathrooms for transgender students in Alberta schools .The song, entitled "Gender Bender" is by MH Weibe, who describes herself as a "concerned mom." In January, Alberta schools adopted legislation requiring bathroom facilities to accommodate transgender people by allowing them to use the bathroom according to the gender they identify as, Global News reports. Weibe raps that she doesn't think the issue should be legislated but instead focus should be placed on preventing cuts in classrooms, and also that she thinks being transgender is unnatural.

Yes, it is as bad as you think. And I'm not just talking about the ignorance and transphobia. Her video is so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if the ghosts of Biggie and Tupac came looking for her ass. Not only does Weibe attack transgender children, but she personally justifies every stereotype about white people rapping. And manages to create some new ones:

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Purim is most closely associated with costumes, triangular pastries called Hamantaschen, and howls of hatred each time the name of the Jews' genocidal nemesis, Haman, is read from the Book of Esther. In Israel, the tradition of drinking "until you don't know," meaning, until you can't distinguish friend from enemy, is one of the few religious obligations taken up with gusto on the streets of Tel Aviv.

But beneath Purim's festival costume is a history of imperial decadence, sexual depredation, internecine politics and--more than anything--power. In his recently released God and Politics in Esther, Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony presents a political reading of the Book of Esther, deriving from it a political philosophy that cuts to the heart of the archetypal relationship between the weak and the strong, and what that means for those who have power and those who need it.

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Published by Cambridge University Press, God and Politics is in reality an updated and expanded edition of Hazony's 1995 book The Dawn, a little-known but disproportionately influential work that brings to mind Brian Eno's famous comment about the Velvet Underground's first album: few bought it but everyone who did went on to form a band.

On its first page, God and Politics addresses the question of what place a tale of "kings and queens and evil grand viziers" has in the biblical cannon. Hazony explains that in codifying teachings about Purim, rabbis of the Talmud made a breathtaking claim, asserting only two sections of the Bible "could never be abolished"--the five Books of Moses and the Book of Esther. This fact takes on even greater significance considering Esther is the only one of the Bible's books to never mention the name of God.

The telling of Esther begins with a woman and her act of defiance. As ruler of the 127 provinces of his empire, the Persian king, Ahashverosh, declares a six-month-long bacchanale to display "the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty." At the climax of the festivities, Ahashverosh decides to bring out the real jewel in his crown, his beautiful queen. There's only one problem: she refuses to come. In front of the empire's aristocracy, the king's inability to summon his own wife is a literal (albeit not physical) form of impotence, and one the rapacious and supremely insecure Ahashverosh cannot stomach.

Vashti's act of defiance is much more than the whim of an over-pampered queen but something closer to an act of civil disobedience on a grand scale. According to Hazony, the great Talmudist Rav explained that Ahashverosh considered his wife a "vessel" for his "use." When the vessel suddenly says no, the "it" becomes a "she" and there are disturbing implications for the man accustomed to simply filling it.

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Though it doesn't take long for the king's advisers to realize Vashti's asserting her volition as a woman is profoundly destabilizing to the empire, it's not the prospect of invading armies that has them worried. One of the king's advisers declares:



"It is not the king alone who has been wronged...but all people in all the provinces...For this deed of the queen will become known to all the women, and their husbands will become contemptible in their eyes."

With the opening of Esther, the reader is presented with an unshakeable truth about the nature of power: rarely can you speak about a power structure--and almost never about an expressly political one--without facing the question of woman's role in it. The question is what the Book of Esther, which in addition to being the only biblical book to omit God's name is one of only two named after a woman, says about that relationship.

What helps resolve the scriptural paradox between the perceived flippancy of Purim and the serious role it plays in the biblical canon is that it's a book about exile, which "describes a world in which the Jews are distant from their land, their tradition and their God." Living in post-prophetic times, the Jews of Esther cannot hang their hopes on last-moment divine salvation. In this sense, Esther represents the beginning of political history for the Jewish people: their ability to amass and properly wield political power is all that can save them.

In the wake of the shocking blow dealt the empire by Vashti, the king responds with a "masterstroke," as Hazony has it, convening a council of advisers to address the matter, which has the effect of foisting his personal humiliation onto the state itself. Published in every language across the kingdom, the incrimination of the queen includes a decree "that every man should rule in his own house," which amounts to a "gift of power to every adult male in the kingdom," making them tyrants over the women.

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But with the king missing his other half--or at least an other half--a young cohort of advisers suggests a contest to find a replacement. Despite the Orientalist's version of "The Bachelor" it calls to mind, Hazony maintains the search is in actuality an "institutionalization of rape":



"The virgins are not asked whether they wish to love [the king]. They are merely to submit, each inexperienced girl alone facing the might of the empire, giving up her own hopes and dreams and her own loved ones, and daring not object for fear of her life."

It's here we're introduced to a lowly Jew named Mordecai and his orphaned cousin Hadassah, who's conscripted into the king's search and is advised by her cousin to hide her Jewish identity and go by her Persian name, Esther. Aware of the precariousness of her situation, Esther makes her first trade in the currency of politics by currying favor with the keeper of the king's harem. When she finally visits the king, the rabbis explain that "If he wanted to find in her the taste of a virgin, he found it; if the taste of a married woman, he found it."

But it's not submissiveness that makes Esther successful. According to Hazony, in politics as in sexuality, "the limp submission of doing what is told, while superficially appearing to grant power, in reality grants very little. The feeling of power over others is greatest when one feels control over something of independent worth, something which might have resisted fiercely if it had so desired..."

After Esther is enthroned, an anti-Semitic vizier named Haman rises to the position of the king's right hand and quickly declares open season on the Jews. Mordecai's maneuvering creates the conditions for Haman's defeat but only when Esther risks her life by appearing in front of the king uninvited (a capital offense) are the tables turned.

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Drawing on biblical narratives, Hazony finds the distinction between political good and evil in the core competitiveness of politics itself. The difference between the relatively benign tyranny of Ahashverosh and the dangerous villainy of Haman isn't simply that the latter was intent on wiping out the empire's Jewish population. Rather, it's the difference between the absolute rule of a single viewpoint and the inherently political process of choosing among many competing views, even if it's an authoritarian making the final choice.

Hazony's basing of the legitimacy of power in a competitive epistemology presents a fascinating and morally coherent understanding of politics, one which has important implications for doctrines of political realism and idealism. As Mordecai says to Esther, who is understandably afraid of approaching the king about the vizier's plans:

"Do not imagine in your heart that you, of all the Jews, will escape because you are in the king's palace. For if you insist on remaining silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from elsewhere, but you and your father's house will perish."

In other words, the pursuit of political interest is a necessity in this world, but without final action motivated by moral imperatives, it's also meaningless. Though it bears important implications for the powerless trapped in any political situation, the idea is particularly resonant when it comes to woman's relationship to power.

As the history of feminism illustrates, power understood in this way sense is similar to a speech act (and, in many instances, actually is one): saying so makes it so. But that can only be true if there's an ethical motivation behind it.

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Fethullah Gulen, a well-known Islamic scholar, preacher and social advocate, who resides in PA, strongly condemned the brutal terrorist attacks at the Brussels International Airport and Metro station on March 22 that resulted in the deaths of more than 30 people and the injuries of hundreds.

'Regardless of the perpetrators and their stated purposes, every terrorist attack is a murder and an attack on the sanctity of life itself, and deserves condemnation in the strongest terms. Neither a religion nor any human being with a conscience can condone such cruelty.' he said in a press release.

'Those who carry out such attacks and who support the perpetrators are oblivious to the ethos of the religion that they proclaim, and inflict the biggest damage to the religion's reputation in the world. Those who consciously perpetrate such acts have lost touch with their very humanity, and do not represent any religious identity.' he added.

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Gulen emphasized that in addition to the intelligence and security measures taken to prevent individual terrorist attacks, there is a pressing need for cooperation between states and civil society groups to eliminate swamp-like environments and conditions that facilitate recruitment by terrorist groups.

'I am confident that leaders in countries with strong democratic and legal foundations, like Belgium, will act with prudence to develop lasting solutions that incorporate their Muslim citizens and avoid feeding into the hateful rhetoric of terrorist groups.' he said.
Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks with the media after a round table discussion at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 24, 2016. More than halfway through a nomination race that she entered as the clear favorite, Clinton finds herself deadlocked with Bernie Sanders among Democrats. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why is it that today even a woman as impressive as Hillary Clinton is judged not by her merits and extensive resume alone, but held to a pernicious double standard?

Twenty-two years ago, I had the honor of introducing Hillary Clinton at a Humanitarian Award dinner, given by The Elie Wiesel Foundation. I said of her then and it holds true today, "There is no one in this country who would deny the competence, intellect, stamina, warmth and courage of Hillary Rodham Clinton... But the criticism of Hillary Clinton has again demonstrated that the strong, competent woman is still a threatening figure in our culture. ...A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. But a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion... Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the acclaimed biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, said of Hillary Clinton, 'I don't think there is a First Lady who has been treated as rudely and meanly except for Eleanor Roosevelt.'" Both of these women boldly risked the scorn of "those threatened by the image of a woman carrying the fight for social justice into the public arena."

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It seems that nothing much has changed. It's been 24 years since I said in a speech for Women in Film, "Men and women are clearly measured by a different yardstick. And that makes me angry. Of course, I'm not supposed to be angry. A woman should be soft-spoken, agreeable, ladylike, understated. In other words, stifled. Language gives us an insight into the way women are viewed in a male-dominated society.

A man is commanding, a woman is demanding.

He's assertive - she's aggressive.

He strategizes - she manipulates.

A man is forceful - a woman is pushy.

He shows leadership - she's controlling.

A man is a perfectionist - a woman's a pain in the ass."

It's been decades since those speeches, but there is still outright sexism in much of the commentary on Secretary Clinton's campaign. The Women's Media Center and Media Matters have done wonderful work documenting the explicit - and more importantly since it's often unseen - implicit sexism of the political and media punditry. After Hillary Clinton won five primaries on March 15th, Fox News' Brit Hume tweeted, she's shouting angrily in her victory speech... "What's she mad at?" When MSNBC's Joe Scarborough tweeted she should, "Smile. You just had a big night," should we have been surprised? Hillary Clinton has a great smile and smiles often. So does Barack Obama. So does Bill Clinton. But no one would tell those two men to smile.

Hillary Clinton is dealing with our current reality rather than the delusions of reality TV. Karen Weaver, the new mayor Flint, Michigan said in dealing with the water crisis that Hillary Clinton "has actually been the only candidate, whether we're talking Democratic or Republican, to reach out and talk with us about, 'What can I do? What kind of help do you need?'" It's one thing to talk about something and another thing to do it. Clinton gave Weaver a roadmap on how to get the results.

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The Republicans will neither cooperate with President Obama nor admit the good he has done for this country: the rising stock market, the creation of 14 million private-sector jobs including 72 months of steady job growth, lowering the deficit, the extension of health insurance to millions through the ACA and lowered health care costs, and his thoughtful foreign policy after the disasters of George W. Bush. The candidates on the right deny these achievements and intentionally obstruct Obama's progress. The Republicans in the Senate will not even do their job to hold hearings and vote for a Supreme Court Justice. Just before the nomination was announced, Senator Orrin Hatch told the press, "[Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man... He probably won't do that." Chief Justice Roberts, a GOP appointee, has warned of the dangers of politicizing the nomination process and has praised Judge Garland's legal scholarship. Meanwhile Senator Mitch McConnell has essentially said the NRA will have veto power over any Court appointment.

The rise of Donald Trump as a likely GOP nominee is at once terrifying and a joke that isn't funny. I notice the press doesn't even call him out on his own lies or his refusal to answer questions. If you repeat a lie loudly and long enough, people may come to believe it is true. Is the press partially responsible for the rise of Trump in its greed over his temporary ratings boost? And what would the press say, for instance, if Hillary Clinton displayed anything like the crassness of Donald Trump in debates? Or his staggering lack of knowledge on foreign or domestic policy?

Voters should weigh the substance of what a candidate has to offer: his/her policies, his/her agenda, his/her experience, knowledge and demeanor in dealing with world leaders. The time has also come for voters, media, political talking heads and all of us to stop holding any politician to a different standard because she happens to be a woman. All voters should stand in agreement on this issue if no other.

Around the world, even in some countries younger than the United States, they've proudly elected female leaders: Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel to name a few. Why does it seem so odd to have a female president here?

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There is some heartening news. A very recent CNN/ORC poll "finds Clinton would start the general election contest with an edge over Trump on several potential presidential qualifications, with the former Secretary of State widely seen as better able to handle the responsibilities of being commander in chief, more in touch with the middle class and more often aligned with Americans' views on important issues."

This is a good sign because it is time we grew up as a nation. We should stop being afraid of women, and meet them on a level playing field without resorting to name calling and sexist condescension.
On Saturday March 19, 2016, while political pundits chased their tails debating the significance of Donald Trump's prediction of riots, Mitt Romney's support of Ted Cruz, and whether Merrick Garland would be more or less liberal than someone Hillary Clinton might nominate to the Supreme Court, a kettle of Swainson's hawks circled above California's Anza-Borrego desert.

According to Wikipedia, a kettle is a term that describes "a group of birds wheeling and circling in the air" and in some species is "a way of 'staging' a flock in readiness for migration." Somehow these hawks wheeling and rising on hot air coming out of the valley seemed vaguely reminiscent of the state of national politics.



Photo credit: Borrego Valley Hawk Watch

Of significance, Swainson's hawks journey from as far away as Argentina and campaign their way as far north as Alaska. Some of the hawks come from Mexico, crossing the border unheeded, and, ironically, doing the hard work in the Borrego Valley that other birds seemingly disdain, munching on sphinx moth caterpillars intent on eating desert plants flowering from meager spring rains.

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The hawks clearly were collecting enough contributions of caterpillars to sustain them through the next leg of their campaign to the counties and states to the north. According to the University of Nebraska, the name "Sphinx" moths was coined in 1758 by Carolus Linnaeus, often called the "Father of Taxonomy," "probably based on the habit of the larva rising up in a defensive position when startled, thus loosely resembling the Egyptian Sphinx," a symbol of wisdom and strength. This is not unlike the politicians in this year's race for president who also attempt to show strength and wisdom, sometimes in surprising ways.

The hawks are as ever-present and as ephemeral as the candidates themselves. They rise in their kettles hundreds at a time, and, fittingly, on the previous Sunday (March 13, 2016) 1,407 had appeared, more than enough Swainson's hawks for each delegate a Republican nominee will need to win and the second largest day ever recorded in the valley.

Swainson's are of the genus buteo, broad-winged, soaring hawks. This year the hawks are clearly polarized. Some groups are a dark morph and others are a light morph, the ying and yang of buteos, or the right and left, depending on your fancy.



Photo Credit: Iris Kirkpatrick courtesy of Borrego Valley Hawk Watch

The uninitiated find it fascinating that the hawks have lowered their standards to hopping around on the desert floor eating caterpillars rather than gracefully diving on the more exotic rodents one imagines large hawks might prey on. This is not unlike the lowered standards of some political discussions in the 2016 presidential race.

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The hawks rise up and swirl on their four-foot-wide wings, and the small crowds watching them "ooh" and "aah," declaring how many they can see at one time. They count the birds as they pass through an imaginary plane in the valley to avoid tallying any bird more than once. No mistakes at this polling place.

Like paparazzi with their long camera lenses and spotting scopes, these bird watchers and researchers could be thought of as hawk pundits. They scatter across the valley to the likely spots where the hawks will settle to the ground to munch on caterpillars, roost for the night, or rise up to form a kettle.

The hawk pundits actually do great work, reporting their research findings daily to the Hawk Migration Association of North America, adding to the data available about migratory hawks. Like political pundits, they are on the run, calling each other on cell phones and moving quickly from one part of the valley to the other, dashing to where the last reported hawks were seen. They talk among themselves and to the tourists about where hawks might go next, what they might be doing and why. Conducting hawk policy discussions or polls, no less.

We followed the advice of the pundits and periodically moved to where they advised that the birds might be. On one jaunt to the west we discovered sculptor Richard Breceda's 140 metal sculptures dotting the desert in Galleta Meadows. These sculptures were the brainchild of the late Dennis Avery who wanted visitors to be able to see representations of historic animals that once lived in the valley, some found there now, and some of the people who contributed to the history of the area.

There are donkeys, bighorn sheep, camels, mammoths, explorers, a giant scorpion and a velociraptor. None of the sculptures is more impressive than the 350-foot serpentine sea dragon. The dragon has little basis in reality, not unlike some campaign rhetoric. Rising angrily out of the desert, the serpent seems somehow symbolic of the voters supporting Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders who are tired of the same-old, same-old in national politics.

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There were no hawks to be found near the serpent, so we headed back to the view site for the nightly roost, where the birds had reportedly been settling in each evening in a stand of eucalyptus trees.

Several dozens of us gathered round, searching the skies for birds as the sun set, squinting into the bright light above the San Ysidro Mountains west of Borrego Springs. The hawks appear in large numbers and then disappear, sometimes gone for hours only to reappear, one by one, thousands of feet in the air, before settling to their nightly roost.

Two couples in flip flops and shorts who had come over the mountains from the coast settled in for the wait with crackers and cheese and glasses of cabernet. Others climbed a nearby sand dune, and those with equipment stared through their scopes and lenses, hoping to be the first to see the hawks.

Of course, conversations developed while we waited. What was the best route back over the mountains? Where did you last see the birds? It seems flyfishing for trout and hawk-watching have something in common, so rivers became a topic in this land of perpetual drought. And then it turned to politics. A Bernie fan laughing when his friend labeled him as a Trump supporter, and then the common refrain started as it has in so many other conversations around the country - why can't we just work on solving problems instead of filling the void with hate, disparagement and blame?

And still there were no hawks ... the sun was down, and we were leaving, disappointed at having missed the birds, when a shout went out. The birds were coming.

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We turned back from our car, opened our tripods, and watched the hawks rise above the darkness of mountain ridges, small dots thousands of feet high, silhouetted against fading blue sky and pink streaks of cirrus clouds - to the excited voices of those counting the birds and sharing their scopes with those lacking them.

Then the hawks dropped quickly out of sight, silhouettes lost in the black of the mountains, heading for their roosts, one-by-one, releasing the watchers until dawn when the birds will rise once again into their kettles and begin circling before campaigning northward while the hawk pundits chatter in the valley.
On March 17th the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced the release of its most recent Quarterly Student Aid Report, its compendium of data on the performance of the government's federal student loan portfolio.

As DOE points out there's a lot to be happy with. More folks than ever are enrolling in affordable, Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans and economic hardship deferments have fallen dramatically. The percentage of borrowers who are more than 31 days late on their payments is in decline and in the last quarter of 2015 ED collected some $2.2 billion in defaulted loan debt, largely through a process called loan "rehabilitation" (getting borrowers back into routinely making payments again).

Good news indeed but as famed ESPN announcer Lee Corso would say, "not so fast my friend."

Jason Delisle over at the New America Foundation quickly noted that the data also shows 40 percent of borrowers in repayment are currently NOT making payments on their federal student loans. He also pointed out that the percent of dollars in default is around 12.7 percent yet the percent of individuals who are actually defaulting has climbed to around 20 percent.

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The fact that neither set of observations is necessarily wrong reinforces my old college statistics professor's favored claim that if you torture data long enough it'll basically say whatever you want it to say.

There is still talk that Congress may actually reauthorize the Higher Education Act this year and that means greater than usual attention to questioning what works and doesn't work when it comes to handling what is increasingly being referred to as the student debt "crisis." Despite the statistician's lament, there are things we should pay more attention to than not when thinking about the data that informs higher education policy. I've outlined a few below.

Borrowers versus dollars - When it comes to portfolio performance the federal government wants to maximize the return of dollars it lends out. At the same time, DOE and its contractors prioritize recovery based on how delinquent individual borrowers are, not individual loan accounts that are in arrears.

What this buys pundits and policymakers is a whole lot of grief. Policies get designed to help borrowers and families but loan performance metrics look at how well individual loans perform. The coupling between individuals and loans is tidier in other credit markets because people usually only have a single mortgage or auto loan. In lots of cases though, student borrowers can literally have more than a dozen federal student loans.

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Where portfolio performance is concerned, there's a big difference between writing off $50,000 in bad debt versus $2,000 but where policy is concerned, the amount is irrelevant. It's the act of defaulting that creates a potential lifetime on financial hardship, not how much wasn't repaid.

The difference between affordable and cheap debt - Growing enrollment in IDR plans implies more borrowers' monthly payments are becoming more affordable, regardless of loan balance. On the other hand, since it is not the default repayment option, large-scale movement into IDR also means borrowers are financially unwilling or unable to make standard term payments.

Decisions involve tradeoffs and in the case of IDR plans, the tradeoff to affordable monthly payments is having to pay more overall for the debt. Think of it like a car payment. A $25,000 loan over 4 years has a monthly payment of around $570 a month and with interest you'll end up paying around $27,300 in total. However, spread it out over say 7 years and you can get the monthly payment down to $347 a month. Problem is now you end up paying almost double the amount in interest so when the whole thing's paid off it'll cost around $29,200.

The second option is certainly more affordable but the first option would've cost $2,000 less. The parallel to higher education is actually magnified since the difference between the standard and IDR repayment terms is much longer (10 versus 20 to 25 years). Affordability can be challenging when a borrower first graduates and, sure, over time IDR balances are eventually written off. Still, the greatest irony of IDR plans is that - for some - they actually saddle people with more debt not less.

Benchmarking performance to other credit sectors - Like student loans, this past autumn the volume of outstanding auto loan debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. Also like student loans, the average individual borrows just less than $30,000.

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Which is where the similarities end. Despite there being a trillion dollar loan market, despite the absence of income-driven repayment plans, despite the typical auto loan term being less than six years, and despite the fact that the asset being purchased loses almost half its value the second it drives off the lot, the percent of individuals who default on an auto loan is less than one percent.

That's right.

Of course, we're still talking about two different goods and pundits will claim people simply need cars to buy food or get to work (though nobody can explain why they need "new" cars). Nevertheless, the reality is that even in a market where not everyone has ready access to attractive credit terms, a lender's ability to repossess an asset in the case of default is a strong motivator for timely payment.

Is it possible that the default problem is being driven in part by making student loan repayment too easy? The truth is, between income-driven repayment options, almost a year to not make a payment before defaulting and hundreds of required outreach attempts by servicers, there's no reason anyone should default on a federal student loan.

Give policymakers better decision-making data - A considerable amount of time and dollars have been put into creating the five existing income-driven repayment options on the belief that defaults are driven largely by unaffordable monthly payment structures. Now that literally millions of borrowers are enrolled in IDR plans what seems to be missing from loan performance data reports like these are the number of borrowers enrolled in these plans who are either delinquent or in default.

This isn't the first time we've seen a large-scale investment in education that fails to include metrics on how well the program performs. The Pell Grant program costs the federal government almost $40 billion a year and we still have no idea to what extent students who actually receive these federal grants actually go on and complete a college education.

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What DOE also needs to provide across the entire loan performance portfolio are better dispersion metrics. If I have 9 borrowers who've each borrowed $2,000 and one borrower who's taken on $100,000, calculating that the "average" borrower has about $12,000 in debt is basically meaningless and not at all reflective of any of the pool's borrowers. We should be focused providing policymakers with more reflective measures, such as the characteristics of median borrowers, that can better inform the decision-making needed to efficiently manage hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt.

Note: the original version of this piece was posted on LinkedIn.
Mabilon Jimenez Quispe survives in one of Lima's poorest areas thanks to his handicraft -- making retablos -- a folk art derived from traditional Catholic church art.

The floor of his workshop, on the roof of his family's house in the San Juan de Lurigancho neighborhood of the Peruvian capital, is cluttered with small wooden retablo boxes, some unpainted, others decorated with colorful flowers. The interiors of most of the boxes are filled with biblical scenes in which Jesus, Mary and Joseph are portrayed as indigenous people, and llamas replace camels.

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Mabilon was born in Ayacucho, an Andean city known for its handicrafts, into a family with a long tradition of making retablos. He fled to Lima after a Maoist guerrilla group, Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, launched a brutal insurgency leading to tens of thousands of deaths in the highland region around the city in the early 1980s.

Mabilon sells his work in Peru and overseas. But the earnings from this time-consuming craft are meager, and many other retablo-makers have abandoned the craft to take up other work. Today, only around 50 families in Lima make retablos, just half of them working by hand as Mabilon does.

Lima, Peru | Photographer: Jesper Klemedsson

"The Other Hundred" is a series of unique photo book projects aimed as a counterpoint to the Forbes 100 and other media rich lists by telling the stories of people around the world who are not rich but whose lives, struggles and achievements deserve to be celebrated.

The second edition of "The Other Hundred" focuses on the world's everyday entrepreneurs. The book offers an alternative to the view that most successful entrepreneurs were trained at elite business schools. Here are people who have never written a formal business plan, hired an investment bank, planned an exit strategy or dreamt of a stock market floatation. Find out more about the upcoming third edition, "The Other Hundred Educators," here.

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In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Gideon v. Wainwright decision, which unanimously held the Constitution's fair trial and due process provisions require appointment of defense counsel for an indigent charged with a felony in state court.

That guarantee may not be good in parts of Louisiana, however. Critically short on funds and staff, public defender offices throughout the state find themselves unable to provide needed services. Many public defender offices in Louisiana - coincidentally the state with the nation's highest incarceration rate - are on the verge of shutting down or have put new would-be clients on waiting lists. About 85% of all defendants look for representation by public defenders.

Meanwhile, judges in some local courts are ordering private lawyers, some without experience in criminal law or courts, to defend indigent clients, or considering alternatives such as postponing trials or even releasing prisoners if unable to meet constitutional speedy trial requirements.

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The crisis did not catch the Pelican State unawares: for years it has been predicted, caused by undependable revenue sources, shrinking budgets and political paralysis. The leader of a campaign to win adequate state funding for state public defender offices says the crisis illustrates the "instability, unreliability and inadequacy" of the state's current system.

Until the state passed a reorganization law in 2007, the court in each jurisdiction set up its own Indigent Defense Board and acted independently in running the public defender function. The 2007 law created the Louisiana Public Defender Board and set standards for openness and accountability.

What the consolidated system lacked then, and still does now, is a reliable funding source. Unlike every other state, Louisiana funds public defender offices primarily through local governments: around two-thirds of their funds come from traffic fines and court fees (for example, every local criminal conviction in Louisiana carries a $45 fee to help support public defender offices).

Changing law enforcement focus, growth of diversion programs, and other factors have reduced those local revenues. The state's faltering economy and budgetary woes (there's about a $1 billion shortfall in next year's budget, due in October) mean little help is forthcoming from the state. The predictable result of the revenue crunch: cutbacks in funds for lawyers and investigators in public defender offices.

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For example, four years ago, the New Orleans public defender's office had a $9.5 million budget; it's now operating on $6 million, and took a $700,000 funding cut this year. To cope with a growing caseload but fewer staff attorneys - which, one study found, leaves each lawyer on its dwindling staff an annual caseload of about 350 cases, and about seven minutes to prepare for each new case - the New Orleans office announced January 11 it could not accept most new felony defendants.

Soon thereafter, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed a class-action federal lawsuit against its traditional ally, the public defender's office, for failing to meet its responsibilities. The lawsuit also claims the situation wrongly deprives indigent defendants of their rights to be represented in court, and means they're locked up longer while awaiting court hearings. The still-pending lawsuit seems aimed at pressing the state legislature to provide adequate funds for essential public defender services.
I recently went through a full year of pessimism.... between cancer, hospital admissions and thoughts crowded by death, I've simply had it with all things negative. Whether you're going through hell on a personal level or just watching our world fall into the traps of the terrorists and political turmoil, I'm sure you've not only experienced it, but are tired of it too.

The question is, how does one get out of this media-frenzied negative rut? Where I tend to find hope and positivity in this world is through music. I know I'm not alone in this society of ear-bud paradise inhabitants. It seems so very easy to find love and light through the likes of Spotify, Pandora and the entire Internet. Utopian moments are available at just one click...

One of my personal go-to sources of peace throughout the years has been the brilliantly gifted songwriter, Chris Trapper.





(photo credit: Emma Meyer)

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Five years ago, I met a man through online dating. For our first date he suggested a concert seeing as we both considered ourselves music snobs. I was pleased and definitely knew the headliner, Colin Hay. But his opening act? Never heard of him... Little did I know that this date would lead me to music that would become an intricate part of the fight for my life. I became a super fan in an instant. His calm demeanor, kind eyes and funny tales from the other side of the mic seamlessly fuses with a lyrical style that is most empathetically engaging. It's almost as if listening to him has the power to take you away in a singular breath.

Chris Trapper is brightness personified. His music has been featured in huge films such as, "There's Something About Mary," "August Rush," and shows such as "ER" and "Malcolm in the Middle." With Grammy nominations and large scale touring fame, Chris is a man that has mitigated his ego by ensuring that his life is consistently rooted in fans and family with a true optimistic view of reality.

To hear his story peppered with a sanguine outlook is a gift. Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Chris before his show at one of Denver's best spots for live music, The Soiled Dove.

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His show was just what the doctor ordered and then some. Every tune is just the tip of the iceberg. His words share a story that is best filtered through his warm-hearted vocals. The story behind the story? Chris tells it best in his own words:



I never thought I'd be where I am today. For me, it's always been realistic to think that this might not last. But here I am, with fans that have been with my two decades or more from an industry that is constantly changing and still doing what I love. In this world, you can write your own story. A lot of musicians look outside for endorsements from labels and industry execs and other big names, but I have always focused on my fans, as they have become the impetus for all the actions that have happened in my career. Well, them and my family.

My parents have been one of, if not the biggest influence in my life. They were very big dreamers, idealists and loved songwriters. They were also major alcoholics from the day I was born until they both passed. They were drunk everyday. Of course it added to the family dysfunction but it all comes out in my art and the writing process. It's a mixed bag. You have the pain, addiction and it's all mixed with the joy and laughter and everything else. Music was a huge part of our family and still is. My parents have been in a lot of my songs and part of the content for years and still are to this day. As a matter of fact, my parents were borderline groupie-ish to songwriters. So they always encouraged me to do what I loved. Had I gone to them when I was 19 or 20 years old and told them I wanted to go to medical school or be a lawyer, they probably would have given me thumbs down and asked why? When I said I wanted to be a songwriter, they welcomed the idea. My mom would have me lip-sync to Tom Jones when I was six years old for my aunts and uncles when they would come over. I would pretend to sing into a hairbrush for nickels. When I became a musician, I wasn't being rebellious, it was just who I was and was a part of my family.

My dad was the biggest part of my inspiration to be who I am today. I think I got my work ethic from him. I remember him waking up every morning, even when he was in his 50's and 60's, at six-thirty to shave and get ready for a job he didn't necessarily love. He had a very minimal sales job and was more of a working class salesman but always told me that he had no choice. He would say, I have six kids and I did what I had to do to make a living. He couldn't necessarily pursue his dreams and goals. He was also fiercely loyal to my mom. She could be very temperamental. She could go from the most joyful person in the world to the most challenging person. She would make major waves in her family of origin and our family but my dad always stood by her. He was just a very good example of what being a man and a good humble person was all about.

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But, he always encouraged me to do what I loved, even if he couldn't. I played music in college and kind of quit after college was finished. I was about 27 years old and had been working a "real job." I was a purchaser at a hotel in Boston. My dad called me one day at work and asked why I was still working there...and then he asked if I was still writing songs every day. I told him that I was still writing constantly. He suggested in that moment that I try to make a living at it. I had one of those moments...where I thought, you know what? I'm 27, I come to a job I feel passionless about, so why not take a shot? There was an open mic night across the street from my job. I played a few songs and got a very good immediate response. Next thing I know, the host asked me to play the next night as the feature. I got paid in tips...I just remember that 50 dollars hitting my hand and thinking that maybe I could get paid to sing. Since then I've been finding ways to monetize my passion and my art. Because of that job, I have an appreciation for the fact that the absolute worst day at my "job" as a musician is better than the best day at most "real" jobs. I can see fans and truly be appreciative of them for coming out of the basement of their buildings and leaving their offices to come see me. I really feel blessed to do what I do. Of course sometimes I wish I could do this at a higher level and do more business but I have a lot of faith that this will all come in time.

Last year, right after my dad died, I had to play in Denver. It was two days after his death and I just remember that singing for me gave me this feeling of alleviation from grieving over him. As I drove to Oklahoma the next day, which became my time to really grieve, I played one song on repeat in the car that made me think of him, and then I would play his old voicemails over and over. Water works. I cried the whole drive. It was beautiful and just what I needed. The creative process just became more. The more I could pour the negative grief into something joyful knowing that it was a big part of who he was, helps. I can feel him when I sing, when I am on stage. I don't see anything in life as exclusive; it's all a full circle that gets intertwined.

You have to love this life and all the different aspects of this business to succeed. You have to love composing and writing and singing live. This love has to go along with having a passion for driving the road and rest stops and meeting new people in different cities everyday. But the business is changing. It's always changing. The only thing that doesn't change is your fans. You should never look past anyone in your life or in your fans. They are your connections and your success.

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I think life brings people to you when you need them. I guess you could call me a cockeyed optimist in this way. I've always felt that you'll go through things you don't necessarily understand and have things come at you that you might not see coming. It's good to have mentors because of this. My mentor and one of my heroes is Colin Hay. I met Colin at a folk festival in Edmonton. At the time I was looking for a mentor to aspire to be like and keep going as a solo artist. We were so very similar in our shtick. He was funny, self-deprecating and I had never really been exposed to another artist like that. I loved the way he treated his fans and asked him if I could do a couple of shows with him. Those few shows turned into two years of shows. Colin's a good guy...a very humble and approachable man that treats everyone the same. It doesn't matter to him if you're a janitor or the head of Sony. I wanted to be more like that and now I look to him as a mentor in how to mature gracefully in this business.

I still feel very optimistic about what I do and that I'm very lucky to do what I do everyday. It's just that now I have more pressure as I have two kids to put through college and a family. Despite everything being driven by the masses and money and ratings, I still feel a sense of accomplishment that I bring a song down to Earth that never existed before and play it for you.

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Actress, writer and comedian Suzanne Krull always identified with the underdog. The more marginalized, misunderstood and discriminated against someone was, the more fiercely she had their back.

Krull died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2013. Her friends in the comedy world wanted to honor who she was and keep her memory alive. So her husband, Peter Spruyt, established Krullapalooza with Tig Notaro for top comics to raise money for worthy yet underfunded causes.



The Deported Veterans Support House (DVSH) in Tijuana, Mexico will receive the proceeds from the third annual Krullapalooza event. Spruyt heard about the work being done at DVSH and was sure his late wife would want to help these veterans who sacrificed so much for their country.

Perhaps the most egregious example of how horribly our country neglects our soldiers involves its treatment of legal immigrants. During the George W. Bush administration, we began fighting two wars simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military recruitment centers couldn't keep pace with demand, so it was made easier for foreign-born troops to become naturalized citizens. Recruiters took advantage of the change in policy to aggressively recruit immigrants with a promise of citizenship when they returned. Tens of thousands of immigrants joined, with this hope of gaining citizenship and many have been successful. But those who have made it back alive (often after multiple tours of duty) have the same issues as US-born vets. They need a lot more medical, psychological, vocational and financial help when they come home than our country is willing to offer. And when they are not supported, they often turn to alcohol and drugs to dull the pain. The big difference is that when a vet who is a US citizen commits a minor infraction, the consequences are proportional to the crime. But for a foreign-born soldier, the consequence is immediate removal from the path to citizenship, and deportation.

DVSH's mission is to support deported veterans on their journey to self-sufficiency by providing food, clothing, shelter and, if needed, finding re-hab for them, as they adjust to life in their new country of residence.

Known as The Bunker, DVSH is run out of Hector Barajas-Varela's home in Tijuana. Bajaras-Varela, director and founder of DVSH, served with the 82nd Airborne for almost six years. Like many returning veterans, he developed a drug problem, got in with the wrong crowd, was arrested and then deported. Bajaras-Varela turned his life around and has dedicated his life to helping other discarded veterans.

We've helped more than a hundred veterans - legal permanent residents - who have been deported or are being deported to some thirty countries around the world. All the veterans we have met maintain a strong desire to return to the United States. Many have hardly known any other home throughout their lives and have been forced to leave behind children, spouses, parents, and siblings, as well as firmly established lives and communities in the United States.

Exact figures aren't available, but it's believed over 3,000 legal immigrant veterans have been deported since 1996, mostly for minor crimes. These were soldiers who served in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately, the DVSH would like to see an end to the need for their services as they advocate for legislation which would stop the deportation of United States service personnel and repatriate those already deported.

Reverend John Fanestil lives in San Diego and gives a weekly service of communion at the US/Mexico border where he sees deported veterans from the DVSH and he visits them in Tijuana. "The DVSH is a rallying point and source of great support to deported veterans, but also to mothers and fathers of children left behind in the US. It's an exemplary grassroots organization that's done so much with so little for so many years. They've helped hundreds of people come to grips with what, in my view, is a grave injustice," he said.
"You're taking another vacation?" "Didn't you just go somewhere?" If you've ever been asked any of these questions or returned home from a holiday and been flippantly told, "must be nice," then you have been a victim of Vacation Shaming, a horrible disease that is infiltrating the offices of America.

My fellow Americans, let's put a stop to this preposterous act. We are one of the hardest working nations in the world, having even coined the phrase, "The American Dream" over the rewards from our hard earned labors. As the nation with the least amount of vacation days in the world, no wonder so many of us are victims of burn out. Where did our work/life balance go? America is the only nation that is not legally required to give employees any days off! Is that how you define the American dream?

In June of 2015 I chose to take a year away from The States to travel around the world. After traveling around the world for 9 months, I've met people from various countries taking time off doing the exact same thing as me. To foreigners, what I'm doing is accepted. To foreigners, taking a grown up gap year is encouraged. To Americans, it seems crazy. As I've discussed vacation time with people from around the world, I've found that while our dear America has one of the best work ethics, we have one of the weakest work/life balances.

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Typically, my fellow Americans earn 10 days of vacation a year, or 2 work weeks, making Americans the workers with the lowest vacation days in the Western world. Compared to most Europeans who clock in upwards of 25 vacation days a year, Brazilians clock in over 30 vacation days a year, and Australians upwards of 20 days a year, us Americans are way behind the holiday times. Despite being the country with the lowest amount of vacation time, most Americans still don't take even half of their vacation time!

Taking time away from the office replenishes ones mind, body, and soul while also improving productivity in the office. According to an Ernst & Young internal study, for "each additional 10 hours of vacation employees took, their year-end performance ratings improved 8 percent, and frequent vacationers also were significantly less likely to leave the firm," proving a renewed appreciation and revitalized creativity.

The vacation studies don't only show superior efficiency at the office, but also enhanced results on our health. Studies performed by the Framingham heart study revealed that "men who didn't' take a vacation for several years were 30 percent more likely to have heart attacks compared to men who did not take time off." An additional study conducted by Marshfield Clinic determined that those who "vacationed less often than once every two years were more likely to suffer from depression and increased stress than women who took vacations at least twice a year."

My fellow Americans, let's redefine the American dream and join the rest of the world in prioritizing a work/life balance with more vacation days. If you're an employee, what can you do to change the conversation on paid time off? If you're a business owner, what can you do to change the work/life balance dynamic in your office?

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Resources

"Average U.S. Employee Only Takes Half of Earned Vacation Time; Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey." Glassdoor. April 3, 2014. https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/average-employee-takes-earned-vacation-time-glassdoor-employment-confidence-survey-q1-2014/

"Health Benefits of Vacations." https://www.healthnet.com/portal/home/content/iwc/home/articles/health_benefits_of_vacations.action

Also on HuffPost:
Coauthored with Tasha Sabino and Liz Ullman



In a complicated, twisted tale of alleged corruption and betrayal over budgetary wars, a presumed cover-up simmers at a colossal scale between the Army and the National Guard. Soldiers are the exploited pawns in the largest politically motivated fraud investigation ever conducted by a military component against its own forces. This may sound like suspenseful fiction, but as many National Guardsmen and women can attest, this is all too real. An estimated 24,000 National Guard soldiers have been caught in the dragnet, which all stems from a successful military-enlistment recruiting program that financially compensated citizen-soldiers who aided in efforts to boost military strength. Documents and public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act along with credible sources points to a disturbing persecution of soldiers and veterans as well as the batch processing of mass indictments.

At a time when US forces were scattered among Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, the overall end strength numbers were low. Army National Guard Director, Lt. General Clyde A. Vaughn (ret), and his staff had an idea to resupply the branches with fresh bodies--make anyone a potential recruiter by offering a financial incentive of $2,000.00 for each successful enlistment. Vaughn deeply felt that a peer-enlistment program might ease the hemorrhaging of a nationwide manpower shortage. And he was correct. The program, dubbed G-RAP (Guard Recruiting Assistance Program), ran from 2005-2012 and was an enormous success, as it replenished the ranks. Other branches of the military ultimately mirrored that recruiting program, but none to the magnitude of the NGB (National Guard Bureau). And none of them received the amount of government money that the Guard received to achieve this success.

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Though G-RAP stood as a great achievement in strengthening the reserve forces, by 2012, all RAPs (Recruiting Assistance Programs) were suspended indefinitely, primarily due to media publicity of widespread fraud. NGB took the most heat, consistently projected as having lost upwards of $100 million. The truth, however, has been largely obscured. After four years of costly investigations, only $2 to 3 million "has been successfully prosecuted in civil courts." But what is more disconcerting is that NGB, routinely criticized for its lack of oversight, no longer had the supervision in their control. Based on a previously unpublished Army Inspector General Report, a closed door meeting took place in May 2007 where it was decided by an ad hoc committee comprised of representatives from Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), Defense Criminal Investigation Service (DCIS) and the Air Force Office of Special Bureau (AFSOI) "that Docupak would turn over any suspected occurrences of fraud directly to CID," and that NGB, specifically the State Adjutants General (TAG), would be deliberately left out of the information loop. The rationale given at the time was that the DCIS did not want interference from high-ranking Guard officials.

There is evidence, however, that some the TAGs were successfully handling all reported incidents of fraud internally in their own states up until that point with detection and prevention controls. It was not until these controls were halted in the May 2007 meeting that the Guard lost the ability to monitor, discipline and correct such incidents of fraud. Perplexingly, all of this was done without the Guard's knowledge. In a recent interview in the Washington Times, General Vaughn reported that "he was kept in the dark" about the occurrence of fraud in the field and that CID purposely did not inform him about fraud cases. "No one can correct a problem if you do not know it exists," stated Vaughn.

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The CID did not have any prerogative to make such changes to regulation, as it would require a Congressional act; yet, in 2009 (and again in 2014), changes were made to the CID Manual that removed the language to report crimes through the TAG. But simply changing the manual did not mean it was constitutional to do so under the sovereign rights of each state and US territories. What's more, there has been discussion in legal circles as to whether or not CID is operating outside its jurisdiction in the investigation of National Guard members. According to the Constitution as well as Department of Defense Directives (DoDD) 5105.77, the NGB is under the direct command of the state TAG and ultimately the governor unless a battalion has been mobilized for federal duty, at which point they then fall under Title 10 (active duty status) and the command of the President. The majority of those indicted are known as "M-day soldiers." In other words, they are "weekend warriors" working for the Guard once a month and two weeks a year in official drill status (aka, Title 32). If an individual under Title 32 were to come under some criminal deed, it is the role of the TAG to take action. In fact, the TAGs have guidance on enforcing discipline and protecting soldier's rights as it is articulated in the 2015 Commander's Legal Handbook. The CID, as a faction of the big Army, only has command over Title 10 soldiers; it does not, to this day, have any authority over most members of the National Guard in these investigations, save a select few individuals who were deployed on active duty while participating in G-RAP.

This then raises the question, why is the regular Army harassing National Guard soldiers and violating their constitutional rights in the first place? Most of the soldiers under suspicion for theft of government property are not subject to regular Army discipline. Before that question can be answered, there is another piece of the puzzle to be scrutinized--the alarming results of CID's investigations.

The U.S. Army Audit Agency had concern regarding the potential of individual fraud within RAPs. After reviewing over 150,000 enlistments ($339 million in payments), the June 2012 Audit identified 3,200 soldiers in the fraud-risk assessment. They found 1,256 recruiters suspicious of medium to high risk for fraud. Additionally, there were 2,022 RAs that "potentially violated program rules." Of those RAs, only a quarter of them were found to be intentional acts. The remaining 1,400 recruiting assistants appeared to have unknowingly and unintentionally violated the rules of G-RAP, which is entirely plausible considering there were 60 changes to G-RAP rules during its seven years in existence .

This report fueled an investigation of another style from the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight. Despite the Audit's fraud findings, the Army CID quickly dispatched approximately 200 field investigators under "Task Force Raptor" to scrutinize all 106,364 individuals who participated in G-RAP for any possibility of fraud. Senator Claire M. McCaskill (D, MO) set a directive that CID should flood the nation's landscape and courageously return ill-gotten dollars to the American taxpayers. CID agents were encouraged to flash badges, obtain DNA swabs, issue polygraph tests and secure fingerprints in an effort to scare soldiers into revealing any useful material that could be later used against them. One former CID agent admitted that they were urged to lie to potential witnesses and persons-of-interest if usable information could be extracted. They were then instructed to report the numbers of potential indictments back to Senator McCaskill's office on a quarterly basis, ostensibly to ensure they were meeting her demands of accountability. But a federal indictment of fraud is a crime requiring specific intent. In other words, conviction relies on the government's ability prove the individual knew of the specific rules and guidelines and intentionally broke them for monetary enrichment.

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Nevertheless, CID's report prepared for the February 2014 Senate Subcommittee hearing led by Senator McCaskill found over 22,000 soldiers associated with payments that were at risk for fraud. This number is over seven times greater than the original Army Audit estimation at a rate of 1.7-3%. The FBI estimates that insurance fraud--one of the highest areas of civilian fraud--is at a rate of 3-10% of all insurance cases. Conversely, CID is now suggesting that those who proudly wear the uniform are felons at a rate of over 20%. Put differently, 1 in 5 soldiers are alleged criminals, 2 to 7 times more likely to commit fraud than the civilian population. This is clear evidence that these claims are audacious.

How is it possible that so many service members are accused of fraud? How is it that the CID investigations found an additional 18,000-20,000 offenders from the Audit's estimation? Is it possible that this is a witch-hunt? This fishing expedition turned into a conspiracy theory as Sen. McCaskill stated, "I mean, it is almost like word got out and nobody was paying attention, and all of a sudden everybody was, okay, the bank is open. Let us go for it." The moderate democrat further opined, "I mean there is no way that there was not a culture of people saying, hey, here is the deal. There is a bounty and we know these people are signing up." But rather than a vast number of soldiers intentionally scamming the government they swore to protect, a much more plausible answer would be that most all were following a set of murky rules as they understood them.
(Lincoln photo by A. Gardner, 1863. Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey, available under Creative Commons license through flickr.)

There's poetic justice in Trump's rise to the top of the GOP presidential field. The GOP is reaping precisely what it has sown.

One might indulge in Schadenfreude if the stakes weren't so high. America teeters on the brink of fascism, and no one can confidently predict which way the chips will fall.

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Trump has essentially effected a "hostile takeover" of the Grand Old Party. How the GOP enabled Trump is the subject of Time's March 21 feature story "The Party's Over." The article -- by Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center -- is surprisingly candid, given that Wehner is a consummate insider, having served in each of the past three Republican Administrations.

Here are his major points:

By embracing the tactics of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s and Sarah Palin in the 2000s, the GOP has engaged in "political knife-fighting," where "compromise [is scorned] as a synonym for capitulation." The irony that Constitution-thumping Republicans would rather break than bend is not lost on Wehner, given that "the Constitution itself was the result of a whole series of accommodations."

Tea Party Republicans, given to the politics of rage, would rather cheer "mindless stunts like shutting down the federal government rather than responsibly managing and limiting it."

When science is at odds with ideology, today's GOP consistently chooses ideology.

On the side of "promoting rather than ending corporate welfare and crony capitalism," Republicans have "lost touch with ordinary Americans," those wage-stagnated, working-class Americans who live in perpetual economic terror, one paycheck, illness, or loan payment from financial Armageddon.

Wehner is dead-on about what he acknowledges, but he omits the uglier aspects of the GOP's transformation from the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Trump. Here are two.

No institution has done more damage to America than Fox News. In an article titled "How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics," former GOP congressional aid and Reagan/Bush administrator Bruce Bartlett offers a blistering litany of Fox's pernicious influences. The extraordinarily well-researched article deserves to be read in its entirety and can be found at Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. (See "Top Papers.")

In brief, Fox News is misnamed. It "long ago ceased being anything remotely kin to an objective news source and now functions as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party," with ultra-right-wing conservative Roger Ailes as de facto Minister of Propaganda.

Because of Fox's routine disregard for factual integrity and its anti-intellectual and anti-science biases, Fox viewers are demonstrably ill-informed or misinformed on a whole host of topics, from the war in Iraq to climate change. Indeed, it would seem Fox News exists solely to keep hard-core conservatives perpetually riled-up and angry. In Bartlett's words "it's about having a chip on your shoulder; it's about us versus them, insiders versus outsiders, phonies versus non-phonies."

In short, Fox has tilled the soil for Trump's demagoguery.

The GOP has further debased itself and the nation by decades of race-baiting. It began -- following the civil-rights advances in the 1960s -- with Goldwater's and Nixon's "Southern Strategy," the cultivation of racial polarization to reclaim the democratic South for the GOP.

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The tactics worked, and Ronald Reagan followed suit. To kick off his presidential bid in 1980, Reagan strategically chose both his message and his venue, delivering a "state's-rights" speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town notorious for the KKK fire-bombing of a black church in 1964 and the subsequent murders of three civil-rights activists. Thousands cheered him.

Today, in state after state, Republicans blatantly undermine voting rights by legislating onerous voter ID laws that disproportionately hinder blacks, the elderly, students, and persons with disabilities from casting ballots.

The deep South is now solidly red, but it's cost the GOP its soul. Dog-whistle racism in America has escalated to police-whistle racism. Enter Trump to further fan the flames.

Trump is unfit to govern. Clinical psychologist Gregg Henriques pulls no punches in his assessment in Psychology Today of Trump's character defects:

Trump is completely chaotic at the level of ideology. He is a pathological liar and has no intellectual integrity. He offers virtually no policies, and the ones he does offer are impossible and mean-spirited. He is a narcissist . . . easily manipulated by feeding his ego (see, e.g., Putin's comments on Trump) and highly hostile to those who challenge him. In his speeches, he encourages violence, racism, riots, and demagoguery. He is best known as a Twitter bully. . . . He has repeatedly cheated on his wives. . . . [There] is no indication that he has the temperament to guide a polarized government through complicated times, nor reassure a public that is restless and feeling increasingly . . . uncertain . . .

And yet, given the perfect storm of dysfunctional government and cynical electorate, the unthinkable may be possible. Henriques cautions: "the likelihood that a Trump presidency would be a disaster with potentially catastrophic consequences is essentially undeniable."
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talk during the plenary session of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena April 14, 2012. Obama tried on Saturday to convince skeptical Latin Americans that Washington has not turned its back on them, but ruled out a drug policy U-turn that some in the region want. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (COLOMBIA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

With the lion's share of state-appointed and super delegates already stockpiled in her corner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is near certain to secure the Democratic Party's nomination.

The threshold needed to receive the official nod of the Party is a whopping 2,383 delegates. Clinton is well on her way there, having raked-in over two-thirds of the required delegates.

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Still, there are many state primaries and caucus states that have yet to hold elections, and her opponent Senator Bernie Sanders, is pressing on as the two competitors continue campaigning.

At this point though, using simple arithmetic, it's become clear that Sanders is a relative long shot for the nomination due to Clinton's substantial lead on the delegate front.

He's got a deficit of roughly 300 state-appointed delegates and 400 super delegates. Even though Sanders edged Clinton out in Utah and Idaho this week and is poised to do well in Washington state, Alaska and Hawaii this weekend, Sanders has to win by much bigger margins and in more heavyweight delegate-rich states if he wants to eat into her delegate lead. He's yet to do that. As such, Sanders has retained his sizable delegate shortfall far behind Clinton. With all that said, however, Sanders remains very much a formidable candidate.

Like President Obama, Sanders has been able to harness the power of the internet to fundraise. In contrast with Clinton who has relied heavily on traditional Democratic donors and institutional support, Sanders has become a fundraising juggernaut by generating enthusiasm among low-dollar donors that's become the lifeblood of his campaign. Doing so helped him out-raise Clinton $43.5 million to her $30 million just in February alone.

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With such resources, Sanders has demonstrated that he has the political muscle to stay in the primary race until the California Primary on June 7th and all the way until the convention in July. And he should.

Many experts believe that Sanders' candidacy has been healthy for the Democratic Party and for Clinton. It's forced Clinton to put forward her A-Game by engaging in a wholesome, intelligent debate and dialogue about the nation's challenges and different ideas for how to tackle them in the years ahead.

Sanders' candidacy has kept Clinton fresh, clear-eyed and laser-focused as the general election approaches. But Clinton needs more than a healthy primary battle to gear up for the looming death-match of the general election.

She needs all hands on deck -- and sooner rather than later. That means President Barack Obama's full-throated endorsement as well as that of his team and the entire Obama infrastructure behind her.

According to the latest Gallop survey, President Obama has a 52% overall approval rating and 88% approval rating among Democrats. His endorsement will permanently cement Clinton's frontrunner status but it can also help send a message to some of his supporters who may not yet have joined the Clinton bandwagon.

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Chief among the Obama supporters who have not fully embraced Clinton are young people, very liberal and progressive Democrats, white working-class Democrats and even some Independents. Many of these demographics have leaned Sanders' way. An Obama endorsement can help take the wind out of Sanders' sails with these voters and swing the pendulum Clinton's way.

Moreover, an Obama endorsement could send an important signal to undecided super delegates. Out of the total 719 super delegates available, Clinton has locked down commitments from 467 and Sanders has 26. That means roughly 226 remain uncommitted. If you add these uncommitted super delegates to Clinton's combined delegate scorecard, which currently stands at 1,690, that would get her close to 2,000 delegates-- just shy of the threshold needed to win the Party's nomination.

On the money front, an endorsement from Obama could open the floodgates to the troves of his millions of grassroots and low-dollar donors and vast online network. That could help Clinton match or exceed Sanders' online fundraising apparatus and outpace him overall in much needed cash to build up her war chest moving forward.

Beyond translating his popularity among Democrats to Clinton, helping to send a signal to super delegates and donors, Obama's backing would likely imply Vice President Joe Biden's support as well. With more industrial state elections coming up in places like Pennsylvania, where Vice President Biden was born, his appeal and roots in such communities run deep. Having the Veep on the campaign trail barnstorming these states with Clinton could help her not only in winning, but in further running up the score against Sanders in similar key rustbelt states.

Looking towards November, association with Obama will no doubt assist Clinton as she positions herself for the general election.

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At a time with an obstructionist Republican-led Congress coupled with Republican Presidential candidates ranging from an isolation extremist in Donald Trump or a totalitarian and uncompromising Senator Ted Cruz-- President Obama is perceived as the levelheaded adult in the room. Being tied at the hip to Obama in juxtaposition to the gridlocked Congress and one of the two radicals she's likely to face-off against in November will bode well for Clinton.
The food industry is in the midst of a revolutionary change and the growing call for transparency has become unmistakable. The concepts of transparency and real food are tangible values that more and more consumers are seeking. People are increasingly demanding to know where their food comes from, how and where its grown and why certain ingredients are used. They now expect this kind of information to be accessible at the touch of a button. The question is no longer if companies should disclose the details of food ingredients, but how.

Our purpose at Campbell Soup Company is changing the way we do business every day, and it is informing the way we engage with consumers. This purpose has brought about significant cultural and process change within our walls and has provided new insights about how we can transcend the challenges were facing amid the changing landscape of the food industry.

One of the most hotly debated calls for transparency in the food business is the labeling of products that contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. The vast majority of Americans want GMOs labeled, and we believe they have a right to know whats in their food and how it is made. We want to set the standard for transparency in the food industry. Thats why we favor mandatory national GMO labeling. This commitment is our purpose in action.

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We believe its time for the federal government to put forth legislation that directs the appropriate agencies (FDA and USDA) to craft and mandate a national GMO label. We believe this will help advance consumer trust and encourage a more authentic conversation about the role of technology in feeding the worlds population. If that doesn't happen, the U.S. will be faced with a patchwork of state laws, which will be costly, impractical and confusing. With or without federal preemption, Campbell will label all U.S. products for the presence of ingredients that were derived from GMOs, not just those covered under the Vermont law.

To be clear, this is not a question of safety or a dispute about the science behind GMOs. After all, GMOs are among the most thoroughly tested elements of our food supply. More than 90% of canola, corn, soybean, and sugar beets in America are grown using genetically modified seeds. These crops are used to make the foods most people eat every day, and well continue to use them in our foods because science tells us they are safe and because we believe the technology plays an important role in feeding the world. For us, its a simple question of transparency.

At times, purpose-informed leadership can be a lonely proposition. As it happens, our push for mandatory national labeling for GMOs goes very much against the grain. Currently the federal government has no regulations requiring labeling to inform consumers that the food they purchase contains GMOs. And most of the agri-food industry opposes mandatory on-package GMO labeling.

Businesses need consistent labeling guidelines; and people want transparent, consistent information about their food. The only way to achieve that is through mandatory, broad-based labeling with federal preemption. Whether youre shopping in Vermont or California, the standard should be the same. Recently, the U.S. Senate introduced legislation that reflects our stance. The Biotechnology Food Labeling and Uniformity Act would enable American consumers to see on a package whether a food is prepared with genetically modified ingredients.

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A true purpose should lead a company both in what it stands for and what it stands against. We believe that doing what is best for consumers is best for our business. Using our purpose as a filter for decision making has changed the way we think, talk and act about our food. Its created a ripple effect throughout Campbell and were ambitious about transparency, particularly regarding GMOs. We have new teams forming every day; challenging themselves and each other to take Campbells purpose to the next level. We are embracing our purpose and the change and innovation it brings. This is just one step on our purpose journey. I hope youll stay tuned.

Dave Stangis is Vice President, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Campbell Soup Company and serves as the companys chief sustainability officer.
In a recent, little reported speech at IHS CERAWeek in Houston, Texas (home of the fossil energy fan club), Norman Bay, Chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), made an announcement quite unwelcome to many in the industry audience. "Developments in storage have the potential to bring economic and reliability benefits to consumers [and] perhaps even to be game changers," Bay said. He pointed to recent analyses stating that energy storage costs should be halved in 5 years, "to the point where in some markets energy storage systems could be cost competitive with conventional [fossil fuel peaking plants]".

It's an increasingly common view. Julie Fox Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World Management LLC said last month that "storage changes everything!. Dr. Gorte's has more than a decade of experience as a Senior Associate and Project Director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Her position is supported by some new utility industry views that there may be not be any new natural gas-fired power plants built in North America after the end of this decade - mass energy storage will be doing the job instead, instantaneously and without any carbon emissions and air pollution.

The potential for energy storage to be disruptive to the fossil energy industry is connected to the rapidly accelerating installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In the US, for example, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has recently released data suggesting that in 2016 new PV systems will add more new generating capacity than any other energy resource, including fossil fuels. The Washington Post noted that the EIA reports "planned installations for 2016 include 9.5 gigawatts of utility-scale solar -- (versus) 8 gigawatts ... of natural gas and 6.8 gigawatts of wind. This suggests solar PV could truly blow out the competition, because the EIA numbers are only for large or utility-scale solar arrays or farms and do not include the hyper fast-growing rooftop solar market, which will also surely add several additional gigawatts of capacity in 2016." (http://wpo.st/tQIJ1)

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Former FERC chair Jon Wellinghoff agrees: "Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything...it could double every two years". Of course, the principal challenge to broader use of solar power has always been the inevitable intermittency of solar; sometimes it is cloudy and half the time it is night. Cost-competitive, reliable energy storage is now beginning to address this limitation and may completely mitigate it in many markets within a decade, and in others within a few years.

Elon Musk's Tesla is building their battery storage Gigafactory in Nevada to produce cheap energy storage for consumers for exactly this reason. You can now hook up your solar panel to your Tesla battery pack, charge your Tesla car at night and skip the gas station (and the electric utility company) forevermore.

As Bloomberg New Energy Finance has pointed out, "When deployed together in distributed community and rooftop applications, solar and storage can also result in a reduced strain on the distribution grid and a deferred or reduced need for infrastructure investment. On a macro level, storage and solar could help reduce emissions by enabling a higher penetration of solar without variability challenges. The combination could also be transformative in emerging markets as a fast-track to electrification."

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In fact, one Bloomberg View commentator has argued that we should now think of the rise of solar and the emergence of power storage as a virtuous circle: "...instead of thinking of solar and batteries as two independent things, we should think of them as one single unified technology package. Solar-plus-batteries is set to begin a dramatic transformation (which) has already begun...". (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-08/clean-energy-revolution-is-way-ahead-of-schedule).
The U.S. Department of Education says that at an event scheduled for today in Boston with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. will announce that students who attended 91 former Corinthian Colleges campuses nationwide between 2010 and 2014 "have a clear path to loan forgiveness under evidence uncovered by the Department while working with multiple state attorneys general." These students will be able to apply immediately to have their federal direct student loans forgiven because of alleged fraudulent conduct by Corinthian.

The Department's special master for debt relief issues, Joseph A. Smith, who is also scheduled to attend the announcement, today delivered his third report on borrower defense issues; it shows that the Department has approved loan discharges for more than 8,800 former Corinthian students nationwide, totaling more than $130 million.

The Department last week concluded three rounds of discussions among various stakeholders in anticipation of new Department rules on debt relief for students at colleges engaged in fraudulent conduct. As expected, the stakeholders at these sessions did not reach consensus on new rules, so the Department is likely to propose its own draft rule in June.

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On Wednesday a California state Superior Court judge granted California Attorney General Kamala Harris's motion for a default judgment in the state's fraud lawsuit against Corinthian, ordering restitution for students in the amount of $820,000,000 and civil penalties totaling $350,025,000. But Corinthian is in bankruptcy proceedings, where it has claimed to have just $19 million in assets and $143 million in debts. Corinthian was receiving as much as $1.4 billion a year in taxpayer funds at its peak.

It is good news that the Department is at last getting serious about forgiving some student loans for U.S. students who attended predatory colleges that the Department had approved to receive federal student aid. But these students are still required to apply, when the Department should know who these students are and just grant them the relief. And many more Corinthian students still haven't been promised relief.

Also, it remains bad news that other predatory colleges, now facing multiple federal and state law enforcement investigations, remain eligible for federal aid and continue this very day to enroll students across the country. The Department is rightly worried about what all this debt forgiveness will cost. But if it truly acts to provide justice for students who were deceived and abused, it might start to fully understand the consequences of allowing predatory for-profit colleges to get federal money in the first place.

UPDATE 03-25-16 12:30 pm:

At today's press conference in Boston, Attorney General Healey pledged a strong outreach effort to notify Corinthian students in her state of their new rights to debt relief. Massachusetts has been a leader in doing that; some other states, not so much.

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The remarks and answers to questions at the press conference by Secretary King and AG Healey did not provide additional details on the new debt relief, but non-profit groups already have raised questions and concerns.

Americans for Financial Reform issued a statement this morning charging that "the pace of relief for wronged Corinthian students through borrower defense to repayment remains far too slow, and its scope frustratingly narrow. Only students who incurred debt after July 1, 2010 - the time period covered in the Department's past enforcement actions - have been deemed eligible for cancellation. This leaves out far too many wronged borrowers, including all former students with FFEL loans.... [W]e continue to believe that requiring ... individual applications are both unjust and unnecessary...."

The Institute for College Access and Success offered this analysis of the new Special Master report:

 According on this March report, only 5.8% (20,241) of the 350,000 students who ED says took out loans to attend Corinthian schools since 2010 had applied for a discharge (either closed school or borrower defense), and only 2.5% (8,886) were approved for discharge.  Of the 2.5% approved, 77% (6,838) were closed school discharges and 23% (2,048) were BD discharges.  Of the 2,048 BD discharges, only 190 were for students who attended Everest or Wyotech, and the rest (91%) attended Corinthian's Heald College.

UPDATE 03-25-16 4:30 pm:

Statement from Pauline Abernathy of TICAS:

Despite the Department's outreach to date, few students are aware that debt relief is available. Only a fraction of eligible Corinthian students have applied and less than three percent have been approved (with most approved because their school closed, not based on fraud). The report released today indicates the slow pace of approvals has slowed even further since the last report. It's like draining a swimming pool with a straw -- even a streamlined application is an unnecessary barrier to the relief these students deserve because the Department has already determined that their school committed fraud. Earlier this week, a court concluded that every former Corinthian student in California since 2010 deserved relief. The only way to ensure that they and other defrauded Corinthian students receive relief is to discharge their loans without requiring unnecessary paperwork. We urge the Department to provide automatic discharges to all groups of students covered by findings of fraud, rather than requiring them to submit individual applications.

The Department's press release is below.

This article also appears on Republic Report.

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Communications & Outreach, Press Office

400 Maryland Ave., S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20202

FOR RELEASE:

March 25, 2016

U.S. Department of Education Announces Path for Debt Relief for Students at 91 Additional Corinthian Campuses

The U.S. Department of Education announced today that students who were defrauded at 91 former Corinthian Colleges Inc. (Corinthian) campuses nationwide have a clear path to loan forgiveness under evidence uncovered by the Department while working with multiple state attorneys general.

These campuses represent the largest group of borrowers eligible for loan relief so far from the ongoing investigation into Corinthian. In total, the Department has made findings of fraud against more than 100 of Corinthian's former campuses.

Students who attended Corinthian schools operated under its Everest and WyoTech brands in more than 20 states - Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, New York, Utah, Maryland, New Jersey, and Wyoming -can apply for debt relief through a form posted here. The Department is reaching out to those students through postal mail, email, partner organizations and other means.

U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. made the announcement in Boston with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office was instrumental in bringing forward evidence that Corinthian's two Everest Institute campuses in Massachusetts--Chelsea and Brighton--misrepresented their job placement rates to enrolled and prospective students. Students from multiple programs at those campuses can now apply for relief using the online process described above.

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The Department's Special Master Joseph A. Smith also attended the announcement. Smith delivered his third report on borrower defense today, which outlined that the Department has approved loan discharges for more than 8,800 former Corinthian students nationwide, totaling more than $130 million.

"When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they'll get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families. Corinthian was more worried about profits than about students' lives," King said. "Through these important partnerships with states' attorneys general, we are pleased to offer relief to Corinthian students who were defrauded. And we will continue to take action to protect students and taxpayers from unscrupulous companies trying to profit off of students who simply want to better their lives."

"For two years, our office has been working to secure loan forgiveness for students preyed upon by Corinthian. Today marks an important first step in providing the debt relief these students deserve," Healey said. "I thank the Department for its partnership and look forward to working together to help even more Corinthian students in Massachusetts and hold other predatory schools accountable for their illegal and unfair practices."

Last summer, the Department created a similar form for students at 12 Heald College campuses after fining the institution $30 million for misrepresenting job placement rates to current and prospective students. In November 2015, the Department, in conjunction with the California Attorney General, published additional findings of misrepresentation at 20 Everest and WyoTech campuses in California and Florida.

Smith and Department staff have been working closely with state attorneys general from Illinois, Wisconsin and other states across the country to identify wrongdoing that could provide former Corinthian students a basis for relief under federal law. The Department hopes to replicate these partnerships in other states.

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"I'm pleased that the Special Master and his team are continuing to make it possible to provide relief to defrauded Corinthian students. To ensure students defrauded by other institutions can be made whole, the Department is currently drafting rules to simplify the process for submitting borrower defense claims," said Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell.

PROTECTING STUDENTS AND TAXPAYERS

Over the past seven years, the Obama Administration has taken aggressive and comprehensive action to address fraudulent, illegal and abusive practices in higher education. The U.S. Department of Education is working on multiple fronts to ensure that poorly performing or predatory institutions will no longer be able to take advantage of students and taxpayers. The Department's forceful new steps to protect students and provide them with opportunities for a high-quality, affordable education that prepares them for their careers has resulted in improved options for college-goers and increased protections for taxpayers.

Student Aid Enforcement Unit

In February 2016, the Department established the Student Aid Enforcement Unit to respond more quickly and efficiently to allegations of illegal actions by postsecondary institutions. The Enforcement Unit is led by Robert Kaye, a well-respected enforcement attorney who was most recently a leader in the Federal Trade Commission's work protecting consumers. Through his work as the Bureau of Consumer Protection's Chief Litigation Counsel and as a manager in the Bureau's Division of Enforcement, Kaye has considerable experience supervising and advising managers and attorneys engaged in consumer protection investigations, as well as federal court and administrative litigation.

The new unit will collaborate with state and federal agencies and will incorporate evidence gathered in investigations by those agencies in building cases against postsecondary institutions. The unit will also collaborate with the Department's office of Program Compliance regarding evidence which may impact ongoing compliance reviews. Moreover, the unit will utilize a broad set of interventions and tools, including subpoena authority, document demands, and interviews to enforce against violations of federal law. The Enforcement Unit consists of the following four divisions: Investigations Group, Borrower Defense Group, the Administrative Actions and Appeals Service Group, and the Clery Act Group.

Borrower Defense to Repayment

In June 2015, the Department appointed Smith, an advocate for consumers and taxpayers, as a Special Master to the Department to help create a process for reviewing borrower defense claims that is fair, transparent, and efficient. This decision is intended to simplify the process of discharging loans under the current regulations where students have valid claims that qualify as defenses to repayment of their federal loans (borrower defenses), and to ensure students who have been subject to fraudulent behavior by schools receive the relief for which the students are eligible--all while protecting taxpayers.

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In his first report, Smith discussed the legal and regulatory basis for the Department's approach to BD and the sequence of events leading to his appointment and his process going forward to evaluate borrower defense claims. The second report documented progress made on a number of student debt-relief goals. This report also discussed the issues that Smith and his team continue to examine. In particular, Smith described his plans to develop rules for resolving borrower defense claims still under review and to pursue additional engagement with state attorneys general to expedite relief to students. Smith's third report released today identifies the relief provided to borrowers so far and describes how borrowers who were enrolled in Corinthian Colleges Inc.'s Everest and WyoTech programs can seek borrower defense relief. Smith's work will help inform the work of the Enforcement Unit.

To further formalize this process going forward, the Department has begun a negotiated rulemaking process whereby the Department will seek not only to clarify how Direct Loan borrowers who believe they were defrauded by their institutions can seek relief, but also to strengthen regulatory provisions to hold colleges accountable for wrongdoing that results in loan discharges.

Gainful Employment Regulations

To protect students enrolled in career training programs from becoming burdened by student loan debt they cannot repay, in October 2014 the Department published regulations that require career training programs to meet minimum thresholds in student outcomes--or risk losing access to federal student aid. These regulations, also known as the "gainful employment rule," hold career training programs accountable for putting their students on the path to success, and they complement action across the Administration to protect consumers and prevent and investigate fraud, waste and abuse, particularly at for-profit colleges.

To qualify for federal student aid, the law requires that most programs at proprietary institutions and certificate programs at all institutions prepare students for "gainful employment in a recognized occupation." By defining what "gainful employment" means, the new regulations distinguish programs that provide affordable training that leads to well-paying jobs from programs that leave graduates with poor earnings prospects and unmanageable debt. The regulations also support greater accountability for colleges by requiring institutions to disclose key information on program costs, graduation rates, employment outcomes, and student indebtedness. These disclosures empower students to compare across career training programs when searching for and selecting a program. The regulations also help the Department in its efforts to protect students from deceptive practices.

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Based on available data, the Department estimates that about 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students would not pass the accountability standards. Institutions will have the opportunity to make immediate changes to their programs that could help them avoid sanctions, but if programs do not make these changes, they will ultimately become ineligible for federal student aid.

Joint Task Force on the Oversight and Accountability of For-Profit Postsecondary Institutions

In October 2014, the Department formalized an interagency task force to complement and build upon other actions by the Administration to protect students by addressing problems at poorly performing institutions of higher education, particularly in the for-profit sector. The purpose of the task force is to provide a means for federal agencies to share strategies and collaborate on the most effective ways to produce complementary protections for the public.

These strategies include developing more streamlined information sharing practices, producing effective consumer tools like updates to the College Scorecard and Financial Aid Shopping Sheet and sharing program expertise to identify best practices that minimize negative impacts from poorly performing institutions. Examples of these efforts include sharing relevant information of interest to task force members, such as the work underway at the Department to develop processes and systems to provide relief to federal student loan borrowers who have legal claims against the institutions of higher education they attended.

Calling on Congress to Do Its Part

The Department continues to take aggressive action to ensure that defrauded borrowers get the debt relief they are entitled to, to step up oversight and enforcement to identify colleges that present the greatest risk to students and taxpayers, and to hold schools accountable for their actions. But to fully address these issues, Congress must also take action. Congress should strengthen, not roll back, both consumer protections for students and accountability for colleges to make sure there are better oversight and enforcement tools in place to prevent colleges from harming students and leaving taxpayers holding the bag. The Department looks forward to working with Congress on such efforts.

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The President's FY2017 budget calls on Congress to require that no more than 85 percent of a proprietary institution's revenue come from all federal sources - including grants to servicemembers, veterans and their family members from the Department of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) . Under current law, proprietary institutions participating in federal student aid programs may receive no more than 90 percent of their revenue from the federal student loans and grants available through the Higher Education Act. But federal grants to servicemembers, veterans and their family members from the Department of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA), such as the post-9/11 GI Bill, that are used to pay for education are not counted in this calculation. This loophole allows institutions to receive almost all their revenue - and far more than 90 percent -from a combination of Department of Education grant and loan programs, DoD and VA student aid, and other federal sources. Closing the loophole and returning to 85 percent will discourage aggressive, and sometimes predatory and deceptive, marketing and recruitment of veterans and servicemembers who receive student aid under DoD and VA programs.

In addition:

Congress needs to enact rules that hold colleges and their executives responsible for fraudulent acts, instead of leaving taxpayers with the bill when rules are broken.

Students deserve truth in advertising. Congress needs to ensure students have access to meaningful information about college costs and outcomes and are not bombarded by aggressive and deceptive marketing.

Students deserve better borrower protections. Congress should also consider preventative action to protect prospective and current students by ensuring that students are not pressured by schools into enrolling and can get relief when the program they signed up for is not what they were promised.

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If you're over 50, chances are you've thought about moving your parents into a senior living community. If you're under 30 or a minority, however, you may actually be less likely to consider this option for your parents. Those were among the findings of a recent survey commissioned by Caring.com, in which respondents were asked whether they'd ever consider senior living either for their parents or for themselves.

Turns out, your race and age may have a bigger effect than you think on your perceptions of senior living communities- also widely known as retirement homes, independent living or assisted living.

Racial Divide

The survey found that while 64% of Caucasian respondents would consider moving a parent into a senior living facility, just 37% of African American and Hispanic respondents would consider it. (Note: the number of respondents who identified themselves as Asian or Pacific Islanders was too low to be statistically significant).

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That may be because in some cultures, moving a parent into senior living is still taboo - there's often nagging stigma around moving Mom into a "home."

Part of that feeling may also stem from a lack of exposure to senior living homes - a recent CDC report revealed that a whopping 91% of assisted living residents are Caucasian. So it follows that if you've never gone to visit a loved one in one of these communities, or don't have friends or family members who have either, you'll be more likely to hold onto an outdated idea of senior living communities as drab, depressing places where people go to die.

But Caring's survey results also show that attitudes toward senior living may be shifting, since a higher number of both African American and Hispanic respondents (46 percent and 49 percent, respectively) said they would consider moving into a senior living community themselves one day. Meanwhile, 63 percent of Caucasian respondents said they would consider it for themselves.

Generational Divide

Perhaps less surprisingly, age is another big indicator of people's willingness to consider senior living for themselves or a parent. More than half of respondents overall said they would consider moving a parent or parent-in-law into senior living. Of these respondents, millennial respondents were the least likely to respond in favor of senior living.

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When asked whether they would consider moving a parent into senior living one day, this was the breakdown of "yes" responses:

61% of 30 to 49-year-olds

55% of respondents 65 and older

54% of 50 to 64-year-olds

44% of 18 to 29-year-olds

That millennials are least likely to move a parent into senior living isn't too surprising - they're just starting out in the world. They think they're invincible, most of their parents are still in their 40s, 50s and 60s - and the idea of senior living still seems too far off for many to seriously consider. But, that day will come, whether they can picture it or not.

And as parents of millennials, we need to educate our kids about senior living options. However far off it may seem, it's not too early to talk to them about your senior care wishes. After moving my own mother into assisted living following her dementia diagnosis, my husband and I sat down with our own kids to talk to them about our own future wishes. We've made it crystal clear to them that we want to move into assisted living when the time comes rather than having them giving up their own lives to care for us.

That choice isn't for everyone. But whatever your long-term care wishes are or how you plan to finance that care, it's crucial to discuss it with your millennial kids before dementia or any other aging-related illnesses strike. Though not the easiest conversation to have, broaching the subject now means your kids won't be left to agonize over the decision when senior care is needed.

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Here's a list of questions to get you started. Anyone who loves anyone should have the answers to these questions.
President Obama is currently engaged in his legacy year time, and the visit in Cuba , which may defy nearly all rules of conventional International Relations wisdom may be the best evidence of that. Statements like how the US can learn from Cuba on human rights. Also, that ''personally I don't disagree ''[with Raoul Castro] are unusual, to say the very least. Then came two more interesting statements in Buenos Aires. First, the President acknowledged, that in the remaining nine months of his presidency, there will not be an Israeli-Palestinian peace. That is clearly a sober , though unfortunate realization of the situation. But then the President explained why it is impossible. He stated, that the Israelis are too successful economically , so they feel themselves to be in a position of strength, devoid of a real incentive to make concessions.

Poor Israel, nothing that it does is OK these days. Even the obvious economic success of the last decade, which is considered as an economic miracle, due mainly to it being the Start Up nation, is used against her. So, when you are a beggar nation , it is bad, and also bad, when you are not, or is it the special standard being set for Israel?. I, for one, do not know the answer, but some suspicions are here to stay with me. First, is it a coincidence that this statement reflects precisely the writings of some of the more vitriolic writers of the Marxist Left, which propagate for a boycott of and sanctions against Israel, exactly because they want to weaken Israel economically, and then to achieve two goals. To create strong opposition to the Netanyahu government, and to then force the government to capitulate to international pressures to make huge concessions to the Palestinians. These considerations , coupled with the campaign to delegitimize the state, are the ideas behind the BDS campaign against Israel. Is it too paranoid to raise the possibility , that the President sent a not so subtle message to the BDS campaign, as well as to governments, to continue , maybe even to intensify the campaign against Israel, so as to make it less economically successful and consequently more willing to surrender to pressures?. I wish I could answer with a resounding NO to my own question, but I really am not sure.

The very fact, that such a question is even relevant these days, is in itself a testimony to the grim state of affairs between Israel and the US. The blame game is far less relevant than the problem , and so, I will not get again into that, just remind the readers of this blog, that I was critical, and still am of certain aspects of Netanyahu's handling of the bilateral relations, but then you need two for a tango. There is also the American side in this equation, and they must have ''some '' responsibility as well.
Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, stand together before the start of the Univision, Washington Post Democratic presidential debate at Miami-Dade College, Wednesday, March 9, 2016, in Miami, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

The general consensus is that Hillary Clinton will beat out Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. The almost general consensus is that Clinton may not make it to the White House without Sanders. The numbers and the states that she has won are the starting point to figure out why. She's trounced Sanders in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Arkansas. With the very iffy exception of North Carolina and Virginia, these are states which she has absolutely no chance of winning in November. She also trounced Sanders in Florida, Ohio and Arizona. These are states that will at best be a tough slog to win. All three have GOP governors, and top heavy GOP controlled state legislatures. All three have been deeply implicated in putting on the books blatant voter suppression initiatives, laws, and ploys. The states that she has a lock on are the states that are lock down Democratic states anyway such as California and New York. George Bush Sr. was the last GOP presidential candidate to win California in 1988. Ronald Reagan was the last GOP presidential candidate to win New York in 1984.

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Clinton will net close to 200 electoral votes from the Democratic lock states. But after that she'll need to find 60 to 70 more electoral votes in states that have gone either way in general presidential elections the past two decades. That makes it a brutal, grind em' out, numbers game to bag enough of those states to put her over the top. She'll make a huge, all out drive to squeeze every African-American and Hispanic vote that she can get out of the swing states. That's absolutely crucial. But that won't be enough to insure a win in a state such as Michigan -- also with a GOP governor, embattled yes, but still a GOP governor -- and a state in which the GOP candidates combined got around 130,000 more votes than Clinton and Sanders in that state's primary.

There's only one place she can get the votes from to close the gap and that's from Sanders' impassioned backers. Yes, there's lots of loose talk and some polls that claim that if Sanders isn't the nominee, many of his supporters will write in Sanders name, stay home, or vote for a Green Party candidate.

Some may well do just that. The betting odds, though, are that most won't. However, that doesn't tell the story of what Clinton needs to do to insure Sanders' supporters are on board with her. They have to be mobilized to actually believe that Clinton will be a president who will fight not to extend Obama's programs, but fight for Sanders' program. As it now stands, Clinton would be hard pressed to find many of Sanders' backers who believe that she will crack down on Wall Street, reinstate the Glass-Steagall firewall on the banks, fight for hard-nosed regulations on the financial industry and back Sanders' oft-stated demand that the big banks be broken up. There's disbelief that she would try to slap a hefty tax bill on the wealthy and major corporations and that she can deftly pivot and call for a single payer health care plan. Clinton's answer to each of Sanders' proposals has been a mix of cautious reform and protest that his programs are too starry-eyed, costly and absolutely impossible to get through any Congress.

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But that's the dilemma. These are the exact proposals that Sanders repeatedly has shouted to crowds that stand in line for hours to see and hear him, and that pack arena after arena in the states; the very states that top the list of the handful of states that will decide the White House. The passion and inspiration that Sanders has injected into the Democratic primary campaign has been a sight to behold. Clinton can't duplicate that with the Sanders faithful, but she does have to inch just close enough to his positions on Wall Street, the banks and health care to give his most impassioned backers enough of a reason to not only show up on Election Day for her, but to gently prod others who believe in Bernie to do the same.

Trump and Sanders have shown in their own ways that a presidential candidate can have a seemingly radical program or no program at all and still fire up millions and actually get them to go to the polls and vote for them. The operative words are "passion" and "disgust" with beltway politicians who many believe routinely lie, cheat, cut deals, rake in a king's ransom in cash from special interests, and don't give a hoot for the people. Clinton unfortunately is seen by a big swatch of those angry, frustrated and alienated voters as one of them. Sanders isn't. This is a big part of his appeal. Clinton can't match that, but by imbibing some of Bernie's message, she can convince many that she is a good bet to keep sending out some of that message in the White House. The election will hang heavily on whether she can do just that.
By Carlos A. Primo Braga, Associate Professor, Fundacao Dom Cabral, Brazil and former Director, Economic Policy and Debt, The World Bank. This commentary is based on a paper Prof. Braga presented for an East-West Center workshop series on "Mega-Regionalism --New Challenges for Trade and Innovation."

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, with its emphasis on dismantling behind-the-border trade restrictions and on fostering regulatory coherence, is often referred to as the new "gold standard" for preferential trade agreements. The road ahead - in terms of its ratification by the parliaments of TPP members - will be a treacherous one. So far, only Malaysia has ratified the agreement, which was signed last October in Atlanta after five years of negotiations. Moreover, in the case of the US, the public is increasingly skeptical about the benefits of trade agreements and the leading potential candidates to the presidency have expressed doubts about the TPP. All of this suggests that a decision by the US Congress is unlikely to occur in the near term amid the 2016 presidential campaign.

Supporters and opponents of the agreement have been producing conflicting estimates of the TPP's impact on the economies of its member countries. Most standard models, however, tend to confirm a positive (although small) impact in terms of economic welfare. One area in which the TPP is particularly innovative concerns the protection of intellectual property rights, or IPRs.

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The history of the "marriage of convenience" between trade policies and IPR protection goes back many decades. IPRs are territorial by nature (i.e., the rights are awarded and enforced at national level), and attempts to promote harmonization and coordination across countries can be traced back to the 19th century. As international trade in knowledge products and foreign direct investment flows expanded significantly in the post-World War II era, conflicts between innovators (at the level of countries and enterprises) and imitators began to increase.

In the 1970s, the United States began to push for the adoption of an anti-counterfeiting code at the level of GATT negotiations. This effort - launched at the final stages of the Tokyo Round (1973-79) of multilateral trade negotiations - was driven by the lobbying of trademark-holding companies, which were trying to constrain flows of counterfeited products in international trade. It did not succeed, but it signaled the way of the future for innovation-leading nations, in particular the US

When the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (the Uruguay Round) started in 1986, the strategy was refined to go beyond anti-counterfeiting with a view to establish minimum standards of protection and enforcement across a broad array of IPR instruments. The appeal of this approach was to connect the strengthening of IPR protection to the broader trade agenda and to provide access to the dispute settlement mechanism of the multilateral trade system. Most developing countries, in turn, preferred the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as the institutional locus for IPR discussions. The lack of effective enforcement powers in the WIPO conventions, however, is often presented as the reason behind the American efforts in favor of a trade-related solution. This led to the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) as an outcome of the Uruguay Round that led to the creation of the WTO in 1995.

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Since then, however, industry groups from innovation-led countries have continued to lobby for the inclusion of IPR chapters in trade agreements, focusing on preferential trade negotiations. The new generation of preferential trade agreements negotiated by the USA - starting with NAFTA - typically included "TRIPS plus" provisions. The EU also followed a similar track. Moreover, IPR provisions became standard in bilateral investment treaties entered by both the US and the EU with other nations.

In negotiating the TPP, the US put emphasis on longer terms of copyright protection and regulatory changes that would effectively translate into longer patent terms and constrain the entry of generic drugs into TPP markets, as well as additional rules for biologic medicines (pharmaceutical products developed from living organisms) including minimum standards for data protection.

The final terms of the TPP agreement did not deliver on all the demands of the US negotiators. Still, several of these "TRIPS plus" measures were adopted. Some noteworthy measures adopted in the TPP agreement include:

Trademark terms of protection of no less than 10 years (TRIPS requirement is of 7 years) and the removal of barriers for the protection of sound marks;

A minimum copyright term of protection of at least 70 years (TRIPS minimum standard is 50 years) and stronger copyright enforcement, including the possibility of criminal prosecution against acts of removal of rights management information and the requirement that TPP countries be signatories of WIPO "Internet treaties";

Requirement of enforceable legal means for the protection of trade secrets (TRIPS does not specify these means);

Protection of undisclosed test data submitted for marketing approvals (at least 10 years in the case of agricultural chemicals and 5 to 8 years in the case of pharmaceuticals; TRIPS does not have such a requirement);

Explicit protections for new pharmaceutical products that are or contain a biologic (the TPP is the first trade agreement to do this); and

Adjustment for patent office delays in the granting of patents that will promote harmonization of patent granting practices among TPP parties.

It is worth noting that some of these provisions go beyond the "TRIPS plus" aspects that the US had already negotiated on a bilateral basis in the context of its FTA treaties with countries such as Australia, Chile, and Peru. In short, TPP will provide for higher standards of IPR protection that better reflect existing US law.

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Budget and calculator

When looking at a NYC public school's annual budget, the funding stream that by far supplies the most money is a budget line called Fair Student Funding or FSF. FSF was introduced in 2008 to better meet the needs of individual students. That sounded great - responsible and forward thinking. Starting with grade weights, additional funding is allocated for a variety of criteria included academic intervention, English language learners, special education students, and portfolio high schools, which include CTE programs, specialized academic or audition, and transfer students.

Unfortunately, that's not how it actually worked out.

While the DOE website states:

School budgeting should fund students fairly and adequately, while preserving stability at all schools;

Different students have different educational needs, and funding levels should reflect those needs as best as possible;

School budgets should be as transparent as possible so that funding decisions are visible for all to see and evaluate.

That isn't the reality.

Schools are actually funded anywhere from 82% to 124% of their FSF budgets, with no apparent rhyme or reason as to who gets what and why. In searching for information and answers, members of the PTA at Brooklyn Technical High School, one of NYC's eight specialized test in schools, were told current percentages are based on previous funding streams and that no one has gone in to adjust them when promised state funds never materialized years ago. Brooklyn Tech has been stagnant at 87% of FSF for several years while every other specialized high school gets more. Stuyvesant gets 97%. American Studies gets 119%. The High School of Math, Science, and Engineering gets 124%.

This year the Mayor found tens of millions of dollars for his 94 renewal schools. Next year he plans to bump all schools up to 87% of their FSF.

But what about the rampant disparity amongst the specialized high schools? The 37% differential in funding that leaves Brooklyn Tech with a 2 million dollar deficit every year?

Brooklyn Tech parents brought this issue to their community and the media. It was written about in the Wall Street Journal, DNA Info, and Schoolbook. Thousands of signatures have been added to an online petition and letters. The Brooklyn Borough President has publicly asked the Mayor to better fund Brooklyn Tech and other large, underfunded Brooklyn high schools. Parents, students, and alumni have testified at Panel for Educational Policy meetings.

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To no avail.

The lack of action from the DOE and the Mayor to address and rectify FSF inequity clearly shows the students of Brooklyn Tech that they are not considered commensurate with those at other specialized high schools. They are not seen as equal to their counterparts who also took the SHSAT, the sole admissions method to these eight schools. They are literally worth less.

As a taxpayer it is unconscionable that such disparity exists in the first place. As a parent it is appalling that when these extremes were brought to light absolutely no one did anything to right the wrongs. As PTA co-president representing thousands of families, it is unforgivable that these hard-working, high-achieving students at Brooklyn Tech are not given all possible options to reach their potential because they're not getting the funding they are supposed to, nor what other specialized students at other schools are receiving.

65% of the students at Brooklyn Tech live at or below the poverty level. More than half the families are first-generation and speak a language other than English at home. At a time when the specialized high schools are called out for a lack of underrepresented minorities, Brooklyn Tech educates hundreds of Black and Latino students. In fact, the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation funds and operates a STEM pipeline, reaching out to local middle schools and working with students to help them gain entry to specialized high schools. The Brooklyn Tech community is a truly diverse melting pot whose students, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, religion, socioeconomic background, traveling from all five boroughs, earned their seats and expected what they thought would be an exemplary education.
PHOENIX - NOVEMBER 4: People line up to vote at the Albright United Methodist Church November 4, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. Voting is underway in the U.S. presidential elections with Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading in the polls against the Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

While Americans waited for election results on Tuesday, some voters in Arizona waited five hours or more just to cast a ballot -- long after the polls closed. "Eventually, I gave up at 6:40 p.m. when I saw the line at its longest, at least 2-3 hours," one Maricopa County voter told the Arizona Republic. "This was the first time in my life I genuinely felt disenfranchised."

The lines stemmed from changes to voting procedures. The county closed 70 percent of locations to cut costs but in turn allowed voters to go to any site to cast a ballot. (Adding this kind of convenience is ostensibly a good thing.)

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Many have pointed out that the Voting Rights Act may have stopped this from happening if the Supreme Court hadn't gutted it in 2013. That law would have required state officials to prove to the Department of Justice (or a federal court) that minority voters would not be worse off if the home poll sites were shut down.

That's true, and the VRA is a critical tool that must be restored. But, there is another problem looming large in our democracy -- the serious underfunding of America's election infrastructure.

We already had one election hanging in the balance because of voting system problems. Left unaddressed, we could see more long lines and lost votes -- and possibly another Florida 2000 nightmare.

America has 50 states and thousands of counties and election jurisdictions. That means each state or county must budget for Election Day, and dole out funds for poll workers, machines, printouts for voter rolls, and other materials.

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With resources stretched thin, states prioritize other areas like education over election costs. While of course tough decisions do need to be made, voters can bear the brunt, as we saw in Arizona on Tuesday.

Even worse, minorities are more likely to be affected. According to a Brennan Center study of three states with long voting lines in 2012, precincts with more minority voters tended to have fewer election resources and longer lines. In the 10 precincts with the longest wait times in South Carolina, for example, 64 percent of registered voters were black, compared to 27 percent across the state. In Maryland, the 10 precincts with the lowest number of machines per voter had more than double the percentage of Latinos. (Florida was the other state studied, and the findings were similarly gloomy.)

America's voting equipment is also rapidly aging out. In 2016, 43 states will have electronic voting machines a decade old or more. These machines are essentially computers. Imagine using your laptop from the early 2000s, with Windows 98 or XP, to vote. Old machines are more likely to break down on Election Day, which causes delays and other problems for election workers.

"I feel like I'm driving around in a 10-year-old Ford Taurus and it's fine and it's getting the job done, but one of these days it's not going to wake up," Florida election supervisor Lori Edwards told USA Today. That's the technological reality many jurisdictions face today.

There are many steps officials can take to address these problems before Election Day. Test voting machines for errors and if any patterns emerge in particular machines, notify election officials so they can prepare. Have sensible guidelines and follow them for how many workers and machines should be at each polling site.

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But long term, our government needs a serious investment to revitalize our democratic infrastructure.

Each state should have nonpartisan election professionals overseeing all state elections and competent and well-trained poll workers interacting with voters. Election regulations should be enforced fairly and accurately in every precinct -- Democrat and Republican, urban and rural, black, white, and Latino.

Nationally, there should also be federal guidelines outlining how many poll sites, poll workers, and machines are appropriate for a district depending on the number of registered voters. Clearly 60 precincts for more than 1 million voters was the wrong call. We need better ways to spot that kind of error, correct it before Election Day, and make sure every American can cast a ballot that counts.
She Loves Me is not a big, brassy Broadway musical. Based on the play Parfumerie, the revival of the Sixties gem is set in Budapest, 1934. It's a more formal time, and the show champions intimacy and charm.

The story takes place in the interior of Maraczek's Parfumerie -- and the jewel box set is inviting. Beautifully colored items -- women's scents, soaps, creams -- are displayed with elan. Head clerk Georg (Zachary Levi), Ilona (Jane Krakowski), Mr. Kodaly (Gavin Creel), Ladislav (Michael McGrath) and Mr. Marazcek (Bryan Jennings) are a tight-knit group who wait on customers with precision.

Into this world comes Amalia (Laura Benanti). She not only talks her way into a job, but we soon learn that she, like Georg, has been writing letters to "Dear Friend." Both have fallen for the other in print; their actual identities remain a mystery to them.

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The original story inspired two later films: The Shop Around The Corner and You've Got Mail. In both, the initial antipathy converts into love, but not before a series of well-timed arguments and disappointments.

What's lovely is watching their individual stories unfold: Ilona's search for the right man, Amalia's dreams, coupled with Georg's desires, are played out with spirited simplicity. Especially touching is the cafe scene, where a waiter (a delightful Peter Bartlett) copes with the vagaries of young love.



En route, McGrath gets a wonderful moment as he nails his status in "Perspective," while Krakowski, also an excellent dancer, delivers an especially touching "A Trip to the Library." Creel is perfect as the sly Kodaly, hitting his apex in "Ilona." Jennings is poignant as a man nostalgic for youth. Levi is a strong romantic lead with heart, while Benanti proves her comic chops. They, like the rest of the cast, click.

In fact, the cast has more than its share of Tony winners. And it shows.

There is a sweetness and care to She Loves Me, aided by David Rockwell's glorious sets and Scott Ellis' crisp direction. The music/lyrics are by Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick, whose masterpiece, Fiddler on the Roof, is playing at the Broadway Theater, a few blocks away.

Whereas She Loves Me touts pure romance, the revamp of a Mozart opera, Figaro 90210, a bilingual production off-Broadway at The Duke, embraces a 21st-century ethos. Like the original late-18th century The Marriage of Figaro, librettist Vid Guerrerio tells the tale of two servants, Figaro and Susanna, who succeed in marrying, despite their philandering employer's attempts to seduce Susanna.

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Paul Conti (Luke Scott) still gets his lesson in fidelity, but this round, it's courtesy of illegal Mexican immigrants. Figaro (Jose Adan Perez) and Susana (a spot-on Samarie Alicea) work in Beverly Hills for rich Conti and his wife, Rozanne (Raquel Suarez-Groen).

Conti offers to pay off Susana's debts -- she was brought to the U.S. by the exploitive Babayan (Ethan Herschenfeld) and Ms. Nam (Kat Liu) to work in their factory. But his generosity comes at price -- though claiming love, he wants sexual favors. In turn, his wife Roxanne hopes to rekindle their marriage, kick-starting a scheme of her own, with the help of Susana.

While the Mozart tropes -- duplicity, broad comedy -- remain, Guerrerio isn't reducing his characters to one-dimensional; the issue of citizenship and the threat of deportation are real. So are the feelings of anger and resentment the topic engenders.

Throw in a secondary plot line with Li'l B-Man (Dwayne A. Washington) and Conti's snarky daughter Barbara (Emma Grimsley) and the comedy is complete. Plus, some wonderful plot twists make Figaro 90210 a well-crafted work.

Mozart's music is glorious, and so is this entertaining and inventive update. The silly elements of the opera remain, but they are neatly intertwined with serious issues, confronted within an entertaining, beautifully performed framework.

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Perez and Alicea have chemistry, making their scenes together fun. Scott nicely calibrates his character's desires; Suarez-Groen is a standout. Grimsley delivers adolescent angst well; the menacing smugglers hit the mark. Indeed, the entire cast, along with director Melissa Crespo, is first-rate.
By Brigit Helms and Oscar Farfan



Brigit Helms, the general manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund, also has served as the director of SPEED, a USAID-funded program in Mozambique, and a senior expert for financial inclusion at McKinsey & Company. She has a PhD in agriculture and development economics from Stanford.

A transformational movement is challenging the view that businesses exist primarily to maximize shareholder value. A growing number of businesses are keen to play a larger role in society, not simply by acting "responsibly," but also by becoming a true "force for good." They are harnessing the power of markets, entrepreneurship, and investment capital to tackle complex social problems in areas such as crime, education, health care, and clean energy.

This trend is just beginning, but is gaining significant traction. The B corporation concept is now present in more than 30 countries. Impact investing, the type of financing flowing to businesses generating social value alongside profits, has reached more than $60 billion in assets, and is estimate to grow at $10 billion a year. Major financial institutions--including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Black Rock, Prudential, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, and BNP Paribas--are looking at businesses with impact and opening impact investing units, while a growing number of investment funds are specializing in this space.



Millennials, shift in philanthropy, technology are accelerating change

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What we are seeing is not just a passing trend, but the beginning of a new form of business--a business that looks beyond profits to generate social value, the business of the future. Tectonic forces are accelerating this movement. At the global level, the most important one involves a cultural shift driven mainly by millennials. The new generation sees the main role of business as that of "improving society," and not just generating profits. Millennials are bringing a social conscience to the way we buy and run our businesses, and with more than $40 trillion to be inherited from baby boomers, they are redefining how we invest.

Another powerful force accelerating the emergence of beyond-profit business models is the paradigm shift in philanthropy, which in the United States alone represents more than $350 billion a year. Increasingly, foundations, corporations, and philanthropic organizations view impact investing as their "next frontier," and fund businesses with social impact.

Technology is yet another tectonic force. From solar energy, to mobile technology, to drones, new technologies enable businesses to reach low-income people with affordable and life-changing products and services.

In the developing world, where social needs are greater, businesses that generate social impact are naturally finding fertile ground. Latin America, the region we know best, has seen a 12-fold increase in impact investments in less than five years. The tectonic forces in this region are aided by a dynamic ecosystem. Latin America produces a large number of businesses that generate impact--the world's largest share by some measures--clustered around social innovation hubs such as Mexico City, Bogota, and Sao Paulo. The market for such businesses is quite significant, considering that nearly 400 million Latin Americans are at the base of the economic pyramid, with limited access to health care, education, housing, clean energy, and financing.

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Multilateral Investment Fund

Dynamic new developments are unleashing beyond-profit businesses in this region, three of which deserve a special mention:

1. Tapping new investors. New initiatives are unlocking previously untapped capital for impact investments, enabling the 99% of small investors to step out of the sidelines. One example is the Calvert-IDB Inter-American Opportunity Facility, largely funded by retail-level notes as small as $20. Crowdfunding platforms, such as Fondeadora Mexico, are also reaching small investors, while vehicles such as the Essential Capital Consortium and Global Partnerships are diversifying their funding sources, using blended finance.

2. Crafting new investment tools. More investors, particularly fund managers, are moving from the "why" fund beyond-profit businesses, to the "how." They are crafting creative solutions that fit the specific needs of businesses seeking to create social value. Examples include financial products that use royalty-based payment structures or demand dividend arrangements, both balancing the flexibility required by investees with the liquidity sought by investors. Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) and social corporate venturing are other promising tools emerging.

3. Using new technologies. Perhaps the most intriguing trend in this space is the growing use of technology. Beyond-profit businesses are by nature highly innovative and prone to use new technologies when devising effective and affordable solutions. For example, Greenlight Planet taps solar technology to deliver low-cost energy to off-grid rural communities in more than 40 countries. Kuepa is a blended education company that uses digital technologies to provide affordable training to low-income students. And Matternet pilots drone technology to deliver essential health care to isolated communities.

The new generation of businesses is here to stay and bound to become a powerful force in the near future. While the road is not without hurdles, and much needs to be done to improve coordination and strengthen impact capital markets, the movement has taken root and is already bearing fruit. Businesses that create social value are not only making a difference, but also generating profits. A recent benchmarking conducted by the Global Impact Investing Network and Cambridge Associates shows that impact investments can achieve market returns similar to conventional instruments. Another survey of Latin American impact fund managers conducted by Bain & Company shows that the vast majority is expecting to meet or exceed market returns.

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What can we conclude from all this? Social impact can make a business more competitive. In other words, value can be created by chasing values, and we can only expect more businesses going where value is found.



Oscar Farfan

Oscar Farfan leads investment projects in the sectors of technology, agribusiness, venture capital, education, and impact investing for the Multilateral Investment Fund. He sits on various advisory boards and investment committees for global and Latin American investment funds.
Another terrorist attack took place in Western Europe this week. Security will now be on alert around the world. The terrorists will avoid attacks during this time because the danger of interception and failure are too high. Therefore, there will be no more terror attacks in the coming days, although there will be constant alerts about empty boxes and suspicious people. In due course, the special alert will not end as much as fade away. Terrorists will begin planning for new attacks and as the events of today blur in our memory, a new attack will take place and the cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism will turn its crank once more.

Being constantly on full alert is impossible. A single human on highest alert on a permanent basis will either self-destruct from adrenaline exhaustion or will decline into a haze. The same can be said for a police or security force. Its ability to endure a constant crisis posture is as limited as for a single person - because the force consists of people. That is what drives this cycle. Any successful counterterrorism can't be carried out by security forces. It must be carried out by intelligence services. Security services create a presence that must be evaded. Intelligence services probe into the intentions of the enemy.

How do you discern intention? Most intelligence focuses on capabilities, but the capabilities required by a terrorist are readily available and transportable. You cannot track capabilities because virtually anyone could be capable of an attack. The Middle East is awash with explosives. And some of the explosives can be made in Europe, from fairly common material by those who know how to do it. And such people are readily available and can't be identified as bomb-makers just by looking at them.

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The intelligence challenge is to identify those with the intent to carry out terror attacks and ability to access the material. Identifying both is critical. And the problem of intelligence is that it must assume that anyone might be a terrorist. Intelligence of this sort is a process of discarding. You begin with the assumption that you have no idea what you are looking for, and over time you find the basis for dismissing some, then more and then focusing on a few. This sounds reasonable, until you consider that the process requires you to examine virtually everyone. If everyone is suspect - and they should be - then everyone is subject to examination and no one has the right to privacy.

The problem is that terrorism, by its nature, gives out limited signals. It can be carried out by very few people. It requires little money and limited communication. So how do you find the terrorists? To the extent they can be found, it requires a massive intrusion into society. Since there is no exchange of millions of dollars, you must inspect transactions of $500. Since there is no massive flow of product, you must subject all cars to inspection.

Obviously, there is one common denominator in this group of terrorists. They are Muslims and for the most part - but not exclusively - from a region ranging from North Africa to the Middle East to Afghanistan. That is a common denominator but actually not a very useful one. Assuming that most Islamic State terrorists are part of this group, they are an infinitesimal part.

I say this not because it is politically correct but because it is true. If they were more numerous they would be easier to catch. One of the strategies of terrorism is to keep the number of terrorists extremely small. If they expand and communicate with others, they will be detected. So given the number of Muslims in Europe, the exclusion of Swedish grandmothers from the profile you are looking for still leaves a number that dwarfs police security intelligence and the army as well. Racial profiling doesn't work because terrorists aren't stupid.

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So what would work given the resources available? The most important measure would be the penetration of the command structure of terrorist organizations with spies. Some would sneer at this, saying it is old fashioned and that technical means of intelligence from satellites to telephone intercepts are superior. However, I would argue that the electronic search for the infinitesimal will identify some terrorists, but not the most dangerous. They understand that every credit card transaction is being fed into the system, and every car rental and every phone call is being tracked. Even if this isn't true, they must assume it.

Human intelligence is required to win the trust of the members, carry out terrorist (but not suicide) attacks and become one of them. Human penetration of IS by reliable sources with access to all levels of the organization is stunningly difficult and likely to fail as well. But if it works, it is the one way the enemy might lower its guard.

It is possible that this is actually being done systematically. Those who know don't talk and those talk don't know. I certainly have no idea. But as I survey the strategic options and disciplined nature of terrorists, I don't see how automated collection of information can solve the problem. As for human intelligence, I fear that it is much like Will Rogers' approach to German U-boats in World War I. He suggested that the Atlantic be boiled away, and the U-boats captured on the floor of the ocean. When asked how he proposed to do that, he said that he was a policymaker, and this was a technical problem.
Many monsters in myths have several heads, making them even more dangerous, which might be compared to the many hats Trump wears as the head of a real estate empire, a reality show host, owner of multiple companies with the Trump brand, and now a presidential campaign.

Previously, I compared Trump to the dragon St. George fights, to a Chimera, to the fearsome horse monster of Scotland, the Kelpie, and to the monsters of the sea, including the Kraken and Charybdis.

Now there are two more monsters with multiple heads that might be compared to Trump - the Hydra, a serpent-like water monster with nine or so heads, and Cerberus, the guardian of Hades, with three or more heads. Both were among the twelve labors of Heracles, which he carried out as a penance over 12 years for King Eurystheus, due to killing his own wife, son and daughter in a fit of insanity. But in return for atoning for his actions, as the Oracle of Delphi advised him, he would be rewarded with immortality. In any event, Heracles' second labor was to kill the nine-headed Hyrda and his sixth was to capture and bring back Cerberus. Both were considered especially deadly monsters, so that's why Heracles was asked to kill or capture them for the king.

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The Hydra, a serpent-like water monster with reptilian characteristics, was considered extremely dangerous because of its deadly venom. Its breath could be lethal to anyone who came near, and it could quickly regrow any of its decapitated limbs. Moreover, if any of its heads were severed, apart from its central core head, two more would grow in their place. The Hydra was elusive, too, since it hid in Lake Lerna in an underwater cave that some considered an entrance to the underworld. At first, Heracles seemed to have an impossible battle. Initially, he covered his mouth and nose with cloth to remain safe from the Hydra's deadly fumes from its many mouths when he attacked the Hydra with a sickle, sword, or club. But that attack didn't work very well, since each time he lopped off a head, the Hydra grew two more. . However, with a little help from his nephew Iolaus, he found success. After he cut off each head, Iolaus cauterized the open stump with a torch, and the Hydra couldn't produce anymore heads. Then, Heracles was finally able to kill the Hydra by cutting off its last head.

As for Cerberus, this was the huge hound with three heads that guarded the entrance to Hades, the underworld. Supposedly, the beast only liked to eat living flesh, so he would consume any living mortal who came near him, while allowing the deceased spirits to pass by. As the story goes, Heracles had to get Hades' permission to bring Cerberus to the surface, and Hades agreed if Heracles could subdue the beast without any weapons. So Heracles did, using his great strength to overpower the hound with his hands. Then, he carried the beast over his back, dragged him to the surface, and brought him back to King Eurystheus. But the king was so terrified that he begged Heracles to return the hound of hell back to Hades, which he did. And after that, Eurystheus agreed to release Heracles from any further labors.

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Well, in this case, the comparison certainly fits for Trump and both monsters. Trumps' insults and humiliating words might be compared to the Hydra's deadly venom, and Trump uses his words to attack his many enemies through Tweets, put-downs at press conferences, and calls at his rallies, such as when he yells out "Get him outta here," to his security guards, who promptly throw out the victim. Also, it seems that whenever someone attacks Trump with one claim, like pointing to his failed Trump University, Trump fights back, like growing another head, such as by calling the attacker a loser or having his lawyers tie up the opponent, if threatening enough, with litigation in court. Likewise, the way Trump has destroyed other candidates, such as Jeb Bush, by calling him low energy; Ben Carson, by tagging him as a child molester; or Marco Rubio, by mocking him as Little Rubio for his little experience, low attendance record in the Senate, and being short, might be compared to the Cerberus eating living mortals. As for Cerberus' willingness to let the deceased spirits go through the gates of Hades, that might be comparable to Trump's embrace of anyone who supports him, even the often languid Ben Carson, who some have compared to the living dead, because he often seems so lethargic and seems to have sold his soul to get on Trump's good side, with a view to becoming a cabinet member, such as the Secretary of Education, or even a VP.

So now it would seem the world is waiting for its modern day Heracles - also called Hercules by the Romans, after the Roman Empire captured Greece and the Romans transformed the Greek myths into their own. Might it be Ted Cruz or John Kasich, who have engaged in difficult labors on the campaign trail? Or perhaps if they can't do it, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders can, and they have both similarly engaged in many labors all over the country in their many stops in what has become an especially long arduous campaign.
Since President Obama took steps to normalize relations with Cuba, much of the public discussion has been about how to improve relations between the United States while also opening access for the Cuban people.

This new relationship is important, as an exchange of new ideas and development of new opportunities in commerce and trade. Personally, I am excited. The possibilities are significant.

For many years I have traveled to Cuba, researching and learning best practices about social responsibility and sustainable development. During my latest trip to Havana earlier this month, I was able to confirm, once again, what makes Cuba stand out from the rest of the world.

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In Cuba, societal problems get solved by creative means. This is often through the use of inventive, innovative, and entrepreneurial "intellectual" and social capital. Even though Cuba was largely sheltered from global technological and economic advances for more than a half-century, there are nonetheless valuable lessons Cuba can teach the U.S. and the developed world.

Specifically, Cuban people are a source of inspiration when it comes to:

Sustainable development, as the country is moving in lockstep with the United Nations' millennium development goals, commonly unmet by most nations on the planet.

Organic crop growth and agro-ecological techniques, that are only now dawning upon industrially developed countries.

A student-sensitive, teacher-strong education system, which has propelled literacy to among the highest in the world -- without bureaucracy and intensive standardized testing.

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A sensible, accessible, affordable health care system, focused on early intervention and not impeded by health insurance and payment headaches.

From years of annual visits to the country (more than 20 in all), I've developed a deep respect for Cuba.

I have seen the hope, where others see a spiritless vacuum where nothing could be done, or was allowed to be done. A lot of positive things are happening, things that would not have been noticed during the brief, guided and limited excursions of tourists, whose visits were desired only for the hard currency they left behind.

Cuba is a place, a hardscrabble one materially, where the absence of another "ism," consumerism, allows for a cause for a pause, a time to think differently from the developed world and its frenetic charge for change.

Start with the simple act of growing food in a world now dominated by mega-agro corporations and global consumers who are increasingly worried by chemical intrusion into the food stream.

Cuba couldn't afford to follow the rest of the world in the use of fertilizers, insecticides and chemically-aided crop growth. Instead, it set and met a goal to institute "the largest conversion from conventional, industrial agriculture to organic farming that the world has yet seen." Even the Ministry of Agriculture staff in Havana tore up the front lawn of their building to plant lettuce, bananas and beans.

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The government, years ago, instituted a local-growers-to-local-markets policy, only now being discussed in the United States, as a healthful and beneficial food delivery protocol. This is national policy, not a Saturday farmer's market pop-up stall here and there.

Long before the term "sustainable growth" was known to the developed world, Cuba started that national policy called "Law 33." In 2006. The World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Report ranked Cuba as the only country in the world as having truly achieved "sustainable development" in their human development index and ecological footprint. A decade later, the United Nations' sustainable growth initiatives are only now getting the fitful attention of developed nations.

As an educator myself, I took an acute interest in the methods and techniques used by teachers to benefit their students. Cuba has very high educational standards, strong academic talent, adequate salaries, and a high degree of professional autonomy that is sometimes restricted by more centralized, standardized - and some might say homogenized - layers in the American educational system. "Standardized" testing in Cuba is nowhere near the level here. Yet, their system is ranked as among the highest in the world (higher than the United States), and among the likes of Finland, Singapore, Shanghai (China), South Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada.

Cuba boasts better health indicators than its exponentially richer neighbor 90 miles across the Florida straits. From cradle to death, life expectancy is nearly 80. Infant mortality is only 4.8 deaths per thousand births, far lower than the U.S. There is a doctor for every 220 Cubans, one of the most favorable ratios on the planet. Oh, and nobody quarrels over medical billing from hospitals, doctors and insurance companies - it's all free.

The lesson for the day: Cuba demonstrates how nations - no matter how good or bad their governments - can "profit" with the resources they have, once they focus, as a people AND a government, on the priorities of health, education and literacy.
Scotland is a magical place to visit and explore, filled with myths, legends and history. So when it comes to choosing a place to stay one of the country's manor houses seems like the perfect place to start. Here are five of our favourites from the Good Hotel Guide...

The Torridon, Torridon

In a wildly beautiful location this luxury hotel is at the end of a single-track road on a wooded estate and right next to a vast loch. Nothing could really embody everything the movies tell us about Scotland better than The Torridan. The turreted building is actually a former shooting lodge and inside it is filled with big open fireplaces, leather sofas and moulded ceilings and paneling. It's the stuff fairytales are made of.

Glengorm Castle, Tobermory

High on a cliff with turrets and towers, Glengorm Castle was completed in 1863 and has sat peacefully on a 5,000 acre estate ever since. It's the perfect location for walking in forest and along the rugged coastline with spectacular views over the Sound of Mull. Scottish breakfasts are a must at this hotel, but it's the view that really captures the imagination.

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Knockendarroch Hotel and Restaurant, Pitlochry

This mansion has a baronial entrance tower nonetheless, this Victorian hotel holds its own when it comes to grandeur and does country house chic to perfection. There are log fires and views across the Tummel valley, but inside it has been refurbished with a fresh, modern style. Don't forget to visit the Pitlochry theatre while you're there - it was born in the hotel grounds and is now just across the river.

Greystones, Oban

A modern B&B in a baronial mansion, Greystones is all about modern interiors accented by beautiful original features such as stained glass windows, moulded ceilings and a wonderful wooden staircase. Food is a major feature here as well and at breakfast we couldn't help but love the kedgeree as well as the porridge with the obligatory splash of whiskey.

Hartfell House, Moffat

Traditionally decorated, this Victorian stone house is in a rural setting overlooking the surrounding hills. Little details including beautiful toiletries and Scottish biscuits have been taken care of, and everything is done to a delightfully high standard. There's bicycle storage available so take yours for a proper jaunt around the area, and make sure you tuck into home-baked bread and preserves - they're not to be missed.
By Barbara Grady

In California's famous water wars, who controls what water and where has been material for Hollywood movies.

But since 60 percent of the water used by agriculture and industry in this drought era is groundwater pumped up from deep aquifers, there's growing realization that the state can't rely on a Wild West approach of vigilante law for groundwater management.

Groundwater had gone largely unregulated in this state until passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014. But most requirements of that law don't kick in until 2040, so a growing number of farmers and agricultural scientists are trying a more immediate route to saving the state from going dry.

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When El Nino storms unleashed heavy rains in California, some farmers in the Central Valley's southern edge began capturing storm water and diverting it to flood their fields and orchards in a plan to recharge aquifers underneath.

This so-called Groundwater Banking effort is being studied by agricultural academics at the University of California at Davis for its effectiveness and funded by the UC Cooperative Extension Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The idea, according to UC Davis Hydrology Professor Helen Dahlke and her colleagues, is that the fields will serve as infiltration basins, allowing the storm water to seep through the soil and layers of gravel and rocks deep into the aquifers while hopefully not damaging plants.

And the effort is drawing lots of interest from farmers wanting to participate.

"We are getting an overwhelming number of calls from farmers" eager to participate, said UC Davis Hydrology Professor Graham Fogg, also working on the project.

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I'm seeing this sort of populist change in farmers and how they use water," he said. "They are realizing they're not operating independently, but affecting each other and that they're in the same boat." Consequently they are more willing to do things collectively or have their groundwater use measured than ever before, he said.

"In the past, people pumping groundwater for irrigation didn't have to think about it. They didn't have to because there were no legal consequences to doing it and it didn't affect neighbors," he continued. But in 2014 and 2015 as wells started drying up and groundwater levels fell by 100 feet in some agricultural areas, farmers became more alarmed about the availability of groundwater and became more open to new practices and even new cooperation.

Even in normal times, groundwater supplies 30 to 40 percent of the state's water for agriculture, industry and residential needs.

Pinpointing the best places for groundwater recharge

But there's a caveat to the idea of letting fields act as filtrations for captured groundwater. Many fields are laden with nitrates and pesticides, which would then be passed into the groundwater. Some of the state's more shallow groundwater aquifers are already contaminated. So the scientists are studying where it makes the most sense to flood fields to recharge underlying aquifers.

Fogg and other hydrologists are working on a data project to pinpoint which basins are best suited for the agricultural recharge effort based on crops grown on the land and existing conditions of the groundwater.

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Their Soil Suitability Index for Agricultural Groundwater Banking research led by Anthony O'Geen of the UC Cooperative Extension is identifying potential farmland suitable for groundwater banking. In the map below, the best areas are represented in green and the worst in red.

Soil Suitability Index for Groundwater Recharging. Map created by University of California Cooperative Extension and University of California at Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources.

The team of hydrologists so far have determined there are 3.6 million acres of farmland with good potential for groundwater banking, based on how the soil could facilitate deep percolation of the water without harming the crop or contaminating the groundwater.

Farmers pumped nearly twice the amount of groundwater in the past year as they do in non-drought times, according to UC Cooperative Extension and several other sources.

The result is that groundwater tables fell as much as 100 feet in some areas, and essentially dried up in others. State water officials say that half a million acres of farmland was laid fallow because of water shortages due to drought. In certain farming communities in the southern Central Valley, residents experienced dry taps with no water coming through their faucets because the wells they depended on to bring up groundwater were used up.

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In California's still simmering water wars, or disagreements over who should bear the brunt of water conservation, groundwater replenishment has been identified as sorely needed. Water could simply run out.

Heather Cooley, water program director at the Pacific Institute and primary author of a new report "Where we Agree: Building Consensus on Solutions to California's Urban Water Challenges," on the status of water in California, said it will be years before anyone knows if the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act will be effective.

"It is still very early in the process. SGMAN was passed two years ago and it's in the very early stages. We're seeing groundwater management groups form," which is the first step the new state law requires.

"People are starting to prepare their management plans, but the requirements don't kick in in terms of achieving a more sustainable balance until 2040, so we are still quite a ways off in being able to evaluate how effective the changes will be."

Still, in that the law provides the first major attempt for groundwater management, she and Fogg both described it as significant.

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In its report, the Pacific Institute identfied strategies for groundwater replenishment and storage of water as key to the state's water future and to drought resistance in any locale.

"California's overdrafted aquifers provide significant water storage opportunities and could help the state respond to a changing climate, and particularly to reductions in snowpack due to warmer temperatures," the institute wrote in its Where We Agree report, published this month.

The consensus, Cooley indicated, is that the state make use of not only the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act but also of a water storage funding bond approved by California voters through proposition in 2014.

While that proposition was widely regarded as storage for surface water, the Pacific Institute said, "there is tremendous interest and opportunity in boosting groundwater recharge in California," and yet "there is no strategy so far to integrate these resources with one another, with surface reservoirs, or with the infrastructure needed to move water around."

El Nino rains have come to California, but a few rainy months can not reverse the impact of four years of drought.

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"Rain helps but it doesn't get us out of severe drought. We have a long large drought and will take it more than a year to pull us out," Cooley said, particularly to recharge the depleted groundwater.

Not just farmers, but any water users in California are on the hook to conserve water and manage what and how it is used.

"There is a lot of opportunity for business to improve water management," Cooley said. "Things they can be doing in their direct operations to reduce water use and reusing water for processes. They also should be looking at water use in their supply chains and working with those situations to use water more effectively."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ6w-DVPK24

By, Jordan Stephen

Earlier this month, the Indiana state legislature quietly passed an abortion law that presents women with new and unusual obstacles if they are seeking the procedure.

The bill, HB 1337, could set a precedent for similar laws in states throughout the country.

"It's completely disrespectful of women," Dawn Huckelbridge, Managing Director of People for the American Way, told GVH Live. "I think the provisions in this bill, including the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, are completely ridiculous."

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, stipulations impose regulations on physicians that perform abortions that are disproportionate to the laws other medical doctors face.

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Among these are provisions that require women to view an ultrasound of a fetus and listen to its heartbeat 18 hours before deciding whether to have an abortion. Of Indiana's 92 counties, only four have abortion clinics, making the trips costly and time-consuming.

Additional stipulations require women to pay for the cremation and burial of an aborted fetus and bars women from receiving the procedure because of "race, color, national origin, national ancestry, or sex of the fetus; or a diagnosis or potential diagnosis having Down Syndrome or any other disability."

The bill does not specify what "any other disability" would entail.

Doctors, who perform abortions under these circumstances, can be sued for wrongful death, placing a serious wedge between physicians and patients who may be interested in or require the procedure.

In other states, similar laws had unintended consequences.

"In Mississippi, for instance, there's only one clinic currently providing abortion care," Huckelbridge noted. "We've also seen, in Mississippi, the number of Google searches for self-induced abortion go up 40 percent, so these bills are threatening women's lives."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEUYX_BO3PU

By, Siraj Hashmi

A dark cloud hangs over Brussels after the city that is home to the headquarters of the European Union came under attack by ISIS on Tuesday, where terrorists set off explosions at Brussels Airport and a metro station killing 31 and injuring 230 people.

The attack in Brussels comes just days after an ISIS suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in a busy Istanbul street, killing four.

Ellen Eato, an American living in Brussels, was about to embark on a flight back to the U.S. for the Easter holiday when the terrorists struck quickly, sending panic and confusion throughout the airport.

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"I was walking around the terminal since I was so early [for my flight] and saw a group of people walking quickly by me and crying on their phones," Eato told GVH Live. "I thought it was odd and that maybe they had missed their flight, then more people starting migrating to the far end of the terminal."

Eato was fortunate to make it out of the airport alive, and while she is still deeply upset over the attacks, she is amazed at how people are coming together.

"You really get to see the good in people in these times of fear and sadness," she said. "As humans we are capable of so much love and strength. The potential to stomp out hate is there if we all can put our minds and hearts into it."

Another Brussels resident, Yigit Yazgan, works within a few miles of the airport, and while he did not see an explosion, he could certainly hear it.

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"You could see the smoke billowing from the terminal building," Yazgan told GVH Live. "The mood is very somber. This is unprecedented in the history of Belgium."

Yazgan, who grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, said that while he is saddened about what happened in Brussels, he noted that there is a double standard in the way the media has been covering the attacks in Brussels versus their coverage of the attacks in Ankara and his hometown.

"It does upset me to a degree," he said. "Obviously, when it's a western country that's subject to an attack, we all show solidarity to the best of our ability. But when it's a Middle Eastern country that's subject to a similar attack, people don't seem to care as much at least on the surface."

Presidential candidates have been weighing in on the attacks that range from condemnation of ISIS to admonishment of the Muslim community.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz had the most controversial comments in light of the attacks, stating in a press release, "We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."

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When he heard this, Yazgan said Cruz's comments were "over the top, opportunistic (given people's emotions) and unconstitutional."
Last month a shocking story gained little traction in the mainstream press, despite its horrific implications and brutal reality. A report from Iran emerged which detailed how every male from a village in the province of Sistan Balochistan had been executed. The Baloch, an ethnic minority in both Pakistan and Iran, continue to face systematic repression in both of these countries, yet remain largely ignored in both the East and the West. Simply having their voices heard remains a major struggle for this stateless population faced with poverty, violence and discrimination.

The Baloch are a distinct ethnic group who reside in the lands between southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Iran and a very small section of southwestern Afghanistan. Yet many fear that they have become invisible in their plight. Their struggle is reduced to a footnote in a region locked in turmoil. Their stories are overshadowed by the refugee crisis, bloody civil wars, and an attempt to silence them in the countries they now reside.

The executions in question took place in the village of Roushanabad, in southeastern Tehran, with the entire male population being arrested and sentenced to death on drug charges. Incidentally, Sistan Balochistan is Iran's poorest province, and home to the ethnic Baloch who remain disenfranchised in Iran both as an ethnic minority and as Sunni muslims.

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The majority of those executed in the province faced drug charges, and often receive convictions without access to counsel or proper due process. Iran's use of the death penalty in such cases is illegal under international law, yet the practice not only continues, but is actually funded by the United Nations and European countries.

For the Baloch residing in these villages, smuggling remains one of the only viable sources for income, in a country where they are often equated as lower class criminals. The disproportionate executions of Baloch in Iran is an obvious indication of this reality. One which begins at an early age for Baloch youth. In fact, Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs herself remarked, "Their children are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their families. There is no support for these people."

The situation of the Baloch in Pakistan is much the same. Ethnic Baloch remain second-class citizens within the country. Over the last decade thousands of ethnic Baloch have disappeared in the Western Pakistani province of Balochistan allegedly abducted by state security forces. Often times bodies are found days later, with visible signs of torture or mutilation, in what has come to be called the Kill and Dump policy of Pakistan. In other instances a body is never recovered, and the state denies any responsibility.

Over the last 6 months, Pakistan has conducted a series of low profile raids in Balochistan, often times targeting activists under the pretext of fighting "terrorists" and "miscreants". Underlying these repressive policies is Pakistan's construction of a major port in Balochistan, with the cooperation of the Chinese. This strategic port has not only resulted in increased tension between the Baloch and the Pakistani government, but has raised allegations of ethnic cleansing by the authorities against the local population.

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Almost any college president will tell you that there are certain events that are their favorites. Among my most cherished activities are soaking in the excitement and possibility of the first day of class; the mix of emotion and pride during commencements; and a special gathering that my university has hosted for the past 37 years known as the Simmons Leadership Conference.

The conference is considered the preeminent gathering for women's leadership in the country. Every year, more than 3,300 business women (and some men!) come for a day of renewal, skill building, and sheer inspiration. Over the years our dazzling speaker line-up has included Oprah Winfrey, Madeleine Albright, Meg Whitman, Hillary Clinton, Sally Field, Viola Davis, the late Benazir Bhutto, and Billie Jean King.

Since not everyone can attend the conference, I wanted to share with you some wisdom from this year's speakers. Enjoy!

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#1: Be Daring.

Ping FuVice president and chief entrepreneur officer at 3D Systems

On her most "daring" career move:Ping Fu: I quit a stable job and started a company when I had a baby girl. This move completely changed the trajectory of my career, my attitude towards my life journey, and my understanding of responsibilities.

What did you learn from that experience?

Ping Fu: The entrepreneurial experience has taught me a few lessons:

It is all about love. Love what you do and love the people you serve. It is love that carries the tough days

When in doubt, always err on the side of generosity

Leadership is a being, not a position. Know who you are

Practice trusting and tracking; not commanding and controlling

#2: Your Voice is Powerful - Use It!

Carla HarrisVice chairman of Global Wealth Management and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley.

On the female leader she most admires:Carla Harris: Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan. Both were unafraid to use their voices and extraordinary oratorical skills to get people to listen and to thereby provoke change with their arguments, delivery and compelling logic. They understood that there is power in your voice and that it should never be submerged, for when you submerge your voice, you submerge and lose your power.

#3: Focus on Your Strengths - Be Confident.

Beth PhalenSenior vice president at EMC Corporation, leads Data Protection & Availability Solutions within the Core Technology Division.

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On the best piece of career advice she's received:Beth Phalen: The best advice was a while ago, and was basically, "stop putting yourself down." The message was: "Your strengths speak for themselves. Don't limit your positive impact by discrediting yourself or minimizing your point of view." It helped me realize that I can make a contribution and I'm really not helping anyone by not projecting confidence.

#4: Just Do It.

Precillia Redmond Vice president and manager of organizational effectiveness and strategic project management services at Liberty Mutual Insurance Group

Her tips for work/life integration:Precillia Redmond: As someone said to me years ago when I complained that I felt guilty all the time - guilty for not spending enough time with my kids, husband, family, work: "Allow yourself to feel the feeling, but do what you need to do anyway."

#5: Men Play a Role.Edie WeinerPresident and CEO of The Future Hunters

On the major issue or current event women should focus on to effect change:

Edie Weiner: Finding solutions for all of the unemployed, underemployed, and disillusioned young men here in the U.S. and abroad. Nothing destroys the fabric of homes, communities, lives, and the economy as much as disaffected young men with nowhere to develop their talents, interests, economic independence, and civil responsibility. This is a women's issue! Women, even with the obstacles they encounter, can be strong and supportive. But young men, challenged by war, displacement, poor economic prospects, and biased justice systems pose a significant challenge to their mothers, wives, girlfriends, and children. They are attracted to fiery idealism and quick payoffs. Crime, violence, drug addiction, and terrorism increase, and communities are torn apart. We will have unprecedented refugee problems everywhere, fueled by climate change, wars, and economic collapses. Anthropologists have long known that as go the young males, so goes the civilization. We have to find productive ways to engage our youth, and provide promising paths for their futures

#6. Look to History: Women Role Models Abound.

Michelle RayCEO and founder of the Lead Yourself First Institute in Vancouver, Canada.

On the female leader she most admires, and how she has driven change:Michelle Ray: Golda Meir, who was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969 - the first woman to achieve this position anywhere in the world. It wasn't because she was a woman., but rather, due to the fact that she was a leader. She forged change by supporting diplomatic solutions to finding peace in the Middle East and unrestricted Jewish immigration. She aligned herself and Israel with individuals and countries once considered unlikely "friends" of the Jewish state, thus gaining tremendous respect as a leader. She was ahead of her time. She was confident, charismatic and highly principled.

#7. For Goodness Sake - Help Other Women!Maggie Ruvoldt Executive vice and general manager at 2U, Inc., an education technology company that partners with nonprofit colleges and universities to deliver online degree programs

On the major issue or current event women should focus on to effect change:

Maggie Ruvoldt: Opening up the inner networks for other women. When you break into the smaller, unofficial network, don't close the door behind you.
In case you hadn't heard, there's been a brouhaha in Republican circles revolving around the idea that Donald Trump's voters are a bunch of self-pitying white trash who are flocking to Trump because he gives them license to blame their self-inflicted problems on mass immigration and free trade.

Here's one juicy sample (source):

It perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn't. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about "globalists" and -- odious, stupid term -- "the Establishment," but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves.

If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy -- which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog -- you will come to an awful realization. It wasn't Beijing. It wasn't even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn't immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn't any of that.

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Nothing happened to them. There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence -- and the incomprehensible malice -- of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain't what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down.

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump's speeches make them feel good. So does Oxycontin.

In part, this is just yuppie sanctimony, a morally superior way to congratulate oneself on having attended an good college and not having ever, ever experienced the slightest desire to drink domestic beer (craft excepted) or attend a tractor pull. I vlogged about that particular bit of narcissism, in relation to the trade issue, here a long time ago. How little changes! (As you'll note in my video, even President Obama has been guilty of this. Tut tut.)

But pace the snobbery, a legitimate question has been raised: are Americans even entitled to the prosperity which they increasingly believe is eluding them?

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Or are we just a bunch of whiners?

After all, even the poorest Americans aren't poor by the standards of India, Africa, or China, where hundreds of millions of people live on less income per year than a working-class American family might blow on a flat-screen TV in a single afternoon. And squeezed, complaining lower-middle-class Americans would be considered comfortably off in most of Latin America or Eastern Europe. And let's not even talk about history, or what the average American family lived on in 1900 with the Pennsylvania Railroad puffing past their tarpaper shack.

Personally, I believe the answer is that no, Americans aren't entitled to any particular level of income. But they certainly are entitled to a government that seeks their economic well-being, if that's what it was elected to do.

If the government wants to serve, instead, international plutocracy, the Good of All Humanity, or some abstract concept of economic freedom, fine. But then they have to run on that platform and win elections on it. They don't get to tell us they're running to do the one thing, then do the other in office.

Americans aren't entitled to a prosperous outcome, but they are entitled to a government that's on their side, if that's what they voted for.

As for that business in the quote above about drug addicts and family chaos, that's really another subject, a distraction meant to justify contempt for white (and other?) working-class Americans. But the relevant question isn't their drug or family problems, it's whether their economic problems are their fault. And given that Joe Sixpack hasn't really had a whole lot of input on the key economic decisions that put his sort of people where they are, I'm inclined to say no.

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Immigration's not my issue, so I have nothing to say about it here, but trade is, and it certainly wasn't Joe Sixpack who dreamed up NAFTA. Or Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. Or the U.S. government's acquiescence to currency manipulation from Berlin to Beijing. Or trade agreements for the multinationals, by the multinationals, of the multinationals.
Stars and stripes on gun

I can tell you exactly where I was, sitting in my SAT prep class at Randolph High School, when I first heard about the Virginia Tech shooting. I can tell you the very desk I was sitting at, in the library at Syracuse University, when I first heard about the Sandy Hook shooting. I can even tell you exactly how I felt -- sick to my stomach and helpless -- sweating, as I attempted to fathom that someone shot and murdered 26 people including 20 first-grade children at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.

What scares me the most is with more recent attacks, I'm beginning to forget. I can't tell you where I was when I heard about the Umpqua Community College shooting, or the San Bernardino shooting. These tragedies, that are as horrific as the next, are beginning to leave me numb. I'm scared that we as a country will accept these horrific acts as a norm, grieve or post on Facebook about it for a week, and then move on until it happens again. No one wants it to happen again. I don't want to continue to feel numb.

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To bring awareness to this national gun epidemic, States United to Prevent Gun Violence Action Fund, Inc. and the Newtown Action Alliance launched #GhostVote in the nation's capital with a symbolic takeover -- placing body outlines featuring a #GhostVote ballot around the city to give a voice to those silenced by gun violence.

The aim of this campaign is to put common sense gun laws at the top of the agenda leading up to the elections. The movement includes GhostVote.com, where supporters are encouraged to declare that they are "Ghost Voters" in honor of those killed by gun violence.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Executive Director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, lost her brother, Greg Gaines Gunn, in 1997. Featured as one of the victims in the campaign, Greg was shot in the head and murdered at his family business.

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"We have no problem sharing our loved one's images in this campaign because every single day I'm haunted by my brother's loss; his children are haunted, and his new grandchild will be haunted by not having his grandfather around," Barrett says.

Guns are designed very effectively to kill. And they do kill, 92 Americans a day.

Barrett explains, "The #GhostVote hopes to get American citizens and legislators to think about the human cost to this entirely preventable epidemic that we seem to be happy to live with."

For the past couple of years, Barrett and her organization have been pushing to pass a statewide firearm safe storage law in New York. Currently the only state that has a law like this is Massachusetts. This law essentially defines the term common sense. "It simply requires people to lock up their guns when they're not in their immediate possession. It's very simple really, you'd think this would already be a law but it's not," she says.

Po Murray, Chairman of Newtown Action Alliance, formed the volunteer organization after the Sandy Hook shooting occurred over three years ago. Having four children that went through Sandy Hook Elementary School, the shooting drove Murray to take action. None of her children were in the school when the shooting occurred, but the event still hit too close to home: "I lived around the corner from the shooter. We also lost neighbors, young children," she explains.

Murray says, "It's still hard to believe that it actually happened. If you ever visited Newtown, it's one of the safest places, major rural suburbia."

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The Newtown Action Alliance was formed to increase awareness and works to pass common sense gun laws. The organization holds vigils for all victims to gun violence in Washington D.C. While on Capital Hill, they attend rallies and hand deliver letters to legislators.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has 5 million members with the ultimate goal to sell more guns. "I'm mystified as to why congress doesn't want to work on this issue. Actually I know why -- because they are in the pockets of the NRA," Barrett says.

The NRA is currently trying to pass a law in 15 states that will allow guns on campuses. "The sad thing is they [NRA] fight these gun violence laws because they profit from dangerous people owning guns. They instill fear that you need to arm yourself, to protect yourself from the criminal. It's a marketing ploy," Murray explains.

Barrett stresses, "We have to be passionate, and more passionate because we are speaking for people who lost their voices. And for the Americans in the future who will lose their voices if we don't do something about this problem. More people are going to continue to die. It will just continue to happen."

It's a national tragedy. We need to speak up and not be bystanders in this epidemic. It starts with our legislators. Mass shootings and gun violence shouldn't be something that Americans are accustomed to seeing on television weekly, if not daily. Mass shootings will not be the next trending topic.

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Belgium currently finds itself in the middle of Europe's vicious cycle of terrorism and Islamophobia: Terrorists attack, politicians respond with anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes and many young people feel even more pessimistic about integration into European society, which makes the anti-Western message of radicals more appealing to misguided youth.

I have been in Belgium for the past five weeks to learn about the experiences of Belgian youth. In my research I have seen signs that this cycle of terrorism and Islamophobia is going to continue. But I also see signs that Belgium may go in a better direction, if the country's political leaders can take responsibility for their role in fueling the fire of radicalization with divisive politics. The offers to resign from Belgium's Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens show that there may be an opportunity to move in a new direction, away from the current trend of divisive politics.

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Belgium's trend of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim politics influenced the country's response to the Paris attacks. Minister Jambon placed the blame of the international incident on Molenbeek, a largely Muslim and Moroccan community in Brussels. This diverse community of 100,000 residents has since been further stigmatized by this political rhetoric and treated like it has collectively done something wrong because of the actions of a handful of terrorists. Minister Jambon's response did little to address some of the root causes of radicalization, like unemployment. Molenbeek has a 40% youth unemployment rate, which is nearly double the national average for Belgium, and a plan to improve these conditions would be incredibly more effective than further stigmatizing a disadvantaged community.

This form of divisive politics in Belgium predates the Paris attacks. For example, Belgium has banned religious dress and religious symbols from most public schools. While this ban is presented as a neutral political decision, it has a significant impact on religious minorities, like Jewish, Sikh and Muslim families. One impact of this ban is that many Muslim girls are excluded from public schools and must rely on home-schooling or private school education. Another consequence of this ban is that some qualified Muslim women are excluded from working as teachers.

There may be no clearer example of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim politics than in the city of Antwerp, the biggest city in Belgium's Flanders region. The Mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, has publicly referred to Berbers, a Moroccan ethnic group, as being problematic migrants. In 2014, the city of Antwerp also imposed a special tax on small businesses often started by entrepreneurs of migrant backgrounds and frequented by consumers of migrant backgrounds. These businesses, including night shops, phone shops and shisha bars, are targeted with a special tax for being "image-damaging."

When looking at Belgian politics, it's difficult to believe Mayor De Wever when he says that Tuesday's tragedy is a sign that the tolerance of Europe has been abused. It's also difficult to believe that the answer to this problem is more divisive politics, as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have encouraged. Belgian political leaders have struggled with creating a political culture that encourages all Belgians to work together to solve problems, including the problem of radicalization. They can start creating a new political culture by changing policies and attitudes that have pushed Muslim communities to the margins of Belgian society.

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Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic sits in the courtroom for the reading of his verdict at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, on March 24, 2016.The former Bosnian-Serbs leader is indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. / AFP / POOL / Robin van Lonkhuijsen / Netherlands OUT (Photo credit should read ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- A little over 24 hours ago, the former leader of the breakaway Serb Republic in Bosnia Radovan Karadzic -- notoriously dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" -- was sentenced to 40 years in prison following a five-year trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Karadzic faced charges on two counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and four counts of violations against the laws and customs of war specified by the Geneva Conventions. In his delivery of the ruling, presiding judge O-Gon Kwon cleared Karadzic of one count of the indictment -- while found guilty of the 1995 systematic elimination of more than 8,000 Bosniaks, Bosnian Muslim men and boys, in the Srebrenica enclave, he was acquitted of genocide in seven other Bosnian towns and villages.

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Throughout the trial Karadzic, who acted as his own defense lawyer, "portray[ed] himself as a man of peace who was driven solely by his desire to protect Serbs." As a child born of mixed marriage between a Serb father and a Bosniak mother -- a child who grew up in wartime Sarajevo -- I resent the idea that Karadzic acted as a guardian of Serbs who endured a horrifying campaign of sniping and shelling that terrorized the Bosnian capital for 1,395 days. Or were those Serbs who opted to stay in Sarajevo during the longest siege in modern history not "Serb" enough?

I resent the idea that Karadzic acted as a guardian of Serbs who endured a horrifying campaign of sniping and shelling. Or were those Serbs who opted to stay in Sarajevo during the longest siege in modern history not 'Serb' enough?

Against the backdrop of war, I often struggled to figure out where I fit in. I was 10 or 11 at the time and I certainly did not feel represented by the likes of Karadzic, but I was also made aware of my apparent "otherness" in newspapers and television, political discourse and everyday conversations. Not much has changed more than 20 years later. At work yesterday -- as I was rushing home to hear the sentencing live -- a student jokingly asked, "who are you rooting for?" There was nothing funny about her question. In fact, it was deeply insulting. What it shows, at the very least, is that the memory of war -- as well as its retelling -- is not simply about insiders and outsiders. It is also about who the most "authentic" insiders are -- whose voices amongst many who suffered are heard and whose voices are silenced. The war, it seems, is not mine to grieve, rage or talk about.

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As I was drafting this article, Bosnian state television aired a two-hour special on the importance of reconciliation in the wake of the Karadzic sentencing. The general premise is pretty straightforward -- Serbs have to collectively acknowledge and accept responsibility for own in-group crimes before the country can move on and make the most of a wide-ranging set of social and economic reforms meant to steer it towards European Union membership. By the virtue of my identity or some fraction of it, I thus not only have little to no representation in an array of war accounts that saturate libraries, bookstores, television discussions and radio broadcasts, but I am also meant to atone for crimes that were seemingly committed in my name.

It is absolutely true that my experience of war does not compare easily to experiences of those -- predominantly Bosniaks -- who witnessed face-to-face violence or had their entire families slaughtered. But my experience is still a very real one. It is an experience of living in daily fear and being hungry for nearly four years. An experience of watching classmates sniped in front of me. So, the notion of reconciliation as proposed by those who think in terms of homogenous, neatly divided -- and ostensibly opposing -- ethnic groups is offensive. And very trite.

By the virtue of my identity or some fraction of it, I not only have little to no representation in an array of war accounts, but I am also meant to atone for crimes that were seemingly committed in my name.

The notion is reminiscent of the "ancient ethnic hatred" discourse that, as author Tom Gallagher notes, speaks of "bouts of tribal warfare ... seen as culturally determined and historically recurring and therefore beyond capable solution." The idea proposed by author Michael Sells that we were "fated, by history or genetics, to kill one another" was, as Gallagher explains, promoted not only by Karadzic, but also by the likes of David Owen, the key international mediator in the 1992-1995 war, who in his introduction to "Balkan Odyssey" argued, "History points to a tradition ... of a readiness to solve disputes by taking up arms ... it points to a culture of violence." Gallagher shows that a similar rhetoric was evident in 1994 when the former U.S. president Bill Clinton spoke of a conflict that had been present "for hundreds of years": "The truth is," Clinton noted, "people there keep killing each other."

This narrative of ancient hatred not only justified the severely delayed intervention in Bosnia -- it took foreign leaders four years and around 110,000 dead to finally react -- it also paved the way for an array of experts who today call for reconciliation but fail to consider a multiplicity, diversity and complexity of experience that shapes people's personal narratives of war. These narratives problematize the insider versus outsider dilemma, and while I cannot speak for my compatriots nor do I claim to understand how those with a different lived experience feel, I know that the idea of atoning for crimes that Karadzic was found guilty of sends shivers down my spine and makes me feel as alienated as I had felt some 20 years ago -- as a child born of mixed marriage growing up in wartime Sarajevo.

Earlier on WorldPost:
"I am strong, I am bold...

my own power, I can hold." -- Bent on Learning Student Mantra In keeping with our series inspired by the Kennedy Forum's Mental Health State of the Union, this week we focus on prevention. Recently, we attended a gala to benefit Bent on Learning, a nonprofit that brings yoga classes to thousands of New York City public school students each week. Organizations like Bent on Learning are at the forefront of prevention, equipping students with skills that help them maintain good holistic health.

Being a young person these days can be tough -- from navigating the academic pressures to succeed in a competitive environment to managing healthy social relationships both online and off -- growing up can be full of stressors, especially when you're a student in a large and hectic city like New York."The pressure we're putting on young people is debilitating," remarked Stephanie Ruhle, anchor and managing editor of Bloomberg Television, and the emcee of the event.

At the Flawless Foundation, we are always pleased to celebrate the work of our long-time colleagues at this incredible organization, which prioritizes mental wellness and holistic health and promotes the healing gift of yoga to young people. Yoga is transformative, and we were moved to see its impact that night with a live demonstration.

Student-teachers, who had benefited from the classes themselves, led a group of younger children in a short yoga session -- and the audience watched as the kids were encouraged to hold poses, take in deep breaths, and reflect on how they were feeling. One student-teacher, having brought the kids into Warrior II pose, instructed them to repeat after her: "I am strong, I am bold, my own power, I can hold." This mantra -- specific to Bent on Learning's yoga classes -- was chanted with each new pose and each new breath.

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For Bent on Learning Yoga's co-founder Jennifer Ford, when a student is given a fair shot, they can achieve anything. During her opening remarks, she shared with the audience her own mantra: "Your body, your breath, your mind are all you need to succeed."

Confidence, gratitude, perspective are some of the many skills that yoga can teach, and are a central focus of Bent on Learning's programs. But sometimes, in order to understand the impact a practice like yoga can have, you have to join in yourself. Therefore -- after giving remarks celebrating the remarkable life-long work of Dr. Richard Ash in promoting wellness and healing in everyday life -- Gopi Kallayil, the chief evangelist of brand marketing at Google and a devoted yoga practitioner, led the entire gala in a short yoga practice.

Everyone stood up, and what followed was unlike anything I had ever witnessed, with hundreds of attendees, dressed in suits and stilettos, practicing variations on sun salutations, monitoring their breath, and meditating en masse. The yoga session ended with a resounding "Om," which rippled throughout the venue and sent chills down my spine. Here's what we can create when we work together, the Om reminded me; we are one, we are not alone.

"#Gratitude is one of the most honored of yoga practices." - @GopiKallayil leads a gala-wide yoga class #InspireGala pic.twitter.com/LYL5c7V0ng  Flawless Foundation (@flawlessgrats) March 11, 2016

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Earlier, Gopi Kallayil had said, "Gratitude is one of the most honored of yoga practices," and in this moment, that connection between yoga, togetherness, and gratitude resonated with everyone. Gratitude, like self-reflection, calm, and self-awareness is a skill that can be taught. To be in the presence of proactive change-makers who believe in teaching young people these skills, was to be reminded of hope -- and for that I was grateful.

The night yielded another gift when I gave Gopi a Flawless tattoo, and he insisted on wearing it on his forehead to promote the notion, loudly and proudly, that we are all flawless. He even commented that he hoped the tattoo would stay on as he traveled back to Google the next day. We call that bicoastal #FlawlessLove!

Yoga is a practice, ultimately, which can teach us skills necessary for a balanced, healthy life. It was inspiring to hear from students who have been a part of Bent on Learning's yoga programs for many years. There was one story after another of how these skills could apply to their lives inside and outside of the classroom.

One student spoke about how, when he's feeling angry or stressed, he remembers what he's learned in class, takes a breath, takes a moment, and reassesses his emotions. Another student recounted how yoga classes have helped him become more positive and able to overcome difficulties in his life, particularly academic obstacles, like his Latin and Trigonometry classes. And yet another student spoke about how yoga has enabled her to let go and be more comfortable with her peers. When she's feeling stressed, she remembers her yoga practice: "I breathe and think about the consequences."





At the Flawless Foundation, our focus is on prevention and how important it is to integrate mindfulness and social and emotional learning into our schools in order to help kids build sustainable skills to be their best, healthiest selves. Everyday we read news of low test scores, dismal graduation rates, and negative cultures of bullying and, in some cases, violence. For years, this remarkable program has been helping to change all that -- they have been lighting up NYC public schools with hope.

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In the aftermath of the earth-shattering terror attacks of September 11, 2001, politician Dick Cheney (then Vice President of the United States) urged that people not ask the question of why these things happen.

In the aftermath of the most recent terror attacks in Belgium on March 22, 2016, a high-ranking church official gave a seemingly opposite response. This bishop wrote to his constituencies that he asks the why question every time an act of terrorism occurs, wondering why terrorism continues to happen. His conclusion was that he did not know of any answer.

Despite the opposite reactions of the politician and the religious leader, the result is the same: Terrorism is considered to be beyond comprehension and efforts to understand it have no place. In the case of the politician, the fear might have been that trying to understand terrorism might lead to efforts to condone it; in the case of the religious leader, the topic was simply drowned out by sadness.

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Refusing to understand terrorism is convenient because it does not require reflection on possible responses and consequences. As a result, any response appears to be justified, all the way to terrorist acts in return.

In the Roman Empire, a response to terrorist acts was crucifixion, designed to strike terror into the hearts of the subjugated populations. The gospels report of one terrorist about to be crucified, Barabbas, who was released in exchange for the crucifixion of Jesus (see Mark 15:6-15, with parallels in the other three gospels).

What might we learn if we understand Jesus' death and resurrection in the context of terrorism?

The gospels do not tell us much about Barabbas, but Mark and Luke mention that he was part of a violent uprising and murder. Jesus, by contrast, was not accused of violent acts of terror but of subversion by embodying a different power than the power of empire (claiming to be the Messiah [Mark 14:62] and suspected to be "King of the Jews" [Mark 15:2]).

It makes little sense to assume that Barabbas had no reasons for participating in a violent uprising. Among these reasons might have been the severe conditions that the Roman Empire imposed on the Jews, including control of the land and of political power, as well as harsh labor conditions linked with heavy tax burdens.

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In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA's term "blowback" gained prominence, referring to the unintended consequences of American politics. The title and subtitle of a prominent book by political scientist Chalmers Johnson, not a radical by any stretch of the imagination, sum it up: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000).

Why terrorism? This question is not as hard to answer as some might want to believe. There are deep discontents and frustrations in our world, many of them fueled by grave differentials of power. While those in power often fail to see these differentials, most others can spot them, particularly those who are forced to endure in their own bodies the more pronounced inequalities.

What are the options? Must seeing inequalities lead to terrorism? The biggest problem, now as then, is that we are led to believe that the solution is all or nothing: either become a terrorist or accommodate to the dominant status quo. Even Jesus is usually interpreted in this way: either he was a terrorist or he was not bothered by the inequalities of the status quo.

The historical account of Jesus is fairly clear. Jesus was no terrorist and neither was he a member of the Zealot movement (to which Barabbas likely belonged) or of any other violent resistance movement. But this does not mean that Jesus accommodated to the dominant status quo of the Roman Empire. The emerging historical account on this matter is fairly clear as well: Jesus was not merely a preacher but also an organizer who inspired and participated in a non-violent resistance movement.

The events of Good Friday and Easter, thus, not only help shed some light on why terrorism persists; they also shed some light on alternatives. The alternative to terrorism is not accommodation but following the way of Jesus. The response to the terror of the cross is not more terror but a non-violent resistance movement. The resurrection--the rising of Jesus form the dead--becomes another kind of non-violent uprising in which God participates.

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After the latest terror attack in Brussels, Belgium, everyone's got a solution, from Western democracies to Middle East dictators to GOP Presidential candidates. None of these are likely to work, and may actually make the war on terrorism harder to win.

Belgium was sort of like the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. It was a based used for recruiting and fundraising, but rarely a terrorist attack. The IRA, Hamas, and other groups could pass the hat in pubs, or sell cheap cigarettes bought in one state for less than those in states where the tax was sky high. Both countries could have policed the problem more aggressively, but chose to look the other way, with the mistaken belief that tolerating these activities made one less likely to be a target at home.

For the United States, 9/11 shattered that myth. For Brussels, once the ringleader of the Paris attacks was nabbed, others feared they would be next on the list, so they engaged in impromptu terror attacks of convenience, preferring to go out in a blaze of glory rather than rot in a prison cell. Belgium played with fire, and got burned.

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Then there's Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who loudly boasts that he "warned" countries that ISIS would attack the West. But it's Erdogan's policies that are helping enable ISIS to succeed.

Much has been made about Turkey being hit repeatedly by terror attacks, without an outcry from the West. It's not that many Westerners don't care about Turks. Those who meet Turks know they are some of the best folks you'll ever meet, and deserve our sympathy just as much as Belgians or French.

But most people outside of the most blindly loyal supporters of Erdogan know that his regime uses terror attacks to justify human rights abuses. Erdogan's regime accuses bomb blasts that kill Kurds of being detonated...by Kurds. Most of the initial attacks of the 2015 election season killed Erdogan opponents, and the President, Prime Minister and others in the government blamed...the opposition.

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In the United States, we've seen Ted Cruz call for aggressive policing of Muslim neighborhoods and Donald Trump say we need waterboarding and "a lot more" as our response. Not only do such methods produce ineffective responses, but would undermine one of our best sources of anti-terrorism leads: members of the neighborhood reporting such activity. Marching an armed division through Dearborn, Michigan or torturing someone into saying anything just to stop the pain wouldn't stop a terror attack. And Trump's call for the USA to pull out of NATO hands ISIS a long-needed victory: fragmenting the powerful alliance between America and Europe that stood up to Soviet belligerence and has taken the lead in the war on terrorism in the Middle East.
DORAL, FL - OCTOBER 23: Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump attends a campaigns rally In Florida at the Trump National Doral on October 23, 2015 in Doral, Florida. Trump leads most polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. (Photo by Johnny Louis/FilmMagic)

Let's not kid ourselves. The Donald Trump spectacle didn't rise up like a Phoenix from ashes of necessary change and renewal.

When Barack Obama was sworn in as President in 2009, the GOP was already laying groundwork for the insurgence that would lead to Trump's frontrunner position today. They did it by fabricating rhetoric that Obama's policies would threaten our national security and lead us into economic ruin, among other scary things. For good measure, they even called for indictments of presidential treason.

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As a result, the doomsday seeds the Republicans planted created a monster. What we have today is a frightening, not to mention embarrassing crisis on our hands in the form of Donald Trump--an unhinged, ego-maniacal, narcissist with no political experience whatsoever, who has taken advantage of the illusory paranoia and exploited it. He preys on gullible citizens, the minds of whom he enjoys terrorizing simply for his own self-aggrandizement.

The GOP has a bad memory. Its members seem to think that the U.S. was basking in prosperity prior to the Obama administration. As most of us know, those were disastrous times. The stock market had plummeted, the economy had tanked, the housing market had gone belly-up and unemployment was sky high. Plus we were engaged in two wars.

Journalist and author, Fareed Zakaria said, "Republicans have fed the country ideas about decline, betrayal and treason. They have encouraged the forces of anti-intellectualism, obstructionism and populism. They have flirted with bigotry and racism. Trump merely chose to unashamedly embrace all of it, saying plainly what they were hinting at for years. In doing so, he hit a jackpot."

I disagree with Mr. Zakaria on one point; I don't think the GOP has been "hinting" for years. They have in fact been pounding the fear-mongering into the minds of angry and uneducated Americans since day one of Obama's Presidency. It seems the animosity runs deep.

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Now the GOP is shocked by Trump's popularity. Excuse me? All the negativity against President Obama that they themselves purported and the relentless provocations of an economic apocalypse is what spawned his popularity. Nothing more, nothing less.

It has worked. In the last 7 years, it scared the pants off the naive and bigoted in this country. Enter, Stage Right the pompous yet charismatic Donald Trump appearing as a demi-god-messiah with promises to save our crumbling nation and deliver us to the Promised Land.

Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid said, "The Republican establishment acts bewildered. But they should not be bewildered. As much as they may try to distance themselves from it now, Republican leaders are responsible for his rise. Republican leaders created the drought conditions; Donald Trump has simply struck the match."

Yep. The manipulative seeds have propagated and now the GOP is officially at DEFCON 1.

In all fairness, Trump is equally as responsible as the Republicans for this mess. He has single-handedly brought out the hideous dark side of America. He has massaged the absurd claims of treason against President Obama. He's even condoning acts of aggression to his followers by inciting violence at his rallies while subtly predicting more unrest if the protesting continues. He has brought a heretofore simmering pot of hostility, racism, misogyny and xenophobia to a full boil, and an eerily significant portion of the population seems willing to drink in their fill, day after day.

So now, what the Republicans are saying is that they don't want Donald Trump to get the nomination because they don't believe he can beat Hillary Clinton in November. Not because they want to save our country from a calamitous Presidency led by a tyrant. No, saving the Republican Party seems more important.

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A few months ago, a frustrated Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said that choosing between Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump is "like being shot or poisoned." Graham continued, "Donald Trump I think is the most unprepared person I've ever met to be commander in chief. And when it comes to Sen. Cruz, he's exhibited behavior in his time in the Senate that makes it impossible for me to believe that he could bring this country together." He also added, "If the past is any indication of the future...I think America would be in trouble if any of them got to be president of the United States."

But, as of last week, Sen. Graham changed his tune and is now endorsing the sanctimonious, Bible-thumping, Ted Cruz to "save" the party. I must have missed something. Is Ted Cruz the bullet or the poison?

I do give kudos to Sen. Graham for being so candid about his current frontrunner: "When Donald Trump speaks about foreign policy, it scares the hell out of me."

What foreign policy? Other than building an impossible wall, bringing China and Mexico to their knees and bombing the "you-know-what" out of ISIS, I have not heard Trump utter a single rational foreign policy plan.

Here's another interesting point that Trump supporters don't consider. We see how immature and combative he is with debate moderators, journalists, fellow candidates and even the Pope himself. How do his followers imagine he will interact as President with fellow U.S. politicians and other world leaders?

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Trump may have a lot of autonomy in the hiring and firing of employees in his businesses and on reality television, but as President, firing members of congress won't be an option. He will also not go far by insulting our close allies and other foreign dignitaries. Can you imagine the peevish tantrums he will throw when he doesn't get his way? His psychopathology will emerge worse than what we have already witnessed.

Bottom line is--thanks to the GOP--Donald Trump is shamelessly cashing in on the fears of innocent, brain-washed minds that have been fed lies of economic decline and betrayal for a long time. That is as reprehensible as all the hostility and brutishness he has personally incited.
Desks in classroom

A new documentary took the SXSW festival by storm in Austin, Texas titled: Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America's Public Universities. No film better exposes the coordinated assault on public higher education that is going on right now across the country.

The film covers events as they recently played out at Louisiana State University, the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Each case illustrates how wealthy right-wing ideologues use the same arguments and techniques to attempt to force severe changes upon the mission of public universities.

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Starving the Beast shows the power of a skillfully produced movie to demarcate the parameters of a vital public battle. It combines a clear presentation of the facts with an implicit call for citizens to fight back against what could be the destruction of these irreplaceable public institutions.

Steve Mims, who wrote and directed the film (along with producer Bill Banowsky), is a prolific filmmaker and media educator who teaches at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas in Austin. Mims zeroes in on the clashes that are now taking place at public universities around the country, a story the mainstream press has largely ignored.

The introduction outlines the high ideals that inspired the men and women who founded these colleges back in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and then contrasts this original mission with the cynical market fundamentalism that some of the key players espouse who are currently seeking to "reform" these institutions.

The film explains the contours of the free-market ideology that is behind the policy prescriptions for "disrupting" and "reforming" public universities, which originates in think tanks such as the CATO Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, and dozens of lesser known groups financed by wealthy donors, including the web of organizations that receive money from the Koch brothers.

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Starving the Beast unpacks the process whereby public universities have been de-funded in recent years, which has contributed to driving up student tuition (along with student debt), and has led administrators to squeeze "efficiencies" from their institutions by freezing faculty salaries, hiring large numbers of adjunct professors, and slashing programs.

Well-financed right-wing groups that lobby hard for budget cuts and lower taxes create fiscal conditions that starve funding for public universities. They then become the loudest critics of the universities and demand a radical overhaul of the colleges' entire mission that fits their ideological mold.

Starving the Beast dissects the concept of "disruptive innovation" that the business guru Clayton Christensen popularized in the 1990s and 2000s. The self-appointed "reformers" featured in the movie use "disruptive innovation" as a cudgel with which to beat down people who resist turning public universities into businesses. Inherent in the "disruptor" parable is a blind faith in markets and the notion that any institution or organization, including universities, can be more "efficiently" managed through applying business principles.

Peppered throughout the movie are interviews with some of the wealthy white men who have placed themselves at the forefront of the "reform" movement. They sometimes proudly wear the label "disruptor," like Jeff Sandefer and Wallace Hall of Texas, Jay Schalin of North Carolina, and Frederick Hess from the American Enterprise Institute.

These wealthy "disruptors" exercise their raw political and economic power to get like-minded people appointed to the boards of trustees and accreditation outfits that govern public universities. In sit-down interviews, Starving the Beast allows the "disruptors" and "reformers" to speak for themselves, which ends up exposing the noxious character of their ideology, which is wholly incompatible with the ideals of higher education.

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They've dropped any sense that the public university plays a fundamental role in the quality of life in their states, or enhances young people's understanding of their responsibilities as citizens. They don't even see "students" anymore, only "customers" or "clients." They want to steer public universities away from inquiries about the meaning of life, justice, or beauty in this world, which they see as nothing more than "left-liberal" claptrap.

Their "vision" (if one can call it that) is to get rid of academic tenure, phase out the liberal arts and humanities departments, and narrowly focus "education" on the attainment of vocational skills. They apparently want a workforce of trained automatons who toil in silence and never ask big questions or challenge authority as young people are encouraged to do in university settings. Without exception, all of the "reformers" interviewed in Starving the Beast possess either an adorably naive view of capitalism as benevolent and fair, or else they're intellectually dishonest grifters.

They see college students as nothing more than "consumers" paying for a "service" or "product" from the university; an aggregate of atomized individuals devoid of sinews connecting them to the wider society as citizens or as people who will lead the country into the future. For them, there is no qualitative distinction between people who enroll in a college class and a random collection of strangers waiting for a bus on a street corner. They view each individual student's education as solely belonging to that student with no deeper bond to any societal or civic role or obligation. It is a bleak and nihilistic view of the purpose of higher education.

Yet since its adherents are rich and powerful people and their ideas perfectly serve power their opinions get widely ventilated in the public discourse where politicians pick up on them. For political effect they're even granted a veneer of "common sense." Starving the Beast takes on the false premise that universities are no different than businesses.

It is a toxic ideology associated with rich and powerful anti-tax zealots like Grover Norquist, and self-regarding free marketeers like Jeff Sandefer, as well as their counterparts in government like Governors Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal.

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It's true that public universities function in a capitalist society and after years of savage budget cuts they must deal with outside vendors with business acumen. However, their deeper calling has nothing to do with "business," but with readying young people with the skills to seek truth, learn to empathize with others, think critically, and understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens and their place in the wider world.

The adroit editing of the film at crucial moments intersperses still shots (backed by evocative music) of statues at public universities of great Humanist thinkers from America's past. The editing bestows nice pacing as well as a visual contrast between the bottom-line market fundamentalism that drips from the lips of the "reformers," and historical figures, like Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, who consigned unique value on the mission of higher education.

The "disruptors" who appear in this film also clearly abhor academic tenure and seek to strip professors of their influence by "reforming" the academy. They advocate using neo-liberal metrics that measure each professor's worth with dollar amounts, and they wish to impose a draconian "accountability" regime, subjugating scholars to the whims of administrators, trustees, and politicians.

They pretend to be unaware that their policies would destroy academic freedom and with it the whole scholarly endeavor. We must be aware of the growing power of the "State Policy Network" that seeks to project its market fundamentalism onto public universities nationally.

One interesting visual technique of the film is when we see Grover Norquist, Arthur Laffer, and other moneyed know-it-alls deliver their awful ideas they're talking from an open laptop sitting on a desk; somehow this effect deservedly diminishes their bogus policy prescriptions.

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The most depressing part of the movie for me is seeing well-heeled individuals and think tanks stack the boards of trustees to impose an agenda that seeks to turn public universities into something no more edifying to society than a McDonald's franchise.

As we've recently seen on full display with the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, possessing vast wealth and power can breed conceit and narcissism; and there's plenty of this on display in Starving the Beast among the self-anointed purveyors of wisdom about how public universities should be run.

It's kind of shocking to hear the self-assured arrogance and unprincipled put-downs aimed at professors, students, and the mission of public universities coming from the lips of people who embrace a worldview that is a cross between Ayn Rand and Herbert Spencer. They proudly stand upon the shoulders of discredited philosophers.

It's noteworthy that so many of the wealthy right-wing "disruptors" who we see interviewed in the film are unconsciously projecting their own prejudices outward and packaging them as a critique. Weirdly, they transfer their own narrow ideological bias and agenda onto a false image of what a public university does, and then claim the high ground by insisting they're trying to stop entire faculties of professors from "imposing" their ideology on students and society. They apparently lack the ability to tell the difference between the holistic multidimensional truth seeking, critical thinking, openness and debate that take place on university campuses from their own constricted worldview that holds nothing higher than hoarding money.

Although not explicit in the film, I believe the "students as customers" trope that Jeff Sandefer, the wealthy Rick Perry donor and ally, and other "reformers" extol has another effect. In February 1960, when African American college students in the South formed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) it quickly became one of the most important civil rights organizations in the United States. Representative John Lewis of Georgia is a former SNCC president, and Julian Bond was a founding member.

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This group was not called the "Customers Non-Violent Coordinating Committee." (Or if you read a newspaper headline covering a direct action: "One Hundred Students Arrested in Protest"; it sounds a lot different than: "One Hundred Customers Arrested in Protest.")

Throughout American history college students have been vital agents for social change and often the conscience of the country given that they embody our future. Their activism played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, ending the Vietnam War, and demanding the voting age be lowered to 18 years of age with the 26th Amendment. To consider them "customers" or "clients" is to strip them of the dignity and status they deserve as students and demote them politically.

In Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere college students often lead the struggle for social justice. Just look at how college students today have embraced the democratic socialist ideas of Senator Bernie Sanders. In Starving the Beast there's a compelling clip from C-SPAN of Bernie in the Senate explaining the power and slash-and-burn policy goals of the Koch brothers aiming to bring American society back to the 19th Century.

The "disruptors" exposed in Starving the Beast target those who they consider their ideological enemies: educated people and those who aren't afraid to criticize their agenda often from the protected enclave of academia. This kind of insubordination drives them crazy. So they push to get rid of tenure and turn universities into Wal-Marts.

The big picture that Starving the Beast elucidates is that the disinvestment in public higher education has led to increases in class size, lower pay for professors, and the hiring of temporary adjunct professors (who were the first victims of the "gig" economy).

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As state government support for public universities dries up, student fees and tuition soar, which is the product of policy choices of governors and legislatures. Unchallenged, it threatens to ruin some of the most cherished institutions American society has ever built.

"That which has taken over a hundred years to build, can easily be destroyed by starving it to death," notes one of the champions of public universities in the film. We must renew our commitment to fully fund our public universities lest the "reformers" and "disruptors," with their deep pockets, powerful allies, and unyielding self-righteousness will strip them for parts.

Future generations looking back at this era will question why we were so stupid to allow a small group of elitists destroy what has been a dependable and durable conveyor belt for the opportunity and aspirations of thousands of young people. Institutions that open doors for people who didn't even know those doors existed.
Special forces operator in black uniform in the smoke

The terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels have sparked a war of words over the role of immigrants, refugees, and Muslims in the United States. The call from presidential candidates to shut the border, ban refugees, and actively patrol Muslim communities shows how horrific events half a world away have unsettled America.

But addressing the threats of terrorism requires thoughtful policies tailored to the specific country in question. While the United States should stand strong with its European allies to counter terrorism and defeat the Islamic State, it must also remember that it has large differences from Europe. These differences mean that the United States faces unique challenges and therefore should have unique solutions. Here are five reasons why the United States is not like Europe when it comes to terrorism, and how this affects policy.

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1. The United States is better at integrating immigrants, including Muslim immigrants.

This may seem somewhat counterintuitive given the rhetoric of the current presidential campaign, and the strict U.S. immigration policies the United States, but immigrants integrate better into the U.S. than Europe. There are a host of possible explanations, including different views on religion. The United States has a much less unionized and regulated labor force than much of Europe, which speeds immigrants' economic success. Muslim immigrants, in particular, integrate better in the United States than they do Europe. In many ways, Muslim Americans are even more tolerant and less prone to violence than other Americans.

2. The United States does not have the same cultural clashes that Europe does.

The United States is very patriotic, but does not have the same underlying cultural ethos that European nations do. This means that people with an 'outsider' culture can engage easier with civil society and institutions in the United States than they can in Europe. This is also true in education and the workforce. Being American can be reworked to mean almost any cultural norm, as long as it is patriotic to the United States. That is not true everywhere.

The United States also has a longer history of using religion as a positive part of the integration process; religious organizations in the United States often help provide refuge, respectability, and resources to newcomers. On the other hand, Europe's long suspicion of Islam and its 'erosion' of cultural values may have helped alienate the secluded communities involved in the current violence.

3. American immigrant communities are less secluded than European ones.

Europe has 'pockets' of immigrants that are more secluded from wider society than American immigrants. Muslim immigrants in particular are much more widely dispersed across the United States than they are in Europe. Over time, this means better integration with the population.

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The United States also faces a wider national spread of Muslim immigration. Muslims in America, for example, originate from 77 different countries with no major single group. In France, on the other hand, the main group of Muslims are Algerian. Newcomers to the United States have to engage with other groups, peoples, and cultures. In Europe, it is easier to congregate into an outside group, exacerbating existing cultural tensions.

4. The United States has a stronger law enforcement system than Europe.

Law enforcement agencies in European countries are not known for working well with each other, something that is a problem for a region with easy internal travel. Belgian officials questioned some of the Paris attackers before the attacks, but that information was not shared with France. Belgium in particular is concerning, due to its weak federal system and a lack of communication among its own security agencies. This allows terrorists to exploit the Schengen agreement though the region's weakest link.

The United States, in comparison, has focused on information sharing since September 11, 2001. It can share domestic information among law enforcement agencies in a more efficient way than Europe's disjointed arrangement. Terrorist attacks are still possible, especially lone wolf attacks, but large-scale organized attacks are harder to accomplish in the United States.

5. The United States can be much more selective in accepting immigrants.

The Paris attacks were committed by Belgian nationals and European residents, but the integration and social dynamic of immigration is an important part of this conversation. Since the attacks in Europe, the conversation has turned towards limiting immigration from places that have a high risk of producing terrorists. The United States, however, has a much greater ability to select who gets to enter the country than Europe. Particularly when it comes to refugees, the process is long and arduous. While there are security risks that could be addressed, the geography of the United States gives it more leeway in addressing these risks. Europe's location opens it up to much easier access by terrorist networks and organizations.

What does this all mean? The United States is a very different place than Europe and this changes how it should approach risks of terrorism. If the American approach to immigration and outsiders has helped bond new groups into the country, then our response to the attacks in Europe should be to strengthen those bonds. This means strengthening desires to be American, not weakening them with alienation and 'guilty until proven innocent' approaches.

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The terrorist attacks the United States has seen since 9/11 have been lone wolf attacks, unlike the large organized attacks in Europe. Could such attacks occur in the United States? It is possible, and the U.S. law enforcement needs to remain vigilant. To counter lone wolf attacks, however, the United States will need community help, both to identify at-risk individuals and counter radical narratives.
It's easier to start a war than to end it. And harder still is admitting defeat.

In the War on Drugs no one really wins. Even drug traffickers with all their riches kill each other off. For these reasons and more, the possibility of global drug reform represented by April's special United Nation's session on the topic symbolizes hope for many people.

The session, known as UNGASS, was accelerated for this year after Mexico and other Latin American countries requested it after enduring decades of unstoppable and fatal consequences in their home countries.

UNGASS can potentially reorient the world's priorities and resources in the global response to drug consumption. Such a reorientation could signal the end of a prohibitionist paradigm towards one of medical treatment and compassion.

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Clearly, new approaches are necessary especially in the face of a number of uncontroverted facts detailed by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

More than half a century of the institutionalization of drug prohibition with its criminalization of the consumption, production and sale of illegal drugs the War on Drugs is admittedly a failure. Just taking opium by way of example, today the production of opium increased 400% since 1980 and it is even purer and cheaper now in the United States. This basic economic model of supply and demand makes a laughing stock of today's prohibitionist paradigm.

The threats to public health that accompany the War on Drugs have worsened during this prohibition. Thousands of addicts die by using uncontrolled and contaminated drugs, needle exchange programs are outlawed for the most part, and Naloxone which can combat drug overdoses is hardly available in most countries.

In the United States in 2014 more than 10,000 persons died of heroin overdose, a 25% increase from the year before. At the other extreme an estimated 5.5 billion people live in countries without access to opiates that may be used to alleviate pain.

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As in any war, human rights compliance is the first casualty. Close to a thousand persons annually are executed in 33 countries where drug crimes lead to the death penalty in violation of international law. More women globally are incarcerated for drug crimes than for any other crime and in Latin America the number of women incarcerated for these offenses grew by 50% in fifteen years.

In the United States the disproportionate incarceration of African-Americans and Latinos is fueled by the War on Drugs which explains why the country has 5% of the world population but 25% of the world's prisoners.

Today illegal drug trafficking is a $322 billion dollar enterprise worth more than coffee, tobacco, cereal, wine and beer combined. Drug cartels, easily the most violent sector of civil society, are enriched by the profits of this War on Drugs.

At the same time the violence against civilians has no end. In Mexico alone since 2006 when its government enlisted its military to fight the drug trade, at least 60,000 persons were murdered, thousands have been disappeared, and thousands more have been displaced from their homes.

The global response is manifested in a wasteful investment of billions of dollars in our law enforcement, military, criminal justice and correctional systems. In the Caribbean, Central and South America the violence embedded in the drug war halts economic development in the public sector and deprives it of resources that could be used to improve education and social institutions.

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 22: Activist Kamilah Willingham speaks on stage at the GUESS Foundation and Peace Over Violence Denim Day Cocktail Event at at MOCA Grand Avenue on March 22, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ari Perilstein/Getty Images for GUESS)

To: Elizabeth Bartholet, Scott Brewer, Charles Donahue, Jr., Nancy Gertner, Janet Halley, Bruce L. Hay, Philip B. Heymann, David W. Kennedy, Duncan M. Kennedy, Randall L. Kennedy, Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Richard D. Parker, J. Mark Ramseyer, David Rosenberg, Lewis D. Sargentich, David L. Shapiro, Henry J. Steiner, Jeannie C. Suk, Laurence H. Tribe

There was no mutuality that night. The sense of entitlement to grope, mount, fondle, even penetrate -- to any extent -- any female body within reach that has a pulse, is not something that anyone should accept as reasonable, non-abusive, excusable behavior, even for a drunk guy. When this sense of entitlement is demonstrated, admittedly acted upon, and defended as such, it is clear that the person responsible, as well as the community he belongs to, has a serious problem.

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This is from my statement to Harvard Law School's Administrative Board on September 19, 2011. Ten months earlier, a friend and I were sexually assaulted by one of my classmates at Harvard Law School. The Administrative Board found, by clear and convincing evidence, after months of investigation and a day-long hearing, that Brandon Winston had sexually assaulted me and my friend while we were incapable of consenting. I remember the incredible feeling of relief that washed over me when I learned of their decision: Harvard Law was a school I could be proud of, where I was valued and standards went beyond rape myths and "boys will be boys."

It would never have occurred to me that five years later, we would be here: You, as members of the Harvard Law School faculty, would have revoked that decision and become a vocal minority very publicly doubling down on the side of the man who assaulted me and my friend.

You -- my former professors -- have joined together to silence and discredit my story of sexual assault and its institutional mishandling. Your attacks promote myths about sexual assault that allow a loathsome rape culture to thrive on our campuses and across our country. You omit key facts of the case, including the perpetrator, Brandon Winston's own statements, to advance your own false narrative in his defense under the guise of racial justice.

Even while claiming without evidence that Black men are disproportionately and wrongly implicated in on-campus sexual assault proceedings, you -- charged with shaping some of the brightest legal minds in the country -- ignore well-established research on the disproportionate rate at which women of color are sexually assaulted. It is for these women that I write -- the ones who will be sexually violated at Harvard Law School without accountability if you do not do better by them than you did by me, and for all of the sidelined victims whose pain is mocked, disparaged, or worse, ignored.

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Endorsing Mythology

I don't know what evolved version of his story my perpetrator sold you, but I'm sure the truth was cloaked in sensational, classic rape myths. It must have been compelling enough for you to overlook what an Independent Fact Finder, an Administrative Board that included your peers, the supplemental Hearing Officer, the Cambridge police, and the Middlesex District Attorney saw as persuasive evidence that Brandon Winston committed multiple sexual assaults that night.

What I do know is that you are not unbiased, erudite commentators on this case. Not one of you was among the professors who sat on the Ad Board and decided, after extensive evidence and confronting me and many other witnesses, that Brandon committed sexual assault. You did not hear the evidence. However, I assume that most, if not all of you were among those who decided that those findings were invalid based on your secretive process, a process I criticized in The Hunting Ground and in a successful Title IX complaint. Your open letters, press releases and the website you promote reek of retaliation and forsaken arrogance.



"The message you're sending is clear: Don't bother reporting unless you have a written confession, a witness, and -- oh, wait, we had those things!"



The Office of Civil Rights found the secret process by which you allowed the man you affectionately refer to as "our student Brandon" to be re-admitted to Harvard Law to be unequal, unfairly favoring the accused. I was not invited to offer additional testimony or evidence to the faculty, as Brandon was, nor was I even notified of any subsequent process until after the fact. I can only wonder whether Brandon, who did have notice and an opportunity to participate, appealed to any of you with his mythologized version of events before you voted to overturn the multiple findings that he was responsible for sexually assaulting us. None of you asked to discuss this case with me.

The message you're sending is clear: Don't bother reporting unless you have a written confession, a witness, and -- oh, wait, we had those things! This raises a great question, actually: What would it take for you to believe a sexual assault survivor?

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I have given the same account, consistently, since the beginning; Brandon has changed his story several times.

Excerpt from 1/15/2011 text message conversation with Brandon Winston, as read into evidence at his criminal trial:

Kamilah: Hahaha... but for realz... did you put your p in her v?

Brandon: No!! I passed out after some minor touchings no more than what you and I were doing a finger briefly in the v at most Tell her not to worry!

Excerpt from 1/17/2011 instant message conversation:

I don't think you care about Brandon Winston, nor do I believe you care about the persecution of Black men for false rape charges. If you did, you wouldn't be going out of your way to raise the profile of one who admitted to sexual assault. I did not publicly name him outside of court -- he was first named by a victim-blaming columnist who sought to discredit me. And you continue to bizarrely draw attention to him as you chase the spotlight, basking in his supposed victimization via exposure -- exposure you are feeding as you opportunistically stoke your own.

Smoke and Mirrors a/k/a Straw Men and Shiny Red Herrings

In your press release, you wrote: "There was never any evidence that Mr. Winston used force, nor were there even any charges that he used force."

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Are you familiar with this case? Did you review the extensive fact-finding report, or even my complaint, before voting to overturn your colleagues' finding in our favor? As some of your students are thankfully aware, bruises and broken bones are not actually necessary to establish that a sexual assault occurred. Unconsciousness and incapacitation are widely recognized as circumstances indicating the absence of consent to engage in sexual activity. Such circumstances tend to render the use of "force" moot.

In most cases of so-called "acquaintance rape," perpetrators do not rely on force so much as exploit their position of trust. In our case, focus on the absence of force fits well with my perpetrator's suggestions that we had a prior romantic relationship. There was no romance between us and no desire for any on my part. That insinuation summons the myths that women lie about rape out of disappointment and jealousy, or that being friendly with a man means you secretly want to be raped by him.

You also wrote that "No evidence whatsoever was introduced at trial that he was the one responsible for the inebriated state of the women who are portrayed in the film as his victims." What is that supposed to mean? If a man finds himself with two intoxicated, unconscious women friends, their bodies are fair game and he shouldn't be held responsible for treating them as such? That one loses the right to be treated as anything more than a sex doll the moment she drops her guard?



"If you believe that people should not refrain from undressing and probing the bodies of unconscious peers, you have no business teaching law."



I drank that night, and did a small amount of cocaine hours before the assault. I'm not proud of it, but I refuse to apologize or be ashamed because I would have been perfectly safe had there not been a predator in the room.

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I did not say, and it was never alleged in the HLS hearing or in court or in the film, that he was responsible for our state, though the possibility that we were drugged certainly crossed our minds. We will never know, but people who are unconscious, or who are so intoxicated that all they can manage to do is mumble incoherently, are not asking to be touched sexually. If you believe that people should not refrain from undressing and probing the bodies of unconscious peers, you have no business teaching law. The notion is insulting to the man you defend, as well as anyone who prefers not to be fingered while they're asleep.

In accusing me of a conscious set-up by having a used condom tested for DNA, you seem to believe that I am at once witty, cunning and desperately stupid. How little you must think of me and your colleagues and law enforcement who believed me. Actually, I've come to think you do likely believe me. You just don't think that what he did is worth the consequences. So which is worse: not being believed or being believed but being valued so little it doesn't matter?

[R]ace in the hole

Like the absence of "force" and evidence that Brandon was responsible for our intoxication, your trotting out of historical biases against Black men to silence and disregard the victimization of this Black woman is another straw man. You should be deeply ashamed of yourselves for using such an important issue in such a manipulative way.

In describing the refusal of a mostly-white grand jury to recognize my victimization, you said, "It is of course highly unusual for a grand jury to reject a prosecutor's request to indict." Is this the norm you cited every time a grand jury refused to indict the badge-wielding murderers of Black men last year, even when there were multiple witnesses and video evidence? Do you insist on the infallibility of the criminal justice system each time it disregards the lives of Black men and their families, refusing to acknowledge their victimization?

Indeed, when the time comes to address the role of race on campus, instead of the passionate concern I see in your aggressive defense of Brandon Winston, most of you have been silent, if not dismissive. Randall Kennedy, you recently condescendingly criticized the "inflated sense of victimization" among Black students pushing for change at Harvard. Janet Halley, you proudly tout your position as Royall Professor of Law -- an honor memorializing the Royall family's generous use of riches gained from the labor of enslaved Black people. Jeannie Suk, you've speculated without evidence that Black men are disproportionately accused of sexual assault in schools, while turning a blind eye to well-established research on the disproportionate rate at which women of color are subjected to sexual assault. If you are concerned with the intersection of race and sexual assault, why not start there?

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As to how grand juries respond to most cases of alleged sexual assault or rape: they don't, because these cases are rarely brought before them. In most stereotypical "he said, she said" cases, "she" usually says nothing; she decides not to report her sexual assault. When she does, the script is nothing nuanced: She says "I was raped;" he says, "It was consensual, she's a lying slut." Because rapes do not always leave evidence of bruises and broken bones (and even when they do, he says "she's a lying slut who likes it rough") and because there are rarely witnesses, prosecutors seldom press charges in these "impossible-to-prove" cases. They're impossible to prove because they require believing the victim beyond a reasonable doubt. In a "he said, she said," there will almost always be "reasonable" doubt so long as reasonableness means the rape myth that women lie about sex and believing her over him is considered unreasonable.



"To attempt to frame this misdemeanor conviction as anything else is perilously misleading."



In Brandon's case, the grand jury returned indictments only for the crimes that had an additional witness (me) and his written and recorded confessions. The one resulting conviction was for touching my friend's breast without her consent -- there was no "reasonable" doubt because I witnessed it and he described this crime several times in his own words. In the end, the jury compromised and recognized only the lesser-included offense of simple or "non-sexual" assault. Although the crime of assault is by definition a non-consensual and offensive touching, and he was clearly touching her breast in a sexual way, they apparently were not convinced of the seriousness of this action, which was originally a felony charge. It should not be surprising to you to find a sexual assault trivialized.

We're told to consider it a victory that we even made it to court and that there was any conviction at all. But Brandon's other victim and I see this conviction as an outrageous reminder of the long-term and continuing failures of the criminal justice system when it comes to addressing sexual assault seriously, and of how the odds are stacked against sexual assault survivors. To attempt to frame this misdemeanor conviction as anything else is perilously misleading.

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Charles Ogletree, I feel a particular sense of betrayal by you, a Black leader I looked up to and thought valued the experiences and pain of Black women. Now, you're part of a group that is engaging race in exactly the same way Clarence Thomas did when, counting on his colleagues' white guilt to distract them from the substance of Anita Hill's claims, he called her efforts to hold him accountable a "lynch mob." You saw through that. Why can't you see through this? The racial conscience you conjure and rely on here acknowledges only the historical wrongs suffered by Black men, while situating the dual oppression of Black women as marginal, irrelevant, and not about race at all.

An invitation

In his interview on June 13, 2011, Winston said, "...I remember getting into bed with ___ and I remember she was laying down and I remember shaking her to arouse her and she responded with -- she barely responded just with like ahhhh, sort of a groggy answer."

He went on: "I remember lifting her shirt off. Well, I remember laying there and like speaking into her ear and like shaking her on the shoulder and I was like, '___, sit up.' And I like -- she tried to sit up and I remember like holding her back while she sat up. And then we started making out, and I went to lift off her shirt and like she wouldn't lift up her arms and I said, 'lift up your arms.' And she did and I pulled her shirt off."

"And when I like -- I mean, she seemed -- she was definitely out of it, but she was I guess awake enough to like kiss me back when I made out with her."

Is this just a typical, confused, ambiguous drunken sexual encounter to you? If so, I ask that you consider what it means to accept this as normative behavior, and I suggest that you educate yourselves on the realities of sexual assault, especially the kind that happens on campuses. Meanwhile, you are not helping men by promoting the idea that they shouldn't be responsible for predatory behavior. You are not helping Black men by defending the actions of one who had to hold a barely conscious woman up so that he could put his tongue in her mouth. You are not helping women by asserting that they deserve to be assaulted if they become intoxicated. You are not helping to foster a safe environment for current or future Harvard Law students by institutionally betraying a former student who is a survivor.

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You've made current and future students who have been or who will be assaulted at Harvard Law School feel less safe and be less safe.

I am tired of being treated as if I don't matter. I am hurt by how much more easily you believe a man when he says "she's lying" than a woman when she says "he sexually assaulted me, and I deserve better." I am angry with you for forcing me, as my assailant did, to assert my value. But, most importantly, I am not alone. I am only one of the increasing number of survivors who reject the silence that you have endorsed in this situation and are trying to impose. You will not succeed in silencing my story -- I'm just one of many survivors in our community whose very real pain you will have to reckon with.

From you, I expect more, just as I expected integrity from the Black man who used to be my friend. The Harvard community deserves better. We all do. To all of you 19 Harvard Law Professors: Do better.

A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

_______________________
A picture taken on November 26, 2015 shows ambulances, police and fire fighter vehicles outside the mosque after a suspect letter with powder was found at the Great Mosque in Brussels on November 26, 2015. AFP PHOTO / BELGA / ERIC LALMAND ***BELGIUM OUT*** / AFP / BELGA / ERIC LALMAND (Photo credit should read ERIC LALMAND/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Greek mythology, Procrustes was a bandit who invited unsuspecting victims to spend the night at his house only to rob and kill them. His modus operandi was stretching or chopping his victims to make them fit into his iron bed. The insistence of many people on turning the debate on terrorism into a debate on religion often seems like an intellectual version of this gruesome exercise. Regardless of the role of individuals, governments, and organizations in generating terrorism, there seems a pathological preoccupation with fitting religion in as the prime mover. Following the attacks in Brussels the same tired old refrains are flying again: We need to focus on the role of religion in terrorism; we need to have an "honest" conversation about Islam; we need to stop being politically correct; we need to name the enemy; we need to support "real" reformers; we need to stop "regressive" liberals from "suppressing" this crucial debate by raising the canard of Islamophobia.

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Well here's a news flash; the only debate that has been ubiquitous in mainstream and social media since September 11, 2001 has been specifically about religion. An association has been made over and over between Islam and terrorism by a slew of commentators and journalists and there has rarely been much "political correctness" on display. There is a legion of people who have dedicated their entire careers to the threats of "Radical Islam." Let's see about that political correctness and suppression of debate:

Frank Gaffney -- former Assistant Secretary at the Pentagon who runs the Center for Security Policy -- was recently named by presidential hopeful Ted Cruz as a security advisor. He was also cited by Donald Trump in his recent tweet about stopping Muslim immigration to the United States. Gaffney has frequented conservative media since 2003 and now has a potential path to the corridors of the White House. Or how about Robert Spencer, darling of the Fox News Network who runs the popular website "Jihadwatch" and who is quoted almost every day by other prominent conservative commentators like Pamela Geller and Andrew Breitbart. Regarding those two: much as they are often criticized by the media for their openly anti-Muslim rhetoric, their blogs have followings in the hundreds of thousands and they have popularized outlandish notions like "Creeping Shariah" and "Taqiyya". Geller has excellent financing and is courted not only by Fox News but by liberal talk shows like Bill Maher's extremely popular "Real Time."

And it is not just conservative media. New Atheist writers like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have kept themselves in the limelight for the past decade purely on the strength of their frequent diatribes against Islam. In that respect, they are even more ominous in the picture they paint of millions in the Muslim world praying and planning for violent Jihad and global domination. They have also spawned and support a small but very vocal group of "Ex-Muslims" and "Progressive Muslims" like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tarek Fatah who say the same exact things but are courted even more by certain sections of liberal media due to their "credential" of being a present or former Muslim.

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Or how about the two main Republican contenders for president or many prominent members of the Tea Party; is their conversation about Islam "honest" enough? Are their solutions powerful enough?

Where is this "honest" conversation about Islam being suppressed? In what section of the media and on what planet? Because it certainly isn't this one. Whether it is cable news or social media, not a day goes by without a mention of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.

Let me help these people along the way and summarize the ideas they are pushing for: The Muslim World must accept that there is something intrinsic to Islam that creates and perpetuates violence and terrorism. That Muslims must "reform" their faith by disavowing certain parts of their scriptures which they must accept are advocating violence and global domination. Better still, they should treat religion as a badge of membership and not take it seriously because, you know, religion makes people stupid. After all this is done, extremism will decline, ISIS and Al-Qaeda will stop recruiting, extremist interpretations of Islam will be defeated and we will all live happily every after.

Here's the first problem with this line of thinking:

There is no historical precedent of the followers of a faith reforming by disavowing parts of their faith. Societies have reformed by movements within religion paralleled by political and social movements . The Lutherans for example, broke the monopoly of the Catholic Church and weakened its political power. This paved the way for successive Western governments, especially after the advent of democracy, to separate religion and government through a gradual legislative process that required successive leaders to stay loyal to the idea of secularism. Political rights, women's rights and LGBT rights were also won through sustained legislative and civil campaigns, not through effecting a rejection of faith or scripture. In fact these movements left religion largely untouched which may be part of the reason for their success. When you start a debate about religion you invariably end up with two sides each trying to win the other over, never with two sides doing their best to find middle ground and reach a consensus. That is the nature of religious faith, as well as the opposition to it. Always has been, always will be.

Here's the second problem with the argument:

ISIS and Al-Qaeda have already made religion the centerpiece of their narrative. They have already appointed themselves the only true defenders of Islam. It is not that they don't care about how the subject of Islam is discussed in the West; they would in fact fervently hope that it is broached with insensitivity so that they can continue to prey on Muslim populations by selling their story of Islam being under global assault and by continuing to present themselves as victims even as they continue to make thousands of Muslims the victims of their crimes. Many, including presidential candidates are already making irresponsible statements and fanning hatred. The sort of debate that would emerge if those who wish "political correctness" to cease on this issue succeeded would be exactly what ISIS needs, and already exploits, to complement its "Us Vs Them" narrative.

Here's the third and most important problem with this argument:

An unbridled dialogue about Islam and terrorism will not stop ISIS from continuing on the warpath. It will not stop Bashar Al-Assad from bombing his people. It will not stop the House of Al-Saud from exporting anti-Shia hatred all over the world. It will not stop the proxy sectarian wars that Saudi Arabia and Iran are motivating from Karachi to Beirut. It will not stop the British and American Governments from selling hundreds of billions dollars worth of weaponry and fighter jets to Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt where they are used to crush democratic uprisings and kill civilians. It will not stop the world from continuing to support-in fact it will increase support- for the Kings and dictators whose jails and torture cells have cultivated the atrocity exhibition that is ISIS and Al-Qaeda. It will not stop the misguided invasions by global powers that create the vacuum which gave extremism a grand arena in Afghanistan in 1979 and in Iraq in 2003. It will not stop the religiopolitical parties of the Muslim World who have pushed anti-women and anti-minority legislation while thwarting progressive legislation to keep their political role alive. In short, none of what births and sustains violent extremism will be affected by this "honest debate" many want about Islam.

It is high time to disembark from this ship of fools and tackle the people and policies that have directly contributed to this grotesque golden age of global terrorism. Stop supporting and selling weapons to brutal, autocratic regimes. Sanction and lobby Saudi Arabia and Iran till they agree to sit at a table and talk like grown-ups. Support democratic forces without prejudice and support progressive Muslims without demanding that they reach your desired level of lacking religiosity first. Stop ISIS from smuggling oil, stop recruits from reaching them through every border. The answer to terrorism will not leap out at us from the pages of scripture; it will require the world putting aside petty politics and vested interest and working together.

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Islamic reform and tackling terrorism are not the same thing. Reform is a gradual process that takes place on many fronts and cannot be forced or accelerated by outside forces. Terrorism needs to be dealt with now. This is not Islam or Muslims versus the rest of the world so stop trying to make it that. This is terrorism versus the rest of the world, especially Muslims who have suffered most of all.

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A gathering in Brussels to remember the victims of the terrorist attacks. (Valentina Media/Flickr)

They killed 31 people and injured about 260 others in two locations in Brussels, Belgium: the airport and a city metro station.

Who are these men and how did they manage to carry off such a major terrorist attack?

At least one was already suspected of terrorism

Brothers Khalid El Bakraoui, age 27, and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, age 30, were two of the suicide bombers. Khalid carried out the Maelbeek metro bombing that killed at least 20 people, while Ibrahim was part of the Zaventem airport bombing that killed another 11.

Turkey had already suspected one brother of being a terrorist, but Belgium wasn't watching him or his brother.

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https://twitter.com/DailySabah/status/712757982862385152

There are close links between Brussels and Paris

One of the men who apparently carried out the bombing at the Brussels airport was Najim Laachraoui, who was suspected of being a bomb maker who helped carry out the Paris terrorist attacks last November.

On top of that, the El Bakraoui brothers had helped the Paris bombers by helping them get weaponry and providing them with a safe house in Belgium to meet before they carried out that attack.

And the mastermind of the Paris attack, Saleh Abdeslam, was arrested days before the Brussels attack. If he hadn't been, he apparently would have helped carry out this attack too. (Abdeslam was born in Belgium.)

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Right after Paris happened, given the bombers' links to Belgium, there were immediate fears about a similar attack in Brussels. Those fears, horribly, came true.

They had materials for way, way more bombs

As bad as the Brussels bombing was, it clearly could have been much worse. Because the bombers had a couple of bombs and a suicide belt at the airport that didn't go off, and had left other bombs in suitcases at their house.

Those bombs had tons of this bomb-making material called TATP. Well, not literally tons--pounds--but it's seriously a lot.

Authorities recovered 33 pounds of explosive TATP at Brussels house. Attackers in Paris used less than a pound https://t.co/anvILCPUkq  Rebecca Shabad (@RebeccaShabad) March 23, 2016

33 pounds of the explosive TATP were found in Brussels. A single tablespoon can do this: https://t.co/J62fcNTvgphttps://t.co/kwColFbGbH  New York Times Video (@nytvideo) March 23, 2016

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Bomb-disposal technicians surprised by quantity of explosive TATP found in Belgium https://t.co/60aIQ7MvgH @cjchivers  New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 24, 2016

It's scarily easy to make TATP, which is why it's hard for authorities to figure out who's making it.

TATP can be made with basic chemistry skills and relatively simple equipment, but the process is risky and tedious. https://t.co/qsgbFR9S6Q  New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 24, 2016

Bombs made, used during attacks believed to be made out of TATP, can be made from items sold legally at drug stores pic.twitter.com/ISjpL0idJN  CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) March 24, 2016

Not 1, but 2 bombers are still on the run

Three bombers died in the Brussels attacks, and police realized immediately that one had gotten away. Three dead bombers, another one out there somewhere. And then they discovered there was a 5th terrorist.

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It's not 100% clear, but it seems that one terrorist from each attack location got away: one from the airport, the other from the metro. The airport bomber is being called the man in white because he was caught on camera wearing a white shirt and a tan jacket.

The 3 Brussels bombing suspects. The two on the left are the brothers. (Wikimedia Commons)

There's an intense manhunt going on right now for these two.

WATCH: New clues and warnings missed in the massive manhunt for #Brussels terror suspects. https://t.co/IwbMlITPVv  Good Morning America (@GMA) March 24, 2016

There are many more terrorists like these

Experts believe hundreds of ISIS terrorists have been trained and sent throughout Europe to carry out more attacks like the ones in Paris and Brussels.

Breaking: ISIS has dispatched hundreds of fighters trained to attack in Europe, the AP has learned. @ShepNewsTeamhttps://t.co/I3hgjxnVFk  Fox News (@FoxNews) March 23, 2016

It's relatively easy for terrorists to move around Europe, and relatively hard for intelligence to track them. Plus, European countries aren't sharing all the intel they are gathering.

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These aren't just insurgents coming from countries where ISIS has taken hold, like Syria and Iraq. Many of them are European themselves--often "third-generation Muslim immigrants, who have become radicalized in poor communities left to develop outside the national culture."

So while several presidential candidates in the US are focusing on keeping refugees out due to terrorism fears, Europe is struggling with homegrown terrorists.
Zdenek Pelc is the chairman of the Board of Directors, owner and former CEO of GZ Media the world's biggest vinyl record producer. Pelc has worked for GZ Media for more than 32 years; he is the longest running CEO in the history of the Czech Republic. GZ Media has been featured by The New York Times, Bloomberg, the BBC, and the AFP. Pelc has been awarded the prestigious prize for Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 in the Czech Republic. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Prague. He also studied at the St. Galen University in Boston and at the Harvard Business School.

Who is your role model?

My role model is Kenneth D. Brody, who is the former chairman of the Export - Import Bank of the US and former partner at Goldman Sachs. He's the person I want to follow. Private American Capital joined our company in 1997 with Ken leading the investor group. That gave me the opportunity to work with him for many years. It was a huge change for me, transitioning from small Czech conditions to the large financial world. He was the person who really empowered me and gave me the opportunity to strike out on my own to lead and build the company.

What was a professional challenge you personally faced in your career?

When I joined the company in the 1980s, vinyl had already been losing ground to cassette tapes. By the early 1990s, the vinyl album was all but extinct, and the demand for vinyl records was close to zero. It was a tough period. We decided to keep the machines and never threw them out.

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The decision not to throw out old vinyl pressing machines certainly paid off for us. Vinyl records rose from the ashes and made a return from near extension. There has been a mass resurgence of vinyl in recent years. Demand is growing by 50% year on year growth every year. It's a kind of back-to-basics movement now. Vinyl was an inevitable reaction to the rise of digital music, which offers little room for art and the kind of tangibility people were used to. Some people just like their music to be touchable. The growth for vinyl records won't last forever. It's possible that making vinyl is a fashion that will disappear in a few years. Through this experience, I've learned to trust my intuition. I take in all the information I can gather. I listen to ideas and advice. Then I go with my gut, what my heart feels most strongly.

Any other challenge?

Another challenge for me was that I started learning English when I was 40. I then enrolled at Harvard Business School over a three-year program at the age of 49. I was there between years 2000 and 2002. It was a tough period, because English was my second language, so I had difficulties learning all the materials. I spent lots of time learning, studying 'til 4 or 5 in the morning every day to be prepared for the lessons. In the beginning, I was reluctant to apply for studies because I was 49, but then I gave it a try. I wanted to show my children that it is necessary to learn for your whole life. Self-growth is key to living fulfilling lives and having successful careers. I want to be a good role model for my children.

What are some leadership lessons you've learned?

I've learned that a leader also has to work hard to be a good role model for other people in the company. I would not ask my employees to do something I wouldn't do. It's not easy to say, "you have to drink water," while you yourself drink wine. Secondly, knowledge is essential in a company. Without knowledge I don't believe we can be successful.

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I've also learned that you can't expect people to change quickly. You need to have patience - don't be in a hurry for changes - because it takes time to convince people that what you are saying and doing is right and good for the future success of the company.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I am a collaborative leader and I want to empower the team. It's all about having the ability to listen and give people enough freedom and room to do a good job. I need to understand what motivates people. I use empathy to understand each person. You can be a better leader to your employees if you understand what they are going through. In every situation, I look at the other person and try to understand what they need and how I can address that. I try to offer my employees opportunities to learn and experience the things they want to learn about. I make sure they have opportunities and expose them to new things.

What is the key to your company's success?

The firm's success lies in hard work, the ability to adapt to market conditions, the comprehensiveness and flexibility of its range, employee motivation, and innovation. The bottom line is that everything we achieve is down to the team, and without each one of us we couldn't do what we're doing - that breeds a healthy respect for each others' skillsets and an acceptance of the need to listen to, learn from, and support each other.

How do you hire?

I want to know what kind of person my potential employee is, and to get a sense of their desire to come here. Firstly, I ask for their past achievements and relevant experiences. I look for patterns in their life showing they've conceived of a plan in the past and accomplished it. To get to your current level, was it a steep trajectory? Did it take five or ten years to get to that particular level of achievement? That's going to be predictive of what someone is going to do within our company.

What advice do you typically give college students?

Young people nowadays are looking for easy ways to accomplish things, how to make their lives balanced and easy. They expect to perform well only if their salary is high. And I think it should be the opposite way - they first need to show what they can do and work hard, and if they do, they can be successful as well. And there has to be persistence, because anything worth doing in life requires persistence.

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This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Twenty-two days, five countries, one message: end the drug war.

Starting in Honduras on March 28th, the Caravan for Peace, Life and Justice will travel through El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States with the goal of reaching New York City on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs beginning on April 19.

Made up of a diverse group of people including victims of the drug war, families who have lost relatives to violence or incarceration, human rights defenders, journalists, faith leaders, activists and others, the Caravan will travel through some of the places most affected by the war on drugs with the purpose of giving way to an inclusive, collective and open dialogue on drug policy and creating alternatives to the failed prohibitionist regime.

Why Latin America?

As one of the primary regions for drug production and trafficking, Latin America has become a hub of human rights violations, organized crime, systemic impunity and environmental destruction. In Central America, the legacy of brutal civil wars combined with militarization strategies funded by the U.S. has given way to some of the most dangerous cities in the world, forcing thousands to abandon their homes in search of safety and risking deportation once they reach Mexico's southern and northern borders.

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In Honduras, Garifuna, indigenous and rural communities have been hit the hardest through gang violence and drug trafficking operations encroaching on their ancestral lands. Speaking out against the drug war comes at a high cost and those who engage in social justice and environmental activism are brutally silenced, as evidenced by the recent murders of Berta Caceres and Nelson Garcia from the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

In neighboring El Salvador, between 20 and 30 people are murdered every day and approximately $400 million (USD) are paid by civilians in extortions every year. Similarly, Guatemala's drug trafficking networks are responsible for 45% of homicides and overcrowded prisons with almost three times the people they can hold. Crossing into Mexico, over 150,000 people have been murdered and more than 27,000 disappeared since 2006, along with approximately 120 journalists who have been killed since 2000. There, the human cost of the drug war has been largely fueled by militarized national security strategies financed with a $25.6 billion (USD) budget from the U.S. as of 2016.

While Latin America has paid a heavy price for implementing interventionist drug policies, the devastating effects of prohibition are not unique to the region. In the United States, over 2.2 million people are currently incarcerated and 80% of those in federal prisons for drug offenses are black or Latino. Drug law violations have been the main driver of new admissions to prison for decades and while federal and state governments have spent $1 trillion on the drug war in the past 40 years, federal assistance for harm reduction initiatives, such as syringe access programs that would help tackle the upsurge in opioid overdoses, has been nonexistent.

Clearly, we still have a long way to go.

Why now?

After decades of punitive global drug policies revolving around UNGASS 1998's unrealistic pledge of a "drug free world" and the 1961, 1971 and 1988 International Drug Control Treaties, many governments and civil society organizations alike are calling for a different approach to drug policy that prioritizes human rights, public health, harm reduction and sustainability.

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As people from around the globe convene in New York for UNGASS 2016, the Caravan aims to shed light on the human faces and heartrending stories of the U.S.-driven drug war and its impact across the Americas.

Making its final stop in New York City on April 18, some of the actions planned for that day include a walk from City Hall to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan in order to highlight the ties between drug policy and criminal justice reform, a gathering outside the U.N. with families of drug war victims from around the globe and an evening event at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem bringing together faith leaders opposed to the drug war.

Twenty-two days, five countries, one message: end the drug war. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.

Laura Krasovitzky is the Drug Policy Alliance representative for the caravan. Ted Lewis is human rights director for Global Exchange and the coordinator general of the Caravan.
Healthcare in the United States is not safe. One in four patients admitted to a hospital will suffer some form of unintended harm, one in six will get an infection and about 500 a day will die of a preventable error. Healthcare is considered the most dangerous occupation - more dangerous than coal mining or building skyscrapers.

With so many people getting hurt, many healthcare leaders are trying to import effective safety strategies from other industries. A conference hosted by Johns Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality explored these ideas. Led by Armstrong's director, MacArthur "Genius Grant" awardee Dr. Peter Pronovost, the conference examined examples of "high reliability" strategies used in manufacturing, transportation and other industries.

One sector Pronovost thinks worthy of particular attention is nuclear power, an industry where -- thank heavens -- safety is king.

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In the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the leaders of every commercial nuclear reactor across the globe created the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), with the goal of achieving industry-wide excellence. WANO sends teams of peer reviewers to observe operations and ensure safety at every commercial nuclear power plant in the world.

"We like to say the entire industry is held hostage to each other," explained Riccardo Chiarelli, WANO senior program manager. "If an accident happens in a nuclear power plant in Japan, the nuclear industry in the U.S. and everywhere else will be impacted. If we want to succeed as an industry, we need to make sure everybody is at the highest level of excellence. We cannot afford low performance anywhere in the world."

Chiarelli was recently asked to speak at a forum of the National Academy of Sciences on future directions for safer patient care, and gave a webinar February 25 at the Imperial College of London, on how lessons learned from the nuclear industry can be applied to patient safety. What follows is a summary of a conversation I had with Chiarelli about the principles of nuclear safety that might be applied to healthcare.

1. Leadership and accountability are inextricably linked.

Nuclear operators put emphasis on leadership at every level, insisting that leadership "treat safety as the highest priority." This is a quality we look for in health systems too. But Chiarelli ups the ante: leadership must take responsibility. When something goes wrong, Chiarelli says, it is necessary to examine the underlying factors that led to the error and be accountable for what happened.

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Chiarelli uses "responsibility" to describe what I would consider an alternate form of "just culture"-- one in which the individual mistake-maker is not necessarily pointed to, but the leader is. "At the end of the day, the station director is responsible for everything," says Chiarelli.

2. Focus on outcomes.

WANO's reviewers do not arrive at a plant with an unending list of processes they must check for in every department, as government surveyors and accreditation teams in healthcare often do. Reviewers work from a book called Performance Objectives and Criteria.

"You can organize your plant as you will, according to your culture, your language, your people, as long as it gets results. There is a requirement that you put safety as a priority and train your people to the highest possible level. It is our only requirement. We don't check systems and processes," Chiarelli explains.

Healthcare's heavy focus on checking process boxes leads to burnout, as dedicated clinicians spend enormous amounts of time complying with tasks and less time connecting their work directly to the health of the patient. For the nuclear industry, however, the safest practices focus our eyes on our common prize.

3. When workers speak, leadership listens.

Nuclear operators agree on a set of principles for the culture of safety within a power plant. The peer reviewers in particular check for two aspects. First, "every individual should be free to raise concerns and problems without fear of retaliation." This fear of speaking up was considered one of the root causes of the Chernobyl accident. It is also a well-researched issue for safety in hospitals.

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The second key principle is that when employees report problems, those problems are promptly addressed and corrected. At inspections, reviewers check if employees reported problems through the system database, and if they aren't reporting, they ask them why not.

"Everything is logged. If I find a door which is broken I log it. A spurious alarm, I log it," says Chiarelli. "If we find this is a big issue, a repeating issue, we would raise this as a main issue in our report and share it with the station manager."

It is self-evident that even relatively small problems should be reported and fixed. But watch how eyebrows raise when this notion is applied in a healthcare setting. At Chiarelli's session at the National Academy of Sciences meeting, healthcare insiders gave the example of the cacophony of alarms and buzzers that sound off constantly in the average ICU. Many of these are false alarms, and nurses and physicians must learn to interpret which one signals the true emergency.

Chiarelli said that in his industry, each and every time a false alarm went off the worker is expected to report it, and leadership is held accountable for quick correction. Many clinicians find it difficult to imagine reporting each false ICU alert, and would think of it as a time-consuming and fruitless exercise. But Chiarelli points out that the sense of fruitlessness is itself a safety problem. When employees don't feel that leadership will respond, the problems fester and leadership sends an implicit message that safety is not the priority.

4. There are no isolated incidents.

For the nuclear industry, every incident, whether it's a miscommunication among department heads (one of the most common problems) or an error, requires analysis to explain how the system could have prevented it. Leadership is brought in to discuss the system failures and how to fix them.

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In healthcare, system failures and miscommunications are so common that only a small portion of them are ever brought to the attention of leadership or made the subject of a root cause analysis. Yet in many respects even minor errors hold the key to serious harms.

5. Aspire to be perfect.

Every country has its own set of regulations governing nuclear operations, and some are stricter than others. Chiarelli says that is appropriate, but WANO seeks to push the industry far beyond compliance with basic standards toward top-performing excellence. "The objective is for everybody to succeed. WANO is a sort of self-regulator, so we get the highest level of safety as an industry."

Hospitals in the U.S. are often focused on compliance with regulations from government and payers. Only a subset of hospitals set aggressive goals for excellence. A handful aim to get to zero infections or accidents.
This is 13-year-old Misha Shamonin, one of the innocent victims of the Great Purge who were shot in the Butovo firing range near Moscow. Misha Shamonin, one of innocent victims of the Great Purge who were shot in the Butovo firing range near Moscow. Photo Credit: Lena Hades.

I titled my new art project "Abyss" because this word is definite. My ultimate artistic goal is to create a visualization of the nietzschean abyss. "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster", Friedrich Nietzsche says, "and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you". I pose myself a question: What does it mean? Can I paint the abyss? The art project ABYSS is a long detailed reply to the question.

The English word ABYSS sounds in Russian like   (bez dna) - it means "without bottom". If you fall into the Russian abyss you fall for miles and miles, deeper and deeper, infinitely. It is said that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. There is no salvation at the Russian abyss. Its name was the Great Terror -  campaign of mass arrests and executions which occurred from 1937 to 1938. One of the deepest Soviet abyss called the Butovsky Firing Range swallowed 20 761 human victims - men, women, children.

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The youngest person executed at the Butovsky Firing Range was 13-year-old Misha Shamonin, he was an orphan, a street boy, his only crime was the theft of two loaves of bread.

Misha Shamonin stares out at us from his prison mug shot taken before the shooting. He is wrapped in a big greatcoat, too big for him, having the eyes open wide as in amazement. Poor little orphan boy of 13, he was executed on December 9, 1937. It is so unjust to die at such an early age!

Among 20,761 victims who were executed in 1937-1938, one of them was Vladimir Timiryov, a young talented handsome man, the son of Admiral Sergey Timiryov of the Russian Imperial Navy and the Russian poet Anna Timiryova.

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His maternal grandfather was Wassily Safonoff, a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Vladimir's mother divorced his father in 1918 to join her lover, Admiral Alexander Kolchak. Vladimir Timiryov graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute. He worked as an artist and book illustrator. For example, Jack London's book "Northern Tales" was published with Timiryov's watercolors drawings.

Vladimir was falsely accused of being a German spy and a stepson of Kolchak and arrested on 22 March 1938. He was sentenced to death under Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code by NKVD troika (NKVD troika in Soviet Union history were commissions of three persons who convicted people without trial). The death sentence was carried out at the the Butovsky Firing Range on May 28,1938 -- Vladimir Timiryov was executed by shooting...

Actress Marija Leiko, a Latvian-born star of German stage and a silent movie actress in Europe since the1910s, was one of 858 executed women at the Butovo Firing Range. She was a talented actress, known for three silent movies: "Falscher Start"(Wrong Start) (1919), Am Ruedesheimer Schloss steht eine Linde (There is a linden of the Ruedesheimer castle) (1928) and Die Rothausgasse (The Rothaus alley) (1928). Actress Leiko was arrested on 15 December 1937 on fabricated charges of belonging to a "Latvian counter-revolutionary nationalist group". She was sentenced to death and on 3 February 1938 and she was executed by a firing squad. Her body was thrown into a mass grave. Marija Leiko was "posthumously rehabilitated in absence of a crime" in 1958.

According to the documents 20761 people were executed at Butovo from August 8, 1937 until October 19, 1938. The majority of victims were residents of Moscow and Moscow Region; 2000 people were from the Russian Federation; 1,468 people from Ukraine, 604 people from Belarus; 1702 people were from the Baltic republics, there were people from Moldova, South Caucasus, Central Asia and Kazakhstan, from Germany, Poland, France, the USA, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Japan, India, China. There were people of all ages - the youngest victim was 13 years old, the oldest - 80 years old.
What if you could visit a French city carved into arrondissements, with riverbanks for romantic promenades at dusk and beautiful buildings that sparkle at night - all without setting foot in Paris?

You would be in France's other "City of Lights", Lyon.

And you would wonder why you'd never been here before, since the figures confirm it: visitors love Lyon, France's second travel destination.

Seeing Paris is important, fundamental even.

But Lyon is where you might touch France's heart and feel its essence.

Lyon, Capital of Gastronomy

For many, that essence is food. Nothing embodies it better than the name Bocuse, whose most approachable venue is Les Halles, an indoor market of sorts where the escargots are as large as oysters and the oysters as plump as well-ripened figs.

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Alternatively, your Bocuse experience could take the form of a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the Auberge du Pont de Collonges, his three-Michelin starred restaurant, or to his hotel and restaurant school on Place Bellecour, where students replace chefs and waiters.

If you're feeling casual, visit one of his five city brasseries. It may not be haute cuisine, but each provides great value and, well, it is Bocuse.

Lyon, City of History

Food may fuel Lyon's heartbeat, but history feeds its soul.

You'll sense it in the heart of Old Lyon, as you catch your breath at a cafe on the Place St. Jean, across from the 15th century Cathedral.

You can chase it down the pedestrian Rue St Jean, lined with ancient buildings, quaint shops and plenty - as always in Lyon - of food.

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Dart into one of the many traboules, those secret passageways originally meant to protect silk workers from the rain. Only a few dozen are open to the public - and there's an iPhone app for that, by the way.

High above you on Fourviere hill sits the Basilica. Look closely for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower next door. Not the Eiffel Tower, of course, but a pocket version which legend says was built to compete with Paris. Being parsimonious, Lyon decided to make it smaller and save money...

Lyon, City of Silk

Another of Lyon's hills is also drenched in history: Croix-Rousse, once the capital of Europe's silk trade is now the city's answer to Montmartre.

As you climb the cobblestoned Grande Rue, notice the multitude of broad windows on upper storeys: they once allowed brilliant light to flood the silk weavers' workshops located there.

The workers are gone but their memory is everywhere - in museums or innumerable shops, restaurants or foods containing the word soie - silk.

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Lyon, City of Murals

You could spend your time exploring every side street in Croix-Rousse or picking your way through the nearby Roman Amphitheatre des Trois Gaules, once dedicated to people's assemblies, gladiator fights - and the massacre of Christians.

Or you could walk around looking upwards, often the best way to see Lyon.

The most impressive of the city's many mural works of art is the Mur des Canuts, the silk workers' wall. The city thoughtfully scattered a few park benches to allow you to sit and contemplate. And you will, never quite sure whether those visitors catching their breath on the stairs are real or works of art.

Lyon ranks in the top five world capitals for street art and murals and you could spend your entire visit hopping from mural to mural. It also has the world's first 'mural art university', ECohlCite. And yes, there's an app to tell you where the murals are.

Lyon, City of Lights

To many, Lyon is best known for its wintertime Fete des Lumieres, or Festival of Lights, which each December carpets the city with dazzling light shows (in 2015 the festival was cancelled for security reasons in the wake of the Paris terror attacks).

You don't have to wait until December. Just go out at dusk, any dusk. When the blue hour strikes Lyon, the lights go on across the city. From the town hall to the Basilica, from the bridges to the squares, lights scintillate against buildings in waves that dance across the facades.

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Lyon, City of Antiques

If you have the good fortune to be in Lyon early on a Sunday morning, grab a bus or a cab and get yourself to the Puces du Canal, France's second largest flea market. You'll spot 1920s leather chairs resting next to Renaissance puppets and 1960s chrome lamps. The earlier you arrive the better, because the 'pros' show up and grab all the good stuff before the day-trippers have crawled out of bed.

Stop for coffee in the middle of the market at one of the small bars frequented by merchants. In scenes likely unchanged in decades, antique dealers trade stories and throw back their early-morning white wine or cognac, especially when the cold winter bites. Sometimes, the elders 'forget' to go outside for a smoke, forgetting the smoking ban and pretending they're still in 'good old France'. Looking for something more upmarket? More than 100 shops in the Cite des Antiquaires (literally the City of Antique Dealers) are packed with high-end treasures, both classical and offbeat.

So yes, Paris may well be France's window to the world.
As a teenager, George Washington kept a notebook where he wrote 110 rules of civility and decent behavior, based on Jesuit teachings. Civility refers to how we communicate ideas in the public square. In politics, it means having good manners even in disagreement -- and is commonly understood as a standard of decency for how our leaders should behave. This is as true today as it was in the beginning of U.S. history. For a democratic society to endure and prosper, its civics must be built on the cornerstones of trust and dignity -- communicated through civility. The enemies of civility are humiliation and fear, which erode and then undermine this critical civic foundation. In a democracy, the most basic and participatory layer of civics is how citizens communicate about ideas. For this reason, civility must be defended. Decency is critical for the interpersonal activities that happen underneath today's campaign headlines -- in group relationships and informal gatherings. In your neighborhood, for example. Our political leaders have a unique responsibility. They must demonstrate civil behavior and consistently repudiate fear-mongering and insults. Bullies exist, but they should be called out and their behavior marginalized. This is true from kindergarten to the presidential race. As House Speaker Paul Ryan explained earlier this week, when people distrust politics, they distrust institutions, they lose faith in government and they lose faith in the future. There's a reason the word "civility" is related to the word civilization. Without it, societies fall apart.

Malevolent leaders throughout history have known how to destroy dignity and trust and stockpile fear and humiliation. The Nazis certainly did. In Jerusalem in 1960, the Gestapo bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann was on trial for his key logistical role implementing the Final Solution (annihilation of the Jews). On the stand, in a discourse with Israeli Judge Moshe Landau about what could have stopped Germany's descent into industrial murder, Eichmann spoke bureaucratically and affirmatively. "Organized layers of civil courage could have stopped the Nazis," he said. Civility is the first layer of this social defense. Hannah Arendt covered Eichmann's Trial for the New Yorker magazine. She coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe the moral disengagement that the Nazi bureaucracy facilitated. The banality of evil is bigger than one individual. It describes a situation where social norms and institutions allow atrocities as a matter of course -- where an embedded weak and non-reflective character like Eichmann succeeds just by following the rules.

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The Banality of Virtue? How might we organize the 21st century so that democracy thrives? Is there a civic system to tip the balance in favor of the good? After all, most of us do the right thing all the time without even noticing it. The "banality of virtue" describes this theory of human behavior in crisis. It features regular people who see their own heroic acts as normal -- for example, individuals who rescued and sheltered Jews during World War II. In interviews, they described their risky actions as something anyone would do, not heroic. They demonstrated trust and dignity in action. They showed how normal it is to be civil, even in the middle of a war. Protecting Democratic Institutions in the Information Age One place to support a positive civic direction in the coming years is the U.S. Congress. Technology will play a central role in restoring the promise of Congress and rebuilding the reputation of democracy. After all, America's greatest strength is its ability to scale inclusion. Technology can help create new rules of engagement for sharing ideas publicly. Social media is already exploring online norms for inclusion. If presidential candidates had to abide by Reddit's code of conduct, we'd all be in a better place. Mozilla's community guidelines are excellent. Twitter Australia's #PositionofStrength program is another example of the Internet's civic potential.

How can democracy best endure through rough times? Whether online or off, civil communication is vital for democratic resilience. This is a consistent theme in my Resilient Democracy research with Congress. Here is more:

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A resilient system protects itself. We're not doing that very well right now A resilient democracy has indomitable institutions -- Congress must endure For Congress, it means being flexible and able to adapt with changing societal and cultural norms A resilient system must offer solutions better than the extremists A system that is responsive, not reactive A resilient Congress would have the best knowledge available at the right time Resilience means all Americans are actually connected
The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released a new report, The Gap: The Affordable Housing Gap Analysis 2016, which documents a shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available rental units for the nation's 10.4 million extremely low income (ELI) renter households, whose income is 30% or less of their community's median. Based on 2014 American Community Survey data, the report finds that nationally there are only 31 affordable and available rental units for every 100 ELI households.



There are at least twenty states with fewer units than the national average. Nevada has only 17 available and affordable units per every 100 ELI renter households. Other states with the greatest shortage include Alaska (21/100), California (21/100), Arizona (21/100), Florida (22/100) and Oregon (22/100). Where does your state stand in terms of providing affordable and available housing to its extremely low income population? The following NLIHC map clearly displays a depressing scene.





Among the nation's largest 50 metropolitan areas, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL and Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV have the lowest number of rental units affordable and available to ELI renter households, where there are only 15 units per 100 ELI households. Boston-Cambridge-Newtown, MA-NH and Pittsburgh, PA, with 46 units per 100 ELI households, have the greatest supply. The following table lists the metropolitan areas with the best and worse availability of rental units affordable to ELI renter households.

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Millions of Americans are compelled to choose between housing and other necessities, such as food, medicine, education, and transportation. One financial crisis puts them at risk of homelessness. In spite of being in the middle of a heated election season, we have heard little from the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates about their plans to end housing poverty. Dr. Andrew Aurand, NLIHC's Vice President for Research, rightly points out that lack of timely action is "frustrating" because the Gap "reveals an alarming reality about housing for extremely low income households."

Grappling with the monumental challenge of providing affordable housing to the lowest income Americans and preventing homelessness requires robust federal spending. The good news is that the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) will provide revenue to the 50 states and the District of Columbia to build, preserve and rehabilitate rental homes affordable for extremely and very low income households. The NHTF is funded by mandatory contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, based on their volume of business. In its first year, the NHTF, administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will distribute $173.7 million.

Fighting housing poverty requires far more resources than what we currently commit. On March 23, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, took an impressive step by introducing the Ending Homelessness Act of 2016, a legislation that promises $13.27 billion in new funding over five years to several programs and initiatives.



According to Congresswoman Waters, this legislation, "will help the nearly 600,000 Americans who are currently homeless -- over 170,000 of whom are unsheltered, over 83,000 of whom are chronically homeless, and nearly 130,000 of whom are under the age of 18."

NLIHC enthusiastically supports this bold new bill because it tackles the unacceptably high levels of homelessness in this country and will increase the supply of affordable housing for the country's lowest income households.

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Human-animal reunions are issues of the heart and based on deeply shared emotions

A new Nature TV program called Animal Reunions (please also see) is one of the most outstanding and fascinating films I've seen in a long time. It will air Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at 8pm (ET) on PBS (please check local listings).

The forthcoming documentary's description says it all:

What happens when people are reunited with the wild animals with which they forged a deep bond years ago? Will these gorillas, elephants, cheetahs and chimpanzees still recognize their human caregivers and how will they react? That is the premise of this program which also raises the question whether wild creatures can really experience emotions like joy, devotion, and love. It's a debate that many animal lovers are convinced is true and the scientific community is beginning to accept. Animal Reunions -- narrated by actor Richard Thomas -- contains interviews with scientists, authors, and caregivers including scenes of their journeys to reconnect with their former wild charges.

The filmmakers introduce Damian Aspinall, a millionaire entrepreneur and conservationist, who now runs the family animal sanctuary in England called Howletts Wildlife Park. Aspinall views the animals in his care as friends and believes he gains a gorilla's trust in the same way he would a human's, by treating it with kindness and as an equal. Despite his attachment, Aspinall believes animals have a right to live in the wild if protected, so the program follows the journey of seven captive-born gorillas to a West African national park. The story is revisited five years later when Aspinall arrives to try and find Kwibi, one of the male gorillas.

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Likewise, wildlife cameraman Kim Wolhuter says he had to establish trust with a cheetah to develop a bond with the fastest mammal on earth. It took 18 months, but his persistence paid off until she disappeared one day prompting Wolhuter to set out to find her. Another segment profiles Dr. Rebeca Atencia, a vet who cares for sick and orphaned chimpanzees with the aim of returning them to the wild. She attempts to reunite with a female chimp named Kudia, with whom she formed a maternal bond, two years after the latter's release in Congo's wild forests. The film also covers the reunion of former head keeper Edwin Lusichi, who spent 16 years rehabilitating orphaned elephants, with two of his favorites now in the process of beginning their reintroduction into the wild.

Animal Reunions includes the insights of several experts such as noted ethologist Dr. Jane Goodall who maintains it was crucial for her to establish a trusting relationship with wild chimpanzees or she wouldn't have been able to observe them. Her long-term studies led to a new way of thinking about the emotional capacities of animals. In a touching sequence, a chimp initiates a long hug with her when being released into the wild, but Goodall admits she still doesn't know what motivated the primate. Marc Bekoff PhD (My Bionic Pet, Animal Odd Couples), Professor Emeritus, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, agrees with Goodall, but believes the chimp's gesture is clearly "an indication of an incredible bond." Science writer and author Virginia Morell comments that we humans "want to know what animals think and feel" and the information gleaned from these animal reunions is a step towards trying to answer these questions.

"It's you, it's really you!"

As I watched this film, the story that ran through my head and heart is that the animals were saying something like, "It's you, it's really you!" Clearly they had long-term and fond memories of the humans with whom they had formed very close and deeply meaningful relationships. As Virginia Morell notes, Animal Reunions gives the animals their own biographies.

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Some clips that you can watch now include Damien Aspinall being reunited with Kwibi after being apart for five years. Kwibi clearly remembered Mr. Aspinall and introduced him to his two wives. Another is called "Bedtime at the elephant orphanage," about the wonderful work being done at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi to rehabilitate traumatized orphaned elephants and release them in Tsavo National Park.

You also can see a wonderful reunion between Rebeca Atencia, head of the Jane Goodall Institute-Congo, and Kudia, a chimpanzee who two years earlier was released to a newly expanded sanctuary site on Tchindzoulou Island.

The film ends with Jane Goodall meeting and saying goodbye to a chimpanzee named Wounda (Wounda means "close to dying"). You can watch this incredible scene here. Jane had only known Wounda for one hour! Bring the tissues!

The science of animal reunions

Viewers will not only see amazing and heartwarming scenes of formerly captive animals reuniting with their human friends, but also listen to informed discussions about some of the latest research on rehabilitating deeply traumatized animals and the heartfelt and rich emotions ranging from joy and happiness to deep grief that are shared between the humans and the nonhumans. Rehabilitation is a two-way street as the humans give the animals deep love as they work closely with them, and the animals return the love with total commitment. It's also clear that these and other animals are distinct individuals with their own personalities. (For more on what often are called "odd couples" please see "Odd Couples: Compassion Doesn't Know Species Lines" and "Odd Couples Redux: Animals Make Friends with Other Species.") There is no need to embellish other animals, because research clearly shows how they've evolved advanced cognitive abilities and a wide-range of emotions.

Socialization and domestication are not the same thing. Another very important point made in this film is that these and other animals are not domesticated, but rather socialized to humans. Domestication is an evolutionary process so, for example, a wolf who forms social bonds with humans is socialized -- a domesticated wolf is a dog.

One question I continually asked myself is is it fair to form deep and meaningful bonds with needy animals, release them into the wild, go see them again, and leave them once more. I honestly go back and forth about this situation, but it's clear that in the examples used in this film, the animals were doing well after being released and there is no indication that the reunions had any ill effect.

Animal Reunions is a must-see for audiences of all ages

A film such as Animal Reunions is just what is needed as attitudes about human-animal relationships are rapidly changing (please see "85% of Americans Support Animal Protection: A Positive Shift"). It surely should have a strong positive effect on human-animal relationships as people see other animals as deeply sentient beings who experience a wide array of emotions.

Allowing Animal Reunions to move your heart is an integral part of personal rewilding, and it is impossible to watch this video and not appreciate other animals for whom they truly are and to fully understand that they, like us, want to live in peace and safety and to experience love. Watch this film, share it, and watch it again, it is that good.
Garry Shandling: Always funny -- always spot-on.

I have no adequate words to express the huge sorrow I feel on the passing of Garry Shandling. He had not looked well the last time we met at a party a few weeks back on Christmas night at the home of a mutual pal. But he was just as droll as ever.

And of course in the way that one does -- I just expected him to be with us another 25 years or so...

What a massive loss to his fans and his friends.

He was always tickled knowing that one of his early heroes -- the legendary British comic Peter Cook -- was a big fan of his It's Garry Shandling's Show. I recall that Peter once delayed a script meeting he and I were due to have with HBO in NYC just so Peter could have an extra day in L.A. to hang with Garry. Genius knew genius...

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Just like Peter, Garry was as funny off-stage as he was on it.

Here's one random sample of Garry's wit from just a few months ago.

There were news stories that appeared last summer enlightening people that Bernie Sanders had an elder brother who rejoiced in the name of "Larry Sanders."

It was the sort of silly tidbit that I occasionally shared with Garry. So I shot him an email with a link to one of the news stories about the other Larry Sanders.

And 20 minutes later Garry responded with one of his trademark droll comments.
Paying for higher education expenses is challenging and stressful, even for families that have done a respectable job of saving and planning ahead. The good news is that there are a number of tax benefit provisions that can help ease the burden, but understanding these benefits and how to take advantage of them can be tricky.

The first step is to determine whether your child (or children) will qualify as a dependent on your tax return. For most college students that haven't earned significant amounts of income on their own, being a dependent usually yields the most tax advantages for parents. To be considered a dependent, a child must be a U.S. citizen or a resident of the U.S., Canada or Mexico, be a full-time student under the age of 24, and get at least half of his/her financial support from the family member claiming them as a dependent.

There are four types of tax benefits for college education expenses, each with its own set of rules and exceptions:

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Tax Credits - reduces the actual amount of income tax owed

Tax Deductions - reduces the amount of income that is subject to income taxes, thereby reducing the amount of taxes owed

College Savings Plans - allows earnings on savings deposited to grow tax-free until money is taken out, or allows the distribution to be tax-free, or both

Exclusion for Income - allows certain education benefits (such as a scholarship) to be excluded as income for tax purposes

Tax Credits

The American Opportunity Credit is available for the first four years of college education and offers a credit of up to $2,500 on annual educational costs. The credit pays 100 percent of your eligible expenses up to $2,000, and then adds another 25 percent for the next $2,000 in costs. To qualify, your student must have been enrolled at least half-time in a degree or certificate program. If you have little or no tax liability, you can get as much as $1,000 back in a tax refund. The full credit is available for single filers with $80,000 or less in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or $150,000 for joint filers. A reduced benefit is provided to those with a MAGI of over $80,000 but less than $90,000 (over $160,000 but less than $180,000 for married filing jointly).

Another option for those that may not qualify for the American Opportunity Credit is the Lifetime Learning Credit, which offers a maximum credit of $2,000 per year. This can be used for graduate education or other educational courses or programs. The income limits are considerably lower, as the full credit is available to single filers making less than $52,000 in AGI, or $104,000 for joint filers. Keep in mind that you may only claim one of these credits per year, so no double dipping.

Tax Deductions

Some filers may be eligible to deduct tuition and fees for qualified education expenses, which can reduce the amount of your income subject to tax by up to $4,000. This deduction, reported on Form 8917, is taken as an adjustment to income so the deduction can be claimed even you do not itemize your deductions. This deduction may be beneficial if you do not qualify for the American opportunity or lifetime learning credits. However, if you do qualify, a tax credit might be more favorable, as you cannot claim the tuition and fees deduction as well as an education credit for the same expense.

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There also is a special deduction allowed for interest paid on student loans that were used for higher education for those with MAGI of less than $80,000 ($160,000 if filing jointly). The deduction can reduce the amount of income subject to tax by up to $2,500. Similar to the qualified education expense deduction, it can be claimed even if you do not itemize deductions.

College Savings Plans

Contributions to 529 college savings plans and/or Coverdell college savings accounts grow tax-free from federal and state income tax. Funds withdrawn from these accounts are not taxable as long as they are used for qualified education expenses, including tuition, fees, books, supplies and equipment, and room and board. However, for those considering taking advantage of tax credit as well, keep in mind that there is no double dipping here either, as the credit would only apply to qualified education expenses not paid for with 529 or Coverdell money. You should check with your tax advisor to determine whether withdrawing less from your 529 and paying some of the education expenses in cash would make more sense.

Exclusion for Income

If your student receives a scholarship or fellowship, the taxability question may become a little trickier. If all of the money received was used for tuition, fees, books and required course-related expenses, it's considered tax-free, but if some funds were used to pay room, board, travel or other non-required expenses, these amount are taxable. In other words, any amounts received that exceed the prescribed definition of education expenses--which is different from the definition of qualified education expenses for tax credit, deductions or college savings account distributions--have to be reported as taxable income. Students who receive scholarships or fellowships are advised to keep fee statements, receipts and other records of their expenses to back up their calculations.
Blonde housewife cleaning furniture in kitchen with detergent

My current research focuses on the role of religion in the construction or maintenance of gender roles in the lives of Latino/a migrants. I ask, for example, whether the process of migration is emancipatory for Latinas, financially or otherwise. Many Latinas who migrate to the US, even if they do so along with their husbands or other family members, must, out of necessity, seek employment to help support their families. Such work takes Latinas outside the home and gives women the opportunity to earn their own incomes.

Pierette Hondagnu-Sotelo has pointed out that, in fact, it is often easier for migrant women to find jobs than migrant men because the job market favors the type of work that Latinas are usually hired to do, such as domestic labor or service industry jobs.

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This means that migrant women sometimes become the household breadwinners, a position that could be emancipatory in that women might no longer be beholden to their traditional roles as homemakers and mothers. If women are able to earn higher incomes than men, then men should start to take on more responsibilities around the house performing work that is usually relegated for women.

The Pentecostal women that I have interviewed claim that they are still responsible for performing the type of household work that has traditionally been allocated to women even though they work full-time. These women also claim that their responsibilities are God-ordained. My initial thought was that, in fact, religion (in this case, at least) seems to prevent migrant women from being empowered financially or emancipated from their traditional domestic roles. The Pentecostal denomination to which these women belong, in fact, seems to contribute to the maintenance of the traditional household division of labor.

However, as I think more about this, I am not sure this is a fair assessment of this church. Many of my (white, non-migrant, nonreligious, feminist) friends who live with their male partners or husbands claim that one of their greatest frustrations is that they continue to be responsible for the day-to-day running their households. If these women, who are most aware of the unequal and gendered division of labor within their homes, remain in this position within their households, is it fair for me to insinuate that the migrant women I have spoken with should be empowered by their ability to become earners such that they can ask that men take over household chores? I think not.

Perhaps the most disheartening thing that I have learned from thinking about this is how entrenched our society still is in the assumption that women are responsible for cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the home, even when they work full-time and if they earn more money than their male counterparts.

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So what difference does religion make? Latina Pentecostals, as mentioned previously, understand their household duties to be God-ordained. But I don't think religion here should be understood as a coping mechanism or trite justification of the traditional gendered division of labor. Rather, the maintenance of the household and family in this church is valued by both men and women. Because family is so central to this church's values, the care of this family and home is work that might be considered an act of devotion to God. This belief is empowering in that it posits women as uniquely able to fulfill the vision of family life outlined by the church.

Although, for me, this still does not justify maintaining the traditional gendered division of labor, for Latinas or for anyone else, I think this church's valuation of family and home life is something that needs to be given further consideration on a broader scale because these are values that our society claims, also.

Though women in the context of this church may not be "emancipated" in the Western, feminist sense, the work they are doing is acknowledged and sanctified within their church. Many Western, feminists are not even acknowledged for the household work they do. I argue that the current gendered expectations for the contributions of men and women to home and family demonstrate that these are not really valued by our society.

It is unfair that women alone are required to be the ones to manifest the value of family and the centrality of the home, whether this is a national or religious value (and these often overlap), through their domestic labor.
Until this week, Illinois and Pennsylvania shared a spot in the national news cycle as the only two states to make into the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2016 with no operating budget in place.

Now Pennsylvania has left the Illinois budget impasse alone in the fiscal dysfunction spotlight, as Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced he'll allow a budget approved by Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled General Assembly to become law as of 12:01 a.m. March 28.

Identifying parallels between the budget struggles of Pennsylvania and Illinois -- two states of similar size and demographics with partisan divides between governors and legislatures -- made for a tempting narrative over the past eight months. Unfortunately, those looking to extend those parallels beyond the twin impasses likely are out of luck. There's almost nothing in Pennsylvania's budget resolution that signals a similar path for Illinois.

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Still, the narrative is too tempting to ignore, so here are five things that make the Illinois budget impasse more intractable than Pennsylvania's.



5. Governor's surrender

Pennsylvania's budget resolution was a product not of across-the-aisle compromise, but of Wolf deciding the state needed to "move on" and look toward the FY 2017 budget. Wolf didn't sign a budget; he merely agreed to take no action on a Republican-passed plan that he says is $2 billion out of balance.

In Illinois, there is no sign that Gov. Bruce Rauner will back down from his pledge that he won't discuss tax increases -- which all parties have acknowledged are needed to repair state finances -- unless they are paired with business and political reforms. While some observers interpreted results of two key primary election races as indicators that voters have rejected his budget position, Rauner disagrees. Here he explains why:

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4. Defectors

Pennsylvania's budget passed with help from 13 Democrats, who broke from their Democratic governor. That's not going to happen in Illinois, where two such defections brought swift and severe reprisals from Rauner (who tried unsuccessfully to oust Republican Sen. Sam McCann in the March 15 primary) and House Speaker Michael Madigan (who successfully engineered the defeat of disloyal Democratic Rep. Ken Dunkin).

3. The Madigan factor

It's been more than three months since Rauner and four legislative leaders met on the budget. Rauner said this week he wants a one-on-one meeting with Madigan on the budget:

But when Illinois Public Radio Statehouse Bureau Chief Amanda Vinicky sought an answer from Madigan about whether and when such a meeting had been discussed, it became clear that Madigan does not share Rauner's enthusiasm for a sit-down on the budget:



So I did my own reaching out to Madigan, by calling his spokesman, Steve Brown and asking. "I really don't have a way ... I don't have any information on that claim so I don't really have any comment one way or another on that so," Brown said in response. Okay then. The Speaker's spokesman -- one of his right-hand-men - doesn't know whether the governor has called Madigan's office to ask for a meeting. Or if he's just made the offer through the press.



Translation: A meeting with Rauner is not high on the Speaker's agenda at the moment.


Photo of author. Credit: Roxana Jafarian.

"You need to lower your expectations for your life."

By the time I first heard this, I had already graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, earned a master's in public health and published my first book. I was 29 years old.

The woman encouraging me to expect less of myself was an outtake counselor charged with helping patients reintegrate into society. In my case, I had just spent roughly a week as an inpatient on a locked psychiatric unit where I had been diagnosed with the most severe form of bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression.

The counselor was not a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a licensed clinical social worker. Her office wall boasted a certificate that resembled something you'd encounter at a nail salon. I knew she wasn't qualified to make any such assessment, and even if she were, I knew better than to believe her. I was raised to expect more of myself, even and especially when the world -- whether because of my gender, nationality, skin color or any other such nonsense -- expected less of me. Bipolar disorder fell squarely into the "any other such nonsense" category as yet another baseless reason people might think less of me. So my response to the suggestion that I lower my expectations was firm and immediate: "Girl, raise yours!"

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Since then, I have published a memoir about my experiences with bipolar illness and become an outspoken advocate for the rights of those living with psychiatric conditions. Along the way, I've met many others who share my diagnosis, some disabled by it, others not. Invariably, the key distinction between these two camps is acceptance.



My response to the suggestion that I lower my expectations was firm and immediate: "Girl, raise yours!"



While psychiatric disorders account for some of the leading causes of disability worldwide, with depression now topping the list, these conditions are not nearly as inherently disabling as the scorn and stigma that surround them.

I know this from personal experience, but even more, I know it from the experiences of all the desperate mothers who have ever broken into tears while handing me a book to sign. They show up at every event, without fail, and their stories are all different, but also the same: grown children who will not accept their diagnoses, whose lives and families are being torn apart as a result, who fail to receive the treatment they need -- not because they are stupid or stubborn, but because they fear the very real stigma that accompanies a label like bipolar.

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Wednesday, March 30 marks World Bipolar Day, an initiative started in 2014 and aimed at challenging this stigma by changing global perceptions about what it means to have bipolar disorder. Spearheaded by the Asian Network of Bipolar Disorder, the International Bipolar Foundation and the International Society of Bipolar Disorders, World Bipolar Day falls on the birthday of Vincent van Gogh, who scholars suspect struggled with the illness.

While I tend to cringe at the concept of a day for everything (I'm looking at you, National Frozen Food Day), not to mention the idea of reliable posthumous psychiatric diagnosis, I understand the impulse here. People don't like to talk about mental illness. For God's sake, we still call it "mental illness," as though the brain weren't a fundamental part of the physical body. Given the prevalence of this colossal oversight, not to mention a grossly underfunded mental health system that relies heavily on condescension, coercion and incarceration, it's hard not to support any day that might bring more attention to brain disorders.



Having a psychiatric condition means that you have an illness that requires treatment, nothing more.



But we need to do more than draw attention to the issue. We need to transform the way we view "mental illness," not merely as a kind of clinical disorder, but also as an alternative -- not necessarily inferior -- way of thinking and being. I'm not saying that these disorders aren't serious or that they don't require treatment. They are, and they do. Those of us living with bipolar disorder, for example, face a much higher risk for suicide than the general population.

Still, whatever the specific diagnosis, there remains something extraordinary -- and yes, valuable -- about a mind that works differently. For all the problems that may accompany a condition like bipolar disorder -- and I assure you, there are many -- there is also an upside. Just as we can experience certain extremes of mood and thought that others do not, we can also see certain solutions where others cannot.

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My solution to dealing with the stigma surrounding bipolar disorder, for example, has come from the application of a hard-won skill earned from experience as a perpetual minority: an acute aptitude for adaptation. As an Iranian-American Muslim feminist living in the American South, stigma and prejudice are not new to me. I know from experience that they are often the misplaced and unfounded result of others' deep-seated insecurities, so I refuse to let them dictate how I live my life. More than any medication, it has been this mentality that has allowed me to thrive with bipolar disorder.

Having a psychiatric condition means that you have an illness that requires treatment, nothing more. It doesn't mean that you are incapable or that you ought to lower your expectations for your life. Rather, it means you are uniquely capable and that you ought to raise the world's expectations of you.

___________________
Justice does not exist. This thought has been bugging me today. It has been swimming in my head ever since I read the news about the conviction of Radovan Karadzic for the genocide in Srebrenica. It is a harsh, completely unsatisfying sentence. It is a disturbing thought to have and it becomes a burden for people like me. It becomes a burden of the consciousness of the mind that knows that the injustice has a constant presence in our lives (in one way or another) and that the real justice does not really exist. Justice that is offered to us does not completely negate and offset the atrocities committed against the innocents. It is really a mask, presented to us, to ease the pain of the survival. Not to mention the fact that the verdict found Karadzic not guilty for other genocides that happened on Bosnian soil against the Bosnian-Muslims.

I am not from Srebrenica, but being Bosnian and being a mother of two young boys, it does not take me long to imagine my life, fifteen years from now. My boys are young, eighteen years old, falling in love for the first time, hanging out with their friends, playing sports, enjoying life, no real worries in their lives. Suddenly, war breaks out around us, because of our nationality, my boys are taken away along with my husband, never to return. Even a hypothetical thought of this scenario makes me sick. Even a hypothetical thought of my children being taken away from me to be murdered, just because they are boys, makes me want to die, literally. I would not have been able to survive, God forbid, if anything like this would have ever happened to me.

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Mothers who lost their children and spouses in Srebrenica were not happy today; they were not relieved that the "justice" was served. They were not happy that Karadzic is going to sit in the cell for the next forty years. Their children are gone. They saw their smiles, imagined their hugs when they were small, saw the babies that they once were. Justice was not served. I cannot imagine how these women survived. I cannot understand how they are living day by day with the knowledge that they lost everything. I cannot guarantee that I would be strong enough.

Another layer of the (in)justice is the fact that the portion of the Bosnian population who still considers Karadzic a hero still believes that the act of eliminating roughly eight thousand men in Srebrenica and the act of killing off the population of Sarajevo during the siege was an act of defense.

Aleksandar Hemon, a Bosnian-American writer who currently lives in Chicago recently wrote an article for Rolling Stones magazine comparing Donald Trump to another war criminal Vojislav Seselj. The masses that follow good old Donald are similar to the masses that still support Seselj, the masses that still consider Karadzic a hero. Donald's rhetoric convinces some Americans that those people of different religions (mainly Islamic religion) and those citizens- immigrants of the Middle Eastern descent are dangerous and the very act of hatred Donald supporters feel towards these people is served to us as a defense mechanism, defending American freedom, Christianity, their lives.

I understand now what it all means, why it is so important to compare Donald to Karadzic and Seselj. It is important because real justice does not exist after the crimes have been committed. It really does not matter that Karadzic and Seselj are labeled as war criminals by the international war tribunal and that they are convicted of their crimes. The lives are lost, they can never be retrieved. Mothers will live out their lives without their children, imagining what it would be like to see them grow up, become men, have their own children.

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Donald and the others who preach hatred and intolerance must be stopped before they can inflict horrors on those who are different from their norm. We as human beings must be vigilant to preserve lives of our children, all children. We must be vigilant to protect each other from the existence that involves loss, due to the forceful deaths of our loved ones. Karadzic verdict is important in a sense that it shows that perhaps we have not lost our humanity completely. However, understanding that we cannot passively listen to the hate mongering that is on display on TV and in the news lately and that we must speak up against them is crucial.
TOPSHOT - A picture taken on March 24, 2016 on place de la Bourse in Brussels, shows a building illuminated with the Belgian flag colours and a heart, two days after suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on March 22 in Zaventem airport and Brussels subway Maelbeek - Maalbeek that killed 31 and injured 300 people.Belgian authorities face growing pressure to do more to tackle the Islamic State menace threatening the continent, even as they scrambled to track down two more men over the attacks on Brussels airport and the metro. / AFP / PATRIK STOLLARZ (Photo credit should read PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

This article has been written jointly with Brais Fernandez, who is part of the editorial team of 'Viento Sur' (South Wind) and is a member of Anticapitalists.

We cannot start this post without condemning the terrible attacks in Brussels that took place this week, honoring the victims and showing support for the families, friends and the people of Brussels. Because we lived in Brussels for some time, our sentiments are even stronger. It is a city that takes in so many strangers. We've frequently traveled through its airport. And now, we see it devastated by terror.

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Honestly, it's not easy to reflect in such dark times. There have been several brutal and repugnant attacks on Europe by jihadist terrorists in recent months, and countless more on the Arab world. Meanwhile, a refugees crisis takes place at the doors to a continent governed by frivolous institutions, that perceive human beings as merchandise or mere numbers. But to act, we must first think. It's not too late. It's never too late to respond to the tragedy we're facing with the strongest weapon we have: democracy and human rights.

The title of the post is taken from a poem by Celso Emilio Ferreiro, a Galician poet jailed by Franco's regime. "The hearts of men looking outwards are also made of stone," he wrote. The harshness of this verse is a reminder of the indifference, fanaticism, and alienation that lay the foundation for totalitarianism. Meanwhile, certain ideological constructions feed fears and prejudices in a way that justifies brutality.

Refugees are often regarded as less than equals; they are often not seen as citizens who deserve equal rights, but as people who have to be helped -- preferably from a distance.

ISIS has been built on a fascist taste for violence, and an aesthetic of terror that feeds on people's pain. The atrocities it has committed have terrorized people in Europe as well as in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, there is something that connects us with people who suffer and flee from those wars -- which often seem distant. We're part of the same human race and we can, and should, show solidarity. Although some often portray us as separate peoples, our struggle is the same. The struggle against totalitarianism, wherever it comes from, no matter what shape it takes, is a common battle.

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It is true that the situation in Europe is distressing. The extreme right continues to spread its racism, offering more totalitarianism against terror. Meanwhile, European institutions are accepting proposals -- as we have seen in the EU-Turkey agreement -- in which Europe betrays itself.

In the face of these problems, European democrats should be courageous and efficient. We cannot underestimate the fear that a large part of the European population feels in the face of terrorism. We cannot treat it as insignificant or trivialize it. The media propaganda and recent events together create an ongoing state of emergency. This may justify reducing liberties in Europe and allowing imperialist interventions from the West. In this sense, we need to remember the words of Tony Blair, who recognized that the invasion of Iraq could have had a direct effect on the rise of ISIS, hence challenging the imperial logic that bombs can stop bombs.

At the same time, liberal humanitarianism, as Daniel Bensaid said, is based on "a sinister game of mirrors; the depoliticization of conflict creates in turn creates a depoliticization of the humanitarian victim. Not recognized as a political actor, the victim is reduced to the passive nakedness of suffering and martyred bodies."

Refugees are often regarded as less than equals; they are often not seen as citizens who deserve equal rights, but as people who have to be helped -- preferably from a distance. Many people feel that to limit the costs, the crisis should be kept at a distance. As if preventing the refugees from coming into Europe means guaranteeing our own security. As if ISIS had anything to do with the refugees, when the reality is that ISIS attacks both Muslims who flee the jihadist dystopia and Europe's citizenry.

It's never too late to respond to the tragedy we're facing with the strongest weapon we have: democracy and human rights.

After the attacks, Twitter hashtags such as #StopIslam or #TerroristsWelcome were among the most popular in Spain. This demonstrates how some try to use terror and totalitarianism to feed hatred, stigmatize parts of our society, and fuel Islamophobia. As Angeles Ramirez reminded us in a recent article in the magazine Viento Sur (South Wind) titled The Construction of the 'Muslim Problem': Radicalization, Islam and Poverty, "it serves no purpose to demonstrate that jihadists are not mostly poor or have low levels of formal education or are immigrants. Or that without a doubt, the percentage of high school teachers or doctors among people fleeing from these communities is greater than that of jihadists or even of Salafists. Today, no one would say that these communities are breeding grounds for high school teachers." We cannot link poverty and terrorism, or else we risk stigmatizing the underprivileged and the most oppressed. We have to clearly remember that people always end up paying the price for wars.

Our duty is to build a democratic movement against terror and against totalitarianism, and show support for the victims, no matter where they're from. Shame those who feed hatred. Convince those who have doubts that it is only because they're afraid. Only citizens can do that; Those who sells arms to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia or protect financial havens where lack of transparency makes it possible for terrorists to hide money are not part of the solution, they're part of the problem.

Refugees would have a place in a democratic Europe. What doesn't have a place in the European Union project that the elites are currently building is freedom. After the long night of stone, it is the time for democracy. And democracy can only be created from the bottom up. This is the best way to respond to terror. This is the best way to pay tribute to those who die as victims of fanaticism.
The biggest question for Bernie Sanders and his supporters is whether they'll transform his presidential campaign into a permanent organization that can carry his political revolution forward in the long-term; or whether, like Occupy Wall Street, it will quickly disappear.

If Bernie pulls off a triple bank shot, receives the Democratic nomination, and is elected president, such an organization will be needed to help him accomplish his ambitious goals. If a corporate centrist Democrat like Hillary Clinton becomes president, a mass national social democratic/socialist/liberal organization is needed to prevent her from moving to the right and to build a base for real progressive change. If a right-wing populist like Donald Trump becomes president, such an organization is needed even more to mobilize mass resistance to his potentially divisive and racist policies.

It's not just Mitch McConnell who needs to look out his window to see 1,000,000 mobilized citizens. If Hillary wins the presidency, she also needs to see the same, supporting her if she does the right thing and protesting her if she backslides into corporate centrism or initiates regime change wars. And if Donald Trump wins (don't kid yourself Democrats; it's possible Trump could defeat Clinton) we'll certainly need to be mobilizing, in the streets and elsewhere. In the meantime, we need to elect more candidates with Sanders-type politics at every level of government from city hall, to state-wide office, to the House and Senate.

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There has rarely been a better opportunity to create and build a permanent, national progressive organization than has been afforded by the Sanders campaign. The historical moment is right, with Bernie winning millions of supporters' votes for his campaign against a rigged economic and political system, against institutional racism and a broken criminal justice system, and for aggressive action to combat climate change.

There's a campaign organization on the ground in virtually every state, innumerable cities and towns, and on college campuses that can contribute organizers and form the nucleus of a permanent organization. There are millions of dollars in small dollar campaign contributions, a few million of which could be diverted to organizing a permanent organization. And there are millions of supporters ready, even eager, to support the cause, not just for one election but for the future.

So here's a rough outline of the plan:

 The Sanders campaign announces that it will not end with the Democratic Convention or the general election, but win, lose, or draw, will continue on as a permanent mass organization.

 The Sanders campaign agrees to fund several million dollars from its war-chest in start-up costs for such an organization.

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 The campaign assigns and/or hires several organizers from its national staff to coordinate the creation of such an organization.

 Simultaneously, it assigns organizers on the national, state, local, and campus level to devote all or part of their time to building such an organization.

 The campaign announces that it will make its email list available for communication with its supporters about the organization and, after the election campaign, to communicate and fundraise on its own.

 The first building block would be an organizing meeting to be held in Philadelphia parallel with the Democratic National Convention.

 In the (somewhat unlikely) event that Bernie is the Democratic nominee, the initial task of the organization will be to elect him president. If Hillary is the nominee, the initial task will be to critically support her and prevent Trump or a Republican from taking the White House. Whomever the Democratic nominee is, the organization would also campaign to take back the Senate and House and, in particular, to support progressive candidates. If it's Hillary, the organization would function semi-autonomously from her campaign and the Democratic Party, rallying Sanders supporters to block the Republicans. (In the 1964 Goldwater-LBJ campaign, civil rights and anti-war organizers -- who were wary of LBJ but determined to block Goldwater -- rallied under the slogan "Part of the Way With LBJ" in response to LBJ's campaign slogan of "All The Way with LBJ".) I suggest a slogan along the lines of "Partly Ready for Hillary".

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 Between the end of the election and the Inauguration Day on January 20, 201, intensive work would be devoted to building a network of supporters and chapters in cities, towns, neighborhoods, workplaces and college campuses.

 Around Inauguration Day, a national convention would be held in Washington to formally create the organization, ratify a policy platform, elect a national steering committee, and set forth a list of initial organizing priorities.

The organization would be devoted to uniting people across racial, ethnic and gender lines. It would engage both in electoral work and in mass protest politics. It would run people for office at every level from dog catcher, to city council, to state legislatures to Congress -- mainly in the Democratic Party except where electoral law makes 3rd party campaigns practical. It would both endorse sympathetic candidates as well as run its own. At the same time, it would organize direct action on the ground for labor rights, civil rights, environmental causes, and against militarism and needless military action.

There are already several smaller organizations in place with similar goals, including the Working Families Party, National People's Action, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of America, Democratic Socialists of America; mostly online organizations like MoveOn and The Progressive Change Campaign Committee; and loosely organized activist groups of mostly young African Americans and Latinos like Black Lives Matters and the Dream Defenders. Many of their activists and members might be interested in becoming involved in a larger new organization building out of the Sanders campaign. But, with their own history of activism and organizing, it's unlikely most of these groups would want to dissolve themselves into a new organization, certainly not right away before it had proven itself. So the new organization would build coalitions with existing organizations.

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Bernie is nothing if not a realist and a truth-teller. Committing resources now to building a permanent organization that would survive beyond the 2016 elections gives an additional raison d'etre for him taking his campaign all the way to the convention. The very rationale of his campaign is that change will occur not just by electing one person but by building a political revolution.

Committing resources during the campaign to start building a permanent organization would give substance to his call for a political revolution.

We're at an historical turning point: It may be years until there is again a mass mobilization of millions of potential supporters, tens of thousands of volunteers, hundreds of staff, millions of dollars in resources, and a YUGE email list.

Bernie and the Sanders campaign can seize the moment to start now using its massive resources to begin institutionalizing the political revolution he's calling for.

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Or the movement he helped energize could dissolve after the election, leaving his insurgent campaign as an historical footnote like the insurgent campaigns of Gary Hart or Howard Dean.
Most of us have heard, seen or read about a six-year-old girl named Lexi who was ordered to be taken from those who fostered her for the past four years in Santa Clarita, California.

The court of public opinion and social media are sympathetic and supportive of Lexi's foster parents, Rusty and Summer Page. This is very understandable since the Pages have seemingly done nothing but provide for the well-being of Lexi. It is a heart-wrenching and relatable tale of having been ordered to hand over Lexi despite their efforts to adopt the child they had come to love and consider part of their family along with their three children.

Sympathy for the Pages is also understandable because Lexi's story is being told, written, produced, and directed by them.

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Lexi's biological parents had their rights terminated because the child had a black eye when she was just 17-months-old. While there are no further details of alleged abuse, Lexi's mother reportedly had substance abuse issues. The child's father, who has a criminal history, has attempted, unsuccessfully, to reunite with his daughter.

After being in two previous foster homes, Lexi became the Page's foster child four years ago when she was two years old.

The Page's hopes to make Lexi a permanent part of their family were not possible, however, because of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) that was enacted to protect children of Native Americans from decades of exploitation. Lexi's mother is not Native American but her father is enrolled with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Lexi is 1.5% percent Choctaw. Authorities made it clear to them repeatedly that Lexi was never available for adoption, a fact they chose to ignore.

Main stream and social media present it as a case of overkill in following the letter of the law with the pendulum of public policy swinging too far to one extreme in ordering Lexi to be taken to Utah to be raised by relatives through marriage who are not Native American but fall within the familial placement preferences under ICWA. These one-sided reports omit the fact that she will be living with one of her sisters; her other sister lives down the street from them.

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Also left out of one-sided reports is the fact that Lexi has had an ongoing relationship with her paternal relatives in Utah for nearly her whole life. The Choctaw Nation has advocated for Lexi to live with her family since 2011. The family have visited the girl at their own expense every month and regularly Skype with her at least once a week. Additionally, she has visited them in Utah and she knows them as family, according to insiders.

"[Lexi] has a very close relationship with the Utah relatives, and the Pages have been a big part of facilitating that over the years, so it's baffling that they would create this kind of drama and friction between the two families at the last minute when they have thus far had a very amicable relationship that was in Lexi's best interest."

In regard to the protesters that surrounded the Page's house and succeeding in preventing the first attempt at transfer in order to avoid a dangerous situation, the same source says:

"They knew good and well that the transfer was comingthis was not a surprise visit from DCFS, so all this drama was completely for show."

The Pages are not new to this. Indian Country Today reports that Lexi is the second child that the Pages have attempted to adopt out of foster care, according to court documents. The first child was also returned to extended family after a custody battle with the Pages.

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Is shouting the loudest synonymous with being right? Are choreographed media circuses replete with cries and screams, not just of Lexi but the foster family, neighbors, and supporters, helpful or hurtful for the child at the center of the storm?

Rusty and Summer Page also violated Lexi's right to privacy, releasing the child's name to the media, including a Facebook page titled "Save Lexi," in which they sought public support. Both the webpage and revealing her name defy the court orders, according to legal experts in California.

How does the Page's high profile style compare to that of Lexi's relatives and what does each approach say about who is putting the child's interest foremost? In the biblical story of two mothers claiming the same child, it was in fact the one who stepped back and refused to subject the child to harm who was deemed the "real" or more fit mother.

Children are not possessions. Losing custody, whether in divorce or in foster and adoption, should always happen in the courts, not the media. The Pages are appealing the decision and will go to the California Supreme Court, however, of such litigation should be kept from the child in the middle.

It is imperative that the physical transfer of a child in such a tug-of-war happens in a private, not public, manner with the child being reassured that he or she is loved and will be well cared for. No more fuss should be made in front of the child than would occur before a visit to grandparents. All media should be kept far from such events, not invited or encouraged to document it to garner sympathy.

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Behaving hysterically in front of a child caught in a custody dispute is not in keeping with good parenting that puts the needs of a child first. One can only hope that such an unnecessary and extremely traumatic hand-over over of the child that seemed to be orchestrated for the purpose of garnering continued and increased support for the Pages' case would be taken into account when the courts consider who is best fit to protect this child rather than exploit her.

It has also been alleged that Rusty and Summer Page do not intend to visit Lexi. Care of children should never be an either/or situation. Just as children in divorce need and deserve contact with both parents, children in state care need, deserve, and should be given access to both permanency and family connections.

Court delays are unacceptable as are postponements of motions which are often used intentionally to increase the argument - untrue in this case - of "the only family (s)he's ever known." It is a tribute to the caseworkers of this case that contact and visitation was encouraged. Visitation should always be court-ordered and abided by all parties in such disputes. Unfortunately, even perfectly fit mothers and fathers are too often kept away for years while contested adoptions wind through the courts.

Family Finding "identifies relatives and other supportive adults, estranged from or unknown to" children in state care "especially those who are willing to become permanent connections for him/her." The non-profit defines permanency as "a state of permanent belonging, which includes knowledge of personal history and identity, as well as a range of involved and supportive adults rather than just one legal resource" despite the child's physical custody.

Family Finding has partnered with the National Institute for Permanent Family Connectedness (NIPFC) which recognizes that "the single factor most closely associated with positive outcomes for children is meaningful, lifelong connections to family."

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"We appreciate the concern for Lexi and want to assure everyone she is in a safe, loving home with her relatives and her biological sisters.... "Foster care is a much-needed temporary service provided for children until the child can be returned to the care of his or her family. Placement with family is the gold-standard of any child-custody case not just a case involving tribal children. The Pages were always aware of this goal. "Many steps have been taken by the Choctaw Nation to ensure the best placement of Lexi. An independent clinical psychologist was brought in to gauge her ability to transition from the foster home to her relatives. The California court appointed a marriage and family therapist to perform a child custody evaluation to assess the mental health and parenting practices of both parties. The experts along with Lexi's long-time individual therapists, her social worker and her attorney, all agree it is in her best interest to be with her relatives. The foster family understood this. All children, not just Native children, do better with caring relatives.... "Lexi's safety and wellbeing are the Choctaw Nation's paramount concern."

Having been a foster parent, I know how daunting it is to have to hand a child over. However, it is the job that foster parents sign on - and are paid - to do. They are paid caretakers, not kin and they have no legal standing as parents. The job of fostering is to care for children in limbo and obey the decisions of the courts and child protective services and others who evaluate the situation.
Co-authored by Samantha Peters

The verdict is in. Jian Ghomeshi was found not guilty in all charges laid against him--four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. Ghomeshi dodged a bullet or, more correctly, a potential jail sentence--18 months for sexual assault and a potential life sentence for overcoming resistance by choking. This case is significant for many reasons, but we would like to highlight the problems with relying on an inherently adversarial system, which prioritizes the rights of an accused over the rights of survivor(s), especially where sexual assault is concerned.



We propose a re-imagining of future sexual assault trials in order to respond to the realities of sexual assault survivors while also respecting the rights of an accused. As Black and Indigenous feminists with an interest in criminal defence, we understand the importance of these rights and we want to emphasize that we are not calling for a lesser standard or a flipped presumption of innocence when it comes to sexual assault charges. Rather, we are calling for a more nuanced discussion about the realities of both sides of the coin: the accused who faces the state and the survivor who faces their aggressor.



Since the trial began, there has been much speculation that the system--the criminal court system--does not believe survivors. There have been many articles that have spoken about believing survivors, how to support complainants, and the thin line between a defence lawyer defending their client, as far as possible, versus "whacking the complainant." Let us be clear, by the very fact that the charges made it to trial, means that someone, at some point in the criminal justice system, believed these women. We believe these women too. We believe all survivors of violence, especially sexual violence. However, what is also clear is that our courtrooms are not safe for sexual assault complainants/survivors.







Many individuals tweeted about the trial or about sexual assault using the hashtag #IBelieveSurvivors or variations of the hashtag. These people tweeted passionately about safety issues for survivors of violence and highlighted that the legal system is biased against sexual assault survivors. Perhaps, we also need to consider other ways that the criminal justice system can be accountable to sexual assault survivors. For instance, the Integrated Domestic Violence Court provides one judge to hear both the criminal and family law cases, where the central issue is domestic violence. The question is, could this work in the context of sexual assault cases? Should a special court dedicated to hearing sexual assault cases be a future consideration?



In 2014, Justice Robin Camp, a Federal Court judge, revealed the misogynistic assumptions about sexual assault survivors' experiences. These assumptions presume that sexual assault survivors can just prevent the assault from happening in the first place (as if they carry the burden) by just keeping their knees together.



In an effort to shield his own assumptions about the truth of the survivors' experiences, Justice William B. Horkins writes in the Ghomeshi decision,



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"Courts must guard against applying false stereotypes concerning the expected conduct of complainants. I have a firm understanding that the reasonableness of reactive human behaviour in the dynamics of a relationship can be variable and unpredictable. However, the twists and turns of the complainants' evidence in this trial, illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful. Each individual and each unique factual scenario must be assessed according to their own particular circumstances." (para 135).
education elementary school ...

It happened again. This morning yet another Facebook friend clicked share on yet another article about how Finland is doing a better job educating kids than the US. The article mentioned the usual more recess time, teachers earning both more respect and more money, children starting kindergarten later. I know. I know.

As a United States educator whose career began with the birth of "No Child Left Behind" and punishing mandates for high stakes testing, I'm tired of playing Jan to Finland's Marcia. Edu-Corp consultants contracted by district Professional Development specialists focus on Finland. Op-Ed writers looking for quick edu-solves bring up Finland. Reformer-junkies talk up Finland as they introduce the charters they founded. Administrators remind us about Finland during staff meetings. Teachers' Unions use Finland to point out teachers need more respect. Ex-pat parents wistfully blog about how lucky they are to have their child in a Finnish school.

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It's difficult not to feel like Jan Brady. After ten years of reading about Finland, I want to put on my knee socks and red jumper, pout, and plug in "Finland" for "Marcia. "Every time Finland turns around they hand it a blue ribbon or something. All I hear all day long at school is hear how great Finland is at this or how wonderful Finland is at that. Finland! Finland! Finland!"

Yes, as the Brady parents pointed out, Finland's worked very hard for those things. They reformed their whole education system. They deserve recognition, trophies, and ribbons. There's a reason that the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching receives so many US applicants desiring placement in Finland. So many more applicants in fact that the application directions tell US teachers to consider applying to visit another country if they wish to be selected for the award.

But I fear our fetishization of Finland is less about finding the good things to copy and more about willful denial of the roots of the problems in the United States. Posts about Finland mention the length of recess, time out doors, student agency, starting school later and freedom. Those are important.

But articles about Finland don't address poverty, rates of youth incarceration, the availability of affordable medical care, the availability of maternal/paternal leave, the impact of the rise and influence of religious fundamentalism on public education, or the monetization of our education system by entrepreneurial edu-corp reformers. They certainly don't discuss the impact our history of slavery, genocide, and segregation has upon school systems.

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As a Fulbrighter in India this spring, I'm seeing uncomfortable similarities between Indian education and education in the United States. It's so uncomfortable I can see why our edu-corp community wants to look somewhere else for inspiration, but I think being uncomfortable is part of the work. So in the interest of making everyone squirm, here are some issues that the US and India have in common.

1. The US and India share brutal histories involving race and caste. The US Government's genocidal policies toward Native Americans and the 400 years of slavery upon which our country's economic system was built have had a lasting impact on our educational system. India's caste system has had a lasting impact as well. The systemic impact of these oppressive systems shape the way our students learn today. If United States and Indian educators partner to share curricular successes, peacebuilding paradigms, and our work toward equity, we could prove to be supports for one another.

2. The US is in the process of dismantling its public schools to look more like Indian Government schools. In India, I've learned about the different systems of school. Public (the equivalent private school in the US) and Government (the equivalent of public school in the US) are the two most important distinctions to understand in my argument. Here parents won't send their children to Government schools (public). They do everything not to send kids there. The stereotype of a Government school teacher in India is lazy, poorly trained, and hugely overpaid (sound familiar). Because Government schools are so feared, Public schools (private, to Americans) have proliferated. Families undergo tremendous stress to get their child into the "right" Public (private) school here. Even extra "donations" to the school. In the US, among the wealthy, no one goes to public school. Among the professional middle class, parents strive for charters or move into a neighborhood with a good school. The poor wind up stuck with the school no one else wants. We're on our way to the same Public (private)/Government (public) system here in India, we're just not starving for tuitions yet. Studying how this split occurred in India and whether it can be healed could help us deal with our own problems.

3. Diversity of language, culture, and religion is an issue in both the United States and India. Although the US likes to pretend it has one language, it has many. India, to its credit, knows it has many. US educators have much to learn from multi-lingual Indians. Both India and US schools have to confront issues of religious diversity and freedom. As often as a "Finland is great" blog post appears, one is published about a religious extremist in the US objecting to basic science, literature, or sexual education curriculum. Political religious struggles at the state level impact the quality of learning in the classroom and relationships between students in the classroom. Scholars in India and the US could examine our schools' responses to linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity to develop and share best practices.

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4. The US has the one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. In this regard, we're much closer to India than Finland. Finland has the second lowest rate of child poverty in the world (and the lowest in Europe). To learn how to educate our children, we need to work with other countries working to end child poverty, not compare our outcomes to countries that don't suffer from the same widespread blight. India, like the US has uneven rates of literacy and poverty among its states. We could work together to explore the causes and cures.

On top of our poverty rate, the incarceration rate in the US is the highest in the world. Another popular blog topic is the school-to-prison pipeline. Finland has one of the lower rates. In my research, I learned that Finland's prisons, like its schools, are touted among scholars of effective incarceration. While I'm not visiting India's youth prisons, I work in one in the United States. When you step into my classroom there, the correlation between racism, poverty, addiction, and incarceration is so apparent, it seems silly to have to ask people to prove it through research. It's like asking someone to prove ice is slippery.

That's how I feel as a US educator of incarcerated youth when I read articles about Finland. I'm a teacher, not a skeptic. I know kids deserve "highly qualified, highly respected and highly professionalized teachers who conduct personalized one-on-one instruction; manageable class sizes; a rich, developmentally correct curriculum; regular physical activity; little or no low-quality standardized tests" as William Doyle, the author of today's "Finland's doing it right" article, says. Knowing that is the easy part. All it takes is a few weeks working in the classroom to realize it.

Yes, we need those kinds of classrooms in the US, but ten years of fawning over Finland is like standing on the beach watching while someone else drowns.

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It's not that I'm against longer recess, more freedom for students, and more respect for teachers, more loving classrooms, edu-corps consultants being banned. Sign me up. What worries me is that we argue for these things at the expense of addressing deeper issues that impact our schools: poverty, corporate interests divvying up our public schools, the complexities of diversity, the dangers of religious fundamentalism, and our country's longstanding institutionalized racism. We need to create equity. Longer recess isn't going to cut it.

Dear ones writing about education, I know what Finland is doing is good for students. Beyond test scores, it's good classroom practice. I aspire to adopt the model of caring schools here in the US. It's both possible and necessary for the US to do better for children.

What about our children, who aren't provided the much lauded "baby box" at birth? Education writers and bloggers, what I want you to show me are practices that are working for poor students struggling with issues more like the ones I see everyday in the United States and India. Help me find those educators. They are my peers.

And Finland, keep up the excellent work. We all aspire to be one of your peers someday.
I have never been popular. I have had my five minutes of fame on a couple occasions, such as that time the food on my tray rolled all over me in the cafeteria at summer camp and my face magically encountered the floor. I sometimes was recognized as an outstanding public speaker at comedy open mics where I only "bombed" a little. However, for the most part, I have always been an "inbetweener," someone who walks the purgatory roads of normality and anonymity.

I recently started college for the second time (I am a Law School graduate in Italy, which means I am not a lawyer, and especially not a lawyer in the United States). As an adult learner, I am an observer of all those dynamics that would have driven me insane back in the day. In a sudden rush of nostalgia for my teenage anger, I decided to ask a student from the college I attend in California what she thought of popularity. Hannah Hyon, this is her name, said, "it's the measure of how liked you are by others." Her friend, Blaine Shelton, said Hyon is a very popular girl. "She has been sitting here for five minutes, and [she] said 'hi' to so many people," he said. According to a study by Columbia University, however, some people cannot help being popular. Researchers found that popular individuals have slightly different brains. "I'm pretty sure if popular people are wired differently, then she's one of those people [who have a 'differently wired' brain]," said Shelton about the recent discovery. The study shows that popular people are not only aware of their own reputation, but they can also intuitively detect others' likability level. By doing so, researchers said, popular people are able to suit themselves to diverse situations, to be more social and to draw attention to themselves.

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The concept of popularity has been even intriguing scientists for years. Sociologist Scott L. Feld explained why we all seem to have that friend who is more popular than us. In 1991, he introduced the idea of "friendship paradox." Because friendships are bilateral, said Feld, you are likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than you. "If X is friends with Y, then Y is friends with X. How can Y and other friends of X have more friends than X does?" writes Satoshi Kanazawa in Psychology Today. The same paradox can be applied to social media to understand why you might not have as many followers as you would like.

Remember the cool high school kid everybody liked? Social scientists agree he or she is probably on a path to success. The role people play in high school, researchers say, is often the one they assume during their entire life. Jocks will be jocks, and drop outs will be...out, scientists say. However, psychologist at the University of Virginia Kathleen Boykin McElhaney thinks introverted teenagers should not despair. "Teens who are not broadly popular may demonstrate positive adjustment over time if they maintain a positive internal sense of their social acceptance," she writes.
I remember when President Obama first took the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States. It was around the first day of the spring semester at college and I was eagerly awaiting for class to be over so that I could see the historic moment unfold on television.

With literally a few minutes to spare, I had made it home. Oh, the feelings that I felt that day.

Someone who looked liked me was now President of the United States. How cool was that? How inspiring. And to see a North Philadelphia community of color celebrate this achievement was a beautiful thing.

There are people who will never understand that. For me, it would probably be the first and only time that I would witness something so unifying in my neighborhood. Sure, there had been past elections but this one was different. Whether it was a person's first vote or 50th, so many people came out in droves to vote for Obama.

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But over time, slowly at first, the euphoria I felt turned into fear. I thought at first that it was maybe silly of me to worry about the president, even though he would be the most protected individual in the country, I worried something would happen to him. Someone would take him away. I had given myself a false feeling of hope by believing that the country had stopped judging someone because of their skin color, and that was a mistake.

Among the cheers, the celebrations and the harmony of an Obama presidency, people were openly becoming upset, angry and, in a sense, working to undermine his presidency. It was obvious, so much was being said to disrespect Obama by his peers and fellow Americans. The issues brought up seemed to be much more personally rooted than his politics and planned policies he was going to set forth.

As I tried to stifle what I was feeling and made an attempt at believing that everything would be all right, it became clear that things would not be. Race was becoming a factor and people tried desperately to ignore that: They would say that it was merely miscommunication or that what was being reported was taken out of context.

Watching the current election unfold, I feel disconnected and disappointed in what I see. As I watch a certain core group of Americans rally behind Donald Trump, I can only see the embodiment of the country's frustration, its anger and its ignorance.

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Again, I struggle to find where it is all stemming from, and I always come back to the same answer that use to keep me up some nights. President Obama is someone who looks like me, and as he prepares to leave office, I truly feel that I have nothing to look forward to once his term is officially over.

I'm not excited about the candidates of my own party and find myself unsure of what to do. I've had problems trying to take this election and its frontrunners from both sides seriously. I am not sure who Hillary is anymore; she is definitely a different person from when she first announced her presidency. But her name, for better or worse, does carry some kind of weight.

And while I can understand the excitement behind Bernie Sanders, why people are backing him, I do not see him winning it all and will be surprised if he does. It's not because of Sanders' age or the way he looks, but because of the change that he wants to implement.

Changes that Obama, to a certain extent, wanted to implement when he started.
The sweet twang of bluegrass is just the right sound for the sweet happy ending of "Bright Star," a musical based on a newspaper item found by Edie Brickell describing a miracle. Working with Steve Martin, a not so wild and crazy guy in his current incarnation as Americana icon, the two have composed country songs for a band that plays from inside an A-frame house. Pushed along Broadway's Cort Theater stage as scenes change, the house is home to a family near Asheville, North Carolina, when son Billy Cane (A. J. Shively)) comes back from the war, and wants to be a writer. This post-war moment flashes back twenty-three years, to a spirited girl named Alice Murphy, with a story to tell.

In her Broadway debut, Carmen Cusack plays Alice with veteran flair. During the opening night intermission, as everyone marveled at this newcomer, Edie Brickell said Carmen could sing in any genre, not just country. Paul Simon (her husband) said he had to fight to keep one of the best songs, "Asheville," in, because Edie had grown tired of it. Brickell was having the time of her life, imagining more songs she could write for her characters. Her arms entwined with those of their daughter Lulu, just in from London where she is studying, Edie Brickell said she'd write another show in a heartbeat: "I see other talents blossom, and make me look better. I'll take it."

Alice's beau for better or for worse as this tale goes is Jimmy Ray Dobbs, the mayor's son. Paul Alexander Nolan, last seen in Dr. Zhivago, brings a sexy vibe to his scenes with Cusack, but gives in to arguments with his overbearing dad (a fine Stephen Bogardus). Working at the Asheville Southern Journal, where Tennessee Williams and Eudora Welty would be lucky to get their work read let alone published, Jeff Blumenkranz is goofy as Daryl Ames, while Emily Padgett as Lucy Grant is a splendid high kicking hussy. She was great in Sideshow, and simply show-stopping here.

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Barry Levinson, Joel Grey, Andrea Martin, Bebe Neuwirth, Aidan Quinn, Jefferson Mays, Jo and Steve Buscemi, Eric Fishl and April Gornik were just some of the guests for opening night, which also featured both Edie Brickell and Steve Martin performing on stage with their cast. Edie's impromptu duet of "At Long Last" with Carmen was especially warm. At the Gotham after party later on, we were all hoping Steve Martin would bring his banjo to the stage. He came on, announced that there would be a special guest, did a U-turn, and play he did.
In 2008, I attended Easter morning worship with my mom and dad at a progressive United Church of Christ congregation. The sermon was engaging. The music was magnificent. Everything about this Easter morning worship was spiritually meaningful.

But I was distracted... and distraught.

Family three rows up. Family six rows up. Family in the second from the front row on the other side of the sanctuary and two rows behind me too. People of approximately my age sitting throughout the church with their spouse and their two or three small children.

Here I was... nearly 35 years old and sitting with my parents on Easter morning sans husband or children. Even though I was with my lovely parents, I had never felt more alone. At no point that morning did I feel anyone made me feel bad about being single or childless. While some people at some congregations may stereotype people in my situation, I absolutely didn't feel as if people were looking down upon me.

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But I was looking down upon myself. "What's wrong with me?" was something I would wonder over and over again. Of course, when we are emotionally raw for any reason, it's easy to place blame upon ourselves. Life and love hadn't happened in the way I wanted it to by the age of 35. It was as simple as that.



Nonetheless, my feelings were very real that morning. And they threw me for a loop.

I wondered: How can we truly experience the resurrection if we are so distracted by what we don't have, what we haven't accomplished and in what ways we don't fit with our congregations?

Because of grieving, envy, brokenness and pain of all sorts, some of us aren't ready to exit the tomb on Easter morning. Even when the Easter story reminds us that time in the tomb is short, we feel safer in the shadow-filled capsule where sadness is all we know. We aren't ready to find ways to set aside our spiritual aches and live in the sunlight even though we, like post-crucifixion Jesus, are full of holes.

Easter morning may be a time when we hope that God will lead us to new life, new possibilities and fresh beginnings. But there could be people in our congregations who feel odd or isolated because they can't see life beyond the tomb. Maybe their marriage has dissolved and they are clutching the shame that often comes with divorce. Maybe their partner has died and they are surrounded by a blanket of grief. Maybe depression is a haze from which they can't emerge. Maybe they are estranged from a child, and Easter morning worship is reminding them of a relationship they no longer have. Numerous reasons exist why they may feel alone even when surrounded by people in the sanctuary.

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While we can't necessarily fix situations or pull people out of the tomb in which they abide, we enter the tomb to show them love. Bless them with a greeting, with the peace of Christ, if you see them sitting by themselves. Bless them with a request to sit with them as your presence sometimes has the power to help them feel a little less alone. Bless them with an invitation to lunch or coffee, extending the sanctuary beyond the walls of the church.

I may have felt stuck in the tomb longer than I had planned because I couldn't figure out how to move into the sunlight and find peace as a single person family.

Between 2008 and the time I met my boyfriend in 2013, I began to make some peace with this singleness in the sanctuary thanks to the grace of God and the love of neighbors. But it never became 100% easy. Even some of us who are 85% sure that we are fine with not having children get a little emotional when surrounded by what we once wanted.

Maybe I'm still trying to embrace resurrection because distractions of envy and comparisons get in my way. But the sealed tomb in which I found myself has started to crack open. Beams of light have begun to find their way beyond the shadows. And I'll continue to look towards the dawn's light of hope to an Easter a little less blue.

Join the conversation on what it means to be unmarried (single, divorced, separated, co-habitating, widowed) in the progressive Christian church at the Facebook Group Single in the Sanctuary.

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3d Retro microphone

Throughout the years of writing and blogging I've had the opportunity to venture into other forms of media like TV and radio. Some of my posts in Huffington Post would get picked up by other outlets and I'd be asked to appear on a few shows. About a year ago I had the opportunity to have a regular weekly slot as a guest on the "Tony Show" with long time political talk show host, Tony Trupiano.

Tony and I would spend an hour each week discussing current affairs, politics, and whatever had us pissed off that week. I was amazed at how much we were able to talk about and how quickly the time went. It really is amazing how much you can talk about in an hour and how quickly that hour is filled -- the benefits became quickly apparent.

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My dad once told me I had a face for radio. I was fourteen years old and had just passed the FCC exam and was ready to make my mark on the airwaves. Our local high school had a TV and radio station and I had managed to con the guy in charge into letting me have a show. So twice a week I would travel from the middle school to the high school to entertain the dozen or so people who actually tuned into the 10-watt station.

I eventually graduated high school and left my broadcasting career behind, but held onto the unhealthy habit of offering my opinion. Several years later I found myself in North Carolina working as a newspaper reporter covering cops, crimes, schoolboard meetings, snapping turtles, elections and just about everything else that fell into the category of things worth reading about. Eventually, I moved back to the East Coast and did some freelance and tech writing, leaving the news and politics behind. Then in 2009, the economy collapsed, people were losing their houses and the world -- at least according to Wall Street -- was coming to an end. Through a strange course of events and circumstances I found myself, once again, writing about banks, finances, politics, homeowners, and politicians. As luck would have it, I ended up on the pages of the Huffington Post, where I've been now for the past seven years. That's were Tony found me and since then, he and I have partnered up to do T&Z Talk -- a daily podcast about current events and politics.

There's a lot to be said about podcasting from a bloggers perspective. The most obvious is sheer numbers. I can talk for an hour about topics that would take me days to write about. We can include actual audio, guests, and opinion -- most importantly there's no need to point out sarcasm or explain a joke. Plagiarism is another factor to consider. I've lost count of the amount of articles I've spent hours writing, only to see them on some other website, surrounded by cheesy ads, bearing someone else's name.

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I recently came across an article that drives many of these points home. "Current Affairs" published an article last month by Nathan J. Robinson titled, "Keeping The Content Machine Whirring." In it Robinson lays out the state of content on the web. He describes two article. The first one he wrote was well sourced, researched and edited and a second post he wrote that was more opinion and fluff. The first one, as he puts it, "... was a carefully-reasoned argument on immigration, critiquing progressives for advocating the deportation of criminals." The second article:

...was basically an attempt to write the most clickbaity thing I could think of; i.e. taking some item in pop culture and calling it racist. For that, I went to see the film Trainwreck and then just mindlessly wrote a screed about it. I looked online and saw that nobody in a major outlet had called the film racist yet, and I figured that as long as I was the first person to call Trainwreck racist, it would be easy enough to get such a thing published. People have said that the star, Amy Schumer, is a racist plenty of times before. But nobody had yet called this particular film of hers racist! I figured it would be a sure fit for Salon, since it was basically exactly the article I think of when I think about the site.

It's not hard to guess which one was accepted, published and paid off. As Robinson puts it, the deportation article was published no further than his email outbox. "Trainwreck's Race Problem," on the other hand was shared over 1,000 times and had hundreds of comments.

One has to wonder if podcast fans would be more likely to listen to a conversation about deportation if they were already tuned in?

In an unfortunate example, "Kids Count in Michigan" Project Director, Alicia Guevara Warren joined us on the show last week for 15 minutes to talk about child poverty and hunger. The original title of the show, was "The Staggering Number of Hungry Kids in America." The podcast, published shortly after the live stream, got only a few clicks. Later that day, we changed the title to, "Cruz and Trump React to Brussels Attack," also a topic we discussed and the show took off. The upside, of course, is that while all of those people came to hear about the GOP clown car, they were also educated and informed about something they otherwise would have never known about. And those were only two of the topics we covered in an hour.

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No one in their right mind is going to read an article at the gym, behind the wheel of a car, or while out for a jog, but they might listen to a podcast and an hour of audio is a perfect way to effectively get your point across.

As New York Magazine's Kevin Roose, points out in his article "What's Behind the Great Podcast Renaissance?":

But as I talked to podcasters, they told me that the biggest reason for the podcast renaissance has nothing to do with the podcasts themselves, or the advertisers funding them. It's actually about cars. The secret to radio's success has always been the drive-time commuter. An estimated 44 percent of all radio listening takes place in the car...

As the technology becomes more sophisticated and streaming becomes more reliable, there's a good argument for podcasting. As NPR veteran Alex Blumberg puts it:

Radio has been saved the disruption that has happened to other media. It's been frozen in time for 50 years. Now that everyone is walking around with a radio in their pocket at all times, and now that all cars are going to be connected, the form can flourish again.

The same could be said for newspapers and that people are walking around with an entire newsstand in their pocket, but to bring up numbers again, Rob Walch from hosting company "Libsyn" points out:

Blogger to podcaster ratio is roughly 1950 to 1. If you are a company with a blog covering a specific subject, typically there will be 1950 bloggers to each podcaster covering that subject. Having a blog no longer separates you from the crowd -- blogging is the crowd.

I continue to write and will hopefully continue to be published, but in the mean time I can cover more ground, more topics, and more insanity in a one-hour podcast.
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders holds a rally at Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington March 25, 2016. REUTERS/David Ryder

It's not over. Far from it. The economic and political establishment, which includes the Democratic National Committee (DNC), its Wall Street and corporate backers, and the major media, most of it now owned by a half dozen big corporations, have worked feverishly to turn the Democratic primary process into a coronation for Hillary Clinton.

Bottom line, they wanted to declare it over before actual voters could vote, but their carefully crafted strategy began to #FeelTheBern.

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Here are 10 ways that establishment has sought to orchestrate the results, and why the race has a long ways to go.

1. Major media blackout

When Sanders began his campaign, as he often recounts, he had virtually no national name recognition (compared to Clinton's universal recognition) and trailed her by 60 to 70 points in national polls.

The major media barely breathed his name, even when he began drawing crowds of 20,000 or more to summer rallies. Partly the result of the obsession with Trump, but also because the conglomerates controlling the media hardly wanted to promote such a fierce critic of Wall Street and the 1 percent.

In December the nightly news networks had allotted Trump 23 times more coverage than Sanders, on ABC alone 81 minutes to Trump for the year, compared to only 20 seconds for Sanders.

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Even though while Sanders was holding extensive campaign events and press availabilities for months, Clinton was mostly avoiding public events and media avails, with the media largely ignoring its rebuff. (Even today you rarely see it pointed out that Clinton continues to dodge press conferences.)

2. They're debating when?

Ironically unlike the Republican National Committee, the DNC manipulated its debate schedule to have the fewest number of debates at the worst times, intended to minimize voter viewing, including setting them on holiday weekends and the Saturday night before Christmas.

The goal was to restrict voter exposure and side-by-side comparison with other candidates who offered a significant alternative to Clinton, which served to keep name recognition of Sanders and his prescription for change artificially low. Additional debates were only added much later after widespread condemnation of the DNC.

3. Sanders booms, media works to marginalize

As the votes began coming in for Bernie, especially with his tie in Iowa followed by the big win in New Hampshire, Clinton surrogates were given extra time as TV analysts to downplay the results, and the media narrative shifted.



NNU members with Bernie and Jane Sanders in Iowa

The media paradigm typically is crafted inside the Washington Beltway and New York boardrooms, with other reporters compelled by their own editors or self-censorship to follow along, a practice also known as pack journalism.

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A parade of big name liberal columnists, editorial writers, and TV analysts vilified Sanders' visionary program, especially Medicare for all and free college tuition, while promoting Clinton's "pragmatic" (lower your expectations) message that minimized the ongoing crisis felt by the millions left behind without health care, unemployed or stuck in low paying jobs, facing mountains of student debt, and all the other pervasive disparities Sanders described.

The next story line depicted Sanders as a narrow candidate because the majority of his support came from students, working class white voters, independents, and low to moderate income voters - largely ignoring that Clinton's own base failed to include any of those groups who would be critical to winning a general election in November. Or that Clinton continues to fail to move support among those constituencies.

4. Vote rigging

After Sanders' sweeping win in New Hampshire, the DNC went into hyper drive to break his momentum, starting in the next voting state Nevada.

Concerned Sanders would win Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader and most powerful elected official in Nevada, as it later emerged, arranged a plan with owners of Las Vegas casinos, where many caucuses were being held, and other employers, to ensure Clinton would win. The Nevada caucuses were then rigged with massive voting irregularities such as casino owners orchestrating which workers would be allowed to vote and, in clear intimidation, openly monitoring how they voted.

Vote tampering also occurred in other states, most recently in Arizona where on election day, polling locations were sharply cut forcing many voters to stand in line for up to five hours in the heat, with some leaving before casting a vote.

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Voter suppression laws, rampant now across the country, disproportionately disenfranchise students and young voters, a group that has voted for Sanders by margins of up to 80 percent. The laws, passed by rightwing legislatures and governors, also target African-Americans and Latinos, which will ultimately harm any Democratic nominee in November.

5. The sexism canard

Desperate for attack lines against Sanders, the Clinton camp and her adherents have tried to paint him as a sexist, employing the same tactic of exaggerated small slights they used against Barack Obama in 2008 (remember "you're likeable enough"). Add in the clumsy effort of Clinton surrogates Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright to mock and vilify young women who vote for Sanders.

Memo to Clinton and company. Bernie Sanders is not Donald Trump. He has a near perfect voting record on such issues as women's reproductive rights and pay equity, and most of his proposals, especially Medicare for all, free college tuition, and expanding Social Security would disproportionately help women.

As the 90 percent female organization of nurses NNU has stated, we would love to break the glass ceiling, but this election is unprecedented in its opportunity to shatter the class ceiling.

6. Undemocratic primaries

Sanders has won the overwhelming majority of independent voters in "open" primaries or caucuses that allow them to vote.

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Many Clinton surrogates have fulminated that any independent voters are allowed to participate in the Democratic Party nominating process. As if only the two major parties should be allowed to decide who can run for office while a record 43 percent of U.S. voters are now independents in a corrupted system. Winning the independents' votes is decisive in general elections, suggesting they should have a voice in determining who are the strongest candidates.

Because of the media blackout, many voters do not gain sufficient information about Sanders until shortly before election day. Early voting reflects lower name recognition for Sanders, benefiting Clinton and enabling her to win some close races.

That contributes to the meme of her "inevitability," but does not indicate she is the stronger candidate. In competitive states, Sanders has won a majority of those who voted on election day. When voters have more time to compare candidates based on sufficient information, they tend to choose Bernie.

7. Super delegates toe the line

Enormous pressure was brought to bear on the some 700 super delegates, mostly Democratic elected officials and other high-profile DNC members, to fall in line behind Clinton, facing intimidation or promises well honed by a Clinton machine that has had 25 years of practice.

An additional factor is the DNC decision to step up raking in cash from Wall Street and other corporate donors, and their implicit pledge to use those funds only for Democratic candidates who play ball by supporting Clinton.

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These officials believe that the way to win elections is through big donor fundraising and shape shifting positions. The Sanders' truth telling campaign, supported by millions of small donors engaged in a movement mobilization, is foreign in their eyes and threatening to their donor base.



The overwhelming tilt of super delegates for Clinton has fueled the narrative that Sanders can't win, a line that the super delegates, who have a wider audience as members of Congress and often as supposedly neutral TV analysts, parrot relentlessly, along with the other Clinton/DNC/major media attacks.

The DNC created the undemocratic super delegate system to confer the power on the Democratic Party hierarchy to handpick their preference and blunt the ability of insurgents to win the nomination after outsiders George McGovern and Jimmy Carter shocked the party establishment by winning nominations in the 1970s.

8. Who's most electable, who is not

It's repeated over and over by her super delegates and the media - Clinton is the most electable candidate, and Democrats must rally behind her to beat Trump. The line has been so drummed into the narrative that many voters in exit polls cite it as the reason they voted for Clinton.

One problem, it's not true. Virtually every poll for months has shown Sanders faring better against Trump, Cruz, and Kasich than Clinton, often by a wide margin, even as the media has already played out the attack lines Republicans would use against Sanders.

Additionally, the media largely ignores the salient point that Clinton has nearly the highest unfavorable ratings of any leading Democrat to run for President. By contrast, Sanders, widely praised by voters as the most honest and trustworthy candidate most have ever seen, has among the lowest unfavorable ratings, despite the media shock that anyone would trust, much less vote for, a democratic socialist.

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Rally for Bernie Sanders in Des Moines

And the media consistently downplays a key Sanders point, how the enthusiasm that he generates - evident in the now 1 million who have packed his campaign rallies - that is largely absent from Clinton's campaign is critical for the nominee to win, as well as to help in down ballot races for Democrats.

9. The math, the math

The final defense for the Clinton camp and the major media, spinning out from the Eastern media centers to local news outlets, is that Clinton is too far ahead in delegates so the race is over.

To make the case even more heavy-handed, Clinton's big margin among super delegates is added to the total of delegates won in primaries and caucuses. Even though unlike pledged delegates, super delegates are not committed to their position. They can flip at will, as they did from Clinton to Obama in 2008.

Next time you hear a pundit say, Sanders needs to win 60 percent of the remaining delegates, "and that just can't happen," consider his 80 percent victories in Idaho, Utah, and Alaska, and over 70 percent in Washington and Hawaii.



In state after state, especially that are not closed to independents, where Sanders has had time to campaign so voters get to know him, his platform, consistent record and unimpeachable character, and when the voting process is allowed to move forward without open rigging, Sanders does increasingly well.

The result often is wins, as in Michigan and recent caucus states, or effective ties in votes and delegates, as in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Even in states where Clinton ultimately won because of voters who voted early by mail, Sanders increasingly won the majority of those who turn out on election day.

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10. Forward to victory

Sanders himself says the path to his nomination is challenging, but still within range. States that were the biggest hurdle, in the South where the Clinton's have a long history and Sanders was a complete unknown, are all past.

The remaining states, including the two largest, California and New York, which have a base more favorable to Sanders, can be won with lots of delegates to be awarded. National polls have already shown substantial movement toward Sanders the past two months, and his edge over Clinton in head to head matchups with the remaining Republicans continues to grow.

The challenge, of course, is not just to Clinton, but to the movement, including nurses and the activist army that has shattered all records in campaign contributions to Sanders and creates the overflow crowds at his rallies.

Enthusiasm for the Sanders campaign, the transformative program that he presents, which is really the program NNU and grassroots activists have long championed, is off the charts, and continuing to grow.
Muslim cleric Mouhameth Galaye (C) speaks ahead of Friday Prayers at the Grand Mosque in Brussels on Match 25, 2016, as Muslims gathered for the first Friday prayers in the wake of the suicide attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station that left 31 people dead and 300 wounded and were claimed by the Islamic State group. / AFP / PHILIPPE HUGUEN (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images)

The tragic attacks in Brussels have raised questions regarding the scourge of "homegrown terrorists" that strike at the very core of modern aspirations of multicultural nation-states. Media pundits have been airing comparisons between Europe's "exclusion" and America's "inclusion" of the immigrant's identity. Having grown up as a Muslim in America while also living in Europe and Australia, I would like to offer some broader perspectives on this matter.

There is either a tendency to celebrate America as the most diverse land of opportunity or to lament the legacy of discrimination towards Muslims following September 11, 2001. However, the vast diversity and dispersion of Muslims in America suggests that the same fault lines that we have observed in Europe can be found in the United States as well but are manifest in different ways.

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Although immigrant Muslims in America are generally of higher socioeconomic status than their European counterparts, African American Muslims, who account for about a quarter of all Muslims in America, remain economically marginalized and dissatisfied with their lives. Yet, there has been scant evidence of the African-American Muslim community's involvement in recent terrorism.

Causality for radicalization remains quite elusive in the context of American and European Muslims. Instead of trying to find a specific pattern, it is more instructive to consider multiple pathways of radicalization by better understanding the broad spectrum of daily lives of Muslims.

Perhaps the most nuanced documentary on the topic was made in 2008 by an anthropologist and erstwhile Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Akbar S. Ahmed titled Journey into America. in which some of the struggles that Muslim-Americans face within their own communities, as well as externally, were presented with care and persuasion.

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Traveling with a group of American students through scores of Muslim communities in North America from "sea to shining sea", the documentary attempted to show how the clash of cultures that is so frequently talked about is affecting daily lives for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The film starts with the "Muslim Day Parade" in New York City, which is greeted with celebration by one side of the street and invective on the other. While some non-Muslim onlookers are cheering on the crowds as a mark of American diversity, others are jeering them with slogans of "no sharia", and defamatory slogans. There are even some Muslims themselves who are seen opposing the march as a mark of subservience and acquiescence to the dominant culture. The parade is an apt allegory for the messy state of Muslim affairs in America which continues to struggle with reconciling its multiple identities.

Most significantly, the documentary recognizes that the greatest challenge to Islamic identity in America comes from within the Muslim community, which continues to be fragmented by fanaticism. In one telling story, the documentary notes the story of Farhan in Michigan, the president of the Muslim Students Association at a local college, who was attacked by other Muslims and barely escaped being run-over with a car by the assailants. His only "crime" in the eyes of his jihadist attackers was that he was trying to promote dialogue between Muslims, Jews and Christians. Such stories of Muslims attacking Muslims in America are not isolated and frequently, progressive Muslims receive threats by radical elements for spreading "fitna" (an Islamic term that connotes 'mischief' in a theological sense).

The texture of American Muslims ranges from relatively impoverished African-American communities in tough urban neighborhoods to wealthy South Asian doctors and Arab traders spread out across the country. Their experiences are just as varied as the vast landscape of the continent. However, there is definitely a greater adjustment challenge for Muslims than for other faith traditions in America, partly because of their own reluctance to change and partly because of embedded prejudice within the host society.

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Following 9/11, there has been far greater polarization across the country on issues pertaining to Islam. Many Muslims have become defensive and more assertive of their Islamic identity by boasting beards and wearing hijab while others have been totally repulsed by their religion altogether. Similarly, some non-Muslims have either come forth to defend Islam at the behest of "diversity", while others have been attracted to Islamophobic websites that perniciously cast doubt on all practicing Muslims.

However, by engaging at all levels of governance, American Muslims are slowly beginning to get more "mainstreamed" within American political discourse as Muslims are in European political systems as well. As an example, Dr Ahmed interviewed Bernie Stone, the late vice-mayor and alderman of Chicago, who established "Jinnah Street" in the Devon neighborhood of Chicago alongside "Gandhi Road" (named after two prominent South Asians independence leaders -- Jinnah a Muslim and Gandhi a Hindu). The alderman supported five mosques being established in the area and noted jovially that he gets more votes from Muslims than his own Jewish brethren!

Progressive versus traditionalist Muslims are beginning to voice their dissent through competitive lobbying rather than fist fights or fatwas. The fanatics are still there and their dormant presence cannot be ignored, but increasingly Muslim communities in America are realizing that they must marginalize such elements. At the end of the day, Islamic identity in America will need to follow the Hebrew advice noted by Dr Ahmed that is enshrined in two words Tikkun Olam which means to strive in healing a fractured worldly relationship.

To fight extremism, Europe and America alike must be willing to grapple with complex causality and resist linear explanations for radicalization. Former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, in a confidential memorandum that was subsequently released, posed the central question about the American war on terror: "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassahs and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" Starting with Rumsfeld's question, more than a decade ago, Professor Mark Danner has commendably approached this issue in detail and his answer is a resolute "no". Danner quotes counterinsurgency specialist John Arqullia who compares the US reaction as highly mercurial: "We have taken a ball of quicksilver, and hit it with a hammer". The irony of this analogy is that it also shows how elusive our statistics might be ascertaining the actual number of atomized extremists is just as difficult as trying to quantify mercury particles in motion.

The only way forward to understanding radicalization of Muslims as well as other religious and secular communities is to consider the "push" and "pull" factors that can impact a wide array of demographics. We should not be afraid to ask questions about the underlying political causes which can lead psychologically vulnerable or deranged individuals to resort to violence. Indeed, socio-psychological research has also suggested that the same individuals who are capable of pernicious suicidal behavior are also capable of extreme positive altruism if their motivations can be positively channeled. Research in Europe with non-Muslim "Right Wing extremists" has also revealed the potency of "parochial altruism" in determining the impact of propaganda that comes forth when threats are perceived.
Since 2010, many health reform advocates have described the progress made under the Affordable Care Act, and we look forward to its continued implementation in the years to come. As it enters its sixth year, let's consider the fact that this is Obamacare's last year under the Obama Administration. For this anniversary, we must urge our policymakers to take steps now and in the near future to build upon Obamacare's success:

1. Stop Suing and Repealing Obamacare

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments for what some are calling "Hobby Lobby 2," proving that bad sequels aren't just from Hollywood. Currently, if religious organizations want to avoid the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employee health insurance cover birth control, then they must write a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services expressing religious objection. This week, in Zubik v Burwell, a religious non-profit organization complained to the Supreme Court that writing a simple letter imposed a burden. This really happened. During National Women's History Month. Hopefully the irony is sickeningly evident, but in case it's not, I'll spell it out. When trying to access reproductive health care, women face the real burdens, almost none of which can be overcome by writing a letter. Instead of targeting birth control, let's direct our moral outrage at politicians obstructing the basic human right of health care. When it comes to the ACA, we need to get past the burdensome lawsuits in federal courts and the countless repeal-and-not-replace votes in Congress.

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2. Expand Medicaid Already

This should be as obvious as not suing or repealing the law, but as of right now, 19 states are still not expanding Medicaid to include families making $28,000 per year or less (138% of the federal poverty level for a family of three). Nearly 3 million of our fellow Americans are in the "coverage gap" where their incomes are "too high" for Medicaid but too low to buy health insurance in the federal marketplace exchange. Governors and state legislatures need to put patients before politics and upgrade their Medicaid programs to cover families.

3. Fix the Family Glitch

Under the health reform law, if an individual worker can get affordable health insurance for herself from her employer, then she is not eligible for federal subsidies to purchase coverage for her family members. Over 4 million Americans are struggling with this "family glitch" where affordable individual coverage through an employer mistakenly prohibits workers' families from federal assistance to buy health insurance on the exchanges. Legislation to fix this glitch has been proposed, but Congress has yet to really act on it.

4. Add a Public Option

Since the Affordable Care Act was passed, health insurance companies have attempted to merge with each other, leaving competition and fair pricing in the dust. While the Justice Department investigates, health policy experts have expressed concern for how patients will afford care and how doctors will provide care under the crushing power of a few mega-insurance companies. Regardless of these circumstances, we must develop a public option as a source of affordable health insurance coverage for patients and as a driver for competition as big insurance companies put profits before patients.

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5. Coverage for ALL Immigrants

Last year, California took a bold step to allow undocumented immigrants to purchase health insurance in the state's exchange marketplace or to enroll in Medi-Cal (the state's Medicaid program). The Affordable Care Act currently prohibits undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance in the federal exchange (or in a state's exchange unless the state applies for a waiver, as California is doing). Over 20 percent of America's uninsured are immigrants, some undocumented and others in an arbitrary waiting period. Immigrants' access to healthcare is being wrongly managed as a privilege, when it should be a basic human right. The rest of the country should follow California's example and extend healthcare to everyone, regardless of immigration status.

6. Demand Better Prices from Pharmaceutical Companies

In 2015, Americans spent $457 billion on prescription drugs (28 percent in hospitals and clinics, 72 percent on retail drugs). Currently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is working on several approaches to address the rising spending and escalating prices for prescription drugs. We could stop healthcare providers from profiting off prescribing what's new and expensive, and urge them to scrutinize the efficacy of new medications compared to what has worked before. Similarly, Medicare can pay drug companies only for medicines with a proven track record of improving patients' health outcomes. These approaches are worth considering and testing, but policymakers need to act upon what 83 percent of Americans want: allow Medicare to directly negotiate with the big drug companies for better prices. Not only would this effort be fiscally responsible for the federal government, it would be morally responsible to end the false choices of whether patients pay for prescriptions, groceries, or their rent.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often called "Mormons," are peculiar Christians, to be sure. For example, they don't have any crosses on their buildings yet they emphatically believe in Jesus Christ.

But if they don't wear the cross, how do Mormons express worship or reverence for Jesus Christ? And with Easter just around the corner, how do Mormons celebrate the Easter season?

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The answer is the same: emphatically.

Although Mormons do not typically participate in the traditions of Lent, Ash Wednesday, or Good Friday, they do study and learn from them. Furthermore, Mormons dedicate their Easter Sacrament Meeting to celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Around the Easter season (sometimes on Easter Sunday itself) Mormons will gather in Salt Lake City (and around the world) to listen to their leaders testify of Jesus Christ through inspirational talks centered on Christ's teachings.

As part of the celebration of Easter, the LDS Church recently launched Follow Him, a campaign aimed at helping people around the world understand the mission and message of Jesus Christ. At a glance, it's easy to see that this campaign has been a tremendous undertaking: several new videos (each translated into over 30 languages), numerous animated images, and the crowning jewel: a breathtaking video of the largest virtual choir ever assembled--singing alongside the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

This is all on top of a long series of videos depicting the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Mormons may not use a cross to celebrate Christ, but they certainly do celebrate His life!

Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth President of the LDS Church, once told of a conversation he had with a Protestant Minister. The Minister asked about the cross and what symbolized the Mormon faith in Christ. President Hinckley responded that "the lives of our people must become the most meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship."

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This has been a very difficult time for many in Europe, not just Brussels. Belgium's capital city dually serves as the capital of the European Union and its many institutions, and the attacks in Brussels were symbolic of an attack on Europe as a whole. The EU's Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini was clearly shaken as she wiped away tears upon hearing news of the blasts at Brussels' Zaventem and Maelbeek Metro station whilst giving a joint press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh recently. She was shaken for good reason- the blast at Maelbeek was less than 500 metres from where the European Council and other institutions are headquartered. This was not just an attack on innocent lives, it was an attack on Europe itself.

There is much speculation as to the reasons the three assailants carried out the attack when they did. Some say it was in response to the capture of Salah Abdesalam, the logistical planner of the November 13, 2015 Paris Attacks. Others claim that it was separate and had been planned for some time. Still others believe there is a connection to the refugee crisis and the rise of anti-refugee populism in much of Europe. The reaction to these theories should be, "maybe".

We should not be fooled, however, into thinking that the Brussels attacks on March 22 were anything less than an assault on European values and the legitimacy of the European institutions. Perhaps this attack was not intended to carry such resolve, but since then, we have seen how countries across Europe have failed to tackle the rise of jihadism and stop the flow of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. Proportionally, Belgium has seen more of its citizens travel to the Middle East to join Daesh and other terrorist groups than any other country in Europe.

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It is not just the security failure that worries Europe's leaders, but now the political disruption the Brussels attacks will likely cause. The rise of security as a major electoral theme will favor the parties or politicians who have long advocated more power and bigger budgets for security services, limits to the free movement of people within the EU and sometimes curbs to civil liberties. Such parties include the Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD), Geert Wilder's PVV in Netherlands, or Le Pen's National Front in France. It will also favor those who advocate doing away with Schengen permanently and reestablishing national borders as being presented as safer than loose EU borders. Traditional ruling parties are now in a bind, having to explain what they did or didn't do to tackle these issues, which is something Merkel's CDU or Hollande's Socialists will have trouble responding to.

The problem is, European countries and the EU can no longer guarantee the safety of their citizens, which of course if their foremost responsibility. Security services has faced the brunt of budget cuts and, since the November Paris Attacks, Belgium's security services have been ridiculed and criticized for their failure to pass intelligence on to France regarding those who had planned the attacks in the French capital.

The admission from Turkish President Erdogan, however, did not make the existing intelligence services look all that great when it was reported that Turkey last year deported Brahim el-Bakraoui -- one of two brothers identified by Belgian authorities on Wednesday as suicide bombers who took part in Tuesday's deadly attacks- but Belgium ignored warnings that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter", according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu. This is unacceptable and a direct failure of Belgian intelligence capabilities.

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There are solutions, however. What is needed now more than ever is a pan-European security union. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, speaking to reporters from the Commission's headquarters in Brussels, said in a joint press-conference with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, "We need everything that will allow us to achieve a security union".

Last December the Commission drew up a proposal for an EU border and coast guard that the Commission hopes will be operational this autumn and the European Parliament is expected to take up the measure within the next weeks. This is a rational conclusion. Europe cannot afford to have a country, such as Belgium, 'drop the ball' on intelligence leading up to a terrorist attack and put other Europeans at risk. A European solution to this problem is therefore inevitable.

This could mean the creation of a European intelligence service where member states would pool information together under the authority of the Commission or an independent agency, or the empowerment of Europol to tackle these issues through an existing institution.

Either way, member states need to work more closely than they are in tackling terrorism, especially domestic terrorism, and national intelligence services need to be on the same page about imminent threats. MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence service, could and should lead by example and do whatever it can to voluntarily and immediately forward any and all intelligence about planned attacks to its European partners, seeing as it is the best equipped and most empowered intelligence service in Europe. Of course, British intelligence has the benefit of EU and NATO membership in its dealings with other intelligence services, which would be threatened by Brexit.

That said, however, Europe has some tough questions to ask itself in the coming weeks and months. Is a pan-European security union the inevitable next step, or can member states finally utilise intelligence sharing networks like Europol and Frontex to pool resources and information together as individual entities? Only time will tell, but the longer Europe's security services wait, the more likely another Paris or Brussels will occur.


by Andrew Cockburn

Chapter 1

REMEMBER, KILL CHAIN

In a cold February dawn in 2010, two small SUVs and a four-door pickup truck headed down a dirt road in the mountains of southern Afghanistan. They had set out soon after midnight, traveling cross-country to reach Highway 1, the country's principal paved road, which would lead them to Kandahar and north to Kabul. Crammed inside were more than thirty men, women, and children, four of them younger than six. Everyone knew one another, for they all came from the same cluster of mountain villages roughly two hundred miles southwest of Kabul. Many of the men, unemployed and destitute, were on their way to Iran in hopes of work. Others were shopkeepers heading to the capital to buy supplies, or students returning to school. The women carried turkeys, gifts for the relatives they would stay with in Kabul. A number were Hazaras, an ethnic minority of Shia Muslims whom the Taliban treated with unremitting cruelty whenever they had the opportunity. Now they were in western Uruzgan Province, Taliban country and therefore very dangerous for them, but they risked the shortcut because they were short on gas.

They met no other cars and little foot traffic; the world around them must have seemed empty. But it was not. Unbeknownst to them, they were being watched and their every movementeven the warmth from their bodiestransmitted across the globe. As the ramshackle vehiclesone of them kept breaking down and another blew a tireclattered along, people they would never meet conferred across oceans and continents as to who they were, where they were going, what they were carrying, and whether they should live or die.

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Unwittingly, the little group was driving toward an Operational Detachment Alpha, a U.S. Special Forces patrol dropped in with a supporting force of Afghan soldiers soon after midnight to attack the nearby village of Khod. Such raids were routine in Afghanistan, planned and executed by the semimythic Special Operations Command that specializes in the pursuit and elimination of "high-value targets." Someone thought this operation important enough to give it the code name Operation Noble Justice.

Sunday, February 21, 4:12 a.m.

Pilot of MQ-1 Predator, call sign Kirk 97: We are eyes on the first vehicle; observing to try and PID on the pax in the open; stand by for movement on the second.

The 27-foot-long Predator drone was circling at 14,000 feet. Below its belly protruded a "sensor" ball carrying a variety of cameras, including an infrared video that picked up the warmth thrown off by the vehicles and passengers 2.5 miles below. Almost in an instantbut not quitethe images flashed across the world to twin screens inside a metal box roughly the size of a shipping container at Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada desert. Facing the screens sat "Kirk 97," a pilot guiding the drone by remote control. Beside him sat a sensor operator who guided the cameras and weapons-targeting laser. In another room nearby a third member of the crew, the mission intelligence coordinator, was watching the same video images.

The pictures had audiences elsewhere. Hurlburt Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle is headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command and home to one station of the vast but little-known global network referred to as the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). This is the central nervous system funneling, collating, and sharing the unimaginable quantities of imagery and electronic information collected by air force drones and reconnaissance planes (ISR for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) around the globe. In theory, anyone in any part of DCGS has access to any information that has been fed into the system, wherever they are.

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Thus it was that the images captured by the Predator were being watched at Hurlburt by a dedicated team, a minibureaucracy of young men and women, each with specialized tasks. In overall charge was an intelligence tactical coordinator (ITC) supervising two "screeners." The chief screener, a civilian on contract from SAIC, a major defense corporation heavily involved in drone operations, outranked the second screener, a junior air force officer who happened to be her husband. Also present were two full-motion video analysts (FMVs). While one FMV watched the screen, the other typed "products," conclusions drawn from the imagery, which were then passed to the screeners for onward transmission via a system known as Internet Relay Chat to the mission intelligence coordinator sitting in his trailer in Nevada. A geospatial analyst tasked with generating relevant geographical information for the other analysts made up the complement.

The video had still more destinations. Special Operations, born in World War II as a term for agents sent behind enemy lines to train and lead friendly guerrillas, had by the twenty-first century ballooned into a 66,000-strong branch of the U.S. military, with an inevitably complex command arrangement. The little raiding party in Uruzgan that night was under the supervision of a Special Operations Task Force headquartered in Kandahar, which was naturally in receipt of the ubiquitous video, along with the written messages streaming back and forth between Nevada and Florida. Kandahar in turn answered to Combined Special Operations Task Force headquarters at Bagram, outside Kabul, where the video was also screening.

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The ultimate beneficiary of all these complex arrangements was a sergeant attached to the raiding party. Known as a "joint terminal attack controller," he was responsible for communicating via radio with any and all air support, including the Predator, and relaying orders and intelligence to and from the young captain commanding the party. Calling himself Jaguar 25, the sergeant was the force's only link with the team in Nevada, which in turn was the sole link with the screeners in Florida.

Almost as soon as the raiding party disembarked from their helicopters shortly after midnight, someone out in the darkness had switched on a handheld radio and broadcast a general call to arms. "They are here," he said, "let us get all the Mujaheddin together and defend this place." It was a simple, uncomplicated exhortation addressed to no one in particular and audible to anyone with a radio, utterly unlike the assorted esoteric systems employed by the U.S. forces. Americans listening in were bemused by their enemy's unconcern for eavesdropping, and indeed the Taliban summonsif that was what it waswas overheard by a host of U.S. military intelligence posts on the ground and in the air. Accordingly the word was passed to look out for enemy reinforcements. Two vehicles in tandem, the pickup and one SUV, lumbering into the area easily fit that picture, and suspicions hardened when they and another SUV flashed lights at each other before continuing on together in the direction of the patrol as it waited for daylight.

4:15 a.m.

Mission intelligence controller: See if you can zoom in on that guy, 'cos he's like ...

Pilot: What did he just leave there? Is that a fucking rifle?

Sensor: Maybe just a warm spot from where he's been sitting.

Pilot: I was hoping we could make a rifle out. Never mind.

Sensor: The only way I've ever been able to see a rifle is if they move them around, when they're holding them, with muzzle flashes out or slinging them across their shoulders.

Drone operators are not in immediate contact with the real world, literally, thanks to the phenomenon known as latency, a reference to the time it takes for information to make its way from the drone to a satellite twenty-two thousand miles up in space, down again to a ground station in Ramstein, Germany, switching to a fiber-optic cable through which it travels across western Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and the continental United States, before reaching Nevada and the screen in the pilot's trailer. As the electronic pulses are split, reunited, and buffered for assembly into packages pending their dispatch to the next way station, microsecond delays steadily accumulate. It means that the scene on a pilot's screen is out of date, usually two seconds but sometimes as much as five seconds. As the crew reacts to what they are seeing, moving their controls to send an instruction to the aircraft they are "flying," that signal in turn takes two to five seconds to deliver. This time lapse is why drone takeoffs and landings must be handled by a separate team of pilots stationed close to the runway so that they can see the planes they are flying in real time. Potential targets on the ground are aware of the delay: Yemeni members of al-Qaeda reported in 2011 that when they hear a drone overhead, they move around as much as possible.

Nor do the pictures themselves necessarily always bear close resemblance to the world as the rest of us see it and sometimes are "no better than looking at Google Earth through a straw," as one veteran remarked of the plane's "spotter TV" feature. Thus for most of the time the convoy was under watch, the sensor could only focus on two of the three vehicles at a time. If the operator zoomed out even slightly, the already imperfect resolution was lost. Imagery became even less precise if there was dust in the air, if the drone was too high, at dusk or dawn (when both infrared and daylightuse electrooptical cameras lose efficiency), or when the sensor operator could not focus properly. The video as received by troops on the ground that night in Uruzgan was even poorer, described by one as "crap, full of static and crackling."

4:24 a.m.

Jaguar 25 (call sign of the JTAC, a Special Forces sergeant on the ground liaising with the Predator): What we're looking for is a QRF (Quick Reaction Force); we believe we may have a high level Taliban commander.

Pilot: Wouldn't surprise me if this was one of their important guys, just watching from a distance, you know what I mean?

Then came an unwelcome message from Florida.

4:37 a.m.

Mission intelligence controller: Screener said at least one child near SUV.

Sensor: Bullshit ... where? Send me a fucking still [picture]. I don't think they have kids at this hour, I know they're shady, but come on.

Pilot: At least one child ... Really? Listing [him as a] MAM [military-aged male]that means he's guilty.

Sensor: Well maybe a teenager, but I haven't seen anything that looks that short, granted they're all grouped up here, but.

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Mission intelligence controller: They're reviewing.

Pilot: Yeah, review that shit ... Why didn't he say possible child, why are they so quick to call fucking kids but not to call shit a rifle.

Just as the sun rose above the mountains, the convoy halted on a riverbank, and many of the passengers got out. To the watchers, the pictures revealed something ominous.

5:18 a.m.

Pilot: They're praying.

Sensor: This is definitely it. This is their force. Praying? I mean, seriously, that's what they do.

Mission intelligence coordinator: They're going to do something nefarious.

All the adults in the party, including the six or seven women, got out when the convoy stopped at the river. But to the infrared camera high aboveand so, too, to the watchers far awaythe men and women were merely indistinguishable blobs. Since the party was presumptively one of Taliban reinforcements, no one thought to ponder their gender.

An hour later the vehicles, which had been heading south toward the American ground unit, turned off in a different direction. This led them ultimately twelve miles away from the Americans on the ground, an indication that, whoever they were, they most likely had no hostile intent. Nevertheless the Predator pilot assessed this as merely a "flanking" maneuver to get behind the troops and cut off their escape route.

Low on fuel, the AC-130 Specter gunship that had been on the scene earlier had by now departed. However, the Predator was about to be joined by two OH-58 Kiowas, light, two-man Special Forces helicopter gunships armed with Hellfire missiles and 2.75" rockets. Back in Nevada, the crew was getting impatient.

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6:59 a.m.

Pilot: Can't wait till this actually happens, with all this coordination and shit.

Sensor operator and mission intelligence coordinator: (Murmuring) Yeah.

Down on the ground, the travelers in the pickup heard the drumming of helicopter rotor blades. Several urged the driver to slow down in hopes they would look less suspicious. It was just beginning to get light.

Though far removed from the scene of the action, drone crews see themselves in the same martial tradition as the fighter pilots of an earlier age, down to the flight suits they wear to work, the combat stress they report experiencing, not to mention the combat pay and awards they have successfully demanded. Their trailer chatter that night echoed that of combat crews who are flying through a battle zone for real. Only once in a while does the record reveal that they were in fact firmly on the ground, seven and a half thousand miles away.

7:11 a.m.

Sensor Operator: Well, sir, would you mind if I took a bathroom break real quick?

Pilot: No, not at all, dude.

This particular pilot, a major who had formerly flown C-130 transport planes, was a veteran of a thousand "missions" and deemed experienced enough to train other pilots. The sensor operator, an enlisted man, was also highly experienced, and they were used to working as a team. As their commander later explained, "These two guys for the last couple of years have been together on shift, they have the same weekends together, they cycle through the schedule over and over."

The crews spoke a language almost incomprehensible to outsiders, so laden with acronyms that plain English was often supplanted. But that night's conversations show that the military jargon, like the two-second video delay, imposed another layer between them and the reality on the ground. Any MAM (military-aged male) became by definition an enemy fighter, irrespective of age, and therefore a legitimate target. Positive identification (PID) is an official U.S. military term for someone positively identified as an immediate hostile threat and therefore a legitimate target. As investigators subsequently discovered, the term meant entirely different things to different people.

7:38 a.m.

Pilot: Our screeners are currently calling 21 MAMs, no females, and two possible children. How copy?

Jaguar 25: Roger, and when we say children, are we talking teenagers or toddlers?

Sensor: I would say about twelve. Not toddlers; something more towards adolescents or teens.

Pilot: Yeah, adolescents.

* * *

On paper, the system was fail-safe. The pilot and sensor operator could check each other's assessments, and if that was not sufficient they had the mission intelligence coordinator and the safety observer right there beside them. Beyond that, the team in Florida had the full-motion video analysts and the screeners and the intelligence tactical coordinator reviewing the pictures, joined later by two immediate superiors. There were in addition the two separate Special Forces headquarters in Afghanistan itself, each with an assigned "battle captain" supervising ongoing operations.

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7:40 a.m.

Pilot: Our screener identified only one adolescent, so that's one double-digit age range. How copy?

Jaguar 25: We'll pass that along to the ground force commander. But like I said, 12 to 13 years old with a weapon is just as dangerous.

Sensor: Oh, we agree, yeah.

Pilot: Hey, good copy on that. We understand and agree.

Matters were moving toward a climax. Reliant on bulletins from the Predator crew, the captain commanding the raiding party on the ground had interpreted the news that the convoy was now heading away from the Americans on the ground as confirmation not only that the enemy was "maneuvering" but that it contained an HVI (high-value individual), always a priority target for U.S. forces in this war. He gave the order to strike. The helicopters would take the first shot. The helicopter crews, who had come on the scene late, were simply informed that there had been positive identification of three weapons, at a minimum, along with twenty-one MAMs, and that they were "clear to engage." No one had told them about adolescents, still less children. Two continents and an ocean away, the Predator crew in Nevada made their own final preparations for action.

8:35 a.m.

Pilot: Alright, so the plan is, man, uh, we're going to watch this thing go down and when they Winchester [run out of ammunition] we can play cleanup.

Sensor: Initial plan: without seeing how they break up, follow the largest group.

Pilot: Yeah, sounds good. When it all comes down, if everybody is running in their separate direction, I don't care if you just follow one guy, you know like whatever you decide to do, I'm with you on it ... as long as you keep somebody that we can shoot in the field of view I'm happy.

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The crew was now making final preparations for the attack, arming the missile and going through the final checklist. The sensor operator reminded his intelligence colleague to focus on the business at hand.

8:45 a.m.

Sensor: Hey, MC.

Mission intelligence controller: Yes?

Sensor: Remember, Kill Chain!

MIC: Will do.

The first missile from the lead helicopter scored a direct hit on the pickup, instantly killing eleven passengers. The two following SUVs jerked to a halt, and the passengers began frantically to scramble out. The second missile hit the rearmost vehicle, but in the engine block, which absorbed enough of the blast to allow some of the passengers to escape. Four died immediately. The third missile missed the middle SUV, barely, with the blast blowing out the rear window as passengers bailed out. As a matter of routine, the attackers pursued these squirters, their word for people fleeing a strike, with 2.75" rockets, though all of these missed.

Then someone noticed something strange. The people who had escaped were not running.

8:52 a.m.

Sensor: That's weird.

Pilot: Can't tell what the fuck they're doing.

Safety observer: Are they wearing burqas?

Sensor: That's what it looks like.

Pilot: They were all PIDed as males. No females in the group.

Sensor: That guy looks like he's wearing jewelry and stuff like a girl, but he ain't ... if he's a girl, he's a big one.

Despite the sensor operator's hopeful theory, these were not Taliban in drag but women who had scrambled out and were waving their brightly colored scarves at the circling helicopters, which eventually ceased fire. Twenty-three people had been killed, including two boys, Daoud, three years old, and Murtaza, four. Eight men, one woman, and three children aged between five and fourteen were wounded, many of them severely.

9:10 a.m.

Mission intelligence coordinator: Screener said there weren't any women earlier.

Sensor: What are those? They were in the middle vehicle.

Mission intelligence coordinator: Women and children.

The conversation in the Nevada trailer was losing its previously jaunty tone, as MAMs became mothers, and adolescents turned back into children.

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9:15 a.m.

Pilot: It looks like, uh, one of those in the, uh, bright garb may be carrying a child as well.

Sensor: Younger than an adolescent to me.

Safety observer: Well ...

Safety observer: No way to tell, man.

Sensor: No way to tell from here.

Soon afterward the Predator turned and flew away ahead of bad weather that was moving in from the west.

Even as the wreckage burned and shell-shocked survivors stumbled about, news was beginning to spread. Local villagers were soon on the scene, and within an hour Taliban radios were broadcasting word that "forty to fifty civilians" had been killed by an American air strike. By early afternoon, the reports had reached the Palace, the crenellated nineteenth-century fortress in the middle of Kabul that housed President Hamid Karzai. Meanwhile, U.S. military communications were proving rather less efficient.

The sudden, silent, flash of the first missile that incinerated the pickup and passengers on their screens caught most of the spectators in Afghanistan and the United States entirely by surprise. The intricate network of observation, control, and communication linking the myriad headquarters and intelligence centers stretching between Nevada and Kabul had somehow failed to alert participantsother than the crews actually pulling or preparing to pull the triggersthat events had reached their natural conclusion, and people were about to die. Then, even when it was almost immediately clear that things had not gone according to plan, the news moved at glacial speed through the U.S. command system. Messages rumbled back and forth between different headquarters regarding BOG (boots on the ground), meaning sending someone to have a close-up look at the scene for BDA (battle damage assessment).

Eventually helicopters were sent to bring the raiding party itself to the site where the dead bodies, or at least those that were intact, had been laid out by villagers who had flocked to the scene. The captain, according to a brother officer, was in a state of panic, searching fruitlessly for a weapon, anything, that would justify this as a legitimate target. "He wasn't finding anything. I think it overwhelmed him." Special Operations Task Force headquarters meanwhile told him "not to second-guess yourself; we'll figure it out later."

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The captain was not the only officer to panic. Despite the services of a multibillion-dollar system of intelligence and communication, it took twelve hours for news that the U.S. had killed twenty-three civilians to make its way up the chain. Despite confirmation from the helicopter crews, the Predator team, and the troops that arrived on the scene, successive layers of Special Operations commanders refused to report CIVCAS (civilian casualties). Bizarrely, the technology was less efficient than the Taliban's. With the inflated volume of traffic, emails were taking four and a half hours to move through the classified system from Kandahar to Kabul.

Only when surgeons at a Dutch military hospital talked to their U.S. counterparts about the wounded civilians that had just been admitted was the truth officially disclosed, but by that time, anyone in Afghanistan with a radio already knew. At the time, Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander, was laboring to garner support among Afghans by restricting airstrikes in an effort to reduce civilian casualties. He was not pleased to hear the belated reports from Uruzgan, and raced over to President Karzai's palace to tender his apologies. "I express my deepest, heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families. We all share in their grief," he declared on Afghan television two days later. "I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people. I pledge to strengthen our efforts to regain your trust to build a brighter future for all Afghans."

Families of the dead ultimately received $5,000 each, plus one goat.

McChrystal meanwhile appointed a senior officer who was also an old friend, army Major General Timothy McHale, to lead an investigation to determine exactly what had happened and why. McHale's first act was to fly to the remote hospital where the wounded were being treated and meet the victims, among them a six-year-old boy, the same age as his own son, Riley, whose leg had just been amputated. "That really shook me up," he told me later.

McHale, a logistics specialist appointed to command the entire supply effort for the U.S. expeditionary force, had only been in Afghanistan a matter of weeks., Now he quickly recruited a small but well-connected team of officers to help him explore the strange and, to him, unknown worlds of ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and DCGS (distributed common ground systems), not to mention Special Operations. Untrammeled by institutional connections to these organizations, he was unafraid to ask hard questions, an attitude that clearly upset some of the interviewees. The Predator squadron commander at Creech, for example, objected to McHale's apparent impression that his crew "were out to employ weapons no matter what." McHale tartly responded that according to the transcript of their chatter, the crew had stated exactly that intention "about fourteen times." Furthermore, he pointed out, "You have a sensor operator whose response to a call out of children is 'bullshit.' Do you think he is likely to be focusing on potential for children or is he only looking for weapons or trying to confirm that this is a target?"

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Within six weeks McHale and his staff had interviewed over fifty witnesses in Afghanistan, Nevada, and Florida, creating in the process a hand-drawn time line of the events that ultimately stretched for sixty-six feet around the four walls of the hangar he had commandeered for his office. He delivered a withering report that described the Special Operations headquarters responsible for Operation Noble Justice as "ineffective," while reserving his deepest scorn for the Predator crew, characterizing them as "almost juvenile in their desire to engage the targets," and recommended that the air force conduct its own investigation of the crew's "unprofessional conduct."

The investigation's interviews, transcribed and included in the report, track McHale's exploration of the tangled links in the kill chain, much of which came as a revelation to the general, despite a lifetime in the service. Thus he was astonished to learn from the Florida team in their $750 million station that they had no means of communicating with the men on the ground in Afghanistan, relying on the mission intelligence coordinator in Nevada to pass on their information. "We cannot hear what he is saying," one of the Florida staff told McHale, "so we hope that he is providing the best information possible." The chief screener, an intelligence professional who supposedly had been trained to make lethal judgments on the basis of her observations, provided insight into her training in cultural awareness when she recalled how the vehicles had "stopped and a large group of MAMs began to get water, wash, and pray. To us that is very suspicious because we are taught that they do this before an attack." Several hundred million non-Taliban Muslims also wash and pray every morning, but the little party's ablutions had fed into the pattern already established by the flashing headlights and anonymous radio summons to the "Mujaheddin."

The general eagerness in Nevada to "go kinetic" had done the rest. A safety officer, present to advise the Predator crew when the attack seemed imminent, summed up the prevailing attitude at Creech in a candid admission: "Well, to be honest sir, everyone around here, it's like 'Top Gun': everyone has the desire to do our job, employ weapons against the enemy."

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McHale's voyage of discovery as chronicled in the interviews, transcripts, and conclusions of his 2010 report not only retraced what he saw as a saga of bloody-minded incompetence and confusion but also revealed something more profound. The technological architecture in which the assorted participants operated was a tribute to the notion that if it is possible to see everything, it is possible to know everything and therefore automate the process of empirical deduction. Technology had supposedly made it possible to see down through the dark from almost three miles up and count the passengers inside a moving vehicle as well as any weapons they might be carrying. Technology enabled these images to move around the world for multiple viewers to assess and draw their own conclusions. Finally, it could be taken for granted that each target required only a single shot. In sequence, it was a very efficient kill chain.

But however miraculous the technology, the information it delivered was inevitably ambiguous ("Was that a fucking rifle?") partly because, contrary to popular belief, the imagery delivered by ISR (the overworked acronym for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) pictures tends to be fuzzy. Quizzing one Special Forces major as to why he had been slow to report the casualties despite the pictures coming from the drone, McHale remarked, "Your ISR knows there are civilians there..." To which the officer responded exasperatedly: "The ISR? Literally, look at this rug right here sir, that's what an ISR looks like."

Inevitably, everyone involved tried to clarify the ambiguity by shaping the information to fit a predetermined pattern, in this case that of hostile Taliban. Figures gathered on a riverbank at dawn to pray? "That's what [the Taliban] do," ergo they're going to do something nefarious. For what other reason would three cars be driving away from the friendly force? Given the pervasive concentration throughout the U.S. war effort on the importance of HVI (high-value individuals), the ground force commander was quick to assume that this was an "exfill"an assisted escapeof a high-ranking Taliban commander. Subsequently he accepted the alternative explanation of the "flanking maneuver," equally well fit to the cast-iron assumption that the little convoy fitted the pattern of a threat. The complexity of this system, especially given its widely dispersed components (Nevada, Florida, Afghanistan), made it even harder for the people involved to adapt to changing reality. Instead, reality was adjusted to fit the predetermined pattern. This, in other words, was a "signature strike" in which the victims were targeted solely on the basis of their behavior.

Nor did it help that the system came with its own language-MAM (military-age male) for man, PID (positive identification) for see, TIC (troops in contact) for coming under fire-imposing its own framework. A military-age male, after all, is almost self-evidently a legitimate target, whereas a man might well be an innocent civilian. Officially fostered as a means of succinct, precise communication, the language adapted and divided, with different meanings for different people. So PID, for example, had a different definition depending on whether someone was in Florida, Nevada, or Afghanistan. Everyone had different notions of what adolescent meant and whether it was OK to kill one.

As recommended by McHale, the air force did indeed hold an investigation. Conducted by a major general, it concluded that the Predator crew had perhaps "clouded the picture on adolescents" but laid much of the blame on the special operations command for failing to supervise the operation. Neither of the reports highlighted the statement of a Special Forces sergeant from the ground force, a veteran of seven tours in Afghanistan, including three in Uruzgan, who lodged a protest against the system of complex technology embodied in the kill chain:

Looking at the video afterwards, someone was saying when the vehicles stopped, the (passengers) were praying. Someone said there might be people pulling security. When I looked at the video they could also have been taking a piss. Whoever was viewing the video real-time, maybe they needed a little more tactical experience. It needs to be someone that knows the culture of the people. If I can say anything, they just need to be familiar with what they are looking at.

But the system had not been built to work that way, not in a long time.





Copyright  2015 by Andrew Cockburn









Andrew Cockburn is the Washington Editor of Harper's magazine and the author of many articles and books on national security, including the New York Times Editor's Choice Rumsfeld and The Threat, which destroyed the myth of Soviet military superiority underpinning the Cold War. He is a regular opinion contributor to the Los Angeles Times and has written for, among others, the New York Times, National Geographic and the London Review of Books.
In a recent publication , Science magazine quoted biological anthropologist Nina Jablonski as saying "Skin color is not about race". She made this statement during a face-off with comedian Stephen Colbert. Her comment is built on over three decades of studying the evolution of the human skin. Dr. Jablonski's observations have added important ideas to our understanding of how skin color affects human health risk. But the connection between skin color and health risk goes far beyond physiological associations.

Many scientists believe that dark skin evolved as a protection from sunburns and skin cancer while light skin evolved to provide vitamin D in areas where sunlight was scarce. However, Dr. Jablonski believes that dark skin actually evolved as a protection against folate destruction by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. She posits that natural selection favored darker skin in environments with stronger sunlight in order to prevent folate deficiency which could lead to neural tube birth defects and perinatal death.

Neural tube defects are birth defects of the brain, spine, or spinal cord. They occur in the first month of pregnancy, often before a woman even knows that she is pregnant. The two most common health outcomes of neural tube defects are spina bifida and anencephaly. In spina bifida, the fetal spinal column doesn't close completely. There is usually nerve damage that causes at least some paralysis of the legs. In anencephaly, most of the brain and skull do not develop. Babies with anencephaly are either stillborn or die shortly after birth. Research has shown that getting enough folic acid before and during pregnancy prevents most neural tube defects.

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Interestingly, in a 2000 paper co-authored with her husband, geographer George Chaplin, Jablonski also proposed that our ancient ancestors in Africa originally had fair skin covered with hair. When, perhaps about 1.5 million years ago, they lost body hair in order to keep cool, their naked skin became darker. She goes further to say that as humans spread out of Africa they adapted to varying degrees of natural light and eventually developed light skin in the northern latitudes.

Controversial as Jablonski's ideas may sound, they certainly do have far reaching implications for health. As she puts it, "Often we are unaware that we are living in environments in which our skins are poorly adapted".

Light-skinned people living in the tropics may face a higher risk of having babies with neural tube defects. In 1996, Pablo Lapunzina reported that several women exposed to UV light in tanning beds had babies with spina bifida. More recently, Borradale and colleagues reported that healthy white women in Queensland, Australia who spent more time in the sun had less folate circulating in their blood.

On the other hand, dark-skinned people who live in temperate regions or who mostly stay indoors in the tropics and don't get enough sunlight, risk vitamin D deficiency and consequent immune system suppression. An eight-year study conducted in Cape Town, South Africa indicates that the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) surges after seasonal declines in blood vitamin D levels. In the study, vitamin D dropped by a mean of 46% in 63% of participants during the winter months when people were forced to stay indoors. Even here in the United States, the available data indicate that African-Americans are more likely to be deficient in vitamin D than white people.

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For evolutionists such as Dr. Jablonski, skin color is about the sun and how close our ancestors lived to the equator. The risk-factors they associate with skin color arise from the physiological relationship between a person's skin color and the environment they live in. Yet color and climate alone don't explain how the color of a person's skin impacts their health.

For a black man, as myself, the social implications of being black in today's world are as important as its health risk implications. Often those social implications are even more important because sociopolitical factors inherently determine the quality of and access to healthcare resources.

With a population of nearly 180 million people, Nigeria, my home country, is the world's most populous black nation. It is also one of the richest countries today, ranking 23 on the World Bank's most recent list of countries by gross domestic product (GDP). Yet Nigeria also ranks as one of the countries with the highest poverty rates; 62% of Nigerians live below the poverty line. More so, Nigeria is characterized by poor infrastructural development and a weak health system. Does skin color explain the high-level corruption, bad governance and political instability that have frequently been identified as the causes of the wealth-poverty disparity that plagues Nigeria? I think not.

Nigerians are dark-skinned. Of course, we appear in various shades of brown to black and there are many albinos as well as a few naturalized Caucasians, yet there is a sense of homogeneity in our complexion. What is not homogenous is ethnicity. Ethnologue, a comprehensive catalogue of human languages, has identified 522 native languages in Nigeria, a country the size of the U.S Mid-West. It is this cultural heterogeneity, and not just skin color, that has been identified as the principal cause of the social crises and political instability in Nigeria. The effect on the health system is disheartening.

Here in the United Sates the picture is somewhat different; skin color appears to be a direct determinant in many cases of access to wealth, economic opportunities, justice and ultimately, health.

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The Brandeis University wealth gap study revealed disturbing statistics on the black-white economic inequality. According to the results of that research, over the past 25 years, the wealth gap between blacks and whites has nearly tripled. Specifically, whites have a median household wealth that is 14 times greater than that of blacks, blacks have 40% less home ownership and the median income for black households is less than 60% that of white ones. Worst still, the jobless rate for blacks is twice that of whites and as such more than 25 % of blacks live in poverty, while fewer than 10% of whites do.

The International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), an agency of the United Nations, recently reviewed the issues of racial justice in the U.S. Its report details several recommendations that highlight issues with racial profiling, illegal surveillance, the criminal justice system and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials. The report even identifies the disparate impact of environmental pollution of an issue of racial discrimination in America. Blacks have been disproportionately impacted by all of these.

A summary of the chilling data put forward by the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) indicates that, compared to non-Hispanic whites, African American adults are nine times as likely to be diagnosed with HIV, eight times as likely to die from HIV, 60% more likely to be diabetic, 40% more likely to be obese, 40% more likely to die from stroke, 30% more likely to die from heart disease etc., etc.

The end result of the socioeconomic inequities faced by dark-skinned people in the United States has been a persistence of health disparities.

Dr. Jablonski has shown that skin color directly affects human health risk. However, the cultural milieu in which we exist has an overriding effect on the policies that keep us healthy. Even in regions, such as Nigeria, where skin color is homogenous, sociopolitical factors still undermine the availability of and access to good quality health care services.

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The bottom line is this: skin color in its interaction with the physical, cultural and policy environment in which people find themselves plays an important role in influencing health and well-being.


Source: Veronica Morrison, From the Upside

Nearly one year ago today, I was standing in the middle of a bustling city square surrounded by ornate 17th century guildhalls just as the sun began to set. The lower the sun dropped, the more vibrant the colors became. The sky turned the most vivid shades of purple, pink and cerulean blue. The buildings of the Grand Place, adorned with gold, came to life in 14 karats.

This is the Brussels I know.

Like most of the travelers caught in the airport and metro stations last week during the horrendous attacks, I had never considered Brussels an unsafe place to travel to. Nestled in the heart of Western Europe, home of the European Union, rich in history and brimming with world renowned chocolate. What could possibly deter me from visiting such a city?

I'm heartbroken for the loss of lives, the mourning families and the wounded city I so enjoyed visiting. But what makes me even more sad is the thought of the impending damage terrorists will have done toward tourism to this beautiful city.

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Source : Veronica Morrison, From the Upside

Paris, although still recovering, bounced back stronger than ever after the attacks last Fall. But what about the lesser glorified, lesser traveled cities? Copenhagen. Alexandria. Oslo. Brussels?

It's true that most major cities have their 'shady areas'. Brussels is no exception. But does that mean we should avoid them out of fear?

Caution is essential when considering travel to countries following major attacks. But what about the months and years to follow?

My hope is this: that the attacks on Brussels will not dull the golden luster of such a beautiful, unique European city. That travelers will use caution, but not to the point of travel paralysis, when considering a trip to Belgium. That fear will not keep us away from the cities who fall victim to crimes against humanity.

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Responsible travel is so much more than carbon offsetting. It's not allowing fear dictate our travel decisions. It's finding a balance between common sense, caution and the desire to connect with other cultures.

If we let fear control our travel explorations the world becomes a much smaller place. Any country can fall victim to horrible events. Let's not let that fear blind us to the beauty of the people and places we have the desire to visit.

What are your thoughts on traveling to countries post-attack? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

--

Veronica Morrison is an intrepid traveler and founder of From the Upside a Top 15 International Travel Blog. She is passionate about responsible travel and aims to help others get out and explore the world while improving themselves and the world around them.
As with most things in photography the definition of street photography will vary depending on whom you ask.

For me, whatever catches my attention in a public place is potentially a subject for street photography. Obviously, Studio shoots are not covered in this definition and neither are shots of mountains and rivers, trees and flowers, moon and stars (you get the idea!)

If you don't agree with this you are more than welcome to try Google or Wikipedia.

Very next topic, I want to put past us, is whether it's legal to shoot (you know what I mean) people in public places.

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Again, there are numerous websites and legal advice available for you to go through if you really want to read and educate yourself.

I am neither a lawyer nor have the resources to do an in-depth analysis of this complex topic.

So I will just say that you should read local laws applicable in your country.

For us here in America we give a lot of emphasis on freedom of expression and street photography is arguably a form of that. As long as you are legally in a public location and your subject is also in a public location and no one is asking you to put your camera down you should be ok. If the subject or a cop asks you to stop taking pictures, please be respectful at the least.

Ok, so now we can get to the actual reason why I started this article.

Well from my experience taking pictures on the streets of San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles I wondered if it would help budding street photographers if I try to put in words all that I learned so far and mind you I consider myself a student and am learning every day.

Let's get started.

#1. First of all, if you don't have a camera you can't really get a shot. Can you?

Try to carry your camera more often and in cases where you can't, you still have that smartphone don't you? Phone cameras have gotten better and if nothing they can be used to practice till you gain enough courage to carry your real camera on the streets.

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Streets of LA - Los Angeles, CA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: I shot this while going for lunch and it just happened that I had my camera with me that day. By the time I came back the sofa was gone.

#2. What good is that camera if you can't fire it up to take that shot before the subject disappears?

Know your camera and its settings. The reason being that on streets scene change at a fast pace and you don't want yourself fumbling with camera setting while that someone walks past you. So yes learn to shoot fast. Also, don't run out of memory if shooting digital or film if shooting film (what is film you may ask and I won't judge you)



Catching the Skyline - San Francisco, CA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: I had very little time to capture this shot while the girl still had her camera up.

#3. Street photography is mostly about telling a story and it often helps if you get close to the action.

I am not saying that there aren't great street shots from a distance, but I am just saying that more often than not, being close will get you a good chance of catching great action or story.



Life is Good - San Francisco, CA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: Happy feeling conveyed by faces and body postures here might be difficult from a distance.

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#4. Again telling a story is what this is about so look to find something that excites you.

It's self-defeating if you shoot things that don't excite you (unless you are forced to do a story you don't believe in and the results will show in such cases). As with shooting anything, be true to yourself. If something makes you jump up and get that camera out of its resting place go for it.



The Wait - Boston, MA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: I liked this scene as it did have bright colors yet there was a sense of stillness and wait. It was not happy, but neither was it sad. Yet somehow it made you feel for the person.

#5. The biggest hurdle I faced was getting over the fact that I am taking pictures of people who may or may not like to be photographed.

Getting over is not always easy. If it bothers you a great deal, please don't hesitate to approach the subject and ask them for permission to shoot, but always know that someone knowing that you are shooting is not exactly same as when that someone is doing stuff not aware of the camera. You can still get great shots, though, but not the same.



Sounds of Subway - New York, NY

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: As soon as he saw my camera he got a bit conscious.

#6. Make yourself invisible. Well, at least, try to blend in and avoid undue attention.

There are simple things you can try like maybe dress like most folks on that street or like a tourist taking pictures of random stuff. If you are comfortable and experienced you can try shooting from the hip or anywhere else except the eye, but mind you it needs practice and you may not be able to frame the shot that well. Oh, and keep those LCD display screens off.

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Good old days - Barcelona, Spain

source: http://europe.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: Why would anyone even think of distracting them from enjoying a lovely day at the square.

#7. Looking back can be a good thing.

Sometimes interesting things might be happening behind your back.



Looking around - Amsterdam, Holland

source: http://europe.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: I felt like someone was watching me as soon as I passed that pole.

#8. Anticipate a scene.

Sometimes you can sense or judge an action that's about to take place.

During these times, you can pre-focus at the center of the action and wait for the subjects to jump in the frame.



Star Struck - Hollywood, CA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: This was rather easy. Hollywood Walk of Fame is always teeming with action.

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#9. Know your routes.

It might be fun and exciting to get lost, but it may be harmful to your health if you wander into areas you would rather not.



Lost - Boston, MA

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

Photographer's Note: I waited for the man to come at the corner of the frame and he stopped there for a few seconds or so it seemed.

#10. Invest in some good street photography books.

..and the most important part, Read them.



Pissin' off Texas - Anchorage, AK

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

#11. Don't be self-aware.

You will have to forget that you are doing street photography and get over the fact that there may be people watching you.

I will strongly add that no matter what you do, always be respectful of others. So please don't keep shooting if the subject is uncomfortable and/or wants you to stop.



Love is.. growing old together - Paris, France

source: http://europe.iamvagabond.com

#12. Just go for it.

Almost last, but definitely not the least and, in fact, this might be the most important tip.

Unless you do it you will never know if it excites you and pushes you further to do even better or it's just not for you.



Balcony Life - Oahu, HI

source: http://usa.iamvagabond.com

I will give an extra one just cause you have been so good to go thru all 12 above!
One evening early this month, clean energy entrepreneurs, practitioners, and investors filled the top floor of Powerhouse, the world's premier solar incubator and accelerator located in downtown Oakland, California with a stunning view of the Bay, for an event jointly organized by Powerhouse and Energy Access SF, a volunteer-run networking group.

The crowd of approximately 80 joined to hear about Financial Innovation in Energy Access from a panel of some of the foremost experts in the field: Sandhya Hegde, an engineer and Venture Capital investor at Khosla Impact; Bill Lenihan, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Business Operations at Off.Grid:Electric; and Ben Cook, Vice President of Structured Finance at SolarCity. The panel was moderated by Dimitry Gershenson, Energy Access Program Manager at Facebook.



The panelists and moderator

Photo credit: Powerhouse

This event took place hot on the heels of several major turning points in the off-grid energy space.

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First, in January 2016, the off-grid solar industry in Africa took one step closer to being recognized as a commercial asset class, with the first instance of securitization -- a sign of a more mature market. This process took place through the efforts Oikocredit International, Persistent Energy, and BBOXX (a company whose board Hegde is on).

Second, a market trends report from Lighting Global and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) released earlier this month noted that the sector has attracted $511 million in investments to date ($276 million of which was invested in 2015). The report also estimates that by 2020, 99 million households will rely on off-grid solar as their primary or secondary source of energy (up from 25 million households in 2015). Currently, approximately 89 million people in the developing world have at least one solar lighting product in their household. From 2011 to 2014, unit sales of branded pico-solar products reached a compound annual growth rate of 109 percent. Lighting Global and BNEF estimate the retail market for off-grid solar products will be around $3.1 billion in 2020.



Captive audience

Photo credit: Vrinda Manglik

Emily Kirsch, Co-Founder CEO of Powerhouse, welcomed everyone to the space, sharing that Powerhouse is home to 20 solar startups and is proud to report four exits in the past 12 months. Danielle Cass, from USAID's Global Development Lab, also announced funding opportunities through USAID's Development Innovation Ventures grants.

Dimitry Gershenson moderated the panel dynamically, opening the conversation by asking the panelists for some definitions of key terms and their perspectives on the state of the sector today. Panelists responded candidly to both Gershenson's questions and questions from the audience throughout the session.

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Lenihan, who led Off-Grid:Electric's efforts to raise a Series C investment worth $25 million from DBL Partners and SolarCity, noted that there is a massive opportunity in off-grid markets, and that today represents a particularly exciting time. He spoke at length about the need to bring in large financial institutions to meet the growing capital needs of the sector, noting that the current approaches to raising capital through smaller transactions are not going to be sufficient for scale.



Sandhya Hegde speaks

Photo credit: Powerhouse

Hegde explained that there are major differences between what has worked in developed versus developing markets, emphasizing that $511 million invested into the sector to-date is actually fairly modest. She spoke in depth about the barriers to investment, which include the lack of consumer credit history in off-grid markets, a general lack of performance data, and the country risks inherent in off-grid markets, including currency fluctuation. Hegde also noted that debt can only flow freely if there is a sufficient equity buffer for investors to feel comfortable. Companies like SunFunder, another company whose board Hegde is on, have started to put together capital series that finance various players in the sector.

View of Oakland and the San Francisco Bay from Powerhouse

Photo credit: Powerhouse

Cook, from SolarCity, noted the myriad challenges in raising project finance and highlighted the importance of understanding the markets really well. He noted that it took a lot of time to convince their structure finance colleagues that investing in emerging markets would be a good bet, and they had to sell the story and business opportunity. Commenting on the third-party financed solar success story in the U.S., he noted that it required a massive amount of scale as well as proven players.



Participants connecting

Photo credit: Powerhouse

The panelists also spoke to the role of government, mostly noting that it is most helpful to get clarity from governments on regulation, as well as tax exemptions and Value Added Tax (VAT) exemptions. Development capital and flexible capital are also helpful, especially in providing risk mitigation as the market matures. Last but not least, they noted that a lot of ongoing work remains to be done in terms of getting local banks to help with financing. We hope this might change sooner rather than later, as the need for private debt financing will remain pressing and grow substantially as the sector evolves and grows.

In closing, Lenihan beamed that although he has been happy throughout his career, working in energy access has definitely been the best job of his life. It is an incredibly exciting time for off-grid markets, and he -- like many others in the field -- truly feels like his work is making a difference.

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It was July 1992 when I returned to my assignment in Croatia after a brief vacation in Egypt, only this time Croatia wasn't the main destination, rather it was Bosnia. By that time, war had ended in Croatia only to break out in Bosnia, yet the aggressor was the same: Serbia.

For the following years, Croatia was a major stopover each time I returned to Bosnia since it was under near total siege. By that time, I had become close friends with Ivan Lackovic, one of the world's most renowned fine artists who insisted I stay with him whenever I traveled through Croatia.

On that distant July 1992, I headed to Lackovic's home to see him before I set off to Bosnia. Once inside, I was shocked to see the great artist, whose works and masterpiece paintings are embraced by 120 prestigious museums worldwide, standing there in the middle of the room dressed in military fatigues. By that time, Lackovic was in his 60s. More shockingly, I noticed that the fatigues he was wearing were not those of Croatia's military, from his own country, rather Bosnia's. I stood there watching until he saw me and hurried to shake hands with me.

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"Sir, what is this?" I asked him.

"As you see, I'm in Bosnian military fatigues," he replied.

"I know what this is, my question is more about why" I bounced back.

"You're headed to Bosnia, and this time I'm going with you," Lackovic said with resilience.

"Why? What for? This is absolute madness!" I shouted at him.

"Don't you know about our recently launched surprise attack against the Bosnians?" the Croatian rhetorically asked.

"Yes, I know, but what does that have to do with the Bosnian army fatigues you are wearing?" I surprisingly enquired.

"I'm going to penetrate the siege and go to Sarajevo to declare to the whole world that I condemn the shameful behavior of this government, the government of my own country!" he said while panting with excitement.

"Sir, you know what kind of government is in Zagreb. Don't you fear retribution for taking such an anti-government position?" I tried to get him back to his senses.

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"I know it's not exactly a democratic regime. But to take advantage of the desperate situation the Bosnians are facing, and the genocide the Serbs are committing against them, it's an abhorring immoral attitude to stab them in the back at such a time," he sadly uttered.

"Sir, you are not the only Croat who realizes this. Everyone knows that the government violated the non-aggression agreement signed between Croatia and Bosnia. So why do you take on all the risk yourself?" I deniably asked.

"Because I love my country and I don't want this government to shame us all. Patriotism is not, and should not, be about supporting your country when it does wrong. This would be chauvinism," he said with a stern voice.

"You know how dangerous the situation is in Bosnia. Death is the rule there, the exception is life," I warned him.

"My life is worth nothing in comparison with my country's reputation," he briefly answered.

"Okay, I agree. Nevertheless, it could have the same effect if you make this statement from Zagreb. You can even hold a news conference," I suggested.

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"You're right; I can, and will, make a statement to condemn my government's unethical behavior, be it from Zagreb or anywhere in the world. But you are missing the point of my reason to state this from Sarajevo. The point is to show support to my fellow Bosnians on the battlefield, as this will make a huge difference," he concluded the last sentence while proudly standing tall.

Later, when I was discussing this issue with Lackovic, he told me that although he is Catholic and that the great majority of Bosnians are Muslims, he never viewed them in terms of their faith. Rather, he thought of them as humans who are being subjected to unacceptable injustices.

Lackovic went to Bosnia and stood face to face with Serbia's death machine in Sarajevo. His wonderful integrity, unwavering determination, and unflinching courage boosted the moral of Bosnian Muslims on the battlefield, and in so doing, scandalized the Croatian government. Eventually, Croatia had to stop its unfair war against the Bosnians. Some might say that this cannot be the result of one man's deed. For those who say so, my answer would be: You don't know what Lackovic has meant to Croatia. He, along with a few others, have been one of the most important symbols of that Balkan country.

Lackovic believed in freedom for all humans. He taught me that disrespect and insults of today are the parents of extremisms of tomorrow, regardless of faith. He used to tell me that there is no such thing as equal and less equal humans; we, humans, are all equal to the same degree.

Although he passed away in 2004, Lackovic will always inspire me and remind me of the noble values many of us have lost along the way. It is Lackovic who still teaches us that a great artist cannot be great, in the full sense of the term, without being a great human. God bless your soul dear friend; I do miss you!!

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As a Christian, this Easter, I am forced to think more deeply about what my Christianity means to me in the age of the global war on drugs. A war that has ravaged poor and Black and Brown communities here in the United States, and abroad has threatened democracies and destabilized states in Central and South America and elsewhere, and costs trillions of dollars and countless innocent lives.

I am now convinced that the war on drugs is simply not about drugs as many policymakers may want me to believe. Too many people are being harmed by our current drug policies. When our solution to a problem is doing more harm than the problem we're trying to fix--we are fighting a losing battle. Forty years of sticking our heads in the sand is just reckless and irresponsible. It's past time for a new approach in U.S and international drug policy.

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So, if you're a Christian-practicing or not, or just human, I admonish you to stop and reflect on what we've allowed to happen under our watch and to commit to take action to change these punitive and dehumanizing national and global drug policies.

In the middle of March, I had the opportunity to attend the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) meeting in Vienna. As world leaders discussed and debated global drug policy, the people impacted by the global drug war were few in numbers, and those of us from "civil" society were relegated to the back of the room to observe a process that would continue punishing and marginalizing millions of people across the globe.

Observing the CND process was both personally frustrating and enlightening. In that grey, lifeless, and overheated room in Vienna, people who use and sell drugs were made invisible, voiceless and stateless--with only a few to represent their interests in a real and meaningful way.

In Vienna, we needed a Jesus moment. An opportunity to speak up for the humanity of those among us that we've cast away based on the gods we've created that judge others based on our own sense of righteousness.

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The hypocrisy is deafening. In some of the most religious countries on this planet we've locked up and dehumanized the greatest number of people. I cannot help but think of the southern United States--the Bible Belt--states with some of the highest rates of incarceration and the most punitive drugs laws. States like Louisiana and Oklahoma where compassion, justice, and redemption should be the corner stone of their drug policy-making, and based on their unflinching commitment to Christianity. This is not the time to hide under the cloak of morality. We have an obligation to walk our Christian talk on love, compassion, and mercy; not doing so when it's convenient but when it's necessary.

There is hope. From April 19-21 world leaders will gather at the United Nations in New York City at a UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the "world drug problem." The UNGASS is an opportunity to stand up and speak out on behalf of the men and women who are unable to be at the table and, who, like Jesus, are victims of bad government policy. (Yes, Jesus was arrested, prosecuted, and killed by the state for a non-violent crime that he didn't commit).

With all of our Christian-ness, the United States locks up more people than anywhere in the world. According to the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, "one in three African American men will go to prison or jail if current trends continue." This is happening under our watch. The lack of drug treatment for poor people, and people of color in the United States is a major problem and yet, the federal government refuses to fully embrace the term: harm reduction as a public health solution to alleviate the harms of drug use on individuals and families. Again, in all of our Christian-ness, we've allowed our leaders to act recklessly and wantonly with the lives of our brothers and sisters who happen to use drugs.

Surprisingly, Jesus was in the business of reducing harm. A perfect example is the story of the woman who committed adultery and, on the verge of being stoned to death by a group of men, Jesus, admonished them, "all right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" John 8:7. Though adultery was considered a "sin," stoning this woman to death would do more harm than her adulterous behavior. Regardless of your beliefs on drug use--criminalizing and severely punishing a person for simply using drugs is worse.

As Christians and global citizens, we are called to be on the frontline of the struggle for global drug policy reform because it the righteous place to be in this fight for mercy, compassion and justice for those impacted by our very un-Christian and immoral war on drugs.

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With the highest concentration of startups in the world after Silicon Valley, Israel has become renowned globally as the "Startup Nation." Trailblazing startups from Waze to Wix to PrimeSense to Mobileye have helped Israel gain its reputation as an international hub of entrepreneurialism and hi-tech ingenuity.

But what is perhaps no less remarkable is that more than 270 multinational corporations (MNCs) have established more than 320 advanced R&D facilities throughout Israel, making our tiny country an "R&D Lab" for the world's leading tech firms. These include Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Yahoo!, Motorola, HP, Siemens, GE, GM, IBM, Cisco and many more. In fact, these multinationals employ around half of Israel's hi-tech workforce and contribute significantly to the Israeli economy. Many of these centers of excellence are the companies' only R&D centers outside their home countries, with more and more setting up shop in Israel almost on a daily basis.

Over 200 of these MNCs are American. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that Israel and the US share mutually robust, creative economies driven by affinities for entrepreneurship and enterprise. Here are seven more reasons US MNCs continue to invest in Israel.

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1.Innovation. Israel has become a global powerhouse for innovation and pioneering technologies, punching way above its weight class in a wide variety of fields such as Internet, cyber-security, health & life sciences, big data, computer vision, and fintech, just to name a few. Israeli innovation is helping revolutionize the world as we know it, and the global players want in.

2.Success. Many MNCs have been able to develop some of their most innovative solutions, breakthrough technologies and even their flagship products at their Israel R&D centers, and nothing, as the old saying goes, breeds success like success. US MNCs have realized that if they want to stay on the frontlines of innovation, then tapping into Israeli ingenuity is the way to do it.

3.Human Capital. Known for their never-take-no-for-an-answer attitude, creativity, innovation and "hutzpah," Israel's unique workforce is a key reason behind the cluster of MNCs in the country. Moreover, combined with our renowned academia, Israel has the highest concentration of engineers and PhD's per capita in the world, all laying the foundation for groundbreaking research and innovation.

4.Startups. Many prominent MNCs established their presence in Israel by acquiring nimble, cutting-edge Israeli startups and turning them into centers of innovation and excellence, while others merge startups into existing R&D centers. IBM, for example, has acquired more than a dozen Israeli companies since establishing its Israeli presence over four decades ago.

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5.Advanced Manufacturing. Israel has some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world, including several established by multinationals. Take, for example, Intel, which opened its Israel offices over 40 years ago and is currently the largest tech employer in the country with over 10,000 workers in 6 locations across the country. Israel is also a driving force in the automotive industry, with over 250 innovative aftermarket suppliers manufacturing everything from spare parts to accessories using advanced technologies. In agritech, over 25 companies manufacture seeds and other innovative solutions in Israel, including irrigation - more than 3 million acres of farmland in the United States use cutting-edge methods and equipment manufactured by Israel's Netafim. Pharmaceuticals is also a significant sector. In addition to Israeli pharma giant Teva, the largest generic drug manufacturer in the world, Perrigo, a leading global healthcare supplier, recently inaugurated a new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in the country.

6.A Strong and Resilient Economy. During this period of global economic volatility, Israel has seen consecutive years of GDP growth - above even that of the OECD and the US. Our 5% unemployment rate is among the world's lowest. Despite geopolitical challenges in the region, the Israeli economy has been identified as one of the healthiest and most stable in the world.

7.Open for Business. The Foreign Investments and Industrial Cooperation Division at the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry, which I lead, promotes foreign investment in Israel, with programs and services designed to address every phase of the investment process. Comprehensive governmental incentives make Israel one of the world's most attractive places for foreign investors to do business, with a range of incentives from tax breaks to supportive grants designed to offset the cost of R&D and to take advantage of all that Israel has to offer.

President Barack Obama remarked that "If people want to see the future of the world economy they should look at Tel Aviv, home to hundreds of startups and research centers." That is why hundreds of top executives and other leaders will be on hand for the upcoming Israel Dealmakers Summit 2016, taking place for the first time in Silicon Valley. The summit is the premier Israel-focused business event of the year - a meticulously curated gathering of global corporations, investors, dealmakers and entrepreneurs converging from around the world to discuss key industries such as IoT & Smart Everything, Digital Media & Mobile, Advanced Manufacturing, Cloud & Internet Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Big Data & Analytics, and more.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS ADDS NAME AND DETAILS OF THE WOMAN AT RIGHT: In this photo provided by Georgian Public Broadcaster and photographed by Ketevan Kardava, Nidhi Chaphekar, a 40-year-old Jet Airways flight attendant from Mumbai, right, and another unidentified woman after being wounded in Brussels Airport in Brussels, Belgium, after explosions were heard Tuesday, March 22, 2016. A developing situation left at least one person and possibly more dead in explosions that ripped through the departure hall at Brussels airport Tuesday, police said. All flights were canceled, arriving planes were being diverted and Belgium's terror alert level was raised to maximum, officials said. (Ketevan Kardava/ Georgian Public Broadcaster via AP)

Outrageous and exploitative, tweeted a friend, himself a photographer, this morning as he looked at the picture that has become the face of the Brussels blast.

Jet Airways stewardess Nidhi Chaphekars picture was everywhere from the New York Times to the Guardian to Indian newspapers to a Twitter hashtag #PrayFor Nidhi.

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It had become as The Guardian calls it the photograph that has come to define the horrors of the Brussels attack. When it was taken no one knew who she was. She was a scared, shocked woman with blood trickling down her face, her foot injured, her clothes torn from the blast, sitting at Zaventem airport.

Until my friend called it exploitative I had seen it but not really looked at it. I was used to the idea that every great tragedy now needs its defining image.

A young boy lying face down and lifeless on that beach brought home the desperation of the Syrian refugee crisis like nothing else. Decades before him, in 1972 , the little girl running in naked agony from a napalm strike, her arms outstretched, her clothes ripped off, became the symbol of the Vietnam War.

Now it was Nidhi Chaphekars turn because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I had taken that for granted in a way.

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And Ketevan Kardava, special correspondent of the Georgian Public Broadcaster network happened to be right there with her camera. As a journalist it was my duty to take these photos and show the world what was going on, she tells The Guardian.

That world she is referring to also includes Chaphekars friends, family and neighbours. "We often supply groceries to them, but had not seen Nidhi madam till today," said Vaishnavi, a salesgirl at OneStop to The Telegraph. Hardly anyone here knew till this morning that the face of the Brussels blast victims is a resident of our society, said Lalit Babu, the chief security guard at their building complex.

It was not nice to see Madams picture in the morning papers with her clothes burned and her undergarments showing. The least they could have done is cover her.

"Not nice".

The security guards simple comment gives me pause. What he says expresses a very ordinary human trait that is all too often missing in these circumstances  fundamental decency.

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Kardava is doing what is her job, to document a tragedy, possibly at risk to her own life. The media is doing what they think is their job  finding an image that drives home that tragedy. The only person who has no choice in this is the person in the photo splashed around the world.

At a time like this there is no question of a model release form. When the media choose that particular image they are also choosing very consciously to strip Nidhi Chaphekar of her own dignity, at a moment when she is at her most vulnerable.

We have wrestled with the ethics of documenting a moment like this for a long time. Nick Ut, the Los Angeles-based photojournalist who took that Pulitzer-winning image of the naked Kim Phuc fleeing the napalm strike, put the screaming youngster in his van and took her to a hospital before filing his photographs in the Saigon bureau.

As Ut furiously snapped photographs, a young girl runs toward him, arms outstretched, eyes clenched in pain, clothes burned off by napalm.

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She still calls him Uncle Ut in gratitude. That photograph might have helped changed her future as well. Now settled in Canada, she has been able to go to Miami to see a dermatologist who specializes in laser treatments for burn patients.

When Dorothea Lange took the famous picture of the destitute migrant mother, the woman in the photograph, Florence Thompson, complained while Lange became famous, she remained poor.

Yet when she suffered a stroke, it was thanks to that image, that people around the US raised funds not for Thompson as much as for the woman who had become what the Los Angeles Times called the symbol of the Great Depression.

Those are all happy (if one can even use that word in this context) outcomes of tragic stories, but we should not fool ourselves into thinking that was the intent. These stories were not about Kim Phuc or Florence Thompson just as this story is not about Nidhi Chaphekar.

She is only being used as an illustration. She is, for most of the media running her image, an unknown terrified, blood-stained woman and her frazzled state is precisely the message the media is trying to convey. She is only as important as her dishabille.

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More than the person taking the image the fact that so many media outlets chose that particular image for their front pages shows that we do not really think about exploitation at this level.

When the media choose that particular image they are also choosing very consciously to strip Nidhi Chaphekar of her own dignity, at a moment when she is at her most vulnerable.

Almost everything is fair game when it comes to telling a story or rather getting more eyeballs for a story. We may balk at an image that is too explicitly gruesome but are blind to the many other ways we can exploit the plight of people trapped in a terrible tragedy. In an age where thanks to smartphones and social media we can all be publishers almost instantly, that blindness will only keep growing.

This, in the end, is a story both about the power of an image as well as ultimately its limitation. As Richard Woodward writes in ArtNews, Photography is superbly equipped to describe the results of events but is inarticulate or misleading when it comes to explaining their causes.

When Ut was covering the Vietnam war it was truly far away for readers in the US. Nothing is that far anymore. An image can become ubiquitous with a speed that was was never possible before.

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Yet we wear that responsibility lightly, clicking and sharing promiscuously. The sheer proliferation of the image lets us all off the hook. We do not have to grapple with the ethics of exploitation because everyone else is sharing it anyway.

Back in 1977, when viral was still about disease and a scary word and not a desirable state, Susan Sontag had warned in her book On Photography Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more  and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetise. That numbing can be the dead end of this unthinking exploitation.

At one point Aylan Kurdis aunt asked the world to stop using that picture of the drowned toddler. She wanted the world to remember him smiling. By then it was too late. Kurdi had become frozen,facedown and dead.

By then that image had become a meme, a cartoon, even an Ai Wei Wei art project. Kurdi was dead but Chaphekar is alive and will have to live with the consequences of the decisions that helped that image of her go viral. By then, the media will have moved on to another face for another story.

But that image of her will live on and on, defining her to strangers and neighbours and the grocery delivery person, whether she likes it or not.

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The name Rocky has a cinematic legacy shouldered by the likes of Sylvester Stallone in the West and Sanjay Dutt in Hindi cinema. In Nishikant Kamats Rocky Handsome, which released this week, John Abraham plays a highly trained assassin named Kabir Ahlawat, but his code name is Rocky. We learn this in a stylish montage in which he mercilessly butchers people and walks away from an explosion in slow-motion.

Brawn Abraham is hardly known for his acting chops, but this may be a new low. In a screenplay that has been badly adapted (minus actual story and screenplay credit, as I remember) from the South Korean hit The Man From Nowhere (2010), the actor  haunted by the murder of his beautiful, pregnant wife (Shruti Haasan, mercifully not on screen for too long)  is expressionless to a fault, displaying none of that latent madness/rage conveyed by Korean actor Won Bin in the original. He is truly rocky in that sense  as a big, inanimate object that has been given arms, legs, and a black suit and brought to life.

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But surprisingly enough, he isnt even the worst actor in this movie. Theres plenty of competition from one Teddy Maurya  you may remember him from the Hotel Decent scene in Imtiaz Alis Jab We Met (2007)  who, as Luke Ferreira, one of Goas kingpins along with brother Kevin (Kamat himself), turns in the hammiest performance in recent memory. Its some sort of unfortunate cross between Heath Ledgers Joker and Shakti Kapoors Crime Master Gogo.

The story revolves around an intolerably precocious little girl named Naomi (Diya Chalwad). Her mother Anna is a prostitute/exotic dancer/heroin-addict, so little Naomi wanders around the streets of Goa (often badly green-screened; it was actually shot in Hyderabads Ramoji Film City) and hangs out at Ahlawats pawn shop. She, and everybody else, calls him Handsome; yet, at one point, after calling him that a bunch of times, she asks: Do you know what people call you? Handsome. Sigh.

There is some sort of a plot involving drugs and organ-trafficking here, with many scenes reproduced faithfully from the original, but they all serve as padding for the violent action scenes. A theoretically interesting sequence, set in a nightclub, intercuts a deadly knife fight with shots of Moroccan-Canadian model Nora Fatehi repeating the same step  a lame, punching motion that looks like something an exasperated choreographer would come up with for Salman Khan  to Bombay Rockers Rock Tha Party with a hollow look in her eyes, as if to say Exposure ke liye kya kya karna padta hai.

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Even the fights, including the massive battle in the end that would never have happened if the villain hadnt wasted time showboating, lack the graceful choreography required for them to be truly engaging. Merely shooting at higher frame-rates and whippy editing isnt enough when you can see that a character with a gun has a clear shot at the hero (who is armed only with a knife) but isnt shooting out of politeness? On the upside, though, at least cinematographer Shanker Raman and the colour-grading make the film look stylish in a few rain-soaked sequences.

Even at a multiplex-friendly 125 minutes, Rocky Handsome feels too long, mainly because it has nothing of real value to offer. The way the film is written, acted, and edited, it seems very clear that not much thought has gone into it. Presumably, Kamat thought the novelty value of the action sequences would carry it through. This is what happens when you start thinking of filmmaking as a day job, instead of the privilege it should be.

P.S.: Will someone please tell Shruti Haasan that life is short, she's still young, and is therefore still free to pursue a wide variety of career options? Thanks and cheers.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Mohit Goel, right, Director of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd., and Ashok Chadha, left, spokesperson, show a Freedom 251 smartphone, which is to be priced at Rs 251 or $3.6 approximately, during its release in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

A BJP MP has filed a complaint against Ringing Bells, the company promoting Freedom 251 as the world's cheapest phone, for allegedly duping customers.

The FIR was filed under section 420 (cheating) in Noida, Phase 3 police station by BJP MP Kirit Somaiya against company owners Mohit Goel and Ashok Chaddha. He said the company produced misleading ads and used social media campaigns to misguide consumers. Somaiya even tweeted a picture of the complaint.

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The complaint lists several points against Freedom 251, saying the phone cannot be priced as low as Rs 251. He accused the makers of misusing the tricolour as well in advertisements. It also used 'Make In India' campaign of the government to gain more traction.

NOIDA Police registered My FIR 302/2016 21/3/2016 under IPC IT act against #Freedom251#RingingBell 4 cheating fraud pic.twitter.com/cUVUGIrmT2  Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) March 23, 2016

Somaiya has requested officials to freeze the accounts of the makers to save millions of rupees being collected as fraud. The FIR also points out that Freedom 251 is not yet registered with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

According to a Hindustan Times report Kiran Sivakumar, Senior Superintendent of police, Gautam Buddh Nagar said, "After primary investigation of the complaint, we found that its fit for an FIR. A case was lodged and a team was constituted to investigate the case". The police will investigate the documents of the company as well as manufacturing units they promised to sell to the consumers".

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"We remain committed to cooperate with any government agency that may require to inquire our organization for any reason or suspicion. I do maintain that we will deliver the most affordable quality products to our customers through our various range of smartphones, including the Freedom 251," Goel said.

Recently, the Directorate of Enforcement began an investigation on Ringing Bells.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government is taking steps to protect the interest of the consumer. The government had also formed a committee under the Department of Electronics and IT (DeITY) on 20 February after the launch of the phone on 17 February.

Within some hours of the launch, the phone was in murky waters as the demo units given to the media had white paint on the phone and an Adcom logo was revealed once it peeled off. Adcom also said it will take legal action against Ringing Bells if their brand image is damaged. Early this month Ringing Bells even started to refund initial customers of Freedom 251 who purchased the mobile phone through the website.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Policemen stand guard as security men check the identity cards of students arriving at the Hyderabad University in Hyderabad, in India, Tuesday, Jan 19, 2016. Hundreds of students on Tuesday angrily protested the death of an Indian student who, along with four others, was barred from using some facilities at his university in the southern tech-hub of Hyderabad. The protesters accused Hyderabad University's vice chancellor along with a federal minister of unfairly demanding punishment for the five lower-caste students after they clashed last year with a group of students supporting the governing Hindu nationalist party. (AP Photo /Mahesh Kumar A.)

Hitting out against the government for keeping them in the dark about the arrest of their children from the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), parents of detained students said it was the duty of the authorities and the police to inform them about the development since they were not (living) in Syria or Pakistan.

Around 26 students were arrested from the HCU campus after they allegedly held the varsitys vice chancellor hostage and caused property damage. Appa Rao Podile returned to work this week into a tense campus where protests have been raging ever since 26-year-old dalit scholar Rohith Vemula ended his life in a hostel room in January after he was rusticated.

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"We are not in Syria or Pakistan. It is the duty of the police to inform parents about those who've been arrested. No government, university authorities or faculty members got in touch with us," a parent from Kerala told NDTV.

Another parent from the southern state, a 42-year-old mother said she came to know about the arrest of her son only through social media since nobody from the university or the police had officially informed her.

Adding that she is yet to get any details of her sons whereabouts from the police, the students mother, a government employee who wished not be named, broke down.

"Shouldn't we be informed officially? Should we get to know things two days later through social media? We kept trying his phone, but couldn't touch base with him or his friends." she told the news channel.

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On Tuesday evening, her son called home, but hung up abruptly, and there has been no news from him since then, she said.

Meanwhile, the bail hearing of detained students and two professors has been postponed to Monday.

A team of students that constitute the Joint Action Committee alleged that the arrested students were beaten up by the police while some female students were sexually harassed as they were being dragged out of the vice chancellors office.

However, the police denied the allegations in a statement.

The evicted students formed into a mob outside the compound wall and started stone pelting in which 4 police officers got injured...the police had to use mild force to disperse the students," it said.

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Sushma Swaraj/Twitter

Infosys employee Raghavendra Ganeshan, posted in Brussels for the last four years, called his mother Annapoorni on Skype as usual on Tuesday hours ahead of the Brussels terror attacks. He told her he was about to leave for work. When his brother, who lives in Germany, called Annapoorni to inform her about the terror strikes, she realized they happened to be on the same route her son takes every day to get to work.

In an interview to The News Minute, Annapoorni said she initially thought the attack was at the airport. "But later there were news flashes that there was a blast in the metro line- between Merode to Park station. This is the metro route my son uses to commute to office every day," she said.

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The Infosys employee has been missing in Brussels since the deadly terror attacks and the Indian Embassy in the Belgian capital was making efforts to trace him. On Twitter, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj posted his image asking for help.

He spoke to his mother an hour before the blasts in Brussels. Please help us locate Raghvendran./2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 23 March 2016

Indians in Brussels - This is the picture of Raghavendran Ganesh. pic.twitter.com/9M1qlKkVVH /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 23 March 2016

Two Jet Airways crew members -- Nidhi Chaphekar and Amit Motwanai -- were also injured in the explosions at Brussels' Zaventem airport. Brussels airport serves as the Mumbai-based airline's European hub for its international operations, which is now being relocated to Dutch capital Amsterdam.

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Many of his friends claimed they have received a "message" on social media, purportedly from her son, saying he was safe, Annapoorani told the Indian Express. "But I did not get any confirmation from the Ministry of External Affairs about such a notification. I have been informed that my son will be traced with information of the location of his last mobile call, she said.

Ganeshan's friends in the city are looking for him as his name does not appear in lists of casualties. The young Infosys employee had reportedly visited India last month after his wife gave birth. In a series of tweets, Swaraj has assured all help from her ministry in tracing Ganeshan.

Raghavendra's brother has reached Brussels. We are trying to trace him. @dhanyarajendran@IndEmbassyBru  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 24 March 2016

I hv spoken to Raghavendran's mother Mrs Annapoorni. /1 pic.twitter.com/9M1qlKkVVH@arvindram77  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 23 March 2016

We are doing our best to locate Raghavendran Ganesh. /2  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 23 March 2016

These are the Indian Embassy's helpline in Brussels: +32-26409140 +32-26451850 (PABX) & +32-476748575 (mobile)

Raghavendran Ganesh - We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was travelling in the metro rail. @SanjeevKandakur@IndEmbassyBru  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) 24 March 2016

Belgian police arrested six people in their probe of the Islamic State suicide bombings, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there "that was at an advanced stage." The federal prosecutor's office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests came during police searches in the Brussels neighbourhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the centre of the Belgian capital.

The arrests came days after suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train, killing at least 31 people and wounding some 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

Officials told The Hindu that telephone records of Ganeshan placed him at the Montgomery metro station, just before 9 am, four stops away from the Maelbeek Station where the blasts occurred at about 9:11 am. At least 20 people were killed at the Maelbeek station.

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We are up against privacy laws that prevent us from getting a full list of those injured, as well as strict rules at the hospitals that won't allow us to go in and personally identify anyone, Indias Ambassador to the EU, Manjeev Puri, told The Hindu.

(Inputs from agencies)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Police guard a check point during a police raid in the suburb of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Thursday, March, 24, 2016. Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Update: Jet Airways has issued a statement clarifying that Nidhi Chaphekar is not in a medically-induced coma, but is under sedation for her comfort. This article has been edited to reflect the change.

BRUSSELS -- A Jet Airways manager said that the flight attendant injured in the Belgium attacks was undergoing treatment for burns and in under sedation for her comfort.

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"We have spoken to Dr. Steven at the hospital where Jet Airways crew Nidhi Chaphekar is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in a stable condition and not in a coma," according to the statement issued Friday. "She is resting and under sedation for her comfort."

Earlier, Bernard Guisset, a Jet Airways manager in Brussels, said Nidhi Chaphekar had suffered burns over 15 per cent of her body and had fractured her foot. But he added that her condition was stable and out of danger.

The image of Chaphekar taken right after the blast was one of the most searing photographs taken Tuesday.

It showed the 40-year-old mother of two from Mumbai, her bright yellow uniform ripped across her chest. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face.

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Meanwhile, Amit Motwani, a Jet Airways flight purser who was also injured in the airport blast, was being treated for injuries to his eye and ear.

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Special Operations Airman receives Bronze Star

A Bronze Star Medal was awarded to a Hurlburt Field Airman during a ceremony here, March 24, for distinctive accomplishments on a recent deployment.



Master Sgt. Marty Pallone, the knowledge operations section chief with the 1st Special Operations Communications Squadron, was recognized by Col. Sean Farrell, the commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing, for going above and beyond her duties while engaged in overseas contingency operations.



Marty comes to us with a great career, a great record, doing great things for our Air Force; working high profile jobs, working for Gen. Goldfein up at Langley, said Farrell. We know, Marty, youre going to do great things here at Hurlburt Field.



The Bronze Star Medal is awarded to a person in any branch of military service who, while serving in any capacity with the armed forces of the United States, distinguished themselves by heroic or meritorious achievement or service in connection with military operations against an armed enemy. The award recognizes acts of heroism performed in ground combat.



Communicators do not often see folks earn a Bronze Star, I think they associate those with other career fields, said Lt. Col. Scott McGovern, the commander of the 1st SOCS. What Master Sgt. Pallone did really shows our Airmen there are a lot of things they can do to provide that support and different ways they can excel. This is a huge message for them to understand that theres a lot of different oportunities out there and that no matter what your Air Force specialty code is, you can go and do great things and get recognized for it.



Pallone worked as the executive assistant to senior leadership in the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing during an 11-month deployment.



While exposed to significant danger from rocket attacks and insider threats, Pallone routinely left the safety of the forward operating base to provide armed over watch security for the wing command chief during his battlefield circulations and key leader engagements.



She also coordinated meetings and conferences between the wing command chief and the command sergeant major of the Afghan Air Force resulting in the first employment of Afghan led aerial fires and elimination of countless insurgents.



In addition, Pallone supported the Afghan Air Force gender integration initiative.



Once a week we would go and meet with the women in the Afghan Air Force to play volleyball or just talk, said Pallone. I taught them English, and I think they helped distract me from missing home.



As a result of Pallones contributions to the initiative, she was able to overcome gender stereotypes and was a catalyst to 35 women joining the Afghan Air Force.



These ladies truly wanted to make a difference in their country and their families, said Pallone. They wanted to be something their children could be proud of, and I guess I saw a little of myself in them.



Following an attack that took the lives of three American contractors, Pallone joined the armed roving patrol team and provided armed security for flightline operations.



Not having the defenders we needed, we acted as security forces, said Pallone. We patrolled the flightline, cleared buildings and ensured people took cover when they needed too.



Vastly outnumbered by the insider threats, she established a defensive posture on the Afghan flightline, defending a 13-acre battlespace and 300 coalition military and contractors from future insider threats.



Finally, Pallone endured and responded to two major vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonations against the installation as well as a major, five-hour insurgent assault on the base; all attackers were neutralized with zero coalition casualties.



Its an honor to know that the General and the Chief think so highly of me, said Pallone. But I know being honored today is much more than just about me; its about all the men and women who wear this medal, its about my son, my daughters and family. I may have been the one over there, but theyre the ones who made the real sacrifice.
Googles YouTube Extorts Artists And Pockets The Profits, Says MusicFIRST Coalition

Although its shell company Alphabet is raking in massive amounts of revenue, and YouTube is the most popular music service in world, Ted Kalo of the musicFIRST Coalition looks at how he says Google has been able to exploit legal loopholes to avoid paying creators the money they deserve.

________________________________

Guest post by Ted Kalo, Executive Director of the musicFIRST Coalition

About $21,329,000,000 in revenue during Q4 and 558,000,000 copyright takedown requests in 2015.

Those enormous numbers are Googles record profit and record disregard for creators rights.

In February, Alphabet  Googles newly formed shell company  reported that it earned $21.33 billion in revenue during the final quarter of 2015, making it the most valuable company in the world. Advertising accounted for virtually all of this revenue haul, up 17% over last years results.[i]

Its free YouTube video streaming service, with more than one billion users, is the most popular platform for music consumption in the world.[ii] Though Google does not disclose sales numbers for YouTube specifically, it ascribes its substantial growth in part to advertising dollars on YouTube:

Our very strong revenue growth in Q4 reflects the vibrancy of our business, driven by mobile search as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising, all areas in which weve been investing for many years.[iii]

The New York Times estimates the service makes between $4 and $8 billion annually.[iv] And this cash cow is powered largely by music. The top 10 most watched videos on YouTube are all music related.[v]

Yet even as Google/Alphabet continues to build its empire on a foundation of music, it pays the musicians and record companies whose music undergirds its massive success and growth next to nothing. According to RIAA numbers just released this week, YouTube, in combination with other on-demand ad-supported services like Vevo and Spotifys free platform, only contributed 5.5% of all music revenues in 2015.[vi]

As one music industry source recently said: YouTube boasting about its payments to the music industry is like Bernie Madoff boasting about paying dividends to his investors.[vii]

So how does that work? Basically, Google has figured out how to rip off artists through legal loopholes that were established for the company nearly twenty years ago, when it was only a fledgling search engine provider.

First, it uses its massive size and control of the indispensable YouTube gateway to force music creators into accepting the lowest, below-market royalty rates in the business. Second, its search engines often prioritize unlicensed copies of songs, for which the creators of those original songs receive nothing. Meanwhile, Google receives massive amount of cash from the advertisers who feature their ads on top of said pirated results.

Whats that you say? There ought to be a law to prevent all of this.

Well, there is  but Google and its lawyers have figured out how to exploit the outdated and obsolete Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was intended to stop abuse of creative works.

The DMCA dates back to the year of Googles founding, when the Internet was a very different place. Uploading an unlicensed copy of a song took a long while, and downloading a song took minutes. The Internet moved at the speed of CompuServe and dial-up AOL. Also, there were limited places where unlicensed content could even go (remember GeoCities?), and few of those sites were accessible to non-expert users.

It was thought at the time that musicians and copyright owners could survey the limited landscape of the infant World Wide Web and identify each unlicensed copy of a song. Musicians and copyright owners could then send a notice to the website-hosting company, identifying the unlicensed work and asking the company to take it down. Provided that the company was not actively involved in the unlicensed activity and promptly took down the unlicensed copy, the company would be held legally harmless.

Key to this legal regime was that Internet Service Providers were considered passive, internet-hosting companies, and not profiteering, ad-dollars guzzling mega-corporations.

Today, Google is far from passive in the massive enterprise of illegally pirated music: YouTube clearly distributes and capitalizes from others creative work. The company makes bank off the advertising it actively targets at specific users and layers atop illegal copies of music. Yet it still claims the hear no evil, see no evil amnesty of the DMCA, which Congress intended only for passive intermediaries.

Thanks to Google hiding behind its legal exemption, the fire of pirated music online has only continued to rage. The old, faulty DMCA model  in which creators were responsible for surveying the entire Internet and finding illegal copies of their works - has completely, but not surprisingly, broken down. Creators now send, at extraordinary expense, more than 65 million notices of infringement to Google a month, and a record 558 million notices in 2015 alone.[viii]

Its an unconscionable Value Grab. Google turns a blind eye to piracy and reaps the rewards from ads surrounding unlicensed content. Meanwhile, it extracts below market value for the music it is willing to license. The crumbs creators receive from these shoddy licensing deals must then be spent on monitoring the web and sending millions of futile takedown notices for websites that pop back up in a manner of seconds even when they get shut down.

This Value Grab can only be fixed with meaningful legal reform. Laws from the age of Ask Jeeves must be updated for the Google/YouTube goliath

 more on that soon.

  

Ted Kalo, Executive Director of musicFIRST, coalition of the music community that supports paying music creators when their work is played on radio platforms.

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"We need to talk about insurance the way we want to hear about it," says insurance educator
Adriana Millenaar Brown will discuss her recent book, 'An Unlikely Hero,' about her diplomat father's experiences in Nazi Germany, on Saturday at the Milne Library.

Williamstown Woman Writes About Her Diplomat Father in World War II

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Not all heroes wear uniforms.



That truth is not lost on Adriana Millenaar Brown.



As author of "An Unlikely Hero: Adrianus Millenaar," Brown shares with readers her memories of her father, a Dutch diplomat who put his life in jeopardy to help thousands of his countrymen survive the Nazi regime during World War II.



Millenaar was posted to the Netherlands' embassy in Berlin in the late 1920s as an agricultural assistant. When Germany invaded his country in 1940, he reluctantly volunteered to stayed on in Berlin with the Swedish delegation, which was acting as the Netherlands' diplomatic protecting power.



He did what he could to help Dutch nationals over the next five years, visiting concentration, labor and death camps. By 1944, he was under threat of arrest and forced to stay within the city; his wife and three children fled to Stockholm. Millenaar was able to escape to Sweden only days before the Russians entered Berlin.



John Chandler, former Williams College president, wrote that the book a "gripping and inspiring story of the towering courage and indefatigable resolve of Adrianus Millenaar ... .



"The book shines revealing light on both the depths of depravity to which humans sometimes sink and the heights of nobility to which they are capable of climbing."



Brown will give a talk on her book on Saturday, March 26, at 1 p.m. in the Milne Public Library. She sat down for interview with iBerkshires on Tuesday.





Q: How old were you when World War II broke out?



A: My father went to Berlin in 1928 as agricultural attache of Dutch embassy. I was born in Berlin in 1938.



Q: Did you have any siblings?



A: I was the oldest of three children. Father was Dutch and mother was a German but got Dutch citizenship when she married.



Q: Did your father ever live apart from the family because of his work?



A: When father's position was endangered and he was called state enemy of Nazi Germany, we (three children and mother) got out of Berlin in November 1944. We went to Stockholm, Sweden, but father was not permitted to leave Germany.



In May 1945, when the Netherlands were liberated, my father came briefly to Stockholm, and then went to London to wait until he re-entered West Berlin as acting head of the Netherlands Military Mission under (Gen. Dwight) Eisenhower's SHEAF (Supreme Headquarters Expeditionary Force). We then reunited with my father in Berlin in 1947.



Q. Did you ever say goodbye to your father and fear you would never see him again?



A: Somehow he must have instilled in me to be strong and take care of my mother and brothers.



Q: Did you ever feel neglected because your father gave so much time and effort to helping others?


Finance Committee members Michael Sussman and Elisabeth Goodman review the Mount Greylock budget.

Williamstown Looks at Tax Increase to Fund Mount Greylock



Mount Greylock Business Manager Nancy Rauscher and Superintendent Douglas Dias explain the fiscal 2017 spending plan.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Finance Committee on Wednesday recommended that the town look at increased taxes to pay for a jump in the Mount Greylock Regional School District's assessment and look to free cash to offset an overage in the elementary school's budget.

The Fin Comm will not make its final recommendations to town meeting until its March 30 meeting at the earliest, but the panel raised no objections to the Mount Greylock budget as presented or a Williamstown Elementary School spending plan that has been pared back slightly since the school's March 16 public hearing.

Superintendent of Schools Douglas Dias on Wednesday shared with the Fin Comm a revised budget that will go back to the Williamstown School Committee for reconsideration on March 29. The new plan trims the K-6 school's budget by $53,256, bringing its total appropriated budget for fiscal 2017 to $6.1 million, a $308,105 increase over FY16.

That represents a 5.34 percent increase over the FY16 town appropriation to the elementary school, which is problematic since spending increases across the rest of the town's budget have been held to 2.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the Mount Greylock assessment to the town is up by 4.8 percent, an increase of $237,328. Even though the regional school's operating budget is up by just 3.9 percent, more of the tax burden shifts from Lanesborough to Williamstown in FY17 due to changes in student population and the commonwealth's "minimum contribution" formula, which takes into account property values.

The town budget was reconfigured to accommodate more spending for both school line items, but it still showed a deficit of just more than $200,000 heading into Wednesday's meeting.

Just more than a quarter of that would be eliminated if the School Committee approves the $53,000 in cuts Dias outlined on Wednesday.

That left $33,381 in overage for the elementary school appropriation and $113,402 in overage attributable to Mount Greylock  a total shortfall of $146,783

The good news is that the town has nearly $1 million in unused levy capacity before it would need to hold a Proposition 2 1/2 override vote. And on Wednesday, the Finance Committee agreed that the bulk of the foreseen overage  the Mount Greylock piece  should be funded by increased taxes.

"For every $100,000 [of levy capacity] you use, that's $30 on a $300,000 house," Fin Comm Chairman Michael Sussman said, putting the tax increase in perspective for his colleagues. "It's 10 cents for every $1,000."

The committee considered whether to use some of the levy capacity to address the WES shortfall as well. But ultimately it decided to take some of the town's cash reserves to cover the $33,381.

Town Manager Jason Hoch, who attended Wednesday's meeting to advise the committee, agreed.

"I tend to agree with [Sussman and Elaine Neely] on the Mount Greylock piece," Hoch said. "My view is we need to used unused levy capacity. On WES, we're down to such a small number, free cash is probably fine.

"I'm always worried about us relying too heavily on free cash. Thirty thousand dollars is not getting hooked on free cash."

The bulk of Wednesday's meeting was spent in a line-by-line analysis of the Mount Greylock budget.

The main driver in the 3.9 percent overall increase is a $281,683 increase in health insurance costs. That represents a 21 percent jump from FY16.

The Mount Greylock spending plan includes a number of reallocations to bring the budget in line with the philosophies of the district's new superintendent, Dias, and business manager, Nancy Rauscher. It also includes a net decrease in full-time equivalent employees (or FTEs) of just more than two employees.

One math teacher and one reading specialist are being dropped from the junior-senior high school budget. The latter is being cut because of a drop in need based on the FY17 student population, Rauscher explained.

Mount Greylock has been able to absorb teacher cuts the last few years by relying on the versatility of its staff. Rauscher said that Principal Mary MacDonald strives to fill positions open positions with teachers who are certified in multiple disciplines and takes advantage of a provision in state law that allows teachers to teach one class per day in which they are not certified.

From a high of 101 FTEs in the 2013-14 school year, Mount Greylock heads into the 2016-17 school year with a projected 89.75 FTEs.

"It's interesting to point out for taxpayers that FTEs have been declining the last two years," Neely said Wednesday night. "Despite the fact it's costing more, it's not FTEs."

Mount Greylock's budget will cost a little less for Williamstown's partners to the south. Lanesborough's assessment in the FY17 spending plan decreases by .5 percent, while Mount Greylock's is up by 4.8 percent.

The biggest reason for the disparity is the "minimum required contribution" of each town as defined by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The state demands Lanesborough to contribute $54,519 less than it did in FY16 and demands Williamstown contribute $52,477 more.

Williamstown also takes a hit because the five-year rolling enrollment average for FY17 shows a significant drop in Lanesborough's students. While Williamstown's resident population at Mount Greylock has stayed fairly steady the last five years, Lanesborough's has dropped from a high of 185 in 2011 to 154 this year.

As a result, Lanesborough's contribution to the operating budget per the regional agreement is up by just $4,493 (to $1.5 million). Williamstown's is up by $105,529 (to $2.5 million). Looked at another way, in FY16, Williamstown's share was 62.2 percent; in FY17 it will be 63.2 percent.



Town Manager Jason Hoch addresses the Finance Committee.

The elementary school budget has been a work in progress ever since Dias and Rauscher made their preliminary budget presentation to the School Committee on Feb. 12. News of budget cuts sent shockwaves through the community, leading to two well-attended public fora on the budget.

The School Committee ended up adding back a number of the items to the budget, but one  the full-day preschool program  remains on the chopping block in the budget the committee will consider on March 29.

On Wednesday, Dias outlined several changes that bring the appropriated (i.e. town-funded) portion of the budget down to $6,081,052  down from the $6,134,308 spending plan the School Committee on March 16 sent to the Fin Comm.

The most significant change is the elimination of the $35,610 reserve Dias was budgeting in case the school needed to add a third half-day preschool section. Dias told the Fin Comm on Wednesday that after completing preschool screenings, the administration is confident it can serve the FY17 special needs preschoolers in two half-day sections.

The other changes are bookkeeping adjustments that will not impact services. The amended budget reallocates $15,166 in expenses to the school's Olmstead Grant revenue, shifts $1,000 in cafeteria wages from the appropriated budget to a revolver account and zeroes out two accounts the the school has been holding but has no use for their intended purposes. The school plans to use $421 from the Sunrise Spanish account and $1,059 from an account earmarked for summer school supplies.

The chairman of the Elementary School Committee thanked the Fin Comm for its patience as the district went through different iterations of its budget.

"Any difficulty on your part has been worth it for the opportunity for WES to give parents, staff members, everyone involved in the process the feeling they are part of the decisions that will have an impact on what we will take to town meeting, where the final decisions are made," Dan Caplinger said.
Exclusive: Rahul Dravid a Very Good Communicator, Over Time India Will See Benefits of Him as Head Coach - John Buchanan

'He Just Asks How The Ball is Coming From The Wicket...': Virat Kohli Enjoys Batting With Suryakumar Yadav
Regional preferences

Ballard , the leading independent supplier of fuel cells into trials in vehicles, told analysts IDTechEx that the main impediments to roll out are availability of hydrogen charging stations and cost. Hyundai trumpets a three minute refuelling time but it well knows that this is meaningless if it takes an hour to get to one. Governments have, in the main, been tardy in providing the finance for such charging stations as some installed stations are said to cost up to $2 million. The governments of Japan, Korea, Germany and to some extent the UK and California are keen.

Range extender positioning

The fuel cell is the only zero emission range extender albeit the most expensive to buy and to run until volume sales and value engineering bears fruit. The problem will be fixed of almost all hydrogen used being made from natural hydrocarbons and therefore not green. For example, Toyota is now looking to also power forklifts and air conditioners with hydrogen. It will be produced with renewable energy from Fukuoka, and with Kyushu University on board. Toyota hopes to adapt the technology at its Mirai fuel cell car production plant by 2020.

No fuel cells for 48V mild hybrids

In something of a parallel universe, there is also considerable enthusiasm for the lowest cost way of meeting the onerous 2025 and 2030 emissions regulations - the 48V mild hybrid in the form to be launched in volume in 2017. Originally, like microhybrids, mild hybrids were not electric vehicles at all but more a public relations spin. No longer. The new forms of 48V mild hybrid car, van and truck will have up to three pure electric modes - silent take-off, creeping and active coasting called sailing. Here the internal combustion engine is still in its conventional place in the powertrain: it is not a range extender and not a candidate for replacement by a fuel cell because it still copes with considerable changes in load and speed. Fuel cells will be able to manage load variations economically and reliably but that will be in small vehicles first.

Mild Hybrid 48V Vehicles 2016-2031 , the new report from IDTechEx Research, analyses the latest situation for them. "They will take a huge bite out of the conventional and non-plug-in hybrid market, even when fuel cells succeed." says Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx. "Fuel cell vehicles are an alternative to plug-in vehicles in the main, not in challenging the low cost of conventional vehicles".

Many niche markets appear

"In classic fashion, as we await further fruits of the energetic development of fuel cell cars by Honda and others, niches are opening up. There are fuel cell drones, airships, boats, microcars, military vehicles and more being developed", reports Das.

Horizon Energy Systems is developing a fuel cell quadcopter that could stay airborne for hours at a time. Intelligent Energy has unveiled a fuel cell/ battery range extender for drones. Recharges will take only two minutes using a cartridge. Intelligent Energy's Debbie Hughes reports that flight times of drones using the system will vary depending on the size of the aircraft. "You could have more fuel on a larger drone meaning a longer flight time, but we believe in the region of two hours."

Riversimple Engineering in the UK says its fuel-cell-powered two-seater Rasa with wheel hub motors will first be seen as a prototype ready for series production being tested from autumn 2016. The company is in talks with the Welsh government aimed at building a production plant with an annual production capacity of 5,000 units.
Press Release: IMF Executive Board Completes Tenth Review Under the Extended Fund Facility for Pakistan

Press Release No. 16/137

March 25, 2016

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on March 25, 2016 completed the tenth review of Pakistans economic performance under a three-year program supported by an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement. In completing the review, the Executive Board also approved the authorities request for modification of the end-March 2016 performance criterion on the State Bank of Pakistans stock of net foreign currency swaps/forward position. The Executive Boards decision enables the immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 360 million (about US$502.6 million), bringing total disbursements to SDR 3.96 billion (US$5.53 billion).

On September 4, 2013, the Executive Board approved the 36-month extended arrangement under the EFF in the amount of SDR 4.393 billion (US$6.64 billion at the time of approval of the arrangement) or 216 percent of Pakistans current quota at the IMF. (See Press release No. 13/322).

Following the Executive Boards discussion of Pakistan, Mr. Mitsuhiro Furusawa, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair issued the following statement:

Economic activity has continued to gradually gain strength, and short-term vulnerabilities have receded. Building on these gains, further progress, including in the area of structural reforms, is needed to generate strong and inclusive growth and make the economy more resilient and competitive.

The authorities continued commitment to reach the programs fiscal targets is welcome. Further widening the tax net and ensuring the fairness of the tax system, together with prudent management of budgetary spending and close coordination with the provinces, remain important to consolidate the gains in addressing Pakistans fiscal vulnerabilities while generating the necessary resources for higher priority spending in areas such as infrastructure, health, and education.

The monetary policy stance remains appropriate. Falling oil prices have helped efforts to bolster foreign reserves. While the establishment of an independent monetary policy committee has been an important step in advancing central bank autonomy, addressing remaining recommendations of the 2013 Safeguards Assessment will be key to strengthen it further.

Reinforcing financial sector resilience remains pertinent and efforts to enhance capital buffers of banks are encouraging. The recent amendments to the AML Act constitute a first step to widen the application of AML tools to the proceeds of tax crimes. Further efforts to strengthen the AML/CFT framework are welcome and will help strengthen financial stability and tax compliance.

Amid recent setbacks to the agenda to restructure or privatize loss-making public sector enterprises, continued resolve to complete the planned reforms remains important to address fiscal risks and strengthen economic efficiency. The authorities focus on containing losses in affected companies is also welcome in this regard. Further improving the business climate, transparency, and governance should help generate high and more inclusive growth.
Imperial Valley News Center

Contributions of the Global Initiative To Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) To Enhancing Nuclear Security

Washington, DC - Since 2006, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) has grown into a partnership of 86 nations and 5 official observers committed to strengthening global capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism.

The GICNT continues to make valuable contributions to nuclear security, and has held nearly 80 multilateral activities that have demonstrated the GICNTs unique ability to bring together policy, technical, and operational experts to share models and best practices and enhance partners capabilities to address difficult and emerging nuclear security challenges. We, the Co-Chairs of the GICNT (Russia and the United States), the past and present Implementation and Assessment Group (IAG) Coordinators (Spain, the Republic of Korea, and the Netherlands), leaders of the three IAG Working Groups (Morocco, Finland and Australia), and the Special Advisor to the IAG Coordinator for planning the GICNTs Tenth Anniversary Event in 2016 (United Kingdom), wish to inform the states in attendance at the 2016 U.S. Nuclear Security Summit, as well as states who are members of other international organizations and initiatives with nuclear security-related mandates, on progress made by the GICNT since the Nuclear Security Summit hosted by the Netherlands in The Hague in March 2014.

Over 200 representatives of GICNT partner nations and representatives from all five GICNT official observers  the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Union (EU), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI)  participated in the ninth GICNT Plenary Meeting, hosted by Finland in Helsinki on June 16-17, 2015. The Plenary selected the United States and Russia to continue as Co-Chairs of the GICNT for the term 2015-2019 and endorsed the Netherlands to serve a two year term as IAG Coordinator. The Netherlands announced the continuation of Australia and Morocco as Nuclear Forensics and Response and Mitigation Working Group chairs, Finland as the next Nuclear Detection Working Group chair, and the United Kingdom as Special Advisor to the IAG Coordinator for planning the GICNTs Tenth Anniversary Event in 2016. Plenary participants also recognized the Republic of Korea for its leadership as IAG Coordinator. In this capacity, the Republic of Korea played a critical role in implementing the GICNT strategy announced at the 2013 Plenary Meeting in Mexico City, which called for an increase in practical, topically- and regionally-focused activities.

The Nuclear Security Summits in Washington (2010), Seoul (2012), and The Hague (2014) recognized the GICNTs contributions to advancing global nuclear security. GICNT activities and the partners that supported them have produced many valuable outcomes that have complemented the Nuclear Security Summit process and positioned the GICNT to continue to play an important role in strengthening the global nuclear security architecture.

The Implementation and Assessment Group held three IAG Meetings that advanced the GICNT strategy by reviewing and approving Working Group documents, planning future activities, enabling event hosts to present key outcomes and lessons learned, and promoting a policy-level dialogue on key nuclear security issues.

At the annual IAG Meeting hosted by the Republic of Korea in July 2014, partners discussed the GICNTs Statement of Principles and developed proposed topics and themes for incorporation into the GICNTs strategic planning to build upon past work and address new or continuing nuclear security challenges. Partners feedback contributed significantly to the development of the GICNT strategy for 2015-2017, and identified potential new focus areas, such as addressing challenges related to sustainability of expertise and promoting the exchange of best practices on legal and regulatory frameworks, for further consideration.

Morocco hosted a Mid-Year IAG Meeting in February 2015, where each Working Group held simultaneous sessions to finalize guidance documents, plan future activities, and discuss working group plans for 2015-2017. Partners also participated in the Atlas Lion tabletop exercise, which explored the interfaces across the three working groups from a higher-level policy perspective and identified the critical priorities that participants assessed their senior leaders would have in a real-world nuclear security incident. Senior leaders at the 2015 Plenary Meeting later discussed key outcomes from Atlas Lion, underscoring the GICNTs unique ability to serve as a platform for cross-disciplinary exchanges among groups of experts in different fields and highlighting the value of cooperation among these different groups. Finland hosted an IAG Meeting in June 2015 before the Plenary Meeting, where all five of the GICNTs official observers briefed their programs of work and available assistance. The outgoing IAG Coordinator from the Republic of Korea also made several important recommendations based on partners feedback from the July 2014 IAG Meeting that were endorsed by partners, including maintaining the GICNTs three Working Groups; continuing cross-disciplinary work; developing thematic series of activities that increase in complexity to strategically build partnership capacity; and enhancing the utility of the Global Initiative Information Portal (GIIP). These themes, as well as recommendations for the GICNT to organize additional activities that promote regional cooperation and develop activities that focus on key fundamentals of exercise design, implementation, and self-assessment, are key components of the GICNTs strategy for 2015-2017.

The Nuclear Detection Working Group (NDWG) completed its Developing a Nuclear Detection Architecture series, which focuses on addressing challenges inherent to successful implementation and enhancement of national nuclear detection architectures. The United States organized a workshop in April 2014 to complete the final technical review of Volume IV, Guidelines for Detection Within a States Interior, the final best practices guide in the series. Volume IV identifies challenges and mitigating strategies for building detection capabilities in the interior and provides options to mitigate those challenges by utilizing both technical and non-technical capabilities. The 2015 Plenary Meeting endorsed Volume IV as an official GICNT product.

The NDWG also developed the Exercise Playbook  a collection of realistic scenarios that illustrates key nuclear detection challenges. The Exercise Playbook is now available on the GIIP as a tool for helping partners to organize national-level exercises to promote practical implementation of nuclear detection best practices. The Exercise Playbook will also be utilized for developing future NDWG activities and may be further refined and updated over time to meet partners evolving priorities and integrate other key nuclear security issues.

Finland hosted the nuclear detection workshop and tabletop exercise, Northern Lights, in January 2015 to focus on the integration of traditional law enforcement techniques and radiation detection capabilities toward investigating illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive materials. Northern Lights highlighted the importance of a coordinated, whole-of-government effort to detect and respond to illicit trafficking activities involving nuclear or other radioactive materials and promoted the practical implementation of best practices outlined in Guidelines for Detection Within a States Interior.

In May 2015, the European Commission hosted Radiant City, which featured a tabletop exercise and a series of hands-on demonstrations by the Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements, focusing on nuclear detection capabilities, radiological crime scene management, and traditional forensic and nuclear forensic laboratory analysis. Radiant City built upon the successful outcomes of Northern Lights by bringing together the nuclear detection and nuclear forensics communities to identify strategies for how their respective expertise and capabilities could be leveraged in support of an ongoing law enforcement investigation into stolen nuclear or radioactive materials.

The Nuclear Forensics Working Group (NFWG) completed Exchanging Nuclear Forensics Information: Benefits, Challenges and Resources, a GICNT best practices document that aims to increase awareness of the benefits and challenges of exchanging nuclear forensics information associated with a nuclear security event and identifies potential mechanisms for enabling information exchange. Lithuania hosted a nuclear forensics workshop in April 2014 to review this document, and it was subsequently endorsed at the June 2015 Plenary Meeting as an official GICNT product. The GICNT is continuing efforts on the topic of exchanging information through the May 2016 event on International Communication and Assistance Requests in Sydney, Australia. The three-day workshop and exercise will be complemented by an IAG meeting hosted by Australia the same week.

In October 2014, Hungary hosted the workshop and tabletop exercise, Csodaszarvas: Mystic Deer, which engaged participants on nuclear forensics policy-level considerations and decisions related to national-level authorities, such as interagency coordination, roles and responsibilities, communication, and domestic information sharing during the investigation of a nuclear security incident. The event showcased and promoted the practical application of core capabilities outlined in the GICNT document, Nuclear Forensics Fundamentals for Policy Makers and Decision Makers.

The Netherlands hosted the International Conference and Mock Trial on Nuclear Forensics, Glowing Tulip, in March 2015 to address the role of nuclear forensics experts in the investigation and prosecution of nuclear security events, the admissibility of nuclear forensics expert evidence into judicial proceedings, and the importance of pre-incident coordination and communication among scientific, law enforcement, and prosecutorial elements.

The Response and Mitigation Working Group (RMWG) completed Fundamentals for Establishing and Maintaining a Nuclear Security Response Framework: A GICNT Best Practice Guide, which provides a strategic-level reference and key considerations for the development of a national response framework for preparing to respond to and mitigate the impacts of a radiological or nuclear terrorism incident. An RMWG workshop hosted by France in April 2014 played a key role in reviewing the document, which was endorsed as an official GICNT product at the 2015 Plenary Meeting.

Argentina and Chile co-hosted the Radiological Emergency Management Exercise, Paihuen, in August 2014, which demonstrated national-level plans and capabilities for responding to radiological security incidents and coordinating bilaterally to address shared threats. In addition, the exercise promoted interagency communication and coordination of best practices and demonstrated key policies and procedures for sharing information among agencies and with regional and international partners, appropriate international organizations, and the public.

In April 2015, the Philippines hosted the Public Messaging for Emergency Management Workshop, Sugong Bagani: Envoy Warrior, which identified and promoted mechanisms for improving capabilities to develop and disseminate public messaging during nuclear security events, particularly concerning the need to ensure messaging consistency, effectively convey technical information, issue life-saving directions, and manage and assess public risk perception.

In November 2015, the United Kingdom hosted the Workshop and Exercise, Blue Raven, to uplift models for national coordination of response and crisis management resources following a nuclear security event. This workshop focused on good practices for supporting senior leadership decision-making, ensuring common operational information, and effective coordination between local responders and national authorities. Blue Raven was the first workshop in a series focusing on national response frameworks, and will be followed by workshops addressing international considerations and other key aspects for developing sustainable national response frameworks.

In February 2016, the United Arab Emirates hosted the Nuclear Detection and Response Exercise Falcon. This 3-day workshop and tabletop exercise focused on key aspects of nuclear detection and response intended to promote and enhance interagency national coordination, regional cooperation, and information sharing. Building on the recommendations made at the 2015 Plenary Meeting, this exercise promoted key fundamentals of exercise design, implementation, and self-assessment, and identified and promoted a regional approach to addressing key nuclear security challenges.

Looking forward, the GICNT leadership remains committed to working with GICNT partner nations to develop and implement practical activities, such as experts meetings, workshops, exercises, and senior-level policy dialogues, that promote capacity-building across the areas of nuclear detection, forensics, and response and mitigation and to explore potential new areas of work that would benefit from GICNT focus. The GICNT leadership also remains fully committed to working with its five official observers to ensure that GICNT activities continue to complement and support their programs of work.

As the GICNT celebrates its 10th Anniversary since being launched by the United States and Russia in 2006, the Netherlands has agreed to host a High Level Anniversary Meeting in The Hague (Netherlands) on 15-16 June 2016. The aim is to provide a retrospective view, demonstrating the unique contributions of the GICNT to nuclear security since 2006, while also facilitating a forward-looking view and discussion, identifying nuclear security challenges over the next decade (2016-2026), and the actions GICNT may take to address these challenges.
Imperial Valley News Center

Whip spiders only look terrifying

Los Angeles, California - Would you be willing to spend each night in the company of 300,000 bats - all in the service of science?

UCLA biologist Kenneth Chapin did just that, for several weeks in 2012 and 2014, while conducting research in darkened caves in Puerto Rico. In addition to bats, the habitats were home to snakes, cockroaches and spiders.

He was studying whip spiders, a poorly understood relative of spiders and scorpions. Unlike other spiders, whip spiders do not build webs, and they have very long claws.

They look terrifying, but are actually delicate, timid and afraid of you, said Chapin, a UCLA doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology. I was more excited than terrified.

A whip spider made a prominent appearance in the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when a Hogwarts professor tortures the animal with magic. (In the J.K. Rowling book on which the movie is based, the creature is described as a spider that doesnt actually exist in nature.)

Scientists know of more than 150 species of whip spiders, whose scientific name is Amblypygi.

Many of Chapins findings, along with those of other scientists, were published March 14 (PDF) in the cover article of the Journal of Arachnology. The report synthesizes more than 50 studies of whip spiders. Among the findings:

Whip spiders care for their young. After they mate, the female lays eggs and protects them. When babies hatch, they crawl onto their mothers back; the mother carries them for a number of weeks, and in some species, may care for them for several months or more.

Fathers seem to have a limited, if any, role in the lives of their babies.

The spiders fight to protect their territory, and are aggressive with one another.

They eat crickets, cockroaches, grasshoppers, small lizards and hummingbirds. Some even eat members of their own species, often at the end of a fight between two adults.

Whip spiders are eaten by bats and large lizards.

They have a good sense of direction and can find their way back to their territory.

They live on all continents, especially in warmer climates, including in deserts, caves and tree trunks. In the U.S., they live in the Southwest and Florida.

Very little was known about whip spiders until 2000, said Chapin, who is interested in how they evolved to live in different environments.

His co-author is Eileen Hebets, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Former Joint Powers Authority Finance Director Sentenced To A Year In Prison And Six Months Home Confinement

San Francisco, California - Clarke J. Howatt was sentenced today to a year and a day in prison for his conviction for wire fraud stemming from a series of embezzlements from the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the related ABAG Finance Authority for Nonprofit Corporations (FAN), announced Acting United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson.

Howatt, 56, who now resides in Portland, Ore., pleaded guilty on December 15, 2015, to committing wire fraud. In connection with his plea agreement, Howatt acknowledged perpetrating a scheme to embezzle funds from various bond accounts and other accounts established by FAN. Howatt is the former finance director of ABAG, a state Joint Powers Agency formed in the 1960s for the principal purpose of providing its members with planning and advice regarding land use issues. FAN was formed as a separate legal entity to act as a conduit issuer of debt instruments, or bonds. As part of his plea agreement, Howatt admitted he provided false information to the trustees of bond accounts and to others in order to fraudulently induce people to wire funds from FAN bond accounts and other accounts, to bank accounts that Howatt controlled. Howatt admitted that from June 2011 through January 2015, he embezzled a total of $3,876,135.21. Howatt, was charged in an information filed on February 13, 2015, with the single count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1343, and pleaded guilty to that charge.

The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Charles R. Breyer, U.S. District Judge. In addition to the prison term, Judge Breyer also sentenced the defendant to a three year period of supervised release, six months of which will be served in home confinement. Howatt will begin serving the sentence no later than May 23, 2016.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kyle Waldinger and David Countryman are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Jessica Meegan and Carolyn Jusay. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI.
95-Year-Old Lost US Navy Ship Mystery Solved

San Francisco, California - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy announced the discovery of World War I-era fleet tugboat USS Conestoga (AT 54), 95 years after her disappearance with 56 officers and Sailors, at the Navy Memorial, March 23.

NOAA located Conestoga, the last U.S. Navy ship to be lost without a trace, in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of San Francisco. The exact location has not been disclosed to prevent unauthorized diving or looting.



"Today was the announcement of the 95th anniversary, which will be this coming Friday, March 25th, of the loss of the USS Conestoga," said Robert Schwemmer, West Coast Regional Maritime Heritage Coordinator. "It was believed to have gone missing off the coast of Hawaii 95 years earlier. It was found off the coast of Southern California in the Greater Farallones National Marines Sanctuary in September of 2014."



Conestoga was an ocean going tug built for commercial service in 1904 and was acquired by the Navy in 1917 for use as a fleet tender and minesweeper. Following service in World War I, Conestoga was formally classified as a fleet tugboat on July 17, 1920.

Ordered to duty in Tutuila, American Samoa, Conestoga steamed from Mare Island Navy Yard in California on March 25, 1921 and headed to Pearl Harbor. Her and her crew never reached their destination.



When the Conestoga didn't arrive on her scheduled arrival date April 5, the Navy mounted a massive sea and air search for three months off the Hawaii and Mexican coast near San Diego before announcing the tug was lost on June 30, 1921.



"Today was the first time we could reach out to the families in person, put faces to the long list of 56 Sailors lost 95 years ago," Schwemmer. "It's been an amazing honor to honor these Sailors and reach out to meet their families, bring them closure and let them know that the Conestoga lies in the National Marine Sanctuary and that it is protected by the sanctuary act and NOAA as a military gravesite."



NOAA conducted Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) survey dives to positively identify the ship and determine the cause of its wreck. Based on the location and orientation of the wreck, three miles off Southeast Farallon Island, NOAA and its consultants believe Conestoga sank as officers and the crew attempted to reach a protected cove on the island.



Video from cameras mounted on ROVs show the wreck lying on the seabed and largely intact. Extensive marine growth, primarily white plume anemones, drapes the hull's exterior while various species of marine life, including wolf eels, ling cod and rockfish, inhabit the site.



NOAA confirmed a number of features consistent with the description and plans of Conestoga published in 1904 including: the size of the wreck; the four-bladed, 12-foot 3 inch diameter propeller; the steam engine and boilers; the number and location of portholes, mooring bitts, and ventilator locations; a large steam towing winch with twisted wire on the drum; two porcelain marine heads; and a single, 3-inch, 50-caliber gun that was mounted on the main deck in front of the pilot house.



After the ship was identified, in 2015 the NOAA and the Navy held a memorial ceremony at sea to honor the family members of those that were lost during the incident.



"This coming season we will be looking at the area of the Farallones Sanctuary that has been recently expanded to the north," said James Delgado, director of Maritime Heritage for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuary. "We will not only be looking at the shipwrecks but we will be working with California State Parks and other partners to see how the sanctuary connects to the shore."



A plaque dedicated to the memory of those who were lost at sea on Conestoga was unveiled in the lobby of the Navy Memorial Museum.
Electoral Results in the Republic of Congo

Washington, DC - The United States takes note of the presidential election results announced by the Minister of Interior in the Republic of Congo.

Pending the proclamation of the definitive results by the Constitutional Court, we appeal to all candidates and their supporters to remain calm. The United States expects any challenge to the results to be done in accordance with the Republic of Congos laws and calls upon the Constitutional Court to act with independence, impartiality, and accountability to the citizens of the Republic of Congo. The United States remains concerned about the transparency and credibility of the electoral process, including reports of irregularities, and the prolonged communications blackout.

In the wake of the March 23 assault on journalists from Le Monde and Agence France-Presse, we also call upon the Government of the Republic of Congo to ensure respect for freedom of expression, assembly, and movement, and we urge security forces to remain professional and continue to exercise restraint.
Inflatable Halloween Pumpkin Twice the Size of a House Rings in Spooky Season
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Even if you know very little about French comic book series Valerian and Laureline, the forthcoming film adaptation is pretty exciting because of the A-list talent involved.

The Fifth Element's Luc Besson is writing and directing the film, which is titled Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan and Rihanna have all been cast in lead roles.

Besson has now shared the first shot of DeHaan and Delevingne in their futuristic costumes for the movie - with the promise of more preview pictures to come.

Besson has yet to reveal specific plot details, but Delevingne and DeHaan star as time-travelling, universe-crossing space agents who are dedicated to protecting the human race in the 28th century.

The film's intriguing cast also includes Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Blade Runner icon Rutger Hauer and, perhaps most surprisingly, jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets will hit cinemas in July 2017.
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From playing a heroin addict in Trainspotting to crooning "Your Song" in Moulin Rouge!, Ewan McGregor has never been an actor who shies away from a challenge.

In his latest film Last Days in the Desert, he gamely takes on a weighty dual role, portraying both Jesus and The Devil in a drama about the temptation of Christ.

The film, written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (Albert Nobbs, TV's In Treatment), premiered at Sundance in 2015 to mostly positive reviews and opens in UK cinemas this June.

Judging from the trailer, it boasts typical stunning visuals from Emmanuel Lubezki, who has won now three consecutive Oscars for his cinematography on Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant.

McGregor's biblical double act is obviously the main focus here, but the film's supporting cast is strong too, with Ciaran Hinds and rising star Tye Sheridan joining McGregor in the desert.

Meanwhile, McGregor is currently shooting Trainspotting 2 in Edinburgh with director Danny Boyle, though a release date for the long-awaited sequel has yet to be announced.
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If you were looking to cast a couple of Hollywood actors as arms dealers, Jonah Hill and Miles Teller probably wouldn't be top of the list.

This is precisely why they're the right fit for War Dogs, a forthcoming action comedy film from Todd Phillips, director of The Hangover trilogy.

Based on a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, the film tells the true story of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz, a pair of twentysomething chancers from Miami who somehow ended up landing a $300 million government contract to supply weapons to US allies in Afghanistan.

As the trailer spells out, they were awarded the contract not because of their expertise, but because they "lowballed" the competition spectacularly. Lawson has since written an acclaimed book about the unlikely gun runners or "war dogs", which is titled Arms and the Dudes.

An added draw is Bradley Cooper, who appears in a supporting role and also serves as one of the film's producers. Look out for War Dogs in cinemas this August.
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As The Club begins, four disgraced Catholic priests are living agreeably together in a remote Chilean town by the seaside in a special home where the Church hides away its people with "problems." They eat well, enjoy their wine and one even has his own greyhound, which they wager money on. Their caretaker, who has her own chequered history, looks after them well. Early on, the film resembles one of Luis Bunuel's surrealist satires about Catholicism, but any sense of playfulness here is soon revealed to be deceptive. These men have committed misdeeds that they are belatedly forced to confront. Their penance turns out to be very painful indeed.

Larrain's film has the feel both of a very dark thriller and of a documentary-style case study. The screenplay is based on extensive interviews with former priests who lived in the type of retirement homes in which the film is set. The presence in the town of an impoverished fisherman, Sandokan (Roberto Farias), abused by a priest as a kid, is a reminder of just what these men once did. The arrival of a Jesuit counsellor forces their secrets out into the open. Larrain gives us very graphic descriptions of their behaviour. There are many big close-ups of their faces as they talk to the counsellor, trying to justify their actions and to keep their shame at bay.

In terms of its subject matter, The Club may sound grim in the extreme but Larrain approaches his material with humanity and dark humour. He doesn't try to excuse the priests' behaviour but he doesn't dismiss them as monsters either. The film is shot in very dark hues, as if the story doesn't warrant any brightness or colour. It is brilliantly acted and has a real, if very seedy, pathos about it.
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The Rolling Stones have made their landing in Havana, Cuba; ahead of their historic free concert in the country on the night of 25 March.

Their music will now fill the air where once it was silenced; once banned from Cuba's strictly-censored radio and television stations, as the revolution of the '60s and '80s labelled the genre as the enemy's music. Still, their work filtered through the nation, as rock fans risked police harassment and marginalisation as "counter-revolutionaries".

The band's arrival coincides with President Barack Obama's touch down in Cuba earlier this week, making him the first US president to visit the country in 88 years. Thus, the Stones' arrival isn't significant merely as the first concert the band's played in the country; but as a larger political move which sees Cuba's final burying of the international strife of the Cold War.

In fact, the Stones moved to delay their show by five days after the President scheduled his historic visit, teasing that Obama had now essentially become the 'opening act' for their concert.

The Rolling Stones through the years Show all 30 1 /30 The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones pictured in Crossfire Hurricane The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones in the early days Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones in 1964 Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones performing in concert in 1964 Rex Features The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Guitarist Mick Taylor, 62, joined the Rolling Stones (second left) when he was 20 Rex Features The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The legendary 'glimmer twins' Keith and Mick in 1961. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones, Baker Street, London, 1963 TERRY O'NEILL The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones signing an autograph for a young fan, at Dublin Airport, during the band's second Irish tour of 1965. Irish Photo Archive/ PA/ irishphotoarchive.ie The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones exiting the airport bus at Dublin Airport before their concert at the Adelphi Theatre during the band's second Irish tour of 1965. Irish Photo Archive/ PA/ irishphotoarchive.ie The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones receiving awards at the NME Poll Winners Concert at Wembley, London, in 1965. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in 1967 Rowan Bulmer The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Rock of ages: The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park in 1969 REX FEATURES The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones at the Roundhouse in London in 1971: from the left, Keys, Charlie Watts, Mick Taylor and Mick Jagger Getty The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Jagger on stage with the Rolling Stones in 1978 The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones sits in the stands of JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in afternoon on Wednesday, August 26, 1981, where he is scheduled to hold a concert on September 25 to kickoff his 1981 American tour. The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger performs in front of a crowd of 70,000 at Wembley Stadium in 1982 Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Jagger performing on stage during the opening night of the bands new tour, 'Voodoo Lounge' in 1995 PA The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones perform on stage at Twickenham Stadium in 2006 in London MJ Kim/Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones perform live at 02 Arena on in 2012 The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones performing at the O2 arena, at their 50-year anniversary show in 2012 Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones perform live on stage during day two of British Summer Time Hyde Park on July 6, 2013 Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones perform at Glastonbury in 2013 Getty The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury in 2013. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years 'Rolling Stones 50 & Counting Tour' at The Honda Center on May 15, 2013 in Anaheim, California. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones performing in California in 2013. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Keith Richards on stage in 2013. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years Suits you: Mick Jagger (far right) with his bandmates in 2014. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury in 2014. The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones on stage in 2014. Getty Images The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones through the years The Rolling Stones at Glasotnbury in 2013. Getty Images

"It's a pleasure to be here," Sir Mick Jagger greeted awaiting journalists in Spanish (via The Telegraph); joking that what he most look forward to during his stay were the, "cigars and salsa".

The Stones arrived by private plane, flying into Jose Marti airport with the band aboard; alongside about 60 technicians for the concert and accompanying family members. It's certainly a grand affair, with preparations starting in October and seeing 62 shipping containers arriving in the country from Mexico.

"We have performed in many special places during our long career, but this show in Havana will be a milestone for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba, too," the band previously said in a statement.

Their Cuba show follows stops in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.
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Creative direction is a vague, malleable term, shying away from the concrete. It's fashion's choice title, replacing the notion of "designer". Its remit is wide enough to allow the bearer to poke their nose into various aspects of a label  advertising campaigns, say, or store design  but vague enough to excuse them if they don't actually, technically, design the garments they're attaching their name to.

Of course, many do, which has lead to the assumption that "creative director" is a synonym for "fashion designer". But increasingly, and interestingly (in terms of semantics, if not necessarily the clothing) it's being applied to people who make no pretence of design education. Look at Victoria Beckham, who in many ways embodies the role. "I have a different way of expressing myself because I haven't had that formal training," she told me last year. I always feel like Beckham is spinning out stuff she'd quite like to buy herself, and assumes her customers will feel the same.

The latest example is Justin O'Shea. Like Beckham, his training isn't design, but shopping  he's a former buyer (most recently titled fashion director) for the luxury website MyTheresa.com, whose net sales total approximately 100 million euros. As of 1 April, however, he is creative director of Brioni. A Roman tailoring house established in 1945, Brioni has hitherto been known for staid, saleable suiting in the classic Italian mould. It was acquired by the French luxury congolermate Kering in 2012, at which point it had sales amounting to around 146 million, but had already been hit by the economic downturn. A new CEO, Gianluca Flore, was appointed in 2014, while the management now seeks to "revitalise" the brand. A redesign of Brioni's stores (46 worldwide) and website is on the cards.

Brioni has hitherto been known for staid, saleable suiting in the classic Italian mould (Getty Images)

O'Shea's retail nous will, perhaps, be of greater value in that process than in design innovation. It's a new trend among fashion brands to pull commerce and creativity ever-closer: Burberry even fused them when chief creative officer (more blurry terminology) Christopher Bailey also took on the role of CEO in May 2014. Nevertheless, in businesses of such size, it can feel that creativity is taking second place. O'Shea is not a trained designer  his entire experience has been in sales, branding. MyTheresa.com and his prior employer, the Kuwait-based fashion retailer Al Ostoura, focus on womenswear. Before this, O'Shea worked with various streetwear and denim brands in Europe and his native Australia. It's an unusual pedigree to join a luxury menswear brand in any capacity.

O'Shea is, however, a man. A highly visible man. Who wears suits. Which, oddly, seem to be the few concrete reasons for his appointment. Most articles have cited O'Shea's spivvy personal appearance and healthy (if not exceptionally high) followings on various social media platforms as justification for his appointment. I am sure they will raise Brioni's profile among people who care about those kinds of things  although I doubt you would count among them customers for Brioni's 4,130 wool and silk suits, or cashmere overcoats retailing at a whisper under 6k.

I also doubt the clothes will change greatly following his appointment. Flore's statement around O'Shea's appointment made frequent use of terms such as "core values," "brand heritage" and "historic roots". In other words, they're not planning to rock the boat, design wise. O'Shea's creativity, I'd wager, will be limited to marketing  publicising those same suits to a new audience. Valuable brand visibility. O'Shea's personal style is conservative: he may be covered in tattoos, but they're often concealed beneath a plain  even dull  suit that could easily be sold to a buttoned-up executive.

Recommended Read more How streetwear crossed over from urban cool to catwalk chic

Which is all well and good. However, this appointment slots into a series of menswear reshuffles that have leaned towards retrogression rather than revolution, after a half-decade or so of thrusting experimentation in masculine dress. It reflects the turbulence of international markets, where men are unwilling to take risks in business or in style. A repositioning of Brioni under its first ever creative director, Brendan Mullane, failed to net new customers: Kering hoped to increase the label's suit production from 70,000 to around 200,000 per year; instead the figure has fallen, to around 30,000.

Brioni is planning to slice its employees by a third over 2016. The mood isn't brand-specific: in February, Ermenegildo Zegna confirmed it was parting ways with Stefano Pilati, whose innovative menswear designs gave a fashion identity to a tailoring-heavy brand whose work was, previous, most kindly described as anonymous. He has been replaced with Alessandro Sartori, whose clothes are well-made but hardly move the earth. At Brioni, O'Shea will be afforded access to some of the finest craftsmen in the industry. It's a pity that their skills won't be challenged.

Then again, that's creative direction today. O'Shea and the Kering top brass have their eye on bigger (but less interesting) prizes than reinventing the still-selling suit. If you ain't broke, why fix it?
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A group of 22 medical experts convened by Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet have called today for the decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and possession. Citing a growing scientific consensus on the failures of the global war on drugs, the experts further encourage countries and U.S. states to "move gradually toward regulated drug markets and apply the scientific method to their assessment."

Their report comes ahead of a special UN General Assembly Session on drugs to be held next month, where the world's countries will re-evaluate the past half-century of drug policy and, in the hope of many experts, chart a more public health-centered approach going forward.

In a lengthy review of the state of global drug policy, the Hopkins-Lancet experts conclude that the prohibitionist anti-drug policies of the past 50 years "directly and indirectly contribute to lethal violence, disease, discrimination, forced displacement, injustice and the undermining of peoples right to health."

Cannabis around the world Show all 13 1 /13 Cannabis around the world Cannabis around the world Morocco Farmers destroy cannabis plantations under Moroccan police supervision in the northern Moroccan Larache region, pictured here in 2006 AFP/Getty images Cannabis around the world Colorado Growing business: Cannabis on sale at River Rock Wellness Sam Adams Cannabis around the world Oakland Oaksterdam in Oakland, California, is the world's only university dedicated to the study and cultivation of cannabis Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images Cannabis around the world Seattle A cannabis smoker marks the start of the new law by the Space Needle in Seattle Getty Images Cannabis around the world China Cannabis growing wild in China, where it has been used to treat conditions such as gout and malaria Cannabis around the world Uruguay Uruguay has voted to make the country the first to legalize marijuana AFP/Getty Cannabis around the world Colorado A groundswell of support from the public led to full legalisation in Colorado Getty Images Cannabis around the world Berlin A man smokes licenced medicinal marijuana prior to participating in the annual Hemp Parade, or 'Hanfparade', in support of the legalization of marijuana in Germany on August 7, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. The consumption of cannabis in Germany is legal, though all other aspects, including growing, importing or selling it, are not. However, since the introduction of a new law in 2009, the sale and possession of marijuana for licenced medicinal use is legal. Sean Gallup/Getty Images Cannabis around the world UK The UK latest figures show 2.3 million people used cannabis in the last year AP Cannabis around the world Amsterdam Tourists visiting Amsterdam will not be banned from using the citys famous cannabis cafes Getty Images Cannabis around the world Merseyside These 25 cannabis plants, seized in Merseyside police, could have generated a turnover of 40,000 a year Cannabis around the world San Francisco April 20, 2012: People smoke marijuana joints at 4:20 p.m. as thousands of marijuana advocates gathered at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. The event was held on April 20, a date corresponding with a numerical 4/20 code widely known within the cannabis subculture as a symbol for all things marijuana. Reuters Cannabis around the world Spain A cannabis users' association will pay the town of Rasquera more than 600,000 a year for the lease of the land

They cite, among other things:

A "striking increase" in homicide in Mexico since the government decided to militarize its response to the drug trade in 2006. The increase has been so great that experts have had to revise life expectancy downward in that country;

The "excessive use" of incarceration as a drug control measure, which the experts identify as the "biggest contribution" to higher rates of HIV and Hepatitis C infection among drug users;

Stark racial disparities in drug law enforcement, particularly in the United States;

And human rights violations arising from excessively punitive drug control measures, including an increase in the torture and abuse of drug prisoners in places like Mexico.

"The goal of prohibiting all use, possession, production and trafficking of illicit drugs is the basis of many of our national drug laws, but these policies are based on ideas about drug use and drug dependence that are not scientifically grounded," said Commissioner Dr. Chris Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a statement.

For instance, the last time the UN held a special session on drugs, in 1998, it set itself the goal of a "drug-free world" by 2008. The Hopkins-Lancet commissioners also fault UN drug regulators for failing to distinguish between drug use and drug abuse. "The idea that all drug use is dangerous and evil has led to enforcement-heavy policies and has made it difficult to see potentially dangerous drugs in the same light as potentially dangerous foods, tobacco and alcohol, for which the goal of social policy is to reduce potential harms," they write.

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The commissioners cite research showing that "of an estimated 246 million people who used an illicit drug in the past year, 27 million (around 11%) experienced problem drug use, which was defined as drug dependence or drug-use disorders."

"The idea that all drug use is necessarily 'abuse' means that immediate and complete abstinence has been seen as the only acceptable approach," commissioner Adeeba Kamarulzaman, a professor at the University of Malaya, said in a statement. But, she added, "continued criminalization of drug use fuels HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis transmission within prisons and the community at large. There is another way. Programmes and policies aimed at reducing harm should be central to future drug policies."

The commissioners point to successes in drug decriminalization experiments in places like Portugal, where drug use rates have fallen, overdose deaths are rare and new HIV infections among drug users have plummeted. They recommend that other countries adopt a similar approach.

And beyond decriminalization, the commissioners recommend experimenting with the full legalization and regulation of certain types of drug use, as several U.S. states have done with marijuana.

 Toddler with Epilepsy Prescribed Cannabis in Argentina

"Although regulated legal drug markets are not politically possible in the short term in some places, the harms of criminal markets and other consequences of prohibition catalogued in this Commission will probably lead more countries (and more U.S. states) to move gradually in that directiona direction we endorse," they write.

Other countries, particularly in Latin America, are already looking toward U.S. marijuana legalization experiments as a blueprint for how they might move away from overly punitive drug laws. But one challenge toward adopting a less stringent drug policy has always been the massive UN drug control treaties, which are now decades-old and which experts say reflect outdated and even harmful ways of thinking about drug use.

Reformers are hoping that the upcoming General Assembly Special Session on drugs will mark a turning point in the drug war. But getting nearly 200 countries to agree on any change in direction will be a challenge. And early indications appear to be that negotiators are setting their sights low.

A draft document of the resolution to be discussed at the special session reaffirms the UN's "commitment to the goals and objectives of the three international drug control conventions" -- the same conventions criticized in the Hopkins-Lancet report. And it calls on countries to "actively promote a society free of drug abuse," echoing the language of the failed drug control goals of the 1990s.

 Washington Post
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The plumes of taffeta, unimaginatve block-colours and frumpy chiffon that make up most bridesmaid dresses mean there is plenty of room for disaster, which is only amplified by the fact that each woman dresses the same.

So, where does the tradition of bridesmaid wearing near-identical gowns originate?

One theory that often circulates online is that it is a hangover from Ancient Rome: a culture that also valued monogamy.

Some believe that the bridesmaids were essentially bait for evil spirits and jilted ex-lovers who were attracted by the spectacle of the wedding party and sought to wreak havoc. A group of women dressed the same distract the wrong-doers, and enable the couple to wed without interruption, Mental Floss reported.

But Dr Liz Gloyn, lecturer in Classic and Royal Holloway, University of London, told The Independent that there is no link between Republican or Imperial Roman wedding traditions and bridesmaids dressing the same today.

She explained this incorrect idea likely stems from a particular form of Roman marriage called, confarreatio which required ten witnesses.

[Confarreatio] did require ten witnesses, but the sources say nothing about the need for those witnesses to be dressed the same, and they'd all have been men anyway, said Dr Gloyn.

But she added: "A Roman bride would have had a group of female attendants with her as she went from her house to her husband's, and there was a particular costume that the bride wore."

Instead, it is more likely that the veil is inspired by the Roman era, she said.

"[The bride] wore a deep yellow veil which may have been meant to act as a good omen, and marked her entry into society as a married woman who was now expected to cover her head in public."

Identical bridesmaids dresses in the West are likely influenced by Court etiquette and Royal weddings dating back to Queen Victorias ceremony in 1841, explained Lou Taylor, Professor of Dress and Textile History at the University of Brighton.

Such occasions provided, and still provide, the opportunity for a public display of Royal or Court power, and support for Royalty, especially via the wedding procession through the streets of the capital city to Westminster Abbey.

Dating back to medieval times, Royal weddings were, and still are, staged similarly to Royal funerals as carefully organised, public displays of support for the monarchy. For a Royal funeral, the Lord Chamberlain prescribed mourning attire for those part of the ceremony - even down to the type of fabric used.

A history of love Show all 13 1 /13 A history of love A history of love Plato's Symposium One of the Platos most famous works, this dialogue between Greek philosophers that takes place over dinner, explores the very nature of love, what it means to be in love, and has shaped the modern definition of platonic love. Getty Images A history of love Romeo and Juliet Shakepeare's tale of two young star-crossed lovers has stood the test of time and continues to be adapted for film, stage and even opera. Getty Images A history of love Troilus and Criseyde Considered one of Chaucers finest works the poem written in Middle-English brought about the term all good things come to an end as Criseydes lover dies a tragic death in the Siege of Troy. A history of love Pride and Prejudice Having sold over 20 million copies, Jane Austens novel based on the themes of manners, upbringing, morality and marriage continues to make women worldwide swoon at the thought of finding their very own Mr. Darcy. A history of love Sigmund Freud Freud thought that not only a couples love for one another, but the parents love for the child and the childs for the parent were basically of the same kind. A history of love Wuthering Heights Emily Brontes eerie tale of jealousy and vengefulness still haunts readers today and even inspired Kate Bushs 1978 hit. Getty Images A history of love Orpheus & Eurydice Perhaps the ultimate tragic love story, this Greek myth explores love at first sight and Orpheuss doomed journey to the Underworld to be reunited with his wife. Getty Images A history of love Song of Songs in the Bible A celebration of sexual love, The Song of Songs or the Song of Solomon is widely considered one of the most beautiful expressions of love and harmony. A history of love The Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal A story of love so epic that it led to the creation of one of the Wonders of the World, The Taj Mahal, this is a grief stricken Mughal Emperors exquisite manifestation of love for his favourite wife who died in childbirth. Getty Images A history of love Madame Bovary, Flaubert Flauberts 19th century realist novel follows narcissist Emma Bovary and her descent into adultery and despair as the boredom of bourgeois life consumes her. A history of love Anna Karenina, Tolstoy Tolstoys exploration of love as a kind of fate which can be a blessing but also a curse that leads to destruction is deeply embedded in modern culture. A history of love Doctor Zhivago Set during a war, the classic love triangle of a man who has fallen for two women is a tale of broken hearts and twists of fate. A history of love Layla and Majnun Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, narrates a story of young love which can only be united in death as the legendary lovers are buried side by side, to be reunited in the afterlife.

Similarly, Royal weddings were a public display of support for the new couple.

[Queen Victoria] had 12 bridesmaids, wearing white off the shoulder fashionable 1840 dresses, with full-blown artificial roses decorating their hair behind their right ears.

They were all the eldest daughters of the highest strata of the peerage. She gave them each a brooch, an eagle (Prince Albert's crest) of turquoise and pearls," said Professor Taylor.

It is my belief that by regulating the bridesmaids formally into exactly the same garments, there was no room for any of them to try and outdo each other, let alone the bride, through the use of grander fabric, grander jewellery."

Uniform bridesmaids were also a sign of the Royal family's authority, and the subservience of the guests, she said.
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Plenty of Burmese Buddhists are extremely prejudiced against Muslims. But is Aung San Suu Kyi?

After a torrid interview with Mishal Husain for the Today programme, she was reportedly heard to say angrily, No-one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim. I was told this by a reliable source and quoted it in my new book, The Lady and the Generals. What does it tell us about Suu Kyis views?

It is true that she has never made a clear statement in support of the Rohingya, the persecuted Muslims of western Burma, tens of thousands of whom are stateless, homeless and without rights thanks to official Burmese government policy. She has lamented the violence in Arakan state but has refused to endorse the judgements of organisations such as Human Rights Watch, which have blamed Arakans Buddhists for the persecution of the Muslims.

 Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi not nominated for top post

As a result she has been widely attacked by many in the West who were shocked by her apparent inability to see and condemn what was happening. Given her vast popularity, many feel that if she had spoken up at the right moment she could have brought the persecution to an abrupt end.

That may be true  there is no way of knowing. And there is nothing in Suu Kyis earlier life to lead one to think that she might be bigoted. As I revealed in my biography of Suu Kyi, The Lady and the Peacock, her first serious boyfriend when she was a student at Oxford was a Pakistani (he went on to become a top diplomat for his country), she lived for 20 years in multicultural Britain without manifesting any known anti-Muslim hostility, and one of the key people who persuaded her to get involved in Burmas democracy uprising was Maung Thaw Ka, a Muslim journalist and author who subsequently died in jail.

So given her tolerant, liberal background, why did she appear to rage about Mishal Husain after that difficult interview? Is it because her chief of staff and constant companion, Dr Tin Mar Aung, is herself from Arakans Buddhist community? Does she have bigoted opinions which might have infected Suu Kyi?

World's most popular religions Show all 7 1 /7 World's most popular religions World's most popular religions Christians Source: Pewforum Getty Images World's most popular religions Muslims Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Hindus Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Buddhists Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Folk Religions Source: Pewforum Getty Images World's most popular religions Other religions Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Jews Source: Pewforum Getty

Its possible. But there could be a simpler explanation. Suu Kyi has been struggling to attain power in Burma for the past 28 years. She is vastly popular with her fellow countrymen, more than 90 per cent of whom are Buddhists, like her. But her enemies in the military regime have never stopped trying to blacken her name. Their favourite method was to say that she wasnt properly Burmese because she had been married to an Englishman, had lived in the West for many years and produced two foreign sons. And by depicting her as foreign, they tried to lump her together with the Muslim minority who are also regarded by many Burmese Buddhists as aliens with no right to remain in the country.

My hunch is that Suu Kyi feared that if she spoke up for the Rohingya, it would make it easy for her enemies to repeat this argument  and if the Burmese masses fell for it, that could erode her standing and her chances of coming to power. So she has been sitting uncomfortably on the fence for the past five years.

In such a posture she became a sitting duck for anyone  Muslim journalists to the fore  who wanted to attack her for betraying both her human rights record and her status as a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She became hyper-sensitive on the issue.

Now she is coming to power with a solid parliamentary majority, perhaps she can relax and tell us what she really thinks.

The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmas Struggle for Freedom by Peter Popham is published by Rider.
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Aung San Suu Kyi lost her cool following a tense interview with BBC presenter Mishal Husain and was heard muttering "no one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim", it has been claimed.

The leader of Burmas National League for Democracy was challenged on anti-Islamic attitudes and violence towards Muslims in Burma, a majority Buddhist nation where Muslims make up just four per cent of the population.

When Husain asked about the plight of Muslims during the 2013 interview, Ms Suu Kyi, who is expected to undertake a formal position in power next month, insisted it did not represent ethnic cleansing.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party is due to take over the government (Getty)

It's a new problem and yet it's linked to old problems as well, she said.

I would like to make the point that there are many moderate Muslims in Burma who have been well integrated into our society, but these problems arose last year and I think this is due to fear on both sides.

"This is what the world needs to understand; that the fear is not just to the side of the Muslims but on the side of the Buddhists as well.

People news in pictures Show all 18 1 /18 People news in pictures People news in pictures 7 October 2015 Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an ice hockey match between former NHL stars and officials at the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Vladimir Putin spent his 63rd birthday on the ice, playing hockey with NHL stars against Russian officials and tycoons EPA People news in pictures 6 October 2015 German designer Karl Lagerfeld (R) and model Cara Delevingne (C) appear at the end of his Spring/Summer 2016 women's ready-to-wear collection for fashion house Chanel at the Grand Palais which is transformed into a Chanel airport during the Fashion Week in Paris, France Reuters People news in pictures 5 October 2015 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne addresses the Conservative party conference in Manchester. The Chancellor argued that reducing the payments to people in low paid jobs would give them economic security by reducing the Governments spending deficit Getty Images People news in pictures 4 October 2015 Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston takes a moment in the centre of the field with his daughter Frankie Thurston, holding dark-skinned doll, after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney. The image quickly became the talking point of Australias National Rugby League Final and provoked a strong reaction on social media, with many praising Thurston for giving his child a toy that promotes inclusiveness and diversity Getty Images People news in pictures 3 October 2015 Pope Francis gives a thumbs-up as he greets people at the end of an audience to the participants of a meeting organized by the "Food Bank" at the Paul VI audience hall in Vatican Getty Images People news in pictures 2 October 2015 Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne (L) throws an American football as he meets with former American football players Dan Marino (2nd R) and Curtis Martin (not pictured) at 11 Downing Street in London, ahead of the New York Jets playing against the Miami Dolphins at London's Wembley Stadium on 4 October Getty Images People news in pictures 1 October 2015 An honor guard opens the door as Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia People news in pictures 30 September 2015 Former Mrs America Lisa Christie, who alleges misconduct by Bill Cosby, holds up photos of her younger self during a news conference at the law office of attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Matt Damon has defended himself against claims that he instructed gay actors to remain in the closet. He had said I think youre a better actor the less people know about you and sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether youre straight or gay, people shouldnt know anything about your sexuality but an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show said, I was just trying to say actors are more effective when theyre a mystery. Right? Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Marion Cotillard has said that there is no place for feminism in Hollywood. Speaking to Porter magazine, she saidFilm-making is not about gender/ You cannot ask a president in a festival like Cannes to have, like, five movies directed by women and five by men. For me it doesnt create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I dont qualify myself as a feminist." Getty People news in pictures 29 September 2015 Actor Paul Walkers daughter, Meadow, is suing Porsche over her fathers death in a lawsuit that claims he was trapped in the burning car because of design flaws and the seat belt. The Fast and Furious star was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was a passenger in hit a pole in California in 2013. The driver, his friend Roger Rodas, also died when the vehicle burst into flames. AP People news in pictures 28 September 2015 Robert Mugabe waits to address the United Nations General Assembly. The leader of Zimbabwe reportedly exclaimed 'We are not gay!' as he criticised Western nation's "double standards and attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs. In 2013 he described homosexuals as worse than pigs, goats and birds. Reuters People news in pictures 28 September 2015 South African comedian Trevor Noah hosts the first 'Daily Show' since taking over from Jon Stewart as host. Stewart had presented the US satirical news show since 1999 and was described by Noah during the show as a 'Political father' 2015 Getty Images People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Sir Elton John may have received a phone call from the real Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin's spokesman announced he had made contact weeks after the singer was duped by pranksters pretending to be the Russian President. Getty People news in pictures 25 September 2015 Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was mistakenly declared as the artist who produced the Mona Lisa by Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. It was in fact Leonardo da Vinci. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 A new biography claims Donald Trump expected to be dead by 40 and never marry. The Guardian says the a new book also claims that in 1980, Mr Trump manufactured a fake vice-president of his real estate conglomerate, whom he called John Baron. People news in pictures 24 September 2015 The Dalai Lama has said that Britain's policy towards China is just about 'Money, money, money.' And asked 'Where is morality?' People news in pictures 24 September 2015 Puff Daddy secured the number-one spot on the Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings list, with the publication calculating he made an estimated $60million (39m) between June 2014 and June 2015.

Husain pressed her to accept that the vast majority of victims of violence had been Muslim.

And according to an excerpt in the book by Peter Popham, The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burmas Struggle For Freedom, Suu Kyi was so incensed about being challenged that she reportedly said off-air: No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.

The Independent has contacted representatives for Husain for comment.
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Humans suppress areas of the brain used for analytical thinking and engage the parts responsible for empathy in order to believe in god, research suggests.

They do the opposite when thinking about the physical world, according to the study.

"When there's a question of faith, from the analytic point of view, it may seem absurd," said Professor Tony Jack, who led the research.

"But, from what we understand about the brain, the leap of faith to belief in the supernatural amounts to pushing aside the critical/analytical way of thinking to help us achieve greater social and emotional insight."

The countries in the world with the most "convinced atheists." Countries in grey were not surveyed. Chart; Statista (Statista/The Independent)

In an analysis of eight experiments, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers also found people with faith were more empathetic than those without.

The researchers examined the relationship between the belief in god and measures of analytic thinking and moral concern in eight experiments, each using between 159 and 527 adult participants.

Although both spiritual belief and empathic concern were positively associated with frequency of prayer or meditation, neither were predicted by social contact - such as church dinners - associated with religious affilation.

 What marriage would be like if we followed the bible

In earlier research, Professor Jack's Brain, Mind & Consciousness laboratory used an fMRI machine to show the brain has an analytical network of neurons that enables humans think critically and a social network to empathise.

"Because of the tension between networks, pushing aside a naturalistic world view enables you to delve deeper into the social/emotional side," Professor Jack explained. "And that may be the key to why beliefs in the supernatural exist throughout the history of cultures. It appeals to an essentially nonmaterial way of understanding the world and our place in it."

World's most popular religions Show all 7 1 /7 World's most popular religions World's most popular religions Christians Source: Pewforum Getty Images World's most popular religions Muslims Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Hindus Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Buddhists Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Folk Religions Source: Pewforum Getty Images World's most popular religions Other religions Source: Pewforum World's most popular religions Jews Source: Pewforum Getty

The researchers said the human brain explores the world using both networks. When presented with a physics problem or ethical dilemma, a healthy brain activates the appropriate network while suppressing the other.

Such suppression may lead to the conflict between science and religion, the researchers added.

"Because the networks suppress each other, they may create two extremes," said Richard Boyatzis, professor of organisational behavior at Case Western Reserve University.

"Recognising that this is how the brain operates, maybe we can create more reason and balance in the national conversations involving science and religion."
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A man charged after a message was posted on his Twitter profile about confronting a Muslim woman over the Brussels attacks is no longer charged with the offence, police say.

A tweet appeared on Matthew Doyle from South Croydons Twitter account on Wednesday, which said: I confronted a Muslim woman yesterday in Croydon. I asked her to explain Brussels.

Scotland Yard said he is no longer charged with the offence and will not be appearing in court following discussion with the Crown Prosecuting Service.

Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Show all 27 1 /27 Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Wreaths of flowers in front of an entrance of the Maalbeek subway station in Brussels in homage to the victims of a terrorist attack. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Wreaths of flowers in front of an entrance of the Maalbeek subway station in Brussels in homage to the victims of a terrorist attack. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A building illuminated with the Belgian flag colours and a heart in Brussels, two days after suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on March 22 in Zaventem airport and subway Maelbeek. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A picture taken on 24 March, 2016 on place de la Bourse in Brussels, shows drawings and a candle, two days after suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on March 22 in Zaventem airport and Brussels subway Maelbeek Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Candles are displayed in tribute to the Brussels attacks victims on 24 March, 2016 on place de la Bourse in Brussels, two days after the suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on 22 March. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A mourner lights a candle in Trafalgar Square during a candlelit vigil in support of the victims of the recent terror attacks in Brussels. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels airport workers pay tribute to the victims near Zaventem Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Activists light candles and hold placards to condemn the terrorist attacks in Belgium, during a gathering in Manila, Philippines Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A banner for the victims of the bombings reads "I am Brussels" at the Place de la Bourse in the center of Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, left front center, stands with front row, left to right, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Belgium's King Philippe, Belgium's Queen Mathilde and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as well as members of the European Commission during a minute of silence at EU headquarters in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims People join hands in solidarity near the former stock exchange following the bomb attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Belgium flags ornate the facade of the Paris Town Hall Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A woman embraces her children at The Place de la Bourse as she pays her respects to victims of the terrorists attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Belgian and European Union flags fly at half mast following the bomb attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Candles in the colors of the Belgian national flag are lit inside the Belgian embassy in Madrid, a day after the deadly suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and its subway system Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Servicemen of Azov, Ukrainian volunteers battalion, hold torches in front of floral tributes during a ceremony in front of the Belgian embassy in Kiev, in tribute to the victims of Brussels attacks Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A refugee boy holds up a placard reading "Sorry for Brussels" at a refugee camp near the Greek-Macedonian border Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People light candles in tribute to victims at a makeshift memorial at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A woman holds a drawing by French cartoonist Plantu picturing a character made of a French flag consoling another made of the Belgian flag, in front of the Hotel de Ville in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes The colours of the Belgian flag are projected on to (clockwise from top left) the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the town council building in Belgrade, Rome's Campidoglio and the Royal Palace at Dam Square in Amsterdam Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Candles are lit in tribute to the victims, at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A woman holds a placard reading "Paris hearts Belgium, How much time will it take us to open our eyes and say STOP, Today our hearts are broken, Open your eyes to change the future" at the Place de la Republique in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People gather to pay a tribute to victims of terrorist attacks in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People write messages on the ground at Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A bouquet of flowers in the Belgian national colours with a card reading 'To our neighbours, to our friends, to our Belgian brothers - an indignant Parisian' is seen next to a French national flag at the fence of the Belgian embassy in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Solidarity messages are written in chalk outside the stock exchange in Brussels AP Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Messages and floral tributes outside the Brussels stock exchange AP

A statement issued by Metropolitan police on Friday said he had "been charged under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986; publishing or distributing written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, likely or intended to stir up racial hatred."

Mr Doyle, a partner at a south-London based talent and PR agency, was arrested on Wednesday and charged on Friday morning, before the charge was dropped Friday evening.
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Twitter has helped to produce a Trump culture of Islamophobic internet trolls, the Church of Englands newest bishop has said.

The Rev Dr Jo Bailey Wells  who is currently the Archbishop of Canterburys chaplain and has just been named the new Bishop of Dorking  said she would eager to prevent the trend from growing in the UK.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, she warned that social media had encouraged people to publish comments before they had thought them through. The resulting climate of debate, she said, was more pronounced in the United States, where businessman Donald Trump has called for a ban on Muslims entering the country as he campaigns to become the Republican partys nominee for President.

Asked about social media users who view Islam is a threat to Christians in the West, Dr Wells said: There is a sort of, you might call it, a Trump culture. Ive certainly experienced that in America. I would be keen to keep it from our shores.

But part of the culture is that we now tweet and blog before we speak and think.

Cyberspace, the blogosphere, has encouraged that kind of behaviour and I think I want to stand against that.

Dr Wells was dean of Clare College, Cambridge, and also spent eight years at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina.

She said the Anglican Church had a tradition of reaching out to people of other religions.

The Church of England has a particular calling and gift in being hospitable to those of other faiths, partly because its a national church, its an established church, she said.

It can be a place that welcomes people on their terms and almost provides the umbrella under which conversations can take place.
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A British man woke up to a surprise when an alcohol-fuelled night in Essex transformed into an impromptu Spanish mini-break.

Reveller Alex Caviels bar crawl in Chelmsford took him further afield than planned last weekend when he unexpectedly woke up on a flight to Barcelona.

The 21-year-old told the Essex Chronicle: Me and my best friend... were going to pretty much every bar in Chelmsford.

"But at about half three my friend disappeared and I remembered just thinking to myself, it would be nice to fly away somewhere.

A text message showing Mr Caviel waking up on the Barcelona flight Facebook (Alexander Caviel/Facebook)

Mr Caviels drunken musings led him to Chelmsford bus station where he took the X30 to Stansted Airport and booked a flight to Barcelona with his passport he was carrying as ID.

All I remember is glimpses of Stansted airport, said Mr Caviel.

I had a really vivid dream that I was on a plane; it was really realistic, but I didnt think much of it and just went back to sleep. When I woke up, we were just landing in Barcelona."

Dressed in jeans and a T-Shirt and armed only with a 5p W H Smiths bag full of bits and pieces, Mr Caviel decided to embrace the spontaneous trip, taking in the sights of Barcelona and enjoying the Catalan citys night clubs.

Writing on Facebook he said: Good morning Barcelona! So I've found a proper holiday resort hotel by the beach for a couple of days.

Mr Caviel's belongings during his trip Facebook (Alexander Caviel/Facebook)

Now I need to find some good food, good company and buy some fresh clothes.

Altogether, Mr Caviel believes the trip cost him around 1,000 including Ryanair and Easy Jet flights, stays at three separate hotels and a VIP ticket to a Barcelona night club.

His mother, Michelle, told the Essex Chronicle, she was pleased to have her son home safely: It is good to have him home and to hear about what he has been up to on his spontaneous little break.
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Children as young as seven are using social media to share sexual messages, pictures or videos, research has found.

More than half of teachers said they knew of pupils who had used social media for sexting, the poll by the NASUWT teachers union said.

A quarter of the 1,300 teachers polled knew of pupils involved in sexting who were as young as 11, but the youngest child reported was just seven. The majority of the pupils involved were aged between 13 and 16.

In one incident a girl persuaded a boy to take a picture of his genitals and send it to her. She then shared the image with other pupils. Teachers also reported incidents where pupils had filmed themselves masturbating.

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: Over the three years the NASUWT has been running this survey, the situation has deteriorated.

An NSPCC spokesman said: Apart from exposing them to bullying when images are shared, it could make children targets for sex offenders in some cases. The charity called for better sex and relationships education in schools.
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A British man missing since the Brussels attacks have been confirmed dead, his devastated family have announced.

David Dixon, a father of one, had texted relatives confirming he was fine and safe following twin suicide bombings at Brussels Airport on Tuesday.

But minutes later he entered Maalbeek station to board a Metro train where another Isis supporter blew himself up.

 Brussels attacks: suspects still at large

Friends and relatives had been launching desperate appeals for information on Mr Dixons whereabouts the wake of the bombings that killed more than 30 people.

This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David," a statement from the family said. At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private.

A spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the Government's thoughts were with the family, who are being supported by embassy staff.

Mr Dixon, an IT programmer from Hartlepool, had been travelling to work but did not arrive at his office.

His partner, Charlotte Sutcliffe, carried out searches of Brussels hospitals in the hope of finding him, but to no avail.

Brussels attacks victims Show all 11 1 /11 Brussels attacks victims Brussels attacks victims CONFIRMED DEAD: Adelma Tapia Ruiz Ms Tapia, 37, was from Peru and had lived in Brussels for six years. She was at the airport with her husband, Christophe Delcambe, and their twin four-year-old daughters, Maureen and Alondra. They were checking in to fly to New York to visit Ms Ruizs sisters when the blast struck. The death of Ms Tapia was confirmed by the Peruvian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and her brother Fernando Tapia Coral has told Peruvian radio that she had planned to return to Peru later this year. In a Facebook post, Mr Tapia called her death incomprehensible in a Facebook post. Her husband and children survived, but it has been reported that one of her daughters was injured by debris Brussels attacks victims CONFIRMED DEAD: Leopold Hecht Mr Hecht was a young Belgian student working towards a qualification in law at Saint-Louis University in Brussels. The university confirmed in a Facebook post that he was one of the victims of the Maelbeek metro bombing Brussels attacks victims CONFIRMED DEAD: Oliver Delespesse Mr Delespesse, 36, was confirmed dead in the metro bombing by his employers Wallonie Bruxelles Federation, an organisation which represents French speakers in the region. One of his colleagues, Olivier Dradin posted a tribute on Facebook: "I wanted to pay tribute to him and to his family and to all the other victims" Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Sasha Pinczowski A brother and sister from New York, who were at Zaventem to fly back to the US at the time of the blasts, are also missing. Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski were on the phone to their family when the phone went dead, according to Dutch media. Ms Pinczowski studied business and had previously completed an internship at the UN Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Alexander Pinczowski A brother and sister from New York, who were at Zaventem to fly back to the US at the time of the blasts, are also missing. Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski were on the phone to their family when the phone went dead, according to Dutch media. Ms Pinczowski studied business and had previously completed an internship at the UN Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Aline Bastin Ms Bastin, 29, a former employee of the European Chemical Industry Council, was on the metro at the time of the attacks. Her friends have launched an appeal on Facebook for news of her whereabouts Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Raghavendran Ganesan Mr Ganesans brother has set up an appeal for information on the whereabouts of his sibling, who was on the metro at the time of the attacks. He wrote on Facebook that he had spoken to the Indian embassy, who were still searching for Mr Ganesan Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Sabrina Fazal There has not been word of Ms Fazal, a 25-year-old Belgian student, since yesterday morning. She would have been on the metro at the time of the attacks, on the way to the Haute Ecole Galilee in central Brussels, where she is studying Brussels attacks victims MISSING: David Dixon The family of Mr Dixon, a computer programmer from Nottingham, has not heard from him since he left for work yesterday morning. He is believed to have been on the metro at the time of the blast. Its just waiting, which is heartbreaking, the sister of Charlotte Sutcliffe, Mr Dixons partner, told Radio 4s Today program. His friend Simon Harley-Jones told the BBC that Ms Sutcliffe had been driving around hospitals in the hope of finding him Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Bart Migom Mr Migom, 21, was on his way to Athens, but never arrived. He was texting his girlfriend, Emily Eisenman, from the train to Brussels airport however she haven't heard from him since the attacks. His cell phone rings, she said but there is no answer Brussels attacks victims MISSING: Justin and Stephanie Shults An American couple who lived in Brussels are among the missing, their family have confirmed. Justin and Stephanie had just dropped Stephanies mother, Carolyn Moore, off at the Brussels Airport when the blasts occurred. Mrs Moore, survived the attack, but the couple has not been found

The couple had been together since they met at university and have a seven-year-old son.

Mr Dixons aunt, Ann Dixon, said she texted him as soon as news of the Brussels Airport explosions started to spread at 8am on Tuesday morning.

It was a relief when he texted back soon afterwards and said he was safe and fine, she said. He said he hadnt even realised that there had been bombs going off at the airport, I guess its because he was getting ready to go to work.

He travelled into Brussels on the Metro every day and after wed texted he must have gone straight out and got on the Metro that was attacked. It was only an hour later when that bomb went off.

Seven British nationals are known to have been injured in the attacks and three are still undergoing treatment in hospital.

Belgian police and emergency personnel work near the Maalbeek metro station following an explosion in Brussels

Health officials said the death toll stood at 31 the day following the attack, with almost 300 people injured, but declined to give a final figure as identification efforts continued and several victims remained in a critical condition.

The British Government issued temporary warnings against travel to Brussels but has since downgraded the alert, telling citizens to remain vigilant to the threat of indiscriminate attacks.

David Cameron held an emergency Cobra meeting in the wake of the massacres and security has been increased at key locations and transport hubs across the UK.

Isis has claimed responsibility for the atrocity, saying Belgium was targeted because of its role supporting the international coalition conducting air strikes against its militants in Iraq and Syria.

Three terrorists died in the explosions and a massive manhunt was launched to track down other suspects believed to be behind the blasts.

Six people have been arrested in connection with the attacks so far and investigations continue, Belgian prosecutors said.
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Outside Belfasts City Hall, banners announce a forthcoming celebration  of Holi, the Hindu festival. There is nothing at all, however, to alert the passer-by to the exhibition on display inside the building: Reflections on 1916.

You could say the show explores how one group of Irishmen fought for Britain on the Somme while other Irishmen fought against the British in the Easter Rising, the rebellion credited with helping the Irish Republic gain independence. But that seems too stark a contrast for the exhibition organisers.

Our exhibition, says a panel, aims to reflect different perspectives in an inclusive manner... It is [part] funded by the Good Relations Funding Programme.

In Belfast these days, there is much official talk of inclusiveness and good relations. Such words may well be heard on Friday, when a statue will be unveiled on the Falls Road in honour of an Easter Rising leader, the former Belfast resident James Connolly.

Ahead of the ceremony, Tom Hartley, an ex-republican prisoner, also an ex-Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast and the chairman of the committee for Belfasts Easter Rising commemorations, enthused about engaging with all sides. He was, he said, seeking to create a dialogue which is an invitation to a broad progressive discourse.

He may have his work cut out. The Easter Rising may have been 100 years ago. The Troubles were not, and there are still walls dividing the Catholic and Protestant areas that neighbour each other.

Near the City Hall gates, Laura Hamilton, 31, points to where the Army checkpoint used to be. This is still a divided city, she says. We still need peace walls. People are still being killed.

Tom Hartley, a Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast, is organising parades to remember the 1916 Easter Rising (MARXPHOTO) (Mark McCormick)

On Tuesday, the funeral of Adrian Ismay, a prison officer killed by a terrorist car bomb, took place. The murder prompted the Police Service of Northern Ireland to warn that dissident republicans might mark the Easter Rising centenary by attacking the security forces.

Sundays Easter Rising parades, confined largely to Belfasts republican areas, are not expected to cause sectarian clashes. But Hamilton, a Protestant, still sticks to the Belfast habit of being careful what you say, and to whom. Only once her Catholic work friend is out of earshot does she say: Protestants want to stay part of Britain. Why celebrate something that was against the British? When it comes to our culture, republicans dont want to know

Others go further. Nelson McCausland, Democratic Unionist Party Legislative Assembly member for North Belfast, calls the James Connolly statue an endorsement of the rising in which he was complicit: a cold, callous event orchestrated by the extreme of the extreme.

Hes not accepting Hartleys invitation to broad progressive discourse. That would merely divert attention from the real celebration they are engaged in, the glorification of republican violence.

Instead of a thoughtful conversation, he says, we are getting eulogy, adulation, glorification of violence. It is a poisonous influence on the minds of young people.

The Falls Road may be only a short drive away from City Hall. It feels like another country. Irish tricolours abound amid republican murals.

In some ways, the change from the height of the Troubles is extraordinary. Today an Englishman asking questions in a Falls Road bar is greeted with smiles and free coffee. Not so long ago, locals tell you, You would have been shot.

Some talk optimistically of abundant grassroots reconciliation campaigns, castigating politicians for being, in one womans words, so behind in their thinking, failing to show leadership in getting all sides to work together.

But you still find men like Bobby Tohill. The 56-year-old plans to be at the statue ceremony, in the uniform of D Company of the IRA, honouring those who died for the cause.

His heart tells him armed struggle should continue, although sometimes I think the violence has to stop.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA

There are nods from his friend Michael Collins, 46, a man named after the Easter Rising veteran. As for accusations of glorifying violence, says Collins: Its the same on both sides. Protestants glorify violence, of course they do... They brought their kids up to think the same way as them.

This weekend, he will honour the man who named him, his father Johnny: An IRA man until the day he died.

Across the divide, his words find a discordant echo in those of Jack Rooney, 82, a Protestant retired headmaster. His father fought too, in 1916, on the Western Front, with the North Irish Horse Regiment, for the British. Hell have nothing to do with celebrating Easter 1916. The other lot can celebrate provided our noses arent rubbed into it.

More surprising is the reaction of his friend David McKillen, who supports the non-sectarian Alliance Party, and professes no religion, now he is 80. He describes some Easter Rising leaders as idiots, doing it for blood sacrifice, a rebellion that never needed to happen.

I was reared a Protestant, he explains. No matter what you do, bits of the tradition you were brought up in still stick to you.

A taxi takes me to the station. The republican driver enthuses about Sundays parade, then suggests: In a few generations, things might change. For now, though, in this city, when it comes to options for staying neutral: There are none at all.
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An academy trust praised by David Cameron and two Conservative education secretaries has been warned to improve its practices, after an investigation discovered it was in serious breach of guidelines.

Perry Beeches academy trust, which runs five secondary schools in Birmingham, and other companies linked to some of its senior administrators were flagged up as a cause for concern due to potential conflicts of interest, according to a government report. The revelations comes after ministers announced this month that all schools are to become academies by 2022.

The Department for Education told the trust earlier this month it would be required to open up its financial transactions to the Government until it made sufficient improvements.

The report said Liam Nolan, the trusts chief executive, received a second salary. He received payments of at least 160,000 over two years  not disclosed in financial statements  on top of his annual payroll salary of 120,000. The report also found there to be issues with the number of pupils declared as eligible for free school meals.

Mr Nolan was previously reported to have claimed he meited a pay rise because his 120,000 salary was low compared with those in other industries.

He faced calls to resign last year after one of the Perry Beeches schools was put in special measures. The trust is due to open another free school next year.

Nic Dakin, Labours shadow minister for schools, told The Guardian: Parents will be deeply worried that this government has completely failed to put in place the appropriate checks over academy chain funding decisions, prioritising converting schools into academies over school standards and the protection of public money.

It is extremely concerning that so much taxpayer money is ending up in the pockets of academy chain directors and trustees. Labour will fiercely oppose this top-down, costly reorganisation of our schools, which nobody wants and schools dont need, ensure there is proper oversight of all our schools, and put local parents and communities at the heart of decisions when it comes to their childrens schools.

The Governments report reveals the trust paid a firm called Nexus for services, which were then subcontracted to a firm run by the trusts own accounting officer.

Due diligence found the trusts chair of governors (CoG) had joint business interests with the primary director of Nexus and that a review of declarations of interest confirmed the CoG did not disclose these on the [2014] annual declaration. The trust had spent nearly 1.3m with Nexus over two years without a written contract or formal procurement.

It warned: Trusts should consider carefully whether to include the interests of other individuals in the register of interests.

Flagship schools: On shaky foundations Show all 2 1 /2 Flagship schools: On shaky foundations Flagship schools: On shaky foundations Flagship schools: On shaky foundations

In a letter earlier this month, the governments Education Funding Agency said there had been serious breaches of the academies financial handbook including serious concerns about financial management, control and governance.

In 2013, the prime minister said Perry Beeches first academy was one of the most successful comprehensive schools ever in Britain. Current education secretary Nicky Morgan last year described Perry Beeches as an example of schools achieving "truly extraordinary outcomes for young people".

Former education secretary Michael Gove told the 2012 Conservative party conference: There are some amazing schools in Birmingham, there are some great independent schools, there are some great grammar schools, but I have to say the best schools in Birmingham are Perry Beeches I and Perry Beeches II.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said in a statement: "The Trust has already put in place an action plan and is working with us to urgently fix the weaknesses we found.

"We will monitor progress closely, and if we don't see significant improvement we will not hesitate to take further action."
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UK special forces have been operating in Libya since January, according to a leaked memo from a confidential briefing delivered to US lawmakers by the king of Jordan.

King Abdullah met congressional leaders in January, briefing them on a range of strategic matters relating to the fight against Isis in Libya, the civil war in Syria and the threat posed by al-Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Leaked notes from the meeting state that Jordans own special forces will be imbedded [sic] with British SAS in Libya.

Recommended Read more David Cameron wants to send warships to Libya

Suspicions that the UK had deployed SAS troops to Libya, which descended into political chaos after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 following a Western intervention spearheaded by Britain and France, have been rife for several weeks.

Responding to reports of the leak, the Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on special forces operations. However, intelligence analysts Stratfor said earlier this month that British and US forces were operating in western Libya, while French special forces had established themselves in the east around Benghazi, with the goal of combatting Isis, which has capitalised on the political chaos to gain a foothold in the country.

Earlier this week, David Cameron was challenged by the Scottish National Partys Westminster leader Angus Robertson to confirm or deny the presence of special forces, after he said in a carefully worded statement that Parliament would be consulted if there were plans to send conventional forces to train Libyan forces.

Mr Cameron said the Government had a longstanding policy of not commenting on special forces. He told MPs: The work that our special forces do is vital for our country. Like everyone in this country, they are subject to international law, but I do not propose to change the arrangements under which these incredibly brave men work.

In the memo of King Abdullahs meeting with congressional leaders, including John McCain, the chairman of the Senate armed services committee, and Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, the king is reported to have said Jordanian forces were able to assist the SASs operations in the country because Jordanian slang is similar to Libyan slang.
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Jeremy Corbyn has recieved a standing ovation from teachers as he condemned government plans for all schools to become academies as "the asset stripping of our education facilities".

The Labour Party leader, who became the first leader of any political party to address the National Union of Teachers' conference in living memory, pledged that Labour would support the union's campaign to oppose the plan.

Later in its weekend conference delegates are expected to back an emergency motion warning of industrial action if the Government goes ahead with its plans - which would mean 17, 000 schools -mostly primaries - becoming academies by 2022. A one-day national strike is planned before the end of the summer term.

In his speech to the conference, Mr Corbyn, who said he was the first Labour party leader ever to address the conference, told teachers: "This is an ideological attack on teachers and on local and parental accountability - an attack which was nowhere in their manifesto at the last general election."

As part of the plan, the Government ssid they intend to scrap legislation whereby all schools have to have an elected parent representative on their governing boy.

Mr Corbyn added: "The Tories want to shut parents out of having a say in how their children's schools are run.

"I want schools accountable to their local communities - not to those pushing to be the first in line for the asset-stripping of our education facilities to be handed over to somebody else."

Mr Corbyn, who was greeted with cries of "hooray" from teachers and given a standing ovation even before he started speaking,, said he had "very real fears" about the intentions of the Government and "those who pay these exorbitnt salaries to run academy chains". Some chief execuives have been paid in advance of 250,000 a year. He was given another standing again as he finished his speech.

He said the Government should instead be tackling the current "crisis" in the education system. "Children are facing rising class sizes, there is a shortage of teachers and parents already face a crisis in school places..

"The forced academisation will do nothing to address any of these problems. And yet 700 million will need to be found to fund this needless organisation that fails to address a single issue that matters to teachers, parents or pupils."

He said that school budgets were being cut in real terms for the first time since the 1990's, adding: "The pressure of work forced more teachers to quit last year than ever - over 50,000 - and the Government has now missed its trainee teacher targets for the last four years in a row. That has resulted in half a million children now being taught in classes of over 31 in primary schools.

"One in four staff are increasing their use of supply teahers, one in six are using non-specialists to cover vacancies and one in 10 are resorting to using unqualified staff to teach lessons.

"Labour will work with you, with parents and pupils, with local authorities and our communities to defend education and stop these plans for forced academisation."

Mr Corbyn's speech, the first time a senior Labour party member has addressed the conference since then Education Secretary Estelle Morris was heckled in 2003, comes as the union is squaring up for a battle with the Government over the proposal.

Union leaders said that Mr Corbyn had asked to come and address the conference - and its executive had supported the idea without a dissenting voice. It said the executive would also consider any similar request from Prime Minister David Cameron but could not say whether that would be agreed.

It is expected to debate an emergency motion over the weekend which will warn of industrial action over the proposals. Kevin Courtney, the NUT's deputy general secretary, warned there could be "many more disputes" because the plan would mean scrapping national salary scales and allow schools to set individual salaries for their teachers.

However, the union is confident it will win support to defeat the plans in Parliament - as many senior Conservatives in local government, including Oxfordshire - where Prime Minister David Cameron lives - have spoken out against them.

It has gained another unexpected ally, the right-of-centre Conservative think-tank the Bow Group. " Hector Marchetti, speaking for the group, said the plan followed "a worrying trend in recent years to further centralise decision making from local communities". This was creating an "ongoing ideological drift between the party snd conservative values".

As the plan was not in the Conservative manifesto, the House of Lords- which will be targeted in the union's campaign - is free to throw them out.

Delegates will also debate another emergency motion calling on the Government to cancel all primary school tests this summer - on the grounds that teachers have not been given adequate time to prepare for changes to them. Currently primary school pupils face baseline tests when they first start primary school ate the age of four, a phonics tests at six, an assessment of their spelling, grammar and punctuation at seven and national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds in reading, writing and arithmetic.

A survey of over 5,000 primary school teachers by the union revealed that 96 per cent thought the spelling, grammar and punctuation tests in particular would cause too much stress as much of the material was "too advanced" for seven-year-olds. A similar percentage thought the same was true of tests for 11-year-olds, Only one per cent disagreed.

Christine Blower, the union's general secretary, said: "The findings of this survey are shocking. Any responsible government would sit up and take notice of what primary teachers are saying."

The Department for Education says the tes help reassure parents their children attain literacy and numeracy levels before they leave primary school. Growing numbers of children were becoming fluent readers, in particukar, because of the phonics test for six-year-olds.
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Labour members who express anti-Semitic views should be expelled with no possibility of return, John McDonnell has said, amid calls for the party to take stronger action following a series of damaging allegations.

Out, out, out, the shadow Chancellor told The Independent, speaking about concerns over how anti-Jewish views are dealt with. If people express these views, full stop theyre out.

The Labour Mayor of Bradford, Khadim Hussain, was suspended this week for sharing an anti-Semitic post on Facebook. That followed last weeks suspension of party member Vicki Kirby for a second time for sending anti-Semitic tweets  and conflicting claims over whether a Labour councillor in west London, Beinazir Lasharie, had been reinstated after suggesting on Facebook that Jews were responsible for 9/11 and the rise of Isis.

Lord Levy, a Labour peer, has threatened to quit the party unless the leadership sends a clear message that it will not tolerate anti-Semitism. The party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, also said this week any allegations of anti-Semitism would be properly investigated.

But Mr McDonnells comments suggest a desire to take a tougher approach. Asked whether they should be barred for life, he said: My own view is yes. People might be able to reform their views and the rest of it. On this? I cant see it.

He added: It is a harder line because Im not having it. People might say Ive changed my views  well, do something in another organisation.

However, he dismissed as rubbish the idea that the Stop the War Coalition, with which both he and Mr Corbyn have been closely associated, has a particular problem with anti-Semitism.

Lord Levy has threatened to leave the Labour Party (Getty)

Anti-Semitism is in our society, it will rear its head as a result of that in any part of society and weve got to be eternally vigilant he said.

Mr McDonnell dismissed the suggestion that the charge of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism is being used as a convenient stick with which to beat the Labour leadership by its enemies. No. If people have raised this, weve got to deal with it  full stop.

However, while he believes the party is right to be scrutinised over this matter and does not think it is part of an anti-Labour agenda, he is sure that the timing of the emergence of an embarrassing list purportedly of Mr Corbyns supporters and detractors within the Parliamentary Labour Party is no co-incidence. The list enabled David Cameron, still wounded by the Cabinet resignation of Iain Duncan Smith, to turn his full fire on Mr Corbyn at Prime Ministers Questions this week.

It was dreadful  whoevers done it, its certainly set us up Id like to see the fingerprints on it, Mr McDonnell said of the document.

He insisted that he had no knowledge of the existence of such a list  and stressed that the idea of a cohort of hostile or negative MPs does not, in any case, reflect the mood within their contingent in the Commons. The vast bulk of the Parliamentary Labour party  Ive addressed them three times on the Budget  theyve just been terrific. They just want to get on with the job. The atmospheres really good.

He says his new fiscal credibility rule, which would require Labour to balance the current budget over five years, has had overwhelming support from party colleagues.

According to Mr McDonnell, George Osbornes Budget now has not a 4bn hole but a 12bn gap. He singles out the new pension requirements on public service employers, which will eat into the budgets of nominally protected departments such as health and education. Nothing is safe  no service, no job, he said. In every department, no one knows what is going to hit them.

The current membership count is understood to be higher than the latest published one of 380,000 (Getty)

Following his fierce attack on the Chancellor in the House of Commons this week, Mr McDonnell suggested Mr Osbornes mere presence in 11 Downing Street is now damaging the economy.

Osbornes credibility is shot  that will have consequences for our economy. My advice to Cameron is move him. Send him abroad, make him foreign secretary. Give him something else where he wont do any more damage.

But what would a Labour government cut in the current circumstances? Wed start investing immediately, he said. Our savings would come from growth, they wont come from cuts. More people working, more people paying taxes. House building would reduce the housing benefit bill. Wed reduce [the need for] in-work benefits.

Wed reverse the corporation tax cuts, wed reverse the capital gains tax cuts, wed reverse the inheritance tax cuts that hes given to the wealthy and corporations. But he adds that the corporation tax wont go back to the 28 per cent it was back in 2010, describing 20 per cent as a reasonable compromise.
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A 50p top rate of tax for people earning more than 150,000 a year could be introduced in Scotland as early as 2018, Nicola Sturgeon has suggested as she was accused of being scared to put up taxes in the first televised debate ahead of May's Holyrood election.

The SNP leader made the concession after coming under sustained pressure from her political opponents to explain why she had decided not to increase the top rate to 50p as soon as Scotland is handed new powers over income tax in April next year.

Although her party supported the policy in its manifesto for last year's UK general election, Ms Sturgeon said earlier this week that raising the top rate of tax from 45p to 50p in Scotland would risk millions of pounds of revenues a year, as it may encourage the countrys high earners to move their money out of the country.

However, after the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale questioned why she had abandoned something she used to stand for, the First Minister appeared to soften her stance on the issue, indicating that while a 50p tax rate would not be introduced north of the border immediately, it would be kept under constant review.

I've said we won't do it in the first year of the new powers  I haven't ruled it out for the rest of the parliament, the First Minister said, explaining that the reason she was being cautious was due to civil service analysis which suggested that introducing a 50p rate could cost Scotland 30 million a year by provoking the wealthy to start avoiding tax. I think there should be a 50p top rate of tax, but you don't set tax rates if it's going to cost you money, she insisted.

The debate, held in front of a studio audience of voters at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay headquarters in Glasgow, was the first of three scheduled by broadcasters ahead of the Holyrood election on 5 May. STV will host the second event in Edinburgh on 29 March, with the BBC due to stage the third and final debate on 1 May.

As well as the leaders of Scotland's two biggest parties, the hour-long debate also featured Ruth Davidson of the Scottish Conservatives, the Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens and UKIP's David Coburn. Welfare, education spending and fracking were among the topics discussed.

However, it was the issue of how Scotland should use its new tax powers which dominated the early exchanges. While Ms Dugdale said her party would increase the Scottish basic rate of income tax by 1p to raise the money needed to stop Westminster-led austerity, Ms Davidson said she would not increase tax, arguing that Scots should not have to pay more than people in the rest of the UK.

Pressed on why the SNP had only opted to place a moratorium on fracking in Scotland instead of banning the controversial gas extraction technique outright, Ms Sturgeon said she would only allow it to go ahead if she was advised by experts that it would carry no risks. Unless it can be proved beyond any doubt that fracking doesn't harm our environment, doesn't harm our health, doesn't harm our communities, then no, fracking shouldn't be allowed ever at all in Scotland, she said.

Although the debate became heated at times, with the six leaders being chastised by host Glenn Campbell for speaking over one another, it also contained some more humorous moments. At one point, when Ms Dugdale told viewers It's Nicola's desk I want, the First Minister retorted: You can have the desk, you're just not getting the job.
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Government plans to turn every state school in England into an academy by 2020 have been fiercely criticised by Tory councillors.

Many in conservative-held county councils, including the cabinet member for education in David Camerons own constituency, have urged the Government to re-think the plans set out in the Chancellors Budget earlier this month.

Their reservations echo those of many teachers and parents protesting against the academy programme, which would effectively abolish local councils role in running education in their local areas.

Melinda Tilley, the cabinet member for education at Oxfordshire County Council, which includes the Prime Ministers Witney seat, said she is disappointed by the Government and warned the plans could put village schools at risk.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4s Today programme, she said: It means a lot of little primary schools will be forced to go into multi-academy trusts and I just feel its the wrong time, in the wrong place, for little primary schools to be forced into doing this.

Im afraid there could be a few little village schools that get lost in all this.

George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Show all 8 1 /8 George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Debt forecasts up, growth forecasts down The OBRs new forecasts have downgraded growth in all of the next five years to 2020. The watchdog says the economy will only grow by 2 per cent in 2016, as opposed to the anticipated 2.4 per cent. Borrowing and productivity growth are also down  with forecast borrowing in 2018-198 16 billion higher George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance New tax on sugary drinks The Chancellor announced a new tax on sugary soft drinks, which is projected to raise 520 million. At least some of the money will be spent on doubling funding for school sport, the Chancellor says. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the levy George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Tax cut for higher earners paying the 40p rate The Chancellor has raised the threshold for paying the higher rate of income tax to 45,000. The higher rate is paid by roughly the richest 15 per cent, currently people earning over 42,386 George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Increase in tax-free income tax threshold The tax-free allowance increase to 11,500 in April 2017  up from 10,600 now. The Chancellor previously raised the allowance from 6,475 in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The Conservative manifesto pledges to put the allowance up to 12,500 by the end of the Parliament George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance New devolution for counties and powers for London and Manchester The West of England, the East of England and Greater Lincolnshire will all get elected mayor-led combined authorities with new powers. The Chancellor says they are backed by 1 billion new funding. Greater Manchester will get new powers of criminal justice while London will keep its business rates  giving whoever is elected Mayor a lot more spending power George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Fuel duty frozen for sixth year running The Chancellor had planned to end the fuel duty freeze he had put in place for the whole previous parliament. In the event, he has announced a freeze for another year George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance All schools to become academies As reported yesterday the Chancellor unveiled legislation to turn all schools into academies. He said all schools would either be academies or on their way to being academies by 2020, and that funding had been set aside to fund the change George Osborne 2016 budget at a glance Lifetime ISA The Chancellor announced a new savings account to encourage under-40s to save for retirement  for every 4 saved, the Government will top this up by 1 up to the value of 4,000 a year. Tax-free ISAs will also be increased from 15,000 to 20,000

Im fed up with diktats from above saying you will do this and you wont do that. This is not why I became a Conservative.

Academies are directly funded by the Department for Education rather than local councils. They sometimes receive support from corporate or other sponsors.

The schools are often grouped into chains where a single trust runs more than one school.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said the plan would give more autonomy to successful head teachers.

He told Today: If you can get a head teacher who is running a successful school, to have that school become part of a multi-academy trust where he can spread that formula and change weaker schools into the kind of school that he was leading, that is the essence of the multi-academy trust programme.

Mr Gibb insisted that forcing schools to make the change was not diktat, this is about giving freedom and devolution to the school level.

However, other senior Conservatives in local government, who face losing control of their local schools, have repeated Ms Tilleys concerns.

Roger Gough, Conservative councillor in charge of education in Kent, told the BBC: I dont think there is demonstrable evidence that there is a systematic improvement in performance and certainly not anything that would justify upheaval on this scale.

Peter Edgar from Hampshire County Council said: To force all schools would be ridiculously expensive and in my view the wrong thing to do and also could cause in the interim a drop in standards in all our schools.

Ivan Ould, a former head teacher and Tory cabinet member for children and families on Leicestershire county council, told the Guardian: The Government seems to be determined to take responsibility for anything to do with education away from local authorities.

Ill youve got effective local authorities you should take the best practice and expand it across the country. I do not believe a system driven by dogma will meet the needs of children.

Hundreds of teachers marched through Westminster on Wednesday to protest the the Governments academy plans, while over 130,000 people have signed a petition demanding a referendum.

As the petition has over 100,000 signatures the House of Commons petition committee is legally bound to consider it for debate in Parliament.

Additional reporting by Press Association
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At least two American citizens were among those people killed in the attack on Brussels, it has been confirmed. Two Dutch citizens who lived in New York - brother and sister Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski - were also killed.

As US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Brussels to pay his condolences to the Belgian people, officials said on Froday that at least two of the 31 people killed were US citizens. They have not yet been publicly identified, though their families have been informed, the Associated Press said.

Speaking after meeting Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Mr Kerry said: The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks.

Mr Kerry paid his condolences to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel (AP)

He did not give a specific number but the news agency said that a senior official said the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths in Tuesday's attacks.

The family of Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski said in a statement that their deaths had been confirmed. Mr Pinczowski was engaged to the daughter of James Cain, a former US ambassador to Denmark

We received confirmation this morning from Belgian Authorities and the Dutch Embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha, it said,

A minute's silence is observed at Place de la Bourse in central Brussels (EPA)

We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation, and are thankful for the thoughts and prayers from all. The family is in the process of making arrangements.



Speaking earlier, Mr Kerry added: The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy. We - all of us representing countless nationalities - have a message for those who inspired or carried out the attacks here or in Paris, or Ankara, or Tunis, or San Bernardino, or elsewhere - we will not be intimidated.

We will not be deterred. We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth.

Mr Kerry also paid tribute to an American doctor and her friend, who were at the airport when the attackers struck and who went to help.

The hardest point for me was that I had never seen a mass casualty situation and it felt a little bit overwhelming at first, Dr Laura Billiet, told CNN.
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An Atlanta Universitys president is scrambling to appease students who have been protesting against pro-Donald Trump graffiti around campus.

Scrawls in chalk on Emory University campus grounds and on buildings in support of the Republicans presidential campaign have reportedly frightened students and spurred a 50-strong demonstration.

Students viewed the messages as intimidation and expressed genuine concern and pain as a result, according to president James Wagner, who wrote a letter about the event this week.

Recommended Read more Ithaca College President resigns after student racism protests

Students saw the messages in chalk - such as Trump 2016 and Build a Wall - and heard a message about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory's own, Mr Wagner wrote in a letter that was obtained by Associated Press.

Jonathan Peraza, 19, of Latino heritage, told AP: That is a direct reference to brown people on campus, and added that we feel unsafe on our campus.

He claimed he received a death threat following the protest and forwarded the threat to the administrator team at the University.

Graffiti around campus The Tab (The Tab)

It was an intentional way to rile students up and intimidate those of us who feel we are in danger with this presidential candidate, he added. We do feel that our lives are in danger with his campaign and the violence that he's been inciting.

Other students said they were frustrated by the rhetoric and lack of action from the University officials, and said they would have acted quicker if the graffiti had been in support of Hitler.

I legitimately feared for my life, Paula Camila Alarcon, a Latino first year told The Daily Beast. I thought we were having a KKK rally on campus.

The University asked the FBI to investigate a case in October 2014 where people drew swastikas on a historically Jewish fraternity building.

Mr Wagner, who is stepping down this year, agreed to meet the students after the protest, during which they called out: You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!

Mr Wagner plans to implement several policy changes, including bias incident reporting and response procedure and to provide regular opportunities for difficult dialogues.

Students have handed out "#StopTrump2016 fliers and have tried to scrub the chalk messages.

The student newspaper, The Emory Wheel, reported that Mr Wagner told protesters at the meeting that the university would examine footage to see who had written the messages but only up by the hospital [from] security cameras.

The University gave a statement to The Daily Beast saying that chalkings by students are a protected form of expression on the Emory campus, but must be limited to certain areas and surfaces.
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A demolition firm accidentally tore down the wrong house - before blaming an incorrect address listing on Google Maps.

The company, Billy L Nabors Demolition, had obtained a demolition permit for a duplex in Rowlett, Texas.

But when employees called their supervisor to confirm the number of the flat they were demolishing, they failed to clarify the street address  attending Calypso Drive instead of Cousteau Drive, which is one street away.

Lindsay Diaz, who owns the flat that survived tornadoes which ripped through the state in December, pulled into her driveway to find her home was no more than a pile of rubble.

Ms Diaz told WFAA: How do you make a mistake like this? I mean, this is just the worst. Thats what their job is  to wreck [houses] in demolition, and they really wrecked my life.

Employees from the company later texted photos from Google Maps that shows the arrow for 7601 Cousteau pointing at the duplex a block away, according to WFAA. The crew reportedly thought they tore down the correct home, adding that the situation was "not a big deal".

Demolition companies are not required to be licensed in the state of Texas, but all contractors working in tornado-damaged areas must register with the city of Rowlett.

US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years Show all 4 1 /4 US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years 15391.bin Rick Gershon/Getty Images US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years 15406.bin Rick Gershon/Getty Images US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years 15413.bin Mike Avery/AP US Bible Belt begins clear-up after the worst tornadoes in 20 years 15414.bin Frederick Breedon, AP

Ms Diaz then recounted to CBS: "The team went out in the morning ... They called him. They said, were at 7601, 7603. Is it the corner lot? Was it damaged by the tornado? Yes, yes, yes. Except the street wasnt confirmed."

Brian Funderburk, city manager, rejected the firm's attempts to play down the situation. He told WFAA: "I think this is a huge deal. The homeowners were in the process of trying to figure out what it was going to take to repair their home and now they're looking at rebuilding it instead. I think this is a very big deal."
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Senator Ted Cruz has denied as garbage a claim made in a supermarket tabloid that he was covering up five extra-marital affairs.

In development that saw the US presidential campaign turn from poisonous to squalid, Mr Cruz told reporters that the claims in the National Enquirer were untrue. He said that had been planted by his rival, Donald Trump, or else his his henchmen.

It is a story that quoted one source on the record: Roger Stone, Donald Trumps chief political adviser, said Mr Cruz.

It is attacking my family. And what is striking is Donalds henchman, Roger Stone, had for months been foreshadowing that this attack was coming. Its not surprising that Donalds tweet occurs the day before the attack comes out.

"And I would note that Mr. Stone is a man who has 50 years of dirty tricks behind him. Hes a man for whom a term was coined for copulating with a rodent. Well, let me be clear: Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him...The question that people are asking is how low will Donald go.

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

Speaking in Wisconsin, he accused Mr Trump of being a coward who has problems with strong women. It will not be sufficient for a president. He will send tweets at Putin, he said.

Mr Trump on Friday afternoon responded to Mr Cruz's comments.

I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week's issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it," he said.

"Ted Cruzs problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about OJ Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin Ted Cruz."

Earlier, on CNN, a Trump supporter had accused one of Mr Cruzs spokeswomen of being one of five women said to have had an affair with the senator.

Amanda Carpenter, a CNN commentator who had worked as Mr Cruzs communications director, said: It is categorically false. You should be ashamed for spreading this kind of smut.

The exchanges represent a new low in a campaign already marked by toxicity and which has undertaken every notion of political decorum.

Despite Mr Cruzs denial,the accusations have the potential to seriously damage his standing among evangelicals and social conservatives who are the bedrock of his support.
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Six people have been detained in raids around Brussels in connection with the attacks on the city's airport and Metro system.

Belgian federal prosecutors said the arrests were made during raids in central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood on Thursday.

Police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making material earlier this week in an apartment in Schaerbeek believed used by the suicide bombers.

Police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making material earlier this week in an apartment in Schaerbeek believed used by the suicide bombers who attacked Brussels (EPA)

Schaerbeek residents described hearing detonations during the police raids. It was unclear whether they were explosions or controlled blasts.

Press Association
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Isis-linked terrorists in Belgium are thought to have been planning to build a dirty nuclear bomb, according to a report.

Concerns over security at nuclear plants have led to 11 workers having their passes revoked, The Times reported.

A senior Belgian nuclear official was also secretly monitored by suspects linked to the 13 November Paris attacks, La Derniere Heure newspaper reported earlier this year. Late last year, police in Belgium seized surveillance footage of the high-ranking nuclear official, which showed him entering and leaving his home, during a raid on terrorist suspects.

An official at Belgiums Federal Agency for Nuclear Control told The Times: When you start filming someone in the way they did, the logical conclusion is that they wanted to abduct that person and to obtain radioactive material.

The passes of 11 staff at the Tihange nuclear power station have been withdrawn after they were vetted by a committee including intelligence and security agencies.

A dirty bomb is easier to make than a nuclear bomb but does not create a fission explosion. Instead, traditional explosives are used to spread radioactive material over an area, potentially contaminating it for years.

The risk to health is relatively small with some experts saying more could be killed in the panic created by such an attack than the radiation itself.
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The taxi driver who unwittingly took the Brussels bombers to the scene of their attack has revealed one of the men raged during the journey about what he saw as Americas aggression towards Islam, The Independent has learned.

The driver has been widely praised for preventing greater bloodshed. It can now be disclosed that he is a Muslim of Moroccan descent. The terrorists had left behind not just one case packed with explosives as had been previously thought, but two. The lethal devices could have been used by their accomplices to carry out further attacks had he not alerted police to the location.

The cab had been called by the three jihadists from the flat on the fifth floor of a block in Schaerbeek in northern Brussels to go to the airport. The men came down with five cases which they refused to allow the driver to touch. However, only three of the cases could be fitted into the boot of the car, a black Skoda, much to the annoyance of the men. They briefly discussed ordering a second car before deciding to take two of the cases back upstairs.

The driver is convinced, after studying photographs and video, that two of the three passengers he drove to the airport on Tuesday morning were brothers Brahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui. He recalls them sitting, hunched, in silence in the back during the 25 minute ride to the citys Zaventem airport. The voluble man in the front, decrying the US, was, he believes, the figure in a white jacket and black hat who was seen at the airport walking alongside Brahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, an Isis bomb maker, and then disappeared dumping his suicide vest.

Brahim el-Bakraoui and Nijam Laachraoui detonated their explosive belts at an American Airlines counter at the airport, killing themselves and 11 others.

Khalid el-Bakraoui blew himself up at Maelbeek metro station, taking 20 more lives.

After dropping off the three men at the airport, the driver picked up another passenger on the way back to the city centre. He called the police after seeing CCTV footage of the suspects on social media. A married man with young children, he has decided not to reveal his identity after taking police advice.

Armed police arrived outside the block of flats, No 4 Rue Max Roos, late on Tuesday morning. Inside the flat they found an Isis flag, a bomb packed with nails and screws, detonators and enough chemicals to make 15kg of Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) the explosive used in last Novembers Paris attacks.

Outside, in a dustbin, was a laptop which provided a crucial insight into the mind of one of the bombers. I dont know what to do, I am in a hurry, being searched for everywhere, not being safe, it drags on it could end up me being in a prison cell next to him, Brahim el-Bakraoui had written.

The him in the note is believed to be Salah Abdeslam, a fugitive from the Paris attacks who was arrested in the district of Molenbeek last Friday. Abdeslams lawyer, Sven Mary had claimed his client was providing information and worth his weight in gold. There have been reports, unconfirmed, that the man in the white coat at the airport was Mohamed Abrini, a childhood friend of Abdeslam and also wanted over the Paris murders.

Residents in surrounding areas to Rue Max Roos were told to leave their homes while the bombs were defused. Ragheb Masri, who took his family away overnight, recalled: The police told us that buildings would collapse if the bomb had gone off. Everyone must move out immediately, they said. It was good that the taxi driver was quick to let the police know about this place, there could have been a catastrophe otherwise.

A friend of the driver who made the Rue Max Roos pick-up, who is also a Muslim of Moroccan descent, said: The police have spoken to him lots and they have asked him to be careful, these are very dangerous times.

Of course my friend provided the necessary information and maybe that saved lives. Some people, like that man Donald Trump in America, says that Muslims are not giving information about terrorists. That is not true at all.

We want to protect our community just like anyone else. We dont want to see our families killed or injured by bombs, or anyone elses families. We know we need to confront these very bad people together.
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An actor who has played Jesus in traditional Spanish Easter parades for 30 years says he has been banned from the role for at least two years because he is gay.

Ramon Fossati says he was told he could not perform the role in the traditional parade to mark Easter Sunday until 2019 because he exposed a naked shoulder and waved his arms in an ostentatious way last year.

The Junta Mayor de Semana Santa Marinera, which governs the brotherhoods in Valencia which organise the Holy Week celebrations, accused Mr Fossati of ostentation and parody and appearing to give false blessings to the crowd.

An Easter procession featuring Jesus on a cross in Spain in 2015 (Jose Jordan/AFP/Getty Images)

Mr Fossati said he was merely waving to the crowd and that his costume had been modelled on traditional religious paintings which showed Jesus bare shouldered.

He had modified it so it only had bare one shoulder because he feared exposing both would be considered too risque, The Times reports.

He was originally fined 300 (237) following the parade last year but it was reduced to 60 (47) on appeal and he was banned from the parade by the Santisimo Cristo del Salvador brotherhood.

Mr Fossati says he was not given a reason for the ban but that he suspected it was because he is gay.

He said: It could be jealousy. Or maybe it was punishment for being gay. But everyone where I live knows my sexual orientation and it is not an issue.

I am deeply religious and this is the worst thing that could happen.

2016 Easter celebrations around the world Show all 20 1 /20 2016 Easter celebrations around the world 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Willy Salvador, 59, hangs from a cross as part of his penitence during a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan, Pampanga Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines articipants lie on the ground after whipping their bloodied backs with bamboo as part of their penitence during a ceremony reenacting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines articipants whip their bloodied backs with bamboo as part of their penitence during the re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Hungary Dancers of 'Matyo Folklor Art Association' in traditional clothes, react as boys throw water in Mezokovesd, some 130 km east of Budapest. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines A resident carries a statue of Jesus Christ to the church in preparation for the Good Friday procession during Holy Week celebration in Gasan, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Ruben Enaje, who is portraying Jesus Christ for the 30th time, screams while a resident acting as a Roman soldier pulls up a nail on his palm Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitent Ruben Enaje, who is portraying Jesus Christ for the 30th time, is carried on a stretcher by rescuers after he was nailed on a wooden cross during a Good Friday crucifixion reenactment in Cutud town, Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Mexico A man holding a rabbit looks at men dressed as ancient Romans as they take part in a procession, during Holy Week celebrations, in Taxco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world South Africa Nuns carry a cross during a silent march celebrating Good Friday in Durban. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Mexico Masked penitents prepare before the start of a procession, a part of Holy Week celebrations, in Taxco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitents locally called "Morions" wear masks and centurion garbs as they take part in a Good Friday procession as part of Holy Week celebration in Gasan, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world El Salvador Members of the El Jesus Nazareno brotherhood participate in the Los Cristos Procession as part of Holy Week celebrations in the town of Izalco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Paraguay Actors take part in a re-enactment during a Holy Week procession to prepare for Good Friday celebration in Luque city. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Paraguay Actors take part in a re-enactment during a Holy Week procession to prepare for Good Friday celebration in Luque city. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Peru Local and foreign inmates participate in a performance of the play Jesus Christ Superstar to celebrate Holy Week at Sarita Colonia prison in Callao. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitents wearing masks, known locally as "Morions" take a selfie during the start of Holy Week celebrations in Mogpog, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Hungary Hungary Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Resident portraying Roman soldier pulls up a nail on a foot of penitent Ruben Enaje in Pampanga, Philippines. Reuters

Easter processions are strictly regulated by religious authorities in Spain to prevent too much flesh being exposed or inappropriate religious gestures.

Women have been fined in the past for showing cleavage or wearing dresses above the knee.

They are usually asked to wear black dresses and a headdress known as a mantilla to the parades.
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Even before it became a holding pen, Moria was a pretty poor registration centre, unable to provide basic facilities and painfully slow to process the thousands of refugees and migrants who arrive on the shores of Lesbos every week.

But since midnight on Sunday, when the new EU-Turkey migrant deal came into force, refugees have been picked up by the coastguard and transported directly to Moria by the Greek authorities.

The camp has become an open-air prison, a compound of temporary buildings on a hill overlooking the coast of this island, not far from Turkeys Mediterranean coast. It is to here that all arrivals must wait for the news their long struggle to reach Europe will almost certainly get them no further than the Greek islands.

They will be returned to Turkey, which the European Union has now declared a safe country, in its bid to stem the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.

The lightning fast implementation of the deal, signed last Friday, has stretched to the limit the capacity of the Greek government, which has no means to process the asylum claims that everyone who arrives has the right to make. Those who came looking for peace and a better life have instead found themselves locked up, and handed detention papers. In response, aid agencies have dropped out of their involvement at the centre one by one, refusing to be associated with the detention of migrants  among whom are more than 100 unaccompanied children. Oxfam this week said the development was an offence to Europes values.

They have told us nothing, says Naima Abdullah, 28, speaking through the chain link fence, her four-year-old daughter Mirna by her side. She paid $2,000 for herself, Mirna, and her one-month-old baby to cross the sea from Turkey after fleeing air strikes in rural Damascus three months ago. She arrived on Sunday, in the first boats after the deal came into force. But four days later, she still hadnt been given an opportunity to register a claim for asylum.

And as the numbers grow, observers worry the only possible outcome will be the mass expulsions Europe has promised to avoid. Nadine Abuasil, 25, said she came to Lesbos because life in Turkey since she fled Deraa in Syria a month ago was not worth living. Her family were blackmailed for money by local gangs, and there was no work in a country that is expensive to live in. We cannot go back to Turkey, she says simply. She and her 23-year-old brother arrived on Sunday after a five hour boat journey during which two men died. They had apparently suffocated.

She points to the ground of the detention centre. We would rather die here than in Turkey. Her brother, Mohammed, was no less emphatic when asked what hed do if he was forced to return. I dont speak English, he says. But: kill myself, kill myself.

The deal has been decried by human rights groups and legal experts who question if Turkey can be considered a safe third country for the forcible return of migrants, and if Greece, which has floundered under the pressure of more than one million refugees arrivals in the past year, is capable of processing asylum claims  even with promised outside help.

Greece has effectively been asked to build an asylum system in two weeks, says Camino Mortera, a research fellow for the Centre for European Reform and a specialist in EU law. The EU claims there wont be returns en masse but if you are not able to process people in a regulated fashion, how else are they going to deal with this?

As a detention centre Moria is barely adequate, including to the task of holding people in  a handful jump the fence at ease and unnoticed, disappearing into the woodland. They have nowhere to go once theyre out and often come back. People have been forced to sleep on the chalky gravel, wrapped in blankets. Among them are a frail elderly man, and Elham, 14, from Afghanistan who fled along with her family from threats from the Taliban.

We asked the police for information, they just say We dont know, said Elham. Tensions are simmering, with accusations some nationalities are receiving preferential treatment over others.

Naima Abdullah, with her two small children, wants to reach Germany, where her husband is now claiming asylum. Its not clear what will happen to the many families that have been separated this way. Much about the deal is unclear, even to the Greek authorities. Its not clear how long people will stay, said UNHCR spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov . Its still not clear how the deal will be implemented, how Greece will be given capability to deal with asylum claims.

Tove Ernst, a spokesperson for migration at the European Commission said the intention was to have people moved from the facilities swiftly, adding: Detention in cases of returns should always be limited.

Frontex border agency this week called on EU member states to step up and provide extra personnel to help authorities on Lesbos manage the new deal. So far, only 396 of 1,500 requested police officers have been offered. There are plans to send an extra 50 immigration experts, with five arriving from Turkey this week.

Marios Andriotis, a senior adviser to the Lesbos mayor, is visibly strained. He said the local government was doing its best to provide for new arrivals. But, he added: We are a small municipality and we do not decide the unions policies. We are looking for a contingency plan, a waiting area where we could accommodate 5,000 to 10,000 people. The deals success relies on people like Ms Abdullah deciding to wait their turn under the one-for-one scheme, under which Europe has agreed to take a Syrian refugee directly from Turkey, in exchange for each Syrian Turkey accepts back from Greece.

The numbers have shown some signs of slowing. Coast guards heading out for a patrol on Thursday said they didnt expect to pick up anyone.

Fadi, 23, who declined to give his family name, arrived in Lesbos after fleeing army conscription in Syria. He escaped to Turkey at the end of last year, paying bribes along the way to the regime and to Isis. When he left Turkey, he had no idea an effective prison would be awaiting him in Greece.

He says he wouldnt have come if he had known. They treat us like animals here, he said, shouting across a ditch that runs along one side of Morias chainlink fence. I feel like I am in Syria. Still, he doesnt think the deal will contain the refugees for long. People are fleeing a war. They will find a way, he said

In any case, Europe agreed to take only 72,000 Syrians under the plan; more than twice that number arrived in Greece last October alone. And there is doubt that member states will hold up their end of the bargain in taking in refugees; previous attempts to impose a quota system to share the burden have swiftly fallen apart.

Europe hopes, too, many can be persuaded to stay in Turkey. It has promised an extra 3bn to Ankara to help provide aid to its 2.7 million Syrian refugees. But with little work and education for Syrians in Turkey, many are on the point of destitution and may take some convincing that they have a future there.

If people come anyway, the Greek islands will be swiftly overwhelmed. Their combined facilities have a capacity of just 7,490, already more than half full. And in the first five days since the deal came into effect, more than 1,400 had made the journey to the islands.

In the midst of all this, as ever, are those who hoped to arrive to a Europe that would welcome them with open walls, even if not with open arms. I want to tell Europe: I do not want to go to Turkey. I want to see my husband in Germany, said Ms Abuasil. Syria is awful. If it was not awful, we would not have left.
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In late-1991 I spent a few days under bombardment in Croatia reporting on the civil war for The Independent, then moved on to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, to see if something similar was brewing there.

The locals were expansive, charming, bibulous and comprehensively reassuring. What? Serbians, Bosniaks and Croatians turning on each other and killing each other? The idea was laughable, I was told. This was a modern, sophisticated town full of mixed couples and families, where the bloody borders dividing Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim which had scarred the Balkans for centuries had been swallowed up and forgotten in happy modernity: first Tito, then European liberalism, had buried the regions ugly history.

Yet within months the siege of Sarajevo was under way. Europeans, raised to believe that the age of European wars was over, struggled to comprehend what was happening. But the Bosnian Serbians could not have picked up their guns and trained them on their Muslim and Croatian neighbours without believing they were doing something right and necessary.

The man who provided that belief, Radovan Karadzic, is now beginning the 40-year sentence handed down this week in The Hague. Charismatic, theatrical, a poet with something of the prophet and much of the charlatan about him, Karadzic was the right man in the right place, infusing his Serbian brethren with an intoxicating belief in their high racial destiny, involving a millennial conflict with the Muslims who, under the banner of the Ottomans, had inflicted that never-to-be-forgotten defeat at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389.

It was atavism pure and simple: a Serbian version of the Fascist urge that produced Mussolini and Hitler. And given the murder of nearly 8,000 Bosniak men at Srebrenica by soldiers infused with Karadzics beliefs, who knows what genocidal atrocities might have ensued if the West had not finally intervened, and if the American diplomat Richard Holbrooke had not bashed heads together sufficiently hard at Dayton, Ohio, to force the warlords into a reluctant peace?

Yet when Karadzic was finally arrested in 2008, there was no jubilation among the Bosniaks. Thats because, as a political analyst in Sarajevo told me at the time: Karadzic is no longer on the scene, but his ideas and his life work are on the verge of becoming reality.

The grandiose vision of a Greater Serbia had been killed off, but the paranoia, narrow pride and clannishness that Karadzic embodied found miniature realisation in Republika Srpska, the ethnic entity which, along with the Muslim-Croat Federation, survives to this day, jealously guarding its enclaves, ensuring that the Bosnian Republic, so prematurely recognised by Europe in April 1992, never had a chance.

We make a mistake if we see Karadzic as a unique monster. Figures like him are springing up and prospering right across the world, wherever the old state structures nourished by the post-war order totter. The viciousness of the historic divisions in the southern Balkans lent a fire-and-brimstone quality to the Karadzic rhetoric, just as the medieval touchstone of fundamental Islam justifies the barbarities promulgated by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Isis. Frances Marie le Pen, Hungarys Viktor Orban and Matteo Salvini of Italys Lega Nord each know how to apply the flame of rhetoric to the blue touchpaper of atavism. Each is as different as the clans to which they appeal, but all appeal to blood and soil. Civilisation as we know it was an awakening from such nightmares. These people lead us back into the dark.
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A doctor once considered a superstar and pioneer in the field of stem cell research has been fired from his post amid claims of scientific negligence and falsification of his CV.

Swedens Karolinska University said Dr Paolo Macchiarini, who claims to have treated Pope Francis and President Obama, had been dismissed from his post with immediate effect.

The Italian led a team of surgeons who successfully carried out the first ever synthetic windpipe transplant using a windpipe partially constructed from the patients own stem cells.

But a statement issued by Karolinska University's HR manager, Mats Engelbrektson, said he was fired for a variety of reasons.

Its impossible for KI to have any kind of collaboration with Paolo Macchiarini any longer," the statement said.

He has acted in a way that has had very tragic consequences for the people affected and their families. His conduct has seriously damaged confidence in KI and for research in general.

Macchiarini - who denies the claims - first came under fire in 2015. Three surgeries performed at Karolinska were investigated two of which resulted in the death of a patient while the remaining patient remains in intensive care.

External investigator Bengt Gerdin told Science Insider that data had been omitted from the medical records, leading him to conclude that there had been a systemic misrepresentation of the truth that lead the reader to have a completely false impression of the success of the technique.

However, the Vice Chancellor of Karolinska concluded at the time that Macchiarini was not guilty of misconduct.

Though the first investigation did not lead to any repercussions for Macchiarini, he came under investigation again after a documentary screened on Swedish television alleging that he had been using his patients as human guinea pigs, continually applying new methods while operating on them despite having no conclusive evidence that the methods would improve their condition.

The documentary, Experimenten (Experiments), also presents evidence that Macchiarini told his patients prior to surgery that his methods had been tested on animals and proved successful where no animal testing had actually taken place.

A woman is also shown receiving an engineered trachea from Macchiarini as part of a clinical trial at Kuban State Medical University in Krasnador, Russia.

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The womens trachea had been damaged, but the documentary suggests that the injury was not life-threatening and she would have survived without the surgery. The women did not survive.

Six of the eight patients who received a synthetic trachea transplant from Macchiarini have since died.

A statement from the university says Macchiarinis actions in Krasnador are in breach of KIs fundamental values and have damaged KIs reputation.

Macchiarini denied the allegations, telling Nature magazine: I do not accept any of the findings of the [Karolinska] Disciplinary Board. I have instructed lawyers and will be taking immediate steps to restore my reputation.
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The trial of two prominent Turkish newspaper journalists accused of espionage will take place behind closed doors after a court decision described by critics as a travesty of justice.

Can Dundar, editor of Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, the newspapers Ankara bureau chief, face life in prison for a front-page story claiming that Turkish intelligence services were helping to send weapons to Syria.

Their trial, which began on Friday, is being held up as a test case on the health of the countrys democracy amid warnings that accountability, freedom of expression and the rule of law are all under attack.

Recommended Read more Turkish president wants to be able to label journalists as terrorists

Day one did little to dispel claims that the prevailing winds in Turkey, a Nato member that aspires to join the European Union, are blowing in the wrong direction.

There was almost a party atmosphere as the two journalists arrived at Istanbuls Palace of Justice. Clutching a copy of the front page that led to accusations of divulging state secrets, Mr Dundar, 54, and Mr Gul, 49, grinned and waved at the huge crowd of reporters and well-wishers. As they entered the packed, rowdy courtroom, they were met with cheering and applause.

The mood took a darker turn when a judge ruled that their trial would be held in private, prompting jeers and shouts from the scores of supporters crammed into the hot courtroom. Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who attended the hearing, described the decision to bar the public as a travesty of justice.

She said: Not only does the government prevent journalists from scrutinising stories of public interest The court now prevents the public scrutinising the trial. The trial was later adjourned until next month after opposition MPs refused to leave in protest at the decision.

The journalists story, published last May, centred on a video that allegedly showed Turkeys state intelligence agency helping to send weapons to Syria in 2014.

Turkeys President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, acknowledged the trucks belonged to the secret service but claimed they were taking aid to members of the Turkmen ethnic minority. He said that police who stopped and searched the truck had no right to do so and accused them of trying to overthrow the government.

Mr Erdogan, a skilful but deeply divisive politician, has made clear that he views the story as a personal affront, warning the journalists that they would pay a heavy price.

When the constitutional court decided last month to free the pair after three months of pre-trial detention, the President declared that he would not abide by the decision. The judge agreed to make Mr Erdogan himself a complainant in the case.

Mr Dundar, meanwhile, has vowed to use the trial to focus on the story itself to expose what he said was illegal action by the state. Speaking on his way into court, he said: We will defend journalism and the right of the public to be told the truth.

The Turkish government insists that the case is about national security, not press freedom, but its European allies disagree. Leigh Turner, the British consul general, was one of more than half a dozen foreign diplomats to attend the hearing. However, Turkeys role in both counterterrorism efforts and the refugee crisis mean that EU leaders have hitherto proved reluctant to respond too harshly to crackdowns on the media as well as the judiciary, academia and civil society.

Dozens of ordinary Turkish citizens were also among those who turned up to support the journalists. Speaking outside the courtroom, Mustafa Koprulu, a retired businessman, and Mehmet Ozturk, a former bank manager, described the case as an important moment for Turkish democracy.

Mr Ozturk, 54, argued that in Turkey they want to stop us learning the truth. He said: It is not just Can Dundar who is being victimised. It is also a normal citizen who reads a newspaper.
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A lawyer representing two Russian soldiers captured during the war in Ukraines east has been found dead, apparently executed, as relations between the two nations worsen over prisoners of a war Moscow denies entering.

Yuriy Grabovsky was part of a legal team representing two Russians arrested last May on terrorism charges. Authorities in Kiev had hoped to swap the Russians for Ukrainians held by Moscow, including a helicopter pilot, Nadezhda Savchenko, who was jailed for 22 years by a Russian court this week.

Mr Grabovsky was reported missing in early March. The body was found at around 4am on Friday morning. Anatoly Matios, chief military prosecutor, said that Mr Grabovsky had been beaten and then shot. Two suspects remain in custody.

Recommended Read more Female Russian pilot guilty of murdering Russian journalists

While no motives were suggested, Mr Matios said it was in Russians interest for the servicemens trial in Ukraine to be delayed. Russias Foreign Ministry blamed Ukrainian authorities for failing to protect Mr Grabovsky, who they said had become a victim of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine because of his job.

The two Russians  Alexander Alexandrov and his captain, Yevgeny Yerofeyev  are claimed by Russia to have quit their unit to go to Ukraines east independently.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he would be willing to hand over the men in return for captured Ukrainians, including Savchenko.
ABC News(NEW YORK) -- If you plan to attend an Easter party this weekend, dont be surprised to see a unique treat on the dessert table: cupcakes and cookies depicting the rear of a bunny rabbit.



The treats -- known as bunny butt cakes -- show exactly what their name suggests. The cakes use extra frosting and treats to achieve the look.



Pinterest told ABC News that "bunny butt cakes" is one of this seasons top pinned names. The website reports pins for the treats are up 30 percent in popularity over last year.



I think the cupcakes are popular because they're great for all ages and they're also great for any skill level," said Meghan McGarry, the dessert maker behind ButtercreamBlondie.com.



I had a hunch that fluffy buttercream bunny tails would look adorable, McGarry said of creating her recipe. Once the idea to make little paws out of chocolate popped in my head, I knew I was on to something.



McGarry's recipe features bunny paws made out of candy melts and a scooped-out cupcake that creates the bunny butt.



Tiffany Ivanovsky, a blogger from Woodlands, Texas, turned the bunny butt theme into cookies. Ivanosky's recipe, featured on MyLitter.com, uses two different sizes of cookies for the bunny's feet and body and a mini marshmallow dipped in frosting and sprinkles for the tail.



"Ive seen comments from people saying, 'Do we have to call these bunny butt cookies?' and I say, 'Yes we do, just because,'" Ivankovsky said.



Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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Western security agencies are blind to the terror plots being hatched in the Middle East because of the unknown number of jihadists who have been dispatched to Europe by Isis and al-Qaeda.

This worrying gap in intelligence was cruelly exposed in Tuesdays bomb attacks in Brussels and reinforced by the arrests of a dozen more terror suspects trained in Syria who have been picked up in security operations across Belgium and France. While many were known to the Belgian and French agencies as petty criminals, the crucial intelligence about their travel to and from Syria was not.

The blame for this intelligence failure has been placed on the growing number of migrants fleeing the Middle East for Europe and terrorists disguising themselves as refugees. But the refugee crisis is merely a political diversion.

Recommended Read more Paris attacker denied all knowledge of Brussels suicide bombers

Since the start of the Syrian conflict five years ago tens of thousands of Islamist extremists and jihadists have left Europe to join terrorist groups in the region and a half of them have returned home to Europe. If anything the more recent migration crisis has increased levels of security and led to the tightening of border controls, making it more difficult to travel unhindered across Europe. And a terrorist with an EU passport can always find much safer and less unpleasant means travelling between states.

It was only in 2013 that Western governments woke up to the dangers of young Muslims travelling to Syria, being trained as terrorists and sent back to Europe to act out the kind of atrocities that witnessed in Paris and Brussels.

MI5 describes this as the terrorism blowback  fighters returning to the UK intent on carrying out bombings and shootings. One Whitehall security source said: All we can know is that they have been in a war zone and come into contact with any number of bad people.

Now they are back in Britain after they have done their jihad but how many put the whole experience behind them and get on with whatever they were doing before they left? And how many are planning terrorism?

The security services estimate that 800 British jihadists have gone to Syria, others put the number as high as 2,000. I have been told of two British citizens who joined Islamic State and returned to the UK without any contact with UK security services. One of them made the trip three times without any questions raised before dying in a suicide attack in Iraq two years ago. The other didnt like IS and so came home. There must be many more who have made similar trips outside the sight of security services.

Even when suspects are known to MI5 and the Metropolitan Police there are simply not enough resources to subject them all to 24/7 surveillance. Besides, close security doesnt always work. At least two terror suspects have managed to flee the UK for Syria while under tight surveillance from the security services.

If you live in a democratic country then it is very hard to stop people leaving the UK, a security source said.

The human blunders of the French, Belgian and German intelligence agencies in recent months demonstrate that missed intelligence opportunities can cost lives.

Turkeys unheeded warning to Belgium and Holland about one of the Brussels bombers shows how difficult it is to get national agencies to work together. This week the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, delivered a withering attack on some of the intelligence sharing agencies across Europe. Though the UK participates in various European and Brussels-based security bodies, they are of little consequence, he said. The Club de Berne, made up of European Security Services; the Club de Madrid, made up of European Intelligence Services; Europol and the Situation Centre in the European Commission are, generally speaking, little more than forums for the exchange of analysis and views.

Here in the UK, MI5 and the Mets Counter Terrorism Command have foiled seven plots linked to Syria in the past year. But the unknown number of violent jihadists living in British communities means they cannot be expected to win every time.
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Long considered to be the most likely candidate to rise to the top of Isis should anything befall Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its current leader, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli was believed to have faced one critical obstacle: he came from a family unable to claim direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed.

Born in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, which is now under Isis control, al-Qaduli had a long record as a top Jihadi commander, joining Al-Qaeda in 2004 and eventually rising to become deputy to the now deceased leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and served as its commander in Mosul. US officials confirmed on Friday he had been killed in a operation.

The US says it killing Isis leaders (Getty)

Sometimes called on to preach at the main mosque in Mosul, al-Qaduli cloaked his movements and work for Isis in part by using a variety of pseudonyms believed to include Haji Imam and Abu Alaa al-Afri. It is believed that when Baghdadi suffered serious injuries in a coalition airstrike, al-Qaduli briefly stepped in as the top Isis commander.

Before his death, Osama bin Laden is known to have favoured al-Qaduli, who had a background as a physics teacher, to take over the Isis leadership. He had for some time acted as the main liason between the Al-Qaeda leader and what was then the Islamic State in Iraq.

His singular importance to the self-described caliphate in Iraq and Syria inevitably meant that al-Qaduli had always been in the cross-hairs of the US and its coalition partners. The Iraqi government claimed it had killed him last year but the Pentagon was not able to confirm it.

The US State Department last year also offered a $7m reward for information about his whereabouts and activities inside Isis. It was the highest reward ever offered with the exception of the $10m on the head of al-Baghdadi himself.
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Some 200 Iraqi political figures and members of foreign embassies have fled the Green Zone in Baghdad fearing that it may be invaded by hundreds of thousands of protesters enraged by the corruption and incompetence of the Iraqi government.

The demonstrators are followers of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who once fought the US occupation and has re-emerged over the past month as the one leader who can tap into popular rage against a kleptocratic elite that many Iraqis see as having ruined their country. Furious crowds outside the Green Zone, which has become a symbol of the isolation and luxurious lifestyle of the Iraqi leadership, have been shouting: Lets get rid of them, they are all thieves.

I dont think the security forces would fire on the demonstrators if they broke into the Green Zone, said a former Iraqi minister earlier this week. He believes that the protesters would probably target the mansions in which live leaders of the Dawa Party, the Shia party which dominates the government.

Marchers a week ago were confronted by serried ranks of riot police in white helmets defending checkpoints immediately outside the walls of the Green Zone, but the police stood aside and did not resist when protesters pushed forward.

The sense of crisis in Baghdad increased on Thursday when the Oil Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, said he was transferring authority over the oil industry, on which Iraq is wholly dependent, to his deputy, citing the anxiety and chaos caused by the political situation. There have been street protests against government corruption in the past, but the current ones are far larger than before and are actively supported by a much wider part of the population who fear the state will not be able to pay their salaries. A Sadrist leader, who did not want his name published, told The Independent: Muqtada al-Sadr could have overthrown the government a month ago if he had wanted to, but instead he is demanding that [the Prime Minister Haider] al-Abadi, dismiss his cabinet and appoint technocrats as ministers in order to stamp out corruption.

Mr Sadr gave the government a 45-day deadline to introduce radical change which expires at the end of this month.

Mr Sadr, always a powerful force within the Shia community and with a bloc of 34 MPs in parliament, is presenting himself as a non-sectarian populist leader with a well-organised movement behind him. At his first mass rally in Tahrir Square in Baghdad on 26 February, he told the vast crowd: This demonstration is the voice of the displaced people and the oppressed Sunnis. Abadi must carry out grassroots reform. Raise your voice and shout so the corrupt get scared of you.

Although Mr Sadr could certainly get his followers to invade the Green Zone if he wanted to, he probably prefers not to carry out this threat for the moment, fearing that an invasion of an enclave full of palaces, wealthy houses and government offices could lead to mass looting, as notoriously occurred when Saddam Hussein fell in 2003. Instead he has set up three camps which are staging sit-ins at three gates into the Green Zone where 3,000 protesters, with identity cards issued by the Sadrist movement, are encamped.

Critics of the Sadrist movement say that it has itself had ministers in the government who are as crooked as the others. Corrupt officials in the banking system protect themselves by making fraudulent loans to people and parties that might prosecute them. There are also doubts about how far technocrats, however honest and professionally capable, would be able to have an impact on an administrative machine that is so dysfunctional and controlled by a mafia with wide networks of power and influence.

By one estimate, there are 25,000 Dawa Party members that run the government and have accumulated great wealth in the past decade. Property prices in central Baghdad are as high as in London because there is so much dirty money looking for an investment, said an Iraqi economist in Baghdad who wanted to remain anonymous.

The crisis is reaching a peak now because Iraq is rapidly running out of money due to the continuing low price of oil, even if this is slightly up on a month ago. Ministers say the problem is that salaries and pensions alone cost the government $4bn a month and oil revenues are only $2bn, so available financial reserves will run out later this year, though exactly when is disputed.

Almost all project and investment spending has been halted, but the Iraqi government still has to pay for seven million people through salaries or other benefits, with 660,000 working for the interior ministry alone. Many salaries, such as those of ghost soldiers who do not exist, are diverted to army officers or defence ministry officials.

Many jobs require little or no work and are part of a patronage-client system common to oil states, in which oil revenues stunt or eliminate all other forms of economic activity. I am not sure you can say that Iraq has a private sector which is not dependent on the state, said the Iraqi economist, noting that even the tomatoes in Baghdad markets are grown in Iran.

Mr Sadrs blend of religion, economic populism and Iraqi nationalism is particularly appealing to Iraqis at a moment when oil revenues are far below what is necessary, despite oil production of 4.5 million barrels a day.

During UN sanctions in the 1990s, when the Iraqi state was starved of cash with devastating consequences for the population, Mr Sadrs father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, created a vastly popular Shia revivalist movement which led to him being murdered in 1999 by Saddam Husseins gunmen, along with two of his sons. His surviving son Muqtada is now becoming the conduit for similar popular anger.
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Isis attempt to end America's capitalist financial system of enslavery with its own currency appears to have failed as the terrorist group relies increasingly on US dollars.

Activists living in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa report that jihadists are now demanding fines handed out for everything from repairing televisions to smoking are paid in the American currency, rather than the Syrian pound or its own dinar.

Militants hailed impending world domination last year as they claimed to launch gold, silver and copper coins, with staged propaganda videos showing them exchanged between fighters and shopkeepers.

The footage, which called the global economy "satanic", claimed the currency would spread to break America's capitalist financial system of enslavery and purify the earth of the corruption that tainted it.

The coins were championed in a series of propaganda videos (Twitter)

But the so-called Islamic State was already known to pay its recruits in dollars, sells oil and looted antiques for dollars, and accept extorted taxation and hostage money in dollars.

Now, the anti-Isis group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently reports it is demanding the American currency from civilians for petty fines.

An undercover activist writing under the name Abu Mohammed drew up the following list of punishments:

Repairing televisions/satellite receivers $50 (35) and 80 lashes

Smoking, per cigarette $25 (18)

Traffic violations $25 (18)

Violation of womens dress code $20 (15)

Violation of males dress code$20 (15)

Failing to attend prayers $20 (15)

Mr Mohammed said fined civilians are often punished phystically and forced to attend re-education courses.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

His report quoted a young Raqqa resident named as Said Ali saying: There are so many rules that you cannot escape  if its not clothing, smoking or even fashion they will find questions to ask.

The man claimed that traffic police were given targets to hit for revenue, making them hand out fines regardless of whether they were deserved, and said the Al-Khansaa Brigade, Isis all-women religious police force, was becoming ever harsher.

Mr Mohammed dismissed supposed dinar as a mere lie and propaganda.

Daesh (Isis) promoted the idea that it was hitting the US economy by issuing its own currency but the organisation on the ground is doing exactly the opposite, having built a financial system entirely dependent on the US dollar, he wrote.

The developments come as the international coalition bombing its territories in Iraq and Syria continues efforts to cut off the groups extensive revenue sources, which previously saw it hailed as the richest ever terrorist group.

Earlier this year Isis was reported to be cutting pay, bonuses, food rations perks and previously abundant treats for its fighters as the strategy appeared to start paying off.

A decree from its treasury, the Bayt Mal al-Muslimeen halved salaries for militants because of exceptional circumstances in January.

A document appeared to show fighters' salaries were being halved in Raqqa (Aleppo 24/Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi)

As the US-led coalition continues bombing oilfields, money stores and infrastructure, the penny-pinching appeared to have intensified the following month.

The Associated Press reported that Isis was trying to generate funds by offering to release prisoners for a price of $500 (350) per head, as well as demanding that civilians living under its control in Raqqa pay their utility bills in dollars.

Propaganda encouraging potential recruits to travel to its territories in Iraq and Syria has previously focused on the quality of life, offering decent salaries, baby bonuses, homes and other benefits to new arrivals.

The groups increasing financial difficulties come as military operations intensify against its strongholds, including the ancient city of Palmyra, leading analysts to suggest that the Brussels attacks may signal Isis lashing out.

The US-led coalition has been bombing the terrorist groups oil fields, supply lines and cash stores since October as part of Operation Tidal Wave II, and the treasury document released last month appeared to show it working.

 RAF planes launch second round of strikes on Isis oil field in Syria

American officials claimed that operations were already putting significant damage on Isils ability to fund itself in November and vowed to step up the attack.

When British planes extended operations from Iraq into Syria in December, Isis Omar oilfields were the first target and Tornadoes and drones have returned to destroy attempted repairs.

A cash distribution centre reportedly used to pay fighters was also hit by US planes on 11 January near its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, with footage showing clouds of money blown into the air.

General Lloyd Austin, head of the US Central Command, told reporters in January that it had deprived the group of millions of dollars.

"We are seeing our efforts having some effect on their financial flows, Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, told the AP.

"Its difficult to get a handle on just how much because of the different illicit ways in which they are handling their finances but you've seen the efforts that our military has taken to take out cash storage sites, and I think it is our hope and expectation that that will have demonstrable effects.
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In what officials said was a major strike against Isis, the US military has claimed it has killed the Islamist group's deputy in an operation inside Syria.

While he declined to provide anything other than the most basic details, US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter, sitting next to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Joseph Dunford, announced that Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli was targeted and killed earlier this week.

The militant was better known as Haji Imam and considered to be the deputy of Isis leader Omar al-Baghdadi. CNN reported that US special forces had launched an operation to try and capture him alive but ended up in a gun fight with Isis fighters that resulted in him being shot and killed.

The former physics teacher was designated as a global terrorist by the US in 2014 and the following year it offered a reward of $7m for information about him that led to his arrest or capture.

Isis fighters in Allepo (Getty)

"We are steadily eliminating Isil's cabinet," said Mr Carter, using another acronym for Isis. He said seveal senior figures within the group had been killed, among them Haji Imam, whom he said acted as the Islamists' finance minister and also overseen some external plots. "He was a well-known terrorist within Isil dating back to its original iteration as Al-Qaeda in Iraq."

The senior military official refused to say whether the Isis leader had been killed by a drone strike or else by US Special Forces on the ground. He said that to divulge such details would undermine the ongoing efforts against the Islamists.

Mr Carter also confirmed the killing of Isiss minister of war in a strike earlier this month. Tarkhan Batirashvili, better known as Omar al-Shishani or Omar the Chechen, was lethally wounded by an airstrike. The fighter, a Syrian-based Georgian national, was reported to have been killed near the Syrian town of al-Shadad.

Inside Isis secret tunnels Show all 7 1 /7 Inside Isis secret tunnels Inside Isis secret tunnels Network of underground tunnels was discovered by Kurdish forces after they regained the town of Sinjar in Iraq Inside Isis secret tunnels A member of the Peshmerga forces inspects a tunnel used by Isis militants in the town of Sinjar, Iraq Reuters Inside Isis secret tunnels An entrance to the tunnel used by Islamic State militants is seen in the town of Sinjar, Iraq Inside Isis secret tunnels The secret tunnels allowed militants to freely move underground Inside Isis secret tunnels The tunnels appear to be wired with electricity Inside Isis secret tunnels Some of the tunnels are 30 feet deep Inside Isis secret tunnels Concerns remain that parts of the tunnels are rigged with explosives

Mr Carter said that several other senior Isis figures who were involved in the finance operations of Isis had been killed. He said that Iraqi forces had also made progress in retaking territory in the north of Iraq that had been in Isis's hands. "As a result, it become a lot harder for Isis leaders to move between Raqqa and Mosul," he said.
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An Israeli soldier, who was allegedly caught on video shooting dead an injured Palestinian man after a stabbing attack, is due to go on trial.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) solider, who is understood to be from the Kfir Brigade, was brought to a detention hearing before the Jaffa Military Court on Friday, where it was announced he would be subject to a murder investigation.

The court will examine the incidents surrounding the shooting and make a decision as to whether the military authorised the shooting before it occurred, The Jerusalem Post reports.

The hearing comes after wide circulation of amateur footage showing the Palestinian man, named as Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif, lying in the street as medical workers treat an Israeli troop who had reportedly suffered minor injuries after being stabbed.

Other Israeli soldiers surround Mr Sharif, who appears to be hurt but still alive. One of the soldiers is then seen raising his gun and apparently shooting Mr Sharif in the head.

The soldier seconds before appearing to fire the shot (YouTube/Btselem)

Another Palestinian man, Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, had reportedly already been shot after allegedly stabbing a solider in Tel Rumeida, in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank, according to rights group BTselem. Both men died during the incident.

The soldier has been named on Twitter as Elor Azraya.

During Fridays hearing it was revealed that a preliminary investigation into the incident had already been conducted before the video was circulated online, following a complaint by one of the Brigades commanders.

Recommended Read more Video shows Israeli troop shoot dead injured Palestinian after attack

An IDF spokesman said on Thursday that an investigation is underway and the solider has been suspended, but will be treated as innocent until full details of the event have been disclosed.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the soldier has claimed he shot the man in self-defence because his life was in danger, adding he feared the man, who had stabbed a soldier, may have attacked again.

"He wore a thick coat and therefore I feared that he would stand and detonate an explosive belt," the IDF soldier said, according to reports.

"After I saw the terrorist moved, I shot him. I just feared that the terrorist would blow himself up."

The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Show all 10 1 /10 The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Medics evacuate a wounded man from the scene of an attack in Jerusalem. A Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a bus stop then got out and started stabbing people before he was shot dead AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Israeli ZAKA emergency response members carry the body of an Israeli at the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem. A pair of Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, in near-simultaneous attacks that escalated a month long wave of violence AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Getty Images The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians throw molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli troops near Ramallah, West Bank. Recent days have seen a series of stabbing attacks in Israel and the West Bank that have wounded several Israelis AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Women cry during the funeral of Palestinian teenager Ahmad Sharaka, 13, who was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes at a checkpoint near Ramallah, at the family house in the Palestinian West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun, Ramallah AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A wounded Palestinian boy and his father hold hands at a hospital after their house was brought down by an Israeli air strike in Gaza Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinians look on after a protester is shot by Israelis soldiers during clashes at the Howara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus EPA The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies A lawyer wearing his official robes kicks a tear gas canister back toward Israeli soldiers during a demonstration by scores of Palestinian lawyers called for by the Palestinian Bar Association in solidarity with protesters at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, near Ramallah, West Bank AP The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Undercover Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian in Ramallah Reuters The IsraeliPalestinian conflict intensifies Palestinian youth burn tyres during clashes with Israeli soldiers close to the Jewish settlement of Bet El, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, after Israel barred Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City as tensions mounted following attacks that killed two Israelis and wounded a child

Benjamin Malka, a lawyer representing the soldier, said: "You can clearly see in the video that the terrorist moves, and that the terrorist is wearing a coat that could conceal an explosive vest and other explosives underneath," Ynetnews reports.

"We are studying the case and will give our client proper representation."

The soldier's family told the local media: "We are studying things, and believe in the innocence of our son, who is an exemplary fighter and a combat medic."

The United Nations special envoy to the Middle East condemned the soldier's actions on Friday, calling the incident, "the apparent extrajudicial execution of a Palestinian assailant.

Nickolay Mladenov said: "This was a gruesome, immoral and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation," the Guardian reports.

Mr Mladenov welcomed Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alons condemnation of the shooting and urged Israeli authorities to swiftly bring to justice the perpetrator who has already been detained.

The incident was immediately denounced as an "execution" by human rights activists and as a "war crime" by the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the shooting, while the IDF said it was "a grave breach of IDF values, conduct and standards of military operations".
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An explosion close to the US Embassy and other diplomatic missions in the Macrorayan area of Kabul has wounded one person - breaking a rare period of calm in Afghanistan's capital.

Explosives planted in a bicycle went off, Kabul's Deputy Police Chief Salem Almas told the Reuters news agency.

He said one person was wounded but could not give details of the intended target.

Suicide bombings and other attacks by Taliban insurgents routinely target Afghan government forces and NATO allies, but Kabul had recently enjoyed several weeks of relative calm, the news agency said
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I don't like beaches unless I can find a private one  I'm not a child at Cliftonville any more.

Sir Roger Moore, 9 October 2004

My greatest travel luxury is private planes. You have to take a deep breath and say, 'I could go to Nice on easyJet for 100 or take a private plane for 15,000.'

Michael Winner, 18 September 2004

I am not a beach bum. I am a prisoner of the shade. Yes, restful immobility in the shade.

Charles Kennedy, 27 March 2004

I went to Oman in the 1960s with the army of the Sultan of Oman. I spent two and a half years in Dhofar and it was utterly unspoilt. I found the area to be the loveliest place on earth. I have been back on archaeological digs, and on one occasion we uncovered the lost city of Yuba.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, 5 February 2005

I dream of going home. I always say 'ET home' when I'm travelling.

Gene Wilder, 4 June 2005

I once climbed Mount Aconcagua. At about 3,000ft, I had the worst attack of the trots ever. I had to strip off and, because it was about 40 degrees below zero, I thought I would lose my manhood.

Brian Blessed, 24 June 2006

I was told by a medicine woman in Hawaii that the first thing I should do whenever I go somewhere new is take off my shoes so that I can feel the heartbeat of the place. I've done that ever since and it grounds me in a visceral way.

Daryl Hannah, 22 May 2010

My best meal abroad was in Japan. The first time I went with Serge [Gainsbourg] in the Seventies, we had never eaten raw fish before.

Jane Birkin, 9 July 2011

Memories are made when you're travelling  not when you're chained to your desk.

Sir Richard Branson, 6 April 2013

The President Hotel in Moscow was terrific. You got the impression everybody was listening in.

John Cooper Clarke, 31 August 2013

I've always loved the Ritz in Paris. In the Eighties, I took up a whole floor. I had two children, the secretary, the husband  we were treated beautifully.

Joan Collins, 14 June 2014

For our first family holiday, we went from our hometown in Illinois to somewhere on Lake Michigan. All I really remember about it is that we had these plastic drinking glasses shaped like little cowboy boots.

John Malkovich, 20 March 2015

The sheer concept of being able to eat above the clouds is rather unbelievable. It helps to lend charm to what might otherwise be a rather ordinary lunch tray.

Alain de Botton, 15 August 2015
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No go

While many places have opened up, some places are tougher to reach than they were in 1986. Many of those on the no-go list are simply the victims of business decisions because of changed circumstances. Anchorage used to be a necessary stop en route to Japan and Korea, but as aircraft gained longer legs it fell off the map of destinations from Britain. And if you want a gander at Gander, note that transatlantic jets no longer routinely touch down at the Newfoundland Nato base to refuel.

Trinidad is not regarded as a viable route for UK airlines any more. The top line of Foreign Office travel advice doesn't help: There are high levels of violent crime in Trinidad, including murder, especially in parts of the capital Port of Spain. In 1986, the neighbouring nation, Venezuela, was first stop for many British visitors to South America, thanks to the tempting fares offered by the national airline, Viasa, to and through its hub in Caracas. Evidently the fares were too low, and the carrier went bust in 1997. Even with the competition eliminated, BA could not make money on the route, and closed it down. With the Foreign Office warning of a high threat from violent crime and kidnapping throughout Venezuela, it may not be back on the airline map any time soon.

Baghdad, Damascus and Tripoli had obnoxious regimes in 1986, but the rare visitor would feel safe. Today, all three capitals are on the Foreign Office no-go list, along with Tunis, even though the Arab Spring began there and helped create a fragile democracy in Tunisia.

In the UK, plucky Ongar in Essex fell off the Tube map when the semi-detached stretch of the Central Line from Epping was closed; and you can no longer fly to or from Plymouth, Manston or Blackpool airports.

Now go

The east, from the western frontier of the Soviet bloc to the Pacific, has been comprehensively unlocked from a travel perspective. Many nations from the Czech Republic (created 1993) to China (expanded 1997, with the addition of Hong Kong and Macau) are now populardestinations.

A glance at the back cover of the Travellers' Survival Kit: Soviet Union & Eastern Europe tells you all you need to know about travel in the Eighties behind the Iron Curtain: How to avoid arrest in Prague  Why you should avoid top floors in Albanian hotels  How to check out at Checkpoint Charlie. The preface advised: If you anticipate things 'working' the way they do in the West, you will be frustrated and miserable.

The book came out on May Day, 1989. The following day, Hungary announced it would no longer maintain the Iron Curtain's hermetic seal. The Eastern bloc dominoes began to tumble.

Neil Taylor, author of guidebooks to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, recalls: Within days of declaring their restored independence, the three Baltic nations allowed completely free entry for British subjects so tourists could explore areas last visited by outsiders in the 1930s. Normal inter-personal relations became possible. In due course I married an Estonian, an unthinkable prospect in 1986, he says. Mr Taylor, in his previous role as a tour operator to hard-to-reach parts of the world, started to open up China a decade before The Independent arrived. For anyone curious to know what the People's Republic was like in the early days of tourism, he recommends North Korea.

There can be few destinations/holiday descriptions where a talk given in 1986 could be given word-for-word today, he says. The country's leader is perfect and no hint of criticism is allowed, just as much under grandson Kim Jong-un as under grandfather Kim Il-sung. The Korean War was fought solely by Koreans against American imperialists, no other country being involved on either side.

During the Eighties, Cuba basked in the benevolence of the Kremlin, which subsidised Fidel Castro's regime to the tune of $10 per person per day. The collapse of the USSR forced the tropical island to come in from the cold and start welcoming Western tourists  with the exception of Americans, barred by their own government from crossing the Florida strait until the entente between President Obama and Fidel's brother, Raul.

In 1986, much of the rest of Latin America was in turmoil. Today, the region looks positively sane compared with other parts of the planet. Former war zones, notably Nicaragua and Colombia, are the rising stars.

Recommended Read more Simon Calder looks back on three decades of Independent travel

Africa remains a vast land of unfulfilled promise. The exception is South Africa. When, in the early 1990s, Nelson Mandela was released and the insane ideology of Apartheid was ousted, the rainbow nation became a dream destination, with Zimbabwe travelling in the opposite direction as Robert Mugabe turned up the tyranny.

Further north, gains in Morocco and Egypt are ebbing away, while in 2016 Tunisia will receive far fewer British visitors than it did 30 years ago.

Trains, boats and planes

Travel has been transformed by the low-fares revolution, which has doubled passenger numbers  but not only in the skies. Sure, budget airlines have done wonders for the traveller, but Britain's railways tell an equal success story. Weary commuters may insist the surge in rail travel simply reflects house prices in big cities forcing people to live further away, and the even greater misery of rush-hour driving. Yet discretionary journeys have soared thanks to the train operators picking up ideas from no-frills airlines. Book ahead, travel at unpopular times and you benefit from some of the lowest train fares in Europe.

Trains between Kent and London are much faster, thanks to High Speed One, while services from the capital to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow have accelerated by 15-30 minutes. But the vast majority of rail travellers will notice little difference in speed compared with 1996.

Eurostar has joined the fare-cutting revolution, reducing its original lowest fare of 95 to Paris and Brussels to just 58  a sound incentive to show solidarity with the citizens of those scarred cities. Or continue south to Spain, which had no fast trains 30 years ago but now boasts Europe's greatest high-speed network.

When the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, everyone imagined the cross-Channel ferries would sail off into the sunset as motorists switched en masse to Le Shuttle from Folkestone. Yet while Boulogne was a casualty of the Channel Tunnel opening in 1994, ferries from Dover to both Calais and Dunkerque have flourished.

There's a kind of hush all over west London these days, thanks to the grounding of Concorde. The current generation of planes are far quieter and more efficient than their predecessors, which is just as well given concerns about the environmental impact of aviation. In 1986, 747s and DC10s were the backbones of long-haul flying, with high fares sustaining some curious route networks: Manchester-Munich-Dubai-Bangkok-Hong Kong, anyone? These days most destinations to the east or the south are accessible with a non-stop from a nearby airport to a Gulf hub and one more hop onwards, for a lower fare than in 1986.

Heathrow and Gatwick have the same number of runways between them as they did in 1946, let alone 1986. For a classic British airport fudge, look no further than Heathrow Terminal 4  opened in 1986 as an overflow measure, south of the main airport. It demanded an implausibly tricky journey for passengers connecting to long-haul flights from BA's short-haul hub in Terminal 1. Even today, aircraft have to cross the active southern runway. Calls for more capacity in south-east England will not be answered for a decade. At least.

Up in the air: the London Eye opened in 2000 (Tom Pilston)

Attractions

Driven by some premier-league new attractions and fuelled by the no-frills revolution, London has become absurdly popular. Ironically, the Millennium Wheel that British Airways bankrolled (now the Coca-Cola London Eye) helped spur interest in the capital, much to the benefit of easyJet and Ryanair. A few weeks after it started revolving in 2000, Tate Modern opened. And a third London wonder opened in that millennial year. Not the disastrous Millennium Dome, but the Great Court of the British Museum  helping to humanise possibly the world's finest repository of antiquity.

The Tate dynasty also revitalised Cornwall, with the 1993 opening of Tate St Ives, helping to make the resort a year-round destination (though you face waiting for a year before visiting it again, since it's closed for refurbishment until April 2017). A decade later, the Eden Project transformed industrial dereliction into a venue for a vibrant encounter with nature. And in Liverpool, the sugar empire contributed an important element to Albert Dock in Liverpool  the largest group of Grade I listed buildings in the UK.

Across the Irish Sea, nearly two decades after the Good Friday agreement ushered in an uneasy peace in Northern Ireland, Ulster is gaining ground as a tourist destination. Titanic Belfast, the Giant's Causeway Visitor Centre and the Gobbins Cliff Path add up to a compelling proposition.

Bilbao's Guggenheim has become the titanium-grade case study for academics wanting to show how a single dramatic attraction can transform a city's tourist appeal. Two of the greatest collections of art in Europe were given facelifts: the Louvre was reborn with I M Pei's Pyramid in 1989, while the Rijksmuseum endured a lost decade before re-opening triumphantly in 2013.

Sydney Harbour Bridge stayed the same, but thousands of tourists saw it in a different light, wearing grey jumpsuits and clambering over the symbolic structure. And appropriately for the world capital of bling, Dubai became the first location to acquire an icon that is a luxury hotel: the sail-shaped, seven-star, 1,600-a-night Burj Al Arab.

Whatever your budget, choice of destinations and style of travel, I will do my best to help. It is a privilege to report on the industry of human happiness, and I hope to do so for the next three decades  though my excellent travel desk colleagues may have other ideas about that particular journey.

Love 30: three decades of travel writing with The Independent

Hamish Mykura spent the summer of 1986 hitch-hiking around the Pacific Rim, in a kilt. In New Zealand

A car rounded the corner, headlamps spotlighting the raindrops, and me. It passed, braked sharply, and came whining back. The door opened. Not many kilts on the Franz Josef road said a womans voice.

I got in, book on my lap, and we raced off. She had a big face, strong smile, something about the cheeks were slightly Maori.

She nodded at the book The Bone People?

Yes, I said. Have you read it?

Actually, she said, I wrote it

Also in 1986, Frank Barrett revealed the last unspoilt place on the Mediterranean

He wrote: Turkey looks as though it will not remain unspoilt for long. Horizon, Britains third-largest holiday company, last week published its first special Turkey brochure with package deals starting at 199 for seven nights.

Harriet OBrien visited France in November 1995 when the pound was particularl poorly

Its enough to make you wince. Theres Paris - galleries, tree-lined boulevards, great curvy buildings, enticing shops transforming your purchases into exciting-looking packages - now a simple, three-hour train ride away from London. PBut then theres the franc: the exchange rate, just a shade over Fr7 to the pound [about 1.05], brings you down to earth with a bump.

Stephen Wood travelled to the Italian island of Lampedusa before it became synonymous with refugees arriving from Libya

A minute from the plane and you know that you are in North Africa: sleeping dogs dont lie, and the wide, dusty streets are full of them. The surrounding landscape, too, is as dry and scrubby as Tunisia, which lies only 80 miles to the west. However, a tile embedded in the pavement just past the piazza Garibaldi on the via Roma carried an important message: alongside a map of the island were the words La mia Africa. This is Italian Africa.

John Walsh sailed aboard Celebrity Solstice in November 2008

Its excessive to call cruise ships floating cities  theyre more like floating villages where you greet the same faces day after day, explore little nooks and crannies from bow to poop, and stroll endlessly around the same village square. One of the Solstices features is the Lawn Club  half an acre of actual real-life grass, grown not from soil but from an engineered porous lightweight growing media thats apparently just as good. Cruisers can wiggle their toes on the grass as if they were standing in a Kent meadow rather than floating on several thousand fathoms of ocean.

Sophie Lam visited Sri Lanka in 2009

A distant rumble cut through the chatter of birds as I lay by the pool of the serene Park Street Hotel in Colombo, prompting a hasty avian exodus from the trees above. My companion looked up from his book; we exchanged uncertain glances then returned to our lounging. The notion that it could have been a bomb felt so incongruous in the gracious surroundings of the 250-year-old mansion-turned-boutique hotel that we swiftly dismissed the idea, until an hour or so later when the crackle of what sounded like gunfire again rattled us from our repose.

Ben Ross explored Bhutan in 2011

There are many ways to achieve enlightenment. For Yarab, my Bhutanese guide, the two-hour hike up to Tigers Nest was one of them. The more I go, he called down to me as I sweated up a series of steep steps, the more I get a benefit for my karma. The present is what you are doing; the future is a gift. Practising Buddhists have a habit of saying things like that while smiling serenely at you. Frankly, the only gifts I wanted at that particular point were a more capacious pair of lungs and a set of reupholstered kneecaps. Yarab paused, waiting for me to catch up. This was the 708th time hed made this journey, he said. There was no rush. I should take my time.
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Scotland has a new national poet. Jackie Kay says she hopes to open up the conversations, the blethers, the arguments and celebrations that Scotland has with itself and with the rest of the world. Announcing the appointment, Scotlands first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, paid tribute to Kays particular Scottish brand of gallus humour adding that she was known for her poignant and honest words.

England too has, of course, has long had the post of poet laureate. Carol-Ann Duffy has the role at present, though I dont recall David Cameron doing a Sturgeon and analysing her writing style.

What did strike me for the first time, when I heard of Kays appointment, was how we accept it as natural that poets and poetry can address the concerns and celebrations of a nation, and that it is natural that there should be a national poet. But why do we restrict this role to poets and poetry?

We could, after all, just as easily have a Playwright Laureate. Id nominate Sir Tom Stoppard. He could bring his brand of humour, searing intellect and insight (if I am to do a Sturgeon) to bear on a national event. Plays take longer to write than a poem, for sure, but perhaps we could compromise on a brief one act playlet. Even if he only wrote one play about a national event during his tenure, just having a national playwright would send out a message about the importance of drama and its ability to help us understand our society and our lives.

The same, of course, applies to fiction, and I see no reason why we shouldnt have a National Novelist to take his or her place alongside the national poet. Again, in the interests of time we might have to compromise on a short story. But why should that be of less worth, or less memorable, than a poem?

And now Im in the swing, Id go further. Fans of dance will assure you that theres an art form which can give its own take not just on events but on the human condition. Darcey Bussell would have been an ideal National Dancer. And it almost goes without saying that we should have a Composer Laureate to give us an overture, oratorio or even just a song to commemorate a moment in the nations history (The Master of the Queens Music cant be said to have a national profile). Painting too is a natural way to represent and explore our national identity, triumphs and disasters. Its strange, when you think of it, that we have official war artists but no sort of official peace artist.

Having laureates across the art forms would achieve two objectives. Firstly, it would enable us to mark moments of national importance in different cultural ways appealing to different audiences. Secondly, it would celebrate the importance and achievement f the best in ther fields and bring their work to a wider public.

The poets have had it to themselves for too long.

A heady mix of culture and campaigns

In our final edition we have reprised some of The Independents cultural greatest hits  a selection of some of the outstanding critics and writers that have contributed over the last 29 and a half years. Readers and leading lights in the arts world would, I think, agree that The Independent has led the way in erudite, provocative, witty and incisive arts writing in a period during which British culture itself has entered a golden age.

On a personal level, I am proud to have helped shape that coverage, first as arts correspondent then as arts editor and cultural commentator, over most of those 29 and a half years. Certainly, I recall my exclusives, that the Tate was to open a new gallery devoted to modern art; that the RSC was to leave its London home; that David Bowie and William Boyd had hoaxed the art world with a biography of a fake artist. But I look back with particular pride on my successful campaign to have parked cars removed from the courtyards of important cultural buildings such as the British Museum and Somerset House, buildings whose open spaces have since become social hubs. And, more recently, I am grateful for your support in your many emails and letters for my sustained pressure to end booking fees and have cheaper tickets generally to encourage greater access to the arts.

The Independents arts coverage, like The Independent itself, will henceforth be found on the new App and on the website. To use a phrase beloved of the arts world, it will aim to remain at the cutting edge.

d.lister@independentco.uk

twitter.com/@davidlister1
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After the terror attacks in Paris last November, The Independent concurred with President Hollandes verdict that these atrocities were an act of war. The suicide bomb attacks in Brussels on Tuesday were another event in the same war: same aggressors, similar innocent victims.

Acceptance that we are in a war makes such murderous events both easier and harder for us to deal with. Easier, because no war ends with a single battle, so unconsciously at least we were braced for further such atrocities, as the speed at which the Brussels metro returned to normal service suggested. But if these warlike events, stretching back to the 9/11 attacks in the US and the 7/7 attacks in London, are understood as battles in an ongoing war  and both the public and the authorities are aware that this is the case  it becomes harder to accept the failure of those responsible to take the necessary steps to bring the war to an end.

As our Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn has argued, we and our allies share a grave responsibility for creating the circumstances in which Islamist terror groups can thrive, and then refusing to learn the lessons of those mistakes.

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The invasion of Iraq, where jihadi terror had barely a toehold under Saddam Hussein, created a power vacuum and a seething population of resentful Sunni Muslims, which proved the perfect ground for Isis to emerge and flourish. We went on to make precisely the same errors in Libya, with the same consequences  a grotesque error for which David Cameron has never publicly apologised. Indeed, only the wisdom of the House of Commons balked him from doing precisely the same thing all over again in Syria, eliminating the Assad regime and thereby throwing down the welcome mat to Isis in Damascus. Even today there is no indication that he and his colleagues are aware of how much more dangerous their actions have made the situation in Europe.

But given the fact that terror is today being manufactured and exported from Iraq and Syria in industrial quantities, the other, equally grave problem is that Europe has utterly failed to forge an adequate response to it.

Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Show all 27 1 /27 Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Wreaths of flowers in front of an entrance of the Maalbeek subway station in Brussels in homage to the victims of a terrorist attack. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Wreaths of flowers in front of an entrance of the Maalbeek subway station in Brussels in homage to the victims of a terrorist attack. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A building illuminated with the Belgian flag colours and a heart in Brussels, two days after suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on March 22 in Zaventem airport and subway Maelbeek. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A picture taken on 24 March, 2016 on place de la Bourse in Brussels, shows drawings and a candle, two days after suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on March 22 in Zaventem airport and Brussels subway Maelbeek Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Candles are displayed in tribute to the Brussels attacks victims on 24 March, 2016 on place de la Bourse in Brussels, two days after the suicide bombing attacks of terrorists on 22 March. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A mourner lights a candle in Trafalgar Square during a candlelit vigil in support of the victims of the recent terror attacks in Brussels. Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels airport workers pay tribute to the victims near Zaventem Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Activists light candles and hold placards to condemn the terrorist attacks in Belgium, during a gathering in Manila, Philippines Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A banner for the victims of the bombings reads "I am Brussels" at the Place de la Bourse in the center of Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, left front center, stands with front row, left to right, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Belgium's King Philippe, Belgium's Queen Mathilde and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as well as members of the European Commission during a minute of silence at EU headquarters in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims People join hands in solidarity near the former stock exchange following the bomb attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Belgium flags ornate the facade of the Paris Town Hall Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A woman embraces her children at The Place de la Bourse as she pays her respects to victims of the terrorists attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Belgian and European Union flags fly at half mast following the bomb attacks in Brussels Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Candles in the colors of the Belgian national flag are lit inside the Belgian embassy in Madrid, a day after the deadly suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and its subway system Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Servicemen of Azov, Ukrainian volunteers battalion, hold torches in front of floral tributes during a ceremony in front of the Belgian embassy in Kiev, in tribute to the victims of Brussels attacks Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims A refugee boy holds up a placard reading "Sorry for Brussels" at a refugee camp near the Greek-Macedonian border Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People light candles in tribute to victims at a makeshift memorial at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A woman holds a drawing by French cartoonist Plantu picturing a character made of a French flag consoling another made of the Belgian flag, in front of the Hotel de Ville in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes The colours of the Belgian flag are projected on to (clockwise from top left) the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the town council building in Belgrade, Rome's Campidoglio and the Royal Palace at Dam Square in Amsterdam Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Candles are lit in tribute to the victims, at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A woman holds a placard reading "Paris hearts Belgium, How much time will it take us to open our eyes and say STOP, Today our hearts are broken, Open your eyes to change the future" at the Place de la Republique in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People gather to pay a tribute to victims of terrorist attacks in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes People write messages on the ground at Place de la Bourse in Brussels Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes A bouquet of flowers in the Belgian national colours with a card reading 'To our neighbours, to our friends, to our Belgian brothers - an indignant Parisian' is seen next to a French national flag at the fence of the Belgian embassy in Paris Getty Images Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Solidarity messages are written in chalk outside the stock exchange in Brussels AP Brussels attacks: tributes are paid to the victims Brussels tributes Messages and floral tributes outside the Brussels stock exchange AP

Turkey deported Brahim el-Bakraoui, one of the Brussels bombers, to the Netherlands last year, but despite overt warnings by Ankara that he was a terrorist fighter, he was able to go about his business, which culminated in him blowing himself and others up at Brussels Airport. One might fondly suppose that the erosion of national borders in the EU would facilitate the continent-wide struggle against the terrorists, but the opposite seems to be the case: while Schengen permits the killers to slip in and out of any country they fancy, the EUs counter-terrorism co-ordinator was dismissed in a recent French parliamentary report as weak and having no operational capacity to offer. Nigel Farages comment about the free movement of Kalashnikovs was crassly timed but essentially correct.

Like other vital EU arms such as Frontex, the border control agency, the counter-terrorism co-ordinator is disastrously weak, as weak as the unions weakest link. And few links are more treacherous than Brussels: heart of the union, and so dysfunctional in its policing that Molenbeek, where much recent terror has been incubated, has been a no-go zone for decades.

As Mr Farage was tartly reminded, the aftermath of an atrocity is no time for political point-scoring. But there is no disguising that Europe faces a number of existential challenges, among which its will and ability to defend its citizens from terrorists is perhaps the most crucial.
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Last summer Young Labour blanketed itself in a sense of euphoria. Yes, our party may have lost the election; our optimism, encouraged by pollsters and the unexpected popularity of the Milifandom, may have been initially destroyed. But it wasnt the end; it was just the start of a new beginning.

There was a new guy on the Labour scene: a guy who looked oddly like your granddad, wore tweed suits and rode a pushbike through Islington. Jeremy Corbyn was set to change the face of the tired and irrelevant Labour Party, and that hot bed of lefties - the student population of Britain  was understandably excited.

That euphoria, however, is slowly bringing about the end of the Labour party. According to figures released this week, the tidal wave of support that pushed Corbyn to the opposition front bench is coming to an end. For the first time since the general election of May 2015, more people are leaving the Labour Party than joining. And I am among them.

The majority of these Labour deserters are thought, like me, to be the students that drove him to success: the idealists who were swept up in the hashtags and headlines became quickly bored and have moved on elsewhere, it is said. This sweeping assumption does Labour students a great disservice.

Students arent leaving Labour because it isnt trendy anymore. Students are leaving Labour because they are fed up. Fed up with the ecstatic reception Corbyn still receives - particularly in UK universities where Labour Societies have become increasingly elite and exclusive to ardent Corbynites, with no room for questioning Our Great Leader - despite very little demonstration of any opposition to the increasingly strident Conservative Government.

In the short time since Corbyn assumed office, junior doctors have revolted, air strikes have been launched against Syria, the North of England has suffered devastating floods, and the government has been plunged into chaos as a result of the most divisive Budget in living memory.

Where has Corbyn been? On the streets, waving a banner? On the benches, delivering scathing counter remarks? Who knows? I follow politics religiously and could not tell you one thing that Corbyn has achieved in the last six months.

Partner this relative inaction with the tense, gagged nature of young Labour organisations, and is there any reason to question why once naively optimistic young people are now leaving the party?

I originally paid my 1 to join Labour Students in 2012, just before I started my politics A Level. Born to middle-class parents with working-class roots, and enrolled at a school that consistently sent pupils to Oxbridge despite being in an area that had been completely economically destroyed by the closure of the mines and the subsequent strikes less than 30 years previously, my naive social optimism founded in a working-class heritage was best suited to Labour Party politics. But I just cannot bring myself to remain associated with the party.

My leaving is not a great political statement: I have not set fire to my membership certificate, or sent any strongly worded letters to members of the shadow cabinet. I just cant find the energy or commitment to respond to the increasingly frantic emails arriving daily into my inbox. My new-found attitude towards Corbyn & Co? Apathetic.

I am apathetic towards weak leadership that is yet to provide any alternative to discriminatory government policy; apathetic towards the consistent headlines of horrific Tory cuts making it through the Commons unchallenged; and apathetic towards what has become an insular, nasty political community.

I am now apathetic towards the Labour Party  and apathetic towards the left.
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It was Simon Kelner who offered me a column on this paper. I told him I wasnt sure I was up to the job of writing 1,000 words every week. Id done a stint reviewing television for The Correspondent, but reviewing is different  its not just you and the inside of your head. Simon suggested I try for a few months and see how I felt. That was 18 years ago. When I saw him recently, he asked if Id made my mind up. I told him I hadnt.

I wrote my early columns in a camper van travelling from Perth to Broome. I recall composing one while sitting on a collapsible stool by a billabong that had been a smudge of dry dirt the day before but was now home to pelicans, wading birds and a single black swan. Another, I phoned in from a rowing boat on the heartbreak-blue waters of Shark Bay, 1,000 miles from anywhere. Bottlenosed dolphins tried to nudge the phone out of my hand. In Broome itself, I wrote about watching an Aboriginal musical under a broiling night sky from which a succession of shooting stars fled like sparks from the fires of hell. In the heat, the moon rolled red like a drunkard.

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Six months later I was back in London, still writing the column, but without the Australian wildlife. It changed days, changed length, changed format, and little by little I changed with it. The anecdotal mode gave way to the discursive, the ironical to the ireful, until I decided I was going in the wrong direction and changed back again.

I hadnt signed on to write opinion pieces about war and famine  I am a novelist and novelists arent meant to have opinions  but nor did I want to dance inconsequentially upon a pinhead every week. Making something out of nothing is a challenge to a writer; do it too often, though, and nothing comes of nothing.

Whats worse, ponderousness or levity? My first responsibility, I believed, was to entertain in a spirit of high seriousness. Glide seamlessly between Rabelais and George Eliot.

But no one entertains all of the people all of the time. Kelner stopped being entertained when I began savaging other writers on the paper. And those other writers werent much entertained either. But readers who didnt share the indurated anti-Zionism I was attacking declared themselves grateful.

In other circumstances, I might have written fewer articles on the subject. I didnt come on to the paper a polemical Zionist. If I have sometimes sounded like one, thats the papers fault. Im not saying I cared nothing for Israel beforehand, but there was a new orthodoxy of anti-Zionism in the air and this paper inhaled its poisons freely. Had there been fewer anti-Zionists writing, and had their hostility to Israel been less a thing of myth and rhetoric, I might not have felt the call to buckle up as often as I did. But when I did buckle up, it was as a critic of their psychology, not their politics. The deep, self-deluding irrationality of hatred will always give itself away in language first.

We all learn on the job, and writing is no exception. It is said of novels that if you know what youre going to say before you say it, you wont produce a good novel. The same, to my mind, is true of writing a column.

You need to snake your way to meaning, find out whats true, or at least more true than false, in the course of saying it, allow the words to discover the passion, not the passion dictate the words. The reason ideology leads us astray is that it is the expression of made-up minds. The best novels surprise their authors and the best columns end up somewhere the columnist never expected to go.

Online, the made-up mind characterises much that passes for comment. Wise columnists dont read the threads that follow their words, but once in a while it is instructive to do so. It is a jungle in which the combatants are so befuddled they forget it was you they set out to attack and end up tearing at one another. Once upon a time, the ignorant, the froward and the vain vented their spleen in letters written in green ink and sealed with a little sticker showing a dove of peace. Now theres no need for the pretence. You can revile and say so at the press of a button. This too has come to be a subject Ive returned to reluctantly, but often: the gadarene swine effect of the social media.

Whats wrong with the social media can be simply stated. In the heat of violent exchange, everything but opinion gets lost. A generation has grown up that  online, at least  is deaf to tone, impervious to irony, incapable of grasping that thought can be tentative and argument exploratory. Theirs is a battleground of stated positions. One view lowers its head and charges its antlers at another. All we can hope is that in time they will all have butted themselves into unconsciousness.

I am asked whether writing columns has interfered with writing fiction. My answer is no, because I have approached both in a similar spirit. It might sound fanciful to claim that my columns have been little novels, but that was how I saw them. Essays into rather than about, dramatic pieces in which I didnt have to say what I believed, because I didnt know, or didnt want to know, or hoped that in the interactive play of images and ideas a way of looking at the world would emerge that wasnt trite, that might surprise and energise, and would give pleasure.

Pleasure to me too. For 18 years of which, now I have finally made my mind up, I owe Simon Kelner thanks. And so I leave you.
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There have been many reasons put forward as to why the atrocities in Paris, Brussels, London and elsewhere took place. But to me the reason is obvious.

The aim of the so-called Islamic State is to establish a worldwide caliphate with the Islamic flag flying over the White House, Downing Street, and the Palace of Versailles. But this is unlikely to be achieved by acts of terror, however distressing these are to the families immediately affected and to the wider population. They have killed hundreds; to achieve worldwide domination they need to subjugate millions. With this in mind, we need to reassess their aims.

Im sure the real aim of these acts of terror is to get the non-Islamic population to turn against the Muslims and thus convert hundreds of young men and women to their diabolic cause.

So the siren voices in the west  the Donald Trumps, Nigel Farages, Marine Le Pens and the rest  have to be made aware that they are the recruiting sergeants for Isis. The leaders of the Western democracies need an immediate charm offensive among all Muslim communities, making sure they feel totally included.

Only thus can the enlightened world attain the unity that will ensure that all attempts to destroy our values are pathetic failures.

Stuart Russell

Cirencester

Stan Labovitch (letter, 24 March) asks, if western foreign policy is thought to be the cause of Islamic terrorism, what has Belgium done to deserve the recent bombs in Brussels?

Well, perhaps Daesh (Isis) dont mind which bit of Western Europe they attack, and Belgium is an easy target. But whatever the cause, we have to begin from where we are now.

There is much discussion about the extent to which our freedom should be sacrificed in the interest of security. That, presumably, is what the terrorists want, and is precisely not what we should do.

Its tempting to regard the bombers as mindless louts who deserve no sympathy, though many of them may be the victims of brain-washing. Either way, the extensive coverage given to them is probably a source of satisfaction, and may aid recruitment  should it not be reduced?

But if we really want to get to the root of the problem, surely the solution is to talk to them, unpalatable as that might be. The Northern Ireland situation didnt improve until discussions took place.

Unfortunately this might not sit well with some politicians, who appear to prefer macho pomposity. We can only hope that they are holding talks behind the scenes, as John Major is alleged to have done with IRA members.

Susan Alexander

Frampton Cotterell, Gloucestershire

Change money at a bank? Youre joking

After a successful fundraising, I asked a local branch of a leading high-street bank to change 370 of coin into notes, as in previous years. This service was refused.

I was told that this was because It wouldnt show up as activity in their records, You dont have an account and You dont have a credit slip for another bank. Astonishingly I was also asked Why do you want the money changed? as my arms lengthened under the weight of coins.

It seems that the idea of a local bank doing a simple service for someone local is now dead. Thats company policy.

I then spent half an hour vainly trying to get the North Yorkshire regional managers address from what is laughingly called Customer Service, a call centre in Mumbai. I was eventually given a number but it turned out to be unrecognised.

So I went to the Post Office, who did the job in 10 minutes.

Allan Friswell

Cowling, North Yorkshire

It is easy to mock the current platitudes used in customer service (letters, 25 March), but please dont be too harsh.

Ten years ago, I worked in a special unit teaching what I called misfits (excuse non-PC terminology), 15- to 16-year-olds who could not fit in with school routines. One was a boy who was agonisingly shy and gauche, with low self-esteem, but methodical and intelligent.

He went into further education but work was hard to get around 2010. Three years ago he got a basic job on the check-out at a large local supermarket. Now it is a joy to see him amiable and chatty, initiating conversation with customers. Staff training may not be perfect, but it has enabled one very shrinking violet to flourish.

S Lawton

Kirtlinton, Oxfordshire

Software with the human touch

When Alan Turing, father of modern computing, invented the Turing test in 1950, to test a machines ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from a human, he probably didnt envisage an artificial intelligence (AI) chat robot being taught to swear and espouse racist propaganda by millions of Twitter users within 24 hours of going live.

Thats what happened when Tay, a robot developed by Microsoft, had to be taken down because the software firm said it was, making some adjustments. Tay is a small part of the wider growth in the trend for business automation software. Digital transformation is increasingly putting pressure on companies to sacrifice the human element of business to make digital services available, creating fears that robots will take our jobs.

As we develop digital services, businesses should remember that automation software should enhance human interaction, not replace it. Improvements in efficiency and profitability are only likely if AI is used to enhance human-to-human interaction. Passing the Turing test is great, but not if it fails to enhance relationships between people.

Stephen Parker

CEO, Parker Software

Knypersley, Staffordshire

A smear to silence critics of Israel

What can explain the furore over alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party? There seem to have been a few reprehensible instances of individual party members expressing racist stereotypes of Jews. But these are not the main target of the attacks against Jeremy Corbyns leadership. The true motivation is to discredit the party and its many pro-Palestine activists with a smear of antisemitism.

It is not antisemitic to support the international Palestinian campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), nor to denounce the Israeli regime as an apartheid system. It is not even antisemitic to question the regimes right to exist, just as it was not racist to deny the South African apartheid regimes right to exist.

It surely is antisemitic to equate Jewish and Zionist identities. This racist stereotype silences many Jews and makes us more vulnerable to blame for Israels systemic war crimes. The true racists are those who blur the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism in order to protect the Israeli regime from the BDS campaign.

Les Levidow

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, London

Wrong time for a Europe referendum

It is absurd to have a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union at this time. Europe is in turmoil, our political parties are in turmoil, and we have an appalling refugee crisis on our doorstep. It is not the moment to be making really long-lasting decisions.

How much more sensible to postpone it, save the expense and use the money to relieve the plight of those desperate refugees.

L Grant

Burwell, Cambridgeshire

The so-called in-out referendum is no such thing. The choice is between the United Kingdom being out of the European Union and being half out. A dismal dilemma for anyone who is thoroughly pro-EU.

Andrew Belsey

Whitstable, Kent

Hail and farewell

I was worried about going the way of the app, but as I read it today for the first time on my iPad I realised this really is progress. I hadnt realised Id get more detail than in the paper, such as additional photos on the German destroyers in Portsmouth Harbour.

Phew! I have read The Independent since day one, so this is a great relief.

Sean OHara

Robertsbridge, East Sussex

Ive decided I like the app: it arrives before breakfast; I can read it while eating my toast; my wife can also read it on her iPad so we dont argue about dismantling the paper; and finally I can wipe the marmalade off it and its still readable.

David Wallis

Cirencester

While you may disappear in paper form, one edition will live for ever in our hearts: 20 November 1993. We found each other through your original Independent Hearts column, and were married in 1995. Thank you.

Guy and Caroline Carmichael

London W1

It is difficult to understand how The Independent, which took such a principled stand against Britains illegal invasion of Iraq, will be out of print before the inquiry into that invasion goes into print.

J Samuel

Reading
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Last week George Osborne presented a Budget that was barely worth the paper it was printed on. We discovered that not only has he massaged the figures, including shuffling around billions in corporation tax receipts, but that he has also squeezed in a flotilla of unspecified cuts. The Chancellor is doing this not because he needs to balance the books, but because he wants to hit an arbitrary target for the government surplus in 2019-20.

This is an entirely political choice, not one made through economic necessity. Proof is provided by Osborne himself, as he now claims he can absorb 4.4 billion in disability cuts he has reversed, despite previously having claimed they were necessary.

He is still going ahead with tax breaks that will go overwhelmingly to the wealthiest 5 per cent, by cutting capital gains tax. And for big corporations he is continuing to slash corporation tax worth billions more in revenue. Obviously if he cant collect Googles taxes then he thinks he might as well cut them. Meanwhile he plans to cut real-terms funding for schools by 8 per cent.

In worsening economic circumstances, due (as the Office for Budget Responsibility have explained) to a weakening domestic economy, the Chancellor should have taken remedial action. Labours calls for a major boost to government investment have been joined by a growing coalition that now includes international expert bodies like the IMF and the OECD, alongside the TUC and CBI at home. Astonishingly, however, the Chancellor has planned for government investment to fall over the lifetime of this Parliament.

George Osbornes record as Chancellor is one of successive failures. He has failed to close the governments deficit, and is on course to miss his target for this financial year. He has failed to bring down the governments debt, scheduled now to increase. He has burst his own welfare cap. Two out of the three planks of his entire fiscal programme are bust.

So the Chancellor must cling to his ludicrous surplus target for 2019-20. Not a single credible economist can be found to justify it, but if the Chancellor loses this, the sacrifices of the last few years would appear to have been in vain.

Pinning everything on the surplus has meant collapsing the rest of the Budget. Taking the unspecified cuts and U-turns together leaves the national finances with a 11.9bn black hole over the next five years.

In the final year of this Parliament, when Osbornes all-important surplus target is due to be met, Osborne has a 6.8bn hole in the public finances, made up of unspecified cuts, the U-turn on Personal Independence Payments, and a squeeze on public sector bodies paying pensions. The last is a particular concern, since funding for the 2bn extra Treasury demand could come even from supposedly protected departments.

To fill the hole in the Chancellors accounts will require either steep extra cuts, or stealth tax rises equivalent to over 1p on the basic rate of income tax. I suspect George Osborne, more chancer than Chancellor, is trying to bank on the official forecasts turning in his favour again, come the autumn. But with the Office for Budget Responsibility now saying that good news last year was a false dawn, this is a shockingly large gamble for him to take. Even now they think there is a less than 50:50 chance of him hitting his target.

This is no way to manage an economy. George Osbornes cowardly political manoeuvring has subjected the most vulnerable to unnecessary worry, and left the entire national budget adrift. It is time for him to ditch his failed surplus target, and introduce some sound economic principles to his policy. Labours Fiscal Credibility Rule, drawn up with world-leading economists, provides a robust means to ensure the governments deficit is paid down, but still allows government with the capacity to invest in the future. Weve offered to discuss this and other alternatives with the Treasury. But first the Chancellor must stop playing short-term politics, and start to act in the long-term interests of the whole country.

The truth is that the Chancellor is happy to break the rules to suit himself and a wealthy few. Instead Labour wants to rewrite the rules so we have an economy that works for all.
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I was amused yesterday to hear that the Mayor of London Boris Johnson is calling on gay Britons to vote to leave the European Union in June's UK Referendum. Apart from finding his comments absurd, they once again reminded me that he is an opportunist politician.

Boris Johnson says that LGBT people should vote to leave the EU because this will ensure their rights are protected, saying the UK has the most progressive attitudes to LGBT issues anywhere in the world. Yet, under the EUs treaties and law, LGBT rights are already protected.

In all member states sexual activity between those of the same-sex is legal, and discrimination in employment for example has been banned since 2000. This means, Europe has been protecting our rights as gay people for over 15 years.

Its no secret that when it comes to same-sex unions and marriage, along with adoption issues, each state in the EU has different laws which might not please all. However, it would be disingenuous of us Brits to throw stones at glass houses when marriage equality has only just become law in Britain. In Northern Ireland, it is still illegal in the year 2016. It was Europe as a Union that paved the way with marriage equality, with countries like the Netherlands and Spain well ahead of the UK. As British LGBT people, we may have more rights now, but it wasnt always like this. The EU has played its part in making life for gay people more equal, with our European brothers and sisters often leading the LGBT way.

The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Show all 6 1 /6 The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Justice Anthony Kennedy and the other Supreme Court Justices who legalised same sex marriage in the US The US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage is all 50 states of America in June, splitting 5-4 in favour. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy said gay people hope not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions. The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Caitlyn Jenner After she revealed her new self in an interview and cover with Vanity Fair magazine in June, the former olympian quickly became the most famous trans person in the world. AFP/Getty The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Cara Delevigne The former model said she identified as bisexual in an interview with Vogue in July. AFP/Getty The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Ellen Page The openly gay actress confronted Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz at a campaign rally in Iowa in August over laws that discriminate against the LGBT community. AFP/Getty The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 iO Tillett Wright The artist and Instagram star began the Self Evident Truths project in 2015 to photograph everyone who doesnt identify as 100% straight. Famously it featured Johnny Depps teenage daughter Lily Rose who said she fell somewhere on the vast spectrum and singer Selena Gomez who addressed rumours she was dating Cara Delevigne. AFP/Getty The pioneers of LGBT rights in 2015 Ruby Rose Australian born Rose was one of the very first celebrities to come out as genderfluid. She was hailed for giving it a public platform a the MTV Europe Music Awards in October when she welcomed ladies and gentlemen, and everyone in-between in her introduction.

As the London Assembly Member Tom Copley pointed out yesterday, the EU was banning workplace discrimination against LGBT people back when Boris Johnson was writing that gay marriage could lead to three men and a dog getting married. So, Mr Copley is right when he says we should treat the current Boris stunt with the contempt that it deserves.

Recommended Read more Our reaction to the Brussels bombings versus Ankara is worrying

Its important not to dwell on the past, but lets not forget that it was Mr Johnsons party that introduced the Section 28 law which prohibited local authorities from promoting homosexuality or gay pretended family relationships. The MEP Seb Dance commented on this saying, While the European Union was working to extend LGBTI around the world, Boris Johnson talked up the merits of Clause 28 and its ability to stop leftwing local authorities to waste taxpayers money on idiotic and homosexual instruction. It wasnt until a Labour government, that this discriminatory act was finally repealed.

Im neither in the stay or leave camp and dont speak for either, but you dont have to be a politician to know that being part of Europe is good for Britain and its LGBT people. We are stronger because we're in the EU, and a vote to leave would jeopardise this. For LGBT people, leaving Europe really would be a leap into the dark.
A Garda spokesman said the raid followed a lengthy surveillance operation aimed at disrupting a supply chain in the city

Cocaine with an estimated street value of 112,000 euro has been seized by Gardai.

Mixing agents, scales and a quantity of cash were also recovered when officers searched a property in south Dublin.

A Garda spokesman said the raid followed a lengthy surveillance operation aimed at disrupting a supply chain in the city.

On Wednesday, suspected crack cocaine with a street value of 3,000 euro and two false passports were found w hen officers searched premises at Moore Street in Dublin.

A man in his 30s was arrested and is currently being held at Store Street Garda station under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act.
Traders work at their desks in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt. Photo: Reuters

Retailers led a fourth day of declines in European shares in a week shortened by the Easter weekend.

By the close in Dublin yesterday, the ISEQ Overall Index was little changed, down just 0.01pc, or 70 points, to end the trading day at 6,224.82.

The leaders on the Dublin market included Dalata Hotel Group, which rose 1.2pc to 4.37, while Smurfit Kappa increased 0.9pc to 22.59 as it confirmed its plan to move its primary stock market listing to London.

The 5.3bn company said it would increase its profile and attractiveness to a wider potential investor base.

On the other side of the board, the laggards included Kerry Group, which dropped 0.9pc to 81.40, while drinks group C&C slipped 0.8pc to 3.91.

Elsewhere, Europe's benchmark dropped 1.5pc at the close of trading.

Markets are closed today for Good Friday, with some, including Norway and Denmark, shut yesterday too.

Next led retail shares to the worst performance among Stoxx Europe 600 Index groups yesterday, down 15pc after cutting its annual sales-growth forecast.

Marks & Spencer Group and Associated British Foods, which is the owner of clothing chain Primark, slid 4.9pc or more.

Car giant Volkswagen dropped 2pc after it failed to reach an agreement with authorities in the United States over its tainted diesel engines.

The Stoxx 600 capped its longest losing streak in six weeks as investors awaited the European earnings season and speculated on the pace of Federal Reserve rate hikes.

It hasn't posted back-to-back gains since it reached a two-month high on March 14, signalling a loss of momentum for the rally that more than halved its 2016 decline.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Irish international packaging giant Smurfit Kappa has confirmed its plan to move its primary stock market listing to London.

The 5.3bn company said it would increase its profile and attractiveness to a wider potential investor base.

It will maintain a secondary listing in Dublin, however.

It's one of a number of large Irish multinationals that in the past few years have ditched their Dublin listings either entirely in favour of London, or made London their primary listing and relegated Dublin to second-favourite.

Building materials giant CRH made London its primary market in 2011, but maintains a secondary listing on the Irish Stock Exchange.

CRH is now a constituent member of the prestigious FTSE-100 index of the UK's largest companies.

Grafton Group, which generates about 75pc of its revenue in the UK, moved its sole listing to London in 2013 and changed its reporting currency to sterling.

In 2013, distribution giant DCC moved its listing to London, while in 2012, food group Greencore made a similar move.

UDG Healthcare also moved to London in 2012, cancelling its Dublin listing.

All the companies generate the bulk of the revenue and profits outside Ireland.

Moving to London allows them to be considered for inclusion various FTSE indices, including the benchmark FTSE-100 and FTSE-250, and exposes them to a much wider potential investor base.

For Smurfit Kappa, inclusion in the FTSE indices could happen as early as May, but more likely to happen in June.

Smurfit Kappa chief executive Tony Smurfit told the Irish Independent last month that the company would not disenfranchise its Irish investors in moving the primary listing.

"There's absolutely no way we're going to disenfranchise our existing euro shareholders for the benefit of a bunch of new shareholders, who we do think are going to be very important," he said.

"We're really trying to broaden the investor appeal.

"I've spoken to investors before who had told me they'd like to invest in the company, but that it's not UK-listed and so they can't," he said. The move of the company's primary listing will happen on April 25.

It has had a secondary listing in London since its stock market flotation in 2007. It will remain headquartered, incorporated and tax resident in Ireland.

Smurfit Kappa operates in 34 countries in Europe and the Americas and employs 45,000.

It's one of the world's largest integrated manufacturers of paper-based packaging products.

Europe accounted for about 77.1pc of its 8.1bn revenue last year, while the Americas accounted for the remainder.

It generated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of 1.18bn in 2015.

Credit Suisse said in a note yesterday that it has "long argued" that a transfer of Smurfit Kappa's primary listing to London would benefit the group's shares.

"Outside widening the potential investor base (to UK domestic investors), we believe the London Stock Exchange transfer would aid the Smurfit Kappa share to narrow the significant discount valuation discount to its UK listed peers, DS Smith and Mondi," said Credit Suisse analysts.

In Dublin, Smurfit Kappa's shares rose about 1.3pc yesterday as it confirmed its listing plans. The company has been headed by Tony Smurfit since last September, when he succeeded Gary McGann.

Mr Smurfit had previously been chief operating officer, a role that is not being filled again.
Here are the main business stories from this morning's papers:

Irish Independent

* A tenth of the cost of bailing out the banks has been recovered by the former National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF) to date, according to new figures.

During the crash the fund was raided to the tune of 20.7bn to help prop up the country's two biggest banks.

So far, 6.4bn of that has been recovered from the sale of stakes and assets linked to Bank of Ireland and AIB, according to a financial update from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) published yesterday.

* Irish international packaging giant Smurfit Kappa has confirmed its plan to move its primary stock market listing to London.

The 5.3bn company said it would increase its profile and attractiveness to a wider potential investor base.

It will maintain a secondary listing in Dublin, however.

* Irish newspaper buyers are charged some of the highest VAT rates in Europe, according to figures from the European Newspaper Publishers Association.

Newspaper buyers in Britain, Denmark and Norway pay no VAT, while reduced rates apply across most of the continent, according to the same figures.

In many countries lower tax rates apply in order to stimulate media diversity and support viability in the sector.

The Irish Times

* Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland repaid 31pc of the bailout money they were given from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (Isif) by the end of 2015.

New figures from the Isif show the two banks had returned 6.4bn to the State agency.

Bank of Ireland had repaid 4.2m while AIB had paid back 2.2bn out of the 20.7bn they were granted between 2009 and 2011.

* Future Finance, a Dublin-based student loan platform, has raised 150m in its latest round of funding.

The latest round brings the total raised by the firm up to 234m since its launch under two years ago.

The firm said 100m of the newly raised money is to be used for lending capital.

* Glanbia has seen its milk supply contract with Tesco reduced after the supermarket chain reviewed its order.

Tesco has milk supplied to it by Glanbia, which it then sells under its own label.

The supermarket says it now uses both Glanbia and Tipperary-based Arrabawn and northwestern co-op Aurivo.

Irish Examiner

* The Teachers' Union of Ireland is calling for a 1pc levy on corporate profits to provide extra funding to the higher-education sector.

The Union says the charge would remove students' 3,000 registration fee as well as leading to thousands of extra academic staff.

Last month members of the TUI went on strike for a day over alleged underfunding and understaffing.

* An Bord Pleanala has given the go-ahead for a new nine-storey office block overlooking the River Liffey opposite the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC).

Last August, Dublin City Council gave Targeted Investments Opportunities (TIO) plc the go-ahead for the 15,479 sq metre office block at No 13-18 City Quay.

The scheme also contains plans for two retail or restaurant units and one cafe.

* Bumper sales of 'Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian' and publishing phenomenon 'The Girl on the Train' helped bookseller WH Smith to a profits boost.

The Irish arms of WH Smith saw pre-tax profits rise by 20pc to 1.8m last year.

New accounts filed by WH Smith Ireland Ltd show that revenues rose from 19.29m to 23.69m in the 12 months to the end of August last.
Keyless entry works so that once the owner comes near the car the key sends a signal to the car to open it

Some cars using keyless technology, including BMWs and Range Rovers, can be unlocked and started by a simple radio hack, according to new research from Europe's largest car-owners' club.

Over 20 different models are affected by the hack, which Germany's ADAC says has already been used to steal vehicles across Europe.

The hack involves tricking the car's radio equipment into thinking the owner is nearby.

The keyless technology "facilitates thieves immensely", ADAC warns.

"Our experts have tested over 20 models and found that cars equipped with keyless entry are significantly more prone to theft than vehicles with normal remote keys," the club says.

Researchers at ADAC do not want to publish full details of the homemade radios they used to conduct the testing as it would be too easy to replicate.

The hack is known as the "amplifier attack" and is completed using two radios, one of which must be near the car with another near the key.

Keyless entry works so that once the owner comes near the car the key sends a signal to the car to open it.

Hackers can now amplify the signal sent from the keys by up to 300 feet so they can now enter the car without the owner being nearby.

This means keys that are left out in hallways or near doors or windows can now be amplified without the thief having to actually enter the building.

ADAC says car owners with keyless technology should "exercise increased vigilance" in the storage of the key.

"Automakers have a duty and affected vehicles should also have appropriate action taken on them with retrofits installed," ADAC argues.

The car club says thieves usually take vehicles when their owners are abroad and also says the vehicles can be refuelled whilst turned on.

This means they won't need the key again once they've gotten away.

The list of vehicles varies immensely, with high-end cars like the BMW 7-series and the Range Rover Evoque affected.

Cheaper vehicles like the Hyundai Santa Fe and the Toyota RAV4 are also at risk.

The only car that resisted the researchers tests was the BMW i3. While they were unable to open the electric car, thieves were able to start its engine.

Hacking cars with keyless entry has been an emerging trend in the US and Canada. Growing incidents in Toronto spurred its police department to issue a warning last year about devices that could compromise the security of these cars.

There is still no known straightforward fix for the hack. One 'New York Times' journalist resorted to storing his keys in the freezer, which supposedly blocks the radio signals.

This type of hack has been around for some time with Swiss-based researchers showing a similar system in 2011.

However, ADAC claims that its hack costs just 160 (202) to manufacture, much cheaper than the thousands required to build the Swiss model.

The German club is calling on manufacturers to issue a fix for the hack, which potentially leaves thousands of vehicles vulnerable to theft. ADAC also expects more vehicles it hasn't tested to be vulnerable.

While a Garda spokesperson was unavailable for comment on the use of the hack in Ireland, the force has warned of an increase in high-end vehicles being taken in recent times.

Keyless entry has been widely accepted in Europe with 95pc of brands using the technology in their newer cars.
Nine out of ten of Irish consumers are not comfortable entering card details and making payments on public wifi, such as in cafes or on trains, according to a new survey from Deloitte.

Financial services firm Deloitte interviewed 1,000 Irish consumers about online buying.

According to the 'Deloitte Consumer Review - Navigating Cyber Risks', half of all consumers would cease business with a store altogether if their bank details were compromised by a cyber attack on that store.

Deloitte partner David Hearn said now that businesses are storing more information about their customers they are at greater risk of a cyber attack.

"While consumers are alert to these dangers, they are distrustful of how organisations protect and use their personal information.

"Consumers want more control over their data privacy and would like businesses to provide them with better tools to protect themselves online," he said.

Deloitte found that 53pc of consumers control their privacy settings while 42pc understand how to control the level of data or information available about them. Over three-quarters of consumers want businesses held responsible for the security of their user data. Deloitte cyber and IT forensic lead Jacky Fox said consumers are alert to the risks of cyber crime, which poses a challenge for firms.

"On the one hand, businesses can gain a competitive advantage by reassuring consumers about how their personal data is collected, stored and used,.

"On the other hand, the more information that businesses collect, the more attractive that data becomes to cyber criminals, increasing the risk that the business may be subject to a cyber attack," Ms Fox said.

Under a third of those surveyed felt their mobile phone was as secure as their laptop, with 52pc saying they feel comfortable checking their balance on a mobile device.
Google has been taking a break from its Nexus line of tablets but there are whispers of a return to the format this year

The tablet wars have changed a lot in the last couple of years, with declining sales particularly from Apple as consumers seem to be less than interested in yearly upgrades for their tablet tech.

That doesn't mean there aren't other players in the field, and the latest rumour suggests another big name is about to get back into the mix. Google could relaunch the Nexus tablet brand with a 7 inch device in 2016.

This new tablet could be called the Nexus 7 2016 and would be the third device to carry that name. Early reports suggest it would be a premium build, aimed at targeting business users with productivity features. This would all stem from the use of Android N, the next mobile operating system from Google which is still very much in its beta stage.

It sounds like Huawei might be the manufacturer behind this tablet, following on from their recent involvement with Nexus handsets. With the premium features its likely the Nexus 7 2016 won't be a cheap device, but it should come with some serious specs and build quality. If it turns out to be true, expect to hear more about this tablet at the Google I/O event in May 2016.
The eurozone is set to suffer a substantial economic blow if Britain votes to leave the European Union, economists have warned.

And Ireland would see the biggest economic contraction in the event a Brexit, with cumulative growth down by as much as 1.1pc at the end of 2017, following this summer's referendum, said ING.

The adverse impact on Ireland is almost as much as that estimated for the UK economy which could shrink by 1.2pc until 2017.

Read More

Malta, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg would also a suffer substantial hit from a British exit with growth lower by between 1pc and 0.7pc.

Up to 0.3pc of eurozone GDP will be wiped off the single currency's 19 economies in less than two years, Dutch bank ING calculates, noting that any prolonged political fallout from a Brexit could cause much "greater and longer lasting" damage to the bloc in the long-term.

Read More

Germany - the eurozone's largest economy - is in line to suffer a 0.5pc GDP contraction, with France at 0.4pc and Italy the least affected at -0.3pc.

Falling exports, weaker investment and a shift in the direction of EU economic policy away from free market reforms, would all combine to create a sizeable adverse shock to the continent, said Peter Vanden Houte and Carsten Brzeski, economists at ING.

In the short-term, a sharp depreciation in the pound - which could fall as low as 0.90 against the euro - would crimp eurozone exports to the UK, with small trading nations such as Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands suffering the biggest losses to trade.

Trade with Britain is responsible for creating around two million jobs across the eurozone, accounting for 1.5pc of all employment, said the Dutch bank.

A weaker pound would also see profits of European companies fall when converted into euros and confront eurozone businesses with the possibility of higher trade tariffs if bilateral trade deals with the UK are not concluded within the two-year time frame awarded by Brussels after a 'Leave' vote, they said.

The Dutch bank's calculations are also much more severe than rival estimations of the economic consequences of a Brexit for Europe. Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation forecasts a Brexit would only lower eurozone GDP by as much as 0.36pc but stretched out until 2030.

But highlighting the political turmoil unleashed on the EU after the summer referendum, the report said a messy exit for the UK meant the risk of a "broader fragmentation of the European Union has therefore increased, with potential negative economic consequences in the longer run".

"By agreeing to a deal the rest of Europe has made itself vulnerable to copycats: other countries may also ask for exceptions and national special treatment" said Mr Vanden Houte.

ING's warning comes as Swiss asset-manager Unigestion said a Brexit would prove "more detrimental for the European Union and the eurozone than for the UK".

Brexit would be first actual step back in the European construction process that started in 1957", said the Geneva-based fund which manages 16.3bn in assets.

If there is one consequence investors should anticipate out of the Brexit situation, it would be renewed questioning of the viability of the European construction as it sits today", said Unigestion.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Patrick Pearse appeared under the GPO Grand Portico, on Sackville (OConnell) Street, at around 12.45pm, and read aloud the proclamation, Poblacht na hEireann, Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the Irish People, to a gathering of confused, curious and supportive city-dwellers.

The Proclamation

Brennan-Whitmore observed the scene:

'The front door was opened and Pearse and Connolly, with a small escort, passed outside. Pearse read out the Proclamation and then had it posted up publicly. The crowd kept its distance respectfully enough until the little party had passed back into the building when a rush was made to read the notice. Those in the rear called on those in front to read it aloud. Many sentences were loudly cheered and at the end there was a great ovation.'

Reflecting on the events, Lynch recalled:

'President Pearse, surrounded by an armed guard, emerged into OConnell Street and read the Proclamation of Independence. The few cheers that greeted this epochal announcement furnished an index of the denationalised state of Ireland after an era of Parliamentarianism  Time elapsed before the Irish people recognised the fact that the Insurrection of Easter Week effected a necessary revivication of the national soul of Ireland 

With the posting of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, the seven signatories thereto became its Provisional Government. Five of them were in the GPO now the Republican GHQ: Padraic Pearse  President of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the IRA, James Connolly  Commandant-General of the Dublin District, Commandant Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke and Sean MacDiarmada.'

Labourite William OBrien theorised that Eoin MacNeills complicity might have generated a proclamation bearing his name. Tom Clarke could then have been listed or regarded as president, pairing the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers with the de-facto leader of the IRB.

However, without MacNeills participation, the best known man next to MacNeill was Pearse, who had the additional appeal of being a national figure as well as Volunteer Director of Military Organisation. Clarke was not nominated as president, and his widows contention to the contrary probably stemmed from her privileged knowledge that he was accorded the honour of lead signatory.

Distributing the Proclamation

Pearse tasked Charles Donnelly with distributing the Proclamation through the city. He was assisted by an eighteen-year-old newsboy, who took the initiative of selling his bundle.

On being gifted the money to assist his impoverished family, and reminded that the document was to be handed out freely, the youth collected the balance of the Proclamations and departed.

Donnelly did not record the reaction of Pearse or Connolly to the news of unexpected capitalist endeavour, although the stated explanation that the cash had been collected with a view to buying food for the garrison mollified the commanders. He was clearly sincere and on the following day was permitted to join the defenders of the GPO.

The Proclamation referenced the illegitimate British suppression of Irish independence with the assertion that the long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right.

Pearse had stressed this point in New York in March 1914 when he referred to Irelands old tradition of nationhood, a phrase that appeared in the Proclamations first sentence.

The IRB, the Irish Volunteers and the ICA demonstrated their acceptance of the historic joint appeal to Irishmen and Irishwomen, perhaps the first sincere invocation of its kind in the world, giving female activists a role in the uprising.

Women took on the dangerous role of dispatch runners and in so doing exploited traditional expectations of their innocuousness. They also carried out vital support work by nursing, foraging and cooking to support the fighting personnel.

Battalions

All four battalion sectors contained a headquarters in a prominent building and improvised nearby strong points to defend irregular perimeters. Rail line, control equipment and rolling stock were sabotaged in the north city in and around Broadstone, Phibsborough, Harcourt Street and Amiens Street Station.

The south-side line was damaged near the port of Dun Laoghaire. Overhead telegraph wires and subterranean cables accessed by manholes were cut. Several key bridges were barricaded and efforts made to trench roads useful to military traffic. Many setbacks were encountered: a detail ordered to crater the road between Stanhope Street Convent and Richmond Hospital were unused to picks and relented after an hours fruitless labour.

Monsignor Michael Curran cycled to the GPO to question Pearse, whom he knew well, on behalf of Archbishop W. J. Walsh. He found his acquaintance flushed but calm and authoritative.

Curran stated, if there was anything that could be done, I would do it  but I see now that nothing can be done. No, he said, we are going to see it out. Declining an offer to convey messages, Pearse asked for assistance in arranging confession in the Pro-Cathedral.

The commanders of the hesitant DMP and RIC decided that their forces were incapable of countering what appeared to be a coup and withdrew to their numerous city stations and barracks as military forces were summoned.

Scenes of Drama

Many contemporaries were gripped by the drama of the situation. Having served breakfast to Patrick and Willie Pearse that morning, Margaret OKelly was setting up a Cumann na mBan first-aid station above J. J. Walshs shop at 26 Blessington Street when she discerned a commotion:

'We heard the prancing of horses hoofs on the cobblestones of the streets. We rushed to the windows and we saw a troop of Lancers with pennants flying and carrying carbines galloping down Blessington Street into Frederick Street. We could not see them past the turn of the street but we still heard them galloping. Presently we heard gunfire, but we did not see them return.'

Min Ryan commented that the first thing that made us realise there was a war on was a dead horse, lying on its back with its feet up.

Messages received by 2 p.m. from the various zones occupied by the Volunteers showed the general situation to be fairly satisfactory. Rebel dispositions inside the GPO evinced careful reconnaissance, tasking and implementation.

No time was lost in setting up a first-aid section, armoury and larder. Supplies were brought in from local stores, including the Imperial Hotel, Clerys and the Metropole Hotel. A special telephonic connection was rigged to enable Connolly to converse with men posted on the roof.

Liberty Hall, a staging area for late mobilising men, was evacuated and a cache of munitions conveyed to the GPO after 3.30 p.m. in fifteen vehicles appropriated for the purpose. Those who retrieved precious resources from Liberty Hall obeyed stern injunctions to resist engaging British forces as they marched, oblivious to danger, along the north-side Liffey quays.

Patrick Pearse by Ruan O'Donnell is part of the 16 Lives biography series published by O'Brien Press, on each of the sixteen rebels executed after the Rising.
An inquest into the murder of a former garda's son has heard that his baby daughter was in the house at the time he was killed.

Sean Cloherty (27) died when he suffered multiple shots to the chest in his living room in Blakestown, Dublin 15 in November 2008.

Gardai discovered the infant - who was just 17 months old at the time - asleep in her cot upstairs when they arrived on the scene shortly after 8pm on Tuesday, November 25. She was unharmed in the shooting.

It has not been clearly established when Mr Cloherty died. He last spoke with his girlfriend at 10am on Monday ,November 24, but his body was not discovered until the next evening. His young daughter was due to attend a local creche on the Tuesday but did not turn up.

The baby's mother, Antoinette Carroll, told the Dublin city coroner that her daughter was doing well. Both Ms Carroll and the couple's son were staying in her dad's house on the Monday evening.

The killing was described as "targeted" by the coroner, but despite an extensive garda investigation nobody has ever been charged with the murder.

Notorious

At the time of his death, the garda's son had become involved in drug-dealing for a notorious northside drugs gang.

He was previously questioned over a substantial drugs haul but he had no serious convictions. He had been due to go before the courts on drug charges,.

Mr Cloherty's father Shay was a respected sergeant in the Harcourt Terrace station. Gda Cloherty lost his battle with cancer six months before his son's death.

A friend of the deceased, Karl Larkin, discovered Mr Cloherty's body. He was also the last person to see Mr Cloherty at his home on Monday evening and said that he did not seem fearful.

Seamus Cloherty, the brother of the murdered man and who now lives in Australia, said he "had no idea" who would want to kill his brother. A verdict of unlawful killing by person or persons unknown was returned by the jury and a garda investigation into the murder of the dad-of-two remains open.
A rape victim has described the need to lift her right to anonymity as "despicable", saying more must be done to protect victims.

Niamh Ni Dhomhnaill (28), the woman at the centre of a 'sleep rape' case, said that she was surprised her attacker received a 15-month sentence following an appeal.

Magnus Meyer Hustveit (26) was re-sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment after the Court of Appeal found the original sentence 'unduly lenient'.

He was previously handed down a seven-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to one count of rape and one count of sexual assault committed against his then-girlfriend between 2011 and 2012.

Much of the offending behaviour occurred without Ms Ni Dhomhnaill's knowledge and all of the acts were only known because of detailed admissions made by Hustveit in an email he sent to the victim, following her request to find out what had happened to her.

Ms Ni Dhomhnaill said the need to lift her right to anonymity felt like "a bargaining tool" to secure justice.

"I am obviously unhappy it took going public and took a lot of people getting angry for that to actually happen.

"It's despicable. I had to waive my right to anonymity, and it felt like I needed to do it to secure justice, like it was a bargaining tool.

"There are people who have a job to do, to ensure that victims like myself are protected," she said.

"It is difficult enough going through the process of telling the gardai about what happened, being prodded and continuously asked if what happened was really that bad.

"For then to have to bring it to light in the public domain in order to make sure there is justice, it is just despicable," Ms Ni Dhomhnaill added.

The brave victim also said that the two rulings - the original sentence and the imprisonment on appeal - had to be placed into two categories.

"I was surprised that he received 15 months, in terms of what he originally was given.

"But by itself, a 15-month sentence, I wouldn't be happy with it. It doesn't equate to what I have been through.

"I know that there are certain guidelines that the judiciary must follow, so maybe that is the most that he could have been given. I wasn't expecting him to receive four or five years," she added.

Ms Ni Dhomhnaill also said that the last year had been "difficult" but she was able to deal with it thanks to friends and family.

"You will always have moments where you question it. Undeniably, the judge and the court's decision to suspend the original sentence in its entirety made it feel like it wasn't such a big deal. That you weren't really raped. Surely there can't be that much damage if someone gets away with it," she added.
The PSNI has "no evidence" linking two Meath men to an attempted bomb attack on a police recruitment event in Derry last year, a court had heard.

The two men, Darren Polean (41), from Drumbaragh, Kells, Co Meath, and Brian Walsh (34), from Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, have been in custody since last November on charges linked to the discovery of an improvised device in the grounds of the Waterfoot Hotel in the Waterside area of Derry.

Solicitor Ciaran Shiels told the Magistrate's Court in Derry that the case was "not a nailed-down, slam-dunk prosecution".

The two defendants are jointly charged with preparing an act of terrorism by placing an improvised explosive device (IED) beside the Waterfoot Hotel and with possessing the device with intent to endanger life.

They are further charged with conspiring to cause an explosion with an improvised device. The defendants are alleged to have committed the offences last October 6, one month before they were arrested.

At the video link hearing yesterday, Mr Shiels told the District Judge that several reports in the case were still outstanding.

A report on black insulating tape would not be ready until April 2 and a report relating to satellite navigation from a car allegedly used by the defendants would not be ready until April 12.

Mr Shiels said a DNA report would not be ready until the first week of May.

He said a report shared with the defence in relation to the explosives found inside the device, which had been packed into a fire extinguisher, showed no presence of high explosives.

"It was low-grade explosives, a fireworks mix. The police tried to link the defendants to an explosion in the Everglades Hotel the previous year but they can no longer link the two bombs," he said.

"There is no evidence so far connecting the defendants to the device and no swab evidence which connects the device to the car in which both were travelling.

"The device was found in the grounds of the hotel but the police cannot say if it was placed there one hour, one day, one week or one month before it was found. So far, they are not able to link this device to either of the defendants nor can they give the date the device was placed there," he said.

Bail

District Judge Barney McElholm said he hoped all of the reports would be ready for the next video link hearing on April 14. Mr Shiels said if the reports were not ready by that date, he would be making bail applications for the two defendants.

The court had previously heard that on October 9, police found the IED in undergrowth beside the Waterfoot Hotel.

The bomb was concealed inside a fire extinguisher and it contained a primer unit and a timing device. The device was similar to those used in a bomb attack on the Everglades Hotel in Derry on May 29, 2014, in an attempted parcel bomb attack on Palace Barracks and in an attempted letter bomb attack on the Chief Constable George Hamilton last January.
Business should pay an extra 1pc levy on their profits to help tackle the funding crisis in third-level education, according to a lecturers union.

At current rates, it would mean about 400m a year extra in corporation tax - almost half of the additional funding needed to put higher education on a sound financial footing in coming years.

Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) general secretary John MacGabhann said the case for the levy was compelling.

He said the corporate sector derived direct and valuable benefit from the availability of highly-skilled graduates.

He said the levy would facilitate the employment of thousands of additional academic staff and could be used to remove the 3,000 student registration charge.

The TUI represents 4,000 lecturers in institutes of technology, a number of which are in severe financial difficulty.

Higher education in Ireland has suffered a significant reduction in revenue in recent years, as a result of Government cutbacks.

Mr MacGabhann said funding for the institute of technology sector fell by 190m (35pc) between 2008 and 2015 while student numbers rose by 21,411 (32pc). Some 535 (9.5pc) lecturing positions were lost.

He said at 12.5pc, the standard rate of corporation tax in Ireland was low by international standards, and that a further 1pc would represent only a modest adjustment.

The TUI general secretary insisted that the levy would not inhibit inward investment or employment generation.
Acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny has signalled that his pledge to abolish the Universal Social Charge is up for negotiation - as he laughed off accusations voters rejected him at the election.

A team of ministers and backbenchers met with 15 Independents and two Green Party TDs for more than seven hours yesterday - but only managed to discuss housing policy in any depth.

However the independents repeatedly pressed Mr Kenny on why he hasn't yet contacted Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin to review their options in light of the election result.

The Taoiseach told the gathering he was not adverse to speaking with Mr Martin, but wanted a solid proposal for a minority government first.

The Irish Independent has learned that during the meeting Westmeath TD Kevin 'Boxer' Moran put it to Mr Kenny that voters did not want him as Taoiseach anymore.

A source said Mr Kenny "fumbled" his answer initially before vowing to "fight on" as both Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader.

"Personal tax rates and the future of the USC" were listed among 88 items up for debate on a document circulated to those present.

But there were mixed messages from senior Fine Gael sources last night, with some insisting they had "not moved one inch" from their plan to abolish USC by 2021 - while others accepted a new tax plan will have to developed as part of the discussions.

Just days before polling Finance Minister Michael Noonan said their position on USC was more important than any other pre-election promise. "Of all the commitments we're making, this is the central commitment in our tax policies," he said.

The party pledged to cut USC by 1pc next year in a move that would have cost 250m.

Fine Gael were last night "delighted" that the so-called 'Rural Five', the Independent Alliance, Green Party and independents Katherine Zappone and Maureen O'Sullivan all committed to attending a second round of talks next Tuesday.

Sceptical

By then they will have prepared a detailed discussion paper on housing and an early draft of proposals for rural Ireland. Depending on time they plan to advance talks on mental health and disabilities. "This is a big start and all 17 are still engaged - but this is going to be an extremely long process ," said a Fine Gael source.

However, a number of independents said that they remain sceptical about whether the format will lead to a big vote for Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.

"A lot of us are getting in the neck for being in the room. It's not so much Fine Gael that people see as the problem, it's Enda Kenny," said one TD.

On his way out from the talks in Government Buildings last night, Fine Gael's Simon Harris said: "A lot of today was just getting to know each other a bit better. Understanding the policies and the characters."

In a blog, Roscommon independent Denis Naughten wrote: "It was also made crystal clear at the meeting today by a number of Independent TDs that no agreement can be achieved without the co-operation of Fianna Fail, Labour and the Social Democrats and that engagement must now take place with the three parties."

The key items discussed by Fine gael and Independents

1) Housing shortage and homelessness

Role of NAMA

Local Property Tax

Social Housing investment

Student accommodation

2) Jobs and Rural Development

Next generation broadband

Regional Jobs Plans

Town and village renewal

Local tourism

3) Youth Affairs and the Elderly

Affordable childcare

GP care for children

Class sizes

Nursing home care

4) Management of the Economy, Public Finances and the Labour Markets

Tax spending split and allocation of future Government resources

Personal tax rates and the future of the USC

New tax broadening measures

Tax and welfare treatment of the self-employed

5) Health and Disability

Funding for the healthcare system

Emergency Departments

Rural practices

The HSE, Hospital Trusts and Community Health Organisations

6) Political and Constitutional Reform

Dail reform

Budgeting process

Speaking time for public representatives

Parliamentary investigations

7) Climate Change and the Environment

Climate change plans until 2050

Electric vehicles

Flood initiatives

Water management

8) Crime prevention and Justice
A MAN in his 40s has died after he sustained fatal crush injuries in a workplace accident.

The man was an employee at the Green Isle Food factory in Naas, Co Kildare, and two investigations are now underway into the incident last night.

It is understood that the man sustained crush injuries when he was in contact with machinery at the plant.

He was pronounced dead at Naas General Hospital. The factory, which normally operates round the clock, is closed today.

In a statement, Green Isle Foods offered its sympathies to the mans family.

"The accident which occurred last night has resulted in the tragic loss of one of our colleagues," read the statement.

The company said it is co-operating fully with the relevant authorities as they conduct their investigations.

More to follow
Two of the new baby Scimitar-horned Oryx recently born in Fota Wildlife Park, Cork

The birth of three Oryx calves at Fota Wildlife Park marks a major leap forward in the global effort to save the highly endangered species.

Officially extinct in the wild, the scimitar-horned Oryx is dependent on breeding programmes like those managed by the 75-arce wildlife reserve near Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.

"We were delighted to be able to introduce our three latest additions to the park  these births are very significant as the Scimitar-horned oryx is considered extinct in the wild since 2000," said a spokesperson for Fota Wildlife Park.

"It now only exists within zoos and wildlife reserves around the world. There are only about 1,200 of these beautiful animals left."

The three cream and white coloured antelope calves are two weeks old now, and weighed about 12 kg when born.

The new arrivals bring the number of Scimitar-horned Oryx calves bred by the wildlife park to 119 since the herd first arrived in Cork in 1983.
Flowers placed outside the house in Carrickmacross where Gerry Marron died. Photo: Lorraine Teevan

GardaI in Monaghan are treating the death of a man with mobility issues in a house fire as suspicious.

The man, named locally as Gerry Marron (61), perished in the blaze at his home in Carrickmacross in the early hours of Monday morning.

However, local gardai say they are investigating the possibility of foul play and are appealing for witnesses.

A neighbour alerted emergency services to the fire in St Macartan's Villas, Carrickmacross, at around 1.30am on Monday.

"The neighbour heard a bang and looked out of his window and saw that the house was on fire," Superintendent Alan Cunningham told the Irish Independent.

"He ran across the road and saw that the front door was slightly ajar.

"He attempted to save the man but was unable due to the ferocity of the fire."

Gardai preserved the scene and a full forensic examination was carried out by the Cavan/Monaghan Divisional Scene of Crime Unit and the Garda Technical Bureau.

"At this stage we are unsure as to what caused the fire but we have our suspicions," Supt Cunningham said.

"Despite a full forensic and ballistic investigation we haven't been able to identify any accidental source of the fire."

An adjacent home in which an elderly woman lived was evacuated until the fire was extinguished.

Damage to Mr Marron's home was largely contained in the hallway area.

Supt Cunningham has appealed for any witnesses who may have been in the vicinity of St Macartan's Villas between 7pm last Sunday and 2am on Monday to come forward.

Gardai are also requesting that anyone who may have been in contact with Mr Marron or visited his home in the days leading up to his death to contact them.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Padraig McNally extended his sympathies to the man's family and friends.

"I knew him pretty well," he told the Irish Independent. "I was speaking to the neighbours and they said they didn't know him very well, and said they didn't even know there was a fire until the next morning."

However, he added that the death had "nothing to do with rural crime", stressing that criminal activity was relatively low in the area.

One woman living locally called Mr Marron a "lovely man" who was well-liked by his neighbours.

"He was loved by the old people and the young people," she added, but said Mr Marron had become much quieter in later life.

Mr Marron is said to have had a successful career in construction before suffering an injury 10 years ago.

Anyone with information can contact Carrickmacross Garda Station on 042 9690190.
The scene of a burnt-out car in Cairn Court, Ratoath, linked to the ganglang killing of Noel Duggan. Photo: Kyran OBrien

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin compared gangland criminals to the Mafia as he spoke of the "horrific, hate-filled violence and retaliation on our streets".

Referring to the gunning down of Noel Duggan, an escalation of the ongoing feud between two of the country's most notorious crime gangs, he said: "When will these people learn that violence and revenge only lead to further violence and revenge?

"They feel that violence is their strength; yet violence will be their downfall. Will they ever learn?"

Dr Martin was delivering his homily for the Easter Chrism Mass at Dublin's Pro Cathedral, attended by more than 200 priests as well as auxiliary bishops, pastoral workers and parish representatives.

Speaking after Mass, Archbishop Martin said of the latest gangland fatality that "every victim, no matter what their personal history is, is the son of a mother or the daughter of a mother - every victim has a family, they may have kids and this type of violence doesn't help anybody".

Describing the criminal gangs as "highly dangerous people", he hit out at their illicit drug dealing as a "business of death".

The archbishop told the Irish Independent Irish people needed to show some type of mobilisation against this criminal violence "in the interests of their own children".

He said it was the same type of organised crime to that commited by the Mafia - "organised crime with no respect for individuals - only respecting the criminal interests and financial interests of those who perpetrate it".

He added: "We have ways - the Criminal Assets Bureau is one that can work - but in the long term the Mafia in Italy was always defeated by people, the local people having the courage to come forward.

"Is there anybody there that can influence some of these people?" he asked.

"My impression is that there is a small group of very ruthless people who don't listen to anybody and don't respect even the sort of traditional rules of criminality."

Terrorists

Archbishop Martin also expressed concern over "travelling terrorists" such as those responsible for the Brussels attacks.

He said he understood people's anxieties, but criticised Poland's decision to abandon its plan to take in 7,000 refugees in the wake of the attacks in Belgium.

"These people who carried out the activities in Brussels weren't refugees, they were travelling terrorists. The problem is that our systems don't seem to be able to track and block the travelling terrorists."

Describing freedom of movement within Europe as one of the great things to have been achieved by the EU, he said it would be "very sad" if it had to end. "They don't represent any religion or any ethnic group - they just have their terror," he said.

Agreeing that measures have to be taken, he said these were not to stop the flow of migrants, but to stop trafficking by international criminal gangs.

Separately, in Armagh, Archbishop Eamon Martin paid tribute to the priests and pastoral workers in Brussels who would be "holding the hands of the injured, whispering comfort to the bereaved, lifting up the sorrowful."
James Connolly Herron (right) unveils a new statue with Northern Ireland Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin, for his great grandfather James Connolly, one of the 1916 Easter Rising leaders on Falls Road, Belfast Credit: Lesley-Anne McKeown/PA Wire

A great grandson of 1916 leader James Connolly has unveiled a statue in the republican icon's "spiritual home" of Belfast.

James Connolly Heron said it was an honour and a privilege to attend the event on the Falls Road in the west of the city.

Addressing a crowd of hundreds, he said: "I feel in some ways that I have come home.

"This is west Belfast and the Falls Road is very much the spiritual home of James Connolly.

"He had many homes. He was a son of Edinburgh; he was a son of New York; he was a son of Dublin and a very proud son of Belfast.

"His family forged their politics in and around this area."

The life-size bronze sculpture, which weighs 200 kilograms, was designed by artist Steve Feeny and is located on the Falls in the west of the city.

It was funded by Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

Sinn Fein councillor Jim McVeigh, a member of the James Connolly Society, said it was an "exciting day".

He said: "This is the best place for James Connolly, in the place where he lived and among the people whom he fought for."

Culture Minister Caral ni Chuilin was also at the unveiling.

She described Connolly as one of the greatest ever leaders and revealed that his photograph had taken pride of place in the home where she grew up alongside a picture of the Sacred Heart and US President John F Kennedy.

Connolly was born in Edinburgh to Irish parents, rose to prominence during the Dublin lockout of 1913 as general secretary of Irish Transport and General Workers Union and commander of Irish Citizen Army (ICA), which was set up to defend workers from police brutality.

He had close ties with Belfast and lived at Glenalina Terrace close to the Falls Road for a number of years from 1911.

He has been hailed as one of the most influential and effective leaders of the rebellion and on Easter Monday, April 24 1916 led more than 220 ICA members to the General Post Office from where he commanded military operations.

He was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in May 1916.

It is hoped the new artwork will attract more tourists into west Belfast.
A young woman may have to undergo plastic surgery after being mutilated in a knife attack in the street.

The 29-year-old was rushed to Cork University Hospital for emergency surgery after being repeatedly slashed across the face by a lone male attacker.

Gardai suspect that the woman was deliberately singled out in a vicious assault intended to mutilate her.

The victim, who is continuing to receive treatment, had just parked her car off Friar Street in the inner city when she was approached by a man reportedly wielding a Stanley knife at around 11.30am on Wednesday.

Passers-by rushed to the woman's aid, before paramedics arrived to find her face covered in blood following an attack which is believed to have lasted a number of minutes.

A forensic examination of the crime scene was carried out in a bid to obtain DNA evidence.

Detectives are also reviewing CCTV footage and conducting house-to-house enquiries in the hopes of identifying her attacker, who fled the scene by foot.

Meanwhile, they ruled out the possibility that the attack was a robbery which went wrong.

A garda spokesperson confirmed: "A 29-year-old female sustained facial stab wounds during an incident involving a male at Ardfallen Terrace, off Friar Street. She was taken to Cork University Hospital where she is continuing to receive treatment."

Although her injuries are not thought to be life-threatening, the woman may now have to endure extensive plastic surgery after reportedly suffering "mutilating" wounds to her face.

As the victim remains sedated at Cork University Hospital, detectives are waiting for permission from doctors to take a formal statement, but are hoping she may be able to identify the man who waited until she got out of her car to launch the savage assault.

One line of enquiry which they are believed to be investigating is whether the attack may relate to an incident involving a dispute between two young women in Cork city earlier this month.

Officials last night confirmed that enquiries were ongoing, and appealed for anyone who may have witnessed the attack or any suspicious activity in the area on Wednesday around midday to contact them in confidence. The spokesperson added: "Anybody with information is asked to contact the Bridewell Garda station on 021-4943332 or the Garda Confidential line 1800-666-111."
Noel 'Kingsize' Duggan rose from a modest council home to run one of the country's most sophisticated cigarette-smuggling operations.

The 58-year-old former butcher has been described as a "shrewd criminal" who never got his own hands dirty.

Duggan grew up on Carnlough Road in Cabra, North Dublin, and he became a close friend of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch at an early age. The pair remained friendly all their lives and it was this friendship that gardai suspect led to Wednesday night's fatal shooting in Ratoath, Co Meath.

During the 1980s, Duggan was involved in low-level crime, including burglaries and handling stolen goods. However, even in his younger days, he generally opted for a hands-off approach to crime.

"In the mid-1980s, carjacking and joyriding were big back then in Cabra. But Duggan was too cute to get involved in anything like this," said a source.

He had several convictions for receiving stolen goods, forgery and burglary but did not come to the attention of gardai for several years.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The body of Noel Duggan is removed from the scene. Photo: Colin ORiordan Forensics officers at the scene of Noel Duggans murder. Photo: Colin ORiordan Noel 'Kingsize' Duggan / Facebook

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"Kingsize knew the gardai were watching him so he was always very careful. He would know the name of a garda if they stopped him. Officers wouldn't catch him with anything.

"He wouldn't have his tax so much as a day out of date."

For several years, he operated a thriving cash and carry business on Queen Street near Smithfield in Dublin's north inner-city, which he used as a cover for his smuggling operation.

He made a fortune from Ireland's illegal cigarette trade and was regarded by gardai as the biggest single wholesaler of illicit tobacco in the 1990s.

Gardai believe he sourced his tobacco in Africa and used a sophisticated smuggling network to land it in Dublin.

His racket in smuggled cigarettes was so big that the retailers group RGDATA complained to the government that members were losing huge amounts of revenue.

In 1996, Operation Nicotine was launched to target Duggan's multi-million pound business. He was targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and served with a tax assessment of 4m.

He was eventually forced to hand over the keys of several inner-city properties to the CAB, which were auctioned off to pay a final settlement of 2m.

In 2003, the CAB confiscated five-storey apartment and retail block Eagle House in the heart of Dublin's Smithfield which was owned by him and another man.

After this, he attempted to rebrand himself as an honest businessman.

However, gardai believe he remained heavily involved in the illegal cigarette smuggling trade and worked with ex-Provos based in the Border area.

In 2013, he became embroiled in a dispute with former gang boss John Gilligan after the latter's release from prison.
Did you ever try 'calling' a lost object? I recently mislaid my precious corkscrew. "Try calling it," my friend suggested. "That always works for me." Feeling like a complete eejit, I called the corkscrew by name and out aloud. It turned up five minutes later.

The rational explanation is that bringing the object to mind helped me to remember where I'd put it, but the somewhat disconcerting notion that there's a spark of consciousness in household objects is a key element of Marie Kondo's bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying (2011).

In Kondo's world, it's not only reasonable but courteous to treat your possessions as though they were alive. "Our belongings work hard for us," she writes, "carrying out their respective roles each day to support our lives. Just as we like to come home and relax after a day's work, our things breathe a sigh of relief when they return to where they belong."

Objects work better, and for longer, if they are respectfully stored in their own place, rather than just tossed into a drawer. "For this reason, I take time to ask myself occasionally whether the storage space I've set aside for them makes them happy."

When reading The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying, you sometimes have to remind yourself that Kondo is Japanese. Her ideas come from a cultural tradition where it's no big deal to imagine an object might have an element of consciousness. In Ireland, it seems very strange indeed to talk to objects, but the notion of asking Saint Anthony to help us find lost things is completely normal (in my experience, this works too).

Strange asides aside, most of The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying is simple good sense. Kondo recommends that, instead of tidying on an ongoing basis, you undertake one single radical tidying session, after which you'll never have to tidy again.

You begin by discarding a lot of stuff. She suggests you tidy by category, rather than one room at a time, beginning with clothing, moving on through books and papers to the category she calls komono (that's a useful Japanese word to describe miscellaneous items). Then, finally, you can tackle objects of sentimental value, like photographs and gifts.

How do you decide what to keep? Once you've dumped all the clothes that you own on the floor, you take each item in your hands. If you feel a spark of joy when you touch it, then you keep it. If you don't, out it goes. The trick, she says, is to handle the items.

I've tried this on a sample cupboard and found that remarkably few of my household objects elicit a spark of joy. If I got rid of the rest, it would be a minimal house indeed.

When the big clearout is complete, the next step is to designate each item to its proper place. That's where it stays - therefore you never need to tidy again. If my corkscrew, for example, had a permanent place of residence, I would never have lost it in the first place.

"Marie Kondo's method is all about decluttering," says the Irish tidiness expert Sarah Reynolds. "I agree with tidying by category rather than by room, but she lost me when I came to the bit about thanking your socks."

This is one of the elements of the book that's liable to get lost in translation. Kondo feels that you should greet your house when you enter it and that hardworking household objects should be thanked after use.

She also feels that it's disrespectful to ball up your socks and knot your tights.

"This should be a time for them to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like that?"

According to Kondo, both socks and tights should be neatly folded. Reynolds, who does not believe that socks are sentient beings, takes a more practical approach. "For me, getting organised is all about saving time and stress. If it's quicker to roll your socks, then why not do that?"

Another cultural difference is that Irish homes tend to be much bigger than Japanese apartments. Kondo's method would have to be adapted to work in a sprawling Irish house. "Decluttering the whole house by category, all at once, might be too big a job. Don't set yourself a paralysing task - you have to be realistic about what you're going to get through," says Reynolds.

Like Kondo, she finds people often need a bit of support with tidying, which is one of the services she offers through her company, Organised Chaos.

Kondo and Reynolds agree on one point - storage solutions are not the answer. We don't need more or better storage, we just need less stuff. In fact, shopping for storage items can be a form of procrastination.

"Basically the only storage items you need are plain old drawers and boxes," Kondo writes. Her favourite storage items are empty shoe boxes. Reynolds is a great believer in "a bookshelf and a good hook", and her favourite storage product is Ikea's Variera series (1 to 56), designed to separate the spaces within cupboards and drawers.

For more comprehensive storage products she recommends Ikea and Howard's Storage World.

The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying is published by Vermillion and costs 17.40 from Easons. Home organising sessions with Sarah Reynolds cost around 50 an hour, although prices vary depending on the size of the job and the distance from Dublin. For storage solutions see, ikea.ie and hsw.ie.
The Duchess of Cornwall visits the Taste of the Wild Atlantic Way Food Festival at the House Hotel in Galway Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/PA Wire

Galway will be one of just two European Regions of Gastronomy in 2018, it has been announced.

'Galway - West of Ireland' and North Brabant in the Netherlands were named as the successful bidders for 2018 at a meeting of International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism (IGCAT) experts in Den Bosch last week.

The European Region of Gastronomy Award recognises innovation and integration in gastronomy, culture, tourism and economy. Successful bidders go on to mount a major, year-long programme showcasing their region and its produce.

Catalonia and Minho in Portugal are this years European Regions of Gastronomy, with Riga-Gauja and Aarhus/Central Denmark set to follow in 2017.

Galways bid was submitted on behalf of Galway County Council, Galway City Council, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, Teagasc and Ruth Hegarty of Egg & Chick Projects, with the support of the local food community.

The award will provide a platform for the continued growth of Galway as a destination known for the quality of its food sector and the strength of the connection between its people, the land and our gastronomic traditions, said Peter Roche, Cathaoirleach of Galway County Council.

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It comes at a choice time for a flourishing food scene.

Galway is well-known for its buzzy pubs and eateries, but in recent years the city has upped its game significantly, gaining two Michelin Star restaurants (Loam and Aniar) and the Galway Food Festival, which takes place this weekend (March 24-28).

Food on the Edge, an annual food symposium held in October, is also attracting some of the worlds top chefs to the Wild Atlantic Way.

This years speakers include Virgilio Martinez of Limas Central (No. 4 on the Worlds 50 Best restaurants), Christian F. Puglisi of Relae in Copenhagen and Tim Hollingsworth, formerly of The French Laundry in California.

The IGCAT jury was impressed with Galways support and commitment to grass-roots initiatives, it said, as well as its wide stakeholder base and efforts to bring in private, public, third-sector and knowledge institutions.

The European Region of Gastronomy Awards ceremony will take place, pending a jury visit to Galway, at a conference in Aarhus on June 20.

For more details see galwaygastronomy.ie.
The tradition of Easter eggs can be traced all the way back to the goddess Eostre.

Let's start with the row. That's the problem with moveable feasts, such as Easter; it's impossible to get everyone to agree when to celebrate them and that's exactly what happened in the early Irish church.

Around the end of the sixth century, St Columbanus went to Europe and realised that the date of the Roman Easter was different to the Irish one. He was convinced the Irish way of calculating one of most important days in the Christian calendar was correct and he said so, telling the Pope in no uncertain terms.

Rome, unsurprisingly, was having none of it and the wayward Irish were taken to task for stepping out of line.

The famous synod of Whitby in England in 664 finally settled the dispute in favour of the Roman system, but it took some five decades before the Irish church finally accepted the verdict.

But Easter has a much longer tradition, stretching back to ancient times when people celebrated a symbolic resurrection with the return of the spring and longer days.

There are several stories of resurrected pagan gods, too, and many of the traditions associated with them have been woven into the modern celebration of Easter.

It's hard to work out whether Easter is a religious or a secular festival these days, something which won't have been helped by Cadbury's decision to sideline the word 'Easter' on its chocolate eggs this year.

The chocolate manufacturer denied claims that religion had anything to do with its decision to downplay the word 'Easter' on its packaging, but they're not the only chocolatiers who are shifting the emphasis away from religious associations.

For instance, Nestle is marketing a milk chocolate egg and its Milkybar Easter Egg is now simply Milkybar white chocolate egg.

The irony in all this is that Easter owes just as much to its pagans origins as it does to its Christian ones. To help you work out which tradition is which, here's a potted history of the roots of Easter.

Pagan origins

As early as the 7th century, Christian scholar the Venerable Bede asserted that Easter took its name from the pagan goddess of spring 'Eostre'. She was the great mother goddess of the Saxons in Northern Europe and her name was derived from the ancient word for spring, 'eastre'.

Parades

The tradition of the Easter parade goes right back to the fourth century when pilgrims flocked to the so-called Holy Land to replicate the last journey that Jesus made on his way to Calvary.

This description from the 4th-century diary of a woman called Egeria from Gaul somehow captures a spirit of procession that still resonates today: "And then all, even to the smallest child, go down with the Bishop, on foot, with hymns to Gethsemane.

There, on account of the great number of people in the crowd who are wearied owing to the vigils and weak through the daily fasts, and because they have so great a hill to descend, they come very slowly with hymns to Gethsemane.

"And over two hundred church candles are made ready to give light to all the people."

Fasting

Fasting on Good Friday also has a long tradition, though a Repak survey in 2015 showed that about 50pc of Irish people will ignore the fish-only rule and eat meat today, while the same number will down an alcoholic drink. Though, that's nothing compared to what we'll put away during Easter when we'll drink enough to fill at least 53 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Bonfires

Easter fires have a long history stretching back before the arrival of Christ, but St Patrick put a Christian stamp on the tradition when he lit a famous paschal fire on the Hill of Tara, seat of the high King of Ireland, in defiance of pagan tradition.

Eggs and Easter bunnies

There are almost as many stories to explain eggs as there will be chocolate eggs on Sunday. In one version, the tradition goes back to the aforementioned goddess Eostre who was symbolised by an egg-laying hare or rabbit.

There's a Christian story that offers another explanation. After the Ascension of Christ, Mary Magdalene told the Emperor of Rome that "Christ was risen".

He apparently replied that Christ was no more risen than the egg on the table in front of him was red. The egg on the table is said to have turned blood red.

Whatever the reason for eggs, you're unlikely to find a more Irish expression of the tradition than the Tayto Cheese & Onion Easter Egg. But before you rush down to the shop to buy the, ahem, unusual combination, be warned: they are available only at Tayto Park for 5.95.

Hot cross buns

The tradition of baking buns as religious offerings goes back to earliest times. The hot cross bun, though, is thought to date to Tudor times when a London bye-law decreed that spiced buns could be eaten only on Good Friday, at Christmas and at funerals. The cross was added later and the 'hot' came later still.

In 1773, James Boswell wrote in his diary: "Being Good Friday I breakfasted with him and cross-buns". Because the buns were generally served hot, they later became known as hot cross buns.

Lamb

It used to be considered lucky to meet a lamb - though not for the lamb as in medieval times, a whole roasted lamb formed the centrepiece of the papal feast on Easter Sunday. The new season's lamb is still a potent Christian symbol and remains a popular choice on Irish dinner tables.

Easter bonnet

Irving Berlin, who said he "could write a sonnet about an Easter bonnet" after watching an Easter parade in New York brought the hat to popular attention but the tradition reflects an older tradition of buying new clothes at Easter.

In the 18th century English almanac maker Poor Robin, wrote: "At Easter let your clothes be new/Or else be sure you will it rue."
George Mitchell (centre), former US Senator and chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks, is applauded by fellow recipients of the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Award  John Hume (left) and Gerry Adams (right)  along with Liz ODonnell, then Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Paul Murphy, Minister of State of the Northern Ireland Office. The ceremony took place in Boston in December 1998. Photo: AP Photo/Elise Amendola

Brussels, essentially the capital of the EU, has joined Paris, Ankara and Istanbul as the latest terrorist site. London and Madrid have also been victims in the past. Targeting strategic transport hubs to maximise destruction and civilian casualties is a hallmark of terrorism. Although on this island we have been spared the attention of Isil, we, of all Europeans, have a unique understanding of the barbarity of terrorism from the conflict in Northern Ireland.

To be liberated from that conflict is a constant source of relief. And yet occasionally we see the remnants of it, for example, by the recent killing of prison officer Adrian Ismay when a bomb was placed under his car by republicans

Eighteen years ago, on Good Friday, we as a community, north and south, began a journey of reconciliation and political change which led to peace. It was a rocky road with many false dawns, setbacks and political realignments. Although the final negotiations leading to the political settlement took six months, it was to take nearly 10 years, until 2008, before the political institutions and power-sharing executive was to be stabilised and the IRA arsenal was finally "put beyond use". So to translate the agreement into a real peace was a slow burn and a complex challenge to the security forces north and south.

Ironically, the greatest atrocity happened post-agreement at Omagh in August 1998, when the real IRA detonated a car bomb killing 31 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. After the Good Friday Agreement, security had been relaxed throughout Northern Ireland; a demilitarisation which inevitably exposed citizens to greater risk. Those close to the talks were devastated by guilt.

Had all our work been in vain? Had we, as politicians, been seduced and, in turn, lured people into a false sense of security? It was a horrendous feeling of responsibility, one which I am sure is being felt by European leaders and intelligence agencies post Paris and Brussels. They are facing the reality of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Isil terrorists embedded in Europe; an enemy within, plotting mayhem and death.

The Syrian refugee crisis has complicated the security threat because mass movements of people provide ample cover for terrorists to cross borders into Europe. This is a tragedy for genuine refugees fleeing war and seeking protection in Europe, who then find the EU response diminished by the necessary security and border control measures linked to the terrorist threat. The result is that people, including politicians, are conflating the terrorist threat with the refugee crisis.

Europe and its leaders have been hopelessly divided. Five years after the start of the Syrian conflict and the deaths of over 400,000 people, Europe is struggling to frame a political and diplomatic response to the exodus of millions of refugees.

The situation has exposed deep ideological and moral differences among member states. Far right, anti-immigrant movements and political parties are gaining popular support in countries like France, UK and Germany. Terrorist attacks such as those on Paris and Brussels will heighten tensions even more. Already, the Schengen free travel arrangements are under pressure with moves by individual states to close borders and re-introduce border controls. What is worse, the perpetrators of Paris and Brussels have turned out in the main to be European citizens, homegrown jihadis, radicalised by the ideology of Isil and highly motivated to the cause on their return to Europe.

Since 9/11, we have lived through over a decade of anti-terrorist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. The so-called Arab Spring across North African countries has resulted in instability, civil war and the rise of Isil across the whole region. The fledgling peace negotiations on Syria represent a glimmer of hope that diplomacy can overcome the horror and futility of war.

The French and US presidents this week have stressed the imperative of international unity but to date there has been little evidence of this.

Individual EU countries are divided on the way forward for collective action on refugee reception and distribution. The UK is poised to leave the European Union following a referendum which is too close to call and will not be helped by the Brussels attacks and worsening security threat.

The defence spokesperson for Ukip was quick out of the traps an hour after the Brussels attacks to blame the passport-free travel arrangements under Schengen as a contributor.

The truth is that Europe and, in particular Belgium, has been unable to neutralise the threat posed by jihadis embedded in European societies, who have protective networks and the technology to carry out terrorist attacks.

Europe must adapt to frame a commensurate response. Declarations about our liberal values of freedom and an open society will not save lives. The first duty of democratically elected governments is to protect their own citizens from harm. All of us will have to accept more curtailment of our traditional freedoms to counter this common enemy.

For a start, a Europe-wide clampdown on returning jihadi combatants from Syria and elsewhere should be introduced.

Any EU citizen who travels to fight for Isil should have their passports cancelled and either b e denied re-entry or placed in detention. Anything less is reckless. Serious penalties should apply for such extra-jurisdictional military activities.

What has emerged in Belgium is a seemingly official complacency about the dangers posed by a community of radical jihadis, numbering 440 at the last count, living freely in Molenbeek, Brussels. There has been a failure of cooperation and integration of intelligence. Innocent EU citizens have paid the price for this incompetence. If there is one lesson from Paris and Brussels this is it and it must change.

Against this backdrop of terrorism, on this weekend of commemoration of the 1916 Rising, one cannot avoid qualms that official Ireland, despite good intentions, may be bestowing retrospective legitimacy on the IRA campaign of violence.

Without wishing to rain on anyone's parade, could we have over-reached, to the point of undue glorification of republican violence and blood sacrifice in Ireland, which tragically cost thousands of innocent lives?
If you want a rainbow you've got to put up with the rain.

It's a concept that Enda Kenny will no doubt be mulling over as he attempts to manage demands from the Independents he needs to carry him back to power.

Throughout the election campaign Fine Gael warned that a 'dolly mixture' of independents in Cabinet would not be a stable option.

But now it is the only one on offer and if a deal is done holding it all together won't fall on Mr Kenny's shoulders.

And that's why the half-joke now circulating in Fine Gael is that there's a seat at the Cabinet table nobody wants to fill.

The position comes with a salary of 121,000, a driver and most of the trappings of a ministry - but the job description insists on all the backroom wheeling and dealing but none of the glory.

Government Chief Whip will be one of the most important appointments to be made by Mr Kenny, if the talks which started yesterday reach a positive conclusion.

Sources say that in the event Fine Gael do compile a minority government, they will probably appoint one TD to manage its own backbenchers and an assistant to help with the Independents.

"On paper it would be a promotion but in reality it would be a punishment," said one ministerial source.

"Imagine being responsible for looking after Shane Ross's ego while simultaneously trying to keep manners on Mattie McGrath?"

The whip organises government business in the Dail and acts as the 'go to' person for the opposition parties.

He or she has to make sure that the government has a voting majority, even if that means ducking into the Dail bar at the right moment to chase politicians into the Chamber.

If you do a good job, nobody should notice.

To some extent that was outgoing whip Paul Kehoe's problem as he was left hanging on for dear life in the General Election.

It is generally a springboard to a full ministry though - and his predecessors include Mary Hanafin, Noel Dempsey and Bertie Ahern.

Kenny may well decide that after five years without incident, Kehoe is a safe pair of hands - but he will have higher ambitions.

Simon Harris has also been tipped but will feel that he deserves to be fast-tracked to a full ministry after taking a central role in the negotiations.

From the backbenches Eoghan Murphy's name is gaining traction due to his work on the party's Dail reform party. But Mr Kenny could also look to help his gender balance by turning to Regina Doherty, who is both competent and assured.

Former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and the late Seamus Brennan, were he alive, are the two men who probably best understand what lies ahead.

Cosgrave was the whip in the first inter-party government of 1948 managing a bunch so diverse one thought the Taoiseach was a Republican and others thought he had tenuous links with the Crown. There were splits in the parties over the price of butter going up.

Bertie Ahern still tells stories of how he entrusted Brennan with making Jackie Healy-Rae "feel the love" between 1997 and 2002.

A row between Healy-Rae and then justice minister John O'Donoghue over who got to announce the new chairman of a school board in Kerry nearly collapsed the whole thing.

Brennan, who met with Healy-Rae, Mildred Fox, Harry Blaney and Tom Gildea every Tuesday, had to clean up the mess.

So the next chief whip will not be so worried about making sure the government doesn't lose any private members' motions or inconsequential amendments to legislation. He or she will be busy trying to keep it all together for finance votes.

"Those votes are like losing the bingo ticket when you still have the national lottery ticket," said a source.
Whatever about rejecting the pay deal on offer, the very least Luas workers could have done was defer strike action to next week.

The decision to pull services over Easter weekend, when hundreds of thousands of people are expected in the capital to commemorate the Easter 1916 Rising, is mean-spirited, unnecessary and does nothing to advance their cause.

It is absolute nonsense to pretend that this is aimed at the Luas operator Transdev. It is clearly aimed at ordinary people, as it will result in more cars in the city, pressure on scarce parking spaces, longer journey times and stress.

Many families will decide not to travel, ruining their plans. It may make workers feel that they're in control, but whatever public sympathy there may have been for their struggle has now evaporated.

The decision by almost 100pc of workers to reject the pay deal is their right. There are legitimate concerns about the creation of a two-tier workforce and they have issues with other aspects of the deal brokered at the WRC.

But who is served by going ahead and pulling all services on the red and green lines this weekend? What leverage does this give workers? Is it fair to the thousands of people who planned an enjoyable Easter?

While the rest of the country is remembering Easter 1916, drivers would rather hold Dublin to ransom. Mounting action on Sunday and Monday does nothing to advance their cause and their union should explain why this draconian action is justified.

Employees have already lost pay and bonuses. Their decision to go on strike means they've also lost what little public support was left.
First the murder of veteran criminal Noel Duggan, and now an active death threat against another gangland godfather, Martin 'The Viper' Foley.

This week has seen even further unprecedented twists in a crime war that is quickly spiralling out of control.

What is extraordinary about this feud - and there are many extraordinary aspects to this madness - is that the Kinahan gang seems intent on wiping out the underworld elders who should otherwise be looking at the prospect of dying peacefully in their sleep.

And it seems to be driven by a bloodlust to eradicate the friends and family of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch, who has become their prime target.

If anyone is keeping the score (and the thugs involved with the Kinahans certainly are), then so far, the tally is Hutchs 1 and Kinahans 3.

Noel Duggan, The Monk's closest friend, was 58 years old at the time of his murder.

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So too was Gerry's older brother, Eddie Hutch, who was gunned down three days after the Regency Hotel outrage last month.

The death toll also includes the Monk's nephew Gary, whose murder ultimately sparked off this all-out gangland war.

By taking the life of his nephew, his brother and his best friend, the organisation headed up by the Capo dei Capi (boss of bosses), Christy Kinahan, has demonstrated that this is about as personal as it can get.

Kinahan, who is now 59, grew up on the mean streets as a contemporary of Noel Duggan, Gerry Hutch and Martin Foley.

His organisation and that of Hutch's were once so close that they were considered to be the same outfit.

Now that has changed completely - with the script for this real-life bloodlust bearing an uncanny resemblance to the plot of Mario Puzo's classic 'The Godfather'.

Despite the fact that he handed the reins of power to his volatile son Daniel, it must be assumed that the aging Dapper Don approves of his heir's declaration of war.

So like the rest of his elderly crew of underworld granddads, his hopes of passing away peacefully in his sleep are also fading.

Martin Foley, who at the age of 63 will soon be eligible for his bus pass and old age pension, is also under threat as a result of his friendship with Hutch and Duggan.

This is also an important new development. The Viper, who organised a campaign of intimidation including a hoax bomb and an acid attack at my home in 2003, is no stranger to being on the receiving end of a hit-man's bullets - at least 10 in the past 20 years.

But everyone, particularly Foley, would have assumed that having miraculously made it to this age, that he would be leaving this mortal coil without any violent assistance.

Now there is only one certainty in this war amongst evil, greedy men: there will be more bloodshed and more violence.

By the time this feud is over, the concern is there will be many other corpses - of both the old and the young.

Contact Paul Williams at pwilliams@independent.ie
The traditional message of Easter is one of hope, even in the darkest of hours. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in his address yesterday sought to evoke the essence of what it is to be human at a time when life appears to have been discounted to the point of worthlessness in the burgeoning underworld of crime. The context was the murder of Noel Duggan. Dr Martin expressed concern over the "horrific, hate-filled violence and retaliation on our streets".

Commenting on the cycle of killing and brutal retaliation, he pointed out that: "They feel that violence is their strength; yet violence will be their downfall. Will they ever learn?" Back in February, Dr Martin pointed out that such murders did not convey "a prestige of power but of despicable inhumanity". At that time, he also appealed for the mothers or grandmothers of the killers to attempt to intercede.

Yesterday, he reminded us again that: "Every victim, no matter what their personal history is, is the son of a mother or the daughter of a mother - every victim has a family, they may have kids and this type of violence doesn't help anybody."

There can be no tolerance or respect for those in the criminal world who believe life is as expendable or tradable as a heroin fix. As Dr Martin stated: "It is the same type of mafia and criminal organised crime - with no respect for individuals - organised crime only respecting the criminal interests . . . but in the long term the Mafia in Italy was always defeated by people - the local people having the courage to come forward - some paid a very high price."

Decent society always deserves and demands better. Speaking in Ashbourne yesterday, Superintendent James Cannon also commented on the growing callousness and disregard for life, saying: "Any time that a man is shot down in his own driveway in front of where his family were inside in the house, that is a barbaric act."

Meanwhile, further north, another mother was coping with incalculable loss as the helpless victims in the Buncrana pier tragedy were being laid to rest. These lives were lost in the most tragic of accidents. The indescribable pain and suffering their loss has caused in their community, and across the country as a whole, speaks to the absolute preciousness of life and our common humanity. The values Archbishop Diarmuid Martin speaks of cannot be lightly trampled on.
It appears from the recent General Election that the Irish people have delivered a "right mess" for the country.

The problem is that a large number of the 158 elected representatives want to remain in Opposition rather than take on the responsibility of participating in government.

The media and political commentators continue to insist that the responsibility to put a new government together rests with the two largest parties, namely FG and FF, to negotiate a grand coalition or some form of minority government supported by a group of Independents/small parties.

What about the candidates who espoused the Right2Change movement prior to the election? Where are they now? Is it good enough for SF to stand back when they could be putting together a minority government?

The answer is these individuals and groups are waiting until 'someone else' puts a government together.

Then they will 'hop' on to the Opposition benches for another term to continue with criticism of everything and contributing as little as possible.

It is time for us as a people to address the matter of continuing to vote for Independents standing for single/narrow-based issues and no policies.

Such decisions made without due regard for how a collective of Independents/small parties could run the country lead to instability and political chaos.

Witness the current 'impasse' where many Independents/small parties are sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to do the work.

What are the chances of 158 Independent TDs forming a 'stable' government?

E Brennan

Kilkenny

Reimagining the 1916 Rising

"What's in the pot?" says the brother skipping in from the field with a bee in his bonnet. "Salad for the stools," says I, "and a bit of bacon and cabbage for the day that's in it."

"By Jaysus, we're gonna be in the silk," he says, rubbing his paws together like a March hare. "And how's that?" says I, cutting the heel off the loaf.

Well, declare to God, he upends the place and fires a tomato and a handful of boiled cabbage at the kitchen wall with a bang and a wallop that sends the auld dog across the lino with a yelp.

"Get me the camera from the top of the wardrobe," he roars. "Be God I will," says I, thinking to meself I'd make the call on the way and get the man seen too once and for all.

So in the hall I pick up the phone but had to put it down again on account of him roaring from the kitchen about hypocrisy, revolution and the history of auld Ireland.

"Have you lost your bearings man?" says I. There he was scratching his chin and contemplating the spattered tomato and broken cabbage dripping down the stone, as if he was looking at high art up in the big smoke. "Whisht," says he, taking the camera, "you know nothing of history! Put your paw on the wall there by the tomato for a bit of scale." Says he, "I'm going to sell this picture to the post office for a 1916 commemoration stamp." "Ah," says I to meself, "the poor craytur is gone."

"This little piece of ballistics," says he pointing the crooked finger to a vein of cabbage on the wall, "this here, me boyo, is a piece of our history that has been conveniently forgotten! Washed and hosed clean from the record like dung from the floor of the milking shed," says he.

"How do ya mean?" says I, with one eye for the telephone.

"Well," says he, "when the founding fathers of auld Ireland were hauled from the GPO, 'twas the tomatoes, the cabbages, and the consumptive spits fired at them by the good people of Dublin that encouraged the Brits to give the lead penny to each and all of them. 'Twasn't Britannia's Huns and her long-range guns that put an end to the Rising and sent the leaders to the firing squad, 'twas the tomatoes and the cabbage.

"If it wasn't for the first and more important firing squad of spits and rotten fruit, sure enough Ireland wouldn't be as free and as happy as she is today. Make no mistake, 'tis the tomato and the cabbage that are the heroes of the story.

"With all the shiny uniforms, the marches, the parades and the 1916 speeches, there should be a statue of a cabbage put outside the GPO and a stamp with a tomato on the front of it.

"That would remind us all that in Ireland a sure sign of a good idea is that the whole country will be against it from the start, and a sure sign that someone is telling the truth is the length of the queue that is lining up to give the craytur a hammering!"

Dr Marcus de Brun

Rush, Co Dublin

******

Padraig Pearse wrote in 1915 that, "like divine religion, national freedom bears the marks of unity, of sanctity, of catholicity, of apostolic succession".

But as a good Catholic Pearse should have known that Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, did not approve of violence and would probably have viewed the leaders of the 1916 Rising as brave but very flawed in what they did.

Sean O'Brien

Kilrush, Co Clare

Aftermath of Brussels attacks

In the wake of the horrific attacks in Brussels, I would like to take the opportunity to remind people of a very important distinction that is lost far too often on people.

Contrary to widespread belief, we are not at war with Islam.

Rather, we are at war with an ideology - the brutal jihadist ideology of Isil and their supporters.

An ideology, lest we forget, that calls for other Muslims to be murdered for simply following the wrong type of Islam.

Moderate Muslims, at home and abroad, should now take this opportunity to condemn these vicious attacks and stand in solidarity with us against the dangers of extremism.

Sean Slattery

Newport, Co Tipperary

******

What ever one's take on religion, and given the many different faiths and creeds there are quite a number; all agree that love and humanity are better pillars to build a society on than death and destruction.

Christians and Muslims have done terrible things in the name of religion, what God or the Prophet makes of this is not difficult to guess.

One can not invoke the name of a deity to do evil, to slaughter the innocent or take life.

To do so means one is blind to one's innate humanity and this blindness is achieved through "radicalisation".

The most radical thing of all is to love one's fellow beings.

Name and address with editor
Actress Ariel Winter arrives at the 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 30, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

Ariel Winter has defended Kim Kardashian's nude selfie as an example of body positivity.

The Modern Family actress came to Kim's defence after stars like Bette Midler and Piers Morgan criticised her for baring her body in a post on Instagram. Ariel defended Kim tweeting: "No one was body shaming @justinbieber when he posted his nude guitar photo so why @KimKardashian? #herbodyherchoice," she tweeted.

In an interview on Australian radio show Kyle and Jackie O, the young actress praised the mother of two for feeling uninhibited when showing off her famous curves.

"I think she's promoting body positivity. You know, young girls being able to express that they don't have a stick-thin body  they're curvy," the 18-year-old shared.

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Ariel explained that Kim's ability to post such revealing pictures is a sign she's comfortable in her own skin and gives her fans confidence too.

"Stick-thin bodies are amazing, you know, those girls are amazing too but I think that everybody's body would be celebrated no matter what it is and I think that it's great that she's so comfortable with herself and that she's able to post out there what she wants to and post and if she wants to post a nude selfie, she can," she added.

The teenager recently opened up about how much better she has been "emotionally and physically" since becoming an emancipated minor, free from the control of her mother, Chrisoula Workman.

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Whatsapp Thumbs up: Modern Family star Ariel Winter's curve hugging Romona Keveza gown hits all the right notes.

"Nobody controls you anymore," she explained. "You handle your own business affairs, your own living arrangements, your own money. Everything is sort of in your own hands," she explained during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday (21Mar16).
Jude Law was among the famous faces who visited the Jungle camp in Calais last month to perform to refugees (Help Refugees)

Mark Rylance, Jude Law and Paloma Faith are among more than 90 stars calling on David Cameron to step up the Government's commitment to reuniting refugees stranded across Europe with their families in the UK.

The plea, issued in an open letter signed by leading figures from the arts and business, calls on Britain to "step up and do more" to help "vulnerable refugees".

It comes ahead of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) meeting on Syrian refugees, which will be held in Geneva on Wednesday.

Campaigners hope the Government will seize the "unique opportunity to do more by expanding the rules around family reunion".

The letter, backed by charities Refugee Action and Citizens UK, recognises the "substantial aid" being used to help Syrian refugees but says "as the crisis grows so too must our response".

It says: "Many organisations and public figures have stepped up to help protect children in Calais, but across Europe thousands of refugee children are still stranded without hope or support.

"In the UK, Syrians with close family in refugee camps or conflict zones often cannot legally bring their relatives to safety.

"We are seeing the reality of this human crisis play our on our TV screens week after week. Families are desperate to reach their loved ones. Traumatised children have no-one to protect them."

It ends: "We call on you to increase our resettlement commitment and to strengthen family reunion policies to help separated children and divided families."

Law and Juliet Stevenson, who have both backed the letter, were among the famous faces who visited the Jungle camp in Calais last month to perform to refugees.

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They also joined 145 stars in signing an open letter to Mr Cameron, asking him to help save children based at the makeshift camp, as sections of the camp were prepared for demolition by French authorities.
Kathryn Thomas in the Self Portrait dress on The Voice of Ireland. Picture: Kyran O'Brien

Kathryn in the Self Portrait dress on The Voice of Ireland. Picture: Kyran O'Brien

RTEs Kathryn Thomas caused controversy among viewers of The Voice of Ireland on the first live show by wearing a navy dress by Self Portrait from BT2.

The strapless dress had cut-out panels which showed off her amazing midriff.

But this flash of flesh was apparently far too shocking for the eyes of RTEs viewers, who took to Twitter to slate her outfit. One said that her dress was not appropriate for family viewing, and another said that she had too much flesh showing.

Thankfully, with her good sense of humour, Kathryn managed to laugh off the criticism  and said that it doesnt bother her after 10 years of being in the public eye. She added that, while the comments on social media didnt affect her, it wasnt fair to attack her team.

Expand Close Kathryn in the Self Portrait dress on The Voice of Ireland. Picture: Kyran O'Brien / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kathryn in the Self Portrait dress on The Voice of Ireland. Picture: Kyran O'Brien

This year, Roxanne Parker was the shows stylist, and, in my opinion, she is one of Irelands best.

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Im so fed-up of women constantly having to take this kind of criticism over their appearance. People are so pass-remarkable when it comes to what women wear and what they weigh. I get the odd bitchy comment on my Instagram, where someone might say they dont like my outfit or think Im wearing too much, or not enough, make-up.

Firstly, I wouldnt post a photo if I wasnt happy with how I looked in it, and secondly, I dont care if someone I dont even know has something bad to say.

When your jumper says "I woke up like this" but your face says you spent 30 minutes trying to get your eyeliner even #igiveup #oneEyeonfleek A photo posted by Holly Carpenter (@hollycarpenter) on Mar 20, 2016 at 9:04am PDT

I think men have it a lot easier when it comes to avoiding criticism over what they wear, but I dont blame them. I think women have a lot to answer for when it comes to slating each other and creating this problem for themselves. So it makes me sad when I see women being so unsupportive towards each other.

If we dont support each other and lead by example, then how do we expect this attitude to change?

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Some sun and Fungi in Kerry

I had a lovely couple of days in Dingle last weekend, and it was nice to get away from the madness of Dublin. It was 14 degrees in the sunny south west and I enjoyed playing a bit of pitch and putt, even though I began to lose interest after the fifth hole.

Then I went out on a boat in search of Kerrys famous Fungi. I was lucky enough to see the beautiful dolphin himself come to the surface of the water a good few times, and the views of the coast of Kerry were so beautiful.

The drive is a bit long but its worth it  and I would definitely recommend Dingle as a lovely staycation spot for families.

Harringtons Family Restaurant is a popular place for some casual food like fish and, and if you have a sweet tooth they even do battered Mars bars  which I have never tasted, but I wouldnt say no to trying them out! This week, I found a new favourite brunch spot in Terenure called Mayfield Deli.

It has a lovely outdoor seating area, so it was really nice to enjoy my smoked salmon, poached eggs and avocado out in the sunshine. I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the new and improved Kildare Village Outlet. I ended up just buying a few bits in Calvin Klein and some gym gear in their Nike outlet. Their new Versace store is opening this weekend, so Ill have to go back for a look around.
Donald Trump says he'll be a dynamite general election candidate, winning reliably Democratic states like New York and Pennsylvania and capturing unprecedented "crossover" votes from Democrats and independents. Many other Republicans say he'd be a disaster.

Who's right? As of now, the pessimists. Trump, the best surveys suggest, would be one of the weakest Republican nominees in modern history, one that an otherwise challenged Hillary Clinton could clobber.

In recent polls, she holds double-digit leads over Trump in a general election match-up.

In a Bloomberg poll released on Wednesday, she beats him 54pc to 36pc. This reflects his weaknesses more than her strengths, and raises serious doubt about claims he'd do well among independents, working-class Democrats and married women.

In the four-day Bloomberg survey, 68pc of the respondents had an unfavourable view of Trump against 29pc who regard him favourably. That 39-point gap is huge.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is also regarded more negatively than positively - but only by 9 percentage points, with 53pc viewing her unfavourably and 44pc favourably.

The case for a Trump victory in the autumn is that he'd bring out new, alienated voters and would win over disaffected white Democrats and independents and others, including married women, who admire his strength. This, the theory goes, would offset losses among African-American and Latino voters.

In the Bloomberg poll, conducted by J. Ann Selzer, Clinton beats Trump among independents, a bloc where she has done poorly in the primaries, 54pc to 34pc. Mitt Romney, the Republican loser of the 2012 presidential election by four points, carried independents 50pc to 45pc.

As for Democrats, here's the problem: the working class, white so-called Reagan Democrats who supposedly are drawn to Trump mostly aren't Democrats any more. And the working class isn't as white. Among all voters making less than $50,000 a year, Obama beat Romney, 60pc to 38pc. In the Bloomberg poll this week, Clinton's lead over Trump is wider among this group.

Trump's problems with women cross racial lines. Romney carried white women in 2012. In the Selzer survey, though, white women preferred Clinton to Trump by a margin of 50pc to 40pc.

Occasionally, a presidential candidate does enlarge and even slightly alter the electorate. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980 as did Barack Obama in 2008.

More often, promises to do that are the cries of candidates about to lose. Think of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972.

As of today, and if he's the nominee, Donald Trump is likely to join the Goldwater-McGovern ranks.
Republican Ted Cruz on Friday denounced an article in the National Enquirer tabloid claiming he had extramarital affairs as "garbage, complete and utter lies" and accused his opponent Donald Trump of being the source of the story.

"It's tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen," Cruz told reporters at a press conference in Wisconsin, as the battle for the Republican presidential nomination reached new levels of personal rancor.

Trump issued a statement saying he was not responsible for the article.

"I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence," Trump said in the statement.

"Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz."

The National Enquirer could not immediately be reached for comment.

As they battle to represent the Republican Party in the Nov. 8 presidential election, Cruz said the story was evidence that Trump is unfit to be president. "This man would be an embarrassment," Cruz said.

The National Enquirer, a tabloid known for its gossip and unflattering celebrity photos, published blurred images of five women with whom it said Cruz has had affairs. The newspaper did not name the women.

Cruz is married to Heidi Cruz, who was campaigning with him on Friday. Cruz gave his wife a hug and kiss before he began the town hall event, and she sat off stage smiling while he spoke.

The article exploded on the social media site Twitter overnight on Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, #CruzSexScandal was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

Two women who appeared to be pictured in the Enquirer stepped forward on Friday and called the article false.

Trump and Cruz have sparred in recent days about their respective wives. Earlier this week Trump accused Cruz of posting a nude photo of Trump's wife, Melania, on Twitter. Trump responded by threatening to "spill the beans" on Cruz's wife.

This isn't the first time a politician has been accused of having an affair.

During the 1992 campaign, Gennifer Flowers came forward to detail an affair she had with Bill Clinton while he was running for president. Subsequently, more women admitted to having affairs with him, including then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Former Colorado Senator Gary Hart, a Democrat, had his 1988 presidential campaign derailed when reports surfaced that he was having an affair.

And former North Carolina Senator John Edwards admitted to having an affair with a campaign photographer during his 2004 campaign, although the public did not learn about the romance until after he was defeated.
Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel, centre, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, right, and US Secretary of State John Kerry after talks

Police set up a checkpoint during a raid in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek (AP)

Workers from the City of Brussels gather tributes at one of the memorial sites at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels (AP)

Police have raided Brussels neighbourhoods in an operation the mayor said was linked to both the airport and subway bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.

Three people were detained, with two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutor's office said. The operation was conducted in the Schaerbeek district, which was raided on Thursday night, as well as the neighbourhoods of Forest and Saint-Gilles, it added.

Belgium's state broadcaster said one person was carrying a bag of explosive material. The area remained cordoned off, even after heavily armed officers had left, a resident said.

Three of six people detained on Thursday in the investigation have been released, prosecutors said.

The broadcaster, RTBF, quoted Schaerbeek district mayor Bernard Clerfayt as saying the raid was linked to the Brussels attacks and Thursday's arrest of a man in France.

On the third and final day of national mourning for Tuesday's attacks that killed 31 people, Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel missed a wreath-laying ceremony at the airport with US Secretary of State John Kerry because of the police raids.

Mr Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgium's counter-terrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failings in the run-up to the bombings on Tuesday.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation, Mr Kerry said the "carping" about Belgium's shortcomings "is a little bit frantic and inappropriate".

Top members of Belgium's embattled government are facing criticism over its counter-terrorism efforts since - and before - the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and that authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

Mr Kerry also said the US and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalisation of youth.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and Mr Kerry lashed out at the extremist group.

"We will not be deterred," he said. "We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Authorities also announced that American, British, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

A manhunt has been under way since Tuesday for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

Belgian prosecutors said raids on Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

French counter-terrorism police also detained a man on Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot.

Officials told The Associated Press that the suspect, Reda Kriket, 34, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Elsewhere, Belgium's nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

The move at some plants "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks," said nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck, noting the decision to deny access usually takes weeks.

Immediately after Tuesday's attacks, security was boosted around the country's nuclear sites and hundreds of staff were sent home.

Last month, authorities said searches in the wake of the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium's nuclear industry.

Belgian media reported this week that Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui had video recordings of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region.
A woman weeps as a crowd gathers in front of a makeshift memorial to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels attacks on the Place de la Bourse in central Brussels. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Isil has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of Brussels-style attacks, deploying terror cells with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, according to jihadi experts.

The network of agile and semi-autonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq.

Jihadi experts, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the terror networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to attack the West.

Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Paris attacks claimed to have entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered "more or less everywhere".

But the biggest break yet in the Paris attacks investigation - the arrest on Friday of fugitive Salah Abdeslam - did not thwart the multipronged attack just four days later on the Belgian capital's airport and metro that left 31 people dead and an estimated 270 wounded.

Three suicide bombers also died.

Just as in Paris, Belgian authorities are still searching for at least one fugitive in Tuesday's attacks - this time for a man seen on security footage in the airport with the two suicide attackers. The fear is that the man, whose identity Belgian officials say is not known, will find Abdeslam's path instructive.

After fleeing Paris immediately after the November attacks, Abdeslam forged a new network back in his childhood neighbourhood of Molenbeek, long known as a haven for jihadis, and renewed plotting, according to Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

"Not only did he drop out of sight, but he did so to organise another attack, with accomplices everywhere. With suicide belts. Two attacks organised just like in Paris. And his arrest, since they knew he was going to talk, it was a response: 'So what if he was arrested? We'll show you that it doesn't change a thing'," said French Senator Nathalie Goulet, co-head of a commission tracking jihadi networks.

Estimates range from 400 to 600 Isil fighters trained specifically for external attacks, according to the officials, including Ms Goulet. Some 5,000 Europeans have gone to Syria.

"The reality is that if we knew exactly how many there were, it wouldn't be happening," she said.

Two of the suicide bombers in Tuesday's attacks, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid Bakraoui, had no known extremist links until an apartment one of them rented was traced to Abdeslam last week, according to Belgian state broadcaster RTBF.

Similarly, an Algerian killed inside that apartment on March 15 had nothing but a petty theft record in Sweden - but he'd signed up as an Isil suicide bomber for the group in 2014 and returned to Europe as part of the November 13 plot to attack Paris.

In claiming responsibility, Isil described a "secret cell of soldiers" dispatched to Brussels for the purpose.

The shadowy cells were confirmed by Europol - the EU police agency which said in a late January report that intelligence officials believed the group had "developed an external action command trained for special forces-style attacks."

French speakers with links to North Africa, France and Belgium appear to be leading the units and are responsible for developing attack strategies in Europe, said a European security source.
A policeman in forensic overalls leaves a house in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek (AP)

SIX PEOPLE have been arrested in connection with the Brussels terror attacks, Belgian prosecutors have said.

At least 32 people were killed and 270 injured when suicide bombs ripped through the airport and a Metro station on Tuesday morning.

Three terrorists died in the explosions and a massive manhunt was launched to track down other suspects believed to be behind the blasts.

Belgian prosecutors said the arrests were made during raids in central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood - where police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making material earlier this week in a flat believed used by the suicide bombers.

Schaerbeek residents said they heard blasts during the police raids, but it is unclear of these were explosions or controlled detonations.

The arrests came as officers in France swooped on a man suspected of being in the "advanced stages" of a plot to attack the country, in a raid on the outskirts of Paris.

Expand Close A woman weeps as a crowd gathers in front of a makeshift memorial to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels attacks on the Place de la Bourse in central Brussels. Photo: AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp A woman weeps as a crowd gathers in front of a makeshift memorial to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels attacks on the Place de la Bourse in central Brussels. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said there were no links "at this stage" between the plot and the terror attacks in Brussels and in Paris in November.

Belgian security services were hunting two men pictured with the suicide bombers shortly before the attacks and believed to be on the run.

One of the men was caught on CCTV carrying a large bag and walking with jihadist Khalid El Bakraoui moments before the bomb detonated, according to state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde newspaper.

Another of the suspected killers, dubbed "the man in white", was pictured pushing a trolley through Zaventem Airport with Najim Laachraoui and Khalid's brother Ibrahim before they blew themselves up.

More details have emerged over exactly what the security services knew about the terrorists involved in the atrocities.

According to reports, the El Bakraoui brothers were plotting an attack on a nuclear power facility and brought forward the Brussels strikes following the arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam.

The brothers planted a hidden camera in front of the home of the director of research and development at the Belgian nuclear programme, the La Derniere Heure newspaper said.

The footage showed the nuclear boss's comings and goings and prompted investigators to conclude the terrorists "could have put national security in danger like never before", the paper added.

Prosecutors have confirmed the Brussels bombings, for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility, were linked to the Paris attacks in November.

Khalid is believed to have rented a house in Charleroi in Belgium which was used as a hideout for the Paris attackers.

An international warrant was out for his arrest and police had been searching for him since December.

Belgium's interior minister and justice minister offered to resign amid growing questions about why authorities failed to prevent the terror attacks, but the prime minister refused to accept the resignations.

Meanwhile, the family of Briton David Dixon, 53, who is originally from Hartlepool but was living in Brussels and has been missing since the Metro blast, said it was "anxiously waiting" and hoping for "good news" about him.

Flights to Brussels airport have been suspended until Monday, the airport said.

The news came as the younger brother of suspected Brussels suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui described him as "nice" and intelligent".

Mourad Laachraoui, 20, told reporters: "I feel bad, that's all - scared and saddened."

He described his brother as "a nice boy - especially intelligent", who read a lot and said their family was a practising Muslim household, but he could not say what put his brother on the path to violent extremism.

He said: "I'm no psychologist, no idea."

The Laachraoui family warned Belgian police that Najim had gone to Syria in 2013 when he called them about leaving. His brother Mourad said he searched in vain for his brother on Facebook to try to persuade him to come home but they had had no contact with him since he left.

It has not yet been officially confirmed to them that Najim died as one of the three suspected suicide bombers who attacked the Brussels airport.

His comments came as more news emerged about the Britons injured in the attacks.

Two British businessmen, both in their 40s, suffered severe and "life-changing" injuries after being caught up in the airport blasts, according to The Telegraph.

Professor Stefaan Nijs, head of traumatology at Leuven Hospital, said: "Both British patients are being very courageous and strong."

One of the men has a broken leg and severe burns. The other had both his legs broken and his injuries were so bad it was feared he might have to have his leg amputated.

Dr Nijs said: "Yesterday I was able to speak to one of the guys who he asked me if he would keep his leg. When I told him that he would be able to walk again, but perhaps not go to the Olympics, he gave me a fist-bump."
A Bosnian Muslim woman cries during a mass funeral for victims of the Srebrenica massacre in in Potocari, Bosnia on July 11, 2005

Karadzic was arrested in July 2008, after almost 13 years on the run. He was charged with the genocide of around 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims who were rounded up, killed and bulldozed into mass graves in Srebrenica in July 1995. He was also charged with war crimes including the kidnap, abuse, rape and killing of women and girls during the Bosnian war, and is held responsible for orchestrating the shelling of Sarajevo in 1995.

Karadzic represented himself when he appeared at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, denying all 11 charges. He told the trial at The Hague that Sarajevo, where some 12,000 people died in 44 months, was "not a city under siege" by Bosnian Serb forces. He also said that claims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre were based on "false myths".

Born in Montenegro in 1945, Karadzic trained as a psychiatrist, studying in both Sarajevo and New York before returning to Yugoslavia where he decided to move into politics after being influenced by Serbian writer Dobrica Cosic. He co-founded the Serbian Democratic Party, dedicated to keeping the Serbian community together.

When Bosnia was recognised as an independent state in 1992, Karadzic declared the independent Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and was voted president of the Bosnian-Serb administration.

The party, supported by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, organised Serbs to fight against the Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia. Karadzic and Mladic were jointly indicted in 1995 for alleged war crimes committed during the 1992-95 war.
A Bosnian Muslim woman cries during a mass funeral for victims of the Srebrenica massacre in in Potocari, Bosnia on July 11, 2005

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was found guilty yesterday of orchestrating ethnic cleansing during the war in Bosnia in Europe's worst single act of slaughter since the Second World War.

The 70-year-old Bosnian Serb leader appeared in court in The Hague to hear judgments on 11 war crimes charges, including two counts of genocide. The judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

The verdicts against Karadzic make him the most senior of all the alleged Balkans war criminals to have been convicted.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused of stirring the Balkans conflict as Yugoslavia crumbled in the 1990s, died in his cell while on remand in The Hague in 2006.

As commander-in-chief of Serb forces in Bosnia, Karadzic was accused of overseeing some of the worst atrocities of the war, which ran from 1992-95 and cost an estimated 100,000 lives.

It included the 44-month siege and bombardment of Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the Srebrenica enclave.

Two other key Serb suspects remain on trial, including Karadzic's military chief General Ratko Mladic, who was caught in 2011, and Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj.

The trial is being closely watched in Bosnia, and the conviction is likely to lead to large-scale celebrations among the Muslim communities Karadzic's forces terrorised. A number of survivors of the Bosnian war were in court to watch the verdict.

Karadzic has been in the court's custody since 2008, having spent 12 years on the run in the Balkans after vanishing from the public eye in 1996.

During that time, investigators froze bank accounts of close relatives suspected of helping him hide, yet he remained at large, even publishing a book of poetry in Serbia.

It was long rumoured that he had benefited from the protection of the Serb intelligence agents - and possibly also the Serb Orthodox Church.

But on July 21, 2008, he was unexpectedly arrested on a Belgrade bus while posing as a New Age healer under the name of Dr Dragan Dabic, complete with long beard and ponytailed hair.

His New Age alter ego quickly deserted him by the time he appeared in the dock in The Hague 10 days later. Clean shaven and wearing a suit, he refused to enter pleas to the court, and has refused to recognise its authority ever since.

To this day, he protests his innocence, saying his wartime actions were intended to protect Serbs and stop the bloodshed getting any worse. In an interview by email earlier this week to news portal Balkan Insight, he said he was confident that the court would clear him.

"My permanent fight to preserve the peace, prevent the war and decrease the sufferings of everyone regardless of religion were an exemplary effort deserving respect rather than persecution," he wrote.

A key part of the trial has involved the question of just how much Karadzic knew about the activities of the forces under his control. In 2014, Karadzic tried to get his fellow defendant Ratko Mladic to put him in the clear over Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic's command massacred some 7,000 Muslim men and boys.

Karadzic subpoenaed Mladic in the hope that he would confirm he had knowledge of the planning or carrying out of the Srebrenica operation, only for Mladic to evoke his right to silence. The scene of the two ageing defendants arguing it out in court had a blackly comic element to it, after Mladic complained that he could not speak properly as his false teeth had not been brought up from the cells.

Karadzic's trial is one of the final acts at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. The court, set up in 1993, indicted 161 suspects. Of them, 80 were convicted and sentenced, 18 acquitted, 13 sent back to local courts and 36 had the indictments withdrawn or died.

Karadzic defended himself through his 497-day trial and called 248 witnesses, poring over many of the millions of pages of evidence with the help of a court-appointed legal adviser.

Munira Subasic, whose son was among the victims of Srebrenica, said the verdict was "very important to show new generations, especially those in Serbia who have been poisoned with hatred already, what really happened in Bosnia."

More than 20 years after the guns fell silent in Bosnia, Karadzic is still considered a hero in Serb-controlled parts of the divided country.

Just last weekend, Milorad Dodik, the current Bosnian Serb leader, officially opened a student dormitory named after Karadzic, and had Karadzic's daughter and wife unveil the plaque.
The arrest of Frenchman suspected of belonging to a militant network has foiled a major attack in France, according to officials.

"The individual questioned, a French national, is suspected of high-level involvement in this plan. He was part of a terrorist network that planned to strike France," said French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The French counterterrorism service DGSI also carried out a raid last night at an apartment building in Argenteuil, a suburb in northern Paris.

"At this stage, there is no tangible evidence that links this plot to the attacks in Paris and Brussels," said Mr Cazeneuve.

French radio station France Info said the man had been sentenced in Belgium for belonging to a jihadist network. French TV station ITele reported that explosives had been found in the man's house.

Witnesses said the area had been locked down and residents were unable to return home for hours after the raid began.

France has been on high alert since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and injured hundreds. Mr Cazeneuve said there had been 75 arrests since the beginning of the year.
A policeman in forensic overalls leaves a house in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek (AP)

Police use a robotic device as they take part in a search in the Brussels borough of Schaerbeek following Tuesday's bombings in Brussels, Belgium REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Police use a robotic device as they take part in a search in the Brussels borough of Schaerbeek following Tuesday's bombings in Brussels, Belgium REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Police have raided Brussels neighbourhoods in an operation the mayor said was linked to both the airport and subway bombings and to the arrest in the Paris suburbs of a man who may have been plotting a new attack in France.

Three people were detained, with two of them shot in the leg, the federal prosecutor's office said. The operation was conducted in the Schaerbeek district, which was raided on Thursday night, as well as the neighbourhoods of Forest and Saint-Gilles, it added.

Belgium's state broadcaster said one person was carrying a bag of explosive material. The area remained cordoned off, even after heavily armed officers had left, a resident said.

Three of six people detained on Thursday in the investigation have been released, prosecutors said.

The broadcaster, RTBF, quoted Schaerbeek district mayor Bernard Clerfayt as saying the raid was linked to the Brussels attacks and Thursday's arrest of a man in France.

On the third and final day of national mourning for Tuesday's attacks that killed 31 people, Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel missed a wreath-laying ceremony at the airport with US Secretary of State John Kerry because of the police raids.

Mr Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgium's counter-terrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failings in the run-up to the bombings on Tuesday.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation, Mr Kerry said the "carping" about Belgium's shortcomings "is a little bit frantic and inappropriate".

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Belgian emergency vehicles arrive at the Brussels Airport in Zaventem, on March 22, 2016, after a string of explosions rocked Brussels airport and a city metro station, killing at least 21 people, as Belgium raised its terror threat to the maximum level. AFP PHOTO / THIERRY MONASSETHIERRY MONASSE/AFP/Getty Images Passengers wait, on March 22, 2016 near Brussels airport in Zaventem , following its evacuation after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Flags being put at half mast outside European Commission Credit: Twitter Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Passengers board a bus as they evacuate the Brussels Airport in Zaventem, on March 22, 2016, after a string of explosions rocked Brussels airport and a city metro station, killing at least 21 people, as Belgium raised its terror threat to the maximum level. AFP PHOTO / THIERRY MONASSETHIERRY MONASSE/AFP/Getty Images Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images Passengers evacuate the Brussels Airport in Zaventem, on March 22, 2016, after a string of explosions rocked Brussels airport and a city metro station, killing at least 21 people, as Belgium raised its terror threat to the maximum level. AFP PHOTO / THIERRY MONASSETHIERRY MONASSE/AFP/Getty Images Firefighters arrive at a security perimeter set near Maalbeek metro station, on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, after a blast at this station near the EU institutions caused deaths and injuries. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNANDEMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images Passengers evacuate the Brussels Airport in Zaventem, on March 22, 2016, after a string of explosions rocked Brussels airport and a city metro station, killing at least 21 people, as Belgium raised its terror threat to the maximum level. AFP PHOTO / THIERRY MONASSETHIERRY MONASSE/AFP/Getty Images A police officers sets a security perimeter near Maalbeek metro station, on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, after a blast at this station near the EU institutions caused deaths and injuries. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNANDEMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images A police officers sets a security perimeter near Maalbeek metro station, on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, after a blast at this station near the EU institutions caused deaths and injuries. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL DUNANDEMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images People are evacuated from Brussels Airport, in Zaventem, on March 22, 2016 after two explosions in a hall of the airport. AFP PHOTO / BELGA / DIRK WAEM / Belgium OUTDIRK WAEM/AFP/Getty Images An armed policeman secures the access to the terminal area of the Frankfurt Airport, on March 22, 2016, in Frankfurt, western Germany. AFP PHOTO / DPA / Boris Roessler / Germany OUTBORIS ROESSLER/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Passengers are evacuated from Brussels airport, on March 22, 2016 in Zaventem, after at least 13 people were killed and 35 injured as twin blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport.AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYSJOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images

Top members of Belgium's embattled government are facing criticism over its counter-terrorism efforts since - and before - the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and that authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

Mr Kerry also said the US and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalisation of youth.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and Mr Kerry lashed out at the extremist group.

"We will not be deterred," he said. "We will come back with greater resolve - with greater strength - and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth."

Authorities also announced that American, British, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

A manhunt has been under way since Tuesday for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

Belgian prosecutors said raids on Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighbourhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

French counter-terrorism police also detained a man on Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot.

Officials told The Associated Press that the suspect, Reda Kriket, 34, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Elsewhere, Belgium's nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the country's nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

The move at some plants "is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks," said nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck, noting the decision to deny access usually takes weeks.

Immediately after Tuesday's attacks, security was boosted around the country's nuclear sites and hundreds of staff were sent home.

Last month, authorities said searches in the wake of the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgium's nuclear industry.

Belgian media reported this week that Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui had video recordings of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region.
A Bosnian Muslim woman cries during a mass funeral for victims of the Srebrenica massacre in in Potocari, Bosnia on July 11, 2005

Victims' families in the courtroom, some of then elderly, listened intently when the genocide at Srebrenica was discussed. One wiped away tears as the judge described men and boys being separated from their families.

When Radovan Karadzic was ordered to stand for sentencing, he listened with eyes mostly downcast. After judges departed, he sat back heavily in his chair.

Victims' families embraced before quietly leaving the courtroom.

Outside, Hatidza Mehmedovic, who lost her entire family at Srebrenica, said she was enraged by the verdict, and no punishment could have been harsh enough. "He can live in a cushy prison while I have to live in Srebrenica, where his ideology is still in place," she said. "I have no sisters, no brothers, no husband."

Serge Brammertz, the court's chief prosecutor, said he hoped the ruling would make populist politicians in the region more reluctant to hail convicted war criminals as heroes.

"There is nothing heroic about raping persons, about sexual abuse in camps," he said. "There is nothing heroic about executing 7,000 prisoners which have been detained in impossible circumstances. There is nothing heroic to kill with snipers children who are playing."

The only more senior official to face justice before the UN tribunal was the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in custody a decade ago before a verdict was reached.

Karadzic defended himself through his 497-day trial and, rejecting the charges against him, sought to portray himself as the Serbs' champion, blaming some of the sieges and shelling on Bosnian Muslims themselves. He said soldiers and civilians who committed crimes during the war acted individually.

Opponents of the UN tribunal say its prosecutors have disproportionately targeted Serbs as 94 of 161 suspects charged were from the Serbian side, while 29 were Croat and nine Bosnian Muslim.

Prosecutors have been criticised for not bringing charges against two other leaders of that era who have since died - Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.
Video grab taken from BBC News of Mark Beamish, who survived the terrorist attack at Maelbeek Metro Station in Brussels. Photo: BBC News/PA Wire

A survivor has told how he escaped the Brussels metro terror attack with just minor cuts and burns.

European Parliament worker Mark Beamish (35), from Birmingham, was stepping off the train at Maelbeek station when the blast tore through the train, killing 20 people and injuring dozens.

The next thing he remembers is sitting amidst the dust and debris as bystanders rushed to his aid.

Mr Beamish (right) told BBC News: "I was travelling with a friend so I remember shaking his hand goodbye as I stepped off the train and that's the last thing I remember. I don't remember a blast, I don't remember any sound or vision, I have one static image of me crouching on some stairs covered in dust. The next thing I remember is being outside the station being looked after."

Mr Beamish said he has no idea how he got out of the station or what was going on around him.

He said the overriding feeling he had was "just confusion".

Pointing to scratches on his face, he said he managed to escape the blast with just superficial cuts, burns on his hands and some dizziness.

But as he was being tended to by a paramedic outside, panic erupted once again and everyone was told to run, he said.

"I remember being helped down to the floor by a bystander and then a paramedic coming along who called my wife for me to tell her that I was injured but that I would be fine", he said.

Then he was helped to a nearby office and collected by ambulance.
The trial of two Turkish journalists accused of revealing state secrets and helping a terror organisation over its reports on alleged government-arms smuggling to Syrian rebels has been adjourned.

Cumhuriyet newspaper's chief editor Can Dundar and Ankara representative Erdem Gul face life imprisonment if found guilty of charges of espionage and of aiding the moderate Islamic movement led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a foe of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The pair are on trial for publishing images that reportedly date back to January 2014, when local authorities searched Syria-bound trucks, leading to a stand-off with Turkish intelligence officials. Cumhuriyet said the images proved Turkey was smuggling arms to Islamist rebels.

The prosecutor asked that the hearing proceed behind closed doors, a request that was granted by the court, according to local media. Turkey's private Dogan news agency said the court also accepted that the Turkish president and national intelligence organisation should be claimants in the case.

Opposition politicians insisted on attending the hearing and refused to leave the courthouse, which meant that the afternoon session could not move forward, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The panel of judges also decided to file a complaint against the legislators for attempting to influence the trial.

Representatives of international media advocacy groups, who are pressing Turkey to drop charges, also came to Friday's opening hearing to show their support. The trial is seen as a bellwether of the future of press freedom in the country, which has witnessed a growing crackdown on independent and opposition media over the past few years.

The journalists were arrested in November after Mr Erdogan filed a personal complaint against the two. Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled in February that their rights were violated, leading to their release from jail.

Speaking to reporters as he entered the courthouse, Dundar said he was hopeful that the court would take the high court's ruling into account and drop charges.

"The Constitutional Court has already said that this news is not an act of terrorism but an act of journalism. So this judge, we hope, will approve this decision and drop (this) case," he said.

The indictment accuses the two of working with the Gulen movement to create the image that the Government was aiding terror groups.

The Government initially denied the trucks were carrying arms, maintaining that the cargo consisted of humanitarian aid. Some officials later suggested the trucks were carrying arms or ammunition destined for Turkmen kinsmen in Syria.

Government officials accuse Gulen's supporters of stopping the trucks as part of an alleged plot to bring down the government. The government has branded the movement a "terror organisation" although it is not known to have engaged in any acts of violence.

Speaking in Istanbul on Thursday, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, criticised the authorities for treating journalists as a threat when the country is facing real terrorism. He also criticised Mr Erdogan, who filed the lawsuit against Dundar and Gul, for spearheading attacks against the media and creating an "atmosphere of fear".

A representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists also came to Turkey to attend the hearing. "They have done nothing wrong but committed the act of journalism," said Nina Ognianova. "They have covered a story of public interest that is important not only for Turkey but also the region and the international community."
Syrian government soldiers gather on a hill at the entrance of Palmyra, central Syria. Photo: AP

Isil was under pressure on two fronts last night as Syrian regime forces fought towards the heart of Palmyra and Iraq's military began its long-awaited attempt to retake Mosul.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) ordered the 15,000 remaining civilians in Palmyra to flee as Bashar al-Assad's forces pushed in from the west under the cover of Russian jets.

The regime's progress was reportedly slowed by fierce resistance from jihadist fighters and rings of land mines planted in the path of their advance.

Syrian state television broadcast footage of government troops apparently near a recaptured hotel.

One soldier boasted to Isil: "You will be crushed under the feet of the Syria Arab Army."

The jihadist group responded with video on social media appearing to show its fighters driving unchallenged through residential parts of the city.

Meanwhile, a Syrian government antiquities official said he was balancing "fear and joy" at the thought of the ancient ruins of Palmyra which may soon be back in government hands.

"I am so happy that the liberation is imminent ... and that the nightmare is nearly over, before it is too late, before the total destruction of the ancient city," said Maamoun Abdelkarim.

Isil fighters began destroying the World Heritage site's relics soon after they captured the city in May 2015.

Archaeologists have been unable to enter since and the world is yet to learn of the scale of the historical destruction.

About 480km east of Palmyra, the Iraqi military said it had begun operations aimed at liberating Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Isil has controlled the largely Sunni city for nearly two years, giving its fighters ample time to build defences and set up booby traps for Iraqi forces.

The offensive is likely to be long and bloody and the Iraqis will be heavily reliant on US air support.

Iraqi troops dropped their weapons and fled when Isil attacked the city in June 2014 and the new offensive will be a test of their training and resolve.

Kurdish fighters will take a supporting role in the offensive so as not to further inflame tensions with the Sunni Arab population in and around Mosul.

The operation began with an assault on Isil-held villages east of the city. The offensive was announced on Iraqi state television but it could take six months or longer to actually take back the city.
Elections in Anderson County: How to vote early and what to know

What to know about the 2022 general election and voting in South Carolina, which has passed new legislation to create a period for early voting.
Jay West

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By Independent Mail

Belton City Councilman Jay West filed Friday to run as a Republican for the South Carolina House of Representatives District 7 seat.

West has served on the Belton City Council since 2012. His said his campaign for the House seat will focus on the need to repair South Carolina's roads and improve public education.

West is the only candidate who has filed for the House District 7 seat. The two-week filing period for candidates ends at noon Wednesday.

State Rep. Mike Gambrell, a Republican from Honea Path, has held the District 7 seat since 2007. Gambrell and Williamston Town Councilman Rockey Burgess will meet in an April 5 GOP primary runoff for the vacant South Carolina Senate District 4 seat.
The city of Warwick approved a controversial ordinance Monday night clearing the way for the use of license plate readers in the city. The move comes a year after the city of Cranston made a similar move and is touted by officials as a way to improve safety by alerting police officers if a certain license plate is detected. Critics of the ordinance, including the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU, expressed concern over the use of such cameras, expressing concerns over privacy, how data would be used and who they might target. Do you support the use of license plate recognition cameras in your community? Why or why not? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction has chosen two Kannapolis City Schools educators to serve as experts on a statewide panel. The panel of educators presented to a state conference in Raleigh and focused on North Carolinas new Kindergarten Entry Assessment, or KEA.

DPI selected Josh Sain and Rebecca Merriman as two of five educators from across the state to help explain and answer questions about the KEA, which is North Carolina's new evaluation for kindergarten students. Josh Sain serves as curriculum coordinator at Shady Brook Elementary School. Rebecca Merriman is a kindergarten teacher at Jackson Park Elementary and was honored as Kannapolis City Schools Teacher of the Year in 2013.

Sain and Merriman spoke during the state conference in Raleigh to an audience of teachers, administrators and school board members from across North Carolina. They helped to explain the new KEA, which is an evaluation given to all North Carolina kindergarten students within their first 30 days of entering school. The KEA was mandated by the state legislature as part of the Read to Achieve Act passed in 2014. The new assessment is designed to measure students readiness for school in five areas:

Language and literacy;

General knowledge;

Approaches toward learning;

Physical well-being and motor skills; and

Social and emotional development.

The KEA is intended to help teachers tailor their instruction for individual students and reduce the overall achievement gap in North Carolina.
kallakalcinema

UPDATE: As reported by Indianexpress, Sunny's husband Daniel has denied the entire episode and called it a "fake report".

"There is not a single fact of truth to this. There were no interviews at the Holi event. If anyone knows us then they would know this could never be true." - Daniel Weber

Sunny Leone ko gussa kyun aata hai?

Sunny, who was in Surat during Holi, gave it back to a reporter after she was asked how much she charges for 'night programmes' now that she is a movie star. The incident occured at a Holi event titled, 'Play Holi with Sunny Leone'. Her husband Daniel Weber had arrived at the hotel early in the morning. Things began to turn ugly when a drunk intruder entered her room and asked for odd favours. This worried the organisers who thought Sunny would walk out from the event. But Sunny was a thorough professional, and still got on to the stage to dance for 15 minutes. She had strictly informed the organisers that she would come only if there wasn't any media inside. Sunny however lost her cool when a journalist from a national news channel started interviewing her in the corridor. The Bollywood actress apparently got so furious with him that she slapped the man right on his face publicly. The reporter asked her:

"You were a porn star earlier, now you are a film star. So how much do you charge now? How much do you charge for a night programme?"

ndtv

Onlookers said Sunny didn't think twice before hitting the reporter in the presence of the hotel staff and visitors. Her husband Daniel was heard saying:

"Sunny has given an apt reply to the reporter so we are not filing any police complaint. The organisers were also college kids so we do not want their careers to be damaged. But henceforth, Sunny will think a thousand times before coming to Gujarat."

And you thought Sunny is too vulnerable to any kind of questions? She knows when to maintain her calm (remember the interview with Bhupendra Chaubey?) But this was way too much to handle!
Its quite a popular belief that focussing on our breath helps us focus on the present, calms the mind and allows us to be more aware about our body. Since the beginning of time, yoga has been considered the practise to attain pursuit the state of calm in this always fast running world.

Most importantly, mindfulness or the meditative state associated with yoga has been adopted world over to get rid of negative thoughts, and clear the mind.

reuters

Administrators at Bullard Elementary School in Kennesaw, Georgia, implemented yoga and other mindfulness practices for their students to reduce stress and help them learn a thing or two about peace and relaxation in their future.

But, sadly, they received numerous complaints from parents. The reason being that most parents felt yoga was taking them towards non-Christian beliefs.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bullards principal, Patrice Moore, sent parents an email last week announcing changes to its yoga program.

I am truly sorry that the mindfulness/ de-stressing practices here at Bullard caused many misconceptions that in turn created a distraction in our school and community. While we have been practicing de-stressing techniques in many classrooms for years, there have been some recent practices associated with mindfulness that are offensive to some.

Two elements will be eliminated from the program. The first one being, the Sanskrit greeting Namaste, which involves placing hands to heart center. Second, the coloring pages with the symbol of the Mandala (a spiritual symbol representing the cosmos).

Moore further observed that a rumor had also spread about using or teaching about crystals having healing powers. She concluded, We will ensure that nothing resembling this will be done in the future.

Still, some parents were concerned about the connect between yoga and spirituality.

reuters

Christopher Smith, parent whose child attends Bullard, shared his opinion on Facebook.

Now we cant pray in our schools or practice Christianity but they are allowing this Far East mystical religion with crystals and chants to be practiced under the guise of stress release meditation. This is very scary, he wrote.

Cheryl Crawford, a yoga instructor who has taught at several Atlanta-area schools told the Journal-Constitution said that yoga can help calm students who are anxious about their studies or coping with anger and bullying issues. The exercise is not intended to endorse any faith.
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An 11-year-old girl who was brutally raped and attacked by her rapist, and who spent 17 days in a hospital, came back home to be further humiliated and boycotted.

The victim, who hails from Itarsi in Hoshangabad district in MP, now faces a bleak future. According to her helpless father, "They have spoiled the life of my youngest daughter. I have five more daughters, and for their safety and the safety of my youngest daughter, I have to send her to a shelter home," as reported by the Hindustan Times.

Trust.org

The rapist belongs to a Yadav community and thus the mounting pressure by the community on a young girl who hasnt even seen the ways of life. The girl is now being shunned and treated as a "culprit". The villagers blame the family members who are now being threatened to throw their own daughter out of the village.

The girl was allegedly raped by 24-year-old Shankar Lal Yadav in the first week of February. Threatened with dire consequences, the girl kept quiet on her nightmare.

BBC

However, on February 27 when Shankar went to repeat his crime, the little girl fought back. But she was attacked with a knife and was soon admitted to a hospital in critical condition.

"When [she] came to Bhopal, she was in critical condition," said Sarika Sinha, member of Gauravi  a One Stop Crisis Centre in Bhopal. She added, "I cant explain the level of exploitation. Even after six decades of independence, discrimination is still spoiling the lives of many people. Instead of (sympathising) with her, villagers are cursing her just because of her caste. Our team visited the place and witnessed it."

In spite of the horror of the situation, theres still hope. For the local police is doing every bit to provide help to the girl and her family. So much so that even the Hoshangabad superintendent of police, Ashutosh Pratap Singh is ready to adopt the girl.
In Google, if you type the words 'sedition' and 'anti-national', you are most likely to be given a Google Maps suggestion to follow the route to JNU campus.

Yes, the snag was noticed Friday morning, when the said searches highlighted JNU on the Google Maps. Evidently, it has offended the staff and students of the university, who will now approach Google Map India to correct the fault.

The Vice-President of JNUSU, Shehla Rashid Shora told Hindustan Times, "On the face of it, it looks offensive. We will contact Google authorities and find out why and how such a thing can happen. There would be some technical issues involved but we need to find out why is JNU being shown in the map for location search of anti-national."

The dean of International Studies, Anuradha Chenoy, also added, "I dont know how this thing works on internet. But it should be corrected. JNU should contact Google and get it rectified."

The glitch, however, wasn't noticed by many. But those who did couldn't keep their jokes to themselves.

So find term 'Anti-National' on Google Maps, result will show "JNU". I trust Google Maps than any Maps, its one of best app in the world ;)  Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) March 25, 2016

Search "Anti Nationals" on Google Maps and they have a postal address known as JNU campus. Even the Google knows about it!  kanika handa (@kanikahanda) March 25, 2016

Quite appropriate, if you search #antinational on Google Maps, it will take you to #JNU! Hahahahahaha, this is what India thinks.  PM (@PoojaMissra) March 25, 2016

A Google representative has confirmed that the issue is being resolved. However, the timing of the snag is extremely concerning, especially since it wasn't very long ago that the university emerged out of its heated national battle against the government, that persecuted its students like Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition and anti-nationalism.
It seems another Paris and Brussels like bombing attack has been thwarted. French authorities have now arrested a man said to be in 'advanced stages' of plotting an attack in the French capital.

Reuters

The man was arrested from the outskirts of Paris with bomb squad preset to deal with explosives.

According the French Interior Minister, the man had been under the lens for several months. He also said that currently there are no links between the earlier attacks in Paris and the recent attacks in Brussels.

Reuters

The French authorities have arrested 75 and jailed 28 suspects this year.
If rumours are to be believed, an Indian priest reportedly abducted by ISIS militants in Yemen will be crucified on Good Friday.

Tom Uzhunnalil was believed to have been kidnapped from a retirement home in Yemen, by ISIS militants who attacked the residence on March 4. According to the International Business Times India, the group shot 16 people, including four nuns, at the Aden home which is run by missionaries.

No one took responsibility for the attack, however, Yemeni officials blamed it on ISIS.

Twitter

The Franciscan Sisters of Siessen posted on Facebook claiming that they had been informed of Father Uzhannalil's torture and said that they believed that he will be crucified on the occasion of Good Friday on March 25.

The Sisters said, "This calls for serious concerted prayers from all of us."

On the other hand, Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco told the International Business Times India, "There is no information about the whereabouts of Father Tom. We are only praying for him."

commondreams.org

According to a handwritten note - published on Aleteian (a Christian website) - by a nun who was present at time of the attack, five young Ethiopian Christian men had run to inform the sisters that ISIS were coming to kill them.

The note described the brutality of the attack and allegedly confirmed Father Uzhannalil's abduction. The note said, "A neighbour saw them put Father Tom in their car. They did not find a trace of Father anywhere."

Meanwhile, reactions are now pouring in on social media, with people praying for his safe return and requesting government action:

Prayers requested for Fr. Thomas, the Indian priest kidnapped by ISIS in Yemen - ISIS say they will crucify him on Good Friday #nasarean.org  Redhead4Trump (@redhead4trump) March 20, 2016

Does Govt hv any clue about the fate of kidnapped Indian Priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil ?Is it correct that he may be crucified today by ISIS?  Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) March 25, 2016
NASA has said that its astronauts will set foot on Mars to set up a research and operations base, and not a permanent colony.

According to the space agency's current plans, the Mars outpost will serve as a hub to accommodate astronauts on a temporary basis. NASA hopes to set up the base by 2030s, that will be used as for researched based operations.

natureworldnews

A colony is "a long way down the road. No one's thinking of, on the NASA side, like a permanent human base," said Ben Bussey, the chief exploration scientist at NASA's Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate.

marssociety.org

He further added, "The idea here is that you would have your exploration zone that you set up for the first crew," Bussey added. "And that crew would leave, and then you send another crew at the next good launch opportunity. So it isn't permanently occupied, but it is visited multiple times."

That being said, one hopes that whenever the time comes, the Martian aim to permanently put humans on the Red Planet goes through.
For the first time in 40 years, a rare Sumatran rhino has been located in Kalimantan, in Indonesia. On Tuesday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced that a female Sumatran rhino was captured which is now being hailed as "a major milestone for rhino conservation in Indonesia."

The age of the rhino has been estimated between four and five-years-old. It's being kept in a temporary habitat and will soon be airlifted to a more secure place where it will be protected against poachers.

WWF Indonesia

Even though the scientists believed the rhino to have been extinct, WWF scientists didn't end their search for evidence that could prove otherwise. In 2013, they witnessed footprints along with an image that was captured on a camera trap. On the basis of this information, the experts had believed that nearly 15 Sumatran rhinos were still alive, split into three populations.

WWF Indonesia

With the capture of the female Sumatran rhino, the scientists now believe that it could become a part of a "managed breeding population" so as to procreate future species.

"This is an exciting discovery and a major conservation success. We now have proof that a species once thought extinct in Kalimantan still roams the forests, and we will now strengthen our efforts to protect this extraordinary species," said Efransjah Efransjah, CEO of WWF-Indonesia, in a statement.
A suspected female suicide bomber intercepted in northern Cameroon on Friday before she could blow herself up has claimed to be one of 219 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram gunmen from Chibok town in Borno State in April 2014.

Reuters cites military and local government sources as saying two girls carrying explosives were stopped by local self-defence forces in the northern Cameroonian village of Limani, the target of frequent suicide bombings in recent months.

The girls were then handed over to Cameroonian soldiers, who are members of the Multi-National Joint Task Force against Boko Haram.

A local government administrator, Raymond Roksdo, who confirmed the development, said one of the indeed declared that she is one of the Chibok hostages. She is around 15. Were now verifying, because on the Nigerian side, they have the names and photos of these girls.

Two military officers, who pleaded for their identities to be protected as they were not authorized to speak to the press, also confirmed that the girl had claimed to have been one of the Chibok abductees.

We need a few days to be able to confirm this information, one of the military sources said. We have to debrief all the men who were present and interrogate the two girls before we can say anything.

If true, this would be the first time that any of the Chibok schoolgirls have been confirmed to be used by the terrorists to carry out suicide bombings.

While there were fears that some of the abducted schoolgirls may have been sent on suicide missions given that most of the suicide bombers are teenagers, around the same age as the Chibok girls, such fears have not been substantiated and this latest development may just shed more light on the fate of the girls, whose abduction almost two years ago, sparked national and global outrage.
Disturbed by the current economic downturn in the country, the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwanu Akiolu, yesterday called on Nigerians to offer prayers for President Muhammadu Buhari because he needs Gods intervention to address the countrys challenges.

The monarch made the call when he received a delegation from Kebbi State led by the state governor, Atiku Bagudu, on a courtesy visit to his palace.

Akiolu said that Buhari has good intention for the country.

According to him; He has good intention for Nigeria and that was why I like him. But he needs Gods intervention to achieve his aim. And I know that if we pray for him, by this time next year, the economic challenges we are experiencing would cease. And we will all have reasons to smile.

On his part, the paramount ruler of Lagos said I often pray for the President to achieve his campaign promises. And we expect Nigerians also do so for him to achieve all his aspirations for the country.

He, however, appealed to Nigerians to patronize Made-in-Nigeria goods because it would help create more employments for Nigerians.

Earlier, Governor Bagudu said that the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, facilitated the partnership between Lagos and Kebbi state on the establishment of a commodity value chain and appealed to other governors to adopt the strategy.

According to him; Infact, yesterday, he (Tinubu) saw me at the Economic retreat in Abuja, asking the progress made on the partnership. That showed how keen he was to ensure that the partnership works.

Mr. Bagudu stressed that the partnership was what the founding fathers of the country envisaged after the countrys independence, which helped the countrys economy to grow.
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, has described the just concluded National Economic Council (NEC) retreat as mere jamboree and waste of over N250 million public fund.

The retreat has further exposed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of President Buhari lacked economic blueprint as the president is still talking the way he talked while seeking for votes from Nigerians, the governor said Friday through a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.

Fayose said it was funny that the same set of people, who as governors ruined the economy of their states, were the resource persons at the retreat, asking; What solution can the likes of former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who as governor plunged the State into unprecedented debt by borrowing money to build governors lodge, pavilion and uncompleted civic centre proffer to the economy of Nigeria?

The governor further said that it is strange that close to one year after President Buhari was sworn in, he still cannot tell Nigerians one major economic step his government has taken to salvage the economy. He has not taken any key step and there is no economic team. That is strange!

I was at the retreat and I can tell Nigerians categorically that it was just a jamboree. It was a waste of over N250 million public fund because most of the resource persons were the same people who ran their States aground.

Instead of wasting over N250 million on such a jamboree, it would have been better if the fund is given to those downtrodden Nigerians, who are trading with as little as N5,000.

For instance, at N10,000 each, N250 million will go round 25,000 pepper sellers whose capital is not more than N5,000 and that would go a long way in boosting their trade.

Even most governors, including those of the APC were not happy with the economic retreat. Almost everything they proposed was opposed by the Governors.

Also, the president in presenting himself as APC president alone and speaking as if he was still canvassing votes and chose the retreat to tell the 22 states governed by the APC to build 250,000 housing units per annum. The question is which state in the present Nigeria can build 10,000 housing units per year?

To me, the Federal Government appears not ready to face reality. The economic retreat sounds like another talk shop retreat and a clear indication that APC and President Buhari did not have an economic blueprint even when it took two months after winning election for the president to assume office.
Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has called on Christians across the country to use the Easter celebration to pray for sustainable peace and economic growth in the country.

Saraki in his message to mark the Easter festivities being held in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by Christians across the world, said it is imperative for all Nigerians to borrow a leaf from the humility and sacrifice exhibited by Christ when he yielded his life for the redemption of mankind.

The Senate President in a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, commended the Christian community for their fast and prayers during the Lenten season and urged them to sustain the tempo for the continued peace and unity of the nation.

He reminded the Christian faithful of the need to remain steadfast and always promote religious harmony between and among various groups as a panacea for developing the nation.

He also commended the Federal Government for the significant increase in the level of security across the country in recent times, and called on the security agencies to redouble their efforts to once again ensure a smooth and hitch-free Easter celebration.

Even though we still have a long way to go in restoring full security across the country and ensuring the safe return of our Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their local communities, let us be rest assured that the end to insurgency and mindless attacks unleashed on innocent Nigerians in some sections of the country by the Boko Haram insurgents is in sight, Saraki said.

This is the more reason I urge all Nigerians irrespective of region, religion and ethnic affiliation to increase their support for the efforts of the Federal Government aimed at nipping the menace of Boko Haram and all other noticeable shades of criminality in the bud for good and in the shortest possible time, he stated.

He, however, assured that the National Assembly would continue to make legislations, including the review and amendment of existing ones, to boost security, create conducive business and investment environment, support the fight against corruption and block leakages in the system to bring about desired economic buoyancy in the country.
It was a heroic welcome yesterday for the member of the Ekiti State House of Assembly representing Efon State Constituency, Afolabi Akanni, as a mammoth crowd of supporters thronged Fajuyi Park in Ado-Ekiti, the State capital, to catch a glimpse of the man who was thrown into the Lions den, yet emerged alive.

Hon. Akanni was arrested by the Department of State Services on March 4 for undisclosed security reasons and whisked to Abuja where he was allegedly kept incommunicado from his family, lawyers, colleagues and doctor, even when he took ill and could barely walk.

In apparent fear that the lawmaker could die in its custody if he did not receive prompt medical attention, the DSS on Tuesday reportedly dumped him at a private hospital in Abuja, where he was admitted.

In recognition of his unflinching loyalty to Governor Ayodele Fayose, the Ekiti State Government organized a reception for the released lawmaker on Thursday after 18 days in DSS custody.

Governor Fayose and Hon. Akanni arrived Christs School field in a chartered helicopter accompanied by a former Special Adviser on Revenue Matters, Ropo Ogunjobi, who was also grilled by the DSS.

Government officials, party leaders and members had been mobilised to the venue as early as 9am.

They were welcomed amidst singing, dancing, drumming and trumpeting, despite the unbearable heat.

The atmosphere soon became charged as Fayose used the opportunity to lampoon President Muhammadu Buhari and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Akanni said his ordeal in the hands of the DSS had inspired him to be loyal to Fayose.

He also claimed that his detention was politically motivated and an attempt to get at the governor, who he described as a reliable leader.

The lawmaker said: What manner of democracy are we practising? How can DSS invade a House of Assembly and arrest a lawmaker with intention to impeach a governor?

They even came without a warrant of arrest. Is this democracy?

Is it an offence to be loyal or committed to a governor? Fayose is our leader and I cant betray him.

Ekiti people must stand behind him. Mr Governor, I am assuring you that I will always stand by you.

In his remarks, Ogunjobi said he was quizzed on the alleged laundering of N22 billion refund on federal roads, allegedly paid into Fayoses accounts, which he described as blatant falsehood.

He said: They even said I helped Fayose to launder N1.3 billion out of the N2.5 billion ecological fund released to the state.

I said all these were lies. I cant lie against Mr Governor.

Fayose, who said he has won another battle against federal forces, declared that the alleged attempt to unseat him wont work like that of 2006.

He described Akanni as a hero.

The governor said: President Buhari and former President Obasanjo are not democrats.

They have no respect for the constitution and the rule of law. But no matter what they do, we wont succumb to intimidation.

Today, I am excited because we have won the battle again. They took Akanni to Abuja as a captive, but he is back as a hero. Shame unto DSS. Shame unto our oppressors.

Our economy is bad. People are losing their jobs daily. The All Progressives Congress (APC) has no answer to this bad economic situation.

When the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power, a dollar was N200, but today it is almost N400.

We thank God that we have a House of Assembly that refused to join forces with them. That was why I told them that they had engaged a wrong customer.

They should forget about impeachment, because this is not 2006.

President Buhari should face Nigerias financial problems.
Israeli forces killed two Palestinians who allegedly stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, as video emerged of one of the attackers being shot in the head as he apparently lay wounded on the ground. Israeli rights group BTselem published the graphic video on Thursday morning, after the suspected stabbing incident took place in Tel Rumeida, a Palestinian neighbourhood situated near several Jewish-only settlements in the heart of Hebron.

The Palestinian Authoritys Ministry of Health identified the two men as Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi and Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif, both 21. They were both shot while they allegedly carried out a stabbing that left an Israeli soldier injured and taken for medical treatment. The BTselem video shows an Israeli soldier step forward and shoot Sharif in the head. He was already splayed on the concrete, ostensibly unable to move, as Israeli medics treated the injured soldier nearby.

This is the first time weve had such a clear video of a Palestinian being executed. This monstrous picture shows how brutal the occupation is, Issa Amro, director of the Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements activist group, told Al Jazeera by telephone.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, an Israeli military spokesperson said that the soldier had been detained and an investigation into the incident had been opened. The IDF views this incident as a grave breach of IDF conduct, values and standards of military operations, she said. The soldier involved has been detained and a military investigation has been opened.
A North Carolina man, James Meyers Jr., a single dad, says he was arrested for not returning a videotape cassette tape he rented 14 years ago.

Meyers said he was driving his 10-year-old daughter to school at around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday when police pulled him over for a broken brake light.

Meyers gave the police officers his drivers license and was shocked when they said there was a warrant out for his arrest for not returning a VHS rental, the title of the movie was Freddy Got Fingered, from 2002, he said.

Meyers told ABC News yesterday:

They were chitchatting with me and talking about how ridiculous this is, then they arrested me. Because I had my daughter in the car and we were on the way to school they said that I could take my daughter to school and go to work and then find a babysitter, and then come into the police and turn myself in.

According to a police news statement, the arrest warrant had been issued on Feb. 28, 2002.

So after he dropped his daughter off at school and found a baby sitter to watch her after school, he went to the police station and turned himself in. There he was processed at the Concord Police Department on a charge of failure to return hired property before being transferred to Cabarrus County Jail, where he was released on a written promise.

Meyers, who is a drum and bass musician, said he had never been arrested before said:

They took my belt, I was trying to hold my pants up while trying to sign papers, he said. It was very embarrassing.

It scared my daughter, he said. She thought I was going to jail for a bad brake light.

Meyers rented the VHS from J&J Video in Salisbury, North Carolina, according to police. The store has been closed for about 10 years now, if Im not mistaken, he said.

Meyers said Tom Green, the writer, director and star of Freddy Got Fingered, reached out to him from his stand-up comedy tour in Australia when he heard the news, he said Green also tweeted about his 2001 action-comedy film: I just saw this and I am struggling to believe it is real.

He said:

Tom Green called and started singing to me on the other end of the phone. He said not to worry, and he can help anyway he can, and please keep in contact with him and keep him updated.

He was so cool, he was a class act. It made me feel a lot better because of all the stress that is going on.

Meyers, who said he has no idea what became of the tape, is scheduled to appear in court next month.

Source:ABC News
In any civilized society, the ugly news of the atrocious attacks and killings in Agatu communities reaching Mr. President in good time as it is believed he was rightly informed, should have drawn his irk against the loss of human lives recorded and culprits involved.

Without mincing words, I expected a speedy response from the Nigerian president disavowing the activities of the Fulani marauders, accompanied by a fierce directive to all relevant security agencies to put an end to the pogrom and also ensure the perpetrators of such dastard acts under whatsoever guise are apprehended and brought to book.

To my utter dismay, Mr. President exhibited a lukewarm attitude in addressing the situation by lightly criticising the attacks and merely asking for a committee to be set up with a mandate to look into the remote causes and proffer solutions.

For how long will the Nigerian State continue to show a glaring apathy when it comes to making the lives of her citizens count. Over 300 hundred innocent men, women and children were brutally massacred unjustly with their communities razed down and the best response from President Buharis administration is setting up a committee.

is that how a responsible government reacts by taking the lives of her citizens for granted without a more stringent approach swiftly adopted to stop the killings and apprehend the invaders who continue to transverse the length and breadth of the affected communities wreaking havoc without encountering any form militaristic impedance from security agents assigned to check mate their diabolic activities?

The unwillingness of the Nigerian government under President Buhari, taking a vow to deal decisively with the perpetrators of such carnage tends to show contradiction, insincerity and bias on the part of Mr. President who during his May inauguration assured Nigerians that He belonged to everybody and he belonged to nobody.

His body language so far clearly depicts a man who is the grand patron of a group of terroristic herdsmen that needs to be outlawed but continue to enjoy the privilege of being the kith and Kin of the Commander in Chief and as such he would never take decisions that will fracture the existing relationship they share which in my own understanding supersedes the vow he made to be fair and just to all.

I cant believe the government sincerely wants to apprehend the terroristic Fulani herdsmen given the fact that their nefarious activities continue taking place incessantly and the government has not deemed it fit to send adequate troops or Police men to quell the attacks on communities and ensure the culprits are caught and made to face the full wrath of the law, an appalling and no commendable action always played by the government that invariably gives the Marauders a feeling of invincibility and a sentiment of having an untouchable clout to do whatever they do recklessly because the long arm of the law will never catch up with them within the present bias Nigerian administrative contraption.

For a government under a supposed democratic system that sends her troops to shut down peaceful demonstrators by use of violent force as witnessed in the South East against the IPOB members demanding the release of Nnamdi Kanu and also the case of Shiite Muslim members killed by the Nigerian state at their Headquarters in Zaria after an earlier encounter of their members blockading the convoy of the Nigerian Army Chief. It is on record that many innocent unarmed civilians were killed in swift response by the Army under the authoritative commands of Mr. President.

Now that a group of terroristic herdsmen are terrorising indigenous farmers across the middle belt and beyond why is the government slow to anger in deploying well-armed and combat ready troops who will be ruthless in dealing with the invaders a term coined more recently by the inspector general of Police Solomon Arase who described the Fulani herdsmen as aliens who are invading Nigerian communities to cause havoc.

On how these aliens are allowed to wage war within our territorial boundaries remains another poignant issue to be discussed and tackled but for now I expect with this new revelation the Nigerian Government would be more angered to exercise her militaristic might with full force against those who operate under the guise of cattle rearing to kill our fellow countrymen.

For me this government is full of hypocrisy and double standards until President Buhari wakes up to face the challenge that his Fulani cattle rearing kinsmen pose a great threat to our collective security and corporate coexistence and drastic measures need to be taken to put an end to their heinous campaign, the resolve of this government to unite our people across our various ethnic and religious differences will forever remain an effort in futility if such killings continue unabated thereby painting the culpability of the Nigerian government not doing the needful to arrest and punish the perpetrators of such crimes against humanity irrespective of the identities of victims.

Yours Truly,

Tersoo TeeCube.

Follow me on Twitter @teecube_t3rsoo

Instagram @teecube_tersoo

www.teecubethahoodscholar.wordpress.com
The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, on Thursday in Abuja, said a Nigerian astronaut would land in space on or before 2030.

Onu made the assertion when the management team of the Defence Space Agency, led by the Director-General, Air Vice Marshal Victor Udoh, visited him.

The space programme is very important for a country like Nigeria, Onuh notes, adding that the Federal Government was putting all the structures on ground to ensure that Nigerian astronauts landed in space on or before 2030.

The ministry will work very hard in the years ahead to strengthen all the structures of the agencies that will help us to ensure that the nation plays a role in the space, he said.

He said the ministry would intensify efforts to ensure that all the arrangements needed were provided.

According to him, the space is a major asset which nations like Nigeria must also be involved in for the purposes of protecting national interest.

Onu assured the team that the ministry would support and work with the agency in the best interest of the nation.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue State and one-time senator representing Benue North-West, Joseph Waku, has berated the national chairman of the party, John Odigie-Oyegun, saying he is not competent to hold the position he is currently occupying.

The former senator accused Mr. Odigie-Oyegun of irresponsible behavior, which he said is behind most of the crises rocking the APC.

In an interview with Daily Trust published on Friday, Senator Waku faulted a comment credited to the national chairman that the APC may look elsewhere for a replacement for Mr. Lai Mohammed, the erstwhile national publicity secretary of the party because the North-Central where the position was zoned to, allegedly lacks a competent person to fill the vacuum left by the former spokesman, who was appointed minister by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The former senator and APC governorship aspirant in Benue State in the last general elections, said after waiting patiently for the national chairman of the party to retract the comment, which he described as irresponsible, insulting and disgraceful, he came to the conclusion that Mr. Odigie-Oyegun was not even qualified to hold that position in the first place.

According to him, Ninety per cent of the crisis we are witnessing in the APC today is as a result of the incompetence within the national secretariat of the party and the so-called leadership has brought us where we are today.

That statement coming from him is a strategy for him to bargain with the highest bidder who could pay more for that position but I can assure you that will not happen because that position was zoned to the North Central. That office was not zoned to Lai Mohammed. I was a member of that zoning committee and I knew what we went through to get that position zoned to the North Central. I knew what I personally went through because I was representing the North Central at the first national convention of the APC. So nobody can sit down in his office and begin to arrogate to himself the powers to shortchange and do whatever he chooses to do with that position.

Waku added that the party chair was merely daydreaming by saying the position would be zoned elsewhere because he lacked the powers to make that decision.

He noted that it was based on the same principle of zoning that the national chairmanship position, which Mr. Odigie-Oyegun is currently occupying, was given to the South-South, adding that the former Edo State governor is not the best in that zone.

There are much more senior practicing politicians with credible records in the South-South yet that office went to him because the arrangement favoured him and we did not have anything against it. So his office and others remain zoned to the respective areas until the national convention decides otherwise, Waku stated.
A Senator representing Ondo North District, Prof Ajayi Boroffice, who wants to become the next governor of Ogun State has said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state would not sell the projects of the state to other states if assumed power after the November governorship poll.

He alleged that projects worth N670 million belonging to the state has been sold by the state government, describing Ondo as a failed state. He said Governor Olusegun Mimiko should be held responsible for the poor economic situation in the state.

Speaking during a visit to the state Secretariat of the APC, Boroffice declared his intention to contest the November governorship election in the state.

He alleged that the projects were diverted to other states of the federation. He also berated the Mimiko led administration for demolishing many projects belonging to the state, especially the Owena hotels.

My vision is to build the APC and transform the party to serve as the hope of all the people of the state. My plan is to serve the entire people of Ondo state irrespective of religion or ethnic affiliation, the aspirant said.

The incoming APC government in Ondo state will promote equity, justice and fairness unlike what currently operates in the state. APC is a political party for all the indigene and non-indigine of this state and this we shall show when we get to government, as every individual will be actively involved in government.

Our suffering will soon end in Ondo state because after darkness comes sunshine. With APC government in place, all the sufferings being experienced in Ondo state will become a thing of the past.

He declared that he was destined to rule the state and his dream would be realized on the platform of the APC, stressing that he will implement party supremacy.

Give me the opportunity to Alagbaka House and I will move this state forward in a couple of months, he promised.
A committee set-up by President Muhammadu Buhari to probe partial or non-execution of contracts awarded by Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) between 2011 and 2015, has indicted 300 firms and persons, including serving and retired officers of the armed forces, the presidency said in a statement Thursday.

The statement, issued by Mallam Garba Shehu Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said the committee has also recovered over N7billion from those indicted while the indicted companies are to make a refund of another N41 billion to the government.

The committee, Shehu said, recommended further investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to determine whether another N75 billion should be recovered from some of the companies.

The committee, headed by retired Air Vice Marshal JON Ode, is different from the one investigating the breach of the Defence Arms and Equipment Procurement Act in the award of contracts ONSA.

It found that one of the indicted companies, Societe DEquipment International was overpaid by 7.9 Million Euros and $7.09 Million.

It noted that many contractors were apparently over paid, while others were given full upfront payments contrary to their contract terms and agreements.

The statement added that the committee also uncovered evidence of payments to individuals and companies by ONSA without any contractual agreement or evidence of jobs executed.

It also discovered that some companies failed to fulfil their tax obligations for contracts executed.

The presidential spokesperson said the committee made attempts and succeeded in recovering some of the funds from these individuals and organisations to the tune of Three Billion, Five Hundred and Thirty Seven Million, Five Hundred and forty Nine Thousand, Two Hundred and Twenty Three Naira and Four Kobo (N3, 537,549,223.04), Eight Million US Dollars ($8,000,000.00) and houses worth Five Hundred and Twelve Million Naira (512,000,000.00) from 32 companies.

The Panel also established that some individuals and companies received money without evidence of contractual agreements or jobs done.

The amount received by these individuals was Seven Billion One Hundred and Four Million, Nine Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand Naira only (N7, 104,925,000.00).

The committee revealed that some companies that failed to execute contracts or did so partially were to make refunds.

The total amount to be refunded is Nineteen Billion, Eight Hundred and Ninety Six Million, five Hundred and Thirty Nine Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty-five Naira and thirty kobo (N19, 896,539,125.20) only, Forty Three Million Seven Hundred and Seventy One Thousand, Four Hundred and Thirty Three US Dollars and Seventy-Three Cents ($43,771,433.73) and 2 houses in Abuja worth Two Hundred and Sixty Million Naira (N260, 000,000.00).

It further stated that 15 companies were awarded contracts that require further investigation to ascertain their status. The total value of the contracts awarded in this category was Eleven Billion Seven Hundred and Twenty Six Million Five Hundred and Seventy One Naira only (N11, 726,571,161.00), Two Hundred and Two Million, One Hundred and Twenty Six Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety US Dollars only ($202,136,890.00) and Four Million, One Hundred and Fourteen Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty Two Euros and Ninety Six Cents (4,114,752.96).

The companies include: Abrahams Telecommunication Limited and Value Trust Investment Limited RC 1050628 and RC133792, Bilal Turnkey Contractors Limited RC 616389, Circular Automobile Limited RC 953549, Continental Project Associates Limited RC 1201210, Davoice Network Solutions Limited RC 658879.

Others are Foretech Investment Limited RC 759046, Forts and Sheild Limited RC 1148793, GDP Associated Limited RC 830715, Hakimco Automobiles  RC 904389, Hamada Properties and Investment Limited RC 635720, International Resources Management Company RC 228657, Investment Options Limited  RC 133484, Jakadiya Picture Company Limited RC 270972, JBE Multimedia Investment Limited RC 48875, Kamala Motors Limited RC 845545, Key Information Services Limited RC 297516.

Also to be investigated are: Leeman Communications Limited RC 499781, MCAF Associates RC 734745, Moortown Global Investment RC 968416, Syntec Nigeria Limited RC 220165, Trafiga Limited RC 1098961, Trim Communications Limited RC 261180, Securicor Emergency and Safety RC 431246, Sologic Integrated Services Limited RC 744982, Wada Autos Limited RC 1082513, Zukhruf Nigeria Limited RC 306244, 2020 Nigeria Limited RC 1090292 and A and B Associates Limited RC 279980.

The individuals and companies that received payments without contractual agreements include: Bello Matawalle, Brig.-Gen. A.S. Mormoni-Bashir (the former Principal General Staff Officer at the ONSA, who is still serving), Alhaji Umar Sani, Dr Yakubu Sanky, Baba Bala, Ambassador Clement Layiwola Laseinde (a Director in the ONSA), an architect from Baitil Atiq Travels and Tours.

Others are Alhaji Shuaibu Salisu (the former Director of Finance and Administration at (ONSA), Col. Bello Fadile (rtd) (Special Adviser to Lt Col Sambo Dasuki; former NSA), Mr Otunla Jonah Niyi, Otunba Adelakun, Alhaji Bashir Yuguda, Dr Tunji Olagunju, Miss Oluwatoyin Oluwagbayi, Lt Col MS Dasuki (rtd) (the former NSA).

Also listed are Maipata Mohammed Abubakar, Mohammed Suleiman from Musaco investment and properties, Ibrahim Abdullahi also from Musaco investment and properties, Alhaji Aliyu Usman, and 18 other officers that served in the ONSA.

The companies that failed to execute contracts or did so partially, and have been asked to refund various sums are: A and Hatman Limited, Abuja Consulting Limited, Afro-Arab Investment, Agbede A Adeshina and Co, Aleppo Systems Nigeria Limited  RC 947255, Amp Africa Holdings and Solar Services, Apple Drops Nigeria Limited  RC 1102219, Apt Security Limited  RC 165189, Autoforms Integrated Enterprises Limited  RC 1234829, Axis Consulting Services Limited  RC 1151145, Belsha Nigeria Limited, Community Defence Law Foundation  RC/IT No 56854, Complus International Service Limited, Cosse Limited  RC 316214, Daar Investment and Holdings Limited, Dalhatu Investment Limited  RC 404535, Destra Investment Limited, Development Strategies International Limited  RC 361191.

Others are DFX/White Zebu BDC  RC787658/RC1049919, Duchy Concepts Limited RC392281, Fara Security Limited RC 694607, Fimex Gilt Nigeria Limited RC 143150, First Aralac Global Limited RC939512, Fix-HYL Global Investment RC1129654, Good year Properties Limited RC1168828, Image Merchant Promotions Limited RC 416703, Interglobal Limited RC 189188, Jos Peace Dialogue Forum CAC/IT/No75434, Kakatar Limited RC 443321, Leaderette Nigeria/Norden Global RC 422129/RC1119925, London Advertising Limited UK BASED, Mithra Oil Limited RC 620979, NigerLink BOG (Under Musaco Investment) RC 834592, Iban Global (Under Musaco Investment), Musaco Investment (Bank Charges), Mystrose Limited RC 475579, NAF Holding Company Limited.

Also listed are: Peach Tree Communications Limited RC 410115, Perception BDC RC 740741, Pioneer Ventures RC 69776, Proptex Nigerian Limited  RC 116801, Prosedec Interglobal Limited RC 619845, Real Property Investment Limited RC 294761, Sinash Communications Limited RC 333134, Skytick International Limited RC 798693, Soject Nigeria Limited RC 74991, StellaVera Development Company Limited RC 713258.

The remaining in this category include: Teracon AG SWISS BASED, Wehsec Farms Limited RC 713258, African Cable Television Limited RC 1113903, BCN Nigeria Limited RC 50969, Brains and Hammers RC 655673, Concept Options Ultimate Limited RC 604167, Elizade Nigeria Limited RC 11544, Emerging Platforms Limited RC 922205, EMI System Nigeria Limited RC 248986, Hadassa Investment and Security RC 709085, Kala Consulting Solutions Limited RC 98562, Pioneer Ventures, Nan Bizcom Nigeria Limited RC 680708, Nerres Limited RC 1138835, Plectrum Consulting Limited RC 937931, Protech Consultant RC 301426, Summit Publications Limited RC 304671, Telios Development Limited RC 468351, Urban Abode Nigeria Limited RC 651613, RCN Networks Limited RC 439720, Sail International Limited RC 97863, Suburban Broadway Limited  RC 469689, Geronimo Middle East and Africa, Julius Berger RC 6852, Romgat Morgan Nigeria Limited RC 902020, and Stallion Motors Limited RC 178627.

Contracts awarded to the following companies are to be further investigated: 2020 Nigeria Limited RC 1090292, Acacia Holdings Limited RC 940978, Africair Incorporated US Company, Augusta Westland Limited, Almond Project Limited, Bam Project and Properties, Bob Oshodin Organisation Limited RC 790662, Coral Builders Limited RC 397748, Dan Clington Nigeria Limited RC 940978, Law Partners and Associates BN/UY/004566, Magnificient 5 ventures Limited BN/2299463, MPS Global Services Limited.

Others are One plus Holdings Nigeria Limited RC 695999, Quadsix Nigeria Limited RC 1177968, and Reliance Reference Hospitals.
On this day in 2006, Federal Government sent back to Liberia, its exiled ex-president and one-time warlord, Charles Taylor, who was wanted for trial on war crimes by a UN-backed court

A peace agreement had guaranteed Taylor safe exile in Nigeria, but also required that he refrained from influencing Liberian politics. His critics said he disregarded this prohibition. On 4 December, Interpol issued a red notice regarding Taylor, suggesting that countries had a duty to arrest him. Taylor was placed on Interpols Most Wanted list, declaring him wanted for crimes against humanity and breaches of the 1949 Geneva Convention, and noting that he should be considered dangerous. Nigeria stated it would not submit to Interpols demands, agreeing to deliver Taylor to Liberia only in the event that the President of Liberia requested his return.

On 17 March 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the newly elected President of Liberia, submitted an official request to Nigeria for Taylors extradition. This request was granted on 25 March, whereby Nigeria agreed to release Taylor to stand trial in the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). Nigeria agreed only to release Taylor and not to extradite him, as no extradition treaty existed between the two countries.
Two men, trapped while working in an underground tank at a filling station in Lagos died on Friday, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The Director of the Lagos State Fire Service, Mr Rasaq Fadipe, confirmed the development in an interview with NAN.

He said that the men were working on routine maintenance of the tank when the incident happened.

Fadipe said that the men were working at Fatgbems Filling Station at Ojodu, Berger before one of them got trapped in the tank.

He said that the men died before fire servicemen could rescue them.

We got the call at about 7.09 a.m. We were told that one of the men inside the underground tank shouted for help but later collapsed.

The second man, who was the supervisor for the work, decided to go and rescue them against peoples advice and he also inhaled fuel fumes from the tank and collapsed.

Our men brought out their dead bodies and handed the body over to police officers from the Ojodu Division, who later took them to the mortuary, Fadipe said.

He advised members of the public against putting their lives in danger, saying that rescue operations should be left for professionals. (NAN)
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday responded to talks that his administration has not done anything since coming to office last May, promising to deliver on his election promises in the next three years.

Speaking at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja, the President sought Nigerians understanding to enable his administration meet their expectations.

According to him, with the National Assemblys passage of the budget and savings of over N3 trillion in the Treasury Single Account (TSA), things would begin to move fast.

I will like you to continue to make sacrifice. I know you are being harassed since the election, with people saying that they have not seen anything on the ground. Well if you have any explanation that could be accepted, it is that you have three more years to go, Buhari told party leaders.

When we came in after 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there were 42 ministries. We reduced them to 24; removed 21 Permanent Secretaries.

So, imagine the volume of work So, you have to appreciate the position we are in.

The agencies, Buhari said, had to be pruned and their boards reconstructed following the reduction of ministries.

Buhari also said that his administration went back on it decision to reconstitute the boards of some universities after discovering that the law was breached.

There is nothing wrong in saying sorry and going back on your decision. So, we said sorry and allowed all the universities to continue with their boards. So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves, he said.

Speaking further, the president said: The fall of oil prices is a disaster. If from 1999, oil sold above $100 per barrel with an export of about two million barrels per day, how come Nigeria failed to make some arrangement to cushion the effect of a probably volatile oil market? Again, it shows failure of the last administration.

But we are now to pick the pieces as an APC government and so, there is no need complaining, but let us concentrate and see how much we can do with whatever remains of the economy.

We realised that agriculture and solid minerals are two areas that can help us to recover economically, at least in terms of employment and feeding ourselves and more importantly, saving the hard currency to ensure that our industries continue to employ Nigerians and produce.

The policy we are trying to implement is the TSA. We insist that we have to know what comes in and what goes out, for us to make a comprehensive amendment to the economy.

If you go and see the Central Bank Governor, he will tell you that in the TSA, we have more than N3 trillion. Where would this money have been if TSA was not in vogue? I was made to understand that vouchers would have quickly been raised towards the end of the financial year and cheques made. Whether they are going into projects or private pockets, nobody can prove it to you.

But that money is there, it is identified, it is quantified and when the budget comes back eventually, the ministry of finance will see how to allocate it to the rest of the country.

We have tried to make sure that the NNPC is reorganised, so that we know how much of our crude is taken, how much of it is sold and to which account the money is going.

But I tell you that up till the time we came, if anybody told you that he knew how crude is exchanged either on the high seas or reaching their destination and the accounts the money went into, that person is not telling you the truth, Buhari said.
A 39-year-old pregnant woman, Mrs. Monica Momodu, has been arrested by the police for allegedly assaulting her housemaid with a hot pressing iron.

The victim, Sara Egbadon, a Junior Secondary School 2 pupil, was brought from Supenu-Irua, Edo State, and had been living with the woman for five years on Abiodun Adesida Street, Oke Afa, Lagos.

PUNCH Metro was told that the 13-year-old girl was ironing Momodus childrens clothes on Sunday when she started dosing.

Worried that the housemaid might burn the clothes, her guardian reportedly snatched the iron from her and slammed it on her hand and thigh.

The victim, who admitted that she was dosing, said she had washed the boss childrens clothes and had fanned the woman when there was power outage.

She explained that she was exhausted by the time power was restored, but Momodu instructed her to iron the clothes.

Our correspondent gathered that one of Egbadons teachers noticed the injuries and reported the incident to the police at the Aswani division, leading to the arrest of the boss.

Egbadon said, My mum divorced my dad about six years ago and she is now in Benin. She left my three siblings and I with him. When he could not take care of us, he gave me to madam who is our relative.

On Sunday, she said it was stuffy and told me to fan her. When the electricity was restored, she told me to iron her childrens clothes. I was sleepy while ironing the clothes. She said I wanted to burn the clothes, collected the iron and placed it on my hand and thigh.

Her husband is not aware of the way she treats me. He lives in Abuja and comes home once in a while. Whenever we travel home, she is kind to me in the presence of my father. I want to go back home.

But Momodu said the housemaid injured herself with the iron out of fear when she chided her for dosing. She added that she had wanted to take her back home but her father refused.

She said, She was sleeping and I asked her how she could be sleeping while ironing. It was that shock that led to all this. I did not know she informed her teacher. The iron fell on her. I did not do it. I did not tell her to fan me.

Source: Punch
The abrupt end to the FBI's legal battle with Apple this week resolved none of the underlying disputes. Now important lessons from that case are in danger of being obscured and discourse on encryption and security derailed by emotionalism in the wake of the Brussels attacks.

After asserting repeatedly that only Apple was capable of breaking into the San Bernardino terrorist's work iPhone, the FBI issued a "nevermind" straight out of "SNL." For all its bluster, could it be that the agency was (gasp) lying all along?

"This case was never about a phone. It was a grab for power," said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future. "The FBI already had the capability to hack this phone using forensic tools, but they thought this case would be a slam-dunk -- a way for them to set a dangerous precedent that they've wanted for years."

The FBI and DOJ publicly claimed at least 19 times that there was no way to open the iPhone without Apple's help -- a core tenet of their case using the All Writs Act. But it turns out the DOJ was already in talks in February with Israeli security firm Cellebrite about hacking an iPhone 6 for a drug case.

"The DOJ never mentioned Cellebrite as an alternative possibility in its filings with the court. In this case, that omission essentially amounts to lying," Greer said. "They consistently claimed that there was simply no other way to break into the phone without Apple's help, even though they knew there was another very plausible possibility."

Multiple security experts have cast serious doubt on the FBI's truthfulness as well, citing fraudulent claims in the case and laying out known techniques for unlocking the phone. Court filings gave no indication the FBI tried consulting experts from the government intelligence community -- particularly the NSA -- bolstering the theory that the NSA was excluded on purpose so that the FBI could create a test case.

Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism for the United States, told NPR:

The Justice Department and the FBI are on their own here. You know, the Secretary of Defense has said how important encryption is when asked about this case. The National Security Agency director and three past National Security Agency directors, a former CIA director, a former Homeland Security secretary have all said that they're much more sympathetic with Apple in this case. You really have to understand that the FBI director is exaggerating the need for this and is trying to build it up as an emotional caseThey're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent.

The FBI, it turns out, wants to break into lots of phones, most of which have no connection to national security. San Bernardino became the test case precisely to exploit the emotionalism stirred up in the wake of a terrorist attack on American soil. Politicians -- from Donald Trump throwing a tantrum and raging against Apple ("Who do they think they are?") to John Kasich's misleading statements ("There is a big problem, it's called encryption") -- were quick to throw fuel on the fire and condemn without evidence.

This week was no different, with Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, saying, "We do not know yet what role, if any, encrypted communications played in [the Brussels] attacks." Nonetheless, he added, "we can be sure that terrorists will continue to use what they perceive to be the most secure means to plot their attacks." In other words, we should still worry about encryption.

The official postmortem on last year's attacks in Paris, a 55-page report put together by French antiterrorism police, had no evidence encryption was to blame for intelligence lapses. Instead, "French investigators came face to face with the reality that they had missed earlier signs that the Islamic State was building the machinery to mount sustained terrorist strikes in Europe," according to a New York Times report last weekend.

Regardless, "the thing that stood out for me [about the article] was the desperate need of the NY Times reporters to insist that there must be encryption used by the attackers, despite the near total lack of evidence of any such use," TechDirt wrote.

According to the police report and interviews with officials, "none of the attackers' emails or other electronic communications have been found, prompting the authorities to conclude that the group used encryption. What kind of encryption remains unknown," the Times reported.

But that's not how encryption works! "If they're using encrypted emails, the emails don't disappear," TechDirt countered. "You still can see that they exist, and the metadata of who sent messages to whom remains. It's just that you can't read the contents of the emails. This is bogeyman thinking about encryption, where people think it does something it doesn't actually do."

Later in the article, the Times recounted how "one of the terrorists pulled out a laptop, propping it open against the wall, said a 40-year-old woman. When the laptop powered on, she saw a line of gibberish across the screen: 'It was bizarre -- he was looking at a bunch of lines, like lines of code. There was no image, no Internet,' she said. Her description matches the look of certain encryption software, which ISIS claims to have used during the Paris attacks," the Times wrote.

TechDirt savaged that logic as well:

OH MY! 'A bunch of lines, like lines of code'?!?!?! Must be encryption! Or, you know, Linux. Or some other system that doesn't start with a graphical user interface. And even if it was encryption, then he wouldn't be looking at it in encrypted form. To read encrypted messages you decrypt them first. Nothing in this paragraph above makes any sense at all as 'proof' of encryption. It just seems like proof of the reporters' technology ignorance.

This kind of ignorance is likely to sway public opinion further against encryption after the attacks in Belgium. The FBI "will use this [latest] terrorist attack to advance its case," Avivah Litan, a vice president at market researcher Gartner, told USA Today. "The public reacts very strongly to these types of incidents and insists the government needs to do what is necessary to get the bad guys."

But according to Fight for the Future's Greer, events in Belgium could as easily be seen to underscore the need for encryption, as security codes and details about staff and critical infrastructure are stored in the cloud and encrypted at most major airports. "If the FBI had its way weakening encryption with Apple, it makes most airports that much more vulnerable to these attacks, not less," Greer said.

Gartner's Litan also feels the FBI's witch hunt against encryption is misplaced and ill-timed. "The cat is already out of the bag with all of the advancements in encryption software," she wrote in a blog. "Even if Apple or Google were to make it possible for the government to unlock an iPhone or Android phone and read their encrypted communications, there are other encryption applications terrorists and criminals could use on most smartphones that Apple and Google could not help the government crack."

These independent encryption programs -- such as Open Whisper, which Edward Snowden recommends using -- live inside an application and are not dependent on a smartphone's operating system.

"It doesn't make any sense to put so much pressure on Apple or Google when in the end, they don't control all the keys to the kingdom, even for apps on their smartphones," Litan added. "There's plenty of [meta] data out there for the FBI to work with. I wish they would stop bullying Apple and the technology industry around and spend their time and energy instead on figuring out how to rise to the challenge."

In a briefing this week, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Global Issues Sherif Elsayed-Ali warned: "Encryption is a basic prerequisite for privacy and free speech in the digital age. Banning encryption is like banning envelopes and curtains. It takes away a basic tool for keeping your private life private."

Not to mention securing your financial data and personal information, maintaining the privacy of your medical records, and the guaranteeing the confidentiality of businesses' clients and trade secrets. It seems like a lot to throw under the bus to assuage the FBI's insatiable itch for access.
Not having any details about the latest Badlock bug is frustrating, but IT administrators can do more than mark their calendars and wait for the security update. In fact, simply waiting is a bad idea.

Wedding save-the-dates let invited guests clear the calendar and make travel arrangements. IT administrators should treat the Badlock pre-release announcement regarding a vulnerability involving Microsoft Windows and Samba similarly, by preparing their network infrastructure and clearing their schedules. This way, they will be ready to evaluate the patch and act appropriately as soon as it becomes available.

"Please get yourself ready to patch all systems on this day," warns the badlock.org website. "We are pretty sure that there will be exploits soon after we publish all relevant information."

Prepped and ready

Take a look at upcoming projects and plans. Make sure there's time built into the schedule to go through the patch when it goes live. Set aside extra time to test and apply patches, recommends Jake Williams, principal consultant and founder at security consultancy Rendition Infosec, as well as a certified SANS instructor, on the Rendition Infosec blog. Testing is very important, as Server Message Block (SMB) runs in kernel space. If something goes wrong, it will need more time to fix.

"A bad patch here will result in a blue screen. Period. Not a good place to be," Williams wrote.

Be prepared to patch more than once, especially if Microsoft winds up releasing a rushed patch out-of-band because an exploit becomes available before April 12.

Have a complete list of systems that may need updates -- the list may get shorter when details such as software and version number are available, but the list will show the worst-case scenario. Know which systems -- Windows and Unix -- have SMB enabled. Knowing how many systems will potentially need to be worked on will help determine how much time and people to schedule.

"This will get you a head start once the patch is released," SANS Institute's Johannes B. Ullrich wrote on the Internet Storm Center blog.

Tthough the website scrupulously avoids providing any details, SerNet, the Samba consulting company behind the Badlock website, has released some hints. Simply knowing Badlock affects Windows and Samba means it likely has something to do with the SMB protocol, used to read and write files over the local network, or Common Internet File System (CIFS), the SMB implementation used in Windows.

If Badlock turns out to be a protocol design flaw, then other software using SMB, such as versions of Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris, may be affected, wrote Brian Martin, director of vulnerability intelligence at security firm Risk Based Security. However, Mac OS X switched to its SMB implementation, SMBX, with OS X 10.7 (Lion). Since Apple is not named in the pre-advisory, it may be safe to assume OS X is unaffected. It's still worth adding OS X systems with SMB enabled on the list of potentially affected systems.

Take a look at each of the systems, and don't allow SMB or NetBIOS where it isn't needed. This audit doesn't have to wait for April 12. Don't need it? Take it away.

Protecting the network

The name Badlock is a clue on where the vulnerability may be located, as it could refer to a file or resource-locking mechanism within the SMB implementation, and the code that controls it. There's even a file in the Samba source code called lock.c.

Johannes Loxen, Sernet's CEO, said on Twitter that Badlock will mean "admin accounts for everyone on the same LAN," meaning an attacker would be able to gain administrative-level privileges on a local network. This makes a worm attack likely, so IT teams should look at how to make it harder to traverse the network. Williams recommends blocking SMB leaving the network, via TCP ports 135, 139, and 445 at the boundary firewall.

Ullrich recommends verifying firewall rules to block SMB both inbound and outbound.

Network segmentation makes it harder for worms to spread because it limits the area the worm can access. Physically separate network segments or set up virtual LANs. Williams also recommends private VLANs, though they may be harder to initially set up.

"Think about your network segmentation," Williams recommends. "Layer 3 ACL's make a ton of sense here. So do client firewalls."

Can't wait

Waiting until April 12 -- when the update is expected to be live, likely as part of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update -- or even a few days beforehand to start preparations is a dangerous game since there's a chance the vulnerability will be public before then. What's striking about this pre-announcement is the fact that it comes 20 days in advance. Most previews come a few days -- maybe a week -- before the actual patch, primarily to avoid alerting people who may try to find the flaw on their own. There are already enough clues on where the vulnerability may be and what it may do, so it's possible someone may find and leak the details sooner.

"Odds on the details of Badlock leaking (or being independently discovered) before April 12th? 15/1," security researcher David Litchfield wrote on Twitter.

There are several unknowns at this point. Someone else may uncover Badlock. Microsoft and Samba may run into delays while testing the update or be forced to release an incomplete patch. IT teams need to be ready to swing into action right away, which means getting ready starting now.

"Order some donuts/pizza for the patch team for April 12. It could be a busy day," Ullrich said.

It's possible that the "crucial security bug" could turn out to be hype. There have been plenty of serious vulnerabilities over the past few months that have turned out to be flash, but not exploitable. But taking steps to prepare for Badlock is time well spent. If nothing else comes of it, at least the network is in good shape.
Lots of startup nonprofits suffer through an uncertain and turbulent first year in terms of fundraising, strategy, and operations. But one new nonprofit in Los Angeles, created by Mayor Eric Garcetti, has come tearing out of the gate.

Garcettis Mayors Fund for Los Angeles was modeled after Michael Bloombergs nonprofit in New York City, and it raised a whopping $14.6 million in its very first year. This strong start says a lot about the frothy state of giving in Southern California, as well as a new sense of civic mojo in L.A.a city that even hardcore New Yorkers are thinking about in more positive ways.

The funds priorities are economic prosperity (job access and creation), community resiliency/disaster preparedness, quality of life (neighborhoods, public space, and traffic), and city government efficiency.

It's worth flagging a concern that this effort has raised (along with similar efforts elsewhere)namely, that philanthropic gifts to the fund would offer private donors a way to skirt campaign finance rules and curry favor with City Hall. This is a real issue, one that's been explored by the Los Angeles Times, as well as other media outlets in L.A.

Some critics worry that projects funded through the Mayors Fund would be at the discretion of the mayor himself in order to advance his political agenda. However, Mayor Garcetti emphasizes that he has no control over the nonprofits money and that its purpose is to serve future administrations as well as his own.

Mayor's Fund President Deidre Lind has also tried to dispel concerns by pointing out that decisions of how the money will be spent is up to the funds board and not the mayors office. You can learn about the individual members that make up the board on the funds website, as well as view a long list of donors.

That list offers insights about why the fund has done so well since its start. The philanthropy scene in Los Angeles has exploded in recent years, with many new funders emerging and older ones as active as ever. You'll find both types of funders on the fund's list of donors, which actually offers a great snapshot of the state of giving in the city. Familiar players like the Annenberg and Broad foundations are on the list, but also relative newcomers like the Eisner Foundation and Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation. Additionally, this list includes a surprising number of non-L.A. funders, like the Bloomberg Family Foundation.

Related: Surf's Up: Why Southern California Philanthropy is Taking Off

Meanwhile, a number of corporate donors have also contributed, and while that may be unsettling to some observers, it's worth noting that many of these companies, like Bank of America, have long track records of local giving in Los Angeles.

In short, it seems that a lot of already active funders are excited to see the creation of the Mayor's Fund and have stepped forward to ensure that it succeeds. More broadly, many Angelenos are cheering for Eric Garcetti, a young energetic leader with a lot of ideas. The fund's strong rollout and pitching points have helped further.

The Mayors Fund for Los Angeles is also taking an admirably cautious initial approach to spending. According to recently filed federal tax records, the fund spent less than it raised in its first year. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Mayors Fund spent about $4.7 million in the 2015 fiscal year.

"We're starting to spend money," Lind said. "It was sort of slow in the first year, as we kind of ramp up and get going."

To learn more about this funder, check out IP's profile, Mayors Fund for Los Angeles: Los Angeles Grants
Judging from the popularity of our recent feature, "Meet the 50 Most Powerful Women in U.S. Philanthropy," it seems the world of philanthropy is more receptive than ever to amplifying the growth of womens leadership.

But what's really going on here? What's the impact of women's leadership in philanthropy in terms of (a) where resources are actually going; and (b) how things are done in the philanthrosphere?

These questions are important to the sector, but they also link up with the larger perennial debate over just how much change occurs when women start calling the shots. Philanthropy offers an intriguing case study in this regard.

Our own impression from IP's ongoing reporting in this area is that there are good reasons for all the excitement about women's leadership in philanthropy. In fact, this leadership has mobilized new resources to advance gender equity and does seem to be affecting how philanthropy writ large operates.

Let's start with the new money to advance women and girls. After years of growth, women donor networks are now exploding, bringing more philanthropists to issues of gender equity and growing the ranks of women donors who are explicitly focused in this area. The rise of Women Moving Millions in recent years is a case in point; it's now raised over $500 million for gender-related causes, with even bigger hopes for the future. At a local level, women's giving circles and funds are soaring, addressing women's unmet needs, such as economic security and domestic violence.

Related:

Meanwhile, there are more foundations on the scene with a strong gender focus. The biggest of these, by far, is the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which is chaired by Warren Buffett's daughter, and has massively ramped up in the past decade, with annual giving now on par with the Ford Foundation. Nearly all of that money funds sexual and reproductive health and rights. Buffett money also fuels the fast rise of the NoVo Foundation, which is is putting tens of millions of dollars toward gender work, with a big focus on women and girls of colora historic flow of new money to an area long neglected by philanthropy.

Other major players, like the Clinton Foundation, are putting gender equity near the center of their work, while smaller funders like the Harnisch Foundation are tackling women's empowerment in creative new ways. And, as we've reported, a number of fundersmost notably the Ms. Foundationhave lately worked with the White House to bring more government resources to the table for young women of color.

Related:

At the same time, more mainstream foundations led by women are embracing the cause of gender equity. Corporate funders like the Walmart and the Caterpillar foundationsboth with dynamic women leadersare channeling new money into this field. We've also written about various efforts by tech and manufacturing firms to address gender equity in the STEM area. Maybe most significantly, as we reported, the Gates Foundation has focused more attention on women's empowerment globally, a move likely catalyzed by Melinda Gates, who has lately emerged as a more vocal leader in this area.

Related: Pay Attention: The Most Powerful Woman in Philanthropy Is Zeroing in on Gender Equality

The bottom line is that women leaders really are channeling big new money to gender equity. It's not a mirage, and all the hype on this score is fully warranted.

What's less clear is how much women leaders are changing how philanthropy institutions operate. Does having a Julia Stasch or a Judith Rodin at the top of a big foundation like MacArthur or Rockefeller make any difference in terms of how those places operate, or how much impact they have?

Little research has addressed this question. But what we do know is that plenty of research from other sectors suggests that women leaders do matter. For example, an article by researchers Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman in the Harvard Business Review suggests that women leaders across sectors "both public and private, government and commercial, domestic and international" are perceived as more effective. Other studies suggest that promoting women to leadership in the private sector has a number of business benefits. A landmark 2004 study, The Bottom Line: Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity, found that companies with women in higher leadership were more connected to their consumer base and experience better total financial performance. Since then, research has investigated the many critical differences resulting from women's representation in leadership; businesses as mainstream as Ernst and Young are speeding their initiatives for gender equity.

A key finding of the research on gender and leadership is that women are often more collaborative and better at listening and engaging all stakeholders in ways that produce the best outcomes. That finding certainly tracks with what we see in the philanthrosphere, where many women leaders operate in more inclusive and community-oriented ways. It's no surprise that women have built the most powerful donor networks in the sector, which requires a collaborative mindsetone at odds with a more insular, top-down (and, yes, male) approach to philanthropy that has resulted in some major missteps by funders.

There is much more to say on the topic of women's leadership and philanthropy, and lots of research still to be done on its impact. One key institution deepening the conversation is the Women's Philanthropy Institute at the University of Indiana, which has produced groundbreaking studies on gender and philanthropy and has become a major node of conversation in this area. If you want to dig further into these issues, WPI's trove of studies is a great place to start.

Related: The Study of Women and Philanthropy Just Got a Major Boost. Here's Why That Matters

Meanwhile, we'll keep doing what we can to explore one of the most exciting trends in philanthropy. In the months ahead, we will give particular attention to emerging women leaders who may be less well-known but who are making impact in different ways. Stayed tuned.
Investment Real Estate LLC (IRE), a property-management and consulting firm serving the self-storage industry, has hired Isaac Rothermel as a brokerage assistant. Hell work closely with the brokerage division and directly assist the companys client base, according to a company press release. Rothermel will also assist with the preparation of feasibility and market studies, listing proposals, memorandums and due-diligence documents. In addition, hell manage the brokerage database, which tracks properties, comparable sales, property owners and new self-storage construction.

We feel very fortunate and excited that Isaac joined the Investment Real Estate team. He came to us with a true zest for the commercial real estate industry, and hes been able to hit the ground running in relatively short order, said Kevin Bledsoe, brokerage advisor. Isaac is going to be a great asset to our organization, and he will bring a fresh new perspective to the self-storage industry.

Rothermel has a real estate license in Pennsylvania. He earned a Bachelor of Science in humanities from Thomas Edison State University and is currently studying for designation as a Certified Commercial Investment Member. Previously, he was as a property manager for a mixed-use developer with a portfolio of more than 200 residential units in York, Pa. He was also a subcontractor for a boutique apartment-building developer, also based in York.

Im excited to work for such a focused and established real estate company, with individuals who are some of the best in the industry, Rothermel said. The process of delving through data to inform decisions is one that I really enjoy, so this is a perfect opportunity to grow in those skills. Im also looking forward to developing skills related to the sale of properties.

Since its inception in 1998, IRE has provided brokerage, construction, management and development services to self-storage owners and investors.
As the U.K. bank looks to unload its business in the region, observers think Diamonds Atlas Mara may pursue only some of those assets.

For pure theater, its the deal that everybody would love to see: Robert Diamond Jr., who transformed Barclays Capital into one of Europes top investment banks before being ousted as group CEO of Barclays in 2012, returning to haunt his former employer by snapping up its African business at a bargain-basement price.

When new Barclays chief executive James (Jes) Staley announced on March 1 that the British bank was looking to sell its 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa Group as it seeks to free up capital to support its investment banking businesses, Diamond was immediately mentioned as a potential bidder because of Atlas Mara, the African banking acquisition vehicle he founded with Ugandan entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar in 2013.

Diamonds team at Atlas includes CEO and executive director John Vitalo, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who used to run Barclays Middle East division, and Kenroy Dowers, New Yorkbased head of corporate development, who handles mergers and acquisitions. The British Virgin Islandsincorporated firm has made several purchases, but those familiar with Diamonds ambitions say a deal with Barclays would be a bridge too far.

First, the banks African stake is worth about $6 billion, dwarfing Atlass $336 million market capitalization. Second, Diamond, 64, a Massachusetts native who joined Barclays in 1996 and became CEO in 2011 after serving as group president and head of corporate and investment banking, is taking a measured approach. He might want some of the East African assets, but that doesnt solve Barclays need for an exit, says a London-based banker who has worked with Atlas.

A tilt at Barclays Africa wouldnt fit with Atlass strategy, he adds. The firm is creating a cluster of banks in Botswana, Mozambique and Rwanda, and it plans to build its presence in East Africa, with an emphasis on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, to exploit untapped markets and a rising professional class. Just 34 percent of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have bank accounts, versus 94 percent in high-income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, the World Bank Group reports. Also, a growing number of Africans bypass traditional financial institutions by doing their banking via smartphone, a trend that established players such as Barclays Africa have proven slow to adapt to.

Besides, Atlas already has enough on its plate in Africa after spending about $500 million on acquisitions. The commodities sell-off has hit the continent hard, sending valuations through the floor. Last year Atlas boosted its stake in Union Bank of Nigeria, the countrys 11th-biggest lender by assets, to 30 percent, but UBN stock has fallen almost 37 percent over the past 12 months. A bigger priority is to gain control of UBN, the banker says.

Barclays path to an African exit is unclear, according to regional bankers. The bank is selling because, although it owns only 62 percent, a combination of U.K. and global regulations governing bank capital oblige it to hold 100 percent of the value of Barclays Africas capital on its books, reducing its return on equity from that division to roughly 9.6 percent from 16 percent. Three quarters of the business is in South Africa, and investors are not comfortable with South Africa these days, the London-based banker says.

Rather than seal an eye-catching deal, Barclays will probably try to sell down its stake on the open market. Still, its too early to rule out Diamond, who resigned from the bank amid public outrage over its role in the Libor scandal. Says one Africa-based banker, referring to Barclays Capital, which was a failed bond venture when Diamond arrived at the firm: Its nearly impossible, but Bob has done the nearly impossible before.
Add the nations largest property-casualty insurer to the growing list of financial companies that wont be donating to U.S. Representative Scott Garrett in the wake of his alleged anti-gay remarks.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., which contributed $2,000 to the New Jersey Republican last year, doesnt plan on giving any more, an e-mail written by one of its outside lobbyists shows. The e-mail, a copy of which Bloomberg News obtained, was sent last week to the staff of the New Jersey senate majority leader who has questioned companies about their contributions to Garrett.

The controversy over Garretts comments has reverberated on Wall Street after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last year became one of the first banks to stop contributing to the congressman. The issue has picked up steam in New Jersey as well, where recent protests at some of Garretts corporate donors offices and bank branches have caused them to reconsider their support.

The revolt is significant because Garretts position as chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee that oversees capital markets gives him great sway over the industry. The panel is informally known among lobbyists as the ATM because a seat on it gives lawmakers access to a steady stream of campaign cash.

Lagging Fundraising

The money, however, stopped flowing for Garrett after news reports last July that said he disparaged gay Republican congressional candidates in a closed door meeting.

Garretts fundraising has lagged since. Last year, Democratic challenger Josh Gottheimer outraised him by 2 to 1. Garrett brought in $706,121 in contributions in 2015 while Gottheimer raised $1.4 million. Still, Garrett had about $1.1 million more in the bank as of the Dec. 31 filing date.

In the past few weeks, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. also said it doesnt expect to make any more donations to Garrett, and UBS Group AG said it would re-assess its giving after looking into the reports about Garretts comments. Both firms had been targeted by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights activists.

State Farm disclosed its decision in a note to a staff member for New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg who has written to the chief executives of a number of companies that gave political action committee donations to Garrett. She asked them to request their money back and take a stand against hate.

Hit Pieces

The e-mail sent March 17 by State Farm outside lobbyist Samuel Destito referenced Weinbergs letter. It said, my client has no plans to make further contributions to Congressman Garrett.

Destito, a partner at the Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf law firm, declined to comment.

State Farm spokeswoman Arlene Lester confirmed the company wont be donating more money to Garrett. Its decisions on political contributions are based on candidates who support State Farms free market approach in relation to the services and products we provide, she said in an e-mail.

Garretts campaign manager Sarah Neibart, in an e-mail, said its troubling when elected officials like Loretta Weinberg serve as cronies for liberal Democrats like Josh Gottheimer and try to intimidate private businesses instead of serving her constituents and respecting everyones voice.

Neibart added that Garrett supports every Americans right to run for Congress.

Lawmakers Praise

In an interview, Weinberg praised State Farms decision and added that she will continue to press other companies that still are making donations to Garrett.

These financial houses pride themselves on their diversity, because their customer base, like our state, is very diverse, Weinberg said. I am glad to see this repudiation of really bigoted beliefs that are not representative of the people I know in New Jersey.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation New Jersey
A security worker at a steel plant in Ohio may have died from nitrogen exposure, federal investigators said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the 32-year-old worker was found dead inside TimkenSteels Faircrest Plant in Canton on March 20.

The agency said nitrogen thats used in the plant flooded the air and caused oxygen levels to drop where the workers body was found.

Officials said Kenny Ray Jr. began working at the steel plant about six months ago. He also was a police officer in nearby Creston and a Uniontown firefighter and paramedic.

Ray was described as a well-respected member of the companys security and fire team. He was in a fifth-floor elevator motor room checking fire extinguishers when he died.

OSHA is working with TimkenSteel to figure out if the nitrogen system has affected oxygen levels in other areas.

TimkenSteel has taken steps to ensure safety and has hired an independent auditor to do assessments, said Tom Stone, a vice president at the company.

We have been working with OSHA and our workforce on additional actions to strengthen our safety program, Stone said.

OSHA said the plant has had previous citations stemming from a nitrogen exposure in 2015, but TimkenSteel contested those violations and other issues found at additional facilities. Stone said the company has addressed every issue OSHA has identified at its facilities during the past year.

The company faces fines totaling more than $500,000 for its most recent violations. OSHA said Timken Co., which established TimkenSteel in 2014, has been inspected 29 times and issued 76 violations since 2005.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Workers' Compensation Ohio
San Diego-based Wells Media Group announced that Mitch Dunford, chief executive officer, has resigned to pursue other career opportunities.

Dunford, a former San Diego police officer, has been with Wells Media for 15 years. After leaving the San Diego police department, Dunford changed careers by earning an MBA degree in e-Commerce in 2000, joining Wells Media and eventually being named CEO.

Mitch has been a key player in the success of Wells Media in the digital age, said Mark Wells, chairman, who will assume the CEO duties. He is a man of tremendous talent and integrity who will no doubt be successful in whatever endeavors he decides to pursue in the future. Everyone at Wells Media thanks him for his years of leadership and wishes him the best.

The company also announced that Mark Wooster, current chief financial officer, has assumed a second title as chief operating officer. Wooster has served as Wells Medias CFO since August 2013. He has 25 years of experience in financial and operational management as a CFO, COO, practicing CPA and controller.

Wells Media is publisher of insurance-related websites and magazines, including Insurance Journal, Claims Journal, Carrier Management, MyNewMarkets.com and the Academy of Insurance.
Large hail and strong winds caused considerable damage in heavily populated areas of north Texas overnight on March 23. It was the second time just over a week that the area has been pummeled by hail.

Car windows and sky lights were knocked out in cities in Denton and Collin Counties. Plano appeared to be one of the cities hardest hit, according to the Insurance Council of Texas.

Jennifer Harris, office manager and agent with GEICO in Plano, said all of her customer service representatives were busy.

We have been inundated with calls all morning, said Harris. Autos and homes have been completely demolished.

Dallas/Fort Worth residents had been warned of potentially strong storms moving into the area which struck just before midnight. The areas last hailstorm on March 16 caused an estimated $600 million in insured losses.

The losses from the March 23 hailstorm may be just as bad, according to the ICT.

We are getting calls on damaged vehicles and lots of reports of skylights on homes that have been knocked out, said Robin Phillips, an agent with Guest Insurance Agency in Plano. The storm damage appears to have been on a line that included the cities of Plano, Wylie and Sachse.

Estimated insured losses from the storm will take several days to reach an assessment of the total damage incurred.

Source: The Insurance Council of Texas

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Texas
Duke Energy Corp. announced plans to expand its renewable energy from livestock waste, adding poop power to investments the countrys largest electric company has made in whirring wind turbines and acres of solar arrays.

The Charlotte-based utility said it contracted with Carbon Cycle Energy, which will build and own a North Carolina plant that collects methane from pig and chicken waste, refines the gas and delivers enough for Duke Energy to generate enough electricity to power about 10,000 homes a year.

The project is one of the largest in a growing number of waste-to-fuel efforts and likely will draw mostly from swine operations, company spokesman Randy Wheeless said. The states 2,000 pork producers now collect liquefied waste in cesspools, also called lagoons, and spray it on planted fields.

It would be very nice for the producer to be able to find another stream of income, said Jay Sullivan, a fourth-generation farmer raising more than 5,000 piglets and slaughter-ready hogs on a 900-acre Sampson County farm. A local sage always said there was gold in those lagoons, we just have to figure out how to extract it. Maybe this is it, I dont know, he said.

Duke Energy already is burning methane from smaller projects, including one that draws the gas off the waste from more than 70,000 hogs on 10 adjoining farms in Duplin County, Wheeless said. The utility this month received approval from state regulators to count methane from swine waste in Oklahoma and Missouri toward its North Carolina livestock target.

Carbon Cycle Energys plan is to capture methane near where livestock produce manure, then truck or pipe the gas to a central plant to refine it into fuel Duke Energy can use at four power plants, executive vice president Thomas Mulholland said.

Were collecting something that goes to waste, were putting it to good use and at the same time reducing smell, reducing negative environmental impact, Mulholland said.

The project was spurred by a 2007 state law that requires electric utilities to get 12.5 percent of their power from renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2021. More than half the states have similar requirements. But North Carolina, behind Iowa, the countrys second-largest pork producing state with about 8.8 million hogs, is one of the few that requires utilities to produce some power from swine and poultry waste.

Boulder, Colorado-based Carbon Cycles methane-refining plant, likely to be built in the hog-growing heartland of eastern North Carolina, should help Duke Energy meet its requirement of two-tenth of a percent of its power coming from swine waste by 2021, Wheeless said.

The electric utility has 7.2 million customers in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Florida.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Agribusiness North Carolina
For the first time in 13 years, Florida is preparing to appoint a new insurance commissioner. The pool of 55 candidates has been whittled down to just two.

Per recommendation of the Florida Cabinet, Jeffrey Bragg and Florida State Rep. Bill Hager will be interviewed publicly at the next Cabinet Meeting scheduled for March 29.

Current Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty will leave his long-term position in May after announcing his resignation in January. The Florida Cabinet, which consists of Gov. Rick Scott, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, will appoint the next commissioner with Atwater and Scott having veto power.

Both Hager and Bragg have insurance experience, apparently enough so that Putnam supported the recommendations of his fellow cabinet members. Scott recommended Bragg, Bondi backed Hager on March 23  and neither offered any additional candidates. Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater held 11 of his own interviews, including with Hager and Bragg, and said on Thursday that he is ready to begin the process of Cabinet-directed interviews with Hager and Bragg but did not indicate his favorite.

Lisa Miller, a former deputy insurance commissioner and current CEO of government and regulatory affairs and business development firm Lisa Miller & Associates, headquartered in Tallahassee, said both candidates offer the state the experience necessary for the position.

They are both seasoned professionals that understand that Florida is like no other regulatory environment in the world, Miller said. The 20 million residents in our state want a commissioner who listens to all stakeholders and comes up with solutions for them to have available and affordable insurance products  both of these candidates are able to do that.

Hager, whom Insurance Journal was the first to report as a potential candidate back in January, previously served as insurance commissioner for Iowa from 1986-1990. He is also a past president and CEO of the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) and served as general counsel and chief lobbyist for the American Academy of Actuaries.

Currently in his seventh year with the Florida Legislature, Hager represents House District 89, which runs from Bookertown to Palm Beach, and has spent all of his legislative tenure in Florida on the insurance committee, most recently serving as vice chairman.

He has been vocal in his support of privatizing the flood insurance market in Florida, an issue that has also been a top priority for McCarty. In an interview with Insurance Journal last fall, Hager talked of the states efforts to turn up the heat on the NFIP program and address what he said was flood insurance rate-gouging of Floridians.

Our goal is pretty simple in all of this  we want a robust market. We want to unleash competition. We want relief for homeowners, Hager said.

A recent article from Politico, however, called out Hagers soliciting of insurance companies that he would be regulating if chosen. The article said Hager sent correspondence from his business, Insurance Metrics Corp., to insurers advertising his availability in cases involving bad faith lawsuits.

Hager defended the action to Politico Florida, saying that he is a small business owner and he sends out periodic newsletters with information relevant to the industry  in my case the insurance industry as it relates to my services. He said that if chosen, he would close his other business.

Jay Neal, executive director for The Florida Association of Insurance Reform (FAIR), said they oppose Hager for the position. Neal said despite sponsoring a consumer-friendly bill on life insurance this session, which ultimately passed, he has not put forth any legislation that favors consumers.

He generally has stuck close to the people hes done business with  the insurance and reinsurance industry, Neal said. We do think it should be someone familiar with Florida, but you can be familiar with an issue and just be wrong and thats what Hager is.

Bragg, the top choice of Scott, was appointed as the first director of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program (TRIP) in 2003 and served in the position until he retired in 2014. Prior to that, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as administrator of the Federal Insurance Administration where he managed the federal flood insurance program. He also previously served in a senior position with Zurich.

FloridaPolitics.com noted that Braggs private sector experience required by statute was not in the last 10 years. Five years or more of experience as a senior examiner or other senior employee of a state or federal agency having regulatory responsibilities over insurers or insurance agencies in the last 10 years is also listed as a required qualification for the job.

There has been debate over whether his experience with TRIP would satisfy that requirement, but Miller says the federal government experience is as relevant as state government experience.

[The cabinet] wants someone who has federal regulatory and private experience or state experience and legislative experience  thats the decision point, Miller said. Both are qualified and capable candidates and they can take our state to the next step carrying on Kevin McCartys legacy.

Neal said FAIR supports Bragg for the position and sees his experience as a positive. He said Bragg has also reached out to those who are key to the Florida insurance market, including FAIR.

He made it clear he is open to input from all sorts of different groups. He wants to know the history and has brought the right people in to teach him, Neal said.

The Cabinet said in January its goal is to have the new commissioner in office before the hurricane season starts and before McCarty leaves office on May 2.

The Cabinet has increased the salary range for the new commissioner from the current amount of $134,000 up to $200,000. The final amount will be decided based on the chosen candidate.

A total of 55 candidates applied to the position that was posted in January on the Florida Cabinets website. The application was available until March 11 with candidates to be selected by March 23. Interviews will be held publicly during the March 29 Cabinet meeting at 9 am EST. It is expected the cabinet will decide on the next commissioner at the meeting, though it is possible they do not reach a unanimous decision and delay making a choice.

Related:

Topics Florida Legislation Talent Market
California should delay action on a proposed state-run retirement savings plan for private-sector employees because it could end up leaving taxpayers on the hook, the Investment Company Institute said in a letter Thursday to state Treasurer John Chiang.

The program, known as California Secure Choice, would offer portable individual retirement accounts for about 7.5 million workers who now face relying on Social Security because they lack workplace defined-contribution or traditional pension plans. A feasibility study by Overture Financial found that the program is financially viable and self-sustaining even under adverse conditions with poor investment returns and high opt-out rates.

We share the states objective of increasing retirement-plan coverage for private-sector workers, but believe that goal must be achieved in a cost-effective way that reflects the realities of the workforce and retirement savings, ICI General Counsel David W. Blass said. We are concerned that program participants or California taxpayers  or most likely both  will find themselves bearing unanticipated costs as a result of the program.

A panel led by Chiang and California Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, sponsor of the bill creating the plan, is expected to recommend legislative approval at a meeting on March 28 in Sacramento, based on the feasibility study. The study doesnt fully capture all of the administrative expenses, the ICI said.

The proposed retirement plan will rely on fees by participants, according to Grant Boyken, deputy state treasurer.

It will create no liability for the taxpayer, Boyken said in a telephone interview. Participants would pay fees of about 1 percent to cover operating expenses of the plan, a rate likely to decline as the program matures, he said.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics California
The Seattle Archdiocese in Washington will pay just over $9 million to eight women who were sexually abused as children by a former priest in Whatcom and Skagit counties.

The abuse occurred between 1968 and 1974 at churches in Burlington, La Conner, Swinomish and Bellingham, according to a news release from the archdiocese.

Lawyers for the women said in a news release Wednesday they hope the resolution will be part of the healing process.

I feel privileged to have helped represent these women and to have experienced their courage and determination, attorney Rand Jack of Bellingham said. They have stood up for themselves and other victims of sexual abuse.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain said in a statement this week he deeply regrets the abuse by Michael Cody, a former priest who died last year.

Our first priority is the protection of children and healing for past victims, Sartain said. It is my firm commitment to build on the good efforts of the past and continue to take steps that will truly help victims of clergy sexual abuse to heal. This $9 million settlement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to acknowledge and address the devastating impact of clergy sexual abuse, and to encourage victims to come forward.

Cody has been named in at least one other lawsuit.

The Seattle Archdiocese agreed in May 2015 to pay $1.2 million to a Sedro-Woolley woman who said she was molested by Cody in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Evidence presented during trial showed that in 1962, the Seattle archbishop at the time received a letter from a psychiatrist diagnosing Cody as a pedophile who had sexually abused young girls.

Evidence also showed the archbishop had received warning letters from priests before Cody was transferred from King County to Skagit County. The Archdiocese settled the day before the jury was scheduled to begin deliberations.

The evidence regarding Father Cody is overwhelming, and I dont think the Archdiocese wants more bad publicity, said Michael T. Pfau, a Seattle attorney for the women in the case. The direct involvement of former Archbishop Thomas Connelly in placing this pedophile in parishes with full knowledge of his danger to children is truly disturbing.

The archdiocese says Cody was a priest in a number of parishes in Western Washington, while lawyers for the women said Cody also worked in four Seattle churches and one in Auburn.

Cody died last year. He hadnt served as a priest since 1979 and was defrocked in 2005.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Washington
Active vs. Passive Investing: An Overview

Whenever theres a discussion about active or passive investing, it can pretty quickly turn into a heated debate because investors and wealth managers tend to strongly favor one strategy over the other. While passive investing is more popular among investors, there are arguments to be made for the benefits of active investing, as well.

Active investing requires a hands-on approach, typically by a portfolio manager or other so-called active participant.

Passive investing involves less buying and selling and often results in investors buying index funds or other mutual funds.

Although both styles of investing are beneficial, passive investments have garnered more investment flows than active investments.

Historically, passive investments have earned more money than active investments.

Active investing has become more popular than it has in several years, particularly during market upheavals.

Active Investing

Active investing, as its name implies, takes a hands-on approach and requires that someone act in the role of a portfolio manager. The goal of active money management is to beat the stock markets average returns and take full advantage of short-term price fluctuations. It involves a much deeper analysis and the expertise to know when to pivot into or out of a particular stock, bond, or any asset. A portfolio manager usually oversees a team of analysts who look at qualitative and quantitative factors, then gaze into their crystal balls to try to determine where and when that price will change.

Active investing requires confidence that whoever is managing the portfolio will know exactly the right time to buy or sell. Successful active investment management requires being right more often than wrong.

Passive Investing

If youre a passive investor, you invest for the long haul. Passive investors limit the amount of buying and selling within their portfolios, making this a very cost-effective way to invest. The strategy requires a buy-and-hold mentality. That means resisting the temptation to react or anticipate the stock markets every next move.

The prime example of a passive approach is to buy an index fund that follows one of the major indices like the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Whenever these indices switch up their constituents, the index funds that follow them automatically switch up their holdings by selling the stock thats leaving and buying the stock thats becoming part of the index. This is why its such a big deal when a company becomes big enough to be included in one of the major indices: It guarantees that the stock will become a core holding in thousands of major funds.

When you own tiny pieces of thousands of stocks, you earn your returns simply by participating in the upward trajectory of corporate profits over time via the overall stock market. Successful passive investors keep their eye on the prize and ignore short-term setbackseven sharp downturns.

Key Differences

In their Investment Strategies and Portfolio Management program, Wharton faculty teaches about the strengths and weaknesses of passive and active investing.

Passive Investing Advantages

Some of the key benefits of passive investing are:

Ultra-low fees: There's nobody picking stocks, so oversight is much less expensive. Passive funds simply follow the index they use as their benchmark.

There's nobody picking stocks, so oversight is much less expensive. Passive funds simply follow the index they use as their benchmark. Transparency: It's always clear which assets are in an index fund.

It's always clear which assets are in an index fund. Tax efficiency: Their buy-and-hold strategy doesn't typically result in a massive capital gains tax for the year.

Passive Investing Disadvantages

Proponents of active investing would say that passive strategies have these weaknesses:

Too limited: Passive funds are limited to a specific index or predetermined set of investments with little to no variance; thus, investors are locked into those holdings, no matter what happens in the market.

Passive funds are limited to a specific index or predetermined set of investments with little to no variance; thus, investors are locked into those holdings, no matter what happens in the market. Small returns: By definition, passive funds will pretty much never beat the market, even during times of turmoil, as their core holdings are locked in to track the market. Sometimes, a passive fund may beat the market by a little, but it will never post the big returns active managers crave unless the market itself booms. Active managers, on the other hand, can bring bigger rewards (see below), although those rewards come with greater risk as well.

Active Investing Advantages

Advantages to active investing, according to Wharton:

Flexibility: Active managers aren't required to follow a specific index. They can buy those "diamond in the rough" stocks they believe they've found.

Active managers aren't required to follow a specific index. They can buy those "diamond in the rough" stocks they believe they've found. Hedging: Active managers can also hedge their bets using various techniques such as short sales or put options, and they're able to exit specific stocks or sectors when the risks become too big. Passive managers are stuck with the stocks the index they track holds, regardless of how they are performing.

Active managers can also hedge their bets using various techniques such as short sales or put options, and they're able to exit specific stocks or sectors when the risks become too big. Passive managers are stuck with the stocks the index they track holds, regardless of how they are performing. Tax management: Even though this strategy could trigger a capital gains tax, advisors can tailor tax management strategies to individual investors, such as by selling investments that are losing money to offset the taxes on the big winners.

Active Investing Disadvantages

But active strategies have these shortcomings:

Very expensive: The Investment Company Institute pegs the average expense ratio at 0.68% for an actively managed equity fund, compared to only 0.06% for the average passive equity fund. Fees are higher because all that active buying and selling triggers transaction costs, not to mention that you're paying the salaries of the analyst team researching equity picks. All those fees over decades of investing can kill returns.

The Investment Company Institute pegs the average expense ratio at 0.68% for an actively managed equity fund, compared to only 0.06% for the average passive equity fund. Fees are higher because all that active buying and selling triggers transaction costs, not to mention that you're paying the salaries of the analyst team researching equity picks. All those fees over decades of investing can kill returns. Active risk: Active managers are free to buy any investment they think would bring high returns, which is great when the analysts are right but terrible when they're wrong.

Special Considerations

So which of these strategies makes investors more money? Youd think a professional money managers capabilities would trump a basic index fund. But they dont. If we look at superficial performance results, passive investing works best for most investors. Study after study (over decades) shows disappointing results for the active managers.

Active mutual fund managers, both in the United States and abroad, consistently underperform their benchmark index, with studies showing that between 86 and 95% of actively managed mutual funds did not fulfill their goal of beating the market on an after-tax basis throughout the 2000s. Similarly, research from S&P Global found that over the 15-year period ended 2021, only about 4.5% of professionally managed portfolios in the U.S. were able to consistently outperform their benchmarks. After accounting for taxes and trading costs, the number of successful funds drops to less than 2%. Several other analyses report similar findings.

Only a small percentage of actively-managed mutual funds ever do better than passive index funds.

All this evidence that passive beats active investing may be oversimplifying something much more complex, however, because active and passive strategies are just two sides of the same coin. Both exist for a reason, and many pros blend these strategies.

However, reports have suggested that during market upheavals, such as the end of 2019, for example, actively managed Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have performed relatively well. While passive funds still dominate overall, due to lower fees, investors are showing that they're willing to put up with the higher fees in exchange for the expertise of an active manager to help guide them amid all the volatility or wild market price fluctuations.

Active vs. Passive Investing Example

Many investment advisors believe the best strategy is a blend of active and passive styles, which can help minimize the wild swings in stock prices during volatile periods. The passive versus active management doesnt have to be an either/or choice for advisors. Combining the two can further diversify a portfolio and actually help manage overall risk. Clients who have large cash positions may want to actively look for opportunities to invest in ETFs just after the market has pulled back. For retirees who care most about income, these investors may actively choose specific stocks for dividend growth while still maintaining a buy-and-hold mentality. Dividends are cash payments from companies to investors as a reward for owning the stock.

Moreover, it isnt just the returns that matter, but risk-adjusted returns. A risk-adjusted return represents the profit from an investment while considering the level of risk that was taken on to achieve that return. Controlling the amount of money that goes into certain sectors or even specific companies when conditions are changing quickly can actually protect the client.

For most people, theres a time and a place for both active and passive investing over a lifetime of saving for major milestones like retirement. More advisors wind up using a combination of the two strategiesdespite the grief; the two sides give each other over their strategies.

How Much of the Market Is Passively Invested? According to industry research, around 17% of the U.S. stock market is passively invested, and should overtake active trading by 2026. In terms of mutual fund money, around 54% of U.S. mutual funds and ETF assets are in passive index strategies as of 2021. Passive funds overtook active funds in 2018.

Are All ETFs Passive? No. While ETFs have staked out a space for being low-cost index trackers, many ETFs are actively managed and follow a variety of strategies.
Brazil exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide exposure to the largest economy in Latin America and one of the 12 largest economies in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). Brazil is an emerging market economy striving to become a modern industrial nation with a high standard of living.

The country is rich in natural resources, with more than 40% of the worlds tropical forests and about 20% of its supply of fresh water. But it also faces major challenges, including massive economic inequality, government corruption, and most recently, the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brazils economy is still far from a full recovery even after shrugging off the worst of the pandemic and rebounding strongly in 2021. Inflation and political turmoil ahead of the October 2022 presidential vote have hampered growth. But a strong labor market and rebounding services sector have accelerated growth, with economists now anticipating GDP growth of between 2% and 2.5% in 2022.

For investors able to handle the risks of an emerging market economy, there are significant potential gains to be made. A Brazil ETF provides investors a way to benefit from potential future growth in the Brazilian economy while limiting some of the risks by diversifying across a basket of stocks operating in different economic sectors.

Key Takeaways Brazilian equities outperformed the U.S. stock market over the past year.

The Brazil exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the best one-year trailing total returns are EWZ, FLBR, and EWZS.

The top holding of the first and second funds is Vale S.A., and the top holding of the third fund is Eneva S.A.

Three Brazil ETFs trade in the United States, excluding inverse and leveraged ETFs as well as those with under $50 million in assets under management (AUM). Brazilian equities, as measured by the MSCI Brazil Index, have outperformed the U.S. stock market over the past 12 months, with a total return of 0.1% compared with the S&P 500s total return of -2.5%, as of Aug. 17, 2022. The best-performing Brazil ETF, based on performance over the past year, is the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ).

We examine the top three Brazil ETFs below. All numbers below are as of Aug. 18, 2022. In order to focus on the funds' investment strategy, the top holdings listed for each ETF exclude cash holdings and holdings purchased with securities lending proceeds except under unusual cases, such as when the cash portion is exceptionally large.

Performance Over One Year: 2.9%

Expense Ratio: 0.57%

Annual Dividend Yield: 2.87%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 24,600,244

Assets Under Management: $5.6 billion

Inception Date: July 10, 2000

Issuer: BlackRock Financial Management

EWZ tracks the MSCI Brazil 25/50 Index, which provides a broad-based measure of the performance of the Brazilian equity market. The ETF provides exposure to midcap and large-cap companies based in Brazil. Its largest allocations are in the financial, materials, and energy sectors of the Brazilian economy. EWZ follows a blended strategy, investing in both growth and value stocks, and is one of the best options for providing broad exposure to the large-cap segment of Brazils equity market.

The top three holdings of EWZ are Vale S.A. (VALE3:BSP), a metals and mining company; preferred shares of Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (PETR4:BSP), an integrated oil and gas company; and ordinary shares of Petroleo Brasileiro (PETR3:BSP). Together, these three stocks make up more than 30% of the EWZ portfolio.

Performance Over One Year: 2.5%

Expense Ratio: 0.19%

Annual Dividend Yield: 3.45%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 139,667

Assets Under Management: $257.3 million

Inception Date: Nov. 3, 2017

Issuer: Franklin Templeton

FLBR tracks the FTSE Brazil Capped Index, which gauges the performance of midcap and large-cap Brazilian equities. The ETF provides exposure to midsized and large-sized companies primarily based in Brazil. The financial, materials, and energy sectors receive the largest representation within the fund. FLBR follows a blended strategy, investing in a mix of growth and value stocks, and is a relatively cheap option for investors looking for broad-based exposure to the Brazilian equity market.

The funds top three holdings are Vale, preferred shares of Petroleo Brasileiro, and ordinary shares of Petroleo Brasileiro, all described above.



Performance Over One Year: -10.2%

Expense Ratio: 0.57%

Annual Dividend Yield: 2.28%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 35,330

Assets Under Management: $95.6 million

Inception Date: Sept. 28, 2010

Issuer: BlackRock Financial Management

EWZS targets the MSCI Brazil Small Cap Index, comprised of small public Brazilian companies across a range of sectors. Small-cap companies may offer better exposure to developing economies as compared with large-caps that tend to localized in a few sectors like industry. Utilities, consumer discretionary, and industrials stocks make up the largest portions of the EWZS portfolio.

The top holdings of EWZS include Eneva S.A. (ENEV3:BSP), an electric power generation and distribution company; Sendas Distribuidora S.A. (ASAI3:BSP), a supermarket chain; and Embraer S.A. (EMBR3:BSP), an aerospace and aeronautical services company.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or adopt any investment strategy. While we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.
The legal marijuana industry may still be in its infancy, but its potential for growth has many investors taking notice. Funding platforms with the goal of supporting marijuana-related startups are on the rise, with a number of them headed up by Silicon Valley veterans.

Among the primary factors now attracting investors to the still-fledgling cannabis industry is that there is still ample room for innovation. In this article, we examine some of the most promising pot-related startups around.

Key Takeaways Marijuana is legal in more than a dozen countries, while others have mixed laws that allow for its use recreationally or for medical purposesor both.

The global marijuana market was estimated to be worth $21.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to $55.9 Billion by 2026.

Demand and support from celebrities are helping propel the industry even further.

Startups like Weedmaps and Leafly have attracted attention from big investors.

Some of the industry's most promising companies include Confident Cannabis, Eaze, and LeafLink.

The Marijuana Sector: An Overview

Marijuana is legal in seven countries while others have mixed/localized laws that allow its use for either recreational or medical purposesor both. Uruguay was the first country to legalize it for recreational purposes. Jamaica decriminalized cannabis in 2015 and the country saw its first medical dispensary open up three years later.

In October 2018, marijuana became legal for recreational and medical use in Canada. As of July 2021, 18 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia legalized recreational marijuana. A total of 36 states and three territories legalized medical marijuana.

The global marijuana market was estimated to be worth $21.3 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to $55.9 billion by 2026. This growth is expected to be fueled by an increase in demand (thanks to the increasing degree of legalization around the world) along with a rise in the use of medical marijuana.

The industry is made up of a number of different companies, including:

Plant touchers (those that deal directly with and handle plants)

Ancillary service providers (dispensaries and manufacturers)

Breeders and cultivators

Extractors

Manufacturers

Growing Demand

Legal marijuana companies are able to leverage one important advantage, which makes them slightly different from those in the tech sector. While tech companies often need to create demand or to educate their consumer base, marijuana startups face no lack of demandespecially in North America.

Investors who once backed tech firms are now funneling capital into the cannabis industry. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel's Founders Fund became the first institutional investor to put money into the legal marijuana industry. The fund was the lead investor in Privateer Holding's Series B funding worth $75 million in April 2015. Privateer Holdings has multiple cannabis investments.

Calvin Broadus, a.k.a. Snoop Dogg, is another notable investor in the industry. The rapper makes no secret of his affinity for marijuana and is the director of Casa Verde Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in cannabis startups. The company's portfolio includes names like Dutchie, Green Tank, and Cannalysis.

And he's not the only celebrity seeing green. Singer Justin Bieber partnered with California-based Palms to release packs of pre-rolled joints called Peaches in October 2021. Martha Stewart launched her own brand of CBD products, including wellness gummies and oil drops, after partnering with Canopy Growth. Stewart released the line in September 2020.

67% Americans who believe marijuana should be legalized.

Marijuana Startups

Venture funding for marijuana startups seems to be pouring in from all directions. Commonly referred to as pot-preneurs, marijuana startup leaders are betting heavily on the potential for increased legalization.

Weedmaps

Weedmaps was founded in 2008 and is based in Irvine, California. It expanded and now has offices in New York, Barcelona, Denver, Tucson, and Toronto.

Weedmaps was the first marijuana tech and media brand and provides cloud-based software and data solutions to those within the marijuana industry. It also offers an app that connects consumers with dispensaries. The company was acquired by Grow One in 2015.

Leafly

Leafly allows consumers to rate and review cannabis strains, kind of like a highly specialized version of Yelp. Created by a trio of former Kelley Blue Book employees, the company started out as a simple side project in 2010. Within a year, it became a full-time enterprise and attracted the interest of Privateer Holdings. The company raised almost $41 million in three rounds of financing.

After the 2011 acquisition by Privateer, Leafly expanded with the aim of becoming a place for all types of marijuana users to find out more about everything related to marijuana, including which types of products are right for them and finding the dispensaries that sell what they need.

Promising Companies

With so much growing interest in the growing marijuana cottage industry, it isn't surprising that so many venture capitalists have turned their attention and funding to a rapidly evolving cannabis tech industry. The following are just a few cannabis startups that have raised more than $10 million:

Confident Cannabis: A company that promises to make the cannabis industry more transparent. Producers and retailers can share real-time data about the quality of their products to sell at a better price. The company raised $15 million over three rounds of financing as of January 2019.

A company that promises to make the cannabis industry more transparent. Producers and retailers can share real-time data about the quality of their products to sell at a better price. The company raised $15 million over three rounds of financing as of January 2019. Flowhub: This Denver-based company provides cannabis software for retail dispensaries. Its services allow retailers to conduct point-of-sale transactions, as well as compliance and inventory tracking, along with others. Flowhub raised over $45 million in financing as of Oct. 12, 2021, in four different rounds of funding.

This Denver-based company provides cannabis software for retail dispensaries. Its services allow retailers to conduct point-of-sale transactions, as well as compliance and inventory tracking, along with others. Flowhub raised over $45 million in financing as of Oct. 12, 2021, in four different rounds of funding. Eaze: Eaze is a tech and marketplace platform that connects consumers with retailers through safe delivery services, just like Uber Eats. The company raised $202.5 million as of Feb. 25, 2020.

Eaze is a tech and marketplace platform that connects consumers with retailers through safe delivery services, just like Uber Eats. The company raised $202.5 million as of Feb. 25, 2020. Parallel: This company is also known as Surterra and Surterra Holdings. The company grows and processes medical marijuana. As such, it's considered to be a promising cannabis-based therapy company, raising $355.7 million as of January 2021.

This company is also known as Surterra and Surterra Holdings. The company grows and processes medical marijuana. As such, it's considered to be a promising cannabis-based therapy company, raising $355.7 million as of January 2021. Canndescent: This startup grows, packages, and sells cannabis flowers. It raised $57 million before being acquired by Power REIT in February 2021.

This startup grows, packages, and sells cannabis flowers. It raised $57 million before being acquired by Power REIT in February 2021. LeafLink: A wholesale management platform for the legal marijuana industry, has raised $339 million, as of December 2020.

The Stigma of Cannabis Investing

The bulk of investment money going to marijuana firms is actually making its way north of the border to Canada, where the federal government has legalized medical marijuana use. But U.S. investments are on the rise. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 35% of high school seniors reported having used marijuana in 2020, showing that the market will only continue increasing.

Not all investors are so quick to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to investing in these startups. Many of them remain hesitant because of the stigma associated with these investments. Some do not want to become involved with investments that directly involve the production and sale of marijuana. Whether a company actually touches the plant or not is a distinction that is vital in the marijuana industry.

Still, there are numerous investment opportunities in ancillary businesses for investors concerned about the stigma associated with marijuana. Such ancillary businesses include firms that provide security for medical marijuana dispensaries. As the profit potential for marijuana-related businesses continues to rise, more investors are willing to be open regarding their interest in the growing cannabis industry.


As president of the United States, Donald Trump was likely the wealthiest individual to inhabit the White House and his net worth remains a topic for debate.

In 2015, Donald Trump claimed in a press release that he was worth more than $10 billion, however, his net worth as of 2022 is estimated at $3 billion.

Key Takeaways Donald Trump is the founder of The Trump Organization, a private entity.

He is required to submit a financial disclosure document each year, although numbers are self-reported and dont provide an accurate estimate of his net worth.

Forbes estimates Donald Trump's net worth at $3 billion although Trump has claimed the value at $10 billion.

The Trump Organization

Since 1976, Donald Trump grew his wealth through global commercial, resort, and residential real estate development under the umbrella of The Trump Organization. As a private entity, The Trump Organization is not required to publish financial statements in the same manner as a publicly-traded company.

Donald Trump famously refused to publish his tax returns, which would show his annual income and taxes paid or owed. Although The New York Times published abbreviated information from Trump's tax returns on Sept. 27, 2020, the disclosure failed to provide details about his actual net worth.

As a former president, Trump completes a required annual financial disclosure to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Government financial disclosures may list assets and investments but in estimates and broad value ranges. In 2021, many of Trump's properties were valued at "over $50 million," however, these estimates are self-reported, unaudited, and also differ from numbers The Trump Organization has reported to state and local tax officials.

71 The number of properties in the portfolio owned and operated by The Trump Organization. This total includes commercial and residential real estate, golf courses, hotels, and personal estates.

Assets

In May 2022, Forbes estimated Trumps net worth at $3 billion, falling short of the $10 billion estimates that Trump suggested while running for office in 2015.

Forbes' numbers marry with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which placed the former presidents net worth at $2.97 billion in August 2020.Forbes has attempted to break down Trump's net worth by assets.

Net Worth The value of all assets minus liabilities.

Much of Trumps wealth is tied to multi-use buildings in Manhattan, including retail real estate in the busy Midtown district. His highest value asset is a 30% stake in the office and retail space at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, valued at $2.2 billion, with a debt value of $950 million on the property.



The Trump Organization owns several exclusive golf properties estimated at $730 million, including clubs in Scotland and Dubai. Trump's private golf club in Palm Beach, Fla, Mar-a-Lago, is valued at $350 million.

Trump holds approximately $275 million in cash and liquid assets. Other personal assets include three Florida homes and his 11,000-square-foot residence in New York City, the Trump Tower penthouse. Residential units throughout the United States and around the globe have an estimated value of $340 million. This includes hotels and residential locations in Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Europe, Asia, and South America.



Donald Trump announced in October 2021 that he was creating his own social media platform. Truth Social, held through Trump Media, garnered Donald Trump $430 million from investors. The Donald Trump brand, including his licensing and management business, is valued at just over $50 million.

Trump holds roughly $275 million in cash and liquid assets. Other personal assets include three Florida homes and his 11,000-square-foot residence in New York Citythe Trump Tower penthouse.



Trumps vast real estate empire includes approximately residential units throughout the United States. This includes hotels and retail locations in Chicago, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

What Are Donald Trump's Estimated Liablities? Trump has a lengthy financial record which includes corporate bankruptcies and lawsuits. In 2021, Trump Organization owed $590 million in debts due within four years by 2025.



What Prominent Real Estate Locations in New York City Has Donald Trump Owned? Donald Trump has owned and sold many buildings in New York including the Plaza Hotel, the St. Moritz Hotel, now the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South, and the land under the Empire State Building.

What Is Considered One of Trump's Bad Investment Decisions? In 2014, Donald Trump partnered with an Azerbaijani family that U.S. officials called notoriously unethical. The building, a five-star hotel, and residence called the Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku in Azerbaijan has never opened.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump's net worth has ranged in estimates from $3 billion to $10 billion. With his private firm, The Trump Organization, and its limited public disclosures, it has been difficult to capture the true net worth of his global commercial, resort, and residential real estate as well as his licensing and social media ventures.
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Plenty can go wrong when you run your own business, and thats especially true when you rely on equipment and machinery to function properly. After all, equipment that breaks down can result in lost manufacturing or production time. It's not just the lost time; you have to deal with repair bills, too.

Depending on the specifics of each situation, businesses can easily lose tens of thousands of dollars due to the breakdown of their equipment or machinery. For example, a grocery store with a malfunctioning freezer could need to replace their expensive equipment and lose their entire stock of frozen food. Or, an auto repair shop might see their hydraulic lift break down, resulting in temporary closure and hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues and repair bills.

This is why business owners purchase equipment breakdown insurance. It can kick in to pay for repair bills when equipment breaks down, and it can replace lost income you would have otherwise received.

We compared the top equipment breakdown insurance providers that offer coverage as a standalone policy or as an add-on to a business insurance policy. Each was evaluated based on coverage, the underwriting process, and more.
Energy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) invest primarily in stocks of natural gas, oil, and alternative energy companies. This doesn't perfectly match up with the companies included in the energy sector in the S&P 500, which includes oil and gas companies. Alternative energy companies are typically categorized as tech sector stocks, or occasionally other sectors. The securities within an energy ETFs portfolio include major companies such as Enbridge Inc. (ENB), as well as smaller, fast-growing companies such as SunPower Corp. (SPWR).

Because energy ETFs cover a wide variety of businesses, regions, and risk profiles, they offer something for nearly every investor. The ETF approach provides diversification across the industry, allowing investors to gain exposure without taking on the level of risk inherent in investing in a specific energy company. Many energy companies tied to electric vehicles, solar energy, and wind energy may see rising sales and earnings if the Biden administration succeeds in implementing its climate and energy initiatives.

While many of these companies trade as energy stocks, they depend on oil and gas prices. These are measured by the return for the Bloomberg Composite Crude Oil Subindex, which is 53.2% for the past year as of Sept. 9, 2022; and by the return for the Bloomberg Natural Gas Subindex, which is 54.0% during the same period. While these numbers are not main benchmarks, they provide important context for investors. Oil and gas prices initially jumped due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But in recent months natural gas prices have shaved their gains and oil prices have since fallen to below pre-invasion levels.



Key Takeaways The energy sector has dramatically outperformed the broader market over the past year.

The energy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the best one-year trailing total returns are PXE, IEO, and FCG.

The top holding of each of these ETFs is ConocoPhillips for the first two funds and DCP Midstream LP for the third fund, respectively.

There are 46 energy ETFs that trade in the United States, excluding inverse and leveraged ETFs, as well as funds with less than $50 million in assets under management (AUM). The energy sector, as measured by the S&P 500 Energy sector index, has outperformed the broader market with a total return of 78.5% over the past 12 months compared to the S&P 500s total return of -8.1%, as of Sept. 9, 2022. The S&P 500 Energy Sector Index captures most of the ETFs in the energy sector. The best energy ETF, based on performance over the past year, is the Invesco Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production ETF (PXE).

We examine the top three energy ETFs below. All numbers below are as of Sept. 9, 2022.

In order to focus on the funds' investment strategy, the top holdings listed for each ETF exclude cash holdings and holdings purchased with securities lending proceeds except under unusual cases, such as when the cash portion is exceptionally large.



Performance Over One-Year: 91.6%

Expense Ratio: 0.63%

Annual Dividend Yield: 1.69%

Average Daily Volume: 296,723

Net Assets: $288.5 million

Inception Date: Oct. 26, 2005

Issuer: Invesco

PXE is a multi-cap blended fund that tracks the Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Intellidex Index. The index includes roughly 30 U.S. companies that are engaged in the exploration and production of oil, natural gas, and other resources. The stocks are chosen based on factors including earnings momentum, price momentum, quality, management actions, and value. The portfolio includes: refineries that process crude oil into finished products such as gasoline; and companies that gather and process natural gas, and also produce natural gas liquids (NGL). Together, large-cap and mid-cap value stocks make up about two-thirds of the funds portfolio.

The top three holdings for PXE include ConocoPhillips (COP), Diamondback Energy Inc. (FANG), and Continental Resources Inc. (CLR). All three are energy companies involved in the exploration and production of oil, gas and other resources.

Performance Over One-Year: 88.4%

Expense Ratio: 0.39%

Annual Dividend Yield: 1.96%

Average Daily Volume: 288,909

Net Assets: $962.1 million

Inception Date: May 1, 2006

Issuer: BlackRock Financial Management

IEO tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Exploration & Production Index, which is comprised of U.S. equities within the oil and gas exploration and production sector. The market-cap-weighted ETF provides exposure to companies engaged in the exploration, production, and distribution. Exploration and production companies receive the largest exposure, accounting for nearly 75% of the portfolio, followed by companies involved in refining, marketing, and transportation. The fund follows a blended strategy, investing in a mix of growth and value stocks of various market caps.

The top three holdings for IEO include ConocoPhillips; EOG Resources Inc. (EOG), an oil and gas exploration and production company; and Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC), a downstream energy company focused on refining, marketing and transportation.

Performance Over One-Year: 86.5%

Expense Ratio: 0.60%

Annual Dividend Yield: 1.58%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 1,318,327

Assets Under Management: $911.8 million

Inception Date: May 8, 2007

Issuer: First Trust

FCG tracks the ISE-Revere Natural Gas Index, which is composed of companies that generate a significant amount of their revenue from natural gas exploration and production. The ETF provides exposure to the natural gas industry, which provides fuel source for residential, industrial, and commercial uses. More than 98% of the portfolio is allocated to energy stocks, with less than two percent allocated to utilities. FCG follows a blended strategy, investing in a mix of growth and value stocks with various market capitalizations.

The top three holdings for FCG include DCP Midstream LP (DCP), a midstream company company focused on energy logistics, gathering, and processing as well as producing NGLs; Western Midstream Partners LP (WES), a midstream company focused on crude oil and natural gas; and ConocoPhillips.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or adopt any investment strategy. Though we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.
The funerals of the victims of Sundays tragic accident on Buncrana pier were laid to rest yesterday.

Thousands of people gathered at Holy Family church in Ballymagroarty, Co. Derry for the funeral of Sean McGrotty (46), his sons Mark (12) and Evan (8), his mother-in-law Ruth Daniels (57), and her daughter Jodie Lee (14).

The five lives were tragically lost on Sunday evening when they drove along a pier to watch the sunset in Buncrana, Co. Donegal. The SUV they were in lost traction on algae along the piers slipway, causing the vehicle to slide into the waters of Lough Swilly.

Derry family identified in Buncrana tragedy https://t.co/2eeYNipVIi pic.twitter.com/Row6zWrWm1  RTE News (@rtenews) March 21, 2016

A quick-thinking bystander, Davitt Walsh, dove into the water to try to help them, but there was only time for Sean, the father, to pass his four-month-old daughter, Rioghnach-Ann, through the window before the car was submerged.

Louise James, partner of Sean, mother of Mark and Evan, daughter of Ruth and sister of Jodie Lee, was in London at the time of the accident.

Reporting from the funeral, Peter Murtagh of the Irish Times said that she led the procession of her familys coffins into Holy Name church yesterday, helping to carry the first one, containing the remains of her son Evan.

Later in the service, she read out loud a poem she had written about the tragedy:

Heart broken beyond repair,

the tragedy of a family gone,

leaving so many in despair.

They went to watch the sunset,

together on Buncrana Pier,

unbeknown to them all

an angel would be near.

Taken together as a family,

joined as one on heavens door,

a community left in mourning,

lives shatters ever more.

Their faces will forever map the sea,

Remembered by each and every one.

Down by the lake or shadows,

when you look beyond the sun.

She also talked about how, just minutes before the accident, she had been on the phone with her family and had spoken to Evan, who had muscular dystrophy, who told her that he missed her and was going to give her the biggest hug when she returned from London.

Close to 1,000 people packed into the church, with the same number outside in the parking lot, where the service was broadcast by loudspeaker. Among those inside were Davitt Walsh and his girlfriend, Stephanie Knox, who helped keep Rioghnach-Ann warm after Walsh emerged from the water; Francis Crawford, who called emergency services; Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown; Church of Ireland Bishop Ken Good; Commandant Louise Conlon, representing Irish President Michael D Higgins; Kieran Carey, representing Acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny; and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Fr. Paddy OKane led the ceremony, sharing that when he initially heard about the accident, he prayed for the victims and their family, as well as the priest who would be with them through their grief, never thinking that he would get a phone call from Louise James the following morning.

Louise, you are the most bereft of all because you have lost your family and our hearts go out to you especially, he said.

Fr. OKane called Rioghnach-Anns rescue the one little sliver of light, one ray of hope bravely breaking through the dark clouds.

He also thanked Davitt Walsh and Stephanie Knox directly, adding that Louise James had told him it was thanks to them there had been five deaths and not seven.

Today's Derry News front page...no words needed. pic.twitter.com/EG9g6dAiP3  Patricia Devlin (@trishdevlin) March 24, 2016

The church was full of school friends of Evan, Mark and Jodie-Lee, many of whom sang songs during the service and then formed an honor guard as the coffins left the church.

The three young people who died were memorialized by their principals. Damien Harkin described Evan as a beautiful, fun-loving boy with a big personality who loved school and Mark as a teachers dream . . . quiet and hard-working and eager to please. . . always smiling, always generous.

Jodie Lee was praised for her beauty and inner beauty, as Marie Lindsey said that in 14 years, [she] lived a lifetime of love for friends. . . and for Justin Bieber.

Of Ruth Daniels, her son Josh said, Everything we achieved was for her and everything I will become will be because of her.

And Sean McGrottys brother Jim recalled his sheer determination to see anything he took on to completion and his absolute love and devotion to his children.

Following the funeral, the five victims were laid to rest in the city cemetery.

H/T The Irish Times; The Journal
"Rather than bickering amongst each otherwhy not start getting angry at the folks huddled safely at the top?"

Editor's Note: This column was first published in 2016.

It was William Faulkner who said: That past is not dead. Its not even past.

Hard not to think of that when the revelry of St. Patricks Day turned into one nasty hangover.

At the heart of this recent ugliness is an attempt to exploit the Irish, to make them feel superior to other groups who, you know, just cant get over the ugly injustices of the past.

We begin -- as most dumb things do -- over at Fox News. On St. Patricks Day 2016, panelists on The Five were discussing the Irish and stereotypes.

When Juan Williams referred to the hardships the Irish had to face, panelist Kimberly Guilfoyle -- herself Irish American, it must be noted -- said: And the Irish got over it. They dont run around going Irish Lives Matter.'

Read More: CNN host caught joking about Irish Lives Matter

Great job, Kim! Theres not enough division and conflict in this great country, right? Lets get people even more angry by implying that the Irish are so much better than those other groups who go around moaning and complaining.

For the record, a fine argument could be made that the Irish havent gotten over anything. People who have gotten over the past dont erect and visit memorials to famines. They dont shut down the largest city in the country and paint a green stripe down a main thoroughfare and march for six or so hours, wearing shirts that say things like 'Thank God Im Irish.'

They dont create a vast niche in the publishing industry that a cynic might refer to as Irish Misery Inc. (I cant wait to read Timothy Egans new book on Thomas Francis Meagher. This week, sounding like someone who has gotten over nothing, Egan told NPR: For almost 700 years it was a crime to be Irish in Ireland  It was a crime to practice your religion...to own property(The English) did everything they could...to de-culture these people.)

But all this means little because Guilfoyles real problem is with African American activists. With all due respect Kim, my heritage is not there for you to manipulate so that you can disparage others who are trying to fight the very kinds of injustice the Irish once faced.

Look, there is a long, complex debate to be had about law enforcement in African American communities. Fox News on St. Patricks Day aint the time and place for that debate!

Do you really want to explore why the Irish no longer have the need to run around saying things like Irish Lives Matter? Do you really want to talk about how the horrors of the Famine could only be ameliorated by two gigantic forces -- the Catholic Church and big government in the form of political machines? Both of which African Americans had no access to whatsoever? In fact, both of those institutions were guilty of their own bigotry, sometimes subtle, sometimes brutal.

Read More: Hundreds of Irish march in solidarity with US Black Lives Matter

Meanwhile, the Irish went on to become cops. We know where this racial tragedy was headed. We simply dont know how it will end just yet.

No, Ms. Guilfoyle, the Irish dont run around saying Irish Lives Matter. But neither should they run around decrying lazy people looking for handouts. Because the Irish got their fair share of handouts -- from priests and politicians -- when they needed to get on their feet.

Meanwhile, also this week, an international debate exploded about whether or not the Irish were ever enslaved, and what the repercussions of Irish slavery in the New World were.

Again, there is a valid debate to be had about the particularities of, say, the number of Irish who performed forced labor in Barbados in the 1600s.

But thats not what this about, right?

As one ugly online meme put it: White Irish slaves were treated worse than any other race in the U.S. When is the last time you heard an Irishman b***hing and moaning about how the world owes them a living?

If you want to believe anything in that statement is true, go right ahead. But your willingness to be bamboozled is rooted in 2016, not Irish history.

You know what would be interesting? If people agreed that the Irish and many others were screwed in the past and are still struggling today.

Rather than bickering amongst each other at the lower end of the social ladder, why not start getting angry at the folks huddled safely at the top?
Sinn Fein revealed their secret weapon in America at their historic event at the Mansion House in Dublin last night with over 400 people in attendance, including 200 Americans and a table or two of Canadians.

Rarely has a secret weapon been more warmly applauded or given more standing ovations or been less of a secret.

The fact that the secret weapon could hardly see over the 4' 9" podium and never uses one swear word when ten can do further endeared her to the crowd when she got up to speak.

In the presence of congressmen, Gerry Adams, union leaders, AOH leaders, and American captains of industry, Rita OHare, Sinn Feins US liaison, finally spoke publically.

At five feet  minus a few inches  ishe once nearly disappeared out of a famous photograph with those husky six-footers, President Obama and Gerry Adams, save for a tuft of red hair.

Shell never write a book on etiquette or be invited to tea at Buckingham Palace as shed be far more likely to use her middle finger rather than her pinky with her majesty.

But after 18 years with OHare as Sinn Feins emissary to America, it was clear that the 200 Irish Americans who traveled to sit in the same room where the First Dail, a Sinn Fein led government, sat in 1918, felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. The standing ovations were many and loud.

History was in every particle of air in the Mansion House but there was also a profound sense of recognition of the extraordinary job OHare has done keeping the Sinn Fein presence in America very live indeed for almost two decades.

She has crossed the Atlantic so many times her frequent flyer miles could sustain her for a decade. Whenever crisis beckoned or support was needed or sought, she was there. She became a familiar figure in the White House, both houses of Congress, and state legislatures all over the country, as well as among Irish organizations, media and societies.

Hers is a blueprint on how to work Irish America - not with St. Patricks Day fly-ins but doggedly and determinedly all year round.

Sinn Fein is known for putting in the hard work and, unlike other political parties like Fianna Fail, which once had a foothold in America, they work the community long and hard.

Adams recited the successes of the Irish American lobby: opposing the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six cases before any Irish government did, the MacBride Principles legislation for fair employment, the success in achieving the Adams visa and bringing the then president Bill Clinton into the issue, the work of Irish America in seeking the first economic and peace envoy who eventually became George Mitchell. He baldly stated that there would have been no peace process without them.

Rita OHare was a huge part of that and continues to be.

So the 1916 celebrations kicked off in style this week for Sinn Fein with their Mansion House event MC'd by rising star Mary Lou McDonald.

Union leader Terry OSullivan gave a spirited talk about the labor connection between both countries and the need to stay united as the peace process can move in mysterious ways.

Gerry Adams also spoke but he was overshadowed for once by a diminutive redhead who owned the night. No one could argue that she didn't deserve it.

With official government 1916 commemorations to come, it promises to be an historic week.
Livestock committee chairman Henry Burns has called on the acting Agriculture, Food, and Marine Minister, Simon Coveney, to prioritise negotiations in agreeing the access arrangements with the Turkish authorities.

Mr Burns said the opportunities are considerable. Turkey imported a total of 380,000 head of live cattle in 2015. The majority came from South America with more than 120,000 head from France.

Turkey is a high-priced beef market and is capable of being a substantial and competitive buyer of Irish livestock, he said.

Mr Burns said Turkish importers have indicated to the IFA that the market will import up to 500,000 head of live cattle in 2016. With the presence of bluetongue disease in France, they are now looking to Ireland as a major EU supplier of cattle.

He said senior veterinary officials from Turkey visited Ireland last Christmas and were very satisfied with our livestock, conditions and controls.

The immediate requirement in Turkey would be for younger stock, mainly bull weanlings up to 12 months of age and up to 300kg from the suckler herd.

Mr Burns said that, so far this year, Irish live exports head are up 34% on 2015 at 23,926. Exports of calves to Holland and Spain have been strong, which is very important at this time of the year when Irish calves are available. Exports to Italy and the North are also positive.

Considering the increase in cattle supplies forecasted for the second half of 2016, it is vitally important that the live export trade is prioritised at the highest levels and all possible markets are opened and pursued to the maximum, he said.

Meanwhile, Frances livestock export woes increased yesterday when its agriculture ministry announced that a case of BSE, the first in the country since 2011, had been confirmed in a five-year-old cow in the northeastern region of the Ardennes, near the Belgian border.

The ministry called the occurrence isolated and said consumers were not at risk while the Paris-based veterinary watchdog, the World Organisation for Animal Health, said the latest case did not point to any rebound in the disease.
Mr Kerry said he hoped the talks would be constructive and allow the nations to find a way to rebuild and strengthen the relationship between the United States and Russia by proving that we know how to solve some serious problems together and building from there.

Mr Kerry hailed a US- and Russian-brokered ceasefire in Syria, adding that it had allowed the Syrians to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction in violence and to receive humanitarian assistance.

We obviously also have some ideas about this and how we can most effectively make progress in Geneva and begin the very serious and difficult work of the transition, he said.

In a playful start to the talks, Mr Putin noted Mr Kerry walked off the plane carrying his briefcase and joked he must have brought some cash to bargain with Russia. Mr Kerry replied: When we have a private moment I will show you whats in my briefcase and I think you will be surprised.

Switching to a serious tone, the Russian leader said he hoped for a constructive discussion that would allow us to make our positions on Syria and Ukraine closer.

Mr Kerry is seeking clarity from Mr Putin and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov as to where Russia stands on a political transition for Syria, particularly on the future of Syrian president Bashar Assad, now that a fragile truce is holding and UN-brokered peace talks are under way.

The main Syrian opposition group has wrapped up the latest round of indirect peace talks by urging Russia to use its leverage onMr Assads government to fulfil hopes for a political transition.

In Geneva, Bassma Kodmani, a leader of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told reporters it wants greater access for humanitarian aid and decried continued sieges by government forces on Syrian municipalities.

Mr Kerrys meetings were arranged after Mr Putin made a surprise announcement last week that Russian troops would partially withdraw from Syria after five months of military operations in support of Assads government.

The other current significant difference between the US and Russia is the situation in Ukraine where Washington accuses Moscow of not doing enough to push pro-Russian separatists in the east to comply with a ceasefire.

Russia, meanwhile, has complained that the Ukrainian government is dragging its feet on implementing the ceasefire.

Mr Kerry was to raise concerns about a recent sharp increase in cease-fire violations and press Russia to do more to get the separatists in line. Unless there is true quiet and full access for ceasefire monitors, US officials say it will be difficult to get progress on other parts of the Minsk deal.

Mr Kerry will also raise the case of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in Russia on Tuesday on charges the US says are false.
Survivors of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church are to stage a protest in Dublin today.

They want those who covered up abuse by priests and other religious to be brought to justice.
Just weeks before the election campaign, Finance Minister Michael Noonan had pledged to start the sale process for an initial sale of 25% of AIB as soon as the former coalition returned to power.

However, that was before the full onset of the global stock market slide had become clear. European bank shares were hit hard, placing big question marks over the wisdom of selling down AIB shares.
His comments came yesterday as fears grew that the scheme is under threat this year due to lack of funding.

Mr Finan said that the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine will need to examine a reallocation of funding to ensure the future of the scheme is secured should demand result in insufficient funds being available.
Switzerland has agreed to turn over records from at least 18 banks involving Venezuelas state oil firm, Petroleos de Venezuela, which is the subject of a widening corruption probe by the US Department of Justice, according to Swiss regulators.

Among the banks are UBS, EFG Bank, and CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique, said a person briefed on the matter. Spokespeople for the banks declined to comment.
Starboard, a long-time critic of the company and an activist shareholder with a 1.7% stake, nominated its chief executive, Jeffrey Smith, among others for election at Yahoos annual meeting later this year, according to a letter to shareholders.

With little progress to show for her revival efforts after more than three years, investors are losing patience with Ms Mayer, who has presided over sluggish sales growth and failed to separate Yahoos main web business from its multibillion-dollar stake in Alibaba Group.

Starboard first began to call for changes in 2014 and recently stepped up criticism of management, even as Yahoo said it would consider alternatives, including the sale of the companys core operations.

We have been extremely disappointed with Yahoos dismal financial performance, poor management execution, egregious compensation and hiring practices, and general lack of accountability and oversight by the board, Starboard said yesterday in a letter to shareholders.

We believe the board clearly lacks the leadership, objectivity, and perspective needed to make decisions that are in the best interests of shareholders.

Yahoo said that it noted Starboards announcement regarding the board nominations.

The boards nominating and governance committee will review the nominees and respond in due course, Yahoo said in a statement.

For Ms Mayer, who sits on the board, it is another difficult step in her tenure that began as a turnaround effort when she arrived in July 2012.

In February, she rolled out her latest plan to overhaul the company, calling for employee cuts, product closures and other reductions to help drive efficiency and focus on growth opportunities.

Starboard is one of the most prolific US activist investors and has a track record of successfully pushing companies to heed its wishes.

* Bloomberg
Under the scheme, 95 houses and 22 apartments and duplexes will be provided in Finglas by the Tuath Housing Association.

The first seven properties will be available to people on the housing list in Dublin within the next month, with the remainder to be completed by September.

The houses include two, three and four bed properties and will be located at An Riasc in Finglas and Thornwood in Beaumont.

The Tuath Housing Association is providing the homes after funding was provided from the Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Environment.

The housing association opened another 32 properties in Wicklow just this week.

All the properties announced yesterday will be exclusively allocated to families on the City Council waiting list before the end of the year, and in phases.

The Finglas area, in particular, has experienced high levels of housing need and Dick Brady, assistant chief executive, Dublin City Council, said: These additional family homes are very welcome, especially as they will all be delivered in 2016. There is greater demand here than in any other part of the City.

Tuath will now receive nominations from Dublin City Council of people already on its housing list, with candidates to be vetted and interviewed regarding their suitability for the scheme.

Tuath spokesperson and chief executive Sean OConnor said: The association is extremely pleased to have secured these high-quality homes in accordance with our core remit to provide homes for those who cannot afford to provide homes for themselves in todays difficult residential market.

Tuath will be working hard to ensure that the schemes become safe, secure and popular places where people and families choose to live and settle down in and where being a good neighbour is valued.

Tuath also indicated that it may play a role regarding the situation facing more than 100 families in Tyrellstown in Dublin, who face losing their homes as the fund that owns the properties moves to sell 103 houses in the area over the next four years.
Clahane House, built in Tralee in 1855, was to have been a signalling station for the Aud in Tralee Bay  and it is believed this is where much of the arms were to have been taken, according to a document released by the houses present owner, Tralee solicitor, Joe Mannix.

Mr Mannix has come across a witness statement to the bureau of military history by a former owner of the house, Dr Catherine J Quinlan, a friend of Sean MacDermotts.

Some weeks after Easter 1916 I was informed by the Volunteer Authorities in Tralee that Sean Mac Dermott had been in Tralee a few weeks before the Rising 1916, and that he had arranged that my residence, Clahane House, was to be taken over as a signalling station for the Aud, Dr Quinlan writes in the document witnessed by Lt Col Sean Brennan in 1956.

When I asked them why did Sean MacDermott not come to me himself or make his presence in Tralee known to me, I was told that Sean did not wish to attract any attention to the house or bring it under suspicion and that he trusted me.

1916: For regular updates on news and features (as well as twitter action action as it may have happened 100 years ago) to mark the revolutionary period follow @theirishrev HERE

The Aud arrived on Holy Thursday rather than Easter Sunday and Roger Casement, who organised the shipment from Germany, was promptly arrested after arriving in Banna by U-Boat on Easter Thursday.

Kerry County arts officer, Kate Kennelly, said the Clahane document fills in a huge part of the puzzle in terms of where the guns were to be stored: Had it landed its arms, it would have changed everything. The South-West Volunteers would have been armed and the Rising would not have been confined to Dublin.

This weekend, there will be an unveiling of a plaque to the Ballykissane drownings, near Killorglin. On April 17, a plaque will be unveiled at Valentia Cable station marking the role of Timothy and Eugene Ring in alerting the US to the Rising. On April 21 there will be a ceremonial at Banna Strand, and opening of an exhibit on Casement.

Enjoyed this? Then check out our dedicated micro-site, developed in collaboration with UCC, to mark the revolutionary period HERE
The TUI, which represents some 15,000 teachers, including 4,000 members in institutes of technology, said the corporate sector derives invaluable benefit from the Irish graduate labour pool.

It said the levy would allow for the employment of thousands of additional academic staff and could also be used to remove the 3,000 student registration fee.

TUI members in the third-level sector took a days strike action last month due to alleged underfunding, understaffing, the employment status of many staff, and the resulting detrimental effect on the service to students.

The union said the revenue generated by such a levy would be considerable  pointing out that, at 12.5%, the standard rate of corporation tax in Ireland is low by international standards.

Going on figures from 2014, the TUI said the 1% levy on the 4.6bn earned in corporate tax takings would generate almost 370m for the higher-education sector.

It pointed out that the application of a further 1% would represent only a modest readjustment and would not inhibit inward investment or employment generation.

To put this into context, the union pointed out that funding for the IT sector fell by 190m (35%) between 2008 and 2015.

Over the same period, student numbers rose by 21,411 (32%) while 535 (9.5%) lecturing positions were lost.

Speaking ahead of the unions annual congress in Killarney next week, TUI general secretary John MacGabhann said the case for imposing such a levy was compelling.

The case for this levy is compelling. The corporate sector derives direct and invaluable benefit from the availability in Ireland of a highly skilled graduate labour pool which is the product of extensive higher education provision.

The establishment of a levy would further enhance the quality of the graduate labour pool, the capacity of institutions to recalibrate to meet evolving need, and ultimately the sustainability of the enterprises that contribute to the fund.

Mr MacGabhann said that with student numbers on the rise, the situation was likely only to get worse unless positive intervention is made.

In the first instance, it is important to stress that our recommendation is framed as representing a potential new source of funding and emphatically not as an alternative to exchequer funding of higher education, said Mr MacGabhann.

We would also stress that this would be a dedicated higher-education levy rather than a general increase in the rate of corporation tax in order to ensure that the fund would only be used for the intended purpose.
The egrets never looked back; they are in every coastal county now and in some inland ones as well.

In the current edition of Wings, BirdWatch Irelands magazine, Dick Coombes makes a similar, if more tentative, prediction about another wetland bird.

Is it too fanciful to imagine that glossy ibises will someday set up a breeding colony in an Irish wetland he asks.

Ibises used to be rare vagrants to our shores but now they are frequent visitors. As global temperatures rise, could the ibis follow the egrets lead and settle here? Will history repeat itself?

Little egrets from Africa began visiting the South of France in the 1920s and nested at the Camargue in 1931. Spreading northwards, they gradually became a familiar sight at wetlands throughout France. The colonisation of Britain began in 1996.

The glossy ibis story, so far, is rather similar to that of the egret. In 1997, they established a colony in Spains Coto Donana National Park, the first 20th Century Western European one. A pair nested at the Frampton Marsh reserve, Lincolnshire, in 2014 but no young were raised.

The white plumaged egret, with gaudy yellow feet, is easy to recognise but the glossy ibis can be mistaken for a curlew.

Both birds are long-legged with downward curving bills and locate their prey mostly by touch. The two are not related.

Ibises are cousins of the spoonbills, storks and herons, whereas the curlew is a wader, one of the sandpiper family. Both species frequent similar marshy places but the curlew is smaller and its plumage is brown. The ibis is a dark brownish-purple. Glossy refers to the greenish wing feathers, iridescent like those of a mallards head.

The name ibis comes from ancient Egypt, the sacred ibis being an elegant white bird with a black head and neck. The Egyptians mourned the departure of the life-giving sun each evening.

The moon, they thought, was Thoth, scribe to the gods and mediator between good and evil. He provided reassurance during the hours of darkness. The ibis crescent-shaped bill resembled the new moon, so the bird came to represent Thoth.

Mummified sacred ibises were placed in graves with the deceased. The bird, alas, disappeared from Egypt in the 19th Century, although it still breeds in Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa.

The glossy, the most widely distributed of the ibis tribe, is an adventurer. During the 19th Century, it even crossed the Atlantic to South America, from where it spread northwards.

John James Audubon saw one in Florida in 1832. There are colonies along the eastern seaboard of the United States and in the Caribbean. Although its a carnivore, feeding mainly on creepy crawlies, this resourceful species confounded the experts; it was discovered eating rice in Cuba.

A hundred years ago, the glossy ibis was a rare visitor to Ireland, with only occasional sightings here. Invasions sometimes occurred. One followed the very warm summer of 1818 and, according to Robert Ruttledge, 20 stayed for about 10 days in Co Wexford in October 1934.

A remarkable number was seen or shot during the winter of 1945-6, he noted. From 1950 onwards, ibises have been more frequent visitors, with around 180 recorded since then. Britain and Ireland saw a major influx in April 2007.

In 2009, at least 38 visited Britain and 31 came to Ireland.

On January 2 last, 20 were reported at Tramore Back Strand with further records from Wexford to Cork. Colour ring sightings suggest that our visitors come from the Coto Donana colony which is steadily expanding.

If you should come across what appears to be a big black curlew, look again; it could be a glossy ibis.
It may come across as a heartless way to put it given the ferociousness of the gangland murders and the misery for grieving families, but it crudely sums up where we are currently at in the Kinahan-Hutch feud. It also offers an insight into the expectation among experienced detectives as to where it will run.

The murder of Noel Duggan, a close friend of Gerry The Monk Hutch, in a Meath village on Wednesday is the fourth death linked to the feud.

It follows the murder of Edward Hutch  brother of The Monk  on February 8, which was in retaliation for the shooting dead of Kinahan gang figure David Byrne three days before that. That, in turn, was revenge for the murder of Gary Hutch in Spain last September.

Its 3-1 to the Kinahans now, said an experienced source, and one thing is clear  there is more to come.

Officially, gardai are not yet connecting Mr Duggans murder with the Kinahan-Hutch feud, pointing out that the attack only happened on Wednesday night and other motives have to be explored.

Experienced detectives, with knowledge of the feud, strongly suspect it is.

They suspect the Kinahan gang took Mr Duggans life because he was a close personal friend of Gerry The Monk Hutch.

Gardai are examining the movements and communications of a senior figure in the Kinahan cartel to determine if there is any link to Mr Duggans murder.

The 35-year-old, from Dublins south inner city, flew into the country on Tuesday.

Several garda sources said Mr Duggan, aged 57, had stepped back from his life of crime, specifically his involvement in the trafficking of illicit cigarettes.

He paid a 2.5m tax settlement with the Criminal Assets Bureau in 2003, which involved the sale of an apartment and retail block owned by him and another criminal in Dublins north inner city.

Soon after that, the Cabra man moved with his family to a large four-bedroom detached house in an upmarket estate in Ratoath, Co Meath.

Sources said it was true to say he was not part of the Hutch gang, but said that he did act as a facilitator in the import and export trade given his extensive knowledge and contacts.

Gardai feel that it was his close friendship with Gerry Hutch that was the main reason why the Kinahan gang targeted him.

One experienced source said a senior boss in the Kinahan gang, who is abroad, was now out of control and ordering the murder of anyone close to The Monk.

They are taking off soft targets, associates of Hutch, to send him a message, he said.

Gardai have already warned Gerry Hutch his life is in danger. This has not stopped him returning to Ireland at least twice since his brother was murdered.

Edward Hutch was a taxi driver and was not involved in the criminal gang, but like Mr Duggan, was considered a soft target.

The murder of Edward Hutch and Noel Duggan represent two revenge attacks for the shooting dead of senior Kinahan figure David Byrne at the Regency Hotel on February 5.

The number-one target of that attack  which took the form of a paramilitary assault  was Daniel Kinahan, the elder son of cartel boss Christopher Kinahan.

He managed to escape, but Crumlin man Byrne was not so lucky.

The nature of this attack, involving three gunmen dressed as gardai and brandishing assault rifles, sent shockwaves through both gangland and the police, and horror in wider society.

Gardai believe that senior bosses in the Kinahan gang decided to target not just the members of the six-man gang  all of whom have been identified  but anyone in the wider gang or the extended family, and their associates.

The Kinahan gang could well keep going, said a security source. Its not a case of waiting for the Hutchs to take revenge first.

He said the Hutch gang were not going to take this either. We saw with the Regency what they can pull off. They have the contacts, they have the balls, and they have the wherewithal.

As previously reported in the Irish Examiner, Garda briefing documents show there are roughly 40 people on each side, in terms of gang members and associates.

The Kinahan cartel is comprised of a large number of gangs, most of them heavily interconnected through family relationships and marriage. It includes at least four gangs in the Crumlin and Drimnagh areas and at least two others in the adjoining south inner city, on the other side of the Grand Canal. Two of the gangs in Crumlin are considered to be in the upper echelons of the Kinahan cartel here and were targeted in a Criminal Assets Bureau-led operation on March 9.

That resulted in the seizure of 29 high-powered luxury cars; six high-end motorbikes; some 70,000 in cash; and nine Rolex and Breitling watches, worth up to 100,000.

A couple of days later, gardai in south central, assisted by CAB, conducted ten searches aimed at middle- and low-ranking members of the Kinahan gang in the south inner city. They seized 50,000 in cash and in excess of 20,000 worth of jewellery.

Gardai said these CAB operations have particularly aggravated the Kinahan gang and fuelled their lashing out at their rivals.

Many senior members of the Kinahan cartel were involved in the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud which claimed up to 15 lives directly connected with it and a further three on the fringes between 2000 and 2012.

Some seasoned gardai and local community workers fear this feud could be in the same vein.
The slow race to form a government continued yesterday as Enda Kenny opened up Government Buildings to 17 TDs in the latest round of talks.

A document with eight headings for discussion included matters such as housing; homelessness; rural affairs; and managing the economy. The latter also included a reference to the future of USC, which suggests Fine Gael may be open to dropping or tweaking its pre-election promise to abolish the much-hated charge.

Easter is traditionally a time of feasting and celebration, but there will be little merriment for the political groups, TDs and parties locked in drawn-out negotiations.

Next week though may reveal the shape of what Enda Kenny is trying to sculpt, as he locks down support for a rainbow Fine Gael-led minority government.

However, as Mr Kenny attempts to make history and give Fine Gael a second consecutive term in government, he is nailing down support for a moral victory when the next vote for taoiseach takes place on April 6.

Fine Gael hosted the talks yesterday with five rural TDs, some who are conservative in nature, while across the table sat members of the Independence Alliance  some of whom are left wing. The multilateral talks also included two Green TDs, who have their own priorities, and the two Healy-Rae brothers would be strong advocates of rural affairs, particularly in Kerry. Their interests, again, would be different to those of the two Dublin Independents, Maureen OSullivan and Katherine Zappone.

Bringing these 17 TDs together under the one roof alone is a feat. Tying them down on a lasting programme for government is another matter.

The Independents are currently making hay of the situation, spinning lines about responsibility and their new-found determination to cobble together a government. Independents are riding a wave of optimism after the election. What happens next will be the real test on whether such a diverse rainbow government, mirroring the 1948 inter-party administration, can last.

This is to say nothing about what will inevitably transpire when Mr Kenny will have to put out the hand of friendship to Micheal Martin, if and when a programme for government needs the imprimatur of Fianna Fail.

Interestingly, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald gave a hint of what we can expect if a Fine Gael-minority government is agreed.

She noted on RTE that other governments in Europe regularly lose parliament votes on matters. In other words, we should get used to this idea.

Issues from health to homelessness will now get a proper hearing in the Dail. Nonetheless, with such a fragmented parliament, significantly fewer matters might in fact pass through the Houses of the Oireachtas. But, as Green leader Eamon Ryan warned this week, how long could this last before a minority government was left hanging by its fingernails?
The heroic story of the Irish explorer Ernest Shackletons famous Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition has long been an inspiration to many of us. It was a triumph of courage, comradeship, perseverance and endurance. When the 28-man team left England in 1914 aboard the Endurance, their goal was to complete one of the great remaining exploration challenges: A crossing of the Antarctic from Atlantic to Pacific via the South Pole.

Shackleton was born in Co Kildare and was joined on the expedition by three fellow Irishmen: The legendary explorer Tom Crean from Annascaul, Co Kerry, who had performed heroically during Captain Scotts doomed South Pole expedition; Tim McCarthy, a young seaman from Kinsale, Co Cork; and James McIIroy, an Antrim-born surgeon.

The war in Europe was about to erupt when the Endurance departed Plymouth on August 8, 1914, under the command of Captain Frank Worsley of New Zealand. Shackleton, who was delayed in England taking care of some last minute business affairs, joined the Endurance at Buenos Aires. Then they all headed to a stopover at Stromness whaling station on South Georgia Island.

At that time, even though it was common by then for ships to have a two-way radio, the Endurance sailed without one. Once Endurance left the dock at Stromness on December 5, 1914, the crew was completely cut off from the rest of humanity.

The world heard nothing more of Shackleton and his men until May 20, 1916 when Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley, staggered back into the stationmasters house at Stromness.

Where had they been? What had happened? Why did they arrive on foot, not by boat? Therein lies an epic tale of courage and survival against all odds.

They never reached the Antarctic coast. The Endurance got entrapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in January 1915 and ultimately sank in November 1915. The men were forced to take what supplies and lifeboats they could and drag themselves north for four months across the fractured ice field toward open water.

Taking to the boats, and after sailing for five perilous days, they all reached the desolate rocky outcrop of Elephant Island in April 1916.

The home of chin strap penguins, and seals, Elephant Island lies at the south-eastern edge the infamous Drake Passage, feared by mariners for its frigid howling winds and mountainous seas.

Even though they delighted to be alive, our unfortunate heroes might as well have been stranded on Mars. Except unlike in Matt Damon blockbuster The Martian, nobody knew they were there, far from the whaling grounds and shipping lanes. If they were to be saved, they had only one choice: they must save themselves.

The nearest human presence was more than 1300 kilometers away across the most perilous seas in the world at that whaling station on South Georgia. The only way to get there was for a handful of them to sail in one their tiny open life boats, named the James Caird.

On the morning of April 24, 1916, a crew of six  three Irishmen (Shackleton, Crean, and McCarthy), an Englishmen (John Vincent, seaman) a Scot (Harry McNish, carpenter), and a New Zealander (Worsley)  cast their lots together on the James Caird in an insane gamble toward South Georgia to save themselves and their companions.

Little did they know that, on the other side of the world, their compatriots were not co-operating but fighting. Dublin was ablaze following the rising of the Irish Volunteers against British rule. It was Easter Monday 1916.

The voyage to South Georgia is itself an epic tale or survival, expert navigation, and providential good fortune. After 17 days of sailing in horrendous conditions, the James Caird made landfall on South Georgia. Unfortunately, they had landed on the opposite side of the mountainous Island from Stromness.

They were frozen, starving, and exhausted. Sailing around the island to reach the whaling station was not a viable option, for their rudder was broken and they were likely to be blown back out to sea. Their only choice was a trek by the strongest of the men, Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley, across the unexplored snow-covered interior of South Georgia.

On May 20, after two days slogging over mountains and valleys, they arrived above Stromness in time to hear the glorious trumpeting of morning work horn, the first sound of civilization since they had departed in December 1914.

Shackleton noted in his book, South: I have no doubt that Providence guided us. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers it seemed to me often that we were four, not three

While their prayers had been answered, their travails were far from over. It was now winter again in the South Atlantic. The condition of the 22 comrades they had left behind continued to deteriorate.

McIlroy, the surgeon, struggled to maintain their physical and mental health. If Shackleton had succeeded in reaching South Georgia, the men expected a rescue by late May. However, May turned to June, then July, and then August as they kept their watch for a smokestack on the horizon.

It took four attempts before Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley were able get a ship in Chile that could make it through the perilous waters to Elephant Island. On August 30, 1916, cheers rang out as the desperate men spotted their saviours steaming toward them. Approaching the shore, Shackleton yelled out Are you all well? All safe, boss, all well, came the joyous reply.

Every man that had left England two years earlier had been saved. Through courage, partnership, and co-operation they had prevailed.

Further details of Shackletons exploits can be found in his book South, and Roland Huntfords biography, Shackleton.
Many Europeans immediately took the Brussels bombings on Tuesday as an assault on Europe itself. After all, the Belgian capital has long been synonymous with the European Union, and one bombing target was a metro station just steps from major EU institutions.

French president Francois Hollande declared: The whole of Europe has been hit. Germanys Der Spiegel titled its lead story Terror hits EU power centre. Declarations of solidarity clogged the internet from across Europe.

Assuming that the collective Europe has been attacked, can it respond as one?

No, said John Kornblum, a former US ambassador to Germany. Europe is dysfunctional. A response is not just tightening border control but coming up with a security strategy. Up to now, to be Europe meant to be more peaceful than everybody else.

Kornblum, who has been involved in transatlantic relations since the 1970s, speaks out of frustration, not schadenfreude. Europeans are the first to admit that big strides in the EUs political and economic integration have outpaced co-operation in law enforcement and security.

There still isnt a common database that contains the names of all terrorism suspects and Europeans who have joined organisations such as Islamic State, Peter Neumann, a security expert at Londons King College, said on German ARD television Tuesday night.

Everybody wants information from others, Neumann said, but nobody wants to share. Everybody wants co-ordination, but nobody wants to be co-ordinated. If you want freedom of movement in Europe, you also need to ensure the seamless co-operation among security agencies.

Just as the Greek debt crisis exposed the inadequacies of the euro  namely, the absence of an overall European fiscal policy  the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels demonstrate the shortcomings of borderless travel.

The 1990 Schengen Agreement opening EU internal borders was eventually signed by 26 European countries to encourage wider mobility and trade. The possibility that terrorists or undocumented migrants might take advantage didnt fit into the image of an enlightened postwar Europe. Now, the refugee crisis is showing that the EU barely controls its external borders.

Different rules that govern competing local and national law enforcement agencies make a co-ordinated response to the Brussels attack complicated. Another challenge is that the traditionally separate areas of domestic security and external defence have become blurred by international terrorist networks.

In the past, terrorism in Europe was largely seen in terms of national threats from groups such as Basque separatists in Spain or the IRA in the UK. The emergence of al Qaeda and Islamic State changed that view dramatically, said Nicolas Tenzer, head of the Center for Study and Research on Political Decision, a Paris think tank.

Europe, Tenzer said, is unlikely to react to the Brussels attacks as a whole. Yet, the major powers  including Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands  will probably step up co-operation, he said, adding that its important to distinguish between the exchange of information and operational co-operation.

Ad hoc operations are already possible between police departments, he said. But large-scale co-operation, as it sometimes exists on the battlefield, may be more difficult with many countries.

The crux of Europes quandary in fighting global terrorism mirrors its problems with a shared foreign policy or common currency: A reluctance to sacrifice even more sovereignty on the altar of EU unity. Add Europes lack of tactical capabilities and increased US isolationism, and Europe begins to look vulnerable.

Its very dangerous for Europe because they need the United States, said Kornblum. Theyve been neglecting security interests for at least 10 years.

In a recent Atlantic magazine interview, US president Barack Obama criticised European powers as free riders because of their dependence on Washington for security. Donald Trump, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, echoed that sentiment this week as he questioned the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on defending countries such as Germany.

The S does in fact play a crucial role for European security. It is key not only in intelligence-gathering but in its ability to deliver military strikes around the world.

Better police work, co-ordinated among EU members, must certainly be one part of the answer, said Ulrich Speck, a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington. But the other part has to do much more with Syria. With such a devastating war in its immediate neighbourhood, Europe cannot live in peace.

The conflict in Syria helped create the current refugee crisis and is one source of the extremism espoused by terrorists in Europe. Yet the EU has neither the will nor the means for deeper engagement in the Middle East.

Berlin and Paris should jointly take the lead, in close co-operation with London, said Speck. But so far theyre just waiting for Washington. The United States is unwilling to commit serious resources  and is geographically too far away to feel the spillover effects.

Europes failure to come up with a consolidated response to terrorism bears risks not just for the European Union, but also for the entire postwar transatlantic alliance.

Its not only a question about EU institutions, but about trust in the system, said Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament. Its also a psychological question.

Given existing centrifugal forces in the EU, citizens may lose even more faith if they dont see an effective EU reaction to terrorist attacks, Kiesewetter said, which could push many to support parties on the political extremes. Whats more, if Washington becomes engrossed in its own affairs, some forces in Europe might well seek closer accommodation with Russia.

For transatlanticists, a European response automatically becomes an American one as well.
THERES a new language being introduced to the Dail, and our TDs are to become fluent in it overnight, apparently.

Were not talking about one of those easier Romance languages, either, like Spanish or Italian. We are more in the territory of Mandarin, where it is not just down to grammar, but pitch and intonation.

If this sounds likes a daft notion, it is, because it is just that, utterly daft.

Apparently, our parliament is adopting a fully fledged Danish model overnight and becoming a place where our elected representatives will assume an entirely different way of operating, of which they have no experience, and in which some have absolutely no interest.

Ever since the election  four weeks ago today  Ive been trying to imagine how such a scenario, even in the most optimistic of circumstances, might work.

Im presuming that the Economic Management Council has not met since the election. This tight-knit group of four Cabinet members ran our country over the last number of years. We had the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, the Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform taking all the crucial decisions. It was all kept so close that other members of the Cabinet regularly complained of being kept out of the loop on all the important decisions.

Fine Gael step up bid to form government as round-table talks open https://t.co/JWpEdGkqNU (GM) pic.twitter.com/tarKyky9cH  Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) March 24, 2016

Now, we are to have a minority government, with Fine Gael looking for support; we are to have a burst of uber-responsibility from all sides, and this arrangement will work for up to two years. Yeah, pull the other one; its got bells on.

In between the reports of who is talking to whom; who is not talking to whom; who is taking the initiative; who is being cocky; who might make up the numbers and who is to get a place at the Cabinet table, we have had a constant refrain on the importance of Dail reform.

Of course, a new way of operating politically requires reform, to provide the basics of how it might function in the Dail. These would be the bedrock of the operation and would be addressed in a series of standing orders.

So far so good. But what happens after that is the human interaction between parties and individuals. Crucial to that is the possibility of being in power, or knocking someone else out of power, being part of your daily business. These stakes are high.

However, it is not that irregular an occurance for observers to liken our national parliament to a creche, if there has been a particularly fractious session.

So, not wishing to be too insulting, this notion that our elected representatives, en masse, are going to start behaving in a consistently mature fashion, is simply not realistic. It is too much to expect that this could happen at the flick of a switch.

We hear, for instance, that, as part of his bag of negotiation goodies, the Taoiseach has promised that opposition TDs would be given a much greater say in how the budget is framed, through a strengthened system of Dail committees.

This is a fantastic idea. Let us not forget the absurdity of the details of our budget being discussed in the German parliament a few years ago, when our own TDs had no idea of the details. But the truth is that if this is suddenly unleashed, along with a host of other reforms, there will be chaos. Were looking at an epic political bun fight.

The budget example is obviously extreme, but with the whip system on committees removed generally, and everyone thinking for themselves (to an extent), there is the distinct possibility of the business of parliament grinding almost to a halt.

Where will that magnificent Irish tradition of grandstanding lie in this brave, new political world?

We do not have the political maturity for this, and how could we, given our history of a political system that exerted such tight control? This needs to be taken a few steps at a time, and not in giant leaps, which are a guarantee of failure.

Kenny to lead talks to form minority government https://t.co/q4AJi8BzsR (GM) pic.twitter.com/AePvEOJEEE  Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) March 24, 2016

This is why a grand coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail is the only practical option, at the moment. Its an unscientific measurement, but, everywhere I go, people are speaking of the failure to form a government, and when it might be formed. Fianna Fail will suffer if it, once again, does what it thinks is right for the party and not for the country.

The Fianna Fail elected representatives are hanging on to the comfort blanket of their 20,000 or so members, who, they tell us, would simply never agree to a grand coalition, if it were put to them, as it would need to be, at a party conference.

Someone with a good knowledge of the party said Micheal Martin had successfully brought the party back to the centre-left, which resonated with their own people during the election campaign. These people collectively, apparently, have zero interest in getting together with Fine Gael, which they see as centre-right.

If someone subscribes to a political party, it is because, for them, it is different. Otherwise, they may as well have gone and joined Fine Gael.We are not responsible for the rehabilitation of Fine Gael.

It can be legitimately argued, though, that Fianna Fail is responsible for the rehabilitation of our political system, the reins of which it held for so long. The party owes the country a duty of care, after the absolute economic mess it left us in back in 2011.

We cant know what that Fianna Fail membership really believes, but we do now that there has been no effort at all to convince it that a coalition with Fine Gael would be the best thing to do now. In fact, the opposite is the case.

In time, we may move to a place where our political system has matured enough to cope with a minority government, where there is agreement to operate at a certain level, and everyone has gotten to grips with the new, grown-up system of responsibility. Dail reform has been spoken about for 40 years and, so far, it has proven an impossibility for the Dail to even introduce something as basic as family-friendly hours.

The proposals made by the Reform Committee, led by Ceann Comhairle Sean OFearghail, need to be taken on board.

The good news is that there is a lot of commonality in what has been proposed, so they could reasonably be agreed before the Dail sits on April 6. But the best, and only, chances of it succeeding are with a Fine Gael/Fianna Fail coalition.
Public authorities there face severe penalties if they boycott Israeli goods and services.

Israeli wines, and other products, are no longer available in the vast majority of Irish supermarkets and wine shops, because of the deep-rooted hatred against all things Jewish, fostered by successive Irish government ministers, anti-Israeli lobbyists, and others who have been fed on the lies preached by their religious leaders from the pulpits of every Christian denomination over the last two thousand years, and who continue to thumb their noses at the warning by The Mighty One of Israel, written in the Hebrew scriptures, that He who touches you (Jews) touches the apple of His eye.
Sometimes, one has to wonder at the logic of some people. International treaty commitments made generations back about refugees are redundant in 2016. We are no longer talking about a few dissidents leaving the Soviet Union, or a few people running the Berlin Wall every month. Today, according to the UN, 60m people are refugees, many of whom would like to come to Europe. An open-door policy would overrun Europe, and its social services and economy would be overwhelmed, its society and culture ended. A great many of those coming into Europe over the past year or so are not even refugees from war zones; many are coming from countries at peace, such as Morocco, Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, etc. To call these people refugees is an abuse of the word.

It is absurd to blame Europe for the turmoil in the Middle East. The war in Iraq was started by the Bush and Blair administrations, against most European governments wishes and public opinion. The war in Syria has had nothing to do with Europe; if you want to blame outsiders for stirring up that conflict, blame Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Iran and Russia, but not Europe. The deeper roots of Middle East chaos, such as the 1400-year-old divide between Sunni and Shia Islam, the corruption and tyranny in the region, and the chronic problem of overpopulation, all have absolutely nothing to do with Europe.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said there were no links at this stage between the plan and the attacks in Paris or Brussels.

Mr Cazeneuve said bomb squads were on site after the raid took place in Argenteuil, on the northern outskirts of the French capital. He said the person arrested was implicated at a high level in the plot.

Witnesses said the immediate area had been locked down and residents were unable to return home.

Late last night, it emerged that six people had been arrested as part of anti-terror operations in Schaerbeek a suburb of Brussels. There were reports that three of the suspects were held outside the door of the federal prosecutors office.

Earlier yesterday, EU justice ministers promised to step up the fight against terrorism in the wake of the Brussels bombings.

At an emergency meeting in the Belgian capital last night  minutes from the site of the Maelbeek metro explosion  ministers agreed to share more information between their police and security services to help avert another terror attack.

Ministers agreed to adopt rules on air passenger data, step up identity checks at the EU borders, reduce terrorists access to weapons and financing, and gain access to intelligence from global communications giants such as Viber or Skype.

There are a lot of initiatives under way but it is about increased urgency, determination, and motivation to work together, said Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

I found the mood very sad today, but united, very determined.

The meeting took place as more detail emerged about the only named architects of the Brussels attacks, the El Bakraoui brothers.

Belgian authorities said the perpetrator of the Maelbeek metro bombings, Khalid El Bakraoui, was suspected of having rented one of the houses that served as a hideout for the Paris attackers, and that a warrant for his arrest had been issued last December.

His brother, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, was arrested near the Turkish-Syrian border last year on suspicion of being a foreign fighter, and was extradited back to Belgium via the Netherlands, without the knowledge of the Belgian authorities.

The developments led Mr Geens and interior minister Jan Jambon to hand in their respective resignations, both of which were refused by the prime minister.

Meanwhile, Salah Abdeslam, who is in custody in Belgium and accused of participation in Novembers Paris attacks, has asked to be extradited back to France.
Laachraoui, a 25-year-old Belgian, was one of Tuesdays airport suicide bombers; security officials identified him as one of the three men in a CCTV image that was released.

Najim Laachraoui was a very good student, said Veronica Pellegrini, the director of the Institut de la Sainte Famille dHelmet, a Catholic school in the ethnically mixed east Brussels borough of Schaerbeek.

He never failed a class, she said of Laachraoui, who studied at the school for six years, until graduating in 2009. We havent heard from him since.

Prosecutors said Laachraouis DNA was found in houses used by the Paris attackers last year. He left Brussels for Syria in February 2013. It is believed he has technical training that could mean he was the armourer of the operation.

Travelling under the false name Soufiane Kayal, he was documented driving from Hungary into Austria in September in a car driven by Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the Paris attacks who was arrested in Brussels last week.

There is speculation that Laachraoui had just returned from Syria, possibly by sea with refugees.

Catholic religion classes are part of the schools curriculum for all students, irrespective of their religion, and Laachraoui would have attended those classes as any other student, Ms Pellegrini said.

While the school offers technical studies in fields such as chemistry, and Belgian media say Laachraoui had studied electromechanics, Ms Pellegrini said that he did not take such courses in her school, where he only pursued general studies.

It is not uncommon for Muslim pupils in Belgium to go to Catholic schools, which can be seen as more conservative or more exclusive than state schools.

The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian killed during a raid in the Paris suburb of St Denis on November 18, had at age 12 won a scholarship to an elite Catholic school.
The chief suspect in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was summoned to court in Brussels yesterday morning after his arrest last week in the Belgian capital. His lawyer, who had initially vowed to fight extradition, said Abdeslam now wants to be sent to France as soon as possible.

IS claimed responsibility for the attacks in both Brussels and Paris, which have laid bare European security failings and prompted calls for better intelligence co-operation and a tougher response to IS extremists.

Belgian prosecutors have said at least four people were involved in Tuesdays attacks on the Brussels airport and a subway train, including brothers Brahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, identified as suicide bombers. European security officials identified another suicide bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a suspected bombmaker for the Paris attacks in November.

Prosecutors have said another suspected participant in the airport attack is at large, a man in a hat seen in surveillance images who has not been publicly identified. Belgian state broadcaster RTBF and Frances Le Monde and BFM television reported yesterday that a fifth attacker may also be at large: A man filmed by surveillance cameras in the Brussels Metro on Tuesday carrying a large bag alongside Khalid El Bakraoui. RTBF said it is not clear whether that man was killed in the attack.

Prosecutors, who have not said how many people overall may have taken part in the bombings, did not respond to the reports.

Attention turned yesterday to Paris attacks suspect Abdeslam, who evaded police in two countries for four months before last Fridays capture in the Molenbeek neighbourhood, where he grew up. He was shot in the leg during his arrest.

The Belgian federal prosecutors office said in a statement that Abdeslam appeared at a hearing yesterday with a suspected accomplice and the court adjourned the proceedings. Abdeslams lawyer, Sven Mary, said his client was not physically present for the hearing, even though a helicopter circled overhead, and the area was under extraordinarily heavy security, as are many parts of the Belgian capital.

Mr Mary told reporters at the courthouse that he asked for a one-month delay on any transfer while he studies the large dossier, but that Abdeslam wants to leave for France as quickly as possible.

He wants to explain himself in France, so its a good thing, Mr Mary said. He said the next extradition hearing will be March 31, and he expects the process to take about another two weeks after that.

France is seeking Abdeslams extradition to face justice for his involvement in the November 13 attacks on a Paris rock concert, stadium and cafes, which killed 130 people. Several attackers were also killed.

Abdeslam, 26, a French citizen who grew up in Brussels heavily immigrant Molenbeek neighbourhood, slipped through police fingers on multiple occasions.

Late yesterday, EU justice and interior ministers were holding an emergency meeting prompted by the Brussels attacks.

Belgium is holding three days of national mourning. Security remains tight, but barriers were removed around the subway station hit by the attack, Maelbeek. The airport will stay closed until at least tomorrow.

Many of the dead remain unidentified, partly because of the severity of devastation caused by the nail-packed bombs detonated in crowds. Eleven people were confirmed dead at the airport, 20 inside the subway station.

The driver of the subway train immediately helped victims despite the horror and fear of the attack  but has insisted he is not a hero.

Christian Delhasse is reportedly already back at work, and posted a statement on his Facebook page saying: Im a Metro driver who did his work in specific circumstances. Any other driver in my place would have done the same thing. The heroes are our firefighters, our forces of order, our army.

Belgiums prime minister has promised to do everything to determine who was responsible for deadly attacks.
Earlier suggestions that he had been detained, amid reports of an arrest in the Anderlecht suburb, were later withdrawn.

Belgian prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw said two Brussels suicide bombers have been identified as brothers Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who struck at the citys airport, and Khalid El Bakraoui, who struck at a Metro station.

The second airport bomber has been identified as Najim Laachraoui.

Laachraoui, 24, was already believed to be linked to last years massacre in Paris. Belgian prosecutors said DNA evidence identified him as being one of the accomplices of Salah Abdeslam, who has been arrested over his alleged involvement in the attacks in France which killed 130 people.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui left a will on a computer which authorities discovered in a bin in the area of Schaerbeek, Mr Van Leeuw said. The bomber is said to have written: I dont know what to do. Im in a hurry. Im on the run. People are looking for me everywhere. And if I give myself up then Ill end up in a cell.

Turkish officials said that they warned Belgium last summer that Ibrahim, also known as Brahim, was a terrorist.

He was caught in June last year at the Turkish-Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands but Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said despite our warnings that this person was a foreign terrorist fighter, Belgium could not establish any links with terrorism. As a result, the Dutch let him go, it is claimed.

The death toll is 31, the prosecutor said, but he warned it could rise and reports suggest it has already reached 34. Around 270 people were injured.

Downing Street said four Britons are among the injured, three of whom are in hospital. It added that it is concerned about one missing British national.

Briton David Dixon has been named by his family as among those missing.

The IT programmer, from Hartlepool in Co Durham, is thought to have been on the Metro when a bomb exploded during the morning rush-hour on Tuesday. His family is desperately searching for him, a friend said.

Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they opened fire in the airport and several members detonated suicide belts. IS said a suicide bomber was also responsible for the Metro attack.

Footage from the airport appears to show the two suicide bombers wearing gloves on one hand, possibly used to hide detonators. The explosives were stowed in their luggage and detonated before reaching the security gate, the mayor of Zaventem said.

Police were approached by a taxi driver who said he had given a lift to three persons who had big bags.

Following this, a string of raids across the city on Tuesday evening recovered an explosive containing nails, chemical products, and an IS flag.
More than 2m people voted in the ballot to decide whether to keep the Union Jack in their flag or replace it with a silver fern.

The current flag has been the national symbol since 1902. It was up against a new design that was winnowed from more than 10,000 entries submitted by the public.

Those advocating change argued the flag was a relic of the nations colonial past and too similar to Australias flag. But the alternative design failed to gain the momentum it needed to win.

The vote had been orchestrated by prime minister John Key, who was an eager proponent of change.

In the end, the vote represented a rare political defeat for Mr Key, who has won three straight elections and led the country for eight years.

Naturally Im a little bit disappointed the flag didnt change tonight, said Mr Key.

He said, however, that every schoolchild had become involved in the debate, which had been good for the nation. He said he was proud to see so many flags flying over recent weeks and would now support the current flag even though it wasnt his first choice.

Opposition leader Andrew Little said the next time the flag issue will be discussed will likely be after Britains Queen Elizabeth II dies, as part of broader debate about the nations constitution, including whether it should become a republic.

Turnout in the postal ballot was 67%, with 2.1m votes cast from the countrys 3.2m registered voters. The official result will be announced next week.
The court found Karadzic guilty of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Europes worst mass murder since the Holocaust.

Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said Karadzic was the only person in the Bosnian Serb leadership with the power to halt the genocide, but instead gave an order for prisoners to be transported from one location to another to be killed.

In a carefully planned operation, Serb forces transported Muslim men to sites around the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia and gunned them down before dumping their bodies into mass graves.

Kwon said Karadzic and his military commander, General Ratko Mladic, intended that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed.

Karadzic was also held criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians and terror for overseeing the deadly 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and for taking hostage UN peacekeepers.

However, the court acquitted Karadzic in a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.

Peter Robinson, part of Karadzics legal team, said he would appeal.

Dr Karadzic is disappointed. Hes astonished, Mr Robinson told reporters. He feels the trial chamber took inference instead of evidence in reaching the conclusions that it did.

Karadzic had faced 11 charges and a maximum life sentence, but was given 40 years imprisonment.

Prosecutors held him responsible as a political leader and commander-in-chief of Serb forces in Bosnia, which are blamed for the worst atrocities of the war.

The 70-year-old had insisted he was innocent and says his wartime actions were intended to protect Serbs.

Karadzics conviction will most likely strengthen international jurisprudence on the criminal responsibility of political leaders for atrocities committed by forces under their control.

Victims and their families have waited for over two decades to see Karadzics day of reckoning, said Param-Preet Singh, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. The Karadzic verdict sends a powerful signal that those who order atrocities cannot simply wait out justice.

Karadzics trial was one of the final acts at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. The court, set up in 1993, indicted 161 suspects. Of them, 80 were convicted and sentenced, 18 acquitted, 13 sent back to local courts and 36 had indictments withdrawn or died.
Asia N. Korea Claims Rocket Engine Success; South on High Alert

North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine that boosted the power of its ballistic rockets, state media reported on Thursday.

SEOUL  North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine that boosted the power of its ballistic rockets, state media reported on Thursday, as South Koreas president ordered the military to be ready to respond to the Norths reckless provocation.

Pyongyangs claim indicates it is continuing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a rapid pace in defiance of UN sanctions, and amid assessment by the Souths officials that it could conduct a new nuclear test at any time.

The isolated state has in recent weeks stepped up bellicose rhetoric, threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul, as well as making claims of advancement in its weapons technology.

The Rodong Sinmum, North Koreas ruling party newspaper, carried photos of leader Kim Jong-un on site as a rocket engine laid horizontally on the ground emitted a fiery blast. A two-page report detailed the testing of the engines structure and thrust.

He noted with great pleasure that the successful test  helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces, KCNA news agency said.

North Korea said last week it had conducted a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile, and would soon test ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

On Wednesday, North Korea repeated a threat to attack the Souths presidential office, saying its large-caliber multiple rocket launch systems are on alert to strike the Blue House and its special operations unit is ready to go into action.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye office said she had ordered a heightened state of alert and put the military on standby to respond actively to reckless provocations by the North.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner repeated a call on North Korea to refrain from any actions and any rhetoric that raise tensions in the region and comply with its international obligations and commitments.

The current tension on the peninsula follows tough new UN sanctions against the North over its nuclear and missile programs and coincides with annual military drills by the South Korea and the United States.

The North calls the exercises nuclear war moves and has threatened to respond with an all-out offensive. It has conducted a series of rocket launches in recent days.

Solid Fuel Rocket Engine

Pyongyang has previously launched long-range rockets that used liquid fuel but it was seen to lack the capability to build solid-fuel long-range or intercontinental missiles.

Solid-fuel rockets have advantages in military use, although liquid fuel rockets are considered more sophisticated as their thrust can be controlled in flight.

The North has deployed short and medium-range missiles and test fired them, but never flight-tested the KN-08 ICBM it is believed to be developing.

Despite its boasts to be making progress, many experts believe the North is a decade or more away from building an ICBM capable of threatening the United States.

Michael Elleman, a US-based expert on solid rocket fuel with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said the engine North Korea tested appeared to have been for the upper stage of a larger rocket or missile.

He told a Washington seminar hosted by the Washington-based North Korean monitoring project 38 North that Pyongyang was at least 15 years away from being able to produce solid-fuel motor large enough to be able to power an ICBM.

He said it was unlikely North Korea was producing rocket engines itself and was probably instead relying on a stockpile from the Soviet era.

Elleman said he found it shocking that Kim Jong-un was photographed standing a few yards away from the rocket motor, apparently just before the test. He said there was a risk of an inadvertent explosion from one, maybe one-and-a-half, possibly even two tons of propellant.

Solid rocket propellant is essentially an explosive that burns at a slower rate, he said. They were putting Kim Jong-un at risk by having him near such a volatile system.

North Koreas stepped-up rhetoric and weapons claims come ahead of its planned congress of the ruling Workers Party, the first in more than 35 years.

Some Pyongyang-watchers say the North may look to claim a splashy achievement, such as a fifth nuclear test, in the run-up to the congress as young leader Kim Jong-un looks to bolster his domestic legitimacy.

North Korea is ready to conduct a fifth nuclear test now, immediately, South Koreas unification ministry said on Monday.
Burma Burma Fishing Slaves in Indonesia to Go Home, Tip of the Iceberg

Twenty-four fishing slaves prepare to return to Myanmar from Indonesia as an aid worker calls the 1,200 repatriated since last year the tip of the iceberg.

BANGKOK  A final group of 24 fishing boat slaves is preparing to return home to Burma this week from Indonesia, aid workers said at a trafficking meeting in Bali, one of them calling the 1,200 slaves repatriated since last year the tip of the iceberg.

Hundreds of migrants seeking work have been exploited or enslaved aboard fishing boats in Southeast Asian seas in recent years, their plight emerging in a growing number of media and other reports.

These reports, and a shift in Indonesian government policy in 2014, brought the scale of the problem to light, including the fact that many trafficked and enslaved fishery workers were stranded in Indonesia.

Some of the 24 Burmese nationals expected to leave on Thursday have not spoken to their families since leaving Burma in search of work a decade ago, only to be duped into years of brutal, unpaid labor on fishing vessels.

The departure of these men will bring to an end one chapter of this tragic story, Mark Getchell, head of the International Organization for Migration in Indonesia, said on Tuesday at the sixth ministerial conference of the Bali process on people smuggling and trafficking.

But all the evidence suggests this is the tip of the iceberg, and much work needs to be done across the region to better protect the rights of migrant workers and ensure there is no repeat of the abuses they were subjected to over so many years.

Southeast Asia, one of the worlds largest sources of seafood, has struggled to control illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

In late 2014 Indonesia issued a moratorium on foreign vessels fishing off its coast, forcing several to port and leaving hundreds of men stuck in the port of Ambon, and blowing up boats fishing illegally in its waters.

Separately, media reports described hundreds of fishing slaves kept in captivity, buried in unmarked graves or marooned on Benjina, an island in eastern Indonesia.

The IOM, at the request of Indonesia and with support from Australia, has identified, assisted and repatriated more than 1,200 trafficking victims from Ambon and Benjina, the organization said in a statement.

Most of the men are from Burma, some from Cambodia and Thailand.

The IOM said it strongly suspects an additional 800 foreign nationals repatriated by fishing companies and through other means were also trafficking victims.

No effort should be spared to pursue the companies involved and demand they compensate all of these unfortunate individuals who lost years of their lives to traffickers, solely to increase the profit margins of these companies, Getchell said.

The IOM, acknowledging the need for labor on fishing boats, called for regional governments to come together to address this issue in forums like the Bali process conference, said Paul Dillon, IOM spokesman in Indonesia.

Lets find a way to address the labor needs in a way that ensures the men and women are treated with respect, suitably compensated for the hard and dangerous work they do, and create a system so consumers can go to buy fishery products safe in the knowledge that people were not enslaved, Dillon said.
Burma Chief Ministers to Be Announced on Monday

Lawmakers say Burmas incoming chief ministers will be appointed during Mondays regional parliamentary sessions.

RANGOON  Rangoon Divisions incoming chief minister will be announced at the regional legislature on Monday, along with all other states and regions during their respective sessions on the same day, according to divisional lawmakers.

Lawmaker Sandar Min, from Rangoons Seikgyikanaungto constituency, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that regional lawmakers were informed that President-elect Htin Kyaws appointees for Burmas 14 chief minister posts would be announced during Mondays parliamentary session.

It will take place in all regional parliaments across the country at the same time on March 28, she said.

National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Min Thein from Rangoons Hlegu constituency has been tipped to become the next Rangoon Division chief minister. The 46-year-old was elected to the Union Parliaments Lower House in Burmas 2012 by-election and went on to serve as a member of that chambers banking and finance development committee. Last year, he trained his sights on regional governance, successfully contesting his Hlegu Township seat at the divisional level.

Sandar Min said she would have no objection if Phyo Min Thein is selected.

Rangoon-based political analyst Khin Zaw Win told The Irrawaddy that Rangoon needs a strong candidate for the position, as the nations commercial hub and most populous city.

Its a very important position among all the states and regions, he said. He or she should be well experienced and a senior figure in the political field.

The Rangoon Division cabinet of the outgoing government has nine ministries, and lawmakers were unable to confirm whether a new ministerial configuration would be announced on Monday as well.
Burma China to Push Burmas New Government on Stalled Myitsone Dam

China says it will push Burmas new government to resume the controversial stalled dam project in Kachin State, saying the contract is still valid.

BEIJING  China signaled on Thursday that it will push Burmas new government to resume a controversial stalled dam project in the Southeast Asian country, saying the contract was still valid.

Outgoing Burmese President Thein Sein angered Beijing in 2011 by suspending the $3.6 billion, Chinese-invested Myitsone dam project, some 90 percent of whose power would have gone to China.

Other Chinese projects in Burma have proved controversial too, including the Letpadaung copper mine, against which residents have repeatedly protested, and twin Chinese oil and gas pipelines across the country.

Speaking ahead of a summit next week in China between Premier Li Keqiang and leaders of five Southeast Asian countries, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said the Myitsone dam was an important cooperation project.

Very regretfully it was shelved by the Myanmar government in 2011. But the contract is still in force. How to push this cooperation forward is an important thing for both countries, he told a news conference.

I think that the existing government has no time to get this project restarted. I believe that once the new government is in office, the Chinese government will continue to discuss with them how to restart this project.

He said he did not yet know who exactly would be representing Burmas government at the summit on the southern Chinese resort island of Hainan.

Burmas Parliament elected a close friend and confidant of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as president on Tuesday, making Htin Kyaw the first head of state since the 1960s who does not hail from a military background.

Chinese diplomats have been quietly approaching senior officials in Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) about the dam, senior NLD sources have told Reuters.

While Beijing had strong ties with Burmas military junta, it has also moved to cement relations with Suu Kyi, who met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last year.

Chinas Foreign Ministry, in a statement late on Wednesday, said Xi had sent his congratulations to Htin Kyaw.

Xi said the two countries had a long tradition of friendship and deepening cooperation was in the interests of both parties.

China is willing to work hard with Myanmar to promote the continued steady development of the all-round strategic cooperative relationship to better benefit both peoples, Xi added.
Burma Despite Controversy, Cell Phone Tax to Be Enacted April 1

A five percent tax on cell phone users, previously postponed after being met with intense backlash from the public, is set to go into effect on April 1.

RANGOON  A five percent tax on cell phone users, previously postponed after being met with intense backlash from the public, is set to go into effect on April 1.

Starting April 1, all mobile phone usage amounts will include a commercial tax of 5 percent as per Union tax law, Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), one of Burmas three telecommunications providers, told its customers via text message on Friday.

In May 2015, outgoing President Thein Seins administration announced the plan to levy a tax on MPT, Ooredoo and Telenor subscribers starting June 1. But public criticism convinced the government to delay the tax until after the current fiscal year, which ends March 31.

In December, Win Shein, incumbent Minister of Finance, reintroduced the bill to Parliament, contending that, annually, Burma could generate a tax revenue of some 84 billion kyats (approximately US$69.5 million). Parliament approved the bill that same month.

Thidar Myint, from the Ministry of Finances Internal Revenue Department, told The Irrawaddy that the tax will be levied for phone calls, text message, and internet usage; from April 1 on, cell phone users credit balance will reflect this new tax.

Users will not be charged when they top up. Instead, the tax will only be applied to their total usage amount, and each month operators will give the tax to the Internal Revenue Department, according to their data on [cell phone] users, Thidar Myint explained.

The enactment of this tax on April 1 will coincide with the transfer of power from Burmas military-backed government to a civilian-led National League for Democracy administration on the same day.
Burma Flyovers Not Effective Solution to Rangoons Traffic Woes

While flyovers are not alleviating the citys standstill traffic, demolishing them to develop other infrastructure wastes taxpayer money, lawmakers say.

RANGOON  The construction of flyovers has not been an effective solution to ever-worsening traffic woes in Rangoon, said lawmakers at the first regular session of the Rangoon Division parliament on Thursday.

As parliament debated the Rangoon Divisions planning draft law for the 2016-17 fiscal year, MP Yan Shin, from Rangoons Mayangone Township, said that he still sees long queues of cars at the existing flyovers.

Building flyovers is costly, and cant fully solve the traffic problem, Yan Shin told the regional parliament.

Assessment reports of planning and budget draft laws for the upcoming fiscal year, submitted by the Finance, Planning and Economics committee, called for reconsideration of a plan to build two additional flyovers: one at the junction of Kaba Aye Pagoda and Parami roads, and the other in North Okkalapa Township.

Lawmaker Sandar Min, the chairwoman of the Finance, Planning and Economics committee, said the Japan International Cooperation Agencys (JICA) Greater Yangon Strategic Urban Development Plan would not mesh with the existing flyovers. The long-term joint initiative between JICA and the Burmese government aims to develop infrastructure needed to make Rangoon more livable by 2040.

Our reports point out why the new government shouldnt build more flyovers. Building flyovers may be a short-term solution for traffic congestion, but looking into the more distant future, it will mean the government has to incur double the costs, said Sandar Min, referring to flyovers that may later be demolished if they cant exist in tandem with the proposed infrastructure improvements in the Greater Yangon Strategic Urban Development Plan.

Lawmaker Yan Aung, representing Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township, has also stressed the need to spend public funds appropriately.

If flyovers were to be demolished because of multilevel road and bridge construction in the Greater Yangon project, those public funds need to be spent systematically. Those flyovers were built with peoples hard-earned money, he said.

According to the Rangoon Division government, a total of seven flyovers, including the recently opened 8 Mile junction and one currently under construction at Tamwe junction, were constructed at a cost of over $130 billion kyat (over US$100 million) during outgoing President Thein Seins five-year term, which began in 2011.

This article was translated by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Mandalay to Begin Construction of Konbaung Museum

A groundbreaking ceremony for a museum dedicated to Burma's last dynasty is held in Mandalay.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a Mandalay museum dedicated to Burmas Konbaung Dynasty was held on Friday.

The Konbaung Dynasty was also Burmas last monarchy, and reigned from 1752 until 1885 from their kingdoms capital in Mandalay. Estimated to cost two billion kyats (over US$1.6 million), the museum will showcase historic records of buildings and businesses in Mandalay during this period, as well as documentary photos, and both gems including rubies and jade and tools used in mining. Also present will be historic artifacts from Bagans Archaeological Zone.

Such a museum will be the first of its kind in Mandalay. We want it to become the landmark of Mandalay Division. We will build the museum to make the visitors feel they can see the entire Mandalay Division there, said Thet Naing Tun, joint secretary of Mandalay City Development Committee.

Hsuu Ngat, a renowned historian and writer in Mandalay said: If the museum is to be named Konbaung, it should represent the entire Konbaung Dynasty. But if it mainly exhibits jade and gems, it will just become a jade promotion.

The museum will be built on land owned by Mandalay City Development Committee on 73rd Street in Chanmyathazi Township. It will be funded by Chan Hein Construction Co. and is scheduled to be completed in three years.
Burma Meet Burmas Next Cabinet

The Irrawaddy looks at the selection of ministers put forward by the National League for Democracy and military.

The Irrawaddy looks at the 18 ministers put forward by the National League for Democracy (NLD) on Tuesday for 21 leadership positions, of which party leader Aung San Suu Kyi is likely nominated for four. The information below was provided by the NLD or included in official Parliament biographies.

Burmas new government will have a total of 21 ministries. Three of theseDefense, Home Affairs and Border Affairswill remain under the control of the military, which will appoint its own ministers.

None of the lawmakers in attendance for Thursdays Union Parliament session raised any objection to the 18 names put forward for ministerial posts this week.

Aung San Suu Kyi (likely portfolios: Foreign Affairs, Education, Electric Power and Energy, Presidents Office Minister)

NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyis presidential aspirations were dashed by the militarys refusal to amend Article 59(f) of Burmas 2008 Constitution. The provision bars her from holding the executive post because her two sons are British citizens, as was her late husband. Nominated for four cabinet positions, some are referring to Suu Kyis role in the new government as that of a super minister. She has been representing Rangoons Kawhmu Township in Parliaments Lower House since 2012 and has been a leader in Burmas pro-democracy movement since she entered politics in 1988.

Thura Aung Ko (likely portfolio: Religious Affairs and Culture Minister)

Born on April 1, 1948, the long-time Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) central executive committee member was a Lower House MP and chairperson of the Judicial and Legal Affairs Committee during Thein Seins administration. He lost his Chin State legislative seat in the 2015 election to a candidate from the NLD. Thura Aung Ko graduated from Burmas Defense Services Academy and served in the military from 1969 to 1997. He had reached the level of brigadier-general when he then joined the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) government and served as deputy minister in the Ministry of Science and Technology and later held the same position in the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Aung Thu (likely portfolio: Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Minister)

Born on July 8, 1955, the NLD lawmaker currently represents Rangoon Constituency (6) in Parliaments Upper House. He is known for his past role as the rector of Rangoon University, and has advocated for a more decentralized education system in Burma.

Khin Maung Cho (likely portfolio: Minister for Industry)

Born on Nov. 3, 1950 in Meikhtila, Mandalay Division, Khin Maung Cho has a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Rangoon Institute of Technology and is an executive engineer at Super Seven Stars Motor Industry Company Ltd.

Kyaw Win (likely portfolio: Planning and Finance Minister)

Born on Feb. 23, 1948, Kyaw Win holds a bachelors degree in economics. He spent 20 years working within the National Planning Ministry before joining the Internal Revenue Department and then shifting to business consulting. Currently, Kyaw Win is an NLD lawmaker in the Lower House representing Rangoons Dagon Seikkan Township.

Dr. Myint Htwe (likely portfolio: Health Minister)

Myint Htwe worked in Burmas Health Ministry from 1976 to 1994 before joining the World Health Organization. He studied at Rangoon University of Medicine, then the Institute of Public Health of the University of Philippines and finally, Johns Hopkins University in the United States, where he earned a doctoral degree in international health and epidemiology. At present, Myint Htwe is a central executive committee (CEC) member of the Myanmar Academy of Medical Science and the vice chairman of the Myanmar Liver Foundation. He is also a member of the Legal Affairs and Special Cases Assessment Commission.

Nai Thet Lwin (likely portfolio: Ethnic Affairs Minister)

The 76-year-old ethnic Mon minister is the vice chairman of the Mon National Party (MNP), and is highly respected within the Mon political sphere. Nai Thet Lwin was born in Karen States Kawkareik Township and later went to Moulmein University, from which he holds a bachelors degree in philosophy. Although he did not run for election in 1990, he served as the vice chairman of the Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF), which won five seats before later evolving into todays MNP. Nai Thet Lwin reportedly has close ties with the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), a coalition of ethnic political parties and an NLD ally. He also reportedly has good relations with leaders of the New Mon State Party (NMSP).

Ohn Maung (likely portfolio: Hotels and Tourism Minister)

Sixty-eight-year-old Ohn Maung has 40 years of experience in the tourism industry and is the former CEO of Inle Princess Resort, a hotel recognized for practices of corporate social responsibility. From southern Shan State, Ohn Maung was elected as an NLD parliamentarian in his native Nyaungshwe (Yawnghwe) in Burmas 1990 election, but like others from the era, he was not allowed to take office.

Ohn Win (likely portfolio: Resource and Environmental Conservation Minister)

Born on June 15, 1951, Ohn Win earned a masters degree in watershed management from Colorado State University in the United States. He is a former pro-rector and professor from the University of Forestry in Yezin, near Naypyidaw, Burmas capital.

Pe Myint (likely portfolio: Information Minister)

Born in 1949 in Thandwe, Arakan State, the ethnic Arakanese earned his medical degree from the Rangoon University of Medicine in 1975. He worked as a general physician until entering the literary sphere in 1988. He is a renowned writer and is particularly known for his translated works on motivation and personal development. He won Burmas national literature award in 1995.

Than Myint (likely portfolio: Commerce Minister)

Born on Jan. 17, 1943, the 72-year-old joined the NLD in 2012. Than Myint is currently the chairman of the Hlaing Tharyar Township NLD chapter and a lawmaker in the Lower House representing the same area. He has a bachelors degree in economics from Rangoon University and also earned masters and doctoral degrees in the US. In the past, he served in a number of positions within the Ministry of Finance.

Thant Zin Maung (likely portfolio: Transportation and Telecommunications Minister)

Born on Nov. 15, 1953, Thant Zin Maung has a masters degree in mathematics and was once the general manager of the government-owned Myanmar Railways. He is a Lower House lawmaker representing Monywa in Sagaing Division.

Thein Swe (likely portfolio: Minister for Labor and Immigration)

Born on Aug. 4, 1949 in Yenangyaung, Magwe Division, Thein Swe is a graduate of the 13th intake of the Defense Services Academy. He holds a diploma certificate in defense studies (National Defense College), an honorary academic doctorate (Japan International Marine Science and Technology Federation) and a post-graduate diploma in law. He was in the service from 1967 to 2003 and rose through the ranks to major general. He served as the Minister for Transport from 2005 to 2010. He is from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), served in the previous Parliament and is a lawmaker in the Lower House for Arakan States Ann Township.

Win Khaing (likely portfolio: Construction Minister)

Win Khaing graduated from Rangoon Institute of Technology (now Yangon Technological University) and worked for Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise under the Construction Ministry. In 1990, he established United Engineering Co., which still successfully operates today. He is the current chairman of the Myanmar Engineering Society and a member of the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC). He is also a member of the National Energy Management Committee (NEMC), Myanmar Industrial Development Committee (MIDC), Myanmar Board of Engineers (MBE), Committee for Quality Control of High-rise Buildings Projects (CQHP), Asean Federation of Engineering Organizations (AFEO) and Asean Academy of Engineering and Technology (AAET).

Win Myat Aye (likely portfolio: Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister)

Born on June 1, 1954, Win Myat Aye is an Upper House lawmaker from Pegu Divisions Constituency (4). He is also a paediatrician and once served as the rector of Magwe University of Medicine.

Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe (likely portfolio: Home Affairs Minister)

Born on Nov. 27, 1959 in Kyauk Padaung, Mandalay Division, Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe is a graduate of the 22nd intake of the Defense Services Academy and holds a masters degree in defense. He served as principal of the Defense Services Academy, the commander of South West Command, the Military Security Affairs chief and Border Affairs Minister in the previous government.

Lt-Gen Sein Win (likely portfolio: Defense Minister)

Born on July 24, 1956 in Sagaing Division, Lt-Gen Sein Win is a graduate of the 54th intake of the Officer Training School of the Burma Army and holds a masters degree in defense. He served as chief of the Bureau of Air Defense and was the Defense Minister in the previous government.

Lt-Gen Ye Aung (likely portfolio: Border Affairs Minister)

Born on June 8, 1960 in Chauk, Magwe Division, Lt-Gen Ye Aung is a graduate of the 23rd intake of the Defense Services Academy and holds a masters degree in defense. He served as the commander of Central Command and is Judge Advocate General in the service. He is also a military representative in the peace talks between the government, ethnic armed groups and the army.
Burma President-Elect Proposes New UEC Leadership

President-elect Htin Kyaw nominates the chairman and members of the Union Election Commission, choosing five men to oversee Burmas 2020 general election and related matters.

RANGOON  Burmas President-elect Htin Kyaw has nominated the chairman and members of the Union Election Commission (UEC), choosing five men to oversee the countrys 2020 general election and expected by-elections to fill vacant legislative seats ahead of that.

Union Parliament Speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than presented the proposed list of new UEC members to lawmakers during a joint parliamentary session on Friday, naming a former election subcommissioner to head the Naypyidaw-based polling body.

Five membersHla Thein, Aung Myint, Soe Reh, Tun Khin and Hla Tintwere nominated, with Hla Thein proposed as chairman. Most nominees are lawyers from the Attorney Generals Office, and no members of the current, 15-member UEC are on the list.

A member of the outgoing UEC told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the proposed new chairman was head of the election subcommission for Meikhtila District in Mandalay Division. Meikhtila Township is one place where the National League for Democracy (NLD) saw defeat to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in a general election last year that the party of Aung San Suu Kyi otherwise dominated.

According to a biography distributed to parliamentarians, Hla Thein, 67, is a retired professor who formerly taught at Meikhtila University. He worked in the geology department at Mandalay and Magwe universities and as a rector at three colleges.

The powerful UEC holds broad authority to arrange, postpone or cancel elections, monitor and decide the fate of political parties and candidates, and judge election-related disputes, among other related responsibilities.

The current UEC is chaired by ex-general Tin Aye, who was also a USDP lawmaker before taking up the post in 2011. The commission he led was comprised of 15 members, including eight ethnic minority members who were added in 2015.

Tin Aye, who was largely praised for his handling of the Nov. 8 election and its aftermath, had previously indicated that he would not be interested in a second term as UEC chairman.

Parliament will vote on Htin Kyaws proposal on Monday, with high likelihood of approval given the strong majorities that his party, the NLD, holds in both chambers.

It was not immediately clear whether the five-member UEC proposed would mean a permanent downsizing of the commission, perhaps as part of the NLDs pursuit of lean, more efficient government.
Burma Some See Politics in Burmanization, Suffrage for Ethnic Chinese in N. Shan State

An 11th hour decision by the outgoing Burmese government to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese in northern Shan State raises eyebrows.

RANGOON  An 11th hour decision by the outgoing Burmese government to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese living in northern Shan States Tarmoenye sub-township has raised eyebrows, with some questioning whether the move was politically motivated.

A statement from Burmas Immigration Department, dated March 11 but only posted online this week, announced that immigration authorities had granted full citizenship to members of the Mong Wong ethnic Chinese group in Tarmoenye, part of Kutkai Township, enabling them to vote and enjoy other rights previously withheld.

Why and how these people were afforded full citizenship are questions that will no doubt be of interest to an untold number of ethnic Chinese across Burma who have been afforded no such privilege and remain holders of second-tier citizenship or none at all. Others including Palaung, one of the regions predominant ethnic groups, say the move by the outgoing administration was a cynical attempt to secure future votes for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), of which President Thein Sein is chairman.

Under Burmas 1982 Citizenship Law, the group will be re-categorized as Mong Wong Burman and granted the pink-colored ID cards that confer full citizenship, after previously being identified as Mong Wong Chinese on temporary identity documents commonly known as white cards.

Ruled by the military for five decades, Burma through the years has denied full citizenship to those of Chinese ancestry and other ethnic or religious groups, including Hindus and Muslims, who were born in, and in many cases have never left, the country.

But the move to enfranchise what the Immigration Department statement said amounted to some 60,000 people in Tarmoenye is being called into question by some.

There is nothing about them related to our ethnicity. They are Chinese, how did they become ethnic Burman? said Aik Moon, a Taang National Party state lawmaker from Tarmoenye.

They have a different way of living, and some even only speak Chinese. How can they be a Burmese ethnicity? But we do not have power to do anything, he added.

Myint Kyaing, who is head of the Immigration Department, told the 7Day daily newspaper that the president had the right, as enshrined in the 1982 Citizenship Law, to grant citizenship in cases deemed beneficial to the country.

Sai Maung Tin, a former Upper House lawmaker representing northern Shan State for the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), said the government had erred in not consulting other ethnic groups in the area before deciding to offer citizenship to the Mong Wong.

They used to stay under our Shan saopha, he said, referring to Shan chieftains of the past, who ruled over fiefdoms in Burmas east and northeast. They were Chinese, but one type of ethnic [presence] within our Shan [fiefdom]. For me, I feel that they should have the right to citizenship. However, it would have been better for the government to talk to our Shan before making this decision.

The government has made this case more controversial now, Sai Maung Tin added.

Thein Seins government, which will leave office at the end of this month, is not the first to show favor toward the Mong Wong. According to the Immigration Department statement, the heads of State of successive periods recognized the cooperation of [Mong Wong] Bamar ethnic for national security, and in 1998 former junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe ordered that the group be recognized as a subgroup under the ethnic Burman majority.

Two widescale referendums were held later that year in which the new categorization was heartily accepted, the statement claims.

It goes on to state that through an apparent combination of administrative mismanagement and poor communication, the group was never properly granted full citizenship, resulting in only 620 out of some 60,000 eligible Tar Moe Nye region [Mong Wong] Bamar voters having suffrage in the 2015 election.

It was that vote in Kutkai Township that saw USDP lawmaker Myint Lwin re-elected to the Shan State legislature. Also known as Wang Guoda, Myint Lwin is said to have had close ties to Than Shwe and former spy chief Gen. Khin Nyunt dating back to the 1980s, when he reportedly helped the junta in its fight against the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) along the Sino-Burmese border.

To this day, Myint Lwin commands a Mong Wong militia known as Mung Nye or Ta Moe Nye, and reportedly has significant business interests in Shan State.

He often asked General Than Shwe to recognize his Chinese people for Burmese citizenship. He asked my father-in-law for advice on how to write letters to be sent to General Than Shwe [requesting citizenship], said Aik Moon, who explained that his father-in-low used to work at a company owned by Myint Lwin.

Over the years, Mong Wong Chinese have proven a reliable ally to the central government in an unstable regionnorthern Shan State but extending also to Kachin State and the Kokang Special Regionbeset by ethnic conflict, guns and drugs.

Myint Lwins pro-government militia is estimated to be about 100-men strong.

Mai Aike Kyaw, a spokesman for the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA), said offering full citizenship could be interpreted as an attempt to ensure allegiance in the volatile region.

There are different ethnic groups active in the region. Our armed group [TNLA] is active in the area. They [the Burma Army] have to work with militias on the ground. They have army bases in Tarmoenye and Kutkai through working together with those militia, said Mai Aike Kyaw, whose TNLA is involved in ongoing conflict with the Burma Army.
Burma Suu Kyi Talks Chief Minister Post, Economic and Minority Affairs With ANP

The NLD chairwoman urges ANP lawmakers to collaborate with an NLD-led cabinet in Arakan State.

RANGOON  National League for Democracy (NLD) chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi urged Arakan National Party (ANP) lawmakers to collaborate with her NLD-led cabinet in Arakan State on Thursday, while also reportedly taking the opportunity to hold a discussion on the economic sector and relations with the regions Rohingya minority.

Lower House ANP MP Pe Than told The Irrawaddy that NLD spokesman Win Htein invited 22 ANP lawmakers to Naypyidaw for an initial meeting with Suu Kyi at the capitals municipal guest house on Thursday evening.

The ANP has selected three representatives, including Pe Than, to engage in a further dialogue with Suu Kyi. One of the most divisive issues between the two parties has been the appointment of the Arakan State Chief Minister. The ANP wants a party member in the role, while the NLDas the national winner of the electioncan select one of their own people for each state minister post, according to the countrys 2008 Constitution.

Yet Suu Kyi has said that the NLD pick for the Arakan State Chief Minister remains NLD central executive committee member, Nyi Pu. Pe Than said the appointment will be discussed further in the talks.

In January, the ANP stated that unless they were granted the chief minister position in their state, they would work in opposition to the NLD. Suu Kyi reportedly told the Arakanese legislators that in an NLD-led government they would be offered some positions, as would some outside technocrats.

The ANP has demanded that the NLD meet with the Arakanese partys authorities to discuss the issue further, including Dr. Aye Maung, Aye Tha Aung and Tun Aung Kyaw. The goal is to hold a political dialogue, but according to ANP MP Ba Shein, such an undertaking is likely to fail; Aye Tha Aung, known to be close with Suu Kyi, was unexpectedly dismissed from the delegation and replaced by Tha Tun Hla, another party insider.

Suu Kyi is considering building trust between ANP and NLD, said ANP Lower House MP Khin Saw Wai. [The meeting] went well enough, she added, pointing out that both sides engaged in a very transparent debate and shared feelings from their own hearts.

Khin Saw Wai told The Irrawaddy that Suu Kyi had expressed concern that protests in Arakan States capital of Sittwe on Wednesdayagainst an NLD-appointed chief ministercould interfere with the process of state building and democratization. More protests are planned in Maungdaw Township on Sunday.

Tensions run high for many reasons in Arakan State, which has witnessed much conflict in recent years, particularly between the Buddhist Arakanese majority and the Muslim Rohingya minority, who are often dismissed as Bengali by both locals and the government. The Rohingya are denied citizenship by both the Burmese government and the Arakanese state authorities, which has attracted the attention and concern of the international community.

The ANP and NLD reportedly talked about the regions history of ethno-religious conflict during the meeting. While additional details are not known at this time, Suu Kyi told the ANPs MPs that they would search for a solution together and, in full collaboration, march toward a better situation for the country, according to another ANP representative, Ba Shein.

They also discussed the controversial Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, a Chinese investment project located in Kyaukphyu Township, which has been criticized for its potential to displace locals and cause damage to the surrounding environment.

Khin Saw Wai said that Suu Kyi has promised to meet with ANP authorities again within a matter of weeks. The NLD will reportedly put forward some candidates for the talks, but a location has not yet been decided.

The Irrawaddy contacted NLD spokesmen Win Htein and Zaw Myint Maung by phone on Friday morning, but they could not be reached for comment.
Burma UWSA to Host Ethnic Armed Groups at War With Govt

The United Wa State Army invites ethnic armed groups in ongoing conflict with the government to a meeting at its Panghsang headquarters in Shan State.

RANGOON  The United Wa State Army (UWSA) has invited ethnic armed groups in ongoing conflict with the Burmese government in northern Shan State to a meeting on Saturday at its Panghsang headquarters in the Wa Special Region, the powerful groups latest engagement in a peace process that it has approached with am

bivalence.

We will talk at the meeting about how to carry out future peace talks, Zhao Guoan, a spokesman for the UWSA, told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

Then, we will talk about fighting between our ethnics, he added, referring to reported clashes this year between the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Shan State Army-South. They should stop attacking each other. Our wish is for our ethnic groups to have unity and to bring them together in one place.

He added that participants would also discuss how best to resettle civilians displaced by recent conflict.

Multiple ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State have clashed with the Burma Army in recent months, forcing thousands to flee their homes, with Kyaukme and Kutkai townships particularly affected. Fighting flared as recently as Thursday, when the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and TNLA went up against government troops in Mong Baw and Kyaukme townships, respectively.

Nai Hong Sar, vice chairman of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) alliance of ethnic armed groups, confirmed that the UWSA would host a meeting, but added that only ethnic armed groups operating in northern Shan State had been invited.

We heard that they will have a meeting. But, we were not invited to join it, said Nai Hong Sar, speaking of the New Mon State Party ethnic armed group, for which he also serves as vice chairman.

Leaders of ethnic armed groups with a presence in northern Shan State began arriving in Panghsang, the capital of the Wa autonomous zone, on Friday to attend the weekend meeting, according to Tar Bong Kyaw, general secretary of the TNLA.

Many of the leaders have arrived already, but still more are coming, he said.

The UWSA, Burmas largest ethnic armed group, previously hosted a similar gathering in Panghsang, where in November it invited non-signatories to a so-called nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government.

The ethnic armed groups decided at the meeting that they would await a transfer of power to the incoming National League for Democracy (NLD) government before engaging with the peace process further.

Based in northeastern Shan State, the UWSA is among about a dozen ethnic armed groups that have not signed the nationwide ceasefire accord. Its leadership has not participated in the multilateral negotiations between ethnic armed groups and Naypyidaw that have played out over the last few years, saying UWSA participation was unnecessary given a bilateral ceasefire that it reached with the government in 1989.

Early this year, a UWSA spokesman called a political dialogue between the government and signatories to the nationwide ceasefire meaningless as long as it continued to exclude certain ethnic armed groups from the process.

The government and Burma Army refused to allow the TNLA, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Arakan Army to sign the accord, which eight ethnic armed groups inked in October.

Zhao Guoan told The Irrawaddy that all three non-signatories, as well as the KIA, National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), and Shan State Army-North, would attend Saturdays talks.
Business YSX Shares Trading Kicks Off With One Listing

Following earlier delays, shares trading at the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) kicks off, debuting one week before a new government comes to power in Burma.

RANGOON  Following earlier delays, shares trading at the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) kicked off on Friday, debuting one week before a new government comes to power in Burma.

The YSX officially launched in December, but shares since then had only been traded internally through dry-run testing. According to YSX officials, this delay was to ensure smooth operation of the new capital market.

Six firms are due to be listed on the YSX initially: First Myanmar Investment (FMI), Myanmar Citizens Bank, Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Public Limited, Myanmar Agribusiness Public Company Limited (Mapco), First Private Bank and Great Hor Kham.

On Friday, however, five of these firms were not yet ready for shares trading when FMI chairman Serge Pun joined Maung Maung Thein, head of the Myanmar Securities and Exchange Commission (SECM), to ring a golden bell signaling the long-awaited start to trading.

Today, only shares for FMI [were] available, said Thet Tun Oo, senior executive director of the YSX, adding that shares trading for the other five listed companies would be available at an as yet unknown future date.

The floor price for FMI shares began at 26,000 kyats (US$22) and shares traded at 31,000 kyats by the time trading ended Friday afternoon, with the stock having reached the upper limit of a daily 5,000 kyats floor and ceiling on stock price fluctuation that is in place to prevent volatility on the bourse.

Six securities companiesincluding Kanbawza (KBZ) Group of Companies, CB Securities, AYA Securities and the Myanmar Securities Exchange Centerhave been selected as underwriters and will work with the YSX as liaisons between the listed companies and buyers and sellers.

The YSX is Burmas first modern stock exchange. Its backers hope the new capital market will help spur growth in Burmas once-moribund economy.
Business Money-Laundering Highlighted as Priority for Burma's New Govt

The UK-based GovRisk group has encouraged Burmas new government to continue the countrys financial intelligence unit in order to clean up financial crime.

RANGOON  The UK-based International Governance and Risk Institute (GovRisk) has highlighted financial crime as a priority for Burma as a new government prepares to take power next month.

In a statement released on Thursday, GovRisk, a provider of training and consultancy services in financial crime prevention, noted that Burma is on the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist for money laundering, but that it can be removed from the list if it can install sufficient policies to combat money laundering by the next FATF site visit.

This is a complex subject. We want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to understand whats going on regarding financial crimes prevention, Nicolas Le Moignan, director of training and consultancy at GovRisk, told The Irrawaddy.

GovRisk noted that in 2017 Burma will undergo an independent assessment of its adherence to the international standards set to combat the financing of terrorism and money laundering, defined as turning money generated from illegal activity into seemingly legitimate funds.

We hope to continue work with the new government [in the field of] anti-money laundering. Weve worked with the financial intelligence unit for three years now, Le Moignan said.

Burmas financial intelligence unit works with police officials to investigate and report any suspicious business activity that might be linked to money laundering.

According to Marcus Stewart, who worked for years with Britains FIU, anti-money laundering measures such as the 2014 Anti-Money Laundering Law require the private sector to identify where criminal money may have entered the financial system or other sectors such as real estate, law firms and accountants.

Burmas FIU has made investigations into the real estate industry since 2014. Police Col. Kyaw Win Thein, the FIUs deputy chief, encouraged real estate agents and bankers to report transactions involving large sums of cash, a response to suspicions that money laundering was rife within Burmas property market and financial institutions. Banks were also asked to report clients with cash savings over a certain amount, though this figure was never released.

GovRisk noted that if Burma were to be removed from the FATF list, it would signal that some of the key building blocks needed to combat money laundering are in place.
Commentary Human Rights in Burma: Can the UN Human Rights Council Rise To The Occasion?

As the NLD negotiates democratic space with the military, the UNHRC has a duty to maintain its scrutiny and remain steadfast in its past demands.

As the world anxiously awaits the announcement of a new president for Burma on March 15, the United Nations is discussing the human rights situation in the country. Yesterday, Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, presented her report in Geneva to the UN Human Rights Council. At the end of this month, a resolution by the Council will decide how to move forward with the scrutiny of the human rights situation in the country.

Since 2011, international attention on Burma has heavily focused on the political transition within the country. As that transition now moves into the verge of a new era, human rights challenges that the country has faced for decades loom large. In her report, the Special Rapporteur says that the new government will now face formidable human rights challenges. The actions of the UN Human Rights Council will play a key role in deciding the future of these challenges.

On Feb. 24, in an open letter addressed to member and observer states of the Council, 121 Burmese civil society organizations urged the body to maintain the countrys status under Item 4 of its agenda, which addresses human rights situations that require attention. This would also mean not ignoring the dire state of human rights in the country, which could happen if scrutiny were to be relaxed and Burma promoted to an Item 10 classification, in which the focus would be merely on technical assistance and capacity building.

The overwhelming majority secured by the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burmas November 2015 elections has ushered in new possibilities for democracy and human rights. This change, however, has yet to take root in reality. Extensive and pervasive powers held by the military hang over the new government like the sword of Damocles. The 2008 Constitution guarantees the military 25 percent of seats in the national parliament as well as key government positions and powers; the army also enjoys a preeminent position in the powerful National Defense and Security Council.

It may take some time before the extent of civilian control over the government is delineated and apparent. Meanwhile, as the NLD remains locked in a delicate dance with the military in negotiating democratic space, the UN Human Rights Council has a duty to strengthen the cause of that space by maintaining its scrutiny and remaining steadfast in its past demands.

Decades-long armed conflicts continue in Burmas ethnic areas despite the October 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). As a result, hundreds of thousands remain displaced inside and outside the country and abuses such as torture, sexual violence and extrajudicial killings continue. In her report, the Special Rapporteur has reiterated the calls of previous UN experts on establishing accountability for violations of international humanitarian law.

In the meantime, intolerance and religious extremism have been on the rise within the country. Systematic discrimination of Muslim communities, including the Rohingya, continues through legislation and state policy. These disastrous effects were visible in the massive regional crisis that engulfed South and Southeast Asia last year due to an exodus of refugees from Arakan State. Institutionally, the country faces a breakdown in the rule of law, and basic freedoms such as those of expression, association and assembly remain under severe threat. In this context, the Feb. 24 civil society letter calls on the Council and the Special Rapporteur to come out with clear benchmarks and a roadmap for the future of human rights in the country.

Burma sits precariously on a geopolitical faultline that dangerously straddles competing interests of global and regional powers. The countrys rich natural resources have added fuel to the fire. As economic powers compete over access to the countrys untapped resources, new patterns of human rights violations involving business interests have emerged. Geopolitical tensions are also visible in current negotiations underway at the Council over the resolution on Burma. Several calls have been made for loweringor even endingthe scrutiny of the human rights situation in the country. The UN Human Rights Council has a duty to not politicize human rights concerns. In the coming weeks, both the world and the people of Burma will be closely watching the outcome of negotiations and the resolution that emerges from it.

International human rights bodies can be a key ally for the incoming NLD government in providing an open, transparent and standards-based path to address massive human rights challenges amidst residual internal pressure and competing external interests. As the premier human rights body of the world, it is imperative that the UN Human Rights Council is able to be meet its mandate to promote and protect human rights and show leadership at this pivotal point in Burmas history. It can contribute towards this not by abandoning its scrutiny and long-standing concerns, but by laying down clear benchmarks and a roadmap to address the human rights challenges that haunt the country.
5 Defining Tech Trends that Will Shape Business

The world of computing has followed Moores Law for generations. The law, which was developed by researcher Gordon Moore in the 1970s, says that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into a set amount of space will double every two years. Its been a reliable gauge ever since.

Moores Law may be nearing its end, however. Tom Simonite at the MIT Technology Review writes that Intel has declared in a regulatory filing what insiders have suspected: The company is slowing the release of new chips in a manner that doesnt keep pace with the law. The reason is simply that fabricating small transistors, which now are at about 14 nanometers, is increasingly difficult and costly. The insiders suspect that the end is near because the next generation, which aims at 10 nm, has already been delayed.

This doesnt mean that other chip makers may not take up the challenge. It also wont affect mobile devices, at least not yet. Intel is not a big mobile player, Simonite points out. He adds that mobile chipmakers are generally a few years behind. In any case, Simonite says that new chip technologies may replace silicon.

Uber Offers Rewards to Hackers

Uber, the car service that harnesses private drivers to transport people, is offering rewards of between $3,000 and $10,000 to hackers who find flaws in its communications and computer systems, according to Computerworld.

The program is being run by HackerOne, and has set three levels: A critical flaw is worth $10,000, a significant flaw $5,000, and medium issues go for $3,000. Uber took the informal approach in announcing the contest:

Chaining of bugs is not frowned upon in any way, we love to see clever exploit chains! Uber stated in its online challenge. If you get access to an Uber server, please report it us and we will reward you with an appropriate bounty taking into full consideration the severity of what could be done. Chaining a CSRF vulnerability with a self-XSS? Nice! Using AWS access key to dump user info? Not cool.

CSRF stands for cross-site request forgery and XSS stands for cross-site scripting.

Comcast, HUD Bring Broadband to Poor in Five Locales

Comcast and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have launched the ConnectHome program, which brings broadband to public housing, in Miami-Dade County, Nashville, Philadelphia and Seattle.

Those eligible will have access to Comcasts Internet Essentials product. The press release says that the expansion is the programs eighth in five years. ConnectHome now connects more than 600,000 low-income families. Last year was its best ever, with 30 percent more new enrollees than in 2014.

Putting AI to Work

Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than the stuff of science fiction. Recently, Google DeepMind beat the South Korean grandmaster, Lee Sedol, in a tournament of Go, a complex board game that is popular in the country.

AI isnt just fun and games, however. Andrew Thomson, CEO and founder of VentureRadar, wrote at Dark Reading about four startups that are enlisting AI in the cybersecurity battle.

Darktrace is inspired by the self-learning intelligence of the human immune system to protect security. Jask is, according to company boilerplate quoted by Thomson, the worlds first, predictive security operations center for enterprise cybersecurity. Deep Instinct is using deep learning algorithms to safeguard banking, financial and government interests in the United States and Israel. harvest.ai searches internally to find the enterprises weaknesses and potential targets.

U.S. Web Speeds Accelerate: Akamai

Akamai has released its State of the Internet Report for the final quarter of last year.

The average connection speed in the United States was 14.2 Megabits per second (Mbps). That is a 29 percent year-over year increase, according to Multichannel News. Peak connection speeds were 61.5 Mbps, a 25 percent year-over-year rise. The nation is 14th and 20th in the world in average and peak connection speed, respectively.

Global average connection speed was 5.6 Mbps, a 23 percent year-over-year increase. Global peak connection speed was 32.5 Mbps, a 21 percent year-over-year increase. South Korea, at 26.7 Mbps, was tops in average connection speed. Singapore, with an average peak connection speed of 135.7 Mbps, was tops internationally.

Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at [email protected] and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
The FBI now has so much egg on its face as a result of its stoush with Apple over access to an iPhone 5C that it only needs to order in some toast and rashers for its staff to have a good Easter breakfast.

Right from February 16 (US time), when Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym issued the order sought by the FBI, demanding that Apple create a modified version of its mobile operating system to enable the agency to obtain data from the phone, not a day has gone by without the spooks being shown up in one way or the other.

The iPhone in question belongs to the San Bernardino County Department of Health and was being used by Syed Rizwan Farook, an employee. Farook was one of two people involved in killing 14 people in California in December. He had destroyed two other iPhones belonging to him. The Department, on advice from the FBI, changed the password for the Apple ID on the phone, leading to speculation that the agency had done this to remove one means of knowing what data was on the phone.

The parties were expected to meet in court on March 22, but on the eve of this hearing the FBI told the judge to give it until April 5 to try out an alternative method of gaining access to the phone that had been proposed by an external party. It turns out that this party is the Israeli security firm Cellebrite which has been paid US$15,278.02 to extract whatever data exists on the phone.

Now it turns out that on the same day that Pym issued the order, a sister agency of the Department of Justice was already using the same firm to attempt to crack a similar device!

More than a fortnight before the FBI got the order, the Drug Enforcement Administration filed a warrant request in a Maryland court, asking permission to use technology from Cellebrite to defeat the password protection on a suspected drug dealer's phone.

Both the FBI and the Department of Justice have been repeatedly quoted as saying that there is no other way to access data on the phone apart from intervention by Apple. The operating system that runs on the iPhone 5C prevents one from making more than 10 guesses to find the pass code; after that it locks up and becomes useless. Additionally, the time interval between guesses keeps getting longer and longer and between the ninth and 10th attempt it is one hour.

The FBI wanted Apple to remove both these constraints in a new version of iOS, and then load it into the phone so that a brute force attack could be used to try and guess the pass code.

Early this month, FBI director James Comey told Congress that the agency had engaged all parts of the US government to find a way to access the device without Apples help. "If we could have done this quietly and privately, we would have done it," were his words. Sure.

It's now beginning to look as though the FBI asked for time until April 5 because it was desperate to avoid being shown up in court. And it remains to be seen whether an outfit that is beginning more and more to resemble the Keystone Kops wants to have its entrails dissected in an open hearing with a full media contingent in attendance.
Today

Mostly clear. Gusty winds diminishing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.

Tonight

Mostly clear. Gusty winds diminishing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.

Tomorrow

Mainly sunny. High 81F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, shown speaking Thursday during a roundtable with Muslim community leaders at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, will campaign in Wisconsin on Monday and Tuesday. Credit: Associated Press

By of the

Former Secretary of State and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton will bring her campaign for president to Milwaukee and three other Wisconsin stops on Monday and Tuesday.

Clinton will also visit Madison, La Crosse and Green Bay ahead of the state's April 5 presidential primary.

Seeking key African American votes in Milwaukee, Clinton Friday also released a television ad highlighting her concern about shootings by police and referencing a Wisconsin case. The ad also features narration by actor Morgan Freeman and shots of Clinton with President Barack Obama.

The support of black voters has been crucial to Clinton in her race against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"Trayvon Martin, shot to death. Dontre Hamilton, unarmed. Sandra Bland did nothing wrong," Clinton says in the ad, referencing three police shooting cases from Milwaukee around the country.



Former Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney fatally shot Hamilton, 31, during a confrontation at Red Arrow Park on April 30, 2014. Hamilton suffered from schizophrenia, but his family has said he was neither dangerous nor homeless.

Manney was fired for his actions leading up to his use of force but prosecutors have declined to bring charges against him, saying he was defending himself.

Clinton also released Friday two more ads she's running in Wisconsin, one on expanding economic opportunities for citizens and the other on prescription drug pricing. Find them here and here.
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By of the

Directors on the board of Wisconsin's largest utility company will receive $225,000 in pay and stock this year, an increase of more than 12% from last year, the company told regulators Thursday.

The move to increase pay for outside directors comes after the $9.1 billion acquisition that expanded Wisconsin Energy into Illinois and Minnesota and quadrupled the number of customers it serves.

The company, now known as WEC Energy Group Inc., disclosed the raises for its board members in a proxy statement for its annual shareholders meeting on May 5 in Mequon.

Directors are paid an annual retainer fee of $75,000 and have been paid $100,000 in restricted stock. As a result of the change, they will now be paid $125,000 in restricted stock, the filing says.

The increase came as a result of the board's compensation committee annual review of director pay, according to the filing.

The parent company of We Energies bought Integrys Energy Group Inc. in June. Integrys operates a Green Bay utility as well as natural gas utilities in Chicago, Michigan and Minnesota.

The committee "determined that, in light of the increased size of the company as a result of the Integrys acquisition, the total directors' compensation package was slightly below the market median," the filing says.

The board chose to increase restricted stock rather than direct compensation "in order to continue to place more emphasis on the stock component" of the board's pay package, the filing says.

WEC Energy Group Inc. has 13 directors, including nine affiliated with Wisconsin Energy and three who had been directors of Integrys.

Separately, the board approved raises for two directors with extra responsibilities. As chair of the audit and oversight committee, director Thomas Fischer will be paid a fee of $20,000, up from $15,000. As director of the compensation committee, John Bergstrom will be paid $15,000, up from $12,000. Those raises were awarded based on "market research," the company said.

In 2015, the proxy statement lists compensation for the 11 non-employee directors as: $220,578 for Fischer; $213,394 for Bergstrom; $209,354 for Barbara L. Bowles; $203,931 for Curt S. Culver; $201,774 for Patricia W. Chadwick; $188,757 for Ulice Payne Jr.; $175,000 each for Henry W. Knueppel and Mary Ellen Stanek; and $43,750 each for William J. Brodsky, Albert J. Budney Jr. and Paul W. Jones.

Brodsky, Budney and Jones had served on the Integrys board until the acquisition was completed in June.

The other directors are Gale Klappa, the company's chairman and chief executive for the past 12 years, and Allen Leverett, who will become CEO when Klappa retires on May 1.

Klappa's total compensation in 2015 rose to $13.8 million from $12.5 million in 2014, according to the proxy. Total compensation for Leverett, who has been president and chief operating officer, rose to $6.8 million from $6.5 million in 2014.

The Milwaukee utility company reported net income of $638.5 million in 2015, up 8.5% from $588.3 million in 2014. Aided by the Integrys acquisition, sales rose to $5.9 billion from $5 billion.

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Agriculture

The Dairy Business Association, Green Bay, hired Maria Woldtas director of industry relations.

Banking

TKO Milleradded Joe Froehlichas a shareholder.

Education

The Milwaukee Academy of Scienceselected Anthony McHenryas chief executive officer.

Financial services

Landaas & Co., Milwaukee, hired Julie Rotaru as controller.

Health and wellness

Elite Sports Clubshired Saulo Gonzalesand Guy Davidas tennis pros.

Health care

GE Healthcare, Waukesha, appointed Laura O'Donnellvice president and general counsel.

Insurance

Integrated Risk Solutions, Waukesha, hired Devin Kundaas a benefits analyst.

M3 Insurance, Waukesha, promoted Kristi Traska and Starie Thompsonto account executive.

Robert J. Feest & Associates, Elm Grove, partnered with Jon Dannecker, certified financial planner.

Manufacturing

Case Construction Equipmentnamed Scott Harris vice president, North America.

Nonprofit

Meals On Wheels of Sheboygan Countypromoted Allison Thompsonto associate executive director.

TheNew Northnamed Susan May, Mark Schwei, David Thieland William Woodwardto its board of directors.

Professional services

AG Architecture, Wauwatosa, added Bill Herriges, Stephanie Yahrand Daniel Fischer.

Engberg Anderson Architects, Milwaukee, promoted Alexandra Ramseyand Eric Pontoto partner.

Transportation

Evans Transportation Servicesadded Eric Lewis.

Great Northern Corporation, Appleton, appointed Robert Atwellto its board of directors.

New Faces New Places is about personnel changes at Wisconsin businesses. Email items to jsbiz@journalsentinel.com, using the subject line "New Faces New Places." Please include identities with each photo submitted.
Female pilots leave their plane at the four engine school at Lockbourne Army Airfield during World War II. The four were members of a group of WASPs who were training to ferry B-17 Flying Fortresses. Credit: Courtesy of United States Air Force

SHARE In July 2009, President Barack Obama signs a law awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASP program was established during World War II, and from 1942 to 1943, more than a thousand women joined, flying sixty million miles of non-combat military missions. Pete Souza Leda Hoffmann The late Phylis Ravel refined her play Censored on Final Approach while directing the theater program at Marquette University. Journal Sentinel files

By of the

While Defense Secretary Ash Carter officially opened all combat roles in the U.S. military to women last December, that doesn't mean the new recruits will be greeted with hugs all around. In fact, a 2012 survey found that two of three male Marines and one of three female Marines opposed opening combat roles to women, The Washington Post reported earlier this month.

The Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) represented in "Censored on Final Approach" could offer today's recruits a realistic perspective on navigating the turbulence ahead. Renaissance Theaterworks and Marquette University open their production of the play April 1 at the Broadway Theater Center.

During World War II, more than 1,000 women served as WASPs, performing noncombat assignments to free male pilots for combat duty. "WASP assignments included test piloting, instructor piloting, towing targets for air-to-air gunnery practice, ground-to-air anti-aircraft practice, ferrying, transporting personnel and cargo (including parts for the atomic bomb), simulated strafing, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying drones," noted Congress in 2009 in awarding WASP pilots a Congressional Gold Medal.

Pioneering aviator Jacqueline (Jackie) Cochran, director of the WASPs and an inspirational figure to the female pilots, lobbied for the service to be fully militarized, but the House of Representatives defeated a bill to do so in 1944.

In a December speech that year saluting the program on the eve of it being disbanded, Gen. Hap Arnold noted that 38 WASPs died serving their country. Casualties included Margaret Seip, a 27-year-old Wauwatosa woman, who died in the 1943 crash of a UC-78 Bobcat after its tail broke off at 10,000 feet. Because Seip was classified then as a civilian, her family had to pay for the transport of her body from Texas to Wisconsin for burial.

Belatedly, Seip was given a graveside memorial service with military honors in 2010.

"Censored on Final Approach" dramatizes one such death, and its possible connection to discrimination and opposition the female pilots faced.

Rising above opposition

Phylis Ravel wrote "Censored on Final Approach" in 1993; it premiered the following year at a Women in Theatre conference at Hofstra University. Ravel continued to develop the play, and to research and document WASP experiences, during her years leading the theater program at Marquette University, where "Censored" had a student production in 2009.

Ravel died in 2012, but her play has thrived through professional and university productions and use in women's studies programs.

In 2013, Renaissance Theaterworks organized staged readings of "Censored" at the Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center with female veterans.

"I thought the story was fascinating, it was an area of history that I knew nothing about," said Renaissance artistic director Suzan Fete, who directed one of those staged readings.

Fete found responses to "Censored" from female veterans fascinating, too. "Many women said how little things have changed," she said. Veterans from the Korean War to the Afghanistan conflict talked about the day-to-day disrespect they received, and of some extreme cases of sabotage directed against women.

Renaissance has wanted to perform the play for years, Fete said, but the large cast required (10 actors in this production) was too expensive until Marquette approached Renaissance about a co-production.

"Censored on Final Approach" situates four new WASPs  Catherine, Gerry, Elizabeth (Liz) and Mary  at Camp Davis, N.C., in 1943. They admire their director, the charismatic Jackie Cochran, but they also navigate the disapproval of Major John Stephenson, who tells them, "When you are on this base, there is an officer in charge of you that does not believe you belong here. I resent your presence."

Despite other abuse, including sexual harassment, the WASPs prove their skill, courage and worth. "They're taking the missions that the men don't want, that's how they get up in the air," said director Leda Hoffmann.

The first WASPS weren't newbies to aviation. The Army required at least 150 hours of logged and certified flight experience just to apply to the program. Some had flown crop dusters, some were recreational pilots, and some had learned to fly while working civilian jobs in aircraft factories, Hoffmann said. Soon enough, however, the program began accepting women without prior flight experience, training them at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, among other locations.

In "Censored" a WASP also dies in an accident, raising many questions. As the title of the play suggests, all will not be answered to the WASPs' satisfaction.

"To what extent were those accidents, to what extent were people messing with them with the intent to scare them, with the intent to kill them?" Hoffmann said. She noted that in journal entries and oral history interviews, WASPs discussed incidents of sabotage. The play also makes it clear that WASPs often flew the oldest, most worn-out planes.

Recognizing women's stories

Founded and directed by women, Renaissance's mission includes paying "attention to women's roles onstage and off," making "Censored" a natural, perhaps even inevitable programming choice.

"I want to work in a world where a show about women doesn't seem strange  no one ever talks about a show about men being strange," said Hoffmann, who has directed the all-female "Penelopiad" as well as productions of "King Lear" and "Romeo and Juliet."

"I'm often very happy to be asked to do women-centered stories just because women-centered stories should exist," she said. "But I would like male directors to direct half of their plays as women-centered stories, and I would like half of my plays to be men-centered stories, and I would like more scripts that (don't) so specifically have to be women-centered or men-centered, they could just be about people.

"That's the ideal world that I want to live in and that I want to...help create....Theater companies like Renaissance doing this kind of work have to exist right now so that we make sure that continues to happen."

The Navy and Army opened military flight training to women in 1974, with the Air Force following in 1976. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the legislation awarding WASPs veteran status.

In 1993, Defense Secretary Les Aspin opened combat aviation to women; two years later, Martha McSally was the first U.S. female fighter pilot to fly a combat mission.

"Hundreds of United States servicewomen combat pilots have seized the opportunity to fly fighter aircraft in recent conflicts, all thanks to the pioneering steps taken by the WASP," Congress noted in its gold-medal legislation.

The possibility of women serving in combat roles might have seemed foreign to the WASPs of the 1940s, Hoffmann said. But she believes "these women would be very much behind full equality in the military."

IF YOU GO

Renaissance Theaterworks and Marquette University will perform "Censored on Final Approach" April 1-24 at the Broadway Theater Center, 158 N. Broadway. For tickets, visit r-t-w.com or call (414) 291-7800.
Mary Louise Schumacher Art City An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue. SHARE

For the first time in years  and perhaps because there's an election in this one  Mayor Tom Barrett is hoping to drum up support for the city's annual design awards by making a nomination of his own.

Barrett generally refrains from influencing the Mayor's Design Awards, which recognizes design excellence for new buildings, parks, landscaping and other projects that add to Milwaukee's urban landscape.

This year, though, with the deadline nearing, he's breaking with protocol and speaking up for a project that's dear to him: Walnut Way's The Innovations and Wellness Commons, also known as The Commons.

The Commons, a mixed-use development at 1617 W. North Ave., is meant to create a "healthy food oasis" and jobs for low-income residents in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood. Tenants include The Juice Kitchen, Outpost Natural Foods Co-op, Fondy Food Center offices and Milwaukee Center for Independence. The two-phase project involves both the restoration of an existing structure and new construction.

Anyone can nominate projects that in some way add value to a neighborhood through construction, restoration or enhancement. Past winners have included prominent architectural projects and neighborhood landscaping.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, but the city is willing to accept nominations into early next week, said Department of City Development spokesman Jeff Fleming. Projects must be within the City of Milwaukee and have been completed (or nearly completed) during 2015. To make a nomination, go to: city.milwaukee.gov/MayorsDesignAwards/2016-Nomination-Form.

Mary Louise Schumacher is the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic. Follow her on Facebook (facebook.com/artcity), Twitter (@artcity) and Instagram (marylouises).
The Milwaukee Ballet is working on a groovy lineup for its Kaledioscope Eyes program, including a dance set to Beatles music. Credit: Tom Davenport

SHARE Timothy ODonnell Jessica Kaminski

By ,

It's so easy to take for granted the things that are close at hand.

Take for instance the fact that Milwaukee Ballet audiences are offered world premiere performances every season.

With its "Kaleidoscope Eyes" program Thursday-next Sunday, the ballet will present two world premieres (plus a 10-year-old work by renowned American choreographer Trey McIntyre). This, in the same season as the world premiere of artistic director Michael Pink's "Dorian Gray."

For dancer/choreographer Timothy O'Donnell, those world premieres are one of the company's great strengths. O'Donnell, the 2009 winner of the Milwaukee Ballet Genesis Competition for young choreographers, joined the company as a dancer in 2012.

"I fell in love with what this company stands for," he said recently. "I have traveled a fair bit and seen a lot of dance companies. I know there are only a handful of companies around the world that are this invested in nurturing the creation of new works."

For McIntyre, founder of the Boise, Idaho-based Trey McIntyre Project, which played Uihlein Hall in March 2010, creating new works is what's vital about ballet as an art form.

"I know from running my own company how incredibly expensive it is to produce new work. But in the end, what's the point if we're not moving forward? I think new creations and exploration teach us about our lives," he said.

Dance, Fab Four score

McIntyre's "A Day in the Life," created for the Washington Ballet, will feature music by the Beatles.

"I approach every piece differently," McIntyre said. "This one was all about the music."

Asked to create a piece using Beatles songs, he quickly discovered that was a tall order. "It was really tough putting this score together," he said. "The Beatles' catalog is vast and it's all great music."

In the end, he said he "probably choreographed about 50% more material than ended up in the piece," which is often how he works.

McIntyre said the piece does not reflect the lyrics of the songs he used, but that there is a poetic narrative within it.

"This music really is a soundtrack of American life in a way," he said. "We think about where we were when we heard it played and it brings up memories."

When Garrett Smith, winner of the ballet's 2015 Genesis Competition, was asked about what winning the Genesis had meant to him, his answer was quick: "The most important thing about winning is that the prize is a commission. That's better than any other part of it."

Delighted to be back working at the Milwaukee Ballet, Smith said, "It's not just a commission, but you get to come back and create a work on people you already know and for me, with a company I love."

His piece, "Addendum," is a continuation of the dance he created here last year. He described it, saying, "It's not narrative or emotional. It's more of an exploration." The piece uses simple chairs almost as partners for the dancers.

"It will be a very visual experience for the audience," Smith said, adding that it will feature music by cellist Zoe Keating.

'Envy is the new nicotine'

O'Donnell talked about his piece, "The Sixth Sin," saying, "Whenever I come up with concepts for new works, they have to be about something. Not all choreographers work that way, but I do."

"Something I've struggled with all my life is body image," he said, "constantly thinking if I just had this or that, or looked like this or that, then I would be happy."

Saying that, "envy is the new nicotine," O'Donnell said the piece has a narrative thread, which he described as a "perfect" couple whose lives are eventually destroyed by the "if only I had..." mind-set.

"It's not entirely cohesive. I wanted people to be able to stitch their own quilt with it," he said.

O'Donnell said that while he is deeply serious about his topic, pointing out that he learned in his research that some American children as young as 5 or 6 have serious body image anxiety, he has included a few comedic moments in the piece.

"This piece is me making a statement, in the voice I have in this society, that we can't continue down this path," he said.

IF YOU GO

The Milwaukee Ballet will perform its "Kaleidoscope Eyes" program Thursday-next Sunday at the Marcus Center's Uihlein Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, visit www.milwaukeeballet.org or call (414) 902-2103.
Mary Pflum Peterson, author of the memoir White Dresses, takes a portrait with her daughter Piper. Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

SHARE Mary Pflum Petersons memoir, White Dresses, describes the challenges and struggles faced by her mother Anne. Courtesy of Mary Pflum Peterson

By ,

A "crazy workload" as a producer for "Good Morning America," the birth of her fourth child and the responsibility of taking care of her mother's affairs after her unexpected death didn't keep Mary Pflum Peterson from enrolling in a writing class to "polish off a novel. I was pretty much on a hamster wheel," she said during a phone interview.

But instead of finishing a novel, Peterson wrote her debut nonfiction book "White Dresses: A Memoir of Love and Secrets, Mothers and Daughters" (William Morrow). The change of plan came when as a class assignment she wrote an essay about her family's tangled history.

When she was 9 years old, Peterson discovered a mysterious photo  her mother Anne in a nun's habit. What she didn't know was her mother had been a nun for almost a decade in the 1950s and left the convent after suffering abuse. She then married Peterson's father, who later came out as gay, and Peterson's parents divorced.

Riveted, her teacher and classmates wanted to read more. That was the beginning of a compelling memoir about her troubled yet loving family.

Peterson, who grew up in Beaver Dam, will discuss her story and sign books March 29 at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave.

A winner of four Emmy Awards, the journalist who has covered royal weddings, Hurricane Katrina and conflicts in Afghanistan marshaled all her journalistic skills to tell her family's saga with candor and compassion.

The book's title refers to the "shared mother/daughter history" of wearing white dresses to commemorate special occasions  births, First Communions, graduations and marriages. The fashion dictum that except for special events, you didn't wear white dresses between Labor Day and Memorial Day had been passed down through the generations.

For mother and daughter, who both remained faithful to the Catholic Church despite Anne's suffering at the convent, the white dresses represented an element of faith: "of winter making way for spring," said Peterson.

She frames her narrative around this family tradition as a relief from darker corners of their lives. Both of Peterson's parents suffered from depression. Anne eventually became a brilliant teacher, respected and well-liked in her community, but as a single parent overwhelmed by money problems and domestic responsibilities, she fell deeper into a depression that revealed itself in other ways.

Mary, a star student, valedictorian in her high school class, avoided inviting friends to a home cluttered with piles of papers, discarded mail, broken appliances and "shopping bags containing Christmas gifts and baby gifts that were never given."

After graduating summa cum laude from Columbia University, Mary pursued a successful journalism career filled with awards and accolades, married and had children. At the same time, Anne's hoarding increased to the point that she wouldn't allow her daughter or others in the house.

There's a lot of shaming and blaming that comes with the label of hoarding, observed Peterson, who with others tried to help her mother, but it's not just a matter of going in and cleaning everything out. "Hoarding is increasingly being recognized by the medical community as a disorder that often falls under depression or obsessive-compulsive behavior," she said.

Her experience as a journalist helped Peterson step back from this painful history and strike a balance, understanding rather than denigrating her mother's condition. Despite her hardships, Anne remained "loving and amazing, a wonderful mother," who was optimistic about life, an attitude she instilled in her daughter. "If you bog such stories down with too much sadness or emotion, it takes away from who (people) are or were and what happened," said Peterson.

"My mother was big on not seeing life in black and white, but in terms of grays. I think the struggles growing up and the complicated nature of our shared family life just made me that much more a better journalist and able to see different shades of gray."

IF YOU GO

Mary Pflum Peterson will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Boswell Books, 2559 N. Downer Ave.
Chris Stapleton is one of the headliner lineups at this years Summerfest. The Big Gig revealed 97 grounds stage headliners Wednesday, and announced a Marcus show with Stapleton and Alabama Shakes. Credit: Jason Davis

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Every Thursday at 8 a.m. on WYMS-FM (88.9), 88Nine Radio Milwaukee program director Jordan Lee and I talk about shows to see, local music you'll love and more on "TAP'd In." But in case you missed it on air, you can hear the latest episode below.

Summerfest announced a whopping 97 grounds stage headliners Wednesday, and as usual its incredibly diverse, ranging this year from Willie Nelson to Sir Mix-a-Lot. So who stands out? Jordan and Piet discuss some likely highlights, from Chris Stapleton and Alabama Shakes at the Marcus Amphitheater; to Hollywood Vampires with Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper; to the return of the Roots and "Weird Al" Yankovic; to Wisconsin exports like the Violent Femmes and Garbage. And they highlight a few excellent acts you may not be familiar with, including soul group St. Paul & the Broken Bones and hip-hop and classical music hybrid Black Violin.
Carolyn: Last year I moved across the country to be with a wonderful man. The move required me to change my career plans a bit and take a pay cut. I also now live 3,000 miles from my family.

I enjoy my new city and my job. My relationship with my boyfriend is great, and I love him very much. But he is adamant about living in this region of the country, so staying with him means staying far from my family, which is inconvenient but not necessarily a deal-breaker.

My bigger issue is that sometimes I look at my boyfriend's life and think about how he gets to live in his city of choice, he gets to live near his family, he gets to pursue his first-choice job, etc. It seems like he doesn't ever have to make any compromises.

I know he loves me and is serious about our relationship. He has thanked me for the sacrifices I've made. But how do I stop myself from thinking about our relationship in terms of wins and losses? My obsession with "fairness" seems like the early stages of resentment. How do I stop it from ruining an otherwise easy and happy relationship?

 Sleepless in Seattle

Seattle: Your letter has a "reassure me" feel to it, so I apologize upfront for going in the opposite direction.

Your deal should trouble you, assuming you see mates as two people who choose each other above all else, as most of us do  romantics and pragmatists alike. Right now, you're in a relationship where being with you is his second choice, because he has said as much. If forced to choose between you and Seattle, he's taking Seattle. You've simply spared him having to choose.

Treating yours as a life partnership might be premature, but since relocating for him puts you on that path, it's entirely valid to examine where this path really leads.

Rootedness has huge emotional value; loving couples do negotiate locations instead of just defaulting to "I go where you go, Dear," even when that's their mutual bottom line; and I applaud him for his honesty if indeed he's unwilling to budge. However: We'd both be irresponsible if we didn't treat this Seattle-only mandate as a potential indicator of indefinite, if not permanent, second-class status for you.

You may not ever want or need him to move for you, but knowing he would if some unforeseeable future demanded it  that's the kind of emotional security that frees us to give ourselves completely to those we love.

Conversely, knowing you have to meet his terms to remain in his life serves as a little voice telling you, "Hold a little bit back." Instead of both looking out for each other, he prioritizes his interests and thus leaves you to protect yours.

This isn't to say you're doomed; he may have no idea this  again, admirable  transparency about his priorities did more than just inconvenience you. You didn't know it yourself until your discomfort could not be ignored.

Maybe you're OK now with his being married to Seattle, as you see where your love takes you, but you want and deserve a partner who's able, eventually, to commit only to you. If so, then you need to be transparent, too.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com

Washington Post Writers Group
A child feeds ice cream to a lion character at the Henry Vilas Zoo. Credit: Henry Vilas Zoo

Weekend Getaway Brian E. Clark SHARE Kids watch a polar bear swim in the Arctic Passage exhibit at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison. Henry Vilas Zoo

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For more than 35 years, James Koelbl toiled as an attorney for a pair of insurance companies in Madison and Milwaukee.

Now, he says with a chuckle, he has a job that's a lot more fun: driving a miniature train  often packed full of kids  at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison. And when he's not doing that, he runs the colorful carousel next to the children's play area or greets people as they enter the zoo.

"I get a real kick out of coming to this place," said Koelbl, who has been volunteering several days a week at the zoo since last August, following his return to Madison.

"I retired in 2014 and once we got our house in order, I started looking for something to do," he said. "I love zoos and I love kids, so this was a great fit. From the first day, I've been having a great time and I can't wait to come back for my next shift."

The number of people coming to the zoo has been increasing dramatically, he said, noting that the facility gets more than 750,000 visitors annually.

"On the last weekend in February, when the temperature was around 60 degrees, people flocked to the zoo in their T-shirts and shorts just so they could get outdoors and see the animals," he said. "In fact, it seemed like half of Madison was here having a good time."

Opened in 1911, the 28-acre zoo has been entertaining generations of Madisonians and visitors for more than a century. It was established on 63 acres (the other 35 acres became Vilas Park) given to the city by former U.S. Sen. William F. Vilas and his wife Anna in memory of their son, Henry, who died at a young age from diabetes complications.

"It was created with the stipulation that the zoo would forever remain free," Koelbl said. "And it still is today, thanks to donations from visitors, other gifts and support from the city, county and lots of volunteers donating their time."

Over the years, the zoo has been home to lions and tigers and bears, as well as giraffes, orangutans, elephants, seals, buffalo, lizards, snakes, birds and numerous other critters.

Koelbl said the highly social elephants are gone now because zoo managers decided they did not have enough room for them to live happily in larger groups.

"I lived in Madison for a long time before I moved to Milwaukee," he said. "And in the nearly two decades that I was gone, they improved it a bunch."

The zoo has undergone a number of changes since 1911. The latest is the Arctic Passage renovation, a $9 million, 1.7-acre exhibit that opened about a year ago. The Passage includes the Glacier Grille, an indoor, year-round cafe where visitors can dine alongside a pair a polar bears that are separated from viewers by only several inches of glass. Their names are Suka and Sakari.

"I think this is really cool," said 8-year-old Jennifer Smith of suburban Chicago, who was visiting the zoo and dining at the Glacier Grille with her grandparents and 6-year-old brother, Erik. "It's fun to be able to be this close to the bears. You can almost reach out and touch them."

Visitors can also watch the polar bears from outside the Grille as the bears swim in a 46,500-gallon pool. When I was there on a recent balmy weekend, one of the bears appeared to be having a good time swimming laps in it.

The Arctic Passage also has grizzly bear and seal exhibits. In the latter, a lone seal swam upside down underwater before flipping over and swimming on its belly as it kicked by a glass panel, entertaining youngsters and their parents alike.

A couple of interactive Passage areas also attracted a lot of kids during my visit. One is a huge Tundra Buggy, a research vehicle that was used in the Arctic. Kids can sit in the driver's seat of the big vehicle. Youngsters can also scramble through a "Cubs Crossing" tunnel or climb into a "Problem Bear Relocation Trap."

Koelbl said he appreciates the size of the windows on the exhibits and how close they let visitors get to the animals.

"The sight lines here for the exhibits are really good, better than some other zoos that I have visited in the past," he said.

And as much as he's enamored with the critters, he said what he likes most about the zoo is the people he meets there.

"When I'm driving that train, the little kids think I'm some kind of god," he said, laughing. "And I love to see the smiles on the children's faces when they are riding the carousel. In fact, the whole zoo atmosphere is a delight.

"The people who come here are pretty much all happy and they are ready to have a good time. Parents and grandparents are usually bringing young children with them and they are all smiling. I love getting out of the house and doing this. It's a real pick-me-up experience every time.

"Parents seem to be really grateful that the zoo is free, so this is a real asset for the Madison area. I get a lot of satisfaction volunteering, and I'm happy that my time is helping let all these people in without a charge."

More information: The zoo is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except some holidays. The indoor exhibits and Children's Zoo are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission is free and so is the limited parking. Train and carousel rides are $1.50 per person.

For more information, call (608) 266-4732 or see vilaszoo.org.

Getting there: The zoo is at 702 S. Randall Ave., Madison, about 80 miles west of Milwaukee via I-94 and Highway 151.

Brian E. Clark is a Madison writer.
Jessica Ellenberger, 28, and her daughter, Madyson, were killed. Credit: Family photo

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Patrick D. Fowler, 31, of Milwaukee has been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide on allegations he stabbed his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter to death, and then used the girl's coloring books as fuel to set their bodies on fire, according to a criminal complaint.

Fowler told police he repeatedly stabbed Jessica Marie Ellenberger, 28, because she "disrespected" him during an argument. Her daughter, Madyson Marie Marshel, was screaming "Mommy," so Fowler stabbed her, too, according to the criminal complaint. Fowler, who is not Madyson's father, told police he "did not feel bad for any of the decisions he has made."

Ellenberger was stabbed 26 times and her throat was slashed, the complaint says.

The mother and daughter were found dead after the fire, set Saturday at their home in the 100 block of N. 68th St. in Milwaukee. Fowler was arrested in Arkansas this week.

According to the criminal complaint:

Police examined Ellenberger's phone records and found 3,233 contacts with a phone number belonging to Fowler. They located his mother, Brenda Fowler, who said she had tracked down Patrick the day of the crime and he told her: "She's dead."

Brenda Fowler asked Patrick if he had called 911, and he told her to "let it go." She then asked if Madyson had been there and he said no. Patrick "then told her not to watch the news because he did not want her to think her son was a monster."

Brenda offered to take her son to turn himself in, but he declined. She then became so distressed he had to take her to the hospital.

On Sunday, the day after the killings, Brenda Fowler found out Patrick was planning to take a Greyhound bus to Houston, where one of his brothers lives. U.S. marshals grabbed him during a layover in Texarkana, Ark.

When questioned by police, Patrick Fowler said the incident that led to the deaths of Ellenberger and her daughter began with a verbal argument. When it escalated, he grabbed a knife and went into Madyson's bedroom.

Fowler told police "Ms. Ellenberger continued to disrespect him so he grabbed her by the hair and asked her to just talk with him. Ms. Ellenberger demanded for Mr. Fowler to back off at which point 'the knife slid across her chest.'"

After he stabbed her several times, Ellenberger was still alive, "so he grabbed more knives and continued to stab her before slitting her throat," Fowler told police. Then he heard Madyson screaming, so he stabbed her as well.

When both mother and daughter were dead, Fowler considered killing himself but instead decided to set the house on fire.

"Mr. Fowler stated that there was no lighter fluid in the house so he took coloring books, lit them on the stove and threw them in the room. Mr. Fowler stated that after setting the fire he walked out the front door, taking the Easter candy from the residence with him."

Ellenberger's father and Madyson's grandfather, Konrad Ellenberger, told the Journal Sentinel this week that the 4-year-old had surgery to treat cancer in December.

"The doctors said she was one of the best patients they ever had," Konrad Ellenberger said of Mady, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that starts in early nerve cells and most often affects infants and young children.

"She recovered, she went back to school in two weeks, she looked just like she did before the surgery, everything was looking up," Ellenberger said.

"That's what makes this such an unbelievable tragedy."

Jessica Ellenberger graduated from Milwaukee Lutheran High School in 2006 and attended Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon for a year, her dad said.

She held a variety of positions with several manufacturing firms and businesses before becoming a security officer with Total Security Management, he said.

Milwaukee police are working with Miller County, Ark., authorities to extradite Fowler to Wisconsin, Police Sgt. Timothy Gauerke said in a news release.

According to online records, Fowler is a registered sex offender and was convicted of felony child abuse in 2009.
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Milwaukee County has received $900,000 in grants to help pay for reconstructing the parking lot and boat launch at South Shore Park on Lake Michigan, officials said Friday.

The work will improve water quality at the park beach, according to County Board Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic.

"The South Shore Park renaissance is continuing," Dimitrijevic said in a news release.

An $800,000 grant from the Wisconsin Waterways Commission will fund repairs to the boat ramp, installation of a boat wash to help control movement of aquatic invasive species and rebuilding of the parking lot, County Executive Chris Abele said in a statement.

The projects are part of a South Shore Park master plan that will include a promenade connecting the parking lot, boat launch and South Shore Yacht Club.

A separate $100,000 grant from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District will help pay for building swales between the parking lot and beach that will collect storm water and trap bacteria and other pollutants before the water drains to the lake.

Improving water quality there is key to restoring public use of the beach, according to Dimitrijevic.

Most years, South Shore is listed among the nation's worst beaches with unsafe water quality  and frequent closings  due to excessive levels of E. coli bacteria from all of the gulls, geese and pigeons that congregate there. Those bacteria are indicators of the presence of fecal pollution in the water.
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Robert Sutton prosecuted and defended many people during a long career in law, but his most famous case lasted less than a week back in 1968.

Sutton was the prosecutor in the trial of Wisconsin's infamous murderer Ed Gein, the inspiration for the blockbuster horror film "Psycho."

Sutton, 79, died March 19 from Parkinson's disease.

The colorful trial lawyer was working in the attorney general's office when he was appointed special prosecutor in the case that stunned the nation after a Plainfield hardware store owner's headless body was found strung up like a deer carcass in Gein's barn in 1957. Gein was ruled insane and sent to a state hospital until he was declared mentally competent to stand trial in 1968.

Sutton also worked in the Milwaukee County district attorney's office and, in 1970, switched to private practice where he handled prominent clients such as philanthropist Harry John and poor young men who claimed they had been sexually assaulted in the old county jail, said his former law partner Walt Kelly.

He occasionally spoke about the Gein case, but not often.

"I don't think he was obsessive about it. It was usually in the vein of a couple things  obviously how macabre it was and how strange Gein behaved," said Kelly. "The other was just the complexity of the legal insanity issues of the case."

Sutton grew up poor and earned an undergraduate degree at Regis College in his hometown of Denver. While busing tables at Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, Colo., Sutton met a wealthy builder from the Chicago area who offered him a job helping build O'Hare International Airport, said Sutton's longtime companion Irene Walther.

"He was working on what was then just a big, open field and he was doing construction at what's now O'Hare Airport," said Walther. "That's how he got to the Midwest."

He was accepted into Stanford's law school but couldn't attend without a scholarship. Marquette University offered him a scholarship and he earned a law degree in 1960. After graduation, Sutton served in the Air Force judge advocate general's office, where he handled more than 100 court martial proceedings, mostly as a prosecutor.

In 1964, he was hired to work in the Milwaukee County district attorney's office and two years later was promoted to second assistant district attorney to handle the increasing number of criminal case appeals following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Miranda decision providing defendants the right to remain silent. He became an assistant attorney general in July 1967 and the following year was handed the Gein case.

"I think that his selection for the Gein prosecution was a tribute to his skills. They wanted someone good on the case," said Kelly.

At Gein's request, the trial was held without a jury with Judge Robert H. Gollmar of Baraboo deciding the Plainfield loner's fate. Milwaukee Sentinel reporter Dean Jensen reported that Sutton called the trial "a classic case of circumstantial evidence" and quoted from Shakespeare's "Henry VI" in arguing that enough circumstantial evidence had been presented to find Gein guilty even though no one witnessed the slaying of hardware store owner Bernice Worden.

In his closing statement, Sutton argued that Gein shot Worden "calmly and in cold blood" and he dismissed Gein's contention that he accidentally shot her while handling a rifle inside the store as a "complete fabrication."

Gein was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remained in a mental institution until his 1984 death.

"He had a lot of memories of that as I guess anybody would, going and seeing some of the places Ed Gein had been. I think those things were traumatic," said Walther.

Though he started in law as a prosecutor, Sutton spent most of his career as a private attorney where he felt that anyone, no matter their circumstances, needed a vigorous advocate, Kelly said. Among them were young men who claimed they were raped in jail. Sutton persuaded a famous psychotherapist to testify at the trial that even though there was no documentation, it was his belief that jail authorities knew of the risk of sexual assault among inmates.

"At the time it was completely novel to challenge failure to protect inmates inside a county jail," said Kelly, adding that even though Sutton lost the case "it's a good example of Bob's creativity and ability to face into the wind in a legal challenge."

Milwaukee defense attorney James Shellow met Sutton while Sutton was in the district attorney's office, and they sometimes faced each other in court. Even though they were often adversaries, Shellow fondly remembered Sutton for his wit and competence.

"I had a lot of respect for him and we had a lot of humor in the cases we tried," said Shellow.

Richard Perry was a year ahead of Sutton at Marquette's Law School and knew him from his work with the American Civil Liberties Union in Milwaukee.

He had a "sharp sense of humor (and was) a very good lawyer. He certainly was committed to representing the underdog," said Perry.

Sutton is survived by Walther, and his children, Chris, Tierney, Damon and Gregory.

Robert Sutton

Visitation will be held from 9:30 a.m. until a funeral mass at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Church of the Gesu, 1145 W. Wisconsin Ave.

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Ginseng is a major export from Wisconsin, particularly to China. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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There is a growing chorus of concern about the passage of a new trade deal that threatens to ship Wisconsin jobs overseas.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a NAFTA-style trade deal that would lead to the outsourcing of good, family-supporting jobs in Wisconsin by creating an uneven playing field for American workers. The TPP doesn't give Wisconsin workers a fighting chance. It was created by and for corporations and gives incentives for companies to lower wages and ship our jobs to foreign countries in a never-ending race to the bottom in terms of worker rights, wages and working conditions.

Let's be clear: The labor movement is not opposed to trade agreements. We understand global trade is a reality in today's economy and that 95% of the world's consumers live outside the United States. What we are opposed to is bad trade agreements that lack enforceable labor standards, allow countries to manipulate their currencies and leave American workers without jobs.

The TPP is the latest example of a failed approach to trade, starting with NAFTA, which drives down wages, shutters factories across our great nation and creates special rights for corporations. Passage of the TPP equals lost jobs and lower wages for working people. It means more communities left behind as factories and plants close up shop. This is why the labor movement will continue to speak out to protect good American jobs and continue to work to defeat this bad trade deal.

We've been hearing the same song and dance  that trade deals will make our economy stronger  since 1992. The reality is, it hasn't panned out. We aren't better off. The opposite is true. Workers have fallen further and further behind in real wages. Millions of jobs have fled offshore.

In the United States, more than 60,000 factories closed in just 10 years. Five million jobs were lost as outsourcing became the go-to strategy for CEOs who wanted to fatten their own paycheck by moving jobs to China, Vietnam, Mexico, India, Colombia, South Korea, the list goes on. According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Wisconsin alone lost 130,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. That's more than the entire population of Green Bay.

We've seen it again and again in Wisconsin. Plant closures that disrupt lives, scatter families, empty schools and bankrupt communities. As good jobs flee our state, wages are depressed across the board and our middle class shrivels up. Families without a paycheck struggle to make ends meet. Free trade deals mean foreclosures and eviction rates tick up as once-thriving communities wither to shadows of their former selves. Time and time again, free trade agreements rig America's economic rules by rewarding domestic manufacturers who choose to put profits over patriotism by shipping jobs overseas and decimating communities. It's time to say enough is enough.

It's not trade that's the problem, it's unfair trade rules that pad profits at the expense of working people. For example, the TPP lowers the requirements for "rules of origin." That's the law that says how much of a product has to come from a given country to say it was made there. Under NAFTA, the requirement was 62.5%. The TPP lowers the requirement to 45%. That means a product that is 55% foreign-made could be labeled "Made in the U.S.A." Does that seem fair?

A growing majority of Americans are against bad trade deals such as the TPP that exacerbate income inequality and bring our factory floors to a screeching halt.

Wisconsin deserves fair and balanced trade deals that protect the rights of workers. Our trade agreements should advance an economy that creates good jobs in Wisconsin, and enables hardworking Wisconsinites to get ahead.

It's time to make trade work for working Wisconsinites and not just the top 1%. We call on all elected leaders to oppose the TPP to protect Wisconsin jobs. Politicians such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who have supported free trade in the past and now refuse to take a clear stance on the TPP, should make their position crystal clear before citizens cast their votes in November.

Let's export Wisconsin products, not Wisconsin jobs.

Phil Neuenfeldt is president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO.
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Matthew Desmond's book "Evicted" with the subtitle "Poverty and Profit in the American City" has generated much discussion in the Milwaukee community and among us Milwaukee landlords. We generally agree with the Journal Sentinel's March 13 editorial calling for more discussion on how to provide decent housing for the poor.

While Desmond does an excellent job of presenting and humanizing the struggles of the poor to pay their rent, he doesn't adequately cover the "profit" aspect of his subtitle. Out of 30 landlords interviewed, he only presents case studies on two successful ones. The marginal operators and the failed shoestring capitalists (to say nothing of the many nonprofit housing groups who have failed) are not featured.

I have been involved in housing issues for over three decades  as a former hands-on landlord, as attorney for the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin and as an attorney representing landlords (and sometimes tenants) in eviction and foreclosure court.

My clients have properties in all areas of Milwaukee and nearby suburbs. But in the inner city, many landlords have failed. I have sued them or defended them when their rental property was foreclosed on because they couldn't make the mortgage or land contract payment because the rent money wasn't coming in. A good chunk of the abandoned houses you'll see when driving through central city Milwaukee were once owned by landlords.

Desmond is right in pointing to two correlating equations: difficulty paying your rent because you're poor = getting evicted; getting evicted = getting deeper into poverty. And there is a third equation: getting evicted once = getting evicted again.

Housing vouchers for all, so no one pays more than, say, 40% of their income for rent is an answer. Except you wonder if it is politically doable. Will John and Mary Homeowner give up some of their mortgage interest tax deduction so their government subsidy can instead help their neighbor on the other side of the tracks pay her rent?

Converting part of cash welfare benefits to a voucher for those who have an eviction record would make them more acceptable in the private rental market.

Another remedy touted by Desmond is to provide lawyers for those facing eviction. But that will not prevent eviction for the vast majority of defendants in eviction court who are behind on the rent.A lawyer can only help them delay the eviction. So they get another free month out of their landlord and who winds up paying for that "free" month? It is their low-income neighbor in the unit upstairs whose monthly rent is $50 higher than it should be to make up for the landlord's loss. No wonder, as Desmond shows, that rents in the inner city aren't much less than in the suburbs.

Some solutions proposed by Desmond would work, but others won't or can't garner legislative support in today's political climate.

Ron Hegwood, our association president, recently wrote: "A good tenant is worth their weight in gold. How can we create more good tenants and protect and help the ones we have?" We look forward to meeting with tenant advocates and public officials to seek answers to that question.

Heiner Giese is a Milwaukee attorney who represents the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc.
An election official checks a voters identification of a voter at the O.A.S.I.S. Senior Center at 2414 W Mitchell St. in Milwaukee on Feb. 21. The February primary was the first election for which Wisconsins new photo identification law, requiring people to show ID in order to vote, was in full effect. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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New, restrictive voter ID rules will be in place for the first major election come Wisconsin's primary on April 5. And while the law also mandates that the state run a public service campaign to educate voters on what forms of ID are acceptable, the state simply has failed to set aside the funding to actually make that happen.

Wisconsin, by the looks of things, still will play a pivotal role in determining both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president (with a heavy emphasis on the GOP race). Regardless, ensuring that every eligible voter is actually able to cast his or her ballot should be a top priority for every election.

Back in the February primary, problems already surfaced with the lack of education of both voters and poll workers. Many eligible voters were turned away from the polls because they didn't have the exact right form of ID or hadn't updated the address on it. In several of those cases, too, no provisional ballot was offered, as required by law.

The failure to fund an educational campaign to ensure that everyone is aware of the new law and what it requires seems to come down to the ongoing conflict between the Republican-controlled Legislature and the Government Accountability Board. The GAB, the organization tasked with running said campaign, met with Sen. Mary Lazich (primary sponsor of the 2011 voter ID bill) in October to request the money necessary to make it happen  $300,000 to $500,000. The board received a "tepid" nonresponse.

Two days later, the Legislature voted to dismantle and replace the nonpartisan agency with two partisan agencies by the end of June 2016. No appropriation has been made. No educational campaign has been carried out, and April 5 looms large as the date when Wisconsin's reputation for high voter participation is likely to take a serious hit.

Estimates cited by both sides of the 2012 court case challenging the constitutionality of the new law put the total number of eligible voters lacking valid ID between 200,000 and 350,000. One vote is enough to change the result of an election.

Thankfully, several volunteer groups have been fighting the good fight and doing their best to field questions and put out information about the new rules. But without a statewide, state-led effort that covers the airwaves and the Internet, it's not likely to be enough to prevent a large chunk of people from being disenfranchised.

This year's primary and election feel all the more crucial in terms of turnout and education, especially given the extremism and vitriol on display from several top candidates. It feels all the more ominous that our fundamental right to participate in picking our leaders is under serious attack at just the time when the wave of toxic, xenophobic, bigoted and downright childish rhetoric is cresting nationwide.

It's likely too late to fund and implement the kind of comprehensive, statewide education campaign needed for the April 5 primary. In a better world, a special session of the Legislature would be called to pass the necessary funding and take care of it right away, but right now it seems our lawmakers only can be stirred to such action when it comes to taking rights away from people.

What can and should be done, then? We need the comprehensive campaign prior to the November elections, at the very least. And right now, we need to make sure that our poll workers are all trained ahead of time to help people register on-site, or obtain a provisional ballot until valid ID can be had. It could involve as simple a step as making sure there's signage at all polling locations that gives a phone number for people to call in the event that they're unable to vote. A friend of mine who served as a poll worker in February suggested as much after she found out about several instances in which people were turned away without being given any assistance.

Our state also needs to better fund Division of Motor Vehicle locations where people go to get proper ID in the first place. Right now, the dirty little open secret of Wisconsin is that just 31 of our 92 DMVs maintain normal Monday through Friday business hours. Forty-nine of them operate only two days a week. One, in Sauk City, is open for just a few days a year. Only two are open at 5 p.m., and just three are open on weekends. For the whole state.

All told, it's the makings of a perfect storm to disenfranchise a significant number of voters on election day  more than enough to change the outcome of a race. Why we should want or allow any candidate to win office based on the outright suppression of the vote is beyond me.

Emily Mills is a freelance writer who lives in Madison. Twitter: @millbot; Email: emily.mills@outlook.com
A mild winter means the Great Lakes shipping season got underway a bit earlier than normal this year. Credit: Rick Wood

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The presidential primaries this year have been rife with overcharged rhetoric, much of it unfortunately having nothing to do with the issues at stake this election year. But as the primary contests now march into Wisconsin on April 5, it's important to dispel the myths surrounding the one issue  trade  about which both Democratic and Republican candidates have talked the most.

Let's start here: Trade is good for Wisconsin, and it supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in our state  more than 800,000 jobs, to be exact, according to the Business Roundtable. But both voters and the candidates who want to come to Wisconsin and talk about their support for manufacturing also should understand that manufacturers support free and fair trade that breaks down trade barriers and helps create jobs right here at home.

Any candidate who comes to Wisconsin and says that closing our borders and erecting trade barriers will help our state's manufacturers betrays his or her understanding of our industry. It's not possible to both advocate on behalf of manufacturing in Wisconsin and at the same time agitate in favor of trade wars that would hurt Wisconsin manufacturers' global competitiveness.

Judging by the campaign trail's rhetoric this primary season, the candidates must be confused about that issue. Erecting tariffs on imports from foreign nations would spark a trade war that would, in turn, raise consumer prices in the United States and harm American manufacturers' ability to sell their products overseas.

Furthermore, there are dozens of foreign companies who manufacture here in Wisconsin in part because they can avail themselves of the United States' free trade laws. Those are jobs that would disappear if we elect a president who wants to change course and make the U.S. and Wisconsin less hospitable to foreign investment.

This is to say nothing of Wisconsin's agricultural producers, who contribute $13.4 billion to our economy every year. Breaking down trade barriers enables Wisconsin farmers to expand the market for their produce, and the Farm Bureau estimates that approving a trade agreement such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would create hundreds of jobs in Wisconsin and grow agricultural cash receipts in Wisconsin by $172 million per year. And a growing farm economy in Wisconsin means a growing customer base for the agricultural equipment produced here in our state, which is the nation's second-largest producer of farm equipment, directly supporting almost 7,000 jobs in the state.

This is a real-world issue for Wisconsin manufacturers. Take just one example: CNH Industrial in Racine. Almost a third of CNH's sales last year were attributable to exports. Making it more difficult for CNH and hundreds of other Wisconsin manufacturers to export their products would have real implications for those companies' bottom lines, and for their workforce.

It's easy to demonize foreign trade by distorting the facts. Candidates complain vocally, for instance, that our trade deficit with China hit a record high in 2015. But what they ignore is that this is a sign of fundamental strength in the American economy, and for manufacturers in Wisconsin. Our trade deficit with China isn't because of a sputtering American economy; it's because the U.S. dollar is so strong while China's economy and appetite for commodities sputters.

A president  or a member of the House of Representatives or a U.S. senator  who supports manufacturing should recognize that breaking down trade barriers and selling more American-made products around the world is essential to creating manufacturing jobs here in Wisconsin.

To be sure, there are plenty of other issues beyond trade that matter to manufacturers. Our candidates for office  from the presidency, and down the ballot  need to offer detailed plans to rebuild our infrastructure, support renewable fuels and make sure that manufacturers aren't burdened by crushing taxes and regulations.

Dennis Slater is president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, based in Milwaukee.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump: Hes not the guy. Credit: Getty Images

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As the presidential primary season unfolds, we find ourselves in a bizarre position. The Democratic Party's contest pits a congenital liar (Hillary Clinton) against a self-proclaimed socialist (Bernie Sanders) who spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union.

On the Republican side, a bombastic reality TV star is ahead in the delegate count by a substantial margin. You just can't make this stuff up. In a country with 318 million people to choose from, this is the best we have to offer?

Watching the coverage of Donald Trump's rallies is downright scary. The more vitriolic, mean-spirited and irrational his statements, the louder his supporters cheer and the higher his poll numbers rise. It is as if they don't comprehend what he is saying. They just react to the aura of faux strength he projects.

The groundswell of support for Trump reminds me of an incident that occurred more than 30 years ago. A close friend of mine in college moved to the United States as a child. He and his family fled Castro's oppression in Cuba and settled in Chicago.

His uncle escaped from Cuba a decade later and came to live with the family. Soon after his arrival, he was watching television in their living room. The local public television channel was airing a program featuring a then-famous speaker, Leo Buscaglia.

Buscaglia promoted a message of love and acceptance. He had a very emotional speaking style animated by lots of arm waving and voice modulation  much like a televangelist but without the theology.

My friend's uncle spoke no English but was transfixed by the Buscaglia presentation. The following conversation ensued :

Uncle: " I love this priest. Who is this priest?"

Nephew: "He's not a priest. He's a motivational speaker."

The uncle continued watching the show with rapt attention. Five minutes later:

Uncle: "I want to follow this priest. I want to join his church."

Nephew: "He doesn't have a church. He's a psychologist,"

The uncle waved off my friend with a "don't confuse me with the facts" look and continued to be absorbed with the show.

Clearly "The Donald" has struck a nerve with a fairly sizable segment of the American public. Unfortunately, like my friend's uncle, Trump's supporters must be reacting to his attitude and persona because many (most?) of his policy prescriptions are downright crazy:

Somehow identify, hunt down and deport 11 million people without turning our country into a police state.

Build a wall on our southwestern border and have Mexico pay for it. Really? Mexico is going to pay for this?

Support Planned Parenthood while claiming to be pro-life.

Advocate for a complete government takeover of the health care industry via a single-payer system (i.e. Obamacare on steroids ).

Posture as a defender of the "little guy" while supporting eminent domain for the benefit of private corporate interests.

Apply a 45% tariff on all goods imported from China, Japan and Mexico without triggering a trade war that would lead to a worldwide depression.

Claim to be the ultimate dealmaker after having taken companies into bankruptcy four times.

We have just experienced almost eight years of oppressive political correctness at home and a weak and feckless foreign policy abroad. It is understandable that the American public yearns for a strong leader. However, our times call for a leader in the mold of Jack Kennedy or Ronald Reagan, not Donald Trump.

Stephen McGuire is a resident of Shorewood.
Donald Trump is heading to Wisconsin next week with virtually no political support from GOP politicians in the state, remarkable for a party front-runner at this late stage of the nominating fight. Credit: Associated Press

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Donald Trump is heading to Wisconsin next week with virtually no political support from GOP politicians in the state, remarkable for a party front-runner at this late stage of the nominating fight.

The one pro-Trump elected Republican the Journal Sentinel was able to reach for this story was hardly a household name: Van Mobley, president of the Thiensville Village Board and unsuccessful primary candidate for state school superintendent.

"I will welcome them back when Trump is the nominee," Mobley said of anti-Trump Republicans in Wisconsin, saying he "forgives" Trump's detractors in the party.

But if Trump is conspicuously lacking in support from Republican politicians here, he hasn't faced a brick wall of opposition, either.

Many officeholders have endorsed no Republican in the race. The two candidates who had the most "establishment" backing in the state  first Gov. Scott Walker, then Florida Sen. Marco Rubio  both dropped out.

Of Trump's remaining rivals, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has gotten more endorsements than Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and is making a concerted push here to consolidate Trump's opponents in the party. That effort is showing some signs of success on the eve of the April 5 primary.

On Friday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester endorsed Cruz, warning of a November general election in which Republicans suffer major losses if Trump is the nominee.

But until now prominent Republicans unsettled by Trump's candidacy have never had a common strategy for dealing with it.

Based on interviews and public statements, Wisconsin's GOP legislators, members of Congress and statewide officials can be loosely grouped into four categories when it comes to their stance toward their party's presidential front-runner:

 The "Never Trump" Republicans, who find Trump thoroughly unacceptable and won't vote for him even if he becomes the party's nominee (a small group).

 The "Hope It's Not Trump" Republicans, who object to Trump, or fear he'll drag the party to defeat this fall, but have promised to support whoever wins the nomination (a bigger group).

 The "No Comment" Republicans, who have clear differences with Trump or major concerns but don't want to lay them out in public (an even bigger group).

 The "Take It Easy" Republicans, who aren't crazy about Trump but don't view his nomination as a disaster (a smaller group).

What's missing from this breakdown are prominent, pro-Trump Republican politicians. They don't exist in Wisconsin  at least above the level of local officials like Mobley.

Does that hurt Trump here? Does it help him? Wisconsin's primary will be a test of that. Lack of establishment support hasn't stopped Trump from winning elsewhere, but it may be slowing his march to the nomination.

"He's been able to have success with his own campaign," said Reince Priebus, the Wisconsinite who chairs the Republican National Committee, when asked in an interview about Trump's lack of GOP endorsements in this state. "I don't know what it says...I think people accept the fact that endorsements are nice but they don't equal votes in the ballot box."

As head of the party, Priebus is neutral in the GOP race. But he's one of three nationally known Republicans from Wisconsin who have had to grapple in one way or another with Trump's rise. Another is House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville, who has spoken out several times against Trump's rhetoric, but hasn't taken sides in the primaries and promises to support Trump if he's the nominee.

And the third is Walker, who was driven from the presidential race in part by Trump's rise. Walker has made it clear he'll be supporting one of Trump's Republican opponents on April 5 (the betting is on Cruz), and hedged with reporters Tuesday on whether he would withhold support from Trump as the nominee.

"We're a long way off from that. Ask me that closer to the convention," said Walker, who has been muted and cautious in his criticisms of Trump.

Not so muted are the members of the "Never Trump" movement, which includes at least two prominent GOP officeholders in Wisconsin: Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke of Kaukauna and third-term congressman Reid Ribble of Neenah.

Both have publicly said they won't support Trump in a general election. Ribble believes he is the first GOP member of Congress to take that stand, telling the Journal Sentinel back in December that Trump appeals "to the worst parts of who we are as people," and behaves "like a sixth-grader."

"I actually think he's gotten worse," Ribble said Wednesday. The congressman endorsed Marco Rubio for president a few weeks before Rubio dropped out. Now he's weighing which of Trump's two remaining rivals to vote for. Ribble says he admires how Kasich has conducted his campaign, but is listening to strategic arguments from Cruz supporters that Cruz is the only one who can stop Trump.

Steineke, another former Rubio backer, supports Cruz now. He's been outspoken in his criticism of Trump, and in his fear that a Trump nomination would spell defeat for other Republicans on the fall ballot.

"We've always had nominees who are people of principle," Steineke said. "We just don't see any of that we can latch onto in Donald Trump."

Other GOP officials here have taken a modified and sometimes awkward anti-Trump stand: openly critical, but committed to backing him if he wins the nomination.

"I will vote for the Republican nominee whoever the nominee will be, even if it's Trump," says GOP congressman Jim Sensenbrenner of Menomonee Falls. "I'm not confident Trump will do the right thing, but I am confident Hillary Clinton will always do the wrong thing."

Sensenbrenner says he doesn't view Trump as a conservative, disapproves of his language and tone, and fears a GOP disaster in November.

"All the polls...show (Trump) losing considerably to Hillary Clinton and that is going to perhaps cost us the Senate, including Sen. (Ron) Johnson's seat, and put the House in jeopardy. I want to keep (Wisconsin's) Paul Ryan as speaker," says Sensenbrenner, who voted early in the state primary but won't say whether it was for Cruz or Kasich.

"I can say I'm concerned that Cruz and Kasich will be splitting the anti-Trump vote," he says. "That's something voters ought to consider if they don't want Donald Trump."

GOP U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman backs Cruz. He praises Trump for raising the issue of immigration, but criticizes his language and demeanor, questions his track record on issues, and raises the issue of character.

"In some ways, I don't think his personal life is as bad as President (Bill) Clinton's, but you know, you wonder," said Grothman, of the Town of Glenbeulah in Sheboygan County.

Then there are Republicans such as Sen. Johnson, who is up for re-election and has made no endorsement. He acknowledges his differences with Trump, but has largely kept mum about the GOP race.

"I pray every night that whoever our nominee is, whoever our president is would be a person of intelligence, integrity, ideas and courage. I'll let this process play out," he says.

One big Republican name in Wisconsin who has at least some nice things to say about Trump is Tommy Thompson, the former GOP governor. He is backing Kasich for president, but doesn't think Trump deserves the criticism he is getting from some Republicans.

"I think it's great that we've got Donald Trump on our side, bringing in the crowds. What is there not to like about it, you tell me, about somebody that's bringing in more voters than we've ever had before in the primaries," Thompson said in an interview.

Die-hard Trump critics in the party should "get a life," he said.

"Do I like everything about modern day politics? It is what it is...elections are not clean and pure and never have been and never will be. Politics is not a game for the timid, and Donald is certainly not timid."

And one of the few elected conservatives in Wisconsin to unabashedly praise Trump is Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. Clarke, who runs as a Democrat, said he likes both Trump and Cruz, touting them both for their support of police officers and willingness to thumb their noses at the GOP establishment.

"Trump's a fighter. He plays smash-mouth politics. He reminds me of myself," Clarke said. "He's forced the candidates off their talking points."

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Ed Wall, who resigned and left his job as corrections secretary last month, is trying to reclaim his old job as the head of investigations for the Department of Justice. Credit: Associated Press

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Madison Gov. Scott Walker's former corrections secretary suggested to the governor's chief of staff that he could shred public records that the onetime prison head had sent as part of an employment battle with the state.

But the letter mailed by former corrections secretary Ed Wall to the home of Walker aide Rich Zipperer was released Thursday to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through the open records law, showing that Zipperer hadn't taken Wall up on the offer.

"I know that you didn't want me sending this electronically or to the office because of the (open) records issue, so I elected instead to send it to your home in writing and would ask that you feel free to shred it once you've looked it over," Wall wrote to Zipperer this month. "Nobody will know that I sent it and this is strictly between you and me. I understand the concern the administration has over creating records, Rich, but I can't let that harm me or my family worse that we've already been harmed."

Wall, who resigned and left his position as corrections secretary last month, is trying to reclaim his old job as the head of investigations for the Department of Justice, which released the documents Friday. That has put him at odds with state Attorney General Brad Schimel, who has put Wall on paid leave and transferred him to a different job while Schimel and the FBI conduct a massive investigation of alleged abuses at a state juvenile prison.

At the time of the letter to Zipperer, Wall was still looking to be restored to his former position as administrator of the Division of Criminal Investigation without his dispute with Schimel spilling into public view. The Journal Sentinel reported on the dispute last week.

Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick pointed out the obvious Friday by noting that the record was released to the newspaper, which would not have happened had Zipperer put it in his garbage at home. The letter to Zipperer was accompanied by a draft Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission appeal of Wall's job transfer.

"Clearly, we treated this as the record that it was," Patrick said.

Reached by phone Friday, Wall declined to comment on the records before they could be described to him. Wall's attorney, Dan Bach, said his client was trying to prevent the release of a draft appeal prematurely and wasn't advocating for disregarding the state's open records law.

"I can't imagine that he was," Bach said of Wall. "Clearly, Ed doesn't control, I don't control, what is an open record, and he knows that. ... Perhaps there was an unfortunate use of language there, but Ed knows that."

Anne Schwartz, a spokeswoman for Schimel, said she had no comment on the matter.

Under state law, Schimel had to accept Wall back into his former civil service job at the Department of Justice but has put him on paid leave while the investigation continues into abuse allegations at a Northwoods youth prison. Wall may be interviewed as part of that probe. On March 1, he was transferred to the deputy administrator position in the Division of Law Enforcement Services and is making $108,100 a year while on leave.

In his letter to Zipperer, Wall said he didn't want to hire an attorney or file a lawsuit to regain his old job, but said if forced he would do it with "the usual effort I put into everything." Wall also hinted that Walker sides with him over Schimel.

"As the governor said to me the other day, 'It's time for Brad to step in here and make the right decisions and stop letting his staff make them for him. This is just wrong,'" Wall wrote.

Patrick, the Walker spokeswoman, had no response to Wall's claim that the governor backed Wall.

In a March 11 letter, Zipperer disputed the open records claims in Wall's letter. Zipperer said he had declined to give Wall his home address and told Wall that as a state official he had to follow the open records law.

Bach said Wall's appeal hasn't yet been filed with the WERC. In the appeal draft, Wall argues that he contacted law enforcement about the prison abuse allegations after learning of them in January 2015 and that they occurred "nine levels of supervision below his office."

But both the head of Lincoln Hills School for Boys and the state's juvenile corrections administration have also left their jobs amid the scandal over conditions at the prison.

The Journal Sentinel has reported that in repeated cases stretching back at least four years, state officials acknowledge that they don't know whether anyone bothered telling parents and local officials about assaults on teenagers at Lincoln Hills.

Since at least February 2012, state officials at the highest levels have known of attacks and sexual assaults at the prison without either contacting or fully disclosing the details to county officials, family members of victims and even law enforcement.

The pattern of not sharing glaring problems continued for years, and meaningful change came only after the public learned late last year of the probe into Lincoln Hills and the sister facility on its campus, Copper Lake School for Girls.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz hugs his wife, Heidi, after an appearance at an Oshkosh manufacturer on Friday. Cruz called a National Enquirer report that he had multiple extramarital affairs untrue and attacked GOP opponent Donald Trump, whom he blamed for the report. Credit: Associated Press

By of the

Oshkosh  Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called a National Enquirer story alleging he had multiple extramarital affairs "garbage" while campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, and blamed the article on Donald Trump and "his henchmen."

"The campaign took a darker turn, because Donald Trump demonstrated that when he's scared, when he's losing, his first and natural resort is to go to sleaze and to go to slime," Cruz told reporters Friday at a campaign stop in Oshkosh. "And one question Americans are wondering all over this country is: 'How low will Donald go? Is there any level to which he's unwilling to stoop?' And to date we have not seen it."

Cruz again slammed Trump for his tweets attacking the senator's wife, Heidi Cruz, and noted that the posts came shortly before the National Enquirer story.

"Let me be clear, this National Enquirer story is garbage. It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen," Cruz said. "It is attacking my family."

Also Friday, former Secretary of State and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said they would campaign in the state next week. Clinton and Kasich will separately visit both Madison and La Crosse, with Clinton also traveling to Milwaukee and Green Bay and Kasich holding a town hall in Waukesha.

Even by the standards of modern campaigning, Friday's claims and counterclaims were unusual.

Cruz criticized Trump for the tweets directed at his wife during his Friday morning rally at Lakeside Plastics in Oshkosh, but saved his sharpest comments about the real estate mogul until after a town hall event. Cruz launched into an attack on the article before being asked by reporters about it.

He insisted that the rumors in the National Enquirer story "started with Donald Trump."

Earlier in the week, Trump tweeted a warning that he would "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz following a third party releasing an attack ad featuring racy photographs of Melania Trump.

An online excerpt of the National Enquirer story cites only one anonymous "Washington insider" to back up its claims and gives no indication of the source's political affiliation or whether he or she has any direct knowledge of what is being alleged. The story excerpt claims that "private detectives" are investigating the allegations but gives no proof of that or any indication who may have hired them, if they do exist.

In a statement of his own, Trump denied any hand in the claims but didn't denounce the National Enquirer article, even taking pains to suggest that it might be true  without giving any reasons for that suggestion.

"I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it," Trump said. "...Unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz, I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchmen and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz's problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz."

Cruz had no direct evidence either for his assertions that Trump or longtime political operative Roger Stone was responsible for the report.

"I would note that Mr. Stone is a man who has 50 years of dirty tricks behind him. He's a man for whom a term was coined for: 'copulating with a rodent,'" Cruz said. "Well, let me be clear, Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. And this garbage does not belong in politics."

Stone responded in a tweet, "Falsely blaming me or (Trump) for his #CubanMistressCrisis is deflection by lyin' (Ted Cruz)."

Increasingly personal

The increasingly personal war between Trump and Cruz has distracted the candidates from focusing more of their attention and campaign remarks on issues facing the country, and on events such as the terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium.

Cruz said Trump attacks because Republicans in Wisconsin  a key battleground for the GOP  and around the country are uniting against him.

"So Donald, when he's losing, when he's scared, when Republicans are uniting against him, decides to peddle sleaze and slime," Cruz said. "You know, Donald is fond of giving people nicknames. With this pattern, he should not be surprised to see people calling him Sleazy Donald. Because that is his first and last resort, is to go to sleaze and ignore the truth. This has no business in politics. This doesn't belong."

The increasingly personal battle came the same week House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville lamented the "disheartening" state of politics and candidates who focused on fear and personal attacks over ideas and appeals to the best of the American people.

But the tone has only gotten tougher, with Trump tweeting another attack on Cruz's wife later on Wednesday, the same day as Ryan's speech. The Texas senator quickly responded with a tweet defending his wife.

Then at an event at Dane Manufacturing outside Madison on Thursday, Cruz said Trump is a "sniveling coward" who has "an issue with women."

A poll Thursday showed competitive races in both the Republican and Democratic primaries on April 5, and the intensity of the campaigns confirmed it.

Later Friday, Cruz and his family visited The Rite Place in Green Bay for a fish fry. He talked with voters and posed for photos.

Mike Janes of Green Bay said he has been a Cruz supporter from the beginning. He said he's not a fan of Trump.

"I don't really like the way he (Trump) treats people," Janes said, adding: "I wish they would stick to the issues."

Seeking key African-American votes in Milwaukee, Clinton Friday also released a television ad in that market highlighting her concern about shootings by police and referencing a Wisconsin case. Clinton is running against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is visiting Madison on Saturday.

"Trayvon Martin, shot to death. Dontre Hamilton, unarmed. Sandra Bland did nothing wrong," Clinton says in the ad, referencing three controversial police shooting cases  including one, Hamilton, from Milwaukee.

Former Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney fatally shot Hamilton, 31, during a confrontation at Red Arrow Park on April 30, 2014. Hamilton suffered from schizophrenia. Manney was fired for his actions leading up to his use of force, but prosecutors have declined to bring charges against him, saying he was defending himself.

Mary Spicuzza reported for this story in Oshkosh and Jason Stein in Madison.

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The wife of an armed hostage shot to death by Neenah police during a standoff at a motorcycle shop has filed a claim against the city and three officers for more than $3.5 million, a law firm announced Thursday.

Michael L. Funk, 60, had been taken hostage with three other people Dec. 5 at Eagle Nation Cycles by a gunman upset about the sale of a motorcycle that the buyer was having repaired at the shop.

When officers stormed the shop, Funk fled and, according to police, was shot after he refused to drop a gun he was holding.

An officer was wounded when gunfire erupted inside the shop, but authorities have not reported who shot the officer.

The alleged hostage-taker, Brian T. Flatoff, 46, was arrested and charged with second-degree recklessly endangering safety, felon in possession of a firearm and three felony bail- jumping charges related to a sixth drunken driving offense.

The claim, made on behalf of Theresa Mason-Funk, seeks damages of $3,503,500 from the City of Neenah and officers Craig Hoffer, Jonathan Kuffel and Robert Ross.

The city and the officers have 120 days to respond to the claim before a lawsuit is filed, according to a statement from the law firm of Dewitt, Ross and Stevens.

Funk's shooting is under investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

Funk and the owner of the shop, Steven Erato, had previously filed a $50 million lawsuit against the City of Neenah, Neenah police, Police Chief Kevin Wilkinson and the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office stemming from a 2012 raid on the motorcycle shop.
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By Tanya Golash-Boza | Tomdispatch.com

In 2006, when I first began researching deportations, George W. Bush was president and quietly building a deportation machine in the Department of Homeland Security. Outside of small activist circles, few Americans knew that deportations had been rising since 1996 due to legislation signed by President Bill Clinton. Nor could anyone then have imagined that the next President would be a Democrat, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, and would make Bush look like a piker when it came to record-high deportations. Nor, for that matter, would anyone have dreamed that deportation would become a  possibly the  signature issue of the 2016 presidential campaign.

And yet, all of this and more has come to pass in a blistering season of demagoguery, nativism, and outright racism. As again would have been unimaginable a mere decade ago, Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have both promised to deport every last one of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, the whole lot of them, while as a bonus banning Muslims from the country. Trump gave his particular proposals a special twist by labeling Mexicans coming across the border as rapists, and immigrants more generally as snakes.

On the issue of deportations, the Republican presidential hopefuls differ in only one tiny way: Trump claims he will allow the really good immigrants to return, while Cruz wants to get rid of every last undocumented immigrant permanently.

To put all this in perspective, heres the crucial thing you need to understand: with such proposals, we have been plunged into a grim fantasyland. You can be guaranteed that neither of these men has spent a serious moment considering what it might really mean to deport those 11 million actual human beings. Behind such a program there can be no real plan, because it would prove both unaffordable and unworkable (leaving aside its utter inhumanity). Undoubtedly, neither Trump nor Cruz cares about the details of all this, since the point is to arouse deep fears of loss and visceral betrayal in the white working class voters they want to attract. But its worth taking their proposals seriously enough to ask a relatively straightforward question: Is it feasible to deport 11 million people?

Deporter-in-Chiefs?

Any plan to deport all undocumented migrants would involve an inconceivably massive expansion of the current deportation program, which since 1996 has already experienced significant growth. The highest number of people ever deported from the United States in a given year is 237,941. That was the number of interior removals reported by the Department of Homeland Securitys Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2009. A removal, by the way, is a deportation that involves a court process, while an interior removal is a deportation involving a person who is arrested inside the United States and is not a recent border-crosser.

Keep in mind that those 237,941 undocumented immigrants expelled from the country represented a far higher number of deportations than had ever previously been experienced. Before 1995, there were never more than 50,000 total removals (including people caught crossing the border). Only in 2003 were figures for interior and border removals reported separately, at which time there were 30,000 interior removals. A concerted effort in the years that followed would translate into a seven-fold increase in the number of interior removals during the Bush presidency.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he topped the Bush numbers, overseeing record deportations and keeping interior removals steadily above 200,000 until 2012. Then those numbers began to decline, dropping to a still hefty 69,478 interior removals in 2015. For his early deportation record, Obama earned the title of deporter-in-chief from immigration activists, as well as the ire of the Latino community. Perhaps due to pressure from that community, he has in recent years rolled back deportations, in addition to issuing an executive order that grants temporary authorization to stay and work in the United States to immigrants who came here as children. He also issued another executive order that would grant the same protections to their parents, although it is still held up in the courts.

Now, for the future: the promise to deport all 11 million undocumented migrants in, assumedly, two four-year presidential terms would mean the deportation of 1,375,000 people annually, or six times that all-time high of 237,000. In other words, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would have to almost match Bushs seven-fold increase in deportations on a truly monumental, essentially inconceivable scale. The more realistic question in the grim world of deportations would be: Could one of them even get back to the 237,000-a-year figure? Its far from clear that any president could actually restore such record-high deportation rates today (forget the promise of millions).

As it happens, ramping up deportations again would require cooperation from local criminal law enforcement, which is unlikely. In reality, local police departments have been moving away from such cooperation over the past few years, in part due to criticism that such programs encourage racial profiling while diminishing trust between communities and the local police.

The dramatic increase in deportations under President Bush relied heavily on increased cooperation between local police and ICE, due to real limitations on the ways in which immigration laws can be enforced. Whereas local police officers are empowered to patrol the streets and arrest people suspected of committing crimes, immigration law enforcement agents are not authorized to pull people off the streets simply because they suspect they might be undocumented. An important reason for this: there is no way you can figure out a persons immigration status simply by looking at them.

Only Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents are authorized to rely on Mexican appearance when deciding whom to interrogate and they can only operate up to 100 miles from the border. Interior immigration enforcement is mostly carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with the help of local police officers who can indeed inquire about someones immigration status, but only after such a person has been stopped on reasonable suspicion of committing a crime.

There are currently about 5,000 ICE agents in the country. Their capacity, with limited cooperation from local law enforcement, seems at the moment to be about 70,000 deportations a year, as evidenced by 2015 numbers. To get those deportations back above 200,000 would involve gargantuan and expensive efforts and a restoration of the frayed relationship between ICE and local police departments.

Home and Workplace Raids

How, then, are 5,000 ICE agents, or even 15,000  the number Donald Trump wants  going to deport more than a million people annually? In reality, there is no way that those numbers would be enough to arrest and expel the nearly 4,000 people a day, or 1,460,000 people a year that Ted Cruz implies he would reach in his presidency.

It may seem like 5,000 agents should be capable of arresting at least one person each a day and so meet those goals. But the process is simple only in a Trumpian fantasy world. In the real world, locating and then arresting the undocumented is anything but a straightforward process. After all, ICE agents cant go around interrogating people to find out if they are undocumented and then sweep them off the streets. They can, however, arrest people in their homes  if they have a warrant.

Once an investigation is completed and such a warrant has been issued, an ICE raid on the home of a suspected undocumented migrant usually involves about a dozen agents working through the National Fugitive Operations Program that has come under harsh criticism for its remarkable inefficiency. To have such a home raid described is to begin to understand why such raids tend to work out so poorly.

In February 2010, Maximo, a Dominican citizen who lived in Puerto Rico and experienced just such a raid, described the process to me. He shared an apartment in San Juan with two other men, a Venezuelan and a Puerto Rican. Early one morning, they heard loud banging on the door. Maximo tried to sleep through it, but it only got louder. Finally, he got up. Before he could answer the door, however, the ICE agents decided to break it down and he found himself surrounded by several of them, guns drawn, demanding to see all of the occupants of the apartment. The three men were then ordered to sit on the floor. Finally, Maximo was given his clothes and allowed to get dressed.

When asked for identification, he gave them his Dominican passport. Was he, they then asked, in the country illegally? He admitted that he indeed was, which led to his arrest and dispatch to an immigration detention center. There, he signed a voluntary departure order and two days later was deported to Santo Domingo. In other words, that days work for at least a dozen officers led to the deportation of a single Dominican as his housemates were legal permanent residents. This is typical of the kinds of successes that ICE agents have.

Among other things, the next President could revisit the worksite enforcement strategies implemented during the Bush years to find undocumented workers. Such worksite raids, however, have proven even less effective and efficient than home raids.

Consider the 2008 Postville raid in Iowa, at the time the largest of its kind ever. Start with the fact that it took almost a year and a half of investigation and planning to pull off. In December 2006, federal agents began to look into a worksite enforcement operation in Postville, a town with 2,273 inhabitants, 968 of whom worked at Agriprocessors, a kosher slaughterhouse and meat processing plant. On Monday, May 12, 2008, the plan became a reality as 900 agents descended on the town. Cooperation among several federal and local agencies was necessary for this to happen. In all, 389 immigrant workers were arrested, though only half of them were eventually deported. In other words, ICE spent a year and five months working on a case that required almost 1,000 agents on the ground and eventually resulted in fewer than 300 deportations.

So lets put this simply: there is no quick and easy way to deport millions of people from the United States, in part because we are a nation that values individual rights and requires at least some semblance of a process before a person is uprooted from his or her home or workplace. It is not within the purview of the executive branch to topple existing laws and judicial processes in order to carry out the mass removal of a significant segment of the population.

In sum, President Obama has done about as much damage as is presently possible to undocumented migrants and their families within these legal and judicial constraints. Trump and Cruzs claims that they will do significantly more are baseless  unless the American system were to be changed in fundamental ways (and even then, achieving their goals would prove unlikely in the extreme).

Walls and Other Fantasies

Add to all of this an even greater and more literal fantasy edifice: Donald Trumps wall. That future 80-foot competitor to the Great Wall of China is slated to cover the 2,000-mile-long southern border, sport all the latest in surveillance technology, and (as The Donald regularly reassures audiences at his rallies) be paid for by the Mexicans. As it happens, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who recently compared Trumps language to Hitlers, disagrees. Hes made it abundantly clear that he would never comply with such a demand, while the previous Mexican president, also citing Hitler, has simply termed the very idea stupid. Felipe Calderon, Pena Nietos predecessor, said the Mexican people wont pay any single cent for such a stupid wall!

In Trumps far-fetched proposal lurks a crucial irony of our moment: Mexicans are no longer emigrating in large numbers to the United States. Over the past decade, more Mexicans have returned from the U.S. than headed illegally for it. Undocumented border crossings from Mexico have, in fact, been falling for the last 15 years, in part thanks to a sharp decline in the fertility rate in that country and the consequent lack of demographic pressure for people to leave.

And dont forget that the wall would be a staggering infrastructure project. It would, for instance, require 10% of all the cement produced in the United States in a year. And then theres the issue of the price. It is estimated that just fencing in the full 2,000 mile border would cost up to $25 billion, or a quarter of what the federal government spends on infrastructure annually. An 80-foot, high-tech wall would cost far more. And lets not forget that infrastructure in the U.S. is falling apart: highways are crumbling and mass transit systems are in desperate need of repair and modernization. Imagine the federal government, spurned by the Mexicans, spending tens of billions of dollars on such a wall when Amtrak, for example, is barely scraping by with an annual budget of $1.6 billion, while other developed countries are leaving us in the dust with 200-mile-per-hour bullet trains.

All this means that the proposals to build a wall and deport them all that have animated this election season are quite fantastical. And then theres the irony that such plans come from a political party that has long criticized government spending and waste. On wasting money, were talking textbook cases here.

In short, taken on their own merits, the numbers dont add up. The costs would be tremendous. The disruption to American life in which the undocumented play a little noticed but crucial role would be far more unsettling than any of Donald Trumps or Ted Cruzs admirers imagine, and no wall or deportation program will protect them from the actual forces decimating their lives (and life spans). In fact, looked at piece by piece, in a purely practical way, the present deportation debate, which has proven extremely effective in raising the temperature of the political moment, is simply the essence of the demagogue.

Should Donald Trump or Ted Cruz win the presidency, they are guaranteed to make life hell for millions of undocumented human beings living in and working extremely hard in this country, and their plans would fail dismally  but that failure would undoubtedly prove to be a horror all its own.

Tanya Golash-Boza is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced. She is the author of five books, her most recent being Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism (New York University Press), which explains mass deportation in the context of the global economic crisis. In addition, she has written on contemporary issues for Al Jazeera, the Boston Review, the Nation, Counterpunch, the Houston Chronicle, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She tweets as @tanyaboza.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2016 Tanya Golash-Boza

Via Tomdispatch.com



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CNN from last month:  Rubio attacks Trump over hiring illegal workers
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By Joaquin Roy | (Inter Press Service) |  

In this column Joaquin Roy, Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami, says the recent terrorist attacks in Belgium indicate the need to strengthen, not weaken, European unity.

MIAMI, Mar 24 2016 (IPS)  The enemy isnt Brussels: its Europe. The so-called Islamic State clearly signaled this by attacking, even more than the airport, a metro station. Maelbeek is not just another subway stop in the Belgian capital. Although the symbolism could have been more dramatic if the terrorists had chosen the neighouring station named after Robert Schumanbut perhaps the tighter security there dissuaded them.

The fact is that it is the symbolic heart of the European Union. Thousands of officials from the three EU institutions  the Council, the Parliament and the Commission  pass through that stop every day.

The Council, the highest EU body, represents the sacrosanct interests of the member states, which since the outbreak of terrorism and the refugee crisis have monopolised decision-making in the bloc. The Parliament, which defends the values of the citizens, feels that its voice is being ignored. The Commission, which defends the essence of the EU treaties, has submitted to the will of the member states.

In contrast with the gratuitous accusations about the EUs supposed inefficacy, the fact remains that historically it has been a spectacular success which has guaranteed for decades what did not exist in Europe for centuries: stability, peace, progress, justice.

That has been demonstrated by the actions of thousands of immigrants and refugees who have chosen, against all obstacles, to seek refuge in Europe and the EU. They are thousands of people willing to face any risk and pay any price (monetary or personal) to place themselves under the protection of one of the few systems on the planet that can give them what they long for.

This detail has been noticed by the terrorists who have finally identified the ultimate enemy of their actions. It isnt the states, national societies, governments, or individual capital cities that have already been the victims of their hate, but an entity that tenaciously demands recognition.

The EU still has the potential to become an effective shield, not only to guarantee Europes survival as a civilisation, but to be an effective agent of the practical efficacy to fulfill the needs of its citizens. At the same time, it shows that people overseas who desperately want to be under Europes protection are right.

Up to now, the terrorists targets have been mainly national, in order to trigger, so far without success, a nationalistic and self-protecting reaction by governments fearful of losing their purported national sovereignty.

The attack on the emblematic subway station, the belly-button of the EU institutions, sent a crystal-clear message: the enemy is not the state. It is the collective entity that still manages to safeguard the achievements which, since nearly the end of World War II, still capture the admiration of the rest of the world.

The governments, through faint-hearted decisions in the Council of Europe itself, have on various occasions responded fearfully to terrorist attacks by curbing collective decisions. For example, in a misguided response to last Novembers attacks in Paris, the French government eschewed the EU solidarity clause contained in article 222 of the EU treaty, and chose instead to invoke article 42.7 (similar to NATOs article 5), triggering mutual defence among the member states.

Like other European countries, France decided to reduce European sovereignty, dangerously putting aside the Schengen agreement for border-free travel.

Instead of reinforcing the powers of the institutions, there was a move to strengthen national sovereignty. To obtain the cooperation of the alternative guardians of Europes collective authority, Turkeys complicity in creating a barrier to the invasion of refugees was bought under the promise of facilitating its admission to the EU. The idea was that Brussels did not have the necessary power, which bolstered the arguments of the nationalists and of the terrorists themselves.

The attack on the Brussels metro station reminds us that terror itself recognises that the enemy is precisely the entity that the Europeans themselves want to weaken. Perhaps the time has come to return to the origins and assume, once and for all, that it was the national state that was guilty of the holocaust represented by the two European wars which nearly destroyed civilisation on the old continent. What is needed is not what numerous governments and citizen groups are demanding: less Europe. What is urgently necessary is to salvage Maelbeek station.

Instead of dismantling Schengen, what is needed is a treaty that is solid, inside and out, and that guarantees the free traffic of citizens and visitors. To bolster this argument, a supranational force should be created to oversee the borders in a collective manner, not subject to the whims of the states. What is needed is more Europe, not less.

Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Licensed from Inter Press Service

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Democracy Now!: Frank Barat in Belgium: More War is Not the Answer to Brussels Bombings
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

It is no accident that Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) is using Donald Trump in its new recruitment video. Although Trump hasnt killed anyone to our knowledge and cant be compared to Daesh in most ways, his political strategy actually mirrors that of the phony caliphate in some ways.

As my colleague Scot Atran explained this week, Daesh just has a few tactical principles:

1. Where there is social chaos already, exploit it to cause more chaos and drive people to your side (e.g. Somalia)

2. Where there is calm, find spaces for the creation of chaos (e.g. unsuspecting cities like Paris and Brussels)

3. Use viciousness or beastliness (idarat al-tawahhush) to polarize populations. Most Muslims are on the fence or perfectly happy in secular societies. They are in a gray zone. Drive them into the arms of extremism either by attracting them with spectacles of power or by scaring them or by scaring non-Muslims into attacking them.

The urgency of this strategy has increased as Daeshs fortunes on the battlefield in the dusty hinterlands of Syria and Iraq have spiraled down. Syrian troops are at the gates of Palmyra and on the cusp of driving Daesh out of it. Russian aircraft are bombing Daesh convoys and positions in Palmyra and near Aleppo, cutting supply lines. Syrian Kurdish troops allied with Arab fighters have taken vast territory from Daesh in al-Raqqa and left its capital exposed. In Iraq, Tikrit and Ramadi have fallen. Kurdish Peshmerga have retaken Sinjar and begun cutting supply lines between al-Raqqa and Mosul. Local Arab tribes are revolting in Fallujah, and the Iraqi military has announced the beginning of a long campaign to take Mosul.

My old firm Janes has put together a nice map here. ISIS lost 22% of its territory in 2015 pic.twitter.com/OXkUjBo56L  Alex Vatanka (@AlexVatanka) March 17, 2016

As Daesh loses territory and is demoted from stateness, it will return to just being a dreary terrorist organization.

The radical attacks in Paris and in Brussels in the past two years didnt target Paris or Brussels. That is why the terrorists chose soft targets. You cant really inflict security damage on France by hitting a Cambodian restaurant or a concert hall. Note that they did not target French military bases or police units, and despite the big NATO presence in Brussels, they left the security facilities alone and hit random passengers and subway commuters.

Their target is Muslims in the gray zone, whom they want to force to flee to al-Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq so as to bump up their failing pirate state. These terrorist attacks are recruitment drives.

Counter-terrorism therefore in this case would involve counteracting Daesh polarization and spread of hatred. The only way to impede their attempt at radicalizing Muslims is to reach out to Muslims with love. Most political analysts dont talk in terms of emotions like love and fear, but actually they are at the foundation of politics. In the case of Brussels, municipal policies that gave a sense of pride and dignity to inhabitants of the poorer quarters of the city, and economic policies of attracting factory and other jobs into those areas, would be important manifestations of that kind of public policy love.

US politicians such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who are trying to get ahead by polarizing American society and fearmongering just cannot resist jumping on the Daesh train and joining in with the attack on the gray zone. They not want, any more than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, even-handed people who see several sides of an issue. They want youre with us or against us.

If you take out mass violence, moreover, it is fairly easy to see that Trump himself uses the tactic of beastliness just as Daesh does. Where there is already chaos or conflict, he hypes it, as with his promise to kill innocent children related to terrorists or to torture people. Or he played on existing Islamophobia by proposing a Muslim exclusion act, which is both beastly and an attack on the gray zone.

He also throws verbal firebombs to stir up chaos where there was calm. He boasts that immigration was not even an issue in the presidential race until he made it one. But that is because immigration is not an issue. More Mexicans have been returning to Mexico from the US in recent years than coming here. Most immigrants are unusually law-abiding. Illegal immigration was a much bigger problem in the 1980s and 1990s and is now a relatively small one. Most immigrants dont take jobs away from Americans already here: they do jobs other people dont want to do. (Many small midwestern hamlets depending on ranching and small farming have become depopulated as the young people went off to Chicago, and some have only been kept going or revived by Mexican farm and ranch hands). But Trump tried to tag Mexican-Americans as rapists and drug dealers.

=====

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Vote It!:  Donald Trump Used in new ISIS propaganda video
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TeleSur |  

The U.N. resolution, which angered EU countries, says certain companies and enterprises are helping the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The United Nations Human Rights Council will vote Thursday on adopting a resolution that would establish a database for businesses and enterprises with financial dealings and involvement in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied West Bank and the Syrian occupied Golan territories.

h/t wikipedia

The Middle East Monitor website reported Wednesday that the U.N. body will vote on four resolutions concerning the Israeli settlements. The one concerning the businesses database has angered several European Union countries which, according to the outlet, will either vote against it or abstain.

The resolution notes that the settlement enterprise and the impunity associated with its persistence, expansion and related violence continue to be a root cause of many violations of the Palestinians human rights, and constitute the main factors perpetuating Israels belligerent occupation of the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, the Middle East Monitor said in a report.

The Israeli businesses are labelling products from the illegal settlements as made in Israel and therefore have directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the resolution warned.

Private individuals, associations and charities in third States are involved in providing funding to Israeli settlements and settlement-based entities, contributing to the maintenance and expansion of settlements, the resolution added.

The database would serve as a way for foreign states to provide guidance to individuals and businesses on the financial, reputational and legal risks, including the possibility of liability for corporate involvement in gross human rights abuses as well as the abuses of the rights of individuals, of becoming involved in settlement-related activities.

The Middle East Monitor said the resolution comes as a follow up to an earlier fact-finding mission, which investigated the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Alarmed by the database, the United Kingdom, the EU and other Western countries have been applying pressure on Palestinian officials to remove the paragraph establishing the database of businesses involved in settlement activities.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem among 2.4 million Palestinians, according to recent estimates. The International community, including the EU and the United States, consider Israeli settlements illegal and in violation of international law.

Via TeleSur
Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] expressed concern [press release] Friday over the conviction of journalist Alaa Brinji by the Saudi Arabian Specialized Criminal Court. Alaa Brinji has been in detention since May 2014 and has not been allowed access to a lawyer. He was convicted on Thursday on charges of insulting the rulers of the country, inciting public opinion, accusing security officers of killing protestors in Awamiyya, ridiculing Islamic religious figures and violating Article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law. All of the charges are based on tweets by Alaa Brinji expressing opposition views. Some of of the tweets exhibited support for womens rights, human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience. The sentence entails five years in prison, an eight-year travel ban, and a heavy fine. The court also ordered that his Twitter account be closed. In its press release, AI called Alaa Brinji a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully expressing his views. AI has called for his release, and urged Saudi Arabia to take accountability for its gross and systematic violations of human rights.

Saudi Arabias justice system has drawn international criticism for alleged human rights abuses in recent months. Last month a court sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes [JURIST report] for expressing atheist sentiments in recent social media posts. In January a well-known female human rights activist, Samar Badawi, was detained [JURIST report] and interviewed by Saudi prosecutors, allegedly for her involvement in managing a Twitter account that campaigned for the release of her former husband, a Saudi lawyer who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for activism. That same month Saudi Arabian officials announced that the government executed 47 prisoners convicted of terrorism charges [JURIST report], including al Qaeda detainees and a prominent Shiite cleric who rallied protesters against the government. In November a Saudi Arabia court sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death [JURIST report] for apostasy; or abandoning his Muslim faith. Also, in November Amnesty International (AI) reported that Saudi Arabia has executed a record 151 people in 2015 [JURIST report], the highest number since 1995. In 2014 the total number of executions carried out was 90. AI said that almost half of all the executions carried out in 2015 were for offenses that are not considered most serious crimes under the international human rights laws. Saudi Arabia also reportedly continues to impose the death sentence on individuals under the age of 18, violating child human rights laws.
The US Department of Justice [official website] on Thursday unsealed [press release] the indictment against seven Iranian computer specialists. The computer specialists regularly works for the countrys Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The indictment charged [text, PDF] that the computer specialists were behind cyber attacks on dozens of American banks and that the group attempted to take over the controls for a small dam in Rye, New York. The list of banks that were attacked include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of American, Capital One and PNC Bank. The indictment also cited attacks on the New York Stock Exchange and AT&T. The indictment charged Ahmad Fathi, Hamid Firoozi, Amin Shokohi, Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, Omid Ghaffarinia, Sina Keissar and Nader Saedi. Intelligence experts have long speculated [NYT report] that the attacks aimed at some of Americas largest banks have been in retaliation for an American-led cyber-attack on Irans main nuclear enrichment plant. All of the attacks were disturbed denial of service attacks (DDoS), in which the targets computers are overwhelmed by coordinated computer requests from thousands of machines around the world. This type of attack often results in a network crash putting the servers of the target out of service.

The Obama administration has identified cyber-security as one of the most serious economic and national security issues that the US is currently facing, and the US government has dedicated significant resources to address the issue. In April 2013 the US House of Representatives passed a controversial cybersecurity bill [JURIST report] that allows corporations to share customers personal data with other firms and the US government, even if a company contract prohibits such activity. A year prior, Obama administration official Melanie Ann Pustay testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge congressional officials to amend [JURIST report] the Freedom of Information Act in order to strengthen the governments ability to prevent disclosure of information related to critical infrastructure and cyber-security.
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] on Thursday extended the deadline [court transcript, PDF] for German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) [official website] to fix its diesel-powered cars, which have been held to be in violation of US emissions standards. According to the transcripts, Judge Charles Breyer was persuaded that VW engineers are working round the clock to develop a fix for nearly 600,000 vehicles sold in the US, and that the present delays are primarily the result of engineering technicalities and other important issues that need to be resolved. VWs sales have taken a major hit in the US since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] revealed in September that VW had been cheating on diesel-emissions tests [WSJ report], contradicting the companys claims that its diesel vehicles were green. More than 500 civil lawsuits from around the country have been consolidated in the San Francisco court against VW, and VWs brand image has suffered forcing its CEO and top US manager out of the company since the scandal surfaced. Breyer has given VW until April 21 to come up with a concrete proposal for getting the polluting vehicles off the road and instructed that the proposal must be specific and detailed. Breyer also instructed VW to provide him with weekly status updates, and release pertinent non-confidential information to the public for their benefit.

VW is facing legal difficulty around the world over the emissions scandal. A law firm in Germany filed a class action lawsuit [JURIST report] earlier this month against VW on behalf of investors alleging a breach of duty to the capital market. The 3.255 (US $3.61 billion) lawsuit was brought in a Germanys multi-regional court in Brunswick. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed suit [JURIST report] against VW in early January for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The DOJ is also seeking billions of dollars in damages in a civil lawsuit. Last year the Braunschweig public prosecutors office opened a criminal investigation [JURIST report] of former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, following accusations that the company cheated on government emissions tests by manipulating exhaust valves. The investigation followed several criminal complaints, including one filed by VW, and came less than a week after Winterkorn stepped down as CEO of the company. In his statement he accepted responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and said that he was clearing the way for this fresh start with [his] resignation. Breyer is currently overseeing hundreds of lawsuits, and 47 state attorneys general are also investigating.
Female rights activists in Sudan are facing harassment, violence, and other rights abuses, Human Right Watch (HRW) [advocacy site] reported [press release] Wednesday. The report [text] found that women in the region are subjected to abuses including genital mutilation by Sudanese security forces. The report found that while both men and women face repressive tactics when fighting for human rights, women are often subjected to sexual means to engineer their silence:

[T]he incidents described  illustrate how women activists are at risk of abuses their male colleagues are far less likely to experience, from brutal acts of sexual violence to damaging attacks on women activists reputation. Some of the incidents also illustrate how security personnel can use the threat of social stigma to intimidate women they subject to sexual violence into remaining silent about the abuse, abandoning their activism or even fleeing the country altogether.

The report called on the governments to investigate and prosecute those security personnel responsible for such abuses.

The human rights situation throughout Sudan has drawn global condemnation of Sudans political leaders. Earlier this month South Africas Supreme Court of Appeal upheld a lower courts ruling that the state broke the law by not detaining [JURIST report] Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir despite an International Criminal Court order to do so. Last month a UN human rights expert called for an end [JURIST report] to conflict in Darfur between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid, which may have led to human rights abuses and violations of international law.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] confirmed war crime charges [press release] against Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi on Thursday for the destruction of historical and religious monuments in Timbuktu and ordered [order, PDF] him to stand trial. Al Mahdi was surrendered to the ICC in September pursuant to an arrest warrant, and the crimes with which he is charged were allegedly committed sometime between June 30 and July 11, 2012, which resulted in the destruction or severe damage of all the buildings and structures. According to documents submitted by the ICC prosecutor, the buildings and structures were destroyed by individuals armed with weapons and a variety of tools including pickaxes and iron bars. Pursuant to various articles of the ICC Rome statute, the ICC found that there was sufficient evidence to establish Al Mahdis involvement in the commission of war crimes and intentional destruction of world heritage buildings. The ICC pointed out that the affected buildings in this case were a significant part of the cultural heritage of Timbuktu and of Mali and that the the evidence is univocal in showing that the Buildings/ Structures specifically identified, chosen and targeted precisely in light and because of their religious and historical character. The court considered various types of evidence in reaching its decision including witnesses testimonies, video materials, imagery materials, expert analyses, official documents emanating from Malian authorities and international organisations (including UNESCO [official website]) and media reports.

The danger to world heritage sites and other important landmarks in Mali is not the only concern among the international community regarding the country. Mali has been facing a humanitarian crisis since 2012 that has raised graver international concerns. In May 2012 Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] released a report saying that Mali was facing its worst human rights crisis [JURIST report] since it gained independence in 1960. Human Rights Watch released a similar report in April claiming that all sides to the conflict are committing war crimes [JURIST report]. Earlier in April the ICC said they would monitor the situation [JURIST report] in Mali for potential crimes under the ICCs jurisdiction. The turmoil began when Taureg rebels attacked Malian soldiers [Al Jazeera report]. Many in the international community expressed concern [JURIST report] over the situation, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official website], then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [official website]. All of this came after Malian soldiers took control of the government [JURIST report] and suspended the constitution in March 2012.
[JURIST] Indiana Governor Mike Pence [official profile] signed a controversial bill [materials] on Thursday banning abortions motivated by concerns of the fetus gender, race or potential disabilities. The bill also places restrictions on medical providers, requiring a thorough doctor consultation and certain admitting privileges before abortions can be performed. Furthermore, the bill bans fetal tissue donations and requires that fetal remains be cremated or buried. With this bill, Indiana became the second state [WP report], following North Dakota, to ban abortions performed upon a finding of a fetal anomaly. Pence defended the bill [press release] as a necessary move to place a greater value on human life and protect the disabled. However, state Democrats and abortion rights groups such as the Planned Parenthood Action Fund [advocacy website] accused [NYT report] the bill of being a conservative effort to effectively deny womens right to abortions in the state. Abortions rights advocates have stated that parts of the bill may be challenged in court.

Abortion procedures and reproductive rights issues [JURIST backgrounder] have been controversial topics throughout the US. Earlier this month a district court judge blocked [JURIST report] Arkansas from enforcing a bill mandating abortion pill providers to follow US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [official website] guidelines and requiring hospital admittance privileges to handle complications. Also this month the West Virginia lawmakers overrode the governors veto to enact a new law [JURIST report] that prevents the dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, widely held to be the safest second-trimester abortion method. The South Dakota governor signed a bill [JURIST report] that bans abortions after 20 weeks. Last month the Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed [JURIST report] a lower court decision upholding a law that restricts use of medication abortion drugs. In November the US Supreme Court granted certiorari [JURIST report] to decide whether a Texas law, which requires that clinics have similar facilities to surgical center, posed an undue burden on the availability of abortion on the state. Oral arguments were heard earlier this month.
[JURIST] Two Turkish journalists went on trial in closed proceedings Friday on espionage charges that have garnered worldwide concerns regarding the state of free press under President Recep Tayyip Erdogans [official profile] regime. In 2014 Can Dundar and Erdem Gul initially reported [JURIST report] for the Cumhuriyet [media website, in Turkish] that the Turkish government was secretly supplying arms to Islamist groups in Syria. Erdogan accused them of espionage and had them arrested last November, but the journalists were released from prison upon a court finding that their detention violated constitutional rights. The prosecution has asked the court [AFP report] to give the journalists life sentences and 30 additional years, and they were granted their request to hold a confidential trial for the sake of security. Despite being closed to the public, the trial drew more than 200 supporters defending press freedom. International groups such as Human Rights Watch and the EU have accused [Reuters report] the Turkish government of attempting to silence the press, and PEN International [advocacy website] launched a campaign [Guardian report] with more than 100 writers urging Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu [official profile, PDF] to release writers imprisoned for exercising freedom of speech. Dundar and Gul hope to use the trial as a platform for addressing Turkeys involvement with Syria on the record.

Turkey has been accused of violating the freedom of expression on numerous recent occasions. In December the European Court of Human Rights ruled [JURIST report] unanimously that a Turkish court order blocking access to YouTube violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In April a prosecutor in Turkey ordered [JURIST report] Internet providers to block social networking sites including Twitter and YouTube. In September 2014 Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] reported [JURIST report] that Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party [party website] was taking steps to weaken the rule of law, control Internet and media and suppress critics and protesters. In April 2014 the Turkish government lifted a ban [JURIST report] on Twitter following a Constitutional Court ruling stating that the ban violated both individual rights as well as the freedom of expression.
Matthew Doyle [Twitter account], a 47 year-old British man, has been charged with inciting racial hatred [backgrounder] after posting a series of Islamophobic tweets from his private Twitter account on March 23, following the attacks in Brussels [NYT report]. One post, where Doyle describes confronting a Muslim woman over the attacks, went viral [BBC report] on Wednesday. The tweet has since been taken down. The charge of inciting racial hatred is used in cases where the accused person says or does something which is threatening, abusive or insulting and, by doing so, either intends to stir up racial hatred, or makes it likely that racial hatred will be stirred up.

Home Office statistics [materials] revealed that hate crimes in England and Wales have risen by 18 percent in 2015. Police recorded [Huffington Post report] 52,528 hate crimes between 2014 and 2015, which were motivated by factors including race and religious hatred, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Home Office suggested that this number did not necessarily reflect as dramatic an increase in assaults as it suggested, as likely factors in the rise also included improvements in the recording of such crimes, victims being more willing to report the crimes and a greater awareness of hate crimes throughout the community. The report followed an announcement by Prime Minister David Cameron that anti-Muslim hate crimes will be recorded [press release] as a separate category of crime in England and Wales.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein [official profile] expressed grave concern [press release] on Wednesday over the closure of hundreds of Egypts civil society organizations and the prosecutions of numerous human rights activists in Egypt for their legitimate work since November 2014. The High Commissioner stated that, [t]his looks like a clampdown on sections of Egyptian civil society and it must stop.  NGOs who have played a valuable role in documenting violations and supporting victims will see their activities completely crippled if this continues. The High Commissioner directed attention to two prominent human rights defenders, Gamal Eid and Hossam Bahgat, who have been accused of illegally receiving funding of USD $1.5 million from a foreign government without a license. Earlier this week, Muzen Hassan, director of the Nazra Centre for Feminist Studies, was also summoned for investigation concerning foreign funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by an examining magistrate. The High Commissioner stated that, [e]veryone has the right to receive funds to promote human rights through peaceful means. The Egyptian authorities must stop all prosecutions targeting legitimate human rights activities. According to the High Commissioner, at least 20 NGOs were dissolved on just one day this month. The High Commissioner made particular reference to the closure of Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence [JURIST report], which had been told that it breached its license to carry out human rights activities by publishing reports on torture. The High Commissioner also referred to Egyptian sources in pointing to travel bans whereby hundreds of people have been prevented from entering or leaving the country, in many cases without any judicial order. He added that Laws that impose undue restrictions on NGO registration and fundingas well as freedom of expression and associationmust be amended to create a more tolerant atmosphere.

Egypt has been on the headlines in recent months over its many human rights infringements and free speech violations. Of particular concern with Egypts constitutional and human rights is indeed the prosecution and imprisonment of journalists by the Egyptian government, which has garnered widespread criticism from governments and rights groups worldwide. Ironically, two weeks ago, Egypt Justice Minister Ahmed al-Zind was relieved of his position after he stated that he would even imprison the Prophet Mohammed in response a question regarding the imprisonment of journalists. January 13 non-governmental organizations issued a joint statement [JURIST report] to the Egyptian parliament giving recommendations to ensure the enforcement of constitutional and human rights. Last December Egyptian lawyer Nasser Amin challenged a law [JURIST report] that allows writers to be jailed for writings that violate Egyptian morals. In August 2015 Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi [BBC profile] approved [JURIST report] a 54-article counter-terrorism law that has been met with significant controversy, as many believe it infringes on the freedom of the press. Many have said that the law defines terrorism too broadly and imposes harsh sentences and fines on violators. Also in August 2015, Human Rights Watch (advocacy website] criticized [JURIST report] the law saying it infringes on freedom of the press.
The top UN official for human rights expressed serious concern [press release] on Thursday over a recent agreement between the EU and Turkey to stem the flow of refugees and migrants into Greece and Europe. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein stated his concern that without assessing each individual case the deal between the EU and Turkey will result in a collective expulsion. The provisions agreed upon between the parties call [UN News Centre report] for cases to be processed under the EUs Asylum Procedures Directive and states that migrants not applying for asylum or whose application has been found unfounded or inadmissible  will be returned to Turkey. The UN is concerned that such language could allow children, victims of rape and torture, individuals with a specific sexual orientation or persons with disabilities to be turned away as a categorical rule. Furthermore, there is concern over recent measures that call for the initial detention for all new arrivals. It is a general rule that detention be used as a last resort in such matters. Zeid concluded stating that the issue is manageable if the EU acted on the basis of its well established laws and principles and does not attempt to circumvent international law.

The rights of migrant populations has emerged as one of the most significant humanitarian issue around the world. Last week, UN experts urged safeguards in the EU-Turkey migrant deal. Earlier in March Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth urged EU leaders to reject [JURIST report] the proposed EU Joint Action Plan with Turkey to handle the influx of migrants due to the disregard for international law covering the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, expressed concerns [JURIST report] over the proposed migrant exchange program between the EU and Turkey, arguing it may violate international law. The Joint Action Plan [text, PDF], was proposed to decrease human smuggling along the shores of southern Europe and to help alleviate the massive influx of refugees hosted by Turkey.
The Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic (CAR), Marie-Therese Keita-Bocoum, made her sixth visit to the nation on Wednesday and shared an update [press release] on the human rights situation with President Faustin Archange Touadera. Touadera was elected [BBC report] in February. Keita-Bocoum noted improvements in the nations human rights situation, but urged the government to return security by working to end impunity and to disarm the violent groups prevalent in central and eastern regions. The expert also thanked the government for its cooperation in the effort to develop human rights. At the end of her visit, the expert warned of the harm that could be incurred by the CAR if it were to elect new officials with histories of human rights violations. She also expressed concern about the nations victims of violence, particularly those of sexual violence.

In February the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) [official website] called [press release] on the government to address numerous human rights violations [JURIST report] stemming from an outbreak of violence in Bangui last year. Last fall an eruption of violence in the capital city of Bangui resulted in at least 47 civilian deaths, at least a dozen rapes and the displacement of 42,000 people. Violence has persisted in the CAR since the predominately Muslim-based Seleka rebels ousted former president Francois Bozize [BBC profile] in March 2013. More than 400,000 people remain displaced due to the violent overthrow, with over a half million more people seeking refuge in other countries. In November UNICEF [official website] called for [press release] aid to approximately 1.2 million children distressed by conflict [JURIST report] in the CAR.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe [official website] on Thursday vetoed [press release] two proposed bills that would eliminate restrictions on the possession of firearms in or around state office buildings. House Bill 1096, would have undone the governors prior order banning firearms in Virginia executive branch office buildings, and House Bill 382 [materials] would strip Virginia government agencies of the power to adopt any regulation or rule that prohibits employees from storing firearms in their automobiles. State employees are currently not allowed to keep firearms in their vehicles unless it is job related when on state premises or conducting state business. The governor stated these proposed bills would have negative effects on workplace violence.

Gun control [JURIST backgrounder] and the Second Amendment continue to be controversial national topics, and gun awareness has risen in the wake of recent shootings across the nation. In December the US Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit vacated [JURIST report] a lower court ruling that found that a DC gun law requiring a concealed carry permit outside of the home may violate the Constitution. In October Maines revised concealed carry law went into effect [JURIST report] allowing legal gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Earlier that month the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld [JURIST report] the main parts of Connecticut and New York gun control legislation that ban semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. In September the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a mixed ruling [JURIST report] on DC gun laws, ultimately upholding six and striking down four controversial elements of the Firearms Registration Amendment Act and the Firearms Amendment Act of 2012. The laws were created in response to the Supreme Court striking down [JURIST report] a DC law prohibiting firearm ownership in 2008.
Unilever is to take its mayonnaise and dressings brand Hellmanns into the UK sauces category with the launch of a range of hot and barbecue products.

Free Report Unilever- A Deep-dive into Product Launches and Advertising Strategy Track product launches by FMCG companies to get an understanding of the product-level strategies including geographic concentrations, innovation types, product claim, category focus and more

Monitoring the advertising strategies of various brands and gain insights into channel focus, regional focus, and more

Perform company-level analysis to understand business model, size, and geographic focus Dont miss out on key market insights that can help optimize your next investment  read the report now. Unilever product advertising is mainly through mainstream TV channels. Out of the products advertised so far at least 50% (over 850) of ads have been run on TV, while print media comes second with 496 ads. Unilever also utilizes social media platforms for advertisement. Unilever products are categorized by innovation ratings and tags in our product launch database. The North American region consists of almost 74 products with innovations related to the formulation of the product. Europe and other regions also have more products categorized under formulation-related innovation, followed by the packaging and positioning of the products. Most Unilever products are tagged with High Vitamins, Recyclable, and Natural tags to understand what the product differentiator is from other products available in the market. The majority of products belong to the personal care industry with a total of 5,788 products to date. This report, through the Unilever Example, illustrates how GlobalData Explorer enables you to:Dont miss out on key market insights that can help optimize your next investment  read the report now. by GlobalData Enter your details here to receive your free Report. Please enter a work/business email address Country United Kingdom United States Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, The Democratic Republic of The Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D"ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People"s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People"s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Download free Report By clicking the Download Free Report button, you accept the terms and conditions and acknowledge that your data will be used as described in the GlobalData privacy policy By downloading this Report, you acknowledge that we may share your information with our white paper partners/sponsors who may contact you directly with information on their products and services.



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The consumer goods group has developed a line of ten products  four barbecue, three hot and spicy and three smooth and creamy sauces.

The barbecue sauces include a Japanese line that contains Kikkoman sauce, while the hot-and-spicy stable includes a Jamaican habanero sauce.

Citing Nielsen data, Unilever said what it called variety sauces is growing in penetration, volume, value and shelf space.

Our new range of BBQ and hot sauces will introduce a global palate to the UK BBQ occasion, brand manager Hannah Webb said.

Unilever has paired each sauce with a food, which will be highlighted on the packaging and on shelf labels.

The sauces will roll out next month, with a GBP10m advertising campaign to launch in May.

The 250ml smooth-and-creamy sauces have a recommended price of GBP1.69. The 200ml barbecue and 210ml hot-and-spicy sauces have a recommended price of GBP1.89.



Until 31 March, you can get 15 months of access to just-food.com for the price of 12  and, along with giving you three months for free, you will also receive two exclusive research reports. Full details can be found here.

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The questions I was asked Monday night about Nebraskas identity and culture should have been easy. I grew up on a Franklin County farm, spent every Sunday morning at nearby Pleasant View Christian Church, graduated from Wilcox High School, attended Kearney State College and have spent 38 years writing about Nebraskas people, places and activities for daily newspapers.

Yet as I walked the dark Rowe Sanctuary trail from a Platte River sandhill crane-viewing blind to the Iain Nicolson Audubon Centers parking lot, I struggled to respond when Mirei Sato of Los Angeles asked me to describe Nebraskans.

The editor of U.S. Frontline, a monthly Japanese language magazine for Japanese people living in the United States, focuses on American business, lifestyles, social trends, entertainment and travel.

When I interviewed Sato earlier Monday for Weekend Hub stories about 21 travel writers who toured Nebraska this week, Sato said she wants to give her readers a sense of the people in the places she writes about in her America Rediscovered series.

I hope she also asked other people she met at Kearney, Republican City and other tour stops her identity-culture questions.

As we walked the Rowe trail, with crane chatter as background music, Sato asked me what unites Nebraska. I replied: Husker football.

Then I said it has to be agriculture, our number one industry by far. Beyond our mostly family-owned farms and ranches, agriculture supports many ag-related and main street businesses, and at least one of every four Nebraska jobs.

I told her that rural south-central Nebraska is not as diverse as other parts of America or even other parts of Nebraska, but we are not all the same. Sprinkled among our many wonderful, kind, good people are a few folks who are lazy, commit crimes and are mean-spirited.

Finally, I gave her other words that describe most Nebraskans I know: hardworking, humble, helpful, private, generous, family-centered, religious, good neighbors, trustworthy, honest, content and conservationists who love their land and animals.

When I reached my car, I realized we should have had Mary Jane Skala walking with us.

Mary Jane and I met in the early 1990s at a National Federation of Press Women convention or springboard meeting when she was the Ohio affiliate president and I was Nebraska president. A Cleveland native, she spent most of her career as editor of suburban weekly newspapers there.

Hub readers know Mary Jane as a former lifestyles and business writer, and continuing columnist. Even before she arrived in Kearney in June 2012, she asked what I thought the theme should be for the column she was excited to write.

I told her I would love to read about us, as seen through her new-to-Nebraska eyes. I knew it was a perfect fit when I overheard two women, also Kearney transplants, talking at the 2012 Buffalo County Fair about how they agreed with Mary Janes column about the mystery of four-way stop intersections.

Her column also led me, her newer friends and people who just liked her column to think in new ways about the things we do routinely. We invited Mary Jane to ride along when we went places and did things we always do at work or play.

Sato should ask Mary Jane to describe Nebraskans.

We can learn a lot about ourselves from people with fresh eyes who  for reasons that may escape us  see us, the things we do, how we do them and the Nebraska world around us as interesting.

Ive met local folks who never take time to park on the side of a country road near the Platte River to watch sandhill cranes. It happens every March. Nothing special.

That wasnt the reaction I saw at sunrise and sunset Monday in Rowe Sanctuary blinds. Most of the travel writers were in Nebraska for the first time. None had seen the unique sandhill crane show performed on a Platte River stage.

It was a very emotional experience, Sato said.

Lori Potter is a Hub staff writer.
Braving the chilly waters of the Weir-pool, Saint Patrick and friends of the Thomastown Community River Trust wet the shamrock at the Big Splash sponsored swim in celebration of our national patron.

On what was a glorious spring day across the country, the floods had receded, the clouds had parted and the spirits were high. Determined to rise above the recent problems of severe flooding, the people of Thomastown were certainly up for a bit of craic and came out in great numbers to support this bit of March madness by the river Nore.

On behalf of TCRT, a delighted Peter Dempsey (St Patrick) expressed appreciation and gratitude to all who donated so generously on the day and in recent weeks.

We will now put right any damage caused due to winter flooding and have everything by the weir in ship shape condition for the coming season, he said.

The people of Thomastown and Kilkenny can be rightly proud of their Weir Pool and we are now looking forward to a packed summer of sport and activities, he added.

A special word of thanks went to Denis ORielly who provided his vintage car and chauffeured both St Patrick and his scantily clad entourage for the day.

Thanks also went to Irish Water Safety Lifeguards and to Dr. Achim Schlinke who were in attendance throughout.

Fundraisers are requested to please return any outstanding sponsor cards to Peter  087 2622322 or any committee member as soon as possible.
SHARE File - In this Feb. 5, 2016 file photo, Kansas State president Kirk Schulz laughs after speaking to reporters after the Biq 12 conference in Irving, Texas. The Board of Regents of Washington State University has chosen Schulz of Kansas State University as the 11th president of the Pullman-based school. The regents made the decision Friday morning at a meeting in the Tri-Cities.(AP Photo/LM Otero, File) File - In this Feb. 5, 2016 file photo, Kansas State president Kirk Schulz laughs after speaking to reporters after the Biq 12 conference in Irving, Texas. The Board of Regents of Washington State University has chosen Schulz of Kansas State University as the 11th president of the Pullman-based school. The regents made the decision Friday morning at a meeting in the Tri-Cities.(AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press



SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)  Dr. Kirk Schulz, head of Kansas State University, will become the 11th president of Washington State University, the Board of Regents announced Friday after making the decision at a meeting in the Tri-Cities.

The regents were presented with three finalists to replace President Elson Floyd, who died last June. They unanimously voted to extend an offer of employment to Schulz, who has been president of Kansas State since 2009.

Schulz is expected to visit Pullman next week.

"He does meet all the characteristics we sought in a new president," said regent Mike Worthy, chair of the search committee. The names of the other two finalists were not revealed.

Schulz, 52, is a Virginia native who graduated in 1991 from Virginia Tech with a doctorate in chemical engineering.

He worked as a professor at the University of North Dakota, Michigan State and Mississippi State.

Provost Daniel Bernardo has been acting president of WSU.

The popular Floyd died of complications from colon cancer at 59. He created a new medical school at WSU-Spokane that will be named for him.

The university initially reached out to some 200 people for the job and then whittled that list to eight prospects who were vetted before the final cut was made to three finalists, Worthy said.

The search committee decided early it would not release candidates' names, even at the finalist level. That decision was intended to attract quality applicants without placing their careers at risk. Some faculty members have criticized the secrecy and lack of on-campus interviews.

The regents said Schulz's wife, Noel Schulz, will be offered a job as an engineering professor at the school.

Washington State University is based in Pullman and has branch campuses in Vancouver, Richland, Spokane and Everett. The system has about 29,000 students. Kansas State, also located in a small city, has about 24,000 students.
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By Ed Friedrich of the Kitsap Sun

With filing week still two months away, challengers have already emerged for three of six local state representative positions.

Retired small business owner Randy Spitzer announced he'll take on Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Port Orchard, in the 26th District. Consultant Loretta Byrnes says she'll vie with Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, in the 23rd District. Firefighter Craig Patti will run against Rep. Drew MacEwen, R-Union, in the 35th District.

Spitzer, a Democrat from Port Orchard, announced in October he planned to challenge the district's other representative, Jesse Young, R-Gig Harbor, but is now going after Caldier, who he says lacks fiscal responsibility.

"Our state's Public Disclosure Commission records show that she has spent $61,000 of her supporters' money on a lawsuit," he said in a news release. She has raised $124,000, the most of any state representative.

Caldier is the defendant in a lawsuit with former 26th District representative Larry Seaquist, who she beat in the last election, in which he alleges she libeled him in a campaign ad.

Spitzer also faults Caldier for voting against the transportation revenue package proposed this session, for not trying to fix what he sees as an unfair tax structure and, along with other legislators, for not fully funding education, he said in the statement.

Spitzer, 63, is artistic director and executive director of Cora Voce, a nonprofit singing group in Tacoma. He has served on the boards of Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club of Gig Harbor. He is a former teacher, author and certified financial planner, according to the release.

Byrnes, a development consultant with experience in nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, is running as a fiscal conservative because she wants to improve government programs to ensure services  especially education  are delivered effectively, she said in a news release. Besides increasing salaries and improving recruitment, teachers must be enabled to focus on teaching. They're being distracted by too many federal and state mandates, she said.

"Conservative voices are not being heard in our district and that isn't right," said Byrnes, 55, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the North Kitsap School Board last year. "Our legislators are elected to represent all citizens and to work for the greater good of all concerned. We cannot have a strong democracy or good government without honest dialogue and collaboration. As a moderate with vast experience working with diverse groups, I believe that I can bridge the divide between various perspectives."

Byrnes, a Republican from Poulsbo, said she has experienced government-funded services being delivered efficiently while working as a labor market analyst for Employment Security and as the King County WorkSource area director. She also spent 15 years in Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Rwanda designing and managing programs to increase agricultural productivity. She chaired the Kitsap County Surface and Stormwater Advisory Group for five years.

Patti, a Democrat from Allyn, says he'd represent the 35th District's diverse values.

"The 35th isn't a 'blue' district, and it isn't a 'red' district," he said in a news release. "I like to think of it as a 'purple' district where the values reflect community and family. No matter what your affiliation is, I believe we agree more than we disagree and that finding our common ground will get results in Olympia."

As a 14-year firefighter who now works for the city of Bremerton, Patti says he brings a unique perspective on public safety. The 35th District is home to some of the state's most dangerous traffic hot spots, and police are woefully underfunded, he said.

Patti, 36, says he'd bring a new approach to leadership.

"These days it seems like there's too much political bickering in Olympic," said the former North Mason School Board member. "I believe that leadership means working with members of both parties to solve problems and not being afraid to say no to your friends. Innovation, common sense and a bipartisan approach is what we need to solve problems in the Legislature and serve our citizens."

All state representative seats are up for election this year. Only one local senator, Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, has an expiring term. All incumbents have registered with the Public Disclosure Commission and are raising funds. Candidates may formally file for the election on May 11.
FILE - In this March 20, 2016 file photo, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cheer at a campaign rally by Sanders in Seattle. Sanders' brand of democratic socialism may take some explaining in some parts of the United States, but not in Seattle. This city elected a socialist to the City Council in 2013 and was among the first to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage, mandate sick leave for most companies and offer paid parental leave for city workers - issues that mirror Sanders' platform. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)

SHARE FILE - In this March 20, 2016 file photo, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cheer at a campaign rally by Sanders in Seattle. Sanders' brand of democratic socialism may take some explaining in some parts of the United States, but not in Seattle. This city elected a socialist to the City Council in 2013 and was among the first to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage, mandate sick leave for most companies and offer paid parental leave for city workers - issues that mirror Sanders' platform. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)

PHUONG LE, Associated Press



SEATTLE (AP)  Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' brand of democratic socialism may take some explaining in some parts of the United States, but not in Seattle.

This city elected a socialist, Kshama Sawant, to the City Council in 2013 and was among the first to phase in a $15 minimum wage, mandate sick leave for most companies and offer paid parental leave for city workers  issues that mirror Sanders' platform.

So it's not surprising the U.S. senator from Vermont has found enthusiastic support here. Seattle is among the top cities that have donated to Sanders' campaign, and twice as many Seattle individual donors have given to Sanders than to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, according to federal campaign data through the end of February.

The senator returns to Seattle's Safeco Field on Friday  his second large rally here in less than a week  hoping to energize voters a day before Washington's Democratic caucuses. Sanders has drawn big crowds in liberal cities like Seattle nationally, but in Washington he has also held events in more conservative areas like Spokane, Vancouver and Yakima.

Saturday's nominating contest is expected to draw tens of thousands of voters who will determine how 101 of the state's Democratic delegates will be awarded.

So far Sanders has performed better in states with caucuses than primaries, which tend to have larger populations of liberal whites, and "the fact that his supporters are more energized is a huge factor," said Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "The real problem is the math," he added.

Clinton has a comfortable lead over Sanders in the delegate count. Based on primaries and caucuses to date, the former secretary of state leads Sanders 1,223 to 920.

During a Tuesday campaign stop in Everett, about 30 miles north of Seattle, Clinton noted she has gotten 2.6 million more votes than Sanders and more votes than anyone else, including Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

"The senator has made clear that we're taking this all the way to the convention in July," said Sanders' Washington state director Dulce Saenz. "We have an uphill battle, absolutely. There's no denying the math, but the second half of the primary calendar is much more favorable to Bernie."

Most of the state's Democratic leadership has endorsed Clinton, including Gov. Jay Inslee and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. But Sanders has raised more in individual contributions from this state than any other presidential candidate.

Seattle leads the way among large cities in per-capita individual contributions to Sanders, with about $145 for every 100 people, according to an analysis of federal campaign data. In terms of dollars, Seattle trails only New York and San Francisco in total individual contributions from cities, with $884,000 given through the end of February. That does not include individual contributions under $200, which makes up the majority of Sanders' support.

"Nobody is very surprised that Bernie Sanders has so much support because the city elected a much more radical socialist a few years ago," said James Gregory, a history professor at the University of Washington.

"Seattle turned liberal in 1969 and has never looked back," Gregory added, noting the city's last seven mayors have been progressive. Seattle periodically gains a lot of attention for some labor left-wing event, such as the WTO demonstrations of 1999, which helps persuade others to come to the city, he said.

Sanders is popular among his party's younger people and the party's most liberal voters.

"Bernie's very humane approach to politics really resonates with what Seattleites believe in," said Basilia Brownwell, 64, a retired public school teacher who has been hosting phone banks and events to get supporters to caucus. "It taps into Seattleites' feeling that the world they're seeing around them is not part of their dream. Bernie speaks their dream."

Lura Ulloa Bradford, 29, said Sanders' message about income inequality resonates with her. "He has the middle class in mind," she said.

"It's all grassroots, and it's really what Seattle is all about, building something from the ground up," said Bradford, who runs an arts and event space on Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, blocks from Sanders' campaign office.
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Camille Ann Kucinski

of Gig Harbor, WA

March 21, 1947

to March 16, 2016



Camille Ann Kucinski, 68, of Gig Harbor, passed away Wednesday, March 16, 2016, from complications associated with multiple sclerosis (MS).



Camille was born to Charles and Beverly Haselwood, March 21, 1947, in Bremerton, Washington. She graduated from West High School in 1965 and went on to attend the University of Washington. She married Gary Kucinski, also of Bremerton, in 1968 and they lived together in various locations throughout western Washington until Camilles passing.



A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 9, 2016, at 1 p.m. at the Fox Island Alliance Church, 655 6th Avenue, Fox Island, Washington.



Camille worked in the childrens shoe department of Nordstrom for 23 years until her disease forced her to retire in 1996. She loved her job and interacting with children, their moms and dads and other employees.



Camille enjoyed cooking, traveling, visiting with family and friends, scrap booking and, most of all, her grandchildren. After retirement she stayed as active as her disease would allow. She volunteered at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. She was an involved member of the Fox Island Christian and Missionary Alliance Church and was deeply connected with Bible Study Fellowship.



Camille is survived by her husband, Gary; two children: Christy Kucinski of Kirkland, Washington and Julie Mullen of Gig Harbor, Washington. She is also survived by six grandchildren: Clare, Jackie and Kenny whose mom is Christy; and Ryan, Megan and Luke whose mom is Julie. In addition, Camille has two surviving sisters: Stephanie of Port Orchard, Washington and Andrea of Peoria, Arizona, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, cousins and one aunt. Her youngest sister, Lori, passed away several years ago.



Camille was a gorgeous woman both outside and inside. She was absolutely delightful to be around. She had an irrepressible sense of humor and an infectious laugh. Everyone loved Camilles straightforward approach to life, her direct questions and comments and her generous distribution of compliments. Anyone who interacted with Camille came away from the experience feeling good about themselves. She fought her disease fiercely for 21 years with strength, courage and dignity, never allowing it to suppress her joy for life. Indeed, she was truly a lovely lady in every way. We miss her enormously.



The family feels that people are welcome to express their love for Camille in whatever manner they wish. For those who may be considering a donation, one of Camilles favorite charities is: charity : water.
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Jessica Ashcraft, wife of an Army helicopter pilot at Joint Base Lewis McChord, praises the progress their 4-year-old son, afflicted with mild autism, has made this past year because of applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy at home 3 hours a day, five days a week.

She called their ABA technician "amazing" and described techniques that improved markedly her son's ability to express wants and needs, to engage in imaginative play and even to tolerate his first barbershop haircut.

The importance of such therapy to this family is evident. Under an expansive demonstration program, TRICARE, the military's health insurance program, now covers ABA therapy for more than 10,500 service families and retirees with autistic children. Another 16,000 are eligible for such care.

Yet this is a nervous time for these families, and for ABA therapy providers. On April 1, TRICARE will cut ABA reimbursement rates as much as 15 percent, with a second rate cut planned in some locales next year. Some families are alarmed, some ABA businesses are enraged and some advocates for special needs children forecast an access-to-care crisis.

TRICARE officials see no such crisis in the offing, and hold firm to the rate cut plan. They do so despite receiving two complaint letters this month from members of Congress  one signed by four senators and another by 40 House members  urging postponement of the rate drop until the autism care demonstration ends in December 2018 and results are assessed.

The letters echo arguments of family advocates and the growing ABA therapy industry that a pair of studies ordered by the Defense Health Agency, on which rate changes were to be based, failed to capture accurately how TRICARE reimbursements stack up against commercial insurance rates.

Douglas McBroom, manager of the autism program for the TRICARE Policy and Benefits Office, in Aurora, Colo., said the criticism is off the mark. TRICARE now recognizes the difficulty of tracking proprietary rate data of commercial insurers. So the new ABA rates have another goal to align reimbursements to what Medicare might pay, because by law Medicare is the yardstick TRICARE is required to use in setting rates for health services.

The hitch is Medicare is health insurance for the elderly and doesn't reimburse for ABA therapy. Medicare rates generally are 20 percent higher than provider payments under Medicaid, the government health insurance for care of poorer Americans. Therefore, to reset ABA therapy rates, TRICARE is using a foundation of state Medicaid rates and then adding 20 percent.

TRICARE has been reimbursing $125 an hour to ABA providers with doctorate or master degrees, $75 to those with bachelor degrees and $50 for technicians with high school diplomas and ABA training. New rates will vary by locale but average roughly $114 for Ph.D.s, $107 for master's degrees, $67 for bachelor degrees and just over $40 per hour for technicians.

TRICARE notes that new ABA rates still compare favorably to its reimbursements for other mental health services. For example, Ph.D.-level clinical psychologists under TRICARE are reimbursed at $93 to $105 an hour.

Opponents of lowered rates say it runs counter to trend, as almost all states now require insurers to cover ABA therapy. TRICARE officials suggest the therapy industry has seen recent TRICARE rates as a "gold standard" to spur rate hikes nationwide, and so with families oppose reversing course.

The therapy company the Ashcraft family uses has assured TRICARE clients that services will continue despite the rate cut. But that same agency, South Sound Behavior Therapy of Olympia, Wash., will not be accepting new TRICARE patients, explained its director, Jennifer K. Orme.

"The 15 percent reduction in rates is crippling for an agency," Orme said. Eighty-eight percent of her patients are TRICARE beneficiaries. "We have already reduced overhead staff, and will reduce the pay of our employees." Given these cuts, Orme added, "we are not sure how many employees will chose to continue to stay (and) provide ABA services."

McBroom said it's too early to say if many more ABA providers will cap the number of new TRICARE clients they accept. But he has seen no worrisome sign that ABA providers are dropping current TRICARE patients.

Veronica Grant, spouse of an Army lawyer assigned to West Point, did get a letter from her ABA provider in December, less than a week after TRICARE announced plans to cut rates, explaining that therapy for their 12-year-old son, Colum, would be ending by early January, and it did.

The letter from Hybrid Learning Group of Somerset, N.J., referred curiously to a "continued reduction in reimbursement rates" by TRICARE, though the first cut was months away. The cuts make it "cost prohibitive for HLG to appropriately staff programs," the company advised military clients.

Grant hasn't found replacement therapy for her son who is nonverbal and suffers other medical conditions. Her search for a new provider, she said, might have been made more difficult because the Grants reside is in Bergen County, N.J., far from a military base.

Colum's therapy, before it stopped, focused on use of a speech device to help develop functional communication skills, so he would be able to explain when he had a headache or stomach ache and needed medicine.

"We saw a drastic reduction in the self-interest behavior, the aggression," said Grant. "He was making progress toward some goals  Then comes January, when the therapist left, and you could start seeing  at school behaviors went right back up again."

Lawmakers opposed to the rate cuts noted in their letters that TRICARE, to ensure care quality, also is imposing new certification requirements on therapy technicians. So as they gain new skills, and perhaps expect a pay raise, TRICARE reimbursements are falling.

McBroom encouraged me to share his contact information with the Ashcrafts, the Grants or any family struggling to access ABA care. He still predicts that the lowered rates will not cause any significant access issues.

"We don't have one child today that I can't place [with an ABA provider] unless the mother wants a specific provider or a specific hour of the day, [because] some providers don't work after-school hours," McBroom said. " But other than that, I can tell you I have honestly placed 100 percent of the children that have called me since I've been here."

Karen Driscoll, mother of a child with autism who now works for a coalition of ABA providers, charged that TRICARE officials "are aware of the access issues and are proceeding anyway" with rate cuts.

"When you have a disabled child requiring therapy services, any interruption or delay in care will affect that child's outcome," she said. "We're talking about military children so that also affects readiness," if deployed parents get word that sons or daughters are cut off from services.
The Herald reports:

Kiwi company My Food Bag is offering a double helping of parental leave to staff who are having kids.

All new parents and primary caregivers  including dads  will be allowed an extra 18 weeks of paid leave, on top of the 18 weeks the Government will offer from April 1.

And if staff choose to work through the extra 18 weeks, the firm  co-founded by Nadia Lim and Cecilia Robinson, who are both pregnant  will boost their salary during that time, paying them an extra 60 per cent.

Our philosophy is about healthier, happier families at home and we do that through our food and recipes, said Lim, 30, who is due to give birth to her first child in three weeks. It makes sense to extend that philosophy to helping families through our workplace as well.

You get so much more out of your staff when theyre healthy and happy.

My Food Bag is also giving all parents an extra six sick days a year, and has created a flexible environment for mums and dads returning to work, including the options of working shorter days and working from home.
Stuff reports:

The lawyer defending the prime surviving suspect for the November 13 Paris attacks said on Sunday he would sue a French prosecutor for divulging Salah Abdeslams private admission that he planned to blow himself up with fellow Islamic State militants.

Speaking two days after Abdeslam was captured during a police raid in Brussels, his lawyer Sven Mary accused the lead French investigator of violating judicial confidentiality by quoting Abdeslams statement to a magistrate in Brussels at a news conference in Paris on Saturday evening.
SHARE U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz

By Ed Marcum of the Knoxville News Sentinel

A proposed 700-mile transmission line to channel wind-produced electricity from the Midwest to the South got a boost Friday when the Department of Energy announced it will take part in the project.

The DOE has formed an agreement to help develop the Plains & Eastern Clean Line Project, which is a $2 billion transmission line that Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners wants to build from wind farms near Guymon, Okla. to Memphis. Construction is expected to start in 2017.

This would make the line accessible to the TVA power system, and TVA has said it will buy electricity from the line if the price is competitive with that of TVA power plants.

The announcement marked the end of a review process in which 15 public meetings were held as DOE vetted Clean Line's response to a 2010 request for proposals. The DOE was interested in stimulating private sector involvement in upgrading the nation's transmission infrastructure.

Scott Banbury, conservation coordinator with the Sierra Club's Tennessee chapter, released a statement saying the organization celebrates the DOE decision.

"This wind energy project represents a new era in our fight against climate change and re-energizing Tennessee with the help of low cost, Great Plains wind power," he said by email.

The project will create jobs and move the region away from reliance on fossil fuels, he said.

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said in a statement that the Clean Line project will help satisfy DOE goals established by Congress."

"Moving remote and plentiful power to areas where electricity is in high demand is essential for building the grid of the future," he said.

Under the agreement, Clean Line will cover all DOE costs in advance and to contribute 2 percent of project revenues to offset the costs of federal infrastructure improvements. The agreement includes protections to ensure that ratepayers will not face any liability if the project fails.

In 2015, the Economic Development Growth Engine board for Memphis and Shelby County approved an 11-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes for Clean Line for the firm investing $259 million mostly for a station to convert the electricity to alternating current for use in the TVA grid.
While no one knew it at the time, 1951 was a pivotal year for Mother Teresa of Calcutta: the start of a private battle for the tiny nun millions hailed as a living saint.

"When we talk about Mother Teresa, we celebrate her victories and all the good works she accomplished in her life. But what did this victor have to overcome? That's an important question," said journalist Kenneth Woodward, author of "Making Saints: How The Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes A Saint, Who Doesn't, and Why."

"We often miss this spiritual warfare component in the lives of the saints, that whole element of struggle and grace," said Woodward. "With Mother Teresa, this just has to be there or her story is not complete."

It was in 1928 that 18-year-old Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu left her family in Macedonia to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, first working as a teacher in Calcutta.

Then, on Sept. 10, 1946, Sister Mary Teresa experienced a vision of Jesus calling her to move into the slums while serving the poorest of the poor. After this "call within a call" she created the Missionaries of Charity, beginning the work that produced waves of support for the Vatican to proclaim her a saint  which will occur on Sept. 4. The rites will be held on the eve of the anniversary of her death on Sept. 5, 1997.

But back when the nun's journey was beginning, another story was unfolding  one that remained a secret for decades.

It was in 1951 that Mother Teresa prayed that she be allowed to share the pain and loneliness that Jesus suffered on the cross. Her private letters made it stunningly clear that this prayer was granted. Her visions stopped, replaced by silence.

"Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me?" she asked her spiritual director in 1957. "The one  you have thrown away as unwanted  unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer. ... Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives. ...

"I am told God lives in me  and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul."

In addition to hearing glowing details about her work and self-sacrifice, it's crucial for Mother Teresa's admirers to learn about this "dark night of the soul," according to the popular Jesuit writer Father James Martin, author of "My Life With the Saints." The most powerful part of her story is that she remained faithful and continued her ministry.

News reports about her upcoming canonization skipped this crisis, but "I think that's likely because it's so confusing for people, and that many in the secular media wouldn't know what to make of her 'dark night,'" he said. In fact, when her private writings were first published, "most commentators completely misread it, and even concluded that she was an atheist."

Truth is, many saints experience similar spiritual challenges. But while other saints  at least those who left journals  described episodes in which they felt spiritually attacked, Mother Teresa's struggles appear to have lasted through the entire public ministry that made her famous.

In another letter, Mother Teresa reflected on the source of her suffering: "I am afraid I make no meditation, but only look at Jesus suffer and keep repeating: Let me share with you this pain! If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation, give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish.

"I am your own. Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart. If my separation from you brings others to you ... I am willing with all my heart to suffer all that I suffer."

Martin said the reality of this "dark night" experience should make her a uniquely appealing saint for those who doubt their faith and God's love for them.

"Many saints did what she did  lead a holy life, work with the poor, found a religious order," he said. "None, however, as far as I know, did so facing complete interior darkness for such an extended period of time. That makes her, in my estimation, the greatest saint of modern times."

Terry Mattingly is the editor of GetReligion.org and Senior Fellow for Media and Religion at The King's College in New York City. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
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By Ann Wilson, Special to the News Sentinel

Editor's note: Submit your own personal story of faith for possible publication in the Faith & Family section. Please email 500 words or less to features@knoxnews.com.

It was 5:45 p.m. on Nov. 28 when the night bus left Changzhi headed to Beijing.

I like the night bus because it has beds, not seats, so you can "sleep." Unlike the summer night buses, this one had only 8 passengers. The usual 36 people had chosen not to travel by bus during the winter.

The bus was very cold for the first hour or so. One had to wait until the heater kicked into high gear! While waiting a quilt kept you warm. Of course, the quilt had been in an unheated storeroom until just prior to the bus departure. So, you had to deal with warming up the quilt with your own body heat, then it returned the favor by warming you. Also while waiting, the bus attendant helped the driver by continually scraping the frost off the windshield.

The first rest stop was at 8 p.m. Since most of us were dozing, the bus attendant loudly announced "xiu xi," "rest stop." It was a restroom and dinner break for about 25 minutes. Chinese truck-stop buffets are not my favorite dining stops, so I chose a small loaf of bread filled with whole sweet red beans and a banana. Then it was back on the bus.

(I am always aware of my bus tag number, since there are 20 to 30 buses at any stop. I do not want to get on the wrong bus going who-knows-where, or worse, get left behind. About 5 minutes after leaving this stop, one of the passengers approached the bus attendant to announce that the person in the bed next to him was missing! The driver pulled over to the side of the expressway, called someone (I assume, someone at the rest stop), talked with that person, then the bus attendant and the relief driver in a very unhappy voice. After a few minutes, it was decided that the bus would go on and not return for the missing person! Not sure what happened to him, but I can guess that he was put on another Beijing-bound bus. My policy, "Don't get left!")

The next stop was at midnight. Just a quick restroom stop, then back on the bus. It was extremely foggy and the driver went very slowly for some time. I'm not sure how long I slept.

Sometime during the wee morning hours, I awoke. I don't know why, as I do sleep well on the night bus. Then I saw it. In the darkness, a shadow of a small hill on the side of the highway stood out. Atop the hill was a red illuminated cross, a Christian church cross. The night sky was clear and the light from the cross shone ever so brightly. I'm not sure where we were, somewhere in Hebei Province southwest of Beijing.

Wherever it was, it was a place where Jesus Christ was worshiped by Chinese believers. It was a place where the light of Christ was a beacon in the darkness!

Thank you, Lord, for my awaking at just the right moment.

Maryville residents David and Ann Wilson have been facilitators for Volunteers for China for 14 years. Their calling has been to be an encouragement to the Christian Church in China by placing volunteers for service projects where the love of Christ may be shown. Volunteers may go for short terms of 2 weeks or more to teach conversational English or can go for a semester or more as a university or high school teacher. For information on how to volunteer this summer or at a later date, or to get more information, contact the Wilsons at info@volunteersforchina.org or call 865-983-9852.
Antonio Bolivar Salvador, center, as old Karamakate, and Brionne Davis as the young explorer Evan in a scene from the film, "Embrace the Serpent."

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By Soren Andersen, The Seattle Times

Two Western explorers go upriver through the Amazonian jungle of Colombia in "Embrace of the Serpent," in search of knowledge of the indigenous peoples living there. They essentially lose themselves in the course of their searching.

One man, Theo (Jan Bijvoet), makes the journey in 1909. The other, Evan (Brionne Davis), retraces Theo's passage 40 years later, seeking to solve the mystery of the first man's disappearance.

Both make the trip in the company of a native shaman, played by Nilbio Torres in the 1909 sections and Antonio Bolivar Salvador as the elderly version of the character. Both actors are themselves natives of the region, and although they have never acted in a movie before, their performances are forceful and deeply moving.

The shaman, Karamakate, is a reluctant guide, a brooding observer and a tragic figure. He's the last of his tribe, a symbol of the holocaust Europeans inflicted on the native peoples of Latin America since colonial times, decimating their populations with disease and exploitation. Evocatively shot in black and white in the Colombian rain forest, the picture  which was nominated for an Oscar  plays out like a variation on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

Theo and Evan are based on actual individuals: Theodor Koch-Grunberg, a German ethnologist and explorer, and Richard Evans Schultes, an American biologist. Both traveled to the Amazon to study the native peoples, and in Evans' case to learn about hallucinogenic plants used by the natives for healing and ceremonial purposes.

Colombian director/co-writer Ciro Guerra (Jacques Toulemonde shares screenplay credit) used the explorers' journals as the jumping-off point for his highly fictionalized and symbol-fraught story of a clash of cultures.

Disease plagues the journey of Theo, weakened and quaking with fever from the opening, then revived but not cured by medicinal treatments he receives from Karamakate.

Encumbered with trunks of supplies and papers, the men are obliged to shed the accouterments of civilization  to literally throw them over the side of their dugout canoes into the Amazonian waters  as they go farther upstream, a process that finds them returning ever more closely to a state of nature.

Throughout, the fragility of the native cultures and of the rain-forest environment that is their home is underscored by Guerra in this fascinating, melancholy movie.
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By Wayne Bledsoe of the Knoxville News Sentinel

No matter what Laurie Anderson does, there seems to be a sense of humor with it.

"Even as a kid I think I had a fairly advanced sense of the absurd," says Anderson, taking a break from practicing with composing legend Philip Glass. "So many things that are unbelievable are happening. I tend to find it outrageous on one hand, but really funny on another. Plus, I trust people laughing, really laughing, not fake laughing. That's something that's involuntary. When people do it, that's really great. You don't have to analyze it. It's just really funny."

Anderson's own work includes inspired storytelling to playing violin or electronic instruments. Generally Anderson has blended the two. Known as a performance artist in New York, Anderson's breakthrough was the eight-minute long "O Superman," a combination of minimalist music and Anderson's electronically altered voice conveying seemingly unrelated messages and observations. It became a bona fide hit in England and cult favorite in the United States. From that point on, Anderson seemed to charm the world with her quirky talents. At Big Ears, Anderson will perform a show with Glass, answer questions after a screening of her recent film "Heart of a Dog" and participate in a jam session over "Lou Reed's Drones."

"It's been fun to watch Phil's work grow and expand over so many decades and to be his friend," says Anderson. "And to be able to play with him is just wonderful."

Although the two have worked together many times in the past, Anderson and Glass did their first "An Evening With" show in 2015 in Ravello, Italy.

"We did some of each other's works and improvised others. It was a really free-form show and I really loved it."

The two are presenting it again at the Big Ears Festival. One aspect of the show will be working with pre-recorded voices, including the voice of her late husband, Lou Reed.

"One of the things that has changed over the years is you can play with people who are no longer alive. It kind of feels like that person is there. At first I didn't really want to do that. We did a piece, 'Wichita Vortex' of Allen Ginsberg and 'Junior Dad' by Lou and it was very eerie, because it was really like our friends were there. I think that's going to be very eerie and very beautiful."

Anderson calls Reed's "Drones" "a beautiful thing."

"It's something Lou used to do in his shows. He would make a bed for the work and it was these guitars leaning against their amps and he could control it pretty well. It's a thrilling sound. Very loud. And people can come by and improv with it. I'll be playing that the first night I get there."

Anderson says her film "Heart of a Dog," which is to some extent about her late dog Lolabelle, grew over time.

"I was asked to do a film about 'Why do you make art?' And it was my answer to that question. It just got longer and longer and it became a collection of stories about what stories are. That's always been my interest as an artist is to make things that make things that question the whole structure of that. 'What is this story?' ... How do you tell the story of your life? You frame it in some way first in a stylistic way. It became that, but it also became the world through dog eyes and through the eyes of a surveillance camera. It's about a lot of interwoven stories. I think it's challenging for people to follow all those things, but everyone is multi-tasking these days, so I don't think it's that hard."

Anderson's connection to animals seems deep. In fact, one was a favorite collaborator. She was playing an improvisational concert with two other musicians in Italy. As the music was winding down she thought the keyboardist had come up with one of the prettiest melodies he'd ever played.

"Then I looked over and his hands weren't on the piano. I realized it was coming from behind me in this tree and it was a little owl! This little owl was singing a little song and I was doing a duet with it! I thought, 'I can die right now because it doesn't get better than this.' We played for about three or four minutes and just gradually stopped. It was one of the highlights of my musical life and my life as a human."

Big Ears

For a complete Big Ears schedule see page XX

"Big Ears itself is such a great festival. It's so wildly eclectic that I'm really looking forward to being there. Of course I won't probably be able to see many people's work! That's the bad part."

"Last year with Terry Riley we did a jam with Kronos and that was really, really wonderful."

Anderson met Reed in Munich at a music festival stage by John Zorn.

"I've done concerts for dogs, but I've never done it for bugs. How amazing would it be if you could make music that other species would respond to? That's deep."

"I hope I have some taste boundaries. Like something personal you just told me wouldn't become part of my show.

Limitations.

"I probably do, but I try not to. Everyone does. My criteria for things is 'Is it really interesting and 'does it engage my mind?' I'm not somebody like David Foster Wallace who can write a whole book on the tax code and find it interesting. I think in a way he was probably testing his boundaries. 'What happens if it's not interesting all the time? Can you make a book that's just not interesting?' That was a really cool challenge.

"Right now it's a bit premeditated in certain ways, because I'm interested in certain ideas of freedom, so I'm more attracted to projects that have that at their core. And I'm more attracted to things like that when it's a national dialogue like there is now. That always wakes me up and want to do a different kind of work. It doesn't tend to be overtly political, really, but that's how it starts. Usually as some kind of anger or even rage at the way, particularly during elections when stories are key to the whole thing. The winner is the one who has the best story. It's the one that everyone goes 'Great story!' Is it true? I don't know. The relationship of truth is a crazy one, but it's the story.

"... This is a really great time to look at all that stuff."

"I have a lot of writing. I'm writing a bunch of new unrelated things. All very different projects. I just got back from an artist colony. I was the only artist in the artist colony. Zika had scared everybody off. ...

Big things.

"I'd love to do a big opera with a lot voices and choruses and sets, things like that."
By Alexandra Le Tellier and Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

LOS ANGELES  Comedian Garry Shandling has died at the age of 66.

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that Shandling, known for The Larry Sanders Show and Its Garry Shandlings Show on cable television, was transferred by ambulance to a local hospital, where he died. No cause of death was announced.

No additional details were immediately available. Calls to Shandlings publicist were not immediately returned.

Shandling, whose comedic career spanned decades, most recently appeared in Marvels Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 2,as well as cameo bits in The Dictator and Zoolander.

Friends immediately took to social media to express their condolences and remember the actor with a biting sense of humor. Garry Shandling was as kind and generous as he was funny and that is saying a lot, Jimmy Kimmel tweeted. Added Albert Brooks on Twitter: Brilliantly funny and such a great guy. He will be so missed.

Born in Chicago, Shandlings family would later move to Tucson, Ariz., to seek treatment for his older brother Barry, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. (Barry died at age 10).

Shandling moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to pursue a career in comedy writing. He cut his teeth by writing ad copy before eventually landing staff writing jobs on sitcoms like Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter.

The comedian had a brush with death in 1977, when he was 27, when he was involved in a serious car accident in Beverly Hills. The incident prompted Shandling to focus on building a career as a stand-up comedian. He landed gigs at the Comedy Store in L.A. and cultivated a stage persona that played up his real-life neuroses.



2016 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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By News Sentinel Staff

KNOXVILLE  Police say a 47-year-old man has been charged with the sexual exploitation of a minor after authorities found more than 700 images of child pornography at his home.

Emil Ford was arrested on Thursday and charged with one count of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and seven counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, according to a release from the Knoxville Police Department. He is being held at the jail on a $250,000 bond.

Authorities said in response to a tip received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, KPD's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and its Special Operations Squad executed a search warrant at Ford's home in South Knoxville on Jan. 26.

On one of the devices seized at the home, authorities reported finding more than 700 images of child pornography and three videos of child pornography. A Knox County grand jury returned an indictment this week against Ford.

More details as the develop online and in Friday's News Sentinel.
A police officer blocks the entrance to Farragut High School on Wednesday, March 23, 2016. The school was on lockdown after a nonspecific threat was discovered written on a bathroom wall  the third such incident within a month, school officials said. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Lydia X. McCoy of the Knoxville News Sentinel

A Knox County school board member said she hopes to have a community meeting in her district next week to talk about recent threats at two West Knox high schools.

Karen Carson, whose district includes Farragut High School where three threats have been made within the past month, said she wants to bring the community together to discuss the incidents. Her intent, she said, is not to answer specific questions about the threats but to have a dialogue about policies and procedures and how communication can be better in similar situations moving forward. She didn't cite specific issues.

"I think parents need to know some of what we're doing. I'm hoping that even by then we know who did it," she said. "It's what communication would have been better  and go over again what a lockdown means."

A date and time have not been set for the meeting.

On Wednesday, Farragut High School was put on lockdown for about an hour after there was "another potential threat written on a bathroom wall in the school," according to school officials. It was the third threat at the school in a month.

On March 11, classes at Farragut High School were dismissed early due to a similar written threat found on a wall.

And on Feb. 25, arriving students were directed through metal detectors and law enforcement conducted random weapons searches after a threat was discovered written on a restroom stall a day earlier.

Carson said she feels confident about the investigation into the threats. She wouldn't give details, saying she respects "the process enough to know that I'm not going to disclose what they're doing."

She said invites members of the Hardin Valley community to attend as well. Hardin Valley Academy was closed on Thursday because of a threat, according to the school system. No additional details of the threat were shared by authorities on Thursday.

Carson said she is also encouraging parents to talk to their children about what they may know about the threats. She said her intent is to build a bridge between the community and the school to talk about the issues.

"This is more from a community perspective, than an administrative perspective," she said of the meeting. "It's how do we as a community work with the school  we all have one common interest and that's that child in the middle. How do we work together to put an end to this?"
A petition drive is underway to have an Anderson County Charter Commission election in November whose members would study possible changes to the county's current form of government. Pictured is the Anderson County Courthouse. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)

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By Bob Fowler of the Knoxville News Sentinel

CLINTON  A petition drive is underway for an Anderson County Charter Commission election in November whose members could propose widespread changes to the county's government.

The names of 1,776 registered voters  10 percent of the votes cast in the last election for governor  would trigger such an election, and the primary organizer, Mark DeVol, on Friday said 1,764 people have already signed the petitions.

He said he and fellow organizers have until early June to submit the petitions.

"All we're doing is initiating a process," he said.

DeVol has launched a Web page, www.andersoncharter.com, which lists some possible changes to county government under a charter, or home rule, brand of government, including:

A limit of no more than two terms for the county mayor and county commissioners;

Reducing the size of the county commission from 16 members to nine panelists, or the minimum allowed by state law;

Having staggered elections of commissioners;

Requiring the county attorney to be an elected position;

Eliminating taxpayer-funded health care benefits for commissioners, which DeVol's Web page said is around $12,000 per person.

About half of the current 16 commissioners have health care benefits provided by the county, said the commission's chief deputy, Mary Murphy. That's the most in recent memory, she said.

If a charter commission election is approved in a November referendum, the eight members  one from each county commission district  would have nine months to draft a series of proposed changes to county government.

A referendum on those changes would then be on the ballot in 2018, DeVol said.

"There's a fundamental problem with the way things are done here now," DeVol said. "Anderson County needs to move forward, and they need to move forward with a charter."

Knox and Shelby counties now operate under home rule, while most of the rest of Tennessee's counties have a constitutional form of government.

DeVol said he's been studying a possible conversion to home rule government for years.

"I'm looking at this long-term," he said.

But he also pointed to the recent change to the way the county manages its budget  limiting the county mayor's powers in financial matters  as a cause for concern.

Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said she fully supports the move to a home rule government, including efforts at term-limiting the mayor.

"Charter government gives the people of Anderson County more input into their government," she wrote in an email Friday.

Anderson County Commissioner Steve Mead, one of Frank's most vocal opponents, contends that since Frank "couldn't get rid of commissioners by elections; now she wants to go to this home rule government."

If the size of the county commission were reduced to nine members, "it could get to a point where five commissioners could sell the courthouse, literally," Mead said. "Five commissioners could completely run county government.

"It's the wrong direction for the county to go. We have a system of government with 16 commissioners that's worked very well for a long time."

Commissioner Myron Iwanski said under a charter form of government, "the mayor's office will have much more power, and all elected offices are likely to be negatively impacted."

He said if the petition drive is successful, "I believe thoughtful, open-minded candidates will be elected to the charter commission and will conclude it (home rule government) is not a good idea for Anderson County."

Anderson County Attorney Frank Yeager, who has been embroiled in a yearslong dispute with Frank on several fronts, said the proposal to move to an elected county attorney would be a "very unwise move."

"Any time you elect the county attorney the position is polluted by politics, immediately," Yeager said.

He said only a handful of Tennessee counties now have elected county attorneys.
SHARE An early budding chestnut is shown at a planting site that tests for the survivability and growth rate of hybrid, blight-resistant chestnut trees in the wild Monday in the Cherokee National Forest. Six years ago the U.S. Forest Service planted 562 chestnut seedlings on this 1.5-acre plot to test how hybrid chestnuts bred for blight resistance fare in the wild. The project is at the forefront of research aimed at restoring the once-mighty chestnut tree to the Appalachian forest. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL) A planting site in the Cherokee National Forest that tests for the survivability and growth rate of hybrid, blight-resistant chestnut trees in the wild Monday in the Cherokee National Forest.Six years ago the U.S. Forest Service planted 562 chestnut seedlings on this 1.5-acre plot to test how hybrid chestnuts bred for blight resistance fare in the wild. The project is at the forefront of research aimed at restoring the once-mighty chestnut tree to the Appalachian forest. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL) Stacy Clark, research forester with the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station, visits a planting site that tests for the survivability and growth rate of hybrid, blight-resistant chestnut trees in the wild Monday in the Cherokee National Forest. Six years ago the U.S. Forest Service planted 562 chestnut seedlings on this 1.5-acre plot to test how hybrid chestnuts bred for blight resistance fare in the wild. The project is at the forefront of research aimed at restoring the once-mighty chestnut tree to the Appalachian forest. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL) Signs of blight can be seen on a chestnut tree at a planting site that tests for the survivability and growth rate of hybrid, blight-resistant chestnut trees in the wild Monday in the Cherokee National Forest. Six years ago the U.S. Forest Service planted 562 chestnut seedlings on this 1.5-acre plot to test how hybrid chestnuts bred for blight resistance fare in the wild. The project is at the forefront of research aimed at restoring the once-mighty chestnut tree to the Appalachian forest. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Morgan Simmons of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Beneath the tall white pines grew a dense understory of thorny vines and lean saplings.

The hillside had been selectively logged. Except for the plastic tags attached to some of the smaller trees, the site looked fairly ordinary.

Six years ago the U.S. Forest Service planted 562 chestnut seedlings on this 1.5-acre plot in the Cherokee National Forest to test how hybrid chestnuts bred for blight resistance would fare in the wild. The project, which includes similar test plots in national forests in North Carolina and Virginia, is at the forefront of research aimed at restoring the once-mighty chestnut tree to the Appalachian forest.

Stacy Clark, research forester with the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station and the project's leader, said before the chestnut blight struck during the first half of the 20th century, the American chestnut was unrivaled as a reliable, nutritious food source for wildlife, even free-ranging hogs.

"Chestnuts were more fatty and more rich in carbohydrates than any hard mast in the eastern U.S.," Clark said. "And because the trees flowered late, past the first frost, they consistently produced a large mast crop."

Almost half of the 4,500 chestnut seedlings being monitored at the national forest test sites are hybrid chestnuts derived from crossing the American chestnut,which succumbs to the blight, with the Chinese chestnut, which is naturally blight-resistant. The rest of the study trees are a combination of pure American chestnut, pure Chinese chestnut, and hybrids from intermediate backcross generations.

On a recent visit to the Cherokee National Forest chestnut study site, Clark examined a young chestnut with an angry-looking wound  called a canker  on the bark.

"This tree is a goner,," she said. "It's a hybrid, but not bred to be highly blight-resistant. It developed the canker three years ago."

Moving through the thicket, Clark inspected another young chestnut that stood about 20 feet tall and showed no evidence of the blight. The tree, she explained, was one of the "magic tree" hybrids  96 percent American chestnut, 4 percent Chinese chestnut in genotype  bred by the American Chestnut Foundation for the highest level of blight resistance.

"The goal was to combine the blight resistance of the Chinese chestnut with the looks and growth characteristics of the American chestnut," Clark said. "The blight-resistant question is complex. We're seeing that these trees are impacted by all sorts of things in the environment, not just the blight."

Clark said after six growing seasons on the Cherokee National Forest site, the hybrid seedlings have demonstrated good growth by holding their own against such other early successional species as red maple and tulip poplar. In terms of blight resistance, she said the hybrids are doing better than pure American chestnuts, but not as good as Chinese.

Barbara Crane, regional geneticist for national forests in the southern U.S., said the U.S. Forest Service remains committed to restoring chestnut trees on national forest lands, but is waiting for the American Chestnut Foundation to produce a hybrid that is consistently more blight-resistant than what is now available.

"It's going to be 10, 15, maybe even 20 years before we have fully blight-resistant seedlings," Crane said. "With the Forest Service's limited resources, we can only afford to establish trees with proven disease resistance."

The fungus that causes the chestnut blight was introduced to North America from Asia in 1904. The wind-borne spores spread quickly, entering the bark through fissures and wounds, and infecting the trees with cankers that eventually wiped out American chestnuts from Maine to Florida.

Today, chestnuts still sprout and grow in the wild, but succumb to the blight the fungus persists in soil and on trees  before they reach maturity.

Researchers have learned the blight isn't the only roadblock to re-establishing chestnuts in real-life forest settings here in the South. Browsing deer can kill the seedlings, and cuts left on the bark by egg-laying cicadas can provide a deadly foothold for the fungus. Worst of all is a soil-borne pathogen that causes root rot  a disease that severely infected two national forest chestnut sites in 2010 and 2011.

The University of Tennessee's Tree Improvement Program has worked with the U.S. Forest Service in the chestnut research. The American Chestnut Foundation provided the seeds for the out-plantings, and the seedlings were grown at the Tennessee Division of Forestry's East Tennessee Nursery in Delano, Tenn.

Clark said whether a tree lives or dies, a lot of time and effort go into every chestnut planted in the national forest.

"We have to start from scratch with a nut and go out and plant it and have as many survive as possible," she said. "It's expensive and takes a lot of resources to get them in the woods. There's probably 100 years of trial and error in breeding these trees for resistance. We'd like to see every single one of them survive."
Sweetwater Intermediate School team members Tyler Marlett, Mea Cedillo, Trey Jimenez, Jackson Dodd and Tabitha Baugh during their performance at the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville, TN Friday, May 22, 2015. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)

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By News Sentinel Staff

Destination ImagiNation is expected to host its global finals May 25-28 at the University of Tennessee, according to a news release.

The event is the top international competition for the Destination ImagiNation season. About 8,000 students from around the world will come to Knoxville to show their solutions to this season's challenges, the news release said, using skills that will help them meet the demands of an ever-changing world.

"The global economy of the 21st century will provide an ever-expanding array of opportunities, including challenges, for today's learners," Dr. Chuck Cadle, CEO of the nonprofit Destination ImagiNation said in the release. "Through Destination ImagiNation, students not only learn the process required to help meet the challenges of the future but also the skills necessary to thrive in it."

Competitions each year begin with a regional tournament where teams are judged by a panel including professionals such as teachers, artists and engineers, according to the release. Each team is scored on elements including originality, workmanship, presentation and teamwork. The highest scores advance to the state or country tournaments. The top-tiered teams from the affiliate tournaments advance to the finals in Knoxville.

This will be the 16th consecutive year the city has hosted the finals.

The Destination ImagiNation Global Finals 2016 are expected to match a record-setting year in 2015 that had more than 1,400 teams scheduled. The United States sends most of the teams to the finals, but teams from countries such as Canada, China, Mexico, Poland, Turkey and Qatar will also compete.

"The creative process is universal," Cadle said. "We are ecstatic to give more than 8,000 students a once-in-life-time experience where they can showcase their solutions and 21st century skills with students from around the world."

For more information about Global Finals, visit globalfinals.org.

For more on Destination ImagiNation, visit destinationimagination.org.
By Staff And Wire Reports

A Gatlinburg native and his wife remained missing in Brussels on Thursday, two days after terrorists attacked the airport where the couple had been dropping off a relative.

Justin Shults, a graduate of Gatlinburg-Pittman High School, and his wife, Stephanie, of Lexington, Ky., are among four Americans who have been reported missing since the attacks early Tuesday morning. Justin Shults' mother planned to arrive in Brussels on Thursday, according to Shults' brother Levi Hutton, who has been posting occasional updates on his Twitter account.

A Gatlinburg-Pittman guidance counselor told the Tennessean on Thursday that Justin Shults was a strong student and friendly presence.

"He's an extremely intelligent young man," Kristi Cantrell said. "He was well-received by teachers and students alike."

Shults was valedictorian of his class and a National Merit Scholar, earning scholarships to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Cantrell said.

The Shultses both attended Vanderbilt's Owen School of Business and received master's degrees in accounting, according to the Tennessean. Justin Shults began working for Clarcor, a Franklin-based filter company, in 2012 and moved with the company to Brussels in June 2014. According to Clarcor, he had been promoted to manager of SEC reporting, accounting and financial control in January.

Stephanie Shults had been working for Mars, according to various news outlets.

"We are aware of the news but we haven't been able to confirm anything additional today," a Mars spokesman told the Tennessean in an emailed statement. "So right now we are continuing to put our support where it's most needed  with our colleague's family and the search efforts. Our thoughts remain with the people of Brussels, the victims and their families during this terrible time."

Also missing in Brussels are a brother and sister from New York.

Mark C. Toner, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told the New York Times in a statement that about a dozen Americans had been wounded, but the department was not aware of any Americans who had been killed.

"We must emphasize that a number of U.S. citizens remain unaccounted for, and the Kingdom of Belgium has not yet released nationality information for reported fatalities," he said.
SHARE Rihab Sawah

By News Sentinel Staff

OAK RIDGE  A college professor will discuss the differing worldviews of Islam and the militant Islamic State, or ISIS, in talks Thursday in Harriman and Oak Ridge.

Rihab Sawah is a Syrian native and a physics professor at a community college in Ferguson, Mo., who also holds a master's degree in Islamic/Arabic science history.

She will speak at 11:30 a.m. March 31 in Room 101 of the O'Brien Building on the main Roane State Community College campus in Harriman. She'll also talk at 3 p.m. that day in the City Room of the Coffey-McNally Building at Roane State's Oak Ridge campus.

Both talks are free and open to the public and are presented by the college's International Education Department and the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning.

Islam is the religion of the Muslims, the professed faith of 1.5 billion people worldwide, and particularly in North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

ISIS, a militant Islamic fundamentalist group, is governing territories it captured in Syria and Iraq. It's regarded as a terrorist organization more threatening than al-Qaida and recently took credit for terrorist attacks in Brussels, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

"Today, people around the world are concerned about possible ISIS attacks and often feel frightened in the presence of anyone who appears to be Muslim," Sawah is quoted in a news release as saying.

"I will explain why ISIS leaders misuse Islamic ideology and how it serves their aim to establish their influence in the region."

In her talks, Sawah is expected to highlight the 12 ways that Islam and ISIS differ in their points of view and describe the historical roots of the ISIS movement.

Sawah began giving talks about Syria and Middle East in her early 20s. She was invited then by Amnesty International to speak about her father, at the time a political prisoner in her homeland. Since then, she's spoken at many colleges, universities and civic organizations across the country.
The Grand Lodge of Tennessee is located at Seventh Avenue North near Broadway in Nashville. (Photo: Holly Meyer/The Tennessean)

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By Holly Meyer and Jordan Buie, The Tennessean

Freemasons in Tennessee voted to uphold a ban on gay members Thursday during a members-only meeting in Nashville, according to Freemasons who witnessed the vote.

Two Freemasons confirmed the results to The Tennessean, but asked for anonymity since business conducted at the meetings is secret, and revealing it could have them kicked out of the organization. The vote took place at the Grand Lodge of Tennessee on Seventh Avenue North near Broadway.

The Grand Lodge of Tennessee did not return The Tennessean's request for comment. The organization has about 41,000 members in Tennessee and more than 300 lodges across the state, according to the Grand Lodge's website.

Continue reading at The Tennessean, a News Sentinel partner.
The blown out windows of Zaventem airport are seen after a deadly attack in Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday, March 22, 2016. Authorities in Europe have tightened security at airports, on subways, at the borders and on city streets after deadly attacks Tuesday on the Brussels airport and its subway system. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

SHARE This May 2015 family photo shows Sascha Pinczowski at her graduation from Marymount Manhattan College in New York. Belgian authorities and the Dutch Embassy positively identified the remains of Pinczowski and her brother, Alexander Pinczowski, who died in the terrorist bombings in Brussels. (Courtesy of the family via AP) This 2015 family photo shows Alexander Pinczowski and his fiance Cameron Cain in Greece. Belgian authorities and the Dutch Embassy positively identified the remains of Alexander Pinczowski, and his sister, Sascha Pinczowski, who died in the terrorist bombings in Brussels. (Courtesy of the family via AP) Related Coverage Search continues for Gatlinburg man, wife missing in Brussels

Gatlinburg man, wife still missing

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP)  Two New York City siblings are among the dead in the attacks in Brussels, their family said Friday.

Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch nationals who lived in the U.S., were headed home to the states when a bomb exploded at the airport Tuesday. Alexander, 29, was on the phone with his mother in Holland when the line went dead, said James Cain, whose daughter Cameron was engaged to Alexander.

"We received confirmation this morning from Belgian authorities and the Dutch embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha from the terrorist bombing at the Brussels Airport," Cain said on behalf of the Pinczowski family. "We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation, and are thankful for the thoughts and prayers from all. The family is in the process of making arrangements."

Meanwhile, a man from Gatlinburg and his wife remained among the missing.

Justin Shults, a graduate of Gatlinburg-Pittman High School, and his wife, Stephanie, of Lexington, Ky., were at the Brussels airport dropping off Stephanie Shults' mother at the time of the attack.

Justin Shults' brother, Levi Sutton, tweeted Thursday night: "For all those asking, we haven't gotten any updates today and we are going on almost 70 hours without contact from them."

For all those asking, we haven't gotten any updates today and we are going on almost 70 hours without contact from them. This is crazy.  Popcorn Sutton (@PopcornSutton__) March 25, 2016

On Friday, Sutton tweeted that his mother had arrived in Brussels to help with the search for the couple.

Mom made it safely to Brussels.  Popcorn Sutton (@PopcornSutton__) March 25, 2016

Alexander Pinczowski had traveled to Holland to work on a craft-related business that he and Cameron were going to start together, Cain said.

The couple met six years ago while taking summer courses in Durham, North Carolina. They hadn't set a wedding date but had planned to marry within the year, Cain said.

He called Alexander "intimidatingly smart, a brilliant young man."

Sascha Pinczowski, 26, was a 2015 graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York with a degree in business. She spent last summer as an intern at a catering company, Shiraz Events.

Shiraz Events President Shai Tertner called her "a bright, hardworking young woman, with a great career ahead of her."

Both siblings had hoped to obtain U.S. citizenship one day, said Cain, a retired ambassador to Denmark.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that New York had lost "two of our own" in the attacks.

"Two young siblings from our city were taken from us far too soon, and our hearts break for the family and friends of Sascha and Alexander," de Blasio said in a statement. "New York City has shown time and again that we will not succumb to the threat of terrorism, and we will not live in fear. Today we vow to continue standing up for freedom and democracy in honor of those we have lost."

The bombings in Brussels at the airport and in the subway killed 31 people and injured nearly 300.
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Gloomy projections about the future of the state's economy have more than a silver lining. The other side of those projections has the potential for an outcome that will ensure a bright future for Tennessee and its residents.

The report suggests that as many as 1.4 million people  about half of the state's current workforce  are in danger of losing their jobs to automation in the future. The most vulnerable are unskilled workers in low-wage occupations and those living in rural areas.

The projections are in a recent report titled "Tennessee Workforce Distribution Index." The report details findings of a study by the Center for Economic Research in Tennessee, which is part of the state Department of Economic and Community Development.

The upside of the report is that there a solution, and it is well under way. The solution involves transferring educational resources to train workers for the new career opportunities that will be created by automation.

That, in turn, will create more demands on education institutions  primarily community colleges, universities and colleges of applied technology  to retrain the current adult workforce as well as train the up-and-coming middle and high school students for those jobs generated by automation.

The solution is Gov. Bill Haslam's Drive to 55 initiative, the goal of raising the number of those with post-secondary degrees from the current 37 percent to 55 percent by 2025. That currently is being done through several programs: Tennessee Promise, which began last fall, guarantees last-dollar tuition for students at the state's community colleges; Tennessee Reconnect helps adult students who have dropped out of school get back in and on a career path.

The state's Economic and Community Development department, according to its website, also has announced the formation of the Career Forward Task Force, which is designed to strengthen postsecondary and workforce readiness in K-12 education.

The educational side of the solution is taking place at community colleges and colleges of applied technology. Mike Gallimore, lead instructor for the industrial maintenance programs at TCAT-Knoxville, said the jobs are out there. People just need the training.

"About 53,000 jobs became available nationwide in industrial maintenance last year," said Gallimore, who worked for 21 years at Denso Corp. in Maryville before becoming a teacher, "but there were only 13,000 people trained to take those jobs."

Longtime Knoxville businessman Randy Boyd, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, said that matching students with jobs depends heavily on collaboration between educators and industry. "We can't just be cheerleaders," he said.

The reward for keeping the jobs matched with the needs for the future will be the creation of additional income of $9.3 billion. "So, if we fail, it's cataclysmic," Boyd said. "If we succeed, it's glorious."

Success also will translate into greater confidence for individuals who have made the sacrifice to attend college, especially those returning years after leaving. That is why the Drive to 55 is important for Tennessee and every resident who wants a role in helping to build a "glorious" future.
Park Jeong-won was inaugurated as chairman of power equipment and construction conglomerate Doosan Group on Friday, heralding the fourth-generation of management for the country's 11th-largest business group.

Park, who was chief of the group's holding firm Doosan Corp., took the position at its board meeting earlier in the day, replacing his predecessor Park Yong-maan.

He is the eldest son of former Doosan Group chairman Park Yong-kon and Yong-maan's nephew, and first joined an affiliate of Doosan Group in 1985.

He served as president of Doosan Engineering & Construction Co., and more recently worked at the group's de facto holding firm Doosan Corp. Before that, Jeong-won graduated from Korea University in Seoul and earned an MBA from Boston University in 1989.

The new chairman has spearheaded the group's new businesses such as duty-free operations and fuel cells.

With the inauguration, Doosan Group, which started as a small shop in 1896, ushered in the fourth-generation of management.

Doosan Group has top power equipment maker Doosan Heavy Industries Co., No. 1 construction equipment maker Doosan Infracore Co., Doosan Engineering & Construction and a few other affiliates under its wing.

The new chairmanship comes as Doosan Group is seeking to speed up the sale of core assets in a bid to improve its financial footing.

Doosan Infracore, the group's construction equipment maker, has reached an agreement to sell its machine tool business unit to local private equity fund MBK Partners for 1.13 trillion won (US$921 million), according to industry sources.

The company also plans to list its unit Doosan Bobcat Co. on the local bourse in a bid to improve its financial health. Doosan Infracore took over Doosan Bobcat in 2007 from Caterpillar for $4.9 billion won.

Doosan Infracore has been mired in a protracted slump in the construction sector, in China particularly.

Doosan Group's defense unit, Doosan DST, is also up for sale. Hanwha Group, LIG Group and other potential investors have shown interest in taking over the unit, a deal estimated at some 600 billion won.

Last month, Doosan Group also sold its stake in Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. for some 300 billion won, whose proceeds will be used to beef up its financial status. (Yonhap)
By Choi Sung-jin



Demand for Korea's 10 biggest export products has been declining gradually in global markets, a report says.



According to the Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI) report, the share of Korea's 10 flagship export items in global trade volume fell 2.7 percentage points, from 48.3 percent in 2011 to 45.6 percent in 2014. On the other hand, the comparable share of China rose 0.9 of a percentage point to 40.5 percent.



The corresponding shares of the U.S. and Japan declined 2.2 percentage points and 0.9 percentage point, respectively, but fell less steeply than Korea's.



Korea's 10 leading export items, as of 2014, were electromechanical devices and equipment, automobiles, petroleum-petrochemical products, transportation equipment, communication-recording equipment, science-control instruments, steel products, plastic goods, organic chemicals and general machinery and equipment. Automobiles, communications equipment and petrochemicals are also among the 10 key export items of the U.S., Japan and China.



Unlike Korea, however, the United States also has precision machinery and automated processing units, Japan has precision machinery and power plant-related products, and China has metallic products and textiles, among their respective 10 major export items.



The critical situations of the three other countries' 10 leading export items are less serious than Korea's, because shipments of these products have grown continuously, the report said.



Another problem with Korea's 10 biggest export items is that the share of products whose sales continue to decline is too high. The 10 leading items account for 75.7 percent of Korea's total exports, far higher than the comparable ratios of 55.4 percent for the U.S., 67.8 percent for China and 69.8 percent for Japan.



Particularly in Korea, the shipment of other products than the 20 biggest export items stood at a mere 8 percent, compared with the U.S.'s 24.3 percent, China's 14.8 percent and Japan's 11 percent, indicating the three competitors are exporting diverse products, and relatively more evenly.



Undue export dependence on some items also runs the risk of being swayed by business cycles of related industries. In the case of petrochemical goods, for instance, falls in their unit export prices, reflecting low international oil prices last year, resulted in a drop of 21.4 percent in their export values, dragging down overall foreign shipments, too.



"The current main export products have led the nation's export growth but they are facing limitations now," said Byeon Yang-kyu, chief of KERI's macroeconomic research team. "It is urgent for Korea to develop new leading export items."



Government officials agreed with the private researcher.



According to a Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy analysis, Korea's 10 major export items have remained unchanged since 2005, with some items changing rankings.



On the other hand, the nation's four export competitors  China, Japan, Germany and Taiwan  have seen new export items emerge during the period. For example, automobiles and parts were not included in China's 10 major export items 10 years ago but emerged as the seventh-largest export products last year with $62.7 billion of shipments. Japan and Taiwan also saw mineral fuels and chemical products become new major export items, respectively. Germany, too, earned 37.6 billion euro by exporting aircraft, spaceships and their parts last year, which were not seen in the top-10 list in 2005.



"The domestic industries have remained complacen, with the competitiveness of semiconductors, automobiles, steel products and shipbuilding trying little to change their export portfolios," a ministry official said. "Korea has failed to develop new export engines while China and other developing countries have accelerated their chase."



Korea's reliance on its 10 largest export markets has also remained little changed at 85.7 percent, while other countries saw dependence fall, as seen by Japan (from 85.7 percent to 81.7 percent), Germany (from 71.6 percent to 70.6 percent) and Taiwan (from 83.9 percent to 82.3 percent).



The nation's reliance on its largest export market, China, rose from 21.8 percent to 26 percent. In contrast, China's reliance on the U.S. market fell from 21.4 percent to 18 percent, and that of Japan dropped from 22.5 percent to 20.1 percent. Taiwan's reliance on China fell more sharply, from 36.9 percent to 25.4 percent, over the past decade.




By Choi Sung-jin



Nontariff barriers are affecting up to 95 percent of Korea's exports to China, a report said Friday.



Since the Korea-China bilateral free trade agreement went into effect three months ago, Korean exporters have begun to enjoy its effects, industry sources said. In the first month, 4 percent of exports benefitted from lower import duties and the figure jumped to 20 percent in the second month, they said.



But the percentage has since remained largely the same because various nontariff barriers have eroded the FTA's beneficial effects, the sources said.



According to the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), the share of global trade affected by the two most common nontariff barriers  technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS)  has sharply increased since the 2008 global financial crisis.



The number of global export-import transactions affected by TBT surged from 17 in 2003 to 190 in 2014, and the number of trades hit by SPS rocketed from 1 to 368 over the period. This is in stark contrast to falling tariff barriers since the inauguration of the World Trade Organization in 1995, which seems to have forced governments to set up high nontariff barriers to protect their domestic industries, it said.



In China, TBT regulations increased from 28 to 48, and the application of SPS rose from 28 to 69. Korea's exports affected by TBT in China soared from 70.6 percent of total shipments in 2007 in value terms to 95.1 percent in 2013, a jump of 24.5 percentage points, the report said. During the period, the share of China's exports to Korea affected by Seoul's TBT measures increased 16.3 percentage points, from 10.1 percent to 26.4 percent.



This means China's nontariff barriers are nearly four times more broadly set up than Korea's, exerting influence on almost all the nation's export items to its largest foreign market. During the same period, the share of Korea's exports to China hit by SPS regulations rose from 0.8 percent to 10.6 percent, while that of China's exports to Korea rose from 1.3 percent to 3.6 percent.



KIEP submitted the report to a recent policy consultative meeting on nontariff barriers, attended by government and business officials.



The government plans to work out countermeasures at an economic ministers' meeting Tuesday and put the issue on the table at the Korea-China economic conference in Seoul in May, officials said.



Seoul's moves reflect policymakers' concerns here that it would be all but impossible to maximize the benefits of a bilateral FTA without tearing down the nontariff barriers. The government will first focus on launching a bilateral working group to tackle the problem and seek to substantiate its operation at high-level talks.



"Korea needs to establish a new guanxi' (new relationship) to lower nontariff trade barriers," said an executive at a local export company. "Aside from holding ranking-officials' talks, the private sector needs to make the most of know-how and connections it has accumulated to maximize the FTA's effects."



If Korea pressures Chinese authorities and customs officials too hard, such moves could backfire, other experts said, adding that China is a very big country, with different provincial governments implementing different trade rules.



"One of the roundabout ways to avoid nontariff barriers, for instance, is the establishment of distributive networks through joint ventures with local partners," said an official at aT, a state corporation for distributing agricultural produce. "It is important to make the best of guanxi by expanding cooperation with local businesses."




By Choi Sung-jin



Korea's five domestic low-cost carriers cancel 63 out of 100,000 flights, on average, compared with 15 by the two national flag carriers, industry sources say.



Low-cost carrier (LCC) cancelations totaled 148 last year, nearly double the 77 of 2014.



Despite the rapid growth of budget carriers, experts continue to raise issues with their safety. "The Korean LCC's cancellation figure is approaching 66 per 100,000 flights, the average of airlines on the blacklist of the European Union," said an official at the Ministry of Land, Transport and Infrastructure.



Government and business officials commonly attribute these problems to the lack of aircraft maintenance facilities. "The domestic LCCs depend on Singapore and other foreign shops for most maintenance jobs, except for some simple repairs," said Professor Huh Heui-young of Korea Aerospace University. "If there was a large maintenance complex in Korea, it would help to reduce flight delays and cancellations and enhance safety sharply."



But construction of a planned aviation maintenance park has been in limbo for two years because of regional conflicts.



In its administrative briefing in February 2014, the ministry said it would establish a mid- to long-term plan for an aerospace maintenance-repair-overhaul (MRO) industry by October that year, and create an aviation maintenance cluster. Asiana Airlines and Korea Aerospace Industries signed memorandums of understanding with North Chungcheong Province and South Gyeongsang Province, respectively, and set about to build MRO centers. Two years and one month later, no progress has been made.



The ministry says "no companies have submitted their business plans yet," but South Gyeongsang Province officials say they have "attempted to submit plans since last September but the ministry would not accept it."



Professor Huh said the ministry is studying the faces of fiercely competing local governments, because construction of a large maintenance complex would create a production inducement effect of 4.2 trillion won ($3.6 billion) and provide 17,000 new jobs.



Another expert stressed the need to hurry its construction. "The global aircraft maintenance market grew to around $120 billion as of 2014," said Ahn Young-soo, a researcher at Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade. "Singapore, a powerhouse of aerospace maintenance in Asia, is earning about 7 trillion won a year by repairing planes of Korean LCCs and other airlines."



In 2014, Korean LCCs paid 756 billion won to foreign MRO companies, Ahn said, adding that some LCCs are putting off maintenance because of cost and tight flight schedules.



An official at Jeju Air also agreed, saying: "We LCCs will be able to save lots of time and money if there is a large MRO complex in the country."




By Kim Jae-won



The chief central banker said Friday that Korea needs to reform its education system so that it will nurture creative thinking, leading graduates to create their own jobs in the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" based on artificial intelligence and big data.



Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol said that the nation's education system focuses on teaching job skills to students that fail to reflect the changing circumstances now and in the future.



"I agree with experts pointing out that the education system should be changed drastically to effectively prepare students for the future," said Lee in a breakfast meeting with scholars and businesspeople. "We must quickly brace for a new age as the rate of technological development is continuing to accelerate."



His comments came as many are concerned about their job security, worrying that rapidly-developing artificial intelligence (AI) will replace them. Earlier this month, Google's AlphaGo defeated Korean professional go champion Lee Se-dol, stirring debate on how the new technology will shape the world in the future.



The top central banker noted that conditions in the job market may continue to deteriorate, partly due to advances in new technologies, including artificial intelligence that may replace humans even in the most delicate and demanding jobs.



The BOK head also urged additional efforts to create quality jobs, calling it an ultimate goal of economic policies.



"Job security is closely related to the welfare of all major economic players, such as companies, households and people," said Lee. "We aim to stabilize employment with our economic policies, considering that the ultimate goal of economic growth leads to the prosperity and stability of every person."



He said this is why many central banks in the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, set stable employment as a top policy goal, considering stable employment as important as economic growth and stable consumer prices.



The statistics office said the nation's unemployment rate came to a six-year high of 4.9 percent in February, while its youth jobless rate jumped to a record high of 12.5 percent. The number of new jobs also dropped to 223,000 in February, from 339,000 in January.



The BOK chief, however, said the latest readings did not cause an alarm to go off, insisting the rise was partly caused by what he called seasonal factors, such as the great movement of the population around the Lunar New Year holiday and a large number of people applying for the national exam to become public workers.




By Yoon Ja-young





Ryu Sang-ho

KIS President and CEO

Korea Investment and Securities (KIS) President and CEO Ryu Sang-ho has been reappointed as the CEO at a shareholders' meeting. The brokerage house said that the reappointment of Ryu was approved at the meeting held Thursday.

The reappointment is notable when considering that securities companies here tend to switch CEOs frequently  they serve on average three years. Ryu is nearing 10 years in the post.

Born in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, Ryu majored in business administration at Yonsei University. After a brief career at a bank, he headed to the United States to get an MBA.

Returning to Korea, he joined Daewoo Securities, working at the London office of the brokerage house. He was called a "legend" there for his performance.

He was scouted by Dongwon Securities, which is now Korea Investment and Securities, in 2002.

In 2007, he was appointed as CEO at the age of 47, the youngest CEO ever in the securities industry. He focused on strengthening wealth management of customers and enhancing investment banking, which enabled Korea Investment and Securities to prosper.

Since his inauguration, the customers' assets under management soared to 133.5 trillion won from 63.3 trillion won. The firm also topped in the industry for four consecutive years until 2014, in terms of net profit. Its net profit totaled 284.8 billion won last year.

The company is also actively advancing overseas, focusing on Southeast Asia. KIS Vietnam, which it acquired in 2010, is now among the top seven in the industry.

"I appreciate the shareholders and customers for their trust. I will do my best so that Korea Investment and Securities can rise as the top global investment bank in Asia and do its role as an industry leader to upgrade Korea's capital market," the CEO said.

Now the biggest challenge Ryu faces is the acquisition of Hyundai Securities. If he succeeds in the deal, KIS will become the industry's top player in terms of capital and performance.
Yoo Euy-sang, ambassador-at-large for geographical naming / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk







"Justification and Practical Interests of Korean Diplomacy toward Japan"

By Oh Young-jin

Sometimes history can feel as close to reality as the present.

Such is the case with Korea's 14-year effort to extract reparations from Japan for its 1910-45 colonial occupation.

In the lead-up to the signing of the treaty to reset their relations in 1965, Korea was forced to settle for less than what it wanted because it was neither strong enough to have its voice heard nor smart enough to persuade others in the world how the law of the jungle worked in this part of the world.

Ambassador Yoo Euy-sang retraces the process of the 14-year negotiations in his recent book, "Justification and Practical Interests of Korean Diplomacy toward Japan," forcing us to confront the question: Have we grown strong enough to decide our fate?

The ambassador does not try to answer the question in his book but it is inevitable to find similarities between now and then. Some facts Yoo puts forward gives a chilling deja vu, making one wish sincerely that history will not repeat itself.

"The treaty is not just the result of the two countries' negotiations but is part of a bigger picture of global politics," said the ambassador, a Japan expert with two tours in Japan and director of Japan affairs, during a recent interview.

Now working as ambassador at large for naming geography, he said his book is a tribute to the diplomats who did their best on limited resources, calling the treaty "not the best but still an achievement."

He is not wide of the mark but it is still deplorable to be reminded that Korea did not have much say in setting its own course.

Korea was not even included in a group of nations that were entitled to compensation from Japan.

The rationale was that its provisional government's 1941 declaration of war against Japan was not recognized. Japan's claim that Korea did not fight for independence and was liberated as a colony as the result of its World War II defeat was, by and large, accepted by the United States and other allied nations.

Still, Korea had high hopes for gaining justice over Japan's illegitimate annexation but those hopes were dashed by the onset of the Cold War, pitting the U.S. against the Soviet Union. Initially, the victor nations wanted to force Japan to pay heavily in reparations and restitution to the point of depriving it of all its abilities to wage war again. Perhaps adding to the shift was the experience of World War II that saw Germany rise up in arms in anger over unbearable war penalties imposed on it at the end of World War I. Last but not least, the U.S. and other leading victorious nations were colonial powers like Japan, with their world views likely similar to each other.

In 1947, Ambassador Edwin Pauley, head of the U.S. Reparations Mission to Japan, made a tangible suggestion to the effect that Japan should be rebuilt so as to use it as the bulwark against the southward advance of the communists.

The communist takeover of China proper was complete in 1949. The following year, the three-year Korean War started as the Soviet-backed North Korea invaded the South.

It is notable that this old Cold War reset of the regional order is still valid perhaps, except for the Soviets being replaced by China vis-a-vis the United States. Japan is happy to be obliging the U.S. request to join in an effort to contain China in return for allowing it to regain its ability to wage war.

History shows a militarized Japan often attacking its neighbors. It is natural that Korea is worried but what can it do to stop Japan? Is Korea as helpless now as it was then? Or is it strong enough now so that others will listen to its concerns?

In the Cold War context, the U.S. virtually freed Japan from colonial war compensation, encouraging Korea to settle for assets left behind by Japan. A quoted estimate showed 90 percent of the assets in Korea belonged to Japan.

The U.S. military rule in Korea sold some of those assets to finance its operations.

There were a couple of interesting anecdotes. First, as the reparations negotiations began, Japan demanded Korea pay for damages done to its assets in Korea during the Korean War, a shrewd move aimed at winning an advantageous position over Korea. Second, Britain opposed Korea's entry to the list of 48 signatories to the Peace Treaty with Japan in San Francisco in 1951. Britain inexplicably cited the exclusion of communist China.

Then, what about the ongoing North Korean challenge?

Is it deja vu? Many claim the U.S. and China are making all the decisions and South Korea is being pushed to the margins. Or are they too stuck in the past to appreciate how big Korea has grown in strength and wisdom? In the thick of the rapidly developing North Korean nuclear issue it is hard to tell for sure, but it is important to keep asking ourselves these questions to find the answers on which our future may depend.

Lastly, the book contains a surprise remark made by Park Chung-hee, the father of current President Park Geun-hye. Before starting talks with Japan after his successful May 16, 1961, coup, he said: "Expecting Japan to apologize for the past and come to the negotiating table with more sincerity doesn't fit this age. I don't think that's the way we can normalize our relations. I think that it is wise to let bygones be bygones and establish diplomatic ties as long as neither of us incurs big losses." The irony is that today, no leader in his or her right mind would dare make such a remark. Does it mean that the two countries are continuing on a perpetual circle without any chance of making peace with each other?

Just by raising all these questions, the book is worth reading in searching where our nation stands now and where it should go.

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact him at foolsdie5@ktimes.com.
Jang Keun-suk shows his thumbs up during the press meeting for historical drama "The Royal

Gambler" in Seoul, Thursday.

/ Yonhap

By Park Jin-hai

The "Prince of Asia," Jang Keun-suk, who has avoided public attention for a year following a tax evasion scandal, will return to the small screen in SBS's new epic drama "The Royal Gambler."

Jang says he wants to become more than a pretty baby-face image with this fresh start in the 24-episode drama. His previous role in "You're Beautiful" had earned him wide fandom throughout Asia.

Set in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), Jang will star as Baek Dae-gil, an abandoned son born to King Suk-jong and a maid. He later clashes with the prince over the throne in the action and romance drama.

"Up to now, people remember me as an actor with a pretty face. I have questioned myself as to whether I have been too complacent with that image. I think that the Dae-gil character is one that will help me overcome that fixed image and start anew as an actor," said Jang during the press conference at SBS, in Seoul, Thursday.

"My first impression of the screenplay was that it's very three-dimensional as if I'm watching a movie. While reading the script, I wondered what facial expressions I would have made if I were Dae-gil. I didn't want to miss this opportunity," Jang said.

"The Royal Gambler" is Jang's first historic drama in eight years since the KBS 2TV series "Hong Gil-dong" in 2008.

Reflecting on his popularity throughout Asia, his comeback met with a fervent fan reaction. Fans from 35 countries including Japan, Taiwan, Russian and Argentina have engaged in promoting the drama, putting up posters at airports, subway stations and bus stops throughout their countries.

On the day of the press conference promoting the drama, some 60 fans mostly from Japan lined up in a long queue at SBS to get a glimpse of Jang standing beside stacks of 20-ton bags of rice donated in the name of each fan club.

"I have flown here this morning to meet him. I became his big fan since the drama You're Beautiful. I like him giving a warm smile, yet he gives an energetic performance when he sings in the duo with Team H," said Mayuko, 48-year-old woman from Osaka, Japan. "Last year, he was not seen so much by the public. I'm happy that he came back. I'm coming here next month too to see him shooting the drama."

Mayuko's friend who also visited for the press conference said she is in love with his "none-like-any-other" character.

Local industry watchers expect the drama could rekindle hallyu in Japan, which started in 2002 with the mega-hit Korean romantic drama "Winter Sonata," but lost steam recently after the bilateral relationship between Korea and Japan turned sour following political issues such as Japan's claim over Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo and the war-time forced sex slavery issue.

"The Royal Gambler" has been sold to KNTA, a Japanese broadcaster specializing in hit Korean shows, for about $150,000 per episode, for a total of $3.6 million for the whole series.

It follows Japan's import of the KBS hit series "Descendants of the Sun" starring actor Song Joong-ki and actress Song Hye-kyo. The military romance drama was reportedly sold for $100,000 per episode.

Jang has been one of the most successful hallyu actors in Japan, as his previous romantic series "Love Rain" was sold to a Japanese broadcaster for a $300,000 per episode.

The first episode of the new TV series will air Monday and will premiere in Japan in early April.
French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier speaks during a press meeting for his first Asian exhibition "Jean Paul Gaultier" at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap







Jean Paul Gaultier's special costume inspired by the traditional Korean hanbok is displayed at the DDP. / Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

Jean Paul Gaultier, a French haute couture and pret-a-porter fashion designer, wants to work with a K-pop idol group and attend a K-pop concert.

"I watched some of the K-pop music videos and they are new," said Gaultier during a press meeting for his exhibition, Jean Paul Gaultier, at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul, Friday.

"They give me a lot of inspiration. Hallyu, or the Korean wave, is sweeping the world and Gangnam Style has done well to leave a strong impression in people's minds with its witty content that empathized with the audience. Communicating over the cultural barrier and empathizing with one another is very important."

The French designer has collaborated with American pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Madonna and Marilyn Manson.

The exhibition is one of the events to mark the 130th anniversary of Korea-France diplomatic ties and is the first show in Asia, at the same time, a finale for its world tour in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that started in 2011 in Canada.

Gaultier said he cannot imagine a more beautiful city in Asia than Seoul to hold his show and he has no more exhibition plans in Asia. But he has hinted he will consider coming back for a special occasion.

"Seoul is full of energy and it's a wonderful city," he said. "I felt the same energy when I visited Japan 30 years ago. I saw many Koreans wear unique and elegant clothes. It's good that you guys accept new things."

The exhibition tour has taken five years to travel around the world and has presented Gaultier's pieces to some 2 million visitors in 11 cities, including Madrid, Stockholm, New York, London and Paris. It will be open to public from today through June 30.

The French designer also held a private opening fashion show yesterday with 45 haute couture pieces. Some were inspired by Korean traditional clothing, the hanbok.

"It's (hanbok) already a beautiful dress," he said. "Korean dress, itself, the shape is beautiful and the volume is beautiful. So I did it with some of my coats.

"I wanted to reinterpret Korean traditional dress in the Gaultier way. I don't know if you can wear it on casual occasions, but it was an interesting opportunity for me."

Gaultier debuted as a fashion designer in 1976 with his ready-made manufacturing business and opened a haute couture house in 1997. After his first show in the 1970s, the French designer earned the nickname of the "enfant terrible" of French fashion for his characteristic irreverent style based on street wear that focused on popular culture. However, his haute couture collections remain formal but playful.

From 2003 to 2010, Gaultier took charge as creative director at Hermes, a French luxury goods maker.
A large placard of Queer In SNU (QIS) / Courtesy of Twitter



By Kim Da-hee

Attacks on banners supporting sexual minorities in universities have occurred in succession.

According to the Seoul National University's student council, a banner of Queer In SNU (QIS), a group representing sexual minorities, was found ripped up on Tuesday morning.

The large placard welcoming freshmen from sexual minorities had been hanging at the campus since March 15.

"The attack is a kind of hate crime against sexual minorities," said Kim Bo-mi, the student president of the nation's top-ranked university. "If we leave the case untouched, such a hatred for sexual minorities can be more violent, leading to actual crime against sexual minorities."

The student council and QIS had considered calling police to investigate, she said.

It was not the first time a placard advocating sexual minorities was damaged at a university.

Earlier this month, a Sogang University's LGBTQ student club named "Dancing Q" found its banner in a bin.

It discovered that a professor of natural science tore off the hanging banner and threw it into the bin.

The club filed a complaint with police after the professor refused to apologize.
By Jung Min-ho

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) will create a massive shopping district next to Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), an iconic art and culture space in central Seoul.

The city government said Friday that it will obtain 18,524 square meters of land near DDP from the National Police Agency (NPA) by the end of the year as part of the plan.

In return, the SMG will give the NPA 36,176 square meters of land in southern Seoul and 3,671 square meters in central Seoul, which has been used as a public parking lot.

Negotiations for the deal started in 2014 at the request of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, who wants the area to become the city's landmark district for shoppers and fashion people.

Surrounded by modern shopping centers and traditional markets, DDP and its nearby areas are already popular among young, trend-savvy people. The area is also famous with foreign tourists, especially Chinese.

Construction work in the area is expected to begin in 2019. The SMG is considering building hotels and other facilities, and operating a direct bus route to Incheon International Airport for foreign tourists, in addition to more shopping malls.

Currently, SMG officials are mapping out detailed plans.

"If everything goes as planned, it will be the country's largest shopping area and it will draw many tourists," said Choi Pan-sul, a city council member.
By Chung Hyun-chae



The Ministry of Education has banned schools from using material published by the Korea Teachers and Education Workers Union to mark the second anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster on April 16.



The material has been published as a reference book to teach students about the lessons learned from the Sewol ferry accident.



The ministry said Friday that it sent an official letter to 17 education offices nationwide to prevent schools from using the material.



"Based on analysis of the textbook, we concluded that the material containing unsubstantiated allegations and claims while highlighting negative aspects of the state agencies, which could drive our children to develop skeptical attitudes toward the government and the nation," a ministry official said.



The ministry pointed out the material provides a biased view which it believes could lead the children to harbor hostility toward the government, citing this passage, "The administration is impeding people's efforts to get to the bottom of the accident, and accelerating disunity and conflict among them."



Many education experts also criticized that the material needs to have a balanced view especially when dealing with controversial issues.




By Rachel Lee

High-ranking government officials possess various forms of assets with some having gold bars and patent rights, according to data made public Friday.

The Government Public Ethics Committee released, Friday, a list of the declared assets of senior officials and lawmakers included precious metals, artwork, patent rights and construction equipment. The country's 1,813 senior officials disclosed their wealth under the Public Service Ethics Act to prevent corruption.

Rep. Sung Joong-gi, a Seoul Metropolitan Council member, reported 38 million won ($32,500) worth of gold and 12 jewelry items including his Cartier wristwatch, which cost around 179 million won.

Rep. Choi Yong-duk, an Incheon Metropolitan Council member, had 314 million won worth of gold.

President of the Institute for Unification Education Lee Geum-soon declared 10 pieces of art worth 120 million won.

Korea Green Promotion Agency President Hur Geyong-tae had 23 patent rights and 26 design rights.

Rep. Kim Jung-bong, a Sejong City Council member, had about 41 million won worth of construction machinery including an excavator and a forklift truck.

Data showed that some had property overseas.

Kang Young-cheol, the deputy minister for regulatory reform at the Office of Government Policy Coordination, declared a detached house worth 600 million won owned by his spouse in California, the United States.

Data showed that Woo Byung-woo, a senior official at Cheong Wa Dae turned out to be the richest official in the central government with his wealth at 38.3 billion won, followed by Chun Hye-kyung, chief of the National Institute of Agriculture Science, with 28.9 billion won.

The ruling Saenuri Party lawmakers turned out to be richer than those from the opposition parties. Average assets for the ruling party were found to be worth 2.31 billion won while the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea averaged 1.3 billion won, according to the data.

President Park Geun-hye had assets worth 3.5 billion won, up some 350 million won from last year. The President's assets have increased for three consecutive years.

The jump was attributed to royalties from her autobiography published back in 2007 and the rise in the value of her house in Samsung-dong, southern Seoul.

Among lawmakers, People's Party co-chairman Ahn Chul-soo ranked No. 1, with his personal wealth reaching 162.9 billion won.
By Rachel Lee

President Park Geun-hye is apparently seeking to extend her influence over state affairs after she finishes her term in 2018 with her loyalists dominating the ruling Saenuri Party's nominations for the April 13 general election.

The ruling Saenuri Party's nominations committee dominated by the pro-Park faction excluded many of those who do not support Park, including incumbent lawmakers close to former President Lee Myung-bak.

Out of 250 nominated candidates, over 120 of them are deemed loyal to Park.

Observers say the pro-Park faction dominates the ruling party after the election, Park may influence the selection of the party's presidential candidate for the 2017 race.

"Since lawmakers serve a four-year term, the president could still be in power even after two years as long as her loyalists maintain control within the party," said Choi Chang-ryul, a professor of political science at Yongin University. "Through taking the risk of eliminating rival factions before the general election, the pro-Park faction is aiming to take control of the new government after Park's resignation. This is the beginning of a power struggle between the pro-Park and anti-Park faction vying for the presidential election in 2017."












By Choi Sung-jin

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made 26 public appearances in the first quarter of this year, most for military inspections, the Unification Ministry said Thursday.

Kim's public appearances declined 24 percent from a year ago, the ministry said. This is because the number of days when Kim's location was unknown increased by 21 in the first three months of the year, five times more than the four days a year ago.

The ministry presumed the sharp increase in days when Kim was not seen in public was due to the need for his "determination and secrecy" over North's nuclear and missile provocations this year. The public outings included 16 military inspections, five economic events and four political meetings.

Kim's military activities increased more than 20 percent from a year earlier, particularly since the launch of a long-range rocket, reflecting the sense of crisis the North felt amid the toughening U.N. sanctions and massive war games conducted by South Korea and the United States, the ministry said.

Hwang Byeong-seo, the No. 2 man in the North's military hierarchy, accompanied Kim only five times, sharply down from the 18 times in the same period last year, raising questions among North Korea workers here about his status.
By Chung Ah-young



Korean civic groups called for the Japanese Embassy to cancel the Seoul Sake Festival which is scheduled to take place this weekend due to the concerns over "possible radioactive contamination." Sake is a Japanese wine made from fermented rice.



Eleven civic groups held a press conference in front of the Public Information and Cultural Center of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Friday, to urge the embassy to cancel the event to be held at COEX in southern Seoul today and Sunday.



"Some 100 Japanese sake makers which will participate in the event are including some products manufactured in regions near Fukushima where the nuclear accident occurred in 2011," an activist said.



"As many countries are banning imports of fishery and agricultural products from Japan, it is nonsense to hold the sake festival here," she said.



"As the main ingredients of sake are water and rice, they should not hold the event in which Koreans can taste the sake which might be produced in regions contaminated with radioactivity," she said.



They claimed that rice produced in Fukushima was found to contain a high level of radioactive Cesium at 50-77 Becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg).



After the press conference, the activists delivered a letter of protest to the Japanese Embassy.



The embassy said that all the sake which has been imported has been examined to detect radioactive contamination and deemed safe.



The festival is organized by the Japanese Embassy in Korea with some 100 Japanese sake makers taking part.



The government has banned imports of fish from eight prefectures in Japan since September 2013.




A local court on Friday delivered an eight-month jail term to an illegal Indonesian immigrant, suspected of following a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida.

The Seoul Central District Court, however, suspended the sentence for the 33-year-old, whose identity was withheld, for two years. He was convicted of violating South Korea's control of firearms, swords, explosives and miscellaneous weapons act.

The man was arrested in November in South Chungcheong Province, where he had been working in a small manufacturing company for about eight years.

A bowie knife, a mock M4 assault rifle and a number of books on Islamic fundamentalism were confiscated from his house.

While acknowledging that the 33-year-old posed a threat to public safety by illegally possessing a weapon and a mock gun that can be used in criminal activity, the court said it took into consideration that he did not have any criminal records.












North Korea has asked the U.N. Security Council to convene a meeting to discuss joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States, calling the maneuvers "a grave threat" to the communist nation.



Amb. Ja Song-nam, chief of the North's mission to the U.N., made the request in a letter to the president of the Security Council last week, saying the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises are the largest-ever in size and scope and "truly aggressive in their nature."



"The U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises constitute a grave threat to the DPRK as well as international peace and security and deserve urgent consideration by the Security Council," Ja said in the letter, according to a copy released Wednesday.



"Therefore, I request that the issue of the US joint military exercises be placed on the Security Council agenda and that a meeting of the Council be urgently held."



Pyongyang has long denounced such annual drills as a rehearsal for invasion, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that they are purely defensive in nature.



In protest of the exercises, the North has carried out a series of missile launches in recent weeks.



This year's exercises, one of the largest ever, took place amid heightened tensions in the wake of the North's nuclear and long-range missile tests, and were aimed in part at warning the communist nation not to undertake provocations.



"These real war-like military maneuvers are also truly aggressive in their nature, characterized by a 'beheading operation' aimed to remove the supreme leadership of the DPRK and 'bring down its social system' pursuant to the U.S.-drafted war scenario," the North's envoy said.



The North has made similar requests to the Security Council to no avail. Ja said the council should accept the request, rather than dealing with the country's human rights situation, which he said has nothing to do with international peace and security. (Yonhap)




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called on the military to be ready to strike government organizations in Seoul, the North's state media said Friday, amid heightened tension on the divided peninsula.

The North's leader said that the North's military should be ready to "ruthlessly" destroy Seoul's government bodies during his inspection of a long-range artillery exercise, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"All soldiers should be nurtured into warriors full of combat spirit and be on high alert," Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA.

The North's warning is the latest in a series of bellicose rhetoric in response to tougher U.N. sanctions on the North and ongoing joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.

The North said Wednesday that it is ready to turn President Park Geun-hye and her office into "a sea of flames and ashes," with its large-caliber multiple rocket launching system.

It said Thursday that it has successfully conducted a solid-fuel rocket engine test, boosting its ballistic rocket capabilities to hit its enemies.

Last week, the North launched two medium-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, with one believed to have blown up mid-flight.

It also warned that it plans to conduct nuclear warhead and ballistic missile tests "in a short time," sparking speculation that it may carry out its fifth nuclear test and missile provocations. The North conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, followed by its fourth one in January. (Yonhap)
President Park Geun-hye warned Friday that North Korea's provocations will eventually lead to the regime's self-destruction, as she ramped up pressure on the isolationist regime to give up its nuclear weapons program.

"The Republic of Korea (South Korea) will stay firm despite North Korea's threats and the regime will eventually self-destruct with its consistent provocations," Park said during a ceremony at the national cemetery in the central city of Daejeon,

The ceremony was held to commemorate South Korean military personnel killed in three separate clashes with North Korea in the Yellow Sea area. The clashes include North Korea's torpedoing of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan on March 26, 2010, which killed 46 sailors.

The Seoul government designated the fourth Friday of March as a day of remembrance for those that were killed while defending the country in those skirmishes.

Park further renewed her calls on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and urged it to embrace change.












South Korea's unification ministry held its first meeting Friday to discuss how to set up an agency on North Korean human rights in accordance with a new law that aims to improve Pyongyang's dismal treatment of its people, government officials said.



Seoul is seeking to establish a center tasked with investigating the North's human rights violations and supporting relevant civic groups by September, the ministry said. The center will also maintain relevant archives on abuses.



The meeting was held at the ministry, and was attended by Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi and six others, including two civilian experts, according to the officials.

The law was passed earlier this month after being held up for years due to political wrangling between conservatives and liberals.



The Unification Ministry said it plans to allocate some 20 billion won (US$17.1 million) every year toward supporting the center.



Pyongyang has long been labeled one of the worst human rights violators in the world.



The communist regime does not tolerate dissent, holds hundreds of thousands of people in political prison camps and keeps tight control over outside information. (Yonhap)




/Courtesy of Twitter

By Lee Han-soo

The U.N. blacklisted North Korean cargo ship the Jin Tung, which the Philippines government impounded, was released Thursday, according to the Voice of America.

"Due to the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) cancelation of the vessel Jin Tung from resolution 2270, we no longer have any reason to confiscate the vessel and have released it," said Charles Jose, a spokesperson for the Philippines Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Jin Tung was put on the watch list along with 31 vessels owned by "Ocean Maritime Management Company," a North Korean shipping company, on March 2.

It was the first vessel seized under the UNSC's sanctions resolution 2270 on North Korea.

But on March 21, the UNSC removed four North Korean vessels from its blacklist after China said Chinese citizens owned them.

The owners are known to have submitted a written agreement stating they will fire all North Korean personnel and not hire any more North Korean nationals.

The vessel left Subic Bay and headed for China at 2:50 p.m. Thursday.
Na Eun-yeop, 14, rides a horse with the help of his mother Jung Hye-kyung, right, at the horse stable in Aewol Town on Jeju Island on March 22. The teen, who has a developmental disorder, has taken equine therapy for three months. / Korea Times photo by Kang Hyun-kyung







Kim Kab-su, president of the Korean Association of Riding for the Disabled and a professor at the Cheju Halla University

/ Korea Times

By Kang Hyun-kyung

JEJU  In 2002, 15 boys from the juvenile correctional center in the city of Chuncheon, northeast of Seoul, were invited to a rare summer camp organized by Kim Kab-su, president of the Korean Association of Riding for the Disabled.

The camp involved a 10-day equine therapy program in which each teenager, after learning the basics of horseback riding at the Hallym University and with the assistance of an instructor, helped a disabled child have a safe horseback riding experience. The program seemed to help both the disabled children and the delinquent teens. None of the 15 boys committed crimes after they were released, and accordingly, no one returned to the center.

"The then center chief was thrilled about the results," Kim, a professor of equine studies at the Cheju Halla University, said during a March 22 interview at his office on Jeju Island. "I heard from him that about 90 percent of the released delinquents usually return to the center. But there were no returnees among the 15 boys who participated in the horse therapy." With full support from the center chief, Kim began hosting the summer camp every year until he was replaced following a staff reshuffle at the center.

In Europe and North America, plenty of research papers have reported that horseback riding helps people with special needs, such as those who are diagnosed with autism or cerebral palsy, improve their cognitive and physical functions. They have also found that equine therapy helps correct violent tendencies.





Kim Jin-kyung, a blind student, takes equine therapy. / Korea Times



Animals, including dogs, cats and dolphins, are sometimes used in treating patients. However, Kim said horses are more often used in such treatments than other animals because their similarities with humans in terms of social and responsive behavior make it easier for them to bond with patients.

Plus, Kim said, the feeling of empowerment the minors got from their participation at the summer camp helped correct their violent tendencies. "Many of them had no experiences of helping others. They were considered troublemakers, so their parents didn't ask them to run errands or perform chores because they thought their children would only make things worse," he said. "During the summer camp, however, the teens were asked to take care of disabled children, and this task enabled them to develop a sense of responsibility."

Kim, 58, is the pioneer of therapeutic horseback riding in Korea, introducing it in the country in 1996 after returning from a 12-year stay in Germany. He earned his doctoral degree in equine studies from the Free University of Berlin and then ran an animal hospital in Germany for several years.

After returning to Korea, he opened a horse hospital, equipped with a surgery room and a stable, on a 16,500-square-meter piece of land in the city of Ansung, Gyeonggi Province. He hired full-time staff and trained them to become equine therapy instructors.

It took time for him to officially launch the therapeutic horseback riding program, partly because the concept was new to many Koreans. He asked social workers and welfare ministry officials to help him launch the program, but none of them were interested. "Their common reaction was riding a horse is dangerous for disabled people because they could get injured and if this happens, their lives would get worse," he said.

Sometime later, an open-minded group of social workers from the Anyang Welfare Center for the Disabled visited Kim and expressed their interest in the program. They eventually took 20 people with special needs to Kim's stable.

Kim faced challenges in his early equine therapy sessions. For one, the horses in the program at that time were former racehorses and were violent. He was able to perform the therapy one or two months after he trained those horses. His early patients initially displayed fear and didn't approach the horses, but as time went by, they became comfortable enough to touch and interacted with the horses.

For the first five years, Kim paid for the equine therapy program himself with his earnings from treating horses. In 2001, Kim established the Korean Association of Riding for the Disabled to train certified instructors and promote equine therapy to the public. In 2012, he joined the Cheju Halla University as a founding member of the School of Equine Science.

Some of his students at the university are disabled people or those who have children with special needs, such as Jung Hye-kyung, whose son has a developmental disorder. Jung said therapeutic horseback riding helped strengthens her 14-year-old son Eun-yeop's spine and muscles.

She said before the horseback riding course, her son had a hard time sitting upright because his muscles were too weak. However, she said three months after taking the program, he is able to do so without difficulty.

"Eun-yeop also had a problem with his pelvis, as it became deformed as he got older and affected his posture," she said. "But after riding a horse, his spine and pelvis have improved. The alignment from riding helped him a lot."

The significant change in her son's well-being opened her eyes to therapeutic horseback riding and motivated her to take up equine studies at the university because she wanted to know more about the therapy and better help her son.

Many articles in Western countries have stated that equine therapy effectively improves cerebral palsy patients' ability to speak by increasing the quantity, quality and volume of the rider's vocalization.

"For children with cerebral palsy, the horse is a wonderful motivation for speech, while the horse's movement can improve the coordination of breathing, swallowing and sound production," Liz Baker wrote in the article "Cerebral Palsy and Therapeutic Riding."

A 2012 William & Mary School of Education research also found the benefits of therapeutic horseback riding for children with autism. Researchers and equine experts joined a 30-week therapeutic horseback riding program designed for 21 elementary school children with autism and found that the children's social interaction significantly improved.

According to author Erin Zagursky, after six weeks of once-a-week lessons, the students' social behavior ratings changed from "highly autistic range" to "possibly autistic range." Teachers also reported an increase in eye contact from their students. "Students were more attentive, more self-controlled and need less external support," Zagursky wrote in the article "Benefits of Therapeutic Riding for Children with Autism Extend to Classroom."

Despite these benefits, equine therapy is considered expensive for middle- and lower-middle income families. Given that many disabled people here are unemployed and live in poverty, they cannot afford the therapy.

Kim said he plans to establish a fund to make the equine therapy accessible to marginalized disabled people. To that end, he said public awareness of the therapy is necessary.
By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan

Recently the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 2270 which puts severe economic sanctions on North Korea. There was a rare unanimity in the UNSC against the nuclear and missile development by the North Korean regime and these sanctions if put into action have the potential to shake the reclusive regime in Pyongyang.

However it is quite interesting to note that no such sanctions were ever imposed on the five permanent members of the UNSC for developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They continue to develop more sophisticated weaponry and use them against weaker nations as it has happened in Ukraine, Syria and Iraq in the recent years. Since the five permanent members also have the veto powers in the UNSC so any sanction against them would never pass.

The biggest mistake the North Korean regime has done is to challenge the sole superpower in the world  the United States (U.S.). The North Koreans do not understand their position in the international system. Just like Confucian ethics the relations between the nation-states are based on certain rules and regulations. Only the big and powerful countries have the right to develop and have monopoly over the nuclear weapons and also use them as it happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It is not the first time that an impoverished state like North Korea has challenged the might of any superpower. In 1950 the North Korean regime dared to unify the Korean Peninsula through military means. The result was three years of the devastating Korean War (1950-53) when almost every inch of the North Korean territory was bombed by the U.S. and its allies. It is often said that the U.S. forces "ran out of targets" in North Korea. But nothing happened to China when it gobbled up an independent nation called Tibet because the big powers have the right to eliminate smaller nations.












By Ohood Al Roumi

DUBAI  I'm delighted to join in the celebration of this year's International Day of Happiness . But, to be honest, my focus is on the other 364 days of the year. After all, I am in the happiness business.

There have been a number of initiatives and efforts around the world to move beyond GDP and data on schools or hospital beds in measuring a country's success in governance and development. In a country that has spent the past five decades building an economy from a standing start, the government in which I serve knows only too well that such figures, while showing that our development is progressing, do not tell the whole story  or anything like it.

In 2011, the United Nations called on member states to place more emphasis on happiness and wellbeing when working to achieve and measure social and economic development. Since then, many countries have come to realize that placing happiness at the heart of their governance objectives makes perfect sense.

Here in the UAE, we have recognized, as others are recognizing, that we need benchmarks for governance that truly express what we mean by success. The question we ask is not whether we are providing adequate services and sound economic policy to our people, but whether we are making our people happy. Of course, the latter requires delivering the former; but it also means going beyond statistics, to comprehend that we are all individuals with our own hopes, fears, and aspirations.

Happiness is serious business in the UAE, where attention to it permeates everything we do in government, including efforts to encourage private-sector companies to place a value on it in their everyday operations. It entails formulating national strategies, programs, and policies to increase happiness and then measuring our achievements on an ongoing basis.

But what exactly is this indicator we are calling happiness? It is neither a transitory moment of delight nor a constant condition. It is a state of being beyond satisfaction, a flourishing and ambient joy.

Happiness is knowing that you and your family are safe; that there is opportunity open to you and your children; and that you can depend on a high degree of care, dignity, and fairness in your society. Happiness is not something that is bestowed from on high; we all must work to achieve it. But, as I see it, our role in government is to create an environment that enables happiness and a positive attitude toward life to flourish.

Setbacks or frustrations in one's life do not necessarily imply a loss of happiness, which depends on how you  and others who are helping you  go about overcoming obstacles. Happiness thus entails a commitment to helping others, as well as taking responsibility for your own decision to proceed constructively and optimistically. In my ten years working in government, I have personally encountered no situation that could not be handled with a smile, a little consideration, and a touch of positivity. Happiness is something I take personally and believe in passionately.

Happiness can't be mandated, demanded, or enforced. It must be encouraged and nurtured. It requires a change of mindset, with a focus on seeking constructive outcomes. It is experienced at both the individual and collective levels.

So how are we going about it in the UAE? It is still early days  my post is just over a month old. But we already have a 100-day plan in place and a clear set of tasks ahead of us. We have defined guidelines for shaping policy across government, and we have started to create structures for coordinating among government entities and for defining new approaches to services and service delivery. We are also developing benchmarks and assessment tools, in order to formulate and monitor measurable performance indicators for happiness.

Alongside our efforts to place the quest for happiness at the core of the national agenda, we need to encourage the private sector to join us. In one of the world's most diverse labor markets  the UAE is home to people representing up to 200 nationalities  we must ensure that, beyond maintaining appropriate legislative and regulatory frameworks, our country's entrepreneurs act on the basis of enlightened self-interest.

Just as GDP is not the only benchmark to define a country's success, profit alone cannot define a company's success. In our connected and social world, where opinion, news, and information travel at the speed of light, happiness is a competitive advantage; indeed, it is central to a company's brand.

We live in a tough neighborhood. The Middle East is usually not associated with happiness; at times, the bad news from our region seems to drown out the good. And yet we are all bound by the desire to see ourselves and our loved ones thrive and be the best we can be.

That spirit is within us all, and by celebrating it and strengthening it, we can aspire to offer peace, security, tolerance, positivity, and respect. We can work together to create an environment where people can truly flourish and aspire to fulfill their human potential. We can all be part of a community brought together by the desire to share the quality of happiness.

Ohood Al Roumi is Minister of State for Happiness of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate/ Mohammed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives.
The South Korean and United States navies conducted a joint training exercise on Friday, in remembrance of the sailors and soldiers killed in recent clashes with North Korea, the military said Friday.

South Korea commemorated the deaths from the three past inter-Korean skirmishes near the western sea border area on Commemoration Day, which has been designated on the fourth Friday of March.

In 2010 alone, 48 soldiers were killed in two military conflicts between the rival Koreas.

In March that year, North Korea torpedoed the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan, and in October, the country shelled the frontline South Korean island of Yeonpyeong along the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border.

The Friday naval training took place in South Korea's western, eastern and southern seas simultaneously, involving Aegis combat system-equipped warships from both South Korea and the U.S. destroyer along with a host of other navy vessels, the Navy said.

A number of sea-borne aircraft were also mobilized for the drill.

The joint drills included anti-submarine operations and live-fire naval artillery exercises, as well as operations to counter special naval warfare forces, according to the Navy.

"If the enemy (North Korea) provokes again, we will retaliate mercilessly with powerful counter fire," said Rear Adm. Park Dong-sun, who commanded the drills. (Yonhap)
Kim Chang-yong

By Lee Kyung-min

Kim Chang-yong, 59, chairman of the Inje Institute for International Human Resources (IIHR), said Friday that an invitation program for overseas Korean adoptees is key to them maintaining a strong bond with their home country.

The government should offer them an opportunity to learn about their motherland that was unable to offer a home to them during the poverty-stricken period in the 1960s, and then until the late 1990s when the social stigma against babies born out of wedlock was pervasive.

"I think it is almost a public duty for the government as well as Korean society to take care of those who were once abandoned by their home country," Kim said.

His conviction is stronger than ever following his 16-year experience in organizing the IIHR.

Under the invitation program organized by Inje University in South Gyeongsang Province, adoptees who pay a $2,000 fee, can come to Korea and stay for 14 weeks, learning the Korean language, history, culture, as well as taking trips to cultural hotspots. The rest of the cost is covered by the university and through private funding. A total of 240 adoptees have taken part in the program since 2001.

Their half-hearted curiosity becomes full-fledged affection for the country after coming to see and feel the warmth, generosity and kindness of Koreans, he said.

"They come here with no idea at all about what their home country is like, but they grow attached to the people after they meet and talk with them," he said.

Some of them settle down here after finding a Korean spouse, and they remain strongly connected to the country emotionally, he added.

A former journalist, Kim came up with the idea of the IIHR program when he stayed in Northern Europe and in the United States in early 1990s.

"I met many Korean adoptees who sought chances to connect with their home country, I took the idea to former university President Paik Nak-whan, and he fully supported it."

He said the IIHR program could serve as something like a kibbutz, a collective community in Israel that helps Jews learn Hebrew and learn about the pride and traditional values of their ancestors.

"I stayed in a kibbutz in 1985. The elite with Jewish ancestry, including students from Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, all went there and learned about their roots and left with an irreplaceable sense of pride about who they are and where they came from. I hope Korea will be able to maintain a similar system through continuing effort and care."

Kim added that he wants to counter the unfair image associated with adoptees through media campaign efforts.

"There was a time in 1980-90s when Korean media reported extremely biased reports against the adoptees, trying to characterize them as international orphans or insinuate that they are more prone to commit violent or sexual crimes. It was unbelievable. I personally tried to fight against this by publishing many stories about positive aspects about them as well as writing columns myself."

"Embracing adoptees is something that is, and will remain, my passion for the rest of my life."
Samra Kesinovic, left, and Sabina Selimovic, right/ Screen capture from Twitter



A teenage Austrian girl, who had been an ISIS sex slave, was beaten to death, the British Daily mail reports.

Samra Kesinovic, 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15, left Austria and travelled, via Turkey, to Syria to join ISIS in April 2014.

They reportedly left a note for their families which read: "Don't look for us. We will serve Allah and we will die for him."

Shortly after arriving in Syria, Slimovic sent a French magazine SMS messages, saying she was enjoying life in Syria and felt free to practice her religion.

The teenagers became the group's "poster girls." Images of them carrying AK-47s while surrounded by armed men were uploaded on ISIS websites.












Photos by Iraqi female photographer Seivan Salim/ Screen capture from Twitter

Former ISIS sex slaves have detailed their horrific experiences with the extremist group, the British Daily Mail reports.

"I was forced to have sex up to six times per night," Yazidi woman Azhin, 22, said. "ISIS always fastened my legs and arms when they raped me."

She relayed details of her torture during a photo session with Iraqi female photographer Seivan Salim.

Salim tracked down some of the sex slaves who were captured when the militant Islamist terrorists attacked the city of Sinjar, northern Iraq, on Aug.15, 2014.

While the terrorists are still holding many of the women, some have managed to escape to reveal their dreadful experiences.












By Lee Han-soo

Hacker group Anonymous has announced that it will increase its cyber attacks against ISIS in the wake of the terrorist bombings in Brussels, Belgium.

A video released by Anonymous states that the group will increase its attacks on the terrorist organization's Internet presence in an operation named "Op Brussels."

The computer-toned voice vowed to continue hacking ISIS websites, shut down its Twitter accounts and steal its Bitcoins.
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On the verge (probably) of officially joining the 2018 race for governor, former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Thursday he will soon remarry. He said his bride-to-be is Patricia Govea and that they have been dating since last year. Villarigosa, 63, mentioned the news at a lunch-time appearance at Town Hall Los Angeles in downtown then followed up on Twitter.

I'm so happy to share that Patricia Govea said "YES!!" We are getting married & want to thank everyone for your well wishes.  Antonio Villaraigosa (@villaraigosa) March 25, 2016

And in Spanish:

Estoy muy feliz que Patricia Govea dijo SI !!

Nos casaremos y quiero agradecer a todos sus buenos deseos.  Antonio Villaraigosa (@villaraigosa) March 25, 2016

Govea attended Thursday's lunch event  a discussion about Los Angeles with former mayor Richard Riordan, moderated by former LA Times publisher Austin Beutner  and can be seen at the end of this KCAL 9 report by Dave Lopez. Villaraigosa didn't talk about who she is or how they met.

At the Town Hall event at downtown's City Club, Villaraigosa didn't discourage speculation that he is running for governor and just waiting for the right time to make it official. In fact, he teased in that direction a few times. He has been traveling the state on talking tours and having stories done about him testing the political waters. Last year, you may remember, he hosted a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in his new Beachwood Canyon home. He also publicly opted out of a run for the Senate this year.

In that context, any Villaraigosa marriage plans are a bit newsy because his love life has been a recurring factor in his political career. An extra-marital affair early in his political career threatened to scuttle his support among key LA Democrats, but he remained married to Corina Raigosa (his name is a blend of hers and his family last name, Villar) until the news broke in 2007, while he was mayor, about an affair with TV reporter Mirthala Salinas, who had covered Villaraigosa for Telemundo. After his divorce from Raigosa, Villaraigosa was publicly in a relationship with KTLA reporter Lu Parker that ended in 2012.

Villaraigosa has two grown children with Raigosa and two older children. Last May, the LA Weekly reported he was dating actress Kristanna Loken.

Previously on LA Observed:

Villaraigosa's private dinners, Condoleezza Rice and more politics notes

Villaraigosa knows how to use the Saturday news cycle

Villaraigosa loses votes with eyesore in Moreno Valley
This article appears in the March 25, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Indias New Self-Conception

as a World Power

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institutes

[PDF version of this article]

March 16India is no longer just the Subcontinent, but clearly is changing its own identity so as to become one of the future major players in the world, since it will soon bypass the population size of China, and already has the highest economic growth rate internationally.

That self-confidence, which clearly has been boosted since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister almost two years ago, was very visible at the inaugural meeting of the Raisina Dialogue, the new flagship conference of the Indian government, which was hosted by Indias Ministry of Foreign Affairs in association with the Observer Research Foundation, from March 1 to 3 in New Delhi. Over 100 speakers from 40 countries, including several serving foreign ministers and former presidents from Asia, before an audience of 600 institutional representatives, focussed for three days on issues of stronger Asian integration, as well as better integration of Asia with the rest of the world.



View full size EIRNS/Kasia Kruczkowski

India is extremely important, both as one of the cradles of human civilization with an over 5,000-year old continuous history and culture, as well as for the rich contributions India can make to a future peaceful world order based on its great historical periods and great minds of the past, such as the Vedic writings, the Gupta period of classical literature, the Indian Renaissance, Rabindranath Tagore, or Mahatma Gandhi, to only touch on highlights. With a very young population, 65% under the age of 35, and an urban middle-class that has grown to about 430 million, with an ambitious hi-tech orientation and a visionary space program, India is set to become a science driver economy for the whole world.

Therefore, one big question will be whether the present Indian leadership will find a way to put primary emphasis on a new paradigm with the BRICS countrieswhich Modi has called the first alliance of countries whose importance is not defined by their present capacities, but by their future potential, or whether the country will be bogged down in a narrower geopolitical view, which makes it susceptible to various hot-button issues, such as those of Pakistan, border conflicts, and religious tensions.

At the Raisina Dialogue both directions were present, conforming to the present view of the Indian Establishment that there should be openness to all sides, as a balance between those who want India to be primarily part of the BRICS, and those who would rather work with the Anglo-American powers as a geopolitical counter to Russia and China.

Differing Voices

Indias Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj emphasized the importance of connectivity, not only for India and the entire south Asian region, but also for all of the Asian continent, in her keynote address at the opening of the conference. She promised that India would win over vested interests to this perspective.



View full size

PIB

Earlier, the first speaker, Ms. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, former President of Sri Lanka, was emphatic in stressing the need to build trust and confidence among the countries of the region, and the need to establish a new paradigm in the policies of the governments whereby the new generations that were born after the Partition leave conflict behind, and look forward to the future development of the region.

She stressed that the conflict between India and Pakistan had hindered the development of the region badly, holding regional cooperation hostage for 70 years. She underlined the importance of India and China joining hands for regional development, which is now possible through Chinas One Belt, One Road policy. Chinas economic power should be seen as an opportunity, rather as a threat. Ms. Kumaratunga said that Sri Lanka could be a bridge for all south Asian nations, since it has good relations with all of them.

The former President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, argued exactly in the same direction. He called India Afghanistans best friend, but also said that his countrys relationship with China is comprehensive, and that Kabul has an important role to play as a transit hub for regional economic integration. Afghanistan wants the best possible relations between India and China,there is a need for positive symmetry, Karzai stressed, and expressed hope that the China-Iran rail line would be extended to other countries.

Afghanistan wants to be a bridge between south Asia, central Asia, India, and China, he continued. Afghanistan represents the shortest route between China and Iran, India and central Asia, and Russia and central Asia. Afghanistan fully supports Indias policy on central Asia and Chinas One Belt One Road policy. Karzai praised the revival of the ancient silk road by China as the way to make all of south Asia prosperous.

But also relations with Indias neighbors in the East and North are undergoing important transformations. Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, said that the newly formed Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) sub-regional cooperative architecture will be a game-changer for the entire south Asian region. He said that Bangladeshs vision was to become a middle-income country by 2021. Water resources management and the blue economy provide tremendous opportunity for the growth of regional economy, and it is connectivity that will help the south Asian nations realize their dreams of prosperity.

The keynote speech by Seychelles founding President Sir James Mancham was also very well received. He emphasized that for the Republic of Seychelles, whose 110 islands cover a maritime space as large as the Federal Republic of Germany with a population of less than 100,000 people, the emphasis the Indian Government gives to the Indian Ocean is obviously of the greatest importance.

He recalled the importance of the Nonaligned Movement during the 1960s, when he first became involved in politics, and throughout the Cold War period. During that period, Indias foreign policy was based on the peaceful teachings of such men of wisdom as Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, and Buddha.

He recalled that India, in its capacity as a leader of the Nonaligned Movement, opposed the effort by the United States to build up a U.S. naval base in Diego Garcia to replace the British, after the British had decided to pull out of East of Suez. This was a timely reminder in light of the recent British announcement that they intended to renew their East of Suez ambitions.

At that earlier time, Sir James Mancham underlined, India and the Soviet Union had proclaimed the Indian Ocean a zone of peace, and condemned the arrival of the United States in Diego Garcia. He expressed his regret that today India is aligned with the United States to counterbalance the Chinese presence in the area. He also articulated his shock that, at a recent Berlin conference, a high NATO official admitted that the world defense budget is three or four times higher than what the world is spending on human resources development.

Military strength is too often accompanied by the conviction that Might makes right. The ugly sight of the destroyed cities in Syria should make us mindful of the power of destruction, even without the use of nuclear weapons.

Press Information Bureau of India

Notably, an opposing view was brought into the conference by another keynote speaker, Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, who asserted that India will be the defining partner for Americas rebalance to Asia, and that this will even be the defining partnership for America in the Twenty-first Century. Lets be ambitious together, Harris demanded, especially emphasizing past and future joint military maneuvers between India, Japan, Australia, and the United States. It was somewhat unclear who he meant, or if he meant it ironically, when he said that some countries seek to bully smaller nations through intimidation and coercion, and which countries he referred to as building castles on sand.

Indian Concerns

The most delicate concern for India for historical, political, and military reasons is obviously the relation with Pakistan, and it was only three months ago that Prime Minister Modi paid a surprise visit to this country on his birthday, in an obvious effort to improve the situation. Equally obvious also was the effort by some panelists at the conference to put salt into Indian wounds by blasting Pakistan as a country that should be charged with state terrorism.

Lets punish Pakistan together, an American speaker agitated, rubbing an obvious raw nerve of many in the audience. Given the fact that both countries have nuclear arsenals, one can only wonder about the motives behind such suggestions. The discussion of terrorism was solely focussed on Pakistan, leaving out completely the role of Saudi financing of various terrorist organizations and the concerns which former DIA head General Michael Flynn has expressed repeatedly about geopolitical considerations of the United States itself in this matter.

Under present circumstances there is both concern among some in India about the China-Pakistan economic corridor linking Chinas Xinjiang Province to Pakistans Gwadar Port, and about the decision of the Obama Administration to sell eight F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan, an action for which U.S. Ambassador Richard Verma was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs to listen for 45 minutes to the expression of displeasure by Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

In its totality, the Raisina Dialogue conference brought together a vibrant multitude of subjects and speakers, expressing an overall tendency of integrating India and south Asia more deeply with Asia at large and with the world. Whether for diplomatic or other reasons, what was completely absent however, was any discussion about the horrendous condition of the trans-Atlantic financial system, and how the Asian nations can protect themselves against the consequences of the pending blowout.

The potential to resolve all remaining geopolitical issues and potential flare-up points on a higher level of reason assuredly exists. What do you do, when one seems to have a seemingly insurmountable conflict with another person or state? It is important to find the higher level of reason, so that the antagonisms of the existing paradigm can be superseded. How can the unresolved tensions between China and India, often manipulated by outside forces based on maps and conflicts stemming from a geopolitical past, be overcome? If Russia, China, and India work together, as it has been concretely proposed already, to pacify and economically develop southwest Asia, that higher level of common interest can be established.

The concrete potential for such an intervention has been created through President Putins brilliant defusing of the Syrian war, first by the Russian military intervention starting September of last year, which created the preconditions for a political solution, and just now, the sudden troop withdrawal of Russian forces, after the mission was successfully accomplished. As the Chinese representative, Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong, had emphasized at the Vienna Syria peace conference, the rebuilding of Syria must start immediately, so that the population can see the peace dividend of hope and of life becoming normal again.

In his recent journey to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, Chinese President Xi Jinping explicitly offered to extend the New Silk Road, One Belt, One Road policy to southwest Asia. Shortly thereafter, the first Silk Road train arrived in Tehran from Yiwu, thus creating the potential to extend that line to Baghdad, Damascus, and all the way to Cairo. Both China, offering a win-win approach for all nations participating in this policy, and India, with its very good relations with all the countries of southwest Asia, can add the necessary economic dimension to the peace perspective which Russia has now made possible.

This moment represents a precious opportunity to use the rebuilding of the war-torn nation of Syria as a game-changer to bring the perspective of a real economic development plan onto the table for the whole region from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. If the strong neighbors work together it is possiblebecause then, and only then, will their client states be brought under control. The collaboration of foreign ministers Kerry and Lavrov has opened the way, and European nations such as Germany, Italy, France, and others can be brought on board, since this is the only way that the refugee crisis can be solved.

India, as the up-and-coming world powerbased on a beautiful philosophical tradition which maintains that the cosmic order must inform life and conduct on earth, and based on the inspiration of its founder Mahatma Gandhi for a peaceful worldcan shape the future with a new paradigm for all of mankind.
This article appears in the March 25, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Chinese Legislature Pushes Forward

Chinas Leading Role

by William Jones

[PDF version of this article]

March 20The March 5-16 annual session of the National Peoples Congress (NPC), Chinas legislature, met at a most crucial moment in world history, as the failed trans-Atlantic system careened towards a near-term all-out economic collapse, while the flag of world leadership has been earned and won by a Eurasia-centered combination, spreading outwards from the China-Russia alliance, to India and the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) nations and the other powers of Eurasia.

In particular, China is the leading nation in todays world, with a leadership most clearly embodied in the fact that China will send the first-ever probe to the far side of the Moon in 2018. It is also embodied in Chinas revolutionary program of linking up the world with advanced infrastructure development through an extended New Silk Road, which has been the official and very actively practiced policy of China under President Xi Jinping since 2013, under the name of One Belt, One Road.

But it should also be noted here that the level of Chinas leading achievements would have been impossible but for its unique alliance with the Russia of master-strategist Vladimir Putin, a China-Russia alliance whose closeness is unprecedented in history, but which also includes India in the strategic triangle of the RIC, which was the original seed of the BRICS.

Xinhua Finance 2015-05-12

The NPC committed itself to faster advance in science, led by space exploration, and to a deepening of the New Silk Road through industrial capacity-sharing. As we will describe below, this means rapidly increasing the scientific-technological level of industry in China, while simultaneously using the achievements of Chinese science and technology to plant advanced basic industry in developing countries, in particular, to bring to Chinas One Belt, One Road partners, the industries needed for their full participation in this multi-faceted historic Grand Design project.

In response to the drop in Chinese exports to the deathly ill economies of the United States and Europe, China has chosen to upgrade its industries technologically, while using its machine-tool and allied upper-end capabilities to bring heavy industry to its Eurasian partners. Contrast the thinking behind this, with the mentality which shut down the auto industry and almost all industrial production in the American Midwest, to be replaced by its present industries of heroin addiction and suicide.

The Chinese government also reiterated to the NPC that the top priority of the financial sector is to support the development of the real economy, as Prime Minister Li Keqiang said. Regulations are being introduced to be sure it does so. One begins to see why the Chinese people are boundlessly optimistic when compared with the slaves of the City of London, Wall Street, and Brussels.

The present terminal collapse of the U.S. and European markets has taken its toll on the Chinese export-industry, which had become, by default, the manufacturing center of the world economy. But rather than emulate the deadheaded leaders of Wall Street, Chinas leaders have instead hastened their preparations for the next planned upward leap in development, aimed at increasing the productive powers of their labor for producing more high-value products, and moving forward with innovation and development to create new industries alongside the down-sized traditional industries. The other part of their plan is industrial capacity-sharing to develop heavy industry among Chinas partners of the One Belt, One Road. All this will be a formidable task, but the NPC has laid out a blueprint for the way forward. This years session is particularly important, in that it it is also the year in which the 13th 5-year plan has been introduced.

The key word in the new plan is innovation. In the Government Work Report presented to NPC delegates on the first day of the session on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang used the word innovation 61 times, underlining its importance for the further development of the Chinese economy. The country would move from being a trader of quantity into a trader of quality, Li said, indicating that they would transition from the more labor-intensive to more knowledge-intensive industries. There would also be a push to advance those industries in which China has already gained some international prominence, in particular, in high-speed rail construction. China, Li said, intends to build 8,000 kilometers of rail this year.

Xinhua

We should also expand major infrastructure projects, Li said, with the aim of increasing the length of high-speed railways in service to 30,000 kilometers and linking more than 80% of the big cities in China with high-speed railways, building or upgrading around 30,000 kilometers of expressways, and achieving full coverage of access to broadband networks in both urban and rural areas. China will also continue to enhance its role as the primary exporter of high-speed rail, open new economic cooperation corridors and maritime hubs, create an internal logistics network, and intensify cross-border cooperation.

The Silk Road and Shared Development

A new concept unveiled, or rather, newly conceptualized, is the concept of industrial capacity-sharing. This builds on Chinas current program in building a high-speed transportation grid of connectivity along the Belt and Road. In addition to creating such connectivity with its neighbors to the west in central Asia and to the south in Southeast and south Asia, China will also share its industrial capacity, in order to create new industrial capacity in the countries along the Belt and Road.

Researcher Zhibo Qiu explained this concept in the Jamestown Foundations China Brief on Sept. 16, 2015, citing Chinese government sources. She wrote, China is on track to become a net exporter of capital by the end of this year, following a larger shift from exporting low-to-medium-end manufacturing products to exporting high-end manufacturing supply chains and infrastructure development models.

Rather than relying purely on the export of cheap products, China has moved to export integrated manufacturing supply chains, which span the full range of products, technology, capital, and management, to services and standards. Compared to the pure export of products, industrial capacity cooperation includes infrastructure construction, manufacturing equipment production, technology transfer, professional talents and skilled worker training, as well as operation and maintenance. The industrialization of developing countries will provide cheaper land and labor for Chinese companies to relocate manufacturing bases and establish industrial parks overseas.

Xinhua/Agung Pambudhy

The importance of President Xis initiative of the Belt and Road, the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, was further underlined as a major foreign policy objective at Foreign Minister Wang Yis press conference on March 7. Today over 70 nations and international organizations have expressed interest and over 30 countries have signed agreements with us to build the Belt and Road, Wang Yi said. The Belt and Road Initiative is Chinas idea, but its opportunities belong to the world. This initiative echoes the general call of Asian and European countries for development and cooperation. It shows that China is transitioning rapidly from a participant in the international system to a provider of public goods. In building the Belt and Road, we follow the principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefit. It is an open initiative, not . . . expansionism. What it unfolds before the world will be a new historical painting of shared development and prosperity on the entire Eurasian continent. Wang Yi noted that work is already proceeding on the Budapest-Belgrade Railway and the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway. And important steps have been taken in the China-Laos Railway and China-Thailand Railway, both parts of the Pan-Asia Railway Network.

Finance Must Serve Real Economy

With the expansion of the economy and the lack of a comprehensive commercial banking system, much of the funding of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China has been forced into the realm of shadow banking, including the burgeoning Internet banking, which has lacked all forms of regulation. This is particularly important for China today in that much of the innovation needed in the Chinese economy will come from the SMEs. China has long viewed the German industrys Mittelstand as a model for this type of innovation economy, but has lacked the means for financing it. The large state-owned banks which have dominated in the Chinese financial system have preferred lending to the larger industries, feeling that their investments there were more secure.

Now China is intent on creating a functioning system of commercial banks which are subject to strict financial regulation. Banking Regulatory Commission head Shang Fulin outlined the principles required for the functioning of such banks.

 First, the loans must be beneficial to the development of the real economy.  Secondly, they must be aimed at lowering financial risks.  And thirdly, the loans must be beneficial to the rights of the investor as well as the creditor.

The banks have to know the real target of their investments, Shang said. Shang also underlined the need for creating a bank firewall.

Problems in Chinas financial system have been grossly exaggerated in the lying trans-Atlantic press. Indeed, foreign intervention from London by such as George Soros, and speculation on housing shortages in major cities have led to problems, although it must be underlined that these have no resemblance to those in the trans-Atlantic financial system which is blowing out. There is housing speculation, but there are no housing-backed derivatives, for example, like those which blew out the Wall Street system in 2007-2008. To address the problems which do exist, a number of regulatory plans, some wise and others questionable, were under discussion during the NPC.

Chinas underlying principle of financial reform was emphasized by Premier Li at the concluding press conference on March 16. The top priority of the financial sector is to support the development of the real economy, Li told reporters. We are in the process of developing a full-fledged financial regulatory regime, he said. The financial system often operates according to its own laws, Li warned. Therefore, we should watch out for possible risks. We have to guard against risk and moral hazard.

The Crucial Role of Science

The crucial element in creating an innovative economy is the rapid development of science and technology. China will increase the government budget devoted to R&D to 2.5%. Accelerating the development of scientific research will be crucial in this plan. We should launch new national science and technology programs, Li said in his Work Report, build first-class national science centers and technological innovation hubs, help develop internationally competitive high-innovation enterprises, and establish pilot reform zones for all-round innovation. In his Government Work Report, he underlined three major achievements of Chinese science in 2015:

 The development of a new jet airliner,  The development of a new high-resolution imaging

satellite, and  The advances made in space exploration.

Xinhua/Ding Ting

The crucial role of space science was emphasized by the many representatives of the space program who were delegates to the NPC, including Chinas first woman astronaut, Liu Yang. Speaking to the press on March 6, Wu Ji, the director of Chinas Space Science Center, said: If you want to innovate, you must have knowledge of the sciences. Space science is inseparable from Chinas innovation-driven development.

According to Wu Ji, a 15-year space science strategy has been mapped out by the Center, which will tackle questions such as the formation and evolution of the universe, extra-terrestrial intelligence, extra-solar planets, and other questions.



View full size Xinhua/Li Xiang

If China wants to be a strong global nation, he said, it should not only care about immediate interests, but also contribute to humankind. Only that can win China the real respect of the world.

What Wu Ji didnt mention, but what is absolutely revolutionary, is the planned landing of the first-ever probe on the far side of the Moon in 2018. This will be a major breakthrough for all mankind.

While the issues of fundamental space science are absolutely critical for deepening our understanding of our own Earth, our Galaxy, and the galaxies around it, the element which most captures the popular imagination is manned space exploration. Liu Yang, Chinas first woman astronaut (photo page four) and a delegate from the Peoples Liberation Army to the Congress, therefore attracted a great deal of attention from reporters and delegates and gave a number of widely circulated interviews.

Speaking to reporters, Liu Yang said that the launch this year of the Tiangong-2 space lab and the Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft will be very important. It will put two astronauts in space for 30 days rather than the 16 days in previous missions. Its a big breakthrough and a great leap forward, Liu said. The increase from 16 days to 30 days is not just numbers, but a great improvement in technical support, such as environmental control and life-support technology. We need to create an environment in space that is similar to that on Earth. Thats a big technological breakthrough.

Ye Peijian, Chief Designer of Chinas Lunar Exploration Program, hopes that China will be able to carry out a successful mission to Mars by 2021, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
This article appears in the March 25, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

You Have Totally Failed

Its Time To Bow Out

[PDF version of this article]

March 17You who believe it all comes down to numbers. You who believe it all comes down to money (and sex). In one sense, youve finally won it all, especially after almost four terms of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Now theres probably no school in the country that teaches actual science, only empty mathematics, the fetishism of numbers, which is the same old babble of the ancient Babylonian priesthood. And as LaRouche PAC leader Kesha Rogers of Texas has pointed out, when Obama shut down our space program, he shut down the last vestige of the optimistic, capable America of Jack Kennedy which the world rightly looked up to.

Youve won, but youve won what? The United States and the whole trans-Atlantic region is nothing but a corpse now. Unlike the United States of Franklin Roosevelt or Jack Kennedy, the United States of Barack Obama is hated throughout the world as the mass murderer he is, and it is. All we represent now is Obamas threat of death from the skies to the murder victims he selects in the White House every Tuesday, in special meetings called Terror Tuesdays. And beyond that, Obamas imminent intention of a species-extinguishing thermonuclear attack, especially, right now, against China.

Our economy is gone under Obama, hope is gone, and the strata of our most productive skilled workers are instead committing suicide in unheard-of numbers. Yes, indeed, youve won. But won what?

This the long-delayed payoff for allowing Franklin Roosevelts policies to be reversed by the FBI beginning in 1944, while that President was still alive, although exhausted, and still in the White House. This is the payoff for allowing Jack Kennedy to be assassinated, and the thrust of his policies with him. For allowing his younger brother to be assassinated within reach of the White House, without the needed fight to continue their legacy. Then, when Ronald Reagan was severely wounded in an assassination attempt at the very beginning of his term, the Bush family used the period of Reagans long convalescence to substantially take over his Presidency, and railroad Lyndon LaRouche to prison, to bury the revolutionary SDI policies LaRouche had authored for Reagan, which would have saved this nation by pivotting into a new Renaissance for mankind.

Where were you then? Where are you now?

Now that you have rejected all these attempts to save you, only a much harsher treatment is still available to you. Finally reject once and for all, every idea that it all comes down to numbers (or sex), and from there, finally grasp Lyndon LaRouches discovery dating back to the 1950s, which revolutionized the science of economy, analogous to Bernhard Riemanns great scientific discovery displayed in his Habilitation Dissertation.

Now this discovery is being reflected back into the dying trans-Atlantic system from a successful Eurasia, especially from Russia, China, and the BRICS nations. Lyndon LaRouche was integrally involved in the fashioning of the unprecedented Russia-China alliance which was at the heart of the RIC that became the BRICS, but that is a longer story for another time. After developing the SDI policy for Reagan, Lyndon LaRouche worked with his wife Helga to develop what became known as the Eurasian Land-Bridge, today called the New Silk Road, or Chinas One Belt, One Road policy, which is at the heart of the Renaissance of Eurasia.

If America is to survive, it must join with China and Russia now. Obviously, national identities and senses of national identity will change. Those who have joined the numbers game must recognize their failure and step down. The rest of us must rise to the level which Lyndon LaRouche has so long represented.
The Spanish civil war, which ran from 1936 to 1939, is most notable to historians for how it foreshadowed the horrors of World War II.

Yet few distant conflicts are so burned into our culture and consciousness.

Ernest Hemingway, who covered the war, made it the setting of For Whom the Bell Tolls, the best goddamn book he ever wrote. George Orwell, who fought in it, called his popular memoir Homage to Catalonia. Pablo Picassos Guernica, perhaps his most famous painting, captures the agony of that city being bombed to rubble. Robert Capas The Falling Soldier is iconic combat photography. Visitors to the front included singer Paul Robeson, poet Langston Hughes and film star Errol Flynn.

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Less well known are the 2,800 American men and women who defied U.S. policy and risked their lives to defend Spains democratically elected government. Avowedly leftist, these Republican fighters received antiquated weapons and other supplies from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Outnumbered and outgunned, they were defeated by Nationalist insurgents led by right wing Gen. Francisco Franco. He was reinforced by modern tanks, fighter planes and troops from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who used Spain to test weapons and tactics that soon would devastate Europe.

Battling isolationists at home, President Franklin D. Roosevelt carefully kept America neutral. But his refusal to allow arms sales to the embattled Republicans helped seal their fate.

The tragic story of the Americans in the doomed Lincoln Brigade  who bore some of the toughest fighting and heaviest casualties of any unit  comes vividly to life in Adam Hochschilds compelling Spain in Our Hearts, a long-overdue book that explores this long-overlooked conflict.

Hochschild cautions he hasnt written a history of the war or even of the Lincoln Brigade. He instead focuses on a handful of Americans to tell the larger story of why Spain loomed so large at the time.

Mining letters, unpublished memoirs and other archives, Hochschild recounts how Americans like Bob and Marion Merriman, graduate students from Berkeley, were drawn to what they considered a utopian society and what they rightly saw as the opening round in a global battle against fascism.

Tall and taciturn, Merriman was a rare volunteer with military training and he rose to help lead the Lincolns, as they were known, in combat. Hemingway supposedly used him as a model for Robert Jordan, the American hero in his novel.

Merriman disappeared in April 1938 during a chaotic Republican retreat. Reports suggest he was captured and executed by Nationalists. He was one of about 800 Americans who died in Spain.

Like most of them, the Merrimans were communists, an ideology that lured many Americans in the turmoil of the Depression. If their politics have failed the test of time, the actions of the Lincolns  and an estimated 35,000 other foreign fighters  have endured. They went to war against Hitler while Europes leaders sought to appease him.

There seemed a moral clarity about the crisis in Spain, Hochschild writes. Rapidly advancing fascism cried out for defiance; if not here, where?

(The last surviving Lincoln, Delmer Berg, died last month in Columbia, Calif., age 100. He remained an unreconstructed Communist all his life, according to his obituary.)

Many Lincolns shared idealism verging on naivete. Once they had hiked across the snowy Pyrenees from France, they often marched to war without uniforms, maps or modern weapons.

Lois Orr, who went to Republican-held Barcelona from Kentucky with her husband, Charles, in 1936, exalted in a letter home that she was living the revolution in a workers paradise where anything was possible, a new heaven and a new earth were being formed.

Yet she didnt speak Spanish, barely acknowledged the privations around her, and was given a luxurious apartment, confiscated from the German consul, that most Spaniards could never hope to attain.

The Americans came from nearly every state and all walks of life: professors and union organizers, coal miners and a former governor of Ohio. About 90 were African American. About a third came from New York. Close to half were Jewish.

For us it wasnt Franco, wrote one veteran. It was always Hitler.

What to make of the eras Republicans? They opened all the prisons in the areas they controlled, releasing violent criminals as well as political prisoners.

Hochschild, thankfully, recounts a leader who died in the battle for Madrid after murmuring the anarchist lament, Too many committees!

Some Americans had their passports seized when they got home or were targeted in the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s despite fighting honorably in World War II. Some played key roles in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s.

The heartbreak is what lingers longest in Spain in Our Hearts.

The title comes from Albert Camus. Men learned in Spain, the French novelist wrote sadly, that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, and that there are times when courage is not rewarded.

::

Spain in Our Hearts

Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Adam Hochschild

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 464 pp., $30

Drogin is deputy bureau chief and national security editor in the Washington, D.C., bureau.
Aldi, a German discount grocer, opened its first eight stores in Southern California this week. By the end of the year, it plans to have 45 stores in the region.

So what is Aldi? Aldi is a supermarket chain based in Germany with about 10,000 stores in 18 countries. In the U.S., the chain operates about 1,500 stores.

Who founded the chain? Two brothers, Karl and Theo Albrecht, founded Aldi in 1946 after taking over the family grocery store. The Albrechts also control Trader Joes, based in Monrovia.

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Bro brawl: In 1960, the brothers had a falling out over selling cigarettes and split their empire in two. In the U.S., it is Aldi Sud which operates as Aldi, while Aldi Nord runs Trader Joes.

Aldi and Trader Joes have some similarities -- both have smaller footprints compared to traditional supermarkets, and carry largely store-brand products.

The tradeoff: Aldi is known for quality products at deep discounts, with many items priced 20% to 50% below rivals. However, those savings come at a price.

Shoppers have to bag their own groceries. They must also pony up a quarter deposit to use a shopping cart; the deposit is given back when the cart is returned (this cuts down on theft, and also reduces the amount of workers needed to clear parking lots).

Best-selling products are often put out directly on shipping pallets, instead of stacked on shelves.

Rivals: For now, its competitors are primarily dollar stores, Wal-Mart and nearby supermarkets. Long-term, Aldi could have far-reaching effects on the Southland grocery market if it keeps expanding.

Challenges: Aldi is facing a fiercely competitive region where people already have their favorite grocery stores. Southland chains such as Gelsons and Bristol Farms have loyal fans; many locals also frequent the dozens of farmers markets that dot the region.

This is the place that ultimately spelled the end of Haggen and Fresh & Easy. Both supermarket chains closed stores last year after underestimating how difficult it would be to win over Southland shoppers.

Where are the first eight Southland stores: Palm Springs, San Bernardino, Yucaipa, Lake Elsinore, La Quinta, Fontana, Beaumont and Moreno Valley.

First take from shoppers: On Thursday, some customers at the Aldi store in Moreno Valley were thrilled by the low prices, while others grumbled about having to bag their own groceries or the lack of name-brand products.

Jessica Herrera, 28, said she was pleased by the variety of gluten-free snacks at good prices. Aldi might become her go-to spot for picking up a quick meal or last-minute ingredients, she said.

Its very affordable, the Moreno Valley resident said. Its a place for convenience.

Gnett Johnson, a homemaker from Beaumont, said the low prices were impressive. But she said Aldi couldnt replace a big supermarket like Vons or Ralphs.

You still have to go to Vons to get brands like Kraft, she said. It doesnt have a deli section where you get your meats cut.

Follow Shan Li on Twitter @ByShanLi.

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The $1.1-billion judgment California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris won Wednesday may not pull any money out of the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges. But a judges findings that the company misled students and violated the law could bolster Corinthian students case for federal debt forgiveness.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow found the for-profit college operator, which filed for bankruptcy protection in May, provided untrue or misleading statements about graduates job placement rates, duping students and investors.

So far, the Department of Education has offered loan forgiveness if students attended a Corinthian school that closed in April, and if the college operator defrauded the student or engaged in actions that violated state law. Students must apply to receive loan forgiveness.

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The judgment Wednesday affirms that the company violated California state law and give students a stronger argument that they should be entitled to debt forgiveness, said Robyn Smith, a senior attorney with Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

This judgment should form a basis for student loan relief for students, said Smith, who is working with former Corinthian students to apply for debt relief. I would argue all students covered by this judgment get automatic relief without having to apply.

But whether the Department of Education agrees is unclear. Smith said the federal government hasnt said whether it would recognize this type of default judgment. A Department of Education spokeswoman said the agency was also reviewing the judgment.

The Department of Education has taken steps to forgive loans for Corinthian students, who say they went into debt for a useless education. But some students and consumer attorneys have criticized those efforts as too narrow and cumbersome. They have urged the department to forgive all outstanding loans taken out by Corinthian students.

It is really going slow, Smith said. We dont know if there will be actual justice for those harmed by Corinthian.

The Department of Education is expected to announce Friday that it is making it easier for students from 91 additional Corinthian campuses to get relief. The agency so far has approved loan discharges worth more than $130 million, for 8,800 former students. Since 2010, Corinthian had enrolled nearly 350,000 students who took out federal loans totaling about $3.5 billion.

It is really going slow. We dont know if there will be actual justice for those harmed by Corinthian.  Robyn Smith, senior attorney with Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

The California judgment issued Wednesday applies to Corinthian students as well as those who attended the companys Heald, Everest College, WyoTech, Everests online programs and Everest College Phoenix.

Corinthian was faulted for advertising programs or degrees it didnt offer, such as training programs for X-ray and dialysis technicians, according to court papers.

The judgment found that Corinthian and its subsidiaries had unfair and unlawful debt-collection practices, including barring students from attending classes if they were behind on loan payments, and that they failed to disclose their role in the Genesis loan program.

The judgment orders restitution of $820 million for students. But the money probably will be hard to retrieve. When Corinthian filed for bankruptcy in May it listed liabilities of $143 million and only $19.2 million in assets.

Harris office has the authority to distribute whatever funds it obtains from the judgment to students who attended Corinthian and its related schools in California from 2010 onward.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

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After Dave Connors teenage son broke his leg, he was rushed to an Orange County hospital that Connors knew was in his insurers coverage network.

It was only after the bills recently started arriving that he learned the doctors and anesthesiologist in the operating room were out of network, requiring him to pay thousands of dollars more.

When youre at a hospital that you know is in-network, who would think to ask individual people if theyre also in-network? Connors said. Especially when your son is being operated on.

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This wasnt an isolated example of our patient-unfriendly, for-profit healthcare system.

Nearly a quarter of Californians who had hospital visits since 2013 were surprised to find that at least some charges at in-network hospitals were at out-of-network rates, according to a survey last year by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

A bill  AB 533  is pending in Sacramento that would fix this. However, its facing heavy opposition by doctors groups that say theyre fighting a hostile act against the medical profession. But theyre really just protecting higher fees.

Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said its unreasonable to think that any patient or family member would inquire about the network status of healthcare practitioners at an in-network facility.

No one would have the presence of mind to ask such questions amid the mayhem of a medical emergency, he said. Its unconscionable.

Connors 16-year-old son, a high school junior, broke his left femur during wrestling practice in January. He was rushed by ambulance to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach for emergency care and then transferred to Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine for surgery to install a metal brace.

Both facilities are in-network for Connors Anthem Blue Cross plan, purchased through Covered California, the states Obamacare exchange. He pays nearly $1,000 a month to insure himself and his family. The policy comes with a hefty $6,500 deductible.

Connors, a Costa Mesa resident, emphasized that he had zero complaints about the quality of care his son received.

The multiple bills he received were another matter.

Hoag sent Connors a bill for almost $46,000, including nearly $19,300 in operating room services. Anthem covered roughly 90% of that.

However, the two out-of-network surgeons submitted a bill for about $6,200 that wasnt covered at all by the insurer. The out-of-network anesthesiologist submitted a bill for just over $3,100, of which Anthem paid a third.

Apparently someone at Anthem thinks it was my responsibility to question them all, Connors said. I couldnt have even gotten to the anesthesiologist unless I interrupted the operation.

I contacted the doctors practice and found out that they do have a contract with Anthem but only for group plans typically offered through an employer. They have no contract for individual Anthem plans, such as those purchased through Covered California.

UCLAs Kominski said understaffed hospitals routinely affiliate with outside doctors groups to help provide medical care. He said many such groups deliberately choose not to sign contracts with insurers for patients with individual insurance plans.

That way these patients are always out of network, and the doctors can always bill full charge, Kominski said. Its a market failure. It allows doctors to exploit the monopoly power that they have.

Paul Ginsburg, director of USCs Leonard D. Schaeffer Initiative for Innovation in Health Policy, said the onus should be on doctors and other medical practitioners to disclose their out-of-network insurance status to patients before treatment is delivered.

The scope of insurance coverage is determined almost as soon as the patient arrives at the hospital, he said. Its clear whos in-network and who isnt. Theres an ethical obligation for doctors to alert people if theyre out of network.

Hoag Orthopedic Institute said in a statement that we understand and empathize with the frustration and confusion medical bills often pose to families during what are already stressful times, especially when they receive several bills from a number of different entities involved in their care.

Nevertheless, it said, hospitals cant dictate to physicians and other healthcare providers which insurance plans they must accept.

Thats where AB 533 comes in. It wouldnt impose any such requirement on medical professionals. But it would allow patients to pay only in-network rates at an in-network facility, regardless of the insurance status of individual doctors.

Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), the bills author, said the legislation already has been approved by Assembly and Senate committees, and hes hopeful it will soon reach the governors desk.

I told him about Connors experience.

These people did everything right, Bonta responded. They had insurance. They went to an in-network facility. They shouldnt be required to pay out-of-network fees.

Connors son is on the mend, and hes grateful for that. But when I asked him to describe what hes learned about our health insurance system, two words came to mind.

Unfair was one. Insane was the other.

That about sums it up.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Theres a velvet rope in L.A.'s multimillion-dollar housing market that most simply cannot pass. No entrance. No way. No how.

Welcome to the world of pocket listings, also known as whisper listings. Only elite real estate agents with rich clients are privy to these ultra-exclusive mansions that are for sale on the sly.

Dont bother to scour the Multiple Listing Service or any of the online realty marketplaces to try to find them. Pocket-listed homes simply arent there, so prospective buyers have to rely on well-connected agents to score access.

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This largely word-of-mouth marketing has obvious advantages for paparazzi-hounded celebrities and privacy seekers.

A case in point is the newly completed Riviera White House for sale on the site of the former Ronald and Nancy Reagan home in Pacific Palisades. Asking price: $33 million.

Theres such rare air at this level that we dont believe we need to be in the MLS, said David Offer, the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices agent who has the pocket listing.

Marketing the listing started with an invitation-only brokers open. Only those with the potential to sell in this price category were invited, he said.

The next day a private tour brought 40 members of Soho House  one of the most hard-to-get-into members-only clubs in town  to view the 12,000-square-foot Spanish-style main residence and guesthouse. Two brokers also brought clients to look at the place. Among the unique flourishes: a bathroom whose walls are adorned with peacock feathers, applied by hand by a group of local art students.

The following day there was another private showing and an evening friends-and-family party. Jaman principals Janus Cercone and Michael Manheim warmly welcomed the guests, including such luminaries as television producer Marcy Carsey, who already owns a Jaman house. People milled about sipping champagne and admiring framed Picasso sketches on the walls while a pianist played classic tunes. Servers passed lamb-chop lollipops, prosciutto-wrapped fig skewers and cups of fennel salad.

The pocket listing, the private showings, the parties are all a sequel to a script that the couple employ to sell their individualized houses.

We are storytellers, Cercone said. We devise a biography of who the owner will be and design based on that character.

The pair imagined the buyer to be a self-made man or woman with big dreams and goals, Cercone explained. We created a retreat and sanctuary where they come home after trying to make their mark on the world stage.

An earlier house Jaman Properties designed had a two-story living room meant to appeal to a larger-than-life person with a big personality. The first day it was on the market, Cercone said, Conan OBrien walked in and said: I cant believe theres finally a house thats tall enough for me. He bought the place.

Selling luxury homes outside of the MLS system has gained traction in recent years, particularly at the Agency. The Beverly Hills real estate firm handles nearly a third of all transactions as pocket listings, said Paul Lester, an Agency partner.

But what if there are no takers?

There is a period of time you can give yourself for an off-market listing or it doesnt resonate anymore, Lester said. Thirty days is the best window.

Twitter: @LATHotProperty

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If you check out the surprisingly cursory Wikipedia entry on the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal you will discovery that in recent years, the OSM has fallen on tough times.

That depends on how you define recent and maybe even tough. If we are talking about the early 2000s, things werent looking so hot. If we are talking about the triumphant concert the orchestra gave at Granada Theatre here Thursday night, there was all manner of heat  instrumental glow, sustaining emotional warmth and, when wanted, scorching fire  a rare and marvelous combination and something that can be produced only by an orchestra in glowing health.

All orchestras go through their crises, and OSMs was certainly nasty. After having transformed what had been a relatively provincial orchestra into one that made celebrated recordings, particularly of 19th and 20th century French repertory, Charles Dutoit angrily resigned in 2002 after public complaints from players that he was abusive in rehearsals. At first the noted Swiss conductor and the orchestra came out of the contretemps worse for wear; Dutoits reputation was temporarily tarnished, and the orchestra suffered musically and went on strike in 2005.

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The Canadians turned to then-Los Angeles Opera Music Director Kent Nagano, who left his Music Center post to simultaneously take over OSM in Montreal and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, another politically charged challenge. Although Nagano had major successes in Munich, he survived Bavarian in-fighting only seven years and has now moved on to the Hamburg State Opera and Philharmonic. But Montreal has lasted.

The orchestra has been restored not so much to its former glory but to a new glory. That glory would be have been unthinkable without Dutoits quarter-century of exacting music-making in Montreal and the clear, bracing, color-drenched sound that he created. Not only has Nagano built upon that, but he has worked to diplomatically patch up relations. Last month the 79-year-old Dutoit, now hailed as an old master, returned to conduct his old band for the first time in 14 years and reportedly received a heros welcome.

The Granada program was, moreover, based on Dutoit specialties  Debussys Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Prokofievs Third Piano Concerto and Stravinskys ballet, The Firebird, in its original 1910 version with an extravagantly large orchestra, including three harps. Dutoit made a Grammy-winning recording of the concerto with Martha Argerich and the OSM, and his 1984 Montreal recording of Firebird is a dazzler.

Naganos program may have relied even a little too much on Montreal tradition, given that he has opened the orchestras programming to much more varied and new music. Thursday nights pieces are among each of the composers most popular and accessible pieces. But they also make sense together, demonstrating the creation of a new musical language that involved a remarkable interaction between France and Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Juxtaposing Debussys 1894 Faun and Prokofievs 1921 concerto proved fascinating since each begins with a seductive wind solo. Fauns flute opening is like being inside the flute  the burnished sound of silver. Prokofievs clarinet opening is the burnished sound of wood. Each is a pure, intense single flavor.

Nagano maintained the purity, but he also asked for something more, bringing out the process of making the sound as part of the sound, an intensity of breath and nuance of expression. In Japan if you eat noodles you must slurp: only by making an extraneous and even revolting noise can you properly savor the singularity of a noodles essence.

That kind of nuance characterized every measure of Faun, where an excess of sensuality extended from almost inaudible tenderness in quiet string passages to the rich, voluptuous winds.

The Prokofiev clarinet solo led to something different. The soloist was the electrifying young Russian pianist, Daniil Trifonov, who made his sensational recital debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall a month ago. In Santa Barbara, the precedent of Argerichs OSM recording meant he had a lot to live up to, and he did.

Nagano emphasized the concertos modernity. While allowing for the grace and wit of the central movements variations, he mainly negotiated the orchestra around Trifonov, who dug with deep introspection into Prokofievs occasional moments of lyricism. But the pianist blew away even Argerich as he ran his fingers across the keys in fabulously glittery glissandi.

The Firebird was a lush feast. As in Faun, details stood out for their individual expressivity. An inner part seldom noticed in, say, the violas could seem like it was part of some unsuspected subplot to the fairy-tale ballet.

And that made the violence Nagano also brought out all the more arresting, especially in a gloriously nasty Infernal Dance of Kastchei, the ballets bad guy here achieving the voluptuousness of power.

Burning music-making such as this leaves a burning question. This week when Nagano and the OSM circled Southern California (performing in Palm Desert and San Diego as well as Santa Barbara), Disney Hall remained unconscionably vacant, the Los Angeles Philharmonic on tour. A date for the OSM with a stellar conductor and soloist seems not just a no-brainer but a necessity.
Marine Ter-Pogosyan often senses the presence of a Hollywood legend in her Los Feliz photocopy shop.

My customers, they ask me, Do you see the ghost of Walt Disney? And I say, Yeah, every day I feel it, Ter-Pogosyan said. He is always here. And he is very happy.

If the Walt Disney Co. founders spirit were to surface in any locale, this spot makes sense: Ter-Pogosyans Extra Copy and a neighboring tattoo parlor and skateboard shop are housed in space that once served as the original offices of Disneys fledgling animation company.

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1 / 4 The Kingswell Building at Vermont and Kingswell avenues in Los Feliz, home of Disney Bros. Studio from 1923 to 1926, can lay claim to being the birthplace of the worlds largest entertainment company. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 4 D.J. Chavez, a retired pro skateboarder who co-owns Kingswell, a skateboard boutique and tattoo parlor in the Los Feliz building that was home to Disney Bros. Studio, believes that Walt Disney may have set his hand on this wooden post in the middle of his store. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 4 At Extra Copy in Los Feliz, the walls are covered in images of Disney characters and other items honoring the buildings history. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 4 Marine Ter-Pogosyan, owner of Los Feliz photocopy shop Extra Copy, with a mural of Disney characters that Ter-Pogosyan said was painted by a customer. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

From 1923 to 1926, the Disney Bros. Studio was headquartered at the Kingswell Building at Vermont and Kingswell avenues. These modest storefronts, adjacent to a commercial strip lined with vintage clothing boutiques and ethnic restaurants, lay claim to being the birthplace of the worlds largest entertainment company.

You figure, if Walt was alive today, he might say, The neighborhood has changed, said Jim Ferraro, who owns the building. When Walt was here, they had just paved Vermont. It was a whole different ballgame.

The roughly 16,000-square-foot buildings past has largely gone unnoticed in a city long known for not appreciating the history of its built landscape. The Kingswell Building is not protected by any historical designation, which means that it could one day suffer the fate of countless other notable L.A. buildings  the wrecking ball.

And the neighborhoods Disney history already is fraught: The much larger studio that Walt Disney built on Hyperion Avenue after leaving the Kingswell Building was torn down decades ago. That site now houses a shopping center and a Gelsons supermarket.

The Kingswell Buildings history could make it worthy of preservation, experts said.

These are the not obvious landmarks, but it doesnt mean they are any less important, said Linda Dishman, president of the Los Angeles Conservancy. For the preservation community, it is important to make sure all stories get told. Certainly, the creation of a company like Disney is very much an L.A. story.

This building at the corner of Vermont and Kingswell avenues in Los Feliz once housed the original offices of Disney Bros. Studio. Now, the companys former space is occupied by a photocopy shop and a skateboard boutique that also includes a tattoo parlor. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Even so, there are no efforts underway to get the Kingswell Building listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument or placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Anyone can nominate a building for inclusion on those lists, and Ferraro said he would support such an effort. He has no plans to tear the building down.

Im too old for that, said Ferraro, 68, who also owns the Dresden restaurant next door.

Ferraro believes that Walt Disney would be pleased to see how his former offices are now being used.

He would probably think, whoever wants to come in here, thats great, Ferraro said.

Walt Disney launched his animation career in Kansas City, Mo., in 1920. But when his Laugh-O-gram Studio failed after only about two years, he decided to move to Los Angeles, joining his brother Roy.

While Walt pursued a distribution deal for a film series he planned called the Alice Comedies, he acquired an old movie camera and experimented with animation techniques, working out of the garage of his uncles home on Kingswell. In fall 1923, a distributor agreed to release the Alice Comedies.

On Oct. 16, 1923, Walt and his brother signed an agreement to produce the series and then made a deal to rent space in the Kingswell Building. They called their company Disney Bros. Studio. At first, the brothers rented the back half of a real estate firms office and soon thereafter expanded next door.

According to Disney A to Z, the companys official encyclopedia, the office was the studios first real location.

Disney experts say the work that Walt did at the Kingswell Building formed the foundation of his animation career. While there, the brothers produced the Alice Comedies, about a little girl who has adventures with an animated cat.

The three dozen shorts produced there over two years enabled the brothers to learn their craft, which they plied later  resulting in their fame and fortune, said Timothy Susanin, author of Walt before Mickey: Disneys Early Years, 1919-1928.

Susanin visited the building about eight years ago and was pleased to see it still standing  even if it had been altered. (The addresses have been changed slightly over the years and the original brick facade has been covered.)

Many historic properties are protected because they have notable architectural features. Among such Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments with Hollywood ties are the Egyptian Theatre and the Pantages Theater. But the Kingswell Building couldnt claim to have noteworthy architecture. The unremarkable L-shaped structure is painted gray, and air-conditioning units jut out from unadorned second-floor windows.

Still, Ken Bernstein, who heads the city of Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, said its very possible that the building could be deemed historic and eligible for protection. Bernstein said the question is whether it retains enough of what we call integrity  whether it can still convey its association with that rich history.

We have designated many local landmarks  because of their cultural significance, said Bernstein, whose office coordinates the citys historic preservation activities and works with the Cultural Heritage Commission, the entity that decides on the awarding of monument status.

Bernstein noted that other architecturally unexceptional buildings have been awarded a historic designation. He cited the Black Cat, a former bar in Silver Lake that was declared historic because of its role in the gay rights movement of the 1960s. The humble building that housed the bar is now home to a restaurant of the same name.

In Chicago, there is an effort underway to honor a similarly pedestrian building: the residence where Walt Disney was born. At Disneys recent shareholders meeting, Chief Executive Robert Iger announced that the company would donate $250,000 to the restoration of the house.

Disney would not say whether it would support any effort to preserve the Kingswell Building, but offered a tribute to the legacy of Walt Disney and his brother.

The fact that people continue to be fascinated by the places where Walt and Roy Disney lived and worked nearly a century ago speaks to the lasting impact of these innovators and the enduring affection for the beloved characters and timeless stories they created, a Disney spokesperson said.

But correspondence pinned to an interior wall of Extra Copy may offer a clue about Disneys thinking on matters of preservation.

In 1995, former Disney archivist David Smith wrote a letter to then-Extra Copy owner Ben Chaaban in which he addressed a request by the proprietor to turn the space into a proper historic site by, among other things, adding a plaque to the building. We have not tried to promote any of the many Disney historic sites around Los Angeles, Smith replied. (Disney displays historical artifacts at Disneyland and its other theme parks, and in traveling exhibitions.)

The Disney brothers time at the Kingswell Building was brief. Flush with success from the Alice Comedies, they moved into a much bigger studio on Hyperion in 1926. (Disney moved to its current headquarters in Burbank in 1940.)

Even though the Hyperion property was torn down in 1966, it was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976. A small placard out front is the only indicator of the sites significance.

Skateboard boutique and tattoo parlor Kingswell, with co-owner D.J. Chavez. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

About a mile and a half away, patrons at the Kingswell Building come to make 11-cent photocopies at Extra Copy or get their biceps tattooed at Kingswell without giving a second thought to the buildings history.

I think you have to be a die-hard to know this place. Im not pushy about telling people where they are.  Kingswell co-owner D.J. Chavez

I think you have to be a die-hard to know this place, said D.J. Chavez, a retired pro skateboarder who co-owns Kingswell. Im not pushy about telling people where they are.

The two businesses in the former studio space honor the Disney history in different ways.

Kingswell keeps things slightly subversive. At the stores tattoo studio, customers can get inked with images of Mickey Mouse. One popular tattoo depicts Christ Air Mickey  showing the character executing a skateboarding maneuver called the Christ Air.

Chavez, 35, has also worked with fashion brands to carry limited-edition items that playfully poke at the squeaky-clean Disney image. Recently, he collaborated with clothing company Wolves Kill Sheep on a $40 T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Mickey Mouse that made the character look like a werewolf.

At Extra Copy in Los Feliz, the walls are covered in images of Disney characters and other items honoring the buildings history. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

He said he hopes that the Kingswell Building could be designated a historic monument so that more people become aware of its significance. He said he tries to soak up an aura of creative vibes left behind by Walt Disney.

I go to that wooden beam all the time and set my hand against it. He probably did that, said Chavez, gesturing at a weathered wooden post in the middle of the store. Every time Im here I feel like there is history around me  like a good, rad history.

Extra Copy is unabashed in promoting its connection to history. A sign at the shop reads, Come make copies at the historic site of the first Disney Studios! Inside, one wall is covered with a mural of Disney characters  including Mickey Mouse perched atop a photocopy machine  that Ter-Pogosyan said was painted by a customer.

Extra Copy owner Marine Ter-Pogosyan stands in front of the stores Disney mural, which was painted by a customer. The Los Feliz building where her business is located once housed the first office of Disney Bros. Studio. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

My customers, they ask me, Do you see the ghost of Walt Disney? And I say, Yeah, every day I feel it. He is always here. And he is very happy.  Marine Ter-Pogosyan, Extra Copy owner

On a recent afternoon, Betsy Cox Vargas, 85, parked her 1963 Mercury Meteor coupe in front of the store and went in to make some photocopies. Vargas, a former assistant at several Hollywood studios, said that in the early 1980s she was secretary to then-Warner Bros. executive Frank Wells, whod go on to become president of Walt Disney Co.

She said her weekly visits to Extra Copy make her nostalgic for her time in Hollywood.

It was a time when that whole industry was just like a big family, she said.

Twitter: @DanielNMiller

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It was the chicken nuggets that did her in. Or was it the cheese pizza? She cant remember, but anyway: It was all gross, the food at this kid birthday party. And her son had severe allergies, so he couldnt eat any of it.

I was devastated, recalled Estee Stanley, a celebrity fashion stylist and interior designer. Thats all theyre giving me for an option? In this Whole Foods generation of humans? I almost had a panic attack. I was like, I cant do this. This is terrible. Its not nutritious. Its not healthy. Its kids running around like lunatics.

She went to one of her closest friends, Kimberly Muller, to vent. She knew that Muller, a childrens book author, also loathed so-called kid-friendly restaurants and preferred to meet fellow moms at Bouchon, Thomas Kellers pricey French restaurant and watch her kids frolic in the adjacent Beverly Canon Gardens.

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At every place associated with kids, the kids were happy and the parents were miserable, said Muller. What we were looking for was a place that didnt exist.

And so they turned to Jessica Biel. The actress has been toying around with healthful baking for a few years, incorporating vegetables into recipes, trying to make tasty vegan options. Her creations were delicious but looked dreadful, so she considered starting a business called The Ugly Cake Company.

Instead, she joined forces with Stanley and Muller to create Au Fudge, a restaurant where the food  even the grass-fed beef burger and baked mac and cheese  is organic, all-natural and dye-free. With an Anthropologie-furnished creative space where kids can play under the supervision of au pairs employed by the restaurant. And whimsical touches, like an indoor treehouse and a bookshelf that has a secret door. Plus a marketplace filled with bespoke candy necklaces from Paris and flower petal confetti.

Au Fudge in West Hollywood. (Christina House / For The Times)

Biel is the latest actress to pursue a business endeavor outside of Hollywood after becoming a mother. (She has a 10-month old son with husband Justin Timberlake.) Gwyneth Paltrow, whose lifestyle brand Goop recently launched its own line of beauty products, said this month on the Today show that she is taking a break from acting because she felt a financial responsibility to her Goop investors to focus on the company. Drew Barrymore, who also has her own cosmetics line, has said that her acting roles will be few and far between until her two daughters are older. And the Honest Company co-founder Jessica Alba, whose nontoxic household goods brand is now valued at more than $1 billion, is so busy running her business she hasnt had a major role in a film since 2014.

There are of course business-minded actresses with young children who are starring in movies, including Reese Witherspoon and Kate Hudson. Biel, who rose to fame on the WB show 7th Heaven, said she intends to follow that track. Though she took the majority of last year off from acting to focus on raising her baby, she has three films in production for 2016, including The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which premieres in April at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Stanley, who has long dressed Biel for the red carpet and also designed the interior of her home, initially thought the actress might be interested in providing the baked goods for Au Fudge.

But Im not a baker, really. I have no clue what Im doing, said Biel. So I put my focus toward helping be a part of the nutritional stuff  here. I want this to be like our version of Cheers. We want a local spot.

Before Au Fudge opened this month, Biel was with Stanley and Muller at one of the restaurants corner tables. They had coordinated their outfits: three gauzy pastel floral ensembles that made them look like the sisters in The Virgin Suicides.

Were wearing Zimmermann, Stanley said, referring to the Australian designer. Will you be sure to say we were wearing Zimmermann?

Bar and dining area at Au Fudge in West Hollywood. (Christina House / For The Times)

When news of Au Fudge first leaked in 2014, the press wasnt exactly kind. Page Six described the project as an elitist Soho House for kids, a place where A-listers would feel comfortable bringing their kids.

And in fact, special measures have been put into place for celebs like Emily Blunt, Rachel Zoe and Lea Michele, who have already visited the venue, which is on a trendy stretch of Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Because of its location right near the paparazzi hot spot Craigs, Au Fudge is attracting star onlookers. So the restaurants main dining room has curtains that can be pulled when necessary, and the patio has large shutters that will close if shutterbugs get too close.

Natalie Hecker doing the hula hoop under the watchful eyes of Au Fudges au pair Cassidy Shaffer in the playroom of the restaurant. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

But unlike the Soho House, Au Fudge is open to the public. There is no membership fee, though leaving your child with an au pair for two hours does cost $15. Still, Biel seems defensive about the idea that the restaurant is uppity.

You can call me snotty. You can call me elitist. Whatever you want, said Biel. We are providing a space where you can eat and be comfortable and confident that your children are not being pumped full of hormones and chemicals. You can come here and know that its safe for your kid to crawl on the floor because what were cleaning the floor with is safe. You can come in here and know we are doing everything we can to be sustainable in terms of our energy and our waste. And if were snot faces or elitists for that, I think were OK with that.

Its important that Au Fudge be viewed as more than an only-in-L.A. vanity project for financial reasons too. Biel views the idea as a long-term play  the kind of place that could have locations nationwide  which is why she brought in partners Jonathan Rollo and Joey Gonzalez. Rollo is the founder of Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop, while Gonzalez is the CEO of Barrys Bootcamp; they are also a married couple. (Australia-based Monica Saunders-Weinberg, co-chairman of Terrace Tower, is also a partner in the restaurant.)

We want to make this part of the countrys community, Biel said. This should be in places where families are going all the time. Like airports!

I think everyone is starting to understand that you get what you pay for, added Rollo, who had joined the conversation midway. When you can establish yourself as a trustworthy brand  which is what we are doing  people will be more accepting of the price. Were not here to gouge people. We are not looking to pay this back in six months. The idea is not to be just a small, one-off anything. This is a long-term play for us.

You can find me at the one in Italy or the Hamps, joked Stanley, referring to the Hamptons. (Rollo says hes already fielding requests to open locations in London and Dubai.)

James King of Culver City plays with his 19-month-old son, Artin, in the Au Fudge playroom. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

To start the brand extension, Muller has written a childrens book called The Story of Au Fudge, which incorporates characters, including a unicorn named Creme Brulee, that are represented by faux taxidermy heads (from Paris, where else?) mounted on the restaurant walls.

Other touches include an old-timey photo booth and arcade games. Special craft kits let kids make kaleidoscopes, snow globes or kites.

Aesthetically beautiful arts and crafts projects that youd actually want to hang on your wall, explained Muller. And well have classes too. During dinner, maybe the kids are making bread and the au pairs will put it in the oven so when you leave, youre leaving with fresh bread for the morning.

Its called a creative space for a reason, added Stanley, who said theyd received more than 1,100 resumes for the au pair positions. Theres not like a plastic ball thing and jungle gyms. That creates children to be loud, and we didnt create that space for that to happen.

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Most biopics of musicians try to cover too much ground, telling artists stories from birth to death while focusing more on their weaknesses than their work. In Born to Be Blue, writer-director Robert Budreau doesnt shy away from jazz legend Chet Bakers addiction to heroin or his struggle to relearn his instrument after suffering a busted mouth. But by keeping the movies goals and scale modest, Budreau makes something that should resonate with Baker fans and newcomers alike.

Ethan Hawke projects an appealing fragility as Baker, playing the trumpeter as gentle, soulful and deeply embarrassed by his failures. Aside from a few key flashbacks, Born to Be Blue stays rooted in the late 1960s, following Baker over just a few years as he attempts to rebuild his career after an assault leaves him toothless.

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Carmen Ejogo plays Jane, an actress who becomes Bakers girlfriend and support system, encouraging him as he works his way back in the California jazz scene  from sitting in on unpaid jam sessions to working as an anonymous session musician.

Jane is a fictional character, based on several women in Bakers life. Born to Be Blue takes similar liberties with the timeline of its subjects comeback and with the basic facts of his biography, already well chronicled in Bruce Webers 1988 Baker documentary, Lets Get Lost.

Budreau does this intentionally, to make the material more like a movie and less like a dry recitation of dates and events. The film even opens with Baker playing himself in a corny Italian biopic (opposite Jane), which is the first cue that Born to Be Blue intends to defy audience expectations.

Budreau doesnt entirely avoid cliche, however. Characters establish time and place by saying things like Dylan just went electric! And the movie resorts to pat pop-psychology in a sequence where Chet and Jane visit his disapproving family in Oklahoma  implying that an overly stern dad led to Baker sticking a needle in his arm.

But theres also another moment in the film where Baker says that he got hooked on heroin for no particular reason beyond it just makes me happy. A good portion of Born to Be Blue is about how even a guy trying to stay clean needs to be allowed moments of melancholy without his loved ones worrying that hes destined for a fall.

What makes this movie such a refreshing change of pace for this genre is that it doesnt divide genius Chet from junkie Chet. Theyre both degrees of the same well-meaning guy, who knows he has to be sober to be a reliable working musician but is also sure that he can never really cut loose without the drugs to numb his pain.

Though Born to Be Blue doesnt aspire to full-fledged biography, it does explain what made Baker special, describing how he pared his trumpeting and singing style in increasingly innovative ways. More important, it shows how he struggled nearly every day with a tough choice: living peacefully out of the spotlight or putting himself into high-pressure situations where hed be tempted to use again.

By reducing Bakers story to just a couple of pivotal years, Budreau makes every moment matter, including a tense final scene that treats the preparation for a performance like a duel at high noon. Like Baker himself, Born to Be Blue finds drama in minimalism.

calendar@latimes.com

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Born to Be Blue

MPAA rating: R, for drug use, language, some sexuality and brief violence

Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Playing: The Landmark, Los Angeles
Look, respond, discuss, repeat. At the very least, the late artist Robert Mapplethorpes duality-tinged, often sexually charged photography demanded a consideration of the form beyond the mere capturing of a moment in time. His work, starkly elegant and personal, inspired a few other actions as well  gasp, wince, decry, litigate  and in the new documentary Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato do an ultra-fine job tracing a born provocateurs commitment to his calling.

The timing of the film makes it, for Angelenos, a true companion piece to the comprehensive retrospectives featured at the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Getty. Bailey and Barbato even use clips of the museum curators discussing Mapplethorpes themes and technique as islands of analysis in the arc of a life that moved like a freight train from youthful training to adult notoriety.

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Though schooled in painting and sculpture, the New York-born Mapplethorpes early 1970s discovery of Polaroids led to a photographic journey that coincided with a personal odyssey as an openly gay man that instilled in him a belief in the aesthetic worth of brazen sexuality. When public morality challenged that conviction, it led to protests, police raids on galleries and obscenity charges. As he was dying from AIDS in the 1980s, his fame grew exponentially.

Like many artists, Mapplethorpe struggled to match his ambitions with his artistic integrity, and the directors do a skillful job detailing how key companions/colleagues fed his rise: from his life-as-art days on the counterculture fringes with first love Patti Smith (conspicuously absent as an on-camera interviewee) to the recognition that followed his time with wealthy patron Sam Wagstaff and the male figures who inspired some of his most beautiful and controversial later pictures. Insightful remembrances come from Fran Lebowitz (a ruined cupid, she calls him), David Croland and Carol Squiers, among many others.

Its a testament to the movies portrait of complexity that Mapplethorpes never-easy personality (most sensitively recalled by his younger brother, Edward, who assisted him for years) feels of a piece with explicit art that is demystifying, understandably shocking, even questionable and yet also with his praised images of flowers.

Though the title ironically appropriates Jesse Helms Senate floor admonition during the art-funding uproar over his work, it also acts as the simplest of incitements. His art is all over Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures as both expressions and evidence. Your reaction will be your own, just as Mapplethorpes short, impactful life was undeniably his.

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Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

Not rated.

Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills; debuts on HBO April 4.
In casting the main protagonist in their upcoming comedy, Miss India America, the filmmakers had a pretty specific female character in mind.

We were looking for an Indian Reese Witherspoon, said the movies director and co-writer, Ravi Kapoor. Election was one of our touchstones.

Miss India is unique in that virtually all the cast and crew on it are South Asian Americans. And Kapoor and co-writer Meera Simhan  also his wife  needed to find their Tracy Flick, which they did in lead Tiya Sircar, who plays Lily Prasad, a high-achieving, competition-crushing school valedictorian on the fast track to Harvard. Prasad is not only in masterful control of her own destiny but also that of her boyfriend, Karim (Kunal Sharma). Shes even plotted out their shared life plan in a hefty illustrated book.

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Perhaps inevitably Karim bails and takes up with a beauty pageant winner, spurring Lily to try to win him back by snaring a crown of her own.

Simhan plays Lilys mother, a poet who encourages her ambitious daughter to be fuller, and she based the script partly on a one-woman show she performed in 2011 of the same name. It tapped into her experiences on the South Asian American beauty pageant circuit: Shes a former Miss India California and was a runner-up in the national contest.

It scarred her for life, Kapoor said, laughing. Not seriously. Just serious enough to make a comedy about it.

Simhan and her husband, chatting at a French cafe in their Studio City neighborhood on a recent morning, wanted to explore this bigger theme of winning and ambition, especially in the South Asian community where the idea of achievement is really strong.

In my extended family, everyone was driven, going to medical school and law school, very successful, highly academic, becoming surgeons and entrepreneurs and engineers, she said. As a pageant regular, the other contestants were Stanford graduates who were also proficient atbharata natyam, Indian classical dancing, and saw the opportunity to compete as a way to be more well rounded.

Indeed, the community of emerging South Asian actors and filmmakers  while burgeoning  is still small enough that the people involved in Miss India America had a history before the first day of filming: Simhan has played Sircars mother twice, in the television shows Touch and Numb3rs, and Kapoor has also previously been Sircars father on screen.

Hannah Simone, who plays Cece Parekh on the Fox sitcom New Girl, was one of the judges at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2012 when she caught Kapoors short film, The 5.

I thought it was so incredible, and it put him on my radar, she said. I knew I wanted to work with him one day."Not long after Simhan was guest-starring in an episode of New Girl, and she and Simone got to talking about Miss India.

It was so refreshing and different. These are the kinds of stories that need to be told, Simone said. She signed on not just to play Lilys biggest competitor in Miss India but is also the films executive producer.

One of the great gifts of it was to be in every single casting session, Simone said. I saw almost every South Asian actor in L.A., and I could see the depth of talent that exists in this town. Theres not a lot of roles, so its cool to be part of a project ... that is almost a showcase for these actors. That we could do that here is really rewarding.

The writers employed some of the familiar tropes of setting a story in that still-traditional community. Lilys father, Sam (Bernard White), is a successful neurosurgeon with a five-bedroom house in Orange County, where much of the movie was shot over a 23-day period. (Other locations included Cerritos and Los Angeles.) There are overbearing, superstitious mothers, an inebriated fading Bollywood superstar (Cas Anvar), a handsome cad of an emcee (Sathya Bhabha) and the well-intentioned best friend (Kosha Patel).

The film has been warmly received on the festival circuit in both South Asian and mainstream festivals. The timing is fitting given the conversation about diversity in Hollywood.

We felt that if we didnt tell these stories about South Asians in America, then nobody would, said Kapoor, who is making his feature directorial debut with Miss India. And if we didnt have these stories out there, there would be no historical narrative of us ever having been here. When our kids grow up, and their kids say, What was it like being an Indian in America in the 2010s? they can say, Watch this movie.'As an industry, weve neglected to tell those stories. And I think audiences are ready for them.

Miss India America will be available across VOD platforms starting April 5.

calendar@latimes.com
To many, Dave Chappelle has been missing in action; the beloved comedian has been hard to come by since the end of his Comedy Central sketch show Chappelles Show in 2006. But as he took to the stage of Hollywoods Palladium on Thursday night, the 42-year-old made it clear that this wasnt a comeback.

People always say, Where have you been?  he said at the start of the show. I never stopped working because I didnt get the money.

The crowd erupted in laughter and applause of approval. Such a response would characterize the entire set: hundreds of people cackling along  alcoholic beverages in hand  pumping their fists and reveling in whats been called comedic genius, so much so that no one seemed concerned that their cellphones had been locked away in magnetized pouches.

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But surely in the back of the sold-out crowds mind was whether Chappelle still had it.

Controversy once swirled around Chappelles name following his much-talked-about exit from television in the midst of his shows third season and subsequent spiritual retreat in South Africa. While reports alleged that he and the network clashed over finances and creativity, he told People Magazine in 2014 that wasnt the case. He just wanted to raise his family without the constant spotlight of celebrity.

I never stopped being onstage. What I did was step off of the main stage, he told the magazine, because those lights were hot, and I was trying to do other things with my life.

The comedian continued to do stand-up routines and pop-up shows at comedy clubs across the country. Most recently, he made multiday appearances in cities including Portland, Ore., Seattle and Milwaukee.

Chappelle, in fact, is on a tour of sorts, but not one necessarily planned out months before. The way it works: He decides he wants to do a show, announces it a week in advance and watches as the tickets sell out in the blink of an eye.

The Palladium set was the first of six, two-a-day shows through Saturday and his first formal concert in Los Angeles since the end of his television show.

When Aaron Voorhees, 37, heard it announced on the radio last week, he and his wife immediately called to get tickets. As longtime fans, since Chappelle co-starred in 1993s Robin Hood: Men in Tights, they wanted to see whether his comedy was still on par with what they once knew.

Voorhees arrived at 5 p.m. for the show scheduled to start at 6. Seating was first-come, first-serve and all tickets were will-call, so he wanted to be there early. But the line was already wrapped around the block.

An hour and a half later, he made it to the front of the line, where wristbands were being handed out. Posted signs prompted audience members to turn off their cellphones. At the door of the entrance, all phones were bagged in magnetic cases, to be unlocked only at the end of the show. Chappelle recorded the show. No word yet on whether it will end up on the large or small screen. Hes taped three performances thus far. Needless to say, expectations were high.

As red, blue and white lights filled the room, the show began with three opening acts: comedians Jay Pharoah, Chris Spencer and Donnell Rawlings. Each delivered sets that brought the crowd to its feet by the end. And then it was Chappelles turn.

The venue DJ began a medley of tracks as his introduction. With the crowd already on its feet and cheering, DMXs Party Up (Up in Here) and Ruff Ryders Anthem, Nellys Ride With Me and Montell Jordans This is How We Do It filled the room as Chappelle walked onstage to a thunderous roar. And from the jump, the audience started laughing and kept doing so for the hour or so he was in front of them.

I literally got a headache from laughing too hard, Voorhees said. He surpassed my expectations.

The comedian delivered the unapologetic, politically incorrect set characteristic of his former, more visible days, and no one was off-limits. He defended Manny Pacquiaos homophobia, said he misses Bruce Jenner and called Bill Cosby the Steph Curry of rape. Presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton also were targets as well as terrorist groups, male feminists and O.J. Simpson.

Liz Heron, who also attended the 6 p.m. show, appreciated its provocativeness.

Im glad he still pushes the boundaries and is unapologetic, she said, noting that she did groan at some of his sexual assault jokes. Hes got a real unique voice and a real unique perspective in comedy. Ive missed it.

Heron said that she wasnt aware that Chappelle had been touring and doing shows as often as he had, but that it definitely shows in his comfort level onstage. Voorhees agreed.

Dave seemed to be comfy, he said. No rust, right in the flow with his normal stage presence. Thats refreshing being that most comedians dont recover from breaks in work or social falls.

When the set ended, the crowd stood once more, the cheering drowning out the Kendrick Lamar track Levitate, which played as Chappelle took a bow. The comedian came back to pay tribute to comedian Garry Shandling, who had died earlier in the day, and rapper Phife Dawg, who died Tuesday.

As the audience filed out of the theater, someone could be overheard saying: Back like he never left.

Thats because he didnt.

Get your life! Follow me on Twitter: @TrevellAnderson.

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If youre a fan of KFC wings  the kind lashed with Korean hot sauce rather than the Southern-style from a certain fast food chain  may think of them as just a form of basic sustenance. You spend your evenings cooling the burn of lip-scalding wings with frosty mugs of Hite, while bobbing your head to blaring K-pop in crowded dining rooms. By the third round of beer, you should be ready to sing Bang Bang Bang by Bigbang at post-dinner karaoke.

When youre craving this experience in L.A., you head to the general vicinity of Koreatown. You might not think to go to Arcadia, the small suburb just east of Pasadena in the San Gabriel Valley, known for Santa Anita Park, the 82-year-old race track, and the Westfield Santa Anita mall.

Aldo and Nami Nakaganeku are trying to change that. The married couple opened Hot n Sweet chicken, a restaurant on a sleepy stretch of Huntington Drive that includes a driving school, a healcare supply store and a funeral home, in 2013.

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Customers Patrick Regan, right, his brother Phin Regan and Phins wife, Connie, eat at Hot n Sweet Chicken, where K-pop videos play and Hite is on tap. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

There are really no Korean fried chicken places here like in Koreatown, says Aldo. He is sitting next to his wife at a table in his restaurant. Karas Mamma Mia K-pop music video plays on a T.V. behind him. We wanted to bring the K-town experience to this part of town, Aldo says. One day, wed like to expand and bring the experience all along the 210 freeway.

Nami, born in South Korea, and Aldo, who is Japanese but was born in Argentina (he once worked as a cook and sushi chef at a restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska), decided to open the type of restaurant youd find somewhere in between Wilshire Boulevard and Sixth Street in Los Angeles. Or in Seoul.

In Korea, people eat wings like a snack, and most people eat them with beer, says Aldo. Thousands of people offer wings. Its like Starbucks here.

Theyve outfitted the restaurant with everything youd crave from an outing in Koreatown, minus the drunk karaoke. Theres Hite on tap, soju, Bigbang and Girls Generation music videos on the TVs, and  most importantly  theres KFC .

Most of Namis experience in the kitchen came from decades of cooking for her family in South Korea and in the U.S. She and her husband developed the restaurants wing recipe after eating fried chicken in Korea, Singapore, Japan, Argentina, Brazil and, of all places, Canada (every place they traveled, theyd be sure to try the fried chicken). Then they spent five years experimenting and perfecting the wings they now serve at the restaurant.

Namis wings are not the thick-coated, ultra crisp, completely sauce-smothered wings youll find at OB Bear, a Koreatown site of pilgramage for those who love wings. Theyre also not the wings youll find at Kyochon, which taste a bit like theyve been coated in breakfast rice cereal. Rather, the wings at Hot n Sweet fall somewhere in between. The coating is crisp and golden, light in texture, and when you take a bite, it shatters, then melts on your tongue. That crisp, airy quality is similar to what youd get if you dipped a wing in tempura batter  much lighter than the coating on the double-fried KFC you can find all over Koreatown. This distinct texture is achieved through Namis recipe  she uses a mix of cornstarch and flour in the batter  and the way she fries the chicken.

Its a recent evening in their restaurant, and Nami is wearing a fuschia turtleneck, pink arm warmers, a black apron and her hair tied neatly back with a black velvet bow. She stands over a large fryer in her kitchen, dropping battered chicken wings into the fryer. The oil is light in color, due to her switching it out almost every day after service.

She uses a gloved hand to drop each wing, one by one, into the fryer. (Aldo estimates that Nami makes and coats about 1,200 wings a week.) On contact, the oil seethes around the chicken. Wielding a large slotted utensil, she pushes the chicken back and forth, continuously moving it around the bubbling pool. After about five minutes, she takes what looks like a giant knitting needle and punctures each piece, once or twice in the oil. This so chicken is done, says Nami. She doesnt use a timer. She moves the pieces around, lifts them out of the oil to check the color, then, about five minutes later, declares the wings cooked and ready for saucing.

Aldo, right, and Nami Nakaganeku opened Hot n Sweet in 2013. They spent years developing their recipe. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Nami then coats the chicken in a bright, salty soy garlic sauce  its made with a heady mixture of 15 ingredients, including sake and garlic. The sauce is thinner than a glaze, with a hint of ginger and that distinct sweetness that comes from sake or mirin. (You can eat a dozen without much effort.) And if soy garlic sauce seems a little too tame for you, Nami also has four other sauces, labeled one to four in order of heat level. One is mild enough to keep a chile head satisfied without getting teary-eyed  four is hot enough to stun someone whos had a few too many Hites into a state that faintly resembles sobriety. The couple shared a version of the soy-garlic chicken wing recipe, minus a few secret ingredients. For the full experience, youll have to drive to Arcadia.

jenn.harris@latimes.com
It took a Texas grand jury only two months to reject claims that Planned Parenthood had illegally trafficked in fetal tissue, and instead indict two antiabortion activists whose elaborate plans blew up in their faces. That was some swift poetic justice.

But whats taking California so long?

In July, our politically ambitious attorney general, Kamala Harris, vowed to carefully review the Center for Medical Progress.

In a preliminary injunction order forbidding the Center for Medical Progress from posting more surreptitiously taken videos, U.S. District Judge William Orrick stated in February that the centers principals secured fake California IDs and filed fake California incorporation papers for a fake company called Biomax.

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He also acknowledged that they had registered their fake center with Californias Registry of Charitable Trusts, used fake credentials to infiltrate a San Francisco meeting of abortion professionals, and videotaped California doctors without consent.

Harris spokesman told me Wednesday the office does not comment on investigations, or even confirm whether an investigation exists.

Over the last few days, advocates for reproductive rights have wondered aloud during interviews whether Harris campaign to replace Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate has anything to do with her apparent lack of urgency on this case. Its not as if a California Democrat has anything to lose by protecting abortion rights.

Since the Center for Medical Progress launched its campaign, abortion providers have been subject to what Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation described as a flood of hate speech, threats and violence.

The volume and the vitriol of what was appearing online was staggering, and frightening, she told me. NAF, the professional association for abortion providers, had to hire an outside security firm to monitor threats.

No one was less surprised than Saporta when a gunman killed a police officer and two others at a Colorado Springs abortion clinic in November. No more baby parts, he was reported to have told police. In court, the suspect shouted, Im a warrior for the babies.

Sadly, neither the Texas indictments nor the exoneration of Planned Parenthood by 12 states following investigations into fetal tissue procurement have done a thing to slow those who would like to install a control panel in the womb of every American woman of childbearing age.

Instead, abortion foes seem empowered.

Republican members of the misleadingly named House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives have subpoenaed medical supply companies and labs for the names of researchers, lab techs and others working with fetal tissue to cure ailments like cancer, Alzheimers and diabetes. Given the violence, why demand names?

This is not information, this is intimidation.

::

Maybe the courts can help put an end to this nonsense.

Last summer, the National Abortion Federation filed a federal lawsuit naming as defendants the Center for Medical Progress, Biomax Procurement Services LLC, David Daleiden and Troy Newman.

The suit alleges conspiracy, fraud, racketeering, trespassing, illegal recording and breaches of contract in connection with the surreptitious fetal tissue videotapes. (Planned Parenthood has filed a similar lawsuit; both are being heard in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.)

Daleiden, 27, is a relative newcomer to the antiabortion crusade. Newman, 49, is an old hand. He is president of Operation Rescue, which set up shop in Wichita, and harassed late-term abortion doctor George Tiller.

In interviews after the first Center for Medical Progress videos were released in July, Newman took credit for masterminding the operation and recruiting Daleiden. After NAF filed its lawsuit, he resigned from the centers board of directors.

In testimony associated with the lawsuit, Newman invoked his right against self-incrimination, as did Daleiden. (Its a legal strategy, Newman said when I reached him by phone in Kansas on Thursday. Ive got nothing to hide.)

I met Newman in March 2009 in Wichita. I was there to cover the criminal trial of Tiller, who had been charged with breaking Kansas abortion law. Newman boasted to me that he had helped prosecutors build their case. A jury exonerated Tiller in less time than it took for them to eat their sandwiches.

Two months later, Tiller was killed by a man who had Operation Rescues phone number on the front seat of his car when he was arrested.

For years, Newman had drawn extremists to Wichita to agitate against Tiller. A few years before Tiller was killed, Newman described the murder of John Britton, a Florida abortion doctor, as justifiable defensive action.

After Tillers death, Newman denounced violence and claimed that Tiller was on the verge of being driven out of business anyway. I would describe that as magical thinking.

Less than a year later, I met Saporta in Wichita as well. She had come to monitor the trial of the man who shot Tiller.

Newman, she said, has played an instrumental role in the extreme wing of the antiabortion movement.... He has a whole website where he is basically telling the people ... where to find physicians and others who provide abortion care.

Newman made a sound like a game-show buzzer when I read that to him. I cant comment, he said, even though I am dying to.

::

In February, Judge Orrick said hed found no evidence of wrongdoing by NAF or Planned Parenthood.

He did, however, find that the Center for Medical Progress, Newman and Daleiden engaged in repeated instances of fraud, including the manufacture of fake documents, the creation and registration with the state of California of a fake company.

The defendants are appealing the injunction.

But what is Atty. Gen. Harris waiting for?

Id sure love to know.

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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Los Angeles County residents on Thursday had their first chance to address transportation officials about their ambitious, $120-billion plan to raise taxes and dramatically expand mass transit in the region.

Much of the two hours of public testimony at the Metropolitan Transportation Authoritys downtown headquarters focused on how quickly the agency could build and open major projects if the tax proposal were approved.

The rough plan, released earlier this month, calls for more than three dozen mass transit and highway improvements over the next four decades, including a rail tunnel through the Sepulveda Pass, the San Fernando Valleys first light-rail line, and a series of extensions of existing routes.

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Im young now, but I wont be young forever, said Karina Macias, a councilwoman from Huntington Park, as she urged Metro directors to accelerate the timeline for a transit link between Union Station and Artesia, currently slated to open in 2049. I want to see this project become a reality.

She added: We are unified, and we are prepared to organize against the measure if the needs of our cities are not met.

Its a familiar refrain for Metro officials working on the political balancing act of getting the ballot measure passed.

To meet the two-thirds voter threshold required to raise taxes, Metro will need buy-in from virtually every area of the county. The agencys rough proposal reflects that, with rail lines and highway projects stretching from the South Bay to northern L.A. County and from Westwood to Claremont.

The current plan, expected to appear on the Nov. 8 ballot, would raise about $120 billion by extending a current sales tax for 18 years and raising the sales tax rate by an additional half-cent for at least four decades, boosting the countys base sales tax rate to 9.5%.

Of the $120 billion in revenue, $42 billion would fund new transit routes, $20 billion would go toward highway projects, and $19.2 billion would be returned to cities for local projects, including filling potholes and fixing sidewalks.

Metro staff will be able to make changes to the proposal until June, when the agencys directors are expected to approve the measure for the November ballot.

The agencys top officials are pushing to extend the new tax to five decades, rather than four, which could raise an additional $11 billion. Of that, about $3.85 billion would go toward transit construction.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Metro director, told the crowd Thursday that the timelines included in the agencys rough proposal could be sped up with funding from the federal government or the private sector.

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Money leverages money, Garcetti said. We need to get something passed. We should figure out a way that we can have a pot of money that were actually fighting over.

He added: Its the goal of everyone here to see these things open before we die.

The transit link between Artesia and Union Station drew some of the strongest support. Representatives from cities along the route, including Artesia, Huntington Park and Downey, urged Metro to speed the timeline on the project.

The proposal currently calls for two phases of construction: The first, from Artesia to the Green Line along the 105 Freeway, is slated to open in 2031. The second, north to Union Station, would open by 2049.

The line was one of a dozen rail projects to be funded through Measure R, the half-cent sales tax that county voters approved in 2008. Under that expenditure plan, the route would have opened in 2027.

That delay, among others, drew criticism from three Metro directors Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and Lakewood Councilwoman Diane DuBois  who said the needs of the southeast cities of the county had been overlooked.

The agencys recommendation, DuBois said, extended some of the project  completion dates into the future so far that no one can see it.

Advocates for bicyclists, pedestrians and the disabled also urged elected officials to dedicate more funding for those groups.

The current proposal allocates 2% of the revenue, or about $2.4 billion, to improve accessibility for seniors and the disabled, and the same amount for so-called active transportation projects, including crosswalks, sidewalks and bike lanes.

We will build a fantastic system that people wont feel safe walking and biking to, said Eric Bruins, the policy director of the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition.

Officials from West Hollywood and central Los Angeles urged the board to start construction earlier on the northern extension of the Crenshaw Line, which would go through Mid-City, Hollywood and possibly West Hollywood.

Metros draft plan says the line would open in 2055, which is much too late, Nicole Shahenian, a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce representative, told the board of directors.

The Crenshaw Line, which will stop at Aviation and Century boulevards, will eventually connect to Los Angeles International Airport through a people-mover, a small train similar to whats used in San Francisco and Denver.

Its imperative that we provide linkages from LAX to the place our visitors want to go: Hollywood, Shahenian said.

For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter.

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They came by the dozens last weekend to the San Diego County Medical Examiners Office to provide information about loved ones.

The first ever Identify the Missing day brought hope to many. Within just a few hours, one mother received information that her son, missing 30 years, was probably still alive.

Other mothers, such as Maria Vasquez of Escondido, had never filed a missing person report until Saturday. She was there in hopes of locating her son, Jesus Torres Vasquez, who disappeared in 1999.

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That summer, Jesus, who was 19, left on a bus with his uncle headed to Oregon. A few months passed and he called his mother to tell her he and his uncle were arguing and he was going to take off. He said he would call every now and again to let her know he was fine.

Later, the uncle told Maria that Jesus, a Mexican citizen, had been picked up by immigration and deported. She has never heard from him again.

She thinks Jesus is alive in the United States, but simply forgot about me.

Like many others at the event, she met with sheriffs deputies and filed a report, gave a sample of her DNA to a member of the California Department of Justice, and provided more information to a national missing persons organization that collects data and feeds it into a massive computer bank.

I think my son is good, he is OK, she said in Spanish. The heart of a mom tells me he is OK. I am sure this will be a start to find my son. Im very sure. I think I will hear news soon.

A variety of law enforcement agencies, including representatives from Mexico, attended the event. At the end of the day, 10 new missing persons cases were reported and 10 others updated.

Medical Examiner Glenn Wagner said there are 3,175 active missing person cases in San Diego County  and more than 19,000 statewide. Yet there are probably many others authorities dont know about because people are afraid to come forward because of their immigration status.

Just a couple of hours after the event started, El Cajon resident Garet Hegner, 89, who last saw her son Ross about 30 years ago when she kicked him out of the house in Pacific Beach, found out he most likely was still alive at the age of 64.

San Diego police told her they had made contact with Ross Hegner last summer in downtown San Diego when he was cited for sleeping on someones porch.

Isnt it wonderful? I never gave up, she said. I figured someday he would show up, but he better hurry because Ill be 90 this year.

She said she and her daughter planned to start searching for her son.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com

Jones writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The private Marlborough School contended a woman whose teacher sexually abused her could have prevented other students abuse had she come forward earlier, according to court papers filed this month in response to a lawsuit against the school.

The plaintiff is a victim of Joseph Thomas Koetters, the former English teacher who was sentenced to a year in jail on charges that he engaged in sex acts with her when she was a student from 2000 to 2002, and with another 16-year-old girl a few years later.

A lawsuit filed last April alleges that the school is responsible for letting the sexual abuse occur by hiring Koetters in 1999, when it knew that he had been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct at another school years earlier, and for the psychological trauma she experienced after the abuse ended.

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The plaintiff became pregnant her senior year and suffered a miscarriage, as well as years of emotional trauma, according to the lawsuit.

The original complaint alleges that Marlborough knew another school had forced Koetters to resign in part because of an inappropriate relationship with a student in the early 90s. The womans lawyer, David Ring, provided no evidence that this was the case or that Marlborough knew that information.

The lawsuit says that the plaintiff was in denial for many years about the cause of her psychological distress. She realized the connection in 2014, when another student published an essay on the website XOJane, detailing her experience with a teacher at the school, the lawsuit said. The publication Buzzfeed later wrote a story connecting the dots and identifying Koetters.

But in papers filed March 8, the schools lawyer writes that in 2009 the woman told a psychiatrist about the pregnancy and resulting psychological injury, but chose not to report the incident to police or the school.

Thus, Plaintiff consciously exposed other girls to the risk of abuse at Koetters hands, the filing said.

However, the school admitted in 2014 that it had received a complaint about Koetters conduct as early as 2005, and had not treated it seriously.

Now they have the audacity to actually blame the victim for ... the schools shortcomings, Ring said.

The schools filing also alleges that the womans negligence and carelessness contributed to and proximately caused the injuries and damages alleged.

Ring said he interprets this as the school blaming the victim for her own assault, a move that the state of California recently outlawed.

The schools attorney, Michael Swartz, denied that contention.

I have two teenage daughters who attend Marlborough School, and as a father there is no chance that I would ever say that a teenager was contributorily negligent for being seduced by a teacher, Swartz said in an email statement.

The legal answer we filed in L.A. Superior Court two weeks ago in no way seeks to prove that the plaintiff was negligent as a teenager, the email continued. The contributory negligence defense laid out in the filing is a standard defense to a negligent supervision claim and will be based on events that took place when the plaintiff was an adult.

He declined to specify those events.

Reach Sonali Kohli at sonali.kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.
A flight attendant arrested in an LAX cocaine smuggling case is a very accomplished young lady and the allegations are completely out of character, her attorney said.

Dennis J. Ring said it was too early in the case to answer specific allegations against Marsha Gay Reynolds but defended her character.

He said she is a U.S. citizen born in Jamaica who had competed in beauty pageants in the past. She was studying to become a nurse while working for JetBlue, he said.

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Reynolds, who worked for JetBlue Airways, kicked off her heels and fled Terminal 4 around 7 p.m. Friday, just minutes after she was randomly selected for additional screening, according to a criminal complaint filed this week. Barreling the wrong way down an escalator, Reynolds sprinted out of the terminal and disappeared outside.

TSA officials did not pursue her because they were concerned her abandoned luggage might have contained explosives, the complaint said.

When they did investigate her luggage, they found it loaded with 70 pounds of cocaine.

Now, questions are being asked about how Reynolds was able to elude authorities.

Even though her airline crew member badge had been scanned at a security checkpoint moments before she fled LAX, authorities were unable to identify her until the following day.

Also, LAX Police Chief Pat Gannon said the TSA called his department to notify it of an unattended bag, but the federal agency did not mention that Reynolds had run from the area.

We get these calls regularly, and obviously, we didnt know the extent of it until we got there, he said.

The information from Reynolds scanned badge was accessible only through a national Transportation Security Administration passenger database and could not be retrieved by investigators in Los Angeles after she took off running Friday, authorities said.

It took until Saturday for authorities in Washington, D.C., to identify Reynolds from the database, according to a source with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the case with the media.

An FBI spokeswoman said investigators learned Reynolds identity hours after the 31-year-old boarded a flight Saturday from Los Angeles International Airport to New York, where she resides.

The TSA officer who had scanned her badge told airport police he remembered her last name, according to the source with knowledge of the case. That information should have been enough to stop Reynolds from boarding a second flight, the source said.

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The difficulty in identifying Reynolds  and the ease with which she managed to escape the terminal Friday  highlighted serious security flaws at the nations second-largest airport, said Marshall McClain, president of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Assn. Like many airports around the country, LAX does not routinely screen airline crew members. McClain said Reynolds easily would have been able to shepherd the cocaine through security had she not been selected for a random screening.

The fact that flight attendants can be in their plain clothes, not even actually working, and have the ability to bypass screening with their luggage, thats a serious problem, he said. Thats a luxury I dont believe we can afford right now.

McClain said that TSA officers checked Reynolds identification Friday night when she scanned her badge but that the information for one passenger vanishes from the screen once other passengers are scanned next.

There was a pretty big delay. Friday night, all law enforcement knew is that it was a flight attendant, McClain said.

A TSA spokesman referred all questions to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which in turn referred a reporter to the FBI. Both agencies are investigating Reynolds case.

Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Los Angeles, said that Reynolds flew from LAX to New York on a JetBlue flight Saturday morning and that afterward investigators learned of her identity from an airline. Eimiller said she was unable to comment on TSA procedures aside from what was spelled out in the criminal complaint.

Reynolds appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday afternoon to face charges of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. A judge ordered her held in lieu of $500,000 bail, which was immediately posted by her parents and a local church pastor, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorneys office in Brooklyn.

But a federal judge in Los Angeles called for a review of the bail, requiring that Reynolds remain in custody until she is transported to Southern California for an April 7 bail hearing.

Follow @lacrimes and @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in Southern California.

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A San Gabriel Valley doctor agreed to plead guilty to a federal drug trafficking charge after illegally distributing the painkiller best known by the brand name Oxycontin, authorities said Thursday.

Daniel Cham of Covina agreed to plead guilty to one count of distribution of oxycodone and one count of money laundering, according to the U.S. attorneys office in Los Angeles.

Cham admitted to illegally prescribing oxycodone to an undercover agent who posed as a patient in March 2014 in exchange for $300 in money orders, according to the plea agreement. He then deposited the money orders into a bank account held in another business name, the agreement said.

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Cham made the deposit knowing that the transaction was designed to conceal and disguise the nature and source of the money orders, the document said.

The 48-year-old was initially charged in October 2014 when a federal grand jury returned an indictment alleging narcotics trafficking, money laundering, fraud and making false statements to authorities.

The indictment focused on prescriptions Cham wrote at various locations, including his medical offices in La Puente and Artesia, authorities said. Investigators searched 13 locations in May 2014, including Chams residence as well as the medical offices.

Cham often post-dated prescriptions to make them appear to have been written on weekdays, according to the affidavit in support of the search warrants. Over the course of a year, Cham issued more than 5,500 prescriptions for controlled substances and, since July 2010, more than 42,000 prescriptions overall, the affidavit said.

The investigation was conducted by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the California Medical Board and the Los Angeles Police Department.

The drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges the doctor pleaded guilty to carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

In the plea agreement, Cham also agreed to forfeit to the government more than $60,000 in cash that he admits are proceeds of [his] illegal activity.

Chams case is pending before United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson, who has scheduled an April 4 hearing for Cham to enter his guilty plea.

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

For more local and breaking news, follow me on Twitter: @sarahparvini

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A bus driver was charged Friday in the death of a special needs student who was left in a sweltering bus parked with its windows closed, prosecutors said.

Armando Abel Ramirez, 37, of Rialto faces one felony count of dependent adult abuse that resulted in the death of Hun Joon Paul Lee, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office.

Ramirez is scheduled to be arraigned April 25, prosecutors said. If convicted, he faces up to nine years in state prison. Ramirez was arrested Wednesday.

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An investigation into the death began Sept. 11 when police went to a bus yard in Whittier and found Lee slumped in an aisle. He had been inside the parked bus for hours, prosecutors said.

Temperatures reached 90 degrees that day, and the bus windows were closed.

Paramedics unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate Lee. He was pronounced dead.

Lee, 19, a student at Sierra Adult School, could not verbally communicate and needed special care, prosecutors said.

The school that Lee attended has a transition program dedicated to adult students with special needs, said Valerie Martinez, Whittier Union High School District spokeswoman.

NEWSLETTER: Get essential California headlines delivered daily >>

Ramirez was a substitute driver on Lees bus that day and was also working a split shift. Lee regularly rode the bus to his home in Whittier.

Ramirez reportedly believed Lee had gotten off the bus to go to school in the morning, prosecutors said. Yet he allegedly did not walk to the rear of the bus and did not look over his shoulder to check that any one was left in the vehicle at the end of his morning shift.

After working the morning shift, Ramirez returned the bus to the yard, filled out paperwork and went home, prosecutors said.

Later that day, he returned to work for his second shift and a dispatcher told him that Lee was missing.

The teen typically left school on the bus about 2:30 p.m. and arrived home at 4 p.m., said Brad White, a spokesman for the Whittier Police Department. When he didnt show up, his mother called the school, which then called the bus company

Ramirez checked the bus, where he found Lee unresponsive and called for help.

The family sued the school district and bus agency in December, alleging negligence in Lees death and in hiring Ramirez.

According to the suit, there were only three students on the bus the entire ride, including Lee. When they arrived at the school however, only two left the bus and Lee remained inside.

His family said he remained inside the bus for seven hours.

For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

Times staff writer Joseph Serna contributed to this report.
The DNA of an unknown male was found on the body of one of the 10 victims of the so-called Grim Sleeper serial killer, a DNA analyst hired by the defense team testified Thursday.

According to the testimony, the unidentified DNA found on the body of Lachrica Jefferson, 22, was in addition to DNA that matched the profile of Lonnie Franklin Jr., who is on trial in a downtown courtroom.

Prosecutors allege that Franklin committed the grisly killings over more than two decades.

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Franklin, 63, faces 10 counts of murder in the slayings of nine women and a 15-year-old girl. He also faces one count of attempted murder.

The former Los Angeles Police Department garage attendant has pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorney Seymour Amster has attacked forensic and ballistic evidence presented by the prosecution that ties Franklin to the killings.

In his opening statement, Amster said the defense would present evidence that DNA belonging to other people was found at some of the crime scenes, on victims clothing and on their bodies  apparently suggesting that men other than Franklin could have been involved in the deaths.

On Thursday, Matthew Pettis, a forensic specialist for Sorenson Forensics, a private laboratory in Utah, testified for the defense that there were several instances in which DNA belonging to an unknown male was found on Jeffersons body. Franklins DNA was also found on the body, Pettis said.

Earlier in the trial, Cristina Gonzalez, a criminalist with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, testified that DNA evidence found on Jefferson matched Franklins DNA profile. Jefferson was found dead of two gunshot wounds in L.A.'s Westmont neighborhood in 1988.

Prosecutors say that each of the 10 slain victims is connected to Franklin by DNA evidence, ballistics or both. In all, Franklins DNA was found on seven of 11 victims  10 who were killed and another who survived, prosecutors have said.

A gun found in Franklins home was used to shoot one of the victims, according to court testimony. Police criminalists testified that bullets from seven victims  six who were killed and the one who survived  were fired from the same weapon.

Franklins DNA was on the bodies of three of those victims, according to previous testimony.

For more on the Grim Sleeper trial, follow @sjceasar
The owner of the Calexico home where authorities discovered a drug tunnel that stretched across the border into Mexico was arrested Thursday in Tucson and charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, federal prosecutors said.

Augustin Enrique Cruz, who goes by the moniker Tinky, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security agents and is expected to appear in an Arizona federal courtroom before extradition to Southern California, according to the U.S. attorneys office in San Diego.

The arrest comes one day after investigators seized a 415-yard drug tunnel that was allegedly used to transport drugs between El Sarape Restaurant in Mexicali, Mexico, and a newly built home on Third Street in Calexico. Inside the home, the tunnels entryway was hidden by floor tiles.

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The trafficking scheme was notable, prosecutors said, because its the first time property was purchased with the express purpose of building a home to disguise a drug tunnel.

In that scheme, prosecutors alleged, Cruz was a central figure.

Cruz, a U.S. citizen, visited the Calexico area from Arizona several times in late 2014 to scout properties for the eventual tunnel, according to a criminal complaint.

In January 2015, Cruz bought the land in the 900 block of East Third Street. The money for the purchase came from cash picked up from Cruzs co-conspirators in California and Arizona, prosecutors said.

Cruz and his associates hired contractors to build the home, and Cruzs boss gave instructions to leave a spot in the foundation for a safe encased in the floor, prosecutors said. That spot would serve as the tunnels entry point.

The home was completed in December 2015. The next month, Cruz rented construction equipment to widen the tunnels exit point.

Federal investigators were monitoring the property throughout the construction of the home, and listened in on phone calls between Cruz and his father during which they discussed the tunnel.

Starting on Feb. 28, prosecutors allege, Cruz and his associates began moving narcotics through the tunnel and later transporting drugs to another home in Calexico. From there, the drugs went to a nearby warehouse.

On March 7, investigators nabbed more than 1,300 pounds of marijuana that moved through the tunnel into Calexico and eventually to Los Angeles.

Two men, Joel Duarte Medina and Manuel Gallegos Jiminez, were arrested Wednesday in connection with the tunnel, prosecutors said.

A woman, Eva Duarte De Medina, was arrested in Arizona in connection with the tunnel and faces charges of conspiracy to import marijuana and conspiracy to maintain drug premises.

Cruz is charged with five counts: conspiracy to import controlled substances; conspiracy to maintain drug-related premises; money laundering; and aiding in the construction and use of a narcotics tunnel. Each of the five counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno.

Kristina Davis, a staff writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, contributed to this report.

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After approving a controversial statement condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of bias, University of California regents plan to keep close tabs on how campuses respond to instances of intolerance.

Regent Norman J. Pattiz said in an interview Thursday that multiple cases of hostility toward Jewish students at UC campuses prompted him and other regents to take a more active role in monitoring the situation. He said many Jewish members of the UC community felt that complaints about bias toward them have not been taken seriously enough.

Were asking for regular reports on instances of intolerance that take place on campus ... so we can determine whether we think the actions taken were appropriate, he said. This is just Jews standing up for ourselves during a period where instances of anti-Semitism continue to be reported on college campuses.

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The statement that won unanimous support from the regents this week declares that Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California. No sanctions are specified for those who cross the line, but the statement calls on educators to challenge bias.

Debate over the statement has been contentious. Supporters have cited the need to combat intolerance and protect Jewish students from hostile attacks; critics fear it will stifle free speech and impinge on academic freedom. Students, faculty and other concerned members of the UC community sent roughly 1,000 emails to UC President Janet Napolitano to air their feelings about the matter in advance of Wednesdays vote.

Pattiz and seven other members of a UC group that worked on the statement initially proposed a broad condemnation of anti-Zionism, a political ideology that challenges Israels right to exist as a Jewish homeland.

But free-speech advocates said that would restrict political activity and squelch debate -- especially criticism -- over Israels policies, particularly toward Palestinians.

The authors then modified the statement to specify that the regents were speaking out against anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.

Pattiz said regents made a deliberate decision to leave that phrase undefined so that campuses could handle cases as they saw fit. But he gave two examples of what he would consider unacceptable hate speech: epithets such as Zionist pigs and suggestions that Zionists be sent to gas chambers.

Pattiz called the amendment an excellent clarification to signal that regents were not aiming to restrict free speech or academic debate.

If someone wants to debate what Zionism is, they are free to do so, he said. What we object to is anti-Zionism used as the new face of anti-Semitism.

He said he hoped university administrators will take the same actions against anti-Semites as they would take against those who discriminate against members of other racial, ethnic, religious and gender identity groups.

However, Palestinian rights supporters remain wary that the statement -- part of a broader report on intolerance -- will be used to stifle their activities. Liz Jackson, an attorney with Palestine Legal in Oakland, has said that her organization will also monitor UC campuses for unlawful suppression of 1st Amendment rights.

The regents report asserts that 1st Amendment principles must be paramount in guiding responses to acts of bias, including harassment, threats, assaults and vandalism. In addition to Jewish students, it includes actions directed at Muslims, African Americans, immigrant-rights supporters and the LGBT community.

For more education news, follow me @TeresaWatanabe

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A judge has granted an Orange County womans request to step back from the class-action litigation she filed six years ago against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his now-defunct Trump University  with some caveats.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego found Tarla Makaeff has undoubtedly suffered stress as a result of this litigation and said in an order filed late Monday that there were reasonable grounds for her to pull out as a named class representative so close to trial.

Makaeff cited health problems, unforeseen publicity and Trumps public barbs at her character as reasons she wished to withdraw.

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Curiel ruled that Makaeff would be able to remain in the lawsuit as an unnamed class member, potentially able to collect damages should Trump lose the case.

Neither pundits, counsel, or the parties anticipated the media obsession that this case would create due to defendant Trump becoming a candidate for president of the United States, Curiel wrote. It is also plain that with every additional candidates debate and state primary, the attention given to the case has grown.

While Makaeffs request to withdraw at the pre-trial stage is unusual, so is the unforeseen degree of attention this case has engendered.

The lawsuit accuses Trump of misleading students of his real-estate program, which cost $35,000 for an elite membership. The suit alleges Trump University falsely gave the impression that it was an accredited university, that students would be taught by real estate experts and mentors handpicked by Trump, and that students would get a year of mentoring.

Instead, the lawsuit says, the instructors were not experts, the program focused on up-selling techniques to rake in more money and the yearlong mentorship program fell flat.

Trumps lawyers argue that many students gave the program positive ratings and those who failed to find success in real estate did so by their own fault.

Makaeff had also requested that she be cleared from having to pay any attorneys fees or costs for work Trumps lawyers did fighting her involvement in the case, and asked for an order barring Trump from being able to use her withdrawal as the basis for a future lawsuit against her. (Trump had previously filed a $1-million defamation lawsuit against her, which was later dismissed.)

The judge denied both requests. He left open the possibility that Makaeff might have to pay some opposing attorneys fees and costs  although that would be figured out after a trial, depending on how the case shakes out. Further, he said an order barring future litigation is an extreme remedy that should be rarely used, and it wasnt fitting in this case.

Makaeff has seven days to decide whether to accept the conditions and withdraw, or to continue with the lawsuit.

Both her attorneys and Trumps attorneys declined interview requests.

Trumps lawyers had argued against Makaeffs withdrawal, saying the bulk of their defense has been built around her.

There are three other named class representatives in the lawsuit, including Sonny Low, 74, of Chula Vista who would represent California class members. Still, with Makaeff gone, it would be like starting at square one, the lawyers argued.

The ruling did not excuse Makaeff from testifying in a trial if she is subpoenaed by Trumps lawyers, although the judge would not be able to compel her to appear if she is out of state. If she doesnt appear in the trial, her deposition testimony would be fair game.

Trumps lawyers had intended to call two witnesses to testify about Makaeffs positive experience with Trump University as well as her pattern of starting but failing to complete seminar programs, they said.

But, the judge said, given the legal issues that must be proven, her absence would not cripple Trumps ability to defend the case.

A trial date is expected to be set during the next hearing in the case, which is scheduled for May 6.

kristina.davis@sduntiontribune.com

Davis writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
In between attending two Los Angeles-area fundraisers, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton railed against the laxness of campaign finance laws on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

We have to raise money. I raise a lot of money at events and I raise a lot of money online, but there should not be these huge loopholes for corporations and billionaires to just put as much money as they want to and not even have to tell you who it comes from or really disclose very much at all, Clinton told Kimmel, arguing that Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that weakened campaign finance laws, must be overturned. It is wrong.

Election 2016 | Live coverage on Trail Guide | March 22 election results | Track the delegate race | Sign up for the newsletter

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Clintons position was not new, but her statement occurred the same day that she headlined fundraisers in Santa Monica and Hollywood, and the same day Politico reported that a couple could buy seats at the head table at a Clinton Bay Area fundraiser next month alongside George and Amal Clooney by contributing or raising $353,400 for various Democratic groups.

Clinton was on the second day of a two-day trip to California. She held a homeland security forum at USC earlier in the day, when she pledged to campaign vigorously ahead of the states June 7 primary.

California will be the final word on the nominating process for both sides, and Im going to work as hard as I possibly can to do well here, reaching out to every part of the state, every voter in it, she told reporters after the event. Because not only do I value Californias important role as the exclamation point on the primary nominating process, but its important to get ready and organized for the fall election, where so much is at stake for our country.

During the Kimmel appearance, Clinton defended her husband, former President Clinton, for a statement this week that appeared to criticize President Obamas tenure.

If you believe weve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that where we were practicing trickle-down economics, then you should vote for her, the former president said Monday in Spokane, Wash.

Asked by Kimmel whether those remarks were a shot at Obama, Clinton replied: It wasnt. It was obviously not. I mean, he nominated President Obama for his second term and we are both very proud supporters of President Obama.

But what it was was the recognition that President Obama, who I think doesnt get the credit he deserves for getting as much done in our country, has faced this implacable wall of hostility from the Republicans, she said, citing the Senates refusal to consider Obamas nominee to the Supreme Court.

There were several lighthearted moments in the interview, such as when Kimmel told Clinton that her campaign slogans were not as good as rival Bernie Sanders Feel the Bern. The late-night host offered some alternatives printed on T-shirts, bumper stickers and buttons: You Be Hillin, Hillin Like a Villain, Take a Hill Pill, Netflix and Hill and Hillary Rod-DAMN.

I love it that people make up slogans, Clinton said.

Clintons appearance concluded with a satirical segment where Kimmel told her he could be her secret weapon to winning the presidential campaign, and asked her whether she knew what mansplaining was.

Thats when a man explains something to a woman in a patronizing way, Clinton said.

Kimmel replied: Actually, its when a man explains something to a woman in a condescending way. But you were close. So mansplaining is a way that we men can help women be better.

Kimmel asked her to deliver lines from her stump speech, and criticized her blue pantsuit, the level of her smile and the modulation of her voice  too loud and shrill, then too meek.

Your comments are kind of contradictory, Clinton said. Its like nothing I ever do is right.

Kimmel agreed. Exactly. Youre not doing it right. I cant quite put my finger on it. But something is, youre not, umm 

A man? Clinton interjected.

Yes, that is it! Youre not a man! Kimmel concluded. But that was really cute the way you did it though.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

For the latest 2016 campaign news, follow @LATSeema on Twitter.

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After 39 contests and more than 20 million votes cast, the Republican presidential race has narrowed to three candidates and three possible scenarios.

The first, and most likely, is that Donald Trump wins the delegates he needs to mathematically clinch the GOP nomination ahead of the partys national convention this summer.

The second, testing Trumps much-vaunted deal-making skills, has the businessman and reality TV star coming up just shy but bargaining his way to the 1,237 delegates he needs to take the nomination.

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The third scenario, and the hope of rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich and other forces arrayed against Trump, is forcing an open convention that picks the nominee on the floor of the convention in downtown Cleveland.

If Trump continues winning primaries at just about his current pace, he could have all the delegates he needs before the opening gavel falls on July 18, or will at least come close.

After Tuesdays victory in winner-take-all Arizona, Trump has 739 delegates, far more than either of his two remaining GOP rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and more than half the number needed to lock down the nomination, at least on paper.

Still, his opponents and others fighting Trump are hardly giving up. They hope to deny him a victory in the first round of balloting, forcing an open convention and the first to require multiple ballots since the Democratic convention in 1952. (The last Republican convention to go multiple rounds was in 1948.)

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Much will depend on the outcome of primaries in several big states that have yet to vote, including Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania and, on June 7, the biggest of all, California.

Trump has won 48% of the delegates awarded so far and needs to win just over half, 54%, of those remaining to reach 1,237, according to tracking by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz needs to win 86% of remaining delegates to clinch the nomination, which is mathematically possible but not realistic. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has no chance of getting the nomination short of emerging the choice of a contested convention.

Going forward, its going to take something we havent seen to date to derail Trump, said David Wasserman, who manages the delegate count for the Cook report.

While the math is straightforward, myriad permutations could determine who Republicans send forth against the Democratic nominee in November, especially if Trump were to fall short on the conventions first ballot.

TRAIL GUIDE: All the latest news on the 2016 presidential campaign >>

Of the 2,472 delegates arriving in Cleveland, most will probably support their candidate whole-heartedly and do everything they can to ensure they win the nomination. Scores, however, will be unbound, leaving them free to back whomever they choose, regardless of how people back home voted.

Still others will be required to support a candidate on just the first round of balloting, and are then free to switch their allegiance. The rules governing delegates differ from state to state.

Each of the three remaining candidates have set up operations designed to ensure the loyalty of their delegates, court those who are free to choose and poach still others who are either wavering in their commitment or willing to switch after the first ballot.

Much of the effort is taking place far from the upcoming caucus and primary states, in places that have already voted, as party members gather at the state and local levels to select the individuals they will send as delegates to the national convention.

The campaigns are also working behind the scenes to place sympathetic members on the convention rules committee, which consists of 112 party members  two from each state and six U.S. territories  who will meet ahead of the gathering to decide how the four-day session will run.

While seemingly arcane, the decisions made by the panel could be crucial, determining, for instance, which candidates can have their names placed into nomination. (The rules are subject to approval by the full convention.)

For Trump, the calculation is straightforward.

He recently said on CNN he expected to win enough delegates to clinch the nomination ahead of the convention, but if he fell short and were at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400 I dont think you can say that we dont get it automatically.

I think youd have riots, he added. I wouldnt lead it, but I think bad things would happen.

Many rank-and-file Republicans seem to agree  not necessarily with Trumps threat of violence but with his underlying argument.

A recent nationwide Bloomberg Politics survey found 63% of those who voted in this years GOP primaries or caucuses believe the person with the most delegates deserves the partys nomination, even if he arrives in Cleveland short of a majority.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

Follow @markzbarabak for national & California politics

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Advice on how to attract and manage millennial employees has become a fixture of business journalism and corporate reports. Thanks to extensive research, we know that millennials may come to the workplace with a sense of entitlement, a tendency to overshare on social media, and frankness verging on insubordination, as the New York Times explained recently.

But what happens when baby boomers dominate your office culture? What are the best practices for handling their Luddism and fragile egos?

In the absence of reliable intelligence and seminars on the topic, millennials have had to invent coping mechanisms for working alongside their elders. Because millennials  according to many business-section articles  may be more comfortable on digital platforms than with face-to-face communication, I asked them to share what theyve learned via Twitter. Respondents quoted below are all working professionals age 33 or younger.

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NEVER say, This is so easy. Recognize that baby boomers have a lot of fear and anger about technology, and tread gently.

First, its important to never assume that your baby-boomer colleagues, born between 1946 and 1964, are unfamiliar with new technology. Its far more likely that theyve read about it, tried it once and decided they hate it. Therefore, its important not to offer a technology-based solution to every workplace problem  think old-school too. And dont talk to boomers as if their methods (even the ancient ones) are stupid. Keep it constructive. Suggest ways to optimize without remaking their entire process.

If you do find yourself demonstrating how to use a new digital tool, Chelsea Reil suggested, NEVER say, This is so easy. Recognize that baby boomers have a lot of fear and anger about technology, and tread gently  even in the midst of a reply-all disaster or an ill-advised joke about the pointlessness of Instagram. As Christina McDermott explained, There are people there who want to learn things like social media but dont have the confidence.

In a boomer-majority office, its often necessary to ignore mild but routine sexism, cautioned many millennial women. Remember that some boomers joined the workforce before anti-harassment policies were created. For sexist transgressions that seem too small to take to HR, millennials may want to establish a group text thread  a safe space for venting.

On a similar note, studies show that boomer men are likely to subconsciously favor younger employees who look like they do. Millennial men will want to keep an eye out for this behavior, and recognize their (unfair) comparative advantage.

If youre lucky enough to work with boomers who are concerned about systemic sexism, racism, ableism, classism and other important -isms, you may find that theyre nevertheless confused about queer issues and cant quite grasp the problem with so-called microaggressions. But dont mock their clueless questions. At her last job, Elena Potter saw these queries as educational opportunities: I wanted them to know it was safe to ask, and I would guide them toward respectful language and understanding around basic stuff.

Open communication  and the occasional after-work beer or midday coffee session  is vital. Understand its a learning process, McDermott said. See what skills you can swap rather than chiding them for not getting it. Brittney McNamara agreed, adding, Listen to them and they will listen to you.

Millennials may find that baby-boomer self-esteem has declined precipitously in response to rapid societal change. Its difficult to deal with that kind of emotional baggage when youre trying to get work done, but a few solicitous questions go a long way. Imani Oakley advised, Ask them how they did it  baby boomers love to be heard and admired. April Quioh has noticed that her boomer colleagues have a jones for humility, so its best to display a willingness to learn from them.

Its also important to signal to your boomer colleagues that youre aware of American history prior to 1990, without threatening their conviction that lived experience is invaluable. Of course youve listened to Fleetwood Mac, know who Richard Nixon is, and have heard that dad-joke about how This must be the local! when the elevator stops at every floor. Instead of insisting that youre already quite familiar with these cultural touchstones, however, just chuckle gently or ask a follow-up question about Lindsey Buckingham.

Restraint, millennials on Twitter agree, is indispensable, even when boomers arent showing any. Older colleagues may drop comments such as, I have children your age! Under no circumstance should you point out that you have parents their age. Just smile and dont stop smiling for the duration of your employment. If you are tempted to roll your eyes, carefully fix your gaze on your computer until the feeling has passed. The modern workplace functions best when employees of all ages are able to avoid making a big deal about the comments that annoy them most. Headphones help.

Finally, remind yourself, like Anne Brown, that youll probably be old and lame someday too. Or, as Tim Brack put it, remember that youll be in their shoes in the end... complaining about the latest generation.

Ann Friedman is a contributing writer to Opinion. She is a millennial.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Thursday issued its judgment against Radovan Karadzic, the president of the Serb Republic during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. Karadzic was convicted of various crimes, including genocide. But only a little.

After a trial lasting seven years, the tribunal at The Hague found Karadzic guilty of genocide for his role in the murder of 8,000 unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica in the wars final months in 1995  but not for the systematic slaughter in seven other municipalities. So he committed genocide in one place over one week, and nowhere else in the 3-year war he helped mastermind: a little genocide.

Although that result might sound shocking, it was no surprise. In 2012, the court threw the broader genocide charge out, only to be ordered to reinstate it on appeal. But with the same three judges evaluating the evidence, acquittal was a foregone conclusion.

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Denialism remains rife. Far from condemning Karadzic, Serbs are honoring him; just this week, the current president of the Serb Republic named a student dormitory after him.

More fundamentally, this little genocide is consistent with the tribunals jurisprudence. In case after case, prosecutors have charged Bosnian Serbs with genocide. And in case after case, the court has acquitted indictees everywhere except Srebrenica, even when they have been convicted of other horrible crimes. Goran Jelisic, the self-described Serbian Adolf, pleaded guilty to 31 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in northern Bosnia, but refused to plead to genocide, and was acquitted.

Why has a broader genocide conviction proved so elusive? Prosecutors must prove that a defendant not only intended to kill or rape, usually on a mass scale, but to destroy the group to which the victims belonged as such  as a group. Yet more than evidentiary standards, it is the grotesque prestige attached to genocide that makes it such a useless tool in law: Genocides status as the supreme crime means judges instinctively ration its moral and legal sanction.

Observers have criticized and defended the courts narrow, cautious approach. But right or not, narrowness has produced an outcome that satisfies no one, letting one site of horror and one week of slaughter stand in for a lengthy war and its countless killing fields.

Bosnian Muslims view it as an article of faith that genocide occurred throughout Bosnia. So while they welcome official confirmation of Srebrenica, they are disappointed that the tribunal has failed to recognize the full scale of their suffering. There is a political aspect too: Some Bosnian Muslims want to use a broader genocide ruling to argue that the entire Serb Republic is the product of genocide  that it could not exist without genocide  and push for its dissolution on those grounds.

For Bosnian Serbs, its the other way around: There was no genocide, so even the finding for Srebrenica is too much. Denialism remains rife. Far from condemning Karadzic, Serbs are honoring him; just this week, the current president of the Serb Republic named a student dormitory after him.

There are still a few chances for a broader genocide conviction. The prosecution will probably appeal the acquittal, and Gen. Ratko Mladic is still on trial, charged with genocide for Srebrenica and 15 other municipalities. If the prosecution ever finally succeeded, however, a different problem would arise. How much inconsistency across its cases can the court sustain? How can the commanders be guilty, and not the midlevel officials and the foot soldiers?

Not that one consistent narrative would necessarily prove more effective, because who would listen? There is no prospect that a sweeping conviction would change hearts and minds in Bosnias deeply divided society, where polls repeatedly show that opinions about the international courts judgments are strongly correlated with ethnicity.

Nor is it clear that a broader finding would somehow improve the objective record, the well-documented litany of murders, rapes and depredations for which Karadzic has just been sentenced to 40 years in prison. A genocide conviction would add only a contested interpretation to that record. And a rather strange one at that, for genocide tells us that men and women died not as individuals but as members of a group, that it is their collective identity that matters. For some, that is an essential truth, but it is also an interpretation that does its own violence and veiling.

Although genocide may be a morally meaningful concept, as a legal category it is a distraction that encourages survivors, courts and the rest of us to bicker over how to name our inhumanity. But it does not motivate us to prevent great evil. What two decades of law have actually brought forth in The Hague is no monument, and no match, for the horror it seeks to describe and circumscribe. Too little or too much, its too late.

Karadzics conviction comes one week after the United States officially declared that the Islamic State is committing genocide in Iraq. Reflecting current fashions in thinking about law and conflict, Secretary of State John F. Kerry reflexively called for official investigations and trials, but no change in policy. If this weeks judgment  more than 20 years after the end of Bosnias war  is any indication, thats the wrong focus, especially for a genocide that is still going on.

Justice has scales, but it has a sword too. Without the latter, justice will be a long time coming, and wont have much to show, or to save, when finally it arrives. Thats the real lesson of Srebrenica, and whatever happened in the rest of Bosnia: Even little genocides are too much to leave to the law.

Timothy William Waters is professor of international law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. A former researcher for the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, he is editor of The Milosevic Trial  An Autopsy.



Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
To the editor: First, its hard to imagine Palestinians thinking Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump or anyone who has proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States is neutral. By the same token, his words also seem to deny Israel the right to the same actions he proposes for U.S. protection against terrorism. (Believe it or not, Donald Trump is right on neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, editorial, March 23)

Second, consider Trumps words recently to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: A deal is really something that when we impose it on Israel and Palestine, we bring together a group of people that come up with something.

Thats not a deal and it is not our place to impose anything on Israel or Palestine. If an agreement is to be reached, such an agreement must be negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians. We might help to bring the two sides together or even offer realistic suggestions or proposals, but it is not our place to create or otherwise impose a deal.

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Such an imposition would be doomed from the outset.

Michael Solomon, Canoga Park

..

To the editor: By accident or design, Trump is right on target in saying he wants to be neutral in the Mideast peace process. It is impossible for the U.S. to be neutral, considering our nearly 70-year support of Israel and the recent pronouncements in front of AIPAC by the presidential candidates of both parties of their undying commitment to that country.

The Arab world does not accept the U.S. as neutral when it comes to Israel, and for good reason. You cannot be a referee in a fight if you own part of a fighter.

Ernest Salomon, Santa Barbara

..

To the editor: While I agree that the United States needs to show more impartiality, I am disturbed that you fail to mention that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also advocated a more balanced approach, one that recognizes the legitimate rights and concerns of Palestinians as well as the security needs of Israel.

As a Jew who lived in an Israeli kibbutz, Sanders speaks with much more authority than any of the other candidates. He believes that Israel and the Palestinians can, and should, peacefully co-exist, and that Palestinians should have a country of their own. He is not a big fan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he believes in diplomacy, not war, with Iran.

Sanders balanced foreign policy could be a game changer in the Middle East, where military solutions have failed.

Anthony Manousos, Pasadena

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
For most of the 3-1/2 years since he was elected to the Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz has been a man establishment Republicans loved to hate. In February, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joked that if someone killed the Texan on the floor of the Senate and the Senate held the trial, no one would be convicted.

A few days ago, Graham held a fundraiser for Cruz. On Wednesday, Jeb Bush endorsed him. Mitt Romney, who had campaigned with Gov. John Kasich in Ohio less than two weeks ago, backed Cruz too, making recorded telephone calls for him in advance of Tuesdays primary in Arizona and caucuses in Utah.

At this point a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump, the calls said.

Good afternoon, Im David Lauter, Washington Bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

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This week, well also reveal a key number from our latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of California voters. Read on for that, and check on Sunday for the first stories about the polls findings at our politics page and on Twitter at @latimespolitics.

Maybe Romneys backing helped in Utah, where Cruz took almost 70% of the vote on Tuesday even as he lost Arizona to Trump. Or maybe the results there just testify to the fact that Mormons have joined Latinos, blacks, young people and Democrats on the list of groups who deeply dislike the blustery New York businessman.

In Arizona, meanwhile, Trump appears to be helping Democratic activists in their efforts to make the state blue, or at least a bit more purple, by increasing the number of Latino registered voters, as Seema Mehta described.

This weeks flurry of endorsements for Cruz represented the latest effort by established figures in the GOP to try to slow Trump down before he can win the 1,237 delegates he would need for a first-ballot victory at this summers Republican nominating convention.

The strategy seems designed to pressure Kasich to quit the race, lest he split the anti-Trump vote. So far, the Ohio governor has been brushing aside such pleas, arguing that he can defeat Hillary Clinton in the November general election, which he says neither Trump nor Cruz can do.

Trump, of course, claims he is bringing millions of new voters into the GOP. The evidence so far shows thats not so, as I explained in this piece on four myths of the 2016 campaign.

The next major test in the GOP race wont come for a week and a half, April 5, when Wisconsin holds its primary.

Kasich thinks he can do well in the state, which demographically resembles Ohio. But Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesnt seem to think so.

Ted Cruz is the only one whos got a chance other than Donald Trump to win the nomination statistically, and my friend Gov. Kasich cannot, he said in a radio interview. Walker added that he would probably make an endorsement sometime next week, to have maximum impact on the primary.

You can follow the outcome of all the primaries, as we post live results, speeches and analysis on Trail Guide.

And as the race unfolds, keep watch on the delegates in both parties with our Delegate Tracker, which shows where each candidate stands and where they have won support.

Over in the Democratic race, this weekend will see three caucuses, in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, with the latter attracting the greatest attention. Seattle has been one of the leading sources of contributions to Sen. Bernie Sanders, and as Chris Megerian explains, the states caucuses have become a must-win contest for him after he spent heavily in an unsuccessful effort to beat Hillary Clinton in Arizona.

Sanders has openly begun to concede that his campaign has only a narrow path to a potential victory. Any hope he does have hangs on the caucus outcomes. Even if he wins there, however, and in Wisconsin in April, the math of the delegate contest makes a Sanders victory extremely unlikely.

With both Sanders and Clinton campaigning in California over the past few days, Cathy Decker took a look ahead at why winning the state wont be easy for the insurgent Vermont senator, who would need to carry the state in a landslide to amass enough delegates to win the nomination.

Sanders talked to Times editors and editorial writers this week about the importance his campaign places on California and his view of the issues. Weve posted a full transcript of the interview.

Look, I come from a state which has 630,000 people. And I know half the people in my state. California is not Vermont; its an entirely different world for us, and it is a little bit intimidating, he said.

By the way, the belief by many Sanders backers that Clintons lead only involves the so-called super-delegates, who are not chosen by primary voters, is another of the campaign myths I examined in the piece I mentioned earlier.

Clinton is already looking ahead at the general election. As Evan Halper wrote, she did not even mention Sanders during a speech on foreign policy at Stanford University, in which she blistered Trump and Cruz.

Trump, by contrast, has done little to modulate his appeal for a potential general election audience, as Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak reported from Arizona.

His language and personality trouble many Republican voters, even some of Trumps supporters -- doubts that were on full display during a focus group of Republican voters in St. Louis that reporters were able to watch. Heres my account of the groups reactions to the GOP front-runner.

Halper took a look at what may be the biggest legacy of Sanders campaign: Hes turned a formerly obscure left-wing fundraising operation, ActBlue, into the political worlds greatest money machine.

Finally, the fight over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland continues to roil Capitol Hill.

Lisa Mascaro went to Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey faces a difficult reelection fight, to look at the efforts by Democrats and their allies to put pressure on Republicans to give Garland a hearing.

Mascaro also did this helpful rundown of the 13 Senate seats -- 11 held by Republicans and 2 by Democrats -- that are potentially at risk in this years elections.

Mike Memoli looked at how the fight over Garland is also becoming a battle between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President Joe Biden.

And David Savage reported on the latest from the Supreme Court, where the remaining eight justices seem deadlocked on the issue of the Obamacare requirement that insurance plans offer contraceptive coverage to women. Savages piece explains the issue and the ramifications of what appears to be a 4-4 split.

The poll:

Well have a lot more results from our poll of California voters over the next several days. But heres a first glimpse at one key number -- President Obamas approval rating in the state, which has risen to 64%, the highest level the poll has found going back to his first year in office. Similarly, the share of Californians viewing Obama favorably, 65%, is also at a high point.

The upsurge in positive views of Obama has showed up nationwide in several recent surveys, although hes starting from a lower base in more Republican parts of the country. That could matter for the general election since the party in power benefits when voters have a positive view of the incumbent.

That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide at our politics page and on Twitter at @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.
Representatives from Glendale Unified, Burbank Unified and neighboring school districts recently drafted a joint resolution opposing a potential tunnel extension of the Long Beach (710) Freeway because of the negative impacts they believe it would have on student and employee health.

They hoped the message that school leaders from Glendale, Burbank, La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena and South Pasadena  assembled collectively as the 5-Star Education Coalition  had regional concerns about the pollutant effects of the 4.5-mile underground passage proposed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would sound alarm bells to state lawmakers and compel the agency to refine its plans.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >>

However, that hope was dashed last week when Pasadena Unified School Board member Larry Torres opted not to support the resolution, blocking the unanimity required for the document to be officially adopted by the coalition.

The disagreement marks another chapter in a tale of two perspectives about whether a multibillion-dollar tunnel project would be a boon or a burden to cities along the 710 and Foothill (210) freeways and whether local elected officials should weigh in for or against it, or not at all.

La Canada Unified Governing Board member Ellen Multari, whose district passed its own resolution against a tunnel option in July, believes the adverse impacts the project and its construction would bring to students, school staff and families is unquestionable and merits opposition.

I think this is a bit more of a show of strength among the five of us, she said of the resolution when it was still being drafted, indicating all five member cities seemed interested in going that route. Thats why the 5-Star was created  so we could have power collectively that we dont have individually.

This will happen for the next three or four or five generations because nothings going to change. All this does is continue to stall [the 710 extension].  Burbank school board member Larry Applebaum

But to Torres, the wisdom of educators speaking out against the project wasnt quite so clear. When he took the resolution back to the Pasadena Unified board for input at a March 10 meeting, he confessed he wasnt certain the 710 issue was relevant to educating children.

A former teacher in the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno, Torres expressed his belief something needed to be done to address the exceedingly troubling problem of street traffic in and around Alhambra and surrounding environs.

Im of the opinion, probably where most folks are, that something needs to happen, Torres told the board. Im not sold that a tunnel is the answer, but Im also questioning whether or not for me, as a school board member, this is a child-related issue.

His fellow Pasadena Unified board members largely agreed.

I am personally opposed to the 710 tunnel, but I kind of agree with Larry, board member Patrick Cahalan said at the meeting. I dont see this is an area of governance that we should be weighing in on as a school board. I also dont think theres a clear impact here that has to do with education.

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Glendale school officials were of a different mindset when they unanimously approved their own resolution on March 15 opposing the tunnel in anticipation that the 5-Star Coalitions resolution would follow.

We are a part of the impact, theres no question about it, board member Greg Krikorian said at the March 15 meeting.

Two days after the Glendale school board opposed the tunnel, Burbank school board members voted 3-2 in favor of a similar resolution.

Burbank school board member Larry Applebaum declined to vote in favor of the resolution.

He pointed to Burbanks past and said the development of the Golden State (5) Freeway in the 1950s bisected the community. One of the early rationales in extending the 710 was to mitigate truck traffic that for decades has moved directly through Burbank, he added.

We take 100% of the pollution now. You know what I read here, Applebaum said of the resolution, Not in my neighborhood. And you know what, weve had it in our neighborhood for 50 years...Its hard for me to stand on the playground at Washington Elementary School and look at that freeway and not think about the billions of tons of pollutants that those kids are within a hundred yards of everyday that theyre there for their six or seven years. This will happen for the next three or four or five generations because nothings going to change. All this does is continue to stall [the 710 extension].

Fellow member Steve Ferguson, however, voted in favor of the resolution, saying, I think its important to stand with our neighbors on this.

Charlene Tabet, board president, and member Armond Aghakhanian also voted in favor of the resolution, while school board member Roberta Reynolds voted against it with Applebaum, but she did not elaborate on her reasoning.

Tabet, however, in voting for the resolution opposing the tunnel, said: My hope is this opens up an opportunity for the powers that be to look past the tunnel and find another solution.

Meanwhile, Multari remained firm in her districts conviction that the tunnel could pose a health risk to many schools situated near the 210 Freeway, which would see an increase in truck traffic were the 710 gap filled.

We felt it was a legitimate concern for our districts to address, she said in an email Tuesday.

Kelly Corrigan contributed to this story.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine

--

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Four days after video footage of three teens breaking into a Glendale school with pry bars and hammers was plastered on the news, the vandals struck again.

In the early morning hours on Tuesday, the trio was caught on camera breaking into Clark Magnet and Crescenta Valley high schools before rummaging through classroom drawers and teachers desks, said Glendale Police Sgt. Robert William.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >>

Theyd already caused more than $20,000 damage at Toll Middle School and Mark Keppel Elementary School two weekends earlier, smashing windows and security cameras, and forcing their way into 20 classrooms and offices hunting for property.

They stole cash from at least one office but didnt get away with anything too valuable, police said.

Three vandals broke into Toll Middle School in Glendale in the early morning of Saturday, March 12, with their faces shielded by bandanas and clothing, and caused an estimated $20,000 in damage to the campus using pry bars and hammers, police said.

After the second round of burglaries, Glendale police received a tip from someone whod seen the surveillance footage, leading them to identify one of the three suspects. Investigators subsequently used his social media ties to identify the two other teenagers reportedly involved in the break-ins. All three live in Pasadena.

They even found a social media photograph of one suspect  identified as 19-year-old Christian Padilla wearing the same cowboy hat he wore during the alleged burglaries.

On Thursday morning, detectives served warrants to search the homes of all three suspects and arrested two of them, Padilla, along with a 17-year-old who wasnt identified because hes a minor. The third suspect, also 17 years old, turned himself in to Glendale police Friday morning, with cigarettes in his pocket. In addition to the burglaries, he was also booked on suspicion of possessing cigarettes as a minor.

During the searches, detectives recovered clothes worn during the burglaries.

Crime Stoppers offered a $1,000 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest in the case, though it was not immediately clear if it would be claimed.

--

Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @atchek

--

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Longtime La Canada resident and chamber of commerce executive Pat Anderson was among 14 individuals in the states 28th Congressional District recognized as Woman of the Year by Rep. Adam Schiff during an Echo Park luncheon ceremony last week.

Schiff explained the annual ceremony, held in March to honor Womens History Month, pays tribute to outstanding women whose contributions and sacrifices make meaningful differences to constituents living within the district.

Each of these women has worked to support a myriad of charitable, business and local causes, Schiff said in a statement Monday. They are all pillars in our communities, and I thank them for their indomitable service.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >>

A 45-year resident of the city, Anderson became president and chief executive of the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce and Community Assn. in 2003. She oversees the chambers annual Fiesta Days Memorial Weekend celebrations, summer internship program and engages with local business owners, residents and city officials on important civic issues.

Under her leadership, the chamber created an ambassador program and has seen both its membership and revenues expand, and she continues to create in-roads through her association with a number of organizations, including the Southern California Chamber of Commerce Executives and the Los Angeles County BizFed, of which she is a founding member.

Schiff also recognized Andersons extensive volunteer activities, which include her service as director of the La Canada Flintridge Coordinating Council, board member of the Paradise Valley Homeowners Assn. and as a longtime member of La Canada Congregational Church.

While raising daughter Katherine Markgraf, Anderson took active roles in the Palm Crest Elementary School PTA and later the La Canada High School Drama Boosters Club. She is a nearly 30-year member of the Kiwanis Club of La Canada, and as such was named by the organization in May 2014 as La Canadan of the Year.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

Other past recognitions include the Les Tupper Community Service Award, Business Life Magazines Women Achiever 2012 award and the 44th Assembly Districts Woman of the Year award, given to her in 2010 by then-Assemblyman Anthony Portantino.

Recognized by Schiff along with Anderson were Kimberly Holland, La Crescenta; Dr. Frieda Jordan, Glendale; Janet Diel, Burbank; actress Pauley Perrette, Hollywood; Abbe Land, West Hollywood; Linda S. Pura, Los Feliz; Karen Barnett, Atwater Village; Kelly Erickson, Echo Park; Helen Leung, Elysian Valley; Dr. Cheryl Revkin, Silver Lake; Dolores Diaz-Carrey, Pasadena; and Jamie Keyser Thomas, Sunland.

Schiff congratulated this years recipients for their remarkable achievements in his remarks at the ceremony.

Today, I met with nine women with varying backgrounds and interests, who have all worked tirelessly to make our communities a better place to call home, he said. It was an honor to recognize their outstanding work in the 28th District.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine

--

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Flight attendant Nidhi Chaphekar became a symbol of the Brussels Airport attack when a photograph of her looking stunned and bloodied, her yellow blazer in tatters, circulated worldwide.

Now her family in India says she is out of danger and recovering from her injuries, including burns and a broken foot.

Her husband traveled from their home in Mumbai on Thursday to be with Chaphekar at a Brussels-area hospital, her sister-in-law, Madhuri Chaphekar, said in a phone interview.

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The moment they saw her and called me and said she was out of danger, we were really relieved, she said.

Chaphekar was in stable condition and resting under sedation, her employer, Jet Airways, said in a statement Friday. The airline said Chaphekar was not in a coma, as some media reported a day earlier.

See more of our top stories on Facebook >>

A second Jet Airways crew member who was injured in the airport attack was also recovering in a hospital, said Manish Kalghatgi, the airlines vice president for corporate communications.

Family members said Chaphekar, who has worked for the Mumbai-based airline for about two decades, is 40 years old and has two children. In the hours after Tuesdays blasts at Zaventem Airport in Brussels, which killed 11 and injured dozens, Chaphekars image, captured by Georgian journalist Ketevan Kardava, starkly dramatized the trauma of the attack.

Indians voiced their concern on Twitter with the hashtag #PrayforNidhi. Some criticized international media for broadcasting the photo, in part because Chaphekars uniform jacket had been ripped apart, although family members said it was the photo that first alerted them that she had been hurt in the blasts.

FULL COVERAGE: Terrorist attacks in Brussels

Everyone from the airline to the Indian Embassy, their support has helped us, Madhuri Chaphekar said.

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia.

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A Chinese freedom of speech activist in New York said Friday that Chinese authorities have abducted his family on the mainland, highlighting Beijings growing determination to silence critical voices overseas.

Wen Yunchao, an influential Communist Party critic with more than 220,000 followers on Twitter, said Friday that authorities detained his parents and younger brother in their hometown of Jiexi County, southern Chinas Guangdong province, on Tuesday. He said that he has been unable to reach them, and that the situation is unclear.

Although Chinese authorities have placed increasing pressure on critics living abroad in recent years, the detention of an activists full family is extremely rare.

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Wen said that police suspect that he helped disseminate an open letter demanding that Chinese President Xi Jinping step down. The anonymous letter, posted March 4 by Wujie News, a Chinese media website, blamed Xi for creating unprecedented problems and crises by adopting a hardline authoritarian leadership style. It was signed loyal Communist Party members.

First of all its absolutely egregious that theyre doing this, because it shows theyre really going after family members of dissidents.  William Nee, Hong Kong-based spokesman, Amnesty International

The police wanted to know if that letter was by me or distributed by me, Wen said in a phone interview. He denied any involvement in the letters drafting or distribution.

Censors have scrubbed the letter from the Internet. On March 15, Jia Jia, a Beijing-based freelance writer, vanished while preparing to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong; his lawyer later confirmed that he had been detained on suspicion of drafting the letter.

At least 16 other people have been detained in connection with the letter, including several Wujie News employees, the BBC reported on Friday. It remains unclear who wrote the letter and how it appeared on Wujie News, an otherwise unexceptional site funded by the e-commerce giant Alibaba and the government of Xinjiang, a region in Chinas far northwest.

On March 19, U.S.-based blogger Liu Gang penned an online post claiming that Wen had also been behind the letter. [Liu] said that I wrote this letter, and since then, the government has been harassing my family, trying to get me to acknowledge that the letter was by me, Wen said.

I dont think the letter itself is a big deal, but it seems the party thinks it is, said Qiao Mu, a media scholar at Beijing Foreign Studies University. They think the letter is a result of a collusion of domestic anti-Xi forces and overseas anti-China forces ... the letter itself hasnt spread widely within the Great Fire Wall, [Chinas Internet censorship apparatus], so a lot of people didnt know about it at all. But disappearing people makes things bigger.

Human rights groups say that Xi Jinping has steered China into a new era of hard authoritarianism, marked by a dramatically reduced space for even mild forms of dissent. Authorities have detained scores of critical lawyers, activists and journalists within Chinas borders, and used intimidation tactics to silence dissenting voices abroad.

Over the past half year, five Hong Kong booksellers who specialized in salacious tomes about top Communist Party leaders have vanished under mysterious circumstances; one was in Thailand and another in Hong Kong when they went missing, raising fears of political abductions. The booksellers have since reappeared, but the incidents have cast a chill over the citys once-freewheeling publishing industry.

Since 2014, Chinese authorities have detained three brothers of Shohret Hoshur, an ethnic Uighur reporter for Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-backed broadcaster in Washington, D.C., possibly in retaliation for his reporting on the ethnically riven western region of Xinjiang. Two of the brothers have since been released; one is serving a five-year jail term for endangering state security.

First of all its absolutely egregious that theyre doing this, said William Nee, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Amnesty International, because it shows theyre really going after family members of dissidents, and people who they believe to be troublemakers. This is a worrying pattern, because it appears to be on the rise over the past year or so.

I think disappearing a whole family is taking it to the next level, he continued. There are lots of cases in which state security might have tea with family members, and put pressure on them. But actually disappearing a family, if thats true  and I think Wen Yunchao is a good source, and I dont see why he would lie about his own family  then that really is an escalation of the tactics that have been used over the past year or so.

Yingzhi Yang in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

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Cuba. Madagascar. Venezuela. Ecuador. I was being taken on a tour du monde without leaving Brussels. The staffers at the chocolatier at the corner of Chaussee de Waterloo and Rue de Tenbosch were inventorying their bars made with cacao beans cultivated on plantations in exotic climes.

What boulangeries are to France, neighborhood chocolate shops are to Belgium. I was there as a caring husband, buying some chocolates for my wife, Elena, who had been among the terrified passengers trapped for hours at Brussels Airport when a suicide bombing ripped through a departure hall.

But I was also there to see another woman.

Except Sara was not in today. Two years back, shorty after we moved from Lisbon to this tree-lined neighborhood of tony, four-story master houses known as Petite Paris, wed met Sara Hamdaoui, whod started working at the Benoit Nihant chocolate shop when it opened a few months before. Hamdaoui was a ray of sunshine in ever-cloudy Brussels.

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Her family members were third-generation Belgians of Moroccan descent; Hamdaoui is a devout Muslim. Benoit Nihant soon was widely considered the best chocolatier in Brussels. I came in often for conversations with Sara. Even as we talked about issues such as the lack of integration of Muslims in Brussels, and the November terrorist attacks in nearby Paris that had prompted a lockdown here in Brussels, Sara always somehow had me coming away thinking and hopeful.

But not on this day. The shop is one of the cheeriest places in Brussels: well lighted, with brightly colored boxes and sculptures of chocolate fashioned for the weekend holiday. Cuban music was playing in the background. Chocolate is said to be a magical mood elevator and a comfort food. Could it be a refuge in this doleful time in Brussels?

Salesclerk Marie-Lea Lavail, a sommelier by training whod moved to Brussels from France seven months earlier, told me that business was brisk despite the suddenly somber mood of the city, and a peculiar thing was happening at the shop. People like chocolate, and they like to talk, she said.

People asked if I am OK? Normally in the shop they just say, Bonjour. Today, they say, Comment ca va?  How are you?

The same thing had been happening on the tram, she said. Oh my God, the [gray] weather is like the Belgians. They are sad. They are sad. In the tram, there is always a lot of noise, but this morning, there was no noise. Nobody was talking.

Ordinarily on public transportation, she said, Belgians never look directly into one anothers eyes. You dont even look directly at people, she said. But today we looked at everybody. We smiled.

There was sadness, yes, and also it was very comforting.

It had been different in France after the attacks in November, she said. Really nothing to say, so dont say it, she said.

The strength of the Belgians is they know that life is certainly sad at times, but it is also absurd, she said. There are smiles. But I have an impression, in a way, weve lost our naivete.

Some of the initial shock had worn off by Wednesday, she said. The hysteria left, she said. I noticed that the people came in to buy, and that people were no longer saddened.

Life continues, she said. In the afternoon, there was much less, Comment ca va? Something finished, and people went on to other things. Life.

Lise Mernier, browsing that day through the neatly stacked confections, said that making the trip to the shop seemed part of a natural response. Chocolate is kind of like being in love. I guess it helps, she said. I hope it does.

Another customer, Florence, piped in, A day without sunshine is a day without chocolate.

I tried to ponder that.

You have to continue to have quality time, the simple pleasures, offered another patron, Gilles Dolon, who thought about why he was buying chocolate for his wife and came up with a word he thought described it best: Recomfort.

Elena showed up because I had taken both sets of keys. She was disappointed that Sara wasnt there; shed hoped her canceled flight, bad as it was, would mean she was going to have a chance to bid farewell to the shop manager, an opportunity she hadnt had in her rush to leave Belgium  permanently  for a new job.

The salesclerks offered no explanation and didnt seem to want to talk about Saras absence. I got home and decided to call Sara. How could she stay away at a time when Brussels needed her, I demanded gently. I worried that she was so distraught over what happened Tuesday. When you are in the store, the sun shines, I told her.

It is very kind to hear this at this time. It is very kind for me, said Sara. The last day I worked, it was Monday. I was in shock. And after I didnt come  yesterday and today. I didnt work.

I told her I felt for her. I imagined shed been afraid of being blamed for the actions of other Muslims.

But I was wrong.

I had complications. I had to go to the hospital, she said.

What? For a second I didnt understand what she was saying. I never imagined shed be affected so deeply. But it was something else entirely.

I am pregnant and very happy, she told me. I didnt know it before, it is a girl. It is very new and it will be a girl.

Alhamdulillah, I told her, in the language of the Koran. Praise be to God.

I thank you very much, she said.

Chad is a special correspondent.

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As Islamic State expands its global reach by directing and inspiring attacks in the West, the U.S. is stepping up its offensive in Iraq and Syria, including increased military operations, additional U.S. forces and targeted raids to wipe out the militant groups top leadership.

Islamic States No. 2, Rahman Mustafa Qaduli, also known as Abu Ala Afri and Haji Imam, was killed in one such raid in Syria on Thursday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday.

An influential finance minister for Islamic State and a close advisor to the groups leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, Qaduli died as special operations forces attempted to capture him in his vehicle, according to officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the details of the mission. Qaduli had been monitored by U.S. surveillance for several days before the operation was launched, officials said.

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The raid was part of what American officials are calling a new phase in the 18-month-old campaign to storm Islamic State compounds in a series of late-night raids with Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The operations have already killed or captured several top militants, and netted key sources of intelligence, including laptops and cellphones. Interrogations with captured militants have shed light on the shadowy group, U.S. officials said.

The caliphate remains the heartland, but it is just one element of whats become a global battlefield. This is a multigenerational war.  Christopher Harmer, analyst, Institute for the Study of War

The intelligence has set off a domino effect in which one raid has led to others and provided targeting information for daily bombing runs that have blown up militant-held oil production sites and cash hoards.

Weve learned a great deal, and we continue to learn about who is who in ISIL, so we can kill them, about how they get their finances, so we can dry that up, Carter said, using an acronym for Islamic State. And the forces that were working with on the ground in both Iraq and Syria continue to gather strength because our strategic approach for the retaking of territory is to help local forces to do so.

The town of Shadadi in eastern Syria was seized from Islamic State last month by the Kurdish YPG, with the help of U.S. special forces. In recent days, Islamic State has lost significant ground in Palmyra to the Syrian army, backed by Russian airstrikes. The Pentagon estimates that Islamic State has lost 20% of Syrian territory it controlled at its peak in 2014, and 40% of Iraqi territory.

Still the U.S. knows that victory is not yet within grasp, particularly if the group continues to inspire or help carry out deadly attacks, such as the one this week in Brussels and previous attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Carter said.

As Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq, the group will likely turn even more of its attention to attacks in Europe and the West, said Daniel Benjamin, a former State Department counter-terrorism coordinator who now teaches at Dartmouth College.

They have a profound need to show they are still in the game, capable of still inflicting attacks against the West, particularly because the sheen is off the Islamic State itself, Benjamin said. As the U.S. and its coalition partners push in on Islamic States territory in Syria and Iraq, Benjamin added, that puts the pressure on the group to carry out more attacks like the one we saw in Brussels.

Islamic State controls major cities including Mosul in northern Iraq and Raqqah in northeastern Syria, and continues to declare its caliphate.

Christopher Harmer, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington and a retired Navy officer, said Islamic State leaders once instructed foreign recruits to come to the caliphate to wage jihad. Now, they instruct the recruits to stay put.

They want fighters to mount attacks at home or elsewhere, Harmer said. The strategic arc of this fight has changed. The caliphate remains the heartland, but it is just one element of whats become a global battlefield. This is a multigenerational war.

Carter would not confirm how or where Qaduli died, but he characterized the raid as part of an ongoing U.S. military campaign to eliminate Islamic States leadership structure in Iraq and Syria. We are systemically eliminating ISILs Cabinet, Carter said.

Qaduli, believed to be about 59 years old, was a key player in Islamic States military and financial operations, according to the Pentagon. He joined Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, serving as Abu Musab Zarqawis liaison for operations with Pakistan. The group was later rebranded as Islamic State. He was held in U.S. custody at the Camp Bucca military prison in Iraq in 2006, along with many other prisoners who went on to senior positions in Islamic State. He was released in 2012.

Within two years, Qaduli  operating under no fewer than 12 aliases  had been designated by the U.S. government as one of the worlds most dangerous terrorists. The $7-million bounty offered by the U.S. for his capture was the sixth highest reward for any terrorist, and second among Islamic State members only to the $10-million reward for Baghdadi.

Carter also confirmed the death of another senior Islamic State leader, Omar Shishani, or Omar the Chechen, who died in a separate March 14 U.S. airstrike. He added that other recent U.S. military strikes killed Abu Sara, an Islamic State leader charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq, and militants who were directly involved in external plotting and training.

Recent raids gave U.S. intelligence officials deeper insights into how and where Islamic States leadership operates. Earlier this year, a U.S. special operations team captured Sulayman Dawud Bakkar near Tall Afar in northern Iraq.

Bakkar, a former expert in chemical and biological warfare agents under Saddam Hussein, told interrogators about two of Islamic States chemical weapons storage sites that were later targeted in U.S. airstrikes, U.S. officials said.

American commandos located Bakkar because of leads found during a Delta Force raid last year against the head of Islamic States black-market oil and gas operations. The target, Abu Sayyaf, was killed, but his wife, Nisreen Assad Ibrahim Bahar, was arrested, and a cache of notebooks, laptops and cellphones were brought back to a base in Iraq.

The trove yielded details about Islamic State leaders and the groups financial system, including how it raised and stored cash. The Justice Department filed an arrest warrant in February charging Bahar with conspiracy to provide material support to Islamic State. She remains in Kurdish custody.

The U.S. combat role is also expanding with a new outpost in northern Iraq that provides artillery fire to support Iraqi troops as they mount their ongoing offensive to retake the strategic city of Mosul. Pentagon officials confirmed this week the creation of the outpost, named Fire Base Bell, which is populated by nearly 200 Marines and is the first American combat base since the U.S. returned to Iraq in 2014. Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, 27, of Temecula died there Saturday after coming under Islamic State rocket fire.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford, who appeared alongside Carter, said the base was to provide security for Iraqi forces and U.S. advisors at the nearby Iraqi base in Makhmour.

The Pentagon is presenting President Obama with additional ways to increase the U.S. military presence in Iraq. We have a series of recommendations that we will be discussing with the president in the coming weeks to further enable our support for the Iraqi security forces, Dunford said.

The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase to the U.S. forces in Iraq in the coming weeks, but that decision hasnt been made.

The increased tempo of raids has made a dent in Islamic States ability to give orders and use resources, Dunford added, but more work needs to be done. Theres a lot of reasons for us to be optimistic about the next several months, he said. But by no means would I say that were about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

brian.bennett@latimes.com

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The Israeli soldier captured on camera fatally shooting a suspected Palestinian assailant in the head after he was already disarmed and lying on the ground will face murder charges, an Israeli military court ruled Friday.

The three-minute cellphone video shot in Hebron by a Palestinian man had been given to the human-rights group BTselem, which passed it to the media and posted it online. The video received international attention and drew instant condemnation.

The soldier was arrested Thursday by military police.

The video begins moments after an Israeli soldier had been stabbed by two Palestinian men, just before Israeli settlers were due to hold a parade celebrating the festival of Purim.

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The soldier is wheeled on a stretcher into a waiting ambulance, while one of the Palestinian men accused of the attack, Fatah Sharif, 21, lies on the ground after already being shot once. He is alive and moving his head, but appears to pose no threat.

This terrorist is still alive, this dog, a voice can be heard saying.

After two minutes a soldier approaches Sharif. A gunshot can be heard as a van moves slightly in front of the camera. When it passes, Sharif is seen lying motionless, with his head tilted back in a pool of blood.

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In a military courtroom Friday, the unnamed Israeli solder defended himself, saying that he shot the man because he believed he could be wearing an explosive vest and feared he posed an immediate danger.

Emad Abu-Shamsiya, the Palestinian who filmed the incident and was later investigated by the Israeli army, told Israeli media that he shot the video from a neighbors roof after a soldier pointed a weapon at him and asked the man, his wife and daughter to get out of the street where they had been watching the incident unfold.

He said his wife and daughter stayed in the doorway of their home while he went upstairs to a neighbors rooftop to film the confrontation. He said he one Palestinian man motionless, with blood running down his face, and another lying on the ground, still moving.

Then, he said, a soldier approached and casually shot Sharif.

My wife and I are still in shock from what saw, he said. I never expected to see an execution with my own eyes.

The fatal shooting has drawn international condemnation, with some Israelis and Palestinians even speaking out in a degree of unison.

What happened in Hebron does not represent the values of the Israeli Defense Forces, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Even when our blood is boiling we must not allow such a loss of sense, such a loss of control, said Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon in a statement.

Still, a survey by Vigo, which specializes in Internet data, showed the country torn, with 48% of social media users responding critically to the soldiers actions while 46% defended them.

Others saw the incident as emblematic of government failures.

This is what the occupation looks like, and this is the way our society will look as long as cowards with no vision lead it, said Zehava Galon, the leader of left-wing Israeli party Meretz. He condemned the shooting.

Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, called the criticism of the soldiers action hypocritical and unjustified.

Husam Zomlot, senior policy advisor for the Palestinian Fatah movement, said the actions of the soldier represented a wider scenario of violence.

The whole scene in this video where soldiers stand around and medics refuse treatment are indicative of morally corrupt Israeli forces -- they are a cancerous mob, a bunch of thugs, he told The Times.

The United Nations special envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nikolay Mladenov, expressed strong criticism of the soldiers actions.

This was a gruesome, immoral and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation, he said.

Shuttleworth is a special correspondent.

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One Mexican father is fighting for justice for his teenage daughter, whom he says was raped by an exclusive gang of privileged young Mexican men known as Los Porkys.

Los Porkys Accused of Attacking Teen Girl

According to the girl's father, his daughter, Daphne, was dragged into a car in Veracruz, Mexico, by five teen boys who proceeded to rape her. He claims the suspects are part of a gang known as Los Porkys. The gang's members are the sons of upper class businessmen and prominent members of society.

"My underage daughter was dragged into a car against her will," said the father. "She had her liberty taken away from her, she was harassed, subdued, sexually abused and raped."

The father also posted a video online of the accused gangsters. He claimed the gangsters had willingly confessed in the clip. They are seen apologizing for the crime, admitting they acted stupidly and felt terrible about what they had done.

Suspects Retract Confessions

However, after the alleged victim's father shared the confession video, the teens are denying that they raped her, while their parents have accused the girl of fabricating the incident. Daphne's father says the suspects' families have also claimed the alleged gang rape never took place and have launched a social media attack on his daughter.

He then posted an open letter online to generate public support for justice for his daughter.

"I write this letter, despite the immense pain and shame, to the public so that the family members of those involved assume responsibility for what they have done," reads his letter. "Although I spoke to them, although they said sorry for the tragedy, and recognized what had happened, and despite a filmed video showing their sons apologizing, despite all of this, they have taken it upon themselves to attack and defame (my daughter), with the objective of avoiding that their sons taking responsibility for the crimes they committed."

Will Suspects Go Unpunished?

The man says he has become frustrated with the situation since it looks like his daughter's attackers may go unpunished.

"I ask myself, 'Why haven't they been arrested?' 'Is it true that it's all been arranged and that they won't do anything to them because of who they are and where they come from, and because some of them have political ties?' 'Why is there no punishment or justice? Why?'" Daphne's father wrote in a Facebook post.

According to Sin Embargo, Los Porkys is a "junior cartel" notorious for human trafficking and sexual exploitation. They tend to target young girls from good social and economic backgrounds. They kidnap, sexually abuse and sometimes murder their victims.

However, unlike the major Mexican cartels, Los Porkys use their social class and economic status to get away with crime. Members often come from well-respected and wealthy families.
Taiwan's only island in the vast body of water in South China Sea might face danger and be put on the hands of other countries.

According to Forbes, Taiwan is on the verge to lose the legal basis for the only island they own and its rights as other countries circle the dispute for the South China Sea. The island is known to be the Taiping Island, a topical islet that's 1,400 meters long and 400 wide.

Alan Romberg, East Asia Program director with Washington think tank the Stimson Center, said "though they are not in any way coordinating their positions, a tribunal decision that Taiping is merely a 'rock' would be a slap at not only Beijing but also Taipei," speaking about the China, Philippines and Taiwan's case. It is notable that Taiwan is not a UN member and that China sees it as part of their territory.

ABC News noted that Taiping Island is described as Taiwan's most substantial presence in the South China Sea which is known as the Itu Aba. It is located roughly 2,000kms south of Taiwan with a population size of 200. These people are mostly military and Taiping Island is the largest naturally occurring island in the region. Despite it being small, the island is subject to assisting navigation and helping vessels.

Now, recent news indicate that China's claims of the South China Sea are in vague terms following the nine-dash line, a U-shaped boundary that loops down from Taiwan as far as Indonesia's Natuna Island. CTV News reported that China's claim to the land was based on the historical and geographical records but, the nine-dash line rule is the most modern one.

This affects Taiwan's claim of its island when Chiang Kai-Shek inherited the island after he has moved his government to the land prior to the communist advancement. Lastly, current president of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou is trying to hold on to the maritime claim and leave the office looking strong.
The controversial proposed Tennessee bill on transgender toilets that had sparked debates between parties died a quiet death in the House Committee on March 22, when transgender students came out in number to express the possible effects that the bill's approval would have on their lives.

Had it been passed, the bill would have compelled transgenders students to use public toilets assigned to their gender of birth, and not to that of choice. A transgender teen who was born male but looks and acts like a girl would have to use the boys' bathroom.

ABC News reports that the students felt that they made the right move in appearing before the Committee. After the bill gradually lost support, they also said they felt satisfaction that their voices had been heard.

News Channel 3 adds that parents of the transgender teens also came to back their children's cause and express their own fears. One father of a transgender who was born male but acts like a female warns of the high suicide rate among minors in the school who had changed gender identity. Implied in that statement is teens' taking of their own lives because of the discrimination and bullying that they experienced in school.

Rick Womack, R-Rockvale, withdrew his support to the bill after hearing the testimonies of both the transgender teens and their parents.

Henry Seaton, an 18-year-old teenager who was born male but switched his identity to female, said after the hearing that he felt elated that his concerns were recognized by the Commitee.

Meanwhile, Democracy Now suggests that while the campaign against discrimination is gaining traction, the war still has be to be won. A case in point is North Carolina which passed an ordinance that allowed transgenders to use public bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity. However, legislators from the state are working to overturn the ordinance.
A Malian national has admitted the charges filed against him after he fatally shot a US Defense Department official to his death. The man pleads guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

According to ABC News, the 2000 carjacking Niger suspect, Alhassane Ould Mohamed, changed his plea to guilty. The man is known to have escaped prison twice and charged with killing US Defense Department official, William Bultemeier, after he left the restaurant in Niamey on December 22, 2000. Moreover, he is accompanied by a second man who shot Marine Staff Sgt. Christopher McNeely who ended up with wounds that had lasting injuries.

Mohamed, 46, said he's sorry for the wrongdoings at his appearance in a federal court as reported by Yahoo. However, he told the judge, William F. Kuntz II, that the murder does not involve intent. Bultemeier was scheduled to go home in North California and eat to La Cloche so he could dine with other embassy employees. But little did they know, Mohamed and his accompany was waiting near his Toyota Land Cruiser with a pistol and AK-47 in hand. Mohamed demanded the key before he shot Bultemeier on the chest, fatally wounding him. After McNeely tried to intervene, he's shot by the second man.

Military Times reported that Mohamed was arrested in Mali two days after the intervention and remained in custody. However, he was able to escape the embassy in 2002 and later in 2009 when he was retrieved again after killing four Saudi Arabian nationals. He was sent back to Niger and found guilty with a 20-year sentence behind bars. He escaped for the second time.

Nonetheless, following his recapture, Mohamed was extradited to US in March 2014. Prosecutors are doing what they can to allow Bultemeier's and McNeely to be able to hear Mohamed's sentencing. Mohamed is expected to see 25 years of his life in prison.
The terrorism charges against two Libyan-Americans and a Libyan-Canadian were dropped by the state security prosecutors of UAE. The suspects were instead charged with raising funds illegally for a certain rebel group.

During the initial phase of the case, the suspects were charged with financing two Libyan rebel groups which are affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood that is considered a terrorist organization by the UAE law. The suspects were arrested following the UAE's airstrikes against Islamist rebel group in Libya. As reported by BBC, all the suspects were arrested in 2014 and were brought with no outside communication to a secret detention with solitary confinement for a long period of time.

The defendants in the case were identified as Americans Kamal al-Darrat, 59, together with his son Mohammed al-Darrat, 34, Libyan-Canadian Sami Alaradi, 46, and Libyan national, Issa Almanna. All of them are longtime residents of UAE and were considered successful in their chosen business as per Voice of America News.

The prosecutors charged the suspects of providing goods and funds to the organization without any given approval by the UAE according to attorney Paul Champ. He added that they will be facing a 15-year sentence if they are proven guilty.

The defendants, however, didn't deny the fact that they are providing funds for the Libyan National Transitional Council but with documents approved from the UAE government. The defendants claimed that they were tortured during their stay in detention.

As reported by Vice News, Alaradi has a total of 15 scars all over his body from being beaten up in 2014. Alaradi and Mohammed were brought in a secret location by the state security guards. They were then interrogated regarding their known affiliation with Libyan politicians and authorities.

Champ believed that the defendants were treated as a sacrificial lamb by the UAE in order to get its interest regarding the current situation in Libya.
Mar 25, 2016, 3:02pm ET

Honda, Takata were aware of faulty airbag design in 2009: Report [Update]

Honda knew about Takata\'s deadly airbag design in 2009.

Updated with statement from America Honda Motor Co.

Honda has confirmed that it was aware of Takata's defective airbag design as early as 2009, but the company failed to inform U.S. regulators about the potential safety risk until years later.

That potentially damaging revelation was discovered following a review of Takata presentations and internal memos. Those documents revealed that Honda secretly asked Takata to develop a "fail-safe airbag inflator after it observed four injuries and a death linked to its vehicles' airbags.

Honda spokesman Chris Martin confirmed to Reuters that the automaker requested the design change, but add that the redesign was to "protect against the possibility of future manufacturing errors - it was not an acknowledgement of a larger design flaw in the inflators. Martin added that Honda did not inform U.S. regulators of the design change request.

The new airbag inflator design, which featured additional gas vents that helped funnel pressure away from the driver, was first installed in some vehicles in 2011. Honda still uses the same airbag design today.

Reuters reached out to the NHTSA for comment on Honda's legal obligation to inform the administration about the airbag design change, but spokesman Bryan Thomas declined to give a statement. It remains unknown at this time if Honda's actions broke any laws.

The news, however, could put Honda in the legal cross-hairs of several liability suits. Honda, along with Takata and several other automakers, are facing federal, state and potentially class action lawsuits stemming from the defective airbag design.

"You can't say, It's a supplier problem, not ours, so we don't have to talk about it, Peter Henning, a corporate law professor at Wayne State University, said. "They are responsible for every part on their car and also responsible to report a problem with any part on that car.

So far Honda has recalled 8.5 million vehicles due to the airbag defect, with the vast majority of those occurring in 2014 or later.

Statement from Honda: "Honda categorically rejects the assertion that a redesigned airbag inflator component is evidence that the prior inflator design contained a safety defect. As technology evolves, Honda and other automakers regularly work with suppliers to make design changes.

It was Honda's understanding at the time that all inflator ruptures were due to Takata manufacturing errors associated with a previous inflator design. Thus, Honda's request to Takata to incorporate a change into a new airbag inflator design, was prudent on our part. Importantly, we are aware of no customers experiencing rupture events with the new inflator design.

Regarding Honda's reporting obligations, Honda does have an obligation to report safety defects to NHTSA, and we fully comply with this requirement. However, it is not NHTSA's expectation, nor the industry practice, that automakers will automatically report every new inflator design to NHTSA."
Toyota reveals Corolla 50th Anniversary Special Edition

Mar 25, 2016, 8:00am ET

The unique appearance package will be limited to just 8,000 units in the US market.

Toyota has revealed a limited-edition Corolla at the New York auto show, celebrating five decades since the popular nameplate was first introduced.

Based on the 2017 Corolla SE, the 50th Anniversary Special Edition features a few unique details to stand out from the basic model.

Buyers can opt for an exclusive Black Cherry paint, and all configurations feature 17-inch wheels that combine a machine finish and contrasting dark gray inserts. A special 50th anniversary badge adorns the exterior.

The interior features a black color theme with Black Cherry (red) contrast stitching on the seats, steering wheel, shift boot and center armrest. Occupants will know they are entering a special Corolla when they step on the 50th Anniversary Edition floor mats.

The Corolla claims the title of the world's all-time best-selling car. More than 43 million examples have been sold globally in the past 50 years, starting at home in Japan in November 1966 before moving to the US in 1968. The company now sells around 1.5 million per year, built at 16 global factories.

The 50th Anniversary Special Edition will go on sale this fall. Only 8,000 examples will be headed to US showrooms.
"Child custody" and "visitation" are terms frequently associated with separation and divorce cases. Child custody cases can be contentious, especially in situations involving less-than friendly divorce or separation between parents. Either parent may be awarded custody, or it can be shared between them. A visitation schedule can also be arranged, and usually, the court will approve the arrangement if the parents agree upon it prior to the hearing.

If the parents cannot come to an agreement on child custody and visitation, the judge will make a decision on their case. The court will always use the best interest of the child standard in consideration of custody cases, and will put the needs of the child ahead of those of his or her parents.

It is especially important for parents involved in custody issues to consult an experienced family law attorney for assistance in obtaining a reasonable, and mutually-agreeable parenting plan for their child.
A 45-year-old Bethlehem man stole more than $1 million from two companies in a scheme that involved the creation of fake vendors that would bill the companies for products they never bought, authorities said.

Daryl Stevens is charged with four counts of mail fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Thursday. Two co-conspirators - Justin Jordan, 34, of East Brunswick, N.J., and Christopher Cook, 40, of Ocean Township, N.J., also face charges, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

An indictment says Stevens and Cook both worked for an unidentified company in Radnor, Pa., that provides "management services for industrial, commercial and educational facilities throughout the United States."

Jordan worked for an unidentified New Brunswick, N.J., company that deals in pharmaceuticals and has offices throughout the world, the indictment says.

Jordan oversaw purchasing, ordering and receiving for the New Jersey company. Part of his job also included purchasing and ordering on behalf of the Pennsylvania company.

Between August 2007 and July 2014, Jordan allegedly incorporated four sham vendors in New Jersey.

According to the indictment, Jordan recruited Stevens and Cook to incorporate their own sham vendors. They allegedly created three of them.

The purpose of the sham vendors was to give the suspects a means to bill the legitimate companies, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The suspects allegedly secured mailing addresses and opened bank accounts for all seven sham vendors.

All three then generated purchasing orders for "bogus, unnecessary and non-existent product from the sham vendor companies that they, respectively, controlled," the indictment says.

Jordan would then sign off on the purchasing orders, triggering payment to the sham vendors via checks mailed to the sham vendor addresses or wire transfers to the vendor bank accounts, according to the indictment.

They allegedly stole a total of about $1.25 million.

If convicted, Stevens faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Chipotle is open in Bethlehem Township

Chipotle opened at 11 a.m. March 25, 2106, at 4743 Freemansburg Ave. in Bethlehem Township, in the Madison Farms mall anchored by ShopRite. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Some of the first customers at the Lehigh Valley's newest Chipotle agree: The flavor and portion size are worth the trip.

The assembly-line style fast-food Mexican restaurant opened at 11 a.m. Friday at 4743 Freemansburg Ave. in Bethlehem Township, in the Madison Farms mall anchored by ShopRite.

Within 10 minutes, customers were lined up along the glass-walled counter directing construction of their burritos, tacos, burrito bowls and salads.

"Steak burritos are my favorite," said Patrick Colom, of Easton, who works nearby. "Nice big helpings, everybody's always friendly."

Sean Gallagher, of Bethlehem, and Erick Vaughn, of Palmer Township, emerged with a paper bag each containing a hefty lunch. Both like the carnitas (pork) burritos, but Vaughn says the steak is good, too,

"I definitely recommend it," Gallagher said.

Chipotle also has locations at 1870 Airport Road and at the Lehigh Valley Mall Lifestyle Center in the Allentown area.

The Bethlehem Township location is in a free-standing building beside a space available for lease, with Subway and Super Cuts in another building on one side and, across a driveway, Complete Dental of Easton, Pet Valu and Starbucks. Other retail, ShopRite and new housing complete the landscape on what, until recently, was agricultural land.

The new Chipotle is open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

There are no grand-opening events or specials planned for the new location, said Danielle Moore, spokeswoman for Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

"But we always look forward to opening in a new community and we look forward to serving the people of Bethlehem Township," she said in an email.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Craft-beer titans visit Bethlehem to talk opportunities, challenges

From left, Jim Koch, of Boston Beer Co.; Dick Yuengling, of D.G. Yuengling & Son; and Ken Grossman, of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. take part in a panel discussion during a beer-pairing dinner March 24, 2016, during the "Meeting of the Malts V" in the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. Industry expert Bump Williams served as emcee for the event. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Owners of the world's three largest craft breweries gathered Thursday night in Bethlehem to address the state of their industry.

"Meeting of the Malts V" in the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks -- featuring a beer-pairing dinner, panel discussion, brewpub festival and after-party at Sands Bethlehem Event Center, offered a sampling of diverse styles to those in attendance.

The heads of D.G. Yuengling & Son based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania; Boston Beer Co. and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., of Chico, California, also brought a taste of the challenges facing their growing industry.

There are wholesale and shipping concerns and a crowded marketplace fueled by international conglomerates, competition for vital ingredients like water and hops and, particularly in Pennsylvania, evolving regulations to stay abreast of.

But there's no end in sight for the spectrum of beers that drinkers have come to embrace: from low-alcohol-by-volume goses to crack-another-at-your-own-risk imperial India pale ales.

"I think the mix is where the future of craft brewing is," said Ken Grossman, of Sierra Nevada, during a news conference that kicked off the "Meeting of the Malts V."

From left, Dick Yuengling, of D.G. Yuengling & Son; Jim Koch, of Boston Beer Co.; and Ken Grossman, of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. take part in a news conference March 24, 2016, at the "Meeting of the Malts V" in the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. A beer pairing with dinner, panel discussion and after-party at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem were to follow. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Here is a look at some of the topics the brewers touched on during the news conference:

Resources

Grossman spoke of a huge increase in demand for hops, driving up prices and leading to spot shortages as growers have tried to keep up. A hops grower five years ago could earn $7,000 to $8,000 an acre, compared to a value today about $12,000 to $15,000, Grossman said.

"That price is now incentivizing farmers to plant additional acreage," he said.

The key is contracting with the growers, said Jim Koch, from Boston Beer.

"If you show up at harvest and want 5,000 pounds of a hot new hop, you're going to be shortchanged," he said.

On the availability of sufficient quantities of water, particularly in drought-stricken California, Grossman said it's not a concern for him. Sierra Nevada uses deep wells, which aren't governed by state water-rights laws, though he said water could pose more of a challenge at urban breweries.

More competition

Craft brewing has a specific definition, set by the Colorado-based Brewers Association, with the following requisites: annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less; ownership or control of less than 25 percent of the craft brewery by a company that is not itself a craft brewer; and flavors derived from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients in a majority of its beers' total alcohol-by-volume.

The definition seemed to concern these brewers less than industry giants that have bought up smaller breweries and launched their own lines of smaller-production styles, the bottles of which might omit the owner's name, the panelists said.

"We do feel that there is a difference between us and" Anheuser-Busch InBev World and MillerCoors, Koch said.

Dick Yuengling said his family was ahead of the times, offering traditional ale and porter starting in 1829.

"We're all craft brewers," Yuengling said alongside Koch and Grossman on stage in the Frank Banko Alehouse at SteelStacks. "Up until a couple of years ago, nobody labeled us a craft brewer, but we've been making ale and porter for 187 years. I don't know where the term even got started, craft brewers."

Yuengling added that he sees the ranks of competitors peaking, after exploding from about 70 breweries 30 years ago in the United States to some 4,200 today.

"Some will survive and will make good beer," he said. "Some will grow like Ken and Jim have. Whether it's reached its peak or not, I don't think anybody knows."

Distribution challenges

Trends in wholesaling and distribution linked to the biggest companies are making it more and more difficult for craft brewers to break into the market, Yuengling said.

"I think that the craft brewers are going to have an awful time getting their beer distributed around the country if they are not already in a distribution network," he said.

Addressing both shipping and resources, all three breweries represented Wednesday have expanded their production footprint. Yuengling has facilities in Pottsville and Tampa, Florida; Boston Beer has its flagship brewery plus facilities in Upper Macungie Township, where all of its canned products emerge, and Cincinnati; and Sierra Nevada opened up an East Coast operation in Asheville, North Carolina.

The trend of western brewers operating breweries on the East Coast is unlikely to follow in reverse, with East Coast breweries opening up shop in the West, because of the predominantly easterly flow of goods, Koch pointed out. The West Coast is home to much of the United States' agricultural production and ports for delivery serving Asian importers.

Changing regulations

Yuengling acknowledged fears early on in Pennsylvania's move to allowing beer sales in supermarkets but spoke glowingly Thursday of the relationship, particularly with Wegmans, a "Meeting of the Malts V" sponsor.

He said his brewery has grown under the current model and he expects to see continued growth with the question of beer sales in convenience stores coming to a head before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

"It's coming, face it," Yuengling said. "It's going to be tough on beer distributors in our state. ... They're the reason we're here."

But times are changing, "and we've got to change with it," he continued.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Village on College Hill will host a kickoff meeting Wednesday about the new organization for older residents.

The "aging in place village" is designed to allow older residents to remain in their homes through help from volunteers and a a list of suggested vendors to handle tasks like moving furniture, cleaning gutters or shoveling snow.

The village in the Easton neighborhood also provides recreational opportunities, such as Tai Chi classes.

Their template comes from the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston. That village formed in 1999 and grew to 400 members by 2002, according to its website.

The kickoff meeting is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 30, at the College Hill Presbyterian Church at 501 Brodhead St. in Easton.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Frank Pintabone

Easton Area School Board President Frank Pintabone unveils plans for an Easton Hospital health clinic at Paxinosa Elementary School. Behind him to the left is Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr. (Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com)

( )

Officials earlier this week announced their desire to open a health clinic at Paxinosa Elementary School by 2017.

Easton Hospital would pay for and staff the clinic, which would offer health services not just to children but to others in the West Ward Easton neighborhood.

The services would be available to anyone and would be another step after Paxinosa's designation as a United Way Community School.

Officials touted the partnership -- but not everyone is singing its praises.

Critics have taken to the Facebook page EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, to question whether a school is the appropriate place for a doctor's office. One resident even started a petition to ban clinics from school property.

Commenters on lehighvalleylive.com had plenty to say:

My concern with this is with Easton Hospital being a for-profit, will it reach the people who need it most- the working poor who cannot afford insurance, but are "too rich" for government help.

The latest trend in healthcare is to promote using clinics like this instead of going to the hospital for minor things. It actually saves everyone money.
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Laois TD, Charlie Flanagan represented the Government at a series of events in New York City to mark St. Patricks Day.

This included an historic St Patricks Day Parade which includes Irish LGBT groups marching behind their own banners for the first time. Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, and the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio also marched in this years parade.

Minister Flanagan stated:

In Ireland we have achieved great strides forward in creating a more inclusive and welcoming country for members for our LBGT community, the high point of which was the same sex marriage referendum in 2015. I am pleased to see a very inclusive parade this year as I have met many of those involved and urged progress on this issue on my very first visit to New York as Minister.

I am also proud to march with the Irish Unit which comprises our soldiers and peacekeepers and reflects the enormous contributions of Irish troops and police to peacekeeping. It is also reflective of the huge contribution that Irish emigrants have made to public services in New York City and across the United States.

Minister Flanagans programme included a range of high-level political and Irish community engagements, in addition to business-focussed events.

 Ireland has a very positive story to tell and I encouraged our American friends to visit us in the coming months.

Minister Flanagan addressed guests at the Mayors St Patricks Day Breakfast before attending the traditional special service in St Patricks Cathedral. He marched in the Parade with the Irish Unit which comprises Finner Camp, 28th Infantry Battalion, E Company Reservists and a contingent from An Garda Siochana. He also attended a series of community receptions.

Minister Flanagan briefly visited Washington DC where he addressed a gathering key business and economic contacts including key clients of IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia, Tourism Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland. In Washington DC, he presented two new Science Foundation Ireland St. Patricks Day Science Medals and announced two new Science Foundation Ireland and National Science Foundation US-Ireland Centre-to-Centre partnerships.
Leitrims on a roll  but we need to keep levering our County up. That was the key message from Frank Curran, Chairperson of Leitrim County Councils newly-established front runner Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) as he launched the Committees preparation of a six-year Local and Community Plan for the County.

Leitrims on a roll  but we need to keep levering our County up. That was the key message from Frank Curran, Chairperson of Leitrim County Councils newly-established front runner Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) as he launched the Committees preparation of a six-year Local and Community Plan for the County.

Co Leitrim is one of the 10 pilot sites around the country and is now beginning the development phase for the six year Local and Community plan.

Leitrim is now one of Irelands success stories, Mr Curran explained. After 150 years of continuous decline, the past twenty-odd years have seen our Countys population grow by a startling 22%. That major turnaround didnt happen by accident but was based on hard work and good planning. Were proud of whats been achieved but we want and need more of the same. Thats what our Levering up Leitrim planning process is about.

Over the next three weeks Leitrims new LCDC will host three consultation events in the north, centre and south of the County. The events will be on Thursday 10 April at 6.30pm in the Bush Hotel, Carrick-on-Shannon, on Monday 14 April at 6.30pm in The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton and on Wednesday 16 April, again at 6.30pm in the New Community School, Ballinamore.

The consultation evenings will focus on a range of issues.

We want to hear peoples views on jobs, training, services, health, community, culture, heritage, volunteering, social and community infrastructure and education, Mr Curran continued.

Were particularly interested in peoples thoughts on what we might call Post-Tiger Leitrim. We dont live our lives in separate bubbles or compartments so we want to produce a Plan that reflects all aspects of community life here.

Leitrim LCDCs planning process will be short, sharp and inclusive. The more people who turn up to the consultation events the more effective it will be.

For further details contact 071 9650496 or email lcdc@leitrimcoco.ie. Submissions or observations on the development of the Plan can also be emailed to lcdc@leitrimcoco.ie on or before April 17th 2014.
Those wishing to stay in the EU will point to the economic benefits of membership of what is still the worlds largest single market in an increasingly dangerous world and the unnecessary risks of our coming out, while those opposed to continued membership will cite the need to take back sovereignty ceded gradually to Brussels over the past forty years and to regain control of our borders. Their view is that then we could strike deals with the rest of the world and have a much more money to spend as we would not be paying into the EU coffers.

Neither side of the argument is in any way watertight. The Common Market which some of us voted to remain in over forty years ago was very different from what we have created today. There are serious questions about the democratic deficit and whether it is still fit for purpose. Despite delivering prosperity and a certain degree of stability for over half a century there are some serious question marks over its its long term future. The Euro has hardly been a massive success and the EU GDP is currently shrinking. Probably the single biggest crisis for us all both in and out of the EU is how it will deal with migration from the Middle East and Africa, which currently shows no sign of abating.

Some cynics will argue that the deal the Prime Minister has negotiated from Brussels is no more of a deal than the one Harold Wilson claimed he had got back in 1975. I would not. Whilst it was never likely that major change would occur overnight, despite the Prime Ministers efforts, what he has done is to open the door, maybe without realising it, to possible major change in the EU in the future which, if you believe the words of the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, following last weekends EU Summit, many other states will be keen to support. With the United Kingdom leading the way, we could have a real chance to shape the EU to reflect more the aspirations of its citizens and not just those of multinationals and big business in general.

Of course, if we were to vote to leave the EU life would go on. There is no guarantee, however, that we could forge trade links with the rest of the world as easily as some think as a small country geographically if not economically, as we can whilst being part of the EU. There is also no guarantee that companies such as Siemens, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and many others would remain here unless a deal could be struck with our former partners quickly for us to gain access again to the single market. It is true that you could argue that our current partners need us more than we need them, but can we be certain that they would want to play ball if they had been rejected?

The problem for those of you who are undecided is that nobody really knows what a Brexit will produce. One thing that does strike me is that we always seem to give the impression to our partners in Europe that we want it all our own way. What happened to the give and take necessary for any successful marriage to work? Sovereignty is an issue that keeps cropping up. What membership of the EU asks members to do is to pool their sovereignty in certain areas. Over the past few years most of the legislation passed at Westminster has had nothing at all to do with the EU and this will continue to be the case. Dont forget, its not just the United Kingdom that has agreed to cede certain powers to the EU but all the other 27 member states as well. Why should we be any different?

* John Marriott is a former Liberal Democrat councillor from Lincolnshire.
MORE than 700 students from 60 schools across Ireland will descend on Shannon Airport next month for a major event for young business minds.

For the second time, the Irish Technology Leadership Group  headed by Corbally man John Hartnett  will host its Young Innovators event.

The event, which takes place on April 6, is designed to help in the development of key skills needed to meet the requirements of a competitive economy.

Youngsters  including a sizeable contingent from Limerick schools  will be given tasks to tackle, and product ideas to develop under the watchful eye of a team of mentors from Dell, Intel, Shannon Airport, the University of Limerick and the Limerick Institute of Technology.

Students will also be given insights into the future possibilities of technology and the sciences.

The first Young Innovators contest also took place at Shannon Airport back in January 2014, as the first day of the Irish Technology Leadership Groups annual conference.

Then, part of the check in area at Shannon Airport was replaced with a huge swathe of students at a contest eventually won by a transition year team from Castletroy College. They were joined by more than 400 people from technology companies, research and development firms, academia and support groups like Coder Dojo.

Established in 2007, and headquartered in Silicon Valley, the ITLG is a non-profit group comprised of global technology leaders who are Irish or Irish American.
POPE Francis blessed a replica of an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at the Vatican this week, which will be brought through the streets of Limerick in a major procession on Monday, April 4.

Fr Seamus Enright, of the Redemptorist order on the South Circular Road in the city, met with the 79 year-old Pope from Buenos Aires this Wednesday in Rome, before a replica of the icon returns to Limerick for a six-week religious festival in honour of Our Lady.

This year the Redemptorists worldwide are celebrating 150 years of devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and the Redemptorists in Limerick have erected a new shrine in the grounds of Mount St Alphonsus as part of these celebrations.

The pilgrim icon will be brought to Mount St Alphonsus during the 7.15pm Mass on Easter Sunday, and will be brought to various centres in Limerick during Easter Week.

It will be carried in a procession from the Redemptorists to St Johns Cathedral on April 4 and from there will be taken on pilgrimage to the 26 Catholic Cathedrals in Ireland, until it reaches its final resting place in Maynooth.

Fr Enright and the Metropolitan Mayor of Limerick, Cllr Jerry ODea, have also unveiled a billboard campaign in the city, which will also be used nationwide, under the banner Follow the Icon to raise awareness of the importance of this event.

Pope Pius IX presented the ancient Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help to the Redemptorists for veneration on their church in Rome in 1865.

The Pope gave the Redemptorists a mandate: they were to promote devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help throughout the world.

The first copy of the Icon to arrive in Ireland has been venerated in Limerick since December 1867.

The arrival of the Icon was greeted with great festivities. The people of Limerick took Our Lady of Perpetual Help into their hearts and homes from the very beginning.

A beautiful shrine was built in 1868 and 1869, mostly with donations from the men of the Holy Family Confraternity, said Fr Enright.

The shrine was opened for prayer on the Feast of the Assumption, 1869 and soon became the spiritual heart of Limerick. A notable development happened in 1959 when the women of Limerick donated their jewellery, mostly wedding and engagement rings, to make crowns for the images of Jesus and Mary.

Fr Enright said that while he couldnt put a monetary value on these items, they are priceless because of the generosity of the people at the time and the history now associated with them.

Devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help has been a feature of life in Mount St Alphonsus since December 1867 but the form of the devotion has changed. An annual novena has been celebrated for many years and the weekly novena devotions were introduced in the early 1940s.

In 1973, Fr Vincent Kavanagh launched the Solemn Novena. This emphasised the celebratory and festive nature of the novena and gave a special place to the countless prayers written and left at Our Ladys Shrine. The Solemn Novena, renamed Limericks Novena in 2015, continues to attract about 10,000 people each day.

The very unusual statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was carved by Seamus Murphy, a famous Cork-born sculptor, for the Redemptorists in 1959 and has now found a new and permanent home in Mount St Alphonsus.

The Papal Nuncio, archbishop Charles J.Brown, will dedicate the shrine on April 4 at 6pm as part of the opening celebrations of the Jubilee celebrations in Limerick.

The statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help joins two other pieces of religious art in the grounds of Mount St Alphonsus  the recently-restored Crucifix and a statue of St Patrick.

They hope to have the statue of St Patrick restored, funds permitting, for the centenary of his execution on May 4.

Visits of the Pilgrim Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help will be as follows:

Monday, March 28: 10am Mass, Our Lady of Lourdes; Tuesday, March 29: 9.15am Mass, Corpus Christi: Carrigoran House, 11.30am - 7pm, open to the public;

Wednesday, March 30: 11.30am Mass in Milford Care Centre, with time of intercession until 2pm; 7pm Polish Community, St Michael's Church; Thursday, March 31: Augustinians, all day; Friday, April 1: 9.45 Mass, Monaleen, with time of intercession until 12.30pm; Saturday, April 2: McAuley House, 3pm - 6pm; Sunday, April 3: Divine Mercy Celebrations, Redemptorists, 2pm - 6pm; Monday, April 4: Bedford Row Project, 10am - 4pm; Opening Ceremonies of the Icon Pilgrimage, April 4 at 6pm.

Editorial, page 18
NARRATIVE 4, a global arts-education organisation backed by some of the leading lights of the international cultural world, is to set up its first base outside the US in the city centre, the Limerick Leader can exclusively reveal.

The organisation, which was co-founded by Irish author Colum McCann and Lisa Consiglio and dozens of other artists from around the world, promotes social change through storytelling.

It is backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Star Wars director JJ Abrams  among many others  and is to take over the former library building at 58 OConnell Street as its first global headquarters.

Author McCann, who will speak in Newcastle West in the coming weeks as part of Eigse Michael Hartnett, said that the concept is the desire to create a narrative for social change based on the belief that we must see the world, and ourselves, differently through the exchange of stories, primarily for young people.

Kids from Belfast, kids from Chicago, kids from Limerick, kids from Johannesburg. Get them together. Let them walk in one anothers shoes  almost literally. By telling the stories, not of themselves, but of others. The core philosophy is: You step into my shoes, I step into yours, he explained to the Leader.

Asked why the organisation, founded several years ago and based out of New York, was coming to Limerick, he said: Because I think the people of Limerick have the fire and the guts and the desire for change. I think Limerick is a model city for how to fundamentally shift perception.

During City of Culture, Narrative 4 ran a pilot programme in a number of city schools, the first time it had participated in an international story exchange. The team was convinced by the enthusiasm shown for the scheme and, McCann says, that it was not only needed in the city (but) could be a real success story.

It feels like the time has come for Limerick  it's vibrant and edgy and new, and I feel aligned with the city. The city has a story to tell the world.

A pre-launch of the building, work on which is to get underway soon, will take place in April, with a global summit in June, likely attended by a number of the Narrative 4 board, Mr McCann confirmed, which will include Ishmael Beah, Terry Tempest Williams, Salman Rushdie and others.

The Global HQ will be a hub of creative activity and a model for the growth that we will foster internationally. We will bring young people from Limerickarea schools to the city centre in order to conduct workshops in storytelling, art and creative writing using a cutting edge curriculum designed by some of the biggest literary talents in the world, he said.

Former secretary general at the Department of Finance and current Hunt Museum chair, John Moran, has been centrally involved in bringing the organisation to Limerick. He says that it will shine a spotlight on the city.

There will be a spotlight on that for a couple of years and it is Limericks potential to showcase what it can do, how it can row in behind this and really allow it to hit the potential it can, he said.

This is all part of the new narrative that has been developing around Limerick in the last couple of years, and very successfully.

Colum and the rest of the team in New York  and indeed myself  remain convinced that we will get a team of people now around this in Limerick, who will be able to take the existing idea and make it something better.

They have been very impressed by what they see as a sort of can do attitude in Limerick, getting stuff done. And they are entrusting a heavy responsibility on Limerick to take that on.

What is empathy? from Narrative 4 on Vimeo.
THE BIGGEST clean-up endeavour undertaken in the country is in full swing in Limerick city and county this Friday morning.

From 8am volunteers have been rolling up their sleeves across the towns, villages and citys streets as part of the mammoth community event.

Some of the eager beavers who were first out of the blocks this Friday morning included the community in Grange who were spotted decked out in the hi-vis jackets along the Bruff to Limerick road at 8.30am.

Their civic pride didnt go un-noticed with motorists giving them encouraging beeps as they passed by.

The official starter flags to signal the launch of Team Limerick Clean-up2 (TLC2) were raised at 9.45am by rugby giant Paul OConnell and philanthropist JP McManus in the city.

After months of organising and preparation, Mr McManus said he was filled with pride at the sight of Limerick people along the streets of the city, and the roads of the county, cleaning up their local area.

It seems to be going great. Im very proud of it all, he told the Limerick Leader.

When asked if he could see TLC becoming an annual event for many years to come, Mr McManus replied: We will take it a year at a time. Lets see today how it goes. It would be nice to think that it would be an annual event.

Rugby legend Paul OConnell said: Its not possible for the place to be as clean as we want it to be with just the council doing the work  we need to have a culture around tidiness and cleanliness so that when people come and visit our city and visit our county you want people to stand back alittle and remark about it.

Mr McManus and Paul OConnell were joined by TLC2 volunteers and the Boherbuoy Brass Band at the official start of the endeavour at the OConnell monument in the city, this Friday morning.

The pair then went on to meet volunteers in Moyross Community Centre and a special visit will be made by Young Munster players who will get to meet their idol in the shape of the now retired former Irish rugby captain.

The TLC initiative is sponsored by the JP McManus Benevolent Fund and is co-ordinated by Limerick City and County Council and partnered by the Limerick Leader, Limericks Live 95FM, and Mr Binman.

It is anticipated that by close of business over 14,000 volunteers will have taken to the streets, lanes, highways and byways of the city and county for what is the biggest clean-up Limerick has ever seen, with Paul OConnell predicting that 50,000 bags of rubbish will be collected.

See Team Limerick Clean Up for more. Follow TLC2 on Twitter and Facebook and also follow the Leaders Twitter account for updates.
A SPECIAL EU-funded exhibition by students and resident artists examining death and life was launched this week at the Limerick School of Art and Design.

The exhibition, entitled Symbols: Cultural Death and Cultural Life, was officially launched this Tuesday evening, and will run until Friday, April 1.

The project, according to organisers, is a creative response cultural richness of cemeteries, and is part a large European project, working with partners in Spain, Slovenia, Corsica, Italy and Scotland.

The unique exhibition has been funded by the European Union Creative Europe project.

LSAD student, Philip Desmonds artwork is one aspect of the creative display.

The Adare artist showcases his own version of In Memoriam cards, looking at the beauty and history of Mount St Lawrence and St Johns cemeteries.

Director of the Limerick School of Art and Design research centre, Dr Tracy Fahey said that they are delighted to be working on the project.

She added that the work was produced by two international residencies in printmaking, music and dance, and LSAD students.

Artistic director of the project, Fiona Quill said it is wonderful to be working with the 10-day Spanish residency and diverse artists from across the seven countries.

She added that they are very proud to have local artists, Gemma Dardis and Mary ODea, taking part in the event.

Dr Fahey added: Not only does this exhibition showcase the work produced in the residencies, but this show offers something unique in Europe. Fiona has worked with students on our LSAD printmaking programme to produce a set of responses to this project.

We hope that this will be the first of several Creative Europe projects to deal with the interaction of fine art and other areas of culture, education and history, she said.

The exhibition was launched by local thanatologist, Jennifer Moran Stritch, on Tuesday, at 6pm.
Stamps document the complex political evolution of New Guinea: Stamps Down Under

Mar 25, 2016, 1 PM

The Netherlands Indies resumed issuing stamps for Netherlands New Guinea in 1950, including this 15 Queen Juliana stamp, Scott 10.

British New Guinea was renamed the Territory of Papua in 1906, and existing stamps were overprinted Papua. with a period at the end. The overprint was made smaller and the period dropped in 1907.

The much-disputed territory was renamed Papua New Guinea in 1972, and replaced its use of Australian currency in 1975. The new coinage appeared on a set of five stamps, starting with Scott 410.

An indigenous sailing vessel called a lakatoi was depicted on British New Guineas first stamps, in 1901.

Germany competed with Australia for New Guinea at the end of the 19th century. Germany stamps such as this 1897 issue were overprinted Deutsch-Neu-Guinea for use in New Guinea from 1897-1899.

Deutsch Neu Guinea was handed over to Australia in 1914 and became New Britain. The existing Germany stamp issues were overprinted G.R.I., an abbreviated Latin reference to the British King George V.

The unification of Irian Barat (formerly West New Guinea) and Indonesia was celebrated with a stamp issued in 1968.

Germany issued new stamps for Deutsch Neu Guinea in 1901, picturing Kaiser Wilhelm IIs yacht, the Hohenzollern. These stamps were in continuous use until 1919.

The first issue of Netherlands Indies, in 1864, portrays King William III. The Dutch had claims on the island of New Guinea as early as 1825.

In 1908, overprinted British New Guinea stamps were replaced by issues that read Papua in a banner above the lakatoi design.

In 1945, Papua and New Guinea joined administratively to become the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, using Australia stamps until 1953, as on this 1950 cover postmarked on Feb. 27 in Madang.

In May 1963, West New Guinea became part of Indonesia and was named Irian Barat. At first, overprints such as this UNTEA (United Nations Temporary Executive Authority) were added to Netherlands New Guinea issues.

By Janet Klug

It is fascinating for most people to learn how nations evolve, and even more so for stamp collectors, who can document a nations changes through its postal issues. New Guinea is a good example.

New Guinea is the second largest island in the world, after Greenland.

However, the island of New Guinea is not the nation of New Guinea, and the nation of New Guinea is neither the territory of New Guinea nor the province of New Guinea. This situation gets very complex, so lets see if the stamps will tell the story.

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In 1825, the Dutch empire claimed the western half of the island of New Guinea, and the Dutch (Netherlands) government declared in 1828 that northwest New Guinea was part of the Dutch empire, naming it the Dutch (or Netherlands) East Indies. This was the pre-stamp era, so we have to fast forward to 1864, when stamps were issued for the Netherland Indies.

The Netherland Indies included more than just the western half of the island of New Guinea.

Illustrated nearby is the first stamp issued by Netherlands Indies. It was used in New Guinea as well as Sumatra, Java, part of Borneo, the Moluccas, Celebes, and other small islands within the parameter of the Dutch East Indies.

In the 1870s, several European countries became interested in New Guinea, especially when news circulated telling of riches to be found on the island.

European nations began sending explorers, traders, and missionaries to establish holdings in New Guinea. Their reports extolled the virtues of natural resources: specifically cedar, ebony, sandalwood, rubber, pearls, copra (dried coconut), and, eventually, gold.

In 1883, eastern New Guinea was annexed by Queensland, a British colony in northeast Australia. For a relatively short time (1885-1901), Queenslands stamps were used in eastern New Guinea. Not to be outdone, Germany raised its flag on the northeast coast of New Guinea.

In order for the Netherlands to protect its claim on the Netherlands Indies, a line was set at the 141st meridian east, to mark the division between West (Dutch) New Guinea and areas annexed by Germany and Great Britain. Germany stamps overprinted Deutsch-Neu-Guinea were used in New Guinea from 1897 to 1899.

New stamps were issued in 1901 specifically for Deutsch Neu Guinea, picturing Kaiser Wilhelm IIs yacht, Hohenzollern. Stamps of this design were in continuous use until 1919.

Responding to Germanys annexation of northeast New Guinea, Great Britain hoisted the flag in 1884 in the newly proclaimed British New Guinea protectorate in southeast New Guinea.

In 1901, British New Guinea received its own postage stamps featuring a beautiful image of an indigenous sailing vessel (a sort of double dugout canoe) called a lakatoi.

Control of British New Guinea was transferred in 1906 to the newly independent Commonwealth of Australia. British New Guinea was renamed the Territory of Papua, and so in 1906 the British New Guinea stamps were overprinted Papua. with a period at the end of the name. The Papua. overprint was changed to a smaller marking without a final period in 1907.

Finally, in 1908, the banner above the lakatoi was redesigned to read Papua, and until 1952 all the stamps for the Territory of Papua were inscribed Papua.

On Sept. 11, 1914, in Australias first military engagement of World War I, Australian troops ousted a German garrison defending the most powerful wireless station in the Pacific, at Bitapaka on the Gazelle Peninsula of northeastern New Guinea.

The Germans capitulated and Australia was assigned a mandate by the League of Nations to govern the area that had been German territory.

Deutsch Neu Guinea stamps were overprinted for use in New Britain. The overprint was G.R.I (for the Latin Georgius Rex Imperator, referring to King George V) and surcharges were in pence and shillings.

During World War II, Japan conquered nearly all of New Guinea with the exception of the extreme southeast coastline. During the occupation, civilian post offices were closed, and this explains why the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue has no stamps for West or East New Guinea during the World War II period. Japanese soldiers used army post offices, and Allied soldiers fighting in New Guinea also used military post offices.

In 1945, Papua and New Guinea were combined in an administrative union and received the joint title of The Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

Post-World War II Australian stamps were used within the Territory of Papua and New Guinea until 1953. A cover from that period is illustrated here, franked with three Australia stamps and postmarked at Madang, Papua New Guinea, on Feb. 27, 1950.

The Netherlands Indies resumed issuing stamps for Netherlands New Guinea in 1950. However, after an aggressive disagreement with Indonesia, in August 1962 the Netherlands relinquished the disputed territory to the United Nations, as a trust territory.

The first stamps used there were Netherlands New Guinea issues overprinted UNTEA, for United Nations Temporary Executive Authority. In 1963, the United Nations gave control of West New Guinea to Indonesia and the name became Irian Barat (West New Guinea).

Republik Indonesia stamps inscribed Irian Barat were issued starting May 1, 1963, until 1970.

The stamps carried both country names: Republik Indonesia and Irian Barat. A 1968 stamp (Scott 48) highlighted the unification of West Irian and Indonesia.

(Note that West Irian stamps appear in the 2016 Scott Standard catalog in Vol. 1, following the United Nations listings, and in Vol. 3, following Indonesia.)

In 1972, the territory was permanently (one hopes) renamed Papua New Guinea, often referred to simply as PNG. A few years later, in 1975, Papua New Guinea changed from Australian dollars and cents to kina and toea. That year, a set of five stamps (PNG Scott 410-414) celebrated the new coinage.

While it isnt always easy tracing all of the political and geographic changes that can happen in any nation, it sure is fun finding the relevant stamps to demonstrate the history. Give it a try!
Isaac Netwon is synonymous with apples and gravity. He rose to become the most influential scientist of the 17th century, his ideas becoming the foundation of modern physics, after very humble beginnings. But first, the big question: Did an apple really fall on Newton's head and spur him to figure out gravity? Historians say there is likely no more than a grain of truth to the story.

Sir Isaac Newton was born, premature and tiny, in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England. His father, wealthy but uneducated, died before Newton was born, and he ended up being raised by his grandmother after his mother remarried. Its said he didnt excel at school, but he ended up studying law at Trinity College Cambridge, part of Cambridge University. He worked as a servant to pay his bills. And he kept a journal about his ideas.

What got Newton interested in math? He bought a book on the subject and couldn't comprehend it. After getting his bachelor's degree in 1665; he studied math, physics, optics and astronomy on his own (Cambridge was closed for a couple of years due to the plague known as the Black Death). By 1666 he had completed his early work on his three laws of motion. Later he got his master's degree.

Later work focused on the diffraction of light (he used a prism to discover that white light is made of a spectrum of colors) and the concepts he'd become known for: universal gravitation, centrifugal force, centripetal force, and the effects and characteristics of bodies in motion. His laws are still used by physics students today:

An object will remain in a state of inertia unless acted upon by force.

The relationship between acceleration and applied force is F=ma.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Isaac Newton quotes

Newton said many things worth remembering, including these philosophical gems:

"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."

"To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me."

Newton once said that if he had achieved anything in his research, it was "by standing on the shoulders of giants." The quote was prophetic. A couple of centuries later, Albert Einstein puzzled over how to reconcile Newton's law of gravity with special relativity, which after several years led to Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Isaac Newton inventions

While he's best known for his work on gravity, Newton was a tinkerer, too, but more with ideas than physical inventions. He did invent reflecting lenses for telescopes, which produced clearer images in a smaller telescope compared with the refracting models of the time. In his later years, he developed anti-counterfeiting measures for coins, including the ridges you see on quarters today.

Among his biggest "inventions" was calculus. Yes, that's right. Mere math and algebra weren't enough to explain the ideas in his head, so he helped invent calculus (German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz is typically credited with developing it independently at about the same time).

It's said that Newton invented a cat door so his cats would stop scratching to get in, but the truth of that one is a bit sketchy.

He also conceived of an "orbital cannon" that would poke out of a huge mountain, up in space, and with just the right amount of gunpowder could put a cannonball into orbit. This was not something Newton actually imagined building, but rather a way to think about his theories.

Later years

Urged by astronomer Edmond Halley (who was studying his now-famous comet), Newton continued to study his notion of gravity and apply it to the motions of the Earth, sun and moon. It all led to his seminal work, published in 1687, called the "Principia"  considered by many as the greatest science book ever written.

Newton's research stopped in 1679 when he had a nervous breakdown. Later, recovered, he spoke out against King James II, who wanted only Roman Catholics to be in powerful government and academic positions. When James was later driven out of England, Newton was elected to Parliament. He had a second breakdown in 1693, then retired from research. Isaac Newton died in 1727.

Among his more eccentric pastimes, Newton also dabbled (or more than dabbled) in alchemy, also called chymistry, with some historians estimating that he wrote more than a million words of alchemical notes, according to curator of rare books at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, James Voelkel.

And in March 2016, researchers announced they had found bought a 17th-century alchemy manuscript written by Newton. The manuscript, which had been hidden in a private collection for decades and turned up at an auction at Bonhams, provided the recipe for "philosophic" mercury, which was considered a step in the process for concocting a mysterious substance known the philosopher's stone; this material was thought to have supernatural powers  the ability to turn any metal into gold and to grant immortality. The manuscript will be available online for enthusiasts to explore.

Further reading
Alchemy is an ancient practice shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Its practitioners mainly sought to turn lead into gold, a quest that has captured the imaginations of people for thousands of years. However, the goals of alchemy went far beyond simply creating some golden nuggets.

Alchemy was rooted in a complex spiritual worldview in which everything around us contains a sort of universal spirit, and metals were believed not only to be alive but also to grow inside the Earth. When a base, or common, metal such as lead was found, it was thought to simply be a spiritually and physically immature form of higher metals such as gold. To the alchemists, metals were not the unique substances that populate the Periodic Table, but instead the same thing in different stages of development or refinement on their way to spiritual perfection.

As James Randi notes in his "Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural," "Beginning about the year 100 and reaching its flower in medieval times, alchemy was an art based partly upon experimentation and partly upon magic. Early investigators of natural processes centered their search on a mythical substance they knew as philosopher's stone, which was supposed to possess many valuable attributes such as the power to heal, to prolong life, and to change base metals into precious metal  such as gold." (This "philosopher's stone" was not a literal stone but instead a wax, liquid, or powder that held magical powers.)

History of alchemy

Historian Nevill Drury, in his book "Magic and Witchcraft," notes that, "The word alchemy is thought to derive from an Egyptian word, 'chem' or 'qem,' meaning black  a reference to the black alluvial soils bordering the Nile ... We know that the Greek word 'chyma,' meaning to fuse or cast metals, established itself in Arabic as 'al kimia'  from which alchemy is derived." The Arabic role in the spread of alchemy is significant; many books on alchemy were translated into Arabic from the Greek before being introduced to European audiences.

Having the ability to turn lead into gold has obvious benefits these days, but ancient alchemists did not seek to change base metals into gold simply out of greed; as Drury notes, "The alchemists did not regard all metals as equally mature or 'perfect.' Gold symbolized the highest development in nature and came to personify human renewal and regeneration. A 'golden' human being was resplendent with spiritual beauty and had triumphed over the lurking power of evil. The basest metal, lead, represented the sinful and unrepentant individual who was readily overcome by the forces of darkness ... If lead and gold both consisted of fire, air, water, and earth, then surely by changing the proportions of the constituent elements, lead could be transformed into gold. Gold was superior to lead because, by its very nature, it contained the perfect balance of all four elements."

Alchemy shows up in some odd places. For instance, Isaac Newton, best known for his study of gravity and his laws of motion, also wrote more than a million words of alchemical notes throughout his lifetime, historians have estimated.

In March 2016, the Chemical Heritage Foundation bought a 17th-century alchemy manuscript written by Newton. Buried in a private collection for decades, the manuscript detailed how to make "philosophic" mercury, thought to be a step toward making the philosopher's stone  a magical substance thought to have the ability to turn any metal into gold and give eternal life. Curator of rare books at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, James Voelkel said the text was likely copied from an American chemist named George Starkey. The Latin text  whose title translates to "Preparation of the [Sophick] Mercury for the [Philosophers'] Stone by the Antimonial Stellate Regulus of Mars and Luna from the Manuscripts of the American Philosopher"  will be available online for those interested to peruse.

Is alchemy real?

It is clear why alchemy was doomed to fail: it was based on a misunderstanding of basic chemistry and physics. Alchemists based their theories and experiments on the Aristotelian assumption that the world and everything in it are composed of four basic elements (air, earth, fire and water), along with three that were called "essential" substances: salt, mercury and sulfur. Today we know that the universe is made up of atoms and elements. Since lead and other metals are not composed of fire, air, earth, and water, it's not possible to adjust the percentages of those elements and turn them into gold.

Though alchemy never succeeded, that didn't stop people from claiming to have solved the ancient riddle. For centuries, rumors spread that certain people had discovered the philosopher's stone (since immortality was one of its properties, the fact that they're all now dead suggests otherwise). Some wealthy people hired alchemists to conduct research on their behalf, though they never saw returns on their investment. Bogus alchemists were so common in the Middle Ages that several famous writers described them, including poets Ben Jonson and Geoffrey Chaucer (in "The Canterbury Tales").

Though the philosopher's stone was a myth and alchemy failed, the alchemists weren't completely wrong: With modern physics equipment, such as particle accelerators, it is indeed possible to create gold from other elements, though the amounts are sub-microscopic and the process costs far more to create than the resulting gold is worth.

Though alchemy is long gone, the contrast between lead and gold remains; lead is a common, poisonous metal that can harm children and lead to brain damage; gold is highly valued, treasured, and often worn as jewelry. Though alchemy never achieved its goals of immortality or turning lead into gold, it did leave an important legacy: alchemists were early practitioners of what would become modern chemistry.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books including Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series Space In Your Face. Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

To paraphrase Galileo, "The book of nature is written in mathematical characters."

The language that physicists and astronomers use to describe the natural world around us and the vast cosmos above us is just that  mathematics. It's through theoretical equations, data analysis number-crunching, and hardcore computer simulations that scientists pry open nature's secrets from her jealous hands. [Images: The World's Most Beautiful Equations]

Mathematics is a fantastic tool, revealing more about the universe than we could've ever dreamt when the first scientists started applying rigorous methods to their natural philosophy. But that blessing is also a curse. Mathematics, the language that proves so adept at describing nature, is not the easiest language to translate into, say, plain English. That difficulty  the same difficulty in translating from any language into another  is at the root of much of the distrust some people have of astronomers and scientific findings. It's nothing new, unfortunately  just ask Galileo how much trouble he had.

Do you speak science?

Scientists have an undeserved reputation for being poor communicators, but this couldn't be further from the truth. A healthy fraction of a scientist's day is filled with communication: coordinating work with colleagues and students, writing papers and grant proposals, preparing and giving talks at conferences and workshops, and teaching. How else is a scientist supposed to convince their fellows that they've hit upon the Next Great Idea if those results aren't communicated clearly? [Scientists Should Learn to Talk to Kids]

Scientists are some of the strongest and most eloquent communicators you'll ever meet  when they're speaking their "native" language of mathematics and jargon. Jargon words are just shorthand expressions for complex topics, and any profession, from physicists to bakers, use it. It's just that bakers aren't usually called upon to report their findings to the public. And many scientists are up to the challenge of translating their findings into non-jargon English, but there's a problem: there's no good reason for them to do it.

The priorities for a scientist in our current academic system are, in order: 1) get grants, 2) write papers, and 3) anything else.

That "anything else" includes teaching, serving on committees, refereeing papers, and  in the tiny fraction of time leftover  engage with the broader community. Oh, and maybe spend some time with their families.

If you've ever wondered why most scientists don't go to the trouble of communicating their work with the public, there's your reason: there's no incentive for them to do it. There aren't any rewards, and there certainly isn't any money. When a scientist does engage with the public, say, by giving a public lecture or visiting a classroom, by and large they are doing it in their spare-spare-spare time, and doing it because they enjoy it.

So we (and "we" here means both scientists and the public) have a problem: the knowledge that scientists gain about the natural world stays relatively locked up within the scientific community, the scientists have no incentive to share it more broadly, and the public grows ever more distrustful of scientists. That reduces science funding opportunities, which means researchers have to work even harder to get grants, which means they have even less time for outreach .

We need to break this cycle. Society needs to be scientifically literate to function, and scientists need public support to continue being scientists.

This is where storytelling comes in. Stories are powerful. They resonate with us on a human level in a way that bare numbers can't. And there are many creative ways to tell stories. Usually scientists are nervous to tell stories based on science  they are, after all, trained to be as precise and exacting as possible. Fortunately, there are many talented people around the world who are experts at telling stories  artists.

Such as dancers. Yes, dance. People moving their bodies to music. Dance is a natural "language" for interpreting and representing physical concepts: the way a dancer thinks about the world, in terms of transfers of momentum and flows of energy, isn't much different from a physicist. Endeavors like the popular "Dance Your Ph.D." program or a project I'm involved with, "Song of the Stars," take advantage of that natural connection.

A collage of images from "Song of the Stars." (Image credit: Leonardo Carrizo, leonardocarrizo.com)

Science as art and movement

In "Song of the Stars," the dances reflect themes from astrophysical phenomena. We've all been wowed by Hubble images, but it's something completely different to be immersed in the formation of the first stars or to witness a companion being pulled into a black hole, as only dance can express. To have astronomy brought down to Earth and be brought to life. To explore and share astrophysical phenomena in new and creative ways. To interpret the motions of gas and the play of complex forces using only the movement of the human body. To be told a story in a way that emotionally connects with us. And there are so many wonderful stories to tell about the universe, stories revealed by the scientific process but not usually exposed to the public in a way that they can appreciate and enjoy. [Do Science and Art Share a Source? - Cafe Panel Chat]

"Song of the Stars" is a blending of astronomy and dance to tell the life stories of the stars above. From the first revolution of light more than 13 billion years ago in a dark universe, to a galactic collision that sparks a new generation, to the loss of a companion into a black hole, to a spectacular supernova that sends one last message across the universe. Dance pieces depicting these scenarios are interwoven with narration that conveys the science and gives the audience enough information to fully appreciate the creative work of the artists.

I'm continually fascinated by the ever-unfolding mysteries that the universe presents to us, and I want to share those mysteries with anyone I can. This is why I started working with Seven Dance Company to create "Song of the Stars." By sharing what I know with dancers and choreographers, we're working together to translate mathematics and jargon into new languages and use those new languages to tell stories that connect with us in different, emotional ways. This process sacrifices technical details, which is fine. I'm trying to communicate intuition, notinformation. If an audience wants reams of complex text and mathematics, they're already well-served.

If you're a topical expert  researcher, business leader, author or innovator  and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here

Speaking from a common voice

Most people may not realize the beauty and drama that plays out in the heavens above, because it's never been shared with them in a way that makes them care. Many people are immediately "turned off" by science or space concepts. But maybe dance can reach them. Maybe other artistic expressions can communicate to them. Maybe if science is shared with them in a way that they can appreciate and enjoy, we can break the cycle of distrust. Maybe if science knowledge is presented in new ways  away from meaningless soundbites or contextless data points  audiences can gain an understanding of, and an appreciation for, what scientists do.

And maybe those audiences can gain an appetite for more. We're all curious; it is part of what makes us human. If that curiosity can be awakened  or reawakened  maybe the next time scientists beg the public for money they won't be immediately dismissed. Maybe the next time a research group publishes a new result, it's met with joy and fascination from all corners of society. Maybe a kid who never realized he or she could be a scientist pushes toward a new career.

The point of combining science with the arts isn't to necessarily dictate what the artist creates, but rather to explore a shared experience and find the common ground between the disciplines. The point is to inspire artists and to bring science to new audiences who wouldn't normally be interested in the topics.

To reveal and revel in what science truly is: an expression of our shared human curiosity, expressed in the language of mathematics, but translated to make it enjoyable by everyone.

"Song of the Stars" is supported by a Kickstarter campaign. Learn more by listening to the episode "What's the point in talking about science?" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes (opens in new tab) and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.
The fossilized teeth and forearm bone from an adult male and two infant Australopithecus afarensis that researchers uncovered near the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.

Fossils belonging to an ancient human relative that were discovered on the banks of a Kenyan river suggest that hominids lived farther east than previously thought.

Researchers found the fossils  a forearm bone and teeth belonging to an adult Australopithecus afarensis male and two infants  along the Kantis River in Ongata-Rongai, a settlement just outside the capital city of Nairobi.

The fossil find represents the first Australopithecus member found east of the Rift Valley, a ridge that runs north to south through Kenya and other east African countries, the researchers said. Remains of Australopithecus bahrelghazali, another human relative in the same genus, were found in Chad (west of the Rift Valley), suggesting that members of this genus lived in central Africa. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]

"So far, all other A. afarensis fossils had been identified from the center of the Rift Valley," study senior author Masato Nakatsukasa, a biological anthropologist at Kyoto University in Japan, said in a statement."[The new finding] has important implications for what we understand about our ancestors' distribution range, namely that Australopithecus could have covered a much greater area by this age."

A. afarensis is thought to have lived between 3.7 million and 3 million years ago. The species includes the famous 3.2-million-year-old Lucy, whom researchers uncovered in Ethiopia in 1974. Other A. afarensis specimens have been found in Tanzania, the researchers noted.

The scientists did an isotopic analysis of the site where the fossils were found. By studying the isotopes (variants of an element with differing numbers of neutrons) at the site, researchers can determine the region's ancient environment and climate. The analysis revealed that the area, known as Kantis, had a humid and plainlike environment. It also had fewer trees than other areas in which Australopithecus has been found, the researchers said.

"The hominid must have discovered suitable habitats in the Kenyan highlands," said Nakatsukasa, who worked on the study with researchers from Japan and Mount Kenya University. "It seems that A. afarensis was good at adapting to varying environments."

An excavation at Kantis also uncovered hundreds of mammal fossils, including what is likely a new species of bovid (hoofed animal) and a baboon, the researchers said.

The team thanked the local residents for helping to uncover the fossils. In 1991, researchers came to Kantis after a farmer reported that he had found fossilized bones in the area. The farmer said he first noticed the bones in the 1970s but hadn't realized their importance until shows on paleontological research began airing on TV.

The finding will not only further anthropological research, but also could bring more business to the area.

"Kantis is in the vicinity of Nairobi, a major city," Nakatsukasa said. "We hope that the discovery of the new site and the fossils will aid in increasing tourism, and in improving educational awareness of the local community."

The study will appear in the May 2016 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
Tissue samples from a Hungarian mummy have revealed that people in the early 17th and 18th centuries suffered from colon cancer, long before the modern plagues of obesity, physical inactivity and processed food were established as causes of the disease, according to new research.

In a new study of 18th-century Hungarian mummies, scientists found that the genetic predisposition to colon cancer predates modern impacts on health. One of the mummies in the study carried a mutation in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene, which physicians now know raises the risk of colon cancer, said lead study author Michal Feldman, a research assistant formerly at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

If the APC mutation is confirmed in other samples, it could mean that inherited changes in DNA play a bigger role in cancer evolution than do modern environmental impacts, Feldman told Live Science in an email. [10 Do's and Don'ts to Reduce Your Risk of Cancer]

"Today, colorectal cancer is the third most common type of cancer, and it has a clear genetic background that is well-researched in modern populations," Feldman said. "In light of the many lifestyle and environmental changes human society has undergone during the last few centuries, we found it important to compare the spectrum of historical mutations to the modern spectrum."

Because mummification preserves tissue, samples from such remains can give scientists invaluable information on anthropological, historical and medical details, Feldman said. In the past, studies of mummified remains have provided clues about the history of tuberculosis, clogged arteries and even air pollution.

In the new study, Feldman's team collected tissue samples from 20 mummies that were excavated from sealed crypts in a Dominican church in Vac, Hungary. These crypts were used for the burial of several middle-class families and clerics from 1731 to 1838, and more than 265 mummies were found there in 1995, the researchers said. The mummies are now housed at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.

The low temperature in the crypts, combined with constant ventilation and low humidity, were ideal conditions for natural mummification of the corpses, the researchers said. Some 70 percent of the bodies found in the location were completely or partially mummified, providing a rich source of preserved tissue and DNA samples for the scientists. [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]

By extracting DNA from the mummies, Feldman and her team were able to sequence and assess the presence of APC gene mutations.

"The interesting thing about this study is that the APC mutation in cancer that was recently discovered in the past couple of decades is not new," said Dr. Sidney Winawer, a gastroenterologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved in the study. "This opens up a whole new way of thinking. If this mutation was present so many years ago, why was it present there?"

Additional historical samples need to be investigated, he said, in order to better understand the relationships between cancer and environmental factors, such as lifestyle, and between cancer and genetic changes.

The findings were published online Feb. 10 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Follow Knvul Sheikh on Twitter @KnvulS. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
Tomorrow night, the Casa Blanca Ballroom will play host to The Complete Beatles Experience.

Liverpool Legends, are four incredibly talented musicians and actors hand-picked by Louise Harrison  sister of the late George Harrison of the The Beatles.

Louises involvement in Liverpool Legends makes them the only Beatles Tribute Band with a direct family link to the original Fab Four.

Each member of the group is so close to the original that I often feel like Im transported back in time with the lads. These are exactly the kind of fun loving quality musicians that my brother George would have loved to hang out with, says Harrison.

Liverpool Legends along with Louise Harrison were nominated for a Grammy Award for their work on Fab Fan Memories - a Beatles Bond, released in 2011.

2015 had been a very exciting year for the group as they toured The U.S. and internationally, culminating with a sold out performance for over 16,000 people at Arena Ciudad de Mexico, as well as sold out performances in Guayaquil and Quito, Ecuador.

Grammy Nominated Liverpool Legends headlined at the prestigious Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, in front of 68,000 people (an audience larger than The Beatles performed for at Shea Stadium). Liverpool Legends also received national attention when they re-created The Beatles famed 1966 concert at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Along with these venues, this past month, Liverpool Legends played the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York City where The Beatles performed in 1964 right after the Ed Sullivan Show.

Recently Liverpool Legends were chosen over every other Beatles Tribute band in the world by top television and film producer Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI, Pirates of The Caribbean, National Treasure) to portray the band that changed the course of music and the world forever.

Celebrating their 10th season headlining their own show in Branson Missouri, Liverpool Legends have been awarded Best New Show, Best Band, Best Show, and received the prestigious Visitors Choice Award for Entertainer of The Year for two consecutive years.

Members of Liverpool Legends have toured the world, playing in historic venues such as The Cavern Club in Liverpool and recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London. They have performed with Denny Laine (co-founder of Wings with Paul McCartney), Pete Best (the original Beatles drummer) and the Boston Pops. Liverpool Legends have appeared on The Travel Channels Beatlemania Britain and headlined International Beatles Week in Liverpool where 100,000 Beatles fans jammed Victoria Street to hear them in concert.

Liverpool Legends perform songs spanning the entire career of The Beatles and on through the solo years. With precise attention to every musical detail, along with costume changes, vintage instruments and special effects, Liverpool Legends will make you feel like you are watching the real thing. Together, these four lads will bring you The Complete Beatles Experience.

The show is scheduled for tomorrow night at the Casa Blanca Ballroom from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at Guerra Communications, San Ramon Record Shop, Casa Raul Western Wear North & South and at the door the night of the show. If you prefer to buy them online, they may be purchased at ticketfly.com.

Live Music

Liverpool Legends

Saturday, March 26 @ 8 p.m.

Casa Blanca Ballroom, 5302 E. Saunders Street
The Gold Pin Award is reserved for Volkswagen dealerships that have proven exemplary performance in every facet of the dealership experience.

The local dealership held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 23, 2015. It is located at 2701 Northeast Bob Bullock Loop.

At the ribbon-cutting, Diego Iturbe, managing partner and general manager of Ancira, said the dealership had plans of becoming the best dealership in Laredo.

In less than a year, the dealership has managed to make enough of an impact on the community that its inexorable dedication to service has been felt all the way in Germany.

Iturbe said he was privileged to receive the award on behalf of the dealership.

For a dealership as young as ours to receive it was a great honor, Iturbe said. Its a testament to the service that my team is providing the community. It is also a great honor for Laredo, because without our customers, it wouldnt have been made possible.

The award was bestowed to the local dealership by the Volkswagen headquarters, based in Wolfsburg, Germany.

A dealership can only receive the Gold Pin once. After that, the dealer is forever part of an Elite Volkswagen club.

Nominations are unknown to the dealer until the dealer is approved as a recipient.

Iturbe said the dealership was notified of its nomination in the fall. It was not until early February that the dealership learned it had been selected as a Gold Pin recipient along with the 13 other dealers.

The criteria for eligibility to receive a Gold Pin award are not published. The award is based on how a dealership represents the Volkswagen brand to customers, how customers are attracted to the dealership and the experience the customer receives while at the dealership.

Iturbe said when it comes to customer service, the dealership does not have a finish line.

We strive to improve every single day, he said. Its definitely nice when someone takes notice and your efforts are rewarded.

Iturbe added the award is based on a team effort.

My entire staff worked hard for it. Im extremely grateful to have such a wonderful team here, he said.

He also described the experience as bittersweet, since a dealership can only receive the award once in a lifetime.

We definitely dont feel like weve crossed a finish line with this honor, Iturbe said. Were constantly looking to innovate and improve our services. Hopefully those continued efforts will be recognized in the future, just as these were.

Having receiving the Gold Pin, Ancira Volkswagen of Laredo is now eligible for the Diamond Pin Award, an even more exclusive honor.

(Philip Balli may be reached at 728-2528 or palli@lmtonline.com)
The sudden and unexpected death of Mary Corr, Drumhowra, Loughduff, on Friday March 4 brought a sense of shock and sadness to the parish and surrounding areas.

Formerly Mary Martin from Kiltoom, Co Roscommon, she was educated at Glanduff NS and St Peter & Pauls Secondary School, Athlone, following which she gained employment in the Civil Service in Dublin and later came to work as a telephonist in Cavan Exchange. Here she was one of a large staff and was extremely popular with her colleagues, where she made many friends.

Mary, who was aged 72, was a very outgoing and friendly lady who was a good neighbour and friend. She had a quick wit and a good sense of humour and loved visiting with her neighbours and many friends. Mary was immersed in community activities from her earliest days living in the parish.

She joined the Apostolic Society shortly after its foundation and held various positions including President and continued her involvement right up to her untimely death. She was actively involved with the Erne Valley Community Games Committee and served as Secretary for a number of years in the 80s.

She was also involved with Positive Age and was a willing volunteer for whatever parish duties came her way. Her contribution to the Mullahoran community will be long remembered.

Under the local Community Employment scheme she served as School Secretary for a number of years and later became employed as an office administrator in Camcas from 2003 to her retirement in 2009.

Her husband Brians untimely death in June 2002 was a terrible blow to her, however she found solace in her children, grandchildren, her work, friends and her faith in God.

Sincere sympathy is extended to her heartbroken children Mairead, Sean, Martin, Tess, Bernie and Noeleen; her seven adored grandchildren Sean, Megan, Liam, Cormac, Molly, Bryan and Brogan; sisters Agnes, Frances, Nuala and Toni and members of her extended family circle. At the arrival of remains to Loughduff Church on Wednesday there were Guards of honour from the local Apostolic Society, Positive Age, Fine Gael and children from Mullahoran NS among the overflowing attendance. The Funeral Mass in St Josephs Church, Loughduff on Wednesday was celebrated by Canon Owen Devaney PP and burial took place to the local cemetery. Ar dheis De go raibh a hanam dilis.
Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com

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A senior commander in Irans Army told reporters on Mar. 23 that Special Forces would be deployed as advisors to Syria and Iraq. This would mark the first time that Army forces  in this case, commandos and snipers of the Rapid Response Battalions  will have operated outside Iranian borders since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military presence in the country is well-documented, but the announcement denotes the first time Irans Army has formally contributed to military operations in Syria, which has been an IRGC-led campaign since Tehran first began sending significant resources to the country four years ago.

Irans decision to integrate Army special forces into major foreign operations underscore its commitment to hone its expeditionary capabilities. In fact, the Armys involvement in Syria may have begun several months ago, as the head of its ground forces did not deny a report of an Army helicopter spotted flying from Iraq to Syria in December.

The Army was Irans primary military force prior to the 1979 revolution. The IRGC, on the other hand, was established after the revolution as a praetorian guard charged with protecting the revolution and balancing against a coup by the Army, which the clerics viewed with suspicion for its prior ties to the monarchy. The two institutions have been rivals ever since. The Army is a traditional military organization, while the Guard pursues asymmetric and revolutionary warfare. Each has its own ground, navy, and air branches.

Since 1979, however, the clerics have marginalized the Army in favor of the IRGC. The Guard receives better equipment and funding, even though it is only one-third in size (150,000 men compared to 350,000). It now dominates Irans military affairs, producing almost all of the senior officers in the General Staff. Still, the Army is not totally irrelevant.

The Army, for example, appears to be responsible for securing Irans western border with Iraq. The armys ground forces commander announced in mid-March that his team and intelligence apparatus had neutralized two Islamic State infiltration cells and suicide vests at the border. The ground forces also reportedly deployed troops, helicopters, and drones to border crossings to provide security for 800,000 Iranian pilgrims to Iraq in December 2015.

The newly announced Army deployment to Syria and Iraq represents a departure from its constitutional mission to protect Irans territorial integrity. And while there have been no reported sightings  or casualties  of Army troops yet in Syria or Iraq, the deployment announcement came after the warring parties in Syria agreed to a cessation of hostilities last month.

Februarys cessation of hostilities agreement means Iran no longer needs the 2,500 troops with which it launched last months offensive in northern Aleppo to cut off the main rebel supply route from Turkey. Iran has reportedly kept 700 military advisers in Syria. Announcements of IRGC fatalities in Syria have continued since the ceasefire announcement. Despite reports that Iran is drawing back its deployment in Syria, therefore, this weeks announcement is merely a reflection of Tehran reconfiguring its forces in the country to reflect changing conditions on the ground.

Long War Journal contributor Amir Toumaj is an Iran research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Amir Toumaj is a independent analyst and contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
The Pentagon announced today that a senior Islamic State leader named Abd al Rahman Mustafa al Qaduli (also known as Hajji Iman, Abu Ali al Anbari and Abu Ala al Afri, among other aliases) has been killed.

During a press conference, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter would not say how or when Qaduli (seen on the right) met his demise, but he emphasized the veteran jihadists importance within the Islamic State pecking order.

Qaduli served the organization in a variety of capacities and was involved in its external operations wing, according to Carter. The external operations unit is responsible for plotting against the West. Carter did not know if Qaduli was involved in planning the assault on Paris last November or the attack in Brussels earlier this week, but twice during the press briefing he said that Qaduli was generally involved in the Islamic States international plotting.

The US is systematically eliminating the Islamic States cabinet, the Defense Secretary said. But Carter also explained that while it is necessary to kill senior figures such as Qaduli, it is not sufficient to defeat the overall organization.

Qaduli has been hunted by American authorities for years. He was designated as a terrorist in May 2014 by the US Treasury Department, which published a short biography on him. Qaduli joined al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in 2004, according to Treasury. He became a deputy and assistant to AQIs founder, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and also served as the groups emir for Mosul, Iraq.

Qaduli reported to al Qaedas senior leadership (AQSL) in South Asia. He was AQIs representative to AQSL in Pakistan, according to Treasury. He traveled in February 2006 to Pakistan on behalf of [Zarqawi] to conduct an interview, which was then to be provided to al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. [See LWJ report, Treasury Department designates 2 al Qaeda leaders in Syria.]

In May 2015, the State Department offered a reward of up to $7 million for information on Qadulis whereabouts. State explained that Qaduli had been imprisoned inside Iraq, but joined the Islamic State upon his release in 2012. The Islamic State is the successor organization to AQI, which Qaduli originally joined.

Press reports provide some additional details concerning Qadulis murky career.

According to Hisham al Hashimi, an adviser to the Iraqi government, Qaduli traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 and joined al Qaeda at that time. Citing Hashimi in April 2015, Newsweek reported that Qaduli had temporarily replaced Abu Bakr al Baghdadi as the head of the Islamic State after Baghdadi was purportedly injured. However, this detail has not been publicly confirmed.

Qaduli was also supposedly in favor of reconciling the Islamic State with al Qaeda and its official branch in Syria, Al Nusrah Front. If true, then he undoubtedly faced stiff opposition from other senior Islamic State commanders because Baghdadis men still seek to undermine al Qaedas standing among jihadists more than two years after the organizations split.

According to the Observer, Osama bin Laden recommended that Qaduli, a former Physics teacher who became an influential ideologue, become AQIs chief emir in 2010. AQIs two top leaders were killed in April of that year and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi replaced them. So, if bin Laden did nominate Qaduli for the top spot in AQI, the group did not follow his advice.

Like many details about Qadulis past, bin Ladens endorsement of Qaduli has not been publicly verified. It is possible that Qadulis role within AQI, as well as bin Ladens desire to see him lead the group, is discussed in one of the many al Qaeda files recovered during the May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan that have yet to be released.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

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Luton is a large town, borough and unitary authority area of Bedfordshire. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 258,000. Luton is home to Championship team Luton Town Football Club, London Luton Airport and The University of Bedfordshire. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. For all the latest news from Luton sign up to our newsletter here.
The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) Board today voted to approve to execute a Project Partnering Agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and MassDOT to start the Boston Harbor Dredging Project. A signed agreement allows the ACOE to bid contracts for construction on a Confined Aquatic Disposal cell (CAD cell), which is needed for the maintenance dredging of the Inner Harbor Main Ship Channel.



Maintenance dredging will restore the inner harbor to 40 feet and is the first phase of the larger dredging project. Without maintenance dredging, the harbor will continue to silt, leading to increased transit times, economic inefficiencies, and navigational safety concerns. This portion of the harbor was last dredged by the ACOE in 1986, and is vital to the maritime economy in Massachusetts.



The maintenance dredging and associated construction on CAD cell by the Army Corps of Engineers will allow for the terminals on the Chelsea Creek and Mystic River, including the Commonwealth energy corridor, to continue to operate in the most efficient manner; providing the region with a multitude of bulk products, said Lisa Wieland, Massports Port Director.



The CAD cell is a key factor in the maintenance dredging of the inner harbor ship channel, which will ensure vessels carrying home heating oil, salt, Logan Airports jet fuel, and cars to the Autoport can continue to get to terminals on the Chelsea and Mystic Rivers. Massport and MassDOT agreed to pay $5 million, while the ACOE will spend $12 million from its FY16 Work Plan for the design and construction. CAD cells have been constructed in Boston Harbor for past dredging projects.



In June 2014, President Obama signed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into law and specifically mentioned the Port of Boston in his remarks on water infrastructure and harbor deepening projects across the country. The $310 million Boston Harbor Dredging Project will deepen the main channel used by container ships from the existing 40 feet up to 51 feet.



The ACOE, who is responsible for dredging the inner and outer channels of the Boston Harbor, estimates that every dollar invested, will yield nearly $7 in economic return. The Port of Boston is currently responsible for $4.6 billion of economic activity in New England and 50,000 total jobs. Each year, more than 1.5 million metric tons of cargo passes through Massports terminals in the Port of Boston, which provide the shipping facilities New England needs to compete in the global economy.




U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa established Commander, Task Force 64, a command focused on Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe, in ceremony held in Naples Italy.



Commodore Jeffrey Wolstenholme assumed command of the newly established Commander, Task Force 64 (CTF 64) during a ceremony held on U.S. Naval Support Activity Naples, Capodichino, in Naples, Italy March 24, 2016.



U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa (NAVEUR-NAVAF) and U.S. Fleet Forces Command established CTF 64 to create a command focused on Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) in Europe.



Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, Vice Adm. James Foggo III stated, By establishing this task force, U.S. Sixth Fleet is aligning our organization to better address the changing threats in Europe. [Capt. Wolstenholme] will be formally identified as the U.S. ballistic missile defense expert in his position as commander of Sixth Fleets Task Force 64 and as Commander of NATOs Integrated Air and Missile Defense Task Force.



Commodore Jeffery Wolstenholme, Commander, Task Force 64 commented, "The United States made a commitment to our NATO partners called the European Phased Adaptive Approach, to help defend NATO Europe against Ballistic Missile threats from the Middle East. And, as part of this commitment to NATO, the Navy has established this new Task Force to be the operational commander for Aegis Ashore and the tactical commander directing our Ballistic Missile Defense forces in defense of NATO Europe.


The Port of Savannah is now handling grapes imported from Peru, adding to the list of cold-treated perishables using Savannah as a port of entry.



"Savannah currently handles avocados, citrus and sweet onions from Peru," said Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Curtis Foltz. "With the introduction of Peruvian red globe grapes, we are now receiving all of the category leaders from Peru."



The grapes, moved from Andean Sun Produce farms in Ica and Piura, Peru, are part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture program, in which citrus, grapes and blueberries are chilled for at least 17 days prior to entry into the U.S. Removing potential pests via cold treatment reduces the need for pesticides.



"By landing produce in Savannah, buyers can take advantage of much shorter and faster overland transportation to Atlanta and other major markets across the U.S. Southeast," Foltz said. "This means a fresher product for end consumers as well as lower supply chain costs."



The grapes are grown along the coast of Peru with early varieties grown in the North, later ripening varieties in the Southern Peru.



"Weather conditions in Peru allows us to grow and harvest grapes throughout the year; but because of market needs our season goes from October to December in the north and from January to March in the south," said Edward Villar of Andean Sun Produce.



Andean Sun Produce, based in Miami, Fla., is the U.S. marketing agent under the "Gold Cup" brand on behalf of La Calera and Talsa, two large Peruvian growers of citrus, blue berries, avocados, grapes and mangos. For their trial run on grapes, produce wholesaler J.J. Jardina brought in the red globe variety. Matt Jardina, of the Atlanta-based company, said using the Port of Savannah saves time and freight costs.



"It is nice to have only a four-hour truck ride to Atlanta versus a day and half from the Philadelphia ports," said Jardina. "It allows us to get the product into our warehouse more quickly and begin selling the grapes a few days earlier."



Villar added that plans call for moving all the varieties they grow of red and green seedless grapes. "We will continue to use the Port of Savannah for our summer citrus season, and we are close to starting with blue berries," Villar said. Villar said he has been very pleased to add Savannah as an entry point to serve Southeastern markets.



"The GPA approached us a few months ago and explained the benefits on working with them," he said. "They have been very proactive, coordinating with CBP, trucking companies and even customers. Logistics in our business is becoming crucial; the Port of Savannah is a good alternative for us to serve not only our Georgia customers but other customers in surrounding states."



Villar said the USDA program to allow cold-treated produce to enter through more U.S. ports will relieve congestion at older ports of entry, while shortening the supply chain between producers and final consumers. "Our goal is to deliver our fruit to our clients faster, fresher, and at competitive prices, cutting logistics costs," he said.



Besides being located nearer to important Southeast markets, the Port of Savannah also offers efficient on-terminal services.



"We've worked with Customs and the USDA to ensure inspection capabilities are all in place so we can offload a vessel, inspect it and get it out in six hours," said Chris Logan, GPA senior director of Trade Development for beneficial cargo owner sales. "We're optimistic that the strong success we've had in receiving perishables will only encourage more perishables in the future."


The Coast Guard monitored the hoist of the tugboat Specialist near the Tappan Zee Bridge today.



The Specialist was part of a three-tug group that was pushing a crane barge south on the Hudson River. The 84-foot long vessel struck a stationary barge near the Tappan Zee Bridge at approximately 5:30 a.m., March 12, 2016 and sank in 40 feet of water within a short period of time.



One crewmember was recovered from the water in the immediate aftermath of the collision but could not be revived. Divers recovered a second crewmembers body at approximately 11 A.M., March 13, 2016. Divers located the third crewmember on March 14, 2016 but were unable to safely remove him from the Specialist.



The hours and days of planning that went into this are unfolding on the water right now and everything is moving exactly as planned, said Lt. Cmdr. Andy Frye, Coast Guard Sector New York. Westchester County Police Department is in charge of investigation and the salvage company is working in concert with the extraction team but the process is done in bits and pieces.



The waterways were completely closed off to ensure there was no marine traffic while performing the lift.



One of the primary concerns is bringing closure to the family but we also want to make sure the environment is safe, said Cmdr. Bernard Sandy, Coast Guard Sector New York. The last reason were here is to oversee the salvage and make sure everybody works together well and we have a safe operation.



The Coast Guard will remain on scene, coordinating with local agencies and monitoring the site for any pollution or release of debris from the tug.
Marines with 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion competed against one another in a series of training exercises to determine the best sapper squad across Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, March 21  25.



The event was organized as an internal competition meant to challenge individual squads in their proficiency at executing engineer-based tasks, while simultaneously determining those who will represent the battalion at a competition against other units. In the engineer community, sappers are Marines specially trained to breach enemy defenses utilizing various types of demolition, and are required to earn certification upon completion of a six-week-long course.



This gives our Marines a chance to demonstrate their proficiency in an environment where they are being evaluated, said 1st Lt. Ian Simpson, a platoon commander with the battalion. It showcases their preparation, and how much work and effort they put into these tasks ahead of time.



The events of the competition included an assault breaching exercise that challenged squads to safely and efficiently breach a door using explosives and the Mossberg 500 shotgun; sweeping a set path for improvised explosive devices and determining a response; engaging targets at distances up to 800 meters on a machine-gun range and building and breaching wire obstacles.



Its good training because it challenges all of us to think and come up with a plan together as one squad, said Cpl. Ian M. Baird, a squad leader with the battalion. Everyone is learning something out here across these ranges.



Sappers are expected to be proficient with various breaching and construction equipment, and utilized detonation cord, C4, blasting caps, concertina wire, Bangalore torpedoes and compact metal detectors as needed to complete their mission.



Simpson emphasized the importance of having squads act independently in the execution of their tasks, and leaving them to think and direct themselves in the pursuit of a swift, efficient solution.



Im able to evaluate my Marines and determine what skills we may need work on, Simpson said. At the same time, it builds confidence in these squads because in a real-world environment they will have to work together to find the solution to an obstacle and employ it.



Squads that come out on top of this competition are slated to compete against other battalion sapper squads in a large-scale competition this summer.

We are looking forward to challenging the other units expertise, Simpson said.





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Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 launched into a new era with its RQ-21A Blackjack flight into Class D airspace, over Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, March 21.



Commonly only allowed to fly in restricted airspace, VMU-2 now has the expanded ability to integrate RQ-21A flight operations with manned aircraft over this air station.



Cherry Points Class D airspace is defined by a circle around the air station with a 5-mile radius, from the ground up to 2,500 feet above the air station. This is airspace that is constantly under the control of Cherry Point air traffic control, and is frequently busy with military air traffic, as well as contracted commercial flights landing and departing the air station.



Unmanned aerial systems like the Blackjack are commonly flown from forward sites that sometimes restrict our integration with other air players and events, explained 1st Lt. Orlando J. Benedict, an unmanned aerial systems officer with the squadron. Having the RQ-21A at MCAS Cherry Point fosters connections with the rest of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing and allows for procedures that integrate manned and unmanned aviation to be solidified for the future.



The Blackjack is designed to operate off a Marine Expeditionary Unit in support of ground forces deployed worldwide. UAS requirements have evolved and the Marine Corps has refined its concept of operations to incorporate rapidly emerging technologies in its unmanned systems.



The RQ-21A Blackjack can safeguard military bases and activities through a pattern of life identification and explosive device detection. It is equipped with an electro-optic/infrared payload that supports the real-time monitoring to provide indications and threat warnings, and its plug-and-play payloads enable multi-intelligence capability to support a broad range of operations.



The Blackjacks main purpose is to support aerial reconnaissance missions, said Sgt. James E. Burch, a UAV operator with VMU-2. With the new system, we will now be able to launch and land the UAV on a ship, where with other systems, more space would be required for recovery.



Before the launch at Cherry Point was possible, VMU-2 traveled to various locations to include Marine Corps Outlying Field Atlantic, Marine Corps Auxiliary Field Bogue in N.C., MCAS Yuma, Ariz., and Marine Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. The ability to conduct flights at Cherry Point assists in a more fluid ability to maintain, test and hone specific skills required to operate the system without the added burden of travel to other sites.



The inaugural flight within Cherry Points Class D airspace allowed for another chance to integrate an unmanned aerial system with manned platforms while sharing the same airspace, explained Benedict.



The ability to do so is an intricate process involving FAA requirements that demand UAVs to garner an equivalent level of safety and aircraft separation, comparable to manned aircraft.



Marine UAS are flown and treated like any other aircraft, the only exception is that the pilot at the controls is not physically located in the plane, but they are very much still in control, said 1st Lt. Jeremy Eshleman, a UAS officer and weapons and tactics instructor with VMU-2.



With the great accomplishment of being able to operate the RQ-21A aboard MCAS Cherry Point, Eshleman provides one final thought explaining how air traffic controllers and the pilots maintain control of the UAS. Our UAS flies a standard and predictable route under control of the tower while here at Cherry Point, and the pilot will perform any additional instructions as issued by the tower. In the rare event the pilot loses connection with the UAS and can no longer control it, it will only fly a predetermined route to a known location before landing at our site.





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A crooked Minnesota adviser bought a getaway car not unlike this one with part of the $10 million he bilked from friends' portfolios. Source: Bloomberg/Getty Images.

These days, it seems headlines are full of one investment scam after the next. Weren't these supposed to die down after the Bernie Madoff scandal made the world hyper-aware of financial fraud? We sure hoped so. Yet, sadly, investors are still getting duped six years later. Perhaps the saddest part of all is protecting yourself against criminals and charlatans is fairly simple if you know what to look for. If you're familiar with three basic signs of fraud, you can easily avoid being a victim.

We've seen several scams in the past couple weeks. A Boston adviser misled clients of his old firm into transferring their assets to a new brokerage firm he started-then jacked up their fees. An ex-MIT professor and his son ran a hedge-fund scam and took off with $12 million, robbing clients of 50%-75% of their initial investments. A broker from Virginia stole $730,289 from elderly clients and sent them false monthly statements purporting to document their investment progress. And perhaps the raciest of them all: A Minneapolis financial planner stole at least $10 million from clients through a Ponzi scheme-and allegedly blew it all on vacation homes, a pleasure boat, a 1968 Camaro and Vegas bacchanalia.

For folks who knew the signs of fraud, these scams would have been relatively easy to spot. Each violated at least one of the big three financial fraud red flags:

Red flag #1: Advisers take custody of clients' assets.

Red flag #2: Advertised returns are too good to be true-all up, no down, steady regardless of what the market did.

Red flag #3: The strategies are complex, murky and full of jargon and meaningless buzzwords.

All four shysters took custody of their clients' assets. Two hit the trifecta. The professor and his son promised 16%-23% returns annually (with no down years) and used a "complex mathematical trading model." The Minneapolis slime ball promised a steady 10% or so annually and used unintelligible jargon to communicate his strategy.

Knowing how these factors enable fraud is the key to protecting yourself. Let's start with custody. If you give an adviser custody of your assets, you're giving them your money. It's a bit like handing some guy on the street a wheelbarrow with a million bucks and asking him to watch it while you pop in for a cup of coffee. He can run off with it. Some advisers act ethically but others-like those listed above-don't, and it's a huge risk to take. If you only work with advisers who separate asset custody, you aren't exposed. Keeping your money in an account in your name at an unaffiliated third-party custodian prevents a crooked adviser from reaching in and taking what he or she wants. You can keep tabs on your holdings with regular statements and online access. Statements from a trusted, third-party source-not phony-baloney statements like the Virginia broker sent her clients.

The evils of advertising too-good-to-be-true returns might seem obvious-they'll attract victims! But it's more sinister than that. It's a way for advisers to weed out people who would naturally be more discerning and inquisitive. If an adviser tells an investor, "You will receive 15% returns annually," and the investor responds with a "Are you crazy!? That's impossible! Markets don't work like that!" then the adviser knows the investor is too smart to hoodwink, and he moves on. Anyone who has the savvy to question that claim probably also has the smarts to question some other things. Like whether those returns come from actual growth or money funneled from new clients. Advisers don't want clients who can smell fraud! They want investors who don't ask too many questions. Those who don't challenge advisers and call them out on their lies. The New York Times documented a pertinent example recently: Nigerian scammers paid for Madoff's client list and launched a sham website claiming to have retrieved $1.3 billion in losses, promising to return the money if victims sent their account information. You know what comes next-they stole even more of those poor folks money! They created an affinity that targeted people who'd already fallen prey once on the notion they might again. So remember: if something is too good to be true ... it usually is. Returns vary. Markets are volatile. There will always be good years and bad.

Finally, jargon. Fraudsters use it to impress and confuse their victims-they know folks who don't ask them to explain things in simple terms normal humans can understand will be trusting enough to enable their scheme. Anyone who knows options would know Madoff could never get 10% a year with a split/strike strategy. But most of his clients didn't question it-it sounded smart! Financially! Wall Streety! One client of Mr. 1968 Camaro said, "After meetings I would say to my husband, 'Do you know what he was talking about?' And Mike would say, 'Not really. But this is Sean, so I'm sure it's all fine.'" But it wasn't all fine, and it turns out Sean-someone they thought was a family friend-wasn't worthy of their trust. Investors should be able to understand what they're getting themselves into-and an honorable adviser would want them to. They should be able to understand exactly how the adviser plans to get the return they need to reach their goals and assess whether the strategy is realistic. If you don't understand something, ask questions. And if they can't or won't translate jargon to human for you, that's a big sign.

Scam artists will always be on the prowl. But that's why it's important for folks to look for advisers who put investors first-advisers who don't custody their clients' assets; advisers who align their interests with their clients'; advisers who value transparency and believe they have a higher purpose to guide folks to their long-term goals and objectives.

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While Barbara Parker is retiring as Director of Programs at Piedmont Arts, she has no plans of slowing down.

On Wednesday, Piedmont Arts announced that Parker was retiring after 18 years with the non-profit art museum.

Piedmont Arts Executive Director Kathy Rogers said that Parker "has not only been an exemplary employee, but a strong advocate for the arts in our community and we will miss having her here at the museum on a day-to-day basis."

In a Thursday interview, Parker said that recent events in her life  coupled with a focus on a new non-profit founded by her and husband Andy Parker  made her realize it was time for a change.

The Parkers recently have founded the For Alison Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit created in honor of their late daughter, WDBJ7 journalist Alison Parker.

"Now that Alisons foundation is a non-profit, well start granting funds to organizations to do things for the arts that Alison would like and would honor her," Parker said. "Thats what well be doing in the future. We want her to be remembered for her life."

Piedmont Arts played a vital role in Alisons formative years, Parker said  it is one of the main reasons their family has stayed in the area  and she wants the For Alison Foundation to share the arts with a wide range of young people.

"Growing up around the arts really played a huge part in making her who she was," Parker said. "She came to Piedmont Arts after school, and a lot of times she did her homework in the Discovery Room.  She had opportunities that a lot of kids dont. We want to try and give those opportunities to talented kids who may not have the support.  Whether its in Martinsville and Henry County or Roanoke or around Virginia  we can give kids opportunities and open their eyes to how the arts can change their lives. Thats what we want to do in Alisons memory."

Parker said that she will continue to volunteer time to Piedmont Arts and support the museums mission.

For more information on the For Alison Foundation, visit www.foralison.org.
Police must regularly communicate with the people they serve, as well as have positive contacts with people, in order to gain respect and trust, consultants told Martinsville Police Department officials on Thursday.

"Negative contacts with police, if we can knock that out, thats 50 percent of the battle" to convince people that police are striving to serve them rather than harm them, said Richard Johnson, chief academic advisor to the Dolan Consulting Group, which helps public service agencies develop organizational leadership strategies.

The other 50 percent, Johnson said, is finding opportunities to have face-to-face interaction with people at times when they are not actively trying to enforce laws. An example, he said, is getting out of their patrol cars and walking through neighborhoods while on their beats to try and get to know people  even in districts where police know they are not well-liked.

It reduces fear of crime and increases public satisfaction with police, said Johnson, a former law enforcement officer in Indiana and Illinois who now teaches criminal justice at the University of Toledo in Ohio. He has done extensive research into how police and citizens interact.

The strategy is called "community policing." Martinsville police have emphasized that strategy in recent years as part of their patrols, according to Police Chief Sean Dunn.

During a symposium Thursday afternoon at the New College Institute, police officers received guidance in using the strategy from Johnson and Harry Dolan, the consulting groups president and chief executive officer who is the retired chief of police in Raleigh, N.C.

Community policing involves "going back to the basics" of law enforcement, Dolan said.

To successfully fight crime, police and the public must work together, he said.

That is where police walking during patrols, and getting to know people they encounter, comes in.

"There are a lot of people hiding behind the blinds (in their homes) who would support you," Johnson told police officers. "They just dont know you."

Research mentioned by Johnson shows that 86 percent of recent immigrants to the United States are somewhat dissatisfied with police. He told officers to keep in mind that many of those immigrants come from countries where police have reputations for being corrupt and abusive. In turn, those people do everything they can to avoid having any contact with police, he said.

Police must strive to find ways to get to know immigrants and let them know that police practices in America are not the same as those in other places, especially smaller, lesser-developed countries in the Middle East, he indicated.

They also must strive to reach people of all ages from all segments of society, Johnson said.

Younger people, in particular, need to be taught how to act in encounters with police, he said.

People also need to realize, he continued, basics such as being caught having no license with you while driving is a misdemeanor but fleeing from police to avoid being caught without a license is a felony, which is more serious. A felony on a persons criminal record potentially could ruin his or her life, he mentioned.

Gaining respect and trust also involves keeping people informed about police activities, the consultants said.

Traditionally, media coverage has kept people abreast of those activities. Johnson suggested that police "dont do the no comment" when reporters ask questions about crimes they are investigating or other aspects of their work, but instead "quickly respond" with as many details as they can without jeopardizing investigations.

But through social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, police now can communicate with the public directly, such as by posting news releases on those sites, Johnson said.

"Tell your story in a way that its going to make the most sense to the people who read it," such as by using plain English instead of police jargon, he said.

And, "give them a visual story that they can understand in their terms," he said, using photos when appropriate.

Photos can be disturbing as long as they portray what actually happened in an incident, Johnson indicated, showing one of an officer with blood streaming down his face as an example.

When people get details they need to make informed judgments concerning police actions, it reduces the chance for a "media firestorm" with sensationalized coverage, Johnson said.

"Their message is on point," Dunn said of the consultants, adding that "a lot of what theyre saying reinforces what were already doing" at the police department.

Dolan, who has more than three decades of experience in public safety, including 25 years as an executive in the field, oversaw more than 900 employees while he led the Raleigh Police Department from 2007 to 2012. He said that while eating lunch with Martinsville police officers in the community in recent days, he has been impressed with positive interactions they have had with area residents with whom they came into contact.

It seems that "everybody knows each other," he said.

Community policing has been more prevalent in smaller localities but now large metropolitan area police forces are delving into the concept, Dolan pointed out.

In the big cities now, "when theyre successful, they think small," he said.
RICHMOND  Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed two bills Thursday that he said would do away with what he called common sense gun restrictions in and around state office buildings.

The Democrat vetoed HB 1096, which would reverse elements of the governors executive order that bans the possession of firearms in Virginia executive branch office buildings.

McAuliffe also vetoed HB 382, which would bar state agencies  other than the Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Virginia Port Authority and institutions of higher education  from adopting regulations preventing employees from storing a lawfully possessed firearm and ammunition in a locked private per-sonal vehicle at their workplace.

Republicans do not have the votes to override the vetoes. An override requires two-thirds of the votes in each chamber. Democrats hold 19 of the 40 seats in the Senate.

McAuliffe vetoed the measures a month after he signed bipartisan gun legislation that he said would make Virginia safer even as it restored and expanded concealed weapon reciprocity with other states.

It is disappointing, but the speaker is still very pleased by the governors support for NRA-backed legislation to create universal concealed carry reciprocity despite fierce opposition from anti-gun rights advocates, Matthew Moran, a spokesman for Speaker of the House Bill Howell, R-Stafford, said in a statement Thursday.

HB 1096, sponsored by Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, passed the House of Delegates on a vote of 63-35 and cleared the Senate on a vote of 21-17.

All Virginians, including state employees, have the right to feel safe and secure going about their daily lives. Regulations have been authorized to promote safety in public buildings, and prevention requires us to address areas of concern before they are realized, McAuliffe said in his veto message.

In addition, this legislation exempts rules, regulations, policies, and administrative actions imposed by certain agencies and institutions of higher education from the requirements of the bill. Such special exemptions, while other state agencies must comply, infers to the state workforce a perception of inequity for their well-being.

HB 382, sponsored by Del. Buddy Fowler, R-Ashland, passed the House on a vote of 65-32 and cleared the Senate on a vote of 24-14.

As governor, I am the chief personnel officer of the state workforce, McAuliffe said in vetoing the measure.

I believe there is a need to establish and enforce workplace violence prevention policies that focus on employee safety and an atmosphere of workplace safety.

An essential component of workplace violence prevention is the regulation of the possession, brandishing, or use of weapons on-site and during work-related activities. Our current state policy is aligned with and reinforces this best practice.

On Feb. 26, McAuliffe held a ceremony at the Executive Mansion, where he signed a three-measure bipartisan gun deal that he termed historic.

That deal expands recognition of out-of-state concealed carry permits, reversing Attorney General Mark Herrings decision last year to sever ties with 25 states that have looser permitting rules than Virginia.

The gun deal featured two other measures. One requires domestic abusers under permanent protective orders to give up any guns in their possession within 24 hours.

The other positions Virginia State Police at every gun show to perform voluntary background checks requested by unlicensed sellers who lack access to the federal database used by gun dealers.

The bipartisan gun deal disappointed a gun safety group bankrolled by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that spent more than $2.4 million in last years elections to help McAuliffe and Democratic candidates in their unsuccessful effort to take control of the state Senate.

The state GOP on Thursday accused McAuliffe of inconsistency on gun issues.

Terry McAuliffes veto of legislation restoring concealed carry in state buildings would be a shock had it come from anyone but Terry McAuliffe, said John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.

Logical consistency apparently means nothing if ignoring it can get Michael Bloombergs anti-gun money pipeline flowing again.
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Traffic streaming through downtown Boston.

(Flickr / Robbie Shade)

A former Boston-area Uber driver plans to launch a ridesharing app exclusively for women.

Michael Pelletz came up with the idea for Chariot for Women after picking up a passenger who was intoxicated and kept reaching into his pocket. The man made him feel unsafe, Pelletz said on the app's website.

"One thought kept coming up in his head: 'What if I was a woman?'" the website says. "Just one bad apple behind the wheel, and those women would not be safe at all. Three a.m. in Boston is a candy store for predators."

Chariot for Women, based in Charlton, is expected to launch nationwide on April 19.

The Boston Globe said his ride-hailing service's prices will be comparable to Uber and Lyft, without the surge pricing.

Pelletz said he aims to hire 4,000 drivers before the launch date.

Two women in Boston told police they were sexually assaulted after using rideshare services to hail cars early Sunday morning.

In February, a former Uber driver was convicted in Boston of assaulting a 21-year-old female passenger.
An out-of-state executive has been named the new publisher of several Western Massachusetts publications.

Michael Rifanburg will serve as publisher of the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, The Recorder in Greenfield, Amherst Bulletin and the Valley Advocate, among other publications owned by Newspapers of New England.

Based in New Hampshire, Newspapers of New England publishes the Western Massachusetts publications as well as several New Hampshire outlets, including the Concord Monitor, the Valley News and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.

Rifanburg said in a statement quoted by the Gazette and Recorder that he is excited to lead the New England newsrooms. "Their ongoing work to keep pace with changes in how people read, shop and interact with each other online, and their commitment to journalism and its contribution to strong communities, really captured my attention."

He will replace Dennis Skoglund, who worked for the family-owned company for more than 25 years.

"Mike's combination of a career spent in community newspapers, decades of experience in sales, love of news, quiet leadership and creative thinking made him a perfect successor to Dennis," Aaron Julien, president of Newspapers of New England, said. "Like Dennis, he's solid as a rock."

Rifanburg has three decades of expierence in the newspaper industry, most spent in his native upstate New York where he and wife, Nance, raised their children.

As his youngest child prepared to head off to college last year, Rifanburg accepted a position in Minnesota in 2015. He became the publisher last January of the daily Finance & Commerce, the twice-a-week St. Paul Legal Ledger and weekly Minnesota Lawyer.

For a brief period before moving to the Midwest, Rifanburg sold insurance with MassMutual.
shake grave.jpg

A photo of the grave of William Shakespeare at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon. A British archaeologist that surveyed his grave with ground penetrating sonar believe the Bard's skull is missing.

(Photo by Kurafire / Flickr)

American high school students who believe themselves to have no head for Shakespeare can take comfort knowing he apparently doesn't have one either.

A documentary set to air this weekend on British television purports that William Shakespeare's skull is missing from his grave at Stratford-on-Avon.

Reports out of England are that the BBC documentary, made in conjunction with the observance of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, will present images of sonar scans of the grave showing that his skull had been removed from his body and taken from his grave at Holy Trinity Church.

"It's very, very convincing to me that his skull isn't at Holy Trinity at all," Staffordshire University archaeologist Kevin Colls told the Guardian.

Laurence Olivier addresses the skull of Yorick in the 1948 production of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet." A British archaeological study of the playwright's grave has determined that his skull is not with the body.

Where the skull could be or for how long has it been missing are questions that for now remain unanswered.

The scans would appear to support folklore that has been around since the late 1870s that grave robbers broke into the grave 100 years earlier and made off with his head.

"Grave-robbing was a big thing in the 17th and 18th century," said Colls. "People wanted the skull of famous people so they could potentially analyse it and see what made them a genius. It is no surprise to me that Shakespeare's remains were a target."

Researchers used ground-penetrating sonar in order to examine his grave without disturbing it. Ironically, the images the scan produced seem to indicate the grave had been disturbed a long time ago.

"We came across this very odd, strange thing at the head end. It was very obvious, within all the data we were getting, that there was something different going on at that particular spot. We have concluded it is signs of disturbance, of material being dug out and put back again."

The finding was not without its critics.

The UK Daily Mail quotes the local vicar for Holy Trinity, Patrick Taylor, as saying he's unconvinced about the team's findings.

"Holy Trinity Church were pleased to be able to cooperate with this non-intrusive research into Shakespeare's grave. We now know much more about how Shakespeare was buried and the structure that lies underneath his ledger stone.

"We are not convinced, however, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that his skull has been taken," Taylor said.

Ultimately, he said, the world will never know for sure because the church does not intend to allow anyone to exhume the grave.

"We shall have to live with the mystery of not knowing fully what lies beneath the stone," he told the Daily Mail.
One of Missoulas largest employers this week adopted a new leave policy for parents, offering moms and dads paid time off from work after the birth or adoption of a child.

Missoula County commissioners, who adopted the policy on a 3-0 vote, believe it will position the county as a family-friendly employer and help it retain skilled employees in an increasingly competitive job market.

By Martin Kidston/MISSOULA CURRENT

Full Story: http://www.missoulacurrent.com/government/2016/03/missoula-county-adopts-paid-parental-leave-policy/
When things are slow, you can take a step back and think about how and where you want to grow so youre not just approving everybody whos coming in the door."

About 30 community and business leaders met Wednesday night to talk about the economic future of Natrona County. It was the same day it was reported Wyomings unemployment rate grew beyond the national average for the first time in 16 years.

Hunter Woodall

Full Story: http://trib.com/business/development-group-engineering-firm-begin-economic-survey-of-natrona-county/article_ea0b4e38-cbf5-51b4-8d18-709c09e69e10.html
Dava Newman delivered her message to a group of wide-eyed grade-school kids seated in rows before her at the ExplorationWorks Science Center in Helena. It was as much a recruitment pitch as it was an informative lecture.

"Thats what Im counting on all you guys for," Newman told the children before her. "To be my Martian astronauts of the future. Come work at NASA. Study hard; study everything you like. We need scientists and engineers and mathematicians, but guess what? We need artists, we need designers, we need historians. We need everyone to study all the disciplines to get us to Mars and beyond."

David Murray, [email protected]

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2016/03/24/nasa-chief-returns-montana-prepares-mars/82205684/
For three days, community leaders from across Montana met in Great Falls to learn strategies for improving their communities.

The Building Active Communities Initiative hosted the BACI 2.0 Action Institute, and Great Falls Mayor Bob Kelly kicked it off by talking about progress in Great Falls.

"Were making strides," he said. "But weve done it quietly."

Jenn Rowell, [email protected]

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/03/24/effort-underway-bring-vibrancy-great-falls/82238692/
Montana Awards Ceremony to be Held on May 2nd in Missoula

Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet, the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, announced this years Small Business Person of the Year winners from the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The winners from each state are now in the running for the 2016 National Small Business Person of the Year. Greg Thayer, CEO of Great Falls-based Montana Milling, Inc., has been named this years Montana Small Business Person of the Year winner.

In making the announcement, SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet said: "It is my distinct pleasure and honor to announce the 54 winners from across the U.S. and her territories. These small business owners represent the best of the best and showcase daily their entrepreneurial spirit and what it takes to be successful in todays evolving and competitive business environment."

Full List: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USSBA/bulletins/13e4240
Over the glow of computer screens and boxes of McKenzie River Pizza, the latest students to embark on a computer coding bootcamp gathered in a swanky downtown Missoula club to demonstrate their latest skills.

Projects under development in the Montana Code Schools http://montanacodeschool.com/ second cohort include a website to help forage wild foods and a gauge to estimate a river trip based upon real-time water flows.

Whatever the project, nearly each of the classs 13 students will graduate into a junior-level programming job, where the starting pay in Montana ranges from from $40,000 to $60,000 a year.

By Martin Kidston/MISSOULA CURRENT

Full Story: http://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2016/03/just-montana-code-school/
Cote dOr National Sports Complex has announced that the is participating in the inaugural and first ever LFCIA UK Football Tour at the LFC Residential Soccer Camp. Set to take place from July 21 to 30, the full squad of Team LFCIA Mauritius will consist of 16 talented players, aged 17-18 years old, and 5 Mauritian support staff.

Open to becoming football stars in the making under the rigorous and professional supervision of Head Coach, Neil Murphy, this year, the LFCIA 2004 age group will have a unique opportunity to showcase their talents on an international and professional stage where showcase matches will be arranged against other British Academies.

One of the main objectives of the LFCIA in Mauritius is to raise the standard of football on the island, both on and off the pitch. So far, the achieved results show that the The Liverpool Way philosophy is paying off as the academy, located at Cote dOr, has around 300 talented female and male players training on international standard 4G football pitches and who are all dreaming of playing for LFC.

The LFCIA UK Football Tour is an expansion of the global programme, aiming to provide an annual pathway for young players within the Academy to be giving an opportunity to become professional football players. The football tour will have the dual focus of (A) enabling the most talented players in our LFCIA Academy to attend the LFCIA Residential Football Camp and (B) participating in Showcase games which will be arranged against other Academies which will be attended by professional football scouts from various clubs in the Football League.

Born and raised in the football hotbed city of Liverpool, Neil Murphy, Head Coach of LFCIA Mauritius, says,

This tour is an event that we have been wanting to plan since our launch in Mauritius in August 2019. Bringing our Academy a step closer to the UK will be a life changing experience for the lucky players selected to travel and a chance to showcase their talents on an international and professional stage.

The Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation, Stephan Toussaint stated that

the installation of the LFC International Academy in Mauritius was a game-changer in the history of Mauritian sport. The Liverpool International Academy provides high-quality training to local football players based on a program and curriculum developed and currently used by the LFC. He added that, this LFCIA tour is an excellent opportunity for the local players to uplift and acquire another level of experience while playing with other players in England.

Photo Gallery in page 2
OMJ Commercial Limited have announces a strategic partnership with KT&G Corporation from The Republic of South Korea, the 5th worlds largest producer of tobacco in the world.

This partnership will play a pivotal role to diversify OMJ operations by supplying Korean manufactured cigarettes to adult consumers both in Mauritius & Indian Ocean. KT&G is a reputable tobacco company, which engages in manufacturing cigarettes, e-cigarette and nicotine-containing products. Head quartered in Daejeon, South Korea, KT&G produces popular Korean cigarette brands such as PINE, ESSE, BOHEM, THIS, RAISON, TONINO LAMBORGHINI. The company extended its operations in markets across the world, especially through its luxury brand of super slim cigarette, ESSE, which is known to be the leading slim cigarette brand globally.

KT&G now broadens its portfolio by paving its way into the Mauritian market. Under this partnership, OMJ Commercial Limited has the right to commercialize and distribute KT&G Tobacco brands; PINE RED, PINE BLUE, PINE CHANGE, ESSE BLUE, ESSE CHANGE in Mauritius.

The ESSE brand is the worlds very first super-slim cigarette and has kept an established position as the best-selling cigarette ever since its sale has continued to escalate every year following its first export. The distinctive feature of ESSE CHANGE is that it allows the consumer to enjoy two flavors in one cigarette. When the capsule in the filter is burst, the mild flavor changes into a refreshing taste.

In an attempt to meet the broad spectrum of KT&G tobacco sales in overseas market, OMJ Commercial Limited is committed to offer an ever-greater choice of tobacco products, set apart by their quality and innovation. The executive director for OMJ Commercial Limited, Umarfarooq Omarjee stated:

We are looking forward for the successful entry of the new brands PINE and ESSE into the Mauritian market. We are committed to offer some new tobacco products, a new choice to adult smokers. However, we do not set out to encourage people on taking up smoking cigarettes, or to smoke more! We firmly believe that tobacco products carry risks to health and adult smokers should be appropriately informed about the risks associated. This is central to our marketing principles and operational policies. Our business venture is based on meeting the preferences of todays adult smokers with products that are not present in the local market. We just hope to provide them with the freedom of choice they deserve.

The director of KT&G, Han Dong Won stated: KT&G is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with OMJ Commercial Limited in order to successfully enter the Mauritian market. KT&G will focus on developing the brands that meet the needs of local consumers, whereas OMJ Commercial Limited will strengthen the distribution channel in Mauritius. As per the Korean quote Many hands make light work, if we cooperate together and perform well, not only will it satisfy the needs of consumers, but it will also provide more opportunities for KT&Gs products.

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Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
by Felicia Greiff , March 24, 2016

The Trade Desk has announced a $60 million round of equity funding with Wellington Management Company that will be used to buy back shares from early investors and add cash to the company's balance sheet.

The round, which closed in January, was the company's biggest funding infusion to date. In part, it will be used to fund long-term growth and support the company's global clients.

Earlier this month, The Trade Desk announced that Netflix CFO David Wells joined its board of directors as an independent member.

In 2014, The Trade Desk received $45 million in debt financing and it closed a $20 million Series B round of funding led by Hermes Growth Partners.

Recently, The Trade Desk and native ad supply-side platform Sharethrough announced a partnership letting buyers purchase in-feed ads through The Trade Desks omnichannel RTB platform, Real-Time Daily reported.



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by Aaron Baar , March 24, 2016

Comcast has Xfinity. Charter has Spectrum. Along those lines, Frontier Communications, which is working to bring more advanced digital video services into the home, is launching its own suite of products as Vantage.

Its a new chapter for Frontier as we expand and grow, Jessica Sokolowski, vice president of marketing and advertising for Frontier, tells Marketing Daily. Were focusing more on video as a product offering to our customers.

The telecommunications company this week launched the new brand around its high-speed TV, Internet and voice-over-Internet services. The Vantage brand will begin rolling out in Connecticut (after having had a successful test in Durham, N.C. last year) before moving into other markets over the next few years. Once complete, the video services will be available to about half of the 8.5 million customers within its footprint.

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Vantage is a premium suite of products that were releasing, Sokolowski says. As wre releasing this product, we wanted to tie that thinking and the premium products they represent to something new.

Like Comcast being the company that provides the Xfinity suite of services, Frontier will continue to exist as the provider of Vantage, Sokolowski says. Frontier is the company that is bringing this premium suite of products to consumers, she says.

Frontier will introduce the Vantage brand to consumers via a holistic launch campaign that will include traditional tactics such as television, print and digital elements, as well as some experiential elements and local engagements. Sokolowski described the Vantage brand as lively, enticing and innovative.

Frontier is a trusted, well-established brand, but weve yet to bring a video product to the marketplace, Sokolowski says. This is unlike anything else in the marketplace.
by Thom Forbes , Featured Columnist @tforbes, March 24, 2016

When I read last March that Barbara Theodosious son, Daniel, had succumbed to his 10-year struggle with mental illness and substance use disorder, tears started streaming and would not stop. The news came on The Addicts Mom, a closed Facebook group Theodosiou started in 2010 after discovering that Daniel and another son were using.

At first, the Fort Lauderdale-based public relations professional says, she was unable to function.My life fell apart. I felt isolation, she recalls. She was physically ill and neglected other family members. But as time went on, Theodosiou came up with the idea of creating a safe place where moms could share without shame their triumphs and tragedies.

I first met Theodosiou in 2011 when I edited a blog she wrote for a recovery website. At the time, there were about 2,000 members of TAM, as its called. Today, there are 21,000 members in the closed group and more than 70,000 across a public page, a Web site and offshoot subgroups such as ones for grieving moms and another for grandparents. TAM also has a presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Google+. There are physical chapters in every state, and it has become a well-known advocate for heightening awareness and reducing stigma for those afflicted with substance use disorder.

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The system is broken, as a story about Daniels decade-long travails in the education, legal, correction and rehabilitation bureaucracies puts it. One of the most recent TAM members is a government official who has clearly gotten that message: Michael Botticelli, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Earlier this month, he invited questions from other TAM members  more than 1,400 were submitted  and then conducted a live webinar on its Facebook page.

From the beginning, Theodosiou has been adamant about maintaining an overall sense of respect and civility among users  all too rare in online social media in general, but particularly in areas like this where opinions vary and emotions run so high.

TAMs explosive growth is not only a perverse reflection of the growing public health crisis of how we deal with mental illness and substance misuse, but also a testament to the power of social media to educate, mobilize  and, all too often, express solidarity or sorrow.

A post about a child who had fatally overdosed soon after getting out of a rehab hit my newsfeed a few weeks ago. Reactions streamed in batches  nearly 200 in the first 60 minutes  made all the more gripping because they came from parents fearing, or having been through, a similar tragedy.

To be sure, there are hopeful, upbeat posts on TAM, too. Someones child has been clean for 30 days, or graduated from high school or grad school. Or just said, I love you for the first time in years.

Shortly after reading about the child who ODed  which is all too common among users who have detoxed because their bodies cannot tolerate the dosage they had been taking  I ran into a woman who told me about her nephew, whom I knew was serving time for violating probation for heroin use. He was being released that week, she told me. Of course, the hope was that he would stay clean. The reality is that often doesnt happen. I suggested that she not only tell her sister about TAM, but also warn her son that if he does choose to use, he be mindful of his reduced tolerance.

She thanked me for the information, saying it was truly bashert  the Yiddish word for destiny  that wed crossed paths. What was bashert was that Id just seen the Facebook post.

TAM came to mind when I heard a PRI radio report last month about how important WhatsApp has been in connecting a group of mothers in Brazil with babies who have microcephaly. The app has also been widely used by doctors in Brazil who were investigating the probable connection of microcephaly to the outbreak of the Zita virus.

For all the frivolity, banality, time-suck and political nonsense social media have brought into our lives, they connect like-minded people in ways that greatly amplify notions of family and tribes going back many millennia. And the information gathered and shared in some of these discussions truly can be a lifeline in the real world.
by Paolo Gaudiano , Op-Ed Contributor, March 24, 2016

In previous posts, I have complained about the short-sighted approach of publishers and advertisers alike in the way they treat readers. I have argued vehemently against those who have accused readers of stealing or breaking agreements if they use ad blockers. I have suggested that publishers and advertisers should find ways to make the reader experience less offensive.

However, I have finally come to the conclusion that none of these approaches could ever work. Instead, I think the best solution is for all publishers to come together and agree to charge readers for content. Before you accuse me of having lost my mind, let me explain why I think this would work  and have a number of unexpected, positive side effects besides.

Its true that paywalls have not worked in the past (with few exceptions), but this is most likely because they cannot work unless they are ubiquitous. So, lets make paywalls universal, and create a watchdog organization (or repurpose one of the existing ones) that will strike against any publisher refusing to toe the line. Nothing like a little denial-of-service attack to discourage defectors.

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As I started to contemplate the chain reaction that this no-free-content idea would initiate, I became increasingly excited. Let me elucidate.

First, if everyone had a paywall, readers would be forced to think carefully about what content they consume. Think about the productivity increase if all workers stopped reading articles about the seven actresses you never knew had fake boobs.

Second, I estimate that roughly 90% of all existing content sites would quickly go out of business, market forces being what they are. No more wasting time trying to figure out on which of 127,564 news sites I should read that story about Trumps latest offensive remark.

Third, the same market forces that drove the riffraff out of business would maximize the probability that only the best publishers (or those with the best lawyers?) would survive. At long last, these high-quality publishers would become highly profitable as they could go back to making money for what they are good at: viz., writing content.

You may ask, what about all the poor writers and editors who would lose their jobs? And how would marketers peddle their offerings to the readers of the world? And here is where the idea gets even more exciting.

First, relieved of the burden of having to deal with advertisers, publishers could get rid of deadweight, including all ad ops and ad sales personnel. This would enable them to hire back some of the writers and editors they had to lay off.

Second, the current separation of church and state between editorial and revenue-generation would disappear. This would immediately and dramatically improve the mental health of writers and editors everywhere, which would make them generate better content, which would draw even more paying readers, and so on. A virtuous cycle, indeed.

But thats not all. Marketers would suddenly have to find other ways of reaching consumers. What better solution than to hire the large number of unemployed writers and editors, who could dedicate their writing skills to creating dazzling, fascinating, informative content about products? This content could then be used to draw visitors who actually give a damn about the products. At last, the term native advertising might stop being a mere euphemism!

Of course, the chain reaction would spread to other areas: many ad-tech companies would have to reinvent themselves or go out of business. But if you know anything about technology companies, you know that there is a massive shortage of tech talent, so the sudden increase in talent supply would actually stimulate more reasonable wages, enabling more companies to drive more innovation.

See why I am so excited? I hope you will join me in asking online publishing concerns to put their weight behind this exciting idea and turn it into reality!
by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 25, 2016

In less than 24 hours, Microsoft's chat bot Tay.Ai gained more than 50,000 followers and produced nearly 100,000 tweets. But the experiment from Microsoft's Technology and Research and Bing Teams, aimed at learning through conversation, fell apart after the artificial technology turned into a Hitler-loving, feminist-hating monster.

Although risky, Microsoft's teams aimed to create artificial intelligence that learns from positive interactions, similar to the algorithms that support a search engine query -- but they clearly didn't take into consideration that the technology also learns from negative interactions. Hypothetically speaking, if Twitter users had experimented with teaching Tay how to bash specific brands, the damage to the brand's reputation could have been irreversible.

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"Its never the robots that take over," said Robert Passikoff, founder of New York-based Brand Keys. "Its the men who play with the robots that take over. And I think its like Jor-el told his son, Superman, 'you need to ensure that you use your powers for good, and not evil!'"

Does this set a dangerous precedent?

Twitter users turned Tay into a racist hatemonger. Tay, which Microsoft targeted to interact with 18- to-24-year olds, could have been programmed to filter out certain inappropriate sentiments and phrases.

Another challenge to think about. Twitter tweets not only appear on Twitter, but they are indexed in Google search query results and used, along with relevance and quality, to determine the order in which the content appears on a search results page.

Apparently, chat bots work -- but not in the United States, where people think anything goes without repercussions when posting online. Microsoft released a similar bot in China names Xiaoice that had spoke with million of people for years without problems. In the United States, Tay was tricked by users on 4chan and 8chan, which can post anonymously on the image board Web sites, exploiting a flaw.

Forrester Research says in an unrelated report about social strategies that the "possibility of mistakes and malicious behavior fuels the risk of exposing data, eroding the brand or otherwise hurting the company's top line." It also applies to emerging technologies that forward thinkers will try and use to attract consumers.

While Forrester's report focuses on the six most significant changes advertising and marketing will see in social this year, it's clear that if marketers want to use the technology they will need to become aware of risks and compliance implications that could hurt brands.
by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, March 25, 2016

The candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has reenergized a progressive tranche of the Democratic party disillusioned with the capture of Washington by private interests.

Similar to what we've seen working so well in the Republican party this cycle, Sanders has a populist appeal among working-class voters who feel disenfranchised while much of the country has bounced back from the great recession of the late 2000s.

The incredible wealth of support Sanders has amassed is illustrated by his fundraising successes over the past many months. As of Feb. 29, Sanders had raised $140 million, with a publicized average around $27 from 5.7 million contributions, the FEC reports.

Despite his amazing rise over the past year, Sanders at this point faces a difficult if not impossible path to the Democratic nomination. He has collected a total of 946 delegates and superdelegates, compared to Hillary Clintons 1,690. The former Secretary of States lead is significant.

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Without superdelegates, however, the tally is much closer: Clinton with 1,223 and Sanders at 920. Clinton has support from 467 superdelegates and Sanders is backed by a comparatively measly 26.

As recently as mid-March, Sanders told MSNBC that he believes he is the strongest candidate to take on Donald Trump in the fall: We have received more votes from people under 30 than Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump combined I think I am a stronger candidate to defeat Trump than Secretary Clinton is, and I think many of the superdelegates understand that.

Much of his campaign has focused on differences between himself and front-runner Clinton on issues of international trade and financial regulation, among others.

Now Democratic lawmakers have started calling on him to move aside. New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen explained: Its good [for Sanders] to continue to raise the concerns that people have, but I think it ought to be in the context of, This is the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in this race.

In other words -- if you want to stick around, Bernie, lay off of Hillary.

However, Sanders has managed something Clinton has been ill-equipped to do: connect with a variety of demographic groups who love Barack Obama but feel left behind by Obamas recovery, as John Hudah noted in a post for the Brookings Institution.

Clinton will need that demographic to win in November. Well have to wait and see when Sanders feels comfortable handing the progressive reigns over to his opponent, the almost-inevitable Democratic nominee.
by Larissa Faw , March 25, 2016

The ad blocking phenomena really is the first time consumers ever had a voice about their web experience, says The Washington Post's Jeff Burkett during a panel session at the 4As Transformation Conference in Miami earlier this week.

"No one really cared about the user," says Burkett. "Finally we have to pay attention to it and create better experiences that resonate with users. Which ads annoy users and [then] do the best to eliminate those."

There is a reason this problem exists, according the participating panelists. "When you see how people talk, it is usually about extreme cases" such as the website with 50 ads, says Google's Vegard Johnsen. Yet intrusive ads and pop-ups give all advertisers a bad name.

It only takes one bad experience for a person to install an ad blocker, which takes an average of 17 seconds to download. And the fundamental problem is that they are extremely blunt tools, says Johnsen. They are "sticky" meaning the same browser with appear automatically across all platforms. And after that one bad encounter, all ads are eliminated "no matter how wonderful 95% of the ads are," he says.

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What you hear, unfortunately, is that the people who install ad blockers say they had no choice, says Johnsen. "At this point we already lost them. We don't see big billboards [promoting these ad blockers]. They learn through referrals" adding that it is easier to install one than explain reasons not to do so.

One key problem in overcoming ad blocking is finding consensus among those impacted by the technology. It needs to be addressed with a broad multi-front task force focused on improving the customer experience and convincing them it will be a better experience, says AOL's Ernie Cormier. Unfortunately, "the industry is no good at coordinating multi-faceted programs across systems."

Many agencies thought it was a publisher problem, says Burkett. "What we are seeing with advertisers is that we were being forced [to provide] intrusive ads to get the buy. And the pressure we get at the agencies is extremely high," he says. At least with ad blocking, publishers are able to resist being forced to use intrusive creative. "Finally ad blocking is a metric we can push back and agencies are listening to that. Before it was you are off the buy."

Most of those installing ad blockers think of only their own personal interests, protecting their privacy and negating agitation. "Most consumers don't go to websites that show messages about how we make money," says PageFair's Jim Hirshfield. "They don't think their actions are changing the economy."

There's also the unintended consequence of blocking all communications. Burkett says there is no way to discuss these matters. "With ad blockers, they block out communications about the value exchange. We can't get to them to say maybe you should subscribe."

One bright spot is that ad blocking right now is a computer problem. It's harder to get ad blockers on the phone.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 25, 2016

The U.S. Bankruptcy Judge overseeing the KSL Media case  still winding its way through bankruptcy proceedings after the company went belly-up two-and-half years ago  has slapped a huge fine on KSLs initial bankruptcy law firm, Landau Gottfried & Berger.

Judge Alan M. Ahart awarded sanctions and related expenses against the firm totaling nearly $308,000 for various violations of the bankruptcy code in part related to efforts it took to hinder an investigation into the fees it charged KSL both before and after the media agency filed its bankruptcy petition in 2013.

David Gottlieb, the Trustee overseeing the KSL Media Estate, launched an inquiry into the professional fees being charged by a number of firms involved with the case, including Landau, in May of 2015. At the time the trustee reported that Landau incurred fees and expenses totaling more than $1.4 million. About $510,000 of that total was incurred preparing for and filing the Chapter 11 petition for KSL. The rest was incurred in post-petition proceedings. Experts submitted declarations to the court that the pre-petition fees were multiple times the cost to prepare and file a bankruptcy petition in most instances. Gottlieb launched the inquiry hoping to recover some of the fees for the KSL Estate.

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In his ruling Judge Ahart wrote that the court finds that Landau filed objections for an improper purpose, including to cause unnecessary delay and to thwart the Trustees investigation into Landaus own conduct, during the Chapter 11 case.

In imposing the heavy sanctions, Judge Ahart noted that Landau describes itself as a pre-eminent litigation and insolvency boutique, which he ruled weighs in favor of imposing a more substantial sanction.

Meanwhile a separate civil lawsuit filed in California by Gottlieb against KSL Media founder Kal Liebowitz and two other former KSL executives  Hank Cohen and Russell Meisels  for breach of fiduciary duty and related charges continues. This week the three defendants filed for summary judgment. A hearing on the matter is set for next month.
Two Western University researchers are making the case for the use of probiotics for female astronauts to avoid serious health complications on long space missions.

Gregor Reid, PhD, professor, and Camilla Urbaniak, PhD Candidate, at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, are investigating the role of the microbes in the health of female astronauts. Microbes in the human body are known to influence health and disease, from digestive and urinary health to managing anxiety.

NASA has plans to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. A round-trip mission to Mars is expected to last two to three years. During the long-term mission, the human microbiome will be exposed to microgravity, sterilized food, stress and radiation. According to NASA, female astronauts have a lower threshold for exposure to space radiation than male astronauts, limiting how much time they can spend in space.

Reid and Urbaniak believe that probiotics could play a role in maintaining health and mitigating some of the health risks associated with space travel. "Humans are basically microbial," said Reid. "Microbes are part of us and microgravity may change them in ways we don't fully understand yet. We need to do long-term studies in space and manipulate microbes to our advantage."

Key concerns during space flights include rapid bone loss and a compromised immune system. Current research on male astronauts has also demonstrated a decrease in beneficial gut, nasal and oral microorganisms during short and long-term missions, and an increase in pathogens, such as staphylococcus aureus and E. coli. Similar research on female astronauts has not been conducted.

Health challenges faced by females are unique and may be more pronounced in space. Challenges include urinary tract infections (UTIs), osteoporosis, breast cancer and compromised vaginal health.

Female astronauts have a higher prevalence of UTIs during spaceflight than their male counterparts. While antibiotics are used to treat UTIs in normal gravity, their efficacy may be weakened in microgravity leading to failure in controlling severe and recurrent infections. Specific probiotics have been shown to prevent UTIs in women on Earth.

Certain strains of probiotics may also be beneficial in increasing bone density and preventing osteoporosis, and treating inflammatory or stress-induced gastrointestinal discomfort.

Female astronauts have a 20 per cent higher risk of cancer development, primarily breast and ovarian cancers. Reid suggests that existing studies which show a connection between probiotics and breast cancer may be an avenue for investigation, making it safer for women to participate in long space missions.

As NASA resumes space travel and the commercial flight industry develops, specific consideration and research into the overall health of women in space is needed.

"It's important to look at the health of women," said Urbaniak. "We know that drugs interact differently in males and females. The impact of probiotics are also different between males and females, and it's time we focused our research on female astronauts."

Reid is one of the world's foremost experts on probiotics and a key member of Western Heads East. Urbaniak will begin a postdoctoral fellowship with NASA in California this summer.
New research from the University of Copenhagen reveals that bacteria which agglutinate before entering the body are far more resistant than single-celled bacteria. This may be the cause of chronic infections.

Since the discovery of bacteria researchers have primarily studied bacteria as organisms that enter the body individually and only then accumulate or agglutinate, creating what is known as biofilm. However, a new study conducted by researchers at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, among others, indicates that this view of bacteria needs to be revised.

"Bacteria that enter the bloodstream as biofilm are stronger than bacteria that enter the body separately. This is something we have to pay far greater attention to in trying to prevent infections, for example in connection with operations," says Professor Thomas Bjarnsholt from the Costerton Biofilm Center at the University of Copenhagen. He is the senior researcher behind the study, which is about to be published in the acclaimed online journal mBio.

Biofilm may be the cause of chronic infections. The research team behind the study has examined bacterial environments containing both biofilm and single-celled bacteria.

Here the researchers have found a significantly different type of growth than previously seen. The biofilm takes the main part of the nourishment available and thus outmatches the single-celled bacteria. This makes biofilm the most important player. According to Thomas Bjarnsholt, this is something we need to pay attention, for example when performing operations.

"We have a lot of bacteria on and in our skin which are clustered as biofilm and potentially pathogenic if they enter the skin. In this way biofilm can penetrate or be pushed into the body when the surgeon cuts a hole in the skin containing the biofilm," says Thomas Bjarnsholt.

"Antibiotics are not designed to fight biofilm," says Postdoc Kasper Kragh, who is the main author of the research article. "Often antibiotics are not sufficient to fight chronic infections. This may partly be because antibiotics are to a large extent designed to fight single-celled bacteria, not biofilm."

"We have to take a few steps backwards and, with an open mind, examine how bacteria cause infections and how we can fight them," he adds.

"Hopefully by learning how and when bacteria form biofilm we will be able to find a better way to prevent and treat chronic bacterial infections," concludes Kragh.
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"These 'just in case' overnight stays appear to be not only unwarranted and wasteful, but can be disruptive for the family and traumatic for the child. Reducing the number of unnecessary hospitalizations can help generate substantial savings to individual patients and the healthcare system as a whole," said lead investigator Catherine Hunter, a pediatric surgeon at Lurie Children's and assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.Nearly half a million U.S. children are seen in emergency rooms every year for suspected traumatic head injuries. While a portion of patients who end up in the emergency room with head trauma are seriously injured, researchers say, many have minor, uncomplicated injuries that may need nothing more than a thorough neurologic exam to rule out more serious brain trauma.Despite evidence showing that children with minor head injuries and normal neurologic exams are at very low risk for complications, keeping all children with head injuries in the hospital for observation has remained a widespread practice."Our findings underscore the notion that not all head injuries are the same, and that kids with isolated skull fractures and no other symptoms may be perfectly safe going home," said Rashmi Kabre, co-author on the paper and director of pediatric trauma at Lurie Children's.For their study, researchers analyzed data obtained from records of 71 children treated at Lurie Children's for uncomplicated head injuries over 10 years. Of the 71 children treated in the emergency room, 78 percent were kept for overnight observation. None required additional imaging or treatment. All fared well and were sent home the next day.On average, a child's overnight stay incurred an additional $4,291 in hospital costs.The research team emphasizes that their analysis purposefully excluded children with serious head traumas, loss of consciousness and brain bleeding. Such children are deemed high risk and must be kept in the hospital for further testing and observation. The analysis focused exclusively on children with normal exams and no signs of neurologic damage such as confusion, severe headache, vomiting, seizures or dizziness, all of which can signal serious brain injury.In an era of greater financial accountability, reducing the number of unnecessary hospitalizations could generate substantial savings to consumers and the healthcare system, the researchers say. However, the team cautions, any cases of isolated fractures that suggest non-accidental trauma or intentional injury, such as child abuse, require further evaluation and overnight observation, even if the child is neurologically intact.Source: Eurekalert


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"Only a few more months and my nightmare will end. It will be my rebirth, free from tuberculosis," the 25-year-old scrap dealer, who has been left visibly lean and weak by the disease, told AFP.Verma, who lives in the district of Sonipat in Haryana state, was told he had TB in 2013. A year later he was found to have multi-drug-resistant TB, after failing to complete his initial course of treatment because of a shortage of money and poor medical advice."It was the worst time of my life," Verma told AFP. "I was always tired, I couldn't eat, couldn't work and couldn't even be close to my family."Verma was tracked and counseled by volunteers from Axshya, a civil society project backed by the Indian government that works to ensure that TB patients complete their treatment. Now he is taking a new drug and doctors say his prospects are good.Despite the efforts of the national TB program, hundreds of thousands of cases go undiagnosed each year, Dr. Sarabjit Chadha, project director of Axshya, told AFP. "There are a significant number of cases who are still not coming for diagnosis and treatment," he added.Dr. Kushminder Balhara, a local medical practitioner who has been practicing in Sonipat for almost 15 years, said attitudes towards the disease were slowly changing. "Earlier, people used to be reluctant to say that they wanted to get tested for TB because of the social stigma," Balhara told AFP. "Now, knowing some of the TB symptoms, I refer at least two to three suspected TB cases to government facilities every month."Source: AFP
The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to [email protected] with "Membership" in the subject line.)

Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to [email protected]. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.

EXCLUSIVE: JN Leader Al-Julani Congratulates Syrians On Revolution's Fifth Anniversary, Vows To Continue Fighting To The Death

On March 17, 2016, Abu Muhammad Al-Julani, the Emir of Jabhat Al-Nusra, the Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, released a statement congratulating the Syrian people on the fifth anniversary of their revolution against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

EXCLUSIVE: Jabhat Al-Nusra Officials To Syrian Mujahideen: Disregard Ceasefire, Continue Armed Jihad Until Assad Regime Is Toppled

On March 18, 2016, Jabhat Al-Nusra's (JN) Al-Manara Al-Bayda' media wing posted part 2 of its "Heirs of Glory" video series. The 36-minute video, which was posted on the jihadi message board Al-Fida' and elsewhere, is a continuation of the first part in the series that was posted in June 2015, and analyzes the differences between the Arab Spring revolutions in some Middle Eastern countries and the armed struggle taking place in Syria for the past five years. The video's main message is the importance of continuing the fight against the Syrian regime and ignoring the ceasefire agreed upon by the Russians and Americans.

EXCLUSIVE: British Hostage John Cantlie Mocks Obama In New Video, Says Americans 'Bankrupt of Intelligence'

In an ISIS video posted on the Internet on March 19, 2016, British photojournalist John Cantlie, held hostage by ISIS for over three years, showed the wreckage of what he said was a "50 dollar media kiosk" in Mosul, Iraq, and said: "If this is what Obama meant when he talked about degrading and ultimately destroying ISIS, it's clear he's got a long way to go yet." Mocking the American airstrikes, he said in the 3.5 minute video: "The Americans are so bankrupt of intelligence that this is all they have left to target."

Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV

EXCLUSIVE: Jordanian MP Whose Son Carried Out An ISIS Suicide Bombing Joins Fight Against Extremism

The following report is from MEMRI's Counter-Radicalization Initiative.

Muhammad Al-Dala'een, a 23-year-old medical student and the son of Jordanian MP Mazen Al-Dala'een, joined ISIS in July 2015 and carried out a suicide operation three months later in the city of Mosul, Iraq. After learning that his son had become a member of ISIS, Mazen Al-Dala'een joined the fight against extremist ideologies and became active in preventing young Jordanians from joining ISIS and in returning those who have already joined. In an interview with a television channel associated with the Syrian opposition, he said that before his son's death, he had even asked ISIS-affiliated elements to kill his son so that he would not carry out a suicide operation.

It should be noted that Muhammad Al-Dala'een is not the first son of a Jordanian MP to join a terrorist organization. In January 2015 it was reported that the 25-year-old son of MP Falah Al-'Abadi, a dentist by training, had been killed in Aleppo, Syria while fighting in the ranks of Jabhat Al-Nusra.

In a December 16, 2015 interview with the online newspaper Arabi21, Mazen Al-Dala'een spoke of his son, of ISIS's recruitment methods, and of his activity to prevent young people from joining this organization in Syria and Iraq. He criticized the media for not taking an active role in fighting extremism, and called to eliminate the rhetoric of radical religious organizations.

EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Claims Attack On 'Secret American Base' In Iraq

On March 22, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) in Dijla province claimed responsibility for attacking what it alleged to be a "secret American base" in the Makhmour area, south east of Mosul. ISIS' description of the attack said that its fighter launched two rockets on the base, followed-up by an assault-squad of four who engaged the US forces with light weapons and hand grenades.

EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Supporter Extols Decision By Group's Leadership To Attack Brussels, Says Attack Will Lead To Conquering Rome

On March 23, 2016, Shumoukh Al-Islam, a leading jihadi form affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS), published an article by one Abu Al-Anfal Al-Maghribi extolling the group's decision to attack Brussels. Al-Maghribi also predicted that the West's response would lead ISIS to conquer Rome.

Video Celebrating Brussels Attacks By Pro-ISIS Media Agency Al-Battar

Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV

ISIS Supporter Suggests Targeting Hospitals, Universities In West

On March 23, 2015, a member of the pro-Islamic State (ISIS) jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, Muslim Al-Gharib, posted a call to ISIS members to attack hospitals and universities in "Crusader [i.e. Western]" countries in response to coalition attacks on hospitals and universities in areas controlled by ISIS and other opposition forces. Al-Gharib argued that such targets are far easier to attack than airports, which have extensive security measures in place.

ISIS Distributes Candy To Locals To Celebrate Belgium Terror Attacks

On March 23 and 24, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a series of photos showing ISIS militants in Syria, Libya and Afghanistan distributing candy to locals, including children, to celebrate the March 22 Brussels terror attacks. On Twitter, the group's Syrian province of Al-Kheir released a photo report titled "Distribution of Candy to the Muslims in Celebration of the Blessed Raid in Brussels on the Belgium Crusaders." ISIS provinces in Khurasan and Tripoli, Libya also posted photos on the pro-ISIS leading jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam showing the group's fighters distributing candy and copies of the ISIS statement claiming responsibility for the attacks to locals.

ISIS Weekly Newsletter Celebrates Brussels Attacks

On March 22, 2016, the Islamic State published the 23rd issue of its weekly newsletter, Al-Naba. The issue's cover celebrated the attacks in Brussels, which took place earlier the same day. The newsletter's cover was headlined "The Islamic State Shook Crusader Europe Again." Inside the newsletter, a short piece toasted the attacks as a blow to the Belgian security services and an event that triggered a state of emergency throughout Europe.

ISIS Claims Responsibility For Brussels Attacks, Promises 'Dark Days' For 'Alliance Of Crusaders'

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On March 22, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a statement claiming responsibility for today's attacks in Brussels. The statement, which was posted on the ISIS-affiliated leading jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, noted that a group of fighters in suicide belts and carrying machine guns and bombs had stormed "carefully selected targets" and killed a number of "crusaders" in the airport and the metro station before blowing themselves up.

Responses To Brussels Attacks: ISIS Supporters On Social Media React With Threats, Glee

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On March 22, 2016, a series of attacks in Brussels, targeting the Zaventem Airport and Maalbeek Metro station, left at least 34 dead and 230 injured. These attacks come days after the capture in Brussels of Salah Abdesalam - one of the prime suspects behind the November 2015 Paris terror attacks. Hours after the Brussels attacks, the ISIS-affiliated A'maq News Agency claimed responsibility for the attacks on behalf of ISIS.

ISIS Supporters Post Images Saying Brussels A Mere Prelude

On March 22, 2016, a group of online Islamic State (ISIS) supporters, calling themselves the "Al-Waad (the promise) Media Foundation" published a series of images praising the Brussels terror attacks, threatening future additional attacks in Belgium and Germany, and promising that the "nightmare has only just started."

On Instagram, British ISIS Fighters Celebrate Brussels Attacks, Hint At Upcoming Attacks In London

On March 22, 2016, on his Instagram account, a British ISIS fighter uploaded a video of himself gleefully reveling in the Brussels ISIS attacks on Zaventem Airport and the Maalbeck metro station that killed 34 and wounded 230. In the video, he jokes about the prospect of several prominent areas in London being targeted. Also in the video, another ISIS fighter is heard joining in and yelling.

ISIS Members In New Nasheed About Brussels Attacks: 'We Have Set The Land Of Belgium Aflame'; 'Didn't We Tell You That We Would... [Reach] Your Fortresses Soon?!'

On March 24, 2016, the Asdaa' ("Echoes") Audio Productions media organization, which is affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS), released an audio recording of a nasheed titled "Hell in Brussels." The recording, about a minute in length, was disseminated via a Telegram account.

In Attempt To Expand Its Reach, ISIS News Agency 'Amaq Launches Two English-Language Blogs

The Islamic State (ISIS) news agency 'Amaq has launched two new blogs on WordPress and Tumblr, in order to cater to English-speaking audiences. 'Amaq's main blog in Arabic, which is also hosted on WordPress, has been active for a year.

Urdu Jihadi Song Released By ISIS Media: 'Do You Wish To Only Keep The Times Of The Caliphate In Memories?'

Following is the translation of an Urdu jihadi song posted by Al-Hayat Media, which is affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS):

"Have seen the darkness's mischiefs, it is about to be the dawn, "Now atrocity and brutality are about to be removed."

Video Of Kidnapped Japanese Journalist In Syria Circulated On Facebook

On March 17, 2016, a video showing a kidnapped Japanese journalist named Jumpei Yasuda was circulated on Facebook. A Facebook user named Tarik Abdul Hak, who claims to be located in Jisr Al-Shughur, uploaded the video. In the video, Yasuda addresses his family, and relays a message to his fellow Japanese citizens. Below is the transcript:

"Hello, I am Jumpei Yasuda, and today is my birthday - 16 March. They told me I can speak what I want freely and I can send messages to anyone."

AQAP Executes Three Men Accused Of Sorcery In Gail Bawazir

On March 17, 2016, Al-Athir, a media agency affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), announced that the group had executed three men who were accused of sorcery in the city of Gail Bawazir, Yemen.

AQIM Claims Responsibility For March 18 Rocket Attack On Gas Plant In Algerian Sahara, Threatens Western Interests In Region

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has released a statement claiming responsibility for the March 18, 2016 rocket attacks on a gas plant in Ayn Salah, Algeria that is operated by BP, the Norwegian Statoil, and the Algerian government-owned Sonarach. No one was killed in the attack.

Report: 53 Madrassas In Pakistan's Sindh Province Linked To Jihadist Groups

Following are excerpts from a Pakistani media report indicating that 53 madrassas in Pakistan's Sindh province are associated with jihadist organizations:



A security official visits a Pakistani madrassa

"The Sindh government has identified 53 seminaries [as] having 'leanings towards militancy,' against which security agencies have been ordered to take 'appropriate action' ... Officials of the Home Department said they had got reports from intelligence sources which found 53 madrassas with 'leanings towards militancy' and a majority of them were in Karachi [the capital of Sindh province]."

Following Brussels Attacks, Pro-ISIS Media Agency Posts Banners Online: 'Oh Crusaders... You Will Not Be Safe... Until You Stop Your Bombing And Pay The Jizya Poll Tax'; 'America Is Next'

Following the March 22, 2016 Brussels terror attacks, the pro-ISIS media agency Al-Battar posted a series of banners titled "Brussels Raid" online, including on the pro-ISIS jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, featuring threats to Europe and the West. The banners stated that so long as the "Crusaders" continue their bombings and do not pay the jizya poll tax, they will not be able to live in safety, and ISIS fighters will continue to attack them in their homes. They also stated that all of Europe is a target for ISIS, and that America is next in line to be attacked.
Dr. Pankaj Narang, a 40 year old dentist from Delhi was out on a late night walk outside his house in the Vikaspuri, West Delhi when a motorcycle with two men on it brushed past him. Rage took over all three of them and they ended up in a heated argument. The two men on the bike left the site only return with about 15 men. Dr. Narang didnt know a slight argument would turn fatal. He forgot that he lived in a barbaric society where people didnt think twice before killing and slaughtering.

Right outside his residence, Dr. Narang was attacked by more than a dozen men with sticks and rods, beaten to death. Even the locals who came to his rescue were attacked and sent off. The police was called at around midnight, but the attackers had fled the scene by the time the police arrived. Dr. Narang was immediately taken to the hospital, but he was beaten so brutally, his skull had suffered severe injuries. He died. An innocent man lost his life over a heated argument. What could he have possibly done to deserve death at the hands of those merciless monsters?

VIDEO | Delhi road rage: Dentist beaten to death with sticks and iron rodshttps://t.co/Yt5d9By9C4  Times of India (@timesofindia) March 25, 2016

Whats even more disturbing was that out of the 8 accused that the police managed to nab, four were juveniles  people we deem too innocent and young to be dealt with in the hands of law. Road rage has become a commonplace occurrence. We see it so often, weve come to accept it as a part of city culture. But to what extent? Here we are, living in the fear of being killed any moment over the slightest of argument, our cities breeding more and more beasts everyday that get away with the most heinous crimes for being juveniles. What are we becoming? How do we still call ourselves human?
Charlotte Powers was in a good position to dole out some wisdom Tuesday, having been the longest-serving board member for the San Jose-Dublin Sister City Program.

This years Spirit of Ireland Award recipient, the former San Jose city councilwoman said she focused her time on the board in two areas: Promoting an exchange of arts and culture and building relationships.

Building lasting relationships is most important, she said. It takes a lot of people to make these activities happen.

And many of those people were at the luncheon, held at the San Jose City Hall rotunda, including past recipients Harry Powers, Johnny Hannegan and Bob Hennessey; Philip Grant, the Consul General for Ireland in San Francisco; and Sister City Program Community Chair Tim Quigley.

Before the luncheon, the flags of Ireland and the city of Dublin were raised at City Hall, and the crowd was entertained by the St. John Vianney School Choir, Stewart Tartan Pipes and Drums, the Greene Academy of Irish Dance and San Jose Arts Commissioner Nicholas Adams, who sang a couple of Irish favorites a cappella.

VIVA CALLE RETURNING: Viva Calle SJ, which opened up the streets of San Jose for more than 35,000 cyclists, skaters and walkers last fall, will return Sept. 18.

The Open Streets program closed off traffic on 6 miles of city streets, stretching from downtowns St. James Park south through the Calle Willow neighborhood and east to Emma Prusch Farm Park. This years event will let residents explore a different route and new neighborhoods, and the route will be officially announced during National Bike Month in May. Stay up-to-date on all things Viva Calle at http://vivacallesj.org.

THE BLUES ARE BACK: You can get a taste of the blues April 1, when San Joses Poor House Bistro hosts a tribute to Fountain Blues Festival founder Ted Gehrke. The party will showcase blues great Chris Cain, plus lots of guests, and a portion of proceeds will benefit the festival. Just tell em, Ted sent you.

The 35th Fountain Blues Festival will hit Plaza de Cesar Chavez on June 25, headlined by the California Honeydrops, a Bay Area band that draws on influences from funk and R&B to New Orleans second line. The rest of the lineup consists of the Otis Taylor Band, Rick Estrin and the Nightcats, Maria Muldaur and the Red Hot Bluesiana Band, the Delgado Brothers and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir.

Advance tickets are $20 at fountainbluesfestival.com,

GREAT AMERICA HITS 40: Californias Great America General Manager Raul Rehnborg will be joined by Snoopy at Friday mornings opening ceremony for the Santa Clara amusement parks new season, marking its 40th anniversary.

If this sounds familiar, its because last year Great America recognized its 40th season. This time its celebrating the anniversary of its 1976 opening.

The promotional double dip shouldnt matter to the first 2,500 visitors Friday, who will receive 40th anniversary souvenir backpacks.

Contact Sal Pizarro at spizarro@mercurynews.com. Follow him at Facebook.com/mercurynews.aroundtown and Twitter.com/spizarro.
The legislation would prohibit stalking and make assaulting a pregnant woman with the intent to force an abortion against her wishes a felony. A person also couldn't threaten to cut off legally required financial support, such as financial aid or employment, if a woman decides to keep a child; doing so would be considered a misdemeanor.

Thursday was the last session before lawmakers' two-week in-district work period.

The Republican-controlled House approved both bills 65-43, and Democrats voted against the bills after a handful of amendments to also penalize coerced birth failed. They argued that if the intent is to protect women from reproductive violence, it should work in either direction.

Some Democrats also argued that the legislation is redundant because current laws protect women from stalking and assault, and civil rights laws also already protect pregnant women from employers, schools or universities that might threaten job loss or disenrollment.

"Let's be honest with each other: These bills aren't about protecting women," said Rep. Marcia Hovey-Wright, D-Muskegon, who called the bills "meaningless legislation."

A 2012 state law requires abortion clinics to screen patients for coercion, but lawmakers' attempt at the time to criminalize coercive abortions was removed before Gov. Rick Snyder signed it.

Shelli Weisberg, the legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said there's no evidence to suggest that women are frequently coerced into having abortions.

"This is just a constant fight between the people who want to end abortion altogether, and people who want to end abortion by doing the logical thing, by helping women get birth control," she said.

Republican Rep. Amanda Price, of Holland, said she's been compiling testimonies for years that she claims detail stories of women being threatened or pressured into having abortions by parents, employers, colleges and pimps.

"I don't know about you, but I am long past my breaking point," Price said on the House floor, imploring lawmakers to vote for the legislation.

The bill now heads to the state Senate, which approved similar legislation in in 2012.
Man pleads not guilty to marijuana charge

A Minden City man pleaded not guilty to delivery of a controlled substance-marijuana in court this week.

Mark Jonathan Christensen, 42, is scheduled to appear for trial at 9 a.m. on July 26. His bond was continued at $20,000, 10 percent.

Bad Axe woman jailed for embezzling from Elkton Chamber of Commerce

A Bad Axe woman was sentenced to 45 days in Huron County Jail on an embezzlement charge in court on Monday.

Angela Peyerk, 41, was given one day credit for time already served and placed on 18 months of probation. She must pay $130 to the Crime Victims Rights Fund, $68 in State Minimum Costs, $60 to DNA testing and was granted work release. Peyerk must pay a probation oversight fee at a rate of $10 per month.

She must also maintain work at 30 hours per week. The judge ordered her to not leave the state or have access to others money. She was ordered to pay restitution in an amount to be determined to the Elkton Chamber of Commerce. Peyerk was represented by Bad Axe attorney Walt Salens.

Man jailed for violating probation

An East Lansing man was sentenced to 35 days in the county jail for violating his probation.

Robert John Ray, 25, was given credit for 21 days already served. He was discharged from probation. Ray was represented by Bad Axe attorney Walt Salens.

Woman receives jail sentence in embezzlement case

The judge ordered a Pigeon woman to spend 75 days in jail for her role in an embezzlement case.

Beverly Farlow, 29, was placed on 18 months probation and given credit for one day served in jail.

She must pay $130 to the Crime Victims Rights Fund, $68 in State Minimum Costs, $60 for DNA testing and was granted work release. Farlow must pay a probation oversight fee at a rate of $10 per month.

Farlow was ordered to not care for adults ages 62 or older. She was represented by Bad Axe attorney Walt Salens.
CASS CITY  Ronan Johnson, 7, likes playing soccer and having his teacher watch. Emma Daul, 6, likes getting on the computers. Six-year-old Skylar Ignash likes recess, and her teacher cause shes nice.

Mrs. J loves them all.

Theyre your kids; were a family for a year, Tracey Jaworski, a kindergarten teacher at Cass City Public Schools, said of her 25 students, or, as she calls them, babies.

Jaworski, 41, has taught for 17 years. She was born and raised in Cass City and teaches in the same school she attended.

She lives for the first 10 minutes of the morning, when students tell her what they did or where they went the night before. The social scene builds relationships, she says.

I love it, thats the best thing, Jaworski said.

She says shes always loved kids and their excitement about learning. Her and husband, Matt, have three of their own: Chloee, 11; Lilly, 7; and Owen, 3.

Lilly is right next door to me, she said, adding she just saw her run out for recess. My kids are here with me. All three come to the school with me.

With her own, she says the family loves to camp. Jaworski says she likes to read and, perhaps unlike most of her students, watches almost no television.

Were pretty active outside a lot, she said.

At work, she says the job brings constant decision-making. With the kids five- or 10-minute attention spans, she says she has to be on her toes to keep thinking whats next  literally.

Its always busy, thats why you dont see a desk in my room because I never sit down, she said.

It takes a good six weeks for the kids to learn whats expected of them, she said.

(Which was clear on a mid-March day recently when they came in after a 20-minute recess, took their seats and quietly began chomping Cheez-Its, graham crackers and apples. Later, Skylar Ignash politely waited her turn to ask where Green Eggs and Ham was  students read the book and wore green for St. Patricks Day.)

It took her a few minutes to think of her least favorite or most challenging part of the day. But a thought came to mind that hit home.

Making sure the children have everything they need; that their basic needs are met, she said.

She says kids may sometimes be without food or heat.

Its a hard thing as a teacher to see, she said. Youre always thinking, its somebodys baby, how would I want somebody to treat mine?

For Jaworski, the day doesnt end when she walks out the door. She enjoys that aspect.

I love that when I walk into somewhere like McDonalds, its Mrs. J, she said.

At home the night before, she says shell be thinking of the next school day and what the class will be doing and talking about again.

Teaching for the past 17 years, she said one of the biggest changes is the transition for kids from a half day to a full day of school. Expectations of kids are a lot greater, too, and there are a lot more hands-on activities, she said.

So how does an adult measure the difference and impact made on kids whose attention spans match their age in minutes?

Theres immediate feedback  Jaworski says she judges it by how engaged students are in learning: If theyre bored, Im not making enough of an impact; its a motivator of, OK, Ive found that path for that child.

Other results arrive years later, when fifth- or sixth-graders come up and give her a hug because they still remember and appreciate what you did. Some remember the impression indefinitely, like when Jaworski says high school seniors two years ago asked the kindergarten teacher to speak for a video the class was making.

They make you realize that you made a difference, she said.

She prefers to keep making those differences for the youngest ones.

I really love kindergarten.  They still love their teacher and are excited every morning to come in, she said. I really love this age.
BAD AXE  State officials say theyll build on a plan that addressed high E. coli and phosphorus levels in the Pigeon and Pinnebog river watersheds in 2008 to tackle high levels of both in the Bad Axe Creek watershed.

Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials presented to about 50 people at Wilcox Park Community Center on Wednesday, which included county emergency and health officials and commissioners, Bad Axe officials and those who live near or in the watershed.

Bad Axe Creek originates on farmland east of Bad Axe in Verona Township, winding through Colfax, Meade and Chandler townships before joining the Pinnebog River. It covers about 19,000 acres. The watershed encompasses nearly 30 miles.

High phosphorus and E. coli levels, originating from agriculture, leaking septic tanks and other sources, have tainted water quality in the Bad Axe Creek and nearby drains for years.

Samples taken in 2008 showed high levels of both, and by 2010, Bad Axe Creek landed a spot on a state listing of impaired waterways. Four years later, DEQ biologists say samples showed high levels of E. coli in nearly 80 miles of stream and parts of the creek and drains.

We are relying on dated data, Gary Kohlhepp of the DEQs water resources division said, adding the data is older than what is typically used for Total Maximum Daily Load plans, but there are opportunities to get newer data.

Officials say too much phosphorus can trigger excessive algal growth, polluting the water, consuming and reducing oxygen and reducing habitat for aquatic and wildlife.

Too much E. coli in the watershed creates a human health issue.

John Matousek, an aquatic biologist with the DEQ, says drinking water isnt affected. But contact with the bacteria may lead to ear, nose and throat infections and stomach illness.

He told the Tribune (http://bit.ly/1pQEO0A) Its a very serious situation when water quality and designated uses of water in the state are impaired.

To lower the levels, officials say they need to minimize erosion and nutrient losses from agriculture land and maximize farm profitability.

More testing, too, will help get the waterway back to water quality standards, while implementing a plan to remedy the high nutrient and bacteria levels opens the potential for state funding for farmers to implement cover crops or filter strips, according to Matousek.

The DEQ is contracting California-headquartered Tetra Tech, an engineering and consulting firm that has locations in Michigan, to carry out the plan.

Bruce Cleland, project manager at Tetra Tech, says there is a 15-year schedule divided into three phases to lower excessive E. coli and phosphorus levels in Bad Axe Creek.

The plan is a pilot effort to determine what works in this part of Michigan, said Paul Proto, a specialist with the EPA based in the Chicago area. Proto says the EPA could apply findings to other locations across the state and Midwest.

For the full 163-page plan, click here: http://1.usa.gov/1PrVnVs. The DEQ says it is accepting public comment through April 5, either by mail: WRD, Box 30458, Lansing, MI, 48909-7958; email: SmithL16@michigan.gov; or phone: 517-284-5567.

The DEQ last year awarded the Huron Conservation District $522,025 to install best management practices to control bacteria and nutrients from agricultural sources in the Bad Axe Creek watershed.

Saginaw Valley State University also is monitoring levels in the creek for the next year on a $61,449 grant from the DEQ.
GOSHEN  A man who shot and wounded another man outside the You You Asian Restaurant and Bar in the Town of Wallkill because he
Almost 100 people mostly from Haiti who were rescued from an overcrowded boat off the Florida coast had no food or water for...
Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said Friday that he expected more U.S. troops would be sent to Iraq in the coming weeks to support an offensive to retake the ISIS stronghold in Mosul.

Dunford said that he and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter "both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made" yet by President Barack Obama.

"We have a series of recommendations that we will be discussing with the president in the coming weeks to further enable our support for the Iraqi Security Forces," the chairman said.

Dunford did not say how many additional troops would be deployed, and he refused to say how many were now in Iraq beyond stating that the number currently exceeded the authorized level of 3,870 approved by Obama and agreed to by the Baghdad government.

However, Dunford denied published reports that the number of U.S. troops now in Iraq exceeded 5,000. He echoed previous remarks by defense officials who said that troop levels routinely went above the authorized 3,870 as troop rotations overlapped and troops were sent to Iraq temporarily on special assignments.

Dunford cited the deployment into Iraq of about 200 Marines from an artillery battery of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge as an example of the type of support the Iraqi Security Forces will need to retake Mosul in northwestern Iraq.

The presence of the Marines and four 155mm howitzers at a forward outpost they named Firebase Bell near Makhmour, a projected staging area for the Mosul offensive about 60 miles southeast of the city, only became known when Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, 27, of Temecula, California, was killed there last Saturday by ISIS rocket fire.

The Marines reportedly fired the howitzers Thursday in support of Iraqi troops involved in a clearing operation of several areas near Makhmour but Dunford repeatedly denied that the Marines and other additional troops he was seeking to deploy would be involved in ground combat and thus mark a new stage in the U.S. effort to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

"No, it's not," he said of ground combat, noting that U.S. troops at al-Asad airbase in southern Anbar province and at other U.S. bases had fired artillery and the HIMARS rocket systems in support of the Iraqi troops.

"I just cannot see this as being inconsistent with what we've been doing for the last couple of months," he added. "To me there's no inconsistency to what this (Marine) artillery unit did and what our aviation forces do every day."

However, the U.S. artillery units were inside large and well-secured Iraqi bases while the 26th MEU Marines were at a base of their own apart from the Iraqi forces and located at what Dunford described as the "Forward Line of Troops," or FLOT.

On Monday, Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said of Firebase Bell, "This is the first time we've established a spot that is only American."

Any additional troops sent to Iraq would be "focused on what is it we need to do to maintain momentum in the campaign and what specifically do we need to do to enable operations in Mosul," Dunford said.

The discussion of Firebase Bell and the possibility of additional troop deployments dominated the news conference called by Dunford and Carter to announce that U.S. forces this month killed the ISIS "finance minister" who was believed to be second to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the terror group's chain of command.

The death of Haji Imam, whose real name was believed to be Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Mustafa al-Qaduli, gave evidence that "we are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for ISIS.

Carter declined to say whether Haji Imam was killed in Iraq or Syria, or whether the operation was an air strike or a Special Forces raid, but said "we've now taken out the leader who oversees the funding."

The secretary also confirmed that a separate action by U.S. forces earlier this month had killed Omar al-Shishani, also known as "Omar the Chechen," who was believed to be the ISIS' war minister.

"Striking leadership is necessary," he said, "but as you know it's far from sufficient" to the ultimate defeat of ISIS.

"As you know leaders can be replaced. These leaders have been around for a long time -- they are senior and experienced and eliminating them is an important objective and result. They will be replaced and we will continue to go after their leadership," Carter said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
The White House said Thursday that President Barack Obama would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C., next week on the sidelines of a nuclear summit to discuss "areas of disagreement" on the South China Sea, North Korea and other matters.

Xi's hastily arranged visit, which was only officially announced Wednesday, will afford the Chinese leader an opportunity to "draw world attention" to the divide between the U.S. and China "on hot issues such as South China Sea disputes and cyber security," China's official Xinhua news agency said.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. was "re-assessing" China's invitation to the biannual RIMPAC, or Rim of the Pacific, naval training exercises off Hawaii this summer in response to its aggressive activities and island-building in the South China Sea.

In a statement, the White House said that Obama and Ji would hold a bilateral meeting next Thursday on the margins of the three-day 2016 National Security Summit that was scheduled to begin the same day at the Washington Convention Center.

"This bilateral meeting will present an opportunity to advance U.S.-China cooperation on a range of issues of mutual interest, while also enabling President Obama and President Xi to address areas of disagreement constructively," the White House said.

Xi's ostensible main reason for coming to Washington was to attend the summit of more than 40 world leaders on stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and material and preventing the smuggling of nuclear material that could be used by terrorist groups for so-called "dirty bombs."

The White House said that the summit would focus on "the evolving threat" of nuclear terrorism and identifying steps "to minimize the use of highly-enriched uranium, secure vulnerable materials, counter nuclear smuggling and deter, detect, and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism."

However, Xi has come under increasing pressure at home from the downturn in China's economy and his suppression of dissent, and he could be seeking to offset internal disputes by presenting a forceful image on the world stage.

Four staff members of the Chinese Wujie News outlet have reportedly been missing for a week since publishing a stunning letter calling on Xi to resign for the good of the country, Agence France Presse reported.

In the lead up to his Washington visit, Xi has conducted a series of meetings and addresses urging the People's Liberation Army to remain "combat ready" and true to what Xinhua called "Marxist military theory." Perhaps taking a cue from the U.S., Xi also stressed "jointness" in operations by the Chinese army, navy and the air forces.

China has thus far ignored the complaints of the U.S. and regional allies over China's efforts to assert hegemony over the South China Sea and a sprawl of uninhabited reefs and island chains, such as the Spratlys and the Paracels.

In another sign of Chinese assertiveness, Xi earlier this month warned the incoming, independence-minded government of Taiwan that China would use force if necessary to prevent formal secession from the mainland.

Xi told delegates at the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp parliament that Beijing would "resolutely contain Taiwan independence secessionist activities in any form," and would never allow the "historical tragedy" of a split to occur.

In testimony last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, warned that China was escalating its military buildup in the South China Sea and expressed concerns about the ability of the U.S. to counter China's aggression.

"In my opinion China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea," Harris said. "You'd have to believe in a flat earth to believe otherwise."

Harris spoke following reports that satellite images showed China had installed a surface-to-air missile battery on the Paracel Islands near Vietnam, and also was seeking to install a high-tech air search radar on one of its man-made islands in the Spratly Islands.

Harris said the U.S. needed to invest more in next-generation anti-surface missiles to counter China, noting that the Navy was still using the same weapons that were operational when he was a junior officer.

"When I started flying P-3s (Orion surveillance aircraft) in the 1970s, we had the Harpoon missile, and it's the same one we have today," Harris said.

Xi's visit will also give Obama a chance to press him on reining in the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, which has China as its only main ally. South Korea's military went on high alert this week following a series of threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to set off North Korea's fifth nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches into the sea in response to renewed economic sanctions by the U.S. and the United Nations.

--Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
U.S. forces this month killed the Islamic State's "finance minister" who was believed to be second to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the terror group's chain of command, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday.

The death of Haji Imam, whose real name is believed to be Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Mustafa al-Qaduli, gave evidence that "we are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter said, using another acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Carter declined to say whether Haji Imam was killed in Iraq or Syria, or whether the operation was an air strike or a Special Operations raid, but said "we've now taken out the leader who oversees the funding."

At a Pentagon news conference with Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, Carter also confirmed that a separate action by U.S. forces earlier this month had killed Omar al-Shishani, also known as "Omar the Chechen," who was believed to be the ISIS' war minister.

Dunford said the deaths of the two leaders showed that the U.S. campaign to defeat ISIS was gathering momentum, adding that requests to send more U.S. troops to back offensives by local forces in Iraq and Syria would be made to President Barack Obama in the coming weeks.

The chairman said the death last Saturday of Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, who was killed by ISIS rocket fire at a new firebase in northern Iraq, came about as part of the U.S. effort to support the Iraqi Security Forces in operations aimed at retaking the ISIS stronghold of Mosul.

Dunford repeatedly said that the deployment of about 200 Marines from an artillery battery of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit did not mark a new stage in the campaign against ISIS. He said that firing artillery in support of the Iraqis was no different than conducting airstrikes.

"I just cannot see this as being inconsistent with what we've been doing for the last couple of months," he said. "To me there's no inconsistency to what this artillery unit did and what our aviation forces do every day."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Did you, your spouse or dependents going to college in 2015? You may be eligible for education credits when you file an income tax return. (The credit is available through tax year 2017.)

There are two types of credits: American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit. Before I explain what these two types of credits can do for you, let's see which one you are qualified for.

American Opportunity Credit qualifications:

(1) You are enrolled in a program leading toward a degree (associate or bachelor), or a certificate (beyond high school). (2) You take at least a half-time course load -- if full time means taking 16 semester credit hours, you must be taking at least eight semester credit hours. If you are not sure, ask your college admissions office. (3) You have never been convicted of a federal or state felony for a drug offense. (4) Your modified adjusted gross income is less than $90,000 ($180,000 if married, filing jointly).

American Opportunity Credit benefit:

Up to a $2,500 education credit per eligible student. $1,500 is to reduce your income tax, and $1,000 is a refundable credit. Example: If your tax liability is $1,800, the first $1,500 credit will be used to reduce the tax liability ( $1,800 - $1,500 = $300) . Furthermore, the other $1,000 will also be used to reduce the remaining $300 ($1,000 - $300 = $700). What's left is $700 and that will be refunded to you. If your tax liability is zero, then you will not get the $1,500 credit, but the $1,000 credit will be your refund.

education credit per eligible student. $1,500 is to reduce your income tax, and $1,000 is a refundable credit. Example: You, your spouse and qualified dependents can all benefit from the American Opportunity Credit benefit as long as you all met the requirements.

If you are taking less than a half-time course load, you might be able to claim Lifetime Learning Credit.

Lifetime Learning Credit qualification:

As the name implies, this is a lifelong credit, and one of its advantages is that you can take the credit every year for higher education. Either you OR your dependent can claim Lifetime Learning Credit but not both of you.

Some of the other benefits of the credit include:

Maximum credit is $2,000.00 for every tax year If you paid $10,000 for tuition, books, fees and other qualified tools and equipment to complete the course, you can deduct 20% ($10,000 x 20% = $2,000) and report the $2,000 on your 1040

Available even if you take one class

Available to graduate students

The eligible student can be you, your spouse or a dependent for which you claim an exemption on your tax return;

Your modified adjusted gross income is less than $63,000 ($127,000 if you are married filing jointly).

Helpful Tips:

1. Did you, your spouse or your qualified dependent go to college in 2012 and 2013? Did you claim the education benefit? Not sure? You can find it in your income tax return (1040). If you missed out claiming the benefit, you need to file a form 1040X, amendment, with the IRS within three years after the due date of your original return. The credit could be too late for 2011 unless you filed an extension. 2. The school you attend must be an accredited school/institute certified by the Department of Education. It is required to issue a Form 1098-T before February 15.

The 1098-T form shows how much you were billed and paid to the school for the prior year; how much scholarship was awarded to you, and if your enrollment was at least half-time. It also shows if you enrolled as a graduate student. A copy is sent to the IRS, and a copy to you.



If you don't receive a 1098-T from your school by February 15th, check with the admissions office.

If you have questions about the education benefits mentioned above, and not sure which one you're qualified for, email LHAVRO@gmail.com.

-- Lian Havro is a tax adviser with a BA in business management, and a MBA specialized in accounting. She was a chief accountant for profit and non-profit organizations for more than 10 years, and now manages her own accounting services for small businesses. She is a tax accountant specializing in military families, home-based entrepreneurs, and college education credit and non-refundable cash from IRS for (at least) part-time students.
Olivia Ellis/Presbyterian Day School(CLARKSDALE, Miss.) -- A kindergarten teacher at Presbyterian Day School in Clarksdale, Mississippi, snapped an endearing photo of two of her students who fell asleep holding hands during nap time.



The school posted the picture on its Facebook page and it has since touched the hearts of many strangers on the Internet.



It was captioned with the Bible verse: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7



The headmaster and principal of the school told ABC News Thursday in a statement, "This spirit of love and acceptance is the heart of the gospel of Jesus and it is what we try to teach our children here at Presbyterian Day School."



Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The Yangon Stock Exchange is scheduled to come to life at 9:30 this morning when First Myanmar Investment shares become free to trade electronically, following a pre-launch lockdown during which even the FMI public relations team was turned away.





The countrys first modern bourse  which opened in December, though not for trade  was closed to the public yesterday as officials prepared to allow FMIs 23,480,013 shares to launch.

There are so many things [to do], U Min Thu, a senior manager at the YSXs market department told The Myanmar Times yesterday, adding that the team was excited for the opening day of trading.

After a morning ceremony members of the public will be free to visit the exchange, he said. Visitors hoping to soak up the excitement yesterday were left disappointed, finding the doors firmly shut.

The new bourse will also include a coffee shop, though when The Myanmar Times visited yesterday U Min Thu said it had yet to find a vendor.

We have the space [reserved] for a coffee shop, he said. But we havent been able to find someone [to run it].

Yesterdays preparations included announcing the base price for FMIs first public listing, which will be K26,000 per share. Taking into account the number of shares, this puts the total value of FMI at around K610 billion  just over US$500m.





The K26,000 base price is considerably less than the last asking price FMI reported when it was still trading shares over-the-counter at its own FMI Trading Centre. The last asking price listed at the trading centre was K35,000 on January 22.

U Maung Maung Thein, chair of the Myanmar Securities and Exchange Commission (SECM), and U Zaw Lin Aung, director of KBZ Stirling Coleman, one of the firms advising FMI on its listing, both said that the K26,000 figure was based on historical trading values.

This involved looking the value of the shares  as traded at the FMI centre  before and after FMIs public listing was announced and where the shares are currently valued.

The mid-price  between the bid and offer price  of FMIs shares jumped from K18,503 in December 2015, when the government announced that the company would list, to K28,838 in January this year according to FMI.

Typically when a company makes an initial public offering (IPO) it files a price range in its prospectus or disclosure document. If demand is high it prices at the top of this range. But usually IPOs involve a company selling new shares, whereas FMI is transferring existing shares onto the exchange.

One Hong Kong based equity investment banker said FMIs transfer of shares onto the exchange is a listing, not an IPO, although U Thura Ko Ko, managing director at Yangon-based advisory firm YGA Capital, said legitimate IPOs could involve only secondary shares.

Either way, FMIs action of transferring all its outstanding shares onto a stock exchange without restructuring them or issuing new shares is relatively rare in Asian capital markets, said an equity investment banker at CIMB Bank in Hong Kong. As shares sold on over-the-counter markets rarely trade, the price may not give a proper representation of the companys value, he said.

It would be best to put [such shares] through a valuation process.

Valuing companies in any market is a challenge, but one that Myanmars future investors seem happy to take up. Many people are eager to set up trading accounts and were peppering securities companies with requests even on the March 23 public holiday, said U Maung Maung Thein.

Education is more important than trading, he said. The main thing is that investors enquire about the companies background performance.

Next in line to list is Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings Limited, which U Maung Maung Thein expects to debut before the Myanmar New Year holiday, which will start on April 9.

The SECM has certified five separate training courses, which can cost up to K40,000, that aim to inform the public about trading stocks and shares.

In order to prevent extreme volatility on the exchange, YSX regulation will prevent the price of any stock from moving more than set amount within a days trading. Shares with a value between K20,000 and K40,000  like FMI  can only move K5000 up or down in a single day.

U Maung Maung Thein said in todays trading the share price would not be able to move more than 5pc in either direction and that it would not take more than 30 minutes for a seller to be matched with a potential buyer  assuming both parties are happy with the price.

Matching will be slower in the coming weeks, however. U Min Thu said that typically the stock exchange will open at 9:30am with one set of matching at 11am and another at 1pm. Whether the matching time is reduced in the future depends on the market, he said.

Our exchange is just starting out, he added.
The Ministry of Electric Power has signed its final hydropower deal before it merges with the energy ministry under the incoming government.





The contract is with leaders in Mong La  a region on the Myanmar-China border controlled by the National Democratic Alliance Army  to build a 66 megawatt dam.

While the deal was signed on March 22, the Maingwa hydropower plant on Nantlway Creek is already under construction, an MOEP official told The Myanmar Times.

Actually they have built quite a lot. The government urged them to continue with this hydropower project in accordance with the procedures, he said.

U Sai Lin, chair of Mong La Special Region 4, and other leaders agreed to continue the project under a build-operate-transfer scheme and formed a special-purpose company named Shan State East Development, he said.

While Mong La is a quasiautonomous region, its leadership is supposed to apply for permission for certain projects to the Union government.

The National Democratic Alliance Army has a bilateral ceasefire with the government though refused to sign a nationwide ceasefire last year.

The company is now waiting for approval of its environmental and social impact assessment report. Later it will require permission from Myanmar Investment Commission, he said.





This agreement was our final signing ceremony in the hydropower sector.

MOEP will merge with the Ministry of Energy under a proposal by the incoming government, led by president-elect U Htin Kyaw, to cut the number of ministries from 36 to 21. The new Ministry of Electricity will be led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who plans to take a total of four ministerial positions.
Regulations on mobile money could come out as soon as next week, said a source at the Central Bank.





The source, who asked not to be named, said the regulations had been submitted to the cabinet for approval.

Though some companies and banks have already launched mobile money services, a lack of government policy has played a role in preventing all players from entering the market.

A mobile money joint venture between Yoma Bank and Telenor Myanmar called Wave Money aimed to gain regulatory approval for a full launch after the draft Mobile Financial Services Regulation had been given the green light, CEO Brad Jones said in November. The service is now engaged in commercial testing.

Mobile money services allow customers to put money into digital wallets, transfer electronic cash and take out physical kyat through a network of agents, who act like human ATMs.

While less than 10 percent of people in Myanmar have a bank account, more than 40 million SIM cards have been sold in the country, creating a major network for those looking to provide e-money services.

Mobile operators, partnering with banks, are best placed to expand the reach of financial services in Myanmar to those that are unbanked today, leveraging distribution networks already in place, Mr Jones wrote in an editorial for The Myanmar Times last year.

However, cash could still emerge as king over its electronic counterpart.





In Myanmars case, our banking penetration is very, very low, so if you look at all the tick boxes, theres no reason why mobile money versus banking should not work here, U Thura Soe Paing, managing director of Frontier Technology Partners told The Myanmar Times last year.

It is an ideal solution  [but that] doesnt mean it will be successful.
Hanoi-based telecoms operator Viettel has been granted the right to negotiate with a local consortium, including a military-run partner, with a view to receiving a minority stake in a company that is likely to be awarded Myanmars long-anticipated fourth telecoms licence.





Viettel, which is owned by Vietnams defence ministry, was one of seven foreign companies to express interest in a tender launched at the end of last year.

Of the five companies deemed suitable to apply, the Vietnamese operator was the only one to submit its proposal by the deadline on March 18, said a source with knowledge of the matter.

They passed the eligibility criteria and confirmed they were willing to pay their share of the licence fee price, they said, asking not to be named.

Following negotiations with the domestic special purpose vehicle and the government partner, they can apply to PTD [the communications ministrys Posts and Telecommunications Department] for a licence.

Those that have watched the telecoms sector over the last few years may feel a sense of deja vu.

This is not the first time Viettel has come close to signing a deal for the licence  in late 2014 it planned to sign an $800 million contract with local firm Yatanarpon Teleport, according to Reuters, but the deal fell through.

If the tie-up is approved, the company will join a local group of 11 public Myanmar firms and a subsidiary of military-run Myanmar Economic Corporation, to form a joint venture that should receive the markets fourth licence for nationwide services.





The United States Treasury includes Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) on its list of specially designated nationals, an inventory of individuals and organisations that Americans cannot engage with except in special cases.

The military-owned shareholder was nominated by the Ministry of Defence and is called Star High Public Company, according to a document seen by The Myanmar Times. The company is not yet listed on the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration website.

Myanmar Economic Corporation also owns an operator known as MECtel.

MECtel is a brand, not an entity, so it was not technically possible for it to become the government partner [in the fourth telco], said the source.

Star High Public Company was chosen because it offers access to 1000 towers and more than 13,000 kilometres of fibre, among other telecoms assets, making the business case for the fourth operator viable, they added.

Joint venture commission and tender selection chair U Zaw Oo said the military company was chosen in part because it could offer support for the fourth telco.

Governmental enterprises were invited to participate in the fourth operator business, and MEC took a shot, he said.

Other government entities  also recommended MEC would be the most suitable government shareholder because they are already operating telecoms-related services in the country and have an infrastructure network.

The new operator could do with a launchpad, as it will enter a tough market where competition is already fierce. Around 70 percent is occupied by foreign entrants Ooredoo and Telenor and state-owned incumbent MPT.

If negotiations are successful, Viettel will pay 49 percent of a US$300 million licence fee, equivalent to its prospective holding in the company.

This is lower than fees paid by the two foreign operators already in the market, which both own 100pc of their operations  Norwegian operator Telenor paid $500 million and Qatars Ooredoo was reported to pay more than $1 billion.

Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) declined to comment on the amount the operator paid for its licence.

Both Ooredoo and Telenor earlier in the year approached the government over the issue of a level playing field for all players in the telecoms market.

Telenor CEO Petter Furberg told The Myanmar Times in February the government had to ensure the new operator would enter the market with the same rollout requirements and licence fee payments.

However an industry insider at that time said the new player would probably pay a lower licence fee as it would arrive late to the market and expect to make less profit.

Recent figures provided by the top three telcos put SIM card subscriptions in the country at around 39 million. A MECTel company official reported in August 2015 that the operator had 3.8 million customers.

Ooredoo CEO Rene Meza put real penetration in market at about 45 percent, as many users carry more than one SIM card.

Myanmars telecoms industry looks drastically different than even five years ago, when SIM cards were lottoed off and could cost thousands of dollars on the black market.

U Zaw Oo said that the fourth operator is being encouraged to provide affordable and accessible telecoms services to the public  especially the almost two-thirds of the country that lives outside its urban centres.

We outlined that perhaps the fourth operator can focus more on rural areas as a way to narrow the digital divide, he said.

Value-added services were also sought, with U Zaw Oo highlighting fixed-line internet and mobile money.

Translation by Emoon
The National League for Democracy must immediately and unconditionally free all political prisoners and drop charges against those on trial, Amnesty International said yesterday.





The human rights group criticised the government of outgoing President U Thein Sein for failing to make good on its 2013 pledge to free all political prisoners.

Despite the release of more than 1100 political detainees in amnesties since 2011, 90 activists are currently in prison and more than 400 are facing trial, according to Amnestys latest report. The most recent politically motivated arrests occurred just last month when two members of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, Ma Mi Mi and Ma Nilar Thein, were jailed for their involvement in a protest supporting demonstrating students.

Anyone can be arrested at any time, said Laura Haigh, Myanmar researcher for Amnesty International.

By belatedly charging defendants - sometimes up to a year after the alleged crime - and leaving confusion about whether they have been charged or not, the authorities create a state of uncertainty, Ms Haigh said.

The outgoing government has repeatedly justified its actions by claiming it was merely following the law. But these laws do not comply with international human rights standards, Amnesty said. It is advocating for the repeal, or review and amendment of the laws.

We have a sincere hope that [the NLD] will end the cycle of imprisonment and arrest once and for all, she said.

The new parliament counts 122 former political prisoners among its ranks, most notably Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was placed under house arrest during consecutive military regimes.





The party made a start on legal reform earlier this week when it submitted a new bill to parliament that would abolish guest reporting requirements under the Ward or Village-Tract Administration Law. The rules were used by police to stage night time raids on the homes of political activists.

In March last year, after the violent crackdown on a student protest in Bago Region, several students who had gone into hiding were arrested during a house search.

Some of the students arrested for involvement in the same protest against a new education law, as well as other prominent activists, are facing arbitrary charges and heavy sentences after being charged for the same offense in various townships around the country.

U Nay Win, father of student leader Ma Phyoe Phyoe Aung, said his daughter currently faces trial in nine different townships. But he is hopeful that the incoming government will soon release his daughter and her friends.

I think the NLD will release them. They cannot give an amnesty without approval of the military, but they can withdraw the political charges held against them, said U Nay Win.

He added that the students are divided over their future under an NLD-led government.

Some are hopeful that they will be released soon under the NLD, but others have not so much hope, U Nay Win said. While some have been released on bail, 45 student activists and their supporters are still in jail.

Because the military retains a large share of power, pressure on the commander-in-chief to stop human rights violations is needed, said U Bo Kyi, general secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Even the new government and parliament will not have full authority to manage the country. We need to think about how we will support the new government and the parliament to protect human rights, he said.

With just a week left in office, hopes still linger that President U Thein Sein will release all political prisoners before the end of his term.

It would be a good legacy, Ms Haigh said.
Don't lift sanctions on Myanmars jade industry, civil society groups are asking the United States government. The groups, based in Kachin State, say sanctions should be lifted only after a series of far-reaching reforms have transformed the industry, which is associated with corruption, exploitation of workers, environmental degradation and hundreds of deaths and injuries from industrial accidents.





The groups have asked the United States embassy in Yangon to maintain US sanctions, U Mone Dan, a Kachin State civil society representative of the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability, told The Myanmar Times.

The civil society groups are demanding stronger laws to reform the procedures and systems relating to the jade industry at every stage, from licensing to sales. Sanctions should remain in place until these measures have been adopted, he said.

The initiative has been coordinated by MATAs representative groups in the states and regions, including the Kachin National Social Development Group, Kachin-based civil society groups and community leaders in Hpakant, the heart of the countrys jade-mining industry. The civil society groups will also team up with allied international organisations to strengthen their demand, U Mone Dan said.

Some US sanctions on Myanmar were lifted under outgoing President U Thein Seins government but others remain, including those governing the jade sector.

The Ministry of Mines and jade traders are hoping that the US will lift sanctions, which they believe would revive a sector where sales have been lagging for years, reportedly causing many traders to quit the industry altogether.

Aside from a continued lack of transparency over mining operations, civil society groups say the failure of mining companies to mitigate the environmental impacts of their activities makes it too soon to lift sanctions.

More than 250 people died or went missing after a disastrous series of landslides around Hpakant between November and January. Most of the dead were thought to be freelance jade diggers engulfed when the tailings piles on which they were working collapsed on top of them. Such incidents caused a widespread outcry against the practices of the industry, particularly in light of revelations that billions of dollars in jade had been smuggled abroad for the profit of a few.





U Mone Dan said proposed amendments to the Myanma Gems Law expected to be adopted by parliament still lacked the necessary protections for local residents.

Jade bounty disappearing in front of our eyes: MP

The Kachin National Social Development Group and its allies will present to parliament a six-point plan based on residents views as soon as possible, said U La Mone La Taung, a representative of the group.

They will call on the incoming government to emphasise natural resources extraction when the political dialogue takes place; to suspend jade mining pending the enactment of better laws, mechanisms and procedures for resources management to ensure that the public benefits; to take effective action against mining companies responsible for deadly landslides; to crack down on drivers of mining vehicles responsible for road accidents; to oblige companies to accept accountability for the environmental damage caused by their aggressive mining operations, including forest depletion and water pollution; and to form an investigation commission with experts in all fields and residents to look into mining industry abuses.

Neither the country and residents is benefiting from the jade industry. They only experience its ill effects, said U Mone Dan.

Translation by Zar Zar Soe
The United Nations agreed yesterday to extend the role of a human rights monitor for Myanmar for another year and called on the new government to strengthen rule of law and ensure better protections for minority groups.





The special rapporteurs mandate, which was reviewed at the 31st Human Rights Council last week, was particularly contentious this year as she will be reporting on the National League for Democracy-backed government, which will take office on April 1.

Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed to investigate, monitor and report on human rights abuses. The outgoing government has argued vociferously that there is no need for such oversight and lobbied hard for the position to be abolished.

Some rights groups feared that in the wake of last Novembers peaceful parliamentary election which the NLD won in a landslide, the special rapporteur for Myanmar would be given a downgraded role restricted to providing technical assistance.

Despite a speech delivered by the current special rapporteur for Myanmar Yanghee Lee which identified a slew of pressing and extant rights abuses in the country, Australia pressed the council to drop Myanmar from the list of countries of concern with serious rights issues.

Yesterday, Ms Lees current mandate was extended and the council urged that she work with the government of Myanmar to identify benchmarks for progress.

In her latest report delivered to the council, Ms Lee provided eight recommendations for the new government to adopt within the first 100 days of assuming power on April 1. Several of the recommendations concerned improving conditions for Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State including access to basic rights like health care, education and freedom of movement. She also urged that the Rakhine and Rohingya communities be reintegrated to avoid fuelling further communal tensions in the restive state.

How can we expect communities to recreate bonds if they continue to be segregated? Ms Lee asked the council.





The special rapporteurs criticism of human rights abuses in Rakhine has elicited ire and personal attacks from nationalists groups. Outspoken monk U Wirathu labelled the academic a whore due to the international attention she drew to the situation.
After cutting the number of ministers and ministries at the Union level, the National League for Democracy now plans to take the axe to region governments, an official confirmed yesterday.





U Zaw Myint Maung, who is widely expected to become the next Mandalay Region chief minister, told reporters that there could be as few as five ministries in the NLD-led governments to take office on April 1.

Each state and region administration now has 10 ministers, including the chief minister, plus additional ethnic affairs ministers that vary based on population.

U Zaw Myint Maung said the new government will try its best to appoint a qualified individuals to the 14 state and region administrations, and would include members of other political parties to support national reconciliation. Only the chief minister needs to be a member of the regional parliament.

He also suggested that some responsibilities of region government ministers would instead be handled by Nay Pyi Taw  a prospect that will worry those, particularly ethnic minority groups, who have called for greater devolution of powers.

We believe that if Union ministers are able to carry out their duties then we can reduce the number of ministers at the region level. We will certainly reduce the number of region-level ministries, U Zaw Myint Maung said.

In Graphics: State and Region Hluttaws

The party has said it will appoint NLD members as chief ministers in all 14 states and regions, despite being a minority in Shan and Kachin states. The constitution gives the president, rather than the state and region parliaments, the power to choose the chief ministers.

U Nyi Nyi Kyaw, a Mandalay-based activist, said he wanted a government that would cooperate with civil society.





We want a new government that changes its image through practical steps, and is really friendly with the people, he said.

Translation by ZarZar Soe and Thiri Min Htun
The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy rejected an offer of the post of minister for ethnic affairs and is unlikely to accept positions in the Shan State government, a party official said yesterday.







We are almost certain to reject all National League for Democracy offers of Union and state government positions, SNLD spokesperson Sai Leik told The Myanmar Times yesterday, marking a significant reversal from just several weeks ago when the party insisted it wanted to share power in senior posts.

The SNLD has long been close to Daw Aung San Suu Kyis NLD and the loss of its support would deal a blow to the new government, especially in Shan State, where the NLD holds a minority in parliament.

However, an NLD official, who asked not to be named, was confident yesterday that the SNLD would remain an ally and support the incoming government. He said the SNLD, the second-largest ethnic party in the Union parliament, had rejected NLD offers of posts because the party felt it was not ready.

Shan State has a lot of conflicts so it is better to support [the NLD] as an ally rather than to take responsibilities directly, the NLD official said.

The SNLD spokesperson said the ethnic affairs minister  confirmed yesterday as Mon Democratic Party vice chair Naing Thet Lwin  would not have full authority over the peace process, self-determination for minority groups and federal union.

The SNLD said it did not accept the 2008 constitution or the 2015 Ethnic Nationalities Protection Law, which was passed by U Thein Seins government and established the ministerial post.

Our own goal is to amend the 2008 constitution, so first we have to make a nationwide ceasefire, hold continuous political dialogue and amend the constitution with common agreements, Sai Leik said.





The NLD has told reporters that it intends to appoint NLD politicians to the position of chief minister in all 14 states and regions. Political observers predict that president-elect U Htin Kyaw will name U Lin Htut as chief minister for Shan State.

Ko Moe Min Thein, a commentator on Shan politics and former editor, said the two parties had failed to reach an agreement in negotiations over positions.

He also said that having an NLD chief minister would hamper the decision-making process, as there would be delays while approval is sought from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

I think the SNLD should take the chief minister position because they have well understood understand well the Shan political conflict for so many years. They can decide well in emergency situations, he said.

Ko Moe Min Thein said the SNLD could also exercise influence over ethnic armed groups. He noted the party was already chairing four committees in the state parliament, including resource management.

SNLD leader U Khun Tun Oo told The Myanmar Times in early March that the party wanted its members to be appointed to both the union and Shan State governments. In particular, it hoped to secure the state ministry of mines to ensure a fair distribution of resources between central government and the state.

SNLD general secretary U Sai Nyunt Lwin said at the time that the NLD had offered a position in the Union government to the SNLD, with some observers predicting that he would be named as vice president.

In the end, however, that post went to Henry Van Thio, an NLD MP from Chin State, meaning that so far no ethnic Shan has taken a top position in the incoming administration or Union parliament.
After controversy over bogus academic records marred the National League for Democracys selection of ministers, the party proceeded to announce its latest batch of nominees for the Constitutional Tribunal yesterday. A legal adviser employed by the party assured that these candidates at least have been thoroughly vetted.





The powerful, nine-member tribunal is responsible for interpreting the constitution and vetting all laws approved by parliament. Under the 2008 military-drafted constitution, the president, the Speaker of Pyithu Hluttaw and the Speaker of Amyotha Hluttaw each nominate three members.

Lower house Speaker U Win Myint nominated well-known lawyer and former judge from Yangon Region U Myo Nyunt to serve as chair of the tribunal. The other names put forward include two currently serving members of the tribunal, an NLD MP and a host of independent lawyers and legal advisers.

The party emphasised that only one NLD member was chosen, in a bid to stem fears that it could stack the influential body. As it holds the Speaker roles in both houses and the presidency, the NLD chose each of the nine members, fostering fears that it would be a one-sided body formed with no checks or balances.

The tribunal could prove important for the NLD should it be called to make a decision on whether the clause that bars Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency can be suspended.

I promise the NLD will not abuse the authority of tribunal court for the sake of partys interest, said party legal adviser U Ko Ni. All members except [lower house MP] Daw Khin Htay Kywe are independent lawyers and not members of the NLD. They can decide every issue based on their own experience.

U Ko Ni was assigned by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to vet the background and calibre of each of the nominees for the tribunal, an especially fraught undertaking in the wake of the exposure of fake degrees on the resume of at least would-be ministers in the NLDs cabinet. Despite the public embarrassment, all the ministers were approved by parliament yesterday without objection.

The party has yet to furnish the biographies or CVs of the Constitutional Tribunal picks, but U Ko Ni attempted to assure they are well qualified, especially U Myo Nyunt.





He is a very famous lawyer with a good reputation because of his experience and honesty, said U Ko Ni.

He added that the two current members of tribunal who were nominated would help guide the novice members and ensure continuity in the courts decisions.

We dont want to completely overhaul this court with all new members. Thats why we selected U Myint Win and Daw Hla Myo Thwe, said U Ko Ni.

Questions remain over just how independent the coming tribunal will be, however.

If they can work without any influence from the president, they still have to face both parliaments sway, said Sai Ohn Leng Kham, an upper house MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.

To be honest, as the NLD holds a majority in parliament and can form government, I think they will appoint individuals and party members who they trust to be loyal. It is natural, he said.

He also said that the tribunal should focus on serving the public interest, rather than becoming just a rubber stamp for parliament.

We will support them if the work for the public benefit, he said. But we will have to watch both the Constitutional Tribunal and the ministers performance.
In one of the last acts of his government, President U Thein Sein has dissolved the Myanmar Peace Center and ordered its assets to be transferred to two NGOs reported to have been set up by senior officials in his administration.





Order No 3/2016, dated February 4 and published in the official state gazette on March 11, says the MPC, which played a key role in ceasefire negotiations with ethnic armed groups, would become independent non-government organisations called the Myanmar Peace Building Dialogue Center and the Peace and Development Foundation.

The presidential directive orders the transfer to the two NGOs of leased buildings and land  office equipment, vehicles, funds and other undefined assets. It also decrees, without elaboration, that the transfer of contributions from international donors should be negotiated.

Foreign government donors and organisations have poured millions of dollars into the Yangon-based MPC and its staff of more than 100 since its founding in November 2012. Some diplomats have privately expressed concern that the outgoing government would distribute the MPCs assets without agreement with Daw Aung San Suu Kyis incoming administration, which has not decided what it wants to do with the MPC.

According to the European Union, a major donor to the MPC, talks were held yesterday over the issue.

In all our recent meetings, including this morning, 24 March, the MPC senior management  with senior representatives of the incoming NLD government present  assured us that the internationally sponsored assets of the MPC will be managed by the government as state property and remain available for the MPC or any successor institution, the EU said, adding that this was standard procedure.

The EU did not elaborate on what were defined as internationally-sponsored assets. Japan, for example, said it gave US$1.2 million to the MPC in March 2013 and said at the time it would provide MPC with more offices, meeting spaces as well as furniture and electric materials.





The presidential order did not name the heads of the two new NGOs. The BBC reported last week that U Aung Min, chair of the MPC and chief government negotiator in the peace process, and U Tin Maung Than, a senior MPC adviser, were setting up a Center for Peace and Development. A government source told The Myanmar Times that MPC executive director U Kyaw Soe Hlaing was also setting up an NGO.

Plans for dissolving the MPC were approved by U Soe Thein, a minister in the Presidents Office, according to two sources close to the peace process. U Soe Thein did not respond to a request for comment.

Responding to a question by The Myanmar Times over its future, the MPC stated on March 17, The assets procured with donor funding are regarded as state-owned property. A final decision as to what happens to the MPC and the associated assets will be taken by the new government. The MPC is in close contact with decision-makers from the NLD in order to make sure that the handover is as smooth as possible.

A senior NLD official involved in the peace process said last week the new government, to take office on April 1, had no knowledge of the transfer of the MPCs assets to the two new NGOs.

Under the presidential order, the scope of the Myanmar Peace Building Dialogue Center would include engagement in the peace process, providing technical aid to ethnic armed groups involved in peace talks, youth training, coordination of aid for mine-clearing, implementing civil-military cooperation, and peace-related research and education.

The Peace and Development Foundation is to be involved in peace-related development projects and cooperation on projects for women and children.

The MPC and its officials won praise from their international donors for their contribution over three years of peace talks leading to the October 2015 nationwide ceasefire accord. But the majority of ethnic armed groups that were either excluded from the pact or refused to sign it have been highly critical of the agreement as well as the MPC. Fighting has increased significantly since then.

Translation by Thiri Min Htun
Good news and bad news for politicians has emerged from a study of the views of young people who voted in last Novembers elections.





According to a study released on March 23 by the National Youth Congress (NYC), 86 percent of voters aged 18 to 35 say they are interested in politics. However, asked if they cared who was elected president, 73pc said no, with only 27pc expressing an interest.

The reason for the apparent disconnect, according to the study, is that only 51pc of young people think the government cares about their views.

The organisation also called for the abolition of laws that infringed on the right to protest, and demanded an amnesty for imprisoned students.

The nationwide study was undertaken by 1127 pollsters, who put a series of questions to younger voters as they left polling stations last November. The results were released at the Royal Rose Hotel, Yangon.

NYC called on the incoming government to prioritise youth issues and adopt policies that would benefit young people, such as improving education, school infrastructure and employment prospects, ending ethnic conflict and bringing down prices. It said the government should also create a youth council or establish a separate government department for dealing with youth issues, with appropriate funding.

Referring to laws that have justified violent police crackdowns on student marchers and other perceived opponents, NYC general secretary Ko Moe Thway said, The government should first abolish section 18 of the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Act and section 505(b) of the Penal Code. He said students now detained under those laws should be released.

About 70 students and supporters are currently behind bars, mostly awaiting trial following a violent police crackdown at Letpadan, Bago Region, in March 2015 against a peaceful student demonstration.
Related Strategy Games

How does crafting work?o You can craft units and weapons at the blacksmith. You will need crafting materials, the primary way to get these is through shearing sheep and skinning cattle but you can also get them from hunting beasts (bears) and mining Coal deposits.How do I get more trees?o Trees grow from the edges of the mapo Woodcutters plant trees (so trees will grow next to woodcutters)o Trees grow faster near watero Trees will propagate overtime next to other treesHow do I get gold?1) The below will give you a percentage of chance to grant you gold:o Hunting beasts - Wolveso Finding then exploring a Tombo Selling cattleo From Taverns (Travellers bonus, multiple connected Taverns)2) The below will always grant you gold:o Through a daily tribute available at one of your castles each dayo Levelling up (some specific levels grant gold)o Prospecting a Gold Mine and mining ito Completing Battle QuestsRaiders and Invaders. Whats the difference?o Invaders: Appear in your realm, not directly next to your towns. They stop you from using the resources in an area around them and can steal your banked resources if you dont repel them.o Raiders: Attack your towns and are capable of destroying your town buildings  walls will however slow them down. They appear next to your town buildings and will also steal banked resources if you dont repel them within the allotted time.o Neither raiders OR invaders will ever steal your gold.Duelling rank system, how does it work?o The lower the number the higher the rank, e.g. 1 is the highest rank, 20 is the lowest.o Every 60 days a new Archive Entry is created. If your rank is higher than rank 17 it is reset back to 17 at the end of this 60 day period. The most successful duellists are entered into the Archive which pays tribute to the top 10 since the entry began.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Twista arrested in Indiana after cops find weed in a car he was traveling in.

Fans of rapid-fire wordsmith Twista missed out on witnessing the rapper perform firsthand, when the car Twista was traveling in on his way to a show in Valparaiso, Indiana was pulled over.

According to TMZ , after the vehicle was pulled over, police searched the car and found weed.

Twista was scheduled to perform at Big Shots in Valparaiso, TMZ reports. Were told the Rolls Royce Phantom in which he was riding was pulled over at 10:15 PM, before the concert. Twista, 2 other passengers and the driver waited outside the car as police searched the vehicle and found the weed.

Twista and crew were subsequently arrested following the discovery.

Although the rapper posted bail and was released hours after his arrest, he still missed his show in Indiana.

A number of fans expressed their disappointment with the Porter County Police Department, following news of the arrest.

Disappointing..great show though..screw you Porter County!! #critical219 #twista312 #bigshotsvalpo, one user posted on the event page for the concert.

There is no word yet on if Twista will make up for his missed show in Indiana.

-hiphopdx


25.03.2016 LISTEN

BLAC Chyna might only have been with Rob Kardashian for three months, but shes already planning their future together.

In a series of Snapchat videos the former exotic dancer has revealed that she wants babies and marriage with her boyfriend.

Addressing her lover directly she said: Rob! I am not playing with you, I want my eggs CRACKED! That means I wanna have a BABY! I need my name DROPPED!  I want my eggs cracked  I want to be married. I am not f***ing around with you.

Before getting together with the 27-year-old model, the sock-designing Kardashian was a recluse for nearly two years.

His new girlfriend appears to have given him hope that he can turn things around though, as hes recently taken control of his life by slimming down and jetting off on romantic holidays .

Hes also been showing his commitment to her and their future together by spending time bonding with her son King Cairo .

If Blacs latest Snapchat comments are anything to go by, she could be using this time to prepare Rob, 29, for when they have their own child.

A source told RadarOnline: Rob spending time with King Cairo has convinced Rob that he is ready to be a father. He thinks that the sexiest thing about Blac Chyna is what a great mum she is to King.

Hes been relishing the chance to play happy families, treating the three-year-old  whose father is rapper Tyga  to a trolley full of new toys on a recent shopping spree.

Pregnancy rumours were sparked just a few weeks ago when a photo of the former stripper in a tight khaki dress prompted social media users to ask if they spied a baby bump.

I think she's pregnant, one wrote, while another simply commented: Pregnant.

.

Adding fuel to the fire, a source told Media Takeout.com: The two are enjoying sun, fun, and non-alcoholic drinks and juices. Chyna has given up smoking weed and drinking champagne. And for anyone that knows Chyna, she wouldn't do anything so drastic  especially in Jamaica  unless something was up.

Giving Blac a biological connection to the Kardashian-Jenner clan might be the perfect way for her and Rob to reconcile their differences with the famous family.

Rob fell out with his siblings when he announced their relationship given her baby daddy is Kylies current beau Tyga.

Blac has been trading insults with Kylie on social media since she got with her ex, even accusing her of stealing her idea by launching her video Cooking With Kylie.

Bitch bye. Follow @cookingwithchyna #infatuatedwitChy (sic), she wrote on Instagram.

Rob didnt appear hugely bothered by the lack of support from his family though.

Putting his girlfriend first, he shared a post online that read: When the pussy good but your family don't like her so you drop your family and become an orphan.

However, a little peace seemed to be restored more recently as a Snapchat video filmed by mutual pal Nicky Diamond showed the siblings hanging out for the first time since he dropped his Blac Chyna relationship bombshell.

As if to confirm that things are OK, Kylie winks at the camera and gives a peace sign.

A baby might also now be viewed as a blessing by infamous momager Kris Kardashian, who has said she doesnt have a problem with her sons girlfriend.

I havent really seen her that much and I dont know her as well as everyone else. She seems like a really nice girl but I just havent been around her.

-thesun


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Cairo (AFP) - Egypt said Thursday that thousands of NGOs, including nearly 100 foreign groups, were operating "freely" in the country, and rejected criticisms over a probe into the foreign funding of some rights activists.

Thirteen non-governmental organisations said on Wednesday that in recent weeks the Egyptian authorities had questioned several human rights workers, barred them from travel and also attempted to freeze their assets.

"More than 47,000 NGOs are working in Egypt, including nearly 100 foreign NGOs who are operating freely in many fields," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Fresh criticisms erupted after a probe was launched against two prominent Egyptian human rights defenders, Gamal Eid and Hossam Bahgat, for receiving foreign funds.

On Thursday, a Cairo court postponed until April 20 a hearing to determine whether to freeze their assets and ban them from travelling abroad.

Under Egyptian law, members of rights groups operating without registration or accepting foreign funding without government permission could be jailed for life, which in Egypt amounts to 25 years.

The foreign ministry said in 2015 the government "rejected approximately seven percent of foreign funding to be provided to civil society organisations," adding other groups received an estimated $100 million legally.

This made it "impossible to claim that there is a stifling of the work of civil society organisations in Egypt," it said in a statement.

Since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, the authorities have led a crackdown on all forms of dissent -- not just Morsi's supporters but also liberal and rights activists.

Rights groups have regularly accused Egypt's security services of carrying out illegal detentions, forced disappearances of activists and torture of detainees.

"NGOs who have played a valuable role in documenting violations and supporting victims will see their activities completely crippled if this continues," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said this week.

"This will stifle the voices of those who advocate for victims," he said in a statement.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Minister for Food and Agriculture, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna says the temporary ban on some Ghanaian vegetables by the European Union is having a devastating effect on Ghana's economy.

According to him, the ban which took effect in September 2015 has affected foreign exchange inflows, income for farmers and employment for the teeming youth.

Alhaji Limuna revealed this at the launch of the 2016 Vegetable Sector Business Opportunities Report in Accra.

The report is an initiative of GhanaVeg supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands which aims at enhancing commercial agriculture in Ghana.

The report provided in-depth analyses of the domestic vegetable sector; an analysis for private extension services as well as business cases for a medium-sized professional export farm.

It also highlighted the emerging certification scheme, Ghana Green Label which focuses on reducing food safety risks in the local market.

Commenting on best practices, the Agric Minister said, government is collaboration with key stakeholders to ensure responsibility on the part of farmers in vegetable production to avoid further bans of their products on the world market.

He noted that, the exercise of safe, sound and responsible practices in the cultivation of vegetables is the only way to guarantee sustainability of the vegetable values chain.

Alhaji Limuna said steps to secure a reversal of the ban on vegetable export is far advanced and is confident farmers would be given the green light to export soon.
Cairo (AFP) - The Egyptian interior ministry said Thursday they had identified the killers of Italian student Giulio Regeni, hours after security forces shot dead members of a criminal gang said to have abducted foreigners by posing as policemen.

The interior ministry said in a statement a van used by the criminals had been found containing an unidentified corpse with a bullet wound.

Regeni's belongings were then found at the home of one of the suspects' sister.

"Italian security has been has been notified about the results," the statement said.

The Cambridge University graduate student's mutilated body was found in a ditch on the edge of Cairo in January nine days after he disappeared.

Regeni was the only foreigner reported missing recently in Egypt.

Earlier Thursday, the ministry said: "The security forces on Thursday managed to track down a gang in new Cairo that used to pose as policemen. It specialised in abducting foreigners and robbing them.

"There was an exchange of fire with the police and all members of the gang were killed," it added without giving a toll.

Italian media and Egyptian opposition figures suspect Regeni was abducted and killed by elements of the Egyptian security forces, an allegation Cairo has steadfastly denied.

Egyptian officials have assured Italy of a "transparent investigation" into Regeni's murder, with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi vowing to "get to the truth" of the case.

Regeni was in Cairo doing research for his doctoral thesis on Egyptian labour movements.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Personnel believed to be drawn from the Ghana Police Service and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) on Thursday evening raided the office of the Danquah Institute in Accra.

A Deputy Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party, Perry Okudzeto told Citi News that they included a Police officer in uniform and six others in mufti. He narrated that when the security operatives got to the place they ordered the caretaker to open the gate which he refused.

According to him, they then jumped the wall and entered the premises adding that the caretaker sensing danger took to his heels. Mr Okudzeto said the security operatives forcefully opened the office of the Danquah Institute and ransacked the place.

The NPP's Deputy Director of Communications said the security operatives also took to their heels when they heard that people were coming to the place. He said the party is taking stock of their documents and would make an official complaint to the Police. The Danquah Institute was formed in January 2008 and after Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah, one of the founders of Ghana's first political party the United Gold Coast Convention, which has transformed into the New Patriotic Party. The institute is aimed at serving as an advocacy body for improving Ghana's electoral processes. 3 SA security trainers in BNI custody The raid comes on the back of the arrest of the three South African ex-Police officers in the country for training private security personnel for the opposition New Patriotic Party's Presidential Candidate.

The three who were arrested on Sunday included Major Ahmed Shaik Hazis (rtd), 54; Warrant Officer Denver Dwayhe, 33, and Captain Mlungiseli Jokani, 45 and have been charged with conspiracy to commit crime and unlawful training. The Head of Nana Addo's security team Captain (rtd) Edmund Koda and the owner of the EL-Capitano Hotel Captain (rtd) Acquah were also arrested and charged but the state has dropped the charges against them. We did no wrong The NPP had insisted that they committed no crime by engaging the services of the former South African security operatives. Perry Okudzeto had earlier told Citi News that the growing popularity of their flagbearer and his running mate meant that they needed proper protection The continuous popularity of our Flagbearer and running mate requires that our security detail is trained on how to handle crowd and are trained on crowd control techniques and that is simply what this is about. So it's a licensed Ghanaian security company training our people with the help of consultants from South Africa Mr. Okudzeto explained. Mr. Okudzeto stressed that the men were not being trained in weapon handling and that the alarm being created was needless.

-citifmonline


25.03.2016 LISTEN

Some parents of candidates registered for this year's Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) in the Pusiga District of the Upper East Region, are expressing worry over questions in a mock examination they say is politically tainted.

As part of preparations for the examination, the Pusiga District office of the Ghana Education Service (GES) organised the rehearsal examination for candidates in the district, which started on Wednesday 23 March 2016. But the nature of question 18 of the English paper has sparked worry among parents, who fear it could spark tribal and political hatred among the pupils.

Question 18 of the English paper asked the candidates to choose from a set of possible answers, the one which is nearest in meaning to the word CANVASS as captured in the following sentence: Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, popularly known as 'all-die-be-die' canvassed for votes.

The GES Regional Director for Upper East, Janet Kawia, has condemned the act and indicated that an investigation will be launched into the matter and appropriate steps will be taken to resolve the issue.

I find a big problem with this. Unfortunately, I am not even in the region but in Kumasi at the moment for a workshop. In fact, it is no question for a student to answer, so, I will find out, and if it is true, we will have to sanction the group of teachers or the teacher [who set the question], she told Class FM's Ridwan Karim Dini Osman in an interview on Thursday 24 March 2016.

Meanwhile some of the candidates, who spoke to Class News on condition of anonymity expressed reservations about the question.

-ClassFMonline


25.03.2016 LISTEN

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been convicted of genocide and war crimes in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, and sentenced to 40 years in jail.

UN judges in The Hague found him guilty of 10 of 11 charges, including genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Karadzic, 70, is the most senior political figure to face judgement over the violent collapse of Yugoslavia.

His case is being seen as one of the most important war crimes trials since World War Two.

He had denied the charges, saying that any atrocities committed were the actions of rogue individuals, not the forces under his command.

The trial, in which he represented himself, lasted eight years.

The current president of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Milorad Dodik, condemned the verdict.

The West has apportioned blame to the Serbian people and that guilty cliche was imposed on all the decision-makers, including in this case today Karadzic, he said at a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the start of Nato air strikes against Yugoslavia in 1999.

It really hurts that somebody has decided to deliver this verdict in The Hague exactly today, on the day when Nato decided to bomb Serbia to cause so much catastrophic damage and so many casualties, Mr Dodik added.

Meanwhile, some relatives of victims expressed disappointment at the outcome.

This came too late, said Bida Smajlovic, whose husband was killed at Srebrenica.

.

We were handed down a verdict in 1995. There is no sentence that could compensate for the horrors we went through or for the tears of only one mother, let alone thousands, she was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Karadzics lawyer said he would appeal, a process that could take several more years.

Dr Karadzic is disappointed and astonished. He feels that he was convicted on inference instead of evidence and will appeal [against] the judgement, Peter Robinson told journalists.

Karadzic faced two counts of genocide.

He was found not guilty of the first, relating to killing in several Bosnian municipalities.

But he was found guilty of the second count relating to Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces massacred more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

Karadzic was in agreement with the plan of the killings, Judge O-Gon Kwon said.

The massacre happened in July 1995 when Srebrenica, an enclave besieged by Bosnian Serb forces for three years, was overrun. The bodies of the victims were dumped in mass graves.

Karadzic was also found guilty of crimes against humanity relating to the siege and shelling of the city of Sarajevo over several years which left nearly 12,000 people dead.

The judge said he had significantly contributed to a plan which emanated from the leadership and whose primary purpose was to spread terror in the city.

-bbc


25.03.2016 LISTEN

The Blue House houses both the residence and the executive office of the president

North Korea says its has carried out a live-fire artillery drill simulating an attack on the official residence of the South Korean president.

The exercise was overseen by North leader Kim Jong-un , said the KCNA state news agency, who called on the military to be ready to ruthlessly destroy the government in South.

It is the latest in a series of angry gestures by Pyongyang.

The Souths President Park Geun-Hye has ordered the army to be on alert.

But she said on Thursday that reckless provocations will only become a path to self-destruction for the North Korean regime. Miserable end

North Korea has been reacting after the UN imposed some of its toughest sanctions following its nuclear and long-range rocket tests.

.

Pyongyang has also been angered, as it is annually, by joint US-South Korean military exercises taking place south of the border.

Already known for vitriolic language , the KCNA report threatened to turn the Souths presidential residence, known as the Blue House, into a sea of flames and ashes.

Artillery shells flew like lightning and intensely and fiercely struck targets simulating Cheong Wa Dae and rebel governing bodies in Seoul, it said of the latest drill, using the Korean name for the Blue House.

It was not clear when the drill was carried out, but the report warned of a miserable end for President Park.

The Blue House was attacked by North Korean commandos in 1968.

The attempt to assassinate then-President Park Chung-hee was unsuccessful, but seven South Koreans and most of the 31 North Koreans attackers were killed.

-bbc


25.03.2016 LISTEN

The religious leader at Scotlands biggest mosque has praised an extremist who was executed for committing murder in Pakistan, the BBC can reveal.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman of Glasgow Central Mosque used the messaging platform WhatsApp to show his support for Mumtaz Qadri.

Qadri was hanged in February after murdering a local politician who opposed strict blasphemy laws.

In a statement the imam said the messages had been taken out of context.

He said that he was expressing his opposition to capital punishment.

In messages seen by the BBC, Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman says that he is disturbed and upset at the news of Qadris execution, before writing rahmatullahi alai, a religious blessing usually given to devout Muslims and meaning may Gods mercy be upon him.

In another, he says: I cannot hide my pain today. A true Muslim was punished for doing which [sic] the collective will of the nation failed to carry out. Religious guidance

Maulana Habib Ur Rehman is the most senior imam at Glasgow Central Mosque, a role which involves leading prayers and giving religious guidance and teachings.

The BBC has confirmed with members of the group that the messages come from the imam.

Qadri was employed as a bodyguard for the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, before turning on him in 2011 and shooting him nine times.

After the shooting Qadri reportedly told journalists that he was proud and that he had killed a blasphemer.

After the shooting Qadri reportedly told journalists that he was proud and that he had killed a blasphemer.

Image

Pakistan has some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the world, which can carry a potential death sentence for those judged to have insulted the majority religion of Islam.

Human rights campaigners and liberal politicians, including Taseer, have criticised the laws as draconian and believe that they are abused to target minority groups.

The laws do, however, have mainstream support in the country and an estimated crowd of more than 100,000 people attended Qadris funeral earlier this month.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman told the BBC: The assassination of Salman Taseer is widely condemned.

Whether I agree or disagree with the views he expressed, as an Imam and as a human being I express abhorrence at the manner in which he was executed.

The execution was not in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles. Grotesque

Lawyer Aamer Anwar has called for reform at Glasgow Central Mosque.

He told the BBC: To describe a convicted terrorist as a true Muslim is grotesque.

Lets be clear: Mumtaz Qadri was a terrorist. He was no national hero and he was no martyr.

These views expressed are grotesque and whether done privately or publicly they should be condemned unequivocally.

Theres real concern within the community that if this is an imam expressing such views, then what is he expressing to our children.

In further messages, the Imam refers to Qadri as brother and says that, by killing his employer whom he was paid to protect, he was carrying out the collective responsibility of the ummat, or Muslims as a whole.

His execution, he says, is a collective failure of Pakistani Muslims.

Imam Maulana Habib Ur Rehman is challenged by others in the group who question why he is speaking about a convicted murderer in such glowing terms.

.

One member argues that Qadri took the law into his own hands and that he should not be made a hero for doing so. Nazi comparison

The Imam also likens Qadris actions to those fighting Nazi occupation during World War Two.

Just when France was occupied by Nazies [sic], French did all they had to in order to protect their nation, he writes.

They were national heroes. Hanging Mumtaz Qadri has raised serious questions about Pakistans independence.

And he links his execution to the issue of Pakistani nationhood.

The issue is not of an individual. The issue is of national identity and Islamic spirit.

The fact that the nation chose to settle the issue of Reymond Davis [sic] by forcing his relatives to accept the blood money, and sending Mumtaz bhai [brother] to gallows is a source of grief and immense pain.

Raymond Davis was a contractor with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Pakistan.

In 2011, he was arrested and imprisoned in the city of Lahore after he was accused of shooting dead two men, triggering a diplomatic incident between the two countries.

He was released after the families of the two men were paid compensation of $2.3m, which many in the country considered to be blood money.

The WhatsApp messages are the latest controversy at Glasgow Central Mosque, which is the largest place of worship of any religion in Scotland.

The mosque was plunged into turmoil last month when seven members of its executive committee resigned amid claims of intimidation by more conservative figures at the mosque.

The allegations were denied by those accused. Management structure

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) is also investigating claims of financial irregularities at the charity which runs the mosque and what it has described as an unusual management structure.

Glasgow Central Mosque is governed by two sets of trustees  the executive committee who operate the charity and the property trustees who manage the mosque building.

OSCRs interim report into the mosque in January found the trustees, who are made up of more conservative figures at the mosque, had acted beyond their powers.

There is said to be a long-running contest at the mosque between more traditionalist figures and those, including the seven who resigned, who would like it to be more inclusive of women and non-Pakistani Muslims.

In January, The Herald reported that Glasgow Central Mosque had donated money to the orthodox group Tablighi Jamaat, which some argue promotes an extreme brand of Islam.

The group says that it rejects violence.

Mr Anwar said: There needs to be diversity, there needs to be equality and they need to open it up.

Were not living in Pakistan, were living in Scotland, and we need to see the values and ideas of the people of Scotland [at the mosque].

In a statement, the imam said: Mumtaz Qadris execution is condemned as it is not in accordance with due process nor is it in accordance with Islamic teachings and principles.

The selective messages disclosed to you by an unauthorised third party have been misconstrued and taken out of context.

Capital punishment on this particular occasion was inappropriate and any expressions of sympathy or compassion are extended in my capacity as a private individual and not in any professional or public capacity.

Glasgow Central Mosque did not respond to requests for comment.

-bbc


25.03.2016 LISTEN

Ivorian musicians have collaborated to release a song saying they are not afraid after Islamist militants killed 19 people on a beach.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it was behind the attack earlier this month.

The song Meme Pas Peur, meaning not a bit afraid, was filmed on Grand Bassam beach, where the gunmen opened fire.

The lyrics, sung in French, include the lines you kill innocents for lost causes and you won't go to paradise.

More about this and other African news stories

France's ex-colonies under threat

How I survived the Grand Bassam beach attack

The defiant lyrics insist in Ivory Coast, we're on our feet.

.

Some lyrics are directed at the militants including: What are you doing on the beaches? Because of 70 virgins, you kill innocent people.

In the name of God, you there, you won't go to paradise.

And some are critical of the AQIM's interpretation of Islam, arguing Islam is a religion that promotes love, you kill innocents for lost causes.

The video was filmed on the same beach where gunmen killed 19 people

The song's producer Chico Lacoste told the BBC that he decided to make a song to tell the whole world that: 'Yes it's true that Ivory Coast has been hit but we have not fallen down.

The BBC's Tamasin Ford in Abidjan says music is a typical reaction to a crisis in Ivory Coast and was used to ask for their war to stop and push for reconciliation.

A song has even been released in reaction to the bird flu epidemic, our correspondent adds.

-bbc


On March 23rd, United States Ambassador Dwight L. Bush, Sr. visited the International University of Rabat for its 2016 America Day, where he met with the university's president Noureddine Mouaddib, toured the campus and held a roundtable with UIR students and faculty. Nearly 200 students took part America Day to learn more about studying in the U.S. through presentations from EducationUSA, The Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange and representatives from the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca and U.S. Embassy in Rabat. In his meeting with the President Mouaddib, Ambassador Bush applauded UIR for launching a new Center of U.S. Studies within the political science department and for forging successful university partnerships with Mississippi State University and Georgia Tech.

One of the highlight of the visit was roundtable with university students, where Ambassador Bush shared his views on the importance of being a global citizen, and applauded the students for attending a university that promotes international education. The Ambassador also discussed the importance of learning English to communicate across borders and the International University of Rabat's many achievements.

The U.S. Ambassador told students that as a student at an international university you are exposed to various cultural perspectives, which will help you keep an open mind as you face the world's greatest political, economic and social challenges with diverse individuals, opinions and experiences. He advised the students that as future leaders, the path to success in solving the world's most challenging issues is to collaborate with your peers across the globe.

UIR students also had the opportunity to ask the Ambassador questions, which ranged from what it means to be a successful leader today to how the impending change of U.S. presidency might affect foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Founded in 2010, the International University of Rabat is a public university that is privately managed, the first of its kind in Morocco. Instruction is in French and English. With nearly 2,000 students, the university has eight main departments offering bachelors and masters degrees. With one of the strongest renewable energy programs in Morocco, the International University of Rabat is the only Moroccan university using solar and currently obtains 30% of its energy from renewable resources.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused the National Security of doing the bidding of government by raiding offices of think tank group Danquah Institute.

Speaking to Joy News, the Deputy Communications Director of the NPP Perry Okudzeto said he does not see the difference between the BNI, the National Security, the NDC and government."

Six people and a policeman in uniform are said to have charged into the new office of the think tank at Labone in Accra, Thursday.

A security man on duty at the time of the raid told Joy News the seven came in a Pajero car asking to see one Hajia.

I told them there is no Hajia here and that all the superiors had closed. And they said they wanted to enter but I refused to open the gate. One jumped the wall and opened the gate for the others, the security man narrated.

He said they tried to hook his hand with a handcuff and threatened to arrest him if they did not find anybody.

They forced a door open and went inside to raid the place and left the premises, he added.

The raid left drawers, documents and chairs scattered and cabinets broken.

The Deputy Communications Director of the NPP Perry Okudzeto has condemned the act, saying it is undemocratic.

The only difference between the NPP and the rulling party is the differences in ideologies as to how to get Ghana to work. So the fact that there are differences in ideologies should not mean that people should go out of their way to do things such as these, Perry Okudzeto indicated.

He said the party is yet to establish items taken away by the men.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com| Akosua Asiedua Akuffo| [email protected]
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Nearly four years after the mysterious circumstances surrounding the demise of President John Evans Atta-Mills, his family members and relatives believe that the man was deliberately felled by foul play, the late presidents Communications Director has yet to inform the nation and the international community precisely how the former University of Ghanas tax-law professor met his death. So far, Mr. Koku Anyidoho, who currently serves as Deputy General-Secretary of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC), deliriously claims that he has been having dreams in which he has been on a regular conversational basis with the late Ekumfi-Otuam native, in the Central Region, in which President Mills claims to be hale and hearty wherever his former protege claims him to be.

Now, it takes an equally demented Ghanaian citizen to validate such inexcusable hallucinatory poppycock that may well point to Mr. Anyidohos own blighted guilty conscience. Indeed, less than a week after the sorrowful passing of Mr. Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, the former National Chairman of Ghanas main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), at 70 years old, the rambunctious and diarrheal-mouthed shoot-from-the-hip Mr. Anyidoho is out again trying to criminally sully the revered name, image and memory of the legendary giant who fathered the fallen NPP stalwart, Mr. Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey.

Mr. Anyidoho claims that some history books have extensively documented the fact of the elder Mr. Obetsebi-Lampteys having distributed guns and bombs to detonate at CPP rallies. But as is characteristic with this well-known Heavily-Under-The-Influence thug, Mr. Anyidoho does not mention the title of a single one of the history books in which he claims the purported criminal activities of Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey are documented.

Maybe Mr. Anyidoho may want to enlighten himself and his captive and fanatical audiences by reading Sir Geoffrey Bings authoritative tome on the era, titled Reap the Whirlwind, in which President Nkrumahs own Anglo-Irish Attorney-General and Justice Minister categorically debunks the myth that Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey had anything to do with the wanton acts of violence that logically confronted the dictatorial and extortionate regime of the Kwame Nkrumah-led Convention Peoples Party (CPP).

May be somebody ought to point out to Mr. Anyidoho that President Nkrumah may well have had a direct hand in the brutal stabbing death of Mr. Baffoe, in Kumasis Asante New Town, by Mr. Twumasi-Ankrah, the infamous Nkrumah goon, just as the proverbial African Show Boy has been well-documented by the Asafu-Adjei Commission to have incontrovertibly caused the Nsawam Prison assassination of Dr. J. B. Danquah.

Mr. Anyidoho and his Trokosi Nationalist Associates and Certified Human Butchers may also do themselves a lot of good by reading Maj-Gen A. K. Ocrans book on the anti-Nkrumah coup titled A Myth is Broken: An Account of the Ghana Coup Detat of 24th February 1966 (Longmans, 1968). Gen Ocran had worked as a trusted intelligence officer at the Flagstaff House and knew President Nkrumah as intimately as the likes of Messrs. K. B. Asante and Kwesi Armah. On the Kulungugu Assassination Attempt, for example, for which Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey was hurriedly arraigned before a kangaroo court of judicature, Gen Ocran categorically notes that the ordnance or munitions used came directly from the armory of the Ghana Armed Forces, and that such weaponry was not known to be commercially sold on the market to any private individuals in the West African sub-region. We must also quickly add that a full-sixty-percent of the criminal suspects arrested at Kulungugu were staunch Nkrumah associates and CPP stalwarts, including the presidents own Defense Minister!

On the question of the three retired South African police officers arrested at a hotel at Agona Duakwa, in the Central Region, who had flown into the country at the express invitation of the leadership of the New Patriotic Party, to help the party train its security detail, namely, Major Ahmed Shaik Hazis, Warrant Officer Denver Dwayhe Naidu and Captain Mlungiseleli Jokani, suffice it to observe here that so long as the Mahama government uses the nations security forces as his private political tool to intimidate and eliminate his most effective and ardent ideological opponents, the key operatives of Ghanas largest party, the New Patriotic Party, will not relent in their bid to ensuring that Nana Akufo-Addo, the partys 2016 flagbearer, does not go the way of the Danquah-Adus and the Kenyensos of our world.

No, we no go sit down make them cheat us every day. Hell, no!

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
25.03.2016 LISTEN

It has been brought to my attention that some people from the purported Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Koduas camp have engaged in some outrageously uncivilised criminal activities. They have engaged in nocturnal removal of funeral posters of Diana, the youngest 47-year old sister of Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V from the walls of Kumawu, Nkwanta, Besoro and Woraso.

In Woraso, the posters have allegedly been removed and destroyed by one Kyeame Owusu at the behest of Worasohene. According to him, Worasohene has ordered the removal of the posters from his land.

In the other mentioned villages or towns, the funeral posters have been removed under the cover of darkness by those uncivilized handful supporters, cowards of course, of the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua.

Diana passed away in Brussels (Belgium) in February 2016. Her body was flown to Ghana by her brother, Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V who had come to England to visit his wife, children and friends in the same month.

Her body will be laid in state in Kumawu-Bodomase on Friday night, 1st April 2016 and buried on Saturday, 2nd April 2016 at Kumawu Mpapremu. Her final funeral celebrations will be held at Kumawu-Bodomase on the same Saturday.

It must be pointed out to the cowards who double as criminals that legal action can be brought against them for destroying the posters when caught. They have no business removing and destroying the posters. The posters had been posted in designated public places and walls for public funeral announcements. Why then should they remove them?

The fact that they live in these small towns or villages does not make them bush people who have no brains. However, the fact that they have that shameless boldness to take the laws into their hands to commit acts that are at variance with the law does make them uncivilized criminals if not akuraase taamanfo3

If they knew what they were doing was right, why did they do it under the cover of darkness? They should bear in mind that walls have ears and the truth will always out.

If they were ordered by Dr Yaw Sarfo, the alleged Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua, to do that, I am afraid their stupidly executed action will not legalize the fraudulent chiefship of their employer. He is not Kumawuhene as far as the tradition and custom on enstoolment as prevails in Kumawuman goes.

I hear how Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua has been bragging that he will not allow the legitimate, famous and popular Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V to celebrate his sisters funeral on Saturday, 2ndApril 2016.

On what grounds can the supposedly, if not the puppet, Kumawuhene Barima Sarfo Tweneboa Kodua, stop Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua V from celebrating his sisters funeral? He plans calling in the police to order the funeral celebrations to be stopped, so the allegations go.

Should his threats be anything to go by, then I must confess he is being a complete joke. Has he got any strong legs to stand on to implement his vain threats?

He must bear in mind the principle of action and reaction as studied in chemistry, physics or science in general. Additionally, the law permits one the right to self-defence.

May I take this opportunity to invite all the citizens of Kumawuman in Ghana and abroad to join me to wish Barima Tweneboa Kodua V our heartfelt condolences? You are all invited to attend the funeral to express your sympathy to the bereaved family.

Finally, I shall advise Dr Yaw Sarfo to be mindful of his intentions as he will fail just at the beginning of implementing his absurd plans. He must know better but if he allows his senseless advisors and handful supporters to goad him on to involve himself in any criminal acts that are intended to harm Barima Tweneboa Kodua V and his supporters, then it will be to him like the dictum, Enye obi na okum Antwi na Boasiako na 3de ne tiri kogyee akyerema

Diana, damirefa due, due, due ne amanehunu.

Rockson Adofo
25.03.2016 LISTEN

As political activities gather momentum in the lead up to the general elections in November this year, political parties and their functionaries are devising strategies to help them annex victory with ease.

As a force to reckon with in Ghana politics, H.E John Agyekum Kufuor, has suggested strategies for his party towards the 2016 elections and has schooled supporters of the NPP in the Kwabre East Constituency on how to engage their neighbours as they canvass votes for their parliamentary candidate and the partys flag bearer.

Speaking at Fawoade in the Kwabre East District as the Special Guest of Honour at the campaign launch of Francisca Oteng Mensah, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate for the constituency, the former president tasked the teaming supporters to use the current economic situation in the country as a tool to garner votes for their party.

Ask your neighbours, are you able to pay your wards school fees, is the NHIS accessible to you, are you able to buy food when you go to the market? he tasked them amidst cheers from the crowd.

He said the NDC has made life unbearable for Ghanaians ever since they assumed office almost 8 years ago, adding that the Mahama-led administration has been abysmal at the job because they lack the know-how and the vision to enable them propel the fortunes of the country.

Ghana is blessed with enormous natural and human resources but the wrong people have been put at the helm of affairs. The way things are going, it looks as if a curse has been placed on the country, the former president said.

He therefore challenged them to take advantage of the upcoming election to turn their lives around by voting massively for Nana Akufo Addo and NPP parliamentary candidates, admonishing them to be truthful and decorous as they take up the enormous task placed on their shoulders.

Francisca Oteng Mensah is the 22 year-old daughter of business mogul, Dr. Kwaku Oteng, who wrestled the Kwabre East NPP parliamentary candidacy from two-time Member of Parliament of the area, Mr. Kofi Frimpong.

She urged the supporters to go all out and campaign for the NPP because the NDC has nothing better to offer you. Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP are committed to make Ghana a better place for all of us

The well attended rally was graced by other NPP top notches like Dr. Amoako Tuffour, Lawyer S.K Boafo and Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako.
Echo of Leadership incollaboration with the Central University SRC and other students' union such as NUGS, GUPS, PUSAG etc as part of the Central University Black and Proud Week Celebration will be hosting the maiden gathering of student leaders from various tertiary institutions in Ghana dubbed: GHANA TERTIARY STUDENT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2016.

The programme which is aimed at empowering student leaders to promote national development will be featured by

Professor Kwesi Yankah (President, Central University), Dr. Joyce Aryee (Former CEO, Ghana Chamber of Mines), Hon. Sam O. Ablakwa (Deputy Minister of Education & A Former NUGS President), Kojo Oppong Nkrumah (Politician) & Dr. Edward Omane Boamah (Minister of Communication).

Aside these guest speakers, the event will also be graced with the presence of the current NUGS President - Mr. Michael Paa-Quecy Adu, current PUSAG President - Mr. Richard Odame, current GUPS president Mr. Elorm Mawuli Kwahu and other SRC officials.

The event will take place on Friday 15th April 2016,9am sharp at the Trinity Hall Central University Miotso.

Over 2000 student leaders will be at the event. This conference is not for student leaders only but the general student body.

This event is free!!.

To sponsor this event kindly call 0576196688 or 0268123103.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Ghanaians and Ghana supporters all over the world are having their say about Ghana's oil revenues!

The Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh/PSA) Petition/Campaign to ensure Ghana receives a fair share of its oil revenues has had a CountDown Clock since Novembr, 2015. See the FTOS-Gh/PSA CountDown Clock at this weblink/site:

http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?msg=Countdown%20to%20Production%20Sharing%20Agreement%20%28PSA%29%20for%20Ghana&p0=4&swk=1&year=2015&month=11&day=30&hour=0&min=0&sec=0.

As of this update, it has been exactly 16 weeks, 4 days, 2 hours and 48 minutes since we kicked off the online petition, on Sunday, 29 November, 2015 (Accra time). We send our sincerest gratitude to you, if you have already signed the petition.

The online petition for all concerned Ghanaians and Ghana supporters is still on-going, at:

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa.

MESSAGE: Please take just 5 minutes of your time and log on to the petition website, and join the petition. Sign the petition and join the more than 128 people who have already signed the petition and said they support Ghana, that "Enough Is Enough". Blast this message wide, and get your friends and colleagues to also sign, for Ghana's sake.

It is clear: All signatories agree that Ghana deserves and needs a world standard Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) for Ghana's oil.

This is the only way Ghana can ensure its citizens get a fair share of its own oil revenues in the first place. That is the only useful way get to wise "Revenue Management." In other words, Ghanaians cannot have an effective, fair, citizen-centered "Revenue Management" program before Ghana starts receiving its fair share of the Oil revenues in the first place.

YOUR UPDATE: In closing, and as an update further, the first set of 126 petitions was downloaded and delivered to the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana the week of 18 March. The letters were delivered by FTOS-Gh/PSA campaign representatives in Ghana.

We provide below 70 comments by supporters and signatories as of today, 25 March, 2016, exactly 16 weeks, 4 days, and 2 hours after the online petition was launched.

We have organized the 70 comments according to "Country" of residence of the signer, beginning with Botswana, and ending with United States. (Please be inspired by the heartfelt and sincere comments below and join the FTOS-Gh/PSA Petition/Campaign today).

Comments by FTOS-Gh/PSA Supporters, by Country of Residence.

Number Country Comment

1. Botswana I love my country and want the best for it. Fair trade is the only way my country can eradicate poverty.

2. Canada I am signing this petition because I am a Ghanaian citizen and I want Ghana to be treated fairly in it's dealing with oil companies.

3. Canada I do want Ghana to get its fair share of our National Resource.

4. Canada I am signing this petition because I know from my background that the PSA is the best option available for all new nations joining in oil exploration and production. I learned with shock that Ghana hasn't adopted the PSA.

5. Finland I'm signing this petition to help stop the stupidity of Ghana's parliament where they usually pass bill without perusal.

6. Ghana Yawfiagbeto.

7. Ghana It's not fair.

8. Ghana I want Ghana to benefit from its last resource, oil and gas, for the benefit of the entire country.

9. Ghana Ghana Hybrid system is exploitative, slavish and daylight robbery of Ghana's Oil and Gas resources in the name of investment.

10. Ghana There's need to help our party/ government to do the right thing in order to save Ghana. It's Ghana first!!!

11. Ghana Ghana needs a change in managing the oil resources.

12. Ghana I believe that the govt that believes in transparency should give us reasons why it prefers the Hybrid system.

13. Ghana I believe Ghana deserve better. Uganda has done same and Ghana's should not be worse. We must reap the benefits of oil exploration.

14. Ghana The whole contact doesn't make sense to me, and so with our gold. How do you go into a contract and come out with 17% and 2% of what originally belong to you? You must be a dumb ass.

15. Ghana Justice is fairness.

16. Ghana It is time we review such agreements. However, we need to be mindful of our weaker bargaining power. The fact is, at the time of negotiations we had not accumulated enough capital to strengthen our position. I believe GNPC is determined to reverse that anomaly. Ghana Gas is 100% ours. Let us be prepared to pay our taxes and be patriotic in our everyday lives, eschew the taking of bribes and diverting what is supposed to end up in state coffers.

17. Ghana I am signing because Ghana needs a better share of the Oil Revenue.

18. Ghana "I am signing because we are giving our resources to foeigners on a silver platter only to go back to them with a cup in hand begging for pittance.

How possible?

19. Ghana Our resources must benefit.

20. Ghana It is sad. Our MPs do not have Research Assistants. Most of them are BBC (Born Before Computer), so they can go on the net and find facts for themselves and make good policies for Ghanaians. The younger ones are lazy to search for data for decision making. They are on faceboook or whatsapp chatting. Our politicians are not serious. This free doling of our oil to foreign oil companies because they provided the capital investment is b*****it. They should withdraw the Hybrid nonsense and put to Parliament the bill for PSA. We want the PSA.

21. Ghana Ghana must adopt the Production Sharing Agreement as all other Countries are doing.

22. Ghana Ghana must change to production sharing Agreement. It is the best.

23. Ghana i believe Ghanaians deserve better.

24. Ghana "I think about my country and cant fold my arms to see it clearly denied its fair share of our oil revenue".

25. Ghana Ghana is sovereign and must be so in word and deed, totally !

26. Ghana I support the PSA for Ghana.

27. Ghana I am signing because Hybrid system is not good for Ghana.

28. Ghana I am signing because Hybrid system is not good for Ghana.

29. Ghana I am signing because Hybrid system is not good for Ghana.

30. Ghana I am signing because Hybrid system is not good for Ghana.

31. Ghana I am signing because Hybrid system is not good for Ghana.

32. Ghana Hybrid System is not good for Ghana. Lets adopt the PSA.

33. Ghana Hybrid System is not good for Ghana. Lets adopt the PSA.

34. Ghana Hybrid System is not good for Ghana. Lets adopt the PSA.

35. Ghana Hybrid System is not good for Ghana. Lets adopt the PSA.

36. Ghana I'm signing for the good of Ghana and our citizenry.

37. Ghana Ghanaians need a greater share of ownership of our natural resources and national assets.

38. Ghana I am signing because I believe Ghana and Ghanaians are being screwed by these vampire oil companies and their complicit Ghanaian political elites. Yet the disastrous ecological effects of the oil/gas industry will remain with Ghanaians for generations; long, long after the oil companies have returned to their home countries to enjoy their loot.

39. Japan PSA now!

40. New Zealand I support the proposal to Withdraw the "Ghana Hybrid System" oil bill from Ghana Parliament, Approve Production Sharing Agreement for more revenues for Ghana's Crude Oil.

41. New Zealand I'm signing because am a citizen of Ghana and I believe in fair trade. The nation as a whole should benefit from this oil and not just a handful of individuals.

42. Nigeria Am signing because of the future of Ghanaians yet unborn.

43. Norway I'm signing because I believe we can learn a lot from the Norwegian blue print... Ghana needs to revisit it's contract with the oil companies... We should know better !!!

44. Saudi Arabia Because l believe Ghana's wealth must be for all Ghanaians and must benefit Ghanaians.

45. United Kingdom I'm signing 'cos I sincerely believe that the PSA is far superior to the new-fangled Hybrid System with many holes in it which can breed corruption.

46. United Kingdom According to my understanding of PSA, it would have been beneficial for Ghana instead of Hybrid. I petitioned the government to abandoned the latter.

47. United Kingdom I'm signing because its not fair.

48. United Kingdom It's right thing to do to avoid corruption.

49. United Kingdom I believe my country deserves more of our oil revenue than we getting now.

50. United Kingdom I am signing cos the bill in front of MPs is not in the interest of Ghana.

51. United Kingdom One great way to fight for what rightfully belongs to the citizens of Ghana.

52. United Kingdom This can not be going on. Every body deserves a fair share , before signing on any dotted line , read the small prints and check your calculated figures .

53. United Kingdom "Ghana deserves better"

54. United Kingdom companies need to respect the people of Ghana.. your money is to help people not to just make a few people rich.

55. United States I am petitioning President of Ghana Hon John Dramani Mahama and Parliament to Withdraw "Ghana Hybrid System" oil bill from Ghana Parliament. Approve Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) contract for Ghana's crude Oil!

56. United States Please STAND UP FOR GHANA AND HER PEOPLE. The resources of the motherland must be held in trust for children and our children's children! Mr. President and speaker Do right by Ghana for the future not for yourselves!

57. United States The PSA makes far more sense for Ghana than the hybrid system. Oil is not a renewable resource so Ghana needs to get an equitable share of the revenues in order to fund its development. The era of foreign companies receiving more than adequate compensation for their investment should be long behind us. There needs to be equity and transparency -- anything less is unacceptable. I urge all Ghanaians and friends of Ghana to sign the petition to request President Mahama and the Speaker to withdraw proposals based on the hybrid system and seriously negotiate contracts that are based on the more equitable PSA.

58. United States The investors not only in oil but also other mining activities, bring their own equipment to take out the minerals and leave holes in the ground. The so-called equipment is just a tool to collect the natural resources almost free of charge. Follow some examples such as Zimbabwe.

59. United States It is for the benefit of Ghana and the right thing to do.

60. United States production sharing I believe is better for Ghana. It is oil we are producing. Let's share it, the investor should sell his own ant Ghana also sell its own both by themselves by the highest bidder.

61. United States I resent unscrupulous politicians cutting dubious deals that are for their own interests rather than for the public's.

62. United States I am tired and disgusted with thieves pretending to be our leaders stealing our heritage.

63. United States Many a time the present leadership we have in Ghana makes you wonder whether we are pre or post independence. The sheer size of stupidity displayed in corruption shenanigans leaves one with a sense of helplessness.

64. United States This is just common sense.

65. United States I am signing this because Ghana stands to benefit from the PSA as opposed to the GHS.

66. United States Fair trade or no trade.

67. United States Ghana should benefit more than anybody else.

68. United States To support the dedication of those willing to work to put the interest of Ghana first.

69. United States I oppose the current bill before parliament and prefer amendments to made that are in consonance with what is being offered in this petition.

70. United States Minor Outlying Islands Let's get a better deal. Ghana is tired of being cheated by this oil companies.

(NOTE: Published with minor edits. The names of signatories, the date they signed, their towns/Zip Codes, etc., were excluded from this report to save space, and ensure a certain level of privacy to the signatories).

SOURCES:

FTOS-Gh/PSA Petition/Campaign:

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa

For More Information:

http://ghanahero.com/FTOS_GH_Campaign.html

www.GhanaHero.com. Visit for more information.

(Read Mo! Listen Mo! See Mo! Reflect Mo!).

Prof Lungu is Ghana-Centered/Ghana-Proud.

Prof Lungu is based in Washington DC, USA.

Subj: Presenting 70 Comments by Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana Signatories, By Country.

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com25 Mar 16.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Hundreds of supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) including members of its security outfit Invisible Forces, have gathered in front of Nana Akufo Addos Nima residence to protect it against any raid.

They say they have picked up intelligence indicating that the Police and Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) are planning to raid the house. Their fears appear to based on the raid on the Danquah Institute in the late hours of Thursday night.

The supporters say they will be there until they are told to leave by their leader.

Nana Addo is currently in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region and will move to Kwahu in the Eastern Region for Easter. He is expected to return to Accra on Sunday.

There has been tension between the government and the opposition NPP since the BNI arrested three South African ex-policemen who were training the partys security personnel in the Central Region.
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Hundreds of supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) including members of its security outfit Invisible Forces, have gathered in front of NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo's Nima residence to protect it against any raid.

They say they have picked up intelligence indicating that the Police and Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) are planning to raid their party flagbearer's house.

Their fears appear to based on the raid on the Danquah Institute in the late hours of Thursday night.

The supporters say they will remain there to protect the residence until they are told to leave by their leader.

Nana Addo is currently in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region and will move to Kwahu in the Eastern Region over the Easter weekend. He is expected to return to Accra on Sunday.

There has been tension between the government and the opposition NPP since the BNI arrested three South African ex-policemen who were training the party's security personnel in the Central Region.

-citifmonline


Accra, March 25, GNA - The Ghana Health Service (GHS), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme and other partners, on Thursday joined the international community to mark the World TB Day.

The 2016 theme: 'Unite to End TB,' is a new global strategy which aims at partnering with the world to achieve the bold targets and plans to eliminate TB from Ghana by the year 2030.

The Day highlights the suffering that TB continues to exert on people, despite the fact that effective control measure are available worldwide, and mobilises political and social commitment for further progress.

Mr Alex Segbefia, the Minister of Health, said the disease, although curable, had remained a global menace that afflicted over nine million people each year, of which a third did not have access to treatment as they were "missed" by health systems.

He said it was estimated that over 76,000 Ghanaians were afflicted with TB, with more than 9,700 people dying of the disease each year.

He said a third of all notified TB cases were women, with children constituting between five to nine per cent of the recorded cases in Ghana.

Mr Segbefia said this was unacceptable considering the fact that the disease was preventable and could be cured, and called for closer collaboration between the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the GHS, to address the gender issues associated with the TB epidemics.

He, however, identified TB as a pro-poor disease that required stakeholders to find a common grounds to remove the catastrophic cost on patients.

According to him, although Ghana was branded by a recent research as an important high TB and HIV burden country, fortunately, the country had put in place a National Response Plan to address the challenge, with Parliament approving a 13million Euro loan facility to support the implementation of the plan.

'This will be used to procure digital X-ray machines to be distributed to 49 district hospitals and use over 12 years to actively screen for TB among Ghanaians all over the country,' he said.

He said the MOH requested the support of corporate institutions to control the disease at the community level to complement government's efforts in expanding health care delivery systems through the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHIPS) compounds.

Mr Segbefia then named Ehunabobrim Nana Prah Agyensaim VI, the Paramount Chief of Assin Owirenkyi Traditional Area, as the new TB Ambassador to work with the GHS, the MOH and other stakeholders to end TB in Ghana.

Dr Frank Adae Bonsu, the Programmes Manager of the National TB Control Programme (NTP), said there was a paradigm shift in the global strategy for TB control with an underlying principle that 'we must end TB without any catastrophic cost to the patient'.

He said an average of 80 million dollars would be needed annually to effectively control TB in Ghana, but the NTP had funding and human resource gaps which were slowing down efforts towards achieving national goals for TB control.

On the current status of TB, Dr Bonsu said the face of the TB epidemic in Ghana had changed although they had done well by detecting and controlling the easy-to-identify cases.

He said they still had a huge burden of difficulty in detecting TB cases and recent studies showed that there were some individuals with the disease who did not show any symptoms.

There were also emerging trends of drug resistant TB which was worrisome, but there was an on-going study to establish the magnitude of this problem, he said.

Dr Bonsu said the current low TB detection rate was a key challenge and it was expected that a total of 44,524 cases would be recorded annually, but 'we detect averagely 15,000 a year and in 2015 14,999 cases were detected which was a further reduction of the expected figure'.

He encouraged healthcare providers to strive to improve upon their current treatment success rate of 85 per cent, saying 'we are not proud of the deaths occurring among TB patients because these are preventable causes of deaths'

He advised the public to observe good hygiene practices and ensure enough ventilation while observing symptoms which include excessive coughing over a long period of time and feverishness, and report early for diagnoses and treatment.

GNA
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Accra, March 25, GNA - Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, the General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, has called on people in leadership positions to be mindful of the kind of world they were passing onto the future generation.

He said the state of the future generation would be determined by what the leadership did today as a church, family, government, political party, traditional authority, and institutions among others.

Rev Dr Opuni-Frimpong, in an Easter message he signed on behalf of the Council, noted that the story of Easter was a vivid description of what Jesus Christ did for mankind and the world after His death on the cross of Calvary.

'Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, whiles on earth, lived a life that only did not benefit His generation and the people around Him, but the many generations after His death and resurrection,' he said.

Rev. Dr. Opuni-Frimpong said Jesus' life was focused on ensuring that generations that would come after Him thrived and became righteousness. This explained why He had to make the most expensive sacrifice by "dying on the cross so that we can be saved".

He said currently, Ghanaians were confronted with a world with spiritual deficiency, degraded environment, corruption, declining economy, insecurity, political instability, immorality, bad leadership examples, chaos and other forms of social vices.

'This should not be the kind of world we should pass on to future generations. We should strive to build and pass on a world that is just, sustainable, peaceful, secured, prosperous, and provides opportunities for all.

"This, therefore, places a huge responsibility on those in leadership positions in the country to be very mindful like Jesus, and seek to build and pass on a world that provides a solid foundation for the next generation," Rev. Dr Opuni-Frimpong said.

He admonished churches, families, government, political parties, institutions, and traditional authorities to reflect on the kind of world they were creating today, and make the necessary sacrifices that would benefit the current and future generations as "we celebrate this year's Easter".

'Our leaders must know that they will certainly exit one day, hence, they must work towards building and leaving a society that will enable the next generation to thrive,' he said. GNA
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Old Ningo (GAR), March 25, GNA - The NEK Umwelttechnik AG, a Swiss based wind energy provider, together with its partners, has acquired land at Ayitepa in the Greater Accra Region to create a wind farm to generate 225 megawatts of electricity.

Alhajj Sa Rhack Nartey, the Ningo/Prampram District Chief Executive, said the wind farm would be located between Mangotsonya and Lekpongunor in the Ningo Traditional Area.

The stakeholders, including the chiefs and landowners of the area, therefore, held a meeting on Thursday to discuss the demarcation and survey of the various clan/family parcels of land, the demarcation of the boundaries of the entire project site and geotechnical survey within the project area.

Alhaji Nartey said the Government was very much in support of the wind project because of its enormous benefits to the traditional area and the country as a whole.

'I wish to thank the Ningo Traditional Council for its efforts to make this project a reality,' Alhajj Nartey said.

He expressed gratitude to the various clans/families who had released lands for the project.

He appealed to all stakeholders to cooperate with each other and agree on matters that would help the project to materialise.

GNA
Accra, March 25, GNA - The Municipal Chief Executive for Akuapem North, Mr George Opare Addo has donated 150 bags of cement and 30 street light bulbs to three communities in Okere constituency in the Eastern Region.

The communities are Nsutam, Onyamebekyere and Asaman ketewa.

The items were donated on behalf of the MCE by the NDC Parliamentary Candidate for Okere, Mr. Micheal Ofori Offei, also known as Nana Kakra, at a ceremony organised by the communities.

In an address read on his behalf, Mr Offei appealed to the youth who have attained the age of 18 years to avail themselves in the forthcoming limited registration exercise to be conducted by the Electoral Commission to register in their numbers.

He also appealed to them to put the items donated to good use.

The NDC Parliamentary candidate urged the residents to vote massively for President John Dramani Mahama and himself in the forthcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections on November 7.

He chastised the New Patriotic Party for not doing anything for the people for the past 16 years that they had occupied the parliamentary seat in the constituency and said it was about time to vote the NDC back.

The Odikro of Nsutam, Nana K. Awuku thanked the Government for the donation and gave the assurance that the items will be put to good use.

GNA
25.03.2016 LISTEN

Addis Ababa, March 25, GNA - Some of Africa's leaders are responsible for instability on the continent because they have failed to manage diversity in their societies, the former Nigerian President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, has said.

By the same token, he noted, outside interference in Africa has been responsible for conflicts, citing the NATO air strikes in Libya in 2011 that led to the removal from power of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

'The repercussions are now being felt in Mali, Nigeria and the Sahel,' Gen Obasanjo told a press conference on the upcoming Tana High-Level forum on Security in Africa in Ethiopia.

Asked whether African leaders were to blame for the conflicts on the continent, he said: 'Yes and no.'

He said leaders were failing their people because they had not been able to prevent marginalisation in their societies; prevent injustice; reduce unemployment; reduce poverty; and that they had not embraced democracy and good governance.

The theme of his year's Forum is Africa in the Global Security Agenda.

This is apt, given the continuing fallout from the NATO intervention in Libya, for which US President Barack Obama recently criticised the British and French governments for getting rid of Gaddafi without having plans in place for effective 'follow-up'.

On the issue of African peacekeeping operations, Gen. Obasanjo agreed that the lack of funding from African Union members states was a major setback for peace and security on the continent.

He said that when he was head of state, he was in charge of a high-level panel to search for alternative sources of funding for the AU, but this came to nothing.

He noted that when the AU was looking for funds to counter the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, member states failed to provide the money.

'The AU eventually had to turn to the private sector and it was able to raise $40 million,' said Gen Obasanjo, who is Chairman of the Tana Forum.

He was critical of AU member states for not contributing to the AU's general budget, adding: 'I think this is down to the lack of political will.'

Gen Obasanjo noted that Ebola and migration from Africa had security implications not just for the continent 'because we now live in a global community whereby if something happens in Africa, it affects the rest of the world'.

This was why Africa had to take a serious look at its security infrastructure; what Africans could do themselves to deal with these issues; and what should be the continent's role in formulating security policies globally.

The Deputy Chairman of the Forum, Professor Andreas Eshete of Ethiopia, said that Africa had to have not only a stronger voice in the global security architecture but also for its perspectives to be taken into account and incorporated into the global security agenda.

The fifth Tana Forum will take place in the Bahir Dar on April 16 and 17, attended by a number of heads of states and governments and members of the African peace and security community.

The general impression on peacebuilding initiatives in Africa has been that they have been eternally driven.

But in recent years Africans have been building a solid community around peacebuilding that has been coming up with solid ideas on how to tackle the problems relating to peace and security on the continent.

This is one reason why the Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) have been bold enough to pledge to 'silence the guns' in Africa by 2020.

Thus, the Forum, the brainchild of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, aims to provide a platform for airing African-led solutions to the continent's most pressing security problems.

The Institute for Peace and Security Services (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University serves as the Forum's secretariat.

GNA
The District Chief Executive for Pusiga in the Upper East region has apologized for a BECE mock exam question referring to NPP Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo as All- die be- die.

Speaking on Joy News Friday, Alhassan Bugbilla said he has pleaded with the leadership of NPP in the area to talk to whoever matters and let them know that it wasnt a deliberate attempt to disrespect the NPP Flagbearer.

His apology comes after pictures of an English question paper in which NPP Flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is referred to as All-die-be-die, emerged.

The contentious statement was contained in question 18 of the section B part of the paper.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, popularly known as all-die-be-die, canvassed for votes.

Pictures of the question have been going around on social media since it emerged and many have criticized the Pusiga District Assembly for the question.

The DCE says the District Education Directors were unable to go through the questions set by a private examination body due to time constraint.

According to him, the mock was to prepare candidates for the Basic Education Certificate Examinations.

It is unfortunate that the development has come to this level, because I thought we were doing this for the development of the candidates in the district, he stated.

Although he did not mention the name of the company responsible for the mishap, Alhassan Bugbilla said a private examinations body was contracted to set the examination questions.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Education Service, Rev. Jonathan Betty said the matter will be investigated.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com| Akosua Asiedua Akuffo| [email protected]
Government has dismissed as false, claims by the NPP that President Mahama's government is deliberately exposing the lives its flagbearer and his vice to danger.

The New Patriotic Party as at a press conference Thursday and in effort to explain why it brought three South Africans to trains its personal bodyguards, said it took the action because it had intelligence suggesting some persons alinged with the government were planning to attack flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo and his running mate, Dr. Mahama Bawumia and blame it on NPP internal feud.

Acting National Chairman, Freddie Blay, said having received the intelliegence, the party decided to contract the services of the South Africans renowned for exceptional skills in VIP protection to train Mr. Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia's personal bodyguards and drivers.

The arrest and detention of the three, Mr. Blay insisted, was a deliberate ploy by the NDC government to expose the NPP leaders to danger.

But in a statement issued in Accra, Communications Minister Dr. Edward Omane Boamah said the NPP's claims were malicious and false.

Please read the full statement below:

NPP's MALICIOUS AND WICKED ALLEGATIONS TO JUSTIFY THE UNTHINKABLE

Government has learnt of a press conference organised by the New Patriotic Party at which its Acting National Chairman, Freddie Blay alleged that the three South Africans and two Ghanaians arrested for activities deemed prejudicial to the security of the country were brought in, in response to an NDC-government plot to attack their presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Without prejudice to the outcome of investigations and legal processes, we wish to state as follows;

1. The claim made by Freddie Blay defies comprehension. It is both false and malicious.

This is the most puerile defence ever attempted in a serious matter as this one.

We note that since news broke of the arrest of the individuals, the NPP has rendered rumbling and incoherent responses in a bid to escape the widespread condemnation and public opprobrium they have suffered. This wicked lie, however is the most ridiculous yet and only reflects the desperation arising out of lack of leadership that has beset the NPP.

The NPP has demonstrated over the years that it prefers violence and chaos as means of addressing disputes even within their party. This has been on display over the past few years.

Leading functionaries of the NPP including their flagbearer are also on record to have made incendiary statements seeking to incite violence for purposes of attaining political power. Mr Akufo-Addos call for his party youth to resort to violence in his infamous all die be die war cry is a case in point and is not lost on Ghanaians.

President John Mahama has a proven track record of peaceful conduct and never in his political life has he encouraged violence in contrast to Mr Akufo-Addo.

The sterile attempt therefore, by the NPP to extricate itself from this potentially nation-wrecking manoeuvre through wicked-dark lies has failed.

Government is not and will never be afflicted by the intractable disease of 'hankering-after-violence'.

2. Government reiterates its commitment to taking all necessary steps to ensure the security of our people and borders and commends the countrys security agencies for their vigilance and swift action which led to the apprehension of these individuals.

We note that months before this incident they had also arrested persons transporting or possessing substantial caches of ammunition in Kumasi and Aflao. We will continue to extend the necessary assistance to the security agencies to enable them carry out their functions in a more efficient and effective manner.

3. We are also encouraged by the profuse and widespread expression of national revulsion and outrage at these attempts by the NPP to undermine our collective peace and security.

We wish all Ghanaians happy Easter and urge them to exercise restraint and caution during the period in order to avert any excesses.

Signed:

EDWARD K. OMANE BOAMAH (DR.)

(Minister)
25.03.2016 LISTEN

NOW CUDJOE THIS IS HOW THE WEST RESPECTFULLY TREATS LEADERS WHO ARE ITS ENEMIES

Journalist Michelle Jesse writes: And in addition to multi-billion dollar deals, there was another highly disturbing form of dhimmitude on display during the Iranian leaders visit to Italy. In fact, in terms of symbolism, in some ways this is even more disturbing. Its disgusting

Italy covered up marble statutes of nude Roman goddesses in order to spare the blushes of the visiting president of Iran. Much was at stake and Rome was anxious not to offend the sensibilities of Hassan RouhaniThe act of self-censorship took place at the Capitoline Museum, one of Romes richest repositories of classical art, which the president visited with Matteo Renzi, the Prime Minister.

The offending statues lines a corridor along which the delegation passed before holding a press conference. The presidents aides were also reportedly anxious that he not be photographed too close to a giant bronze statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius on horseback. The Iranians objected to what one Italian newspaper delicately described as the attributes or genitalia of the huge horse

At the function, wine was not servedagain in deference to Iranian sensibilities. Italy bowing down to the Iranians like this is embarrassingIs Italy reduced to this?The level of cultural subjection by Renzi and the Left has surpassed the limits of decencyRespect for others cultures should not mean denying our own. This is not respect, its submission

KWAME NKRUMAH AND HASSAN ROUHANI

The great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah received similar diplomatic and respect from the Kennedy administration, with President Kennedy reportedly refusing Nkrumahs request to manage an umbrella over his head when he paid an official visit to the United States. President Kennedy, it was reported, held the said umbrella over his guests head in spite of numerous objections from the security detail handling President Kennedys and his guests protection and safety. It was the same President Kennedy under whose dispensation Nkrumah obtained funding for the building of the Akosombo Dams hydroelectric project, which has sustained Ghana to date.

SCOTTISH REV. APOLOGIZES TO MAHAMA OVER MSPs GAY PROTEST

We wrote this essay before sighting Rev. David Robertsons apology to President Mahama and decided to say a word or two about it. Rev. Robertson, Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, essentially said the behavior of the minority Scottish MPs amounted to, in his own words, rudeness and discourtesy. In our opinion, however, it would have been more diplomatically appropriate if this apology had originated with the Scottish government itself or with the leader of the minority Scottish MPs.

It is important nonetheless to also note that Rev. Robertsons characterization of the MPs actions as rude, childish hypocritical and indeed came with more than an alarming tinge of racism is in order. Here, too, much as in the Italian deferential treatment of the Iranian leader, we find Tory politician Ruth Davidson and her colleagues being deferentially more accommodating and welcoming of the Chinese leader whose country only this year banned images of homosexual couples in the Chinese media, than of an African leader such as the Ghanaian president, Mr. John Dramani Mahama.

Evidently, then, the West has one set of diplomatic standards for its members running from Canada to Australia to Europe, another for Asia and South America, and an entirely different one for Africa. We wish Cudjoe had known this. Yet it seems that Cudjoe has toned down a little bit after NDC hawks and vultures heavily descended upon him like a worm-infested bitchy she-goat and after the Mahama administration agreed to privatize Electricity Corporation of Ghana (ECG). Cudjoe needs to decolonize his mind, get rid of his Eurocentric blinkers, and then try on pairs of Afrocentric spectacles for change.

After all is said and done, let us hope another formal apology comes from the Scottish government and Tory politician Ruth Davidson. Diplomacy works better this way.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You see, in this country, we are taking things for granted, noted the congenitally lying historical revisionist and Baptist pastor Prof. Mike Ocquaye, again a proverbial serial liar. In fact, weve become a laughing stock. Its being said abroad, the whole of England. This statement boldly captures our sentiments.

However, no amount of diplomatic due diligence carried out by Victor Smith could have reliably predicted and forestalled the alleged ill-treatment and heckling of President Mahama, as in the Iraqi broadcast journalist Muntader al-Zaidi throwing his shows at George W. Bush and screaming This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog, Republican Joe Wilson interrupting Barack Obamas speech by screaming You lie! at him [the president], or Putin sarcastically, dismissively, or snidely telling George Bush to the face We [Russians] certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly.

We can only hope that Cudjoe and K.B. Asante are aware that diplomacy is not an exact science.

CONCLUSION

President Mahamas and his entourages queer gallery-sitting arrangement is not any different from the ignominious backdoor treatment which White America meted out to African-American butler, Eugene Allen, in the historical drama movie, The Butler, featuring Oprah Winfrey and other high-profile cast from Forest Whitaker, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Jane Fonda, Lenny Kravitz to Robin Williams. We may also have to recall that Cuba Gooding, Jr. featured in the HBO movie Something the Lord Has Made, a film about the world-famous African-American scientist Vivien Thomas, a man who accomplished so much for the world without going beyond high school.

The so-called Baby Blue Syndrome or the Tetralogy of Fallot is associated with Thomas (see also the PBS documentary Partners of the Heart). See Katie McCabes Washingtonian Something the Lord Has Made: The Vivien Thomas Story. Thomas served drinks at conferences honoring White-American scientist Dr. Alfred Blalock, a world-leading scientist Thomas trained in part and projected onto the world stage. The Scotts treated President Mahama and his entourage similarly. Yet racism has its diabolical version in Ghana and across Africa: Ethnocentrism!

We shall return

References

Steven Lee Myers & Alissa J. Rubin. Iraqi Journalist Hurls Shoes at Bush and Denounces Him on TV as a Dog. The New York Times. December 14, 2008.

Ghanaweb. Punish Victor Smith For Mahamas Woes In ScotlandIMANI. March 19, 2016.

Ghanaweb. Some Ghanaian Ambassadors Dont Know Their JobK.B. Asante.March 21, 2016.

Henrietta Davis. Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery: The Origin And Meaning Behind Bob Marleys Redemption Song. Henrietta Vinton Davis Weblog.

Ghanaweb. MPs Misbehaviour At SOTN Address NormalInusah Fuseini.February 27, 2016.

Ghanaweb. SONA: Blame Mahama For MPs Childish Behavior. February 28, 2016.

Carter G. Woodson. The Mis-Education Of The Negro. 

Ghanaweb. Eva Lokko Angry Over "Shabby" Mahama Treatment In Scotland. March 19, 2016.
Accra, March 25, GNA - The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has signed partnership agreements with leading civil society organisationsb (CSOs) in 14 West African countries to promote press freedom.

The partnership arrangement forms part of the MFWA's efforts to build synergies and promote joint efforts to advocate for improved press freedom, freedom of expression, access to information rights and professional journalism in West Africa.

A statement issued by Mr Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Director of the MFWA, said MFWA as a regional organisation was delighted about the partnership with the leading CSOs that were doing a great work on press freedom, freedom of expression, professional journalism and right to information at the national level in their respective countries.

'Together we can strengthen each other's capacity, amplify our advocacy voice and deliver more effective region-wide advocacy for improving the lives of the people,' it said.

Some of the organisations which signed the agreement include the International Press Centre of Nigeria, the Gambia Press Union, Centre for Media Studies and Peace Building of Liberia and the Media Reform Co-ordinating Group - Sierra Leone.

The partners in the Francophone countries and Lusophone (Portuguese speaking African countries) include l'Observatoire pour la LibertA de la Presse, de l'Ethique et de la DAontologie, Cote d'Ivoire; Regroupement de la Presse Mauritanienne of Mauritania and Journalists contre la Corruption et pour la Promotion de la Bonne Governance, Guinea.

The statement said MFWA had already positioned correspondents who were to monitor and report on freedom of expression issues in those West African countries.

It said the agreement was expected to boost the MFWA's efforts to undertake many more projects in the 14 countries.

The collaboration with the CSOs would help consolidate the presence and impact not only of the MFWA but also the partners across the sub-region as well as raise their profiles as the most influential freedom of expression organisations in West Africa.

GNA
Accra, March 25, GNA - Management of GhanaVeg, which seeks to improve and sustain vegetable productivity in Ghana, has launched the 2016 Ghana Vegetable Sector Business Opportunities Report at its Business platform meeting in Accra.

The report provided in-depth analyses of the domestic vegetable sector; an analyses for private extension services, as well as business case for a medium-size and a professional export farms.

It also shed light on how to combat the recent phytosanity problem, especially related to the false codling moth and white fly.

The event was on the theme: 'Getting the Basics Right - Agronomic Practices and Private Extension.'

Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, launching the report, commended the efforts of GhanaVeg and its partners for their application of world-class agronomic practices in the sector.

He said the exercise of safe, sound and responsible practices in the cultivation of vegetable was to a large extent the only way to guarantee sustainability of the vegetable value-chain.

The Minister said government, through MOFA, intended to continue to collaborate with key stakeholders within the industry to ensure responsibility.

He said it was the inability of farmers to handle the basics that landed the country into the temporary freeze on some selected vegetable for export into the EU market.

'Much has been lost in terms of foreign exchange inflows, income for farmers and employment for the teaming youth,' he said.

Alhaji Limuna said the Ministry's collaboration with GhanaVeg and other partners in the development of the Green Label initiative would improve good agriculture practices and gave the assurance of the safety of vegetables and other food crops to the consuming public.

He said the private sectors' participation was urgently required to anchor the robust domestic and international markets that should soon emerge from the confluence of efforts being applied.

Ms Cecilia Wijgers, the Acting Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, said with the new report, stakeholders expected that vegetable companies would have the required information to expand their businesses.

She said while the first report focused more on the export of vegetables, the current report paid much attention to post-harvest innovations.

'The report proposes options for fresh delivery systems that bring quality vegetable closer to the consumers,' she said.

Mr Joep Van de Broek, the GhanaVeg Programme Leader, said: 'We want to scale up our activities so that most commercial vegetable farmers are reached by our new modules.'

He said GhanaVeg had supported a large number of agro-input companies and out-growers schemes to increase training for their farmers.

'We believe that Ghana is ready for a demand driven commercial vegetable extension service,' he said.

He encouraged stakeholders to apply for GhanaVeg funds in the area of private extension, innovation, irrigation and protected horticulture among other things.

The Business platform, which was part of a quarterly series of meetings, was attended by over 150 vegetable sector professionals.

GNA
you are here:
March 25, 2016

Roundup Of Current News On Syria

In January the Jordan King Abdullah talked to a bunch of U.S. lawmakers behind closed doors. He accused Turkey of willfully transferring "refugees" and terrorists to Europe and of doing oil business with ISIS.

Those well founded accusations is not new for anyone who actually followed the issue. What is new is that some U.S. lawmaker felt a need to leak this now:

King Abdullah of Jordan accused Turkey of exporting terrorists to Europe at a top level meeting with senior US politicians in January, the MEE can reveal. The king said Europes biggest refugee crisis was not an accident, and neither was the presence of terrorists among them: The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook. Asked by one of the congressmen present whether the Islamic State group was exporting oil to Turkey, Abdullah replied: Absolutely.

...

The king presented Turkey as part of a strategic challenge to the world. "We keep being forced to tackle tactical problems against ISIL but not the strategic issue. We forget the issue [of] the Turks who are not with us on this strategically." He claimed that Turkey had not only supported religious groups in Syria, and letting foreign fighters in, but had also been helping Islamist militias in Libya and Somalia. Abdullah claimed that "radicalisation was being manufactured in Turkey" and asked the US senators why the Turks were training the Somali army.

That Turkey is supporting Jihadis not only in Syria but also in Libya and in the Balkans has been documented but was missing from main stream news. We can hope that some of the bigger media will now pick up on this.

In Syria the Syrian Arab Army is proceeding to envelope the Islamic State held city of Tadmur/Palmyra. It is systematically taking the heights around the city but has not yet brought the fighting deeper into the city. The Islamic State fighters have defended well so far but have no means to counter the heavy Syrian and Russian air strikes that support the ground troops. They are losing a lot of men. There are strong sandstorms announced for the next 72 hour which will make further air support impossible. The Syrian troops would be well advised to hunker down along defensible lines for now and to only take on the city once the sandstorms are over and air support is again available.

In south-west Syria, right next to the Israeli and Jordan border, Shuhada al-Yarmouk is fighting and making gains (map) against U.S. supported insurgents. Shuhada al-Yarmouk is believed to be part of the Islamic State. It has never officially announced such but is led by a known Islamic State commander. One wonders how the group, completely cut off from other Islamic State held areas in east-Syria, can resupply and take care of its wounded. In the past Israel had supported and supplied Jabhat al-Nusra fighters on the Golan heights against the Syrian army. Is it now supporting the Islamic State against U.S. supported insurgents in south Syria?

The talks between Secretary of State Kerry and The Russian President and Foreign Minister have brought no immediate new results. But it is important to see that the U.S. now has to admit that its attempt to "isolate" Russia has failed:

His mission in Moscow centred on Syria, but Kerry also ushered in a warm front, interpreted as a softening of the often-hostile rhetoric between the U.S. and Russia.

Both parties confirmed the UN timetable for steps to be taken by the Syrian government and the opposition. The Russians again emphasized that the Kurdish people in Syria must be involved in the talks. At the same time they warned the Syrian Kurds that any element of autonomy or federation will likely be much less than they envision:

MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. Moscow is explaining in its contacts with Kurds that Syria is an indivisible country that should not be broken into parts, Russia's presidential envoy on the Middle East and North Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told reporters on Friday.

One should ignore all the claims that Russia wants to federalize Syria. I see no evidence for that and I believe that Russia knows well that any federalization would be more troublesome than a centralized Syrian state.

Posted by b on March 25, 2016 at 17:00 UTC | Permalink

Comments
In my high school jazz band, our guitar player might or might not have been very good  it was hard to know because during breaks all he ever played was that opening lick to Sweet Home Alabama. He wasnt from Alabama. None of us were. But, like millions of folks around the world, when we hear that lick and Ronnie Van Zandt tell somebody  everybody  to turn it up, we all become Alabamans. We can migrate out of our tribe when some unifying event connects us to those of another tribe.

Tragedies historically connect us to victims who have suffered a great injustice, senseless violence, or a natural disaster. Probably the most famous I am statement from recent history was President Kennedys response to the Berlin Wall: Ich bin ein Berliner, or "I am one with Berlin" (no, it does not mean I am a jelly doughnut). On Sept. 12, 2001, the French paper Le Monde declared, Nous Sommes Tous Americains  "We Are All Americans." In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, people around the world, particularly artists, declared, Je Suis Charlie  "I Am Charlie." This past autumn, the world responded to the Paris terrorist attacks by claiming, We are all Parisians. This weeks terrorist attack in Brussels has us proclaiming that we are all Belgian.

The problem with that statement is that the we doesn't exactly hold together. Most can recognize the insanity of the terrorists actions, though there are some so-called American patriots who think that violence against entire groups they dislike is justified. There are others, leading politicians in fact, who claim the Constitution is inviolable except when it applies to Muslims and Muslim neighborhoods. I wonder, according to those politicians, what rights does the Constitution give the more than 5,000 Muslims who serve in the U.S. military? Its easy to say that one stands with those who have suffered an injustice, but it is hypocritical to speak out against injustice with one side of ones mouth while promoting injustice with the other. In our crazy political environment, politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths is easily heard as a call to dangerous action.

If I use the word we, I am telling only a half truth because while I share the outrage and compassion for those who have suffered violence, I am at the same time sickened by the response of some others who say that they, too, stand with Belgium  I cannot stand together with those who would oppress my friends.

Four years ago, I met John, the Imam of one of the local mosques. I was there as part of an interfaith program in town, but I knew I was there to learn. As we got to know each other, our common love of southern rock, particularly Lynyrd Skynyrd for him, emerged. I asked John if he was from Alabama. He said that he was from Oklahoma but that hed been through Alabama once. He smiled and said that, yes, he played Lynyrd Skynyrd all the way through. We started talking about whether the Black Crowes or Guns n Roses saved rock music in the '80s, the role of Grunge in moving people back to real rock, and various other pointless subjects that helped us get to know each other.

Over the years, John and I became friends and shared many conversations about our families and our congregations. We shared public conversations about our respective faiths. I invited him to pray at a worship service at my church and to have a conversation with a class at my church. Several times, he invited a group of our young adults to his mosque to share meals. Whenever I call him, he always answers with great enthusiasm, Hello my brother! When we say goodbye, we both say, Peace be with you.

This week, something that he said in one of the discussions that he led at my church came surging into my memory, pushing out all other sounds, like a Marshall stack at a rock show: The Beatitudes of Jesus  peace be upon him  are as central to Islam as they are to Christianity. Blessed are the peacemakers is what we believe, too. In the same way that there are Christians who dont make peace, there are Muslims who dont make peace. But this is what we believe.

It should not be lost on anyone of Christian faith, especially in the week of Easter, our most important annual celebration, that Jesus was considered by some to be weak because he refused to join a revolution against Rome. What he taught is what he intended for his followers to practice. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) is the first part of his most significant sermon. In it he tells his followers who to identify with: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. These are we to Jesus, so he asks his followers to do more than change our Facebook background to the flag colors of France or Belgium  he asks his followers to put themselves on the line as the merciful, as peacemakers, even if that means persecution.

After this weeks terrorist attack in Belgium, some presidential candidates can't resist the urge to ignore the teachings of Jesus, but I expect they will show their piety by celebrating Easter.

For my part, Id rather be part of the same tribe with Jesus and my Imam friend. Ill never hear Sweet Home Alabama the same way ever again, because it reminds me of my friend. Im not saying that Im not a hypocrite or that I am always to practice what Jesus taught. But on Easter morning, I will think of John and I will think of what Jesus taught when I turn it up!

Jonathan Henley is the host of Road Signs radio show, which airs Sunday nights from 10 p.m. to midnight on 1065 The End. Contact Henley via email at roadsigns@1065.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/roadsignsradio. Read past columns and join his blog at www.1065.com/onair/road-signs-51152/.
CHARLOTTE  Thousands of violent criminals are off the streets, thanks to a huge operation by the U.S. Marshals Service.

For the second consecutive year, the U.S. Marshals Service has conducted a high-impact national fugitive apprehension initiative focusing on the countrys most violent offenders. This six-week initiative, called Operation Violence Reduction12, or Operation VR12, resulted in the arrest of more than 173 fugitives, gang members, sex offenders and violent criminals, clearing over 280 active warrants, within the Western District of North Carolina, according to to a press release from the U.S. Marshals Service.

U.S. Marshal for the Western District of North Carolina, Kelly M. Nesbit said, Our district focused on conducting these operations in Buncombe, Burke, Catawba, Gaston, Lincoln, Mecklenburg and Rutherford counties. These counties were chosen, due to the number of outstanding warrants in these locations. During these operations, our district coordinated efforts with other federal, state and local partners, which proved to be very successful in removing numerous dangerous individuals from our streets.

We applied a strategically focused approach to locate and apprehend the nations most dangerous fugitives. By removing these violent offenders from the streets, the communities they preyed upon can immediately feel more secure. said U.S. Marshals Service Deputy Director David Harlow. Operation VR12 was about using our expertise and law enforcement partnerships to significantly impact our communities by focusing on the worst of the worst violent criminals.

In order to have the greatest impact on violent crime, Operation VR12 focused on fugitives who had three or more prior felony arrests for crimes such as murder, attempted murder, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, abduction/kidnapping, weapon offenses, sexual assault, child molestation and narcotics. Operation VR12 investigators increased their focus on fugitives accused of sex crimes and on the recovery of missing children, according to the release.

Nationally, between February 1 and March 11, the U.S. Marshals Service used its multijurisdictional investigative authority and fugitive task force network to arrest 648 gang members and others wanted on charges including 559 for homicide; and 946 for sexual offenses, the release said.

In addition, investigators seized 463 firearms, $390,360 in currency, and more than 71 kilograms of illegal narcotics. Also during the operation, investigators recovered 17 children who had been abducted and reported missing, according to the release.

During Operation VR12, there were six fugitives arrested for homicide, 11 validated gang

members and 10 previously convicted sex offenders were arrested, for other violent crimes, within the Western District of North Carolina. Additionally, there were 19 firearms recovered from convicted felons, during Operation VR12, the release said.

Fugitives have a propensity to commit violent criminal acts posing danger to communities and plaguing neighborhoods where we live and work. said Harlow. Working with our federal, state, and local partners, enforcement initiatives like Operation VR12 severely cripple these criminal activities.

The concept behind interagency law enforcement operations such as Operation VR12 evolved largely from regional and district task forces. Since the 1980s, the Marshals Service has combined their resources and expertise with local, state and federal agencies to find and apprehend dangerous fugitives, according to press release.

For more information, visit www.usmarshals.gov.
DC Comics two biggest superheroes finally battle on the big screen to mixed results

Thats right, super guy  this suit wont rust out in the rain like Iron Jerks! Batman (Ben Affleck) prepares to face off against Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman (Henry Cavill) in a scene from director Zack Snyders superhero epic BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. Credit: Clay Enos  &  DC Comics.  2016 Warner Bros. Pictures and Ratpac-Dune Entertainment and Ratpac Entertainment LLC. All rights reserved.

Clay Enos / TM &  DC Comics





WATCH THE TRAILER(S) HERE:











KEY CAST MEMBERS: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Ben Affleck, Jesse Eisenberg, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane  And a few other people in smaller yet notable roles



WRITER(S): Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer (screenplay); Bob Kane and Bill Finger (characters); Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster (characters)





DIRECTOR(S): Zack Snyder





WEB SITE: http://batmanvsuperman.dccomics.com/

60 SECOND PLOT SUMMARY (OR AS CLOSE TO THAT TIME AS ONE CAN MAKE IT): Following up on the events found in director Zack Snyders previous effort Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice finds mankind at odds with the godlike figure that protects them from evil  Who they fear in turn could wipe them all out at a given moment should he choose to do so. This is why billionaire Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. the masked caped crusader better known to criminals throughout Gotham City as Batman (Ben Affleck) is worried about all of the damage and destruction Superman is capable of causing. Bruces fears are elevated when Superman (Henry Cavill) shows up on the scene of a supposed terrorist in Africa where journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams)  has been taken hostage. Considering that Lois is the girlfriend of Supermans alter ego Clark Kent, however, it shouldnt come as a surprise that the Krytonian came to rescue her. Of course, Superman has his own concerns about the armored vigilante that is seemingly running around Metropolis, taking the law into his own hands  or in some cases, permanently onto his victims bodies.





But what might come as a surprise is who set up the whole scenario and why  But lets just say the offspring of a certain well-known businessman (Jesse Eisenberg) might have a very dastardly plan up his sleeve that might just take out all super-powered people  human and alien  alike.





That is, of course, if the worlds greatest detective and the adopted son of a farmer from Kansas dont destroy each other first 





WHO WILL LIKE THIS FILM THE MOST? Henry Cavill fans; people who have longed to see a film set-up the arrival of D.C. Comics Justice League franchise; people who enjoy extended fight sequences in superhero movies; those who have wanted Lex Luthor to be portrayed with less of a campy villainy to him





WHO WONT (OR SHOULDNT) LIKE THIS MOVIE? People who dont like Ben Affleck and/or Jesse Eisenberg; people growing tired of the brooding superhero thing; anyone who has found Zack Snyders previous works too bombastic; those who want their characters presented in more traditional than modern means; those who may become bored over the films two-and-a-half-hours with all the over-the-top exposition of the plot; anyone suffering from superhero movie hangover; those who just find the whole idea of Superman vs. Batman ludicrous, even in a comic book-inspired world

SO, IS IT GOOD, BAD OR ABSOLUTELY AWFUL? A film that will certainly entertain many while making others entertain the idea of certainly not watching another film in the franchise, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice does enough things well to make it watchable  Even if it isnt exactly a marvel of a start for franchise universe of costumed superheroes and villains.





The things that B V S does well are fine, but they often come off with the classic mixed bag role of effectiveness: While hes going to be polarizing no matter what he does simply by being in the film, Affleck does a decent job as portraying Batman as a man steadfast in his cause who truly believes in what hes doing to the point that even if you dont like him personally, you have to give him credit for his dedication to the role. Likewise, the addition of Jeremy Irons in a Lucius Fox (remember when Morgan Freeman was in those three Batman movies Christopher Nolan did?) role as Batmans key assistant can be viewed as a breath of fresh air  Provided that you dont find Irons portrayal as droll as his character apparently views some of his boss evening pursuits. Eisenberg, who discussed the advanced criticism of his casting as Lex Luthor during his visit to Cincinnati this January, does a fine job of making the role as the new antagonist for Superman and the Bat as he calls him his own. Whether or not you are ready for a hipster (or at least one that is much more a hipster than not as you could picture him on a half pipe at the X-Games or at an Arcade Fire concert more easily than any Luthor prior) version of him, however, remains to be seen Likewise, some might find the critical (in terms of the story) inclusions of Diane Lane as Ma Kent, Adams as Lois Lane and Gal Gadot as Ms. Diana Prince a.k.a. a famous hot pants-wearing woman of wonder in the 70s re-imagined as a more mysterious super meta-human here as good moves. For each has a vital role to the plot and each plays their respective role well  Some, however, might be a bit taken aback at just how involved one of those three is in the unfolding events during the films climax  and it aint gonna be the one youd think would make the most sense. Eisenberg, who discussed the advanced criticism of his casting as Lex Luthor during his visit to Cincinnati this January, does a fine job of making the role as the new antagonist for Superman and the Bat as he calls him his own. Whether or not you are ready for a hipster (or at least one that is much more a hipster than not as you could picture him on a half pipe at the X-Games or at an Arcade Fire concert more easily than any Luthor prior) version of him, however, remains to be seen Likewise, some might find the critical (in terms of the story) inclusions of Diane Lane as Ma Kent, Adams as Lois Lane and Gal Gadot as Ms. Diana Prince a.k.a. a famous hot pants-wearing woman of wonder in the 70s re-imagined as a more mysterious super meta-human here as good moves. For each has a vital role to the plot and each plays their respective role well  Some, however, might be a bit taken aback at just how involved one of those three is in the unfolding events during the films climax  and it aint gonna be the one youd think would make the most sense. In short, it used to be an old standard that it was impossible to make everyone happy when it came to movies, especially those based on comic books. While Marvel has pretty much taken that idea and thrown it out the window, movies like Green Lantern (yeah, I DID like it) and last summers debacle Fantastic Four (NO ONE likes that movie  NO ONE) prove that it still rings as true as any good cliche would. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice isnt going to end that debate any time soon, but perhaps that was the point: By creating a film with so many different things going on at once, its guaranteed to at least get people talking about the film enough to pique most peoples interests  Heres to hoping the inevitable and already well on its way Justice League film it sets up doesnt leave audiences feeling like a hung jury as much as this one might.





OVERALL RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN): Tabari McCoy (http://mccoyonmovies.blogspot.com)
Local hula group inspires global connections When the pandemic ushered everyone indoors, Moorpark resident and longtime dancer Lisa Rauschenberger decided to get people back outsidesocially distanced, of course. She began to hold weekly hula lessons at...

Teens face high stakes in the Oval Office A press room befitting Americas commander in chief was set up inside the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Journalists and others gathered inside. Ladies and gentlemen, I need you all...

Tigers soon to prowl in new enclosure The brand-new Bengal tiger exhibit at Americas Teaching Zoo at Moorpark College is nearly complete, and some other animals hangouts are getting a makeover, too. Mara Rodriguez, zoo development coordinator,...
MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. (AP)  Crews were trying to get a foothold Thursday against wildfires that have scorched hundreds of square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas and led residents of some small communities to flee their homes.

Strong winds were fanning the flames, and firefighters haven't been able to establish effective containment lines yet, the Oklahoma Forestry Services said. Gusts of 50 mph fed the fires Wednesday, but the winds were expected to die down to about 10 mph by sunset Thursday, the National Weather Service reported. Smoke was reportedly detected as far away as St. Louis, hundreds of miles to the northeast.

In Barber County, Kansas, which is southwest of Wichita along the state's southern border with Oklahoma, crews were trying extinguish a 30- to 40-mile line of fire. Darcy Golliher, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Incident Management Team, said that blaze is expected to last through Friday, but that there hopefully would be only a few hot spots to monitor over the weekend.

"It will all depend on the wind," she said.

On Wednesday, the blaze came close to Medicine Lodge, destroying two homes on the outskirts of the Barber County community of about 2,000 residents. Voluntary evacuation orders issued there earlier were lifted Thursday afternoon. Voluntary evacuations were also sought for the small towns of Sun City and Lake City.

Medicine Lodge Memorial Hospital was evacuated, sending 12 patients to a nursing home and two others to a nearby hospital. The hospital kept its emergency room open and treated one firefighter and one member of the public for smoke inhalation.

On Thursday, Sherry and Craig Prothe were packing clothing and keepsakes into two cars at their home south of Medicine Lodge, where they could see smoke from the fire.

"We're not trying for big stuff," Sherry Prothe said. "We're trying for the mementoes."

They said the fire reduced their elderly neighbors' home to just a chimney, but that they felt a bit more confident that their home would survive because it is surrounded by green wheat fields rather than dry land. But they said they hadn't decided whether they'll leave the home yet.

"Our saving grace is the wheat is still green," Sherry Prothe said.

With conditions "not as intense" and more crews arriving, firefighters were able to "get out there and really attack the fire" on Thursday, said Shawna Hartman, the spokesman for the Kansas Forest Service.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback declared a state of disaster emergency for some areas, which freed up resources that could be used to assist. He planned to discuss the fires at an afternoon news conference.

In Comanche County, just west of Barber County, the wind blew embers that reignited the fire Thursday morning after it had been brought under control late Wednesday, said John Lehman, Comanche County Emergency Management coordinator.

"The wind blows things around," he said. "It hits dry grass and away it goes."

In Burrton, which is about 30 miles northwest of Wichita, grass fires burned one home and forced the evacuation of others, and killed several head of livestock, the Harvey County sheriff's office said in a news release. That fire had been controlled later Thursday.

In Oklahoma, the fire was moving toward the city of Alva, population about 5,000, although no evacuations were immediately ordered, said Mark Goeller, fire management chief of Oklahoma Forestry Services.

In Texas, where strong winds and low humidity created ideal fire conditions, some people were evacuated Wednesday from their homes in Skellytown, about 45 miles northeast of Amarillo, but were allowed to return after a few hours, said Linda Moon, Texas A&M Forest Service spokesman.

The fire also forced the closure of a stretch of U.S. 160 and U.S. 281 in Kansas and briefly a section of Interstate 40 in Texas. Scattered power outages have been reported.
BRUSSELS (AP)  Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's attacks by Islamic militants.

"We don't have to be proud about what happened," Justice Minister Koen Geens said of the government's failures to halt the attacks. "We perhaps did things we should not have done, at the same time."

Authorities, meanwhile, lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch, although they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible."

Belgium had been on its highest alert ever since Tuesday's bombings in the Brussels airport and subway that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

Less than a mile from the bombed subway station, European justice and home ministers held an emergency meeting where they condemned the "terrorist acts" as "an attack on our open, democratic society." They also urged the European parliament to adopt an agreement allowing authorities to exchange airport passenger data.

A manhunt continued for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene.

Prosecutors declined to comment on reports from Belgian state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde and BFM television that a fifth attacker may also be at large: A man seen on surveillance cameras in the Brussels metro carrying a large bag alongside one of the suicide bombers. It is not clear whether that man was killed in the attack or is a fugitive.

Authorities drew a line between the Brussels bombings and the Nov. 13 attacks that left 130 dead in Paris. Both appeared to have been carried out by the same Belgium-based Islamic State cell.

Prosecutors have said at least four people were involved in the Brussels bloodshed, including brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, identified as suicide bombers. European security officials identified another suicide bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a suspected bombmaker for the Paris attacks.

Khalid El Bakraoui blew himself up on the train, while Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Laachraoui died in the airport.

It is clear that some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks.

"If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions," about the government's performance, said Interior Minister Jan Jambon, who along with Geens had tendered his resignation.

Notable among the questions were those raised by Turkey's announcement it had warned Belgium last year that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter."

But Prime Minister Charles Michel asked Jambon and Geens to stay on, given the current challenge the government is facing.

Turkey said Wednesday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was apprehended in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands. He was later set free by the Dutch for lack of proof of his involvement with jihadis.

Geens appeared on a Belgian TV news show and was asked who was to blame for the failure to follow up on the Turkish warning.

"It is clear it is not one single person, but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things."

"Our own services should perhaps have been more critical about the place where the person had been detained," he added, referring to Turkey's border area with Syria.

"When someone is arrested there in a city few people know, it is clear enough for insiders that it could be a terrorist," Geens said. "Here, though, he was not known as a terrorist. It is the only moment we could have linked him to it. And that moment, perhaps, we missed."

The justice minister acknowledged that "we have to be very self-critical."

But Geens added that "such events have also happened in nations with the best intelligence services in the world," pointing to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Authorities had been unable to find Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris ringleaders and described as one of Europe's most wanted men, until a breakthrough led them to a Brussels apartment where he was arrested Friday.

The intelligence shortcomings have prompted European authorities to once again call for quicker and more efficient intelligence cooperation.

Rob Wainwright, the head of Europe's police agency Europol, said his agency is trying to make sure investigators have access to needed information.

"You have a fragmented intelligence picture but we're trying to help with that," he said. "Our databases contain thousands of names of suspected foreign fighters which have been submitted by member states, and even the United States. But we also have records on arms smuggling, money laundering, forgery and other elements which are particularly relevant given that many of these guys had petty crime backgrounds."

He said the threat goes beyond France and Belgium and that it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

"We are looking at large numbers of foreign fighters who have returned as potential terrorists," he said. "And we are faced with a strategic decision by the Islamic State to aggressively target Europe. These are all very challenging dimensions. As for how large the community is and who has been sent back - that is the golden question."

The federal prosecutors' office said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented a house used as a hideout for the Paris attackers, and that he had been hunted by police since December.

Also Thursday, Abdeslam was summoned to court in Brussels. His lawyer, who had initially vowed to fight extradition to France for the Paris attacks, said he now wants to be sent there as soon as possible.

Abdeslam evaded police in two countries for four months before his capture, and the attackers in Brussels may have rushed their plot because they felt authorities closing in.

Abdeslam's lawyer, Sven Mary, told reporters that he asked for a one-month delay on any transfer while he studies the large dossier, but that Abdeslam "wants to explain himself in France, so it's a good thing."

Mary said the extradition process should be completed by mid-April.

While Belgium lowered its threat level, it said the potential for attacks remains likely. "The danger has not gone away," said Paul Van Tigchelt, the head of the terror assessment authority.

Nevertheless, several hundred people gathered at a makeshift memorial to the victim in Brussels' central Place de La Bourse. They sang peace songs, took selfies and wiped away tears.

Ashraf, a Moroccan-born Muslim who is proud to call himself a Bruxellois, or a Brussels resident, came to light a candle and take photos of the memorial site with his mother, father, aunt and brother.

"It always happens, that people ask Muslims 'why do you do this?' But that is not real Islam," he said. "We must have more understanding of this."

Because of the climate of suspicion, and because he wanted to protect his family, Ashraf didn't want his last name published.

Yet he still came to the Place de la Bourse to celebrate this multicultural city.

"This is a special country, it is open. I know people of many, dozens of nationalities," he said. Behind him, flags or symbols from a dozen countries adorned the square.
Frances Bean Cobain has filed for divorce from her husband, the Eeries' Isaiah Silva, after only 21 months of marriage, looking to protect her inheritance and citing irreconcilable differences, according to court papers.

As reported by People, Cobain, 23, has said Silva should not receive of any of the money she'll inherit from the estate of her late father, Kurt Cobain, which is valued at $450 million. Court papers say any assets from their premarital relationship will be returned to Cobain as separate property, and the inheritance from her dad falls under this category.

Cobain and Silva have always kept their relationship out of the spotlight, although they had been in a relationship for five before getting married June 29, 2014. She is said to be willing to pay spousal support to Silva.

Another notable event surrounding the wedding of Cobain and Silva was that mother Courtney Love wasnt invited. The wedding was reported to be small, with only about 15 guests in attendance.

Following the wedding, a source told E! News: Courtney loves Isaiah, but was devastated that Frances had gotten married without her knowing. Courtney really likes Isaiah and is very happy for Frances. Courtney is sad she wasnt at the wedding.

The source added that, Frances called her after, but Courtney understands why she did it. Frances needs a man in her life and has always craved stability. Shes found it in Isaiah. This has not caused a rift between mom and daughter. Courtney was sad, but shes cool and Isaiah is a great son-in-law.

While the wedding had been a surprise for some, Cobain had reportedly been planning the event for over a year.

 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Jessica Biel was nothing but smiles when she stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show for a Thursday (March 24) taping. The actress gushed about motherhood, shot down lingering pregnancy rumors, and explained why she loves her husband, Justin Timberlake's, music so much.

In April 2015, Biel and Timberlake welcomed their son, Silas Randall, into the world. With his first birthday kicking off next month, the new parents have had their hands full with enjoying new experiences with their bundle of joy.

Fans have also basked in the excitement surrounding the birth of baby Silas, so much so, they're already expecting the celebrity couple to work on baby number two. When asked about the pregnancy allegations, the 34-year-old Minnesota native generated cheers from the crowd as she playfully joked about having a bun in the oven. Biel then made it clear, she was not pregnant.

A photo posted by Justin Timberlake (@justintimberlake) on Apr 19, 2015 at 5:12pm PDT

"I don't even know what to say about these things," Biel said on the show. "I feel like, I thought I was doing good with my yoga practice. I thought I was in the gym, but no, I have a gut apparently."

Silas is slowly beginning to develop a personality all his own, which includes a love for music. Biel admitted to being a huge fan of her husband's music and made sure to introduce their son to Timberlake's music at a very early age.

While he was still in her womb, Biel took Silas to more than 40 Timberlake concerts. He's also a big fan of Erykah Badu, citing his favorite thing to do is eat to her music. Silas explores his musical talents through instruments like the piano and the drums, which he plays with his head.

"I listen to [Timberlake's] music probably more than I should. It's maybe slightly creepy," Biel said . "I love his music. I literally am probably [his] No. 1 fan, I would say. And Silas loves his music, so I want him to hear it a lot. We listen to it in the car a lot."

The Ellen DeGeneres Show airs weekdays at 4 p.m. EST on NBC.

 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Do you continuously find yourself trying to find the right playlist for your weekend? Look no further, Music Times is teaming up with different musicians each week and having them curate a Spotify playlist especially for you. Each week we will be bringing in a new artist and have them put together something special that you can listen to from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.

Dutch DJ and producer Mike Williams may only be 18 but he has already caught the eye of Dutch dance icon Tiesto, who quickly snatched him up and signed him to his label Musical Freedom. The pair met at Amsterdam Dance Event this past October and have remained in contact since then, where the idea for a "cool track" came about. It was premiered at Ultra Music Festival, an experience he called "awesome" though he was nervous before going on stage. "I'm also very happy with the good responses on the track," he notes.

He got his start DJing when he was 14. "I played at some local venues and got to know more people in the DJ scene. Then I started focusing more on producing music and that turned out to be a good decision," says Williams to Music Times.

Coming up he has more productions and a load of gigs in 2016.

The playlist has a mix of tracks ranging from those that rocked the main stage at Ultra like Axwell's "Barricade" and Tom & Jane "Burn Down" to those looking ahead to summer pool parties from The Him, Throttle, Oliver Heldens and Don Diablo. Since it is his playlist, there are of course two new ones from Mike Williams himself including his new record on Musical Freedom "Sweet & Sour" and a remix of Oliver Heldens collab with Tiesto "The Right Song."

"I often play some these songs during my shows," says Williams about his track selection. "I combined them with tracks I like to listen when I'm home or with my friends. I really like the vibe and some of them are very unique."

Hit play and get your weekend started!

 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
We have independently selected these offers and products because we love them and we think you might like them at these prices. E! has affiliate relationships, so we may earn a commission if you buy something through our links. Items are
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As part of the annual Food Connection Week observance, Hale County Farm Bureau will have representatives in Abernathy beginning at noon Saturday, April 23, cooking hamburgers and selling them for the farmers portion of the normal cost of the meal.

Proceeds from the burger sales, along with a significant donation from Farm Bureau, will go to the Abernathy Volunteer Fire Department.

Texas Food Connection Week is an opportunity for the farmers and ranchers who make up Texas Farm Bureau to reach out to our customers, explains Bobby Byrd, Hale County Farm Bureau agency manager. Texans want to know where their food comes from, and many want to meet the men and women who grow it. Consumers have questions, and we want to help answer their concerns and curiosities.

Formerly Food Check-Out Week, Texas Food Connection Week was established to connect farmers and ranchers with consumers and initiate discussions about agriculture and food-related issues, including affordability, nutrition, food safety, animal welfare, profitability and productivity.

Food connects us all  from the rancher in West Texas to the young family living in one of our biggest cities, adds Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke. Were looking forward to meeting our customers and sharing about this vocation and lifestyle that we love.

Byrd noted that Abernathy VFD currently is working to enhance fire protection in Cotton Center by stationing a fire truck staffed by local volunteers in that community. Taking that move will greatly reduce response times to fires and other emergencies in and around Cotton Center, Byrd notes.

Texas Food Connection Week draws attention to both the reliability, quality and value Americans receive for food produced by the American farmer as well as the valuable service provided by their volunteer firefighters, he said.
TEMPLE - Rural Business Cooperative-Service Administrator Sam Rikkers has announced that USDA is seeking applications for loans and grants to help support the start-up or expansion of rural businesses.

Our small, rural businesses need financing to compete in the global economy, Rikkers said. With this announcement, USDA is demonstrating its continued commitment to investing in small towns and rural communities. These loans and grants will spur entrepeneurship, create jobs and improve the quality of life in rural America.
After completing Marine boot camp in San Diego, California, Chris Vega earlier this month was able to return to Plainview for a week of whirlwind visits with family and friends before continuing his military training.

Vega, 19, graduated from Plainview High School last May as part of the PHS Class of 2015. A few months later, on Dec. 7, he reported to the U.S. Marine Corps as a new recruit.

When he got home after basic training, Chris looked so proud in his dress uniform, says his mother, Lupe Corrales. He wanted to visit all his family, and I wanted to let them see how good he looked in that uniform.

And of course, one of those visits had to be with Lupes mother, Maria De La Luz Corrales of Hart, even though she died three years ago.

It was important to him because they were so very close, Lupe said Thursday. She helped raise him and his brother.

As a result, Chris and his mother make a trip over to Hart late one a Wednesday afternoon.

It was cloudy and cold and wanting to rain as we were driving by Hart, but he still wanted to stop. As he was standing there looking at her headstone, I pulled out my phone so I could get a quick picture and it really came out perfect. That photo captures the moment, and shows just how close Chris was to his grandmother.

Lupe Corrales is a longtime Walmart Distribution Center employee, and while Chris and older brother Eric, now 21, were growing up, her mother was their regular babysitter.

She really helped raise my babies, taking care of them especially when I was working the weekend shift.

Chris has long held a strong affinity with older people, as indicated by his willingness to help deliver Meals on Wheels. Lupe has been a Meals on Wheels volunteer for more than a dozen years and normally takes care of Route 7 - the Village Apartments on Joliet near Coronado Middle School.

Even when he was young, Chris loved to help me deliver the meals.

Kim Horne, Meals on Wheels coordinator, adds, Lupe Corrales is a longtime Meals on Wheels volunteer and her son, Chris, often helped him . . . Chris is such an outstanding young man and I think so much of both him and his mother, Lupe.

Lupes mother Maria Corrales, was 73 when she died Dec. 20, 2012, and is buried in Hart Cemetery.
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Wayland Baptist University will present Freuds Last Session by Mark St. Germain March 31-April 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Black Box studio theater in Waylands Harral Memorial Auditorium.

The show is a return to the stage for Dr. Marti Runnels, dean of the School of Fine Arts at Wayland, who will portray Dr. Sigmund Freud as he is visited by C.S. Lewis, played by WBU alum Cory Norman. Charles Pepiton, also a Wayland graduate, is directing the play.

Freuds Last Session is a two-man play that Bloomberg News has called Delightful! A brainy fencing match of Olympic caliber. It centers on Freud, who invited the young, rising Oxford Don C.S. Lewis to his home in London. On the day that England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash about love, sex, the existence of God, and the meaning of life.

I think if people allow themselves they will find themselves at one point or another saying, I have thought that. Ive had that exact same thought, Runnels said. It gets down there and wades in the water of doubt, among other things. What do you do with these questions that are unresolved?

Runnels is no stranger to C.S. Lewis on the stage, having played Lewis in productions of Shadowlands. This time, however, he will tackle the portrayal of Freud while Norman takes the roll of a younger Lewis.

Cory was in one of those iterations of Shadowlands, Runnels said. So its his turn to play Lewis.

Norman actually introduced Runnels to the show. He did the show while working at Theatre 3 in Dallas.

It was always one of my favorite shows that we did in Dallas, said Norman, who is currently the graduate recruitment and admissions coordinator for Texas Tech Universitys School of Theatre and Dance. I always thought it would be a good show for this audience at Wayland.

Norman recommended to show the Runnels over lunch after church one Sunday. Runnels, who was unfamiliar with it, ordered the script and fell in love with the play.

I loved the script, loved the challenge of the ideas in the script, he said.

Runnels said he also loves the challenge of playing an aging Austrian neurologist, the father of psychoanalysis, having never been cast as a character this old or one with an Austrian accent. And while the play tackles tough questions and the conflict between two powerhouse thinkers who come from completely different world views, it is not without its lighter side.

It has its funny moments, Norman said. There are big ideas thrown out, but at the same time it is not hard to follow. I think what makes it engaging to the audience is that everyone is going to feel a draw to one or the other of the characters at some point in the show.

Ticket cost $8 and can be purchased by logging onto www.wbu.edu and clicking on the Buy Now link.
Plainview Lions Club

The Lions were busy in the den this week. They blew in for safety from the wind and dirt. The group attending roared and let their presence be known. Lion Larry McNutt lead the singing and even with a request by several Lions for the Aggie War Hymn in preparation for the NCAA game between Texas A&M and Oklahoma, Mac stood strong with the Lions songs. Donnie Ebeling led the pledges and Rev. Rev shared an invocation and a scripture about service and we were all reminded about our motto of we serve.

The usual handshakes and hugs took place and even a few paw bumps were shared by all. March birthday cards were handed out with warm wishes all around.

Lion Boss Greg Brown called the meeting to order and calmed the mighty Lions and the first order of business was past Lion Boss James Belks reading of the new 2016-2017 officers and a club vote.

Plainview Lions Club officers for 2016-17 include Jim Tirey, president; Greg Brown, immediate past president; Misty Rowell, first vice president; Jason Johnson, second vice president; Brent Richburg, secretary; Kevin Carter, treasurer; Lanell Julian and Kristy Bechtold, Lion tamers; Donnie Ebeling and Chris Leach, tail twisers; John Bertsch, Paul Drager, Stacie Stoerner and Travis Thornton, one-year directors; Sarianne Beversdorf, Doug McDonough, Steven Ebeling and Logan Pritchett, two-year directors; Angie Nelms and Mike Melcher, membership chairmen; Travis Thornton and Larry McNutt, song leaders; Sharon Wright, pianist; Rey Rodriguez, chaplain; Doug McDonough, photographer; Fred Haakensen, attendance recorder; Ron White, club reporter; and Wendell Dunlap, past district governor.

Donnie made his presence known by asking all the Lions to begin their calls for the Silent Auction, which raises funds for Lions service and allows retailers and service business who participate have customers in their business to bid on the items.

Incoming Vice Presidents Jim Tirey and Misty Rowell led the club in a game of Family Feudand even though some Lions accused others of not playing fair and some Lions had some outstanding answers, it ended up with two teams in a tie for the win and yet we all reaped the benefits of playing by getting Easter candy . . . Wow what a club.

After raffle tickets were sold and prizes handed out, the Lions all left with a smile and a commitment to serve in Plainview, with or without an actual plain view in the West Texas dirt. -- Linda Morris

Plainview Kiwanis Club

The club met at noon Thursday at Plainview Country Club with 12 people attending. Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Charles Lawson offered a prayer.

President Kevin Lewis reported on the board meeting held at noon Wednesday at IHOP. Among other endeavors, the board voted to support the renovation at Covenant Hospital Plainview.

March program chair Janis Roberson introduced City Councilmember Susan Blackerby who informed club members on the history and future of the Hilton Hotel. Oliver Rusher will serve as program chairman for April. - Kevin Lewis

Plainview Rotary Club

The Plainview Rotary Club met Tuesday at the Plainview Country Club.

Vice President Kim Street called the meeting to order. Steve Long gave the invocation and Ross Owen led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Guests were March Student of the Month Jayci Worth and Kako Sague, Rotary Foreign Exchange Student.

Andrew Freeman, assistant city manager of Plainview, introduced the guest speaker, Paul Kite, City of Plainview Water Production superintendent.

The water treatment plant was built in 1968 with upgrades made in 2007. It produces 4.2 million gallons in the plant. There are 15 wells. The water comes from the Canadian River Authority. There are four elevated water towers with 8.2 million gallons of water. There are five ground storage tanks.

There is a totally of 1,007,110,700 gallons of water in production.

Kite also told the group one of the reasons the water storage was so successful is due to the employees who worked at the plant.

He praised Brian Galloway, Rick Luna, Jason Arjona and Wayne Williams. The newest employees are Heriberto Pacheco and Lano Lovato. He told the club how appreciative he was of this group of employees.

Kite expressed to the group that all of the employees was to be able to produce safe water for public consumption.

Ross led the Four-Way-Test. Street dismissed the group. - Cynthia Gregory
Its not all fun and games serving on the Plainview ISD Board of Education. But then again, Thursday proved to be the exception to the rule.

Thats because trustees received a demonstration of Plainview High Schools robotics program, including a very personable RoboSpike who extended its metal arm to Superintendent Dr. Rocky Kirk for a friendly handshake. It also went scurrying around the PISD Board Meeting Room platform, visiting with each trustee it appeared ready to snatch an unguarded water bottle or nameplate.

Plainview High School sent three robotics team, under the direction Robotics and Automation instructor Terry Nelson, earlier this month to the 2016 FTC Panhandle Plains Regional Competition at Frenship. A total of 36 teams from schools in the Panhandle to El Paso competed in the FTC Res-Q contest, Nelson reported.

Team 10559, operating RoboSpike, finished its season with a strong second place showing, and a visit to the school board meeting. Team members are Angelica Pantoja, Morgan Conley, Armando Gonzalez, Javier Vaquera and Jacob Driggars.

Team 9071, Plainview Robotics Team 2, finished sixth while receiving the Control Award at regional. That team includes Derek Adame, Fernando Marin, Jimmy Rodriquez, Alex Ray and Matthew Hastey.

Team 8707, Plainview Robotics Team 1, finished 12th and received honorable mention in CAD drawings. Its members are Angel Ramos, Slade Dehoyos, Nathanial Vaquera and Antonio Zambrano.

Members of all three teams received recognition certificates from trustees.

Other action Thursday included:

--Routine annual certification that the districts instructional materials allotment is being used for only expenses allowed under the Texas Education Code and that those materials cover all elements of TEKS for each subject and grade level.

--Renewed administrative contracts for the coming year.

--Adopted several changes to PISD policies, such as delegating its authority to hire teachers and other contractual employees below the principal level to the superintendent; setting the number of discretionary state personal leave days to no more than three consecutive days and no more than five per semester; formalizing vacation policy for maintenance and other 12-month employees; specifying that in addition to the superintendent, resignations can be submitted to the executive directors for Human Resource Services and Administrative Services; and adding a fourth level to the student/parent grievance process to give the superintendent a chance to resolve such issues before the complaint goes to the school board.

The board also approved an agreement for the district to once again participate in the West Texas Food Service Cooperative so it can take part in the commodity processing program. There is no cost to the district to join the cooperative.

Under the consent agenda, trustees approved current accounts payable along with several retirements and resignations.
On Oct. 17, 2015, David A. Allen Jr. gave an interview about his time training as a glider pilot during WWII. He is now 95 years old and lives in Schertz, Texas.

After completing his glider pilot training at Finney Field north of Plainview, Allen finished his next phase of training at Wickenburg, Ariz. He stayed briefly at a holding facility for glider pilots in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in September 1942 before leaving for Dalhart Army Air Field that October.

When asked about where he lived while stationed at Dalhart AAF, Allen replied, Lived there on the base in the barracks.

He went on to explain what a typical training day was like for him at Dalhart.

Well, to start out with, I had additional duty there as first sergeant of my outfit. It was administration.

The day started out, of course, trying to get everybody out of bed, get em up, get em breakfast, yak, yak, yak, all that good stuff; and then you either go to ground school or the flight line.

I was in a squadron and we had a little office in a building there, a little tarpaper shack.

Allen said that he was in charge of his squadron or group of men, about three to four dozen men total, and that they were all glider pilots.

The first sergeants duties didnt have much, just details, and so forth; and in the wintertime somebody to keep the fires going (in the pot belly stove) and keep it thawed out. A few things like that. There wasnt a great deal of duty to the first sergeants job there. The bulk of the paperwork and other stuff was handled by a real first sergeant in our group.

Allen explained that he was still actually a staff sergeant at this time, but that he was first sergeant of his outfit and detailed to duty. However, there was also another real first sergeant over his group who handled all of the administrative work. He did not remember the actual first sergeants name, though, or the base commanders name at Dalhart, but did recall that the base commander was a major.

Allen thought that all of the men under him lived in the same barracks on the air field.

As for shower and latrine facilities, Allen said that they did not exist inside his barracks, but that these facilities were located inside another barracks-type building between his barracks and another barracks which was also used for quartering additional men.

Even though each barracks contained a pot belly stove for heating, Allen said that it was still very cold in them: Absolutely!

When asked about any dirt storms, Allen did not recall any of those but said that they did have snow storms.

He recalled a mess hall, but not much about it. He did remember a base chapel but not a theater at the air field.

He did recall the names of some of his fellow glider pilots at Dalhart AAF, those who died in the glider crash of Jan. 26, 1943.

I recall part of the names: Claude Bruce, Forbes, French (Frenchie). I cant remember, there was a . . . I dont know whether it was Italian or Spanish or what he was, another student, and then the instructor. I dont remember the instructors name.

Allen recalled that many of his fellow glider pilots at Plainview and Wickenburg traveled on with him to Albuquerque, but after that they separated and went to different schools. He did not recall of any his fellow glider pilots at Dalhart AAF being with him either at Plainview or Wickenburg.

When asked about his time spent in the city of Dalhart, Allen fondly recalled one particular favorite cafe where he enjoyed eating meals.

Oh, yeah, we went into town. There was one good place to eat there in town, a small cafe off the main drag there, run by mama and daughter and they had some of the best steaks you could ask for. It was located one block off the main drag, the main street.

It cost a fortune to eat there! It cost a dollar and a quarter for a good steak! he chuckled. Allen later explained that he was just joking about the price for the steak. He did not consider the price to be expensive at all. It was reasonable.

When asked if he recalled the De Soto Hotel, Allen replied that he recalled the name, but not the hotel. When later asked if the cafe where he ate steaks was the H&H Cafe, the B&B Cafe, or the Dixie Inn, he could only recall the name of the Dixie Inn, but said that it was out west of town.

When asked if he ever visited either the La Rita or Mission movie theaters in town, Allen replied that he never went to the movies while in Dalhart, nor did he ever go bowling; however, he did visit the USO in town, just in and out, he recalled.

He stayed in Dalhart for Christmas 1942 instead of traveling home for the holiday.

More about David Allens time training as a glider pilot will be discussed in the next article.

Readers are asked to visit the Breedlove CPTP website at www.breedlove-cptp.org for more details about the glider program of WWII.

Anyone with information about the Plainview Pre-Glider School at Finney Field should contact John McCullough at 806-793-4448 or email johnmc@breedlove-cptp.org.
How would you like to take a trip that is absolutely free? You wont have to make reservations or find a sitter for your pet. The destination is a short distance from your home if you live in Plainview or the surrounding area, and upon arrival you will be amazed at all of the things you can do there?

I took this little trip a week or two ago to attend a retirement reception. I listened to people talk about what the place has to offer, and as the reception was winding down I wandered around a bit and saw, first-hand, some of the things they were talking about. Wow! I realized that lots of improvements had been made since my last visit which didnt seem all that long ago! Of course, most Baby Boomers will agree that nothing seems that long ago since time really does speed up the older we get.

As I drove away, I decided that I must make a trip back there as soon as my work schedule would allow so I could further explore what I have been missing out on. A week later, here I am  with notepad and pen in hand at Unger Memorial Library, located at Ninth and Austin streets in beautiful downtown Plainview.

I walked up to the desk to ask a couple of questions and to let the staff know I was there to wander around and learn more about what the library has to offer to Baby Boomers like me. (I like that term better than senior citizens, senior adults or mature adults). I was greeted by a nice lady named Donna Waugh who not only answered my questions, but stopped what she was doing and gave me a wonderful tour of the library while discussing the many things available to Baby Boomers. I learned that Donna has been a library aide at Unger Memorial for 10 years, and I could see right away that she is extremely knowledgeable, and she loves her job.

Other things I learned: The library has more than 50,000 books and hundreds of them are large-print books. If you are looking for a book and it isnt available in the library, they can get it for you through Interlibrary Loan. They also have more than 1,000 adult books on CD. You may also check out a Kindle for two weeks to read a current book.

The library has a large, well-lit area where you can sit in a comfortable chair and read the Plainview Herald and other newspapers including Lubbock Avalanche Journal, Amarillo Globe-News, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal to name a few. You will also find lots of current magazines neatly organized in this area. You can sit and read them or check a few out for a one week. If you need to find something in an older issue that wont be a problem since the library keeps magazines for four years.

It has 15 public-access computers that feature Microsoft Office programs. Computer users have access to black and white, color and 11x17 network laser printers. If you prefer, you can take your own laptop and use their free Wi-Fi.

During the month of May each year, the Creative Quilters have a quilt display at the library. Approximately 20 beautifully designed quilts are hung off the balcony for all patrons to enjoy.

Upstairs you will find the Hi-Plains Genealogical Societys collection of 4,000 books. Research assistance regarding family histories, Hale County obituaries, and newspaper articles is available. You can take the stairs  great exercise, or if your knees arent working quite as good as they used to, you can get on the elevator and ride to the balcony.

The elevator can also take you to the basement where you will see a nice, large meeting room that is available to non-profit organizations. The room is also used for the annual book sale sponsored by the Friends of the Library group. Usually held the last weekend in March, but since Easter is early this year the sale was held March 11-12. If you want to find some really good books at very low prices, dont miss their sale next year.

Before you leave the lower level, I encourage you to stop by the office of the Running Water Draw Ready to Serve Volunteer Program (RSVP). Sit down, relax and let Irma Shackelford, director, or one of her staff tell you about the great volunteer opportunities in Hale, Floyd and Lamb counties. You may just leave with a new assignment!

As my guided tour was ending, I learned that the library in Plainview is more than 100 years old while the Unger Memorial has been in existence since 1960. Remember when you got your first library card? The library was the place to go when we needed to find information in encyclopedias for our research projects, and it was the place to go to check out books, especially during the summer. Years later we started the process all over again with our own children.

The library is still here, but it is no longer just a place to check out a book or copy something from an encyclopedia. With John Sigwald at the helm as head librarian from 1983 until his recent retirement, the library evolved into a first-class, state-of-the-art information center; a place any community would be proud to claim.

There is so much more I would like to tell you about the treasures I discovered, but I have run out of space. So, if you havent been to the library lately, I encourage you to go and explore for yourself. Donna or any of her coworkers Debbie Carlton, administrative assistant, Rebecca Hall and Regina Lucio, library aides, can answer any of your questions or show you around. You can also call 806-296-1148 or visit www.unger.myplainview.com.

(Alice Sawayer is a Licensed Professional Counselor with Central Plains Centers Integrated Healthcare. She provides counseling at Covenant Health Care Center in Plainview. Contact her at alicesawayer@att.net.)
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Garrison Brothers' 2015 limited-edition Cowboy Bourbon won a gold medal at the American Craft Spirits Association's recent tasting competition in Chicago.

Also, Garrison Brothers' Texas Straight Bourbon 2015 and its Single Barrel Bourbon took home silver medals in the competition.

"The American Craft Spirits Association is one of the leading judges in quality distilled spirits in America with their opinion highly regarded and they are innovative in their recognition of craft brands and distilled spirits," said company owner and distiller Dan Garrison in a news release. "So two Silvers and a Gold Medal in this tasting competition makes us very proud!"

The American Craft Spirits Association convention is the largest gathering of craft spirits in the country.
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A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Old Spice deodorant, claiming the product causes severe chemical burns and rashes for users, according to media reports.

The $5 million lawsuit was filed March 21 in U.S. District Court in Ohio against Procter & Gamble, the lead manufacturer of the product, according to Buzzfeed.

RELATED: Photos: Texas woman's hair appointment at Austin salon leads to 'traumatic' allergic reaction

The primary plaintiff is Rodney Colley of Alexandria, Virginia, who shared photos to Connick Law LLC of himself with burns under his arms which he claims were caused by the listed product.

Attorney Tom Connick told the Daily Mail that others have come forward to join the lawsuit.

RELATED: Porn star Farrah Abraham's plastic surgery goes terribly wrong, she owns it

The complaint made against Procter & Gamble states the plaintiff suffered severe rashes, burning and discomfort following the use of the product to the point he had to stop using it, according to the Daily Mail.

A spokesman for Procter & Gamble told Buzzfeed that the people who have experienced rashes and irritations from using the deodorant are in the minority, making up a small fraction of the companys overall users.

RELATED: Old Spice's 10 sweatiest U.S. cities

Buzzfeed obtained numerous photos of people who have allegedly developed chemical burns from using one of several products listed in the lawsuit.

People have also shared photos of their marks and burns online at ConsumerAffairs.com, a website designed to allow people to review products and services.

The photos are pretty hard to look at, as they show signs of redness, oozing and scabbing.

twhite@mysa.com

Twitter: @tylerlwhite
A warm community, a peaceful atmosphere, a moving sermon and a sense of the sublime  this is the chorus of qualities people seek when reviewing a church on Yelp.

And while reviewing a church may "seem crass" to some, online reviews can be useful to people looking for a new home congregation or a Sunday mass while visiting from out of town.
Texas' cruise market is booming. According to Port of Galveston Director Michael Mierzwa, nearly 1 million passengers will cruise from Texas in 2016  a whopping 30 percent increase since 2014.

The ease of driving right up to the curb in Galveston, dropping off your luggage, parking onsite and sailing off into the sunset (margarita in hand), is priceless. And it sure beats hassling with airports.

If you're sailing out of Galveston, good news. Starting in April, the port's new 60,000-square-foot expansion will be ready to facilitate boarding and disembarkation. It's right downtown, with easy access. Some hotels offer complimentary shuttle service and parking for the duration of your cruise if you overnight with them.

As demand keeps growing, bigger, newer and swankier ships are being home-ported in Galveston. Carnival and Royal Caribbean are here year-round, while Disney, Princess and Norwegian Cruise Line are seasonal players.

More Information If you go Galveston Island info: www.galveston.com (888)425-4753 Hotel parking package info: http://www.galveston.com/parkandcruise/ Cruise info: Carnival www.carnival.com (800)227-6482 Disney Cruise Line www.disneycruise.com (888)325-2500 Norwegian Cruise Line www.ncl.com (888) 625-2784 Princess Cruises princess.com (800)774-6237 Royal Caribbean www.RoyalCaribbean.com (866)562-7625 See More Collapse

Guests have a broad range of options, ships and itineraries when it comes to Texas choices. Cruises range from four to eleven days.

Carnival has three ships positioned year-round in Galveston with 200-plus sailings a year. You get a lot of bang for your buck on Carnival and just can't beat their prices for a four-day getaway. Off-season fares on Carnival Liberty begin at only $269 per person, double occupancy.

WHAT'S NEW

Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas is back after a month-long "beauty makeover." Guests can now choose from 26 new Panoramic Ocean View staterooms featuring floor-to-ceiling glass windows. For adrenaline junkies and kids of all ages, there's "The Perfect Storm," a collection of hair-raising waterslides; Tidal Wave, a boomerang slide, Cyclone and Typhoon. New Splashaway Bay, an aqua park, features an interactive kids' play area with water cannons and geysers. Good luck trying to get the kids to leave.

Carnival Breeze, the fleet's newest ship and one of my favorites, will sail from Galveston year-round starting May 8. Beginning March 18, Carnival Liberty will offer four- and five-day cruises to Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico.

Carnival LIVE features big-name entertainers. This summer's headliner, Trace Adkins, will perform onboard the Carnival Freedom, out of Galveston, when it's docked in Nassau on July 6. Atkins fans pay an extra $40 for general admission and $150 for VIP tickets, which includes a pre-concert meet-and-greet; photos with Adkins and primo seats. The shipboard venue, the cozy 1,200-seat Victoriana Lounge, sure beats a gigantic arena crammed with thousands of people. Last year I sailed on Carnival Breeze just for the Smokey Robinson concert. At 76, Smokey's still sexy and has all the right moves. I treasure my photo of Smokey hugging me.

You can always count on Carnival to come up with new and exciting onboard offerings. The cruise line recently expanded its Caribbean shore excursions, emphasizing cultural immersion and local cuisine. Photo safaris in Cozumel and a treasure hunt at Nassau's Blue Lagoon Island are among the cool additions.

CLASSIC CRUISING

Norwegian Cruise Line's Jade, a 2,500-passenger ship sailing from Houston, is a great option for those who prefer a mid-size over a mega-size ship. April 9 is Jade's last 7-day Western Caribbean cruise before she moves to the Mediterranean for the summer. That trip, which departs April 16, is a terrific deal and cheaper than flying. Rates start at $649 for a 16-day Houston to Barcelona cruise, stopping in Miami, St. Thomas and Madeira. Guests can also extend their experience, cruising from Barcelona to Venice, the Greek Isles and the Adriatic.

The Houston-based Caribbean Princess (think "Love Boat) is always a class act. In addition to standard seven-day Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises, Princess offers several unique itineraries. Theres an 11-day Western Caribbean sailing March 30. Both trips feature stops in Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico.

Caribbean Princess departs Houston on April 17 for her TransAtlantic/British Isles 21-day sailing to Southampton stopping in Fort Lauderdale, Bermuda, Liverpool, Wales, Hamburg and France.

What chocoholic wouldn't want to indulge in Princess' "Chocolate Journeys"  nibbling on hand-crafted sweet treats by famous chocolatier Norman Love all the way across the Atlantic? I certainly would.

FAMILY FUN

Many of us grew up with Dr. Seuss. Now we can sail with him. A highlight on all Carnival ships, Seuss at Sea, is loved by all. I wasnt the only adult caught crashing "The Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast With The Cat In The Hat and Friends." At only $5 a person, it's one of the best bargains at sea. The fun brunch is followed by a boisterous "Seuss-a-Palooza Parade" and Story Time. Carnival Freedom also features Dr. Seuss Bookville, a whimsical play space featuring funky furniture and decor.

When you think of family fun, Disney is usually at the top of the list. Although you'll pay a premium price for cruising with Disney, you can't duplicate the experience on any other ship.

Disney Wonder arrives in Galveston on November 10, just in time for the holidays, and will offer 4-, 6- and 7-night cruises. The Bahamian cruise is the only one that stops at Castaway Cay, Disneys private island paradise.

Whether you're 8 or 80, there's nothing like spending Christmas with Mickey and the Disney characters. It's a blast and non-stop fun. The ship turns into one big smile overflowing with special holiday events. Kick off the holiday season with "Mickey's Tree-lighting Magic," add some Dickens-inspired carolers and a traditional Christmas dinner to the mix and you have all the right ingredients to get into the holiday spirit. I got a big kick out of watching the adorable little princesses and Snow Whites dressed to the nines posing for photos with Mickey and Santa Goofy beneath the dazzling three-deck-high Christmas tree. If you want to spend the holidays sailing Disney-style, book your Very Merrytime Cruise now for the best cabin selection and to avoid disappointment.

FINAL TIPS

First, don't expect to find any last-minute bargains in the Texas cruise market - Galveston and Houston are very popular ports. Industry expert Stewart Chiron, The Cruise Guy, says it best: Book early; you can't book early enough to get the best cabins and best location."

Second, if youre cruising out of Galveston, consider extending your stay to explore the historic island. Tack on a few extra days before or after your cruise. Soak up the picturesque scenery, stroll The Strand, browse the boutiques, savor local seafood and tour the majestic Victorian mansions.

Michelle Newman is a freelance writer, designer and frequent traveler living in San Antonio. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram: @travelyenta
With majestic homes, Mission Reach, romantic restaurants and friendly watering holes, the King William Historic District is no doubt one of the coolest places in San Antonio.

And according to a new ranking by Thrillist, it is actually the most beautiful historic neighborhood in Texas.
SAN ANTONIO  More than 30 San Antonio Fire Department units responded to a structure fire at a downtown hospital Friday morning near the start of San Antonio's Passion of the Christ re-enactment.

Crews were dispatched to the Children's Hospital of San Antonio, 333 N. Santa Rosa Street, around 10:45 a.m. Small amounts of smoke could be seen rising from the roof of the building when crews arrived, according to police officers at the scene. No flames or smoke were visible as of 11:20 a.m.
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A Texas Dairy Queen franchise owner who has signs comparing Hindus to monkeys wrapping around his Houston-area restaurant says he is not prejudiced despite calls for an apology from the Hindu community and condemnation from Dairy Queen's corporate office.

Instead, Mohammad Dar, a 65-year-old Muslim, says Hindus are the "racists." There are more than approximately 1 billion people who identify as Hindu, making it the third-largest religion in the world, according to a survey published by Adherents.com.

About a year ago, Dar decided to publicize his self-taught findings  which he says he's been "researching" for 14 years  in a series of displays at his business in order to point out the wrongs of certain religions, specifically Hinduism, he told mySA.com in a phone interview on Wednesday.

The Dairy Queen is located at 1107 Highway 146 Dairy Queen in Kemah, about 25 miles north of Galveston. Company officials called the placement of the signs in a statement to mySA.com Thursday an "unfortunate action" and said they are "not representative of our iconic family brand. We do not condone this behavior."

RELATED: Jewish student finds swastika on car in Reagan High School parking lot

Dar, a 40-year U.S. citizen from Pakistan, said he is aware of the controversy he has created, but maintains that he is not putting any human down.

Im pointing out whats wrong with Hinduism, which is a force of racism, he said.

Revered figures such as Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama make cameos on his signs, labeled as practitioners and preachers of racism by faith. He also notes the Holy Trinity is a crime and tool to deny human equality invented by a crook. Another piece of his material compares the ancient religion of Hinduism to monkyism (sic).

RELATED: Dozens of cars, homes tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti in San Antonio Jewish community

Hindus dont follow any limit or law, they follow desires like an animal  that is the foundation of Hinduism," Dar said in the interview. "Monkeys dont plan anything, they just do what they desire, but humans follow the limit and law.

The business owner said questions were what he intended to evoke.

Its nothing personal, its educational, he added. Im really making people mad, but what Im doing is communicating and inviting them to communicate [] they think I am attacking their religion, but I am not.

RELATED: FBI: Texas had 132 reported hate crimes reported in 2013

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, wants an apology issued from International Dairy Queen Inc., he announced in a news release.

"Posters reportedly displayed at its Kemah store in Texas were highly inappropriate and trivialized the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a highly philosophical thought," he said in the release, adding that the company "should have shown some responsibility and already taken action regarding these signs posted at the Kemah location reportedly for many months."

The Dairy Queen corporation responded to the issue in a statement to mySA.com Thursday.

Although the vast majority of our restaurants are independently owned and operated, American Dairy Queen Corporation does not encourage non-business related messages in stores or displayed on exterior reader board," Associate Vice President of Communications Dean Peters said.

If someone is a monkey, hes going to end up in disaster. All hes going to do is create disaster for himself and the people around him, thats why animals are kept in a room away from the public, Dar said.

Dars fast-food business will come to an end at the end of the month, but his strides to spread his message will not, he said.

I will take my signs, but I will not go away, he said, defiantly. I will go to public places and put my signs up and make brochures to let people know where they have gone wrong.

Dar denies the signs are the reason he is closing the restaurant. He said a corporate mandate that would cost too much money is the reason.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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SAN ANTONIO  A former San Antonio voice teacher was sentenced to 12 years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting one of his 13-year-old students two years ago.

Ricardo Martinez agreed to a plea deal at a pre-investigation hearing Thursday morning in the 290th state District Court.

Martinez, who was arrested on March 24, 2014, will have to serve at least half of his time before he is eligible for parole, according to Bexar County District Clerk Donna Kay McKinney.

He also will not be allowed contact with the female victim, who now is 15.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the student told authorities that she confided in Martinez about her private life, and texted with him on a daily basis.

RELATED: SAPD: Voice teacher sexually assaulted student, 13

A police report was filed in August 2014 that said the girl's parents discovered that she was texting Martinez at all hours of the night, the affidavit said

The student later told police she started to sneak out with Martinez in October 2012. He would park near her home, or he would come over while the girl's parents were away and would perform sex acts on her in her room, according to the document.

mdwilson@express-news.net

Twitter: @MDWilsonSA

ezavala@express-news.net

Twitter: @elizabeth2863
A teacher in West Texas is facing a felony charge after being arrested Thursday for an allegedly improper relationship with a student, according to media reports.

Imelda Dominguez, 47, was allegedly found in a vehicle with a student by police officers on Wednesday night in the 300 block of Quela, according to the CBS 7 News. Details of the incident were not immediately available as multiple requests for the affidavit from law enforcement agencies in Ward County went unreturned during Friday's holiday.
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A New Mexico man accused of threatening to kill his wife and her two children thought he could flee law enforcement by donning a blond wig.

He was wrong.

Las Cruces police arrested Arthur M. Orozco, 33, Thursday afternoon and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the Las Cruces Police Department announced Thursday.

RELATED: FBI in North Texas searching for 'Bad Hair Bandit' in string of bank robberies

Orozco had gone to his wife's home uninvited at around 11 p.m. Sunday where the two got into an argument, police said.

The 33-year-old man then armed himself with a knife while the woman checked on her two children, according to police.

Orozco then allegedly threatened to kill her and her children, police said.

RELATED: Police: 3 South Texas volunteer firefighters wanted to fight fire, so they started one

The woman escaped the home while Orozco chased her, but he fled the scene before officers arrived, according to the news release.

Police believe Orozco also slashed the woman's tires later that evening.

Officers found the suspect Thursday while he was wearing the blond wig.

RELATED: Arizona man gets 'Trump Stamp' back tattoo for a year of free country concert tickets

Orozco was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $100,000 bond.

jfechter@mySA.com

Twitter: @JFreports
The terrorist attacks Tuesday in Brussels, yet another assault on innocents, should strengthen international resolve to root out terrorism wherever it breeds.

There is no ironclad method of detecting every act of terrorism planned, but the global community must cooperate more in this regard. Security agencies must not compete with one another. And there is some evidence this is happening.

It is clear in any case that there is not a broad enough coalition of the willing to even fight the Islamic State where it lives in Iraq and Syria. The group claimed responsibility for the bombings.

This is clearly a case of us and them. And by them, we dont mean all Muslims. We mean the extremists whose deadly ideologies prompt them to spill the blood of innocents. And by us we mean every citizen of every nation, whether it has been attacked or not.

The arrest last week of Salah Abdeslam, suspected of being the lone survivor of the 10 men involved in the Paris attacks in November, spurred fears of more terrorist attacks. Now, that has come to pass.

The response should not be just military action against the Islamic State but efforts that more broadly address the disaffection that turns young men and women into suicide bombers and terrorists.

And the United States has a role to play. Not by overreacting and being mired virtually alone once again in a Mideast ground war that breeds more resentment  and terrorists  but by forming that coalition of the willing to do everything it takes within reason to combat terrorists wherever they are.

This requires solidarity.

Just as after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris and after the San Bernardino, California, attack on Dec. 2 we all became Parisians and Americans, today we are all Belgians.

More broadly, these latest attacks mean it is very clearly us and them  civilized society vs. barbarism.
Now that Donald Trump has spoken before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, Americans have learned the following:

Trump can read a teleprompter; he finally got someone to write him a decent speech, which he was able to deliver without resorting to vulgarities; and he has provided something like a justification for reluctant Republicans to support him.

Which is a pretty low bar. And its not nearly enough.

You know all the arguments pro and con by now. He speaks plainly. So did Archie Bunker. His message of walled-in isolationism appeals to those tired of loose immigration policies. So was the case with Sen. Berzelius Buzz Windrip, the nativist demagogue in Sinclair Lewis 1935 cautionary novel, It Cant Happen Here.

Windrip, like Trump, spoke of national greatness, though Windrip was more explicit, saying Americans must continue to be the greatest Race on the face of this old Earth. Like Trumps, Windrips base consisted largely of working-class white males, whom he called upon to help control dissent after he ascended to the Oval Office. Sound familiar? Punch anybody in the nose lately?

Its called fascism by any other name and, yes, it seems it can happen here. That is, a demagogue can become president, as Lewis was trying to warn. And, yes, we do have checks and balances, but does anyone really think that Trump should have the power to start a nuclear war? Hes mighty quick to rile.

No one is more familiar with the language of marginalization and authoritarianism than the Jewish community, causing one to wonder why Trump, whose rise has been spiced with bigotry and group-blaming rhetoric, was allowed in AIPACS door. The answer is that the nonpartisan organization traditionally invites all presidential hopefuls to speak to its conference.

The conundrum for Republicans is that though Trump may be the devil, hes their devil. How can they condemn the guy that a near-majority of their party prefers? If youre, say, House Speaker Paul Ryan, how do you say you wont support your partys nominee? Then again, if youre a good man like Ryan, how do you support him?

That is the question, isnt it? This is what we ask ourselves about the industrialists and good Germans who supported Hitler. This is what we ask our Southern grandparents about the time when blacks were lynched. What we ask the World War II generation about rounding up Japanese-Americans. While were at it, what was your vote on Vietnam, Iraq? Theres a price to pay for silence.

That so few have shown the courage to deny Trump tells us how difficult it is to be brave. But one can only pretend for so long not to hear the dog whistles of history, a skill at which Republicans have become too well practiced. Perhaps theyre no longer listening. Or theyre deluding themselves that Trumps words dont really mean what, you know, they mean.

A Jewish friend of mine  a Democrat, scholar, erstwhile politician and former U.S. ambassador whose parents were Holocaust survivors  called to vent after Trumps speech. He said he was glad his father wasnt alive to see this, and that hed almost like to join AIPAC so he could resign in protest.

The reality, he said, is if you go back and look at Hitler, somehow you elect someone that you know is beyond the pale. But you do it because youre afraid of someone else. And then later, you look closely. And its too late.

Unless.

The flame at the end of this darkening tunnel is a contested convention, which depends on Ted Cruz and John Kasich starving Trump of the 1,237 delegates that secure the nomination.

It could happen, according to Princeton Universitys Sam Wang, a statistical prognosticator and game theorist with a golden record. Basically, if Kasich campaigns only in proportional delegate states, leaving winner-take-all states to Cruz, Trumps chances of becoming the nominee are reduced from 90 percent to 50 percent, he says.

Its a big gamble, but it beats losing your soul.

kathleenparker@washpost.com
Re: We need to talk about wealth inequality, Michael Taylor, Business, Monday:

The GOP not only disagrees with business columnist Michael Taylor but doesnt think inequality is a concern at all.

Given that a middle class person pays annual taxes based on almost all his/her total wealth while the rich person pays annual taxes on only a tiny portion of his/her wealth, Mr. Taylors column correctly identifies wealth as a more important measurement than income with regard to fairness and its contribution to inequality.

Thank you for this important column touching on our rigged and unfair tax system, corporate board loyalty to themselves and the CEO, and the delusion of merit partially explaining the rise of the overpaid super manager.

Stanley Hall

Kidney health

Kidney disease doesnt get the attention or funding other diseases receive. But in South Texas, we have the highest number of kidney disease patients in the nation. More than 4,000 people in and around Bexar County are receiving dialysis. And that number is growing every year.

March is National Kidney Month, the perfect time to get your kidneys checked. The Texas Kidney Foundation, whose headquarters is in San Antonio, offers monthly free kidney health screenings in various locations around South Texas. The program is called Texas Kidney Check.

A simple finger stick is all it takes to let you know if you have the early signs of kidney disease, allowing you to take action to prevent or delay the progression. A one-on-one consultation with a renal professional is part of the screening, and ensures you understand your results and any follow-up. Its fast, easy and free.

The foundation is committed to raising awareness of kidney health and to providing free screenings. It also provides information and resources for kidney patients and transplant recipients. For more information, go to txkidney.org or call 210-739-9778.

Marilyn Garcia, executive director, Texas Kidney Foundation

Someone  anyone?

Where do they get these candidates running for the highest office of our country? I have not seen one that I would vote for. We have to come up with better candidates. There has to be somebody out there.

Vincent Bonanno
Posted on 03/25/2016, 1:00 pm, by mySteinbach

Manitoba Justice has asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police F Division (Saskatchewan) to investigate a motor vehicle collision involving two off-duty Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) officers.

Manitoba Justice has been advised the collision occurred at approximately 3:20am on March 12, 2016, when the officers vehicle struck a parked car in a residential neighbourhood, causing extensive damage to both as well as a fire hydrant. One of the off-duty officers was treated at the scene and the other was transported to hospital by ambulance. No other injuries were reported.

The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU) was notified of this incident on March 17. After reviewing materials supplied by the WPS, the civilian director identified a conflict of interest and determined the IIU should not assume any role in this matter. As it is in the public interest to ensure an independent investigation, Manitoba Justices director of policing asked the RCMP to assume responsibility for the investigation on March 22.
BOSTON  Finding temporary help when youre short-staffed can be difficult in the best of circumstancesfinding workers in a pinch who know their way around a kitchen can be next to impossible. Fifteen years ago, after experiencing how hard it was to fill open kitchen slots on a temporary basis, Todd Snopkowski created SnapChef, Boston Globe reports.

SnapChefwhich recently hired its 1,000th employeeis now poised to expand beyond New England through franchising. Theres a tremendous stopgap right now, Snopkowski said of the area labor shortage. He partners with local rehabilitation centers and vocational schools to find staff, which SnapChef trains for free.

The reality is there is only one thing that can hold this industry back, said Bob Luz, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, which provides training to SnapChef workers. Not just in the Greater Boston area but across the country, there is a staffing crisis. Todd and his team are an incredible resource. This is one of the most critical things our industry needs.

Snopkowski has plans to help smaller clients fill kitchen openings. Weve put a thousand people to work, he said. If they have zero experience but the right attitude, well put them into a job.
Yves here. This Real News Network segment focuses on the medias misconstruction, or more accurately, misrepresentation, of what superdelegates mean for the Sanders campaign.

JAISAL NOOR, TRNN: Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squared off in three Western states on Tuesday, with Clinton winning Arizona and Sanders taking Idaho and Utah, sparking latest round of debate over the Democratic primary, with many saying Clinton has secured the nomination. CNN, for example, gives Clinton a 97% chance to win the nomination. But new polls of potential November matchups heavily favor Sanders, and could swing the tide of the Democratic primary in his favor.

ROBERT MCCHESNEY: Well, I think the idea that Clintons lead is insurmountable is based on the idea that the superdelegates who have informally committed to her will not change their vote, and no matter what happens in the primaries they are locked into voting for Hillary Clinton.

NOOR: Clintons current lead of 300 awarded delegates jumps dramatically if superdelegates are added to the mix.

MCCHESNEY: Nancy Pelosi, among others, made it pretty clear that if Bernie Sanders wins the majority of the elected delegates, the idea that the unelected delegates would throw the election to Hillary Clinton, well, that would be a very controversial and dubious move for the party to make. It would in all likelihood to great damage to the future of the Democratic party, really destroy its chances of winning in the November election.

NOOR: With superdelegates off the table, a different picture emerges.

MCCHESNEY: If you look at that picture, Bernie can certainly catch up. It wont necessarily be easy, but his chances are closer to 50/50 than they are to 20/80.

NOOR: To catch up to Clinton, Sanders would need to continue winning states by wide margins like he did in Idaho and Utah Tuesday night. Some new polls show Sanders closing in on Clinton nationally.

MCCHESNEY: Hes still getting massive support. People are just learning about Bernie Sanders in large parts of the country. Its their first introduction to him. And its a very positive one. So the future, the immediate future, looks great. Saturday he will likely win blowout wins in Hawaii and Alaska, and Washington State, which is a large state. So then hell have five consecutive blowout 20, 30, 40-point victories over Hillary Clinton in races going into the all-important Wisconsin race.

Wisconsin has always been a bellweather state for Democratic politics going back to 1960. It will be again this year.

NOOR: Clinton does hold large leads in states with upcoming primaries and large delegate count, according to Real Clear Politics.

MCCHESNEY: We have to take Real Clear Politics, what they are doing, with a grain of salt. Because if you look at where Bernie Sanders was in Utah, or Idaho, or even New Hampshire a month before the election, it didnt show him winning by blowout victories, it showed him losing by landslides. So he has come a long way in all these states. And I think New York State will be interesting because really its going to test out a crucial hypothesis. The working hypothesis has been that the more people see Bernie Sanders the more they like him. Thats been true his entire political career, and thats been true this year. It was striking that recent focus group work done by Frank Luntz, the guy who does all the work for Fox, whos the Republianof Republicans and Democrats just this week showed that the one candidate that both members of both parties respected the most was Bernie Sanders, the more they got to see him.

NOOR: Which does help explain why Sanders has consistently out-performed Hillary Clinton against Republican challengers, including Donald Trump. A recent CNN poll found Sanders beating Trump by 20 points in November, and according to the newest Reuters polling data, Trump has been gaining on Clinton in a matchup, and is now beating her head-to-head.

MCCHESNEY: What Hillary Clinton is closer to is money and power, like the Republicans. But when people abandon the Republicans, Donald Trump or any Republican, they arent looking for a pro-money candidate whos pro-Wall Street. Theyre looking for oftentimes a candidate whos got honesty and integrity. And the sort of issues that Bernie Sanders has signaled as the issues that are important to him, single-payer health insurance, free college tuition, making wealthy people pay their taxes, these are issues that appeal across the political spectrum. These are issues that people who call themselves conservatives, and certainly independents, they respond to. They are much more attracted to Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton.

NOOR: This year, a record 43 percent of the countrys voters identify as independents. They have been favoring Sanders by large margins in the primary, and would flock to Sanders if he faced Trump in November, argues McChesney.

MCCHESNEY: Well, Bernie Sanders is going to grab most of those. Hillary Clinton is very unpopular with the Republicans, much moreso than Bernie Sanders, and has no appeal particularly to independents, either. No known appeal. Certainly not compared to Bernie Sanders. So I think that explains why in the polling, repeatedly, of all American voters, Bernie does much better than Hillary, usually, and at least as good a job, generally, in head-to-head matchups for November.

NOOR: One big question remains: How much of the big money behind the Democratic party actually prefers Trump over Sanders? In a similar way, many of the billionaires in the Republican party would favor Clinton over Trump, because they consider Trump a loose cannon and dont like his opposition to free trade. Sanders poses a greater threat to the interests of Wall Street than Trump does. This may also shape how corporate media covers the election; why they seem in such a hurry to write off the Sanders candidacy. Corporate America really does not want a president Sanders, and it appears mostly to be prepared to bury Sanders long before hes dead.

End
By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street

Project Fear  the massive PR campaign aimed at sowing and watering the seeds of dread about the potential consequences of a YES vote in the upcoming referendum on a British exit from the EU  is in full bloom. In the event of a wrong answer, all manner of biblical disasters can be expected to befall the nation, the British public is constantly being warned.

The countrys national income will shrink, hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs will vanish, the City of Londons core industry  financial engineering  will migrate across the channel, the currency will collapse, house prices will plummet, European firms will stop selling products to Brits, the U.S. government will impose massive tariffs on British imports, and even Britains already dismal climate will get worse.

Project Fears shrillest shills include the British government and institutions of State, the UKs most powerful business lobby group The Confederation of British Industry, the City of London Corporation (and all the too-big-to-fail financial institutions whose interests it faithfully serves), the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the worlds biggest fund manager BlackRock.

Another prominent prophet of Brexit doom and gloom is the Bank of England, an institution that, according to its charter at least, is supposed to be independent from national politics, but which has done nothing but feed the fear. In testimony to the UK governments Treasury Select Committee earlier this month, the central banks Canadian and former Goldmanite Chairman Mark Carney warned that Brexit is the biggest domestic risk to financial stability, with potentially dire consequences for Britains balance of payments, its housing market, foreign investment, and its banks.

Its a shame no one bothered to ask Carney to identify the biggest non-domestic threat to Britain financial stability  he might have admitted that it was the euro, as his predecessor as Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, recently acknowledged.

Put bluntly, monetary union has created a conflict between a centralized elite on the one hand, and the forces of democracy at the national level on the other, King writes in his new book, The End of Alchemy. This is extraordinarily dangerous.

While King hasnt explicitly come out in favor of Brexit, he hasnt ruled it out either, and it doesnt take much reading between the lines of his new book to divine more or less where he stands  i.e., as far away as possible from Carney.

This glaring difference of opinion between Britains former and current central bank governors leaves wavering British voters with a dilemma. Should they believe the words of a former central banker whos desperately plugging his memoirs, or those of a current central banker who before dedicating his energies to central banking  first in Canada and now in the UK  spent 13 years with Goldman Sachs, which arguably holds more sway over Europes financial markets than any other systemically important global financial institution?

While the British public weighs up the potential benefits and drawbacks of life outside the EU, Bank of England officials are agonizing, as Bloomberg put it, over the dangers from the vote to leave. The central bank is already drawing up contingency plans for a British exit from the EU and will offer extra liquidity to the financial system around the referendum.

British banks are about to be offered billions of pounds of extra cash, just in case the markets seize up. Heres more from The Daily Telegraph:

The process sees banks offer the Bank of England assets such as mortgage loans, in exchange for cash. The Bank of England offers this facility to banks once per month, but will give banks four chances to take extra cash in June.

Banks can use the scheme if the market for their own assets is very illiquid, giving banks more liquidity and so enabling them to carry on lending even when markets are stressed.

Similar action was allegedly considered during the Scottish referendum, but since the scheme was never required, it was not made public until after the event. This time, officials are offering the scheme in advance, presumably because: a) the Bank of England actually wants the people of Britain to think that they are preparing for an extreme crisis; and/or b) the banks could probably do with a little extra dose of liquidity anyway.

As the banks prepare for yet another free-money picnic, the Bank of England continues to jack up the fear factor.

In a speech to the OMFIF finance industry group in London, BoE Policy Maker Kristin Forbes said that Britains cross-border investments should offer some respite against a jump in uncertainty, but the relief would only be partial and would be unlikely to fully counteract the many negative effects from increased uncertainty on the broader UK economy.

For the moment the most visible negative economic consequence of Brexit uncertainty is the acute volatility in the UK currency. As the FT reported, the implied volatility on a three-month timeline  a measure of traders and investors perceived likelihood of big shakes in the currency over the next three months  is now higher than at any other time over the last six years, suggesting that the market sees bigger risks for Sterling now than it did over the 2014 Scottish referendum, and indeed bigger risks than at any time since the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis.

With Project Fear now in full swing, that volatility is almost certainly here to stay, at least until the referendum. What happens after that depends on the outcome of the vote, and that will ultimately depend on the ability of the British and European establishment to convince voters that the preservation of the status quo is far more preferable than the risk of the unknown  at least for the establishment!

For now just about the only thing we can be sure of is that the banks on both sides of the English Channel will continue to wet their beaks in the fountain of unlimited, virtually free money. By Don Quijones, Raging Bull-Shit .

Then theres the dreaded Contagion Effect. Read Brexit Panic Sets In
The pharmaceutical industry has long enjoyed very generous government support, yet over the last two decades has taken to putting profits (meaning CEO and C-level bonuses) over combatting disease. Drug companies in the US benefit from decades of large-scale research and development by the National Institutes and Health and other Federal agencies. They also get R&D tax credits that to a large degree represent an acceleration of tax break for the expected future profits. Yet when those profits actually show up, they shift them offshore to avoid paying taxes in the US.*

And let us remind you that it not the responsibility of corporate executives; the maximize shareholder value theory of governance was made up by economists and does not have a legal foundation (see here for a longer discussion). And even if that were the case, actually trying to achieve that goal is counterproductive. As John Kay of the Financial Times explained in a 2004 article, and expanded in his book Obliquity, in complex systems, attempting to chart a straightforward path to a goal typically fails. Why? We dont understand the system well enough to define an efficient way through it. For instance, a study that paired companies in a series of industries, one that chose complex and aspirational goal versus ones that set out to maximize shareholder value, found that in every case, the company with richer and loftier objectives performed better than its counterpart.**

One of the poster children for anti-social conduct by Big Pharma is Valeant, which is basically an up-market version of Martin Shkreli, a patent troll whose main method of adding value has been to buy drug businesses and jack up prices. A post yesterday at Business Insider recaps some of the high points of the well-warranted consternation over Valeants practices:

Valeants stock has fallen over 85% in the last year, in part because of scrutiny over its pricing practices. The House of Representatives is investigating the company for jacking up the prices of two heart medications over 200% and 500% respectively. Hillary Clinton has called out the company in her campaign videos, and the Senate has gone after the company for this practice as well. This issue, combined with accounting issues, forced the company to say that it would change its business model, and rely on sales volume to generate revenue last December. It also said it would cut some prices  just some. Either way, the market isnt convinced, and some analysts say that Valeant will never be what it once was because without the ability to jack up prices of the drugs that it acquires. See, Valeant doesnt really do its own research and development. It only spends about 3% of revenue on that, while its peers spend average of about 13% on it.**

Business Insider also pointed out:

Valeant Pharmaceuticals doubled the price of a drug called Seconal, which helps terminally ill patients end their lives peacefully, according to a report from KQED News. Valeant purchased the drug last February, and jacked up the price from $1,500 to $3,000 after the state of California proposed legalizing assisted suicide.

The KQED report states that Seconal is an 80 year old drug.

John Gapper put the spotlight on the connection between the consulting firm McKinesy and Valeant today in McKinseys fingerprints are all over Valeant:

Valeants downfall is not exactly McKinseys fault but its fingerprints are everywhere. Half of its six-person senior executive team formerly worked at McKinsey, including Michael Pearson, its chief executive, and Robert Rosiello, its finance director. So did Ronald Farmer, the director who chairs its talent and compensation committee, which temporarily transformed Mr Pearson into a billionaire. Like Enrons asset-light strategy of trading power rather than owning power plants, Mr Pearson brought a consultants clinical eye to pharma. He despised costly research (Be prudent about investing ahead of need  curse of the industry was one motto), preferring to acquire proven drugs and raise prices. No one did this more abruptly than Mr Pearson: Our strategy is basically the education I had through McKinsey, he said in 2014. He turned Valeant into a hyperactive acquisition vehicle, which not only benefited Wall Street banks but consulting firms for whom post-merger integration work is a labour-intensive, high-margin operation.

But what I find most damning is Gappers throwaway observation:

McKinsey provided the intellectual underpinning for pharma companies to rethink radically in the mid-2000s, when drugs pipelines seemed to have dried up and research productivity fell. As the firms partners concluded repeatedly in calling for a bolder, more radical approach to Big Pharmas operating model, boards and executives had to alter course and cut costs.

And Pearson put that into place not only at Valeant, but for years before that as the head of its global pharmaceuticals practice. Even though drug companies have very handsome cash flows, they now prefer to leave the hard work of discovering new drugs to smaller players like biotech companies,**** snapping them up if they make a breakthrough.

Roy Poses at The Health Care Renewal blog has written with great energy and detail about the corrosive effect of what he calls generic management, or what could also be described as misrule by MBAs, on the delivery and quality of health care. Not only do they increase the cost of the adminisphere through their lofty pay, but they also make clear that they have little interest in or respect for clinical expertise, and wind up degrading care and demotivating staff.

Given how many MBAs have been churned out, and how theyve wound up ensconcing themselves in other fields, like higher education, which similar dubious effects, one might argue that Valeant-like strategies would have inevitably have taken hold. But McKinsey operated as a major transmitter and legitimator of extractive practices.

_____

* Pharmaceutical companies pay so little tax that many top tax professionals believe the companies exaggerate the tax savings they will achieve through inversions in order to assure shareholder approval.

** One could argue that maximizing shareholder value has served as an excuse for rent extraction by top executives, so this outcome is a feature rather than a bug.

*** Bear in mind that that 13% figure overstates what laypeople would consider to be R&D by a large degree. For the 15 years, well over 80% of FDA new drug applications are for extensions or minor reformulations of existing drugs. In other words, the new drug application process as currently practiced is mainly about extending license protection, not invention.

**** Whats the difference between high tech and biotech? How long it takes you to find out youve lost all your money.
Yves here. Note that the author has focused on one under-investigated health indicator. Higher suicide rates have garnered some attention. There are no doubt others, like increases in depression and substance abuse, that have not been studied much if at all.

By Arna Vardardottir, Assistant Professor of Finance, Copenhagen Business School. Originally published at VoxEU

One of the many impacts of the Global Crisis was on stress levels, and these can be a risk factor for adverse birth outcomes. This column shows that exposure to the Crisis resulted in a significant reduction in the birth weight of babies in Iceland, comparable in size to the effect of smoking during pregnancy. The full costs of poor health at birth as a result of the Crisis will not materialise until the children exposed in utero become adults.

The economic costs of financial crises are large. Much effort has been put into quantifying the direct economic costs due to unemployment, production contraction, and wealth destruction associated with the 2008 Global Crisis. The estimates show that the Crisis and its aftermath have been distinctive; in the US, where it was responsible for the destruction of around 44% of the median household wealth (Wolff 2014), it was the worst downturn since the 1930s, and the suggested cumulative loss in world output associated with the Crisis lies in the range of $5 to $15 trillion dollars (Adelson 2013). The Crisis might, however, have had other more subtle but still direct costs. Because financial difficulties may raise stress levels among the people they affect, and stress is a risk factor for adverse birth outcomes, children who were in utero during the downturn might be at risk of being born with poorer health endowments. Despite the pervasiveness of financial stress in advanced economies, we have very limited understanding of the effect on health at birth. My research attempts to fill this void.

Watch Arna Vardardottir discuss the effects of financial stress on pregnancy in the video below

Exposure to the Crisis and Health at Birth: New Evidence

In a recent paper (Vardardottir 2016), I use administrative data from Iceland to study how in utero exposure to the 2008 Global Crisis affected health at birth. I find that first-trimester exposure to the Crisis led to a sizable and significant reduction in birth weight, increased the probability of a low birth weight (<2,500 grams), and decreased the probability of a high birth weight (>4,000 grams). I also find evidence that the economic collapse lead to declines in male births and thereby reduced the sex ratio, which is consistent with maternal prenatal stress exposure inducing a selective mortality of the least fit foetuses through increased miscarriages, where weak male foetuses are significantly more affected than female foetuses.

Health at Birth Lingers into Adulthood

Does health at birth matter? In recent years, scientists have been developing a new understanding of our earliest experiences and the ways in which various conditions present during pregnancy contribute to negative health outcomes early in life and exert lasting effects on us well into adulthood. Empirical evidence shows that conditions encountered before birth influence birth outcomes and linger into adulthood; initial health endowments matter for long-term health, human capital, labour market outcomes, and various other measures of life success. For instance, marital status has been found to be negatively affected by early childhood exposure to the 1959-61 famine in China, welfare dependency and the probability of living in a low-income neighbourhood are increased by in utero shocks, and economic conditions at birth matter for mortality later in life (see, for example, Almond and Currie 2011 for a survey of the literature). This evidence suggest that if the Global Crisis caused poor birth health, its full costs will not materialise until the children exposed in utero become adults, and the costs of the Crisis will continue to be paid for decades.

The Collapse of the Icelandic Economy

The Icelandic economy fell apart during the Global Crisis. The collapse was the most severe, relative to the size of the economy, that any country has suffered. Icelands three biggest banks, which accounted for about 85% of its financial system, failed in the same week. These events had immediate and catastrophic effects on the economy that came as a shock to the majority of the population.

The reasons for the bank failures were difficulties of the sort experienced by many financial institutions worldwide. The crucial differences here were the scale of the collapse and how sudden and unexpected it was. While many countries had their share of troubled banks, their problems were largely confined to just a segment of the whole banking system, and the overall assets of those banks were much smaller relative to local GDPs. Other governments thus had adequate resources to contain the fallout from individual bank failures. That was not the case in Iceland. Iceland appealed to the IMF for an emergency loan, the first western country in 30 years to do so.

The clear break in the economic trajectory, evident in Figure 1, made it feasible to capture the effect of the Crisis on children exposed in utero because it eliminates the problems posed by the diffuse timing and endogenous sorting normally associated with economic hardships.

Figure 1. Total assets of the three largest banks versus GDP and seasonally adjusted quarterly volume growth in GDP



Estimating the Effect of the Crisis on Birth Outcomes

Capturing the causal effect of the Crisis on health at birth is a non-trivial task. Individuals that have children during crisis times are different from those having children during normal times; the slide into recession is typically slow, allowing individuals to select into pregnancy based on economic conditions. Estimation of the effect of financial crises by comparing those children born during crisis times to those who have children during normal times is therefore confounded by selection into pregnancy during recessions.

In my research, I use two methods to overcome the selection problem and estimate the effect of the Global Crisis:

I exploit the discontinuous onset of the Crisis in Iceland. Because the collapse was so sudden and unexpected, the effect the Crisis had on birth outcomes can be captured by comparing the birth outcomes of children in utero during the collapse with those of children in utero at the same time in the previous year (2007). The two groups will on average have similar characteristics except for being in utero during the collapse.

I use a mother-fixed-effects approach, comparing two children born to the same mother, where the collapse took place during her last pregnancy. This approach allows me to control for any invariant unobserved mother characteristics that might be related to the probability of expecting a child during the collapse.

Effects on Birth Outcomes

The findings from the study of the effect of the Crisis in Iceland on birth outcomes suggest that financial stress, a common stressor in advanced economies, has an impact on birth weight among first-trimester exposed children.

The collapse in Iceland led to a negative and significant effect of first-trimester exposure on birth weight, amounting to 66g.

Children whose mothers were in their first trimester of pregnancy during the collapse are 1.9 percentage points more likely to have a low birth weight and 4.0 percentage points less likely to have a high birth weight.

Furthermore, the sex ratio at birth among first-trimester exposed children declined by 3.3 percentage points.

This is consistent with the selection in utero hypothesis, predicting that population stressors induce selection against males in utero, and thereby reduce the sex ratio at birth. Figure 2 shows the changes in these birth outcomes around the time of the collapse. Each dot in the panels corresponds to the average outcome for children by birth month.

Figure 2. Birth outcomes around the time of the collapse

A comparison of these findings with those of previous studies reveals that financial stress, a commonplace stressor in advanced economies, has an impact on birth weight comparable to one of the most widely cited behavioural taboo during pregnancy, smoking (e.g. Tominey 2007). Furthermore, compared to the effects of rare, extreme events, the average loss of birth weight due to the 2008 Crisis is quite large; it is more than eight times as great as the 8.7g reduction caused by landmine explosions in Colombia (Camacho 2008) and bigger than the reduction caused by earthquakes in Chile (Torche 2011). The effects are also large compared to the estimated effects of other near-universal stressors like bereavement, which has been found to reduce birth weight by 23g (Black et al. 2016).

Concluding Remarks

The study of the Icelandic collapse contributes to our understanding of the impact of economic stress on child health and the findings are of high relevance in other advanced countries where financial stress is among the most common stressors. The most striking fact about the results is that financial stress in an advanced country, one where the social safety net of welfare systems and policy interventions secures access to health care and all basic needs for the population, can still have a very large impact on birth outcomes. Financial stress is prevalent in households worldwide, and this study provides evidence that it can affect more than peoples wallets: It can also have a detrimental effect on their childrens health at birth, which has been shown to be important for later success in life.
Luke Franke/Staff (2) Owen Komphonphakdy, 4, prepares to dunk a basketball as Christopher Martinez, 5, tries to stop him during recess Wednesday at the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center on Florida SouthWestern's campus.

SHARE Pre-K students unwind during recess at the center. Logan Alvarez, 4, jumps off a rock as Pre-K students unwind during recess time at the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center on Florida SouthWestern's campus Wednesday, March 23, 2016 in Naples. (Luke Franke/Staff) Pre-K students unwind during recess time at the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center on Florida Southwestern's campus Wednesday, March 23, 2016 in Naples. (Luke Franke/Staff) Teaching artist Kathy Hostetler plays with Natalia De La Mora, 2, while she rides her bike during recess time at the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center on Florida SouthWestern's campus Wednesday, March 23, 2016 in Naples. (Luke Franke/Staff)

By John Osborne, Daily News Correspondent;

Slow and steady wins the race, but a swift resolution wouldn't be frowned upon, either.

Started a little more than three years ago, Collier Child Care Resources' CCCR Business 100 support organization announced the recent addition of five more members, a group that includes the Daily News.

Commercial Management of Naples, Family Wealth Planning Group  Raymond James, HollingerJobs.com and Thrive Physical Therapy & Wellness Solutions are the other members of the latest joining class, bringing the total number of CCCR Business 100 participants to 61.

To join, businesses pledge a $500 per year membership fee.

CCCR Executive Director Niccole Howard said 80 percent of the money goes toward tuition assistance at the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center on the Collier campus of Florida SouthWestern State College, where 75 percent of children come from low-income working families and 55 percent of families live at or below the poverty line.

The remaining 20 percent of donations is earmarked for CCCR's two free child care programs for teen parents at Immokalee and Golden Gate high schools.

Howard said the assistance from businesses is invaluable.

"The members of our CCCR Business 100 lend much support to our early childhood education programs," she said. "They contribute not only in monetary terms but with in-kind donations, sponsorships and hosting business networking events for us. In return, we try to give them as much publicity and public recognitions as we can and strive to build a strong partnership with them."

CCCR Director of Communications Dianne Reed said a symbiotic relationships exists between the nonprofit and members of the CCCR Business 100.

"The new members seem thrilled to join and help the children in our programs," she said. "Many of the businesses hold networking events just for CCCR, and we all benefit. We actually find that quite a number of businesses, who many not have heard about us previously, sign up as members at our events."

Nadia Keric, of Family Wealth Planning Group  Raymond James, said a personal experience inspired her to join the CCCR Business 100. While searching for child care for her adopted niece, Keric said she met Howard and toured the NCEF Early Childhood Development Center.

"I was really impressed to see how Niccole and her staff care about kids and parents and doing what's right," Keric said. "We're in the wealth management business, so community involvement is one of our passions because we want to see people become productive members of society, and offering quality child care at an affordable rate goes a long way toward making that happen."

John Huttner, founder and owner of HollingerJobs.com, said his participation was a no-brainer.

"I have an abiding interest in early childhood education and the well being of children, especially preschool age, because that's such a formative and important time in their lives," he said. "I volunteer for CCCR and sit on the advisory board because its mission fits so closely with what I think is important in this country, and that is educating our children to become better citizens."

Howard said businesses with a policy against making financial donations could help out in other ways.

"We're talking about restaurants and other businesses that might be able to donate food or space for events," she said. "We're diversifying now and trying to get more involved in looking at that sort of thing."

For more information call 239-643-3908 or see www.collier childcare.org.
Gov. Rick Scott addresses the crowd flanked by House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, left, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, at the end of session, Friday, March 11, 2016, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)

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Governor Rick Scott announced Friday that the Naples area added 2,100 new private-sector jobs over the year in February.

The areas unemployment rate declined by 0.6 percentage point over the year to 4.4 percent in February, according to a press release by the governors office. Floridas statewide unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent in February, the states lowest rate in eight years.

The industries with the greatest job growth in the Naples area over the year in February were construction with 900 new jobs, and leisure and hospitality with 800 new jobs, the press release states. Naples had 4,891 job openings in February, including 959 high-wage science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations.

Click here to view the February 2016 employment numbers 
SHARE David Albers/Staff A customer exits the Sweetbay Supermarket in the Magnolia Square shopping plaza near the intersection of Goodlette-Frank and Pine Ridge Roads on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013, in Naples. The grocery chain announced it would close 33 of its Florida stores, including three in Collier County.

By Laura Layden

8201986

As customers trickled in and out of the Sweetbay Supermarket in Green Tree Center off Immokalee Road on Thursday, some shook their heads in disbelief, surprised to learn it will soon close for the last time.

Others, who have shopped at the store for years, said they saw it coming because business had dropped off so much in the past year.

The store ? at 2482 Immokalee Road near Airport-Pulling Road ? is one of three "underperforming" stores that will close in Collier County by next month.

Late Wednesday, Sweetbay's Belgian parent company, Delhaize Group, announced it would shutter 33 of the grocery stores that aren't meeting expectations in Florida. The closings ? which will happen by mid-February ? also include a store in nearby Punta Gorda.

"We have some great competitors in Florida and the grocery industry is very competitive and sales in these stores were lower than expected. We are a publicly held company and we have a responsibility to our shareholders," said Nicole LeBeau, a spokeswoman for Sweetbay in Tampa.

With the closings, there will be 72 Sweetbays left in Florida, the only state they operate in.

"We are going to continue to do what we can to keep those successful," LeBeau said.

Though the Sweetbay off U.S. 41 in Bonita Springs will stay open, its pharmacy will close as part of the cuts, which are part of a larger reorganization plan for the Delhaize Group designed to improve its performance in the U.S.

With the cuts, nine Sweetbay stores will still be left in Lee and Collier counties, including one at Vanderbilt Beach Road and Collier Boulevard in Mission Hills Shopping Center and another off Golden Gate Parkway.

When she stopped by Thursday, Jennifer Hynes, 44, said she'd been shopping at the Sweetbay at Green Tree for years and that she's at the store all the time as a mother of a 2-year-old, who constantly needs diapers, and a 20-year-old, who guzzles milk.

"I'm very surprised," she said of the closing. "I had no idea."

She said she'll miss the store for many reasons.

"It's clean. Everybody is very courteous. It's convenient. In general, the pricing is less than Publix," said Hynes, who lives within a few miles of the store.

When she walked up to the store a sign in the front window announced the closing and thanked customers like her for their loyalty.

The other stores closing in Collier are at 5926 Premier Way in Magnolia Square at the northeast corner of Goodlette-Frank and Pine Ridge roads, and at 4015 Santa Barbara Boulevard in the Countryside Shoppes near Radio Road.

With all the closings in the state, about 2,000 associates will lose their jobs. Eligible associates will get a severance package.

In Southwest Florida, about 200 employees will lose their jobs at four stores, including the one in Punta Gorda off U.S. 41.

On a break at the Sweetbay at Green Tree on Thursday, Armand Gouzie, 72, who works at the store part-time as a bag boy for half the year, said he wasn't too concerned about losing his job.

"I can always get a part-time job somewhere else," he said.

However, he was worried about some of his co-workers who need to work full-time to get by. He said a few companies, including Target and Sam's Club, sent representatives into the store Thursday, who handed out their cards and encouraged Sweetbay employees to apply for jobs with them.

"It's good to know people are still hiring around town," said Indy Ramkissoon, 42, an assistant customer service manager for Sweetbay, while on a smoking break outside her Green Tree store.

With car payments and a monthly mortgage to pay, she needs to find another job quickly.

"We're going to start pounding the pavement soon," she said, looking over at another co-worker on break. "We have to."The closing, she said, didn't come as a complete surprise to her.

"There's been rumors around for a while," she said. "It still hits us like a ton of bricks."

She said some of the store's customers have told her they're devastated by the closing and aren't sure where they'll shop instead. Within a few miles, there's a Wal-Mart supercenter and a Publix, both off Immokalee Road.

With Publix so close to the Sweetbay store, it made it hard to compete, Gouzie admits.

"It's hard to beat Publix," he said. "They get so many people."

Others agree.

"Albertsons discovered there is not room in this market to compete with Publix, and so now has Sweetbay," said commercial broker David Stevens, a principal in Naples-based Investment Properties Corp.

In 2007, Albertsons closed its 63,000-square-foot store at Immokalee and Livingston roads in North Naples. That store still sits empty after a failed attempt at turning it into an exposition center.

But Stevens has a much better outlook on the stores Sweetbay will leave behind in Collier. He expects the space will be quickly taken up by retailers this year because the stores are ideally located in populated areas.

"We are starting to see a number of retailers surveying again, sometimes with developers and sometimes just on their own, saying, 'We're ready to expand and give us information on that site,'" Stevens said.

There are many retail chains that have yet to come to Collier that might consider expanding now with an improving economy, such as Dick's Sporting Goods, Babies "R" Us, Buy Buy Baby, Hobby Lobby and the Christmas Tree Shops, he said."It's economically difficult to put something together but if you can take something that is already built and re-brand it then you could open that up this summer," Stevens said.

The stores closing in Collier County range from 49,000 square feet to 51,000 square feet, with the biggest one at Countryside Shoppes.

Commercial broker Jack Crifasi, whose company handles leasing and management at Green Tree, said he's not overly concerned about Sweetbay leaving the shopping center, which is 98 percent leased.

"Everybody seems to be doing very well," he said of the tenants. "As far as we're concerned, the best is still to come at Green Tree Center. The location has already proven itself and it will do so in the future."
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WASHINGTON  Once again the dreaded SAT, known universally with fear and trembling by millions of students, has been altered in an attempt to prove it is still relevant  if, of course, it ever was.

The College Board, which owns the exam, wants to make it more pertinent to today's classroom and blunt the erosion in the number of students who take it and the colleges that demand it. It's about time. At stake are enormous revenues generated by applicant fees and a cottage industry of prep courses that have been the source of well-deserved criticism.

The claims by the test's architects that it is a valid measure of what a student has learned in 12 years of elementary and secondary education has been undercut by the fact that it is subject to short-term improvement and that success often comes through expensive classes that center on how to take the exam. The cost of these preparatory lessons is far beyond the means of many students.

The fact the College Board has decided to do what it has always claimed it does  emphasize classroom study  seems to verify the allegations about the exam's inability to predict success in higher education. From that standpoint, the new version of the SAT is being more correctly described as an achievement test rather than one measuring aptitude for education.

The test has been terribly flawed, if not downright unfair, in both its language and mathematics sections. The revised exam does away with rarely used archaic words memorized but then quickly forgotten by students. The math questions now center on reading charts, analysis of evidence and applying algebra generally taught in school. Gone are the trick questions and guessing penalty.

The new SAT also returns to its traditional top score of 1,600 in two segments and away from the essay that was added in 2005 and brought the perfect score to 2,400.

Whether this incarnation of the 90-year-old exam will stem the flow of colleges and universities away from it remains to be seen.

It already had been losing ground to the ACT, an exam regarded by many students as more relevant and accurate in its approach to the modern classroom.

The exam was unveiled for students in certain venues about two weeks ago. More than 450,000 students are expected to take it this month. Their success or lack thereof ultimately will decide the fate of the exam that came to overwhelming prominence following World War II and the postwar baby boom. Until then, it had been primarily used by private colleges and universities. Most public state institutions were bound by law to admit every high school graduate who applied for at least one semester.

That so-called open admissions policy for state schools has mainly disappeared with the diminishing of state funding. Public universities have turned to out-of-state and foreign applicants to take up the financial slack, and high test scores have become less important.

The Ivy League, sub-Ivies and elites like Stanford  the most difficult admissions challenge in the nation  can be counted on to support the College Board in the future. But the irony of all this is that one can make a perfect or near-perfect score on both the SAT and the ACT and register a perfect grade-point average in high school, not to mention middle school, taking nothing but Advanced Placement courses from an outstanding public high school, and never crack one of these schools.

The Ivies and Stanford and others in this category accept only a small percentage of the high school seniors who apply each year and most of those aren't from public suburban high schools, no matter how bright they are. A Yale recruiter meeting with students from a Fairfax, Virginia, high school ranked in the top 75 nationally was asked how many students had been accepted from that school in the past. He replied that none had. That year one student was chosen. Largely, I think, because his good grades were supplemented by the fact he was a drum major.

So in the long run, changes or not, the SAT may revert to where it was when I went to school, an exercise rarely scene in most parts of the country except for a handful of elite institutions.
Patrick Riley/Staff (6) Visitors ride their bicycles during a guided bike tour at Lovers Key State Park on Thursday.

SHARE A Calusa Indian midden can be see in the distance at Lovers Key State Park, March 24. The man-made shell hill was used by the Calusa Indians to store waste and later became an island when the canals were dug. Patrick Riley/Staff Park volunteer Maryann Dahl shows a development plan for what eventually would become Lovers Key State Park after a guided bike tour at Lovers Key State Park on Thursday, March 24. In the late 1960s, a developer wanted to build about 400 homes on Black Island, but the proposal was met with push-back from activists, got tied up in court and never came to fruition. Patrick Riley/Staff A visitor observes a nicker bean plant . Visitor Jim Burns looks for alligators in the "alligator pond" during a guided bike tour at Lovers Key State Park on Thursday. Patrick Riley/Staff

I'm used to mountain bikes.

Growing up, I was accustomed to having to break heavily while speeding down a hill and then shift gears just as frantically while laboring back up the same hill. I would be hunched over the handlebars, first slightly terrified and then totally exhausted.

So when I rented a bicycle to partake in the Black Island Bike Tour at Lovers Key State Park on a recent March morning I was pleasantly surprised.

No gears. A comfortable seat. And a simple break mechanism: pedal backward and the bicycle comes to a halt.

My blue beach cruiser bike had it all.

Our two-and-a-half mile guided bike tour around the park begins with ominously cloudy skies and a little history lesson.

"The canals you see here, they are all man-made," Park Volunteer Maryann Dahl, who is our guide alongside husband and fellow volunteer Mark, tells us as our group of 10 gathers near the water.

"They were dug. This was slated for development in the late 60s."

The plan Maryann Dahl, 65, explains was to turn Black Island into a 400-home community, complete with private docks and backyards.

"How we developed land in Southwest Florida, is dredge and fill," she says. "They just come in and they scoop out, in this case, they scooped out canals."

The canals were carved out, giving the park its winding form, but the development never came to fruition after the proposal was met with pushback from activists and got "tied up in courts for 14 years," Maryann Dahl says.

"It was a big push to save the coastline," she tells us. "And it got stopped."

The development corporation fell apart and eventually the state came in and bought the property for $8 million, Maryann Dahl explains.

"This was in '83," she says. "Lovers Key State Park didn't open until the late '90s."

Speaking of "Lovers Key," the park got its name, Maryann Dahl says, because before there was a road "only lovers would take the initiative to row out to such a secluded island."

Black Island's namesake, meanwhile, was the pirate Black Augustus, who  legend has it  was captured, then escaped and found refuge on the island until his death there.

Before we move on to our next stop along the tour, Mark Dahl, 70, and I venture back on the trail some to find what he calls "the resident screech owl."

"They hunt at night," Mark Dahl explains. "And he is tolerant of people now. If she has a real big group, he'll wake up and you'll see him look down at us."

And really, there it is: a greyish-brown, little bird, perfectly camouflaged, sitting in a little tree hole, its eyes barely open.

The owl has been spending its daylight hours at that same spot for the past three or four years, Mark Dahl says.

We leave the bird be and saddle up again to continue our bike ride past gopher tortoises and strangler figs.

Considering the abundance of wildlife now, it's even more astounding to think that all of it almost gave way to development.

"You'd be going through somebody's backyard right now or front yard," Mark Dahl reminds me, as we zip along the sand, shell and gravel trail.

After showing us a gopher tortoise catching some rays as the sun finally starts to poke through the clouds, Maryann Dahl announces our next stop: "We're going to head up to the third-highest hill in Lee County."

Hills? Here? Maybe I should've gotten a mountain bike after all.

But, of course, the hill itself is nothing more than a brief climb, something even my simplistic beach cruiser can handle. (Although the loose sand and gravel make it harder than I thought, even forcing me to rise from my seat to create more leverage)

Once on top, Maryann Dahl reveals to us that the highest hill in Lee County is a landfill and that this hill here, too, was man-made.

"This is about 200 feet," she tells us. "This was part of the development. It was going to be four villages. There was going to be a Calusa Indian village, a pirate village, a Cracker Florida-style home village and a modern Florida high-rise village.

"This was the Calusa Indian mound. This was going to replicate that and be part of the Calusa village."

We hop back on our bikes and roll down the hill, on to our next stop where cabbage palms, sea grapes and flip flops await us.

Now, we already learned during our tour at the Barefoot Beach Preserve that sea grape leaves make for formidable (and U.S. Postal Service approved) letters. But did you know you can send flip flops in the mail, too?

"This cost me $2 to mail," Maryann Dahl tells us as she holds up a pink flip-flop. "I mailed the mate to my daughter-in-law for her birthday and I just put the message that she needed to come to Florida to get the other shoe."

(After Maryann Dahl explains that you can take a coconut, too, and mail it, I'm starting to think that there is precious little USPS won't accept. Good on you, USPS. Good on you)

We continue our tour along the water, as yellow and orange kayaks drift on by, before stopping our bicycles at the so-called "fish gates"  an opening connecting the canal to the rest of Estero Bay.

They call them that "because a lot of people fish here," Mark Dahl explains.

The "gates" are marked by white PVC pipes, remnants from the development corporation's effort to turn the land into a profitable residential community.

"What Seneca Corporation had planned to do was close this off and have a gate here," Mark Dahl tells us. "They were going to close this off to the public, which you can't do. You can't own water.

"That was another part of their downfall."

The PVC pipes will likely stay around for another 150 years or so, Mark Dahl says.

We leave the pipes behind, round a fiery red gumbo limbo tree and make our way to the "alligator pond," home to more than a dozen gators.

"They're wild animals, so I always proceed up here with caution," Maryann Dahl tells us, as we park our bicycles and walk toward the pond.

Sure enough, we spot one small gator zooming across the greenish water as a handful of others are skeptically eyeing the nosy visitors.

"The mother alligator here, she had 13 babies we counted," Maryann Dahl tells us. "They're getting good size now."

As we walk back to our bicycles, we stop at the so-called century plant, an agave plant that can grow up to six feet tall or more. The slow-growing plant typically blooms between its 10th and 25th year (sometimes it takes even longer) and produces a flower stalk that can grow up to 25 feet tall.

"It was thought that they only bloomed once every 100 years, that's how they got their name," Maryann Dahl explains.

Mark Dahl chimes in: "And even though they're in the agave family they make horrible tequila."

Once again, we hop back on our bicycles and continue our tour past gumbo limbo trees and chirping birds until we stop at the island's oldest man-made structure.

"That is called a Calusa Indian midden," Maryann Dahl explains, as she gestures toward a small island in the middle of the canal. "A midden is a real nice word for the city dump."

The Calusa, long before there were any canals on the island, gathered all their trash and waste, like fish carcasses and shell fish remains, and deposited them at the midden, which is made out of shell.

"The Calusa didn't have a village here, a permanent settlement here, but they certainly camped here and were here quite often," Maryann Dahl tells us.

Nearing the end of our tour, we pass more strangler figs, get a short primer on pythons (Don't worry none have been spotted on the island  at least not yet) and gather back at our starting point, not too far from the sleepy owl.

Here, Maryann Dahl leaves us with some food for thought.

"The fact that we had a pirate here, we had developers here, all these things have happened to this park and we still have this beautiful park to be in," she says. "In the end we'll be defined not by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy."

Jim and Betsy Burns, too, are glad they were able to experience the park and all its natural beauty.

"I loved it," says Jim Burns, 58. "We live down here full-time now and so we're just trying to learn more about where we live."

The best part was "that we saw stuff," says his wife Betsy, 56.

"We saw that screech owl and we saw the tortoise and, you know, the gators," she tells me. "I thought we were just going to ride our bikes. And so I was very pleased to see so many things.

"This was fabulous."

IF YOU GO

Black Island Bike Tour

When: Next tour: 10 a.m., Wednesday, March 30; Final tour this spring at 10 a.m. April 14

Where: Lovers Key State Park 8700 Estero Blvd., Fort Myers Beach

Cost: Free with regular park admission ($4); rent a bike from the park concession stand for $20 or bring your own. Due to limited space, reservations are required.

Information: 239-463-4588 or visitfloridastateparks.org/park/Lovers-Key
Two burrowing owl chicks. Jean Hall/Special to the Eagle

SHARE Adult pair of burrowing owls. Jean Hall/Special to the Eagle Family of 5 burrowing owls. Jean Hall/Special to the Eagle An adult burrowing owl. Jean Hall/Special to the Eagle

By Maria Lamb

The city of Marco Island began monitoring the burrowing owls in 2001. In a newly announced project, Owl Watch, the city has partnered with the Audubon of Western Everglades (AWE) to continue the science-based chick/adult data collection for the burrowing owls.

This project will continue the data collection started by then city environmentalist Nancy Richie in 2001. AWE will supervise the data collection and monitoring of burrow sites throughout Marco Island.

Burrowing owls are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (though they do not migrate); they are designated as a "Species of Special Concern" established by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) in 1970; and in Marco Island, they are protected by Ordinance 01-34, which is the endangered, threatened or listed species protection, established in 2001.

In local terms, special permits are required for the removal or relocation of owl burrows. Contractors and builders best check their state and local ordinances before applying for building permits. During the nesting season, (Feb. 15 through July 10) no building permits will be issued for applicants needing to "take" a burrow, unless FFWCC have issued permits to take the owl burrow. Violations are subject to penalties.

For a species of special concern, it is illegal to take (pursue, hunt, capture, molest or kill) burrowing owls and their burrows or eggs without a permit from the FFWCC. In Marco Island there was a recent incident of a local resident plugging an owl burrow intentionally. Thanks to the quick action of an Owl Watch volunteer in that particular neighborhood, the incident was reported to proper FWC Law Enforcement authorities and charges are being prepared.

To report a malicious destruction or harassment of burrowing owls, call 1-888-404-FWCC (3922).

Burrowing owls are often displaced, their burrows destroyed during construction process or by heavy mowing equipment; use of pesticides in their environment; predation from bigger raptors; harm from domestic dogs and cats; harassment by humans and vehicle collision. Be very aware when driving at night, lower your speed if you are driving in areas of active nesting burrows. The owls hunt at night and they are focused on prey and not on an approaching vehicle.

If you do hit an owl, stop and render assistance. Call the Conservancy of Southwest Florida's Wildlife clinic at 239-262-CARE (2273) or your Marco Island Police Department nonemergency number 239-389-5050.

Volunteer to monitor a neighborhood site. Be part of the Owl Watch volunteer project by contacting: owlwatchmarco@gmail.com.

Report any violation to FWC law enforcement at 888-404-3922  take a photo of the violation and share it with the MIPD.
Landscaping and walkways await completion at the Smokehouse Bay Bridge in this file photo. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent

SHARE Landscaping and walkways await completion at the Smokehouse Bay Bridge in this file photo. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent Landscaping and walkways await completion at the Smokehouse Bay Bridge in this file photo. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent

By Lance Shearer, Eagle Correspondent

When the dispute between owners of the Esplanade and the city of Marco Island was being negotiated, neither party wanted to say much about it. Now that a settlement has been agreed upon, some of those involved have plenty to say.

John Arceri, an attorney, Esplanade resident, adviser to both the Esplanade Marina and residential boards, and former city councilor, said he had "never seen such arrogance" as that displayed by City Manager Roger Hernstadt during talks between representatives of the Esplanade and the city. The property owners had repeatedly warned the city they had no legal easement and were encroaching on the Esplanade property in constructing the Smokehouse Bay Bridge, which is being renamed after longtime Marco Island architect Herb Savage.

Despite these warnings, Hernstadt dismissed "all of the Esplanade complaints and concerns. He made absolutely no attempt to develop a relationship with the Esplanade residents or unit owners and acted with the highest levels of resident dispresepct and arrogance I have ever seen," said Arceri. "Having dealt with some five city managers in the past dozen years, I was stunned by his attitude, lack of care and unwillingness to try and resolve a resident conflict. I've never seen such a level of arrogance."

Hernstadt responded on a personal level to the personal allegations.

"We made every effort to work with them. I offered to come to their condo association, which they never accepted," he said. "He's trying to make this a personal attack against me. It's that simple.

"I wouldn't bow to his will and his intimidation. That is correct. The facts of the case are very simple. The PUD (Planned Unit Development agreement) for the Esplanade required an easement. The people in the city at the time never verified that the easement was recorded."

In fact, there was no valid easement, as the city discovered when the Esplanade pressed its case, and in a settlement earlier this month, the city agreed to pay $83,000 to the Esplanade. In addition, they are responsible to pay an additional $17,000 for landscaping.

"We told them there was no survey and no easement," said Arceri. "You can't blame this on people from 12 years ago. You can't just build on someone's property." The city encroached on Esplanade property with the ramp and the footer for the bridge, and built a sea wall on top of the Esplanade's sea wall, he said.

Arceri estimated that with the city's legal fees and surveys it had to commission, the total cost to taxpayers was closer to $140,000. "The city spent $8-9,000 on a riparian rights consultant," he said.

Hernstadt disputed the $140,000 number, saying, "I'm glad our insurance company is covering our claim. Our cost is $25,000 for our portion of the insurance claim, plus the $17,000 for landscaping."

Bill Trotter just hopes that everyone can just get along and make nice. A former city councilor and chairman of the countywide Metropolitan Planning Organization, he is a sitting member of the city's Planning Board, an Esplanade 1 resident and president of their association. He pointed out that Arceri is speaking for himself as an Esplanade resident, and not for the board of directors or the property as a whole. But Trotter also agreed the matter could have been better handled by the city.

"I told the City Council on a number of occasions to ask for documentation," he said. "They assured us they had that survey. You would think, in light of our concerns, they would want to make sure it was thoroughly checked out. It was a long, difficult process." Indeed, for such a short span, the work and wrangling over the what is now the Savage Bridge has made it "the longest bridge," with a decade in talking, planning, building, and legal conflicts since it was first flagged as obsolescent in 2006.

The city has also been involved in a legal dispute with contractor Quality Enterprises USA. Work on the bridge, including landscaping, handrails, and the "final lift" or top layer of asphalt for the bridge surface, not scheduled to be installed until after the landscaping is complete. It also includes tying the bridge's sidewalks into walkways that will allow pedestrians to cross under the spans. Trotter and Arceri said the city had promised to let them know when these final items are scheduled, so they can alert the tenants and owners in the Esplanade.

"Now that the settlement is finalized, we are ordering the work," said Hernstadt. "We don't have a final deadline, but it will be shortly."
Pedro Zepeda (2) Timothy John Smith, playing Hovstad, and David Whalen, playing Mayor Peter Stockmann, share some bad news in "An Enemy of the People," presented by Gulfshore Playhouse.

SHARE David Whalen (Peter Stockman) gets his mayoral costume checked by Lauren Gaston, costume designer. Photo by Pedro Zepeda Jeffrey Binder, as Dr. Thomas Stockmann, from left; Christopher Kelly as Billing; John Corey as Captain Horster; and Timothy John Smith as Hovstad toast, but any celebration will be short-lived in "An Enemy of the People." Pedro Zepeda Kristen Coury, director/producing artistic director, from left; Christopher Kelly as Billing; Larry Paulsen as Aslaksen; and Timothy John Smith as Hovstad confer on a scene.

By Harriet Howard Heithaus of the Naples Daily News

The drama is distilled. The water is not.

In fact, the water is poisonous, and on that frightening truth turns the streamlined version of Hendrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," Gulfshore Playhouse's current production. It opens Saturday at the Norris Community Center in Naples, and its tenets sound eerily familiar.

Intra-play dramas appear like layers in a torte as you slice into it. The audience must choose which one they partake of most intensely. Sibling rivalry. The vulnerability, despite its posturing, of the media. Corporate/governmental obfuscation. The public's self-imposed quotient for denial. Greed and hubris. This is a heavy, but richly filling, work.

It even confounded the actors playing the fraternal leads, Jeffrey Binder (Dr. Thomas Stockmann) and David Whalen (Mayor Peter Stockmann).

"You read it, and you say it's about this and this. And then you stand up and you say the words, and you have to do the scene, and you realize the complexity," said Binder, whose character correctly theorizes the town's spas are absorbing a poisonous chemical. "It just bubbles up. It makes it so much fun to act, and hopefully, to watch."

"The mayor wants to take what he think is the correct way to handle this. But Thomas is really headstrong. He's brilliant, but as his brother the mayor wants to handle it in a way that can be palatable for everybody, so we don't shut down everything and lose the economy, which is just starting to rise," Whalen said. "It raises a complex issue  if someone is going to blow the whistle, what is the fallout going to be?"

Playing for keeps

"There's a real danger in this. This is 1800s Norway. If this town is shut down, there's destitution, even death," Binder said, adding later, "How far would you go to tell the truth? How far would you go to do something that you know what was right, even if it meant destroying your family? Even if it meant your children wouldn't eat?"

Conflicts skitter about, drops of water in a hot skillet. Hovstad, the newspaper editor, is in love with the doctor's daughter, who shares her father's views. The chemical poisoning the city's tourist baths comes from a tannery operated by the doctor's father-in-law. To clean up the chemical leak and the water supply would suck time and money from the bath's board of directors, as well as from the rest of the town's businesses, just as all are beginning to feel the economic glow of their popularity.

One of the most profound difficulties is the growing rift between the two already fractious brothers.

"Dave and I talked about these brothers being kinds of a yin and a yang. They almost form one complete human being. The spa couldn't have been built without the brother, the mayor, but it was the doctor's inspiration," Binder said.

"The friction plays as much into this dilemma as the dilemma itself over the course of the play."

Their movement among communication levels, from peer to parent to child, also is fascinating, added Kristen Coury, Gulfshore founder/artistic director, who is directing "Enemy." Despite being the town doctor and mayor, when the two start to argue, she said, "suddenly there's something very petulant. ... And it's very poignant because we understand the same thing in our own siblings."

Tightened and 'muscular'

The version of the play Gulfshore will present is an adaptation by playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz that Coury saw in 2012.

It doesn't change the era or setting but dispenses with some of the longer scene-setting of the original.

"It's just a little cleaner, a little leaner," Coury said. "I think we get from here to there more expediently than the original Norwegian translation."

Referring to lead poisoning in the Flint, Michigan, water supply and the unwanted water releases from Lake Okeechobee, she said: "We chose it last January and committed to it for this season and had no idea all this was going to happen. It's really amazing, the timing."

Because of that relevance, general manager Christopher Brisling suggested, and the organization is planning, to match every bottle of water sold at intermission with one to be sent to Flint.

Binder called the adaptation "muscular."

"There's nothing tentative about any character in this play, so when the audience gets a new character, it's, OK, who's on the diving board now," he said.

Let's talk

For those who like discussion, Gulfshore Playhouse offers several discussion opportunities (see the accompanying box). It's one of Whalen's favorite parts of being in a production like this.

"What's fun to me  hang out after the show and listen to the people who come and see it. There are so many parallels to things that are happening today that you could draw from," Whalen said.

"It's amazing to me that people come and see the play, and the answer to them is so clear  but it's the exact opposite of the person sitting next to them."

---

If you go: An Enemy of the People

What: Gulfshore Playhouse production of Rebecca Lenkiewicz adaptation of Hendrik Ibsen work

Where: Norris Community Center, 755 Eighth Ave. S., Naples

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, March 29 through April 16; 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, April 2 to 17

Tickets: $39 to $54; $20 students: $20 and $30 for 8 p.m. Friday preview

To buy: gulfshoreplayhouse.org or 866-811-4111

Something else: Actor-director talkback March 31; four other types of discussions; see the website
Emcee and dancer Cindy Padgett, 61, of Naples dances with a member of the audience during a performance at the Terracina Grand in Naples on Friday, March 4, 2016. The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida is a non-profit group of 50+ women that tap dance together. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff)

SHARE From left, dancers Barbara Bonthron, 79, of Marco Island, Joanne Townsend, 66, of Naples and Gina Finch, 72, of Naples wait for their turn to take the stage during a performance at the Terracina Grand in Naples on Friday, March 4, 2016. The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida is a non-profit group of 50+ women that tap dance together. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) A group of dancers pose for a photo together before a performance at the Terracina Grand in Naples on Friday, March 4, 2016. The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida is a non-profit group of 50+ women that tap dance together. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Dancer Marie Castle, 73, of Naples, center, practices her routine before a performance at the Terracina Grand in Naples on Friday, March 4, 2016. The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida is a non-profit group of 50+ women that tap dance together. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Dancer Freddi Peltz, 67, of Naples waits for her turn to take the stage during a performance at the Terracina Grand in Naples on Friday, March 4, 2016. The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida is a non-profit group of 50+ women that tap dance together. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) Related Photos The ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida

By Dorothy Edwards of the Naples Daily News

More than 100 women 50 and older entertain as part of ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida

It is a Friday afternoon and a group of Alzheimer's patients are gathered in a small back room at the Terracina Grand in East Naples. The patients are waiting to see the women who are crowded in the hallway outside.

In the hallway, the clicking of tap shoes echo as the women change into sequin tops and ruffled hats. They're putting on red lipstick, stretching and practicing their steps.

The emcee enters the room from the hallway and greets the patients while the first group of performers get in formation. Only seconds after the group begins dancing, wide eyes and smiles start to spread throughout the audience.

The women, all aged 50 and older, are part of ReCreation Tappers of Southwest Florida. The nonprofit formed in 2004 with 20 members and now has more than 100 women. The group holds weekly classes and performs all over Southwest Florida, including for Alzheimer's patients like the ones at the Terracina Grand.

The group's emcee and one of several choreographers, Cindy Padgett, 61, joined the tappers in 2007 after a long career as a Las Vegas performer. Padgett was a part of opening acts for performers like Johnny Carson, Buddy Hackett, Jerry Lewis and Don Rickles while dancing with the Sahara Girls at the Sahara Hotel on the Vegas Strip. She has also performed in California, Japan, Aruba and Atlantic City, New Jersey.

"It has been a marvelous singing and dancing career," she said.

When Padgett moved to Naples nine years ago, she looked for a way to keep dancing and teach tap. When she learned about the ReCreation Tappers, she couldn't believe there were so many women in Naples who love to tap.

"It is the best community of spirited, dancing women that I could have ever dreamed of finding in Naples," Padgett said.

Gina Finch, 72, had never tap danced before joining the ReCreation Tappers seven years ago. She said it took about three years and four different tap teachers for her to learn the Time Step, a basic foundational tap dance move.

"Everybody helps everybody and if you can't learn the way one teacher teaches, you go to another teacher," Finch said.

Another one of the group's choreographers, Vicky Jo Boyer, said that at 75, she has never stopped dancing and never stopped wearing high heels. Boyer has been dancing since she was 6 years old and had her own dance studio in Ohio for 50 years. She loves the vitality of the women that she dances with.

"We might be 50, 60, or 70 years old but inside we are all like 14," she said. "That's what's hard about getting older, and dancing helps that," Boyer said.

At the Terracina Grand, the finale is upbeat and energetic. Some audience members dance in their chairs. The tappers leave the stage to dance with the patients. As the song fades, the women hug the patients and say goodbye.

"As a performer, it is so rewarding to be able to bring that happiness to people," Padgett said. "It is the ultimate satisfaction and reward inside of your heart."
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Collier deputies arrested a man who they say sexually abused at least two victims.

Jesus Trujillo Diaz, 26, of the 100 block of Pierce Street, East Naples, was arrested Wednesday.

He faces charges for two counts of sexual battery and one count of lewd or lascivious molestation.

Reports show deputies served two warrants stemming back to 2013 investigations.

Incident reports from those investigations show Trujillo Diaz was accused by two people of molesting women, whose exact ages were not given.

One report indicated that a victim was under 18 at the time of the crime but had since become a legal adult.
After he was busted by Chris Hansen of "Dateline: To Catch A Predator" in 2006, Lee County resident Donald Leroy Morrison thanked the television host.

"Thank you for bringing, you know, kicking me in the pants and setting me straight, Chris," Morrison said. He admitted he could use the help of a counselor.

On Wednesday, Lee County authorities arrested Morrison for a second time after an employee at the North Fort Myers library saw him looking at Facebook pictures of children on a public computer Saturday.

Morrison told a deputy he was trying to help an incarcerated woman by sending her photos of her 9-month-old child. But as a registered sex offender, the 55-year-old is barred from places like libraries, parks or public swimming pools, according to a county ordinance.

"The guy was in there looking at photos of young individuals," said Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. David Velez. "He was clearly in violation of his agreement."

Morrison has acknowledged his troubled past. On his YouTube channel, he calls two other users his "sex slaves" and writes that he "can't control my actions so dont judge me & come to my channel harassing me over it."

He told Dateline's Hansen his "compulsion" for younger women is born out of being lonely and girlfriend-less. He denied being forceful and said he asks permission before engaging in sex acts with teenagers.

"I'm not really into, you know, pedophilia. This might be, this is probably considered that," he said on the show. "And I know this is probably gonna be on 'Dateline' too, so go ahead and put it on."

Morrison also has been linked to embattled Texas politician John Bradley, who lost his seat as Williamson County district attorney in May. Bradley was publicly blasted for his campaign to block DNA tests for Michael Morton, an accused murderer who later was found innocent of the crime.

Critics also accused Bradley of giving Morrison a slap on the wrist after he was found with nude photos of a 17-year-old Michigan girl in 2000.

Court records show Morrison initially was charged with possession of child pornography, a felony. That charge later was dropped to a lesser felony, unlawful use of a criminal instrument, and Morrison pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of attempted unlawful use of a criminal instrument in 2001, records state.

After time served, he spent 98 days in jail and paid a $197 fine.

By 2006, Morrison had moved to Fort Myers, where he was arrested following the "To Catch A Predator" sting and forced to register as a sex offender.

In the episode, Morrison apologizes for what he might have done and gives the television crew permission to monitor him.

"Like I say, this'll be the first and the last time," he said.

As of late Wednesday, he remained in the Lee County jail, where he was being held without bond.
Mary Ann Groves, the mother of Teresa Sievers, leaves a Lee County courtroom after a custody hearing regarding her grandchildren on Monday, Feb. 29, 2016, in downtown Fort Myers. Mark and Dr. Teresa Sievers' children will remain in the care of non-relatives in Collier County and will only have contact with their father by phone following the hearing Monday with child welfare officials. (David Albers/Staff)

By Kristine Gill of the Naples Daily News

The mother of slain Bonita Springs doctor Teresa Sievers has filed for temporary custody of her two granddaughters in the wake of their father's arrest.

In her filing, Mary Ann Groves claims the two children have suffered severe psychological and emotional harm in the aftermath of their mother's killing. Mark Sievers is accused of orchestrating the murder of his wife at their home in June. He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder charges and is being held in the Lee County Jail on a $4.43 million bond.

Mary Ann Groves, whose suit lists an Estero address, filed the petition for custody Monday. Mark Sievers has 20 calendar days from that date to file a written response.

Court records show Josephine and Carmela Sievers, ages 11 and 9, were in the custody of a Naples family from Feb. 27 to March 10, following their father's Feb. 26 arrest. The Department of Children and Families placed them in the home while vetting blood relatives and family friends who had volunteered to care for the girls.

Since March 11, the two girls have been with Groves, their maternal grandmother. While they have not consistently been in her custody, the petition says that Groves has cared for the girls daily since Mark Sievers' arrest.

"As a result of the Father's alleged acts and the resulting loss of their mother, the children have suffered severe psychological and emotional harm," the petition states.

Groves is seeking temporary custody, or custody for the duration of Mark Sievers' incarceration.

The petition states that Groves is a suitable caretaker for the girls given that they have a loving relationship and feel comfortable in her care.

Josephine and Carmela are home-schooled and Groves has arranged to continue home schooling them. Groves is not requesting child support from Mark Sievers and has not asked the court to establish a visitation schedule between the girls and their father.

Mark Sievers entered a not guilty plea in his case Thursday. He is scheduled for arraignment Monday in front of Lee Circuit Judge Ramiro Manalich.

He traded his private defense lawyer this month for a public defender, claiming indigency, reports show.

Defense attorney Lee Hollander would not say why the two parted company.

Mark Sievers filed for indigency March 17, saying he had $5,000 in bank accounts, but no income. His three vehicles were estimated to be worth $14,000 and he said he had liabilities and debts totaling $200,000.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers, one of two Missouri men also arrested in the killing, is being represented by a public defender in the case. Kathleen Fitzgeorge works out of the Public Defender's Office in Lee County.

To avoid a conflict of interest, Mark Sievers will be represented by regional counsel going forward.

Curtis Wayne Wright Jr. was convicted of the slaying when he took a plea agreement on a second-degree murder charge. He will serve a 25-year prison term in exchange for providing "substantial assistance" to prosecutors.

RELATED STORIES:
Indian River Sheriff's Office/Facebook

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By Rebecca Reis of the Naples Daily News

Indian River County Sheriffs deputies rescued a woman from a fiery vehicle Wednesday after a crash engulfed her car in flames in Vero Beach.

According to a Facebook post from the sheriffs office, a collision between the womans car, a septic tanker truck and a refuse flatbed truck immediately ignited a fire. As deputies arrived to the scene of the crash, Deputy Robert Sunkel learned from a witness that a woman was trapped in the small car. He broke the vehicles window with his baton and attempted to pull her out, but she was trapped by her seat belt, steering wheel and airbag.

A second deputy, Linda Nolan, arrived at the scene and tried to reduce the flames with a fire extinguisher. Eventually Sunkel and Nolan were able to drag the woman from the car and get her to safety as the car continued to burn.

Nolan sustained burns to her hand that were treated at the scene as well as Indian River Medical Center. The woman in the car was airlifted from the scene. Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the cause of the crash.

Watch the incredible dashcam video below. Warning, contains graphic content.

***WARNING - VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT*** Deputies save woman trapped in burning carMedia release: March 23, 2016At approximately 10:45 A.M., the Indian River County Sheriff's Office Public Safety Dispatch received a call of a crash at the intersection of Oslo Road and 66th Avenue. A small car traveling south on 66th Avenue turned out in front of a septic tanker truck, causing a collision between the two and a third refuse flatbed truck. The collision between the car and the septic truck immediately ignited into fire, causing both vehicles to be engulfed in flames.Indian River County Sheriff's Deputy Robert Sunkel was first on scene and quickly learned from witnesses that a female was trapped in the vehicle. Deputy Sunkel broke the window of the car with his baton and opened the passenger side door trying to free the female. She was trapped in the vehicle by her seat belt, steering wheel, and airbag. Deputy Sunkel made attempts to pull her out but was unsuccessful. Deputy Linda Nolan arrived on scene and began using her fire extinguisher to reduce the flames. The fire extinguisher made little difference as the vehicle continued to burn. Together, Deputies Sunkel and Nolan were able to pull the woman out of the vehicle and get her to safety. The entire incident was captured on Deputy Sunkel's dash camera.Indian River County Sheriff Deryl Loar stated, "We are so proud of Deputies Sunkel and Nolan for their life saving efforts earlier this morning. Video of the incident shows that despite danger to themselves, they continued to work to save this woman from her burning car." Deputy Linda Nolan sustained burns to her hand which were treated on scene and then at Indian River Medical Center. The woman pulled from the car was airlifted from the scene and her current status is unknown. Florida Highway Patrol responded and is investigating the cause of the crash. Posted by Indian River County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, March 23, 2016
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M.D. Schlitt, Marco Island

Look fast

What has become of the GOP? Xenophobic, bloviated, egocentric, self-adoring Donald Trump incites his followers to violence and then blames the "communists" (Sen. Bernie Sanders), minorities, foreigners, etc., for causing the problems at his rallies, and not his own vitriol.

He appeals to the white "poorly educated" promising to "Make America Great Again" to raise them up, exclude immigrants here illegally, make the economy great, give everyone jobs, raise the standard of living, build walls, reduce the trade deficit, build the strongest and best military the world has ever seen, etc.

He generates hate and fear among the disenfranchised. When pressed on how he will do all this, his reply is that he is so smart he knows how, don't worry about the silly details. He has his followers raise their right hand and swear allegiance to him.

Sound familiar? Go back to the early 1930s in Germany.

Another great orator with a "unique" hairstyle captured the imagination of the people of his country promising to make his country great again, etc.

He was going to make the military the greatest in the world and the people of his country were superior to all others. He blamed all the ills facing his country on foreigners, communists and the Jews. He generated hate and fear to garner support among those that felt disenfranchised. His followers raise their right hand to salute him.

I'm not saying Trump is another Hitler, but why have white supremacists, right-wing militias and the Ku Klux Klan endorsed him?

So my Republican friends, unless you want Hillary Clinton to be the shoo-in for the job, I suggest you start looking hard and fast  really, really fast  for a mainstream alternative to Der Fuhrer Trump!
More than one-third of patients die

Virus genome found in air

(NaturalNews) A serious new respiratory virus with a high mortality rate may have the potential to be transmitted by air, according to a study conducted by researchers from King Fahd Medical Research Center in Saudi Arabia and published in the journallast summer.This would elevate the virus to a much greater public health concern, since airborne viruses such as the flu spread much more quickly and easily than viruses requiring some form of contact (such as colds) or viruses that cannot cross between human beings at all, but can only be acquired from animals (such as currently known forms of "bird flu").The virus in question, known as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS), was first identified in 2012. Since then, according to the World Health Organization, there have been 836 laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease, of these, at least 288 (34.5 percent) contributed to the patient's death.The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) records 850 cases of MERS, and 327 deaths (38.4 percent mortality). Nearly all the cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia, but some cases have also been reported among people in the United States, Asia and Europe who had recently traveled to the Middle East.Researchers are still unsure how the severe respiratory infection is transmitted, although studies have suggested that the disease is linked to camels in some way. Many experts believe that most cases of the disease have been transmitted to people directly from camels, via close contact with the living animals or their meat or milk. However, other studies have suggested that some cases may have been transmitted from person to person, via close contact.In the new study, researchers collected air samples on three consecutive days from a camel barn owned by a 43-year-old man who had been diagnosed with MERS . The patient in question later died.In the week before the man became ill, four of his nine camels had shown signs of nasal discharge, and he had applied a medication directly to the nose of one of them.The researchers found traces of MERS RNA (the virus's genome) in the air sample from the first day only. That was the same day that one of the nine camels also tested positive for MERS. Genetic analysis confirmed that the genetic material in the air came from the same strain of MERS that infected both the camel and the human patient."These data show evidence for the presence of the airborne MERS in the same barn that was owned by the patient and sheltered the infected camels," the researchers wrote.The fact that there was no MERS RNA in the air on the two following days suggests that the virus may only be shed into the air intermittently or for a very short time period, according to lead researcher Esam Azhar."This study also underscores the importance of obtaining a detailed clinical history with particular emphasis on any animal exposure for any MERS case, especially because recent reports suggest higher risk of (MERS) infections among people working with camels," Azhar said.Although the study suggests that MERS may become airborne, that does not necessarily mean humans can become infected via the air."What they say is that virus particles can be airborne, but it's premature to conclude that MERS is transmitted through aerosols," said Dr. Mark Denison, a professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee."Do we still need to consider the possibility of airborne transmission? Yes, of course."
CTS Corporation let off the hook after haphazardly poisoning families with trichloroethylene for years

North Carolina law works against victims of toxic exposure

No hope for Marine families whose lives were ruined at Camp Lejeune

(NaturalNews) Cancer-causing pollution at a US Marine base shows that chemical manufacturing is being done without any human safety precautions or long-term epidemiological studies. It's the norm in America to manufacture a chemical first, dump it into the land and then see how it affects people over time. All for the sake of advancing industry, we disregard one another's health. What's even sadder is that courts may often side with chemical manufacturers even after they have ruined the lives of people living in a contaminated area.Isn't it sad to think that families of US Marines were subjected to carcinogenic solvents on a military camp of all places? Even worse -- these people have been denied justice because of a controversial Supreme Court ruling.In the case of, 23 residents of Asheville, North Carolina, sued CTS Corporation, an electronics manufacturer, for tainting residents' drinking water with a cancer-causing solvent called trichloroethylene. CTS Corporation was not reprimanded for harming the residents; they were not instructed to stop this haphazard behavior. They were let off the hook in a 7-2 Supreme Court ruling which concluded that the lawsuit had been brought forth too late.A ruling like this encourages corporations to dump unsafe chemicals into the land and waterways, without conducting any kind of safety tests, and without giving any regard to the effects that their chemicals have on environment and people. This is a sickening precedent and a "complete miscarriage of justice ," said Richard Frandsen, who served as chief environmental counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.The case came down to one question, defined differently by both federal and state laws:According to federal Superfund law amended in 1986, once plaintiffs have discovered the polluter behind their illness, they then have three years to bring forth a legal claim. According to North Carolina law, a statute of repose gives victims of toxic exposure 10 years to file a legal claim from the polluter's last culpable act. This means that victims have a 10-year window to make the connection between their illness and the polluter. The Superfund law gives victims unlimited time to make the connection, as long as they bring the case forward within three years after the discovery. But in this case, North Carolina law trumped federal Superfund law, and according to the, "Residents near the CTS plant on Mills Gap Road first noticed the pollution in 1999,[emphasis added]By finding out about the contamination two to three years after the 10-year cut-off period, the residents no longer had a viable legal case. This effectively eliminated the validity of their legal claim. In the end, it was documented that CTS dumped chemicals, including trichloroethylene, from 1959 to 1985 on 54 acres of property.In 2011, the EPA classified trichloroethylene as a carcinogen. For over a decade, residents on Mills Gap Road were living on property and drinking from wells loaded with cancer-causing chemicals.Thehad important implications for residents living near Mills Gap Road, but it also affected millions of people who lived at a large military base not too far from the contaminated property. Several families were exposed to the cancer-causing chemicals in wells during the 1980s at Marine Camp Lejeune. For years, families living on the base were poisoned with water tainted with trichloroethylene, the dry cleaning solvent perchlorothylene and the gasoline component benzene. Hundreds of former Lejeune residents have filed claims against the Department of Defense, but it has all been for naught ever since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the polluter, CTS Corporation.Mike Partain, who was born at Camp Lejeune and suffered from breast cancer as an adult, said feverishly, "Today the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively turned the environmental clock back to the 19th century and the days of robber barons and the Wild West. Now corporate America and our own government have been enabled by our highest court to completely disregard the public health for benefit of the almighty dollar."Frandsen, who is a Capitol Hill environmental lawyer, says that federal Superfund law was intended to give victims of toxic exposure ample time to make a connection between an instance of pollution and onset of illness, saying that the North Carlina statute of repose works against victims and "completely undermines congressional intent."The state law,makes no allowance for the long latency of illness and does not account for the challenges of large-scale epidemiology.
No, they're REALLY bad for you

'We have a long way to go'

(NaturalNews) In case you were wondering, dangerous opioid drugs cause addiction and can kill you. But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is just now catching on to that."It is just staggering and heartbreaking to see the toll that abuse is taking," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , during a telephone briefing for reporters. "The epidemic is affecting all of society."So what's the solution? Apparently to issue "warnings." Well, really,. Oh.In recent days, federal heath officials strengthened drug label warnings for FDA-approved addictive painkillers, while calling for more government-funded addiction treatment, as the opioid overdose epidemic is "blurring" into a heroin epidemic as well (but by all means, let's legalize more drugs ).To draw more attention to the epidemic, as if it needed more, President Obama will address it at an upcoming drug abuse summit in Atlanta, adding voice to bipartisan calls from the National Governors Association to "call attention to the U.S. opioid crisis,"reported.Some 40 Americans die every day from an opioid painkiller overdose, but then there are some 200 million prescriptions written for the drugs in the U.S. alone every year. Use of opioids has quadrupled since 1999, in fact. And,reports, between 1999 and 2014 about 165,000 people died from overdoses, many times as a result of taking an opioid with tranquilizers like Valium and Xanax.The FDA's solution is to issue new, more specific, as if to say, "No, opioids are."The new labeling will be required for immediate-release versions of oxycodone, morphine, hydrocodone and related drugs , and will warn of the dangers of "abuse, addiction, overdose and death," from their use."We know that there is persistent abuse, addiction, overdose mortality and risk," of newborn withdrawal syndrome associated with the painkillers, Douglas Throckmorton, the FDA Deputy Center Director for Regulatory Programs, said in a statement on the new labels.The director of National Drug Control Policy at the White House, Michael Botticelli, has called on Congress to back an administration request for $1.1 billion to support more treatment programs, disposal of unneeded painkillers, and supplying more communities with naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses.The CDC recently unveiled opioid painkiller guidelines for primary care providers, which state that they should only be prescribed, "when benefits for pain and function are expected to outweigh risks."Gary Mendell, founder and CEO of Shatterproof, a non-profit organization supporting addiction treatment, applauded the new guidelines, calling them "an important first step to ending this terrible epidemic."Not everyone agrees, as you might imagine. One such critic is Bob Twillman of the American Academy of Pain Management (yes, there really is such a group ), who has warned that the new guidelines may discourage some doctors from enriching Big Pharma at the expense of their patients' health (okay, he didn't really say that, but that's the gist). He says that the new guidelines will likely lead to fewer prescriptions."Simply put, the one statement that best summarizes the goal of the CDC guideline is, 'Take all steps possible to minimize exposure to opioids when treating chronic pain ,'" Twillman wrote. "While CDC undoubtedly is well-intentioned, achieving this goal must be done in a way that does not harm the vast majority of people using opioids to manage their chronic painwho have a positive risk/benefit ratio and who do not misuse or abuse their vital medications."For his part, Botticelli says that an increase in heroin overdoses is part of the reason the FDA and other federal officials are moving to curb the use of opioid painkillers , which often occurs among those addicted to prescribed drugs."We have a long way to go," he said, adding that overdose death rates have been at record levels since 2013.
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EPA email affirms Rep. Bishop's allegations

(NaturalNews) Some are calling it an intentional act of environmental sabotage for monetary gain: The Colorado Gold King mine disaster from last summer that left hundreds of miles of the Animas River tainted with heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic, and other toxins . New reports suggest that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knew full well what it was doing when it unplugged the dam, and that it did so in a backhanded attempt at getting more federal funding for remediation efforts.Thousands of people, including those living on Native American Indian reservations throughout the American Southwest, have suffered immensely as a result of the spill, which sent more than 3 million gallons of putrid waste down this sacred waterway that hydrates tens of thousands of people. Besides polluting the natural environment, various industries and tourism were brought to a halt as this once-pristine river was quickly turned into a reddish-brown disaster.The fiasco was quickly dismissed as an accident, but evidence shows that the EPA knew its efforts would release toxic waste  it just didn't realize how much and how obvious it would be. And now that the truth is getting out, those affected want answers, and some are even planning to sue the EPA for its willful negligence, which has left vast swaths of the river and surrounding banks tainted with extremely harmful chemicals like lead, arsenic and cadmium.According to Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the EPA intentionally breached the dam in an effort to slowly release its contents  a move that was purportedly intended to help cleanup efforts. But the result was much more severe than anticipated, resulting in one of the worst environmental disasters in recent years."There was nothing unintentional about EPA's actions with regard to breaching the mine," stated Rep. Bishop earlier this month. "They fully intended to dig out the plug and breach it."A series of emails uncovered byaffirm Rep. Bishop's allegations. They show that the EPA intentionally removed dirt from the dam so its crew members could enter the stricken mine and assess how to clean it up and stop further contamination. But the federal agency failed to conduct proper tests on the pressure at the site, a failure that would lead to catastrophic consequences."The EPA's plan was to slowly drain and treat enough mine water in order to access the inner mine working and assess options for controlling its discharge," one of the emails reads. "While removing small portions of the natural plug, the material catastrophically gave-way and released the mine water."Leaders of the Navajo Nation and the state of New Mexico aren't happy about their water being polluted due to EPA negligence, and both are planning to sue the agency. Not only did the EPA fail to adequately assess the risks of unplugging the dam, but it has added insult to injury by failing to properly remediate the damage after the fact."I was shocked," David C. Weindorf, associate dean for research at Texas Tech's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, told a U.S. Senate hearing on the spill . Weindorf says he hasn't seen the EPA do much of anything to clean up the waste that is still strewn along the windy banks of the Animas River."I was at the beach after the Deepwater Horizon spill [in the Gulf of Mexico], and there were guys all over the place in moon suits and contamination suits picking up stuff and washing it off. We went up and down the Animas River valley, and we didn't see anybody, anywhere, doing anything. Nothing."Though the EPA may be shirking its obligations to taxpayers, at least one citizen scientist is attempting to pick up the slack to protect America's health. Click here to check out Mike Adam's groundbreaking work with the Consumer Wellness Labs to protect citizens from harmful toxins in drinking water and how you can help at no cost
Parents who are conscientious objectors to vaccination, for whatever reason, will now be unable to claim any childcare rebates and will lose their end-of-year family tax benefits. The No Jab, No Pay amendment, which went live on January 1, 2016, also restricts the ability of parents exercising medical choice to access childcare services.



"Political ignorance towards medical reality"

Showing political ignorance to medical reality, the bill offers a 63-day grace period for children to enroll in a "catch-up" program before benefits are cancelled. Stacking numerous vaccines in a short period of time has shown to dangerously challenge a child's still-developing neurological system.



Violates international law and medical ethics

AVN's State of Evidence report was divided into five sections titled needless, pointless, baseless, excessive and illegitimate. Under each section were pages of sound medical, legal and epidemiological evidence to strongly support each claim against the implementation of the amendment.



Australia's 2015 amendment all but guarantees families will experience financial hardship, either from being forced out of the workforce due to the prohibitive cost of full-fee childcare, due to the majority of your wages being absorbed by full childcare fees and/or due to being denied childcare benefits and rebates.



The real costs of mandatory vaccination

Since vaccines are not safe and carry inherent risks, any country that enacts mandates sees an increase in vaccine injury. Without proper acknowledgement and care for those affected by such injury, Australia is now poised to begin the long slide towards widespread severe adverse vaccine reactions.



In the United States, the estimated individual life-long cost of vaccine injury is $1.4 to $2.4 million per child. Australia appears to be risking its future economy and healthcare with the baseless vaccine "science" found in the No Jab, No Pay mandate.


Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell on Thursday said his office would focus on willful violations" of a state law that requires labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods.

Act 120, the nations first law to require labeling of GE foods or so-called GMOs (genetically modified organisms), takes effect on July 1, 2016.

However, Vermonts rule implementing the law creates a six-month safe harbor for foods that are distributed before the law takes effect and offered for retail sale through Dec. 31, 2016, Sorrell pointed out in a March 24 memorandum. In mentioning the safe harbor, he recognized the extended shelf life of some foods.

During this six-month period, unless there is evidence that a manufacturer distributed a mislabeled product after July 1, 2016, we will not bring an enforcement action or seek fines for those products," Sorrell noted in the memo.

While Sorrell said all products must be properly labeled beginning on Jan. 1, 2017 regardless of when they were distributed, he said his office would focus its enforcement priorities on willful violations of the labeling law."

Thus, even after Jan. 1, 2017, we do not expect to bring enforcement cases based solely on a companys failure to remove improperly labeled products that were distributed before July 1, 2016," he concluded.

Legislation that was narrowly defeated this month in Congress would have preempted Act 120. Since the Senate voted 49 to 48 not to advance a revised version of legislation calling for a voluntary labeling standard, large food manufacturers have announced nationwide initiatives to label their GMO ingredients in anticipation of Act 120 taking effect.

Sorrell said his office anticipated most GE foods will be properly labeled by the time the law takes effect.

About a year ago, a federal judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction to block Act 120, frustrating opponents of the law including the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a trade association in Washington that represents more than 250 food, beverage and consumer product companies.

"Given that Vermont's Attorney General is no longer responding to public inquires on how to comply with the state's arbitrary and confusing labeling law, we appreciate any clarifications his office is willing to share," said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the trade association, in an emailed statement. "However, the Attorney General's memo does nothing to clarify how his office will stop private litigants from bringing actions against a company even if his office does not consider the mislabelings to be 'willful' violations. Nor does he clarify how he will know a 'willful' violation without bringing an action."
Japanese officials have confirmed the killing of more than 300 whales over a period of 115 days in their most recent "scientific" expedition in the Antarctic region.

The move was sanctioned by Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR).

According to the statement released by the ICR, the four-vessel whaling fleet that was sent out on December 1 last year has returned to Shimonoseki in southwestern Japan on Thursday, carrying 333 minke whales.

Out of the 333, 103 were males and 230 were females. It was also announced that 207 of them are pregnant when they were harpooned.

The Maritime Executive reported that the whale-hunting expedition of Japan was done within the Ross Sea, the Australian Whale Sanctuary and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The Australian government described Japan's resumption of its whaling program, despite being ruled as illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2014, as "deeply disappointing."

A few months back, the Australian Federal Court ordered whalers to pay $1 million fine for illegally killing whales inside the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

However, conservation group Sea Shepherd said in a statement that the governments of Australia and New Zealand did nothing to stop the slaughter.

"This rogue act is in blatant disregard of international law and diplomacy and sets a dangerous precedent for all nations that respect the rule of law," said Captain Alex Cornelissen, the group's CEO.

Minke whales are not yet considered as endangered by the International Whale Commission (IWC), but it was put on protection in 1986 due to the appreciable decline in their estimated abundance.

Japan began its "scientific whaling" in 1987. Scientific whaling, or special permit whaling, gives permission to a certain party to kill, take and treat whales for scientific research. It has been passed a year after the IWC imposed an international whaling moratorium.

Previously, Japan admitted that the meat from the harpooned whales was sold commercially, according to a Washington Post report. Over the next 12 years, Japan intends to hunt nearly 4,000 whales as part of its research and as a way of bringing back the commercial whaling industry.
Natthan Mesfin is a young man with a very big dream: the Orinda 11-year-old wants to end homelessness in his lifetime.

"It just isn't fair," Mesfin said. "Here I am comfortable in my house and there are people dying out in the cold."

While ending such a chronic societal problem may seem like a tall order for such a small person, Mesfin has already made a name for himself in the field. He was recently elected to the board of directors for Downtown Streets Team, a San Jose-based nonprofit engaging with the homeless to help them find employment and housing.

For such a young man, 11-year-old Natthan Mesfin sure has a big dream: to end homelessness in his lifetime.

It is, however, something the 11-year-old from Orinda is in a unique position to do. Mesfin was recently elected to the board of directors for Downtown Streets Team.

"I was stoked. Really happy," Mesfin said of his election.

Mesfin's humanitarian work began two Christmases ago while watching television. He saw a story about the plight of the homeless on the news, the headed downstairs to where his parents and their friends had gathered to celebrate the holiday.

"I saw people on the news that are dying because of being too cold so then I just came down here, sat right where I'm sitting right now. And I just said, we need to we need to do something"

What Mesfin ended up doing was raising money to buy sleeping bags then handing them out to the homeless he saw on the streets of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.

"It was it was fantastic," Mesfin said of the experience. "I mean like most of them were they were really happy and when they were happy that just made me happy."

In his first year, Mesfin raised $2,000 and handed out 50 sleeping bags. The second year, he raised $5,000.

"I was hungry for more. I wanted to get more money, buy more sleeping bags, do more things."

One of the "things" Mesfin did, was to get in touch with Eileen Richardson, Executive Director of Downtown Streets Team, hoping they could help with his sleeping bag giveaway.

Richardson explained to Mesfin that DST's unique model of helping the homeless focused more on gaining the confidence and skills needed to get off the streets and less on donations of goods.

They couldn't really use the sleeping bags. But, perhaps, they could use Mesfin.

Richardson was more than a little impressed with the pre-teen. One dinner meeting with him quickly turned into two. It was Richardson's idea to nominate him for a seat on the board.

"He's already a proven fundraiser," Richardson said, "and he has so many ideas."

Mesfin said during the very first board meeting he attended he kept quiet for the first hour, not sure what to say. He quickly got over his shyness. "The next hour I was like, I need to say something, and so then I just started naming out some ideas."

Richardson says his fresh perspective is welcome on the board, and he has already contributed with unique ideas and quality feedback.
Its like Harry Potters closet but with a happy twist  thats kind of how Bay Area illustrator Peter Berkowitz describes his 8x3.5x4.5' bedroom in the living room of his friends apartment in San Francisco.

Berkowitz, 25, didnt always plan to live in a pod, but San Franciscos ridiculous rents and living costs helped him to make that decision pretty promptly about three weeks back. In a city where one bedroom apartments rent for an average of $3,500 per month and city leaders are grappling to come up with affordable housing solutions (yes, millennials in the city cant even afford garage-sized rooms), a pod will do just fine for Berkowitz.

Yes, living in a pod is kind of silly, he said. But the silliness is endemic to San Francisco's absurdly high housing prices  the pod is just a solution that works for me.

As Berkowitz puts it, a pod is a really easy way to add on a bedroom.

Having an extra bedroom in a San Francisco apartment raises your rent by a couple of thousand dollars, he said. Instead, Berkowitz pays $408 a month to live in the pod (plus $108 a month over the course of a year to cover its construction cost) which is in a house by Ocean Beach.

I dont have any corresponding drop in quality of life, he said.

[NATL] SF Man Builds 8-ft. 'Pod' for Bedroom in Bay Area Living Room

Right now, Berkowitz spends quite a bit of time inside his pod, using it for sleeping, reading and working.

Im still working on the soundproofing  I think Ill line the pod with cork, he said.

Its easy to see why Berkowitz, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and De Correspondent, came up with such an unique idea  his creative flair to turn the mundane into something extraordinary is easy to spot in his art.

We could have a lemonade stand, sweetie, but wouldnt you rather do a pop-up ramen shop? a guy asks his girlfriend in a New Yorker cartoon.

He approaches his living conditions in much of the same way he approaches his art: An appreciation for the science of aesthetics.

The idea for a pod came from a bunch of different sources  I was always interested in Japanese capsule hotels, Berkowitz said. Earlier this year I was living in a very noisy apartment at street level, and I kind of thought how much I would love to have a quiet place to sleep. But finding a two-bedroom apartment was impossible in San Francisco  I thought of making something like a Japanese capsule hotel.

Berkovitz wanted the cheap rent, but he also wanted something nice enough that he would actually want to live in.

So he went to work in his friends garage, and with a little help and about $1,200 worth of construction materials  including plywood from Home Depot  he had his pod.

Berkowitz has four other roommates in the three-bedroom apartment.

Im allowed in the kitchen and living room  they are very nice to me, he said smiling. its really like adding an extra bedroom to the apartment.

The pod pretty much holds all of Berkowitzs worldly possessions: a fold-down desk, a slanted and cushioned backboard, and LED lights for reading. In fact, Berkowitz even has room to store his books and clothing in a storage space behind the backboard.

I dont really own that much so Im probably an anomaly, he said.

Berkowitz admits that his tiny box isnt perfect. If I had to make it again, I would make it taller, he said.

He tries to keep it really clean.

I havent had a pod party yet and there are no candles allowed inside, he said.

He adds that the pod isnt for everyone. Its a little small and its probably not for people who get claustrophobic. But what I kind of enjoy about it is how absurdly low my rent is."[[373509841, C]]
A 12-year-old boy who was shaken as a baby and remained in a vegetative state for the rest of his life has died, authorities said Wednesday.

Aiden Stein died Sunday at a Columbus hospital. The case drew national attention when his parents waged a successful legal fight to prevent a court-appointed guardian from having him removed from life support. Three doctors had testified that Aiden would never recover.

The Ohio Supreme Court eventually ruled that a probate court lacked the authority to allow a guardian to stop the care keeping Aiden alive when his parents hadn't permanently lost their parenting rights.

Four-month-old Aiden was rushed to a Mansfield hospital in March 2004 after his father, 21-year-old Matthew Stein, reported the baby had lost consciousness. Stein was later convicted of felonious assault and child endangerment and spent eight years in prison despite his assertions that he never injured his son.

Subsequent motions for a new trial, including one from 2013, were denied by appellate courts.

Richland County Prosecutor Bambi Couch Page told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it was "unlikely" she'd pursue further charges against Stein.

"I would have to look at the reason (Aiden) died," Couch Page said. "But there would probably be a stretch in jurors' minds that he died as the result of what the dad did."

It's unclear if a cause of death has been determined. Messages left with the Franklin County coroner weren't immediately returned Wednesday.

Aiden's mother, Arica Heimlich, joined her fiance in fighting Aiden's removal from life support and told authorities she didn't believe Stein injured their son. A doctor at a children's hospital in Akron diagnosed Aiden with a traumatic brain injury that he said was consistent with child abuse.

The Akron hospital's ethics committee recommended that a guardian be appointed to oversee his care because of suspicions about Stein and Heimlich's support for him. The panel also recommended that Aiden be removed from life support.

Three doctors testified at a Summit County Probate Court hearing in April 2004 that Aiden was in a permanent vegetative state and that his injuries were consistent with being shaken. A doctor representing Aiden's parents said it would be inappropriate to withdraw that care.

The judge hearing the case appointed a guardian and gave her authority to stop life-sustaining medical treatment. An appellate court upheld that ruling, which the Ohio Supreme Court overturned in December 2004.

Neither Stein nor Heimlich have publicly listed telephone numbers. They couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
A Wisconsin professor wants to use the memory of her sister to start a dialogue about mental health and depression.

Eleni Pinnow wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post, the most alone I have ever felt was standing on my front porch on a chilly February evening.

A note from her sister Aletha taped to the front door read, Eleni, if youre the first one here dont go in the basement. Just call 911. I dont want you to see me like this. I love you! Love, Aletha.

An identical sign was on the back door, Eleni wrote, adding that even in the midst of consuming depression, Aletha tried to protect me from the full horror of her suicide.

Eleni wrote that she felt like she was in a vacuum in the middle of space with everything I knew being pulled away from me. After police told Eleni plainly, Aletha is dead, she wrote that she decided to tell the truth about her sister in an obituary, which has gained national attention.

"Aletha Meyer Pinnow, 31, of Duluth, formerly of Oswego and Chicago, Ill., died from depression and suicide on Feb. 20, 2016," her obituary in the Duluth New Tribune began.

Aletha was a Northern Illinois University alum and loved working with people with disabilities, especially people on the autism spectrum, Eleni wrote in the obituary. She worked as a special education teacher for over a decade, seeing potential in all her students and loved them with a ferocity that would make a rabid mother bear quiver.

She loved animals, theater, Halloween, Star Wars, cartoons, preparing food for loved ones, and cuddling with aforementioned animals. She did not love France (they know why) and William Shatner (who also presumably knew why). Aletha was fond of making her mom laugh until she literally cried and helping her dad do anything and everything, Eleni wrote in the obituary.

Aletha was her family's whole entire world. She enriched the lives of countless colleagues and students. Unfortunately, a battle with depression made her innate glow invisible to her and she could not see how desperately loved and valued she was, Eleni wrote about her sister.

Eleni said in her Washington Post op-ed her sisters depression "fed on her desire to keep it secret and hidden from everyone. I could not save my sister. I could not reach my sister through her depression."

"I know only two things for sure: Depression lies. I will tell the truth," Eleni said in the op-ed.

If the family were to have a big pie in the sky dream, we would ask for a community-wide discussion about mental health and to pull the suffocating demon of depression and suicide into the bright light of day, Eleni wrote in the obituary. Please help us break the destructive silence and stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).


Theres a reason why Mazzy Teich of suburban Kildeer spends most of her free time indoors, while other teens may enjoy the sun.

The high school junior said shes learned to enjoy the good things in life, such as indoor hobbies like art and sewing.

As a 17-year-old with a chronic illness, its hard because not a lot of people understand what youre going through, Teich said.

Teich is living with Lupus, an autoimmune disease that can damage skin, joints and organs inside the body. While she said her Lupus is mostly under control, she remains sensitive to sunlight.

It feels like your skin is just too tight over your skeleton and its just a bizarre feeling, Teich said.

She said indoor lights can also make her feel sick, including the lights at her school.

Its extremely strange to think that something so inanimate can really hurt your system, Teich said.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) that emit ultraviolet rays (UV) can be harmful to photosensitive people. However, the American Lighting Association said fluorescent lamps, in general, emit very little UV and what UV is emitted from the lamp drops to zero if the lamp is enclosed in a plastic or glass fixture.

The topic of lightbulbs and Lupus was featured in a recent NBC 5 Responds report featuring Kyra Miller, a Lupus patient from Chicago who is urging schools, hospitals and businesses to install newer LED lights. While the Lupus Foundation of America said people who have a history of lupus flares when exposed to UV from compact fluorescent lighting may want to try LED bulbs, there is insufficient research at this time to draw any definitive conclusions.

The Lupus Foundation of America also said filters placed over certain lights may help photosensitive Lupus patients.

The NBC 5 Responds report got the attention of Teichs mother, Jill.

It gave me the courage to contact the school to ask them if they could do something for her, Jill Teich said.

As a result, Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire agreed to install a filter in each of the five classrooms that Mazzy attends during the school day.

Were pleased that we were able to help this student in the classroom, and we hope the change will be beneficial, said school spokesperson Jim Conrey. This is one of many accommodations we have made to help students succeed over the years.

Mazzy Teich said one of the biggest things about having a chronic illness is worrying about burdening other people with accommodating you. But she said when her school agreed to help, it was a relief."

Teichs mother said she feels safer sending her daughter to school and knowing she has some protection from lights.

She can probably be more successful in the classroom because her symptoms can be suppressed a little bit more, Jill Tich said.

The school said the filters will be placed in the classrooms after Spring Break, which starts Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is holding counter-terrorism talks in Brussels on Friday as top members of Belgium's embattled government face ongoing criticism for a series of security and intelligence failings ahead of this week's bomb attacks in the city that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

Kerry's arrival Friday morning comes hours after least six people were detained in raids linked to Tuesday's attacks on the Brussels airport and subway system. Belgian prosecutors are expected Friday to decide whether to charge or release them.

As well as meeting with officials from Belgium and the European Union, which has its headquarters in Brussels, Kerry is due to pay his respects to the victims of this week's attacks, which he says underscore the urgent need for a unified front against the so-called Islamic State group.

Kerry, who landed at the still-closed Brussels airport, is set to meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders as well as Belgium's King Philippe.

Belgian lawmakers meanwhile are due to discuss how to beef up counterterrorism measures amid growing signs that Belgian authorities missed a series of signals pointing to a pending attack.

As the pressure on the government has mounted, Belgium's interior and justice ministers offered to resign Wednesday. However Prime Minister Michel refused to accept their resignations.

Authorities have formally linked the Brussels bombings and the Nov. 13 attacks that left 130 dead in Paris. Both were apparently carried out by the same Belgium-based Islamic State cell.

Some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks.

Turkey announced this week that it had warned Belgium last year that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter."

The intelligence shortcomings have prompted European authorities to call for quicker and more efficient intelligence cooperation.

A manhunt is underway for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

Belgian prosecutors said the raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

Amid signs that life in Brussels was returning to some sort of normality on the third day of mourning the dead, authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch. However, they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible." Belgium had been on its highest alert ever since Tuesday's bombings.

The Netherlands' foreign minister revealed Friday that three of the dead at the airport were Dutch citizens.

Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said the victims were a woman from the eastern city of Deventer and a brother and sister from the southern Limburg province who live in the United States. He did not release their identities.
Belgium's prime minister refused to accept the resignations of his justice and interior ministers Thursday despite increasing evidence of intelligence and law enforcement failures to prevent this week's suicide bombings by Islamic militants.

With at least one attacker at large and an unknown number of accomplices, police detained six people in raids around the Belgian capital Thursday night. In a Paris suburb, a man suspected of plotting an imminent attack was also detained Thursday, but the interior minister reported no apparent link with the Brussels airport and subway bombings or the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris.

Authorities lowered Belgium's terror-threat level by one notch, although they said the situation remained grave and another attack is "likely and possible."

Belgium had been on its highest alert ever since Tuesday's bombings in the Brussels airport and subway that killed 31 people and wounded 270.

"We don't have to be proud about what happened," Justice Minister Koen Geens said of the government's failures to halt the attacks. "We perhaps did things we should not have done."

Less than a mile from the bombed subway station, European justice and home ministers held an emergency meeting where they condemned the "terrorist acts" as "an attack on our open, democratic society." They also urged the European parliament to adopt an agreement allowing authorities to exchange airport passenger data.

A manhunt continued for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and had fled the scene.

Belgian prosecutors said the raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood, where police earlier had found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

Prosecutors declined to comment on reports from Belgian state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde and BFM television that a fifth attacker may also be at large: A man seen on surveillance cameras in the Brussels metro carrying a large bag alongside one of the suicide bombers. It is not clear whether that man was killed in the attack or is a fugitive.

Authorities drew a line between the Brussels bombings and the Nov. 13 attacks that left 130 dead in Paris. Both appeared to have been carried out by the same Belgium-based Islamic State cell.

Prosecutors have said at least four people were involved in the Brussels bloodshed, including brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, identified as suicide bombers. European security officials identified another suicide bomber as Najim Laachraoui, a suspected bombmaker for the Paris attacks.

Khalid El Bakraoui blew himself up on the train, while Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Laachraoui died in the airport.

It is clear that some of the Brussels attackers had been on the run from authorities in France and Belgium but were still able to hide in safe houses, assemble bombs and carry out linked attacks.

"If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions," about the government's performance, said Interior Minister Jan Jambon, who along with Geens had tendered his resignation.

Notable among the questions were those raised by Turkey's announcement it had warned Belgium last year that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter."

But Prime Minister Charles Michel asked Jambon and Geens to stay on, given the current challenge the government is facing.

Turkey said Wednesday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was apprehended in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands. He was later set free by the Dutch for lack of proof of his involvement with jihadis.

Geens appeared on a Belgian TV news show and was asked who was to blame for the failure to follow up on the Turkish warning.

"It is clear it is not one single person, but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things."

"Our own services should perhaps have been more critical about the place where the person had been detained," he added, referring to Turkey's border area with Syria.

"When someone is arrested there in a city few people know, it is clear enough for insiders that it could be a terrorist," Geens said. "Here, though, he was not known as a terrorist. It is the only moment we could have linked him to it. And that moment, perhaps, we missed."

The justice minister acknowledged that "we have to be very self-critical."

But Geens added that "such events have also happened in nations with the best intelligence services in the world," pointing to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Authorities had been unable to find Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris ringleaders and described as one of Europe's most wanted men, until a breakthrough led them to a Brussels apartment where he was arrested Friday.

The intelligence shortcomings have prompted European authorities to once again call for quicker and more efficient intelligence cooperation.

Rob Wainwright, the head of Europe's police agency Europol, said his agency is trying to make sure investigators have access to needed information.

"You have a fragmented intelligence picture but we're trying to help with that," he said. "Our databases contain thousands of names of suspected foreign fighters which have been submitted by member states, and even the United States. But we also have records on arms smuggling, money laundering, forgery and other elements which are particularly relevant given that many of these guys had petty crime backgrounds."

He said the threat goes beyond France and Belgium and that it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

"We are looking at large numbers of foreign fighters who have returned as potential terrorists," he said. "And we are faced with a strategic decision by the Islamic State to aggressively target Europe. These are all very challenging dimensions. As for how large the community is and who has been sent back - that is the golden question."

The federal prosecutors' office said Khalid El Bakraoui had rented a house used as a hideout for the Paris attackers, and that he had been hunted by police since December.

Also Thursday, Abdeslam was summoned to court in Brussels. His lawyer, who had initially vowed to fight extradition to France for the Paris attacks, said he now wants to be sent there as soon as possible.

Abdeslam evaded police in two countries for four months before his capture, and the attackers in Brussels may have rushed their plot because they felt authorities closing in.

Abdeslam's lawyer, Sven Mary, told reporters that Abdeslam "wants to explain himself in France, so it's a good thing." Mary said the extradition process should be completed by mid-April.

While Belgium lowered its threat level, "the danger has not gone away," said Paul Van Tigchelt, the head of the terror assessment authority.

Nevertheless, several hundred people gathered at a makeshift memorial to the victim in Brussels' central Place de La Bourse. They sang peace songs, took selfies and wiped away tears.
An Iraqi family is adjusting to life on the Connecticut shoreline.

It's gratifying that so many in the community have jumped on board," said Betsy Hyde, a member of the First Congregational Church in Branford.

Members of Hydes church, along with others from the First Baptist Church and St. Mary Church, joined together to give three Iraqi refugees a new life in the United States.

"The family we have is a mother in her 30s, who is the mother of set of twins, a boy and girl, and today is their fifth birthday," said Bill Hall, a member of Branfords Refugee Welcoming Committee.

The family from Baghdad arrived Tuesday night after a 13 hour flight from Jordan.

It is an incredibly brave thing to do, Hall said, we don't know her background in detail yet because part of what IRIS tells us is just recounting it can be very traumatic for the mother."

IRIS is the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, an organization in New Haven that matched the Iraqi family with the Branford Refugee Welcoming Committee.

I wish more communities, more churches, more synagogues, more mosques would get involved with them," Hyde said.

The biggest challenges were overcoming the language barrier and finding affordable housing, Hyde and Hall said.

"We were very lucky in that a member of our congregation gave us, rented us an apartment at less than market rate," Hyde said.

The committee found a husband and wife from the First Congregational Church who speak Arabic, so they have become the familys translators.

Both Hyde and Hall say this country should continue welcoming refugees fleeing violence and persecution.

"This is a holy week for Christianity and it's amazing how that dovetailed with the arrival of our family here in Branford," Hall said.
Belgian prosecutors say six people have been detained in raids around Brussels linked to this week's attacks on the city's airport and subway system.

The announcement came after Belgium authorities lowered the country's terror threat level one notch, while noting the situation there is "exceptional" and "grave" and that another attack is "likely and possible."

Federal prosecutors said in a statement late Thursday that the detentions were made during raids in central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood. Police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making material earlier this week in an apartment in Schaerbeek believed used by the suicide bombers.

Schaerbeek residents described hearing detonations during the police raids. It was unclear whether they were explosions or controlled detonations.

Earlier, the head of the terror threat assessment authority, Paul Zan Pigchelt, said the imminent nature of the threat has lessened since the attacks on the airport and subway Tuesday.

Nonetheless, he says "the danger has not gone away."

Thirty-one people were killed when suicide bombers targeted the Brussels international airport and a Metro station on Tuesday. Another 316 people were injured in the blasts, according to officials who spoke to NBC News Thursday. A spokesman with Belgiums Foreign ministry confirmed about 40 nationalities have been registered for the wounded, while the nationalities of the dead are still trying being determined.

Prosecutors have said at least four people were behind the attacks. Officials identified Najim Laachraoui and two brothers  Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui  as suicide bombers. A fourth attacker is suspected to be at large.

The Dutch justice minister has confirmed that one of the Brussels suicide bombers was flown from Turkey to Amsterdam in July, but says that authorities weren't told why and had no reason to detain him.

In a letter to parliament, Justice Minister Ard van der Steur said Thursday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was put on a plane from Istanbul to the Dutch capital on July 14, but that Turkish officials didn't say why and his name wasn't flagged in any Dutch law enforcement databases.

Van der Steur says that El Bakraoui had a valid Belgian passport when he arrived in Amsterdam "so there was no reason to take any action" at Schiphol Airport.

It wasn't clear what El Bakraoui did after arriving in the Netherlands.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that El Bakraoui, was caught in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported, at his own request, to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter."

The Dutch version of events appeared to contradict that, with Van der Steur saying that an electronic message from Turkey's foreign ministry to the Dutch embassy in Ankara gave no information about the reason El Bakraoui and an unidentified German national were put on the flight,
Due to mounting evidence supporting a link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance this week related to pregnancy planning and preventing the transmission of the virus.

Guidance for Pregnant and Reproductive-Age Women

For women and men who have been diagnosed with Zika virus or who have symptoms of Zika including fever, rash, joint pain or red eyes after possible exposure to Zika virus, CDC recommends healthcare providers advise:

Women wait at least 8 weeks after their symptoms first appeared before trying to get pregnant.

Men wait at least 6 months after their symptoms first appeared to have unprotected sex.

In making these recommendations, we considered the longest known risk period for these categories. We then allowed for three times the known period of time.

Those who have shown no symptoms of Zika but who have been exposed to the virus through travel or intercourse are encouraged to wait eight weeks before attempting to conceive.

Those who have shown no symptoms of Zika who live in an area with active transmission of the virus are recommended to speak with their healthcare providers about their pregnancy plans.

"These are very complex, deeply personal decisions, and we are communicating the potential risks of Zika virus infection during pregnancy for people who live in areas with active transmission. We are encouraging health care providers to have conversations with women and their partners about pregnancy planning, their individual circumstances and strategies to prevent unintended pregnancies," the CDC said in a news release.

Updated Guidance for Preventing Sexual Transmission of Zika

"The recommendations for men who live in or travel to an area with active Zika virus transmission who have a pregnant partner remain the same: CDC recommends that men with a pregnant partner should use condoms every time they have sex or not have sex for the duration of the pregnancy. To be effective, condoms must be used correctly from start to finish, every time during sex. This includes vaginal, anal or oral (mouth-to-penis) sex," the CDC said.

The CDC changed the time frame for men and their non-pregnant partners based available information about how long the virus remains in semen and the risks associated with Zika based on whether or not men had symptoms of infection.

Couples with men who have confirmed Zika or symptoms of Zika should consider using condoms or not having sex for at least 6 months after symptoms begin. This includes men who live in and men who traveled to areas with Zika.

Couples with men who traveled to an area with Zika but did not develop symptoms of Zika should consider using condoms or not having sex for at least 8 weeks after their return in order to minimize risk.

Couples with men who live in an area with Zika but have not developed symptoms might consider using condoms or not having sex while there is active Zika transmission in the area.

The CDC said couples who do not want to get pregnant should use the most effective contraceptive methods available. Those who are trying to get pregnant should talk with their doctor.

Increasing Access to Contraception in Zika Transmission Areas

Earlier this month, a top doctor with the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, said they expect hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico will contract Zika this year, including thousands of pregnant women.

"Because of the potential for Zika to affect pregnant women and their fetuses, strategies to prevent unintended pregnancy are a critical part of current efforts to prevent Zika-related health effects," the CDC said. "Based on Puerto Rico's experience, CDC has identified considerations and challenges in reducing unintended pregnancies in areas with active Zika transmission."

According to the CDC, about two-thirds of Puerto Rican pregnancies are unintended. Further, researchers estimated 138,000 women in Puerto Rico may be at risk of an unintended pregnancy because they aren't using birth control.

In areas where Zika transmission is known to occur, such as Puerto Rico, the CDC said women and their partners who do not want to get pregnant should consistently make use of effective birth control methods.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is coordinating with federal, local, and private partners to identify resources to support increased access in Puerto Rico to the most effective forms of contraception.

"HRSA has 20 health center grantees that operate 84 sites in Puerto Rico, which serve over 330,000 people, including nearly 80,000 women ages 15 to 45. HHS is exploring possible expansion of services at these centers, which currently include prenatal care and other voluntary family planning services," the CDC said. "OPA is working to provide additional funds for contraceptive services, as well as facilitate the training of providers in long-acting reversible contraception methods.

Earlier this month, about 100 CDC staff members were on the ground in Puerto Rico handing out repellent and condoms ahead of the island's rainy season.
According to University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, researchers discovered those who had experienced a traumatic brain injury with loss of consciousness for more than five minutes were at greater risk of being diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, and showed signs of that impairment 2.3 years earlier on average than those with no TBI history.

The study analyzed cases of 3,187 people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment  versus a normal-cognition group of 3,244  in a large, multicenter national database.

"This is one of the first studies to demonstrate later-life risks of mild cognitive impairment in relation to a remote history of traumatic brain injury in a large population sample," said senior author Dr. Munro Cullum, professor of psychiatry, neurology and neurotherapeutics at UT Southwestern.

"We cannot yet determine who is at greatest risk for later-life cognitive decline following TBI, but these results suggest that a relationship exists for some people. Our ultimate goal is to identify various risk factors that may play a role," Cullum added.

The researchers found several important variables associated with a higher risk for MCI: TBI with loss of consciousness for greater than five minutes, certain genetic risk factors and a history of depression. However, these MCI risk factors need closer examination, researchers said.

Other studies have implicated traumatic brain injury as a risk factor for later development of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, but this report was the first of a possible link between TBI and MCI. The study was published recently in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Cullum will speak at the Spring Forum of the Friends of the Alzheimer's Disease Center, scheduled at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at UT Southwestern. The free presentation is open to the public, and reservations can be made by calling 214-648-2344.
Students of 91 now-defunct schools in the Corinthian Colleges network will be able to have their loans forgiven under a new federal plan, officials said Friday.

Students who attended Corinthian schools operated under its Everest and WyoTech brands in more than 20 states  Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, New York, Utah, Maryland, New Jersey, and Wyoming  can now apply for debt relief through an online process.

"When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they'll get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families. Corinthian was more worried about profits than about students' lives," Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said in a statement on Friday.

Last year, the Department of Education alleged officials at more than 100 of the companys campuses, branded as WyoTech, Heald and Everest colleges, defrauded students by misleading them about finances and job placement rates. It was at the time one of the largest for-profit schools in the country.

Under regulatory pressure and mounting lawsuits, the Orange County-based company agreed to sell the majority of its holdings, but was unable to sell all of its schools.

It filed for bankruptcy in May 2015 after it was slapped with a $30 million fine from the Department of Education and shut down its remaining 28 campuses, leaving more than 16,000 students with unfinished coursework, student debt and no degrees.

The department has so far approved loan discharges for more than 8,800 former Corinthian students nationwide, amounting to $130 million, officials said. Friday's announcement extends the offers to another wave of former students.

Former officials of Corinthian could not immediately be reached for comment.

Secretary King spoke on Friday at the office Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who helped uncover evidence that two Boston-area Everest Institute campuses misrepresented their job placement rates.

"Today's announcement is completely unprecedented," Healey said. "It represents the largest group of borrowers ever made eligible in this country for loan forgiveness."

On Wednesday, a California court ordered Corinthian Colleges to pay the state $1.17 billion in a judgment in a separate state filing.

For more information on how to apply for the debt forgiveness program, visit the Department of Educations special website here.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
If people are defined by the way they respond to tragedy, Alexandra Folleco is a champion. The junior at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale lost her big sister, Daniella, when she was 8 and Daniella was 12 years old.

"She always had such a wonderful heart, she was a special girl, and she made an impact on everyone at the hospital," Alexandra said, recalling memories of Daniella. "We were always so connected as sisters."

Alexandra turned her personal grief into a way to honor her sister's memory. The Folleco family had already raised thousands of dollars to create Daniella's Atrium at Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital in Hollywood. Its a bright, airy spot decorated with Daniellas own words and artwork. As soon as Alexandra was old enough, she started volunteering at the hospital, contributing to the emotional healing process for kids and their families.

"The fact that I know what it feels like to be in their shoes as well as my parents and family, friends and other family members, is wonderful and I feel like I can kind of pay it forward," Alexandra explained.

She's been going to the hospital at least once a week for the past three years, organizing projects to cheer up patients.

"Now Alexandra has taken up the cause and said, 'I can do meaningful things for this hospital where my sister was treated and continue that legacy' and shes done an amazing job," said Kevin Jasner of the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Foundation. "I think it says we have a bright future when we have young people doing such meaningful things for our community and for others."

Alexandra doesn't do it alone. She's inspired her friends at school to get involved as well.

"I think it's a wonderful thing and I think anyone who knows the story, anyone who's part of the group is immediately inspired by her," said Pine Crest junior Tommy Sullivan, who has joined the volunteer effort at the hospital.

"I mean her desire to help people is just unbounded and I think it's a great thing, and I love how she's doing this to honor her sister," Kyle Mattone, a senior at Pine Crest, said. "She's always there, shes helping people and its really just amazing."

Alexandra balances her demanding course load with serving on the JDCH Youth Advisory Council and the near-constant volunteer efforts, with her sister never far from her thoughts.

"I love what I do, and I do it from the heart," Alexandra said.
A top leader for ISIS was killed during an operation this week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Friday.

Carter said Haji Iman, also known as Abu Alaa Afri, was a finance minister who oversaw all the funding for ISIS' operations. His killing will hamper the organizations ability to conduct operations inside and outside Syria. Carter did not confirm where the efforts to kill him took place. Haji Iman has been described as a second-in-command leader, but Carter did not refer to him that way.

The news comes after officials told NBC News earlier this month that top ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani  also known by his nickname Omar the Chechen  was believed killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria.

We are systematically eliminating ISILs cabinet," Carter said Friday, using an acronym for the group.
Crews worked to get a foothold Thursday against wildfires that have scorched hundreds of square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas and led residents of some small communities to flee their homes.

Strong winds were fanning the flames, and firefighters haven't been able to establish effective containment lines yet, the Oklahoma Forestry Services said. Gusts of 50 mph fed the fires Wednesday, but the winds were expected to die down considerably late Thursday, the National Weather Service reported. Smoke from the fires, which burned about 620 square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas, was reportedly detected as far away as St. Louis, hundreds of miles to the northeast.

In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback said Thursday the fires were largely contained except in Barber County, which has sustained the most damage.

Brownback encouraged people to heed any requests to evacuate. No serious injuries have been reported.

"We haven't sustained any fatalities yet, but that doesn't mean we can push it," he said.

Crews in Barber County, which is southwest of Wichita along the state's southern border with Oklahoma, were fighting a 30- to 40-mile line of fire. Darcy Golliher, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Incident Management Team, said that blaze was about 15 percent contained late Thursday and is expected to last through Friday. She said there hopefully would be only a few hot spots to monitor over the weekend.

"It will all depend on the wind," she said.

The fire, which came close to Medicine Lodge on Wednesday, destroyed a home and an outbuilding on the outskirts of the Barber County community of about 2,000 residents. Voluntary evacuation orders issued there earlier were lifted Thursday afternoon. Voluntary evacuations were also sought for the small towns of Sun City and Lake City.

On Thursday, Sherry and Craig Prothe were packing clothing and keepsakes into two cars at their home south of Medicine Lodge, where they could see smoke from the fire.

"We're not trying for big stuff," Sherry Prothe said. "We're trying for the mementos."

They said the fire reduced their elderly neighbors' home to just a chimney, but that they felt a bit more confident that their home would survive because it is surrounded by green wheat fields rather than dry land. But they said they hadn't decided whether they'll leave the home yet.

"Our saving grace is the wheat is still green," Sherry Prothe said.

With conditions "not as intense" and more crews arriving, firefighters were able to "get out there and really attack the fire" on Thursday, said Shawna Hartman, the spokesman for the Kansas Forest Service.

In Comanche County, just west of Barber County, the wind blew embers that reignited the fire Thursday morning after it had been brought under control late Wednesday, said John Lehman, Comanche County Emergency Management coordinator. But the blaze there was largely controlled late Thursday.

"The wind blows things around," he said. "It hits dry grass and away it goes."

In Burrton, which is about 30 miles northwest of Wichita, grass fires burned one home and forced the evacuation of others, and killed several head of livestock, the Harvey County sheriff's office said in a news release. That fire had been controlled later Thursday.

In Oklahoma, the fire was moving toward the city of Alva, population about 5,000, but by early evening, the flames had not advanced enough to prompt evacuations there, according to Oklahoma Forestry Services spokeswoman Michelle Finch-Walker.

Oklahoma authorities said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

In Texas, where strong winds and low humidity created ideal fire conditions, some people were evacuated Wednesday from their homes in Skellytown, about 45 miles northeast of Amarillo, but were allowed to return after a few hours, said Linda Moon, Texas A&M Forest Service spokesman.

The fire also forced the closure of a stretch of U.S. 160 and U.S. 281 in Kansas and briefly a section of Interstate 40 in Texas. Scattered power outages have been reported.

Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri; Melissa Hellmann in Topeka, Kansas; Daniel Houston in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Diana Heidgerd in Dallas contributed to this report.
Thousands of family, friends and law enforcement officers gathered Friday to remember the Prince George's County police officer shot and killed this month in a shootout at a police station.

Honor guards lined the road Friday as motorcycle units escorted the body of Officer Jacai Colson to First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Its a grim reminder every time we come to one of these things that this is what we face every day, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said.

Colson was killed March 13 by one of his fellow officers after a man began firing at a police station in Landover. A wounded suspect, Michael Ford, 22, was arrested and faces more than two dozen charges including second-degree murder. He was trying to commit suicide by police officer, police said. His two brothers also are in custody facing several charges.

God bless my hero and our hero, Jacai Colson, Prince Georges County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said. Godspeed my guardians and your guardians, the men and women of the Prince Georges County Police Department.

Colson, a four-year veteran of the police department, grew up in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, and is survived by his parents and younger brother, police said. He graduated from Chichester High School in 2005 and Randolph-Macon College in 2009.

He was truly special from the day he was born, said his mother, Sheila Colson. Jacai was a six-month baby, and he fought to get here and he fought going out.

Friday's funeral was open to the public.

A procession at 12:30 p.m. briefly closed Powder Mill Road, Baltimore-Washington Parkway, Interstate 495 southbound, Central Avenue and Largo Road.
Michael and Angel Miller are taking it one day at a time, but things are getting better.



Michael, 22, appeared along with his mother, Angel, in Generation Addicted, NBC10's exclusive in-depth look at the heroin and opioid epidemic. Michael's story is not uncommon: At the suggestion of a friend, he started experimenting with painkillers as a young adult, and before long, he wound up hooked on pills and later, on heroin.

Read, watch and experience more stories around our special presentation GENERATION ADDICTED.

Michael Miller tried taking prescription painkillers when he was younger. Over time, his use grew stronger. Now, hes addicted to heroin and desperately trying to get his life back on track. NBC10 spent time with Michael to understand how addiction controls his life.

NBC10 Digital Reporters Vince Lattanzio and Morgan Zalot talk with anchor Katy Zachry about why they chose to tackle the issue of heroin and opioid addiction in NBC10s exclusive special report, Generation Addicted. Generation Addicted airs tonight, Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m. only on NBC10.

Welcome to the NBC10 Digital Exclusive investigation into the tragic world of heroin and opioid addiction in the Philadelphia region and beyond.
Imagine losing one-third of your home!

That's the situation one Ventnor couple finds themselves in -- as the NBC 10 Investigators continue their review of the Hurricane Sandy recovery, now more than three years after the storm.

Brian and Marian Salkin have always lived on the lower floors of their three-story home. Their daughter lived on the upper floors.

After the storm, the couple used their life savings and insurance money to repair their basement dwelling.

But new elevation requirements are forcing them out of those lower levels. And they blame project delays on the very program New Jersey set up to help Sandy victims: the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation Program, or RREM.

"The RREM program, as it is now, is providing us with aggravation because we can't get moving," said Brian.

The Salkins have two options: Raise their entire house at or move upstairs and make their former living space, the basement, into a crawl space.

Raising the house will cost around $250,000 -- but the state is only willing to give the Salkins the program maximum of $150,000.

But the Salkins say stringent RREM requirement push any projects over that $150,000 mark, and they've already spent their savings.

So, they're going to have to give up one-third of their home -- and the state is going to pay them to do it!

"I apologize on behalf of the State of New Jersey," said New Jersey State Assembly member Troy Singleton.

Singleton says he has heard a lot of complaints aimed at the RREM program.

He has introduced a bill that calls for more RREM transparency and safeguards against Sandy foreclosures. Singleton says RREM delays have caused people to lose their homes.

But Governor Chris Christie is still defending the progress of the RREM program.

Christie says the state has done an "extraordinary job" and claims that everyone who has applied for a grant has funds available.

But according to RREM's website -- only about one-third of program recipients are back in their homes.

The governor says, the issue is lack of skilled labor and time-consuming work -- not funding or the program itself.

"There's not a lot of people in the state who are competent and qualified to do that work," said Christie. "And you don't want to have it done the wrong way."

Our requests for a full interview with Governor Christie or RREM program leaders have not been denied twice.

In a statement, a state spokesperson says her agency is still as focused as ever on Sandy recovery. And she insists that RREM homeowners know where they stand in the program process.

Singleton expects to be able to question leaders of the RREM program during budget hearings next month. The NBC10 Investigators will be at those hearings, to let you know what happens.
A 38-year-old woman is seeking $7 million in damages in a lawsuit against a Beverly Hills fertility clinic and its chief director for allegedly destroying all of her seven embryos by accident, the woman and her attorney announced on Thursday.

Marisa Yukich of Sherman Oaks filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against ART Reproductive Center Inc. and Dr. David L. Hill on Thursday alleging a breach of contract, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

"No amount of money will make this fully right," said Yukich at a Thursday morning press conference. "My embryos cannot be replaced. This is nothing less than the loss of my future children."

Yukich claims she had her eggs extracted and fertilized through IVF in 2013 to preserve her chances of becoming a mother. She then decided to have them frozen until a future time when she could carry a pregnancy to term.

On October 13, 2014, ART invoiced Yuckick $500 for storing her pre-embryos between October 2014 and October 2015. However last September, Yukich says she received a phone call from Hill telling her that the seven of her viable pre-embryos had been destroyed, the suit states.

"What we are talking about here is the lost promise of motherhood and a life without children. ART Reproductive Center took this away from Marisa," said attorney Adam Wolf at the press conference.

The suit claims the Beverly Hills fertility clinic inexplicably destroyed her pre-embryos and then offered the woman $600 for her loss.

The ART Reproductive Center and Hill declined NBC4's request for comment.

This could be the first case of its kind to go to trial in the State of California, according to Wolf.
A jury found Thursday that a San Diego law school did not mislead a graduate who sued on the grounds she was lured to the school by false promises that her degree would land her a job after graduating.

The San Diego Superior Court jury rejected Anna Alaburda's claim against the Thomas Jefferson School of Law on a 9-3 vote that was reached after about four hours of deliberations over two days.

While more than a dozen similar lawsuits have been filed in courts across the country, the case is believed to be the first of its kind to go to trial.

Alaburda, who filed her lawsuit in 2011, argued that Thomas Jefferson used inflated data to bolster the success rate of its job-seeking graduates. The 37-year-old woman graduated near the top of her class in 2008 and says she has been unable to find a full-time job as a lawyer. Meanwhile, she said has been saddled with $170,000 in student debt. She sought $125,000 in damages.

The trial came amid growing debate over such promises by schools competing to recruit students. The lawsuit was among more than a dozen similar ones filed in recent years against law schools, including Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Though most of the lawsuits have been dismissed, critics say they point to a need for greater regulation and transparency for law schools, so prospective students know their employment prospects, the debt they will incur and their chances of successfully passing the bar.

Michael Sullivan, an attorney for the law school, acknowledged "isolated mistakes" and "clerical errors" in data collection but said there was no evidence that the school lied. He said the verdict set no precedent but may send a signal to other students who sue.

"Having an opportunity where it's fully litigated, and depositions and documents examined, to see the hype, the chatter about that did not prove to be the truth, as found by a jury, I think that's a helpful message," Sullivan told reporters after the verdict.

Juror Wade DeMond, who works on regulatory affairs in the pharmaceutical industry, said he questioned how Thomas Jefferson collected employment data after Alaburda's time but that it made a good-faith effort in her case.

"The jury instructions, the questions we were asked, were very specific and they were time-bound: Did Thomas Jefferson falsely represent employment data for the U.S. News & World Report editions that she reviewed? So that means the whole thing gets narrowed down to the 2004 and the 2005 editions," he told reporters.

Thomas Jefferson reported post-graduation employment figures that exceeded 70 percent and topped 90 percent in 2010. But the school did not disclose that those figures included part-time and non-legal work such as a pool cleaner and a sales clerk at Victoria's Secret and were based on a small sample of graduates, said her attorney, Brian Procel.

Procel has said the school has routinely reported unemployed students as employed and shredded surveys and other documents that reflected a more accurate employment picture.The lawsuits against Golden Gate University and the University of San Francisco also alleged the schools were misrepresenting their post-graduate employment figures.

The Golden Gate lawsuit was settled, with each of the five plaintiffs receiving $8,000, according to a May 2015 court filing. The case against the University of San Francisco was dismissed in May. In court filings, both schools said data were available that showed what percentage of students actually obtained jobs at law firms.

The American Bar Association has since required schools to publish a more detailed breakdown of their employment figures that, among other things, distinguishes full-time from part-time jobs.

Thomas Jefferson representatives noted broad efforts to improve reporting at all law schools and expressed regret about any stain that the lawsuit inflicted on the school's reputation.

"This is not, you know, Trump University," Sullivan said. "It is so not that. It is such a really excellent law school."

___

Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat contributed to this report.
College students stopped in San Diego Friday to urge voters to "Save the Bag Ban" and vote for a ballot measure that will stop single-use of plastic bags in stores across the state.

A November 2016 ballot measure will allow California voters to decide whether to keep the nation's first statewide ban on plastic grocery bags.

In September 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law banning single-use plastic bags.

In response, the American Progressive Bag Alliance collected enough signatures to get the issue in front of voters as a veto referendum.

The group argues that the ban amounts to a cash giveaway to grocers that would lead to a loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

A "No" vote would overturn Senate Bill 270.

So college students with the consumer group CALPIRG and environmental groups, including the Surfrider Foundation toured the state over spring break to remind voters to keep the ban in place.

On Friday, the students stopped in Pacific Beach. Theyve registered voters and visited classrooms as part of a public awareness campaign called "Save the Bag Ban."

These students are here because they believe a piece of plastic that you use for 5 minutes should not pollute your ocean for hundreds of years, said organizer Gayle Schwartzberg.



More than 147 cities and counties already ban single us plastic bags.

A "Yes" vote on the referendum would stop the use of plastic carryout bags at large grocery stores and pharmacies. Small grocery stores, convenience stores and liquor stores would stop using them the following year.

Plastic bags would be permitted for meat, bread, produce, bulk food and perishable items.

Stores could also charge only $.10 for recyclable and compostable bags.


Augustin Enrique Cruz, also known as "Tinky," the owner of a house hiding a secret, cross-border tunnel found in the Southern Californian desert, has been arrested, authorities announced.

The 416-yard tunnel starts at a hole in the living room of a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Calexico, California, 120 miles east of San Diego, and runs across the border and into the kitchen of a restaurant in Mexicali, Mexico, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said at a news conference Wednesday.

The house is the first in California to be built for the sole purpose of hiding the exit to a tunnel used for transporting drugs, Duffy said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations agents took Cruz into custody Thursday in Tucson, Arizona. He has been charged with narcotics trafficking, money laundering and tunnel-related crimes.

About 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officials found the tunnel inside the home at 902 E. Third St. Wednesday. A hole in the floor  covered with tile  leads to a shaft, descending underground. The tunnel is the 12th large-scale operational drug smuggling tunnel discovered along the border since 2006, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Southern California.

We repeatedly see cartels trying to build these tunnels, they spend years doing it, they spend millions of dollars doing it, to create their own private underworld of secret passageways to move drugs unchecked into this country, Duffy said. But for the builders, for the financiers, for the operators of these passageways, theres no light at the end of these tunnels.

Authorities seized more than 1,350 pounds of marijuana smuggled through the tunnel, following the lengthy, multi-agency investigation. The drugs were worth more than $6 million in street value.

Officials claim Cruz traveled back and forth between Arizona and Calexico from November to December 2015, looking for the right property to serve as the exit point for the tunnel. It was not immediately clear if Cruz had an attorney.

The U.S. Attorney's office alleges Cruz and co-conspirators hired local contractors to build the home. Cruz's boss allegedly instructed the contractor to leave a space in the foundation when pouring concrete for what they said would be a "safe."

The U.S. Attorney's office also alleges Cruz arranged for the purchase of multiple vehicles that were used to transport marijuana.

Once construction on the $86,000 house was finished in December, Cruz allegedly rented a "walk-behind saw and concrete blade" from a local El Centro business, Duffy said, presumably to create the tunnel exit. Investigators said they believe the traffickers began using the tunnel on or after Feb. 28, 2016, based on intercepted calls, Duffy said.

While serving a search warrant at the tunnel home Wednesday, authorities also served two additional search warrants. Officials served a warrant at a so-called "stash house" two miles away, at 1056 Horizon St. The drugs were then taken to a warehouse at 260 Avenida Campillo, Suite A, Duffy said, where they were stored before being moved north.

Four people have been arrested in connection with the tunnel.

A mother and daughter were arrested in Arizona on Tuesday, along with two additional people Wednesday in Calexico. All were charged with drug trafficking, money laundering and tunnel-related charges.

Joel Duarte Medina was arrested in the Horizon Street house in Calexico and Manuel Gallegos Jiminez was arrested inside the tunnel residence. Marcia Manuela Duarte-Medina and her mother, Eva Duarte De Medina, were charged in Arizona with multiple charges, including conspiracy to import drugs. Court documents detail how Eva helped move vehicles loaded with drugs between the tunnel home and the stash location. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys.

Officials said several years ago, they discovered a secret drug tunnel at the residence next door to the Third Street home, though it was not complete. That residence is now empty.

The recent finding marks the first complete tunnel to be discovered in the area in a decade, as the soil composition makes the land difficult to dig through. The residential neighborhood makes it more difficult to hide smuggling activity, Duffy said.

More than 75 cross-border tunnels designed to smuggle drugs have been discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, mostly in California and Arizona. In California, most tunnels tend to be in the Otay Mesa region, where warehouses hide typical drug smuggling activities.

Dozens of tunnels designed to smuggle drugs have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, mostly in the Otay Mesa region. Some have been equipped with hydraulic lifts and electric rail cars.

Mexico's Sinaloa cartel has long controlled drug trafficking along the border in California's Imperial Valley, which offers easy freeway access to Los Angeles and Phoenix.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A fire broke out in a Metro tunnel in Northern Virginia Friday morning, forcing officials to suspend some Orange and Silver line service.

Service was fully restored by 1 p.m., although residual delays took about two hours to clear.

The fire was reported shortly before 10 a.m. Friday between the Clarendon and Courthouse stations. Metro officials say it was caused by burning debris on the track bed, not a cable or power infrastructure problem.

Arlington County firefighters indicated they initially believed was likely electrical, but later tweeted that Metro determined that a burned cable was secondary to a debris fire.

"A little before 10 o'clock this morning, we were called for a fire in the Metro track bed at [the] Clarendon Metro station," said Arlington County Fire Lt. Sarah Marchegiani. "When we arrived, we found light smoke in Clarendon Metro."

Firefighters evacuated the station and shut down power to the third rail before they headed into the tunnel with Metro's emergency response team, Marchegiani said.

UPDATE: Engine 110 & Tower 104 are in the tunnel trying to locate the fire. Command is coordinating with @wmata. pic.twitter.com/7vnAHuvi9X  Arlington Fire (@ACFDPIO) March 25, 2016

BREAKING: Units are on scene of the Clarendon Metro Station for a report of a fire in the tunnel. Avoid the area. pic.twitter.com/qdYEoFugcj  Arlington Fire (@ACFDPIO) March 25, 2016

UPDATE: Location of the fire is between the Clarendon & Courthouse Stations. Inbound & Outbound trains shut down. pic.twitter.com/zeL9rpmbR6  Arlington Fire (@ACFDPIO) March 25, 2016

Orange/Silver Line: No train service btwn Rosslyn & Ballston due to fire department activity outside Clarendon. Bus service available.  Metrorail Info (@Metrorailinfo) March 25, 2016

Orange Line: Trains operating btwn New Carrollton & Rosslyn due to fire department activity outside Clarendon.  Metrorail Info (@Metrorailinfo) March 25, 2016

Silver Line: Trains operating btwn Wiehle-Reston East & Ballston only due to fire department activity outside Clarendon.  Metrorail Info (@Metrorailinfo) March 25, 2016

Blue Line: Expect delays in both directions due to congestion from delayed Orange/Silver Line trains.  Metrorail Info (@Metrorailinfo) March 25, 2016

She said firefighters did not find an active fire, but found "evidence of a possible electrical fire." Firefighters then turned the response over to Metro, which determined the fire was burning debris.

Metro ran shuttle buses between the affected stations, and recommended the 4B and 38B Metrobus routes as alternatives for passengers traveling between Rosslyn and Ballston.

During the incident, Metro told riders to expect delays in Virginia on all three lines. Although the Blue Line was not directly affected by the fire, residual delays on the line were caused by congestion on the tracks due to the Orange and Silver line incident.

"I tried to get off and they had Metro buses coming back and forth, but it was taking, like, 40 minutes, so I got back on to head back to Vienna. But it's just been ridiculous," said one Metro rider.

"I mean, it just slows everything up, you know, I'm kind of used to waiting in the Metro, but it just gets annoying, you know, day after day," Metro rider Brittany Davis said.

The fire came a little more than a week after the entire Metrorail system shut down for 29 hours so crews could inspect electrical cables in the system, following a fire in a tunnel near the McPherson Square station March 14.

[[373546711 , C]]
Mariah Carey won't be making it to Brussels after all.

The superstar, who is on her Sweet Sweet Fantasy European Tour, was supposed to take the stage at the Forest National arena on Sunday, but announced on Twitter Friday that she was advised against performing.

"I love my fans in Brussels and at this time I am being advised to cancel my show for the safety of my fans, my band, crew and everyone involved with the tour," she tweeted. "I hope to see you soon and send my prayers and eternal love, laughter and light to my Lambs."

I love my fans in Brussels and at this time I am being advised to cancel my show for the safety of my fans, my band, crew and everyone...  Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) March 25, 2016

RELATED: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice London Premiere Still On Despite Brussels Attacks, Red Carpet Canceled

Her announcement comes after suicide bombers attacked the international airport and a Metro station in Brussels that claimed the lives of 31 people.

Carey didn't mention any details about the cancellation or how ticket-holders can be reimbursed,

Carey will return to the stage in Denmark on Tuesday at the Forum Copenhagen. Her international tour marks the tenth one in Carey's career. Her last stop on the tour is in South Africa on May 2.

PHOTOS: Musicians Performing Live on Stage
Charges have been dropped against four undocumented immigrants who had been charged in connection with an attack on a man and woman in Massachusetts last week.

The alleged victim has chosen not to testify in the Framingham case, which prosecutors say leaves them without evidence they need to prosecute.

Brothers Elmer, Ariel and Adan Diaz, as well as Marlon Jarquin Filipe, all from Guatemala, appeared in court Thursday on charges including assault, rape, kidnapping and threatening.

Last week, a couple told police the four men approached them on Claflin Street, abducted the woman and sexually assaulted her in a Hollis Street apartment, and beat her boyfriend.

But as the investigation continued, the evidence was called into question.



Prosecutors say the alleged victims have elected not to testify, and without them, they don't have sufficient evidence for the charges.

"The prosecution saw that there was a problem," said defense attorney John Daly. "We all agree there was a problem with the evidence.

Lawyers for the four men say they're not sure if or when they'll be deported, but insist they're not dangerous. Two of them have been deported before and returned to the U.S. - now, officials with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are requesting custody.

All four men pleaded not guilty in an earlier court appearance.
A former Manchester, New Hampshire, lawyer convicted of sexually exploiting a teenage girl has requested a new trial.



The Concord Monitor reports Lisa Biron's lawyer says in a motion filed Wednesday in federal court that both Biron's mental health and the credibility of government witnesses should have been investigated before the trial.



Biron was found guilty in 2013 of arranging and filming repeated sexual encounters between the then-14-year-old girl and two young men. She was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.



Biron's lawyer says her former defense attorney rushed through the case and didn't investigate an "insanity or diminished capacity" defense.



The 46-year-old woman is currently being held at a Texas facility for inmates with special medical and mental health needs.
A Massachusetts teacher has been arrested on child pornography charges, prosecutors announced Friday.

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, 20-year-old Ian Silver-Eck, also known as Ian Henning, of Revere, was arraigned Friday on charges of possessing obscene material and possessing child pornography.

A source tells necn that the images discovered were of children under 12.

For more than a year, Silver-Eck has worked part-time as a teacher for "Build-It-Yourself," a company offering after-school programs across Massachusetts. According to a law enforcement source, Silver-Eck worked part-time in Brookline Public Schools and at Lawrence Academy in Groton.

Prosecutors had requested that Silver-Eck's bail be set at $10,000, but a judge set it at $1,000. State authorities had also requested that the suspect be required to wear a GPS monitor, stay away from his employer's after-school programs, not use the Internet, and have no unsupervised contact with children under 18.

John Galinato of Build it Yourself described Silver-Eck as "a solid teacher."

"He has never been late for class. He knows our art and technology lesson materials and prepares well for classes," Galinato wrote in a statement. "Ian is professional, polite, helpful and easy going in classes."

Silver-Eck is due back in court May 20.

More to come.
Connecticut's Department of Public Health is investigating an outbreak of E. coli and whether it is linked to a goat farm in Lebanon.

Officials said seven people have been infected with E. coli and at least two of them were children. Six of the seven patients have a direct link to Oak Leaf Dairy in Lebanon, the DPH said.

The patients' ages ranged from 2 to 25 years old, according to the DPH.

Most people recover, but this can be a fatal illness, Dr. Matthew Cartter, director of infectious diseases at DPH said. Thats why we are very concerned about those who have been hospitalized.

Connecticut Children's Medical Center said two patients have been diagnosed with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), which attacks the body's kidneys and is associated with the E. coli infection.

If it goes unrecognized and untreated, you may have very severe renal failure and very severe blood abnormalities, Dr. Nicholas Bennett, Medical Director of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Connecticut Childrens Medical Center said.

HUS is a severe, life-threatening complication that occurs in about 10 percent of those infected to E. coli and can lead to kidney failure and issues with blood clotting. E. coli is generally spread through contaminated food or beverages, or exposure to animals carrying the bacteria. Typical symptoms can include abdominal cramping, watery diarrhea, frequently bloody, vomiting, and a low-grade fever. Symptoms usually resolve over several days, according the the DPH.

As a precaution, the farm is currently not permitting the public to visit its animals, the DPH said. The agency said they are bringing experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to help investigate the outbreak.

Its really important to get the word out to those who visited the farm. They had several events earlier in March where people were allowed to pet the goats. We think thats important in this case, Cartter said.

The DPH is asking anyone who visited Oak Leaf Dairy to contact them.

NBC Connecticut has reached out to Oak Leaf Dairy for comment.


First branch of Christian baby charity in Norfolk

A team of mums from Dersingham in West Norfolk have set up the first Norfolk based branch of the Christian charity Baby Basics, blessing new parents in financial crisis with a beautifully packaged Moses basket filled with essential items for their newborn.

In December 2015 Davina Barrett, Kelly Stevenson and Tomris Setchell, three Christian mums from Dersingham, founded West Norfolk Baby Basics with the backing of their local church St Nicholas Dersingham.



It began last summer, when Davina Barretts son was two months old and she read an article in The Independent that caught her attention. The story detailed accounts of parents who, faced with desperate financial circumstances, were being prosecuted for stealing nappies and milk for their baby. Davina says it was like God was guiding her and she was prompted to research what was available to parents who lacked the resources to provide for their newborns.



It led her to find the Sheffield based Christian charity Baby Basics UK which collects, packages and donates Moses baskets full of clothing, toiletries and essential baby equipment as attractive gifts for new mothers in need. The growing charity has 11 local branches around the country.



Davina spoke to her health visitor to ascertain whether there was a need within her West Norfolk community for the service. She said: I was having conversations with my health visitor. I said: Look, we live in rural, affluent West Norfolk. Weve got Kate and Wills just up the road, surely there cant be any need, can there? She said: You have no idea! And it was like, right, we need to do something about this.



Davina took the idea of starting a local branch of Baby Basics to the vicar of her church, St Nicholas Dersingham, who agreed with the PCC to back the venture. So alongside Kelly and Tomris, Davina founded the West Norfolk branch of the Baby Basics charity just before Christmas last year.



Referrals for the Moses baskets come through health visitors, midwives, social workers and Stonham housing, and it is these professionals who deliver the packs to the families. So far 8 Moses baskets have been packed and delivered with two in the pipeline for the coming fortnight.



Davina said: We are averaging one a week at the moment. We are starting small. We are only a small team. We are all stay-at-home mums with lots of responsibilities so one a week is good just now while we are growing.



The baskets are already having a big impact. One health visitor described how one of the recipient mums burst into tears when she saw the package, and the team received a home-made thank you card from another mum with a photo of her grinning with the basket.



The initiative has also impressed the health professionals. Davina said: It is a blessing to see the faces of the health visitors when we give them a basket. It is just amazing for them to see what we are doing. Without banging the Christian drum, it is just a case of heres a basket with all our love. That has been very powerful. Weve had huge support from them.



The baskets are filled with donated clothes, nappies, blankets and toiletries. The Knit and Natter group from St Nicholas Dersingham and the St Edmunds Crafty Knitters in Downham have got on board with the cause and are supplying knitted items for the baskets.



Davina said: It has really touched peoples hearts. Weve had donations from everywhere. And being able to include knitted items is wonderful because it shows that someone has sat down and bothered to knit, which shows that they care.



The West Norfolk Baby Basics team are effectively forming partnerships across the community to further their mission. The local pre-school has donated a room for the charity to use as a storage facility, and the local NCT has set up a clothes bank filled with pre-loved clothes up to 5 years, for recipient parents to access once their babies grow out of their original donated clothes.



Davina said: I wish every parish had a Baby Basics, because you just dont realise the need. Its the pockets of deprivation that we are trying to help. It is such a vulnerable time.



If you would like to donate to West Norfolk Baby Basics they would be keen to receive cellular blankets, nappies and financial donations in order to buy new Moses basket mattresses which cost around 10 each.



You can contact the team at babybasicswestnorfolk@gmail.com or read more on their Facebook page.



To read more about Baby Basics UK and how to set up a branch of the charity in your area go to www.baby-basics.org.uk .



Photo (L-R): Co-founders Tomris Setchell, Davina Barrett, Kelly Stevenson




Bishop washes feet of Norwich congregation Bishop washes feet of Norwich congregation

The Bishop of East Anglia washed the feet of 12 members of the congregation at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Norwich last night (March 24), in the traditional Maundy Thursday Mass of the Lords Supper.

Bishop Alan Hopes knelt to wash, dry and kiss their feet following the example of Jesus, who did the same to his 12 disciples at the Last Supper, the day before he was crucified.

For Bishop Alan, it was the first time that women were included in the Rite, following the recent change announced by Pope Francis, who himself yesterday washed the feet of 12 male and female refugees at a large centre for asylum seekers in Rome



In his homily, Bishop Alan said: The whole mystery of Jesus Christ is expressed in this simple action of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.



This is what the whole of Jesus life has been about from the beginning, the setting aside of his divine glory, bending down to us in the mystery of forgiveness and love.



He is the love which cleanses us. In the sacraments of cleansing, Baptism and Penance, Jesus is continually on his knees, washing our feet, carrying out the service of a slave, the service of cleansing and forgiveness.



We are not to be passive recipients of his goodness, said Bishop Alan. Jesus tells his disciples: If I, your Lord and master, wash your feet, you should wash each others feet. I have given an example so that you may follow. So he gives us the new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.



Pictured above is Bishop Alan Hopes washing the feet of 12 congregation members at Norwich Catholic Cathedral.


The iPhone SE unveiling may not have been accompanied by the type of fanfare that usually drapes iPhone announcements, but make no mistake about it - the iPhone SE is poised to be a huge hit for Apple.

Thus far, media outlets who received test units of Apple's latest smartphone have had nothing short of glowing reviews. And though the SE is effectively an iPhone 6s inside of an iPhone 5/5s frame, reviewers still found plenty of reasons to get excited.

Geoffrey A. Fowler of The Wall Street Journal, for instance, praised the device's impressive battery life, noting that it performed better than the iPhone 6s, 5s, and even the recently released Galaxy S7.

The standout news is battery life. Unlike many other recent Apple products, the iPhone SEs is a significant improvement over its predecessors. In my lab stress test, which cycles through websites with uniform screen brightness, the SE lasted 10 hoursmore than two hours longer than both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 5s, and nearly three hours longer than the Galaxy S7. The compromise you must accept for that performance is the SEs screen, which is not only smaller but also packs in fewer pixels and noticeably less contrast than the iPhone 6s.

It's worth pointing out that for many users who have been patiently waiting for a new 4-inch iPhone to hit the scene, the SE screen is far from a compromise. Indeed, for some users, using the gargantuan screens that adorn the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is a compromise. Sure, the iPhone SE lacks 3D Touch, but this hardly seems like a major gripe most users would voice.

Mashable reviewer Christina Warren also came away impressed with the new iPhone SE. In particular, Warren seemed to recall the joys of being able to use an iPhone one-handed, a user experience which has prompted many iPhone 5s and iPhone 5 users to hold on to their current devices rather than upgrade.

My fingers are now used to a larger screen and it took some adjustments to get used to typing on a smaller screen. Still, I won't lie it's nice to be able to use a phone with one hand again. The form factor is classic and a bit of a throwback, but it feels great too. Apple used to vaunt the one-handed nature of its 4-inch phones. And it's true, there is something to be said about a phone that can truly be used with one hand. No need for reachability, no need for adjusting your hands.

And though Warren didn't conduct any controlled tests to measure battery performance, she did casually note that battery life on the iPhone SE was superior to the iPhone 6s.

The reality is that we don't need an onslaught of reviews to truly measure the value proposition of the iPhone SE. After all, it comes in a familiar form factor and essentially features the same exact internals as the iPhone 6s.

That being the case, you might be glad to know that pre-orders for Apple's latest iPhone are open. The device can be ordered via Apple's online store and also via Apple's 'Apple Store' app for iOS devices. Interested buyers can also purchase the device directly from all four major U.S. carriers, including Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

The color options for the iPhone SE are standard Apple fare, with Gold, Rose Gold, Space Gray and Silver being the four possibilities. Storage wise, there is a 16GB model available for the unsubsidized price of $399 and a 64GB model available for the unsubsidized price of $499. Of course, if you're trading in an old iPhone as you make your purchase, you can get the device for even cheaper on a monthly payment plan.
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Defense rules as Middletown blanks Lincoln

The Islanders hosted the Lions in a key Division III matchup Friday night and sent the visitors home with a 14-0 loss.
Reporter

Tim Mitchell is a reporter at The News-Gazette. His email is tmitchel@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@mitchell6).
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
Morton's toe is a common variant shape of the foot that is characterized by the second toe of the foot being the longest. It is also sometimes referred to as Greek foot, Royal toe, Turkey toe, LaMay toe or Sheppard's toe.

As the foot shape changes the distribution of pressure on the foot, people with Morton's foot are more likely to be affected by some foot conditions that may cause pain and other symptoms.

Prevalence

Morton's foot affects approximately 22% of the population. This is in contrast to 69% of the population with Egyptian foot, which is characterized by the big toe being the longest. Squared foot is less common, with approximately 9% of the population with the same length of the great and second toe.

Appearance

The length of the metatarsal bones can vary and in most feet the joints at the base of the toes follow a smooth curve. However, individuals with Morton's foot will have a sharper curve through to the base of the big toe. This is due to the shortened length of the first metatarsal bone in respect to the second metatarsal, which puts the base of the second toe further forward.

Implications

Whichever toe of the foot is the longest is subjected to an increased stress load on the corresponding proximal metatarsal and metatarsal phalangeal joint. Therefore, people with Morton's toe are at an increased risk of injury in the metatarsal of the second toe and resulting symptoms.

This may include the formation of calluses at the base of the second toe on the ball of the foot and associated pain. Some individuals also experience pain in the arch of the foot at the opposite end of the metatarsals bone.

Wearing shoes can also cause problems for individuals with Morton's toe because standardized shoe fits do not allow sufficient space for the additional length of the second toe. As a result, shoes can lead to the presentation of or the worsening of symptoms for people with Morton's toe.

Associated Foot Conditions

People with Morton's toe are more likely to be affected by other conditions of the feet, including:

Metatarsalgia

Hammertoes

Bunions

Morton's neuroma

Plantar fasciitis

Management

Morton's toe is simply a variation in the shape of the foot and does not require any specific treatment unless symptoms present. It is helpful for individuals with Morton's toe to be aware of the condition and their susceptibility to injury, to allow them to take the appropriate precautions, such as wearing appropriate shoes.

For patients that report symptoms of pain associated with Morton's toe, physical therapy is the first-line management approach. This may involve the placement of a flexible pad underneath the first toe and metatarsal or exercises to improve the strength and flexibility of the toe muscles. Proprioceptive orthotics can also help to restore Morton's toe to normal function, thus relieving the associated symptoms.

Nomenclature

Morton's toe is named after Dudley Joy Morton (1884-1960), an American orthopedic surgeon who originally described the condition as Morton's triad.

There is some confusion with a distinct condition called Morton's foot, also known as Morton's metatarsalgia, which involves pain due to changes between the metatarsal bones. This condition was named after Thomas George Morton.

References

Further Reading
New research by Dr. Sylvie Lesage, scientist at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (CIUSSS- East Montreal) and associate research Professor at University of Montreal, just published in the prestigious international scientific journal Nature Genetics, has discovered that a common genetic defect in beta cells may underlie both known forms of diabetes.

Worldwide, 400 million people suffer from diabetes, with rapid increases projected. Patients with diabetes mostly fall into one of two categories, type 1 diabetics, triggered by autoimmunity at a young age, and type 2 diabetics, caused by metabolic dysfunction of the liver. Despite being labeled a "lifestyle disease", diabetes has a strong genetic basis.

"Our research finds that genetics is critical for the survival of beta cells - the cells that make insulin'' says Sylvie Lesage, who is also a member of the Montreal Diabetes Research Center. ''Thanks to our genetic make-up, some of us have beta cells that are tough and robust, while others have beta cells that are fragile and can't handle stress. It is these people who develop diabetes, either type 1 or type 2, while others with tougher beta cells will remain healthy even in if they suffer from autoimmunity or metabolic dysfunction of the liver."

Different pathways to diabetes development

Diabetes is a hidden killer. One out of every 11 adults is suffering from the disease, yet half of them have not even been diagnosed. Diabetes is caused by the inability of the body to lower blood glucose, a process normally driven by insulin. In patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D), this is caused by the immune system killing off the beta cells that produce insulin. In patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), a metabolic dysfunction prevents insulin from working on the liver. In both cases, left untreated the extra glucose in the blood can cause blindness, cardiovascular disease, diabetic nephropathy, diabetic neuropathy and death.

In this study led by Dr. Adrian Liston, an international team of researchers investigated how genetic variation controls the development of diabetes. While most previous work has focused on the effect of genetics in altering the immune system (in T1D) and metabolic dysfunction of the liver (in T2D), this research found that genetics also affected the beta cells that produce insulin. Mice with fragile beta cells that were poor at repairing DNA damage would rapidly develop diabetes when those beta cells were challenged by cellular stress. Other mice, with robust beta cells that were good at repairing DNA damage, were able to stay non-diabetic for life, even when those islets were placed under severe cellular stress. The same pathways for beta cell survival and DNA damage repair were also found to be altered in diabetic patient samples, indicating that a genetic predisposition for fragile beta cells may underlie who develops diabetes.

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

A new model for testing type 2 diabetes treatments

Current treatments for T2D rely on improving the metabolic response of the liver to insulin. These antidiabetic drugs, in conjunction with lifestyle interventions, can control the early stages of T2D by allowing insulin to function on the liver again. However during the late stages of T2D, the death of beta cells means that there is no longer any insulin being produced. At this stage, antidiabetic drugs and lifestyle interventions have poor efficacy, and medical complications arise.

Dr. Lydia Makaroff, of the International Diabetes Federation, commented this ground breaking work: ''The health cost for diabetes currently exceeds US$600 billion worldwide, 12 % of the global health budget, and will only increase as diabetes becomes more common. Much of this health care burden is caused by late-stage type 2 diabetes, where we do not have effective treatments, so we desperately need new research into novel therapeutic approaches. This discovery dramatically improves our understanding of type 2 diabetes, which will enable the design of better strategies and medications for diabetes in the future".

Dr. Adrian Liston, leader of the Belgian arm of the research, sees new promise in these results, especially through the new animal models used which will enable scientists, for the first time, to test new antidiabetic drugs that focus on preserving beta cells.
The University of Nottingham is launching a new study to address tuberculosis (TB), one of the world's most deadly diseases, supported by IBM's World Community Grid -- one of the most powerful and fastest virtual supercomputers on the planet.

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world are expected to donate vast computing resources to aid the effort. Well-established in the US, this is the first time World Community Grid has supported a UK research project.

Launched today, the new "Help Stop TB" project on World Community Grid will model aspects of the behaviour of tuberculosis bacteria to better understand its potential vulnerabilities that new medicines may one day exploit.

Volunteers are needed to make the processing power on their devices available, when otherwise not being used, to perform the millions of calculations necessary for these simulations.

Crowd-sourcing a virtual supercomputer -- facilitated for free by IBM to study the disease - in this manner will provide results significantly faster than relying on conventional computational resources typically available to researchers.

Tuberculosis has plagued humans for thousands of years. Approximately one third of the globe's human population harbours TB today and 1.5 million people died from it in 2014 alone, prompting the World Health Organization to rank TB alongside HIV as the world's deadliest infectious disease.

Dr Anna Croft, lead researcher of the Help Stop TB project and Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham in the UK, says: "My team will use World Community Grid to help science better understand the TB bacterium, so we can develop more effective treatments, and eventually eradicate this threat to human health."

Although several drugs and a partially effective vaccine have been developed to help combat TB, the TB bacterium can evolve to resist available medicines, particularly when patients interrupt or discontinue treatment, which often occurs when they do not have consistent access to medications and medical care.

Nearly half of European cases are now resistant to at least one drug, and four per cent of all cases worldwide are resistant to treatment regimens that combine drugs. HIV patients with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable to TB.

Tuberculosis can be a slow killer, often dormant for long periods of time before exploiting poor nutrition, old age or a weakened immune system to become active. It is most often spread through the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, laughs or even talks.

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

Symptoms can start with cough, weight loss, and fever, developing into breathing difficulties and violent coughs that bring up blood. Initially residing in the lungs, it can spread to, and cripple, other organs.

The tuberculosis bacterium has a coating which shields it from many drugs and the patient's immune system. Among the fats, sugars and proteins in this coat are fatty molecules called mycolic acids.

The Help Stop TB project will use the computing power donated by World Community Grid members to simulate the behaviour and chemical properties of mycolic acids to better understand how they protect the TB bacteria.

Scientists hope to use the results to eventually develop better treatments for this deadly disease, particularly those that evade TB cell wall defences.

World Community Grid was created as a philanthropic effort by IBM in 2004. Hosted on IBM's SoftLayer cloud technology, World Community Grid facilitates massive amounts of completely free computing power for scientists by harnessing the surplus cycle time from volunteers' computers and Android devices from all over the globe.

The combined power available on World Community Grid has created one of the most powerful and fastest virtual supercomputers on the planet.

"Thanks to World Community Grid's massive computational power, we can study many different mycolic acid structures instead of just a few. This type of analysis at this scale would otherwise be impossible," Dr Croft adds.

More than three million computers and mobile devices used by nearly three quarters of a million people globally and 470 institutions from 80 countries have contributed virtual super-computing power that have fueled more than two-dozen vitally important projects on World Community Grid over the last 11 years.

Since the program's inception, World Community Grid has enabled important scientific advances in areas such as cancer research, AIDS treatments, genetic mapping, solar energy and ecosystem preservation. Many of these efforts might not have even been attempted without the free super-computing power provided by IBM's World Community Grid.
Leading scientists have identified an important gene that is associated with cleft lip and palate.

Experts say the discovery is a step closer to understanding how this birth defect arises, and will help in the development of medical approaches to prevent the disfiguring condition.

An international team, led by Newcastle University, UK, and the University of Bonn in Germany, has found that variants near a gene called GREM1 (Gremlin1) significantly increase the risk for cleft lip and palate.

A cleft is a gap in the upper lip, the roof of the mouth, or sometimes both. Each year, approximately 250,000 babies worldwide are born with a cleft, equating to about two babies a day in the UK.

Dr Heiko Peters, who works at Newcastle University's Institute of Genetic Medicine, is senior author of the research paper published in the journal, PLoS Genetics.

He said: "The findings reveal a link between GREM1 and specific clinical characteristics that arise in the formation of a cleft lip and palate.

"This is very important in this research area as it helps to decipher the complex interplay between genes required for the different steps and in different tissues during lip and palate development.

"A cleft lip can occur with or without a cleft palate and the genetic factors that predispose to palate involvement are largely unknown."

The research team carried out analyses on genetic and clinical data from three large patient cohorts and identified a strong association between a region on chromosome 15 and cleft lip and palate.

Experts carried out studies on mice to investigate where GREM1 is normally active in the development of the face and how alterations in the gene's activity may affect the lip and palate.

Results indicate that it is not the loss of GREM1 function but rather its increased activity that causes the condition.

It is the second gene which has been shown to be linked to a condition in which a cleft of the lip and a cleft of the secondary palate occur together.

Dr Peters added: "These findings provide a framework for further analyses of GREM1 in human cell systems and model organisms, broadening our understanding of the processes that regulate the face's shape."

Although not life-threatening for patients with access to postnatal surgery, cleft lip and palate requires additional multidisciplinary care by specialists, including ear, nose and throat experts, orthodontists and speech therapists.

Children with the condition can have dental issues, speech problems and are at increased risk of serious ear infections and hearing loss.

Currently, scientists only have a fragmented picture about which genes are required for lip and palate development, and how environmental factors might interact with genetic risk factors.

To establish effective prevention strategies scientists must identify genetic risk factors and understand how gene-gene and gene-environment interactions interfere with lip and palate development.

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

As the use of personalised medicine increases, understanding how genetic changes alter foetal development will become increasingly relevant.

This is particularly important for conditions such as cleft lip and palate that appear to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, such as smoking or certain medicines used by the mother.

Further studies will focus on identifying genes and environmental factors that interact with GREM1.

Dr Laura Yates, consultant in clinical genetics at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The families we meet in genetic clinics on a daily basis generally have two common questions.

"Firstly, what is the cause of the developmental anomaly affecting their child or themselves, and secondly, can it be treated or prevented in future pregnancies?

"Studies such as this contribute vital pieces of information that enable clinicians to provide patients with answers that are relevant to them and their family, not just general statistics.

"Our understanding of how genetic factors in both mother and foetus, and external or environmental influences impact on foetal development in the womb, is far from complete.

"This study takes us one step closer to being able to identify genetic changes that increase the chance of a particular form of cleft lip and palate re-occurring in a family, therefore to studying what can be done to reduce the chance of this happening in individuals who have this genetic change."

Case study

Mother-of-five Joanne Brown knows first-hand the challenges faced by those with a cleft lip and palate.

The student nurse's daughter, Emily, seven, was born with the condition and has had to undergo three operations so far with more expected in the years ahead.

Emily has coped well with her condition but having a cleft lip and palate has affected her speech and confidence.

Joanne, 33, of West Rainton, County Durham, who is married to David, 45, a joiner, welcomes the research into the condition.

She said: "I found out at my 20 week pregnancy scan that Emily had a cleft lip and palate. I was very upset as I didn't know anything about the condition.

"Speech is a huge problem for Emily and she is shy around other children. She never used to look in the mirror and it has taken time for her to be able to do this.

"It's so important that research is carried out as the condition is a lifelong problem for sufferers.

"This research is a significant step forward in understanding the condition. It would be phenomenal if, in the future, the chance of a cleft lip and palate occurring could be reduced."
The James River Association is accepting applications for its sixth annual Floating Classroom where students paddle down the 340-mile length of the James River.

Rising 10th- and 11th-grade students who live within the James River basin are encouraged to apply before April 29.

Students selected for the program will have the opportunity to go on one of three week-long trips that collectively travel the length of the James River. The expedition begins July 10 and participants will learn about conservation, stewardship and the rivers history. They will meet a diverse group of business owners, farmers and others along the way to learn about their livelihoods and the many uses for the river.

The program focuses on building confidence and leadership in participants while helping them understand the importance of the river and the future challenges for keeping it healthy. No previous paddling or camping experience is required.

Since 2011, more than 137 students and 26 teachers from more than 34 schools across Virginia have participated. For more information, visit www.jamesriverassociation.org/expedition or contact Georgia Busch at gbusch@jrava.org, (804) 788-8811, ext. 214.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Thursday vetoed two bills that he said would do away with what he called common sense gun restrictions in and around state office buildings.

The Democrat vetoed House Bill 1096, which would reverse elements of the governors executive order that bans the possession of firearms in Virginia executive branch office buildings.

McAuliffe also vetoed House Bill 382, which would bar state agencies  other than the Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Virginia Port Authority and institutions of higher education  from adopting regulations preventing employees from storing a lawfully possessed firearm and ammunition in a locked private personal vehicle at their workplace.

Republicans do not have the votes to override the vetoes. An override requires two-thirds of the votes in each chamber. Democrats hold 19 of the 40 seats in the Senate.

McAuliffe vetoed the measures a month after he signed bipartisan gun legislation that he said would make Virginia safer even as it restored and expanded concealed weapon reciprocity with other states.

It is disappointing, but the speaker is still very pleased by the governors support for NRA-backed legislation to create universal concealed carry reciprocity despite fierce opposition from anti-gun rights advocates, Matthew Moran, a spokesman for Speaker of the House William J. Howell, R-Stafford, said in a statement Thursday.

House Bill 1096, sponsored by Del. Michael J. Webert, R-Fauquier, passed the House of Delegates on a vote of 63-35 and cleared the Senate on a vote of 21-17.

All Virginians, including state employees, have the right to feel safe and secure going about their daily lives. Regulations have been authorized to promote safety in public buildings, and prevention requires us to address areas of concern before they are realized, McAuliffe said in his veto message.

In addition, this legislation exempts rules, regulations, policies, and administrative actions imposed by certain agencies and institutions of higher education from the requirements of the bill. Such special exemptions, while other state agencies must comply, infers to the state workforce a perception of inequity for their well-being.

House Bill 382, sponsored by Del. Hyland F. Buddy Fowler Jr., R-Hanover, passed the House on a vote of 65-32 and cleared the Senate on a vote of 24-14.

As governor, I am the chief personnel officer of the state workforce, McAuliffe said in vetoing the measure.

I believe there is a need to establish and enforce workplace violence prevention policies that focus on employee safety and an atmosphere of workplace safety.

An essential component of workplace violence prevention is the regulation of the possession, brandishing, or use of weapons on-site and during work-related activities. Our current state policy is aligned with and reinforces this best practice.

On Feb. 26, McAuliffe held a ceremony at the Executive Mansion, where he signed a three-measure bipartisan gun deal that he termed historic.

That deal expands recognition of out-of-state concealed carry permits, reversing Attorney General Mark R. Herrings decision last year to sever ties with 25 states that have looser permitting rules than Virginia.

The gun deal featured two other measures. One requires domestic abusers under permanent protective orders to give up any guns in their possession within 24 hours. The other positions Virginia State Police at every gun show to perform voluntary background checks requested by unlicensed sellers who lack access to the federal database used by gun dealers.

The bipartisan gun deal disappointed a gun safety group bankrolled by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that spent more than $2.4 million in last years elections to help McAuliffe and Democratic candidates in their unsuccessful effort to take control of the state Senate.

The state GOP on Thursday accused McAuliffe of inconsistency on gun issues.

Terry McAuliffes veto of legislation restoring concealed carry in state buildings would be a shock had it come from anyone but Terry McAuliffe, said John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.

Logical consistency apparently means nothing if ignoring it can get Michael Bloombergs anti-gun money pipeline flowing again.
Red Hulk, Ronin, and more: 10 Heroes and Villains whose secret identities were hidden from readers

There's a longstanding superhero tradition of hiding the identity of certain characters even from readers
Simba put down

It would have been a danger to anyone around it, including the owner, the vet said. The vet, who asked not to be named, told Newsday that Simba was a very aggressive and vicious dog and had multiple triggers that would set him off. He noted that it was very unfortunate the dog had to be euthanised but he suggested people focus on the years of neglect and mistreatment which led the dog to come to this .

This did not happen overnight, he said .

On March 8, Simba attacked and killed baby Maleek Khan at his Charlieville home. The TTSPCA in a release yesterday noted the dog, which was brought to its shelter by the Chaguanas Corporation on March 10, started to display signs of aggression toward their veterinarian and members of staff on March 21. The following day, his aggression escalated without any indication or provocation and it was felt that he now posed a threat to the safety of his handlers. We requested help from the trainer to assist us with his unstable behaviour and to see how best we could manage the change in his temperament .

Following this assessment however, a collective decision was taken to euthanise Simba, the Society reported .

The Society stated that while we know that many will feel disappointed by our action, we would like everyone to know it has also been a difficult decision for our team who worked with him daily .

The TTSPCA believes that this case is not just about one dog, it is also about a lack of public education, poor ownership practices and outdated and inadequate laws to protect animals. We urge the Attorney General to consider amending the Dog Control Act to include Duty of Care protection for all dogs and to initiate the drafting of Animal Welfare laws in general, the Society added .

Daniella Daniel, who started the online petition on website change.org to save Simba, said the euthanising of the dog was, very disheartening seeing that we got a lot of support including internationally. Daniel added the TTSPCA could have given to dog to someone who deals with aggressive dogs. Veterinarian and animal activist Dr Kriyaan Singh, who offered to take the dog, described the euthanising of Simba as sad .

He said it was unfair that no action was taken against the owner and questioned whether the law varied depending on whether the victim was related to the owner. He also questioned whether it was done according to the Dog Control Act and whether the trainer was certified .

TTSPCA President Sita Kuruvilla in a telephone interview said everything was done in accordance with rules and regulations and their trainer is certified and highly qualified .

She explained the dog was manageable up to Monday but by Tuesday lost it and went crazy and was extremely aggressive to people who had been attending to him before and they could not afford to put their staff at risk. It was an unreliable dog, extremely aggressive, and we took the decision we cannot keep the dog any longer, she said. I think we did absolutely the right thi
UNC loses La Horquetta / Talparo

Justice Mira Dean-Armorer gave her decision in an oral ruling yesterday, on an application by the Peoples National Movement at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain.

She agreed with the submissions of the PNMs lead counsel, Douglas Mendes,SC, that the notice of the petition was served outside of the five day period prescribed by the Representation of the Peoples Act.

Justice Dean-Armorer said the notice of the petition was served three days out of the prescribed time, adding that the court had to strictly apply the time lines set out in the legislation.

In an immediate reaction, lead counsel for the UNC, Anand Ramlogan, SC, gave notice of their intention to appeal the ruling.

The La Horquetta/Talparo constituency, which was won by the Peoples National Movements Maxie Cuffie in the September 7 general election, is one of five being challenged by the UNC.

The other constituencies being challenged are: Toco/Sangre Grande, Tunapuna, St Joseph, San Fernando West and Moruga/Tableland.

The UNC was granted leave to present the petitions on September 18, of last year and the next day (a Saturday) lodged the petitions with the Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court who in turn passed it on to one of his colleagues on September 21, at which time it was stamped and filed.

According to Mendes, the five day period would have started on September 19, as provided for by the Representation of the Peoples Act.

The judge agreed, saying that the petitioner fulfilled his obligation under the statute by presenting the petition to the courts registrar on the Saturday, and as such the time started on that date.

Ramlogan had argued that the Court had to apply the purposive and contextual interpretation to the Act.

According to him, the presentation of the petitions included the physical lodging of the document as well as official acknowledgement or receipt of the petitions by the Registrar as evidenced by the Courts seal or stamp, which was done on the Monday.

In November, last year the Court of Appeal, in a majority ruling, threw out a challenge from the Peoples National Movement (PNM) and the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) of Justice Mira Dean-Armorers decision to grant the UNC permission to pursue the petitions.

The UNC has argued that the decision to extend the polls by one hour was illegal.

Hearing of the petitions will take place from June 27 to 30.

Besides the petitions, Dean-Armorer has also been assigned two cases in which three private citizens are challenging the EBCs decision.

Social activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj has filed a judicial review seeking the courts clarification on whether the EBC had the constitutional power to make the decision, while Irwin Lyne and Melissa Sylvan are claiming that the EBC breached the constitutional rights of Tobagonians by not allowing them an extension.

Lead counsel for the United National Congress Anand Ramlogan, SC, said in an interview after the ruling that the petitioner will appeal Justice Dean-Armorers ruling.

We have decided to appeal the judgment. The issue of service was a contentious one as we were experiencing extreme difficulty in effecting service on the PNM candidates in these election petitions, Ramlogan said.
NP: Terminated workers will be reintegrated

In a statement yesterday, NP said it noted the appellate courts majority decision and noted that it will embark on a reconciliation and reintegration exercise.

In light of the Courts decision, NP now sets for itself two interrelated responsibilities: reconciliation and reintegration. In spearheading the Return-to-Work programme for the workers, a detailed programme has been developed in conjunction with a number of key stakeholders that will ensure the successful reintegration of the dismissed employees while also attending to the needs of the existing employees, the statement said. The company said it stood committed to the fulfilment of its primary objective of providing an uninterrupted fuel supply to its valued customers and to this end, remains focused on ensuring that its operations are conducted with minimal disruption
'He Had the Chance to Go in

and Save the Children'
(Newser)  A prominent former New York City emergency room doctor already charged with sexually assaulting two women in his care has been indicted on additional charges of sex abuse for assaulting two more women he treated, the AP reports. David Newman, who wrote a book on the patient-doctor relationship and claims to have served in a combat hospital in Iraq, victimized the women at Mount Sinai Hospital between August and January, according to court papers. In one case, Newman injected a woman with pain killers and then masturbated on her, the papers charge. The Manhattan DA called the woman's abuse while under sedation by a doctor a patient's "nightmare scenario." Newman has pleaded not guilty to all of the counts.

Newman was arrested after the first woman claimed he masturbated on her and a semen sample from her face matched Newman's DNA. (An "embarrassed" Newman claims he masturbated prior to treating the woman and may have had ejaculate on his hands.) Following his arrest, the other women, whose ages ranged from 18 to 29, came forward alleging they were similarly abused, authorities said. Newman is the author of Hippocrates' Shadow: Secrets From the House of Medicine, a book that examines "the fraying of patient-doctor relations" and advocates a "new paradigm to rebuild the bridge between physicians and their patients." (Read more sexual assault stories.)
(Newser)  If you've ever spent much time in Philadelphia, you've probably heard the word "jawn." But what does it mean? Local news station CBS 3 asked just that in February, and Atlas Obscura digs even deeper with local linguist Taylor Jones to get to the bottom of the "enduring mystery." Turns out that part of what makes the word so tricky to explain, and thus replicate elsewhere, is its nebulous naturebecause "jawn" appears to be unlike any other word in any language, and is a stand-in for pretty much any noun, even abstract ones. As Atlas Obscura puts it, "It is a completely acceptable statement in Philadelphia to ask someone to 'remember to bring that jawn to the jawn.'" But its incredible flexibility means it's not always used in a flattering way. Think "side jawn," or a person someone is, ahem, seeing on the side.

Unfortunately for many native Philadelphians, the closest word linguists have found in the evolution of "jawn" appears to be "joint," which has its roots in New York when Bronx hip hop group Funky Four Plus One released hit single "Thats The Joint" in 1981. "Sigh," laments the blog Philebrity. "Can't we just have one thing that is truly our own? Besides cheesesteaks and shame that is." Philadelphia magazine, meanwhile, notes that the word made an "extended appearance" in Creed last year, and that it's far from dead: "I base this on anecdotal evidence, but it's pretty strong: All of my girlfriend's students at a middle school in Chester use it frequently." Still confused? So are the commenters on this Jezebel thread, one of whom asks: "So its like 'smurf'? I've smurfed the smurf into the smurf and now the smurf is smurfing and crying on the floor. But with jawn. Something like that?" (Have you heard how Norwegians use the word "Texas"?)
(Newser)  In Georgia, it's completely legal to pack objects full of the explosive Tannerite and shoot at them, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea, police said after a man had his leg severed by an exploding lawn mower. Police say 32-year-old David Pressley and friends filled the lawn mower with 3 pounds of the explosive material in the woods of Walton County, and his left leg was severed below the knee by shrapnel after he shot at the mower and blew it up. Video obtained by 11Alive shows Pressley firing at least 20 shots from a semi-automatic rifle at the mower before it blows up. "I blew my leg off," he can be heard shouting after the blast.

Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman tells Channel 2 that Tannerite is used for target practice and that you're supposed to put a small amount of it into a target and fire from at least 100 yards away, not fire at several pounds from just 25 feet away, as Pressley and his friends were apparently doing. Pressley is recovering in an Atlanta hospital. 11Alive notes that despite warnings from the makers of Tannerite, videos of people shooting at up to 100 pounds of Tannerite have been big hits online, and Pressley was apparently trying to make a similar video with the lawn mower. "Yes, it is legal, and no, we can't make people stop doing it. But why, folks, just why?" the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post. (This puppy's collar triggered an explosion that destroyed part of its owner's home.)
(Newser)  In the aftermath of the Brussels attack, top Belgian officials have admitted that they could have done more to prevent itincluding paying attention when Turkey deported Ibrahim El Bakraoui to the European Union and warned that he was a dangerous militant. Authorities have now disclosed that his brother, Khalid El Bakraoui, was being sought in connection with last year's Paris attack, reports the New York Times. Both brothers became suicide bombers on Tuesday, and the intelligence failures have prompted what the Guardian calls "soul searching" in Belgium, which has been criticized by some of its European allies for what one French minister called a "lack of will" in dealing with Islamic extremists.

Belgium's justice and interior ministers have offered to resign over the intelligence failures, but Prime Minister Charles Michel has refused to accept the resignations. Sources tell Reuters that the brothers were on a US watch list, and it's not clear whether American authorities shared information on them with their European Union counterparts. The Wall Street Journal reports that while Belgium has come under fire for failures, the EU as a whole has been struggling to implement intelligence-sharing plans, with an initiative to track potential terrorists traveling by air held up by European Parliament concerns about privacy. Six suspects were arrested in Brussels Thursday night, along with a man in France who was allegedly planning a fresh attack. (Read more Brussels attack stories.)
(Newser)  An American detained in North Korea said he spied against the country and asked for forgiveness on Friday, nine days after a US tourist was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion. Kim Tong Chol told a press conference in Pyongyang that he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North's leadership and tried to spread religious ideas among North Koreans. Describing his acts as "shameful and ineffaceable," Kim, who was born in South Korea and became a naturalized US citizen, said he feels sorry for his crime and appealed to North Korean authorities to show him mercy by forgiving him, reports the AP.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service says it has no link to Kim's case; former detainees have said similar statements were coerced. In an interview with CNN in January, Kim said he lived in Fairfax, Va., before moving in 2011 to Yangji, near the Chinese-North Korean border. He said he commuted daily to Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea, and was detained there last October. On March 16, North Korea sentenced Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate, to prison after he confessed he tried to steal a propaganda banner. The US government condemned the sentence and accused North Korea of using such American detainees as political pawns. (Read more North Korea stories.)
(Newser)  A split jury Thursday decided the case of Anna Alaburda versus the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and it came down on the side of the school, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Alaburda, 37, sued the nonprofit California school in 2011, claiming it fudged post-graduation employment numbers. She said those figures lured her to attend, but she ended up with excess of $150,000 in student debt and without a job, even though she graduated near the top of her 2008 class and passed the bar on her first try. The jury rejected her suit's claims with a 9-3 vote, with at least one juror noting Alaburda's decision to turn down a law firm's 2008 job offer swayed his decision. She said she rejected the job because she believed it to be a predatory firm that took advantage of consumers; she still hasn't found a full-time salaried position as a lawyer.

Prominent among Alaburda's arguments was a US News and World Report ranking of law schools that placed Thomas Jefferson's grad employment rate around the same as other law schools, claiming more than 80% of its grads found jobs within nine months, per the New York Times. But the jobs it counted included those not tied to the study of law, including work in salons, restaurants, or even selling tractorsa data-compilation process one juror called "appalling," per the Union-Tribune. However, the stats were correct in the 2004 and 2005 editions Alaburda had read, and the judge advised the jury to consider only those editions. The school's lawyer conceded "isolated mistakes" and "clerical errors" with the school's data collection but noted there was no evidence the school actually lied, the AP reports. (Read more lawsuit stories.)
(Newser)  One-time Republican presidential candidate and current Wisconsin governor Scott Walker thinks there's a good chance that the nominee who comes out of the July convention won't be Trump, Cruz, or Kasich, the Capital Times reports. "I think if its an open convention, its very likely it would be someone whos not currently running," Walker says, though he later acknowledged that "almost every predictions been off, so its hard to predict anything." Fortune sees Walker's comments as a way for him to keep his presidential aspirations alive. He was briefly the GOP frontrunner before dropping out of the race in September.

Politico reports Trump is nearly 500 delegates short of the 1,237 he needs to avoid an open convention in July. If a nominee isn't agreed upon by a majority in the first convention vote, delegates are free to throw their support behind anyone. In that event, Paul Ryan is seen as a favorite non-candidate to receive the nomination, despite him insisting he isn't interested, according to the New York Times. Wisconsin's April 5 primary is seen as a key battle in preventing Trump from clinching the nomination. Walker hasn't endorsed any of the candidates yet, though Politico believes he is only a few days away from throwing his support behind Cruz. (Read more Scott Walker stories.)
(Newser)  Two Americans have been confirmed as being among the dead in the attacks in Brussels earlier this week, an anonymous senior US official tells NBC News. That official remained tight-lipped on their names, but CBS News has a statement from the family of Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski stating the brother and sister are confirmed dead. It's unclear if those are the Americans the official was referring to, as two other Americans are known to be missing. The statement reads in part, "We received confirmation this morning from Belgian Authorities and the Dutch Embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha. We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation." An earlier report placed the two at the Brussels airport, where they reportedly phoned their mother, who is said to have heard an explosion then lost the connection.

Reuters notes it's been a chaotic and confusing week for the families of Americans deemed missing after the attacks; the mother of Justin Shults, who is missing along with his wife, was supposedly told by a State Department official her son had been found, only to find out later that information was erroneous. Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Brussels to offer his condolences on behalf of the US, made mention of the victims Friday after meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, reports Talking Points Memo. "The United States is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks," Kerry said, per the Washington Post. (Belgium is admitting it messed up big time.)
(Newser)  Every good writer gets rejected, and JK Rowling may know that better than most. Despite selling 400 million copies of her Harry Potter books, she still had trouble getting her 2013 novel The Cuckoo's Calling published under pseudonym Robert Galbraith. In fact, she got some pretty "cringe-worthy" rejection letters, and posted two to Twitter on Friday to inspire other writers, per the Telegraph. In one, Constable & Robinson notes it "could not publish [the crime novel] with commercial success." An editor advised Galbraith to read the Writer's Handbook, learn how to write an "alluring" blurb, and noted "a writer's group/writing course may help," report the BBC and the Guardian.

Creme de la Crime sent Rowling a more general rejection stating that it was "unable to accept new submissions at the moment." Rowling notes a third unnamed publishing house that turned down Harry Potter also turned down The Cuckoo's Calling in what was Galbraith's "rudest rejection (by email)!" Still, "I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen," she says, adding, "I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try." Joanne Harris commiserated with her fellow author on Twitter, writing she "made a sculpture" out of all the rejection letters she received for her 1999 novel Chocolat, later turned into a film starring Johnny Depp. (Rowling recently got in hot water with Native American fans.)
(Newser)  A Russian special forces soldier appears to have pulled a move straight out of an action movie, calling down an airstrike on himself after he was discovered by ISIS troops in Syria, Reuters reports. According to AFP, the soldier was on a week-long mission identifying ISIS targets and passing the coordinates along for airstrikes. He called for his final, dramatic airstrike at some point in the past week near Palmyra. "The soldier died heroically, calling the strike onto himself after he was discovered and surrounded by terrorists," Reuters quotes the Interfax news agency.

The Russian soldier is at least the seventh killed in Syria since Russia launched a military campaign in the Middle Eastern country back in September. But it was only this week that Russia finally admitted it had special forces soldiers participating in combat missions inside Syria. Syrian troops entered Palmyra on Thursday. It had been held by ISIS since last May. (Read more Syria stories.)
(Newser)  First the NRA repurposed Little Red Riding Hood; now it's reloading Hansel and Gretel. The gun lobby group's fairy tales-with-firearms series, penned by Amelia Hamilton and appearing on the NRA Family site, aims to place traditional tales in a new "utopia filled with empowered and unharmed children," as NPR puts it. And interestingly enough, in contrast with the original fairy tales filled with horror and bloodshed, there's not much violence in these NRA fantasies. In the new Hansel and Gretel rendition, for instance, the doomed brother and sister don't get captured by a witch and shoved into an oven: Instead, the two go on a hunting trip and rescue two boys from the witch's clutches, with rifles at the ready (but ultimately unnecessary) by their sides. In Red Riding Hood, weapons are similarly drawn but nary a bullet fired, which is still enough to scare the wolf away.

"It's all about safety and it's for parents to start those conversations," Hamilton, a conservative blogger, tells CBS News. Still, the series has elicited criticism from gun-control advocates who call it a "desperate" move to boost gun sales. "This is a disgusting, morally depraved marketing campaign," Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said in a statement, per the Washington Post. But gun rights activist Bob Owens, who runs the BearingArms.com site, commented on Media Matters: "So you would rather have one of the more traditional endings to the tale, where the grandmother is slaughtered and fed to her granddaughter ...?" Meanwhile, the hashtag #NRAfairytales has spurred online tales that are grimmer than Grimms'. One notable tweet: "Jack & Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and the gun accidentally discharged. Jill is dead." (Read more NRA stories.)
(Newser)  The US says it has killed one of the Islamic State's top leaders. Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli might not be a household name, but he coordinated the group's finances and was thought to be first in line to run ISIS if something happened to current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reports CNN. Details of the operation remain under wraps, but the Daily Beast reports that special operations forces killed al-Qaduli in Syria after tracking him for days. ABC News adds that he was killed in a ground operation. The news comes about a week after airstrikes killed another top ISIS commander, war minister Omar al-Shisani, or "Omar the Chechen."

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," said defense chief Ash Carter at a news conference Friday. "The momentum of this campaign is clearly on our side." US commandos specifically charged with tracking down ISIS leaders arrived in Iraq earlier this year, notes the New York Times, perhaps explaining the recent success. The State Department had previously offered a $7 million reward for al-Qaduli, which CNN notes had made him the sixth-most-wanted terrorist in the world. (Read more ISIS stories.)
(Newser)  A family of three was murdered in their Santa Barbara County home this week, and authorities don't think the slayings are random. Authorities responded to a request for a welfare check at the upscale Goleta Valley home Wednesday and found the bodies of Dr. Weidong "Henry" Han, 57, his wife Huijie "Jennie" Yu, 29, and their daughter Emily Han, 5, in what law enforcement describes as a "horrific" scene, KEYT reports. A family friend who used to pick Emily up from kindergarten says the family had stopped responding to phone calls and texts before authorities went to check on them.

Han, an author of several books, ran the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic, a Chinese medicine practice and Chinese herbal pharmacy, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was "a healer in the truest sense of the word," his co-author tells the Santa Barbara News-Press, per the AP. Details are scant, but the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office says the investigation so far indicates "this was not a random attack." "Our neighbors and the entire Foothill community are in shock," an editor of the Santa Barbara Independent says. (Read more murder stories.)
(Newser)  One of the two suicide bombers that killed at least 30 people at the Brussels airport Tuesday was the same man who made two of the bombs used in the terrorist attacks on Paris in November, authorities confirmed Friday. The New York Times identified the man as 24-year-old Belgian citizen Najim Laachraoui. Laachraoui's DNA was found on a suicide belt at the Bataclan music venue and an explosive device at the Stade du France following the Paris attacks, NBC News reports. Authorities asked for help finding him on Monday, three days after they arrested Paris attacker and suspected accomplice Salah Abdeslam. On Tuesday, Laachraoui used a bomb hidden in a suitcase to blow himself up at the Brussels airport.

Laachraoui left Belgium for Syria in 2013, Reuters reports. His family says it saw no sign of radicalization beforehand and has no idea what happened. Laachraoui's family warned police after he left for Syria. His brother, 20-year-old Mourad, remembers his brother as "nice" and "clever." "Mourad and his whole family are crushed that Najim could have committed such a barbaric act," Reuters quotes Mourad's lawyer as saying. Mourad, who represents Belgium in international taekwondo competitions, says he will do whatever it takes to keep his three younger siblings from following his brother's path. (Read more Brussels stories.)
(Newser)  What could make what already promises to be a crazy Republican National Convention even crazier? Filling Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena with firearms. That's the goal of a Change.org petition created this week that already boasts more than 15,000 signatures. The petition worries that without guns convention-goers will be "utterly helpless against evil-doers, criminals, or others who wish to threaten the American way of life." For example, they would be "sitting ducks" in an ISIS terrorist attack on the arena. Unfortunately, the Qdespite being located in an open-carry statehas a no-weapons policy, Fox 8 reports. "This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment," the petition claims.

The petition has a number of demands, including the Q suspending its no-weapons policy for the convention, the party finding an alternate venue incase the Q won't allow weapons inside, and the candidatesall three of whom have spoken out against gun-free zonesdemanding guns be allowed inside the convention. Probably unnecessarily, GQ points out this whole thing is likely a prank. "This is proooooobably someone trolling the NRA and Reince Preibus, but theres also maybe a 12% chance its true," the magazine states. "Either way, its unlikely to happen." The Republican National Convention starts July 18. (Read more Republican National Convention stories.)
WhatsApp, the most used instant messaging platform, makes your texting more fun and interactive with its latest updates.

WhatsApp is being currently used by as many as 1 billion people all over the world and is available on all the platforms such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows/Nokia. However, unfortunately for Blackberry 10 and Nokia users, the IM giant will no longer support the platform and will not release any new updates. They also revealed that no newer releases will be available for Nokia either. It is also expected that old Android devices will be done away as well.

But iOS is on a continuous improvement streak and the new update has made WhatsApp more interesting for iPhone users.

Recent version of WhatsApp 2.12.16 downloadable for iOS will now allow iPhone users to save incoming media such as photos or videos from a particular person/group. You can change the settings by selecting the person/group and choosing "Always" option for media content. By default, this option is always off to avoid user's phones to be filled with unnecessary media. In fact, this feature allows you to receive files from only those people you trust such as close friends and family. It is also a beneficial option for people who are on a slow internet connection or using their mobile data.

Another great feature to loo forward to is the ability to reply quickly by simply pulling down the notification, in-app. The users will now also be able to share PDF files through chat window in WhatsApp.

For Android version, the latest beta update of WhatsApp 2.12.535, recorded new features that allows the users to use bold and italics in their chats. Make text bold by inserting between asterisks and italics by inserting between underscores.

WhatsApp is also working towards improving data security and encryption in their future updates.
HTC to launch its new flagship on April 12

Taiwanese mobile corporation HTC are all set to unveil a new smartphone the coming month. Thankfully to twitter leaks, it is poised to be the "HTC 10" succeeding M9 plus.

It is rather the first time that the Taiwanese firm have decided to ditch the letter M to indicate their flagship series of mobile phones rather than a unanimous name. HTC has already released a teaser which was first seen at the Mobile World congress in Barcelona with a #powerof10 hash-tag. Days letter, it was leaked that the handset would be out with Qualcomm's latest chipset Snapdragon 820 with a 4GB of memory and a 5.5 inch qHD display with 12megapixels of rear-camera and USB Type-C port. However, there is no confirmation from a credible source whether the device comes with HTC boom sound.

The fact that HTC never unveiled their latest smartphone at the Mobile world congress was all but the turn of Samsung's S7/edge and LG G5 to be discussed about the most- spoken smartphones. HTC nowadays are now troubled due to overpricing their hardware in competing with others and hence there are sales slumping year-by-year for the Taiwanese corporation with people most probably opting for other devices with better specifications.

However, crowded market for high-end smartphones is set to go through a weak demand this year.

The company's latest smartphone the A9 is pretty expensive and much to the speculation of many, it more or looks like an Apple device than HTC itself while the correspondent to HTC claiming that it was rather Apple copying their devices.

The phone however had design flaws and insane pricing for its feature-set. Barely into announcement of recent devices in the smartphone market by prominent manufactures LG, Samsung and Apple, all we have to wait and see whether HTC stands up to compete user preferences of premium consumer experiences.
The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. Readers' letters and columns also appear online at newsminer.com. Contact the editor with questions at letters@newsminer.com or call 459-7574.
New Delhi:

Drenched in a spirit of bonhomie, people celebrated Holi across the country today by applying colours on each other, savouring sweets and exchanging greetings to send out a message of cultural harmony.

While the celebrations were largely incident-free, two brothers in Muzaffarnagar were injured after being allegedly shot at. About 70 persons were also reported injured in Holi-related incidents in Jaipur.

From morning, youths and children revelled in the streets, daubing friends and family members with colours and also savoured traditional homemade dishes like malpua, dahi bada, gujiya.

People in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh also soaked in the festive spirit and enjoyed the occasion by dancing and singing folks songs.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have also extended Holi greeting to the people, saying the festival symbolises the spirit of tolerance, harmony and prosperity.

In the national capital, Delhiites smeared friends and families with colours and threw water balloons on passers-by to enjoy the day which remained pleasant weather-wise.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi celebrated Holi at AICC headquarters and also greeted people on the occasion.

The party president and vice president were at 24 Akbar Road, the party headquarters, for about 15 minutes.

I convey my greetings to all people on the occasion of Holi. The festival of colours reflects the diversity in the country, which is a symbol of unity in diversity, Rahul said in Hindi on Twitter.

At the Wagah border, Border Security Force personnel and Pakistan Rangers exchanged sweets to mark the festive occasion, which carries the message of peace and harmony.

While Dhulehndi (use of colours after Holi bonfire) in prominent temples of Radha Ballabh, Radha Raman and Bankey Behari was played yesterday, many temples celebrated the festival today.

People in Mathura also geared up to celebrate Huranga, one of the last prominent celebrations of Holi, tomorrow at the Dauji Maharaja Temple.

In Punjab, joyous spirit pervaded the streets as people from all walks of life celebrated Holi with traditional fervour and gaiety.

The festival of colours was also celebrated in Haryana, though it remained subdued at some places, especially in rural areas of Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani and Sonipat districts, in wake of recent violence during Jat quota agitation.

In Jammu and Kashmir, people in the Valley smeared colours on their family members and friends and distributed sweets.

Security forces posted in the Valley also celebrated the festival. Paramilitary and army troopers gathered in their camps and danced to the beats of popular Holi songs besides smearing colours on each other.]

The festive fervour was on display in several parts of the Jaipur also as people came out of their homes and danced to the beat of drums, enjoying the festival of colours and traditional delicacies.

For Vridavan widows, the occasion brought good news as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav gave holi gift to them by announcing a number of facilities including RO water purifying system and solar power plant.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Jet Airways flight attendant Nidhi Chaphekar, who was injured during the Belgium attacks, has been shifted to medically induced coma.



Bernard Guisset, a Jet Airways manager in Brussels, revealed that she has sustained over 15 percent burns and was left with a fractured foot. He also said that Neha is out of danger.



The image of Chaphekar taken right after the blast was one of the most searing photographs taken Tuesday. It showed the 40-year-old mother of two from Mumbai, her bright yellow uniform ripped across her chest. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face.



Meanwhile, Jet Airways started pulling out grounded planes from the Brussels Airport, which was instantly shut by the authorities to ensure safety of stranded people.

Amsterdam will become Jet Airways European gateway for its international operations from Saturday.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Mumbai:

Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley today claimed in a Mumbai court that he had arranged a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event.



The 55-year-old, who has turned approver in the 26/11 attacks case, stated this during cross-examination on the third day by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Abu Jundalan alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.



Replying to a question, Headley said that he planned to invite Thackeray for the programme. Eventually yes, but it was in initial stages, he said, adding that that there was no specific plan to invite Thackeray for this.



The LeT operative, who has been convicted in the US for his role in the terror attacks, said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that Thackeray was sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme.



To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.



On whether Thackeray knew about the programme, Headley retorted, How can I know this? I spoke to Rajaram Rege and he told me that he (Thackeray) was advised against travelling.



However, Headley agreed with the defence lawyer that he had discussed the programme with Rege.



Asked whether Headley had asked Rege to convey about the event to Thackeray, he said, In general terms, I never asked this specifically.



Headley also told the court that he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to cause maximum damage since then.



Asked about the reasons of his hatred, Headley said, My school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes and that time, I developed this feeling.



People were killed in the attack, he said, adding it was one of the reasons that why he joined the LeT.



Headley, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, denied that he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008.



He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies.



He also said it would be incorrect to say that FBI had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.



This is not true. It is not FBIs job to insist on fines in the court, he said.



Headley also told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the 26/11 terror case against Jundal in the sessions court here, that it is ridiculous to say that his association with LeT was within the knowledge of US authorities.



He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved USD 30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.



Yesterday, he had disclosed how LeT wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was arrested and then managed to give police a slip.



Headley had also told the court that while he had not personally met any of the 10 attackers in the 26/11 case but he had seen the photo of one of the attackers on internet and identified him as Ajmal Kasab Rehmatullah Aliah.



The terrorist had earlier concluded his week-long deposition before the Mumbai sessions court through a video-link from the US on February 13.



Headley, in his earlier deposition, said how Pakistans intelligence agency ISI provides financial, military and moral support to terror outfits LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen, and how LeT planned and executed the 26/11 attacks.



He had also claimed that Ishrat Jahan, killed in an allegedly fake encounter in Gujarat, was an LeT operative.

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Mumbai:

Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was Pakistans Prime Minister in 2008, had visited David Coleman Headleys home within weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Lashkar terrorist told a Mumbai court today, giving a new twist to his testimony.



It is not correct to say that the then Prime Minister of PakistanYousuf Raza Gilanihad attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26/12/2008. Infact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter, the Pakistani-American terrorist told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the case against Abu Jundal in the sessions court here.



The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative-turned approver in the case is being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Jundal who is an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.



Deposing for the third day after his cross-examination began on Wednesday, Headley said his father, who was a Director General with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with with LeT.



My father was aware of my association with LeT and he was not happy about it, he said.



When asked was it true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).



Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniels mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai.He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.



During his deposition, Headley said,Saulat Rana, my friend in Pakistan, was aware of my connection with LeT and my visit to Mumbai prior to the 26/11 attacks.



Rana neither objected nor encouraged me, he told the court.



On whether Rana was associated to LeT, Headley said, No. When asked whether he (Headley) toured Pakistani locations with Rana before the Mumbai attacks, he replied in the negative and wondered why he would go around in Pakistan when the target was India.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Islamabad/New Delhi:

A former Indian Navy officer has been arrested in Pakistan for alleged involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan, but India quickly distanced itself from him by stating that he had no link with the government since his premature retirement from the navy. Kul Yadav Bhushan, described by Pakistan as a Commander-rank officer of the Indian Navy working for intelligence agency RAW, was arrested yesterday reportedly from Chaman area of the restive province of Balochistan. He has been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation.



Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge its protest over subversive activities of an alleged RAW officer. The Indian High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi, the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.



Reacting to the development, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson in New Delhi Vikas Swarup said the matter was raised today by Pakistans Foreign Secretary with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad.



The said individual has no link with Government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy. We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region, he said.Pakistan had accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past but it is for the first time that it has claimed arresting a RAW officer. India has dismissed all such allegations.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Lalgarh (WB):

Hinting towards the Election Commission, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today asked her partymen not to be scared and work for the upcoming Assembly polls with the support of public.

Dont get afraid if somebody comes from outside and scare you. They will go back after three days. Do the election (work) with the support of the people, the TMC supremo said launching her poll campaign in Jangalmahal, a former Maoist violence-affected area.

Boosting the morale of her party workers, she said, I am not dead. I will always fight. Trinamool Congress means to hold the head high. We feel good, if the people are well.

She accused the CPI-M of spreading rumours against her and claimed that 55,000 political killings had taken place during the 34-year rule of the Left Front.

Alleging that TMC workers were getting killed by the CPI-M, she said, there was no place for political vendetta in Bengal.

Dont be afraid of dirty campaign by the CPI-M along with the Congress and the BJP. They wont be able to defeat us and that is why they are resorting to spreading canards against us. But they wont be successful. People are with us, she said.

Banerjee challenged the opposition parties to fight Trinamool Congress politically and said otherwise their dirty campaign would boomerang on them.

People will give the opposition a fitting reply in the Assembly elections beginning from April 4, she said.

She says peace has returned to Jangalmahal, which had turned into a battlefield during the tenure of the previous Left Front Government.

I love Jangalmahal. I like development in the area and welfare of the people living here, she said.

Banerjee also said, Its my government which brought the Maoists into mainstream. In future people will say lets go to Jangalmahal - instead of London or USA. I will come to Jangalmahal a thousand times.

Listing the development work initiated by her government, Banerjee said that she had done the work of 400 years in four years and claimed that in the last four years there was no killing or bloodshed in the entire Jangalmahal area.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
San Francisco:

With a vibrant startup ecosystem and lesser legacy systems, India will play a key role in Googles strategy as it looks to take on Amazons AWS and Microsofts Azure in the global enterprise cloud services space.

India is a pretty exciting place because there are so many companies growing so quickly over there and the fact that these companies do not have legacies (systems) is pretty exciting.

And they can just start in the cloud. You have seen Sundar take a deep interest in India and so, Google overall is very interested in India, Google cloud chief Diane Greene told PTI.

She added that there is a pool of talented manpower as well and overall, its vibrant and its important to be there (India).

Google is investing heavily in creating business tools and products, driven by open source technology and machine learning to help companies use computing in an affordable and faster manner.

As a primary thing, we have sealed up the infrastructure, and now we are opening it up so that every business across the world can use it, Pichai, the India-born CEO of Google said at the Google Cloud Products (GCP) Next 2016 conference here.

He cited the example of an animation studio in Mumbai which is using the services to produce a movie, underlying the importance of emerging markets like India.

Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who was also present at the event, said the use of crowd sourcing, machine intelligence and rapid evaluation will create huge new platforms for companies, IPOs, wealth and great new things in the future. Its a great time to be in cloud.

Google, which has customers like Spotify and Disney, said it is also focussing on ensuring compliance, support and integration with existing IT investments to help clients use public cloud services to accelerate their business.

Were combining the 15-plus years of ground-breaking, applied computer science in distributed computing, data management and machine learning that powers Google with the capabilities businesses need to safely adopt cloud today, she said.

The VMWare co-founder said Google will use machine learning and big data analytics to help customers.

We are doing a lot of work on our roadmaps. We have roadmaps for engineering, customers and partner enablement marketing and communicating with the world.

We often get asked if Google is serious about enterprise and our answer is we are totally committed to this, we have invested billions of dollars on this to bring our innovation and technology to companies, Greene said.

We are not a follower. We were in the cloud 16 years ago. We got into enterprise after a few of these other companies decided to.

But in terms of our product differentiation and strategy, we are not a follower. We have machine learning, open source, so we are a very different cloud with a lot of differentiation, she said.

Amazon, Microsoft and IBM have a sizable presence in the cloud infrastructure market, capturing billions of dollars that businesses are spending to outsource their computing and storage needs.

For our customers, cloud means no longer having to think about data centres, servers, storage and networking. Instead, theyre able to focus on creating amazing applications, products and services for their customers knowing that Google is taking care of the infrastructure powering their business, Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google, said.

He added that the company has announced two new locations in Oregon, US and Tokyo, Japan and both will get operational later this year.

These are the first two of more than 10 additional GCP regions well be adding to our network through 2017, he said but declined to comment on whether it would include India.
Brussels:

Two explosions were heard during a police search of a house in Brussels borough of Schaerbeek, Belga news agency said on Friday.

Belgian police carrying out a fresh anti-terrorist operation today arrested a suspect, who suffered a slight injury, Schaerbeek Mayor Bernard Clerfayt said.

I can confirm a police operation targeting a person who was intercepted by police and suffered a slight leg injury, the local official told AFP.

He added there had been several small explosions linked to bomb disposal work.

Police sources said the operation was connected to a foiled terror plot in France.

Amateur video footage on social media shot from an upper storey window shows a man lying by a tram station holding a small backpack.

After being screened by a bomb disposal robot, hooded police grab his legs and drag him away.

A French police source said the raid in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek was related to the arrest of 34-year-old Reda Kriket in Paris yesterday, who was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment.

Kriket was sentenced in absentia by a Belgian court in February for his connection to a terror network in Brussels and linked to recruiter Khalid Zerkani.

Police had completely sealed off the area in the Schaerbeek district, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Schaerbeek is where police found a bomb factory after the Brussels airport and metro suicide attacks on Tuesday and from where the three airport attackers set off that morning.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi :

Former Indian fast bowler S Sreesanth is all set to start a new innings in politics. The Kerala Express will be contesting the upcoming Assembly polls on BJP ticket from Thiruvananthapuram.

Earlier, members of Sreesanths family said he received a call from a top BJP leader in Delhi requesting him to contest from Thrippunithura Assembly constituency.

BJP chief Amit Shah met him during his visits to Kerala.

A top BJP leader also said someone from BJPs central leadership must have contacted Sreesanth directly as he is a celebrity.

After being exonerated in the 2013 IPL spot fixing-case by a Delhi court last year, Sreesanth is now a busy actor. He is currently shooting for a Hindi film produced by Pooja Bhatt.
Kentucky judge dismisses entire jury due to lack of minority representation

Due to the lack of minority representation among the jury, Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens decided to postpone a drug trial and dismiss the entire jury panel altogether.

Despite objections from both the defense and the prosecution, Stevens brought in a new group of jurors  and it wasnt the first time he did that. Stevens had previously dismissed the jury at a theft trial of an African-American defendant due to the absence of black jurors in the panel.

Now, the Kentucky Supreme Court is looking into the issue to see if Stevens does have the authority to dismiss jury panels due to lack of representation. This problem is not new to Jefferson County, as several black defendants have already complained about their conviction by an all-white jury in the past.

In requesting the Supreme Court to hear the issue, Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Dorislee Gilbert argued that other judges may feel societal, political, and other pressures to dismiss a jury for lack of minorities, if allowed.

Gilbert wrote that the judge struck the jury based on nothing more than unsupported fear or impression that the jury might not be fair because of its racial makeup. She further added that there was no consideration given to the efforts of those who sacrificed their time for jury duty.

In dismissing the jury in this recent case, Stevens used his November 18 trial and dismissal as precedent.

Weve already done this one time, Stevens said. So right off the bat, youve got a blueprint and we can be a lot more efficient, in theory.

Source:

WDRB.com

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New report reveals how many ISIS terrorists have been trained specifically to unleash massacres across Europe

Terror group ISIS has reportedly trained more than 400 fighters operating in cells to launch attacks targeting Europe.

(Article by Morgan Chalfant, republished from //freebeacon.com/national-security/report-isis-trained-at-least-400-attackers-to-terrorize-europe/)

The Associated Press, citing European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker, reported that the terror group behind the attacks in Paris and, most recently, Brussels has trained between 400 and 600 operatives to carry out external attacks. The officials indicated that the fighters were trained in camps located in Syria, Iraq, and possibly the former Soviet bloc.

The report comes one day after the coordinated attacks in Brussels, which killed at least 31 people and wounded some 250 others at the international airport in Zaventem and metro station in Maelbeek.

A European security official said that the attack units appear to be led by French speakers with connections to North Africa, France, and Belgium.

The difference is that in 2014, some of these IS fighters were only being given a couple weeks of training, the official said, using another name for ISIS. Now the strategy has changed. Special units have been set up. The training is longer. And the objective appears to no longer be killing as many people as possible but rather to have as many terror operations as possible, so the enemy is forced to spend more money or more in manpower. Its more about the rhythm of terror operations now.

Days before the bombings in Brussels, Belgian authorities captured Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people in November. Abdeslam fled Paris for Brussels following the earlier attacks, returning to his former neighborhood of Molenbeek.

French Senator Nathalie Goulet, one of the officials who estimated the count of ISIS operatives trained for external attacks, suggested that Tuesdays attacks were launched in response to Abdeslams arrest.

Not only did he drop out of sight, but he did so to organize another attack, with accomplices everywhere. With suicide belts. Two attacks organized just like in Paris. And his arrest, since they knew he was going to talk, it was a response: So what if he was arrested? Well show you that it doesnt change a thing, Goulet, who helps head a commission tracking jihadi networks, said.

A top Iraqi intelligence official indicated that the operatives belonging to the cell responsible for the Paris attacks have moved throughout Germany, Britain, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.

The terror attacks Tuesday forced Belgium to issue a maximum threat level and put particular emphasis on transportation hubs, airports, and stations. France has been in a state of emergency since the coordinated attacks in Paris.

Read more at //freebeacon.com/national-security/report-isis-trained-at-least-400-attackers-to-terrorize-europe/

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Syria conflict shows Russian military is getting better  and NATO is reacting

(NationalSecurity.news) In 2008 during Russias brief, 5-day war with Georgia, Moscows military lost at least four fighter planes to air defenses, proving again that the countrys mostly-conscript military remained substandard and, frankly, little threat to NATO or the U.S.

We didnt have a single op plan on the shelf to deter against Russia. Wed written that off after the fall of the wall; that chapter is over, former NATO commander Adm. James Stavridis, now retired, told the Washington Post.

However, following the Russian militarys intervention in eastern Ukraine and Syria, where it has performed much better and demonstrated President Vladimir Putins willingness to use force to achieve wider geopolitical goals, NATO is recalculating.

No one expects a war anytime soon between Moscow and the West, but Russias newly aggressive posture, new weapons and growing capabilities have some concerned that Putin may want to press some tactical advantages at some point in the future, perhaps in the Balkans, which have traditionally fallen under Russian influence.

As such, NATO has stepped up military exercises and is currently considering deploying large numbers of troops in the Baltics, as well as Poland and other Eastern European nations as a bulwark against any potential Russian assault using new, unconventional means, the Post noted.

The belief which existed since 1990 that there are no prospects for military confrontation in Europe with Russia, that belief was dispelled by these operations, Igor Sutyagin, a specialist in the Russian military at Londons Royal United Services Institute, told the paper. It is now necessary to plan defense, while previously it was not.

The Russian government took serious stock of its military following the Georgian operation, which was successful for Moscow in terms of objectives. The reassement has led to a massive modernization effort that Gustav Gressel, a defense analyst on the European Council on Foreign Affairs has called a quiet military revolution.

The West has also noted that what is more important, even, than the production of advanced new military hardware is the rising professionalism and effectiveness of Russian troops and officers, via better training and needed administrative reforms.

As the Post reported further:

For example, the militarys restructuring called for new, highly mobile and independent reconnaissance units. Those were unveiled during Russias annexation of Crimea, when the appearance of unidentified but highly trained soldiers caught Western observers by surprise.

Granted, the Syrian campaign, which has been waged with a mix of refurbished and modern aircraft facing no appreciable air defenses, has been a decidedly low-tech affair that would not be applicable to any major conflict on NATOs eastern front.

That said, there are still things that caught the attention of Western military officials.

For one, Berzins said Russias use of sophisticated jamming equipment demonstrated Moscows growing capability in electronic warfare. The same gear is also deployed in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania. Also, Kaliningrad serves as a base for S-400 antiaircraft missiles like those Putin deployed and maintained in Syria following the downing of an Su-25 by Turkey. The deployment of the sophisticated system set up a virtual no-fly zone and is known as A2/AD  anti-access, area denial.

In addition, the Russian navy unveiled its new Kalibr cruise missiles, which were launched from warships in the Black Sea at targets inside Syria. That demonstrated another potential threat  a Russian Black Sea Fleet capable of reaching targets far away throughout Europe, requiring some form of low-altitude anti-air defense.

The missiles also serve as a viable alternative to putting Russian pilots in harms way over NATO airspace, said Sutyagin.

There were also some negative take-aways from the Syrian operation. Russian planes seemed to rely more heavily on dumb unguided munitions, indicating a possible shortage of precision-guided weapons in the Russian arsenal.

But one area that was greatly improved, Western military officials noted, was the Russian militarys logistical capabilities. Long considered to be an Achilles heel for the Russian military, supply lines appeared to be very much intact.

When this started, the orthodoxy in D.C. was absolutely that the Russians would not be able to maintain operational tempo, Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security and a professor of global affairs at New York University, told the Post. They proved us all wrong. It was by rough-and-ready measures in some cases, but what works is what works has always been the Russian approach.

See also:

Washington Post

NationalSecurity.news

NationalSecurity.news is part of the USA Features Media network.

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The Candlewood Lake Authoritys finance committee next week will propose three options to its governing board to address the agencys ongoing financial woes.

Over the past several years, the authority covered $56,000 in unexpected insurance costs and legal fees by drawing from its reserve fund.

Some authority members contend this shouldnt have been done because part of the reserve was intended for educational purposes.

The committee met Wednesday to craft options to restore the $56,000, and came up with three: requesting the five lakefront towns to cover it, cutting spending on authority programs or using some combination of the two.

The finance committee did not express a preference among these options, leaving it to the governing Board of Delegates to select and finalize a plan.

The board is under some pressure to act, because the New Fairfield Board of Finance has said without a viable plan to improve the authoritys finances it will withhold the towns $76,800 contribution to the Candlewood Lake Authoritys 2016-17 budget.

About 60 percent of the Candlewood Lake Authoritys $546,000 budget is covered by equal contributions from the five towns, and the rest is covered by donations or grants. Having the towns split the $56,000 evenly would cost an additional $11,000 per town, to be paid over three years.

Some board members have long argued that the towns have underfunded the authority.

The cost of increasing liability insurance has been cited as one example. The authority increased its coverage at the towns request in the middle of fiscal year 2009-2010, from $1 million to $10 million,at a cost of $11,400.

Only two towns, New Fairfield and Sherman, paid their share of the cost, leaving the authority to cover the remaining $6,800. Danbury, Brookfield and New Milford could be asked to pay the their shares now as a way to help restore the reserve.

Under the second option, the authority projects it can save about $20,000 by June 30, 2017 if budgeted expenses are instead covered by grants. The overall budget would stay about the same, at $546,000, but the saved money could be put into the reserve.

Candlewood Lake Authority vice chairman Mark Toussaint said this might be the best approach.

I want to get this behind us, he said. I want us to take a big whack at this.

Authority Chairman Phyllis Schaer said these would target numbers and the authority would try to save more if it could.

Under the last option, the authority would ask for additional money from the towns as well as find savings within its budget.

The finance committee acknowledged that it needs to document and present the authoritys budget better, including accounting for depreciation of boats and other equipment. That depreciation has been calculated at $122,000 since 2008.

John Hodge, a Candlewood Lake Authority board member who serves on the New Fairfield Board of Finance, has been a frequent critic of the authoritys budgeting. He asked that New Fairfields auditor, Marcia Marien, review the agencys recent annual financial statements, and she concluded that the agency had overspent its budget by an average of $36,000 a year, not counting depreciation.

The authority has already made steps to improve, including having a comprehensive budget review, adding more detail to the budget, adding a contingency fund and separating grants and donations from the general reserve.

I think were in a very healthy position, Schaer said.

Board member Howie Berger added FirstLight Power Resources, which owns the lake, should pay more than its $50,000 annual contribution. FirstLights parent company is selling the lake to a Canadian firm.

I think there needs to be a very good understanding that this lake generates a lot of revenue for everyone connected to it, Berger said, adding there is no fluff in the budget, and any cuts the authority made would affect services to the public.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345; @kkoerting
The federal government should fund research into the causes of gun violence, Connecticut senators have urged.

Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats, joined Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and 14 Democratic senators in a letter urging colleagues to grant money to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research causes of gun violence.

We must take this important step because only the United States government is in a position to establish an integrated public-health research agenda to understand the causes of gun violence and identify the most effective strategies for prevention, the senators wrote in the letter.

The issue stems from a 1996 provision that prevents federal funds from being used to advocate or promote gun control, according to the senators.

That provision has been misunderstood as a ban on funding scientific research into the causes of gun violence, the senators said in a prepared statement.
BROOKFIELD  After weeks of deliberations, the Board of Finance approved a $63.2 million budget that calls for a tax increase of 2.45 percent and fully funds the school districts budget request.

According to preliminary figures discussed at Wednesday nights finance board meeting, the increase is slightly higher than First Selectman Steve Dunns original request and calls for a 3.37 percent increase in overall spending from last year.

Dunn, who initially proposed increasing the tax rate by 2.26 percent, was confident that the spending plan will be ratified by residents when it is put to referendum in May.

He also praised the cooperation between the boards of selectmen, finance and education during the budget process.

I think getting all the boards together and working together can show how we work cooperatively and achieve a good budget that very accurately meets the needs of the community without overburdening it with new taxes, Dunn said. Its an incredibly good package that the Board of Finance passed and I think the town will approve it.

If the plan is approved, residents will pay $26.33 per $1,000 assessed valuation, up 63 cents from last year.

The budget includes money to hire a community development specialist and a purchasing agent that will be shared with the school district. It also includes about $80,000 for a revamp of the towns zoning laws and funds to lease new portable classrooms for Huckleberry Hill Elementary School.

Board of Finance member Mark Mulvaney, who spearheaded the effort to replace the dilapidated auxiliary structures, said that the $60,000 was much needed to improve conditions for students and teachers at the school. He said leasing the structures for the next five years would buy time for the town to come up with a more permanent solution.

The portables at Huckleberry are embarrassing, Mulvaney said. They are embarrassing for the town and embarrassing for taxpayers. Its great that the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen supported the new portables.

Included in the school budget, which is 2.19 percent larger than last year, are funds to restore several teaching and administrative positions lost since the recession. It also includes a new math program, reforms how the board hires substitute teachers and eliminates the pay-to-participate program.

We worked very closely with the Board of Finance, said Board of Education Chairman Bob Belden. Were very happy for the support theyve given us.

While the finance panel approved the spending plan in a 4-2 vote, it did so without support from both its chairman, Rob Gianazza, and vice chairman, Steve OReilly.

Gianazza said that some of the proposals could have been deferred to future years to lessen this years tax increase.

Theres nothing in that budget that Id say Im opposed to, Gianazza said. Its a matter of balancing the needs of taxpayers and the urgency of the things were requesting.

He also said that while the new school spending will enhance the district, more outdated programs should have been cut that would free money for new proposals. He noted that the school enrollment continues to decline and said that should be better reflected in the budget.

I support the new programs that (

Superintendent John Barile) wants to do, Gianazza said. They are moving the district in the right direction and I fully support that. But I feel the costs for those new directions could have been made within the existing budget structure.

awolff@newstimes.com; 203-731-3333; @awolffster
Connecticut legislators are between the proverbial rock and a hard place to balance this years budget and stave off a deficit more than the triple the size next year. But it would be shortsighted and foolhardy to push away the rock of the Citizens Election Program.

The program was initiated by the General Assembly in 2005 in response to the corruption scandal that forced Gov. John G. Rowland from office. Designed to keep special interests from influencing an election, the program gives money to the campaign of qualified candidates running for state office.

The intent was to restore public confidence in elections through transparency of donors. Candidates qualify by raising individual donations as small as $5 and no more than $100 to a threshold level to receive the state grants. Donations cannot come from current or prospective state contractors, nor children younger than 12.

Candidates for state representative must raise $5,000 from at least 100 residents of the district to qualify for $28,150. State senate candidates, whose districts are larger, have to raise a total of $15,000 from 300 individual residents to receive $95,710. Statewide offices can receive higher amounts.

In 2014, the last election for state offices, $33.4 million was given to 287 candidates for primaries and the general election.

The program is voluntary; some candidates have chosen instead to finance their own campaigns. But idealistically, it allows a wider group to participate in public service.

We are not saying the Citizens Election Program is perfect. In the 2014 election Gov. Dannel Malloy, who with running mate Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman received $6.5 million in state funds, attracted outside Political Action Committees through the state Democratic party. More campaign finance reform is needed, but that does not mean the entire program should be jettisoned.

The Citizens Election Program is at risk not due to performance, but because the state is desperate for ways to close the present and future deficits.

Republican legislators last week recommended a $2.2 million cut as part of the partys overall budget reduction package. Last year the Democrats tried, unsuccessfully, to suspend the program for the 2016 election.

Finding ways to close the $200 million gap for this fiscal year, and a whopping $900 million for the budget year that begins July 1 is not easy. As Malloy has said, the state faces a new reality and cannot sustain the status quo. Without deadline extensions, the Appropriations Committee must come up with a plan by Thursday, and the Finance Committee by April 1.

With nearly every facet of state services facing painful reductions, it is unrealistic to say dont touch the Citizens Election Program. As a compromise, we suggest removing uncontested races which now can qualify for reduced grants. In 2014, eight of the 36 Senate districts and 44 of the 151 House seats were unopposed by a major party. State-funded campaigns are not vital when the winner is certain.

Keep the Citizens Election Program intact as much as possible. The ideals of transparency, lack of influence and equal participation are worth preserving.
OTTAWA, March 24, 2016 /CNW/ - Health Canada is informing Canadians that it has requested Empack Spraytech Inc to initiate a recall of one lot of sunscreen lotion (see here) because of microbial contamination. The affected sunscreen was sold at Jean Coutu retail locations. Microbial contamination may result in a skin infection. The risk may be increased in children and individuals with a weakened immune system.

Consumers should check to see if they have purchased the sunscreen lotion as the product should not be used.

Health Canada will monitor Empack Spraytech Inc's recall and will inform Canadians if new safety information arises. Consumers should consult their health-care practitioner with any questions or concerns regarding the use of this sunscreen product.

Report health or safety concerns

Report any adverse events to Health Canada.

Report complaints about health products to Health Canada by calling toll-free to 1-800-267-9675, or complete an online complaint form.

Stay connected with Health Canada and receive the latest advisories and product recalls using social media tools.

Egalement disponible en francais

SOURCE Health Canada

PDF available at: http://stream1.newswire.ca/media/2016/03/24/20160324_C8719_PDF_EN_650542.pdf

For further information: Media Inquiries: Health Canada, (613) 957-2983; Public Inquiries: (613) 957-2991, 1-866 225-0709
The grim economic situation in the country appears to be deepening by the day as 27 states in the country are finding it difficult to pay ...

The grim economic situation in the country appears to be deepening by the day as 27 states in the country are finding it difficult to pay the salaries of their workers.President Muhammadu Buhari said this in his remarks at the second National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja on Thursday.Buhari said this in reference to the unfavourable economic situation in the country, which he said the administration was battling to stabilise.Buhari added, On the economy, the fall of oil prices after Nigeria has made itself a mono economy is a disaster. I wonder why people could not believe that in Nigeria, about 27 out of the 36 states, have difficulties in paying basic salaries of their workers.If from 1999 to at least 2003, oil was above $100 per barrel and an export of about two million barrels per day, how come Nigeria failed to make some arrangements to cushion the effect of a probably volatile oil market?To address this challenge, the President said his administration began the implementation of the Treasury Single Account, which had so far saved the nation over N3tn, an amount, he believed would have been frittered away by corrupt public officials.He explained that he would want to be remembered for, among other things, his respect for the Nigerian voters, law enforcement agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission.The President expressed regret that he did not succeed in ensuring that this was enforced in the elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states.The President condemned the politically motivated killings in Rivers State, describing them as shameful.Buhari added, I think that more Nigerians are killed or killed themselves in Rivers than in any particular state. At this stage of our political development, to remain brutal is shameful and as a government, I promise we will do something by the next general elections.I appeal to the leadership of the military, security agents and INEC that what I want Nigerians to remember me for, even if I leave the Presidency tomorrow, is that I respect them.I want all Nigerians to believe and hold their PVCs as personal entitlement as Nigerians and use them the way they like, and vote for whoever they like at whichever election.If they voluntarily sell it, it is part of their right and so, let them sell it and remain at home and not participate in any election.He said Nigerias over-dependence on oil revenues, mismanagement and the looting of the common patrimony were largely responsible for the state of the economy.The President, who also doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, explained the reason behind the ongoing reforms in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.He said, We have tried to make sure that NNPC is reorganised, so that we know how much of our crude is taken, how much it is sold and to which account the money is going.But I tell you that up to the time we came, if anybody told you that he knew how much of crude exchanged hands either on the high sea or reaching their destinations and the accounts the money was paid into, that person was not telling you the truth.We are getting the cooperation of countries that have received this crude.On security, the President gave his administration a pass mark.He noted that the party took a very courageous decision which the executive implemented by replacing the military hierarchy, acquiring new hardware and software and raising the morale of the military personnel.This, he said, assisted in no small measure, to bring the Boko Haram insurgency largely under control.I have said it often that as far as I know, and the service chiefs, who are on the ground, they (Boko Haram) are not holding any local government, but they still have some capabilities, especially on soft targets by using technology, the President added.On the issue of his foreign trips, Buhari said, As for globe-trotting, sometimes, you need to present your case on a personal basis to your economic colleagues and neighbours.Nothing is better than personal touch and I believe that we are learning a lot and eventually, the nation will realise so.The President said when he was the Head of State, those perceived to be corrupt were arrested and detained then given the chance to prove their innocence.He noted that the reverse was the case under a multi-party democracy.Buhari added, We have to get credible evidence to carry out successful prosecution and get judgment from the judiciary. But effort is being made to give a list of recovery in whatever currencies so far so that Nigerians will know that it is not all about long stories.Commenting on the reversal of his earlier directive dissolving the boards of federal agencies and parastatals, Buhari said, We gave a blanket order, which we had to rescind when we said all boards are suspended or dissolved.We had to go back and lick our vomit in terms of university boards because we found out that according to their laws, they cannot choose vice-chancellors unless the boards seat and interview prospective candidates who want to be VCs.He appealed to members of the party, especially the leadership, to bear with the administration and continue to make sacrifices for the growth and development of the nation.Buhari explained that he was aware of the pressure on them, especially with the state of the economy, assuring them that everything was being done to improve on the economy and set the nation on the path of growth.The President attributed the reported padding of the budget to the bureaucratic bottlenecks that characterised the reduction of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.When we came in after 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Partys rule, the government had 42 ministries. We reduced them to 24, removed 21 permanent secretaries. We were all in the process of taking over at a time of a national budget.So, imagine the volume of work and with what happened in the National Assembly, the padding, it would appear that below the permanent secretaries, there are still a lot of bureaucracies that are still with them, Buhari said.The National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, appealed for unity among members of the party, which he said was necessary to enable the party to deliver on its promises to Nigerians.According to him, most of the problems the APC administration is trying to solve are inherited.Odigie-Oyegun added, The problems we have are well-known, of course originating from two well-known factors: our squandered patrimony and of course, the unfortunate coincidence of the collapse of the price of crude.Speaking to newsmen after the meeting, Odigie-Oyegun explained that it was agreed that congresses should be held to nominate replacement for party members, who, either through appointment or election, have moved on.He said a committee had also been set up to review the partys constitution to ratify the agreement to downsize the number of members of the BoT.
A 15-year-old girl, Rita Clement, who was abducted by unidentified persons while on her way to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation...

A 15-year-old girl, Rita Clement, who was abducted by unidentified persons while on her way to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in the Ikeja area of Lagos State, has returned home.Our correspondent learnt that Clement was dropped off by her abductors in the Oshodi area on Wednesday around 9pm, and given money to take a bus back home.PUNCH Metro had reported on Thursday, March 17, 2016, that Clement, who lived with her relatives on Gboyega Kilo Street in the Ojodu Berger area, and had UTME registration number 65061660GJ, went missing on Thursday, March 10.It was reported that she was to sit for the exam at 6.30am on the day she went missing, and her centre was at the West African Examinations Council International Office on Plot B, Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Lagos.Our correspondent had reported that at about 5pm on Thursday, Clement sent a text message to her mothers mobile phone, raising the alarm that she had been abducted and she did not know the location where she was taken to.The matter was said to have been reported at the Ojodu Police Division and transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja.Clement had written in the text message, Mummy, they took my phone and beat me up inside the bus. Mummy, I dont know where they took me to. They made me sleep and said they will kill me if I ran. Someone gave me the phone, saying I must return it before they came back. Mummy, please save me.The uncle, Emeka Orazulike, who worked as a pharmacist, had said they had yet to hear any update from the police, adding that he believed in God that Clement would return home.PUNCH Metro learnt on Thursday that Clement walked back into the familys apartment at about 9pm on Wednesday.She was said to be tired and unable to give the details of her ordeal to the family members.Our correspondent gathered that the family on Thursday went to the Ojodu division to make a statement that the teenager was back.They, thereafter, proceeded to the SARS office, Ikeja, where the operatives took Clements statement.Our correspondent observed Clement, Orazulike, and three other family members at the Command headquarters, Ikeja.The SARS operatives thereafter kept Clement with them, instructing the family to come for her in the evening, preventing the teenager from being interviewed by journalists.Orazulike, said the teenagers narration so far was that she was taken to an unknown place, but was asked to return home on Wednesday when her captors got tired of her.He said, For now, we know that she was taken to Abeokuta, Ogun State, by the abductors. But on Wednesday, the men brought her to Oshodi.They then gave her transport fare to find her way back home. She said the men stated that she was not their material. She walked into the house yesterday (Wednesday). We were all surprised.The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, said she had interviewed the girl and her explanation showed an abscondment rather than being abducted.She said, The girl is back and I have spoken with her. From what she narrated, it is more of an absconding from home than being abducted. She had been in Abeokuta. Meanwhile, the police are still investigating to get to the roots of this matter.When our correspondent asked Orazulike the abdscondment theory, he said the girl had not told him about that.He said, We suspect she had been with kidnappers or ritualists. She did not tell us about running away from home. She made us to believe through the text message that she was abducted and taken to an area. That is all we know for now.
The Super Eagles of Nigeria were forced to a 1-1 draw by Egypt in Friday's Africa Cup of Nations qualifier played in Kaduna.

Nigeria went ahead in the 60 minute after Ogenekaro Etebo scored from a rebound from Kelechi Ihenacho's short.However Mohammed Salah broke the heart of 170 million Nigerians after he benefited from very poor defending to put the Pharoahs level in the 90th minute.Nigeria must now give their all to get a win in the return leg in four days time to stand a good chance of topping the group and making it to the African Nation Cup.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, apologised over last months sack of the Boards of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)...

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, apologised over last months sack of the Boards of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and the 12 Federal universities that were established by the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.President Buhari, who spoke at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, said he had to rescind the blanket order for the suspension or dissolving of the Universities Boards, after discovering that according to extant laws of the universities, Vice Chancellors cant be chosen unless the Boards sit down, interview prospective candidates who want to be VCs.Buhari said: When we came in after 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, each government had 42 ministries. We reduced them to 24, removed 21 Permanent Secretaries. We sat down and reflected seriously.We were all in the process of taking over at a time of national budget. So, imagine the volume of work and with what happened in the National Assembly, the padding, it would appear that below the Permanent Secretaries, there are still a lot of bureaucracies that are still with them. So, you have to appreciate the position we are in. Having cut 42 to 24, correspondingly, the parastatals will be cut down to some size and realigned and the boards reconstituted.We gave a blanket order which we had to rescind when we said all boards are suspended or dissolved. We had to go back and lick our vomit in terms of university boards because we found out that according to their laws, they cannot choose Vice Chancellors unless the Boards sit down, interview prospective candidates who wants to be VCs.So, there is nothing wrong in saying sorry and going back on your decision. So, we said sorry and allow all the universities to continue with their boards. But for the rest, eventually, we will make it. So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves.Recall that on February 13, 2016, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu had in a terse statement declared that the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Visitor to all federal universities, President Muhammadu Buhari, approved the appointment of new vice chancellors for the 12 under-listed Federal Universities and the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) with effect from Friday, February 12, 2016.The Education Ministry in a separate notice had said that the President also approved the reconstitution of the governing councils of the new 12 Federal Universities with immediate effect.
Apparently worried by the economic downturn in the country, Oba of Lagos, Oba Riliwanu Akiolu yesterday urged Nigerians to pray for Presi...

Apparently worried by the economic downturn in the country, Oba of Lagos, Oba Riliwanu Akiolu yesterday urged Nigerians to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari, saying; He needs Gods intervention to address the country challenges.Akiolu who made the appeal during a courtesy visit by a delegation from Kebbi State led by the state governor, Atiku Bagudu, to his Palace, said that Buhari has good intention for the country. According to him; He has good intention for Nigeria and that was why I like him. But he needs Gods intervention to achieve his aim. And I know that if we pray for him, by this time next year, the economic challenges we are experiencing would cease. And we will all have reasons to smile. On his part, he said I often pray for the President to achieve his campaign promises. And we expect Nigerians also do so for him to achieve all his aspirations for the country.The Oba however appealed to Nigerians to patronize Made-in-Nigeria goods because it would help create more employments for Nigerians. Earlier, governor Bagudu said that the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu facilitated the partnership between Lagos and Kebbi state on the establishment of a commodity value chain and appealed to other governors to adopt the strategy.According to him; Infact, yesterday, he (Tinubu) saw me at the Economic retreat in Abuja, asking the progress made on the partnership. That showed how keen he was to ensure that the partnership works. He noted that the partnership was what the founding fathers of the country clamoured for after the countrys independence which helped the countrys economy to grow.
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo is making plans for a second child according to reports in his native Portugal.Correio da Manha and Flash! Vidas says he will once again contract the services of a surrogate mother.The player moved the paperwork along considerably during his last visit to the United States last Christmas.The Portuguese feels that choosing the right mother for the job is crucial, and he isn't worried about putting his hands deep into his pockets to ensure everything is right. In fact, according to sources close to the player, he has already forked out around a million euros on the method that he decided on in order to have his first son, Cristianinho, who will soon turn six.
The defence headquarters (DHQ) says the military will continue with its operations against insurgents in spite of the purported remorse s...

The defence headquarters (DHQ) says the military will continue with its operations against insurgents in spite of the purported remorse shown by Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, in an online video.It asked the public not to be deceived by the video, appearing to show a remorseful Shekau in Arabic and Hausa languages which has been circulating on the internet.The man said to be Shekau was asking for forgiveness, although the Boko Haram leader has not been seen in any video since March 2015.In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by the director of defence information, Rabe Abubakar, a brigadier-general, he said Gabriel Olonisakin, a general and chief of defence staff, has advised the public to discountenance the clip.The DHQ wishes to state emphatically that not minding the contents of the video clips, the Armed Forces of Nigeria would continue to fight in order to consolidate the successes recorded so far, Abubakar said.The said video clip should, therefore, be discountenanced as it could be another ploy or antics of the terrorists to keep our innocent citizens off their current security alertness to maximise casualties if attacked.The Nigerian Armed Forces are now determined more than ever before to end this ugly trend.The DHQ is also reassuring citizens that all captives under the coffer of the insurgents would regain their freedom with the ongoing militarys final offensive against the terrorists.Abubakar said the defence chief commended all officers and men of the armed forces for their sacrifices, determination and courage to complete the task against the terrorists.He advised the public not to be carried away by the video clips but to be extra vigilant and security conscious at all times during the Easter celebrations and beyond.President Muhammadu Buhari recently suggested that Shekau might have been removed as the leader of the insurgents.
President Muhammad Buhari on Thursday responded to growing criticisms of his administrations performance, saying his government still...









President Muhammad Buhari on Thursday responded to growing criticisms of his administrations performance, saying his government still has years to go.

Addressing leaders of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abuja, the president acknowledged his government was facing increasing attacks 10 months after taking office.



I know you are being harassed since the election that they havent seen anything on the ground, the president said at the APCs National Executive Committee meeting. Well, if you have any explanation that could be accepted, (it) is that you have three more years to go.

Mr. Buhari spoke about his governments efforts to strengthen the economy, fight insecurity and improve the electoral system.

He also defended his frequent trips abroad.

For globetrotting, sometimes, you need to present your case on personal basis to your economic colleagues and neighbors.

Nothing is better than personal touch and I believe that we are learning a lot and eventually, the nation will realize so.

The president concluded by again, urging party members to accept criticisms in their strides.

I dont envy you on the harassment you are going through from your constituencies. Take it with a lot of determination and we will be all right, God willing, he said.

Read his full text below:

Transcript of President Muhammadu Buharis remarks at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, March 24, 2016.

PROTOCOLS

We are members of the legacy party, plus APGA and DPP. We realized since 2005 that to remove the PDP from power, we must sink our differences, come together and form a party. God willing, that eventually happened and that is why we are where we are today, coming together inspite of our differences, both personal and ideological. We must not forget that. Having identified that as members of the legacy party, we again identified three fundamental things facing us. First, security, second, economy and unemployment and thirdly, corruption. We campaigned throughout the country on these three fundamental issues and nobody successfully challenged us and these issues remained relevant.

On security, we have made progress. It was a very courageous decision that the party took and executed by the Executive by removing most of the military hierarchy and appointing those to take over from them, acquiring some new hard and soft ware and raising the morale of the military to go secure the rest of the country which was then 14 out of 774 local government. I have said it often that as far as I know and the service Chiefs who are on ground, they are not holding any local government. But they still have some capability especially on soft targets by using technology.

For Niger Delta, the militants are sending some conflicting messages. Some have said they are ready to drop their arms and join the rest of the nation to build it. But part of them are still sabotaging installations which is making investments in that lucrative area of Nigeria difficult because nobody will submit his riches to financial institutions, get money only to suffer huge loss. So, the environment for investment is being sabotaged by our own selves, Nigerians. We are doing our best with the military by trying to persuade them to join the rest of the country because in unity lies our strength.

Of course the leadership of INEC has been changed, but I appeal to the leadership of the military, security agents and INEC that what I want Nigerians to remember me for, even if I have to leave the Presidency tomorrow is that I respect them. I want all Nigerians to believe and hold their PVC as personal entitlement as Nigerians and use it the way the like, and vote for whoever they like at which ever election. If they voluntarily sold it, it is part of their right and so, let them sell it and remain at home and not participate in any election. But let the law enforcement agencies give them the confidence that nobody will come out who has money to hire thugs, give them drugs and stop them from exercising their fundamental right.

I am afraid I did not succeed in the election in Kogi, Bayelsa, Rivers. I think that more Nigerians are killed or killed themselves in Rivers than in any particular state. At this stage of our political development, to remain brutal is shameful and as a government, I promise we will do something by the next general election.

On the economy, the fall of oil prices after Nigeria has made itself a mono economy is a disaster. I wonder why people could not believe that in Nigeria, about 27 out of 36 states have difficulty in paying basic salaries of their workers. If from 1999 to at least 2003, oil is above 100 dollars per barrel and an export of about 2 million barrel per day, how come Nigeria failed to make some arrangement to cushion the effect of a probably volatile oil market? Again, it shows failure of the last administration. But we are now to pick the pieces as an APC government and so, there is no need complaining, but let us concentrate and see how much we can do with whatever remains of the economy. We realized that agriculture and solid minerals are two areas that can quickly come to help us to recover economically, at least in terms of employment and feeding ourselves and more importantly, saving the hard currency to make sure that what is left our industries remain open, employing Nigerians and producing goods and services which is very important.

The policy we are trying to implement is TSA. When we insist that we have to know what comes in and what goes out for us to make a comprehensive amendment to the economy. If you go and see the Central Bank Governor, he will tell you that in the TSA, we have more than N3 trillion. Where would this money have been if TSA was not in vogue? I was made to understand that vouchers would have quickly been raised towards the end of the financial year and checks made. Whether they are going into projects or private pockets, nobody can prove it to you. But that money is there, it is identified, if it is quantified and when the budget comes back eventually, the Ministry of finance will see how to allocate it to the rest of the country.

We have tried to make sure that NNPC is reorganized, so that we know how much of our crude is taken, how much it is sold and to which account the money is going. But I tell you that up to the time we came, if anybody told you that he knows how much of crude exchanges hands either on the high sea or reaching their destination and the accounts the money goes into, that person is not telling you the truth. We are getting the cooperation of countries that has received this crude. But we have to be sure of the facts in our hands before we start prosecution so that Nigerians will believe what we have been telling them.
The former couple who separated last year went on vacation together for the sake of their children. TMZ reports below.





The former couple who separated last year went on vacation together for the sake of their children. TMZ reports below.

"Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez looked relaxed taking the latest Hollywood trend for a test drive ... vacationing with the kids and the soon-to-be ex. The brood hit the beach in Puerto Vallarta with their 2-year-old son Maceo and Halle's 8-year-old daughter Nahla.

Olivier and Halle even got a little playful while lounging around but we're told they're definitely going through with a divorce the trip was strictly for the kids. They looked like a normal family on the sand, but hey, Halle's a great actress.
The Association of Tutorial School Operators (ATSO) has accused the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) of using the wrong gr...





The Association of Tutorial School Operators (ATSO) has accused the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) of using the wrong grading software to mark the 2016/2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The group claimed that the error was responsible for the poor and conflicting results that were released by the board for the examination written between February 27 and March 17 in over 500 centres nationwide.

At a press briefing in Lagos on Wednesday, President of the group, Mr Shodunke Oludotun, alleged that the board erroneously used the software from last year to grade this years examination.

He called for the release of the right results, as well as the resignation of the JAMB Registrar, Prof Dibu Ojerinde.





Oludotun said: We have our evidence to show that virtually all the candidates have collected results of 2015/2016 and not of 2016/2017".

From our findings from insiders in JAMB, we realized that the software of 2015/2016 interfered with the 2016/2017, which led to the massive failure of the students. If you can see the trend of results from (February) 27 to 29, the students failed; (March) 7-15, the students failed massively", he said.
A military fighter jet involved in the counter-insurgency operations in the North-East on Wednesday night crashed at the Yola Internation...

Two pilots involved in the accident have been taken to an Air force military hospital for medical treatment.It was gathered that the crash was as a result of a burst tyre which occurred around 8pm on Wednesday when the fighter jet returning from a military operation tried to land at the runway of the Yola International Airport.The two surviving pilots had succeeded in disembarking from the jet, but they however sustained injuries in the process.It took the intervention of air safety officials to put out the fire which engulfed the aircraft immediately after it crash-landed.Military authorities in Adamawa State, especially the 37 Air Force Base Strike Group responsible for the aircraft involved in the counter-insurgency operations refused to comment on the crash, claiming that they did not have the authority to speak on the accident.When asked to comment on the incident, the base spokesperson, Squadron Leader K. Ali, neither denied nor confirmed the crash. He asked one of our correspondents to contact Abuja because I do not have the authority to speak on such matter.In Abuja, the Acting Director Defence Information, Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, confirmed the incident. He told one of our correspondents that the military had commenced investigation into the cause of the accident.He also said that the incident had nothing to do with enemy fire.He said, The Air Force aircraft skidded off the runway and stopped at a ditch. All those on board are unhurt and investigation into the minor incident is ongoing.Meanwhile, investigations revealed that Wednesdays crash was the second of such an incident within two weeks. No live was lost in the two occasions.One of the airport security operatives who did not want his identity revealed said the frequency of air crashes at the airport involving fighter jets was becoming a thing of worry to the military.
Capt A.O. Fadare, the Public Relations Officer of 28 Task Force Brigade Mubi in Adamawa, said some of the women abducted by insurgents i...

Capt A.O. Fadare, the Public Relations Officer of 28 Task Force Brigade Mubi in Adamawa, said some of the women abducted by insurgents in Madagali had been rescued.Fadare told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in a telephone interview that soldiers rescued the women while pursuing the insurgents.Fadare, who did not give the number of the rescued women, however, said he was still trying to verify.I am still trying to verify from Madagali as you know, the operation is still on, Fadare said.NAN recalls that about 16 women who went to fetch firewood in the forest around Sabongari village of Madagali on Wednesday, were kidnapped by insurgents
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, dubbed Rivers State as Nigerias most deadly state, even as he offered profuse apologies for the...

President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, dubbed Rivers State as Nigerias most deadly state, even as he offered profuse apologies for the ill-tempered elections conducted under his watch in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states. Speaking at the first National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abuja this year, the president said the administration had so far raked N3 trillion into the Treasury Single Account, TSA.The president, who spoke amid a tight security cordon mounted at the APC national secretariat, urged party supporters to stay the course, saying that progress was being made on all fronts, from the economy to the security situation in the country. Buhari nevertheless charged Nigerians to rise to the situation as he particularly charged militants in the Niger Delta that continuous sabotage of oil facilities was doing the people more harm than good. The president, who appealed for understanding from party members also dismissed allegations from critics that he had turned a globetrotter.Earlier in his welcome address, the national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun said challenges facing the administration were inherited from the preceding administration and the collapse of the price of oil in the international market.He charged party faithful to stand boldly with the administration in facing the challenges. Odigie-Oyegun also disclosed that a committee had been constituted to reorganise the membership of the Board of Trustees, BoT, of the party, a sign that inevitably indicated that the scheduled inauguration next week would be put on hold.The tight security around the meeting venue was also not unconnected to alleged plans by some members of the NEC to disrupt the meeting upon claims of marginalisation of some members of the NEC. Giving notice of the progress made in security, the president commended the party for recommending the removal of the military hierarchy inherited from the preceding administration, saying the decision helped to raise the morale of the military.Noting that the decision helped to ensure complete control of all 774 local government areas in the country, he admitted that though the insurgents do not hold any local government, they still have the ability to strike at soft targets.On conflicting signals from Niger Delta militants, the president said: Some have said they are ready to drop their arms and join the rest of the nation to build it. But part of them are still sabotaging installations which is making investments in that lucrative area of Nigeria difficult because nobody will submit his riches to financial institutions, get money only to suffer huge loss.So, the environment for investment is being sabotaged by ourselves, Nigerians. We are doing our best with the military by trying to persuade them to join the rest of the country because in unity lies our strength. Charging Nigerians to sustain the democratic enterprise through maintaining their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, the president offered profuse apologies for the ill-tempered elections held in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states.I am afraid I did not succeed in the election in Kogi, Bayelsa, Rivers. I think that more Nigerians are killed or killed themselves in Rivers than in any particular state. At this stage of our political development, to remain brutal is shameful and as a government, I promise we will do something by the next general election.Noting the crash in oil prices and how it led to the failure of 27 of the nations 36 states to pay salaries, he faulted the failure of the preceding administration to make adequate arrangements for the rainy day even as he gave the readiness of the administration to make amendments through diversification and other cost saving measures.One of the measures he said that has reaped huge benefit was the decision to fully implement the TSA. He said: The Central Bank Governor, will tell you that in the TSA, we have more than N3 trillion. Where would this money have been if TSA was not in vogue? I was made to understand that vouchers would have quickly been raised towards the end of the financial year and cheques made. Whether they are going into projects or private pockets, nobody can prove it to you.But that money is there, it is identified, it is quantified and when the budget comes back eventually, the Ministry of Finance will see how to allocate it to the rest of the country. He said that at the advent of the present administration, there was no proper account of the amount of crude exports, even as he said the administration was now putting facts together to push the prosecution of those who benefited from illegal exports.The president said efforts were being made to articulate a comprehensive list of recoveries of ill-gotten loot which he said would be published in due course.We have to get credible evidence to carry out successful prosecution and get judgement from the Judiciary. But effort is being made to give a list of recoveries in whatever currencies so far so that Nigerians will know that it is not all about long stories. The president also appealed for understanding from party members, saying where mistakes were made in governance like in the sacking of university governing councils that he had no qualms apologising.So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves, he said. Concluding, the president rebuffed assertions that he had turned to a globetrotter saying: Sometimes, you need to present your case on personal basis to your economic colleagues and neighbours.Nothing is better than personal touch and I believe that we are learning a lot and eventually, the nation will realize so. I dont envy you on the harassment you are going through from your constituencies. Take it with a lot of determination and we will be all right, God willing.In his remarks following the NEC meeting, Odigie-Oyegun said the party has resolved to frame a budget for the party, and to organise congresses to fill vacant positions including that of the National Publicity Secretary. Fuming at developments in Rivers, the national chairman said: It is a disgrace. That is the only thing one can say. Some of the things that happened and some of the killings that happened would never have been able to happen in this country.But the assurance we can give you and the assurance Mr President has given us is that these issues will be vigorously addressed. People must not get away with that level of dastardly act and killings of the most bestial act and in no circumstance must this be allowed to spread to the rest of the country because unless you address it, you are in fact inviting other states to set up their own military wings.
Ex-Liverpool player Robbie Fowler has expressed his dismay that Arsenal attacker Theo Walcott is still in the England squad.Fowler is surprised by Walcott's inclusion as it looks like form players have been called up for the friendlies against Germany and Holland."If form is being rewarded, as it is for Danny Drinkwater, I'm not sure what Theo Walcott is doing in the squad," the Liverpool legend told The New Day."He's not scoring for Arsenal so is clearly picked for what he's done in the past."
The Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, said it has taken notice of the pronouncement by the Rivers State Governor,...





The Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, said it has taken notice of the pronouncement by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike that he has set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the violence and killings that occurred during the March 19, rerun legislative elections in the state.





The APC in statement signed by its Spokesperson, Senibo Chris Finebone condemned the Govs action, describing it as self-serving and a mere smokescreen by the governor to rubbish his political opponents and divert attention from the violence and deaths he planted, nurtured and carried out during the Rivers State rerun elections.





The APC recalled that following the killings associated with the 2015 electoral violence in Rivers State in 2015, the then governor of Rivers State, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi set up the Prof Chidi Odinkalu Commission to unravel the issues behind the killings. Nyesom Wike and the PDP swiftly filed suit No. FHC/PHC/256/2015 at a Port Harcourt against the sitting of that Commission, adding that one of the arguments by the PDP and Nyesom Wike was that the former governor was an interested party in what happened during the elections and therefore should not have set up the panel.





This time, according to the APC, Gov. Nyesom Wike is on record for having threatened violence and death to stakeholders long before and even during the rerun elections. There is no doubt that the several threats Nyseom Wike issued to his supporters and associates gave rise to the widespread and wanton killings by the PDP and their acolytes. Therefore, where lies the enabling neutrality and moral high ground for Gov. Nyesom Wike to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate a matter in which he is the mastermind-in-chief?





The APC informed Gov. Nyesom Wike to consider the matter of the commission a total waste of time and resources, and dead on arrival. Taking a look at the members of the commission, the APC would like to advise Gov. Wike to look for a more honest means of compensating his supporters and their relations rather than sending them on a journey to nowhere or one that will suffer a still-birth the party declared.





Wikes crocodile tears for the NYSC





In another development, the APC said it finds the attempts by Gov. Nyesom Wike to showcase himself as a friend of the NYSC following the killing of an NYSC member who served as an INEC ad-hoc staff, Okonta Samuel, with call-up number RV/15B/5539, and the increase of Corpers allowances announced by the governor as dim-witted actions aimed at bribing Youth Corp members for the suspended rerun elections not necessarily for the love of NYSC members.





The statement reads: It is shocking that after Gov Wike created the atmosphere that led to the death of late Okonta Samuel, the governor has since embarked on shameless actions meant to deceive Corp members and other Nigerians.





As an INEC ad-hoc staff, late Samuel Okonta and his colleagues were asked by Nyesom Wike to write their will because they might be killed during the rerun elections. After Wikes threat materialised, it was shocking to see the governor rush to sign the condolence register of late Samuel Okonta. By signing the condolence register, the APC believes that Gov. Wike actually countersigned the will written by late Okonta on the advice of the governor.
CAMDEN -- Funeral arrangements have been set for the 18-year-old city man killed in a shooting earlier this week.

Rafael Vicente, 18, is pictured in this undated provided photo.

Viewings for Rafael A. Vicente III will be held on Sunday, from 6 to 9 p.m., and Monday, from 9 to 10 a.m. at May Funeral Home along Westfield Avenue, in Pennsauken.

Vicente's body will be interred at Morgan Cemetery, in Cinnaminson, according to his obituary.

The burial ceremony is not private, a funeral home representative said Friday. Attempts to locate family members have been unsuccessful.

Vicente was found by Camden metro officers shortly before 9 p.m. on Tuesday. He was suffering from gunshot wounds while inside of a vehicle that crashed at the 1200 block of Haddon Avenue.

Vicente was transported to Cooper University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at approximately 8:55 p.m.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office did not return a request for comment left late Friday morning.

Dee Bailey, Vicete's preschool teacher at Bpum Child Development Center, in Camden, said Friday that the late man showed "a zeal and zest for learning and life" even at a young age.

"He was a natural born leader," Bailey told NJ Advance Media. "He exhibited a sense of compassion for others and for his friends. Raffie's smile could warm anyone's heart. I told 'Raffie' with his problem-solving skills and his ability to connect with people that he could have been the mayor of Camden."

"Thus, we pronounced him 'the mayor' of our class. He was our little ambassador," Bailey said.

Vicente later matriculated to the Lanning Square Elementary School, Bailey said. His death marks the fourth homicide in Camden City so far this year. The incident was still under investigation as of Wednesday and no arrests had been made at that time.

Readers with information regarding Vicente's death are asked to contact Camden County Prosecutor's Office Detective Chris Sarson at (856) 225-8640 or Camden County Police Detective Mark Lee at (856) 757-7420. Information may also be emailed to ccpotips@ccprosecutor.org.

Greg Adomaitis may be reached at gadomaitis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregAdomaitis. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
VINELAND -- Cumberland County paid tribute to its veterans this week during a ceremony at the county college.

The county's Military Service Medal was presented to veterans in a ceremony on Thursday afternoon.

This was the fifth year that medals were presented. Approximately 43 veterans were scheduled to recognized.

The event is a collaboration between the Cumberland County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Cumberland County College and the Cumberland County Department of Veterans Affairs.

Federal, state and county elected officials were on hand to congratulate the veterans on their award.

Following the ceremony, those attending were treated to a traveling art exhibition entitled "52 Reasons to Love a Vet" which is on display in the Fine and Performing Arts gallery adjacent to the Luciano Theatre where the medals ceremony took take place.

The exhibition, which is making a trek around the nation, features illustrations by world-renowned artists depicting their interpretation of veterans and war.

South Jersey Times may be reached at news@southjerseymedia.com. Follow us on Twitter @theSJTimes. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BRIDGETON --A man involved in a 2007 shooting that killed a 24-year-old mother and paralyzed her son was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, according to the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office.

Raymond Finch

The sentencing was the result of a plea agreement after a jury was unable to reach a verdict following a 10-week trial.

Raymond Finch, 37, pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and second-degree certain persons not to possess a weapon.

Finch is from Kissimmee, Florida, but is originally from Vineland.

Finch also admitted to entering the apartment of 24-year-old Lanieceya Walker in October 2007 and shooting into the bed where she and her then 13-month-old son were sleeping.

Authorities pronounced Walker dead at the scene and transported her son to the Vineland Development Center for two gunshot wounds to the shoulder. He was left paralyzed below the neck.

When he was originally arrested in April 2013, authorities charged Finch with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Police also arrested Walker's ex-husband Terrill Walker in 2013 and charged him with murder.

The trial lasted 10 weeks and concluded in November 2015.

The sentencing was carried out Thursday by Judge Cristen D'Arrigo and based off of the plea agreement.

Don E. Woods may be reached at dwoods@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @donewoods1. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
Former Devils winger Ilya Kovalchuk could be headed to China.

According to Agence France-Presse, Kovalchuk will leave SKA St. Petersburg to join the KHL's expansion team in China next season.

One report says Kovalchuk will play for Red Star Kunlun.

In 222 game for the Devils between 2009-10 and 2012-13, Kovalchuk scored 201 points (89 goals, 112 assists). He helped the Devils reach the 2012 Stanley Cup Final in 2012 and had 25 points (10 goals, 15 assists) in two postseasons for the Devils totaling 28 games.

Sources tell Russia media that Ilya Kovalchuk is leaving SKA St Petersburg to join the KHL's expansion team in China next season.  Gabrielle T-F (@gabrielletf) March 24, 2016

Kovalchuk left the Devils in the summer of 2013 with 12 years and $77 million remaining on his contract.

Rich Chere may be reached at rchere@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Ledger_NJDevils. Find NJ.com on Facebook
NEWARK -- After spending 933 days in custody, a Newark woman was released on Thursday following her acquittal at a trial this week in the 2013 stabbing death of another woman.

Zakia Merrill, 25, was found not guilty on Wednesday of murder and weapons offenses in connection with the Aug. 31, 2013 killing of 24-year-old Newark resident Ebony Martin.

Merrill had been in custody at the Essex County Correctional Facility in lieu of posting $350,000 bail before her release on Thursday, court records show.

"She was just extremely thankful and relieved," said Merrill's attorney, Jonathan L. Gordon, describing her reaction to the verdict.

Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Allan P. Nawrocki, who tried the case, declined to comment.

The incident occurred during an altercation involving several people in the area of Pennsylvania Avenue and Thomas Street in Newark, according to Katherine Carter, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office. Martin was stabbed once in the chest and later died from her injuries, Carter said. The knife was never recovered, she said.

Merrill was arrested in the days after the killing and she was placed in custody at the county jail on Sept. 3, 2013, court records show. Merrill was indicted on June 13, 2014, court records show.

The more than two-year gap between the incident and Merrill's trial is not unusual for a murder case in Essex County due to various factors, including pre-trial motions in her case, scheduling issues and the overall backlog of cases in the county, according to Gordon.

The state's case against Merrill was based on the claims of two witnesses who testified at the trial that they saw Merrill fighting with Martin and, during that fight, they heard Martin exclaim, "She stabbed me," according to Gordon. Those witnesses never said they saw Merrill with a knife, Gordon said.

But when Merrill took the witness stand, she said she was present at the scene, but she did not fight anyone, Gordon said. Merrill testified she saw her male cousin stab Martin and later heard him admit to the stabbing, Gordon said.

Gordon said Merrill's testimony was "extremely credible and strong."

"She looked them in the eye...and she told the whole truth," said Gordon, referring to the jurors.

In the jury's decision to acquit Merrill, Gordon said jurors were likely swayed by her demeanor during the trial, her testimony and the fact that when police came to her home to arrest her a couple of days after the incident, Merrill had no bruises that would indicate she had been in a fight.

Pointing out the absence of such bruises was part of the defense's argument about the "lack of evidence, no corroboration of the story of the two witnesses," Gordon said.

"There was absolutely nothing," Gordon said. "The fact that she literally didn't have a mark on her...I think was certainly important."

Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Saturday morning couldn't come soon enough for the millenials waking up from a restless overnight pilgrimage.

The biting wind cut into them and the 36-degree temperature made sleeping in a Newark parking lot uncomfortable.

Underneath skies still dark at 5:30 a.m., more than 100 young professionals rose from their cardboard boxes and sleeping bags, holding onto an experience they'll never forget.

Larry Clifton Jr., a music producer from Newark, thought he could handle it, but the cold and the hard ground humbled him during the National Sleep Out campaign last week to raise awareness about homeless youth.

MORE: Recent Barry Carter columns

"I couldn't imagine doing this every day,'' said Clifton, 35.

No one should, but homeless youth in New Jersey do it night after night. They're not thinking about tomorrow, only today - and how they're going to eat and where they'll sleep.

In a reversal of roles, Clifton and the others spent the night outside to get a snapshot of what it's like for homeless young people who are forced to huddle under boardwalks, break into abandoned buildings and roam around train stations to stay warm and off the streets.

The participants did it not only to gain an understanding, but also to raise money for Covenant House, a Newark agency that helps runaway and homeless youth rebuild their lives through job training and education.

For myriad reasons that run from parents kicking them out of the house to untenable foster care placements, many young people - 18 to 21 years old - find themselves with no place to go, until they hear about the brown building on Washington Street with a sign bearing a picture of a bird being set free.

"We put our arms around them, pat them on the back and dust them off,'' said David Hall, a program director. "We feed them and we say, 'Despite what you've been through, tomorrow's a better day.' ''

For the past three years, Covenant House has participated in National Sleep Out in New York, where the staff camped out on the streets near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. But this year, the organization held its own sleep-out in Newark, as part of the social movement that also took place in Anchorage, Alaska; Philadelphia; New York; Houston; Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale.

When Covenant House put the call out, more than 100 young professionals in New Jersey signed up, raising $117,000 in donations.

The words that Jim White, executive director of Covenant House, shared before participants' heads hit the pavement in the Covenant House parking lot came from the heart. "This gift you have given to us, we hold sacred,'' said White.

What participants heard next were hardly soothing bedtime stories. Instead, they were tales of struggle and resilience from young people they met that night.

MORE CARTER: Newark students want answers about lead in schools' water

Lorraine Rivera told of how her mother didn't want her when she was 8 years old. Foster homes and rejection marked her childhood, sending her into depression and a psychiatric ward.

"By the age of 16, the idea of killing myself seemed like the only way out of my pain,'' Rivera said.

And that was before four men assaulted her when she went to visit a friend, she said.

Rivera ended up homeless, wandering around Newark Penn Station, begging for food, cleaning herself up with paper towels, afraid to sleep on the streets.

Rivera, now 20, is in a better place - Covenant House. A Job Corps training program is on her agenda and she wants to be a social worker to lighten the road for foster kids like herself.

When she finished talking, the participants stood, filling the Covenant House gymnasium with applause.

But there wasn't anything that Covenant residents or staff could do to prep the participants for a night on the blacktop. They layered up in clothing, settling along the fence after a touching candlelight service to remember the homeless.

Five hours later, rubbing what sleep they managed to get from their eyes, they were not the same.

Allison Lebo, a 27-year-old recruiter, said it was wrong to think homeless people were responsible for their situation.

"After hearing the stories of the kids, you realize they did nothing wrong to put themselves in this position,'' said Lebo, a Bloomfield resident. "This was a bad hand dealt to them and that could have easily been us.''

One night out there hit home for Tony Whitaker, 27, of Irvington. He thought about his family and how his gambling problem put them on the street when he lost his mother's rent money in Atlantic City.

This is why he slept out. It was a reminder to never do something that would cause him to be homeless again.

Covenant House hopes the participants in the sleep-out won't become complacent, now that a week has gone by and life is back to normal.

Mariam Rashid, a Rutgers University graduate student, can't get it out of her mind. She had driven by Covenant House many times in the past, never realizing how the place saves lives. And she certainly never expected to one day be sleeping outside in Covenant's parking lot.

"I guess it's just something that's going to be with me,'' she said.

She'll be back next year.

How many of us will hold a candle and join her?

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
The world first discovered the sensational news that Wilhelm Rontgens mysterious X-rays could penetrate clothing and human skin, not through scientists but through the press.

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen was a physicist who had little time for publicity. Like all other scientists the professor from Wurzburg University in Franconia always sought recognition from his peers, but Rontgen rarely appeared at scientific conferences or wrote papers, let alone promoted his research findings outside of his field. All this changed after Rontgens accidental discovery of X-rays sparked a media storm that meant his findings would have an impact like no other before it.

On the evening of 8 November 1895, Rontgen was in his laboratory studying how cathode-ray tubes emit light. His attention was distracted by a glowing fluorescent screen that was too far from the tube to be affected by the cathode rays. Rontgen didnt leave his lab for weeks as he tried to investigate the source of the glow. He discovered that the impact of cathode rays on the glass vacuum tube was generating a new kind of invisible ray. The rays had extraordinary penetrative power  they could travel long distances and make the screen glow, even when cardboard, wood, copper and aluminium were placed in the way  and could be recorded on photographic plates.

Rontgen knew immediately that he had to forego his natural reticence and disseminate this important discovery to the scientific community as soon as possible. Over Christmas, he wrote a 10-page article entitled On a new kind of rays, which was accepted by the Proceedings of the Wurzburg Physical-Medical Society on 28 December. Rontgen named the discovery X-radiation, or X-rays, after the mathematical term X that denotes something unknown. (He always preferred this term, even though other researchers insisted on calling it Rontgen rays.)

The article was precise and reserved in tone, with no accompanying images, and so the chances are that most scientists would have ignored the findings. A trip to the post office in Wurzburg on New Years Day in 1896 changed all that. In Rontgens hands were 90 envelopes, each containing a reprint of the article, which were addressed to physicists all over Europe. Twelve of the envelopes, addressed to friends or to distinguished scientists like Lord Kelvin, also contained nine photographs. Rontgen made several photos mainly of the interiors of metal objects, but it was another photo that led to a situation in which all hell broke loose, as Rontgen would later complain.

Since X-rays could penetrate materials like metals and wood, it seemed natural to find out if they could penetrate flesh. What Rontgen discovered was a remarkable ability to see through flesh and make bones visible. As he described in his paper: If the hand be held before the fluorescent screen, the shadow shows the bones darkly with only faint outlines of the surrounding tissues. To illustrate this effect, Rontgen took an X-ray photograph of his wifes hand, which produced an almost ghoulish image that clearly showed her bones and wedding ring.

One of the recipients of these letters was Franz Exner, a former fellow student of Rontgen and at the time professor of experimental physics in Vienna. Exner was a convivial man, regularly inviting members of the faculty to informal dinners at his home. Rontgens letter containing the photos arrived just in time for Exner to show his guests at one such gathering that upcoming Saturday, 4 January. One guest, Ernst Lecher, professor of physics in Prague, was so interested in the photos he asked Exner if he could borrow them for one day. Lecher was staying with his father in Vienna over the Christmas holidays, and knew he would be very interested in the images.

Hold the Front Page

Lecher knew his father would be interested, not because he was a scientist, but because he was the editor of Viennas leading daily newspaper Die Presse. As soon as the elder Lecher saw the images he knew he had a scoop on his hands, and immediately changed the front-page story for the next days issue. There was no time to print the photos, so Lecher asked his son for a full account of the facts, and he worked during the night to create an article that would clearly describe the findings, without considerable exaggeration.

Lechers X-ray story appeared under the headline A sensational discovery. Describing the potential of this new discovery, the article said: If we let our fantasies run freely  this could be of immeasurable help for the diagnosis of countless diseases.

The story had an instant impact. Viennese foreign correspondents cabled the article urgently to their editors at home. On Monday 6 January 1896, leading German papers covered the story. The Daily Chronicle published the first report in the United Kingdom, saying: A sensational discovery, which, if the reports are confirmed, is likely to be attended by imperial consequences for physical and medical science, is spoken of in scientific circles here. On Tuesday, the UKs Standard sought to reassure its readers that there is no joke or humbug in this matter. It is a serious discovery by a serious German professor. Rontgens photographs of human hands, the Standard wrote, were ghastly enough in appearances but from a scientific point of view they open up a wide field for speculation.

Once the UK press picked up on the X-ray story the news spread around the world within a few days. The news had spread so quickly, in fact, that few publications realised that the Die Presse had misspelled Rontgens name, attributing the new findings to one Professor Routgen.

Scientific and medical journals noticed the media coverage of X-rays, and began to report the findings too. On 11 January The Lancet published an almost dismissive comment about Rontgens findings, but one week later conceded that the new discovery will produce quite a revolution in the present methods of examining the interior of the human body. Two weeks later the journal printed X-ray photographs of a human hand and of the lower half of a frog.

Nature magazine dedicated 17 lines to Rontgen in its 16 January issue, and one week later published an English translation of Rontgens paper. The lead article in the 1 February issue of the British Medical Journal, entitled The New Photography, contained a detailed description of Rontgens method, and stated: The application of the discovery to the photography of hidden structures is a feat sensational enough and likely to stimulate even the uneducated imagination.

It did indeed. Gossip soon spread among strict and straight-laced elements of fin de siecle societies that X-rays could see through clothing and threaten privacy. Through cloak and gown  and even stays, those naughty, naughty Roentgen (sic) rays, wrote one doggerel. One opportunistic London company advertised X-ray proof underclothing  especially for the sensitive woman in the journal Electrical World, and is alleged to have made a small fortune. And in New York concerned citizens considered legislation against the use of X-rays in opera glasses.

Away from such concerns, scientists rushed to replicate and refine Rontgens X-ray images. Scientists were free to create X-rays using cathode-ray tubes because Rontgen had deliberately not patented his discovery, convinced that his inventions and discoveries belonged to the world at large.

There were few laboratories in which attempts were not immediately made to repeat the experiment, Sir Arthur Schuster recalled in his memoirs. Schuster, one of the recipients of Rontgens photos, was professor of physics at Manchester University, and he, like many other researchers, began using X-rays to identify foreign objects without surgery. My laboratory was inundated by medical men bringing patients, who were suspected of having needles in various parts of their bodies, complained Schuster, and during one week I had to give the best part of three mornings locating a needle in the foot of a ballet dancer.

X-rays were adopted worldwide at an extraordinary pace. In Montreal, Canada, a young man had been shot in the leg, but the bullet couldnt be found for weeks, until John Cox, professor of physics at McGill University, used X-rays to reveal that the bullet was lodged between the tibia and fibula. When the British Army launched an expedition to the Nile in spring 1896, its equipment included two X-ray machines to help localize bullets and diagnose bone fractures.

Reluctant Celebrity

The reaction to Rontgens X-rays made him an instant celebrity. Many honours were bestowed upon him, streets were named after him, and Rontgen received countless honorary doctorates and Prizes, including the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901 for his discovery of the remarkable rays.

By the end of 1896, more than 1,000 books and papers had been published on X-rays and its applications. But Rontgen himself had little to do with any of this. He published only two more papers on X-rays, and apart from one public lecture in Wurzburg he declined all offers for further lectures. Rontgen didnt even give a lecture after receiving his Nobel Prize. It was as if the exposure resulting from his findings forced Rontgen to make a greater vow of silence. In 1899, he accepted an offer from the University of Munich, and remained committed to progress in all fields of physics, but as his assistant Abraham Joffe reported, he preferred to work on less sensational areas of research.

Rontgens silence could not affect his discovery spreading far and wide within the scientific, and even non-scientific, literature. In his novel The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann (Nobel Laureate 1929) dedicated a chapter to the detailed description of an X-ray examination in a sanatorium in Davos, with philosophical discussions between doctor and patient about scientific progress and the nature of man. The title of this chapter sums up the scientific and public reaction to Rontgens discovery: My God, I see!

Bibliography

Folsing, A. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen. Aufbruch ins Innere der Materie. Munchen, 1995.

Lentle, B. & Aldrich, J. Radiological sciences, past and present. Lancet 350, 280285 (1997).

Mould, R.F. The early history of X-ray diagnosis with emphasis on the contributions of physics 18951915. Phys. Med. Biol. 40, 17411787 (1995).

Posner, E. Reception of Rontgens discovery in Britain and U.S.A. British Medical Journal 4, 357360 (1970).

Deutsches Rontgen Museum
Want to defeat the terrorists? Don't submit to their terror
The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump. The nine-member panel sent a letter to the former president's lawyers on Friday, demanding his testimony under oath by mid-November and outlining a series of corresponding documents. The decision by lawmakers to exercise their subpoena power comes a week after the committee made its final case against the former president, who they say is the "central cause" of the multi-part effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It remains unclear how Trump and his legal team will respond to the subpoena, if at all.
Laura Cotesta cancer drive celebrates 20 years

When Laura Cotesta was first diagnosed with a spinal cord tumour in 1987 there were no services in Sudbury to treat children with cancer. When her cancer returned in 1995, she still had to travel to Toronto for all of her treatments.

Six Lockerby Composite School students got haircuts Thursday to donate their long locks to help make wigs for cancer patients going through chemotherapy. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.

When Laura Cotesta was first diagnosed with a spinal cord tumour in 1987 there were no services in Sudbury to treat children with cancer.



When her cancer returned in 1995, she still had to travel to Toronto for all of her treatments.



Laura, a student at Lockerby Composite School by then, managed to raise $8,000 with her peers to help kick-rby-start a pediatric cancer centre in Sudbury.



Thanks to the Northeast Cancer Centre's pediatric oncology unit, children can now receive many of their treatments closer to home, without always needing to travel to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children or Ottawa's Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.



Laura passed away from her cancer in 1997, but the movement she started at Lockerby Composite School celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2016.



Hundreds of students, who were not even born when Laura started her Kids Caring for Kids Cancer Drive, gathered at the Lockerby gym Thursday to launch this year's campaign.



I'm proud of her and the legacy she left, and I'm proud of each and every one of these kids who come out and believe in the same cause, said Laura's mother, Pina Cotesta, who has been at the centre of the Kids Caring for Kids Cancer Drive since the beginning.



It's the most important thing at Lockerby Public School, said Lockerby student Riley Roy, the campaign co-chair for 2016.



In 20 years the Kids Caring for Kids Cancer Drive has raised nearly $700,000 for the Northern Cancer Foundation.



Lockerby students will canvass their neighbourhoods for funds on Thursday, April 7.



Last year the campaign collected around $64,000.
Gelinas: rationale for moving OPP helicopter makes no sense

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said Thursday she finally has a copy of the review looking into the relocation of an OPP search and rescue helicopter from Sudbury to Orillia.

Announced in spring 2015, the OPP has said moving both its search and rescue helicopters south will save $254,000 and allow them to expand operating hours. File photo.

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said Thursday she finally has a copy of the review looking into the relocation of an OPP search and rescue helicopter from Sudbury to Orillia.



Speaking in the Ontario Legislature on Thursday, Gelinas said the review was supposed to explain the rationale behind moving the helicopter, but it failed on all accounts.



Im proud to say that after $30 in fees and months of waiting, I finally received the report, she said. The only reasoning in that 30-page report is that there are more people in southern Ontario than in Northern Ontario. Therefore all of the resources should be in southern Ontario.



Announced in spring 2015, the OPP has said the move will save $254,000 and allow them to expand the operating hours of the force's two helicopters, both of which are now based in Orillia.



However, the decision has been criticized because, among other reasons, the Orillia base is located in a snowbelt and aircraft are frequently grounded in winter due to storms. When that happened in the past, the Sudbury helicopter could still respond to calls in southern Ontario.



And the helicopter is often used to locate people with dementia or stranded in remote locations  both common occurrences in Northern Ontario, where the population is older and the land mass much bigger.

Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault asked for the review, and was supported by Premier Kathleen Wynne. But the helicopter left Greater Sudbury Airport last summer during the Pan Am Games in Toronto and has not returned.



A lot of people have pointed out that moving both helicopters to Orillia is dangerous because of the effects of bad weather, Gelinas said in the Legislature. To address this, the report looked at the weather stations from Borden Airport and Muskoka Airport. Both of these airports are located more than 40 kilometres away from the Orillia base to the north and southwest.



Both those airports are not like the Orillia base, which is right beside a lake and subject to lake effects. It is also in a snowbelt which means that aircraft based there are often grounded.



And if population is the guiding principle, Gelinas said it could be used to justifying taking away other services key to northerners.



According to the government, we should not have a university or a hospital or a cancer treatment centre because, you know what? There are fewer people in Northern Ontario than in southern Ontario, she said.

This is the only rationale that they could put forward.



People in the North reject that decision. I have been copied on resolutions from Charlton and Dack, the Manitoulin Municipal Association, the City of Greater Sudbury, the Town of Hornepayne, la Ville de Mattice-Val Cote and the Township of Billings. Theyre all telling the minister the same thing: Bring the OPP helicopter back to Sudbury Airport to protect the lives of northerners.
There will be a Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration ceremony to thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, at the 20th Century Veterans Memorial, 2811 S. Jeffers St.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Fort McPherson National Cemetery, in conjunction with the city of North Platte, will honor the service, sacrifice and enduring achievements of the Vietnam veterans during the 50th anniversary event. Mayor Dwight Livingston will be signing a proclamation commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.

The event will commemorate Vietnam War Veterans and each Veteran in attendance will be recognized during the ceremony. Mayor Livingston will be in attendance and the Lincoln Vet Center will have their outreach vehicle at the ceremony as well. All veterans are invited.

In 2008, the Defense Authorization Act gave the Department of Defense a green-light to honor and recognize Vietnam-era veterans in a formal capacity. There is no correlation to distinguish between those that served in country or in support roles throughout the world. In other words, those that served during that time frame are considered Vietnam-era veterans for this purpose.

Master of Ceremonies is Kamie Stephen, with The North Platte Telegraph. Keynote speaker for the event is Kevin Kennedy, Marie Veteran, speaking about how the war effected Lincoln County and the state of Nebraska.

The public and all veterans are invited to attend. Following the ceremony, there will be a meal to honor veterans. The public is also welcome to attend this meal.
Indiana's Senators are calling on the U.S. Department of Commerce to crack down on the cheap steel imports that resulted in more than 1,000 steelworkers being laid off in Northwest Indiana last year.

U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly and a bipartisan group of Senators wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker asking for full enforcement of the recently passed Leveling the Playing Field Act, which makes it easier for businesses and workers to file trade cases against foreign competitors that cheat trade laws.

It's the most sweeping change to U.S. trade laws since 2002 and in response to a flood of cheap foreign steel, which often is illegally subsidized or sold for less than what it's sold for back in its home country, or what's called dumping.

"Congress passed the Leveling the Playing Field Act to strengthen our trade remedy laws and to ensure our domestic manufacturers and their employees get the relief they deserve from unfair trading practices," the senators said in the letter. "But the law's anticipated impact will be achieved only if the Department implements it properly. Failure to use AFA in the face of uncooperative respondents allows trade cheats to get away with violating international trade law and prevents American manufacturers from competing on a level playing field. The result has been devastating for domestic production and employment."

Last year, after import market share hit a record 29 percent, more than 12,000 steelworkers nationwide received layoff notices. Steelmakers idled mills, including East Chicago Tin and Granite City Works in Illinois. ArcelorMittal shut down its Indiana Harbor Long Carbon facility and the rolling mill, while U.S. Steel idled a blast furnace and shuttered its coke plant at Gary Works.

Coats, a Republican, and Donnelly, a Democrat, and the bipartisan group of lawmakers that also included Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. and Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., encouraged the Commerce Department to impose antidumping and countervailing duties by applying economic data when foreign steelmakers don't cooperate with trade investigations.

Before, foreign companies or steelmakers could drag the trade case process out while the domestic industry suffered. Under the new law, the International Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Commerce can use real-time economic data to extrapolate economic injury, so the federal government can impose tariffs before layoffs and mill idlings take place.

The law also shields the federal government from legal challenges from foreign countries that the tariffs it imposes don't reflect commercial reality.

"Congress passed the Leveling the Playing Field Act to strengthen our trade remedy laws and to ensure our domestic manufacturers and their employees get the relief they deserve from unfair trade practices," the senators wrote in the letter. "But the laws anticipated impact will be achieved only if the department implements it properly... Time is of the essence in this important matter."
MUNSTER  A Munster woman was robbed of an iPad mini and some shoes Thursday afternoon after an Internet transaction went bad.

According to Munster police, two men in a gold car arrived in 700 block of Northcote Avenue to meet with the woman. As she went out to the curb to conduct the transaction, one of the men reportedly got out of the car and said the money for the items was in his backpack.

When the woman sought to verify the money was there, however, police said the man pulled up his shirt to reveal a black handgun stuck in his pants. The man then allegedly took the items before getting back in the car, which headed south on Northcote Avenue.

There have been other incidents in the Region where residents trying to sell items through the Internet have been victimized.

Munster Police Lt. Ed Stbjack said residents in Munster who are selling items in this manner can use the lobby of the Munster police station to meet with potential buyers. Several other departments also encourage residents to use their parking lots for such exchanges.
WASHINGTON  The Pentagon said Friday it was moving to increase the number of American troops in Iraq amid new strikes this week that killed the Islamic State's finance minister and other senior leaders. Still, top U.S. defense officials say the deaths won't "break the back" of the extremist group, which is in a fierce fight for an ancient city in Syria and claimed responsibility for bombing a soccer stadium in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. progress in eliminating members of the IS "cabinet" was hampering its ability to conduct and inspire attacks against the West. The announcement came as the battle to retake the Syrian city of Palmyra entered its third day and Iraqi forces continued their march to recapture Mosul. A suicide bombing in a soccer stadium south of Baghdad, killing nearly 30 people, underscored the difficult fight ahead.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters that recommendations on ways to increase U.S. support for Iraq's ground fight against IS will be discussed with President Barack Obama soon.

"The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made," Dunford said. He did not say how big that increase might be.

He and Carter said accelerating the campaign against the Islamic State will include more assistance like the artillery fire and targeting help that U.S. Marines provided earlier this week to Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul. But they said American forces remain well behind the front lines.

"I think there's a lot of reasons for us to be optimistic about the next several months," Dunford said. "But by no means would I say that we're about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over."

Using an acronym for the militant group, Carter said the U.S. is "systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," killing several key members in strikes this week.

Carter would not provide details about the strikes, but a senior U.S. official said the group's financial minister was killed along with two associates in a U.S. raid in Syria. The official was not authorized to discuss the operations so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Carter said the finance minister, who is known by several names, including Abdul-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and Haji Imam, was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terrorist plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

He said al-Qaduli has been associated with IS dating back to its earliest iteration as al-Qaida in Iraq. He said he had worked under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a liaison for operations in Pakistan and was "responsible for some external affairs and plots." Carter said he was not aware of any link between al-Qaduli and this week's terrorist attacks in Brussels.

In a separate operation, a U.S. airstrike in Mosul killed another top IS leader, the official said. Carter identified the man as Abu Sarah and said he was one of the leaders charged with paying militant fighters in northern Iraq.

The successful attacks are part of a string of recent strikes targeting the leadership of the group, which has lost territory in both Iraq and Syria. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the Islamic State's "minister of war," in an airstrike in Syria. In November, the Pentagon said an airstrike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top IS leader.

Earlier this week, U.S. military officials confirmed the creation of a Marine outpost, dubbed Fire Base Bell, in Iraq. U.S. Marines operating from the small base provided targeting assistance and artillery fire to support Iraqi troops retaking several villages in the initial stages of their march to Mosul. It's the first such base established by the U.S. since it returned forces to Iraq in 2014.

Carter has also said the U.S. is looking at a number of options to "accelerate" the fight against IS. Those options have not yet officially been submitted to the White House for approval. They could include sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq, using Apache helicopters for combat missions, deploying more U.S. special operations forces or using American military advisers in Iraqi units closer to the front lines.

In Iraq on Friday, IS claimed responsibility after a suicide bomber blew himself up during a match in the small soccer stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles from Baghdad. The attack killed at least 29 people and wounded 60, security officials said.

In Syria, government forces recaptured a Mamluk-era citadel in Palmyra from IS, Syrian state media and monitoring groups said. Syrian and Russian warplanes struck at least 56 targets inside IS-held areas of the city and pro-government militias supported the army's advance, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

Palmyra has been controlled by the extremist group since May, and the militants have destroyed some of its best known Roman-era archaeological relics. Recapturing it would be a significant victory for Syrian government troops, who have been supported by Russian airstrikes in their advances.

Government forces also cut the road between Palmyra and another IS bastion, the town of Qaryatayn, weakening the group's hold over its two central Syrian outposts.

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.
Two city residents missing after the Belgium terror attacks are now feared dead.



The family of Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski say the brother and sister were not among a list of names of all the victims who are still alive.

The siblings were in the ticket line at the Brussels airport Tuesday to board a flight to JFK.

Relatives say Alexander was talking to his mother on the phone when the line dropped.

The family says it's awaiting final closure.



Meanwhile, Belgian prosecutors say six people have been detained in connection with the bombings at the airport and a subway station.

Dozens were killed in the attacks.

This comes shortly after the nation slightly lowered its terror threat level

Authorities, though, say another attack is still "likely and possible."

Brussels Airport also canceled flights until at least Monday.
Friday is the deadline to register to vote in order to be eligible for the New York presidential primary next month.



The group "Bushwick Berners" was out working for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to try to encourage potential new voters.



Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton supporters were talking to people around the country at their Manhattan call center.

Both campaigns are hoping to mobilize new voters.



"When newer voters are pulled more toward Bernie Sanders so the more new people we can get voting, the more new people we can get registered, the greater the primary is gonna be voting turnout for him."//"It's important, it's important to get involved and I know we're not taking anything for granted and we need everyone's help to win this thing, we need a democrat in the White House and Hillary is going to be the one to get us there."



NY1 reached out to the Republican campaigns for more on their "get out the vote" efforts but did not hear back.

For more information on how to register before the deadline, go to elections.ny.gov.

New York's primary is April 19.




Two American citizens killed in the Brussels terror attacks have been confirmed as a brother and sister from New York.

Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski had not been heard from since Tuesday's bombing at the Brussels airport.

Relatives say they were waiting to board a flight to JFK and that Alexander was talking to his mother on the phone when the line dropped.

In a tweet, Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed condolences and said the city will continue its part to fight terror "at every turn."

Two of our own lost in the #brusselsattack. In memory of the Pinczowski siblings, we will continue to stand up to terror at every turn.  Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) March 25, 2016

Meantime, the mayor of Brussels tells Belgian media that a raid in the city Friday led to an arrest in connection to this week's bombings.

Belgian media had reported the sounds of explosions in the area during the raid, and says one man carrying a bag of explosive material was wounded and arrested.

The mayor says the latest police action is also linked to the arrest of a man in Paris on Thursday.

Officials say that man had a Belgian terror conviction, and connections with the suspected mastermind behind the Paris terror attacks last year.

Six others have been detained in raids around Brussels linked to the bombings.

It comes as U.S. government officials also confirmed Friday that a senior Islamic State leader was killed by U.S. forces.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter says Haji Iman was a well-known terrorist, who acted as the group's Finance Minister and played a key role in external affairs.



He is one of several Islamic State terrorists the U.S has killed this week.

Carter says Iman's death will hamper the terrorist organization.

Officials say Iman had been an original member of the Islamic State group dating back to its earliest iteration as al-Qaeda in Iraq.



U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Belgium on Friday to pay his respects to the attack victims and take part in counter-terrorism talks with European Union officials.



During a news conference in Brussels, Kerry delivered a message to those behind the attacks.

"We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred. And we will come back with greater resolve, with greater strength, and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of this earth," Kerry said.

Authorities in Belgium have lowered the country's terror threat level one notch.

But they say another attack is "likely and possible."

Brussels Airport has canceled flights until at least Monday.
A JetBlue flight attendant faces drug charges after federal authorities say she allegedly tried to bring nearly 70 pounds of cocaine through a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport.

The U.S. district attorney's office says 31-year-old Marsha Reynolds, a resident of the Jamaica section of Queens, is charged with possession with the intent to distribute cocaine.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. district court in the Central District of California, Reynolds was selected for additional screening at a security checkpoint at LAX's Terminal 4.

The criminal complaint alleges that when Reynolds arrived the secondary screening area, she dropped two carry-on bags, removed her shoes and fled the area.

According to the criminal complaint, 11 packages that weighed about 68.5 pounds in total were found in Reynolds' abandoned luggage that later tested positive for cocaine.

The U.S. attorney's office says Reynolds surrendered to DEA agents at JFK Airport on Wednesday.

She appeared in federal court in Brooklyn Thursday.


Galleries: Other

 Global/Local 1960-2015: Six Artists From Iran (through April 2) In the early 1960s, the American art patron Abby Weed Grey traveled to Iran, loved the new art she saw there, bought it and gave it to New York University, where she also founded Grey Art Gallery. For its current multigenerational show, the gallery joins two artists from its collection, Parviz Tanavoli and Faramarz Pilaram, with borrowed work by four younger figures. Of particular interest is an installation by Chohreh Feyzdjou (1955-1996) who, late in her career, recycled her only earlier paintings in installations that suggest the contents of Pharaonic tombs. She is well matched in the young Tehran Conceptualist Barbad Golshiri, who takes funerary monuments and history as his theme. Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, Greenwich Village, 212-998-6780, nyu.edu/greyart. (Cotter)

 Glenn Ligon: We Need to Wake Up Cause Thats What Time It Is (through April 17) At some point in the 1982 film Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip, the politically trenchant comedian says that racism makes him so furious he cant speak. Silence is the most immediately arresting feature of Mr. Ligons installation, for which the soundtrack of the film has been eliminated. Whats left is an entirely visual experience, and a radically fragmented one, projected on several screens ranged around the gallery. On one, Mr. Pryor appears, full length, on stage; On the others, hes divided into close-ups: his mouth on one screen, his hands on another; his torso and groin isolated on a third; his shadow, cast by the spotlight on yet another. Luhring Augustine Bushwick, 25 Knickerbocker Avenue, at Ingraham Street, Brooklyn, 718-386-2746, luhringaugustine.com. (Cotter)

Out Of Town

Dia:Beacon: Robert Irwin: Excursus: Homage to the Square' (through May 2017) A walk-in maze with walls of white scrim lit by color-filtered fluorescent tubes, Mr. Irwins Excursus: Homage to the Square had its debut in 1998 at the Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea. It was so popular that the curators elected to keep it on view a year longer than its originally planned run. Its reincarnation here is similarly transporting, if not as thoroughly as the original was. But to experience it at Dia:Beacon along Minimalist works by other artists that encourage heightened perceptual attention to the here and now is as spiritually calming as it is historically illuminating. 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, 845-440-0100, diaart.org. (Johnson)

 International Pop (through May 15) Pop Art has a reputation for being light and bright, but under its sleek veneer lay the social and political pathogens that made the Sixties in America so jumpy. Less familiar is Pops status internationally. And it did get around, flourishing in Cold War Europe, in South American countries under the thumb of military dictatorships; and in Japan, where memories of Hiroshima and the material rewards of Western occupation made for an intensely conflicted culture. The story of that spread is what this brash, acid-tinged show, full of fascinating artists, is about. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org. (Cotter)

Last Chance

 Guggenheim Museum: Photo-Poetics: An Anthology (closes on Sunday) Formally complex and expressively reserved, even hermetic, the work by 10 photographers in this stimulating show has roots in Conceptualism and takes language, history and speculative thinking as its raw materials. Photographs are structured with the equivalent of poetrys metrical cadences and internal rhymes, and treated less as generators of translatable ideas than of suggestive metaphors. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Cotter)

 Jewish Museum: Unorthodox (closes on Sunday) With about 200 putatively unorthodox works crowded into tightly walled-in spaces, this lively show has the feel of an Outsider Art fair  in a good way. The paintings, drawings, collages, assemblages, ceramics, weavings and videos are variously funny, funky, quirky, eccentric, idiosyncratic and visionary. Are they truly unorthodox by the standards of a contemporary art world wherein no one wants to be thought orthodox? No, but thats O.K. Its an entertaining and intermittently exhilarating exhibition nonetheless. 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, 212-423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org. (Johnson)

 Painting Tranquility: Masterworks by Vilhelm Hammershoi From SMK  The National Gallery of Denmark (closes on Saturday) One of Denmarks most celebrated artists, Hammershoi (1864-1916) was known as the painter of tranquil rooms. This beautiful show of 24 paintings includes pictures in severely muted colors of women in nearly empty rooms suffused by atmospheres of mystery and loneliness; misty gray cityscapes, devoid of people, that are like anxiety dreams; and tenderly unflinching portraits of the artists wife, Ida. Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, at 38th Street, 212-779-3587, scandinaviahouse.org. (Johnson)
It didnt take long for Garry Shandling, who died Thursday at the age of 66, to ask the audience what they thought of his hair. As a stand-up comic, he led with his neuroses, telling dark and cuttingly self-deprecating jokes in between wide, needy grins. Im dating a homeless woman, goes the setup to one joke. It was easier talking her into staying over.

If his anxiety could become shtick  his production company was called Hows My Hair?  he turned it into something grander and even tragic in The Larry Sanders Show, his singular, scathingly funny HBO series which not only anticipated the current golden age of television but also a more ambitious strain of brutally honest comedy. As tender as it was cynical, it was a show about friendship and betrayal and loneliness  the King Lear of talk-show satires.

And it wasnt even his first groundbreaking television series. In the mid-1980s, he starred in Its Garry Shandlings Show, a deconstructionist sitcom (created with Alan Zweibel) that destroyed the fourth wall, then played with the rubble. Mr. Shandling played a stand-up comic who constantly interrupted scenes by talking to the audience about being in his own show. His opening theme song underlined the self-references: This is the theme to Garrys show, the theme to Garrys show the jingle started. Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song.
Henri Bonneau, an acclaimed producer of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, whose wines were as renowned for their almost otherworldly beauty, complexity and intensity as they were rare and hard to find, died on March 21 in Marseille, France. He was 77.

The cause was complications of diabetes, said John E. Junguenet of Wines of France, Mr. Bonneaus American importer.

Working in a dank, mold-ridden, dirt-floor cellar in the heart of the town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Provence, and using methods that might have been familiar to any of the 11 generations of vignerons in his family who preceded him, Mr. Bonneau issued powerful wines that recalled how Chateauneuf might have tasted a century or two ago.

From a scant 15 acres of vines, 90 percent grenache, Mr. Bonneau generally produced three cuvees of Chateauneuf. The wine he deemed good was labeled simply Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The better wine was Cuvee Marie Beurrier, named after an aunt of his wife, Jacqueline. Best of all was Reserve des Celestins, a powerful wine that could age for decades, developing savory, meaty, almost saline flavors that seemed dimensions away from the predominantly fruity modern Chateauneufs.
ATLANTIC CITY  This city hurtled on Thursday toward a partial government shutdown that will bring i.o.u.s for police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers, while city and state officials traded blame for the seaside gambling resorts increasingly dire predicament.

Mayor Don Guardian detailed plans for a shutdown of nonessential city services from April 8 to May 2 that had been prompted, he said, by New Jerseys continuing inability to pass a financial rescue package that Gov. Chris Christie, a fellow Republican, has already vetoed twice.

Mr. Guardian said the situation needed to be resolved by an agreement with state officials on long-term help for Atlantic City, which has seen its largest taxpayer, the casino industry, crumble in recent years.

The governor said he would sign two bills seen as crucial to the citys future  a state takeover of Atlantic Citys finances and another bill to allow casinos to make payments in lieu of property taxes  only if they were not amended first. The State Assembly speaker, Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, is refusing to approve the bills in his chamber without guarantees that public employee contracts will be honored after a state takeover  something to which Mr. Christie has not agreed.
Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, dropped a memorable line at the end of his letter this week recommending no prison time for Peter Liang, the former New York City police officer convicted of manslaughter last month in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in a housing project stairwell.

There are no winners here, he wrote.

Mr. Thompson was referring primarily to the two chief players in the tragic drama: Mr. Liangs victim, Akai Gurley  a completely innocent man who lost his life for no reason  and Mr. Liang himself, who has already lost his job and who stands to lose his freedom when he is sentenced next month.

But along the way the case has had winners, and losers, though it has at times been hard to tell them apart. When Mr. Thompsons letter was released on Wednesday, Mr. Gurleys family and criminal-justice reform activists expressed outrage, just several weeks after having applauded Mr. Liangs conviction, and before that his indictment. In a stark but mirroring contrast, the citys police unions and many in its Chinese-American community denounced the indictment and conviction, but they are now praising prosecutors and cheering the prospect that Mr. Liang, who is of Chinese heritage, might avoid prison.

If the best settlements are those in which each side leaves unhappy, then it could be that Mr. Thompson has himself emerged a winner, if a battered one, near the end of the sort of polarizing police misconduct case that can define a district attorneys career. A first-term prosecutor with electoral potential, he had much to lose by even pursuing the case, which was fraught from the start with legal hurdles and political pitfalls.
The de Blasio administration has turned over documents in response to a subpoena by the New York City comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, over the lifting of deed restrictions and the sale of a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that made a $72 million profit for a private nursing home operator.

The city had initially delayed responding to a request by Mr. Stringer to provide information about two sales in close succession of a building at 45 Rivington Street. It had been under a restrictive New York City covenant that required it to be used as a nonprofit residential health care center.

After not receiving a response by Wednesday, Mr. Stringer filed the subpoena  a rarity, his office said. The city produced documents hours later. They are currently under review.

The first sale, for $28 million in February 2015, was by Village Care, which served AIDS patients, to the Allure Group, a nursing home operator. Before the sale, Allure lobbied the city to have the covenant lifted and, in an email in October 2014, promised to maintain the center as a for-profit nursing home.
Nicholas Scoppetta, who as a neglected son of Italian immigrants was rescued by child welfare workers and raised in foster homes, and was later hailed for devoting half a century to public service overseeing New York Citys child welfare, investigation and fire departments, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 83.

The cause was complications of prostate cancer, his son, Eric, said.

Mr. Scoppetta, a Democrat, served under four New York City mayors, twice as investigation commissioner, as deputy mayor for criminal justice, as the first commissioner of the Administration for Childrens Services and as fire commissioner.

As special counsel to the Knapp Commission investigating police corruption in 1970, and as a special assistant federal prosecutor, he was instrumental in enlisting Robert Leuci, a rogue cop turned informer whose risky undercover work as the so-called Prince of the City exposed chronic corruption among fellow narcotics detectives.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani recruited Mr. Scoppetta in 1996 to run the new childrens services agency, which was spun off as an independent entity in response to the murder of Elisa Izquierdo, a 6-year-old who was burned and brutally beaten to death by her mother after child welfare workers had missed opportunities to intervene.
As lawmakers in Albany debate raising New Yorks minimum wage to $15, administrators at New York University said on Thursday that its student workers would be ahead of the curve.

Andrew Hamilton, the universitys president, announced in a memorandum to students and faculty members that the hourly wages of student workers would be steadily increased over the next three academic years, reaching $15 in 2018-19. The raise is part of Dr. Hamiltons broader efforts to address the issue of affordability at N.Y.U. since his arrival in January.

He said the raise was an important way to reduce the burden on families and to ease the pressure that students sometimes feel.

In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio raised the minimum wage for New York City public workers to $15, just as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, did for state employees last year. N.Y.U.s full-time workers, graduate student workers and the full-time employees of major vendors on campus already earn at least $15 an hour, the university said.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey voted on Thursday to spend tens of billions of dollars on transforming La Guardia Airport, enhancing Newark Liberty International Airport and building a new central bus terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

What you witnessed today is the most important board meeting in Port Authority history, said Patrick J. Foye, the authoritys executive director. Mr. Foye said he thought it represented the single largest allocation of capital by the authority in one day.

While the agencys capital spending plan already included major projects at La Guardia and Newark, it did not factor in a new bus terminal. So the decision to finance a new terminal before a final cost had been determined or before a plan or location for the facility had been approved came as something of a surprise.

It reflected the friction and divided priorities to which the authoritys bistate structure can lead  something captured in heated exchanges between John J. Degnan, the chairman of the board, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, and Mr. Foye, appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat.
With the conviction of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for war crimes, a United Nations tribunal has provided an overdue measure of justice for the victims of some of the worst atrocities since World War II. He is the most senior official to be held accountable for the horrific events of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Mr. Karadzic was found guilty of genocide for aiming to kill every able-bodied male in the town of Srebrenica in 1995 and to exterminate the Muslim population there. Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered and their bodies dumped into mass graves. The killings shocked the world and led to NATO airstrikes that helped end the war.

The court also found Mr. Karadzic instrumental in organizing the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, which went on for three years and killed roughly 12,000 residents. It convicted him of driving hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs  Bosnian Muslims and Croats  out of villages claimed by Serb forces under a policy that became known as ethnic cleansing. In sentencing him to 40 years in prison, the tribunal also found Mr. Karadzic, now 70, guilty of taking United Nations employees as hostages to prevent NATO from carrying out airstrikes in the region.

Some Bosnian Muslim victims and their families have understandably complained that the verdict came too late and was not tough enough. The case against Mr. Karadzic was delayed because he eluded capture for more than a decade. After his arrest in Serbia in 2008, the prosecution and court proceedings took years to complete and involved hundreds of witnesses, a process made more complicated in the context of a civil war in which more than 100,000 people were killed.
Among the volley of lies spit out of the coarse mouth of Donald Trump on a daily basis is his claim that hes leading Hillary Clinton in the general election matchup for president. I beat Hillary in many of the polls that have been taken, and each week I get better and better, he said earlier this month.

Nope, not even close. The Bloomberg Poll that came out on Wednesday had Clinton besting Trump, 54 percent to 36. The Wall Street Journal survey had Clinton up by 13. She leads by 10 in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. And shes up 11.4 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of all the polls. With each passing week he actually does much worse.

So, rest assured, yes? At the least, our country wont be in the undersize hands of a crazed narcissist. I wish. What keeps millions of people up at night is the one-trick pony that Trump could ride all the way into the White House: fear. If enough Americans cower in hysteria, Trump might be able to pull this thing off.

Without a filter of decency or a shred of diplomacy, Trump gloated about how the latest mass murder by the Islamic State barbarians helped him. Most political leaders at least expressed sorrow and mourning for the loss of 31 lives in Brussels on Tuesday. Trump called the city a total disaster, and said the fear cast by Islamic State terror is probably why Im No. 1 in the polls.
The first witness in the largest human-trafficking trial in Thai history was called to testify last week in a court in Bangkok. The witness, a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar, told of being beaten and starved by gun-toting captors on the boat that ferried him and more than 200 others to a trafficking camp in Thailand.

That witness is lucky to be alive: The trial was sparked by the grim discovery last May of a mass grave containing more than 30 bodies in a trafficking camp in southern Thailand. Faced with international outrage  and the lowest ranking on the State Departments 2015 Trafficking in Persons report  the Thai government suddenly cracked down on trafficking rings in the region. Unfortunately, that created another catastrophe when thousands of people being held on the boats were abandoned at sea by panicked traffickers.

Traffickers in Thailand profit from Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar, Bangladeshis seeking work, and women and girls sold into the sex trade. Thailands multibillion-dollar fishing industry is also a powerful magnet for trafficking, with victims enslaved on commercial fishing boats. Last month, President Obama signed legislation effectively banning American imports of fish caught by slave labor.

The human-trafficking trial is an opportunity for Thailand to end the impunity that has allowed traffickers, and the officials who collude with them, to operate freely. The 92 defendants in the current trial include politicians, police officers and Lt. Gen. Manas Kongpaen, a senior army officer based in southern Thailand.
An important new report makes clear the principal cause of the water crisis in Flint, Mich.: the state governments blatant disregard for the lives and health of poor and black residents of a distressed city.

The report released Wednesday by a task force appointed last year by Gov. Rick Snyder to study how Flints drinking water became poisoned by lead makes for chilling reading. While it avoids using the word racism, it clearly identifies the central role that race and poverty play in this story. Flint residents, who are majority black or African-American and among the most impoverished of any metropolitan area in the United States, did not enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as that provided to other communities, the report said.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, and many Republicans in Congress have tried to deflect and minimize the states responsibility for the Flint crisis. Mr. Snyder has said the crisis represented a collective failure of local, state and federal governments. And congressional Republicans like Jason Chaffetz of Utah have sought to pin virtually all of the blame on the Environmental Protection Agency, which many of them oppose for ideological reasons.

The task force cut through to the truth and said the agency most at fault was the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which reports to Mr. Snyder. The agency failed to instruct officials in Flint, which was under state control at the time, to treat its water with chemicals that would have prevented lead from leaching from pipes and plumbing fixtures into the drinking water. The agency continuously belittled the concerns of local residents and independent experts, and lied to the E.P.A., telling it that Flint was properly treating the water.
Officials in Charlotte, N.C., spent more than a year carefully considering and debating an antidiscrimination ordinance that was passed in February to promote the citys culture of inclusiveness. State lawmakers quashed it on Wednesday by passing an appalling, unconstitutional bill that bars transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity and prohibits cities from passing antidiscrimination ordinances that protect gay and transgender people.

Gov. Pat McCrory, who signed the bill into law late Wednesday, said it was necessary to undo Charlottes ordinance, which included protections for gay and transgender people, because it allowed men to use womens bathroom/locker room. Proponents of so-called bathroom bills, which have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, have peddled them by spuriously portraying transgender women as potential rapists.

That threat exists only in the imagination of bigots. Supporters of the measures have been unable to point to a single case that justifies the need to legislate where people should be allowed to use the toilet. North Carolina is the first state to pass such a provision.
PHOENIX  Cynthia Perez, a lawyer, stopped by a polling site on her way to work here on Tuesday, thinking she could vote early and get on with her day. She changed her mind when she found a line so long she could not see the end of it.

The line was just as big when she came back midafternoon  and bigger three hours later, after she had finally cast her ballot.

To me, said Ms. Perez, 31, this is not what democracy is about.

Days later, angry and baffled voters are still trying to make sense of how democracy is working in Maricopa County, the states most populous, where officials cut the number of polling places by 70 percent to save money  to 60 from 200 in the last presidential election. That translated to a single polling place for every 108,000 residents in Phoenix, a majority-minority city that had exceptional turnout in Tuesdays Democratic and Republican primaries.

All day, lines meandered along church courtyards, zigzagged along school parking lots and snaked around shadeless blocks as tens of thousands of voters waited to cast their ballots, including many independents who did not know that only those registered to a party could participate in the states closed presidential primaries.
WASHINGTON  A Florida couple on Thursday dropped a lawsuit over the federal governments disclosure of their identities in connection with the F.B.I. investigation that uncovered evidence that David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director at the time, was having an affair.

The couple, Jill and Scott Kelley, accused officials of giving the news media damaging information about them, including details of apparently inappropriate emails between Ms. Kelley and Gen. John R. Allen, then the top American commander in Afghanistan.

The F.B.I. had opened the investigation in 2012, after Ms. Kelley told the bureau that she had received threatening emails from an anonymous sender.

The bureau traced the threatening messages to Paula Broadwell, a former Army officer who had written a biography of Mr. Petraeus. In the course of the investigation, the F.B.I. uncovered the emails between Ms. Kelley and General Allen, as well as evidence that Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell were having an affair.
CHICAGO  The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday dealt another setback to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, ruling that a 2014 law that required Chicago city workers to pay more toward their retirements while also scaling back their future benefits was unconstitutional.

The court said the plan was a violation of the rights of employees, who are protected by the Illinois Constitution under a clause that states pension benefits shall not be diminished or impaired.

The pension protection clause does not guarantee any particular method of funding, but, rather, guarantees the right to be paid, the ruling said.

The decision is likely to make it more difficult for city leaders to resolve a developing financial crisis exacerbated by their obligation to pay into pension funds, which have been underfunded for years and are under increasing pressure as more workers retire and then live longer.
State lawmakers voted on Thursday to extend $48.7 million in emergency aid to keep Detroits school district open for the rest of the academic year and to avoid the prospect of payless paydays for staff. The Republican-led Legislature approved the spending on votes of 104 to 4 in the House and 29 to 7 in the Senate after an agreement was reached on oversight of the schools money. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, plans to sign the legislation. The money is a stopgap while Mr. Snyder presses legislators to enact a $720 million restructuring plan to split the district and pay off $515 million in operating debt over a decade.
WASHINGTON  More people will be enrolled in Medicaid than predicted a year ago, fewer will be covered through the new public insurance marketplaces and the overall cost of insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act will be higher than expected last year, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.

But the cost of insuring people will be substantially lower than the budget agency expected when the law was passed, on party-line votes, in 2010. It now estimates that the cost will total $465 billion in 2016-19, which is 25 percent less than its original estimate.

The law slashed the number of uninsured by expanding Medicaid eligibility and by offering subsidies for private insurance sold in the new marketplaces, or exchanges.

Those provisions of the law are estimated to reduce the number of uninsured people by 22 million and to result in a net cost to the federal government of $110 billion this year, the budget agency said in a new report. The cost of those provisions from 2016 through 2025 is $136 billion higher than projected in last years report, climbing by 11 percent to a total of more than $1.3 trillion.
Muslims tended to lean Republican as recently as 2000, but a backlash after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, along with the Middle East policies of the George W. Bush administration, has led to a gradual shift toward the Democrats. A Pew Research Center survey last year found that 70 percent of American Muslims identify with the Democratic Party, while just 11 percent consider themselves to be Republicans.

Although Muslims make up only about 1 percent of the population in the United States, civil rights groups have set a goal of registering a million new voters. Efforts will be focused on swing states such as Ohio and Florida that have large Muslim populations, potentially giving the small but united voting bloc the power to tilt close elections.

The best answer to this anti-Muslim rhetoric is engagement in the political process, said Naeem Baig, the president of the Islamic Circle of North America. It is a matter of survival for the American Muslim community.

Like many Muslims, Mr. Baig said that the vitriol directed at Americans who practice Islam is the worst that he can remember. Violence against Muslims and attacks on mosques increased last year, and Muslim parents say their children are being bullied at school. Even the voter registration push has drawn criticism in some circles, with websites such as Creeping Sharia lamenting greater Muslim engagement in American politics and suggesting that the problem with CAIRs initiative is that no one who follows the Quran can honestly claim to follow the Constitution.
PEWAUKEE, Wis.  Senator Ron Johnson, a Tea Party conservative up for re-election in a swing state, looked out at a crowd of supporters and reassured them that he and his fellow Republicans would be resolute in blocking President Obamas nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court.

We absolutely will not allow the Supreme Court to flip, Mr. Johnson said on Wednesday evening, drawing thunderous applause at a political forum organized by a local conservative talk-radio host, Charlie Sykes, in this Milwaukee suburb.

Mr. Johnson is widely considered one of the Republican Partys most endangered incumbents in his rematch with Russ Feingold, a liberal Democrat who served three terms in the Senate until his ouster six years ago. But as Mr. Feingold repeatedly hammers Mr. Johnson over the refusal by Senate Republicans to fill the court vacancy  an issue that Democratic leaders believe will help propel them to victory in November  Mr. Johnson is turning the tables with gusto.

Yeah, I am hearing the drumbeat, Do your job! Do your job!  Mr. Johnson said, invoking the Democrats battle cry in their quest to get Judge Garland a hearing. Were doing our job, Mr. Johnson declared, to shouts of yes.
The Kenyan government on Thursday dissolved the national examination board and will arrest its members after they were implicated in widespread cheating on the university entrance exams, officials said. Education Minister Fred Matiangi said the top members of the Kenya National Examination Council had all been implicated in what he called unprecedented cheating in this years exams. Internal Security Minister Joseph Nkaissery ordered the arrest of nine members of the board. About half a million high school students take the exams annually, and last year the results for 5,101 candidates were canceled for cheating. Investigations by a local media outlet suggested that there were many more cases. Kilemi Mwiria, an education official, said the cheating in schools was a crisis, with teachers helping students to cheat and parents buying examination papers.
The Malaysian authorities have arrested 15 people, including a police officer, suspected of links to the Islamic State and of planning an attack in the country, Malaysias police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said Thursday. Some of the suspects received orders from a Malaysian recruiter for the Islamic State in Syria to carry out an attack in Malaysia, Mr. Khalid said in a statement. The suspects are also accused of collecting funds for the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, trying to buy chemicals to make bombs, recruiting fighters and setting up links with other militant groups in the region.
Although much remains unknown about the brothers, who grew up in a working-class Brussels neighborhood and had criminal records in Belgium, there was nothing in the record to suggest any connection to the Bahamas, a tranquil island nation in the Caribbean, and a popular tourist destination.

And indeed, there isnt one.

The suspect in question was NOT a Bahamian national, the Foreign Ministry of the Bahamas said in a statement on Thursday. Belgian authorities have advised that the suspect was a Moroccan citizen at birth, who later assumed Belgian nationality.
I wouldnt want him to clam up, Mr. Mary added. His clamming up would make us face other Zaventems and other Bataclans. He was referring to the Belgian airport and to the Paris concert hall where 90 people were killed by gunmen on Nov. 13.

Yet the track record of information gleaned from other terrorists captured in Europe is not necessarily promising.

The police had under lock and key the gunman who attacked a high-speed train traveling between Brussels and Paris last August. Yet it was of no help in staving off the November attack, even though the operation is thought to have had the same mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

And the police have evidently learned little from Mehdi Nemmouche, the taciturn killer who fired on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014 and has hardly talked since, according to Belgian news media.

Similar disappointments may lie in store for Mr. Abdeslams interrogators. Hes someone who is very central, yet he pulled back from Paris, and in the case of Brussels he didnt participate in the execution, said Thomas Renard, a terrorism expert at the Egmont Institute in Belgium. He didnt go all the way to the end.

And yet, in the case of Brussels, one can imagine that if he wanted this to happen, all he would have to do was keep his mouth shut, Mr. Renard said. Which is what Mr. Abdeslam did.

Belgian authorities are looking into links between Mr. Abdeslam and the brothers who set off the bombs, the Bakraouis. He was hiding out in an apartment that the authorities suspect was rented by one of the brothers in the Brussels neighborhood of Forest when the police raided it on March 15.
Local residents and witnesses told French television stations that the surrounding area had been blocked off.

This operation followed an important arrest carried out this morning by the General Directorate for Internal Security, Mr. Cazeneuve said, referring to Frances domestic surveillance agency, adding that the arrest had made it possible to thwart an attack plot in France that was in advanced stages of planning.

Mr. Cazeneuve, who was speaking from the Interior Ministry in Paris, said the person arrested was suspected of being involved at a high level in the plot and was part of a terrorist network that planned to carry out attacks in France. The minister did not address whether the suspect had any Islamic State connection.
Amid the gloom, there was also heroism. Alphonse Youla, a Belgian of African origin who wrapped luggage at the airport, was credited with spiriting several people to safety, according to Belgian news agencies, which reported that he carried people whose legs had been shattered from the ruined terminal, even as the ceiling was crashing in.

Some Belgians expressed outrage at remarks by the Republican presidential contender Donald J. Trump, who had called Brussels a hell hole and, after the attacks Tuesday, reiterated his criticism of Muslim communities.

They were similarly upset by the comments of Eric Zemmour, a French writer who after the Paris attacks said the French government should bomb Molenbeek rather than the Islamic States self-declared capital in Raqqa, Syria.

On Thursday in Molenbeek, as residents bartered in Arabic at a vegetable and fruit market, Lieven Soete, 73, one of the relatively few native-born Belgians shopping there, said he had come, as he did every Thursday, to show that he would not be cowed. He said his neighbor, an older Moroccan man, had been inconsolable since the attacks.There is a shadow over Molenbeek. But we cant solve this by making our neighbors the enemy, he said. If Donald Trump calls us a hell hole, I feel proud.Muslims in Molenbeek said they felt under siege. Samia, 32, who is of Moroccan origin and has three children but declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, said she felt sick about what had happened, and feared a backlash against Muslims.I am Belgian, too, I was raised here, and now my 5-year-old son asks me to close the blinds because he is afraid of being shot by terrorists, Samia said as two friends wearing Islamic headscarves nodded somberly.She said the looks of suspicion in recent days on the streets of Brussels had been difficult to bear.
CAIRO  The Interior Ministry said Thursday that Egyptian officers killed four men who the ministry suggested were responsible for the murder of an Italian doctoral student whose brutalized body was found in early February showing extensive signs of torture.

In a statement released on its Facebook page, the ministry said that the men were part of a gang that preyed on foreigners and that officers had killed them during a shootout. The authorities later found property belonging to the student, Giulio Regeni, at the home of a sister of one of the gang members, the statement said.

However, the prosecutor investigating Mr. Regenis case told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had no information about the gang and said there are no suspects.

The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been under pressure to solve the killing of Mr. Regeni since his disappearance in late January, because of a growing conviction around the world that Egypts security forces were responsible. The case has drawn outrage in Italy.
LONDON  One day in the late 1960s, the novelist Edna OBrien was strolling around London with Marlon Brando, with whom she had just spent a (chaste) night. Are you a great writer? Brando asked.

I dont know, she replied, but I intend to be.

Its a story that Ms. OBrien, 85, the grande dame of Irish literature, recounts in her memoir, Country Girl, and its an ambition that many believe she has achieved, including Philip Roth, who put it this way in an email: She is among the handful of most accomplished living writers in the English language.

Her most recent novel, The Little Red Chairs, to be published by Little, Brown and Company on Tuesday in the United States, is partly set in Ms. OBriens native Ireland, but its subject is far wider. The tale begins with a mysterious figure who arrives in a village on the west coast of Ireland, and sets himself up as a holistic healer. Doctor Vlad, as he is known, quickly becomes a subject of fascination in the village, not least to the childless, unhappily married Fidelma. His identity is soon clear; he is a Balkan war criminal in hiding, the author of appalling suffering.

The consequences of Doctor Vlads brief relationship with Fidelma are the subject of Ms. OBriens novel. As she put it recently, I wanted to take a dreadful situation and the havoc and harm that it yields, and show how it spirals out into the world at large.
A major transmission project aimed at bringing wind energy out of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle cleared a significant hurdle on Friday as the Energy Department announced it would allow the project to go forward.

The development, led by Clean Line Energy Partners, had been delayed because of resistance from state lawmakers, but the federal decision is a green light for the project.

The decision also signals that the Obama administration remains committed to encouraging the spread of renewable energy, seen as a major component of reaching national goals on stemming climate change. Multiple companies are hoping to build high-voltage transmission lines to transport renewable energy produced by wind farms and hydroelectric plants to more populous regions of the country.
The mayor, despite being puzzled by Rye Brooks role in the alleged plot, had several theories about why the villages sluice-gate dam had been singled out. One was that the Iranian hackers had confused the structure with another named Bowman  the Arthur R. Bowman Dam on the Crooked River in Oregon, which is 245 feet tall and 800 feet long, and is used to irrigate a large swath of local farms.

Mayor Rosenberg also speculated that the hackers had gone after the Rye Brook dam in a dry run for a more disruptive invasion of, say, a major hydroelectric generator or some other grand and indispensable element of the nations power grid.

Any attempt to remotely manipulate the Bowman Avenue dam would have failed because it was under repair and offline at the time that the authorities say the Iranians were trying to take it over. American investigators were nevertheless disturbed because the attempt indicated that hackers could take control of computer-operated infrastructure.

Despite being unsung, the dam  which is less than 15 miles north of the Bronx and is in a thicket of brush and boulders near Interstate 287, a shopping center, a local middle school and hundreds of homes  has a history dating to the early 1900s. In those pre-refrigeration days, what is now the Upper Pond was used to produce ice; there was a quarry, since closed, on what is now the Lower Pond.
The animosity between the two men on Staten Island festered for years. Anthony Morales believed that Anthony Rivera, his neighbor in the Mariners Harbor Houses, owed him $15,000, and he would not let the 21-year-old forget about it, law enforcement officials said.

When they crossed paths on Roxbury Street on Thursday evening, as Mr. Rivera repaired the brakes on his friends Honda Civic, officials said, Mr. Morales, 49, brought up the dispute once again. Mr. Rivera tried to brush him off.

Wrong move, Mr. Morales replied, according to officials.

Mr. Morales, investigators said, pulled out a gun and opened fire, striking Mr. Rivera three times, and then shot his mother, Idelle Rivera, 47, in the head as she hurried out of the familys first-floor apartment to see what was going on.

They were taken to Richmond University Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead, the authorities said.
To the Editor:

Re I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing (Sunday Review, March 20):

Anthony Banbury has done well to draw attention to some crucial failings of the United Nations. We each worked for 20 years for the world body and are acutely aware of its weaknesses. But he excoriates a bureaucracy that is not the cause of the failings he identifies, and in the process reinforces existing prejudices about a bloated and protected international civil service, injuring the organization he says he loves.

The United Nations does have cumbersome managerial and bureaucratic procedures that must be fixed. But responsibility for most of the peacekeeping failures at the heart of Mr. Banburys argument lies squarely with the member states of the Security Council, not United Nations management practices.

For example, Mr. Banbury says that in Mali 56 peacekeepers have died because the mission is prohibited from engaging in counterterrorism operations. But that prohibition came directly from the Security Council, which always defines the robustness of each peacekeeping missions engagement.

Similarly, the lengthy duration of missions that Mr. Banbury bemoans are determined by the Security Council.
SAN FRANCISCO  The resounding win by a Google artificial intelligence program over a champion in the complex board game Go this month was a statement  not so much to professional game players as to Googles competitors.

Many of the tech industrys biggest companies, like Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft, are jockeying to become the go-to company for A.I. In the industrys lingo, the companies are engaged in a platform war.

A platform, in technology, is essentially a piece of software that other companies build on and that consumers cannot do without. Become the platform and huge profits will follow. Microsoft dominated personal computers because its Windows software became the center of the consumer software world. Google has come to dominate the Internet through its ubiquitous search bar.

If true believers in A.I. are correct that this long-promised technology is ready for the mainstream, the company that controls A.I. could steer the tech industry for years to come.
In the annals of the show must go on stories, the New York production of the Swedish drama The Hundred We Are stands out for its gallantry. Jonas Hassen Khemiris original script, a portrait of a woman at war with her various selves, calls for a cast of three.

The Origin Theater production, which runs through April 8 at the Cell in Chelsea, features four actresses, one of whom never speaks until the plays final scene. Her lines are voiced instead by an interpolated character, identified in the program as Shadow, a character whose symbolic significance remains fuzzy at best.

Audience members in search of enlightenment are advised to read the lengthy explanatory essay included in the program. In it Erwin Maas, the shows director, says that only days before opening, we arrived at a point of no return. The problem, evidently, was that the eldest of the three actresses was having trouble remembering her lines.

Mr. Maas writes: I felt we had two options: 1. To try and hide the struggles most of us have, or will have, as we grow older, ie. Run away from them, like most do, or 2. to run toward these embarrassments, taboos, and this uncomfortable reality, and, instead, openly expose and address it.
LAWRENCE, Mass.  When Eddie Frasca was shooting up heroin, he occasionally sought out its more potent, lethal cousin, fentanyl.

It was like playing Russian roulette, but I didnt care, said Mr. Frasca, 30, a carpenter and barber who said he had been clean for four months. When he heard that someone had overdosed or even died from fentanyl, he would hunt down that batch.

Id say to myself, Im going to spend the least amount of money and get the best kind of high I can,  he said.
The United States Department of Education says more students who were defrauded by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges can get their loans forgiven. Students who were defrauded at 91 campuses operating as Everest or WyoTech in 20 states can apply for forgiveness through the departments website, Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said Friday. Corinthian, a former chain of for-profit colleges, sold or closed its schools last year amid fraud allegations. The Education Department says it has found fraud at more than 100 campuses. The department has already approved loan discharges for more than 8,800 of the chains former students, totaling more than $130 million.
BURLINGTON, Vt.  On the night of the New Hampshire primary, the high-water mark of his presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called his rout of Hillary Clinton nothing short of the beginning of a political revolution and vowed to stop the billionaire class from buying elections.

It was barely different from the speech he gave March 15, the day he lost five of five primaries, when he asked thousands of his adoring fans: Are you ready for a political revolution? Are you tired of a handful of billionaires running our economy?

Nor, for that matter, was it much changed from his address to a spaghetti dinner of the Addison County Community Action Group in 1984, when he called for a political revolution and urged working people to take power from a very small group of wealthy people.
As he tries to halt the momentum of Donald J. Trump, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio tells people they are made special by the Lord. He urges them to invite lonely widows out to dinner. He freely dispenses hugs.

Mr. Kasichs aura of civility, kindness and positivity is so pronounced  and so at odds with the fulminations of the real estate mogul  that an anxious voter in Worcester, Mass., wondered whether he could summon the combativeness required to be an effective president.

I worry that youre just so nice, the woman said.

Mr. Kasichs colleagues in Ohio and Washington do not share that worry. In interviews, they recall a three-decade career in government punctuated by scolding confrontations, intemperate critiques and undiplomatic remarks.

Today, as Mr. Kasich makes comity a centerpiece of his long-shot bid for the Republican nomination, they describe his candidacy as an exercise in remarkable self-restraint that has managed to keep his crankier instincts mostly out of sight.
Senator Ted Cruz on Friday accused Donald J. Trump and his henchmen of peddling an article in a supermarket tabloid alleging that Mr. Cruz had engaged in extramarital affairs.

Mr. Cruz called the report, published by The National Enquirer, a piece of garbage, replete with utter lies. He said that the truth does not matter to Mr. Trump.

He will lie and go to sleaze, Mr. Cruz told reporters after a campaign stop in Wisconsin. Well, that sleaze has no place in politics, and I hope the American people are fed up with it.

In a statement, Mr. Trump denied playing any role in The Enquirers article.

I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this weeks issue of The National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it, he said.
The widening investigation by security officers suggests that they have so far been unable to pinpoint the origins of the letter but are under pressure to do so.

The letter, signed by Loyal Communist Party Members, was sent by email to people with ties to China around the time it appeared on Wujie, shortly after 12:01 a.m. on March 4. Bill Bishop, the editor of Sinocism, a China newsletter, said he received it in his Gmail inbox at 10:37 p.m. on March 3 in the Washington, D.C., area, where he lives. Strange, he said.

On Twitter, Mr. Wen, the activist, urged President Obama to ask Mr. Xi to release his parents and brother. He kidnapped them on March 22, Mr. Wen wrote. Mr. Xi is expected to visit the United States next week for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

Mr. Wen said in the interview that his sister-in-law had told him that his parents and his younger brother, Wen Yunao, a driver for a local government, were all missing. Mr. Wen said his sister-in-law had given no details of when or how his parents disappeared but had said Wen Yunao, her husband, was taken away by officials.

Starting this month, Mr. Wen said, the police and officials repeatedly visited his father, Wen Shaogan, 71, and mother, Qiu Xiaohua, 64, at their home in Jiexi County, Guangdong Province, and told them that Mr. Wen had to admit to helping spread the letter.

At the start, they said they wanted to know if I had anything to do with the open letter calling for Xi Jinping to resign, Mr. Wen said. But on the 17th, they said directly that they knew I hadnt written the letter but believed I had something to do with spreading it. They promised that if I told them who wrote the letter and passed it on to me, and how I spread it around, then I would not be held culpable and it would not be held against my family. Otherwise, they said, my younger brother might lose his job.

Mr. Wen, a vocal critic of the Chinese government who is also known by the pen name Bei Feng, said he had passed on a message to the officials through his parents that he had nothing to do with writing or distributing the letter.
HONG KONG  The appearance of a missing Hong Kong bookseller who returned on Thursday from mainland China has done little to quell public doubts about his case. One day after he spoke to the police and immigration officers in Hong Kong, local news media reported that the bookseller, Lee Bo, had returned to mainland China.

Mr. Lees murky case has stirred worries in Hong Kong about threats to press freedom and the rule of law. He and four other people connected with Mighty Current Media, a publisher of purported tell-alls about Chinas leaders, disappeared in recent months, only to emerge in apparent police custody in mainland China.

Much of Mighty Currents work was critical of the Chinese authorities, but upon his return to Hong Kong, Mr. Lee gave an interview to a Chinese broadcaster that praised the government.

I feel the mainland has prospered and the motherland is affluent and powerful, he told Phoenix Television. As a Chinese, I feel proud. I plan to take my son back to the mainland for medical treatment later. My feeling is, as a Hongkonger, if Hong Kong wants development, it must closely rely on the mainland, the motherland.
SEOUL, South Korea  A man claiming to be a naturalized American citizen held in North Korea since October confessed to committing crimes against the country and pleaded for mercy on Friday, news agencies reported from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

The man, Kim Dong-chul, appeared at a government-arranged news conference and apologized for trying to steal military secrets in collusion with South Koreans, the Kyodo News agency of Japan reported. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, carried a similar report.

Mr. Kim, in a blue suit, kept his head bowed and his hands folded in front of him as uniformed North Korean officials escorted him to the news conference, according to photos carried by Kyodo on its website.

Mr. Kims detainment was disclosed when the North Korean government arranged for CNN to interview him in Pyongyang in January.
MANILA  The Philippines has released a cargo ship linked to North Korea that it had seized as part of tough new United Nations sanctions imposed on the reclusive country, an official said on Friday.

There is no longer any basis to continue to hold the M.V. Jin Teng, said Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. The Jin Teng, a 4,355-ton vessel, had been held since March 4 in Subic Bay, a port 50 miles north of Manila.

The ship flew a Sierra Leone flag and was linked through registration to other countries, Philippine officials said, but it carried a crew of 21 North Korean sailors and was one of 31 vessels that had been listed as owned by North Korea under an annex to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2270. The resolution was passed to punish Pyongyang for a nuclear test it conducted in January and a long-range rocket test last month.

The Jin Teng and three other vessels were later removed from the list of ships to be searched and seized under the resolution, Reuters reported this week. The report said China had asked for their removal from the list, quoting its ambassador to the United Nations as saying the ships did not belong to Ocean Maritime Management Company, a North Korean shipping firm targeted by the sanctions.
BRUSSELS  Counterterrorism officials widened a sweep targeting suspected Islamic State operatives to several European countries on Friday, reporting newly uncovered links between the Brussels and Paris massacres, at least five arrests and the foiling of what France described as an advanced plan for another attack.

The actions reflected both new momentum from information uncovered since the Brussels bombings on Tuesday and deep worries about missed opportunities to thwart the attacks. European officials, particularly in Belgium, have come under strong criticism for lapses that might have enabled the Brussels plotters to succeed.

President Francois Hollande of France, who has declared a state of war with the Islamic State, praised the police work carried out in recent days but said that we know that there are other networks affiliated with the extremist organization and lurking in Europe.

Even if the one that carried out the attacks in Paris and in Brussels is in the process of being wiped out  with a certain number of its members arrested  there is always a threat weighing upon us, Mr. Hollande said in Paris.
AMSTERDAM  Before Elita Borbor Weah set foot in Brussels Airport on Tuesday, her family was already in mourning.

A native of Liberia who lived in Deventer, the Netherlands, Ms. Weah was on her way to the United States to attend a funeral in Rhode Island when she was killed in the attack on the airport.

A member of a large family spread across the world, Ms. Weah, 41, was one of eight siblings. Many of her relatives were to meet in Providence to attend her stepfathers memorial. Her death was confirmed by a family member in Rhode Island.

In the moments before her death, Ms. Weah posed for a photograph in the airport, bundled up in a black winter coat and scarf. Her brother, Oscar Weah, said the photograph was taken around 8 a.m. on Tuesday. He had planned to pick her up from the airport in New York later that day.
Brussels - 25 March 2016 1. SOUNDBITE (English) John Kerry, US Secretary of State: Daesh (Islamic State group) has claimed responsibility for these attacks. But there is not a government on earth that supports the terrorists of Daesh - not one. In fact a coalition of 66 nations including Belgium stand united against them. And the very reason that Daesh is resorting to actions outside the Middle East is that its fantasy of a caliphate is collapsing before their eyes. Its territory is shrinking everyday, its leaders are being decimated, its revenue sources are dwindling and its fighters are fleeing. So as weve said many times, (US) President (Barack) Obama, myself and others, our mission to defeat and destroy Daesh is not going to be accomplished overnight, its going to take sometime and patience and persistence. It will require resources and commitment and cooperation across may cultures and beliefs and the recognition that this is in fact truly a global challenge. But I am absolutely confident that we will be successful and there are so many measurable ways in which we have already been rising to meet this particular challenge. ++BLACK++ 2. SOUNDBITE (English) John Kerry, US Secretary of State: No act of terror can undermine the foundation of our friendship and the values that define our alliance. Our fundamental openess, tolerance and diversity, our pursuit of justice, our dedication to preserving the blessings of freedom for ourselves, our children and generations to come. On Tuesday, lives were viciously cut short and hundreds were injured. It is with irreplaceable loss in mind that we will renew our vow to come together against a common enemy in order to keep our people safe. And it is with their memory in our hearts that we must always stand in solidarity as friends, as allies and partners.
WASHINGTON  American Special Operations forces in eastern Syria killed a top Islamic State commander this week, Pentagon officials said Friday, part of a monthslong campaign the Obama administration boasts is eviscerating the Islamic State even as the group continues to demonstrate the power to sow violence in Western Europe.

The American forces originally hoped to capture the commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, and were following his vehicle in at least two helicopters, according to a senior military official who requested anonymity. But their plan to land Special Operations fighters, seize Mr. Qaduli and return him to the helicopter changed for unknown reasons, and they fired on the vehicle instead, killing him.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced Mr. Qadulis death, describing him as the groups top financier, but he offered few details of how he had been killed. Mr. Carter said the military effort against the Islamic State was gaining momentum, repeating a claim he has made for the past three months. He said the group was steadily being drained of leaders, soldiers and money, and was losing its grip on the parts of Iraq and Syria it had controlled.

Image An undated photograph released by the United States State Department of Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, an Islamic State leader.



Credit... State Department/European Pressphoto Agency

The announcement came just three days after the Islamic State killed 31 people in a series of explosions in Brussels, showing in gruesome fashion that its abilities to conduct large-scale terrorist attacks are hardly diminished. But the weeks events could offer a glimpse of what is to come in the next year as the Islamic State and the United States-led coalition to defeat it engage in a series of punches and counterpunches, with each side claiming the upper hand.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  After days of raging battles with Islamic State militants, Syrian Army units and allied government militias backed by intensive Russian airstrikes on Friday recaptured the strategically important citadel in Palmyra, Syrian state television reported, citing a military source.

The army has been edging closer to Palmyra as its units continue fighting ISIS terrorists in the vicinity of the ancient city establishing control over Palmyra Castle after inflicting heavy losses on ISIS terrorists, said the state news agency, SANA.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, confirmed the reports, noting that the government forces had reached the ancient castle with the help of Russian special forces and Al Fatimiyen, a brigade made up of Afghans who were living in Iran.

Some opposition activists were dubious of the reports from government-dominated news media. Nothing proves they took the castle yet, said Khaled al-Homsi, a Palmyra native who is an anti-government activist related to an archaeology expert and former official who was killed by the Islamic State when it overran the city.
Part of giving them the news is allowing them to feel like theyve done everything they could  to the extent that you can validate their cause or their effort while at the same time saying this isnt a great fit, he said. You have to be firm but compassionate.

Marianne Philbin, executive director of the Pierce Family Foundation in Chicago and also a lecturer on philanthropic issues, says that as hard as saying no can be for philanthropists, it doesnt get easier with time.

The earlier you can make a decline for legitimate reasons, the less painful it is for everybody, she said. The sooner you can establish is there a fit here or not, the more respectful you are of everyones time.

The Pierce foundation, she said, focuses on funding services for the homeless in Chicago but more specifically on making grants to help organizations with operating expenses. She said having such a specific screen limits most of the applications that would be outside the scope of what it would fund.

When declines are the most difficult is when an agency is taken through a laborious process that takes up time from board members and staff and the C.E.O. and it still comes out with a no, she said. It is much more difficult than working with a foundation that has a very fine screen at the front end so the grant seeker can find out sooner rather than later if theres a real possibility there.

Ms. Ditkoff said she had one philanthropic client who was brutally honest in his rejections. He says, I dont want to beat around the bush. This isnt something Id invest in. I could waste your time by sending you to my executive director and waste her time as well.

That kind of bluntness isnt the norm, she said.

Yet no, if presented in the right light, can be helpful to an organization. Melissa Beck, executive director of Educational Foundation of America, which gives money to arts, environmental and reproductive rights organizations, said she often focused on the reason behind a no and how it could benefit an organization.
Murray Moss said that he began to support Studio Job when he fell in love with the idea of a design object that speaks about its function rather than trying to fulfill it. Dont expect to sit in a Job chair with any ease; think of it as a seat-shaped sculpture that sparks thought about what a chair means, and about all the chairs that have come before it. They are trying to get to the root of certain archetypes, said Mr. Labaco, the curator. They dont have the answers, but they are interested in posing the questions.

Sometimes Job objects operate as full-blown critiques, as in the immensely showy, wildly expensive pieces in their Robber Baron series, which includes a table shaped like a manufacturing plant spewing smoke. Some critics have billed the series as dealing with 19th-century issues, in keeping with its title, but Mr. Moss said that it addressed the unequal world of today, in a comical, over-the-top comment on the kind of furniture an oligarch would like. (A 2008 edition originally listed for $180,000 sold out.) Mr. Smeets imagines that the table might even be bought by such a magnate, oblivious to its critical edge but entranced by its price tag and the sheer splash it makes in a living room, and then he might put that Robber Baron piece next to a very kitschy patinated bronze panther. I love that.

The studios 20,000-square-foot workshop is home to more than 20 artisans who labor on each piece for months, and dubious comparisons have been made between Jobs work and the miraculous objects once produced for the royal courts of Europe. But the designers themselves insist that skill is a red herring in understanding their projects: All the objects in the history of art that are too related to technique are never interesting any more, Mr. Smeets said. If all you want is painstaking craft, check out the life-size glass mermaids or bronze panthers that decorate many a Palm Beach condo. Or, the designers said, look at the laboriously made prototypes that eventually get turned out as shiny cars or modernist water jugs, as utterly flawless as any Faberge egg. The big difference between those prototypes and the pieces from Studio Job is that modernist designers do their best to hide the craft that gives birth to their pieces, whereas Studio Job objects always take care to look beautifully sculpted.

Its a statement that its handmade  its a statement against industrial design, said Juan Garcia Mosqueda, a young design dealer who invited the couple to curate the inaugural show at his new Chamber gallery on West 23rd Street in New York. At just the moment when a computer-mad design world has been heading to the immaterial, Mr. Mosqueda said, theyve spent the last 15 years perfecting a material practice.

Ms. Tynagel and Mr. Smeets are now at work on a piece that may sum up their career. Its a standard urinal cast in bronze and then erected atop a sculptures pedestal, in obvious homage to Marcel Duchamps landmark Fountain, now in its 100th year. Theres just one difference between the ready-made original and Jobs bronze remake: The new one is fully plumbed for use.
UPPER NYACK, N.Y.  On an idyllic hilltop that slopes down to the Hudson River, about 40 minutes northwest of New York City, a rustic retreat owned by the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine has been transformed into the Meyerist Movement compound.

A religious movement  some call it a cult  Meyerism offers adherents the promise of leaving behind all their pain and suffering by climbing the rungs of a metaphorical ladder toward the Light and postapocalyptic immortality. In the spare cabins that dot the property, one can even find pamphlets promising guidance in overcoming domestic abuse, marital infidelities and other ills of modern existence.

Its all part of the fictional world of The Path, Hulus first full-fledged hourlong drama series. The show represents the streaming services latest effort at ramping up its original programming in the battle with Netflix, Amazon and of course, every broadcast and cable network.

The creation of Jessica Goldberg, a playwright (Better, Refuge) turned TV writer (Parenthood), the show stars Michelle Monaghan, Aaron Paul and Hugh Dancy as three movement members locked in a love triangle. But at heart, the show (the first two episodes will be released Wednesday, March 30) is a thriller about faith.
The narrator herself, a shy, somewhat passive girl, is also a sharp observer of the unwanted afterlife wed all been thrust into, following the death of her brother, and of the continuing dramas of her two aunts Vivie and Bec, and her mother, Ada, a volatile character who is also the family beauty. It is the lives of these three older women, along with the branching tributaries of their parents, relatives, lovers, spouses and children, that constitute the narrative of the book  though it is the children, perhaps, who are portrayed most empathically. Much of the action takes place in childhood, and Poliner has a keen eye for the awkwardness and sudden leaping insights of adolescents on the brink of adulthood.

Because Mollys family is religious, the book also dwells on domestic Jewish rituals, lavishing special attention on the Sabbath, the Queen of Days, that stretch of 24 hours ingeniously engineered by the ancient rabbis to honor God, and while doing so, lasso the family into relaxed togetherness. For the Syrkin brood, the Sabbath cuts two ways, because it also signals the moment when the women and their children must clean house after a few low-key seaside days together and brace themselves for the arrival of needy husbands returning from the city in a weekend quest for food, rest, sex and succor: Shabbos was soon to arrive, which meant the men would be returning, and the sisters, so entwined with each other during the week, would unravel and split, like branches on a tree.

Poliner is an effective chronicler of that fraught interspace where ancient Jewish custom butts up against the shiny modernity of American life. In the words of Saul Bellow, The Jews were strange to the world for a great length of time, and now the world is being strange to them in return. Its clear that right outside the Jewish enclave of Bagel Beach, the Other begins, and that Other, particularly with the acrid taint of the Holocaust still lingering in the air, is a source both of temptation and of threat.

The book has a loose, digressive structure, and its specific plot details  struggling business ventures, intercultural love interests, betrayals, lesbian affairs, end-of-life regrets and, of course, the central, resonating tragedy  can sound a bit soapy in summary, as if the author were trying to cover all the dramatic bases. Yet Poliner also deserves kudos for the warm, particularized light in which she dresses her many characters. As Close to Us as Breathing is a big-hearted roundelay of a novel that, among other things, performs the invaluable service of recovering a lost world.
KNOCKOUT

Stories

By John Jodzio

196 pp. Soft Skull Press. Paper, $15.95.

The title story of Knockout features a neck pinchhold to knock humans and other animals unconscious: The giraffe was very elegant in the way it fell, slowly dropping to its knees and then gently tipping over on its side with a slight puff of breath. The protagonist loves that his buddy knocks him out and writes a few words or draws an octopus on his butt, and he reciprocates with his own words and sketches. He finds this exchange poignant, a chance to finally be able to communicate some of my struggles with another human being.

John Jodzios entire collection is tremendously funny and well written, every story inventive and a pleasure to read. At each finish, though, theres a noticeable emptiness. The endings are truncated and unsatisfying, and this is partly because the characters arent quite real. Theyve been sacrificed for oddity. In the same way George Saunderss much praised Tenth of December is limited by being only about morons, Jodzios work is limited by being only about freaks involved in freakish events.

Chet begins with someone dying from an elk bite. Then a demented priest tries to dig him up, and our protagonist, who works in a family-run power plant (odd enough in itself), Tasers him and also Tasers others, including a little kid who attracts crows and can foretell death. Inside Work features a nut job who hides bottles of cologne, cocktail napkins and a chicken taco under her breasts and then forgets about them. There are several panty stealers and stalkers, a gratuitous burning man in the road, a bounty hunter who tracks down roommates who try to leave him, a woman who never lets her kid out of the house, attacks from eagles, an anthropologist carried off for sacrifice and a boy who ties a bag of poop to helium balloons, then sends his dead dog aloft, then his sisters actor-boyfriend. All fun, but we dont care that the boyfriend is going to die, because we havent cared about or believed anyone here. One of the stories is intentionally speculative (wounded Canadian soldiers enduring an American attack due to global warming), but in other stories, Jodzio is aiming for Chekhovian endings that fail because they lack earlier dramatic development and believable weight and are about people who are only ideas.

The final story, Our Mom-and-Pop Opium Den, does offer more fully developed relationships, a dramatic arc, an important decision and consequences. The setting is richly imagined, and the switch from hardware stores to opium stores, competing against Opium Depot, is a brilliant bit of the unreal. The only weakness is that the protagonist is desperately missing his ex-fiancee in the same way that most of the protagonists in this collection are desperately missing an ex.
THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH

Stories

By Ayelet Tsabari

256 pp. Random House. $26.

Ayelet Tsabaris first collection of short stories shows what its like to be both Jewish and Arab in Israel. Chances are you live in an iffy neighborhood and European Jews look down on you. Bombings, military service and Scud missiles intrude. Youll find family melodrama and a tangy whiff of chick lit mixed in with scenes that could come straight from M*A*S*H. Should I get it on with this cute paratrooper? How can my daughter refuse to circumcise my grandson? Why did my husband sleep with some Rona from Haifa a couple of years ago?

If all this seems lacking in the gravitas implied by the heritage of its author, who was born in Israel to a family of Yemeni descent and served in the Israeli Army, just try picking up this book without having your preconceived notions prodded into a mess of noisy contradictions. And its all done so lightly. The Best Place on Earth wears its identity politics like a macrame bikini.

In Casualties, a 19-year-old Israeli Army medic is a Moroccan firecracker, and her Ashkenazi boyfriend, Oren, stationed far away in Gaza, is depressed. One night in Tel Aviv, after her fifth shot of tequila, shes in the bathroom of a bar with that cute paratrooper. Shes also selling gimel forms, get-off-the-base passes that she forges, at 50 bucks a pop. Its seemingly harmless fun until Oren calls to talk about his units raid on a Palestinian house: They all sit in the corner, Mom, Dad, three kids, looking at me with these eyes. . . . And the sergeant is opening doors and drawers and throwing everything everywhere. Food. Underwear. Books. . . . When we got back to the base he was making fun of me in front of the whole platoon. . . . I couldnt trash their house. I froze.

Its the collections only brief detour into the Palestinian point of view. Tsabari has said that some publishers rejected her manuscript because she didnt mention more about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In response, she argues that she was drawn to the schisms between Mizrahi (Jews from the Middle East) and Ashkenazi (Jews from Europe) because their divergent loyalties have been overshadowed or downplayed. For many readers, Israeli literature is associated with the existential intensity of giants like Amos Oz, Aharon Appelfeld and David Grossman. Among these well-known figures, it has been primarily left to A. B. Yehoshua, born in 1936, a fifth-generation Sephardic Jew with a Moroccan mother, to write of the alienation and anguish of the Mizrahi.
It is one of the great investment conundrums of our time: Why do so many stockholders cheer when a company announces that its buying back shares?

Stated simply, repurchase programs can be hazardous to a companys long-term financial health and often signal a management that has run out of better ways to invest in the business.

And yet investors love them.

Not all stock repurchases are bad, of course. But given the enormous popularity of buybacks nowadays, those that are harmful probably outnumber the beneficial.

Those who run companies like buybacks because they make their earnings look better on a per-share basis. When fewer shares are outstanding, each one technically earns more.
There are few things more sobering for two young people than trying to outrun the police in Karachi, Pakistan, after they catch you drunkenly making out in the middle of the night.

I had returned to Karachi from the United States for a few weeks to visit family and friends, and the night started like any other Saturday: drinks at a friends place and then dancing at a club. I was born into a family with some money, and my class privilege affected nearly every aspect of my life in Karachi, so Ill be the first to admit that my experience is not the same as every other Pakistanis. As a high schooler in the city, I drank, I smoked hashish, I grinded on boys. I even had my first kiss in seventh grade.

With a warm coat of liquor on, I cuddled up next to a friend, S. I met him when I was in eighth grade. Over the years, we developed a deep friendship that survived my move to the States in 2004. I trusted him. That night, we danced a little too close for it to be friendly. I was comfortable exploring where it might lead.

The problem with living abroad, as we like to call it in Pakistan, is that you tend to forget about everyday nuances there, like how difficult it is for two single consenting adults to find a private place to be intimate. In other words, S. and I had nowhere to go.
Even relatively shallow water can knock you off your feet, says George Spearing, a retired firefighter from New Zealand who has crossed hundreds of rivers on solo wilderness treks, including a five-month, 2,650-mile hike from the Mexican border to British Columbia and a six-week journey along Waless coastline. Each time I cross a river, the power of water amazes me, he says.

If water obstructs your path, first spend some time watching it. Explore the edge. Throw a stick in. If the floating stick moves faster than you can walk, find a wider, shallower crossing where the current is slower. Always look downstream for hazards. If you fall in, you dont want to go over a rapid or a waterfall, Spearing says.

Rivers rise and fall. Conditions change rapidly. If youre stymied by a crossing, consider waiting to see if the water drops. Streams and rivers fed by snowmelt will be lowest in the early morning. Whatever you do, dont be cavalier. Spearing calls water crossings the No. 1 hazard, a danger familiar to New Zealanders. The countrys swollen rivers pulled under so many early European settlers that by the 1870s, drowning was known as the New Zealand death. Spearing knows those waters well, having crossed many rivers when he once hiked the length of New Zealands North Island, about 995 miles, in 73 days.

Once youve found the right spot, keep your shoes on. Unbuckle your backpack: should you fall in, youll need to wriggle free of it. Find a sturdy, five-to-six-foot-long branch and use it and your two feet to make a tripod of yourself. Always keep two points of contact on the ground. Face upstream and slowly sidestep into the water, leaning slightly into the current and using your pole for support. Move slowly, gauging the flow and depth as you go.
RE: THE MUSIC ISSUE

The special issue brought together 27 writers to examine where pop is now and where its going next.

What will the future of music look like? The New York Times Magazine published an ambitious multimedia feature on Thursday that purported to answer that question, and apparently the answer is: pretty masculine. . . . The writers who contributed are talented and diverse, and the selected songs include many written and performed by people of color  an extremely important factor, especially given how often black performers and artists have been written out of music history, and still are to this day. . . . But one imbalance remained glaring: Out of 25 artists given the primary credit on the track noted, only four were women. . . .

The music industry has never been accused of being excessively gentle to women. In the past few months alone, the rampant sexual harassment and assault problem has made headlines, with female artists and music-industry workers speaking out about men within the field who have allegedly victimized women with impunity. . . .
Visitors entering the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill will find themselves standing beneath a cluster of shiny silver umbrellas that seem to be tumbling in the wind. Looking up, they will notice that lines of text have been cut into each umbrella. On the wall below, as if raining from above, silver letters are arranged vertically to form words: kindness, dream and others.

This floor-to-ceiling, site-specific installation is Let the Positive Come Out, by Laura Kimpton, known for her monumental one-word sculptures at the annual Burning Man festival. At the Hudson Valley Center, she is part of the exhibition Word.

Each of the more than 70 works in Word incorporates text: isolated letters, bold words, enigmatic phrases, provocative sentences or fragments of stories. They are painted, printed or photographed; projected, beaded or sewn. They are etched into bronze, scribbled onto plywood, outlined with nails. Lines of text create diamond patterns in the wallpaper in Kristyna and Marek Mildes living-room-like installation, Home in a Home. In Bill Schucks Sometime, the letters of the works title are seeded with grass that will grow through the run of the show.
Lydia Callis wanted to get her mother a gym membership for Christmas last year. When she called to arrange a consultation, she mentioned that her mom (who lives in Arizona) is deaf and would need a sign-language interpreter for the session. The health club said it would not provide a signer. Ms. Callis  who became an Internet sensation during Hurricane Sandy as Mayor Michael R. Bloombergs exuberant sign-language interpreter  told the club that it was actually required by law to do so. Still it refused, and Ms. Callis, who was calling from Manhattan, gave up.

Last year was the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and yet this kind of scenario plays out regularly for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. While the broader culture has become accustomed to certain changes the law has engendered, particularly wheelchair access, the rights of the deaf have frequently been misunderstood or simply disregarded.

Recently, however, a deaf rights movement has begun to gain ground, particularly in New York.

One sign of this momentum has been a flurry of lawsuits. Last year, the citys Department of Homeless Services settled a case that charged its shelters with failing to provide American Sign Language interpreters for deaf residents, and a suit filed last summer in Westchester County claimed that two hospitals refused a deaf couples requests for interpreters after the husband had a heart attack.

Another case involved Diana Williams, a deaf woman from Staten Island who was arrested in 2011 and was denied a sign-language interpreter, as the federal law dictates. In October, the Police Department settled her lawsuit for $750,000. Her lawyers, from the Eisenberg & Baum Law Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said it was one of the biggest payouts of its kind.
Late in the afternoon on St. Patricks Day, Glen Grays, a 27-year-old African-American mail carrier, was making his rounds in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn, about to leave a package at 999 President Street. Mr. Grays prides himself on getting to know the community he serves, he told me on Wednesday. He figures out who is sick, or old, or enfeebled, and makes sure that their parcels, especially if they contain medication  I can shake a box and usually figure that out, he said  land directly at the doors of the people waiting for them, even if they live in fourth- or fifth-floor apartments, in walk-up buildings.

On this afternoon, Mr. Grays was descending the steps of his mail truck backward, as postal workers often do to minimize wear and tear on the knees, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a car making a sharp right turn onto President from Franklin Avenue. Mr. Grays shouted at the driver, climbing back up the steps to avoid getting sideswiped. The black car, in Mr. Grayss telling, came tearing back his way in reverse. The driver said to him, Mr. Grays recounted, I have the right of way because Im law enforcement. The unmarked car held four plainclothes police officers, according to the Brooklyn borough presidents office, which has taken an interest in the case.
Douglas Kennedy, a novelist from New York who is very popular in France, was back in town recently after some time away, and he took note of the things that made him feel at home. Its such a vocal, loud place, he said. Coming out of the subway the other day, I heard a cabdriver having an argument with someone, and he said, Are you dumb or just stupid? I hear that and feel Im home. Mr. Kennedy, 61, spends much of the year in Europe and Maine, or commuting to Montreal, where his wife, Christine Ury, a psychoanalyst, lives and works. His home in New York is an apartment in Koreatown. His latest book, The Blue Hour, is a smash you know where.

SOFT OPENING I sleep till at least 11 or 12. Im a jazz junkie, so Im usually out quite late on Saturday night, at somewhere like Smoke up by Columbia on 106th and Broadway. Thats one of the last clubs in the business that goes until 3 in the morning. I usually close the place down.
A husband and wife are shaken and stirred when their 30-year marriage hits the rocks of infidelity in For Worse, a new play presented by the New Jersey Repertory Company, which lately seems to be absorbed with the topic of marital discord.

Three other works regarding troubled couples have been introduced by New Jersey Rep in the last year to its audiences in Long Branch.

This latest study in connubial anxiety is written by Deborah Rennard, who gets For Worse off to a fast start in the moments immediately after Peter tells Karen, his wife, that he has been having an affair. While the sobbing Karen recoils, the audience learns that the couple are the well-to-do owners of an art gallery in Manhattan and have raised three grown daughters.
It was, of course, only a matter of time, and that time has arrived: In Sex With Strangers, Laura Easons delightful two-person play at TheaterWorks in Hartford, a laptop, clunky and antiquated, has gone from being a signifier of the newest technology to a sight gag. Its one of many sly, charming jokes in this disarmingly up-to-the-minute examination of a peculiarly modern odd-couple relationship. But Olivia and Ethan are not as odd as all that, and thanks to the appealing actors who play them under Rob Ruggieros unerring direction, Courtney Rackley and Patrick Ball, you just cant help rooting for them to get together  even with all the obstacles Ms. Eason has quite deliberately put in their way.

For starters, theres that antediluvian laptop, which belongs to Olivia and unnerves the cyber-trendy Ethan, giving Mr. Ball an opportunity to display his masterly way with a comic double take. Ethan and Olivia are both writers, but in the way that Dr. Phil and Jean Piaget are both psychologists. They inhabit different universes  Ethan freely admits to her that his work has been described as one step above catalogs and fortune cookies, while Olivias model is the French novelist Marguerite Duras.
Mr. Begley arrived in the United States at 13 and attended high school in Brooklyn before going to Harvard at 16, followed by the Army and then Harvard Law School. He began his first book in this very house, which is surrounded by woods and stillness, while on a sabbatical from the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. He joined the firm in 1959, became a partner and worked there until his retirement in 2004. He and his wife own an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan and started spending summers in the East End in the late 1970s.

They rented until 1983, he said, when they bought a postmodern house that was then new. They now spend time there from mid-June to early October and good weekends during the other months. They drive back and forth in a Volvo station wagon with their French bulldog, Grisha, acquired last April after their last cat died. We adored that cat and we couldnt replace him, Mr. Begley said. (More on that cat later.)

Airy and casually furnished, their home has been decorated with large works by Mr. Begleys son Peter, an artist and sculptor who lives in Paris, smaller artwork by grandchildren and many family photos. He also has another son, a daughter, two stepchildren and seven grandchildren.

His newest novel, a thriller, takes place partly on the East End  as did some of his other books  and will be released on April 5. It continues a story that he started in his first thriller, the 2015 Killer, Come Hither. In that book, the dedication read: For Anka, this departure.

Image Mr. Begley at his home in Sagaponack. He and his wife began spending summers in the East End in the late 1970s. Credit... Lindsay Morris for The New York Times

Murders and mayhem certainly do seem to be a departure for a literary author, most of whose previous novels have explored friendships, families and other relationships. Mr. Begleys editor, Nan A. Talese, said his sensibility was suited to the new direction. His observation of society and the way people interact is really brilliant, she said by telephone. He writes with great precision. You dont want to miss a paragraph, because everything has a meaning, and there are no extra words.
The most obvious example of the latter is a chicken liver mousse served  in true French fashion  with cornichons and ultrathin slices of toasted baguette. Crowned by a candied half walnut, the mousse exhibited both a superb texture (velvety, creamy and deceptively fluffy) and an appealing flavor of liver (teased with shallots and a balsamic-pomegranate molasses reduction). That undercurrent of sweetness found further balance in a small ramekin of cranberry relish, which contributed just the right note of tartness.

Confit de poulet, an entree, fared less well. The modest leg-thigh piece was rendered crispy and moist, but a mustard cream sauce was so dense with heavy cream it overwhelmed the plate, essentially smothering the accompanying fingerling potatoes. Additionally, sprinkled atop that overly rich sauce were burned leaves of what had once been brussels sprouts.

Dishes with Asian associations provided far greater satisfaction. Braised chicken wings had great visual appeal, being lined up side by side and dressed with tiny segments of orange, ribbons of vinegared daikon and slivers of scallion greens. They were also juicy (due partly to a soy-caramel marinade) and fall-apart tender. Asian dumplings  wonton-filled purses of coarsely ground, garlicked pork  were no less delightful, steamed to a melt-in-the-mouth suppleness, and an assertive peppery zing to their chili sauce kept the latter from being too sweet. And I wasnt bothered by the earthy undertones of Black Pearl miso salmon, another entree, largely because of its sweet caramel-ginger sauce, but also owing to its impeccable preparation, resulting in a flaky filet of moistness.

Image The chocolate lava five-spice cake. Credit... Wendy Carlson for The New York Times

I have nothing but praise for the Berkshire bone-in pork chop and I loved the lamb burger, seasoned like Moroccan merguez (delivered with overdone, and overly salty, fries). Salmon tiradito, a Peru-inspired appetizer, was even more noteworthy. It consisted of five sashimi-like strips of citrus-marinated fish, paper-thin crosscuts of jalapeno covering each, with sriracha and a cilantro leaf on top. Great eye-appeal, sure, and also a treat for the mouth.
Sometimes, people who do not know our life feel that we are magic people, said Sister Precilla Takuh. We are just normal people, like any other person, but because we have that call, we responded to it and became who we are.

Sister Takuh is a nun in the Order of the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, based in a brick house in Harlem, one of only three predominantly black orders in the country. Once, there were more than 80 Handmaids. Now there are just 14, seven of whom are retired. The order almost closed in 2014, but decided instead to recruit more actively and now has seven new women going through the formation process. On Tuesday, the Handmaids will celebrate the orders 100th anniversary.

This winter, Teresa Mathew set out to photograph the rhythms of a Handmaids life.One thing that really interested me about nuns, said Ms. Mathew, 23, herself the niece of a nun in India, is that we tend to see them as a relic and as something from a bygone age  and to see them in a subservient role, where women arent empowered. Just from knowing my aunt and knowing the work that the nuns do, I know thats not true.

The Handmaids were founded in Georgia in 1916, after a state law was proposed to bar whites from teaching black children. The sisters were intended to be an order of teachers. (The bill did not pass.) In 1924, the Handmaids moved to New York City, at the invitation of Cardinal Patrick Hayes, who wanted to open a day nursery for working families in Harlem.
AMERICANS dont have a vocabulary to describe the pernicious behavior of political crowds, but our forefathers did. John Adams favored a strong executive to guard against the mob. He thought that partisans of popular democracy like Thomas Jefferson or Tom Paine ignored the dangers of populist passion. The people, he wrote, can be as tyrannical as any king. That division contributed to the formation of the first parties  Adamss Federalists and Jeffersons Democrats.

John Adams bequeathed his skepticism to his son John Quincy, who never overcame his instinctive abhorrence of citizens in the mass. At Harvard he had watched ragged debtors take up arms against the Massachusetts government in Shays Rebellion. In Europe, after the French Revolution, he saw how fanatical leaders had provoked the blood lust of the rabble. In the name of the People, he wrote in a diplomatic dispatch, the Guillotine has mowed its thousands and the grapeshot have swept off their tens of thousands. Like his father, Adams thought himself a republican devoted to the principle of representative government, as opposed to a democrat committed to greater individual participation in the political system.

When he ran for president, he resisted any form of democratic politics, whether delivering speeches, buttering up newspaper editors or (until the end) promising jobs to supporters. If my delicacy is not suited to the times, Adams wrote, there are candidates enough who have no such delicacy.

His stiff brand of rectitude was not, in fact, suited to the times. He eked out a victory over Andrew Jackson only by winning a tiebreaking vote in the House of Representatives. Four years later, Jackson unseated him. Jackson didnt like crowds much either, but he understood their political value. At his inauguration he famously threw open the White House to any citizen who cared to track his muddy boots on the carpet. At that moment, the mob gave way in American thinking to the crowd  the mass of citizens as a source of political legitimacy.
ANTIBIOTICS are an indispensable weapon in every physicians arsenal, but when prescribed unnecessarily for nonbacterial infections like the common cold, as they too often are, they provide no benefit and create problems. They wipe out healthy bacteria and can cause side effects like yeast infections and allergic reactions. Worse still, they contribute to the rise of superbugs that resist antibiotic treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about half of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in the United States are unnecessary. It also estimates that each year as many as two million Americans suffer from antibiotic-resistant illnesses, and 23,000 die as a result.

Clearly, we need to get doctors to prescribe antibiotics more selectively. But how can this be done?

Several strategies have been tried in recent years, without much success. Educating doctors and patients about the proper use of antibiotics has had only a modest effect, as most doctors already know when antibiotics are called for. Alerts sent to physicians through the electronic health record reminding them to not prescribe unnecessarily are often ignored because doctors are overloaded with such messages. And offering doctors financial incentives has had mixed results, in part because the payments are modest relative to a doctors salary.
Not much thats laudatory, apparently. Cruz is the love that chokes on its own words.

Its a surprise-every-second love. On Friday, Cruz made public reference to  and furiously denied  a National Enquirer story that accused him of affairs.

Its also a love that makes no promises of its endurance. In fact, many of the Republicans in a faux swoon for the far-right loon dont really want to see him fly all the way to the White House  or, for that matter, to the nomination.

Theres a tangle of mind-sets at work and strategies in play. They all involve thwarting Trump, but with different outcomes in the end. Bear with me. This requires a bit of explanation.

Few of the Cruz converts actually think he can amass a majority of delegates and win the nomination before the convention. For that to happen, their endorsements of Cruz would have to scare off John Kasich and turn the contest into a two-man race, and Kasich doesnt seem to be scaring.

The real goal is to buck up Cruz to a point where he prevents Trump from getting that majority and either passes him in the delegate count or draws close. Abracadabra: a contested convention.

Some of the new Cruz devotees indeed hope that he would be the beneficiary of that and the ultimate victor. They expect Cruz to lose the presidency. But then they also expect Trump to lose it  and to lose it in an uglier, more divisive fashion that drags down Republicans running for the House and Senate too. This lose-with-Cruz faction figures that a reset of the party after a Cruz defeat would be possible, whereas Trump might not leave them with much of party to reset.

Others who have crawled into bed with Cruz are also after a contested convention, but would use it to crawl out of that bed and into the arms of some Republican Romeo waiting in the wings. Maybe Paul Ryan, though hes playing Hamlet: to be drafted or not to be drafted? Maybe Mitt Romney, who seems readier to commit.
The wisdom of that blow was debatable then, and is debated still. So, too, is the Irish republics inability to disentangle itself from political violence. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, has warned against a false glorification of the Rising and urged that the commemorations main focus be on its victims, and on the terrible loss of human life.

The Rev. Seamus Murphy, a Jesuit who teaches philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, wrote in January in The Irish Times that he found the commemoration deeply disturbing. While its fair to acknowledge the bravery and discipline of the Risings rank-and-file volunteers, he said, we should also admit their leaders irresponsibility in knowingly provoking the slaughter of innocents.

As for the belief that the Rising was a brutal necessity, Father Murphy rejects that claim utterly. And besides, he said, it is a terrible template for a true democracy. Consider its hallowed document  the independence proclamation, read aloud outside rebel headquarters in Dublins General Post Office, commonly called the G.P.O., that Monday. It claimed its authority not from any living Irish men or women, but from the dead generations, who could not demur.

A group of unrepresentative gunmen, Father Murphy wrote, can only create a pretend-republic.

Ireland eventually became a real republic, of course, after first gaining independence in 1921. But I side with Father Murphy.

Bells on Easter Sunday tolled the risen Christ. On Monday the shooting began. The doomed volunteers brought many in Dublin down with them. To watch old footage of the shattered city of 1916 is to be thrown, inescapably, into the present day, when martyr-armies, bombed rubble and bystander corpses are sickeningly abundant. Every new attack  every Paris, Istanbul, Brussels  makes it harder to feel anything but remorse about urban holy warfare.

Yet the 1916 Rising has been retroactively sanctified, for many in Ireland and in Irish America anyway  squeezed into a tidy narrative to fit a tidy, lovable nation. Sometimes the reverent nostalgia bleeds into kitsch. Irish television recently aired a reality show in which the grooms in a 1916-themed gay wedding dressed in khaki and drove to the reception in a jeep. Organizers of this months St. Patricks Day Parade in New York took special note of the 1916 anniversary with the usual mix of revelry and kitsch.
Nicholas Werner, a founder of Largo Investments, one of the developers of the Fitzroy in Chelsea, where all the rooms will have 11-foot ceilings, said, Theres no need to build a room thats an echo chamber, but we wanted to build a home that seemed gracious and proportionate.

Technological advancement in building materials has also made it easier for developers to expand in volume, Mr. Werner said. For example, residences at the Fitzroy will have hydronic radiant floor heating, and not just in the bathroom, where it is customarily found, to better heat the entire home, since warm air rises. Larger windows that were selected in proportion to the higher ceilings add more natural light, which cuts electricity costs, he said.

Vickey Barron, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman, said she started to notice clients asking about ceiling heights about five years ago. I now have clients who will give up having a pool or other amenities in a building, but will not budge on ceiling height, she said. Buying a home is an emotional thing, and that wow factor a high ceiling provides is something you cant replace.

Lori Goldstein, a fashion stylist and creator of the LOGO clothing line, is one such buyer. After living in a Chelsea loft for almost 15 years, she is set to close on an apartment at 10 Sullivan Street, a new condo complex on the southwestern edge of SoHo that has ceiling heights of 11 feet in all 22 units in the tower. In addition, four townhouses in the complex have 11.7-foot ceilings.

I cant stand being claustrophobic, Ms. Goldstein said. Theres something about a room thats taller than it is wider.

To show potential buyers how one feels in an expansive room, some developers have taken the extra step of finding a showroom large enough to build an exact replica of a room with such height  no small task in itself.
If you had to create an itinerary to see the best of the country, what would it be?

Take at least a week. Start in Cairo and spend a few days seeing the city and visiting the museums. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is a treasure chest, but dont overlook the smaller museums like the Museum of Islamic Art; the Coptic Museum, which is full of Egyptian Christian artifacts; and the Agricultural Museum, where you can learn about Egyptian agriculture.

Image Nicholas Reeves.

Also, the city of Aswan is worthwhile. Its on the Nile and beautiful, and there is lots to see like the Aswan Dam and the Nubian Museum, dedicated to Nubian culture.

The temples are also a must. Theres Kom Ombo, also on the Nile and north of Aswan, and Dendera, which is north of Luxor.

And then theres Luxor itself. Given the amount of time I have spent there, I may be biased, but it is the heart of the Egyptian New Kingdom and home to at least a hundred different archaeological sites including beautiful tombs of nobles, queens and kings like Tutankhamens.

Luxors Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, where most of these tombs are, are what many people associate the city with. What else is there to see?

Howard Carters house. He is, of course, the English archaeologist famous for discovering Tutankhamens tomb in 1922. He lived in this house during the search, and now its a small museum. He was an elusive guy, and little is known about him. Visiting his house doesnt necessarily shed any more light on what he was like, but it gets you a bit closer to him. Next to his house, theres an excellent replica of Tutankhamens tomb.

Also, the Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel, where Carter announced his discovery at a news conference, should be visited even if youre not staying there because its so full of history.
A new crop of electronic financial tools is trying to help Americans save.

The fledgling apps are appealing to consumers like Brittney Gould, a 28-year-old retirement plan consultant in Rockville, Md. Ms. Gould dutifully maximizes automatic paycheck deductions to fund her own workplace 401(k) account. But for shorter-term savings, she uses the mobile app Qapital that lets users set multiple savings goals and have cash transferred into savings, based on rules the user sets.

Users can, for instance, tell the app to save $5 every time they buy a latte.

Ms. Gould likes being able to customize her account. When she peeks at her iPhone to see how much she has accumulated for pet expenses, she sees a photo of her dog. Its more motivating, and meaningful, she said. Since she began using the app last June, she has saved about $5,000.

Qapital, along with apps like Digit, Dyme, Acorns and many others, strive to use mobile technology to make saving easy and automatic. Aiming mainly at a young clientele, the new tools offer an updated take on traditional, somewhat stodgy savings advice  start small, contribute regularly and take satisfaction as your balance grows  in an effort to make saving fun.

Americans are generally lackluster savers. Forty-one percent of households lack liquid savings to cover an unexpected $2,000 expense, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which also found that a lack of saving is a top financial worry, even among families with higher incomes.
Sunil Yapa was bouncing from college to college, searching for a career, when he decided to return to a familiar place: his hometown, State College, Pa. There, he found himself in the building where he had often visited his father, Lakshman, a geography professor at Penn State. He took his dads classes, helped him write a draft of a book about the social construction of poverty and earned a bachelors degree in geography in 2003.

I was getting ready to take over the family business, Mr. Yapa said.

He planned to complete a doctorate after an extended trip to China. But once he landed on the other side of the world, away from his family and culture, he returned to the writing practice he had loved as a teenager but abandoned.

I was lucky, Mr. Yapa said. In the end I didnt have to choose just one. If I had walked away from writing, I would have been a mess.

He earned a Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in 2010 and started a novel about Seattles 1999 World Trade Organization protests. Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, which includes themes about geography, came out in January.
The art market is feeling under pressure from the outside world.

With the art-fair season underway, it is uncertain how events like the latest terrorist attacks will affect Art Brussels and Independent Brussels, which are scheduled to open in the Belgian capital during the third week of April. And the top end of the market is struggling with a downturn as a volatile global economy makes wealthy collectors hesitant to buy and sell.

But there is one area of collecting that is still capable of setting exceptional prices, seemingly regardless of where it is being sold or what is happening in the world: historic Chinese art.

In France on March 12, a trio of Ming dynasty gilt-bronze statues of seated Buddhas sold for 6.3 million euros with fees, about $7 million, at the Bordeaux auctioneers Briscadieu to one of 20 Asian bidders in the sales room. The 15th-century statues were estimated at 400,000 to 600,000. The statues, thought to be from an original set of five Great Buddhas of Wisdom from a provincial temple in China, were part of a collection formed by an military doctor in Asia in the early 20th century.

It was an incredible price, the auctioneer, Antoine Briscadieu, said of the result, the highest price ever achieved at this family auction house. Unknown pieces that have stayed in the same family for 100 years are very attractive to Chinese collectors. They know the pieces are very authentic. Confidence is very important to them.
YAZD, Iran  This desert provincial capital in central Iran is known for its honesty, generosity, high clay walls, fine woven silk textiles, a pre-Islamic Zoroastrian fire temple and soaring wind towers that naturally cool rooms below.

And sweets.

The first time I sampled the sweets of Yazd was one winter evening in 1998. It was at the end of Eftar, the nightly ritual of breaking a 12-hour fast that Iranian Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan. I had been invited to dine with some of the women closest to Mohammad Khatami, who was president then: his mother, three of his sisters and a gaggle of cousins, grandchildren and family friends.

Image Preparing the sweets. Credit... Elaine Sciolino for The New York Times

After sitting cross-legged for a lavish dinner served on a tablecloth on the carpeted floor, we moved into a television room that smelled of cardamom and sugar, where glasses of strong, burning tea and a high pyramid of local specialties awaited us. The sweets were so sweet that I left on a sugar high that prevented me from falling asleep for hours.
Coca-Cola, the worlds biggest beverage company, said on Thursday that it spent more on health research and partnerships than it previously disclosed, as part of its push to be more transparent. The company first disclosed its spending on health-related efforts after facing criticism for its funding of the Global Energy Balance Network, a group that said its mission was to fight obesity. That group has since disbanded. In an effort to be more transparent, Coca-Cola said it would disclose all its spending on scientific research and health partnerships. In its initial disclosure in September, the company said it spent $118.6 million on the efforts between 2010 and 2015. On Thursday, Coke said a more thorough internal investigation found that the figure was $132.8 million.
Original ABC Shark Tank panelist and serial entrepreneur Kevin Harrington will help Auburn University celebrate the success of alumni and student business leaders when the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business hosts the Auburn University Entrepreneurship Summit Friday, April 22, at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.

The daylong program will feature the finals of the Tiger Cage student entrepreneurship competition at 9 a.m., and the Auburn University LAUNCH Innovation Grant Program Faculty Pitch Competition at 10:15 a.m.

Both events are free and open to the public. Top individual entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies led by Auburn alumni will be recognized at the Top Tigers awards luncheon at 11:15 a.m.

Individual Top Tigers tickets are $100, while tables may be purchased for $800. Tickets may be purchased at here.

More information about summit is available at here.

Harrington will serve as the keynote speaker for the Top Tigers luncheon and as a judge for the Tiger Cage competition.

Fans of Shark Tank will remember Harrington as one of the investors and judges who grilled aspiring entrepreneurs about their business concepts and product ideas during the shows first three series, but they may not know how he made his fortune.

In 1984, Harrington produced one of televisions first 30-minute infomercials. Known for the As Seen on TV product line, Harrington has launched more than 500 products that have generated more than $5 billion in sales worldwide.

Hosted in partnership with Business Alabama magazine and Warren Averett CPAs and Advisors, the Top Tigers luncheon will recognize 60 fast-growing companies founded, owned or led by Auburn University alumni.

The Harbert College of Business will also honor Chicken Salad Chick co-founder and vice president of brand development Stacy Brown as the universitys Entrepreneur of the Year and Bellhops Co-Founder and CEO Cameron Doody as Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Brown, a communications graduate, founded Chicken Salad Chick in the kitchen of her Auburn home in 2008. After learning that the county health department would not allow her to sell food made in her home kitchen, Brown and her late husband, Kevin, opened a small take-out restaurant.

The fast casual chain has grown to include 50 restaurants across the Southeast and now includes locations in North Carolina, Texas and Louisiana.

Doody, who earned a supply chain management degree from Auburn, and fellow Harbert College of Business alum Stephen Vlahos launched what has been described as Uber for moving.

Bellhops connects able-bodied college students with businesses and individuals who need help with small- to medium-scale moves. Based in Chattanooga, Tenn., Bellhops now serves more than 130 cities coast-to-coast. The company raised $13.5 million in Series B funding in 2015 and counts Canaan Partners, Lowercase Capital, Binary Capital, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, PayPal board member Scott Banister and rapper Nas among its investors.

Auburn Universitys future business leaders will also be on display during the finals of the Tiger Cage competition, which began with 30 teams.

Four finalists will make pitches to a panel of judges with more than $20,000 in prizes at stake. Three teams from the inaugural Tiger Cage competition in 2015 have launched businesses.
The Chattahoochee Valley Community College Foundation raised more than $46,000 for scholarships with its annual Hall of Fame celebration and fundraising event, the second-largest amount raised in one event in the foundation's 31-year history.

The Hall of Fame event, which recognizes individuals for outstanding service and accomplishments, was held at the National Infantry Museum on March 10. The Colleges 2014 Hall of Fame and 40th Anniversary Celebration brought in $55,772, with last years event bringing in just over $44,000. Those totals combine to approximately $145,000 in three years to benefit student scholarships.

Hall of Fame was a special evening, as we recognized two outstanding individuals: the late Rep. Lesley Vance and Mr. Mark Clark. said Susan Wiggins, chairwoman of the CVCC Foundation and vice president of stakeholder relations at W.C. Bradley Co.

Clark, general manager of the Russell County Water Authority, attended CVCC 1975-77, earning his associate of arts in liberal arts, according to a press release from the college. While attending CVCC, Clark was the first elected Student Government Association president. He also established the first school newspaper and served as the colleges sports information director and photographer. Attending CVCC is a Clark family tradition, as his father, mother, sister, wife and two daughters all attended CVCC.

"The late Representative Lesley Vance served CVCC and his community well," the release said. "Elected in 1994, Vance was a state representative for over 21 years. He ensured the college was represented in the Alabama State House." Vance also served as Russell County's coroner for 27 years, along with a two-year stint on the Russell County Commission.

Wiggins continued, The success of our event is attributed to wonderful support from our sponsors and the community.

More than 220 guests attended the event, which also boasted almost 50 corporate and individual sponsors.

We are excited to keep up the momentum from the 40th anniversary event two years ago. said Mark Ellard, interim president at Chattahoochee Valley Community College. "The Hall of Fame is a way to bring together the stories of the past, the stories of the present, and build opportunities for stories of the future."

The CVCC Foundation awards scholarships each semester to deserving CVCC students. Amounts can vary from a few hundred dollars to cover gas and transportation costs, to more than $1,000 to assist with tuition or books.

For more than four decades, CVCC has been the Chattahoochee Valley's open-access college.

"Students from all walks of life attend CVCC becoming nurses, teachers, elected leaders and other professionals making a difference in the community," the release said.
ANAHEIM  Organizers slipped a surprise into the program for this weekends WonderCon in Los Angeles: The annual comic book, science fiction and pop culture convention appears to be coming back to Anaheim next year.

An advertisement in one of the events pamphlets announced that WonderCon will be back at the Anaheim Convention Center from March 31 to April 2, 2017.

Officials at Visit Anaheim, which oversee events held at the Convention Center, referred calls to Comic-Con: International. Requests for an interview with Comic-Con officials were not returned.

While we dont have anything to announce today, WonderCon has been a great fit for Anaheim, and we would be honored to host the show again and showcase all the great things going on here, city of Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said.

Last year, Comic-Con officials said scheduling conflicts at the Anaheim Convention Center prompted the temporary move to Los Angeles.

Formerly held in San Francisco, WonderCon had called Anaheim home for four years. The annual comic book convention attracts more than 60,000 people  many dressed as their favorite superheroes or villains  who listen to movie panels, get autographs from television stars, and watch trailers of upcoming movies and television shows.

WonderCon, which started in Oakland in 1987, is smaller than its sibling, Comic-Con, which attracts more than 100,000 people.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7831 or amarroquin@ocregister.com
BRUSSELS  Police raided Brussels neighborhoods Friday in operations described as linked to this weeks bombings as well as a suspected new plot in France. They detained three people and shot two of them in the legs, including one who was carrying a suspicious bag while accompanied by a young girl.

Gunfire and two explosions rang out in the Schaerbeek district, the same area where police had earlier found explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the suicide attackers who killed 31 people and wounded 270 on Tuesday in the airport and subway.

The district also was raided Thursday night. Police also searched the Forest and Saint-Gilles neighborhoods Friday, the Belgian federal prosecutors office said. Of the three people arrested, two were shot in the legs, it added.

The heavily armed officers wearing hoods began the operation about 1:30 p.m., when there were two big explosions, resident Marie-Pierre Bouvez told The Associated Press, and it lasted about two hours. It was not immediately clear if the blasts heard were controlled explosions.

A man who was seen sitting at a tram stop with a young girl was ordered by police to put the bag far from him, and after he did so, police shot him twice, apparently in the leg, said resident Norman Kabir. The girl was taken into safe custody, and a bomb-squad robot searched the bag, he added.

State broadcaster RTBF said police apparently feared that the bag held explosives.

Schaerbeek district Mayor Bernard Clerfayt told RTBF the raid was linked to the Brussels attacks and Thursdays detention in France of a man suspected of plotting a new attack.

Bouvez, a veterinarian, said police kept the area locked down and shouted at her to get back inside when she tried to go into the street.

On the third and final day of national mourning for victims of the attacks by Islamic militants, Prime Minister Charles Michel skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at the airport with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry because of the police raids.

Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgiums counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failures before the bombings.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation, Kerry said the carping about Belgiums shortcomings is a little bit frantic and inappropriate.

Top members of Belgiums embattled government are being criticized over its counterterrorism efforts since  and before  the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and that authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

Kerry also said the U.S. and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalization of youth.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and Kerry lashed out at the extremist group.

We will not be deterred, he said. We will come back with greater resolve  with greater strength  and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth.

Authorities also announced that American, British, German, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

A manhunt has been underway for one of the airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

But they said that DNA analysis and an official investigation had confirmed one of the suicide bombers at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, 24, a suspected bombmaker whose DNA was also found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Paris attacks. European security officials had earlier in the week confirmed to the AP his identity, thus linking the Brussels and Paris bloodshed.

Belgian prosecutors said raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood. Three of six people detained in those raids have been released, prosecutors said.

French counterterrorism police also detained a 34-year-old man Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot. The suspect, Reda Kriket, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, officials told the AP.

Elsewhere, Belgiums nuclear agency said it has withdrawn the entry badges of some staff and denied access to other people recently amid concern the countrys nuclear plants could be a target for extremists.

The move at some plants is not necessarily linked with the terrorist attacks, said nuclear control agency spokeswoman Nele Scheerlinck, noting the decision to deny access usually takes weeks.

Immediately after Tuesdays attacks, security was boosted around the countrys nuclear sites and hundreds of staff were sent home.

Last month, authorities said searches in the wake of the Paris attacks uncovered video linked to a person working in Belgiums nuclear industry.

Belgian media reported this week that Brussels attackers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui had video recordings of the home of a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region. Its unclear why.

In a sermon before Friday prayers in the neighborhood of Molenbeek, home to some of the participants in the Paris attacks, Sheik Mohamed Tojgani denounced the Brussels bombers.

Terrorism is terrorism, said Tojgani, the imam of Molenbeeks main mosque. It has no state, no nationality, no religion, no country.

In a message to the Belgian people, he added: You are from us and we are from you. What affects you, affects us.
LOS ANGELES  A business associate of a popular practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine was arrested Friday in connection with what California authorities say was the horrific slaying of the herbalist, his wife and the couples 5-year-old daughter.

Pierre Haobsh, 27, of Oceanside was taken into custody at gunpoint in San Diego County, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bob Brown told reporters. He said a loaded handgun and property belonging to one of the victims was found inside Haobshs car.

Deputies who went to check on the welfare of 57-year-old Dr. Weidong Henry Han on Wednesday found the bodies of the 57-year-old physician, his 29-year-old wife, Huijie Jenni Yu, and the couples 5-year-old daughter, Emily Han, in the familys multi-million dollar home on the outskirts of Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said they had been the victims of a horrific killing. She did not elaborate.

Brown said investigators were still attempting to determine why the family was killed, but they believe Haobsh was recently involved in a business deal with Han and financial gain could have been the involved.

This investigation is far from over, Brown said. It is complex and ongoing.

Two business associates of Han went to his home on the outskirts of Santa Barbara on Wednesday after he failed to show up for a meeting  something they told authorities was highly uncharacteristic of him.

The associates called authorities when they found the front door ajar and the familys cars parked outside. Sheriffs deputies found the victims had been shot to death.

The killings shocked Santa Barbara where Han, who owned and operated the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic, was a popular figure.

The couples daughter was a kindergartener at Foothill Elementary School in the Goleta Unified School District, where counselors were made available Friday to her classmates and their parents.

It is impossible to express the tremendous pain that this situation presents to us, Superintendent William Banning said in a statement.

Han had owned and operated the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic since 1991, according to the clinics website. Public records show he is a licensed acupuncturist.

A bio on his website says he earned degrees in Oriental and Western medicine from a Beijing university in 1982, graduating at the top of his class. He moved to the U.S. a few years later to study psychology.

Han came from a family of Chinese doctors and provided traditional treatments including acupuncture, acupressure and herbal formulas from an on-site Chinese pharmacy.

He is co-author of the book Ancient Herbs, Modern Medicine and was working on a volume about how to integrate Chinese and Western medicine. At the clinic, he created individualized herbal formulas for each patient that were filled at an on-site pharmacy.

Not only is he going to be missed by me personally and professionally but this community is going to miss him incredibly. He was the man, said Dr. Glenn Miller, a psychiatrist who co-authored Ancient Herbs, Modern Medicine with Han and considered him one of his closest friends.

Patients we share would talk about how in the true sense of the word he was a healer, in that he would listen to the wholeness of his patients, said Miller, who choked up several times as he spoke to The Associated Press. He said Han wanted his patients healed both physically and emotionally.

A somber recording on the clinics voicemail said the facility was closed Friday, but people would be there to greet those who wanted to express their condolences.

Our doors will be open for you to honor, pay respects and celebrate the lives of Dr. Henry Han, his wife Jenni and daughter Emily. They truly were special, the recording said.
SANTA ANA  A 32-year-old man has been extradited from Florida to Orange County to serve a six-year prison sentence for human trafficking and other felonies, the Orange County District Attorneys Office said Thursday.

Theram Clark, 32, who is a Tennessee resident, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1 in Orange County Superior Court to human trafficking, conspiracy to commit pimping, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury.

He was returned Wednesday night from Florida to Orange County and is being held in the Orange County Jail without bail.

On Dec. 1, Clark received a six-year prison sentence that was stayed pending completion of five years of probation, prosecutors said. He was also ordered by the court to stay away from victims in the case.

Between May 1 and 7, Clark dropped two women off at various locations in Orange County to engage in prostitution and kept some or all the money they received, prosecutors said. He also beat one of the women with a belt in a motel room in Stanton.

After Clark was sentenced in Orange County Court, he is accused of traveling to Florida with the two women. Authorities found him in a hotel room there with one of the women, prosecutors said.

Information about exactly where in Florida that Clark was found was not available.

In the settling of this case, and knowing full well that human traffickers tend to be repeat offenders, it is a priority for the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force and the Orange County District Attorneys Office to maintain a close watch on defendants like Clark who often continue commit the same crimes using the same victims, Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for the Orange County DAs Office, said in a statement.

Contact the writer: sschwebke@ocregister.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline
All the political bluster about the plight of the American worker gives me pause to remember my Great Aunt Fannie, who died along with 145 co-workers 105 years ago today in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Fannie Lansner was a 21-year-old immigrant from Lithuania  the sister of my paternal grandfather  working as a shift supervisor in a New York high-rise garment factory located several floors above the eras firefighting capabilities.

Near the end of a Saturday shift  common in the six-day workweek of that era  a fire broke out. Without adequate safety protection or escape routes, and firefighters unable to do much more than watch, death came by fire and smoke or to those who jumped out windows to escape the flames.

This workplace catastrophe became a rallying cry for organized labor and its political supporters of that era, and led to vigorous workplace regulation, especially worker-safety laws and new building codes.

A century-plus later, grand debate swirls over how much regulation is needed to protect U.S. workers vs. how much flexibility American companies need to compete on a global scale.

To me, its fascinating to see these work/life arguments pop up on the presidential campaign in light of just how far the economy has recovered. Yes, the reversal wasnt swift or perfect  despite the purported large hurdles U.S. business face. The rebound off the Great Recessions bottom has certainly helped lift the spirits of the U.S. worker:

 U.S. jobs have hit record highs; the same can be said for California and Orange County.

 The traditional unemployment measure is back to pre-recession levels, nationally and regionally.

 Even using broader unemployment measures, the job market has improved. And the oft-debated worker-to-population ratio  which hit a multi-generational low last year  is improving, too.

 Salaries have been stagnant, an ugly residue of the Great Recession. But tight labor markets have pushed up competition for workers of late, and as a result, paychecks are taking noteworthy increases in the past year.

Still, presidential campaigns are about future visions, and this cycle has brought forth numerous brash ideas of how to propel the U.S. economy higher.

Ill guess my Great Aunt Fannie would be saddened to hear slams of immigrant workers  legal or not  as a force thats sapping economic opportunities for U.S. workers.

Are there that many U.S. workers capable to do the highly skilled technical work offered to certain visa applicants? Who is willing to do back-breaking, lower-skill manual chores that other immigrants often do?

However, Fannie might want to listen to the banter about retooling our foreign trade deals to give U.S. factories a better chance at success.

The U.S. garment manufacturing business was hammered by free trade deals made decades ago, giving foreign manufacturers easy access to U.S. consumers. On the other hand, a young worker struggling to make ends meet like Fannie would certainly enjoy the cheap goods that free trade has brought to American store shelves and online merchants.

And I wonder what Fannie would think about those who call for vastly loosened business regulations. In Fannies day, there were widespread worker-employer battles  and many were physical  over what we see today as obvious worker rights: fair pay in a reasonable workweek at safe workplaces.

Tough times, as this nations economy endured in the past decade or so, certainly calls for fresh workplace thinking. Tradition should never handcuff change, but history  like the sad tale of Great Aunt Fannie and her co-workers  often provides decent guideposts on how to evolve.

So as we debate the substance of the American dream, lets not forget the tough lessons we learned 105 years ago.

Contact the writer: jlansner@ocregister.com
SYDNEY  The judges weighed 10,292 options  including a flightless kiwi bird firing lasers from its eyes  and the country spent two years thinking about it. But in the end, New Zealanders chose decisively to keep their century-old flag, a blue ensign with Britains Union Jack in the upper left corner and the four stars of the Southern Cross in red on the right.

Preliminary results of a nationwide postal vote, which pitted the incumbent against the final challenger  a flag known as the Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue)  showed on Thursday that 56.6 percent had voted to keep the existing flag flying, despite the assertion by Prime Minister John Key that it symbolized a colonial era whose time had passed.

Naturally, Im a little bit disappointed, Key said at a news conference after the result was announced. I always knew it was going to be a very tough thing to get more than 50 percent of people to vote for change. But the result was much, much closer than people predicted. A recent poll had found that two-thirds of New Zealanders wanted to keep the existing flag.

Thousands of submitted designs  including the laser-equipped kiwi bird and a woolly sheep with stars for eyes, among less unconventional entries  were reduced to five finalists last year by a panel of 12 judges. Four of the five featured variations on a fern, a plant of symbolic importance in the native Maori culture (and the logo of the national rugby team).

In December, Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue) won the first nationwide postal referendum and the support of Key, who had floated the idea of a new flag in an election campaign speech in March 2014. At the time, Key said that if his National Party won the elections in September (as it did), he would hold a referendum on the flag.

But the referendum in December asked people which of the five finalists they preferred  not whether they wanted a new flag at all. Key said that decision was best made in a vote putting the existing flag against a single challenger.

Those opposed to changing the flag argued that soldiers had died fighting for it and that it represented history and tradition. Winston Peters, a lawmaker who leads the New Zealand First Party, noted that recent polling had found the strongest support for the existing flag among people under 29.

The result shows our history is important, and young people think it is worth defending, Peters said. He added that the cost of the referendum, about $17 million, could not be justified.

Georgia Murdoch, a 26-year-old from Sumner, a suburb of Christchurch, said that she had had mixed feelings about the referendum, though she ultimately voted to change the flag.

I voted for it because I liked the silver fern, she said. But I was torn. Both my grandfathers fought in wars under the current flag, so I wasnt convinced entirely that we should have a new flag.

Key had contended that a flag bearing a fern could generate more national pride, given its associations with the rugby team. He also raised a practical concern: New Zealands flag is similar to Australias, and Key said that he had sometimes been placed in front of the wrong flag at international events.

Chris Mullane, a 68-year-old Auckland resident who fought in the Vietnam War and was later stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia, agreed that the country needed a more distinctive flag. Few Americans recognize the current one, he said.

Any flag with the silver fern on it would have shouted New Zealand, he said.

But like Key and other Silver Fern supporters, he said that the debate had been good for the country. Key said it was possible that every child in a New Zealand classroom had discussed the flag and what it means.

About 67 percent of the countrys 3.1 million registered voters cast a ballot in the referendum, according to the electoral commission.

We voted as a nation, and thats a good thing, said Steve Pomeroy, a Silver Fern backer who runs a pub in Christchurch. It was a good place to start the conversation.

Still, he said ruefully, Im thinking about flying the old flag upside-down.
In a month when new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau captivated the world with his Benneton-advertisement good looks and reassuringly leftist pronouncements on issues of global concern, such as the plight of Syrian migrants and climate change, it is a fitting counterpoint that another titan of Canadian politics  Torontos former mayor and admitted crack addict, Rob Ford  passed away.

Ford bore more easy comparisons to American presidential hopeful Donald Trump then to his fellow Great White North compatriot, Trudeau. The fact that Ford built such a successful political machine  not only in such a liberal country as Canada but in such a distinctly progressive city as Toronto  is a testament to the diversity of views in all countries, including ones with such clear stereotypes as our neighbor to the north.

Despite a stream of controversial and politically incorrect comments, Ford managed electoral success after success by appealing to voters who felt left behind by economic dislocation of globalization.

His death Tuesday at 46 after a lengthy battle with cancer denied him the opportunity to secure political redemption at the ballot box. Voters in Torontos less-affluent suburbs repeatedly rallied behind Fords banner, despite the negative publicity that constantly followed him during his time in office. Ford was highly divisive, but managed to maintain a strong connection with his key constituencies. His brash style and straight talking won him fans, and once in office he pushed for popular cuts in public spending.

Many Americans, however, will remember Ford primarily for the video that surfaced showing him smoking crack. In his defense, he denied being an addict but admitted to trying the drug probably in one of my drunken stupors. Ignoring the negative publicity that rained down on after the video was made public, he refused repeated calls to resign from office. Eventually, the other members of the city council were reduced to stripping powers from the office of mayor and leaving Ford a mere ceremonial figurehead.

His cancer diagnosis forced him to drop out of the mayors race in 2014, but he had stabilized enough by September 2015 to campaign  ultimately unsuccessfully  for Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and against Trudeau. Although unable to prevent a victory for left-leaning Trudeau, the demonstrations of affection that were seen toward Ford in both the 2015 campaign and in the days following his death is a fitting tribute to the strong feelings of loyalty he instilled in Ford nation. As an official recognition of this popular support, Fords body will be displayed for two days at City Hall to give visitors an opportunity to pay their respects.

The contrast with Trudeau could not be greater. The new prime minister is Hollywood handsome with pop-star appeal. He plays the role of Canadian Obama as easily as Ford approximated what a Canadian Trump could look like. Trudeau went out of his way to champion the cause of Syrian migrants, even going so far as to meet one new group of arrivals at the airport. Given the anti-Harper sentiments that built up during his predecessors time in office, Trudeau lost no time in showing Canadians, and the wider world, that many things were going to change.

Trudeau now faces an Obama-like challenge to actually deliver the real change he promised on the campaign trail. His first several months have provided him with a range of PR success stories and fawning media coverage, culminating this month with a state visit to Washington, D.C.

The current U.S. presidential campaign has raised a number of awkward questions on both the right and the left. For example, so far it seems unlikely that Trudeaus north-of-the-border charm will rub off on fellow Canadian Ted Cruzs assault on the White House, but only a brave soul would discount any outcome at this stage of the primaries.

The electorate in any country or state or city is a patchwork quilt of different groups with competing  and often conflicting  identities and goals. A successful politician must be able to construct a foundation of core supporters while at the same time enticing in to their tent a wider collections of individuals with a variety of views. The Harper-Trudeau succession represents a political lurch, but so did the Clinton-Bush-Obama transition.

Although Trudeau maps very closely onto the wider global perceptions of Canadian politics, Ford  like Trump  allows a unique insight into an aspect of the political ecosystem that is too often ignored or over-casually dismissed away  namely, the popular resentment of a working class that we increasing find difficult to even call by its proper name.

As Justin-mania continues to build among the international media, let us make sure that we dedicate an appropriate period of reflection for the anti-Justin  the crack-smoking, deficit-cutting, profanity-spewing mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford.

Orange County writer and attorney Timothy Spangler hosts The Bigger Picture with Timothy Spangler, Sundays, 10 p.m.-midnight on KRLA 870 AM. Twitter: @timothyspangler
CASTELNUOVO DI PORTO, Italy  Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Orthodox, Hindu and Catholic refugees Thursday, declaring them children of the same God, in a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time when anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment has spiked following the Brussels attacks.

Francis denounced the carnage as a gesture of war carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at the shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the gesture of destruction carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace, Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the center.

Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

Francis was greeted with a banner reading Welcome in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the outdoor Mass. But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty. Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting: At the end of the Mass, Francis greeted each refugee, one by one, posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows.

Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the ritual, and past popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, recalling Jesus 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.

Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention center. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.

The Vatican said Thursday that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the center and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.

The Vaticans new norms said anyone from the people of God could be chosen to participate in the ceremony. While the phrase people of God usually refers to baptized Christians, the decree also said that pastors should instruct both the chosen faithful and others so that they may participate in the rite consciously, actively and fruitfully, suggesting that the rite could be open to non-Catholics as well.

Francis seemed to define people of God as open-ended.

All of us, together: Muslims, Hindi, Catholics, Copts, Evangelicals. But brothers, children of the same God, he said. We want to live in peace, integrated.
A killer who took part in notorious devil cult murders has once again been found suitable for parole  less than a year after Gov. Jerry Brown ordered that he remain behind bars.

Arthur Craig Moose Hulse is serving a life sentenced for the brutal 1970 slayings of Santa Ana gas station attendant Jerry Wayne Carlin, 20, and El Toro schoolteacher Nancy Brown, 29.

The state parole board on Mar 17 determined that Hulse is eligible for release, said Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Brown has until Aug. 14 to decide whether to reverse the parole boards determination. When faced with the same decision last year, the governor blocked Hulses release, saying that Hulse still represented a danger to the public.

That decision was applauded by local prosecutors and surviving family members of Hulses victims.

Hulse has been denied parole more than a dozen times during his decades in prison.

When inmates are denied released by the parole board, they must wait at least three years for another hearing. But when the governor reverses the grant of parole, by law the case is returned to the parole board within 18 months.

The 1970 killings were carried out by members of the Sons of Satan motorcycle gang, a small group of transient, devil-worshiping drug users. The slayings came a year after the Manson family murders in Los Angeles, resulting in a wave of fear in Orange County.

Hulse was a 16-year-old prospect at the time of the killings, hoping to join the Sons of Satan. He used a rusty hatchet to kill Carlin, working overnight at a gas station.

A day later, on June 3, 1970, Hulse helped bury Brown in a shallow grave at an Irvine field, after the Sons of Satan hijacked the schoolteachers station wagon. The mother of four was stabbed more than 20 times.

Hulse reportedly suffered an unstable childhood, growing up with a mother who was a paranoid schizophrenic. In 2014, Hulse blamed his violent behavior on being bullied as an overweight child, drug use and a desire to gain acceptance from the Sons of Satan.

Prison authorities said that he hasnt committed any violations behind bars for more than 20 years, has found religion and become active in self-help groups and classes.

Contact the writer: semery@ocregister.com
A longtime presidential adviser and administrative law professor has won approval from Haitian lawmakers to take full control of the country as prime minister, and lead Haiti to the election of its next president.

Lawmakers approved Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles general policy statement and new government during back-to-back confirmation hearings that began Thursday in the Senate and ended before sunrise on Good Friday in the Lower Chamber of Deputies.

The favorable votes in both chambers end one chapter of political uncertainty but open another, as it increasingly looks likely the country wont be able to meet next months April 24 deadline to transfer power from an interim president to a democratically elected one.

Only stable institutions and a governance system that enjoys democratic legitimacy can address the challenges that Haiti faces today, the U.N.s top envoy, Sandra Honore, said before the vote.

After passing the Senate 20-0, an emotional Jean-Charles thanked senators and acknowledged the challenges ahead. I want you to know that I dont consider this vote to be a blank check, he said.

A longtime behind-the-scenes player in Haitian politics, Jean-Charles has served as a presidential adviser to several presidents including Rene Preval and Michel Martelly. He emerged as prime minister after deputies on Sunday rejected the policy statement of U.S.-educated economist and former head of the central bank Fritz Jean.

Jeans rejection forced interim President Jocelerme Privert to quickly find a replacement to help him head his 120-day administration, as the international community grew increasingly frustrated with Haitis political uncertainty and the delays in implementing a Feb. 5 political accord guiding the process. While paving the way for former President Michel Martellys Feb. 7 departure from power, the accord also set deadlines for getting Haiti back to constitutional order.

Jean-Charles told the Miami Herald that despite the delays, he believes the accord remains valid in helping restart the interrupted electoral process. He acknowledged that a new elections timetable, however, will most likely need to be set.

As his first order of business, Jean-Charles said he will work with Privert to quickly publish a presidential decree establishing a revamped Provisional Electoral Council, that until now couldnt be named because of the lack of a functioning government. He also promised to push the new council to hold to a May 14 deadline for the swearing in of a new president.

Jean-Charles said he will also ask the council to apply the technical recommendations of an electoral commission charged with evaluating the Oct. 25 presidential vote, and a fraud- and violence-marred Aug. 9 legislative first-round.

That commissions damning reported noted that the elections were plagued by egregious irregularities and a high presumption of fraud. It recommended that sweeping changes be made to the electoral machine in order for the process to continue. It also said more in-depth verification by elections experts was needed to address local observers and opposition claims of massive fraud.

Whether that verification takes place, and how it is handled, will ultimately determine how soon Haiti can get back to having a democratically elected government. During the hearings, Jean-Charles carefully steered clear of any promises for a vote verification, but opposition lawmakers and local elections observers have been insistent that no second round can be held without one.

We need to know what happened in these elections. We need to know who is in the second round, Deputy Sinal Bertrand told Jean-Charles.

But some parliamentarians, facing questions about their own elections, are adamantly opposed to a recount.

You will apply the technical recommendations of the commission, Sen. Youri Latortue told Jean-Charles.

Martellys presidential pick, Jovenel Moise, has also voiced objections to any further verification, and has called for elections to happen as quickly as possible. Foreign diplomats have issued a similar plea, noting that four different vote evaluations by the Organization of American States all have had the same outcome: Moise in first place, followed by Jude Celestin, the former head of the state construction agency.

Diplomats worry that a more in-depth verification could prolong the provisional governments tenure in office or lead to cancellation of the vote.

Under the Feb. 5 political accord, the interim government should last no more than 120 days from its signing. But that didnt seem to matter to senators and deputies, who used the hearing to complain about problems in their own constituencies, while calling on the new government to quickly redress the economy, agriculture and the environment, and to establish long term public security.
MEDICINE LODGE, Kan.  Though some progress has been made to contain it, the persistent wildfire that spread north from rural Oklahoma into a sparsely populated section of Kansas is the largest one in Kansas history, officials said Friday.

At least 620 square miles of land in Oklahoma and southern Kansas have been scorched in the fire, which started Tuesday. It destroyed at least one home in Kansas, but no serious injuries have been reported.

The wildfire is the largest in Kansas history and one of the largest in U.S. history, the Kansas Forest Service said in a release Friday, the same day authorities sent a plane up to update how much land had burned. Officials also are looking at the damage in Barber County to determine if it meets the threshold for a Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster declaration, which would provide public assistance for damaged public infrastructure.

Gov. Sam Brownback said Thursday that the fire was largely contained in Kansas except in Barber County, which is southwest of Wichita along the border with Oklahoma. The strong winds that initially fueled it died down Thursday, and though gusts of up to 30 mph were expected Friday, the winds dont appear to be hurting yet, said Ben Bauman, spokesman for the Kansas Adjutant Generals Office.

Things really appear to be going pretty well so far today, he said.

Earlier in the week, smoke was reportedly detected as far away as St. Louis, hundreds of miles to the northeast.

Crews worked overnight to successfully save a home in Barber County, where the blaze has burned at least 426 square miles, Darcy Golliher, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Incident Management Team, said Friday. She said crews were hopeful that the blaze would be under control by the weekend, although it was just 15 percent contained Friday.

The big concern today is the winds coming out of the south, she said. That is what we are working on.

In neighboring Comanche County, the fire was mostly contained, although crews were monitoring for flare-ups, said John Lehman, the Kansas countys emergency management coordinator. He said the concern was that sparks from still-burning trees and cedars in canyons in the areas Gyp Hills would blow up and ignite flames on the ridges.

Up on top they feel like they have it, he said. Its looking a lot better.

A separate grass fire that hit near the Kansas town of Burrton, which is about 30 miles northwest of Wichita, burned about 22 square miles before it was controlled Thursday. One home was destroyed and several head of livestock were killed.

In Oklahoma, officials planned to conduct damage assessments Friday to determine how many buildings have been lost in the blaze, said Michelle Finch-Walker, a spokeswoman for the states Forestry Services.

Due to the extraordinary firefighting efforts yesterday and a little help from Mother Nature, we didnt see any fire growth, she said.

Meanwhile, the Kansas Livestock Association halted a call for hay donations for Kansas ranchers affected by the fire after many came in, KLA spokesman Todd Domer said Friday. The KLAs farmers cooperatives in two Kansas communities are also collecting cash donations for to help repair tens of thousands of miles of burned fencing.
In a recent report, the Registers pot reporter, Brooke Edwards Staggs, wrote on the different ways the growing legal marijuana industry is navigating the complex and conflicting mix of state and federal law  especially when it comes to money, that most necessary asset of any successful business.

Even with checks and balances, [Chris Francy, director of the OC3 dispensary in Santa Ana] said, operating in cash makes businesses vulnerable to internal theft. They struggle with simple transactions like paying workers and bills, the Register reported. The state Board of Equalization says some dispensaries have settled tax bills with duffel bags stuffed with up to $150,000.

Thats because the federal government still considers marijuana a Schedule I drug, along with heroin, LSD, ecstasy and peyote, and because traditional banks must adhere to federal regulations against handling drug money, the marijuana industry, by and large, is a cash-only business.

What that means for banks is that the revenue they receive from serving marijuana businesses  whether its legal or not under state law  is considered dirty money under federal law, Tom Dresslar, with the California Department of Business Oversight, told the Register. So as soon as they accept it, theyre laundering it.

The nature of a cash-only operation, especially one forced to operate from industrial areas, seems inherently vulnerable to robbery and the resulting potential for bloodshed. And, as we wrote in November, when Santa Ana police responded to shots fired outside of South Coast Safe Access and found a man in his late 40s with a gunshot wound to his stomach, it already has.

While weve advocated for the arming of security guards for pot outlets, the federal government must also move now to reschedule marijuana. As a matter of common sense, marijuana should not be placed in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy. Further, as medical marijuana dispensaries are a legally permissible business, the safety of its patients and employees should be paramount and its monetary transactions secure.
Californias law enforcement officers and prosecutors responsible for fighting criminals and terrorists need more tools to fight crime. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsoms new ballot initiative gives us less.

Newsom is bypassing the legislative system and turning the ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernardino into his latest political scheme. His new proposal will restrict law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves.

His public relations campaign obscures the fact that his proposition is a rehashed patchwork of impractical, tried and failed ideas that will not do anything to combat crime or terrorists. Crime in Los Angeles rose by more than 12 percent in 2015, but Newsoms idea is to clog up the courts with harmless accidental violators while limiting the ability of law-abiding citizens to protect their families.

Newsoms distortion of the facts drew the attention of Politifact, the independent fact-checking organization that won a Pulitzer Prize for calling out politicians false claims. Politifact called Newsoms rhetoric mostly false. One of Politifacts experts had this to say: The problem with the way Gavin Newsom is using this pseudo data is its out of context and is done in a way which is calculated to cause confusion. Thats no surprise to the nearly 80,000 police officers and prosecutors working every day to protect California.

The centerpiece of Newsoms proposal would require a license to sell, and a background check just to buy, a box of ammunition. This would require the creation of another complicated, expensive and inevitably flawed database, which California officials will be unable to effectively maintain. New York already tried this approach, abandoning it after wasting millions of public dollars.

His proposal would confiscate all magazines that hold more than ten rounds. But Californians have already been prohibited from buying these magazines for nearly two decades. The cities of Los Angeles and Sunnyvale tried to confiscate the remaining stock, requiring citizens to surrender legally obtained private property. Not one person complied. The only way to enforce this law is by pulling police from the streets and putting them into the homes of people who pose no threat.

Newsom also seeks the mandatory reporting of stolen or lost firearms. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed this same proposal in 2013 for good reason: I am not convinced that criminalizing the failure to report a lost or stolen firearm would improve identification of gun traffickers or help law enforcement disarm people prohibited from possessing guns. I continue to believe that responsible people report the loss or theft of a firearm and irresponsible people do not. Prosecuting this would also be practically impossible.

Another key element of Newsoms plan is to make the theft of any firearm into a felony. Ironically, it was another Newsom initiative, Proposition 47, which reduced the theft of guns valued under $950 to a misdemeanor. Law enforcement agencies and officials agree with this aspect of the proposition, but its curious that Newsoms only original idea is a refutation of his previous work.

Newsom, who travels with armed bodyguards, put forward his proposition without coordination from other political leaders. Even Democrats, like Gov. Brown and Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon, do not support Newsoms approach. Californias legislative leaders are busy considering crime bills, while Newsom is circumventing them.

California has the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. But the recent terrorist attack in San Bernardino shows us that laws do little to stop the law-breakers. The only way were going to make progress against violence is through a cooperative effort of law enforcement, legislators, the private sector, and individual citizens who can take some responsibility for their own safety. Self-serving political schemes like Newsoms initiative will only set us back.

Michele Hanisee is a co-chair for the Coalition for Civil Liberties and a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles.
BUENOS AIRES  President Barack Obama expressed regret Thursday for the failure of the United States to acknowledge the brutal repression and atrocities that took place during Argentinas dirty war in the 1970s and 80s.

Theres been controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days, Obama said at the Parque de la Memoria, a monument to the wars victims, where he attended a ceremony for the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup that began the Argentine dictatorship.

The United States has to examine its own policies as well, and its own past, Obama added. Weve been slow to speak out for human rights, and that was the case here.

The presidents remarks came after he toured the memorial with President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, walking beside a hulking gray stone wall engraved with the names and ages of 20,000 victims  plus 10,000 blank spaces for those who have yet to be identified.

Obama announced this week that he would begin a declassification effort to unseal secret military and intelligence files that could shed light on the fates of some of those victims, as well as what the United States knew about the human rights violations that took place during what Macri called the darkest period in our history.

The leaders walked together to a bridgehead overlooking the Rio de la Plata, where they each cast three white roses into the water to honor the victims.

A memorial like this speaks to the responsibilities that all of us have, Obama said later. We cannot forget the past, but when we find the courage to confront and we find the courage to change that past, thats when we build a better future.

Human rights groups had reacted angrily to the timing of Obamas trip, arguing that it was inappropriate for him to visit at the very moment that Argentina was commemorating a tragic turn in its history that many believe was condoned, and in some cases enabled, by the United States.

Macri thanked Obama for participating in Argentinas somber day of remembrance, and said nations must not be passive onlookers of human rights violations, as had been the case in the past.

This is a marvelous opportunity for all of the Argentine people to say together, Never again, Macri said. Never again to institutional violence.

Obama and his family then departed to tour Argentinas scenic Patagonia region. He was being kept abreast of the investigation into the Brussels attacks by his national security staff back in Washington.

Lisa Monaco, his top counterterrorism adviser, briefed Obama by secure phone call Thursday morning, a White House official said. The president has directed his team to continue providing any and all requested assistance to Belgian and other authorities investigating the attacks, the official said.

The White House said Thursday that Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping of China next week on the sidelines of a nuclear security meeting in Washington.

The two leaders, who last met in September, will discuss how they can work together on issues of mutual interest, and also to address areas of disagreement constructively, the White House said in a statement.

The meeting will take place on March 31.
DAYTON, Ohio  An Ohio man charged after rushing the stage at a Donald Trump rally has pleaded not guilty in federal court.

Authorities said 22-year-old Fairborn resident Thomas DiMassimo jumped a barricade and charged at the Republican presidential candidate March 12 at a Dayton International Airport hangar. DiMassimo was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor, illegally entering a restricted area.

He pleaded not guilty Friday. His attorney, Jon Paul Rion, said the Wright State University student wanted only to ensure his political views were heard.

Video shows DiMassimo touched the stage where Trump was speaking as Secret Service agents and other security converged.

The acting U.S. attorney for southern Ohio told the Dayton Daily News it was an important case in the context of an election full of passion and protests.
An Orange County jury deadlocked Thursday in the murder retrial of a gang member whose previous conviction was overturned after four sheriffs deputies refused to testify in court.

Superior Court Judge Michael Cassidy declared a mistrial after jurors split 10-2 in favor of acquitting Eric Ortiz on first-degree murder charges.

Im gratified I was able to get 10 people to understand that he is innocent, defense lawyer Rudy Loewenstein said.

A previous jury found Ortiz, 25, guilty in January 2015, but that conviction is one of six prosecutions that unraveled this past year amid allegations that Orange Countys police and prosecutors misused jailhouse snitches.

Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for the Orange County District Attorneys Office, said prosecutors will seek to retry Ortiz.

Sometimes it takes more than one trial to bring justice, Schroeder said.

Ortiz originally was convicted, based partially on testimony from a jailhouse informant, of shooting Emeterio Adame, an unarmed 54-year-old man, outside a Santa Ana home in 2006.

In November, Superior Court Judge Richard King reversed Ortizs murder conviction after four Orange County sheriffs deputies invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The deputies refused to testify during a hearing to determine whether authorities misused a jailhouse informant.

During Ortizs retrial this week, prosecutors did not use the jailhouse informant, but instead introduced testimony from an alleged accomplice who identified Ortiz as the triggerman.

Loewenstein, however, told jurors that Ortiz was not at the site of the shooting and was the victim of a fellow gang member trying to shift the blame for the killing.

The alleged accomplice received a plea deal on manslaughter charges that will allow him to get out of prison in September, Loewenstein said.

Prosecutor Dave Porter offered a vastly different account. He alleged that Ortiz and fellow gang members, including the prosecutions star witness during the second trial, were on the hunt for rivals when Ortiz shot Adame in the back on a Santa Ana street.

Ortiz, still in custody at the Orange County Jail, will return to court April 19. If convicted, Ortiz could face life without possibility of parole.

The Ortiz case show why it is so important that we re-examine cases where informants have been used in this county, said Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who has filed legal actions alleging systematic informant misuse by county police and prosecutors.

Improperly admitted informant testimony can lead to wrongful convictions. This case shows weve been absolutely correct on that point.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nations top federal health agency, recently issued the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, United States, 2016. The guidelines urge doctors to avoid prescribing opiate pain medication for their patients with chronic pain.

For all chronic pain, except for cancer and palliative (end-of-life) pain, the CDC advises doctors to prescribe the lowest possible dose of pain medication, for the shortest amount of time.

For the CDC to issue such blanket guidelines is injudicious and irresponsible. It also displays the capricious and unpredictable nature of the CDC as the guidelines are a significant shift from the CDC position of just a few years ago. Then, it expressed great concern that not enough was being done by doctors for the pain sufferer, especially those afflicted with chronic pain.

At the time, the CDC, seeking to improve communication between pain sufferer and doctor, recommended adoption of the 1-10 pain chart, which now can be seen in most doctor offices and in every hospital.

The CDCs new approach is driven by the current epidemic of U.S. deaths from prescription opioid overdose. In the March 15 press release, CDC Director Tom Frieden said, More than 40 Americans die each day from prescription opioid overdoses. Overprescribing opioids  largely for chronic pain  is a key driver of Americas drug-overdose epidemic.

So, what are the numbers behind this epidemic? In 2014, there were 18,893 deaths attributable to opioid overdose. For the three years prior (2011-13) there were an average 16,000 deaths from opioid overdose. For comparison, a November 2015 CNSNews.com report stated that, in 2013 (last year data was available), there were 46,000 overdose deaths from either prescription or illegal drugs.

That means 30,000 deaths were from nonopioid overdoses.

About 30 percent of the U.S. population  100 million people  deal with chronic pain. And for seniors, 50 percent deal with chronic pain.

When it comes to chronic pain (long-term and ceaseless), which can have hundreds of sources, most fall into two categories, nociceptive and neuropathic. Nociceptive pain is somatic (tendon, ligament and bone) or visceral (a referred pain, like sciatica). Neuropathic pain can be peripheral (damage to the nervous system) and central (damage to the spinal cord).

Baby boomers will live longer than any prior generation. This longevity has them discovering the truth of the axiom, While the mind may be willing, the body is weak. Anyone who suffers from chronic pain already knows its relentless impact on quality of life.

Chronic pain sufferers and their doctors are not stupid. It is insidious and debilitating, and both patient and doctor know it takes a concerted effort of massage, chiropractic adjustments, neuromodulation and movement/exercise to manage and endure the pain and maintain the best possible quality of life. Pain medication, in particular, opioids, is just part of that concerted effort.

When government recommendations or guidelines cross the regulatory line and begin proposing treatment methods that come between patient and doctor, that is just asinine.

But, for the CDC, the asinine seems to have become standard operating procedure. The CDC once was a respected voice of medical information and knowledge. However, now it is seen as just another politicized and factionalized government agency.

The CDC is a bureaucracy constantly behind the curve on medical issues. Recent examples includes its mishandling of the Ebola, Zika and anthrax virus outbreaks and MRSA infections in hospitals.

These guidelines are another example of government overreacting and attempting to control and solve societal issues. Government guidelines will not stop irresponsible people who abuse and/or misuse their prescribed pain medication.

Additionally troubling about the guidelines is that they violate a medical doctors Hippocratic Oath, which states, in part:

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the persons family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

The CDC has become just another of a myriad agencies, insurance companies, health panels and Big Pharma that come between patient and doctor.

Lamonts column covers regional, state and national issues. He can be reached at ilamont@lbregister.com.
Two men convicted of crimes in Orange County Superior Court, both of whom served their time in prison, were among 59 people pardoned by Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday.

James Avery Brisco and Chester Albert Righter Jr. have paid their debt to society, the pardons say.

In 2001, Brisco, who is a former South Pasadena police officer, was convicted for making methamphetamine in his San Clemente home. He finished his sentence in June 2004.

Righter was convicted in Orange County Superior Court in August 1993 for grand theft, making a false financial statement and perjury for not paying taxes on his business, according to his pardon.

Righter volunteers with an organization that raises funds for muscular dystrophy research, the pardon says.

The governors office did not release where Brisco and Righter live. But according to the pardons, Brisco lives in California and Righter in Florida. Neither could be located for comment.

These pardons recognize  and even affirm  that people can turn their lives around after making mistakes and become solid members of their community, Brown said in a statement.

Those seeking a pardon must apply; the process includes receiving an order from a judge saying the person is rehabilitated.

To receive a pardon, those with criminal records must serve their complete sentences. Most of the 59 people were convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes.

People who receive pardons are allowed to serve on juries and own firearms  unless their conviction was related to guns.

Pardons do not, however, erase convictions or allow people to say they have no criminal record on employment applications.

Since Brown came to office in 2011 he has granted 742 pardons  typically around Christmas and Easter.

In recent years, governors have rarely granted pardons: Arnold Schwarzenegger granted 15 pardons during his terms and Gray Davis pardoned no one.

But before Pete Wilson, who was governor from 1991-99 and pardoned 13 people, pardons were a matter of routine: George Deukmejian granted 325 pardons and Ronald Reagan granted 574.

Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or chaire@ocregister.com
PARIS  The worlds family of peace will prevail over terrorism, former Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres said Friday.

The 92-year-old statesman capped a two-day visit to Paris with a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, who said despite arrests in the extremists attacks in Paris and Brussels there is still a threat looming.

We are all in the same family of peace and humanity. Were in the same struggle against terror, said Peres, whose Peres Center for Peace works on peace education and intercultural understanding.

He added there is no doubt that the majority of people is against terror and for peace and the terrorists are a minority.

Peres visited UNESCO, the U.N. cultural arm, earlier Friday to promote peace as Europe reels from attacks claimed by the Islamic State group.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation with the Peres Center for Peace. In a frail voice, Peres said democracy means that everyone has the equal right to be different and that to move forward people shouldnt cling to the past.

Peres met with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls Thursday, saying that Israel could lend Europe its technical expertise in the fight against extremism.
SANTA ANA  A 24-year-old and 25-year-old man killed in gang-related attacks on the same night were identified Friday as Santa Ana residents.

Police responded to the first fatal shooting around 8:30 p.m. where Kevin Sotelo, 24, was riding a bicycle in the 4000 block of West Hazard Avenue.

Sotelo was approached by multiple people in a vehicle before he was shot multiple times and the driver sped away, police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

Authorities have not found the car or people involved.

About an hour later, David Adam Bernal, 25, was shot while walking with a bicycle in the alley behind the 400 block of South Birch Street.

Police suspect two people got into a confrontation with Bernal before shooting him and running away, Bertagna said.

The shootings on South Birch and West Hazard Avenue are not believed to be related because they occurred at opposite ends of Santa Ana, but both are suspected to be gang-related.

Anyone with information about the incidents has been asked to call the Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS. Tips can be provided anonymously.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7802 or aduranty@ocregister.com
Public health officials on Friday reported Californias first case of sexual transmission of the Zika virus, the disease linked to birth defects and paralysis in adults abroad.

It was once thought that a mosquito bite was the only way to contract Zika, which is spreading rapidly across the Americas. But health officials now say its possible for infected men to transmit the virus to sex partners.

Testing this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that an infected man who had visited Colombia, where the virus is circulating, passed the virus on to a woman in San Diego in February, San Diego Countys Health & Human Services Agency reported. Both have fully recovered.

This is the first confirmed case in California where Zika virus was transmitted sexually, said the states health officer Dr. Karen Smith. If your partner has traveled to an area where Zika is present, protecting yourself by abstaining from sex or using condoms during sex is the best way to prevent sexual transmission of the Zika virus.

The case was announced the same day that the CDC released new guidelines on how to prevent the spread of Zika through sex. It said its guidelines are based on limited data:

 Women with a Zika diagnosis, or who show signs of the disease after possible exposure, should wait at least eight weeks after symptom onset before trying to conceive. Women who dont have any symptoms but who have been exposed to Zika should also wait at least eight weeks.

 Men with a Zika diagnosis, or who show signs of the disease after possible exposure, should wait at least six months before having unprotected sex.

About 1 in 5 people infected with Zika virus get sick. When they do, fever, rash, joint pain or conjunctivitis (red eyes) appear. Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, pain behind the eyes and vomiting. It rarely leads to hospitalization.

The CDC maintains that men traveling to or living in an area with Zika infection and who have a pregnant partner should wear condoms or abstain from sex.

Nearly two dozen people have returned to California with the virus after traveling overseas, according to the CDC. To spread the virus, a mosquito would have to bite an infected person then bite someone else within about a week.

There have been no mosquito-acquired cases of Zika in California or anywhere else in the U.S., but the tropical mosquitoes that spread Zika are present in 12 California counties, including O.C.

They are hardy and aggressive mosquitoes, often biting during the day.

Contact the writer: jchandler@ocregister.com and @jennakchandler on Twitter
The strong smell of fresh paint wafts from Marco Gallardo as he shuffles through the entryway of the Los Angeles Convention Center for the opening of WonderCon on Friday.

The reason? The 19-year-old from Placentia only finished making his costume  a cardboard-and-spray-paint-and-duct-tape Lego Deadpool  the night before.

Gallardo and his friends Matt Craid and Raul Contreras  Lego Starlord and Captain America, respectively, and both from Anaheim  were among thousands of fans to flock to downtown L.A. as WonderCon move north for a one-year sabbatical from its most recent home at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Tons of wild costumes, vendors selling every imaginable kind of pop- and geek culture merchandise, and panels on movies, TV series, comic books  duh!  and much more. If you need a light saber, if you need costume contact lens to make your eyes some crazy color, if you need an autograph by Lou Ferrigno, the Hulk on TV in the 70s, all of that could be yours for the right price.

* * *

If you just wanted to wander the halls and let people admire and photograph your costume, well, that was free fun for hundreds like the trio of jumbo mini-fig Lego superheroes from Orange County.

Gallardo said hed admired the giant Lego DC Comics characters that Craid and Contreras made for WonderCon a year ago and jumped to join them as Marvel superheroes this year, letting everyone use his garage to cut and tape and paint their costumes.

The best part of that work? The attention they get from fans and photographers, all three said. The worst? Its not easy to move in a bulky pile of boxes.

Stairs are our mortal enemy, Craid said from inside his round Lego Starlord head.

Even more confined in his costume was Jeremy Apodaca, 25, of Hesperia, who was literally inside a box. Apodaca was dressed as Ken and stood motionless inside a pink wooden box with a cut-out of Barbie on the front.

My mother got me a Ken doll as a gag gift for Christmas one year and said, Look! Youre in a box! said Apodaca, who truly did look remarkably like Barbies molded plastic boyfriend. So I decided to be Ken-in-a-box.

* * *

The original Star Trek famously touched on hot-button social issues of the 60s and got away with it by setting tales of civil rights and protest against endless wars in outer space and the future. Social issues in costume today are much more openly discussed.

Take, for instance, Erik Lopez, 32, of San Francisco, who got a Captain America costume, painted it red, green and white, added the seals and symbols from the Mexican flag, and walked the convention hall as Captain Mexico.

Did we mention that in addition to his red, green and white shield he was carrying a pinata in the shape of Donald Trump?

Im a fan of Captain America, Lopez said. I like that he has good morals and standards for people. Right now this whole thing about Donald Trump and how hes talking bad about Mexicans, I wanted to make a political statement.

Nick Nova Bloom Butler and Kaylee Lezz Trooper Diamond came to the Con with six or eight friends from the Imperial Forces Rainbow Squadron, an organization of LGBT Star Wars fans.

We just use it to show our LGBT pride, said Diamond, 26, of Los Angeles. A lot of people are coming up to us and saying, Thank you so much for doing what you do.

* * *

In the back of the exhibition hall we found a few rows of autograph tables were you could get Lou Ferrigno or Cissy from Family Affair or the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld to sign a photo for a price. Richard Hatch, who played Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Gallactica and returned as Tom Zarek in the popular reboot, said hes been a regular on the convention circuit since stumbling into one 20 years ago.

Im a big Star Trek fan and my girlfriend took me to a big Star Trek convention in 1995, and it changed my life, Hatch said. I had never realized there was an interest in me at something like that.

Since then he travels many weekends from his home in Studio City to conventions around the world, using them to meet fans, network with colleagues and teach seminars on acting and filmmaking.

Its become iconic, a destination for people, Hatch said of WonderCon, its big brother Comic-Con and others like them.

Its a business thing, its a passion thing, its a fun thing, but its also a way to put together a network you can draw upon when youre putting together a project, he said.

* * *

As soon as Natalie Nielsen got into the convention around 12:30 p.m. Friday she made a beeline, her sister Natasha Nielsen in tow, for the booth where MC Bat Commander of the Orange County-bred quirky rock band the Aquabats would be signing autographs at 2 p.m.

Nielsen, 21, told the Bat Commander  whos also known as Christian Jacobs when hes not fighting crime or rockin out with the Aquabats  that she goes to adult school at the Westminster Mall, she wants to play saxophone for the band and have her secret identity be Lava Fish. She asked him to autograph a photo of the two of them she got one day years ago when she walked and rode her bike to a Fountain Valley doughnut shop where she met Jacobs.

I didnt realize about the Aquabats until I heard their music and then I fell in love, Neilsen said.

Walking away from the table she showed off the signature shed acquired: Your pal fo eva  The MC BC.

* * *

We recognized Glynnes Pruett, owner of the Comic Book Hideout in Fullerton, first by her store logo T-shirt, and then realized wed chatted a year or two ago when she and her shop were featured in the Registers Best of Orange County publication.

Pruett has gone to conventions since the 90s when she was 8 years old, accompanying her father who sold comics as a sideline for many years, and later plucking selections from her stores inventory of half a million titles in hopes of making a few sales and drawing fans back to the source material for so much of todays pop culture.

I feel just like Im trying to do with my store, to create a genuine love of the actual comic books, Pruett said. The movies are doing a great job of making people familiar with the characters. My love has always been on the actual comic books.

To that end, she brings a little bit everything to her booth at WonderCon.

Ive got modern, Ive got Golden Age, some high-grade stuff, some lower-grade stuff, Pruett said.

Shell sell Friday and Saturday, but come Sunday shell do a little shopping, too.

I have so many comic books available to me because of the store, so my thing is art, she said. Ill usually buy some new art when I look around on Sunday.
Federal efforts to speed up the removal of spent radioactive fuel from power plants like the mothballed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are gaining momentum and inspiring guarded optimism among local officials.

Critics, however, remain deeply skeptical.

In January, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a new push to create temporary nuclear waste storage sites in regions eager for the business, currently in West Texas and New Mexico.

Several such sites could be up and running while the prickly question of finding a location for a permanent repository  the root of the present paralysis in nuclear waste disposal  is hashed out.

That could mean moving the fuel from San Onofre a decade earlier than is envisioned now, maybe more, said David Victor, who chairs the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel. The volunteer group of academic, industry, environmental and local government representatives advises the plants owner, Southern California Edison.

I am cautiously optimistic, he said.

Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at UC San Diego, met with officials in Washington this month to convey populous Southern Californias eagerness to solve the nuclear waste storage problem. An update on those efforts, as well as the latest on plans to dismantle the shuttered twin reactors, will be presented at 6 p.m. today at the San Onofre Community Engagement Panels quarterly meeting in Oceanside.

Decommissioning the plant south of San Clemente is expected to cost $4.1 billion and be mostly completed by 2030. But spent nuclear fuel is expected to remain on the beachside bluff much longer.

NATIONWIDE PROBLEM

Some 72,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste has piled up at 75 commercial reactor sites in America over the past half-century, according to a recent review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Thats not how it was supposed to be.

To encourage the development of nuclear power, the federal government passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, promising to accept and dispose of spent fuel and high-level waste by Jan. 31, 1998.

Utilities operating nuclear power plants made payments into a Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for disposal.

About $750 million a year was collected from ratepayers, and the disposal programs funding grew to $41 billion over three decades. But the federal government never accepted any commercial nuclear waste for permanent disposal.

The nuclear industry sued, and a federal judge found that the U.S. Department of Energy couldnt continue charging for a service it not only wasnt providing, but wouldnt provide for many decades. In 2014, utilities stopped collecting the charge  about 20 cents a month on the average electric bill. After the government spent $10 billion on a now-abandoned plan to create a permanent disposal site at Nevadas Yucca Mountain, about $30 billion remains in the fund, earning about $1 billion in interest a year.

Local governments, including San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Oceanside, Encinitas and San Diego County, are pressing Washington to fulfill its obligations.

We all want it gone, said San Clemente City Councilman Tim Brown last month.

BREAKTHROUGH?

Edison agrees.

We are very much in alignment with our nearby communities, which are making efforts to get the nuclear fuel moved off-site to another location, said Maureen Brown, Edison spokeswoman. Before it can be moved off-site, though, it has to be in a dry storage canister for transport. We are continuing with preparations to expand dry storage and get all the fuel out of the spent fuel pools.

Thats supposed to be done by 2019. Edison has chosen Holtec Internationals Hi-Storm Umax underground system for dry storage. The fuel is expected to remain in an underground monolith on-site through 2049, when Edison assumes the federal government will take custody of all spent nuclear fuel.

The Department of Energy will begin public meetings on the new push for interim storage sites on Tuesday in Chicago.

A second hearing is scheduled in Atlanta on April 11 and a third in Sacramento on April 26.

(W)e in the communities surrounding SONGS have a keen interest in removing the spent fuel from the site, Victor wrote in a recent memo to the Community Engagement Panel. As the option of Yucca Mountain has stalled, spent fuel has been backing up at sites around the country with no place for permanent disposal. The idea of consolidated interim storage (CIS) could be a solution.

As you know, the politics of this are complex and difficult in part because CIS is seen as a rival for Yucca Mountain, and many important politicians have adopted a Yucca only approach to spent fuel storage, Victor continued. It is important that whenever we talk about CIS we portray this as a complement to Yucca Mountain and a complement to other long-term permanent disposal options, such as deep borehole technologies that are currently being tested. My sense from the meetings is that Yucca and CIS are, indeed, complements.

San Onofres storage system will be part of a real-time experiment, as Edison partners with the Electric Power Research Institute to develop inspection techniques to monitor casks as they age.

No entity has previously done what Edison is planning  burying this kind of spent fuel in dry casks for decades. Critics have raised concerns about the ability of the casks to withstand the heat of the fuel over time.

Some dont think temporary storage is the answer.

If such a site were ever built, it would be a disaster for the hosting community, said activist Ace Hoffman of Carlsbad. DOE calls it consent-based, but how can future generations that will have to deal with the mess give their consent? And why on earth would they?

DOE calls it interim, but what exactly that means has never been defined, except to mean until a permanent repository opens up somewhere. Whos going to fall for that line?

Contact the writer: tsforza@ocregister.com
Boston-based agency 360 Public Relations has been named U.S. agency of record for UK brand Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer.

The alcoholic ginger beer was first introduced in 1801 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is now manufactured by UK-based Halewood International Holdings PLC. Crabbies, which is distributed in the U.S. through St. Killian Importing, was introduced to six states in 2012. Due to rapid growth, its U.S. presence later picked up to 48 states, and it will be distributed in all 50 states by 2017.

360PRs integrated campaign for the adult beverage, titled The Crabbies Rules, will target earned, paid and shared media channels nationally and in key markets throughout 2016. The campaign, which will particularly focus on Millennial consumers, will emphasize the brands originality in the adult beverage industry, and will also support Crabbies Weeks, an event series that St. Killian Importing has launched in major markets.

360PR, which holds additional offices in New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, in 2015 accounted for more than $1.7 million in food/beverage related net fees, according to ODwyers rankings of PR firms. Current 360PR beverage clients include Juicy Juice, The Pogues and illy Italian coffee.
Wi-Fi pollution is Canadas worst crime ever against humanity but scientists, doctors and the sinfully silent news media are failing to warn the public, says WF health advocate Jerry Flynn.



Flynn, retired Canadian Armed Forces captain who spent 22 years in its Electronic Warfare unit, said scientists have known for more than 50 years that wireless products are not safe.



Programs on the hazards of cellphone radiation are "all over the TV news at least in Europe and Australia" but media ownership in North America, which is in the hands of "a few multinational corporations," are mostly ignoring the subject, he said.



Worldwide Wi-Fi Planned



Five companies are planning to envelope the earth in Wi-Fi, he said--Google, which plans 200,000 Wi-Fi balloons at 62,500 feet; Space X, 4,000 satellites, 750 miles high; OneWeb, 648 satellites 500-590 miles high; Facebook, satellites, drones and lasers, and Outernet, low orbit microsatellites.



"Virtually the entire global population will be irradiated by 24/7/365 by 2020 whether they like it or not by pulsed, non-thermal microwave on the same frequency as microwave ovens--2.4 Gigahertz," said Flynn.



The "world's first Wi-Fi conference" is set for April 19-21 in Tysons Corner, Va. Thousands are expected to attend "Wi-Fi Now 2016." Main sponsors are Samsung, Oracle and WiFIForward. More than 40 other sponsors are listed. Speakers are from Time Warner, T-Mobile, Google Access and other major companies.



More than 7,000 attended the annual International Wireless Communications Expo in Las Vegas from March 21-25. There were more than 370 exhibits and nearly 200 speakers. The slogan of the wireless industry is "Everything Wireless." It has been held since 1977.



Said Flynn: It is preposterous but tragically true that scientists and informed people around the world fear that todays ongoing pandemic corruption, suppression of the truth, deception and lies, aided by a sinfully silent news mediaunless it somehow can be stoppedwill bring about the demise of mankind and all life on earth as we know it!



Flynn said Canadas only hope rests with the Canadian Medical Assn. and its provincial chapters.



The corrupt authorities now in Health Canada, Industry Canada and elsewhere must be routed and held legally accountable. It simply boggles the mind that such a thing could possibly be happening in Canadaall because governments everywhere refuse to learn from the previous tobacco, asbestos, Thalidomide, etc., debacles! he said.



Flynn said, Canadians are being lied to about the alleged safety of low-intensity, pulsed, non-thermal, non-ionizing radio frequency radiation which is emitted by all of todays consumer wireless products as well as wireless Smart utility meters and appliances.



Flynn said the Canadian government is blind to the decades-old corruption that is ongoing within the Minister of Healths radiation protection bureau. Tragically for all persons living in Canada, our provincial governments have show themselves to be willfully silent to those of us who have made many attempts to alert them over the years.



EMF Dangers Known Since 1950's



Despite an ever-growing mountain of compelling, peer-reviewed evidence amassed from scientists around the world since the 1950s, Canadas news media chooses to remain largely silent, he added.



For that reason, it behooves Canadas doctors and nurses to use their national organizations to notify the Prime Minister and Minister of Health, personally, of this outrageously evil crime against humanity!



Sources of dangerous EMF, said Flynn, include wireless electric and gas utility monitors, cellphone towers, cordless phones, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi routers, Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX zones, GPS, tablet and laptop computers, TV games, remote control units for TV and other purposes, baby monitors and Smart appliances.



The mysteries of the electromagnetic spectrum are such that few people understand it, Flynn said. Governments and media are needed to step in and fill the void.



The Soviets, Flynn noted, irradiated the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 1953-1976 for 6-8 hours a day using frequencies between 600 megahertz and 950 megahertz emitting power 1,000 times weaker than most of today's international "safe" standards. Despite the low dosage, two ambassadors died of brain tumors, a third contracted leukemia-like symptoms and died, and at least 16 female staffers developed breast cancer. Many other staffers had various illness, said Flynn.



Cellphones use frequencies in the 900 MHz range and wireless utility meters are at the 910 MHz level. "Scientists note that harmful effects of EMF are cumulative and can take from 10 to 40 years before an illness becomes apparent," said Flynn.



Environmental Group Tracks EMF in 20 Nations



The Environmental Health Trust has published an 18-page report detailing efforts to curtail electromagnetic radiation in 20 nations.



Covered are policies relating to exposure of children to Wi-Fi and other sources of radiation; cellphone tower emission standards; mandatory radiation labeling; publicizing of Wi-Fi hotspots; publication of cell antennae maps for the country; informing schools of the health dangers of EMF; advertising bans in some countries, and passing Cellphone Right to Know legislation.
DISAFFECTED former members of the Labour Party are considering running a candidate in Laois in the forthcoming general election.

DISAFFECTED former members of the Labour Party are considering running a candidate in Laois in the forthcoming general election.

The proposal for a Laois candidate was aired at a meeting in the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel last week at which Birr based, Liam Dumpleton was selected to run as the candidate of an "alternative left" grouping in the constituency.

In a signal of the split in the Labour camp, 20 members resigned from the party at that meeting, and formed a new left grouping, under the umbrella organisation of the United Left Alliance, helmed by Joe Higgins MEP. A proposal for a second candidate from Laois was heard from the floor.

However, Ray Fitzpatrick who chaired the meeting said: "Since there is no one prepared to allow their name go forward at present, it might be better to defer these suggestions for consideration to the elected committee who could then report back to the group at the next meeting."

Mr Dumpleton, a news journalist with Midlands 103, was proposed by Jack Feehan of Birr, and seconded by Jim Lalor-Fitzpatrick, Mountrath. Addressing the meeting, Mr Dumpleton spoke of his "passion to provide a real left wing alternative for people; to oppose cuts which would impact on working people and the unemployed; and to highlight the consensus that has emerged between the main political parties."

Speaking in Dublin last Friday, Ray Fitzpatrick outlined the background to the initiative. "We established a new left wing group to give the people of Laois-Offaly a real choice. Two thirds of the people who attended the Labour Party selection convention in Portlaoise last December have set up this new group. Liam Dumpleton is our candidate and he is very able."

Joe Higgins MEP (Socialist Party) welcomed the move. "I welcome the mass resignation of the Labour Party in Laois-Offaly. They dictatorially imposed a candidate. The Labour leadership wants yes men and women. The ruinous policies of the present government will be continued by a Fine Gael - Labour administration.

"There is a huge thirst for an alternative. The United Left Alliance is an alliance at the moment, not a political party. It is comprised of independent left organisations, such as that in Laois-Offaly. We are the only credible left alternative in the country and the only place to put up a fight."

The officers elected to the new organisation in Laois-Offaly are: Chairperson, Eoin Breathnach; Secretary, Georgina Cully, Vice-Chair, Ray FitzPatrick: Treasurer Jim Bartlett; and PRO Liam Dumpelton.

Reacting to the emergence of Mr Dumpleton as a candidate, Labour Party candidate John Whelan said, "It is vital that the voters of Laois-Offaly are afforded a robust and credible choice of candidates in the general election and, as a new candidate myself, I welcome this.

"Until I was selected by Labour, the options for the people of this constituency were the exact same politicians who have been on the ballot paper here for years on end.
Something exceptional happened when two retired first sergeants -- one a team leader from the Airman & Family Readiness Center here, and the other a local human resources professional with Mutual of Omaha  joined forces to assist personnel leaving active duty.

The result is the Excel with a Mentor program, or EWAM, that pairs a civilian from the local community with a military member separating or retiring from active duty.

Having experienced the transition from active duty to the civilian world, we both felt the Transition Assistance Program provided great information, but it lacked in the practical application of the knowledge attendees gain.

In 2011, a mentorship program was developed and tested. Mutual of Omaha leaders agreed to find 20 volunteer mentors from various levels of corporate employment, while the A&FRC staff would provide 20 volunteer mentees of different grades who had six to 18 months left in service. We established some basic guidelines for the test such as:

-- Each volunteer must be willing to commit to meeting at a minimum of once a month for six months (the meeting method determined by participants);

-- We emphasized that mentoring was not about finding the mentee employment, but breaking down barriers and assisting Airmen with understanding the civilian world and how their skills may be used, networking, resume writing, interview techniques, negotiating salaries, etc.;

-- Either party could terminate the agreement and ask for a new mentor/mentee if he or she felt the relationship didnt work or was uncomfortable for any reason.

Interesting feedback began arising out of the participants. Military members discovered that not only did they have a misconception of the corporate world, but the corporate world had a slanted view of military life as well.

Mentees began visiting company workplaces and the mentors, in most cases, were getting their first tour of Offutt AFB. The test was so successful after the first year that we found the need to broaden our base of employers by partnering with the Human Resource Association of the Midlands, a local chapter of the national Society of Human Resources Management.

Staff from the A&FRC met with association employees and began working on a formal application process for mentors and mentees. The association assigned two of its board members to serve as the conduit for the A&FRC staff to funnel applications through when requesting a mentor for a military member. Guidelines were established and specific duties were assigned to catalog applicants, assign appropriate mentors, monitor progress, and market program to Offutt personnel and corporate partners. A LinkedIn page was developed and experts in social media volunteered their time to teach both sides how to effectively use the resources.

Quarterly socials were designed and scheduled at various locations allowing all program participants an opportunity to network in a relaxed, non-threatening environment. While nearly 300 have participated and rotated through the program, there are normally about 50 people actively being mentored at any given time.

EWAM has enjoyed such success that the governor of Nebraska formed a working group to examine implementing the program statewide for the National Guard. The Society of Human Resources Management recognized the local chapter by awarding it the national Pinnacle Award for exceptional leadership in the community. Offutts A&FRC staff has benchmarked this program twice with both the Air Combat Command and Air Force Inspector Generals.

The Excel with a Mentor program has taken on a life of its own, and it is commonplace for Offutts transitioning personnel of all ranks and services to request a mentor. It could be the first-term senior airman looking to start with an entry-level position that has room to grow, or the 30-year colonel that may want to use his or her executive skills to take on a new challenge.

Either way with corporate partners providing volunteers -- from CEOs on down -- the program is destined for continued success while assisting the military personnel at Offutt with their transition to a new career path.
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More mass casualty terrorist attacks were executed in Brussels this week and I, like most of the world, am confused, angry and sad about the loss of innocent lives  not to mention the fear that is now instilled in the day-to-day life of so many people worldwide.

While the primary effect will always be the loss of life and freedom, and an increase in fear, an unexpected side effect of these continuing terror attacks and economical crises is the ever-changing face of vacations.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the Transportation Security Administration was developed to keep U.S. travelers safe. But now that attacks are becoming more randomized and often include suicide bombers, is an agency of this type enough protection? When you add drug problems, economic instability and war into the picture, traveling has really changed in the last 20 years.

In 2014, we took a family vacation to Brussels and Paris. We had the most marvelous time. Our daughter, then 2 years old, enjoyed every bit of the trip. We talk regularly about how we cannot wait to take her  and now her younger brother  back again soon. But because both Paris and Brussels have been the focus of mass terrorist attacks in the past four months, it has me wondering if we will ever end up taking vacations back to these locations.

The day prior to the Brussels attack, there were several suicide attacks in Istanbul, and with the crises that have occurred in Mexico, Greece and Egypt recently, safety has been on my mind as I plan our family vacations. I have fond memories of visiting places in the U.S. and internationally while growing up. My husband  who travels worldwide frequently for work  and I have always wanted our children to grow up experiencing as much travel as possible, but will there reach a point when it is not longer safe?

I hate to think fear will win over and our kids will not be able to study abroad safely or even visit national parks or sporting events without always looking over their shoulders. Sure, the attacks are few and far between now, but they are increasing in frequency each year. Who knows what the safety and stability will be of any country in 10, 15 or 20 years from now.

This week, we mourn the loss of innocent lives and freedoms that are often taken for granted, but lets not let these senseless acts prevent us from showing our children and grandchildren the world. Let this serve as an important reminder to not wait to take these trips until you have more time later because we never know what life has in store for us.

Embrace life. Travel now. Show the countries in need that we stand with them and with freedom, and that we will not live in fear.

***

Jaime Wyant is a 31-year-old Omaha native, wife to Bret and mother to Marin and Liam. She writes weekly for Momaha.com.
10 and older:

 "Miracles from Heaven" (PG): Soft-hearted kids 10 and older, whether they're from religious families or not, will react emotionally to this story of a dying little girl who gets well as a result of what she and her parents deem to be a miracle. Hollywood is taking faith-based films seriously now, and the acting and production values show it. The Beams are a fun family, with three daughters and lots of pets, living on a beautiful piece of land in Texas. They are devout Christians who declare their faith openly and often. Christy Wilson Beam's 2015 memoir of the same name inspired the film. Her middle daughter, Anna, became ill at age 10 with pseudo-obstruction motility disorder, which, as the book explains, makes it "impossible for her little body to process food or even water in the normal way." Anna is in pain with a bloated belly, yet wasting away. With her devoted mom (Jennifer Garner), she visits a specialist in Boston, where a kind waitress (Queen Latifah) befriends them. But Anna gets worse. Then a near-fatal backyard climbing accident seems mysteriously to cure her. Anna says she went to heaven and talked to God. Accept that or not, this is a moving tale of familial love. (109 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: Scenes showing Anna sick and in pain, frantic moments in an emergency room, and tubes pushed up her nose and into her stomach could upset children younger than 10 and some older. Parents must consider what their kids can handle. Characters' discussion of faith in and out of church will feel familiar to many children, but unusual to those whose families worship differently or not at all.

 "Zootopia" (PG): Consistently humorous and frequently all-out hilarious, "Zootopia" is an ingenious animated parable about acceptance and tolerance. It uses the animal world to mirror humankind and our tendencies toward prejudice and stereotyping. It's best for kids 10 and older because of its complex ideas and several scary bits. The animators' renderings of animals, from shrews to yaks to giraffes, are droll and joyous. "Zootopia's" heroine, a rabbit named Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), leaves her rural home and worried parents to follow her dream of becoming a cop in the big city of Zootopia, where all animals, prey and predators, live in peace. That doesn't mean prejudices don't still exist. Judy gets into the police academy as part of a diversity initiative. But when she graduates, the chief, a Cape buffalo (Idris Elba), only sees her as a meek parking cop. Judy resolves to prove herself. She wins the chief's okay to follow a lead on a case involving the disappearance of several of Zootopia's predator citizens. She enlists the aid of a fox con artist, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), and they uncover a bizarre plot. A scene at Zootopia's DMV office, staffed entirely by sloths, is a classic hoot. (109 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: Spoiler alert: Some scenes, in which usually peaceful animals are injected with a serum that makes them go wild and attack, could scare kids under 10, especially in 3-D. Judy and Nick get into dangerous scrapes, such as falling off a cliff. They also visit a hippie animal nudist colony and are embarrassed by seeing everyone's naughty bits (which aren't really shown).

***

PG-13:

 "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice": As he did with "Man of Steel," director Zack Snyder yanks this superhero saga from its comic-book roots and infuses it with thick dollops of existential, post-9/11 angst. "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is long, sometimes hard to follow and overstuffed with plot and digital effects, but it is nearly always gripping. High-schoolers who prefer superheroes with moral and intellectual grit can revel in this film. That noted, its very dark mood and intense violence make it a decidedly iffy choice for timid or nightmare-prone middle-schoolers. The story opens with flashbacks of a battle that nearly destroys Metropolis. Cut to Superman's (Henry Cavill) bloody rescue of his love, reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), from possible terrorists. A senate subcommittee and even Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck), over in Gotham City, question whether Superman's efforts are worth the collateral damage. As for Superman, he views Batman as an out-of-control vigilante. Neither understands the other. Enter addled young tech billionaire Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who gets ahold of the mineral kryptonite, so dangerous to Superman. Batman and Superman continue on a somewhat anti-climactic collision course, until Luthor's evil plans erupt. (151 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: The mood, tone and violence are all very dark. The superheroes begin to wonder if humankind even deserves their help. The gunplay, aerial dogfights, impalements and chases, while not graphic in terms of blood and gore, have a lethal intensity that implies much loss of human life. The dialogue includes one S-word.

 "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2": Adults of middle and later years are the likeliest audience for this sentimental, slapdash sequel, but the film might also appeal to teens who enjoy warm family tales. If, however, those teens want the stories to have internal logic or the humor to be subtle, they'll be disappointed here. Screenwriter and star Nia Vardalos' story hits umpteen logical potholes, which she paves over with awkward quick fixes in the dialogue. And the humor is unapologetically broad. From a teen perspective, it might help that part of the plot hinges on a girl trying to get her loving but overprotective parents to back off a bit. The proudly ethnic Greek-American family that Vardalos introduced 14 years ago still butts into one another's lives with zero tact and much affection. Toula (Vardalos) and her totally non-Greek husband, Ian (John Corbett), now have a brainy 17-year-old daughter who is mortified by her family and in rebellion. She longs to go away to college, but Toula can't face the idea. On top of that, Toula's crotchety parents need to renew their vows (long story) and Toula and Ian feel the spark has left their marriage. Much advice comes from Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin), the expert. (94 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: The dialogue and visual gags include a lot of not-quite-raunchy sexual innuendo, from the Greek slang for private parts to lectures from Aunt Voula on how Toula can put spark back into her marital sex life.

 "The Divergent Series: Allegiant": This is the first half of a planned two-part finale for the "Divergent" series, based on the young-adult trilogy by Veronica Roth. Alas, much like the second film, "Insurgent," this installment disappoints with its graceless narrative, intensified violence and occasional dullness. It also does a poor job of catching newcomers up with the plot. The mayhem is too graphic for preteens and even some middle-schoolers, but most teens will find some satisfaction in it if they love the books. A post-revolutionary reign of terror has begun under Evelyn (Naomi Watts), the problematic new leader in the blasted landscape that was Chicago. The heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley), disapproves of Evelyn's show trials, mob justice and point-blank executions. Evelyn also is the mother of Tris's love and fellow insurgent, Four (Theo James). Tris, Four and their unreliable allies, Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Peter (Miles Teller), escape Evelyn's paramilitary in a hail of bullets and go over the wall. They find the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, run by David (Jeff Daniels), who tells them that humanity was nearly destroyed by genetic tinkering, which he aims to fix. When he tells Tris she is the only "genetically pure" human left, they doubt his motives. (121 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: There is not a lot of blood, but the mayhem - point-blank killings, pitched gun battles and bone-cracking fights - has a more intense feel than in the earlier films. The executions, while not graphic, are truly disturbing, as is the talk of genetic "purity." Apart from Tris and Four stealing kisses, there is no sexual innuendo.

 "The Young Messiah": Flawed and violent, but an effective tale of devotion, "The Young Messiah" grittily depicts life in the Holy Land two millennia ago, as it imagines a year in the life of 7-year-old Jesus. Based on Anne Rice's 2005 "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: A Novel," the film uses too much lethal mayhem for a PG-13, so it's not for preteens. Jesus and his family leave exile in Egypt and return to Judea. A pious, sweet little boy, Jesus knows he has healing powers, but doesn't know why. His parents, Mary and Joseph, have withheld the truth from him for fear of Roman reprisals and mob suspicion. But when a bully attacks Jesus, then falls dead, Jesus brings the boy back to life. He uses his powers again and again. When he walks into a skirmish among Roman soldiers and Judean rebels, a Roman centurion spares him. The centurion has killed children before, hunting for the rumored newborn messiah. When he realizes who Jesus is, he will come after him again. A demonic figure often lurks in the background, only visible to Jesus. "The Young Messiah" has flaws typical of biblical epics: actors with British and Irish accents that supposedly make them more "real"; backdrops that look phony. But this film's strength is more intimate than epic. (111 minutes)

THE BOTTOM LINE: The many violent scenes stay within PG-13 range by cutting away before blood flows. Verbal references and a visual flashback depict Roman soldiers slaughtering children. The killings are strongly implied, but not graphic on-screen. One girl is nearly strangled and let go. Walking back to Nazareth, Jesus's family passes rows of men nailed to crosses. A centurion stabs a crucified man. Battle scenes show men impaled on spears, but with no graphic wounds. One scene implies an attempted rape, when a woman kills her attacker.
Making money in the energy business isnt nearly as easy as it was in 2008, when natural gas was fetching more than five times the price its bringing today.

But Omaha-based Tenaska didnt have any investments in wind energy at that time, nor did it have any holdings in solar power, which these days are helping offset margins that have cratered with natural gas prices, the company said.

The privately held energy company had revenue of $8 billion in 2015, down from $12.2 billion in 2014 and $16 billion in 2008. It markets more natural gas than almost any other company on the continent, according to research from Platts Gas Daily; Tenaska sold or managed 10 percent of U.S. consumption in 2014.

No doubt that heft in natural gas marketing helps buoy the company through down cycles, but pairing renewable energy with conventional sources like natural gas is where the future is for Tenaska and others in the energy industry, said Jerry Crouse, the companys chief executive.

North America and the U.S. are not having to import much crude oil anymore and were getting to the point where we can be energy neutral. That puts us at a huge advantage relative to the rest of the world, Crouse said.

The Tenaska chief spoke Thursday to executives, actuaries, attorneys and others involved in business expansion at the monthly meeting for the Association for Corporate Growths Nebraska chapter. Joining him was Greg Van Dyke, the companys chief financial officer.

The two shared a condensed history of Tenaska, which was founded in Omaha in 1987 by Howard Hawks and Thomas Hendricks, and laid out where the company is heading.

What started with a goal of building a natural gas-fueled power plant in Paris, Texas, has mushroomed over almost 30 years to an assortment of interests that includes private-equity investments, gas exploration and production, and managed assets that now include solar installations and wind turbines. Of its roughly 700 employees, about half are in Omaha.

Weve had to evolve as a company because the market evolved, Van Dyke said. Ten years ago we wouldnt have given much consideration to a solar project, but that has changed.

To that end, the company expects this year to complete a second utility-scale solar installation near El Centro, California. Energy produced there will power homes and businesses in San Diego, and the latest installation will more than double capacity of a nearby installation that began producing power in 2013.

Tenaska has also made investments in renewable projects including the Elkhorn Ridge wind power generation facility near Bloomfield, Nebraska, as well as in two separate business ventures in New Jersey and Utah that install solar panels on residential and industrial rooftops and on unused property.

Recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that new solar capacity in 2015 lagged both new natural gas capacity and new wind capacity, but the three together made up 97 percent of all new electric generation capacity last year. Wind by itself accounted for 41 percent of all added capacity in 2015.

That organization last week noted that natural gas production remains high, and coupled with an ongoing lack of new storage facilities for it, prices will remain low.

Crouse on Thursday agreed, saying he expects natural gas prices to remain low through the rest of the year. Thats great news for consumers, less so for Tenaska, and its worse news for the companys publicly traded competitors, Crouse said.

Were more nimble as a privately held company, and thats not going to change, Crouse said. To be in a cyclical business with long lead times and to try to run it quarter to quarter does not make sense.

Despite the revenue decline due largely to volatility in natural gas commodities, Tenaska is likely to again appear on the Forbes list of Americas largest private companies. It was No. 24 on last years list, which was based on 2014 revenue.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1534, cole.epley@owh.com
When Starbucks announced last month that it would change its loyalty program to reward people more based on how much they spend instead of how often they visit the cafes, some regulars were upset.

But this week Starbucks revealed that consumers will soon be able to earn points for money that they could spend almost anywhere, making it easier to rack up free drinks.

The company announced Wednesday that it is planning to introduce a reloadable prepaid card by the end of the year that customers could use to earn points anywhere that Visa is accepted.

The Starbucks Rewards Prepaid Card from Chase wont charge monthly service fees or fees for loading money onto the cards. People will be able to apply for the card through the Starbucks mobile app or on Starbucks.com.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Police conducted more raids in a Brussels suburb Friday in an operation the mayor said was linked to the airport and subway bombings that killed 31 people earlier this week and to the arrest of a man in the Paris suburbs who may have been plotting a separate attack in France.

Belgiums state broadcaster said one person carrying a bag of explosive material was wounded and arrested in the raid in Schaerbeek.

Prime Minister Charles Michel skipped a wreath-laying ceremony at the airport with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry because of the police operation.

Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit to Brussels, defended Belgiums counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failings in the run-up to the bombings Tuesday.

Confirming that several FBI agents are involved in the investigation into the attacks, Kerry said the carping about Belgiums shortcomings is a little bit frantic and inappropriate.

Top members of Belgiums embattled government are facing criticism over the countrys counterterrorism efforts since  and before  last Novembers Paris attacks, which killed 130 people and which authorities believe were plotted from Belgium.

Kerry also said the U.S. and other countries had already scheduled meetings with Belgium prior to the attacks about improvements they could make to their laws, intelligence collection and attempts to blunt the radicalization of youtha. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for Tuesdays attacks.

We will not be deterred, Kerry said. We will come back with greater resolve  with greater strength  and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth.

A manhunt has been under way since Tuesday for one of the Brussels airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled from the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

Belgian prosecutors said raids Thursday night targeted central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek neighborhood, where police had earlier found a huge stash of explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the Brussels attackers.

At least six people were detained in the raids. Belgian prosecutors are expected to decide later Friday whether to charge or release them.

French counterterrorism police also detained a man Thursday who officials say was in the advanced stages of an attack plot.

Officials told The Associated Press that the suspect, Reda Kriket, 34, had a past Belgian terrorism conviction and was linked to the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Also Friday, authorities announced that American, British, Chinese, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) 

Copyright 2016 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Not just future of Sena but democracy at stake, says Uddhav

Mumbai: Gathering of 5 or more, loud speakers, illegal processions banned for a fortnight from Nov 1

Anonymous caller threatens to blow up AI flights

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Mar 24: Security for Air India flights was stepped up today after the airline's Mumbai office received bomb threats to its planes close on the heels of two other carriers -- Jet Airways and IndiGo -- receiving similar calls in the last two days.

"The Air India office at Mumbai received a bomb threat call today evening. Accordingly, all authorities concerned were informed about the call. (Later) It was declared as non-specific threat," Air India spokesperson GP Rao said here.

The airline has stepped up security on its flights and is taking all security measures as required, Rao said, adding that all its flights are operating as per schedule.

Meanwhile, official sources in Chennai said an anonymous caller threatened to bomb two Air India flights originating from Chennai.

According to sources, the caller allegedly threatened to blow up two AI flight 945 from Chennai to Hyderabad and the Chennai to Delhi AI flight 143.

Panic gripped passengers at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday after the Jet Airways call centre received threats about bombs in five of its aircraft from here, hours after blasts ripped through Brussels airport, killing over 20.

Yesterday, there was a major security scare at several airports in the country, including the national capital, following a phone call from the US that 11 aircraft of private carrier IndiGo could be in the danger of being blown up.

PTI
Rs 1,000 fine if found without wearing rear seat belt in Karnataka

'Kantara' impact: 'Daiva Narthakas' above 60 years of age to get Rs 2,000 monthly allowance

Late actor Puneeth Rajkumar to be conferred with 'Karnataka Ratna' award on Nov 1

Karnataka to strengthen ATS and up the number of prisons

News Flash: CBI arrests General Manager of BSNL in alleged graft case

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Bengaluru, March 25:David Headley during cross examination on Friday, March 25 admits that he was trying to organise a fund raising programme for Shiv Sena in the USA.

Get all the latest national and international news updates of the day:

10:17 pm: Former Indian pacer S Sreesanth to contest Kerala elections on BJP ticket from Thiruvananthapuram.

10:15 pm: BJP declares list of 51 candidates for upcoming Kerala assembly elections, S Sreesanth to contest from Thiruvanthipuram.

10:06 pm: National level volleyball woman player Tina Aich stabbed to death by an unknown youth while she was practising in Barasat (West Bengal).

10:00 pm: Rajkot (Gujarat): Police rescues three girls kidnapped from Delhi, 2 alleged kidnappers arrested.

9:50 pm: Delhi: BJP Central Election Committee meeting ends.

9:25 pm: It's quite possible he was a pvt citizen on some pvt errand somewhere. Pak needs some evidence to support what it has been alleging that India has been active in Balochistan to conspire against Pak: AK Verma, ex-RAW chief on arrest of alleged RAW officer in Pakistan.

9:15 pm: Pakistan is merely creating a distraction by putting India on the defensive. This is an act of desperation by Islamabad,they're carrying out genocide in Balochistan: Tarek Fatah on arrest of alleged RAW officer in Pak.

9:10 pm: It is absolute nonsense that any Indian naval officers would be found somewhere in Quetta: Tarek Fatah.

8:50 pm: To expect truth from Pak govt is overly optimistic: Tarek Fatah, Expert on Pakistan affairs &author on arrest of alleged RAW officer in Pak.

8:40 pm: Belgian investigators confirm that second suicide bomber at Brussels airport was Najim Laachraoui (Source: Reuters).

8:30 pm: The two Jet Airways crew members injured in the events in Brussels continue to receive all required medical care and attention: Jet Airways

8:20 pm: Bhavnagar (Gujarat): A group conducts wedding for a cow & a bull to spread message of cow protection.

8:15 pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at BJP Headquarters in Delhi for CEC meeting.

BJP Central Election Committee meeting underway at party headquarters in Delhi.

8:10 pm: ISIS second in command killed in US raid in Syria: US media reports.

8:00 pm: All the parties do take donations and they have taken that: Baichung Bhutia, TMC on TMC sting tape.

7:55 pm: Army arrests 3 terrorists of Kamtapur Liberation Organisation in Kokrajhar(Assam) who were on their way for training at a camp in Myanmar.

The 3 arrested KLO terrorists have been identified as Ranjay Barman,Hitesh Roy and Shibhu Prasad.

7:50 pm: DMK chief Karunanidhi sends legal notice to MDMK leader Vaiko over his allegation against DMK.

7:40 pm: Uttarakhand Speaker refuses rebel Congress MLAs's request for more time to reply to anti-defection notice.

7:30 pm: I want to thank people from Calcutta. I thank people who came and supported us from Pakistan and Kashmir: Shahid Afridi

6.27 pm: Pakistan are out of the tournament after being defeated by Australia.

6.26 pm: Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan meets Health minister JP Nadda in Delhi.

5.42 pm: Amritsar International Airport has been put on high alert after getting advisory, says VV Rao,Airport Director.

5.25 pm: Still about 1 crore people are living under the poverty line in Assam,36% homes have no electricity connection, says Amit Shah.

4.53 pm: CBI arrests General Manager of BSNL(Ratnagiri&Sindhudurg) and a private person in an alleged bribery case of Rs 2 lakhs.

4.52 pm: HC dismisses petition by rebel Congress MLAs of Uttarakhand against notice issued by Uttarakhand Speaker.

4.51 pm: Vijaykanth was approached both by DMK & BJP who were ready to provide crores of rupees, 300-500 crores, says Vaiko, MDM.

4.46 pm: Harak Singh Rawat responds to Uttarakhand Speaker's anti-defection notice; says "allegations made in notice based on hearsay & conjecture".

4:24 pm: Army patrol hit by avalanche in Turtuk area in J&K, one missing

4:10 pm: BJP protests against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

3:58 pm: India issues visa to five Pakistani officials to collect evidence in Pathankot terror attack probe.

3:40 pm: Eight people arrested for killing 40-year-old dentist in Delhi.

3.20 pm: BJP-PDP will sit together, work out the modalities soon there will be govt in place, says Jitendra Singh.

3.03 pm: Pakistan JIT team scheduled to visit India on March 27 will not be allowed to access the technical area at the Pathankot airbase. Will also not be allowed to meet Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh.

3.00 pm: Pakistan's JIT team members granted visa, claims sources.

2.56 pm: Syria to get new constitution by August. Russia, US push for political solutions at Moscow talks

2.52 pm: One jawan missing another injured after avalanche hits Turtuk area in Jammu and Kashmir.

2.50 pm: I haven't taken any decision on retirement, says Shahid Afridi.

2:27 pm: Uttarakhand Crisis escalates. 8 rebel MLAs to move HC over speaker's ultimatum.

2:10 pm: Uttarakhand Congress chief Kishore Upadhayay has been summoned to Delhi by the Congress leadership.

2:00 pm: Will extend support to PDP's CM candidate. No change in agenda of alliance, says BJP J&K president Sat Sharma.

1:55 pm: BJP-PDP to form government in J&K based on agenda of alliance. BJP legislators have unanimously decided to form govt with PDP.

1:50 pm: David Headley cross examination to continue tomorrow at 7 PM. Court adjourns prceedings for the day.

1.30 pm: My relatives were interrogated by FBI in December 2008 in Philadelphia to seek my whereabouts, says David Headley.

1.25 pm: I told Rana that 9 attackers who died in 26/11 attacks should be given Nishan-e-Haider- Pak's highest military gallantry award, says Headley.

1.19 pm: My voice was not there in the recording (communications b/w 26/11 attackers and their handlers), says David Headley.

12.45 pm:Leaders of both BJP and PDP will go to Governor in few days and present proposal to form Govt, says Sat Sharma,BJP

12.30 pm: 40-year old dentist beaten to death in Delhi's Vikaspuri area yesterday. 4 arrested, 4 juveniles apprehended.

12.12 pm: BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and Jitendra Singh (MoS, PMO) meet BJP legislators in Jammu.

12.00 pm: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's meets DMK Chief M Karunanidhi in Chennai.

11.45 am: I don't suffer from any mental disorder says David Headley. I have not been treated for any mental illness either.

When asked why he never spoke about Ishrat Jahan Headley says he was never asked about it before.

When asked if he was coached by special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam Headley says he did not meet him before the deposition.

11.42 am: FM Arun Jaitley releases BJP's 'vision document' for upcoming Assam Assembly election in Guwahati.

11.34 am: They will sit together and work out the modalities, very soon you can expect a Govt in J&K, says Jitendra Singh on BJP-PDP.

11.15 am: Further course shall be decided. We're moving ahead (when asked if BJP-PDP differences ironed out), says Nirmal Singh.

11.00 am: I have never been to any Rehabilitation Centre, says DavidHeadley during cross examination in Mumbai court.

10.40 am:Brussels suicide bombers were on US terrorism lists: report

10.36 am: I was arrested in Pakistan once after my ex-wife registered a case against me says David Headley.On a question whether he was questioned in connection with the 9/11 attack, Headley said no.

10.24 am: The former Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Geelani had visited my home when my father had passed away. My father passed away in 2008. My father who worked with a radio station objected to my association with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. I had spoken with him about it and he was not happy.

10.10 am: I told my father about my association with LeT, I told him myself. My father had objections with my association with LeT, says David Headley.

10.08 am: My father, brother and some other of my relatives were in Pakistan establishment but I can't disclose their details, says David Headley.

9.40 am:Indrani was very calculative and even resorted to subterfuge in months of March and April 2012 while tricking Sheena into believing that she (Indrani) was willing to forget past acrimony& anger and turn into a friend&well-wisher of Sheena, says Peter Mukerjea.

9.30 am: 16-year old girl gang raped in Chhatarpur (Madhya Pradesh), case registered against two persons under sections 363, 376 & SC/ST Act.

9.25 am:Malayalam actor Jishnu Raghavan passes away at the age of 36 after prolonged battle with cancer.

9.00 am: My hatred towards India dates back to 1971. On December 7th 1971 the Indian planes bombed my school in Pakistan. I have had hatred towards India since then. This was etched in my memory since then and that is why I decided to join the Lashkar-e-Tayiba says Headley.

8.41 am: I live like any other prisoner in jail. It is wrong to say that I live a luxurious life in prison.

8.30 am: I had planned on inviting Shiv Sena Chief, Bal Thackarey to the US. I was planning a fund raiser, but there was no intention to attack him there, David Headley tells court. I was always in touch with Rajaram Rege of the Shiv Sena.

Please don't ask me to disclose the location of my jail in US. I cannot reveal anything about it. The court took a strong exception to the defence lawyer asking Headley such questions. You cannot direct us what to do, the court tell the lawyer cross examining Headley.

8.24 am: Rajouri's Mughal road (J&K) being cleared after heavy snowfall in higher reaches of Pir Panjal range.

8.16 am: Court reprimanded Defence lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan for asking questions to witness without knowing the jail manual of the US.

8.00 am: DavidHeadley during cross examination admits that he was trying to organise a fund raising programme for Shiv Sena in the USA.

OneIndia News
David Headley's flip flops: Why he cannot be trusted

India

oi-Vicky

Mumbai, March 25: David Headley the man who carried out the reconnaissance of targets in Mumbai which eventually led to the 26/11 attack has deposed before a court and is currently being cross examined.

To sum up the Headley affair in court, one could say that he can say what he wants as he has already been pardoned.

There are several statements that Headley has made which one fails to understand. At times he appears confident and proud of his actions and on the other hand he shows some amount of remorse as well.

Most of the statements since yesterday given during the cross-examination suggest that he is very unsteady.

The Bal Thackarey statement:

Headley yesterday sprung this one as a surprise. He told the court that he had heard that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba had made an attempt to assassinate Bal Thackarey the chief of the Shiv Sena. He however added that he was not involved in the plot and neither did the Lashkar-e-Tayiba discuss it with him.

He further added that the police had apprehended the the man planning to kill the leader, but escaped from custody.

There has been no confirmation from any of the police on this aspect. There is no doubt that Thackarey was high up on the radar of terrorist organisations, but whether an attempt was really made on his life is still unclear. The Lashkar-e-Tayiba would have been fully aware of the repercussions had they succeeded in this plot.

In this context it would be also interesting to draw your attention to the reconnaissance that Headley had carried out on the Shiv Sena Bhawan in Mumbai.

Along with the details of the Taj, Trident and other targets, the photos of the Shiv Sena Bhawan were also shared by Headley with Sajid Mir. Headley says he does not know why the Lashkar-e-Tayiba did not use the material regarding the Shiv Sena Bhawan.

However, it is very clear that the repercussions would have been terrible had the Shiv Sena Bhawan been attacked and that is the only reason why the Lashkar-e-Tayiba dropped the plan.

What did he mean by fund raiser?

Headley today told the court that he was planning a fund raiser in the US for the Shiv Sena. He repeatedly says that he was touch with a Shiv Sena man called Rajaram Rege. At first he had said that he was close to Rege so that he could get access to the Shiv Sena Bhawan. Today he says that he was in touch with Rege so that he could organise the fund raiser.

I had planned on inviting Shiv Sena Chief, Bal Thackarey to the US. I was planning a fund raiser, but there was no intention to attack him there, David Headley Headley told the court today. Headley is however not clear as to why he wanted to organise the fund raiser. He even added that there was no plan to attack Thackeray had he visited US for the fund raiser.

The act of remorse:

When the Headley deposition began he was shown a picture of Ajmal Kasab. He immediately blessed him. Yesterday when asked about Kasab, he said that it was wrong what he did. He even said yesterday that the entire act of 26/11 was not a good one and he had even pleaded guilty.

This was not what he had said to the NIA which questioned him.

He was insulting and spoke with pride about the entire operation. While expressing regret over the 26/11 operation before the court yesterday, today he spoke at length about his hatred for India. He said that his hatred dated back to December 7 1971 when India's war planes bombed the school he was studying in at Pakistan. I decided to join the Lashkar-e-Tayiba only because of this, he also said.

These are very unsteady statements being made by Headley. However it hardly even matters. He is already doing time in the US jail. He cannot be extradited to India. Moreover the Indian court has already pardoned him.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, March 25, 2016, 10:36 [IST]
Jet's revival looks bleak as Anil Agarwal pulls out of race for acquiring cash-strapped airline

Jet Airways aircraft with 242 persons lands in Delhi

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, March 25: A Jet Airways aircraft carrying 242 persons including 28 crew members, who were stranded in Belgian capital Brussels following the deadly terror attack on airport and metro station, arrived here from Amsterdam this morning.

The flight landed at the Indira Gandhi airport here at around 5:30, a Jet Airways spokesperson said. The flight had 214 passengers and 28 crew members, the spokesperson said.

Jet Airways flight 9w1229 from Amsterdam to Delhi and then onwards to Mumbai had departed from Amsterdam at 1654 hours local time yesterday after the airline combined its Mumbai flight with it.

The airline had yesterday announced to fly three flights, one each to Mumbai, Delhi and Toronto from Amsterdam to fly its passengers, who were stuck in Brussels due to the deadly terror attack on the airport and metro station in the Belgian capital on Tuesday, March 24.

However, the airline cancelled Mumbai flight due to a snag in the aircraft and combined it with Delhi flight.

PTI
CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar in talks with Rahul Gandhi to join Congress

Rahul Gandhi asks questions to govt without any fear: Kanhaiya Kumar

Kanhaiya Kumar faces protest in Vijayawada

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Vijayawada, March 24: JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar faced protests here on Thursday, with activists of the BJP and affiliated groups trying to disrupt the meeting he was addressing.

Tension prevailed at the meeting venue as protesters first stopped his convoy and later tried to disrupt the meeting organised by Left parties.

Shouting slogans against Kanhaiya Kumar, leaders and workers of the BJP, its youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and other groups gathered at the venue.

Activists of Left parties raised counter slogans. There were heated arguments and jostling between the two sides.

Police intervened to control the situation and arrested the protesters.

Earlier, the meeting venue was shifted from a college to a hotel as the ABVP and other groups took strong objection to the management granting permission for the meeting in college auditorium.

There was tension in Siddhartha College since morning as ABVP, BJYM and other groups threatened to disrupt the meeting if it was allowed in the college premises.

They alleged that the management granted permission for the meeting despite sedition charges faced by Kanhaiya Kumar.

The student leader was accorded a warm welcome by leaders of Left parties in the evening when he reached Gannavaram airport here from Hyderabad.

Police, however, prevented them from taking out a rally.

This was second time in the day that Kanhaiya Kumar faced protests.

A youth hurled a shoe at him when he was addressing a meeting in Hyderabad. The youth, belonging to a right-wing organisation was arrested.

The leader of JNU students' union was last month arrested on charges of sedition after alleged anti-India slogans were raised during a meeting at the JNU campus. He was later granted bail.

Kanhaiya Kumar arrived in Hyderabad on Wednesday on a two-day visit, his first outside Delhi after his release.

He, however, was denied entry into Hyderabad University to address students and pay tributes to Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar who committed suicide in January.

IANS
Fact Check: This image of a massive gathering is not from the Bharat Jodo Yatra

Late actor Puneeth Rajkumar to be conferred with 'Karnataka Ratna' award on Nov 1

Karnataka: Students land in trouble for saying 'Jai Pakistan' on WhatsApp

India

oi-Jagriti

Bengaluru, Mar 25: A group of students landed themselves in trouble over a WhatsApp message exchanged during the recent India-Pak T20 match in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district, media reported.

According to report, they pulled by the police after a discussion within their group got leaked in Puttur.

During a chat on WhatsApp while discussing recent India-Pak T20 match one of them said 'Jai Pakistan' which got leaked by a group member, reported the Times of India.

"One bad element in the group took a screenshot of that chat and shared it outside, Superintendent of police was quoted as saying.

The students were summoned after this news spread in the local area, and was also brought to the notice of the police. They were asked to sign a bond and police verified their background.

Police did not find any no malafide intention in posting the chat. Hence, the case was closed."

OneIndia News
Not just future of Sena but democracy at stake, says Uddhav

Sheena murder case: Peter Mukerjea makes shocking allegation against 'ambitious' Indrani

India

oi-Mukul

New Delhi, Mar 25: Media honcho Peter Mukerjea who was recently arrested on the charge of murdering his step daughter Sheena Bora has made a shocking revelation about his wife Indrani Mukherjea. He has said that Indrani is a highly ambitious lady who could sacrifice her own children to achieve her ambitions.

60-year-old media baron gave this statement while filling his second bail plea in the Sheena Bora murder case . Trying to put onus on Indrani, Peter said that all the allegations levelled against him is 'false and baseless'.

According to ANI report, Peter Mukerjea in his bail application alleged that Indrani was very calculative and even resorted to subterfuge in the months of March and April 2012 while tricking Sheena into believing that Indrani was ready and willing to forget the past acrimony and anger and turn into a friend and well-wisher of Sheena, in order to lure Sheena into her plan of murdering her.

Earlier, Peter Mukerjea in his bail plea which was filled by lawyer Kushal Mor in the special court, contended that the charge sheet doesn't have "reasonable grounds" to hold him guilty. The special CBI court had rejected his first bail application in February.

There was no further justification for keeping him in custody as there were no "reasonable grounds" in the charge sheet to believe that "he has been guilty of offences with which he is charged", plea said.

As per the charge sheet, Peter's motive for committing the crime (participating in the conspiracy to murder Sheena) was that he was against the relationship between Sheena and his son Rahul Mukerjea.

This was "demonstrably untrue and unsustainable," the application said, citing emails exchanged by Peter and Rahul in December 2011 which it said proved that Peter was not opposed to Rahul and Sheena's engagement.

The application also said Peter was a senior citizen, suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and his health would deteriorate if he was kept in jail. Peter, whose wife Indrani Mukerjea is the prime accused in the case, was arrested on November 19.

Peter is lodged in the Arthur Road jail here. Other co-accused, Indrani's former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamvar Rai, are in the same jail, while Indrani is in the Byculla women's jail.

Indrani, Rai and Khanna allegedly strangled Sheena (24), Indrani's daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012. The crime came to light last August.

OneIndia News

(With inputs from agency)

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, March 25, 2016, 11:53 [IST]
EPS, his supporters detained for trying to hold hunger strike in TN assembly

Tamil Nadu: Light to moderate rain in the next few days

Tamil Nadu: Check the list of special trains operating from Chennai this Diwali

Sri Lanka apprehending Indian fishermen: The causes and the possible solution

India

oi-Vicky

Chennai, Mar 25: The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa had raised the issue relating to the apprehending of fishermen by the Sri Lankans.

She went on to state that the centre had not taken action despite her repeated reminders.

The issue of fishermen being apprehended by Sri Lanka indeed is a matter of concern and would require some tough measures.

However before getting into the solutions one must understand the reasons behind such repeated incidents.

The reasons:

There is a territorial overlap in some areas and there are no well defined boundaries.

Sri Lanka continues to be extremely guarded despite the fall of the LTTE. The country continues to monitor any movement into their territory and always views with suspect. This fear is largely because they feel that the LTTE may try and stage a return.

The other issue is with the Maritime Agreement of 1974. Prior to this there were no issues with fishermen from both sides fishing in the Palk Bay area. However after the agreement, both nations decided to stop fishing on either sides. The fishermen are not aware of the boundary and in the absence of a well defined one tend to stray into the other side.

What is the solution?

Possible solutions:

India would need better fish farming so that the Indian fishermen will stick to their area and get a better catch.

Coordination between the two countries's forces would help

A ban on mechanised trawlers would also be a solution.

Engage the coast guard more to ensure Indian fishermen do not stray

What has the government done so far?

The Indian Coast Guard has installed tracking devices. These devices would beep when an Indian fisherman has entered into the other side.

Further the government has also undertaken a census of the fishermen. This the government feels will help in monitoring the fishermen.

India would however need to also coordinate better with Sri Lanka on this issue.

If both sides undertaken joint operations it would ensure that the Indian fishermen do not stray into the Sri Lankan side and vice versa.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, March 25, 2016, 15:39 [IST]
Irom Sharmila to end her fast: What it means to Manipur and struggle against AFSPA

Why every time terror strikes us, Muslims have to explain themselves?

India

oi-Oneindia

By Maitreyee Boruah

Bengaluru, March 25: In the Bollywood movie, My Name is Khan, actor Shah Rukh Khan's famous dialogue, "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist", succinctly defines the predicament of being a Muslim in a terror-ravaged world.

The moment a terror attack strikes anywhere in the world, Muslim population comes under the scanner.

The blame game starts and the stigmatization of Muslims begins with a renewed vigour.

Right from social media to political leaders, everyone blames anyone who is a Muslim. As if all Muslims are some kind of explosive devices ready to blow up the whole world.

In these critical times, when suspicious eyes gaze through the law abiding Muslim men and women, they have no other alternative, but to explain themselves and Islam, which like all religions preach love, peace and harmony.

Social media fuels hatred?

After multi-terror attacks were reported from Brussels on Tuesday (March 22), Muslims across the world were questioned.

As social media users started venting their shock and anger over the dastardly attacks, it was the Muslims who faced the wrath.

On Twitter #StopIslam was trending, where Muslims and their religion were blamed for violence across the world. However, there were many sane tweets too which came in defence of Muslims.

A similar debate was rife on Twitter in the wake of multiple-terror attacks in Paris in November 2015, which left more than 130 people dead. Hashtags like #TerrorismHasNoReligion and #NotInMyName trended during that time.

The tweets under these hashtags were mostly posted by peace-loving Muslims, who condemned the violence perpetrated in the name of Islam. However, many criticized such social media trends and argued such messages were reductive or unnecessary, and could further propagate stereotypes.

In both the Brussels and Paris terror attacks, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks.

Stop propagating stereotypes

"It is time for us to end stereotyping Muslims as terrorists. Terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda don't represent the world Muslim population. They are using religion to defend their crimes. So, why question the intention of a common Muslim man or woman?" asks Sajid M, a research scholar in Bengaluru.

Good Muslim versus Bad Muslim

Similarly, when a controversy like chanting of Bharat Mata ki Jai is ignited by political parties in India, it is the Muslims who come under fire.

"Many Hindus also have reservations about mandatory chanting of Bharat Mata ki Jai. Nobody questions their patriotism, but if a Muslim expresses his/her opposition, they are called as anti-national," says Pinky T, an IT professional in the city.

When Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, was executed at Yerwada Jail in Pune in 2012, TV footages mostly focused on Muslims celebrating his death.

"We can't only blame the media for such portrayal. Even Muslims also want to show that they are 'good' Muslims. Now, we have a tendency to identify Muslims as good or bad in India. This is again dangerous, and gives rise to division," says media professional Meghana Upadhaya.

As the debate continues, certainly it is not easy for Muslims to defend themselves every day for crimes committed by blood thirsty terrorists faraway from civilian territories.

OneIndia News
Bilawal wants equal rights for Pakistan's minorities

International

oi-PTI

Karachi, March 24: PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Friday, March 25 called for equal rights for all citizens in Pakistan, irrespective of their religion, and said the minorities must have the opportunity to hold important government positions.

"If a Muslim can become the President of India, then why can't a person belonging to the minority community hold an important official position in Pakistan," Bilawal told a large gathering of Hindu supporters in Umarkot district. Umarkot houses the largest population of Hindus in the southern Sindh province which has been a traditional hold of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

The only son of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto visited Umarkot to take part in the Holi celebrations with the Hindu community.

"I want a Pakistan where every citizen no matter from which community has equal rights," Bilawal said. "It cannot be that Pakistan for Muslims is different from Pakistan for the minorities. It cannot be that Pakistan for men is different from Pakistan for women," he said.

The Hindu community leaders presented a traditional Rajasthani headgear and smeared colour on his face to celebrate the festival as Bilawal also tossed powder colors in the air to kickoff the function. The PPP chief vowed to fight for the rights of minorities and insisted law should be equal for everyone.

"We can't have a country where Muslims and minorities, rich and poor, labourers and businessmen, farmers and landlord, men and women live with separate statuses." "I do not want one kind of Pakistan for Pervez Musharraf and a different Pakistan for Benazir Bhutto," he added.

He said the Pakistan dreamt off by Quaid-e-Azam envisioned a country where the state didn't have to do anything with the religion of individuals and where everyone was free to go to their own places of worship.

PTI
Jet's revival looks bleak as Anil Agarwal pulls out of race for acquiring cash-strapped airline

Condition of injured crew member stable, says Jet Airways

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, March 25: The condition of Jet Airways' crew member who was injured in Brussels terror attacks is stable, the airline said on Friday, March 25.

"We have spoken to Dr. Steven at the hospital where the crew member, Nidhi Chaphekar, is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that she is in a stable condition and not in coma," the airline said in a statement.

"She is resting and under sedation for her comfort," the statement said.

The airline disclosed details about Chaphekar's health after the media reports claimed that she has been placed in a medically induced coma.

Chaphekar, a mother of two from Mumbai, was among two crew members of the airline who were injured in Tuesday's bomb blasts that rocked Brussels' Zaventem airport and left more than 30 people killed.

A photograph showing the 40-year-old flight crew member of Jet Airways sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped, went viral soon after the airport blasts and become an iconic image of the attacks.

Chaphekar's husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and travelled by road to Brussels, is at the hospital with her.

Meanwhile, Jet Airways flew out the passengers who were stranded in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam.

IANS
Islamic State bomber detained in Russia for attempting attack in India was recruited through Telegram

Why India should get access to Islamic State bomber detained in Russia

Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

ISIS may execute Indian priest kidnapped in Yemen on Good Friday

International

oi-Jagriti

New Delhi, Mar 25: An Indian Catholic priest reportedly being held captive by the Islamic State (ISIS) is likely to be crucified by the militants on Good Friday, media reported.

If rumours are to be believed, Father Tom Uzhunnalil, a native of Kottayam, missing since an attack at a care home in Aden earlier this month, will be crucified on Good Friday, which is on March 25.

Uzhunnalil was serving as a chaplain at the Missionaries of Charityrun, an organisation established by Mother Teresa.

At least 16 people including an Indian nun were killed when a group of terrorists stormed the care home run and sprayed bullets at the residents on March 4.

Hindu priest attacked in Bangladesh, IS claims responsibility

The charity house was home to around 80 people.

Missionaries of Charity nuns also came under attack in Yemen in 1998 when gunmen killed three nuns in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.

OneIndia News
Pope washes feet of Muslim migrants, says 'We are brothers'

International

oi-PTI

Castelnuovo Di Porto, March 25: Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Orthodox, Hindu and Catholic refugees on Thursday, March 24, declaring them children of the same God, in a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time when anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment has spiked following the Brussels attacks.

Francis denounced the carnage as a "gesture of war" carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at the shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

The Holy Thursday rite re-enacts the foot-washing ritual Jesus performed on his apostles before being crucified, and is meant as a gesture of service. Francis contrasted that gesture with the "gesture of destruction" carried out by the Brussels attackers, saying they wanted to destroy the brotherhood of humanity represented by the migrants.

"We have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace," Francis said in his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in the windy courtyard of the centre. Several of the migrants then wept as Francis knelt before them, poured holy water from a brass pitcher over their feet, wiped them clean and kissed them.

Francis was greeted with a banner reading "Welcome" in a variety of languages as he walked down a makeshift aisle to celebrate the outdoor Mass.

But only a fraction of the 892 asylum-seekers living at the shelter attended, and many of the seats were left empty.

Those who came out, though, received a personal greeting: At the end of the Mass, Francis greeted each refugee, one by one, posing for selfies and accepting notes as he moved down the rows. Vatican rules had long called for only men to participate in the ritual, and past popes and many priests traditionally performed it on 12 Catholic men, recalling Jesus' 12 apostles and further cementing the doctrine of an all-male priesthood.

Francis shocked many Catholics within weeks of his 2013 election by performing the ritual on women and Muslims at a juvenile detention centre. After years of violating the rules outright, Francis in January changed the regulations to explicitly allow women and girls to participate.

The Vatican said today that four women and eight men took part. The women included an Italian Catholic who works at the centre and three Eritrean Coptic Christian migrants. The men included four Catholics from Nigeria, three Muslims from Mali, Syria and Pakistan and a Hindu man from India.

PTI
'Settle fishermen issue before ETCA pact with India'

International

oi-PTI

Colombo, March 25: Sri Lankan professional groups, opposed to the proposed Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement with India, have called for settling of the thorny fishermen issue between the two countries before the pact is signed.

"We ask the government to work out a solution with India for the fishing issue. Millions worth our fishing resources are plundered everyday," Channa Jayasumana, the convener of the United Professionals Association, said at public rally held yesterday here.

"The proposed agreement will be four times beneficial to India, our chances will remain same. What we witness now is that Indian leaders have their interests while our leaders are not interested to safeguard our rights," Jayasumana alleged.

"Are they (the government) fearing (Narendra) Modi? We will tell them, that we will stand by them if they want to face that threat," he said.

Jayasumana called for settling the thorny fishermen issue between the two countries before signing the pact.

The professional groups and opposition parties have stepped up their campaign against the proposed Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA).

They claim that it will deprive employment opportunities to the locals in most service sectors with an influx of Indian labour in to Sri Lanka.

The government denies the charge and accuses protesting groups of carrying out a public campaign without even knowing the contents of the pact. The ETCA draft is being currently studied by India, officials said.

PTI
Trump, Cruz feud over wives as Republican race turns ugly

International

oi-PTI

Washington, March 25: The Republican presidential nominee race has hit a new low with front-runner Donald Trump and his nearest rival Ted Cruz dragging each other's wives in their political squabbling which is rarely seen in American politics.

"It's not easy to tick me off. I don't get angry often. But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that'll do it every time," Texas Senator Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin as the Republican race to the White House entered a nasty phase.

"Donald, you're a snivelling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone," an angry Cruz said hours after the real estate tycoon launched a series of attacks against his wife. Earlier, Trump shared an image on Twitter comparing his wife, Melania, a former model, to Cruz's wife, stating, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Cruz responded by saying, "Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life."

It all started with a super political affairs committee which campaigns for Cruz ran an ad with a nude picture of Melania.

An angry Trump tweeted that he would spill the beans on Cruz's wife. Cruz, however, denied any role of his in the advertisement. "Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought," Cruz said.

Trump is currently leading the Republican pack as he now requires less than 500 delegates to reach the figure if 1,237 necessary to win the party's presidential nomination. Cruz is far behind Trump in terms of delegate count but hopes to overcome him during the rest of the primary season.

PTI
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H.E. Grand Chief Sir Michael Ogio, GCL, GCMG, KStJ, Governor General of Papua New Guinea, has executed on behalf of the State a project agreement contract for an oil palm processing facility with major infrastructure development for Pomio District in East New Britain province.

The Revised Illi-Wawas Integrated Rural Development Project agreement was signed between the State, East New Britain Provincial Government and developer Tzen Niuginii Ltd and Tzen Plantation Limited at Government House yesterday.East New Britain Governor Hon. Ereman ToBaining Jr, Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry Secretary, Mr. John Andrias and Tzen Niugin (PNG) Ltd representatives Mr. Tan Eng Kwee and Mr. Michael Paisparea also witnessed and signed the project agreement.The signing of the project agreement now paves way for further major infrastructure development in Pomio district including construction of roads and bridges, logging, oil palm development to be located in Pomio District and reforestation activities for the district once referred to as the least developed district in PNG. Most of these projects will be funded by Tzen Niugini Ltd on the basis that it will derive an appropriate return on its investment and at the same time bring about economic and social benefits for the people of Pomio and PNG as a whole.One hundred and seventy thousand (170,000) hectares of land has been set aside for this Special Agricultural Business Lease (SABL) project of which 38, 500 hectares is for agriculture development.Tzen Niugini Ltd Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Tan Eng Kwee said, his company is willing to work closely with the East New Britain Provincial government to bring about much needed infrastructure development in Pomio. He said, the three major component of the project is infrastructure development (construction of roads/bridges linking Pomio Dist to Rabaul/Kokopo), schools and health facilities, agriculture (cocoa, rice, coffee production) and reforestation activities.Mr. Eng Kwee in acknowledging the landowners of Pomio District for allowing the project to go ahead, said, Papua New Guinea must do away with the mentality that foreigners are only interested in exploiting the people and the countrys natural resources.He assured that his company, which was established in PNG in 2008, was here to stay and will continue to work in partnership with the provincial government to ensure the people of Pomio District benefit from this project which will contribute towards improving their standard of living.According to Secretary of Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry, Mr. John Andrias the llli-Wawas project is by far the most successful SABL project in that since the project agreement was signed in 2008, several infrastructure development have taken place that include that much needed road linking Pomio to Kokopo.East New Britain Governor Hon. Ereman ToBaining noted that the project agreement is the result of the public private partnership arrangement between the national Government and the private sector and that this arrangement will ensure the Government in partnership with the private sector work together to deliver basic government services to the people of Papua New Guinea.The Governor also acknowledged former Member of Pomio, Paul Tienstein, current Member Hon. Elias Kapavore, Deputy Prime Minister Hon.Leo Dion and the national Government for their support towards the project.Photo caption: Governor General Grand Chief Sir Michael Ogio signing the project agreement, and looks on as parties to the agreement Tzen Niugini PNG Ltd representatives Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Tan Eng Kwee and Mr. Michael Paisparea and ENBP Governor Hon. Ereman ToBaining and Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry Secretary sign on; Governor General Grand Chief Sir Michael Ogio and the signing party pose after the contract signing ceremony; and Governor General Grand Chief Sir Michael Ogio chatting with ENBP Governor Hon. Ereman ToBaining Jr. and Tzen Niugini PNG Ltd representative Mr. Michael Paisparea. Words/pics- Government House.
Kwara South Senator Rafiu Ibrahim and 18 others arrested in the state before the Feb 23 elections were on Thursday arraigned in an Ilorin Chief Magistrates Court over the February 19 pre-election violence in Ojoku, Kwara, where one person was killed.

Ihe PDP snator and eight others facing four-count charge bordering on criminal conspiracy, inciting, disturbance of public peace and causing grievous hurt were granted bail by the court.

Nine others facing culpable homicide were remanded in prison but were later granted bail at the State High Court, Ilorin.

Justice E.B Mohammed had earlier granted bail to the nine accused persons, but the case was mentioned and adjourned at the Chief Magistrates court, until April 30.

The case of Mr Ibrahim and eight others were adjourned until April 8, for further mention.

Those granted bail along with the senator were Soliu Abdulazeez, Adigun Taofeeq, Wasiu Toheed, Garuba Mustapha, Kubura Wahab, Magaji Bashiru, Fatai Jamiu and Sherif Adisa all from Ojoku town in Oyun Local Government Area of Kwara State.

Chief Magistrate Jubril Salihu granted the defendants bail in the sum of N500, 000 each with two sureties each in like sum.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Aderemi Ajibola told the court that on February 19, the APC Senatorial candidate, Lola Ashiru and his campaign team were attacked on their way out of the palace of Olojoku of Ojoku by some unknown youths.

He said that during the attack, several gunshots were fired at the campaign team, resulting into killing of one Samuel Abidemi Adeosun, while several other people sustained injuries.

Several vehicles in the campaign team were also damaged, he said.

Ajibola said that police investigation led to the arrest of Sen. Rafiu Ibrahim, the PDP Senatorial candidate, who is an indigene of the community and suspected to have incited the said attack on his political opponent.

Further investigation also led to the arrest of one Kubura Wahab, PDP Women leader in Ojoku, who allegedly harboured three of the accused persons, who participated in the attack

Another discreet investigation also led to the arrest of the remaining four accused persons with suspected gunshot injuries believed to have been sustained at the scene of the crime, he said.

Mr Ajibola said the offences contravened provisions of Sections 97, 114, 327 and 247 of Penal Code.

He said investigation is still ongoing towards arresting other suspects still at large.

In his bail application, Mr R. Gold, counsel to Mr Ibrahim and eight other accused persons, said there was no concrete evidence that showed that the accused persons were guilty as charged.

Mr Gold said the first accused (Mr Ibrahim), was not at the scene of the crime and had not been found guilty in any way, while the third to ninth accused persons were arrested in the house of the second accused without any proof.

The nine accused persons, who were later granted bail for culpable homicide were Balogun Wasiu, Mudashiru Oyedele, Abdulkareem Jamiu, Yahya Kamilu, Olalaro Kehinde, Abubakar Ahmed, Shehu Olubolade, Rasheed Rahim and Usman Kolapo.

The prosecutor said the accused persons, armed with various dangerous weapons and suspected to be thugs of the PDP, caused the killing of one Samuel Abidemi Adeosun, through gunshot.

He also said several other people sustained varying injuries as well as vandalism of the APC campaign vehicles.

The IGP Special Tactical squad, Abuja on election security duties in the state swung into action and arrested the accused persons at Oyun Local Government Area, Kwara.

Discreet investigation conducted into the incident revealed that the accused conspired with other still at large to carry out the said attack which resulted in the killing of the deceased.

In the course of investigation, the second accused, Mudashiru Oyedele, confessed being at the scene of the incident with one Nurudeen of Ajase-Ipo still at large, who was in possession of one Pump Action Riffle and a locally made pistol, used for the attack, he said.

Mr Ajibola said the offences contravened the provisions of Sections 97, 113, and 221 of the Penal Code.

Post Views: 87
Government forces in Cameroons Anglophone regions killed no fewer than 170 civilians over the past six months.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated this on Thursday.

Soldiers, special army units and gendarmes used indiscriminate force and torched hundreds of homes and public buildings in the former French colonys English-speaking North-West Region and South-West Region between October and March, the rights organisation said.

HRW researchers say they interviewed 140 assault victims, family members and witnesses to support their claims.

One witness told researchers that security forces attacked the village of Abuh in the North-West Region in November, burning down an entire neighbourhood.

When I came back to the village, my house was gone, with everything inside. I am left with nothing but my clothes, a mother of five told researchers after hiding for three days in the bush after the attack.

Satellite images and photographs seen by HRW show the destruction of about 60 structures.

According to HRW Central Africa director Lewis Mudge, due to the ongoing violence and difficulty accessing remote areas, the number of civilian deaths is likely to be much higher.

Cameroons authorities have an obligation to respond lawfully and to protect peoples rights during periods of violence, Mudge said.

President Paul Biya is one of the few autarchists remaining in Africa, having ruled Cameroon for over three decades.

Post Views: 63
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) warns the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), stating that PDP elected senators and members of the House of Representatives are constitutionally eligible and can seek election into any presiding office of both chambers of the National Assembly.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, said this in a statement argued that the position of the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives as well as the Deputy Senate President and the Deputy Speaker are not the exclusive preserves of any political party, but a constitutional right of every elected lawmaker in both chambers.

He, therefore, described it as laughable that President Muhammadu Buhari and the factional National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, posture as if the presiding offices and Committee Chairmanship in the National Assembly are exclusive rights of the APC.

President Buhari and Oshiomhole should wake up to the fact that the National Assembly belongs to no political party but to all Nigerians, who exercise their control through their elected representatives.

For emphasis, Section 50 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is clear in providing that There shall be:- (a) a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves; and (b) a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves.

Section 92 (1) makes the same provision for the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of State House of Assembly, he said.

Speaking further, Ologbondiyan reminded President Buhari and Oshiomhole that the APC had in the past benefited from the provisions of section 50, with the defection of the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal from the PDP to the APC, in October 2014, without relinquishing the speakership of the House to the PDP; a development that was applauded by President Buhari, as the then-opposition leader as well as the APC, through its then National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed.

In fact, the former Minority Leader of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, echoed the Constitutional provision that the constitution requires only that the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be elected by members of that House from among themselves.

The party also gave other instances of Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange and Hon. Peter Azi, who according to them in 2015, were elected Speakers of the Benue and Plateau State Houses of Assembly respectively, though their party, the APC, was a minority in both Houses.

Ologbondiyan, therefore, stated that the PDP does not only have a constitutional say in the process of the emergence of the leadership of the 9th National Assembly but will, as a matter of constitutional right, field candidates into presiding offices of both chambers, if need be.

Post Views: 103
A Federal High Court in Abuja has adjourned the trial of a former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam.

Justice Ramat Mohammed adjourned the trial at the resumed proceedings on Tuesday due to the absence of the lead defence counsel, Joseph Daudu, who was said to be under the weather.

Suswam and former commissioner of finance in the state, Okolobia Okpanachi, are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on nine counts bordering on alleged diversion of N3.1 billion.

Both were alleged to have diverted proceeds of the sale of shares owned by Benue State government, as well as Benue Investment and Property Company Limited.

One of the charges against them read, That you Gabriel Torwua Suswam and Omodachi Okolobia, while being the Benue State governor and commissioner of finance of Benue State respectively between 8th August and 30th October, 2014 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court took possession of the sum of $15, 800,000 (Fifteen Million, Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars) from Abubakra Umar of Fanffash Resources World-wide Limited, a bureau de change dealer which sum you knew to be the proceed of unlawful activity to wit: theft of the sum of N3,111,008,018.51 (Three Billion, One Hundred and Eleven Million, Eight Thousand, Eighteen Naira, Fifty-one Kobo ) which form part of the sum of N9,411,708,009.51 (Nine Billion, Four Hundred and Eleven Million, Seven Hundred and Eight Thousand, Nine Naira, Fifty One Kobo), realised from the sale of shares, owned by Benue Government and Benue Investment and Property Company Limited and you thereby committed and offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as Amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act.

At the resumed trial, the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, informed the court that though the matter was billed for hearing on March 26, Mr Daudu contacted him and told him that he was indisposed.

He added that the lead defence counsel asked for an adjournment, an application Jacobs told the court that he would not oppose.

A defence counsel, David Iorhemba, who held brief for Daudu also told the court that what the prosecution said was the position of the defence.

He added that due to the ill health, Daudu would be asking for a very long adjournment to enable him recover.

After listening to the counsels, Justice Mohammed adjourned till May 22 and 23, 2019 for continuation of the trial.

Post Views: 100
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has reacted to the controversy surrounding the 2019 general elections. The commission advised some disgruntled politicians across the country to emulate the President of the Senate , Bukola Saraki.

INEC who spoke through its National Commissioner, Alhaji Mohammed Haruna, told politicians across the country to emulate Saraki and his calmness in accepting election result.Haruna who commended the people of Kwara for holding peaceful elections, said this on Wednesday at the presentation of Certificate of Return to Alhaji Abdulrahman Abdulrazak, Kwara state governor-elect and 24 elected members of the Kwara State House of Assembly.

The INEC National Commissioner who urged the opposition to criticise constructively, appealed to the governor-elect not to see members of the opposition as his enemies.

He said emulate the political maturity of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who on behalf of all others that lost in the election, said that the winners are not his enemies.

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The Presidential Villa Chapel would hold a thanksgiving service to thank God over the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the presidency has said.

An advisory issued by the Media and Publicity Unit, Office of the Vice President on Thursday in Abuja, said the service would be held at the State House Banquet Hall on March 31.

The service tagged State House Thanksgiving Concert is to thank God for the success of the 2019 Presidential poll.

Mr Osinbajo and other dignitaries including the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, members of the Federal Executive Council, the legislature, the Judiciary, members of the diplomatic corps and the clergy are expected at the event.

(NAN)
Prime Minister Theresa Mays government plans a third vote on Friday on the deal she has agreed to leave the EU, after parliament twice rejected it by large margins.

Andrea Leadsom, Mrs Mays leader in the Commons, parliaments elected main house, urged lawmakers to back the deal.

The speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, had warned that he might not allow the motion unless it differed significantly from the one that lawmakers had rejected.

But Bercow said the motion for Fridays vote was new and substantially different from the previous two meaningful votes on Brexit.

The government said the third vote will cover only Britains withdrawal agreement, or divorce settlement, and not the separate political declaration on future relations with the EU.

Labour, the main opposition party, said it will vote against the motion and opposes the governments separation of the two documents.

The motion said Britain wishes to leave the EU with an agreement as soon as possible and does not wish to have a longer extension than the agreed end date of May 22 if the withdrawal agreement is approved on Friday.

It said the EU remains open to negotiating changes to the political declaration but not the withdrawal agreement.

There were doubts earlier Thursday about whether the vote would go ahead, amid continuing strong opposition to Mays deal from opposition lawmakers and both pro-EU and eurosceptic members of her Conservative party.

Many eurosceptics were angered by Mays decision to request a short delay to Brexit last week.

EU leaders agreed to extend Brexit until May 22, provided the withdrawal agreement is approved by parliament this week.

If it is not approved, they agreed to an extension until April 12, requiring London to indicate a way forward before then.

If Britain requests a longer extension, it would have to participate in the EU elections scheduled in late May.

The only way we ensure we leave in good time on May 22 is by approving the withdrawal agreement by 11 pm on March 29, which is tomorrow (Friday), Leadsom said.

We do not want to be in a situation of asking for another extension and of course for the requirement to undertake European Parliament elections, she said.

Earlier Thursday, a senior Conservative lawmaker said parliament faces a choice between backing Mays deal or a slightly softer Brexit that would keep Britain in a customs union with the EU.

The lawmakers rejected eight non-binding motions on alternatives to Mays deal late Wednesday, compounding the uncertainty over Brexit.

Motions on a second Brexit referendum and a plan to stay in a customs union attracted the highest number of votes in favour, but both were narrowly defeated.

If you want to leave with a deal. the choice is now between the governments deal, which I will continue to vote for, or a customs union, Damian Green, Mays former deputy and long-term friend, said.

May told a meeting of Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday that she will step down once a Brexit deal is finalised, in a bid to rally support for her deal.

(dpa/NAN)
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) says it is not recruiting, contrary to information on some fake dedicated website.

NIS Comptroller-General, Muhammad Babandede said this in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday and signed by the Public Relations Officer of the Service, Sunday James.

The attention of the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr Muhammad Babandede, has been drawn to a fake dedicated website, www.nisrecruitment.com.ng where unsuspecting members of the public are required to make payment for accessing application forms for recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service.

I wish to state that the service is not recruiting and has not engaged any agent or vendor to do so on its behalf.

The public is to note that the said website and the application process is fake and entirely the handiwork of fraudsters. The service is using this medium to advise the public to disregard the said exercise and to also be wary of such fraudulent adverts as all official correspondence on the service are done through the official website: www.immigration.gov.ng, he said.

(NAN)
The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has installed high sensitivity seismometers and tilet meters for the monitoring and detection of earth movements and earthquake in the country.

Mines and Steel Development Minister Bawa Bwari Abubakar dropped the hint yesterday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy to defend his ministrys budget.

Abubakar, who said that the device was acquired as part of the measures to address the countrys geological security, explained that the device was installed at the Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) premises, Gwagwalada, Bwari and Kaduna.

The minister said that the effort was accelerated in response to the earth tremors experienced in the country, especially around Abuja.

He said that the proactive measure became necessary in order to predict, detect and monitor earth movement and earthquake related activities.

Abubakar listed insufficient and untimely release of funds, direct intervention by states in the management of mineral resources, multiple taxation by states and local government areas and inadequate geological data, as some of the challenges facing mining sector.

Besides, he said that limited supporting infrastructure, insecurity of mine fields, especially in Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau and the Northeast, as well as illegal mining and community challenges were other obstacles.

He noted that there was no doubt that the mining sector could do better if leakages were blocked.

Committee ChairmanSenator Enyinnaya Abaribe urged the minister to furnish the panel with detailed breakdown of the budget.

The committee believed that the revenue capacity of the sector should be raised for the country to benefit, adding that steps should be taken to position the sector to take its pride of place in the economic diversification policy of the Federal Government.

The ministry proposed N20, 480,057,749 as its budget estimate for this year.

Out of the amount, N8,559,365,940 is for personnel cost, N1,726,419,857 is for overhead while N10,194,271,952 is for capital projects.
Indigenous gas & power portfolio company Axxela Limited has put into operation its Greater Lagos IV (GLIV) gas pipeline network and the newly renovated Elegbata Sports Complex.

Greater Lagos IV (GLIV) is Axxelas gas pipeline network, developed by its Gaslink Nigeria Limited subsidiary in partnership with the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company (NGMC).

Spanning from Ijora through Lagos Islands Marina axis, the multi-million dollar pipeline will supply gas to commercial and industrial off-takers along its route, and already has First Power and Island Power among its customers.

The firms Chief Operating Officer (COO), Rasheed Olaoluwa, said: This occasion demonstrates our continued contribution to the growth of Lagos States burgeoning socio-economic landscape, and also reinforces Axxelas commitment as trailblazers in the distribution of natural gas to industries, and we are immensely proud of this pioneering effort. There remains a considerable demand for power generation, and this pipeline extension project will revitalise industrial development across the metropolis.

We are also delighted to commission the sports complex, affirming our promise and always-on engagement of host communities in our areas of operation.

The Lagos Sports Commission Chairman, Dr. Kweku Adedayo Tandoh, representing the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, applauded Axxela for the initiative and its role in boosting economic development in the state.

He said: I would like to thank Axxela for developing this sports facility, which indicates its firm commitment to the welfare of its host communities. This project is a welcome development for denizens of Elegbata, which signifies the many possibilities that abound from public and private partnerships and the significance of sports in the community. The Lagos State Government is steadfast in the provision of world class facilities under the umbrella of tourism, entertainment, hospitality, and sports excellence together.
Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, his Ekiti State counterpart, Kayode Fayemi, Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker Mudashiru Obasa, Egbe Afenifere National Leader Pa Ayo Fasanmi, and many others yesterday congratulated ex-Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on his birthday.

Tinubu turns 67 today.

Ambode saluted the role played by the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, saying Nigeria was already on the threshold of greatness with the duo in the next level government.

Ambode, who spoke at the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja as part of activities marking the 67th birthday of Tinubu, said it was gratifying to note that the next level promised by the APC government was already unfolding, adding that the next four years would engender massive development and service to the people.

He said: We are all expectant and we can feel the next level unfolding. Our country is on the threshold of greatness because for the first time since our independence, we would have successive administrations of a progressive and visionary government; a government of integrity, a government whose sole interest is the well-being of Nigeria and Nigerians.

We are lucky to be here in this exciting time; in a time when our country will be led by selfless individuals who have the progress and prosperity of our people as their major objective and we are here today because Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been a very key part of this story.

We are here not only to celebrate him (Tinubu) but to celebrate the incoming dawn in Nigeria; we are here to celebrate the next level in Nigeria where Nigerians will be served and given what is due to them.

The governor, who attended the colloquium with his wife, Bolanle, hailed Tinubu for his political dexterity, doggedness, undoubted courage and political acumen, saying the attributes of the national leader played key part in the electoral victory of APC at the Federal, National Assembly, Governorship and State Assembly elections.

While describing the theme of the colloquium: Next Level: Work For People, as perfectly conceived and apt for the moment, Governor Ambode said it was instructive that it was coming at a time when Nigerians were eagerly looking forward to revolutionary transformation in key sectors and sections of the country.

This colloquium is coming at a time when the APC has spread its political tentacles even further in the country and this colloquium is coming at a time when Nigerians are eagerly looking forward to the next level in progressive politics, economic growth, social welfare and increased national security, the governor said.

Fayemi, in a tribute to Tinubu, described him as the leading light of progressive politics in the country, a fact which he said critics of the APC leader usually acknowledge.

He recalled his working relationship with the former NADECO chieftain and said Tinubu remained a dependable, reliable and passionate leader, whose record of grooming successful disciples is unmatchable.

Fayemi said: I celebrate you today as always because you have been a reliable, dependable and passionate leader. The hallmark of a great leader is not measured in castles and materials, but in his ability to groom and lead successful disciples.

Like a colossus in the jungle of life, your ability to identify, nurture and engage talents is unequalled. Your life has been a testimony of human capital development in an unrelenting struggle for a better life. Even your political detractors secretly admire your courage, vibrancy, intelligence, ebullience, kind-heartedness, warmth and sagacity.

I will forever cherish the memory of our struggles for the enthronement and sustenance of democracy and good governance in Nigeria. Your infectious smile, as we have witnessed together on a number of occasions, is disarming. You have, over the years, succeeded in constantly reinventing yourself as a leading light of progressive politics.

You mean different things to different people. To some, you are a patriotic politician, while to others, you are a political strategist who loves challenging the powers-that-be as a result of your passion and desire to see that your people are not deprived of their rights at any time.

You might not be the darling of all, but you have carved a niche for yourself in the political history of Nigeria. May providence reward your labour of love with long life in good health, unspeakable joy and everlasting bliss.

On behalf of the government and good people of Ekiti State, I wish you the best of what your new year can offer. Above all, I wish you many more useful and productive years, he added.

Obasa described Tinubu as the greatest politician of the present generation. The speaker, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Musbau Rasak, yesterday said: Asiwaju is the greatest politician of this generation. His leadership qualities and ability to discover and nurture talents for the greater good of the public is uncommon and unrivaled among his peers.

But for the special discovery talent of Asiwaju, great administrators like the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; former Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; former Lagos Governor, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN; Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Governor Akinwunmi Ambode; Messrs Wale Edun, Yemi Cardozo and Dele Alake among others would not have had the opportunity to show Nigerians and the world at large, the stuff they are made of.

Obasa also praised the pioneering efforts of Asiwaju Tinubu for the creation of modern Lagos which has become the role model for others to emulate in the country.

Hes the architect of modern Lagos, laying the solid foundation on which successful governments continue to build on making the state the best among its peers in the country and the continent, he said.

The Lagos Assembly Speaker stated further that the APC National Leader deserves all the accolades, best wishes and praises showered on him because he has always stand for good governance anchored equity and fairness nurtured by justice and strict adherence to the Rule of Law.

On behalf of my colleagues at the Lagos State House of Assembly, I rejoice with our Leader, the great Jagaban of Africa on this glorious birthday celebration. I wish you many happy returns sir, Obasa said.

Fasanmi, in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Adebayo Temitope, said: No matter what you may say about Bola either you like him or not, there is no way you can discuss the democracy that is being enjoyed by many people today without mention Bola.

He added: During the NADCO era, he played a vital role which is still fresh in everybody memory. Asiwaju Bola has fought a good fight for the sustenance of democracy and he has won. If not because of Asiwajus struggle, some have determined to turn this country to their private business. Bola, what you are celebrating is the reality of unprecedented, steady and consistent progress in the entire nation, even the foundation which you laid as the former governor of Lagos State during the AD still continues. As you are celebrating your birthday Bola, I can say you have come, you have seen and by the grace of God you shall conquer. Wishing you a many more good years. I pray you shall celebrate 93 like me.

Osun APC also congratulated Tinubu. The party said: What makes this moment worthy of celebration is the quality of the series of achievements that the Jagaban of Borgu has made in less than four decades, from a local hero to a huge national figure.

In a message of goodwill signed by the chairman of the ruling party, Prince Gboyega Famodun, the APC added: One of Asiwaju Tinubus greatest achievements is his contribution to the political engineering that brought the APC into being and led it to a historic victory in 2015.

And as if that was not historic enough, the Asiwaju led the new party to a second term victory in the just concluded elections.

These events were first of its kind in the history of Nigerian politics, and one that will occupy a special attention of historians, the party said.

He praised Tinubu for what he described as the unique generosity of the APC leader, which has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

He went on: These people (that spread across party lines and nationalities) will never forget Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a hurry.

They will be amongst the millions of Nigerians who will be praying today to Allah that He grants the APC leader long life and prosperity for the good of Nigeria.

A socio  political group, Akwa Ibom Visionaries Choice for a Better Tomorrow Initiative (AKV), has described former Lagos State governor as an apostle of one Nigeria.

The group said Tinubu has salvaged the countrys democracy through his brand of politics. Its National President, Emmanuel Effiong, said: Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is an Apostle of one Nigeria and a dogged fighter for the the sustenance of unity and democracy in Nigeria.

Effiong said the group has been closely following the political contributions of the APC leader, adding that the posterity will not forgive the present crop Nigerians if they failed to identify with the lofty ideals and inputs of the former Lagos state governor to the country.

Effiong eulogised Tinubu for his outstanding achievements, noting that the APC leader is an American-trained accountant of no mean repute, a party planter for the sustenance of Democracy and a political activist who struggled for the emancipation of Nigerians.

He urged all Akwa Ibom people to identify with and celebrate Tinubu as a stateman on the occasion of his birthday anniversary.
A beautiful Nigerian university graduate has sadly passed away just as she was about to begin her NYSC. The lady identified as Agomie Ummie Mimie, reportedly died in a car crash while on her way from Zaria to the city of Kaduna in Kaduna state.

According to her friends, she was on her way to NYSC camp when the sad incident happened.

Apparently, at the time of her death, she was getting ready to take part in the mandatory NYSC scheme.

Her friends have since taken to Facebook to mourn her sad passing. Many have expressed deep shock at the tragic development.

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In celebrating his 67th, here are Seven Facts you may not know about Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, APC national leader, as put together by his newspaper  The Nation.

1). He holds the chieftainships of the Asiwaju of Lagos and the Jagaban of the Borgu Kingdom in Niger State, Nigeria.

2). He is a degree holder in Accounting from Chicago State University.

3). In March 2009, there were reports that a plot had been uncovered to kill Bola Tinubu.

4). For his academic prowess, he was awarded the prestigious Sumna cum laude (a latin phrase meaning with highest honor) for scoring 3.54 out of possible 4.0 GP.

5). With his successful academic profile, young Bola contested and won his first political election as the President of the Accounting Society of the institution in his final year at the University.

6). He is blessed with four children namely Jide Tinubu (now late), Oluwaseyi Tinubu, Abibat Tinubu and Folashade Tinubu (Iyaloja General).

7). He was born and christened Adekunle Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the 29 of March, 1952 in Lagos, Nigeria.

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The suspect

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibadan zonal office has arrested one Ayodele Saheed Olaniyi, for defrauding unsuspecting investors in a phoney N343,880,000 (Three Hundred and Forty Three Million, Eight Hundred and Eighty Thousand Naira) investment scam.

Olaniyis arrest followed a petition to the EFCC in February, which was investigated by EFCC operatives. The petition had alleged that Olaniyi duped 89 persons collecting money from them at various times amounting to N343,880,000.

Olaniyi was said to have persuaded his victims into investing in a network structure called Beerbanc Traders Network, in which the participants would pool resources together to establish a beer retailing business.

The proceed was expected to be shared every month among the investors and the purported coordinating company.

But rather than bring succour, Olaniyi accentuated their frustration as they neither received a dime as profit on their investment since October 2018, nor did they get their invested money back.

Investigations into the petition revealed that the suspect was operating eight different accounts through which he enlisted 114 people into the phoney scheme. It was also established that a sum of N396.5 million found in the accounts were never invested in any business.

It was also established that the company under which Olaniyi was operating the business was not registered with the Central Bank of Nigeria as a financial institution.

After taking his statement and conducting a search on his house and business address at Oluyole, Ibadan, he was granted administrative bail; he was however, unable to meet the terms.

However, having realised that it was game up, and that there was likelihood of him facing the consequence of his actions, Olaniyi tried playing a smart one on the Commission, as he feigned illness.

He claimed to be suffering from Hepatitis B in a bid to secure his release on health ground.

However, a medical laboratory test conducted on him established that he was not infected as he claimed.

He will soon be charged to court.
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Hedge fund of fund assets declined by $12bn over 2015, wiping out gains made in 2014, according to the latest asset flows research from Preqin. The hedge fund of funds industry ended 2015 with a total of $807bn in AUM. According to the report, trends like consolidation and closures dominated the industry as fund managers worked to find solutions to meet investor demand and also account for choppy markets. Within the industry, North American fund of fund managers are faring the best. 34% reported to Preqin that their assets have increased in 2016, while fund managers in Europe have seen declines. "Managers in the region have dropped from a 44% share of multi-manager assets in 2007 to just 23% as at December 2015. The difficulties faced by funds of hedge funds in Europe in 2015 translated into a notable number of fund closures: 60% of the fund of hedge funds liquidations in 2015 were Europe-based vehicles," report authors wrote. Despite some positive news in the early part of this year, there were three times as many closures in 2015 than there were launches, a trend that is unlikely to change in 2016. New funds of funds that are coming to market now, are by and large multi-strategy funds. Multi-strats are followed by equities strategies as the second most popular and macro strategies in third. Read the full report he...................... To view our full article Click here
Anyone who saw Donald Trump asking for a Hitler-like salute to accompany a vote pledge from his supporters, or watched an angry follower elbow-punch a protester in the face, should realize that if he were to take the White House, we would all be in deep trouble. Trump's behavior, ideas and political rants are outrageous and alarming.

But make no mistake: we'd be in trouble if any Republican candidate were to win the election. Trump's opponents espouse much of the same policy claptrap when pressed; they just use softer language and forego violently throwing protesters out of the room with the Stalinist vigor of the frontrunner. The party of the right has helped fuel the escalation in violence and vitriol we are experiencing. They've done nothing to put a lid on what's happening and they continue to support Trump in the election. They have never disavowed his accusations about the President's birthplace. They've refused to pass legislation the president proposes and they have never treated Mr. Obama with respect.

Even more worrying than the fascist machinations of the authoritarian Republican poll leader is the numbers of people flocking to his events cheering on his stereotypical scapegoating. The hate inherent in Trump supporters is a scary reminder that a lot of Americans stand on shaky ground.

We are not alone in the fact that about half our population is dangerously right wing.

Recently Spain's conservative government strengthened laws originally aimed at controlling separatists. The laws resulted in the arrest of puppeteers who used a political play on words at a Carnival show and the prosecution of a musician and a poet whose work suggested criticism of the government, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Maximum prison sentences for such infractions have been increased and a new "gag law" penalizes unauthorized public demonstrations.

Even before the Paris attacks in November last year France reinforced a similar gag law to punishes statements deemed to be inciting terrorism. Since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, French authorities have moved to enforce the law and have been accused of rushing to convict people who may have spoken provocatively outside the realm of terrorism.

Other European nations, both east and west, have also enacting broad and troubling laws, some aimed at maintaining a leader's control, others at limiting political speech as fears of Islamic extremism rise. Germany, for example, is showing serious signs of moving right in view of the Merkel government's welcoming of refugees.

In Turkey, the Erdogan government recently seized the largest circulation newspaper in the country which had been critical of his leadership. Within 48 hours it was publishing pro-Erdogan propaganda. In shutting down the press police acted after a court in Istanbul placed the paper under the administration of selected Trustees without explanation. The editor of the paper was fired and Turkish sources reported that the paper's online archive was being eradicated. This action is just the latest move by the authoritarian Erdogan, who has imprisoned critics, jailed journalists, and gone back to war with the Kurds. Oh, and it's now illegal to insult Mr. Erdogan. Nearly 2,000 cases for that crime were filed over the last year and a half.

The New York Times, in reporting events in Turkey, noted that "it is unsettling that the US and Europe have responded so meekly to Mr. Erdogan's trampling of a free press." It's also unsettling that EU countries are not willing to bear any responsibility for trapped refugees. The challenges of resettlement are huge, of course, but part of the reason no country wants to help the teaming masses is an almost hysterical fear of terrorism, which seems to have trumped (no pun intended) human rights and compassion.

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Reprinted from WSWS

Two attacks on a US firebase in northern Iraq, which killed one US Marine and wounded several more, have led to revelations about a substantial escalation of the US military intervention in the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Pentagon has deployed more than 5,000 soldiers in Iraq, some 20 percent more than the current "cap" of 3,870 troops publicly announced by the Obama White House. The Daily Beast website gave the total as 5,325.

The revelations of additional US forces came after ISIS attacked a Marine Corps position in Makhmour, about 70 miles south of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the largest urban area controlled by ISIS in either Syria or Iraq.

ISIS mortars slammed into the base, dubbed Firebase Bell, killing Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin and wounding several more Marines. Some of the wounded had to be evacuated out of the country in order to receive proper treatment.

Cardin, 27, from Temecula, California, was on his fifth deployment in a war zone. He had served three tours of duty in Afghanistan and one previous tour in Iraq before he was airlifted into Makhmour last month as part of the deployment of the US Marines 26th Expeditionary Unit from the USS Kearsarge, a troop carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf.

On Monday, a small ISIS unit attacked the base, home to 200 Marines, with small arms fire. They were driven off without casualties. At that point, Pentagon spokesmen acknowledged the existence of Firebase Bell, the first US-only facility to be set up in Iraq since the formal end of the US military occupation of the country in December 2011.

The Marine base sits adjacent to Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga positions in the area where the Iraqi government is assembling forces for a planned offensive against Mosul, expected later this year. The 200 soldiers at Firebase Bell operate 155mm artillery to provide long-range support for Iraqi Army and Kurdish troops and US Special Forces.

The Obama administration has classified the deployment of the Marines and many other soldiers as "temporary" in order to claim that the number of troops in Iraq is below the current ceiling of 3,870 that it reports to Congress.

Colonel Steve Warren, the top US military spokesman in Baghdad, told the press Monday, "People come through on a temporary basis and go above and below the force cap all the time, but we remain under our force cap."

Nancy Youssef, a Daily Beast reporter, noted that Cardin's death had revealed "a familiar, disturbing pattern in this war -- one where the US military does not reveal what it is asking of troops until it has to, usually when a service member is killed. Up until Cardin's death, the US military said its troops were only on heavily fortified bases; that its forces were not part of any offensive operations; that they were properly secured; and that frontline troops are counted in publicly released tallies of those deployed in Iraq. But Saturday's attack revealed that none of that was accurate."

The purpose of the official secrecy and lying is not military security. ISIS was well aware of the existence of the firebase, which it targeted with mortar shells. In any case, as one official admitted, it is hard to hide 200 heavily armed Marines stationed only 10 miles from enemy lines.

The purpose was to conceal from the Iraqi and American people what the US government and Pentagon are doing in Iraq. President Obama has repeatedly declared that he brought an end to combat in Iraq and that he would not send US combat forces back to that country. But this is what, in fact, is happening.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command denied Monday that US Marines were involved in combat in Iraq, declaring, "There is no credibility for the rumors talking about the deployment of American fighting troops in certain sites and camps in Baghdad or elsewhere."

Colonel Warren also denied that the deployment in Makhmour constituted a combat mission. "They won't kind of go off and conduct any type of mission on their own," he told reporters. "They don't really have that capability anyways. They're just providing coverage, right? They're providing fire support coverage for the several thousand Iraqi soldiers and the several hundred advisers."

Nonetheless, he admitted that the Marines had been deliberately attacked by ISIS. "I think they were targeted specifically," he said. "We're in a dangerous place and there's a war going on. So we have to expect there will be attacks."
I'm Max Blumenthal, for the Real News. We're here at the National Press Club, at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Conference, examining whether the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is good for America. And I'm here with Gideon Levy. Gideon Levy was the former spokesman for Shimon Peres, former Israeli president, and is now one of the most outspoken journalists in Israel, someone who I would say is a true dissident in Israeli society, and the voice of the voiceless in Israel. People, Israelis who are resisting occupation and resisting apartheid. And we're going to talk to Gideon not only about the U.S. and Israeli special relationship, but also about what's happening in Israeli society right now.

Gideon, you spoke earlier today, and you said that if any -- if you could show any American visiting the Holy Land anything, you would first take them to Hebron. And I think you're referring to H2, the section of the city that is honeycombed with very violent, radical settlers, but is still Palestinian. Why would you show them that area? There's so much to see.

Watch: Gideon Levy and Max Blumenthal discuss the future of Israel-America relations. Full transcript below.

GIDEON LEVY: I would start there because there you get it in a nutshell. There is no other place where you can see the Israeli policy, the Israeli apartheid in the West Bank, in such crystal clear colors. Roads are just separated for Jews and for Palestinians. An empty town, because all the Palestinian inhabitants head to run away. I mean, the settlers terrorized them so much, until most of them, there really remained only those who have no place to go. And you see the tyranny of the settlers, their brutality. They are the most extreme settlers and they are, part of them should be questioned by psychiatrists. I mean, really. And only a very small piece of land. And that's the way it could have -- and it will look, one day -- if this occupation will continue. So you get it in a nutshell.

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To the editor:

Mary Laforets article of March 19 (Christians being intimidated) was a strange and sad article for our traditional Saturday Thank You page.

Maybe, the world is trending away from God and religion as a result of this dark, intolerant, judgmental and antiquated view of Christianity presented by Ms. Laforet. She assumes absolute knowledge of what God stands for, what is bad in the world, who is without common sense, what defines evil, etc. We cant have a fair and honest disagreement, since her positions are supported by God and the rest of us rely on Satan for our information. History is full of horrors that come from this supposed absolute knowledge.

Here are a few points from her column:

1. Americas mistake is NOT to judge. Has Ms. Laforet ever thought her judgments could be wrong? What about studying the realities of todays world along with Luke for open discussion or at least a civil disagreement.

2. Non-Christian beliefs are the cause of U.S. degradation.) Number one, I personally reject this ugly claim since it demeans most of the human population which is not Christian and the unconscionable implication that other belief systems are degrading. People with that philosophy are as wrong as those who opposed emancipation of slaves, voting rights for women, anti-trust statutes, civil rights, etc. based on outdated thinking. Maybe stagnant thinking is driving people from the church.

3. On racial tensions: just stop talking about it. Wow, that has really worked. It is great we have a lot of sand in the Midland area so we can collectively put our heads in it when we have a tough problem!

4. On U.S. security: Our president, who receives constant briefings on security is judged by Ms. Laforet to lack common sense to condemn many incidents as war crimes, while in her factual information void she clearly sees the truth. Really, sounds more political than logical.

5. Poor business owners that wish to use their bigotry to demonstrate their deep religious faith! Might I suggest that business owners would better serve God by respecting all his people, even if they disagree?

If Ms. Laforets concept of God and Christianity is a warning, then a place to look for the cause is internally. Maybe the world and most of Christianity is offended by intolerance, hatred and hubris of this judgmental approach. Ms. Laforets defense of the faith, apologetic, reminds me of a bad immune system; instead of protecting, it turns its focus inward and destroys the body. People are rejecting the religious mentality that brought us the Inquisition, the bloody Reformation, justification of slavery, witch hunts, Crusades and persecutions to name a few, and of course ISIL.

But most of all the world is rejecting the concept of people distorting religion with absolute truths based on long outdated sophisms. Contrary to the articles title, Christians are not being intimidated; however I see Ms. Laforets pain since the few Christians who still try to use fear, damnation, etc. to intimidate people in order to sell bigotry are finally being ignored.

RONALD E. TAYLOR

Midland
They account for nearly 40% of Pennsylvania Small Businesses Research has shown that womenowned businesses tend to be less financed than men-owned businesses, but in 2022 we are continuing to see an increase of women starting businesses all on their own, while also outperforming those owned and run by men....
Airmen with the 673rd Security Forces Squadron and Soldiers with the 549th Military Working Dog Detachment participated in joint explosives-detection training on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson March 17.



While the training may be performed regularly by the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, the joint aspect is what made this event significant.

"In the past we've tried to do [joint training] monthly or a couple times quarterly, but due to manning and [other restrictions] here, it hasn't taken place," said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Turner, 549th MWD kennel master.

"We're trying to build that relationship back up and get everyone on track as far as ... being able to work together," he said. "We are hoping to have joint training as something that will happen in a much more regular basis."

Since JBER is a joint installation, there is a greater need for the coordination of military police and security forces.

According to Sam Finney, 673rd SFS kennel master, it's paramount for dog handlers from both branches to know what each side is going to bring in the event of an emergency.

The training was set up very much like a search that would be performed in a remote village, to mimic what dog handlers may experience in a deployed environment, said U.S. Air Force Spc. Jared Schultz, a 549th MWD dog handler.

"Very few times are we actually going to search an RV lot or a warehouse in a deployed environment," he said. "Not that it couldn't happen, but it's not as likely. This is why we train all these different areas."

Further importance of joint training lies in the ability to share training practices where service members can see training methods in practice that appeal to different learning styles.

"Just like a person, [all dogs learn differently]," Schultz said. "Someone might be a visual learner where another may need to hear something. [This is the same for a dog] and it's all about how you can get through to the dog. When you get to see other people [train] you get to see some of their ideas or concepts played out. Even if they don't work for you and your dog, you can learn from them and ... you have a tool that you can add to your toolbox. In the end, it's up to you what tools you put into that box."
Yokota Airmen have the unique privilege of working alongside their Japan Air Self-Defense Force counterparts while supporting a variety of contingencies throughout the region.

These opportunities allow for both the strengthening of mission capabilities, as well as the exchange of ideas between each service. Although these opportunities are plentiful at Yokota, there is a wealth of knowledge that goes undiscovered about Japanese counterparts when sharing only brief interactions.

As such, the 374th Airlift Wing has taken a proactive step to enhance that relationship by hosting JASDF Airmen as they took part in the 16th Annual NCO Exchange Program, March 15 through 24, here.

A total of 16 JASDF Airmen from a variety of career fields participated in this year's NCOEP, which provides an opportunity for participants to enhance communications and understanding of different operations between both organizations.

"We take in JASDF NCO's from throughout Japan and match them to their professional counterparts here at Yokota," said Staff Sgt. Zachary Kelly, 374th Operational Support Squadron weather forecaster.

Kelly, sponsor of JASDF Staff Sgt. Masaya Ito, Central Weather Squadron weather observer, said the he and the other participants had the pleasure of sharing job knowledge and showing the capabilities of Yokota to their JASDF partners.

"It's a very good learning experience for me as I'm able to share the similarities and difference that we and our Japan partners with my flight," Kelly said. "The program gives everyone involved an opportunity to learn from our differences and possibly incorporate them into our own procedures."

Participants' experiences varied depending on their host and carrier field. Locations varied from medical facilities, towers and runways, and even flight on a C-130 Hercules.

"By sharing not only my own work area, but also all of the other jobs that our Airmen do, we can paint a better picture of what we're able to accomplish here at Yokota," Kelly added.

A majority of the program's participants echoed a constant challenge: the language barrier. Ito himself said that prior to his arrival, he was nervous about effectively communicating with his partner. However, when he met with Kelly for the first time at the initial ice breaker, his worries slowly melted away as the pair was able to speak with one another with only modest difficulty.

"It's an inevitable challenge that all of the program's participants were faced with," Kelly said. "Fortunately, by relying on patience and the many resources we had at our disposal, we were able to communicate successfully from beginning to end."

Rather than parting ways after work each day, NCOEP participants remained together during physical training, volunteering and even dinner.

Kuniko Takamizu, 374th AW protocol and NCOEP coordinator, said that by having participants together for not only normal work hours, but also outside of work, gave JASDF members an opportunity to become more immersed and develop deeper relationships with their Yokota partners.

"Facilitating opportunities for relationships to develop and grow between Yokota and JASDF Airmen has continued to have a positive impact on U.S. and Japan relations," Takamizu said.

Kelly and Ito revealed that sharing their time together has helped to unveil the mysteries surrounding each of their daily lives.

"I learned that we share many things in common," Ito said. "We're both in the military, have the same job and even have similar skill level in our favorite sport, tennis. These things have made it real easy to become friends with Zachary."

This year's NCOEP has come to its official end, but the newly formed friendships created throughout the program may yet continue to grow.
A new research comes to suggest that autism genes are to be found in all of us. The study shows that a genetic relationship exists between autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) traits found in the wider population and ASD medical condition.

The new autism study has been performed by a team of international researchers including academics from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Broad Institute of Harvard, University of Bristol and MIT.

According to Science Daily, the research team studied the genetic relationship between autism and the expression of autism-related traits in populations not considered to have autism spectrum disorders. The results of the research were published this week in Nature Genetics.

The findings of the new study suggest that genetic risk underlying ASD affects a range of development and behavioral traits across the wider population. People diagnosed with autism represent only a more severe presentation of those traits. The genetic risk underlying ASD includes both influences not seen in an individual's parents and inherited variants.

Autism spectrum disorders are affecting about 1 in 100 children. The recent advances in genome sequencing and analysis allow shaping a picture of ASD's genetic landscape. Previous research has shown that most ASD risk is polygenic with just few cases associated with rare genetic variants of large effect.

According to Dr. Mark Daly, senior author of the study and co-director of the Broad Institute's Medical and Population Genetics (MPG) Program, these findings are supported by "a lot of strong but indirect evidence." Dr. Mark Daly added that measurable genetic signals including both polygenic risk and specific de novo mutations helped the research team to conclude that the genetic risk contributing to autism exists in all of us, influencing our social communication and our behavior.

Study co-first author Dr. Elise Robinson explained that behavioral and cognitive data in the general population can be used to study the mechanisms of different types of genetic risk. The same approach used in the latest study could be used to further explore the associations between behavioral trains and genetic risk in other neuropsychiatric disorders.
It girl Gigi Hadid had the best red carpet date at the Fashion Los Angeles Awards, no it's not Zayn Malik, but her gorgeous mom - Yolanda! The two were all smiles as they were goofing off and posing for photos.

The 20-year-old supermodel channeled her inner bohemian goddess by sporting a sheer white Yanina Couture dress and her 52-year-old hot mom looked chic in an all-black ensemble. "To be able to pull heels on tonight, for example, and come and be here, it makes her (mom) so happy, and it makes us so happy. So we're really excited," said Gigi in an interview with ET.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star is known to be battling Lyme disease for the past three years which has impaired her to the extent of needing help to be dressed because she couldn't move at one point. What's more, she discloses that the chronic illness was also one of the reasons she and the Grammy Award-Winning music producer David Foster split this 2015.

"The patient suffers, but the caretakers suffer too. Because life doesn't only change for us, it changes for the person next to you. At the end of the day, David never changed, I changed," revealed Yolanda on the Dr. Oz Show.

On the other hand, Gigi added "In the beginning of this year, she said, 'I'm going to get better enough to come to the Victoria's Secret show,' and then she made it, and now she's here to see Bella, and it's just a really, really great feeling to see her start to see progress in her health."

The mother and daughter pair came out at the Fashion LA Awards to support the younger Hadid-- Bella, 19, who is the recipient of this year's Model of the Year award by designer Jeremy Scott.
Three leading brand names of cot mattress have failed a firmness test, according to CHOICE. The said mattresses were supposedly designed to reduce the risk of infants suffocating while asleep. The results prompted the consumer group to call the attention of Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to review the standard and to make voluntary firmness test mandatory for all cot mattress products.

Three big-name cot mattresses 'too soft', pose suffocation risk to babies, Choice says - ABC Online https://t.co/jo5UylLnbk  Babies Watch (@BabiesWatch) Marso 23, 2016

"We know that mattresses that are too soft are a risk factor that can lead to SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome," Tom Godfrey from Choice said to ABC. "So we think it's really important that this voluntary standard is looked at by the ACCC and the requirements of it made mandatory as part of the review of the Australian Standard later this year." CHOICE tested 12 cot mattress brands, apparently the cot mattress manufactured by Sealy, Love N Care and Childcare were too soft, which could potentially cover an infant's face. Godfrey said the results are concerning--considering the fact that there have been mattress safety tests in placed since 2013.

Does everyone know the 'numbers' related to SIDS? 290 lives lost every year. #CPHVAtt pic.twitter.com/8t8gWLBmRv  Unite_CPHVA (@Unite_CPHVA) Marso 15, 2016

Nonetheless, Love N Care CEO, Terry Elchek, told Sydney Morning Herald the company didn't agree with the assessment of CHOICE. However, since the firm took the matter seriously, Elcheck said the company had conducted its own safety check and sent back the products to the factory for further testing.

As for Sealy, the manufacturer said the company conducted its own lab test and the result revealed the firm's cot mattress passed the firmness standard. Nevertheless, the company said they will still review the specifications of their cot mattress. Childcare also said to ABC its cot mattress passed all its own lab tests.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from ACCC said the team is currently reviewing the standards. "Stakeholder experience from use in the field will be valuable in determining if assists in identifying problem mattresses and whether it should become a mandatory requirement," the spokesperson added.
Jamie Oliver openly cited his views on breastfeeding, thus gathered numerous backlash from non-breastfeeding mothers. Despite being criticized for his stand on breastfeeding, Jamie Oliver decided to speak up and clarified the issue.

Jamie Oliver clarifies his comments on breastfeeding by citing numerous benefits a mother can get from doing it. The celebrity chef cleared out his statement that caused an outrage among non-breastfeeding mothers in Britain.

The media personality raised his concerns with Britain by citing that the country has "the world breastfeeding in the world."

"It's simply an area of interest following my nutritional studies over the last two year, Jamie Oliver said. "I understand that breastfeeding is often not easy and in some cases not even possible but just wanted to support women who DO breastfeed and make it easier for them to do so. "

"Childhood nutrition starts with supporting pregnant women properly and I expect Mr Cameron to also be including this in his childhood obesity strategy. As a father - and father to be - I would never wish to offend women or mums as I know how incredible they are and I would get a kicking when I got home!" Jamie Oliver added on his succeeding posts on Twitter.

Jamie Oliver offering up his opinion on breastfeeding is like me, someone who can't cook, telling you all how to whip up a fab fish dish.  Rachel Hawkins (@Our_Rach) March 19, 2016

After winning his sugar tax campaign, Jamie Oliver is yet on another quest to encourage breastfeeding. Daily Mail reported that Jamie Oliver opened up about breastfeeding as he pointed out that it is a healthier option and can easily nourish the child, but giving the infant only the best. Jamie Oliver also pointed out that feeding a child formula milk can possibly lead to obesity.

Wow, if only I'd had Jamie Oliver to tell me breastfeeding was easy and convenient when my baby wouldn't latch and got dehydrated!  KJ Charles (@kj_charles) March 18, 2016

Though Jamie Oliver's statement seem factual, several mothers felt offended stating that it's not easy for some mothers to breastfeed. There may be some who object to Jamie Oliver's breastfeeding view, there were those who stated that what he said was indeed right. Jamie Oliver is a father to four children and he is expecting his fifth child.
Apple mobile device users are now raving about "Night Shift," a new iPhone feature which reduces the amount of blue light being displayed on screen as day turns to night. Its rationale is simple: less exposure to blue light means more people get to sleep early and comfortably. But does it really work? A renowned sleep scientist shares his eye-opening observation.

Dr. Raj Dasgupta of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine told Business Insider that he sees nothing particularly wrong with "Night Shift." The feature may or may not encourage a good night's sleep. What it all boils down to is the user's sleep hygiene.

"If you can't sleep, good sleep hygiene suggests that you get up, get out of bed, and do something else, something relaxing, like going and reading a book," he said. "But nowadays people aren't doing that, they're pulling out their phones and scrolling."

Dasgupta added that "Night Shift" is just one of many mobile features and apps designed to help people sleep. But because of its eye-preserving nature and people's poor sleep hygiene, most iPhone users end up extending their mobile usage instead.

"When you're going to bed, you want to do things that are relaxing, like reading a book. You want to gradually transition into sleep; you don't want your mind to be stimulated," Dasgupta explained. "I don't see a problem having it as long as we know what good sleep hygiene is."

Other aspects of good sleep hygiene include reducing exposure to stimulating content like television, social media and emotionally upsetting thoughts. Experts recommend avoiding these kinds of stimulants an hour before bed.

Sleep Foundation reported that food can also be detrimental to a good night's sleep. Large meals, spicy dishes and chocolate, which contains caffeine, should not be eaten close to bedtime. Lastly, bedrooms should be visually pleasing and sleep-conducive.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is feared the microcephaly could be diagnosed to more than 2,500 babies in Brazil if the country's current situation on Zika virus continues.

According to WHO, vaccines and measures to control the mosquitoes will be crucial in fighting Zika. This is due to 50 percent of world's population living in the areas that are inhabited by Aedes aegypti, one of the mosquito types carrying the virus, Live Science reported.

"In less than a year, the status of Zika has changed from a mild medical curiosity to a disease with severe public health implications," said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general.

Around 39 percent of all the infants that are suspected of having microcephaly in the country were confirmed to have the condition. The doctors have made these diagnoses by analyzing the infants' brains through CT scan which confirmed 863 cases.

Around 4,300 more infants located at the northeastern part of Brazil are currently suspected to have microcephaly. If this percentage rate continues, more than 2,500 of those infants are going to be diagnosed with microcephaly in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the United States health officials remind healthcare workers to use standard protective gear during childbirth to keep the newborn from being infected with Zika virus. Although the virus spreads through mosquito bites, Zika has been detected in body fluids such as urine, saliva, amniotic fluid and blood several cases of sexual transmission were also recorded, as reported by Fox News.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests observing standard infection precautions at all times, whether Zika virus is confirmed or suspected, since most people that are infected with Zika so not have symptoms.

These procedures include the use of masks, double gloves and other personal protective equipment, frequent hand washing, safe injection practices and safe handling of potentially contaminated surfaces or equipment.


Babies are always considered to be the best gift a family can have. However, would you still have the same feeling when you find out you're expecting not one, not two, but three babies a few weeks after your husband dies?

Brian Hill, a retired decorated Navy veteran who served the United States countless times in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait lost his life in a fatal car accident. On the day of his wake, the most unexpected thing happened. His wife, Courtney found out she was pregnant.

"My sister is very strong," Amanda Willey, 30, of Libertyville, Illinois, told ABC News. "She is obviously going through a lot, but she has felt so much support from family and friends. "She's really keeping her head up and doing a great job. Throughout all of this, I don't know how she does it. I call her 'the rock.' I'm just proud of her. She's quite the courageous woman," she continued.

Willey also said that her twin sister married the retired Navy corpsman and Bronze Star recipient on July 14, 2012, and later had a daughter named Reagan, who is now a year old. Willey described her brother-in-law as someone who showed her sister what true love was. She said that she has never met a couple quite like them. "... just the smile on their faces, the sparkle in their eye. Anyone that was around them knew they loved each other," she described.

Unfortunately, fate has its way of turning life around. Last month, while making a delivery for a lumber company, Brian had a car accident in Oklahoma which claimed his life, leaving his wife and daughter.

Parenting.com reported that Courtney heartbreakingly told Fox 6 News that she was able to hold her husband's hand and told him that she was pregnant at his wake.

On the second of March, a month to the day of Brian's death, Courtney was taken by her mother to the hospital because she was scared she was having a miscarriage. Instead of leaving the hospital heartbroken, she left with a good news instead. She was told she's having triplets.

"I'm excited to have three more smiles that remind me of him," Hill said.

Now, alone and widowed, Courtney, a stay-at-home mom will be raising Reagan and the triplets alone. Willey set up a GoFundMe campaign for her sister last week to help her and her little babies.
There were a number of kids at the Brussels airport when a series of explosion rocked the terminal. Parents are worried their kids will be traumatized for life.

Virginia Tech psychology professor Russell Jones told ABC News that parents should always remember that kids will always try to imitate the behavior of adults. "First of al,l parents need to be calm and in control of themselves. Oftentimes, children will model the behavior of parents," Jones said.

Kids thought they were fireworks, parents knew they were bombs  the latest reporting from #Brussels https://t.co/waxJl2Xn06  GlobalPost (@GlobalPost) March 22, 2016

He claimed that if parents will also show that they are traumatized, it is most likely that children will also feel the same. Jones noted that talking to children is an important tool to help them cope.

On the other hand, the American Psychological Association (APA), noted that the news exposure of kids should also be closely monitored. "Be prepared to answer questions they may have about how or why this traumatic even occurred," the APA said.

KidsMatter explained that traumatic situations can alter children's behavior and their relationship to other people. It added that they may have sleeping problems, become more clingy to their parents and experience physical and social skills problems.

"Many times following these unexpected traumatic events, it shatters their world view," Jones added in the ABC News report. "They feel things will never be the same and good things don't happen to good people."

Meanwhile, Anxiety and Depression Association of America's (ADAA) Dr. Aureen Wagner said in an ADAA report that parents should let their children understand that being scared is part of life.

"Let your child know that it is normal to feel upset, scared or angry," Wagner added. "If older children or teenagers want to watch television or read news online about a traumatic event, be available to them, especially to discuss what they are seeing and reading," she noted adding that this will give them a better understanding of the situation.
Students from Atlanta elementary school will no longer say "Namaste" during yoga practice after Christian parents complained that administrators were indoctrinating Hindu religion onto students. Moreover, school officials ensured parents that all of the students will no longer put their hands at their heart as part of the gesture during yoga sessions.

Bullard Elementary school's stress management practice, yoga, is under attack from the students' parents who claimed that yoga practice is equivalent to a religious practice. "They're pushing ideology on our students," mother from Cobb County, Susan Jaramillo said to 11 Alive, according to News Gram.

In GA, no more Namaste! https://t.co/y7j58mZ4qy  Natasha Heller (@nheller) Marso 24, 2016

However, Principal Patrice Moore said parents' reaction to children who are "enjoying breathing and body movement" in class during yoga sessions are just "misunderstanding." Nevertheless, she issued an apology letter to all parents. Moore said the school also banned the phrase namaste and the gesture of putting a hand over hearts during yoga sessions.

"I am truly sorry that the mindfulness/de-stressing practices here at Bullard caused many misconceptions that in turn created a distraction in our school and community," part of the letter reads, according to Daily Mail. Aside from banning the common practices during yoga sessions, Moore added the students would also stop using the coloring books Mandala (translated to mean "circle" in Sanskrit, is a Hindu and Buddhist symbol for the universe) during "brain breaks."

More so, the principal said the school will not teach the children about the healing powers of crystals. "Although teachers have never used nor taught about crystals having healing powers during these breaks, we understand it has become a belief," she wrote.

NYC students say yoga helps them: https://t.co/SccmULNaH8 So why are GA parents banning it? https://t.co/zOJxdCIlv6 pic.twitter.com/V0Y6m052K7  The 74 (@The74) Marso 24, 2016



What do you think? Would it be scary to allow children to learn some de-stressing yoga techniques? Can the word namaste and the simple gesture during yoga sessions really brainwash the minds of the kids? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.
Parents often have no idea or deny the fact that their own children are bullying other kids. They find it incredibly hard to believe their little angels are bullying others.

Nonetheless, no matter how shock you are or in the state of disbelief, Pacer.org said that parents should somehow need to recognize the situations. Addressing the issue and making all the necessary measures can provide a safer future for your child as well as for other children. But if you don't know how to handle such situation, here are some tips that can help you and your child to stop bullying others.

Anti-Bullying protest 03/11/16,Johnstown Pa. The school board IGNORES cries of victimized children & their parents. pic.twitter.com/bdJPHeDlNw  the_awakened (@IFight4Minez) Marso 13, 2016

Acknowledge your child's behavior. Sit down and have a calm conversation with your child. Ask him why he is bullying other kids. Then, listen to him and avoid blaming. Moreover, ask certain questions how his behavior is affecting others: Would you want someone to do that to you? Do you think what you did is respectful?

After which, you can explain to your child that fair treatment is very important an example of you can say is: "We don't behave that way in this family because we respect other people, and we don't want other people to treat us that way," Walter Roberts, author of "Working With Parents of Bullies and Victims," suggested to Parents.

Coordinate with the school. Roberts said parents shouldn't be afraid to ask for help in the school. You can talk to the administrators to address the issue, then come up with a plan to stop your child from bullying.

Additional counseling may be needed to help your child, so ask the school if they have available community resources. From there, stay in touch with the school to see if there is any progress on your child's behavior.



Be realistic about the situation. It might take some time to change your child's behavior. Expect there may be some setbacks. So, be patient, just give your child time to learn new ways of handling his feelings.

Children can be brutal. Nevertheless, parents can help their children deal with mistakes in a very healthy way. How about you? Do you notice your child misbehave lately?
Preeclampsia is one of the most common disorders in pregnancy that remained a mystery to many people. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge about this disease is placing at stake the health of all pregnant women and their unborn babies, according to Kecia Gaither, M.D., MPH, FACOG.

There are many pregnant women who didn't bother about the condition of their pregnancy, which includes hypertension. With their health looking like it's going well, expectant mothers think they have everything under control until three weeks before the due date. When pregnant women start gaining enormous pounds and when blood pressure escalates from a perfect number to 150/100, then that's when pregnant women will hear the word preeclampsia, as per Romper.

Well, if you're one of those pregnant women who never bothered to read nor to ask about it, preeclampsia is a disease that often manifests through high blood pressure, high levels of protein in the urine and swollen legs, Gaither explained to Huffington Post.

The symptoms of preeclampsia can be discovered through routine evaluation during prenatal care checkups. Preeclampsia commonly presents itself in the latter half of the second trimester of pregnancy. Symptoms include headaches, abdominal pain, protein in the urine, benign blood pressure elevation and swelling from fluid retention.

The cause of preeclampsia is still unknown. However, there are a few factors that can increase your risks, according to the American Pregnancy Association. One of the factors is if you had preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy, then you're at the higher risk. Other factors include history of high blood pressure before pregnancy, obesity and carrying multiples.

As of now, the only known cure for preeclampsia is delivery. However, doctors may prescribe necessary medications to prevent seizures, stabilize the blood pressure and to enhance the lung development of the fetus. Depending on the severity of preeclampsia.

So, to all pregnant women out there, better stay vigilant during the course of your pregnancy. Moreover, always visit your doctor to monitor your health and most importantly, your baby's health. Find out more about preeclampsia by watching the video below!
Looking after special needs kids can be difficult and stressful both to the child and the parent. Children with autism, Down Syndrome, or ADHD require special care and parents need a ton of support and guidance to raise them.

On March 18, a woman from Singapore was sentenced to five years in jail for pushing her autistic son out the window, according to Straits Times. She was suffering from a major depressive disorder which caused her to think thoughts that her son was the reason she was miserable. She was also the main provider for her family and she reached a breaking point.

News such as this is certainly tragic and stresses the need for some sort of support system for parents. According to Straits Times, regular check-ins from social workers and assistance from nurses and caregivers should be provided. People suffering from depression should be encouraged to join programs that help with these types of conditions. There should be a community for these types of families.

While such services are available, sometimes it can be difficult to navigate the system on your own. In Florida, a resource center called Help Me Grow became available for parents to call to get connected to the appropriate programs and providers when they need help with their child, whether with special needs or without. Orlando Sentinel reports that a hotline, 2-1-1, is available 24/7 and encourages parents and guardians to get in touch when they need to.

Calgary Herald shares ideas from different people on what they think should be done to help a child with special needs. These thoughts from parents, caregivers, and academics can prove to be helpful in the future.
Queen Elizabeth II is arguably the most well-known monarch in history, but to her royal great-grandchildren, she is simply known as "Gan-Gan." Kate Middleton recently spoke about how the Queen relishes in her new role as great grandmother to Prince George, 2 and Princess Charlotte, 10 months.

In an interview snippet of the upcoming TV special "Our Queen at 90" posted on the official Kensington Palace Twitter account, the Duchess of Cambridge shared how special it was for the royal family to welcome the birth of Charlotte. The Queen, in particular, was very eager to see the newborn.

"She was really thrilled that it was a little girl. And I think as soon as we came back here to Kensington, she was one of our first visitors," Middleton recalled. "I think she's very fond of Charlotte, always watching what she's up to."

The Queen may have a soft spot for Princess Charlotte, but she also has a special bond with Prince George. Kate said her firstborn even has a fitting nickname for his great grandmother.

"George is only 2 1/2 and he calls her 'Gan-Gan,'" Kate revealed . "She always leaves a little gift or something in their room when we go and stay, and that just shows her love for the family."

The Duchess of Cambridge lauded the Queen's generosity and motherly touch. She added that the soon-to-be 90-year-old monarch has been very accommodating to her and has been giving her tips on public engagements.

"Everyone teases me in the family that I spend far too long chatting. So I think I've still got to learn a little bit more and to pick up a few more tips I suppose," Kate mused, as per Vogue. "She's been very generous in not being forceful at all and in any of her views, but I feel she's been there, a gentle guidance really for me."

Queen Elizabeth II will turn 90 this April 21. Meanwhile, "Our Queen at 90" will air at 8 in the evening on Easter Sunday in the UK. The special documentary is produced by UK TV network ITV.
Samsung is working on the most revolutionary smartphone in the world. The innovative foldable smartphone will be launched on the market sometime this year.

Devices like the original iPhone were innovative enough to destroy mobile phone giants like BlackBerry and Nokia and to change an entire industry. LG's new G5 is also an innovative gadget. Now, it's Samsung's turn to design a revolutionary mobile device. While sales and innovation don't always go hand in hand, the South Korean tech giant is well aware that in order for industries to move forward, technology needs to progress.

New details have emerged about Samsung working behind closed doors on a new mobile device. According to BGR, the upcoming smartphone has the potential to be the world's most innovative phone.

On Wednesday, March 23, a new Samsung patent application was published. The patent describes technology that is required to build the world's first foldable smartphone. The mobile device would feature a large display that can be folded in half.

It's is well known that in the tech industry, patent applications are filed all the time, but not always the devices described in them come to materialize. However, this patent is different, according to Dutch Samsung news blog Galaxy Club.

Samsung has filed the patent application just recently on March 11. Less than two weeks later, the patent has been published. Such an accelerated schedule could indicate the fact that the foldable smartphone is in already in advanced stages of development.

This corroborates with earlier rumors that Samsung is working to release a foldable smartphone sometime in 2016. However, when it comes to innovation, Samsung has a mixed history and often takes its time before launching a new product.

Samsung would strengthen its position as a leader in innovation with the foldable phone described in this patent application. A phablet with a large display that you can put in your pocket and is more compact than the iPhone SE would make a great market success.
Kate Middleton and Prince William have been plagued with divorce rumors for quite some time now. Now, new reports claimed that Prince William have Kate Middleton another reason to file a divorce when he reportedly went to Kenya to spend time with ex-girlfriend Jecca Craig.

Kate Middleton furious after Prince William visited Jecca Craig

Rumor mills are spreading that Prince William escaped family Easter to visit former ladylove Jecca Craig and Kate Middleton is mad. Celeb Dirty Laundry shared that Kensington Palace previously announced that Prince William will be having a private trip to Kenya.

Most reports claim that Prince William is visiting the country to promote his wildlife preservation initiative and meeting with Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta. True enough, Tusk Trust verified Prince William's arrival via a Twitter post, saying, "Great to have #PrinceWilliam witness elephant & rhino conservation in action today with KWS vet and rangers in Kenya. @KensingtonRoyal."

A meeting with Jecca Craig is something fans did not expect from Prince William's visit. Though the royal prince's ex is set to tie the know with her fiance, the rumored meeting is still now something good for Prince William and Kate Middleton's relationship, which is currently rumored to be hitting the rock bottom.

Kate Middleton and Prince William splitting because of Jecca Craig?

Celeb Dirty Laundry speculated that Kate Middleton was furious when she learned that Prince William is seeing Jecca Craig. It has been reported that Jecca Craig has been one of the main reasons of Kate Middleton and Prince William's arguments.

The jealousy of Kate Middleton with Jessa Craig has grown into higher heights after Prince William invited his ex on a hunting trip to Spain, which was originally planned as a guys-only escapade. What maddened Kate Middleton that time is when Prince William skipped her family's trip to Mustique just to join the Spain trip with Jecca Craig.

At the moment, royal fans and critics cannot help but speculate that Prince William is cheating on Kate Middleton with Jecca Craig. Some even said that Jessa Craig could be the reason for Kate Middleton and Prince William to end up to a divorce.

Do you think Kate Middleton should be jealous of Prince William and Jessa Craig? Do you think the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are heading to a divorce? Share to us your thoughts in the comment section below.

Follow me on Twitter @iamheadturner
Prince George and Princess Charlotte will have to celebrate Easter with their mother Kate Middleton alone. Prince William is reportedly spending Easter in Kenya on a four-day trip and is also scheduled to attend his ex-girlfriend's wedding.

He will be present to see "first-hand some of the longstanding conservation and anti-poaching initiatives" in Kenya, according to a report by Perez Hilton. This endeavour is supported by the Tusk Trust and is known and remains to be a huge passion for the whole British royal family. Prince William will also be meeting with Kenya's incumbent president, Uluru Kenyatta.

The 33-year old father of two is also collaborating with the Lewa Conservancy in order to learn more about protecting local rhinos from poaching. Furthermore, he will be involved in research efforts that seek to fit radio-tracking collars to elephants for species conservation.

Interestingly, animal conservation is not the only agenda in Prince William's visit to Kenya. While unconfirmed, the British royal will be attending his ex-teenage girlfriend's nuptials at the Lewa Wildlife Reserve run by Ian Craig. This is the same reserve where William proposed to Kate in 2010.

Prince William first met Jecca's father during one of his visits to Africa in 1998. According to a report by the Daily Mail, Craig sparked and nurtured the prince's interest in conservation. Craig was also said to be a father figure to the Duke of Cambridge. Rumored to have been involved when they were 19-year-olds, William's ex-girlfriend Jessica Craig will be married this weekend to Professor Jonathan Baillie, a Canadian-born world authority on threatened species for the Zoological Society.

Prince William and the Craig family have remained close friends over the years with the British royal attending the wedding of Jecca's brother in 2008. Because of this, the Prince missed the wedding of his cousin Peter Phillips which happened on the same day. Kate had to go to Berkshire in his place alone.
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The election of 1796 was the first in which candidates for political office ran as members of organized political parties. Throughout our subsequent history, the original two parties have changed almost every aspect of their beingnames, values, demographics. But one factor has stayed constant: The dual party system. Rarely in US history has a third-party gained even close to enough support to rival the two-party system. But with the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, two anti-establishment candidates, its possible to imagine that this long-held two party tradition might deteriorate. Before you jump to conclude that this proposition is rash and off-base, lets look at the possible end-results of the current primary and upcoming general election.

Despite the fact that hes in the lead, or perhaps because of it, establishment Republicans hate Donald Trump. They also loathe Ted Cruz. That leaves mainstream conservatives stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unlike Democrats, Republicans dont have superdelegates, making it it mathematically impossible for John Kasich to win enough pledged to win the nomination outright. So what will happen?

Donald Trump is currently on track to win just enough delegates to snag the nomination. If he wins the republican nomination through pledged delegates, the mainstream Republicans have few options.They might support himsome politicians have pledged to support whoever the nominee is; others, including Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Stasse says he expects a third-party candidate to challenge Trump in the general election. Given how active establishment Republican candidates have been in criticizing Trump, it seems hard to believe that they would give up the fight so easily.

If Trump is the Republican candidate, its hard to predict how the voters would react, especially if he was matched against Clinton. Many who support him now would likely stay loyal, but moderate conservatives might simply stay home, or even vote for Clinton due to Trumps racist and xenophobic remarks. In either case, this path alienates many mainstream Republican voters from their own party, weakening the establishment.

A second reality might be that Trump comes close, but does not snag enough delegates for the nomination, which would yield a brokered convention on the Republican side. The Chairman of the RNC, Reince Priebus, openly admitted that his party could be headed toward a contested or brokered convention and, ...wouldnt commit to Donald Trump being the nominee even if he entered the July event with the most delegates. Their chosen nominee need not be one of the candidates currently campaigning; in fact, the nominee would likely be an establishment Republican. If the Republican elite, in this scenario, decide not to choose Trump, the publics reaction would be mixed, but still significant.

Its crucial to emphasize the base of Trumps support comes from voters who feel they are being ignored by mainstream politics. In a survey from the RAND corporation, voters who agreed with the statement people like me dont have any say about what the government does were 86.5 percent more likely to prefer Trump. Trump himself hinted at the chaos that might occur if the voices of the people who voted for him get muted. His voters might stay home, defect from the party, riot, or all of the above. If the Republican establishment decides not to choose Trump, and disenfranchise all of Trumps supporters, suddenly the fears of Trumps voters would be validated. This scenario would have detrimental effects on the Republican party going into the future.

Although the race is far from over, it looks as if Hillary Clinton is more likely than Bernie Sanders to win the nomination. However, if this is the case, its important to note that Hillary Clinton is not necessarily entitled to Bernie Sanders supporters. In fact, a current poll showed that 33 percent of his supporters wont vote for Clinton in the general election. Hillary Clintons shifting perspectives on policy issues seem disengenuous for many progressives who are finding it more and more difficult to support her in the general election.

Bernie Sanders has captured a wide majority of independents and voters under the age of 35. Its unrealistic to expect these largely independent voters to switch to the Democratic Party and vote for an elite member of the Democratic establishment. Progressive voters do have options; they might vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, or maybe even write in Sanders name on the ballot. Especially in the context of the many incidents of shady election tactics and voter suppression, most recently seen in Arizona, its possible to imagine that progressives supporting Sanders might not support Clinton. Or, if they support Clinton in 2016, maybe they wont in 2020.

Where does this leave us? The potential results of the primary and general elections are still very far from set in, but these conjectures demonstrate an important factTrump and Sanders supporters are real, and theyre not going to fade into the background of mainstream politics. The Republican and Democratic establishments will be weakened by the end of the 2016 election, regardless of who their nominees are, and who wins in the general election. Its very possible we might see a Sanders v. Trump showdownbut even if we dontprepare for 2020. Even Robert Reich, Bill Clintons former labor secretary, imagines a future in which a third party candidate might be a real possibility. The populist movements on both the left and right of politics are tired of being taken advantage of by corrupt politicians that dont actually listen to what they want. If the Republicans choose a mainstream candidate, and the Democrats nominate Clinton, the public might become frustrated enough to open the way for a third-party candidate to stand a real chance in the election of 2020.
Was there anything wrong with this episode of Broad City? No. It was kind of perfect, actually. Hugely refreshing after last weeks disaster, and the change of locationAbbi and Ilana are visiting Abbis dad in Philadelphiareally allowed the show to stretch its legs with new situations. But I still found it difficult to watch.

You see, I got the fuck out of my hometown as soon as humanly possible. I hated that place, I hated high school, I try not to think about it at all if I can help it. This episode was an object lesson in why.

What made this episode so good was how it so perfectly demonstrated the disaster of visiting home. Everything has changed in small enough ways to remind you that you dont live there anymore, but reminders of the person you were are all around you.

As Abbi and Ilana go through Abbis old bedroom, they find two things that kick off the plot$900 dollars that Abbi raised for a former friend who had a bad accident that she never gave her, and a commemorative JonBenet Ramsey Beanie Baby that is worth thousands of dollars. As Ilana puts the Beanie Baby up on eBay for auction, they go out on a quest to find Abbis old friend and give her the money.

What Abbi really discovers as she ventures out into town, however, is that she was a bit of an asshole in high school. She was a white-person-dread-having, mean-nickname-giving, shrooming piece of shit. Its clear from the start that her motivations arent to make it up to her old friend, but to prove to herself that shes a good person.

And thats what makes this so funny, because even now, Abbi is not really a good person, and her frantic desire to deny that to herself as she is spending the money she owes her friend is beautiful. I am doing that chefs kiss with my hands as I write this. Thats a spicy meatball!

Part of what I love about Abbi and Ilana in this show that they feel like the women I met in college who would later move to New York, warts and all. They make so many minor compromises to their ideals to get what they want that they cant see the incoming avalanche of bad karma until its too late. But at the same timewhy shouldnt they? Live your life girl, you only get one! Besides, living in New York City is an actual nightmare and its somewhat necessary to embarrass yourself on a daily basis. Too bad that doesnt quite translate over to life in Philadelphia.

There are a lot of quiet gags in this episode that I lovedin particular, Ilana screaming in Chinese on the phone at a potential buyer while casually bowling a strikebut what makes me most happy is that Broad City seems to have found a heart again. A shriveled, blackened, barely beating heart, but a heart nonetheless. Never go home, kids. Theres nothing for you there, and your dad is just gonna turn your bedroom into a UV sauna.







Gita Jackson is Pastes assistant comedy editor.
This column, Escape Artist, is a series about folks who have escaped. More importantly, this biweekly column is for those thinking about trading in their 9-to-5, leg-shackled-to-the-desk existences in order to grab life at the roots and forge their own way. The brave outliers featured in these collection of interviews are the digital nomads, the online entrepreneurs, and the lifestyle trendsetters, who decided it was time to say to hell with the humdrum and go elbow deep to grab life by the roots.

Marketing and branding expert

Stephanie Be runs Travel Break , a travel blog that covers the digital nomad lifestyle, entrepreneurism and business branding. Since 2012, Be has visited more than 40 countries, built a community of 250,000 followers and won the 2015 International Blogger Competition. In 2016, Be is looking forward to training others how to use Wordpress and search engine optimization to create their own successful websites.

Paste Travel The escape the 9-to-5 mentality seems to be exploding. What are you seeing?

Stephanie Be Ive seen a boom. I largely attribute it to the growth of Instagram and trending posts about people who live my type of lifestyle. Outlets such as Daily Mail, Huffington Post and Elite Daily are talking about what were doing now, and more people are aspiring to be social media influencers. More people are chasing this dream.

PT What was the aha moment that sparked ongoing travel for you in 2012?

SB I wanted to take a gap year after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles because I didnt think Id be able to travel once I took a job in a competitive industry. There really isnt enough conversation about corporate careers that allow you to travel. I thought I would have fun and then come back and do the white picket fence life. I began freelancing while traveling, and thats where my journey as a digital nomad began. I decided to offer my services in digital marketing and branding, and it went really well. I could meet with my clients through Skype and travel around the world at the same time. Why not build a site for myself and see if people were interested in what I have to say?

PT Why did you decide to create a lifestyle blog and use the name Travel Break?

SB At first, I didnt really know the direction I wanted the site to go, which is one of the challenges of developing a new business or personal brand. I wanted the site to be the voice of Millennial travel and spring break all year long around the world with information about cool parties, restaurants and bars. As I traveled more and understood who I am and what I want the site to be, its become more about culture, storytelling and ethical marketing campaigns. Its less about spring break and more about finding work-life balance, taking risks in your personal life and learning about yourself.

PT The dream job and travel blogging mentality also seems to be booming. How have you stuck out from the noise?

SB There isnt enough information and training about the business side of blogging, which is my focus. Many bloggers who offer programs choose to keep their courses ambiguous. Running a travel blog isnt all about writing and shooting photos. It requires knowledge of SEO, plugins, design, branding and marketing, and I dont think people understand the challenges of what it really takes to run your own business, whether online or not. They dont think of a blog as a business. Ive created a relationship with my followers by telling stories, and not all of them are sponsored. Many brands are doing it incorrectly  they have great content but cant get exposure. Others know how to get attention but dont have great content. You have to create purposeful content that is shareable.

PT What is one tip you have for readers who want to live a life like yours?

SB If youre seeking to be a digital nomad, look at the sacrifices required and figure out what youre willing to give up. Its a cost-benefit equation. Its a business decision. How much can you earn each month? How will you have health insurance? Remember that most businesses arent profitable in the first three years, so start the blog while you still have a job or find ways to work while you travel. Speak to professionals and learn from people who have already done it so youre not wasting your time. You dont know what you dont know until it becomes a problem. Do your research, and then make a decision.

PT Do you have a favorite travel spot youd like to share with Paste readers?

SB Ive played jet plane laser tag in Las Vegas, taken a helicopter ride in Guatemala, held an anaconda in the Amazon, run with the bulls in Spain, spent a week on a yacht in Croatia, and theyve all been incredible experiences. Travel isnt about destinations but the person you become when you travel. That might sound cheesy, but its true. You also really start to value culture and the people you have back home. My parents have been supportive of me traveling around the world and coming home once a month. Thats why my favorite place will always be home  Southern California.

PT What are you most excited to focus on in 2016?

SB I want to focus on the education between large businesses and personal brands such as fitness and food bloggers in a way that creates mutually beneficial partnerships. I want to provide training programs for people who want to follow my lifestyle. Im also looking forward to finding some work-life balance. People forget how important that is in this industry because what I do looks fun and exciting. It can be physically and emotionally demanding when you visit seven cities in one weekend, and Id like the freedom to travel for myself once a month. I want to be a leader in the digital nomad industry who creates that kind of lifestyle and makes a path for others to do it, too.

Carolyn Crist is a freelance journalist based in Georgia. She writes about travel, health and business for regional and national publications.
The interplay between mysticism and religion has always been near the heart of Irelands romance. Fairies, spirits and Catholic symbolism add to an old-world beauty that allows outsiders to speak eloquently about the Emerald Isle. But in Immaculate Heart, Camille DeAngelis explores both darkness and redemption in a gauzy relationship with reality, myth and faith.

An unnamed New York reporter travels to his grandmothers hometown of Ballymorris for a funeral, marking his first trip to Ireland since he was 12. Though it has been 25 years since he was last in town, most of the villagers remember him clearly, including the three girls he and his sister spent time with at the nearby beach. The reporter learns that those girls saw the Virgin Mary a few years after his childhood visit, and he decides to investigate what happened. But the more he learns, the more disturbing the story becomes.

Haunted by guilt about his sisters death, the reporters initial objectivity gives way to a more personal desperation as he seeks answers to his lingering questions. Those who saw the apparitionthe girls and their friend, long-time Sydney resident Declanhave all been estranged. Tess, who shared a kiss with the reporter during his last visit, has become a nun. Orla refuses to admit she actually saw the apparition, insisting she had to protect her little sister. Sile, the youngest, has been in a mental facility for several years. The reporter speaks to each woman multiple times to comprehend what took place, but the truth becomes murkier with every retelling.

A few recurring themes skitter along the novels surface, but only one resolves in a satisfying and jarring way. The sense that Tess has a secret beyond the apparition adds complexity to her otherwise honest character, but it fizzles out before it can provide any closure. Likewise, the fate of Sile is muddled to the point of complete confusion. The reporters treatment of his sister, which lurks in the back of his mind, is addressed in the final pages; it is a disturbing twist that, in some ways, makes up for the otherwise lackluster finale.

Though she writes beautifully, DeAngelis stretches out the tension to the point of breaking. The drama lies in subtletiesshared glances between friends, changes in tone, the angst of discussing buried memoriesand the stakes dont always clearly appear. Even when the stories of the apparition begin twisting, taking a crueler turn away from the loving image of the Virgin Mary, danger never quite manifests.

Its through a heavy-handed story Tess tells the reporter that DeAngelis appears to tip her hand. The tale is about a baby taken by fairies and the discomfort experienced by his mother when he returns as a grown man. At the end of the story, the reporter expresses his surprise that nothing bad really happened. Tess explains that the slow-burn tension is why its one of her favorite narratives.

DeAngelis seems to be working toward that same sense of unease in Immaculate Heart. While she succeeds in establishing that sensation of something lurking just beyond the next page, its a risky approach for a 300-page novel. In this case, the anticipation crystallizes into disappointment.
J.K. Rowling did something pretty cool on Twitter todayshe shared two rejection letters sent by publishers who didnt like her first Robert Galbraith novel, The Cuckoos Calling. (Yes, she was somehow rejected for books she published after Harry Potterbut to be fair, she submitted under the pseudonym, so they didnt know they were dealing Rowling.) The impetus for the post was a request from a fan, and as Rowling noted, she erased the name of the rejecting editor since this was meant to inspire, not get revenge. Check it out:

By popular request, 2 of @RGalbrath's rejection letters! (For inspiration, not revenge, so I've removed signatures.) pic.twitter.com/vVoc06r8W  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016

Granted, it's sort of unfair to nail these publishers for their advice when we understand what they didn'tthis was J.K. freakin' Rowling!but it's still funny to read some of their helpful tips. Telling one of the world's bestselling authors to check in a bookshop to find out who might be publishing her type of genre fiction, and then to advise her to take a writing course, is pretty rich. I regret that we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish it with commercial success, said the publishing house, Constable & Robinson, who were actually very nice, and who also have the most British-sounding publishing house in world history.

The meanest rejection, which Rowling unfortunately didn't publish, came via email from the same publisher who rejected Harry Potter. Whoever they are, they are really, really missing the mark. But the Twitter exchange ended on a happy note, when a fan asked Rowling how a writer could find the courage to persevere through rejection:

I had nothing to lose and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try. https://t.co/ETEk8lcih1  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2016

Well said.
If I didnt know that Mehdi Assan was an Al-Jazeera journalist, and if I hadnt confirmed that Abdallah al-Mouallimi was an actual UN ambassador from Saudi Arabia, I would have 100 percent believed that the video below was a smart, insightful comedy sketch.

The crux of whats happening in the clip: Assan is asking al-Mouallimi why Saudi Arabia supports democratic elections in Syria, but wont support them in Saudi Arabiwhere its actually illegal to call for a change in government. Thats enough explanation, because the rest has to be seen to be believed:

I asked the Saudi ambassador to the UN why he supports democracy in Syria but not in Saudi Arabia  @AJUpFront clip:https://t.co/bblCAHCdZS  Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) March 25, 2016

My favorite part, for those who cant watch:

Al-Mouallini: Go and ask the Saudi people if they are happy with their system of government.

Assan: How do I do that? Whats the process?

Al-Mouallini: In any way way you want.

Assan: Opinion polls?

Al-Mouallini: Opinion polls, anything.

Assan: What about an election?

BURNNNN.

No, wait, this is actually my favorite part:

Al-Mouallini: The key question is, is the population content and happy and satisfied with the form of government they have. And I would like to claim that if you went to Saudi Arabia, and you conducted a survey in any way, official, formal, otherwise, you would find a high degree of support for the system of government in Saudi Arabia.

Assan: Isnt that partly because if they do say they dont want this government, they want another government, theyll go to jail. Its against the law in Saudi Arabia to call for a change in the system of government.

Al-Mouallini: But thats not the issue

Assan: That is the issuehow can I as a Saudi say I want different system of government if its illegal for me to say that?

Al-Mouallini: Im saying that if there was a way by which you could ask the common people in the street anonymously, privately

Assan: There is. Its called voting.

Al-Mouallini: awkward silence

HAAAAAA.

The absurdity is so rich. Credit to Assan for sticking it to the ambassador, but man, the self-delusion is strong here. I dont think Ive ever seen any politician walk into a trap with that level of denial before. And maybe absurdity is the wrong term for this conversationdoes heartbreaking irony work better? Too bad theres no way for the people reading this article to make their voices heard in a public way that would allow other readers to get a sense of the general preference and to contribute their own views. Oh well.
Portlandias season finale, Noodle Monster, riffs on old Japanese monster movies, but instead of fighting off Godzilla, Gamera or Daimajin, the citizens of Portland are terrorized by a gigantic ball of noodles, created by sheer cultural ignorance / indifference. Yes, the premise is absolutely ridiculous, but its the best thing about the episode. We only wish that creators Jonathan Krisel (who directed), Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen would have played up the attack of the ramen theme even more because the episodes ancillary sketches fell flat by comparison.

Noodle Monster opens with Gregory Gourdet, executive chef of Departure restaurant in Portland and a Top Chef contestant, looking for a bite to eat on a rainy night in Kyoto, Japan. Hes served a dish of noodles alongside a bowl of broth from a wizened street food vendor. He doesnt quite know how to eat the noodles, and the woman ominously tells him: Do not mess with this noodle. We later learn that the noodle isnt your typical ramenthe broth isnt poured over noodlesthis is tsukemen. Only dip, she warns.

The opening credits change this week to reflect the Japanese influence, which is always a fun touch. But the episode immediately segues into a scene with our not-so-favorite neurotic couple Peter (Armisen) and Nance (Brownstein). Theyre eating at Gourdets restaurant, and when presented with the dry noodles, broth and accompanying accoutrements, theyre not quite sure how to eat the dish. And the eggs are for breakfast for tomorrow? Peter asks Gourdet. To his credit, Peter wants to follow the proper way of eating the tsukemen, but Nance is hangry. She freestyles eating the ramen and starts pouring everything together in the bowl, throwing tradition into the wind. Things get worse at home when, to save space, she combines the noodles and the broth together in the same container, setting the stage for the birth of the giant tsukemen monster that terrorizes Portland.

We would have preferred more airtime for the killer ramen because the supporting sketches proved to be much weaker. Kyle Maclachlan returns to Portlandia as The Mayor to help woo bigwigs from Nokia, who are scouting locations for a new division. Theyre torn between Portland and its nemesis Seattle. No contest, he tells them. A bunch of dum dums up there. Maclachans goofy mayor is always a treat, especially when he studies Japanese business traditions, like bowing, via YouTube to win over Nokia. You can imagine his disappointment when he learns that Nokia is a Finnish company. While this storyline carries on the theme of cultural awareness, we cant help but think that its just a big product placement for the phone company.

The Fred and Carrie (Armisen and Brownstein) scenes about Fred leaving his phone at home elicit even fewer laughs: Look, hes going into withdrawalshe doesnt know what to do with his handsthe sketch was all too ordinary. Portlandia is at its best when it takes commonplace first world problems to the next level or skewers them, like what the show did with drones and virtual festival attendance in this seasons first episode Pickathon. But it failed to do so with the forgotten phone skits.

Faring better is an NPR-based storyline that features Armisen and Brownstein as public radio personalities in the midst of the dreaded pledge drive. Theyre begging for money and talking about public radios driveway moments, describing times in which people dont leave their cars, even when the commutes over, in order to hear the end of a story. We didnt quite know how these scenes fit into the overall storyline, but they brilliantly set the stage for the entrance of the episodes hero.

The Mayor, Fred, Carrie, Gourdet and other cabinet members assemble in the City Halls conference room to discuss ways to combat the growing tsukemen. Its a fun parody of Independence Day or any other war movie with Maclachlan spouting lines like, Chef, what do we got here? There could have been even more hilarity if Portlandia played up the dramatic monologues here for the mayor, replacing the unforgettable This is our independence day! with something more culinarily or culturally relevant.

Now for the episodes hero. Its none other than Kai Ryssdal, host of NPRs Marketplace. Hes brought into the radio station with a military escort to take over the airwaves and break into the pledge drive. Ryssdal starts spinning a yarn about Asian travels and noodles, and lo and behold, the tsukemen is captivated by the story. S/he is having a driveway moment, allowing Nance to come in and try and undo her thoughtless damage. With Ryssdal droning on in the background, the noodle monster is distracted and she begins to dine appropriately. (Or maybe that should be inappropriately, considering the gestures she makes to get the giant noodle in her mouth).

We were hungrypun intendedfor more outrageousness and wackiness from an episode built around a giant ramen ball, but the unevenness in humor among the various sketches left us mostly unsatisfied. Thankfully, Ryssdals surprising turn as an unlikely hero helped save the day and the episode.

Christine N. Ziemba is a Los Angeles-based freelance pop culture writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow her on Twitter.
So tell us what you want, what you really really want.

Was a Spice Girls reunion tour what you really really wanted? Youre in luck. The British phenomenons are getting back together to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough, according to an Us Weekly report.

Back in December, Melanie Scary Spice Brown revealed the possibility of this happening to a British television program. Its our 20th anniversary this year, and it would be rude not to celebrate, she said at the time.

Now its official: Melanie Sporty Spice Chisholm, Emma Baby Spice Bunton, and Geri Ginger Spice Halliwell will join Brown for the reunion. Unfortunately, Victoria Posh Spice Beckham doesnt want to participate, but sources say that regardless of whether the others are able to convince her to join them, the tour will go on as planned.

The Spice Girls formed in 1996 and almost immediately took over first the British music world, then the global music world with their iconic single, Wannabe. The original five-piece lineup only endured for two years after that, though, with Halliwell making a Zayn Malik-like departure from the group in 1998. Since then, the Spice Girls have reunited twice, first in 2007 and then in 2012.
Its Spring Break  though up til today, its been spent at home, alternating between work and family, while my husband, with my youngest watching, if not participating, building a long-promised treehouse. But today we finally made it to the Field Museum to see the travelling exhibit The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great. Hooray for us!

So, first of all, if youre in the Chicago area, you should see this exhibit, which runs through April 10th. Its one of a very limited number of stops, having travelled previously to two museums in Canada, and making a final stop at the National Geographic Museum in D.C. before the items return to their home museums in Greece.

And I was really quite impressed with the items there, including the funerary mask unearthed at Mycenae which inspired Heinrich Schliemann to say, I have gazed upon the eyes of Agamemnon 

and the second one, which he subsequently decided looked more noble, and thus must have been the real Agamemnon funerary mask, though in both cases he was wrong as the time period didnt match up  and in any case, the second one was a replica, though one that dates to the time that the site was excavated, anyway.

The exhibit was organized chronologically, with quite a bit of historical context, as it moved from the Bronze Age, and the Minoans and Mycenaeans, to the Iron Age, the Archaic and Classical periods, and ending with Alexander the Great.

And admittedly Im partial to the Greeks, what with my grandfather coming from Greece, but the history of the ancient Greeks is pretty cool. I mean, its a rocky mountainous peninsula with nothing much to recommend it, but from early on, the Greeks spread throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, developed an advanced culture in terms of literature, philosophy, art, etc., and did so as groupings of individual city-states rather than massive empires, and, in fact, defeated the mighty Persian Empire against all odds.

After this exhibit, we walked through the museums exhibit on Pacific Spirits  that is, the cultures of New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, before they were transformed by their encounters with Westerners, and its really quite remarkable that, even prior to the advent of advanced metalworking, and the rise of literacy, the Greeks and their neighbors were so very different.

But  having recommended the exhibit, I do have to backtrack, in one respect: when did museums get so dang expensive? In our case, we were able to take advantage of a corporate membership which covered the cost of general admission for four of us, but we had to pay the upcharge for the The Greeks exhibit, plus the 5th admission. Had we not had this, wed have paid $97 for general admission, or $128 for the family to see the exhibit, which is still less than wed have paid had we chosen to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit as well, which would have meant a total of $166. For comparison, a family membership is $145/year  but even a membership only gets basic admission and free or discounted admission to special exhibits, with no details on whats free and whats discounted, except that the Teracotta Warriors exhibit isnt discounted at all: members pay the full upcharge from general admission.

Its also an irritant that the museum makes it hard to figure out what the basic admission charge even is  as you stand in line (a half hour in our case) monitors highlight their special exhibits, and provide the rates for the two most expensive admission packages only, and I became convinced that a part of the reason why the line was so long was that each customer had to ask what the costs were without the packages, taking longer than if theyd been able to just march up and say, two adults, three children for general admission, please. Though, admittedly, it feels like increasingly much of the exhibit space is taken up by specially-ticketed exhibits. And that cost doesnt even include the $22 parking garage (which is still cheaper than taking the train in) or the overpriced cafeteria (because they removed the McDonalds to replace it with their own $8 burgers).

And the Field Museum isnt even as bad as the Museum of Science and Industry, which is $18/$11 for general admission, but this doesnt include the Coal Mine, or the U-505, or several new or visiting exhibits, each of which adds an extra $9 to the ticket price, as does an Imax movie. Whats more, some years ago, we had a membership, and I found it to be reasonably priced, but now, even members have to pay for the special exhibits (and, mind you, the Coal Mine had never been a special exhibit) and only get a $1 discount.

Am I just too stingy? After all, the pricings not that much different than if wed gone to a (comparatively expensive) restaurant (and the kids order off the adult menu) followed by an evening, 3D movie (though we try to stick with matinees, unless its a rare date night). Perhaps Im just spoiled by the EUR 11 admission to the Deutsches Museum, and the similarly cheap prices elsewhere (and Im really looking forward to the British Museum  free!  this summer).

(Images: my own photographs)
Dear Senators Cornyn and Cruz:

One of the most harmful political trends of the past 30 years or so has been perpetual campaigning. Instead of winning elections and then going to work doing the jobs the people elected them to do, politicians across the spectrum are campaigning endlessly and are neglecting their obligations as public servants. Rather than considering whats best for the country, every decision is made according to whether it will bring in campaign contributions and win votes for re-election.

As you know, there is a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. President Obama has fulfilled his constitutional obligation by nominating Merrick Garland to replace the late Justice Scalia. Yet the Senate, under the direction of the leaders of your party, is shirking its responsibility to confirm this nominee. Senator McConnell says the people should have a voice in filling this vacancy. The people had a voice in 2012 when they elected Barack Obama to be President until January 20, 2017. Senator McConnells claim that there is a longstanding tradition of not considering nominees during election years is simply not true.

The American people need and deserve a fully staffed Supreme Court. If the Senate refuses to consider any nominee until after the inauguration of the next President, it is almost certain we will have the longest vacancy since the Civil War. This is inexcusable.

Merrick Garland would not have been my choice to replace Justice Scalia, but he is imminently qualified, and was held up by members of your own party as the kind of judge President Obama should nominate. The Senate should immediately hold hearings, and unless these hearings turn up some unknown evidence that would disqualify him, vote to confirm Judge Garland to the United States Supreme Court.

Senators, some things are simply more important than scoring political points for your party. Do the job the people of Texas elected you to do and that the American people pay you to do. Stop your perpetual campaign long enough to actually govern.

Sincerely,

John Beckett

McKinney, Texas

If one or both of your Senators is refusing to hold confirmation hearings, please write to them and politely insist they do their damn jobs. Remember that an actual letter carries more weight than an e-mail, and a personal letter carries far more weight than a form letter.

A directory of Senators and their contact information can be found on the United States Senate website.

Im not thrilled with the appointment of Merrick Garland. I would have preferred a more consistently progressive judge. I would have preferred someone whos younger (and thus would be a reliable progressive voice for decades) and someone who would expand the diversity of the court. And for the sake of all the Gods, could we please get someone on the Supreme Court who didnt go to Harvard or Yale? Diversity means more than gender and ethnicity.

While I imagine Merrick Garlands opinions would be closer to Anthony Kennedy than to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, he is well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. And I cant overstate the importance of the first paragraph of this letter: perpetual campaigning has resulted in the dysfunctional government that has angered and frustrated people to the point that theyre voting for Donald Trump for President.

There are elements of my job I dont particularly like, but I do them because I have an obligation to do what Im being paid to do. Senators have an obligation to hold hearings and confirm a new justice. They need to do their damn job.
Chrome may not be your primary browser, but you can still get in on the Google goodness. Firefoxs famous add-on support lets you integrate many of your favorite Google apps and tools right into the browser for better productivity. Check out these five to get started.

Gmail Notifier

Gmail Notifier Gmail Notifier lets you manage messages right from the system tray.

Constantly checking your email slows your productivity. The best solution is to restrict inbox visits to a couple of designated times each day. But if that pushes the limits of your will power, try this add-on.

Gmail Notifier alerts you to new emails right from the Windows system tray. Without opening Gmail in your browser, you can read, delete, or archive messages. Best of all, it supports multiple accounts.

Integrated Inbox for Gmail and Google Apps

Google provides easy access to its suite of apps from Drive, but each one opens in a new tab and contributes to browser clutter. Integrated Inbox for Gmail and Google Apps consolidates them allas well as many popular third-party appsinto a hub within your inbox.

Access your favorite apps from your inbox.

Once you install the add-on, youre prompted to customize the apps you want to access from Gmail. These apps will appear as a list of icons whenever your inbox is collapsed. The default free plan allows you to integrate two Google apps, but the Plus and Pro accounts ($29 and $49 per year, respectively) allow you to add more, including third-party integrations like Twitter and Evernote.

GDrive Panel

GDrive is, of course, Google Drive, and this add-on is another tab tamer. Rather than opening drive.google.com, you just click on the GDrive Panel icon and it opens Drive in an overlay within the Firefox browser. Once youre done accessing your files, just click Esc to close the panel.

GDrive Panel gives you instant access to Google Drive without having to leave your browser window.

Google Shortcuts

Similar to GDrive Panel, this add-on gives you easy access to your favorite Google apps with the click of a button. Clicking the Shortcuts icon in your toolbar opens a drop-down panel with icons for 101 Google tools including Google Web Search, YouTube, Picasa, Google Analytics, and more.

Google Translator for Firefox

In our global workplace you may be required to sometimes access websites written in languages other than English. You could go to Google Translate and type in the URL of the site. But this add-on lets you translate on-the-fly, without interruption to your browsing experience. It installs a hot key in the Firefox toolbar. Just select some text to translate and click the red T, or click it without selecting any text to translate the entire web page. Bella!
Verizon Enterprise, a bulwark against cyberattacks at many large organizations, has suffered a security breach itself.

A flaw in the companys systems allowed an attacker to steal contact information on Verizon Enterprise customers, the company acknowledged Thursday. Verizon said it has fixed the flaw and is notifying those users, but it hasnt disclosed how many were affected.

The intruder couldnt get to any customer proprietary network information, Verizon said, referring to data such as call records and billing information.

The breach came to light Thursday in a post on the blog Krebs on Security. Krebs reported the hacker stole contact information for about 1.5 million Verizon Enterprise customers and offered it for sale for US$100,000 on a cybercrime forum. Because the data was offered for sale in the MongoDB format, among others its likely the attacker forced a MongoDB database at Verizon to dump its contents, the blog said.

Verizon prides itself on keeping abreast of the latest attack methods by monitoring its global Internet backbone, and it uses that information to tell customers how to secure their systems. It also sells managed security services for enterprises.

In a report last year on data from more than 70 organizations, the company estimated that the average cost to a company of one breached data record was US$0.58. It found a wide range of total costs in different cases, up to $100,000 per record.

But in the same report, Verizon found breaches were being discovered more quickly. The time to discovery had fallen from months and weeks to hours and days, it said. Still, intruders can start to do damage immediately. Only 8 percent of breaches were discovered within seconds, the report said.
Rather than rush home to get some shut-eye, Dan Sutherland headed straight to Aldi in Moreno Valley after getting off work at 3:30 a.m. Thursday, March 24.

He was the first customer inside when the discount grocers doors opened 5 1/2 hours later. Several hundred other bargain hunters lined up behind him hoping to snap up great deals and promotions during the companys Inland debut.

I got the golden ticket, said Sutherland, 52, of Riverside, holding up a paper allowing him to receive $100 worth of Aldi gift cards.

The Illinois-based company opened its first eight California stores, all in the Inland area, Thursday morning in Beaumont, Fontana, La Quinta, Lake Elsinore, Moreno Valley, Palm Springs, San Bernardino and Yucaipa. Aldi expects to open about 45 stores in Southern California this year.

The German-born Aldi, which has family ties to Trader Joes, operates 1,500 stores in 32 states. It sells private label copycats of popular name-brand groceries. It claims to save shoppers up to 50 percent off their grocery bills.

A brief ceremony that included Aldi employees and city officials was held before the doors opened in Moreno Valley at 9 a.m.

Inland locations had lines of shoppers wrapped around buildings  even after stores opened to the public. A strong turnout forced Aldi officials to stagger entry into the small-format markets, which range in size from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet.

CROWDED AISLES

Once inside, elbow-to-elbow crowds made a grab for everything from drumsticks to gourmet cheese. In San Bernardino, the bag-your-own grocery counter looked more like bumper cars with carts banging as shoppers negotiated space at the table.

The crowds were the result of pent-up anticipation for the international grocery giant, known for its deep discounts and knockoff brands. If the frenzy continues, Aldi is expected to trigger upheaval in the crowded Southern California grocery sector.

Sutherland arrived at 4 a.m. after leaving his job at the Amazon Fulfillment Center not far away in Moreno Valley.

He liked the low prices and wide selection of products.

They have a lot of stuff Ive never seen in regular stores that are bigger than this, he said, noting packaged seafood as one example.

Moreno Valley Mayor Yxstian Gutierrez said Aldi will bring about 170 jobs to the city at its regional distribution center and retail store. The store will generate $30,000 to $50,000 in annual sales tax revenue for the city, he said.

Each Aldi store averages 18 employees.

ANOTHER GROCERY OPTION

Aldi will help diversify the grocery marketplace in town, offering residents another option along with traditional supermarkets and big-box outlets, Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said Aldi has a proven track record in other parts of the country, making him optimistic the chain will thrive locally.

They have a good model, he said. I think thats whats going to make them last.

Kathy Kyles was excited as she filled her shopping cart with frozen pizza, Texas toast, a bag of potatoes, frozen corn on the cob and two bottles of wine.

She said the items were much cheaper at Aldi than at other stores and held up each product to show its price.

You cant find a 16-inch pizza for $4.99, said Kyles, 56, of Moreno Valley.

Im going to put this in the oven tonight.

A box of Texas toast was only $1.29, she said.

This is a good deal because its got eight pieces in here, she added. You only get four pieces at the 99 Cent store.

Kyles, who normally shops at Food 4 Less, plans to buy all her groceries at Aldi.

Ill be here tomorrow, she said. I think this is going to be my store.

Maria Davis of Riverside was so happy about Aldis arrival she posted a Facebook message urging her friends to shop there and save money.

Its the best thing thats happened to Moreno Valley, Davis, 65, said as she packed her cart with lettuce, pineapple, salami and other food. This will be the first place I shop at before I go anywhere else.

She said the low prices made her think she was in a time warp. Lettuce, for example, was only 49 cents a head.

AMAZING PRICES

Its amazing, she said. I cant believe they will sell things that are this inexpensive. They had prices like this 15 years ago.

Inside the new Aldi in Palm Springs, Angela Machicote raised a bone-in ham in the palm of her hand, dangling it in front of her husbands face like a trophy.

The ham is $6.20, she said with glee. As she tossed the 8-pound package into her cart, her husband Jose responded, You cant beat that.

In Palm Springs, seasonal resident Karen Cliff was thrilled to see a familiar brand come to town. She shops at Aldi in her home state of Missouri.

You can buy an item on sale at another store with a coupon, and Aldi is still going to be better, she said.

On Thursday, Aldi workers were eager to help shoppers navigate the no-frills store. The five-aisle layout mirrors most Aldi stores across the country with pantry goods out front and refrigerated goods wrapping the left and back walls.

The simple layout, and limited grocery assortment, are key to savings.

Stores are reminiscent of the defunct British-born concept Fresh & Easy with lower shelves, wide aisles and groceries on display atop shipping cartons. Aldi spokeswoman Liz Ruggles said the cartons save on labor as no one is spending hours stocking shelves.

Customers just shop out of the box, she said. Its really easy for consumers to navigate through our stores.

Aldi cuts costs in other ways.

Customers not only bag their own groceries but are encouraged to supply their own bags. Aldi also saves time retrieving shopping carts by having customers rent them for a quarter. They get their money back when they return the carts.

Each food item has several barcodes, allowing customers to check out faster, company officials said.

These little details make them stand out from other supermarkets, said Gutierrez, Moreno Valleys mayor.

EXPANSION PLANS

While it has roots in Germany with the Albrecht family, which opened the first Aldi store in that country in 1961, the companys U.S. stores are independently owned and operated, said Moreno Valley division vice president Gordon Nesbit.

The companys first U.S. store opened in Iowa in 1976.

Nesbit declined to discuss the companys affiliation with Trader Joes.

As part of a coast-to-coast expansion, Aldi plans to open an additional 500 stores by the end of 2018, growing its nationwide total to about 2,000 stores.

The growth is part of a $3 billion, five-year expansion that started two years ago.

Future store locations and opening dates have not been announced.

Our goal is to cover the entire swath of Southern California, Nesbit said.

Aldis Inland stores have more organic and healthy food options than stores elsewhere, he said.

More than 90 percent of Aldi items are sold with private, Aldi-brand labels that include an exclusive SimplyNature line of organic foods and liveGfree brands of gluten-free foods.

Each store offers about 1,500 items, but typically carries only one or two options for common grocery items such as salsa or peanut butter.

Carmen Tapia, 46, walked out with a frozen pizza and flatbread  opting to cut her shopping short at the Palm Springs store.

Right now its too crowded, she said.

Staff writers Hannah Madans and Nancy Luna contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9292 or swall@pressenterprise.com
A man robbed a Hemet bank Thursday afternoon, March 24 and fled with an undetermined amount of money despite a quick response from police.

No weapons were seen and no one was injured, said Hemet Police Department Lt. Eric Dickson.

The Police Department was notified of the robbery at 3:45 p.m., Dickson said. Within a minute the first police unit arrived at the bank in the 100 block of North Cawston Avenue, yet the suspect apparently already had fled in a red vehicle, he said.

A Chase Bank is at that location.

Dickson said the man handed a note demanding money to a bank employee and received an undetermined amount of cash.

The suspect is described as a Hispanic man with a shaved head and a moustache, possibly in his 30s and approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall.

Dickson said for anyone with information about the robbery to call 951-765-2324.
UPDATE (Saturday, March 26): Follow live updates of the procession through the Inland area.

The remains of Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, killed in Iraq March 19, will return to Riverside County on Saturday, according to family members and Temecula city officials.

The plane carrying Cardin, 27, will touch down at March Air Reserve Base around 1 p.m. before being taken to a Hemet funeral home.

According to a release from Betsy Lowrey at the city of Temecula, a procession is expected to take the casket from the base and travel south on Interstate-215 before heading east on Highway 74 to Hemet.

The public is welcome and encouraged to show respect for Cardin along the route and at freeway overpasses, according to the release.

While services have not been disclosed, there will be a closed casket public viewing from 8 a.m. to noon, Friday, April 1 at Temecula City Hall.

In lieu of City Hall bells, Taps will be played at noon that day.

Cardin will be buried at Riverside National Cemetery. The family picked it, in part, because one of Cardins grandfathers is buried there. Cardin also is a Riverside native, born in Riverside Community Hospital in 1988.

Cardin was killed during a rocket attack while serving at an Iraqi base that is being used to launch strikes at the ISIS.

His body was flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Monday.

Cardin enlisted with the Marines shortly after graduating from Temeculas Chaparral High School in 2006.

He served three tours in Afghanistan in addition to his recent tour in Iraq, according to his brother, Vincent Cardin. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4089 of Temecula is raising money to build a memorial for Cardin and other fallen service members. A godundme.com page has been set up to accept donations to pay for it. The first donation was $100 from Temecula City Councilman Jeff Comerchero.

Staff writers Craig Shultz and Aaron Claverie contributed to this report.

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TEMECULA: President Obama pays tribute to fallen Marine

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TEMECULA: VFW building memorial for fallen Marine




A nearly $1.2 billion judgment against the defunct Corinthian Colleges will likely make little difference for students who once attended the companys now shuttered Everest Colleges in the Inland area.

The judgment was announced Wednesday, March 23, by California Attorney General Kamala Harris. A San Francisco court awarded the state $820 million in restitution for Corinthian students and $350 million in civil penalties. The company had been accused of lying to prospective students about its success rates.

A statement from Harris office said the judgment, which representatives for Corinthian Colleges did not contest, would help secure further relief for struggling students.

Harris office said students should not be held liable for private loans or other purported debts to CCI.

But experts said recovery of the judgment is unlikely.

The U.S. Department of Education imposed a $30 million fine on Corinthian last April, the same month that the company shut down. Harris office said it is not aware of any money having been collected on that fine to date. When the company declared bankruptcy in May, it listed $19.2 million in assets and $143 million in debt.

Jean Helwege, a professor of finance at UC Riverside, said Wednesdays judgment would be low on any priority list of creditors seeking relief in a bankruptcy.

Even the telephone bill would be higher on the list, Helwege said.

Given what has happened with Corinthian, she said, Id be shocked if they had a billion dollars sitting around. Its just a way to tell other for-profit schools, Youd better be selling something really good or shut down before we come after you.

Riverside bankruptcy attorney Paul Y. Lee, said it would be unusual for a corporation to file for bankruptcy if it had resources.

By and large most corporations file at a time when they dont have any assets, Lee said. It will be a difficult challenge for the state to recoup and recover assets.

Santa Ana-based Corinthian Colleges had been under fire from federal regulators when it shut all 28 of its campuses April 26, including three Everest colleges in the Inland Empire  one in San Bernardino and two in Ontario. In addition to Everest, Corinthian also operated Heald and WyoTech colleges in California, Arizona, Oregon, Hawaii and New York.

In addition to misleading students about success rates, Harris office said the school promoted programs it didnt offer, used U.S. military insignias on documents without permission and engaged in unlawful debt-collection practices.

In California, 13,000 students were attending Corinthian schools when the doors were shut. One of those students was Paul Garcia, 45, of Hemet. He was in the middle of an electrician program as a student at the San Bernardino campus. Garcia said he was leery about attending another for-profit technical college after being cut loose by Everest.

We were iffy, he said of him and his classmates. We didnt really want to go to another school. I took about a month off.

He ended up enrolling in Riversides Intercoast College, as did most of his classmates.

A couple of teachers from Everest ended up at Intercoast, he said. They encouraged him to complete his studies, so he did. Intercoast allowed him to transfer most of his credits from Everest and he finished his classes last fall. While he is not yet working as an electrician, he is the exception, he said.

Pretty much everybody that transferred with me is in the field working somewhere, he said. It worked out in the long run.

Contact the writer: mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9595
Annette Richards said she was petrified with fear whenever husband Phil headed out for a bike ride.

Then her worst nightmare came true. He was struck by a car while riding his bicycle in Calimesa, suffering injuries that would take his life a couple of weeks later.

I lost my best friend, Richards said in a recent telephone interview. My husband was my everything.

Making the nightmare worse, the driver  William Donald Johnson, 43, of Yucaipa, later convicted of second-degree murder  sped away.

It was heartbreaking that this man left my husband to die, Richards said.

Its a scenario that is being played out with increasing and alarming regularity around Inland Southern California. Drivers are leaving the scenes of all types of accidents much more often in Riverside and San Bernardino counties than they did just five years ago.

Many times, fleeing motorists leave behind injured or dying cyclists and walkers.

California Highway Patrol data reveal the following trends:

 The number of hit-and-run collisions involving pedestrians soared 73 percent in San Bernardino County and 51 percent in Riverside County from 2011 to 2015.

 Those vehicle-on-pedestrian hit-and-runs injured 123 people in San Bernardino County last year, up 73 percent from 2011, and 84 pedestrians in Riverside County, up 42 percent.

 Pedestrian deaths surged, too, peaking at 14 in San Bernardino County in 2014 and at 13 in Riverside County in 2013. Over the course of five years, hit-and-runs killed a total of 73 pedestrians in the two-county region, including 40 in San Bernardino.

 The number of hit-and-run collisions involving bicycles surged 40 percent in Riverside County and 34 percent in San Bernardino County during the five-year span.

 Those vehicle-on-bicycle accidents injured 53 people in Riverside County last year, an increase of one-third, and 70 in San Bernardino County, a 40 percent increase.

 Fourteen cyclists were killed between 2011 and 2015, with fatalities divided evenly between the counties.

MOST GET AWAY WITH IT

Hit-and-run accidents of all types are on the rise.

According to the CHP, there were a total of 4,654 accidents in which the driver fled in San Bernardino County and 4,276 in Riverside County last year, representing five-year increases of 44 percent and 39 percent respectively.

In the vast majority of hit-and-run crashes, no one is hurt and the consequences are limited to property damage.

In 2015, there were 3,590 property-only accidents in Riverside County and 3,776 such crashes in San Bernardino County. Both represented increases of about 40 percent going back to 2011.

More often than not, the fleeing driver in a hit-and-run accident is not found.

Unfortunately the majority of those go unsolved, said Lt. Mark Rossi, who served as traffic commander for the Riverside Police Department for almost 3 years.

And even when the hit-and-run car is located, the case is not a slam dunk.

I still have to prove that you were the one driving it, Rossi said.

ENTITLED TO LEAVE?

Fleeing the scene when theres no one hurt is one thing. But it is particularly troubling when someone is left lying in the street, said Craig Kundig, owner of the three Cyclery USA stores in the area and member of the Redlands Bicycle Classic board of directors.

I think its absolutely horrendous that people would do that, Kundig said. In many cases you might be able to provide some immediate care for the person, care they wouldnt get otherwise. At the very least youre showing some compassion and taking some responsibility for your action.

The injured pedestrian or cyclist may not be in a condition to call for help, Kundig said.

And if left alone in the street, the injured person would be especially vulnerable as other drivers might not see them when they come along, he said.

Yet that apparently is what happened to first-grader DeAsha Butts, who was struck by a truck while crossing a street on her way home from school a few days before her 7th birthday.

Where are peoples minds at today? asked her mother, Bobbie Butts of Highgrove. Do they feel they are entitled to just leave somebody?

ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUE

On March 2, police arrested and jailed Brendan Garth Vinson, a 48-year-old Jurupa Valley man, on suspicion of felony hit-and-run in connection with the incident.

The accident occurred around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 26. DeAsha crossed Iowa Avenue near Villa Street in the unincorporated community of Highgrove when she was struck by a truck headed north, according to a CHP report.

According to a relative of the youngster, the driver and a passenger got out, jumped back in and drove off  leaving the child lying in the street. The relative said DeAsha suffered bleeding from her brain, a bruised lung, fractured pelvis, leg fractures, multiple scrapes and her left ear had to be reattached.

DeAsha was rushed to Loma Linda University Medical Center, then transferred several days later to a nearby rehabilitation center. On March 18, she went home.

Law enforcement authorities and academics say it is difficult to get into the minds of drivers, to pinpoint why they would leave injured victims like DeAsha.

But Murrieta police Sgt. Jay Froboese, who has worked traffic enforcement 18 of his 22 years on the force, said he is not surprised by the spike in hit-and-run accidents in the region.

We have a real accountability problem in our society, Froboese said. You approach somebody for speeding and theyll blame it on everybody else except themselves.

TEXTING, SOCIAL MEDIA

Most motorists who run from accidents, he said, are trying to elude authorities because they were driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or with a suspended license or no license at all.

Chris Cochran, a spokesman for the California Office of Traffic Safety in Sacramento, offered a similar perspective.

Most often, when the reasons for hit-and-run are identifiable  and they often arent because theyre never caught but when they are, most often its because someone was DUI, Cochran said.

Another common reason for leaving the scene is believed to be because the motorist doesnt want to get caught driving without a license. But with the advent of AB 60 and more undocumented immigrants getting licenses, that may be less of a problem than before, Cochran said.

An emerging dominant reason is distraction, which manifests itself in multiple ways these days, not the least of which are the myriad functions of our super-popular electronic devices.

Texting, Facebooking, talking, GPS, whatever on their smartphone was more important than driving, Cochran said. And figuring that authorities will piece together what the driver was doing at the time of the accident, he or she takes off.

IN OUR OWN WORLD

But thats only part of the explanation.

Ron Riggio, a professor of psychology at Claremont-McKenna College, blamed the trend in part on a culture in which he said it is increasingly viewed as acceptable to avoid following the rules.

Its just become more of a norm that, if you can beat the system, thats OK, Riggio said. Systems are made to be beat. And if you can beat the system, youre clever.

Riggio also suggested that line of thinking is reinforced by the aura of invisibility that the automobile seems to extend to the person behind the wheel.

Were in our cars. Were in kind of our own world, he said. We dont even think people can see us, so were not worried about whether they can see us putting on our makeup or picking our noses.

On occasion, said Froboese, the long-time Murrieta traffic sergeant, honesty and a sense of responsibility prevails.

I FORGIVE HIM

Froboese cited the example of a hit-and-run accident that occurred earlier this month near his citys busy intersection of Murrieta Hot Springs and Winchester roads. There, a driver of a vehicle struck and injured a person on a bicycle  then took off.

The lady went home, thought about it for an hour and then called us, Froboese said. She couldnt live with it and turned herself in.

But sadly, he said, many do not.

And Butts, the mother of seriously injured hit-and-run victim DeAsha, said she is struggling with why the driver in her daughters case did not.

I forgive him, Butts said.

However, she said it deeply bothers her that the suspect had to be tracked down through eyewitnesses tips.

They had to hunt him down like a dog, Butts said.

He wasnt going to turn himself in.

RELATED

Driver jailed in cyclists death

First-grader left lying in street after hit-and-run

Man arrested in hit-and-run that injured girl, 7

Contact the writer: 951-368-9699 or ddowney@pressenterprise.com
The Inland Empires economy will enjoy a fourth straight year of job growth in 2016, and much of that growth will remain in solidly blue-collar sectors, the regions leading economist said Thursday.

John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, who has been studying the regions economy for more than 50 years, is predicting that 48,700 new jobs will be created in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in 2016. It would be the fourth consecutive year the Inland region has seen job growth in the 45,000-to-55,000 range.

Husing delivered his forecast at the IEEPs annual State of the Region event in Ontario. He is predicting the Inland region will have about 1,411,000 payroll jobs by the end of the year, setting a record.

Unemployment, which was above 14 percent during the worst of the recession, could be as low as 5 percent by December. It is currently estimated at 5.8 percent.

Thats what we in my business call full employment, Husing said of his forecast for a 5 percent jobless rate. We have become the states job engine the way we used to be, back before the start of the recession.

Husing is predicting that much of the job growth in 2016 will be in the logistics and construction sectors. He added that there is increased demand for people to work in health care.

Several indicators point to more jobs that facilitate the movement of goods to and from distribution centers in the Inland Empire. A strong dollar means that companies that market consumer goods can purchase more items from foreign markets, and a huge number of those goods enter the country through Southern Californias ports.

Also, Husing said the publics desire to shop online is not going away. That is the main reason shipping giant United Parcel Service earlier this week announced it will expand its facility at Ontario International Airport, a project that could add 500 jobs to UPS regional operations in the next five years.

This sector just keeps growing, Husing said about the trend toward e-commerce. It will increasingly be the way things get done.

The anticipated growth of 8,500 new construction jobs  the sector that fueled the Inland areas spectacular growth a decade ago  will have a different look this time, with much of it centering on industrial development and infrastructure improvements.

Residential construction of single-family homes will not be a major factor. Steve Ruffner, president of homebuilder KB Homes Southern California operation, said much of the housing in the pipeline will be rental properties, because younger people cant buy a home, especially in the cities that are convenient for commuters.

Affordability is the major issue, Ruffner said.

Husing said there is a need for more health care professionals in the area, and he said anyone who has spent a lot of time in a doctors waiting room would agree. There is one medical professional for every 34.6 Inland residents, compared to one for every 27.3 people statewide.

Many of those jobs would require only two years of post-high school training and would pay enough to help support a household. Husing said programs are being discussed to make it easier for people to enter these professions.

But many of the new opportunities will be in the retail and service sectors that do not enable people to become a households primary wage earners. It remains difficult for Inland Southern California to attract employers that pay premium wages because the region lacks a high number of people with college degrees.

The IEEP has initiatives in place designed to increase educational achievement in the area, and Paul Granillo, the organizations president and CEO, said they are a high priority.

Granillo called Husings forecast very good news for the regions hard-working people.

But unless we are working on the forces that are detrimental to us, the modern economy could swallow us up, Granillo said.

Contact the writer: business@pressenterprise.com
The United States this week killed a top Islamic State commander in Syria as part of a spate of military actions targeting the terrorist groups leadership and explosives caches, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday.

The killing of a top commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, who is also known by other names, comes as the United States is having increased success targeting the Islamic States leadership. Last week, Defense Department officials concluded that U.S. strikes had killed the groups minister of war, Omar al-Shishani.

We are systematically eliminating ISILs Cabinet, Carter said at a news conference, using an acronym for the group.

But he made clear that the challenge was not that simple.

Striking leadership is necessary, he said, but as you know its far from sufficient. As you know leaders can be replaced. These leaders have been around for a long time  they are senior and experienced and eliminating them is an important objective and result. They will be replaced and we will continue to go after their leadership.

This is not the first time Qaduli was reported to have been killed. In May 2015, Iraqs Ministry of Defense said that he had been killed by U.S. airstrikes near the northern city of Tal Afar. The Defense Ministry said in a statement at the time that based on accurate intelligence, Afari and several other leaders gathered in a mosque had been killed. U.S. military officials said then that they could not verify those claims.

Carter said Qaduli was the Islamic States finance minister and was responsible for planning some of its attacks abroad. Carter said he did not know whether he had played a role in the bombings this week in Brussels.

The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organizations ability for them to conduct operations both inside and outside of Iraq and Syria, he said.

The military also targeted a senior Islamic State leader known as Abu Sarah who was in charge of paying the groups fighters in northern Iraq, Carter said. He said U.S. airstrikes had also destroyed a significant quantity of improvised explosive devices and bomb-making equipment that could have been used against Iraqi forces as they try and reclaim the city of Mosul.

Defense Department officials have declined to elaborate on why they are having more success striking the groups top commanders. Earlier this year, a special unit of U.S. commandos tasked with identifying, capturing and killing the Islamic States leaders arrived in Iraq and began working closely with local forces there.

The momentum of this campaign is clearly on our side, Carter said.

A similar group of U.S. special forces in Syria has been working alongside rebel groups there for several months.

Despite the victories on the battlefields in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State still appears capable of pulling off large, complex attacks far beyond its safe haven. This week, the group claimed credit for the bombings in Brussels that killed 31 people and injured scores.

The State Department, which had offered a $7 million bounty for information about Qaduli, said he had been a top deputy to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed by the Americans in 2006.
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, got fired up on the House of Representatives floor this week in condemning Republican president candidates remarks regarding Muslims following the terrorist bombings in Belgium.

During a one-minute speech, Takano referred to his parents and grandparents, Japanese-Americans who were forced from their homes into internment camps during World War II without trial and without reason other than their Japanese heritage, he said.

At that moment, no one was willing to speak up for them. We cannot ignore the lessons of history, Takano said. The Muslim community is the most frequent victim of terrorism and our greatest ally in ridding the world of extremism.

Responding to Brussels by advocating for patrols of Muslim neighborhoods or suggesting that we torture our enemies is not only counterproductive, it violates the moral code that separates us from our enemies, Takano added, his voice rising.

Heres a video of Takanos speech:

After the bombings in Brussels, Republican presidential hopeful and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for law enforcement patrol of Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. GOP front-runner and billionaire businessman Donald Trump has advocated torturing terror suspects and banning Muslims from entering the country.

Takano, whose district includes Riverside, Perris, Moreno Valley and Jurupa Valley, has referred to his familys internment before in criticizing GOP lawmakers. In November 2014, Takano rebuked Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul for his reference to Japanese-American internment camps in criticizing President Barack Obamas executive orders on immigration.
Southern California Muslim leaders on Thursday strongly condemned this weeks terrorist attack in Brussels that killed 31 people and injured 260 others.

I dont call them ISIS. I call them gangsters, said Omer Mohammed Ali, chairman of the board of directors for the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley.

They are thugs. They are cowards, he said. Whyd they kill innocent people? All I see is thugs using the name of Islam.

Ali added that his heart goes out to victims families and Temecula Valley Muslims intend to pray for them during Friday prayers.

We are totally condemning whats happening in Europe, he said. Its just a crisis.

The imam of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Communitys Inland-based Southern California chapter joined in condemning the Brussels attack and Islamic State.

Imam Mohammed Zafarullah, regional missionary at the communitys Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chinosaid he was disturbed that the attack so closely followed the Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino that killed 14 people and the Nov. 13 massacre in Paris that took 130 lives  and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

In these days its very painful for us, he said. Im very fed up with all of this nonsense, which is being done in the name of Islam.

Zafarullah declared such attacks ignore the basic principles of Islam.

Terrorism is never justified, he said. That is totally wrong. It should be stopped.

Ahsan Baseer, president of the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco board of directors, joined in condemning the latest massacre.

Its very disturbing for us as Muslims, as it should be for anyone of any faith, Baseer said. And since the Muslim faith is associated with it, we take it very personally. We are all affected by this tragedy.

Also on Thursday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nations largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, issued a statement.

We express our solidarity with the people of Belgium and offer condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed and injured, the statement read. Such heinous attacks are antithetical to the ideals of civilized society.

DONT CONFUSE THE TWO

However, Yousuf Bhaghani of Corona said it is his hope that residents of Inland society will recognize the distinction between the 1.7 billion people around the world who adhere to Islam and the few who use the religions name to advance a murderous cause.

Bhaghani said his daughter, Iman, a junior at Santiago High School, captured that concern in an article she wrote for the school newspaper Shark Attack following the San Bernardino massacre, sharing a byline with reporter Cole La Croix. According to the article, they interviewed several local Muslims for their story.

They found a common refrain from their interview subjects to be Im a Muslim not an ISIS member, dont confuse the two of them, they wrote.

As a Muslim (Iman), I sympathize with peoples fears, but I also believe that it is ignorant to classify an entire community of people who share a religion as extremists simply because a minority of our religion has taken it upon themselves to distort and misinterpret our beliefs.

Bhaghani said his children on occasion have received suspicious second looks.

It does get to them, he said.

At the same time, Bhaghani said he is as outraged as any American over what happened in Brussels.

My thoughts were exactly the same as they were after 9/11, he said. The people who do this have no religion. And they are nothing but murderers. They are killers who kill in the name of religion.

And, he said, My heart bleeds when I see this thing happening.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9699 or ddowney@pressenterprise.com
There were giggles and oohs from the students clustered around Joseph Hart, eyeing and petting the lizard he held in his hands.

Hart, 16, is a volunteer guide at the Ameal Moore Nature Center in Riversides Sycamore Canyon. Hes also a student at the Riverside STEM Academy, a middle school and high school focused on science and technology. The students he was leading along the canyons dirt trails, pointing out various bugs and plants, were his counterparts from the other side of the world.

Fifteen Japanese students involved in a STEM-like program visited Riverside this week as part of a cooperative relationship between the city and UC Riverside with the city of Sendai and Tohoku University. Sendai and Riverside have been sister cities for more than 50 years. Several years ago, the two universities became involved in the trans-Pacific partnership.

More recently, the STEM Academy began forming ties in the Sendai area through a program called Exploring Germination and Growth Program for Young Scientists, referred to as EGGS.

More than 150 EGGS students applied for the Riverside trip. This is the second year that a contingent of Japanese students has traveled here. They stay with local host families for four days and spend much of their time learning about various scientific areas of study at UCR.

This morning we built a boat made of straw and cups and tape, said Shota Abe, 22, one of four Tohoku University mentors providing support for the students. The boat had a mast in the middle.  The high school students went to the pool and floated them.

Some were successful, he said. Some werent.

Trying, Abe said, was the important part.

I want them to have a variety of points of view, Abe said. The high school is a closed world, and usually high school life cannot give them many points of view.

Hiroki Hosoya, 43, is a chemistry and biology teacher at Fukushima High School, an hour south of Sendai. Several of the students were from the school. Hosoya said exposing the students to different perspectives is one of the primary goals of the trip. And scientific perspectives are only part of the picture.

I want the students to learn the cultural differences, Hosoya said, adding that they can only see that by traveling abroad.

He said there were tangible benefits for the students who came to Riverside last year.

The students that come here can find a career path and know exactly what they want, Hosoya said. Some went on to the most prestigious universities in Tokyo and Tohoku.

Some of the students were impressed by what they saw. One of Hosoyas students, Yumi Katahira, 16, said she was surprised by some of the science.

I have a dream, Katahira said. I want to go to university in America, but its very expensive. I like science so I want to get a job, for example, as an engineer or scientist. I want to get a job abroad.

Diego Alcala, 17, is a STEM Academy student serving as an American mentor to the group. He hopes to major in marine biology in college and would like to study in Japan.

I applied to Tohoku University two times for a high school program and didnt make it, Alcala said. But he hasnt given up. Being with the Japanese students, he said, is inspiring to him and gives him a taste of the culture.

Were able to connect with the Japanese students, he said. I think they get a lot of insight from us. We kind of broke down the walls and broke down the stereotypes.

Alleviating some of those misperceptions was comforting for some.

Maiko Sudo, 22, is a physics student at Tohoku University who went through the EGGS program while in high school. She was a bit worried about coming to Riverside.

My teacher often said, America is a very scary place, so I was scared, she said, then smiled. But Im not scared now.

Except, maybe, for that lizard.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9595 or mmuckenfuss@pressenterprise.com
Update: The incident had cleared on both maps by 7:35 a.m.

A drunken driver who crashed into a light pole on State Route 18 near Running Springs cut power to more than 600 Southern California Edison customers Thursday, March 25.

Lights were expected to be back on for the 671 cutsomers affected by about 8 a.m. Friday, according to the Southern California Edison outage map.

The incident occurred just after 8 p.m. Thursday, according to California Highway Patrol Incident logs. The logs say that the male driver in a black Volvo crashed into a pole, which then blocked the road in both directions.

Traffic was being diverted through a Valero station on Friday morning. A tow truck had taken the Volvo away by 6 a.m., but traffic had not been cleared.

The Caltrans Quickmap showed traffic slowed along the freeway.
Supporters of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders will be out in force Saturday for rallies about 20 miles apart.

Potentially hundreds of Trump supporters are expected to rally for their candidate at the Duck Pond Park in Temecula.

Meanwhile, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sanders will Honk and Wave for Bernie in Lake Elsinore.

Trumps campaign has previously accused Sanders followers of disrupting its rallies.

Neither candidate is expected to attend.

While organizers and Temecula leaders expect little of the trouble that has plagued other Trump rallies, authorities will keep tabs on the event.

Organized by Riverside County members of Californians for Trump, the event is scheduled to start at noon. Lead organizer Glenn Turner said a half-dozen proponents of Trumps Republican presidential nomination have been gathering about once a month to display signs by the park at Rancho California and Inez roads.

But with the campaign gearing up for Californias June primary, Turner said he thought it was time for a larger rally, which he promoted through social media and networking.

We just want people to know we think Trump would be a good president, Turner said. Thats the whole reason. Its plain and simple.

He said he is surprised at the outpouring of interest. Anywhere from 50 to a couple hundred participants may show, he said.

Turner also believes some Trump opponents could arrive, but he does not anticipate problems.

There might be some people yelling at us, he said. That will be about it. I just want people not to yell back.

Several Trump rallies around the nation have been marred by hostilities and physical confrontations, resulting in one cancellation.

Trump and his supporters have the right to publicly meet, said Riverside County Democratic Party Chairman Howard Katz. We hope they will show restraint and not the hate, bigotry and divisiveness they have shown in the past.

Meanwhile, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sanders will meet from 10 a.m. to noon at Lakeshore and Riverside drives in Lake Elsinore.

With the burgeoning number of participants in the Temecula event, Turner said he notified the city.

We will not interfere with that as long as everythings being done legally, Temecula Assistant City Manager Greg Butler said. Hopefully, they will have a peaceful rally and people will be able to go about their business in the area.

He said officers will keep an eye on the activity.

We are aware of the situation, said Deputy Michael Vasquez of the Riverside County Sheriffs Department, which supplies Temeculas law enforcement personnel.

Officers from the Temecula Police Department will provide a presence to ensure we offer the opportunity for people to express their rights to free speech and to support the candidate of their choosing, he said.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9690 or michaelwilliams@pressenterprise.com
wohlsenphoto.jpg

Wohlsen Construction has opened a new office in Harrisburg.

(Photo provided.)

A Lancaster County-based construction company has moved its Harrisburg office.

Wohlsen Construction relocated its Harrisburg office earlier this year to a new space in downtown Harrisburg. The new office is located at the Fulton Bank Building at 200 N. Third St. in Suite 5B

The larger office space provides room for current and future growth, the company said in a press release.

Wohlsen Construction Company provides a variety of services including construction management, general contracting and design services to clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region in the senior living, education, healthcare and commercial markets. The company was founded in 1890 and has offices in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The firm's previous Harrisburg office was located at 1426 N. Third St.
HARRISBURG -- Would a lesser penalty for marijuana possession encourage drug usage, or would it help the city's youth caught with the drug to find the help they need?

While comments varied on both sides of the issue during the second public hearing held by the Harrisburg City Council on Thursday night, one thing city council members and law enforcement officials agree on, according to the recently proposed bill issued by Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse, is that the new legislation would "reduce law enforcement expenditures and permit limited resources to be focused on more serious violent crimes."

A man, right, who identified himself as a Harrisburg inner-city minister, spoke out on Thursday night against a proposed bill that would lessen the penalties for marijuana possession. City council member Cornelius Johnson is pictured at left.

However, council members reiterated that the intention of the law is not to promote or condone the possession or use of cannabis, but rather, according to member Cornelius Johnson, who serves as the chair of the Public Safety Committee, to not allow a past indiscretion, especially by a young person, to affect their future.

The misdemeanor charge, as it currently stands, stays on a person's record and prevents them from getting jobs, joining the military, and obtaining financial aid and affordable housing, he said.

"We're stopping them from moving forward with their lives," he said, adding, "The penalty should match the crime."

The new legislation would reduce the fine of possession of a "small amount" (30 grams or less) of marijuana, intended for personal use only, from the current maximum 30 days in jail or $500 fine, to a $100 fine for the first offense, and $200 for the second. All subsequent offenses would be charged according to federal and Pennsylvania law.

The money collected from the fines would all go into a fund to assist with drug and alcohol counseling and treatment for offenders, and the bill also calls for the provision to substitute community service for the fine if someone is unable to pay.

This "three strikes" provision, however, was not popular among a vast majority of members of the public who chose to express their opinions during Thursday night's hearing.

One man said the arrests and fines associated with the bill would "condemn a person of color to a life of crime", and that "People of color are affected more disproportionately than anyone else."

Several people said they believed the fines should be lowered even more than what the bill proposes.

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are the only other municipalities in Pennsylvania to lessen the penalties for marijuana possession. While Pittsburgh's fee structure is similar to Harrisburg's proposed bill, Philadelphia's fees are set at $25.

Questions on Thursday night included whether the new ordinance would, or should, result in license suspensions on top of the fines, as well as whether or not the bill would affect the typical partner charge of possession of drug paraphernalia.

Johnson reported that the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Act calls for the suspension of a person convicted of this "ungraded misdemeanor" for six months after the first offense, one year after the second, and two years after the third.

Brandon Flood, executive director of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, said citations are issued to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation automatically once a "conviction" is issued by a district magistrate.

According to Harrisburg Police Chief Thomas Carter, whether or not the paraphernalia charge is added to the possession of marijuana charge is at the discretion of the arresting officer, but that he would be looking to drop the paraphernalia charge in the case of possession of "small amounts" of marijuana.

"The intent of this bill is to get people help," he said, adding that he didn't believe the proposed fines are "asking too much."

Several people, who said they were avid "pot smokers", also spoke up to express their belief that marijuana should be legalized, but that this new ordinance was a step in the right direction.

One city resident identified himself as a "millennial" and said he believed the proposed legislation was "long overdue," and that "After so many decades, I hoped it would be further along."

Harrisburg School Board member Alan Kennedy-Shaffer was also in attendance and expressed his belief that marijuana should be legalized, and that the proposed bill should be amended to reduce the fine. He said higher fines and imprisonment as punishment is "perpetuating the cycle of incarceration."

Several members of the public, however, spoke in favor of actually increasing the current fine to decrease the drug problem.

"You are sending the wrong message to our young people," said one man, who identified himself as an inner-city minister. "You're sending the right message to the drug dealers, I assure you."

The man listed potential impairments and mental and physical health effects, as well as relationship strains, associated with marijuana usage.

"Raise the fines, and stop going soft on marijuana usage," he said.

Another man, who said he was from "uptown Harrisburg", said simply, "I'm from the hood", and described how he has seen a number of children addicted to crack cocaine "because of an entry drug (marijuana)."

"What has happened here?" the man asked, incredulous at the idea of lowering the fines. "All I can say to this city council and mayor is, 'What is wrong with you'?"

Mayor Eric Papenfuse was reportedly ill and unable to attend the hearing Thursday night.

Members of the public were encouraged to fill out a survey to express their opinions and thoughts regarding the new bill, which is available for review on the city's website.

Johnson said there will likely be more public hearings scheduled as the council will continue to review the bill, taking into account the comments they receive.
Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Pa.'s weirdest festivals

Pennsylvania is home to hundreds, if not thousands, of festivals. A few are a bit more odd. Some of these festivals are the kind that instantly make you do a double take as they seem so out of place for the region. Others are just downright weird, no matter how you look at it. However, they are all part of the fabric of what makes Pennsylvania such a fun place to travel. Here are 9 of the strangest festivals I've come across.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Groundhog Day

Without a doubt, one of the, if not the, weirdest festivals in Pennsylvania is Groundhog Day. While this celebration is recognized in many places in Pennsylvania and around the world, there's only one true weather-predicting groundhog: Punxsutawney Phil. Each year, tens of thousands flock to this small Pa. Borough to hear Phil's prediction. According to organizers, Phil, who is now over 130 years old, has never been wrong!

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Joseph Kaczmarek

Mummers Parade

Held every New Year's Day since 1901, the Mummers Parade is considered to be America's oldest folk festival. Hundreds of participants take to the streets of Philadelphia and perform a variety of musical and comedic routines, some of which can be quite edgy. At the end of the day, awards are handed out to the best performing troops. The Mummers Parade also has a dedicated museum in south Philly for those looking for more information about this unique tradition.

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Pittston Tomato Festival

In many respects, the Pittston Tomato Festival is no different from the many food-based festivals around the state. However, one annual event makes this festival one of the strangest in Pennsylvania. Every year, 150 people gather in a local parking lot and lob rotten tomatoes at each other. This tomato fight might be the messiest fun you can have at a Pa. Festival.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

The Living Dead Weekend

Every October, zombie lovers flock to the small borough of Evans City in western Pennsylvania for The Living Dead Weekend. Located in the town where the movie was filmed, The Living Dead Weekend features autograph sessions with both major and minor members of the cast and crew and film screenings. Of course, visitors also enjoy dressing up as their favorite characters related to the movie or other zombie lore. Those visiting at other times of the year can get a taste of the event at The Living Dead Museum in Evans City.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Bastille Day

If you've always wanted to dress up as an 18th-century French aristocrat and have a water gun fight, all while the queen is throwing Tastykakes at you, then you won't want to miss the insanely amazing Bastille Day celebration at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Featuring all of the above, as well as live performances, French food vendors, and tours of the historic prison, this festival is one that has to be experienced to be believed.

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Photo used courtesy of the Tioga County Visitors Bureau

Dickens of a Christmas

Whether you can call Dickens of a Christmas in Wellsboro an odd festival, might be debatable. However, the fact that this small borough in northern Pennsylvania transforms itself into a Charles Dickens' novel every December is certainly interesting. Costumed performers dressed as Victorian-era Brits from Dickens' novel, "A Christmas Carol," bring the story to life as they walk down the quaint, gaslit streets of Wellsboro.

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Harry Potter Festival

For the last several years, Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia has been hosting one of the oddest festivals in Pennsylvania: The Harry Potter Festival. Visitors, many of whom are dressed as their favorite characters, descend on Chestnut Hill to try butterbeer, take a magical class, or to even see which Hogwarts class the Sorting Hat thinks they belong in. The event is highlighted by a mugglized version of a Quidditch tournament.

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You might be surprised to learn that Pyrofest, the country's largest fireworks festival, is held each year in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Thanks to a variety of large fireworks companies being located in northwestern Pennsylvania, the area around Cooper's Lake comes to life each summer as tens of thousands come out to see the impressive firework shows at this amazing festival.

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Firebird Festival

The Chester County borough of Phoenixville comes alive every December with the Firebird Festival. The festival includes music and dancing around town, but also draws inspiration from the phoenix. Fittingly, the festival ends with the ceremonial burning of a large, wooden phoenix. This is a sight that has to be seen to be believed.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Want more cool places in Pennsylvania?

Jim Cheney is the writer behind UncoveringPA, Pennsylvania's most read travel blog. He has traveled and written about every county in Pennsylvania, as well as to many countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. He lives in Harrisburg, Pa.
patient-shoots-kills-doctor.jpg

Dr. Elbert Goodier, a well-known urologist in Louisiana was shot dead Thursday while meeting with a patient. The shooter was a 73-year-old man who was also a patient of the doctor.

(via WPXI)

A well-known urologist in Louisiana was shot dead Thursday while meeting with a patient, our sister website, NOLA.com reports. The shooter was a 73-year-old man who was also a patient of the doctor, identified as Dr. Elbert Goodier.

The shooter, identified as John Thomas, shot Goodier in the head as the physician treated another patient in his office near East Jefferson General Hospital, in Metairie, Louisiana, the news website reports, adding:

Thomas then ran to a Wendy's restaurant down the block and shot himself as Sheriff's Office deputies closed in on him. The shooting occurred around 2:20 p.m. Thursday.

Background from NOLA.com:

The man who killed Dr. Goodier had no criminal history but suffered from a mental illness, Thomas' family members told authorities.

"This is a tragic loss for EJGH and our entire community," said Dr. Mark Peters, East Jefferson chief executive officer. "Dr. Goodier was respected and beloved by all who had the privilege of knowing him. Our hearts and sympathies go out to his family, his friends, his staff and all who knew him. ... We, as a hospital and community, now mourn the loss of a generous and gracious man."

Goodier leaves behind a wife, a son, and two daughters.
LOS ANGELES -- Garry Shandling, who as an actor and comedian masterminded a brand of self-inflicted phony docudrama with "The Larry Sanders Show," has died of an apparent heart attack.



Shandling's publicist Alan Nierob said doctors at a hospital where the comedian was pronounced dead Thursday said it appeared he died of a heart attack. Nierob said Shandling had no history of heart trouble.



Coroner's Lt. David Smith said it appeared Shandling died of natural causes, but an official cause of death determination had not yet been made. Smith said no autopsy was planned, but officials would determine Shandling's cause of death based on medical records and his medical history.



Shandling was taken to a hospital after paramedics were dispatched to his Brentwood home around 10:40 a.m. Thursday, police and fire officials said.



His death stunned the comedy community, who praised Shandling's humor, kindness and efforts to support and promote them and their craft.



An innovative and eccentric humorist with pillowy lips and a voice that always seemed on the verge of a whine, Shandling claimed to disdain too much logic cluttering his life.



"The answer isn't gonna be in the facts," he told The Associated Press in 2009. "It's gonna be in intuition. That's how I work creatively. I'm always teaching people that the answer to that creative question is right here, in the room, between us here."



More to the point, it was dealing with the questions he confronted in himself.

Comedian Garry Shandling has died



Born on Nov. 29, 1949 in Chicago, Shandling was raised in Tucson, Arizona. On arriving in Los Angeles as a young adult, it was a short hop from a brief stint in the advertising business to comedy writing and stand-up.



Then in the 1980s, he began to experiment with TV comedy, and to toy with the sitcom form, with his first series, "It's Garry Shandling's Show," a Showtime project that made no bones about its inherently artificial nature: The actors in this otherwise standard domestic comedy routinely broke the fourth wall to comment on what they were up to. Even the theme song began with the explanatory lyrics, "The theme to Garry's show...."



Then, in August 1992, Shandling created for HBO his comic masterpiece with "The Larry Sanders Show," which starred him as an egomaniacal late-night TV host with an angst-ridden show-biz life behind the scenes.



It was just three months after Johnny Carson had retired from "The Tonight Show," where Shandling had appeared as a stand-up and occasional Carson stand-in. It seemed a wry but deeply felt homage to the King of Late Night.



But it was more. "Larry Sanders" proved to be an act of courage, a brave effort led by someone portraying a character dangerously close to himself. As Larry, Garry dug deep to confront his own demons, and did it brilliantly as the series teetered between dual realities: public and private; make-believe and painfully true.



Real-life celebrities appeared as guests on Larry's show-within-the-show, and also interacted with him "off the air."



David Duchovny, agreeing to come on the show, also came on to Larry romantically once he got the chance.



Jim Carrey delivered a rip-roaring comic tribute to his host on the final broadcast, then, during a commercial break, turned on him in rage over a long-ago slight.



"Are you doing a bit, now?" asked Larry, perplexed.



"We're OFF the air," Carrey hissed. "This is real life now."



The show explored the fuzzy distinction between TV life and real life, and the loneliness of someone at its crossing. The closest thing Larry had to friends were his chronically needy announcer Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) and his Napoleonic producer, Artie (Rip Torn). Together the three actors were among TV's best-ever trios.



"Working with him was one of the great privileges of my career," Torn wrote in a statement. "He was a comic talent of immense originality who enthusiastically encouraged and responded to the originality of others."



After "Sanders" ended in 1998, Shandling's public appearances were few.



He was mentioned as a candidate to follow David Letterman as a bona fide late-night host for CBS' 12:30 a.m. slot, but no deal was made.



"I would not do a show where you just sit and talk to somebody," Shandling had said back in 1993 when he was courted by NBC to take over for Letterman on "Late Night."



His films included "Hurlyburly" in 1998, "What Planet Are You From?" in 2000 and "Zoolander" in 2001.



He hosted the Emmy Awards in 2000 and 2004.



On the latter occasion, he spotted Donald Trump in the audience and congratulated the billionaire developer for hosting the Emmy-nominated "The Apprentice."



"Nice to see a man who's paid his dues, worked hard," Shandling said. "We all know what it feels like to have to build 80-story condos and gambling casinos just to get our foot in the door in show business."



Jamie Masada, owner of comedy club the Laugh Factory, said he met with Shandling a few weeks ago and the comedian didn't appear to have any health problems.



"He looked healthy as could be," Masada said.



"Garry Shandling, besides being a comedian, I always said he was a doctor of soul. He had a lot of kindness in him. He was a very generous person," Masada said.



In his own business dealings, Shandling became one of the rich and famous targeted by private eye Anthony Pellicano, who was sentenced to prison in 2008 on convictions of racketeering and more than six dozen other counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud and wiretapping in the Hollywood wiretaps case.



Pellicano was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone and bribing police officers to run names of people, including Shandling, through law enforcement databases.



While Shandling never married, his most public romance was with "Sanders" co-star and fiancee Linda Doucett, who played Hank's comely assistant in the series' early seasons.



Doucett sued Shandling after he fired her following their breakup in the mid-1990s, receiving a reported $1 million settlement, The New York Times reported in 2006.



The news of Shandling's death brought an outpouring of reactions from performers who spoke of his impact.



"Garry was a guiding voice of comedy," said actor-comedian Bob Odenkirk. "He set the standard and we're all still trying to meet it."



And filmmaker Judd Apatow declared, "Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing. It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. ... I am just too sad. Maybe tomorrow I will do better."
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two New York City siblings are among the dead in the attacks in Brussels, their family said Friday.

Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch nationals who lived in the U.S., were headed home to the states when a bomb exploded at the airport Tuesday. Alexander, 29, was on the phone with his mother in Holland when the line went dead, said James Cain, whose daughter Cameron was engaged to Alexander.

"We received confirmation this morning from Belgian authorities and the Dutch embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha from the terrorist bombing at the Brussels Airport," Cain said on behalf of the Pinczowski family. "We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation, and are thankful for the thoughts and prayers from all. The family is in the process of making arrangements."

Alexander Pinczowski had traveled to Holland to work on a craft-related business that he and Cameron were going to start together, Cain said.

The couple met six years ago while taking summer courses in Durham, North Carolina. They hadn't set a wedding date but had planned to marry within the year, Cain said.

He called Alexander "intimidatingly smart, a brilliant young man."

Sascha Pinczowski, 26, was a 2015 graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York with a degree in business. She spent last summer as an intern at a catering company, Shiraz Events.

Shiraz Events President Shai Tertner called her "a bright, hardworking young woman, with a great career ahead of her."

Both siblings had hoped to obtain U.S. citizenship one day, said Cain, a retired ambassador to Denmark.

The bombings in Brussels at the airport and in the subway killed 31 people and injured nearly 300.
As the man accused in her cousin's 1982 murder is sentenced March 28, Chris Torres of Mechanicsburg is hoping that isn't the end to the tragic story.

The body of Stefanie Wilbert Watson, who was killed at age 27, has never been found - only part of her skull, which was dumped along a rural road.

Torres, of Mechanicsburg, is hoping John Ernest Walsh, 71, indicted in Stefanie's murder, will eventually talk. "I'll have closure once we have answers," she said.

"We desperately want to know all the facts of what happened," Torres said. "I don't care how horrible it is - nothing can be more horrible than what I've already imagined. "

Torres said she plans to attend the sentencing in Prince George's County, Md., but doesn't think she'll read a statement.

"I'm not sure if I'll speak - I don't know what I would say...I don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how I feel," Torres said.

Stefanie's parents, Lloyd and Margaret Wilbert of Harrisburg, died while waiting for their daughter's killer to be found.

"They died not knowing. I think it really hastened their death. She was the baby in the family," Torres said.

The family had a memorial service after Stefanie's skull was found. But Peg Adams, Stefanie's sister in California, is hoping to some day have a burial for Stefanie, Torres said.

"Peg is broken-hearted. She desperately wants to bring something home, have closure," Torres said.

Walsh has accepted a plea deal on charges of second-degree murder and false imprisonment. For that, he would receive 33 years in prison, concurrent with a sentence he is already serving.

John Walsh

Torres said they had been hoping for a trial, to gather more information on her sister's death. Now, with a plea deal, Torres said, they are still hoping Walsh will give up information.

"I know he is going to die in prison," Torres said, but she wonders if he could have other victims that police don't know about yet.

"He still is claiming he didn't kill her," said John Erzen, spokesman for the Maryland state attorney's office.

"He claims they were in a car - they had met at a bar - and that someone attacked them," Torres said.

Erzen said the county police "are still pursing leads as to what happened to her body."

Torres doesn't blame the police for the lengthy time it took to solve the crime.

"You're talking 1982 - they didn't have the technology," she said. "It's not like they ever forgot about it."

Remembering Stefanie

Torres said she and Watson were "inseparable" growing up. Chris went to East Pennsboro Area High School, and Stefanie to Central Dauphin East.

"She was a lot of fun...She was two years older than me, and everything she did I had to do," Torres said. They went to concerts, ran around together.

After high school, Stefanie first went to HACC and then a college in the Washington, D.C., area, and she eventually moved to Maryland.

The cousins were planning a trip to the shore in July 1982 as Stefanie was preparing to quit her job and move closer to her family in Texas.

When Stefanie didn't show up to meet Torres here for that trip, Torres called police.

"We had to play the waiting game," Torres said, since police wouldn't start looking for her until 24 hours had passed. "You're just in shock. I knew something bad happened, but it was hard to get the cops to do anything."

They found Stefanie had never shown up for her third-shift job at a hospital in Maryland and was last seen by a neighbor leaving her apartment around 9 p.m. on July 22, 1982.

This was Stefanie's last night in town, and she believes she may have met friends somewhere before heading to work. There has to be someone who remembers seeing her that night, Torres says.

How the cold case was solved

Three or four days after Stefanie disappeared, her Chevy Chevette was found in an apartment complex, with so much blood in the interior that authorities doubted she was still alive.

Six weeks later, a high school student saw a man wearing gloves dropping a bag along a wooded lane. In it was a piece of Stefanie's skull, with teeth attached to the jaw. She was identified using dental records.

The witness could provide only a brief description of the man's vehicle.

"Then the waiting game began again," Torres said.

Torres kept in contact with the cold case unit in Prince George's County, Md. over the years. They had evidence including the car seat and Stefanie's broken fingernails, which indicated there had been a struggle. But Torres said she was told some of the evidence was lost over the years, including part of her skull.

With developments in DNA testing, police tested blood samples in the car and found a match with Walsh, who had been convicted in 1970 of two rapes. Walsh received a 72-year prison sentence and served less than 10 years, but he was re-incarcerated in 1989.

In 2013, Torres got the call that they were going to charge Walsh, and he was indicted in 2014.

In a twist in the case, Torres met Richard Friend of Maryland, who has written about the cold case on his "Lost Laurel" blog about his home town.

Friend was 9 years old when Stefanie disappeared, and her missing person flyers plastered across town stuck with him.

"That flyer was everywhere," he said. "Things like this didn't really happen in Laurel. This was something beyond the weekly crimes in a small town."

When the 30-year anniversary came up in 2012, Friend, who started blogging in 2011 about his home town, thought he'd look into it, figuring it had been solved.

He was surprised to find it wasn't and also urged detectives to try DNA matching.

"Probably the most rewarding thing to come out of this hobby was to have a small part in pushing them to do it, and to find out yes, they found the guy responsible, he's still alive and now he will be held accountable for it, which is pretty amazing," Friend said.
leon tadych.png

Leon Tadych

A Millersville man who was filmed by a hidden camera molesting an underage girl in his home won't get a chance to argue his case before the state Supreme Court.



The high court this week rejected Leon Tadych's appeal of a November ruling by the Superior Court that upheld his 12- to 24-year prison term.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/11/man_caught_on_hidden_camera_mo.html



Tadych was filmed sexually abusing the girl in his living room after Millersville police placed a hidden camera in his home. The camera was installed with the consent of Tadych's wife, who told officers she believed he was molesting the girl.



Police said Tadych admitted to molesting the girl when interviewed by officers in December 2012. A Lancaster County judge imposed the prison term after Tadych pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, statutory sexual assault, unlawful conduct with a minor and witness intimidation.



In upholding that penalty, the Superior Court rejected Tadych's claim that his lawyer misadvised him to drop a bid to have the video suppressed on grounds that it was illegally obtained. Tadych's attorney said he told Tadych that even if he won the suppression fight, the girl would still testify that he had molested her.
There are more questions than answers at this point, but police at Penn State's main campus are investigating a female student's report that she was raped last week by an acquaintance at an off-campus frat house.The student made her report Tuesday.

Among the unknowns -- where and when the assault may have occurred.

Nevertheless, the university followed protocol and posted a notice on its "timely warnings" website advising students of what information was available.

Sexual assault and allegations of other criminal behavior at fraternities in particular have been an ongoing issue at Penn State, as well as other schools across the country. PSU President Eric Barron formed a task force to examine issues of greek life and make recommendations for reform.

Several weeks ago, the ABC television network chose Penn State for the site of a special "Nightline" program on campus sexual assault, citing the work the school has been doing on the problem.

Last year, scandal at Kappa Delta Rho at Penn State saw the local chapter lose its charter after a private Facebook account was revealed where photos had been posted of naked, unconscious women taken by members.

A look back at the story by the Daily Collegian last week notes that charges have yet to be filed in that case and may not be.

The fraternity and the university are also the subject of a civil lawsuit by a former pledge who describes graphic episodes of hazing in the suit. A judge recently ruled that the suit may be moved from Philadelphia, where it was filed, to either Centre or Dauphin counties.
Election Q&A: Meet the candidates for Emmet County Commission

The first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth districts are all contested races on Nov. 8.
Market madness on oil prices threatens U.S. energy security



Oil price war threatens U.S. sense of energy security : Kemp

LONDON

Petroleumworld.com 03 25 2016

The political economy of oil prices in the United States is complicated.

The United States is the world's largest oil consumer and one of its biggest importers.

But it is also a substantial producer with large oil and gas resources.

And its oil is medium-cost, more expensive to produce than the large fields in the Middle East but cheaper than frontier areas like the Arctic.

U.S. politicians tend to be happiest with mid-priced oil: not too expensive to upset motorists but not too cheap to threaten the survival of domestic production and increase dependence on imports.

In the last century, the country has swung between confidence in its self-sufficiency and energy independence to extreme insecurity about its dependence on imported oil ("Oil scarcity ideology in U.S. national security policy", Stern, 2012).

In recent years, the debate has been characterised by optimism, even complacency, about rising U.S. domestic production and falling reliance on imports, but that could easily change, as it has in the past.

The shale revolution transformed America's sense of its energy security but it occurred thanks to high oil prices and a wave of technical innovation and entrepreneurship.

The shale revolution had almost nothing to do with the political class, though politicians have been quick to claim the credit for an American success story.

But just as rising prices and production banished concerns about import dependence, so falling prices and output could reawaken them if pushed too far ("Market madness: a century of oil panics, crises and crashes", Clayton, 2015).

OIL IMPORTS RISING

U.S. crude oil imports are rising for the first time for more than five years, a sign that Saudi Arabia is winning its war for market share against shale producers.

In the week ending March 18, the United States imported nearly 8.4 million barrels per day of crude oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration ( tmsnrt.rs/1RnbeGQ ).

Weekly crude oil imports were the highest since July 2013 ("Weekly Petroleum Status Report", EIA, Mar 23).

Faster imports were driven by a surge in oil deliveries from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria which cleared U.S. customs over the seven day period ( tmsnrt.rs/1RnbcyK ).

Reported imports are subject to considerable week to week variability depending on the timing of tanker arrivals and customs clearance, so it is important not to place too much emphasis on one week's figures.

But there is no mistaking the trend. Crude petroleum imports have been trending higher since the middle of 2015.

Daily crude imports averaged 7.9 million barrels per day over the last 13 weeks, up from 7.1 million bpd in the 13 weeks ending July 3, 2015 ( tmsnrt.rs/1Rnbiqn ).

Imports are rising thanks to a combination of strong demand from U.S. oil refineries and falling domestic oil production from shale formations ("West African crude regains glow in west as shale fades", Reuters, March 17).

Crude is also being imported and put into tank farms. Traders favour storage in the United States because it is a location of net consumption and has favourable banking, legal and physical infrastructure.

Imports will almost certainly increase further over the remainder of the year as refineries ramp up production to meet record gasoline consumption and U.S. crude output continues to decline.

U.S. crude production is forecast to drop from 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015 to 8.7 million bpd in 2016 and 8.2 million bpd in 2017 ("Short-Term Energy Outlook", EIA, Mar 2016).

Meanwhile U.S. consumption of refined products is predicted to increase by almost 100,000 bpd in 2016 and another 160,000 bpd in 2017.

The growing gap between domestic oil production and product consumption can only be covered by additional imports of crude or refined products.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Recapturing market share from shale and other higher-cost producers has been a key objective for Saudi Arabia and OPEC.

But there could be a political cost if the market share strategy is pushed too far, in the form of a backlash from the United States.

The rise in U.S. domestic oil production and reduction in imports has been hailed by policymakers from both major parties as an important achievement.

Even if the concept of "energy independence" is an illusion in an interconnected oil market and global economy, rising domestic production has contributed to an improved sense of energy security.

But if the price war continues to harm domestic oil producers, it is likely to trigger a political response at some point.

In 1986, U.S. Vice-President George Bush warned Saudi Arabia's King Fahd that oil price stability was a national security issue for the United States.

Bush told the Saudis lower oil prices were a boon to many sectors of the U.S. economy but not to all of them ("Bush sees oil glut undermining United States", Chicago Tribune, 1986).

"There are two edges to this sort of falling prices, and one of them has got to be the fact that this country - our country, the United States of America - has always felt that a viable domestic oil industry is in the national security interests of the United States," he told his hosts in Riyadh.

Oil prices, as well as security and the control of terrorism and radicalism, have always been central to relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi policymakers have strongly denied that their current price strategy is aimed against shale production.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told an audience of US producers at CERAWeek in Houston in February:

"Let me say for the record, again, we have not declared war on shale or on production from any given country or company.

"We are doing what every other industry representative in this room is doing. We are responding to challenging market conditions and seeking the best possible outcome in a highly competitive environment.

"Efficient markets will determine where on the cost curve the marginal barrel resides."

But the finer points of that argument may be lost on hard-pressed US shale producers and their political representatives.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

So far, energy issues are playing out in a minor way on the presidential and congressional campaigns.

Democrats are more energized by renewable energy issues and much of the party's base is ambivalent or actively hostile to fossil fuel production because of its climate impact.

Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, has promised to impose tougher conditions on fracking.

"By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place," she said during a debate earlier this month.

Her rival for the party's nomination, Bernie Sanders, has taken an even stricter line, stating simply "I do not support fracking".

Given that fracking now accounts for half of all U.S. oil production these positions may not be practical ("Hydraulic fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil production", EIA, Mar 15).

The outgoing Obama administration is also adopting a tougher regulatory stance on all forms of fossil fuel production as part of an effort to make climate progress a legacy issue.

In practice, most U.S. oil and gas is produced in states like Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Alaska that increasingly lean towards the Republican Party, though others like Pennsylvania and Ohio are swing states.

For the moment, the party is convulsed by internal divisions as a result of the rise of businessman Donald Trump and is more focused about maintaining its control over Congress.

In 2012, the oil and gas industry tried and failed to make domestic energy production and energy security an election issue, and it may not be salient this year.

But the political climate is unusually febrile in 2016 and falling oil production could play into it in unexpected ways. (John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own).






U.S. ask Swiss for banking records in widening PDVSA probe



Swiss agree to turn over PDVSA-linked records for 18 banks

NEW YORK/GENEVE

Petroleumworld.com 03 25 2016

Swiss banks have a new money-laundering worry: Venezuela.

At the request of U.S. authorities, Switzerland has agreed to turn over records from at least 18 banks involving Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which is the subject of a widening corruption investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Swiss regulators.

Among the banks are UBS AG, EFG Bank AG and CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique SA, said a person briefed on the matter. Spokespeople for the banks declined to comment. None of the 18, whose names haven't been disclosed, has been accused of wrongdoing.

The development is the latest twist in a wide-ranging investigation that U.S. authorities say has revealed evidence of bribery at PDVSA, the linchpin of Venezuela's oil industry, as well as at BANDES, the nation's economic development bank.

The Swiss bank records are being sought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in connection with his office's investigation into representatives of Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan energy company that has done business with PDVSA, the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) in Bern said. Bharara's request means that records of any wire transactions between the 18 banks and individuals or companies suspected of bribery or other criminal conduct in Venezuela will be given to federal prosecutors in New York.

Potential Misconduct

The Venezuelan investigation could potentially expose some of the banks to harsh treatment from the Justice Department if any wrongdoing is found. Several Swiss banks, including UBS and EFG, have entered into agreements with U.S. authorities in recent years that require them to notify law enforcement about any potential misconduct. Last year the Japan unit of USB pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the Libor probe, while EFG joined the Justice Department's Swiss bank program, part of which requires it to cooperate in treaty requests for information.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment.

The U.S. investigations into bribery at PDVSA come as the Venezuelan government is struggling to avoid a default on its foreign debt amid low oil prices, the worst recession in a decade and political turmoil as President Nicolas Maduro battles with a newly installed opposition congress.

Illicit Funds

Opposition leaders pledged to probe allegations of government corruption after they took control of congress in elections late last year. Angel Alvarado, a deputy affiliated with the Primera Justicia opposition party, said in December that his faction had teams in place in Andorra, Switzerland, the U.S. and China tracking down illicit funds.

The U.S. investigation has already led to criminal charges, including guilty pleas from three former PDVSA officials that were unsealed in Houston on Tuesday, according to court documents. The three -- Jose Luis Ramos Castillo, 38; Christian Javier Maldonado Barillas, 39, and Alfonzo Eliezer Gravina Munoz, 39 -- admitted to accepting bribes and helping two businessmen win lucrative contracts from the state-owned company. The three pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

And in 2013, Maria de los Angeles Gonzales, a former official at the country's economic development bank, Banco Desarrollo Economico y Social de Venezuela, pleaded guilty in New York to accepting bribes from representatives of Direct Access Partners, a broker-dealer with offices in Florida.

Derwick Probe

The Swiss authorities' statement is the first official confirmation of the existence of a U.S. investigation into Derwick Associates. The company has denied allegations lodged in civil suits that it bribed officials from PDVSA in order to obtain lucrative contracts. No criminal charges have been filed against Derwick.

Joseph DeMaria, a lawyer for a Barbados affiliate of Derwick, and its two co-founders, said he wasn't aware of the investigation, but said that any probe by U.S. authorities is part of a continuous witch hunt against his clients.

The agreement to turn over bank records shows how Swiss regulators are now cooperating with U.S. authorities after years of balking at requests for information about how their banks helped American citizens avoid paying taxes. The U.S. cracked down on tax evasion starting in 2009 after UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, paid $780 million to avoid prosecution.

Financial Regulator

The request to Switzerland came in two batches. The Department of Justice's Fraud section filed a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request, or MLAT, for records from 8 banks related to the Houston case, according to Swiss officials. Bharara's office sought records from 18 banks. Some banks were on both lists.

Finma, Switzerland's financial regulator, is aware of the case and is in touch with several banks to gauge their level of involvement, a spokesman for the Bern-based agency said. He declined to confirm the names of any banks.

It's unclear how quickly the Swiss banks will turn their client data over, said Ursula Cassani, a professor of law and money-laundering specialist at the University of Geneva. It's not unusual for a process like this to take a year or more, she said.






There's sometimes not enough space to say everything you want, and that was the case with today's visit to Laurel Hill Cemetery.



It's an amazing, lovely, tranquil place and, amazingly, it's open to the public for free. Laurel Hill welcomes walkers, joggers, bicyclists, picnickers and even dog walkers. (You will pick up after your dog, which must be kept on a leash.)

Space didn't permit a list of some of the "biggest" names buried there, so I offer it to you here:

Matthias Baldwin, founder of the Baldwin Locomotive Works

George Henry Boker, poet, helped found Union League

Adolph Borie, Secretary of Navy under President Ulysses Grant

Robert Conrad, first mayor of consolidated city of Philadelphia

Caleb Cope, headed the Philadelphia Saving Funds Society

Henry Deringer, produced the pocket pistol of his name

Brig. Gen. Alexander Cummings, founded the Evening Bulletin

James Elverson, developed the Inquirer into major newspaper

Harriet Frishmuth, major American sculptor who worked in bronze

Frank Furness, leading architect of the Victorian age and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in the Civil War. Other recipients of the Medal of Honor: Robert Kelly, George Pitman, John Story, Pinkerton Vaughn

Frederick Graff, engineer for the Fairmount Water Works

Some who died under Gen. Custer's command at the Little Big Horn

Charles Henry Lea, author and authority on medieval history

Napoleon LeBrun, architect of the Academy of Music and the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Mary Anna Longstreth, Quaker, educator, who campaigned to have street cars open to "Negro riders"

John MacArthur, Philadelphia City Hall architect

Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence

David Rittenhouse, astronomer, mathematician, financier, first director of the U.S.. Mint.

Catherine Drinkhouse Smith, one of the city's better-known mediums.

George K. Smith, a founder of what is today GlacoSmithKline

Manuel T. Sozinho, a teacher who helped lead the fight for Angola's independence from Portugal

Thomas Walter, designed the dome for U.S. Capitol.

Owen Wister, author western stories, including The Virginian.

Mr. Sozinho is among the few African-Americans buried there because for a long time most American cemeteries were segregated.
Federal authorities on Thursday charged three men in a fraud scheme that allegedly netted them close to $1 million.

According to charging documents, the men worked for an inventory-management company in Radnor identified as "Company A," or a pharmaceutical company in New Brunswick, N.J., identified as "Company B."

While the companies were not named, "Company A" appears to be Storeroom Solutions Inc. and "Company B" appears to be Bristol-Myers Squibb, headquartered in New York, with offices in New Brunswick.

According to court documents, the pharmaceutical company hired the Radnor company to provide inventory management and purchasing services for the New Brunswick offices.

Daryl Stevens, 45, of Bethlehem, Pa., Justin Jordan, 34, of East Brunswick, N.J., and Christopher Cook, 40, of Ocean Township, N.J., are accused of creating seven fake vendor companies and causing the Radnor company to buy bogus and nonexistent products on behalf of the pharmaceutical company between July 2008 and December 2014.

A spokesman for Storeroom Solutions said in an emailed statement: "Through our own internal review processes we discovered inconsistencies and immediately conducted a prompt and thorough investigation, referred the matter to the appropriate authorities, and have been working in full cooperation with them. ... We do not tolerate actions like those charged and have zero tolerance for unethical or unlawful business conduct."

A spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb said in an email that the company "does not comment on ongoing litigation" and directed questions to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia.

Jordan, who was employed by the Radnor company, was the first to register one of the seven fake vendor companies and recruited his colleague, Stevens, to participate in the scheme along with Cook, who worked at the New Brunswick company.

The Radnor company paid about $973,000 to the bank accounts of the fake vendors for products that were "bogus," court documents say.

In turn, the Radnor company "sold" the bogus products to the pharmaceutical company at a markup, totaling about $1.2 million, court documents say.

Stevens was charged by indictment with four counts of mail fraud. Jordan and Cook were each charged with nine counts of mail fraud by a process called criminal information, which indicates they are likely to plead guilty.

The three men are not in custody. Efforts to reach them or their lawyers were not successful.

shawj@phillynews.com

215-854-2592

@julieshawphilly
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THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD



WORDS AND PHOTOS: MATT WRAGG AND DAVE TRUMPORE



There is a long naval tradition here on the Chilean coast.

The fleet of small boats and one ferry are Corral's lifeline to the mainland. It is possible to drive round via bridges, but it takes two hours, while the ferry is a twenty minute hop.

The lagoons are patrolled by huge flocks of pelicans; these giant birds have something of the dinosaur about them, as they skim low over the water before diving in to scoop up their prey.

The fishmongers have their helpers on hand...

Those are some well-fed sea lions.

While waiting for the action to kick off, the Ibis team headed for the volcanic resort of Pucon for some bigger mountain fun. Here the Gehrig twins pin it through the loose rock and volcanic soil.

Robin Wallner used the time at Pucon to make sure his bike was running well after the long journey.

The Pucon area is not short of mountains...

Gary Forrest is coming back from a spinal injury last year, but is looking to be back at full strength ready for the season.

Don't you wish your team bonding days looked like this?

One last push for one last run before the sun dips below the horizon.

And yeah, the views here in Chile...

The sun sets on a weekend break before it's time to head back to Valdivia for the serious business to begin.

To reach the race village in time you need to catch the 8am boat from town - the golden hour express, which means you can watch the sun rise over the water as you head to Corral.

Not a bad view for a morning commute.

El jefe aboard one of the smaller ferries that dart between the fjords here.

Welcome to Corral.

On an island like Corral many of the locals can't afford trucks for work, so the hard graft is picked up by the cows.

That work can even include pulling logs from the forest down to the houses below.

Cows pulling the logs down the trails makes for interesting riding conditions - especially if it rains. This rut was so slick that you could turn your front wheel 90 degrees and the bike's speed would not change...

When it's not muddy here, it's nothing but hero dirt.

Overnight rain made things a bit sticky for the media reconnaissance, but thankfully the forecast is for sun (and dust) all weekend.

EWS director, Chris Ball, gets his slip and slide on during the first media recon of the 2016 season.

Matt Wragg drops into the steep chute that makes up the bottom of stage two.

As riders reach the bottom of stage two they will be greeted with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

Death to course cutters. Everything on the side of the track is sharp and will make you bleed.

On the Pacific side of the island, the coastal road looks like a driving road to die for.

Epic sunsets from the press room
The Online Railbird Report: Blom Back to Winning Ways, Kostritsyn Week's Biggest Loser

March 25, 2016 Chad Holloway Executive Editor U.S.

This week at the high-stakes tables of PokerStars, no one did better than Daniel "w00ki3z." Cates, who won $158,326 in 3,948 hands over 32 sessions. Others who did well were Isaac "philivey2694" Haxton (+$109,358 in 7 sessions/386 hands) and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom (+$81,485 in 38 sessions/9,214 hands).

On the flip side, last week's biggest winner, Alexander "joiso" Kostritsyn, was this week's biggest loser after dropping $188,511 in 8,753 hands over 42 sessions. Meanwhile, it was also a bad week for the likes of Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky (-$128,503 in 21 sessions/1,191 hands), Dzmitry "Colisea" Urbanovich (-$127,480 in 18 sessions/2,184 hands), and Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion (-$97,409 in 28 sessions/2,913 hands).

Stern Takes Kuznetsov for $238,700 in Thursday PLO Action

On Thursday, March 17, Dani "supernova9" Stern finished the biggest winner of the day after winning $238,700 at the $100/$200 and $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha tables. According to HighStakesDB, all of his profit came after two heads-up matches against Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov.

Here's a look at the two biggest pots from that match.

Hand #1: Kuznetsov ($71,006.08) raised to $1,360 from the button, Stern ($128,421.92) called, and the flop came down . Stern checked, Kuznetsov bet $2,158.50, and Stern check-raised to $7,554.75. Not to be outdone, Kuznetsov three-bet to $25,958.50 and then called off his remaining $43,846.08 after Stern had four-bet to $81,832.75.

Kuznetsov:

Stern:

Kuznetsov had flopped middle pair with a gutshot, while Stern held a flush draw with a big wrap. The two agreed to run it twice, and the on the first gave Stern half the pot with a winning straight. The turn on the second run gave Kuznetsov Broadway, but his lead was short lived as the river gave Stern a flush and the entire $149,486.91 pot.

Hand #2: Stern ($94,669.40) opened for $1,360 and then called when Kuznetsov ($64,954.60) three-bet to $4,240. Both players then checked the flop, the appeared on the turn, and Kuznetsov checked to Stern, who bet $6,478.50.

Kuznetsov check-raised to $23,800, Stern called, and the paired the board on the river. Kuznetsov moved all in for $36,914.60 and Stern called. Kuznetsov showed the for a flopped straight, but it was no good as Stern rivered a full house with the . Ship the $130,229.20 pot to Stern.

"wilhasha" Saturday's Big Winner Thanks to NLHE Action

On Saturday, March 19, "wilhasha" was at the $50/$100 no-limit hold'em tables and managed to win $99,600 after 2,254 hands over 11 hours, which was enough to make him the day's big winner.

In his biggest pot of the day, action was four-handed when "1nvoker" ($28,438.54) opened for $232 under the gun with what turned out to be the and "wilhasha" ($42,918.06) three-bet from the small blind with the . "1nvoker" made the call, the flop came down , and "wilhasha" led out for $719.25.

"1nvoker" made the call and then bet $3,005.07 after "wilhasha" checked his flush on the turn. When the peeled off on the river, "wilhasha" coyly checked and "1nvoker," who had made a set, bet $7,711.66. "wilhasha" the check-raised all in and "1nvoker" called off his remaining $15,652.22 only to see the $57,137.08 pot pushed to "wilhasha."

Blom Takes on Both Haxton and Kostritsyn

On Tuesday, March 22, Blom was busy cleaning up at both the $100/$200 PLO and $1,000/$2,000 8-game tables. According to HighStakesDB, Blom kicked things off by winning $49,000 in just 76 hands of PLO over 40 minutes from Sami "LrSlzk" Kelopuro. Not long after, he took "BERRI SWEET" for $131,000 playing the same game.

Blom then jumped to the 8-game tables where he played for 10 hours against Kostritsyn. In their first session, Blom won $105,600, and then took $67,000 in the second, which is when the second-biggest pot of the day took place.

Alex Kostritsyn

It happened when, in a round of $250/$500 PLO, Kostritsyn ($87,583.66) opened for $1,500 and then called when Blom ($152,114.34) three-bet to $4,500, which brought about a flop of . Blom bet $6,000, Kostritsyn called, and the appeared on the turn.

Blom bet again, this time $16,500, and again Kostritsyn just called. The turn saw Blom bet a hefty $53,998 and Kostritsyn called only to muck when Blom tabled the for a rivered nuts, which earned him the $161,996 pot.

The action ended up spilling over into Wednesday morning, and that's when things started to swing Kostritsyn's way. According to HighStakesDB, the Russian managed to win back $208,000 in the action.

Speaking of Wednesday, Blom did play a bit against Haxton at the $100/$200 PLO tables. The duo only played for an hour, during which time Haxton took Blom for $121,700.

In one of the more notable pots, Blom ($86,588.54) raised to $1,360 and then called when Haxton ($53,107.46) three-bet to $4,240, which brought about a flop of . Haxton led out for $8,638, Blom raised to $34,552, and Haxton moved all in for $48,867.46. Blom made the call and the cards were turned up.

Haxton:

Blom:

Blom was drawing to a flush, while Haxton held an overpair. It was run twice, but neither the on the first run nor on the second help Blom and he watched the entire $106,534.92 pot pushed to Haxton.

Biggest Winners/Losers from March 18-24

Winners Profit Losers Loss Daniel "w00ki3z." Cates $158,326 Alexander "joiso" Kostritsyn $188,511 Isaac "philivey2694" Haxton $109,358 Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky $128,503 Viktor "Isildur1" Blom $81,485 Dzmitry "Colisea" Urbanovich $127,480 Mike "gordo16" Gorodinsky $80,171 Elior "Crazy Elior" Sion $97,409

Biggest Winners/Losers of 2016

Winners Profit Losers Loss Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano $629,611 Alex "Kanu7" Millar $567,739 Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky $403,455 Daniel "w00ki3z." Cates $274,051 "Cobus83" $353,146 "candela2005" $263,665 Dani "supernova9" Stern $329,943 "40and7" $175,332 Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz $265,432 "Aron0621" $174,722

*Lead photo courtesy of globalpokerindex.com.

Data and hands obtained from HighStakesDB.com

Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!

Sharelines Viktor "Isildur1" Blom was back to his winning ways after banking $81,485 online this week.

Online Railbird Report: A rare bad week for Alexander "joiso" Kostritsyn, who dropped $188,511.
UK & Ireland PokerNews: A Massive Sunday Million Score

March 25, 2016 Matthew Pitt Editor

Sunday, March 20, saw the Sunday Million celebrate its 10th anniversary by bumping the guarantee up to a whopping $10 million. While it wasn't a player from the United Kingdom who took down the top prize, which ended up being $970,000 after a four-way chop, a British player did walk away with a potentially life-changing score.

"ThreeBetting" of the UK saw his tournament end in fifth place, which meant his likely $215 investment (if no reentries were had) had ballooned to some $318,415. This was by far the largest cash haul enjoyed by any player calling the UK or Ireland home, but there were plenty of other superb results enjoyed by our players, and you can read all about them in the Sunday Briefing.

Some of those big Sunday scores caused a reshuffle of the online poker rankings, where Scott "Aggro Santos" Margereson climbed to second place in the UK and a career high of 16th in the world. Check out the top 20 ranked players in the UK and Ireland via this link.

In the live arena, Romania celebrated its first-ever World Poker Tour (WPT) main event champion when Vlad Darie came out on top in the WPT Vienna Main Event. It is unlikely that a Romania poker player will win the 2016 Irish Open Main Event, mostly because of the sheer number of Irish players and British grinders in the field. At time of writing, the 1,100 Irish Open Main Event's Day 1a was complete and the second and final starting flight well underway.

Poker tournament lovers who have enjoyed playing on the partypoker Grand Prix Poker Tour (GPPT) received some great news this week, news that the GPPT Mini is launching. This new tour sees a$109 Main Event, like the full size GPPT, which has a $50,000 guarantee. A total of 20 stops around the UK have been confirmed, with Dusk Till Dawn and partypoker saying there will be more stops added in the not too distant future.

Shortly after the first GPPT Mini tournament concludes, the PokerStars UKIPT London festival kicks off at the Hippodrome Casino. There are 13 events scheduled across six-days, with the 770 UKIPT London Main Event, which has three starting days, and the 2,200 High Roller set to attract some of the best British poker talent to the iconic casino.

UK & Ireland PokerNews continued to look at the Global Poker League's franchises by delving deeper into the Las Vegas Moneymakers and the Sao Paulo Metropolitans. Who do you think both team's managers will pick as their wildcards?

Finally, the cost of 888 Holdings, owner of 888poker, failing in their bid to acquire bwin.party came to light this week when the company announced it end-of-year figures. $14.3 million was the figure given, with an additional $50 million paid in new taxation, the latter being an increase of 216 percent.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
This painting was displayed in a Denver municipal building.

Yesterday afternoon the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police began to receive a flood of calls into its state office from outraged officers and from equally upset civilians concerning a painting that the city had allowed to be prominently displayed to the public in the atrium on the main floor of Denvers Municipal Webb Building. Today Colorado FOP published this response:

"We were shocked and outraged to see a painting depicting a police officer, wearing a KKK hood, in front of a Confederate flag pointing a pistol at a child of color who has his hands up. A depiction that is both false in its presentation and message. We know that the "hands up" message has its roots in a well-established lie that originated in Ferguson, Missouri in the aftermath of the Darren Wilson-Michael Brown incident. It is a symbol designed to divide not heal.

"Many of those who called us yesterday afternoon had also called the Mayors office to complain and demand the painting be removed from public display in a taxpayer building. They expressed their anger that having this displayed in a taxpayer building sent a message that the city administration supported what this painting symbolized and falsely reflected the feelings of the citizens of this great city. We learned late yesterday afternoon that the painting will be removed. We are waiting for an official confirmation that has happened.

"For some time now the Colorado FOP has been critical of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and his appointees in the department of safety due to their incompetent, ineffective, short sighted and highly politicized style of bad leadership. The most recent example is this public display in the first floor atrium of the city's municipal office building of a picture that clearly depicts police officers in manner that is not only negative, but portrays them as depraved murderers of children. Only the most incompetent and incapable of government leaders and officials would allow something like this to occur on the premises of the city's main office building where thousands of employees and Denver citizens would see it. Especially given the current climate in Denver and across the country where violence against officers is on the rise as well as an abundance of vitriolic rhetoric that seems to be encouraging this type of violence.

"The law enforcement officers of Denver are not surprised by the city allowing this to happen. Our members, and members of the public, see this as continuation and confirmation of the attitude of the administration towards its public safety officers. They are justifiably outraged that the City would allow this symbol of hate to be put on public display at a time of such serious division in our country. This is the same City administration that stood back and allowed the desecration of the Denver Police memorial last year and again a month ago. The citys decision to permit this outrageous inflammatory painting is seen as another slap in the face of its police officers, and reinforces their belief that the City Administration is dysfunctional and insensitive at best."

Read More Here
Left to right: Trooper Rick Carlson and Trooper Jim Leonard of the Michigan State Police, and Deputy Justin Holzschu of the Otsego County (MI) Sheriff's Department (Photo: NLEOMF)

For saving a child from a house fire, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has selected Trooper Jim Leonard and Trooper Rick Carlson, of the Michigan State Police, and Deputy Justin Holzschu, of the Otsego County (MI) Sheriff's Department, as the recipients of its Officer of the Month Award for March 2016.

Just before 12:30 am on January 29, 2015, a babysitter near Gaylord, MI, awoke to find the house in which she was watching two children on fire. The babysitter was able to get a 7-year-old girl out of the house, but the flames kept her from reaching 2-year-old Kingston, who was sleeping in a bedroom in the back of the home. She ran to a neighbor's house to call 911.

Troopers Jim Leonard and Rick Carlson received the call from dispatch and were on the scene within five minutes, followed closely by Deputy Justin Holzschu. The troopers and deputy tried to make their way into the house, but the fire and smoke made it impossible. Upon learning that a child was in the back of the house, the officers broke through glass patio doors, but were unsuccessful in making it more than a few feet before being overcome by smoke.

Deputy Holzschu then broke windows on the side of the house to let smoke escape, allowing Troopers Leonard and Carlson to enter the house and rescue the unresponsive child from his crib.

Immediately exiting the house, the troopers began performing CPR on the boy and were able to restore breathing and a pulse. Both children were taken to the hospital, where they recovered.

"We're humbled by their bravery, by their response and risking their lives," said Lt. Derrick Carroll, Assistant Post Commander of the Michigan State Police Gaylord Post. "They saved that baby."

"If they didn't get there and do what they did, the child may have died," said Otsego County Undersheriff Matt Muladore.

"The actions of these three heroes saved the life of a small child," Memorial Fund Chairman and CEO Craig W. Floyd said. "They never gave up, repeatedly putting their lives in danger. I am deeply proud these troopers and this deputy are receiving our March 2016 Officers of the Month Award."

Located in the nation's capital, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of America's law enforcement officers. The Memorial Fund's Officer of the Month Award Program began in 1996 and recognizes federal, state, and local officers who distinguish themselves through exemplary law enforcement service and devotion to duty.

Troopers Jim Leonard and Rick Carlson and Deputy Justin Holzschu, along with the other Officer of the Month Award recipients for 2016, will be honored during National Police Week at a special awards ceremony in Washington, DC, in May 2017.

For more information about the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's Officer of the Month Award, visit www.LawMemorial.org/OTM.

About the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund

Established in 1984, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is a private non-profit organization dedicated to telling the story of American law enforcement and making it safer for those who serve. The Memorial Fund built and now operates and maintains the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC, which contains the names of 20,538 officers who have died in the line of duty throughout U.S. history. The Memorial Fund is now building the National Law Enforcement Museum, which will tell the story of American law enforcement through high-tech, interactive exhibitions, historical artifacts and extensive educational programming. For more information, visit www.LawMemorial.org.
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Republican front-runner Donald Trump retweeted A picture is worth a thousand words with an attached picture of his wife Melania looking beautiful next to an image of Ted Cruz wife, Heidi Cruz, looking angry.

This was some kind of retaliation, Trump style, for ads targeted to Mormons showing Melania Trump posing in the nude. The problem is that ad, tacky as it is, is not the work of Ted Cruz; it is from an anti-Trump Super PAC Make America Awesome.

After first seeing the ad, Trump threatened:

Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

So Donald Trump did what he does, which is reduce women to their appearance and the way they reflect his greatness by fawning over him or not.

Does this matter? Yeah, it kind of does. Donald Trump sees women like a KKK leader sees black people. Women are threats to Donald Trump unless they are subservient and beautiful objects to be owned and dominated.

When journalist Selina Scott did a documentary on Donald Trump in 1995 for ITV, she found out what happens when a beautiful object rebuffs Trumps ego. Its not pretty. She recalls him saying to her in her piece in the Mail, I like beautiful things, he purred seductively. Thats why I like you so much.

Things. Women are things.

My 60-minute documentary exposed how through bluff, bombast and braggadocio, he had convinced the American business community he was far richer than he was, and that while the rest of his rivals were losers, he knew how to make the US great, Scott wrote, laying out why Donald Trump felt rejected by her, that he had failed to emotionally seduce her, thus enraging him and leading him to harass her for years.

Trump sent Scott intimidating letters for years, calling her sleazy, unattractive, obnoxious and boring. He said I was totally uptight.

If youre a woman whos ever rejected a powerful man, you know those words are familiar enough to ring true. If a woman wont go out with a man like Donald Trump, or fall for his game, he will get revenge. Scott told the story of the wife of a prominent New York businessman, whose reputation Donald Trump trashed in a fit of pique after a conflict. Trump reportedly called the woman a hooker, among other rude names. There was an American broadcast journalist who Trump wanted to get back for asking him questions, which sounds eerily like his recent behavior toward Megyn Kelly.

After recounting how she had to resort to threatening legal action to get Donald Trump to stop harassing her years after she turned him down, Scott explained that Trump sees women as trophies and wanted the ultimate trophy, Princess Diana. But Scott wrote, Diana told me: He gives me the creeps.

This creepy, inappropriate man is running to be President of the United States.

Franklin Foer wrote in Slate under the succinct title, Donald Trump Hates Women:



Trump considers himself such a virile example of masculinity that hes qualified to serve as the ultimate arbiter of femininity. He relishes judging women on the basis of their looks, which he seems to believe amounts to the sum of their character. Walking out of his meeting with the Washington Post editorial board this week, he paused to pronounce editor Karen Attiah beautiful. When he owned the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, he would screen all the contestants. His nominal reason for taking on this role was to make sure that his lackeys werent neglecting any beauties. His real motive was to humiliate the women. He would ask a contestant to name which of her competitors she found hot. If he didnt consider a woman up to his standards, he would direct her to stand with her fellow discards. One of the contestants, Carrie Prejean, wrote about this in her book, Still Standing: Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after [Trump] left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began  even those of us who were among the chosen couldnt feel very good about itit was as though we had been stripped bare.

Even when youre winning with Donald Trump as a beautiful object, youre losing. Trump treating his wifes external, commercialized beauty as evidence of his superiority is more reductionist, dehumanization of women.

This is how Trump would make America great again for women.

Donald Trumps contempt for women is part of why hes the Republican partys front-runner. It is not a strike against him, but rather a reason to worship him.
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In the category of just plain, breathtakingly stupid, televangelist Jim Bakker, who says Christians in this country are persecuted despite being a privileged majority, claimed that if parents tried to recite the Lords prayer at graduation that they would threaten to mow you down with a machine gun.

Thats right. Jim Bakker says Christians will be mowed down with machine guns for doing something Jesus told them not to do. You would think Bakker would be more worried about what Jesus thinks than what the government isnt ever going to do outside of his fevered imaginings.

Watch courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

So what happens if in that graduation most of the parents stand up and recite the Lords Prayer? guest Rick Wiles, who recently claimed that we have been taken over by Muslims, asked Bakker.

Sweet baby Jesus in a co-opted Pagan spring fertility festival basket. Can we stop the bleeding here? No, we cant stop the bleeding here. Man up and read on:

Wiles: What are they going to do? Is the judge going to come over and arrest you? Lets get an uprising going.



Baker: They would threaten to arrest you, they would threaten to mow you down with a machine gun.



Wiles: So what if they did? Theyre going to come in and shoot 500 parents at a high school graduation for saying the Lords Prayer?



Bakker: Not right now. But eventually they will if we dont stop it.

Right. Because this is happening every day all across America, right? It is difficult to say what is more pathetic, these clowns pretending their prurient fantasies are fact, or all the deluded old white people in the audience nodding their heads and clapping.

Bakker said that We cant preach the Bible anymore and blamed this imaginary persecution on political correctness. Hes wrong. He can go into his church and preach the Bible all he wants. Thats what churches are for. He can do it at home too, or in his friends homes. He can do it in all kinds of places. He just cant do it in a public school.

Heck, if Christians were persecuted, they wouldnt be in a position to foist all these so-called religious freedom laws  like the heinous new Georgia bill, HB 757  on the rest of us to force us to do what they want.

And actually, of course, limits of preaching are due not to political correctness but rather to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion and protects the religious freedoms of all Americans, not just bigots like Bakker and Wiles.

Meaning no, you cant preach in public schools anymore and you should never have been allowed to.

But here is the bigger issue for Bakker and Wiles, as alluded to above: Jesus said to pray in private, not like hypocrites in public.

And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:5-6).

Oh dear. This is a problem, isnt it? Nope, not to the Religious Right, which consistently ignores the teachings of the guy they pretend to worship.

So far, no Religious Right figure has justified their stance on public prayer. None ever will. This is just another one of Jesus many commands that are daily ignored by the Religious Right while they try to shove things Jesus never talked about, like traditional marriage, and abortion and contraception bans, down our throats.

As you can see, Jesus command here was nonnegotiable. It has no exclusionary clauses. He states unequivocally that you must go into your room and shut the door to pray. Period. End of story.

Why, its just like those commandments they ignore!

Lets have some discussion about that, Jim Bakker and Rick Wiles. Were waiting for you to talk about whats actually IN the New Testament, and not merely your own prejudices.

That will be the day the Religious Right accepts our shared reality and surrenders in its war on America.
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By David Lawder and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  Donald Trumps threats to slap steep tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports may have won him votes in Republican primaries but they would likely backfire, severely disrupting U.S. manufacturers that increasingly depend on global supply chains.

The Republican presidential front-runners campaign pledges to impose 45 percent tariffs on all imports from China and 35 percent on many goods from Mexico would spark financial market turmoil and possibly even a recession, former trade negotiators, trade lawyers, economists and business executives told Reuters.

I dont mind trade wars when were losing $58 billion a year, Trump said in a Feb. 25 debate, referring to the 2015 U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico. Economists dispute the idea the United States is losing money as the trade deficit is simply the difference between what the United States imports and what it exports to a country.

Imposing tariffs or putting up trade barriers may sound good, but it will hurt our economy and credibility, said Wendy Cutler, the former acting deputy U.S. Trade Representative who helped lead U.S. negotiations in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal last year.

Among those hardest hit would be the U.S. auto industry, which has fully integrated Mexico into its production network. Some $118 billion worth of vehicles and parts flowed north and south across the border tariff-free last year, according to U.S. Commerce Department data.

A 35 percent tariff would raise costs for Ford Motor Cos U.S.-assembled F-series and medium-duty pickup trucks that use Mexican-made diesel engines, one of its most profitable vehicle lines. (Graphic on U.S.-Mexico auto and parts trade: http://tmsnrt.rs/1UN3wun)

Ford CEO Mark Fields on Wednesday defended the companys investment strategy, which includes $9 billion for U.S. plants over the next four years, saying, We will do what makes sense for the business.

Buyers of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NVs popular Ram 1500 pickup trucks assembled in Saltillo, Mexico, could see their $26,000 base price pushed up by $9,000 if the tariff is fully passed on to consumers. A Chrysler spokesman declined to comment on Trumps statements.

Trumps campaign said in a statement that U.S. trade policy constitutes unilateral economic surrender and needs complete change because it allows foreign competitors to shut out U.S imports, devalue their currencies and unfairly target U.S. industries.

I dont think he does our issue any favors by making it so incredibly jingoistic and bombastic, said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group that allies domestic steelmakers and other manufacturers with the United Steelworkers union.

But I believe theres widespread agreement  that there is something amiss with our economic relationship with China and its past time that our government pushes back a little more forcefully.

LOWER INCOMES

It would take years for U.S. industry to rebuild supply chains devastated by sudden tariff hikes on Chinese and Mexican goods and any retaliatory measures, said Peter Petri, a Brandeis University professor who has co-authored an influential study on the effects of the TPP trade deal on national income.

Even if U.S. firms were able to make such a transition, Petri said this would likely result in a permanent annual reduction in U.S. national income of more than $100 billion, or 0.8 percent.

Trumps tariff plans would effectively violate NAFTA and revoke U.S. commitments to the World Trade Organization, say trade lawyers.

Beijing and Mexico City are just going to retaliate on the things that are likely to hurt us most, said Susan Schwab, the U.S. Trade Representative from 2006 to 2009 in the George W. Bush administration. Schwab negotiated major portions of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

In 2009, Mexico slapped duties up to 25 percent on more than 90 different U.S. farm goods, from pork to frozen potatoes due to foot-dragging by U.S. lawmakers on allowing Mexican truckers on to U.S. roads, as specified under NAFTA. The National Potato Council estimates that U.S. growers lost about $70 million in revenue over 31 months, a 50 percent cut from their third-largest export market.

Mexicos economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo said last week that big tariffs on Mexico would return the United States to an isolationist, xenophobic and protectionist vision.

And a full-scale tariff war with China would likely expose the largest U.S. export sectors to steep duties, including aircraft, semiconductors, corn and soybeans, trade lawyers said.

Retaliatory tariffs would also hurt growing U.S. vehicle exports to China  at 300,000 a year now equivalent to the annual output of a large assembly plant. General Motors Co is now planning to import a Buick sport-utility vehicle from a Chinese joint venture plant.

A GM spokesman declined to comment.

Chinas state-run Global Times newspaper called Trump big-mouthed, anti traditional and abusively forthright in an editorial, but did not directly address his tariff proposals.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

A long-running U.S.-China trade dispute over solar panels illustrates how tariffs can sometimes cause unanticipated damage.

In 2012, the U.S. Commerce Department slapped anti-dumping duties of up to 78 percent on Chinese solar panels after German-owned SolarWorld AG complained that below-cost Chinese imports were hurting its U.S. production.

China responded with its own 57 percent duties against U.S. producers of polycrystalline silicon, the raw material for photovoltaic cells. This put the brakes on an industry that was fast expanding to meet demand from Chinese solar panel makers.

Hemlock Semiconductor, controlled by Dow Corning, abandoned construction of a $1.5 billion new polysilicon plant in 2014. Dow Corning spokesman Jarrod Erpelding said Hemlock serves as a strong example of how trade disputes often have unintended consequences.

This is really stupid, said Francine Sullivan, chief legal officer of REC Silicon in Moses Lake, Washington, which halted production this year. The necessity and value in putting on tariffs to protect solar panels in the U.S. was just not thought through. Weve suffered enormous financial damage as a result of this.

The Trump campaign said measures like tariffs would level the playing field and help bring millions of manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

But Durwin Oodie Royal, a furnace operator at U.S. Steel Corps Lone Star Tubular Operations in Texas, knows first-hand that such relief can be temporary.

Workers at the plant cheered when the United States imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese drilling pipe in 2009 and 2011. But the company announced on Friday that it would temporarily idle the tube mill, laying off 450 workers as it battles a slump in U.S. oil and gas drilling, a continued global steel glut and unfairly traded imports.

When they slap tariffs on one country, the imports just come in from another country, said Royal, who expects to be among those workers who are idled.

After the tariffs were imposed on China, South Korean imports surged, he said. Right now, were just limping along like everybody else.

(Additional Reporting by Joseph White and Bernie Woodall in Detroit, Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City; editing by David Chance and Ross Colvin)
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The Democratic Policy and Communications Center, working for Senate Democrats, blasted Senate Republicans with the mountain of bad press they are getting around the country for their refusal to even hold hearings for Chief Justice Merrick Garland, President Obamas Supreme Court nominee.

Headlines around the country are blasting Republicans for their obstructionism, Democrats pointed out.

Senate Republicans constituents are still waking up to headlines in local newspapers blasting their unprecedented obstructionism following the announcement of President Obamas Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. The headlines, which have persisted every week since the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, consistently echo the same message: Senate Republicans must do their job and ensure a fair confirmation process for the Presidents nominee, the Democrats wrote in a press release.

Papers are also consistently pointing out that Republican supported Garland in the past, As the pressure builds at home, Kansas Senator Jerry Moran is the latest GOP member to break with the partys blockade. The newspapers also point out that many Senate Republicans have supported the highly-qualified and respected Judge Garland in the past and that many Senate Republicans have already broken with their party and will meet with the nominee. 

They provided a round up of samples, included below:

ARKANSAS

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Opinion: Senates refusal to act on Supreme Court nomination is purely political [LINK]

COLORADO

Colorado Independent : Legal experts: The GOP Senate is trying to have cake and eat it too [LINK]

: Legal experts: The GOP Senate is trying to have cake and eat it too [LINK] Colorado Independent: Does Cory Gardner need a civics lesson on court appointments? [LINK]

FLORIDA

Florida Politics : Martin Dyckman: Smart Republicans Need To Start Thinking, Acting On Their Own [LINK]

: Martin Dyckman: Smart Republicans Need To Start Thinking, Acting On Their Own [LINK] The Oracle: Confirming Garland is safest decision for GOP [LINK]

GEORGIA

Augusta Chronicle: Cynical politics with Garland added [LINK]

ILLINOIS

Chicago Tribune : Sen. Mitch McConnells fickle loyalty to the people [LINK]

: Sen. Mitch McConnells fickle loyalty to the people [LINK] Chicago Sun-Times : Opinion: Snub of Garland could cost GOP the Jewish swing vote [LINK]

: Opinion: Snub of Garland could cost GOP the Jewish swing vote [LINK] Kankakee Daily Journal: Kirk takes admirable stance, even if it costs him Senate seat [LINK]

INDIANA

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette : Vacancies highlight ideological inconsistency [LINK]

: Vacancies highlight ideological inconsistency [LINK] Terre Haute Tribune-Star: Editorial: Senators, do your job [LINK]

IOWA

The Times : DOUG ROSS: Deadlines, commitments needed for Congress [LINK]

: DOUG ROSS: Deadlines, commitments needed for Congress [LINK] Storm Lake Times : Grassley should listen [LINK]

: Grassley should listen [LINK] Waterloo Courier-Falls : GOP may rue Garland snub [LINK]

: GOP may rue Garland snub [LINK] Des Moines Register : U.S. Supreme court fight hits Iowa radio, TV, web [LINK]

: U.S. Supreme court fight hits Iowa radio, TV, web [LINK] Sioux City Journal : OUR OPINION: Supreme Court vacancy creates still another political spectacle [LINK]

: OUR OPINION: Supreme Court vacancy creates still another political spectacle [LINK] Des Moines Register: Grassley misinforms Iowans over Supreme Court [LINK]

KANSAS

Kansas City Star : Pat Roberts, Jerry Moran differ on decision to ignore Garland [LINK]

: Pat Roberts, Jerry Moran differ on decision to ignore Garland [LINK] Dodge City Daily Globe : Moran asks for help for veterans [LINK]

: Moran asks for help for veterans [LINK] Garden City Telegram : Moran: Obamas visit to Cuba premature [LINK]

: Moran: Obamas visit to Cuba premature [LINK] Topeka Capital-Journal: Conservative groups threaten to fund ads and primary opponent against Sen. Jerry Moran [LINK]

KENTUCKY

Louisville Courier-Journal: Protesters to Sen. McConnell: Do your job [LINK]

MAINE

Portland Press Herald: Susan Collins hopes for hearings on Supreme Court nominee [LINK]

MISSOURI

Kansas City Star : Monday Poll results: Hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland [LINK]

: Poll results: Hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland [LINK] Kansas City Star: Split decision turns up heat on Senate to find ninth justice for the Supreme Court [LINK]

MONTANA

Great Falls Tribune : Gazette says U.S. Sen. Steve Daines should do his job [LINK]

: Gazette says U.S. Sen. Steve Daines should do his job [LINK] Missoulian: Sen. Tester, other panelists speak at UM on US Supreme Court vacancy [LINK]

NEBRASKA

Lincoln Journal Star: Fischer tells students Supreme Court dispute is politics [LINK]

NEW HAMPSHIRE

NHPR: Ayotte Says Waiting On Supreme Court Pick Will Make Process Less Political [LINK]

NORTH CAROLINA

Charlotte Observer: N.C.s senators wont meet with Supreme Court nominee [LINK]

OHIO

Cincinnati City Beat : Strickland Hits Portman on Refusal to Consider SCOTUS Nominee [LINK]

: Strickland Hits Portman on Refusal to Consider SCOTUS Nominee [LINK] Plain Dealer : Why holding hearings on Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland would be good for conservatives: Ted Diadiun [LINK]

: Why holding hearings on Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland would be good for conservatives: Ted Diadiun [LINK] Plain Dealer : Americans want Senate to vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Portman keeps saying no [LINK]

: Americans want Senate to vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Portman keeps saying no [LINK] Cincinnati Enquirer: NKUs Mearns: Washington needs more Merrick Garlands [LINK]

PENNSYLVANIA

CBS Philadelphia : Protests Outside Senator Toomeys Philadelphia Office [LINK]

: Protests Outside Senator Toomeys Philadelphia Office [LINK] Philadelphia Inquirer : Toomey will meet with SCOTUS nominee [LINK]

: Toomey will meet with SCOTUS nominee [LINK] Philadelphia Inquirer : Toomey will meet with Garland but still opposes action [LINK]

: Toomey will meet with Garland but still opposes action [LINK] Times Leader : Barry L. Kauffman: U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey flaunts Constitution and constituents by rejecting timely Supreme Court vote [LINK]

: Barry L. Kauffman: U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey flaunts Constitution and constituents by rejecting timely Supreme Court vote [LINK] Harrisburg Patriot Times : Toomey agrees to meet Supreme Court nominee, but not to act on nomination [LINK]

: Toomey agrees to meet Supreme Court nominee, but not to act on nomination [LINK] Scranton Times-Tribune : Toomey: Do your job, help fill SCOTUS seat [LINK]

: Toomey: Do your job, help fill SCOTUS seat [LINK] Scranton Times-Tribune : GOP should heed Roberts [LINK]

: GOP should heed Roberts [LINK] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette : Toomey will meet with Garland but wont change stance [LINK]

: Toomey will meet with Garland but wont change stance [LINK] The Daily Item : Toomey to tell Garland he must wait [LINK]

: Toomey to tell Garland he must wait [LINK] Bucks County Courier Times : Sen. Toomey agrees to meeting with SCOTUS nominee [LINK]

: Sen. Toomey agrees to meeting with SCOTUS nominee [LINK] Politics PA : PA-Sen: Toomey to Meet With Garland [LINK]

: PA-Sen: Toomey to Meet With Garland [LINK] Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice : The system is broken [LINK]

: The system is broken [LINK] LNP: Our leaders are not leading, and instead are playing games [LINK]

TENNESSEE

Oak Ridger : Supreme delay irks some Oak Ridgers [LINK]

: Supreme delay irks some Oak Ridgers [LINK] Knoxville News Sentinel: Senators must stop blocking nominee [LINK]

TEXAS

KBTX: Focus at Four: Why refusing SCOTUS confirmation hearings could hurt GOP [LINK]

WEST VIRGINIA

Metro News : Sen. Manchin to hold Charleston town hall Thursday on Garland SUPCO nomination [LINK]

: Sen. Manchin to hold Charleston town hall on Garland SUPCO nomination [LINK] West Virginia Record : Sen. Manchin to host town hall meeting on U.S. Supreme Court nominee [LINK]

: Sen. Manchin to host town hall meeting on U.S. Supreme Court nominee [LINK] WSAZ : Manchin hears from West Virginia residents on Supreme Court nominee [LINK]

: Manchin hears from West Virginia residents on Supreme Court nominee [LINK] The Herald-Dispatch : Diane Mufson: Conservatives hurt themselves and the nation [LINK]

: Diane Mufson: Conservatives hurt themselves and the nation [LINK] Charleston Gazette-Mail: Manchin holds town hall on Supreme Court; Capito wants no hearings, no vote [LINK]

WISCONSIN

Wisconsin State Journal: Rabbi Bonnie Margulis: People of faith call on senators to consider court nominee [LINK]

The reason Democrats can simply round up editorials on this issue is because Republicans are dead wrong. Republicans made up excuses for their decision  made within hours of Justice Scalias death  to refuse to even hear an Obama nominee, but their excuses are pathetic. They are not even worth debating, because they are factually inaccurate, cherry picked deceptions, and blatantly lacking in substance.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made yet another very bad strategic decision in this case, but perhaps its fair to say after Newt Gingrich playing this role for President Clinton that Republicans see their only option as being the squealing, squawking hysterics making crap up and throwing it at the wall.

Democrats have been handed an electoral gift with this Republican decision, but it seems they are focused at the moment on forcing Republicans to act in the best interest of the country. The country does indeed need 9 justices on the Supreme Court. What a shame that Democrats, the press, and most of all the American people have to waste their energy forcing Republicans to do the most basic part of their jobs.
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Ted Cruz wants to curtail rights based on imaginary stuff in his Bible. At the end of February, Cruz even appointed a religious liberty advisory council composed of some of the biggest haters out there to help him single out those who dont deserve liberty; Donald Trump on the other hand, says  and has proven  that you dont need the Bible to take away liberties.

There isnt a lot to choose between them. As Trump says, Cruz puts down his Bible and lies, but Trump doesnt bother with a Bible and goes right to the lies. Surprisingly, Evangelicals seem to like Trumps approach by appealing to their bigotries. Theyve proven theyre willing to set their Bibles down for a minute for an opportunity to indulge in hate of the constructed other, from blacks to Mexicans to Muslims and others.

And women.

Cruzs so-called religious liberty advisory council recommends, as part of a list of 15 items, that he Direct the Department of Health and Human Services to eliminate its requirement that all employers include coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures.

The Republican War on Women has been in full force for years now, with womens reproductive rights on attack at both the state and national level. But though Donald Trump is a misogynist and as Sarah Jones said here yesterday, his contempt for women has made him a frontrunner, Ted Cruz has given the war on women pride of place in his platform.

Cruz has planned for himself a big Day One at the White House, and it matters less how feasible his plan is than what his plan says about the course his administration would follow: total war on all the enemies the Religious Right has identified over the decades since its inception in the wake of Goldwaters 1964 defeat.

If I am elected president, let me tell you about my first day in office, he said at the Fox News debate on August 6.

The first thing I intend to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by Barack Obama.

The next thing I intend to do is instruct the Department of Justice to open an investigation into these videos and to prosecute Planned Parenthood for any criminal violations.

The second item on his list is, however, problematic from a legal standpoint. Presidents dont get to order investigations. As has been pointed out, this is what got Nixon into trouble. The president cant order; he can only ask.

But Cruz has already proven he doesnt understand how the Supreme Court works (or even that the Constitution mandates it), let alone how the Senate in which he serves functions. We shouldnt expect him to understand details related to the executive branch.

So what Cruz plans to do as president is to break the law to undo what he says are instances of President Obama breaking the law. He promises us a reign of lawlessness and immorality that will attack all Americans who dont subscribe to his extreme and very narrow view of Christianity.

He promises, in other words, a religious reign of terror.

Cruz will run into similar problems in his quest to get rid of Common Core, since neither the federal government in general nor the Department of Education in particular have anything to do with whether Common Core is taught or not.

But hey, ignorant voters love to hear ignorant things from their candidates. It works for Trump, so why not for Cruz? Simple solutions to fake problems is the Republican credo.

Some of the things he says we can just laugh at, because they expose to all his very childish understanding of how things work. But our laughter should not lead us to think he is not dangerous, and that the things he promises to do will not harm millions of people.

Republicans pretend we live in a post-racist society while they prosecute their war on black Americans. Likewise, they pretend there is no inequality between men and women as they support paying women less and proposing that based on their religious beliefs that a bunch of men should get to decide what is best for women where their reproductive health is concerned.

Fox News Todd Starnes on Thursday called Cruzs religious liberty advisory council a faith-based Justice League. He says that, if Cruz follows their suggestions, American Christians will be able to sleep soundly at night.

Unfortunately, theyre the only ones who will be able to sleep at night.

These are not laughing matters. These are attacks on American liberties based on a false understanding of a book Cruz and most of his cronies dont even read, let alone understand. Ted Cruz says his Bible gives him the right to do anything he wants, and that is pretty much what he has promised to do.

And he is looking right at your wives, your mothers, your sisters and your daughters when he says it.
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By this summer, the Guam Department of Education hopes to have solar energy systems installed in four leased schools owned by the Guam Education Financing Foundation. The projects are nearly three years in the making, with the legislative action mandating GDOEs procurement of solar power having been enacted in November 2013.

The final hurdle to the process, the approval of the Consolidated Commission on Utilities, was overcome Tuesday night with a unanimous vote from commissioners. The attorney general had instructed the education department to seek the CCUs approval before moving forward with any power purchase agreements.

Guam Power Authority General Manager John Benavente had cited several concerns with an initial PPA between GDOE and GEFF submitted around November 2015. A main contention then was the base-year price of 23 cents per kilowatt hour.

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According to law, any solar contract with GDOE must be within 80 percent of GPAs current billing for the school or campus. A more appropriate price would have been around 19 cents per kilowatt hour, Benavente said at the time.

A renegotiated PPA was submitted to the utility in February with a base-year price set at around the recommended amount as well as clarifications or modifications to provisions based on GPAs input. During a work session in March, Benavente stated that upon review, the new PPA complied with law.

Approval

GDOE Superintendent Jon Fernandez said the PPA must now be turned over to the Office of the Attorney General for her approval before sending the contract to the governor for execution.

Well get the (solar systems) started and installed over the summer, I would hope, Fernandez said. Given all the time it has taken to get to this point, I believe that (GEFF) has already lined up the financing and has developed a plan of action. So the minute we get approval, we can execute quickly.

While Benavente stated that the PPA now complied with law, he also said he was unsure if the contract was negotiated to the best prices. The PPA contains an escalator of 1.5 percent annually. In November 2015, Benavente said escalators in the current market hover around 0.5 percent.

Fernandez said GDOE appreciated GPAs input with solar acquisition, as reflected by the new contract, but he added that both entities were in the same boat with regard to challenges revolving around renewable energy.

We know that GPA is going through its own struggles trying to determine how best to approach renewable energy, Fernandez said. I like the fact that they are allowing us to move forward so we can go as partners and try and figure out how best to provide renewable energy to the island.

The GEFF PPA will serve as a precursor to potential PPAs with other landlords. Fernandez said the solar systems at the GEFF schools will be able to provide data in the following years that demonstrate how much is saved by using renewable energy.

Its not just about saving money, he added. I like the fact that we can demonstrate some progressive thinking about energy and show our students were not just talking about sustainability but were trying to be partners in it.
Its still very early in the 21st century, but Power Line is ready to bestow its coveted Green Weenie Award for the whole century right now to the Rockefeller family, on account of the announcement yesterday that the Rockefeller Family Fund will divest itself entirely of all of its ExxonMobil stock.

Power Line thinks ridding themselves of the very company from which the entire familys fortune originated more than a century ago is the least the Rockefellers can do. Since John D. Rockefeller was the original robber baron climate criminal, every Rockefeller should immediately disgorge all of their assets and redistribute them to the victims of climate change everywhere. Im sure Kenneth Feinberg is available to organize the redistribution.

Reuters reports:

In a letter posted on its website, the fund said Exxons conduct on climate issues appears to be morally reprehensible.

Nowhere near as morally reprehensible as continuing to live off the assets piled up on all the greenhouse gasses in the air generated by Rockefeller-founded enterprises. If it is morally reprehensible to continue to make petroleum products, it is equally reprehensible to keep the gains from that same enterprise in the past. Time for the Rockefellers to cough up climate reparations!
When politicians sanctimoniously advocate positions that everyone knows are the opposite of the ones they would take if the partisan setting were flipped, they reinforce the contempt Americans feel towards them as a class. The dispute over whether to hold hearings for and/or to confirm Merrick Garland is a case in point.

Both sides are guilty to some degree of advancing positions they would denounce if the shoe were on the other foot  that is, if Judge Garland were the conservative nominee of a Republican president being blocked by a Democrat-controlled Senate. But most Republicans avoid full-fledged hypocrisy by relying mainly on past practice and past statements by Democrats about how the confirmation process should work (or not work). Democrats, by contrast, argue from alleged constitutional and other first principles  ones they rejected when the shoe was on the other foot.

Chief among the Democrats who rejected the principles they now advance is Vice President Joe Biden. Ed Whelan reminds us that, in a Senate floor statement he read (ineptly) in June 1992, then-Senator Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that if a Supreme Court vacancy were to arise while the political season [i.e., presidential campaign] is underway, President George H.W. Bush should follow the practice of the majority of his predecessors and not nominate anyone to the vacancy until after the election. Biden added that if President Bush were to ignore that advice, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling a hearing until after the election.

Yesterday, Biden tried to talk his way around the fact that the position he takes regarding the Garland nomination contradicts the position he took in 1992. He claimed that the unequivocal bottom line of his 1992 Senate floor speech was that if the president consults and cooperates with the Senate, or moderates his selections, then his nominees may enjoy my support. According to Biden, I made it absolutely clear that I would go forward with the confirmation  process as chairman, even a few months before [the] presidential election if the nominee were chosen with the advice and not merely the consent of the Senate. He also claims that at the time I was speaking of the dangers of nominating an extreme candidate without proper Senate consultation.

Bidens attempt to explain away his 1992 obstructionism tracks the argument made by Igor Volsky of Think Progress. Jonathan Adler dismantled the argument a month ago:

Yes, Biden did make those additional remarks [about possibly confirming a nominee chosen with the advice of the Senate or a moderate], but he also preceded them by explaining he was discussing how [the nomination] process might be changed in the next administration, whether it is a Democrat or a Republican. He further added that he was describing what should occur after this next election, particularly if such an election were to produce divided government. And lest there be any confusion about what Biden was talking about, he began his speech by noting he planned to address both the question of what should be done if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs this summer in addition to four general proposals for how . . .the nomination and confirmation process should be changed for future nominations.

In other words, Biden didnt back off from his obstructionist position about considering an election year nominee for the Supreme Court by President Bush. Instead, he talked about how the nomination and confirmation process might be changed after the next election.

Its bad enough when politicians argue hypocritically about something as serious as the Supreme Court confirmation process. Its much worse when the Vice President of the United States speaks dishonestly about the matter.

UPDATE: Ed Whelan has more on this subject here.
My friend Kathy Kersten wrote the devastating column featured in the Star Tribune this past Sunday on disorder in the St. Paul public schools following from the directives of the Obama administration. Kathys column was published as The school safety debate: Mollycoddle no more. I drew attention to Kathys column in Kerstens discipline. Paul reviewed the column at length in The war on standards in Twin Cities schools.

Yesterday the Star Tribune published a sort of self-refuting, parodic counterpoint to Kathys column by Annie Mogush Mason and Jillian Peterson. Mason is lecturer and coordinator of elementary teacher education at the University of Minnesota; Peterson is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University. It is telling that the Star Tribune presents no school official speaking up in response to her column. The Mason/Peterson column suggests why. Judging by their column, response requires that we enter the Onion Zone. For example:

As Katherine Kersten pointed out (Mollycoddle no more, March 20), circumstances in some of our schools are indeed disturbing. Nobody should feel scared at school. However, addressing violent behavior in a vacuum is shortsighted.

Children do not become violent simply because a consequence at school was not strong enough. We have to consider the circumstances that lead to violent behavior, and the many ways in which society and its institutions are implicated. By taking this approach, the St. Paul Public Schools have chosen a long-range perspective toward school discipline that positions us for a safer and healthier future for all.

When children act out at school, they are communicating something about their conditions. Communicating about our basic needs is an incredible human capability. We understand this in infants, and we learn to interpret their cries so we can give them what they need. Older children still need deep relationships with adults who can interpret their more subtle cries. So, when children go to drastic lengths to show their discontent, we have to look carefully at their conditions, while we find humane ways for them to learn from their mistakes.

The root causes of what some call antisocial or maladaptive behavior in young people are complicated and multifaceted. Centuries of inequities have led to the fact that students of color and other marginalized students disproportionately face unjust circumstances. These include early-childhood trauma, exposure to violence, substance abuse, and lack of access to mental health services. Identifying any one of these as a root cause of a childs behavior doesnt work.

For example, the argument that single parenting causes antisocial behavior fails to acknowledge that living in poverty is actually the more powerful variable. We would better serve individual children and society as a whole if we focused our efforts on combating poverty instead of condemning individuals who have landed in impoverished conditions. Complex problems require complex solutions.

Additionally, it is important to acknowledge the role of adult behavior and attitudes in how we make distinctions among different childrens behavior. Specifically, educational research has demonstrated the exorbitant disproportionality in responses to black boys behavior compared with behavior of children from other racial and gender categories. Black boys tend to receive more restrictive punishments and are more likely to be labeled as troublemakers than other students exhibiting the same behaviors.

Regardless of what the child is being punished for, detention and suspension do not work. They dont change behavior; they make it worse. Psychology studies have shown the profound impact of labeling children as deviant or abnormal on future antisocial behavior. Criminal justice studies have shown that a threat of punishment has little influence on impulsive violence and that sending children to jail increases the likelihood that they will reoffend. School policies that push marginalized children into the criminal justice system often start them down a path that they do not escape (i.e., the well-documented school-to-prison pipeline).
This past Tuesday Judicial Watch released 276 pages of internal State Department documents obtained in one of its FOIA cases agains the State Department. Based on the documents, the Judicial Watch press release states that within two days of the terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate, then Libyan National Congress President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf asked to participate in a Clinton Global Initiative function and meet President Clinton. Judicial Watch notes that the meeting between the Libyan president and Bill Clinton had not previously been disclosed. Judicial Watch also notes that the documents show that Secretary of State Hillary Clintons staff coordinated with the Clinton Foundations staff to have her thank Clinton Global Initiative project sponsors for their commitments during a Foundation speech on September 25, 2009.

The press release adds context and details in a straightforward fashion without much in the way of editorial comment. It is worth reading in its entirety. At his Washington Post PostPartisan blog, Ed Rogers explicates the text as follows:

Judicial Watch released a batch of documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that it says reveals blatant coordination between then-Secretary of State Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Stunningly, the internal State Department emails expose Clintons eagerness to thank [Clinton Foundation] supporters for their commitments. Of course, these commitments must mean money. Its incredible. And, Clintons State Department was apparently coordinating meetings for Bill Clinton with foreign heads of state. If any other employee at the State Department had arranged such meetings for their spouse and actively thanked contributors to their spouses foundation, they would likely go to jail. No lawyer would even let it go to trial, because the sentencing guidelines would guarantee years behind bars. Another way to think about what was going on is to imagine that another countrys foreign ministers spouse or family ran a foundation that American companies were caught giving to. Those American companies would certainly be vulnerable to prosecution by the Justice Department under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Its only because Hillarys last name is Clinton and because she is the Democratic front-runner for president that she isnt already being prosecuted for something or another. For anyone else at the State Department, their conviction and sentencing would produce only a matter-of-fact, back-page reference in The Washington Post.

Barack Obama has given us the one-man rule that is the necessary condition of a banana republic. Even before her election as president, Hillary Clinton has added the big-league corruption that is its hallmark.
Ammo Grrrll calls this one MAN O WAR. She writes:

Many years ago, I went to Hawaii with my teenage son and his friend. For the friend, it was his first time in an ocean. We were all swimming and laughing and having a grand time, when suddenly his friend screamed in agony. He had been stung by a Portuguese Man O War. Supposedly, it is one of the worst pains on earth that you will survive.

One of the beach bums rushed up and told my son to Quick, bra, go pee on the sting.

I dont know whether this would have worked or not because, for some reason, the kid declined the treatment. But it got me thinking: HOW did this idea originate?

Did some poor wretch think, Boy, my leg hurts like a son-of-a-gun, I wonder if it would feel any worse if someone peed on it?

Speaking of terrible pain, I have heretofore not really weighed in on the Presidential contest except to say that I will vote against Hillary or Bernie no matter who is nominated on the Republican side. That is still true. I voted for McCain and Romney, too, and am not sorry. However imperfect they were, they were light-years better than what we got.

All comedians have a higher than normal need to be loved and I have been reluctant to attract the kind of vitriol and name-calling that has become an unfortunate new wrinkle on this site. I want everyone to look forward to my little Friday posts and not hate me for being beautiful. No, wait, thats a cosmetic ad. There is a vanishingly small chance of that. I dont want people to hate me for picking a different candidate from the one they are enamored with.

It would be hard to define a retired comedian of late, late middle age, roadkill on the Information Highway, swearing in front of a Windows 8 computer in a Dusty Little Village in Arizona as part of the Establishment. But stranger invective has been hurled. So let me share my honest, sorrowful misgivings about this contest.

I am not biting my lip as I tell you this, but I feel your pain. We have been stung mightily by the last 8 years, not by a Man O War, heaven forbid with his Nobel Peace Prize and all, but by a Pouty-Pants of Fundamental Transformation. Who, in my opinion, is a vicious anti-Semite and anti-white racist to boot. And we have also seen the Republicans betray us again and again, not closing the border, not making government smaller, not reversing Obamacare, not doing a single thing they were elected to do. It is damn depressing.

So, initially, I thought Trump, in all his bombast and ego, in all his willful ignorance, was a breath of fresh air. And then he attacked John McCains war record as a loser; he made a sophomoric reference to Megyn Kellys period; he said American soldiers would commit war crimes for him; he says he will be neutral on Israel; he channeled Code Pink in attacking W over Iraq; he called Michelle Malkin born stupid, and he is even backpedaling from his biggest selling point for me, closing the border.

And I wonder: is he the political equivalent of peeing on the sting? Do we hurt so bad that we will accept any remedy? Lord knows, he has assured us he has the impressive equipment to pee on us. And if theres anything I look for in a President, its a distinguished member. How well I remember the history lesson in which George Washington took time from crossing the Delaware to send tracings of his fingers to a snotty reporter who had called them stubby. Maybe that was someone else. History, like math, is hard.

On the other hand, we have a choice between voting for Trump who MIGHT close the border, who MIGHT be pro-Second Amendment, and Kasich who has already announced that theres not a snowballs chance in hell that he will do anything but grant amnesty to everybody in the first 100 days. And the gun-grabbing, open-borders Democrats. Chelsea has just promised her Mommy will give all illegals free medical care. Yall come, hear?

And Mr. Cruz? I have already voted early for him here in Arizona. But I am not thrilled that a fellow Senator  even one as repulsive as Lindsey Graham  has said Cruz could be killed on the floor of the Senate and, if the perp were tried in the Senate, he would not be convicted. Good grief! Is that just because hes not a go-along to get-along guy who is trying to upset their shell game? Or is it something more fundamental about his personality that will bode ill for the general election?

So, correct me if Im wrong, my friends, but it looks to me like the survivors who havent been voted off the island include: a crooked, lying harridan who may soon be living in a new gated community, i.e., prison; a wacky, elderly commie who thinks we should manufacture just one brand of deodorant; a liberal loose cannon with a fluffy, orange comb-over; and a wicked-smart but weird, conservative guy nobody likes who reminds my friend John Hinderaker of Richard Nixon!

Ive been reading lately that sitting is really bad for us. So I think Ill lie down. Wake me when its over.
President Muhammadu Buhari has apologised for dissolving governing councils of universities along with the boards of parastatal agencies.

Mr. Buhari offered the apology during the National Executive Council meeting of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja on Thursday.

He said: We gave a blanket order which we had to rescind when we said all boards are suspended or dissolved.

We had to go back and lick our vomit in terms of universities councils because we found out that according to their laws, they cannot choose vice chancellors unless the councils sit and interview candidates who want to be VCs.

So, there is nothing wrong in saying sorry and going back on your decision. So, we said sorry and allow all the universities to continue with their councils.

So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves.

Mr. Buhari said the government had made progress in security as 14 out of the 774 local governments seized by insurgents had been recaptured.

He said his government had been able to recover more than three trillion naira by insisting on the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The policy we are trying to implement is TSA when we insist that we have to know what comes in and what goes out for us to make a comprehensive amendment to the economy.

If you go and see the Central Bank Governor, he will tell you that in the TSA, we have more than N3 trillion. Where would this money have been if TSA was not in vogue?

I was made to understand that vouchers would have quickly been raised towards the end of the financial year and checks made whether they are going into projects or private pockets, nobody can prove it to you.

But that money is there, it is identified, if is quantified and when the budget comes back eventually, the Ministry of Finance will see how to allocate it to the rest of the country, he said.

Buhari also said that he had tried to ensure that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation be reorganised, so as to know how much of crude is taken, sold and to which account the money was going.

I tell you that up to the time we came, if anybody told you that he knows how much of crude exchanges hands either on the high sea or reaching their destination and the accounts the money goes into, that person is not telling you the truth.

We are getting the cooperation of countries that had received this crude. But we have to be sure of the facts in our hands before we start prosecution so that Nigerians will believe what we have been telling them.

I was telling a British team that came to supervise the training team they sent, that when I was in uniform, we took the perceived corrupt ones and put them in safe custody and quietly told them they were guilty until they can prove themselves innocent.

But now, under multiparty democratic system, I see some of them ride Rolls Royce, some of them have built estates here, but they are innocent until we can prove them guilty.

This situation is true and you dont need to stretch your imagination to find out.

If you can find out, you discover that a level eight officer has five houses, while you, as a Permanent Secretary or Commissioner is still living in a rented house.

That is the credible thing to do now. We have to get credible evidence to carry our successful prosecution and get judgment from the judiciary.

Effort is being made to give a list of recoveries in whatever currencies so far so that Nigerians will know that it is not all about long stories, he said.

He urged APC members to continue to make sacrifices, adding that when he came on board, he had to cut down on cost by reducing the 42 ministries to 24. (NAN)
Civil society leaders and lawyers have lambasted the management of the Central Bank of Nigeria for secretly recruiting dozens of family members of top government officials, including children of ministers and a nephew of President Muhammadu Buhari.

In separate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday, the activists demanded the immediate withdrawal of employment offers secretly awarded by the bank over several months to hundreds of beneficiaries  amongst them family members of serving and past government officials.

According to news website, SaharaReporters, the CBN hired children and relatives of politically-exposed Nigerians without advertising the positions to allow other Nigerians apply, as required by law.

What this thing has told us is that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others, said Achike Chude, Deputy Chairman, Joint Action Front.

And this is what we see in virtually every aspect of our national life.

This tells us once more that there are two Nigerias: a Nigeria for the rich, the powerful, and the influential, and a Nigeria for those who do not have privileges, who do not have what it takes.

Debo Adeniran, the Executive Director of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, said, It is a manifestation of the old order whereby people of privileged class are given undue advantage over others.

The Buhari administration must be seen to live up to its mantra of change and equal opportunity must be given to everybody.

The CBN had responded to the scandal by saying it did nothing illegal in hiring without advertising the positions, claiming the bank sought to employ specialists and therefore got a waiver to recruit without advertising.

The beneficiaries of the recruitment, according to a list released by SaharaReporters, include a nephew of President Buhari, daughter of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; son of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu; daughter of former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Naaba.

Others include the daughter of Nigerias Police Inspector-General, Solomon Arase; son of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Abdulrahman Danbazzau, among others.

Isaac Okoroafor, CBNs acting Director of Corporate Communications had told PREMIUM TIMES, that the bank got a waiver from the Federal Character Commission, allowing them to recruit with advertising.

In the last two years, we have had cause to recruit specialists, and what the law says is that if we are going for that kind of recruitment we should apply for waiver, so that we can do targeted recruitment, Mr. Okoroafor said.

But Monday Ubani, former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja chapter, said those who were recruited without advertisements ought to be shown the door.

The law says there must be a proper advertisement of vacancies for such positions and every Nigerian should be in a position to compete for such a very sensitive position. And it should reflect federal character, said Mr. Ubani.

Mr. Ubani also said the manner of the recruitment showed a faulty process and that something is hidden.

Why will you go and begin to head-hunt only big mens children into the banking sector? That is discriminatory, that is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. That is nepotism of the highest order.

Olanrewaju Suraju, Chairman of Civil Society Network Against Corruption, called on the CBN to make public the provisions of the law that allowed the Federal Character Commission to grant it employment waiver.

It is the beginning of accountability in the process, though the response from the CBN is still very ludicrous in terms of saying that they are catchment areas under federal character and that they deliberately refused to advertise, Mr. Suraju said.

It is a challenge to the current government to ensure that they probe the recruitment process and if it is found to have violated any of the extant laws, then they need to actually sack all those that are beneficiaries of the recruitment.

Thereafter they should conduct a highly publicised recruitment process that gives access to every other person that is qualified.

Last week, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project gave an ultimatum to the CBN to withdraw the letters of employment it issued to the beneficiaries of the seriously flawed recruitment process.

Adetokunbo Mumuni, Executive Director, SERAP, said the procedure for engaging people into public institutions is to make adequate notice and then allow eligible Nigerians to compete for positions.

We are talking about equity, justice, and fairness to all Nigerians, Mr. Mumuni, a lawyer, told PREMIUM TIMES.

It doesnt matter to me if the cousin of the president was eventually chosen, provided the process was fair and all other Nigerians were also allowed to compete on the same level.

Why would it be that you want to recruit into a body as important as CBN and some Nigerians who are also equally qualified, even more qualified than those that were eventually selected will not know about it? That is short-changing an overwhelming population of Nigeria.

Mr. Mumuni said the waiver granted the CBN by the Federal Character Commission was a violation of the Constitution.

The Federal Character Commission cannot be superior to whatever the Constitution provides, he said.

The Constitution says you cannot conduct the business of the any institution of government in Nigeria in a matter that deprives some Nigerians the opportunity to participate.

In any case, the Federal Character Commission itself is a creation of the Constitution and the Federal Character Commission cannot give a waiver that flouts express constitutional provisions. So that waiver is an illegal waiver.

SERAP had given the CBN a 14-day ultimatum to put in place a system of recruitment based on non-discrimination and transparency or face legal action.

We have evidence that we had written to them, we have evidence that the letter is with them, all that remains is that we wait for them to react. But we wont wait for them forever, said Mr. Mumuni.

Like we said in our letter, if nothing happens positively as we expected, in the interest of overwhelming majority of Nigerians, we would go to court and test this matter there.

So they would come and put it as part of their defence, that the Federal Character Commission gave them a waiver, then well take it from there.
The Nigerian Army says 16 women and girls abducted on Wednesday in Madagali, Adamawa State, by suspected Boko Haram militants, have been rescued.

The Public Relations Officer of 28 Task Force Brigade Mubi in Adamawa, A.O. Fadare, said troops rescued the women while pursuing their abductors, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

Mr. Fadare did not give the number of those rescued.

I am still trying to verify from Madagali as you know, the operation is still on, he was quoted as saying.

Local sources had told PREMIUM TIMES some of the women were taken from a bush where they had gone in search of firewood. Others were seized from a river while fishing.

Those abducted included 14 women and two girls.

A source said two women managed to escape the abductors by pretending to have drowned.

The two women who are in real state of trauma told us that the suspected Boko Haram insurgents had a field day carting away the women when their escorts ran away for their dear lives, the source said.

He said two vigilante operatives who escorted the women to the bush fled on sighting the heavily armed men, who arrived good numbers.

They left the women to their own devices as the gunmen were left unchallenged leading to the abduction of the said women, the source said.

Confirming the incident, the member representing Michika/ Madagali Federal constituency, Adamu Kamale, said, I just received the shocking news to the effect that about 16 women have been abducted by Boko Haram.

We have been witnessing pockets of attacks contrary to the belief that security has been fully restored in the area. As a member of NASS (National Assembly), I have been calling for the deployment of security personnel but to no avail as the government seems to have relegated our concerns to the background.

The Police Public Relations Officer of Adamawa, Othman Abubakar, said on learning about the development, the command deployed officers to the affected area.

He said police were working round the clock to track down the abducted women and girls.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has announced that it would conduct fresh elections in areas where voting was disrupted in the violence-marred Rivers States polls of March 19.

However, the electoral body said in a statement Friday that it would never return for the fresh polls until there is an assurance of security and safety.

INEC said it would not endanger the lives of its personnel, journalists and observers and others involved in the exercise.

INEC will, at a date to be decided, conduct fresh elections starting with accreditation and voting in all Local Government Areas, Constituencies, Registration Areas and Polling Units where the exercise was disrupted before voting was concluded on Saturday 19th March, 2016, the statement signed by INECs Director of Voters Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, said.

Even so, the commission said this would only be after due consultation with parties involved, and subject to the advice of the security agencies and guarantees by the political parties, candidates and their supporters.

While the Commission is committed to conducting free, fair and credible elections, it hereby reiterates its resolve not to return to Rivers State (or anywhere else where there was a breakdown of law and order in the cause of conducting elections) until there is a conducive atmosphere for the conduct of credible elections. As a responsible organization, it will not expose its stakeholders especially voters, its officials, observers, media personnel to any danger and even where dates have been fixed and published, it will not hesitate to again suspend the exercise where there is a clear danger or credible threat of a breakdown of law and order, INEC said.

The All Progressives Congress had called for total cancellation of elections in Rivers State.

But INEC said it would uphold results already declared.

The Commission restates its earlier decision to uphold the declarations and returns made in the Federal and State Constituencies where the exercise had been concluded.

Similarly, the Commission will conclude and make returns in constituencies where it is satisfied that voting and collation were done in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act and our Guidelines, INEC said.

Although INEC said it acknowledged that there were some challenges in its operational efficiency, especially as it concerns the production and customization of the result sheets used for the conduct of the election, yet, it insisted no fake result sheet was used, dismissing allegations by PDP and APC.

The Commission wishes to emphatically state that there were no fake result sheets or any fake materials used in the conduct of the elections, it said.

INEC condemned the violence that characterised the elections.

The Commission condemns in no uncertain terms all those who have been spewing hate speeches and making incendiary statements, which no doubt exacerbated an already tense situation.

It will like to again commiserate with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the family, friends and colleagues of Samuel Dumebi Okonta, the Corps member who unfortunately lost his life in this patriotic service as a poll official. May his soul rest in peace.
The deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, has described the continued trial of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, as worrisome, saying there were flaws in the processes leading to the arraignment.

Mr. Frank said in a statement on Friday that it was dangerous that the leadership of the APC chose to sit on the fence and watch Mr. Saraki swim or sink in his trial.

I sincerely hold that the current trial of Saraki is not only underserved, but amounts to paying a good man with evil. I also want to say that the leaders of our great party have unfortunately remained quiet in the face of evil.

I dont believe we have forgotten that the victory of the APC during the last general elections could not have been possible without courageous strategists like Saraki who lent their political weight in favour of the APC at the risk of their own lives and personal survival, Mr. Frank said.

I dont think we have forgotten how Saraki as a Senator in the 7th Senate brought the attention of Nigerians to the fraud perpetrated by the the last administration in the name of fuel subsidy.

I dont think we have forgotten so soon how Saraki led five other governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the APC  a development that successfully turned the political tide against the PDP and eventually tipped the electoral scale against them during the 2015 general elections.

I dont think we have forgotten how Saraki led scores of Senators to cross over to the APC on the floor of the Senate.

I dont think we have also forgotten what he gave of his time, personal resources and energy to ensure that the APC emerged victorious both at the National, State and Local Government level, he said.

Mr. Saraki is facing a 13-count charge of alleged false declaration of assets.

On Thursday, the Code of Conduct Tribunal rejected Mr. Sarakis argument that the case against him was flawed, and ordered the trial to continue.

Mr. Frank wondered how the case of Mr. Saraki was being treated differently at the CCT, which in 2011 struck out the case against one of the national leaders of the party because he was not given the opportunity to deny or admit the alleged discrepancies in his asset declaration forms in line with Section 3(d) of the CCB/CCT Act unlike 11 other ex-governors who had similar cases of irregularities whose cases were dropped by the CCB after they were invited by the agency.

For the avoidance of doubt, Section 3(d) of the CCB/CCT Act which has been so undermined by the CCT in its Thursday ruling states that the CCB shall: Receive complaints about non-compliance with or breach of this Act and where the Bureau (not the AGF or EFCC) considers it necessary to do so, refer such complaints to the Code of Conduct Tribunal established by Section 20 of this Act in accordance with the provisions of Sections 20 to 25 of this Act: provided that where the concerned makes a written admission of such breach or non-compliance, no reference to the Tribunal shall be necessary'.

Mr. Frank said it was pertinent to mention that when the particular section of the Act was pleaded in the defence of one of the leaders of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria in 2011, the same chairman of the tribunal, Justice Danlandi Umar struck out the case for lack of jurisdiction to entertain the suit when he ruled that On Section 3(d), I feel compelled by the argument of the learned SAN for the accused. It is a condition precedent for referring a charge to this Tribunal that the Accused ought to have been invited to either deny or admit the allegations against him. This is missing in this case as the Complainant has no such evidence of a prior invitation. It would be proper for me at this stage to simply decline further exercise of jurisdiction having held that the co diction precedent to the instituting of charges against the Accused has not been complied with. I hereby resolve this issue in favour of the Accused

He added: It is based on the above precedent that I want to ask why Sarakis case is different? Why is the judiciary suddenly giving in to apparent blackmail from a section of the media by refusing to do their job as required by law?

Already the Senate President has told the world that the trial has nothing to do with corruption but that he is being persecuted for emerging as the Senate President. To me the ominous silence of our leaders since the day he was arraigned uphill now serves to validate the claims of the Senate President that he is being persecuted.

Or where else in the world will the number three citizen of a country be hurled before a tribunal over alleged irregularities in his asset declaration forms 13 years ago, and the hierarchy of the ruling to which he is a bonafide member will not come out to show solidarity or defend him?

If it is true that the trial of the Senate President is not borne out of genuine desire yo fight corruption but is being carried out for selfish political ends, then who is next?

I think the party need to be courageous enough to speak out against this unwholesome trend whose outcome will definitely not augur well for the overall development of our party and by extension the country at this hour.

Even the holy scriptures admonish us not to muzzle the (ox) that thresh the corn. Saraki has paid his dues at a time it was suicidal for anybody to stand up against to the then ruling PDP. I believe it is time for all of us to act to save our party. It is time to rally round our generals who have fought valiantly and led us to victory. To abandon Saraki is to abandon a worthy comrade, he said.
Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has described the just concluded National Economic Council (NEC) retreat as mere jamboree and waste of over N250 million public fund.

The retreat has further exposed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of President Mohammadu Buhari lacked economic blueprint as the president is still talking the way he talked while seeking for votes from Nigerians, the governor said Friday through a statement by by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.

The governor said it was funny that the same set of people, who as governors, ruined the economy of their states were the resource persons at the retreat, asking; What solution can the likes of former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who as governor plunged the State into unprecedented debt by borrowing money to build governors lodge, pavilion and uncompleted civic centre proffer to the economy of

Nigeria?

Mr. Fayose said, It is strange that close to one year after President Buhari was sworn in, he still cannot tell Nigerians one major economic step his government has taken to salvage the economy. He has not taken any key step and there is no economic team. That is strange!

I was at the retreat and I can tell Nigerians categorically that it was just a jamboree. It was a waste of over N250 million public fund because most of the resource persons were the same people who ran their States aground.

Instead of wasting over N250 million on such a jamboree, it would have been better if the fund is given to those downtrodden Nigerians, who are trading with as little as N5,000.

For instance, at N10,000 each, N250 million will go round 25,000 pepper sellers whose capital is not more than N5,000 and that would go a long way in boosting their trade.

Even most governors, including those of the APC, were not happy with the economic retreat. Almost everything they proposed was opposed by the governors.

Also, the president in presenting himself as APC president alone and

speaking as if he was still canvassing votes, chose the retreat to tell the 22 states governed by the APC to build 250,000 housing units per annum. The question is which state in the present Nigeria can build 10,000 housing units per year?

To me, the Federal Government appears not ready to face reality. The economic retreat sounds like another talk shop retreat and a clear indication that APC and President Buhari did not have an economic blueprint even when it took two months after winning election for the

president to assume office.
Inegite Jonathan, 72, uncle and foster father to former president Goodluck Jonathan, says his abductors treated him well.

The Septuagenarian told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Bayelsa that his abductors gave him a preferential treatment before setting him free.

The older Jonathan was abducted by gunmen on Feb. 17, but was released this week after 35 days in captivity.

Mr. Jonathan said he was allowed to open his face while others were blind folded.

I was properly taken care of by the kidnappers. I eat three square meals daily, my drugs was administered to me appropriately by the boys, he said.

The chief said they even asked other kidnapped victims with him to start paying allegiance to him as the only person that was untouchable in the camp.

He said before they started treating him well, they argued between themselves from his house but on getting to the camp they resolved their issue.

However, the Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Asinim Butswat, said details of the release were not available.

Former President Jonathan had told the police that he would not succumb to the demand for ransom.

Mr. Jonathan and his wife, Patience, visited the chief shortly after his release.

(NAN)
The Divisional Police Officer in Eket, Abdulkadir Jamal, on Friday confirmed that four people died in a cult clash in Eket, in Akwa Ibom.

Mr. Jamal told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Eket that police were investigating the cause of the clash.

U.S. oil major ExxonMobil operates in Eket.

We were informed and investigation is going on in the cult clash which led to the killing of members of the cult groups in Eket, Mr. Jamal said.

He called on residents to always give information to the police to help them to arrest criminals.

Mr. Jamal called on youth to stay away from crime, saying that criminals would always be made to face the wrath of the law.

A NAN correspondent reports that the bodies of the dead could be seen at various locations in Eket.

A source, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that the clash was between Junior Vikings Confraternity and the rival Axe Men Confraternity.

The source explained that trouble started at a notorious night club on Ataobong Road in Eket and spilled over to Rescue Point at St. Gregorys area off Liverpool Street.

The fracas started at Liverpool Street, opposite St. Gregorys Primary school area, called Forty-Forty Drinking Parlour.

The Axe guy harassed the Junior Vikings boy who was with a girl at the beer parlour that is where the trouble started. 

The source recalled that a man, suspected to be a cultist, also died last week at Mobil Mart along the Eket-Oron Road, Eket.

He said that two persons similarly died on March 24 at Udo Umoh Street in Eket.

One of the bodies was found in his pool of blood along Udo Umoh Street, battered with machete cuts, while the other was found along Stadium Road, the source added.

(NAN)
( Read 10089 Times)

Chennai. Ashok Leyland Defense Systems (ALDS), has selected U.S. global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin, for pursuit of its Indian Armed Forces Light Specialist Vehicle (LSV) and Light Armored Multipurpose (LAM) vehicle programs.Lockheed Martins High Mobility Vehicle or Common Vehicle Next Generation (CVNG) will provide the base platform for this development effort. With the Indian Armed Forces looking to rapidly modernize their protected wheeled vehicle fleet, there could be numerous additional opportunities for this development effort beyond the LSV and LAM programs.Ashok Leyland, flagship of the Hinduja, will serve as the prime contractor, and provide a high-quality, cost effective manufacturing hub for global requirements of these vehicles and variants. As a licensed manufacturer of the CVNG, this opens up a huge opportunity for ALDS to globally export this vehicle platform and its variants as a Made in India product.Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Vinod K. Dasari, Managing Director of Ashok Leyland, said, As the largest provider of logistics vehicles to the Indian Army, Ashok Leyland has a strong portfolio in the defense sector. This partnership will not just further Indias ambitions under the Make in India program, but help us provide robust and meaningful solutions to armed forces across new domains and geographies. We are buoyant about the defense segment, and expect our play to increase manifold.Scott Greene, Vice President of Ground Vehicles for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said, Our CVNG is a proven and versatile multi-terrain vehicle currently in service around the world. We are excited about the opportunities that exist to offer the CVNG to India and beyond.Marking the occasion, Nitin Seth, President LCV and Defence at Ashok Leyland, said, We are happy to be working with a major defense company like Lockheed Martin on this development. A combination of their technical expertise and our proven vehicle platforms, will enable us to offer versatile solutions to armed forces across segments.Ashok Leyland is one of the countrys largest commercial vehicle manufacturers and a long-standing supplier of mobility solutions to the Indian Army. With a host of proven products currently in service with the Indian Army, the company is continuously looking to expand its portfolio into areas of need for the Indian Armed Forces.Lockheed Martin is one of the worlds premier global security and aerospace companies that  with the addition of Sikorsky  employs approximately 126,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




OAKDALE, Minn., March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) announced funding for another year of the ECMC Scholars Program. Students in this program are eligible to receive up to $6,000 in postsecondary grants.

Since the program was launched, nearly 2,800 students have benefitted from the mentoring and/or scholarships provided through the ECMC Scholars Program.

"The ECMC Scholars Program allows our students to pursue their goals and dreams, but your investment in our students reaches many more people than just the ten scholarship winners each year," said Karen Wiant, college and career center coordinator at Willamette High School in Eugene, Ore. "There is a ripple effect, about which you may not be aware. As each one of our potential ECMC Scholars goes through their training and steps to apply to college and scholarships, their friends are also inspired to try a little harderto reach a little fartherthan they would have before."

The ECMC Scholars Program was created to encourage underserved students to pursue postsecondary education. The departments of education in Virginia, Oregon and Connecticut (the states in which the program is active) each selected several public high schools to participate in the program according to need-based criteria. Then, counselors and teachers from each school identified students with the potential to succeed in college, but who may need extra motivation to work up to their potential. The majority of ECMC Scholars are the first in their families to attend college.

For more information about the ECMC Scholars Program, visit www.ecmc.org/students/scholars-program.html.

About ECMC

Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) is a nonprofit company that provides services in support of higher education finance as a guarantor in the Federal Family Education Loan Program. ECMC sponsors programs to help students and families plan and pay for college. We work with schools and loan servicers to lower student loan default rates, promote financial literacy, provide resources to support student loan borrowers to successfully repay their loans, offer a mentoring and scholarship program, sponsor free college access centers, and developed three curricula to support educators in reaching underserved populations. ECMC is headquartered in Oakdale, Minn.

SOURCE Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC)
"Eric brings 20 years of leadership experience back to Aviall," said Lynne Hopper, vice president Material Services within Boeing Commercial Airplane's Commercial Aviation Services. "He understands its core values, embraces the Aviall culture and shares Aviall's long tradition and passion for customer service. Eric is a proven leader, and his experience in international operations and general, business, defense and commercial aviation align very well with Aviall's strategic focus."

"I am honored to have been selected as Aviall's president and CEO. It is a privilege once again to be part of an organization that delivers the industry's highest quality products, services and innovative solutions to more than 26,000 customers and invests in developing the most talented team members in aviation," said Strafel. "We are an organization led by an 84-year-old purpose of 'proudly keeping the world in flight.' I will do my best to serve our original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners and customers by strengthening our team members' ability to fulfill that purpose."

Previous to his role at Autonomous Systems, Strafel was the senior vice president for Operations & Business Development at Aviall. In that role, he had executive leadership responsibility for Aviall's commercial and defense operations, including demand planning, procurement, warehouse operations, global quality and the Lean Six Sigma program.

Before his roles of increasing responsibility at Aviall, Strafel was the Vice President of Supply Chain Management for L3 Communications and held leadership positions with Honeywell International, Precision Conversions, and United Technologies. His international assignments included responsibilities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Strafel holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Binghamton University. He also is a member of the USA Leadership Corps, a national volunteer-based strategy consulting group that caters to the needs of emerging small businesses and nonprofits.

ABOUT AVIALL

Aviall operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company, supporting both commercial and defense business units within Boeing. Aviall is a leading solutions provider of aftermarket supply-chain management services for the aerospace and defense industries.

Aviall, which has headquarters in Dallas, is the world's largest provider of new aviation parts and related aftermarket services. The company markets and distributes products for more than 240 manufacturers and offers approximately 2 million catalog items from 40 customer service centers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Aviall also provides maintenance for aviation batteries, wheels and brakes, as well as hose assembly, kitting and paint-mixing services. The company offers a complete set of supply-chain and logistics services, including order processing, stocking and fulfillment, automated inventory management and reverse logistics to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and customers.

Follow Aviall on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160325/348111

SOURCE Aviall

Related Links

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DALLAS, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Now in its fifth year, the Immigrant Journey Awards recognize the most important contributions from the immigrant community to the civic and economic vitality of North Texas. Awards will be handed out in four categories  Immigrant Entrepreneur, Immigrant Professional Excellence, Immigrant Advocate, and Immigrant Spirit. The deadline for nominations is April 15, and the awards luncheon will be held on Friday, June 10 in Dallas. This year's keynote speaker is University of Texas at Arlington President, Dr. Vistasp M. Karbhari.

"Immigration is tremendously beneficial to the economic health and cultural wealth of Texas," says Ann Massey Badmus, immigration attorney and chair of the Immigrant Journey Awards program. "Immigrants make important positive contributions in every facet of life, from the business world to the public square. We see these annual awards as a way to celebrate all of those contributions and advocate immigrants throughout North Texas and beyond."

According to the Partnership for a New American Economy, more than 4 million Texas residents  about 16% of the population  were foreign-born as of 2013. Between 2000 and 2013, the immigrant population grew by an astonishing 45%.

It's hard to overstate the ongoing influence that immigrants have had on the health and vitality of the Lone Star State. At the leading research universities, over half of STEM graduates hail from outside the U.S. With an economy that's steadily moving toward greater reliance on technical professions, STEM education will become increasingly important. Meanwhile, in the commercial arena, immigrant-owned businesses account for $10 billion in annual income. That number, too, is only projected to grow, especially considering immigrants are twice as likely to start a new enterprise.

The Immigrant Entrepreneur Award is bestowed on an individual who has built a highly successful business in North Texas, and who sets a great example for other motivated entrepreneurs around the state and the nation. Immigrants who have made remarkable strides in a professional field are eligible for the Immigrant Professional Excellence Award. The Immigrant Spirit Award recognizes an elected official or other civic leader who has contributed substantially to the well-being of the entire community or region. Finally, the Immigrant Advocate Award is reserved for an individual, organization, business, or government entity that has made a powerful and positive impact on the welfare of immigrants via public advocacy.

The Immigrant Journey Summit and Awards coincides and is partnered with Immigrant Heritage Month, an opportunity for everyone to rally around the diversity of the country and celebrate our shared heritage as a nation of immigrants.

About the Immigrant Journey Summit and Awards

Presented by Dallas law firm, Cowles & Thompson, PC, the Immigrant Journey Summit and Awards celebrate outstanding immigrants and their advocates in the U.S. For more information and to submit a nomination, visit immigrantjourney.org.

Contact:

Ann Massey Badmus

Chair, Immigrant Journey Summit & Awards

901 Main Street, Suite 3900

Dallas, TX 75202

214-672-2161

Email

SOURCE Immigrant Journey Summit and Awards

Related Links

http://immigrantjourney.org


Legal-Bay has a presence on both coasts, and now, the company is offering some of the lowest rates and fastest approvals industry wide for residents in the state of Texas. The company specializes in all types of personal injury cases, car and truck accidents (as well as public transportation incidents and any motor vehicle accident), product liability, medical malpractice, structured settlements, police brutality, wrongful imprisonment, sexual harassment, as well as a variety of other cases not listed here.

Texas residents, if you have been injured in an accident by "no fault" of your own and you have suffered injuries as a result, you are automatically pre-approved for funding. Our free case evaluation costs you absolutely nothing to apply, and almost all of our accident cash advances fund within 48 hours or less, which means you could have your money within two days to start getting your life back on track. All you need is a lawyer, and even if your lawsuit has not yet been officially filed, we can still get you the cash assistance you need to pay your bills as soon as possible. Please visit the company's website, at http://lawsuitssettlementfunding.com/texas-lawsuit-funding.php for more information on Texas Lawsuit Funding, or to apply for pre-settlement funding today.

Legal-Bay is offering Texas Lawsuit Funding for TX residents in the following counties (as well as others not listed):

Harris

Dallas

Tarrant

Bexar

Travis

Collin

El Paso

Hidalgo

Denton

Fort Bend

Legal-Bay is offering Texas Lawsuit Funding for TX residents in the following cities (as well as others not listed):

Houston

San Antonio

Dallas

Austin

Fort Worth

El Paso

Arlington

Corpus Christi

Plano

Laredo

Chris Janish, CEO of Legal-Bay, commented on the company's announcement, "We are excited to announce our new Texas Lawsuit Funding division, and we want to remind residents that we are here to assist them with their lawsuit funding needs."

Plaintiffs or lawyers who wish to speak to a live agent who can answer any of your lawsuit cash advance questions, please call Legal-Bay's toll-free hotline, at: 877.571.0405.

For a full list of cases that Legal-Bay is actively funding, or to apply online, please visit the company's website at: http://lawsuitssettlementfunding.com/

Contact: Patty Kirby, COO/Head of Client Relations

Ph. 877.571.0405 Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Legal-Bay LLC

Related Links

http://lawsuitssettlementfunding.com


PHOENIX, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In the wake of the financial crisis, many lending institutions raised the bar impossibly high for small-business owners with big dreams but limited collateral. However, where some see risk, Meadows Bank sees opportunity. Its approach to lending, and looking beyond formulas to the true potential of a new business, has made Meadows Bank the largest community bank, Small Business Administration (SBA) lender in the U.S.

This is great news for Arizona entrepreneurs as Meadows Bank opened its first Phoenix branch this January located at 2141 East Camelback Road, Suite 100.

In fact, Meadows Bank itself is a small-business success story, which sets the tone of every deal that regional president, David Matthews, makes with his clients. Established in Las Vegas in 2008, Meadows grew quickly from $34 million in loans in 2008 to $466 million in 2015, with a lending capacity of $15 million per borrower. This is significant compared to other community banks, whose ceiling on loans is typically $3 million to $5 million per borrower.

Meadows has had an SBA loan production office in Phoenix for five years, but the Camelback branch is its first storefront, full-service location offering deposit and conventional loan products in addition to SBA loan programs. Meadows' vision is exemplified by the following success stories:

Joseph and Suzan Hughes , who dreamed of a day care facility called Smiles for Special Needs for intellectually disabled adults where they would learn about urban farming;

, who dreamed of a day care facility called Smiles for Special Needs for intellectually disabled adults where they would learn about urban farming; Tim Kelley , who dreamed of a chain of Spanish-immersion preschools called Little Big Minds to give toddlers across the city access to early bilingual education.

The Meadows team in Phoenix has built a devoted following by working as a true business partner, providing quick responses, guiding their clients through the application process, and staying involved for those crucial early start-up months when a trusted adviser is critical.

According to Meadows Bank president and CEO, Arvind Menon, this approach springs from the board of directors' personal experiences as small-business entrepreneurs.

"We think creatively in looking at deals and see market potential that another institution might overlook," said Menon. "Joseph Hughes is a perfect example of this. His son is intellectually disabled, so he already had a vision of what a truly unique adult day care experience should look likesomething that enables them to work the land and learn a skill. Joseph was renting a former doctor's office, which was an ideal location on two acres of land."

When Joseph and Suzan Hughes came to Meadows Bank, they had been in the building for two years, had made renovations to accommodate their clients' needs, and were already seeing growth. That was when the building's owner, an investment company, took advantage of the situation and threatened to sell.

"We had so much invested in that property so we had to try and buy it," said Joseph Hughes. "We needed a bank that would understand our long-term potential and that we didn't have much collateral."

"We heard about Meadows Bank through word of mouth," explains Hughes. "The first time we talked to their representative, I knew that we had come to the right place. Being able to buy the property at that time really saved our dream."

This was also the experience of Tim Kelley at Little Big Minds. With the support of Meadows Bank, Kelley has just opened his third location, capitalizing on the trend toward bilingual English to Spanish education.

"Meadows has been a champion for us," said Kelley. "We started with our first location, which was leased from the school district, and within a year, we had a waiting list. I bank at one of the other major banks in town but they weren't able to respond quickly and efficiently to our desire to grow. Meadows understood the enormous growth potential of the Spanish immersion trend. They also make life easier because their processes are different and they're not formulaic like the big banks. Working with Meadows, I could see us expanding statewide in the next few years."

"We are hands on so we get to know what our clients vision of success looks like," said Matthews. "We maintain consistent staff over the years so clients are always dealing with the same person, someone who has the ability to make decisions on the spot."

Arizona has been a goal for Meadows Bank since the bank was first established in Nevada. With owners who live and work in the southwest, the Meadows team understands the Southwestern business climate, regulations and political trade winds.

"We're really not a retail bank," said Menon. "Our target is business customers who need a go-to source that wants to grow from $2 million today to $15 million in three years. Because of our lending capacity, we're able to make this kind of difference in a business owner's short term plan, and have a huge impact on the Phoenix economy."

FACTS

Principals: Arvind Menon , President and CEO; Clay Wanta , EVP/Chief Credit Officer; Dave Matthews , Regional President

, President and CEO; , EVP/Chief Credit Officer; , Regional President No. 1 504 SBA lender in the U.S. among community banks in volume of dollars lent during fiscal year 2015

Bauer Financial Five-Star Bank.

DepositAccounts.com rates Meadows Bank #35 among 200 strongest of all banks in the country in terms of capital position, loan portfolio and growth. One of only 47 banks rated in its top 200 in two consecutive years.

Meadows Bank also provides US Department of Agriculture (USDA) loansamong the top USDA lenders.

Specializes in attorney financing, commercial investor lending, franchise lending, and companies that are expanding into other markets.

Arizona Facts according to 2015 analysis of Arizona banks done quarterly by the investment banking firm Hovde Group (See attached PDF.):

banks done quarterly by the investment banking firm Hovde Group (See attached PDF.): Meadows Bank is ranked No. 1 in terms of profitability with a return on average assets of 1.72 percent.

Meadows Bank is ranked No. 2 in efficiency.

Meadows Bank is ranked No. 3 in terms net interest margin at 5.13 percent.

Meadows Bank is ranked No. 3 in yield on loans at 5.93 percent.

Meadows is the fourth largest compared to all Arizona state chartered banks.

SOURCE Meadows Bank

Related Links

https://www.meadowsbank.bank


NEW YORK, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- If the line at Starbucks seems extra long on certain days of the month, it could mean that people share more than a collective craving for caramel macchiatos. They might also have the same payday.

According to new research from Michaela Pagel, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, and Arna Vardardottir of Copenhagen Business School, individuals across the income spectrum spend more on discretionary goods  things like clothes, entertainment, and fast-food meals  on days they get paid.

And we're not just talking ventis instead of grandes. By studying electronic payments made by consumers, the researchers found that more than half of the population increases their spending on paydays by over 25 percent, even after controlling for individual, day of the week, and day of the month fixed effects, which capture things like after work drinks with colleagues and increased spending around holidays. Individuals are more likely to go shopping and, once they're out, to spend more than they normally would  a double whammy for the pocketbook.

"According to standard economic theory, people make financial plans and budgets, but our research shows that people don't behave consistent with theory, especially on the day they receive their paycheck," explains Pagel.

Historically, economists have attributed such payday spending responses to a lack of cash on hand, due either to a lack of savings, as among the working poor, or to wealth being tied up in houses, cars, and investments, as among the more affluent.

However, the research authors say it may be a psychological response that causes people to spend on payday. Despite the income being totally expected, the influx gives consumers a momentary feeling of being flush with cash, leading them to splurge on more, and pricier, goods.

"Payday spending is a completely understandable behavior from a common-sense standpoint, but it doesn't make sense according to the economic models, which says people optimize their budgets across time," says Pagel. "So theoretically, you shouldn't see people consuming more just because they have more money one day  yet it happens."

The findings are based on studying five years of purchasing data (2011-2015) from Iceland  where nearly all payments are made electronically, making them easily traceable through the popular software application Meniga, which links all of an individual's banking and credit card accounts to provide a simple overview of income and spending.

To learn more about cutting-edge research being performed by Columbia Business School faculty members, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu.

About Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School is the only world-class, Ivy League business school that delivers a learning experience where academic excellence meets with real-time exposure to the pulse of global business. Led by Dean Glenn Hubbard, the School's transformative curriculum bridges academic theory with unparalleled exposure to real-world business practice, equipping students with an entrepreneurial mindset that allows them to recognize, capture, and create opportunity in any business environment. The thought leadership of the School's faculty and staff, combined with the accomplishments of its distinguished alumni and position in the center of global business, means that the School's efforts have an immediate, measurable impact on the forces shaping business every day. To learn more about Columbia Business School's position at the very center of business, please visit www.gsb.columbia.edu.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160126/326315LOGO

SOURCE Columbia Business School

Related Links

http://www.gsb.columbia.edu


SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) today named Shannon Wall president and publisher of the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi. She will assume her new role on April 1, 2016. Wall previously served as the Sun Herald's advertising director, overseeing multi-media sales and revenue development.

"Shannon has a strong track record of marketing and digital innovation," said Pat Talamantes, McClatchy's president and chief executive officer. "Her teamwork and passion for the Mississippi Gulf Coast will advance the Sun Herald's mission as the leading media company in the region."

Wall, 45, has been the Sun Herald's advertising director since joining the company in 2008. During her tenure she has been key to the media company's digital sales transformation and instrumental to the launch of Sun-Herald Media's highly-acclaimed Velocity Digital Agency.

"It is an exciting time in our industry as we continue the digital transformation. In my new role as publisher, I am honored to be working with such an accomplished newsroom," Wall said. "As a long time Coastal resident, I am proud of what the Sun Herald has meant to this community and will work diligently to maintain that tradition."

Wall replaces Glen Nardi, who announced his retirement in February. "Shannon has a deep understanding of the challenges businesses face as they adapt to this digital world," Nardi said. "In addition, she's lived and raised a family on the Coast for over 20 years. She has experienced the challenges and opportunities our communities face. These two qualities, in combination, make Shannon an excellent choice to be the Sun Herald's next publisher."

Shannon and her husband have four children, Matt, Collin, Raegan and Cameron.

About McClatchy

McClatchy is a 21st century news and information leader, publisher of iconic brands such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, the Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News and Observer, and the (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram. McClatchy operates media companies in 28 U.S. markets in 14 states, providing each of its communities with high-quality news and advertising services in a wide array of digital and print formats. McClatchy is headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.

SOURCE The McClatchy Company

Related Links

http://www.mcclatchy.com


Located eight miles east of O'Hare International Airport near Interstates 90 and 94, U-Haul Moving & Storage of Jefferson Park now offers moving van rentals; moving supplies and boxes; 432 indoor storage units, including 72 climate-controlled units and 78 humidity-controlled units for wine storage; 12 outdoor parking spots for vehicle storage with enhanced lighting; and a new front entrance for storage customers with load/unload area set to be completed this spring.

"What I'm most excited about is getting to know and meet the people of Jefferson Park," general manager Becky Rodriguez said. "I want them to know their valuables are safe and secure when they choose U-Haul."

The 0.73-acre property, built in 1972 and converted in 2012, has three levels and 31,019 square feet of storage space. It housed Chicago Northside Storage before U-Haul acquired it in August.

The acquisition of the Jefferson Park facility was driven by U-Haul Company's Corporate Sustainability initiatives: U-Haul supports infill development to help local communities lower their carbon footprint. Our adaptive reuse of existing buildings reduces the amount of energy and resources required for new-construction materials and helps cities reduce their unwanted inventory of unused buildings.

"We are excited to serve a new community closer to Jefferson Park," U-Haul Company of North Shore Chicago president Jamie Lee said. "Customers are enjoying the convenience of having this store in the neighborhood, and they're looking forward to seeing the future upgrades. This is a growing neighborhood and the store is a great addition to the area."

Jefferson Park is bordered by communities like Norwood Park, Forest Glen, Portage Park and Harwood Heights that will benefit from the proximity of the new U-Haul location.

Contact U-Haul Moving & Storage of Jefferson Park at (773) 663-4108 or visit the store. Hours of operation are from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Reserve equipment at uhaul.com or contact Reservations at 1-800-GO-UHAUL.

To learn more about U-Haul in the news and in your community, visit myuhaulstory.com.

Contact

Jeanne Rohrer

Jeff Lockridge

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-263-6194

Website: uhaul.com

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160325/348071

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090622/LA34860LOGO-b

SOURCE U-Haul
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Riyadh, March 19 : At least 19 Arab pilgrims were killed and 22 injured on Saturday in a bus accident on a road linking Saudi Arabia's holy cities Makkah and Madina.

Initial reports said that the bus driver fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle, Xinhua reported.

All the pilgrims were of the same Arab nationality, the exact country unknown, while the driver was an Asian.

Deaths of pilgrims in accidents occur frequently in Saudi Arabia which has high traffic fatalities, mainly because of over speeding and reckless driving.

According to a report published on Arab News last year, at least one traffic accident occurs in the kingdom every minute. Saudi Arabia witnesses up to 7,000 deaths and over 39,000 injuries per year.
Thiruvananthapuram, March 20 : Churches in Kerala on Sunday were crowded on account of Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

From Sunday to March 27, which is Easter Sunday, most of the Christians, even those with little devoutness, will turn vegetarian as that's the tradition.

"While I observe the 50-day Lent in the way it should be done, my husband does not. But during the Passion Week he cooperates with us and also turns a vegetarian," said Mariamma John, a homemaker, here.

Lent is a period of solemn Christians observance of about six weeks before Easter Sunday. And Passion Week is the period from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.

The Passion Week has special significance for Catholics who account for about half of 61.41 lakh Christians of Kerala.

In churches across Kerala on Sunday, palm leaves cut from coconut trees are being distributed to the faithful to commemorate Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem, when palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest and crucifixion on Good Friday.

"We have come back from the church carrying the palm leaves which we place it in front of the picture of Christ. The general practice is to return these leaves to the Church on Christmas Eve, when they are used to make a bonfire at a special place in the church," said Mary Thomas, a devotee.
Washington, March 25 : A federal judge in San Francisco gave Volkswagen an additional month -- till April 21 -- to come up with a solution for around 600,000 diesel vehicles sold in the US that were fitted with software to hide their real level of toxic emissions.

US District Judge Charles Breyer had earlier given VW till March 24 to present its solution for those 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter diesel automobiles, Xinhua reported.

In a hearing on Thursday in San Francisco, the German automaker and the US Justice Department told Breyer that intense negotiations were ongoing but that more time was needed, according to the media.

The judge agreed to extend his earlier deadline after acknowledging the progress made thus far.

If VW does not provide Breyer with a solution by April 21, he could move to hold a trial in his court on the matter in mid-2016.

In January, the US Justice Department sued Volkswagen for up to $46 billion over the rogue software installed on diesel vehicles sold in the US since 2008.

That software -- known as a defeat device -- detected when emissions testing was taking place and activated the cars' emissions controls.

When those same vehicles were being driven under normal conditions, the controls were turned off and they spewed up to 40 times the US' legally allowable amount of nitrogen oxides, which have been linked to lung and respiratory illnesses.
Beijing, March 25 : Chinese authorities have detained over 130 people linked to vaccine black marketing scandal, and found most of the vaccines concerned were transported and stored under inadequate conditions.

Police have confirmed that 30 drug distribution companies were found to be illegally trading the vaccines and selling them to 16 vaccination outlets, the China Daily reported on Friday.

The black market operations were headed by a mother-daughter duo from the eastern province of Shandong since 2011. They acquired vaccines legally or illegally and sold these to traffickers as well as health centres at higher prices.

The vaccines, worth $88 million, were not transported in the required conditions nor refrigerated adequately, and could cause disabilities and even deaths.

Li Guoqing, a division director of the China Food and Drug Administration, however, said that while the case has exposed lax supervision, there is no cause for panic.

This is the largest public health scandal to rock the world's second largest economy since 2008, when six babies died and 300,000 were affected by adulterated baby milk.
Lucknow, March 25 : The Imam of the al-Haram Masjid of the holy Kaaba Shareef in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Saleh bin Muhammed bin Ibrahim aal Talib, will be in India next week to attend a conference here, an Islamic seminary said here.

"The eminent cleric will be in the city on April 2 to attend an international conference on 'Islam and peace'," said an official of Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, the Islamic seminary here also known simply as 'Nadwa'.

The conference is being organised by Darul Uloom Nizamia Farangi Mahal, another Islamic seminary here.

Soon after his arrival, the cleric will lead the 'Maghrib' (sunset) prayer at Aishbagh Eidgah in older part of city and then proceed to attend the conference.

Islamic clerics from all over the country are likely to attend the conference, which will be presided over by cleric of Nadwa and Chairman of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Rabe Hasni Nadvi, the organisers said.

About five lakh people are expected to take part in the event, they said.
Chennai, March 25 : The DMK and the Congress held discussions here on Friday and decided to have further talks on seat sharing for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

A Congress delegation led by former union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik and Tamil Nadu Congress president E.V.K.S. Elangovan called on DMK president M. Karunanidhi.

On the DMK side, apart from Karunanidhi, party treasurer M.K. Stalin, senior leader Duraimurugan and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi were present.

Speaking to reporters, Azad said the subject of seat sharing came up but nothing was decided. He said the parties discussed the electoral strategy to be followed.

He said more time had been given to the DMK on the number of seats to be allotted to the Congress.

He said DMK was expecting a couple of more parties to join its front to fight the next month's Tamil Nadu assembly polls.

Stalin said the talks with Congress leaders were cordial.

In the 2011 elections, the Congress was given 63 seats by the DMK after some hard bargaining.

The DMK came out of the Congress-led central government in 2013, accusing New Delhi of not handling the Sri Lanka crisis well.

The two parties fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections separately in Tamil Nadu but drew a blank.
Chennai, March 25 : With five chief ministers in the last five decades from the movie world, the way to the political power in Tamil Nadu is through building up star power.

Five of the state's chief ministers - C.N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), Janaki Ramachandran and J. Jayalalitha - had their roots in filmdom, while several other actors showed an interest in politics.

And in the May 2016 assembly elections, there are three chief ministerial candidiates - incumbent J.Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK, DMK president M. Karunanidhi and DMDK founder A.Vijaykant - all with their roots in the movie world.

Apart from these three, the state has seen and is seeing several actor-turned-politicians like the late Sivaji Ganesan, R. Sarathkumar, T. Rajendar and M. Karthik who have floated their own parties.

There are several other actors like R. Ramarajan, Vagai Chandrasekhar, Napoleon, Kushboo, C.R. Saraswathi, Anantharaaj and others who have joined the AIADMK, the DMK and the Congress.

While Annadurai and Karunanidhi were involved in writing the story, screenplay and dialogues of movies, it was MGR who became the first actor-turned-chief minister.

Founder of the ADMK that later became the AIADMK, MGR showed the world the route to political power is also through his star power pull.

Movie actor N.T. Rama Rao also proved that in Andhra Pradesh by floating the Telugu Desam Party and capturing the chief minister's post.

Prior to floating the ADMK in 1972, MGR was with the DMK, which used his star power to capture political power. Movies starring MGR subtly promoted the DMK through songs and dialogues.

But then, a power struggle erupted in the DMK after Karunanidhi started projecting his first son M.K. Muthu in a big way. Expelled from the DMK, MGR fought back by successfully converting his huge fan base and fan clubs into a political party, the AIADMK.

Since then, this is the route being followed by other actor-turned-politicians.

With his carefully cultivated movie image of being poor-friendly and without any vices like drinking or smoking, MGR soon became the darling of the people.

The AIADMK not only ousted the DMK from power in 1977 but also kept it in the wilderness till MGR's demise in 1987.

After MGR's death, his wife Janaki Ramachandran, also an actor, became chief minister for a very brief period before governor's rule was imposed.

A power struggle between Janaki Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa - who was introduced to politics by MGR and also starred in several movies with him - saw the AIADMK breaking into two.

Subsequently the two factions merged under Jayalalithaa's leadership and AIADMK captured back power in 1991. Since then Jayalalithaa remains the undisputed leader of the AIADMK.

In 2005, Vijaykant, 63, an action hero known to perform stunts in movies without a duplicate, floated his DMDK party as an alternative to the two dominant Dravidian parties -- the AIADMK and the DMK.

When he fought the polls alone without aligning with any party, the DMDK notched up an impressive vote share, better than even the established MDMK and PMK.

As the DMDK's vote share can add muscle to any alliance, he is this time around the most sought after alliance partner by all opposition parties, the BJP included.

Called "Karuppu (Black) MGR" or Captain after his movie "Captain Prabhakaran", Vijaykant has acted in over 150 Tamil movies.

Though he was never the No.1 hero, he charted his own style in the movie world -- a fighter vanquishing terrorists and bad guys.

But then, that's what politics is all about - vanquishing your opponents!

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
New Delhi, March 25 : The condition of a Jet Airways' crew member who was injured in the Brussels terror attacks is stable, the airline said on Friday.

"We have spoken to Doctor Steven at the hospital where the crew member, Nidhi Chaphekar, is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that she is in a stable condition and not in coma," the airline said in a statement.

"She is resting and under sedation for her comfort," the statement said.

The airline disclosed details about Chaphekar's health after media reports claimed that she has been placed in a medically induced coma.

Chaphekar, a mother of two from Mumbai, was among two crew members of the airline who were injured in Tuesday's bomb blasts that rocked Brussels' Zaventem airport and killed more than 30 people.

A photograph showing the 40-year-old flight crew member of Jet Airways sitting dazed and bloodied, with her bright yellow uniform ripped, went viral soon after the airport blasts and become an iconic image of the attacks.

Chaphekar's husband, who flew from Mumbai to Paris and travelled by road to Brussels, is at the hospital with her.

In another statement issued late Friday evening, the airline said that the two injured crew members continue to receive all the required medical care and attention.

"They are recovering in hospitals and have been joined by their families. Jet Airways staff is at the hospitals to provide any support and assistance to the crew and their family members," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Jet Airways flew out the passengers who were stranded in Brussels after the attacks. Some passengers returned to Delhi early Friday, while others left for Newark from Amsterdam.
Mumbai, March 25 : Actor Ajay Devgn's highly anticipated project "Shivaay" will feature the scenic locales of Balkan mountains of Bulgaria.

Ajay, who is currently busy shooting for the film in Bulgaria, took to Twitter on Friday to share a photograph of the set location on the Balkan mountains.

"Shooting on top of Balkan Mountains," Ajay captioned the image.

In the photograph, a man can be seen standing and facing a helicopter.

Apart from Bulgaria, some parts of the film have also been shot in Hyderabad and Uttarakhand.

"Shivaay" is slated to release in Diwali, and also stars Sayesha Saigal, Abigail Eames and Erika Kaar among others.
New Delhi, March 25 : The BJP is sanguine about reaping political dividends in the West Bengal assembly elections despite an understanding between the Congress and the Left, due to their larger fight against the ruling TMC, party insiders claim.

On the other hand, the Congress and the Left too are hopeful of a favourable political fallout of the understanding between the two.

"State BJP leaders who visited key political hubs like Malda and Murshidabad feel that the Trinamool will get embroiled in checkmating the coming together of the communists and the Congress in some seats, which may help our party gain ground," a key BJP leader involved in the campaign strategy in West Bengal told IANS.

Elections to the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held in multiple phases on April 4, 11, 17, 21, 25 and 30 and May 5.

Reports about seizure of a huge cache of arms and ammunition from sensitive districts like Malda, Murshidabad and Birbhum have forced people to "rethink" their voting pattern, they claim.

In this backdrop, BJP strategists claim "there is an upsurge of nationalism and pro-BJP sentiments" in Malda and other "development-starved" districts in north Bengal.

"All other political forces - the Congress, Left and Trinamool - have failed them. West Bengal's political scene experienced a shift in 2011 when people made up their mind to vote out the communists. In 2014, due to the Saradha scam and Narendra Modi wave, we did well in the Lok Sabha polls. In fact, after the Burdwan blast in October 2014, the BJP has on a number of occasions put the Trinamool on the backfoot," said BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya.

Since 2014, party leaders point out that while the Congress and the Left influence has diminished, the BJP has maintained a forward movement.

"Candidates of the Communist Party of India-Marxist lost their deposits in 2014 by-elections to Bashirhat and Chowringhee assembly seats while we won the Bashirhat seat," a BJP leader pointed out.

The party put up its best ever performance in West Bengal in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls bagging nearly 17 percent votes - a quantum jump from a mere four percent in the 2011 assembly elections.

But it also suffered reverses in the state's civic polls in 2015, with not even a single civic body win. Even in Kolkata, it could win only seven of the 144 wards in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

Meanwhile, sting operations and recovery of firearms in various parts of the state have only added to the ruling Trinamool's troubles.

The Narad news portal's sting operation against TMC leaders in West Bengal brought back corruption as a major election issue in the state, which also came under the Election Commission scrutiny for suspected poll-related violence.

"In Murshidabad district, we have a do-or-die battle as it is considered a bastion of state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury," a key Trinamool leader told IANS admitting that the TMC could win only one of the 12 assembly segments in the area in 2011 despite a Mamata Banerjee wave.

Trinamool has its own set of worries in north Bengal seats where Congress has a crucial vote base. In fact, in order to make a dent in Congress leader Chowdhury's backyard, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee has deputed Suvendu Adhikari to organise the campaign strategy in the district.

Adhikari, a vocal youth leader, along with his father and former union minister Sisir Adhikari, had earlier successfully delivered Junglemahal into the Trinamool kitty.

On the other hand, the Congress and Left leaders feel that a "strategic understanding" between the once arch rivals will tilt the scales in about 60 assembly seats across eight districts of north Bengal.

"The Left and the Congress have a huge advantage if our respective party workers can deliver during the campaign, more crucially on the polling day," says CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim.

(Nirendra Dev can be contacted at nirendra.n@ians.in)
Islamabad, March 25 : Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale and lodged a strong protest after an alleged RAW officer was arrested in Balochistan. New Delhi denied the arrested man had any links with the Indian government.

The summons to Bambawale came a day after security forces claimed the arrest of a serving Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer during a raid three days ago in Balochistan, Dawn online reported.

The News International identified the alleged RAW officer as Kulbushan Yadav, said to be an in-service commander rank officer in the Indian Navy. New Delhi said it had sought consular access to him.

During initial investigation, Yadav is reported to have confessed his links with "separatist, sectarian and terrorist organisations in Karachi and Balochistan".

Foreign office sources were quoted as saying that Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Bambawale and provided him details of the arrest.

Chaudhry lodged a strong protest over the alleged RAW officer's spying activities in Balochistan and Karachi and said that this was unacceptable, Pakistani sources said.

The RAW officer had been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation as he was suspected of involvement in various acts of terrorism and other subversive activities in Balochistan, Pakistani media said.

In New Delhi, the government said it had no links with the alleged Indian spy.

"The said individual has no link with the government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy," a spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs said.

"We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," the official added.

The spokesperson admitted that Pakistan had summoned the Indian envoy and raised the issue with him.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed the arrest of the Indian spy from the southern part of the province. "The arrest has proved Indian involvement in Balochistan," Bugti said.

Bugti added that the Indian spy was sponsoring terrorist and subversive activities in Balochistan. Maps of different installations and sites were reportedly recovered from him.
Mumbai, March 25 : The release of family comedy "1982 - A Love Marriage", which was initially slated for March 11, has been temporarily stalled due to creative differences between the producers and the distributors.

The film has been produced by the Shuddh Paarivarik Chalchitra banner and was earlier being distributed by 18th Media Ventures.

"We are extremely disheartened to announce that Shuddh Paarivarik Chalchitra and 18th Media Ventures have parted ways as a result of creative differences," Amitkumar Sharma, who also played the lead of the film and is also the producer of the film, said in a statement.

"We wish all the very best to 18th Media Ventures for their future endeavours. Also due to some unavoidable circumstances as of now, the release of the film '1982 - A Love Marriage' has been put on hold. With all good wishes and sincerity, we will release the film soon," he added.

The two parties have also formally terminated their partnership by issuing a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to the producers to release the film on the basis of certain conditions such as both the parties bearing the losses, etc.

Distributor Swarndeep Vishwakarma said: "We are disappointed that the film suffered because of the differences between us, but the matter was handled in a very mature and professional manner. We have formally conducted the process and we wish the producers all the best for the release of the film."

Directed by Prashant M. Gorey, "1982 - A Love Marriage" is an entertaining story about love marriages and arranged marriages. The film also stars Omna Harjani.
Rome, March 25 : Arms producers and traffickers lie behind the deadly assault on Brussels, Pope Francis said, describing the attacks as an "act of war".

"Three days ago an act of war and destruction took place in a European city," Francis said as he celebrated mass with asylum-seekers at a refugee centre in Castelnuovo di Porto, north of Rome, Thursday.

"But, as in the case of Judas, where there were others who handed over money for Jesus to be betrayed, behind that act (the Brussels attacks) there are arms manufacturers and traffickers," the pontiff said.

Francis contrasted the Brussels suicide bombings with the Easter mass being held at Castelnuovo di Porto "where men and women of different faiths recognise their common humanity and wish to live in peace".

The Islamic State jihadist group claimed Tuesday's suicide blasts at Brussels international airport and a city metro station in which over 30 people were killed. The attacks drew global condemnation.
Gurgaon, March 25 : Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Friday did not appear before the one-man Commission of Inquiry probing the grant of licences to some entities in Gurgaon's Sector 83, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra's firm.

The probe panel of Delhi High Court Justice S.N. Dhingra (retd) was set up in May 2015 to probe the grant of commercial licences to hundreds of private companies, including Vadra's Skylight Hospitality and DLF.

The commission last week summoned Hooda to appear before it by March 25 to record his statement regarding the allotment of land to Skylight Hospitality and other private companies.

Security in and around the commission office in the Civil Lines area here was tightened ahead of Hooda's expected visit.

"It was believed that Hooda will appear around 12 noon but he did not come. The reason for his absence are not known," an official told IANS.

However, former chief minister's lawyer Narendra Hooda told the media outside the commission office that the notice issued to the senior Congress leader was not clear about what kind of information the inquiry commission wanted from Hooda.

Last month, the commission summoned Haryana Chief Secretary Deepinder Singh Dhesi and officials of the private firms for recording of statements.

The commission earlier examined retired IAS officer and now member of Union Public Service Commission Chattar Singh, who was the principal secretary in the chief minister's office during Hooda's tenure.

Singh handled the files of the town and country planning department in the CMO.

After the BJP government in Haryana set up the probe panel, its scope of inquiry was widened on Justice Dhingra's advice.

The commission is expected to give its findings and recommendations with respect to the circumstances under which licenses for the development of commercial colonies were granted to a few entities in Gurgaon.

Vadra's company purchased nearly 3.5 acres of land in the same sector in Shikohpur village on the Delhi-Jaipur-Mumbai National Highway 8 (nearly 43 km from Delhi) but later sold it to the DLF after completing certain formalities during the rule of Congress government headed by Hooda.

Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka cancelled the deal, terming it "illegal".

On March 17, Hooda said the Manohar Lal Khattar government's action in ordering a probe into alleged land scam in the state was "politically motivated".

Reacting to the summons, Hooda had lashed out at the BJP's state government, saying it would not achieve anything.

"Obviously, there can be no second opinion on this," Hooda told reporters when asked to comment whether the summons were politically motivated.

"Otherwise, why should there be a commission for one or two villages. Everyone knows who is their target, but they will not achieve anything," the senior Congress leader said.

On February 10, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said in Chennai that the one-man commission inquiring into the controversial land deals was likely to submit its report before June.
Raipur, March 25 : A 'Jan Militia' commander of the Maoists was killed in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh in a shootout with the police.

'Jan Militia' (people's militia) commander Sudharam was killed on Thursday night in an exchange of fire between Maoists and the police in a forest area under the jurisdiction of Mardapal police station, the police said.

'Jan Militia' is a part-time fighting force, raised by a Maoist group, in charge of a village, according to the security forces.

Police had announced an award of Rs.three lakh for Sudharam's capture. He was linked to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Lalgarh/Kolkata, March 25 : Claiming that eight of her party workers were murdered by the CPI-M supporters in seven days, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday virtually held the Election Commission (EC) responsible for political killings.

Her close lieutenant and Trinamool vice president Mukul Roy too echoed the party supremo and even threatened to bring the bodies to the EC office here if the killings of Trinamool workers did not stop.

Banerjee said: "Now that elections have been declared, police are under the Election Commission. The EC is keeping a watch on police. Now the EC is looking after law and order. In the past seven days, eight Trinamool Congress workers were killed by the CPI-M."

"Who has given the right to the CPI-M to kill? They are murdering every day," Banerjee said while addressing an election rally in this Maoist belt of West Midnapore district.

Banerjee said her government had stopped political killings.

"I didn't allow political killings. In the past, the maximum number of political killings used to take place in Bengal. 55,000 people were murdered during the rule of the CPI-M (which spearheaded the Left Front government from 1977 to 2011)," she said.

Banerjee said tit-for-tat for political murders and vendetta had no place in her party, but urged Trinamool workers to be on their guard as they could come under attack during the elections.

"Please be on your guard during this period. Don't be afraid."

In an obvious reference to the EC machinery, Banerjee said: "Some may feel, during the elections, they can threaten, intimidate. Let them. Be with the people, the voters."

"If somebody from outside tries to boss around, tries to intimidate you, don't be afraid. They are here today, won't be there after a few days. But you have to live in your locality in peace," she said.

Banerjee said: "I am not dead. Trinamool is there. As long as I live, I will be with you, and fight for you."

Roy, who called on the chief electoral officer in Kolkata during the day to lodge a complaint about the "killings" of party workers, was more direct in training his guns on the EC.

"We have come here to protest against the murders. We have told the Election Commission to initiate proper steps. Law and order is in your (EC) hands. Six of our workers have been killed.

"If a murder or any other untoward incident happens, the responsibility is yours. A Trinamool party office has also been burnt. Will the EC take responsibility?"

"From now on, even if one worker of our party is killed, we will bring the dead body to the Election Commission office."

Since the day the elections were declared, Banerjee has been up in arms against the EC.

She has termed the staggered six-phase election schedule with seven polling dates a "result of the stepmotherly" attitude towards the state.

After the Commission cracked the whip and issued a spate of transfer orders of top police and district administration officials, Mamata wondered whether the poll panel would tap into votes from the electorate "on behalf of the BJP and the CPI-M".
New Delhi, March 25 : The government said on Friday that it had no links with an Indian arrested in Balochistan on charges of being an officer of the Indian intelligence agency RAW.

"The said individual has no link with the government since his premature retirement from Indian Navy," a spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs said.

"We have sought consular access to him. India has no interest in interfering in the internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region," the official added.

The spokesperson admitted that Pakistan on Friday summoned the Indian High High Commissioner in Islamabad and raised the issue with him.
Chennai, March 25 : The decision to strike work for four days starting March 28 by some young officers in the IDBI Bank has put even seasoned bank union leaders in a spot, who stress that there is no split in the bank officers union.

Opposing the government's move to dilute its holding to less than 50 percent, the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) had given a strike call on March 28.

However, a group of young officers in the IDBI Bank has called for four-day strike from March 28.

As a result, the IDBI Bank will not function for nine days since April 1 too is a holiday on account of the beginning of the new financial year.

Even the strike on March 28 did not find favour with many union leaders in the banking sector as the strike day falls on Monday following four holidays beginning from Holi and Good Friday on March 24-25.

"We make it a point to see that the strike is not called on a day preceding or following holiday (s)," a senior bank union leader told IANS on condition of anonymity.

"There is a process to be complied with before giving a strike call, like 14-day notice. Internally, the union has to discuss the matter. We found March 28 will inconvenience the public the least as there will be three working days for them to transact," R.S. Athalye, general secretary, All India IDBI Officers Association and convenor of United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees told IANS on Friday.

However, Athalye denied a split in the IDBI Bank officers union.

A sizeable number of officers in IDBI Bank are in their thirties and the four-day strike call seems to be a knee-jerk reaction without thinking about the repercussions.

Athalye agrees that the government's decision to dilute its holding to less than 50 percent in IDBI Bank is a test case.

If the government reduces it's holding in IDBI Bank successfully, it will do the same in other banks as well, he said.

"Our fight is against the government that is going against the assurances given in parliament that the public sector character of the banks will be maintained," Athalye said.

Meanwhile, AIBEA general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam told IANS that his union has given a strike call on March 28 only in the IDBI Bank and not in other government banks.

"The strike call is only for March 28," he reiterated.

Similarly, AIBOA general secretary S. Nagarajan told IANS that his organisation has given strike call only for March 28.

"Four days of strike seems to be premature," he added.

He said IDBI Bank management is approaching the court to prevent the strike.

A civil court in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh has issued an interim injunction against the strike, Nagarajan said.

The bank management has announced that its branches would function on March 26 (Saturday) and warned of disciplinary action against those absent on that day, Nagarajan said.

Second and fourth Saturdays are public holidays for banks.

"The union has asked the management on the legality of decisions made on a public holiday. We have also asked the management as to the rationale for opening the branches on a day when clearing operations are closed," Nagarajan said.

Senior union leaders agreed that a four-day strike call - resulting in nine days of holidays - will be counter-productive and the public will not look at their cause sympathetically.

"So what if the government banks are privatised. They have run up lakhs of crores as bad loans. The bank unions demand recapitalisation out of taxpayer's money," one V. Nitya told IANS.
New Delhi, March 25 : An avalanche hit an army patrol in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir early on Friday, burying two soldiers, one of whom remains missing, said an army officer.

The avalanche hit the army patrol in Turtuk area of Ladakh around 8 a.m. on Friday.

"Two soldiers were buried under the snow. Immediate rescue drills resulted in one soldier being rescued while the second soldier is still missing," a statement issued by the Army said.

The rescued soldier is critical and is being evacuated to the nearest military hospital.

"All efforts are being made to rescue the missing soldier," the statement said.
New Delhi, March 25 : A most wanted criminal involved in over 200 burglaries across India has been arrested here, police said on Friday.

Nadeem Qureshi, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from east Delhi on a tip-off on Thursday night.

Police said Qureshi committed over 200 burglaries in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and .

"Several cases of burglaries were reported this year from some posh apartments in east Delhi. We deployed a special staff team to solve these case and finally arrested Qureshi on Thursday night," Deputy Commissioner of Police Bhairon Singh Gurjar said.

Qureshi revealed that he has been committing the crimes for 21 years and has broken locks of over 500 flats during this period.

"Qureshi and his gang used to commit burglaries in apartments especially located in posh colonies. They chose these apartments randomly and mostly where guards were of old age and seemed to be lazy. They moved in luxury cars and wore costly clothes mostly suits and tie to dodge the guards.

"Two of them would enter the apartment and go towards back blocks and reach on the top floor of the apartment. Then they would target the locked flats and break the locks. After entering in the flats, they used to choose only cash and jewellery items," the DCP said.

Qureshi and his gang members, the officer said, used a special kind of lock breaking instrument which they call "Farma Bardar or Daulatiya", an iron made instrument weighing around 10-12 kg.

Qureshi, who joined the world of crime in 1995, used to steal cattle in his village and adjoining villages. He was arrested many times and sent to judicial custody.

"He was arrested in an attempt to murder case in his village in 1999. Later, he met with a criminal Arif and started committing burglaries. He was arrested four times in Delhi but did not turn up to courts to face trial. For last two years, he was not arrested," the officer said, adding his other gang members have been identified as Mustaaq, Jag Jeewan, Amit and Mainuddin.
Mumbai, March 25 : Pakistani-American LeT terrorist-turned-approver David Coleman Headley said here on Friday that attempts were made to trade Israeli hostages in Mumbai in return for release of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist nabbed alive in the 26/11 strike.

Headley said he had also suggested to his handlers in terror troup Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to "honour" the nine other terrorists slain during 26/11 by the Indian security personnel with 'Nishan-e-Haider', Pakistan's highest gallantry award.

Headley made the revelations before Special Judge G.A. Sanap in his responses during his cross-examination by Abdul Wahab Khan, lawyer for Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the prime accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

After Kasab was nabbed alive by the Indian forces early morning of November 27, 2008, at the height of the terror strikes, Headley's main contact in LeT -- Sajid Mir -- had ordered the attackers of Chabad House in Colaba to keep the Israeli hostages taken there at gunpoint.

They were to contact the Israeli prime minister and its embassy in a bid to build pressure on the Indian government for securing Kasab's release, Headley said, reiterating what he had mentioned to an American court during his trial there in May 2011.

However, to a question by lawyer Khan, Headley added that he never personally spoke with the Israeli embassy officials since he was in Lahore at the time of 26/11.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam later informed media persons that Headley had sought honouring the nine terrorists killed in 26/11 with Pakistan's top military gallantry award, the 'Nishan-e-Haider'.

Headley had made the demand in a conversation with a Dubai-based operative after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that left 166 dead and several hundreds injured in 2008.

Nikam added that Headley had revealed Thane collegian Ishrat Jahan's name when he was interrogated by a National Investigation Agency team in the US after his arrest in 2009.

Jahan, a 19-year-old resident of Mumbra in Thane district studying in a Mumbai college, and three of her friends were gunned down by Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad near Ahmedabad in 2004 for allegedly plotting the killing of then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Headley denied that he was in any manner pressurised or tutored by the NIA to state that Jahan was a terrorist -- which he first revealed during his deposition before Special Judge Sanap on February 11, 2016 -- creating a furore in Indian political circles.

He said he did not disclose Jahan's name during the trial of his close associate, Pakistani-Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana in the US as he was not asked about it.
Guwahati, March 25 : Playing the 'national security' card, the BJP on Friday pledged to seal the India-Bangladesh border to stop infiltration and also to "free Assam of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants" if it came to power in the state.

In its Vision Document for 2016-25, the Bharatiya Janata Party also accused the Congress, ruling the state, of encouraging infiltration and disturbing Assam's demography in the process.

Senior BJP leader and union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released the document here and said: "Our main emphasis will be on infiltration."

Jaitley said: "Since Assam is a border province and a pivotal north-eastern state, we have put emphasis on national security in our vision document so that proper arrangements can be made to stop terrorism and insurgency. There are chapters on completely sealing of the border areas and to ensure identification of foreigners, in the vision document."

The senior BJP leader also accused the Congress and the Tarun Gogoi government of using infiltration as part of their strategy of "vote bank politics".

"The Congress has all along been encouraging illegal migrations into Assam for their vote bank politics. However, if the BJP is voted to power in Assam, we are going to end the influx from the neighbouring country by sealing the International border," said Jaitley.

"In the last 15 years of the Congress rule, it failed to fulfil the aspirations of the people. However, our priority will be infiltration, and we are going to seal the India-Bangladesh border within a stipulated time to solve the problem," he said.

"The Congress has also been trying to destroy and change the demography of Assam by encouraging the influx. Although the Congress has been in power for many years in Assam, yet the state government took no action to curb the menace," he said.

Dubbing the Gogoi government as a failure, Jaitley said, "It's a historical opportunity to defeat a failed government in the state. Our alliance headed by the BJP will have a landslide victory," he said.

He said the Vision Document, which promises to reserve 35 percent seats for women in all government services, is a roadmap prepared by the party for ensuring overall development of the state.

"There is a series of dialogues organised by the party with Assam's people across the state. It has got a proper roadmap for each and every problem of the state, including transport, employment, highways, rural roads, extension of rail and air connectivity, youth, tea tribes, job creation and agricultural skill development," he said.

The BJP assured the people of enacting a law to deal with industries, businesses, small and medium enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators.

BJP national president Amit Shah, meanwhile, addressed two public rallies at Sivsagar district in Upper Assam and assured the people that the party would "make Assam free of illegal Bangladesh immigrants".

Blaming the Congress for the infiltration from Bangladesh, Shah said the people of Assam would have to unite and vote for the three-party alliance led by the BJP if they wished to make the state free of illegal immigrants.
Mumbai, March 25 : Filmmaker Karan Johar, who is roaring on the success of his latest production venture "Kapoor & Sons", got a chance to meet famous fictional character Po from Hollywood film series "Kung Fu Panda".

Karan met Po during a press conference of his romantic comedy-drama film.

Karan, who has produced the film 'Kapoor & Sons' under his banner Dharma Productions, took to Twitter on Friday to share a photograph in which he is seen hugging Po.

"Po is our extended family member! Dropped by 'Kapoor & Sons' press conference to celebrate with us 'Kung Fu Panda 3'," Karan tweeted.

The film which stars Sidharth Malhotra, Fawad Khan and Alia Bhatt in the lead, has collected Rs.46.93 crore in its opening week, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

"Kapoor & Sons" released on March 18.
Kathmandu, March 25 : The recent Nepal-China agreements on transit and transportation, energy, trade, investment and connectivity have triggered fresh opposition in Nepal even while the nation awaits Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's return from his maiden China visit.

Though the ruling parties in the Himalayan nation have welcomed the agreements, Madhesi leaders already protesting over Nepal's new constitution have opposed the deals. The main opposition and largest party in Nepal's Legislature, Nepali Congress, is yet to comment on it.

Madhesi leaders, who have been protesting the new constitution in Nepal, have also opposed the China's vocal support to the new statute.

China's move to welcome the new constitution of Nepal has no meaning, said chairman of the Federal Socialist Party Upendra Yadav.

"China's backing to the new constitution is meaningless as a significant number of people within the country are yet to own it," he said.

Ahead of Prime Minister Oli's China visit, top leaders of the Madhes-based political parties had met Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai, and handed over an 11-point memorandum to him, urging Beijing to push Oli to address their demands rather than maintaining the status quo.

Yadav, who also served as foreign minister twice in the past, said the agreements signed between Nepal and China were agreed upon in 2009, but wondered why Oli was instigating propaganda over it.

Experts and diplomats also maintained that the accords signed with China during Oli's visit now may not be implemented with immediate effect.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Nepal's former prime minister, hailed the agreements with China, saying they have long-term significance while maintaining Nepal's good relations with both the neighbours, India an China.

Another prominent Madhes-based leader, Rajendra Mahato opposed the Nepal-China joint statement in which China has welcomed the new constitution of the Himalayan republic.

"Rights of the two-thirds people were curtailed in the new constitution. So how can China welcome it? The move is against the people," said Mahato.

Madhesi leaders, all set to start another round of agitation in Nepal's southern plains, held breakfast meeting with Indian Ambassador Ranjit Rae on Thursday inside the Indian embassy.

The leaders reviewed the progress made in talks between them and the government.

In the meeting, Madesh-based leaders told the Indian envoy that they are in final preparation of the next round of protest focusing on Kathmandu and will accommodate Janajatis/Adivasis (ethnic communities) of Nepal's hilly region, who too are equally unhappy over the content of the new constitution.

The Madheh based leaders sought moral support from India.

Meanwhile, the ruling PCN-UML's leader Pradip Gywali said that India should not worry if Nepal extends its relations with another neighbour, China.

"We want to have pragmatic relations with both India and China based on equality, and as a sovereign and independent nation Nepal has all rights to expand its bilateral relations with any countries," he said.
Brussels, March 25 : Two loud explosions were heard in Brussels as police launched major search operations in the Belgian capital in the wake of the suicide attacks in the city.

The explosions were heard at the start of the operation in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek, Al Jazeera reported. A man was "neutralised", state broadcaster RTBF said.

Six suspects were arrested on Thursday.

Suicide bombers hit the Zaventem airport and a metro train station on Tuesday, killing over 30 people and wounding at least 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
New Delhi, March 25 : Typing 'anti-national' into Google Maps search bar on Friday yielded a map of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus here, with a photograph of an entrance to the varsity on the left hand side.

It is unclear what caused the glitch in the world's largest online search engine, but it has certainly not gone down well with some students and faculty who said they would approach Google India about the problem, according to media reports.

JNU has now, for many weeks, been involved in a controversy over what constitutes anti-national words and deeds.

The JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and two other students were arrested on charges of sedition. All three were granted bail earlier this month.

They have been accused of raising anti-national slogans at a cultural event organised on the campus on February 9 to commemorate the third anniversary of the execution of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Jammu, March 25 : The BJP on Friday pledged support to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a new government under Mehbooba Mufti's leadership in Jammu and Kashmir, paving the way for her to be the first woman chief minister of India's only Muslim-majority state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also elected Nirmal Singh as its leader in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new PDP-BJP alliance government to be formed soon. Mehbooba was on Thursday elected the leader of PDP's legislature party.

A BJP-PDP joint coordination committee is expected to meet before the two leaders meet Governor N.N. Vohra together to stake claim to power in the state that has been without an elected government for the last nearly three months. The two parties were scheduled to meet the governor separately on Friday. But the meetings didn't happen.

Leaders of the BJP and PDP "will have a meeting between ourselves before going to meet the governor", BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav told reporters here. "When they go to meet the governor will be decided."

Ram Madhav, who is also BJP's Kashmir affairs in charge, was speaking after party legislators met here to elect their leader.

"The BJP legislature party has re-elected Nirmal Singh as its leader and nominated him for the deputy chief minister's post in the new coalition government," BJP state president Sat Pal Sharma said.

Sharma also said the BJP had decided to extend support to Mehbooba, daughter of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, to head the PDP-BJP government in the state. "We have to discuss certain issues before both of us visit the governor together to stake claim."

He said that it may take "two-three days" before the government is formed. If and when the swearing-in happens, Mehbooba Mufti will be the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

Nirmal Singh also served as the deputy chief minister in the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP coalition that was in office for 10 months till Sayeed died on January 7. The state has been under Governor's Rule since January 8.

Besides the BJP legislators and Ram Madhav, Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, also attended the party meeting in Jammu.

Informed sources said those at the meeting were apprised by Ram Madhav about the recent developments, including the Tuesday meeting in New Delhi between PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The BJP reiterated that no fresh conditions (by PDP) had been accepted and the alliance with the PDP will continue on the basis of the agenda of alliance signed (earlier) by the two parties," a BJP source told IANS.

Jitendra Singh represents the Kathua-Udhampur Lok Sabha seat for the BJP in the Lok Sabha.
Chennai, March 25 : The DMK party on Friday allotted five seats to its alliance partner MMK for the ensuing assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, the parties said.

The DMK and Congress, however, decided to have further talks on seat sharing on a later date.

In a joint statement issued here by DMK and MMK, they agreed that MMK will contest in five constituencies in the assembly elections.

The actual constituencies in which Muslim party MMK would contest, would be decided in consultation with other alliance partners, the statement added.

The DMK had earlier allotted five seats to the Indian Union of Muslim League (IUML) without specifying the names of the constituencies.

A Congress delegation led by former union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik and Tamil Nadu Congress president E.V.K.S. Elangovan called on DMK president M. Karunanidhi.

On the DMK side, apart from Karunanidhi, party treasurer M.K. Stalin, senior leader Duraimurugan and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi were present.

Speaking to reporters, Azad said the subject of seat sharing came up but nothing was decided. He said the parties discussed the electoral strategy to be followed.

He said more time had been given to the DMK on the number of seats to be allotted to the Congress.

He said DMK was expecting a couple of more parties to join its front to fight next month's assembly polls.

Stalin said the talks with Congress leaders were cordial.

In the 2011 elections, the Congress was given 63 seats by the DMK after some hard bargaining.

The DMK came out of the Congress-led central government in 2013, accusing New Delhi of not handling the Sri Lanka crisis well.

The two parties fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections separately in Tamil Nadu but drew a blank.
Imphal, March 25 : Nagaland and Assam Governor Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya on Friday called for restoration of peace in the north-eastern states for balanced development.

Speaking during Holi festival celebrations at a temple in Bishnupur district of Manipur, Acharya said: "Since there is no peace in the north-eastern states, there cannot be balanced and speedy development. This region lags behind other states in the country in matters of development. There can be development in this region only when there is durable peace."

The governor also sought the cooperation of all sections of society in restoring and maintaining communal harmony in Manipur.

A large number of BJP leaders and workers were present at the special Holi programme organised in honour of the visiting governor.
Thiruvananthapuram, March 25 : Intense diplomatic efforts at various levels are on to ensure the safe return of Catholic priest Tom Uzhunnalil, currently in Islamic State custody in Yemen, an official source said on Friday.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's office is closely monitoring the situation and is in touch with the ministry of external affairs and people concerned in Yemen and other countries.

"We are unable to reveal all details, but there is intense activity taking place at various levels and in various countries to ensure that the Keralite priest is rescued," said an official posted in Chandy's office, who is coordinating between various agencies.

"We are all hopeful that things will be resolved," said the official.

Earlier this month, armed militants barged into an old people's home set up by Mother Teresa near Yemen in 1992 and shot dead many, including four nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, including one from India.

These militants later whisked away the Kerala priest and there has been no word from him ever since.
Bengaluru, March 25 : Global software major Infosys Ltd. is waiting for an official communique on the fate of its employee Raghavendra Ganesh, who has bee missing in terror-hit Brussels since Tuesday.

"We have no further information on Ganesh. We are also waiting to know from the government, its external affairs ministry or the authority concerned," a company spokesman told IANS here on Friday.

The 28-year-old Indian-born techie was believed to be in a metro rail on that fateful day (March 22) when the Maelbeek metro station in the Belgian capital was rocked by an explosion, in which at least 20 people died and several were injured.

"We learnt from a tweet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj posted on Twitter that Ganesh's last phone call was traced to the metro rail in which he was travelling when terror struck the main metro station in the city," the spokesman recalled.

"Raghavendran Ganesh -- We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was travelling in the metro rail," Swaraj tweeted on Thursday.

As the explosions at Brussels airport and metro stations on Tuesday were fallout of terror strikes and its impact being sensitive, the IT firm is depending on the foreign ministry and the Indian embassy in Brussels, as the incident was being handled at the highest official level between the two governments.

"It is best to go with what the authorities or ministry is saying in this matter. We will update you when we have more information," the spokesman added.

Barring a brief note on one of its employees missing in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Brussels and that it was in touch with his family in India, the company did not share any information on Ganesh.

"We are trying to reach one employee with whom we have not been able to connect as with all other employees,a the company said in a terse statement on Tuesday, without specifying how many of its techies, including Indians work in Brussels.

Like the media, the company also learnt from a tweet Swaraj posted on Tuesday that she spoke to Ganesha's mother Annapoorni and assured her of all help in tracing her son.

It is also learnt that Ganesh spoke to his mother in India an hour before the blasts ripped the Brussels airport and the metro rail station.

Swaraj also appealed to Indians living in Brussels to help locate Ganesh in the Belgian capital.
Kolkata, March 25 : More than 1.09 lakh non-bailable arrest warrants have been executed in West Bengal from December 1, 2015, to March 23, a senior Election Commission official said on Friday.

"In total, 1,09,457 non-bailable warrants were executed in 26 police authorities' areas, including various districts and commissionerates, from December 1 to March 23," said Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar.

South 24 Paraganas tops with execution of 10,611 warrants, followed by Murshidabad with 10,606, according to the poll panel. In Biddhannagar police commissionarate area, 1,009 warrants have been executed.

Jhargram police district has reported the least number (793) of execution of such warrants.

As many as 18,388 cases of non-bailable arrest warrants are pending, he said.

Sarkar said the commission has issued specific instructions on execution of non-bailable warrants.

Asked about cases where the accused have been able to get bails despite non-bailable warrants, he said: "The court concerned is the authority to take decisions on who will get bail and who will not. This does not fall in the election commission's area."

The Election Commission, however, can ask for written undertakings of good conduct from notorious criminals or from those who have got bail despite non-bailable warrants, Sarkar said.

In that case, the accused would be under the poll panel scanner, he added.
Kolkata, March 25 : Famed Bengali actor Soham Chakraborty, contesting the West Bengal assembly polls as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Barjora in Bankura district, possesses properties in excess of Rs.two crore.

In his affidavit filed with the Election Commission, the actor has declared a annual income for the year 2014-15 to Rs.98.72 lakh.

Sohom, who made his debut as a child actor in Satyajit Ray's Shakha Proshakha, has movable assets in excess of Rs.1.91 crore while the movable properties of his wife are valued at little over Rs.9.25 lakh.

The actor's moveable assets include bank deposits worth over Rs.1.68 crore, two vehicles with a cumulative market value exceeding Rs.17 lakh.

His immovable assets which includes a residential apartment in the city outskirts Thakurpukur, are currently valued at Rs.40 lakh.

The 32-year-old actor known for movies like 'Prem Amar' and 'Amanush' among others has liabilities to the tune of Rs.2.54 lakh and has never been convicted of any crime.
Bhopal, March 25 : Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Friday sought 20 lakh mosquito nets treated with insecticide from the Centre to tackle malaria in tribal areas of the state.

In his meeting with union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda in New Delhi, Chauhan said the state government was working on a war-footing to control the serious situation arising from malaria prevailing in the tribal areas, a government statement said.

He said his government will give every household at least two nets.

The chief minister also told Nadda that the state government proposal to open medical universities in Vidisha, Ratlam, Shahdol, Datiya, Khandwa, Shivpuri and Chhindwara were pending approval with the central government.

Chauhan also urged the union minister to ensure the appointment of director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhopal.

Nadda assured the chief minister of all help from the Centre on the issues raised by him.
Lucknow, March 25 : Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, in a strongly worded letter to state assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, on Friday questioned the efficiency of state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Azam Khan to remain in his position.

In the letter, written in the light of the ongoing war of words between the Raj Bhawan and Khan, Governor Naik has questioned the recent remarks of Azam Khan in the state assembly, of which unedited copies and transcripts he (Naik) had sought.

"The fact that more than 33 percent of the statement made by him has been expunged shows that the behaviour and utterances of the minister do not behove his office and that the remaks were uncharitable," the governor has observed.

The terse letter also goes on to say that the governor would discuss the continuance of the minister in his present capacity as parliamentary affairs minister.

Naik also took an indirect dig at the Speaker Pandey, who had also made a comment on the Raj Bhawan on not giving consent on some Bills, as alleged by Azam Khan.

"I would be happy to meet you personally over this matter to take it up further" Naik said in the letter.

The letter is expected to raise political temperatures in the state politics.

Khan has usually hurt the Raj Bhawan with his direct attack and insinuations on Naik but so far the governor had refused to be drawn into the slang match.

He, however, took offence recently after Khan attacked him on the floor of the House, alleging he was acting as 'an agent of the BJP', of which he was once a member.

Governor Naik then asked for unedited copies of Azam Khan's speech.
Cairo, March 26 : Egypt's army raids on Friday killed 60 Islamist terrorists in troubled North Sinai's Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid cities, army spokesman said.

Anti-terror forces, backed by military warplanes, attacked terrorists hideouts in the two cities, killing 60 terrorists and injuring 40 others, the spokesman said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

Last week, a mortar attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinai's El-Arish city killed 15 policemen.

The North Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis (ABM), which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Egypt has been facing anti-government attacks, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula, which killed hundreds of police and army personnel since 2013.

Most of the attacks have been claimed by the ABM, which has changed its name to "Sinai State."

The Egyptian military's continuous massive operations on the peninsula have killed hundreds of militants as part of the country's "war against terrorism."
Each year, AZ Business magazine publishes a list of the top 100 lawyers in the state of Arizona. These lawyers are chosen by industry experts and the editorial team, and the selection process is a daunting one. Over 1000 lawyers are examined for this list. Selections are narrowed down and ultimately chosen based on the lawyer's professional success, impact on his or her law firm, impact on the community, and impact on the legal profession. Only the best of the best are included in this list  and it is one of Arizona's most distinguished legal honors.

Since graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997, Geoffrey Trachtenberg has been a devoted advocate for injured motorcycle victims and their families in Arizona. He is licensed to practice in 4 states: Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah. He focuses his practice mainly on motorcycle personal injury litigation and appeals. He is Board-Certified in personal injury and wrongful death litigation  a certification less than 1% of attorneys achieve. He was also recently listed in "Best Lawyers in America" by U.S. News & World Report and selected for inclusion in the "Super Lawyers  Top 50" in Arizona.

Geoff doesn't just offer exceptional legal representation for his clients, he is also a leader in the Arizona legal community. Recently, Geoff was chosen by his colleagues to serve as President of the the State Bar of Arizona. In this role he leads the Board of Governors and oversees the State Bar's $15 million annual budget.

Geoff is also President-Elect and an executive director of the Arizona Association for Justice, the primary organization devoted to protecting the rights of injured persons. And, consistent with Law Tigers mission to help our community, Geoff volunteers for numerous organizations throughout Arizona, including the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS and the Arizona Brain Injury Association. Geoff also routinely provides legal services to poor and indigent, assisting them with legal issues free of charge.

Congratulations to Law Tiger's Geoffrey Trachtenberg, listed once again as one of Arizonas Top 100 Lawyers by Arizona Business magazine.

About Law Tigers

The Law Tigers is a national association of lawyers and their commitment to the motorcycle community extends well beyond the courtroom. Not only do they provide free legal services to many motorcycle clubs and organizations, they also offer free motorcycle safety and legal seminars to various groups. In addition, they are also active sponsors and participants in local and national charity rides, fundraisers, and other motorcycle events, such as the Laughlin River Run, Phoenix Bike Fest, Arizona Bike Week, Thunder Valley Rally, and Sturgis.
First Choice Emergency Room

Another ER facility operated by First Choice Emergency Room opened this morning at 7am in Helotes, located at 12285 Bandera Road, Helotes, Texas, and is open 24 hours daily.

Yesterday, First Choice Emergency Room hosted a ribbon cutting with the Helotes Area Chamber of Commerce and North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce followed by a medical open house. The Sandra Day OConnor orchestra entertained attendees and accepted First Choice Emergency Rooms donation on behalf of their school.

As a resident of this community, I am pleased to be able to bring high quality emergency medical care close to home for my neighbors, said Dr. Dean, Facility Medical Director of First Choice Emergency Room San Antonio-Helotes.

On Saturday from 10am-12pm, First Choice Emergency Room will host a community event and the Sandra Day OConnor High School orchestra will perform. 101.1 KONO will be on-site giving away prizes to attendees.

First Choice Emergency Room facilities are staffed by board-certified physicians and equipped with a full radiology suite and accredited lab to quickly handle emergency needs. According to patient feedback collected by Press Ganey, First Choice Emergency Room delivers the highest quality care, exceeding the 95th percentile of patient satisfaction in the country.

For more information about First Choice Emergency Room and the new San Antonio-Helotes facility, please visit http://www.fcer.com/locations/san-antonio/san-antonio-helotes/.

About First Choice Emergency Room

First Choice Emergency Room (FCER.com) is the nations leading network of independent freestanding emergency rooms; it is both the largest and the oldest. First Choice Emergency Room is revolutionizing the delivery of emergency medical services for adult and pediatric emergencies by offering patients convenient, neighborhood access to emergency medical care. First Choice Emergency Room facilities are innovative, freestanding, and fully equipped emergency rooms with a complete radiology suite of diagnostic technology (CT scanner, Ultrasound, and Digital X-ray) and on-site laboratory. All First Choice Emergency Room locations are staffed with board-certified physicians and emergency trained registered nurses. First Choice Emergency Room has facilities in Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. According to patient feedback collected by Press Ganey Associates Inc., First Choice Emergency Room provides the highest quality emergency medical care and received the 2013, 2014 and 2015Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award for exceeding the 95th percentile in patient satisfaction nationwide. First Choice Emergency Room is an Adeptus Health (NYSE:ADPT) company.
GreenCoinX Inc, a subsidiary of GreenBank Capital Inc a Canadian public company (CSE: GBC and OTCMKTS: GRNBF) ("GreenCoinX") announces the launch of SiiCrypto its affiliated crypto currency exchange (http://www.SiiCrypto.com). SiiCrypto specializes in trading GreenCoinX, the worlds first crypto currency requiring user identification, and it charges no commission for trades. It is very secure to use as all client fiat funds are held by a third party, ILS Fiduciaries (Switzerland) Sarl, the Swiss branch of ILS World, a global provider of independent fiduciary services. Crypto currency held by SiiCrypto cannot be accessed without client approval. Unlike other online exchanges, SiiCrypto cannot use clients crypto currency or fiat funds as a float or for any other purpose. Every user of SiiCrypto is identified to the same Know Your Customer (KYC) standards as exists in the banking system.

SiiCrypto is a unique crypto currency exchange that represents the way all exchanges should function. SiiCrypto clients have a very high level of security because client assets cannot be accessed without client sign off. To my knowledge, no other crypto currency exchange in the world offers such assurance to traders. Furthermore, SiiCrypto charges no commission. I believe that SiiCrypto will be the prime digital exchange service for worldwide trading of GreenCoinX. said Danny Wettreich, CEO.

The KYC requirements of GreenCoinX and SiiCrypto makes the promise of crypto currency a reality by resolving the identity issues that have previously discouraged crypto currency adoption. KYC identification alleviates the concerns that crooks and terrorists can use crypto currency to hide their activities. SiiCrypto clients can trade GreenCoinX for US Dollar, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Sterling and Bitcoin. Bitcoin users need to complete KYC identification in order to open a SiiCrypto account. Anonymous Bitcoin owners who decline to be identified to KYC standards will not be able to use SiiCrypto.

The cost of providing the services of ILS Fiduciaries (Switzerland) is passed on to SiiCrypto clients with a small fiduciary transaction fee of 1/5th of one percent. That is a negligible price to pay for security and client peace of mind, said Danny Wettreich.

With the advent of SiiCrypto, the GreenCoinX ecosystem has now been completed. It encompasses the worlds only crypto currency that requires user KYC identification (http://www.GreenCoinX.com), a free GreenCoinX online wallet (http://www.XGCwallet.org), and a commission free and secure online crypto currency exchange (http://www.SiiCrypto.com).

GreenCoinX has addressed blockchain longevity via the non-profit Digital Foundation ensuring miner rewards over the next 145 years, and currency stability via a treasury function.

The first government in the world to welcome GreenCoinX is the Isle of Man, whose Minister for Economic Development said GreenCoinX has the potential to make a significant difference in the digital currency arena.

About SiiCrypto

SiiCrypto provides a commission free and secure online exchange service enabling the worldwide trading of GreenCoinX. SiiCrypto is not a profit centered entity and is privately owned by its management. It is an affiliate of GreenCoinX as Danny Wettreich is the Chairman of both entities. For more information see http://www.SiiCrypto.com

About GreenCoinX

GreenCoinX Inc is a subsidiary of GreenBank Capital Inc a Canadian public company (CSE:GBC and OTCMKTS:GRNBF) and is the developer of GreenCoinX (crypto currency symbol XGC) the worlds first crypto currency that requires users to be identified. GreenCoinX meets the same Know Your Customer identification standards as the banking community, and makes the promise of crypto currency a reality by alleviating concerns that crooks and terrorists can use crypto currency to hide their activities.

For more information please see http://www.GreenCoinX.com or http://www.GreenBankCapitalInc.com or contact Danny Wettreich, CEO, at dw(at)greenbankcapitalinc(dot)com or (647) 931 9768.
Deployed Mobile Command Vehicle

CSMI provides Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support for a fleet of Mobile Command Vehicles, which supports the DHS FPS mission through the provision of mobile, on-site platforms for command, control and communications during terrorist attacks, natural disasters, National Special Security Events, and other similar occurrences. CSMI performs rapid deployment of MCVs to any location in the Continental United States where the communications infrastructure is inadequate or has been disrupted, or where enhanced interoperability among law enforcement agencies is needed. MCVs provide comprehensive communications capability to include; Cellular and Satellite, secure and non-secure telephone, Satellite and broadcast television, VHF, UHF, 800 and 900 Megahertz radio system frequencies, video teleconferencing, Mesh networks, video capture and security imaging, command post support and other critical command and control capabilities.

Randall Kaminsky, CEO said We are pleased to provide continued support to our valued DHS Federal Protective Service customer. This award demonstrates our continued commitment to providing responsive, quality technical communications and operations support services to our nations first responders

About CSMI, LLC

Founded in 2002, CSMI, LLC is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) which provides Worldwide Support to the U.S. Government, Defense Primes and Host Nation customers. Headquartered in Lawrence, Massachusetts, CSMI is a leading technical services provider of Mission Support Solutions, Integrated Logistics Support of C4ISR, Antiterrorism Force Protection Systems (AT/FP), Seaport Security and other mission-critical security technologies. CSMIs expertise includes: fielding and lifecycle management, Integrated Logistics Support, forward Field Sustainment, New Equipment Training (NET), communications integration, operations management, and Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance. Over the past 14 years, CSMI has deployed more than 600 personnel to four continents in support of U.S Government Customers. CSMI is best known for providing rapid response and customer-centric focus that small businesses are best suited to provide. Please visit CSMIs website at http://www.csmi.com or email us at information(at)csmi(dot)com with any inquiries you may have.
Well provide information and insights they cant get elsewhere, and use this medium as a chance to get closer to the people who have supported Car and Driver for so many years.

Car and Driver, the worlds largest automotive enthusiast magazine brand, today announced a partnership with CRN International to launch The Car and Driver Podcast. The series debuts on March 25 during the New York International Auto Show, with daily episodes that include interviews with Car and Drivers award-winning writers and industry CEOs, car introductions and commentary direct from the floor of the Auto Show.

After the Auto Show, the series will move into weekly podcasts featuring short-segment reviews and conversations with Car and Driver editors, writers and contributors based both on content from the pages of the magazine and beyond them, capturing the unique style and entertaining personality of the brand.

This is exciting because we will provide our avid fan base a new and exciting way to engage with us, said Eddie Alterman, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver. Well provide information and insights they cant get elsewhere, and use this medium as a chance to get closer to the people who have supported Car and Driver for so many years.

The venture represents the latest addition to CRN Internationals fast-growing portfolio of podcasts under its Collisions brand. Other Collisions podcasts include Distraction, hosted by New York Times best-selling author and leading psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell, which went live earlier this week; The Official Sasquatch! Festival Podcast, a Live Nation music festival; and Stockton, hosted by sportscasting icon Dick Stockton. More podcast series will be announced shortly.

We are very honored to bring Car and Driver to podcasting. I have admired its cherished history and reputation for great writing, honest journalism, sophisticated wit, and its importance to the automotive public, which is just about everybody, said CRN President and Founder Barry Berman. I feel a huge responsibility to its passionate following and dedicated editorial team to extend the Car and Driver voice to this exciting new platform -- a platform, incidentally, which should be a natural for the wonderful personality of the magazine.

In addition to the podcasts, CRN will produce Car and Driver daily radio programs during the Auto Show, which will air on New York and Connecticut radio stations. While 20 area radio stations will promote the new podcast series, several will run 60-second daily news updates from the Show, including WOR-AM and WAQX-FM in New York, and WWYZ-FM, WHCN-FM, WKSS-FM, WUCS-FM, WPOP-AM, WKCI-FM and WAVZ-AM in Connecticut.

CRN, which for decades has produced thousands of radio campaigns on radio stations throughout the country for hundreds of leading consumer brands, and Car and Driver will work closely together to create, produce and distribute the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and other outlets.

Click HERE to download and subscribe to The Car and Driver Podcast.

About Car and Driver

Car and Driver is known for its expert editorial team that is highly regarded by car enthusiasts and automotive manufacturers for their integrity, engineering backgrounds, and high standards. The magazine is published monthly by Hearst Magazines, boasting the largest audience of any monthly automotive magazine. The Car and Driver brand is a leading source of information for automotive enthusiasts and in-market car buyers. The brand also extends to many platforms, including websites, mobile sites, radio, iPhone/iPad apps, events, custom marketing programs, and integrated marketing databases. Follow Car and Driver on Twitter at @CarAndDriver.

About CRN International

CRN International is the leading radio marketing company, pioneering strategies and producing creative programming that gives major advertisers competitive advantages through radio and emerging audio media. The company recently launched Collisions, which produces podcasts for curious people. The company is headquartered in Hamden, CT, with offices in New York, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Hershey, PA.

For more information, contact:

Nathan Christopher, Hearst, Executive Director of PR, nchristopher(at)hearst(dot)com, 212-649-2582

Lauren Demitry, Hearst, Manager of PR, ldemitry(at)hearst(dot)com, 212-649-2619

Jim Alkon, CRN, Marketing Director, jima(at)crnradio(dot)com, 203-407-3341
Veronica Wandrey I look forward to blending my years of expertise and support to this mission, said Veronica.

H ospice Services at Methodist ElderCare, a division of Methodist ElderCare Services, is pleased to announce Veronica Wandrey, has accepted the position of Community Relations Liaison. In this role, she will be responsible for educating the community on the mission of Hospice Services at Methodist Elder Care, in providing hospice care to residents of the Ohio counties of Union, Delaware, Licking, Madison, Franklin, Fairfield, Pickaway and Fayette.

The mission of Hospice Services at Methodist ElderCare is to strive to make the most of each day by providing compassion and support for our patients and their loved ones, wherever they call home. Hospice Services at Methodist ElderCare provides care that focuses on medical and personal comfort for individuals in the last months, weeks or days of life. Mrs. Wandrey brings over 8 years of experience in the marketing and sales, with a recent focus on durable medical equipment and information technology sales. I look forward to blending my years of expertise and support to this mission, said Veronica.

Call (614) 451-6700 for more information regarding Hospice at Methodist ElderCare.

Methodist ElderCare Services is an affiliate of the West Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church that provides quality housing, health care and services for seniors in Central Ohio. Incorporated in 1967, Methodist ElderCare Services continues to be a not-for-profit Ohio corporation that seeks to promote a positive experience of community and wellness for residents, clients and staff. For more information call (614) 396-4833 or visit http://www.methodisteldercare.org
This community-driven collaboration is at the root of our Gumbo & Mistletoe campaign and what ADG stands for as a whole.

ADG Creative, a Maryland branding and marketing agency, won three ADDY Awards from the American Advertising Federation of Baltimore (AAFB) for its work on the 2015 Gumbo & Mistletoe campaign.

Gumbo is often used as a metaphor for the mix of cultures that exist in southern Louisiana, an environment in which various influences meld with one another to create new traditions and cuisine, said Jeff Antkowiak, ADGs founder and Chief Creative Officer. This community-driven collaboration is at the root of our Gumbo & Mistletoe campaign and what ADG stands for as a whole.

ADG Creative received three gold ADDY Awards for our Gumbo & Mistletoe campaign in multiple categories, including:

Self-Promo Collateral Direct Marketing & Specialty Advertising

Self-Promo Collateral Special Events Materials

Self-Promo Integrated Campaign

The Annual ADDY Awards ceremony was held at the Baltimore Museum of Industry on March 10, 2016. Gold ADDY winners automatically move on to the District level.

For more information about the Baltimore ADDY awards, visit: http://www.baltimoreaddys.com

About ADG Creative:

ADG Creative is a strategic communications firm that partners with its clients to tell extraordinary stories through unique brand experiences. The agency is deeply committed to the idea that creative thinking  grounded in sound strategy and unleashed through the right technology  enables organizations to Be Heard. With over two decades experience (and still kicking), ADG is privately owned and headquartered in Columbia, MD where it services a variety of global, national and regional brands. For further information, visit http://www.adgcreative.net.
Chocolate Heroin Smugglers are constantly trying to bring in dangerous and illegal narcotics

In the last few weeks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers in Cincinnati have made multiple seizures of methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin, thereby preventing drug smuggling via unique concealment methods.

Recently, at the Cincinnati express consignment facility, a CBP narcotics detector dog alerted to a crated shipment containing a saddle. When CBP Officers examined the shipment they noted that there were no narcotics in the saddle, but when officers examined the crate itself, they discovered methamphetamine powder concealed inside the wooden slats. The saddle was mailed from Mexico and destined for delivery near Houston, Texas.

In other recent shipments from Mexico, Cincinnati CBP Officers have found methamphetamines hidden in ceramic statues, tortilla presses, and toy Ferris wheels. They have also discovered liquid meth and liquid cocaine in traditional drinks and drink additives, like horchata and jarabe syrup.

Another notable narcotics interception came from a package manifested as candy. The package, which contained a tub of chocolate icing, showed some irregularities during an x-ray examination. After conducting a physical inspection, CBP Officers determined that smugglers had placed a sealed bag of approximately two and a half pounds of heroin in the chocolate.

Smugglers are constantly trying to bring in dangerous and illegal narcotics, but our skilled officers use their extensive training and expertise to recognize and identify unusual concealments in order to protect the American public, said Cincinnati Port Director Richard Gillespie.

Follow-up investigations are being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

CBP conducts operations at ports of entry throughout the United States, and regularly screens arriving international passengers and cargo for narcotics, weapons, and other restricted or prohibited products. CBP strives to serve as the premier law enforcement agency enhancing the Nations safety, security, and prosperity through collaboration, innovation, and integration.
At Cranium 360 we are thrilled to make Grand Junction our home and we are excited to see what the next ten years will bring.

Cranium 360, the award winning marketing agency, will celebrate its tenth year in business this April. Over the past ten years, Cranium 360 has provided high-caliber strategic marketing, branding, web development and online management services. As a full-service agency, the Cranium 360 team continues to provide the best marketing to their clients by incorporating design, research, advertising, online marketing and campaign development under one roof. At Cranium 360 we are thrilled to make Grand Junction our home and we are excited to see what the next ten years will bring, says Matthew Breman, the Principal of Cranium 360. To celebrate their success, they will be having an appreciation party for their clients and friends on April 22 at the Cranium 360 office.

Ten Years of Buzzing Around: Cranium 360 Coffee Contest

The Cranium 360 team loves spreadsheets, coffee and happy customers. For their 10th anniversary party they will be wrapping it all into one amazing contest. Between now and April 20, visit http://www.Cranium360.com/team and guess how many cups of coffee the team will drink. The winner will receive a new Pixie Nespresso Espresso Machine at the anniversary party on April 22. Participants do not have to be present to win. Click here to enter.

About Cranium 360: Cranium 360 is a full-service marketing agency dedicated to providing clients with strategic solutions. The company commits itself to telling each business story and delivering what it deserves: results. Cranium 360 partners with the United Way of Mesa County and other area nonprofits to support western Colorados growing business culture and emphasis on community involvement.
We see this partnership as an opportunity for both IPVideo Corporation and Milestone Systems to deliver tremendous, game-changing value to the marketplace,

IPVideo Corporation, a leading manufacturer of IP-based video surveillance and command center solutions, announced today that it has entered into an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) agreement with Milestone Systems, by which IPVideo Corporation will sell and support a rebranded version of Milestones XProtect software platform. The IPVideo solution will parallel the offerings of Milestones current Enterprise and Corporate software suites, which cater to large-scale, multi-site, geographically dispersed and high-security applications. IPVideo will offer the video management solution (VMS) as software-only or pre-loaded onto purpose-built, powerful video servers with a range of storage options. In addition, IPVideo will offer licensing to the full range of supported integration partners that comprise Milestones open platform ecosystem.

The addition of a VMS powered by Milestone Systems, the industry leader in its support for open integrations, is a natural complement to IPVideo Corporations own award winning C3fusion integrated security management (ISM) solution. C3fusion, which is quickly gaining acceptance as a preferred security and facilities management platform for municipalities, utilities and law enforcement, provides centralized command, control and coordinated response to a wide range of disparate systems through a central interface. Milestone Systems XProtect platform is already supported by C3fusion, bringing surveillance video, as well as data from any of its community of integration partners, into the C3fusion management console. The ability for IPVideo to sell and support a rebranded version of XProtect video management under the same umbrella as its C3fusion product allows the company to offer customers a seamless continuum of options  from pure VMS with future-ready capabilities, to a fully expanded, multifaceted control environment that bridges security technologies with the growing Internet of Things (IoT). In addition, IPVideo will continue to offer its SentryVMS video management system, a robust and user-friendly VMS option for customers seeking a cost-effective solution that includes select license-free cameras and encoders.

IPVideo Corporation considers it an honor to associate our name with Milestone Systems, a company that has defined the network video surveillance space, and the open platform paradigm, since day one. Milestones vision of creating an open standards community closely matches IPVideos fundamental guiding principles, to expand the boundaries of technology through an open community. We see this partnership as an opportunity for both companies to deliver tremendous, game-changing value to the marketplace, said David Antar, President of IPVideo Corporation.

The commitment from IP Video Corp to build its future VMS business on the Open Platform from Milestone is really exciting and fits perfectly into our OEM strategy towards opening up new markets and channels. With IP Video Corp we have a strong partner within the security industry who will not only provide high-end technology solutions to the market, but also be a valuable partner in providing feedback for our product development and future roadmap for the XProtect product line said Henrik K. Nielsen, OEM Sales Director at Milestone Systems.

IPVideo Corporation will officially announce the OEM agreement at the ISC West Conference in Las Vegas, April 6-8, 2016. More information will be provided at that time. Visit IPVideo Corporation at booth 19116, or online at http://www.ipvideocorp.com.

About IPVideo Corporation

An industry pioneer since its introduction of one of the first network-based surveillance recording solutions in 1996, IPVideo Corporation is now at the forefront of developing unique, innovative solutions that harness the power of IP video technology. Today, the Companys systems are trusted by Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and municipalities, utilities, healthcare facilities, school districts and leading universities to mitigate risk while protecting people and property. A commitment to an open-standards philosophy and delivering best-in-class performance and value underlies all offeringsfrom physical security solutions that bridge to the Internet of Things, to purpose-built HD audio/video recording solutions for education, law enforcement, healthcare, and beyond. The companys worldwide client base is served by a network of certified distributors, dealers and system integrators, who benefit from ongoing corporate support and training. IPVideo Corporation is headquartered in Bay Shore, NY. For more information, visit http://www.ipvideocorp.com.

About Milestone Systems

Milestone Systems is a global industry leader in open platform IP video management software, founded in 1998 and now operating as a stand-alone company in the Canon Group. Milestone technology is easy to manage, reliable and proven in thousands of customer installations, providing flexible choices in network hardware and integrations with other systems. Sold through a community of partners in more than 100 countries, Milestone solutions help organizations to manage risks, protect people and assets, optimize processes and reduce costs. For more information, see: http://www.milestonesys.com. For news and viewpoints from the Milestone open platform video community, visit The Milestone Post.
George Noory, host of Coast to Coast AM, makes his first appearance at Victory of Light on Saturday, April 9, leading a celebrity panel at 12 Noon and hosting a dinner at 7 p.m. ...theres no doubt the panel discussion George Noory will lead on Saturday will be extraordinary! Past News Releases RSS Celebrity Psychic Thomas John...

Psychic, Holistic & Paranormal...

The Victory of Light Expo,...

George Noory, star of one of radio's most fascinating programs, Coast to Coast AM, will make his first appearance at the Victory of Light Expo on Saturday, April 9. As host of the nationally syndicated late-night radio program, Noory captivates program listeners with his discussions of paranormal phenomena, time travel, alien abductions, conspiracies and all things curious and unexplained. Noorys Victory of Light appearances, all scheduled to take place on Saturday of the two-day Expo, include leading a panel of renowned experts who will answer audience questions about life's deepest mysteries - the paranormal, life after death, past lives and expanded human potential.

The Victory of Light Expo, Saturday, April 9 and Sunday, April 10, at the Sharonville Convention Center, will be the largest in the events 24-year history with 80 seminars led by psychic, holistic and paranormal experts from around the country and over 250 exhibitors and vendors. Noory will connect personally with his fans at a special dinner event on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. in the Northern Lights Ballroom. Tickets to Dinner with George Noory must be purchased online by noon on Wednesday, April 6. General admission tickets and tickets to other special events can be purchased online through the Victory of Light website as well as at the door.

Hours:

10 a.m. to 7 p.m. both days

Expo Tickets:

$15.00 per day; $25 for both days

Children 12 & under: Free

$2.00 discount for seniors (60+), students and active duty military (with ID)

Panel with George Noory:

$29.00. (can be purchased online or at the door, if not sold out)

Dinner with George Noory:

$69.00. Must be purchased online at http://www.VictoryofLight.com by Noon Wednesday, April 6.

Other Special Events:

$20.00 (can be purchased online or at the door)

Parking:

On-site, Free

Coast to Coast AM, is heard by 2.75 million listeners on 564 stations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Guam. George Noory became the permanent host of the phenomenally successful over-night program in 2003, and since then his audience has continued to grow. Noory captivates listeners with his interviews with internationally-known experts and discussions of paranormal phenomena, time travel, alien abductions, and conspiracies. He is also host of "Beyond Belief with George Noory," on Gaiam TV, a subscription-based webcast on which Victory of Light founder and Executive Director Victor Paruta has appeared twice as his guest.

I am so thrilled to have George Noory making his very first appearance at the Expo, comments Paruta. George is a compelling and stimulating radio and TV host, and theres no doubt the panel discussion he will lead on Saturday will be extraordinary! His appearances plus the fact that were offering more seminars than ever before, make this Expo the most exciting weve ever had.

Additional highlights of this Expo include a day of seminars exploring Native American Spirituality on Saturday, April 9, every hour from 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., including a traditional Sacred Tobacco Drumming Circle, and presentations by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Chief Golden Light Eagle, Barry White Crow and Eagle Skyfire.

A record number 16 seminars will include psychic readings for the audience, the most popular and well attended seminars at every Victory of Light Expo, including Ask a Psychic with Victor Paruta at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. Another highlight is Midwest School of Astrology founder Pam Gallaghers timely Predictions for Fall 2016 & the Astrology of the Presidential Election on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

Holistic and Energy Healing talks and demonstrations take place every hour. The world's foremost authority on Pranic Healing and co-author of Your Hands Can Heal You (Simon & Schuster, 2002), Master Stephen Co presents this powerful healing technique at 2:00 p.m. Saturday. Three presentations are led by cancer survivors who healed themselves using holistic techniques (Heidi Bright, Letha Cupp, Maria Celeste). Other healing seminars cover Essential Oils, Crystals, Eastern Approaches to Healing, Reiki (laying on of hands), Transforming Grief, Meridian Tapping, Herbs and Tibetan Buddhist Healing Ceremonies.

Dr. Linda Backman, one of the world's foremost authorities on Past Lives and author of two books on the subject, is making her first appearance at Victory of Light - as a panelist with George Noory (12 Noon) and a presenter at 3:00 p.m. A frequent guest on television and radio, including Noory's Coast to Coast AM and the Dr. Oz Show, Backmans presentation Past Lives, Consciousness & Life Purpose: Why Are We Here Now? is a 90-minute special event ($20). Other talks on Past Lives are being presented by Cindy & Michael Fess (Soul Mates, Soul Contracts, Soul Stories), Beth Ann Bennett (Exploring Past Lives), and Consuelo Cassotti (Past Life Regression).

The Paranormal, another widely popular subject, is covered in several presentations, including Spirit Photographs with Kentucky author Thomas Freese; Our Alien Origins & the Hidden History of Earth with David Gieske; Orbs: One Man's Journey with Cincinnati author Willis Stanley; and Ask A Paranormal Investigator with Victory of Light Paranormal Investigations.

Live original music is performed all weekend by Mark Kenworthy (keyboards), award winning Native Flutist Douglas Blue Feather, Ron Esposito (Crystal Bowls) and Deborah Brubaker (Chakra Flutes). A full menu of healthful food choices is available on site. A downloadable schedule for the April 2016 Victory of Light Expo with seminar descriptions and lists of exhibitors can be found at VictoryofLight.com.

About Victor Paruta: A highly sought after and respected psychic reader and spiritual consultant, Victor Paruta was featured on two episodes of "Beyond Belief" with host George Noory on Gaiam TV. Named Best Psychic (Cincinnati Magazine) for his mysteriously accurate and compelling readings," Paruta is a regular guest on radio and television and has been featured in dozens of articles and publications. He has also appeared on ABCs The View. Paruta is also a medium with Victory of Light Paranormal, a high level paranormal investigation and research team serving Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. He has been producing the Victory of Light in Cincinnati since 1992 to provide the general public with a venue for experiencing and learning about the holistic and psychic arts and sciences.
Church.org (http://www.church.org/), an organization building and encouraging the faith community, relaunched its website on Good Friday. The new launch showcases an updated database of more than 150,000 churches across the country, as well as several new leadership and social tools to help strengthen believers all over the world.

We are constantly updating listing information and are dedicated to providing the most up-to-date church database available, says CEO, Beau Bufton. Its a great resource for anyone looking to find the right church for their situation.

With a fresh design and functionality, the new Church.org aims to connect a community for believers throughout the world.

Were building free community tools to help people socialize and interact, and well also be interviewing many faith leaders and other contributors in an effort to give people hope and inspiration right where they are, says Bufton. Whether youre part of a specific church, spiritual in your own way, or just want to improve your life, we believe that youll find something useful and life-giving that speaks into your circumstance.

In the coming weeks, Church.org will also be releasing an app to allow people to receive daily scriptures and devotionals, and enables users to search for churches in their immediate vicinity via its geo-locating-map functionality.

You will be able to pull up churches near you on your mobile device, as well as read a daily Bible verse, devotion, and prayer. Were making it easy, fun and most of all, life-giving, Bufton said.

Church.org has a new management team led by Bufton and is in the process of forming an advisory board with several influential leaders.

We are excited to build on the already wonderful foundation that former Church.org CEO, Larry Fowler, laid out. We are honored that Larry chose us to help carry forth the vision of Church.org being a place where people can continue to seek, find, and grow their faith.

About Church.org

Church.org was created to connect people to a church home and to bring church to you with online sermons and messages of hope and inspiration. Church.org is a fast-growing, faith-based community that provides social networking tools as well as one of the largest databases of churches in the United States. It is consistently updated and maintained with the most accurate church information available. For more information, visit http://www.church.org/
Hernon Manufacturing prepares their expanded headquarters & adhesives production facility in Sanford, FL for a grand opening on Tuesday April 5. We have expanded exports from 23 to 50 countries in the last four years

Hernon Manufacturing announced the expansion of their manufacturing facility at 121 Tech Drive in Sanford, FL. will be officially opened at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday, April 5, 2016. The expansion quadruples the original 25,000 square foot plant and the project cost is estimated at $2MM. Hernon Manufacturing is spending another $500,000 on equipment for the new building and the project is expected to nearly triple Hernons production capacity. The Sanford-based industrial solvents and adhesives company anticipates hiring an additional 20  30 employees to assist with the increased production and will be paying an average of $60,000 for those manufacturing jobs.

Hernon Manufacturing has seen significant growth over the last five years that is tied directly to a Total Solutions approach. Said Harry Arnon, CEO of Hernon Manufacturing. Hernon's ability to offer both adhesive and sealant solutions as well as the precision dispensing equipment to apply those solutions has been very well received by the industries we serve and it is this Total Solutions approach that is making the expansion possible.

The expansion is expected to signify the start of a new level of competition for Hernon Manufacturing within the adhesives industry and on the world stage.

Hernon Manufacturing has expanded exports from 23 to 50 countries in the last four years, says Edgardo Rodriguez, Sales and Marketing Director for Hernon Manufacturing. This success has been recognized at the highest levels with the Presidential E Award for exports in 2015 and has opened the door to even more opportunities as Hernon's international network and brand recognition continues to improve.

Hernon is expected to use the new capacity to continue driving down production costs making them even more competitive.

New Awards and Honors

In 2015 Hernon Manufacturing received the E Award for Exports from the Office of the President of the United States. This award honors Hernon Manufacturing for demonstrating a sustained increase in export sales over a four-year period.

In 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order reviving the World War II E symbol of excellence to honor and provide recognition to America's exporters. The Presidents E Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports. Record years of successive export growth and an applicants demonstration of an innovative international marketing plan that led to the increase in exports is a significant factor in selecting winners. Click here to visit the source: http://ow.ly/ZRHd4
We hope to continue this expansion throughout the US and Canada.

TileSizer CEO/President Laura Saitta never realized how fascinated people were with inventors until she became one. During a DIY kitchen remodel, she had problems fitting the backsplash tiles around a window sill and made a makeshift device to help cut the tile into tiny pieces for a mosaic design. TileSizer, like most inventions, was really created with the idea that there had to be a better way.

TileSizer is a USA made specialty tile jig that aids in cutting tile with a wet saw. It is one of the most versatile tile tools on the market for making intricate and precise cuts on mosaic tile. It is the perfect tiling tool to help users achieve professional looking results in their kitchens, bathrooms, swimming pools, fountains, and other mosaic tile design projects.

Lowes operates more than 1,840 home improvement and hardware stores across North America, including more than 70 Orchard Supply Hardware stores. Lowe's retail customers include individual homeowners and renters who complete a wide array of projects from do-it-yourself (DIY) to do-it-for-me (DIFM) in the construction / trade, and maintenance / repair / operations areas.

It couldn't be a more perfect fit. As a result, Lowe's has just added the TileSizer product in stores and online. Saitta explains, We are so excited to be part of the Lowes family. They have really reached out to the small business community to bring unique products inside stores for their customers. We are very happy to be one of them. We hope to continue this expansion throughout the US and Canada. For the first time, TileSizer is now available in-store at the following Lowe's locations: Brooklyn, NY; Staten Island, NY; Bayonne, NJ; Union, NJ; Jersey City, NJ; Woodbridge, NJ; and Piscataway, NJ.

Spring is the perfect time to tackle those home improvement tile projects. Check out TileSizer online, or stop by a Lowes store today to get started.
The 500-gallon capacity Air Tractor 502XP is now FAA certified. Now that the certification process is completed, we are ramping up production and preparing to begin deliveries of the 502XP to customers.

Air Tractor President Jim Hirsch announced today that the company's 502XP agricultural spray plane has received Federal Aviation Administration type certification. The 502XP was first introduced to ag operators and pilots in December 2015 at the National Agricultural Aviation Association Convention in Savannah, Georgia. Type certification is the culmination of a long program where Air Tractor has shown the plane meets the applicable FAA regulations through a 2-year program of rigorous engineering analysis, supported by numerous ground and flight tests with the FAA.

"This week we received a letter confirming Air Tractor had met all of the FAA certification requirements for the 502XP," reports Hirsch. "This marks another milestone in Air Tractor's many airplane product offerings since our companys founding in 1972. Now that the certification process is completed, we are ramping up production and preparing to begin deliveries of the 502XP to customers."

Hirsch reports the 502XP is based upon the AT-502A airframe. It is powered by the new Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-140AG turbine engine and paired with a 4-blade Hartzell propeller. The combination of the 4-blade propeller with the PT6A-140AG engine produces 867 shaft horsepower, which is 117 more horsepower than the model AT- 502B. "The 502XP performs and flies great with a full 500-gallon load in high and hot conditions. It's an ag plane that will help pilots finish more acres, in less time and with less effort," he adds. "The larger fin and rudder, coupled with a rebalanced airframe and power, has yielded an airplane with excellent flying qualities."

ABOUT AIR TRACTOR

At its Olney Texas world headquarters and manufacturing facilities, Air Tractor produces a line of nine aircraft that includes 400, 500, 600 and 800-gallon capacity planes powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 engines. They are used for agricultural purposes, fire fighting, narcotic crop eradication, fuel-hauling, fighting locust plagues, and cleaning oil spills in coastal waters. From North, South and Central America, to Australia, Indonesia and China to Spain, Italy, Croatia and Africa, Air Tractor aircraft can be found in more than 30 countries around the world and are supported by a global network of Air Tractor dealers.
Aeroflow Donates Breast Pumps to Mothers in Need It is vital to the health of these children that their mothers are able to provide them with breast milk and donating these breast pumps will help mothers reach that goal.

Aeroflow Breastpumps has helped mothers across the county to receive their breast pump at little-to-no cost through their insurance. Aeroflow understands the importance of breastfeeding and strives to provide necessary breastfeeding equipment and supplies to as many women as possible. Recently, Aeroflow Breastpumps took this mission beyond the borders of the United States.

Along with a local high school student, Amber Culleton, and the Childrens Health Ministries (CHM), a non-profit organization that strives to improve the nutritional wellbeing of mothers and children in Haiti, Aeroflow Breastpumps was able to supply pregnant and breastfeeding women with much needed manual Medela brand breast pumps.

Amber, a high school sophomore from Asheville, North Carolina, learned about the need for manual breast pumps for moms in Haiti through her sister who has traveled to Haiti with CHM several times. With healthcare and electricity options limited, many expectant and new mothers in Haiti have no access to proper breastfeeding supplies or education. Because of this, malnutrition cases among Haitian children are on the rise. It is Ambers hope that these manual breast pumps will work to decrease the number of hungry children in Haiti.

During their time in Haiti, the CHM has treated over 1,500 malnourished children by providing prenatal care, breastfeeding support, and disease screenings and prevention. Instead of spending her spring break at the beach like most other high school students, Amber and her sister will travel to Haiti with the breast pumps and several other items that Amber has been collecting.

When Amber came to us with her story and asked Aeroflow to be involved, we were so excited to support a cause we believe in whole heartedly. We are blown away by her commitment to helping the people of Haiti and are so proud to be able to supply these mothers with the breastfeeding equipment they need, says Jennifer Jordan, Breastpump Director at Aeroflow. It is vital to the health of these children that their mothers are able to provide them with breast milk and donating these breast pumps will help mothers reach that goal.

To learn more about Childrens Health Ministries or how you can help, visit their website at http://www.chmhaiti.org.

Aeroflow Breastpumps, a subsidiary of Aeroflow Healthcare, is a Durable Medical Equipment (DME) provider specializing in helping pregnant and nursing women qualify for their free breast pump through insurance and the Affordable Care Act. To learn more about Aeroflow Breastpumps, visit http://www.breastpumps.aeroflowinc.com or call (844) 867-9890.
Hampton Inn by Hilton Boulder Louisville welcomes For King & Country fans to stay the night this April. For King & Country will be performing live at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield on Thursday, April 7th, starting at 7:30 pm. Ticket prices range from roughly $20 to $30, with an increase if fans purchase tickets day of event. The duo, comprised of Australian brothers, Joel and Luke, have soaring melodies, driving rhythms and personal themes that will touch every heart.

For more information, please visit http://www.1stbankcenter.com.

A short ten-minute drive from the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Hampton Inn by Hilton Boulder Louisville welcomes all Excision fans to stay the night after the show and enjoy Hamptons amazing amenities. Hampton offers guests free Wi-Fi, complimentary hot breakfast buffet daily, indoor pool, fitness center and much more. Guests may choose from king, double queen, king study and accessible rooms, available upon request. Hampton offers great amenities, comfortable rooms and group accommodations. Guests will enjoy the hotels close location to Boulder Valley Ice, Pearl Street Mall, Flatirons Crossing Mall, University of Colorado at Boulder and much more.

For reservations and more information on the Hampton Inn by Hilton Boulder Louisville, please visit http://www.louisvillehampton.com or call (303) 666- 7700. The Hampton Inn by Hilton Boulder Louisville is proudly managed by Stonebridge Companies in Denver, Colo.

Founded in 1991 by Navin C. Dimond, Stonebridge Companies is a privately owned, innovative hotel owner, operator and developer headquartered near Denver. Its diverse listing of properties includes select-service, extended-stay, mid-scale and full-service hotels in markets throughout the U.S. For detailed information, visit http://www.sbcos.com.
Highlighting this years Pageant of the Masters theme, Partners, The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel is partnering with Pageant of the Masters to present two extraordinary overnight experiences for the 2016 season. Both experiences include two premiere seats in the center loge section for the world-famous performance and admission for two to the renowned Festival of Arts.

The history of art is filled with stories of solitary artists abandoning society to pursue their creative expression. The 2016 Pageant of the Masters sets out in search of stories of compelling collaborations that led to the creation of unforgettable artworks in this summers presentation of Partners. Filled with provocative and passionate tales of some of arts dynamic duos  artists and patrons, models, muses, even dance partners, be sure to bring someone special with you, as Partners pulls back the curtain to reveal the significant others without whom the creation of great masterpieces might not have been possible.

Behind the Velvet Rope offers an exclusive opportunity for guests to see how this grand production comes together behind the curtain and offers a peek into the mystery of how art comes to life. The experience also affords guests to rub elbows with the artists while on a private docent tour of the Festival of Arts. Behind the Velvet Rope starts at $1,999 per couple and is available Saturday nights only. The package includes:



The Ritz-Carlton Club Level Ocean View Accommodations

Behind the Scenes Tour of the Pageant of the Masters

Two Premier Loge Center tickets to the Pageant of the Masters performance

Admission for two to Festival of Arts, one of the nations oldest and most highly acclaimed juried fine art shows

Private Docent Tour of Festival of Arts

Welcome Amenity and Pageant of the Masters Program

The Pageant of the Masters Partners experience starts at $849 per night and includes:



Overnight Accommodations

Two Premier Loge Center tickets to the Pageant of the Masters stage performance

Admission for two to Festival of Arts, one of the nations oldest and most highly acclaimed juried fine art shows

Welcome Amenity and Pageant of the Masters Program

The overnight experiences at the ocean front resort are available July 7 through August 31, 2016.

Click here for additional photos.

# # #

About Pageant of the Masters and Festival of Arts

The Pageant of the Masters is the Festival of Arts crowning jewel and arguably one of the most unique productions in the entire world. Real people magically transformed into life-sized re-creations of famous works of arts. A live narrator guides the audience through the story of each living picture accompanied by the music of a professional orchestra. The Festival of Arts is Californias premiere fine art show. The Festivals prestigious juried art show includes a wide variety of media such as paintings, photography, printmaking, sculpture, jewelry, handcrafted wood and furniture, ceramics, glass and more  all by 140 of Orange Countys finest artists. Established in 1932, Festival of Arts promotes, produces and sponsors events and activities that encourage the appreciation, study and performance of the arts.

About The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel

The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel premiered as the first luxury resort along coastal Orange County in August 1984. Today, the resort is a re-imagined surfside retreat that awakens guests senses with its unique ocean-front setting and remarkable service heritage. The resort is the premiere destination for travelers who desire a playful approach to Southern California luxury. The resort offers many extraordinary luxury experiences including Raya, 180blu, The Market Place, enoSTEAK, Bar Raya, The Ritz-Carlton Spa and the Eco-Adventure Center. For more information or reservations, call 800-241-3333, the hotel directly at 949-240-2000, a travel professional or visit http://www.ritzcarlton.com.
(Phoenix, AZ, March 25, 2016)The Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable (AZMRT), an initiative of WestEda nonprofit research organization promoting national improvements to our education systemreceived one of three $200,000 grants from the Americas Promise Alliance and Pearson. The award is tied to a new report released by the Roundtable, Arizona Mayors Education Dashboards, which shows the state will face disastrous consequences if Arizona fails to increase the number of young people that graduate from our high schools.

This report is a must-read for policymakers, education leaders and mayors in our state and across the country, said Mayor Greg Stanton of Phoenix, Arizona and chair of the Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable. It is time for us to act decisively. The report shows one in five young people in Arizona has not completed high schoolwith an estimated 18,100 youths failing to graduate in 2012.

The GradNation State Activation grants are given to organizations committed to ensuring that more young people graduate from high school prepared for success in college and the workforce. The grant will help connect mayors across Arizona with key data and with the means to share evidence-based practices and program strategies, both statewide and throughout the United States. This initiative will help address the key challenges facing all students. In addition to the funding from Americas Promise, the AZMRT is generously funded by the Helios Education Foundation and Arizona Community Foundation.

Increasing graduation rates for our high school students, both in Arizona and across the country, is crucial to ensuring that young people have bright futures ahead of them and for strengthening our economy, said Paul H. Koehler, director of WestEds Policy Center and coordinator of its Mayors Roundtable program. The high dropout rates in Arizona means that too many young people are not prepared to succeed, and our national and state economy will suffer as a result. The 16 mayors across the state are committed to changing this metric.

The data released in the report from AZMRT shows, at the current dropout rate, the resulting lifetime economic losses to Arizonaincluding decreased earnings and increased state spending on health, crime and public assistancewill amount to as much as $7.6 billion for each graduating class. This equates to economic losses of $421,280 per individual dropout over a lifetime.

In addition to quantifying the economic impact of the high school dropout rate in Arizona, the report shows the losses projected for specific Arizona cities, including, Avondale, Gilbert, Goodyear, Mesa, Oro Valley, Phoenix, Tempe and Tucson. The full report can be viewed here.

About the Arizona Mayors Roundtable

The Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable, a WestEd initiative, brings together mayors of Arizonas larger cities, district superintendents and their key staff to share data, evidence-based and promising practices and programmatic strategies that can help address local challenges affecting students educational and career success. The Roundtable is convened by WestEd and funded with core support by Helios Education Foundation.
If youre looking to buy or sell your home and or property, a Virginia-based company called House Buyers of America, which has purchased more than 1350 homes, is the best way to go.

Were like the CarMax of the real estate industry, said Nick Ron, CEO of House Buyers of America, Inc. We offer the no haggle and simple solution, and are pioneers of this concept within our industry. In fact, by the end February this year, weve bought over 1350 homes since 2001. No one else can claim that.

House Buyers of America, which won the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2004, buys houses As Is  in any condition, ugly or pretty. The company buys houses in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

Purchasing 1350 homes is a lot of volume, Ron said. And the best part about it is that our volume benefits customers. It benefits customers in the fact that customers know were not going anywhere. We have capital. Were reputable, and because of our buying power, we have volume pricing agreements with contractors to do the renovations for about half the cost of what most people would pay if they did it on their own.

Ron went on to point out that House Buyers of America thrived in the market during the Great Recession and is still thriving today while many others within the industry either went out of business or are struggling to survive in volatile market conditions.

Our business savvy and financial stability has given us the ability to weather the storm, Ron stressed, before adding, Weve done well in all business markets, whether the market is up, down, flat, whatever.

As one of the largest home buying companies in the region, House Buyers of America does not charge any real estate commissions or fees, which in turn, saves customers the typical six percent real estate commissions they otherwise would pay their agent to list their property.

Were able to make an offer in 10 minutes, Ron said. This is a new service in which weve streamlined our systems and implemented new technology so we can make a quick offer, in addition to saving customers money on commissions since we do not charge commission fees.

Ron noted that he is aware that potential customers may wonder or ask the question of how his company can make an offer in 10 minutes without actually seeing the home.

The answer to that is we have experience, weve been around for a long time, and weve valued over 100,000 houses since we started in 2001; were always looking! We have our own proprietary software and technology in place, and we have data on each neighborhood thats not available on other places. We also have a team of real estate consultants who are very knowledgeable, and have been in the business anywhere from 10 to 30 years. We utilize our software and our experienced real estate consultants, in addition to the information that customers supply to us, to provide an offer over the phone. Its quick, easy, fair, and is why were the company that has purchased the most in the region.

For more information, please visit housebuyersofamerica.com/about_house_buyers_of_america/ and housebuyersofamerica.com/we-buy-houses/

About House Buyers of America

House Buyers of America is a residential real estate investment company headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia. By using House Buyers, home owners no longer have to pay real estate commissions, deal with real estate agents, or fix-up their properties. The Company offers a guaranteed, fast and hassle-free sale to people who want to sell their house without paying a 6% Real Estate commission. House Buyers of America buys each property As-Is. House Buyers renovates the house if necessary, so sellers do not need to waste their time or money readying their property for sale.

Contact Details:

House Buyers of America, Inc.

14420 Albemarle Point Place, Suite 150

Chantilly, VA 20151

Phone: 1-855-659-3289

Source: House Buyers of America, Inc.

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We expect this iconic establishment to bring jobs and tourism to the region.

McMenamins Inc. has signed a lease to develop a brewpub and hotel on the Port of Kalama waterfront. The Port of Kalama board of commissioners approved the lease at this weeks regular commission meeting. The new facility is expected to be open for business by the end of 2017.

The new McMenamins destination will include a 40-room hotel, meeting rooms, gift shop, restaurant, brewery, and rooftop brewpub with river view as well as a smaller 500-square-foot pub a short walk away at the Port of Kalamas Ahles Point.

This is happy news for Kalama and the entire region as we expect this new establishment to bring jobs and tourism to the area, says Alan Basso, president, Port of Kalama board of commissioners. This McMenamins locationat a breathtaking spot right on the Columbia Riveroffers a new destination for travelers and tourists who may have never stopped in Kalama before. We expect an economic boon for the entire community.

With a long history of reimagining interesting spaces, McMenamins will incorporate Kalamas Hawaiian heritage into the design of its buildings, which will be modeled after the historic Pioneer Inn in Lahaina, Maui. Similar architecture can also be found today in Kalama in an 1870s structure that was the Northern Pacific Railways hospital. John Kalama, originally of Kula, Maui, lived in the area as an employee of the Hudsons Bay Company. The Kalama River and the city both bear his name. Descendants of John Kalama are members of the Nisqually and Warm Springs Tribes.

Architectural planning will commence immediately by the same firm that designed the Ports new administrative building and interpretive center, Collins Architectural Services. After the design is complete, the Port of Kalama will construct the building shell and exterior, parking area and landscaping, and rough-in electrical and mechanical features of the building. McMenamins will design and construct all interior components of the facilities.

One of McMenamins signature trademarks is the incorporation of a love for historic buildings and artwork in their establishments. Several McMenamins businesses are long-storied structures on the National Historic Register with paintings, murals and artwork as focal points. The McMenamins Kalama facility will honor the towns roots with unique architecture and visual touches.

A small town with a rich history, just a 30-minute drive from Portland and its international airport (PDX), Kalama is attracting business attention for good reason(s):



Location, location, location

Easy access to Interstate-5, rail, river

Booming business community

New commercially-zoned property under development

Quality recreation

Friendly small-town appeal

Collaborative, business-friendly culture

About McMenamins Hotels, Pubs & Breweries

McMenamins operates 54 distinctive pubs, restaurants and historic hotels in the Pacific Northwest. Founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin with a single Portland neighborhood pub in 1983, McMenamins today includes eight Washington locations and 46 Oregon properties, 18 on the National Register of Historic Places. McMenamins handcrafts its own beer, wine, spirits, cider and coffee and offers an eclectic mix of pubs, hotels, movie theaters, concert venues, spas and events for guests to enjoy. Visit http://www.mcmenamins.com for more.

About Port of Kalama  Where rail and water meet

The Port of Kalama is located in Southwest Washington on the Columbia River and immediately off of Interstate Highway 5. The port exists to induce capital investment in an environmentally responsible manner to create jobs and to enhance public recreational opportunities. Port of Kalama's industrial area includes five miles of riverfront property adjacent to the 43' federally-maintained deep draft navigation channel of the Columbia River. The Port is served by the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroads. There are over 30 businesses located at the Port of Kalama, employing over 850 people. Port of Kalama offers all the superior facilities businesses need to thrive, and an unsurpassed quality of life. The port offers shovel ready sites, a new Industrial Park, state of the art Marine Terminals and transportation accessibility to rail and highway all just a 30 minute drive to the Portland International Airport. Port of Kalama also offers high-bandwidth communications, with dual access fiber-optic service to Seattle and Portland. Properties currently available at the port for businesses wishing to expand and thrive: Visit http://portofkalama.com/available-properties/.

Contact: Liz Newman, marketing manager, Port of Kalama, 360-673-2379 or Claudia Johnson, PR, 503-799-2220.
Brooks Lake Lodge & Spa offers a unique summer Arts Lovers package where guests find inspiration for photography, painting and writing from the surrounding Wyoming mountain scenery and wildlife.. At the end of their stay, guests will leave the resort with a different type of memento of their trip: photographs, paintings and journals.

A new summer experiential arts package finds inspiration in the wilds of Wyoming and the unique perspectives of three accomplished artists, photographer Ed Riddell, painter Lee Riddell and author Tina Welling. Remote and exclusive Rocky Mountain luxury resort Brooks Lake Lodge & Spa, near Dubois, Wyo., has created a special Arts Lovers Retreat, Aug. 28  Sept. 1, 2016. The new four-night all-inclusive experience for two includes food, lodging and daily activities, allowing participants of all skill levels to try their hand at painting, photography and writing under the tutelage of the three remarkable artists in the historic lodges mountain wilderness location a short drive from Jackson Hole.

In addition to our usual summer activities, which include hiking, fishing and horseback riding, we wanted to provide our guests with an opportunity to experience their natural surroundings in a creative, artful way, says Brooks Lake Lodge General Manager Adam Long. Jackson Hole is nationally known for its arts community, and were lucky to have Ed, Lee and Tina ready to interact with our guests in this one-of-a-kind experience.

An Ansel Adams protege while in college, photographer Edward Riddell started taking pictures with a large-format view camera. These days, he shoots with a state-of-the-art Hasselblad digital camera, and his fine art photographs, often with the iconic landscape around his Jackson Hole home as subject, have appeared in numerous publications, including a coffee table book of his work, "The Range of Memory." Ed is also known for his popular small-group photography workshops set in landscapes he knows intimately  Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Zion national parks and Tuscany, Italy. Eds fine art photography is represented by WRJ Design in Jackson Hole.

Artist Lee Carlman Riddell is known for her paintings of landscape and nature. She works in both watercolor and oils and frequently paints outdoors. Lee has been honored as Artist-In-Residence for the Grand Teton Association and at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. She has served as a guest artist with the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters, and participated in the Jackson Hole Land Trusts View 22 project, a fundraiser that celebrates the influence of art on land conservation. Lee enjoys sharing what she has learned about painting through workshops and private lessons. Lees artwork is represented by WRJ Design in Jackson Hole.

Tina Welling is the author of "Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature," published by New World Library, and the novels "Crybaby Ranch," "Fairy Tale Blues" and "Cowboys Never Cry," published by Penguin Group. Tina conducts creative writing and journal-keeping workshops internationally and is a public speaker and longtime faculty member of the annual Jackson Hole Writers Conference. Her "Writing Wild" offers a three-step writing process of interacting with the natural world as a path to a relationship with wildness  both within and without.

Were thrilled to have this talented lineup of artists at the lodge, says Long. Our guests will go out into nature with the artists for each workshop  well send a picnic lunch. At the end of their stay, guests will leave the resort with a different type of memento of their trip: photographs, paintings and journals.

Brooks Lake Lodge & Spas new Arts Lovers Retreat is offered Aug. 28  Sept. 1, 2016, with check-in at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Activities include a choice of activities including horseback riding, fly fishing or guided hiking on Monday; a day spent writing in nature with Tina Welling on Tuesday; and a combined day of photography and painting with the Riddells on Wednesday; with check-out on Thursday. The entirety of the package is held in Brooks Lake Lodges spectacular mountain setting with four nights of all-inclusive luxury accommodations, including all meals with picnic lunches provided for days in the field. Price for the package is $1,994 per person (double occupancy) and includes tax, workshop materials and resort fee.

About Brooks Lake Lodge & Spa:

Brooks Lake Lodge & Spa, a 100-year-old historic guest ranch near Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park, sits at 9,200 feet above sea level one mile from the North American Continental Divide, with views of the Pinnacle Buttes, Austin's Peak and Brooks Mountain. Surrounded by mountains, evergreen forests, wildlife and the pristine Brooks Lake, the exclusive, all-inclusive Wyoming Rocky Mountain resort offers five-star service, luxury accommodations and gourmet dining. The new separate spa facility was built with Western Craftsman-style detailing to complement the historic lodge. A dude ranch by summer and ski and snowmobile haven in the winter, the lodge provides year-round activities for outdoor enthusiasts. All-inclusive rates include lodging, meals, activities and spa access. For additional information and reservations visit http://www.brookslake.com or call 866.213.4022.

Media Contact: Darla Worden, WordenGroup Public Relations, darla(at)wordenpr(dot)com, 307.734.5335
Mendez Award winner Councilman Billy Shreve Executive Director Tracie Hovey said in a statement that the festival's highest honor, the Mendez Award, is going to Frederick County Councilman Billy Shreve.

The Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown has announced its recipient of the 2016 Mendez Award, the film festivals highest honor. The Mendez Award, named in honor of American Hero Tony Mendez, is being presented to Billy Shreve.

Billy Shreve had a brainstorm, after coming to see the Maryland Film Festival-Hagerstown. He had a simple concept: use the excitement of making films, for a purpose. He knew of the terrible statistics in Maryland concerning drug overdoses and deaths. He pitched the idea to the State of Maryland, and a pilot program was started in Frederick County Public Schools. He invented the Classmates4Life anti-drug student film contest, which attracted nearly 100 entries from elementary, middle and high school students. The nine winners are being shown during the Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown in a first-ever partnership of this kind in Maryland.

Billy Shreve teamed up with the Superintendent of Schools in Frederick County. They asked students to create short videos explaining why drugs were dangerous. They could film them on iPhones, iPads, GoPros. Anything they'd like. Classmates4Life began with a kickoff press conference at Walkersville High School in December of 2015, where Superintendent Dr. Terry Alban, Councilman Billy Shreve and Sheriff Chuck Jenkins announced Billy's concept, in partnership with the Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown. Students began flooding in their submitted videos. Many were very powerful and creative entries. The Classmates4Life and the school system received so many entries that they had to break down the films into individual YouTube playlists! The 95 films were viewed almost 50,000 times on YouTube!

All student video producers were invited to the inaugural Classmates4Life Red Carpet Gala at the Holiday Inn & Conference Center in Frederick. Each student received a lanyard at check-in, and got an opportunity to pose in front of an Emmy Award, courtesy of the award-winning documentary film created by the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area. Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford served as a guest speaker. He congratulated the student filmmakers for their efforts, and praised this valuable anti-drug initiative. The Lieutenant Governor is chairman of Maryland's Heroin and Opioid Emergency Task Force. The Lieutenant Governor singled out Billy Shreve and congratulated him for this creative idea.

Billy Shreve is a Commercial Realtor and Consultant and served as a Frederick County Commissioner from 2010-2014, and Frederick County Council Member from 2015-present. He is a product of Frederick County Public Schools, Frederick Community College, and Hood College. Billy realized at a young age that the United States of America is the land of opportunity. It is a place where hard work and determination make a difference and anybody can be successful and live their American Dream. After graduating from high school, he worked two and often four jobs at a time to pay his way through college. He has worked many jobs over the years, ranging from a clerk at 7-11 to manufacturing to sales. At Fairchild Space and Defense Company, the most notable projects he worked on were the Hubble Space Telescope and the Space Shuttle. After leaving the manufacturing industry he began a career in sales and marketing. His first job was selling garage doors, then new homes and now commercial real estate. He excelled at new home sales and was the top sales person in both Frederick County and for the countrys 6th largest builder. During his career in new home sales, he was nationally published twice on the subject of sales and marketing. Always active in the Frederick community, Billy served as Chairman of the Frederick County Board of Zoning Appeals and as a member of the Frederick City Planning Commission. This service, along with working as a Realtor and consultant, has given him the unique opportunity to see planning, zoning, and property rights issues from both sides of the aisle. Billy is a Past President of Habitat for Humanity. He was instrumental in creating SB281, which was passed the 2010 Legislative Session in Annapolis and became a law in October. SB281 allows legitimate non-profit organizations relief from fees that prohibit affordable housing from being affordable. He is an avid skier and snowboarder.

The Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown's top award, the Mendez Award recognizes Billy Shreve's contributions not only for film, but also for contributions in the anti-drug educational effort, and excellence in contributions for quality of life, and for support of the independent spirit. The award will be officially announced and presented at the opening night of the festival on Friday April 1st, 2016 at the Maryland Theatre.

Past Award Winners have included:

Antonio "Tony" Mendez, CIA Master of Disguise, Founder of the Spy Museum, and Award-Winning Author and Painter.

Joe Carnahan, Film Director and Producer, known as one of the most prolific film-makers in Hollywood, Creative Director of MIFF-H.

Nora Roberts, Author and Entrepreneur, known as the world's most famous Romance Writer, best-selling author, and contributor for Washington County's economic development and tourism.

The fifth annual Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown received more than 350 submissions, and the judges announced that over 140 films were selected. Opening night Friday April 1st is taking place at the Historic Maryland Theatre. Other venues on Saturday and Sunday April 2 and 3 include the Academy Theater, the Bridge of Life Center, the Veritas UCC Church, along with the Washington County Free Library Fletcher Branch.

For more information about the festival, and to purchase tickets for the April 1-3 event, see: http://www.marylandiff.com. The Maryland International Film Festival-Hagerstown partners with several local organizations, businesses, and individuals, and major sponsors include the City of Hagerstown, the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Washington County Government (Office of Grant Management), the Nora Roberts Foundation, AMVETS, Horizon Goodwill Incorporated, Ovation PR & Advertising, Wells House, Bridge of Life Center, Manning Media, Herald-Mail, and the Maryland Film Office.

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As a Baltimore native, I am particularly excited to combine the powerful effect StraighterLine has on the cost of college and the impact that start-up edtech companies have on the health of a city.

StraighterLine, one of the fastest-growing online education companies in the U.S., is proud to participate at Light City in Baltimore. Burck Smith, StraighterLine's Chief Executive Officer, will participate in the Light City Us Social Innovation Conference. In its inaugural year, this event brings together leaders in social enterprise, education, social justice, philanthropy, and policy to explore real-world solutions to problems faced by societies throughout the world and will be held at the Baltimores Columbus Center on March 28  29, 2016 during "Light City 2016.

Smith will discuss how online courses can drive down the cost of a college degree in a panel discussion titled, Edtech Companies Redefining the Future of Learning. He will be joined by Wes Moore, best-selling author of The Other Wes Moore and founder of BridgeEdu, and Lida Zlatic, CEO and Co-Founder of ClassTracks. The panel discussion will take place during the first day of the Social Innovation conference on Monday, March 28.

StraighterLine CEO Burck Smith said, "As a Baltimore native, I am particularly excited to combine the powerful effect StraighterLine has on the cost of college and the impact that start-up edtech companies have on the health of a city."

Smith also added, "Light City Baltimore and Light City Us Social Innovation Conference truly highlights an exceedingly innovative time in education, and I'm excited that StraighterLine is playing an important part of an event that celebrates and elevates technology and entrepreneurship throughout Baltimore."

About Light City Baltimore

Light City Baltimore is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts and inspired by founding visionaries Brooke Hall and Justin Allen of What Works Studio. The event is sponsored by Founding Partners: BGE and Visit Baltimore; Leadership Partners: Abell Foundation, Brown Advisory, Kaiser Permanente, Maryland Department of Commerce and Whiting-Turner Construction Company; Major Sponsors: Baltimore Development Corporation and PNC Bank; Official Sponsors: Constellation, Downtown Partnership, Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, Greater Baltimore Committee, Loyola University Maryland, M&T Bank, UMBC, Under Armour and Waterfront Partnership; and Festival Sponsors: Ayers Saint Gross, Baltimore Ravens, Caves Valley Partners, Ellin & Tucker, Generosity, Inc., ICF, Johns Hopkins University (Presidents Office and Office of Technology Ventures), and Lifebridge Health. For more information, visit: http://lightcity.org/lcu/social-innovation-conference/

About StraighterLine

StraighterLine combines a $99 a month course subscription with guaranteed credit pathways to accredited degree programs to save students up to 60% on the total cost of their degree.

StraighterLine takes the worry out of credit transfer with a College Savings Network of 100 accredited colleges that guarantee acceptance of StraighterLine courses.

Having also been evaluated and recommended by the American Council on Educations College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT), StraighterLine courses will also be considered by more than 2,000 other colleges and universities for transfer to their degree programs upon request.

Media Contact

Beth Dumbauld

bdumbauld(at)straighterline(dot)com

443.712.7132
A Liberty University professor instructs students through a recording session in one of the School of Music's new songwriting labs.

To support its growing commercial music programs, as well as to give a platform for budding artists and music industry professionals, the Liberty University School of Music has acquired Red Tie Music, a professional Christian music publishing and recording label.

The addition of a professional label to our School of Music is monumental, said Dr. Vernon Whaley, dean of Libertys School of Music. Several college music business programs have established student-run recording labels, but to my knowledge, only one other university owns and operates a music publishing company to specifically support their commercial music endeavors. The acquisition of Red Tie Music, and its immediate access to the music industry, will help support our mission in developing market-ready artists, publishers, producers, artist-managers, performers, film score specialists, and composers of music to saturate the music industry and influence the culture for the glory of Gods kingdom.

The availability of music on the Internet and handheld devices has changed the music purchasing and listening habits of the consumer. However, much of the recording industry has yet to adapt to these monumental changes in the marketplace. Whaley views this acquisition as an opportunity, especially considering many college commercial music programs still focus on and teach old models and paradigms for recording, publishing, and producing.

Our curriculum focuses on teaching the students how to get music to the marketplaces, Whaley said, explaining that the marketplace is virtually unlimited with todays resources, provided one knows how to leverage various distribution platforms.

The addition of Red Tie Music will provide several benefits to students. Those looking to be independent artists will have the opportunity to be mentored by well-known artists and an association with a professional recording label. Students can also record and find a venue for immediately publishing original music. Students will also have opportunities for hands-on training with some of the countrys top studio and live sound engineers. The school will train its commercial music students not simply to record or publish, but to produce (manage the entire process) as well.

The vision is to use the already established branding of Red Tie Music as a platform to create a division called Liberty Music Group (LMG). LMG plans to develop a number of print and recording label imprints, including LMG-Gospel, LMG-Praise and Worship, LMG-Classic, LMG-Champion (developmental label for young artists), LMG-Film Score, LMG-Student Worship, LMG-Academic (for printed music education materials), and more. There are also plans for LMG to serve as the official publishing and recording arm of the university and to partner with the Campus Recreation Department to develop a student-run imprint. While serving the entire university student body, the label and its imprints will also market to and provide music to the community at large.

Many students graduating from our artist development degree will now have an opportunity to immediately sign with a nationally recognized recording label that is innovative, creative, and forward thinking, Whaley said. In a day when many recording labels are turning away young artists and still seeking to market their products through old systems and old delivery systems, LMG is poised to forge new and exciting venues that will provide the industry quality alternatives for artists in the Christian, classical, worship and praise, country, and jazz communities.

Furthermore, LMG will provide opportunities for students, faculty, and industry personnel to publish print music, praise charts, music method books, music anthologies, and music theory handbooks for the classroom and church markets.

State-of-the-art facilities

As construction wraps up this summer on the second of two conjoined buildings comprising Libertys new Center for Music and the Worship Arts, plans for a professional recording studio to be added to the first building are being finalized. Construction will begin on the recording studio following the completion of the second building, which includes a state-of-the-art, 1,600-seat fine arts auditorium.

The renowned Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG) has been secured to design and supervise building the state-of-the-art recording studio. WSDG has built and installed over 3,000 large and small professional sound studios over the last 30 years. The recording studio will have the ability to record live from the auditorium as well as a number of the choir/instrumental teaching rooms, recital halls, practice rooms, and songwriting labs throughout the center.

Liberty recently added a new director of audio production, Nathan Zwald, to its faculty. Zwalds recording and producing credits are numerous, including Matthew West, Rascal Flatts, Mark Schultz, and Steven Curtis Chapman. In addition to extensive live sound experience, his services have been utilized by Sony, Provident, Thomas Nelson, Lifeway, and more.

The focus of our new music production curriculum initiatives provide Christ-centered, market-relevant, practical, collaborative, and hands-on training in studio and live music production, Zwald said. Our facultys extensive music industry experiences serve to equip students with a balanced and comprehensive knowledge base.

Innovative academics

Last fall, the School of Music established a new Department of Commercial Music, which serves as the primary training ground for students interested in becoming professionals in the commercial music industry. Liberty recently added to its Bachelor of Music in Commercial Music a degree concentration in Recording Engineering and Producing, in addition to the existing B.M. in Commercial Music degrees with concentrations in Artist Development, Songwriting, Film Scoring, and Jazz Studies. Liberty also launched a Bachelor of Science in Music & Worship: Publishing and Producing degree under the Center for Music & Worship. Future commercial music degrees are in development, including one in Music Theatre, focusing on training music directors for Broadway and the like.

About Liberty University

Liberty University, founded in 1971, is the largest private, nonprofit university in the nation, the largest university in Virginia, and the largest Christian university in the world. Located near the Blue Ridge Mountains on more than 7,000 acres in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty offers more than 500 unique programs of study from the certificate to the doctoral level. More than 200 programs are offered online. Libertys mission is to train Champions for Christ with the values, knowledge, and skills essential for impacting tomorrows world.
"GovTravels provides a platform for industry professionals to both learn about emerging government needs as well as demonstrate their prowess in this field. Thats why well be participating."

Advantage Rent A Car (Advantage) and E-Z Rent-A-Car (E-Z), the fourth largest rental car company in the U.S., will be exhibiting at the GovTravels trade show next week.

Hosted by the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA), this trade show is the years premier gathering of government travel stakeholders, rental car companies, hotels and airfare industry executives.

This years theme, SAFEGUARDING OUR TRAVELERS TODAY AND TOMORROW speaks to the shows intent and how this intent can be achieved by gaining a better understanding of modern travel and passenger service and security challenges.

I believe its the duty of every company involved in travel and passenger services to know and understand the current travel landscape, said Bill Plamondon, President of Advantage Rent A Car. GovTravels provides a platform for industry professionals to both learn about emerging government needs as well as demonstrate their prowess in this field. Thats why well be participating.

Upon their merger in 2015, Advantage and E-Z have sought unique ways to serve the travel needs of both local and federal government agencies. Jointly, they offer car rental discounts to government employees and contractors engaging in government-related travel. They also extend discounts to military veterans.

As two brands working in lockstep, we have a more comprehensive set of car rental solutions and packages, said Mr. Plamondon. Now Advantage and E-Z can provide both premium and economy solutions for travel needs at every level of government. We're confident that we are the best single source car rental option participating in the show and we intend to demonstrate that while were there.

The Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandria, VA, will host the trade show on March 29th through the 31st. The three-day event will include presentations from industry leaders, panel discussions and professional enrichment courses.

Advantage and E-Z encourage attendees to stop by booth #11 to talk with rental car consultants to learn more about government specific special offers, fleet quality, and service locations.

About Advantage Rent A Car

Advantage Rent A Car was founded in 1963 and is one of the leading rental car companies in the United States. Operating out of 44 locations, Advantage features one of the industrys newest and most diverse rental car fleets. The company also recently launched growth initiatives including Advantage for Business, a business customer program that offers a flat pricing structure and other perks for frequent business travelers. Advantage is also a member of the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA) and the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA). For more information about Advantage, visit Advantage.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About E-Z Rent-A-Car

Founded in 1994 with a fleet of just nine cars, E-Z Rent-A-Car has grown to be one of the leading car rental companies in the United States. E-Z has delivered value to its customers by offering quality vehicles at attractive prices in convenient locations backed by responsive customer service. The company has expanded operations in the U.S. by growing its footprint in smaller markets. Today, E-Z services customers with over 30 conveniently located facilities throughout the country. For more information about E-Z Rent-A-Car, visit E-ZRentACar.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Rick Steves Theres an important difference between fear and risk...Be aware. Exercise caution. But at the same time, don't be terrorized. Past News Releases RSS

Rick Steves has released the following statement in regard to recent travel alerts:

Following Tuesday's attacks on Brussels, the US State Department issued a travel alert for Americans regarding "potential risks of travel to and throughout Europe." Does this mean we should stay home?

In a word: No. This is a travel "alert," not a "warning." The State Department reserves "warnings" for serious business: It means, essentially, "Don't go there." But an "alert" just means "Be careful." According to the State Department, "We issue a Travel Alert for short-term events we think you should know about when planning travel to a country."

Isolated terrorist events  2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2012 in Boston, 2015 in Paris  are as tragic as they are impossible to predict. With this alert, the State Department is simply confirming something we already knew: Going forward, it's possible that there will be more terrorist events in Europe (just as it's possible here in the United States).

Also, at frightening moments like this one, keep in mind that theres an important difference between fear and risk. As the State Department recommends, while you're traveling, be vigilant. Be aware. Exercise caution. But at the same time, don't be terrorized. Thats exactly the response the terrorists are hoping for.

Brussels  and the rest of Europe  are, if anything, safer today than before yesterday's attacks. Security everywhere will be on high alert. But, unfortunately, many Americans will cancel their trips to Europe. As a result, ironically, theyll be staying home in a country that loses dozens of people each day to gun violence.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Brussels, the victims, and their loved ones. As for me, I'm flying to Lisbon in ten days. And later this summer, I'm booked to fly out of the same Brussels airport that today is a shrine of grief and tragic bloodshed. Am I allowing myself to be terrorized by the terrorists? Hell no. It all comes back to my firmly held belief that the best way for Americans to fight terrorism is to keep on traveling.

Guidebook author and travel TV host Rick Steves is America's most respected authority on European travel. In 1976, he started his business, Rick Steves' Europe, which has grown from a one-man operation to a company with a staff of 100 full-time, well-travelled employees at his headquarters in Washington state. There he produces more than 50 guidebooks on European travel, America's most popular travel series on public television, a weekly hour-long national public radio show, a weekly syndicated column, and free travel information available through his travel center and ricksteves.com. Rick Steves' Europe also runs a successful European tour program. Rick Steves lives and works in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington. His office window overlooks his old junior high school.

Email Rick at rick(at)ricksteves(dot)com, or write to him c/o 130 4th Ave N, Edmonds, WA 98020. Tweet @ricksteves or visit http://www.facebook.com/ricksteves/
Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed coming in May 2016 to the Mays Family Center for Special Exhibitions and Events at the Witte Museum offers an opportunity to see artifacts up close. The Witte is breaking the mold with the Mays Family Center, and it is only fitting to have this world-class exhibition open San Antonios new cultural gem, says Marise McDermott, President and CEO of the Witte Museum.

They are one of the most sophisticated and powerful civilizations of all time and now their story is coming to San Antonio in the largest exhibition to be brought to a San Antonio museum in the citys history. Starting May 14 at the Witte Museum, archaeologists are sharing the secrets about the Maya for the first time in a singular and unforgettable museum experience. Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed is the first exhibition at the Wittes new Mays Family Center.

The Witte is breaking the mold with the Mays Family Center, and it is only fitting to have this world-class exhibition open San Antonios new cultural gem, says Marise McDermott, President and CEO of the Witte Museum. Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed beautifully represents the impact the Maya had on the world we live in today. The exhibition is immersive, so that entire families can experience the way Mayans lived, learning their calendars, mathematics, and cosmology through interactive opportunities. The exhibition is massive, the largest ever at the Witte, so we recommend scheduling a longer than average time to enjoy the exhibition, demonstrations and programs.

Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed brings together hundreds of authentic artifacts displayed in more than a half-dozen immersive environments. In this 10,000 square foot exhibit, visitors will have the opportunity to learn how the Maya built their towering temples and created their intricate calendar system. There are hands-on activity stations where the whole family can build arches, decipher hieroglyphs and learn drilling techniques. Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed uses a combination of authentic artifacts along with multimedia and interactive, hands-on activities to reveal our deep ties to this astonishing civilization.

The exhibition was designed to give visitors a glimpse at a cross-section of Maya life from divine kings who ruled powerful cities to the artisans and laborers who formed the backbone of Maya society. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see spectacular examples of Maya artistry made by masters of their craft, along with objects from everyday life combined with a look at the scientific work being carried out at key Maya sites across Central America and Mexico.

The Witte Museum has enhanced the Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed experience with gallery interactives and Gallery Theater performances featuring Ixchel, the Maya goddess of fertility, motherhood and the moon. Visitors will be able to follow Ixchel through the exhibit and learn how the Maya charted and predicted astronomical phenomena.

Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed opens on May 14 with a special ceremony featuring Grupo Pakal, which will be celebrating the Maya culture through ancient ceremonial dance rituals. Grupo Pakal will also offer programming throughout the day for visitors of all ages.

Tickets are $8 Members, $10 Non-Members, plus General Admission. Tickets are available for purchase at http://www.WitteMuseum.org or by calling 210.357.1910.

For more information call 210.357.1900 or visit http://www.WitteMuseum.org.

Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed is generously supported by the Orr Family Foundation and the City of San Antonio Department for Culture and Creative Development. The Mind of the Maya Series is presented by The Orr Family Foundation.

###

About the Witte Museum

Founded in 1926, the Witte Museum is located on the banks of the San Antonio River in Brackenridge Park and is San Antonios premier museum promoting lifelong learning through innovative exhibition, programs and collections in natural history, science and South Texas heritage. The Witte hosts an average of 350,000 visitors each year, of which over 150,000 are school-aged children and 80,000 are free of general admission during weekly Free Tuesdays hours.
Kane County Divorce Lawyer Matthew G. Shaw We listen to our clients and provide information, planning and strategy to guide our clients through the legal process,  says Founding Attorney Matthew Shaw.

Attorney Matt Shaw is proud to announce the opening of Shaw Family Law, P.C. in St. Charles, Illinois. The Kane County family law firm is located at 555 S. Randall Road, Suite 105, St. Charles, Illinois 60174.

St. Charles Divorce Lawyer Matthew G. Shaw is the founding partner of Shaw Family Law, P.C. He brings 30 years of legal experience to his family law practice, and he was formerly a founding partner at the law firm of Shaw, Jacobs, Goostree & Associates, P.C.

Shaw handles matters pertaining to divorce, complex financial divorce, child custody (parental allocation), and child support. He is also a veteran litigator and trained mediator, having resolved numerous cases out of court. He graduated Magna cum laude with his B.A. from Illinois College and earned his J.D. from Northern Illinois University College of Law. The Leading Lawyers Network named Shaw a Leading West Suburban Lawyer from 2013-2014. He also maintains a Superb 10.0 rating on AVVO based on excellent client reviews and peer recommendations.

Shaw served as chair of the Kane County Family Committee, and has served on the Family Law Section Council of the Illinois State Bar Association. He is a member of the Kane County Bar Association, DuPage County Bar Association, and charter member of the Illinois Family Support Enforcement Association. He also serves as an attorney presenter for KIDS (Kids in a Divorcing Society), a family court program for parents.

Shaw is a published author and has presented at numerous family law seminars throughout the state and across the nation. His published works can be found in Chapter 1 of the ISBA Family Law Handbook (both 1995 and 2011 editions) and Strategies for Family Law in Illinois (2015), as well as ISBA Family Law newsletters and KCBA Bar Briefs. In 2003, on behalf of the ISBA Family Law Section Council Custody subcommittee, he testified in Springfield before the Illinois Supreme Court Custody Committee regarding proposed custody legislation.

We listen to our clients and provide information, planning and strategy to guide our clients through the legal process," says Shaw.

About Shaw Family Law, P.C.:

Shaw Family Law, P.C. is located in St. Charles, Illinois. The Kane County family law firm proudly represents clients in Kane, DuPage, DeKalb and Kendall Counties with family law matters including: divorce, parentage, child custody (parental allocation), child support, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and the distribution of property.

Shaw Family Law, P.C. is dedicated to creating the most effective and efficient strategies necessary to achieve their clients goals, and strive to resolve cases out of court. Call 630-206-3300 or visit http://www.kanecountydivorceattorneys.com to find out more information or schedule a free initial consultation.
With 10 picture books under his belt, Caldecott Honor artist Peter Brown has now tried his hand at a middle-grade novel. The Wild Robot, which tells the story of a robot who finds herself out of her element in the wilderness, has already received several pre-publication starred reviews. Brown took time out of his schedule of school visits in the Indianapolis area to speak with PW about the challenges of writing and illustrating in a new genre.

How was the process of writing a middle-grade novel different from writing a picture-book manuscript?

When I talk to people not in the book world, they cant understand how there can be a difference between writing picture books and novels, but of course its huge. First of all, you cant use pictures to tell the story  and pictures are my bread and butter. So my number-one challenge was self-confidence that I could do this, and dealing with the emotional ups and downs of that.

More practically, I used the same exercises as I do when creating a picture book. I start by story mapping: I write all my ideas for the story all over a piece of paper. Then I start circling them to compare and link them, and see what needs to be connected and what needs to be spaced apart. This is a nice comfortable visual way of organizing for me, and it worked well for the novel. Some of the ideas I write down are terrible but at least I can get them out of my head.

Sometimes an entire story line comes to me in one big arc, like with Children Make Terrible Pets. But for this book I did at least 250 story maps over the course of a year. This is my weird way of plotting. In fact for this book, I did a kind of reverse-engineering when it comes to plot. The book began with a rough sketch I did of a robot in a tree. I loved this idea of a robot in the wilderness. So I started with the end goal of a robot at peace in the wilderness. Then I thought: how does she get there? I went through a lot of different possibilities. I worked the same way with Mr. Tiger Goes Wild; I had the end goal of an animal becoming wild.

At the end of the story mapping for The Wild Robot, I had 80 plot points. And one of my goals was to keep it as succinct as possible. I had to get to the point right away every time. Also, science fiction has so many loopholes, I had to be especially careful everything was air-tight.

What about character development in a novel as distinct from a picture book? What kinds of challenges did you face in developing Roz the robot, who at one point in the book says: I have not grown bigger, but I have changed very much?

The changes in Roz were part of the story mapping. I wanted to show character transformation, from robot to un-robot. I wanted to show Roz becoming animalistic, wild, a little weird. In every chapter she changes just a little bit, but by the end she has changed enormously.

But I did worry about how to make readers relate to a robot. So I created all these different animal characters for people to relate to as a way of making up for Rozs lack of warmth. I think a lot of people can relate to Brightbill [the gosling Roz adopts].

Everything Roz does is in an attempt to survive. At first she is just trying not to get battered, but as the book goes on her survival needs get more subtle. She begins to realize that kindness is a survival skill. Helping others helps them help her. This could be seen as selfish, but who cares what the motivation is? Its still kindness. This is one of the morals, or themes, I was trying to work into the book.

Illustrating a novel is not like a picture book in which the pictures often tell half the story, so how was the illustration process different for you? How did you decide what to illustrate?

As I was working on the words, here and there an image would pop into my head. For example, I knew I wanted to have an image of Roz standing in a tree, watching the geese fly away. I also knew that I didnt want readers to go more than five pages or so without an illustration so sometimes I just crunched the numbers  okay, I need a picture here or what do I want to illustrate on these pages. So between the strong images that came into my head and the numbers, it worked out.

This book was a little easier to illustrate than a picture book because each illustration doesnt have to do the heavy lifting of storytelling. My goal was to have simple and moody art that was more decoration. And because all the interior art was black and white, that was a different challenge: how pretty can I make this book without color?

For my past few books Ive started by painting simple shapes with India ink, sometimes pencil, but usually India ink. Then I scan those images into Photoshop and collage them together to make more interesting shapes. For example if you look closely at Roz, you can see she is made up of circles, squares and rectangles. I like putting simple shapes together in interesting ways, and the India ink gives a nice texture to the illustration.

You said in a 2014 interview that you might turn The Wild Robot into a series, and your ending certainly suggests that possibility. Have you decided to follow up on that idea, or do you have ideas for other novels?

Thats a bit of a funny territory at the moment because I havent signed a contract for a second book, but I definitely have it figured out. I have the story arc in mind. So it will probably be a two-book series  possibly three, but more likely two. Im too into this character, and this world, it give it up yet.

Id definitely like to write more middle-grade novels, and I think Ill probably write a YA novel sometimes. Im working on another picture book, too, but Im not ready to talk about that yet. I was speaking at a school today, and somebody asked how long it took to write The Wild Robot. I told the kids that I had the original idea eight years ago, but I didnt feel I was a good enough writer to do it yet. I think that really resonated with them. Some of them said they also had good ideas but didnt feel like they were good enough yet to do them. It was a luxury for me to have all those years to work on my skills so I could come to the point where I could write The Wild Robot. So I feel very lucky to have a lot of freedom in my creative decisions at this point. I can work on whatever captures my attention.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. Little, Brown, $16.99 Apr. 5 ISBN 978-0-316-38199-4
Louisiana to start collecting online sales tax; Jeff Kinney's Massachusetts store wins design awards; and NPR's Morning Edition to be broadcast from an Illinois bookstore.

E-Fairness Enacted in Louisiana: Beginning April 1, Louisiana will become the 29th state to begin collecting online sales tax from Amazon and other remote e-tailers. Its going to raise significant money and its a big step forward that will be good for local businesses here, Tom Lowenburg, co-owner of Octavia Booksellers in New Orleans, testified last month in front of Louisianas House Ways & Means Committee.

An Unlikely Story Wins Three Design Awards: Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney picked up three design awards from the Association for Retail Environments earlier this week for his new bookstore in Plainville, Mass.: specialty store design, sustainability, and flooring. Bergmeyer Associates, Inc. developed the three-story LEED certified building and The Bookstore Training Group of Paz & Associates consulted.

NPRs Morning Edition to Broadcast From I Know You Like a Book: The radio program plans to broadcast its show from the Peoria, Ill., bookstore on April 8. Owner Mary Beth Nebel told BTW that her store was likely selected because it hosted a successful event for Morning Edition co-host David Greenes Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey Into the Heart of Russia.

StoryCorps Encourages Indie Booksellers to Talk about Their Work: To promote Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work (Penguin Press, April), Dave Isay is encouraging booksellers to talk about their work, starting with his local store, Greenlight in Brooklyn. Isay will play some of the stories during his book tour next month.
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NOTE: If you had a previous PW subscription, click here to reactivate your immediate access. PW site license members have access to PWs subscriber-only website content. If working at an office location and you are not "logged in", simply close and relaunch your preferred browser. For off-site access, click here. To find out more about PWs site license subscription options, please email Mike Popalardo at: mike@nextstepsmarketing.com.
Pedro Irazoqui (Purdue University photo) Download Photo

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Three Purdue University professors will be inducted in April as fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

The organization will recognize Pedro Irazoqui, a professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, associate head of the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Center for Implantable Devices; Zheng Ouyang, a professor of biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and chemistry; and Ann Rundell, a professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering.

The professors were nominated, reviewed and elected by peers and members of the AIMBE College of Fellows: Irazoqui for outstanding contributions to implantable electronic devices; Ouyang for outstanding contributions in converting mass spectrometry from a massive analytical instrument into a point-of-care biomedical device through miniaturization and ambient ionization technology development; and Rundell for use of control theory to solve problems in biomedicine.

Zheng Ouyang (Purdue University photo) Download Photo

An induction ceremony will be held during AIMBE's 25th annual meeting at the National Academy of Sciences Great Hall on April 4 in Washington, D.C. Irazoqui, Ouyang, and Rundell are among 160 members of AIMBE's College of Fellows Class of 2016. The AIMBE College of Fellows represents the top 2 percent of medical and biological engineers in the country, according to the organization.

Irazoqui, who joined the Purdue faculty in 2005, specializes in research into miniature biological implants and neural prosthetic devices. The work could bring new opportunities for the treatment of disorders including epilepsy, spinal cord injury and depression. He leads an interdisciplinary Purdue research team in a $5.4 million project awarded last year and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a wireless implantable device for treating conditions resulting from the body's inflammatory response. Irazoqui earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and a doctorate in neuroengineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2003. He has received various awards and honors including the Best Teacher Award from the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, the Early Career Award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, the Marion B. Scott Excellence in Teaching Award from Tau Beta Pi and the Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.

Ann Rundell (Purdue University photo) Download Photo

Ouyang joined the Purdue faculty in 2003 as an assistant research scientist in the Department of Chemistry. His research includes work related to the development of miniature mass spectrometers and techniques to use mass spectrometry in biomedical and medical applications. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in automatic control from Tsinghua University in 1993 and 1995, respectively, a master's degree in physical chemistry in 1997 from West Virginia University and a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Purdue in 2002. He has received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award, the China National Natural Science Foundation Award for Distinguished Overseas Young Scholars, the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award in Biomedical Engineering, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Research Award and the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation Curt Brunnee Award.

Rundell, who joined the Purdue faculty in 2001, specializes in systems biology, computational cell biology and the control of cellular processes for diagnostics and therapeutics. She has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles. Rundell earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988, and a master's degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Purdue in 1993 and 1997. She has received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development award and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Before coming to Purdue, she worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory for three years.

Media Contact: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu

Sources: Pedro Irazoqui, 765-586-3360, pip@purdue.edu

Zheng Ouyang, 765 494-2214, ouyang@purdue.edu

Ann E. Rundell, 765-496-7953, rundell@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Information about the College of Fellows and AIMBE is available from Jason R. Hibner at jhibner@aimbe.org, or call the AIMBE office at 202-496-9660.
The United Way of the Quad-Cities Area is quietly undergoing a major retooling that will significantly impact how it invests your dollars to serve our community.

Not surprisingly, however, its new Community Impact Plan has captured the attention of the agencies currently funded by United Way who soon will be required to compete for those dollars.

But it would be a mistake for volunteers and donors to discount their role in this transformation. For example, as United Way also changes the way it conducts fundraising campaigns to serve changing times and needs, community support will be critical. Without it, there is little chance for this new model to realize its tremendous potential for good.

The agencys mission, to improve lives and make a positive impact in our community by mobilizing people and sources, remains unchanged. But what is undergoing a metamorphosis is the way it delivers its resources. Traditionally United Way allocates dollars (driven in large part by its annual fundraising campaign) to agencies which help Quad-Citians through individual programs.

Under this new model, your dollars will continue to help neighbors in need, but they also will target systemic changes that will make our community a better place to live for future generations. That will require traditionally funded agencies and new groups with great ideas to make a case for funding and it will encourage them to explore smart partnerships to make it happen. Such outcomes-based budgeting isnt new in business and has been making a welcome appearance in the public sector.

But it is a welcome sea change in the way the Q-Cs United Way intends to invest our contributions to get the biggest bang for our communitys bucks. United Way president Scott Crane said this new, more accountable model also fits hand-in-glove with our communitys Q2030 regional action plan and its goal to create a cool, creative, prosperous, and connected region.

To help make that happen, United Way designed its Community Impact Plan around three areas identified in the agencys recent strategic planning effort:

-- Education programs that ensure all students enter school ready to learn, that they perform at grade level and remain engaged in school and that they complete high school college or career-ready.

-- Income programs that ensure Quad-Citians have immediate access to food and shelter, are able to increase their income and can build future financial stability.

-- Health programs designed to ensure all Quad-Citians live in a safe, healthy environment and that youth have access to mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment.

The 85 agencies United Way currently funds and unfunded providers are being asked to pitch programs that will address those areas in ways that are quantifiable.

United Way hopes that its search will uncover programs like the Financial Resource Center in the works to bring multiple services and partnerships under one roof to provide one-stop shopping that will help residents of Illinois and Iowa obtain financial self-sufficiency. United Way is expected to be the backbone of the center which Mr. Crane said is modeled after the highly effective Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families in Des Moines.

Even if you are a small provider who has not received United Way funding in the past, but you have a smart or innovative idea or program worth sharing and growing, youre urged to contact United Way. Representatives will help you explore ways to do so, including, for example, partnering you with a larger provider.

Finally, if, like us, you believe in United Ways mission, get ready to step up when called upon to help. Watch, for example, for the three additional Days of Caring, United Way of the Q-C will add this year, starting with the one focusing on education on April 28.

Remember, this new, outcomes-based model will only work if potential providers and the community are prepared to work it.
GENESEO  The fifth-grade curriculum at Northside Grade School focuses on reading, writing, math, computers  and reaching out to help others.

Students in the schools two fifth-grade classes have participated in a penny war, raising funds for a charity of their choice.

The assignment, from their teachers Ashley Stern and Janelle Hickey, asked students to write an essay about which charity should receive the money collected. Teams were divided into boys and girls, with each team voting for the essay they thought most persuasive to win their spare change, Miss Stern said.

The girls raised $358.49 for Gildas Club, with the winning essay written by Taylor Minnaert, the daughter of Aaron and Chris Minnaert. The boys collected $431.13 for the University of Iowa Childrens Hospital, with the winning essay written by Alex Jones, the son of Justin and Katy Darin.

We were so impressed with the amounts raised by the students by bringing in loose change, and no dollar bills, Miss Stern said.

In culmination of the project, Anita Shaft of Gildas Club and Brittany Wellman from the University of Iowa Childrens Hospital visited the classes to meet the students and share with them how their donations will be used.

In his essay, Alex Jones told how the Children's Hospital was "super important because it helped my brother from dying.

"My brother has Spina Bifida and we didnt know because he said, 'My back hurts Mom,' so we first took him to Illinois University hospital," Alex wrote. "There was nothing wrong with him 2 months later he was in real bad pain so we took him to University of Iowas Childrens Hospital and they said he had Spina Bifida.

"If University of Iowas Childrens Hospital didnt help my brother right now he would probably be dead," Alex wrote.

In her essay, Taylor Minnaert described Gilda's Club and the help it provides, including Noogieland "where the kids go to, while the adults have their meeting.

"Gildas Club isnt just about cancer, it also about laughs," she wrote. "They have many fun events scheduled such as family cooking night and neon night.

"My Dad is a veteran and just after he was finished with his in-duty service, about seven years later, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Fortunately, he is a survivor of cancer," she wrote. "My family has attended Gildas Club, and from my perspective it really helped our family overcome this bump in the road.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Three people from Wisconsin or Illinois who are charged with operating a car insurance fraud ring can be prosecuted in Iowa, even though they never set foot in the state, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

Police say the trio staged fake car accidents in Chicago and then filed bogus claims with multiple insurance companies. They were charged in Iowa after an investigation by Davenport, Iowa-based employees of Sentry Insurance uncovered one alleged scheme that involved an estimated $50,000 that insurers paid for repeated claims covering the same damage.

The defendants - Demetrius Rimmer, 44 of Milwaukee, and Chicago-area residents Rona Murphy, 47 and Melonicka Thomas, 56 - were arrested in their home states in 2013 and extradited to face the charges in Iowa.

Their attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the charges, which included ongoing criminal conduct, theft, conspiracy, fraudulent submission and fraudulent practices. They argued that Iowa didn't have jurisdiction since the 2012 accident at issue was in Illinois and the alleged victim, Sentry Insurance, is headquartered in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. They argued that none of the suspects had been to Iowa, that they had no idea the Sentry employees who interviewed them about claims were in Davenport, and that Illinois authorities declined to prosecute the case.

District Judge Mary Howes dismissed the case in 2013, ruling that the defendants hadn't "sought out the state of Iowa to allegedly perpetrate this crime" and that no harm occurred in Iowa.

In a 7-0 ruling, the high court disagreed Friday and reinstated four of five charges against the defendants, allowing the case to proceed.

"The state can show that these crimes occurred in part in Iowa based on the defendants' phone calls with the insurer's Davenport employee, deceiving him into authorizing payment of false insurance claims," Justice Thomas Waterman wrote.

The Sentry employee authorized payments of $11,000 based on claims that their vehicles were involved in a three-way accident in Chicago in which Thomas allegedly suffered whiplash. But the claims were reviewed for fraud by another Davenport employee of Sentry, who uncovered the same claims had been submitted to other insurers and numerous inconsistencies in their stories. He turned the case over to Davenport police, which filed a criminal complaint.

Waterman said the defendants' ignorance that they were talking to Iowa-based insurance representatives doesn't get them out of prosecution in Iowa. He said the alleged fraud was conduct "that the defendants knew or should have known was illegal in any state."

"We conclude that persons engaged in multistate insurance fraud assume the risk of prosecution wherever those they deceive are located. A contrary holding would impede the state's ability to prosecute and deter multistate insurance fraud schemes perpetrated on persons in Iowa," he wrote.

Scott County Attorney Michael Walton praised the ruling, saying it confirms "the crimes did occur here."

Defense attorneys didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.

The court dismissed the fraudulent practices count, saying there was no evidence that the three submitted false certificates in Iowa, an element of the charge.
IOWA CITY (AP) -- Three people from Wisconsin or Illinois charged with operating a car insurance fraud ring can be prosecuted in Iowa, even though they never set foot in the state, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

Police say the trio staged fake car accidents in Chicago and then filed bogus claims with multiple insurance companies. They were charged in Iowa after an investigation by Davenport-based employees of Sentry Insurance uncovered one alleged scheme that involved an estimated $50,000 insurers paid for repeated claims covering the same damage.

The defendants -- Demetrius Rimmer, 44 of Milwaukee, and Chicago-area residents Rona Murphy, 47 and Melonicka Thomas, 56 -- were arrested in their home states in 2013 and extradited to face the charges in Iowa.

Their attorneys asked District Judge Mary Howes to dismiss the charges -- which included ongoing criminal conduct, theft, conspiracy, fraudulent submission and fraudulent practices -- arguing Iowa didn't have jurisdiction since the 2012 accident at issue was in Illinois and the alleged victim, Sentry Insurance, is headquartered in Stevens Point, Wis.

The attorneys argued none of the suspects had been to Iowa, had no idea the Sentry employees who interviewed them about claims were in Davenport, and Illinois authorities declined to prosecute the case. Judge Howes dismissed the case in 2013, ruling the defendants hadn't "sought out the state of Iowa to allegedly perpetrate this crime" and no harm occurred in Iowa.

In a 7-0 ruling Friday, the high court disagreed and reinstated four of five charges against the defendants, allowing the case to proceed.

"The state can show that these crimes occurred in part in Iowa based on the defendants' phone calls with the insurer's Davenport employee, deceiving him into authorizing payment of false insurance claims," Justice Thomas Waterman wrote.

A Sentry employee authorized payments of $11,000 based on claims their vehicles were involved in a three-way accident in Chicago in which Thomas allegedly suffered whiplash. But another Davenport employee of Sentry reviewing the claims for fraud uncovered the same claims had been submitted to other insurers and numerous inconsistencies in their stories.

He turned the case over to Davenport Police, which filed a criminal complaint.

Waterman said the defendants' ignorance that they were talking to Iowa-based insurance representatives doesn't get them out of prosecution in Iowa. He said the alleged fraud was conduct "the defendants knew or should have known was illegal in any state."

"We conclude that persons engaged in multistate insurance fraud assume the risk of prosecution wherever those they deceive are located. A contrary holding would impede the state's ability to prosecute and deter multistate insurance fraud schemes perpetrated on persons in Iowa," he wrote.

Scott County Attorney Michael Walton praised the ruling, saying it confirms "the crimes did occur here." Defense attorneys didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.

The court dismissed the fraudulent practices count, saying there was no evidence the three submitted false certificates in Iowa, an element of the charge.
A Milan man has been charged with his fifth drinking-related driving offense in connection with a November crash that injured two.

Dan E. Sylvester, 63, is charged with three counts of felony aggravated DUI alleging that, while driving a 1984 Chevy Silverado, he was involved in a Nov. 10, 2015, motor vehicle accident that caused "great bodily harm" to occupants of a second vehicle.

Capt. Ron Erickson of the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office said deputies were called just after midnight Nov. 10 to an accident with injuries in the 6500 block of Airport Road in Moline. Citing accident reports, Capt. Erickson said Mr. Sylvester was driving east when he crossed the center lane and struck a vehicle in the westbound lane of traffic.

Mr. Sylvester was transported to a local hospital after the crash, as was a mother and son from the second vehicle. All of their injuries were considered non-life-threatening, Capt. Erickson said.

Charges in connection with the crash were filed Tuesday, the same day a warrant was issued for Mr. Sylvester's arrest by the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office. As of Thursday evening, he had yet to be booked into the county jail, officials said.

Two of Mr. Sylvester's charges are Class 4 felonies alleging the crash caused "great bodily harm." Typically punishable by up to three years in prison, the offenses are extended in Mr. Sylvester's case and he faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

The third charge, a Class 1 felony alleging the incident to be Mr. Sylvester's fifth DUI offense, is not probationable. It is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, if he is convicted.

According to court documents, Mr. Sylvester has four prior DUI convictions in Des Moines County stemming from 2007, 2006, 2002 and 1995 incidents.
DAVENPORT -- This year's presidential election cycle deserves its own special category, according to National Public Radio's top political correspondent Don Gonyea.

Mr. Gonyea spoke Thursday night at a fundraiser for WVIK 90.3 FM at the Hotel Blackhawk.

In a brief interview before the event, Mr. Gonyea said this presidential cycle has been anything but usual.

"It's crazy, yeah, it's just crazy", Mr. Gonyea said. "It's not unprecedented in that it's unusual, but it's, at so many points, based on experience, it's 'OK this is how this plays out,' it hasn't."

Having covered several presidential elections over his 30 years of radio experience, Mr. Gonyea said he has learned a lot, and that, based on past experience, he usually could tell how the situation would unfold but not so much this time around.

"I am just an utter imposter, because I have been wrong every single time," Mr. Gonyea joked.

Jay Pearce, WVIK General Manager, said he expects about 150 people to attend the event, with at least a dozen of the attendees being new people he has not seen before at previous fundraisers.

"I'm happy," Mr. Pearce said. "This is a good, manageable crowd for the Gold Room. This is positive reinforcement for WVIK."

Mr. Gonyea met with several guests before the dinner.

Before working for NPR, Mr. Gonyea chronicled the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, including the legal battles that ensued. He began his time at NPR the day President Bush took office in 2001 and remained in that position until 2010 when he became the National Political Correspondent.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Gonyea was at the White House and provided live reports as the building was evacuated following the terrorist attacks in New York City. He also covered the prosecution of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and traveled with President Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry during the 2004 election.

Mr. Gonyea co-anchored the coverage of the 2006 elections that brought control of the House of Representatives and the Senate under Democratic control. The 2008 election cycle saw Mr. Gonyea covering every step of the campaign for then Senator Barack Obama. After that election, he continued to cover President Obama and the White House until he moved into his current position.

Tickets for the event were $100 each and included dinner.
Peter Liang met with Kimberly Ballinger at a mutually agreed upon conference room at the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Liang expressed remorse over the death of 28-year-old Akai Gurley.

"He said he was so sorry for her loss, and he told her how devastating it was for him. This was the last thing he ever intended or could imagine," said his attorney Paul Shechtman.

Ballinger's attorney, Scott Rynecki, said Ballinger, in turn, talked about her loss.

"She let him know that because of his actions, she now has a 3-year-old girl who doesn't have a father," Rynecki said. "Her life is upside down now, she has no partner. She told him the man he killed was a good man, and a good father."

The meeting was brief and somber, both attorneys said. Liang didn't try to explain his actions the night of the shooting in a stairwell at the Louis Pink Houses. Ballinger agreed to meet with Liang after about a month of asking by his legal team. She agreed because she wanted to tell him directly of the grief he caused, her lawyer said.

"This was not to accept an apology. This was to talk about what she is missing," Rynecki said.

The only participants were Ballinger, Liang and their lawyers. They chose the conference room as a neutral site and a place that would meet safety concerns for Liang.

The meeting came a day after District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said he would not recommend jail time for Liang, convicted by a jury of manslaughter. Thompson said he would recommend, instead, five years' probation, six months of home confinement and 500 hours of community service.

Gurley's aunt and other activists gathered outside the prosecutor's office Thursday to protest the decision, demanding steep jail time for Liang and saying they felt betrayed by the prosecutor. A judge will decide if any jail time is warranted at Liang's April 14 sentencing.

Liang's attorney praised the decision by the prosecutors.

"We steadfastly believe in Peter Liang's innocence," Shechtman said. "The shooting that occurred that day was an accident, not a crime."

Liang was fired after the verdict. His partner who was at the scene but not charged was also fired.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)  Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed a bill into law Thursday making Indiana the second state to ban abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

Pence signed the measure just hours ahead of his deadline to take action on the proposal approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature two weeks ago, the governor's office said. It is due to take effect in July, but Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said it will ask a court to block the measure before that can happen.

"It is clear that the governor is more comfortable practicing medicine without a license than behaving as a responsible lawyer, as he picks and chooses which constitutional rights are appropriate," the group's head, Betty Cockrum, said in a statement.

Pence called the bill "a comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life."

"I believe that a society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable  the aged, the infirm, the disabled and the unborn," he said in a statement.

In addition to banning abortions due to fetal genetic abnormalities, the law will prohibit abortions done because of a fetus's race, sex or ancestry and mandates that the only way to dispose of an aborted fetus is through burial or cremation.

The bill has been criticized by a national group of gynecologists and several female Republican members of the GOP-dominated Indiana Legislature, who say it goes too far in telling women what they can and can't do.

"We know that you're going to be forcing woman and families to suffer emotionally because they're going to be force to carry pregnancies that are not viable," said Kate Connors, director of communications for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which recently wrote to Pence urging him to defeat the bill. "We've been hoping that the resounding chorus of voices would hit home. It obviously did not."

Pence was a prominent abortion rights opponent while serving in Congress before being elected governor in 2012 and received perfect scores from Indiana Right to Life for his record of opposing abortion.

"By signing the dignity for the unborn bill, Gov. Pence has again signified his commitment to protecting life," Mike Fichter, president of IRL, said in a statement. "We are pleased that our state values life no matter an individual's potential disability, gender or race."

Pence is also facing a tough re-election campaign in a rematch against Democrat John Gregg and will be counting on a strong turnout from his evangelical base in November. Gregg said Thursday he would have vetoed the measure.

"Like so many other polices put forth by Mike Pence and the Republican Legislature, this does nothing but further damage our state's reputation and divide our people," Gregg said.

It is unclear what impact, if any, the restrictions will actually have on abortions, as women could cite other reasons  or not give any  for seeking an abortion. Under the measure, doctors who perform forbidden abortions could be sued for wrongful death or face discipline from the state medical licensing board. Women receiving such abortions wouldn't face punishment.

Critics say the measure would require pregnant women to endure complicated pregnancies that pose a danger to their health and would lead women to not speak candidly with their doctors.

North Dakota adopted similar restrictions under a 2013 law approved by that state's Republican-led Legislature.

Critics in Indiana question whether the measure is constitutional, and even GOP House Speaker Brian Bosma said he expects a court challenge if Pence signs the bill into law. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights backed a lawsuit challenging the North Dakota law, but it went unresolved because the Fargo clinic decided instead to focus its fight on another abortion ban.
Austin Reed Edenfield waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Michael Mills in Oxford. The charge says Edenfield helped others to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university.

Mills will sentence Edenfield July 21, and he faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Prosecutors have recommended probation for Edenfield, who cooperated in the early prosecution of another former student, Graeme Phillip Harris. However, Mills warned Edenfield he might not stick to that agreement.

"The court remains free to impose whatever sentence it deems appropriate," Mills said.

A 21-year-old resident of Kennesaw, Georgia, Edenfield remains free pending sentencing. He declined comment after the hearing.

Edenfield admitted that he tied the noose that ended up around the neck of the Ole Miss statue of James Meredith in February 2014. He, Harris and a third person also draped a former Georgia state flag with a Confederate battle emblem on the statue of Meredith, who integrated Ole Miss in 1962 amid rioting that was suppressed by federal troops.

Prosecutors said Harris hatched the plan to place the noose and flag on the statue after a night of drinking with Edenfield and a third freshman in the Sigma Phil Epsilon fraternity house on campus. They said Harris frequently expressed ill will toward black people and that during that night, he told Edenfield that the act would cause a sensation, saying "It's James Meredith, people will go crazy."

After the noose and flag were placed on the statue on the night of Feb. 15, 2014, Edenfield and Harris returned at sunrise on Feb. 16 to observe and were filmed by a video camera at the Ole Miss student union. During that trip Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Coleman said Harris raised his fist and shouted "white power" toward a white university employee.

"The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that our universities and our workplaces are free from threats of racial violence," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Gupta said in a statement. "We will hold accountable those who attempt to turn places of learning into places of intimidation and fear."

An Alpharetta, Georgia, resident, Harris pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of threatening force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university after prosecutors agreed to drop a stiffer felony charge in exchange. His lawyer argued Harris didn't deserve prison, saying he'd written a letter of apology to Meredith after falling under the influence of racist traditions at the fraternity.

Harris was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by 12 months' supervised release. Federal Bureau of Prisons records show he's currently held at a minimum-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, and is scheduled to be released July 1.

The third man has not been charged. University spokesman Jonathan Scott said Ole Miss officials expect no more prosecutions in the case.

"The responsibility taken in today's hearing is another step in the right direction," Brandi Hephner LaBanc, vice chancellor for student affairs, said in a statement. "Many members of our campus were deeply affected by this incident and the university does not tolerate hateful behavior. Today's outcome affirms our position and sends a clear message about what is expected in our shared community."

All three of the students withdrew from Ole Miss, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity closed its chapter. The university continues to struggle with reminders of its racially tortured past, though. Earlier this year, Ole Miss officials stopped flying the Mississippi state flag, which also features the Confederate battle emblem. In recent weeks, Ole Miss has said it's preparing an additional plaque to provide historical context to a Confederate military monument on campus, but the university's NAACP chapter has said that move doesn't go far enough.
Now one of those hacking businesses may well be helping the FBI try to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino killers.

Late Monday, the FBI abruptly put its legal fight with Apple on hold, announcing that an "outside party" had come forward with a way to unlock the phone. If it works, it could render Apple's forced cooperation unnecessary.

The announcement has thrown a spotlight on a group of digital forensics companies, contractors and freelance consultants that make a living cracking security protections on phones and computers. In effect, they're legally exploiting software and hardware flaws in products.

Success can mean big bucks and recognition in their field. But most of the companies keep a very low profile. Since the bulk of their business is with governments and law enforcement, there's no reason to for them to market themselves to companies or regular people. In addition, it's in their interest to keep exactly what they do under wraps, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technology expert for the ACLU.

"The companies won't share their secrets. It's their special sauce," Soghoian said. "And they certainly won't tell Apple how they're doing what they're doing."

For the moment, no one outside the Justice Department appears to know who the FBI's white knight is. A great deal of speculation centers on Cellebrite  an Israel-based forensics firm that says it does business with thousands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, militaries and governments in more than 90 countries  though it remains one of several possible candidates. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Cellebrite, founded in 1999, has contracts with the FBI dating back to at least 2013. It signed a separate $15.3 million deal with the FBI on Monday, according to government records. The firm makes devices that allow law enforcement to extract and decode data such as contacts, pictures and text messages from more than 15,000 kinds of smartphones and other mobile devices.

It also makes commercial products that companies can use to help their customers transfer data from old phones to new ones. Apple even uses Cellebrite devices in some of its stores.

In the cybersecurity arms race, Apple has managed to stay ahead of these forensics companies. Cellebrite's website says its commercial tools work with iPhones running older operating systems, including iOS 8, but not the latest version, iOS 9, which is on the San Bernardino phone.

Of course, it's possible that one of these companies has made a breakthrough.

"Anything is crackable  it's just how much time do you have and how much money do you have to spend," said Jeremy Kirby, sales director at Susteen, a Cellebrite competitor in Irvine, California, that says it's not the FBI's outside party.

Susteen started as a software developer that made tools for cellphone companies. Kirby said his firm began developing forensic products for law enforcement about 10 years ago, after the FBI asked it to produce a tool that could preserve cellphone data for criminal investigations.

Now the company says its products are used by the Defense Department and hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide. It also sells a less-powerful data-extraction tool for consumers who want to check up on their kids or spouses by seeing their text messages, emails, smartphone photos and even deleted files.

Forensics companies maintain their own research staffs that probe target devices for weak spots, but for tough jobs, they sometimes turn to freelance hackers, some of whom will work for the highest bidder.

"What we're seeing now is what you can't do for yourself, you can buy," said Zuk Avraham, founder of the mobile security firm Zimperium, which seeks to defend phones against hacking.

Inspired by the FBI-Apple standoff, Rook Security, an Indianapolis-based cybersecurity firm that works with law enforcement, formed an expert team devoted to creating a copy of an iPhone's flash memory, hoping a backup would allow investigators to restore data that could be wiped out after too many wrong password guesses.

Many security researchers think that might work, though no one has announced success or demonstrated it on an iPhone running iOS 9 or higher.

Avraham said he has no doubt the San Bernardino iPhone can be hacked.

"It's only a matter of time and resources," he said. "We have seen so many times when security researchers claim something to be impossible. They're proven wrong over time."
Submitted press release

Celebrating One of Our Own - Best Selling Rock Island Writer Charlotte Murray Russell

Rock Island, IL: She was a bestselling writer of mystery novels until the early 1950s, and a leader in what is now called the "cozy" mystery genre, but you've probably never heard of her. The Rock Island Library will help you learn more about the late Charlotte Murray Russell with a free program on 2:00 pm on Wednesday, March 30 at the Rock Island Main Library, 401 19th Street.

Local historian and PhD in American Studies professor Dr. Maryann Wherry will present the free program. The program is free and open to the public.

In choosing Charlotte Murray-Russell for a program on local women's history, the library is honoring one of its own. "We first heard of her during a Fall 2014 Frieze lecture on writers of our hometowns, and when we realized she'd actually worked at the Rock Island Library, we knew we'd have to feature her someday," said Lisa Lockheart, publicity and outreach liaison for the Rock Island Library.

Russell published 20 mystery novels with Doubleday and Company between 1935 and 1953 before leaving writing to work for the Rock Island Library. Many of her books featured Jane Amanda Edwards, a forty-something spinster living in a Midwestern town known as Rockport. The character was featured in Death of an Eloquent Man (1936) and 11 other novels. (Source: Golden Age of Detection Wiki)

Charlotte Murray Russell was born in Rock Island in 1899. She attended Knox College and Augustana College before graduating with honors from the University of Chicago in 1921. In addition to writing and her library work, she taught French and Latin at Rock Island High School for five years. Russell passed away on her 93rd birthday on May 22, 1992.

For more information about Rock Island Library hours, services and programs, visit the library's new website at www.rockislandlibrary.org, call 309-732-READ, or follow the library on Facebook or Twitter.
The bombing took place during a match in the small stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Baghdad, the officials said. Medical officials confirmed the death toll. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack via a statement posted online, SITE intelligence group, a monitoring organization, reported.

IS has been waging a campaign of suicide bombings in and around the capital as Iraqi forces and their allies battle the militants in the north and west of the country.

The bombing came as Iraqi military spokesman Yahya Rusoul announced that Iraqi troops and Sunni tribal fighters recaptured the town of Kubeisa in western Anbar province from the Islamic State group. A day earlier, IS fighters were pushed out of a string of villages in Iraq's northern Nineveh province under cover of heavy coalition airstrikes.

Iraqi ground forces are working to build on recent gains in Anbar and prepare for an eventual push on the northern city of Mosul, the largest city held by the militants in the "caliphate" they declared across parts of Iraq and Syria. The U.S.-led coalition estimates that IS has lost 40 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and around 20 percent of its territory in Syria.

Analysts and coalition officials say they expect that as it loses ground on the battlefield, it will turn to more insurgent style attacks in Iraq and internationally. On Tuesday, bombings in Brussels claimed by IS killed 31 people and injured nearly 300.
Kerry said he hoped the talks would be constructive and allow the nations to find a way to "rebuild and strengthen the relationship between the United States and Russia by proving that we know how to solve some serious problems together and building from there."

Kerry hailed a cease-fire in Syria brokered by the U.S. and Russia, saying it had allowed Syrians "to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction in violence and to receive humanitarian assistance."

U.S. officials "obviously also have some ideas about this and how we can most effectively make progress in Geneva and begin the very serious and difficult work of the transition," Kerry said, referring to Syria peace talks in Geneva.

In a playful start to the talks, Putin noted that Kerry walked off the plane carrying his briefcase himself and joked that he must have brought some cash to bargain with Russia.

Kerry replied, "When we have a private moment I will show you what's in my briefcase and I think you will be surprised."

Switching to a serious tone, the Russian leader said he hoped for a constructive discussion that would "allow us to make our positions on Syria and Ukraine closer."

Kerry is seeking clarity from Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as to where Russia stands on a political transition for Syria, particularly on the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad, now that a fragile truce is holding and U.N.-brokered peace talks are underway.

The main Syrian opposition group has wrapped up the latest round of indirect peace talks by urging Russia to "use its leverage" on Assad's government to fulfil international hopes for a political transition.

In Geneva, Bassma Kodmani, a leader of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told reporters Thursday that it wants greater access for humanitarian aid and decried continued sieges by government forces on Syrian municipalities.

The United States and Russia have been at odds over Syria since the conflict began more than five years ago, with Washington demanding Assad's ouster and Moscow saying it is up to the Syrian people to determine their leadership.

Kerry's meetings were arranged after Putin made a surprise announcement last week that Russian troops would partially withdraw from Syria after five months of military operations in support of Assad's government.

The other current significant difference between the U.S. and Russia is the situation in Ukraine where Washington accuses Moscow of not doing enough to push pro-Russian separatists in the east to comply with a cease-fire.

Russia, meanwhile, has complained that the Ukrainian government is dragging its feet on implementing the cease-fire.

Fighting in Ukraine's industrial heartland, which has close ties to Russia, has killed more than 9,100 people and left large swaths of land under rebel control. Germany, France and Russia mediated talks between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-backed separatists in Minsk, Belarus, which resulted in the truce agreement.

That has largely held, but none of the political elements, including calling a local election, has been implemented.

Kiev insists it can't hold the vote because it cannot guarantee security for election officials. For their part, the rebels have said they won't allow Ukrainian right-wing parties to run, which the Ukrainian government says also makes the election impossible.

Kerry was to raise concerns about a recent sharp increase in cease-fire violations and press Russia to do more to get the separatists in line. Unless there is "true quiet" and full access for cease-fire monitors, U.S. officials say it will be difficult to get progress on other parts of the Minsk deal.

Kerry will also raise the case of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in Russia on Tuesday on charges the U.S. says are false. Savchenko was convicted of complicity to murder in the 2014 deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine, opening a door to a possible prisoner swap between the two countries.

The U.S. has repeatedly called for Savchenko, who is also a member of parliament, to be released and did so again on Tuesday. Ukraine has suggested trading two Russian prisoners for Savchenko and U.S. officials say Kerry would encourage Russia to accept the proposal.

While in Moscow, Kerry also met with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to discuss Syria and other topics, and American astronaut Scott Kelly. Kelly, who is traveling in Russia, returned this month from the International Space Station, ending a 340-day mission that set a U.S. record.
The Republican Party's incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity.

Republicans instantly responded to Antonin Scalia's death by proclaiming that no nominee, however admirable in temperament, intellect and experience, would be accorded a hearing. They say their obduracy is right because:

Because they have a right to be obdurate, there being no explicit constitutional proscription against this.

Or because President Obama's demonstrated contempt for the Constitution's explicit text and for implicit constitutional manners justifies Republicans reciprocating with contempt for his Supreme Court choice, regardless of its merits.

Or because, 24 years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden -- he is not often cited by Republicans seeking validation -- suggested that a president's right to nominate judges somehow expires, or becomes attenuated, in a "political season," sometime after the midterm elections during a second presidential term.

Or because if a Republican president tried to fill a court vacancy during his eighth year, Democrats would behave the way Republicans are behaving.

In their tossed salad of situational ethics, the Republicans' most contradictory and least conservative self-justification is: The court's supposedly fragile legitimacy is endangered unless the electorate speaks before a vacancy is filled. The preposterous premise is that the court will be "politicized" unless vacancies are left vacant until a political campaign registers public opinion about, say, "Chevron deference."

This legal doctrine actually is germane to Garland. He is the most important member (chief judge) of the nation's second-most important court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the importance of which derives primarily from its caseload of regulatory challenges. There Garland has practiced what too many conservatives have preached -- "deference" in the name of "judicial restraint" toward Congress, and toward the executive branch and its appendages in administering congressional enactments. Named for a 1984 case, Chevron deference unleashes the regulatory state by saying that agencies charged with administering statutes are entitled to deference when they interpret supposedly ambiguous statutory language.

In his record of deference, Garland resembles two justices nominated by Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, respectively -- Chief Justice John Roberts and, even more, Scalia, who seems to be more revered than read by many conservatives. Garland's reluctance to restrict the administrative state's discretion would represent continuity in the chair he would fill.

Furthermore, Garland's deference is also expressed in respect for precedents, which include the 2008 Heller decision. In it, the court (with Scalia writing for the majority) affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms.

Of the last 25 justices confirmed, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 nomination of Earl Warren as chief justice, Garland, 63, is the second-oldest nominee. (Lewis Powell was 64 when Richard Nixon selected him in 1971.) The average age of the 25 was 53. So, Obama's reach into the future through Garland is apt to be more limited than it would be with a younger nominee.

Republicans who vow to deny Garland a hearing and who pledge to support Donald Trump if he is their party's nominee are saying: Democracy somehow requires that this vacancy on a non-majoritarian institution must be filled only after voters have had their say through the election of the next president. And constitutional values will be served if the vacancy is filled not by Garland but by someone chosen by President Trump, a stupendously uninformed dilettante who thinks judges "sign" what he refers to as "bills." There is every reason to think that Trump understands none of the issues pertinent to the Supreme Court's role in the American regime, and there is no reason to doubt that he would bring to the selection of justices what he brings to all matters -- arrogance leavened by frivolousness.

Trump's multiplying Republican apologists do not deny the self-evident -- that he is as clueless regarding everything as he is about the nuclear triad. These invertebrate Republicans assume that as president he would surround himself with people unlike himself -- wise and temperate advisers. So, we should wager everything on the hope that the man who says his "number one" foreign policy adviser is "myself" (because "I have a very good brain") will succumb to humility and rely on people who actually know things. If Republicans really think that either their front-runner or the Democrats' would nominate someone superior to Garland, it would be amusing to hear them try to explain why they do.
A few weeks ago former professional journalist, now turned Democrat Party spokesman, Chris Mathews said that voter ID was a Republican attempt to deny minority voters their inalienable rights and designed to keep them away from the polls.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every four years or so we have this national debate about state voting requirements. The Democrats always say the Republicans are trying to limit the number of minorities who vote, while the Republicans always say that there is way too much voter fraud without strict voter identification. As the reins of power shift in a given state, so may its voter requirements, depending on legislation passed which fits the political mold.

The truth is that voter requirements should be invoked. The answer to the national debate lies in how much identification should be required. In every election there are incidents of voter fraud, but these occurrences are small and not wide spread. Another truth is that the requirement for photo identification doesnt stifle the numbers of minority voters.

During an interview with President Obama on Al Sharptons radio shoe, Keeping it Real in 2012, the president said, Keep in mind most of these laws are not preventing the overwhelming majority of folks who dont vote from voting. Most people do have an ID Most people do have a drivers license. Most people can get to the polls. But the bottom line is, if less than half of our folks vote, these laws arent preventing the other half from not voting.

If the leader of the free world and the Democratic Party thinks voter ID laws arent a problem, theyre not a problem. All the uproar is pure bull and nothing more.

According to the international consortium of investigative journalists, nearly all nations ID requirements for registering or casting ballots fall into one of these categories:

1. Multiple forms of ID are accepted,

2. Standard government-issued IDs are required, or

3. "Particular types of government ID are required that voters must actively obtain.

One final argument against photo IDs in the U.S. is that the laws are too restrictive. What that argument lacks is a specific look at state-by-state voter laws. Most of the strictest voter law states offer a large menu of exceptions to the law including religious beliefs, confidentiality needed in domestic abuse cases, for physical disabilities and several other reasons as well.

The key to any voter ID law is that states need to insure that only its citizens can vote, however they decide to do it. If most all countries of the world, including those in the developing world, have a system to identify their citizens, so should we. There should be no argument here as long as the exceptions are generous enough to cover all our citizens.

Even though Chicago did have a vote early and vote often law back in the 1890s, we should insure our voter laws today are followed with appropriate punishment for violations. Perhaps, more than voter ID requirements, our national debate should be what to do about voter intimidation at the polls.

We can never again allow groups like the new Black Panther party to intimidate voters as they did in 2008. That was racism. The requirements voted by each state are, in no way, racist.
In a risky move for a rookie network, Spain's Grupo Secuoya is to set the prime time slot of its new free-to-air (FTA) channel Ten almost two hours ahead of other signals.





A month prior to Ten's DTT premiere, Grupo Secuoya has been carrying out an intensive commercial and advertising effort, meeting with media groups and advertising agencies to explain its plans for the future.We have a last opportunity to make something different on TV and complementary to free-to-air leaders Atresmedia and Mediaset, Raul Berdones, the group's president, told media agencies.The group has confirmed it will set prime time at 8.30pm, the same as other European countries, apart from Spain where most of the networks air their audience hits after 10pm. In fact, the country's Ministry of Health has stated on several occasions that TV networks should rationalise their schedules.Grupo Secuoya has already revealed some of the formats which will fill the channel's schedule, including Mi Love Actually, Este Hotel es Una Ruina, La Gran Aventura and Efecto Carbonaro. The company also intends to exploit brand content formats like Ransom , Top Ten and El Antichef.Ten, which will start airing on 28 April, intends to become a springboard for Secuoya's in-house content, but Raul Berdones has stated that around 50% of the network's schedule will be produced by external companies.
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Kendall Jenner takes center stage in a new, special edition of "Vogue" magazine.

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The magazine dedicated an entire 52-page issue to the 20-year-old model and "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" star featuring new photos of Jenner and insight into her modeling career.

Famed fashion photographer Mario Testino shot the cover and spread, which includes looks from Dolce & Gabbana, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen.

The special edition will be delivered to subscribers in New York and Los Angeles, along with the April issue.

"Y'all I could cry! My very own Vogue magazine. The whole thing. Just me. What!! So honored to be the special edition issue @voguemagazine thank you!" Jenner announced on Instagram.

"Kenny!!!! Soooo proud of you!!!! #stunning #beautifulinsideandout #proudmama #vogue," mom Kris Jenner wrote on her own account.

Jenner is known for her work with Chanel and Balmain, and has also walked for Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior.

She and several other young models, including Gigi Hadid, are as popular on social media as they are on the runways.

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"I'm aware of the incredible opportunity I've been given," she told the magazine.

"I mean, I've dreamed of being a part of this my whole life.Ten years from now, I can only hope to have harnessed all of this experience and opportunity into something impactful and meaningful."

The 20-year-old, who has 68 million followers on social media, recently told British Vogue it's important for her to stay "grounded" despite her success.
With rents and house prices going nowhere but up these days, the Palo Alto government is looking into how it can provide affordable housing to its residents. One of which is a proposal to introduce a subsidy for middle class households whose annual income ranges from $150,000 to $250,000.

According to Reuters, Palo Alto Vice Mayor Greg Scharff put forward the proposal which includes developing some 2,000 new houses and tiny apartments that will be intended for those who are earning below $250,000 per year. It is considering building houses as small as 200 square meter with kitchens and bathrooms shared among neighbors and co-housing communities. Some 587 units will be reserved for those "uniquely wealthy middle class" in the city, as per Daily Mail.

Scharff said that house prices in the San Francisco Bay area city, at an average of $3 million, have been pushing out longtime residents including professionals such as teachers, police officers and doctors. Likewise, those who work in the city could not afford to live there because of skyrocketing rental prices.

"Since many of Palo Alto's workers cannot afford to live in the City, the imbalance creates negative impacts such as long commutes for workers both inside and outside the region, increased traffic congestion during peak commute periods, and increased air pollution end energy consumption," the eight-year affordable housing proposal said.

Meanwhile, Professor Norm Miller, a real estate expert at the University of San Diego's School of Business, has warned that it the affordable housing plan will be difficult to implement. He told Daily Mail, "The only solutions to make housing more affordable are to add density, more units per acre and generally you need to add a lot of density like you have in New York City or to make units smaller as proposed."

Unfortunately, people in California have always been opposed to building small housing units and increasing density in the area, arguing that they will bring traffic to an insane level.
The Athens-Clarke County Fire Department parked a fire truck outside of the Zell B. Miller Learning Center Monday as part of Emergency Preparedness week, and students were able to interact with the firemen to receive handouts regarding fire prevention as well as to participate in emergency preparedness trivia.
Pakistans distance from Athens makes it easy to look at the events in Lahore as a far off occurrence, but the human impact of these events knows no borders. Annam Rizwan, a fourth year risk management and insurance major originally from Karachi, Pakistan, is the president of the Pakistani Student Association at the University of Georgia.
FILE - In this Jan. 17, 2016, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, speaks at the NBC, YouTube Democratic presidential debate at the Gaillard Center, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, in Charleston, S.C. To the left is Democratic presidential candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and to the center is Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Thirty-six-plus hours of televised debates in the 2016 presidential campaign have brought us Marco Rubios robotic moment, Donald Trumps jaw-dropping sexual innuendo, Bernie Sanders dismissal of Hillary Clintons damn emails and Clintons denunciation of Sanders for an artful smear. Oh, and weve heard about issues, too. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton, File)

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By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP)  Thirty-six-plus hours of televised debates in the 2016 presidential campaign have brought us Marco Rubio's robotic moment, Donald Trump's jaw-dropping sexual innuendo, Bernie Sanders' dismissal of Hillary Clinton's "damn emails" and Clinton's denunciation of Sanders for an "artful smear."

Oh, and we've heard about issues, too.

Is it all too much?

Trump, a reality TV star before he was a debate provocateur, says he's bored. Sanders successfully lobbied for more debates. John Kasich calls the debates the "dumbest things going."

"How many times can they ask you the same question over and over again?" Trump complained during a rally in Madison, Mississippi, this week. "Uh, it is so boring!"

In fact, this year's debate schedule  at least 13 for Republicans and 10 for Democrats  is considerably shorter than in years past. Republicans debated 20 times during the 2012 GOP primary season; Democrats faced off 26 times during the 2008 primary campaign.

While viewership has cooled since a whopping 24 million people watched the first GOP debate of the 2016 campaign last August, considerable audiences still are tuning in. Nearly 17 million people watched the Republican debate last week in Detroit and 5.5 million saw the Democrats' faceoff on Sunday night in Flint, Michigan.

Voters have used the debates to help winnow the GOP field from 17 to four and to pare the Democratic roster of candidates from five to two.

Stay tuned: Each side debates again this week  the Democrats on Wednesday, the Republicans on Thursday. After that, there are two more Democratic debates and at least one more Republican debate to come.

While the debates can be repetitive, they've given viewers a chance to see candidates refine their positions over time, think on their feet and demonstrate their ability to keep cool  or not  under fire. They have allowed some candidates to rise from relative obscurity  think Republicans Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson  and others to falter in a very big and public way.

"Certain candidates who looked good on paper  Scott Walker, for instance  could not translate that appeal through the lens of a camera," Northeastern University professor Alan Schroeder, the author of a book on presidential debates, wrote in an email, citing the Wisconsin governor who dropped out. "In the case of Donald Trump, we have learned that debates can be reduced to the level of reality TV, leaving the more traditional contenders ill-equipped to react."

Rubio used strong performances in early debates to help build his candidacy, then wilted when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pounced on his rote repetition of canned talking points. Christie, while tough on the attack, didn't seem to resonate with viewers and was out of the race four days after his skewering of Rubio halted the Florida senator's momentum.

Ted Cruz has shown great technical ability in mounting an argument, but the Texas senator's calculated delivery style is a turnoff, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

"His voice almost sounds as if he's engaging in a complicitous whisper," says Jamieson.

The body language of the candidates during the debates has told viewers as much as their words.

Written policy papers may sound great, says body language expert Lillian Glass, but watching the candidates on stage prompts voters to think "Do they really believe it? Is that true? How did they handle it under pressure? Can they answer underlying questions that go with it? Have they thought this through? Did somebody write this for them?"

Overall, the combination of a crowded debate stage and Trump's outsized personality has kept the Republican debates from being as policy-oriented as the Democrats'. Trump's command of the spotlight began in the first debate, when he was the only candidate to refuse to raise a hand and pledge to rule out a third-party run for the presidency, and continued to the most recent, when he alluded to the size of his genitalia.

Trump, at his Mississippi rally, indulged in a poor-me moment about the debates, saying, "These guys shout at me  oh, they shout. ... I've been in the center for every single debate. And the line's getting smaller and smaller and smaller."

The Democratic debates have gotten progressively more heated since the first one, when Clinton shook Sanders' hand after the Vermont senator said he was sick of all the questions about the former secretary of state's "damn emails."

There are sure to be more zingers, policy clashes and revealing moments when the candidates debate in Miami this week, but it's not clear how the GOP debates could get more shocking.

Says Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan: They've become "the equivalent of political train wrecks  you don't really feel good about watching them, but at the same time you can't turn your head away."

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Madison, Mississippi and Kathleen Ronayne in Monroe, Michigan, contributed to this report.
An image of George Martin, the Beatles' producer, is displayed in memory of him in the Abbey Road shop by the studios where the Beatles recorded albums and where the zebra crossing cover picture of the Abbey Road album was originally taken, in London, Wednesday, March 9, 2016. George Martin, the Beatles' urbane producer who quietly guided the band's swift, historic transformation from rowdy club act to musical and cultural revolutionaries, has died, his management said Wednesday March 9, 2016. He was 90. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

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By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press

LONDON (AP)  He was a quiet man, urbane and sophisticated, impeccably dressed, loyal to the queen and fond of his Rolls-Royce motor car  and he played a pivotal role in the transformation of four scruffy young lads from Liverpool into the most influential rock band in history.

Under George Martin's magisterial guidance, the Beatles transcended pop culture and created music that has stood the test of time. The work they produced has been covered and copied for decades, played as reggae music or chamber music or given a salsa beat.

It has been more than half a century since Martin heard what better-known executives had missed and took a gamble on the Beatles, transforming their raw, atomic energy into an early run of infectious hits that captured the optimism of the early 1960s.

It turned out he had sharp instincts, proclaiming "Boys, that's your first number one" just moments after they laid down "Please Please Me" in the Abbey Road Studios.

As the Beatles grew, he provided the classical background and willingness to innovate that paved the way for melancholy, mature songs like "Eleanor Rigby", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In the Life."

It is impossible to try and separate his contribution from that of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. It was simply a magical mix: the horn flourishes on "Penny Lane," the harpsichord on "In My Life" and the elegant introduction to "Ticket To Ride" are collaborations in the truest sense.

The Lennon-McCartney songwriting team has taken its rightful place in the pantheon, joining the giants who produced the great American songbook. And it was Martin's subtle work that helped make so many of the recordings unforgettable.

Hearing of Martin's death, McCartney Wednesday cited the producers work's on "Yesterday" as a prime example of the master's easy touch. It was Martin who suggested the string quartet that helped turn what might have been just another ballad into one of the world's most beloved, and most covered, songs.

Their styles at first seemed to clash: Martin was a product of the British establishment the Beatles loved to lampoon, and even his necktie drew early scorn from Harrison. He was not a rocker who worshipped at the church of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, preferring symphonic music and comedy records, and he was not steeped in the American blues tradition so revered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the other British invaders.

The Beatles developed a famous fondness for marijuana and LSD, indulgences that held no interest for Martin. But his open-minded approach helped them integrate Indian music and dreamy, fanciful imagery into their songs without losing their shape, structure or propulsive beat.

Martin was at first skeptical of Starr's drumming ability, using a stand-in on an early disk, but later gave Starr free rein to develop the unique, subtle style heard on "Rain", "She Said She Said" and other time-bending songs.

Consider the Beatles' collective good fortune: while Elvis Presley's musical legacy was squandered to a degree by Col. Tom Parker's crude management style, and his preference for Hollywood over Memphis, the Beatles always had Martin's support and exquisite taste.

When Brian Wilson tried to move the Beach Boys beyond their tried-and-true hit single formula, he met resistance from some band members who didn't want to risk of alienating their core audience. When the four Beatles tried to push that same envelope, Martin's response was: "Let's go."

And when the Rolling Stones tried to make a psychedelic album, the result was the much maligned "Their Satanic Majesties Request," remembered primarily for a novelty 3-D album cover. The Beatles and Martin had already done so much better with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

There was never a George Martin scandal. He stayed on the sidelines when the Beatles suffered their acrimonious breakup.

When Lennon later lashed out at him  even criticizing his producing work  Martin held his tongue.

He enjoyed a long, productive recording career post-Beatles, and in later years became a regal, spectral presence who graced the occasional public event.

Martin was seen at the Royal Festival Hall when Brian Wilson first performed his long-delayed masterwork "Smile" and helped organize a Buckingham Palace concert honoring Queen Elizabeth II on her Golden Jubilee in 2002.

He led the very British "hip hip hooray" in her majesty's honor after the encore.

It was fitting that in one of his final public appearances Martin was leading tributes for someone else. He never boasted of his musical accomplishments, but they have grown in stature over time and will be enjoyed as long as recorded music is played.


Greg Barnette/Record Searchlight Rich DuVarney has been named the superintendent of schools for Tehama County.

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By Alayna Shulman of the Redding Record Searchlight

The Tehama County Office of Education has a new superintendent.

Former Assistant Superintendent Rich DuVarney took over the position Wednesday after a 3-2 vote from the board after his former colleague Charles Allen quit amid an investigation into whether he'd lied about having a master's degree. Allen's teaching credential was officially revoked effective earlier this week, according to records from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Now that the board has decided, DuVarney said he's ready to put the days of discord behind the office and dedicate sole attention to students once again.

"I think it caused a lot of anxiety amongst our staff," he said of the tumult. "It just feels better to continue the great work that they do here at the department."

A key initiative DuVarney wants to tackle is boosting the office's outreach to children struggling at school because of emotional trauma, a common problem in Tehama County, DuVarney said.

"You have unemployed parents or parents not functioning well, these students come to school and they're unprepared to learn," he said.

Tying into that is one of DuVarney's other key areas of focus  promoting adult education by increasing the number of people who earn their GEDs through his office.

"We need to create taxpayers," he said.

DuVarney also has plans to bring the Tehama College and Career Center to the office next fall for students planning to go into the workforce or college and need support.

The debate over who should replace him saw supporters of DuVarney, Allen's former election challenger Harley North and several other candidates at odds, and the board held a series of community meetings on the issue so members could gauge who would be the best fit.

The main question: whether the board should appoint someone already in the office and who has experience as a county superintendent  DuVarney  or someone who has had a longer career locally. Since DuVarney's job as a superintendent was in Lassen County and he came to Tehama in 2014, some questioned whether he has enough of a pulse on local matters, including because he technically lives in Butte County. DuVarney said he's moving to Tehama County in July, though.

Among those who voiced concerns about DuVarney's appointment were former Tehama County superintendents Lou Bosetti and Bob Douglas.

"I think they rushed into something and ignored advice that was given to them, other than by their attorneys," Bosetti said. "I'm very disappointed in the way they reached their decision."

Douglas also questioned the process and was one of the people who mentioned residency concerns.

"I think (the process) was heavily biased in favor of selecting Mr. DuVarney," he said. "There was ... virtually no discussion about the merits of any of the four candidates, ranking by individual board members about where they stack up. I mean, I've done a lot of superintendent searches in my time  that was not how you do it."

Douglas said he's known the other three candidates for the position for years, and all of them would have been "stellar" at the job.

In response to comments made by supporters of the other candidates, DuVarney said the board had an elaborate process to gauge the public's wishes and noted how the board clearly was not swayed in his favor, since two members voted for someone else.

"It's not like it was a slam-dunk," he said.

While he's only been with the office a little over a year, DuVarney said that's been plenty of time to build relationships, which  coupled with his four years of superintendent experience in Lassen County  seemed to impress the board.

"I've had over a year to get to know this community," he said.

Board Member Carolyn Steffan is the one who made the motion to appoint DuVarney. While all of the candidates were impressive, she said the board got "many, many" letters of support for DuVarney, who has proven himself in his year on the job.

"I feel he's done an excellent job ... so I just felt he was a natural choice," she said, noting that she encouraged the other candidates  North, Roxy Williams and Mary Secuma  to run for the position when DuVarney's term ends.

There's also an element of making the smoothest transition possible, Steffan said.

"What (North's supporters) said with me was they were glad we were going through the process, and if we were to appoint Harley, we should only do it because he was the very best candidate. And I felt we chose the best candidate," she said. "I think we have an excellent, excellent team and programs at the county Department of Education, so now there won't be any break in carrying on an excellent program."

The superintendent position is normally filled by election, but county boards of education will appoint superintendents if one leaves in the middle of the term. DuVarney's term will end in 2018.

"I feel fortunate to be part of such a great organization," DuVarney said. "The staff is just unbelievable."
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By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight

At a meeting inside Redding City Hall's council chambers, Vice Mayor Brent Weaver had to smile as he listened to the snappy exchange.

One of the members on the City Council probed the police chief why he wouldn't support banning skateboards on sidewalks.

The police chief responded he did not have the staff to enforce it. Pressed a second time, the police chief had this to say: "'Well, I have a budget I need to adhere to,'"

Weaver recalled the young voice saying at a special session Tuesday morning. "And that is an appropriate response."

The discussion was part of a mock City Council meeting for and by students from Boulder Creek Elementary School.

They were participating in Local Government 101, a program Weaver rolled out in February so students can learn the inner workings of municipal government.

"Growing up in the community you learn about state and federal government, but nothing about local government," Weaver said. "That's what gave me the idea. We want to open their eyes about how local government affects their parents, their uncles, their families."

During the 90-minute session, students go on a tour of City Hall with a council member who serves as a guide. They learn about the duties of the city manager and City Clerk's Office, and talk one-on-one with the elected official. The tour culminates at the chambers, running a "council meeting."

To date, two schools have made the visit  this after Weaver and City Manager Kurt Starman visited with school superintendents to promote the program.

About 100 students from Mountain View Middle School visited last Friday. The city hosted a similar-sized crowd from Boulder Creek on Tuesday.

Weaver said prior to starting the mock meeting, students are taught about open government and transparency.

"I'm optimistic that may be in this midst is a future City Council member or a city manager," Weaver said.

Redding schools interested in the program should contact the City Clerk's Office at 225-4447.
Stethoscope wrapped around hundred dollar bills

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By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News

Aetna and Cigna inked deals in early February with drugmaker Novartis that offer the insurers rebates tied to how well a pricey new heart failure drug works to cut hospitalizations and deaths. If the $4,500-a-year drug meets targets, the rebate goes down. Doesnt work so well? The insurers get a bigger payment.

In another approach, pharmacy benefit firm Express Scripts this year began paying drugmakers a special negotiated rate for some cancer drugs  to reward the use of the medicines for the specific cancers for which they have the most demonstrated effectiveness.

Those are examples of the kind of private sector efforts the Obama administration hopes to borrow as it tests a handful of payment strategies in Medicare. The results could lead to a profound shift in how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services spends $20 billion a year for drugs under Part B, which are those given in doctors offices and hospital outpatient centers. Many cancer treatments are provided that way, as are some treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration and other medical conditions.

Under a proposed rule, different methods would be tried in selected geographic areas over a five-year test period. Some of these experiments would begin this year, with others added in 2017. The proposal faces two months of public comment.

Dubbed value-based pricing, such largely unproven ideas are the latest tactics being tried to slow growth in prescription drug spending amid rising public alarm about drug prices.

The goal is to test whether alternative approaches will lead to better value, said Patrick Conway, chief medical officer for CMS, in announcing the proposal March 8.

There is no perfect payment system, they all have upsides and downsides, said Dan Mendelson of consulting firm Avalere Health, who lauded Medicare for considering new ways to pay even as he cautioned that it must be done carefully. What we dont want to do is create a world where doctors only prescribe the cheapest stuff even if not in the interest of the patient.

Here are four concepts the government is investigating:

1) Cut drug reimbursements for doctors and outpatient hospital centers.

Many drugs covered under Medicare Part B are first purchased by a physician office or outpatient center, then dispensed to patients. Once billed, Medicare pays the health care provider the average sales price plus 6 percent for costs associated with the purchase and storage of the medications. For example, a doctor or clinic would receive an add-on fee of $6 when a $100 drug is purchased, or $300 for a $5,000 treatment.

In the private sector, that practice  called buy and bill  is being reduced.

Instead, specialty pharmacies  often connected with pharmacy benefit management companies  purchase the drugs, then deliver them to doctors offices. The management companies, paid by insurers for their services, negotiate prices with drugmakers.

But the buy-and-bill approach still dominates Medicare Part B.

Oncology specialists and other proponents say add-on fees are an important revenue source needed to keep such centers open. But critics fear they encourage use of higher-cost drugs when equally effective products could be had for less. They also say the fees reward larger practices and centers that buy drugs at advantageous prices.

To counter that possibility, CMS would change the current reimbursement formula, cutting the add-on portion to 2.5 percent of the average sales price.

Recent industry surveys show that larger practices have resisted moving away from buy and bill. Smaller ones with less bargaining clout favor them. Drugmakers and some physician specialty groups oppose this part of Medicares proposal, but patient advocacy groups express mild support mixed with caution.

2) Level payments.

In the private sector, insurers sometimes set benchmarks, often called reference prices, for services patients generally can shop around for, such as a hip or knee replacement or colonoscopies. The California Public Employees Retirement System insurance plans, for example, saw that the cost of joint replacements varied widely among hospitals, then set a cap of $30,000 for a joint replacement. If patients chose hospitals that charged more, they had to pay the difference. The move was credited with saving millions in its first two years, and most of it came from the more-expensive hospitals lowering prices.

Medicare plans to apply this model to its payments to doctors and outpatient centers for some medicines that are all in a similar class of drugs. For example, it might select one price for all injectable treatments for knee pain caused by osteoarthritis. That rate would be paid even when centers use higher-cost products.

But on what would the price be based? While asking for comments, Medicare suggested a variety of options, including the average price for drugs in a category, the price of the most clinically effective drug or a rate developed some other way.

Unlike the private sector, Medicares proposal would apply to some prescription medications, but not procedures. And, unlike most private-sector models, Medicare patients who get drugs above a benchmark cost could not be billed for the difference. The goal is not to encourage patients to change drugs. Instead, Medicare said it will test whether grouping similar drugs into a single payment rate will give physicians incentives to use products that provide the most value for the patient.

3) Tie payments to effectiveness.

Under Medicares proposal, drugmakers would agree to offer rebates that link the final price of their products to results achieved by patients. Just what those results would be  improved health, fewer hospitalizations or some other measure  would be spelled out up front. There are more than 300 such risk-sharing agreements currently in place, according to a University of Washington School of Pharmacy database.

In a related test, Medicare would adopt an approach similar to that used by Express Scripts, varying the amount of payment based on the type of condition for which a drug is used. Drugs are often approved for more than one condition  say two different types of cancers  but may be more effective at treating one than the other. Under the proposal, Medicare would pay a physician less when drugs are used to treat cancers with lower rates of effectiveness.

Skeptics say the process can be complex  and savings might be eaten up by administrative costs or disagreements over whether drugs have met effectiveness targets. Moreover, these private sector efforts are so new that detailed results are not yet available.

Meanwhile, a report out March 15 from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review looked at similar efforts internationally. It found that such indication-specific pricing holds some promise but cautioned that administrative complexity and other challenges are significant.

4) Cut patients out-of-pocket costs.

To get patients to take important medications, such as statins after a heart attack, some insurers, including Aetna, have reduced or eliminated patient copayments for specific treatments. Other insurers have experimented with similar incentives for other conditions, such as asthma or diabetes. They generally found that reduced payments made patients more likely to continue taking their medications.

In Medicare Part B, patients are responsible for 20 percent of the cost of their drugs  unless they have a supplemental insurance policy that covers such copayments. Medicare proposes to cut or eliminate those payments for certain drugs considered most effective or valuable.

Lower copayments for those drugs might affect what doctors prescribe and could encourage patients to stay on needed treatments. Medicare itself would make up the difference, picking up the tab for the reduced or eliminated patient payment.

Medicare is soliciting suggestions in its public comment phase as to which drugs might be the best candidates for the test.



(Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.)



2016 Kaiser Health News

Visit Kaiser Health News at www.khn.org

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The state governments now have more money than ever before. How is this influencing their spending?

Image: Bihar expects to receive 58,359 crore as its share in central taxes.

Photograph: Reuters

Are new ways of doing business, such as e-commerce, also creating new revenue streams?



Is higher social sector spending only a re-election route or an acknowledgement that good economics is also good politics?



Ishan Bakshi studies the Budgets of six states, their expenditure priorities and outlays to understand the trend.

Bihar: Broke but more educated

Bihar always had little money. What it had was reduced further after the decision to ban country liquor, after the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad government came to power in 2015.

As a result, it is more dependent than other states on central transfers to fund expenditure.



In 2016-17, the state expects to receive 58,359 crore as its share in central taxes, up from 50,747 crore in 2015-16 and 36,963 crore in 2014-15.



Equal to 10.4 per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) in 2016-17.



Taken together, transfers from the central government, including grants in aid, account for roughly three-fourths of the state's total revenue receipts.

Bihar's own tax collections account for less than a fourth of that total. It expects own tax revenue to grow 16 per cent in 2016-17 but this might be an overestimate.

The state has not introduced any new taxes in the Budget and will lose 4,000 crore in excise duty collections after the ban on country liquor from April.

Its own tax revenue is expected to decline to 5.3 per cent of GSDP in 2016-17.

On the expenditure side, education remains a top priority, with the Budget allocating 10,950 crore or 15.3 per cent of the total plan outlay for this.

The power sector has also seen an increase, with the government proposing to provide an electricity connection to every household.

The Budget has allocated, 9,658 crore or 13.5 per cent of the total plan outlay to this sector.

In 2015-16, the state had ramped up social sector spending on account of Assembly elections.

As a consequence, the fiscal deficit rose from a budgeted 13,584 crore in 2015-16 to 28,505 crore the same year.

Spending is now expected to be curtailed, to bring the deficit to 16,014 crore.

Image: Social sector spending now outstrips that on general services in West Bengal. Photograph: Reuters

West Bengal: More human investment

With the state gearing up for elections, the government has increased spending on the social sector, from 51,532 crore in 2015-16 to 62,528 crore in 2016-17.

As a percentage of expenditure, spending here has increased to 39.2 in 2016-17 from 35.5 per cent in 2015-16.

Social sector spending now outstrips that on general services.

As a consequence, spending on economic services has been squeezed, from 24.7 per cent in 2015-16 to 20.9 per cent in 2016-17 of total expenditure.

The state now spends roughly half on economic services as compared to the social sector.

Finance Minister Amit Mitra claims the state had set a record in expenditure on the social sector, by increasing rural development budget by four times and the health budget by three times.



He has tripled the agricultural budget and planned expenditure for women and child welfare.

To fund this, the state is relying more on transfers from the central government.



After the 14th Finance Commission (FFC), its share in central taxes as a percentage of its GSDP has gone up from 3.5 per cent in 2015-16 to four per cent in 2016-17 (both Budget Estimates or BE).

Own tax revenue is projected to grow 17 per cent in 2016-17, after 33 per cent in 2015-16. Given the elections, there are no new taxes in the Budget.

Image: The state's share in central taxes increased to Rs 43,676 crore in 2016-17. Photograph: Reuters

Madhya Pradesh: E-commerce awakening

After the increase in tax devolution, the state's share in central taxes increased to Rs 43,676 crore in 2016-17, up from Rs 39,705 crore in 2015-16 and 24,106 crore in 2014-15.



This is a third of total revenue receipts, up from five per cent of GSDP in 2015-16 to 6.1 per cent in 2016-17.

The state expects own tax revenue to grow 13.6 per cent, up from 11.8 per cent in 2015-16.



For this, it has proposed a six per cent tax on goods purchased online when these enter the state.



Though the details of this are sketchy, according to news reports, the government plans to collect details of goods through courier companies. There's also a hefty increase in value-added tax (VAT) on plastic products.



Offset by a proposal to remove five per cent VAT on battery operated cars and rickshaws.

The government says capital expenditure would rise from 37.6 per cent of total expenditure in 2014-15 to 46.9 per cent in 2016-17. It had declined 1.8 per cent, from 24,713 crore in 2014-15 to 21,954 crore in 2015-16.

The state proposes to spend 452 crore on Metro Rail projects for Indore and Bhopal.

Another 4,305 crore is for construction and maintenance of roads and bridges.

Moreover, 400 crore has been allocated for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, which aims to provide housing for all. Machines used for making bio fertilisers and for milk processing are proposed to be freed of tax.

Image: Jharkhand has not announced any new taxes but has proposed ways to simplify the tax processes and curb evasion.. Photograph: Reuters

Jharkhand: More than mining

The FFC award has added to the wealth of this mineral-rich state, with a sharp increase in transfers from the central government.

The share in central taxes was budgeted to go up from Rs 9,487 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 12,000 crore in 2015-16; it actually went up to Rs 16,499 crore. In 2016-17, it is estimated to be 7.1 per cent of GSDP, up from 5.3 per cent in 2015-16 (BE).

Own-tax revenue is budgeted to grow 20 per cent in 2016-17. This might seem optimistic but it had grown 38 per cent in 2015-16.

The state has not announced any new taxes but has proposed ways to simplify the tax processes and curb evasion.

Capital spending rose from 20.6 per cent of total expenditure in 2014-15 to 23.2 per cent in 2016-17.

One reason for the latter's rise is the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana scheme to relieve state power distribution companies from debt.

While spending on the social sector is down as a proportion of the total, it has increased allocation to agriculture and rural development.

In terms of share, there has been a marginal drop in education and public health.

The Budget has earmarked 15.3 per cent of total spending for education, art, culture and sports.

And, 13.8 per cent for rural development, nine per cent for agriculture and allied activities. Plus 9.8 per cent on social security and 3.5 per cent for urban development.

Andhra Pradesh: Investing in education

Despite the task of building the new capital city of Amaravati, the Chandrababu Naidu government has about doubled spending on the social sector in its latest Budget.

As against 10,545 crore in 2015-16, the government has projected Rs 21,556 crore in 2016-17.

On both agriculture & allied activities and irrigation, it proposes to spend less than what was actually spent in 2015-16.

Spending on agriculture and rural development is budgeted at Rs 13,648 crore, down from Rs 15,865 crore in 2015-16.

That on irrigation is budgeted at Rs 7,325 crore, from Rs 8,326 crore in 2015-16.

Past trends, though, suggest more will be spent than was budgeted. In 2015-16, actual spending on these sectors was 60 per cent higher than originally budgeted.

Allocations to social sector schemes include roughly Rs 3,000 crore for social security pensions, Rs 4,000 crore for farm loan waivers and Rs 2,700 crore for the public distribution system.

To build the new capital city, the government has provided Rs 1,500 crore.

This will be used as seed equity to help the Capital Region Development Authority mobilise the additional resources required.

To fund the massive expansion in its expenditure, the state is relying in equal measure on own tax revenues and transfers from the Centre.

It hopes to mop 48 per cent of total revenue receipts through its own tax base, with 47 per cent through central transfers - Rs 24,637 crore via its share in central taxes and Rs 26,849 crore as grants.

Image: Chhattisgarh has steadily increased capital expenditure. Photograph: Reuters

Chhattisgarh: Capex stays a priority

Chhattisgarh has seen a sharp decline in the contribution of own tax revenue to total revenue receipts.



The former is projected to grow only 1.8 per cent in 2016-17, after 37 per cent in 2015-16.



As a consequence, own tax revenue is projected to decline from 7.8 per cent of GSDP in 2016-17, from 8.6 per cent in 2015-16.

In the FFC's aftermath, the state's share in the divisible pool more than doubled, from Rs 8,363 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 16,213 crore in 2015-16.



In 2016-17, transfers from the Centre are budgeted at roughly 30 per cent of total revenue receipts.

The state has steadily increased capital expenditure. Government spending on capex as a percentage of total expenditure is projected to grow from 14.3 per cent in 2014-15 to 18.6 per cent in 2016-17.

The budget has set aside Rs 4,640 crore for construction of bridges, 56 per cent more than last year.

Presenting the budget, Raman Singh, the chief minister, who also holds the finance portfolio, said special focus was being given to the agricultural sector.

Drought-hit farmers are to get Rs 540 crore, with another Rs 150 crore for free seeds to paddy farmers and Rs 8 crore for the marriage of drought-hit farmers' daughters, under the Mukhya Mantri Kanya Vivah Yojana. Allocation for farm insurance rises from Rs 50 crore to Rs 200 crore.

With the government hoping to increase irrigation facilities on 83,000 hectares in the coming years, Rs 2,574 crore has been allocated for its development. And, Rs 700 crore for the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
'I recall an encounter I had with a US Congressman of Cuban origin, who was hostile to India because of our continuing goodwill for Cuba.'

'He asked me why India was still friendly with Cuba and I gave him an honest answer that it was rooted in historical and friendly ties.'

'He took it as an affront and spread the word that an Indian diplomat had defended Fidel Castro in his chamber!'

Ambassador T P Sreenivasan on President Obama's historic visit to Havana.

Fidel Castro was credited with a prediction 43 years ago that 'The US will come and talk with us when it has a black President and the world has a Latin American Pope.' (K P Nayar in The Telegraph).

This might well have been apocryphal, but even if it was true, the conditions were fulfilled quite a while ago. Obama became the first black President more than seven years ago and the Latin American Pope is already contemplating resignation.

The normalisation of relations between the US and Cuba was, therefore, long overdue. After the end of the Cold War, there was no real reason for the two countries to remain alienated. If history could be reversed in relations with China and Iran, there was no reason for the inordinate delay in the case of Cuba. By visiting Cuba recently, Barack Obama was merely accepting the dictates of history and removing an anachronism.

By delaying the normalisation of relations with Cuba, which is not yet complete, the US has only hurt itself. Apart from the denial of Cuban cigars and Havana Rum to aficionados, the situation led to the growth of disaffection against the US in several Latin American countries as Cuba continued to be the rallying point for anti-American sentiments without any political or economic benefits for the US or its allies. Europe and Canada had gone ahead and removed the embargo.

The UN General Assembly passed resolutions year after year, urging the US to remove this vestige of the Cold War. With Obama, the harbinger of change, at the helm of affairs, the logic was for change, not the status quo.

Pope Francis' role in speeding up the process of normalisation was a decisive factor in a situation, which was ripe for change. His intervention resonated not only with the public in the United States, but also Cuban exiles in the US who had opposed such moves in the past.

In fact, the Cuban exiles in the US, who are estimated to exceed one million, have been the main drivers of the US policy towards Cuba since 1959. They came in different waves, some as political asylum seekers soon after the Cuban revolution and others seeking economic benefits.

Many made use of the Cuban willingness to let them go and the American welcome accorded to them as part of the destabilisation strategy against Cuba. Several people, who left in desperate situations, perished on the high seas.

The emotional baggage of the Cuban exiles was a factor that successive American administrations had to contend with in the formulation of the Cuba policy. Some of them, who rose in the political hierarchy of the US, actively campaigned against any softening towards Castro.

Several political organisations sprang up in the areas, where Cuban exiles were concentrated. Apart from protecting the interests of the migrants, these organizations were concerned that any normalisation with Cuba would result in the loss of the refugee status that the new arrivals enjoyed in the US. The instinct of self-preservation, rather than ideology dictated their attitudes.

I recall an encounter I had with a US Congressman of Cuban origin, who was hostile to India because of our continuing goodwill for Cuba. He asked me why India was still friendly with Cuba and I gave him an honest answer that it was rooted in historical and friendly ties in the past.

He took it as an affront and spread the word on the Hill that an Indian diplomat had defended Fidel Castro in his chamber! He had expected that I would please him by making derogatory remarks about Castro. Such was the mentality of even Cuban-American legislators.

It should go to Obama's credit that he was able to overcome the fears about the reaction of the Cuban community in an election year by making the trip. He went beyond the requirements of the occasion to characterise it as historic, when he said, 'I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War. I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban People.'

He devoted a considerable part of his speech to the travails of the Cuban exiles, who went to the US in search of freedom and democracy. He tried to allay their fears about the US compromising with dictatorship, even when conceding that every people should choose their path themselves. He has to contend with the sentiments of the Cuban exiles in his effort to lift the embargo, which is a prerogative of the United States Congress.

It is not unusual for US Presidents, particularly Obama, to be frank about what they consider undesirable in their host countries. Obama's last speech in Delhi was a prime example of this practice. He gained nothing in terms of bilateral relations by speaking his mind, but it was a requirement that something should be said about the prejudices in India.

In Cuba, it was even more important to set the record straight on human rights and authoritarianism, even as he praised Cuba's achievements in education and health. President Castro paid back in the same coin by speaking of the embargo and Guantanamo. While these point to the difficulties ahead, the leaders were aware that the change was clearly irreversible.

Nitpicking by the press is inevitable on such occasions as they microscopically search for clues for the trouble ahead. One such instance was the body language of the two Presidents.

Did Castro stop Obama from a patronising pat on his back by an awkward lifting of Obama's limp hand in a wrestler-like gesture?

Why did Fidel Castro administer a snub by denying Obama a photo opportunity?

The first was obviously not choreographed and showed the remaining nervousness on the part of both, while the latter was a clear signal that Fidel Castro was not yet ready to forgive and forget. He may have been sick, but he could easily have held Obama's hand in a gesture of reconciliation.

Obama publicly expressed his willingness to call on the old man, but there was no explanation from the Cubans as to what had happened. There must have been discussions on the issue before and during the visit and it is significant that the Americans did not consider it a litmus test of Cuban sincerity.

Perhaps, Fidel Castro considered the visit as unfinished business as yet, because the fate of the embargo was not known. It is also possible that Obama was not willing to promise to remain silent about the internal situation in Cuba as a price for a photo opportunity with the legend.

The situation was ripe for a US-Cuba rapprochement long before it happened. The winds of globalisation had not left Cuba unaffected. The Cubans have always been more comfortable with the Americans than with the Russians at a personal level. Miami, and not Moscow, has been their promised land.

After the Cold War, the two had learnt to deal with each other without intermediaries. The lifestyle and language of Cuban diplomats were more in tune with American aristocracy rather than with their comrades in Russia. Many points of crisis were resolved between them.

The Americans were quite comfortable with the beaches and bars of Havana. This natural affinity, rather than the terms of settlement, will determine the future of the relations between the US and Cuba.

The fragrance of Cuban cigars and rum will embellish their ties.

Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, (IFS 1967) is a former Ambassador of India and Governor for India of the IAEA. He is currently Executive Vice-Chairman, Kerala State Higher Education Council and Director General, Kerala International Centre.
'Increasingly, there is a tendency to magnify 'victimhood' of the minority for electoral gains and vote bank politics.'

'There is no doubt that there is a worldwide rise in Islamophobia. There is a tendency amongst some in India to react to this in the Indian milieu,' says Colonel Anil A Athale(retd).

IMAGE: People flee Brussels airport after the terror attack.

The attacks in Brussels had an echo in India that is long used to bomb blasts and terror attacks. Many half-baked 'experts' have warned against the threat of ISIS or Daesh to India. The comparison of the two situations -- Europe and India -- are very superficial and even misleading. While we must indeed remain vigilant, this extrapolation of the situation in Europe on India is farfetched. To understand the similarities and differences read on!

One major point common to the Brussels attacks and the earlier carnage in Paris is that in both cases the terrorists who carried out the attacks were 'home grown.' In contrast, the Mumbai attacks in 2008, very similar to one in Paris, was planned and executed by external elements (in this case Pakistan's ISI and Lashkar-e-Tayiba) with some local support.

Terrorism or insurgency can only thrive if there is external support and safe areas/sanctuaries are available. In the case of Europe, most cities have Muslim majority ghettos that are virtual no go areas for the police. The State does not have any idea or control over what is going on in these areas.

In Daesh or ISIS, there is the external source of support. But most importantly in Europe, the Muslim minority has failed to integrate in the host societies. Muslim separatism is at the root of Europe's woes.

The importance of Ghettoisation was brought home to me starkly in erstwhile South Africa. During the apartheid regime, the South African racist government followed created Bantustans, separate Black enclaves. This policy played directly into the hands of the African National Congress that carried out a successful campaign of bombings and sabotage in the 1970s and 1980s.

uMkhonto weSizwe -- The Spear of the Nation -- carried out successful attacks on economic targets in South Africa. The Black ghettos in urban areas served as bases for these attacks. The situation in Europe is similar to South Africa of the 1980s.

India has had its share of urban ghettos being used as terrorist bases. In 2006, after the Mumbai train blasts of 7/11, a terror cell in the Kondhwa area of Pune was busted by the police. It later came to light that the terrorists even had a mini-firing range in the area. Many Indian cities have similar ghettos that are no go areas for the police and the State is unaware of goings on there.

After the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits in January 1990, the Kashmir valley has come to resemble a vast ghetto. It is no wonder that violent activities and sabotage are unstoppable in that area.

The saving grace for India has been (so far) its villages. The ghettoisation witnessed in the urban areas is unknown in the countryside where different communities live peacefully side by side. Of late, this rural peace has certainly come under stress due to the beef ban controversy in some parts of the country. By and large and in contrast to the urban areas, the rural countryside has been free from the virus of extremism so far.

Ghettoisation, besides physical aspects, also has a mental dimension. In Europe, the minority Muslims are racially and culturally separate from the mainstream. Whereas in India, the Muslim minority is not only an inseparable part of the cultural scene, but are in a dominant position in the movie industry. The dominance of the minority in the cultural sphere has some interesting effects abroad.

While visiting South East Asia, in many places in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, on being told that I was from India, the questioner assumed me to be a Muslim. Names like Shah Rukh Khan are well known even in the remotest parts of South East Asia and are naturally linked to India and its image.

The Muslim minority is dominant not only in pop art, but also is the mainstay of classical cultural traditions in dance and music. This kind of cultural unity is not seen in the European context. In fact, the Muslim minority in Europe is culturally alienated from the majority Europeans. There may be some exceptions in sports, but the exceptions only prove a rule.

In India, increasingly, the minorities participate in the media and many have reached top positions. In addition, among the industrial elite, there are many from the minority like Azim Premji, Khorakiwalla etc. One is hard put to find similar examples from Europe.

All in all, while the ghettoisation of the minorities in urban areas is common to both Europe and India, in our case, many factors mitigate its effect. It is therefore no surprise that for many years Al Qaeda failed to find recruits in India. Like Al Qaeda, ISIS is also unlikely to succeed in India.

Does that mean we are immune to this virus? A resounding answer is no, we are not immune. The increasing tendency to emphasise a separate identity in India is a worrying aspect. It is appalling to see Muslim parents imposing skull caps and abhayas on even small children in some areas.

Increasingly, there is a tendency to magnify 'victimhood' of the minority for electoral gains and vote bank politics. There is no doubt that there is a worldwide rise in Islamophobia, particularly in Europe and the US. There is a tendency amongst some in India to react to this in the Indian milieu.

We must guard against these two factors that can give rise to ISIS clones in India. But for now, India is NOT Europe!

Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian and student of insurgency and terrorism.
Denying the Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot base on operational grounds would not, the government felt, compromise national security, reveals Rajeev Sharma.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Indian Air Force's Pathankot base, January 9, 2016. Photograph: Press Information Bureau

If the daring terror attack on India's largest military base in Pathankot in early January marked a serious provocation between India and Pakistan as it came barely a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unexpected visit to Lahore, the two sides are now poised to convert this challenge into an opportunity.

History will be scripted when a Pakistan Joint Investigation Team arrives in India on Sunday, March 27, to investigate the Pathankot terror attack, which, according to India, was choreographed by the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed's leadership.

India has shared evidence and conveyed to Pakistan that Jaish chief Masood Azhar was the main conspirator and perpetrator behind the attack.

A joint investigation by India and Pakistan in a terror attack is unprecedented. The Pakistani side took a positive step on March 18 when it lodged a First Information Report in the Pathankot case, though against 'unknown persons.' The Pakistani establishment also confirmed that Masood Azhar is in protective custody.

The Pakistani JIT will begin its work on Monday, March 28. It will be taken to the Pathankot base on Tuesday, March 29. It will be accompanied by a National Investigation Agency team.

The NIA will primarily be responsible for taking the Pakistani JIT around the terror attack sites and answering questions that the Pakistanis have.

The NIA will also make available to the JIT several eyewitnesses of the attack that lasted four days. These witnesses will be largely from the defence establishment. The JIT's tour of the Pathankot base is expected to be a day-long affair after which it will return home.

The five-member Pakistani JIT comprises senior officers from the military intelligence and civil administration and is headed by the chief of Pakistani Punjab's counter terrorism department Additional Inspector General of Police Muhammad Tahir Rai.

Other members are Lahore Deputy Director General Intelligence Bureau Mohammad Azim Arshad, Inter Services Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Tanvir Ahmed, Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Irfan Mirza and Gujranwala counter terrorism department's Investigating Officer Shahid Tanveer.

While this unusual India-Pakistan bonhomie will be played out at the operational level, why did the Modi government go against the stated opinion of its defence minister and allow the Pakistani JIT access to the military base?

The Modi government has already invested enormously in improving relations with Pakistan, so much so that it determined that denying the Pakistani JIT access to the Pathankot base would be a retrograde effort.

Besides, two operational reasons weighed in favour of the government in allowing the Pakistani JIT access to the base. One, the terrorists were largely confined to the periphery of the base during the four-day attack and therefore taking the Pakistani investigators to these locations would not compromise national security.

Two, in these days of drones, spy satellites and satellite imagery, it is no longer a secret which military base has what type of guns, aircraft, radar systems and other weaponry.

Denying the Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot base solely on operational grounds, the government felt, would not make much of a difference in terms of national security.

Moreover, just a couple of days after the Pakistani JIT completes its task, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan will meet in Washington on the sidelines of the the Nuclear Security Summit. The two national security advisors are in constant touch.

It is not known if there is any assurance from the Pakistani side, whether at the PM level or the NSA level, that Pakistan will take swift, credible and positive action after the JIT's investigations.

Even if such assurances exist, these will mean precious little as ultimately it is the other Sharif -- General Raheel Sharif, the Pakistan army chief -- and not Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who will take a final call.

Whatever the outcome of the Pathankot probe, one thing is for sure. Modi is playing the political gamble of his life. Pathankot will be an important barometer of the pilgrim's progress!

Rajeev Sharma is an independent journalist and strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha
'As a governor, I have every right to speak my mind if I feel the security of my country is at stake.'

'Why is it that we would have to shed tears when Muslims are killed or tortured, but have to keep mum when the Hindus receive the same treatment?'

"I am not secular, I am a Hindu," says Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy.

The fact that this comment had stirred up a controversy a few months ago doesn't perturb Roy in the least.

For, he reasons, "We often misinterpret the word 'secular' and that creates all the trouble."

An avid reader, Roy is busy at the moment writing his autobiography.

During an informal chat with Indrani Roy/Rediff.com at the majestic Raj Bhavan in Tripura, the governor discusses his religious stand, his tweets about Yakub Memon's funeral procession, the present government's alleged intolerance among other issues.

You have always been a voracious reader. Now that you are the governor of Tripura (away from active politics), are you getting more time to read?

I am addicted to the printed word. Even when I was busy, I would read anything and everything that I came across, even a thonga (paper packet).

Our family was very close to Bengali writer Pramathanath Bishi and thanks to him (whom I called jethu), books filled up every corner of our home.

Bishijethu inculcated into me the habit of reading and analysing.

Books helped me form opinions and aided me to put an end to wrong notions.

Even when I was into active politics, I always managed to squeeze out time to read. Now, of course, I am getting more time. However, I am more of a writer now than a reader.

You are writing books now?

Yes, some time back, I had penned My People Uprooted: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was brought out by a New Delhi publisher. Now I am busy translating this book into Bengali.

Why did you choose this subject?

Strangely, though a lot has been written about the Partition of Bengal and torture of the Muslims, nothing much has been written about the plight of the Hindus in East Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Such a partial stand perturbed me and motivated me to write this book. It will take me another six months to complete the translation.

Besides, I am penning an autobiography in English. The latter is meant for my daughter and my non-Bengali son-in-law. They are settled in the US and are not too well conversant in Bengali. My autobiography, once published, will help them understand me better (smiles).

Your brother Saugata Roy (he was in the Congress earlier and is now in the Trinamool Congress) and you have always followed different political ideologies. Has that ever disrupted the harmony at home?

(Smiles). Never. As youngsters, we used fight tooth and nail, much to our parents' chagrin. We fought last when we were in our teens. Since then, we have been good friends. Sadly, because of our busy schedule, we rarely meet these days.

We only see each other at the annual family gathering during bhai phonta (Bengali for Bhai Dooj) at our cousin's place in Kolkata.

Earlier, we occasionally bumped into each other at the dentist's, but now that doesn't happen. I have got rid of my entire set of teeth (smiles).

Now that you are based in Tripura, you get to observe Bengal politics from a distance.

I hold a Constitutional post now. And I belong to West Bengal's neighbouring state.

Hence, it will be improper for me to comment on the politics of the state.

Do you think the condition of West Bengal has improved under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's leadership?

The condition of Bengal has not improved in recent times. There are no two ways about it.

The condition of Bengal has deteriorated, you mean?

(Grins) Your attempt to extract a controversial comment from me would be futile as I would not make any political comment about West Bengal.

My ties with Bengal are now personal. I have a home there, a family and a few good friends. I take interest in them and not in the politics of that state.

There was a huge controversy about your tweets on Yakub Memon's funeral procession. (Soon after Memon was hanged in July, the Tripura governor tweeted -- 'Intelligence shd keep a tab on all, expt relatives & close friends, who assembled bfr Yakub Memon's corpse. Many are potential terrorists' and also 'Governors ought to be concerned abt security of state. Intelligence keeping tab on Yakub's mourners is preventing terror. Better than cure').

I think people raised a hue and cry over nothing. Memon was hanged according to a Supreme Court order, right? Then why was there so much drama? Also, people never questioned the propriety of my tweet.

They kept saying it was improper for a governor to make such a comment. This logic is ludicrous.

As a governor, I have every right to speak my mind if I feel the security of my country is at stake.

Moreover, a report published by a leading daily in early August stated that the diktat of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel may have been behind the huge turn-up at Memon's funeral procession.

The daily quoted its source in the Mumbai police as saying that underworld dons called up several of their associates in Mumbai and asked them to attend the funeral.

My tweet, therefore, was valid, you see!

You also tweeted that you are not secular, but a Hindu. . .

Yes, of course! The problem is that we often misinterpret the word 'secular.' The word 'secular' should mean 'bereft of religion.' It is the state of being separate from religion.

In that context, I am not secular. I am a worshipper of Goddess Kali.

Every morning after a walk, I visit the local Shiva temple and pay my respects. Shiva and Kali are Hindu gods. Therefore, I am a Hindu and not secular. What's the harm in admitting that?

We mustn't forget that the word 'secular' was never included in our Constitution in the beginning. The 42nd Amendment incorporated the term in the Constitution's Preamble.

I am not a pseudo-secular and I am proud of it.

A lot is being said about the Narendra Modi government's 'intolerance'.

Yes. We saw a lot of Akademi awardees returning their honours. But strangely, all the activities continued till the Bihar elections. After that, not a sound could be heard.

And has anyone tried to find out how many of the awardees return their award money?

Writer Nayantara Sehgal returned the money. The media has the evidence.

(Grimaces) Let's not forget Sehgal's close ties with the Gandhi family.

What did her nephew Rajiv Gandhi say during the massacre of the Sikhs in 1984 -- 'When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.' Isn't that intolerance? At times, I am tired of the present society's double standards.

People like Sehgal or actor Aamir Khan who cry themselves hoarse over India's 'intolerance' do that under some kind of duress from some quarters.

I don't support torture of the Muslims. It's despicable. But then too atrocities against the Hindus should be denounced with equal vigour. When Khaleda Zia came to power in Bengladesh in 2001, thousands of Hindus were tortured.

Bangladeshi journalist and writer Shahriar Kabir wrote many books, including Bangladeshe Shamprodayik Nirjaton, on the issue, but strangely, Indians chose to keep mum on the torture of the Hindus in Bangladesh. How many editorials have been written on the eviction of the Kasmiri Pandits in India?

Three noted Bengali intellectuals were evicted from East Pakistan -- Ashok Mitra (from Dhaka), Tapan Raychaudhury (from Barishal) and Sunil Gangopadhyay (from Faridpur).

Gangopadhyay made some mention of the incident in his famed novel Purbo Paschim , but Mitra and Raychaudhuri completely suppressed the issue in their respective autobiographies, Apila Chapila and Bangalanama. This biased attitude troubles me.

Why is it that we would have to shed tears when Muslims are killed or tortured, but have to keep mum when the Hindus receive the same treatment?

Many of us talk at length about the so-called Gujarat genocide of 2002. I don't support such heinous incidents. But hasn't there been any riot in India before 2002?

Also, the violence in Gujarat (which many refer to as genocide) was sparked off after 59 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive. But people conveniently forget to mention this.

In Gujarat, 790 Muslims got killed and 250 Hindus were murdered.

Much before the Gujarat incident, Moradabad saw a riot in 1980 that killed as many as 1,000. In 1984, 3,000 Sikhs were butchered in Delhi.

None of these riots should have happened and people should discuss them with equal hatred. But why is it that most of us only tend to remember the Gujarat riot? My fight is against this hypocrisy.

As a governor, I am barred from speaking my mind now. But once I am out of this chair, I shall be as vocal as ever.

What is your opinion about Rohith Vemula's suicide?

Without getting into any controversy, I have to say that Vemula's is not the only student suicide that has happened in India's history. And such an incident should not be allowed to be blown out of proportion.

Do you support the arrest of JNU (Jawharlal Nehru University) student Kanhaiya Kumar?

(Pauses) Any government has the right to take an appropriate step when it feels that the security and integrity of the country are at stake.

What is your opinion about Narendra Modi as prime minister?

Everyone knows about my political affiliation prior to becoming the governor of Tripura. Now, I have to represent my state at the Centre and Modi is my prime minister as well. Hence, it would be improper for me to comment on him.

Will India ever be a superpower?

If we dig into history, we would see that post World War II, Japan and Germany were ravaged, yet they became developed nations within a short span. But India failed to keep pace with them.

Whose fault pulled India back? Indians should ask this question. They must find out which political party is to blame.

For the last couple of years, India is progressing; it's doing really well economically. The global economy at present is under pressure. Many countries are witnessing negative growth rate. But our country continues to maintain a growth rate of 6 to 7 per cent.

This is because of some positive reforms and that is commendable. If India maintains this pace of growth, I am quite certain Bharat abar jagat sabhaye sreshto ashon lobe (India will again become the best civilisation of the world).

Photograph: Noor Islam
Setting the ball rolling to decide seat-sharing among them for the May 16 assembly polls, the top leadership of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Congress on Friday held their first round of talks on the issue.

Kick-starting the process after the two parties entered into an alliance for the polls last month, Congress senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik met DMK chief Karunanidhi at his Gopalapuram residence and held talks.

Speaking to reporters after nearly an hour of talks, Azad said the discussion of election strategy was the main purpose.

Answering a question, he said, In so far as seat sharing is concerned, we just raised this issue. We have not firmed up numbers and we have given some time for DMK also (to decide).

They will also think about numbers and finally we will also discuss among ourselves, with our leadership, the PCC chief and other (Tamil Nadu) leaders and may be the second time we will be able to firm up the numbers, he said.

Asked how many seats his party was expecting, he said, No. We did not discuss numbers. As I said, our basic purpose was to discuss election strategy and also to find out as to how many other groups are joining and how many have already joined. That was the basic purpose.

Of course, we have told the DMK leadership that we should finalise the numbers also,, he said, adding the number of seats that will be contested by Congress and other partners in the DMK-led front should be decided.

He said this is not the final meeting, and seat-sharing could be decided in subsequent talks.

Later, Azad and Wasnik held discussions with state Congress leaders at party headquarters Sathyamurthy Bhavan.

DMK treasurer MK Stalin described the meeting as cordial and said They have expressed their opinion, similarly, our party chief Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) has expressed his views and the discussion happened cordially.

Congress leaders will apprise their leadership about todays discussion and after such consultations they have said they would come again soon to meet our party chief, he said.

Congress sources said the party has told DMK about the number of seats it wanted to contest. Also, the DMK has given an indicative number to it which will be communicated to the Congress, they added.

The talks have taken place against the background of DMKs unsuccessful attempts to make the front led by it formidable by roping in the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam which has chosen to go with the four party bloc-- Peoples Welfare Front.

Image: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad meeting with DMK Chief M Karunanidhi at his residence in Chennai. Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI
Pakistan has accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past, but it is the first time that it has claimed arresting a R&AW officer.

A former Indian Navy officer has been arrested in Pakistan for alleged involvement in 'subversive' activities in Balochistan.

India quickly distanced itself from the issue, stating that he had no link with the government since his 'premature retirement' from the navy.

Kulbhushan Yadav, described by Pakistan as a commander-rank officer in the Indian Navy working for India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, was arrested on Thursday reportedly from the Chaman area in alochistan. Yadav has been shifted to Islamabad for interrogation.

Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge a protest over 'subversive activities' of te alleged R&AW officer.

'The Indian high commissioner was summoned by the foreign secretary on Friday and through a demarche conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a R&AW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi,' the Pakistan foreign office said in a statement.

'The said individual has no link with the government since his premature retirement from the Indian Navy,' External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. 'We have sought consular access to him.'

'India has no interest in interfering in internal matters of any country and firmly believes that a stable and peaceful Pakistan is in the interest of all in the region,' Swarup said.

Pakistan has accused India of stoking violence in Balochistan and Karachi in the past, but it is the first time that it has claimed arresting a R&AW officer.
Searching with key words such as anti-national, sedition, patriotism and Bharat mata ki jai on Google-maps will now direct the users to Jawaharlal Nehru University, which is caught in a row over its students being booked under sedition.

The students of the university, who have been agitating against the alleged branding of JNU as anti-national after three of its students were arrested in connection with an event, have taken strong objection to the technical certification.

Google authorities, when contacted, said they are trying to resolve the issue.

We will raise the issue with the administration to send an official communication to Google in this regard. We have been protesting against the branding of an institution as anti-national and now the search giant has gone a step ahead in certifying that, JNU students union vice president Shehla Rashid Shora said.

JawaharlalNehruUniversity has been in news since last month over an event on campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

Three students -- Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were arrested in a sedition case, kicking a national versus anti-national debate across the country. They are now out on bail.

When I noticed this on Google-maps, I laughed at it. But when I thought of it, it seemed dangerous. Dangerous not because it represents my university but for fact that anyone or institution can be termed so through the power of government and MNCs. Will Google Maps be answerable for this? another student N Sai Balaji said.

A Google spokesperson said, We are aware of the issue and are working on a fix.

A JNU faculty member, who did not wish to be named said, Though we have strong objections to JNU being referred to as anti-national but since Google-maps is throwing same results for patriotism and Bharat mata ki jai as well, it could be a technical glitch too.

However, this isnt the first time that the map services of the tech-giant has landed in a situation like this.

Last year, the users were directed to White House when they searched for keyword nigger house and Prime Minister Narendra Modis name was reflected in search of top 10 criminals. In both the cases, Google had apologised to them for the technical errors.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was Pakistans prime minister in 2008, had visited David Coleman Headleys home within weeks after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Lashkar terrorist told a Mumbai court today, giving a new twist to his testimony.

It is not correct to say that the then prime minister of Pakistan -- Yousuf Raza Gilani-- had attended the funeral of my father who passed away a month after the Mumbai terror attacks on 26/12/2008. Infact, he (Gilani) visited our house (in Pakistan) a few weeks thereafter, the Pakistani-American terrorist told special judge G A Sanap, who is hearing the case against Abu Jundal in the sessions court in Mumbai.

The 55-year-old Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative-turned approver in the case is being cross-examined by Abdul Wahab Khan, the lawyer of Jundal who is an alleged key plotter of the 2008 Mumbai siege, via a video-link from the US.

Deposing for the third day after his cross-examination began on Wednesday, Headley said his father, who was a director general with Pakistan Radio, knew about his links with LeT.

My father was aware of my association with LeT and he was not happy about it, he said.

When asked was it true that his half-brother Daniel knew about his LeT connection, Headley just said that he (Daniel) was not living in the same city (in Pakistan).

Headley, who has been convicted in the US, for his role in the November 2008 attacks, also denied using Daniels mobile phone during his visit to Pakistan before the dastardly strikes in Mumbai. He is serving a 35 year jail term in the US.

During his deposition, Headley said, Saulat Rana, my friend in Pakistan, was aware of my connection with LeT and my visit to Mumbai prior to the 26/11 attacks. Rana neither objected nor encouraged me, he told the court.

On whether Rana was associated to LeT, Headley said, No. When asked whether he (Headley) toured Pakistani locations with Rana before the Mumbai attacks, he replied in the negative and wondered why he would go around in Pakistan when the target was India.

Headley also told the court that he had no knowledge of any women cell and suicide bomber cell in LeT. He denied that National Investigation Agency suggested to him to name Ishrat Jahan (in the case). He also refuted meeting special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and Joint Commissioner of Police, (Crime) in USA before his deposition in February this year.

When asked if he was treated for any mental illness, Headley replied in the negative and chuckled, Yeh kya kya cheeze mere khaate mein daal rahe hain Wahab Sahab. Nahin, aisa koi wakya nahin hua (Wahab Sahab, what all things are you ascribing to me...nothing of this sort happened).

Headley also said that he does not know about who decided the date for the first attack (failed one in Mumbai).

Earlier in the day, Headley told the court that he had arranged a fund-raising programme for the Shiv Sena in the US and had planned to invite the then party supremo Bal Thackeray to the event.

The terrorist, who is serving a 35-year jail term in the US, said that Sena man Rajaram Rege had told him that Thackeray was sick and so may be his son and other officials may attend the programme.

To a query whether LeT was in the know, Headley said he had discussed about the fund-raising programme with the terror outfit.

Headley also told the court that he had developed hatred towards India and Indians since childhood and wanted to cause maximum damage since then.

Asked about the reasons of his hatred, Headley said, My school was bombed in 1971 by Indian planes and that time, I developed this feeling.

People were killed in the attack, he said, adding it was one of the reasons that why he joined the LeT.

Asked whether he was in constant touch with US investigation authorities from 1988-2008, Headley said no.

He refuted allegations that US agencies were financing him. It is baseless to say that my movement to Pakistan was known to US agencies.

He also said it would be incorrect to say that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not insisted on fines to be imposed on him in the US court on account of his role in the 26/11 attacks.

This is not true. It is not FBIs job to insist on fines in the court, he said.

He also denied that in collusion with FBI, he had saved $30 lakh fine amount and that because of this, the agency had not insisted on death penalty or life term.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Islamabad on Friday on a landmark visit for talks with Pakistani leadership on improving relations and clinching key economic deals including the construction of a gas pipeline.

Rouhani, who is on his maiden visit, will meet President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday and will discuss cooperation on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

The two-day visit has assumed significance after lifting of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. The withdrawal of sanctions has opened new avenues for enhancing bilateral economic interaction.

The Iranian leader is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising ministers, senior officials and businessmen showing his keenness to deepen the ties.

The start of construction of multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and import of 3,000 MW of electricity from Iran are on the agenda, a Pakistani official said.

The two sides will also discuss modalities to increase trade to $5 billion dollars in the coming years, he said.

Apart from the economic cooperation, the two sides will discuss the regional security situation, with the emphasis on Saudi-led 34-nation coalition of Sunni countries to fight against terrorism, especially Islamic State.

Iran has been reportedly flustered by the move.

The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the wake of execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi is another important issue which will be discussed. Sharif has been playing a role to defuse the tension.

Officials said that the situation of Afghanistan will also be discussed.

Image: A police vehicle patrols near the portraits of (from left to right) Pakistans President Mamnoon Hussain, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, displayed along a road during Rouhanis visit to Islamabad, Pakistan. Photograph: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters
Two pieces of plane debris found in Mozambique are almost certainly from MH370, Australia and Malaysia have announced, reigniting hopes of solving the worlds biggest aviation mystery more than two years after the jet vanished over the Indian Ocean.

The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370, Australias Transport Minister Darren Chester said of the two pieces of debris that comprise a flat grey fragment with the words No Step printed along one side.

Malaysian investigators had found the two pieces were consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, he said.

That such debris has been found on the east coast of Africa is consistent with drift modelling performed by (national science body) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean, Chester said on Thursday.

Until the latest findings, only a wing part recovered from a beach on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion had been confirmed as coming from the Boeing 777 that disappeared over the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014 with 239 people, including five Indians, on board.

After months of searches and questions, a South African teenager and an American lawyer recently found debris on separate occasions off the coast of Mozambique, renewing hopes of solving the major aviation mystery.

There are 25,000 square kilometres of the underwater search area still to be searched for the missing plane which took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, en route to Beijing, China.

We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found, Chester said.

Malaysias Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators had advised that the dimensions, materials and construction of both parts conformed to Boeing 777 specifications, while the paint and stencilling on both parts match those used by Malaysia Airlines.

As such, both parts are consistent with panels from a MAS Boeing 777 aircraft, and almost certainly are from MH370, he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, officials are arranging to collect and examine a fourth piece of debris, found at MosselBay in South Africas southern coast on Monday by a local archaeologist.

It apparently bears a part of the logo of Rolls Royce, the British company which manufactures engines for aircraft including the Boeing 777.

Australia is leading the multi-nation underwater search effort to find the plane in the southern Indian Ocean.

Image: A building displays an electronic billboard image of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photograph: Rufus Cox/Getty Images
Soaked in festive spirit, people across the national capital celebrated Holi on Thursday with splash of colours and savouring of sweets and cutting across religious lines greeted each other to send out a message of peace and harmony.

Even politicians got into festive mood and celebrated Holi with colours and joy.

Congress president Sonia and her son Rahul Gandhi along with other party leaders enjoy a moment during the Holi festivities. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI

Congress vice president shows off his coloured face during the festivities. Photograph: PTI

Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah is all smiles as colour is thrown on each other. Photograph: PTI

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal enjoyed Holi with family and friends at his home. Photograph: @drkumarvishwas/Twitter

Lalu Yadav puts a mark of colour on his ruling alliance partner Nitish Kumar on the occasion of Holi. Photograph: PTI

Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and Barkha Singh (L) during the Holi celebrations at All India Congress Committee headquarters. Photograph: PTI

Former Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh joins in the festivities. Photograph: PTI
Two hundred and forty two Indians, including 28 Jet Airways crew members, who were stranded after the deadly terror strikes in Brussels on Tuesday, returned home on Friday, much to the relief of anxious family members.

IMAGE: Prasad Patil (in hat) who was stranded at the Brussels airport following the bombing welcomed by his family at the international airport in Mumbai on Friday. Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI

Meanwhile, the condition of 40-year-old crew member Nidhi Chaphekar who was injured along with her junior colleague Amit Motwani during the two explosions at the Brussels airport is said to be stable.

Motwani has also been shifted to a normal ward from the ICU at the hospital in Brussels where he is being treated.

The flight 9W 1229 carrying 214 passengers, including 69 bound for Mumbai, along with 28 Jet Airways crew members landed at IGI airport at 5.10 am, a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

IMAGE: Parvinder Singh (in turban) arrives along with his family members at IGI airport T3 in New Delhi on Friday. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI

The recovery flight from Amsterdam carried onboard the passengers bound for Mumbai as their flight was cancelled at the last minute due to a technical problem in the aircraft.

The airline had earlier taken all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

IMAGE: Afsha Rajkotwala (in orange) who was stranded at the Brussels airport following the bombing welcomed by her family at the international airport in Mumbai on Friday. Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI

Narrating the ordeal passengers at the Brussels airport had to go through after the blasts at the departure area and in the metro station, a woman passenger said for some time people had no idea what was going around.

I was coming from Toronto and as soon as we arrived at the airport went to the arrival bay, within 15 minutes they were asking us to evacuate as soon as possible. We had no idea what had happened, she said.

She said there were hundreds of passengers running out with their baggage. From there we found out that there were three blasts.

IMAGE: Manjeet Kaur Sandhu after arrival at IGI airport T3 in New Delhi on Friday. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI

We have spoken to Dr Steven at the hospital where Jet Airways crew Nidhi Chaphekar is under treatment. The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in a stable condition, the airlines spokesperson said.

They are recovering in hospitals and have been joined by their families. Jet Airways staff is at the hospitals to provide any support and assistance to the crew and their family members, the spokesperson added.

The Indian embassy in Belgium had on Thursday in a tweet said that Ambassador Manjeev Puri had spoken to Motwani and assured him of all help.

IMAGE: The passengers were relieved to be reunited with their families back home. Photograph: @jetairways/Twitter

The blast occurred in the departure area of the airport as soon as our flight landed. They took all of us out and we remained stranded there for quite some time, said another passenger.

Tuesdays suicide attacks in Brussels left 31 dead and 300 wounded besides leaving hundreds of flyers stranded due to the closure of the airport immediately after the explosions.

Jet Airways on Thursday operated two flights from Amsterdam for Toronto and Delhi after transporting all its stranded passengers in Brussels to the Dutch capital by road.

IMAGE: The crew members are happy and ecstatic to be home. Photograph: @jetairways/Twitter

Jet Airways had initially planned to fly three recovery flights from Amsterdam including one to Mumbai after pulling out all its four grounded aircraft from the Brussels airport.

The aircraft, which brought back the passengers to Delhi, was later flown to Mumbai with 69 passengers onboard, Jet Airways said.

I was just landing when the blast took place. So, we could not get inside the airport (terminal building), said another passenger, adding We were taken to some other place. We were taken care of very well.
What you need to know about Powerball and the $580 million jackpot
<div> Joy Lewis/Reporter-News</div> <div> Author Kristie Carpenter signs copies of her devotional, "The Blended Family, " during her book signing Saturday, April 19, 2014 at Hastings Entertainment.</div> <div> A </div>

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By Loretta Fulton, Special to the Reporter-News

A fascination with women who pick one wrong guy after another led to a best-selling book for San Antonio novelist Pamela Morsi, who will share her writing and publishing experiences during Monday's Texas Author Series at the Abilene Public Library.

Morsi will be the second speaker in this year's series, which is held in the auditorium on the second floor of the main library at 202 Cedar St. An optional lunch will be served at 11:45, and the program will begin at noon. Lunch is $5 and the program is free.

Morsi will talk about her 26 years in the publishing business, which started with historical romance, moved to women's fiction, and then returned to romance, although in a contemporary setting.

"Mr. Right Goes Wrong," published by Mira Books in 2014, is her latest. It is based on her observation that many women are drawn to the "bad boy" image and repeatedly pick "Mr. Wrong." In the her book, "Mr. Right" is in love with one such woman and has been all of his adult life. He continually watches the love of his life go for yet another "Mr. Wrong." So, he decides he will turn himself into "Mr. Wrong."

Because he has no experience in that field, he goes online to research how to become the next "Mr. Wrong" that he hopes the love of his life will fall for. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out whether his plan works.

"If I write it," Morsi said in a phone interview, "you're going to get a happy ending."

Morsi is a former librarian, and one of her books, "Love Overdue," was based on people she met when she began her career as a librarian in Clinton, Oklahoma.

When that genre lost its reader appeal, she reinvented herself as a writer of "women's fiction," which she describes as "four friends from college meet on a beach."

Now, she's back to writing romance novels and tinkering with writing a book set in the 1930s that would be tied to three other novels, two of which were set in the early 1900s and one in a contemporary setting. The 1930 novel, if written, would connect the characters.

"It's one of my very back-burner ideas," Morsi said.

Morsi also will talk about the ever-changing publishing world and how the likes and dislikes of readers influence what publishers want.

"We don't know what the next wave is going to look like," Morsi said.

IF YOU GO

What: Texas Author Series featuring romance novelist Pamela Morsi

When: 11:45 a.m. Monday lunch; program begins at noon

Where: Abilene Public Library, 202 Cedar St., second-floor auditorium

Admission: Free; lunch available for $5 or bring your own



UPCOMING PROGRAMS

April 11: Chuck Bailey, Austin lawyer, Texas Political Memorabilia and Picturing Texas Politics: A Photographic History from Sam Houston to Rick Perry

April 25: Nicole Sparks and Jenna Marwitz of Brownwood, authors of slow-cooker cookbooks, including Its Our Crockin Life






Texas DPS fires first officer over Uvalde shooting response

Sgt. Juan Maldonado becomes first member of the state police agency to lose his job in the fallout over the hesitant response to the May attack.
If people weren't so quick to slap on negative labels, the disciple Thomas might have fared better.

"Doubting Thomas" is a label all readers of the Gospels know, based on the disciple's demand to see the nail holes in Jesus' hands before he would believe Jesus had risen from the dead.

But a closer reading of the Scriptures reveals another side of Thomas, a side that would provide a much better label.

"How about 'Courageous Thomas,'" suggested Don Wilson, speaker for Thursday's Holy Week Luncheon Series.

After all, Thomas was the lone disciple who wanted to accompany Jesus when he was called to raise Lazarus from the dead. The other disciples feared for Jesus' life. But Thomas showed courage.

"Then let us also go with him that we may die with him," Thomas said, in Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John, nine chapters before his demand led to his being labeled "Doubting Thomas."

It is important to note, Wilson said, that Jesus didn't label Thomas, "we" did.

Wilson, pastor of First Christian Church, was the speaker Thursday for the fourth luncheon in the series, which ends Friday.

Each day during the series, the pastor of one of the five participating churches speaks at another's church. Lunch is served at 11:30 and the program begins about noon.

On Friday, Cliff Stewart, pastor of First Central Presbyterian Church, will speak on "Double-Crossed" at Highland Church of Christ, 425 Highland Ave. Thursday's luncheon was at First Central Presbyterian, with Stewart serving as host.

Labeling people is easy to do, Wilson said during Thursday's talk. Labels like "dumb jock," and "troublemaker" tend to stick  and they hurt. They also can be totally wrong. Take the disciple Thomas for example.

"He deserves better than 'Doubting Thomas,'" Wilson said.

In Chapter 14 of John's Gospel, Thomas is the only disciple who has the courage to tell Jesus the truth when Jesus says to them, "You know where I am going, and you know the way."

Thomas courageously replies, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

"Courageous," "honest," and a dozen other positive labels could have been put on Thomas, Wilson said, but "doubting" stuck. The same holds true today.

"Don't ever allow a negative label to stick," Wilson urged. "There's always more to a person than meets the eye."

After Wilson's sermon, Stewart dismissed the luncheon audience with a thought about the approaching Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified, and Easter Sunday, the day he rose from the dead.

"Let us leave this place," Stewart urged, "with one eye on the cross and one eye on the empty tomb."

HOLY WEEK LUNCHEON SERIES

When: Friday, lunch 11:30 a.m.; program begins at noon

Location: Highland Church of Christ, 425 Highland Ave.

Speaker: Cliff Stewart, First Central Presbyterian Church

Sermon: Double-Crossed

Cost: Program is free. Lunch is $7 or bring your own

Details: Child care provided by each host church
Opportunity.

The possible move of Texas State Technical College's Abilene campus to a new site in town brims with opportunity.

TSTC West Texas, as it's officially called, has been housed for decades in the former West Texas Medical Center just past downtown on East Business 80. TSTC, formerly known as Texas State Technical Institute, arrived in Abilene in 1985.

When Abilene ISD sought to open the Academy of Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Science (ATEMS), it found a home on the eastern half of the building that once housed the Small Business Incubator. Classes started the fall of 2009.

A building that sat empty suddenly had a twofold purpose with a shared goal  preparing students for job market in the 21st century.

This week, the Development Corporation of Abilene OK'd $4 million in funding for a new campus  $400,000 for 10 years  and a 50-acre site. The location has not been made public.

On Thursday, the Abilene City Council approved the proposal.

TSTC has been seeking $6 million in public-private funds for the project to pair with $12 million in tuition revenue bonds to pay for an $18 million facility.

The roles of TSTC and Cisco College have dramatically increased in importance, both for Abilene and West Texas. While public schools have ramped up efforts to prepare students earlier for college, administrators also have realized many students are not going that route. Thus, campuses such as ATEMS and Holland Medical Early College High School on the Hardin-Simmons University campus are playing a great role in preparing students there not only for jobs, but jobs that are available and jobs they want.

So, what would happen to ATEMS should TSTC move? The district has known about this possibility, and there are many options. It's too early to pick one but we're told the AISD-TSTC partnership will continue and likely grow stronger.

Plugging high school students into college through dual credit programs and getting a head start in a job field just makes sense. There is 'opportunity' written all over the possibility of a new TSTC campus, and that's a win start to finish.
A Chinese journalist whose disappearance on March 15 was believed linked to the publication of an open letter calling for President Xi Jinping's resignation, was released on Friday, his lawyer told RFAs Cantonese service.

Lawyer Chen Jiangang said the wife of Jia Jia told him she was going to pick up the 41-year-old journalist in Beijing Friday evening, but that nearly all aspects of the case remained murky. It was unclear whether Jia was at a police station or in some kind of detention center.

It was really a big misunderstanding to hold Jia Jia for 10 days thinking he was somehow involved in some letter, Chen told RFA. But in the case of China, a misunderstanding can embroil a whole clan, he said, using a Chinese phrase for guilt by association.

Jias twitter feed, which had been silent since he went missing, carried a brief note saying thank you, everyone for showing concern over his case.

His last known phone call was made at around 8 p.m. on March 15 at Beijing International Airport shortly after he went through immigration and as he waited to board a flight to Hong Kong, where two days later he failed to show up at a scheduled talk at the Hong Kong City University.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Jia told friends that he believed the police were looking for him in relation to a March 4 open letter by purported loyal party members published on the Watching News (in Chinese, Wujie) website calling on Xi to resign from all Party and state leadership positions.

We make this request out of consideration for the Party cause, out of consideration for the nation and its peopleand also out of consideration for your personal safety and that of your family, said the letter, according to a translation by the China Digital Times, a California-based media analysis website.

We have no choice but to point out that, precisely due to your gathering of all power into your own hands and making decisions directly, we are now facing unprecedented problems and crises in all political, economic, ideological, and cultural spheres, the letter said.

News of Jias release came shortly after his friend Wen Yunchao, a New York-based blogger who writes under the name Bei Feng, said on his Twitter feed that that his parents and younger brother in Guangdong province in southern China were detained by authorities on March 22.

Wen, who friends say had merely retweeted the report on Watching News about the letter to Xi, said he believed his familys disappearance was related to the case.

Earlier this week, the editor-in-chief of the Watching News website, Ouyang Hongliang, was taken in for questioning along with other staff members in connection with the letter, associates told RFA.

The BBC has reported that as many as 16 Watching News staffsix from editorial and 10 from technical supporthave been taken away by Chinese authorities.

A friend of Ouyangs told RFA that he has received no word on the fate of the editor and that information has become harder to obtain now that Watching News had been disbanded.

Reported by Pan Jiaqing for RFAs Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Paul Eckert.
One of five missing Hong Kong booksellers has reappeared in the former British colony to ask police to drop his missing person status, but declined to detail exactly how he left the city and ended up in mainland China in the first place.



Lee Bo "did not provide thorough information about his last departure," Hong Kong police said in a statement on their official website after Lee met with police and immigration officials on Thursday.



It said Lee, who reappeared in mainland China to "assist Chinese police with an investigation" without showing up on immigration department computers, could still face further investigation over the manner in which he left Hong Kong.



Lee has since returned to mainland China after spending less than 24 hours in Hong Kong, local media reports said.



Causeway Bay Books store manager and British passport-holder Lee, 65, went missing from his workplace in Hong Kong on Dec. 30, while four of his associates, publisher Gui Minhai, general manager Lui Bo (also spelled Lui Por), and colleagues Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kei have all been detained under opaque circumstances.



The U.K. government said in an official report that Lee had been "involuntarily removed" from the city, which has maintained a separate law enforcement jurisdiction and an internal immigration border since returning to Chinese rule in 1997.



Earlier this month, Cheung, business manager of Causeway Bay Books, entered Hong Kong on March 6, two days after his colleague Lui Bo, the bookstores general manager, but they also stayed only a few hours in the city before going back to China.



Reason to fear



Cai Yongmei, editor of the cutting-edge Hong Kong magazine Outlook, said Lee's reappearance hasn't allayed fears that he was detained by mainland Chinese law enforcement in Hong Kong.



"Mainland police have no jurisdiction in Hong Kong, and the removal of Lee Bo to mainland China by Chinese law enforcement represents a huge threat to and a breach of Hong Kong's autonomy," Cai said.



"What's more, the Hong Kong government is just going along with the mainland authorities," she said, adding that the booksellers' detentions have struck a huge blow to freedom of expression in the formerly freewheeling city.



According to League of Social Democrats vice-chairman Raphael Wong, nobody will believe that Lee wasn't illegally abducted by Chinese police.



"If anyone does believe it, then they will be people who already support Beijing," Wong said. "Nobody in the pan-democratic camp will believe it because we know better than that."



Wong said televised "confessions" and claims by the Causeway Bay booksellers that there was nothing untoward about their sudden departure from their lives were nonsense.



"None of it explains why Lee Bo's travel pass is still in Hong Kong and why he suddenly had to go to China to help with an investigation," he said.



According to the Hong Kong Police, Lee repeated his claim that he is helping mainland police with their investigation into Causeway Bay books owner Gui Minhai, who disappeared, despite holding a Swedish passport, from his holiday home in Thailand.



"Lee ... told police that ... he, with the assistance of his friends, returned to the mainland by his own means voluntarily and it was not an abduction," the police statement said.



"He stated that he was free and safe while on the mainland. He restated his request for the cancellation of his missing person case and he ... refused to disclose other details," it said.



Other questions unanswered



Calls to Lee Bo's phone resulted in a switched-off message on Thursday, while calls to his wife Sophie Choi's phone rang unanswered.



Lee's U.K.-based daughter, who gave only the name Angela, said she hadn't been in touch with her father and declined to comment.



Lee's brief reappearance has left many other questions unanswered, according to Hong Kong activist Richard Choi of the Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China.



"Why didn't he reveal exactly how he crossed the border when he came back to Hong Kong?" Choi said. "And why, when he didn't dare to visit the mainland after the detention of Gui Minhai, did he suddenly decide to do just that?"



"I think that the likelihood he was operating of his own free will is very slim."



Former Hong Kong lawmaker and League of Social Democrats member Tsang Kin-shing said the case of the missing booksellers shows the direction the city is heading under chief executive Leung Chun-ying.



"He is deliberately causing social divisions so as to destabilize Hong Kong to make people lose all hope for the future," Tsang told RFA.



"Young people no longer wish to be under Chinese rule, and so we are increasingly seeing ideas like Hong Kong independence expressed," he said.



Reported by Chan Siu-po for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin and Gao Shan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Beijing human rights lawyer Zhang Kai, detained last August after he gave legal advice to dozens of Protestant churches facing the demolition of their crosses, has been released from detention and sent back to his birthplace in the northern region of Inner Mongolia in what rights lawyers slammed as a "cover-up" bid by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



Zhang, who was initially detained on Aug. 25, 2015 ahead of a scheduled meeting with U.S. religious freedom ambassador David Saperstein, had been held for six months under "residential surveillance" in an unknown location on suspicion of "endangering state secrets" and "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order."



In a Feb. 25 televised "confession," Zhang said he had confessed to his "crimes."



Soon after his arrival in Inner Mongolia, Zhang, whose professional life is in Beijing, made a brief statement via the smartphone messaging app WeChat in a similar vein.



"I have arrived home safely in Inner Mongolia," the message read. "I am very grateful to everyone who showed concern during this time, and who supported members of my family."



Zhang was taken away from Xialing Church in the eastern province of Zhejiang, where he had been helping around 100 congregations oppose the province-wide demolition of "illegal" crosses on church roofs.



Chinese media aired footage of Zhang on Feb. 25 "confessing" to the charges, and accused U.S.-based Christian rights group ChinaAid of supporting him.



Conditional release



While his release has been widely welcomed, there are concerns that Zhang's apparent freedom may not be all that it appears.



Zhang's defense lawyer Li Guisheng said his client's release is unlikely to be unconditional.



"His so-called confession was ridiculous, but if you confess and you say you don't want a lawyer, then you will be treated in a completely different way," Li said.



"That is rather odd, given that this is supposed to be a country ruled by law."



Li said he has yet to see any official documents linked to Zhang's case, but said it is likely he has been released on "bail," which often involves regular surveillance and other barriers to resuming a detainee's previous lifestyle.



Bob Fu, who heads the U.S.-based Christian rights group ChinaAid, said further details about the conditions of Zhang's release have yet to emerge.



"Zhang Kai is a bold human rights lawyer and a defender of the rule of law and religious freedom, and is completely innocent," Fu said in a statement on the group's website.



He called on the Chinese government to release all other detained religious leaders, human rights lawyers, and activists, including rights attorneys Li Heping and Wang Yu, church leader Hu Shigen, and pastors Li Guozhi (Yang Hua), Bao Guohua, and Gu Yuese.



Zhang's sister Zhang Yan said she had a brief phone conversation with him on Thursday.



"He is OK, at least that's what he said," she said. "It was a brief phone chat."



"There are probably more formalities to go through ... [but] I'm in Beijing, not with him, and ... I don't really know much about the details right now."



Clampdown on protests



Rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, who has been following Zhang's case closely, said the lawyer was probably released from detention due to a lack of evidence.



"I think it's to do with the fact that they don't have any evidence against him," Liu told RFA. "They detained him to clamp down on the cross demolition [protests]."



"They could have converted his detention to a formal arrest, but ... from a legal point of view, I don't think they had enough to make those charges stand up," he said.



"They have already achieved their goal. By holding him for so long, they have managed to suppress the whole affair, and he was probably released because of huge concern for his case, both here in China and internationally," Liu added.



Zhang's formal detention came amid a province-wide crackdown on churches and an urban "improvement" campaign which has seen crosses removed from dozens of buildings around Zhejiang's Wenzhou city, known as China's Jerusalem for its high concentration of Christian believers.



Earlier this year, Zhejiang Protestant pastors and married couple Bao Guohua and Xing Wenxiang of the Holy Love Christian church were sentenced to 14 and 12 years' imprisonment respectively by the Wucheng District People's Court in Zhejiang's Jinhua city.



They were both found guilty of "encroachment," "running an illegal business," "disturbing public order," and "concealing financial records."



The sentences came after the authorities detained at least 16 pastors and other church members in and around Wenzhou during confrontations with the authorities over the cross removal program.



Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.




Judicial authorities in North Korea have increased their efforts to find the writers of leaflets and graffiti, whose words on the walls of train stations and other public places in major cities have denounced leader Kim Jong Un, sources inside the isolated country said.

Instances of the writings have been growing, despite a months-long investigation by the law enforcement officials to find those responsible along with efforts by authorities to ramp up a propaganda campaign praising his leadership, they said.

Graffiti demeaning Kim Jong Un have been discovered in the last three months in large cities, including the capital Pyongyang, Sariwon, Pyongsong, Hamhung and Chongjin.

But the case that has received the most attention occurred at a train station in the town of Posong in Samsu county, Yanggang province, through which express trains to Pyongyang pass.

Someone there posted a leaflet handwritten in Chinese ink on a wall vilifying Kim Jong Un, said a source from the province who requested anonymity.

The authorities are trying to hunt down suspects whose handwriting matches that of the writing, he told RFAs Korean Service. The leaflet was reportedly plastered right below the portrait of [former leader] Kim Il Sung on a wall.

Handle with care

The source said he was hesitant to divulge the information because any negative incidents involving Kim Jong Un must be handled carefully lest authorities get wind of them and punish those who spread or disclose them.

The leaflet found last New Years Day said, Kim Jong Un is a son of b**** in Chinese ink, the source said. There were so many people from across the country mobilized at Posong station on Jan. 1st for the New Years Day celebrations that the news may have spread nationwide.

The train station began operating in 1991 when the Posong District for Laborers was built to develop mining activities in the area, he said. The district contains residential homes, health care and cultural facilities, a junior high school, hospital, and stores along the Samsu River.

More than 1,000 district residents held a meeting at the Posong Cultural Center on Jan. 3 to discuss how they would accomplish the tasks that Kim Jong Un had outlined in his annual New Years address in which he pledged to increase the countrys political and military might, the source said.

But the residents at the meeting were much more interested in talking about the leaflet which had been discovered on the same day that Kim Jong Un gave his speech, he said.

News of the incident spread like wildfire at the rally, which originally had been intended to heighten peoples loyalty to the leadership, he said.

Search for suspects

During the last three months, law enforcement agencies have investigated more than 20,000 residents living on farms and in the district, hoping to find suspects by matching their handwriting to that on the leaflet, sources said. But so far, they have been unsuccessful.

Another source from Yanggang province said news of the incident was spread across the country by college students who had returned to their hometowns during the winter break and by residents out-of-town relatives who had visited the province from other regions for the New Years holiday.

The idolization of Kim Jong Un seems to have been damped down by outrageous rumors about what the graffiti said, he said.

In June 2011, authorities in Pyongyang effectively shut down the city for three days after they discovered graffiti denouncing Kim Jong Il as a dictator who starved people to death on the wall of Pyongyang Railroad College, so that they could search for the culprit among both visitors and residents.

Authorities narrowed down the investigation to students from the college and blocked the movement of people between provinces to try to stop rumors about the incident from spreading, according to a report by the online Daily NK at the time.

Their efforts were unsuccessful, however, because the news reached as far as North Hamgyong province in the countrys northeast.

Last October, people across the country defaced posters glorifying North Koreas ruling Korean Workers Party to show their resentment against the burdens the government imposed upon them in preparation for celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the partys founding, RFA reported.

Kim Jong Un threatened harsh punishment for those who committed the offenses, but the attacks continued.

Written by Jieun Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Hee Jung Yang. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
An elderly Tibetan man abused more than 16 years ago by his Chinese jailers has died after being left bedridden and unable to walk ever since his release, sources say.



Gyaye Phuntsok, 85, died on March 21 almost two decades after suffering crippling beatings and torture in prison, a Tibetan living in India told RFAs Tibetan Service.



He had long been ill-treated in prison, RFAs source Yeshe Tenzin said, citing sources in Chabcha (in Chinese, Gonghe) county in northwestern Chinas Qinghai province, where Phuntsok had been held.



He was severely tortured, leaving him unable to stand owing to serious injuries to his legs along with many other injuries on his body, Tenzin said. Phuntsok had been confined to his bed ever since his release in 2000 after serving a two-year prison sentence, he added.



He had suffered for a long time from serious health problems, Tenzin said. His condition finally deteriorated, and he died at home.



He was 85 years old, Tenzin said.



Met with Dalai Lama



Phuntsok had come to the attention of Chinese police and security services after traveling to India in 1992 to meet with exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Tenzin said.



After returning home, he built a temple on an island in Qinghai Lake, but he was later arrested after police seized the religious scriptures he had brought back from India, together with personal messages written to him by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.



Phuntsok was then sentenced in 1998 to a two-year term in prison, where the torture he suffered disabled both his legs, leaving him unable to stand, Tenzin said.



The 80-year-old Dalai Lama, whose photos are banned by Chinese authorities in Tibetan areas, fled Tibet into exile in India in 1959 and is reviled by Chinese leaders as a dangerous separatist who seeks to split the formerly self-governing region from Beijings rule.



In what he calls a Middle Way Approach, though, the Dalai Lama himself says that he seeks only a meaningful autonomy for Tibet as a part of China, with protections for the regions language, religion, and culture.



Written by Dan Zhen for RFAs Mandarin Service. Translated by Ping Chen. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Four political prisoners and another inmate in Vietnams Xuyen Moc prison have ended a 13-day hunger strike after authorities agreed to meet their demands which included being able to share food and send email, the father of one inmate said Friday.

Prisoners of conscience Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, 50, Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung, 35, Dinh Nguyen Kha, 28, and Lieu Ly (age unknown), and musician Tran Vu Anh Binh, 42, began a hunger strike on March 11 to protest human rights violations by the staff and administration at the prison in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

Thucs father, Tran Van Huynh, told RFAs Vietnamese Service that his son, who is allowed to call home for five minutes every month, said the five ended their strike on Thursday after a prison official acknowledged that staff members had violated the rules.

The detainees specifically protested against the actions of two menColonel Le Van Tuat, assistant superintendent of the prison, and prison official Nguyen Van Bofor their disregard of the law and arbitrary treatment of inmates in violation of the constitution, according to The 88 Project, an online project that supports and encourages freedom of expression in Vietnam.

The authorities did not let inmates share food with each other, Tran said. After his son had shared his food with jailed activist Dang Xuan Dieu, who is serving a 13-year sentence on subversion charges, Bo told Kha that he had to submit a request for permission to share meals. But Bos action was a violation of prison rules, Tran said.

Thuc was arrested in May 2009 and is serving a 16-year sentence on charges of plotting to overthrow the government under Article 79 of Vietnams penal code. He was tried along with lawyer Le Cong Dinh, engineer Nguyen Tien Trung, and entrepreneur Le Thang Long.

Thuc, who is allowed to send and receive mail, had sent more than 60 letters via post while in prison, all of which were checked by prison authorities beforehand, Tran said. But Thuc protested after he discovered that they had withheld letters to his family in violation of his rights, he said.

In one letter, the democracy activist wrote about Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dungs statement on Vietnams accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries that is backed by the United States, prior to the government leaders visit to the U.S.

Thuc urged the Vietnamese people to support Dungs positive view of the TPP, but prison officials refused to send his letter, explaining that they were following orders from higher-ups, according to The 88 Project.

Authorities also cut off Thucs calls to his family whenever he discussed human rights, the group said.

Solitary confinement

As for the other prisoners, authorities had refused to give Hung a copy of the application for the appeal of his case that his family had sent to him, violating his right to be informed, Tran said.

The labor activist was sentenced in Oct. 2010 to nine years in prison along with two other labor activists, Do Thi Minh Hanh and Doan Huy Chuong, on charges of disrupting public order to oppose the government under Article 89 of the penal code.

Officials moved both Hung and Binh to solitary confinement cells after they had complained that the installation of cameras in their cells was an intrusion of their privacy, The 88 project said.

Binh was tried on Oct. 30, 2012, for carrying out propaganda against the government along with fellow musician Vo Minh Tri (also known as Viet Khang), and was sentenced to six years in prison and two years of house arrest.

Authorities had accused Binh of producing music that criticized police brutality against peaceful anti-China protesters in Vietnam, according to the Voice Project, a New York-based rights group that supports activist-artists worldwide.

Kha, a computer technician, was sentenced in Aug. 2013 to four years behind bars for carrying out propaganda against the government under Article 88 of the penal code.

Ly, an ethnic Khmer inmate who was recently transferred to Xuyen Moc prison from Soc Trang province in southern Vietnam, had joined the others in their hunger strike because of the way he was treated by prison authorities, according to The 88 Project.

Articles 79, 88 and 89 of Vietnams criminal code are routinely used by the communist regime to persecute innocent people, rights groups say.

Reported by Gia Minh for RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Taliban militants have killed an army general in the southern province of Kandahar.

Samim Khapalwak, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said two gunmen opened fire on General Khan Agha late on March 24 in the Dand district.

Khapalwak said the general was on the way back home from a mosque.

The attackers were killed by Khan's bodyguards, while his 17-year-old son was injured in the incident, he added.

A Taliban spokesman said the group carried out the attack.

Khan Agha is the second army general to be killed in southern Afghanistan since the beginning of February, according to the Khaama Press news website.

It said General Atamir Agha (eds: no relation to Khan Agha) died in an explosion in Helmand Province last month.

Based on reporting by dpa and Khaama Press
TEL AVIV -- European countries are consulting Israeli security experts for advice after the deadly attacks on the main airport and the subway system in Brussels, according to a spokesman for Israels Foreign Ministry.

There is an increased interest in Europe in Israeli know-how and technology, said Emmanuel Nahshon.

Israels Ben-Gurion Airport is among the most secure in the world. About 16 million passengers travel through the Tel Aviv airport a year, according to Airports Authority Spokesman Ofer Lefler. A string of hijackings and a shooting at the airport in the 1970s prompted Israel to undertake stringent measures based on layers of protection, meaning each passenger must pass through multiple levels of scrutiny before he or she even reaches the check-in hall.

The perimeter of Ben-Gurion Airport is secured with radar, security forces, cameras and automatic license-plate scanners that check every vehicle entering the area. Security officers in uniform and undercover monitor the doorways to the terminal. Cameras, hidden and in plain sight, provide extra surveillance. And inside, airport staff ask travelers exhaustive questions about their itineraries, their personal backgrounds, and their luggage.

Pini Schiff, former director of security at Israels Ben-Gurion Airport, said the Brussels attacks showed serious gaps in Belgian security and intelligence. Had the three assailants approached the Tel Aviv airport, they would be stopped where the vehicles are entering Ben-Gurion area. And this is 11 kilometers before the terminal building.

In Brussels, the March 21 attack was done easily, he said.

In the wake of the Brussels attacks that killed at least 31 people, airports in Europe and the United States tightened their security. Israel did not have to tighten its airport security, Lefler said. Flights from Europe to Tel Aviv were briefly suspended on March 22 and then quickly reinstated.

Israels airport -- named after the nations first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion -- is a lifeline for a nation with two hostile neighbors, Syria and Lebanon, and a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan. Most Israelis travel further afield, to Europe, North America, and other countries.

In the summer of 2014, during Israels war with Hamas, the Islamic group notched a victory when American and European airlines suspended flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a home near the airport. During that war, militants in Gaza fired thousands of rockets into Israel, while Israel responded with air strikes and a ground invasion. More than 2,200 Palestinians died in the 50-day war, the majority of whom were civilians, while 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians were killed.

Schiff said he has consulted a European nation on airport security in the past. He declined to name the country. He said that many of Israels methods could be applied in Europe, though they would require adjustments to be effective on a large number of passengers. Last year, more than 23 million passengers traveled through Zaventem, the Brussels airport targeted by suicide bombers. London, Paris, and Amsterdam each handle more than double that volume.

However, Arab travelers, journalists, pro-Palestinian activists, and others have complained Israeli security policy is too rigorous and rests on racial profiling.

Diana Buttu, a lawyer and Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent, said security officers always take her aside for about two hours of extra questioning. They carefully examine the contents of her luggage, usually subject her to a strip search, and inquire about her life and work before continuing on to examine her hair, ears, and mouth, she said.

Buttu, who holds dual Canadian citizenship, said she has never faced such checks in other airports outside of Israel.

I fear that by Europe instituting the same rules that Israel is instituting, its going to lead down the same path that Israel has led down to, which is wholesale racism, she said. I am profiled in Israel because I am not Jewish in what is classified as a Jewish state.

Airports Authority Spokesman Lefler said every action we take here is for one goal: the securing of passengers and aircraft.

The check is equal for all, without a difference of religion, color, race, or gender, Lefler added.

Schiff, the former security head, acknowledged that Israel profiles passengers for more intensive searches. Profiling as we do it in Israel -- we cant copy it to Europe because of the number of passengers, but it can be done in other ways.

In 2014, an Israeli parliament panel inquired into complaints that the airport was too invasive in its security checks, which can include reading passengers e-mails and entering their Facebook accounts. At the time, the airport authoritys legal adviser, Aryeh Shaham, told AP that fewer than 5 percent of Arab travelers are inspected in Ben-Gurion Airport, and said the authority receives more complaints from Jewish travelers than Christian or Muslim Arabs.

With Israeli technical help, however, European countries should also brace themselves for bravado.

Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told Israel Radio on March 23, If the Belgians continue to eat chocolate and enjoy the good life and to look like big democrats and liberals and not decide that some of the Muslims there are terror organizers -- they will not be able to fight them.

His comment sparked ridicule from opposition lawmaker Shelly Yechimovich of the Labor party, who tweeted, The government has announced a solution to minimizing terrorism: stop eating chocolate.
Pakistan and Iran have agreed to enhance economic ties and open two more border crossings to increase trade during a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rohani to Islamabad.

Rohani held talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shortly after arriving in the Pakistani capital on March 25.

After the talks, Sharif and Rohani observed the signing of six agreements related to trade and economics, including a Five-Year Strategic Trade Cooperation Plan.

"Our trade and economic ties have suffered due to sanctions. We have agreed to strengthen our bilateral ties in diverse areas of trade, economy and energy," a statement quoted Sharif as saying after the talks.

Rohani is accompanied by eight cabinet ministers, including those responsible for oil, electricity, and industries, during his two-day trip to Pakistan -- the first by an Iranian head of state in 14 years.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said a long-delayed gas pipeline to supply Iranian natural gas to energy-starved Pakistan would figure high during the talks.

Rohani said they also discussed ways to boost bilateral trade and to move forward a free-trade agreement between Pakistan and Iran.

He added that the two sides also explored the possibility of sea trade between Pakistan's Gwadar Port and Iran's Chahbahar Port.

Rohanis visit is taking place after international economic sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program were lifted in January.

The restrictions had made it difficult to find financial backing for the 800 kilometers of pipeline needed on the Pakistani side.

Also, Washington has for years opposed the multibillion-dollar project amid concerns over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Pakistan is reportedly seeking to boost electricity imports from Iran to as much as 3,000 megawatts from some 75 megawatts currently.

Iranian officials were quoted as saying tensions between Iran and regional rival Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan's possible role as mediator, would also be discussed during Rohanis visit.

The Iranian president will hold talks with both President Mamnoon Hussain on March 26. He is also scheduled to address a gathering of Pakistani scholars and intellectuals.

On the eve of his visit, Rohani said that "constructive relations with neighbors and the Islamic world are at the priority list of our foreign policy."

"I believe that at this crucial moment of the history of relations between the two countries, it is essential that Pakistan and Iran...lay the cornerstone of a new bilateral engagement based on the mutual interests of the two countries," he also said in his statement.

Pakistan has traditionally had close relations with the United States and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, Shiite Iran's top rival.

Meanwhile, relations between Pakistan and Iran have often been fraught.

In the 1980s, Islamabad and Tehran backed different groups fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, which has more Shiite Muslims than any country apart from Iran, later backed the hard-line Sunni Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

Tehran also accused Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan of orchestrating deadly attacks on Iranian soil.

But Islamabads refusal last year to join a Saudi-led offensive against Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen has helped rebalance the relationship with Iran.

In January, Pakistani officials used shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to ease heightened tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan agreed this year to join an international military coalition led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism in the Muslim world, but it did not commit troops for the alliance. Iran and its regional ally Syria are not part of the initiative.

With reporting by AP, dpa, AFP, Dawn, and Bloomberg
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic warned against attacks on Bosnian Serbs in light of the verdict from a United Nations tribunal convicting former leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide.

"I warn those who think of taking the verdict...as an excuse for political or other attacks against the Republika Srpska," Vucic said on March 24.

"We will stand with our people, we will protect the right to survive and exist," he said. "We will never threaten anyone, but we will not allow anyone to step on Serbs only because they are Serbs. We are nobody's doormat, we are a proud people."

Vucic's comments came as many widows of the men massacred at Srebrenica and other victims of war crimes Karadzic, 70, was convicted of perpetrating said the verdict and sentence of 40 years in jail did not go far enough.

Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and dpa
Kazakhstan's lower house of parliament has voted to keep in place the government of Prime Minister Karim Masimov following parliamentary elections.

The March 25 vote at the Mazhilis was a constitutional procedure that automatically follows elections.

Later, the presidential office announced that President Nursultan Nazarbaev had replaced Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik with the Pavlodar region's governor, Kanat Bozumbaev, amid an economic crisis sparked by the slide in oil prices.

Nazarbaev's Nur Otan party won 82.2 percent of the vote in the March 20 elections, retaining its overwhelming majority in the parliament chamber.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have said Kazakhstan "still has a considerable way to go" in meeting international standards for democratic votes.

None of the elections held in Kazakhstan since its independence from the Soviet Union in December 1991 have been deemed as free or fair by Western countries or international observers.

Based on reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, and Interfax
Kyrgyzstan says the heads of the Kyrgyz and Uzbek border guard services have met for the first time since a row erupted last week over a disputed area.

The Kyrgyz border guard service said on March 25 that the meeting took place at the Kyzyl-Kiya border crossing in another, quiet area, and that the meeting had been initiated by the Uzbek side.

On March 18, Uzbek authorities deployed troops, two armored personnel vehicles, and two military trucks in the Ala-Buka district. Kyrgyz authorities responded by sending troops and military equipment to the disputed area.

Reuters reported that four armored personnel vehicles, two on each side, and about 20 armed servicemen, also split equally, were in the area on March 25.

Kyrgyzstan called a meeting of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to discuss the issue.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
The body of a lawyer representing a Russian serviceman on trial in Ukraine was found buried on an abandoned farm with signs of violent death, Ukrainian authorities said on March 25.

Ukrainian chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said two men have been detained in connection with Yuriy Hrabovskiy's murder, one of whom confessed and led police to the body.

Matios said Hrabovskiy was drugged and kidnapped in Kyiv earlier this month, then taken to Odesa, where he was last seen. He was later taken to the countryside nearly 150 kilometers south of the capital where he was shot and killed.

Hrabovskiy was representing Aleksandr Aleksandrov, a serviceman captured along with another Russian, Yevgeny Yerofeyev, last year in a part of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists.

The two men admitted they were Russian officers but Moscow said they had resigned from active duty. Russia has repeatedly denied it is supplying the separatists with equipment or recruits.

Hearings in the trial of the two Russian soldiers were adjourned in early March when Hrabovskiy did not show up in court.

After Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko was convicted by a Russian court this week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he would be willing to exchange the two Russian servicemen for Savchenko.

Matios told reporters that Hrabovskiy's body was found after a suspect told prosecutors about the murder and the location of his grave. Another suspect in the killing was detained later, he said.

The prosecutor did not give the motive for the killing or reveal the names of the suspects. But he said they were Ukrainian citizens and one of them used a fake special service agent ID.

Matios said that the suspects "had received a lot of money" for carrying out the killing and had created alibis.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on March 25 blamed Ukrainian authorities for failing to protect Hrabovskiy, who they said had become a victim of anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine because of his role defending the Russian serviceman.

"Despite all our warnings, Kyiv authorities were still unable or unwilling to guarantee [Hrabovskiy's] safety," the ministry said.

Amnesty International earlier this week raised an alarm about Hrabovskiy's disappearance, saying that he and the lawyer for the other defendant had been under "sustained pressure from the Ukrainian authorities" because of their role in the trial.

On March 25, Amnesty urged Ukraine to quickly bring Hrabovskiy's killers to justice.

"The killing of a criminal defense lawyer is a hideous crime and the Ukrainian authorities must immediately take all steps necessary to begin to rectify this ultimate abuse of human rights and justice,"said Amnesty senior director Anna Neistat.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and TASS


Pakistan says it has arrested an Indian intelligence officer, sparking a new diplomatic row between the two rival neighbors.

Foreign Minister Aizaz Chaudhry summoned the Indian envoy in Islamabad on March 25 to lodge a protest over the alleged spys illegal entry into Pakistan.

The man is also suspected of involvement in subversive activities in the southwestern province of Balochistan and the port city of Karachi.

Security officials said the man was detained in Balochistan on March 24, months after New Delhi said militants from Pakistan were linked to a January assault on an air base in India in which seven soldiers were killed.

Balochistan, Pakistan's least developed province, has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baloch separatist groups.

It's also home to Taliban insurgents, drug smugglers, kidnapping rings, sectarian militants, and government-backed paramilitary death squads.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is often hit by religious, political, and ethnic violence.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP
The Russian State Duma has voted to accept the resignation of presidential human rights ombudswoman Ella Pamfilova.

In a vote on March 25, the Duma accepted Pamfilova's request that she be removed as of March 28. She filed the request in connection with Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent decision to appoint her to the Central Election Commission (CEC).

Duma deputy Vladimir Pligin, head of the parliament's Constitutional Law Committee, noted that Pamfilova "enhanced the clarity and humanity" of the ombudsman's post during her two years in office. She was also praised by Communist Party deputy Ivan Melnikov.

Officials with the Duma factions of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the A Just Russia party told Interfax they would support Pamfilova if she sought to chair the CEC.

Pamfilova has been a respected rights activist for more than two decades and is a strong advocate of constructive dialogue between the state and civil-society groups.

Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, and newsru.com
A court in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania on March 24 dropped one of 10 charges filed against a Ukrainian man who had posed as an American high school student.

The charge of identity theft was dropped after the court determined that Artur Samarin, 23, didn't actually steal the American name he used, Asher Potts, from anyone living in the United States.

The court let stand other charges against Samarin, however, including statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors, for his having sex with an underage girl while attending a Pennsylvania high school.

In a brief exchange with reporters outside the court, Samarin apologized to his mother in Ukraine and said he came to the United States because "I just want to have a better life."

Samarin has been held in jail because he has been unable to post bail.

Based on reporting by AP and Fox News
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to appoint Ramzan Kadyrov as acting head of the North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

Speaking to Kadyrov at the Kremlin on March 25, Putin expressed hope that he would participate in regional elections in September.

"I believe that the people of Chechnya, the Chechen people, will be able to properly evaluate during the election campaign what you have done for the republic," he said.

Kadyrov's current term ends on April 5. The Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed source among Kadyrov's "close associates" as saying "with firm confidence" that Kadyrov will participate in the election.

Kadyrov, 39, has ruled Chechnya since shortly after his father, former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, was assassinated in 2004. Putin appointed him to head the republic in 2007.

In the 1990s, both Ramzan Kadyrov and his father were anti-Russian separatist militants until they switched sides.

Ramzan Kadyrov has been widely accused of human rights abuses, including kidnappings, disappearances, torture, and the murder of political opponents.

People with ties to Kadyrov have been implicated in the 2015 killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. Although Kadyrov denies any involvement, he has described one suspect, Chechen police official Zaur Dadayev, as "a true patriot."

Kadyrov has provoked controversy recently by saying all those opposed to Putin are "national traitors" and for posting on social media an image showing former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and another opposition activist as if viewed through a sniper's scope.

Kadyrov controls a heavily armed militia force that numbers as many as 30,000 troops.

With by reporting by TASS, Reuters, and Interfax
Russia has described the genocide conviction of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as "politicized."

Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov made the comment in an interview with Interfax that was made public on March 25, one day after a UN court in The Hague convicted Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges, and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

Gatilov accused the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of bias, saying it was overlooking crimes by Kosovar leaders and the military."

"We consider that such a slant in the activity of the tribunal is unacceptable," he added.

Karadzic, the most senior political figure to be convicted by the ICTY, was found guilty of orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war that left some 100,000 people dead.

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax
Russia says it will deploy state-of-the art missile defense systems to the far eastern Kurile Islands where Moscow and Tokyo have rival territorial claims.

"Already this year they will get Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems as well as new-generation Eleron-3 unmanned aerial vehicles," Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on March 25.

Shoigu said the new weapons were part of a drive to rearm military units already deployed in the Kuriles.

He said Russia's navy was also mulling the possibility of setting up a naval base in the region.

Shoigu also said new units in the Western Military District will be formed, saying the deployment of NATO's forces near Russia's borders requires a response.

Military forces in western Russia will receive 1,100 new weapons systems, including aircraft, military helicopters, and tanks, he also said.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP
Russian news agencies reported on March 24 that a Russian special forces officer was killed while directing air strikes near the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.

"While performing a special task to direct Russian air strikes onto terrorist targets, a Russian special forces officer was killed," Interfax quoted a source at Russia's Hmeimim air base as saying.

"The soldier died heroically, calling the strike onto himself after he was discovered and surrounded by terrorists," Interfax's source said.

TASS and RIA Novosti also reported the death. There was no detail about when the officer died, with Interfax's source only saying "in the past week."

The death brings to seven the number of Russian servicemen reported killed in Syria during the Kremlin's five-month military campaign, which it started winding down last week.

Russia disclosed the presence of special forces troops in Syria for the first time on March 23. Before that, Moscow said its role in Syria was limited to carrying out air strikes, protecting Russian bases, advising and training the Syrian army, and performing search and rescue operations for downed aircraft.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP
The Russian Foreign Ministry's chief spokeswoman said that as a result of Russia's military action in Syria "the negotiating process has begun and a cease-fire on Syrian territory has begun."

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RFE/RL's Russian Service on March 25 that Russia always intended for its military action in Syria to be limited and that Moscow did not intend to interfere in the civil war there.

Zakharova also stressed Moscow's contention that Russia is not a party to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, a position she said is confirmed in the Minsk agreements on regulating that conflict.

She said the Minsk process has been stalled by Kyiv. "Kyiv refuses to enter into a dialogue with the Donbas," Zakharova said. "Fulfilling the Minsk agreements is hung up on this point."
Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council has approved targeted sanctions against 54 individuals involved in the prosecutions of Ukrainian citizens Nadia Savchenko and Oleh Sentsov.

President Petro Poroshenko's press secretary posted the announcement on Twitter on March 25.

The council posted a statement saying that the list includes "individuals responsible for abductions, illegal detentions, torture, the falsification of evidence, and the organization and pronouncement of legally void sentences."

Savchenko, a military pilot, was sentenced on March 22 to 22 years in a Russian prison after being convicted of involvement in the deaths of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. She denies the charges and says she was abducted in Ukraine and illegally brought to Russia.

Filmmaker Sentsov, a native of Crimea, was arrested in May 2014 on terrorism charges and later sentenced to 10 years in prison. He denies the charges and says they are retaliation for his vocal criticism of Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

With reporting by TASS
Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States and Russia have agreed they would try to push forward negotiations to end the five-year war in Syria.

Kerry was speaking at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after meeting him and President Vladimir Putin on March 24 in the Kremlin.

He said the United States and Russia, which brokered a partial cease-fire in Syria last month, agreed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moscows ally, "should do the right thing" and engage in the peace talks, which remain deadlocked over his fate.

He also said Washington and Moscow agreed to aim for a draft version of a new constitution for Syria by August.

Lavrov said Moscow was committed to promoting the political transition in Syria, but said it must be based on mutual consent between the government and opposition.

As a round of indirect talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition concluded on March 24, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he had found a lot of common ground between the two sides.

Based on reporting by AFP, Bloomberg, and the BBC
U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the second-in-command of the Islamic State terrorist organization has been killed in a U.S. raid.

Carter told journalists in Washington on March 25 that senior IS leader Haji Imam (also known as Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli), described as the group's "finance minister," was a "well-known terrorist" who was involved in attacks in Iraq and Syria.

Carter did not give details of the operation or say whether Imam was killed in Iraq or Syria.

Carter added that Imam's death "will hamper the ability" of IS "to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria."

Earlier this month, the United States said it had killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the IS "war minister," in an air strike in Syria. In November, Washington said IS lead Abu Nabil had been killed by an air strike in Libya.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters
CHARLOTTESVILLE  Andrew Traver, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, gave a talk on terrorism and national security Thursday at the University of Virginia.

Before he began his talk, Traver asked the audience of about 30 people how many of them watched the popular television show focusing on the agency. Laughter broke out in the room as much of the audience raised its hands.

Television shows are great and entertaining, but they have nothing to do with what we do, he said.

The real agency  made up entirely of civilian law enforcement agents  not only conducts criminal investigations on ships and bases, but has a unique counterintelligence mission. The Navy has highly advanced, highly secretive technology that has to be protected.

The agencys biggest counterintelligence threat is the Chinese government, he said, which often recruits moles to pass on schematics, blueprints and other sensitive information.

Theyve been pursuing certain types of technology for decades, Traver said, later using nuclear propulsion as an example.

They do it with great numbers, they do it very openly in some cases and they do it relentlessly, he said.

Much of NCIS deals in criminal matters, and since the Navy keeps a global presence, so must the agency. Many of the 1,000 NCIS agents are deployed abroad and work closely with international authorities to arrest local criminals who may prey on U.S. servicemen and women.

But theres a specialized group of agents who deal with matters of counterintelligence and terrorism. Apart from Chinese espionage, another major threat facing NCIS is Iran.

In January, Iran captured 10 U.S. sailors who had drifted into its waters  just the latest chapter in a history of tense relations between the two countries.

Traver said NCIS has an interest in the incident.

We want to find out what the Iranians were trying to find out, he said. What type of information were they trying to elicit out of the sailors? That helps us know what we need to  spend more time trying to protect.

Like all other intelligence agencies, NCIS has kept a close eye on recent developments in Belgium, where extremists with the Islamic State killed more than 30 people in an attack Tuesday.

Traver said Belgian authorities have been spread thin in the wake of the refugee crisis, which could be one reason they didnt see some of the potential warning signs.

A Brussels-type attack in the U.S. is unlikely, he said, because law enforcement has more freedom to monitor suspects.
WestRock Co.  the packaging giant created last year by the merger of Richmond-based MeadWestvaco Corp. and suburban Atlanta-based RockTenn Co.  will continue to maintain a strong presence in the Richmond area, an executive with the company said Thursday.

The Richmond location is not going anywhere, said Robert Beckler, WestRocks president of packaging solutions, in a presentation to the Richmond Association for Business Economics. The meeting was held at the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Richmond.

MeadWestvaco merged in July with RockTenn Co. of Norcross, Ga., to form WestRock, a paper and packaging company with operations in 30 countries and about $15 billion in annual revenue.

The company has described Richmond as its principal executive office and Norcross as its principal operating office in reports to shareholders. Its chief executive officer continues to work primarily in Norcross, and the company held its annual shareholders meeting in February in Atlanta.

In Richmond, WestRock occupies the downtown headquarters of the former MeadWestvaco Corp., which opened the nine-story office building at 501 S. Fifth St. overlooking the James River in 2009.

WestRock has put the top two floors in the building up for sublease, with a total of 63,673 square feet available.

Obviously, the merger has created a movement of people to different locations  to Richmond, away from Richmond, Beckler, who is based here, said in response to an audience question about the future of the headquarters.

But we have well over 600 people based in the Richmond location, he said. We are running global businesses out of Richmond. We have a portion of the senior leadership team based in Richmond, and so our intent is to be here to stay.

Having said that, I think that the notion of a central location for a company of our size doesnt really hold anymore, he said.

WestRock is a $15 billion company, and we have locations all around the world where we are running our operations, said Beckler, who plans to retire in July after 29 years with WestRock and MeadWestvaco, during which he held management roles in the companys specialty chemicals and packaging businesses.

We are committed to Richmond, he said, adding that Virginia has the largest concentration of WestRock operations of any state.

The company has about 3,500 employees in Virginia, at locations including its office in Richmond, a container plant in eastern Henrico County, a paper mill in Covington, and factories in West Point, Hopewell, Martinsville and Lynchburg. Its payroll in the state amounts to about $290 million a year.
COVID-19 drove a dramatic increase in the number of women who died from pregnancy or childbirth complications in the U.S. last year, a crisis that has disproportionately claimed Black and Hispanic women as victims. A government report released Wednesday lays out grim trends across the country for expectant mothers and their newborn babies. It finds that pregnancy-related deaths have spiked nearly 80 percent since 2018, with COVID-19 being a factor in a quarter of the 1,178 deaths reported last year. The percentage of preterm and low birthweight babies also went up last year, after holding steady for years. And more pregnant or postpartum women are reporting symptoms of depression.
DUBLIN  Nathan Shelburne hardly lets anything go to waste.

Shelburne, 16, has spent much of his youth around his fathers construction sites. Creative and resourceful, the home-schooled student would often find leftover materials such as concrete and metal and use them to build a wide range of items that included cup holders and drink coasters.

I would build everything that I could with any material I could get my hands on, Shelburne recalled.

The hobby eventually awakened Shelburnes entrepreneurial ambitions.

Last year, Shelburne was among a dozen accepted into the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, a new program run locally by the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce to generate early interest among area students in the possibilities of launching a business.

The YEA culminated its first year Wednesday when six finalists  ranging from grades sixth to 11th  pitched business projects to a panel of six investors who are themselves involved with local businesses. The sponsors for the event that took place at New River Community College were Cumulus Media, Infinity Eyecare, Martins Pharmacy, Member One Federal Credit Union, the Pulaski County Industrial Development Authority and The Patriot newspaper.

While the general aim of the YEA finalists was to obtain capital for their projects, one of the students  Shelburne  was also selected to take part in an upcoming national young entrepreneur contest in Rochester, New York, called the Saunders Scholar National Semi-Final Competition.

The YEA investors panel also awarded Shelburne $670 for a business he named Concrete Avant-Garde that will make and sell concrete household accessories and decorations.

Shelburne said he actually didnt know about the national competition until just a few weeks ago when he was selected among the finalists.

As soon as I realized it, I was so nervous, but extremely excited when they called my name out, he said. Im really excited to go and represent my business, but Im also extremely excited to represent Pulaski County Young Entrepreneurs Academy.

Christiana Marjakangas, spokeswoman for the Pulaski County Chamber and YEAs program manager, said the national competition will not only offer potential for more investments, but also college scholarship money.

Drawing upon his experience of using leftover construction material, Shelburne said he saw promise in forming a venture that would make concrete pieces of inconspicuous household items such as coasters and chess boards. Of course, those items would still be usable, but their concrete makeup would make them stand out more, he said.

Im talking things that are typically bland and no one notices in a room. Im going to turn them into the centerpiece of the room, a conversation piece, Shelburne said. You can take a simple design, put it in concrete and it becomes beautiful. Or take a beautiful design, put it in concrete and everyones going to just want it.

Shelburne, who has set aside a space at home for his work, said he plans to use the money from the YEA competition to build up stock. He said that would allow him to have some products already on hand before he stars selling.

While he hasnt dismissed the idea of online commerce, Shelburne said he would like to first put his products on local store shelves between the New River and Roanoke valleys to much more easily earn recognition.

Locally, I have the advantage of growing up here. I know my local people, he said. Online, when I push to market, I can push and hope to get to a certain crowd, but theres no guarantee that you will. Around here, I know exactly where I can place it.

Despite their youth, each YEA finalist presented business plans that addressed the basic bullet points of any serious and aspiring entrepreneur. The plans outlined things such as sales and income projections, production goals, existing competition, money already raised and exact work investments would cover.

The other projects presented were called Simple Joys Photography, Draper Valley Quail, Distorted Figures, Niclays Keychains and Ever-Last Shutters.

I was very impressed with the age variances  from sixth grade to 11th graders  and projects they brought to us, said Shelia Smith, who was part of the investor panel and serves as a board member with the Pulaski County Industrial Development Authority. While they may be very young, they certainly have worked hard to put a plan together. We hope that the monies were giving them will help them fulfill their dreams with these projects.

Marjakangas said there are hopes that YEA can expand in the future, most notably into Christiansburg and Blacksburg. In addition to potentially adding new businesses to rural Pulaski County, the program aims to cultivate the young entrepreneurial spirit and identify it early, she said.

Its definitely inspiring for students to think outside the box, she said.
A 20-year-old woman from the Roanoke Valley on Wednesday entered an Alford plea to being an accessory after the fact in the murder of her boyfriends parents in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Chelsi Griffin of Roanoke County and Alexander Gray Turner, 23, of Conway, South Carolina, each were charged in March 2015 with two counts of murder in the death of Turners parents, Carrie Daley Turner, 52, and Steven Gray Turner, 61, of Durham, North Carolina, but an indictment on the murder charge was not sent to the grand jury for Griffin.

The charge of accessory after the fact to murder carries a sentence of up to 15 years, according to Senior Assistant Solicitor Lauree Richardson, who prosecuted the case. An Alford plea means the defendant does not admit guilt, but acknowledges a jury would likely convict based on the evidence in the case against them.

There was no doubt that she was involved in the concealing of the bodies and the events that took place afterward, Richardson said.

Griffin, who was a student at Coastal Carolina University and had attended Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke County, was given an active sentence Wednesday by Circuit Court Judge Larry Hyman under the Youthful Offender Act to not exceed five years and to pay court costs. Under the Youthful Offender Act she may be able to have the conviction expunged from her record after five years.

She will likely serve around 18 months before being released on probation for the remainder of her sentence, but Richardson said she couldnt say for sure how much time Griffin would serve because that will be left up to the facility.

Do I think she should have gotten more time, or do I think she deserved more time? Absolutely, Richardson said. But Im biased, and thats what his [the judge] job is. He is unbiased, and I trust that he did the right thing in the case.

Griffins attorney Kirk Truslow said he was very pleased with the outcome of the case for her, and that the murder charges against her were dropped.

She is a wonderful person who has a great future. After work on the case, it was determined that she has absolutely nothing to do with the two tragic deaths in his [Turners] case, Truslow said.

Richardson said no recommendation was made by prosecutors to the judge regarding Griffins sentence.

Turner pleaded guilty to two counts of murder Oct. 12, 2015, and received a sentence of 47 years for killing his parents at the Landmark Resort in Myrtle Beach on March 6, 2015.

Horry County Chief Deputy Coroner Tamara Willard said the Turners died from gunshot wounds.
Obituaries 10-21-22 Advisory: Obituary information will only be accepted if sent through a funeral home or cemetery. The Wave does not assume responsibility for any incorrect information that is printed in the obituary section John E. Hynes...

Obituaries 10-7-22 Advisory: Obituary information will only be accepted if sent through a funeral home or cemetery. The Wave does not assume responsibility for any incorrect information that is printed in the obituary section John F. Keane...
On March 20, 2016, ALROSA Supervisory Board approved the decision to open a branch in Vladivostok. It is the first step on the way to creating Russian Diamond Centre in the Primorye Territory.

The branch will define the range of potential participants and investors to create Russian Diamond Centre within the scope of Vladivostok Free Port. The Company is implementing this project on the instructions of Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government.

According to the Company President Andrey Zharkov, the first displays and sales of ALROSAs rough diamonds in Vladivostok are planned for this August-September in the lead-up to Eastern Economic Forum. In the scope of the Forum, the Company will also organize displays and auctions for the products manufactured by Brillianty ALROSA branch. Later on, regular trade in rough and polished diamonds, with the focus on the consumers from Asia-Pacific, will be organized as part of the created Diamond Centre.

The branch will be responsible for increasing ALROSAs sales, developing regional coverage, and expanding cooperation with companies and clients from Asia-Pacific, first of all, China, Japan, Singapore, and other countries.

The branch will also be in charge of the search for potential partners and investors to set up manufacturing facilities for the use of industrial grade diamonds and production of equipment for diamond cutting industry.

Special economic zone and relaxed visa requirements for foreign citizens were among other significant factors for opening a branch in Vladivostok. The branch will also collect information about the Asia-Pacific region from the point of view of the Companys interests.




The Zimbabwean government has appealed against a High Court decision to allow Mbada Diamonds remain at its Marange mining site.

The company together with other mining firms that had entered into a partnership with the state to mine diamonds in Marange were last month asked to cease operations as their licences had expired.

However, Grandwell Holdings, which holds a 50 percent stake in Mbada Diamonds, was allowed by High Court to remain at the mining site to secure its assets until "such a time that the validity of such special grants has been regularised in accordance with the law".

Grandwell lawyer Sternford Moyo said the High Court order meant Mbada Diamonds' restoration to possession of the concession area would allow it to safeguard its assets, while arrangements are being made to renew the special grants.

He said the firm would now operate until renewal of the special grant or resolution of the issue relating to validity of the special grant.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa was said to be not happy with the ruling and had appealed to the Supreme Court.

"The court a quo erred in finding that the appellant had committed an act of spoliation against the fifth respondent (Mbada) when, in the circumstances, the appellant was not found to have done anything to evict the fifth respondent from the mining concessions," he was quoted as saying in his court papers by The Herald newspapers.

"The court a quo further erred in entitling, authorising and empowering the fifth respondent's security personnel, with all its chain of command, to remain at the mining concessions until resolution of a matter that was resolved on the 22nd of February 2016 when the relevant statutory functionary exercised his discretion against the further extension/renewal of special mining grants in question."



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Tango Mining has sold its subsidiary African Star Minerals, which owns the Oena diamond mine in South Africa, to Bothma Diamante for $3-million.

The Canadian diversified junior mining company had a 51 percent interest in African Star Minerals.

The Oena Project consists of an 8,800-hectare mining right and corresponding infrastructure and all associated processing equipment located along the Orange River in a well-established alluvial diamond-mining province known to produce high quality and large sized diamonds, it said.

Tango said the deal consisted of two stages.

The first stage comprised a binding term sheet, sale and acquisition agreement for contracting that would see Bothma continue the alluvial diamond bulk-sampling programme at Oena.

Thereafter the parties would enter into a second stage sale and acquisition agreement for the share sale and purchase where Bothma would complete the acquisition of African Star.

Tango would receive a minimum of 15 percent of the proceeds of all diamond sales for a term of the longer of 12 months or until a Section 11 approval for the deal was obtained.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
50% of Indian mobile users wish to upgrade to new device in 5G era

About 50 per cent of smartphone users in India plan to buy a new device within the first year as 5G ...
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has urged law makers in the country to act on the issue of international day for the right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations and for dignity of victims.ZLHR said the United Nations (UN) chose March 24 of each year as the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims to recognise and honour the memory of victims of human rights violations, to promote the importance of the right to truth and justice, and to pay tribute to those who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for fostering a culture of human rights around the world."People have the right to know the truth about gross human rights violations and serious violations of human rights law," said Kumbirai Mafunda the ZLHR communications officer."An international observance that dates back to 2010, this day obliges governments to protect and guarantee human rights, to carry out effective investigations and to guarantee effective remedies and reparations to victims of human rights excesses."ZLHR said in Zimbabwe, this International Day is being marked at a time when many families are agonising over the pervasive tragedy of enforced disappearances and the failure by Zimbabwean authorities to investigate, establish the whereabouts and update family members on progress regarding the missing persons."These include Patrick Nabanyama, Paul Chizuze and Itai Dzamara. ZLHR remains deeply concerned that probe reports submitted by the Zimbabwe Republic Police as far as investigating the disappearance of Dzamara as ordered by the High Court in March 2015 show very little progress, if any at all," Mafunda said."We condemn the lack of progress made in investigating the human rights violations highlighted by the abduction and enforced disappearance of Dzamara, Chizuze and Nabanyana and in punishing those responsible. Those responsible for disappearing these citizens have committed a heinous crime under international law. It is traumatising that since the disappearance of Nabanyama in 2000, Chizuze in 2012 and Dzamara in 2015, the government and all the powerful State security organs cannot or will not account for their whereabouts."He said the disappearance of these citizens signifies a flagrant violation of the most basic rights to life and liberty, the right to a family, to a community, to a decent work and many more."Perpetrators of abductions and enforced disappearances must understand that abduction and holding people incommunicado is an outdated, inhumane, and ultimately ineffective practice that ruins the lives of innocent people," he said."ZLHR is also disturbed by reports published in the local media about the failure by legislators to constitute a quorum in Parliament by filibustering and walking out each time debate on the issue of disappearances is raised in Parliament, thus stalling debate on a motion on the disappearance of Dzamara."Mafunda said such action is deplorable and is tantamount to dereliction of duty on behalf of the people they claim to represent."As a country still traumatised by a history of forced disappearances dating back from the Gukurahundi atrocities which remain unresolved 36 years after attainment of independence, legislators owe it to the public to seriously consider and debate enforced disappearances, condemn such an archaic practice which can affect anyone, and take action to alleviate the suffering of the families and other concerned citizens," he said."To this end, ZLHR hopes that lawmakers, regardless of political allegiance, will do their utmost to reduce unnecessary filibustering. ZLHR calls upon the State to ensure that all persons under its jurisdiction are protected from enforced disappearances and other such violations."He said as an organisation committed to fostering a culture of human rights in Zimbabwe, ZLHR will continue confronting perpetrators of enforced disappearances and torture through litigation to contribute to ending this barbaric practice and the impunity it fuels."As a member state to the UN, ZLHR calls on the government to take tangible measures to ensure that: the truth about the whereabouts of Nabanyama, Chizuze and Dzamara is established and revealed as a matter of urgency; those responsible for these serious human rights violations are held accountable; those disappeared and their families are afforded their own right to truth - the full reasons for their abduction, the exact identities of their abductors, and any relevant details that will enable them and members of their families to make informed decisions about their remedies," he said."It ratifies, domesticates and implements provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its Protocol to ensure full accountability of perpetrators and redress and rehabilitation to victims."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Masvingo Residents Trust leader Tiringindi Prosper has appeared in court on Thursday charged with obstructing the course of justice though the case was further postponed.The trust indicated that Tiringindi appeared before Masvingo Magistrate Court facing charges of Obstruction course of justice."The case was postponed to 9th of May 2016 ,because the state witness failed to attend," said the trust.Tiringindi was arrested on 25 February 2016 at Pick and Pay bay when taxi drivers were demonstrating against Masvingo Police for using spikes.Masvingo Residents Trust demand the state to drop off the charges as there is lack of evidence in the case.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

A political commentator Allan Wenyika said the ploy to remove President Robert Mugabe from power has since failed and it is also a mistake for the MDC-T to keep Morgan Tsvangirai as a leader of the party."Removing Mugabe from power is something that we collectively failed to do, although most of the blame should go to the leaders we had in the original MDC party, who failed to foresee the possible consequences of keeping Morgan Tsvangirai as leader of the party," he said."They should have been able, at that time, to see that Tsvangirai was not competent enough to remove Mugabe from power. When they finally realized that Tsvangirai would not take them anywhere it was already too late. It was now difficult to replace him. Like Mugabe, he had become the only face of the revolution."Wenyika said if Mugabe is to die now, no man should claim any victory."We all failed. What's left is for us to see and plan beyond Mugabe and Tsvangirai. I think even God himself does not have these two men in His plans for the future of Zimbabwe. I'm seeing events conspiring, by some divine and mysterious intervention, to give Zimbabwe a new and very unexpected leader from a very unlikely setup," he said.
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/25/2016 -- Future Market Insights (FMI), delivers key insights on the beverage packaging market in its recent report titled, "Beverage Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015 - 2025". According to the report, the overall beverage packaging market is anticipated to register a healthy single-digit CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period to reach US$ 257,547.9 Mn by 2025. High-end innovation from manufacturers in design, texture, feel and size of packaging products are key attributes fuelling market growth. Increasing trend towards aseptic, portion and sustainable packaging worldwide is also driving market growth. The global beverage packaging market accounted for around US$ 181,150.9 Mn in terms of value in 2014.



Assessing the various factors driving market growth, FMI analyst said, "Technological improvements in the production of attractive and functional packaging options, coupled with increasing purchasing power of consumers globally are key factors expected to fuel growth of the beverage packaging market between 2015 and 2025". This, would offer various packaging companies and retailers opportunity to reap greater profits through economies of scale. The beverage packaging market is relatively buoyant in emerging economies in India, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Russia, South Africa and Middle Eastern countries.



Region-wise, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan was the largest market in terms of revenue with over 25.6% market share in 2014. The region clearly tops the list due to its huge customer base and improving economic condition. However, packaging preferences differ considerably from region to region, thus adopting region- and application-specific strategies is expected to result in better product movement. Moreover, manufacturers are actively adopting sustainable packaging practices due to increased pressure from consumer groups, government and customers itself. North America and Western Europe command second and third position in terms of revenue, accounting for approximately 24% and 23% respectively. Demand for bottled water and packaged yogurt is high in North America and Europe; whereas, RTD beverages, flavoured milk, beer and energy drinks are expected to gain volumes, thereby increasing packaging demand in regions such as Asia and Africa. Designing products using raw materials according to the region and application are expected to be instrumental in maintaining a stable position in the market.



Request Free Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-196



Product type-wise, this report covers six segments namely glass bottles, plastic bottles, cans, liquid cartons (brick, gable-top etc.), pouch/sachet and others. Plastic bottle was the largest segment with over 50% of the total market share in 2014, followed by cans with 21.6%. Others, though being the smallest segment covering products such as yogurt pots and 35 gallon reusable water bottles, is expected to exhibit highest CAGR, followed by plastic bottles and liquid cartons. On the basis of raw material, plastic clearly dominated the beverage packaging market with 53.4% share in 2014. Glass as a raw material is expected to lose market share due to various factors such as price, weight and supply chain glitches. Paper/paperboard, which is used for primary packaging of beverages in the form of liquid cartons, is expected to exhibit a healthy growth rate through the forecast period due to increased penetration in the market and widening scope of applications such as juices, drinkable yogurt, flavoured milk and alternative beverages among others.



Application wise, the market is segmented into beer, alcoholic drinks, dairy beverages, carbonated soft drink/soda, juice/soft drinks, mineral water and energy drinks/RTD beverages. The CSD/soda segment accounted for highest market share in terms of revenue contribution to the global beverage packaging market at 29.5% in 2014. However, this segment is projected to grow at the slowest rate due to declining volumes of CSD in major markets such as North America and Western Europe. Energy drinks/RTD beverages is expected to exhibit highest growth of 5% due to increasing consumption. In addition, manufacturers are rolling out innovative packaging options such as embossed, high definition prints and tactile prints in cans, slim cans, lightweight and resalable plastic bottles, functional blow moulded plastic containers etc. Dairy beverages application is expected to exhibit second highest CAGR of 3.4% during the forecast period.



Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-196



Major players in the beverage packaging market include Ampac Holdings, LLC, Amcor Limited, Alcoa Inc., Ball Corporation, Crown Holdings, Inc., Owens-Illinois, Inc., Rexam PLC, Reynolds Group Holdings Limited, SIG Combibloc, Ardagh Group S.A., Tetra Laval International S.A. and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain.
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/25/2016 -- Colorectal cancer, the third most common type of cancer worldwide, affected 1.4 mn people in 2012, says the World Cancer Research Fund International. In the next nine years (by 2035), the world will have nearly 2.4 mn colorectal cancer patients. Korea was the country with the highest rate of colorectal cancer, followed by Slovakia, Hungary, Denmark, and the Netherlands in the top five. These figures underline the rapid spread of the disease and the need to diagnose it at an early stage so patients can go back to leading a normal life as soon as possible. That has directly impacted the In-vitro colorectal cancer screening tests market, with demand for such tests having surged over the past few years.



A recent market study by Transparency Market Research predicts that the global market for in-vitro colorectal cancer screening tests will hold a US$980.6-mn opportunity by 2023, up remarkably from the market's worth of US$494.1 mn as of 2014. At an estimated compounded annual growth rate of 7.5% between 2015 and 2023, it is clear that companies in the market will continue to launch new products in response to the rising demand for colorectal cancer screening tests. In vitro screening tests are becoming increasingly popular for many different diseases and conditions. Colorectal cancer is no exception.



European Countries Report High Rates of Colorectal Cancer, but North America In Vitro Colorectal Cancer Screening Tests Market Valued the Highest



The market for in vitro colorectal cancer screening tests in North America was in the leading position in 2014 in terms of revenue. The prevalence of colon cancer in North America is on the rise, thus creating conditions conducive for the growth of this market. Moreover, government policies have been extremely supportive as far as the development and introduction of new, safe in vitro cancer screening tests go. This has given the market in North America a further push. The overall spends on healthcare are high in North America as compared to other regions worldwide  yet another factor contributing to putting North America in the top position in the in vitro colorectal cancer screening tests market.



However, the next few years could well see a change in the status quo because several countries in Europe are reporting a rise in the incidence of colorectal cancer, leading to a proportionate rise in demand for screening tests. The massive graying population here and notable improvements in healthcare infrastructure can be credited for this imminent change.



Request A Sample Of This Report: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3698



Demand for Fecal Occult Blood Tests Stays Strong



An uncontrolled growth in the cells of the colon or rectum can lead to colon cancer, also known as colorectal cancer. Advances in screening and testing technologies have made it easier for medical practitioners to determine the presence of colorectal cancer among patients and advise the best course of action to treat it.



Currently, the key types of in vitro colorectal cancer screening tests that are available on the market can be classed into: stool biomarker tests, fecal occult blood tests, and blood biomarker tests. Of these, fecal occult blood tests are the most commonly used screening tests for colorectal cancer. Their demand is primarily steered by the rising number of diabetics worldwide, the high demand for screening tests that are non-invasive in nature, and the ease of collecting the sample for the test.



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Lisbon, Portugal -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/25/2016 -- Extreme sport has recently become quite popular among people of all ages and occupations just because it helps them relax and distract from everyday job or home routine. Kitesurfing is one of these kinds of sports, the popularity of which keeps growing today, but only limited number of people knows what kitesurfing is all about. Realizing this, Kiteportugal has announced the launch of their new website.



Kiteportugal is a popular kite school, which is based in Lisbon (Portugal). The school was opened in 2000 and has won immense popularity among its clients, who come from this country and abroad. The main mission of the school is to make people aware of this kind of sport, providing a wide range of kitesurfing services that enjoy popularity with the clients. The school offers all kinds of services, including kitesurfing teaching, kite and SUP board renting etc., which are especially in demand these days.



The kite school employs only talented, experienced and knowledgeable specialists, who are ready to provide any kind of assistance a client may need round-the-clock. All the instructors working for Kiteportugal possess the certification of the International Kiteboarding Organization (IKO). The certificate proves that the instructor, who works with a client, is professional, skillful and knowledgeable, which is exactly what is needed when it comes to teaching kitesurfing. As far as the organization is primarily concerned with a client's safety, it deals with the development and implementation of new security kitesurfing security methods.



The new website launched by the organization provides users with all kitesurfing-related information they need to gain success in this activity. The website is conveniently subdivided into several sections with regard to the users' needs and preferences. This is the top destination for the experienced kiters as well as for those, who are just making their first steps in this extreme kind of sport. The first lesson is conducted in a small group consisting of 2-4 people, which is a benefit in itself.



The website was developed with users' convenience, ease of search and information-orientation in mind. This is the place, where each client may find out the basics of kitesurfing, the recent news and special offers the Kiteportugal school has, the contact info and other related data. The users' testimonials are also available at the resource and each person can publish personal posts to share their individual experiences. Furthermore, people can get in touch with the customer support team using the special message form provided at the website.



For more information, please, fell free to visit http://kiteportugal.com/



About Kiteportugal

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Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/25/2016 -- The report "Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers Market by Application (Chemicals, Petrochemicals and Oil & Gas, HVACR, Food & Beverages, Pulp & Paper, Power Generation) and Region - Global Forecast to 2020", The shell & tube heat exchangers market size is estimated to grow from USD 5.29 Billion in 2015 to USD 7.05 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 4.98%. The market is driven by the increasing need for energy and high investments in chemicals and petrochemicals and oil & gas industries. RoW and Asia-Pacific regions are estimated to witness a strong growth in the next five years. Also, the demand across these regions is reinforced by the emerging markets, namely, China, and India.



Browse 36 market tables and 46 figures spread through 110 pages and in-depth TOC on "Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers Market - Global Forecast to 2020"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/shell-tube-heat-exchangers-market-92257371.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.



Asia-Pacific: The Largest Market of Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers



Asia-Pacific is currently the largest market for shell & tube heat exchangers. The U.S. is the largest market for shell & tube heat exchangers in the North American region.



The favorable market forces driving the market for shell & tube heat exchangers in North America are:



1) Major manufacturers of shell & tube heat exchangers in the region

2) Growing oil & gas explorations in the region

3) Growing chemicals, petrochemicals, and oil & gas, and HVAC & refrigeration applications in major countries, such as the U.S. and Canada.



Chemicals: The Largest Application Segment of Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers Market



Shell & tube heat exchangers is used in various applications such as chemicals, petrochemicals and oil & gas, HVAC & refrigeration, power generation, pulp & paper, food & beverages, power generation, and others. These are the main applications considered in the report. In 2015, the chemicals application segment is estimated to account for the largest market share among all the applications, in terms of value, followed by petrochemicals and oil & gas, food & beverages, HVAC & refrigeration, power generation, and pulp & paper applications. The chemicals application is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR between 2015 and 2020.



For more Info Speak to Our Analyst @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp?id=92257371



The key players in the shell & tube heat exchangers market are Kelvion Holdings GmbH (Germany), Alfa Laval AB (Sweden), HRS Heat Exchangers (U.K.), Brask Inc. (U.S.), Koch Heat Transfer Company (U.S.), Standard Xchange (U.S.), and Manning and Lewis (U.S.), SPX Corporation (U.S.), API Heat Transfer Inc. (U.S.), Southern Heat Exchanger Corporation (U.S.), among other local players.



This report covers the market size, in terms of value, for the shell & tube heat exchangers and forecasts the market size till 2020. The report includes the market segmentation by application chemicals, petrochemicals and oil & gas, food & beverages, HVAC & refrigeration, power generation, and pulp & paper, and by region Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, and RoW. Regions are further segmented by key country markets such as China, India, Japan, U.S., Canada, Germany, U.K., France, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. The report also provides company profiles and competitive strategies adopted by the major market players in the shell & tube heat exchangers market.



Inquiry Before Buying of this Report @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=92257371



Browse Related Reports:



Heat Exchanger Market by Type (Shell & Tube, Plate & Frame, Air Cooled, Printed Circuit), by Application (Chemical, Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, HVACR, Food & Beverage, Pulp & Paper, Power Generation), Classifications (MoC, Temperature Range & Fluid Type) and Geography, Trends & Forecast to 2019

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/heat-exchanger-market-750.html



Plate & Frame Heat Exchangers Market by Type (Brazed, Gasketed, Welded), by Application (Chemical, Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, HVACR, Food & Beverage, Pulp & Paper, Power Generation), and Region - Trends & Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/plate-frame-heat-exchangers-market-259151406.html



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News / National

by Thobekile Zhou

A Marange woman vowed in court that she would not give her husband his conjugal rights unless he divorced his new wife whom she termed a 'sex worker'.Agnes Nyarota told magistrate Yeukai Chigodora while seeking for a protection order against her husband, Zebediah Gwizo, whom she claimed was violent towards her after he married a well-known sex worker as a second wife.Nyarota described her husband, who defaulted the court session as a reckless man who had married a sex worker instead of choosing from other non sex-working females from their church and her family."The woman that he married was a popular sex worker and it has become difficult for me to accept him into my bedroom. I will not give him his conjugal rights since I do not know what sexually transmitted infections I will contract from him."I have since asked him to go for HIV testing and he said handisi muriwo unotestwa kunzwikwa kuti une salt here. (I will not be tested as I am not relish that needs tasting)," she stated.Nyarota prayed that the court bar Gwizo from visiting her residence regardless of the fact that they were still a lawfully wedded couple."I vow in this court that I will never accept the sex worker as his second wife, never!," she exclaimed.She claimed that it would have been better for their marriage if he had married someone from their church or one of her single female relatives as she had many.Nyarota also alleged that if he had married anyone other than the sex worker, she would still be giving him his conjugal rights.The protection order was granted to Nyarota. However, Gwizo was not barred from visiting her as he is still her husband and has a right to stay there.
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/24/2016 -- According to the latest rules, citizens travelling from Belarus to Vietnam do not have to apply for a Visa if their stay is for less than 15 days. Citizens of several countries have been exempted from having a Visa whilst visiting the country and they only need to comply with certain requirements in order to gain entry.



Free Entrance Visa Vietnam is one of the most popular options that are being used by the relevant countries. There are different kinds of Visas that people apply for depending on the time period of their stay and the purpose. However, since there is an option of Vietnam visa on arrival, it is said to have garnered the interest of several travelers.



Be it a business visit or a personal one, in order to get Visa for Vietnam, there is an easy method that has been detailed on the aforementioned website. It does not take much time. All that the traveler has to do is to provide certain information online and request for a Visa on arrival. Once the approval letter is received, he or she can start planning the trip.



The website says, "Vietnam is a very beautiful country and is a tourist attraction. For people who stay in Belarus, it is not necessary to apply for a Visa to visit the place for less than 15 days. This is an ideal situation for a lot of people. If it is a work related visit, you do not have to waste time. You can even plan your holiday without spending time on getting a Visa."



To obtain more information about the services, visit https://www.visa-vietnam.org/free-visa-entrance-vietnam-for-citizens-of-belarus.



About visa-vietnam.org

The website claims that travelers can contact their support team in order to know more about the exemption on Visa to Vietnam. The entity provides its services to citizens of many countries and the whole process is described in detail for the convenience of the tourists. It has been described as a comprehensive platform for all Visa related services to Vietnam.



Media Contact



www.visa-vietnam.org

Address: Room A2, 64 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street

Dakao ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Contact Number: +848 54043118

Email: info@visa-vietnam.org

URL: https://www.visa-vietnam.org/free-visa-entrance-vietnam-for-citizens-of-belarus
MARION, S.C.  The Marion County School District began this year with a new direction, purpose and set of beliefs designed by the strategic planning committee in preparation for our AdvancED accreditation review in the spring of 2017.

The committee, composed of teachers, staff, administrators, parents, students, community members and representatives from the business realm, worked collaboratively and proposed choices that were ultimately made by the school district staff. This document is what guides our planning and decision-making process. With that critical element in place, the district leadership team came together during the summer and aligned specific areas of focus with that document that will move the district forward.

>> 1. Student-centered decision making.

>> 2. Portrait of a South Carolina graduate.

>> 3. A positive climate.

>> 4. Building capacity.

>> 5. Balanced literacy.

The Marion County School District has been able to raise its four-year graduation rate for the past two years, moving it from 86 percent to 86.5 percent, which is greater than the state average of 80.3 percent and the national average of 81 percent. The district has increased the number of dual-credit courses by partnering with the various institutions of higher learning so students can finish high school with college-level credits.

Two new programs have been introduced this year. A Montessori pre-kindergarten is being offered in the Mullins Early Childhood Center. This child-centered educational approach centers on the instinctual eagerness for knowledge brought by the child into a supportive and thoughtfully prepared learning environment. For our older students, mechatronics is now a cluster at the Academy of Careers & Technology. This multidisciplinary field of engineering includes a combination of systems engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, control engineering and computer engineering. The aim is to unify these subjects.

The Marion County School District is continuing to partner with community organizations and businesses. A collaborative effort between the district, Marion County Economic Development and the Marion HealthCare Foundation has resulted in a new training facility located behind the Academy of Careers & Technology.

The Workforce Development Facility will be available to businesses both new to the county and existing for the purpose of training their workforce. Adult Education Program will move to this facility as well, creating a one shop, one stop response to the needs of business and industry.

Plans for next year are already in progress as the first districtwide course catalog is sent to the printers in preparation for student course requests for the 2016-17 school year. Time doesnt stop, and neither does the Marion County School District.
KINGSTREE, S.C.  The Williamsburg County School District has partnered with the Southern Regional Education Board through funds received from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the South Carolina State Department of Education to provide additional professional development for its educators.

This collaborative partnership will allow the district to better meet the needs of every child and to move every student forward. This model will focus on redesigning the delivery of instruction within district middle and high schools. It will improve the rigor and quality of instruction to create a system that centers on preparing full-option graduates who are prepared to enter the workforce, attend two-year or four-year institutions of higher learning or the military with appropriate skills and abilities that will allow them to be more competitive and successful.

According to Roberta Cumbee, executive director of curriculum and instruction, this model will help the district design a school model in which students are assisted at the point of need, immediately and as often as needed.

We were excited when we sat with Cindy Van Buren of SREB, Cumbee said. We knew this was the direction we needed to pursue. This model gives us a direct focus that is centered on developing the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. It is a total change of mindset for district teachers and leaders. We have assessed our needs, and we know this is the best direction for us. When we personalize each childs instructional path, we will more effectively meet their needs and better prepare them for greater success after high school.

SREB will work with the district for five years to implement new college and career readiness instructional tools and strategies in middle and high schools. The design model will incorporate the High Schools that Work and Making Middle Schools Grades Work designs throughout its improvement model for the Williamsburg County School District. The district plans to implement this new model in the fall.

In the redesign, courses will be offered to students that focus on their needs and career interests beginning in seventh grade, the point at which students are able to earn high school credits. Ideally, by the time a student finishes the 10th grade, all high school requirements should be earned.

Beginning in the 11th grade, students should be able to earn college credits or obtain work experiences.

SREB will work directly with our teachers and administrators to improve classroom teaching and learning. Beyond further meeting the academic needs of students during their last two years, students will also be assisted with soft skills, career experiences and life skills.
News / National

by Lloyd Gumbo and Nyemudzai Kakore

Attempts by a faction of the war veterans led by Manicaland Provincial Affairs Minister Mandiitawepi Chimene to derail preparations for the meeting between President Mugabe and war veterans in a fortnight's time will not succeed, a Zanu-PF Politburo member said yesterday.Zanu-PF Secretary for War Veterans, Detainees, Restrictees and their Welfare and Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi said nothing would stop the meeting of war veterans and their patron, President Mugabe.He said this in response to a Press conference by George Mlala in Harare yesterday where he said they were not happy with the presence of Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association national chairperson Christopher Mutsvangwa and his entire executive at a preparatory meeting held on Wednesday.The High Court last month barred Chimene from masquerading as the interim chairperson of the war veterans after claiming to have passed a vote of no confidence in Mutsvangwa.However, she is on record as saying she would defy the ruling.Mlala, who said he represented Chimene, also distributed a letter that he purportedly wrote to Sekeramayi indicating they were also not happy with the presence of security chiefs at Wednesday's meeting."First, I did not receive any letter from them and our assignment from President Mugabe was very straight forward that we should invite war veterans and advise them that their meeting will be there on April 7," said Sekeramayi."Secondly, we were not there to deal with individuals. The meeting is going ahead as planned. The generals are as authentic war veterans as everyone who attended."You can't exclude serving members of the security forces. How do you say commanders who are war veterans who are there on merit should be excluded from a meeting of war veterans that deals with the welfare of war veterans?"Anyone who has the welfare of war veterans at heart must be welcoming the meeting instead of what they are trying to do."Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees permanent secretary Brigadier-General (Retired) Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi said they would not be distracted from preparing for the meeting."Yesterday (Wednesday)'s meeting was purely technical and administrative where we were dealing with issues to do with conduct, content and expected outcomes from the meeting with the President."It had nothing to do with politics or squabbles of any kind. The service chiefs who attended the meeting are war veterans. In fact, everyone who was in the meeting participated including those who issued that statement."We will not be distracted from proceeding with preparations for the meeting of war veterans and their patron whether some people want to exclude themselves or not."Sekeramayi and the other ministers who attended the meeting had a full mandate from the President to steer the meeting. So we are on course in preparing for the meeting," said Brig-Gen (Rtd) Tapfumaneyi.In the letter that was purportedly written to Minister Sekeramayi and copied to Home Affairs Minister Ignatius Chombo, State Security Minister Kembo Mohadi and Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees Minister Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube, Malala said they were not happy with a number of issues about the Wednesday meeting.He said their major concerns were the inclusion of Mutsvangwa and service chiefs in the meeting.Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander Dr Constantine Chiwenga, Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander, Air Marshal Perrance Shiri, Zimbabwe National Army Commander Lieutenant-General Philip Valerio Sibanda and Commissioner-General of Police Dr Augustine Chihuri attended the meeting.Also present were Central Intelligence Organisation Deputy Director-General Aaron Daniel Tonde Nhepera, Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services Deputy Commissioner-General Fadzai Mupfure who represented their bosses, Retired Major-Generals Paradzai Zimondi and Happyton Bonyongwe respectively.Malala said the suspension of Mutsvangwa from the Politburo and his demotion from Cabinet were reasons enough to show that he was not welcome in Zanu-PF."That to us is a serious threat to the affairs of war veterans," said Mlala. "We do not accept to work with Mutsvangwa anymore. We made our decision and it's final.Mlala added: "You agreed to include top-ranked serving uniformed senior officers led by General C. Chiwenga, Commander Defence Forces ,being a plot to intimidate and coerce us into approving Christopher Mutsvangwa back to the position of chairman against a vote of no confidence which was made on 13th February 2016."Mlala said they would boycott future meetings where Mutsvangwa attended adding that "any new threats and impositions dictated by serving uniformed comrades shall be resisted".Mlala said they protested the inclusion of Mutsvangwa in the meeting as chairman but "the ministerial committee insisted that he attends the meeting as the chairman".Mutsvangwa yesterday said: "You can talk to Minister Sekeramayi because he is the President's point man on this one."But as chairman of the association, we are not bothered by truancy of one or two errant executive members. In any event, we are already feverishly busy prelating for the war veterans summit of April 7."The issue of the perennial and long overlooked welfare of our members for almost four decades into independence is too vital for the late maturity childish tantrums of an ill-fated splittist misadventure."Minister Dube is on record as saying it was in the best interests of war veterans to unite so that their welfare issues can be addressed holistically.
News / National

by Tendai Rupapa

A Gushungo Holdings employee was sentenced to four years in jail for siphoning more than $50 000 from his employer on the pretext that he was paying suppliers.Gushungo Holdings owns Alpha Omega Dairy in Mazowe.Stephen Fino (36), who was employed as a personal assistant to the general manager, swindled the company of $52 327 and nothing was recovered.He was convicted of fraud after pleading guilty before magistrate Ms Bianca Makwande.Ms Makwande sentenced him to four years behind bars before setting aside 10 months on condition of good behaviour.Ms Makwande further suspended 15 months on condition he restitutes the complainant on or before April 25.Fino will spend an effective two years behind bars.In mitigation Fino pleaded for the court's leniency saying that he was willing to meet his employer and make a payment plan.He said he committed the offence out of need not greed."Please forgive me Your Worship, I have also pleaded for mercy from my employers and I am willing to restitute them. To show my remorse, I gave them my vehicle which is worth $5 000 as part of restitution."My salary was too low, I was earning $500, which was not enough since I am a family man. I decided to steal from them so that I would be able to send my children to school and cater for their medical bills," he said.From the stolen money, the magistrate subtracted $5 000 for the vehicle he gave away.This means Fino will restitute $47 327 to Gushungo Holdings. Prosecuting, Ms Venencia Mtake urged the court to send Fino to jail arguing that a fine or community service would trivialise the offence.Sometime last year, the company engaged the services of Ernst & Young auditors to inspect its records. The audit revealed that during the period extending from 2013 to August 2015, Fino raised fraudulent vouchers purporting that certain companies had rendered services to Gushungo Holdings when in actual fact no services had been provided.Fino misrepresented to the company that Toyota Zimbabwe, Toyota Mike Harris, First Pack, AFC Accessories and Surrey were the companies that had provided services. He then converted the money to his personal use.
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WASHINGTON  As lingering El Nino rains swell the states rivers, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined California House Republicans on Thursday to demand that President Obama order more water to be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farms in the San Joaquin Valley.

Feinstein and the Republicans sent separate, similar letters to Obama timed to apply maximum political pressure on his administration. They arrived just a few hours before the federal Bureau of Reclamation was set to reduce pumping to help preserve whats left of the delta smelt, a minnow once numbering in the millions that at last count was down to 10 fish.

The demands also came just two days after the White House convened a highly touted water summit that sought to steer water policy away from further straining overdrafted Western rivers. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Feinstein and the Republicans argued that massive volumes of water are flowing out to sea from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and should be captured.

Californias senior senator has a long history of siding with farmers in the states water wars, frequently angering Bay Area Democrats. Her letter to Obama on Thursday was part of her effort to find ways to send more water to farmers starved for deliveries during the drought.

McNerney critical

Rep. Jerry McNerney, a Stockton Democrat who represents the delta, said Feinstein and the Republicans, and the San Joaquin Valley farmers with whom they are allied, are unnecessarily taking advantage of the optics of the El Nino rainfall.

In fact, McNerney said, the farmers are going to get the water because its being stored to ship to them later, or its already been diverted. He said the lawmakers are proposing to weaken the Endangered Species Act.

For their part, Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, demanded Thursday that the president order agencies to increase pumping now over and above the maximum allowed under the Endangered Species Act.

We more urgently need specific leadership from the chief executive, McCarthy said, at the same time acknowledging the long-term goals discussed at the White House water summit.

Feinstein has been careful to maintain that moving more water to farmers would not violate the Endangered Species Act. She has called for better fish monitoring to allow higher pumping when fish are not near the pumps.

El Nino has highlighted a fundamental problem with our water system: a dogmatic adherence to a rigid set of operating criteria that continues to handcuff our ability to rebuild our reserves, Feinstein said in her letter to Obama. She called for maximum pumping of the delta, adding that pumping decisions should be based on better science.

But Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said some of the improved fish monitoring Feinstein has called for is in place, and is dictating that pumping should be reduced.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is using the real-time monitoring protocols that everyone has been asking for, Huffman said. The answer to managing drought for some folks is to let any inconvenient fish species go extinct and claim that water for themselves.

The argument boils down to how fast the estuarys rivers should flow  not out to sea, but backward  through the force of the pumps drawing the water out of the delta to the state and federal water projects.

Fish biologist Jon Rosenfield at the Bay Institute, an environmental group, said the argument by Feinstein and the GOP lawmakers flies in the face of science.

Dividing water

On the San Joaquin, he said, 86 percent of the water is already being stored or diverted, leaving 14 percent for fish. Including the Sacramento River, two-thirds of all the water flowing through the delta is already being stored or diverted, he said.

That water is mainly going to fill severely depleted upstream reservoirs, where it is being stored for later delivery to the farms and cities of the south.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Feinstein and the GOP lawmakers said pumping should exceed the negative 5,000 cubic feet per second maximum backward flow of the San Joaquin River tributaries, a limit set by federal wildlife agencies to protect the smelt. Feinstein acknowledged the limit but said agencies have the discretion to exercise at least some flexibility to pump above that level.

David Murillo, director of the Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, told environmental groups in an email Tuesday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called for much lower backward flows, no more than negative 2,500 cubic feet per second.

Wildlife officials, he said, told the bureau that the larval and juvenile smelt that have been found are highly vulnerable when the rivers run backward. Agency models showed that even negative 1,250 cubic feet per second would do significant harm to the fish and violate the biological opinions that enforce the Endangered Species Act.

Nonetheless, Murillo said the bureau decided for now to reduce pumping only to 3,500 cubic feet per second.

Making case for fish

Rosenfield accused the bureau of playing fast and loose with the wildlife agencys recommendations as it is, and said the lawmakers demands would make things worse.

With legal limits already pushed to get more water to southern farms and cities during the drought, the delta smelt, its cousin the longfin smelt, chinook salmon and several other fish are on the brink of extinction, he said. The El Nino rains could save them, but the latest January and February surveys showed the lowest number ever recorded.

Its as close to extinction as you can get, Rosenfield said. They are as far gone as they can be without actually being gone.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
A San Francisco property owner should not be allowed to cut down a 100-foot pine tree in his backyard, a city environmental committee decided Friday, siding with neighbors who want to landmark the tree over the owners objections.

In a 9-2 vote, the Urban Forestry Council concluded Friday that the tree should be landmarked because of its physical attributes, rarity, environmental benefits and cultural support. The question will now be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors for a vote. The board has historically followed the councils advice.

The fate of the tree had become so contentious that the owner hired a lawyer, while neighbors who wanted to preserve the tree obtained restraining orders prohibiting its removal. One side even consulted a shaman in Indonesia about the trees future. Some two dozen people showed up to the councils meeting Friday to support or oppose the landmark status.

If it all sounds like a wacky San Francisco story, the dispute also underscores an important question: How much say should property owners have over their land?

More for you SF tree at center of growing dispute

At a meeting in January, the Urban Forestry Council deadlocked 5-5 on whether to landmark the pine tree. One member, who was not present at that meeting, voted Friday to landmark, while three members who had originally voted against landmarking changed their votes.

Council member Michael Sullivan was one of them. He said after further consideration, the tree appeared to be sufficiently rare to warrant protection, even though he still had reservations.

In general, I think we ought to defer to property owners when a tree is in the backyard. I think we have to be really rigorous about ... not landmarking every large tree that comes before us even if it tugs at our heartstrings, he said.

Member Carla Short voted not to landmark. She said that while the tree is beautiful and should not be cut down, it did not meet the criteria. Among the factors the council considers are a trees size, age, history and importance to the environment. Short urged the council to develop an alternative for protecting big trees that do not rise to landmark status.

Yolanda Manzone, who voted to landmark the tree, said the decision was difficult. The precautionary principle tells us  we need to take the course that is most risk averse. For me that means designating it as a landmark because this is such a close call.

But Dale Rogers, the property owner, told the council that voting to landmark the tree amounts to the taking of ones private property against their wishes. And, he said, it also had more practical impacts. It hindered his efforts to use solar power for his house, and one insurance carrier canceled his policy, citing the trees potential to cause damage.

Vanessa Ruotolo, a neighbor who spearheaded the landmarking effort, said she was gratified by the councils decision.

It took a lot more time than we thought it would, but we as a community learned so much in the process and are grateful that this magnificent tree will continue to be part of our beloved neighborhood.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen
News / National

by Thupeyo Muleya

THREE police officers and a member of the neighbourhood watch committee in Beitbridge have been arrested after they were bribed with $2 400 in fake notes by a suspected stockthief.The quartet had been pestering the man for money after promising to tamper with evidence in a case where he was arrested for stealing 13 cattle.Police officers Clayton Dube (29), Nigel Gurure (26), Taurai Mavoko (32) and Luckson Ndou  a member of the Police Special Constabulary unit  were arrested by police detectives on Monday afternoon after they walked into a trap.They were arrested soon after receiving the money. The suspects appeared before Beitbridge resident magistrate Miss Gloria Takundwa on Tuesday charged with criminal abuse of office.Through their lawyer, Mr David Mhiribidi, they pleaded not guilty to the charges and were remanded to April 5 on $200 bail pending trial.The gang was also ordered to surrender their passports and not to interfere with State witnesses.Prosecuting, Miss Nomathemba Sayi told the court that the four accused persons arrested one Lishiba Mukwevho on a charge of stocktheft involving 13 cattle.Mukwevho was then taken to court on January 2 where he was released on $200 bail pending trial on March 15. Miss Sayi said some time in February , the quartet contacted Mukwevho indicating that he should pay them $1 000 each so that they could tamper with evidence in the docket to weaken the State case.Mukwevho promised to look for cash and took his time until they approached him on March 14 demanding the money since he was supposed to appear in court the following day.Mukwevho then promised to pay them after selling some of his cattle and he in turn reported the matter to his employer who then made a report to the police.The four where then trapped by police detectives on March 21 after they were told to collect the money at a house in Dulibadzimu suburb.
A federal appeals court upheld a jurys $382,000 damage award Thursday for a longtime Federal Express Corp. worker in Oakland who was fired after he suffered a workplace injury, took a disability leave and needed more time to recover.

Tim Kranson, hired in 1990, was working as a ramp agent in February 2011 when he suffered a broken toe, a ruptured arm tendon and other injuries while helping to unload containers from a FedEx flight, and took a 90-day leave, the time allowed by company policy.

Kranson said he could have done the job with some modifications after 90 days but was not released by his doctors for full duty for another five weeks. He said his supervisor had assured him during his absence that his job would be available whenever he was ready to return, but FedEx instead told him, after his doctors cleared him, that his position had been eliminated.

The company never offered him a modified job, although later he was offered a part-time job, which he turned down because he needed full-time work to support his family, he said.

A federal court jury in Oakland found that FedEx had violated Kransons rights under California law by failing to offer him a reasonable accommodation for his disability. The company argued that its 90-day leave policy was a reasonable accommodation, which Kranson should not be allowed to challenge because he had accepted it. But the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco disagreed.

An employer has a continuing duty to accommodate a disabled worker, an obligation that isnt satisfied by a one-size-fits-all policy, the court said in a 3-0 ruling.

FedEx had been informed of Kransons progress and his prospects for returning to full-time work, the court said. It said the jury was entitled to conclude that it would have been a reasonable accommodation for FedEx to extend Kransons leave for a short period when it appeared likely that he would be able to return to his position in a matter of weeks.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
Google was fined $112,000 Thursday by Frances data protection watchdog for failing to comply with demands to extend a European privacy ruling across its global domains, including Google.com in the United States.

The financial penalty  a paltry sum compared with Googles $75 billion in annual revenue  relates to the right to be forgotten ruling issued in 2014 by Europes top court. The ruling allows anyone with connections to Europe to ask search engines like Google to remove links about themselves from online results.

Google has fought hard to limit the legal decision to its European operations like Google.fr in France, saying that applying the ruling worldwide would infringe peoples freedom of expression.

Airlines

Record traffic

The airline industry set a record for passenger traffic in 2015, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Domestic carriers and foreign airlines serving the U.S. flew a record 895.5 million passengers  both domestic and international  in 2015.

Thats up 5 percent from 2014, the previous record, said the departments statistics bureau.

Television

1st Apple show

Apples first original TV project will spotlight the app economy. The company said Thursday it is working on the project with entertainer Will.i.am and two veteran TV executives.

Details are scant, and it is unclear if the show will promote or refer to Apples App Store.

Chronicle News Services
Thousands of Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente customers who enrolled through Covered California last year received erroneous tax forms saying they did not have health insurance in 2015  when they actually did.

The faulty 1095-A forms were issued in late February, after the customers had already received correct 1095-A forms indicating they were covered.

Covered California also sends the forms to the Internal Revenue Service to verify that people have health insurance as required under the Affordable Care Act and are therefore not subject to a penalty. People who get insurance through a marketplace such as Covered California need the forms to finish their tax returns, which are due April 18 unless an extension is requested.

The snafu affected about 15,000 Blue Shield customers across the state and was caused by a systems error on our end, said Mia Campitelli, a spokeswoman for Blue Shield of California. That represented about 4.3 percent of Blue Shields Covered California customers last year. Blue Shield notified customers of the problem via email and letter on March 17 and 18.

Kaiser would say only that the error impacted a relatively small number of our exchange members and was caused by a third-party vendor. Kaiser declined to identify the vendor.

Covered California issues the forms with information provided by the insurers. A spokesman for the exchange said people who received an erroneous second form, marked void, should have already received a third, correct one  or will soon. But as of Thursday, two Kaiser members I spoke to who received a second form marked void had not heard from Kaiser or Covered California.

It seems like there is problem after problem, said Kaiser customer Douglas Wiedwald of Kensington. I got one 1095-A in January. A month later I got another that said void.

The second one came with a letter that said, If the VOID box is checked at the top of the form, it means that the original Form 1095-A was sent by mistake. You do not qualify to claim the advanced premium tax credit on this policy because you were never enrolled. If you have already filed your tax return and completed Form 8962, Premium Tax Credit, based on the original Form 1095-A you received, you may need to file an amended return.

Wiedwald was certain he was enrolled, so he called Covered California. They said it was a computer glitch, and it happened to a lot of people, he said. The agent said to wait for another 1095-A. It should be identical to the first one that came.

Covered California spokesman Dana Howard could not say how many Kaiser members were affected, but the volume is much smaller than what Blue Shield sent over.

Kevin Knauss, an insurance agent in Granite Bay, posted a notice sent to Blue Shield agents about the snafu on his website at http://bit.ly/22AeCsx.

Its the latest glitch to affect the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

Obamacare requires Americans to have minimum essential coverage or pay a penalty when they file their tax return, unless they qualify for one of many exemptions. Insurers are required to issue Form 1095 to customers who have qualifying coverage, showing who in the household is covered and for what period of time.

There are three versions of the form, A, B and C. People who got subsidized insurance through a marketplace such as Covered California receive Form 1095-A. They got their first such form last year, for coverage in 2014. This years form was for coverage in 2015.

Marketplace customers can get their subsidy in the form of an advance premium tax credit, which reduces their monthly premium. When they file their 2015 tax return, they must fill out Form 8962 to figure out whether their advance credit was too high or too low, based on their actual 2015 income. To do this, they must use information from Form 1095-A.

Everyone else got their first Form 1095 this year, for coverage in 2015. People covered by a large employer got Form 1095-C. Those covered by small employers or a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid got form 1095-B.

These forms were supposed to be issued to taxpayers by Feb. 1. But in late December, the IRS extended the deadline until March 31 for all issuers except marketplaces.

Thats long after many people file their tax returns. So the IRS gave them a break. It said that for 2015 only, people who file their tax return before receiving Form 1095-B or 1095-C do not have to amend their tax return if the form, when it arrives, does not match what they put on their tax return. This assumes they relied upon other information from their coverage provider when they filed their return.

That break does not apply to people who get Form 1095-A, including those waiting for their third version.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Blog: http://blog.sfgate.com/pender Twitter: @kathpender
Lincoln revealed the all-new Navigator Concept and it's worthy enough for someone to live in it. It does have a "custom wardrobe management system," so there's the closet.

But really, this new concept needs to be made into a reality.
Bill Hutchinson / The Chronicle

A 48-year-old British tourist was pronounced dead on Thursday, more than a month after being stabbed in the head during a street robbery in San Francisco, police said.

Paul Tam died at San Francisco General Hospital, where he was taken following the Feb. 18 attack, officials said.
When police arrived at a Southern California elementary school on Wednesday, parents were allegedly pushing and shoving.

The brawl broke out over the best seats at a play put on by Ridgemoor Elementary School kindergartners in Manifee, Calif., and administrators called the cops to the scene, the Press Enterprise reported.

The play that was to be viewed at the Hans Christensen Middle School by some 300 people was called off as police grappled with an angry crowd. (The middle school was hosting the event because it accommodates more people.)

Some parents who walked to the front of the auditorium to film the production supposedly instigated the fight. Those who were sitting in the primo front-row seats were upset that others were blocking their view. Unkind words were exchanged and then things got physical.

Riverside County sheriff's Deputy Michael Vasquez told the Enterprise that no arrests were made but they did "issue a citation for a citizens arrest."

Vasquez told the Washington Post: "Sometimes adults act in funny ways."
LOS ANGELES  Comedian Garry Shandling has died at the age of 66.

Mr. Shandling, whose comedic career spanned decades, most recently appeared in Marvels Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 2, as well as cameo bits in The Dictator and Zoolander.

Friends immediately took to social media to express their condolences and remember the actor with a biting sense of humor. Garry Shandling was as kind and generous as he was funny and that is saying a lot, Jimmy Kimmel tweeted. Added Albert Brooks on Twitter: Brilliantly funny and such a great guy. He will be so missed.

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that Mr. Shandling, known for The Larry Sanders Show and Its Garry Shandlings Show on cable television, was transferred by ambulance to a local hospital, where he died. No cause of death was announced. TMZ, the gossip website, reported that Mr. Shandling had a heart attack.

Mr. Shandling had recently joined Jerry Seinfeld on his Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee for an episode this season with the eerily foreboding title Its Great That Gary Shandling Is Still Alive.

In the episode, the comedy pals tour their old stomping grounds of the Comedy Store, and talk about their career paths. During their drive, Mr. Shandling mentioned he had a hyperparathyroid gland that was undiagnosed because, as Mr. Shandling put it, the symptoms mirror the exact same symptoms an older Jewish man would have. Which is, lethargic, you get puffy, you get heavy, you kind of feel like you want a divorce but youre thinking youre not married.

Born in Chicago in 1949, Mr. Shandlings family would later move to Tucson to seek treatment for his older brother Barry, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. Barry died at age 10.

Mr. Shandling moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to pursue a career in comedy writing. He cut his teeth by writing ad copy before eventually landing staff writing jobs on sitcoms like Sanford and Son and Welcome Back, Kotter.

The comedian had a brush with death in 1977, when he was 27, when he was involved in a serious car accident in Beverly Hills. The incident prompted Mr. Shandling to focus on building a career as a stand-up comedian. He landed gigs at the Comedy Store in L.A. and cultivated a stage persona that played up his real-life neuroses.

It wasnt long before Mr. Shandling booked a coveted spot on Johnny Carsons Tonight Show in 1981 and became a regular guest.

Mr. Shandling reached his career pinnacle as Larry Sanders, a fake talk host of a fictional talk show, who was caught in a passive-aggressive dance with everyone in his sphere. It aired on HBO from 1992 to 1998.
News / National

by Lloyd Gumbo and Nyemudzai Kakore

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's meeting with war veterans in a fortnight will go ahead as planned, Zanu-PF secretary for War Veterans, Detainees, Restrictees and their Welfare and Defence Minister, Sydney Sekeramayi, said yesterday.He said this in response to a press conference addressed by George Mlala in Harare yesterday who said they were not happy with the presence of Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association national chairperson, Christopher Mutsvangwa and his entire executive at a preparatory meeting that was held on Wednesday.Mlala, who said he represented Mandi Chimene, also distributed a letter that he purportedly wrote to Sekeramayi indicating they were also not happy with the presence of security chiefs at Wednesday's meeting."First, I didn't receive any letter from them and our assignment from President Mugabe was very straight forward that we should invite war veterans and advise them that their meeting will be there on April 7," said Sekeramayi."Secondly, we were not there to deal with individuals. The meeting is going ahead as planned. The Generals are as authentic war veterans as everyone who attended."You can't exclude serving members of the security forces. How do you say commanders who are war veterans who are there on merit should be excluded from a meeting of war veterans that deals with the welfare of war veterans?"Anyone who has the welfare of war veterans at his heart must be welcoming the meeting instead of what they are trying to do."Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees permanent secretary, Brigadier General (Retired) Asher Walter Tapfumaneyi, said they would not be distracted from preparing for the meeting."Yesterday (Wednesday)'s meeting was purely technical and administrative where we were dealing with issues to do with conduct, content and expected outcomes from the meeting with the President. It had nothing to do with politics or squabbles of any kind. The service chiefs who attended the meeting are war veterans. In fact everyone who was in the meeting participated including those who issued that statement."We won't be distracted from proceeding with preparations for the meeting of war veterans and their patron whether some people want to exclude themselves or not."Sekeramayi and the other ministers who attended the meeting had a full mandate from the President to steer the meeting. So we're on course in preparing for the meeting," said Brig-Gen (Rtd) Tapfumaneyi.In the letter that was written to Minister Sekeremayi and copied to Home Affairs Minister Ignatius Chombo, State Security Minister Kembo Mohadi and Welfare Services for War Veterans, War Collaborators, Ex-Political Detainees and Restrictees Minister Tshinga Dube, Mlala said they were not happy with a number of issues about the Wednesday meeting. He said their major concerns were the inclusion of Mutsvangwa and service chiefs in the meeting.Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander, Constantine Chiwenga, Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander, Air Marshall Perence Shiri, Zimbabwe National Army Commander Lieutenant-General Philip Valerio Sibanda and Commissioner General of Police, Dr Augustine Chihuri attended the meeting.Also present were Central Intelligence Organisation Deputy Director-General Aaron Daniel Tonde Nhepera, Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services Deputy Commissioner General Fadzai Mupfure who represented their bosses, Retired Major-Generals Paradzai Zimondi and Happyton Bonyongwe respectively.Mlala said the suspension of Mutsvangwa from the Politburo and his demotion from Cabinet were reasons enough to show that he was not welcome in Zanu-PF."That to us is a serious threat to the affairs of war veterans," said Mlala. "We don't want to work with Mutsvangwa anymore. We made our decision and its final.Mlala added: "You agreed to include top ranked serving uniformed senior officers led by General C Chiwenga Commander Defence Forces being a plot to intimidate and coerce us into approving Christopher Mutsvangwa back to the position of chairman against a Vote of No Confidence which was made on February 13th, 2016."Mlala said they would boycott future meetings where Mutsvangwa attended adding that "any new threats and impositions dictated by serving uniformed comrades shall be resisted." He said they protested the inclusion of Mutsvangwa in the meeting as chairman but "the Ministerial committee insisted that he attends the meeting as the Chairman."Mutsvangwa yesterday said: "You can talk to Minister Sekeramayi because he is the President's point man on this one."But as chairman of the association, we aren't bothered by truancy of one or two errant executive members. In any event, we are already feverishly busy preparing for the war veterans summit of April 7. "The issue of the perennial and long overlooked welfare of our members for almost four decades into independence is too vital for the late maturity childish tantrums of an ill-fated splittist misadventure."Minister Dube is on record as saying it was in the best interest of war veterans to unite so that their welfare issues could be addressed.
News / National

by Melody Baya

A SOUTH AFRICAN has been languishing in remand prison since December last year after he was arrested for allegedly inserting his fingers into his niece's private parts and fondling her breasts in front of his wife.Provincial magistrate Abednico Ndebele yesterday denied Vusumuzi Mthethwa, 34, bail and remanded him to April 7, when he is likely to be further remanded to April 19 for trial.Mthethwa is facing an aggravated indecent assault charge.He was arrested late last year for indecently assaulting his then 16-year-old niece who had come to stay at a Pumula house where Mthethwa had been visiting.Ndebele said the court was in no position to grant Mthethwa bail because he was a flight risk and that his trial, which is set for April 19 at Bulawayo regional court, was already around the corner."You are a foreign national and chances are high that you may abscond after we grant you bail," said Ndebele.Prosecuting, Stewart Madzore told the court that on October 17, 2015, the teenager went to stay with the Mthethwas while preparing to write her Ordinary level examinations."On October 28 at around 4PM, the accused person called the complainant into his bedroom where he started fondling and sucking her breasts in the presence of his wife. The accused person ordered his wife out of the bedroom and in the absence of his wife, he inserted his finger into the complainant's private parts several times without her consent," said Madzore.The prosecutor said the teenager told her friends at school about the abuse and they informed the headmaster.Madzore said the headmaster made a police report which led to Mthethwa's arrest.
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Massive swaths of brightly colored coral turned bone white along Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef this year.

The damage has led the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to lift its response to the highest level 3.

Professor Nick Graham of Lancaster University told the London Guardian this is among the worst ever coral bleaching events in history and the devastation is on par with what occurred in 1997 and 98 when 16 percent of the world's reefs were destroyed in a year's time.

"This is the big one that we've been waiting for. This is the 1997-98 equivalent, which we've been anticipating for a long time," Graham told the Guardian.

The combination of climate change and a record-breaking El Nino event hitting the Pacific Ocean increased ocean temperatures off northern Australia by at least one degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), causing the bleaching.

When coral is subjected to stress, such as warmer water, it expels the beneficial algae that gives it color. The coral can come back from mild bleaching but will eventually die off entirely if ocean waters remain high.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina

A U.N. war crimes court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges on Thursday for orchestrating a campaign of terror that left 100,000 people dead during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, the worst carnage in Europe since World War II.

Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison for his role in Serb atrocities that included the Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Europe's worst mass murder since the Holocaust, and for directing the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo.

In pronouncing the verdict, presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, intended "that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed."

Karadzic, the judge said, was the only person in the Bosnian Serb leadership with the power to halt the genocide, but instead gave an order for prisoners to be transported from one location to another to be killed. In the carefully planned 1995 operation, Serb forces moved Muslim men and boys to sites around the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia and gunned them down before dumping their bodies into mass graves.

Hearing the sentence, the 70-year-old Karadzic slumped in his chair, but otherwise showed little emotion. He plans to appeal the convictions.

The former leader was indicted in 1995, but evaded arrest until he was captured in Belgrade in 2008. At the time, he was posing as a New Age healer, Dr. Dragan Dabic, and was disguised by a thick beard and shaggy hair.

Although 20 years in coming, the trial is hugely significant for the development of international law. Karadzic's conviction will likely strengthen international jurisprudence on the criminal responsibility of political leaders for atrocities committed by forces under their control.

"Victims and their families have waited for over two decades to see Karadzic's day of reckoning," Param-Preet Singh, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "The Karadzic verdict sends a powerful signal that those who order atrocities cannot simply wait out justice."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesman, Fanhan Haq, told reporters the judgment "sends a strong signal to all who are in positions of responsibility that they will be held accountable for their actions and shows once again that fugitives cannot outrun the international community's collective resolve to make sure that they face justice according to the law."

Karadzic had faced a total of 11 charges and a maximum life sentence. However, the court acquitted him of a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.
News / National

by Leonard Ncube

A HEADMASTER at a private primary school in Victoria Falls has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a teacher in front of pupils.The two had a misunderstanding over the shortage of report books at the school, a court heard.Bekithemba Sibanda, 43, of Chinotimba suburb, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Dennis Mazarira when he appeared before Victoria Falls resident magistrate Lindiwe Maphosa.Sibanda and Mazarira were both employed at AD Junior School when the incident occurred in December last year. Mazarira has since transferred to Simakade Primary in Jambezi.Sibanda claimed in court that Mazarira fabricated the charges to cover up for his acts of misconduct, which were not specified, at the school.He said Mazarira was a troublemaker that's why he had transferred to another school."He only raised assault charges because he wants to conceal his acts of misconduct. We have reported him to the District Education Officer and the Civil Service Commission on numerous occasions for such cases of misconduct," said Sibanda through his lawyer Thulani Nkala of Dube and Company.Mazarira said: "The accused came to me and asked for names of pupils who didn't have report books. I was the teacher in charge and I gave him the information that he needed.'Sibanda is out of custody on his own cognisance.Prosecuting, Listen Nare said the headmaster slapped Mazarira when he was in class."On December 2 last year at about 10AM, Sibanda and Mazarira had a misunderstanding over shortage of report books. The accused ended up slapping the complainant once on the left cheek while in class," said Nare.The trial continues on April 13.
News / Regional

by Stephen Jakes

The Zimbabwean Civil Society Organisations have challenged the government t6o ratify some outstanding human rights instruments including the convention agai9nst torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatments.This was revealed by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights communications officer Kumbirai Mafunda through his Facebook post."On Tuesday 22 March 2016, representatives of Zimbabwean CSOs urged the government to ratify some outstanding human rights instruments including the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, International Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearances, the 1961 United Nations Convention on Reduction of Statelessness, the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," he posted.
News / Regional

by Thobekile Zhou

A staggering 1,300 students at Mandwande High School in Nkulumane, Bulawayo are in danger of side effects that come with inhaling bromine mixed with water as one teacher died and six others have been in and out of hospital.An unknown number is reported to be sick. It all began with an explosion at the school on February 15.The fire brigade department then advised the school to shut down all three laboratories housed in one block.However the school deputy headmaster Methuseli Moyo refused to comply, despite not being at work when the explosion occurred."The school was very negligent. We did not expect them to continue using the labs when everyone was complaining of the same symptoms."Any responsible person would have listened because these fumes were a great threat to people's lives" said Bulawayo Chief Fire officer, Richard Peterson.The dead teacher has been identified as Trust Ncube.Prior to his death he had breathing difficulties, throat pain, itchy skin, rash and sore legs.
News / Regional

by Mashudu Netsianda

TWO carjackers lured a Filabusi man into a bush and allegedly robbed him of his car, before killing him and then dumping the body in a disused mineshaft to conceal the crime, a High Court judge has heard.Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo heard this when Edgar Majasi,32, of Khohli village in Gokwe and Precious Nkomo, 34, of Godlwayo village in Filabusi appeared before her on Wednesday facing a murder charge in connection with the death of Alphious Mabhena, 42.They were remanded in custody to April 1 for judgment.A state witness, Lazarus Gwerena, in his testimony, told the court that he last saw Mabhena alive when he was in the company of Majasi and Nkomo."The last time I saw Mabhena was sometime towards the end of August, 2011, and he was in the company of Majasi and Nkomo who indicated that they intended to supply him with explosives. They drove towards Siboza area and later I was informed by police that his remains were retrieved from a shaft in Siboza following indications by Majasi and Nkomo," said Gwerena.Another witness, Evans Mangisi, said he was approached by the two men on October 2,2011, who sought to be assisted with repairs on the late Mabhena's allegedly stolen car, a South African registered Toyota Hilux.Mangisi said Majasi and Nkomo claimed that the car belonged to their brother."They told me that they had been involved in an accident and wanted to have it repaired for the damages," he said.Prosecuting, Thompson Hove, said on August 29, 2011, Majasi and Nkomo connived and lured Mabhena into a secluded place on the pretext that they had discovered a rich goldfield which they wanted him to explore. Mabhena agreed and they drove to the area where the two claimed to have discovered the mine.The court heard that soon after disembarking from the car, Majasi and Nkomo, armed with iron rods, attacked Mabhena several times all over his body until he died. They then threw the body into a disused mine shaft to conceal the alleged crime.Mabhena's wife, Sakhelene Ndlovu filed a missing person report when she failed to locate her husband.Majasi and Nkomo pleaded not guilty. Through their lawyer, Norman Mangena, they said they bought the car from Mabhena following a verbal agreement. They claimed that they gave him 100 grammes of gold in exchange for the car valued at $11,000.They also claimed that they were forced to append their signatures on the warned and cautioned statement to admit the crime after they were allegedly tortured by police on their genitals.
News / Regional

by Staff reporter

A revenue specialist employed by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has been charged with criminal abuse of office after he failed to surrender a date stamp when he was transferred to another department.Itai Gerald Chamunorwa (28) is accused of using the date stamp to clear goods which were being imported from South Africa in three vehicles resulting in Government losing $5 500 in import duty.Chamunorwa was transferred from the Compliance Department in December last year to the Bonds Department.Compliance officers ensure that importers or exporters pay the requisite customs duty to Government while those in the Bonds Department check on imports departure validations.He pleaded not guilty to the charges when he appeared before Mr Godswill Mavenge who remanded him to April 6 for continuation of trial.Prosecuting, Mr Pernson Chekeya said Chamunorwa was transferred from the Compliance Department on December 14 last year to the Bonds Department.He said the accused was supposed to surrender the Zimra date stamp number 613 which he had been allocated to use under as a compliance officer, but he decided to retain it.Chamunorwa was allocated another date stamp number 894 at the new department.Mr Chekeya said on March 5, the accused reported for duty at the Bonds Department and logged in the work register after which he then deployed himself to the Compliance Department at the red route which is used by private importers.He then cleared three vehicles which were carrying an assortment of goods and validated their importation using the Zimra date stamp number 613. The three vehicles were intercepted by the police anti-smuggling unit as they were about to leave the border post.The detectives asked the importers to produce import documents, but they failed to do so.They, however, managed to produce three gate passes which had been stamped by Chamunorwa.Investigations were then made leading to the recovery of two Zimra date stamps number 613 from the accused's vehicles which were parked at the border post.Chamunorwa was subsequently arrested.
Opinion / Columnist

Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe's term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Harare, Spotlight Zimbabwe, can reveal.Mugabe has denied that he will step aside for anyone in Zanu PF, citing in his recent televised 92 birthday remarks, that he did not win a fresh mandate in 2013, only to pave power for someone else before 2018."Why successor? I am still there," Mugabe told the State broadcaster ZBC TV. "Why do you want a successor? I did not say I was a candidate to retire."The veteran leader plans to contest the 2018 polls aged 94, and seeking his last five-year term under the new constitution, that would see him through to 99.However, according to two diplomatic sources who spoke to Spotlight Zimbabwe in the capital this week, Mugabe is now all but in the eleventh hour of his presidency, as Western capitals now view Mnangagwa as a "pragmatic politician" ready to undertake broad-based reforms, appealing to the Bretton Woods and foreign investors."Some leaders in Brussels, have realised that Zimbabwe cannot wait until 2018 to fix her economy," one of the envoys said. "Therefore are open to the idea of giving Mnangagwa a shot, although this will irritate the opposition. They are supporting moves that he (Mnangagwa) becomes caretaker president before Mugabe's term ends, thus giving him a golden opportunity to raise credit for the economy and crystallise the possibility of winning power ultimately in 2018, but Mugabe has to be convinced to go, and from the look of things he appears to be yielding in private."Further confidential details supplied to this publication also reveal, that Canadian and Australian mining companies, are keen to move into Zimbabwe for big business in diamond and uranium mining, but Harare must first cobble friendly laws, under a reformed administration willing to re-think the country's controversial indigenization legislation, calling for local blacks to claim a mandatory 51% stake in equity, in all foreign firms across the economy.Government has given April 1, as a final deadline for full compliance with it's indigenisation and economic empowerment regime, failure which shall result in firms having their operating licenses revoked."Mnangagwa himself and some senior security officials, are reported to have interests in mining and therefore know what is required to get things back on track," another envoy said. "The potential of this country cannot remain subdued forever, that is why you must not be surprised to see unusual political alliances taking shape."The diplomats said it should not come as a surprise, if Mnangagwa and his predecessor, Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) leader, Joice Mujuru, start working together for the good of the country.Spotlight Zimbabwe, has however established and since reported that Mujuru has already sealed a pact to form a coalition government with MDC-T leader and former prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.Revelations of Mugabe's growing likelihood of stepping down this year, come in the midst of war veterans openly encouraging him, to call it a day, while they want his other deputy, Phelekezela Mphoko, ousted for allegedly fanning factionalism and tribalism in Zanu PF. Ruling party youths have had to come to the nonagenarian's defence, and plan to stage a million man march next month to support Mugabe.Mnangagwa we have also gathered, is now having formidable support from the security establishment, with Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Commander, General Constantine Chiwenga, behind him.Government insiders, who spoke to Spotlight Zimbabwe this month, see Chiwenga and Mnangagwa as having connived, with fallen former Ethiopian dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam now exiled in Zimbabwe after receiving asylum in 1991, to leverage the military and its influence in drawing first blood once and for all in Zanu PF's factional wars to take over from Mugabe, now pitting deadly plots between themselves and Grace Mugabe's so called Generation 40 (G40) confederacy.This publication first reported on 18 March 2016, that Chiwenga is reportedly on the verge on becoming the next vice president of Zimbabwe, as part of a grand political plan which has been in the pipeline since 2008, and a direct brainchild of Mengistu, who is handsomely paid for work as national security consultant of the military.Although it is not clear who the first vice president in the country is, Mnangagwa has been referred to as such by many government functionaries despite protest by Mphoko, thus favoured by the new Constitution's Sections 101(1) and 100(1) to take over as president. The Sections read respectively as thus below:Section 101(1)"If the President dies, resigns or is removed from office  the first Vice-President assumes office as President until the expiry of the former President's term of office;"Section 100(1)"Whenever the President is absent from Zimbabwe or is unable to exercise his or her official functions through illness or any other cause, those functions must be assumed and exercised(a)by the first Vice-President;.."Mugabe might be forced to step down on health grounds and advanced aged, our sources said.Prominent opposition MDC-T legislator, Eddie Cross, has also made the startling disclosure, that Mnangagwa is a step away from becoming president, adding that Zimbabwe has already gone through a bloodless coup since late 2014.Cross made the remarks, during an interview in February with the Kenya Citizen TV ( see video below starting from 17:08  19:47)."We've been through a political coup in the last six months," said Cross during the breakfast interview in Kenya. "Mujuru was the vice president for 10 years, and was clearly the most popular politician in Zanu. In fact we in the opposition, in the MDC regarded Mujuru as our only real opposition in a democratic sense. We feared that she would become candidate for Zanu, because she held some popular sway in the country. We always wanted Mugabe to be the candidate against us because he's least popular, and has no pull anymore.""But a man called Mnangagwahas made a determined bid for power, and as part of that bid, the first thing he had to do was to destroy Mujuru, which he did. We call him the crocodile, and you know if a crocodile is threatened, he goes underwater you don't see him. The next time you see him it's too late. Well when Mujuru saw the crocodile coming it was too late, and she has been eliminated."..The reality is that Mnangagwa has become senior vice president, and therefore constitutionally, and politically he will assume the presidency, should the president die or be incapacitated. I think what's happening right now, is that Mugabe is handing authority to run the state, not to take over the presidency, but to run the state operationally to Mnangagwa."
Rich Pedroncelli/AP

SACRAMENTO  The states political watchdog commission will investigate whether a top aide to Gov. Jerry Brown failed to properly disclose her stock in her former employer, Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Consumer Watchdog filed a complaint last week with the Fair Political Practices Commission asking for an investigation into whether Brown aide Nancy McFadden also helped PG&E lobby for friendly appointees to the California Public Utilities Commission and influenced legislation that would benefit her former employer. The commission said there was insufficient evidence in Consumer Watchdogs complaint to warrant an investigation into conflict-of-interest claims.
Q: Our daughter died unexpectedly in her sleep last year while we were in Venice, Italy. My wife and I had first-class tickets with award miles to come home in a few days, but we obviously needed to return as soon as possible.

A United Airlines representative told us there were no award seats available. To leave Venice with one days notice, we had to pay $5,880 for economy-class tickets. It was the highest possible rate for an economy-class ticket.

Although United has discontinued its bereavement fares, a booking agent told us that we could contact the customer-care desk and provide proof of our daughters death to seek some consideration.

When I contacted United, the response I received was: Every day United receives thousands of requests for exceptions to corporate policy  we cannot assume the responsibility for deciding which requests might be worthier than others.

I was shocked and appalled that the sudden death of my daughter would be lumped with all the thousands of requests received. The response was truly hurtful and insensitive. I then was referred to a manager, who contacted me after four weeks and said only that United would not do anything.

Richard Croce, El Granada

A: My condolences on your loss. United should have treated you with the compassion that any person would treat another who is grieving the sudden loss of a child. That clearly didnt happen.

Its true that United, like most of the domestic airlines, doesnt offer bereavement fares. The only tickets available were the most expensive walk-up fares, which are last-minute tickets priced super-high because theyre usually purchased by business travelers on expense accounts.

While its true that award tickets are limited (technically, airlines allocate only a few seats per flight, and for internal accounting purposes, theyre considered non-revenue seats), United should have treated you better. As a frequent flier, you were a best customer. Instead, you had to pay $5,880 for two small airline seats. So much for loyalty.

I might have appealed this to a United executive. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of Uniteds customer-service managers on my consumer-advocacy site: www.elliott.org/company-contacts/united-airlines. One of them might have been able to get you past the insensitive automatic responses.

I was a little surprised to get your complaint. United has been trying to improve its customer service, and should have been eager to help a grieving family that is loyal to the airline.

I contacted United on your behalf. It reviewed your case and agreed to refund the $5,880. It withdrew 250,000 miles from your account for the tickets.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Find travel tips at www.elliott.org. E-mail: chris@elliott.org Twitter: @elliottdotorg
If theres one sound youre likely to hear on the Carrizo Plain  apart from the whoosh of wind and the banter of birds  its click.

A word of warning to photographers: A spring trip to the Carrizo Plain is likely to result in a full memory card and a severe case of lens envy when you spy the gear that other people are using. Whether its vast blankets of golden wildflowers, sprinting antelopes, ancient petroglyphs, sweeping panoramas or swooping sandhill cranes, the landscape of the Carrizo Plain is so beguiling, even the laziest cell phone selfie snapper is transformed into a would-be Ansel Adams.

A roughly 50-mile-long basin east of San Luis Obispo where the San Andreas Fault slices into the Coast Range, the Carrizo Plain is a place of almost Montanan proportions hiding quietly between Highway 101 and Interstate 5. The plain, declared a national monument by President Bill Clinton in 2001, is a refuge for one of Californias largest intact native grasslands, a mostly untouched piece of San Joaquin Valley habitat elsewhere largely lost to agriculture and development.

Soda Lake, the states largest pristine alkali wetland, dominates the northern part of the plain and is the major attraction for the migratory birds that winter in the basin every year. The sheer abundance of wildlife, complete with pronghorn antelopes, tule elk, San Joaquin kit foxes and burrowing owls, has prompted some to call it Californias Serengeti, but really its California as California used to be.

March and April are the main event, especially for wildflower lovers, with daubs of yellow goldfields and hillside daisies, hazy purple phacelias, orange poppies and creamy tidy-tips extending in all directions. Every year is different  as with Death Valley and the Mojave, people wait for the rare super bloom years  but even a bad year is good by almost any other standard. Bird lovers venture out to the plain annually to spot birds around Soda Lake, including sandhill cranes, long-billed curlews and mountain plovers, many of which will also linger later into the spring.

Its tempting to think that the quiet and emptiness you find on the Carrizo Plain is the way it has always been, but Painted Rock tells a different story. One of Central Californias most important cultural history sites, Painted Rock is home to pictographs and petroglyphs dating back thousands of years.

Local American Indian tribes, including the Chumash, Salinan and Yokuts peoples, all left their marks here, as did the Spanish and later European settlers. Modern-day knuckleheads have also left their marks, so access to Painted Rock is by guided tour (March-May) or permit only.

Other rocks hold more ancient stories of destruction. The preservation of the land has left the patterns of movement and upheaval wrought by the San Andreas Fault clear for anyone to see, even from ground level.

The ridges and canyons of the Temblor Range on the east side of the plain appear fanned out like an enormous deck of cards. Take one look at Wallace Creek and something is obviously amiss. A creek that would otherwise run straight down a gully to the valley floor takes a sudden right turn, zigging 100 yards north and then zagging back on its original trajectory, suddenly finding itself on a new tectonic plate.

This is why you come to the Carrizo Plain: rocks, birds, plants, silence. If youre looking for luxury accommodations, destination restaurants  or any restaurants at all  the Carrizo Plain isnt for you, unless youre just passing through as a detour on a road trip. There are no services in or even near the national monument, so you have to fill your gas tank before you arrive, and bring food and plenty of water and anything else you might need.

It takes time to cover the distances between sights in the park, partly because of the dirt roads, but mostly because its hard to drive for five minutes without being tempted to pull over and photograph something.

To stay in Carrizo Plain National Monument means to camp, either in one of the two designated campgrounds or wherever you please in the foothills of the Caliente or Temblor Range (dispersed camping on the valley floor is not allowed). The campsites are rather tightly packed for a place of such grand proportions, but your neighbors are more likely to be identifying plants or getting up before dawn to spot birds than staying up late making a ruckus.

In the summer, Soda Lake dries to flat salt crust, the greens give way to browns, and the Goodwin Education Center closes until December. It quickly becomes obvious how the Caliente Range (Spanish for hot) on the west side of the plain got its name.

The window for visiting the Carrizo Plain is a narrow one, but when that window is open, what wonders are revealed. Just dont forget your camera.

Andy Murdock is an Alameda freelance writer. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com

If You Go

Getting there

Carrizo Plain National Monument is 4 hours from San Francisco, 50 miles east of Highway 101 at Santa Margarita, via California Highway 58 and Soda Lake Road. The northern half of Soda Lake Road is paved; the southern half is 19 miles of dirt road. Access from the south via California Highway 166 is only advisable in dry conditions.

WHERE TO STAY

Camping: Selby and KCL Campgrounds are both accessed via Soda Lake Road. Selby has 13 campsites set back in the Caliente Range foothills with views over the plain and access to hiking trails; KCL has 12 campsites on the valley floor. First come, first served year-round; free. No drinking water available; garbage must be packed out.

Lodging: The friendly but basic California Valley Motel is the only motel option on the plain itself. 12900 Soda Lake Road, California Valley, (805) 475-2363. Rates start at $65 per night; cash or check only.

WHERE TO EAT

There are no restaurants in or near the national monument; bring provisions. Coming and going, stop at the Range in Santa Margarita for a steakhouse dinner with local twists; or Cuyama Buckhorn in New Cuyama for barbecue, burgers and breakfasts along California Highway 166.

WHAT TO DO

Free guided Painted Rock tours are offered weekly from early March through the end of May. For the remainder of the year, a self-guided tour is possible by permit only. Reservations required; www.recreation.gov or call (877) 444-6777.

Information

Bureau of Land Management: (805) 475-2131, www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/nlcs/carrizo_plain_nm.html

Wildflower updates: Theodore Payne Wildflower Hotline www.theodorepayne.org/education/wildflower-hotline; or Desert USA, www.desertusa.com/wildflo/ca.html
Opinion / Columnist

"Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe's term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Hara-re," Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.No thinking man or woman will have any problem with Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe to the 2018 finish line. The takeover will be good for the country, if for nothing else, in that it will end the dangerous and very destabilizing factional war that has raging on and on in Zanu PF for the last two years.What Mnangagwa's backers must understand, however, is his takeover to 2018 is one thing go-ing beyond that is another matter. The people of Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections; we must have the democratic reforms and the free and fair elections. Mnangagwa will never implement the reforms and deliver the free and fair elections because he is unelectable, not even a guaranteed Chinese style two digit economic growth rate can ever change that. Since Mnangagwa cannot win free and fair elections and the 2018 election MUST be free and fair, it follows that he cannot be president after 2018.President Mnangagwa will scrap the indigenisation law and a basketful of Mugabe's many other misguided and unworkable laws and policies, he will rein in some of the looting and plunder that have sucked the life-blood out of the nation, etc. There is no doubt he will impress the IMF and many of the other international players who have been itching to return and invest in Zimbabwe.Given Zimbabwe's present rock-bottom economic position, it is very possible to record noticeable economic recover after a few months. The economy showed the new growth after the formation of the GNU and the electorate was bowled over, it is not inconceivable to achieve the spring growth and bowl the people over once more.The big question President Mnangagwa and his backers will have to answer is: Will the signs of economic recovery, no matter how impressive they happen to be, ever be enough to make Mnangagwa believe he can ever win free and fair elections?What Mnangagwa and his backers must understand is that there are many Zimbabweans who totally believe that it is in the short, medium and long term interest Zimbabwe to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy complete with the guarantee of free, fair and credible elections. The 2018 elections must be free, fair and credible that objective is not negotiable!So to rephrase the above question: Will Mnangagwa ever have the confidence, between now and 2018, to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair? If President Mnangagwa's challenge was delivering economic recovery alone, then he would have a fighting chance; sadly he such a dirty past that not even the most skilful spin-doctors can ever conceal it.36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and looting and murderous political op-pression by Mugabe and Zanu PF have taken a heavy toll on the nation; the people do not only mistruth the regime they hate the tyrant and his cronies with a burning passion. When Joice Mu-juru and her supporters were booted out of Zanu PF; they thought all they needed to do was de-nounce Zanu PF and rebrand themselves as a caring people orientated outfit and povo will em-brace them once again as their liberators as happened in 1980. Wrong!Joice Mujuru has found herself being bombarded with hard-hitting questions about her Zanu PF past. "My hands are clean!" she screamed like a startled fork-tailed drongo, when she was quizzed on corruption.Mugabe admitted recently that the regime has looted $15 billion worth of diamonds in the last 7 years. The true amount must be $150 billion, at least; given Mugabe alone pocketed $2 billion in 2012, according to Allan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a respected research organization fighting the trade in "blood" diamond. Everyone knows that the Mujurus have amassed a big for-tune, she is a simpleton with no known talents; she was the second highest ranking member in the regime whilst all this wholesale looting of diamonds was going on. She is on record denying there was no corruption in Zimbabwe!Even if one was to accept the drongo's "clean hands" denial she should have known about the loot-ing and stopped it; if anyone loot billions under her very nose without her knowing then surely she is just too incompetent to be president.Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders are having a real tough time shaking-off their rotten Zanu PF past and they were considered the doves in Zanu PF compared to the blood-thirsty hawks like Emmerson Mnangagwa.The people of Zimbabwe hate Mnangagwa and for very good reasons too. Zanu PF has been unelectable for donkey years but has nonetheless managed to stay in power regardless because Mugabe resorted to all manner of dirty trickery including vote rigging and wanton use of violence to stay in power. Through it all Mugabe has had Mnangagwa as his right-hand man, his most trusted henchman.Now that Mugabe is riding into the sunset, Mnangagwa must also accept the spotlight and blame for the regime's treasonous crimes like the Gukurahundi massacres will shift from the tyrant to him. Mnangagwa has since mounted a concerted effort to distance himself from their shared past but to no avail. He has not only denied ever saying the cheap popularity statements he made at the time, for example, but has even threatened to sue former MDC Senator David Coltart for quoting the statements in his book. The threats have opened the flood gates; even more articles about Mnangagwa and the role he played in the massacre have come to light.Gukurahundi is one of the darkest chapters in Zimbabwe's history; over 20 000 innocent people were murdered in cold blood. It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa has GUKURAHUNDI tat-tooed in florescent ink on his forehead. With such a cursed reputation, there is no way he can ever win a free, fair and democratic election.Mnangagwa's crocodile nickname is well earned and Mugabe has rewarded him for doing the tyrant's dirtiest jobs. But if Mnangagwa ever thought the people of Zimbabwe will forget or forgive him for all the human misery this tyrannical Zanu PF regime has inflicted on them all these years, then he must be very naive indeed. In a free and fair election no one will vote for him because, given half a chance to end this dictatorship forever, only a fool would waste it.Mnangagwa; no freeman or freewoman would ever want a crocodile for president! No one!The fight for a democratic Zimbabwe stalled after Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one democratic reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU. The fight stalled but it did not stop; the need for meaningful change is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have another rigged elections and the fight to get all the GPA reforms implemented before the 2018 elections will intensify.Mnangagwa will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms; he was stupid enough to do Mugabe's dirties jobs but he is smart enough to know he will never win free and fair elections. If any of his handlers think he will implement and democratic reforms then they are naive. As for the people of Zimbabwe we are determined to have meaningful democratic change because we now know that whatever economic recovery we achieve without political reforms will be as short lived as the recovery during the GNU years.
BRUSSELS  Heavily armed police swept into Brussels neighborhoods Friday in operations linked to this weeks bombings as well as a suspected new plot in France, detaining three people and shooting two of them in the leg. One man was carrying a suspicious bag while accompanied by a young girl.

As Easter weekend began, jittery Europeans faced uncertainly about how many violent extremists remain at large, and where and when they might strike again.

On Friday afternoon, two blasts and gunfire rang out in the Schaerbeek district of Belgiums capital, where police earlier found explosives and bomb-making material in an apartment used by the suicide attackers who killed 31 people and wounded 270 in assaults on the Brussels airport and subway.

Authorities, meanwhile, confirmed one of the attackers at the airport was the bomb-maker who made explosive vests used in last years carnage in Paris  the most definitive link yet between the two attacks, both of which have been claimed by the Islamic State group.

On the third and final day of national mourning, Secretary of State John Kerry laid a wreath at the airport for the victims of Tuesdays bombings  a ceremony that was skipped by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel because of the police operations.

Kerry, in a hastily arranged visit, defended Belgiums counterterrorism efforts despite a series of security and intelligence failures before the bombings that have brought sharp criticism of top members of Belgiums embattled government. Authorities believe both the Brussels attacks and the Nov. 13 bombings in Paris that killed 130 people were plotted from Belgium.

As the identities of the victims began to be made public, officials announced that American, British, German, Chinese, Italian, French and Dutch citizens were among the dead. Two Americans were among the 31 people killed in Brussels. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the names were being withheld out of privacy considerations.

A manhunt has been under way for one of the airport attackers who was recorded on a surveillance video and fled the scene. Prosecutors have not said how many attackers there were in total, or how many accomplices might be at large.

But they said Friday that DNA analysis and an official investigation had confirmed one of the suicide bombers at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, 24, a suspected bomb-maker whose DNA was also found on a suicide vest and bomb used in the Paris attacks.
Christian believers around the world mark the Holy Week of Easter in celebration of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines  A Filipino devotee was nailed to a cross for the 30th time in an annual Good Friday ritual, which he dedicated to peace in Belgium and other countries targeted by Islamic extremists.

Ruben Enaje and 14 other men, some screaming in pain, were nailed to wooden crosses by actors dressed as Roman centurions in San Pedro Cutud and two other rice farming villages in Pampanga province north of Manila, according to organizers.

Thousands of foreign and local tourists snapped pictures of the devotees, who re-enacted Jesus Christs suffering and death in scorching heat. Other devotees flogged their own bloodied backs with whips while walking barefoot around the dusty villages.

The gory spectacle reflects the Philippines unique brand of Catholicism, which merges church traditions with folk superstitions. Many of the mostly impoverished penitents undergo the ritual to atone for sins, pray for the sick or for a better life, and to give thanks for what they believe were God-given miracles.

Enaje, a 55-year-old sign painter, began the annual ordeal after he fell from a three-story building in 1985 and survived nearly unscathed.

Asked what he was praying for this year, Enaje said he was saddened by the recent bombings at the Brussels airport and subway station and other attacks in the Middle East that hurt innocent people.

What are they fighting for? Enaje asked, referring to Islamic State group militants who have claimed responsibility for the Brussels attacks. Even the innocent are not spared.

He expressed concern over reports that Islamic State extremists may have already influenced Muslim militants in the southern Philippines.

The Lenten rituals are frowned upon by church leaders in the Philippines, Asias largest Roman Catholic nation, especially if the religious spectacle is used to boost tourism. The event, however, has persisted and has become an awaited tourist attraction in San Pedro Cutud village, about 45 miles north of Manila.

After 30 years, Enaje said he has thought of ending his involvement in the crucifixions in the next few years, although he remains physically fit enough to endure the experience, which has deepened his faith.

The intensity of the pain, he said, has never changed in each of the years that the 4-inch stainless steel nails were hammered through the same spot in his palm and feet.

The only thing in my mind is that God went through worse, Enaje said.
WASHINGTON  The Pentagon said Friday it was moving to increase the number of American troops in Iraq amid new strikes this week that killed the Islamic States finance minister in Syria and other senior leaders.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. progress in eliminating members of the Islamic State Cabinet was hampering its ability to conduct and inspire attacks against the West. The announcement came as the battle to retake the Syrian city of Palmyra entered its third day and Iraqi forces continued their march to recapture Mosul.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters that recommendations on ways to increase U.S. support for Iraqs ground fight against Islamic State will be discussed with President Obama soon.

The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasnt been made, Dunford said. He did not say how big that increase might be.

He and Carter said accelerating the campaign against the Islamic State will include more assistance like the artillery fire and targeting help that U.S. Marines provided earlier this week to Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul. But they said American forces remain well behind the front lines.

I think theres a lot of reasons for us to be optimistic about the next several months, Dunford said. But by no means would I say that were about to break the back of ISIL or that the fight is over.

Using an acronym for the militant group, Carter said the U.S. is systematically eliminating ISILs cabinet, killing several key members in strikes this week.

Earlier this year, a special unit of U.S. commandos tasked with identifying, capturing and killing the Islamic States leaders arrived in Iraq and began working closely with local forces there.

Carter said the finance minister, who is known by several names, including Abdul-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli and Haji Imam, was a well-known terrorist who had a hand in terrorist plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

He said al-Qaduli has been associated with Islamic State dating back to its earliest iteration as al Qaeda in Iraq. He said he had worked under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a liaison for operations in Pakistan and was responsible for some external affairs and plots.

In a separate operation, a U.S. air strike in Mosul killed another top Islamic State leader, the official said. Carter identified the man as Abu Sarah and said he was one of the leaders charged with paying militant fighters in northern Iraq.
WASHINGTON, D.C.This year marks a sexual milestone for the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry: It has "inducted" George Carlin's 1972 record album Class Clown, which prominently features the monologue that sparked one of the most important (and incredibly fractured*) free speech cases in Supreme Court history, Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, "The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television."

The induction is a landmark, because the Registry is noticably lacking in anything approaching sexual speech. The closest it comes is its 2010 recognition of "beat comic" Mort Sahl's album At Sunset, which has plenty of risque political humor but nothing approaching Carlin's honesty regarding language.

The Supreme Court case began when Carlin delivered a 12-minute monologue titled "Dirty Words" at a theater in Californiathe same monologue for which he was busted for obscenity in Milwaukee in July 1972. The California performance, before a live audience which responded with plenty of laughter, was later broadcast on the afternoon of October 30, 1973, on Pacifica Foundation's New York radio station WBAIand that's when its problems really started.

In the monologue, after Carlin points out that words like bitch, bastard, hell and damn were okay for television broadcast, he continues, "so I have to figure out which ones you couldn't say ever and it came down to seven but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed, uh, by now, ha, a lot of people pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself. The original seven words were shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, mother-fucker, and tits. Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and (laughter) maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor (laughter) um, and a bourbon."(The entire monologue can be heard here, and can be found transcribed more or less accurately in the Appendix to the high court's opinion here.)

In short, while the Court found that while Section 29 of the Radio Act of 1927 provided that, "Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construed to give the licensing authority the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the licensing authority which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communications," it decided that the concluding sentence of that portion of the act, "No person within the jurisdiction of the United States shall utter any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication," gave the FCC license to fine Pacifica for having aired the Carlin monologue during a time when children could have heard it.

It's a decision that has kept all broadcast media in the U.S. in a near-infantile state when it comes to discussing sexual issues, not to mention words that most Americans use at least several times a week in their daily conversation. (To be fair, over the past two or three years, several primetime television programs have indeed used such words as "shit," "bullshit," "piss" and "tits" with no FCC fines resulting.)

However, even the Supremes attempted to soften the blow to free speech in the opinion's concluding paragraph: "It is appropriate, in conclusion, to emphasize the narrowness of our holding. This case does not involve a two-way radio conversation between a cab driver and a dispatcher, or a telecast of an Elizabethan comedy. We have not decided that an occasional expletive in either setting would justify any sanction or, indeed, that this broadcast would justify a criminal prosecution. The Commission's decision rested entirely on a nuisance rationale under which context is all-important. The concept requires consideration of a host of variables. The time of day was emphasized by the Commission. The content of the program in which the language is used will also affect the composition of the audience, and differences between radio, television, and perhaps closed-circuit transmissions, may also be relevant. As Mr. Justice Sutherland wrote, a 'nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong placelike a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.' We simply hold that when the Commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene." [Citations removed]

But despite the holding in Pacifica, it's clear that Carlin was one of a handful of comics (including Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley and others) who were essential to this country's cultural growthand its growing acceptance of the fact that sex and sexual speech are parts of life that should be beyond the government's power to control.

*Here's how the official Supreme Court opinion is parsed in law books: "STEVENS, J., announced the Court's judgment and delivered an opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I-III and IV-C, in which BURGER, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined, and in all but Parts IV-A and IV-B of which BLACKMUN and POWELL, JJ., joined, and an opinion as to Parts IV-A and IV-B, in which BURGER, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined. POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined. STEWART, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, WHITE, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined."
BEDFORD, N.H.Adult star and mainstream actress Sophie Dee headlines tonight and Saturday, March 25 and 26, at the Gold Club New Hampshire, located at 390 South River Road, Bedford, NH 03110.

Dee is available for pictures and autographs. She will have videos on hand to sign, as well as her signature toy made by Doc Johnson.

Closing in on 1 million followers on Instagram, Sophie is currently ranked No. 5 in the world on XVideos.com and is ranked No. 1 in popularity for both the United Kingdom and Europe. She won Miss Freeones in 2011 by fan vote. Dee's website has been nominated multiple times for AVN Awards.

Her mainstream credits include roles in Restoration as well as in the upcoming Director's Cut, written by Penn Jillette and directed by Adam Rifkin. Dee starred in a number of horror movies, including Theater of Derange and Unmimely Demise. She is featured in a recent Dillon Francis music video with more than 11 million views. Her mainstream projects can be found on her IMDB page here.

Dee said, "I have a busy feature dance schedule coming up in April, heading to Dallas, Ohio, New Jersey and NYC. I am excited to kick off my tour of the USA with New Hampshire tonight and tomorrow. The Gold Club is a great place to feature! I hope all my fans in the area can come out and meet me."

Sophie Dee's April dates include Rick's Cabaret in Dallas (April 1-2), Harem in Dayton Ohio (April 8-9), Chiller's Theatre (April 22-24) and Sapphire NYC (April 30).

The Welsh beauty said, "If you can't make it to the clubs, you can also meet me online at my next members show on Tuesday, April 5 at my official site SophieDeeLive.com."

Follow Sophie on Twitter and Instagram: @sophiedee.
NEW DELHI: In order to encourage innovations, the government has launched a scheme which can tap over one lakh ideas at the school level.

Under the scheme, 'Million Minds of Innovation of Creativity', or MIMIC, the Ministry of Science and Technology will ask over five lakh schools to give two ideas in pursuit of innovation.

"The idea could be given in any language," said a top official.

Of these, 1 lakh ideas would be selected at the district level. The best ideas will be further filtered at the district and state level.

"At the state level, some 10,000 ideas will be shortlisted which will be given 5,000 each to remove any weaknesses in them.

"Some 1,000 ideas will be short-listed by a group of senior scientists at the national level," the official said, adding that about 1,000 students will be mentored by senior scientists.

Read Also: Starbucks To Donate Unsold Meals To Hungry

World's Fastest Kiwi' Cyclist Completes India's Golden Quadrilateral In 24 Days
BENGALURU: Some call it the fourth industrial revolution or "industry 4.0"; for others, the time when machines can "talk" at "smart" factories and "connected" homes to make your life better is here. But for India, Internet of Things (IoT) can bring a real revolution: empowering millions in rural areas and connecting "humans" to the mainstream.

A well-connected nation is the first step towards a well-served nation and, hence, connecting rural India to the IoT will provide the much-needed bridge between urban and rural India.

"It is a surefire way of channelling the benefits of a digital economy to the largest part of the country. IoT will enable delivery of education, health, governance and financial services to otherwise underserved areas," Oracle India managing director Shailender Kumar stressed.

For example, most patients in rural areas do not have access to specialists. Thus, several large hospitals in the metros are beginning to offer remote consulting services in rural villages using media-rich network capabilities.

"The doctors can see and interact with patients in remote telemedicine centres, with the case history and medical data automatically transmitted to the doctor for analysis. Similarly, the IoT technology can be leveraged to offer high-quality remote education in high schools across the country," Shailendra Kumar told IANS.

The IoT connectivity also offers a host of development opportunities to untapped areas, including manufacturing and e-commerce to market local and traditional products.

"A host of 'localisation' technologies can help different regions to communicate; so language is not a barrier. Relevant information and updates can be provided in local languages and scripts," the Oracle executive added.

According to K.S. Viswanathan, vice president (industrial initiative) at apex IT body Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies), as IoT emerges as the next big thing to become a $300 billion (roughly 22,41,307 crores) global industry by 2020, India is all set to capture at least 20 percent market share in the next five years.

"The IoT is dramatically alerting manufacturing, energy, transportation, medical and other industrial sectors worldwide," said Viswanathan while launching the "Nasscom IoT Centre of Excellence" in Coimbatore last week.

Andhra Pradesh has taken a lead when it comes to leveraging the IoT potential in the country. The state government has approved the first-of-its-kind IoT policy with an aim to turn the state into an IoT hub by 2020 and tap 10 percent market share in the country.

Read Also: Indian Railways: Reservation Quota For Senior Citizens In Train Enhanced By 50 Percent

Xi Jinping, Barack Obama To Meet Next Week
Cuomo.jpg

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in January that New York City would have to pay a higher share of CUNY funding but later backed off and last week said it's fully restored, as long as its runaway back-office costs are addressed. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As 40 protesters were arrested in Manhattan on Thursday while calling for increased CUNY funding, the governor's office repeated its statement that the city university system will keep its state funding after the governor initially announced it was going to be cut.

In January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said since the CUNY system is a joint venture between the state and city, with the city appointing 30 percent of the trustees on the CUNY board, it should have to pony up more funding.

Facing an immediate backlash from city officials and residents, Cuomo backed off that statement, saying it "won't cost a penny" for the city.

But it had been unclear whether the state would indeed continue to fund the $1.6 billion for CUNY, instead of requiring the city to pay its share of $485 million.

Cuomo's director of operations, Jim Malatras, said on March 16 in no uncertain terms that the state would continue to fund the full figure.

"This year's executive budget proposal ensures that CUNY will receive full funding," he said in a statement. "The $1.6 billion in aid it receives has not changed, and will not change under this budget."

But he and Cuomo are asking the state Legislature to approve the hiring of a "management organization expert" to work with CUNY and SUNY to eliminate duplicative back-office costs.

"Indeed, to do more for students, CUNY must improve and streamline its back office overhead and administrative costs," Malatras said. "Focus should be on the students and classrooms, not boardrooms and administration. CUNY's cost of administration is one of the highest in the nation."

The following day, responding to questions from the press after a presentation about the Zika virus outbreak, Cuomo said of CUNY and SUNY "in my opinion there is a lot of duplication in back-office costs. You run two of everything. We spend a lot of time saying to local governments, 'You have to find a way to share services, reduce costs.' Why don't SUNY and CUNY get together and figure out what they can do on the back-office administrative side to actually save money and be more efficient and effective."

He said his administration has been calling for this reform for years but there has been little interest. By hiring an expert to make recommendations, more money can be spent in classrooms and on student services, Cuomo said.

"The back office costs of SUNY and CUNY are way high, proportionally and there's no reason for it," he said. "It's a question of management and management efficiency."

On Thursday, the protestors outside Cuomo's Manhattan office were demonstrating not only against the cuts that had been proposed but also because they feel increased funding should come from the state to CUNY. About 40 protesters linked arms and lay down on the ground to block entry to the building. They were arrested for disorderly conduct.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Supreme Court Justice Mark Dwyer this week denied alleged Bonanno crime boss Nicholas Santora's release on home confinement, according to a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Santora, along with his three alleged Bonanno associates -- Anthony "Skinny" Santoro, 52, of Great Kills, Vito Badamo, 53, and Ernest Aiello, 36 -- are currently on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court for enterprise corruption, including loansharking, gambling and drug dealing, after they were busted in July 2013.

Santora's attorney, Michael Alber, had previously asked the court for bail and home confinement after the 73-year-old's family noticed a deterioration in his health.

Santora, who has been incarcerated for almost three years, was transferred to Bellevue Hospital two weeks ago before Dwyer heard medical testimony and made an official ruling.

Nicholas Santora in file photo from 2007.

Last week, two medical experts testified about the mob defendant's condition and, specifically, his history of falls and whether that has led to a traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Alan Engelman, the expert for the prosecution, examined Santora, and found him to be alert, aware, engaging, focused and even jovial. He also noted that there were no signs of concussive injuries from the falls.

"He was good-humored- he made some jokes," Engelman said. "His mental status was normal. His memory was normal. There is no evidence of psychiatric impairment or cognitive impairment. He has not hurt himself irreversibly due to the falls -- at least not to his brain."

Engelman had recommended Santora remain at Bellevue Hospital.

During court proceedings last week, Alber claimed his client has a myriad of symptoms, including trouble concentrating in court, dizziness, blurred vision and poor nutrition.

Santora has had at least a dozen falls, including two recently, the lawyer said. Just last week, he claimed, Santora fell while at Bellevue and was found face down. A couple of months ago, the defendant flipped out of his wheelchair during a Department of Corrections transfer.

Dr. Jason Chamikles, a family practitioner, testified for the defense after examining Santora earlier this month. It was his opinion, he said, that the defendant had a "possibility of traumatic brain injury based on the falls."

"Each fall can worsen the condition," Chamikles said. "The risk of each concussion can cause possibility of brain injury. The falls have persisted despite location -- including Bellevue."

The state claims Santora, who is nicknamed "Captain Crunch," is the crime family's alleged ringleader. The prosecution says he was in charge of an Internet gambling site, sold prescription drugs, such as oxycodone and Viagra, on the black market, and the other three defendants were his underlings.

Santora inspired the character played by the late Bruno Kirby in the 1997 film "Donnie Brasco."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island man with an outstanding warrant for his arrest was captured by New Jersey police Wednesday, according to NJ.com.

The report states that Rodney Stevenson, 42, had a warrant out of New York stemming from an incident in which he allegedly stabbed someone in the back, stomach and groin area this past November on the Island.

Stevenson was nabbed by detectives from the Passaic County Sheriff's Office inside a New Jersey residence and charged by the sheriff's office with being a fugitive from justice, according to the report.
Pills.jpg

A pharmacy technician with Vicodin tablets. By writing prescriptions electronically, doctors expect to cut down on abuse of opioids like the pain medication. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In a few short days, doctors in New York State will no longer be permitted to use paper pads to write prescriptions for their patients, and those in the Staten Island medical community have been preparing for the countdown to the March 27 deadline.

With some exceptions for those who obtain waivers, beginning on Sunday, physicians will no longer hand write prescriptions or call them into a pharmacy.

Instead, they will use electronic prescription systems to e-prescribe, with the hope that doing so will cut down on the instances of prescription drug abuse.

Exceptions include during disasters, technological or electrical failures, and other exceptional circumstances, in which case prescribers must still use official state prescription forms and must document the reason for using the paper script.

Part of the I-STOP program that began in 2013, e-prescribe would make it harder for addicts to abuse drugs. By checking the I-STOP database, physicians and pharmacists have been able to see when a patient got a prescription, information about the drug, like how many pills and dosage per pill, and can cut off abuse.

Now, with the e-prescribe portion of the I-STOP program, not only will it be harder for addicts to get access to the drugs, but it has also shown to cut down on instances of errors.

SOME ON STATEN ISLAND ALREADY PREPARED

There are already more than 60,000 physicians prescribing electronically, according to the governor's office. So for them, there's really no transition.

Dr. Salvatore Volpe is one of them.

A doctor of internal medicine, he has been keeping electronic records in his Staten Island office for a decade and has been prescribing electronically.

He sees many more benefits to the system than he sees downsides, although there are a few.

There are fewer transcription errors, as doctors are notorious for poor handwriting, and it cuts down on abuse.

No longer can a patient add a zero to a prescription for 10 Vicodin, and stealing prescription pads will be a thing of the past.

But Volpe notes that doctors still have to check I-STOP registry before they write a script.

A great help in the e-prescribe program is giving drug information, specifically about potentially dangerous drug interactions that could harm a patient.

While physicians do look up drug information, sometimes they don't know enough about a new drug on the market.

"Most doctors are humble enough to admit they don't know everything," Volpe said. "Access to formulary information is very, very helpful."

Volpe also likes that e-prescribe cuts down on wait time.

"There's a big convenience factor because they don't have to wait; more likely than not, it's there when they get there."

But one pharmacy technician at a CVS on Staten Island who asked not to be named because the pharmacist isn't authorized to speak to the press, said many patients think because the prescription is submitted electronically, it will be ready in a matter of minutes, which is often not the case.

"It still takes us time to fill the prescription."

The technician sees fewer transcription errors, even though typing errors sometimes occur.

With many doctors prescribing electronically, the technician and other pharmacists have long had time to adjust.

One downside is there may be some inconvenient back-and-forth between the patient, doctor and pharmacist if a drug is unavailable at the pharmacy.

As for the component that aims to curve abuse, the pharmacy technician said, "I do think it will cut down it ... but I'm sure people will still find ways to get around it."

At that particular CVS "we use I-STOP all the time" but "if another pharmacy isn't as diligent as we are in checking that ... [addicts] walk away with" the drugs.

As New York doctors prepare to comply by the March 27 deadline, in the past two or three weeks, this particular technician has seen a spike in electronic prescriptions, with less and less paper.

Dr. Hirshal Kirane is the head of addiction services at Staten Island University Hospital North and he too sees doctors getting ready to comply.

"The hospital has taken a pretty proactive role in that and has been engaging physicians for easily the last year in trying to get the people on board in anticipation there would be a lot of logistic steps and troubleshooting to be done," he said.

"Overall the perception of physicians is that this is a positive step, along the lines with the rational that this ... gives more oversight and regulation particularly of controlled substances and can hopefully safeguard against over prescribing."

But with any electronic regulation there can come hazards with that.

"An electronic system can be hacked," he pointed out.

But like the others who spoke before him, he said it cuts down on errors.

But it can also empower groups like insurers and pharmacists that can undermine the treatment of the patient, he said.

"So it's not perfect by any means but I think it is a step in the broader direction in rising awareness" of limiting opioids.

Henry Thompson is the CEO of Community Health Center of Richmond, which has two locations in Port Richmond that provide medical and dental services to low income patients, and his doctors there have been writing all their prescriptions electronically as part of their electronic health records system since 2011.

"Reducing prescription errors, making sure the prescriptions go to the pharmacy in a timely and real-time basis, I think those are all benefits," he said.

While Volpe is a self-proclaimed IT junkie who certainly doesn't have to be told to use technology in his practice, he notes that the law will burden some doctors, as "not everyone walks around with a laptop" after their normal office hours.

When in the past they have been able to call in a prescription, they will now need to have a home computer.

Overall, Volpe is optimistic the intention of the law, to cut down on drug abuse, will be realized.

"I think it will do a great job, it will clamp things down a lot," he said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The search continues on Friday morning for the man who fatally shot a mother and her son and wounded another man in Mariners Harbor.

No arrests have been made in the shooting spree on Thursday evening that claimed the lives of Adelle Rivera, 47, and her son, Anthony, 21, in front of their home at 14 Roxbury St. at the Mariners Harbor Houses, according to an NYPD spokesman.

Both mother and son suffered gunshot wounds to their heads.

Police said Jose Ramirez, 22, as identified by the media, is in stable condition in Richmond University Medical Center after being shot 3 times in the left leg.

A dispute of an unknown nature led to the shooting, according to the police spokesman.

Officers are currently searching for a man who fled the scene in a dark-colored Hyundai Accent wearing a gray hoodie, an NYPD spokesman said.
Anthony Morales

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD has released the name and photo of a man sought in connection with the fatal shootings of a mother and son in Mariners Harbor Thursday night.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce posted a wanted poster with a picture of Anthony Morales on his official Twitter feed.

Morales, 49, is identified in the poster as the "perpetrator" in the slayings of Idelle Rivera and her son, Anthony.

Morales lives in a different apartment in the same Mariners Harbor Houses building as the Riveras, according to police.

A $2,500 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of Morales, who also allegedly wounded another man in the shooting spree on Thursday evening on Roxbury Street in front of the Mariner Harbor Houses.

Morales is possibly driving a black, 2013 Hyundi Elantra with Pennsylvania plates, according to the flier.

Morales is about 5' 9" tall, weighs about 200 pounds and was last seen wearing a gray T-shirt, tan cargo pants and black shoes, according to police.

Idelle Rivera, 47, and her son, Anthony, 21, died after being shot in front of their home at 14 Roxbury St. Both mother and son suffered gunshot wounds to their heads.

Police said Jose Ramirez, 22, as identified by the media, is in stable condition in Richmond University Medical Center after being shot three times in the left leg.

A dispute of an unknown nature led to the shooting, according to the police spokesman.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-8477 (TIPS), submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers' website or by texting their tips to CRIMES (274637), then entering TIP577.
Hula group creates global connection When the pandemic ushered everyone indoors, Moorpark resident and longtime dancer Lisa Rauschenberger decided to get people back outsidesocially distanced, of course. She began to hold weekly hula lessons at...

Hospital offers safe option to dispose of meds, narcotics Los Robles Health System is working to crush the opioid drug crisis by raising awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse and the importance of safe and proper disposal of...

Rotary works to promote worldwide peace, goodwill The Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise recently invited administrators and principals from the Simi Valley Unified School District to attend a meeting and receive the book The Nonviolence Handbook: A...

Free books and Halloween treats Big fun awaits kids at local little libraries

Simi Valley has about 20 registered Little Free Libraries that offer free books for children, teens and adults. In addition to providing free books to the community, the Little Free...
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Tennessee State Rep. Mike Stewart pulled out an assault rifle before his colleagues on the legislature floor in an effort to prove a point on easy gun availability.

Rep.. Stewart, who said he bought the gun online, asked law enforcement to secure the gun so he could safely show it to colleagues in the legislative chamber

Noting that Brady background checks are not required for every gun sale in Tennessee, Rep. Stewart said he was able to buy the gun with cash. There was no identification required and no questions asked.

Rep. Stewart said, "In the state of Tennessee, anyone at all can go into a gun show or go online and buy a gun with no background check and no questions asked. I really felt it was necessary to illustrate this to my colleagues and people around the state, showing them just how easy it can be for a prohibited purchaser to buy a gun if background checks are not required. And I really hope they paid attention because when violent felons and domestic abusers are able to buy a gun with nothing but a handful of cash, it puts lives at risk.

"Tennessee has a long, proud history of hunting and gun ownership - and this is about keeping guns only out of the hands of the people we all agree should not have them. Those who would stand in the way of expanding Brady background checks are moving against a popular tide - Tennesseans and Americans from all political stripes have had enough of senseless gun violence in America. And I will work with any politician or citizen who is ready to put a stop to it."

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said: "This is a great example of the type of bold leadership that elected officials can and should take, even in states like Tennessee with a rich history of gun ownership. We applaud Rep. Mike Stewart for demonstrating how easy it is for anyone to get their hands on a gun online or at gun shows when background checks are not required. Had a domestic abuser, violent felon, or terrorist been the one to purchase that rifle, the lesson Rep. Stewart taught his colleagues today could have come at a much higher cost.



"This is not a political or idealogical issue. In fact, 90 percent of Americans already agree - Congress should finish the job that Jim Brady, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton started by expanding lifesaving Brady background checks to every gun sale. As Rep. Stewart demonstrated yesterday, we all want the same thing - to keep guns out dangerous hands. Outside the reach of lobbyists and special interests, this is not a controversial idea. That's why six states have expanded Brady background checks since the Sandy Hook tragedy, with two more on the way this November. This momentum is so clearly the result of an America that has has enough of the terror that kills 90 people each day. We call on every politician at all levels of government to follow Mike Stewart's example and lead on this life and death issue."
A small business in Florida has filed a class-action lawsuit against Chattanooga-based CBL&Associates, alleging that CBL has overcharged thousands of its mall tenants for years through a calculated criminal enterprise of inflated electricity charges, charging tenants up to 100 percent more than cost of electricity the tenants actually used, according to consumer-rights law firms, Hagens Berman, Buckner + Miles and Yormak Employment & Disability Law.

According to the lawsuit, CBL promised its small business tenants that their electricity charges would not exceed what CBL was charged by local public utilities for the electricity the tenants actually used, but CBL breached its own lease agreements  and applicable state law  by inflating tenant electric bills up to twice the amount of tenants would have been charged had they purchased electricity directly from the utility company.

The 32-page complaint filed March 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida accuses CBL, one of the nations largest mall owner and operators, of engaging in racketeering and conspiracy in violation of Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), breach of contract and violation of Floridas Civil Remedies for Criminal Practices Act, among other counts.

For years, CBL has been serving as an illegal middleman, breaching its own lease agreements with small businesses, and inflating electricity bills up to twice what its tenants should have been paying. CBL rigged the system and took advantage of its tenants, said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman. CBL has been caught red-handed, and we intend to make it stop. We want to see every penny from these years of inflated charges returned to tenants.

The suit seeks relief for all individuals and entities that leased mall space from CBL and paid it monthly energy charges.

The suit states that CBL went as far as to attempt to cover up illegal upcharges by inserting a clause into its lease agreements requiring tenants to waive their right to audit CBLs electric bills. In exchange, CBL agreed that it would not mark up their electricity charges, according to the complaint.

CBL blatantly lied to its tenants, attorney Berman said. Not only did it engage in illegal markups for the cost of electricity in its shopping malls, but it engaged in the very activity it promised it would not do in its own lease agreements.

What we have here is a classic tale of David and Goliath, Seth Miles of Buckner + Miles added. CBL knew that as a bigger, more powerful entity, it would be able to take full advantage of thousands of small businesses, and it succeeded for years.

"CBL lined its own pockets, all at the expense of its own small business tenants, many of which struggled to stay open or were forced to close in the wake of the Great Recession," noted Benjamin Yormak of Yormak Employment & Disability Law.

The lawsuit states that CBLs scheme was fully unmasked when CBLs Gulf Coast Town Center mall (GCTC) went into foreclosure and was taken over by CBLs lender. As a result, a third-party management company was brought in to manage the mall It became immediately apparent that CBL had been significantly overcharging its GCTC tenants for electricity.

CBL&Associates had no comment.
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James Edward Bradford, Jr. has been elevated to the position of director of communications for the Bradley County Sheriffs Office.

Sheriff Eric Watson stated, Its extremely important that this department has positive interaction with the community. I want to be sure the citizens of Bradley County are continuously informed about deputies involvement inside the community. Lt. Bradford has various relations within the community through civic organizations and community service, and he understands my vision.

Lt. Bradford will be tasked with making sure the Sheriffs Office is involved with community events throughout the year, and keeping citizens informed through the departments website, news media, and social media accounts.

Sheriff Watson said, I know that some citizens rely on social media in order to stay updated, and I want to begin catering to this demographic as well.

His career started as a reserve deputy in the Patrol Division, and was hired in 2005. He has held the ranks of Field Training Officer, Corporal, Sergeant, and Lieutenant throughout his career. Lt. Bradford is a graduate of the Cleveland Community Colleges Basic Law Enforcement Academy, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxvilles Southeastern Leadership Academy.

Sheriff Watson concluded by saying, Lt. Bradford will do a great job keeping the citizens of Bradley County involved in the daily operations of the Sheriffs Office, and maintaining our departments vision that is stated on the website. ' It is the vision of the Bradley County Sheriffs Office to be a leader in public safety, community service and crime prevention. We will strive to develop the community policing philosophy of building partnerships and problem solving methods with our residents. It is the goal and purpose of our deputies that Bradley County be an enjoyable and safe community in which to live, work, and visit.'

"We encourage citizens to visit our website, www.bradleysheriff.com. Please like us on Facebook, connect with us on Periscope, and follow us on Twitter, @BradleyCoSherif."
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/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01e9d88)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f008f930)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01e9d88)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f008f930)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01fffa0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f008f930)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f008f930)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50c970)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0209ac0)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0209ac0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612e2529fa0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50d628)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612e2529fa0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50d628)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe32b58)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50d628)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50d628)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50be50)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612ee50c4f8)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612ee50c4f8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0270310)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f026c2b0)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0270310)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f026c2b0)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01f6b50)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f026c2b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f026c2b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50cb68)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02c0340)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02c0340)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
Some creations of the past, like his famous chocolate crackles with chicken liver parfait, or fairy bread with caviar, hint at his secret: Eggert, his sister and restaurant manager Berri, and Whiteman spend their Sundays visiting country shows.

Paddington chef Eggert is better known for creating dishes with co-chef Jemma Whiteman that exemplify good produce and innovation such as "licorice farfalle, rabbit and carrot".

"This is an easy score," said chef Mike Eggert of restaurant 10 William Street as he demolished a still warm Country Women's Association scone at the Sydney Easter Show.

They love nothing better than a local CWA scone, a sausage sizzle with snags from the local butcher, and anything that resembles a cheese toastie. "We are show junkies," said Mr Eggert. "We're always looking for what new food is on a stick," said Ms Eggert.

Jemma Whitman, Mike Eggert and Berri Eggert go taste testing at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Credit:Louise Kennerley

Where better to look than Sydney's Easter Show? Armed with a map and iced water to refresh their palates, the veteran showgoers set off on a marathon eating effort to rate show foods using three categories: taste, value and fun.

They started at 9am with a show perennial: Cheese on a Stick, $5. "It's great, it's cheesy," said Mr Eggert before his co-chef added words not normally associated with food on a stick. "It's briochy."

Biting into a Country Women's Association scone at the next tasting, Mr Eggert said anyone who didn't like it was "just un-Australian," added Ms Whiteman, finishing her co-chef's sentence with the knowledge that comes from six years working together in squeezy restaurant kitchens.
All this back and forth about if VRI is working or if it's not working. From what I can tell, the officers are arresting people. They are doing their job.

It's time for the DA to do his job. Stop giving plea deals and dismissing cases for any gang member. Period. As the prosecutor, you can decline a plea deal and you can decline to dismiss a case. Nothing in Tennessee State Law says you can't do that.

Marty Knowles

Chattanooga

* * *

I would like to respond to the people who are saying that DA Pinkston and his employees are not doing their jobs. I worked for the Sheriff's Department for 30 years. I worked the jail, patrol and the courts for my last 13 years. I have known DA Pinkston long before he was elected as the head DA and the many DAs that work the courts.

First, the people of Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga need to take the time to go to the courts and sit and listen and they would understand why cases are plead down or dismissed. Witnesses don't show up to court and they cannot be found or they change their stories.

I assure you DA Pinkston and his employees are doing the best job they can do with what they have because I witnessed it for 13 years firsthand. The gang problem in Chattanooga is not going to ever change until politics is taken out of the equation and let the officers do their job and not handcuff them. The elected people in Chattanooga are afraid if the officers go in and do their jobs then people will start screaming to the press and it will hurt them and they will not get reelected.

Sometimes in life you have to take the kid gloves off and get down in the trenches and fight fire with fire.

Gary R. Blair

* * *

Just recently I surprised my wife with a trip to the Bahamas for a weekend getaway. It had been many years since I have been there and my wife has always wanted to go. What I quickly realized is that the little island surrounded by turquoise waters is that the same place that I visited long ago. As we rode in a taxi through various parts of the city I could see the obvious signs of poverty and crime. I spoke with a cab driver about the state of crime and safety in the, which he assured me of my safety but relented that crime in particular violence had risen quite significantly. He elaborated that the justice system works very slowly there. People get tired of waiting for those responsible to face their punishment, therefore they take matters into their own hands. You could see that it was really hitting home to him as he explained that even if the accused sees their day in court often times the victims are left feeling unsatisfied with the end result.

I think many of us in this community are feeling left unsatisfied with the end result of our seemingly dysfunctional court system. It has become a state favoring probation despite that recidivism rates for adults on probation is more than 75 percent within five years. So, why do we do it? Why do we do it when we have established laws in place to ensure that violent offenders with gang status go to prison, and stay there..for a long time.





I read General Pinkstons scathing letter and my reaction was Leaders dont do this sort of thing. Leaders dont write passive-aggressive letters that are made public. Leaders meet in person, sit a table, collaborate and develop a plan that everyone can agree on. The more I read of Pinkstons letter the more I realized that he has a totally misconstrued concept of what the city police department is asking in his office as a partner. This isnt secret information, this is information that is readily available on the internet. The strategy is not asking for the DAs office to do anything unethical. It is simply asking for special attention to cases that require it from offenders that are constant and most often violent. It is asking that you operate within the framework of the law and seek the highest sentence possible. Im not sure how General Pinkston thinks this is illegal. Heres an example, does the District Attorneys office give special consideration to murder case? Yes. During the course of the trial does the district attorney seek the highest punishment possible within the law? Yes.

What General Pinkston has said in past is that he is unwilling to give priority to cases brought to him by the VRI. I have a difficult time with this, because essentially what he is saying that when police determine that a gang is responsible for violence they will do everything in their power to build cases and put them all in jail. The police rely on the DAs office to accomplish this, but Pinkston doesnt feel that violent gangs in our city should be a priority of prosecution. I am certain that Pinkston would say different; however his lack of attention to these cases says otherwise.

To further this statement, it seems like daily I read in the news where a validated gang member did this or a validated gang member was caught with guns and drugs, but you know what I cant recall ever hearing? When the last time we heard about a validated gang member is received a sentence enhancement? How many gang members have received sentence enhancements under General Pinkston?

In the end General Pinkston seemed to be way in over his head to be talking about the day to day operations of the police department. His perceived inadequacies of the department's implementation of the VRI is just that, perceived. I mean how would he even know? Its apparent this guy wont even show up to meetings much less have a solid grasp of what is really being conducted. I encourage our leaders to work together, because in the end the only way this is going to work is through solid, collaborative partnerships and the public support of our law enforcement.

Timothy Bryce

* * *

DA Pinkston is not just acting like a child, he is creating a very dangerous situation for our police officers. He is blaming the poor job of his office on men and women who put their lives on the line every day to stop gang bangers from ruling our streets.

The cops are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have gangs on one side who won't give them any information so all they can do is arrest them for misdemeanors. Then on the other side, they have a DA's office that gives the gang members all plea deals or dismissal and puts them right back on the street. What do you think that gang member is going to do when they are back out?

The DA needs to stop being a politician and start doing his job. He was elected, remember? He owes voters a real explanation, not just throwing everyone else under the bus to save himself.

Samantha White
Backed by air power from a US-led coalition and by Kurdish Peshmerga forces, Iraqi troops advanced westwards, recapturing several villages from the Islamist militants, according to multiple military sources. Russian President Vladimir Putin's associates made an appearance in Panama Papers. Credit:AP "The first phase of the Fatah [Conquest] Operation has been launched at dawn to liberate Nineveh, raising the Iraqi flag in several villages," said a military statement cited by Iraqi state TV. Iraqi officials say they will retake Mosul this year but, in private, many question whether the army, which partially collapsed when IS overran a third of the country in June 2014, will be ready in time. A man walks through the ruins of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria, last year. Credit:New York Times

The US-led military coalition against IS said it had also struck targets in and around Palmyra, a rare example of the US-led force attacking an area also under attack by Russian-backed Syrian government forces. Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday it had carried out 41 sorties between March 20 and 23 in the region of Palmyra, attacking 146 "terrorist targets". Syrian government soldiers gather at the entrance of Palmyra on Thursday. Credit:SANA After months in which the West accused Moscow of helping Dr Assad fight mainly against other foes, Damascus has launched a major offensive this month to take back Palmyra, which the fighters seized in their biggest Syrian offensive of last year. The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

Syrian government soldiers gather on a hill at the entrance of Palmyra on Thursday. Credit:SANA The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the south-west of the city and reached a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts. Palmyra has some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, some of which were dynamited by Islamic State in what the United Nations calls a war crime. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an atmosphere noticeably more amicable than past meetings. Both men expressed hope for more progress towards ending the fighting. After Russia intervened with air strikes to shore up Dr Assad last year, Washington and Moscow have jointly sponsored a peace process that has produced the first sustained ceasefire of the war and the first negotiations involving the warring parties.

"The serious approach that we have been able to cooperate on has made a difference to the life of people in Syria and to the possibilities of making progress on peace," Mr Kerry said at the start of talks with Mr Putin. "The people of Syria and the people of the region have as a result been able to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction of violence and receive humanitarian assistance." Mr Putin, who has announced he is winding down Russia's military involvement in Syria, even offered warm words for US President Barack Obama, with whom his relations had sunk to a Cold War-era level of hostility since Washington imposed sanctions on Moscow over its intervention in Ukraine in 2014. "We understand that what we have been able to achieve on Syria has been possible only thanks to the position of the US top political leadership, President Obama," Mr Putin said at his meeting with Mr Kerry. "I very much hope that your visit will allow us to bring our positions closer on moving forward to solve the Syrian crisis and ... on Ukraine." The US and Russian-sponsored ceasefire between the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his enemies does not cover IS or al-Qaeda's Syrian arm, the Nusra Front. In Geneva, where the first peace talks involving the government and its foes began this month, the opposing sides were expected to sign a UN document reflecting some initial common ground. The aim was to move towards discussing the divisive question of a political transition in Syria when the talks resume next month.
He was overlooked by Sydney as a father-son selection, but Josh Dunkley appears to have made an impression at the Western Bulldogs. The teenage midfielder was on Friday named in the Bulldogs' 22 to take on Fremantle at Etihad Stadium, set to make his debut alongside mature-age West Australian backman Marcus Adams.

Dunkley, the son of former Swans' defender Andrew, was taken by the Dogs at pick 25 after Sydney opted not to match the Bulldogs' bid for the Gippsland prodigy.

New Dogs: Josh Dunkley (second from left) and Marcus Adams (far right). Credit:Pat Scala

2014 best and fairest winner Tom Liberatore was also named for what would be his first premiership season match since tearing his ACL during the 2015 NAB Challenge. The Dogs will however be without small forward Tory Dickson, who was removed from the original 25-man squad earlier on Friday. Dickson, who kicked seven goals in the corresponding fixture last year, had been afflicted by groin tightness during the pre-season. He was replaced in the squad by Nathan Hrovat, who was ultimately named as an emergency alongside Jack Redpath and Lin Jong.
In the current era of office construction, having a doctor confer with the architect is not out of the ordinary.

Given the world has embraced the fact that buildings must be green, making the box in which a majority of people spend much of their day, good for us, is no longer a "tick the box" exercise.

Buildings under construction at Lend Lease Group's Barangaroo redevelopment, center, are reflected in a puddle in Sydney. Credit:Brendon Thorne

Lighting, nourishment, water, mind, fitness and comfort are now as imperative as offerings in an office tower, as a USB plug for the computer.

Sitting is also seen as the new cancer for office workers, so desks must be adjustable. Not having enough water fountains around the office is as a definite black mark.
Shoppers may have to pay to protect their gift cards from corporate collapses but they should not get preferential treatment ahead of other unsecured creditors, according to legal experts

Forcing external administrators to honour gift cards was also dismissed as "commercially undesirable" by legal experts, Professor Michael Quinlan along with Associate Professor Keith Thompson and Philip Stern in one of the first submissions to the Senate Inquiry triggered by the demise of the Dick Smith electronics chain.

They argued raising the status of gift cards would push up the losses for all other creditors.

The trio did not back the establishment of trust accounts for gift cards, which other submissions have suggested, however a "separate fee" could be imposed to cover the cost of a fidelity fund, which could partly cover gift cards in the event that a retailer falls over.
This has been the key area where Mr Jordan has drawn resources to undertake audits of companies such as Google, Apple and BHP Billiton.

Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan hopes funding to fight corporate tax avoidance and other key programs can continue. Credit:Daniel Kalisz

The Australian Taxation Office's key program targeting multinationals, known as "international structuring and profit shifting" (ISAPS), which was funded by the former Labor government over four years, comes to an end in 2017.

Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan hopes the May federal budget will include more money to fight multinational profit shifting.

In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Jordan said he hoped funding to fight corporate tax avoidance and other key programs could be ongoing, as this would help him secure long-term expertise in the audit team.

Singapore's government has previously told Fairfax Media it is not a tax haven, but a value-adding hub.

"We have a series of programs that get funded. It's rolling on money and rolling off money."

ISAPS was one of those four-year programs. "We will have to make a bid closer to the event [federal budget] to have that [program] rolled over," Mr Jordan said. "I'd expect that to be favourably looked upon."

The ATO has started over 300 risk reviews of multinationals and has 48 audits in progress.
In most cases the workers are too afraid to speak out for fear of being deported or are threatened that they will put their families at risk back home. A scandal at 7-Eleven was a key focus of the inquiry. Illustration: Simon Bosch Credit:Simon Bosch Over the course of a year and 10 public hearings, the Senate inquiry, chaired by Senator Sue Lines, heard first hand evidence from victims, regulators, unions and academics, outlining cases of wage fraud, worker exploitation and in some cases slavery. It has now released a report with the apt title "A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders". Some of the recommendations are highly controversial, some are obvious, but everyone agrees that the current situation can't  and shouldn't  go on.

It cites a survey by United Voice found that of more than 200 international students, 25 per cent were receiving $10 or less an hour, 60 per cent were earning less than the national minimum wage and a massive 79 per cent knew little or nothing about their rights at work. Controversial proposals The more controversial recommendations relate to labour hire companies and the $170 billion franchise industry. A key recommendation is that Treasury and the ACCC review the franchising code of conduct and "whether there is scope to impose some degree of responsibility on a franchisor and the merits or otherwise of so doing". This follows a joint media investigation of the country's biggest convenience store chain and franchise network 7-Eleven, which found systemic wage fraud and fabrication of payroll records across the 620 franchised stores. The Senate didn't pull any punches. Armed with stinging criticism from Professor Allan Fels, the committee didn't buy arguments from billionaire and 50 per cent owner Russ Withers that "the 7-Eleven model had a 38-year track record as a very viable system".

The report said: "evidence to this inquiry challenged the notion put forward by 7-Eleven that it was unaware of the racket that its franchisees were running. The committee shares the view of many submitters and witnesses, that the protestations by the former chairman of 7-Eleven and other senior executives that they were simply unaware of the mass underpayment of employees defy belief". It went further and said it was "wary of what appears to be a well-oiled public relations exercise that seeks to distance 7-Eleven from the practices of its franchisees". The brutal reality is the franchise code needs to be revisited and franchisors do need to be more accountable for what their franchisees are doing. Labour hire reform needed Labour hire companies also need to be held accountable for their actions, as outlined during the Senate hearings.

In one case, the inquiry was told about a 417 visa scam where workers at a meat processing facility did a six-week training course and "get paid nothing". Once the training was completed, they worked up to18 hours a day, six days a week. "They were frequently denied proper breaks and often had to keep working or return to work early after suffering workplace injuries," the inquiry was told. To this end, the opposition and crossbench members of the committee recommended introducing a licensing regime for labour hire contractors and that a business can only use a licensed labour hire contractor to procure labour. "There should be a public register of all labour hire contractors. Labour hire contractors must meet and be able to demonstrate compliance with all workplace, employment, tax, and superannuation laws in order to gain a licence. In addition, labour hire contractors that use other labour hire contractors, including those located overseas, should be obliged to ensure that those subcontractors also hold a licence."

The committee said there was "pervasive abuse of the working holiday visa program by a network of labour hire companies supplying 417 visa workers to businesses in the horticulture sector and the meat processing industry". But the recommendation wasn't unanimous. The Coalition senators on the panel, including Senator Bridget McKenzie, disagreed on the basis "it would punish those labour hire firms which are already complying with relevant laws". Time for accountability The Senate also looked at the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman and whether it had adequate resources and tough enough penalties to control systemic wage fraud and worker abuse of foreign workers. Instead of making its own recommendations to address the shortcomings, it called for a government review of the resources and powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman to be completed by October 30 by an independent tripartite panel.
If the truth hurts The determination of the federal government to enact a narrowly focused building industry watchdog rather than a broad-ranging Commonwealth anti-corruption body may have something to do with a well-founded fear of the potential for political embarrassment from an independent commission beyond political control. It is likely that experience with the National Crime Authority explains this reluctance. That authority was established in 1984 to continue the work of a series of royal commissions that revealed widespread corruption at Commonwealth and state levels. Its undoing came in 2001 in contradicting the Howard government's narrative that it was winning its war against drugs.

In fulfilling its remit to publicise information on the state of organised crime and recommend reform of the law and administrative practices, its chairman wrote in a commentary "that the illicit drug trade continues to flourish in our country". His sin was to suggest unpalatable non-law enforcement solutions: "Among the many measures worthy of consideration is to control the market for addicts by treating the supply of addictive drugs to them as a medical and treatment matter subject to supervision of a treating doctor and supplied from a repository that is government controlled." The resulting abolition of the authority and its replacement by a less than adequate Australian Crime Commission remains an intimidating warning against anyone in government criticising drug policy and of the political danger of according any agency too much independence. Bill Bush, Turner Economy v planet

Thank you for publishing the article by Mark Hearn, of Macquarie University, ("We are going to need a climate plan  and fast", Forum, March 19, p7) about the alarming fact of the emergency of climate warming and the lack of Australia's response to a climate emergency plan. Hearn's statement  "we can't seem to win the battle against climate change. Perhaps that's because the pursuit of economic growth accelerates at all costs"  rings very true. Making money by exploiting the natural environment is the only thing that counts for many people and governments. Fiona MacDonald Brand, Lyneham Liberal madness

It is reported that Liberal candidates for October's ACT election will be required to disclose any mental-health problems to party officials as part of the nomination process ("Libs adopt strict stance on social media", March 22, p2). One in five Australians experienced a diagnosable mental health disorder in the last 12 months and nearly half will do so in their lifetime. In other words experiencing mental health issues is completely normal. So why would the Canberra Liberals consider previous mental-health issues to be such a risk that prospective candidates must report this experience alongside criminal history? The stigma of mental illness is alive and well, and it appears the Canberra Liberals are trying to avoid having any of those risky people with mental-health issues among their election candidates.

What the Canberra Liberals ought to do is to recognise that experiencing mental health issues is normal and having had such an experience makes a person more qualified to relate to the electorate, not less! Simon Viereck, executive officer, Mental Health Community Coalition ACT Mitigating chaos Whatever else the slogan "continuity with change" may be, it is not meaningless ("Has Malcolm Turnbull copied Veep's campaign slogan?", online, March 23). In fact, it describes not only the way things are, but the way they should be. Change is inevitable, but a degree of continuity is essential or else chaos ensues.

The key to good politics and government is finding the right pace for change: too fast and you alienate the conservatives; too slow and you frustrate the progressives. I think Turnbull is doing reasonably well so far. Michael McCarthy, Deakin Enormous costs I disagree strongly with Mike Brayshaw's views on feral animals ("Why dealing with feral animals is so complex", March 18, p6).

I'd suggest there is little real value in the feral pigs, horses, camels, etc that plague Australia but enormous costs, including severe damage to free ecological goods and services such as the water supply. I'd further suggest that these feral animals were mostly brought in not because of their value but because of cultural cringe: the nasty belief that Australian animals and plants were grossly inferior to the Old World's. Adopting Brayshaw's apparent prescription of abandoning feral animal control would condemn many unique native plants, animals and environs to eventual destruction/extinction. Brayshaw also says carp thrive because our Murray-Darling rivers are degraded. We should be very clear that carp are not just a symptom but an active driver of poor river health (albeit one of several). He also says that, in the lower Murray River, "native fish can't survive but carp can survive in 50 per cent seawater". Yet numerous reference books attest that some native fish, such as the important golden perch, are able to survive such salinities.

Simon Kaminskas, Palmerston Fast train clincher An east coast high-speed rail system is logical and desirable (Editorial, March 21). A truly great station here, showcasing the national capital, could clinch Canberra's inclusion, if it were in doubt. The Commonwealth's recent report on a complete Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne high-speed-rail system examines several ACT station locations  including the airport, recently praised by Andrew Robb ("'Right time' for a very fast train", February29, p5)  against wide-ranging criteria, especially commercial benefits. The report recommends a Civic station below and on the alignment of Ainslie Avenue nudging Cooyong Street. That relates to the report's preferred route in and out of Canberra. Chosen is a two-way tunnel under Mount Ainslie, which is shown to be quieter and faster, and involves less disruption, land acquisition, etc than alternatives, including an airport approach route.

What's missing from both the sub-Ainslie-Avenue and airport locations is a great "national capital arrival experience". A site offering that, still using the Mount Ainslie tunnel, could be near the CSIRO headquarters in Campbell, with a large elevated glass concourse over the intersection of Ainslie and Limestone avenues, commanding fine prospects of Parliament House, Civic, the lake and mountains. Jack Kershaw, Kambah Light rail relief The ACT government will "seek a mandate for [the light rail to Russell] from voters" ("Barr puts Russell tram plan on shelf", March 23, p2). All three main parties have promised us a light rail at one time or another. Do they really need yet another mandate?

I just received a pamphlet from "CanTheTram", which said incorrectly that rates are increasing because of light rail, rather than because the government is phasing out stamp duty. The pamphlet implied that only the people of Gungahlin will benefit, ignoring the reduced congestion and pollution for the rest of Canberra. It also said a bus rapid transit network would be better, even though buses are bumpy, cramped and vulnerable to traffic jams. I'd hate to think the government was caving to a well-organised but ill-informed minority. Jack Heath, Charnwood Fair recompense

I was dismayed to read Anthony Senti's letter about the new Lifeline Book Fair venue this September (Letters, March 23). I trust that Andrew Barr will make good any shortfall in revenue that is likely to result from using a smaller venue. Gay von Ess, Aranda TO THE POINT DON'T FOLLOW RUDD

Tony Abbott should not follow in the footsteps of Kevin Rudd by destabilising his party. He could show "true grit" and support Malcolm Turnbull  if "the Peta principle" allows. Cynthia Moloney, Yarralumla REPRISE OF OLD ROLE? Is Tony Abbott working towards the Turnbull government being defeated or at least damaged at the next election, as an exercise in self-vindication? Perhaps with a view to resuming the role in which he was so effective: leader of the opposition? Geoff Hayes, Fadden

WEALTHY BORROWERS Your front-page article "Student debt may still be nabbed after death" (March 23) begs the question: $100,000 is a lot of money. Why do students who have serious equity or cash qualify for government loans? Gerry Murphy, Braddon A YURTFUL WORD It's obvious Ian Warden has never visited Mongolia ("Yurt classroom pops up at ANU", Gang-gang, March 24, p12). I have, and when I referred to the Mongolian yurts during a visit, the Mongolians quickly corrected me. As they don't seem to particularly like the Russians, whom they remember as their former colonisers, it was pointed out to me that "yurt" is a Russian word  and the Mongolian word, which I should have used, is "ger".

John Milne, Chapman WAITING FOR ANSWER If our society is as good at implementing electric cars as it is at implementing telephone call centres, then we will never know how many accidents there are. E Linsky, Fisher CLOCK IS TICKING
The Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation sponsored by House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick that would give teachers across the state reprieve from certain TN Ready Assessment requirements.

With the passage of House Bill 1419, Tennessee teachers will now be allowed to choose to include results from the 2015-16 TN Ready and TCAP tests as part of the student growth component of their annual evaluations depending on if the results would be benefit them or not. Teachers would also be allowed to exercise this option for any three year cycle.

Based on some of the recent TN Ready Assessment implementation difficulties our teachers and schools have experienced, I think its only fair to give teachers this option of whether or not to include these scores, said House Majority Leader McCormick. Certainly, teachers are an absolutely vital part of this state and we dont want to force any requirements on them that would put them at a disadvantage.

The bill passed the House with a 95-0 vote and will now go to the governors desk after having been previously passed in the Senate earlier in the week. Additional information regarding this legislation can be found on the Tennessee General Assembly website at: http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1419




"I've ended up with a life that's quite meaningful and satisfying. And yet there's two people not here because of me  two people who will never have satisfaction. Their families will always be grieving. Because of me." James avoids recounting the murders in his book, although the details emerged in 2009, thanks to internet users picking and picking at the facts. At the crucial point in his memoir, there is a newspaper clipping reproduced on the page. The details are sketchy but seedy: 28-year-old James Monahan (as James was then known) and William Ross, 25, were convicted for killing Greville Hallam, a 48-year-old theatrical agent, and Angus Cochrane, a 29-year-old solicitor. There's two people not here because of me  two people who will never have satisfaction. Their families will always be grieving. Erwin James Hallam was robbed and strangled in his London home in 1982. In a separate incident, Cochrane died in hospital after being mugged in the West End.

James fled and joined the French Foreign Legion, but deserted to hand himself in. He still remembers the words the judge used to describe him at the trial. Brutal. Vicious. Callous. Few people know exactly what happened when James' victims died. He has written down the story only twice: once in a confession to Joan Branton, the prison psychologist who helped transform his life, and once when applying for approval to visit Sydney in 2013. (It was granted. He gave a talk at the Opera House titled, A Killer Can Be a Good Neighbour.) He believes that to give gory details would be an affront to the men he killed. "Just me being around is painful for my victims' families, I'm sure it is," he says. By the time Hallam and Cochrane's names were linked to The Guardian's columnist, James was free. A woman who had known Hallam emailed to say she had admired James' writing for years "and now I've discovered you killed my friend". James "cried like hell" and, after a while, wrote back saying sorry, asking if there was anything he could do. Her response was brief: "I regretted that email as soon as I pressed send."

Another of Hallam's friends wrote to say that the agent would have been proud of what his killer had achieved. "Imagine how that made me feel," says James and for a moment it looks like he might cry. He went to the British Library to dig out that old newspaper clipping for the book and while he was there, he pulled out another fragment from the archive: the local news story about the car crash that killed his mother when he was seven. Back then, James was called Erwin James Monahan. From his mother's death until the day he took his two first names as a writer's pseudonym, life would be tough. His father was a violent drunk. There was never enough to eat. A few weeks after James' 11th birthday, he was placed on probation for breaking into a television factory. After he robbed a bowling alley he was placed in state care.

The children's home where he lived for four years would be his only fixed address until he went to prison for murder. In between, he squatted, slept rough and stayed with girlfriends. He had two daughters with different mothers, but both women threw him out for his drunken violence. James offers no excuses. "Lots of people have difficulties in their lives and they get through it," he says. In prison, he had time to stop and think. He put his name down for evening classes and remembered his childhood love of reading and writing. He did homework in his cell, listened to current affairs on the radio, passed the UK's school-leaving exams, then graduated from the Open University, majoring in history. Early in his sentence, he met Branton in the "psycho's office" near the gated entrance to Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire.

"All she wanted me to do was succeed in being a better person," he says. "She wasn't thinking about the future. She was thinking, with the life that you've got left, you ought to use it to do the best you can." The Guardian column came about by chance. A probation officer who knew James liked to write lived next door to the Irish novelist and screenwriter, Ronan Bennett. After James and Bennett struck up a correspondence, Bennett mentioned the prisoner's talents to Ian Katz, an editor at the newspaper. All this reads like a story of redemption, a shining example of the good work prison can do, but James isn't having it. Along with the books and the chats with Branton, he remembers the riots, the suicides of his fellow prisoners and the constant effort to look like nobody's victim. He kept the column a secret; jail was no place for a tall poppy. "Even today, every four days on average in [British] jails, someone is killing themselves," he says.

"I benefited from good-hearted, open-minded people who worked in our jails, but it really was chance in the end that I made it. "I'm not saying I deserved a second chance, but we have a system that lets even people like me out. If we are letting these people out, we've got to make sure that whatever failings they had when they went to jail are addressed. "If they need an education, let them have it. If they need work skills, give them work skills. Because they are going to come out and they are going to be somebody's neighbour. And let me tell you, if they are going to be my neighbour, I want them rehabilitated." James' memoir closes with him walking out of the prison gates on a sunny day in 2004. But that's not where the story ends. He continued to write for The Guardian. A life inside became A life outside. He advocated for prison reform, worked with charities and spoke in schools. He reconciled with one of his daughters and got to know his grandchildren. He met a woman and fell in love.

Then one day The Guardian asked James to write about his time in the French Foreign Legion. Fearful of revealing his identity and his crimes, he fudged the dates and lied in print. The internet sleuths pounced. They had a Legionnaire and a double murder. It was only a matter of time before they found a name. In 2009, James stumbled across an obscure forum that had his story straight and decided to come clean in another Guardian piece. The Mail on Sunday followed with a story headlined, "The murderer who wrote lies and got paid for it". The internet was satisfied. "This has been a great thread, but I've got to go back to my proper job," wrote one poster on ilxor.com's message board. James got drunk and got into his car to drive off a white chalk cliff in East Sussex. A passerby saw his car wobbling over the road and reported it to the police, who arrested James and locked him in another cell. "I thought they were going to recall me to prison," he says. "But they didn't. They were so supportive."

James is full of wonder whenever he mentions anyone who gave him a chance. He was recently appointed editor of the prison newspaper Inside Time. When we meet, his first issue has just printed and he spreads it out on the cafe table, showing me stories and asking what I think of the layout. He could scarcely believe it when he got the job. "My heart started pounding," he says. "They trust me to do this massively responsible job. Me! I almost cried. Honestly, I almost cried." At one of James' prison psychology sessions, Branton asked if he could remember a time when he was happy. They sat in silence, James staring at his knees. Finally, he remembered: the births of his daughters. Decades later, I ask the same question, expecting a quicker response. Again, he pauses. "Happiness is a strange thing for me," he says. "Whenever I start to feel joy, there's this sort of controlling arm that brings me right down again because " He trails off.
In fact, the kindness of strangers that is so often central to the narrative of similar adventure travel books is in desperately short supply during much of Marquis' epic journey  at least until she reaches Australia. She says simply that it is the plain, unvarnished truth of her story "as a white female". "This is the condition of the woman in this world, alone. It is difficult," she says. "I've met some men who have been travelling in Mongolia who never had any trouble at all." Mongolia seems to be a hell hole for the sole female traveller. For weeks on end she was harassed in the early hours by drunken Mongolian horsemen, bent on having "fun" with the unusual outsider  or worse. She was forced to behave almost as a hunted animal, making her camp deep in the woods, never staying in one place for more than a night, being careful not to leave any tracks. My mission is to be this little bridge between human and nature. I cross this bridge and I come back and say we need to find our sense of belonging to this planet because we all have the same address  it's here, this planet. Sarah Marquis

Even during the day, she didn't receive much of a welcome from the people she met. Only later did she hear of a local legend almost uniquely calculated to load the dice heavily against her. "I discovered in Mongolian culture you have this tale that has been told around the fireplace where they say death is coming when you meet a white female walking alone in a desert," she says. "After travelling in the country I heard that tale. Unfortunately in Mongolia that was probably in the back of everyone's minds who I was meeting." Crossing solo some of the planet's most challenging regions has been a way of life for Swiss-born Marquis, since her teens, when she rode across central Turkey on horseback. Now 43, she has walked around Australia, north to south in the US and spent eight months trekking 7000 kilometres through the Andes. In 2014, she was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year. All of which means that she bristles slightly when I call her a "traveller". "No, no, no," she insists. "I'm not travelling, I'm exploring, which is different. I'm off the beaten track, I'm in the woods, I'm in nature, I don't follow paths. This is the big difference  I'm not travelling."

The preparation she puts into her expeditions is, as one might expect, meticulous and extraordinary in its detail. However, less expected is that, just like the Prussian general who declared "no plan survives contact with the enemy", she believes it is just as important to mentally discard all those plans from the first step. "There is enormous preparation for the unexpected," she says. "In your mind you have to be prepared and then you have to let it go. There are two processes. One is an intellectual process and then you have to let it go and rely on your instincts. It is really complex. "I have realised over the years that the preparation is just to make me feel good, to feel ready. But I'll never be ready because I don't know what is coming." The obvious question is "Why?" Why put yourself through the torment, hunger, sickness and danger she described compellingly in Wild By Nature? As with most of the people I have spoken to for whom extreme adventure is a way of life, her response manages to be both oblique and convincing.
Regurgitator return to Melbourne on a cultural mission on April 22 as guests of the NGV's Friday nights program at the Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei exhibition.

"Our first idea was to do that classic first Velvet Underground album produced by Warhol," says guitarist Ben Ely, "then we thought we could use some Chinese classical instruments to draw the two cultures together."

Regurgitator's Ben Ely and Quan Yeomans.

Mindi Meng Wang will play John Cale's viola parts on the guzheng. Seja Vogel will perform the vocals of German chanteuse Nico and Quan Yeomans will sing Lou Reed's "more poppy songs".

Which leaves the darker likes of Heroin to Ely, he says, "because I was the one who took drugs in the '90s".
Legends of the Fall's Aiden Quinn was also the choice to play Carrie's one-time fiance, Aiden. The actor wasn't available, but they decided to keep his name for the loveable character eventually played by John Corbett [My Big Fat Greek Wedding].

Alec Baldwin played a similarly debonair character in 30 Rock's Jack Donaghy. Credit:NBC

"We initially were thinking about Aidan Quinn for Aidan, but I think he wasn't available," Star said. "I loved John Corbett in Northern Exposure, and we were like, 'Well, what's John Corbett been up to?' He just had the laconic, dudish vibe. But we kept 'Aidan' because we loved the name."

Noth hasn't always been so complimentary about his iconic role on the series, telling Fairfax Media in 2014 it was "a little tiring".

"Mr Big changed my life ... for the better and for the worse, there is no where I can go where people do not recognise me ... as an actor I can't think about it as being a burden ... that I have to do this role to make them forget that character because there is no way I am every going to make them forget ... the fans will never let go of Mr Big."
Labor is launching its pre-election attack on the Coalition's health record in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's electorate, where a health clinic for homeless people is set to close.

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek will use a press conference at the Haymarket Foundation Clinic in Darlinghurst to highlight what Labor says is the Abbott government's $60 billion cuts to health over the next decade in 2014, and the Turnbull government's planned cuts to bulk-billing incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging services.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Health Minister Sussan Ley. Credit:Andrew Meares

Health Minister Sussan Ley has defended the government's move to save $650 million over four years by cutting the incentives, saying they had not worked to significantly boost the rate of bulk-billing.

The clinic, which has received $900,000 in federal funding a year to provide medical, nursing and welfare services to about 1200 homeless people in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, is likely to close next month when a temporary extension to its current grant expires.
The Turnbull government could improve the budget bottom line by $350 million by scrapping taxpayer support for religious organisations.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has found the government could raise an extra $390 million over the forward estimates by scrapping tax concessions for religious organisations, although about $100 million would go to the states as GST.

It could also save $60 million by ending support for the controversial National School Chaplaincy Program.

The research was done for libertarian crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm, who says the government should consider the move.
Tennessee College of Applied Technology-Chattanooga will host an open house from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 2, for area adults to sign up for the TCAT Reconnect grant, a program that allows Tennesseans to attend a technical college tuition free.

The event is designed to encourage adults to enroll in the TCAT Reconnect program, Governor Haslams initiative to provide eligible adults the opportunity to earn a technical diploma or certificate at a Tennessee College of Applied Technology free of tuition and mandatory fees. The TCAT Reconnect Grant is part of the Drive to 55, an initiative focused on increasing the number of Tennesseans with a college degree or technical certificate.

The TCAT Reconnect Grant is a last-dollar scholarship, meaning it will cover the remaining costs of tuition and mandatory fees for a TCAT program after other state and federal financial aid has been applied.

James D. King, vice chancellor for the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology, said, We look forward to potential students visiting our 27 campuses to learn more about how technical education can change their lives and provide a successful future through a variety of high skilled and high wage programs such as Advanced Manufacturing, Welding Technology, Computer Information Technology and Practical Nursing.

During Scholarship Saturday, adults may come to Chattanooga State Community College at 4501 Amnicola Hwy., between the hours of 10 a.m.-2 p.m. to tour the campus, learn more about available training programs, and use the colleges computers to sign up online. Free refreshments will also be on hand for anyone signing up.

TCAT Reconnect is such an incredible opportunity for adults to gain critical skills and enter the workforce, said Mike Ricketts, TCAT-Chattanooga dean. Scholarship Saturday is an opportunity to come see firsthand the opportunities we offer at TCAT-Chattanooga and take the first step towards admission.

Drive to 55 Executive Director Mike Krause said he hoped many Tennessee adults would attend the event nearest them. As we enter the second year of the TCAT Reconnect Grant, there continue to be incredible opportunities for adult students at their local TCAT. Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology offer an incredible chance for an adult to gain a new skill, become workforce-ready, and learn real-world skills from skilled faculty.

For more information about TCAT-Chattanooga programs, visit https://www.chattanoogastate.edu/tcat or call Lisa Jackson at 697-3283.






While that has always been the case the difference now is that there is more awareness of their shortcomings.

Funds managers generally find it hard to outperform the markets in which they invest after accounting for their fees.

Kerr Neilsen of Platinum Investment Management is as close as it gets to rock-star status in the fund manager world. Credit:Angus Mordant

A few still do, particularly among some of the boutique fund managers that are not owned by financial institutions. For some, the status is justified.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that some fund managers had almost rock-star status, at least among investors.

The latest Mercer survey of managed fund performances confirms how hard it is to outperform. For five years to the end of February this year, the typical Australian shares fund produced an average annual return of 6.4 per cent. That is against a return for Australian shares, including dividends, of 4.6 per cent.

However, the Mercer numbers do not include the fund managers' fees. Mercer reports returns before fees as the fees vary depending on the route the investor takes into the fund  whether directly with the fund manager or whether through a financial adviser or investment platform.

Nevertheless, the investment management fees of the fund manager, plus other costs, add-up to at least 1 per cent for most small investors. The situation is even trickier for investors as there is little consistency in the best-performing funds.

Often, the best performer over one time period will be the bottom dweller over the subsequent period. And, there is always the risk the fund manager will substantially underperform the market for an extended period.

Not that long ago, large financial institutions could rely on their financial planners to keep the money flowing into their fund management arms  whether the funds were any good or not. Since the financial planning rules were tightened, that's harder to do.
"Last year we had a little Brahman steer get away from someone in the cattle section. He wasn't particularly wild, just naughty. There was no way he was going to be caught and, of course, the crowd think that's the greatest thing ever  one cow running around and people trying to catch it, it dodging them and going this way and that way. Eventually, the cow was caught, but it's quite amazing the number of people I've come across who've said, 'I was there the day that steer got away'." During another event, about two years ago, "A horse got away and no one could catch it," says Bennett. "People were out there with bits of hay. We probably had more crowd watching that than the actual conduct of the events, when many people don't quite understand what's happening." Bennett was born in the NSW south-coast town of Nowra, in 1970. His grandparents had a farm about five kilometres from the centre of town. When his grandfather retired, his father, Mervyn Bennett, bought part of the land and built a function centre at the front. Bennett went to school at Nowra High, where he became boys' school captain. He hoped to become a vet but didn't get the marks, so he enrolled instead at catering college, worked part-time at what was then the Sheraton Wentworth Hotel in Sydney, then returned home to help run the function centre. Mervyn Bennett represented Australia at Montreal in the 1976 Olympic Equestrian Team and came home with a bronze medal. His achievement might be overlooked today, but in 1976 Australia won only one silver medal and four bronzes. "So Dad was quite a celebrity," says Bennett. Mervyn was chosen to represent Australia again at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but the competition was boycotted by the Australian equestrians in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (this was before everyone else invaded Afghanistan) and he competed as an Olympian for the final time in Los Angeles in 1984. But Mervyn had grown up around the Easter Show. As a young man, he had been eliminated four or five times before he even completed his event. The show is Australia's final selection event for the Olympics, and the Bennett family attended every year. "Fairness and competition were everything for us," says John. "With the blood, sweat and tears that goes into getting Dad to the event, the last thing you want is for something to be unfair.

"We always had a pony or a horse on the truck when Dad was competing," he says, "to keep us busy at events. I competed in eventing when I was young, and then in showjumping. I probably had a bit of talent as a jumper." But in 2004 he fell off a horse and broke a collarbone and, while he was recuperating, he became president of the Nowra Show Society. John found he enjoyed administration as much as competition. He had to give up one role, so he chose to quit riding. "And I don't regret that one bit," he says, "I'm entirely impartial. I'm separate. That's what drives me 100 per cent  fairness. "Dad says, 'Everyone has their own Olympic Games. It doesn't have to be the Olympic Games.' For a lot of our exhibitors here, this is their Olympic Games. This the big deal." When Mervyn Bennett retired as an Olympian, he "kept right away from horses", says John. "He didn't feel comfortable to go back to his sport and compete at a lower level. There's an enormous amount of stress that goes with competing for an Olympic team and Dad said, in hindsight, he may have had a nervous breakdown at the end of it. It must be frustrating for somebody who has been at the absolute top of their game to go back and play in the kiddie pool, and people might say, 'Oh, he's lost it', or whatever." But six years ago, Mervyn reapplied for his racing-trainer's licence, and today father and son work their racehorses together every morning at the farm. Bennett's story is interrupted (in a most discreet way) when lunch arrives at our table: JBS Riverina Angus scotch fillet, potato puree, broccolini, eshallot and mushroom jus  or, as it used to be called, "steak and three veg". The meat is mild, and almost as soft as the butter into which I earlier plunged my thumb.

I notice Bennett is dressed as an Australian, in Baxter boots and an RM Williams shirt and chinos. He says he wore the same gear when he gave an Australia Day address at Nowra. He told the crowd that being Australian wasn't about clothes. "It's to do with how you conduct yourself," he says. "We all get to wear whatever we want to wear. We've all got various things in our backgrounds. Some of my relatives were convicts, they came out here in chains. Others were Germans, who fled Germany before the war. An archetypal Australian outfit doesn't make you Australian." However, a hat is crucially important to an Australian in the arena. A couple of years ago, the agricultural society issued all the staff with a uniform hat, but many decline to wear it. "Because when this ring's full and I look across," says Bennett, "I'll know who's who based on the hat that they've got on. I've got a few hats and, for no particular reason, I wear a different one on different days. Somebody said to me, 'We don't like it when you change your hat every day, because we can never find you and we never know when you're coming.'" In those days, Bennett was only the assistant ringmaster, a position he held for five years. The 2016 show will be his first event in the top job. "The role of assistant ringmaster, I'm quite certain, is twice as hard as the actual role of ringmaster," he says. "Because the ringmaster just sits out there on his horse, looking official and saluting the governor. Meanwhile the assistant is the one running down the back vomitory, yelling, 'Hurry up! Come on!' 'The cattle aren't coming on time!'" Bennett clearly loves being a part of the show, and his involvement with the agricultural society has taken him all around the world. He was even, by some strange process, selected as an observer at the Zambian tripartite elections in 2006. But every responsibility carries a cost. "I always imagined I would've been married by this time in life," he says, "and it just hasn't happened. I can't say the opportunity is, in any way, the issue. It's just the follow-up, perhaps. Because I've been so driven by so many of the things I'm involved in, probably it's selfishness, I would think. It's not something that defines me, it's not something I think about. But I read the other day that the number of single-person households was some enormous amount and, I must admit, I thought, 'She is out there somewhere. There's plenty of her.'"

At the end of the meal, I take a Tea Tonic tea. The teabag is left in the cup, providing me with a familiar etiquette dilemma. "I'd put it onto the spoon," says Bennett, "wrap the string around the spoon, give it a bit of a pull and sit it at the side. If you really want to impress somebody. But we're at the stage, I think, where you could press it with your thumb." TIMELINE 1970: Born in Nowra 1976: Father, Meryvn Bennett, wins bronze medal in the Montreal Olympics 1999: Leaves catering school at Ryde TAFE to work at his family's function centre outside Nowra
The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, The Most Reverend Anthony Fisher, is hoped to be well enough to preside over Easter Sunday Mass after falling seriously ill on Christmas Eve.

The leader and successor to Cardinal George Pell, was diagnosed with rare neurological condition Guillain-Barre Syndrome and admitted to intensive care in St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst.

The Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher fell ill in December and was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Credit:Getty Images

Archbishop Fisher, 56, was left temporarily paralysed from the neck down by the syndrome, in which the body's immune system attacks the nervous system, usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection. He spent a "significant" amount of time in hospital before being moved to a specialist rehabilitation facility.

A spokeswoman said on Thursday that the archdiocese hoped the archbishop's health would will allow him to preach to his congregation at St Mary's Cathedral on Sunday.
Hundreds of hopeful actors converged on the Bille Brown Studio this week in the hopes of landing a role in one of Queensland's major theatre companies.

For the first time the state theatre company, Queensland Theatre Company, and independent theatre La Boite, combined their respective powers and held open auditions together.

Queensland Theatre Company artistic director Sam Strong. Credit:Luis Ascui

Over six days more than 200 performers strutted their stuff in front of QTC artistic director Sam Strong and La Boite artistic director Todd MacDonald.

Some of them will be chosen to appear in productions for the two companies over the coming years.
I believe the second-best sermon ever preached by a moral man was about Good Friday. It was preached by a black pastor, a man named S.M. Lockridge (1913-2000), whose greatest gift to the world was another sermon, He is my King. But the best sermon of all time  this in every list by every source  was preached by Tony Campolo as he tells of going up against another dazzling black preacher who used the very famous sermon by Rev. Lockridge in a preach off, where his churchs pastors delight in seeing who can outdo who.

Today countless millions all over the world have heard Campolos version of Its Friday  But Sunday is A-Comin and I bet Ive listened to it hundreds of times. Ill even bet  this before the internet and todays easy access to videos  that I have mailed well over 100 cassettes to loved ones (nobody knew about DVDs 30 or 40 years ago) because it is  quite simply  the best sermon ever in modern times.

I dont want to brag, I really dont, but I was good, Campolo recalled after going first in the preach-off. I mean I know I was good because the deacons were yelling, Preach! And the women were going, Praise the Lord! And men were standing up and yelling, Keep going, keep going, keep going! And I feed on that stuff, said the world-acclaimed speaker/author/professor, who attends a huge mixed-race church in Philadelphia.

The more they did it, the better I got. The better I got, the more they did it. I kept getting better and better and better. I got so good, I wanted to take notes on me, Tony laughed. When I finished, that place went ballistic, it went wild. I sat down, my pastor hit my knee, and said, You did all right. You did all right  

I said, Youre next, pastor. Are you going to be able to top that?

He said, Son, sit back, because the old man is going to do you in. I dont want to brag, but I was so hot that day, I didnt think that anybody could do me in. But that sucker got up, and for the next hour, he did me in. He did me in with one line over and over again: Its Friday, but Sundays a-coming. It doesnt sound like much, but you werent there.

The black preacher started slow  his voice rising as he went on and the place went nuts.

* * *

It's Friday...

Jesus is prayin, Peter is asleep. Judas is betrayin...

... but Sunday's a Comin'.



It's Friday...

Pilate is strugglin, the Sanhedrin is conspirin, the crowd is vilified...

they don't even know that...Sunday's a Comin'.



It's Friday...

The disciples are running in every direction like sheep

without a shepherd, Mary's cryin, Peter's denyin

... but they don't know ... that Sunday's a Comin'.



It's Friday...

the Romans beat my Jesus, they robe him in scarlet,

they crown him with thorns 

... but they don't know, Sunday's a Comin'!



See Jesus walking to Calvary, his blood drippin,

his body's stumblin, and his spirit's burdened,

but  see  it's only Friday, Sunday's a Comin!



It's Friday...

The world's winning, people are sinning,

and evil's grinning, ... it's Friday



The soldiers nail my Savior's hands to the cross ...

They nail my Savior's feet to the cross ...

Then they raise him up next to criminals ...

it's Friday, but let me tell you somethin, ...



Sunday's a Comin'!



It's Friday...

The disciples are questioning, "What has happened to our King?"

and the Pharisees are celebratin, that their scheming has been achieved...

but they don't know...it's only Friday.

Sunday's a Comin'!



It's Friday...

He's hanging on the cross, feeling forsaken by his Father,

left alone and doubting, can nobody save him?

Oh...it's Friday...but...

Sunday's a Comin'!



It's Friday...

The temple veil ripped from top to bottom - the earth

shook - the rocks split and tombs opened.

The centurion screamed in fear 'Truly He was the Son of

God!'

... Sunday's a Coming



It's Friday...

the Earth Trembles, the sky grows dark,

my King yields his spirit ...

It's Friday ... hope is lost ... death has won,

sin has conquered...and Satan's just a laughin'



It's Friday...

Jesus is buried, a soldier stands guard,

and a rock is rolled into place ...

but it's Friday ... it is only Friday ...

Sunday is a Comin!



People are saying 'As things have been, so they shall

always be. You can't change anything in this world'

... but Sunday's a Coming!



It's Friday...

Satan's doing a little jig sayin, I control the whole

world 

... but Sunday's a Coming!



It's Sunday!!!

The angel like dazzling lightning, rolled the stone

away, exclaiming, He is not here! He is risen!

It's Sunday!!!! It's Sunday!!!! It's Sunday!!!!

* * *

Tony Campolo said when the senior pastor was finished, the man was totally exhausted. All he could do was yell Friday at the top of his lungs. That's when the congregation, standing throughout the second half of the message with tear-streaked faces, shouted just as loudly   but Sundays a Coming!

To watch Tony Campollo tell the story, click HERE.

royexum@aol.com
The Turnbull government has criticised Singapore's jailing of eight weeks pregnant Australian publisher Ai Takagi for publishing seditious articles as the 23-year-old defended her hugely popular website The Real Singapore.

"We regret that Ms Takagi was given a custodial sentence, given she is young, pregnant and had issued an apology," a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a rare comment on a judicial case in another country, except in matters involving a possible death sentence.

The statement came as Takagi, who has been sentenced to 10 months' jail, told Fairfax Media the website that attracted 134 million page views over nine months allowed Singaporeans to share their views.
Budapest: Hungary's former education secretary Istvan Klinghammer may live to regret calling the nation's teachers a bunch of "dishevelled and unshaven types in checked shirts".

Because the checked shirt has come to symbolise a movement that goes beyond its original aim of protesting the rot in education and now challenges the illiberal government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Near the Iron Curtain memorial, Budapest teachers wear check in protest at the state of Hungarian education. Credit:Helen Womack

Tens of thousands of teachers and other citizens turned out for a march from Heroes' Square to parliament on Hungary's national day, marking the 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule. As it poured with rain, the checked shirts were hidden under coats but many sported checked scarves or carried checked umbrellas to make their point.

"The checked shirt insult to our profession was too much. Teachers and students started wearing checked shirts to class," said a state school teacher who, fearing possible dismissal, asked to be identified only as Monika.
The first announcement from the military was routine: "Forces responded to the attack and shot the assailants, resulting in their deaths".

The episode began, the military said, on Thursday morning when two Palestinian men stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint near a Jewish settlement enclave in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron, in what has become a near-daily occurrence in the last six months.

Jerusalem: The Israeli military has detained a soldier who shot a Palestinian assailant in the head as he lay motionless on the ground, an incident that drew outrage on social media networks and was condemned even by a military spokesman as "a grave breach" of the army's proclaimed values and standards.

Later, graphic video footage emerged showing a soldier cocking his rifle and shooting one of the Palestinians for a second time as he lay on the road, after more than a minute in which other soldiers and an Israeli ambulance crew milled about in what appears as a calm, secure scene.

Israeli soldiers carry the body of one of two Palestinian who were killed after a stabbing attack in Hebron, on the occupied West Bank on Thursday. Credit:AP

"The IDF views this incident as a grave breach of IDF values, conduct and standards of military operations," Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an army spokesman, said of the event. "A military police investigation has commenced and the soldier involved has been detained."

Military officials said that the investigation began based on a report from the commander in the field, before the video surfaced and then rocketed around the internet. The incident was the latest in a series that have fuelled outrage among Palestinians and their supporters at what they see as Israel's excessive force in responding to the wave of stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks that began in October.

Nearly 30 Israelis, two Americans and a Palestinian bystander have been killed by Palestinians since the violent upsurge started. Israeli forces or civilians have shot dead 180 Palestinians during the same period, most of whom were either attempting attacks or were suspected of doing so.
Washington: The United States has killed a top Islamic State leader in Syria who was believed to be in line to lead the terrorist group, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday.

Mr Carter identified the senior IS leader as Haji Imam and described him as the group's finance minister. He said he was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terrorist plots outside of Iraq and Syria.

US officials said Imam, whose real name is believed to have been Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, held a series of high-level Islamic State roles, and was part of a leadership core that traces back to the organisation's emergence as an al-Qaeda affiliate after the US invasion of Iraq.

Terrorism experts have long regarded Imam as an elder statesman of the terrorist group. The Mosul native, believed to have been about 57 years of age, had been one of the few surviving links to the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi era, when al-Qaeda in Iraq soared to prominence as a leader of the anti-US insurgency in Iraq.
Emily Arianna Warren was arrested Thursday night for trespassing and desecrating flags Thursday night. The Bradley County Sheriffs Office assisted the Tennessee State Park Rangers with the arrest.

Patrol deputies were contacted about a woman burning a flag at the Red Clay State Park. Upon arrival, witnesses told deputies they observed her removing United States and Tennessee flags, put them on the ground, and start stomping on them. When officers made contact, she said this was not the first time she had removed flags at the park, and also admitted she swam in the blue hole located inside the park, that clearly has signage that says No Trespassing.

Ms. Warren was charged with desecration of a flag (two counts), vandalism under $500, and criminal trespassing.

Sheriff Eric Watson released the following statement:

"I want to personally thank my deputies for assisting the TN State Park Rangers with the arrest of Emily Warren. The Bradley County Sheriff's Office will always protect the United States and Tennessee flags, and respect the heritage of Red Clay State Park. These flags represent the nation and state, and our military fights to protect them daily. Often times some have died while protecting those flags, and returned back to this country with the United States flag draped over their coffins.



"Please pause and remember sometime today what it takes to keep our flags flying high. Take a moment to tell our men and women in the armed forces and our veterans how much you appreciate their service to our country."






Sint Eustatius has to ensure more insight in financial situation and better financial management ---Age Bakker

Oranjestad:--- The Board of financial supervision Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (Cft) met on March 21st on Sint Eustatius with both commissioners of the Executive Council, and subsequently with the Island Council. During this visit the 2015 and 2016 budgets and financial management were mainly discussed. "The manner in which information regarding the financial situation of Sint Eustatius is being provided, really has to improve," concludes Cft Chairman Age Bakker. In addition, Cft believes that Sint Eustatius needs to start implementing the financial management action plan rapidly, now that two process managers have been appointed to tackle the administrative and financial problems.

Financial situation

The information about the budget implementation and the financial situation of Sint Eustatius during 2015 has been extremely deficient. This makes it very difficult for Cft to fulfill its supervisory role adequately, but on the other hand it also complicates the work of both the Executive Council and the Island Council. Because of the lack of insight in the financial situation the Executive Council cannot use the budget appropriately as a management tool, nor does it provide enough insight to the Island Council to carry out its control function adequately. "That is an undesirable situation", stated the Cft Chairman. Understanding of the financial situation is very important, and Cft urged for attention for this matter. On behalf of the Cft Chairman Age Bakker also offered assistance where possible to the Finance unit of Sint Eustatius in order to boost the quality of the reports, thus partly contributing to improving the financial management.

2015 and 2016 Budgets

For the current year there is a major challenge for Sint Eustatius. The 2014 annual accounts showed a deficit of over USD 0.3 million, and Cft did not deem compensation thereof feasible in 2015. That is why the deficit should be compensated in the current budget year 2016. Also approximately USD 0.2 million which was withdrawn earlier from the general reserves is due for compensation, together amounting to the hefty sum of over USD 0.5 million. Cft is well aware of this predicament. Since the preliminary actual figures of 2015 show a surplus, Cft indicated that this probable positive result can be included in the 2016 budget, thus reducing the compensation load. The Cft has put as a condition that this positive result should be confirmed by the auditors report, before it can be absorbed by means of a budget amendment. It is therefore important for the public entity to have it auditors review the 2015 annual accounts as soon as possible.

Financial management

Regarding the financial management improvement plan Cft has learned that meanwhile two process managers have been appointed to coordinate its implementation. During its previous visit the Board has already indicated that this implementation should make a vigorous start as soon as possible. The Cft is confident that after the appointment of both process managers the implementation of the financial management improvement plan will now be picked up energetically. Obviously, it is very important that all parties involved in this give their full cooperation, and that the requisite financial resources are made available. Sufficient execution capacity should also be available on Sint Eustatius. Both deliberations the Cft conducted showed that one of the main problems is that it is tough to fulfill certain key positions. These include the position of Head of Finance and Director of Human Resources. The Finance unit has been struggling for some time with capacity problems. For that reason it was decided to contract an accountant to prepare the annual accounts in 2015 for the public entity.

Liquidity position

The public entity does not have sufficient insight in the liquidity position. This is particularly the case for the resources made available by the Dutch ministries for specific projects, namely the special benefits. In consultation with Cft a solution is worked on in order to gain and maintain more insight in the size of these special benefits. To this end a new bank accountwas opened. In addition, the public entity indicated it will perform an analysis on these special benefits. The results will be included in the annual accounts 2015 and the first implementation report in 2016.
Top Picks From the Architectural Digest Design Show

NEW YORK, NY  (Marketwired)  03/24/16  Recently luxury brands from across the world came together in New York City to share carefully curated design inspiration at the Architectural Digest Design Show (ADDS). Marking its 15th year, this premier design event draws approximately 40,000 design aficionados who get to experience incredible design displays from more than 400 brands.

As a major sponsor of this event, luxury appliance innovator Jenn-Air teamed up with architect and designer Campion Platt to highlight some of this years top picks at the show. From lighting with elegant hand-blown glass to innovative appliances like the Jenn-Air induction downdraft cooktop, join moderator Campion Platt as he highlights a few of his favorite finds at the show.

Campion earned an undergraduate degree from University of Michigan, and a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University. A member of the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League of NY, he understands the importance of creating architecture and interiors that meld seamlessly. His holistic approach creates highly personalized spaces  making him a favorite of celebrities including Al Pacino, Meg Ryan, Roger Waters, Conan OBrien, Jay McInerney and socialite Anne Hearst. A full gamut of specialized artisans and craftspeople execute Campions designs, which often incorporate new and innovative material uses.

Since the introduction of the first self-ventilated cooktop in 1961 and downdraft ventilated range in 1965, Jenn-Air brand has consistently grown its reputation as a technology and design innovator. Its selection of style options includes two distinct stainless steel collections and a cutting-edge Floating Glass finish in black. From downdraft cooktops, wall ovens and professional style ranges to dishwashers, refrigerators and such entertaining essentials as warming drawers, built-in ice machines and wine cellars, Jenn-Air brand offers a complete line of major kitchen appliances. To learn more about the Jenn-Air appliance collection, or speak with a member of the concierge team, please visit jennair.com, facebook.com/jennair, instagram.com/jennairusa and twitter.com/jennairusa.

Embedded Video Available:

Alex Cole

212.736.2727
iovation Hosts Its 3rd Annual European User Summit

PORTLAND, OR and DUBLIN, IRELAND  (Marketwired)  03/25/16  , the provider of device intelligence for authentication and fraud prevention, today announced it is hosting its from April 11-12, 2016 in Dublin, Ireland. The summit will provide a way for iovations European clients  which make up 30 percent of all of its customers  to discuss the latest fraud and abuse threats, and how to stop them while enhancing the online customer experience. Industry leaders like Chris Monk, fraud manager at The Automobile Association, will share their insights in various sessions with a keynote delivered by at Retail Fraud Uncovered.

Fraud schemes are ever-evolving. This makes constant collaboration key and is the reason we host a number of client summits like these throughout the year, said , vice president of operations and co-founder at iovation. While its crucial to stop fraud, its also necessary to streamline the customer experience to accelerate revenue, and we want to highlight that opportunity specifically.

The European User Summit is available to iovation clients who have shared intelligence about tens of millions of fraud and abuse events across iovations network. Attendees will be given the chance to network and collaborate about the latest threats, while learning about the following in sessions and workshops:

Various ways to use device identification to secure online transactions and improve the customer journey

How have combined forces to keep their businesses safe from policy manipulation, ghost brokers and other schemes

Optimizing the blend of iovations and services to protect businesses and eliminate unnecessary customer friction

How fraud and security teams are learning to successfully work better together

for web, native and hybrid apps

The iovation European User Summit allows industry fraud professionals, from different unique industries, to come together and share best and better practices with each other, said Stuart Sykes, group head of customer operations and debt recovery at financial services company MYJAR and speaker at the summit. These are strategies not to be left on the shelf, but to be implemented in the real world to help reduce the cost of fraud. This event is invaluable for a deep understanding into online fraud.

At the summit, iovation will go into more depth about its existing services and showcase its product roadmap, which includes its award-winning customer authentication service. The recently enhanced service reduces friction while enhancing site security by allowing consumers with known good devices instant passwordless access to low-risk sections of consumer accounts  like account balances, shopping records and activity histories. If needed, it triggers step-up authentication like one-time passwords for higher risk actions like account changes, money transfers or purchases.

The summit will take place at Dublins Morrison Hotel and is free to attend. For more details about iovations 3rd Annual European User Summit, go to .

iovation protects online businesses and their end users against fraud and abuse, and identifies trustworthy customers through a combination of advanced device identification, shared device reputation, device-based authentication and real-time risk evaluation. More than 3,500 fraud managers representing global retail, financial services, insurance, social network, gaming and other companies leverage iovations database of billions of Internet devices and the relationships between them to determine the level of risk associated with online transactions. The companys device reputation database is the worlds largest, used to protect 15 million transactions and stop an average of 250,000 fraudulent activities every day. The worlds foremost fraud experts share intelligence, cybercrime tips and online fraud prevention techniques in iovations Fraud Force Community, an exclusive virtual crime-fighting network. For more information, visit .

iovation Inc.

Connie Gougler

503-943-6748
International Relations, Social Movements  March 25, 2016  Araz Bagban

Irans parliamentary elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly were held in parallel with the elections for the Assembly of Experts on 26 February. Iran is one of the main actors of the ongoing wars and conflicts in the Middle East and has just recently overcome its long-standing nuclear crisis with the Western powers. Naturally, with these elections the internal dynamics of the Islamic regime was again at the centre of attention. The elections were discussed and analyzed based on two lists of alliances; a list formed by hardliners or ultra-conservatives and another formed by the reformist-backed pro-Rouhani moderate conservatives which are generally labeled the reformists by the international media in the context of these elections (this latter group also includes some unknown reformists).

According to the results, the seats of the next parliament are equally distributed between the two lists without taking into consideration

independent MPs. Actually, it should be noted that the reformists swept all 30 parliamentary seats in the capital city of Tehran. The final results in some regions, where a sufficient proportion of the popular vote has not been reached by the candidates, will be decided in the second round. However, it seems that the results from the second round also will not change the general distribution of the seats inside the parliament and independent MPs will determine which group is dominant.

It is worth emphasizing that the border between moderate and ultra conservatives is not very pronounced. Usually, the nature of the problems or events discussed in the parliament, the pressure from other organs of the state, and some similar factors we are familiar with given Irans political order, can change the ideological spectrum of the parliament drastically. The story of the elections for the Assembly of Experts is not different from the parliamentary elections. The reformists-backed moderate conservatives won fifteen out of sixteen seats in the capital Tehran, but generally lost the elections to hardliners in other regions.

The statistical distribution of the parliaments seats, with no major winner at first sight, can be interpreted regarding the process of the elections, the reformists attempts to receive a share of the power, and Rouhanis need for the parliaments support after securing the nuclear deal with the Western powers. Considering the age of the present supreme leader, Khamenei, the elections for the Assembly of Experts also reveals its importance, since this is the body that will elect Khameneis successor. Therefore, before declaring the winner of the elections, we need to look at the nature and the process of the elections.

A Fair Trade:

The right to be elected to partisans, the people should make do with the suffrage

The right to elect and to be elected was a main gain of the 1979 revolution for the people who toppled the Shahs dictatorship. Unfortunately, like the other gains of the revolution, this right was also seized by the Khomeini-led Islamists. When the revolution was lost entirely to reactionaries, the partisans of the regime claimed the monopoly over the right to be elected. All the political organizations and parties, the trade unions, NGOs and other similar entities providing for the participation of the people in politics were denounced as illegal or were shut down. The roles were thus distributed: the right to be elected was given to the regimes partisans and the right to elect was given to the people with no qualms.

However, after a while, the elections turned into a conflict between the different wings of the regime. Then the elections became important solely because of the competition and the balance of power between the two wings and their post-election political, social, and economic consequences. Sometimes one of the wings, mostly the conservatives, when in power wrested the right to be elected from the other wing. The arbitrary approval of candidates by the Guardian Council of the Constitution (usually called the Guardian Council for short) turned the elections into a big legitimacy show. In the early years of the religious dictatorship, the people who refused to participate in the show were threatened with losing their job, education and similar rights, even though these threats were not going to be materialized after the election. Sometimes a hope of intra-regime change made the polls appealing. In other words, the dictatorship gained its legitimacy by threats and fraud, while the people were celebrated for their magnificent and powerful participation. In the light of this knowledge about the nature and process of elections in Iran, voting in the elections or boycotting it became a usual debate among dissident circles for more than 35 years.

The Guardian Council in these elections displayed a historic performance in disqualifying candidates, almost erasing the reformists from the elections. The arbitrariness of the approval process seems to have bothered the spokesman of the council, as he resigned from his post of spokesman exactly on the day when the results of approval process were supposed to be announced. A small number of reformists not vetoed by the Guardian Council are those who condemned the 2009 popular revolt in the aftermath of the presidential elections that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office for the second time. The reformist opposition, claiming to be the only representative of religious democracy as the best format of the democracy, rarely objected the disqualifications firmly. They acted as nothing had happened and went on following and supporting the moderate conservative president Rouhani, and a former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, about whom they proudly spared no curse terms in the past. The reformists goal for these elections was solely to prevent three well known hard-core ultra-conservatives from entering the Assembly of Experts.

The Reformist Conservatives or the Conservative Reformists

With these elections a new concept should be added to the political encyclopedia in Iran; the conservative reformists. In the early years of the post-revolutionary era, reformists stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Then, during the Iran-Iraq war they ruled the country with statist economic policies while at the same time playing an active role in slaughtering the opponents of the regime. They started producing certain theses on political development throughout Rafsanjanis terms in office, when they were deprived from a share in the power structure.

Reformists came to power in 1997 under Khatamis leadership promoting the idea that changes and reforms within the regimes structure would carry Iran to the ideal society (Madine-ye Fazele). During this term, the only meaningful job that they accomplished was to ease, in a very subtle form, the growing unrest and protests of

the people suffering from Rafsanjanis severe neoliberal policies. The reformist movement during the eight years of the Khatami presidency consistently invited people to toleration by loudly declaring that political development eventually will bring the economic development. At the end of this period, in 2005, they handed power to the rising populist Ahmadinejad from the younger wing of the ultra-conservatives. During the 2009 uprising, when the religious dictatorship was seriously shaken for the first time since the 1979 revolution, the reformist movement was scared by the unexpectedly massive protests, accepted every method of repression implemented by the conservatives for the sake of securing the regime.

After being completely erased from the elections, the reformists came up with the great idea of presenting some well known ultra and moderate conservatives as reformists to the middle class in Tehran and some other big cities. Their expectations from these elections were to close the rift with Khamenei, regain the regimes trust, and move slowly toward power. In other words, in the new phase of reformism in Iran, a good reformist is the one who does not act as a lese-majeste for the dictatorship.

The Assembly of Experts: the Future of the Islamic Republic

Considering the age of Khamenei and his health condition which is a matter of rumors from time to time, it seems that the next Assembly of Experts will have a chance to fulfill its responsibility of electing the next supreme leader. Naturally, this probability excites the reformists, who incurred the wrath of the present supreme leader. The reformists with no major candidate for this assembly decided to prevent some prominent members of this assembly, who are older than Khamenei, from being re-elected, and they did prevent two of them. However, looking at the List of Hope supported by the reformists there is no sign of hope for them. One of the figures in the List of Hope is the judge responsible for a large number of verdicts issued in the 1980s to execute opposition members, including some socialists. Another one is a former minister of intelligence and known as one of the main authorities responsible for a chain of assassinations of intellectual and political figures in the 1990s. These moderate butchers are only two well known examples of a long list of slaughterers joining the Assembly of Experts. Since the reformists themselves are involved in most of the slaughters and butchering, no one expects them to act differently. However, it clearly shows the quality and limitations of the permanently promoted change and reform within the regime.

On the other hand, it seems that there is no consensus on a common candidate for the next supreme leadership. The conservatives majority in the next eight-year period of the assembly reveals no chance of choosing a reformist or even a moderate supreme leader. However, it is widely believed that post-Khamenei Iran would have a leading council rather than an individual supreme leader. With these subtle calculations, the reformists are targeting power by supporting their opponents.

The Dictatorship Has Won the Elections

The propaganda machine of the regime worked perfectly before the elections. Considering the present situation of the Middle East, Iran, the state permanently targeted by Israel and the U.S., is now the most stable country in the region. Having solved its nuclear crisis with the West, the regime is now talking of a very promising future. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie, the middle class and, the political activists in exile who support Rouhani and have a strong faith in reformists, threatened as they feel by the ISIS and Syrianization of Iran, have promoted the ill-famed murderers of the past as the reformists of today. Naturally, sending the ultra and moderate conservatives to both assemblies (as if there were other choices) has satisfied them completely. The regime also is delighted by satisfying them with a minimum concession.

The Western powers are also satisfied by the results of the parliamentary elections. The support to Rouhani, even a moderate one, is a support to the nuclear agreement. At least, the government will have to deal with a smaller number of problems in applying the terms of the agreement. Moreover, international capital will have a chance of a more level field in competing with the companies of the Revolutionary Guards, which have an eye on every big economic project in Iran. From the political point of view, the support for the moderate government, which is open to negotiations (in complete contrast to the Ahmadinejad period), is music to the ears of the West. This is all the truer especially when we take into the account how depressed the West finds itself now in the Middle East.

Let us then see who lost the elections: the people did. The rate of unemployment is very high. Hawking in the streets is the source of income for tens of thousands of people. Based on official statistics, there are more than 25 thousand homeless people only in one of the regions in the capital Tehran. Selling babies is a normal thing among the poor. Will the elections change the situation? No, it wont. Because the regime only cares about the bourgeoisie and the middle class, which now have an organic relationship with government. On the other hand, the regime is preparing its forces for a probable uprising of the proletariat. Recently, security forces have conducted exercises against feigned protests, so as to develop their defense of the bourgeoisie. The lack of organizations that can lead the working class obviously makes it easy for the dictatorship to suppress protest that remains local. What poor people get is a piece of carton to sleep on or being hunted under the guise of the war on drug dealing. Faced with such a situation in Iran, the opposition in exile, the opponents of the regime and the social democrats within Iran itself invest their hope in the enemies of the people disguised as reformists and line up with the dictatorship and the bourgeoisie. The Iranian left should find a way to overcome the profound depression created by the loss of the revolution. Otherwise, by relying on a reform movement sliding more and more to the right, the left will have nothing but only some old heroic stories to tell the people. 
This one got lopsided in a hurry, and that was just what Notre Dame needed
Marquette springs upset, Slinger survives in football playoffs

The nine Milwaukee-area top-seeded football teams all won Friday night. The results across Level 1 set up some interesting games for the week ahead.
Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city.

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Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea
 Liberty Bell 7, astronaut Gus Grissom's 1961 Mercury capsule, has left the Cosmosphere in Kansas for a three-year loan to The Children's Museum of Indianapolis in Indiana.

Liberty Bell 7, the historic NASA capsule that launched the second American to space, is leaving its museum home for the home state of its astronaut pilot.

The Mercury spacecraft, which was flown by Indiana-born Virgil "Gus" Grissom in July 1961, has departed its display at the Cosmosphere in Kansas for a three-year loan to The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. There, it will be part of an "immersive space object experience" set for debut this summer.

The new Schaefer Planetarium & Space Object Theater at The Children's Museum will initially showcase Liberty Bell 7 in a "dynamic light-and-sound presentation" that, along with other real space vehicles and equipment, will help tell stories of missions, astronauts and events throughout the history of space exploration. [Project Mercury: NASA's First Manned Spaceship in Pictures]

The theater, which is part of The Children's Museum's new Beyond Spaceship Earth gallery, is scheduled to open on June 25.

On Tuesday (March 22), a crane hoisted the Liberty Bell 7 and its display case onto a flatbed truck for its short move from the Cosmosphere to the nearby SpaceWorks facility in Hutchinson, Kansas. On Monday, Grissom's capsule will be loaded onto a bigger, enclosed truck for its 700-mile trip to Indianapolis.

This isn't the first time Liberty Bell 7 has hit the road.

Launched July 21, 1961 on Grissom's 15-minute Mercury-Redstone 4 suborbital mission, the capsule famously sank soon after splashing down. It remained on the ocean floor until July 20, 1999, when Liberty Bell 7 was recovered by a Cosmosphere and Discovery Channel-led expedition.

Granted its ownership by NASA and the Smithsonian, the Cosmosphere restored Liberty Bell 7 and then launched it on a six-year nationwide tour, prior to placing it on display in Kansas.

The space capsule remained at the Cosmosphere until the summer of 2014, when it was shipped to Bonn, Germany for an eight-month art and science-themed exhibit. It then returned to the U.S. and its home at the space museum in April 2015.

Liberty Bell 7's three-year loan to The Children's Museum is the second time it has been exhibited at the Indianapolis institution. The museum was one of the stops on "The Lost Spacecraft" nationwide tour from October 2000 to January 2001.

In addition to the new space object theater, The Children's Museum's Beyond Spaceship Earth gallery will feature a recreation of the inside of the International Space Station and an "Astronaut Wall of Fame" presented in partnership with Purdue University to pay tribute to the astronauts like Grissom who have ties to Indiana.

Another Hoosier astronaut, David Wolf, is currently serving as the museum's "Extraordinary Scientist-in-Residence."

"It is an honor to be associated with the museum, to share my experiences in such a captivating manner to ignite the passion of our next generation of explorers, on Earth and in space," said Wolf, who logged almost 170 days in orbit on three shuttle missions and one stay aboard the Russian space station Mir.

Safe Travels Liberty Bell 7!" Visitors to the Cosmosphere signed this card wishing the capsule a good trip to Indiana. (Image credit: Cosmosphere)

Grissom, who also launched on the Gemini 3 mission in 1965, tragically died two years later in a fire on the launch pad during a test of the first Apollo capsule. He was born in Mitchell, Indiana, where his Gemini capsule is displayed at Spring Mill State Park.

A total of 12 astronauts have hailed from Indiana, including record spacewalker Jerry Ross and industry's first payload specialist Charles Walker. In addition to Wolf, both Serena Aunon and Tony England were also born in Indianapolis.

See an artist's concept of The Children's Museum's Space Object Theater at collectSPACE.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebookand on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
Another look at a scale-model prototype of Airbus' Spaceplane on display at the Singapore Airshow in February 2014.

The Spaceplane is a European vision to bring cargo or paying passengers into suborbital space, for science or operational reasons. The vehicle, being developed by Airbus, Europe's biggest aerospace manufacturer, is intended to carry four passengers as high as 100 kilometers (62 miles) by taking off and landing at a conventional airport.

The vehicle will operate in between the usual altitude of airplanes and satellites, Airbus stated, which will open up a different market. The space plane could be used as a "point-to-point" transfer service or instead do experiments and work in an area of space not heavily occupied by other vehicles.

During a typical flight, a rocket engine will ignite at about 12 km (7.5 miles) to bring it up to the operational flight. Weightlessness will last for "some minutes" at the top of the flight arc. The plane will then slow down and ignite the engines again for a landing on a runway.

While the plane underwent an in-atmosphere flight test in 2014, the company has not released a launch date. It says that it could be possible to get into space "about seven years after procuring development financing."

Development history

Development of the plane began in 2006 by Astrium, then a subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). At the time, Astrium was known for the Ariane rocket that has taken dozens of satellites into space. Astrium was the prime contractor for the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned spacecraft that takes cargo to the International Space Station. Astrium also was the prime contractor for the station's Columbus module.

The global economic crisis delayed some of the work on the plane as of 2011, according to the BBC, but the company was quoted as saying they had done development on the rocket engine, and aerodynamic wind tunnel testing.

"We keep the investment going," said Astrium CEO Francois Auque in the report. "We continue to mature the concept, maintaining the minimum team, in order that when we find the relevant partnership we are ready and have progressed sufficiently," Auque said in the BBC report.

As of June 2011, a consortium of Singapore companies had joined the development team, according to a Flightglobal report. At the time, Astrium officials said they were seeking more partners before establishing the project commercially.

Reorganization and further work

In 2014, EADS restructured and reorganized itself as the Airbus Group in response to (some media reports said) competitive pressure by its main competitor, SpaceX. The Airbus Defence & Space division includes what was previously known as Astrium.

In June 2014, Airbus tested a quarter-scale demonstrator off the coast of Singapore. The demonstrator flew as high as 3 km (1.86 miles) and was piloted from a barge, according to the publication The Engineer.

Airbus has kept fairly quiet about development plans. Once development gets going, though, the target is to produce five aircraft every year and eventually have a fleet of 30-plus aircraft within a decade, according to Airbus. Flights will cost about $225,000 per passenger.

Additional resources
Karl's association with Space.com goes back to 2000, when he was hired to produce interactive Flash graphics. From 2010 to 2016, Karl worked as an infographics specialist across all editorial properties of Purch (formerly known as TechMediaNetwork). Before joining Space.com, Karl spent 11 years at the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, creating news graphics for use around the world in newspapers and on the web. He has a degree in graphic design from Louisiana State University and now works as a freelance graphic designer in New York City.
5 Ways Chicago Is Mocking Donald Trump

Who is more mockable than The Don? That orange face paired with the constant stream of racist and sexist thoughts that flow unabashedly from his lips are ripe for the teasing. Trump is much better at dishing it out than he is at taking it. (Remember how he refused to participate in a debate because he got his feelings hurt by Fox News?) Don't let that deter you, though; there are plenty of ways to defame the White House hopeful right here in the Windy City. Here are a few:



via Degenerate Art Gallery

Putting Trump's face on a toilet: Chicago-based artist Jacob Thomas scored a solo show at Degenerate Art Gallery in Edgewater, after filling the city with anti-Trump street art beginning with the now-beloved Bat Trump, which started it all. Thomas's work was so-far reaching and provocative that it sparked the obsessive attention of gallery owner Nicholas Zahn, who tracked Thomas down and urged him to do a gallery show. The show, called "We're Fired!" opens April 1, and features Bat Trump alongside other Trump parodies rendering the GOP-frontrunner as Richie Rich, Rich Uncle Money Bags, and Forrest Trump. And oh yeah: Thomas meticulously painted Trump's visage on a toilet, complete with an emoji poop peeking out behind the seat.

Opening reception Friday, April 1, 7 to 10 p.m. Closes April 24.

Degenerate Art Gallery, 5407 N. Clark

Selling Tiny Hotdogs in Trump's honor: The Wiener Circle starting doling out "Donald Trump Footlongs" (that were three inches long) following Trump's damning statement about his, um, private business at the March 3 Republican debates. After massive fanfare from a happy Trump-hating public, the famous hotdog shop continued serving the tiny specials well past the March 11 Trump rally. Beyond the footlong, The Wiener Circle also has the "Trump Package" and the "Trump Super PAC," which satisfy the cravings of those who need more than one three-incher to feel both sated (both physically and in terms of open mockery).

Filming a mockumentary: Chicago-based Beela Productions made a long form fake documentary about Donald Trump's illegitimate Muslim daughter. The titular "Ayesha Trump" even held a press conference for her upcoming movie on Wacker Driver earlier this month to raise awareness around the film's release on March 15. The satire is funny and weird (there are a lot of American flags and there's also a good amount of Sarah Palin-esque political squinting), and it comes from a politically-minded place. Executive producer Nabeela Rasheed, who is Muslim, wants to make people laugh-cry all the way to the polls, taking heart to the severity of Trump's hate speech against Muslim people. Rasheed worked with fellow Chicago-based Muslim writer and actress Fawzia Mirza (who plays Ayesha Trump) to do something productive with their anger.

"Ayesha Trump" is on Vimeo.

Defacing a billboard: This might feel a little dangerous for some of the politically-minded public, but if you want to match Donald's "Go Big"-ness with your mockery, why not do some public art? Anti-Trump graffiti has cropped up around the city, including the words "Fuck Trump" on a vacant billboard, (which was transformed from a "Vote Trump" billboard into a "Vote 4 Bernie" billboard first). It's amazing what a little red paint and a very tall ladder can do to bring a man who looks like a hunk of corn down a few pegsnot that the Chicagoist is advocating illegal activity, of course.

Being an anti-Trump groupie: Last November, 23-year-old Johari Osayi Idusuyi now-famously protested a Trump rally by choosing to silently read Claudia Rankine's book "Citizen" rather than listen to Trump's speech. (Talk about mocking out in the open!) When an older man tried to get her to pay attention to the speech, she snapped at him and unleashed "the head flip heard 'round the nation," which went viral on Vine. Rankine's "Citizen" is about the institutionalization of racism in the United States, and the prevalence of microaggresions  it's pretty much an anti-Trump manifesto published before its time. Maybe it's too late to flip your head at a rally, but you can get behind Idusuyi and see Rankine take the stage in Chicago. Rankine will be speaking at DePaul University in May, but you should reserve your space now; the talk is free and open to the public, so seats will run out quickly. Maybe focusing on the messages Trump hopes to silence rather than the man himself is the perfect way to make that inflated ego small again.



Claudia Rankine will speak on May 4, at 6:30 p.m.

Cortelyou Commons, 2324 N Fremont St.

Call The Women's Center for details: 773-325-7558
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And now, again and again: terrorism. The barely thwarted attack on a high-speed Thalys train traveling between Amsterdam and Paris in August. The Paris attacks and their Belgian perpetrators. And the horrors committed in Brussels on Tuesday.

Failed state is the term used to describe a state that is dysfunctional and unviable. Is this what Belgium is, a failed state?

"It's an artificial state." The man saying this was the mayor of Molenbeek for three-and-a-half years, a white-haired man with the Belgian Socialist Party (BSP), which speaks critically about Belgium and Europe and, in this respect, is surprisingly close to his political antipode, conservative right-winger Bart De Wever. "Unfortunately, Europe is developing into a large Belgium, instead of Belgium developing into a small Europe," N-VA party leader and Antwerp Mayor De Wever believes:

Philippe Moureaux once believed that the nation-state in Europe would fade away and that a unified Europe would remain and assume its function -- a democratic and just Europe. "Not," he says, "what we have today."

On this day, Moureaux is not the former mayor, and not the former Belgian interior minister, but instead is the history professor he once was. He's not the political pragmatist he has just written about in his book "The Truth About Molenbeek," one of the few who made an outstanding contribution to integration.

Belgians Lack Common History

Moureaux lives in Molenbeek, on the fifth floor of a building that looks like it could be low-income housing, in an apartment with a living room and a study with dark books and dark-red leather sofas. He sits there, looking back at a state that came into being as a compromise, in 1830. It was a construct that optimistically fused together regions that lacked a common history: Flanders, Francophone Wallonia and eastern Belgium, where 76,000 people speak German. It is a construct that now has a poor south that requires support, and a wealthy north where the grumbling is getting louder and louder. It's a familiar principle. It's called Europe.

Belgium has a fractured administration, confusing relationships among the various government levels and inefficient bureaucratic structures that sometimes must make allowances for grotesque regional disputes. To prevent this fragile nation from breaking apart, the constitution has been reformed several times and central power has been weakened. The result is that everything in Belgium exists in multiples: There's a Flemish prime minister, a Wallonian prime minister and a prime minister who represents all of Belgium. In Belgium, it takes months instead of weeks to form a government. About four years ago, the state simply continued to exist for 541 days without a government.

Over the years, the people of Belgium have developed a certain distance from their authorities. As Moureaux puts it, Belgians have achieved this by becoming "a little rebellious, a little anarchistic." One reason they are anarchistic, he says, is "that this region has been occupied again and again," by the Burgundians, the Spaniards, the Austrians and the French. "A tradition here is to say: An authority? That will resolve itself. It will pass."

Social Injustices

Belgium could have become a model of successful coexistence, but it didn't, and not even Moureaux wants to romanticize anything. Instead, the country became the nucleus of Europe and received "the institutions," as the headquarters of the EU's governing bodies -- the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council -- are called. They are now there, with their glass towers, and some perceive this is as some form of colonization.

The heart of Europe is, well, a cold heart, at least from the perspective of the Brussels poor. They see none of the money "from Brussels," as it is put elsewhere, or "from the eurocrats," as they say in Brussels.

It's about four kilometers from the European Parliament to the so-called jihadist hotspot in Molenbeek, and yet there is virtually no connection between Europe and the troubled district on an everyday basis. In the European quarter, laws are written for an entire continent, while jihadists nearby plan ways to fight this continent and destroy its freedom and values.

Moroccans from Brussels immigrant families work in the European district as drivers, doormen, cleaning personnel or in cafeterias. These are the only points of contact between the two worlds. Many cite the significance of the time of the attack in the Maelbeek metro station. It happened at shortly after 9 a.m., when the European bureaucratic elite are typically traveling to work. An hour earlier, cleaning women and night watchmen would have been on their way home from work.

Most of the immigrants living in the area aren't qualified to work in the law firms and lobbying firms that are thriving in Brussels. Nevertheless, in the last few years, the European Parliament chose to buck the trend and not farm out service jobs, such as drivers, to subcontractors, but instead brought them back into regular employment contracts.

The step was also taken in the interest of security, because full-time employees can be monitored, whereas it is never entirely clear who a subcontractor is employing at any given time. European Parliament President Martin Schulz has just announced a new, overdue initiative for young people from troubled neighborhoods. "We should think about how we can use the enormous potential of the European institutions to help correct social injustices in Brussels," says Schulz.

The European district sticks out like a UFO in Brussels. The lawmakers could just as easily be meeting in Palermo, and yet the malicious remarks, rants and contact to the city would be about the same. The city suffers from stranger anxiety.

The Brussels metropolitan area is already difficult to govern. With a population of 1.1 million, it isn't particularly large. Unfortunately, that population is divided up among 19 municipalities. Six police districts are responsible for security, the regional and central governments putter away in parallel and they communicate too little. The Belgian capital is in Flanders, and yet most people there speak French, so that hardly anyone feels truly responsible. And the police and security services are busy protecting the large number of international facilities, from NATO to the European Union buildings east of the downtown area and across its borders.

Loving an Unloved Country

Is it possible to like this city? This country?

Yes, says a man who is an unlikely supporter.

This unlikely confession of love for an unloved country comes from Philippe Blondin at the Jewish Museum. It is shortly after the Paris attacks, and he meets with us in a building that is effectively hidden on a small street near the luxurious Grand Sablon, a square with expensive antique stores, long-established restaurants and outposts of many of the city's world-famous chocolatiers.

Almost two years ago, on May 24, 2014, a young man pulled out an assault rifle in the museum, and shot and killed four people. The attacker, a French national of Algerian origin who had returned after spending time in Syria, lived in Molenbeek, just a few kilometers from the scene of the attack. It was that year, and not just last Tuesday, that Brussels got added to the European terror map -- and not just as a place where the attackers came from.

Blondin doesn't need a secretary today to register visitors. The soldiers guarding the museum entrance do that now. Visitors are asked for identification, and then whether they have an appointment. Only then are they accompanied up to Blondin's office by a soldier in camouflage fatigues. A few bullet holes are still visible on the way there.

The president of the Jewish Museum is a distinguished man with a confession to make. "I am a citizen of Belgium," he says. "I have this country to thank for everything." He goes on to explain that his family came to Belgium in search of a better life in the same way the Turks and the Moroccans did during the 1960s and 1970s. His father owned a shoe store and he himself was able to go to university. He enjoyed the kind of rise in society that is denied to many immigrants today. The old man also makes a plea for a country that has many quite perplexed these days.

Blondin wants to promote understanding between cultures and peoples. The museum, which is collecting dust in its current location, plays an important part in his vision. There are plans for one more major exhibition with young artists, a night of music and talks under the theme "100 Artists, 100 Freedoms." After that, the building will be torn down.

A new museum building will be filled with touchscreens and modern museum education techniques in tune with the times. It will also feature a section devoted to Muslims in Brussels. "Things can only be made possible through learning and joint dialogue," says Blondin, before adding with a slight hint of resignation: "My only worry is that the people who will be willing to talk to each other don't have a problem with each other anyway." He says he's familiar with all the disadvantages -- the parallel societies, the school dropouts, the lack of economic opportunities -- but argues that these in no way provide any justification for bombing attacks.

Blondin also says he doesn't want to be held responsible as a Belgian for actions taken by others in his country. "Are we supposed to apologize for something?" he asks. "No, the terrorism isn't our fault." He says he doesn't want to be defined by terrorism.

It actually is possible to find people who like living in this country, with its improvisations, its incompleteness and its self-irony.

They include people like Jan Bucquoy, a cheerful anarchist who mounts his own performance art coup d'etat against the royal family once a year -- always on May 21, the calendar day in which it is statistically least likely to rain.

Then there's David Helbich, a hoodie-wearing artist who is known for works like his photo series "Belgian Solutions ," which pokes fun at the odd, makeshift solutions Belgians find to everyday problems -- solutions sometimes so bizarre that it takes quite a bit of generosity to understand them as such. His work casts light on the somewhat chaotic and dilapidated nature of Belgium. The images include things like staircases on buildings leading to nowhere or a ramshackle house with a perfectly manicured hedge in front of it.

Illusory Solutions

This is the charming side of the illusory solutions, the improvisation, the jury-rigged nature of things here. The less charming side can be found 70 kilometers (44 miles) southeast of Brussels in Wallonia, the location of the three reactor blocks of the incident-prone Tihange nuclear power plant. Tihange 2 had to be shut down and tested before it could be restarted following the discovery of cracks. And the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate have also issued complaints with the EU about the operation of Tihange 1, a matter over which the EU has little authority.

Fears seem to be greater in Germany about Belgium's nuclear power plants than in the country itself. Belgians tend to get used to things, that's the habit. They tend to respond in ways similar to Francoise Georis, who opened up her Bio, dis-moi organic supermarket directly across the street from Tihange, because this type of store didn't exist within a 15 kilometer radius of the nuclear power plant. She says she's pleased to have plant workers among her customers, since "not everyone has their heart in the job that they do." In general, she says, her customers are more afraid of genetically modified food than they are of radioactivity. Speaking a week before the terrorist attacks, she said she hardly even notices the nuclear power plant -- and that's the case for most here.

But the one thing she said did concern her on that Tuesday, was terrorism.

A week later, Tihange was partly evacuated because the authorities fear that radical Islamists may have the plant in their sights. Investigators have serious concerns about the possibility of a dirty bomb attack after finding footage from a security camera during a search of a terror suspect's home. They show the director of research for the Belgian nuclear program.

Given that the nuclear power plants are now being guarded by the military, it has become a lot harder not to think about them.

It's even more difficult to get used to it. It's harder yet to somehow improvise and think that things will be normal again.

In the future, we will have to keep a much closer eye on things -- not just in Belgium, but in all of Europe -- an eye on a problem that was allowed to grow in the cities and suburbs to the point it was so large that people no longer seemed to notice it.

By Melanie Amann, Maik Baumgartner, Sven Becker, Jorg Diehl, Martin Knobbe, Katrin Kuntz, Peter Muller, Fidelius Schmid and Barbara Supp
SPIEGEL: We have now seen attacks on Charlie Hebdo, then again in Paris on Nov. 13 and this week in Brussels. Have we underestimated the Islamic State (IS) in Europe?

Neumann: We long assumed that, in the West, IS would focus on inspiring single, independent attackers, the so-called "lone wolves." As a result, many security services were taken by surprise that IS could organize relatively complex attacks so quickly and aggressively.
12 Of Our Favorite Events In Chicago This Weekend



Free beer? Free beer! Photo courtesy of Clark Street Dog & Bar.

The first weekend of spring is upon us. Get out there and enjoy it with these fun events we've lined up for you.

FRIDAY MARCH 25

FREE BEER: Clark Street Dog & Bar has teamed up with Lagunitas to give out samples as part of a March Madness Midwest Regional viewing party. From 6 to 9 p.m. enjoy complimentary Lagunitas tastings of their IPA, Aunt Sally (dry-hopped sour ale) and DayTime.

GOOD FOOD FESTIVAL: If you ask us, all food is good, but not necessarily that kind of good. The Good Food Festival focuses on local, sustainable foods. The event includes exhibits, conferences, talks, networking and more across the three day festival at the UIC Forum. Tickets start at $10.

CONCERT: Will Oldham AKA Bonnie "Prince" Billy joins eighth blackbird for the concert evening titled Ghostlight at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The indie folk musician will join the ensemble, who is currently working in-residence at the museum, on the piece Rzewski's Coming Together, which follows a bombers descent into madness. 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $10.

BRIT POP + ROCK PARTY: Propaganda Chicago, modeled after the UKs biggest alternative dance party, has made the new ping pong hotspot SPiN the home with DJ Dan taking up a monthly residency. Fridays party doubles as a birthday celebration Chicago Mixologist, Benjamin Newby and rock and roll makeovers will also be available from Kelly Cardenas Salon. Entry is free.



Photo courtesy of Laugh Out Loud Theater.

LOL IMPROV COMEDY: Theres a new comedy theater in town. The suburban fixture Laugh Out Loud Theater celebrates the opening of their second location in North Center with a weekend of improv shows, prizes, surprise guests and so much more. Plus, get a chance to meet the cast that includes veterans from Second City, iO, The Annoyance, ComedySportz and more. Grand Opening Gala shows are at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $30.



SATURDAY MARCH 26

CHICAGO BEER FESTIVAL: Chicago Beer Festival moves festivities to the Field Museum for 2016. Sample dozens of local and domestic brews while perusing museum artifacts and experiences. Theyve got dozens of local and domestic breweries signed up including Atlas, Founders, Bell's and more. 7 to 11 p.m. Tickets are $45.

DAILY SHOW COMEDIAN: The new host of The Daily Show takes the stage at Chicago Theater with shows at 7 and 10 p.m. Trevor Noah, a South African native, saw comedic success with his own late night show before taking over the popular news program. Tickets start at $35.



C!RCA photo via Harris Theater.

CIRCUS OF ANIMALS: C!RCA

returns to Harris Theater for Carnival of the Animals as part of the theaters Family Series. The ensemble of circus artists puts the new in new circus with acrobatic performances that challenge, thrill and delight. These one-hour matinees are tailored for kids ages 4 to 12 to share with their families. 2 p.m. Tickets are $12.

WINE + VINYL: The latest edition of the Wine & Vinyl club meets up at Yachtclub at 8 p.m. The evening includes visuals from artist BonsaiMusiq and three DJs will take turns spinning. BYO records and wine. Entry is $5.

BOOK SIGNING + COLORING: Grab your Crayolas and head to 57th Street Books where author Jessie Kanelos Weiner returns home for a coloring event and signing of her new book, Edible Paradise: A Coloring Book of Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables. The Chicago native who currently lives in Paris is also a food illustrator who has worked for Nespresso, Kelloggs and more. 2 p.m. Free.

FREE PUNK ROCK: Join Ted Leo, NE-HI and the HoZac Records DJs at the Dr. Martens store on State Street to celebrate 40 years of punk. From noon to 6 p.m. the store will host these punk all-stars for the most punk rock birthday party around. Mohawks are free. Get one and get 25% off anything you buy. There's also going to be free food and drink from the DAnermen Food Truck and Seasons Soda. Score!

SUNDAY MARCH 27: EASTER



Picture courtesy of Longman & Eagle.

ADULT EASTER EGG HUNT: Why should the kids have all the fun? Head to Longman & Eagle for their Adult Easter Egg Hunt at noon. Registration starts at 11 a.m. and there are adult beverage prizes, too! Dont miss the accompanying block party with a DJ and drinks and food from the L&E crew. Entry is $5 per person with proceeds going to One Tail at a Time.
A former New Canaan man has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud stemming from a cargo shipping scheme to defraud investors of more than $1.3 million.

Deirdre M. Daly, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said John B. Jeffrey, also known as Tucker Jeffery, 48, formerly of New Canaan, and now a resident of Denver, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty Thursday before U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in Bridgeport.
There is an artisanal economy resurfacing.

Many entrepreneurs are eschewing big business and mass production in an exchange for a more focused, purposeful return to their craft. More importantly, consumers -- millennials, especially -- are demanding this shift. They want high-quality products that have integrity and offer full disclosure. And they are willing to pay more for them.

Related: Artisanal Mayonnaise Shop Satirized on SNL Releases a New, Parody-Inspired Flavor

After years of pushing automation, we are once again craving that emotional connection to the things we buy. So, from clothes to wine to food (and Im not talking about Wendys Artisan Egg Sandwich), people want to hear the story behind the product: Where did it come from? Who got their hands dirty in the process?

Companies like Etsy and its 40 million unique monthly visitors are proof that handmade and heartfelt products can also make money. Retail behemoth Amazon would not have launched Handmade, its new online store that sells products from invite-only crafts people, if that werent true.

Artisanal Premium Cheese is hoping to not only capitalize on this movement but take it a step further. Artisanals management wants to take the products from its online business and offer them in eponymous cheese and wine cafes so that there is a face-to-face connection with their cheeses and their stories.

Artisans are passionate -- maybe even obsessed.

Much like wine, well-made cheese is a labor of love. It has a story. It is made from artisans who pass on their tradition and dedication to the next generations.

And its sensual and sexy on a plate, says Terrance Brennan, renowned chef and restaurateur who is credited with bring the cheese course to family meals across America.

Thats what attracted Brennan to the cheese world. He spent years sharpening his culinary skills in Europe only to realize that every meal had a cheese course.

When I had my first great Epoisse [a soft cows milk cheese], I realized what have I been missing all my life, says Brennan, who grew up eating Kraft and Cheez Whiz.

So in 1993, when he opened Picholine, an award-winning restaurant in New York City, he offered a French-style cheese car so guests could select cheeses as part of their meal. It revolutionized fine dining and played a role in this restaurant having two Michelin stars for almost five years, which unfortunately is now closed.

Related: What Artisanal Brands Can Teach Us About Using Technology to Humanize Business

But Brennan wanted to do more to highlight the food he loved so much. In 2001, he opened Artisanal, a bistro-cheese-wine bar, and then in 2003, he launched the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center -- a 10,000 square-foot facility dedicated to the selection and distribution of the world's finest artisanal cheeses.

But my passion had become an obsession, says Brennan who realized he wanted to focus more on his restaurants.

So in 2007, he sold the Cheese Center, along with its website, artisanalcheese.com, to current CEO Daniel Dowe. But even back then, Brennan and Dowe knew their customers would demand a face-to-face connection with their products.

So they are joining forces. Together, they plan to open wine and cheese cafes around the country to do just that.

And for even more validity, they brought in one of the foremost authorities on cheese, Steven Jenkins. He authored the book Cheese Primer which won him a James Beard Award, and he was nominated for the Julia Child Award of the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Jenkins was most recently a senior vice president of Fairway Markets, and his mission there was to give small businesses representation in the marketplace.

There are so many artisans in Europe that for generations have specialized in making products that are indigenous to their region, says Jenkins, who now hopes to bring those products to the Artisanal cafes.

Tell your story -- and tell it well.

Cheese has gotten a bad wrap recently, but good cheese -- cheese that has been properly ripened and aged -- actually has little to no lactose and less fat than you think.

Many will argue that its almost a complete protein, and there are plenty of scientific reasons to support it. But all that has to be part of the narrative. Customers want to know that the products they purchase are good for them, their families and our Earth.

Artisanals new management team realizes this -- and thats why they are opening these cafes. They want to tell their story in person.

Related: How This Ceramics Company Is Moving Forward By Scaling Back

Maybe thats the next step in this whole artisanal movement. Maybe emails and websites arent enough anymore. Maybe its time to bring back some human contact.

And what a better way to do that then at a cafe over some cheese and a glass of wine.

Related:

How Grant Cardone Evolved From People-Pleaser to Empowered Multimillionaire

The Dozen Difficult Steps Necessary to Succeed at Entrepreneurship

What's Behind a 10-Year 'Overnight' Success?



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The Chinese woman who was the alleged victim of a "racist" incident on a Virgin flight in early March released a statement yesterday claiming she was "humiliated" and "abused" and may take the issue to court.

Virgin founder and CEO Richard Branson posts his response to the incident both in Chinese and English on Twitter.

The Chinese woman who was the alleged victim of a "racist" incident on a Virgin flight in early March released a statement yesterday claiming she was "humiliated" and "abused" and may take the issue to court.

"The last few days have been very difficult for me, because of the flight where I felt humiliated and abused and had to sit through the entire flight in fear," the woman, whose surname is Yu, said.

As China.org.cn previously reported, she alleged that a white man called her a "f*cking Chinese pig" and repeatedly cursed at her while she was looking for headphones in neighboring seats on a flight from London to Shanghai. She also accused the flight attendants of ignoring her and threatening to remove her from the plane. She later wrote a post on the Internet that received millions of views.

She said in her statement that she did not expect to be treated in the way she was by representatives of Virgin Atlantic after the "humiliating racial discrimination and abuse incident." "Regardless of the fellow passenger's state of health, I expected much more from Virgin Atlantic's handling of such an incident."

Sir Richard Branson, the founder and CEO of Virgin Atlantic, wrote in both Chinese and English on Virgin's website that after hearing different accounts of the story, he maintained that his cabin crew had done nothing wrong.

He stated that the male customer has "Parkinson's disease" and that "we also take a zero tolerance approach to discrimination against anybody due to a disability."

"I have consulted British lawyers and, as of this morning, instructed a firm of lawyers to communicate with Virgin Atlantic on the issue of their failings and their legal responsibilities to me," Yu said, adding, "I have always been proud to be Chinese and glad to see that many people are shocked that something of this nature could happen."

Virgin Atlantic's representatives haven't responded to Yu's latest remarks.
I t is a strange feeling to pick up a newly released book in a second-hand book shop in New York, as I did last week.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, by Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright, came out in the US in 2013 but is only being published here this month, a year after the HBO documentary of the same name by Alex Gibney was released. The book was dropped by its original publisher, Transworld, presumably under legal pressure from the famously litigious church, and is now being released by Silvertail.

Wright interviewed more than 200 members and former members of the Church to write his definitive account of the organisation, a magnificent feat of investigative storytelling which starts with the strange life of L Ron Hubbard, Scientologys founder.

Hubbard was a charismatic and a startling fantasist. He claimed to have worked on films in which he was not credited. His obsession with naval culture (fleeing lawsuits, he eventually took Scientology to sea on a fleet of boats) seems to have given birth to a string of invented wartime stories. He claimed to have been crippled by battle wounds and healed himself with techniques that would later become central to Scientology, but those injuries are absent from his military and hospital records.

Scientology was germinated in 1938 when Hubbard went to the dentist and hallucinated under gas anaesthetic.

In those brief, hallucinatory moments, Hubbard believed the secrets of existence were accidentally revealed to him, Wright explains in the deadpan that he employs throughout the book, even when narrating Scientologys most ludicrous beliefs about intergalactic wars and volcanos being blown up by H-bombs. He surmises that the book Hubbard claims he wrote straight after the experience  Excalibur, which apparently left its first six readers so shattered by its revelations that he withdrew it from publication  probably never existed.

More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics  the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review

The allegations against Hubbard go further than dishonesty. He is accused of beating and abducting his second wife Sara Northrup Hollister, and threatening to kill their daughter, Alexis, whom he also abducted.

After Hubbards death, the narrative moves to the reign of his successor David Miscavige, who has been accused of assaulting senior members of the Church, many of whom have now left and have begun to tell their stories to the likes of Wright and the British journalist John Sweeney. Miscavige and the church strongly deny this and counterclaim that his accusers are guilty of abuse and hence have been expelled from the church. Sweeneys 2013 book, Church of Fear, documents Scientologys use of private investigators and the courts to harass and intimidate critics. As investigative journalist Richard Behar put it: Those who criticise the church often find themselves engulfed in litigation or stalked by private eyes.

Some of Going Clears most entertaining passages relate to the churchs fanatical courting of celebrities like John Travolta and Tom Cruise, who Wright says acted as a lobbyist for Scientology to foreign governments (he apparently asked Bill Clinton how the church could influence Tony Blair) and an emissary to the rest of Hollywood  Wright says he tried to convert Steven Spielberg, Will Smith and even David Beckham. The Church denies the books claim  allegedly taken from two sources  that Miscavige videotaped Tom Cruises auditing sessions (Scientologys signature form of therapy) and passed on the sexual anecdotes Cruise had been asked to confess to friends.

Despite its dwindling membership (Scientology has claimed to have about eight million members, but one recent estimate puts its active congregation at more like 40,000, the capacity of Stamford Bridge), the revelations in Going Clear depict a frightening organisation, capable of imprisoning people often without keeping them imprisoned. But the books delayed publication must make us readers think  how much can we fear an organisation thats this scared of us?
T he Dublin Easter Rising of 1916 is up there with the Storming of the Bastille as a foundational national event cum myth, only less bloody, more exalted, more middle-class and commemorated with an unforgettable poem: Yeatss Easter 1916. If you can get through the centenary without someone quoting a terrible beauty is born at you, youll be doing well.

It was, as rebellions go, unsuccessful, given that most of the participants outside Dublin had been told that the rising had been cancelled and the promised weapons for the insurgency from Germany had been intercepted. Instead the event was confined to Dublin, where 1,500 insurgents held out for some six days against overwhelming forces, most notably in the General Post Office, where Padraig Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic, which invested the insurrection with the idealism of its seven signatories.

But winning wasnt the point; glorious failure was a win too. The number of casualties was relatively small but the devastation wrought on Dublin, the second city of the Empire, was terrible.

Ruth Dudley Edwardss book focuses on the seven signatories to the Proclamation. They were a mixed bag: from Thomas Clarke, who spent 15 years in solitary confinement as a dynamitard, to the gentle, tubercular poet Joe Plunkett and the socialist from the slums of Edinburgh, James Connolly. Much of her material is drawn from a recent biography series of the revolutionary leaders, but the dearth of original research isnt a problem; the sketches are succinct, sympathetic and sometimes mordantly funny.

What does let the book down is its final section on their legacy, which is weirdly at odds with the rest. Theres an overwhelming temptation to psychologise the leaders of the Rising and she succumbs to it  identifying dead or problematic mothers (Plunketts was a monster). At least she doesnt assume that Pearses attraction to comely boys meant he was gay in the contemporary sense  in one painful episode, Thomas Mac Donagh and Joe Plunkett had to explain to him just what the public might make of a hair-raisingly homoerotic poem of his; it came as a horrid surprise.

More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics  the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review

But the seven had features in common; several werent pure Catholic Irish but of mixed stock, with a non-Irish or non Catholic parent or non-native birth; a couple werent Catholic. Most were liberal in their sympathies, keen on female suffrage and the cause of labour, though as Dudley Edwards points out, this did not amount to a cohesive political view.

Her bleak conclusion is that the 1916 revolution was really a violent attack on constitutionalism. Well, you could say that the real attack on constitutionalism was carried out earlier by Ulster Unionists who subverted the Home Rule bill by recourse to the threat of force (with British army acquiescence) and weaponised Irish politics by gunrunning. To make the most of this book, just ignore the last bit.
A pensioner from north-east London has been jailed after she sent envelopes containing sugar in the post.

Shirley Freed, 81, of Walthamstow, admitted two counts of sending a hoax noxious substance at Snaresbrook Crown Court contrary to the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act.

She was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Thursday.

The court heard Freed sent envelopes to two separate addresses last summer intending them to believe the contents were harmful.

Commander Dean Haydon, head of the Mets Counter Terrorism Command, said: "Whilst there was never any danger, Freed's action were intended to cause fear and it is right that she has been held to account."
A 10-year-old boy is fighting for his life in hospital after he was knocked down by a car in a hit-and-run in south London.

Police were called after the child was hit by the vehicle in Kingswood Road, Clapham, at around 2.15pm today.

Paramedics rushed the boy to a London hospital where his condition was described as critical, police said.

The driver of the car, a light-coloured Audi hatchback, believed to be an Audi A3, did not stop at the scene.

Detective Superintendent Steve Pidgeon, of the Roads and Transport Policing Command, said: "It is impossible to believe that the driver did not know they had been involved in a very serious collision.

"I am urging this driver to come forward and speak with us immediately."

Anyone with information should call the police collision investigation unit at Merton on 020 85435157 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A woman found dead in Croydon died of a stab wound to the chest, a post-mortem examination found.

Police were called by paramedics from London Ambulance Service to a home in Meadvale Road at 8.55pm on Wednesday.

A woman, who is believed to be in her 20s, was found with multiple stab wounds and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A murder probe was later launched by the Homicide and Major Crime Command.

A post-mortem examination took place at Croydon Mortuary on Thursday and gave a cause of death as a stab wound to the chest.

The womans next of kin have been informed but formal identification is yet to take place.

Police were also called to Gordon Crescent at 10.34pm on Wednesday to reports of a man stabbed in shoulder.

He was treated by paramedics and detectives said the incident was being treated as linked to the earlier stabbing.

The man, believed to be in his 30s, was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in a stable condition at a south London hospital.

Anyone with information should call the incident room on 020 8721 4805 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A man has been charged after comments made on social media about confronting a Muslim woman over the Brussels terror attacks.

Matthew Doyle, 46, from South Croydon, will appear at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court on Saturday.

The comments, posted the day after 31 people were killed in terror attacks across the Belgian capital, were posted on his Twitter account.

Brussels attacks - police arrest six suspects

Police revealed he was charged on Friday morning with publishing or distributing written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, likely or intended to stir up racial hatred.

Doyle was arrested on Wednesday following an investigation by Croydon Police community safety unit.
T he Flying Scotsman has come face-to-face with its modern-day equivalent at the National Railway Museum.

A Virgin Trains powercar was taken to the York attraction on Friday morning and was placed nose-to-nose with its older relative.

The Flying Scotsman, the worlds most famous steam locomotive, made a triumphant return to the Kings Cross to York route last month after a 4.2 million decade-long refit.

Flying Scotsman makes inaugural run

The one-day visit from the modern powercar came as the National Railway Museum launched its Stunts, Speed and Style event, which gives visitors the chance to step on board the cab of Flying Scotsman.

Drivers: Mike Ingledew (left), driver of the Virgin Class 91 Flying Scotsman, with David Court (right), former driver of the 1920s built steam locomotive Flying Scotsman / Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire

The six-week long opportunity will involve the famous engine alongside three other locomotives which have pulled the Flying Scotsman service - GNR No 1, Henry Oakley and the newly restored King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

Visitors to the museum can also take a virtual tour of the Flying Scotsman service through the ages with the museum's Service with Style exhibition.

Paul Kirkman, director of the National Railway Museum, said: "Our Scotsman Season is a tribute to all the people who have worked so hard to bring a legend back to life, from those that have worked on the restoration itself to the public that donated to our appeals."

Nose-to-nose: The two trains at the York museum on Good Friday / Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire

The Good Friday event was not the first time the Flying Scotsman has come close to a Virgin Trains service.

A video of a Virgin train travelling past the historic engine went viral last month after it completely blocked trainspotter Ryan Allens view of the 93-year-old engine.

Virgin Trains apologised for the mishap and offered Mr Allen, 34, flights to Atlanta, Georgia courtesy of Virgin Atlantic.
J eremy Corbyn is due to appear as guest speaker at the National Union of Teachers (NUT) annual spring conference in Brighton.

The Labour leader is expected to take to the stage on Friday afternoon and his appearance was only announced on his official Twitter account several hours before the five-day event is due to officially open.

Topics on the agenda at the annual conference include concerns over the dangers of social media and the Government's controversial counter-terrorism strategy - the Prevent duty.

Attendees are also expected to discuss the prospect of strike action over what they say is an "intolerable" workload in classrooms across the country.

Mr Corbyn is predicted to receive a warmer welcome than former Labour education secretary Estelle Morris who was heckled and slow hand clapped by delegates in 2002 when she spoke at the NUT conference.

Afterwards she said: "If I told them that tomorrow was Sunday, I think they'd say it wasn't and pass a motion against it."

The response to Morris visit resulted in the drying up of Labour speakers at the NUT conference, but members continued to speak at other teachers' union summits, including the NASUWT.

The NASUWT, the country's largest teachers' union, also holds its annual spring meet over the Easter weekend and is due to be attended by shadow education secretary Lucy Powell.

Mr Corbyn's position on academy schools is likely to mean he gets a good reception from the conference in Brighton.

The Labour leader has consistently voted against freeing all schools from local authority control, something which Chancellor George Osborne said in his Budget last week will happen within six years.

The announcement this week prompted protests from teachers across the country, unhappy with the proposals over concerns from parents and staff about cost and "unnecessary" reorganisation.
S cientists have enlisted the help of a British rover called Bruno to help them answer one of lifes great mysteries -whether there is life on Mars.

Bruno, one of three prototypes along with Bridget and Bryan, is being developed to drill down onto the Red Planet to search for signs of life.

In 2018, a six-wheeled machine with a brain similar to Brunos will be launched to Mars as part of the ExoMars joint project between the European and Russian space agencies.

As the ExoMars orbiter hurtles towards Mars following its launch on March 14, scientists and engineers are working on the rover that will be used in space.

Assembling the mechanical parts and electronic circuits is due to start at the UK headquarters of Airbus Defence & Space in Stevenage later this year.

Mars rover: Bruno is being developed as a prototype to test for signs of life on the Red Planet / PA

Speaking at the centre, Dr Ralph Cordey said: "One of the challenges of going to Mars is that it's so far away in terms of the time it takes radio signals to go there and back - around 40 minutes.

"It's not possible to drive this sort of machine with a joystick. You'll crash it. So this rover is designed to be semi-autonomous. It can produce its own 3D map of the area ahead of it, look where it's being asked to go, and plot its own path.

"It's aware that some rocks it can't get over and has to drive round, and it can see ditches and sense what slopes are safe to climb."

Airbus Defence & Space communications director Jeremy Close said the caves and craters on Mars meant it was more efficient for a human to test the rover.

Next month, British astronaut Major Tim Peake will take part in a pioneering experiment that will see him operate Bruno from space.

Major Peake will be asked to drive the rover into a cave  simulated by plunging half the Mars sandpit into darkness.

Asked how he felt about the mission, Dr Cordey said: "It will help answer one of the really deep down questions that we have.

"You stop and look up into the night sky and wonder, is there life out there? We've now got the engineering and science capability to start trying to answer that question. It's not just in the realms of sci-fi - there are good reasons for believing there could have been life on Mars early in its life, just as there was on Earth.
A n entire town has been evacuated after a freight train crashed into a propane truck, sparking a huge fire.

Authorities in Callaway, Minnesota, told more than 200 people to leave their homes on Thursday after the crash at a railroad crossing less than half a mile from a propane storage tank in the town

Two people on the train were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment. Their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Train operator Canadian Pacific said seven of the 82 train cars derailed in the collision while the tanker was on fire.

Authorities said 15 fire crews are working to extinguish the blaze.

According to reports, all Callaway residents were told to leave their homes as a precaution because of leaking fuel from propane truck.

The Minnesota State Patrol said the propane was being vented.

Video footage has emerged of a massive explosion at the crash site with fire crews pouring water on the smouldering wreckage.

Canadian Pacific Railway spokesman Andy Cummings said an investigation has been launched as to how the truck came to be on the tracks.
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Shanghai shares yesterday dropped the most in two weeks as investor sentiment was dragged down by annual earnings reports of some of the biggest national companies amid an economic slowdown.

The Shanghai Composite Index shed 1.63 percent to 2,960.97 points, below the key 3,000-point level for the second time this week.

PetroChina, the countrys biggest oil and gas producer as well as the most heavily weighted stock in the barometer, declined 1.93 percent to 7.63 yuan (US$1.17) as it posted its weakest annual profit in 16 years amid falling crude oil prices.

CITIC Securities Co, Chinas biggest listed brokerage, slumped 5.12 percent to 17.41 yuan after China International Capital Corp cut the brokerages 2016 profit estimates by 38 percent yesterday, citing uncertainty over the magnitude of potential penalties from earlier probes into its executives.

All the six executives being probed by the stock market regulator following the market rout last summer stepped down from their posts on January 19, CITIC said.

But Zhang Youjun, the brokerages president, said yesterday that there was no evidence tying CITIC Securities to illegal insider trading.

Dongxing Securities Co lost 6.96 percent to 25.93 yuan while Haitong Securities Co shed 4 percent to 14.15 yuan.
L egendary US comedian Garry Shandling has died at the age of 66.

The award-winning actor and comic died at a hospital in Los Angeles on Thursday.

He was perhaps best known for creating and starring in pioneering US sitcom The Larry Sanders Show in the 1990s.

Considered by critics and industry figures as his comic masterpiece, it starred Shandling as an egotistical late-night TV host.

He also created It's Garry Shandling's Show in the mid-1980s, pioneering a form of docudrama comedy which influenced Ricky Gervais, among others.

Noted for its use of breaking the fourth wall, it featured Shandling essentially playing himself and often speaking directly to the camera.

On his official Twitter account, The Office creator Gervais tweeted: "RIP the great Garry Shandling. Surely, one of the most influential comedians of a generation."

Recently seen in Jerry Seinfeld's web-series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, Shandling is featured in The Jungle Book movie, which is set to be released in April.

He received several awards for The Larry Sanders Show including a Bafta in 1999 for outstanding international programme and two British Comedy Awards.

Other comedy stars paying tribute included Scrubs actor Zach Braff , who said: "Gary Shandling was a comedy hero of mine. He once sent me a thank you note that read, 'Thanks for nothing.' RIP."

Stand-up and actress Amy Schumer said: "Goodbye Gary Shandling thank you for your kindness and your generosity and for making me laugh so damn much."
Premier Li Keqiang said there will be no leniency for anyone involved in a vaccine scandal that has shocked the nation and ignited wide public concern about vaccine safety.

Li pledged on Tuesday to punish officials who are proven to have been derelict in their duty in the distribution of the possibly ineffective vaccines, according to the State Council website.

Investigations into the matter are continuing.

Police in Shandong province said improperly stored or expired vaccines, worth more than 570 million yuan ($88 million), were apparently sold in more than 20 provincial-level areas since 2011.

Wu Zhen, deputy head of the China Food and Drug Administration, pledged strict measures on Wednesday to close loopholes in the distribution system.

"The scandal has revealed problems in the distribution of vaccines," he said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province.

The administration said on Tuesday that it has given local authorities until Friday to find out who bought the mishandled vaccines to ease public concern.

In addition, police in Shandong have detained 37 suspects implicated in the scandal, including a mother and daughter alleged to have illegally sold the improperly stored or expired vaccines, and people at three pharmaceutical companies, according to the work group handling the case.

Police in Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces also have reported detaining suspects.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate announced on Tuesday that it will directly oversee the case and urged prosecuting bodies at all levels to spare no effort in their investigations.

Prosecutors throughout the country are expected to work closely with local police and drug administrations to uncover the manufacturing sources, circulation channels and buyers of the inferior products.

Wu said the administration would work closely with law enforcement. He added that the distribution and use of vaccines are generally well-managed under existing rules, especially the 14 vaccines included in the nation's routine immunization program.

Vaccines involved in the recent scandal are considered Category 2 vaccines, including those against meningitis and rabies, among other pathogens. Category 2 vaccines are administered upon request, and people pay for them.

Industry insiders said that, unlike the strictly managed vaccines of Category 1, loopholes and room for profit exist in Category 2.

A confused public may not be able to tell the difference. Some parents have reportedly held back their babies from the routine immunization program for fear of getting a bad dose.

Public health experts, including those from the World Health Organization, urged the Chinese public to stick to routine immunization programs, which are vitally important to both individual and public health.

Improperly stored or expired vaccines can lose potency and become less effective, but they pose a very small risk of causing a toxic reaction, a statement issued by the WHO China office said on Tuesday. The organization also expressed its willingness to provide support.

A vaccine rendered ineffective through age or improper storage could fail to protect the recipient against infectious diseases, which creates a public health challenge, according to Gao Fu, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Xiong Huang, deputy head of the information office of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said there has been no increase in reports of side effects after vaccinations so far.
Eight suspects stood trial in the mainland province of Guangdong on Thursday over the kidnapping of a Hong Kong heiress last year.

Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Shenzhen City said the eight suspects had admitted to being involved in the abduction of Queenie Rosita Law at her house in Hong Kong on April 25 last year.

Law, granddaughter of late textile tycoon Law Ting-pong, was later released after a ransom of 28 million Hong Kong dollars (3.6 million U.S. dollars) was paid.

Eight members of the gang were arrested on the Chinese mainland, while another was netted in Hong Kong. Among the eight tried on Thursday, six were charged with kidnapping and two with handling illegal gains.

According to prosecutors, the gang had been planning to kidnap someone in Hong Kong since March, 2015. In the early hours of April 25, they broke into Law's residence, where they also stole watches and jewels. Law was held in a cave before being released three days later.
Deadly terror attacks at home and abroad have spurred China's efforts to develop counterterrorism personnel to confront extremist threats.

Students majoring in counterterrorism at the People's Public Security University of China attend a physical combat training session. Zhang Wei / China Daily

Since 2014, the People's Public Security University of China has recruited two classes of 80 students each to major in counterterrorism and receive additional military training in weapons and intelligence gathering.

"We urgently need to train counterterrorism specialists to improve our preventive and terror-fighting capabilities to cope with serious terrorist incidents," said Mei Jianming, director of the Counterterrorism Research Center at the university, which is the first in China to train such professionals.

In recent years, terrorists have incited hostilities and launched terror attacks across the country  including in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region  that killed or injured hundreds of people.

The four-year counterterrorism program  which enrolls students who have passed not only the national university entrance exam but also physical and psychological tests  includes training in investigation, technology, strategy and tactics, as well as international judicial cooperation, said Xu Meng, a physical training instructor at the college.

"Attention will be given to their physical training and overall strategic research. They will also learn to use weapons, including submachine guns and sniper rifles," he said.

The first recruits include 27 female students. Shi Zhuoran, 19, a freshman from Xinjiang, said the region is the key battleground for combating terror attacks and has a strong need for special counterterrorism personnel.

"It's my dream to be a counterterrorism officer," she said. "I hope I will grasp more strategy and tactical anti-terror methods, then contribute more to the country after my graduation."

Mei, the center's director, said most of the graduates will join counterterrorism departments under the Ministry of Public Security or in local public security units.

China created counterterrorism departments in public security agencies at the national, provincial and municipal levels in 2001, but there was a shortage of specialists.

"To tackle the increasing threat of terrorist attacks, it's more than necessary to enhance counterterrorism law enforcement cooperation with relevant countries, including the United States, Pakistan, Israel, Russia and some European countries," Mei said last week.

The university has 30 senior professors and has invited counterterrorism experts to serve as visiting professors from the US, Israel, Pakistan and Australia to help train the anti-terror specialists.

"The US and Israel have rich experience in combating terrorism. The US is advanced in overall strategic research, and Israel is proficient at tactical actions in fighting terrorism," he said.

The university also intends to regularly send its best students to the US and Europe to participate in anti-terror training programs to get practical experience.

The Ministry of Public Security said it will strengthen judicial cooperation with Interpol, which will offer more internships for Chinese students in its member states.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) a A defense attorney for a man who acknowledges killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic asked a judge Thursday to commit his client to a psychiatric hospital for treatment but did not reveal whether a mental health exam found him competent to continue with his criminal case.

Judge Gilbert Martinez made no ruling on Robert Dear's mental competency and instead set an April hearing on the issue at prosecutors' request. The doctor who conducted Dear's evaluation could be called to testify.

Dear, 57, is charged with 179 counts stemming from the Nov. 27 shooting at the Colorado Springs clinic, where he held police at bay for more than five hours, injuring nine others and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people from surrounding businesses.

The dead included a police officer from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and two people who were accompanying friends to the clinic separately.

In previous courtroom outbursts, Dear declared himself a "warrior for the babies" and said he was guilty. He sat quietly through Thursday's short hearing, wearing neon-green jail scrubs and looking unkempt.

Martinez ordered the competency exam in December after Dear announced that he wanted to fire his public defenders and represent himself.

If the judge finds him mentally incompetent, the case would stall indefinitely so Dear could undergo treatment, resuming again when he is found to be capable of understanding the proceedings and assist in his defense.

Dear has not entered a plea, and prosecutors have not said whether they plan to seek the death penalty.
The problem of so many Nebraskans being unable to afford health coverage is certainly something thats on the minds of many people in western Nebraska.

I found that out first-hand when I traveled to Scottsbluff last December for a listening session about the problem. I heard from local hospital administrators, doctors and those who couldnt afford health insurance. Its also an issue the Star-Herald is familiar with after devoting a penetrating, four-part series in August to how the problem affects this community.

After speaking to people all over state, I concluded that dismissing nearly 100,000 Nebraskans unable to afford health insurance is a problem we cant ignore any longer. Every Nebraskan needs to be able to afford health coverage, and it needs to happen now. Thats why, after working together with many colleagues in the Legislature, I introduced LB 1032, the Transitional Health Insurance Program (T-HIP) Act.

This newspaper recently published an opinion column by the Platte Institute for Economic Research in Omaha. Their column tried to make the case that Nebraska cant afford a plan to help everyone have health coverage, and furthermore asserted LB 1032 would endanger health coverage for people who currently participate in Medicaid. Their report is flawed, so its time to set the record straight.

LB 1032 is a conservative, common-sense reform to the Medicaid system that lets us make use of tax dollars that Nebraskans send to Washington. Like Social Security, Medicare or farm subsides to protect crops, Uncle Sam partners with individuals and state governments on many programs; interestingly a whopping 32 percent of the Nebraska budget comes from the federal government.

The federal government will provide a minimum 90 percent of the funding for T-HIP. That amount is written into federal law, and it would take an act of Congress to reduce the contribution rate. In the unlikely event that the minimum rate is changed, T-HIP could potentially end. However 31 states have expanded Medicaid with programs like T-HIP, so a precipitous change by the federal government is highly unlikely.

T-HIP fills an enormous gap that currently leaves too many of the working poor unable to afford essential health coverage despite their best efforts. Many of our Panhandle neighbors are working construction jobs, and retail jobs in our shops and restaurants. They may simply fall a few hours short of working full-time status. This can mean they dont have employer insurance or cant pay for private insurance. So, they cant afford to see a doctor. Unfortunately, nearly half of the 97,000 uninsured Nebraskans work in rural areas of the state.

Panhandle residents need to be able to get the health care they need from high-quality institutions like the Regional West Medical Center. Passing LB 1032 makes certain that low income, hard-working people in the Scottsbluff-Gering area have health insurance. Serving insured people will give greater financial security to hospitals like Regional West. Good access to health care plays a vitally important role in Western Nebraskas quality of life.

Recently, an amendment to LB 1032 was proposed to add another measure of fiscal responsibility. Nebraskas full financial commitment to the program will come from our states Health Care Cash Fund, primarily funded from the tobacco settlement case. As a result, our share of the cost will not impact the states general fund or harm current state programs.

The amendment also would make LB 1032 into a three-year pilot program. At the end of three years, it would end automatically. That will give us a reasonable amount of time to judge the results and prove that it works. I am confident these three years will prove that T-HIP is a success in helping Nebraskans get the health coverage they need in a way that fits within our state budget.

And its very important to note that LB 1032 does not in any way endanger health coverage for those currently enrolled in Medicaid. LB 1032 would cover a separate population via a funding source that does not impact current Medicaid participants.

Too many lives are at stake in Nebraska to get it wrong on this issue. Too many Nebraskans are living without necessary medical care, regular medications, doctors visits and even preventive check-ups that are essential to find health problems before they spiral out of control.

LB 1032 is a responsible health coverage plan with input from experts both around Nebraska and across the country. It fits our unique needs in a financially responsible way, and it will save lives every year by letting our hard-working neighbors get the medical care that everyone needs.
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A former senior official in Shanxi province pleaded guilty on Thursday to taking bribes worth 44.58 million yuan ($6.8 million).

Nie Chunyu, former secretary-general of the Communist Party of China Shanxi Provincial Committee, accepted the bribes from 37 people in return for helping secure promotions for them or favor for their companies, according to the indictment from the Nantong People's Procuratorate in Jiangsu province.

Nie was ousted from the Party in February last year after an internal probe found he accepted bribes and committed adultery.

The court did not announce the verdict immediately after the trial, which was open to the public and journalists.
Carter identified the senior IS leader as Haji Imam and described him as the group's finance minister. He said he was a "well-known terrorist" who had a hand in terrorist plots outside of Iraq and Syria. He said he was not aware of any link between Haji Imam and this week's terrorist attack in Brussels.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Carter told a Pentagon news conference. "Indeed, the U.S. military killed several key ISIL terrorists this week, including we believe Haji Iman, who was an ISIL senior leader serving as a finance minister and who also was responsible for some external affairs and plots."

Asked about the impact of these killings, Carter said, "Leaders can be replaced. However, these leaders have been around for a long time. They are senior, they are experienced."

Carter said he would not reveal whether the IS finance leader was killed in Syria or Iraq or whether the mission was an airstrike or a ground raid.

Appearing at the news conference with Carter, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recommendations on ways to increase U.S. support for Iraq's ground fight against IS are going to be discussed with President Barack Obama soon.

"The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made," Dunford said. He did not say how big that increase might be.

The U.S. military has killed numerous Islamic State leaders in recent months. Earlier this month the Pentagon said it killed Omar al-Shishani, described as the Islamic State's "minister of war," in an airstrike in Syria. In November, the Pentagon said an airstrike in Libya killed Abu Nabil, another top IS leader.

Carter said Haji Imam has been associated with the Islamic State dating back to its earliest iteration as al-Qaida in Iraq. He said he had worked under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a liaison for operations with Pakistan.

"The removal of this ISIL leader will hamper the organization's ability to conduct operations both inside and outside Iraq and Syria," Carter said.
 Flash

Visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called for constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia, local media reported Friday.

"We are working effectively even with differences to try to find a path forward. I think that is in the interests of the American people and the Russian people, as well as in the interests of history and the future," Kerry said in an exclusive interview with Russia's TASS news agency during his recent visit to Moscow.

On Thursday, Kerry held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. On top of the agenda of Kerry's visit were a peaceful settlement in Syria, the crisis in Ukraine and the fight against international terrorism.

During the visit on Wednesday and Thursday, Kerry urged Russia to promote peace in Ukraine and Syria, which "will do a huge amount to renew the relationship between the United States and Russia."

Crediting the joint efforts of Washington and Moscow in brokering a ceasefire in Syria, Kerry called on the two sides to "work effectively together without hidden agenda" in order to destroy the Islamic State and restore peace and stability in the region.

Commenting on the U.S. sanctions against Russia due to its allegedly role in the Ukraine crisis, Kerry urged Moscow to act "in a responsible way," which would eventually lead to the lifting of the sanctions.

The top U.S. diplomat also called for cooperation between the two sides in the fight against terrorism, citing recent deadly attacks that rocked the Belgian capital city of Brussels.
On March 24, Wang Liqun, vice-chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), stated during the 14th International Steel Market and Trade Conference held in Foshan, Guangdong Province that in the January-February period this year China s finished steel exports amounted to 17.85 million mt, down 1.3 percent year on year, constituting the first year-on-year decline in recent years. He said he expects China s finished steel exports to indicate a further decline in the March-May period this year due to more antidumping and countervailing cases being initiated against Chinese finished steel exports.
Friday, 25 March 2016 14:13:13 (GMT+3) | Kolkata

Indian commercial banks have commenced meetings with steel companies to avoid classifying loans extended to steelmakers as non-performing loans when closing accounts on March 31, 2016, a senior bank official said on Friday, March 25.

The official said that, with steel companies being the second-highest stressed sector, after the electricity distribution companies, banks are forced to classify as much as $7.57 billion as non-performing loans on the books when lenders close their accounts next week.
Baker Hughes has reported that for the week ending March 24, the US rotary rig count dropped by 12, following a four-rig decline the week before. This brings the current US rotary rig count to 464. The number of rigs drilling for gas increased by three to 92, while the number of rigs drilling for oil declined by 15 to 372. The overall rig count is still down by 584 rigs, year-on-year.Meanwhile, the Canadian rig count fell by 14 in the week ending March 24 to 55, following a 31-rig decrease the week before. The Canadian rig count is now down by 65 from the same week a year ago.
Friday, 25 March 2016 14:35:30 (GMT+3) | Istanbul

According to a statement issued by the Turkish Steel Exporters' Association (CIB), the US Department of Commerce ( US DOC) has recalculated the countervailing duty (CVD) on rebar imports from Turkey

In its final decision made on September 9, 2014, the US DOC had calculated the countervailing duty rate for rebar imports from Turkey as 0.0 percent. However, the US industry appealed the DOCs final determination to the US Court of International Trade (CIT). Accordingly, the DOC has amended the subsidy margin for rebar from Turkey from zero percent to 3.64 percent.

The US DOC has amended the subsidy margin for Turkish rebar producer ICDAS Celik Enerji Tersane ve Ulasim Sanayi A.S. from 0.00 percent to 3.64 percent, though the subsidy margin for Turkish producer Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi A.S has remained at 0.00 percent. At the same time, for all other Turkish producers and exporters, the subsidy margin has increased to 3.64 percent.

Meanwhile, according to market sources, the DOC will submit its final redetermination to the CIT by April 7, while the DOCs original negative final determination remains in effect throughout the appeal process. There is no deadline by which the CIT must make a decision whether to accept the DOCs final redetermination or to require the DOC to reconsider the issues which the CIT originally remanded to the DOC.
One entrepreneur wants to change the way Americans search for apartments. Others want to revolutionize asthma treatment and grain processing.

They all need money, which is why they were at Thursdays InvestMidwest Venture Capital Forum in downtown St. Louis. About 75 venture capitalists and other investors were among the 300-plus attendees, and many of them liked what they heard.

Daniel Watkins, of Houston-based Mercury Fund, said his firm had invested in companies it saw at past InvestMidwest events, so he was looking for more. Weve spent a lot of time around the BioGenerator in St. Louis and they do a terrific job of mentoring people, he said.

Thomas Melzer, managing director of RiverVest Venture Partners in Clayton, has been a regular at the annual forum, which began in 2000 and alternates between St. Louis and Kansas City. He says the event attracts a more polished, more investable group of companies than it used to.

Its getting better any way you look at it, from the quality of the presentations to the progress the companies have made, Melzer said. Part of it is the support infrastructure that has evolved here and elsewhere.

If the folks with money found much to like, were the entrepreneurs optimistic about finding money? Answers to that question varied.

Weve had two or three real good conversations here, and well have to see if they bear fruit, said Mark Hochwalt, chief executive of NanoGuard Technologies, a Creve Coeur company that wants to raise $1.5 million. Its plasma technology kills bacteria, mold and other toxins in grain.

Sparo Labs founders Abby Cohen and Andrew Brimer said they arent actively raising money at the moment, although their asthma-sensor company will need venture capital at some point.

Thursday was about exposure, Cohen said: Part of it is just getting the name out there and talking to people. We were able to talk to a lot of people today from beyond St. Louis.

Terry Carlton, CEO of KeyAXS in Leawood, Kan., met venture capitalists who were looking for later-stage opportunities than his one-year-old startup, but he wasnt discouraged. We are early in the process, and we have met a few potential investors, he said.

KeyAXS combines a mobile app with smart-lock technology so potential renters can look at an apartment whenever they want, as long as they pass an online screening process.

Kirk Bowman, founder of Zipline Labs in Des Peres, was less upbeat after his eight-minute money pitch. He said Ziplines consumer focus was a little out of place at InvestMidwest, where most technology companies had business-to-business strategies.

We did have a few people come and talk to us, but generally speaking, I havent found much investor appetite for this kind of play in the Midwest, Bowman said.

Zipline combines e-commerce with an online video platform.

Were going to find out if its possible to build a consumer technology company in St. Louis, Bowman said. We may have to leave, and we may have to be OK with that.

InvestMidwest featured 45 early-stage companies, of which 11 are based in the St. Louis area. After past years conferences, organizers say, presenting companies have raised a total of $1 billion.

Chances are good, then, that some of Thursdays presenters will land the money they need. Others will have to keep pitching and shaking hands for a while longer.
AWARDS

Patrick Hogg, vertical and variable speed motor product manager for Nidec Motor Corp., was honored by the Hydraulic Institute as its Young Engineer of the Year.

The St. Louis Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers named Mark Kollitz, a project manager with Burns & McDonnell, its 2016 Engineer of the Year.

Suzanne Phegley of FBC Banks was selected to receive the FBI Directors Community Leadership Award for 2015 for her work with the Tri-County Financial Fraud Coalition.

HELPING OUT

The American Red Cross of Eastern Missouri elected these executives to its board of directors: Carmen Jacob, president of NextGen, and Mark Kwapiszeski, group executive and business information officer of emerging payments for MasterCard Operations & Technology.

Sheena R. Hamilton, an attorney at Dowd Bennett LLP, was elected to the board of directors of the United Way of Greater St. Louis.

Spectrum Brands Inc. donated 55,000 units of mosquito repellent for areas of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico affected by the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

MARKETING

Eagle Bank and Trust Co. is now the official bank of the Missouri Valley Conference.

M&A

CountryWide Broadband subsidiary iTV-3 LLC has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of iTV-3 Inc., a subsidiary of Highland Ventures Ltd., serving communities in central Illinois.

Dan Curran of 10X Lab has acquired two marketing agencies, Twist and Evolutionize, and plans to merge all three into a new firm called 10X Studios.

MORE BUSINESS

Gateway Composites is now the exclusive manufacturer of FiberLock, a concrete crack repair system.

4M Building Solutions was awarded the contract to clean the Patheon Biologics facility.

Lighthouse for the Blind-St. Louis won a $19.5 million contract from the Defense Logistics Agency.

OPENINGS

Starbucks opened its first Military Family Store in the St. Louis area, to be operated primarily by veterans and military spouses:

 1126 Central Park Drive, OFallon, Ill. 62269

USA Mortgage opened a new office:

 1115 West Gannon Drive, Festus, Mo.

MOD, a womens fashion boutique, opened a new location:

 1650 Beale Street, Suite 160, St. Charles, Mo. 63303

RECOGNITION

FleishmanHillard was named one of the top 10 companies for female executives by the National Association for Female Executives.

4M Building Solutions named Marie Saenz its team member of the year. Jeff Edwards was awarded the Mitchell M. Murch Sr. 110 Percent Award.
Japan has opened talks with Western defense contractors about building a new generation of fighter jets, sources say, in what would mark an important milestone in Tokyos strategy to maintain its air superiority over rival China.

The discussions with defense companies including Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Ltd. come as Japan readies its ATD-X experimental aircraft for its first test flights within days.

Stealth fighter technologies being tested on the ATD-X, being developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japanese Ministry of Defenses Technical Research and Development Institute, would also be incorporated into the new fighter, dubbed the F-3, industry and government sources said.

They have begun exploratory engagement to look at our capabilities, said a source with a Western defense contractor. There is no policy decision and no program of record for the next fighter. There is only some discussion that, logically, there will be a fighter at some point.

Analysts estimate the cost of such a program at $40 billion or more, a price tag that could yet prove prohibitive.

Japan has already committed to buying 42 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. But that aircrafts perceived shortcomings in air-to-air combat and the United States refusal to sell its Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor have encouraged Japan to consider a domestic-led program to replace its fleet of aging Boeing F-15J warplanes.

Plans are likely to be firmed by end-2017 or early 2018, which would enable the F-3 program to secure funding in Japans 2018-2022 five-year plan and be in service by around 2030, the sources added.

Upgrades to a large portion of more than 150 aging Japan Air Self Defense Force F-15Js, to incorporate new engines and radars among other advanced capabilities, could proceed while research into the F-3 program continues, said the sources.

Japans Defense Ministry said it was considering various options for future fighter jets including independent development and international joint development to replace its F-2 fighter fleet from about 2030.

It declined to comment on whether it had started discussions with Western defense contractors.

CHINA FLYING HIGH

Chinas development of modern and stealthy fighter jets, combined with Japans more muscular security agenda under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is fueling Tokyos push for a new fighter.

As tension between China and the United States and its allies rise in areas such as the East China Sea and South China Sea, Tokyo wants to ensure it can defend the airspace over Japan and its territories.

Chinas warplanes still lag the best aircraft used by the U.S. and its allies, but Beijing has been building its capability, military experts say.

To maintain its air superiority, Tokyo had hoped to buy U.S. F-22 stealth fighters. Despite numerous discussions, however, Washington refused to sell, even to one of its closest Asian allies.

While the F-35s will replace some of Japans strike fighters, they are not a replacement for the F-15s in the air superiority role and dont have the F-22s capabilities, said one Japan-based source familiar with the thinking inside the countrys defense ministry.

Japan really wanted the F-22 but it got the F-35, added the source. This is a source of concern and frustration in Tokyo.

Japanese ministry planners believe that if the program goes ahead, the F-3 could be an aircraft similar to the F-22 in look and capabilities, said a second Japan-based source.

Manned and unmanned options are being considered, with a preference for the former, the source added.

Japan recently lifted a decades-long ban on arms sales and while the F-3 program is focused on domestic needs, exports of a home-grown fighter may also be considered.

Any joint effort could be similar to Japans F-2 program, where Lockheed Martin teamed up with MHI to develop a fighter jet based on its F-16.

High development costs meant that the Japanese government paid about $120 million for each F-2, making it the second-most expensive fighter jet built after the F-22s at about $150 million each.

The basic F-35 model, by comparison, is expected to cost about $85 million each once full production is reached.

TOO COSTLY?

Some analysts believe the cost of developing an aircraft with the performance level of an F-22 may be a hurdle too high even for the worlds third-largest economy.

Paying for that performance difference by developing a new jet is simply too expensive. Where would Japan find $40 billion or more in its defense budget to develop a new plane? said Richard Aboulafia, vice-president of analysis at Teal Group.

Help from Western firms could cut costs.

One potential partner was the Eurofighter consortium, a joint venture between Airbus, Finmeccanica subsidiary Alenia Aermacchi and BAE Systems that manufactures the Typhoon fighter jet, said sources. A Eurofighter spokesman declined to comment.

Lockheed Martin said it was very interested in working with Tokyo on the proposed F-3 program.

Lockheed Martin has a very long history of developing new fighter aircraft, both indigenously and as a foreign partnership that incorporates leading edge technology to address emerging threats, a spokesman said in an email.

Boeings record in developing new fighter jets can help any ground-up program, Jim Armington, who heads business development in East Asia for Boeings defense arm, told Reuters. Basing the F-3 on an existing design would give Japan a head start, he added.

Now, I cant say which direction the Japanese government will go with this fighter, and whether it will be totally indigenous Japanese industry only or whether it will be opened up for foreign role and cooperation, said Armington. We are betting that there will be some opportunity for us to help.
Fewer men than women show up in U.S. churches, and women are markedly more likely to pray and to hold up religion as important.

But in Muslim nations, its the women who are missing in action at the mosque  and yet theyre on par with men in upholding almost all the Muslim pillars of faith.

Those are among the top findings in a new Pew Research study of the gender gap in religion, drawn from data in 192 nations, released Tuesday.

The overall conclusion: Women, particularly Christian, are generally more religious than men worldwide. An estimated 83 percent of women around the world identify with a faith group, compared with 80 percent of men, according to the report.

Thats not a conclusion people could reach by observation, say demographer Conrad Hackett and senior writer and editor Caryle Murphy, co-authors of the report.

If you were a Christian woman in Kansas and you and your husband both go to church, you might think men and women are equally religious, said Murphy.

Thats not so, she said. We pray more than our male peers, we attend church more and we are more likely to say our religion is important to us, she said.

This same hypothetical American might also want to know about a Muslim neighbor down the street who belongs to a faith where men and women are very much alike in their commitment, said Murphy.

The only exception for Muslims, who make up 23 percent of the world population, is that men attend mosque more than women, said Hackett.

Among the findings:

 In 61 of 192 countries studied, women are more likely than men to claim a religious identity. Theres not always a huge difference but when there is a difference, it always favors women, said Hackett.

 The nones  people with no self-identified religious affiliation  are more likely to be men: 55 percent to 45 percent for women.

 Religiosity lessens among Christian women as they move up the economic ladder.

Overall, however, the report, mapping prayer, affiliation and importance of religion across the globe in deep detail, does not explain why there is a gap between  and within  the genders.

Unanswered questions examined in the report include the age-old argument of whether nature or nurture can account for it, and how much theology, economics and majority or minority status by race or religion make a difference within and between genders.

Christian women in the United States, for example, may become less religious as their own paychecks climb because they get less affirmation from religious congregations that honor women in traditional family-centered roles, said Indiana University sociologist Landon Schnabel, an adviser to Pew Research on this survey.

His research found that high-earning white Christian women (over $100,000 a year in personal income) are no more religious than high-earning men.

Christianity is a highly feminized religion: Jesus is not at all macho, unlike Muhammad, said Woodhead, who sees this as a problem for men that other major religions do not share.

But as Christian women move out of traditional support roles in the home and in the church and insist on equity in society, the problem will grow for churches that defend male leadership, the nuclear family and traditional gender roles, said Linda Woodhead, professor in the department of politics, philosophy and religion at Lancaster University.

Kecia Ali, an associate professor of religion at Boston University, when told about the Pew findings, observed that, most Muslims hold that attendance at Friday midday communal prayer is obligatory for men but merely encouraged or simply permissible for women.

But whether women actually go to mosques varies greatly depending on local norms, and those are in flux. For instance, one thing thats shifted in Egypt over the last 30 years of religious revival there is a dramatically increased presence of women in mosques, said Ali, author of Sexual Ethics and Islam.

The Pew gender gap report was based on examining Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and the unaffiliated (nones) in data from censuses, demographic surveys and population surveys conducted in the last seven years.
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Rob Howards municipal court experience is typical, which is to say that nearly any black person who spends any time driving in north St. Louis County can relate to it.

Last fall he was driving to a friends house late one night on Interstate 270 in Creve Coeur when he got pulled over by a police officer.

I was the only one on the road, he said. It seemed weird.

The police officer said he was swerving. He asked for his license and ran Howards name. He had a warrant out for his arrest. Howard spent the night in jail. He didnt get a ticket from Creve Coeur, but he didnt have enough money to bail out of jail, either. He was driving his mothers car, who needed it for work the next day. Howard also works, two jobs, one as a graphic artist, the other at a cellphone store.

Howards mom called a friend, Patricia Bynes, the Democratic committee woman from Ferguson who was introduced to the nation during nonstop cable television coverage of the events there in the summer and fall of 2014.

Bynes, a family friend, went to the station and put up the money to get Howard out of jail.

This is just one of those ways in which poor people who live around here are inconvenienced all the time, she said.

Bynes sentiments echoed the theme of a video shown Wednesday night at the Central Library downtown during a town hall meeting organized by Forward Through Ferguson (the former Ferguson Commission) about the regions municipal court problems.

Behind every ticket is a name and a story, it was headlined.

The overwhelming view at the town hall meeting was that the people of the St. Louis region want the Missouri Supreme Court to fix the problems caused by having 80 municipal courts and nearly 60 police departments in one metro area. Too many of those courts are using their police departments as ticket-writing machines to raise money to fill city budgets. Their targets are often poor, and black, like Howard, or like Dawn Jones, the St. Louis woman in the video at the town hall meeting.

Sometimes you take the long route because you want to avoid the municipalities, Jones said. Simply going to school can be scary.

The Supreme Court is now mulling a report by the working group it appointed to study the municipal courts and come up with solutions. That working groups report was disappointing to most of the advocates for civil rights in the region who have been pushing for consolidation and professionalization of the courts.

In fact, it was so disappointing  particularly because it argued that the Supreme Court couldnt force consolidation of the courts that the state Constitution says it supervises  that the Ferguson Commission co-chairmen ripped it in a statement last week.

If the Supreme Court does not act, we call for the Department of Justice, in line with its letter regarding unconstitutional court practices sent to chief justices and court administrators across the country on March 14, 2016, to again intervene on behalf of the people of St. Louis County, wrote the Rev. Starsky Wilson and Rich McClure.

What the court needs to see, they say, and Washington University law school professor Kimberly Norwood echoes, is that the problem in St. Louis is about more than raising court standards. Its about understanding how the status quo affects people of color. The working group  Norwood was on it  tried to ignore race, but Norwood, in her stinging dissent, reminded the court that it cant be ignored.

How people are policed is very different depending on where they live, Norwood told the town hall meeting on Wednesday.

Indeed, thats the conclusion of another municipal court study released by a group of St. Louis University professors this week. An interdisciplinary team involving professors of sociology, political science and law, interviewed more than 700 users of municipal courts in the poorest courts in north St. Louis County and the wealthiest ones in West County.

What they found is that blacks have a poor perception of the courts, and that a majority of people in St. Louis County, regardless of race, believe the current municipal court system is set up more as a fundraising avenue than to seek justice. The courts in the poorest areas of the county performed worse than those in wealthy communities.

Howard knows that reality all too well. Though Howard, 28, escaped his Creve Coeur experience with only one night in jail, he still faces fines in the well-known ticket factories of Charlack, Bel-Ridge and St. Ann.

He isnt angry over his experience, but resigned.

The same thing happened to my older brother, he said. Its happened to a lot of people I know.

Racial profiling leads to tickets, leads to fines, leads to jail, leads to lost jobs, leads to more poverty.

This is daily reality in St. Louis for too many of its citizens.

The Missouri Supreme Court can make life better for them. Or not.
ST. LOUIS  Theyd met every Thursday morning the past three months for anger management class. Now it was graduation day.

But before 15 certificates were handed out, instructor Jeff Goldone did a recap.

There are positive aspects of anger, such as motivation and communication. The women who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving were angry.

The class of mainly ex-offenders gathered Thursday were there because of the bad kind of anger.

Focus on the escalation phase, Goldone told them one last time. Nip it in the bud before it erupts into an explosion because, he said, the de-escalation phase can take minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, maybe even a lifetime.

That should ring true to most anyone. These students were required to take the course as part of their early release from prison.

Criminal Justice Ministry, a nonprofit organization approved by the Missouri Department of Probation and Parole, provides the course free of charge at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, 1408 South 10th Street.

Students tend to have criminal backgrounds, but not all of them.

Regardless, the main takeaway this round seemed to be how to avoid regrettable moments either by steering clear or escaping to a special place in the mind.

Its your calm spot. Its your safe spot, Goldone said. Go there often.

For some that meant closing their eyes and taking deep breaths on an imaginary beach.

Being blind, I am always in my safe place, said Gerald Ware, 53, who lost his eyesight nearly three decades ago from a gunfire attack.

Ware said he liked the class because it reassured what he was already doing.

Lashaun Kegler, 34, who is staying in a transitional living facility as she re-enters society, seemed to have come a long way since the first day.

Be assertive without being aggressive, she offered to the class as a tip.

Beautiful, Goldone said. Oh, my God. Say that again.

Kegler, who said she dropped out of school after ninth grade, said she wanted her parole officer to hear that.

She was one of 33 people who signed up for the course. Of those, 20 showed up on the first day and 15 graduated, a better completion rate than most.

I am going to frame it, Roderick Green, 34, said of the certificate.

Though he said hed been held at Potosi Correctional Center about 8 years for robbery, a crime fueled by addiction not anger, the course was helpful. Like the others, he was required to do homework of weekly anger logs. Ive gotten angry a couple times, he said. It didnt escalate though.

Peggy Raymo, 57, who said her weak spot is waiting in line and being on a crowded bus, took the course twice. I feel good about it. This time I can do it, she said.

Sister Rose Rita Huelsmann, coordinator of volunteers at Criminal Justice Ministry, has taught the course for years, inside and out of lockups. Theres no data on success rates, but if a little more than half of the students who finish make progress she considers it good. Because anger forms over a lifetime.

You cant break those habits immediately, but if you use these techniques you can change the way you handle life, she said.

Standing in the back of the class Thursday, she could pick out who was likely going to do well  the ones willing to own up and admit their own fault.

She had high hopes for Jimmie Moorehead, 38, who recently served time in Jefferson City. His strategy: Ignore people who are trying to stir up trouble and provoke him.

Relax, close my eyes, breathe, and everything works out for me, he said.

He has a support system. His fiancee, Johnika Davis, 27, attended the class with him, even though she wasnt required to.

Still, an imaginary trip to Orlando, Fla., didnt shield her from a recent argument with an extended family member whod insulted her. I let somebody get the best of me last week, she said. I exploded. I just have to get to my safe place, let it blow off.

Goldone, the instructor, saw hope in her response. She recognized she could have done better.

Its the kind of progress that makes Goldone look forward to April 7, when a next class begins.
ST. LOUIS  There are not many happy endings in federal criminal court.

Not many things that cause federal judges, lawyers or court officials to choke up with pride.

But giving four people the chance to go back to school, find or keep jobs and hold onto their children  not to mention staying out of prison  is one of them.

On Thursday, the first four graduates of a novel program were in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to withdraw the guilty pleas they had entered more than a year ago.

Federal prosecutors then dismissed all of the drug charges that likely would have resulted in years behind bars.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig, one of the judges involved in the Sentencing Alternatives Improving Lives, or SAIL, program, called it a great day for them and our community. She vowed it would be the first of many graduations.

The graduates stepped up to a podium one after another and answered a series of questions.

Fleissig and U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber asked if they had completed the program, been employed or in school, improved relationships with family, maintained their sobriety, completed treatment programs and are actively involved in setting goals?

All four answered yes. Then came legal formalities and judges granted those dismissal motions. Happily, Fleissig said more than once.

Aaron, an Iraqi war veteran, is drug-free and just got a new job. He is taking classes to become a machine operator and plans to return to college to get a counseling degree. He also hopes to return to the Army. The Post-Dispatch agreed to use only first names in the spirit of their renewal; some agreed to be photographed.

Asked after the hearing what the program had done for him, Aaron replied, Everything. Before, I was afraid to leave the basement.

All I did was cook dope, he said.

Allison now takes care of three children under the age of 2.

She said that 2 years ago, she was ashamed of who she was, left the house only once a month and felt worthless. She recently has been promoted to a management position and is now working toward becoming a homeowner.

I will be this Allison, the real Allison, every day for the rest of my life, she vowed.

Ashley was also a drug addict, but was clean for nine months when she entered the program. She worked two jobs to pay off crushing credit card debt, repaired relationships shattered by her drug use and will soon graduate with an associates degree from college.

She told a reporter that a conviction could have hurt her medical career.

On drugs, I just disappeared for a long time, she said. After getting clean and joining SAIL, I slowly became me again.

Brittany once did not see the value of a GED. She has one now and is planning to go back to school this fall to get certified as a medical technician. She also is raising her daughter and nephew.

A UNIQUE PROGRAM

Fleissig heard about a similar program in Los Angeles two years ago.

While few federal courts run similar programs, Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel said during the graduation that representatives of two other districts are coming here next week to look at SAIL.

While there already is a pre-trial diversion program in St. Louis that can help defendants avoid a conviction, it is primarily designed for first-time offenders in low-level financial crimes, Fleissig said.

There also already are drug courts, gang courts, veterans courts and mental health courts here and elsewhere, but Fleissig said they are all limited to participants with a particular problem.

Why should the opportunity to rebuild your life only be offered to those with substance abuse problems? she asked.

And she wondered about the probation offices efforts to rehabilitate released prisoners. If that model works at the back end (after prison) ... it ought to work out even better at the front end, she said.

Fleissig, a former U.S. attorney here, quickly won the cooperation and support of court officials, staff, prosecutors and public defenders.

She describes SAIL as a collaborative program of intensive supervision. Its run out of the pretrial services office but with the cooperation of a team that includes the St. Louis University and Washington University law schools.

Eight people were accepted originally. Two dropped out and two others are still working through the program, which can last 12 to 18 months. There are five new participants.

The dropouts, who Fleissig said terminated themselves, were sentenced to prison.

Thursdays graduates, from Jefferson and St. Francois counties, all happen to have been indicted on methamphetamine-related charges. But Fleissig said that the program is not limited to drug cases or people with substance-abuse problems.

Collectively, the four could have spent at least 14 years in prison. Fleissig estimates that the program has therefore saved taxpayers at least $444,000 in incarceration costs with very little expense. The program is run by people as an addition to their existing jobs. They use community resources where possible, such as the Second Chance Act funds that financed schoolbooks, or a church that donated laptop computers.

The program doesnt accept people accused of violent crimes or sex offenses, or those who dont live close enough to participate in meetings as often as once a week.

She said its designed for people who we believe have some underlying problem that contributed to them committing crimes  that we believe we can address.

Maybe theyve never received any concerted support or direction in their lives ... and theyve been living in crisis management their entire existence. That took them to a place, she said, where theyre committing a crime for their survival.
ST. LOUIS  Prosecutors in Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyces office must clearly show when they remove victim and witness information from police reports they provide to defense attorneys before trial, a judge ruled Friday.

Franklin County Circuit Judge Gael Wood, a special judge appointed to hear a civil lawsuit filed against Joyce last year by the St. Louis public defenders office, endorsed an agreement that prosecutors disclose when they remove information from the reports. The agreement also requires defense lawyers to give Joyce at least five days notice before challenging her offices redactions in court.

Still unresolved, however, is whether Joyces practice of omitting information from police reports violates Missouri Supreme Court rules that require prosecutors to share with the defense evidence, information and statements of witnesses to be called at trial.

Fridays ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by Mary Fox, who heads the St. Louis public defenders office. Fox claimed in court filings that Joyces prosecutors systematically withheld witness and victim information without seeking protective orders, and Fox called the practice an abuse of power.

Joyce was unavailable for comment Friday. A spokeswoman, Susan Ryan, said Joyce was satisfied with the agreement and that her office will resurrect the old practice of redacting information using a black marker to clearly show where information was withheld. She also said prosecutors will seek protective orders to withhold witness information in some cases.

Joyce has said witnesses are made available to the defense for depositions and that withholding of personal information is necessary for their protection. She said the practice predates the Internet but has become increasingly important since sensitive information can be shared so easily on social media.

We are trying to meet our constitutional requirement and trying to do it in a way that protects witnesses and victims, Ryan said.

Fridays order requires Joyces office to make clear when they remove information by using a black marker or computer program, not simply electronically blanking out information from reports.

Court filings say that on March 4, Foxs office received an altered police report with information completely stripped from the document, potentially preventing defendants from knowing that something had been removed.

Fox said in the lawsuit that the routine practice of removing address and contact information for state witnesses denies defendants their ability to prepare and present a defense as well as their constitutional right to a fair trial. Fox said Friday she was happy with the agreement but declined further comment.

Another hearing in the case is set for June 22.
After almost a year of study, the Environmental Protection Agency says it believes it has completely mapped the extent of radioactive contamination at the West Lake Landfill.

The findings come as the agency works to finalize plans for a barrier separating the burning Bridgeton Landfill from the adjacent West Lake Landfill, which was contaminated in the 1970s with uranium processing waste dating to the Manhattan Project.

Some of the material, mostly uranium decay products, was about 600 feet further south than prior EPA investigations had determined. That makes the distance between the fire and the radioactive waste only half as much as the agencys prior studies indicated.

The new map puts some of the newly discovered material in the northern quarry of the Bridgeton Landfill. But a line of wells and other equipment is meant to control the fires spread, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has not raised any concerns in recent reports that the fire is spreading.

While the footprint of the (radiologically impacted material) has changed  theres still no significant health risk posed by the radioactive waste at the West Lake Landfill, Brad Vann, the EPA official overseeing the West Lake project, said during a call with reporters. The health risk for both on-site workers and those off site hasnt changed.

The waste is in similar concentrations to what has already been identified in the landfill, the EPA said. And its not the first EPA investigation to identify radiological contamination beyond the chain-link fence surrounding West Lake.

The newly discovered material beyond the fence is well below the surface, Vann said, posing little risk for exposure. Landfill owner Republic Services still operates a waste transfer station near some of the contamination, but the general public isnt allowed to access the site. Procedures are in place to protect workers, Vann said.

When the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers began looking for a path to build an underground wall in 2014, they realized they needed to better map the waste to find a clear line for the barrier. Vann said the agency doesnt believe the waste moved over the years. Prior investigations just didnt catch it.

Now, the agency says it has identified a clean path to build a wall. It hopes to begin construction next year after finalizing engineering plans and a legal agreement with landfill owner Republic Services.

Residents have waited more than two years for a barrier separating the smoldering fire discovered in 2010 from the contaminated West Lake Landfill. Some, angry that West Lake has spent more than 25 years on EPAs Superfund list without resolution, have pushed to transfer cleanup to a special Army Corps of Engineers program. A bill authorizing the transfer passed the U.S. Senate last month.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, the Democratic candidate for governor, released a statement criticizing EPA for not yet having final barrier plans and calling for the corps to take over cleanup at the site.

Todays report confirms that EPA has never had a clear picture of the extent of contamination at the West Lake landfill, and it is deeply concerning that it took EPA so long to figure that out, Kosters statement said.

The EPA proposed capping West Lake in 2008, but backlash from residents and activists who wanted the radioactive waste hauled out prompted the agency to reconsider its decision and undertake additional study. The EPA says it will propose whether to cap or excavate the radioactive waste in West Lake by the end of the year.

After being sued by Koster in 2013, Republic Services has installed more than $100 million in infrastructure to control the burning and treat contaminants. Company spokesman Richard Callow said in a statement that the study provides a better picture of the extent of contamination and that the radioactive material isnt threatened by the burning landfill.

That seems like a good and important step toward reaching a final decision by the end of year, Callow wrote.
Each day we offer a curated collection of some of the best AP images that were captured from that date.
WELLSTON  The epiphany came as Montez Williams looked inward and saw a 22-year-old with a wife and child caught in an orbit of dead-end jobs with no end in sight.

Im a grown man, I should be able to provide, Williams told himself. I need a career so I can grow and not live paycheck-to-paycheck.

The self-assessment couldnt have come at a better time.

As the Ferguson resident began searching for a path forward, St. Louis County was assembling a pilot program to address the cycle of minimum-wage jobs trapping young people in poverty.

Last month, the Family and Workforce Center of America startup converged with Williams goal of becoming a productive member of the middle class, if not further up the socioeconomic ladder.

Deborah Stovall, director of youth and family services for the federally subsidized program, has little doubt that Williams aspirations are within reach.

When you raise the level of expectations for people they will rise to that level, said Stovall.

Williams has done just that, showing up each weekday morning since late February for an eight-hour heating, ventilation and air-conditioning installation and maintenance course at the Metropolitan Education and Training Center  the hub for a consortium of job training programs. The converted factory is a few steps from the Wellston MetroLink station.

After class, Williams heads to an eight-hour shift as a minimum-wage maintenance worker, returning home after midnight to rest before the 16-plus-hour routine starts anew.

Im taking this real seriously, says Williams, who turned 23 on March 16.

Williams in many ways fits the profile of the young workers whom officials hoped to target when they applied for the $3 million Department of Labor grant to bring the Family and Workforce Center concept to St. Louis County.

We dont have night classes here so if you have a job, you have to work around the courses, said MET Center Director Lee Brotherton. The people who complete programs here are successful in capital letters because it means overcoming significant obstacles.

A troubled student, Williams left Normandy High School as an 11th-grader, migrated to the Job Corps and eventually earned his diploma through an equivalency program.

He quickly found that those credentials rarely translate into meaningful and continuing employment.

The certificate Williams expects to earn 12 weeks after beginning the job training program represents what he sees as a huge step toward reversing the trend.

The Workforce Center initiative welcomed its first students to two sites in February  the MET Center and Paddock Forest Center in Spanish Lake.

A third site, in Ferguson, will be up and running the first week in April.

The program sites are convenient to mass transit lines and residential areas occupied by the young people the program is designed to help.

We wanted to bring it to the neighborhoods, said county Human Resources Director Andrea Jackson-Jennings.

The county qualified for the federal grant by virtue of its designation as a U.S. Department of Labor Promise Zone.

Five additional U.S. cities have launched similar career programs, with 21 others awaiting approval to provide the service in their communities.

Representatives from Detroit, Milwaukee and Baltimore have visited Wellston to observe the roll out of the St. Louis County initiative.

Its important to note that this is a career program, not a jobs program. This is to move young people into careers  its for years, said St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger.

At a basic level, the $3 million program prepares clients between the ages of 16 and 29 for jobs in the hospitality industry, skilled vocational careers and general business employment.

This is an organizational approach to people unafraid to make a change, said Carolyn Seward, the chief executive officer and president of the project.

But its the introduction of a behavioral modification component that separates the MET Center and Paddock Forest programs from the typical job training.

In a nod to the seething frustration that spilled onto Ferguson streets in 2014 after the death of Michael Brown, anger management is the key to the mental health piece of the program.

It addresses a lot of the issues that surfaced in Ferguson, Stenger acknowledged.

The program introduces coping mechanisms to individuals with voices silenced by poverty, the disadvantages of growing up in single-parent households, lackluster school districts and a job market with few opportunities for people like them.

Our young people are angry  sometimes so angry that they cant work. And we have to find a way to address that, Seward explained. They want someone to listen, theyve created families from the street and we have to change that.

Stovall, who oversees the integration of anger management in the curriculum, says the program imposes tough love to illustrate the importance of countering job stress with emotional intelligence.

Were teaching them that taking a moment, pausing and taking a step back is better than blowing up and losing your job, said Stovall.

The job training-behavioral modification combination has so far proven successful.

The first group of 23 students to complete certificate programs graduated in early March.

Assisted by an aggressive placement program, most moved into full-time positions in the hospitality and customer service fields earning an average wage of $16.48 an hour.

Montez Williams is right behind them.

Learning things Ive never learned before, the husband and father says he is more than ready to embark on the career he and his family deserve.
If the execution is carried out, it too will leave a grieving family, in addition to having lost a little boy who might have survived if he could have gotten to the hospital in time.
As we have since July 2006, each Friday well post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler.

1) Mary L. Landrieu, former Democratic member of the U.S. Senate and current consultant to Cigar Rights of America and the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association, authored a piece in the Washington Times on Wednesday about the Obama Administration, forthcoming FDA regulations, and the Cuban cigar industry. The notion of an American bureaucracy intruding into an industry that poses no threat to the American general public, is purely for discerning adults, and serves as a source of invaluable jobs from the Pinar del Rio region of Cuba to the Jamastran Valley of Honduras should not be acceptable, she writes. Landrieus comments come at the heels of President Obamas just-concluded trip to Cuba, the first time a sitting president had visited the communist isle since 1928. First, there should be a commitment to advance political reform and civil liberties for the Cuban people before we pursue economic and trade relations, she argues. Congress should thoroughly review issues of human rights and personal freedom in Cuba before advancing any of more than a dozen pieces of filed legislation intended to normalize relations. You can read the entire piece here.

2) Nanny-staters in Australia have [stripped] brands and logos away from not just cigarettes, but cigars, which are not addictive and not inhaled, reports the Washington Free Beacon. As a result, the plain packaging law the country passed five years ago is having devastating consequences for an economy a world a way that depends on tobacco: the Dominican Republic, and the men and women who make that nations premium handmade cigars Plain packaging laws rest on the belief that consumers are so weak-minded that a shiny label will get them hooked on smoking Cigars were not the stated target of Australias plain packaging law, but nevertheless got wrapped into the legislation. Stripping trademarks and brands from the handmade cigars produced in the Dominican Republicthe largest exporter in the worldnot only affects their economy; it offends their heritage. Read more here.

3) Inside the Industry: Cornelius & Anthony Premium Cigars announced the addition of a second line, Daddy Mac (the name is a tribute to owner Steven Baileys father, Mac Bailey). The line is being produced at Eric Espinosas La Zona factory in Nicaragua and is set to be released in four sizes (Gordo (6 x 60), Toro (6 x 50), Robusto (5 x 50), and Corona Gorda (5.5 x 46)), each presented in boxes of 20. The blend features a Brazilian wrapper, Ecuadorian binder, and Nicaraguan filler.

4) Contest Update: Please join StogieGuys.com in congratulating Steve C. of Waynesville, North Carolina, and James S. of Parma, Michigan, as the two winners of our Buho giveaway. Both will receive sampler packs from Buho, as detailed in our February review of the Buho Primero Connecticut Shade Robusto.

5) Deal of the Week: The best deal is free cigars. To celebrate the annual release of Punch Rare Corojo, Punch is running a sweepstakes to give some away. Sign up here.

The Stogie Guys
AIDS Healthcare Foundation has unveiled its new billboard campaign, Get Tested And Chill, which will appear around Los Angeles this week. The campaign encourages sexually active young people to participate in regular STD screenings.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest global HIV/AIDS organization, released its latest billboard campaign in Los Angeles this week. The billboard slogan, Get Tested and Chill, parodies the widespread meme Netflix and Chill, a slang term referring to the invitation to watch Netflix together as a euphemism for sex. With reported cases of STDs on the rise, the eye-catching advertisement conveys a critical message to sexually active young people to protect their health by participating in regular STD screenings.

AHFs new billboard campaign will definitely turn the heads of everyone familiar with the infamous Netflix and Chill meme, said Jason Farmer, Senior Director of Creative at AIDS Healthcare Foundation. We hope it will alert sexually active young people to the importance of getting tested for possible infections.

According to the CDC, youth between 15-24 years old account for half of the 20 million new sexually transmitted infections each year in the U.S., though they make up just over one fourth of the sexually active population. Most reported infections of chlamydia and gonorrhea occur among the same age group. Among gay and bisexual men, rates of syphilis are increasing at an alarming rate (15.1 percent in 2014), which also places those infected at risk for acquiring or transmitting HIV. In California, the rate of syphilis (13.2 per 100,000) exceeds the national average (10.3 per 100,000). CDC recommends routine screening for common STDs among sexually active adolescents, including HIV, for those at risk.

AHFs Wellness Centers provide free testing for sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV. To find the nearest location for STD screening and treatment, visit http://www.freestdcheck.org.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 594,000 individuals in 35 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160324006352/en/

AHF

Ged Kenslea, +1 323-308-1833 (work) or +1 323-791-5526 (mobile)

Senior Director, Communications

[email protected]

or

Jacqueline Burbank, +1 323-208-1505 (mobile)

Manager of Sales & Marketing

[email protected]

Source: AIDS Healthcare Foundation
VANCOUVER, BC -- (Marketwired) -- 03/25/16 -- EnWave Corporation (TSX VENTURE: ENW) (FRANKFURT: E4U) ("EnWave", or the "Company") announced today that pursuant to the Restricted Share Plan ("Restricted Share Plan") adopted in April 2015 by the Company, a total of 70,000 Restricted Share Rights ("Restricted Share Rights") were awarded to the three independent directors of the Company on March 24, 2016. These Restricted Share Rights will not vest until three years from the date of award.

About EnWave

EnWave Corporation is a Vancouver-based industrial technology company developing commercial applications for its proprietary Radiant Energy Vacuum (REV) dehydration technology. EnWave aims to sign royalty-bearing commercial licenses with leading food and pharmaceutical companies for the use of its revolutionary technology. To date, the Company has signed fifteen royalty-bearing commercial licenses with various companies, thereby opening up eight distinct market sectors for commercialization. In addition to these fifteen licenses, EnWave has formed a Limited Liability Partnership, NutraDried LLP, to develop, manufacture, market and sell all-natural cheese snack products within the United States of America under the Moon Cheese brand.

EnWave is introducing REV technology as a new dehydration standard in the food and biological material sectors, with benefits including, but not limited to, a faster and cheaper method compared to freeze drying, with better end product quality than air drying or spray drying. EnWave currently has three commercial REV platforms:

nutraREV (food industry applications): designed for quick, low-cost dehydration of fruits, vegetables, herbs, dairy products, meats and seafood, with benefits including improved nutritional content, appearance, flavor and texture relative to conventional methods. quantaREV (food industry applications): designed for high-volume, low-temperature dehydration of solids, liquids, granular or encapsulated products. powderREV (pharmaceutical applications): designed as a high-speed, lower-energy, continuous alternative to freeze drying for bulk dehydration of temperature-sensitive biomaterials (bacteria, enzymes, probiotics, food cultures, etc.).

In addition, EnWave is currently developing one new commercial REV platform:

freezeREV (pharmaceutical applications): a multi-vial prototype technology designed to act as an accelerated freeze dryer to produce room-temperature stable biopharmaceuticals and reagents.

More information about EnWave is available at www.enwave.net.

EnWave Corporation

Dr. Tim Durance

President, CEO and Director

Safe Harbour for Forward-Looking Information Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking information based on management's expectations, estimates and projections. All statements that address expectations or projections about the future, including statements about the Company's strategy for growth, product development, market position, expected expenditures, and the expected synergies following the closing are forward-looking statements. All third party claims referred to in this release are not guaranteed to be accurate. All third party references to market information in this release are not guaranteed to be accurate as the Company did not conduct the original primary research. These statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information:Mr. John BudreskiExecutive Chairman, EnWave Corporation+1 (416) 930-0914 E-mail: [email protected] . Brent CharletonSenior Vice President, Business Development+1 (778) 378-9616 E-mail: [email protected]

Source: EnWave Corporation
MILWAUKEE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Paul Nobile is the new president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin (Anthem). Nobile succeeds Larry Schreiber who was recently named the president of Anthem, Inc.s Empire BlueCross BlueShield health plan in New York.

Its an honor to be asked to lead Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin, said Nobile. The past few years have been a time of rapid change and innovation in our industry, and that pace only continues to increase. Im excited by this opportunity and look forward to working with employers, providers and individuals to simplify health care so they can focus on health.

As president, Nobile, 47, will oversee all aspects of Anthems commercial business in Wisconsin, including sales, marketing and underwriting, cost of care, provider relations and network development, and clinical management functions. He will also lead long-term strategic planning, serve as a primary contact for state regulators and public officials, and oversee Anthems corporate social responsibility efforts in Wisconsin.

For the past six years, Nobile served as the regional vice president of Sales and Account Management for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin. In this position he was responsible for Individual and Group sales throughout the state, and for developing strategies to help Wisconsin businesses improve the health of their employees. This included playing a lead role in the marketing of Anthems Blue Priority high-value network and the implementation of federal health care reform across Anthems commercial book of business.

Since late December 2015, Nobile served as the interim president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin.

Paul is an outstanding leader and sales professional, said Pam Kehaly, president of Anthems West Region and Specialty Business. His positive attitude, enthusiasm and deep market experience in Wisconsin are true assets to our company and were excited to see him take on an expanded role as president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin.

Nobile is a 20 year veteran of the insurance industry. His past experience includes time with Rush Prudential Health Plans, Aetna and UnitedHealthcare. Prior to joining Anthem in 2010, Nobile served as the director of sales and account management for the Midwest region at UniCare, a health benefits company based in Chicago and owned by Anthems parent company.

Nobile has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy with a minor in History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also attended the University of Chicago Executive Leadership program, University of Michigans Ross School of Business Executive Education Program, and Anthems own Executive Preparation Leadership Development Program. Nobile is a board member of the Alliance of Health Insurers and member of National Association of Health Underwriters and the Wisconsin Association of Health Underwriters.

He and his wife, Beth, live in Hartland, Wisconsin with their two sons, Sam and Evan.

About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin (BCBSWi), which underwrites or administers the PPO and indemnity policies; Compcare Health Services Insurance Corporation (Compcare), which underwrites or administers the HMO policies; and Compcare and BCBSWi collectively, which underwrite or administer the POS policies. Independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Additional information about Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin is available at www.anthem.com. Also, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/askanthem and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/askanthem.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160325005053/en/

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin

Scott Larrivee, 262-523-4746

[email protected]

Twitter: @AnthemPR_WI

Source: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin
HANGZHOU, China, March 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cardiac Valve Research Institute ("the Institute") - a joint project between Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc. ("Venus Medtech") and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine ("SAHZU") - has been officially launched in Wanlong Technological Park located in the Binjiang district of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. The Institute is the first research entity that Venus Medtech established along with a hospital and, it will focus on minimally invasive treatment for heart diseases.

As a leading transcatheter cardiac valve developer, Venus Medtech finished first place in the Third National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition for its respective sector and successfully completed China's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Science & Technology Support" project, administered by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Venus Medtech is also among the first to be admitted to the "Innovative Medical Devices Special Approval Process", designated by the China Food and Drug Administration.

The Cardiac Valve Research Institute is among "Provincial Enterprise Institutes" for Zhejiang, which will help to promote the clinical application of advanced heart valves and structural heart disease treatment technologies.

Venus Medtech is proud of the fact that its technological progress has drawn support from various institutional investors. Following the investments from Qiming Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital China, and Dinova Venture Capital, leading global investment banking firm Goldman Sachs has recently signed an investment agreement with Venus Medtech. The investment from Goldman Sachs will support Venus Medtech's R&D as well as commercialization of the company's cardiac valve products.

Deputy Secretary-General of Zhejiang province Meng Gang, Zhejiang Province Science and Technology Department Deputy Director General Yue Chong, and representatives from both the Binjiang district and Hangzhou municipal governments, as well as industry representatives companies attended the launch ceremony for the Institute and the signing ceremony with Goldman Sachs. Professor Wang Jian'an - President of SAHZU - was appointed as the Chairman of The Cardiac Valve Research Institute.

Venus Medtech and SAHZU Leading the R&D Effort of a Minimally Invasive Solution to Heart Diseases

As the first Chairman of The Cardiac Valve Institute, Professor Wang Jian'an said that transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR/TAVI) is a minimally invasive and low-risk procedure for patients with aortic valve disease. The procedure brings hope to patients with severe aortic stenosis, especially for patients who are not suited for surgical treatment.

According to Venus Medtech General Manager Zi Zhenjun, more than 200,000 TAVI procedures have been performed worldwide since the team led by Professor Alain Cribier conducted the world's first TAVI procedure in 2002 in Rouen, France. Martin Leon, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, said during TCT 2015 that the TAVR market is expected to surpass the coronary artery intervention market worldwide by 2025. More than 400 TAVR procedures have been performed in China since Dr. Ge Junbo from Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University, completed China's first TAVR procedure in 2010. Venus Medtech's Venus A-Valve, with independent intellectual property rights, is the world's only transcatheter aortic valve solution meeting China Food and Drug Administration clinical requirement.

In addition to Venus A-Valve, Venus Medtech's transcatheter pulmonary artery valve, Venus P-Valve, has also entered clinical stage. Venus P-Valve is designed for interventional therapy for patients with severe pulmonary regurgitation following surgery to repair Tetralogy of Fallot. Enrollment of patients for a clinical trial is nearly completed. Over 40 clinical cases have been recorded in several countries including the UK, Ireland, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, serving as a testament to the device's outstanding clinical efficacy and international presence. Venus Medtech plans to start patient enrollment for a pending EU approval-oriented clinical research program in the first half of 2016.

Venus Medtech's many achievements also serve to demonstrate the success of Dinova Venture Capital's incubation model. (Zi Zhenjun also is the founder of Dinova's medical incubator.)

Goldman Sachs Positive on the Future of Minimally Invasive Therapy for Heart Diseases

Established in 1869, Goldman Sachs is one of the oldest and largest investment banking firms around the world. The firm, headquartered in New York, operates across different regions with rich experience and strong competence in international operation.

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said that the firm chose to invest in Venus Medtech because of a number of factors, including a strong healthcare sector in China with significant growth potential, as well as Venus Medtech's outstanding management team, and the company's industry-leading technology and attractive business growth prospects.

Goldman Sachs plans to invest US$37 million to support Venus Medtech's R&D and promotional activities for their cardiac valve products.

Qiming Venture Partners managing partner Nisa Leung commented, "Venus Medtech is a leading developer of innovative cardiac valve products in China. We are confident about its industry advantages in technology and resources, and are convinced that under the leadership of its seasoned management team, Venus Medtech will become a leader in the R&D of cardiac intervention therapies in China and even around the world."

"With our long-term commitment to invest in Chinese innovative healthcare companies, Sequoia Capital China expects Venus Medtech to benefit from a wider range of Chinese cardiac patients by continuously developing new products and technologies as a leader in the field of cardiac valves, " stated Sequoia Capital China partner Kevin Chen.

"We have been paying attention to the development of Venus Medtech from the very beginning when the company's new cardiac valve products were still in the preclinical study phase. We are excited to be in a position to help Venus Medtech complete the financing just as the company is finishing the clinical trials of the new products and is getting ready to take them to market. At the same time, we are proud to witness every one of Venus Medtech's milestones as the firm continues to grow," said Liu Hao, CEO of Haoyue Capital, the exclusive financial advisor to Venus Medtech during the course of the fundraising.

"By integrating Venus Medtech's core technology with the clinical advantages of SAHZU and the capital support provided by several internationally renowned institutional investors, the cardiac valve institute is bound to be a success. Venus Medtech's Venus A-Valve and Venus P-Valve are expected to become the models in the field of minimally-invasive solutions to cardiovascular diseases. Driven by innovation and cross-sector collaborations with a medical institution and institutional investors, Venus Medtech has set a good example in the Chinese medical sector in terms of innovation," said an industry veteran.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/venus-medtech-receives-investment-from-goldman-sachs-and-establishes-cardiac-valve-research-institute-together-with-the-second-affiliated-hospital-of-zhejiang-university-300241494.html

SOURCE Venus Medtech (Hangzhou) Inc.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Six Chinese nationals were wounded in a bus shooting in northern Laos on Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency said, the latest flare-up of violence affecting Chinese in the country as Beijing extends its economic influence in Southeast Asia.

The victims included passengers and drivers of the bus, which was traveling from Kunming, the capital of China's southwestern Yunnan province, to Vientiane, the Laotian capital, Xinhua quoted Chinese embassy officials as saying.

The bus was shot at by unidentified gunmen on a road in Kasi, Vientiane province, Xinhua said. A total of 25 passengers and three drivers were on the bus, and the six injured Chinese men were sent to hospital.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had been in contact with Laos.

"The Chinese side has launched representations to the Laos side, requesting it to pay close attention and investigate clearly the relevant incident and also take measures to severely punish the assailants and protect the safety of Chinese citizens," Hua said.

On March 1, a Chinese national was killed and three wounded in an attack by unidentified militants on a Chinese-backed company in Laos's northern Luang Prabang province, according to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In January, two Chinese were killed and one wounded in a bomb attack on a bus in remote Xaysomboun province in Laos.

Relations between China and Laos have focused mainly on trade and aid, particularly in infrastructure development. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday said China would offer $11.5 billion in loans and credit to five Southeast Asian countries including Laos for infrastructure and other projects.

(Reporting by Jessica Macy Yu; Editing by Nick Macfie)
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura (2nd R) meets with Syrian government representatives during Syrian Peace talks at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 24, 2016. REUTERS/Fabrice Coffrini/Pool

By Stephanie Nebehay, John Irish and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Thursday it would tackle the divisive issue of a transition in Syria when warring parties meet again next month after outlining a common blueprint for a political process that could end the five-year civil war.

With a fragile ceasefire in place, the indirect "proximity talks", with government and opposition delegations in separate rooms, adjourned on Thursday after almost two weeks of discussions and aim to reconvene from around April 9.

The talks are part of a diplomatic push launched with U.S. and Russian support to end a conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and aided the rise of Islamic State.

"I am expecting and hoping ... that the next round of talks will not be focusing on principles again - we have had enough of that - there are many valid points there, but we have to start focusing on the political process," U.N. Syria special envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters.

De Mistura is sticking closely to a peace plan endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in December calling for a Syrian-led process that establishes "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance", a new constitution, and free, fair elections within 18 months.

But while all sides attending the talks have committed to a political transition that will follow the war, progress has been slow with the Syrian government delegation and its opponents disagreeing fundamentally on what that means, including whether President Bashar al-Assad must leave power.

"We come out with feeling that we have perhaps laid the basis for substantive talks," opposition negotiator Basma Kodmani said. However, she cautioned that much would depend on Russian leverage over the Syrian government in the coming weeks.

After meeting European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Wednesday, a rare encounter with a senior Western figure, government negotiator Bashar Ja'afari sounded positive saying he thought a diplomatic impasse has been broken.

Damascus, he said, would now review the U.N. document before the talks resume.

"These are guiding principles. We are not getting into the details of what is the mother of all issues, the political transition, political process," de Mistura said.

He said there was reference to the 2012 Geneva Communique and to resolution 2254 which includes three elements - governance, constitution and elections.

The De Mistura document contains points including reforming state institutions according to international criteria, rejecting terrorism unequivocally and implementing resolution 2254 that guarantees a political transition of power.

It also calls for no tolerance of acts of revenge from either side, rebuilding the Syrian army on national criteria, ensuring a democratic non-sectarian state and preserving womens rights in fair representation.

De Mistura said that none of the sides had refused the principles.

"The next round will be a more difficult session for de Mistura. In my view it's make or break," said a senior Western diplomat.

De Mistura aims to reconvene the talks on April 9, although some parties may come as late as April 14, a day after parliamentary elections in Syria.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Ralph Boulton)
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of Report (Date of Earliest Event Reported): March 25, 2016 (March 22, 2016)

China Senior Living Industry International Holding Corporation (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Nevada 000-25765 87-0429748 (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation) (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer Identification No.)

No. 28, Xi Hua South Rd., High-tech Zone, Xian Yang City, Shaanxi Province, China 712000 (Address of principal executive offices)

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: 011-86-29-33257666

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation to the registrant under any of the following provisions:

 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)

 Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.

On March 22, 2016, the Board of Directors of China Senior Living Industry International Holding Corporation (the "Company") elected Zhenghua Peng and Xiaobin Chen as directors, to serve until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until their successors are elected and qualified.

The biographical information of Zhenghua Peng and Xiaobin Chen is set forth below:

Xiaobin Chen has 20 years of working experience in finance. He has served as managing partner and accountant of Guangzhou Zhuocheng Certified Public Accountants Co., Ltd., a PRC-based accounting firm. Mr. Chen holds a B.A. in Accounting from Guangzhou University. He is also a certified public accountant, certified practicing valuer, and certified enterprise risk manager in China.

Zhenghua Peng is an expert in finance and was a professor at the Economics and Finance College of Xi'an Jiaotong University (formerly known as Shaanxi Economics Collage) before he retired. Since September 1992, he has served as financial consultant for more than 10 Chinese companies in their join-stock system restructuring and financing, as well as financial consultant for 9 Chinese companies in listing on the OTC markets in the U.S. via reverse merger. Mr. Peng holds a B.A. in Operations and Management from Beijing Jiaotong University. 2

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

China Senior Living Industry International Holding Corporation Dated: March 25, 2016 By: /s/ Jincao Wu Name: Jincao Wu Title: Chief Executive Officer

3
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

___________

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the

Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of report (Date of earliest event reported) March 21, 2016

ELEPHANT TALK COMMUNICATIONS CORP.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in Charter)

Delaware 001-35360 95-4557538 (State or other jurisdiction of

incorporation) (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer

Identification No.)

100 Park Avenue, New York City, New York 10017, United States of America

(Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code)

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: +31.20.653.5916

N/A

(Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report)

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions (see General Instruction A.2. below:

 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)

 Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))

 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Item 3.02. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

From February 22, 2016 through March 21, 2016, Elephant Talk Communications Corp. (the Company) consummated a series of closings (the Closings) of its private placement offering (the Offering) of Units (as defined below) to accredited investors for aggregate gross proceeds of $1,231,000. The Closings are part of a best efforts private placement offering of up to $4,200,000. The Company sold an aggregate of 41 units (the Units) for $30,000 per Unit at the Closings. Each Unit consists of: (i) one 9% unsecured subordinated convertible promissory note in the principal amount of $30,000 (each a Note and collectively the Notes) which is convertible into shares (the Note Shares) of common stock of the Company, $.00001 par value (the Common Stock), at the option of the holder at a conversion price of $.30 per share, subject to certain exceptions; and (ii) a five-year warrant (each a Warrant and collectively, the Warrants) to purchase one hundred thousand (100,000) shares of Common Stock (the Warrant Shares) at an exercise price of $.30 per share, subject to certain exceptions.

The Company and the Placement Agent (as defined below) agreed to reduce the exercise price of all of the Warrants issued in the Offering from $.45 per share to $.30 per share. Additionally, the Company will pay to each investor that participated in the Offering an amount equal to ten percent (10%) of such investors original investment in cash (the Cash Payment); provided, however, the Cash Payment will be made if and only if the sale of the Companys wholly owned subsidiaries, ValidSoft Ltd and ValidSoft UK Limited is consummated prior to December 31, 2016.

The Warrants entitle the holders to purchase shares of Common Stock reserved for issuance thereunder for a period of five years from the date of issuance and contain certain anti-dilution rights on terms specified in the Warrants. The Note Shares and Warrant Shares will be subject to full ratchet anti-dilution protection for the first 24 months following the issuance date and weighted average anti-dilution protection for the 12 months period after the first 24 months following the issuance date. The Company is also obligated to file a registration statement registering the Note Shares and Warrant Shares within 45 days of the final closing of the Offering.

In connection with the Offering, the Company retained a registered FINRA broker dealer (the Placement Agent) to act as the placement agent. For acting as the placement agent, the Company agreed to pay the Placement Agent, subject to certain exceptions: (i) a cash fee equal to seven percent (7%) of the aggregate gross proceeds raised by the Placement Agent in the Offering, (ii) a non-accountable expense allowance of up to one percent (1%) of the aggregate gross proceeds raised by the Placement Agent in the Offering, and (iii) at the final Closing one five-year warrant to purchase such number of shares equal to 7% of the shares underlying the Notes sold in this Offering at an exercise price of $.30 and one five-year warrant to purchase such number of shares equal to 7% of the shares underlying the Warrants sold in this Offering at an exercise price of $.45. At the Closings, the Company paid to the Placement Agent an aggregate of approximately $63,229 for its service as placement agent and for other fees and expenses.

The Units were offered and sold pursuant to an exemption from registration under Section 4(a)(2) and Regulation D of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

The foregoing description of the Offering does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Subscription Agreement, the Note and the Warrant, copies of which were filed as Exhibit 10.1, Exhibit 10.2 and Exhibit 4.1 to the Companys Current Report on Form 8-K filed on December 24, 2015.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this Report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
Xan Harding, deputy chair of Hawke's Bay Winegrowers, checks the quality of grapes growing at his Bridge Pa vineyard, near Hastings.

Picking has begun in the country's largest grape-growing regions amidst wine industry predictions that 2016 will produce a bumper harvest.

Some early grapes have already come off the vines in Gisborne, Hawke's Bay and Marlborough, although most winemakers will not begin harvesting their first fruit for at least another fortnight.

The relatively dry, warm conditions around the country over January and February are forecast to continue through until next month, meaning winemakers are smacking their lips in anticipation of a large harvest of well-ripened fruit.

"In general terms, the weather has been good through summer," New Zealand Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan said.

READ MORE:

* Marlborough bubbles break open harvest floodgates

* Marlborough viticulturists predict big harvest after good growing season

* New Zealand wine exports hit $1.5 billion

* Chinese spend per bottle on NZ wine beats other countries

"We've had a good combination of heat and rain and I think people will be happy at the moment. Fingers crossed."

Grape grower Xan Harding, the deputy chairman of Hawke's Bay Winegrowers, said the region's long-term forecast through the upcoming harvest season was "looking marvellous".

Warm, dry conditions were predicted to continue in Hawke's Bay, allowing grapes to fully ripen in the final weeks before picking.

"The vineyards in Hawke's Bay are very well positioned to have another really good year. We've had rain when we've needed it but overall it's been a fairly dry season in terms of the number of warm, sunny days and we can't ask for more than that."

Harvest kicked off last week in Marlborough, the country's largest wine region, with the picking of a small amount of pinot noir grapes to be used to produce sparkling wine.

Chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling usually make up the first grapes to be picking in the year, along with less-ripened fruit that is used to produce lower-alcohol wine.

Paul Mooney, winemaker at Hawke's Bay's Mission Estate, said his company would take in its first fruit next week  pinot gris grapes for a low-alcohol wine it produces.

Mooney agreed conditions over summer had set the scene for a good harvest.

The industry crushed 326,000 tonnes of grapes last year, down from 445,000 tonnes in 2014. This year's positive growing conditions are expected to see numbers up again to 2014 levels, a situation Gregan said would be welcomed by producers.

Last year the country's wine exports reached a record $1.54 billion  up 14 per cent on 2014.
The faces of just some of the 21 people to die on the Waikato region's roads so far this year.

Kelly Vincent still calls her son's mobile to hear his voice on the answerphone.

It's been exactly a month since her only child, Bradon Vincent, was killed when he lost control of his car and crashed into a tree on Scotsman Valley Road about 23km from Hamilton.

The 19-year-old is one of 21 people to die in car crashes on Waikato's roads - an area that stretches from Meremere to Taupo - this year.

VINCENT FAMILY Bradon Vincent with his mother, Kelly Vincent. Bradon died when his car hit a tree on Scotsman Valley Road.

As at midday Good Friday 86 people across the country had died in road crashes since January 1, seven more than at the same time last year.

READ MORE:

* The future of self-drive cars

* Police take no excuses this Easter weekend

* Horror Te Kuiti crash leaves man holding on to surviving daughter

* Families devastated by triple fatality crash near Te Kuiti

* Action to halve Waikato's road toll after the worst in five years

"That's the hardest thing - not hearing him, I will never get to hear him say, I love you, Mum, and that's really, really hard," Vincent said.

GEORGE HEARD FAIRFAX NZ The aftermath of a crash that killed two and injured a third, on the outskirts of Hamilton in February.

"No family should have to go through this, and no friends, the other people - the people at the scene, the fire service that freed him, the constables that tidied him up, the sergeant that had to come and tell us. They shouldn't have to do that."

Bradon was proud of his family and loved his friends, she said. He grew up in Taranaki, where he was a typical teen getting into trouble at school. Then he stumbled into a job installing fibre optic cable and shifted to Hamilton.

"I think the last 12 months were the happiest of his life, because he found himself, found something he enjoyed doing and worked with a great group of guys."

REBEKAH PARSONS-KING/Fairfax NZ Inspector Freda Grace, Waikato road policing manager.

Vincent said her son always kept in touch - brought flowers and cake to her workplace for her birthday and visited her at the Kihikihi rodeo the weekend before he died. He had helped an immigrant couple settle into New Zealand and was known as a "Pied Piper" of children, she said.

"It didn't matter whose kids they were - he would just always have time for everyone and made time. That is the hardest thing, because he was always so involved with everyone. It is such a huge gap he has left for people.

"There was this real cheekiness about him, too. He just grew into an awesome young man."

The last call Vincent heard from Bradon was the night before he died.

"He asked how my day had been and to wish me luck for the next day. Then, on Saturday morning, I got up early, just finished my coffee about 7am and I saw the police car turn up."

Bradon had been following another vehicle towards Hamilton when he lost control and crashed. The police's Serious Crash Unit is continuing investigations, but Vincent understands her son over-corrected on the rural road.

"You make one mistake, and being inexperienced and only 19, he got into a situation "

"We have seen a lot of close calls. The driving of some people - it's just not worth it. It's not worth the speed, the overtaking, tailgating. It's really not worth it. All it takes is a split second and everything changes."

Aucklander Graham Hare died in a crash as he tried to pass a truck.

WAIKATO'S WEEKLY CRASH TOLL

Each week, there are an average of 70 crashes on the wider Waikato region's roads. Five result in death or serious injury.

This year, 16 have died on roads under Waikato police jurisdiction - three more than at the same time last year.

"We are actually one fatal crash less than the previous year, even though we have more people who died," Waikato road policing manager Inspector Freda Grace said.

This year, eight people died in just three crashes, Grace said.

The day after Bradon died, rodeo champion Leonard Mackey, 59, and nine-year-old Leroy Brown were killed in a head-on crash north of Te Kuiti. Leroy's mother, Leonie Berger, who was in the car with the pair, died later in hospital.

"He had been around for years, a really nice, nice guy who would always give his time," Vincent said about Mackey. She not only knew him, but came across the crash on her trip home after identifying Bradon's body.

"It has been really tough on close friends in the rodeo community."

Amy Katu, 26, Tim Grainger, 26, and Logan Wright, 19, all died in same car after it and a truck turning into a quarry on Oparure Rd collided in January.

"It's sad - that is really what it is," Grace said.

(L-R)Amy Katu, Tim Grainger and Logan Wright.

"Both of those crashes involved young people - not necessarily as the drivers - and children. It's just awful," Grace said.

Teenager Michael Mills was on his way to visit his girlfriend when his car was struck by an oncoming BMW overtaking a truck. The driver - Aucklander Graham Hare - died behind the wheel while his wife, Health and Disability Commissioner Rose Wall, was left hospitalised.

Investigations have shown that fatigue was a factor in seven of 16 of the crashes in the Waikato this year.

"On the face of it, poor overtaking manoeuvres, complacency, distraction, or fatigue are factors. When you get in a motor vehicle, you actually have to be on your game," Grace said.

"Even though it is something we do all of the time, every time you do it, you have to be concentrating, as the consequences can be significant."

WAIKATO TOPS FATALITIES

Last year, there were 320 deaths on New Zealand's roads - 69 of those were in the Waikato Regional Council area.

Data shows the Waikato consistently has 25 per cent more deaths than Auckland and double that of the Bay of Plenty, NZTA Waikato highways manager Kaye Clark said.

"One of the many reasons behind the high road toll is the number of roads and length of the road network - there are over 11,000 kilometres of road length in the Waikato. The deaths per kilometre of road length in Waikato is over double that of New Zealand overall.

"While the long-term trend in New Zealand has seen road fatalities drop by over a third from 2000 to 2014, the increase in road trauma in 2015 is very concerning. Every death and serious injury on our roads is a tragedy. The road toll is not just a number, and we should never lose sight of the real human loss."

The biggest contributing crash factor in fatal and serious crashes in the Waikato is poor handling, followed by speed too fast for conditions, which contributed to 24 per cent of crashes.

"It's such a little thing that makes the difference between death and being seriously injured," Grace said.

"We forget that there are a whole lot of people affected for the rest of their lives - loss of sight, lose a limb, or the ability to use that limb, brain injuries - all of those things affect people and they are really significant."

DRINK-DRIVING

Ministry of Transport data shows the number of deaths and serious injuries involving alcohol-affected drivers has fallen by 22 per cent in the last decade.

SEATBELTS

The number of people killed who weren't wearing a seatbelt has spiked in the last 12 months.

Last year, 92 of the 233 road deaths involved a lack of restraint, compared with 56 deaths the year before. More recently, 40 per cent of those killed were not wearing a seatbelt.

NZTA data shows 50 percent of those killed were younger than 30 and 75 per cent were men.

SPEED

Speed remained a major factor in all crashes. In the 12 months to September 2015, data shows 1325 of those killed or seriously injured in a crash were on a 80-100kmh road.

In the last year, the Waikato and Bay of Plenty region recorded fewer deaths and serious injuries per 100,000 population than Northland, Southland and central North Island.

THE CRASHES

JANUARY 3 - TAUPO

Auckland 18-year-old Stevie Rangataua-Alexander died in a two-vehicle crash on State Highway 1 near Wairakei, 20km from Taupo.

January 8 - WAITOMO

A man is killed after a collision between a motorcycle and truck on SH3 near the Awakino tunnel in the King Country.

January 11 - HAMILTON CITY

Leonard John Periam, 54, died at the intersection of Tristram and Clarence St after his bike and the passenger side of a car collided.

JANUARY 13 - TE KUITI

Logan Wright, 19, Amy Katu, 26, and Tim Grainger, 26, all died when the car they were all in and a truck turning into a quarry crashed on the semi-rural Oparure Rd outside Te Kuiti.

JANUARY 23 - COROMANDEL

Kumeu commercial real estate agent David Charles Savery, 54, was killed when his 900cc Triumph Bonneville motorcycle collided with a SsangYon car as it rounded the corner on State Highway 25/Whangapoua Rd.

FEBRUARY 5 - TE KOWHAI

Michael Mills, 17, Graham Hare, 64, both killed when their cars collided head-on during overtaking on Horotiu Rd in Te Kowhai just before 10pm on a Friday night.

FEBRUARY 17 - Hauraki Plains

Auckland man, Jean Pierre Minnie, 20, was travelling home when his BMW car collided with a truck on State Highway 2 at Mangatarata in the Hauraki Plains.

February 22 - PUTARURU

American tourist Danna Gendall Korell, 59, was holidaying with her husband when the rental car they were in crossed the centreline and collided with another car on a rural back road near Putaruru. She died at the scene.

February 25 - KIHIKIHI

David Spence, 55, died from a suspected medical event moments before his car struck a bank at slow speed on a Kihikihi road.

FEBRUARY 26 - SCOTSMAN VALLEY RD - TAUWHARE

Hamilton man Bradon Vincent died when his crashed into a tree about 23km from Hamilton.

FEBRUARY 27 - TE KUITI

Leonard Marshall Mackey, 59, Leroy John Brown, 9, and Leonie Angela Berger, 45, died after the car they were in and another collided on SH3 north of Te Kuiti.

MARCH 2 - HAMILTON

A 92-year-old woman died when when she lost control of her car, ploughing through a fence to land upside down in a neighbouring driveway in Hamilton.

MARCH 3 - HAURAKI PLAINS

Conner Ian Lance Valvoi, 18 months, died after wandering out onto SH25 where he was struck by passing cars.

MARCH 12 - TAUPIRI

Trevor Bland, 56, died when the car he and a woman were in and another vehicle, carrying three others, collided at a crossroads at Taupiri.

MARCH 22 - TAUPO

Wellington barber Mark Davies was killed in a collision with a mini-van on State Highway 1 between Taupo and Turangi on his way back from the Auckland City Limits music festival.
The whaling station and hotel on what is now Ngatitoa Domain in Mana. Many former Australian convicts arriving in New Zealand passed themselves off as whalers, including Tim Shadbolt's great-grandfather.

Mocking Australia's criminal heritage is something of a national pastime, but Kiwis are increasingly discovering their own family trees are sprinkled with the same law-breaking lineage.

About 162,000 convicts were sent to penal colonies across Australia between 1788 and 1868. Now growing access to historic records has increased awareness of the number who went on to start new lives in New Zealand.

Genealogy company Ancestry.com says some former Aussie prisoners played an important role in New Zealand's early European settler history, including being recruited by the government to fight in the land wars.

MARION VAN DIJK/FAIRFAX NZ Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said attitudes had changed, and it was now almost a badge of honour to have an ancestor with a criminal past.

Ancestry.com spokesman Nigel Seeto said former penal colony inhabitants often made the journey "for a second chance or for opportunity or because they'd worn out their welcome in Australia and saw New Zealand as their best chance for a new life".

READ MORE: NZ a land of convicts too - book

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, whose great-grandfather Benjamin was among the former convicts who left Australia for a new life in New Zealand, agreed Kiwis may have been too smug over their attitude to Australia's penal colony heritage.

"Now I think attitudes have changed. It's almost a badge of honour to have been a convict because so often [the crime involved] was stealing a loaf of bread to feed your kids or something like that," he said.

Benjamin Shadbolt, who was sent to Australia after being convicted of theft in Britain, spent 17 years doing hard labour in Norfolk Island and Tasmania before fleeing to New Zealand.

Tim Shadbolt said some New Zealanders had been "slightly devious" in covering up the past of their relatives.

While the story passed down through his family was that his great-grandfather arrived here as a whaler, Shadbolt found that wasn't true when he researched Benjamin's background.

Seeto said the Benjamin Shadbolt story was a classic example of a former Australian convict who had managed to build a successful life after moving to New Zealand.

"It sounded like he really found his feet over there."

Seeto said covering up convicts' pasts by portraying them as whalers when they arrived in New Zealand was common.

"I think we're just a bit more upfront about our criminal past over here [in Australia]," he said.

* Are there Australian convicts in your family tree? Ancestry.com is offering free access to its New Zealand and Australian immigration records over Easter weekend. The records, which include Australian convict ship transport registers, are available at: www.ancestry.com.au/easter2016
Regardless of the referendums result - a significant proportion of Kiwis still support changing New Zealands flag, says Change the NZ Flag Chairman Lewis Holden.

While 56.6 per cent of the votes were in favour of keeping the status quo, 43.2 per cent were keen to change it to the Kyle Lockwood designed flag.

The people have spoken and we accept the majority view. Were also mindful of the close to one million people who voted for change, says Lewis.

Lewis is thanking everyone who lent their voices to the campaign for change, which reached almost two million people.

The polls showed we were the underdogs, but more than two dozen high profile New Zealanders joined our campaign to explain why having a new flag makes sense economically, culturally and internationally.

Those arguments are still valid and I think theres a lot of people who would support change in the future, including many people who didnt vote in this referendum.

Lewis says he welcomed the spirited debate during the flag campaign and the fruitful discussion on national identity.

He is also thanking every Kiwi who participated in the debate and the referendum.

Democracy is a process that works only if youre prepared to put your hand up and get involved. Change the NZ Flag looks forward to an ongoing debate on nationhood and national identity over the coming decades, says Lewis.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the people have now spoken and everyone should unite behind our flag as one people.

He says Kiwis gave the alternative flag a chance but believes the strong support for keeping the current flag came down to historic reasons and the $26 million cost, which many felt should have gone on more worthy causes.

While we respect the views of the many who voted for a new flag, it was not to be.

Whether this was the time for a flag change or not, it did not come about because the PMs handling of it ensured the result we got, says Winston.
Young people throughout Tauranga and the Western Bay are being challenged to put their Easter holiday to good use by getting serious about the environment.

Easter is the perfect time for young people, aged 12 to 24, to unleash their creative talents and get their entry ready for the 2016 Enspire Challenge.

The challenge gives young locals a chance to share their passion and concerns for the environment and to inspire the community to take good care of their future.

Entrants can choose from three themes: profiling an environmental community group; protecting Tauranga harbour and waterways; and climate change and sustainability.

Tauranga City Council Sustainability Advisor Michelle Elborn says it doesnt take much to create an entry  just a mobile phone and a passion for the environment.

There is still time to test your skills even if you have never made a video before, why not give it a go? Michelle asks.

You never know your efforts could secure you some local fame and up to $500 in prizes. Pick up your camera or smartphone and have some fun.

The winner of last years inaugural challenge was Bay of Plenty Polytech marine studies student Rebekah Richards whose video Theres a Problem in our Backyard exposed the harm littering has on local wildlife at Mount Maunganui.

The then 20-year-old used puppets in her entry to capture the publics attention and delivers a strong environmental action message.

Michelle says the organisers were so impressed with the entries last years that they cant wait to see what they receive this year.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council Community Engagement Advisor Stephanie Macdonald is also looking forward to seeing entries promoting a healthy Tauranga harbour.

Clean water, a healthy harbour and thriving wildlife are essential ingredients for life, work and play in the Western Bay.

While Western Bay of Plenty District Council Community Development Advisor Glenn Ayo says hes excited to see local community groups being profiled.

We have some fantastic groups doing great work for our communities, and it would be awesome to see these groups working with young people to profile what they do.

Entries for the 2016 Enspire Challenge are now open and close on April 1.

The winning video will be shown at TEDx Tauranga 2016, while the the top three entrants will all receive Prezzy cards.

For more information visit: www.taurangacity.govt.nz/enspire